Sharon Sala - For Her Eyes Only

“In the kitchen! Up the wall. Fire! Smoke! Hurry! Hurry!”

The line disconnected, and Jessica dropped the phone and laid her head on the desk, fighting an overwhelming urge to cry.

Some time later, she made herself get up. Her hands were still shaking as she walked down the hall toward the manager’s office. When she went inside, she made herself look. Just as she’d expected, Sheila’s desk was empty.

What have I done?

But there were no answers, only questions. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on Dolby’s door. When he called out for her to enter, she did.

Trying to focus on something besides the vision she’d just had, she laid the checks on the manager’s desk.

“I thought you might want to sign these now, since we’re a couple of days late getting them out.”

He looked pleased. “Good job! I wasn’t sure you’d show up. I take it you’re not suffering any ugly aftereffects of your fall?”

“Hardly any at all.” Except for losing my mind.

“Wonderful! Wonderful! This was smart going with paper checks since direct deposit could have been screwed up during the storm and take days to fix.” He picked up a pen. “Have a seat, will you? Give me a couple of minutes and they’ll be ready to go out.”

As she sat down, she realized that Jeff Dolby was sporting a new hairpiece. For once, she was thankful she had something besides her own problems on which to concentrate. It was all she could do not to stare. This month’s hairpiece was dark and wavy, which was a unique contrast to the one he’d worn before. This one rode his bald dome like a loose saddle on the back of a swayback horse. It was there, but it just didn’t fit.

Jessica sighed and closed her eyes. She knew about not fitting in. It had been the story of her life. Now, with this thing that kept happening to her, she felt like more of an outcast than ever. Tears burned at the back of her throat as she struggled with her composure.

Dolby’s pen scratched across the surface of the checks as he wrote his name in small and contained flourishes. When he got to the last one, he looked up.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Hanson, I would appreciate it if you would distribute these. Normally that’s Sheila’s job, but she got an emergency phone call and had to leave, and since these are already late—”

He shoved them toward her, expecting her instant acquiescence.

Jessica stared at the checks, but couldn’t bring herself to move. She tensed, then cleared her throat.

“She did?”

He nodded, unaware that his hairpiece went one way as his head went another. In spite of the oddity of Jeff Dolby’s hair, it was what he’d said that gave her pause. She licked her lips, wanting to ask, but afraid of what he might say. Moments passed, and finally, she could stand the suspense no longer.

“I hope it wasn’t serious.”

“Well, yes, I believe that it was,” Dolby said. “She called me just before you came in.” He paused, and then continued. “You know, it was the strangest thing. She got an anonymous phone call here at the office. Someone said her house was on fire.”

“Oh, my,” Jessica said, and felt the skin on her neck starting to crawl.

“As it turns out, the call was on the up and up. If it hadn’t come, her house would have burned down. She said most of the damage was confined to the kitchen.”

And then Dolby gasped and suddenly bolted from his chair. His hairpiece slid forward over his left eye as he made a grab for Jessica. But he was a couple of seconds too late.

She slid out of her chair in a faint.

* * *

Smelling salts stunk. Enough so that wherever Jessica had gone when she fainted, she came back in a rush.

“Easy now,” someone said.

She looked up, noting that Mr. Dolby had more natural hair up his nose than he had on his head.

“Don’t move just yet. Take a couple of deep breaths and relax. When you feel able, we’ll help you up.”

One of the maids was cradling Jessica’s head in her lap while another mopped at her face with a very wet cloth that smelled of disinfectant.

At least I will be clean when I die. “What happened?”

“You fainted.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“Bat barf.”

Dolby patted her arm. “Now, now, you’re going to be fine. I appreciate the fact that you came in this morning to finish payroll, but I think you came back too soon. We’ve called for an ambulance. They’re going to take you—”

She pushed them aside and sat up with a jerk, then clutched her head with both hands, reeling as the room began to spin. Someone pushed her head between her knees and she found herself looking at a dried raisin that was stuck in the carpet. It was a fitting analogy to the way she felt.

“I’m not going back to the hospital,” she said. “I don’t need a hospital.” All I need is a new brain. Mine broke.

The sound of sirens could be heard coming up the road leading to the lodge.

Jessica groaned. “Send them back.”

Her request was too late. Paramedics came in on the run, followed by a couple of curious cops who’d been on their way to the lodge to interrogate the hired help about the missing bride and had decided to follow the ambulance instead.

When Stone Richardson followed the medics inside, it had been in the line of duty. A “just in case he was needed” decision that soon brought him up short. At first, he didn’t recognize the woman on the floor. But then she looked up, and he saw past the new haircut to the face beneath and found himself on the floor at her side.

His gruff voice and gentle touch were nearly her undoing.

“Damn it, Jessie, what have you done to yourself now?”

Jessica’s hand went to her hair, then she paused, uncertain as to which disaster he was referring—her hairdo, or the fact that she was about to go for another ambulance ride.

“She fainted,” Dolby said.

Jessica eyed the paramedic, who was fastening a pressure cuff on her arm. She refused to lie down. “I’m fine. They shouldn’t have called you, and I am not going back to the hospital.”

Stone heard what she said, but he had his own opinion of what she needed. She was pale and near tears, and the thought of Jessie unconscious and helpless did things to his heart he didn’t want to consider.

“You will if they say so,” he said, angry with himself and the emotions he kept feeling whenever Jessie was around.

Stone’s bossy attitude was more than Jessica was ready to accept. She gave him a sidelong glance. “Don’t you have someplace else to be?”

“No.”

Disgusted at being the center of so much unwanted attention, she closed her eyes and slumped forward, laying her head on her knees in a gesture of defeat.

Jeff Dolby patted his hair, making certain it was still in place, then touched Jessica’s shoulder in a comforting gesture.

“We can muddle along without you. I suggest you take off as much time as you need to recover from your injury. If need be, I’ll call in a temp.”

She groaned. Just after she’d started working at the lodge, she’d come down with a virulent flu bug that had taken its toll on the whole staff. Then the temp agency had sent a man who’d reorganized her entire filing system and crashed the computer. Fixing Dolby with a crushing stare, she gave him fair warning.

“If they send Lester Cushing, I quit.”

Dolby looked taken aback and then nodded nervously. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it personally. You just get well. That’s all that matters.”

The paramedic began gathering up his things. “Miss Hanson, your vitals are normal, but I think you should see a doctor just the same. You can’t be too careful about head injuries.”

“I’ll call Dr. Howell when I get home,” she said. “I just need to go get my purse and keys.”