Chapter 2 - Flynn
I shivered as the air conditioning kicked on and blew on me.
“I really need to remember to turn that down,” I muttered as I attached a receipt for a fifty-thousand-dollar painting to a client’s file. I double-checked that all the required fields had been filled out, then marked it as ready for the main office.
The underwriters would hate it. It was almost an insult to their time when they expected and regularly saw files for paintings valued at over a million dollars. But our branch had been accepting scraps over having no business at all for too long.
Footsteps echoed and bounced off the vacant furniture and bare walls. I glanced up to see one of my few remaining coworkers, Jeremy, standing a few feet away, rubbing the back of his neck and grimacing.
He didn’t need to say it; I knew why he was there.
“It’s your turn, isn’t it?” I asked.
He let out a long breath. “Yeah.”
“Does this mean the vault is empty?”
“Last shipment out is this afternoon. My stuff is arriving at my new place the day after tomorrow, so I’m on a flight first thing in the morning.”
“Where are you headed again?”
“They’re putting me back in the vault in New York.”
“You have family there, right?”
“Yeah.”
“At least there’s that.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but they can be a bit much. I actually put in for the Dallas office, but didn’t get it.”
“I think I heard they were already at full staffing before they announced our closure.”
“Yeah, but it didn't hurt to try.”
“I hear ya.”
I stood, walked over, and pulled him into a hug. I thumped him on the back a couple times. “Hey, maybe it’ll be a good thing. You might be happier back home.”
He chuckled. “Maybe, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”
“You like concerts and gaming conventions. You won’t have to travel several hours to find the closest ones now.”
“You’re really looking for a silver lining for me, aren’t you?”
I smiled. “Gotta try to make something of this shitshow.”
He snorted. “The only thing I’m getting out of it is being close to my mama again, and she’s gonna wonder why I spent years out here and didn’t land an omega.”
“Yeesh,” I replied with a cringe.
“You wouldn’t be interested, would you?”
I burst into laughter. “I like you, but not enough to take your knot. I think I’d prefer to stick to drinks and video games.”
He chuckled. “Worth a shot. Going back to New York is easier than looking for a new job, but man… I had to really decide if I wanted to deal with Mama hounding me.” He paused. “What about you? Where you headed?”
“Nothing…” I shook my head, “felt right.”
“Really?”
I recalled the hours I’d poured over the relocation packages—the information about the other cities where there were offices. How some part buried deep down had screamed that I had to stay.
“I decided to stay here and risk the job market,” I finally replied with a shrug. “I signed an agreement to oversee the final closing tasks.”
“Closing tasks?”
I sighed and nodded. “I’ve got the lovely job of selling the furniture and trying to find somebody to take over the lease. Ideally, somebody who won’t make us tear out the vault. Corporate really doesn’t want to pay for that.”
“Oh… yuck.” He paused for several long seconds. “They’re paying you for that, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. They gave me some kind of temporary title, closeout manager… or some other bullshit. I’ll still get the standard severance once I give over the keys.”
He shook his head. “No offense, but better you than me. I don’t know if I could handle this dead office for much longer. Though…”
He trailed off.
I let out a single, dark chuckle. “No offense taken. But I made the most sense… I think. There are a few clients we’re still waiting for paperwork from. So they needed somebody who could process that.”
He rubbed the back of his neck again. “Sooo…”
“Uh-oh…”
“Yeah. Sorry, man, but if you’re the designated last-man-standing, then… I’ve got to give you a crash course on the vault’s environmental control systems.”
“The vault’s what-the-what?”
He looked up at the ceiling and let out a long sigh. “I tried to get the big bosses to let me stay until the lease changed hands. But they don’t want me babysitting an empty vault.”
“Ooooooook…”
“They said I can just monitor it remotely, and that it had already been on remote night monitoring for several weeks. But…” He turned back to me and rubbed the back of his neck again.
“I’m not comfortable with that. They pay people like me to monitor these things for a reason.
If there’s a problem, I at least want you to know what the control panel looks like and what to look for and press. ”
I groaned. “You know I’m not a tech person.”
He nodded. “I know. And I’m going to write you up a cheat sheet while I wait for the movers to finish. I’m putting the thing into stasis mode, so it should mostly handle itself. But better safe than sorry.”
“I know it’ll be your farewell party tonight, but you’re buying my drinks if you’re expecting me to babysit the vault.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
There was a beat of silence; then he asked, “Who’s left?”
I blew out a long breath. “After you… and I’m assuming that Marcia is also out after today— since she handled the high-value shipping… I think Ellie is the last one.”
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, Marcia’s out today, too. I’m not sure if she’s catching a flight tonight or tomorrow morning. I’m betting she’s catching a red-eye, though. The suits are going to want her there to oversee the unpacking.”
“Of course they will.”
“So just you and Ellie?”
“I guess so. I’ve been told a tech team will be by early next week to grab all the equipment that isn’t nailed down, and then another moving team will come for things like the appraisal tables and stuff that they either deem valuable enough to ship…
or items that are plastered with the company logo and will fill space in the truck. Then Ellie will be done, too.”
“What will you do after that?”
I shrugged. “Catch straggling clients who realize that they might actually have to present documentation while somebody’s still here? Sell whatever furniture’s left, and hand over the keys.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah…”
“Any job prospects?”
“Not yet, but I haven’t been shy about browsing on company time. There’s really not a lot I can do between clients.”
“Hope you find something soon.”
“Thanks.”
There was a beat of silence, then. “Come on.”
“Hmm?”
“Marcia can bitch about you being in the vault while the shippers are there if she wants. But I want to start showing you things now so that I can make sure to note anything that might be confusing.”
“Ummm… ok.”
I followed him downstairs to the first floor.
“Hey, Ellie,” I said to the receptionist as we exited the elevator. “I’m going to be in the vault with Jeremy. Call back there if anybody comes in.”
She laughed. “The only people I’ve had walk in the past few days are the mailman and lost tourists.”
“Sounds about right.” I sighed, and my eyes flicked to where the square logo for Carré Art Services still hung behind her on the brick wall.
“Have fun in the vault.”
“Sure,” I replied as I looked at her again.
I walked back, noting that Jeremy was already inside. I pulled my keycard from the retractable clip on my shirt.
My face from happier days mocked me as I held the card to the scanner. My light brown hair had been freshly cut then, and my smile showed how excited I’d been.
A new job in a new city. I’d hoped to find an alpha and start a family. Part of me had thought I was on the verge of having it all.
My eyes drifted to my reflection on the stainless steel door. Dark circles hung under my gray eyes, and my wool suit—which was formerly tailored—was shapeless over my already-slender frame.
It had only been two years, but the shine had worn off quickly. We’d all landed in Harris Cove expecting to be slammed with new clients. It was an up-and-coming art market and was known as a billionaire enclave. It seemed the perfect setup to poach clients from larger firms.
We had the vault so that billionaires could store their art, something our competitors didn’t offer. We had appraisers on site so that they didn’t have to ship recently acquired pieces or bring in somebody. Our rates were competitive…
The big move… turned into a big flop. Sure, there were a couple of high-value clients who took advantage of our storing their art when they weren’t vacationing. But there was always space in the vault, and the number of million-dollar paintings that came through the door were few and far between.
What business we did acquire didn’t need the eyes of trained appraisers. Millionaires buying a barely dry triptych in a local gallery only needed to present receipts—no provenance required.
The higher-ups in the corporate office initially tried to push back on insuring the gallery sales, but my direct boss convinced them that some business was better than none.
But it was the equivalent of trying to put a bandage over a severed limb. It was far too little to stop the bleeding.
None of us were surprised that they pulled the plug. Still… I was disappointed when we were informed that our branch was closing.
“Did somebody come in and need something?” Jeremy asked as I finally opened the vault door.
“Hmm?”
“You took longer than expected. I figured you either talked to Ellie for a few, or somebody came in.”
I shook my head. “Neither. For some reason, I got lost in thought when I scanned my card.”
“Ah… the thinking door trap.”
“Huh?”
He chuckled. “Something about when one door closes, another opens. Makes people think.”
I snorted. “I just thought I looked like shit.”
He laughed. “Don’t trust the door. It can be like a funhouse mirror. It distorts reality.”
“Dunno about that.”
He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Come on.”
The change was immediate as soon as I stepped into the vault. The coastal humidity was stripped away, and the temperature dropped several degrees.
At the far end of the vault, Marcia and a guard from the transport company oversaw the packing of the remaining artworks.