Chapter 1

Time. There’s never enough of it. The restraints of its dwindling availability force me to use every last morsel to its fullest.

I wake up in the morning and check my phone. I fire off emails before I’m even out of bed. I think about work in the shower. I go to work. I eat lunch at my desk, repeating a constant refrain of ‘just one more minute and then I’ll leave for the lunchroom’. I stay late, not even bothering to flaunt my incredible dedication to my bosses as they file out at a reasonable hour. Much. (Okay, I flaunt a medium amount, making sure to sigh and bustle around a little extra when they sidestep me as I race to and fro, reveling in the adjacent praise that they throw out with platitudes about noses and grindstones.)

And now, because apparently that all wasn’t enough, I’m sneaking back into the office at nearly midnight in the middle of what’s shaping up to be a weatherman’s wet dream. A storm—a big one—builds around me as I dart through the side streets. Ducking and diving between awnings and overhangs of any sort, even though they offer me little protection from the rain that somehow assaults me on all available angles, I navigate my way to the monstrosity of a building that I call home.

I mean work.

Shit.

My attitude with work has left the cute quirk stage and moved fully into obsession territory.

Actually, this might be even beyond that. Now that I’m within range of the security cameras of my building, I tug up my hood and obscure my face from the multiple cameras that survey the skyscraper that houses Felton amp; Nichols.

Usually companies are more concerned with how to keep people inside the building and on-task, not keeping them out to avoid extra working. That gives me the advantage with this B amp; E.

B amp; E.How did it come to this?

It all seemed so reasonable to me this morning. Tomorrow, the building is being fumigated, so at the end of the workday, the place was secured. We were ordered (quite insensitively, if I do say so myself) to enjoy ourselves for several paid days off. Just like that. No warning. Just a cold email with a mocking smiley face at the end of my digital heartbreak. Thanks for the mini heart attack, Beth, our cheery office manager. All the cupcakes, cards, and parties mask the masochistic monster who cruelly sends us on a vacation without any offer of emotional support.

What a bitch.

And so, after everyone left, I snuck down the back emergency exit staircase, taped the door so that it couldn’t manually lock and made my plan to come back in the dead of night to sneak some files back to my apartment so that I can continue during this heinous hiatus. The security system would still be engaged, so it wasn’t like I was leaving the building completely vulnerable. I just gave myself a little in.

Funny—it’s only once I’m dodging security cameras, soaked to the bone and pondering what arguments I could use to reduce my sentence should I be caught, that it occurs to me that this is crazy.

Iam crazy.

I’m especially crazy because I realize that this is crazy, yet I’m still going through with it. It’s so crazy that it increases my chance at some sort of insanity plea. Which unfortunately, makes it less crazy, thus decreasing my chance at that defence. Which then, makes it crazier, therefore increasing the chance…

My foot submerges into a frigid puddle that snaps me out of my logic spiral. Thankfully. Once I really get going on a logic puzzle, I have a hard time getting out. The first time someone proposed the chicken and egg problem to me, I went into a philosophical meltdown. To this day, I struggle to eat either protein without a twinge of shame at my inability to solve dependent sequencing.

At least there will be no dependent sequencing quandary with my current situation. I’ll know that my mental deterioration occurred prior to any incarceration. Although I’m sure using a metal toilet in view of people, who have even more reason than the average person to hate lawyers, won’t help.

And yet I’m still breaking into my office building.

To retrieve work.

Because the thought of not working is more terrifying than rationed toilet paper.

The back alley behind our building has all but been swallowed by the monstrous girth of our edifice. Our architects quite literally looked at every square inch of real estate we owned and built on it. Forget shrubbery or walkways, our office building stands ostentatiously erect to compensate for every boisterous, insecure douchebag who works here.

Considering we’re the largest building west of Toronto, that’s saying something.

The alley is now too narrow for cars to park along, so it’s largely deserted. In fact, I really hope it’s deserted tonight.

I scan the alley for signs of life. My eyes stall on a crumpled pile of clothes against the wall under a slight overhang that does little to shelter from the assault of the weather.

Except, it’s not a pile of clothing. A sliver of pale cheek and a curtain of wet, dirty hair is all the evidence that indicates a person resides hunched and huddled beneath an impossible number of drenched layers.

“Couldn’t get into the shelter tonight?” I ask gently, squatting before the mass of clothing directly in the spot where the awning funnels down a persistent deluge of oversized drips.

I wait, not daring to move too much, lest I spook her. Sometimes she answers me. Sometimes she curls into herself like she doesn’t even realize I’m here.

“Wasn’t safe,” she answers eventually. Her face is muffled into the flooded fabric of a once-waterproof parka and so her words come out obscured and distant.

I want to ask more questions, to push, but I know that that line of questioning leads to her shutting down. Shutting me out. Besides, there’s nothing that I’m actually going to do with the information. I’m not going to storm down to the shelter and demand change. I’m not going to invite her to stay with me.

She’d be right to shut me down. Wanting to know her story is nothing more than idle gossip to me since I’m clearly not doing anything to help.

And I should.

If ever there was a night to help, it’s this one.

While the rest of Canada might complain of colder temperatures, no one quite seems to understand how piercing the wet cold of a constant, near-freezing rain can be here in the Pacific Northwest.

“Here,” I say, pulling my umbrella back out of my purse. I had brought it for the weather, but then thought better of using it since it’s quite distinctive. I had bought it on a rare vacation to France. I open it and Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies spreads out before me.

The girl doesn’t take it. She doesn’t even register that anything’s changed.

I prop it against the wall so that it covers her. Then, I wait. Slowly, like a trepidatious groundhog, her hand, reddened with the cold, reaches out. My heart surges as she adjusts it to shield her from the unforgiving onslaught.

Righting myself, I stand and prepare for some light breaking and entering, feeling just a tad bit better about my minor misconduct.

“You’re probably not going to get this back.”

It’s the longest sentence she’s ever said to me. I turn and her face is upturned slightly, peeking out from her shroud of hair underneath her sopping layers. With a pang, I realize how young she is. While her body language has the fragile demeanour of an octogenarian, her face shows just how young she is. I’d be shocked if those wide green eyes have even seen their second decade.

“It’s yours,” I say, despite the fact that it is one of my favourite possessions—a lone relic of a time I dared to live a little. “Keep warm, okay?”

I don’t know if she’s heard me or not. She’s back, hidden away in her cocoon. I hope she finds some solace there, although I would settle for safety.

Then, I walk the couple strides to the back door of the office building. The door opens—the tape still holding fast in its place. I breathe a sigh of relief, even though I figured it would still be there. I was the last person to leave the building just a few short hours ago. Between the night staff getting the night off and the scary signs warning of impending fumigation, there wasn’t much chance of someone tampering with the place.

Still, I’ll call it a win that I’ll get to sneak some work home.

God, there is something seriously wrong with me.

The door snicks shut behind me, a singular, dull thud amid the battering of raindrops.

Quickly, I punch in the generic code for the security system, one that’s not tied to any one person. Really, no one should know it outside of the building’s security, but I’ve made it my mission to know everything about the building.

It has not made me very popular.

Although, not being very popular, along with being a workaholic, is sort of my whole personality.

Whatever. While everyone else is at home relaxing on their paid days off, I’ll be able to get ahead. You don’t need friends when you have the deep satisfaction of a job well done.

With that thought, I press on, dodging the haphazardly placed pile of fumigation equipment near the entrance. Clearly, I care more about my job than whoever piled this here. Between the jumble of ladders, the heavy cannisters, and the rolls of plastic, this definitely violates the fire code. If it were to fall over, there’d be no getting out that door.

But that sounds like a complaint for another time.

Eye on the prize: work.