reminded her gently.
She smiled. “I’d forgotten about that,” she said.
“Let’s go get some breakfast first,” he said, “and then we can all go together.”
She nodded. “I guess there’s no reason for me to have separate wheels, is there?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he said.
They walked down to the hotel restaurant to find Galen already there with a table. She quickly ordered eggs on toast, and, when they were done, it was a quick drive to her job.
She was the first one to walk into her office. Shrugging, she sat down at her desk and proceeded to get started on the work that had been left from Friday.
She didn’t see the men for another couple hours. All of a sudden, she looked up to see James, her boss, standing fretfully in her doorway.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully. He just glared at her. She immediately fell silent and watched and waited.
“You know you can’t stay here,” he said.
Her heart sank. “Are you firing me?” she asked slowly.
“No, of course not,” he said sarcastically. “You’ll just go to the union and cause all kinds of trouble.”
“Well, there are definitely laws against firing me without cause,” she said, “but there’s also the fact that I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Haven’t you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
He continued to glare at her for a long moment and then spun on his heels and took off. It was so bizarre.
Johan appeared moments later. “Did I just hear that right?”
“Yeah,” she said, “though what it means, I don’t know. He didn’t come out and fire me.”
“He’s probably hoping you’ll quit.”
“Well, I would if I had a reason to,” she said. “I presume for the moment that I should be here.”
He looked torn, and she immediately changed her statement. “I do need to be here, at least for the moment. And they can damn well pay me a settlement if they want me to leave early, especially after the break-in and the damage at my apartment,” she said. “Plus, a move will cost me a lot.”
“But not too much.” He then added gently, “There’s not much left.”
She winced. “But I still have to make that money and cough up rent for my current apartment, which is a problem.”
“That’s quite true,” he said, and he disappeared.
Frowning at that, she finally focused on her work.
When Doris showed up, like three hours late, Joy just smiled at her. Neither of the women said anything. Doris sat down at her desk and immediately got to work. The woman kept looking over at Phyllis’s desk, but there was no sign of her.
Joy was contemplating if she should say anything to her when Doris suddenly got up and walked out of the room. Joy sank back in her chair and whispered to herself, “Everybody is so weird today.”
When Doris returned, she had a coffee cup in her hand but still no smile on her face. She was a much younger woman than Phyllis, but Joy had no idea why Doris was down in this dungeon area too. Joy hoped a little conversation might ease the strained atmosphere around them. “Did you have a good weekend?” she asked in a cheerful voice.
“No,” Doris snapped. “And I don’t do small talk. I really don’t want to talk to anybody right now.” And, with that, she put in earplugs and focused on her own work.
“Wow,” Joy whispered to herself. “It’ll be a long day.”
“They are all long days,” Doris said in a snide tone. “You’ve got to have an end goal or life will get you.”
Now she really wanted to ask what Doris’s end goal was but knew the woman wouldn’t say.
*
As the day went on, Johan and Galen received a summons to Edward’s office, with the expectation that they had something to show for their time. As they walked into the penthouse floor and found the offices designated for the board members, they located Edward’s office.
Edward motioned them to the two chairs across from him. “Please tell me that you have something.”
“You mean, outside of the fact that the CEO was murdered?”
“Yes, dammit,” he snapped. “Outside of that.”
“Well, he was blackmailing several people,” Johan said. “Does that help?”
Edward stared at him in shock. “What?”
“Yes,” he said.
“That’s just wrong.”
“It is, indeed,” Galen said. “So does that mean you don’t know anything about it?”
“Of course I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “But it’s crazy. No way he’d do that.”
“Maybe not,” Johan said. “The cops are all over it anyway. And, yes, we’ve tracked spare inventory coming through this place. Not