Undead and Underwater (Undead #12)

She was the boss. The head of Human Resources; she only answered to one other person, and Ann Denison hated her job more than she did.

Initially dismissing that as impossible, Hailey gradually came to realize that, yes, indeed, Ann hated running the company more than Hailey hated exit interviews. In her quest to pursue Olympic recognition for her treasured sport, broomball, the CEO had priorities other than overseeing Ramouette’s production of iron silhouettes designed for the purpose of people shooting them to knock them over, after which they would be picked up and repositioned and shot at more and more and more.

“You don’t find that fulfilling?” she’d asked during her interview.

“Shush,” Ann had replied, poring over the broomball world rankings. “I’m in crisis mode here. I’ve got a serious problem here. Minnesota only made the top seventy-five twenty-two times.”

“Upsetting?” she guessed.

“We should be on it seventy-five times!”

“Ah.”

“And for sure, first. I mean, come on. That’s so obvious it hurts. But not even the top five? Someone’s gotten to these guys.” She slammed a small fist on her desk, making the broomball trophies tremble. Most people put family photos on their desks, and occasionally computers. Not this one; the space not occupied by trophies was taken up by the broomball rule book and grip tape. “The corruption starts at the bottom and oozes its way through all the layers of the broomball rankings! And they think I’m just gonna sit here? Sit here and let them barf all over all that’s good and holy about broomball? My big white Scandinavian butt, I will!”

“I’m sorry.” Hailey stood. “I had no idea you were clinically insane. I’ll leave you to . . . that.”

“No, you can’t go!” Ann had said, crumpling the magazine in her agitation. “You have to stay and run HR and, you know, hire people and things so we have people to make stuff and then we have stuff for customers to buy so they give us money and I use that money to get broomball recognized as an Olympic sport, and to practice.”

“That was the most succinct mission statement I have ever heard.”

“I can’t do what I want you to do. I hate that stuff. But my dad’s retiring and a bunch of people left with him, so there’s all these slots to fill and I just can’t, Hailey. Also . . .”

“You have to root out the insidious corruption hidden in the national broomball rankings.”

“Yes!” she’d screamed, and then crawled across her desk and hugged her. Hailey was so startled and amused she didn’t toss her new boss through the window behind them.

So she’d taken the job. To this day, she had no idea why. Well, she knew, way down at the bottom of her brain, where it was dark all the time. But the top of her brain pretended she had no clue.

So here she was, late again. She was supposed to be running a new hire through the worthless maze that was corporate life at Ramouette. One of her minions—their word, not hers, and it had amused her enough that she let it stand, so now there were in-house minion meetings and underling training seminars and Wretch 101—anyway, one of them had interviewed what’s-his-name, had been authorized to make an offer of a salary large enough to keep him coming back day after nightmarish day but not enough to pull together savings and eventually depart to a better life. And the poor wretch had accepted.

She raced past reception, hearing the soft drone of Audrey’s near-constant, “Thank you for calling Ramouette, how kinnI direct yer call, then?” like some would listen to Zen chants. She’d only lived in Minnesota four years, but she loved the mild local accent. Someone could be in the middle of a murder, but when they piped up with a cheery, “Oooookay, then, I’m gonna shoot this here guy in the face and dismember him and then play with his body in a ritual-type deal, and then I’ll just haveta kill you, too, then,” it was hard not to smile. (She knew this for a fact. The most depraved serial killer sounded downright adorable when they drew out their os.)

Past reception, she took a left by the restrooms, caught an empty elevator (yes!) to third, another left down a dull windowless hallway carpeted in Corporate Buff, and then was walking through the small HR department toward her office in the back. It had, of course, a real window that opened. A window large enough to accommodate her occasional leaps to the perfect turf below.

“Hi, I’m Hailey Derry, sorry to—”

“Hero. Hero.”

“What?” She nearly dropped her laptop. Her eight o’clock had gotten to his feet the moment he saw her. The way he’d greeted her—unless she had misheard, and she must have misheard—was not the only interesting thing about him. He had the oddest coloring she had ever seen. “You—what?”

“Hero. That’s you.”

She stared, and then, trying a different tack, stared more. He was close to her in height, maybe an inch taller at five-eleven or so, with a rude shock of bright red hair. Not a pretty auburn or a masculine deep mahogany: it was red red, Irish red, and he had a face full of light freckles to go with it, and a wide mouth that looked like it was full of smiles and perhaps kisses. A conservative blue shirt and blue – and red-striped tie, khakis, and dark loafers that looked comfortable as well as practical.

For whatever reason, her mind seized on his outfit. “Every day at Ramouette is casual day!” one of their more insipid HR slogans trumpeted. “Except when it comes to customer service, of course!”

But his eyes. Never mind his clothes, or the freckles, or the mouth she hoped was full of kisses. “Your eyes,” she said, and then couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud.

“Yeah.” He laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “My mom’s Irish. My dad’s from Lucknow, in India. So I’m kind of . . .”

Dazzling.

“. . . a mix.”

His hair and mouth and freckles made him look sweet, like a boyfriend you could snuggle and nag and bang as well as—as—what was the phrase? Pal around with? Yes: he looked like the sort of boyfriend who could also be your friend. But her new coworker’s eyes, soulful and large and dark, his eyes made him seem mysterious, like a lover you adored but sometimes wondered about. When he’s touching me in the dark and I’m groaning his name, what is he really thinking?

Like that.

Exactly like that.

Now he was staring, and she realized she hadn’t commented. So she hurried to do so: “Yes. Mix. Yes. You are a mix. That is what you are. You are a mixture of . . . of them. The parents. Your parents, is what I mean.”

He blinked but, thank all the gods, let it go. “Yeah, so we’ve established that. Anyway, that’s what your name means. Hero. I’m Jamie Linus, by the way, and, yep, I’ve heard all the jokes.”

“What?”

“The jokes. Heard ’em all. That’s not a dare to think up different things to say about my dumb name, by the way.”

“Your dumb name?”

Hailey, you dim dolt, will you get ahold of yourself right now?

She did. She always obeyed that voice, no matter how much trouble it got her in. Stop that robbery. Fire that idiot. Hire that single mother. Get ahold of yourself right now. It was her mother’s voice, but she didn’t mind. Since her mother died four years ago, this was as close as she could come to hearing her. I tuned her out most of my life, she thought, morbidly aware of the irony, and only listened after she died.

“My office, please.” She gestured for him to go in, but he courteously stepped back to let her go first. “I must apologize. It was a . . . a chaotic morning.”

“Yeah, I heard,” he said cheerfully. “It Girl foiled a robbery! Or something. I dunno. But she was right downtown! I only missed her by, what? Ten, fifteen minutes? Argh. Man, that must have been awesome.”

Ah. That did it. She had no trouble focusing now. Just hearing his pleasant baritone say the hated name was enough to snap her back into her despised job, loveless life, and Pop-Tart-less desk drawer.

Thank goodness. Because really . . . what else was there?

CHAPTER TWO

What Are You Waiting For?

“My dad was a reporter,” Linus was saying, “and my mom was—is—a teacher. Still is, I mean. And what with one thing and another, they got started on this project—finding the roots of names, figuring out what they mean.”

“Mmmm. You may have skipped a step in your story.” If she wasn’t looking at him, things were easier. So she was shuffling the paper on her desk like it was a deck of cards made up of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch printer paper. “Yes. I hear you.”

Whatever he said next she missed; she’d found another note. Not hidden or anything. A yellow Post-it, right on top of her closed laptop: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Dammit! Had she missed another budget meeting? Or was it about something worse, something secret? These cryptic notes were getting ever more . . . well . . . cryptic. If someone had a problem with her, they should just come right out and say—

“That explains the curse.”

“What?”

“Hey, you were listening!” He beamed, so pleased she had to smile. “Lots of people don’t. Who can blame them? Roots of names, for God’s sake. Pass the snores, right?”

“Ah . . . right.” She pulled the note; crumpled it in her fist. Tossed it. Sat behind her desk. “You spoke of a curse?”

“Sure. They were definitely cursed,” he went on. “The root of our surname means teacher.” He paused. “A kind of teacher, anyway, but that’s another whole thing to get into . . . Anyway, my mom loved it and figured they’d live up to it. So they wrote a bunch of those baby name books.”

“Oh, yes?” Interesting. She supposed someone had to sit down and write those baby name books. It never occurred to her she would know someone who knew someone who did. “Your folks must have given a lot of thought to your name, then.”