Broadrick held NB's leash toward me again. "Vonnie, you are not coming to the office with me. This is official business."

My eyes widened. "Someone died. Didn't they?"

"No." His mouth said no, but his eyes said yes. Actually, they might have just been shooting beams of annoyance at me.

I smiled. "Maybe I can help."

Someone yelled, "Fore!" behind us on the golf course and Broadrick sighed. "You're not going to let this go. Are you?"

"Definitely not." If there were more dead bodies on the island, I needed to see them.

He tried to throw his hands in the air, but his left didn't make it far while holding NB's leash.

"There are no pets on the green," an older man in a full white suit yelled at us as he marched across the golf cart pathway between the official golf course and a set of pine trees that blocked it from the rest of the island.

"Oh, shit," I said and glanced at Broadrick. Was he going to do the whole big, bad Navy SEAL thing?

He bounced his attention from me to the man and grimaced. "We've got to go."

"What?" I asked, but he was already light jogging through the trees to the other side. I cut through the pine needles with him, ripping them from my hair as I followed behind him. "Broadrick!"

Half a football field away, he stopped and laughed as I chased after him and NB. "You missed a piece."

"That's not funny." I waited for him to finish picking the pine needles out of my hair, and then we turned toward his office. "Are you going to tell me what happened or just let it be a surprise?"

"It's not that big of a deal. Cary is threatening to quit. Dalton says she told off an island resident this morning and is now saying she's done."

"That's a big deal! If she quits, who will be your secretary?" I asked, huffing my breath to keep pace with his quick steps.

He gave me a flat expression. "Not you."

Rude.

"I'd be great at the job," I sputtered at him, but he'd already reached the building and had the door open for me.

He reared back as I drew closer, which honestly should have been my first clue-when the SEALs get scared, you always take cover-but I had other things on my mind.

"It's reprehensible!" a female voice yelled as I walked into the security building and immediately turned around to leave again.

Dalton grabbed on to my arm. "Vonnie, we're so glad to see you."

"Really?" That didn't seem right.

The woman sniffled and then blew her nose. I peeked around Dalton as Cary threw the Kleenex in the trash. Red rimmed her eyes, making their puffy nature stand out as she sniffled.

"I don't know what to do," Dalton said to me.

Did he think I knew what to do?

Cary grabbed a unicorn tape dispenser from her desk and dropped it in the brown box sitting on her office chair. "I cannot listen to those people bitch another day. They've lost their minds."

"Let's just calm down," Dalton said, and I flinched.

Cary's eyes widened, and she froze, staring at the man who dared speak such words. "You want me to calm down? Calm down? You have no idea what it's like at this desk."

Dalton started speaking as Broadrick entered the middle of their circle. I tried to step away, but Dalton still had a hold of my arm.

"Okay, let's take a minute," I started, but no one paid attention to me. I should have listened to Broadrick and just taken NB home. This was a madhouse.

Cary cried harder, wiping at her eyes furiously, like she was mad at the tears. I understood. Crying while you were pissed was the worst. "She called me a worthless candy wrapper."

Harsh, but also... "I don't even know what that means," I said, trying to figure it out.

"I don't either." Cary threw her hands in the air and sobbed. "But it sounds mean."

It did.

Dalton opened his mouth, and more stupidity came out. "You just need a better approach."

Cary's tears came harder. My word. They were all a wreck.

"Okay, everyone stop!" No one listened. Broadrick stared at me, fear deep in his gaze. Ugh. I'd have to do everything.

I whistled.

Dalton and Cary halted. Both of them turned toward me with wide eyes.

"This is an enclosed space, Vonnie," Dalton said, rubbing at his left ear.

"Don't let him pee on anything." I grabbed NB and held him out. Dalton accepted the pup with hesitation. "Now, tell us exactly what happened."

Cary sniffled but gave me a head nod as we waited until she started. "A woman from the north building called. She's upset because the gym in her building switched bottled water companies. She says the new stuff is cheap tap water served in a microplastic container."

"That's...weird." But also plastic water bottles were the worst, so I kind of got it.

She nodded at me and tossed a package of Post-it Notes in her box. "Yeah, and we aren't in charge of water bottles, but I wanted to be nice. Right?"

"Nice is good," Broadrick said, finally chipping in.

Cary shook her head before throwing two tubes of lip gloss in her box. "Apparently not. I suggested she get a reusable container. One with all the pretty designs." She pointed to a tall white mug with a molded bottom and stickers over its side. "Then she started screaming about how that's why they have recycling programs on the island. She didn't want water that tasted like metal."

"I think those are our pens," Dalton said when she chucked a handful of pens in the box of growing office supplies.

I glared at him. Was he stupid? From her expression, Cary wanted to shove one of the pens through his heart. I stepped between them to block her view. "The people on this island lack boundaries. Water bottles are not your job."

"I know!" She unplugged the small desk lap from the wall and placed it in the box. "That's what I explained to her, but then she called me worthless."

I glanced at Broadrick, silently asking if that belonged to her. He shook his head.

"You are not worthless, Cary," Broadrick said, taking a few steps toward her desk. "These are just a few growing pains."

Oh, lord. Now my boyfriend was going to be stabbed by a pen, too.

She dropped a pair of wireless headphones in the box. Those were probably hers. "No, I can't do this anymore. Have you heard about the geese? What are we going to do about the damn geese?"

Where were all these geese that had everyone up in arms? I'd been on the island for a few days now and hadn't seen a single one. Even the seagulls rarely landed on the island beyond the sandy beach. It's like they knew.

"Dalton," I said, turning from Cary as she continued to empty her drawers of every item in them. I'd just had a genius idea. "What if you got someone else to help Cary? A manager of sorts."

An idea hit me as she'd been talking. Sometimes I was a genius. The longer I thought about it, the better the idea sounded. It would solve so many problems. I ran my finger over my lips. Possibly all of them.

"Yeah, I like this idea," I said, tapping my top lip.

Dalton stared at me with NB still in his arms. "Of course you do. You just said it. None of us know what you're talking about."

"Oh, right." I chuckled. All the planning happened inside my head. "You need someone who can handle the rude islanders. Someone higher up the chain for deflection. Someone really nice who can handle all the crazy things they're bound to complain about here. A person with exceptional people skills."

Broadrick's expression fell, and he shook his head no slowly.

I held up a finger to stop him from talking and letting something stupid come out. "Cary can give them all the problem people, and they'll smooth things over with their customer service experience. You'll have to pay them an enormous amount of money. Of course."

"You're not taking this job," Broadrick whispered in my ear as he came to stand by my side. "You'd tell someone off and get run over by a golf cart."