The door closed. Just us.
"Quit," I said.
She blinked. "What?"
"You heard me. Quit. Walk out. Tell Miles it didn’t work out. I’ll give you a month’s severance for your trouble."
"No."
"No?"
"I need this job, Mr. Hunter. So no."
"Everyone needs a job. Not everyone needs this one."
"I do." She straightened—half an inch, barely visible, but I caught it. Her voice didn't waver. It landed flat, final, the same tone I used when delivering quarterly projections to a board Ineeded to stop questioning me. "So unless you’re firing me, I’ll be here until then."
"How do you know my brother?" I asked.
"College. We used to attend a course together."
"And he just happened to offer you a position."
"He happened to be eating at the diner where I work. Worked." She corrected herself. "He saw me and offered. That’s it."
"How much is he paying you?"
Her eyebrows went up. "Paying me? You mean my salary?"
"Beyond the salary. To be here. To watch me. Whatever arrangement you two have. Name the figure. I’ll multiply it by ten."
She stared at me. A long, measured look that I felt behind my ribs in a way I found deeply unwelcome. "Nobody is paying me to watch you. I promise you, Mr. Hunter, watching you is not a job I’d volunteer for."
"I find it very hard to believe, Ms. uhhh…"
"Anna… Anna Wilson and that is very much true."
I leaned back in my chair and studied her. I'd spent over a decade reading people across boardroom tables and negotiation desks, parsing microexpressions and vocal inflections for weaknesses, and this woman wasn't performing bravery. She was simply standing in my office, in her probably three-year-old blazer, telling me no.
Irritating. And, worse than that, interesting.
"Leave," I said. "Nothing for you for now."
"Fine."
She walked to the door and it closed behind her.
I sat with the silence for five seconds. Then I straightened the pen she’d nudged out of alignment when she signed the contract. Then the notepad. Then the edge of the laptop. Then I wiped down the section of desk where her hand had rested.
Routine. That’s all it was. Routine.
Later, after two conference calls and a meeting that should have been an email, I sat at my desk with my Rubik’s cube and pulled up her file.
Anna Wilson. Twenty-five. Photographer from Charlotte, North Carolina. Gap in her employment history that spanned months, a hole in the timeline with no explanation. Waitress at a diner in Wynwood. A résumé that went from ascending to nonexistent like someone had taken scissors to it.
I turned the cube.
Click, click, click.
