Page 49 of The Picasso Heist

CALL IT A CEO power move. Or just Waxman being Waxman.

Instead of heading back with me to his office, he hijacks Jacinda’s. “Can you give us a few minutes?” he asks, although it’s definitely not a question.

The look on Jacinda’s face when she realizes she’s being kicked out of her own office is priceless. “Oh, um, yes, of course,” she says.

Waxman strolls in and immediately takes a seat on the couch against the wall behind me. “Oh, and Jacinda?”

“Yes?”

“Close the door on the way out, will you?”

Normally I’d be enjoying the hell out of this moment, but now all I can think about is what’s going to happen after that door closes.

Does Waxman know something? My mind’s scrambling, trying to figure out what it could be.

Did I overlook a detail? Have I somehow left a loose thread dangling over me like a noose?

“Halston, let’s talk over here. Have a seat,” he says, nodding at the chair opposite him.

I do as he says. Everyone at Echelon does as Waxman says.

We’re face to face. I still can’t get a read on him. There’s only a glass coffee table between us, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon. “Is everything okay?” I ask.

“That’s an interesting question,” he says.

“How so?”

“You know. With everything that’s happened.”

“Right,” I say. “Of course.”

“So what were you and Jacinda talking about?” he asks.

I hesitate on purpose. I need to appear uncomfortable answering. It’s only natural. “I was resigning,” I say finally.

“Resigning? Why would you do that? You just started. You don’t like it here?”

“I do—”

“Good.” He cuts me off. “Then it’s settled. Congratulations, Halston.”

“On what?”

“Your promotion,” he says. “I’m making you vice president of member relations.”

“Vice president?”

“I know, right? Getting that title while still so young—it’s really going to piss off a lot of people around here. But that’s a good thing.”

“It is?”

“Absolutely. They all need to see what I truly value, and that’s commitment,” he says. “In the heat of the moment, when everyone else, including me, froze, you took action.” He leans forward and whispers, “You chased the thief.”

“I just wish I could’ve caught him,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter.” Waxman stops and smiles. “Well, I suppose it matters to Enzio Bergamo, but that’s what insurance is for, right? He’ll be just fine.”

“I suppose.”

“I don’t mean to be flip about the guy but…” His voice trails off.

“What?”

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he says. Which is what everyone says before they end up telling you. Waxman leans in again. “Do you know what that prick had the nerve to tell me the next day? Bergamo said he wished you hadn’t tried to run down the thief. Can you imagine?”

“To be honest, I had a similar thought. Or, actually, I was worried others might think it. You know, because—”

“Because the painting got destroyed? Nonsense.” He gets up from the couch and sits on the edge of the coffee table directly in front of me.

“That’s how the sheep think, and you’re no sheep, Halston.

That’s why you’re moving upstairs to the top floor.

That’s where the shepherds are. You are a shepherd, aren’t you? ”

He stares at me and I realize it’s not a rhetorical question. Okay, sure, I’ll play along. “I’m definitely not a sheep,” I say.

“That’s right, you’re not. Even I didn’t run after the thief, and I’m supposed to be the king shepherd around here.” He places a hand on my knee. Above my knee, actually. He’s almost in thigh territory. “So how ’bout it, Halston? Will you help keep me in line?”

Just like that, I go from being promoted to being hit on, and in the office of the head of human resources, no less. I’m not sure exactly what’s happening, but I do know one thing.

Smarmy Waxman has just made it impossible for me to leave Echelon.