She went back to the Archives to get her coat.
Hillary was waiting for her. She had rallied the troops. Three other assistants were standing with her, forming a wall in front of Cressie's locker.
"Going somewhere?" Hillary sneered. "Did the boss kick you out?"
Cressie was in pain. Her hip was bruising. Her patience was gone.
"Move," she said.
"Make me," Hillary said. She kicked a stack of heavy file boxes into Cressie's path. "Oops. Blocked."
Cressie looked at the boxes. Then she looked at Hillary.
She didn't step over them. She didn't walk around.
She lifted her foot and kicked the top box. Hard.
It flew off the stack and crashed into Hillary's shins.
"Ow!" Hillary shrieked, jumping back. "You assault me! I'm calling security!"
"Call them," Cressie said. She stepped over the fallen box. She got right in Hillary's face.
"And while you're on the phone, tell them to check the expense reports for the 'client dinners' you billed last month. The ones at Le Bernardin?"
Hillary went still.
"I saw the receipts," Cressie whispered. "You didn't go with clients. You went with your boyfriend. And you ordered the tasting menu for two. That's embezzlement, Hillary. That's a felony."
Hillary's mouth opened and closed like a fish.
"I... I..."
"One more word," Cressie said, "and I send the PDF to the IRS."
The other assistants backed away. They looked at Cressie with new eyes. This wasn't the doormat they knew. This was a shark.
Cressie grabbed her coat and her bag. She walked out of the Archives for the last time.
Upstairs, in the security room, Ellsworth was watching the monitor. He had asked security to pull the feed to see if Cressie had left the building.
He saw the kick.
He saw the way she got in Hillary's face. He saw Hillary-usually so aggressive-shrink back in terror.
"Rewind that," Ellsworth said to the guard.
He watched it again. The kick. The confidence.
A strange feeling stirred in his chest. Suspicion.
"She's got a temper," the guard muttered.
"No," Ellsworth said quietly, his eyes narrowing. "She's calculating. She had leverage on Hillary. Where did she get it?"
He pulled his phone out. He looked at the contact Cressie. He hesitated. She was playing a game. He just didn't know the rules yet.
Then he put it away.
Cressie hailed a cab outside.
"Where to?"
"Brooklyn," she said. "Winters Residence."
She needed her dad. She needed to remember who she was before she became Mrs. Banks. She knew she had to return to the Banks Estate before nightfall to keep the Trust agreement intact, but for a few hours, she needed sanctuary.
---
