Caress by Greg Egan

Author:Greg Egan [Egan, Greg]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Sci-Fi Short
Published: 2010-03-07T17:38:16.015000+00:00

Chapter 9

Nya arrived in Norfolk at noon the following day and headed straight for the Hatsheput office at the harbor. She had to have some answers.

Bright and undeniably cheerful, the Norfolk office had always put Nya in a happy and creative mood, but this time she couldn’t let anything destroy her focus. She marched through the office and was greeted by everyone with a warm, “Hello, Ms. Seymour.”

“Hello,” she responded with a bright smile she could barely manage to maintain. She continued until she reached her destination. “Isabelle, hi,” she said to the executive assistant sitting at her desk wearing bright teal.

Isabelle was a big woman, extremely pretty, with flamboyant tastes. Without a doubt she was the most pretentious woman in Hatsheput’s employ. Nya didn’t much like her, and she was certain the feeling was mutual. But Isabelle was not the type of woman to show her distaste. She behaved with an unnaturally saccharine demeanor towards everyone that made it nearly impossible for Nya to find something concrete on which to base her own dislike and distrust.

“Hello, Nya, nice to see you.” She smiled widely with full, blood red lips. “You look well. Here, have a seat.” The woman motioned to the chair on the other side of her desk.

“No, thank you,” Nya responded, looking beyond Isabelle to the closed door behind her. “Is Dashiel here?”

“No, he left for the day about half an hour ago, and you know he’ll be out for a while for his procedure.”

“Well, maybe you could help me.” Isabelle looked up. Nya pushed on with a white lie, wanting the meeting to be as brief as possible. “I’ve been reviewing the quarterly reports the past couple of weeks and there’s a little discrepancy I want to check into. Now don’t be alarmed, it’s just a little thing, nothing to worry about, but since you operate here as our largest receiving dock stateside, we want to be extra careful.”

“Dashiel prepares the quarterly reviews himself. You might want to take it up with him upon his return,” the bulky woman said curtly, folding meaty arms over her hot pink chest. Isabelle had been Elphonse’s secretary before his promotion to the St. Thomas office. When he left she had then been assigned as secretary to Dashiel Duchesne, director of the Norfolk site. The office rumor, reported to Nya by Lysette, of course, was that Isabelle and Elphonse had had an affair and that Nyron’s decision not to relocate her to St. Thomas with Elphonse had made her bitter. From her behavior, Nya was inclined to believe it. Besides, Nya knew her childhood friend’s many predicaments with women who wouldn’t let go.

“Well, like I said, I think you can help me. I want to see your hard copy invoices from the past six to eight months.”

“They are all recorded on the computer system,” she said, answering the buzzing phone. “Any information you need will be there.”

Nya raised her brow and gave a glare that caused Isabelle to actually shrink back into her seat.

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