Melissa closed the door and went back to her desk, plopping in her chair. She started pulling up the recent projects. But her mind kept drifting to the handsome naval aviator.
    An automated voice came over the speaker in her office, and the light in her ceiling strobed. “There is a fire. Please evacuate your office via the stairs on the northside of the building and gather in your assigned area on the west parking lot.” The strobe in her office added to her headache. She powered down her computer, grabbed her coat, her purse—shoving her phone and tablet inside—and made sure her badge showed around her neck. She pulled her office door shut behind her, double checking that it locked.
    “Danielle?”
    “On it.”
    Danielle held the emergency evacuation sheet, and she and Melissa moved through the cubical farm, making sure everyone was headed out the door and all computers were powering down for security purposes. “Was everyone here today?”
    “Dana called out, but that’s it.”
    They’d do a head count once they got to their assigned area in the parking lot. Likely it was just a drill, but security would come around and check to make sure everyone complied. Not a great day for a drill. Then again, when was it ever?
    They headed toward the stairwell, their footsteps echoing off the walls along with everyone else’s. She heard sirens. Outside, a cold gust of wind made Melissa pull her coat on and wrap it around her.
    The fire department’s equipment and personnel added to the controlled chaos. Was Joe Romero on this call? She scanned the area briefly, but first she and Danielle had to make sure everyone on their team was accounted for. Then they had to wait for the all clear.
    While their computer whiz, Jeremy Chao, kept them entertained with stories of his adventures and near-death experiences, Melissa studied the firefighters. The one who seemed to be in charge turned so she could see that his coat said ROMERO on the back. That was Joe. She didn’t want to interrupt his work, but it was somehow reassuring that someone she knew was taking care of things.
    Gavin Broadstone strode over. “Everyone out okay?”
    “Yep.” She gestured behind her. “What’s going on?”
    By the look on Gavin’s face, this wasn’t a drill. “Did you see anything in your area? Smell any smoke?”
    “No. Why?”
    “The alarm was manually triggered from your zone.”
    She frowned. “Why would someone do that? I can’t imagine—” She scanned her team huddled against the wind, talking in small groups. “If someone from team had done it, they’d have told me what they saw. It wasn’t someone from my team.”
    “The CCTV will show us who it was.” He nodded toward Joe. “Let’s talk to the fire captain and see what they’ve discovered.”
    Melissa followed Gavin, and they headed toward Joe. Her mind shuffled through the information, trying to make sense of it. Joe was talking to Broadstone’s head of security, Adam Martinez. Joe spotted her, and she waved.
    “Hey, Melissa.”
    Gavin’s head swiveled. “You know each other?”
    “Yes. Gavin, this Fire Captain Joe Romero. Joe, this is my boss and the president of Broadstone Technologies, Gavin Broadstone.”
    Joe nodded. “As I was telling your head of security here, we’ve been through the building. Your fire system detection control panels aren’t showing any heat, and neither are our thermal imaging cameras. None of the clean fire suppression agents were triggered. We can’t detect any fire.”
    Melissa blew out a breath. “That’s a relief.”
    Adam turned to her. “From a fire perspective, yes. But it creates another problem for us. We don’t know how the alarm got activated.”
    “Can’t you just look at the CCTV?” Gavin asked.
    Adam winced. “We took a quick look, but it seems like the cameras were out in that particular area. Additionally, the alarm can be triggered via the control system by anyone that has access to the computer. But as of right now, that doesn’t seem to be what happened. We’ll do a thorough examination of the whole system and figure it out.”
    Joe motioned with his head for Melissa to step to the side while Gavin tore into Adam. She was happy to be out of the line of fire and glad that Gavin was targeting someone besides her. Though she felt bad for Adam.
    Joe lowered his voice. “We’re going to wrap up here, but I think you might want to call in Kyle to take a look at things. Something’s not right. And be careful.”
    Melissa nodded as Joe moved back to his engine, his words still echoing in her head. Could they be connected? And what could she do to find out? She pulled out her phone and punched up Kyle’s number. At least she could bounce ideas off him, and maybe he’d tell her she was worrying for nothing.
    But she doubted it.