Page 83 of The Picasso Heist
“What?”
“Hang up!”
Jacinda freezes for a moment before whispering into her phone, “I’ll have to call you back.”
Amanda’s in the doorway behind me, scared for her job. “I’m sorry, I tried to stop her,” she says.
“It’s okay,” Jacinda tells her. “You can close the door.”
“Are you sure?” asks Amanda.
“Yeah, she’s sure,” I say.
The door closes. I take a seat in front of Jacinda’s desk. She eyes me as if I’ve just pulled the pin on a grenade.
“What are you doing?” she asks. “What is this?”
“It’s my exit interview,” I say. “Except I get to ask the first question:Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you put it all in my file?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Jacinda.
“Your boss does. Waxman knows all about my past, who my father is—you put it in my file, and he read it,” I say.
“Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m not serious?”
“Let me rephrase that,” she says. “Are you crazy? Why would I ever put that in writing?”
“You tell me.”
“For one thing, I’d get fired.” She blinks. “Wait, did he just fire you?”
“He was about to. I quit before he could.”
Jacinda’s waving her hands, confused. “Hold on, time-out. Waxman told you that he read your file and that I had notes in it about who your father is?”
“He was calling me Halston Greer,” I say.
“That’s impossible.”
“So now I’m crazyandhearing things?”
Jacinda stands and walks to her file cabinet. She yanks it open, takes something out, and slams it shut even harder. Plop goes the file in my lap. The tab readsGRAHAM, HALSTON.
“Have at it,” she says.
I don’t bother opening the file. She’s trying to prove there’s nothing in there about my past other than my résumé.
“You knew we’d be having this conversation,” I say.
“Sure, yeah, that’s what happened. I took all the incriminating evidence out of the file ahead of time. I’m a genius.”
“It wouldn’t take a genius.”
