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I was waiting at my desk and drumming my fingers when my secretary called.
“What is it?”
“Lola Thorn just called in sick.”
I hung up the phone and glared at my computer. I should’ve been relieved. Her being absent would mean I could go on with my day and avoid the distraction of chewing her out for what she did yesterday. But after a few minutes of trying to draft an email to an important international client, I pushed my chair back and ran a hand through my hair.
Sick? What did that mean, exactly? Did she just have a cold, or was she violently shivering in her bed right now between vomiting sessions? Or was she waiting in some emergency room lobby with even more serious symptoms?
I clenched my jaw and dialed my secretary.
“Yes, Mr. Stone?”
“Did Miss Thorn give any details about her symptoms?”
“Um, no, Sir. Sorry. She only called and said she was sorry, but she wasn’t feeling well enough to make it in. I think those were her exact words.”
I hesitated with my hand itching to end the call, but I couldn’t help myself. “How did she sound?”
“Pardon, Sir?”
“Her voice. Did she sound weak? Or did she sound alright?”
“If you’re asking if she was faking, Sir, I don’t think so. She sounded sick to me.”
I hung up the phone and grabbed my jacket. I was going to fucking regret this. I knew I was.
I had one of my assistants pull up Lola’s address by the time I made it to my car. It was a ten-minute drive from the office that took me to a brick apartment complex. It barely even registered that this was one of only a handful of times I’d driven out of the tower since relocating out here to Fairhope. The relocation had made some sense from a business perspective. It let my employees get affordable housing outside the city while still having access to a branch of Stone Financial. It also served as a kind of symbolic reset button after the shitstorm my brothers had stirred up. And last but not least, it expanded our presence outside the East Coast of the U.S. and gave us a central location to make recruiting from across the country less expensive and more appealing to some candidates.
But I had to admit the move also triggered something in me. I’d shifted from someone who occasionally went out after work to a complete recluse. I’d convinced myself that the only way to atone for the sins of my brothers was to devote myself entirely to the company. Somehow that had morphed into the idea that so much as leaving the tower was a form of surrender–that if someone like Adrian Bellamo or Trisha Frost heard I was gallivanting around town, they’d make their move to have me stripped of responsibility.
My thoughts centered back on Lola when I pulled up to her apartment building. The place was surrounded by an old white picket fence that was green with age and tilting in various directions. The cars in the parking lot were beat to various states of hell, and many of the small apartment patios were decorated with plastic lawn chairs, old bikes, and some had laundry hanging to dry over the railings.
I got out of my car, wincing at the sight of the place. I was paying her enough to afford better than this, wasn’t I?
I had to stop in the leasing office because I didn’t have her apartment number on file. A man in overalls with a checkered flannel shirt was watching an old black and white western movie on a tube style TV. His boot-clad feet were kicked up and he was sucking on the end of a piece of straw.
“I need to know which unit is Lola Thorn’s,” I said
The man moved with painful slowness as he picked up the remote, raised it, clicked the pause button, then set it down. He finally turned in his chair to face me and raised his eyebrows. “And I need to know what business it is of yours.”
He had a heavy southern accent as he spoke around the straw at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m her boss.”
“And?”
“She called in sick today.”
He rocked back in his chair, folding his arms over his sizable belly. “You usually drag your fancy suited ass out of work to check on your employees personally when they call in sick, Mister?”
“She’s my executive assistant. I need to touch base with her.”
“Her phone broken?”
I already wanted to jump over the desk and throttle this slow drawling asshole. “Tell me which unit she’s in. Now.”
A slow smile spread on his face. “I’m ‘fraid I don’t respond well to threats, Mister. Why don’t you back it on up and give that one another try?”
I noticed a set of mailboxes to his right. They were all numbered and labeled with a first initial and last name. A quick scan showed me that the box for number thirteen was labeled “L. Thorn.”
