“Is Steve in?”
She shakes her head. “He’s at lunch.”
“Excellent,” Davis says. “Can we all talk privately?”
She gives him a narrowed gaze, and I’m so freaking curious right now. They’re acting like they might be a bit more thanacquaintances at team parties or on the rare occasion one of us is called in for a conversation.
“There’s a conference room down the hall.”
I shake my head. “Some place else? Out of the building.”
She checks her watch, her lips thinning. “My lunch is in ten.”
“Sandwich shop down the street?” Davis asks.
Nala blushes, and now I’m positive something happened between these two. “Sure. I know the one.”
Davis and I walk away, and I wait until the elevator closes to ask, “What the hell was that?”
“What?”
“Dude, you two clearly have history of some sort.”
Davis shakes his head. “You’re a relationship guru now?”
“No, I’m just not clueless.”
He stretches his neck to the right, then the left. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now. I want to get these questions answered.”
We stride down the street to the sandwich shop. It’s a homey place, a complete one-eighty from the offices we walked out of. Half a dozen tables line a wall, while the opposite side has a counter to order from. We order a few sandwiches so we don’t feel bad taking up a table, and then we wait.
As Nala said, about ten minutes later, she comes strolling through the door. I wave her over, and Davis pushes an egg salad sandwich her way. She peers at it, then up at him. Before long, both of us are staring at him. I’ve never known Davis to be so tight-lipped.
Davis kicks me under the table, and I press my lips together to keep from laughing. “Okay, listen, we want to be straight with you about why we’re here,” I tell Nala.
“I’m listening.”
“We think McNally is a piece of shit, and we also think you know that more than anyone else.”
Nala bites her lip. “I signed an NDA. I can’t disclose?—”
“Nala,” Davis says, his voice firm but with a roundness to it that catches her attention. “Please.”
“The last thing we want is to get you in trouble. Considering what we suspect about him, we’re sure that wouldn’t end well for you. Let me lay out what we know.”
She nods, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. She looks so small—frightened, even.
“One, he set up the trade rumor for Micah, though it was all bullshit. It caused Micah’s girlfriend to have a panic attack on live TV.”
Nala doesn’t react, but the look in her eyes acknowledges that fact.
“My dating show?” I start. “He coerced one of the final ladies to sleep with him by telling her he could get me to choose her. He never once said anything to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he told the other woman that as well.” The thought blurts from my mouth, coming to me in the moment. It would make sense. The reason for her rudeness. She probably caught on before the rest of us did.
I’ll have to ask her.
Nala starts to visibly shake. She hugs her elbows to herself. Davis’s face turns red, his eyes like thunder.
“The other thing we’re sure of is that the apartment mine and Micah’s girlfriends were staying in was set on fire…and it wasn’t an accident.”
