Drilled Read online

  And now I was going to be the first smiling face people saw when they entered the headquarters.

  We exchanged introductions. The woman’s name was Andrea. She gave me a temporary security badge and rolled a second chair behind the desk. And just like that, I was a secretary.

  “Am I here to replace you?” I asked. “Or share your workload?” I’d been told this was a 40 hour a week job, and was suddenly afraid of it being less.

  “I’m being moved up to the third floor,” she said, “So yep, you’re here to replace me! It’s not too complicated, but there are a lot of things to learn, so you have to pay attention.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound condescending. I worked at a dang newspaper.

  “Here’s how the phone system works. It’s all computerized, so after you answer the line will light up yellow on the left screen. When you’re ready to pass the call to someone, just tap on their name on the screen and hit transfer. Need me to show you again?”

  “I think I’ve got it. What if I have to pee?”

  “Then the automated directory answers!” she said cheerfully. “But Mr. Bryson likes for there to be a human voice when possible.”

  “He the boss?”

  She looked confused. “Mr. Bryson is the CEO of Blackrock. You’ll meet him later.”

  Andrea’s day was exactly what I feared it would be. She answered the phone when it rang, and then forwarded it to the right person. She smiled and greeted the Blackrock employees as they entered, most of whom were men wearing dress shirts and ties. Mail came in the morning, which she sorted by department.

  “Let me give you the tour while we deliver the mail!”

  The building was three floors of offices. Andrea seemed to know everyone, pausing and chatting for a few seconds with everyone she passed. It was like any other office building: individual offices, conference rooms, copy rooms. Dull and boring.

  Andrea made sure to point out each department and repeat the names twice. “That hall is accounting. That’s accounting.” Then we’d walk a bit and she would say, “The four offices on the right are acquisitions. We buy a lot of mineral rights, so the acquisitions group is always busy.”

  I nodded along and pretended like it all mattered. It wasn’t easy.

  While walking around the office, she collected manila folders from various people until she had a large stack. When we returned to the front desk she said, “Now I’ll show you how to use the courier system.”

  Yeah, that’s right. Courier system. They still used couriers to send sensitive documents to subsidiaries and job sites. I watched her explain how to place the documents into a sealed folder, print the shipping label, and then stick it on the front. I had it understood within 10 seconds, but she insisted on doing it slowly for every single courier package to make sure I understood.

  “Okay,” Andrea said, looking at me approvingly. “I think you can hold down the fort while I get a coffee. You want one?”

  “I’d love a tea,” I said.

  She was only gone a few minutes, but that was long enough for me to get a big heaping taste of boredom. The phone didn’t ring. Nobody came in. It was uncomfortably silent except for the soft hum of the air conditioners high above.

  Andrea returned and handed me a Styrofoam cup with a tea bag hanging over the edge. Her cup of coffee was in a ceramic Blackrock mug, but instead of drinking it she placed it on the counter.

  “Oh, it’s not for me,” she said when she saw my confused look. “Mr. Bryson should be here any minute.”

  Sure enough, Milton Bryson arrived at 8:55. Although he was the head of a multi-billion dollar company, he didn’t dress like it. Steel-toed boots and jeans with a dress shirt tucked into them. He looked reasonably fit for his age—which I guessed was around 50—and had a thin beard like a lumberjack across his jaw. It was very obvious he was trying too hard to look like a working man.

  “Morning Andrea!” he said as he took the coffee. “Got a busy one today?”

  “Busy is good—you have two meetings about mineral rights at 10:30 and 1:00, but you’re clear aside from that.” She gestured to me. “This is our new secretary, Lexa.”

  He shook my hand and gave me a politician’s smile. “Thanks for coming down to our little shop. You’ll like it here.”

  Little shop. That, paired with his wardrobe, gave me an immediate idea of how he wanted to be portrayed. But hey, whatever dude.

  “I’m sure I will,” I said.

  “How’d Tommy’s game go?” he asked Andrea.

  She grimaced. “He looked sharp for the first two innings, but got shelled after that. Four runs given up in the third, then the coach pulled him.”

  “He’s young,” Bryson insisted. “The pitching coach I sent you will hone his skill. It just takes time.”

  “I just wish it wasn’t so hard on his spirits in the mean time.”

  “Hey, that’s life,” he said, raising the coffee mug. “Send the 10:30 meeting in when they get here. Nice to meet you, Lexa.”

  “You too,” I said as he scanned his badge and disappeared into the building.

  “He seems nice,” I said, and meant it.

  Andrea smiled. “He really, really is. He sponsors my son’s little league team, uniforms and pizza parties and everything. My husband says he knows more about baseball than most scouts. Now!” she said, clapping her hands together. “Think you can man the fort for the rest of the day by yourself?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “I’ll be right upstairs if you need me!”

  I sat in the main chair and put my arms on the desk. This was my job now.

  I greeted people who came in, and gave out the packages when the couriers arrived. I ate my salad at my desk at lunch, and answered the phone when it rang. The morning flew by, but the afternoon dragged. I was counting down the minutes by the time 5:00 rolled around.

  But it was a job, which was better than being unemployed. Or so I told myself.

  4

  Lexa

  I woke the next morning with a fresh attitude. It felt good to get out of bed with a purpose, no matter how mundane it may be. I fell into my old routine: 30 minutes on the treadmill, then a healthy breakfast of steel cut oatmeal with honey.

  While eating, I ran some numbers on my phone. I barely made above minimum wage, but it ended up being $1,400 a month. That would almost pay for my mortgage by itself, assuming the job turned into something full-time.

  It wasn’t sustainable long-term, but paired with my meager savings it would help me last six months instead of two. That bought me some time to job hunt. Find something more permanent. Something in journalism.

  “I have a plan,” I said to myself while drying my hair in the mirror. “I have something to do every day. I’m going to make the best of this situation.”

  As cheesy as my mirror pep talk was, I felt brightened as I left my condo.

  It was freezing outside that early in the morning, but it would warm up later when the sun came out. I tended to like the chilly weather. It gave me an opportunity to wear snazzy coats with silver buttons down the front. That said, I couldn’t wait for spring to arrive in earnest. Summer dresses? Yes please.

  Blackrock was quiet when I arrived. I entered the building code to get in the door, then turned off the security system behind the desk. I pulled up the checklist Andrea had saved on the computer and went through the morning tasks: walking through the building to turn on all the lights; starting the coffee makers in the break rooms; unlocking the document storage rooms.

  I made myself a cup of tea and settled in. Even though I’d been there yesterday, today felt like the first day at a new school.

  I smiled as the employees slowly trickled in. Everyone was friendly. Several stopped to introduce themselves and welcome me to the company, and not in the creepy flirty way—they seemed genuine. Eventually my cheeks began to ache from smiling so much. I felt like a greeter at Wal Mart.

  There wasn’t mu
ch on the calendar for today. I had to set up a conference room for Bryson, but not until lunch. Speaking of him, I needed to make his coffee. Rather than give him the dregs I brewed a fresh pot, then poured it into a clean ceramic mug from the cabinet. Three sugars, no cream.

  Sure enough, he arrived right at 8:55 like Andrea said he would. He looked just as casual as he had yesterday: work boots, jeans, dress shirt without a tie. He grinned at me as he came through the door.

  “It was always nice of Andrea to make my coffee,” he said, “but you really don’t have to.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said, hefting my own cup. “Gave me an excuse to make a cup of tea for myself.”

  He took a sip and nodded approvingly. “Be that as it may, I might protest for the first few days.”

  He flashed a smile and left.

  The rest of the morning crawled along. I answered the phone twice between 9:00 and 11:00. I succumbed to temptation and browsed the internet on my phone to kill time. I wondered if I would get in trouble for that. Maybe they wanted me to sit politely like a mannequin until I was needed.

  I was practically bouncing with excitement when it came time to set up the conference room for Bryson’s lunch meeting. It was a simple room but contained a very expensive looking table, long and oval-shaped with eight plush chairs around it, and an enormous smart board screen at one end. Once again Andrea had provided me with a checklist of what to do. I turned the smart board on and set the input to HDMI. I retrieved five bottles of water—one for each member of the meeting—from the break room fridge, a variety of soft drinks in cans, and a bucket of ice and plastic cups, placing them all on a tray in the middle of the table. The conference room had its own coffee machine in the corner, which I set to brewing.

  I returned to my desk and checked the clock. That was my only real task for the day, and it had only killed 10 minutes. Darn.

  In general, I considered myself a motivated person. I was the girl in school who did my homework or wrote my papers as soon as I got the assignment. Even for subjects I hated I was able to bear and focus on the work. It always felt good to at least get it done.

  But I could tell it was going to be tough with this job. I liked to stay busy. I did my best work when I was under the gun with a deadline looming. Juggling six newspaper articles at a time while waiting for revisions from a seventh. Some of my fondest memories at the newspaper were when I put headphones on, blared some loud country music, and flew through my work right before everything went to print.

  Everything felt different here. I wasn’t busy, and I could tell that wouldn’t change. Even worse, it felt like I was starting over with a new career. Like a recent college grad thrown out into the world on Day One, with nothing but a smile and a degree. The despair was there, just at the edge of my mind. I wondered how many days of this I could handle before succumbing to it. Knowing that the job was only temporary until I found something better did little to assuage my worry.

  Bryson came down to the lobby right at 11:30. He glanced at his watch and said, “Looks like they’re late.”

  “Guess so,” I said.

  “Audit contractors,” he grumbled. “Not making a good first impression.”

  I figured it would be a bad career move to point out that being less than a minute late wasn’t really worth worrying over, so all I did was shrug.

  “Food ordered?”

  “Sandwiches from Ron’s Deli,” I said. “Should be delivered around noon.”

  “Turkey with mayo? No onions?”

  “Aww shoot,” I said, “I told them extra onions.”

  Bryson’s horror was hilarious until he realized I was teasing. He narrowed his eyes and said, “I have to watch myself around you, don’t I?”

  I chuckled and said, “Don’t worry; I won’t make any more food-related jokes. I hate onions too.”

  He leaned on the desk. “They make your breath smell awful. The last thing I want is to piss these guys off.”

  “Then you’d be the one making a bad impression,” I pointed out. I found myself enjoying Bryson’s company. He reminded me of my uncle Steve.

  “Were you brought on with a temp agency?” He waited for me to say yes, then added, “What’d you do before that? Or are you right out of college?”

  “I was an editor,” I said.

  “Oh? For whom?”

  “The Bismarck Herald.”

  He winced. “Ahh, shoot. That shutdown hurt our little town. Used to read the Herald every morning at breakfast. Had a friend whose son was in the sports department. You know Drew McAlester?”

  I smiled. “Nice guy. Always submitted his stories on time. Problem with comma splices, though.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” he admitted, “but it sounds like Drew. Shame about the paper.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Then, in a spurt of friendliness that was probably just loneliness, I added, “It really sucks because I bought a condo a month before the paper went under.”

  I didn’t expect the rich owner of a drilling company to sympathize, but he seemed genuinely sorry. “Oof. Life sure sucks sometimes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think of renting it out?” he asked. “That’s what Drew did with his house. Found some college kids to rent it for a year, then he moved to the twin cities to cover the Vikings.”

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  He squinted at me. “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Well… I’ve actually put a few ads out there. The response I’ve gotten has been disappointing.”

  “What, people low-balling you?”

  I pulled out my phone and opened one of the most recent texts, then held the phone out. “More like this.”

  His eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “What in the world…”

  “Yep.”

  He took my phone and squinted at the screen. “It’s a 701 area code. They’re local. They may not be in Bismarck, but I’ve got friends at the police department who could pay him a visit…”

  I took my phone back and waved him off. “It’s fine. Honest. The best way to deal with these things is to ignore them and move on.”

  “You’ve gotten a lot like that, huh?”

  “Yeah…”

  He shook his head and grimaced. “My daughter tells me the internet is a very different place for women. I’m sorry, Lexa.”

  He seemed genuinely sorry; more than just a corporate guy trying to seem sympathetic. “Thank you,” I said, feeling a lump form in my throat.

  Bryson looked away. “Ahh, here they are.”

  It was a good thing the CEO was no longer looking at me because I probably gawked at the four men who came through the door. My subconscious insisted these men were hired strippers, not actual workers here to see Bryson. Two of them wore work boots and jeans like Bryson, but one guy wore denim overalls with nothing underneath, which showed off his enormous shoulders and arms.

  But my eyes barely registered most of them because the man at the front captured my full attention. He was the only one of the four dressed in slacks and a button-down, with a tie that matched his steel grey eyes.

  Eyes I’d stared into before.

  This was the guy I’d ambushed at the bar all those weeks ago. He’d cut his hair, but it was unmistakably him.

  Oh no.

  5

  Cas

  “Dude,” I said, “stop worrying. It’s gunna work.”

  “You don’t know that,” Tex insisted.

  The four of us were piled into the jeep and driving through downtown Bismarck. Everyone seemed calm this morning while we got ready, but now that we were almost there the cracks were showing in their resolve. Tex was always a worrier, but this was worse than normal.

  My grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Worrying about it doesn’t help. Does it?”

  “Nope!” Kai chimed in from the back seat. The German shrugged his shoulders, which were so massive I could see the gesture through my rear-view mirror. “Worrying is point
less. Better not to think about it. Ja?”

  “Some of us can’t turn off our brains,” Tex grumbled.

  “We’ve been over this,” I said, taking charge of the car conversation. “We’re just normal contractors here to double-check Blackrock’s OSHA evaluations. Just like every other time.”

  Except it wasn’t like every other time.

  We worked for a safety consulting firm in the Midwest. Our department’s specialty was hydraulic fracking sites, which meant we spent a lot of time in North Dakota and Montana. Oil companies hired us to come in and evaluate drill sites for safety. Stuff like ensuring backflow alarms were installed, and that employees followed all safety procedures during construction and maintenance of the sites. You’d be shocked how many forklift operators died because they weren’t wearing their seat belts when their forklift tilted over.

  To the everyday employee, we were the bad guys. Nobody liked outsiders coming in and flagging them for what they’re doing wrong, which often led to careless people getting fired. Obviously it was for the best since it made everyone safer, but safety was something that was easily overlooked when people were trying to do their everyday jobs.

  Everything changed with last month’s accident.

  “What if they know?” Tex asked.

  “They won’t know.”

  Jason twisted in the passenger seat. “Bro. Just fucken drop it. Your making me nervous.”

  “You should be nervous,” Tex mumbled.

  I made my voice as patient as possible. If I projected calm confidence, it would stick with the others. “This is just a meet-and-greet with their CEO. We won’t be digging into anything today.”

  “What kind of CEO insists on having lunch with safety auditors?” Tex asked.

  “The kind who’s spent the last five years bribing auditors to overlook all their safety shortcuts.”

  “So you admit it’s more than a meet-and-greet!”

  “Bro…” Jason warned.

  “Nothing will happen today,” I said, adding a trickle of authority to my voice. “He’s just feeling us out. If you can’t relax, you’re welcome to stay in the car.”