Page 14 of Burning for You
I close the drawers.
As I round the coffin-like desk, a corner hits my hip. It’s solid oak, and it hurts, but it’s just wrong.
I’m six-feet-two and the average desk comes up to my mid-thigh. Josh Bright is at least three inches shorter than me. Why would he have ordered such a tall desk? His chair is set higher than standard, and curiously, he has a footrest, too. He might want to appear as if he was high on a throne, but as I look underneath the set of drawers, what’s supposed to be a gap seems to have been filled, only half the depth of the desk.
“Bingo!” I murmur.
I see an incision, and as I nudge the surface, it pushes open a thin drawer. In there, I find what I’ve been looking for.
Immediately I get my iPhone to work, snapping the plans and documents labeled ‘Project Bitterroot.’
These plans, with both HPI and Brilliance stamps on them, confirm our suspicion. The companies are planning to take over all of Random Valley, which means the entire Holt Ranch and the Little Random Lake (the land Dad bought for me) are in their sight. I bet Dad knew about this, and he couldn’t see a way out. Perhaps, being a proud Holt, he couldn’t bear telling his children that their heritage was gone.
I’m kneeling, but the letters I hold in my hands are about to make me collapse completely. Goddamn Carolyn Meyer signs off all these! There’s even a draft press release announcing the land acquisition, seemingly prepared for after she has bought Bright’s shares.
The bitch is a goddess, alright—a goddess of malice and ill will.
Fuming, I pack up after leaving no document unscanned. I place my ear against the gap between the two oak doors, trying to sense if someone is outside.
Not wanting to call Grant Barnes—who knows what he’s up to—I slowly slink out of Bright’s office.
As I make my way back into the elevators, voices roll toward me from the corridor ahead. With them calling each other ‘Caro’ and ‘Josh,’ there’s no question they are Joshua Bright and Carolyn Meyer, and they’re coming my way.
What’s my excuse to be here? A freelancer named Georg Mueller, alone, only yards from his office?
Having nowhere else to go, I slide myself behind the nearest door.
Great! A ladies’ bathroom.