The Consultant Read Online Free PDF Page A

and not only looked carefully at all of the framed photos displayed throughout the living room, family room, dining room and bedrooms, but took out the albums from the hall closet and looked through the pictures in there as well.  
    It didn’t help. The man in those photos was a stranger to him, someone he’d met in the past but didn’t really know. Somehow, all of those memories of moments, all of those emotions and recollections that he’d thought would be with him always had slipped away, unnoticed, and now he was left with a hole in his history where his father should have been.  
    That hole had never really gone away, and it was probably why it was so important now for Craig to spend time with his own son.  
    So Craig resented it when Scott Cho called a department meeting Wednesday afternoon and told everyone that if consultants were going to be nosing around, judging the department, they all needed to protect themselves by coming in earlier, leaving later and putting in weekend hours. As far as Craig was concerned, his free time was his own, and while both he and Angie had gotten where they were by being overachievers, they’d both backed off after Dylan was born. Their priorities had changed. Angie worked only on weekends now, and last year when she was offered additional hours on Thursday evenings, she’d turned it down flat. Yes, he still sometimes put in ten-hour days, and he was never far away from his phone or email, but he’d given up working Saturdays and he liked it that way and didn’t want to go back.  
    He wasn’t the only division head to object on family grounds, and when several of them brought up the fact that they would have less time to spend with their children, Scott told them, “I’m in the same boat. But we need to do this for the sake of the department. Just make sure you spend quality time with your kids.”  
    “That whole ‘quality time’ argument is bullshit,” Craig said. “Kids want quantity, not quality. They don’t care what they do with their parents, they just want to spend time with them, and the more time the better.”  
    “Not necessarily.”  
    “Really? Do you remember when you were a kid? Would you rather have had a jam-packed two hours with your dad where you did fun exciting stuff, or would you rather have spent the entire day with him, just being together, going to get the oil changed on the car, stopping by the hardware store to buy some nails, mowing the lawn, doing whatever?”  
    “I see your point,” Scott conceded. “But this is only temporary, until the consultants leave.”  
    “And how long is that going to be?” asked Elaine Hayman, the lone woman among the division heads. “A week? A month? Six months? A year? Some of these consultants hang around and drag things out, trying to squeeze every last dime out of the companies who hire them.”  
    Scott sighed. “Look, all I’m asking is that you make an effort to show your commitment to the company and put in some extra hours. This is not up for debate. I want every one of you to come in this weekend. I don’t care what you do, but I want you here. It’s non-negotiable.”  
    That put an end to the meeting, and Craig walked out of the room with Elaine. He’d already decided that he wasn’t going to inflict his own weekend requirement on Lupe, and Elaine said that she wasn’t going to make her secretary come in either.  
    “I am,” Sid Sukee said from behind them. “If I have to be here, Carrie has to be here.”  
    “Jerk,” Elaine muttered under her breath as he passed by.  
    “I heard that,” Sid said, not turning around. “And I don’t care.”  
    Craig smiled. “What do you expect from someone in charge of phone apps?”  
    Elaine laughed.  
    Ahead, the consultant emerged from an office and strode down the corridor toward the elevator. Craig watched him. There was nothing loose or natural in the man’s movements. Every step was deliberate, intentional, even