| |
KATIE
––––––––
THE NEXT DAY, I RETURNED to the office with a solid plan to get Rachel back on my side and into my confidence.
Of course, I was going to have to convince her to talk to me for it to work. And that first part... Well, I didn’t have a plan for that.
In the end, I decided to just go for it. What did I have to lose, right? The girl was already not talking to me. Me being straight with her and telling her what I wanted wasn’t going to change that. It probably wasn’t going to fix it, but it also wasn’t going to ruin it.
The worst-case scenario was that she continued to not speak to me. In which case I’d have to rethink everything and find a different way in. But I’d done that before. It wasn’t going to stop me from doing what I was about to do.
I dropped my things off at my desk, took a deep breath, and walked toward her cubicle. She was already at work, I knew, because I could hear her flirting with the guy that sat right next to her. Poor guy probably has a massive crush on her, I thought as I listened to her teasing him. He probably thinks she’s into him just because of how much she laughs at his jokes.
He probably had no idea she was actually sleeping with someone from the tech security team.
If she even was, I reminded myself. I didn’t know for a fact that that was going on, and it wasn’t very fair of me to just assume that it was.
I was, after all, here to find out the truth about the whole thing.
I got to her desk and stood there for a long moment, waiting for her to finish the story she was telling the guy next door. The moment she was done, though, I spoke up.
“I think I’ve heard that one before.”
She spun in her chair and looked me up and down. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I told you one of the first times we went out. Back when we were friends.”
Well, there was my opening. Clear as day.
“Any chance you’ll let me take you out to lunch?” I asked. “Prove I can be your friend again?”
She looked at me and narrowed her eyes, and the moment lasted enough that I started to worry she was going to say no.
“I’ll take you to O’Malley’s for the world's best fries,” I said quickly. “And buy you as many margaritas as you want.”
Rachel’s face relaxed a little bit, the lines around her mouth easing, and I pushed forward.
“I’ll even pay for the cab to get there. Also, I have a cheesecake for you. And chocolate. I had a bouquet, but the flowers all died because I didn’t put them in water.”
She laughed at that, and I broke out with a tiny smile at the laughter.
Laughter was good. Laughter was a start.
“Leave it to you to buy me flowers and then kill them,” she said, still giggling. “I hope you at least used them for a good hex.”
***
“SO WHY,” SHE SAID, shoving another bite of loaded fries into her mouth, “do you have a cheesecake for me? You have to admit, it’s not your usual party gift.”
“But it really should be,” I told her quickly. “Can you imagine how much better the world would be if everyone had to take a cheesecake as a present when they went somewhere?”
She pointed a fry at me. “Good for those of us who like cheesecake. But what about the people who don’t?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure which side of the line you fell on. Which was why I also had chocolate,” I told her. “And the flowers.”
“And I repeat: Why were you bringing me presents?”
“Because I knew I’d fucked up,” I told her simply. “I’m a curious person naturally, and I let it get the best of me. I went into your library to leave that card there—that part was the truth—and then I started wondering what you had in all those drawers. I saw all those crazy books and I thought... if that’s what she has on her shelves, then the drawers must be even more amazing. And I knew I shouldn’t be doing it, but I did, and then you walked in and I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t think straight.”
She chewed meditatively for several moments, just staring at me. “I’m not sure we can ever be friends again, you know,” she finally said.
I nodded. “I thought you might say that, but I still wanted to apologize to you for it. I actually went to your house the next night, to do just that. But then I saw Arthur Smith in front of your house, and you came out to meet him, and it didn’t look like you’d want company.”
I caught her so off guard that she choked on her fries, and several waiters came running over to pound on her back for her. By the time they were done, she was red in the face and huffing and puffing, and I was standing over her in concern.
“Shit, I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known you were going to try to kill yourself over it,” I said, only partly joking.
She laughed in a somewhat breathless manner. “Don’t be silly. I could never kill myself. I love myself way too much for that. So you... saw us, huh?”
“I saw you two making out like high schoolers, if I’m being honest,” I said, enjoying the feeling of suddenly being friendly with her again.
She groaned. “I knew we should have been more careful. Shit, I could kill myself for real.”
“Don’t,” I said firmly. “I’d miss you. But what’s going on? Are you two...”
Under the table, I hit the button to start the voice recorder on my phone. Something told me I was going to want proof of what she was about to tell me.
“My laptop broke, and he told me he’d fix it,” she said. “And then we were dancing at the bar that night, and though we both said it was nothing, just platonic, we went outside later and were talking, and... Well, we kissed. Neither of us meant for it to happen. And then we swore we weren’t going to make a big deal about it. We were just going to forget it happened. But then we saw each other in the office and we...”
“Couldn’t forget,” I guessed.
“Exactly,” she muttered. “It happened so fast. One minute he was just the guy I had a crush on and the next we were having an affair and developing feelings for each other. And I know it’s wrong and that we shouldn’t do it. I know his wife, for shit’s sake! But Katie, I’m... Well, I think I’m in love with him.”
I stared at the girl who had never been serious for more than five minutes and saw the reality of the situation in her face. I saw how scared and upset she was, and how confusing this was for her.
And I saw the knowledge—which I didn’t even know if she’d allowed herself to admit—that the affair was most likely doomed. Because she might be in love. But he had a wife and kids.
What were the chances he was actually going to leave them for something that he might very well think was only a fling?
And I knew more than she did. I knew that he might very well be running a con right now to steal money from the company. I knew that he might be working with Joseph to increase their paydays.
And I was willing to bet that he might be faking this whole thing with her, just to give himself access to the financial records through Rachel.
I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her. Keep her safe from the thorns the world was throwing at her.
The reality was, though, that she’d gotten herself into this situation, and there was almost nothing I could do to get her out of it.
“Please don’t tell,” she repeated. “It would ruin me. Ruin my reputation.”
I didn’t have to think twice about the request. “I won’t tell,” I assured her. “But you know you need to end it. He’s married, Rachel. And you could get in a lot of trouble for dating someone from the office.”
She groaned. “I know. But I don’t know how. Kate, I think I love him.”
Well, shit. That did change things. And not for the better.
***
THAT NIGHT, I WENT back to the office once it was closed. It wasn’t breaking and entering, really. After all, Samuel himself had given me a key to the building and the code for the alarm.
So if you thought about it, I was really there on business for the CEO.
I slipped through the lobby, trying hard not to pay attention to how freaking spooky this place was in the dark, and soon found myself in the elevator. Now this was brightly lit, and I blinked some at the lights, then turned my eyes up to the corner, where I knew they housed the camera.
Samuel and I had talked about that, too, when I told him I’d be coming into the building after hours. The whole place was rigged with cameras—as Adam and I had discovered last week—and I’d been worried about someone seeing me sneaking around.
Samuel assured me that he had the resources to have that taken care of, though, handed me the key to the building, and wished me good luck.
When the elevator dinged and let me off on the finance floor, I ducked through the doors and looked around, every single sense on high alert.
I didn’t know who—or what—I was looking for. But I knew I wasn’t getting off the elevator until I was sure I was alone.
When no one jumped out of the shadows at me, I crept out of the elevator and into the main room. Then I made my way toward my desk. I paused in my own cube, listening closely to the world around me. When I didn’t hear anything, I made my way into the next cube.
The one that belonged to Joe Ferry.
No, he wasn’t a prime suspect. He was barely an afterthought, to be honest. I didn’t think he was involved with the larger crime, mostly because it would be impossible to steal millions of dollars in office goods.
Still, I’d promised Adam that I would look into this guy. And I wasn’t going to just skip out on it.
I moved toward the drawer he’d opened when I asked to borrow some stickies, my fingers tingling. Then I realized that it was locked.
A key, a key... If I was a guy who was stealing office supplies, where would I keep the key to my desk?
Ah. I reached into the cup on the desk where he kept his pens and pencils, fished around a little bit, and came up with the key.
Perfect.
I spun, stuck it into the lock on the drawer, and turned. The lock clicked, and the drawer swung open.
And I looked upon row after row of perfectly organized and color-coordinated sticky pads. The pens were still in their boxes and lined up neatly down the side, and there was row after row of pencils, as well. Five staplers, five sets of scissors, and five packages of manila envelopes.
Everything was so freaking organized that it almost made my head hurt.
And right after that thought, I had another one.
This guy wasn’t a thief. He had OCD. Just look at how he organized his drawer, with everything in its specific place. It was almost painfully neat.
He probably ordered everything ahead of time so he never ran out and never had to give up on the perfection of this drawer.
It made complete sense, and I suddenly felt guilty for having suspected him. Shit, another dead end. Another guy I’d mislabeled.
Another suspect I’d been wrong about.
Things were going too wrong too quickly for me on this case. The truth was, I’d never had a case go so badly.
And I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know what to do, except to say that I’d been too distracted during the case, by both Rachel and Adam, and I needed to get my head back in the game.
I carefully locked Joe’s drawer again, returned the key to where I’d found it, and turned and started making my way back to the front of the room, my brain already jumping ahead to the three other suspects...
And the question of whether they were actually all working together.
