by Tina Gower
The government has become increasingly cautious after several predictions have alluded to a huge sexual harassment case from a hidden office romance. The details and timeline are sketchy. The probability remains in the mid to low range, but unlike most low probability forecasts, this one affects them, so they’ll be extra cautious to any intra-office relationships.
“It’s Friday?” His forehead furrows. “Oh yeah, I lose track of days when I don’t have a weekend.”
“Yes. And I have to catch the bus in about forty minutes or I’ll be late and lose even more privileges.” I shove off all my layers of blanket and spring to the closet, tossing out a charcoal pant suit and matching blazer. For a pop of color, I reach for my pink button-up shirt, but it reminds me of Yin’s office, so I snag the lavender cap-sleeved one instead.
I very nearly undress right there. My hand hovers on the hem of my T-shirt until I remember Becker is standing in the corner. He inspects the file and case notes.
When he notices I’m glaring at him, he sips his coffee and grins. What the hell? This from the guy who blushes if I touch him unexpectedly?
He leans against my desk and crosses one leg over the other. “I drove here last night, so I can drop you off at your office. That should give you an extra half-hour.”
“Okay.” Because I can’t afford to argue and be late.
Testing him, I reach for my T-shirt again and raise it slightly to show a sliver of skin and make like I’m going to undress in front of him. On cue his cheeks redden and he pushes himself from my desk and scoots out of the room.
“I’ll wrap you some pumpkin bars to go,” he calls out and my door shuts.
Thank gods something is normal about this situation.
It only takes me a few minutes to shower, a little longer to blow dry all my thick black hair, and with my darker skin tone I tend to go easy on the makeup. Plus, I just really hate the feeling of anything caked on my face all day long. Thoughts of Becker clog my brain pathways and I end up curling my lashes and pulling out the extra long and thick mascara. About to twist my hair into a bun, I stop myself and leave it down. There. It’s fine. Knowing I’ll really regret this decision in a few hours I grab a ponytail holder for later.
About to leave my room, I back up and straighten my sheets, arrange the throw pillows, and tuck in my blankets. My knuckles hit against something hard. I tug it out.
The Lone Wolf: Surviving a World without Pack
I shove it into my laptop bag, making sure it’s far enough down under the folds that Becker can’t see it if I unzip the top.
Becker is already out by his car. He’s poured my coffee in a to-go metal cup and hands it to me with my pumpkin bar. I unwrap a corner and take a bite. The scent reminds me of his breath on the back of my neck last night.
We’re headed to my office, the scent of french fries wafts in the air. Becker has some kind of eco car.
He grips both hands on the wheel, sneaking a glance at me. “What’s your schedule today?”
I choke on my next bite of pumpkin bar. “You said you were going to not do the creepy stalker thing.”
“I’m not a creepy stalker. I need to know where you’re going to be for…stuff.” He clears his throat. “I’m going to keep a close watch on you until we’ve got that guy in custody.”
Nice save. I finish my pumpkin bar and toss the plastic wrap into my laptop bag to throw away at the office. “It’s a boring day for me. I’ll be at the office working that Ever After case. If I put in some solid hours on it, I can finish up most of it before the weekend. Is that sufficient? Do you need a minute by minute?”
He shrugs, as though the information doesn’t affect him one way or the other. Then he taps his finger against the wheel. “Hey, look, I know what I told you last night about the overprotectiveness might have seemed concerning.”
“It’s very concerning.”
“It’s the kind of thing I’d warn a repeat domestic violence victim against.”
“That’s really assuring.”
“But it’s not at all like you’re imagining. I wish I had a better way of wording it.” He stares at the rearview mirror like the proper words might appear there.
“You know what—it’s not a huge deal.” I readjust in my seat. “This is all only temporary and I trust you when you say you’re going to figure out a way to curb those instincts.”
Neither of us talks for about a minute, but it feels like hours.
Becker scratches the back of his neck, shifting in his seat. “Okay, so people are being matched with the dead.” He wisely changes the subject. “Doesn’t something about that seem a little…off?”
“They said it was a computer glitch,” I say firmly. Otherwise, I know Becker will use this as an opening to glue himself to me all day working on a “case.”
We need to keep our distance. Last night was a weak point for me. I’d not seen him for a few days and started to worry like he was my boyfriend or something. Becker is not my boyfriend and I need to remind myself of that by allowing the distance between us to occur naturally. He’ll move on to a new pack and this thing we did will be a faded memory.
When Becker doesn’t respond, I peek over at him. He doesn’t look convinced. “Once Ever After’s database syncs with ours, it will put some preventative measures into place to keep that from happening again.” But as I say it, my mind wanders to the questions I sent Yin last night. I open my email on my phone and take a look. Sure enough there is an email from her. Recently sent.
“A computer glitch. Right.” He nods. “That makes sense.”
The hairs on my arms bristle, causing me to shiver. “This case doesn’t require any police involvement. You don’t need to trouble yourself with any brain power on it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything. Just making conversation. It’s a long drive to downtown.”
“It’s ten minutes, tops, with this light of traffic. That’s barely any time at all.”
“Feels a lot longer,” he grumbles.
“Me too,” I say under my breath, but Becker frowns. A normal human, like me, wouldn’t have made those words out, but to a werewolf they were loud and clear.
Thanks to all the gods that are holy and generous, we make it downtown. “Just drop me off here at the corner.”
Becker shakes his head. “No, I’m going to drop you at the front and then I’m going to watch and make sure you make it into the building safely behind the security check point.”
“This isn’t backing off. This is the opposite of not being creepy and overbearing.”
Also, who might see me ride sharing with our police liaison? Our police liaison who lives on the opposite side of town. Yeah, why would I be riding into work with him unless we spent the night and then morning together? That will definitely put me in prime gossip territory, then eventually under HR’s radar, where they pull my file and see I’m a repeat offender of office romances. True, Becker isn’t in the same office as me, but if they have reason to believe I’m using him for special treatment on cases to get ahead, they’ll transfer me to another department where we won’t be working together. I’ll likely get downgraded to something horrid. Or, oh gods, back to Traffic.
Becker ignores me, charging forward at the posted speed limit, straight for my doom.
My palms sweat. “How about we compromise?” I grip my laptop bag in one hand, the seat button release with the other. If Becker doesn’t listen to reason, I’m going to have to take drastic measures. “Drop me off in the parking garage. I’ll take the elevator that goes straight to the lobby; you can watch me the whole way from a parking space after we’ve made sure the area is clear and nobody will see me leave from your car. Once I’m past security, I’ll text you a random safe word of your choosing. If I text ‘I’m fine’ or ‘made it safely’ you’ll know to come in barrels blazing.” I drag in air after saying all that as quickly as I can.
The threat of the front of my office looms a block away. Becker can’t be crazy e
nough to think that dropping me off where everyone can see is going to end well.
“On one condition.”
“Name it!” I scream out. Gretchen is out front speaking with the manager in Health Predictions. I duck out of sight from the window. “Becker, turn the damn car around, right now. That’s my boss.”
I no longer have a view of the street, but Becker keeps driving. I have no idea if he’s headed to the parking garage or just stalling by going around the block.
“If you text me as your safe word ‘see you for lunch.’”
“Yes, absolutely.” A shiver goes through my body, like when you’ve seen a spider on the soap you were about to pick up. I want to peek through the window and see where we are. Did anyone see us? But I can’t bring myself to take the risk.
Becker raises his hand to wave at someone.
“Who was that? Who are you waving at?”
“Yang, your office manager. Chill out, Kate, nobody saw you.”
“Good. That’s good. Tell me when we’re safe and I can leave the car.”
He parks and sets the break. “We’ve got a potential leak at six o’clock, back behind us and slightly to the left.” He keeps his eye on her from the rearview mirror. “She’s taking her time texting someone. Okay, she’s on the move again. I’ll let you know when she’s in the elevator.”
“Okay, great.”
Becker grins. “A stake out with you would be fun.”
“We did it once and it didn’t work out. You were a nervous wreck the whole time.”
“Nice to have the tables turned.” He sips his coffee. “Okay, you’re clear. I parked between two security cameras in a blind spot. Stay low for about three cars and the video won’t show what direction you came from.”
I open the door keeping low like he said, crouching behind a group of parked cars. I spy the camera Becker was talking about mounted above a pillar three rows ahead. I straighten my jacket and pop up, walking at a brisk pace as though I have nothing to hide. I press the button for the elevator and fiddle with my laptop bag, adjusting it from one shoulder to the other, so I can access my phone and send the text to Becker once I get through security.
“Hey, Hale, glad I could catch you,” Becker calls from behind me. He jogs to meet me as the elevator dings, indicating it’s only one floor away.
“Becker, what—”
“I’m hoping to get to your case later tonight. I didn’t quite understand some of the notations. Maybe you could clear some of those up at our lunch meeting.”
I blink and then narrow my eyes, gripping my bag strap. “Becker, I swear I’m going to kill you,” I whisper, so the cameras can’t pick up my words. I’ll regret the day I ever thought inviting an obsessed werewolf into my life was an excellent idea. “What are you doing?”
But he doesn’t respond or register my anger. Instead his eyes are sharp and glancing around the garage. His hand is discreetly near his gun in his holster under his jacket. He itches his chest as a cover up, but I know in two seconds that gun could be in his palm. I’ve seen his reflexes in action.
The elevator doors open and Becker uses his body to corral me inside, covering me at the same time from the line of any potential threat. He types in a code and then pushes the button to the main level, which will take me directly to security. Liaison officers have a code to the elevators that will take them directly to their floor in an emergency. This elevator won’t stop on any other floor.
My blood pressure rises, my heart beats so hard, I can practically feel every artery. “What’s going on?”
Becker keeps his arm over the elevator doors to keep them from shutting. “He’s here,” he says low, his gaze remains out toward the shadows of the garage. “I can smell his intent. He’s threatening you.” I’m about to ask what he means. Who’s he talking about? But he raises his voice and says, “Hey, Hale, I forgot something in my car. I’ll catch up.” He removes his arm from the doors and presses the close button, before I can protest.
I lunge forward. “Wait, Becker!” The doors snap shut on my words. The idiot should have called for backup or something, or not gone charging into danger so soon. My cell phone has zero reception in the elevator. I bang on the side of the wall, returning a hollow echo. When the doors calmly ease open, I jolt forward to the security counter, holding up my ID.
“You need to get someone down in the parking garage right now. Level two. I just passed Officer Ian Becker possibly pursuing an assailant.”
The security officer taps his tablet. “I didn’t get any reports from Petty Crime Predictions. We have a low probability on our building today, so we don’t have enough staff to spare anyone—”
“It’s low probability, because Becker is down there right now chasing them out. And there are holes in the net. We can never cover every damn prediction…” I cut off a curse. “Just get someone down there.”
He fingers his walkie and calls an officer to level two of the parking garage. Once I pass through security I finally have enough reception to call Becker. He doesn’t answer.
I curse and head for the main bank of elevators that will take me to the floor where Accidental Death is located. One arrives with a ding and a group of office workers shuffle inside. I hang back, glancing over my shoulder as though Becker might show at any second.
“Hey, we can scooch and make room,” a nice sprite lady with a blue-and-green Mohawk and the most fabulous pair of Gucci red heels offers. Her eyes sparkle with swirls of silver and red, like she’s possessed by a dokkaebi—of course I get the elevator with a mischievous nymph who probably senses my distress over the cell phone dead zone inside the elevator. I step in and stare at the door until it’s my floor.
Once I’m in my office my phone works again, I call Becker. Nothing.
But I get a text a second later. Kinda busy, Kate.
Call me as soon as you can. I text back, then remember our deal and add, I’ll see you at lunch.
He doesn’t text again and it doesn’t indicate he’s read the text. I can’t help but to check it every minute until I load my email and see the response from Yin. Work should distract me until Becker checks in.
Kate,
My answers are interspliced below:
When did the matches die? Were they recent deaths, older?
I haven’t reviewed all the cases, but the few brought to my attention were recent deaths. As far as timelines, I’m not sure, since we don’t have the kind of quick access you have to those records.
Has this ever happened before?
Not while I’ve worked at Ever After. We get a very rare case once or twice a year, but never to the scale we’ve seen in the last several months. It was estimated that less than ten percent of our clients in our region had at least one match in their top ten that was deceased or died within a few weeks.
What did your oracles say about the issue?
They were baffled, but they’re not death oracles. They insisted they were only forecasting soulmate potential through a specified set of criteria we’ve given them. I’ve attached the raw data and conditions below, so you can get an idea of what we do.
Note: not all of our predictors are oracle trained. We have several general seers, witches, and other sensitives on staff that fill in the gaps. Our business is very large, covering the tri-state area and, as you know, there is an oracle shortage, so we’ve had to make adjustments. The error was not due to the makeup of our staff, but a computer glitch in the criteria. We’ve since adjusted. However, to prevent this problem from occurring we’d like to continue a close relationship with your department.
How many clients were affected?
See above. We estimate around seven hundred. Small compared to the numbers of successful soul mate forecasts we’ve predicted, but larger than we’d like.
Can I speak with the clients affected?
We have a confidential policy in place. Most clients prefer to remain anonymous. I can send out a general letter, but I doubt we’ll have much suc
cess. For the clients affected we sent out new lists with those names deleted and an extra five names at no additional cost. Most were happy with the exchange and already searching for their soul mate on one of the many search sites.
Can I have a list of the names of the deceased that were matched?
Certainly, I’ve attached a list of names we’ve been alerted to, but the list isn’t complete, since many clients didn’t alert us to the problem before we proactively fixed it.
I’d love to offer any additional help I can, but most of these questions will be taken care of once we have the new database in place that will pull the figures from your department. I’d hate for you to do any unnecessary work.
I read through her email again, wondering if the last line is her hint that she’s got a capped budget for this project. Opening the raw data and criteria, it hits me how conditional the probability of the soul mate business is. They’ve accounted for differences in religion, worldview, aspirations, job titles. Whatever happened to raw attraction? How did that figure into the criteria? It must be why several names are listed, to account for the error of possible mismatched chemistry. Or maybe a long list of names keeps clients hopeful that at least one of the names will be a winner.
According to the website, names of soul mates are from all over the world. No wonder they’ve had to lax their employment beyond oracles. The clients would need to be local to be under a stable forecasting net, but oracles and seers would have reach to forecast names from all seven continents. There were other love predictions private businesses in other areas. We had three main competing ones that covered Angel’s Peak and the rest of the Northern California area, although Ever After was the largest. I get the numbers off those websites to speak with their reps to see if they’ve had the same issue.
I check my phone. Still no word from Becker.
My heart flutters. I place a hand over my chest to calm it.
Okay, so what is this about soul mate search websites? I search the web for any sites. I find two main ones and poke around the message boards. It looks like once clients receive their set of names they go on these sites with an alias account and enlist the help of others to find their names.
