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- Herausgeber: BookRix
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
When a big enough storm hits anywhere in the country, a catastrophe adjuster's planned vacation gets unplanned. And quick. That is how it is. And that is how Marty had lived his entire career. You work when there is work. You never know how long it will last. When it ends, you never know when it will start again. Welcome to the stressful world of catastrophe claims adjusting and the colorful, hard-edged characters who occupy it. Welcome to Martine Pantonelli's world. This is where Marty lives. This is where Marty thrives. Or is it? A perturbed boss, baffled coworkers, frantic ex-wife, and distraught daughter are desperately seeking to find the answer to one increasingly mystifying question... Where is Marty? As the clock ticks, the search intensifies, the mystery deepens.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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For all those who know that old insurance claims professionals never die. They adjust. And for Donya, whose ability to adjust and readjust and adjust again defies description. I love you.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 MunichDisclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
6:57 am
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose; Nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free…” ~Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson
There was plenty of work to do.
The untidy cubicle featured a giant stack of printed-out, scribbled-on claims papers—some stapled to contractors’ estimates, others crumpled from having been tossed into the waste basket, only to be retrieved and scribbled on more. The scribbling was the hurried writing of a weary worker that didn’t care whether anyone but himself could cipher it. Next to the gun barrel-gray keyboard with the mostly rubbed-off letters and numbers rested a ceramic coffee mug that read, “Life’s a Beach,” had a hair-line fracture in its handle and was stained on the inside from years of hosting the black goop that passed for coffee in the break room. Along the bottom of the new flat screen computer monitor, sticky notes were placed with reminders to document this or email that.
File folders hastily labeled in the same careless handwriting as the claims papers were scattered on the desk, looking as if they might have been neatly stacked at one time, but someone rifled through them in a panic.
The plastic, Office Depot-bought desk caddy needed dusting. It held assorted highlighters, pens, a calculator, scissors, a stapler and three loose Camel cigarettes.
The nondescript, black office chair, tilted slightly backwards, was pushed away from the desk and turned toward the cubicle’s exit.
Two walls of the cubicle, the one with the entrance/exit in it and the one facing front were windowed walls. Well, the top half was windowed. The rest of the walls were covered in a fabric and made of the kind of bulletin board material conducive to push pins but not conducive to sound-proofing. To the left of the monitor was pinned a calendar with the familiar hieroglyphic-looking scribbling on it. To the right was a messy mosaic of family pictures, mostly faded, some creased, but all featuring laughing kids, a buxom, brunette mom and a beaming, balding dad. The newest of the photos was at least 25 years old.
The rest of the cubicle’s walls, above the desk level, were covered in printed-out reminders of this process or that mandate, some having yellowed under the fluorescent lights. The only indication of any sort of recreational ambition was a Dallas Cowboys schedule, pinned prominently to the back wall. It had a Sunday in October circled in black ink on it. But then that same Sunday had a big, red X over it. The message was clear: he had intended to go to that game. Probably had tickets and everything. Then, a storm hit somewhere in the Southeast or Midwest or maybe up in New England. And all bets were off.
When a big enough storm hits anywhere in the country, a catastrophe adjuster’s planned vacation gets unplanned. And quick. That is how it is. You work when there is work. You never know how long it will last. When it ends, you never know when it will start again.
The phone was shoved against that back wall directly below the Cowboys’ schedule and its attending headset was precariously clinging to the pushpin on which it had been draped, just to the right of the calendar. The red light was blinking on the phone. Which, of course, meant he was logged into his phone and somebody or a whole bunch of somebodies had been trying like mad to reach him?
