With a few appropriately placed comments of support and understanding, Kayleigh allowed the caller to say his piece before launching into her retort. While every other employee used a script provided by FinaCol Financial, Kayleigh preferred to go off-book and take a less subtle approach. By the time the call ended, she had talked the man into paying the money that he owed, as well as convincing him to take out another loan he probably didn’t need. It was a job she was born for, but one that bored her to tears.
Taking the smartphone out of her purse, Kayleigh pushed the Instagram icon and smiled when she saw the number of likes on her latest post. The whole haunted house angle she was currently pushing on her CreepyKaylz page was paying dividends, but she also knew that she needed to up her game if she was to take her passion to the next level.
Kayleigh dreamed of being an influencer and of raking in money from sponsors willing to pay her large sums of money to pump their wares. She’d had a couple of small offers to this point, but nothing that was genuinely exciting. Still, she had earned enough money to invest in some security cameras that would capture the activity in her townhouse.
The wall of Kayleigh’s cubicle shook violently as her neighbor, April Navarro, poked her head over the top of the divider. The ruckus sent a couple of pinned papers flying off the wall and under her desk. “Bloody hell, April, you could just come into my cubicle like a normal person instead of trying to scale the wall,” Kayleigh moaned.
April popped back down behind the divider and shot around the corner on her office chair, the wheels squeaking in protest. She almost rammed into Kayleigh, who was then on all fours, poking under her desk to find the fallen papers.
“That’s a great ass, lady,” April said, landing a smack on Kayleigh’s rear end.
“I swear to God, April, I am going to beat you senseless as soon as I get out from under this desk.”
Papers found and back where they belonged, Kayleigh turned to face her friend, ready to hurl some abuse at her, but once she saw April’s smiling face, all the anger inside washed away. They had been friends since elementary school, even though they were polar opposites in every way imaginable. Where Kayleigh was all black hair and moody goth aesthetic, April was a cheery bleach blonde with a seemingly endless collection of gaudy summer dresses.
“You are the clumsiest person I have ever met in my life. How is it that I love you so much?” Kayleigh asked.
“It’s my sunny disposition, dear,” April replied, beaming like a model in a toothpaste commercial.
Kayleigh dropped back into her seat with a sigh and looked at her phone once more. Passing the phone across to April, she said, “Look at those numbers.”
“That’s amazing. Just wait until we get the cameras set up in the condo and start doing some live stuff.”
Kayleigh took the phone back and chewed on her bottom lip. “We have to make it look real, though. I can’t have people seeing fishing lines and cheap tricks when we go in with the ghost stuff.”
“Sean is a genius. He’ll make it all look great.”
Sean Gillen was April’s boyfriend and the final piece in the group that April annoyingly referred to as the three amigos. Sean worked in the IT department at FinaCol and had proven to be more than a little helpful in getting Kayleigh up and running on Instagram. Where Kayleigh was the ideas girl, her housemates were all about getting great shots and editing videos. They were a tight little unit and one hell-bent on social media domination.
“Are we still on to go and get all the camera equipment tonight?” April asked.
“As soon as I get done with Gallagher. He wants to see me in his office after my shift.”
“Ugh. He is such a creep. What does he want?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m guessing he is going to ask me out again. He is relentless. I’ll give him that,” Kayleigh said with a shudder.
A few minutes later, Kayleigh powered down her computer and told April that she would meet her and Sean out front as soon as possible. Shoulders hunched, she trudged her way to Michael Gallagher’s office and rapped on the glass door.
Her boss looked up from his computer and waved her in, a beaming smile made of ridiculously white dental implants spread across his face. Gallagher loosened his tie and smoothed back his dark hair, which was already immaculately maintained by a plethora of hair products. Kayleigh might have found him handsome if he weren’t such a sleazeball.
“Miss Barnes, please come in and have a seat,” Gallagher said, gesturing to the leather chairs in front of his wide oak desk.
Closing the office door behind her, Kayleigh shuffled in and settled into the chair. She had to stifle a sigh of pleasure as the chair wrapped her in its comfortable embrace. “You wanted to see me?” she asked.
“We’ll get to that in a moment,” Gallagher said, easing out his chair and heading to a drinks cabinet in the corner of his office. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m not so sure that’s appropriate,” Kayleigh said. She could have used a little shot of something strong to calm her nerves, but she didn’t trust Gallagher not to slip in a roofie.
“Are you sure? It’s Friday; it’s now outside of work hours, and you had had another fantastic week. You deserve a little treat.”
Kayleigh squirmed in her seat as her boss smiled at her, green eyes twitching up and down as he drank her in. Kayleigh had a habit of attaching people she encountered in real life to characters in her favorite horror movies. Gallagher was the personification of Dr. Chilton from The Silence of the Lambs, but she also had no problem imagining him as a lizard person should he ever shed the bronzed skin that covered his true form.
With no response forthcoming, Gallagher shrugged and poured himself a drink before sitting back down at his desk. Setting the glass to the side, he bridged his fingers under his chin and stared at Kayleigh, unblinking, which was more like Hannibal Lecter than his medical nemesis. “May I ask you, Miss Barnes, what are your future goals here at FinaCol?”
“Plans?” Kayleigh asked, thrown a little by the question.
“Yes, plans. You are, far and away, the best person I have under me. In fact, I see some of me in you,” Gallagher said, the double meanings dripping off his tongue with consummate ease.
Kayleigh ignored the comments and the lecherous grin and said, “I haven’t given it much thought. I like what I do, and I make more than enough money to keep me happy.”
“Wouldn’t you like your own office space and a key to the executive lounge up on the twentieth floor?”
“Do we really have one of those here?”
Gallagher threw his head back and laughed, pounding his hand on the desk, his gaudy high school football ring nicking the wood. “I’m afraid not. It’s my attempt at wooing you into the world of upper management. There is an assortment of excellent benefits, though, Miss Barnes, not the least of which would be a sizeable raise. The sky is the limit for you with this company. What say you?”
The truth was that Kayleigh did enjoy her job, but she also liked being able to work from nine to five and then escape the shackles of office life. While her FinaCol salary paid the bills and gave her a comfortable enough life, it was not where she saw herself in the coming years. Kayleigh saw fame and fortune as a social media influencer, which she hoped would lead to a shot at a reality TV show devoted to all things paranormal. She could try to explain that to Gallagher, but she was sure that he wouldn’t get it, so instead, she said, “Can I have some time to think about it?”