Page 39 of Hell to Pay

“Although,” Jude said, “if you want to skip it, you know we can cover your expenses until things go back to normal.”

I reached for the door, suddenly eager to get out of the car. I’d already had this conversation with Nolan. I wasn’t having it again with Jude.

“I’m good,” I said, getting out of the car.

“Good luck,” he said as I shut the door.

I walked up the pathway leading to the building. The weather was perfect. Warm and balmy. Daffodils and tiger lilies lined the sidewalk, giving the utilitarian building a quintessentially small-town appearance.

What would it be like to work in a place like this instead of a seedy motel or a dive bar or a grimy chain restaurant? It was the kind of normal other people probably took for granted, but I felt a little burst of optimism as I reached for the glass door, imagined coming to work every day in decent clothes, getting coffee from the break room, sitting at a desk instead of being on my feet for eight hours at a time.

I told the greeter — an older woman with gray hair wearing an assortment of beaded necklaces — I was there for an interview with the Mayor’s Office and she checked her list, then directed me to the second floor.

I passed a handful of people coming down the stairs and when I got to the second-floor landing, I saw a sign pointing one way down the hall for the planning department, pet licensing, the tax office, and records. A second sign pointed me in the other direction for the Mayor’s Office.

I emerged from the hall into a lobby with a handful of potted plants and a generic unmanned desk, its surface empty, the lights on a phone blinking as it rang.

I looked around, but no one was there, and it didn’t look like anyone was coming. I waited for almost a full minute, thinking maybe someone would answer the phone from another room, but it just kept on ringing, so I finally walked over to it, hesitated, then picked it up.

“Uh… Blackwell Falls Mayor’s Office, how may I help you?”

“Hi, this is Rosie from the Chamber of Commerce office calling for Meredith.” The voice on the other end of the line was crisp and businesslike.

I hesitated, then saw the hold button on the complicated phone system. “May I put you on hold for a moment?”

“Of course.”

I pressed the hold button and set down the receiver.

“Who are you and what are you doing?”

I spun around and came face-to-face with Mayor Maxwell. I’d only seen her a handful of times, always in news articles about local events, town elections, and budget discussions, but she looked more or less the same: a fifty-something woman with styled shoulder-length brown hair and makeup that looked polished but not overdone.

“I’m… Lilah?” Oh god, why did I say it like it was a question? Like I didn’t even know my own name? “Sorry, I have an interview at one, but no one was here and the phone was ringing, so…”

She lifted a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “You answered it?”

“Um… yes.”

Her gaze sharpened with something like interest. “Who is it?”

“Rosie from the Chamber of Commerce, asking for Meredith,” I said.

She marched to the phone, picked up the receiver, and pressed a button. “I’ll transfer you now.”

She pressed another button and set down the receiver. “Have you been a receptionist before?”

I shook my head. “No.” I hesitated, then decided to just get the hard part over with. “I’ve actually never had a job in an office before.”

Mayor Maxwell sat on the edge of the greeter’s desk. “What kinds of jobs have you had?”

“Waitress, bartender, maid,” I said. “That kind of thing.”

“Ever been fired?”

I thought about the Dive, then the motel. “Twice actually.”

My face heated.

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