Down and Dirty

by Taylor Holloway

  Now that I was in Philadelphia, I could at least content myself with knowing she was somewhere nearby. Soon I would see her again, but not quite yet. First, I needed to talk to Nathan. And for that, I needed transportation. Thankfully the college student next to me had explained Uber to our elderly seatmate on the flight. I’ve never felt so old in my life as I did eavesdropping on that two-minute conversation. I felt more in tune with the AARP member than the co-ed. Thankfully, the Uber thing wasn’t difficult.

  My Uber driver, Shelby, picked us up in a black Suburban.

  “Durant Astronautics,” I told her as I loaded Harley in the back. Shelby, a woman with long red, dreadlocks and more eye makeup than looked comfortable, nodded and then blinked in shock when I got in.

  “Is that, like, a wolf?” She stammered, “When you texted that a pet was coming I was expecting, a Pomeranian or something. I don’t need any trouble, you know? This car is my income.”

  I shook my head.

  “She’ll be good. Harley’s just an Alaskan Malamute,” I replied, “you know, like Balto. She’s totally harmless. There’s no wolf in her.”

  Balto was actually a husky and I had no idea whether Harley had any wolf in her pedigree, but whatever. Today on the plane someone had mentioned Harley looked like Balto and that seemed to put people at ease.

  Harley took that moment to howl at a police dog in the next car over, a German shepherd.

  “Harley, no!” I told her, and she sighed dramatically.

  “Balto huh?” Shelby replied with a lifted eyebrow, “yeah whatever. Looks like a dire wolf to me.” Then, to my shock, the grown woman threw her head back and made a loud “Awoo” howling noise of her own.

  Instantly, Harley joined in. She’d never had a howling buddy before and she was clearly excited.

  “Harley, no!” I snapped again. Harley looked betrayed and lay down in the back.

  Shelby just laughed at my unhappy dog and started driving. I cringed. I didn’t like Shelby very much.

  By the time I arrived at Nathan’s work, I was almost ready to return to Alaska. Shelby had told me all about her ex-boyfriend, Trent, and her two cats, Snowflake and Sunbeam. I’d endured a story about the time she had a passenger suffering from food poisoning, and another about the time she’d been stuck behind Senator Ellis’ motorcade for forty minutes with a woman who was clearly on her way to the hospital to give birth and pretending that she wasn’t even pregnant. I got out of the Suburban forty minutes later with a sigh of relief and left a two-star review.

  “I’m Lewis Cassidy,” I told the man at the front desk inside, “I’m here to see Nathan Breyer at eleven.”

  He looked me up and down and then called into his radio for someone named Cecelia. A few moments later, a muscular, stern looking woman appeared from down the hall.

  I was grateful that Nathan was indulging my general desire for anonymity. My assumed identity and weak attempts to conceal that I was in town were not going to hold up to any sustained scrutiny, but I had to do something to protect myself until I could safely be myself again. The woman—Cecelia—didn’t seem happy that I was exempted from their normal security check-in procedures.

  “Mr. Cassidy,” the woman said, taking in my rough appearance, single duffle bag, and the dog at my side without any visible opinion, “Mr. Breyer gave specific instruction that you were not to sign in, show ID, or submit biometrics. He said you are to come up the back elevators and avoid all the security cameras. He didn’t mention the dog. Is it a service animal?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “For what, may I ask?” Cecelia pushed, utterly unintimidated by me, “We only allow certified service animals.”

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  “If you want to, call Nathan and ask him if she’s allowed. I’m confident that he’ll be ok with her accompanying me,” I replied.

  I’d Googled the rules before taking Harley on the airplane and had worried intensely about having to put Harley in the cargo hold, but everyone just seemed to assume I was a veteran with a service dog. Cecelia was the first person to question her presence. Based on the tattoo I could see on her forearm and her general kick-ass attitude, Cecelia was a former soldier. And smart enough to know that I wasn’t one as well. Nathan had made a good hire.

  Cecelia called my bluff. She was clearly taking no chances with her boss’ safety. She asked me to wait and stepped away for a few minutes before returning with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

  “Alright Mr. Cassidy,” she told me with a very fake, tight-lipped smile, “you’re good to go. With the dog. Please follow me.”

  17

  Jenna

  My new VP office was everything I’d wanted and more. I had windows that went floor to ceiling with sweeping views of downtown Philadelphia, tasteful, modern furnishings that were neither too masculine nor overtly feminine, and beautiful cherry wood floors. In keeping with Richard’s general office aesthetic that seemed to be inspired by ‘Mad Men’, it even had a wet bar.

  Although having a brand-new office and a new job was beyond exciting, I felt restless in my new digs. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nicholas. I had to do something. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to begin.

  “Fiona?” I asked, calling my assistant’s new extension, “Is this extension working yet?”

  “Yep!” came her cheerful reply through the phone. “I’m settling into my new spot. IT sure responds quickly when you call from up here. They just finished switching all the phones. What’s up?”

  Fiona had been my assistant since she was hired on from her college internship six months ago. We were close in age, interests, and ambitions, which you might think would make us either bitter rivals or close friends, but actually ended up making us excellent coworkers. Both of us were wise enough to know that we could never really be friends as long as I was Fiona’s boss.

  “Can you please come in here really quick when you get a second? I need your help on something,” I told her.

  “Sure,” she replied, and then added, “Do you want me to grab you one of these bagels out here? They have breakfast every morning!”

  “Nah,” I answered, “they don’t have any vegan cream cheese.”

  We were both still adjusting to the pampered world of the executive suite. There were more perks than I’d even known.

  “Wow,” Fiona said when she walked in a moment later, “this is amazing!”

  We grinned at our collective good fortune. A promotion for me was a promotion for Fiona, after all. This was exactly what we’d been working for.

  “Do you like my bar?” I asked her, prompting Fiona—who couldn’t drink at all due to an especially intense alcohol flush reaction that ran in her Korean family—to roll her eyes.

  “Gosh,” she said, “they really want us all to be drunk at work, don’t they?”

  “That’s what it seems like,” I replied with a shake of my head. Fiona had a health reason for not drinking and even the people at Durant Industries weren’t dumb enough to give her a hard time about that. “Richard, Oliver, and I are already one round into the day drinking.”

  We made grossed-out faces at one another. Some days I didn’t think I’d manage at Durant Industries without Fiona, although I’d done so for years before she started. Having someone else to remind me how insane things were around the office, had become essential to retaining my mental equilibrium as I clawed my way up the ladder.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Fiona asked, trying both of the chairs in front of my desk before settling in the one on the right.

  “Oh right,” I said, remembering why I’d asked her to come in, “I need help pulling some HR records from the system. I think they might be in hard copy or something.”

  “Hard copy records? Like on paper?” Fiona quipped, “Who are you trying to pull records for, Hammurabi?”

  “I don’t think he ever worked here,” I replied sardonically, “plus I think only Theresa knows how to fetch records that
old. But look, the system is being really weird.”

  I gestured to my computer screen and Fiona rose and came around to my side of the desk. Although I probably wasn’t technically supposed to show Fiona what the executive login for the record system looked like, she was the only person in the entire organization that I truly trusted.

  I typed Nicholas Durant’s name into the system, and for the third time, an error message popped up that said, “Access Restricted”.

  “Well, you are supposed to have executive level access now and Nicholas Durant definitely worked here,” Fiona said with a shrug, “Everything should be available to you. I’m not sure why it’s glitch-ing out that way. Did you try searching for him via social security number or employee ID?”

  I nodded in frustration. I’d tried the search about twenty different ways. Each time, I had gotten the same error.

  “Well there actually are hard copy records down in the basement. I need your ID badge but I’ll go grab them,” she offered.

  “Thanks Fiona,” I said with a smile, giving her the ID badge that I had clipped to my lapel. I was glad that Fiona knew where the records were, but not surprised. Fiona had done a lot of filing when she was an intern. She probably knew the location of every file in the organization. I’d known they would have to be somewhere. As soon as she departed to fetch the records from downstairs, my phone rang. It was Richard.

  “Hello Richard,” I said carefully, feeling guilty for no reason.

  “Jenna!” his jubilant voice boomed through my phone at an intolerable volume. I struggled to turn it down before my eardrums blew out. “How are you liking your new office? I just wanted to call and see how you were settling in.”

  “I adore the new office, thank you. It’s perfect,” I replied honestly, “I’m still a bit overwhelmed by it, but I love it.”

  “Good, good,” Richard said. “Say, Jenna, by any chance are you trying to access any restricted files? I got a flag through the computer system that said a forbidden search was being undertaken from your office. I’m sure it’s just an error.”

  “That’s odd,” I said, frowning into the receiver. “I wonder why it would do that? I was just trying to access Nicholas Durant’s records. Since he was sort-of my indirect predecessor in this role from when he oversaw the Operations group, I thought it would be helpful for me to review his projects.

  Technically that answer was one hundred percent true.

  “Hmm I see,” Richard said, his voice turning less pleasant. There was absolutely no warmth to his voice when spoke next. “I would recommend putting your curiosity about my son aside, Jenna. You’ve got a big job ahead of you. This curiosity of yours for ancient history could be detrimental. What Nicholas was up to years ago will only distract you. You should be looking to the future. Your success won’t be found by looking into Nicholas. In fact, I don’t think anything good will come of it.”

  I realized then that he was calling just to tell me this. He didn’t want me sniffing around his son’s records at all. Weird, considering he’d trusted me to keep his son’s location a secret. Fiona was already down in the basement getting whatever she could find in the hard copy archive, so I’d have what I wanted soon enough. Being told ‘no’ only made me more curious, as had the bizarre conversation with Ryan earlier.

  “I think I understand perfectly,” I said smoothly, “thank you Richard.”

  “Excellent. I knew that you would. You’re welcome, Jenna,” he said, and his voice had turned pleasant again. “Talk to you later. And don’t forget, there are bagels in the break room. Don’t get the ones with the raisins though. They’re horrid.”

  18

  Nicholas

  Nathan had built himself a goddamn spaceship. I’d been spending my time pretending like I didn’t exist, and Nathan had designed and built a fucking awesome spaceship that he personally flew into space on a regular basis. Jealous doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt about that. The fact that he was also about to get married and live happily ever after was just the icing on the big, green envy cake.

  “So, when do I get to go to space with you?” I asked him, knowing that the answer was never, but feeling obliged to ask anyway. We were sitting in his office where I had an excellent view of said spaceship, and every time I looked at Nathan sitting behind his desk, I had to see the Starflier 1 looking all sleek and cool behind him.

  Nathan laughed. We’d gone on a short tour of the craft, and I was absolutely in awe. I thought about the skills I’d picked up during the last five years: hunting, fishing, foraging, cooking, mending, and basic carpentry. They hardly held a candle to what Nathan had been up to. We received a lot of weird looks as we were walking around.

  Cecelia followed us everywhere, turning on and off the security cameras by muttering into her little hand-held radio. That woman clearly had it out for me. She watched me and Harley like a hawk.

  “Probably in about five years,” Nathan replied to my surprise, drawing me back to the present conversation. “We’re really hoping to begin offering commercial flights in low orbit sooner than that, but our goal is five years.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Nathan was winning the space race. And that was after he’d gotten into the most badass scandal imaginable by having sex in space. I’m not sure if I’d ever felt quite as much like a loser as I did at that moment. Sensing my discomfort, Harley pressed her head against my leg and I stroked her soft ears. She looked up at me with big puppy dog eyes like I wasn’t a giant failure who didn’t even have a spaceship. At least Harley still thought I was cool.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” Nathan asked, looking at Harley with a bemused smile, “And what breed is he?”

  “Her name is Harley,” I replied, putting the emphasis on her gender. “I think she’s mostly a malamute, but I honestly have no idea exactly what’s in her. They guy I got her from said she would only weigh like eighty pounds, but she weighs too much to be a pure malamute. These days she’s way more than that—like sixty pounds more. That’s probably a bit too much though. Where I’ve been, um, there isn’t a way to get dog food easily. She’s accustomed to eating raw meat.”

  Nathan took in my unusual appearance from head to toe and nodded. I could tell he wanted to guess where I’d been or probe further. Thankfully he didn’t.

  “I like the beard,” he said, and for the first time I saw a flash of jealousy in his expression. “David has a beard now too, but yours is better. I’m still unable to grow anything more than a weird porn star mustache.”

  I smirked, feeling immature but also immensely better now that I knew that Nathan was jealous of my manly beard, and that David was sporting an inferior one. I resisted the urge to preen or stroke my beard knowingly.

  “Thanks. The beard wasn’t actually a conscious choice,” I admitted, “it just sort-of happened. I’ve grown to appreciate the bearded lifestyle though.”

  While I was busy being depressed during my first winter in Alaska, I’d neglected to shave (or bathe, or eat). I’d basically hibernated like a bear for six months. When the sun finally came out in the spring, I’d looked in the mirror one morning and there it was, wreathing my face in fur.

  “What made you finally come back?” Nathan asked me, “I know you don’t want to say why you left, and I’m sure you have a reason, but why come back now? It wasn’t really my note, was it?”

  “No,” I replied with a smirk, “it wasn’t really your note. Or our grandfather’s will. It was something else. Someone else, actually. Mostly I’m hoping that I can finish something that I started five years ago. In order to that though, I need to stay Lewis Cassidy for a while. I really appreciate you keeping my secret from my dad.”

  “Not a problem,” Nathan replied, “He’s always been a prick anyway. At some point I’ll need to tell you all about my own recent drama with him. We’ve not been getting along lately. I just appreciate you trusting me enough to call and tell me you’re alive. Can I tell David and Alexander?”

 
He obviously meant my cousin Alexander III and not our uncle Alexander II or the infant Alexander IV. It was also encouraging to me that Nathan was aware of my father’s propensity for drama.

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” I admitted, “but if you trust them, I trust them. I wasn’t kidding when I told you that there was a really good reason I went underground, and there is. The more people that know I’m alive, the more people are potentially in danger.”

  The more I thought about it, the surer I was that Jenna may be in danger just for having met me. That was another reason why I was so eager to speak with her. We needed to coordinate our efforts. Especially if she was as curious as she seemed.

  “I’ll keep it to myself then,” Nathan said, “but please let me know before you do anything that could affect us or Durant Industries. Can you do that?”

  I’d already gone this far in trusting Nathan. If he was in league with Skylark and my father, then it was already too late for me. I probably wouldn’t make it through the night. Hell, I probably wouldn’t make it out of the building. But I did trust Nathan. He was a decent guy. Arrogant and too successful for his own good, but still decent.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “I definitely owe you that much. As soon as I have the things I need in order to do what I have to do—and yes, I know that’s about the vaguest, lamest explanation in the history of the world—I will tell you everything. And I apologize in advance because you’re not going to like it.”

  Nathan frowned, but then shrugged and brightened. If I had to interpret his expression, he just seemed pleased that I was trusting him at all. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Nathan, David, and Alexander. Despite the fact that they were obnoxious, they were my family. Maybe Nathan felt the same way about me.

  “Sounds like we have a deal then,” Nathan said, standing up from behind his desk to shake my hand. Then he reached out a hand to Harley who sniffed him skeptically and then licked him after I nodded. Harley scooted closer to Nathan and leaned against him for more attention. When she put her full weight on him, probably about one hundred and fifteen pounds if I had to guess, Nathan laughed and put out a hand to steady himself.