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“Excuse me.Sheis standing right here and doesn’t appreciate being ignored.” She looked between them with disappointment.
Joey’s admonishment brought a wave of embarrassment. He was acting like a jealous, protective boyfriend. He didn’t even know what to call their relationship, but Joey was right.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. This should be up to you.”
Flint scoffed, and Joey smiled. “I’m fine, Cole. Flint is right. This is my job. Why don’t you go meet Dolores and wait for me? We can go grab dinner after I’m done here.” She turned to Flint. “Assuming I won’t be here all night?”
“This meeting will be about twenty minutes, but you’ll have some work to do.”
Cole tried to hide his disappointment. “I’ll talk to you after the meeting, and we can make a plan, okay?”
Joey nodded. Her eyes spoke volumes though. Even if he came across as a fool, she wanted him here, and that was enough.
Cole backtracked his steps to the lobby. He’d barely noticed the gray-haired woman sitting at the reception desk when they came in.
“Kicked you out, did they?” Her voice was raspy and weathered, like she’d smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for thirty years.
He nodded. “I’m Cole.”
“Oh, I know who you are. Dolores Pinkman, at your service.”
He shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Dolores. Have you worked at Black Tower very long?”
“Two years or so. I thought I was going to retire and live a nice quiet life, you know.” She leaned in and winked. “Turns out, that’s as boring as afternoon tea. Flint convinced me to come work for him.”
Cole chuckled. “He can be very convincing, can’t he?” It was something Cole was grateful for. When he’d been invited to join a Bible study for business owners, he figured it would be real estate agents and insurance salesmen. But he and Flint had hit it off. Not many people could relate to running large corporations. What had started as a weekly early morning coffee meeting had transformed into a friendship that lasted more than a decade now.
And had introduced him to Joey.
“What did you do before? Did you work for Flint at Raven Tech?”
Dolores laughed, a cackle that erupted inside the quiet lobby. “Not exactly. I was an intelligence analyst.”
Cole raised his eyebrows. “Analyst, huh?”
She winked. “Absolutely.”
While it was certainly possible that Flint had recruited a former intelligence analyst to man the front desk at Black Tower, Cole had the sneaking suspicion that there was more to Dolores’s story.
“Tell me about you, Cole Kensington. Rumor has it that you’re sweet on our Josephina?” Dolores’s eyes sparkled with mischief.
Cole felt the heat in his cheeks, and he couldn’t fight the smile that spread across his face at the question. Somehow he knew he was about to tell this unsuspecting motherly figure far more than he would have intended.
* * *
Once Cole was out of the room, Joey took a seat at the table. Ross McClain sat at the head, with Flint to his right and Will Gilbert to his left. Tank took a seat next to her.
“What’s going on?”
Ross nodded. “I’m sure you’ve seen the news. The President was shot and it isn’t looking good. She is still in surgery.”
The door opened to her left. Jackson Kelley tiptoed in and pulled out his seat, setting an energy drink in front of him.
“Sorry I’m late,” he offered.
She rolled her eyes. Ross simply nodded and continued his briefing.
“With Madame President incapacitated, Vice President Coulter has been sworn in. He’s married to my sister-in-law.”
