The lobby at 8 p.m. is all glass and cold light.
I've been on my feet for six hours, and I have four more to go.
My mother's care bill is due Friday, so I do the math every hour like it might change.
Rennie comes down at 8:15 with three men in suits and a clipboard.
Rennie: The board room needs fresh water. And the good pens.
She says it like I'm a chair she's ordering moved.
Talia: The good pens are in the drawer.
Rennie: Then put them out. And don't let anyone up without my say. We have a file on the table.
The merger file. The one with all the numbers.
One of the men looks at me. Through me. Like I'm glass.
Rennie: She's the night desk. She's nobody.
My face burns, but I don't blink. I've been called worse by better.
At 8:40 the phone rings. It's the police department, not 911.
Quade: Talia, it's Detective Quade. I need you in my office tomorrow at nine.
My stomach drops.
Talia: What kind of things?
Quade: The kind you don't discuss over a phone. Nine o'clock. Don't make me come find you.
I look at the desk. The log. The empty chair I can't leave.
Talia: I work nights. I can come in the morning.
Quade: Nine. Don't be late.
The line goes dead. My hands are shaking. Six months I've waited for a call like this, and now I can't leave the desk.
I push it down. You learn how to do that.
Six months alone. Nobody here knows about my brother or my mother.
That's the job. You show up. You don't crack.
At 8:55 a courier comes in. Gray uniform, badge on a lanyard, a package under his arm.
He says he has a file for the board room. He smiles too wide. Too easy.
Talia: I need your badge and the slip.
He says I look like shit, sweetheart. Asks if my boyfriend kept me up.
I don't answer. He tells me most girls at this desk smile.
Most men at this desk don't call me sweetheart. But I keep my face flat.
I hand over the key. His shoes are wrong. Too new. Too shiny for a courier.
Talia: Board room is forty-two. Go up.
He says thanks, and he's gone before I can decide whether the shoes matter.
I check the camera on forty-two. The board room door is closed, and he's not delivering anything.
He's standing at the table with his phone out, taking pictures of the file.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I call security. Nobody picks up. I call the floor. Nobody picks up.
By the time I get to forty-two, he's gone. The board room door is open.
The file is still on the table. But the corner of page three is bent.
I go back down. My hands are cold, and my face is hot.
I check the log. He signed out at 9:08. Thirteen minutes in the building.
Thirteen minutes to photograph a file that moves millions.
At 9:30 Coren comes down the stairs.
He walks past the desk. Then he stops.
He turns, and he looks at me. Not past me. At me.
His eyes are gray and cold, and they don't move.
The lobby is quiet. The night guard is on his break. It's just me and him.
Coren: You're shaking.
Talia: It's cold down here.
Coren: Bullshit. You let a courier up at 8:55. He wasn't on the approved list.
He steps closer. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel.
He looks at me. Not at the log. Not at the empty key slot. At my face.
Like he's reading something written there.
I feel it in my chest. A tightness. Like being caught. But not for the courier.
Coren: You gave a fake courier a key to my floor.
Talia: I didn't know.
Coren: You're paid to know. One more mistake like this and you're gone. And I won't lose sleep over it.
He turns and walks to the stairs. He doesn't look back.
He saw me. Not the desk. Not the badge. Me.
And I don't know if being seen by him is a raise or a leash.