“Good idea.”
“Rebels,” Jamie said with a slight roll of her eyes. “I’m going down with everyone else. Guess I’ll see you later.”
“Why didn’t we think of sticking around before?” Sydney asked as soon as she walked away.
I shrugged in response. “Got me. Think of all the time this month we could have saved if we stayed put.”
The two of us worked in silence for the next few minutes, then I gasped.
“What?” Sydney asked as she looked up from her monitor.
“I figured out what Kimmie did.” I beamed, proud of my discovery. “She not only transposed two numbers, she also misplaced her decimal point when she entered—”
“There are peoplehere!” A loud male voice bellowed in a thick New York accent. His voice was so loud, Sydney and I both jumped in our seats.
“Who is that?” I whispered.
Before she could reply, a fifty-something year old fireman, wielding an ax, appeared at my doorway. Sydney and I both stood up.
“Excuse me, ladies. What are you doing here? You hard ofhearin’?Yousrealize the fire alarm has gone off, don’t ya?”
“Yes,” I said, flashing him a wide grin. “However, we knew there wasn’t a fire.”
“One of the girls on my team tripped the smoke detector in the kitchen while she was making a snack,” Sydney added.
Then I said, “And we were in the midst of dealing with a crisis.”
“I see. A crisis in this office?” He nodded slowly. “Interestin’choice of words.”
I opened my mouth to speak but he didn’t give me the chance.
“The fire alarm goes off,youstwo took it upon yourselves to sit tight and not vacate the premises.Yousthought that was a good idea?”
“Yes. Like I said, we knew it was a false alarm.”
A second man, this one dressed in a police uniform, approached. When he got close enough for me to see his face, I slipped and said, “Crap,” loud enough for only Sydney to hear.
“Well, well, well. So, we meet again, Ms. Ensworth?” He gave me a wavering smile as his eyes met mine. “Now, you are an expert in fire safety, too?”
Was he trying to be funny?
I folded my arms over my chest and counted to five silently. It was a struggle for me to formulate a reply that didn’t contain four-letter words.
“Hello, Officer Ennis.” I mirrored his intense gaze. “I don’t know if I’d qualify as an expert, but I do know the difference between a life-or-death situation and a bag of burnt popcorn.”
“That’s very good to know.” He looked amused. “Except I’m not so sure.”
“You have some nerve,” I said, feeling my temperature rise. Sydney placed her hand on my arm in an attempt to keep me quiet.
He stared at me. “You do realize you are in an office building, where hundreds of people work. There is a protocol for how the occupants are supposed to respond in an emergency situation, and shockingly it’s not sitting idly at their desks. I know, for a fact, the fire marshal conducts training at this building at least twice a year. Are you too much of a big shot, Ms. Ensworth, to pay attention and follow the rules?”
“Easy, Ennis,” the older man said.
“Who do you think you are speaking to me like that? You don’t know the first thing about me! I don’t appreciate your tone.”
He let out a huff. “And I don’t appreciate your blatant disregard for other people’s well-being.” His face reddened. “Do you realize every time the fire department is dispatched, they put their lives at risk? They don’t know if they will be walking into a death trap. They also don’t know what call they are going to receive next. They have to make sure everyone is safe and sound, and accounted for, and be ready for the next possible emergency. Someone in the crowd mentioned two of their co-workers weren’t outside. And—”
“We’re very sorry,” Sydney said in her sweetest voice. “We didn’t mean to cause any issues, sir.”
