“Oh, buzz off, all of you.” Then Naomi marched down the hall and disappeared into the crowd.
I turned and looked at Alice, who was holding her stomach and swaying back and forth.
“Are you going to be sick?”
She nodded her head vigorously.
“Go.” I pointed and she raced off down the hall.
So, I thought. The formerly dowdy young Naomi has inherited a spine after all. Along with her aunt’s temper.
Cynthia walked over, looking shell-shocked. “Did you hear any of that?”
“Some of it,” I confessed. “She was pretty upset.”
“It was worse up close. I’m worried she’ll quit because, unfortunately, she’s right. She knows how this place runs.”
“She won’t quit,” I said with certainty. “This job is her life. Give her a few days to calm down.”
“I feel so bad,” Cynthia said. “Her aunt just died and now this.”
“You had to make a decision quickly,” I said, touching her shoulder in understanding. “They’ll just have to learn to work together.”
“I don’t know about that,” Cynthia said, shaking her head in apprehension. “Naomi looked like she wanted to kill us all.”
Chapter 13
Any thoughts of spending time with Derek after the party were squelched once again when Gunther the Troll announced that he wanted Derek and his men to go to dinner with him. At first, Derek had refused to indulge him, exasperated with the man’s capricious changes to his well-ordered operation. He took Gunther aside and told him he would pull his men off the assignment if the Austrian didn’t start taking the death threats against him more seriously. Interpol had already reported that several operatives of the European prime minister whose daughter Gunther had compromised had entered the United States.
But Gunther had insisted the fancy dinner was something he’d planned weeks ago and he wondered aloud why it wasn’t on Derek’s schedule.
Derek wondered as well. Knowing him as well as I thought I did, I knew his own calendar would be accurate and up-to-the-minute. So that meant Gunther was lying. In the end, though, Derek relented for the sake of client goodwill. I was outwardly gracious in defeat but privately irate. Did Gunther know that Derek and I had made plans? Did he care? And how fancy could a dinner with a bunch of guys be?
“Oh.” How stupid was I? There would be women there, of course. Gunther was a good-looking guy, an internationally known artist. He could drum up a wild party with one phone call.
“Ugh.” I so didn’t need the image of Derek surrounded by wild, eager party girls. I took a deep breath and shoved those thoughts right off the bridge, into the bay where they belonged.
As he said good night to me, Derek whispered that his original plan had been to spend the evening with me. It was clear what he meant and it tickled my heart, though I would’ve preferred that other parts of me be tickled instead. But enough about my sorry excuse for a love life.
I was grabbing my coat from the deserted back cloakroom when someone tapped my shoulder, effectively scaring the living daylights out of me.
“Huh. Brooklyn.”
My chest stuttered in fear. But it was just Ned. No worries. He’d caught me off guard, that’s all. “Hey, hi, Ned. How’re you holding up?”
“ ’Kay,” he said, his gaze darting every which way. “Weird stuff.”
Those three words were the most Ned had said to me in all the years I’d been coming here. “That’s to be expected, I guess. But you still have a job, right? Everything will work out, right?”
“Huh. Me and my printing press.” As he spoke, he chewed the skin around the nail of his ring finger. “We’re a team.”
“You sure are,” I said casually, though inside I was starting to wonder why Ned had chosen tonight and me to demonstrate his nascent social skills. “Well, I’d better be going now. Good night.”
“You’re smart.”
I shifted back, surprised. “Thanks.”
“Huh.” His lips thinned and his forehead furled sullenly. “She was bad.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry, Ned. Was Layla mean to you?”
“Huh.” He looked around furtively, then whispered, “I see things.”
“Huh.” Now I sounded like him. “What sort of things?”
“You watch out,” he muttered, then added, “Okay, g’night.” And he shuffled out of the room.
I opened my mouth to call him back, then shut it. What things had he seen? Flummoxed, I glanced around again, then shook off the chills I felt from his last statement.
I see things.
Right now, I couldn’t think about the things Ned had seen. My life was already weird enough.
I see things.
Was Ned watching me? I buttoned up my coat and headed for the front door, where I turned and stared back at the room. I didn’t see Ned but I knew he was in there somewhere, watching. I just couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.