Roses Revenge novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Sign-In Sheet

Rose's POV

By two o'clock the new office had a lease and a full staff.

It was the fourth floor of an old brick building two blocks from the river, with bad carpet, good windows, and no sign yet on the door.

The woman from payroll had a card table set up in the hall.

On it sat Aunt Bea's sign-in sheet, a clipboard with a pen tied to it by a long piece of string.

"Everyone signs in," Bea said, "every time. Name, time, and who you're here to see."

"It's a startup, Bea," said the junior engineer.

"It's my startup now," she said, and wrote Beatrice Haverty, Office Manager, across the top in capitals.

I had not asked her to take the job.

She had turned up at eleven in her cardigan with her reading glasses on a cord and said, "A school bursar knows where everything is. Where do I sit?"

I looked at the room, with everyone laughing, arguing over desks, and carrying in coffee.

Nobody there was afraid of me, and nobody was afraid of anyone else.

For the first time in three years, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

The elevator dinged.

Colton stepped out of it.

The bandage on his hand had gone gray at the edges, and the hand hung stiff at his side.

His tie hung loose. His hair stuck up on one side.

Around his right ankle, below the cuff of his trousers, a strip of black plastic dangled from a cut strap.

Everyone in the hall stopped talking.

"Hello, Rose," he said. "I thought I'd see the new place."

"You can't be here," I said.

"I'm a stakeholder."

"You're a defendant."

He laughed, high and loud, and started toward the office door.

Aunt Bea stepped in front of him with the clipboard.

"Name," she said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Name, time, and who you're here to see. Everyone signs the sheet."

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