Page 9 of Safari Murder Party
“Excuse me?” Fletcher asked. It was the liquor in her system leaving her feeling off-kilter. Definitely not the hardened way Waylon looked at her.
“If you really want to go, you should do something about it. But you won’t. You do what you’re told, Spence. It makes you a good receptionist.”
“I told you. I’m not a—”
“Cash or card?” He slid the receipt for both drinks toward her.
“Twenty-eight dollars?” Fletcher balked. “Each?”
Something dark flared in his eyes. “Drink up, buttercup.”
Fletcher fixed her stare on him, tipped the martini to her lips, and gulped. She’d prove him wrong, even if it killed her.
3
Fletcher wasn’t sure which hurt worse: the throbbing in her skull after a weeknight out or that Waylon was right about her.
She didn’t sleep last night so much as she ruminated. Waylon’s taunting echoed through her brain until the blue hours of the morning. When she finally dragged herself into the office, everything was exactly the same. She was still getting evicted, she and Kent were still broken up, and she still wasn’t invited to Lydell.
Her booze-soaked vow weighed heavy on her mind.
Every time she’d tried to talk to Dyer about the invitations, the words died a slow, stammering death, somewhere between her clavicle and her uvula. She first tried that morning, a steaming mug of doctor-ordered reishi coffee in her hand. Then again after the Ops touch base where she’d copied forty-six thousand memos that all promptly ended up crushed and in the wastebin. Over and over and over, failing to find the right words as October’s crisp oranges faded into November grays.
Finally, the Friday before the trip, Fletcher couldn’t take it anymore. She jabbed her fork at her lo mein.You do what you’re told, Spence.Another stab, twisting this time.Itmakesyouagoodreceptionist.
Next to her, Ford eyed her violent fork. “You good?”
No, but Fletcher’s mouth said, “Yes.”
She had only two weeks left to figure out a new living situation, but the pile of rejected apartment applications in her inbox nauseated her. Or maybe that was lunch. Did she evenlikelo mein?
She and Ford had become friends shortly after she’d gotten hired. Turned out, the secret to making friends into adulthood was to body-slam into them, destroying a pistachio muffin in the process. He offered to buy her lunch to replace her sad, smashed pastry, and they’d been grabbing lunch together ever since. Sometimes Sweetgreen, sometimes dollar pizza from a place that also did pedicures, but most of the time they ended up with Szechuan’s. Two orders of combination lo mein, his recommendation, and she’d never ordered anything else.
Was she predictable? A pushover?
Waylon burrowed in her head. Taunting her. Fletcher pinched her eyes closed, shutting down the thoughts.
The Design Lab door swung open, and Joplin, a pink-haired senior designer, walked in, headphones over her ears. Fletcher lowered her voice when she said, “I only have two weeks until my apartment gets makeover-montaged into a Saks, and every time I try to talk to Dyer about Lydell, I choke.”
“I already said you could crash with me,” Ford said.
“Yes, but have you considered that I actuallydon’twant to hear you and—what was his name again?”
Ford’s nails tapped his chin. “Ricky. I think.”
“—Hear you andRicky, I Thinkravishing each other until daybreak.” Fletcher pushed her take-out box away from her, forehead sinking against the table.
“Then do something about it.”
Fletcher lolled her head to one side. She scraped open her left eyelid. “I’m out of somethings.”
Ford leaned his head on the table to meet her eyes. Or eye, technically. “What are you talking about? You’re Fletcher Spence. You could run this company in your sleep, and you’re always one step ahead. If you can’t figure out a way, no one can.”
Fletcher scoffed. Then, like clockwork, Dyer rang, and she was dragged back to her desk. But a crop seed had been planted, and it took root the rest of the day. While she scanned expense reports, while she updated Dyer’s calendar, while she organized meeting notes.
Which was how she ended up at LaGuardia at 6:07 the next morning in her best (okay, only) pumps. A vicious wind tore at the threads of her copper braid, and she braced her arms against her chest for warmth. Dyer’s behemoth of a jet had been taxied over, but the team was nowhere to be found. None of this surprised Fletcher.
T-minus 87 seconds before the cars pulled in, twenty minutes to board and prepare the plane, and twenty-three hours in the air before the landing gear cranked out for arrival.
