Conflict of Interest

Chapter Thirty Five

Carrie

I stood there shaking the handle as though I could tear the door straight off its hinges if I shook hard enough; hell, in my current state, maybe I could. Where the hell had I put my key? And why did I not have the hindsight to remember?

"Damn it," I lamented, taking a fist to the door as though it would help. "Who the hell--"

"Hey," someone said from behind me. Margaret.

She handed me a key.

"Someone in the lobby gave me this. Said you'd been giving your door handle hell for fifteen minutes."

I silently took the charity from that smug twenty-something and undid the lock in a much more effective way than the one I'd been trying for what felt like the better half of my afternoon.

"What'd you do with your key?" she asked, following me inside.

"If I knew that, I'd have a key by now."

"You alright?"

"Elated."

"Relationship problems?" she ventured.

"Not anymore," I said cryptically.

"Oh," she said in a sympathy voice. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Well something--"

"Nothing," I pressed. "Everything's fine."

"Did she screw you over?"

"God, you're really interested in my personal affairs."

"Well did she?"

"No," I decided. "She didn't. She made a mistake. So did I. That's what happened. But I have too much pride to admit that, so..."

"You just admitted it," she pointed out.

"Yeah, to you. But I can't tell her I messed up."

"What'd you do anyway?"

Before I ever had to incriminate myself, my office phone started ringing. I was being paged by the lobby. Probably to be tormented about losing my key. Probably by the desk guy, whatever his name was, the same one that had given me shit that time Jennifer had left a package for me and it had been World War III receiving it. Where was that package anyway?

"I don't want to hear about the key," was how I answered the phone.

"How did you lose your key?"

I sighed. "I'm very busy, I don't have time for--"

"There's someone here for you."

"Who, Kim?"

"No."

"I'm not expecting anyone," I said, going to hang up.

"The name's McVale," he said, eliciting some sort of a response in me that I would never admit to having, though it said a lot that I suddenly didn't want to hang up anymore. "Friend of yours?"

"No," I said. "But send her up."

"Why--"

"You're not paid to ask me questions."

He made a noise of indignation into the phone, which was not very mature or very politic, but neither was I at this point.

"She's on her way," he said.

"What the hell does she want," I muttered, much to myself.

"Jennifer?" Margaret guessed, not a bad one.