I clap my hands over my ears. Mirabel has to settle for one hand over one ear. “Oh my God, Monday”—she’s so loud I’m wincing like she’s broken some kind of sense barrier—“why are you yelling?”
“The email is in all capital letters,” she explains.
“We get it,” I assure her. “Read it regular.”
“I have to be true to the text.”
“You do not,” says Mirabel’s Voice.
Monday turns back to the folder. “The next email is a reply to the first email, and it is in a normal font, and it is from Nathan Templeton to his father Duke Templeton.”
“We know who’s who,” I say. “We don’t need the cast of characters or the voice acting. Just read.”
“Fine,” she says. “It is your loss. ‘I’m running between meetings, Dad. I’ll call you back in an hour. But please, try to relax. I know you’re anxious to get started on this, but I promise there’s no rush. I’m taking care of it, making sure everyone sees it’s safe now, reestablishing trust, spreading goodwill, offering jobs. We don’t need the workarounds. It’ll be better in the long run if we do this aboveboard this time. Besides we can’t risk a worker saying something and tipping someone off. Remember, all they have to do is look and they’ll realize. So please let me do this from the other direction.’” Monday finishes and looks up. “Tipping someone off what?”
“Tipping someone off to what,” I amend. “But yeah, that’s the question.”
Mirabel taps at her tablet. “And look where? And realize what?”
“Read the last one,” I tell Monday.
“The last one is from Duke Templeton replying to his son Nathan Templeton.”
“WE KNOW!”
“Please stop yelling,” Monday says, “unless you are quoting someone yelling.”
I lower my voice and beg her through my teeth. “Just. Read. It.”
“Okay, but prepare yourselves because there is a swear,” she warns. “‘Bullshit. We don’t need their trust or goodwill or cooperation. What we need is to get started before anyone down there finds the damn paperwork. Deeds, deals, contracts, who the hell knows what kind of paper trail, but whatever it is, we need to be well underway before anyone thinks to look for it. We don’t want that headache. Money and power buy a lot of things, but I’m telling you, they won’t buy this. They have to start by Thanksgiving, otherwise we have to wait until March. And since you can’t seem to get this done, I had to. Soonest available was 11/22, so I took it. In the old days, they did it when you goddamn told them to, but now there’s a lawyer for fucking everything. Maybe this whole thing was badly set up in the first place, but we’re not going to let it destory us.’ Now plug your ears,” Monday advises. She props the paper up on her lap so she can plug her own and screams, “‘CALL ME THE MINUTE YOUR MEETING ENDS.’”
Then she flips the paper around and holds it out so we can see. “What is ‘destory’？”
That’s her most pressing question? I look. “I think it’s just a typo,” I say. “He must mean ‘destroy.’”
Which you’d think would raise more pressing questions. But Monday says, “I do not like typos.”
“We know,” I assure her.
“How do you know?”
“We’ve met.”
“I do not like typos,” she says anyway, “because typos are lies, inaccuracies, and an abbreviation all at once, and they mean that your brain can be thinking one thing, but your fingers can rebel all on their own which should not be possible but is.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
While Monday figures out how to move on, Mirabel and I try to figure out the rest of it. There is so little there. There is so much there. There is so little that’s clear. But one thing that is clear is this: there is something somewhere that somehow could destroy them. And this: we could find it if only we knew where to look.
“So Duke Templeton does not want us to find paperwork?” Monday says finally.
“Yes.”
“‘Damn paperwork’？”
“Yes.”
“Because he is mad at the paperwork?”
“Probably mad we might find it,” I offer.
“Why does he want us not to find it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does it say?”