Chapter Sixteen
I t was five o’clock, which meant that technically, Bea had seven hours left in which to get Alli’s phone. Otherwise, well, the otherwise was too awful to think about. Trying to imagine telling Liz that she couldn’t pay back the deposit on the flat made Bea feel a little bit sick. Actually, a lot sick.
Which was why she was pulling on a pair of gloves that she’d taken from the kitchen. She’d been a bit worried about that part, but Celine, the cook, had just shrugged in disinterest and pointed her to the box of gloves on the counter.
Her hands felt dry and strange in the plastic. Once she had them on, she realized that she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do now. She’d covered the leaving no fingerprints part. She had most of the code to the padlock on the trunk, thanks to Alli’s observance. Getting into the locked room was another matter entirely.
The programmers were meditating, so the halls seemed empty as she made her way to the room. She got there, looked over both shoulders, then tried the handle. Locked. Obviously. Why had she thought any different?
She peered at the lock like she might be able to magically open it. No such luck. She needed the key and Luke had the key. Which meant—
“What on earth are you doing?”
She looked up to see Josh with his hands on his hips. “Um… ”
He rolled his eyes. “You know it’s locked, right?”
“I know, I know, but…” She had precisely zero excuses.
He sighed. “You should have taken your phone out when Luke was busy putting away the clients’ electronics like the rest of us did.”
“Wait, what?”
“Except you weren’t here, were you?”
She had no choice but to go for it again, since the conversation was spiraling out of her control. “Wait, what?”
He grinned. “You don’t think we’d all let Luke take our phones for real, do you? We let him take them and then, when the programmers come in, we sneak in and get them back before Luke locks the door again. But you, obviously, were late, so you didn’t get the chance.” He twisted his mouth in thought. “There’s no getting through that door.”
“Right,” said Bea, finally catching up. He thought her phone was in there. She didn’t correct him, not when it looked like he might help.
“Okay, the keys are in the brass pot on Luke’s desk. You just need to distract him long enough to grab them, come back here, get your stuff, and replace them before he notices. Easy.”
“Easy?” Her stomach felt all hiccuppy at the thought.
“Yeah, just go tell him, I don’t know, tell him Daria wants him for something. He’ll go off looking for her.”
“He will?”
Josh’s eyes sparkled. “Not figured out that they’ve got a thing going on yet?”
“Uh, no?”
“Well, they do. Go tell him that, get the keys, and then rush back here. I’ll keep an eye out make sure no one comes near. Go on, off you go.”
Could it really be that easy? She looked at Josh, who wiggled his eyebrows at her. Alright, if she was going to do it, it might as well be now.
She hurried down the corridor to Luke’s office, knocking on the door and then sticking her head around it .
“What?” Luke said, absorbed in some sort of paperwork.
“Uh, Daria wants you?”
He looked up and then grinned the grin of a man who wasn’t thinking with his brain. “Right, cheers.”
He practically ran out of the office, leaving Bea in the corridor outside. She took three deep breaths before she went in. She went around his desk and easily found the keys before being distracted by the papers on his desk. They were some kind of financial statements. The numbers were impressive. More impressive than she would have imagined. She didn’t think that the program could be making that much money.
A sound out in the corridor reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. She pocketed the keys and rushed back to where Josh was waiting.
“Told you it would work,” he said. “Go on then, in you go. I’ll stay out here and be lookout. If I see someone coming, I’ll knock twice on the door and you’d better hide yourself away in there, just in case. Got it?”
Bea nodded breathlessly and then tried to unlock the door with hands that were shaking so much that Josh had to take the keys from her and do it himself.
Once inside, she had a millisecond to think about what exactly she was doing. Breaking into a locked room. If she got caught doing this, she’d be fired for sure. But then, if she didn’t do it, she’d be fired for sure. She took a breath. Alright, she’d better not be caught.
She went to the trunk, dialed in the first three numbers that Alli had given her, then went through the cycle of the fourth barrel until she hit seven and the lock sprang open.
She hurriedly searched through the ziplock bags until she found the one with Alli’s name on it, all the while listening for Josh’s knocks.
And then she had a dilemma. Did she leave the empty bag in the trunk or take it with her? Which would look more suspicious? Take it with her, she decided. Alli’s phone was heavy in her hand and one tiny little piece of her brain told her to check it, to look and see. But she didn’t. Alli made her feel funny in ways she couldn’t define, and what she really wanted was the woman out of her life for good.
“All done,” she said brightly to Josh as she slipped out of the room and handed him the keys to lock up. She hoped she looked innocent enough.
“Not so fast,” said Josh.
So she looked guilty. Great.
He held the keys up. “You’re not done yet, you’ve got to put these back.”
Right. She grabbed the keys and tore off back down the corridor to Luke’s office, dropping them in the dish, leaving, and closing the door behind her. She took a second to lean against the corridor wall and get her breath back.
“Waste of my damn time,” Luke said as he strode around a corner.
Bea straightened up.
“You, yes, you, what were you thinking?” he said as he saw her.
“I, uh, I, um…”
“Stutter away,” he said, coming closer. “Daria had no idea what I was talking about and said that she’d barely swapped two words with you. What the hell do you think you were doing? Lying to me? Really?”
“No, I…” She shrank back against the wall. She really hadn’t thought this through. A life of crime was definitely not for her. Luke looked furious.
“Do you not think that I do anything? Running this place is a nightmare. All needy people and running around after staff who don’t know any better.” He was close enough that she could see the pores on his skin.
“I don’t think it’s easy,” she said quickly.
“Good, because it’s fucking not. It’s people like you that make my life more difficult. Arriving late and then sending me on wild goose chases like you think I’m some kind of idiot. Do you think I’m an idiot?”
That final T sent a shower of spit on her cheek and Bea closed her eyes. “No, not at all.”
“That’s not the way it seems to me.” His voice got lower, more threatening. “Open your eyes.”
Bea did as she was told.
“Listen carefully. You are on very thin ice, understood?”
She nodded.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I… I understand.”
“Good, now get out of my way and don’t let me see your face for the rest of the day.”
He banged into his office and Bea fled down the corridor, not stopping until she turned the corner and her legs threatened to give out. Only then did everything catch up with her.
She’d robbed a locked room, lied to her boss, been yelled at. Her face grew hot and to her embarrassment, her eyes filled with tears, and then she was sobbing, either in relief that it was all almost over or because… because this whole place just filled her with weird emotions that she couldn’t handle.
“There you are.”
Could this all get any worse?
“I’ve been looking for you,” Alli said, drawing nearer.
Bea sniffed, tried to blink away the tears, and failed miserably.
“Why are you crying?”
Bea shuddered. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Just… Luke.” It seemed the most honest thing to say.
“Christ, he’s a wanker, isn’t he?” Alli said, leaning against the wall beside her. “I don’t know how you work for him, I certainly couldn’t.”
“Yeah,” Bea said, feeling a little better. She sniffed again, blinked again. The tears were starting to dry up.
Alli was so close that their shoulders were touching. It was warm. Warm and enticing in a way that made Bea sort of want to get closer. It made her sort of want Alli to wrap her arms around her, to take her.
Just in a hug, of course. A friendly hug.
Not that Alli would be the person to do that. Bea struggled to take a breath. It had been a while since she’d had any kind of… intimate contact. Perhaps, once all this was over, she’d get back on the apps, try and find someone new. New flat, new boyfriend.
“Mind you, I wouldn’t work here at all,” Alli said now. “Far too important and well-educated for that, thank you very much.”
Which reminded Bea of just how not nice Alli really was. All images of hugging or any kind of contact left her head immediately. She straightened up. “Are you implying that I’m not well-educated?”
Alli’s green eyes widened in surprise. “Uh, no, not really. I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Bea rolled her eyes. “Well, at least I’m smart enough to get this,” she said, pulling the phone out of her pocket, still wrapped in its plastic bag.
“Mine?” Alli said suspiciously.
“Yours,” said Bea. She pushed it into Alli’s hands. “So now you can buzz off and get back to your important job and leave the rest of us alone.”
She walked off down the corridor, forcing herself to walk slowly and not to look back.