“A job? Wha-what do you mean?” Good thing Barbie isn’t in her office because I know I said that louder than I meant to.

“Yes, a job. I have someone else who needs to be taken care of.” Viv looks at me with not even one emotion showing on her face. She would be a great poker player.

“I-I can’t. I can’t do this as a job. I’m barely sleeping now. The nightmares…”

“Yes, well, those nightmares would be worse in prison.” Viv picks up a pen, rolls it between her forefinger and thumb before setting it back down onto her desk.

“So, you’re telling me that I either do your dirty work or I go to prison?” The sweat on my forehead has come back and I can feel puddles accumulating in my armpits.

“You’re not doing this alone. You do the killing part, and I send my crew in to do the clean-up. It’s really a win-win for both of us.”

“I’m not sure how this is a win-win. You aren’t getting your hands dirty at all. The only connection you have to any of this is the cleaning crew is on your payroll.” Suddenly it’s very hard to breathe and I can’t catch my breath.

Viv reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out a paper sack. She opens the top and fluffs it up before handing it to me. “Breathe in this.”

I take the bag and put it over my nose and mouth, trying desperately to slow my breathing down as she continues to explain her great plan.

“You won’t have any connection to the ones I’ll direct you to so that makes it less likely that the authorities will discover that it’s you. And with my cleaning crew going behind you and making sure that nothing is left behind, it’ll be fine. They’re professionals. They know what they’re doing.”

My breathing starts to slow, and I have some clarity coming back to my brain. The flash of Barbie’s designer bag comes to mind, and I have an idea. “If we’re going to do this, then I need to be compensated nicely. This isn’t just an assistant editing job. This is something that could make me spend some real time behind bars. So, I need to have some monetary gains that I can stockpile somewhere in case I need to get out of here quick. Also, just to ensure that your magical clean-up crew is good, if they aren’t and I get caught, I will squeal like a pig. Your name will be the first word out of my mouth. You will be in prison with me.”

Viv looks at me square in the eyes and doesn’t budge. I can’t tell if she’s buying it or if she’s going to pick up the phone and call the cops. My breath catches in my throat as I wait in this horribly uncomfortable chair.

“Fair enough. You’ll need to have a separate bank account set up. Somewhere else. Not around here. You cannot set it up at your local credit union.”

“Like an overseas account?” My heart starts to race. Am I going to be a fugitive if I work with her? Although I’d be a fugitive without money if I choose not to.

“If you want to have an overseas account, that’s up to you. It should be accessible though. Like a global bank so that if you need to leave, you can access your money from anywhere.” Viv’s voice is so calm it’s unnerving.

I fidget in my chair, and when I look down, I see the makeup smear on my black pants. I rub at it in an effort to calm myself a little. Everything is so complicated now. And there’s no time for should’s or could’s. It just is. “I guess I’ll have to look into a bank. How are you going to explain paying me for these other jobs?”

Viv doesn’t skip a beat. She looks at me and says, “You will stay an assistant editor to help Kendra, but I’m going to pull your hours back from that and make you my assistant as well.”

“Wait, what about Barbie? And how am I going to have time to do it all? That seems like an awful lot on my plate. Sometimes I’m here late working on edits to help Kendra. There’s no time for…killing.”

“Maybe we should have a codeword for killing just in case others are listening. How about I tell you that I have set up a meeting for you? We will tell people that I have you meeting with some promising talented writers as a final step to see if we would like to support them as their publisher.” A glimmer in Viv’s eye catches the light in the room. I think she’s having fun with this.

“Like a talent acquisition specialist?”

“Yes. So, then your new title will be Assistant Editor/Talent Acquisition Specialist. That way I can increase your pay quite a bit and no one will be the wiser.”

I really want to ask her how she comes up with this stuff but I’m almost afraid to find out. Maybe she’s done this before. Maybe Frank was the first one to be her “specialist” but now he’s retired back to editor. Viv stares at me as though she’s expecting me to say something. I’m not really sure what to say so I just say, “Okay.”

And there it is. I’ve signed a deal with the devil in hopes that I avoid prison. Except if I get caught from one of these “meetings”, I’m going to go to prison even longer. Maybe even get the death penalty. Is that worth it? Or should I just turn myself in now? I don’t even know how long I would serve for killing Mike. I could plead self-defense. I think.

“Great! Do you have any questions thus far?” Viv is the only person I have ever known to actually use the word “thus” in a sentence.

I shake my head and try to process all that happened. “I don’t think so.”

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“Okay, good.” Viv leans over and picks up her phone, presses a button, and then smiles in my direction. “Yes, Barbara, come back. Very well. Yes. Goodbye.” She hangs up the phone, presses her hands onto the top of the desk and then pushes off to stand. She stretches out her hand in the universal symbol of wanting to shake my hand. I quickly wipe the sweat off my hand and stand up too. When I grab her hand, it’s dry and warm. It feels like a hand that works with paper a lot. Her manicured nails catch my eye, and I can’t help thinking that, while I would like to have nails like that, I’m sure I would end up having evidence under a lifted part of the polish. The image of the cleaning crew busting into my house in the wee hours of the morning and taking off my fingernail polish is enough to make me laugh but I stifle it down. A small smirk crests my lips, but I play it off by saying, “I hope this works out good for both of us.”

“Yes, I do too. Now please, remember not to say a word to anyone about this. As far as anyone knows, you are still an Assistant Editor, but you will be starting a new part time position of being the Talent Acquisition Specialist. If Kendra asks, tell her that I will be setting up meetings for you to do a final interview for prospective authors. That’s all she needs to know. We will go from there. And if you feel like someone is snooping where they shouldn’t be, come to me. I know how to derail people and redirect them.”

Viv straightens out the front of her blouse, smoothing out any wrinkles that may have tried to sink in while she sat in her chair, but it honestly looks as good as if it came right off the hanger. Even though she’s maybe an inch or two taller than me, the three-inch heels that she wears on a daily basis, and the fact that she carries herself in such a confident way, makes her seem as though she’s a giant. My giant confident boss stands behind her desk, back straight, shoulders broad enough to not need any shoulder pads and says, “Sounds good.”

And it actually does, well, kinda.

The killing part doesn’t sound so good. How is she going to know if I don’t go through with it? Although, with the crew coming behind me to clean, it’s almost like they’re a verification team too. I’m sure they would report back to her if there wasn’t anything to clean up. No, I’m going to have to do these jobs. Let me rephrase that, meetings. I'm going to have to go to these meetings.

Viv stretches her arm out, palm side up, toward the door. “Okay. Best get back to work. I’ll be in touch, but it won’t be until after your trip to Connecticut. You and Kendra are going to have a hard enough time getting a hold of Blake.” She sits back down at her desk and opens her laptop.

I rack my brain, but I can’t think of an author by the name of Blake. “Blake?”

“Yes, Blake Randolf. He’s one of Kendra’s first sign-ons. He’s the author of ‘Mary Go Round.’”

“The erotic creeper?!? We have to go find him?” Suddenly the ick-factor is kicking in. I’ve only read portions of his books. They’re disgusting!

Viv giggle softly before saying, “Yes. That’s the one. He didn’t start out that way but once he got his foot in the door, it really took a turn. Kendra has his last known location but hasn’t been able to get a hold of him. His phone has been disconnected. She just found that out this morning when she attempted one last call.”

I can’t help but roll eyes. This is going to be so gross. I don’t even want to see the paraphernalia he keeps in his house for inspiration. “Great. Well, I’m going. I guess, keep me posted?”

The door from Barbie’s office opens and she click-clacks her way across the floor to her desk. Viv nods and goes back to working on something on her laptop. I walk out to Barbie’s office and stop at the coffee bar. There are five company mugs sitting next to the silver coffee maker from Italy. I’m sure this coffee maker cost more than my month’s salary but that’s about to change. Plus, the fact that I don’t have a coffee cup is going to change too.

I pick one of the cups from the rack, check it over for chips, ya never know, and then fill it up with deliciously hot coffee. I turn toward Barbie and see her wide eyes watching me over her computer monitor. I just grin and start walking toward her office door to leave.

“Excuse me, ma’am. You’re not allowed to take that. You need to leave that here.”

I can hear the panic in her voice. I’m sure Viv will get upset when she sees only four mugs instead of five, but I just smile and take a sip. “Oh, Viv will be fine knowing that I replaced my mug. Don’t you worry your little heart about it.” I figure that my first payment for this new line of bullshit work will be replacing my company cup.

Barbie sits behind her desk, slack mouthed, and watches me walk out the door. I reach around and go to close it behind me as she raises her hand to say something. I just smile at her and close the door before she can get her cute little Barbie mouth to say anything.

The walk down the stairs is much easier than the walk up was at the beginning of my day. I’m trying not to think about the “meetings” in my future. I’m just focusing on the fact that someone else is going to take care of Mike before he becomes a pile of slime.

When I hit the main floor and turn to go to my desk, Kendra’s head pops up over her cubicle. The look of quizzical fear radiates from her face, and I smile at her, sipping my coffee on the way over. I know that this is going to be a long conversation. One that she’s not going to believe, and quite frankly, she shouldn’t because it’s a lie. The story I have to tell her is all a lie. I can’t tell her about Mike, and I definitely can’t tell her about the actual new position for Viv. I rehearse the story in my mind that Viv told me to tell anyone who asks, and I know that Kendra is going to ask.

I get to my desk and set my new mug down. Kendra’s eyes are huge. “Where did you get that mug? I thought yours broke.”

“It did. Viv gave me one from her coffee bar upstairs.” I make sure to look her in the eyes. If I remember right, the people who are lying won’t look a person in their eyes.

Kendra pelts me with questions one after another before letting me answer. “Gave you one? Did you get in trouble? Is that why you were up there so long?”

The clock on my computer says 9:30am. I was in there for an hour and a half! It didn’t feel like that long. Although in some ways, it felt like longer. I casually look back up at Kendra. “Oh, I guess I was in there for a while. Let’s go grab a donut or something. Let’s get out of here and take a break.”

Kendra looks around at everyone else working diligently at their desks before looking back at me as though I’ve lost my mind. “Now? But it’s not break time. It’s not even lunch time. It’s the middle of the morning when we, including you, should be working.”

I lean closer to the wall between our desks and whisper, “It will be fine. I’ll explain to Viv that we needed to work out some details of our Connecticut trip and we decided to go grab a bite. We’ll take a short lunch and stay at our desks, how about that?”

Kendra looks dumbfounded. I know that I’m not usually so calm and collected, especially when it comes to Viv or anything Viv-related, but after the meeting this morning, she’s got me by the balls, and I have her in the same position. If she doesn’t like me talking to Kendra elsewhere, I will explain to her that had I discussed the new “position” here, then everyone would hear and be interested. Whereas, if Kendra and I go off by ourselves, it’s just her.

Kendra fumbles but then says, “Okay.” She leans over and I can hear her keys jingle just before she looks at me and says, “I’ll drive.”