“Some of these are going to sound really silly,” I warned. “For starters, I think we need a secret Santa program.”
“What’s that?”
Was there really a corporation in America that didn’t put its employees through that torturous ritual, whatever politically correct name they gave it? I’d been stuck playing Santa to my evil former boss, Mimi, the year before, and it had taken every ounce of self-control I had to do nice things for her instead of lacing homemade fudge with rat poison.
“It’s like a secret pal program. Everyone draws names, and then they do little surprises for the person whose name they drew. In some places, they just do one gift exchange. In others, they spend the entire month of December leaving fun little clues and presents, leading up to a more major gift exchange where the secret Santas are revealed. I was thinking that could work in two ways for us. If people have to focus on being nice to a particular person, that means they’ll have to pay attention to that person to figure out what to do and what their routine is so they can surprise them.”
“And that means you’re actually putting together a one-on-one surveillance program,” he concluded. “I like it.”
“But it’s also going to make people feel good once they start getting surprises, and since they won’t know who’s giving them treats, they might be motivated to be a little nicer to everyone.”
He made a note on the pad by his computer. “Isabel and I will take care of matching up names and getting the instructions out there. I take it you want to do this throughout the month?”
“Yeah. And then is there a big company holiday party?”
“Yes. It’s quite the to-do. We haven’t exchanged gifts before, but we could do a gift exchange where the identities of the secret Santas are revealed. That would even work as an icebreaker.” He made another note, then gave me a wicked grin that nearly made me swoon. I forced myself to imagine his bedpost, riddled with notches from women who’d fallen under his spell—literally—and to remember his status on my suspect list. “We don’t have to assign people truly randomly, do we? We can act like it’s random, but we can match up people who need to get over some personal issues.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to match up sworn enemies,” I cautioned. “Then it can get ugly. It works best with people who don’t know each other all that well. It forces them to get to know each other.”
“Good thinking. Any other ideas?”
“That’s my most immediate one, and the one I think that’ll be easiest to implement. We should probably also do some team-building activities, something that brings a group of people together from various departments to solve problems.”
He smiled, and my heart rate increased. “This is taking me back to my days in business school when I was studying human resources. I never thought I’d implement any of that at a company like this. Give me a chance to see what I can come up with, okay?” There was a fresh gleam in his eye. It might have been part of the illusion, but I suspected it had more to do with him finally feeling useful and relevant in the grand scheme of things.
He should feel grateful for that, I thought. So grateful, maybe, that he’d feel the need to thank me in very interesting ways. I had a few suggestions, in case he couldn’t think of anything. I cleared my throat to drop a hint, then caught myself. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone who could date twenty different women in a month. “So, I guess that’s everything we needed to talk about,” I said, the words spilling out of me in a rush as I pushed myself out of my chair. “E-mail me when you get some ideas.” I fled his office before he could say anything else.
My mental to-do list was growing longer by the minute. I needed to figure out why I wasn’t immune anymore and how to reverse it, if such a thing was possible. I needed to find our spy. I needed to find out why Hertwick had been in Central Park the other day during business hours and if it had anything to do with the things I was investigating.
I passed a man banging furiously on a shut door. “I’m supposed to be in that meeting, damn it!” he shouted as he rattled the doorknob. “Open the door or I’ll blow a hole in the wall. I’m not a spy!”
Oh yeah, and I had to help ratchet down the paranoia level in the company. That would have been a lot easier if I didn’t have very good reason to be paranoid myself. It was hard not to feel hunted when Idris and his henchmen kept showing up and my immunity was on the fritz.
Suddenly a horrible idea came to me. The way Rod had looked at me—had he known my secret? I hadn’t ruled him out as the spy, but what if he was also the one who’d found a way to remove my immunity? After all, he’d been there when I realized for the first time that my immunity was gone. Come to think of it, what was he doing heading to the office on a Saturday afternoon during a holiday weekend? If he’d tampered with my immunity somehow, he’d be able to influence me and distract me from my mission. I made a mental note to look into this and see what the chances were that he’d had anything to do with the break-in. But first, I had another errand to take care of while I was out and about.
