Page 71 of Dirty Laundry (Down and Dirty)

“That’s why I asked. And second, you’re moving?”

Heidi snorted and opened her bottom-left desk drawer. She found the pack of leather cleaning wipes and wriggled one out of the dispenser. There was some sort of spot on the trim of her desk calendar. Once something out-of-place caught her eye, she could rarely ignore it. “That also seems to be the case,” she told Tim.

“I remember when you used to tell me things.”

“Timmy, I used to tellmethings. I have no idea what’s happening.”

“Well, shit. Need help?”

The spot wasn’t coming out. She leaned to peer closer at the mark. The weekend janitorial staff might have used a different duster than they usually did. She was going to have to have a chat with the crew supervisor, if she could ever get hold of the man. Everything had gone to shit since Earthan retired. He hadn’t been afraid to figuratively knock heads together when he needed to. That was why Heidi had happily increased the vendor pay rate in the company budget every year, whether Earthan formally raised the invoice prices or not.

Come January, someone was going to be shit-out-of-luck when she backed down to the original negotiated rate.

I bet he’ll answer the phone then.

“Oh, I’ll sort it out in a bit,” Heidi murmured as she sent the wipe sailing into the waste bin. “But while I have you on the line, do you have any idea why Clay keeps calling and not leaving messages?”

“None. He hasn’t tried calling me. I wonder what’s up.”

“Probably just Clay being Clay,” Heidi mused.

“Which should worry us both more.”

As was her norm with Tim, she hung up without warning and looked at the clock.2:59.

Close enough to five, in her estimation.

She gathered the flower box and her purse and turned off the office light with her elbow on her way past the switch.

“Timmy, I’m out,” she said as she passed his doorway downstairs.

“Dealing with Clay things?”

“No. Dealing with Heidi things.”

She was moving quickly enough that he didn’t have a chance to ask a follow-up question.

The Heidi things were coalescing amorphously in her mind with every step she took toward the factory’s side door. The problem with being a habitual mastermind was that once she started making plans for things, she had to fix all the issues surrounding them. Otherwise, the effort would be unsatisfying, if not entirely pointless.

She’d made it all the way to her car when her phone rang.

It was Clay.

Groaning, she hovered her thumb over the Ignore button. She let it go for two rings, then figured she might as well get the inconvenience out of the way. Clay wasn’t the just-called-to-chat kind of antihero.

“What’s the emergency, Clayton?” she asked him without greeting.

“Has Valerie heard from Leah?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Can’t ask Tim anymore. He told me to stop asking him, and I don’t want to annoy Valerie, ’cause if I annoy her, she’ll tell Leah to never talk to me again. I miss her.”

God.

Heidi’s shoulders sagged as she tugged open the front passenger door. She didn’t envy his situation. He’d found someone he clicked with who he’d thought clicked back, but their gears weren’t quite aligning. Matchmaking had never been one of Heidi’s talents, so she didn’t have any advice for him. The woman had Clay moon-eyed in a way he hadn’t been for anyone else Heidi had ever known him to be with, and she’d known him just as long as she’d known Tim. They’d practically grown up together.

“All I can give you is this.” Being careful not to crush the box corners, Heidi set the flowers on the seat and pulled the seatbelt around them. “She texted me last week from the road. Sent me a picture from the backstage of the performance venue.”

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