“Why don’t you take Roxie to your office? Show her what you do,” Monty suggested.
“None of the confidential stuff, right?” Brody asked.
Monty shook his head and it wasn’t hard to read that Brody was trying his patience.
“Right,” he said.
“Okay. Come on,” Brody said.
I waved to Luke and Monty as I fol owed Brody out of the control room. They didn’t wave back but they did both smile.
Brody took me to another door down the hal and into a room that had four cubbies in the middle, al of them with computers and filing cabinets.
“I do my stuff here. Credit checks, employment checks, stuff like that. I also have other projects that are more fun but I’m not al owed to talk about them to anyone, even Hank’s girlfriend,” Brody told me.
I stopped next to what was his cubby. It was decorated profusely with a variety of energy drink cans, big grabs of chips and candy wrappers with the odd action figure thrown in for class.
I looked at Brody. “Did Hank real y put his fist through a wal ?”
Brody brightened. “Yeah! They haven’t fixed it yet. Do you wanna see?”
I bit my lip and shook my head.
Holy motherfucking cow.
Hank, Mr. Control, had put a fist through the wal . For me.
Shit.
Brody went on, “He was real upset. Your uncle was super upset too but he mostly yel ed. No offense but I thought it was cool. See, Dawn’s got a thing for Hank now that Lee’s taken and she knows she isn’t gonna get anywhere with Vance, Mace or Luke. She’s been trying to get something on with one or the other of them, like, forever. Always flirting even though she has a boyfriend. She was like, totally pissed off when she found out Hank had a girlfriend, especial y when he went al bal istic. Me and everyone else were thril ed. Dawn thinks her shit doesn’t stink. She may were thril ed. Dawn thinks her shit doesn’t stink. She may be pretty but everything about Dawn stinks. It’s great working here, except you can’t tel anyone about the cool stuff you do. Everything’s great but not Dawn. So, we al were happy that Hank real y likes you, because we like Hank but we don’t like Dawn. We weren’t happy that you were kidnapped or anything.”
Wel !
I just knew Dawn was a bitch.
I didn’t share my thoughts and gave him a smile.
“Thanks,” I said.
None of the other computers were taken so I asked him,
“Can I check my email on one of these computers?”
“Sure. Let me set you up,” Brody replied.
I checked a week’s worth of email, sending replies, deleting junk and doing a few changes and updates through the administration panels of some of my websites.
A little later, Dawn came in with a couple of pizzas and sodas and Monty and Luke took turns joining us, having a break from the monotony of surveil ance. Monty chatted about his wife and family. Luke didn’t say much but Brody and I made up for it. Dawn didn’t join us at al , likely for fear that the cheese on the pizza would give her instant cel ulite, but she came in, face set and hard, to clean up afterward.
Once the door closed behind her, Brody gave me a huge grin.
I was logging out of one of my sites when Brody walked behind me and saw what I was doing.
“You do websites?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m a designer.”
“Cool beans!” he yel ed. “Show me one of your sites.” He rol ed his chair next to me and we trol ed through a few of my sites. Then he showed me a game the computer team had loaded cal ed “Diablo”. It was a role-playing game where you got to be a character and went on quests through scary, devastated lands, caves, deserts and cities.