Stay With Me...

Chapter 21- Dirty Work

When Emmaline returned to the waiting room, she looked different from when left earlier. John was sitting on when of the chairs when came back, dressed in a light grey pencil skirt, baby pink shirt, and black heels. The long black wig she was wearing had been styled into a bun and she had freshened her cherry red lipstick. "You didn't use her lipstick, right?" 

Emmaline cringed, "God no, I had this in my coat pocket and now its here," She tapped the side of her left breast. "She's not dead it she?" Referring to the girl lying on the floor behind the desk.

"Just sleeping. What about....?" John gestured to her new outfit, which was surprisingly a good fit, with the exception of the shoes which had some space at the back. Not a lot, but just enough to annoy Emmaline.

"Sleeping too." She craned her neck to get a better at the unconscious woman on the floor, "Just heavier. And probably concussed." She grimaced remembering how she bashed the poor girl's head against the wall then left her in a stall wearing nothing but her underwear. Seeing how John had probably merely put this one in a choke hold until she went under kind of made her feel guilty. But she brushed it off. "They'll need to clean the tile too."

"Ready?" John was already standing again and was flipping through some papers from the file cabinet behind the desk. "Check this out." She came to stand next to him and he showed her a map, presumably one given to new employees. It did not take long for them to figure out and internalize what they needed to. "That's why it looks so small." John noted, pointing to a section of the map that most of the organization was underground, seemingly spanning all the way to a few feet before the shore.

After they had learned all they could from the papers at the front desk and disconnected the phone, John and Emmaline descended a staircase that supposed to take them to where records of accounts were kept. As they walked downwards, with two steps behind, he cocked his head to the side, watching her go. "Stop staring at my ass!" Emmaline scolded without even turning to him. At the bottom, Emmaline held out her arm, blocking his path then motioned for him to hide in the shadows. "There are only women here!" Her eyes wide and worried, "How the hell are we supposed to get you past them? I don't suppose you mind wearing a skirt?"

"I'm going to take that last part as one of you bad jokes and say I don't know." John examined the place from his dark corner. "You'll have to go on your own." Not the conclusion either of them wanted to reach but it would have to work unless they could find another way.

"Great, that's just great." Emmaline retorted in a manner that suggested that it was not just great. "What the hell am I supposed to be looking for anyway? I doubt you just press a button that says 'I changed my mind, remove this hit'" John rolled his eyes and she did the same, "Well, anything?"

John glanced around, "Not really. But I suggest you start there," He pointed to a section labelled "'Accounts'. And if you need anything else, pretend to be new and ask a someone. I'll stay here and keep watch." He wished her good luck and she pecked him quickly on the lips, scurrying off to blend it with the other ladies.

Blending in with the other women turned out to be much easier than Emmaline anticipated. Between her numerous tattoos and everyone generally not paying attention to her, she had managed to make it to the shelves of folders without hassle.

The bookcases were labelled alphabetically, now all she had to do was look though the hundreds of files under "W". How many last names were there that started with W? Squinting, Emmaline read the little piece of paper sticking out of each file that had the account holders name on it.

She was sure she had read them all. Twice. Still, she could not find John's name. What the fuck? Emmaline read them again. And again. And finally, she determined that this was taking to long. Maybe she was doing this wrong, maybe she should be looking under "J". Walking back to the row of shelves labelled "J", something caught her eye and Emmaline mentally slapped herself for not noticing it before. A long shelf to the very back, categorized "Accounts: Closed". That had to have what she was looking for. The sections here were slightly smaller, so it was easy to find John's name.