Once Upon Stilettos

Page 68

He brought over two cups of tea, handed one to me, then joined me on his sofa. “How was your visit with your parents?” he asked, his tone entirely conversational.
“Great. I was just telling Trix that it turns out I get my immunity from my mom, which made things interesting.”
“But they feel better now about you living here?” He sounded concerned.
“Yes, sir, they really seem to. I think they may have liked it here. They didn’t even try to make me go home with them.”
“Good. Good. Now I would like an update on the status of your investigation.”
With a deep sigh, I said, “There isn’t much status to speak of, unfortunately. I don’t think I’ve ruled anyone out entirely as a suspect. I have a few new things to check out.” Such as what Hertwick the sales gnome was doing in Central Park on a weekday afternoon, but I wasn’t going to rat him out until I’d talked to him. “And Idris has started stalking me, which may or may not mean anything. To be honest, I’m kind of hoping our spy makes another move this week. Otherwise, I don’t have a lot to go on. I’m more convinced that the intent is to keep us all from trusting each other. Gathering information may not be the primary goal. I even get the impression that Idris is trying to shake me up more than he’s trying to harm me or get me out of the way.”
He nodded. “That may be a wise assumption. It was through rumor and innuendo that Mordred divided Camelot. I wasn’t there to stop it, and I cannot allow that to happen here.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have more to report.” I might not lose my job because of losing my magical immunity, I realized. My complete lack of results was more than enough grounds for firing or demotion. Desperately I struggled for an idea, any idea that might make things better. Finally something struck me. “We’ll still want to catch our mole, of course, but if their goal is to divide us, maybe we can fight back by finding ways to pull the company together.”
His face lit up, and for a moment he looked centuries younger. “Excellent idea! I’ve been reading about morale boosting and productivity. There was one particular book about a fun workplace.” He got up and went over to his desk, then began rummaging around in the books and papers. “Now, where was it?” He returned with an armful of the latest management fad books. Someone needed to cut off his access to the Barnes & Noble online catalog.
“Let’s see, this one was about how to improve productivity by creating a fun working environment.” He handed a book to me. “This one was about team building.” He handed me another. Soon I had an armload of books. “Do you have time to put together some activities and events?” he asked.
Quite frankly, I was swamped, but planning team-building and employee morale events was important and probably our best way of undermining the mole, so I agreed. “No problem,” I said. “It’ll be fun. With the holidays here, there are all kinds of things we can do.” Then I had a brainstorm. I needed to be absolutely sure what was going on with my immunity, and since I’d seen Rod’s illusion the other day and knew it was supposed to work on everyone, a visit to him now would confirm whether or not my immunity really was gone. On top of that, he had access to everyone’s employee records, so he might be able to help in the investigation. “I probably ought to work with Rod on this, as it should fall under Personnel,” I added.
He nodded. “Good thought. Thank you for your time, Katie.”
I took the dismissal hint. As I returned to my office with an armload of business books, I tried to think of things that might work to help us all overcome our distrust of each other. We simply had to encourage people to be willing to work together. Once that got going, the mole might become obvious as the person who wasn’t cooperating. Or maybe we could set a trap within the fun activities.
I called down to Isabel and got on Rod’s calendar for the afternoon. Having an important role to play in the current crisis would be good for him. He’d finally feel like he was being noticed in the upper echelons of power, and I could pick his brain.
Flipping through the business books for ideas, I came to the conclusion that little of the advice would work in a magical corporation. It was nice that Merlin was trying to acclimate himself to the twenty-first-century business world, but I wasn’t sure if the Pike Place Market in Seattle would resonate with him as a metaphor for adding fun to the workplace.
I glanced at my phone and noticed that the voice-mail light was blinking. Someone must have left me a message while I met with Merlin. I picked up the phone, dialed into the voice-mail system, and found one new message. It was from Ethan.