Page 15 of Just for Her
I finally made it to the office around midday, only to find Stella at the front desk, doing ... nothing. She put down her phone and stood the moment I walked in.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“It went.” I glanced at Irene’s normally pristine work area and frowned.
Stella had apparently claimed it for her own. Irene’s#1 Grandmamug had been pushed to the side and takeout food and drink containers littered the surface.
It bothered me.
“Shouldn’t you be working on the Di Miglio case?”
“I thought it was more important to have someone out here. You know, to greet clients and answer the phones and stuff.”
It was a valid point. Sometimes, we had walk-ins, and I wanted clients and potential clients to be able to speak to a real, live person when they called during normal business hours. Still, she could have been doingsomethingin between. Irene knitted scarves and donated them to homeless shelters.
“Do you have anything for me?”
“Like what?”
I waved at the phone and called upon my quickly waning patience. “Messages. Requests. Updates.”
“Oh, right.” She grabbed several slips of paper and held them out to me. One message was written on a lipstick-stained napkin.
I took them and made for the peace and solitude of my office to sit down, drink my coffee, and sort through them. Hopefully, I would find one from Allison Kearney or her sister among them.
When I sat down in my chair, however, I realized that Stella had followed me.
She leaned against my desk, showing a bit more leg than was appropriate, and sipped from her glittery insulated tumbler. “So, what are we doing today?”
“Youare going to go through everything we have on the Di Miglio case and create a to-do list of action items.Iam going to drink this double espresso and triage my inbox.”
Her lips turned downward. “You want me to do that right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
“Someone’s grumpy today.”
I gave her my best serious-boss glare, swiftly conveying that I was not in a mood to argue. She made ahmmphsound and strolled out of my office.
I exhaled when she crossed over the threshold. Gina had been right. I was being played, and it was high time I did something about it. But not before I was fully caffeinated.
