Fears of the Widow

A Tour Part Two

Thomas escorted Lisa around the ASB building for about an hour explaining the purposes of each office, and she absorbed every syllable. The Chinese men were speaking to that raven lady when they walked down the fifth floor. She even stopped in the middle of her explosive speech to watch Lisa. The boy, however, glared (or perhaps squinted) in her direction, shifting his glasses back and forth uneasily.

Lisa turned away and followed Tom to the other end of the hall as he passed about four doors. She stopped in between them, dragging Thomas with her, "what are these rooms?"

Thomas became suddenly less confident, his demeanor dropping, "they're just... Uh... Well they're kind of unimportant. That one," he pointed to the first door on the left, "is the copier room."

Lisa nodded, "well maybe one day I will need to know where that is."

"Sure," Thomas joked before gesturing to the other doors, "and they were the ambassador rooms for our dealing with some organization that shut down a few months ago. Now they're pretty much empty. Case reports. The poor people who got to keep their jobs are stuck doing my paper work."

"Ouch..." Lisa muttered, "so why not move other, more important rooms, up here?"

Thomas pulled her back up the hallway, "while it makes sense, the boss wants everything kept like this. He was very persistent last time we spoke."

"Your boss?" Her forehead crinkled, "I thought you were the boss?"

Thomas coughed to the side, "well... Not exactly. I mean sort of... I run all these people, but the way things are, the big deals, and the most important products are handled by the owner." The elevator doors magically opened just as they approached them.

"The owner... Who's the owner?" Lisa sensed her inquisitive attitude and mentally pulled back on her questions.

Tom eyed her closely as the elevator took them back up to the sixth floor, "I don't know his name..."

At first it sounded funny... Baffling. The whole thing was a joke, and Lisa was shocked. Then she frowned, "how can you not know your boss?"

"Well... I contact him through email for the important stuff... And... Er... Well, I don't otherwise need to speak with the boss," Thomas quickly hastened their steps as they made their way back towards his office where a lady stood patiently waiting at the door.

Lisa couldn't believe what she was hearing. I mean she used to get hired by unknown solicitors before she joined SHIELD but she was an assassin. Thomas is a foreign spokesman, a businessman, a vital link between America and the rest of the world. "Who hired you then?"

"The man who had this job before me," Thomas answered quickly as they approached the bug eyed, bug toothed blonde assistant looking lady.

"Lisa Rushman, this is Taylor Lane, my assistant (Bingo)," Tom introduced them curtly.

Taylor put out her awkwardly thin hand, "nice to meet you."

"A pleasure," Lisa firmly replied. Thomas quickly entered his office, and the two women followed when Taylor suddenly whispered, "are you here to take my job?"

Lisa turned to her to respond, but Thomas interrupted, "Lane, where are we on that deal with Mr. Wonghoo?"

Taylor quickly presented a paper, "just finished, sir. They have agreed to the arrangement for twenty rather than the bargain seventeen."

Lisa tried to pay attention, but wasn't sure exactly what they were talking about. Besides her mind was more focused on the mystery boss. He had to be the one dealing the dirty man. No names were never good.

"They went high but brought it low like we thought," Thomas continued his financial discussion, "perfect. This will admirably excel our profits, and we can have Alex his money before the due date." The girl, Taylor, nodded like she was simply agreeing rather than understanding what Thomas meant.

Something funny was going on with that deal, and if Tom's tell signs were anything to go on, Lisa had a hunch that the company that was shut down had a big part to do with her mission. She needed to contact Fury and report this find so that SHIELD could do some search on the fifth floor company. Now that she thought about it the company had to be pretty important to have three rooms. Most of the offices were for twelve to twenty different Title Companies and Country Agreements. But one company with three rooms... Unless Tom was lying which is a big possibility.

No wonder the agents who came here short term never learned anything.

"Now Taylor, if you are done you may leave. Miss Rushman and I have some business to intend to," Thomas spoke up.

Taylor nodded compliantly, nonchalantly glaring at Lisa in the process as she exited the office.

"Sit down," Thomas offered the empty couch to her as he settled in on the chair opposite it.

Lisa suddenly felt formal and out of place. Was he on to her cover? No of course not. He couldn't be. She was ridiculously careful.

Thomas enclosed his hands and his fingers lightly clenched one another, "so a position here?"

"Yes sir, I would enjoy a job," she answered hastily.

Thomas nodded, "in finance perhaps? I don't believe a doll like you could embezzle money."

"I would never cheat the people I work for or the people I care for," Lisa answered truthfully.

Tom gave a sly grin, "well, Lisa, I guess you're hired. The financial division on level three needs a new manager. You will completely finance and quota, but unlike the other workers, you will handle the money."

"That's an important job," Lisa smiled gratefully, "but what happened to the lady before me?"

Thomas brushed the question aside, "she went off to be married or something." Where had Lisa heard that lame excuse? Wasn't it the Nanny Diaries? But she wasn't about to argue, "well I hope she's having a lovely marriage. So what do I need to do?"

"Well I have an important drying in a few minutes so you start tomorrow at eight, and I will have someone down there teach you the ropes. You're smart. You'll catch on," Thomas nodded, "I'll call a cab to take you back to the Apartment."

Lisa nodded gratefully, "thank you so much, Thomas, for everything."

He stood and helped her up, kissing her cheek softly, "would you like to eat dinner with me tomorrow night?"

"I would love to," she replied, "I suppose I will see you tomorrow, then."

Thomas escorted her out, "Yes. Tomorrow."

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A/N
I'm so sorry I haven't been able to write as much lately. I've had some not so awesome personal things going on, plus classes, plus life in general and its a big mess right now.

Hope everyone's doing alright and enjoying my crappy updates.

I promise I have a general plan for the book, and I hate to make excuses but my life is really screwing with my writing at the moment! I'll try super hard to get the next update up really soon and for all you people out their hating Thomas and wishing Steve or Clint was back... Some of you are gonna be happy in the next few updates.

I will say, however, that the overall end of the book may piss a bunch of people off... That's the part I don't necessarily have totally worked out yet.

Well thanks so much for reading and voting and commenting and dealing with my sparse updating!

Love y'all
-GraceMaze