I’m still working on Wild Open, but this idea grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go…

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Three weeks after she was unceremoniously laid off from her job, Cara turned, in a fit of desperation, to the newspaper classifieds.

Her roommate and best friend, Loren, stood over her holding a cup of coffee, and made a skeptical noise. “Nobody uses the classifieds anymore.”

“We’ll see,” Cara said. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of newspapers at her elbow, ready to spend the morning hunting through the classifieds. Loren was probably right, but she had looked everywhere else. The newspaper was her last, flailing attempt to find something. Otherwise she wasn’t sure how she was going to pay her rent.

“Good luck with that,” Loren said, and headed for her room.

Cara bit the cap off her pen and got to work.

One would think that administrative assistant positions would be thick on the ground in New York. And they were—but after weeks of applying for every job opening she came across, Cara hadn’t gotten a single interview. Her initial determined optimism had given way to despair. She was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with her. She had a decent resume, several years of experience, and a promised glowing reference from her former boss. She was responsible. She dressed appropriately. She showed up on time for work. But nobody wanted to hire her. Nobody even wanted to interview her.

It was enough to make a girl question her self-worth.

She worked her way through the classifieds, putting a tick mark beside any positions that looked promising. Loren had been right: offerings were thin on the ground. The entire administrative/clerical section filled a single column, with a few lines spilling over into the next column. Some of the ads were duplicates of listings she had seen online. Some seemed miscategorized, like the ad for a pizza delivery driver. An ad near the bottom of the page caught her eye:

Wanted: personal secretary. No experience necessary.

Will train the right candidate. Must be quiet and biddable.

Call for more information.

And then a phone number. That was it: the entire ad.

Biddable. What an odd, old-fashioned word. And secretary, too. Nobody used that term anymore. It was probably an older man who still remembered the days when secretaries wore stockings with seams down the back and smoked at their desks while they did their typing. He would want Cara to do some filing, and maybe bring him a cup of coffee mid-morning. He probably wouldn’t pay her very much, but that was okay. She would be able to pay her bills while she continued looking for a better job.

She called later that afternoon. Loren had gone to work, and the apartment was quiet aside from the constant background noise of the upstairs neighbor’s television. Cara was frankly amazed that anybody could find a twenty-four-hour supply of police procedurals.

She dialed the number from the ad, and waited while the phone rang. Finally, long after Cara thought the line would click over to voice mail, a woman answered. “Wilton Enterprises.”

“Yes, hi,” Cara said, and winced. Hi wasn’t professional. “My name is Cara Giordano. I’m calling in response to your classified ad in the Daily News. Is that position still available?”

“It is,” the woman said. There was no warmth in her voice. “Do you have a valid driver’s license?”

“Yes,” Cara said, wondering why that mattered. “I can send you—”

The woman cut her off. “That won’t be necessary at this time. Are you available to come in for an interview tomorrow?”

Cara’s heart leaped in her chest. This was her chance, finally, to show somebody what she was worth. She opened her mouth to respond, but then reconsidered. Maybe she shouldn’t be available tomorrow. Even though she was absolutely, 100% desperate, she didn’t want to seem desperate. “Tomorrow won’t work for me, but I’m free the day after.”

The woman said nothing, and Cara cursed herself silently, afraid that she had ruined her one shot. But after a few long and agonizing seconds, the woman said, “Very well. I have an opening at 10 A.M. on Thursday.”

“That would be perfect,” Cara said, her panicked heartbeat slowing again. “10 A.M. Thursday. Great.”

The woman gave her an address, which Cara scribbled on her notepad. “When you arrive, go into the lobby and tell the man at the front desk that you’re there to speak with Sandra about the job opening. Please bring two copies of your resume and a list of your references.”

“Of course,” Cara said, writing that down. “Thank you. I’ll be there on Thursday.”

Instead of responding, the woman hung up.

Cara set down her phone, pressed her fists against her mouth, and squealed with delight.

The upstairs neighbor thumped loudly on the floor and bellowed, “QUIET DOWN!”

“Sorry,” Cara called, even though she wasn’t really sorry at all.

* * *

On Thursday morning, she took the subway to Midtown and walked to the address the woman on the phone had given her. It was a nondescript skyscraper a few blocks south of Rockefeller Center. Cara went into the large, echoing lobby. Every surface was made of marble or glass, and there were no carpets or plants to soften the space. Aside from a few benches arranged around the perimeter, the lobby’s only feature was a high reception desk at the back, beside the bank of elevators.

The man sitting at that desk watched Cara as she approached. His focus was so intense and his expression was so bland that she glanced down at herself to make sure she didn’t have a stain on her skirt or something. Everything was in order. Her blouse was tucked in. Her stockings hadn’t run.

“May I help you?” the man asked, when she came to a stop.

“I’m here to speak with Sandra about the job opening, please,” Cara said. She was pleased that her voice sounded steady and confident. She was already feeling intimidated, and she hadn’t even gotten to the interview yet. Everything about the lobby seemed designed to make a person quake in her professional black leather pumps.

The man pressed the mouthpiece of his headset closer to his lips and spoke briefly, too quietly for Cara to make out his words. He nodded, and then said to Cara, “She’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” Cara said, and turned and walked away from the desk, and then realized she didn’t have anywhere to go. The benches were too far, halfway back toward the door, and she didn’t want to make that trek with the man’s eyes on her the whole way.

She settled for waiting awkwardly by the elevators, hands clasped in front of her like an obedient schoolgirl. The man at the desk was probably laughing at her. If only there were an actual waiting area, somewhere with chairs and maybe a few magazines—

One of the elevators opened, interrupting her wishful thinking. A woman emerged, dressed in a severe black pantsuit and black heels, her hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her face was smooth, unlined, and just as expressionless as the receptionist’s. She could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty.

“Cara Giordano?” she asked, extending her hand.

“That’s me,” Cara said, and they shook hands.

The woman had a firm, cool grip. “I’m Sandra,” she said. “I’ll be interviewing you today. Right this way, please.” She gestured toward the elevator.

They rode upward in awkward silence. Cara felt awkward, at least. Sandra didn’t seem to notice. Cara tried desperately to think of something to say—Nice weather we’re having—but couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t completely inane, and in the end decided to just keep her mouth shut.

The doors opened again, and they went out into a small waiting area, with the overstuffed chairs and magazines Cara had wished for earlier. A row of windows lined one wall. They were quite high above the city, and Cara could see the trees of Central Park in the distance.

Sandra led Cara down a short hallway and into a bright, sparsely furnished office. “We’ll talk in here,” she said, and closed the door.

Cara realized just then what it was that had her so unsettled. Aside from Sandra and the man at the reception desk, she hadn’t seen a single other person in the building. It was weird.

Sandra sat at the big desk, and Cara sat in one of the chairs on the other side and took out her resume and the list of her references. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview,” she said. “I’m excited to talk with you today.”

Sandra smiled for the first time. “Someone taught you how to interview.”

“Oh,” Cara said, feeling like she had been caught with one hand in the cookie jar. “I guess I’m—I did a little reading…”

“I’m making you nervous,” Sandra said. “Don’t mind me. Do you have your resume?”

Cara handed it over, grateful for an excuse not to say anything. She was nervous. Everything about this job gave her a bad feeling: the weird ad, the weird building, the man at the front desk, and Sandra herself, icy as the Arctic.

Sandra spent several minutes studying Cara’s resume. It was only one page long, but Sandra appeared to be taking it very seriously, even marking notes in a few places. “Why did you leave your most recent position?”

“I was laid off,” Cara said. “The company was having financial problems. My supervisor there is one of my references, so—”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Sandra said. “You seem very qualified.”

Cara didn’t know how to respond to that. She wasn’t ‘very qualified.’ She was twenty-five. She had a bachelor’s degree and three years of experience working as an admin assistant at two different companies. She could type pretty fast, and she knew how to operate a multi-line phone system. But anyone could do those things, probably, with a little training. Cara was hard-working and dutiful, but she knew she wasn’t anything special. Just an ordinary person. She felt awkward in the face of Sandra’s praise.

“Let me tell you a little bit about the position,” Sandra said, setting Cara’s resume to one side. “Your potential employer values his privacy very highly. For now, I’ll refer to him as Mr. X. You’ll be expected to perform basic clerical tasks for Mr. X. Sorting his mail, answering the phone, running errands… as well as certain duties related to his condition.”

“Condition?” Cara asked, imagining heart problems, or maybe diabetes. She could probably learn to administer insulin shots.

Sandra folded her hands on top of the table. “Are you familiar with paranormals?”

Cara swallowed. “Paranormals? You mean—”

“Mr. X is a lycanthrope,” Sandra said. Her mouth tightened. “Known in common parlance as a werewolf.”