A Seal Upon Your Heart

Chapter 7

He gave her an odd look as he walked past her and into his office. She followed while the other woman seemed relieved to be rid of him. He picked up the papers and scanned them. He moved to the next page, his movements a bit slower. By the third page he glanced at Jane. And when he got to the fifth and final page he gently placed the papers back onto his desk.

He seemed to see her for the first time. "Very good." He rubbed his chin in deep thought. Tim was thinking that this girl seemed much more efficient than the one that had been working with him for the last three weeks. Her work was passable at best, and it wasn't that she had lost the files that he so desperately needed. But she couldn't find them when he wanted them and he had no idea how the filing system worked. He had always asked for what he needed, and Corrine had been there…

His eyes flitted away. "Why don't you go out and help her? She'll tell you what I'm searching for."

Figuring that she was dismissed, she turned to leave.

"Thank you … um …"

"Jane."

"Jane." He said with a final nod. "I won't forget again."

Jane closed the door behind her, and the woman collapsed into her chair.

"Sheesh …" She fanned herself. She was pretty. A little older than Jane, smallish with short dark hair and wearing a pretty beige suit with pretty heeled shoes.

Jane smoothed down her blouse. They dressed nicely here.

The woman looked at Jane, appraising her in the same way that Jane had done to her. She came to her feet and offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Jen. What's your name?"

"Jane."

Jen managed a smile. "Jen and Jane." She lowered her voice until it was an almost whisper. "He never remembers my name. I'm sure he'll be calling you Jen and me Jane. I heard him say that you're going to help me."

"Yes." They looked at the mess on the desk. "Well, let's get back to work. Mr. Singleton has to be at court at one. He likes to get there forty-five minutes to an hour before, which means we don't have much time to find that damned file." Jen explained what they were searching for. Jane searched in a cabinet that hadn't been opened. She scanned the large accordion folders and thumbed through the subfolders. Well, there definitely was no consistency to how they were filed. Some were in alphabetical order, and some weren't.

"Um … how do you find anything?" Jane asked.

"By luck. Evidently there have been a lot of girls that have worked for him." She tilted her head to the door as she whispered. "He's an asshole. I'm the third girl who hasn't quit or been fired. So God only knows how the people before me handled the files. For all I know they just threw them in the first open cabinet … like I want to do."

Jane frowned. Well, that would be stupid and more work in the long run. A while later her stomach began to growl. By that time Jen had told her about her deadbeat boyfriend, his horrible kid from a previous marriage, and their pet that wore clothes and had to be given medication daily for diabetes.

"Jen, when do we take a break or eat lunch?" Jane managed to interrupt.

"Oh, it doesn't work like that here." She leaned in for about the millionth time to whisper conspiratorially into her ear. "You can't take breaks during a crisis, and you eat lunch when Mr. Singleton tells you to. Most times he will tell you to go out and get him something, which is cool because then he buys your lunch, too. Well, it's cool if you like to eat where he likes to eat. He likes crazy food like Indian and …" Jen blushed realizing that with Jane's slight accent and coloring that she might be of some Middle Eastern descent.

Jane sniffed slightly and glanced at the coffee pot. "Actually, a cup of coffee would be nice."

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry! Please help yourself to coffee. It's probably old. I bring my own mug from home, and Mr. Singleton has one that he uses. There is an extra one in the cabinet there. You'll probably need to make fresh coffee. That's been sitting for ages."

Jane went to the small wet bar where there was a coffee pot next to a sink and a mini fridge below. An overhead shelf held a microwave. Jane checked the cabinets and found the coffee and liners and threw out the old coffee. It was so weak it looked almost like tea. No wonder Mr. Singleton had made that comment in the elevator about not having had a decent cup of coffee. She liked it strong, but since she wasn't the only one in the office, she backed off on the strength a bit.

She retrieved a dark blue mug. It was huge, and she filled it nearly to the top. She added sugar, no cream, and Jen gasped.

"That is … some coffee you made there, Jane. It looks pretty strong."

"I'm sorry. I don't like weak coffee. I'll find a happy medium it it's too strong for you."

Jen shrugged and ran tap water into her mug then popped it into the small microwave. "No worries. I can just add water."

The two women glanced at the mess on the desk and then at the last two file cabinets. How could there be a filing system that anyone could decipher? And Jane did not believe that anyone would have the time to thoughtlessly un-file this many documents. Someone would have had to do it maliciously, and who had the time for that?

Jen sighed and headed for the last few cabinets. "I guess we better tackle these two."

Jane shook her head. "Those files are really old. You're looking for 2007 and those are seventies and …" Jane and Jen's eyes locked. They smiled in understanding. It had taken them two and a half hours to figure out that the files were set up in chronological order. But who could have figured that out? The larger accordion folders represented a timeframe, though none was noted outside of the file, then the subfolders were placed in alphabetical order based on that time period. Some years had several accordion folders and some had multiple years within one. It all depended on how large the documents were.

"Insanity," Jen said as they located the correct accordion file … and viola, the missing documents! Jen snatched them and hurried into Mr. Singleton's office. Jane heard her saying, "I found them, Mr. Singleton."

She found them? Jane felt a bit disappointed that Jen hadn't included her considering it was her comment that had allowed them to crack the code. But all that really mattered was they had avoided disaster, and maybe now she could go and take a break.