“And last week, you asked to see the invoices for the Penrose project, which you aren’t even working on. The whole reason we input the invoice information into the system is so the accountants don’t waste valuable client time wading through paper. Mr. Pannetone says customers don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for accountants to do administrative work.”
She kept her forced smile in place. Lily managed the file room, but she’d flat out refused to give Rosemary the Penrose files, saying she had to get Armando’s permission first. Rosemary had ignored her and gone to the file room and looked at what she needed without telling Lily what she was doing. Still, she tried to soothe Lily now with an explanation.
“Penrose and Girard are both warehouse projects. I wanted to look at the Penrose invoices because those financials are complete. I thought looking at them would help me get a flavor of what type of expenses are normally involved in a warehouse project. I hoped it would help me do a better job on the Girard warehouse financials, which Iamworking on. I tried to accessthe Penrose invoices on the computer but couldn’t open any of those files, so I figured the paper files would be the next best thing.”
“You need to ask Dante about your computer,” Lily snapped. “He’s the one who controls access to the electronic files.”
Her face might crack if she kept smiling, but if she got what she wanted, it would be worth it.
“I’m not asking about the electronic files. I know that’s not your area. I’m asking you to pull the files with the invoices for the Girard warehouse for me. This is my first Moresco project, so I want to make sure everything is perfect.” She risked having her cheeks break and expanded her smile. “I’ll look at them during my lunch hour, and I won’t bill the client for the time, so Armando won’t have any reason to complain.”
“I’m not sure. I’m not supposed to be giving anybody any Moresco files without Mr. Pannetone’s express approval. Plus, I don’t have time to be running around for you.” Lily pointed one long hot pink fingernail toward a tall stack of paper on her desk. “I need to scan all these.”
“Mr. Pannetone assigned the Girard warehouse work to me, so I’m sure he won’t mind me reviewing the files if I don’t bill the client for my time. I know you’re busy, so I can just grab them myself. I need to go down to the file room anyway to talk to Dante about my access issues.”
Lily glared at her, the expression making her look older than her thirty-three years. Lily was pretty, petite, and curvy with gorgeous long blue-black curls, but her nearly constant sour expression diminished her natural beauty. She wanted to tell Lily that life was too short for so much anger, but she knew Lily wouldn’t appreciate the advice.
“I’m the only one who’s supposed to touch the files,” Lily said.
Rosemary leaned over and plucked an empty, dark blue file folder from Lily’s desk. “I’ll take this with me. I’ll pull one file out at a time and use this to mark the spot. Nothing will get out of place. I promise.”
Lily’s grimace softened a bit. “Fine. Just be careful.”
Rosemary swung by her office to grab her computer before heading down the internal fire exit stairs. She’d rather take the chilly concrete stairs than the elevator any day. The office occupied the second floor and basement of a building that dated back to the 1800s. The elevator’s mechanics had been updated, but the size of the shaft was never enlarged, and the wood molding covering the walls made it feel even more cramped. The first time she’d ridden in that elevator, it had taken fifteen minutes of meditation and deep breathing to stop sweating.
Now, she always took the stairs.
Once she reached the bottom of the stairwell, she entered the access code and pushed the cool, thick metal bar to open the heavy door that led into the file room. The aroma of paper, warm electricity, and dust filled her nostrils. To her left, old-fashioned metal shelves stood floor to ceiling in perfect rows. She walked down the narrow aisle between the files and the wall, her low heels making oddly satisfying clicks on the gleaming linoleum.
Dante’s thick dark curls appeared at the top of his cubicle, followed by his dancing eyes, friendly smile, and broad shoulders. He stepped around the partition, met her halfway down the hall, and bowed. “Welcome to my kingdom, fair lady. How may I be of service?”
Dante’s formal greeting was a stark contrast to his low-riding joggers, sweatshirt, and vintage Jordans. They’d had a cake for his twenty-third birthday last month, but he still looked and dressed like a teenager.
She pointed to his sweatshirt where six different geometrically shaped dice were lined up over the wordsChoose Your Weapon. “Is that a band?”
Dante laughed. “You never playedDungeons and Dragons, did you?”
She’d played lots of games. Lots and lots of games. There’d been too many months when she’d been too sick, too weak, or too immunocompromised to leave the house, and there were only so many movies a person could watch. So, she, her mom, Sage, and Justin played tons of board games, but neverDungeons and Dragons. If they had, maybe their fantasy lives would have turned out better than their real ones.
She nudged that depressing thought out of her head. Fate was fate, and choices were choices. Being bitter or sad wouldn’t change the past and would only sour the present. Even though her mom was gone and Justin was in prison, she wouldn’t let those facts poison the joyful memories of playing board games with them.
“I’m a big fan ofForbidden IslandandDominion,” she answered, “but I’ve never playedDungeons and Dragons. I’ll have to put it on my list.”
Dante rolled his eyes. “You can’t just start playing. You need to find a group first.”
“A group?”
“You’re hopeless,” he said as he gestured toward her computer. “Are you having trouble with your laptop?”
He’d already started bouncing on his toes and peeking back toward his work area. He was a tech whiz who could spend hours staring at code or building a computer from scratch, but his patience for conversation was limited to about three minutes, and she’d hit the threshold.
“I came down to look at a few things in the Girard warehouse files, but I’m also having a computer issue. Lots of the Morescofiles are grayed out on my laptop. I can see the file names, but they’re in a lighter script, and when I click on them, nothing happens. The only Moresco files that aren’t grayed out are the ones for the Girard warehouse. Do I need a different password or something?”
Dante quirked a bushy dark eyebrow. “I’m surprised Pannetone has you working on a project for Sal. He normally does all that work himself.”
Pride swelled in Rosemary’s chest. Nick, the other associate accountant, had been at the firm much longer, but Armando had trusted her with the assignment.
“It’s my first Moresco project, so I want my work to be flawless. Mr. Moresco is here now for a meeting. You’re related, right?”