Page 66 of V is for Valentine
“What are you going to do when the place is packed with employees?”
“Advise them to dress properly,” he said with a laugh. “I think I can keep her going until the new fiscal year in July when they will be able to order a new furnace. One that isn’t from the middle of the last century.”
Upstairs, she could hear Danny moving around, preparing to paint one of the offices. They only had another hour together and plenty to do, so it wasn’t like they’d be drifting about the building, bumping into one another. But she didn’t particularly want Deke to leave, either. Once he was gone, Danny, not painting, would be front and center in her brain.
“The place looks really good,” Deke said as he headed for the door. “Your dad did a great job, and so have you.”
“Thanks,” Felicity said. She waited where she was until the door closed, then went back to the office where she was edging yet another set of windows.
Music came on upstairs shortly after she began dragging paint along the edge of the first window, the heavy bass thrumming through the floorboards. Felicity set down her brush and pulled her phone out of her pocket, queuing up an upbeat playlist which was the exact opposite of her current mood, and propped the phone on an unopened paint bucket.
Better.
Her music didn’t drown out the beat of Danny’s, but it did make her feel more optimistic about getting through the day. And her financial date with Cade Kincaid in a few hours.
She was going to that more out of a sense of duty than anything. With Cade’s dad on the city council, and her father still bidding on contracts, she didn’t want to cause any hard feelings, so she’d give Cade free advice, enjoy a glass of wine, then go home and watch the sports highlights with her dad.
With the music anchoring them to their respective workplaces, Felicity began to relax, enjoying the satisfying feeling of pulling her brush in a long straight line. She’d given up using edging tape as a teen, instead learning how to fan the bristles just so, and she hadn’t lost the knack, which saved a lot of time applying and removing tape.
She’d just finished the last window in the office when the furnace kicked on and the lights went out.
“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, stepping into the dim hallway, then heading for the basement steps.
“Felix?” Danny’s voice echoed through the dim building.
“I’ve got this,” she yelled back.
After opening the basement door and peering into the darkness, she almost went back for her phone, which was playing Adele’s latest, to light her way. Almost. She could see light at the bottom of the staircase, so she felt her way down. When she reached the area illuminated by streetlight coming in through narrow windows near the ceiling, she moved more quickly, making her way to the furnace room where the circuit breaker box was located.
Danny’s footsteps sounded above her, headed toward the basement door. She let out a sigh as she pulled her keys out of her pocket and guessed at the correct one since they all looked blue in the dim light. Apparently “I’ve got this,” meant something else in Dannyland.
“Wait up there and tell me if we get light,” she called. The furnace door unlocked first try and then she fished around in the shadows for the door prop, which she kicked into place before pausing to let her eyes adjust to the much darker furnace room.
The breaker box was on the opposite side of Bertha. Once there, she opened the cover and ran her fingers down the panel until she reached the breaker that was flipped the wrong way. She pried it back into place, and the furnace blower started up again just as a heavy thud sounded on the other side of the room followed by a colorful curse. The door prop skittered across the room, bouncing off her shoe.
The…what?
No.
No, no, no.
Felicity made her way around Bertha to find Danny picking himself up off the floor.
She reached her hand out to the wall and flipped on the light switch. Danny appeared no worse for wear, but the door looked to be very, very closed.
Danny glanced over his shoulder, then back at her. “You have the new keys, right?”
Felicity shook her head. “There are no new keys.”
Chapter Twelve
It took amoment for Felix’s answer to sink in. “I thought that Deke replaced the lock yesterday?”
“The new lock didn’t come in.”
“A heads-up would have been nice.”
She pulled her old keys out of her pocket and put one in the lock. A second later she pulled it out again. “Try yours,” she said.
