Also, Molly had a machete.
It was braced over her head, ready to strike. Her fiery hair had once been slicked into a ballerina bun, but loose ends freed themselves into a stark red mane. A fat smudge of maroon inked her cheek—lipstick, Fletcher hoped.
A feeble, Victorian waif of a hope. But still.
“It’s just me!” Fletcher shrilled.
Momentum had taken hold of the machete. The blade sliced downward, snagging on the weave of the tote as Fletcher spun out of reach. A few clementines rolled out of her bag as she threw her arms up to shield her face.
“Me,” she tried again. “Fletcher.”
Her chest heaved with labored breaths. There wasn’t any blood dripping off the machete blade, but that was Fletcher’s only solace.
Molly’s eyes stayed blank. Dark. Wild.
It took all Fletcher’s strength not to race down the hall in a blind panic, but she vaguely remembered learning it was bad to run frompredators. Weren’t you supposed to punch sharks in the face? Was this a shark-punching situation?
No, surely some sense could be talked into Molly.
“Spence. Fletcher Spence. We had drinks together last night. You did my onboarding three years ago. That’s pretty much the only real time we ever spent together, but I still don’t think I deserve to get macheted.”
Nothing. Maybe Molly had been possessed by Dyer’s vengeful ghost. He was probably mad Fletcher forgot to instruct the staff to fold the towels like giraffes instead of swans. Come to think of it, hehadn’thad the chance to ream her for using the breakfast napkins last night at dinner. A poltergeist-haunting-worthy offense in his book.
“Molly, the heat’s gone to your head. Put the knife down. You don’t have to do this.”
Molly’s glare said otherwise.
“Shutup!” Molly groaned as she reeled her sharpened knife back like a baseball bat. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
“Okay, sure. Shutting up.” Fletcher ducked as the blade swung overhead. Maybe even trimmed a few hairs.
As calmly as she could, Fletcher inched down the hall, hands still framing her face to block Molly’s next swing. Her shoestring budget didnothave any extra room for an emergency rhinoplasty.
Except the thing about being nervous was that her mouth had a mind of its own.
“I’m great at shutting up. If you need someone to shut up, I’m your girl.” A credenza rammed into Fletcher’s spine.Ow. “Actually, I feel like that would make me great at HR. Do you need more help on the People team? I could put in a transfer request.”
Molly’s jaw unhinged, and a banshee-loud cry filled the hall. “I’m sosickof listening to you people yap if you aren’t going to say anything interesting.”
“I’m not yapping,” Fletcher whispered, skidding down the hall to stay out of reach of Molly’s blade. How far was the garage? She couldn’t remember.
“Day in. Day out. All I hear is:Molly, can you approve my PTO?Molly,does calling the custodian’s facial hair a ‘porn star mustache’ count as sexual harassment? Molly, Slater from IT is purposefully clogging the thirty-ninth floor toilets. Again.”
Slater from IT historically had unpredictable bowels and a penchant for vengeance. Fletcher wouldn’t put it past him.
“If I have to listen to one more sob story about how Rick’s fifth grandmother died in her sleep and he needs to take a week of bereavement, I’m going to build a time machine so that he never has a grandmother to begin with.”
The tip of Molly’s blade swung perilously close. Things were devolving faster than Fletcher’d hoped—her schedule hadn’t included a Molly Meltdown until at least nine p.m. Unlike Sales, Marketing, and the C-suite, she didn’t have a team to rely on. She’d gone totally rogue.
Fletcher needed something she could defend herself with. Desperately. Anything would be better than bruised produce.
“Russo and Dunlap are in their own little Brian echo chamber, where nothing is their fault, and I’m never approving them to be hiring managers because the last thing this godforsaken company needs ismore Brians.”
Retreating, Fletcher’s hands spread wide behind her, searching for a weapon or an exit route or both. Of all the things she’d thought to prep for this week—the welcome gifts, the hors d’oeuvres menu, the cocktail hour playlist—she hadn’t devoted every inch of the estate’s floor plan to memory, and it was about to bite her in the ass. Or stab her in the neck.
“Hiring Sheila was a paperwork nightmare. But you.” Molly’sstare was white-hot and fixed on Fletcher with the kind of intensity typically reserved for serial killers. “Little. Miss. Perfect.”
Fletcher smiled. The habitual movement vanished when she realized Molly definitely hadn’t meant it as a compliment. Steam practically poured out of her ears. Her face had gone as red as her hair—if one of their demented coworkers didn’t kill her, an aneurysm might.
