Johan's Joy (Heroes for Hire #22) - Dale Mayer Page 0,27
back. Five years later was just enough time for people to have forgotten, plus I looked different. I’d gained about twenty-five pounds, was older, and worked in a completely different department.”
“But your name?”
“Yeah, my name is the same,” she said. “But back then, I was called by my nickname all the time, Philly. Now I just go by Phyllis.”
“I’m sorry. That’s still a tough one.”
“Which is why I said, if you’re going to sleep with somebody, take what you want and run, because they won’t be there for you tomorrow.”
“I hate to think it’s the same for everybody,” Joy said. “I haven’t ever been married, but I’d still like to believe in it.”
“Maybe,” she said. “At least legally you’d get something out of the deal. I got nothing.”
“Sorry again,” she muttered.
Phyllis shrugged and went back to her work, but Joy found it hard to concentrate. She tried to associate Phyllis’s words with Barlow, the man she’d met in his office. He did have that smarmy snake-oil front, but what would he have been like twenty-four years ago? And why would he have dumped Phyllis like that? That’s not normal behavior either.
But then nothing seemed to be normal about this. Joy wasn’t great on human behavior because she had always been an optimist, looking for the better side of people. But too often that came back and bit her in the ass. Still, it was better than being like them.
When her phone rang with a call, she picked it up to hear Kai on the other end.
“Hey, sweetie,” Kai said. “How about dinner?”
“Are you coming into town?”
“Yep, I’ll be there by five.”
“I’d love to go for dinner then,” she said. “Just the two of us?”
“Nope, not that easy,” Kai said. “The guys will be joining us.”
“Perfect,” she said, “and what about your beau?”
“He’s coming too,” Kai said. “We’re both on jobs so often that any chance we can be together, we take advantage of that.”
“At five o’clock then?”
“Perfect,” Kai said, “and we’ll probably have a varied evening, so don’t dress up.”
She hung up after that, leaving Joy staring at her phone, wondering what a varied evening meant. She shook her head and had just gotten back to work when Phyllis said, “When you go out on that date, remember what I told you,” she said. “Take what you can because he’s won’t be there for you tomorrow.”
“Got it,” she muttered. The thing was, Kai had been there for Joy a lot already. She already knew the woman inside and out. And Kai was gold—the real deal. Joy was just sorry that Phyllis hadn’t had anybody in her life she could count on.
*
At the end of the workday Johan stepped out the front door to Westgroup and took several deep breaths of fresh air. He’d been going through so many lines of code that his brain needed to be cleared. Levi had also gotten hold of them, saying they’d found irregularities with four different accounts. Apparently Levi had somebody at the compound who loved to do forensic accounting. Johan couldn’t believe it because that was an insane way to spend your day. Although he would love to talk to her when he got back.
Galen stepped up beside him. “You ready?”
“Yeah. I’m ready for anything but more code,” he said.
Galen laughed. “We’re too much of the shoot-him-up kind of fighters,” he said. “All this cyberstuff seems cowardly and manipulative.”
“Which is what people have been doing to each other since the beginning of time,” he said.
Just then the door opened again, and Joy stepped out. She looked at the men with surprise. “Hey,” she said. “You guys okay?”
“Any reason we wouldn’t be?” Johan asked.
She smiled. “I heard all the hollering over there earlier.”
Johan laughed. “Yeah, Edward wasn’t too pleased with my visit to the shipping dock.”
“Whatever,” she said. “But he’s the one who helped bring you in.”
“True enough.” They walked toward the parking lot.
“Are you guys coming for dinner tonight?”
They nodded.
She frowned, looking at her watch. “We don’t have a whole lot of time.”
“We’ll follow you back to your place,” they said.
She nodded, slipped into her small car, and they pulled up behind her. They were now driving an SUV, as anonymous as anything else on the road.
“Nobody has checked her place yet, have they?” Galen asked from the driver’s seat.
“No. I took a couple looks in her office today, but I couldn’t see any cameras. We need to get a bug detector in there.”