I wondered what our life together would be like as I stood there, thoughts of kids and marriage flooding my mind. As shocking as it was, I couldn’t wait to have a daughter with her, a little girl with as much fire as her mother, but hopefully not as clumsy. Maybe we’d name her after Elena’s mother, a woman I’d never meet. I didn’t know much about her parents, but I’d learn more, especially over Christmas, when we’d head up to Middle-of-Nowhere, Vermont, as she called it.
“Next,” another teller bellowed.
I stepped into her lane, a twenty-something blond with more attitude on her face than makeup, and that was an achievement. “Good afternoon.”
“Hi,” she replied flatly. Her lips pulled downward in a scowl, ready to get the hell out of that place.
I knew the feeling all too well. “Having a rough day?” I asked, raising a brow.
Her face scrunched. “Maybe.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied, glancing up at the clock and spying the time, then to her name tag, SARA etched in black. “Luckily, you’ll be free in two hours, Sara.”
By then, I’d be tucked away in my hotel room, hopefully arranging a trip with Elena to Chicago before Christmas. After that, it was off to bed, my weekend packed with odds and ends in Tampa. It’d be my last time there in the foreseeable future, so I needed to wrap shit up once and for all.
She nodded. “How can I help you, sir?”
“I need to make a money transfer from my account to another.” I pulled my wallet from my pocket, fishing out the worn piece of lined paper with the pertinent details I used to have memorized. It was funny how the brain replaced data, names, birthdays, and milestones erased when they were no longer important. It was an amazing organ when it functioned properly — when depression didn’t have it in a stranglehold.
“The date of the payment, sir?” she asked, her hands resting on her keyboard, pink-shadowed eyes looking my way. Her false lashes were terrifying, resting on her eyes like black butterflies from the depths of hell.
I shrugged, not really caring. As long as the tainted money was out of my account, I’d be happy. “Today is fine. Or Monday if it needs to be the next business day.”
She snapped the gum in her mouth loudly, making me jump. “The amount of the transfer?” she asked.
Jesus Christ, who popped gum in a bank? It sounded like a goddamn gunshot. She was lucky she didn’t give me or the old couple a heart attack.
“It’ll be $70,000,” I replied, gripping the counter in irritation.
Her eyes popped wide, and she all-out gaped at me. “We have a one-week holding period on sums that high, sir.”
I waved a hand. “That’s fine.”
Her eyes drifted back to her screen, a sudden burst of red igniting her cheeks. “The name of the account holder you’ll be transferring the funds to?”
I rolled my shoulders, ready to leave the past behind once and for all. “Bianca Barrett.”
Elena
Mondays sucked a fat one. Especially when they started off in HR.
The clusterfuck of Croft struck again, my personnel file vanishing. I had to be re-fingerprinted, photographed, and verified, and if that wasn’t annoying enough, I had to fill out mountains of paperwork with Peggy, the human resources manager.
She apologized profusely, and I tried not to take it out on her, but damn was I pissed. I completed the forms, my hand cramping to hell and back by the time I signed the last line, the act of writing foreign thanks to computers.
It was a little too convenient that it went missing after they moved Monica to the department, but I had no proof to make any accusations, so I kept quiet. If she tampered with it again, there would be hell to pay.
I all but darted out of there, stopping in the restroom before I burst thanks to downing a liter of water. When I was washing my hands, in walked Monica, camping out in front of the mirror, angling her face to check her makeup.
“Good morning, Elena,” she greeted, a smile shining bright as she met my eyes in the mirror.
“Hi.” I didn’t have a word more to say to her after our last run-in. I especially didn’t after the paperwork debacle she was without a doubt behind.
“How are you doing?” she asked, still smiling as she fussed with her flaxen locks.
“Fine...” I trailed as I flicked off the faucet. “How are you?”
She fluffed her hair more, tilting her chin high as she studied her reflection. “Oh, I’m wonderful. I’m having the best day ever.”
“That’s nice.” I shook water droplets from my hands, bracelets clattering with each flick of the wrist.
“The schedule is interesting today,” she mused, her smile widening.
Great. Marty probably scheduled something awful, and she would rub it in now that she was free of him. “Is it? I haven’t been to my desk. When I came in, I had to meet with Peggy.”
She feigned horror, popping her mouth into a ridiculous circle. “I heard. Weird, right?”
For the thousandth time, I swallowed disgust for her. “Yeah, strange.”
“Well, an email went out from Chicago. We’re having a branch meeting today.”
I shrugged. It was probably about whoever would take over for Jason. Maybe they were announcing a fill-in finally, though I doubted it. In true Croft fashion, they hadn’t started interviews, much to Jason’s frustration. “That’s cool.”
“Everyone will be on the call! I’m so excited!”
“Yeah, that’s cool.” I reached out and grabbed a paper towel, blotting my hands for the last bits of moisture.
“Oh, Barrett is out, so he’ll probably be calling in,” she breathed, pursing her lips in the mirror.
I shrugged, not interested in wherever she was going with her game. “No clue.”
“He’s so busy. I don’t
