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I could still remember my shock when I’d opened it. It had contained a note almost identical to the one in my drawer today.Look what I got for Halloweenshe’d written on it. Instead of Brooks, hers had said she would “end up like Patel.”
I’d walked Melinda’s note to the local FBI office and told them how I came to have it. But I’d never heard another thing from them—no follow-up, ever. The interviews had ceased a month after Melinda’s body was discovered. Even they seemed to have forgotten about her.
Daya Patel had stopped coming to work six months before Melinda disappeared. It had taken a week for her to be declared missing. Her boyfriend and she had fought often. He was out of the country at the time, so the theory had been that she’d left town to get away from him. That possibility ended when her car was found abandoned in a desolate area. No sign of her had ever been located, and after Melinda’s death, it became pretty clear to me what her fate had been.
I’d been transferred upstairs to replace Patel, and had even been assigned her old cubicle, a detail I hadn’t known until after I started on this floor.
“Kell, let’s get moving.” Kirby pushed my shoulder and jostled me back to reality. The meeting was over.
I stood and shuffled down the line of chairs.
“The biggest waste of time ever,” she said. “Can you believe he wants to start another inventory?”
“Huh?”
“An inventory again already. How do you spell anal-retentive? K-R-A-U-S-E.”
“Yeah, a waste of time,” I agreed.
The Smithsonian had over a hundred fifty thousand items, many of them packed away in storage, and an inventory was a monumental task.
I stumbled on the way out, but caught the doorframe before I ended up on my ass.
Mark grabbed my elbow to steady me. “Careful there, Kelly. You okay?”
I forced a half laugh. “Damned heels.”
He released his hold and left with a wink. “They do look hot, though.”
The compliment pulled a half-smile from me. He wasn’t a bad guy, easy-going it seemed, but I’d learned my lesson about dating someone from work. That wasn’t a mistake I was about to repeat. Instead I’d found lots of new ones to make.
Kirby pulled me toward the bulletin board on our floor. “Hey, there’s a supervisor position open in finance that would be a step up for you. You should take a shot at it.”
I read the posting with fake enthusiasm. “It looks good, but I don’t think I’m right for that one.” My current job was nice—no calendar pressures, a boss I could deal with, and responsibilities I could handle. Stability was underappreciated.
Back at my desk, I turned on my computer and signed in. I blinked, but the icons on the screen swam back and forth, refusing to stay in focus. My thoughts went back to the two dead women and the note in my drawer.
Kirby reappeared. “Coffee? You look like death warmed over after that meeting.”
“Sure.” I stood. I could use the distraction.
Kirby stuck her head around the corner to speak to my cubicle neighbor, Evelyn. “Ev, you want to join us?”
“No. I don’t feel so good.”
I stepped out of my cube.
“I got a killer hangover cure, if you need it,” Kirby told her.
Evelyn looked like crap this morning, and it wasn’t the first Monday that hadn’t agreed with her.
“It’s not that,” she said. “I think I’ll go home.”
Kirby started toward her caffeine fix, and I followed. “Wanna try the Columbian blend? It’s better than the regular stuff,” she said.
She was a superstitious sort and had decided I needed to break old habits if I was ever going to get laid.
I chose an English Breakfast teabag and added hot water. “No thanks. I don’t need anything to clean the rust off my bicycle chain.”
