Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,36

threw an apology over her shoulder and hurried into the next building, down the escalator, and outside into the scalding sun.

A pop-up tent was set up on the corner, hawking red, white, and blue everything, an explosion of Chinese-made American paraphernalia. Nora looked through pinwheels, banners, streamers, hats, and flags, finally finding the thing she wanted—a box of sparklers. Mike was talking, but she had no idea about what. A memory had swamped her, one she hadn’t even known she still possessed.

Summertime, some long ago, sticky Minnesota night, she’d brought sparklers to Sam White’s house. She’d hidden them in her purse, waited until Sam and his wife left, then let the boys run up and down the driveway, waving fire gleefully at the sky. They’d written their names in the air and laughed when the burn in their retinas lingered long after the sparks had died. Later they hosed down the charred wires and stuffed them deep into the trash, faces glowing with the shared secret of their mischief. Nora wondered if they ever thought about that day or if, like her, they’d buried it beneath the pain of everything that came later.

“Tell Henry I’ll be home for fireworks,” she interrupted Mike, picking up the box and staring at it. “I promise.”

* * *

When she arrived back at Strike headquarters, the office was swarming with people.

Nora’s lead analyst met her at the door. “They’re getting ready for some VIP pre-party at the gym. Logan will be there and she said you can interview her then.”

“At a party?” Nora took in the preparations happening all around them, people carrying stacks of cartons and wheeling coolers through the hallways. They passed a cubicle with a woman bent over double, shaking out a mass of hair, and another with a man tucking and untucking his shirt. Logan Russo would undoubtedly be the centerpiece of this event, which meant Nora would have no chance to get her alone or speak candidly. The move was either incredibly obtuse or absolutely brilliant.

“I know, but that’s the best we can do if you want her today.”

“I want her today.” They’d barely started the investigation and were already running out of time. If nothing else, she might be able to surprise Logan with an unexpected question. Even hostile executives could give themselves away without saying a word, and one shifty look or stutter was all Nora needed to send her team searching in the right direction. Then she caught herself. She was planning to catch Logan Russo off her guard?

The analyst stopped when they reached the door of their conference room, preventing Nora from entering. She looked exceptionally uncomfortable.

“What?” Nora asked.

“There’s one more thing.”

Twenty minutes later, Nora sat in a studio the size of her entire house. One wall was completely lined with athletic clothes, and another fitted with lights, drop cloths, kickboxing equipment, and a green screen. A granite counter by Nora’s chair held more tubes and bottles than she’d ever seen outside Sephora.

Moments after the analyst told her she’d have to “blend in at the party,” a pair of black-clad, mocha-skinned twins named Daisy and Darius commandeered Nora and brought her to the advertising space. They whisked her behind a screen, stripped off Nora’s suit, and held a blur of fabric up to her, frowning and murmuring half-word comments back and forth until they found one that made them both fall silent. After she was dressed in what felt like a rose-gold toga—she honestly couldn’t say what it was, looking in a mirror seemed like a terrible idea—they sat Nora in front of the overflowing counter and went to work on her face and hair.

“Are you Logan’s personal stylists?”

“We do Logan, we do all the models for the campaigns. We’ll do the next face, too, whoever that is. Darius, look at this cheekbone.”

“And her ears.”

Nora fought the urge to shrink down, to cover her cheeks and ask what was wrong with her ears. Instead, she asked if the twins knew why they were styling her. Daisy shrugged.

“They said to make you look like somebody.”

There was a mirror over the counter, but Nora kept her eyes down as Daisy and Darius grabbed product after product. She tuned out as much as she could, ignoring the quaking in her stomach while the twins had a conference about her hair. Sliding her phone underneath the oversized bib they’d draped over her, she escaped into the abyss of her emails and status updates from her team.

Outside the large bonuses, the