“OK.”
He kept walking, rounding another corner and down a dark hall. He opened a door and they stepped into a well-lit room with several copy machines.
Steve opened the lid of one, clicked in a command, and waited for the copy to come out the other end. “As you can see, we have paper size, drafting size, and even a blueprint copy machine in here. Did you work on these in school?”
“Not this new, but—”
“There are guide sheets on the side of every machine. If something about the instructions doesn’t make sense, ask someone. You don’t want to be responsible for jamming these machines. It will take you half the day to find the problem and we can’t be without them that long.”
She wanted to ask if they had someone who fixed them in the office, but he was already walking out of the room.
The next door they moved through was the mail room. It was Monday, and the Saturday mail had been delivered and sat in a large bin right below the massive slots with several dozen names.
“This is where you’re starting.”
Judy actually stumbled. She knew being an intern meant she’d be doing a lot of the busy work at first . . . but the mail room?
“Everyone expects their mail ready by nine. If you’re smart, you’ll jump in here again before you leave for the day to get a head start on the next day.” Steve turned to leave her to the daunting task of sorting. “I expect you in my office at nine fifteen. I have a nine thirty meeting and I’ll need a few minutes to tell you what you need to do next.”
And then he was gone.
A blur as he pushed out of the mail room without so much as a Welcome to Benson and Miller.
“Holy shit.” How much coffee did he have this morning?
Chapter Four
“I’m going to find out everything about you, Meg. I do mean everything.”
Meg looked across the table at Samantha Harrison, who looked nothing like Meg had pictured when Judy told her Samantha, or Sam as she liked to be called, was a duchess. Her red hair exploded from the clip holding it back, and even with four-inch heels, she was barely five and a half feet tall. Yeah, she was in casual but expensive clothes and her makeup suited her features perfectly, but she was about as down-to-earth as any of Meg’s old college friends.
“I don’t have much to hide.”
Sam raised one eyebrow and waited.
“Got caught smoking pot in high school once, nearly got tossed out but never bothered to party in school again so they let me stay.”
A slight smile met Sam’s lips and Meg’s confession kept rolling.
“Partied a little in college but my asthma kept me from smoking anything.”
Sam made a note on her pad of paper. “Anything I should know about your parents? Your family?”
“They voted in cannabis for recreational use and grow their own up in Washington. Total throwbacks from the sixties. Dad’s family is Jewish, Mom’s is Catholic . . . never was sure what that makes me.”
Now Sam laughed. “So no strong religious tendencies?”
“More like confused tendencies. Mom would bless the bacon like she’d been taught by my grandmother and put it on everything.”
“Siblings?”
“Only child.”
“What’s your Facebook profile name?”
Meg gave it to her.
“Any other social media platforms?”
Meg’s palms started to sweat. Not that she had any naked photos hanging around out there, but she wasn’t sure of every picture taken over the last four years. “I deleted my MySpace four years ago. Never have figured out Twitter, but I’m on there.”
“How did you meet Judy?”
“Freshman dorms. She was two doors down from me. We often met in the lobby while we waited for our roommates to move their dates along. Didn’t take long for us to switch rooms.”
“Did you know Michael was her brother when you met?”
The questions struck Meg as strange, but she answered them anyway. “Not a clue. She talked about her brothers, but it wasn’t until the rumor mill started up and people were lining up to be her best friend that I was told that Mike was Michael Wolfe.”
Sam made another note.
“So why that question?” Meg asked.
“I need to know how you respond to the rich and famous. Many of our clients are beyond loaded and nearly all of them are famous in their own world.”
That made sense. “Seems everyone in this city thinks they’re famous. I’ve never met so many aspiring everythings in my life.”
Her future boss laughed. “What about you? Ever want to be an aspiring anything?”
“Not enough to pursue it.”
“Not even a singing career?”
Meg shot her eyes to Sam. “How did you know I sing? Did Judy tell you?”
Sam shook her head. “I haven’t talked to Judy . . . yet.”
Shivers ran up Meg’s arms. “What else do you already know about me?”
Sam placed the pen and paper on the table and reached for her coffee.
“Let’s see . . . your student loans top seventy thousand, and as much as your parents would like to help you out they’ve never planned for the future and have less than ten thousand in their savings account.”
“Financial information can’t be terribly hard to discover.” Meg knew there was very little that couldn’t be found out with a click of a mouse.
“Dane Bishop was your high school squeeze.”
Meg froze.
“Kind of an ass from what I could tell. What did you see in him?”
She hadn’t thought of Dane in years. Tried hard not to. “I was young and stupid.”
“And he was a couple of years older and a user.”
Boy was he.
“Like I said, Meg, I will find out everything. My business is rooted in secrecy and trust. There can never be a breach in either if you work for me. So far, everything you’re telling me pans out. If you weren’t looking for a job, I’d attempt to recruit you as a client.”
It was Meg’s turn to grin. “Can’t I be both?”
This is a stupid game, Judy typed into her tablet. I’ve hit the boss six times and still haven’t won once.
She clicked out of the chat room and hit the boss again. The image of Steve Archer and his endless tasks of meaningless shit fueled her desire to win the game in her hands. For five days, she’d played secretary, postman, and useless runner. This was not what she thought an internship meant.