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“Well, sure.” She slides her arm around mine and leads me in the direction of the elevator. “You’re my superior in everything—education, work, age, life experience.”
I scowl.Is she calling me old?
“I know you’re the new Doctor Chant, but since you don’t even know where the bathroom is yet, I can be forgiven for celebrating my elite status for a little while longer.” Stopping in the middle of the elevator and turning back to face the lobby, Aubree leans forward and taps the button for the ninth floor. “I’m not telling you where the bathrooms are until I’m done with my power trip. Also,” her bright blue eyes come to mine, “you’re prettier than I expected.”
“Oh… um…”
“I mean, that’s not to say I expected you to be a troll or anything, and it’s not like I didn’t look you up online. But you’re a doctor, not a celebrity, so the pictures publicly available were scarce and always a little grainy, and youalwayswore a frown.” She presses her pointer finger between my brows, startling me when she makes contact. “You have a wrinkle there from all the scowling.”
I slap her hand away, harder than I intend, so the blow is a loud echo in the elevator.
Just as surprised by my hit, Aubree cradles her arm for a moment and glowers, like my desire not to be touched is so foreign to her, she simply cannot process it.
However, she recovers the moment the elevator stops on the ninth floor, flashes a wide grin, and wraps her arm around mine. “We’re gonna need a minute to understand each other, Doctor Mayet. Can I call you Minka?” She leads me out of the elevator and toward a desk whose telephones ring incessantly. “No?”
When I say nothing, Aubree nods and tugs me past that busy desk. “Maybe by the end of the day, then. Don’t worry about the phones; you never have to answer those.”
“Is…” I look back, but Aubree pulls me forward. “Is that your job? Are you my assistant?”
She barks out a loud laugh. “No way. I’m one of you. I’m the you, but not from New York. I’m the you,” she adds a little louder, “but I like color in my hair, and though I applied for your new job, I didn’t get it, because I’m young and then there’s the pink. Plus, apparently you come with a helluva resume, and your old boss speaks highly of you.”
She yanks me through a set of heavy glass doors. “I’m Doctor Emeri, second only to you, and I’m totally okay with that, because we’re gonna be friends. When the time comes, you’ll speak highly of me, since I’m cool and all. Plus, you still don’t know where the bathrooms are, which means…”
“You’re superior for right now.”
“Exactly!” Looking down at my pitiful and empty coffee mug, she snags it from my hand and leaves it on an unmanned desk as we charge by. “Don’t worry. No one will touch it.”
“That’s not my mug. I have to return it—”
“No one will touch it. That wasmydesk. No one ever goes there, and yours…”
She drops my arm and throws her hands forward in ata-dagesture to show off a massive office of tiles and wide windows. A heavy, black, L-shaped desk sits in the middle of the room, and a tall-backed chair sits behind it, poised and ready for me to take my seat. Bookshelves line the wall beyond that, and to my left, about twelve feet from the desk, two two-seater sofas are arranged facing each other, as though welcoming asses to sit and socialize during office hours.
My new office is on the northeast side of the building, so the morning sun glistens through the floor-to-ceiling windows and bounces off the polished light fixtures lining the ceiling.
My nose wrinkles up in rejection.
“It’s a little gaudy.” Aubree leans close enough to rest her shoulder on mine and lowers her voice. “Doctor Chant had been here awhile, and over the years, she got to a point where she enjoyed the shiny bling-bling. But nothing in here is permanent if you don’t want it. If this was my office, I’d nix the mini chandeliers and one of the sofas.”
“Only one?”
“Mm.” She points toward the far wall. “I’d push one over there for sleeping, because hell knows we pull some long shifts here sometimes. But the desk,” she looks that way, “is nice and super large to hold the billion files that’ll get dumped on top. Everyone appreciates desk space. And the chair is hella comfy for when you’re stuck doing paperwork instead of processing bodies.”
“You sound awfully familiar with my office.”
She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “I played pretend on Friday while Chant was gone. I also looked you up on that computer,” she points toward the screen on my new desk, “and left a gift in your top drawer. A welcome home present.”
“You left a present?” I leave myallegedsecond in charge’s side and make my way around the desk. “Is it a bomb? A threat?” I stop with my hand on the drawer handle. “A snake? Are you readying to haze me?”
“Fear of snakes.” She approaches my desk and parks her rounded ass on the side opposite from where I stand. “Noted. And no, it’s candy.”
Curious, I slide the drawer open and discover a packet of heart-shaped suckers. Frowning, I pick up the bag and study the torn packaging. “They’ve been opened.”
“I was pretending to be you on Friday.” Pleased with herself, she reaches out and snags another from the bunch. “My day wouldn’t have been complete unless I took one.” She tears the wrapping off and shoves the sucker into her mouth. “I actually bought these last February after the Valentine’s Day rush. Candy isalwayscheaper on February fifteenth, so I stocked up and tossed my cache on top of the fridge at home. I knew the universe would tell me the right time to gift them out.” She pulls the sucker from her mouth and grins. “And here we are.”
She’s a little bit crazy, and a hell of a lot perky. I have whiplash, as my morning swings from the angry Tim to the overeager Aubree.
Sighing, I drop into my chair and rub my hand across my face. “And here we are. Uh…” I look through my office windows—not outside, but back toward Aubree’s desk area. “Where is my team?”
