Ethel Grieves knows people don’t really see her. Not past the limp, the freckled nose, the coke-bottle glasses. In the boardroom of Carmichael Holdings, she is just a secretary. The mousey little thing who files reports and pours coffee for men who sit in chairs too expensive to belong to them.
She watches their hands.
“Good news, Josh.” Despite Mom’s tap on my back, I kept heading toward Olivia, one of my sister’s bridesmaids. Madeline said the blonde was single, and a wedding reception was the perfect chance to meet someone new after my breakup. “You won’t have to spend this evening alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“It’s worse than we thought.” Ethel leaned over the ancient oak table and plucked a sweet, still warm tigernut ball from the tray. Her family’s favorite Egyptian chef had prepared it only a few hours ago… Well, technically four thousand years ago… in ancient Egypt. These were the perks of a crime family
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Ethel limped through the park and sat at her usual table, the chess pieces already arranged on the gray and black terrazzo squares. She handed a footlong drenched in mustard to her informant, with a crisp one hundred tucked against the tin foil, and moved pawn to e4.
“Grazie, la Piccolina,” Sam said,
“Are you kidding?” barked Reynolds, the editor of the Gazette as he looked up from the tablet. “I send you to get photos of the Flag Day ceremony, and you give me a conspiracy theory?”
Gavin shook his head. “Not theory. Fact. You see her?” He zoomed in on a short lady with
The door falls shut behind me, an ominous sound sealing the fate of businessman Edward J. Wyles.
“Farewell, Miss Grieves,” his secretary chirps, unaware of what transpired in the office behind her.
Barely acknowledging her words, I stride from the room, my right hip dipping every step thanks to this cursed limp.
The operational excellence awards leer at me as I creep through the executive suite lobby, a satchel slung over one shoulder of my gray business suit. I pause before a door with the words “Robert Burgle, Undermine Global CEO” before pushing my way inside.
Burgle, a powerfully built man, slouches in an ergonomic swivel
Of course, Ethel would have a lockpick in the heel of her shoe. And, of course, she would use it to pick the lock of the metallic box she had found under a panel in her parent’s closet. What would you expect from a Grieves?
People on the street only whispered “Grieves,” as if
I stormed through mahogany doors into our mansion’s library. Due to my limp, my sensible shoes’ wooden heels hammered an uneven beat on the hardwood floor. My older siblings flinched, looked up from their phones, and winced a bit as I scanned their faces. When we were kids, Milton used to call my current
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Spark scanned the street, a typical mid-town scene: corner bodega, laundry, electronics repair store, coffee shop, all with residential spaces perched above. Nothing to merit the strange sensation prickling him. Several normal-looking people walked by; a couple surreptitiously glanced his way. Spark nodded
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Joe’s gonna kill me for ditching him.
I surveyed the crowd of humans—attendees of the annual Legendary Law Enforcement Ball—craning my neck to see over their heads as I inhaled another small pastry.
Nah, he wouldn’t kill me. That’d be too much paperwork.
Cool night air swirled through the crowded garden,
“We risked going to prison for a flashlight?” Big Ricky’s voice dropped to a deadly whisper. Meager light from a flickering yellow streetlamp outlined the alley’s brick wall and a dumpster off to the side. A brisk September breeze swept past them as Ricky and Jimmy crept down the alley. You wouldn’t have guessed…
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