A Break in Communications

Chapter 2

Anna

I really forgot how many pictures of… trees Sean kept in his office. All these years and I’d never asked, kind of just assumed he liked the style, but when I got into the office and found him holding one of the pictures looking at it, I paused, lingering by the door as I shut it slowly.

“Sean,” I said, and he set the picture down, turning to me with a smile.

“Anna. Have a seat.”

“Can I ask you something?” I said, moving to the chair across his desk. “What’s with the pictures?”

He settled into his seat, smiling warmly. “I took them all myself. Memories in all of them, you know.”

“Wait, really?” I stopped, looking around the room. They were all professional work… “I had no idea you were a photographer.”

“When I was closer to your age, I wanted to be a nature photographer and fill the spreads of magazines. But in the end…”

I paused. “It didn’t work out?”

“I hate bugs. Creepy-crawlies all over you when you wade through the bushes for the right shot.” He waved me off. “Climate-controlled offices. There’s a reason it’s the top of the world. Still, I’m looking forward to taking silly little pictures again once I’m out of this place. I’ve been here long enough. You’d do well to remember your personal life, too, Anna.”

“Ah…” I scratched my head. “Well. I do have a holiday reunion with my family on Saturday, so I’m doing pretty okay. So what’s this tricky little job?”

He leaned over the desk, folding his arms and giving me a studying look. “You’ve been following the Gould and Stephens account.”

“Still sore over the trucks in October?”

“More or less. Apparently it cost quite a bit to their bottom line, but it’s not all bad. Vijay’s team is deploying a new unit to change how they handle operations like that, so… it should alleviate a lot of the Gould and Stephens issues.”

“So, we’re crafting a statement for them?”

He pursed his lips. “Truth be told, things are looking rough on that account… it’s a big one, so we can’t afford to let it go. We’re fighting an uphill battle to keep them on board, so we have to go above and beyond a statement.”

I stared for a good second or two before I said, “Do I… go to their offices and put on a show?”

“I’d like an event.”

“An event? Put together an industry event just to show off to them?”

He put his hands up, sitting back. “It doesn’t have to be anything big. Just something we can get Matthew Gould and the big shareholders in, flatter them, and break the news there like it’s the greatest thing to ever happen to anyone. Second coming. Christmas miracle. Like the heavens part and the light shines through.”

I rubbed my temple. “And my job here is to figure out how to do that. To take hey, I know you’re mad about the trucking mishap, so we got a guy on duty to fix it, and make it sound like a gift from God.”

“That’s what our department does, Anna.”

Okay—he wasn’t being subtle today. Just about saying it outright at that point, if you can’t pull this off then you can’t take over the department. I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy ask. I also knew I could handle a difficult ask. “All right,” I said, sitting upright again. “Give me all the information.”

He sank back in his chair, a relieved look settling over his features. “Thank you, Anna. It’s good to be able to count on you for this.”

“Am I going to be collaborating with you?”

He beamed. “No, I don’t want to do it.”

Ah, son of a bitch. Guess the guy had one foot out the door, he could get away with that. “I guess… I gotta respect setting your boundaries.”

“I’ll email you everything,” he said, opening his laptop, and I shifted, an uncomfortable feeling tight in my throat.

“Actually—” I moved forward in my chair, sitting on the front edge, and I checked back to make sure the door was shut. “Can you… send it to a different email address?”

He frowned, looking at me. “How come?”

“Uh—” I shifted. I’m worried Lucy might be trying to get access to my work email would probably raise more alarms than I wanted. And it wasn’t like I had the cleanest record of conduct when it came to Lucy, so I didn’t really want a spotlight shining on it. “I’m going to be at my family’s home a lot over the next week, so I’m just accessing a different email there… you know, home networks, work email, doesn’t always mix.”

That was just bullshit I pulled out of nowhere so I could throw him off, but it worked. He nodded, going back to his computer. “Well, all right, then. Not a problem. Just let me send a test email to confirm it’s right, we can’t really afford this information getting out.”

I confirmed the email address with him, and we spent a minute talking through the details of what we had once he’d sent it over, discussing what we knew about Gould and Stephens—a supplier in the market of specialized electronics, ours was the logistics firm they contracted for everything, and we’d had a major internal miscommunication screwup back in October that had cost them, and us, a lot of money. Their president Matthew Gould was historically a flexible, easygoing guy, but he was also known for being… capricious and unpredictable, and we’d have to find something good to win him over. Didn’t matter, though. If the executive head position was at stake, I’d make it work.

He left the office after, taking his laptop and heading home, and I got back to my desk to find Miranda wanted help too, groaning about how her life was so hard and so unfair, and I worked a revolving door of people who wanted help finishing up their last tasks before they headed out, and it took until I was almost the last person in the office to notice Lucy had left, too, slipping out somewhere.

For her to leave before someone else did—something strange was up. I had to assume it was probably taking whatever she’d swiped from under me and running off to go finish it up at home, which worked out okay for me… less likely for her to haunt me trying to grab this, and if I was lucky, maybe this whole thing would slip under her radar because she’d be too distracted to even notice I was getting a good job.

“Hey, Anna—”

I jumped at Rick’s voice next to me, and I looked at where he stood at the end of the desk uncomfortably stiff and still, suspended there like a Halloween decoration. I scowled.

“Rick? It’s almost eight, why are you still here?”

He stood there for a second hunched over the end of the desk, staring blankly, before he said, “You’re going to have to show how to make the spreadsheet check for something in a column.”

“What—how to do an if statement in Excel? What have you been doing all this time?”

He stared blankly for another second before he scowled. The man was mortified at having to ask me for help… someone had probably demanded he go learn how to do this. “Looking… at the list to see if it’s in there. I’ve still got my eyes.”

“Sweet mother of Jesus. Okay, Richard, let’s do this. I’ll show you how.”

I felt like I’d collapse face-first on the floor by the time I got out of the building, dark and bitterly cold, and I hunched my shoulders and darted quickly to make it to my car. Traffic was packed wildly into the roads, squeezing in under the Christmas displays and lights through the city center, tinsel on streetlights and wreaths in windows and a whole lot of people laying on their horns at intersections who didn’t seem to be feeling that Christmas cheer, so all things considered, I was too tired to deal with it when I got into my apartment complex and made it up to where my sister Veronica was standing at the door, resting her head against the wood, bundled up more for an Antarctic expedition than a climate-controlled hallway.

She was a short woman with the same brown waves and dark eyes as me, but the rest of her face couldn’t have looked more different from mine, infuriatingly about thirty times prettier than I was, including full lips that I’d hated her for. Wasn’t her fault, just ever since a past boyfriend had looked between me and her and straight-up told me not even an hour later that I should get fillers. I didn’t get fillers, but I did get rid of the boyfriend.

She was also a dumbass, so I just stood there for a second wondering if I should have gone out and entered through the window instead of dealing with her, while she still didn’t notice me, but I lived on the fifth floor and I wasn’t exactly auditioning for Spider-Man in the next movie, so… I leaned against the wall next to her and cleared my throat, and she jumped, turning to look at me.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here. Hm.” I checked my phone like I was thinking over the answer. “That’s a hell of a question. Don’t know, really. Might try making some dinner? Seems like a good place to do it.”

She turned and hunched her shoulders, crossing her arms. She had a way with a stern look when she wanted to, but while she was dressed like the Michelin Man, it didn’t exactly scream serious. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Are you seriously working until nine o’clock?”

“No, I was at the club with my secret girlfriend I’m hiding from Mom looking for a third to hook up with.”

She wrinkled her nose. “On a Tuesday?”

Honestly, not the first objection I would have picked, but not a bad one. “Lucy keeps me busy most days.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Your secret girlfriend?”

“Ew. Don’t put that on me. She’s the one at work who—forget it. Forget.” I waved her off. “You didn’t just text? Just came here and stood with your head on my door?”

“I did text you!” She pulled her phone out, waving it in my face, to where she’d absolutely, one hundred percent texted Grandma instead, where are youuuuu Mom’s worried you’re dead. Grandma was leaving her on read. Given how often Veronica texted the wrong person and how few fucks Grandma had left to give, I wasn’t surprised.

“Ah. Indeed. I must have been in the middle of something and forgotten to respond. Well,” I said, pushing off from the wall and fishing my key from my pocket, unlocking my door, “now you can tell Mom I’m doing just fine, and you can go do something productive with your life, whatever the hell it is your job is these days.”

“I’m plenty productive,” she said, trying to follow me inside. I slipped inside and pushed the door mostly shut, stopping her at the crack. “Hey—are you just going to put me out into the cold? I want a cappuccino.”

“There’s a coffee shop down the road. By the way, can you tell Mom the holiday party at my work is going to be horrible, so that she doesn’t show up?”

Veronica puffed out her cheeks, glowering at me. “If you make me a cappuccino.”

“Son of a bitch. Fine,” I sighed, throwing the door open. “You’ve got a deal. Just be out again once you’ve finished your drink.”

She stumbled in through the door, turning immediately into my tiny kitchen and flicking on my mini espresso machine. “Oh my god, so you know Uncle Matt is showing up on Saturday—”

“Veronica, I’m going to take a shower.”

“That’s okay,” she said, not missing a beat as she set about using my espresso machine more quickly and efficiently than I could. “I’ll talk louder.”

Maybe Mom showing up at the holiday party was better than this… I just had to hope she wouldn’t crash on my couch.

∞∞∞

“You okay, Anna?” Kelcey said as I trudged to my office the next morning, clutching my coffee cup for dear life.

“Yeah, just… tired. Someone exhausting crashing on my couch last night.”

She beamed. “Let me know if I can pitch in, help you out at all—”

“I’ll really be good. Thanks, though, Kelce.”

The office was bustling this morning—I usually arrived early, but thanks to my jackass sister keeping me up late last night harassing me, I’d slept in this morning and had barely dragged myself into work at nine. And of course I got the smug greeting from Lucy as I walked across the office, looking up from where she was relaxed at her desk with the easygoing posture that said she’d been here a while already, holding a half-empty coffee mug.

“Always a pleasure seeing your smile in the mornings, Preston.”

“If you want to see my smile, talk to me less.”

“Your loss, darling.”

I wasn’t letting her get under my skin. I had a job that was a ticket straight to the executive office. And once I was in there, I wasn’t going to put pictures of trees, I was going to put pictures of company events with Lucy cropped out.

Except that she was clearly keen on getting under my skin anyway, because when the office cleared out faster at five than it had yesterday, Kelcey beaming and waving to me on her way out fully not realizing we were not friends, and also fully not realizing she’d forgotten her laptop, I’d gone to the bathroom and come back to find Lucy in my chair, arm slung over the chair back, giving me that smug smile in the low blue light from the city outside the windows.

“Just you and me now, Preston. Working late again?”

“Working on getting into my own chair… do you mind, Masters?”

She picked up my coffee cup, and I swear to god, the woman drank from it. She took a sip, set it down gently, and she looked back up at me to say, “Not terribly.”

I sighed, hard. “Do you want something, or are you just starting something?”

“Mm. Want to know what Sean was chatting with you about. Sounded like it was a big deal. Wouldn’t want to leave my favorite coworker to handle that all by her pretty little self.”

“Just some secret events I need to show my face at for company relations. Stocked with fine whiskeys, cigars, cocaine, scantily clad women, you know how it is.”

“I see now how you got on the naughty list.”

“Girl’s gotta have her vices. Get out of my chair, Masters.”

“So, Gould and Stephens, is it?”

God dammit. Of course she’d been eavesdropping… wouldn’t have put it past her to have a listening device set up in the room or something like it. “I’m going to sit down. I’d recommend you vacate my chair first.”

She uncrossed her legs, shifting back in the chair, and she patted her lap, inviting me to sit. I felt my eye twitch, but if she was going to try calling my bluff, I was calling hers. So I sat, dropping onto her lap, and I spun the chair to the computer, opening it and scanning in with my fingerprint.

“Well,” she said, her voice quieter in my ear now, “now that it’s nice and private for just the two of us, you want to tell me what’s happening with the G&S account?”

“Fuck off.” Maybe I shouldn’t have called her bluff. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, and I felt like I’d vomit with Lucy just about pressed up against my back whispering in my ear, but… I wasn’t going to be the first one to back down.

“Someone’s shy.”

“I wonder who it is, because it sure as hell isn’t me.” I tapped through my computer, trying to focus on the documents I had open—nothing connected to G&S right now, just some protocol lists I was working on—but it was hard to focus on anything other than Lucy in my chair. Was the chair even rated to hold two people?

“Shall I cut to the chase, or do you want to spend more quality time with just the two of us like this?”

“You can say or not say whatever you want, I’m ignoring you. Just let me know when you’re ready to get out of my chair, and I’m ignoring everything else.”

“The G&S account is too important to squabble over like this. Give me the documents so we can make sure it gets done right, or the inevitable department downsizing means neither of us are gaining anything out of this.”

I kept idly working at the computer as I said, “Go ask Sean for them, then.”

“I did,” she said lightly. “He said to work out a solution with you.”

That double-crossing bastard. Probably just too lazy to handle the document solutions himself, especially since I had them sent out of the usual network to a secondary address. Good thing I had, or he’d probably have just handed them all over. “Well, good luck working it out with me,” I said lightly. “Not interested. I can handle this myself.”

“I’m not leaving you alone until you hand it over.”

A twinge of irritation spiked up in my throat, and I turned back to shoot her a look, where her eyes sparkled with that self-satisfied smile this close up. I scowled. “When have you ever left me alone, Masters?”

She smiled wider. “When you go home at night.”

“Oh, now you’re threatening to, what, follow me home? Is that within company policy?”

“No. Neither is getting into my laptop and copying my private files.”

I pursed my lips, feeling like I just needed my hands around her damn throat—she hadn’t been anywhere around for that, which probably meant she had camera footage or something. Was I surprised she’d leave a secret camera to watch her computer?

“If you try to follow me anywhere—”

“Then you’ll go to Sean? What do you think he’ll say?”

“He—”

The door squeaked, and I jumped back and up to my feet, stumbling, as Kelcey’s voice started saying something from the door, and cut off into, “Oh—my god, I am so sorry, I’m just—”

“Kelcey—” I turned back with my face hot, waving my hands. “Oh my god, you forgot your laptop again—”

“I can come back for it later, you two, uh—” She was fully blushing, the tips of her ears pink, not looking at me. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

Ah, Jesus Christ—I guess if I walked in on two people alone in the office, one sitting on the other’s lap turning back in her arms to look into her eyes, I’d think the same thing, but—I felt like I’d gag. “Kelcey, no—I promise you’re not interrupting anything, Masters is just harassing me—”

“It’s okay! I totally don’t even need my laptop. I’ll be back in the morning. Um… have fun, you two!”

“ Kelcey— ” I started, but she shut the door, heading back for the elevator. I thought I’d be sick. I stood there, taking a long breath, letting it out slowly, before I put a hand to my forehead. “That woman and her laptop…”

“Well, Preston,” Lucy said, standing up behind me, brushing her pants where I’d been sitting, “you know my offer. You can give me the documents at any point. If not, then I guess I’ll see you later tonight.”

Ugh. I could not afford to go reporting it to anybody. Maybe I’d just find a way to slip out of the building before she expected it—leave something at my desk and go to the bathroom, sneak to the elevators from there, so she couldn’t follow me home. And repeat the process every day until I finished the project.

God, I was going to be sick.