Jon Sherman entered Deep Blue Marine Exploration headquarters for the last time at 7:53 a.m. on Friday, June 1st. There was a lot on his mind that morning, and he didn’t notice the yellow Wet Floor sign on the abstract area rug by the entrance. But he halted when the smell of Pine-Sol rising from the polished concrete floor overwhelmed the fresh aroma of the caffe latte in his hands.

“Goddammit! Couldn’t he wait until I’d had my morning coffee?” a breathy female voice said.

Jon looked up and saw Oscar, the janitor, mopping the floor.

“What the hell could he possibly want this early in the morning?” the female voice continued.

Jon looked past Oscar. Cleo was standing in front of the spiral staircase, surrounded by the abundant natural light inside the office.

He smiled at the sight of the director of human resources in her classic dark brown business suit, not knowing it’d be the last time he would see her alive. Something about the affable and corpulent middle-aged woman reminded him of Teresa, which meant that Cleo could do no wrong.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Cleo said, and Jon smothered a chuckle as he realized that she was chastising the steep stairs.

Her destination was obvious to Jon: the lone office on the second floor. It belonged to Alfred DuBois. Deep Blue employees, Jon included, joked that the company’s owner had purposely made the winding stairs uncomfortable to create a natural barrier between him and unnecessary meetings.

“Good morning, Oscar,” Jon said.

The small-framed Latino man in his early sixties shifted his downturned eyes from the floor to him. Oscar continued mopping as he tilted his head in greeting. “Buenos dias, señor Jon.”

Jon smiled and sauntered on. “Hey, Cleo.”

She grabbed the handrail and pushed herself onto the first step. Only then did she turn to him, opening her brown eyes wide. “Oscar gets a, ‘Good morning,’ and I get a, ‘Hey, Cleo’? What am I, a horse?”

He sipped his latte and then gave her a smile. “Good morning, Cleo.”

“It would be a better morning if you’d finish updating your goddamn LinkedIn profile . . .” She pushed her body up another step. “Haven’t I asked you ninety-six times already—and very nicely—toplease update your freaking profile?”

“I’m sorry, Cleo. Yes, you did ask me two times, but—”

“And didn’t I tell you why it’s important?”

Yes, Cleo had. She’d explained that the company still had six open positions to fill for the new hunting season and that prospective employees she ranked as A-players were likely to check the company’s top executives’ LinkedIn pages. Cleo’s assistant, Laura, had been more candid about the reason—it slipped her tongue that Cleo wanted to improve their recruiting efforts by having a handsome man as the face of the company.

“Cleo, if the thing is so darn important, why don’t you update it for me? I’ll gladly give you the stupid password, and then you can write whatever the heck you want. You’re probably better than me at that stuff anyway.”

“No way, pretty boy! Your boss doesn’t pay me enough for me to do your job too.”

The barely concealed hurt in Cleo’s voice washed over Jon like a splash of cold water. The shrinking budget was the only reason why Alfred had not approved her request in over a year. Still, this was Cleo they were talking about.

“Do you want me to talk to Alfred about your promotion?”

A sparkle shone in her eyes. “Are you guys on speaking terms again?”

Jon shifted his weight. “He’ll come around . . . eventually.”

“Hmm. From what I can tell, that won’t be happening anytime soon.”

Right then Jon wondered if Alfred had found out what he’d been up to during the past week.

“But thanks for offering,” Cleo said as she continued laboring up the stairs. “I appreciate it. It’s nice to know at least one of you cares.”

Jon let out a sigh and headed for his workstation. It lay smack in the center of the open-plan office layout on the first floor, where he could see his coworkers bent over their glossy monitors and inkjet printers. The scent of lavender cleaner wafted up from his L-shaped desk as he sat down.

I better take care of this Cleo thing right now, he told himself. He sipped his latte and navigated to his LinkedIn page for the first time in a long while. He browsed through it, chuckling and mentally confessing that the page did indeed need updating, especially the old profile photo he uploaded twelve years ago. A smile came to him when he read the job description he entered back then: “Deep-sea treasure hunter.” Maybe too splashy,he mused, but what else could you expect from an enthusiastic sixteen-year-old kid getting his first job?

Jon looked up from his computer and glanced at his staff spread throughout the first floor, laboring away like a colony of ants. He usually felt proud when he looked at his crew—after all, he had hired or trained most of them. This morning, though, his pride was overshadowed by exhaustion. I can’t believe this has dragged out for twenty-eight days! Yet, there was no sign that the unrelenting warfare with Alfred would end anytime soon.

The strapping young man crossed his arms and closed his eyes. It was too early that hot morning to procrastinate and too soon into the new hunting season for second-guessing, yet he couldn’t stop wondering if he had gone too far this time.

A door slammed thunderously on the second floor, making the two-story building shudder in protest. Then Cleo yelled in a muffled voice, “I won’t do it!”

The sound startled Jon—he sat bolt upright, immediately noticing that all forty-five of his coworkers on the first floor were staring at the mezzanine. He followed their collective gaze and saw Alfred DuBois’ silvery-white hair nearly bouncing off his skull as the sexagenarian erupted from his office. The owner strode toward the spiral staircase, his fury pouring from him like a cascade of molten lava. It stunned everyone when he shouted, “Ungrateful son of a bitch!” halfway down the stairs.

At once Jon noticed the engorged veins in the owner’s neck, the protruding blue eyes, the grinding teeth.

The crew averted their eyes when Alfred trained an accusatory finger at Jon and yelled, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Everyone knew what Alfred’s tirade was all about, and not one of them would’ve believed that Jon Sherman would be fired so unceremoniously just as they were preparing to launch their summer hunting season.

Jon held the second-highest position at the Miami-based company. He had been speaking his mind more loudly than usual for the past month, voicing his complete disagreement with Alfred’s moronic plan. The goal was to spend the entire season going after the same shipwreck in the English Channel—for the third year in a row. The mere idea of it boggled Jon’s mind. As if Alfred’s continual folly wasn’t already sinking the company. A company Jon cared about and had given his all to for the last twelve years. A company that was now on the verge of financial collapse. He had made up his mind a month ago: this stupid nonsense has to stop.

Alfred could be pigheaded, and Jon knew how harsh he needed to be sometimes. There was no other way to cause a change in plans once his boss had dug into his position. Still, Jon hadn’t seen the firing coming. He had thought that after twelve years, his relationship with Alfred DuBois had evolved past the label of employee/boss. He had thought that in the end, his boss would appreciate his brutal honesty. Jon had thought wrong.

Perhaps Jon Sherman had crossed a line. Perhaps there could’ve been some other way to get his damn point across. But he’d failed to see it.

The firing felt like a public execution, a ruthless show of force. The twenty-eight-year-old Jon Sherman understood that and didn’t say a word. He sat stoically as Alfred unloaded on him like a Category 3 hurricane.

“Pathetic prick! Get your sorry ass out of my building,” were the final words Alfred spat out before walking away.

When the only boss he’d ever had was done lashing out, Jon heaved a sigh, stood up, and left the office with nothing more than his latte in hand.

Walking out of Deep Blue Marine Exploration’s building that Friday marked the last time Jon saw Alfred or his coworkers, his friends. The entire staff was gruesomely murdered four weeks later, becoming national news.