Chapter 36

The office was unrecognizable to how I left it barely an hour ago. The desk was pushed further back, one of the chairs was flipped over, there were papers all over the floor, cabinets were strewn open and there were tootsie roll wrappers everywhere.

At first, I was so shocked by the state of the room that I didn’t notice Carter anywhere.

“Carter?” I called as I walked over the loose papers and desk items strewn about the floor.

As I rounded the desk, I realized why I hadn’t seen Carter when I first came in. He was resting against the corner by the shaded window, so still that I would have thought he was a piece of furniture because of all the chaos throughout the room.

Carter was a wreck. His hair looked run through numerous times, his clothes were haphazardly untucked and pulled, even one of the top buttons of his dress shirt was undone. But what startled me most of all- was his face.

The once brilliantly shining man whose smile could stop a crowd, looked ashen and hollow. His ey