What Happens After Dark by Jasmine Haynes Page B

anymore? The thought hit her like a low blow. God, she had to stop thinking like that all the time. She wasn’t completely useless. She had value. I’m good enough, I’m good enough. It was a mantra she had to keep repeating to herself, and she still didn’t always believe it. But Erin wouldn’t fire her. Bree would make herself indispensable with other stuff, like taking care of the IRS with Marbury and not having to get Erin involved at all. Then, finally, everything would get back to normal when her father was dead.
    Jesus. That was harsh. She swallowed, and even her saliva hurt going down.
    “So what do you think, Bree? Is it a good idea?” Rachel asked.
    Stop thinking bad thoughts, stop thinking.
    “Yeah,” she finally said. “We’ll talk to Erin together.”
    Rachel smiled as if a beam of sunlight had lit her face. “Thanks. You won’t regret it.” With that, she turned the situation around as if Bree had truly done her the favor.
     
     
    HALF AN HOUR LATER, BREE STARED AT THE PHONE LIKE IT WAS a snake ready to jump on her. Not that snakes could jump, but she’d had nightmares in which they did.
    Rachel had taken all the matching back to her desk, and when she was done, Bree would check it. She was sure there wouldn’t be anything wrong.
    Now she had to call Marbury. No more excuses. His receptionist answered and put Bree through. It was pathetic the way her heart pounded in her chest. Marbury was just their accountant; that was all. He couldn’t hurt her or anything.
    “Marbury here.” His voice boomed deeply and forced her to hold the receiver away from her ear.
    The sound made her grit her teeth. “Hi, Mr. Marbury, it’s Bree Mason.”
    “Bree,” he singsonged loudly. “Erin told me she got my list. Having problems with it already?” He laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound.
    “No. I wanted to tell you I’m emailing the files. All the information you need is in the spreadsheets.” She held her breath. He’d find something wrong with the idea, she was sure.
    “Well, now, Bree, that means we’re going to have to print everything out over here and that’s going to cost some extra time to have Clarice do it.” Clarice was his receptionist. She never looked all that busy when Bree stopped by to drop something off. “And time is money,” he added.
    “Erin says she’s not worried about that. It’ll save us the time.” Us . The all-important client. Marbury always acted as if he were the customer. At least he did when he talked to Bree, though not so much with Erin.
    “I’m sure there are pages we don’t need to see, Bree. We’d be wasting all that time ,” he emphasized. “Why don’t you print out what you think we need and drop it by. I’m sure that would be easier for everyone concerned, don’t you?” He said it with what she thought of as the idiot inflection. As if she was too stupid to know it and needed a reminder. “And cheaper,” he added as the kicker.
    She gritted her teeth. Dammit. His office was actually on the way to her parents. It was smarter to print out the appropriate pages because, double damn, he was right, he didn’t need everything in the files. Bree should have suggested that to Erin. But yet again, Denton Marbury had pointed out her failings.

9
    BREE SPENT ANOTHER HALF HOUR PRINTING WHAT MARBURY would need. By then it was a quarter to two, and she took off since she’d told her mom she would leave work by two-thirty anyway.
    She was there in five minutes. Marbury’s office sat atop a row of small shops that included a dry cleaner, an insurance company, a hair salon, and a Chinese restaurant. The scent of cooking oil and spices followed her up the stairs. Her stomach growled; she’d forgotten lunch. She didn’t tell people that sometimes she forgot to eat. In a world where just about everyone was dieting, the few times she’d said anything about forgetting a meal, people looked at her like she was an alien. Then they got hostile, as if she were