What Happens After Dark (31 page)

He stopped outside Erin’s office first, his voice thunderous as if he were talking to a stadium crowd. “Erin, so good to see you.”

“You, too, Denton,” Erin’s voice carried around the doorjamb separating her office from Bree’s. “Thanks for coming over here. It makes everything easier for Bree.”

“Yes, yes,” he boomed. “We want to make everything easy for Bree.” But he slid Bree a narrowed look.

“I’ll be right next door if you and Bree need me.”

He fluttered pudgy fingers at her, then turned to Bree in her office.

“Good morning,” she said. “I’ve got everything ready.” She was proud of the fact that she didn’t speak in a whisper and her voice didn’t shake. In college, she’d had to take a speech class, and her legs had wobbled so badly, she could actually hear a resulting quaver in her words. But not so today.

“You’re so efficient, Bree.”

She was sure he wanted Erin to hear how polite he was.

Then he shut the office door. She suddenly felt sick.

“You don’t mind if I close the door, do you, Bree?” He smiled at her with fleshy lips. “We don’t want to be disturbed or disturb anyone else with our discussions.”

“That’s fine.” But she couldn’t help licking her dry lips.

He looked at her forehead, but didn’t mention the bruise as if he didn’t want to be drawn into her drama. Then he pulled the chair around from the front of the desk and sat beside her. “There, that’s much better. I can’t crane over the desk like that to see your monitor.”

He was a big man, and he overflowed the seat like a soufflé rising over the sides of the pan as it baked in the oven. His rumpled brown suit smelled of onions, and his breath was sickly sweet with cherry throat lozenges.

But she
could
do this. “What would you like to go over first?” she said, once again pleased with how steady her voice sounded.

He didn’t have a briefcase, hadn’t brought a notepad, not even the IRS audit notification. Still, he said, “There are some questionable items in the expense category.”

She breathed deeply. There was nothing questionable. But he’d make her prove it. She opened the file folder rather than reference the spreadsheet on the computer because she didn’t want him to lean over her to see the monitor. “Which items in particular?” she asked.

“Let’s start with the laptop. It should be depreciated rather than expensed.”

She pursed her lips. “It’s a Section 179 asset. Which means we can choose to expense it rather than depreciate it.” Which he
should
know. “With the way technology changes and how often we have to update our computers, it makes more sense to expense.”

He smiled without any nicety to it. “Just checking that you know these things, Bree.”

He was the tax accountant. She didn’t
have
to know. It was
his
job. But she was such a good little girl, she didn’t say anything. “Next issue.”

They spent half an hour going through the expenses, and her head was starting to ache with the roar of his voice next to her ear. He had a comment and an argument for everything.

In the end, though, she didn’t change a single line item.

“Fine, whatever, leave it,” Marbury snapped when she proved him wrong again by looking up the tax law on the Internet.

She was pleased, even if she was subjected to three minutes of Marbury leaning over her to read the three sentences that backed up her position and negated his. One full minute a sentence, a freaking eternity. “Anything else on the expenses?” she asked sweetly.

“No. Let’s move on to inventory valuation.”

He made her show him the bills of material and the process and routing system they used for calculating the labor involved in making the products. She and Erin had given him a demo when they first purchased the enterprise system a couple of years ago, so this was another of his intimidation tactics, trying to show her up.

He grunted. “All right, let’s go over the labor and overhead rates.”

Okay, this one she needed the spreadsheets for. So he could see her calculations in each cell. She’d written good footnotes, of course, but the actual calcs would make it easier. She slid her chair as far to the right as she could so that he could see the monitor without having him practically in her lap.

“I use the average hourly rate of the three techs and benefits,” she explained. “Plus Steve in QC.”

“He doesn’t add value,” Marbury said, his tone derisive. “He’s overhead.”

“Yes. But his cost can be more accurately applied on labor units. For every hour the tech spends assembling, he spends ten minutes testing.”

He leaned back in his chair, the seat bottom creaking beneath his weight, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at her. “There’s no way you can quantify it that way.”

“I’ve done time studies on it,” she insisted.

They argued about it for five minutes and finally Bree said, “We’ve done it this way for the last five years.” This was the first time Marbury had even asked about the rate calculations. “Changing now,” she said flatly, though her palms were sweating beneath the desk, “would constitute inconsistency.”

“What-ever,” he snapped in almost two separate words. “Move on.”

Her stomach was churning, the air in the office was too close and muggy with his heavy breathing.
How much longer
? she wanted to shout at him.

“Overhead rates, then.” She opened the file, went over every detail with precision until her throat was raspy with talking. He just didn’t seem to get it. “Let me explain again, so you understand,” she said ever so politely.

He looked at her, his eyes suddenly beady and venomous. “I understand perfectly.” He stabbed a finger at the screen, his arm brushing her breast.

She almost screamed.

“This”—one stab—“is the most ridiculous”—stab, stab—“calculation I have ever seen.” His voice rose with every jab at the screen.

“It’s pretty simple—” she started.

“Don’t”—he stabbed at her face this time, just missing her nose—“ever interrupt me when I’m talking.”

Her legs started to shake uncontrollably, and she wasn’t even standing.

“Your tone has been patronizing during this entire discussion.” His spittle sprayed her cheek.

She didn’t know what had set him off. She hadn’t been snippy or mean or even condescending. “I wasn’t,” she said in the tiniest of whispers.

“You little bitch.”

She recoiled, grabbed the arms of her chair, tried to roll it back, but she was already too close to the wall.

“Don’t you try to make me look stupid.” His eyes seemed to bulge.

“I wasn’t,” she said again, but this time she couldn’t manage more than mouthing the words. You could never know, never predict what would set them off. And when they got angry, there was no stopping them, no stopping the punishment. She was trying to be strong—

The office door suddenly swung open, and Erin came in, her red hair flying behind her.

With a push of his toes, Marbury flung his chair back from Bree. He smiled. The only telltale sign of agitation was his florid complexion. “Erin.” Then he stopped as if he couldn’t think of another thing to add.

After the abrupt entry, Erin suddenly changed her style and sauntered into the office, her smile wide yet lacking in good cheer. Perching on the edge of the desk, she rummaged among the papers littering the surface without really looking at anything. “We have very thin walls at DKG,” she said, then picked up a folder and began slapping it against her palm.

Marbury cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry, Erin. Bree and I will keep it down. We were just having a lively debate about overhead rates, weren’t we, Bree?” He didn’t even look at her, just expected her to back him up.

“Lively debate,” Erin enunciated sharply, “is one thing.” Then she leaned down, putting her face on level with Marbury’s, and added steel to her voice. “But don’t
ever
call one of my employees a bitch.”

He blustered, then finally stammered out, “Well—well, it was a slip of the tongue.”

Erin stood, ignoring his
slip of the tongue
. “You’ve got all your answers and all the documents you need to complete the audit. That’s
your
job, not Bree’s.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “The fact that you had
any
questions at this late date makes me wonder if you even understand our taxes.”

She was mighty before him. Marbury’s fleshy jowls wobbled. “It was just an update, to make sure we’re on the same page.” He stood and the chair shot back against the filing cabinet. “But we’re all set, so I’ll be off.” He looked around as if he thought he’d had a briefcase. “Thank you, Bree, for your time and effort.” Then he sucked in his gut and sidled past Erin.

“I’m sorry about that,” Erin said as they both watched the door hit him in the ass when he duck-walked out the front entrance. She turned back to Bree. “You don’t have to take that kind of crap from him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are
you
sorry for?” Erin pulled over the desk chair Marbury had vacated and sat. She crossed her legs and clasped her hands, resting her forearms on her thigh as she leaned forward.

“That you had to come in here.” Bree’s stomach still felt queasy, and she was totally demoralized that her boss had to run to her defense.

Erin touched her hand. “I know things are really bad for you right now, but you don’t have to take that kind of abuse from people, Bree.” She sat back. “Maybe I overreacted, barging in here, but I’ve been worried about you. And you and I are going to start looking for a new accountant right now.”

“We need him to finish the audit. It won’t look good to the IRS if we change right in the middle.”

Erin regarded her a long moment. “Whatever you think is best, Bree. You’re my accountant, and I trust you to make that judgment.”

Her eyes suddenly ached as if she were about to cry. She should have been able to handle it herself. She should have told Marbury to fuck off. Instead, she just sat there and took it.

“Bree,” Erin said softly. “Tell me what to do for you. I’m helpless here.”

Jesus, she was actually going to cry. Swiping a finger at her eyes, she grabbed a tissue from the box in the bottom of her drawer. “I just need to work. I don’t want to be at home.” The only other place she wanted to run to was Luke’s office, but she’d done that on Tuesday. She couldn’t keep running to him. Or to anyone else.

God, it was freaking
pathetic.
Only wimps cried in front of their boss. You’d never see a
man
doing it.

“All right,” Erin said while all the thoughts whirled around in Bree’s head, “you work as long as you want. I won’t bug you anymore about going home. And forget Marbury. If he fails on the audit, I’ll sue his ass or something.”

“Thanks, Erin.” It was all Bree could manage. She started cleaning up the folders.

She was aware that Erin stood for another long moment watching her, but she pretended to be engrossed in her papers until finally Erin left. She didn’t go to her own office; she went to engineering where Dominic had his lab. They were going to talk about her, Bree knew it. Maybe they thought she was having a nervous breakdown.

“But I’m not,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. More than anything, she wanted to call Luke. But he had his daughter here. She’d probably stay through the weekend. Of course she would. It wouldn’t make sense to drive back to school until Monday.

When Luke said it, she got wet. From Marbury, it was terrifying. It meant bad things were going to happen.

Oh God. Bree couldn’t catch her breath for a moment. She couldn’t call Luke, couldn’t see him. Her palms felt clammy, and her upper lip started to sweat. What would she do? She’d go crazy without something to blot out the morning with Marbury. Work would be fine, but tonight, God, what about tonight? She’d gotten so used to Luke being there, to seeing him when she got home, sitting across the table, eating dinner, making conversation.

Then taking her somewhere to make her forget everything but the feel of him.

She thought about Luke, his touch, his voice. And tried to relax. Stretching out her fingers, she flexed them like a cat. Then she did what she always did, what she was so good at. She pretended everything was all right and she was perfectly normal. She’d done it so many times before. She could do it now.

STEPHIE’S PARENTS HAD FOLLOWED KEIRA BACK TO SCHOOL THIS morning. Luke couldn’t believe they’d waited instead of rushing to her aid last night, but at least they were going down to the university.

After the pep talk over their chai lattes, Keira had handled last night’s discussion with Stephie’s parents herself, keeping at them until they understood the gravity of the situation. Luke had simply been there as moral support.

Keira had called him in the afternoon, and Stephie was returning home with her parents. “She didn’t even put up a fight, Dad,” she told him.

Christ, he was proud of his daughter, his heart swelling in his chest.

Now all Luke could think about was getting home to Bree. He’d gone to her mother’s house so many nights in a row, it was starting to feel natural.

It was later than usual for him, close to six-thirty, but the driveway was empty as he pulled in. Bree wasn’t home from work yet. She’d had an important meeting, he recalled her saying last night. Perhaps it ran longer than she’d anticipated. He rang the bell.

Mrs. Mason answered wearing an apron over her flower-print dress. “Oh, Luke. Bree said you were with your daughter tonight, and that you wouldn’t be able to come over.”

“She drove back to school this morning.” He didn’t mention the reason for her trip.