The Assistant: A gripping psychological thriller with a nerve-shredding ending

by Cathryn Grant

  It took maintenance twenty minutes to show up. They were still spraying when Hank arrived. He turned up his nose at the odor, went into his office, and closed the door. Vanessa sat on the chair farthest from the spot where the ants disappeared into the joining of the window and wall. The smell of insecticide was sickening. The guy in a blue jumpsuit wiped away the carcasses with damp towelettes. He carried her trashcan into the hallway and tore out the liner. He tied the top edges in a knot and dropped it into the huge trashcan on wheels.

  “That was your problem,” he said.

  “What?”

  “A donut.”

  “I didn’t eat any donuts.” Well, she had, but only a half, and there hadn’t been anything left.

  “There was a jelly donut in the trash.”

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  He winked and went back to wiping up the remains of the ant army. “Might not want to sit here for a while, until the spray evaporates.”

  “I need to get to work.”

  “Your choice.”

  She grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder. It thudded against her hip as she walked down the hall past the empty offices and along the landing to the stairs. She descended slowly. It made no sense for someone to carry a donut from the break room to her cubicle when there was a good-sized trashcan with a protective flap right there. Unless someone planned to eat it while waiting for Hank, and had been invited in sooner than expected. But she was certain it hadn’t been there when she’d left the night before.

  She walked out of the building, shivering as the blast of cold air slapped her cheeks. She hurried across the breezeway and into the adjacent building to the café. The line snaked past the glass case with fruit and muffins and croissants, among the small tables and thin chairs meant to look like a commercial coffee shop, and out into the hallway. She got in line. Like the others ahead of her, she pulled her smartphone out of her purse and scrolled through her email, looking for messages that might be short and easy to read on the phone, deleted if they didn’t require a response, always striving to reduce the gush of electronic messages cluttering her psychic space.

  When she had her coffee and a blueberry muffin, she sat in the lobby of her own building to eat it.

  Upstairs, she turned the corner toward her cubicle and Hank’s office and took a deep breath. There was no odor of insecticide. She walked down the hall. Hank’s door was open. He was speaking, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  They were always dropping in unannounced. Sometimes it seemed like a game, as if they lurked down the hall waiting for her to leave her desk so they could pounce. There were twelve people on his direct staff alone. Someone always wanted something. Yet he didn’t want to be the kind of executive who was unapproachable, so when they showed up in his doorway, he greeted them as if he was glad to see them and gestured them in.

  Keeping them away, protecting his time, was the most valuable thing she did for him.

  She moved closer to his doorway.

  “Thanks for bringing it to my attention,” Hank said. “Tell Janelle and Brent and the others to run through their numbers again.”

  “The new Ops Director will make sure that sort of thing doesn’t happen.” It was Laura speaking, a higher pitch to her voice than usual. There was almost a giggling quality to the tone of her words.

  Vanessa’s cell phone rang, drowning out Hank’s response. While she fumbled in her purse to silence it, Laura spoke again and Vanessa didn’t catch that either. She walked around the counter to her cubicle and hung her purse and jacket on the rack.

  Laura was leaning against Hank’s doorframe, her arms folded. Her watch face caught the fluorescent light and shone like a beacon on her thin wrist. She wore a skirt that looked shorter than it probably was on her long legs. She told Hank she’d take care of it and stepped across the hallway to Vanessa’s counter.

  “Did you have an ant problem?” she said. “It stinks.”

  “Yes.” Vanessa stood behind her desk chair. She wasn’t going to sit down until Laura finished reveling in her petty victory.

  “It smells awful. I don’t know how you can work with that smell.”

  “I’ll manage,” Vanessa said.

  “It looks like Hank had some time to see me after all, and it’s a good thing.”

  “I’m glad he could squeeze you in.”

  “His schedule isn’t quite as tight as you make it out to be.”

  “Next time, make an appointment.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Laura walked to the counter. “The candy’s gone. I guess it had ants?”

  Vanessa leaned forward and moved the mouse to wake the computer from sleep.

  “Hopefully, they’re gone for good and you can refill the dish.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Vanessa said.

  “You know, you shouldn’t act like Hank is overbooked, or people might stop believing you. That wouldn’t go well for you, if no one believed what you said.” Laura turned and walked around the corner.

  The world was so unfair. Vanessa had worked hard to be independent, to support herself from the day she turned eighteen. Because Laura had a platinum college education handed to her, she thought she was smarter and more deserving. Instead of working, Laura got to play all the way through college and come out with ten times the earning potential, entitled to opportunities and respect.

  Vanessa supposed it was equally unfair to be born beautiful. Lately, she wondered if the chance at better earning potential would have been the better card to draw.

  6

  Laura

  THE HARSH ODOR of insecticide permeated Vanessa’s cube and the sitting area outside Hank’s office. It wafted down to the hallway. Laura hurried toward Brent’s office as if the cloud of poison were chasing her. She stopped just outside his doorway. “Do you have time to walk over for a coffee?”

  “Sure.” He stood and grabbed his coat.

  “It’s only twenty feet, I don’t think you need a coat.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “Wuss.”

  He let the coat fall back over the chair.

  “I lucked out,” Laura said as they started toward the main staircase. “They sprayed Vanessa’s cube for ants, so she had to get out of there for a while. I was able to get a few minutes with Hank.”

  “You just dropped in?”

  “I did.” As they started down the stairs, she grabbed the railing. She hated the compulsion to hang on, but there was something about walking down a long flight of stairs that shifted her equilibrium, filling her mind with images of her body propelling itself down without her permission.

  Brent spoke quietly. “You know she’s a hard-ass about his schedule because he wants it that way. Dropping by isn’t a good idea.”

  “It wasn’t about the job. Well, not entirely. I did get a chance to mention it, and I would have said more, but she showed up. Then her phone started ringing and I lost the moment.”

  They crossed the lobby and Brent opened the door. He held it for her and she went out. It was cold and breezy. The sky was clearing and a strong wind had kicked up. It rushed through the space between the buildings, gathering force as it was funneled into the narrow channel. Laura shivered.

  “If the job is meant to be yours, it’ll happen,” he said.

  “Aren’t you the philosopher.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I didn’t go in there just to talk about the job. I told him I’d reviewed all the pricing inputs and not one single person had accounted for the drop in power-supply prices.”

  “What?” He stopped walking. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

  “Nobody factored it in. You weren’t the only one.” She kept moving forward, forcing him to hurry to keep up.

  “So you threw us under the bus just so you could have an excuse to get in front of Hank?”

  “I didn’t throw you under the bus. It’s understandable.”

  “You should have told us dir
ectly.”

  “Sorry. It goes for final approval today; I didn’t think I’d have time to run around and tell each one of you.”

  “That’s what email is for.”

  They entered the other building, stepped up to the counter, and placed their coffee orders. While the barista prepared Laura’s latte and Brent’s cappuccino, he was silent.

  “Don’t be pissed off,” she said.

  “You didn’t need to tell him.”

  “Well, it was a chance to let him see how good I’d be in that job.”

  “Stunts like that can backfire, you know.”

  “How?”

  “He doesn’t like to be bothered with every little detail. He just wants it correct and on time.”

  “And now it will be correct. And still meet the deadline.”

  “But you created work for him. Now he has to contact each one of us.”

  “No, he told me to do that.”

  “Like you should have done in the first place. Don’t you see that? He was letting you know you’re wasting his time.”

  She took a sip of the latte. It seared her tongue. Why did she always have to rush into action before the timing was right? She knew the coffee was too hot.

  They sat at a small table near the back corner of the café. Brent stirred his drink. “I hope it works out for you.”

  “You hope?”

  “Stop trying so hard. It makes you look needy.”

  “No, it doesn’t. If you want something, you have to go for it with everything you have.”

  “By giving a great interview and selling yourself, not by manipulating the hiring manager’s admin and irritating him with petty issues.”

  “She controls him more than she should. I don’t think he realizes how that looks.”

  “I don’t think he gives a shit how that looks. Like I keep telling you, he wants it that way.” Brent leaned back. He stretched his legs out to the side and crossed one ankle over the other.

  She pried the lid off her cup. After a minute, she took a sip. Much more tolerable without the lid trapping heat inside. “It bothers me that no one can talk to him without going through her. And I don’t like the way she dresses—all that hair and makeup. She looks like a girl at a car show.”

  “Meow.”

  “Not really.”

  “I think she looks pretty good.”

  “Of course you do. That’s the point.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not the right look for the office. It makes men think about women as objects instead of colleagues. It brings in this other dynamic.”

  Brent re-crossed his ankles. He slid his cup toward his left hand, then back again.

  “You don’t understand. Since you’re a guy.”

  “She’s always looked the same. Why is it suddenly a problem?”

  “It’s suddenly affecting me.”

  “Because she won’t set up an interview before he’s ready? Or because you think you have an inside track and you should get to lock it down before he talks to anyone else? She sees through you and you don’t like it? None of which has anything to do with what she’s wearing.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “If you’re the right person for the job, you’ll get it. And you have the best shot. Why are you so worried about it?”

  “I’m not worried.”

  He laughed. “You sure act like you are.”

  “I’m not. You don’t understand how it is to be a woman in this industry. Even now.”

  “The glass ceiling is a myth.” He sipped his cappuccino.

  “It is not.”

  “If women don’t get promoted into executive positions nowadays, it’s their fault. You have an equal chance. Look at all the women CEOs. Look at Janelle. Look at Claire Wong, look at—”

  “Okay. But isn’t it interesting that you can name them? You couldn’t begin to name examples of men in high-level positions, because ninety percent of the executives are men.”

  Brent was only thirty-three years old, and for the first time she felt the gap in their ages. Or maybe it was only because she was female. Men didn’t have a clue what it was like to contend with half-naked women splashed all over every magazine rack you passed, every Internet page you browsed, every channel you passed on the TV, and every movie theater you walked into. He was right; women weren’t prevented from getting into powerful positions. But they still had to be better—smarter, more articulate, better educated, higher quality work. More everything. It required a lot of additional effort.

  It took work to not seem too female, to ask yourself every god damned day—Is this blouse too low-cut? Is this skirt too short? Are these pants too tight? Are these heels too high? Do I look too prim if I wear flats? It was exhausting. And that was before she even arrived at the office.

  Those questions didn’t even brush past the minds of her male co-workers. Women like Vanessa made it worse. Everything about her oozed sex, and it made men look at all women in that light. Or maybe they already did, but she sure didn’t help the situation. Janelle was the same. It hadn’t stopped her from getting promoted to director, but that was because she shouted like a man and was generally obnoxious. Maybe Brent was right—Laura was trying too hard. She was too focused on an outdated definition of professional behavior in the cowboy environment of high tech.

  “What’s your point?” Brent said.

  What was her point? Why was she letting a clerical worker get under her skin? Vanessa shouldn’t even be on her radar. It was because Vanessa acted like she owned Hank, acted like she knew things about the company that Laura wasn’t privy to, since she didn’t report directly to him. It wasn’t right. Vanessa acted like she had enormous power over him because, on some level, he wanted her body. And Vanessa knew it. He spent more time meeting with his admin than he did with people who actually drove the business. His calendar wasn’t that fucking complicated.

  “My point is,” she said, “she has too much power, and that power is because she’s sexy, and it reflects badly on other women.”

  “You’re way off base.”

  “Do you think she’s sexy?”

  “Come on, Laura.”

  “Do you?”

  “We should get back to work.” He pushed his chair away from the table, stood, and picked up his coffee. He turned and dropped the half-full cup into the plastic-lined trashcan.

  She wanted to laugh, but he wouldn’t get it.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Just a minute.”

  “Did you want me to give your résumé another look?”

  “I already told you it’s fine.”

  “You still need to market your successes in the right way.”

  “Whatever.” She stood, took another swallow of the latte, and replaced the lid.

  They wove through the tables and down the hall to the side doors. She’d won the argument. He refused to answer her question because the answer was yes. If he’d never thought about Vanessa in that way, he would have said so. Of course he noticed, he couldn’t help it. Even if Vanessa wasn’t sleeping with Hank, she was using her looks and her age, everything she could, to grab power. Or maybe there was something else. Maybe it was also that secretive look in her eyes. Maybe men felt she understood them.

  At least once a week, Laura caught Hank looking at Vanessa a half second longer than necessary. She’d seen him help Vanessa with her coat, and she’d seen through the window in his door how Vanessa sat across from him, too close to his desk, and talked to him every fucking day of the week. What she couldn’t see through the glass panel was the expression on Hank’s face.

  What did they have to talk about for thirty or forty minutes every day? It couldn’t possibly be his calendar. He just liked sitting there looking at her. Maybe it was unconsummated, but it was still some sick dynamic that gave him a voyeuristic thrill. Brent would tell her she had a wild imagination. Maybe she did, but she knew enough about men to know that some of them,
maybe more than she realized, had weird desires. Like Tim. She shivered. She felt the coffee tremble inside the cup, sloshing up the slides.

  Brent was going on about résumés, or something. She couldn’t concentrate.

  When they reached his office, she murmured, “See you later.”

  She returned to her office and sat staring out the window. Hank traveled nearly fifty percent of the time. And he lived in the Bay Area during the week, while his wife and son were sequestered in Tucson.

  Maybe he wasn’t doing it with Vanessa, but there was something going on there that wasn’t all business. Sex was a powerful thing. It could destroy people. Not having sex made people crazy. It made them do terrible things.

  IT WAS ALMOST one-thirty by the time Laura felt a stirring of hunger. She’d accomplished next to nothing. She’d sent email to Janelle and the others about their pricing errors. So far, she’d heard nothing back. It was their mistake, yet her breathing grew tighter as the minutes ticked closer to the time Hank needed the updated spreadsheets. Why had she involved herself? Now it was on her.

  What had started out as a brilliant plan to make herself look good could turn into something that left her on Hank’s shit list for a week.

  She went to the break room and opened the fridge. She removed two plastic containers and a takeout box. She pulled out her container of soup and replaced the other lunches. At the sound of high-heeled shoes on the linoleum floor, she turned.

  Vanessa greeted her and pulled the coffee carafe off the burner. She filled her mug with stale-smelling coffee. Only half a cup remained when she was finished. Someone needed to make a fresh pot, but Vanessa made no move to dump the aging coffee.