Inferna Nuntius

Chapter 23

23

Cassidy stared at the white board, head cocked to the side, and then glanced back down at her notes. Moderate confusion came over her and she quickly glanced around the room, trying to gauge if anyone else felt the same way. She first looked to Bellinson for confirmation, but found him deep in conversation with someone on the phone, struggling with his Spanish. Phillips, Dunn, and Harris has sequestered themselves to the only round table in the room and were busy either calling businesses or crossing them off the board. Hughes and Butler sat to her left, sharing a small table but nothing else. Since Hughes had called her out on her royalty, he had been surprisingly tight lipped, even to Butler. Butler was either used to these mood swings or was completely unfazed by them. The man sat with his feet propped up on the desk, a folder spread out in his lap and cell phone firmly attached to his ear. The man, if nothing else, was cool, calm and collected.

She turned her attention back to the white board and gently rubbed her eyes. They had been at this for almost four hours and during that time they had managed to whittled down the master list of companies from seventy-five to forty. Of those forty, one more company had just been crossed off for reason Cassidy couldn’t understand. It was times like this that she wished Derrick were here. He had always been better at connecting the dots than she was. She sighed softly and crossed her arms over her chest.

            “They’re off the list cause I.C.E. raided them last year.” Butler’s voice came from her left. She turned and found the man sitting directly beside her, not an inch between them. She gave him the once over, but he remained firmly where he was, a large smirk across his face.

“Wouldn’t they stay on the list since they got raided?” She asked him. “Then we would know for sure that they hired illegals.”

“Think about it. Your company gets raided-do you really think that you’re just going to go on with business as normal? Hire the same guys you normally do? No. You go legit for a while.” He informed her. “They had a fifty percent increase in hiring last year. This means that they either started to do a shit-ton more work, or they finally had to start to pay their people the legal way, leaving a paper trail.”

            For something that had been clear as mud only seconds earlier, Cassidy felt incredibly stupid for not making the connection sooner. She shook her head in understanding and turned back to her notes, realizing that she needed to go back and take another look at her companies.

            “Sorry about Hughes, about before.” He told her, realizing the she wasn’t going to make small talk with him unless he initiated it. “He’s a little…cranky about his life right now.”

            “And where do I factor into it?”

            “He’s pissed at the Consult right now, and you’re the closest thing to our rep that we’ve seen in a long time.” Butler risked a glance back at Hughes and was relieved to see that the man was still engrossed in his current company file.

            “Again, where do I factor into it?”

            “Does a queen not care about her subjects?” Butler smiled at her slyly.

            “I’m not queen. I’ll never be queen.” She informed him.

            “You will be when your father steps down.”

            “Which he will never do.” She glanced back at Hughes, searching the man’s face for some clue as to the source of his previous behavior. “Ok, fine. Why is he pissed at the Consult right now?”