Chapter 28
Daisy
“Daisy, Sterling wants you in his office. Right now, please.”
By the time I look up, the assistant’s already gone.
Weird.
I step out into the corridor, listening, but the low hum of the air conditioner blasting through the ceiling vents is all I catch. The thick carpet drowns steps, and most of the staff are in offices with closed doors.
I head on to the stairwell, choosing the stairs to the fourth floor. The square glass screen on the recently installed security camera catches my eye, and I wink, then blow a kiss. Sure, Jake doesn’t work alone, but Thompson knows Jake and I are together.
The heavy stairwell door slowly closes behind me, and once again, I’m met with an eerie silence.
It’s a reminder of why I prefer to work from home.
There’s something unnerving about a quiet office environment.
Like, if you have to come into an office, make it fun like in the classic The Office film, with the weirdly dressed short-sleeve button-down staff in cubicles with fabric walls plastered with photos of their real world lives.
Sterling’s assistant’s desk is vacant, but his office door is open. Plastic water bottles are grouped together on his meeting table, a round table placed on the opposite end of the office from his executive desk.
The rumble of a masculine voice I don’t recognize has me slowing my steps, and then Phillip appears, his gaze clocking the empty reception desk and then me.
“Daisy! There you are. Come in. I’ve got someone you must meet.”
I force my best smile. It might be my imagination, but I’m fairly certain Phillip grimaces as he clocks my outfit. Whatever, dude.
I’m in a black calf-length skirt and a black long-sleeve sweater because it’s cold as balls in this office, but that’s not why he grimaced. No, I’ve gathered he’s not one for the black military boots I favor. That’s fine. I believe he looks like a tool in his pointy shiny leather shoes, so there.
“Ahmed, this is our resident genius. The secret weapon I was mentioning. Chief architect of the ARGUS AI system. Absolutely brilliant. We lured her away from ARGUS with an offer she could not refuse to become our CTO. With her system in place, our forecast models will be unbeatable.”
Barf.
And also… Ew. Just ick.
I force my legs forward across the threshold, hand extended, but I quickly withdraw it because the way the man with the caterpillar-thick black eyebrows and a shock of thick dark hair is looking at me, I don’t think he wants to touch me.
The man beside him is wearing a red and white checkered headscarf and a tailored suit.
I settle for holding my hands behind my back, a polite smile plastered on my face.
“Daisy Jonas, this is Ahmed Al Nasser and Khaled Al Rajhi. They’re potential investors. Your ears may have been burning because I’ve been telling them all about you and your plans for our proprietary market forecast system.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I say, lying like a lying liar who lies.
Khaled, the man in the headscarf, says, “I’d like to hear more about the system you are developing, but I want my tech team on the line. Can we arrange a conference call next week when I’m back in Saudi Arabia?”
“Of course,” I say, offering the expected professional response.
Ahmed says, “Sterling Financial’s funds being approved for retirement accounts and 401K investments speaks well of your firm and your work.”
I continue smiling like a doofus, but I have zero idea what he’s talking about. How could we be approved for anything? A fund collapsed last year losing investors everything.
“It’s impressive,” he says to Phillip, but his gaze cuts to me in a way that makes me wonder if my facial expression is giving away my inner thoughts.
I’m a programmer, not a tap dancer, for crying out loud. What is Sterling expecting me to say here?
“Bedrock, Centennial, and Silverman are all interested in our system. And you’re joining us for the groundswell.”
Phillip just mentioned the three biggest investment companies in the United States. I doubt they’ve ever heard of the idea I’m kicking around.
“When do you believe your system will be ready for testing?” Ahmed asks.
All three men are looking at me like I have an answer, but there’s no answer to the question. I’m in the planning phase. I don’t yet have final parameters which means I could as easily pull a white dove out of a hat as give them a reliable schedule.
“Testing is scheduled to begin October first.” Phillip’s brilliantly white teeth flash, his smile pointed directly at me.
I’m not a dumbass. I get that he’s counting on me to play along, and if Tweedledee and Tweedledum buy this bullshit act, then a part of me feels like too bad, so sad.
They’re probably loaded with oil money. A vision of Mr. Headscarf going full Oprah, bopping between offices and saying, “And here’s a billion for you…
and a billion for you,” entertains me enough that the smile on my face becomes semi-real.
“Well, Daisy, I know you’ve got to get to it.”
“Yes, that deadline is approaching.” I smile, taking the hint to skedaddle as Phillip’s assistant rushes down the corridor, pushing a cart loaded with catered food.
Sterling’s grin lingers in my head like a warning light—too bright, too confident.
Investors. I should look into them, but I can’t remember the last names. I doubt I’d get the spelling correct even if I remembered.
I shoot off a text to Phillip’s assistant, asking for the men’s names and contact information so I can send a follow-up email.
What is Phillip up to? Maybe nothing. Maybe spinning bullshit is how corporate America works.
I never understood what the hell someone graduating with a business degree actually learned in college.
I mean, finance and accounting, yes, I get that.
But those are different degrees. I suppose business is another word for sales, and Phillip Sterling is the epitome of a salesman.
Wasn’t there a play about that? Yes. Death of a Salesman.
It was one of those I was supposed to read but opted for the CliffsNotes version.
Willy chased the American dream and was shit to his sons.
And what did my teacher say? Arthur Miller highlighted a capitalist system that values profit over people.
Yes, that’s why Phillip Sterling is making me think of a play I never read.
He’s truly the epitome of a salesman. I settle back at my desk, fingers automatically finding the familiar weight of my rings to twist while my mind processes what just happened upstairs.
Sterling’s performance was masterful—and completely fabricated.
An October first deadline for a system that exists only in my head? Approvals from Bedrock and Centennial that I know damn well don’t exist? The man just sold a fantasy to two potential investors like a snake-oil salesman at a county fair.
The question is: what happens when October first rolls around and I’ve got nothing but empty promises to show for it?
More importantly, what kind of person lures investors with elaborate lies?
My stomach churns as I realize I’m not just witnessing unscrupulous business dealings—I’m actively participating by sitting in that room and smiling like a trained seal.
An alert flashes on my phone and I read the subject line of the email: Autopsy results.
My finger hovers over the email for three heartbeats before I tap it open. The formal letterhead of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office fills the screen, all official seals and bureaucratic font choices.
Decedent: Alvin Michael Reed Case Number: 2024-ME-3847 Manner of Death: Suicide Cause of Death: Acute digitalis toxicity
Suicide? I have to read that line twice.
Digitalis. I know that name from somewhere.
My fingers are already flying across my laptop keyboard before my brain fully processes what I’m looking for. The search results populate instantly: Digitalis purpurea. Foxglove. Cardiac glycoside. Highly toxic when ingested.
The email continues with a clinical detachment that makes me want to hurl my monitor:
Toxicology analysis revealed digitalis concentration of 22.
7 ng/mL in cardiac blood, well above therapeutic range (0.
8-2.0 ng/mL). Consistent with intentional ingestion of concentrated extract.
No evidence of trauma or foul play observed during external examination.
Given decedent’s documented history of depression and recent financial difficulties, manner of death determined to be suicide by poisoning.
I lean back in my chair, the words blurring as my vision tunnels. Financial difficulties. Depression. They think they knew him.
But I knew him.
Uncle Alvin talked to me about guns. At first to tell me to never touch one.
Then later, he let me hold his handgun. Taught me how to load it and unload it.
“Every soldier’s got a preferred weapon, Daisy girl,” he’d said, adjusting my grip, showing me how to hold it, just in case I ever needed to know for defense.
“Mine’s never let me down.” That gun lived in his bedside drawer, cleaned and ready, until the day he died.
I know because I helped him move that nightstand once and removed the drawer to do it.
If Alvin had wanted to die—and that’s an if the size of Texas—he wouldn’t have gone foraging for pretty purple flowers to brew into some medieval poison tea. He would have been direct, efficient, and final. That was his way.
The coroner saw an old man with debt and sadness. I see a thirty-year Army veteran who kept his .45 in perfect condition and wouldn’t know a foxglove from a dandelion if his life depended on it.
Which, apparently, it did.
A vision of Jocelyn’s still body sprawled out on the floor flashes.
Given her corpse burned in the house fire, and they concluded it wasn’t arson, there won’t be a coroner’s report on her.
Everyone assumed she died in the fire. Talk about bungling an investigation.
If we’d called the medics, there would’ve been a coroner’s report.
And I’d bet my ginormous CTO salary she died from the same poison that killed Uncle Alvin.
Typically, I’d text Rhodes. But this warrants a call.
“Everything okay?”
He answers on the first ring, and a strange brew of warmth and guilt simmers. He’s more than a boss—he’s a friend I don’t deserve, given I left him high and dry.
“Daisy? You okay?”
“I need to get back into ARGUS.” A pause. Long enough for me to hear him breathing.
“You still have access.” My fingers freeze over the laptop keyboard.
“You... What?”
“I never accepted your resignation. Why would you think I’d block your access?”
“Because anyone else on the planet would—” It’s been over a month since I bailed on you…
“What’s going on?”
His voice has that edge I recognize from when he’s preparing for an important meeting.
I set the phone down on the desk, eyes darting to the closed door, all paranoid-like, as I dig out my personal laptop with the ARGUS portal installed. When I pick up the phone again, he’s still waiting.
“Daisy.”
“I’m here.”
“Talk to me.”
The login screen appears, my credentials still active. Of course they are. Rhodes is pure gold.
“Reed’s autopsy came back.”
Silence.
“And?”
“Digitalis poisoning. They’re calling it suicide.”
“But you don’t think so.”
It’s not a question. Rhodes knows me well enough to read the subtext in my voice, the way I’m breathing, probably the exact cadence of my typing in the background.
“He kept a .45 in his nightstand drawer. Cleaned it regularly.” I pull up ARGUS, muscle memory navigating to the financial tracking modules. “Since when does a thirty-year Army vet go foraging for foxglove?”
“How many deaths are now tied to that company?”
“Two. Maybe three.” My voice drops to barely above a whisper. “Rhodes, I think I’m in over my head here.”
“I can be there in four hours.”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than intended. “I mean... Jake’s here. Your guy. He’s good.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Is he?” There’s something in his voice I can’t quite parse. Not jealousy—Rhodes doesn’t do jealousy. But something territorial. Protective.
“He’s fine, Rhodes. I’m fine. I just need to dig deeper into Sterling’s financials. Look for payments, connections...”
“Daisy.” His voice is gentle now, the way it gets when he’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. “You’re not fine. And you’re not a field operative. ” I close my eyes, hating how well he knows me.
“I can handle this.”
“That’s what worries me.” The words hang there, weighted with everything he’s not saying. How I ran. How he let me. How we both know I’m playing in a game I don’t fully comprehend and pretending it’s just another coding challenge. “Just...be careful, okay?”
The line goes quiet, but he doesn’t hang up. Neither do I.
“He’s unethical, Rhodes. My instincts were spot on. I got a little hazy there for a bit, but…”
“What do you mean by hazy?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I need to uncover evidence and get out of here.”
“No, Daisy. Not you. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you since you took off on this mission of yours.
You are a programmer. One of the best. But you aren’t a trained investigator.
You’ve been there for almost two months now, and you haven’t uncovered anything useful.
Use the team at your disposal. Use KOAN. ”
Right. Because trusting anyone else has gone so well for me.