Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 54: An Omen

"Hey, Nancy Drew, where's my coffee?" a voice calls from down the hall.

Nancy scrambles from her chair near the kitchen where she'd been doing some assigned reading for class and hurries to the coffee pot. She grabs a mug from the cupboard and quickly pours a cup.

"Shit!" she hisses as she overpours, spilling it all over the counter and on the floor. She scrambles to try and clean it up.

"I hope you're not going deaf over there," the voice warns. "Make it snappy."

"No, just a second..." she calls out. "Just adding the amount of sugar."

The fact that she'd been forced to memorize how all these reporters liked their coffee was humiliating and degrading. She reaches over and fumbles for the Sweet N' Low packets as well as a spoon. She opens two and pours them in, stirring as she heads down to Bruce Lowe's office.

You're just paying your dues, she kept telling herself. You'll get better stories soon.

But she knew this was a lie. Her above-minimum wage pay was not worth what she'd been put through. Even though she had broken the Russians under the Mall story this past summer, and interviewed her friends and personnel involved, she hadn't been given anything worthy since. It was probably revenge because they had their egos wounded by her stellar journalism and broke one of the biggest stories of the year. As of recently, she was allowed to cover a traffic accident, and the weather, and that was it. She wanted to quit so badly, but this kind of experience looked great on a college application, and it helped her with running the school newspaper. At least at school, she was respected more by teenagers, and that said a lot about the men she and Johnathan were forced to work with.

"Here you are," she says, entering his office and placing it in his expectant outstretched hand.

"You took your precious time," Bruce grunts. His feet are on the desk, and he has a magazine in his lap, not working at all.

"I'm sorry," she mutters through gritted teeth. "Is there anything else?"

"Yeah, pass me those cigarettes and lighter over there," he demands, not looking up from whatever he was reading.

Nancy hurries over to the filing cabinet and grabs his cigarettes and lighter. She places them on the desk.

"Will that be all?"

"Yep, go crack your next case, Nancy Drew," he chuckles at his own joke. "And shut the door on your way out."

Finally free of him, Nancy does as he asks and heads back towards her homework.

However, someone walks through the door and nearly collides with her.

She stops suddenly and lets out a yelp.

"I'm so sorry," Nancy says.

"No, I'm sorry," Mr. Devin Michaels says. "I wasn't watching where I was going. Nancy, while you're here, could you please do me a favour?"

"Sure," she says, trying to hide the defeat and annoyance in her voice.

"Could you run these files down to Tom and bring back what he has for me? I'd do it myself, but I have to make some copies of this article. It won't take very long."

"Sure," she repeats, glad it wasn't another food run.

"Thank you," he says. "I'll be right back."

Nancy takes the paperwork from Mr. Michaels and heads down to her boss's office. Since it is half ajar, she quickly knocks.

Tom Holloway stands next to his desk, phone in hand. He signals to her that he's on the phone and Nancy points to the work she had brought. He snaps and points to his desk telling her where he wanted it.