The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (color ebook reader TXT) 📗

young man slouching in her doorway, holding a brown moving box as if it were a shield.

“Hello,” Dylan said, watching the pink splotches in his cheeks creep toward his white-blond hairline.

“Are you Ms. Delacroix?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“I’m Brandt Fenner. I’m your intern.”

Dylan was concerned for the guy. Was he afraid of her? Or just painfully shy? He was practically hiding in his flannel shirt, which was strategically worn under a fleece jacket to make him look bulkier.

“Hi, Brandt. You can call me Dylan,” she said, holding out her hand. Brandt looked as though he were being asked to walk under a ladder holding a black cat. He shifted the box to one arm and took her hand with a surprisingly firm grip for someone who seemed like he might be sick.

Brandt’s skinny jeans were baggy on his tall frame, and he had the standard Nordic features some longtime northwesterners had. If Dylan had one guess, she would probably say he had about ten generations of distinctly blond relatives living fifteen minutes from here.

“So should I start clearing out Marta’s stuff for you?”

“I’ll take care of it. How about you come by in an hour to cart the box off to wherever former-employee paperwork goes?”

“Will it count against me if I don’t help?” Brandt practically shuddered as he asked this.

“Count against you how?”

“You know . . . since you’re”—he looked at the corner of her office as if it would help him find the right words to complete his sentence—“picking who to fire.”

If he hadn’t looked so terrified, Dylan would have laughed. She wasn’t going to suggest anyone be let go. But if she did, it would be an expensive middle manager, certainly not a minimum wage graduate student intern. Dylan gestured at the door. “Does everyone here think I’m going to fire them?”

“Maybe? That’s what the last consultant did.”

“If anything, I’m more likely to suggest you be rearranged. In truth, I can’t fire anyone. That is all up to Tim, Steve, and the rest of the brass. I’m here to observe and make suggestions.”

“Oh,” Brandt said, uncoiling. “Well, I have a few things to wrap up from my last assignment. Would it be okay if I come back in an hour?”

Dylan decided he was simply one of those people who appeared to be afraid all the time. “Of course. When you come back, maybe you can give me the grand tour. I haven’t even found the restroom yet, let alone the coffee maker.”

“Bathroom is down the second set of cubicles to the left, past the green emergency-exit door. The coffee stand is on the top floor as close to Tim’s office as our clearance badges will get us,” Brandt answered in a factual manner.

“Great. See you in an hour.” She took the box from his outstretched hand.

“I’m in the basement with the other interns if you need anything. Have a good morning,” Brandt said, defaulting to the standard polite greeting that all Seattleites used with strangers. Dylan chuckled to herself as she started placing files in the box. You could be terrified of someone in this town, and it was still mandatory to wish them a good day.

She wasn’t sure how long it took to clean out Marta’s desk. All Dylan could say for certain was that Marta was a pack rat and that she was behind schedule. At some point Brandt had shown up to take away the box and bring her a few more, along with a cup of coffee in a ridiculously shaped brontosaurus mug, mumbling something about the office being a “green campus.”

Taking a sip from the dinosaur, Dylan pulled out her laptop and began spreading out her Technocore paperwork. Looking at her schedule, she started identifying places where she could shorten meetings to make up for lost time, until a subtle tapping on the narrow glass window of her door pulled her attention away from the screen. Waving at Steve, Dylan tried to hide the mug behind her computer and appear professional. The last thing she needed was for Jared to get a call about her brontosaurus obsession in addition to her penchant for skirting security protocol.

“I see you’re settling in nicely.” Steve gestured to her computer, and Dylan got the sense that he was referencing the mug behind it.

“Yes. Thank you for sending Brandt; he’s been really helpful.” She nudged her mug more toward the center of her screen.

“Is Brandt the intern they sent you? Good,” Steve said without waiting for confirmation. Pushing his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair, he continued, “So I’m here because it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the chance to speak with Tim today.” He exhaled in a way that conveyed more than exasperation. “I’ve asked that he make it a top priority for this week.”

Dylan blinked at Steve for a minute, regrouping. “I don’t need more than twenty minutes. Is there any way that I could schedule a call with him?” She thought back to Jared’s incomplete notes in his initial project brief and cringed. She really needed about three hours.

“I’m sorry. Tim made it clear that his day is packed. But I have you on the docket for first thing Thursday.” This time Steve didn’t wait for her to ask another question. Turning toward the door, he said, “Please let me know if you need anything else to get settled in. Enjoy your coffee. You can always get more upstairs.”

“Thanks.” Dylan’s tone was as lukewarm as her beverage. Glancing at her coffee, she tried to silence her anxiety alarm. There was no way that she could waste a week waiting for Tim. Even if she couldn’t meet with him for a full three hours, she absolutely needed him to send out a company-wide memo letting people know she was here in a friendly capacity. Given Brandt’s initial reaction, if she tried to interview employees without it, they might run screaming at the sight of her.

The question was how to get to him. Dylan was