Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (8 page)

We entered the lobby together, rode the elevator, swiped onto the floor together
,
then calmly ignored each other as we veered off to our
respective
desks.
My palms felt clammy and I was sure my heart beat loud enough for everyone to hear as
I sat in my chair and leaned down to press the power button on my
computer, freezing when I realiz
ed someone
was
hover
ing
over me. Bob.

"Hello," I squeaked, straightening up to flash a smile at my co-worker. Bob was a big man, upwards and out
wards, with a crop of dark hair
closely cut to minimize the bald patch
encroaching on
his crown. He looked daunting, but as far as attitude
,
he was easy going, with a laissez-faire
philosophy
to life, work and everything in between. His official title was
“
Accounts Manager
,”
but I still had no idea what that
even
meant.

"Martin Dean was looking
for a report from you yesterday,
"
he told me.

"Oh, er, right. I forgot to put it on his desk." Actually it
became
a
big, crumpled mess in my purse
while
I sat in the c
los
et
clutching it.
Th
at
reminded me
…
I hadn’t seen my purse this morning either.
I hoped the PD had a
good-sized
budget because I loved that purse. On the other hand,
Martin Dean was dead, so he probably didn't give a shit about my report anymore. Not that Bob seemed to know that.

I looked around the office quickly. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No one seemed upset, or stood in groups
,
whispering
or weeping
. No, today looked like a normal day. Somehow, I hadn't even considered that Dean's body wouldn't be found, that no one would know.
Hadn’t anyone seen the blood?

"He's not in today
,
so no
rush
," said Bob.

"Right."
I fought to keep the perplexed look off my face.

Bob sauntered
out
and after a moment
,
I saw him drop into his chair, pick up the Montgomery Gazette and a pen
,
to
start on what I could only assume was today's crossword puzzle.

Really
,
it was quite remarkable how normal everything was. I was not a freaked
-
out, screaming, crying mess. Instead
,
I was neat and tidy, my
blue
blouse sprigged with little flowers embroidered on the points of the collar and my hair in a loose ponytail. Adam was tapping away at his keyboard, looking bored. Bob was still sloping off and Anne was pounding abuse on her keyboard instead of touch
-
typing like a normal person. All around me it was an average workday. Appearances
, however,
could be very deceptive.

Murder had put me right off
my
online shopping for the moment
,
so instead
,
I looked at the brief Adam had sent me yesterday and pulled out yesterday's notes
. I
doodl
ed
some ideas on my notepad
to avoid
focusing on
my heart
hammering
in my chest. It took
only
about ten minutes before I was bored to tears
,
and
another
ten seconds before I
began
thinking about what happened to Martin Dean and his body.

On my “to murder” list,
Dean was one of those men who
would have occupied
the bottom
. (S
peaking of which, why did no one seem to know he was dead? Where were the press,
for that matter
? The murder of a
prominent
businessman in Montgomery should have qualified at least one report
.
) He might have been the
VP
of Green Hand
,
but he wasn't high profile
in the community
; he didn't attend benefits or dinners, or donate personal funds
to needy children’s charities
. He seemed to enjoy the
reclusive
life. As far as I knew
,
he was divorced, had never been involved in any kind of sex scandal and didn't
twiddle
his expenses. He was
usually
polite to the
underlings (even if he didn’t care to learn my name and still called m
e
Lacy),
had never
even had
an inkling to run for mayor
,
and never caused a stir in his private or business lives. Dean was about as invisible as a man could be
in his position
.

Last night
,
Adam
mentioned
my report,
saying
that a bunch of them sat on Dean's desk. What had I written? Which report? And what did it have to do with Martin Dean's death? I opened up my
“
documents
”
folder and clicked on
“
reports
”
to bring up a cluster of thumbnails that represented my saved files. I re-ordered them by date and focused on the ones I'd written in the last month
. T
hose
, I surmised,
were
the most likely to be on his desk

My
reports
were comprised of
burglary trends, new research into preventing electronic equipment theft, some background for a puff piece
on
a features-style ad for the
Montgomery
Gazette
,
and a report on statewide insurance take-up versus theft of non-insured homes. None of
them
struck me as even remotely interesting at the time
,
but someone
must have
considered something in one of them worth killing Martin Dean over. I clicked open each report and skimmed through.

Two things immediately cropped up. One, I didn't have a clue what was worth popping Martin Dean over. Two, my name was watermarked on the lower left corner of every single page
!
I blanched and slipped down
dejectedly
in my seat. Th
en realizing I was being weird
, sat up properly again.
Acting
normal might
have
be
en
working for Adam, but internally
,
I felt like a
jiggling bowl of Jell-O
. I
had no clue
how I would get through the day. Martin Dean knew something
that
apparently I knew too. Even though I didn't know what it was.
Life wa
s so unfair!
I wondered if Adam knew which report it
could be
? I glanced up a
t him. He was sipping coffee,
looking bored
and not
the slightest bit
worried
.

I dropped my eyes back to the screen just as something weird started happening. Each file suddenly closed down and disappeared from the folder. Then the whole freaking folder deleted. I felt sick inside. Someone was inside my computer
,
deleting all my work. I craned my head over the monitor and made some frantic, and probably quite strange, eyebrow waggles at Adam. He just frowned at me
and
shook his head
,
before returning
to star
e
at his monitor.

I tried to remember what I knew from the IT helpdesk man, who had been pretty chatty when he came to install software a month ago.
All the department computers were secure
d
and loaded with firewalls
as well as other
ridiculously geeky stuff that stopped people from
hacking
in. I knew that the IT department could remote
ly
access our computers, so it was possible someone in the building, maybe even on the floor, was deleting my files.

I flicked my hair so I could look over my shoulder. All the suits were hunkered down over their desks
with no
helpful
poster
that said 'Yes, I haz UR files!' I casually glanced around once more
,
then turned back to my now blank screen. Whatever was in the files,
someone
didn't want anyone to be able to access them ever again.

A light
bulb popped in my head. Moving the mouse, I clicked
o
n the little waste can icon.
M
y recycle box had been emptied too. The files were gone.

I pretended to work until mid-afternoon, not even daring
to
venture out to get a sandwich for lunch, but giving Bob enough money to pick me up a tuna melt
.
I ate sullenly at my desk, chewing
the bland meal
until it tasted less like cardboard
.

When Adam
appeared
behind me
and spoke
, I nearly leapt out of my skin. "We've got a meeting," he said.