Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
I took the job.
Kate grimaced at herself. For a brief second there, she’d melted a little. Thomas had seemed so lonely, so entreating. It was hard to remember that the guy was signing people’s souls.
You don’t really have proof of that, though. You have proof that he’s looking for people who have signed their souls.
Still, it was foolish to think that it was all a big fat misunderstanding.
And she’d keep reminding herself of that until she had solid proof otherwise.
Which was why she’d taken the damned job in the first place.
All the positive thinking in the world wouldn’t save her butt if he really was a bad guy intent on killing her once her usefulness was done.
She navigated her way to Ginny’s office, and knocked on the open door.
Ginny looked less perky than usual, glowering at her cherry red phone. “So you took the job,” she said, without even bothering to look up. Her voice was sour, her normally glass-smooth forehead furrowed. “Well, bless your heart.”
Bless your heart? Wasn’t that a Southern “fuck you?”
“Um, thanks,” Kate responded.
“Thomas told me to touch base with you and collect anything you might have been working on,”
She seriously doubted that he’d trusted Ginny with anything top secret, certainly not life or death. Or afterlife, now that she thought about it. Apparently that was also an option.
Personally, she wouldn’t trust Ginny with ordering lunch.
Ginny shut off her phone and stood, strutting on tottering four-inch stilettos. Despite the peaches-sweet smile she’d pasted on, there was definitely murder in her eyes. “You know, we got off on the wrong foot, you and I.”
Oh, crap. Ginny the bitch, she could handle. Ginny the bitch, trying to be sweet…not so much.
“I’m sure it’s not going to be a problem. I’ll just…” Kate paused. Take your job. Or at least, the job Ginny thought she had. “I’m just transitioning in to cover the new scope of the job classification.”
Ack. And you accused Thomas of piling on the corporate speak! She saw now why he did it. You could say a ton without saying anything, and it was the least personal language in the world.
“Oh, sugar, it’s fine.” Ginny’s smile broadened to Joker proportions. “I, of all people, know that Thomas can be distracted by a pretty face. And you’re certainly not the first woman he’s hired just because he was feeling a little…frisky, let’s say?”
The statement was so unexpected, Kate stared at her, her mouth dropping open a little. “Seriously? This is the tack you’re taking. Seriously.”
“Now, Kate, no need to be self-conscious. It happens enough that nobody’s going to comment on it—much,” she added, with a sharp, smug little dig.
“Besides, these things never last that long, so you won’t have to worry about listening to anyone talking about how you slept your way up the ladder.
Nobody says anything for the first month, at least, so it should be dandy until you’re…
well, until the scope changes on your job classification. ”
Basically, Ginny was giving Kate one month until Thomas got tired of her and their supposed sexual shenanigans and fired her. The dingbat actually thought Kate was Thomas’s sex toy.
Kate gritted her teeth until she thought her jaw would pop.
“I don’t know what you think I was hired to do, but as far as I know, I’m supposed to schedule his meetings and get that snake pit of a credenza managed and try to give him some semblance of a filing system,” she said slowly.
“I don’t even want to think about the mess his digital files are in.
I just stopped by to see what you were working on, get some contact information, and see if you had a key to his physical files or any other passwords, so I can get to work. ”
There. She’d shoehorned that last bit about the key in, hoping that Ginny would be so obsessed with her whole you’re sleeping with Thomas!
fixation that she’d never notice. Of course, it was doubtful that Ginny had a key to Thomas’s private files, but Kate was reminded of something that Al had said—Ginny was dumb, but not that dumb.
And Ginny was nosy. Kate bet that Ginny probably snooped plenty of places she wasn’t supposed to.
Ginny pulled her mouth into a tight line.
Then she grabbed a box and started throwing papers and files pell-mell into it.
“You want to keep up the charade, honey, go right ahead,” she said, grinding out every word.
“But don’t think he’ll ever trust you. Don’t think that you’ll ever be important to him.
And believe you me, the man will never love you. ”
“God, I hope not,” Kate said, before she could stop herself, shuddering a little.
“Here,” Ginny said, shoving the box across her littered desktop. “That’s every project I’ve been working on, as well as some of his schedules. And memos from the rest of the enterprise.”
Kate studied the paper-strewn box. This was going to be a nightmare. From the looks of the hot mess Ginny had created, it was amazing Thomas was still in business.
The guy didn’t need an admin. He needed a miracle worker.
As soon as I find that evidence or whatever, I am out of here, she promised herself. Even if he isn’t an evil guy. I’ve quit better jobs than this!
“If he wants you to have the keys to the locked files, he’ll have to give you that himself,” Ginny sniffed. “Apparently I wasn’t responsible enough to be trusted with them.”
That burned her, Kate realized. Playing a hunch, Kate nodded, not looking directly at Ginny. “Oh, right. I’m sorry, I forgot. He’s going to give me a copy later.”
Ginny gritted her teeth and for a second, Kate thought Ginny might take a swing at her. With that stick-skinny arm, it’d be like getting slapped with a bamboo rod.
That said, she could probably snap Ginny like a twig if she had to. She’d grown up fighting with her brother, and did some boxing growing up, and she had some moves. Not to mention a lot of rage.
“You might remind him that he did trust me with receiving the file from Yagi’s private investigator,” Ginny said sharply. “He’s been waiting for this. I’m supposed to see that he gets it immediately.”
So why is it still here in your office?
Kate didn’t roll her eyes, but she desperately wanted to. Seriously, who was Ginny related to that Thomas kept someone so obviously incompetent on for so long?
Ginny pulled out a slim, sealed black envelope. Kate couldn’t help but notice the seal had been broken.
“I’m allowed to read these,” Ginny said defensively, at Kate’s suspicious look. “Thomas knows better than to keep me out of it. I’m involved with this.”
“I see.” Kate laced her voice with obvious skepticism.
“Fine.” Ginny tossed it on top of the pile. Then she frowned. “Do you even know what’s in it? Are you supposed to know about this?”
No, but I will as soon as I get out of here. Kate shrugged. “It’s the report,” she said vaguely.
Ginny’s look was withering. “Thomas and I have been through more together than you can even imagine,” she said, and there was real pain in her voice. “This is more than business. You have no idea what we really do here at Fiendish!”
Holy shit. She knows about what’s going on in the basement.
Again. Dumb…but not that dumb.
But she’s got a weak spot. And I know just how to trigger it.
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to ask him to fill me in about all that later,” she said, then took a deep breath and shot her best Mean Girls smile at Ginny. “If the way he kisses is any indication, I’m pretty sure that he’s going to fill me in plenty.”
Ginny turned beet red, and looked like she was going to shoot flames out of her eyes.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” Kate drawled, mimicking Ginny. “Whatever you’ve got going on at Fiendish, I’m sure that I can handle it—and everything else about Thomas—from now on.”
Ginny went white, then a sort of purplish. Her face was like a big mood ring. “He told you? About…about the demons? The contracts? Everything?”
“He’s told me enough,” Kate said casually, praying Ginny would just take the bait and not call the bluff.
“I don’t believe this.” Ginny looked disgusted. “Well, then I guess you can read everything in that file. It’s the first signatory.”
“The one I found,” Kate clarified, still playing along, her mind shuffling for details. “Victor Klauss, right?”
“Oooh. Look who’s the expert.” Ginny’s expression was bitter. “Next I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’ll be holding the knife for Thomas, as well, when he goes after this guy.”
Kate’s brain stuttered, and she nearly dropped the box of files. “I… What?”
“The P.I. says we’re lucky, that this should be relatively easy.
Victor Klauss weighs about a hundred pounds, he’s ninety years old, he has no bodyguards, and crappy locks,” Ginny said, crossing her arms. “And he never leaves his house. Easy to trap, easy to take out. A total softball. Do you really think Thomas was planning on telling you all about that?”
Kate knew she should respond, but she didn’t know how. She just kept swallowing convulsively, trying not to throw up, hanging onto the box of files like it was a life raft, despite the weight.
“Still think you can handle things, Kate?” Ginny’s voice was mocking, and poisonously sweet. “You’re looking a little pale.”
“I…I have to go,” Kate murmured, turning and fleeing.
“Guess you’re not quite the tough girl after all. Now, don’t forget to give Thomas that file,” Ginny’s voice trailed her down the hall. “If I know him, he’ll probably want that little chore taken care of, before he goes out to dinner! Unless you think you can handle it!”
Kate rushed down the confusing hallways, ducking into the little room that Ginny had stuck her in on her first day there. Leaning against the closed door, she started breathing hard, in gulping, gasping breaths.
Well…I found out what Thomas is up to.
Thomas was finding people who signed the contracts, all right.
And now that he’d found one, he was going to kill a ninety-year-old weakling. This afternoon.