Past Midnight Read Free Page A

RACHEL whispered to Yvonne after Erin disappeared into Dominic’s lab.
    “It’s not your fault, honey.” Yvonne tried to assure her.
    In the break nook, they poured themselves fresh coffees. Rachel loaded hers with creamer. The coffee was made from expensive, freshly ground beans, and the creamer came in a variety of flavors. The DeKnights treated their employees well. Rachel didn’t have to make a copayment on the medical or dental insurance, and the benefits were so good that she and her ex had taken the boys off his plan and added them to hers. Then there was the profit sharing, which was based not on salary level, but divided equally among the thirteen employees. Everyone had equal incentive and was equally rewarded. Rachel had her own office, too. Where else did a receptionist get an office, even if it did open right into the front entrance? She needed this job, and she wished she hadn’t gotten testy with Erin even if she’d only been following Dominic’s instructions.
    Beside her, Yvonne eyed the hallway leading to Dominic’s lab. “They’re on edge with the holidays, and it being a year and all. You know how it is.”
    No, Rachel didn’t know. But she’d felt the tension around DKG growing over the last month. She was the newbie. Almost everyone else had worked for the DeKnights at least five years. Yvonne herself had been with them the full ten years DKG had been in business. She was inside sales, handling all the existing customers with repeat business. Yvonne Colbert was a big woman, not fat, but husky and tall, over six feet. In her midfifties, she was soft-spoken, with caramel skin and gentle brown eyes. If Rachel made a mistake, Yvonne was the first to say, “It’s okay, honey, don’t worry about it.”
    Rachel sipped her coffee. God, it was good. She couldn’t afford stuff like this. She was strictly freeze-dried. “Okay, here’s the thing. I feel like I need to walk on eggshells, but nobody tells me why.” She didn’t want to screw up this job by putting her foot in her mouth when she didn’t even know what she wasn’t supposed to say. Or do.
    “Aw, honey, I’m sorry. We just don’t talk about it, that’s all, and we all figure that someone else has told you.”
    “Like who? Bree?” Rachel glanced over her shoulder at Bree’s office, the fourth that circled the roundhouse along with Erin’s, Yvonne’s, and Rachel’s.
    Bree Mason was DKG’s bookkeeper. She sat at her desk, her long black hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that looked downright painful it was so tight. She was always at her desk working hard. While she was helpful, smiled, and talked like a normal person when you were face-to-face with her, alone in her office, when she didn’t think anyone was looking, she was almost a shadow of herself. So no, Bree wouldn’t have said a thing about Erin. Rachel had yet to figure out if Bree was always so quiet or if this was something new, like Erin’s increasing tension. All Rachel knew was that Bree didn’t gossip. In fact, no one gossiped about the DeKnights. They were a tight family, and Rachel felt like the interloper.
    Yvonne patted her hand. “I’ll say it once, then we don’t talk about it again, all right?”
    “I won’t say anything.” Rachel zipped her lips, but she had to admit, her curiosity was killing her.
    “Their little boy died last year, the end of October.”
    Rachel took the words like a body blow. “Oh my God. Was he in a car accident?” She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose one of her sons. Even if lately they’d been acting like they hated her guts, as if the divorce were her fault. Maybe that was the typical reaction of all teenage boys who adored their fathers.
    Yvonne sighed deeply. “He picked up some parasite while he was on a day trip with his school class. Little itty-bitty amoeba thingies the doctors couldn’t figure out were there. He died two weeks later.” Yvonne’s eyes misted. She blinked away a tear.