Physically and mentally exhausted, I don’t know what else to do, so I follow Colson back to Wolfsson. I need time and space to think. I need a safe space to think, and it’s the safest place I can think of, one that’s patrolled by 20 heavily armed guards at any given time and there’s a list of who’s allowed inside and the exact moments they enter and exit the building.
It’s so safe, in fact, that when I dig my badge out of my bag and swipe it across the reader at the front gate, nothing happens.
I swipe it again. And again. And again.
Nothing happens.
I throw my Tahoe into park with a curse and get out to walk back to Colson’s car behind me.
“My badge doesn’t work,” I exhale with irritation.
He nods to the strip of 10 spaces along the front of the security building and I return to my vehicle to back up and pull into the lot. Colson leads me inside and rounds the front desk to the computer. While I wait, I stare aimlessly around the tiny lobby, spying Alex in the back room behind the glass window over Colson’s shoulder.
Colson furrows his brow, scanning the screen, “I can’t find you.”
Without looking up, he grabs the phone across the desk and dials a number. As if the past 24 hours haven’t already been a complete shit show, add technological issues to the mix.
“Dave,” Colson keeps clicking around on the monitor, “Brett’s badge doesn’t work and I can’t find her in the system.” I recognize the familiar cadence of Dave’s voice over the phone, and after a few seconds, Colson raises his eyes and looks at me over the counter, “He says you don’t work here anymore.”
I just stare at Colson in bewilderment, unable to comprehend what he just said. I try to think back to yesterday, only 24 hours ago, and remember whether anything out of the ordinary happened with Dave.
Finally, I lean over the counter and grab the phone from Colson, “I thought you said you weren’t going to fire me!” I cry into the mouthpiece.
The meeting. That goddamn meeting where I got called into Dave’s office thinking I was getting fired for letting Colson have fun with his knife…
“Brett—hi!” Dave sounds caught off-guard by my sudden interruption, “I got your email early this morning, so I went ahead and started the off-boarding process. Did you mean to give two-weeks-notice of your departure instead of effective immediately?”
“Email?” I shriek, “What email?”
There’s a pause on Dave’s end, “The one where you told me you wrote a novel, signed with a publisher, and you’ve decided to pursue writing full-time.” He doesn’t seem to notice my pregnant pause and subsequent lack of response, “That’s exciting! Kind of sudden—we would’ve gotten you a cake if you’d said something sooner. That’s why I didn’t miss you today.”
A tingle runs down my neck and over my back. I whip out my phone and, with shaking hands, pull up Outlook and start scrolling through my work emails. At least it seems that I haven’t been kicked off the server yet. I keep scrolling, searching for the email he’s referring to, but there’s nothing.
“I didn’t send you an email, Dave!”
“Hold on…” he sighs and presumably turns to his computer, humming to himself as he types and clicks in the background.
Why doesn’t he sound more concerned about this?
“OK,” Dave pops back on the line, “I forwarded it to you. Did you get it?”
When I open the email, all I can do is exhale a haggard groan and stare at it in disbelief. Dave did receive an email last night, exactly like he said.
From: Sorensen, Brett (US)
To: Sedgewick, David (US)
Subject: Resignation
Dave,
I have good news. I wrote a novel and it’s been picked up by a publisher. Therefore, I’ve decided to resign, effective immediately, to focus on writing full-time. It’s been a pleasure to work with you.
Brett
It’s my resignation, but the problem is that I didn’t write it. It doesn’t even sound like an email I would write, devoid of salutations and exclamations and tiny details that indicate I’m a human rather than a dot matrix printer.
No sooner do I finish scanning the thread than the desk phone falls from my hand onto the counter. I run my hand over my heart, kneading my shirt as a sickening realization floods my stomach. Colson picks up the phone and turns away from me as he starts speaking to Dave. I don’t hear what he says. All I can hear is a rush in my ears, like I’m underwater, and everything seems to slow down.
I don’t know how long Colson is on the phone, but when he hangs up, sound slowly starts to return and I hear him speaking, but not to me. Alex has emerged from the back office. He and Colson are talking in hushed tones to one another, glancing at me periodically, but I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Finally, I snap out of it when Colson slams his phone face down on the copy machine glass and smashes the green button with his thumb. Once the machine spits out a sheet of paper, he rips it from the tray and scrawls a few words across the bottom in Sharpie before holding it up in front of Alex.
It’s a picture of Bowen, pulled from social media, with the make and model of his truck written under it.
Alex takes it from him and then, a second later, jerks his head up, “What is this? What the fuck happened?” he barks, jolting me out of my daze.
“Change of plan,” Colson replies, “he’s off the rails.”
My eyes dart between them as they argue, tossing vague terms back and forth to one another.
“What does that mean?” Alex demands, casting me a brief glance, “Why am I posting his face at our gate?”
I think this is the most animated I’ve ever seen Alex. He’s usually so calm, like he’s just absorbing everything around him. I can barely tell what he thinks about anything.
Colson looks at Alex gravely and lowers his voice, “Because he almost did it again…”
“I fff—” Alex presses his mouth together with a frustrated growl, “this is why I was trying to find you. This is why we needed you back,” he fluctuates between whispers and shouts, “because he was already coming at your other sister before I showed up. We should’ve ended this a long time ago.”
