"There's a detective here to see you," her newest assistant said, standing nervously in her door. Miranda raised an eyebrow. That was all it took.
"Right, I'll tell them you're busy," she said, scurrying away.
Returning to the photos from the previous day's shoot in Central Park, Miranda dismissed the interruption from her mind, ignoring the faint buzz of voices in the outer office.
"They insist on seeing you," the insufferable girl told her, returning a minute later.
"Coffee," Miranda ordered, waving her away.
"Yes, Miranda," she said, disappearing in a blur of movement.
"Ms. Priestly?" Friday, her First Assistant, said in the overly respectable tone she used whenever she expected to be fired. She wasn't the best assistant Miranda had ever had, but like only one before her she'd not only earned her place in the pantheon of legendary assistants but her own nickname bestowed by Nigel before he left for greener pastures.
Picking up her glasses from her desk, Miranda slid them onto her face, pausing for that all important second before firmly putting them in place, ready to give the invaders the full force of her displeasure at their presence. As she got older, Miranda found her tolerance for fools and their nonsense to reach an all time low by mid afternoon.
"Yes?" she asked, looking at her pale assistant for enlightenment, with an inflection that could send rats fleeing from a perfectly seaworthy craft.
"Ms. Summers and Detective Polniaczek insisted that they see you now," Friday said.
Miranda focused on the women visible in her outer office, behind Friday.
"They can make an appointment like anyone else," she said dismissively.
"Sorry ma'am, they won't leave," Friday said. "They want to talk about an Andy Sachs." She gave Miranda a questioning look.
"Of course," Miranda muttered to herself, grimacing at a name that hadn't been uttered in her office in over half a decade. "Who else."
"Show them in," she said.
Entering first, the detective projected an air of authority, without appearing threatening, Miranda noticed, hiding her mild surprise. She obviously hadn't gone to the same interview school as the FBI agents who had barged into her office several weeks ago ready to accuse her of some kind of vendetta against incompetent former assistants she'd fired.
The other woman, entering after a brief discussion with a much taller woman who took up a position just outside her door, wouldn't have looked out of place in 'Runway' if she wasn't so much shorter than average. Watching her stop next to the detective, her movements were oddly erotic as she seemed to not so much walk as flow into place. There was something about her that set off alarms in Miranda's mind.
