by Cole, Cassie
Jason stood. “Why are you white knighting her?”
I stiffened. Shit. I needed to be more careful with how I acted. “All I’m saying is we need to be careful. If we tip her off as to what we’re doing, she might tell Milton Bryson. Do you want what happened at Beulah to go unpunished?”
It was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Kai’s face went blank as he retreated into the fortified part of his mind. Rage flared in Jason’s eyes at my mention of the job site we’d been called to almost a month ago. The same day I’d first met Lexa.
“I’m with Cas,” Tex said. “Let’s do our jobs like we’re supposed to. Stick to the plan. Then, if we get desperate, we can see what she knows.”
“Only if we have to,” I said. “Blackrock is a big company, and big companies make mistakes. All we have to do is find evidence that they’ve been ignoring the safety regulations, or bribing the other auditors, or telling their employees to ignore protocol. Once we have that smoking gun, the federal OSHA can take over.”
Jason still looked angry, but he nodded. “Just don’t get so fucken sweet on our roommate that you ignore what’s right in front of you.”
“I… Yeah, no, I won’t,” I said.
It felt like a lie.
We got ready for bed and I walked down the hall toward the guest bedroom. But my feet carried me past the door, down the hall toward the master bedroom. I paused at the door, listening. Wondering if she was still awake. If she slept in pajama pants, or underwear. Or nude.
I wondered if I was stuck in her head the way she was stuck in mine.
Kai’s footsteps climbed the stairs. “Sweet dreams, Lexa,” I whispered before quickly retreating to my bedroom.
14
Lexa
I slept wonderfully and woke up refreshed. There was something comforting about having a full house. As a woman, living alone always left me with a touch of fear at the back of my head. With Cas in the bedroom next door, Kai in the room at the top of the stairs, and Jason and Tex on the ground floor by the front door, I felt like I had four impenetrable walls of muscle protecting me.
The others were all still asleep when I tip-toed toward the stairs. Sure enough, the cloth-tearing sound of snoring drifted out of Kai’s room. Even with the door closed it was loud enough to be annoying. I could see why the others were fine with giving him a private room.
Rather than brew a single cup of coffee, I made an entire pot. I sipped the delicious bitter liquid and waited for the others to wake, but none did. Despite joking with them last night about the treadmill, I didn’t want to disturb them so early in the morning. Guess I would be running outside.
The moment the frigid air hit my lungs, I wanted to crawl back into bed. It was like needles stinging my throat and chest as I jogged down the main road in downtown Bismarck. I turned around after half a mile and jogged back home, calling it quits after one mile rather than my usual three.
The condo remained still and silent as I made my oatmeal with honey. Getting in a bad workout was worse than no workout at all. I would definitely need to get the treadmill situation resolved if this was going to work.
I went through the morning tasks at the office: turning on all the lights in the building, brewing pots of coffee, and reviewing the visitor meetings on the calendar. It was becoming routine already, something I could do mindlessly while still waking up.
The problem was that it didn’t kill any time: I was done with everything by 6:15am.
I glanced at the stack of yellow folders on the desk. The documents to be sent out via courier.
Here’s the thing: I was a fixer. I wasn’t great at creating something from scratch myself, but hand me an article or paper someone else had written and I could mold it like raw clay. It came naturally. Sometimes it was tough for me to sit down and lose myself in a book because I was always editing it in my head, removing redundant sentences and rearranging paragraphs on the page.
Since losing my job at the Herald, I’d been having that problem a lot.
Like a Husky that hadn’t been outside all day, I itched to edit something. The stack of courier documents was practically screaming my name. Nobody was in the office yet. I had no tasks to do. And the couriers wouldn’t be here for four more hours.
It wouldn’t hurt to take a peek. Just one folder.
I took the first one from the stack. It was a heavy one, thick with possibility. There were no warnings or anything on it saying it was confidential. The lack of warnings felt like permission.
I unraveled the string holding the end closed, then slid the stack of paper out carefully. There, alone in the office, it felt as sensual as removing someone’s underwear. I practically quivered with anticipation.
I placed the stack of documents flat on the desk, removed the binding clip, and flipped through them. They were all invoices for equipment and supplies being sent to a new job site, with a cover letter from someone named Larry Jones on the front page explaining everything.
And the cover letter was awful.
My eyes widened as I read it. Run-on sentences. One-word sentences. It was rife with typos and other grammatical errors. And that was ignoring the small stuff like comma splices and inconsistent paragraph formatting.
I would have been insulted to receive a letter like this.
I gripped the cover letter tightly. Like an OCD off her meds, I wouldn’t be able to function until this was fixed.
Pulling up Microsoft Word, I cracked my knuckles and got to work. Without the original document I had to type everything from scratch, but I didn’t mind—I typed fast enough to make any 1960s secretary proud. First I went through and fixed all the glaring typos and spelling mistakes. Then I rearranged two paragraphs for clarity, and deleted some redundant sentences. I swapped out the phase, “when you get the equipment,” for, “once you receive the equipment.”
Like a sculptor with a chisel, I worked until my fingers were numb, muttering greetings to the Blackrock employees who came through the front door.
Only when I was done and satisfied did I realize my problem: Larry Jones’s signature was at the bottom in blue pen. But I’d come too far to let that stop me. My hard work over the last 20 minutes couldn’t go to waste.
I printed out the revised cover letter, then placed it over the original until I could see his signature through the paper. I fished out a blue pen from the desk and traced Larry Jones’s signature onto the new one. It looked rough and choppy, so I printed four more copies of the letter and kept trying until I had a signature that looked identical to his and flowed naturally.
I was admiring my work when Tex and Jason came striding into the lobby. “Kai’s mad you missed breakfast,” Jason blurted out.
“Yeah, when’d you wake up?” Tex asked. “Or did you never go to bed?”
“Needing to open the building in the morning means needing to be the first one here.” I placed the new cover letter on top of the stack of invoices and clipped it back together, then slid the whole thing back in the folder. “I wanted to go for a longer run, but someone was sleeping next to my treadmill.”
Rather than rise to the teasing, Jason frowned. “What are you doing?”
I re-tied the folder closed and held it up. “Listening to your advice. You were right: proper grammar and punctuation aren’t common in this industry.”
Jason looked surprised, but happy. “There you go. Putting your real skills to use.”
“I’m trying!”
Their enthusiasm convinced me to continue my work on the entire stack of folders. Coincidentally, Larry’s was the worst of the bunch by a wide margin. Despite that, every document had room for improvement, no matter how subtle. People confused there-their-they’re and your-you’re pretty often. One woman from Human Resources sent out a letter that was clearly copy and pasted from a previous one, because she accidentally left the old dates on the letter, both in the header and down by the signature. Sloppy stuff like that.
The best was that the
re was no real risk in me making these edits, since all I was touching was the cover letter. All the invoices with the technical information stayed the same. It made it easy to justify my work.
I got in such a good groove that I almost forgot Bryson’s coffee. I hurried to the break room, brewed him a fresh cup, added the three sugars, and returned to the lobby just as he was coming in from the parking lot.
He stopped when he saw me. “I was serious: you don’t have to make my coffee every morning.”
“I insist,” I said, shoving the mug into his hand. “Besides, if I was CEO of a company I’d take advantage of perks like this.”
He gave a resigned, but not unhappy, sigh. “Alright. But I’m still gunna protest every morning. How’d the crew get settled in last night?”
“They’re still getting used to making themselves comfortable, but they’re getting there.”
“And you?” he asked. “Is it weird having four drill auditors stomping around the house?”
“They didn’t stomp,” I said with a laugh. “And actually, it was nice having people in the house. I didn’t mind the company at all.”
“Hope it stays that way.” His smile disappeared. “Hey, listen. If you see anything fishy from them, you can always let me know and I’ll make the problem go away. I don’t want you to think I stuck them with you.”
It was a weird thing to offer, but sort of sweet. Making sure I wasn’t uncomfortable with it all. “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for suggesting the whole arrangement. I’m not going to lie: the extra income is welcome.”
“Happy to help.”
I spent the rest of the morning scheduling the courier pickups, and placing the revised documents into padded shipping envelopes. One by one the couriers picked up their parcels. Watching them come and go gave me a rush of satisfaction at knowing the documents were more professional than before.
Jason came into the lobby around noon. “I’m grabbing lunch from Eliza’s Deli. Want anything?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “There’s a conference meeting going on that I have to standby for, so I haven’t been able to duck out to grab my own lunch.”
He took my order and returned a little while later with a bag in hand. “Broccoli and cheddar, here you go,” he said, placing my soup container on the desk. I removed the lid and inhaled the warm, delicious smell.
“I owe you one,” I said.
He grinned mischievously at me. “Would it be rude to take you up on that right away?”
“Depends on what you need.”
He leaned on the desk, showing off his muscular arms. He had the kind of easy smile that made you want to do whatever he wanted. I bet that smile had gotten him far in college.
“We’ve been requesting documents from the storage team,” he explained. “They’ve been sort of helpful, but there’s one month of documents missing. I’ve talked to four people and they keep bouncing me around. I’m not getting anywhere.” His smile turned hopeful. “You know anyone who can light a fire under them to help me out? Someone who owes you a favor, maybe?”
I winced. “I really haven’t been here long enough to get that kind of pull. But I have someone I can ask.”
“Nobody too high up, I hope,” Jason quickly said. “I don’t want to bother Mr. Bryson with it.”
“No, of course not. Let me see what I can do.”
I shot off an email to the one person I did know: Andrea, the previous administrative assistant. I slurped down my soup and waited for a reply but never got one. She was probably busy with the new job. If I had a chance to swing by her office tomorrow, I would bring it up then.
Like every day, the afternoon dragged. I surfed the internet on my phone and wished I had more work to do. I took two phone calls later in the afternoon: one was an I.T. engineer wondering if we were hiring, and the other was a contractor asking for Mr. Bryson in a panicked tone. I transferred it and wondered what that was all about, then went back to surfing the internet.
It was close to 5:00pm when the desk phone rang a final time. It was Bryson.
“Hey, swing by my office real quick?”
His office was on the third floor, in the corner with the most windows. Despite the natural light everything seemed dark; the wood paneling and shelves around the walls, his huge desk, even the black leather furniture. There was a phone on his desk but no computer. I wondered if that was because he’d put his laptop away, or because he didn’t use one.
“Come take a seat,” Bryson said, waving to me. Only when I came near did I realize there was another man sitting in one of the two guest chairs. He glanced at me but quickly looked away. I lowered myself into the chair next to him and wondered if I should introduce myself.
“I’ve got a weird issue I need some help with,” Bryson said. He sat with one leg over the other, and his hands wrapped around his knee.
“I’ll help however I can,” I said.
“Got a call from one of our contractors this afternoon. They’re breaking ground on a new drill site, and just got all the purchasing confirmations for the equipment. He called me in a panic, thinking we’d replaced our equipment manager.”
“Okay…” I said.
“See, when the courier dropped off his invoices today…”
Oh crap.
“…something was different. It didn’t sound like the equipment manager at all, even though it had his name on the letter. No typos, better English. That sort of thing.”
Crap crap crap!
“I had to spend 10 minutes convincing him that no, we hadn’t fired Larry Jones.” He nodded to the man sitting next to me. “Had to drag Larry in here and put him on the line before he believed me.”
I’m screwed. I’m going to lose my job.
Bryson held up a single sheet of paper. “They faxed the cover letter back to us. Larry here claims it’s not the one he sent out. And I’m inclined to believe him.” He paused, eyes searching mine. “Would you happen to know anything about this?”
“I did it,” I said. The words poured out of me. “I had some free time, and the envelopes were sitting on my desk ready to go out, so I thought it would be helpful to proofread them. That’s what I used to do, after all. I just cleaned up the typos, edited it for clarity, and made the formatting consistent. I didn’t touch anything but the cover letters—all the other forms are the same. I didn’t even look at them!”
“You forged my signature?” Larry asked.
“Yes, but…”
“Unbelievable,” he growled, face twisting with anger.
“I’m glad you were honest,” Bryson said mildly. “The reason those documents are sent by courier and require signatures at pick-up and delivery is because they contain sensitive industrial information. The equipment we utilize and on what leasing schedules. The pricing we’ve negotiated with the contractors. Information that gives us an edge over our competitors.” His eyes narrowed. “Information temps should not know.”
I tasted copper at the back on my throat. I tried to swallow it and said, “I was only trying to help—”
Bryson put up a hand, cutting me off. He stared at me for a long time.
“Larry, would you wait outside so I can speak with Lexa privately?”
“Gladly,” he said, giving me another glare as he rose from his chair. The door closed behind him ominously.
“Mr. Bryson,” I began. “I am so sorry if I overstepped my role at Blackrock. Believe me when I say I was only trying to be helpful.”
“Your apologies won’t affect anything,” he said. My heart sank, until he smiled. “Larry’s gotten complaints about his poor spelling for years. It’s become a joke among the contractors we work with, which is why he’s so sensitive about it. He was furious when he learned you’d edited his cover letter, and demanded you be fired. But honestly? I’m glad you showed initiative.”
“You are?”
“My company is under a lot of scrutiny right now,” he explained. “From a lot of angles al
l at once. Now, more than ever, it’s important that our public-facing documents be as clean as possible. I should have gotten someone to write all our cover letters long before now, rather than letting Larry keep writing his own.”
“So you’re not going to fire me?”
“No. In fact, I want you to keep doing it. Edit all outgoing courier documents—even the ones that say confidential or do not open in big letters. If you have the spare time, of course.”
“Oh geez, I do,” I said.
“And who knows: maybe this new responsibility will turn into something permanent. Something where you’ll be sitting behind a desk in an office, not the lobby.” He spread his hands. “I can’t promise anything, of course…”
“No, I understand. That’s great! I’m just happy to have something more to do than answer phones.”
“Then I’m happy too. Do you need anything from me to help with this new responsibility?”
“Actually,” I said. “It takes a while for me to transcribe the cover letters before editing them. It would save me some time if the cover letters were emailed to me directly.”
But Bryson’s mouth twisted. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Too paranoid to send stuff electronically?” I joked.
His face darkened, like I’d hit a sore subject. Then he said, “No. It’s just that telling my employees their cover letters are so bad they need an editor would be… Insulting. I don’t want 20 Larrys complaining to me.”
That made sense, though I still wondered if there was another reason he avoided email. “Speaking of Larry, won’t he be upset at you for not firing me?”
“Let me worry about Larry,” Bryson said. “But it would help if you leave my office looking like I ripped you a new one.”
The moment I left his office, Larry jumped up from the chair in the hall. I hung my head and tried to look cowed while he glared triumphantly at me.
I dropped the act as soon as I got to the stairs, taking them two at a time with giddiness in my step.
15
