Chapter 4: Everything He Didn't Ask

By noon the whole building knew the Chair was a woman, and that she was thirty-one.

I took the stairs down to the twenty-second floor on purpose.

I wanted the people who worked for me to see my face before they heard another rumor.

The operations floor was an open room with sixty desks, a wall of screens and a coffee machine nobody cleaned.

Conversations stopped as I walked in.

A dispatcher stood up out of habit and sat back down.

Colin was at the far end beside his new glass-walled office, and he looked sick.

Next to him stood Peyton Ferris, in a cream suit, with a lanyard that said GUEST in red letters.

"Selah," Colin said. "Ms. Olmstead. Peyton's here for her first day."

"Her first day of what?"

"She's my new partnership director. I approved the offer Friday, and HR sent it Saturday."

"HR doesn't send offers without my signature," I said.

"Colin said it was a formality," Peyton said, and smiled at me.

It was a kind smile, so kind I wanted to take her teeth out.

"I'm so excited to be part of Olmstead Freight. Colin has told me everything about the culture."

"Has he?"

"He says it's like a family."

Sixty people were listening, and every one of them held a mug or a mouse and did not move.

I turned to the HR manager hovering near the elevators.

"This offer is not approved," I said, loudly enough for the back row.

"Chair?"

"Withdraw it. Ms. Ferris will receive a letter by courier this afternoon, thanking her for her interest."

Peyton's smile held.

It held.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," she said. "I left a position in Chicago for this."

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