Nevada Confidential

Jacqueline Emelda Marquis

The break room wasn't large, but it was comfortable. Brinley was pleased when her eyes landed on a coffee pot, and she hurried to grab a cup and pour in the steaming black liquid. She lifted it to her lips and drank, wincing as it burned her already dry tongue.

"Careful. It's hot," a voice warned a few moments too late.

Brinley turned. Elijah and a young woman sat at the round table on the opposite corner of the room, their coffee sitting on the wooden surface to cool.

"Thanks," Brinley laughed, setting her own coffee on the counter. "I'll keep that in mind while I ice my mouth."

Elijah grinned, but the woman beside him sat expressionless, looking down at her carefully filed nails and pretending that Brinley didn't exist.

"I better get back," the woman said grumpily, standing from her chair and picking up her cup.

Elijah nodded. "Right. See you later."

The woman stood still and stared at Simon, as if waiting for him to say something else. When he didn't, she sighed and left the room with her coffee in hand.

Brinley looked at Elijah for a moment, before turning back to her coffee. She'd only had coffee black a few times; she preferred it with cream and sugar.

As if reading her mind, Elijah said, "Cream's in the fridge, and there are packets of sugar in that drawer."

"Thanks." Brinley followed his directions and got the two items, before stirring them into her coffee with a plastic spoon. Once she was satisfied with the taste, she sat across from him at the table and sighed.

Elijah eyed her curiously. "You disappeared quite suddenly earlier."

Brinley shrugged. "I had somewhere to be, that's all."

"I've never seen someone so anxious to deliver a dead body," Elijah mused.

She ignored him; taking another gulp of coffee, pretending that the hot drink didn't make her throat sore.

When Elijah realized that Brinley wasn't going to respond to his previous comment, he tried a new tactic. "What's your name?" he asked casually.

Brinley hesitated. She wasn't sure if she should use her really name, or make one up. To stall, she pretended to inhale some of her coffee and went into a coughing fit. Finally she took steady breaths. She didn't want to lie, exactly, so she gave a partially real answer- her middle name.

"Emelda," Brinley said, smiling. "What's yours?"

Of course, she already knew his name, but she needed to turn the conversation around. Brinley wasn't the best liar on the planet, and she wasn't sure that she would be able to think of answers quickly enough.

"Elijah, but most of my friends call me Eli," Elijah replied.

"So I should call you..." Brinley trailed off.

Elijah smiled, revealing pearly white teeth. "You can call me Eli."

Brinley couldn't help smiling. "Alright," she said, looking down at her coffee. She took a sip, and then set it down. "So..." she trailed off. She knew that she needed to get information, but she couldn't be too subtle.

"So," Eli repeated. He seemed to think of something, and he coughed slightly. "Uh, I just thought I should warn you..."

Brinley looked up from her coffee in surprise.

Eli gestured to Brinley's camera, which she had forgotten was still slung around her torso. "I don't think that having a camera would go well with the whole 'confidential' thing. I'm sure you mean no harm, but people might think that you're taking pictures or something. You know how much trouble you can get in if that were the case."