JOSEPHINE
Charmaine had done a good job at trying to sort out Dad’s office, but it was always difficult to try to arrange things in a way that would please everyone, or that would even make sense to someone new. That was what I’d always found, anyway, and it was what I was finding now. We all had our own ways and our own systems that made sense to us.
I was undoing a lot of her work and putting things in the way that was most logical to me. But that was okay. The more I organized, the more I saw. And hopefully, the more I did, the more I’d understand about the way Gold Moon should be run — which meant I’d also understand when I saw something unusual or out of place.
I was probably hoping for too much. Like I could simply absorb that sort of information by osmosis, or something.
What I had learned, at least, was that there was alotof information associated with shipping a product from one location to another, especially if the shipment was international.
And although Charmaine had been filing, and now I’d taken over, it was increasingly clear that Dad’s idea of organizing was very far removed from either of ours. I couldn’t figure out his system at all.
I chuckled as I thought of him. Perhaps we wouldn’t have worked together so easily after all.
He’d never even had a secretary, so there was no one to ask about his methods. His reasoning for not having one was pretty good — he’d always told me that he had two hands to get his own coffee and do his own filing, but perhaps he’d led himself astray on the filing aspect. He definitely could have used some help in that area of office life.
I moved a plant from the desk to the windowsill. Not even a plant, really. Dad hadn’t enjoyed a green thumb. One of the cactus spikes caught my finger.
“Little asshole,” I grumbled. “I was trying to do you a favor.”
Dad’s office wasn’t showy or splashy. In all the decades he’d run Gold Moon, he didn’t seem to have upgraded his original utilitarian furniture. At least the conference room where I’d first met Patrick when he’d come as Apex CEO was presentable. Charmaine probably had a little something to do with that. After all, I wasn’t sure Dad had cause to physically meet many clients. He really just made referrals between them and the shipping companies.
Getting a handle on the way the business worked was only one aspect of what I was here to do. I was also looking through various records with a view to seeing anything odd that Dad and Charmaine might have glanced right over. If my lack of familiarity with everything had any benefits, hopefully it would be the need to scan everything with a closeness they’d no longer required. I read and reread every detail.
That, and getting my hands on this year’s accounts might be particularly interesting. But the past couple of years hadn’t been too exciting. Certainly nothing that stuck out to me as odd when I’d prepared them for filing, and Dad hadn’t mentioned anything at that stage, either.
Maybe I needed another cabinet in here. I looked up, mentally rearranging the furniture. If I got a smaller desk, I could probably fit in a desk for Wes as well. It was just taking out Dad’s desk, with all its familiar scratches and marks, would be a wrench.
Like Mom, I was still basking in the last moments of Dad’s energy before that faded to nothing and he left us.
Outside the window, the Novelli glinted in some afternoon sun, and I smiled. I’d probably always find him out there at least. I’d already visited his favorite place on the pier and simply being in that space had improved my mood. I’d returned to the office feeling stronger. A few hours of sorting files had definitely put a dent in that, but I had a couple more hours in me yet.
“Hey.” Wes stuck his head around the door.
I looked up and smiled, then blew a hanging piece of hair out of my face. “Hey.”
“You okay if I head out? I forgot I had an appointment.”
“Sure.” I didn’t ask for details. Knowing Wes, his appointment was anything from a meet and greet with a new personal trainer to seeing a podiatrist.
“Great. I’ll see you in the morning.” He flashed a quick grin and was gone again, leaving me alone in this area of the building. Charmaine was somewhere else, pulling more staff files for us to look through.
I didn’t mind, though. Every so often, I caught sight of Dad’s signature on a document or glanced at our picture on the desk. He really was still here with me, and that knowledge helped keep my grief and anxiety at bay.
I wasn’t alone. In fact, this was a safe space. I was still protected by Dad here.
I hummed as I took more files off a shelf and wiped a cloth over the wood, shifting what felt like years of dust.
My cell phone rang, and I answered without even looking at the screen. It was probably Wes calling to tell me something he’d forgotten. “Hello?”
“Jo Everly?” It was a male voice.
“Speaking.”
I’d always used this phone as both my personal number and my business number, because working for Rosary meant I had very few business calls. Certainly there were no private clients who contacted me directly. Still, getting an occasional unexpected call from an unfamiliar caller wasn’t completely out of the norm.
“Fourteen million dollars for Gold Moon Inc,” he said, and I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it, but the number wasn’t listed, simply displaying asPrivate.
Great. The voice wasn’t familiar, but there was only one man trying to buy my company, so obviously he’d gotten one of his little underlings on the case.