I set down the phone and stared at my hands for a long moment. Then I reached out and pulled open the bottom drawer of my desk, the drawer that most people would have kept locked but that I could leave unlocked based on sheer force of reputation. The hair I tugged over the clasp had been broken - someone had been in my drawer since my last perusal of its contents. Whoever the snoop was had been careful to replace the box containing my sidearm and ammunition just so, but I could see that the picture had been moved. I tugged the picture out from under the box and turned it over. It was no worse for wear beyond the fact that it was nine years old. I replaced the picture carefully and rose up, smoothed down the fabric of my suit.
Then I stepped out of my office. Jessica, the college intern, would hardly have been this canny, and besides, she wasn’t brave enough to paw through my desk. Laurie, on the other hand, was nosy. She thought she was my mother. Everyone in the office knew I’d been raised a foster kid, and Laurie must have taken pity on me.
I had to pause behind her desk - she never noticed me coming unless I wanted her to - and took a deep breath. Laurie was one of the few women in the office who was civil with me, and I didn’t want to upset her. Upsetting her would only be an unfortunate side-effect if, say, my address got out to other members of the Summers family besides Dan.
I cleared my throat. “Laurie, did you compile the list of police agencies for our survey sample?”
She paused the dictaphone she was working with and looked up at me. “What? Oh, yes.”
“Did you pick the Calgary Twenty-Seventh Police District on purpose?”
Laurie darted a glance at Jessica, who was arranging stacks of mail blithely. So she thought that she’d be able to intercept any incoming calls while she was on secretary duty instead of Jessica, did she?
“Miss Pierce,” Laurie began.
“I received a call from one Sergeant Daniel Summers just now.” It hadn’t been easy, playing cheerful like that. Oh, I had a cover story all set, a stack of letters sent that Kevin had undoubtedly hidden or destroyed, and I could feign innocent hurt with the best of them, but those letters were the back-up plan, not the primary engage switch. I leaned down and met Laurie’s gaze. “What possessed you to go through my desk?”
“Carolyn,” Laurie began.
Her motherly tone made me grit my teeth. “I’m sure you feel like you did something wonderful for me, but if one of the Summers brothers shows up on my doorstep --”
“Miss Pierce,” Jessica called. “A Vanya Ianevski is on line one for you.”
Vanya. John. I straightened up. “Thank you, Jessica.” I cast another look at Laurie. “I know you meant well, but the consequences of your action may have yet heretofore unseen unpleasantness. And I don’t mean professionally.”
I walked back into my office and closed the door loud enough to make a point, then picked up the phone. “Carolyn Pierce.”
“One Robert Summers just booked a flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles. What the hell happened?”
“I thought you vetted everyone at this office.” I disliked his tone and he knew it.
“You had a security breach?”
“A massive one,” I said.
(580 words)
2 comments:
Ohh, I would not want to go up against her.
At some points it was a bit tough to tell when it was her thoughts, I had to read it a few times.
The paragraph where she is talking about the backup vs the primary engage switch was a bit confusing in the wording, but maybe it's just the way I'm reading it.
Who is Kevin and who is John?
Ah. The primary engage switch metaphor. I couldn't think of anything that would explain what was going on that wouldn't eat up a thousand words. But you're right - on second look that was a weird metaphor to choose.
Kevin is Mr. Summers, i.e. the Summers brothers' father. John was Carolyn's handler while she was on the mission - he showed up in the first songfic post when Carolyn made contact, and he showed up in the penultimate songfic post when the Orphaneers tried to kill Bob in his sleep. At the hotel.
Carolyn didn't have as distinct a voice as I'd like, but then in this run of the Brothers Summers she's a brand new character, so trying to make her herself and not Asia was hard.
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