Yours,
Elliot
I sat back against my headboard, heaving a heavy breath. He wasn’t wrong. I had time to reply. I just chose not to. In a few weeks, I’d be back under Elliot’s thumb, and as entertaining as his emails were, I had to draw a line in the sand somewhere. With Joey here, I couldn’t be at his beck and call at all hours anymore, and he’d have to get used to it.
This one, I wanted to nip in the bud ASAP, though.
From: [email protected]
Elliot,
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. There should only be one notebook in my desk. If that’s what he’s using, it’s the correct paper.
As for your other questions, my internet is fine, but I was away from my computer. I still have three weeks left of maternity leave, and I plan on using them to the fullest. Don’t expect instant replies, and you won’t be disappointed.
If you feel the need to keep Leafy-Daniel, by all means, have at it. But if he’s staying, maybe try being a little nicer so he won’t shake quite as much. That sounds awfully distracting.
I hope you’re well.
Sincerely,
Catherine
P.S. I’ll now call you Stick-Elliot. You can guess where I think the stick is.
As always, I carefully deleted my postscript, almost certain I’d be fired if that one went through.
Now, I had to figure out how to explain the mystery of the notebook to him in person. I had three weeks to come up with a believable story, solve my living situation, and cross my fingers Joey was accepted into one of the day cares she was wait-listed for.
Everything was fine.
My world definitely wasn’t crumbling around me.
If I kept thinking that, maybe it would be true.
Chapter Twelve
Elliot
I was losing my mind.
“Gaslighting” was thrown around all too often. It wasn’t part of my vernacular, but there was no other term for what was happening—unless I actually had lost touch with reality.
In the film where the term had originated, a husband slowly drove his wife mad by adjusting the brightness of the gas lamps in their home and persistently denying her reality.
I had a stack of Catherine’s handwritten schedules in my drawer. Each one was one inch shorter than the paper Daniel put on my desk every morning.
At first, I hadn’t noticed. I’d been so thrown off by a new person sitting across from me I hadn’t paid attention to the measurements of the paper I’d been given. But from the very beginning, I’d had a feeling of wrongness I hadn’t been able to shake.
It had taken me until the second week of Catherine’s absence to figure out what it was. The fucking paper was different.
Daniel had denied it. He claimed to be using Catherine’s notebook. All evidence had proved his claims, but it was impossible.
And Catherine had been no help. She’d taken far too long to respond to simple emails, and when she finally had, it had been to back up Daniel’s story.
So, I was either going insane, or Daniel was fucking with me.
If this was some sort of corporate espionage, it was cleverly insidious. My thoughts were preoccupied with the damn paper. Even when I was out of the office, something would trigger my brain and I’d wind up thinking about it.
I stared down at the paper Daniel had just slid onto my desk with shaking hands. Next to it was the stack of schedules Catherine had given me during her tenure here.
“Do you notice a difference?” I asked calmly.
He clutched his hands in front of him, but it did nothing to alleviate his shakes. “Yes. I see the one I gave you is longer than the others.”
“Right.” I held my hand out. “Give me the notebook.”
He placed it on my palm and jumped back like I was a snake about to strike. His fear was uncalled for since I’d been nothing but civil to him since he’d started. I wasn’t some dictator who threw my weight and power around. I was too self-aware for that. I did, however, expect my employees to show their work the same level of care and precision I did. All too often, I was disappointed.
I opened the notebook, pausing at Catherine’s handwritten name on the inside cover. This was undoubtedly hers, but when I laid the schedules she’d given me inside, they did not match up.
This needed to end now. I refused to go another day without getting to the bottom of this.
I looked up at Daniel. “I need your desk. Take your laptop to the break room until I’m finished.”
He nodded vigorously and practically sprinted from my office. He’d need to toughen up if he wanted a permanent job at this level. I hadn’t even been mean to the kid this morning. Jesus.