Page 63 of The Pact

“Hello?”

There’s a brief pause. “Hi, is this Thea?” The stranger’s voice on the other end sounds panicked.

“Yes, this is Thea. Who’s this?”

“It’s Marcia. I’m here for my appointment, but the studio is locked. I checked my confir—”

My mind races. My first client of the day isn’t supposed to be until eleven fifteen—I triple checked. What the fuck?

“Hi Marcia, just give me one moment.” I pull my phone away to glance at my calendar. Her appointment shows tomorrow at nine thirty a.m. “Can you double check the confirmation that was sent to your email?”

Her voice comes out a bit strained, edging on annoyed. “Yes, I’m looking at that right now. It says today.”

Fuck. I’ll need to figure out what the hell is going on later. Right now, I need to get to work and make sure that Cassie doesn’t find out. “I’m so sorry Marcia. You’re completely right! I’ll be there in ten minutes. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

I throw the strap of my satchel across my body, this time grabbing the extra camera batteries and charger. Hitting the pavement, I jog to my studio. My stomach growls in protest, empty of even water, but it’ll have to wait until later.

Marcia looks fucking pissed as I approach. I try to give her a broad smile to ease her annoyance. Thankfully, her face softens a little.

“Hey! I’m sorry about that. There must be an issue with my booking software. I’m going to contact the company and have them sort it out. Let’s go take some photos.”

I usher her inside, hoping my excuse is enough to put her in a somewhat good mood for her shoot.

It goes well. Still, I can tell she won’t be rebooking with me anytime soon, despite my insistence on including her album for free. The feeling of failure sets the tone for the day and while my other shoots go easy enough, I’m in a mood.

Cassie doesn’t show up until noon for her first client of the day. I’m thankful that I narrowly escaped another lecture. I hate keeping this from her, but I don’t know how to tell her without seeing that look of disappointment.

Instead, I resolve to go through all of my client confirmations to figure out what the issue is. Although, I’m entirely sure that I didn’t mess up two bookings so close together. There’s something else going on.

After my last appointment of the day leaves, I settle in to reconcile the software our studio uses against my calendar that’s synced to it and the confirmations sent to my clients. Grabbing the tablet from the front desk, I start with my first client of the day tomorrow and work my way forward.

By the time I’m finished, two months out from today, I’ve found thirteen discrepancies and zero explanations for why the dates are mismatched. All of them share a pattern. Each wrong booking has been pushed a day forward. It seems too logical to be my error. The software must be glitching.

Cassie’s the only other one with access to the tablet, although she’s too meticulous to make a mistake like this.

It’s too late to hop on a call with the program’s support team. Aside from that, it’s a Sunday and Monday is July Fourth, so the call will have to wait until Tuesday. At least I have the holiday off, even if I don’t have plans.

Cass will be at Anthony’s family’s house and while she invited me to join them, the thought of spending the evening with a bunch of people I don’t know isn’t appealing. The town is hosting their annual Fourth of July carnival, however, I’m not sure about that either. The guys haven’t mentioned anything, so maybe I’ll lie by the pool all day.

Cole: Here, love.

My heart jumps. I grab my things and lock up the studio. Sliding into Cole’s Range Rover, I lean over and kiss him. He’s the best part of my day so far. I want him to know it.

“Good day?”

I roll my eyes. “Hardly. There was another mix up with my calendar. The client wasn’t happy. I’ll have to figure it out after the holiday. But I don’t want to think about that tonight.”

He grabs my hand and smiles at me. “Then let’s just enjoy ourselves and worry about that later.”

“What the hell?” I read through the email at the dining room table. It’s the third one today. Three cancellations, each as vague as the last—something else came up, not in the budget, not feeling well. All promised to reschedule. However, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that this is too coincidental. After Marcia’s less than stellar appointment, I’m wondering if word is spreading—like Cassie said it would.

My head is in my hands when I hear footsteps approaching from behind. I slept in the guest room at Cole’s house last night, feeling too bad about asking him to drive me home so late.

“Everything good?”

I recognize Damian’s voice immediately.

Shaking my head, I decide to brush him off. I don’t want to deal with his antics right now. “I’m fine,” I snap.

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