Undead and Underwater (4 page)

“Jamie. Which is several pokes in the eye, how’s that for annoying?” But he didn’t sound annoyed. He sounded almost aggravatingly cheerful. Being around him simultaneously cheered and exhausted her. “It’s unisex, so people have to meet me to know if I’m a woman with a weird last name or a man with a weird last name.”

“I can see how that would be inconvenient.”

“And the root meaning!
Supplanter
 . . . what, like Henry VII? Like an invading tyrant? Or a claim jumper out of the
Little House
books? Or a low-level parasite, like dandelions? Yuck. Besides, everybody calls me Linus. People have given me soooo . . . many . . . Linus birthday cards and gift wrap and small Linus statues and blankets. I’m a grown man, for God’s sake, and people still give me blue blankies for Christmas.”

It’s easier if you don’t look at him.
Because something was wrong with her. She should have found this odd conversation dull, or at least irritating, especially since she was late, would therefore be behind all day, and had to write herself up again for tardiness. Instead, she wanted to keep asking him about names.
Perhaps the flu? It’s supposed to be bad this year. Of course, they say that every year. And I can’t get sick. Physically, that is.
She could get sick of crime. She could get sick of writing herself up. But she couldn’t get the flu, or a cold, or an STD.

“What . . . ah . . .” It was probably on one or more of the pieces of paper in his file, but she couldn’t find it. “What do you do here again?”

He arched his eyebrows in surprise and she could almost read his mind:
You’re in HR and you don’t know that?
“Accounting.”

“Oh.” Hmm. He didn’t seem the type. Far too personable. And gorgeous. And gorgeous. And . . . er . . . what were they talking about again? She should try to hold up her end of the conversation.

“Anyway, you wanted to meet.”

“I did?”

He blinked slowly, like an owl. It only emphasized his deep dark eyes. “Sure.”

She had no idea why.

“I am a new hire,” he said slowly, taking in her confused expression. “You work for Human Resources for the company that has made me a new hire. Ergo, we have some . . . I dunno . . . paperwork at the very least, right?”

“Right!” She had it now. “I
am
in HR! And you
are
a new hire.”

“See?” He smiled. It was devastating. There wasn’t a sexier grin anywhere. Ever. In the history of grins. In the history of teeth!
Oh, I might be in real trouble here . . .
“We’re in agreement already. I love when coworkers get along.”

That, she knew, would change. Her rep as resident Hypocritical Bitch would soon reach him. He would dismiss her as napalm in a knockoff suit and avoid her at all costs, which, of course, was all according to plan.

Dammit!

“You have to go away now,” she told him. “I have to find the rest of your paperwork.”

“Okay.” He slouched to his feet. She had no idea how he did that. He was all relaxed and boneless and then he sort of lurched and then he was standing in front of her. He extended a hand and, dazed, she shook it. His hand was warm and dry; his grip was firm. And his eyes . . . “Well, nice to meet you and all. I think I’ll go find the bathrooms. And maybe a machine stuffed with greasy food that would kill me if I ate it in huge quantities.”

“It’s nice,” she said soberly, “that you have a to-do list.” It was a pale joke, but when he smiled, she felt ridiculously pleased with herself.

Dammit!

CHAPTER

THREE

Linus had been a member of the Ramouette family
a week, and liked it.

He liked the commute; since he lived in Burnsville, one town over, it was less than forty minutes. He liked the company property: all that gorgeous green grass, nibbled all day by sleek Canadian geese, and then a vast cement moat swallowed the grass and went right up to the building.

He liked that Valleyfair, the local amusement park, was less than two miles from the office. On his second day, he found a little park—not a real one, a secret park. There was a bench, but it was old and the paint had long faded. There was a duck pond, but the area around it hadn’t been landscaped in years, and the ducks weren’t fat white domesticated ones, but lean mallards who treated the place strictly as a rest stop. And there were so many weeping willow trees around it, the pond and the bench couldn’t be seen from any of the nearby roads. A guy could grab a lunch and walk through the weeping willow branches and plop down on an old bench and enjoy a sandwich. He could watch the ducks and hear the
clack-clack-clack
of climbing cars, followed by shrieks of delight and, if the wind was right, occasional retching.

He liked the company’s on-site fitness center, which put the local Bally’s to shame: free Muscle Milk! And so many Stairmasters, stationery bikes, and treadmills there was never a line.

He liked the IT department, which was a first. At Ramouette, the IT guys kept to themselves, and their help desk guys were actually helpful. Their boss, Edward something or other, was a weird one, but again: it was IT, and was to be expected, the way you expected dogs to bark and cats to climb trees. When Edward wasn’t lurking in the shadows, or holed up with the company server, he didn’t bother anyone: yet another plus.

Linus also liked the paid holidays. All twenty-nine of them. When he’d asked why there were so many (“Not that I’m looking a gift Arbor Day in the mouth.”), he was told the company’s owner hated being there so much, she felt sorry for those who didn’t have their own company and so had to come to work, and encouraged Hailey to come up with as many holidays as she could.

Which was why Ramouette observed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Vernal Equinox Day, New Year’s Day, Arbor Day, Easter, Good Friday, Greenery Day, Black Monday, Clean Monday, Maundy Thursday, Valentine’s Day, May Day, Independence Day, Pioneer Day, Dan Patch Day, Labor Day, National Freedom Day, Columbus Day, Turkmen Melon Day, Memorial Day, Halloween, Unity Day, Groundhog Day, Lammas Day, Veterans Day, Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Thanksgiving.
*

All those in addition to three weeks of paid vacation, up to three weeks unpaid (as long as your work was getting done), and thirty days of sick time. All of which could be stockpiled if you didn’t use them by year-end. One of the gals in marketing had been on vacation since July 1, 2010.

(“Not surprised about all that sick time,” Audrey the Receptionist confided while they jogged on side-by-side treadmills at 6:30
A.M
. “Nobody was. Hailey’s sick a lot. And she makes the rules, so . . .”)

He liked the paternity leave . . . thirty days before the baby was born, sixty days after. Paid. The moms got thirty before, ninety after. Also paid. Linus was in his midtwenties and hadn’t thought much about having kids. He wasn’t old fashioned but wanted, if not a wife first, at least a steady girlfriend . . . no, okay, a wife. A wife to have kids with; he
was
old fashioned.

Anyway, kids were way off in the future, but even to a single guy, Ramouette’s parental leave policy was impressive. Might be worth staying here for the next few years. Because if he ever did want kids, Hailey was so smart and so pretty and seemed really, really different and . . . and . . .

Anyway. He liked the pop machines, because Hailey had done something with—or to—the pop vendor, and thus, a big, tall cold fizzy drink cost twenty-five cents. In the twenty-first century!

And speak of the devil—that was the impression he got from others, anyway—he liked Hailey.

A lot.

Which was strange, because he’d barely spoken with her once they finished his new-hire paperwork. She was in and out of the office a lot; the owner obviously kept her pretty busy.

Stranger: he seemed to be the only one who
did
like Hailey. Which was a puzzle to him, because she seemed pretty good at her job and cared about getting the best bennies she could for her fellow employees. Exhibit A: a big bottle of Coke for two bits. Exhibit B: you could stockpile a thousand vacation days and take them all at once. Exhibit C: Dan Patch Day.

He was thinking this while he loitered by the watercooler, talking to The Old Coot.

The Old Coot was his boss, the head of the accounting department. Like the accountants at his last job, they were weird. Every accountant he had ever met took pride in the fact that accountants had a rep for being dull, dry, numbers-obsessed dweebs, and then took pride in smashing that rep to shit.

None of that was why he was lingering by the watercooler. He knew the department heads had a meeting in five minutes, an important one about next year’s marketing budget, so he knew Hailey would be there. Accounting lost the coin toss and had to host this week’s meeting.

“Bruegger’s again,” The Old Coot was saying. “When HR hosted last month, we got sushi! These guys have no imagination. In the old days . . .”

Stifled groans from the cubicles around them. Linus never lost sight of the fact that though you might think you were in a private conversation with one person, at any given time at least a dozen people you couldn’t see could hear it all.

“In the old days,”
The Old Coot continued, raising his voice to be heard over the groans, “we’d plug in the Crock-Pot in the morning and have hot bubbly chili by lunchtime. Rolls from the bakery, cheese to sprinkle on your chili, all the twenty-five-cent pop you could drink . . . a proper lunch.”

“Followed by department heads farting and belching the rest of the day,” an unseen voice said from one of the cubicles on the left.

“Disaster,” another unseen voice added from the right. “Have you ever tried to proof a P and L statement when all you can smell are chili farts? Hell. Hell on earth.”

“I like bagels,” Linus said, which was true. Also, The Old Coot seemed to be waiting for him to contribute to the conversation. “And I can’t believe there’s actually a thing called a watercooler, around which employees can gather and make pop culture references, as we appear to be doing right now.”

“Free water,” the first unseen voice said.

“Yeah, Hailey put ’em in, so we all just bring our empty water bottles from home and fill ’em here at the cooler.”

“Another fabbo perk brought to the good people of Ramouette by HR goddess Hailey Derry.” Linus made the comment with total admiration.

“Ha!” Unseen Voice Number Two said. “Goddess, right. Says the newest minion, who hasn’t been here long enough to really be terrified of her. Your time’s coming, l’il minion.”

He thought about letting it go, but couldn’t. It seemed at best unfair, and at worst, ungrateful. “You guys, what’s the problem? She’s pulled all these great bennies for us, she—”

“Can’t get her ass to work on time to save her life—”

The disembodied voice from the right broke in. “She can’t go more than three weeks without pulling a sick day—come
on
. Anyone who gets sick that often should live in a plastic bubble.”

“Paaaaaperwork!” another unseen voice contributed. Linus had the impression of swimming in deep dark water, knowing there were sharks but not knowing how many . . . or how hungry they were. “That girl loves her paperwork.”

“She sends out memos reminding all of us to complete our shifts while she gets here late and leaves early . . . adds new codes to time sheets practically every week . . . nauseating.”

“In my day,” The Old Coot began, and ignored the groans, “memos were on paper. Real paper! From a tree and everything. And we had to fill out real paper timesheets. In ink!”

“Thank God those dark days are behind us,” Linus said with a shudder.

“You kids are soft.” The Old Coot leaned forward and scooped a paper cup out of the dispenser, then carefully filled it with water and drank it down, his
glug-glug
s not quite as loud as the watercooler’s. “You’re the soft-boiled eggs of the breakfast world.”

“Oh, not this again.”

Linus turned, delighted: it was Hailey! He could practically hear mouths snapping shut behind cubicles all over the room.
Wonder if she overheard?
“Hey.”
Wow, smooooth. You’ll have her swept off her feet in no time.

She nodded. “Hey. What’s wrong, Coot, are you reminiscing about PalmPilots again?”

“Now
those
kept a person on schedule. And speaking of schedules, what the hell are you doing here? Prepared for a budget meeting? And on time—no,
early
.”

“Better keep watch for the other horsemen of the Apocalypse,” she said dryly.

Linus laughed as Coot rolled his eyes, but was well aware he could be contributing to the conversation, and wasn’t.
Say something!

. . .

(Nope. He had nothin’.)

Say anything!

He gulped a breath and managed, “Apocalypse was actually a girl’s name thousands of years ago. It didn’t always mean the end of everything. It meant revelation . . . uncovering truth and finding out what’s really going on. It was”—he knew they were staring and gamely finished—“it was a good thing. A good name,” he finished. “It wasn’t weird to have a girl in the family named Apocalypse.”

Okay, say something that isn’t the thing you just said.

“What’s this?” Hailey teased. “Trying to restart a baby name trend?”

He shook his head, relieved she didn’t think what he’d said was off-putting. Or if she did, she didn’t seem to mind.

“Ohhhh, great,” The Old Coot muttered. “New guy’s as big a weirdo as Derry.”

“What a nasty thing to say,” Hailey replied mildly, if absently. She was staring down at a yellow Post-it note.
She must leave herself notes . . . She’s always walking around with one of those.

Her hair was lightening toward strawberry blond, something else that was odd that the people around them didn’t notice or, if they did, didn’t think was interesting. When they’d met earlier, her hair was dark brown. It set off her pale skin, and made her face seem more striking: wide creamy forehead, straight nose, and lush mouth. No freckles, but a beauty mark riding just above her upper lip; he spent an alarming amount of time thinking about kissing it.