I crossed my arms. “My thing is filing papers and taking fingerprints. And seeing through veils. The whole seeing-people-in-my-mind thing is … not there yet … with me. Right now Lorraine is the only one who can mind sweep.”
“No.” Parker stopped and stood, military style, legs spread, arms crossed, lips pursed. “This thing with Lorraine—I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. And I’m really getting worried. She should have at least been able to pick up something on Pete. Even she said it was weird.”
“No.” Parker wagged his head, going into detective mode. “I think she did find something on Sampson—or maybe she found him. I don’t think she was telling us everything.” He gestured toward my pocket. “Check the note. What does it say?”
“I don’t know why she would lie,” I said, fishing out the envelope.
“I don’t know either, but I’m pretty sure she was. So?”
I peeled open the envelope. “Uh-oh.”
Parker’s eyes went wide. “What?”
I flipped the note toward him and grinned. “She’s having a Tupperware party on Thursday. Shall I pick you up a juicer?”
Parker rolled his eyes and turned on his heel. “Meet me upstairs at one,” he said, before heading toward the elevators.
Parker disappeared down the hall toward the elevator, and I turned, heading to my desk—the one that sat outside of Mr. Sampson’s office and was now sporting a jagged gash and a spray of broken glass along its side. I kicked aside the tiny shards of glass and rifled through my drawers, stacking up the folders that contained the more personal aspects of Mr. Sampson’s life: his car registration, his calendar, the list of client contacts I used to mail out his Christmas/Solstice/Sorry Your Spouse Got Sucked into a Swirling Vortex cards. I was scanning for anything that might give Parker and me some useful information on where Pete Sampson may have gone—or where he may have been taken.
“Ahem,” I heard a male voice.
I looked over the top of my desk, saw no one, and frowned. I went back to stripping my files when I heard it again.
“Ahem?”
I slammed the files down and stood up, palms pressed against my desk. I was craning my neck to look out the open door when I saw two dark, bushy eyebrows and a spray of black hair at the edge of my desk.
“Oh, Vlorg,” I said, my hand to my heart. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
Vlorg smiled apologetically, his yellowed, snaggled teeth pressed against his pale gray lips. “It happens.”
He came around the side of the desk, and my hand went over my nose instinctively. “I’m sorry,” I said again, then shoved it in my pocket, feeling ashamed.
Had I mentioned that trolls smelled? Besides bearing the burden of being only three feet tall, having constantly moist skin that grows a downy layer of lichen, and being orthodontically cursed, they smelled. Badly. Like a more pungent combination of blue cheese, belly button, and wet dog.
“Oh good, you’re already cleaning out your desk. The boys will be along any minute and we’ll move it out for you.”
“Move it out?”
Vlorg rolled up on his toes and grinned. “Elpher Brothers Moving, at your service.”
“Right.” I nodded, remembering my run-in with Vlorg’s brother, Steve.
Vlorg rubbed his stubby fingers over the bashed side of my desk and let out a low whistle. “This baby really took a beating.” He grinned at me, and I noticed that his two snaggled front teeth were his only teeth.
“Who told you to move it?” I asked.
Vlorg shrugged. “Don’t know. The work order was in my box when I came in this morning, and the new desk is supposed to be here on Monday.” He looked around. “Are you going to be at the public desk until then or something?”
“Uh no, I’m working on a—another project. Um, what about the new desk? Who ordered it?”
“Don’t know that either.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Well, someone must have initialed the PO. Mr. Sampson is the only one with that kind of buying power.”
“Then it must have been Sampson then,” Vlorg said, obviously bored. “In here, guys!” he shouted out the open door, and I slumped into my seat when Olak and Steve filed in.
Olak was a shyer, slightly more stooped version of Vlorg, and Steve, as I mentioned before, was the redheaded stepchild of the troll kingdom—or the velveteen-tracksuit, gold-chain-wearing stepchild. Today he looked like a very tiny adult film producer—only not as charming—with his tracksuit unzipped halfway down his troll sternum, loops of pale green lichen snaking over the zipper.
Steve grinned when he saw me, his gray lips curving up salaciously, his angled tongue sliding over his teeth. He put his tiny troll hands on his hips and sucked in a satisfied breath.
“Steve likes what he sees.”
I wrinkled my nose, this time not caring who I offended. “Steve.” He stunk in more ways than one.