Chapter 4 - Flynn
The click of Ellie’s heels echoed across the floor long before she got close to my desk.
I stood and decided to meet her halfway.
She leaned against one of the heavy, long coworking tables, surrounded by a sea of empty, high-end office chairs.
“I take it the IT guys are done?” I asked.
She nodded. “Almost. They’re in the vault packing the last of it now. They took my laptop a few minutes ago.”
“Are you transferring?”
She shook her head. “Nobody needed a new receptionist. So I’m going to ditch the hour commute and see what I can find closer to home. The pay made it worth it, but I think I’m sick of Harris Cove for a while.”
“I get that.” I paused. “Wanna get drinks after work? The most pitiful goodbye party ever?”
She let out a single sad chuckle and shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I’m going to let last week’s party with Jeremy and Marcia be the end. You’re cool… but you’re right that it would be the most pitiful party.”
“Honestly? Probably a good call. And you can beat the traffic home.”
She stepped closer and hugged me. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too.”
She took a step back and turned toward the elevator.
“I’ll walk you down,” I said.
She smiled. “Thanks.”
We were quiet on the way down. She paused and glanced at the reception desk that she’d occupied for the past two years, then we continued to the door.
I hugged her again. “I hope you find a new job soon. Shout at me on social media if you need a reference.”
“Thanks.” She paused as she stepped back. “You should move into the fancy office. You’re the highest person on the ladder here, after all.”
I snorted. “I’m the only person on the ladder now.”
“Another reason to have the fancy office while you can.”
I chuckled. “I’ll think about it.”
We stood there, staring at each other in the way people do when they know they’ll probably never see each other again.
“I’m gonna go,” she finally said.
“Ok.”
I held the door as she picked up a small box with her remaining personal items and watched as she walked down the street. Then she turned the corner to the city-owned parking garage and disappeared from view.
I sighed as the door closed, made sure it had auto-locked, then headed toward the vault.
Three guys from the IT department were securing the last of the important equipment.
“Hey,” I said.
One of them turned and gave me a tight smile as he wandered over. He motioned to a tiny, cheap thing on the floor.
“So we’re almost done,” he said. “Your connection got cut a few minutes ago when I yanked out the big router. But I didn’t want to leave you without internet, so I pulled out this thing from my spare parts.
The password is on the back. It’s not going to be great, but it’ll probably be better than a hotspot on your phone.
You might have to restart it every once in a while cause it’s old and fussy. ”
“Will I get a signal with it in here?”
He laughed. “It’s connected to your wireless access points. It’ll work. Not great. But it’ll work.”
“I guess that’ll have to do. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I glanced at my watch. “The broker will be here for a walkthrough in about thirty minutes. Will you guys be done by then, or should I show the vault last?”
“We should be done, but everything with critical information is off and disconnected. We’re just packing it up.
There’s no risk in bringing them in if we’re still here.
The only equipment left is the security system, and that needs to stay.
The building has to have twenty-four-seven outside security monitoring until the lease changes hands. ”
“Really?”
“Yep. Something about how it’s cheaper to keep monitoring than to certify that the vault is secure and wasn’t compromised. But that’s good for you. A lone omega in an empty office? It’s good to have outside eyes.”
Part of me bristled, while I knew he was right.
“Do you need me for anything?” I asked.
“Nope, we’re good.”
“Ok. I guess I’m going to do my own walkthrough while I wait.”
“Ok. I’ll find you for the final sign-off when we’re ready.”
“Ok.”
I wandered back out and into the lobby. Gallery lights pointed at where fine art prints had hung, but now only illuminated the old brick. The curved granite reception desk that Ellie had sat at was cold and empty.
I walked over and pushed in her chair. It didn’t look right pushed back—as if she had just stepped away to use the ladies’ room.
Expensive fake plants and pricey couches made the space look inviting—luxury items that were cheaper to write off than to ship.
I took the old wrought-iron stairs to the second floor, then I started pushing chairs against tables and desks again.
The office chairs were top-of-the-line, retailing for over a grand and still fetching good prices on the secondary market.
But they were a pain to ship, so were left alongside the long wood coworking tables.
My footsteps bounced from the white walls of the appraisal room.
It was one of the few rooms that had been almost entirely stripped.
It was climate-controlled, but served a different purpose than the vault.
At one point, appraisal tables had dominated the space, specifically designed to support paintings for exhaustive examination.
Neutral walls and warm lighting ensured that colors were truer than under the harsh blue tint of the vault lights.
Now the appraisal tables were gone—valuable equipment that the company wanted to keep.
High-end tables and digital whiteboards remained in conference rooms, while the heavy-duty easels that had been a mainstay were absent.
The box of lint-free gloves used to handle paintings or aging records was gone, along with the specialty scanner that didn’t damage important documents. But the cheap document scanner we used for modern receipts sat on the floor with its cord wrapped around it.
The bookshelves in the research room had been stripped of the books that allowed us to track the provenance of a piece via old auction catalogs, but a stack of gallery mailers featuring the newest pieces of the previous season sat in their place.
I chuckled, wondering if people in a hundred years would treat those mailers with the same reverence that we gave the books.
The contents of the flat files were gone, but the metal cabinets themselves had been deemed too heavy to move.
It was like a movie set or a car with no engine. At first glance—because so much had been left—it appeared that we could all just sit down and resume work. But the tools of the job were all gone.
My watch beeped, and I saw that it was time for the broker.
I looked around, strangely satisfied that I’d tidied the space, and went back downstairs to greet him.