Killing Britney by Sean Olin Page B

organized and make sure that anything Mr. Johnson needed was easy to find, was a disaster. Folders and documents binder-clipped together were piled everywhere, stained with coffee rings and dark splotches of soy sauce; the folders even spilled onto the floor.
    “I don’t know,” Tamara kept saying. “I’m not supposed to disturb him when he’s with a client.”
    “It’s an emergency!” said Melissa again. She was doing most of the talking. It was all Britney could do to sit silently, trying to hold herself together, on the antique couch, a deep royal blue with wooden scrollwork on the arms that her mother had purchased when she worked at the office.
    Suddenly Britney ran to the desk and, knocking over a mug of pens and spilling Tamara’s bottle of water, she yanked the phone away and shouted into it. “Dad? I need to talk to you! Tamara won’t let us in!”
    Then she very calmly placed the phone back in its cradle and returned to her perch on the couch. Acting like there had been no scene at all, as if she were just hanging out here, not even upset, Britney crossed her legs and waited. To make her point even more obvious, she casually picked up one of the old Newsweeks that lay on the art deco coffee table and began to leaf through it.
    “He won’t come out,” said Tamara as she tried to clean the water off the documents strewn around her desk. Picking them up in big bundles, she flicked the water into her trash can. Britney hoped that some of them were important; it would serve Tamara right if they got ruined.
    It took Britney’s father a few minutes, but sure enough, the door to his office slipped open a crack and he came out, shutting it quickly behind him to protect his client’s privacy. Britney was overjoyed to see him. He had that familiar hangdog droop to his shoulders—a defeated shuffle to his gait that had arrived soon after Britney’s mother died and never left. When he looked at her with those tender, pained eyes, she felt so safe that her whole body quivered.
    Tamara shot Melissa a dirty look, but she didn’t say anything. She acted like she’d known Mr. Johnson would come talk to the girls all along. Anyway, she was too busy shutting down the spider solitaire game on her computer to cause any more trouble.
    “Tamara,” said Mr. Johnson, “would it be okay if—” He glanced at the girls with a look that said to her, I’m sorry to get in your way, but if you could just give us a moment or two alone?
    “Sure. Okay,” Tamara said. “I want a muffin anyway.” Then, putting on the sickliest saccharine voice Britney’d ever heard, she said, “Can I get you anything?”
    He just shook his head wearily.
    Britney was so overcome that she just sat there with her head in her lap while Melissa explained about the CD and the scene in the car. Throughout the conversation, Mr. Johnson rubbed Britney’s back with the palm of one hand. He listened gravely, seriously considering every word Melissa said.
    “Oh, Brit, I’m so sorry,” he said once Melissa had finished. “You must have felt like the world was ending.”
    Britney nodded.
    “Do you have the CD?” he asked.
    Melissa handed it over, and he frowned, studying it carefully.
    “I think we need to tell Detective Russell about this.” He glanced at Britney and, seeing how torn up she was, said, “It’s okay. I’ll do it. I suspect it’s just a prank—probably those hockey guys. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen them in court over idiotic behavior like this.” He took Britney’s hand between his two palms. “I’ll see what I can do, though, okay, sweetie? Detective Russell and I will get this sorted out. In the meantime, do you still have those bath salts from The Body Shop that Grandma Johnson sent you for Christmas?”
    Britney shrugged. It was as much of a response as she could muster.
    “When your mother was especially rattled about things, she used to take a long bath to calm herself down. Maybe you should try