Beneath the Clockwork

The first time I saw Mr. Blackwood's hands, I forgot how to breathe.

That sounds dramatic. I know. But there's no other way to put it. He was standing at the head of the conference table, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his forearms were a study in tension. Tendons shifting under skin as he gestured. Long fingers wrapped around a laser pointer like it was something he might break on purpose.

I was twenty-four years old, three weeks into a job that paid more than my rent and my student loans combined, and I was already in trouble.

"The projections are optimistic," he said. His voice was low, a rumble that seemed to come from somewhere below his ribs. "Which means someone in this room is lying to me."

Nobody moved. The fluorescent lights hummed. I stared at my notebook, at the doodle I'd drawn in the margin, a spiral that kept going until it ran off the page.

"I don't like being lied to," he continued. "It wastes my time. And time is the only thing I can't buy more of."

He let the silence stretch. I counted four seconds. Five. The man next to me, some VP from accounting, cleared his throat.

"Sir, the numbers are based on—"

"I know what they're based on." Blackwood cut him off without raising his voice. That was worse, somehow. "I'm asking who signed off on them."

I looked up then. I couldn't help it. His eyes were already on me.

They were gray. Not the soft gray of a morning sky. The gray of a blade. He didn't blink. I felt my face go hot, felt the flush crawl from my collarbone to my hairline, and I hated myself for it.

"Miss Reyes," he said. "You compiled the data for this report, didn't you?"

My mouth went dry. "Yes, sir."

"Did you verify the source?"

"I verified what I was given."

"By whom?"

I hesitated. The VP next to me had gone very still. I could feel him willing me to shut up, to take the fall, to be a good little assistant and absorb the blow.

"By Mr. Harlow's team," I said.

Blackwood's mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something else. Something that made my stomach flip.

"Thank you, Miss Reyes. You can stay after."

The meeting dissolved. Chairs scraped. People filed out with their heads down, and I sat there with my hands folded on the table, trying to look like I wasn't about to throw up.

The door clicked shut.

He didn't sit. He walked around the table instead, slow, deliberate, and stopped when he was close enough that I could smell him. Cedar and something sharp. Coffee, maybe. Or scotch.

"You're not going to ask why I kept you?" he said.

"I assume you'll tell me."

"Smart." He leaned against the table's edge, half-sitting, and crossed his arms. The fabric of his shirt pulled across his chest. I looked at the window instead. Downtown Atlanta glittered below us, indifferent.

"Harlow's been padding numbers for six months," Blackwood said. "I've known since March. I've been waiting to see who'd have the spine to say it out loud."

"Then why didn't you fire him?"

"Because I needed to know who else was in on it." He tilted his head. "You just told me."

My heart was doing something strange. A hard, fast rhythm that had nothing to do with fear.

"I didn't mean to," I said.

"I know. That's what made it useful."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handed it to me. I unfolded it. A list of names. Twelve of them. Harlow's was at the top.

"What is this?"

"Everyone who's been stealing from me. I want you to go through their files. Quietly. Flag anything that doesn't add up."

I stared at the paper. "I'm an assistant."

"You're the only person in this building who told me the truth today." He paused. "That makes you the most valuable person I've got."

I should have said no. I should have told him I wasn't qualified, that I didn't want to be caught in the middle of whatever war he was waging, that I had a lease and a cat and a mother who called every Sunday to ask when I was going to find a nice man.

Instead I said, "When do you need it by?"

"Friday."

"That's three days."

"I know."

He was still looking at me. Up close, I could see the lines around his eyes, the faint scar on his jaw, the way his collar was open one button too many. He was maybe forty. Maybe older. The kind of man who'd stopped counting.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because you're afraid of me," he said. "And you did it anyway."

He pushed off the table and walked to the door. His hand wrapped around the handle, and I watched the tendons move under his skin again, watched the way his knuckles went white for just a second.

"Miss Reyes."

"Yes?"

"Don't tell anyone. Not your friends. Not your mother. No one."

"I don't have friends here."

He looked back at me. That twitch again, at the corner of his mouth.

"Good," he said. And then he was gone.

I sat alone in the conference room for a long time. The building emptied around me, floor by floor, until the only light left was the one above my head. I read the list again. Twelve names. Twelve people who had families and mortgages and Christmas parties and secrets.

I folded the paper and put it in my bra, where I kept things I didn't want anyone to find.

On the elevator down, I caught my reflection in the steel doors. My hair was a mess. My lipstick had worn off hours ago. I looked like a woman who'd just agreed to something she couldn't take back.

The doors opened onto the parking garage. My car was the only one left on the third level, a ten-year-old Honda with a dent in the fender and a stack of unpaid parking tickets in the glove box.

I got in. I didn't start the engine.

Instead I sat there in the dark with my hands on the wheel, and I thought about his eyes. Gray like a blade. I thought about the way he'd said my name, like it was a fact he'd already filed away.

And I thought about the paper against my skin, warm from my body, a secret I hadn't earned.

I started the car. The engine coughed twice before it caught.

Friday, I thought. Three days.

I pulled out of the garage and onto Peachtree, and the city swallowed me whole.