Page 4 of A Break in Communications

“More or less. Apparently it cost quite a bit to their bottom line, but it’s not all bad. Vijay’s team is deploying a new unit to change how they handle operations like that, so… it should alleviate a lot of the Gould and Stephens issues.”

“So, we’re crafting a statement for them?”

He pursed his lips. “Truth be told, things are looking rough on that account… it’s a big one, so we can’t afford to let it go. We’re fighting an uphill battle to keep them on board, so we have to go above and beyond a statement.”

I stared for a good second or two before I said, “Do I… go to their offices and put on a show?”

“I’d like an event.”

“An event? Put together an industry event just to show off to them?”

He put his hands up, sitting back. “It doesn’t have to be anything big. Just something we can get Matthew Gould and the big shareholders in, flatter them, and break the news there like it’s the greatest thing to ever happen to anyone. Second coming. Christmas miracle. Like the heavens part and the light shines through.”

I rubbed my temple. “And my job here is to figure out how to do that. To takehey, I know you’re mad about the trucking mishap, so we got a guy on duty to fix it,and make it sound like a gift from God.”

“That’s what our department does, Anna.”

Okay—he wasn’t being subtle today. Just about saying it outright at that point,if you can’t pull this off then you can’t take over the department.I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy ask. I also knew I could handle a difficult ask. “All right,” I said, sitting upright again. “Give me all the information.”

He sank back in his chair, a relieved look settling over his features. “Thank you, Anna. It’s good to be able to count on you for this.”

“Am I going to be collaborating with you?”

He beamed. “No, I don’t want to do it.”

Ah, son of a bitch. Guess the guy had one foot out the door, he could get away with that. “I guess… I gotta respect setting your boundaries.”

“I’ll email you everything,” he said, opening his laptop, and I shifted, an uncomfortable feeling tight in my throat.

“Actually—” I moved forward in my chair, sitting on the front edge, and I checked back to make sure the door was shut. “Can you… send it to a different email address?”

He frowned, looking at me. “How come?”

“Uh—” I shifted.I’m worried Lucy might be trying to get access to my work emailwould probably raise more alarms than I wanted. And it wasn’t like I had the cleanest record of conduct when it came to Lucy, so I didn’t really want a spotlight shining on it. “I’m going to be at my family’s home a lot over the next week, so I’m just accessing a different email there… you know, home networks, work email, doesn’t always mix.”

That was just bullshit I pulled out of nowhere so I could throw him off, but it worked. He nodded, going back to his computer. “Well, all right, then. Not a problem. Just let me send a test email to confirm it’s right, we can’t really afford this information getting out.”

I confirmed the email address with him, and we spent a minute talking through the details of what we had once he’d sent it over, discussing what we knew about Gould and Stephens—a supplier in the market of specialized electronics, ours was the logistics firm they contracted for everything, and we’d had a major internal miscommunication screwup back in October that had cost them, and us, a lot of money. Their president Matthew Gould was historically a flexible, easygoing guy, but he was also known for being… capricious and unpredictable, and we’d have to find something good to win him over. Didn’t matter, though. If the executive head position was at stake, I’d make it work.

He left the office after, taking his laptop and heading home, and I got back to my desk to find Miranda wanted help too, groaning about how her life was so hard and so unfair, and I worked a revolving door of people who wanted help finishing up their last tasks before they headed out, and it took until I was almost the last person in the office to notice Lucy had left, too, slipping out somewhere.

For her to leave before someone else did—something strange was up. I had to assume it was probably taking whatever she’d swiped from under me and running off to go finish it up at home, which worked out okay for me… less likely for her to haunt me trying to grab this, and if I was lucky, maybe this whole thing would slip under her radar because she’d be too distracted to even notice I was getting a good job.

“Hey, Anna—”

I jumped at Rick’s voice next to me, and I looked at where he stood at the end of the desk uncomfortably stiff and still, suspended there like a Halloween decoration. I scowled.

“Rick? It’s almost eight, why are you still here?”

He stood there for a second hunched over the end of the desk, staring blankly, before he said, “You’re going to have toshow how to make the spreadsheet check for something in a column.”

“What—how to do anifstatement in Excel? What have you been doing all this time?”

He stared blankly for another second before he scowled. The man was mortified at having to ask me for help… someone had probably demanded he go learn how to do this. “Looking… at the list to see if it’s in there. I’ve still got my eyes.”

“Sweet mother of Jesus. Okay, Richard, let’s do this. I’ll show you how.”

I felt like I’d collapse face-first on the floor by the time I got out of the building, dark and bitterly cold, and I hunched my shoulders and darted quickly to make it to my car. Traffic was packed wildly into the roads, squeezing in under the Christmas displays and lights through the city center, tinsel on streetlights and wreaths in windows and a whole lot of people laying on their horns at intersections who didn’t seem to be feeling that Christmas cheer, so all things considered, I was too tired to deal with it when I got into my apartment complex and made it up to where my sister Veronica was standing at the door, resting her head against the wood, bundled up more for an Antarctic expedition than a climate-controlled hallway.

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