Page 30 of A Conflict of Interest

Veronica

Ugh—of course they were here. Hated this place. I trudged up the steps to the front door, my boots tracking snow, and I banged on the door until it felt like my knuckles would break like icicles and fall off. It was Anna who opened the door, and her face fell at the sight of me, but I didn’t give a damn what she or anyone else thought of me right now.

“Veronica, what—”

“Why the hell did you fire Kelcey?”

She stopped, blinking fast. The house behind her—Lucy’s house, or Lucy’s grandmother Charlotte’s house technically, a crabby old woman who thrived on insulting everyone in her orbit and who I’d never really seen the appeal of—was all dressed up for Christmas with garland and lights and cozy plaid throws, a big Christmas tree twinkling in the living room behind Anna, and the air was heavy with the scent of gingerbread. I could hear Lucy and Charlotte talking from the next room, but none of that existed, not while I had a point to make or die trying.

“What?” she said after the pause. “What are you—I didn’t fire her.”

“Well, who the hell did?”

She put her hands up. “Veronica, for Christ’s sake, nobody fired Kelcey. Where did you even hear about this?”

“From Kelcey. What aren’t you telling me?”

She went wide-eyed, making a noise in her throat, before she sighed, defeated, stepping back to let me in out of the cold. Thank god. I hated the cold. I shivered and took in the warmth of the fireplace crackling next to the Christmas tree, shutting the door behind me, and I glowered at Anna until she spoke.

“She’s not fired. We just took her off the project and gave her some time out of the office. Mostly at the president’s request. Lucy and I are trying to make sure she gets back in by the new year. We also think it’s excessive and unfair, but… the president’s ego got involved so there’s only so much we can do for right now.”

So… so she wasn’t fired, at least. Thank god. I felt the fire in my chest die down a bit, and I sagged back against the wall. Still, I protested, “She was ahead of schedule on everything. If your goal was to try shaping her into your model employee, what the hell kind of lesson is it, that doing the work in half the time gets you removed from the project for arealprofessional to do it?”

Anna drew her lips in a tight line, expression darkening at the edges. “Since when were you talking to Kelcey?”

“I’m the outreach coordinator with ECR. So, since a minute ago now. She just didn’t realize it was me on the other side.”

Her jaw dropped, probably the most stunned I’d ever managed to get Anna, staring at me, blinking slowly, before she said, “You’re fucking joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

The floorboards creaked, and Lucy’s grandmother Charlotte rolled into the room in her wheelchair, a wispy kind of woman with thin gray hair and a look kind of like she had a lemon in her mouth. “If you’re going to bitch and moan, you might as well do it in the yard where I don’t have to hear it.”

I shot a look at Charlotte. “Ma’am, the forces of heaven and hell could move united against me, and not for one moment ina thousand years could I be made tonotbitch and moan. Keep your nose out of things you couldn’t possibly comprehend.”

Charlotte scowled. “Pah, this is why I can’t stand you, Veronica, you’re too much like me.”

Lucy stepped into the room behind her, leaning against the corner and looking at Anna like she was the only person in the room. Typical Luce. “What’s going on?” she said, and Anna shot her an exasperated look.

“Kelcey’s Nic. Turns out it’s my fucking sister.”

That meant Kelcey had gone talking about me to them… which could have been nice if I hadn’t fucked everything up. I shoved my hands in my pockets, hunching my shoulders as Lucy shot me a look equal parts mortified and disbelieving with just a touch ofimpressedin there too.

“You’re kidding.”

“Again with this! Do I look like I’m joking?”

Charlotte scowled. “You look like you’re making a scene in my house.”

“I told you to stay out of this,” I said. “Go back to reading a book so you can complain at an inanimate object.”

“Ah, you make your sister look good in comparison,” Charlotte muttered, wheeling her chair back out of the room. “Lucy, you couldn’t have found a different family to get involved with?”

Lucy didn’t even look at her, staring pointedly at me before she laughed, a short and dry sound. “How’d you even pull that one off? There’s stalking, and then there’s next-level creeping.”

“I wasn’t trying to pull anything off. I’ve been working for ECR for six months now. I mean, I guess in the end… I got in there because I knew Danielson, and I only knew Danielson from creeping around Anna’s work… so it’s not a complete coincidence, but I didn’t try to get in touch with Kelcey. I just panicked when Danielson put me on the case to talk to her.And he told me in no uncertain terms we couldn’t afford to lose that contract, so… I wasn’t going to go and lose the contract immediately by…” I put my hands up. “Okay, I’m a shitty person! I’m stuck on Kelcey and couldn’t help wanting to talk to her again! That’s not the point now, thepointis that I’m looking for whose neck I have to break to get Kelcey back to her position. You said it was the president?”

Anna pressed her fingers against her temples. “Veronica… do not break Berg’s neck. Please.” She shot me a withering look. “You know getting Kelcey’s project back isn’t going to fix things between you two.”

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