Chapter 1
Chapter
One
Kate O’Hara had no trouble finding her new work assignment. It was a sharp slash of a skyscraper, like a forty-five-story blade stabbed into Lake Merritt’s shore. Even if she’d managed to miss that somehow, the red tinted windows were a dead giveaway.
The Oakland Tribune had dubbed the new Fiendish Headquarters building “Hell,” both due to the design and the company that built it.
Rather than being offended, Fiendish had run with it, hanging a huge poster proclaiming “Welcome to Hell!” in a cheerful, blood-spattered font over the main entrance.
Apparently, it made the national news and increased sales by four percent.
Just like a huge corporation, Kate thought. Call them whatever, as long as it boosted sales.
After going through some irritating and invasive security, Kate finally made it onto the elevator. When the doors opened on the fortieth floor, she braced herself and stepped out.
It was like she’d gotten lost in a copy of Vogue. Everything—the employees, the furniture, the décor—was enshrouded in the Fiendish signature color scheme of black, white and red. It screamed sophistication, everything as sleek as the building itself.
Kate turned, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror-polished elevator doors.
Her khaki skirt was wrinkled from the train ride.
Her sage green sweater was probably too casual.
Her square glasses were already starting to slip down her nose.
While her Irish genes had been surprisingly strong and emphasized freckles, her Vietnamese ones had insisted on a low nasal bridge.
At least she’d dyed a red streak into her black hair that she hadn’t bothered to get rid of yet. Not that she cared too much about blending in.
“Kate? Kate… O’Hara?”
Kate turned, and her eyes widened as she got a good look at the woman calling her name.
Whoever she was, she was moving fast on blood-red “fuck-me” stilettos, as Kate’s best friend Prue would say.
The shoes perfectly matched the red mini-skirt suit, cut both a bit high on the thigh and low in the front, and the can’t-miss-it red Louis Vuitton purse.
Her fourteen-carat blonde hair was lacquered with enough hair spray to withstand a tornado.
She looked about twenty years old… until you got to her eyes, which were a flinty gray. That gaze belonged to a sixty-year-old who had gone through a bad divorce.
“Hi, I’m Ginny Stillson, but you can call me Ms. Ginny,” the woman said with a drawl Kate couldn’t place.
Somewhere Southern, obviously. Ms. Ginny’s smile was pageant big, and she held out a hand.
Kate shook it carefully, trying not to get stabbed by the long red acrylic nails.
“Come on then, follow me. Tons to do. I have been crazy-busy today, and I thought you’d be here earlier, so I’m running a bit behind! ”
Kate had never heard anyone drawl quickly before. “I’m sorry. I thought my assignment started at nine.”
“Everybody at Fiendish arrives fifteen minutes early. Mr. Kestrel believes in promptness.”
Ms. Ginny said “Mr. Kestrel” the same way Kate’s grandmother said “The Pope.”
Kate was a little breathless by the time they finally stopped wandering through a labyrinth of hallways and corridors and got to their destination. Despite the high jet-black fabric walls and glossy onyx computers, Kate knew a cube farm when she saw one. This eight-block setup was no exception.
At least the other people populating the cubes looked more like normal humans instead of refugees from the catwalk. Curious heads popped from the side or top of various cubicle walls, staring at her like wary meerkats.
“Everyone? This is Kate, the newest addition to our happy little team,” Ginny announced.
No one responded, instead disappearing quickly back into their boxes.
Ginny waited for a beat, then sighed, turning back to Kate. “Well, I’ve gotta dash. Crazy-busy, y’know!”
“Wait,” Kate said as Ginny turned to quick-strut away. “Uh, what do you need me to do?”
“Do?” Ginny tilted her head.
“They weren’t that specific at the temp agency,” Kate said. “They just said you’d need general administrative help. I’m not sure what I should be working on.”
Ginny stared at her, irritation expressed more in her eyes than in her perfectly smooth face. Kate was wondering absently about the possibility of Botox when Ginny finally smiled, turning to another worker. “Steffi, right? You can get Kate here up to speed, I assume?”
“Of course, Ms. Ginny,” a middle-aged brunette woman said.
“Great. That’s settled. If you need anything, my office is at the end of the hall… the big office, at the far end, about three lefts and a right? Well, never mind. ’Byee!”
“Um, okay.” Kate said, watching as the woman bolted away, her heels clicking like machine gun fire.
“Kate, right?” The woman Ginny had spoken to stepped out from her cubicle, wearing a navy-blue suit and a white blouse with a coffee stain by the third button. “Hi, I’m Steffi. I’ve been here for four weeks, so I’ve got seniority. Welcome to Hell.”
“Is she always like that?” Kate nodded towards Ginny’s retreating figure.
“Ms. Ginny?” Steffi snorted, her voice dropping to a whisper. “No. Usually she’s worse.”
“Oh?” Kate murmured.
Wonderful.
Because she was afraid that working for Fiendish wouldn’t. Suck. Enough.
Steffi shrugged. “Anyway, this is your cube. Your password is ‘password’ and your login is ‘temp.’ There’s company email already on it, they do check your internet viewing logs. But don’t worry, they don’t care about that unless they think you’re going to snap or something.”
“So, yes on porn, no on guns?” Kate quipped, then winced.
Ah, crap. I said that out loud.
It had been a while since she’d been in a corporate environment.
She’d surprised everyone by managing to last for three years at her old job at her uncle’s publishing company Think Up, but that job could be hardly be called “corporate.” She got the feeling Fiendish Enterprises wasn’t going to be a hippie-haven of off-color jokes, zodiac birthday parties, and “clothing optional days.” This was going to be antithesis of her old place of work.
If she wanted to keep this job, even for just a few weeks, she was going to need to install a filter between her brain and her mouth pretty damned quick.
Fortunately, Steffi barked out a laugh. “You’ll do fine. Keep that sense of humor. It’ll help.”
“Wait a sec,” Kate said, frowning as Steffi started to retreat to her own cubicle. “Ms. Ginny said you were going to tell me what I’ll be working on.”
“Just do what we do.”
“Which is… what, exactly?”
“Look busy,” Steffi answered.
Kate blinked. “And she needs a staff of eight to do that?”
Steffi sighed. “Here’s the thing. Ms. Ginny’s got some relationship with the big boss. Nobody’s sure what that is. Honestly, nobody’s quite sure what it is that she does here.”
“Ah.”
Kate thought of Ms. Ginny’s skintight red suit, the overdone sexy strut. Yeah, she could imagine what the “relationship” was — and probably what Ginny’s unofficial job description covered.
Welcome to the corporate big leagues.
“Technically, Ms. Ginny is supposed to be Mr. Kestrel’s personal assistant, or whatever,” Steffi continued, her voice conspiratorially quiet.
“Except she’s totally disorganized, and she can’t keep track of she’s supposed to do.
She takes on these ‘projects,’ and then drops the ball.
When the shit hits the fan, she just blames one of us.
And sometimes, when she’s bored, she fires someone. ”
“Wow,” Kate murmured. “Sounds…”
“Unhinged, I know.” Steffi said, with a shrug. “On the other hand, I once got paid for eight hours of Stardew Valley, I kid you not. I’d say just roll with it.” With that, she disappeared, leaving Kate to her own devices.
“Oh, joy,” she muttered to herself. Not even five minutes in, and Kate already knew she would hate working here. She knew it.
She glanced up and down the hallway. It sounded like one of the temps was playing an online game with plenty of gunfire at a low volume; another temp was having an animated conversation with a wedding planner about centerpieces and floral garlands.
Glancing around a corner, she saw yet another one scrolling through videos of turtles eating fruit.
Kate ducked into her cubicle, picked up her cell phone, and hit speed dial.
“Jung at Heart,” a serene voice answered. “Come for the enlightenment, stay for the espresso.”
“Prue,” Kate said quietly. “I am in hell.”
Prue started laughing. “I think this is a new record.
“It’s not funny. This is bad.” Kate grimaced, then dropped her voice to an almost inaudible hiss.
“The woman who hired me is a beauty queen with a mean streak. To top it off, it’s frickin’ Fiendish.
If Microsoft and Walmart got drunk in Vegas and had an evil corporate love child, Fiendish would be their rebellious teenage son. ”
“When did you start?”
Kate glanced at her cell phone clock. “Um… about five minutes ago.”
“Oh, honey,” Prue said, and while there was sympathy, there was also a hint of impatience. “You know what my grandma always says?”
“Japanese grandma, or Louisiana grandma?”
“Nan Temper,” Prue clarified. “She says if you don’t try, you can’t bitch.”
“I like your Japanese grandma better. Nan scares the hell out of me.”
“And that’s just the stuff you know about her,” Prue said. “It sucks that your uncle’s company went under. It really sucks that you’re working in Hell. But you’ve just got to stay positive.”
“I’m in a scapegoat holding pen, waiting for a screw-up to take credit for,” Kate pointed out. “Or just until the Queen Boss decides to play peasant skeet and fire one of us randomly. Where’s the bright side on that one?”
“So why’d you take the job, anyway?”