Raising a bushy brow, he says, “Your office will still be taken care of.”
Tim appears in the doorway as suddenly as Roger disappears, an empty cardboard box in hand. “Sibley Bradford.” He shakes his head; pity laces his voice. “Today is not your day.”
I raise my chin at him haughtily. “Depends on who you ask.”
“What do you need?” He waves his arm around the office. “I’ll pack it up and walk you out.”
“My purse, laptop . . .”
He holds a hand up to interrupt.
“Items out of the closet,” I finish.
“The laptop is company issued. You can’t take it with you.”
“But it has all of my case files.”
“Orders from Roger.” He throws his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I brush a strand of hair behind my ear in frustration as Tim follows me around the office like I’m on an invisible leash, scanning the items I grab, tossing them in the box.
Without asking and despite my protests, he starts to rifle through my gym bag and laptop case before proudly removing a computer charger, as if feeling self-important at this discovery. “This has to stay.”
I roll my eyes.
“Anything else?” he asks innocently.
I motion to the closet. “I have a small plastic container in there, filled with some personal effects.” Mostly sentimental: it contains some old photos and accolades I’ve received over the years, including a box of stationery that belonged to my mother. I’ve written a few personal letters on the pale-yellow paper, and each time, I catch a lingering whiff of the floral scent of her patchouli.
As Tim reaches onto the top shelf and pulls out the bin, I stand close enough to steal a glance over his shoulder, studying the contents of the closet for my stash of vodka.
“Anything else?” Giving me a side-eye, he notices my stumped gaze on the shelf. “If you’re looking for the bottles, they’ve all been removed.”
“What do you mean, ‘all’?” I murmur.
“There were multiple.”
“One.” I shake my head. “Maybe two.”
“Six.”
“We have a lot of clients that like to drink,” I say defensively.
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me, Mrs. Bradford.”
“When were they taken?” It sounds as if we’re talking about a person, a child, being removed from its custodial parents.
“Last night.”
“Well, you did a poor job. You missed all the airplane bottles,” I say sourly.
“No, I didn’t. They were all empty.”
My face reddens. “Do you know why I’m being asked to take a leave of absence?”
“The bottles gave me a hint.” Tim frowns and quickly pats me on the arm. “My brother had a wicked drinking problem.”
“What happened to him?”
“Well,” Tim says sadly, “he died.”
“Of cirrhosis or another type of liver disease?”
“No.” Tim motions me out the door. “He hit and killed a pedestrian.”
“On second thought, wait!” I quickly retrieve the snake plant, grunting at its heaviness. Tim gives me a confused look, and I snap, “It was a gift, and it’s mine.”
I’m standing numbly as Tim locks up my door when my colleague and friend Tanner Ellis comes around the corner. I hadn’t thought far enough to consider the humiliation of being walked out in front of my cronies.
As particles of soil spill out of the top of the terra-cotta pot balanced precariously in my arms, I question why I bothered with the damn plant, but it doesn’t take Freud to know why. It was a gift from Nico, and it’s not like I was the one keeping it alive. Our night cleaning crew watered and tended to it like it was their own.
It thrived, unlike our professional relationship, which is now wilted and dead.
My face burns at the sight of Tanner gaping when he notices the box of my belongings cradled in Tim’s arms.
Shock and confusion are apparent in our wordless but powerful eye contact.
“Take the stairs,” Tanner says with finality. “Brett and Connor are on their way up.”
I nod my thanks as Tim glances at my stilettos and then my face. With confidence I don’t feel, I march to the stairs and yank the heavy door open, the metal staircase uninviting, on par with my blatant dismissal.
Tim takes the descent of sixteen floors without missing a beat. He goes into morbid details with painstaking clarity about his brother’s suicide after he accidentally killed someone.
When we reach the bottom, I can only offer him a sympathetic whisper.
My Tesla sits in its covered parking spot, the block lettering on the sign announcing it’s reserved for Buckley, Felderman, Shackler & Associates.
I pop the trunk as he settles the box in the back. The hefty manila packet that Roger sent home catches my eye, but not before a loose bottle of vodka captures Tim’s.
Once rolled up tightly in a towel, the bottle has unwound itself and is now noticeable. Our expressions freeze, and I watch him watch me. His brown eyes meet mine, and I see him for the first time not as our security guard but as a person who has suffered an enormous loss. There’s a heavy sorrow behind his gaze.
“Please come back,” he says. And I wonder if it’s as much about the job as it is about the implications if I don’t. Because if I don’t return, it’ll mean my own demise, and I might have a tragic tale on par with his late brother’s.
Before I can shut the lid of the trunk, his hand snatches the bottle out.
I stare after Tim as he walks away, whistling a song I’ve heard but can’t place. The lyrics are forgotten, but the melody is haunting.
CHAPTER 8
Sibley
Safe from the outside world for the moment, I lean against the headrest, listlessly closing my eyes to the morning sounds of birds and chatter as the world moves on around me. My fingers hang on to the steering wheel like mere threads that, if plucked, will cause me to lose my last remaining grip on reality.
As much as I fight it, I don’t have the power to push away the memories, at least not today. A wise person once said a single
