The Villain's Notice Period

How it begins

Marcus Cole's resignation was eleven words long.

Elena counted them twice, looking for the trap.

Please accept this as notice. My last day is the thirtieth.

No gratitude. No explanation. No offer to help with the transition.

The man had spent twelve years making other people's disasters disappear. Apparently he intended to leave his own on her desk.

She walked into his office without knocking.

"You can't resign during an investigation."

Marcus looked up from a box of paper clips.

"According to the policy, I can."

"I wrote the policy."

"I thought the wording was excellent."

He placed the paper clips in a small cardboard box. Elena found this more disturbing than a shredded document would have been.

"What's happening on the thirtieth?"

"My employment ends."

"And on the twenty-ninth?"

"Presumably a farewell cake."

She shut the door.

Outside the glass wall, their colleagues continued to perform the ordinary motions of a company preparing to be sold. Someone carried flowers toward a meeting room. Someone else practiced smiling at a screen.

Elena put the resignation on his desk.

"You signed off the relocation payments."

"Yes."

"Then you're staying until I know where the people went."

Marcus stopped packing.

For several seconds, the office seemed to lose its background noise.

"Which people?"

"The three employees listed as external communications expenses."

He looked at the closed door.

Then at the camera in the corner.

Elena had approved that camera. Workplace safety, the proposal had said.

Marcus wrote something on a blank card and slid it beneath the resignation.

Do not ask me that here.

She read it without changing her expression.

"Thirty days," she said.

"That's the contract."

"Then I supervise every one of them."

He took a second card.

This time he hesitated before writing.

Bring your own coffee tomorrow.

Elena looked at the cup his assistant had left beside her usual chair.

For once, Marcus had nothing clever to say.