Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
What would you do for a paycheck, huh?
Kate had barely slept the night before. She told herself that at least this way, she was ensuring that the workers wouldn’t be mistreated.
At least, they wouldn’t while she was there, watching…
and that was assuming Thomas was a man of his word.
Right now, she didn’t trust anyone, least of all the man who had come to her house in his town car, offering a deal she couldn’t refuse.
And who might still have me killed, right?
Yet another thing to think about.
She was here because her parents needed the money. For the first time, they needed her to bail them out. She wasn’t going to hurt people, or allow them to be hurt, to do so… but she wasn’t going to stand rigidly by her principles and let her parents lose their house, either.
Now more than ever, she wasn’t going to fuck it up.
When the elevator doors opened on the basement floor, Thomas was waiting for her. Unfortunately, he looked as handsome as ever, and her stomach traitorously did a little mambo in response.
She’d have to have a little sit-down with her hormones to discuss the finer points of things like ethics and humanity and things beyond a yummy-looking torso.
To her surprise, Al was standing next to Thomas, scowling like an octogenarian peanut leaning on his bone-handled cane. “You’ve got some nerve, missy,” he said, by way of greeting.
“Good morning to you, too.” She refused to let him cow her. He’d gotten away with smacking around the guys with that cane of his because no one would stand up to him. She figured he was like any other abuser—blaming the victim and doing whatever he could get away with.
Well, fuck that.
She was laden down with shopping bags. He ignored her as she put the stuff down on an empty table, pointing a gnarled, pencil-thin finger at her instead.
“You think you can handle those beasts? Do you have any idea what they’ve done? What they’re capable of?”
Kate felt her back go straight as a ruler. “I think they’re capable of a lot,” she said, with an exaggerated cheer designed for maximum annoyance. “They’ll find your documents in no time!”
If Al’s scowl went any deeper, you would see it on the other side of his head. “Let’s just see how long you survive down here, girl.” His voice had an almost wolf-like growl.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Thomas said, pulling a folded document out of his breast pocket with a flourish.
“That reminds you?” Kate asked, bewildered.
Thomas smiled. Damn his nice smile. He held out the paper and a pen. “Paperwork. You’re not a temp anymore. You’ll be my employee.”
She glanced at Al, then back at Thomas.
“Answering directly to me,” Thomas added, seemingly for both her and the old man. She could hear Al’s teeth grinding like the gears on a truck, and she suppressed her own grin of relief. Working for Al would suck.
She glanced over the paperwork. “I don’t have to sign in blood, right?”
“You told her?” Al said. “Well, I doubt her soul’s worth much, but every bit helps, I suppose.”
“Not this time,” Thomas said, frowning at Al.
“Very funny,” Kate muttered, with a quick scrawl at the bottom.
Al stepped up to her. He smelled like tobacco, she noticed, and… incense?
And dust. Very old-man-smell, with a dash of patchouli.
“You’re not going to get anywhere,” Al said, making a sweeping gesture toward the room. “This lot? Incorrigible. They’ll see how soft you are, and they’ll use you. Without the lash, they won’t do anything. They’re lazy, they’re conniving, and they’ll do whatever they can to screw you over.”
“You can’t go around hitting people to get them to work!” Kate felt like shaking the old man. “We’re not building the pyramids here! What’s wrong with you?”
His eyes widened. “They’re not people.”
Thomas made a warning noise. They both ignored him.
Kate stepped up to the old man—and noticed she was about three inches taller. “They’re people to me. If they don’t get treated humanely, then I walk. That was the deal.”
She vaguely sensed the ripple of surprise at those words.
“You’re challenging me, girl?” Al’s eyes shone like polished onyx. She couldn’t tell if he was pissed or thrilled. “Because I know exactly how to handle women, and other subordinate creatures, who don’t know their place.”
“You hit me, old man,” she said, in a low voice, “and you’d better...”
“All right, you two, that’s enough,” Thomas said, stepping between them.
“Al, that was the arrangement. You’ll be here as facilitator, but Kate’s in charge of the…
guys for right now. She’s going to train them on how to use the scanners.
” He gestured to the equipment, now placed on the tables in front of each man.
Kate nodded, feeling a little boost of triumph as Al glowered—and backed down.
Thomas stepped next to her, his arms crossed, and addressed the seated workers. “For the time being, Kate is going to be the one directing you,” he announced to the room. “For all intents and purposes, she is your overseer now.”
They looked stunned.
“She will teach you to use the machinery provided. And she’ll make sure that I get the results I need. She’s my employee,” he emphasized. “So I don’t want there to be any… incidents. Understood?”
Incidents?
Before she could respond to that, he continued, turning back to her.
“But Kate,” Thomas said, “if the guys give you a hard time, or don’t do the work—and if you don’t have the twelve names in one month—then we’re going to have to come up with a different solution.”
She glanced around. There were mountains of paperwork. As in the warehouse scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark scale. The stuff seemed endless.
Al was the one grinning triumphantly now. She could only imagine what the “different solution” would be if she failed.
You should get out of here, her conscience murmured.
This place is dangerous, her subconscious warned.
But as she was looking at the paperwork, she saw that the guys were looking at her, too. Some with puzzlement, some gloating — but some with a small hint of hope in their eyes. Best of all, it seemed like Dexter was gone.
She saw Slim, who nodded back at her, smiling.
She straightened. “We’ll find your names,” she said to Thomas, but then addressed the group. “Right, guys?”
They looked at one another. “Yes?” Slim answered for them. The rest nodded weakly.
She sighed. “We’ll work on that,” she muttered to herself, then stepped in front of them.
Thomas grinned. “Maybe, as their new lead, you should address the troops?”
This was a new one. Even at the publishing company, it wasn’t like she lead a whole team. Not directly, anyway. She cleared her throat. “Let me start off with saying that there’s a new sheriff in town,” she tried.
They stared blankly.
“Don’t know that one. Ah.” She felt her cheeks heat, but she plowed forward. “We need to find twelve names… well, eleven now. Based on a special symbol,” she said, holding up the picture.
“We know that,” one of the guys said, his voice sulky. “Why do we need to use the machines?”
“It will be faster. More efficient, fewer mistakes. A lot less reading.”
Their expressions showed they were obviously unsure about this whole situation.
“Also: your schedule’s going to change a bit,” she said. “You’re going to get rest breaks. You’re going to have meals. And you’re not going to get beaten or physically punished.”
Now they looked gobsmacked.
“So… how do you think we will work?” a man asked. Unlike the first guy, he wasn’t being a smartass—he seemed genuinely stunned.
You mean people actually work without being beaten? How does that happen?
“Oh, honey,” she murmured, then walked over to the shopping bags. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to—”
She held up a box of Ho Hos.
“The Incentive Plan.”
From that moment, she had them riveted.
Within the next hour, she had them paying attention to her every word. By lunch (which Thomas provided) they were steadily trying to work their scanners, although she swore she saw one of them sniff it.
“First box of Ho Ho’s to the guy who meets his quota by dinner,” she said, and was gratified when they let out a ragged cheer.
She’d decided that the Ho Hos were like gold, and went to ask Al if he could at least lock the sweets away.
Being in control of someone’s happiness seemed up his Evil Overlord alley.
Al was on the phone, she noticed, and he didn’t know she was there. “This is a farce,” he told whoever was on the other line. “But probably a short one.”
She felt her chin go up. Honestly, it wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t believe in her. It would be a surprise when she got the names without a single physical assault — surprise for you, asshole.
“I don’t expect her to last that long.”
She’d heard that before, too, from nicer places than this. She grinned smugly.
“If the workers don’t murder her,” he said, “I imagine exposure to the contracts will cause possession, if not insanity, in a matter of days, at that.”
She froze, her heart pounding in her chest.
Cause what now?