There’s a man standing in my bathroom.
He’s solid—broad enough to fill the doorway, his jacket straining like it lost an argument with his shoulders. Not as tall as the ones from earlier, but heavier. A short beard, no expression worth reading. Not familiar.
He shuts the door behind him.
“Bea Mendez.”
My blood runs cold.
“Who-who…” The words won’t come out. Then, somehow, I swallow the shock and the fear. “Who are you?”
“Boss wants a word with you.”
Anger bubbles up beneath everything else. No. I’m done with bosses for the day.
“I don’t know who your boss is, and I don’t care. Get out.”
The demand comes out surprisingly strong.
Not that it matters. He moves a step closer. The bathroom isn’t big enough for that to be nothing. My back is against the sink already; there’s no actual distance to lose.
“He said you’d be like this.” He sounds almost pleased about it. “Little bit of fight in you. I like that.”
He tilts his head.
“See, I’m what the boss would call an investigator. That’s what I do. I ask people questions, and I find out things they didn’t want me to find out. And the thing about that kind of work”—he lets it sit—“is it comes with perks. Company perks. You get to decide how you get your answers. And afterwards, if the night’s still young, you get to help yourself to whatever else is lying around.”
His eyes slide down me once and come back up.
“Anything I want. That’s the rule, sweetheart.”
I grip the edge of the sink behind me. The water is still running in the shower; steam is thickening between us, and the sound of it covers the sound of my breathing, which is good, because my breathing is not where I want it to be.
“So,” he says. “What are you to D’Amico.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m-I’m his assistant.”
“Assistant.” He repeats it like he’s trying it on. “You his spy? Is that why he’s got you sitting in that office? Feeding you the good files?”
“What? No.”
“You running with someone? Someone out of town? One of the West Coast people?”
“I’m his assistant.”
“Keep saying it.” He pushes off the doorframe. “Maybe one more time it’ll mean something.”
“It’s the truth.”
“See, that’s where you lose me, sweetheart.” He takes another slow step into the room. “Because I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know how these floors work. Assistant—that’s a job on six. That’s a girl who answers a phone and types up a calendar and goes home at five. What the hell does anassistantdo on theexecutive floor of a law firm that cleans money for half this city? You pouring his coffee? That what we’re doing?”
I don’t answer.
“Tell you the truth, that’s why boss picked me for this. Said he needed somebody who could smell bullshit from across the room.” A small tap against his temple. “I smell bullshit from across the room. And everything about you—the floor you work on, the girl you replaced, the fact that you’ve got no family in this life and you’re still sitting six feet from D’Amico’s office—every piece of that is bullshit.”
