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39
Mia and Juliet
Harper Building at 320 Madison Avenue
Harper Strategic Services
New York
Thursday, late afternoon
When the express elevator door opened directly onto the executive offices on the forty-fifth floor, they saw Mrs. Wallaby, Kent Harper’s administrative assistant, pulling a brocade handbag out of a drawer. Mia walked forward. “Thank you so much for waiting for us, Mrs. Wallaby.”
Mrs. Wallaby smiled at Mia, looked beyond her. “Three of you? Well, I did tell Mr. Harper you, Ms. Briscoe, would be coming by. Poor young man, he’s up to his neck in contract negotiations. I hope you have some pleasant news to make him smile.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’ll certainly try to make him forget the contracts.”
Mrs. Wallaby’s eyes locked on Sherlock. “Goodness me, you’re Agent Sherlock.” And she hurried around her desk, thrust out her hand. Sherlock obligingly shook it.
“Such a pleasure to meet you. Kent will be so pleased to meet you as well, and to see you again, Ms. Briscoe. He never says much, but he was smiling the rest of the day after you left. I have to say, though, he hasn’t quite been himself today. I suppose it’s the stress of work. I’m sure the three of you will make him feel better.”
Mia said, “Isn’t business good?”
Mrs. Wallaby gave a discreet cough. “No, of course business is splendid. I shouldn’t have said anything. But I think he could use a pleasant surprise. Would you like me to tell him you’ve brought Agent Sherlock?”
“Please don’t bother. We’ll surprise him.”
Mrs. Wallaby nodded, pulled her coat from the rack behind her desk. “Well, three pretty young women, he’ll think he’s in one of his video games.” The phone on her desk beeped and she picked it up, listened. She winked at Mia as she said, “Yes, sir, I’m on my way. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Once the elevator door closed on Mrs. Wallaby, Sherlock sat down in a visitor’s chair. “That worked out well. Good luck, Juliet, and thank you for coming. What you’re about to do, it takes guts. Don’t think we don’t know that.”
Juliet sucked in a deep breath. “I won’t lie, this is scary, seeing Kent again—but it will be worth it. And it’s time I stepped up to the plate.”
Mia and Juliet walked the short gray-carpeted hallway with the old photos of New York City on the walls. “You okay?”
Juliet’s beautiful face looked fierce. “Yes.” She paused. “Like I told you and Sherlock in the lobby, I might not have come, hard to say now, but Sherlock’s call talked me into it. I’ll admit, Mia, I wanted to shoot you for telling her, an FBI agent. But you know what she said to me? ‘Imagine lying in an unmarked grave, no one knows where you are or what happened to you. Imagine what your parents feel, their child, gone with no idea where or why, think about what they’d live with the rest of their lives.’” Juliet paused, swallowed. “I thought of my mom and dad, and I knew if I simply disappeared, no word, no trace, it would kill them.”
Mia laid her hand on Juliet’s arm. “What Sherlock said is true. You can’t know how much I admire you. You ready?”
Juliet took a deep breath, nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Mia tapped on Kent’s door as she opened it. He was standing in the middle of the office, holding a gilded medieval sword over his head, ready to bring it down. He jerked when he saw Mia in the doorway. He slowly lowered the sword, gave her an embarrassed smile. “It’s been a hard day. I’ve found exercising with this sword de-stresses me. What a great surprise.”
But it was anything but great. So he’d spoken to Alex, and now she was the enemy. Then Kent saw Juliet and froze, a look of horror on his face until he smoothed it out. He said, “Juliet, ah, I don’t understand. Why are you here in New York? Do you have a performance at Carnegie I didn’t hear about? Why are you with Mia?”
“Hello, Kent,” Juliet said. “No, I’m not here to perform. It’s been a long time. You’re looking well.” She waved her hand at the walls. “You’re still playing with your sword. And I see you’re still surrounded by your gaming toys.”
“They’re bloody collectibles, worth a mint!”
Mia shook her head at him and said, her voice filled with censure and disappointment, just like Mrs. Marvin, one of her third-grade teachers, “Sure they are, Kent. The sword, everything in here—in a grown man’s power office—is make-believe, a teenage boy’s fantasy. Aren’t you a little old to be slashing around that ridiculous sword?”
Kent slowly laid the sword against his desk, to give himself time to think. When he finally looked at Juliet, he said, “Why are you here?”
“I’m here, Kent, to right past wrongs.”
“What past wrongs? What is going on here? Mia?”
Mia gave him a blazing smile. “I’m Juliet’s backup.”
