You Looked Down on Me Once, Now You Look Up. novel Chapter 530

When Patricia saw Brandon’s name pop up on her phone, her stomach dropped. She already knew it wouldn’t be good news.

“Someone up top is putting the squeeze on Emerson’s case,” Brandon said.

“Do you know who?” Patricia asked.

He hesitated. Patricia could tell he had a guess, but he kept it to himself. “No idea. Just thought you should know.”

“Thanks. I’ll handle it.”

That should’ve been the end of the call. But Brandon didn’t hang up. He just held the phone, silent, like he might say something else.

Patricia waited.

After a while, all she got was a sigh and a quiet, “Talk soon.”

Outside, the summer air was stifling. Waves of heat shimmered above the courtyard, making everything feel sticky and tense. Brandon flicked his cigarette, stubbing it out on the blue-and-white wall beside him. The surface was already speckled with little gray burns, reminders of moments just like this.

Right as he finished, he remembered that memo from a few weeks ago: No stubbing cigarettes on the wall. Fine: fifty bucks.

His heart dropped. He turned and found his coworker grinning at him, hand out, wiggling his fingers. In his palm was a QR code—the janitor’s, of course.

“Come on. Time to pay the fine. Scan it.”

Brandon grumbled, but he was already fishing out his phone. “You were just waiting for me, weren’t you?”

“Obviously. I sat out here in this heat, watched you smoke five cigarettes, just to catch you once.”

“So you finally caught me,” Brandon said, entering his password. “Congrats. You should work on your vocabulary, though.”

“Forget that. What I really want to know is, you managed not to stub out the first four, so what happened with the fifth?”

Brandon shot him a look. “Go ask the old man selling buns out front how old he is.”

“He’s eighty. So?”

“You know how he made it that far?”

“You trying to make a point?”

Brandon just smirked. “Glad you get it.”

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