Mr.Harvey waved.Coleman snorted and sauntered out of the room, but not before shooting me a glare.
A curiously furtive glare, as if he was trying to figure out whether I’d understood the subtext.
All of this was starting to seem stranger by the minute.
The doors banged shut behind Coleman and Mr.Harvey went back to focusing on his screen as if nothing had happened at all.I thought, though, that I had seen a slight strain around the corners of his mouth, his eyes.Like he was worried.Maybe he really did think we were at risk of losing Ridley to the rival firm.
“Um,” I said.“Did you hear back from the sponsors, in the end?”
Mr.Harvey looked up at me in surprise.I wondered if he had forgotten I was here.“I did,” he said.He shook his head with disgust.“They called me just before midnight.As if to choose the most personal possible time.”
“Did you answer?”
Mr.Harvey sighed.“Of course, I answered.”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
He stared back.
“What did they say?”I prompted at last.Clearly, he wasn’t going to give me anything unless I actually worked for it.
“The contract is hanging by a thread,” he said.“We need to come up with proof that Ridley was targeted.”
“How are we going to find that?”I asked.
Mr.Harvey gave a noncommittal grunt and turned back to his screen.
Great.So, he didn’t actually know.We were floundering in this – I could feel it.
And I could probably help, except I couldn’t admit it.As an actual eyewitness, I had a better vantage point than anyone in this office.I just couldn’t ever speak up about it.
I opened up my email inbox and started to see whether there were any urgent calls for interviews or things I needed to add to Mr.Harvey’s calendar.My phone buzzed against my desk and I looked down at it.A message from Clara.
Where were you last night?Did you actually come home?
Yes, sorry, I wrote back.The last couple of nights, you’ve been asleep by the time I got back and still asleep before I left.Lots of work stuff.
I was starting to think you were sleeping at the office!
My mouth quirked up in a smile in spite of myself.Clara was the best little sister anyone could ask for.She sounded more like my Mom with the way she worried about me.But since our Dad had done what he did, and Mom had taken his side instead of making him leave…
Well, it was just the two of us.And it was nice to know that I still had someone who would worry about me the way a Mom would, even if it had to be my little sister instead.
I’m not.I sneaked a furtive glance at Mr.Harvey, who wasn’t paying attention to me at all.But if he offered…I followed it up with a tongue-out-eyes-googly emoji and pressed send.
Across the miles between here and home, I could almost hear Clara snort and giggle.
I finished adding a meeting to Mr.Harvey’s calendar and then flipped to the next email.
“Sir, I’ve got a meeting request for next week, but it’s a bit late in the day,” I say.“It says eight in the evening.”
“Who is it from?”Mr.Harvey asked without looking up.
“It just says Crowhill Crows.Isn’t that your college team?”
Now he did look up, blinking at me.“You did your research.”
My phone buzzed on my desk and I resisted the urge to look down at it.“I wanted to know who I was working for.”
