What's Yours is Mine by Talia Quinn Page B

all. What did you want to say to Stan, anyway?”
    “Oh, I’m just calling him back. Tell him I’ll teleconference into tomorrow’s meeting, okay?”
    Mathias grunted and hung up. Wow. That hadn’t gone well.  
    A car pulled up on the street in front of the condo. A little girl popped out of the backseat, the same kid she’d seen out the back window creeping in the grass. She was maybe eight or nine, with her hair in five pigtails of uneven lengths held back with barrettes, and glasses that she pushed up on her nose. Darcy watched as the girl’s mother got out of the driver’s side, went around to the trunk, and started unloading canvas grocery bags.  
    Darcy’s phone sang her work ringtone. She thumbed it on. “Hello?”
    “My dear, I hear you’re spending today at home again. Are you sick?”
    “Hi, Stan. Nothing like that, I’m keeping up with work, not to worry.”
    He snorted. “You sure you’re not playing hooky? Should I come over and smell your breath?” He sounded hopeful.  
    She laughed. “Sorry, Stan. Clean and sober and working like a dog.”
    “Pity. Have some fun sometime, would ya?” His sigh whuffled through the phone line. “Seriously, though, what have you gotten yourself into over there?”  
    “You spoke to Will Dougherty, didn’t you?”
    Silence on the line. Then, “I did.” His voice sounded heavy.
    Done with her unloading, the mother pointed toward a condo a few doors down from where Darcy was sitting and handed the girl a key ring. She spoke rapidly. The girl nodded.  
    “He was…unpleasant. It sounds like it’s even more of a mess over there than the way he left here. You do remember that fiasco, right?  
    “He embezzled money from the Slippery Elm account. That is what happened, isn’t it? You never pressed charges.”
    “You know me.” Stan’s sigh turned into a hacking cough. “Sorry, something went down wrong.”  
    She did know him. “You felt bad for him. For Will.”
    Across the complex, the mom spoke again. The girl rolled her eyes— Well, it was impossible to tell from this distance, but her stance said it all. The mom got back into the minivan and drove away, no doubt heading for the parking lot around the side of the complex. The girl headed through the courtyard, stopping to twirl around the banana tree.  
    On the phone, Stan said, “What Dougherty did was wrong, no question, but everyone makes mistakes, right?”
    Darcy nodded thoughtfully. “So they say. Speaking of which, I heard the strangest thing the other day. Do you know much about triclosate?”
    The girl was now crawling under the ficus, acting as if it were enemy territory and she was a sniper or a spy, Darcy wasn’t sure which.  
    “Triclosate? You know how I feel about those chemical concoctions. Other companies may take shortcuts, but we’re different. Skin is like the heart; it needs loving nourishment.”
    She’d accidentally pressed the Canned Lecture button. “There’s no chance it could have somehow contaminated one of our products, is there?”
    Stan’s sharp inhale told her all she needed to know. “You’ve heard something? Which product? Concrete or rumor? What did you hear, exactly?”
    “Nothing solid, it’s just…”
    He made a hmm noise. “Is this through your Shanghai contacts, or Dougherty?”
    “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
    “No, you did right. I believe in open lines of communication, you know that. If there’s something amiss, we should get to the bottom of it. But it was Dougherty, I gather? He said something about that back when he was working here. I didn’t pay it much mind. You know I’d never authorize something like that. It’s against my religion.”
    “I know.” It sounded so thin, now that she said it aloud. An embezzler accusing the company—well, accusing her, in point of fact. And she’d taken it seriously. Her stomach felt sour.  
    The pigtailed girl arrived at her front door, across the courtyard. She stuck the key