Chapter 7
Eric looks up from his desk when he hears some urgent voices entering the building, asking to see Mr. Matthews and Mr. Hancock right away. Eric knew instantly that Adam and Kyle have arrived with Judge Grayson’s signed court order and he quickly finishes the last task he needed to do for a client, taking the paper from the typewriter and putting in an envelope to be mailed with a stack of others he had been working on all morning. He has taken over a few of Richard’s clients so he was sending a letter to each client telling them about what is going on and who he is, so they aren’t in shock when they do business with them and find a new agent with them. He stands up like everyone else and peers towards the entrance where the voices are coming from, hearing now a worried Mr. Matthews talking in a low hushed voice. Mr. Matthews enters the room with Adam and Kyle close at his heel, their eyes scanning the faces around the office until they spot Eric. Adam nonchalantly waves the court order in his hand before they walk into Mr. Matthews’ office, the door closing behind them.
Eric sits back down, eager to get his hands on the cases so he can help Adam and Kyle find the murderer before they attack again. His fingers race across his typewriter since h had two more letters to send out his mind racing as he keeps glancing at the door, only to see Mr. Hancock enter to talk to the detectives with Mr. Matthews. Wishing he were a fly on that wall to hear their conversation, he gets back to work, typing away on the typewriter, letting the soothing taps from the keys calm his nerves. Eric gets the two letters done and grabs all the letters to place in the office mailbox at the entrance of the building. He walks over to it, trying to walk slowly so that he catches when the door opens and they call him in to help the detectives, but the door remains closed as he passes by.
Eric drops the mail in, a thought crossing his mind about his bosses choosing another agent to help Adam and Kyle, leaving him without a chance to help. He sits back at his desk just as the door opens to Mr. Matthews office and everyone once again cranes their necks around or stands up to see what is going on since it isn’t every day a couple of detectives wander in off the streets to talk to their bosses. Mr. Matthews and Mr. Hancock appear at the door, their eyes searching the room before they stop on Eric. He stands up and raises his eyebrows when they whisper to one another and then nod, waving him over.
Eric leaves his desk and enters the office, only having been in Mr. Matthews’ office twice before, and he sees Adam standing by the window, hands clasped in front of him, and Kyle sitting in the chair before the desk. He sits in the chair beside Kyle before looking at his bosses, doing his best to look shocked and confused.
“Mr. Matthews? Mr. Hancock? Is everything all right?” Eric asks, still looking around the room confused.
“Eric, are you done with your tasks for this morning?” Mr. Matthews asks as he sits behind his desk, Mr. Hancock standing at his side and leaning against the chair.
Eric nods, “Oh yes, Mr. Matthews. I just put the letters for my new clients in the mailbox. The next thing I was going to do was read a few files for some clients who are asking for loans.”
“Put that on hold for a moment as I want you to help these detectives pull the cases of each of the agents who have left. Only the ones that are closed.”
“Closed, sir?” Eric repeats.
“Yes, those cases that they could not help with or that the help was not good enough to the client, and they left our agency because of this which causes us to close their cases,” Mr. Hancock tells Eric. “Do you remember where we store all the closed files?”
Eric nods his head as he stands up, “I do. They are all downstairs in the basement.”
“Good! Grab them and help the men take the boxed files to their car. You may resume your work after you have completed this task. And I want you to give your number to the detectives so if they have questions about the files, they can call you.” Mr. Matthews stands and shakes Kyle and Adam’s hand. “Gentlemen, we wish you the best of luck for finding this murderer and thank you for bringing this theory to our attention. It is a scary thought to think someone is attacking our agents because of one of the cases downstairs.”
Adam and Kyle both nod to the men then follow Eric out of the office and down the hallway behind the desks to where a dark door sits waiting for them. Eric pulls out his keys, unlocks the door, and leads Kyle and Adam down the stairs into the basement, flipping the lights on as he walks.
At the bottom of the stairs, Eric looks back as the guys, sighing in relief, “I thought for a moment they were going to ask one of the others to help you out with the case. I didn’t know how you were going to ask for my help without giving it away that I am the one who told you to go to Judge Grayson for the court order.”
Kyle grins, “Don’t worry, we know how to word things in order to get them to think that it is their idea to choose the person we want to work with.”
Eric chuckles and leads them to where there are thousands of boxes stacked up on tall shelves, all sealed and marked by names and dates the clients were with the company. He turns on several lights so that they can read the shelves and boxes to find the ones that they need for the case. Eric points to the names at the top of the shelving, “Each shelving unit has the name of each agent and on those shelves are their clients. So, we just need to find Jones, Carin, Timerson, Moose, and Smithson.”
Kyle takes off down one aisle while Adam vanishes down another, their eyes up at the names, looking for the last names of those agents who are victims of the unsolicited murders. Eric heads over and finds Jones’ boxes and takes down the four that are there. He carries two at a time to the stairs, setting them on a long table that they have down there in case anyone ever needs to look at the boxes there. He then takes off back into the labyrinth of shelving to look for the other boxes needed. Adam finds Smithson’s five boxes while Kyle carries up Carin’s three boxes. By the time, Eric, Kyle, and Adam carried up four boxes for Moose, and two boxes for Timerson, the table is littered with sealed boxes.
“Thankfully, each box is only one person each, so that means we only have 18 cases to look over, which isn’t too bad,” Eric tells them as they carry the boxes up the stairs to Kyle’s car. “Bring whatever you don’t finish today over my place early tomorrow and we can get through them that night, no problem. Sarah is looking forward to meeting you two, and she already has dinner thought out, too.”
They finish loading the car quickly since it is raining and shake hands before the detectives hop into Kyle’s car, saying a quick goodbye so that Eric can get back to work and they can get back to their office and start going through the boxes. Eric waves one last time as the car drives away, heading back into the office, and gets back to his desk to look over loan request paperwork. He only pauses to eat the lunch Sarah had made him since it is pouring rain outside still then gets back into the paperwork, getting the loans either approved or denied, writing helpful notes why they have been denied and ask for them to resubmit once they have all the right paperwork.
Eric leaves the office at the end of the day, tired but his excitement for the next day to get off work early and help Adam and Kyle keeps a smile on his face. Kyle had planned to call and ask for Eric’s help so that he can meet them at his house right after lunchtime and get to work. Eric climbs into his car and drives home, singing with his radio as he carefully maneuvers through the rainy streets.