The Panic Pure

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

He had managed to make it through the rest of the week without making a complete fool of himself, but by the end of work on Friday he couldn't resist any longer.

Even knowing that it was a stupid thing to do, Marshal found himself parking his car in the Worth Enterprises parking garage. He would have gone to Daniel Worth's house, but he instinctively knew the man wouldn't be able to handle something like that. He was very high-strung and someone invading his personal space might very well send him over the edge.

Drawing in a deep breath, he shut off the car engine and sat there for a long moment. This was his last chance to just turn around and go home. To not make an ass out of himself over someone he didn't even know, hadn't even had a real conversation with.

He could drive back home to his lonely apartment, heat up a TV dinner, maybe drink a beer or two, then crawl into his lonely bed. And he could spend the rest of his life regretting what he had never had, what he had never tried to have.

Stepping out of his car and walking to the elevator was probably one of the hardest things he had ever done, but it was something he knew he had to do. Even if Daniel told him to get out, he would at least know that he had bothered to try.

It took forever to get up to Daniel's office, and the whole way he had to keep giving himself pep talks to keep from running away. It made him feel just a little ridiculous, but that ability to laugh at himself allowed him to keep on going.

Daniel's assistant, Sophia, was talking on her phone when he wandered up to her desk. She nodded at him and held up one finger, telling him to wait.

He sat down on the comfortable leather couch and flipped through a magazine that was mostly perfume samples and advertisements. The pages were glossy under his fingertips, though the ink smeared and made the skin that touched it black.

"Agent Newman?" she called after a few minutes. "Did you need to ask some more questions about Ms. Brooks?"

He jumped a little. Without really knowing how it had happened, he had actually managed to distract himself from where he was. He stood and walked over to her desk. "Hey, I'm not here on official business," he said. "I was just hoping that I could get in for a few minutes to talk to Mr. Worth?"

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow, then rose to her feet and walked over to Daniel's office door. She barely knocked before walking in, the door clicking firmly shut behind her.

Marshal glanced down at the intercom button on her desk and wondered why she hadn't just used that. He had noticed it the other day too when she had gone into Daniel's office to tell him they were here rather than calling him on the phone or anything else.

It made Marshal's analytical mind wonder if it involved one of Daniel's quirks. He had only seen the man for a few minutes, but he already knew that there were some unresolved issues there, some of them probably pretty serious.

Sophia came back out of the office. "Agent Newman, Mr. Worth says that he'll see you now."

"Thank you," he said. Then paused in front of the suddenly looming door to draw in a deep breath, hoping that it would imbue him with the bravery to face the almost certain rejection he was going to receive.

He rapped his hand against the door, waiting until he heard the softly voiced, "Come in," before entering.

Daniel Worth was sitting behind his desk, his face turned toward Marshal curiously. There was no fear or nervousness on him here in the safety of his office. There was none of the jittery energy going through him that had been present when Marshal had seen him at his house.