She Stole My Job… And My Nightmare! novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Coat

Hallie lays her badge on the desk in front of the whole floor and Elliot lets her go too easily; at 2:04 a.m. Ivy calls to say he won't let her leave until Hallie picks up.

"No," I said.

It was the first time I had said that word to him in four years.

Nobody on the forty-first floor made a sound.

Elliot did not move. He kept his eyes on mine and waited.

I took my badge off its clip.

I set it on the desk in front of Ivy, next to the four phones.

"That's mine, and it's yours now," I said. "The calendar binder is color-coded. Green is the board. Don't move his Tuesday reports."

Ivy had stopped spinning the chair.

"Hallie, I didn't mean," she said. "I didn't know you'd actually..."

"It's fine," I said. "You'll be great at it."

Elliot looked down at the badge.

Then he looked at my bare wrist.

"Where is the watch?"

"Top drawer."

He reached past Ivy's shoulder and slid the drawer open himself.

The watch lay face down, where I had left it.

He looked at it for what felt like a long time.

Then he closed the drawer, very gently, so it made no noise at all.

"Ms. Dalton," he said.

Ivy jumped. "Yes, sir."

"Black, one sugar. In four minutes."

"Yes! Yes, of course, sir." She was out of the chair and halfway to the kitchen before she remembered the phones and ran back for one.

I stood there with my bag on my shoulder, waiting for him to stop me.

I had planned for everything.

I had planned for shouting, which he never did, and for a threat, which he did not need to say aloud, because he had a way of reminding me what my sister owed.

I had my answer ready for each one.

"You can go," Elliot said.

I stared at him.

"That's all?"

"You gave notice. I've read it now." He took a folded paper out of his jacket pocket. It was the email I'd sent HR, printed. "Your last day is today. HR will send the rest."

He turned and walked into his office.

He left the glass door open behind him.

I waited for something else. A door slamming. A condition. A hand on my arm.

Nothing came.

I walked to the elevator, and the whole floor watched me go.

Inside, with the doors shut, I put my back against the wall and slid down it.

I cried so hard I had to cover my mouth.

I wasn't sad.

I was free, and I had no idea what to do with my hands.

The doorman on the ground floor held the door for me and asked if I was all right.

"Fine," I said. "Just done."

I took the subway to Queens with my work bag on my lap.

My sister opened her door in scrubs, with a fork in one hand.

Maggie is thirty-one and an ER nurse, and she has a way of looking at a person that sees the whole bruise.

"You quit," she said.

"I quit."

"Like, actually?"

"I gave away my desk to a girl from Ohio and walked out in front of the whole floor."

Maggie stared at me for a second.

Then she dropped the fork and hugged me so hard my bag fell off my shoulder.

"I'm ordering wings," she said into my hair. "Don't argue. You're going to eat and I'm going to say I told you so about nine times."

"You never told me so."

"I'm going to say it anyway."

We ate wings on her couch with a blanket over our knees, and she made me tell the whole thing twice.

When I got to the part about the watch in the drawer, she put her bottle down.

"He just let you leave."

"He just let me leave."

"That man tore up three letters."

"I know."

"Hal." She tilted her head. "That's not like him."

"I know that too," I said. "I'm not going to think about it tonight."

I fell asleep on her couch with my shoes on.

Something woke me.

The room was dark, and the clock on Maggie's cable box read 2:04.

My phone was ringing.

For four years, that sound at that hour had meant one voice.

I didn't breathe.

The screen said a number I didn't know.

I let it ring until it stopped.

It started again right away.

I picked up and didn't speak.

"Hallie?" It was Ivy, and she was whispering. She sounded like she had been crying. "I got your number out of the binder. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Ivy, where are you?"

"I'm at the desk. It's two in the morning."

"Why are you still at the office?"

"He told me to call you," Ivy said. "He hasn't said a word since eight. He just keeps standing at his door."

Her voice broke.

"He won't let me leave until you pick up."

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