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

where you work, and you actually want to do your jobs, which is unusual. Please help me out and chair the committee. Then I can tell Tim it’s already happening, and you can add it to your résumé or your LinkedIn or whatever.”

By the time she had finished drawing the e sound out in please, she could tell she had hooked Deep, who sighed. “Fine. I’m good at this kind of thing. Besides, I don’t have anything better to do. And contrary to popular belief, I like to be useful and actually earn my paycheck.”

Brandt nodded vigorously, pushing up his glasses. “There’s no structure for interns. I can either work with you or try to act like I’m not reading under my desk.”

“Done. I’ll send you both an email once I have ‘the conversation’ with Tim. It’s getting late.” Dylan glanced at her watch. “I should let you go. Thank you both for your help.”

“No problem,” Deep said, with way more pluck than anyone who had been working all day should have. “See you tomorrow, Captain!” She grinned and gave a mock salute, then marched out the door.

“Do you need anything else?” Brandt asked, standing up and pushing Deep’s chair in.

“Nope. Head out, Brandt. You don’t need to put in fourteen-hour days with me. I need you fresh and ready for tomorrow.”

“All right,” Brandt said. Dylan turned her attention back to the firestorm on her desk as Brandt reached the door. “Hey, Dylan. You sure you have all this under control? It’s kind of overwhelming.”

Overwhelming didn’t begin to cover it, in her opinion. But she didn’t need to scare Brandt with that. After all, she was here to help. Fixing was her specialty. “No worries, Brandt. I got this.”

“Well, Captain, if you need help, I’m here. I mean, no one ever asked me to lead anything before now.” Brandt said this mostly to his feet.

“I have a feeling your leadership will make this place better. Get home safe.”

Brandt smiled, his shoulders falling away from his ears. “Don’t stay too late.”

“Night,” Dylan said, wondering if she could capture even a quarter of the confidence she acted like she had.

As she looked around her desk, her stomach grumbled at her. Given the time, it had probably been grumbling for a while; she just hadn’t been able to hear it over Deep’s whisper-shouts. After taking a moment to carefully pack her bag, she shut off her light. She might as well head home and work over dinner.

CHAPTER SIX

Working at the house was a poor choice, Dylan thought over the sound of Neale and Bernice howling to a Motown classic. She stared down at the notes in front of her, then rolled her eyes and heaved herself out of the well-worn armchair she had been using as a desk. It was no longer sprinkling out. Maybe she’d indulge in a walk to the coffee shop around the corner. On balance, working in overused and comfortable coffeehouse chairs was a rite of passage in Seattle, not a cliché. After packing up her computer and notes, she bounded down the stairs.

“Going out?” Bernice hollered over Neale. That woman’s hearing was the stuff of myth, Dylan was sure.

“I’m going over to Cruise. Trying to get a little more planning in before tomorrow.”

Bernice ambled toward the door and appraised Dylan over the rims of her glasses. “You doing okay? You just got home a few hours ago, and you are already working again. The soulless aren’t getting you down, are they?” First Brandt, now her mother. Shifting her bag, Dylan wondered if the stress was aging her already. She couldn’t remember the last time her mother had checked in on her physical welfare, let alone her mental health.

“I’m all right. And on the plus side, the employees of Technocore would like their souls back, so who knows?”

“Devil drives a red Tesla, and he doesn’t like to bargain, darlin’.” Bernice grinned, which made Dylan smile against her better judgment.

“Perhaps Mephistopheles is feeling generous?”

“Don’t bet on it,” Bernice said, turning back to the kitchen, where Neale’s braying had come down in volume, probably so she could listen in.

Dylan stood alone in the hallway, marveling at her mother’s sudden interest in her well-being. It felt oddly comforting, like the memories of her mother drawing hearts on the Band-Aids Dylan had put on her own skinned knees as a kid. For a second, she considered wandering into the kitchen and telling the yelping women inside about her day. Asking them for guidance might not be as traumatic as she remembered it being. Then again, if their guidance was anything like their singing voices . . .

Dylan smirked, and the impulse passed almost as quickly as it had come. She was not in the mood to listen to suggestions ranging from set the establishment on fire to perhaps a séance? Technocore needed a framework for survival, not an interpretive poem. An unexpected warm, fuzzy feeling about her mother was not a good reason to abandon her common sense, and she had roughly thirty years of anecdotal evidence to prove it.

Stepping out into the cold air, Dylan pulled her collar a little closer as the sting settled into her cheeks. Watching her breath rise in short puffs, she inhaled the smell of pines. There was something comforting about the cold, clean smell of the city. When she was little, Dylan had thought of the rain as a bath for the world. Every day, nature washed off the day before and gave itself a clean slate. It was reassuring.

Rounding the corner, she met the heavy wood-and-glass-plate double doors of Cruise’s Coffee House and yanked on one brass handle. Stepping inside, she was flooded by the warm, familiar scent of coffee. The shop had been there since she was in high school, and although they had several locations throughout the city, it still felt like the small, local homework joint she knew. Covered in dented wooden tables and old dark leather chairs, the