Page 24 of A Brighter Yellow
Anna had no response to that, and she stared at him in confusion.
“Dr. Lucas?” said a polite voice.
Anna turned to look at the thirty-something woman in the lobby doorway. She was wearing an outfit similar to what Anna usually saw Charlie in—closed-toe shoes, slacks, and a sweater under a lab coat. Charlie usually tossed in a pentagram or two, but this woman was wearing tasteful diamond studs and had her brown hair up in a bun. She made Anna feel even less put together than usual.
“Yes,” said Ochre, smiling at her too.
“Dr. Ochre Lucas? You wrote that paper on Climate Resilience last year?” The woman took an eager step forward, and, with a sinking heart, Anna realized that Ochre had his own fan club.
“Yeah,” said Ochre, ducking his head in an awe-shucks maneuver that would have been adorable if he’d been making it at Anna. “That was me.”
“I really enjoyed that,” she said. “Hi, I’m Dr. Aubrey Torrington.” She held out her hand and walked toward Ochre. He smiled and shook her hand. Neither of them looked at Anna.
“Thanks,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like no one actually reads those.”
“I loved it,” said Aubrey, beaming. “Raquel said you were looking for Charlie?”
“Hi,” said Anna, shoving into Ochre, smiling aggressively at Aubrey. “I’m Anna.”
“Uh…Yes,” said Ochre. “We’re friends of Charlie’s. We just came from her house, and she wasn’t there. We were hoping she was here.”
Aubrey’s eyebrows went up in worry, and she shook her head. “She hasn’t been in yet, and she hasn’t called in. I was going to call the police.”
“Because of her stalker?” guessed Anna, and Aubrey nodded.
“Ever since we fired him, it’s like he became even more obsessed. But our boss said I should wait until at least noon before we called anyone.”
“Fired him?” asked Ochre, glancing at Anna.
“Then you know who it is?” asked Anna.
“Sure. We all know who it is. Dr. Elliot Hoyer. He got fired three months ago when he left… certain emissions on Charlie’s keyboard. He probably wouldn’t have gotten fired even then, except I ran a DNA test and matched it to him.”
Anna felt a growl welling up and only partially managed to quell it. “Eww,” she said through gritted teeth when Aubrey looked at her strangely.
“Yes, that was what we all said. And yet Vern, our boss, was concerned about damaging the reputation of such a promising scientist and let him resign.”
“Patriarchy,” said Ochre around a fake cough, and Aubrey laughed, and ran a soft hand over Ochre’s bicep as if to emphasize how amusing she found him.
“Yes, basically.”
“Can I see her office?” asked Anna, trying to cut in on Aubrey’s flirting. “I might be able to sm… see something.”
“Um, I guess, though I’ll have to stay with you. Some of what we do here is proprietary,” said Aubrey, once again giving Anna a look that implied that Anna was behaving oddly.
“Anna’s been gathering samples for Charlie,” said Ochre with a reassuring smile.
“Oh, OK,” said Aubrey as if Ochre’s explanation made any sense. But then, from the way Aubrey smelled, she probably would have agreed with anything Ochre said. Anna repressed another growl. This one was entirely territorial and left her twitching in frustration. Punching random humans for wanting Ochre was probably not productive and was definitely un-ladylike. It was very wolf-like, but this was perhaps not the moment to embrace that portion of herself.
Aubrey had them sign in at the desk and then walked them through the halls to Charlie’s office. Anna went directly to the bottom drawer of Charlie’s desk, where she knew Charlie kept the lockbox. She took the little key out of her pocket and opened it, trying not to make the motions too apparent to Aubrey and Ochre. The little lock shouldn’t have kept out more than the most incompetent of thieves, but Charlie had enspelled the keys and lock. As soon as the box was open, she rifled through the contents.
“Her tablet is here. She kept all of her notes on it,” said Anna, glancing up at Ochre with a frown. That was good news for them. It meant that all of Charlie’s notes on the wolf spell and warlock magic were still safe, but it didn’t get Anna any closer to where Charlie was. She looked at the contents again. There was a basic magic kit. Some sage bundles, a small unlabeled pill bottle that Anna recognized, and a red notebook she didn’t. She scooped up the pill bottle, trying to keep the two pills inside from making a racket as she put it in her pocket. She flashed the red notebook at the others, hoping that Aubrey hadn’t noticed the theft. The pills were Charlie’s latest experiment and, if Anna was right, they would do more good with Anna than they would sitting in the bottom of Charlie’s desk.
Aubrey abruptly laughed. “Oh, my God, who knew Charlie was a twelve-year-old girl at heart?”
Aubrey’s hand darted out, and she pulled out a necklace from the bottom of the box where they had been hiding under the red notebook. It looked like the standard chintzy gold charm necklace that could be bought at any mall jewelry shop. The charm was one-half of a broken heart that had BFF inscribed on the front.
“I haven’t seen one of these since junior high.” Aubrey’s tone was so condescending that Anna’s fist curled in anger. “Let’s see.” Aubrey flipped over the necklaces and looked at the names inscribed on the back of the charms. “It says, Anna. I guess it’s yours. Funny, the necklace is really long.”
