Paid to Rest: My Lazy Life System

Movie

“Mr. Hale?” Raymond’s voice crackled through the intercom again. “Should I send him up?”

Evan’s finger was still hovering over the button. He pulled it back.

If he spoke into that speaker, Gordon would hear every syllable at the front desk, and it would count as a meeting. He wasn’t giving that man one word for free.

Before he could think of another way, Tessa reached past his shoulder and pressed the button herself.

“Don’t send him up, Raymond.” Her voice was calm and clear. “I’m coming down.”

She was already pulling on her coat. Evan caught her arm without thinking.

“You don’t have to go down there,” he said.

Tessa looked down at his hand on her sleeve, then up at his face. “You can’t go down there, can you? Not without losing the bonus.”

“No.” His voice came out low. “So take your phone, and leave the call open in your coat pocket. If he lays one finger on you, I’m coming down, and I don’t care what it costs.”

“Two million dollars, Evan.”

“Watch me.”

Something flickered across her face that she turned into a small, crooked smile. She pulled her phone out, dialed his number, and held it up so he could see the screen connect. Then she slipped it into her pocket.

“The line stays open,” she promised. She gave his hand a quick squeeze, slipped free, and walked out the front door with her planner tucked under her arm.

Evan didn’t stand still. He opened the building app, found the front desk, and typed with his thumbs.

Raymond, please keep him in the lobby and on camera. Save all footage from tonight. —E. Hale, Penthouse.

He pressed Send, and he began to pace.

He went from the door to the window and back again, past the empty rooms that still smelled of garlic. His jaw ached from clenching it. The thought of Tessa standing in that lobby alone with Gordon made his whole chest burn, and on his third lap, he stopped in front of Marcus.

“Marcus.” Evan’s voice came out rough. “If I go for that door, sit on me.”

Marcus blinked. “Like, physically?”

“Physically.”

“Bro, I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.” Marcus dragged his gaming chair across the floor, planted it in front of the door, and sat down with his arms folded. “I’m a wall now. A loyal, very comfortable wall.”

Then Marcus snapped his fingers. “Wait. The building app has a lobby camera. Residents can watch it.”

Two minutes later, the lobby filled the media-room wall ten feet wide on the projector. Marcus came back from the kitchen carrying a pot full of popcorn, since the pasta pot was the only bowl they owned, and he set it in Evan’s lap.

A gray window slid into view.

[Mission offer: Have a movie night with friends. Reward: $50,000. Accept?]

“Watching counts as television,” Hammock declared. “Television is restful. I’ve decided.”

Accept, Evan thought, gripping the pot so hard the metal bent.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Tessa’s open line, and all he heard was the swish of fabric and the hum of the elevator. He put it on speaker.

On the screen, the elevator doors slid open, and Tessa walked out into the marble lobby.

Gordon was standing at the front desk with his hands planted on the counter while Raymond watched him with a tight jaw. Raymond’s eyes flicked once toward the camera, and his chin dipped a fraction of an inch.

Evan let out a breath. He got it.

Two residents waiting for the elevator, an older man with a small dog and a woman in running clothes, had stopped to stare. Gordon’s tie was a new one, but his face was as red as Evan had ever seen it.

He turned when he heard Tessa’s heels. “Where is he?”

“Good evening, Mr. Pratt.” Tessa stopped a few feet from him and held her planner against her chest. “I’m Mr. Hale’s Chief of Staff. Anything you need to say to him goes through me now.”

Gordon barked out a laugh. “Chief of Staff? Yesterday you were fetching my coffee.”

Evan’s fingers dug into the popcorn pot. He remembered every Monday he had left a coffee on Tessa’s desk, because she never had time to get her own while she was running Gordon’s whole schedule.

“Yesterday I was doing half of your job for a third of your salary,” Tessa answered evenly. “Today I’m doing a job that pays me what I’m worth.”

On the floor beside him, Marcus slapped his knee so hard that popcorn flew out of the pot. “Oh, she said that! She said it with her whole chest!”

Evan didn’t laugh. His hands had curled into fists on his knees, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the small, straight-backed figure on the screen.

“I need his password,” Gordon snapped, stepping closer to her. “Now.”

“Then your lawyer can contact his lawyer.” Tessa didn’t move back an inch. “Hartwell’s lawyers already have the original file, by the way, and the edit log. It shows your login on both saves.”

Gordon’s mouth tightened into a hard line.

“And Tessa lands the counterpunch,” Marcus whispered in his best sports-announcer voice. “The crowd is going wild.”

“I do have one question,” Tessa went on. “How did you find this address? He only bought the place this morning.”

“The real estate agency posted it!” Gordon threw his hand out toward the window. “‘Young cash buyer takes river penthouse.’ It was all over their page. It wasn’t hard to guess who walked out of my office and into nine hundred thousand dollars overnight.”

The skin on the back of Evan’s neck prickled.

If Gordon saw that post, he thought, then Chloe saw it too.

“And here we see the wild middle manager,” Hammock murmured, “in an unfamiliar habitat, with no way home.”

Gordon took another step toward Tessa, close enough to loom over her.

Evan was on his feet before he knew it. The popcorn pot hit the floor, and white kernels skittered across the boards. He crossed the room in six long strides and closed his hand around the doorknob.

“Bro!” Marcus scrambled out of his chair. “The two million! Bro, think!”

“I know exactly what it is,” Evan answered, and he turned the knob.

On the projector, Raymond came around the front desk. He was a big man, and he stopped right beside Tessa with his hands loose at his sides. “Sir, you need to step back.”

Gordon looked at Raymond, then at the two residents watching him. The man with the dog had his phone out.

“I’m recording too,” the woman in running clothes called, holding up hers.

Gordon stepped back.

Evan stood in the doorway with the door half open, listening to the lobby noise in his own ears. His hand stayed on the knob.

“You’d have done it,” Hammock said quietly. “Two million dollars, for a woman in sensible shoes.”

Evan didn’t answer. He closed the door slowly and leaned his forehead against it.

“I’m not docking you,” Hammock added. “I just need a minute.”

On the screen, Tessa’s free hand trembled once at her side. She pressed it flat against her planner until it went still, and she never took her eyes off Gordon.

A soft chime sounded in Evan’s head.

[Mission complete. $50,000 deposited.]

“Best movie I’ve ever seen,” Hammock sighed.

“We should do this every week,” Marcus whispered, scooping popcorn off the floor and stuffing it into his mouth.

“You’ll need to leave now, sir,” Raymond added. “Or I’ll call security, and they’ll call the police.”

Gordon turned around slowly. Then he tipped his head back and stared straight up into the lobby camera. His face filled the whole projector wall.

“I know you’re watching, Hale,” Gordon growled, and he pointed one finger at the lens. “I know you’re up there.”

Evan went completely still by the door. Beside him, Marcus slowly lowered a handful of popcorn back into the pot.

In the lobby, Gordon’s own phone started to ring. He yanked it out of his pocket, glared at the screen, and jabbed it to answer on speaker.

“What?” he barked.

“Gordon.” The voice coming out of his phone was older and very cold. Through Tessa’s open line, Evan could hear every word. “This is Harold Brandt.”

Marcus leaned over. “Who’s that?”

“The chairman of the board,” Evan whispered.

“The board is holding an emergency meeting tomorrow at nine,” Brandt went on. “Hartwell’s lawyers sent us an edit log tonight. You’ll be there to explain it.”

“Harold, that file was a simple mistake. If anyone made it, it was Hale—”

“Hale’s original file balances to the cent,” Brandt cut in. “Yours doesn’t.”

Gordon’s free hand gripped the edge of the front desk.

“I’m not finished.” Brandt’s voice dropped lower. “They’re also asking about the four hundred thousand dollars missing from the Hartwell account.”

On the projector, ten feet wide, Gordon Pratt’s face went gray, and the phone shook in his hand.