Two hours later, I was wishing I’d stayed home. At least there, I had Waldo to keep me company.
“This is boring,” I muttered to no one as I sat in Jinx’s office and looked around at the nothingness on the walls.
Seriously. His office consisted of a desk, a laptop, and a chair. There was no art on the walls, no cute little trinkets on the desk. Not a pen or stapler in sight. I mean, I knew his job consisted of hacking—I’d ascertained a little in the time I’d known them—but I’d expected more than this.
“We’re heading out!” Rhyan shouted.
She paused as she passed by Jinx’s office door.
Leaning in, she smiled. “Bored yet?”
“To tears.”
She nodded toward her office. “Feel free to hang out in there. I’ve got a deck of cards. You can play solitaire if you want.”
Oh, yeah.Thatsounded like fun. A game that drove home just howaloneI really was.
“Rule should be back in a few. We’ll be back in a bit,” she noted.
“What exactly is the difference between a few and a bit?” I asked, but Rhyan was already heading down the stairs.
A second later, Red Wally and Willy passed, both waving at me as they went.
This was not what I had in mind when I thought about going to work with Rule. I wanted the excitement of going to the impound lot and distracting the security guards while Rule did his thing. I didn’t want to sit in an office. Alone.
Wait. I was alone. Like completely alone.
Which meant I could snoop without anyone looking over my shoulder.
I got up from Jinx’s desk and dragged my hand over the wood top as I moved toward the door. I glanced at the ceiling, noting the cameras that were mounted.
Were they watching me? Waiting to see what I would do now that I was by myself?
“Screw them,” I muttered, continuing out into the main area of the office.
At one time, it had been a house. The bones of it were still there even if the layout had been modified. They worked on the second floor, which I assume had been mostly bedrooms. There were three offices, two bathrooms, and a large area that held a table and chairs. I’d seen Red Wally and Willy at that table when I came in, both with their eyes fixed on their laptop screens.
When I asked why they didn’t have offices, Red Wally explained that they spent very little time in the office. Since Rule and Jinx had only been there for a few minutes, I figured the same went for them. Apparently, grunts didn’t get to go out on jobs, though, because they told me I needed to stick around here for the time being.
It was punishment, no doubt. They didn’t want me harping on them about going on another job, so this was their way of showing me their jobs weren’t as glamorous as I made them out to be.
I wasn’t buying it. No way would Rule or Jinx do this every day. They would go insane sitting behind a desk.
I stopped at Rhyan’s office door and peeked inside. She had a couple of pictures on the wall—both looked like she’d picked them up at a thrift shop or someone’s garage sale. There was a photo on her desk of her and the twins, all three mugging for the camera. They looked genuinely happy.
Too curious to play card games, I kept going, opening several closed doors to find small storage closets that contained envelopes and paper, along with extra staplers and shit. I grabbed one of the staplers and took it to Jinx’s desk. I left it there because, hey, it felt more office-y that way.
I headed for Rule’s office. The door was closed but not locked, so I opened it and stepped inside. His was the largest of the three, but not by much. It held a desk, a chair, and a black leather sofa that looked like it had been slept on a few thousand times.
I went to the desk and took a seat, scanning the space. The walls were painted charcoal gray, the trim vibrant white, and matched the two-inch wood blinds covering the two square windows. I couldn’t picture Rule working in here. Not for any length of time. He was constantly in motion. How could he possibly stop long enough to even need a chair?
On the desk, there was a telephone with multiple lines, but I hadn’t heard the phone ring once since I got there. I figured their clients called Rule’s cell phone since he was always looking at the damn thing.
Led by my curiosity, I pulled open the top drawer. There were pens, pencils, a couple of notepads, and a set of small gold keys, like the kind that would open a filing cabinet or something.
The other top drawer had a calculator, a handful of paper clips, and two large binder clips.
Boring.
