Read Covert Intents: A Branson Family Novella for Free Online Page A

—give her a book and she could get lost for days— so she shouldn’t have any problem now.
    She took the stairs —still not quite ready to take the elevator— the three floors up from the classrooms to the level that held her office. She dug inside her bag to find her office key but as she pushed it in the lock, the door slid open before she could turn it.
    Why was her office door unlocked?
    Rachel walked cautiously into the space. “Hello?”
    Her office, like those of most the graduate assistants, wasn’t very large, maybe twelve feet squared. There was barely room for her desk, a bookshelf and another small worktable.
    Nobody could be hiding in here, unless they were under her desk. She walked quickly around to look.
    Nothing.
    Of course, nothing. She was letting the fact that she hadn’t gotten any decent sleep last night take another toll on her. She’d just left her office unlocked. It happened.
    Okay, she didn’t ever remember doing that before, but it could’ve happened.
    She set her two bags full of books and class materials down on her desk and shrugged off her sweater. She needed some coffee and something to eat. Both could be found in the break room down the hall.
    The break room was a great place. A fridge, microwave and pretty fancy coffee maker took care of her hunger and thirst needs. But mostly Rachel liked it because of the stacks of books everywhere. There were bookshelves in rows, in essence its own library. The large freestanding shelves were haphazardly placed all over the room, almost creating a maze.
    All the books people couldn’t fit in their offices were placed here. And they were everywhere: the shelves, stacks on floors, tables, windowsills.
    Rachel had always loved books, and loved these, even if most of them had to do with computer science. She felt like this room had more character than any other she’d been in on campus, so hanging out here was never a problem.
    She grabbed her coffee and warmed up leftovers and headed back toward her office, still trying to shake her spooked feeling. But between what happened in the elevator yesterday, and lack of sleep last night, she just couldn’t get rid of it. Normally she loved that no one was around on Friday. Today it was just making her nervous.
    She’d eat her lunch then go home. Forget about her posted office hours. Students never came by during office hours anyway. And this way she wouldn’t have to worry about running into Seth or Ryan.
    Walking faster with her new plan in mind, she turned the corner to find her office door cracked open again.
    Sh e kne w she had closed it when she left for the break room.
    “Hello?”
    She pushed the door open all the way. There was a man standing behind her desk. All the drawers in her desk were open and the textbooks she had brought up from the classroom were spread out all over.
    She kept herself very close to the door so she could run if needed, but relaxed marginally when the man had the same green coveralls Seth normally wore.
    “Can I help you?” she asked.
    The man moved behind her desk slightly. “I’m with maintenance. Just a routine search of offices for any pests or rodents.”
    “Oh. I didn’t know you guys did stuff like that.” Or know why he would be looking through her drawers for bugs. “You’re not the normal guy who works this floor.”
    The man’s eyes narrowed. “No, I’m not normally on this floor.”
    “Yeah, Patrick usually works here. Where’s he today?” There was no Patrick working here, as far as Rachel knew. There especially wasn’t one who worked on this floor in the last two months. Rachel didn’t know why she lied. All she knew was that this guy was lying too.
    He shrugged. “I talked to Patrick a few minutes ago. He’ll be up here to help with some of the other offices in just a few.”
    She needed to get out of here, to call security to figure out what was going on, but her cell phone was in her cardigan pocket.
    “I’ll just go work