I glanced at my watch. “Apparently not for another twenty minutes.” I offered my hand. “I’m Savannah Stone.”
His face suddenly lit up. “I love your puzzles,” he said. “They’re part of my daily routine.”
“Why thank you,” I said. I wasn’t a celebrity in any sense of the word, but it always pleased me when someone let me know they enjoyed my puzzles. “They’re great fun to create.”
“Are they? Honestly?”
“Of course they are,” I said, startled by his reaction. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “I’m Brady Sims. I do the Wuzzle World puzzles for Derrick,” he said. “I struggle with them every day. To make matters worse, I don’t earn much making them, but they’re all I’ve got.” He grew even more somber as he added, “Even worse, I think Derrick’s about to fire me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Come on, think about it. We’re all away from our home bases, and Derrick is lining his clients up like dominoes ready to push over. This can’t be good news any way you look at it, can it?”
The thought that my syndicator was about to drop me had never entered my mind. “I’m sure you’re wrong.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Savannah. There are computer programs to make word jumbles all over the Internet now,” he said. “The only really creative thing I do is the drawings that go with them, and frankly, they’re the weakest part of my puzzles.”
“I don’t know; I find them charming.” In truth I did, but much like a mother might enjoy the masterpieces of her kindergarten children. “Much the same thing can be said about my puzzles as well.”
“Oh, I love your snippets,” he said as he smiled for a moment, referring to my little musings that accompanied each published puzzle.
“So, there you go. No computer can replace your drawings, or my writing. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
At that moment, the conference room door slammed open, rattling it in its tracks. A large woman stormed out with a red face and unnaturally platinum hair, shouting, “If you think you can just write me off, you’re mistaken. My Bridge column is too popular with the readers; you’ll see that when you crawl on your knees begging me to come back, but Sylvia Peters will not budge.”
As she stormed off, Brady turned to me and asked, “Do you still think it’s just my imagination?”
Before I could reply, a mousy-looking woman with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and thick glasses perched on her nose came out of the conference room. “Brady, Derrick will see you now.” Was that an expression of pity on her face? She said his name so softly it was almost too low to hear.
Brady looked at me for a moment with real sadness in his eyes, and then he got up and started walking toward the door as though he were making his way to the gallows.
Instead of following him inside, the woman approached me and said, “Miss Stone, Mr. Duncan will be with you shortly.”
“Actually, it’s Mrs.,” I said as I stood and held out my hand. “We haven’t been introduced.”
“Sorry about that. I’m Kelsey Hatcher. I’m Mr. Duncan’s new executive assistant.” Her hand was cold and a little clammy, and I wondered if the slight tremor in it was from nerves.
“It’s nice to meet you, Kelsey. You can call me Savannah.”
She looked taken aback by the suggestion. “Oh no, I couldn’t do that.”
“Of course you can. It’s pronounced just like the city in Georgia.”
She smiled briefly at me, and then disappeared back into the conference room. It appeared that whatever was going on today would be happening to me next.
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR ME TO FIND OUT. SEVEN MINUTES after Brady Sims went into the conference room, the door opened again, and he stumbled back out. He looked as though he’d just been shot, though there was no sign of blood anywhere on him.
I hurried toward him. “Brady? Are you all right?”
He didn’t even look at me as he brushed past. What had Derrick said to him?
Kelsey came to the door again, and beckoned me inside. As I looked at her, I could feel a wave of queasiness creep over me, but I fought it back. Now was the time to be strong.
I was two steps from the door when my cell phone rang, filling the small space with the cacophony of ducks squawking. It had been a joke assigning that particular ringtone to my husband, but I wasn’t in the mood to laugh at the moment.
I flipped it open quickly, said, “This is not a good time,” and then slid it back into my pocket.
“What was that noise?” Derrick demanded as I walked into the conference room. He was a slight man, barely a hundred and fifty pounds, and if I wore heels, I could look down on him, not that I ever wore heels when we met. I refused to dress up for the man. He was a thorn in my side, and I didn’t care who knew it, including him.
“That was my cell phone,” I explained as I looked around. The room was bare and simple, a plain chocolate brown table with a cushioned chair on each side of it. I looked around and spotted a third seat by the door, no doubt Kelsey’s sentry position, Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades.
“Turn it off,” he snapped.
“I already did,” I said, steeling myself for the coming assault.
“Then sit down, Savannah. I don’t have all day.”
I hadn’t even realized that I’d been doing it, but I’d been looming over him, emphasizing his lack of stature compared to mine. I personally didn’t equate height or size with expertise and ability, even though my husband was a big, strapping man who also happened to be intelligent, caring, and a fine human being.
And suddenly the sound of ducks filled the room again. What was he, daft?
I pulled the phone out, flipped it open, closed it without answering it, and then turned the ringer to vibrate.
“I thought you said it was off.”
“My finger must have slipped,” I lied. “What is this about?”
“It’s the day of reckoning,” he said with the wisp of a smile dancing on his thin and cracked lips.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why the melodrama? If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”
He tapped a stack of papers on the desk in front of him. “Fine, have it your way. Consider this the official notice required in the contract we signed. You’ve been sold, as of noon tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The second I sign these deal sheets, your column becomes the property of Harrison Enterprises. I have a feeling you won’t like it one bit. They won’t put up with the garbage I’ve had to take from you over the years.”
“You can’t do that,” I said. “I have a say in who I work for.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, his smile becoming broader by the minute. “I can buy and sell you as though you were nothing more than a box of laundry detergent.”
“Is that what you told the others, too?”
He frowned. “No, I had different news for each of them. They’re being dropped altogether, and with the noncompete agreements I put in their contracts, they can’t work for anyone else for five years.”
“Derrick, sometimes you can be a real jerk,” I said.
“Keep talking and I’ll show just what a jerk I can be. Your husband’s not around to protect you now, Savannah. This is the real world.”
I stood. “You’re not going to get away with this.”
“I already have, and if you had any sense at all, you’d shut that trap of yours and be a good little girl before I have to spank you and put you in your place. You think you’re something special, but in truth, you’re just a plain, ordinary hack with no real talent at all.”
Normally I’m not a woman of violence. I’m not foolish enough to think that it resolves much of anything, but there are times when the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him. I wish my motives were that pure as I struck out and slapped Derrick’s face, but honestly, I did it because of the way he’d been goading me since I’d signed that syndication contract with him years ago.