Autumn Alibi by Jennifer David Hesse

Author:Jennifer David Hesse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2019-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

Office Assistant for Rising Attorney

Open Call Interviews

Wednesday, 10–3

Law Offices of Keli Milanni

132 Hawthorne Street, Suite 102

Starting salary: $70, 000. No experience necessary.

The only part of this ad that matched the one I had placed were the words office assistant.

“This must be some kind of joke,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, Ace, but there’s been a mistake. This isn’t the salary I’m offering. And I actually am looking for someone with relevant experience.”

When Ace left, I looked down the hallway in dismay. The line now snaked around the corner and out the front door. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the din of chattering voices.

“Hello, everyone! Did anyone here receive a phone call with a scheduled interview time?”

“I did!” yelled a voice at the far end of the hall.

“Come on up, please!”

As I waited for the applicant to make her way through the crowd, I heard grumblings all around me.

“I was here first!”

“I’ve been waiting for more than an hour!”

“Unfair!”

When the woman reached me, I steered her inside and closed the door. “Sorry about all that,” I said. “There was some kind of mix-up with my newspaper ad.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I have time. Yes, ma’am.” She bobbed her head, making her silver curls bounce. She had a pleasant, if slightly manic-looking, smile. Regrettably, she also smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.

I sat back in my chair to put a little distance between us. “I’m Keli. And you are?”

“Berty Finkle. Yes, ma’am. Like I said, I have time, because I’m not currently working. There was a little incident at my last job, but it really wasn’t my fault. Anyway, there were two other ladies here with appointments, but they took one look at the line and turned around and left. They said they didn’t have time for this. But I have time.”

“I see. Well, I’m glad you have the time.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I conducted the rest of the interview as quickly as possible. Berty Finkle might have had plenty of time, but I didn’t. And I was starting to fear a revolt from the masses in the hallway. As Ms. Finkle pushed her way toward the exit, I bit my lip and tried to decide what to do.

A booming voice from the end of the hall cut through the noise. “Make way! Coming through.”

The crowd parted, and a large man came clomping up to my door. He was an imposing figure, with shoulder-length, curly hair as black as his buckled combat boots. The horn-shaped silver earrings spiking through both of his earlobes gave him an extra fierce look, as did the clench of his beefy, skull-ringed fingers. But the most incongruous part of his appearance was the gray business suit and pin-striped, white Oxford shirt.

“Hiya, Miss Keli,” he said, when he caught sight of me. “Everything all right here?”

“Arlen! What a surprise.” Arlen Prince, aka the necromancer, was a former client of mine. I hadn’t seen him in months. “There’s been some kind of crazy misunderstanding, and all these people think I’m hiring for a position that doesn’t exist.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.