Her work was everything, p.4
Her Work Was Everything, page 4
Back in the bedroom, Zachary opened the lid on Lauren’s computer. He looked through the papers on the desk and found one with ten-character strings of random characters carefully noted. He typed the last one in the password field and the lock screen disappeared, revealing the desktop and windows behind it.
No biometrics, luckily. Nothing that would require a computer hacker to break. He looked at the apps running along the bottom of the screen, then started the task manager to see how long they had been running and which ones had downloaded the most data packets. He started with the top ones and worked his way down the list, opening all of the “recently opened” documents in each program. Most of it was Greek to him. High finance was not his wheelhouse. He found one app that appeared to be corporate software that pulled Lauren’s various social networks and team workspaces and calendars into one program, all neatly tabbed across the top and side.
Zachary browsed through Lauren’s internet history and email. He felt a twinge of guilt reading through her corporate email, knowing that it probably contained confidential information that the firm wouldn’t want outsiders to see. But most of it he couldn’t even follow. He wasn’t going to be passing any tips on. He was more interested in the personalities of the people she worked with: bosses, the other interns, human resources, receptionists, and others. Even if he didn’t understand the financial jargon, he could glean the attitudes and personalities of Lauren and the others that she corresponded with on a daily basis.
He was amazed at the hours she worked. He had taken Barbara’s outline of Lauren’s schedule with a grain of salt, but looking at her archived and sent mail, he could see that she was sending out emails regularly, all hours of the day and night. It was rare to see an interval of more than two hours between emails. She had been keeping a brutal schedule. And it was apparent that the other interns were too.
He glanced over at her laundry basket, where he could see colorful workout clothes waiting to be washed. How had she found the time and energy to follow any kind of exercise routine? He couldn’t imagine her finding the energy to walk home, let alone for a stationary bike or aerobics.
Zachary browsed through the last few emails that had come into Lauren’s inbox following her death which had not, of course, been dealt with. The first few were just routine emails, giving her information she had asked for or giving her instructions on files. Then there were a number of emails with increasingly stern or frantic tones wanting to know where she was and why she hadn’t returned to the office. He wrote down the names of those who had been looking for her. He made a short notation as to which ones were concerned, which were angry or bullying, and which were routine or frivolous. If Lauren’s death had been something other than an accident, then the person involved could have sent her an email during that interval to establish an alibi. I didn’t know she was dead, see? I was sending her emails at the time.
After he had checked out the initial things he wanted to look at on her laptop, he did the same thing with her phone—which luckily Barbara had known the unlock code for—making notes as he went through the calls, text messages, and notifications in any other apps. He wrote down her calendar schedule both before and after she had died. Her task list was enough to make him sick. He thought he had a lot to do running his own business and keeping up with medical appointments and the various different cases he was working on? He had nothing on Lauren, whose lists of tasks to be done was dizzyingly long. How could one person be expected to do so much?
He jotted notes about the files she had and the types of tasks that populated her list, rather than trying to write them all down. It would have been easier to print them all out, but there was no printer on the desk. He would take it back to his apartment and print it out there, but in the meantime, he wanted a short synopsis that he could read and ponder on later. The big picture, not all of the little bits.
Zachary hit the play button on Lauren’s music player to occupy the part of his brain that was trying to distract him from writing, seeking more interesting input elsewhere. He expected music. Pop or classical would be his top guesses.
But it wasn’t music at all, it was a man speaking. He was reciting market information which, Zachary suspected, was now several days out of date. He looked at the LCD screen and scrolled through her playlist. It was all podcasts. And nothing light. No fiction or entertainment. All financial stuff, dry as a bone.
He felt sorry for Lauren, who apparently found ways to work every minute of the day, listening to financial reports while she worked out, commuted, maybe even while she slept. She hadn’t ever been able to leave it behind.
6
Zachary wasn’t sure how the folks at Chase Gold were going to feel about his nosing around and asking questions about Lauren, her last few days, and whether anyone had thought there was anything suspicious about her death. Since the medical examiner had not yet published his findings, Zachary could at least hide behind the pretense of a police investigation—implying that he was with the police department without actually saying so—and no one would be able to say, ‘but a ruling of accidental death was already made on that.’ But just how far would he be able to investigate at the firm?
He decided to go about it sideways, and when he walked up to the woman in the plush reception area, he didn’t try to get into Lauren’s office or to talk to her bosses or the principals of the company, but instead asked for Mandy, one of the interns who seemed to have been close to Lauren.
“Will she know what it’s about?” the receptionist asked, raising one eyebrow at Zachary as if she guessed that he wasn’t one of their usual high-class clients and didn’t have any excuse to be there.
“No,” Zachary said. “It’s a personal matter. I’ll discuss that with her.”
She eyed him, but she didn’t threaten to call security and, after a few seconds’ silence, she punched a few buttons on the phone keypad and informed Mandy in a doubtful tone that there was someone waiting for her.
She nodded to the seating area and Zachary obediently picked out a chair and sat to wait. There were magazines and newspapers arranged on the coffee tables. No Cosmopolitan or Reader’s Digest for Chase Gold. Not even People. Chase Gold was the center of the financial community—or at least wanted to be—so all of the reading material was high finance. Zachary stared at the abstract landscape painting in muted pinks and grays on the opposite wall, wondering if it was an original work, or whether the things were mass produced for somber reception areas all over the world.
A young woman with a pencil poking into her messy bun sidled up to the receptionist and looked at her questioningly. The receptionist pointed to Zachary, looking as if something in the room did not smell very good.
Mandy tiptoed over to Zachary, smiling pleasantly, with a frown line across her forehead that clearly communicated she had no idea who he was.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Is there somewhere we could talk privately?”
“Uh… yes…” She looked back around at the receptionist and pointed to one of the glassed-in meeting rooms visible from the waiting area. The receptionist rolled her eyes and nodded, reaching for a reservations sheet to write Mandy’s name down.
“Come right this way… sir.” She was still fishing for his name and why he wanted her. But Zachary waited until they were in the meeting room and Mandy reluctantly shut the door and turned to him. She was taller than he was, in her early twenties, on the slim side without being skinny.
“Miss Pryor. I appreciate you agreeing to talk to me. My name is Zachary Goldman, and I’m investigating the death of Lauren Barclay.”
“Oh.” Her face turned to a mask, shocked and not sure what emotion to show. She looked at him, at the table, at the door, and tried to think of how to handle the surprise interview. “You’re investigating Lauren’s death?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner, but I didn’t know if you would want me to say something out there…”
“Oh, of course. No, it’s alright. Everybody here knows about Lauren… but I don’t really understand. It was an accident, she fell down in her tub, so why would anyone be asking questions and investigating it?”
“That’s what we do.”
Mandy bit her lip, nodding quickly. “Of course. I’m sorry, it’s just a bit of a shock. We were all so shocked when we heard about her accident. And that she died… just a freak accident like that… it’s really kind of scary.”
Zachary nodded understandingly. He sat down on one of the big padded chairs and motioned for Mandy to take one of the others so they could talk to each other at the same level.
“It is so shocking when someone close to you dies so suddenly and unexpectedly. It seems… unfair and arbitrary. You can hardly believe that it’s really true.”
“Yes,” Mandy nodded vigorously. “Yes, exactly. I think we’re all still in a state of shock, to tell the truth. We’re all trying to go on and work, but it’s very difficult. It’s hard to concentrate on your job when you’re dealing with something like that.”
“Does your company offer any counseling? Maybe something outsourced, if they don’t have someone in house?”
“Of course. They’ve offered; there’s someone we can talk to if we need to. But it’s not… I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like the thing to do. We should be… taking a few days off, talking to each other, grieving properly, going to her funeral. Right? You don’t go to therapy just because someone dies. Everybody dies sooner or later, and it wasn’t like she was shot or murdered. She just… slipped and fell. It’s tragic, but not traumatizing.”
“You could take a day or two off, I’m sure…”
Her lips tightened and she shook her head in a definite ‘no,’ even while saying, “Yes, I suppose I could…”
“I gather that you and Lauren were pretty close.”
“Well… we were friends, yes, if that’s what you mean. We didn’t know each other before we started working with the company. We just started at the same time and we had similar personalities. Helped each other out a bit, joked around together.”
Zachary raised his brows. He looked around, making a wide gesture to indicate their surroundings. “Joked around? Here?”
Mandy gave a little laugh. “I know, right? Pretty serious place. But you’ve got to let off steam every now and then. We would all be having nervous breakdowns if we didn’t have a way to… express our frustrations now and then.”
“Sounds like a healthy attitude.”
“They’re really big on employee health around here. Like, we all have to get in a certain number of hours of exercise every week. There’s an on-site gym, so that we can take a break and do it whenever we need to. Clears your head, gives you an energy boost without caffeine. You know how many studies there are on how dangerous it is to be sitting at a desk all day. So they make sure that we get up and take care of our bodies.”
“Ah. I noticed Lauren had workout clothes and wondered how she managed to fit it in.”
“There’s so much work to do, it’s really hard to break away to do it, but you feel so much better when you do. Better health, better wealth!”
“That’s good to see. I wondered, when I heard how many hours Lauren was putting in, if the company cared about their employees’ health at all.”
“It’s only while we’re interns. Once we have our permanent positions, it won’t be as many hours. Right now… it’s kind of like a competition. This is our Everest. If we can get over the top… then it gets easier.”
Zachary wondered if she knew how many people died on Everest.
“That’s good. So you don’t feel like they work you too hard here?”
Mandy’s eyes went to the side, like she was afraid someone might be listening. She put on a brighter smile. “No, of course not,” she assured him earnestly. “Sure, you’ll catch us complaining about the hours, but it really isn’t that bad. I pulled all-nighters in college all the time and it didn’t hurt me. One or two now… it’s nothing to worry about.”
“So most nights, you don’t sleep under your desk.”
“Oh, no way. That would be so against company policy. Sometimes… maybe you put in a few extra hours to get a project done that you need for the morning, but nobody is allowed to sleep here. You have to go home and get a good rest.”
What Zachary had read in Lauren’s private email suggested otherwise. As had Barbara. But he imagined there was an official company policy that said it wasn’t to be done, and an unofficial policy that said if you had to, go ahead, but don’t advertise the fact. Sometimes it might not even be safe for an employee to leave if they were overtired or it was too late to be out on the street. A person could always get a cab, but even that could be tempting fate for a young woman alone.
He took out his notepad to make some notes, but it was really a ploy to allow Mandy a few moments of distraction, an unguarded moment when she could relax and not worry about what he was going to ask her next. When she looked away, toward the door they had come in, he could see that her eyes were bloodshot, the skin around her eyes pale and stretched-looking. Grief or exhaustion? He couldn’t be sure.
He scribbled a few notes about corporate exercise and sleep.
“What is the company’s policy on overtime? Are you paid hourly? Do you get more if you work longer hours?”
“No, we’re all monthly salaries. Doesn’t matter how many hours we put in. Officially, we’re supposed to work nine to five, but…” Mandy laughed once. “Believe me, I’ve never put in a nine-to-five day. Lauren either.”
“Yeah. I got that impression.”
“But we’re just banking it for the future. You know, once we’re permanent employees, we won’t have to put in those kinds of hours. It will be a lot better.”
Zachary opened his mouth to answer her. A man had walked up to the door, and he opened it, sticking his head in. “Mandy, do you know if Jack—” He cut himself off, eyes going to Zachary. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were—” Then his eyes got wide. “Zachary?”
7
Zachary stared at Gordon Drake. He scrambled to his feet.
“Gordon? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Gordon stared at him and gave a slight head-shake. “My name is on the doors.”
Drake, Chase, Gould.
Gordon Drake.
Zachary was still flabbergasted. He stood there staring at Gordon. Bridget’s new partner. The man who had replaced Zachary in her life. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish.
With everyone calling the company ‘Chase Gold’ as a joke, he hadn’t even focused on the Drake. He didn’t know a lot of Drakes. In fact, he only knew one Drake. Gordon Drake.
Gordon pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped in. Zachary tensed as the man came toward him, ready for an explosion. Ready for a fist swung straight for his nose. He didn’t know what Gordon would think of him being there; he might not be too happy about it.
But Gordon thrust out his hand instead, open, reaching to shake Zachary’s. Zachary gave it to him mechanically, not understanding what was going on.
“Good to see you, Zachary. You’re looking a lot better.”
The last time he had seen Zachary was when Zachary was leaving the hospital after a psychiatric admission. Not the best time for him. Better than he had been before the stay, on his way to better health, but still a bit wobbly on his new legs.
And before that… Gordon had probably seen him on TV after his encounter with Teddy, both eyes blackened, his body beaten and degraded. And before that was when Zachary had gone to see Bridget at the hospital, at which time she had told him thank you very much for helping to catch her kidnapper and to make it clear that she never wanted to see him again. As Kenzie had warned him, Bridget had brought Zachary back into her life only to use him and then to throw him away again.
Gordon pumped his hand. “So to what do we owe the pleasure of your company here today?”
Zachary swallowed. He had intended to visit Lauren’s office covertly, to talk to her friends and coworkers on the quiet before the management could figure out what was going on. He hadn’t counted on one of the owners of the company knowing him on sight.
Zachary slowly pulled his hand out of Gordon’s grip, nodding and clearing his throat. “Uh… well… I’m investigating Lauren Barclay’s death.”
Gordon didn’t freeze or go pale. Nothing to indicate any guilt or complicity in Lauren’s death. He nodded gravely and patted Zachary on the side of the shoulder, as if to comfort a fellow mourner.
“Lauren Barclay. So tragic. It was such a shock for all of us here, wasn’t it, Mandy?”
Mandy nodded. “Yes. That’s what I told Mr. Goldman. I just couldn’t believe it.”
“Lauren’s death has left a great hole in our company,” Gordon said, and his prose didn’t sound at all fake or insincere. “We are all going to miss her smiling face and can-do attitude.”
There were a few seconds of silence. Zachary wasn’t sure what to say about the investigation or Lauren’s death. He licked his lips uncertainly.
“You feel free to talk to whoever you need to,” Gordon told him without prompting. “I know you’ll be discreet and won’t upset people. Unfortunately, there is a lot of work that must be done, so we must all go on even in Lauren’s absence. And her work will have to be divided up among the other interns.” He raised his brows at Mandy in good humor. “Like you don’t already have enough.”
Mandy gave a little laugh. “I’m sure we can handle Lauren’s work between us, sir. There’s a lot to do, but we’ll take up the slack, sir.”
“Good girl,” he said approvingly. And such praise from Gordon never came across as patronizing. Zachary himself had felt warm and appreciated when Gordon had told him ‘good man’ in the past. Mandy smiled and looked a little embarrassed.
