Smoke: An Imogene Duckworthy Mystery by Kaye George

Author:Kaye George
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Kaye George
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

By the time Mike returned to the office, an hour later, Immy had succeeded in completing two invoices from the stack.

He stopped at her desk. She continued typing, but made three typos. She would wait until he left to correct them.

“Sorry I yelled at ya, kid,” he said. “But I need to get the bills out or we don’t get paid. Ya know? I don’t get paid, means you don’t get paid. The dough’s gotta come in.”

She turned her chair and handed him the two she had finished.

“What’s this for?” he said.

“For you to sign. You always sign them.”

“Yeah, but why are these two special? Where’s the rest of ’em?”

Immy looked away.

Mike took a step back, then shook the papers in his hand. “Jesus Christ. You mean you only got two of ’em done? What you been doin’ all day?”

He raised his voice enough that Immy to tried to scoot her chair back, but she hit the computer keyboard and send it crashing to the floor. Two keys popped off.

The office was deadly silent. Mike rattled the papers again. Immy didn’t dare breathe. Mike slapped the invoices down on the edge of her desk and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Okay. Tell ya what. This isn’t workin’ out, kiddo. I’m gonna have to let you go.”

“Go?” Immy picked up the broken keyboard. “I can fix this.” She tried to push the key caps back onto the keys.

“Yeah, let you go.”

“I don’t need to go anywhere.” No, that wasn’t right. The W didn’t belong on the bottom row.

“Yeah, you do, kid. You need to go wherever it is you been goin’ when you’re supposed to workin’ here, for me.”

“You…you’re firing me?” She dropped the keyboard again. Two more key caps popped off.

“You’re a nice girl, Immy, but this hasn’t worked out.”

He was firing her? The words didn’t seem to make sense. She had lost her job? Her PI job? Her face felt numb.

“Go ahead. Get your purse and leave.”

“What about two weeks? Don’t I get two weeks?”

“No, I don’t think you do. Go on.” He waved his hand toward the file drawer that held her purse. She pulled it open, dropped her purse on her first try, then picked it up. Her body was having trouble responding to the commands she, and Mike, were giving it. She stood up. Mike backed to give her room to leave and she walked out the door.

* * *

Immy had forgotten Ralph was coming for supper that night. Hortense had spent the afternoon brewing her special spaghetti sauce, fragrant with oregano and thyme, using tomatoes from Ralph’s vegetable plot behind his house. Immy heard him arrive, but stayed in her bedroom until Hortense called her to eat.

Ralph was helping set the table, but putting the flatware on all wrong. He put the fork on the same side of the plate as the knife. Immy’s waitressing experience at her uncle’s diner had taught her how to lay a table, if nothing else. But she was too weary to correct him.

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