Chapter 9
Beckett Forsman, the general counsel of Whitaker Enterprises, looked at us across the large table.
He wasn’t yelling or cussing like other people I’d known in the past and he also wasn’t a physically intimidating person like others I knew now.
Our boss didn’t need any of that to scare us out of our wits.
Rashelle had been pulling up her collar to wipe away a few tears and Munir was visibly sweating—and those two weren’t even to blame for this situation.
I wasn’t either, and I felt that I’d managed to maintain the “focused and concerned” expression that was always my go-to here at the office.
I really was concerned, but I didn’t believe that I was going to get fired.
The truth had come out as Beckett had questioned us during the meeting about why the Four-Squared project had gone totally off track.
He had determined that Munir, Rashelle, and I were not at fault.
Octavia had reacted in a different way from the three of us. She’d first gotten defensive, and then she got mad. It had been the wrong tack to take. Beckett had let her bluster and try to bully him, and then, in a voice like ice, he’d asked, “Are you finished?”
In the same tone, he’d gone through a point-by-point objurgation of the legal work on the Four-Squared development in West Michigan, the project that she had been helming.
He had already reviewed everything and had discovered it had gone sideways and that someone had been trying to hide that fact.
Octavia often liked to tell us about cabals and secret consortiums that might have been working against us all, but in this case?
There was only one person to blame: herself.
Now Beckett asked the rest of us to leave the conference room and Munir, Rashelle, and I silently filed out. For once, we couldn’t hear our coworker’s voice through the glass but we could catch the low tones of our boss, and I was sure that he wasn’t saying anything good.
Rashelle passed two shaking hands over her cheeks, wiping away the moisture that she’d missed with her collar.
“I’ve never been so glad to get out of a room,” she told us fervently, “even more than when there was a fire in the science lab at my high school and we all had to run. I wish I was still on my honeymoon and I had missed this.”
“I would have gotten married just to avoid it,” Munir said. “I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I still felt like I was sitting in the principal’s office. Or like I was going before a firing squad.”
“You both did great,” I told them, and Rashelle looked at me.
“I don’t know how you stayed so calm. You just kept answering Beckett’s questions and you were right about everything you said, too, I know that you were. You’re—oh, shit. Let’s go, Munir,” she muttered, because Octavia was just leaving the conference room.
“Does Beckett want to talk to me?” I asked, and she shook her head. Without a word, she returned to her office and she swiveled her chair so that I couldn’t see her face through the glass wall.
But this wasn’t over, because someone had to rescue the Four-Squared project.
I did talk to my boss again and I stayed late at my desk, up until I realized that I had to hurry so that Lyra wouldn’t be at home by herself.
“Everything ok?” Silas asked me when I arrived.
He was holding on to his shorter ponytail, a habit he’d developed since we’d left Kentucky.
My mom had given him a trim but she hadn’t cut off everything.
He looked much the same, just a little neater, but he felt the difference and he also seemed to feel the need to check on what was left.
“My head feels light,” he’d mentioned several times on the long drive back to Michigan.
“Your hair looks good and I’m all right,” I answered now. “There are some problems at work.” But we didn’t have time to talk anymore than that, because his ride came to pick him up for his own job so we had to say goodbye.
Lyra looked different, too. My mom had trimmed and styled her hair, and it was nothing at all like the thick mat that she’d had when I’d first met her.
More importantly, she seemed to love it and she liked to check on her new cut in my compact mirror.
“Did you get in trouble today?” she asked as I took out the plate that he had wrapped and left in the fridge for me.
She wrinkled her nose at it. “Silas thought it was a good idea to put peanuts in there,” she said.
“Peanuts with chicken and dumplings?” My nose wrinkled too.
“Did you pick them out?” She nodded, and after I’d reheated my dinner, I did as well.
“I didn’t get in trouble,” I explained as I started to eat.
“Someone at my office messed up, though, so we have to fix it. I have to work a little more after I eat so I won’t be able to make bracelets tonight.
” We’d been knotting friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss and she planned to give them out in her class, something I’d been very excited about but had successfully hidden.
“That’s ok,” she told me. “What did that person in your office do wrong? I bet it’s the girl that you always get mad at.”
“I get mad at someone?” I asked. I had missed a peanut when I’d searched for them in my dinner and as I chewed it now, I decided that it didn’t taste too bad in this dish. I kind of appreciated the unexpected crunch.
“You don’t get mad at people like I do. You say stuff like, ‘She could communicate better,” she said, and she had imitated both my voice and the accent I tried to keep out of it. I smiled and then I laughed.
“I don’t sound like that!” I said, but I was sure that I did. “Well, you’re right and it was that person, and the problem was due to the fact that she wasn’t communicating. I could have helped her if she had talked to me about it.”
“What?” Lyra asked. “What did she do?”
“She missed several deadlines, which is the same thing as not handing in school stuff when it’s due. She also messed up some documents she wrote. She sent things that were wrong to our client and to the city where my company is working. Our boss is pretty mad, but he doesn’t yell at us.”
“Does he act disappointed? That’s what you do.”
“I do?” I asked, surprised.
“Like this,” she told me. She adjusted her features and I recognized the expression, because it was how I looked when my feelings were hurt. I’d seen it when I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the car mirrors while riding with Dax, for example, and I didn’t like it.
“I’ll stop doing that,” I told her.
“You should express your feelings,” she told me solemnly. “That’s what Silas says. My counselor said it too, but you have to do it in ways that are appropriate. Do you understand?”
“I think I do,” I answered, and she seemed glad to hear it.
“You also shouldn’t keep secrets, like if someone is hurting you. You can tell Silas.”
“Lyra, is someone…was someone…”
“I’m ok,” she told me, and she actually patted my shoulder. “But you don’t have to worry about telling him, even if it’s something bad or you’re scared to say it. Because he’ll help you. Do you need to talk to Silas about your boss?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m really not in trouble,” I tried to reassure her, but she still seemed a little concerned.
She brought the bracelet supplies down from her room and sat across the table from me while I worked, knotting quietly until it was time for her to go to bed.
She let me tuck her in but I did stop myself from kissing her forehead, the way I wanted to.
I had more than a little work to do because Octavia’s project was a mess.
It had gotten even worse while Rashelle was out of the office for ten days on her honeymoon, and I wished that I’d been aware of it sooner.
But she wasn’t my subordinate—we were on the same level, peers.
That was something that Beckett, our actual boss, had discussed with me today.
And despite what I’d told Lyra, I really did want to talk to Silas about it.
He was so good at reading people and he didn’t have experience in the corporate world, but relationships and hierarchies were the same wherever you were.
I couldn’t call him while he was at the loading dock, though, and I figured that I’d be asleep by the time he got home early tomorrow morning.
That was what I figured before I got into things, but when I did, I discovered so much more that I would need to accomplish in order to put the project back together.
I was on the phone with Octavia, I was texting with Beckett, and finally, I was sitting by myself with only the kitchen light above me in the quiet of this nice neighborhood as I continued to work alone.
I yawned and rubbed my neck but I kept at it, and suddenly I realized what time it was.
Silas should have been back. Since I only had his information for that stupid flip phone, I couldn’t see his location and when I called that stupid flip phone, he didn’t answer. So I called again, then again. Each time he didn’t pick up, I got more worried.
That explained why I dropped my phone when it rang and showed his name, and then I said, “Silas? Silas!” instead of answering normally.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“Do you know Detroit Saint Raphael?” he asked.
“Detroit Saint—is that a hospital? Are you saying that you’re in a hospital?”
“I’m fine,” he told me. His voice did sound pretty normal, just slightly garbled. But how many people went to the hospital because they were “fine?” “I’ll be home in a little while. I’ll get a car.”
“I’m coming there. I’m coming there!”
“I don’t want you to drive around the city and I don’t want you to leave Ly.”
“I’ll figure that out! I’m coming, Silas!”
“Shit, ok,” he sighed, and it reminded me a lot of when I had asked Dax if I could come visit him on one of his nights at a club. He really hadn’t wanted me and I had listened and hadn’t gone.