Chapter 6: The Office

At seven on Monday morning, there was a new nameplate on the desk outside Vaughn's office.

TARA KILGALLON, CHIEF OF STAFF.

He had spelled it right.

I stood there with my coffee, and the man from accounting who had cried in the board meeting walked past and gave me a look of pure worship.

"You came back," he whispered.

"I got a raise," I said.

"Please don't leave again."

By nine, the rumor on the forty-first floor was that I had held Vaughn Draycott at gunpoint.

I didn't correct it.

At ten, Vaughn's oldest friend arrived for the weekly lunch Vaughn always cancelled.

Rory MacGillivray was thirty-four, loud and sandy-haired, and he kissed my hand.

"The legend herself," he said. "Do you know I've been waiting five years to see what you'd do to him?"

"Rory," Vaughn said.

"I mean it with love. He's been unbearable. Whatever you did, do more of it."

"Sit down," Vaughn said, "and stop talking."

Rory sat, grinning.

He looked between us with a bright, odd interest.

I took the folder I had come for and escaped to the supply room.

The supply room on forty-one was a narrow closet of toner and printer paper.

I climbed on a low crate to reach the top shelf and heard the door open behind me.

It clicked shut.

"You can't be in here," I said, without turning around.

"I'm aware of the terms."

"Then leave."

"I will," Vaughn said. "In a minute."

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