Page 36 of His Ex's Little Sister
15
Reid
The insistent chirpof something foreign wakes me out of a deep sleep. Believing it’s my alarm clock, I stretch my arm to the night table and smack it hard. It’s my goddamned Blackberry, which I usually have on vibrate. I snatch it up and look at thenumber.
It’sJared.
Calling at seven in themorning?
The concept of Jared doing anything before ten a.m. is unheard of. This has to be important. Given that Leo has assigned some of my regular responsibilities to him, I can’t avoidhiscall.
“What?” Igrumble.
“Wake the fuck up, son,” Jared tells me. “We’ve gotbusiness.”
“Goahead.”
“Not this time. Come and answer your goddamnedfrontdoor.”
“Why the hell areyouhere?”
“Are you losing your hearing in your old age? I just said. Business is calling.Chopchop.”
“I’ll be right there,” I tell him, rolling quietly out of bed so that I don’t wake up Robin. She’s resting soundly, and that’s a good thing. I drag on the closest pair of sweatpants and head down the hall to answerthedoor.
“What the hell is this about?” Idemand.
“You wouldn’t be asking me that if you checked the last three emails Geoff sent to us lastnight.”
“What are theyabout?”
“Did you at least put on some coffee?” He asks with one raised eyebrow. “What the hell kind of host are you, ya wilybastard?”
“Keep your voice down.” I lead him to the kitchen and point to a chair at the table. “Have a seat. Fill me in on theemails.”
I start the coffee machine and sit opposite him at thetable.
“Those HR people at Mason Industries sent over a list of seventeen names. It’s not the shortlist we were hoping for, but I think Geoff was able to whittle it down to six names based on a few criteria. I thought I’d run itbyyou.”
“What were thecriteria?”
“We started off with the senior managers with access to the Mason farm. Everyone unaffected by the last two years of workforce changes was immediately dropped from the list. Ditto for those affected where HR and the executive approved for their requested transfers. That left seventeen managers. We cut that down some more by looking at locationanalysis.”
“What doyoumean?”
“Comparing the recent incident dates and times with their workstation computer active usage times. If they were active at their desk computers at the time of the incidents, we took them off the list. Then we dropped a few more based on the distance between their office locations and the incidentsites.”
“Good,” I agree with a nod. “If it’s impossible for them to get from one location to the next, youdroppedthem.”
“Exactly. That gets us down to sixnames.”
“How many of them arefemale?”
“Three.”
“Drop them from the shortlistfornow.”
“Justlikethat?”
