“Thank you.” I turn and start walking toward Derek’s office again when I have a flashback to the other night before I went to Shane’s apartment, and those terrifying moments trying to get into his office, afraid I’d be caught. I turn down the hallway, and my stomach knots. The security guard who didn’t really work here. I can’t believe I haven’t told Shane and Seth. They have so much going on. I should just reconfirm the security guard isn’t real. Maybe the guard I talked to the first time was confused. I return to my desk and consider dialing downstairs, but think better of it. I need to do everything I can in person.
I need food for the meeting and to visit the copy center, also on the lobby level. I’ll stop by security when I’m there. Pulling up my e-mail, I find Brandon Senior’s message, and open it. There are six guests on the list and an attached document. A lightbulb goes off. The document will tell me what this meeting is about. I open it and start scrolling. There’s hedge fund data, profit reports, and data that doesn’t make clear his intent. Do bankers deal with hedge funds? Aren’t they separate? I press my fingers to my temples. I really need to study up on this stuff. I slip a data stick in my computer, load the document, and then buzz Senior.
“Yes, Ms. Stevens?”
“I’m going downstairs to make your copies and order refreshments. Can I bring you anything?”
He hacks several times and then croaks out. “Yourself back to your desk setting up my board meeting.”
“Hot tea with honey coming up,” I say, letting go of the button.
Hurrying forward, I travel the hallway, exiting through the lobby to the elevator. The car arrives quickly and I spend the ride replaying the encounter with the security guard: I’ve just finished with the final documents, gathering all my paperwork, when I hear, “It’s late to be working alone, isn’t it?”
I jolt at the male voice, whirling around to find a dark-haired security guard I’ve never seen before standing in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” I demand, his big body, and the empty office, hitting all of my many raw nerves.
“I saw the light on and thought something was amiss.”
“Just catching up on my work.”
“I see that,” he says, eyeing the stack of files I’ve created, and with what strikes me as more interest than an outsider should have.
“Thanks for checking on me,” I say, shutting the file I have open and scooping up the entire stack of files. “I’m fine. I’m going to leave soon.”
“I know you think you are,” he says, “but that’s when people make mistakes.”
My throat goes dry with what seems to be a hidden meaning. “Mistakes?”
“They let their guard down and forget to stay alert. Case in point, we’ve had a few strange reports in the building this week, which one wouldn’t expect with our level of security. You said you’re leaving soon. Why don’t you let me walk you downstairs?”
“Oh no,” I say, kicking myself for giving him that opening, and growing more uncomfortable by the moment. “Thank you, but ‘soon’ for me translates to the next hour or so.”
He studies me for several more of those creepy-filled moments in which I contemplate the heel of my shoe as a weapon, before he finally gives a quick nod and says, “Be careful on your way down.” He disappears out of the door, and I have no idea what possesses me, considering he creeps me out, but I dart forward, catching him as he’s about to exit the office.
“Excuse me,” I call out.
He faces me, and I ask, “What strange happenings?”
“For tenant privacy reasons, I’m not at liberty to say.”
“I understand. What’s your name?”
“Randy,” he says.
“Randy,” I repeat. “Thank you, again.”
I blink back to the present with the ding of the doors, and whisper, “But there was no Randy that fit that man’s description working that night.” Unless someone was confused, I remind myself. One of my law professors always said to double-, and even triple-check, critical details. I need to find out before I overreact and hand this to Shane and Seth on top of everything else. Exiting the car, I dash for the copy center, drop off the data, and head to the coffee shop, where the owner, Karen, a forty-something redhead with an overwhelming personality, is behind the register.
“You’re a regular now, aren’t you, honey?”
“I am,” I say, and I have this odd sense of being in the eye of this storm that feels ridiculously right, a sense of this being where I am meant to be. “I work for Brandon Senior.” Her eyes light and it takes me fifteen minutes to get past her infatuation with my boss to get my order of pastries, cookies, and coffees, and then I leave with Senior’s hot tea and honey. I’ve just stepped into the lobby when my cell phone rings, the ringtone that signals my brother is calling.
I walk back into the coffee shop, claiming a seat at a wooden table huddled between free-standing product displays, freeing my hands and removing the phone from my waistband. The number is blocked, but it always is the first time I call him from a new phone. I punch the answer button.
“Finally you call me,” I hiss softly. “I’ve needed you.”
“I’ve been juggling a few problems here, in case you didn’t remember. RJ’s been trying to reach Cooper.”
RJ. The one Seth called the best hacker on planet Earth, and high up in the Geminis.
“I took a job Cooper was supposed to do and made it look like he disappeared while he was doing it.”
I inhale and let it out. “Does that mean I can come home now?”
“RJ hasn’t even figured out Cooper is missing yet, so no. You cannot.”
“Does this mean you can send me money now?”
“I’m not back in the country yet. When I return, I’ll arrange it.”
I don’t believe him anymore, and suddenly I embrace the plan to convince him I’m somewhere I’m not. I want to protect myself from my own brother. “I left Denver. I got a job offer in New Mexico. It pays well, which is good news because I need my money.”
“And I need to go.”
“Of course you do.”
“Leave me your new address when you get to New Mexico. Bye, sis.” He hangs up and I grind my teeth, immediately turning my phone off and then turning it over to remove the battery. I stick both pieces in my waistband, my mind replaying the call. He didn’t ask how I’m getting to New Mexico or where I’m going to work. He didn’t ask how my money was holding up or how I’m holding up. He didn’t ask what motivated me to leave or how I got a job in another state. Irritatingly, my eyes prickle, when my brother does not deserve my tears. I shut that down, refusing to mourn a relationship that clearly was lost a long time ago. I consider calling Shane, but I’m pretty sure that hearing his voice will turn the prickling into tears, and neither of us need me to be that weak right now. Besides, I really have nothing to tell him aside from the RJ remarks, and those still aren’t much. Or maybe they are. I don’t know. They certainly aren’t urgent and if I find out details about the security guard, I can tell him everything at once.
Standing, I replace the tea with a fresh one, fielding more questions I don’t want to answer from Karen while my mind is on my brother. I almost think he just wants me to go away. I’ve lost law school and I can’t touch my money. He doesn’t care and the writing is on the wall.