Eye of the Storm

Chapter

Forty-two

KERRY FOUND HERSELF on the ground and for a long moment, she simply stood there, letting the chaos around her pass her by as she absorbed the steadiness of the earth under her feet and took in breaths of air untainted with smoke and dust. Then she turned and tilted her head back, reassuring herself of the slow progress of the bucket on its way down before she turned and paid attention to the paramedic who was talking to her. “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”

“I said, would you come over here, ma’am, and let us take a look at you?” the woman repeated, taking her elbow.

Ceci appeared at her side. “She had a dislocated shoulder,” she told the paramedic, as Kerry obediently allowed the paramedic to lead her over to what appeared to be a triage area, where she sat down on a bench.

“Doesn’t look dislocated.” The woman gently removed the dirty singed sling Kerry still wore. “Someone put it back in for you?”

Kerry nodded. “Yes.” She took a breath. “It really hurt.”

“I bet it did.” She carefully manipulated Kerry’s arm. “How’s it feel now?”

“Sore.” She sighed. “But then, just about everything’s sore. It’s kind of hard to judge.” She winced as the medic touched her forearm. “I think I got burned there.”

“Mmm. Yes, you did.” The medic looked around. “How about you lie down on that gurney over there and let me get someone to take a look at this, okay?” She took Kerry by the arm, led her over, and then helped her settle down on the rolling cot, pulling the sheet up to her waist and positioning her arm carefully on her stomach. “You just stay right there.”

“Okay.” Kerry let out a breath, glad to be still. She turned her head towards Ceci and blinked. “Are they down yet?”

The gray eyes lifted then returned. “Almost.” Ceci seated herself on the grass next to the gurney and leaned against a stone disposal. “I see the press has found your father.”

Kerry turned her head that way and watched. “He did okay up there.” Her voice took on a note of tired wonder.

“He proved his paternity,” Ceci remarked dryly.

Kerry gave her a puzzled look.

“That was a compliment.”

Eye of the Storm 395

“Oh.” She rubbed her face, blinking her stinging eyes, then looked up as a man in green surgical scrubs knelt next to her. “Hello.”

He glanced at her. “Hi there.” Professional hands carefully lifted her forearm and examined it. “Well, that’s a nasty burn, but I think you got lucky.”

“Lucky,” Kerry murmured.

“Let me look at your head now.” Gentle fingers probed. “That’s a pretty bad bump.”

“Bump?” Kerry thought about that. “I don’t remember that.”

“Probably when you went through the drywall,” Ceci supplied, glancing at the basket finally making its landing. “You were out for about fifteen minutes.”

“I was?”

“Ummhmm.”

“I think we need to take you in and take some x-rays. Just stay quiet here and we’ll transport you in a little while, okay?” The doctor spread a faintly spicy smelling salve over the burn on her arm and covered it with a light layer of gauze. “Have you been coughing? Does your throat hurt?”

“No. Not really.” Kerry cleared her throat experimentally. “Kind of raw, though.”

“Okay. We’ll check you for smoke inhalation. Just lie back and relax.”

That sounded like a good idea. Now that it was over. Well, sort of.

All the little scrapes and cuts and bangs were surfacing and she felt like she’d been run through a trash compactor.

There were so many things to think about and she didn’t want to think about any of them. “Doctor?”

“Mmm?” He looked up from cleaning a cut on Kerry’s collarbone.

“Kerry!” Dar’s voice cut in, and she dropped to one knee, smiling.

“Hey. I’ve got great news.”

Kerry’s eyes fastened on her face trustingly. “What is it?” She could see the honest happiness on her lover’s face and it brought a smile to her own. “Did you find Angie?”

“Not exactly.” Dar twined their fingers. “She’s already at the other hospital. You’re an aunt.”

Every bit of pain just vanished for a simple, golden moment. “Yes!”

She exulted. “Oh god. Yes. I knew it. I knew she was all right, Dar.” She was halfway between laughing and crying. “Thank you. How’d you find out?”

“Everyone knows,” Dar replied. “She was one of the first ones out.

She told everyone who she was and the place went berserk.”

“Oh.”

“That explains all the press,” Ceci remarked. “Otherwise a fire hardly would have drawn Dan Rather.”

“Fire?” The doctor finished his work. “Ma’am, that was no fire. It was an explosion.” He patted Kerry’s uninjured shoulder. “I’ll be back.”

There was a moment of silence, as they looked at each other. Then 396 Melissa Good Andrew came up and took a seat next to his wife. “Some dumb bastards blew the place up?”

“Who?” Kerry asked. “Who would want to blow up a hospital?”

The ex-SEAL shook his head. “They dunno yet.” He sighed. “Got them a coffee tent over there. You all want some?” He pushed to his feet and Ceci joined him. “We’ll bring some back.”

“You want anything else?” Ceci asked, as her fingers brushed Dar’s hair lightly.

Dar sighed, swallowing her first, instinctive answer. “Coffee’s fine.

Thanks.” Then her parents were gone and she and Kerry were relatively alone, the surrounding chaos effectively isolating them.

Kerry breathed in the damp air. “What time is it?”

“I have no idea.” Dar leaned her arms on the gurney and ran her thumb over Kerry’s fingers. “I’m glad about your sister.”

Kerry lifted her other hand and ran it through Dar’s dark and very tangled hair. “Me too.” Dar looked up, her face covered in soot and scrapes, and her eyes bloodshot. “Crappy day, huh?”

The neatly shaped lips tensed into a smile. “You and I are here at the end of it. That’s good enough for me,” Dar admitted. “But yeah. I think I’ve had better twenty-four hour periods in my time.”

Kerry cupped her cheek and Dar’s eyes fluttered closed in reaction.

“I love you.”

Dar opened her eyes and gazed at her. “I love you, too.”

“I’m really glad nothing happened to you, Dar,” Kerry went on.

“Because I don’t think…I would have wanted to make it out of there if it had.”

Dar’s jaw clenched, moving the muscles under the skin. “Yeah,” she muttered hoarsely. “You gave me a scare in there a few times.” She leaned into Kerry’s touch, glad it was over, and not really caring what happened next.

Footsteps approached and Dar looked up, expecting to see her parents or the doctor, and surprised when it was a young woman in khaki pants and a blue shirt who knelt at her side. “Ms. Roberts?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“Whew. Glad I found you.” The woman held up a very familiar looking identification badge. “Mr. Baird asked me to see if I could locate you.

He’s got a motorvan available to take you over to the hospital…or wherever you need to go.”

“Hamilton’s here?” Dar looked towards the coffee tent for her parents and only then realized what logo was blazoned on the flap. “Community support team?”

“Yes, ma’am. Here to help, and also because we got word you and Ms. Stuart were maybe trapped in there. You’ve got a lot of people really, really wired up, Ms. Roberts.”

“I bet.” Dar almost laughed. “All right. Let me just find my parents and…where in the hell is he?”

She pointed towards a sleek, streamlined Winnebago idling on a side Eye of the Storm 397

street. “You might want to hurry. I think the press is looking for you.”

Dar sighed, pushing herself to her feet. “You okay to walk?” She assisted Kerry in standing. “They’ve got a nice, cushy couch you can lie down on in there. That’s the thing they use to take the board members to the Super Bowl.”

“Does it have wet towels?”

Dar waved her parents over and pointed towards the van. “C’mon. A little piece of my world just plopped itself down very conveniently.” She took her cup of coffee and they started off, just as a clamor of voices lifted behind them.

THE MOTORVAN WAS quiet, cool, and full of leather furniture. Dar considered that ample exchange for the fact that it was also full of Hamilton Baird. The tall, well-built lawyer settled a smile on her the minute she cleared the door, as he sat with not one single silver hair out of place.

Their relationship could best be described as cordial, mutual antagonism. Dar sighed inwardly. Hamilton was without doubt, a supremely talented lawyer, but they mixed like oil and water and he was one of the few people in the company who was neither intimidated nor impressed by her.

Of course, Hamilton also was one of the few people in the company who had a nastier reputation and was more disliked by just about everyone than Dar was, which was quite an achievement to his credit.

Right now, however, she didn’t care if he were Satan personified, so long as he didn’t get between her and the thick, comfy looking leather chair near the teakwood bar. “Good morning, Hamilton.”

“And a fine morning it is, too, Dar.” The lawyer’s rich, Louisiana tinged speech curled around the air conditioned atmosphere. “Now that ah can call Allie and tell him to stop messin’ in his silk shorts.”

“He wears cotton briefs.” Dar sat down and extended her legs.

“These are my parents, Cecilia and Andrew Roberts, and Kerrison Stuart, our Ops Director.” She tilted her head. “This is Hamilton Baird, ILS’s chief council.”

“And bottle washer. You forgot that part, Dar.” The lawyer chuckled. “Ah would make a nasty comment about what you look like, but ah figure you deserve a little slack just considering.” He inclined his head toward Kerry. “Ms. Stuart, it’s a pleasure to meet you finally. After hearing so much about you from so many people.”

Kerry had sat down next to Dar and was simply being quiet. “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Baird.”

Andy and Ceci had settled on the long couch that just barely fit against the far wall of the van and were sucking on sodas.

“Ah take it we need to run by the hospital?” Baird picked up the phone as he asked and dialed. “Hello, Allie. I was trolling through the streets of DC, and what d’you know? I found our missing CIO lookin’ like the ass end of a trash heap.” He held out the phone. “Not even so much as 398 Melissa Good a ‘thank you, Hamilton.’ Lord, what did his mother teach him?”

Dar took the phone and cradled it to her ear. “Hi.”

A long, long exhale. “Jesus H. Christ, Paladar.”

“Was that a statement, an accusation, or a question?” Dar closed her eyes, obscurely pleased with the reaction. “It’s not my fault, Alastair.”

She paused. “Thanks for sending the troops in, though.”

“Are you all right?”

“Pretty much.”

“What about Kerry?”

“She’s banged up a little, but she’ll be fine.” Dar glanced at her and winked. Kerry smiled back. She heard a clicking noise through the phone amidst a chunk of silence. “Alastair?”

“Hang on, hang on.” A few last clicks. “There. I just sent out a bulletin. Thank God it’s good news.”

“A bulletin?” Dar’s brows creased. “For what?”

“Well, that you two are all right, of course, Dar. What did you think?”

“To who?”

“Users All.”

Dar stared at the phone for a minute. “Well, that was a waste of network bandwidth.” She snorted. “I’m sure there are a hundred thousand people who didn’t want to know that bit of news.”

Now it was Alastair’s turn to be quiet for a moment. “You know something, Dar?”

“What?”

“For someone so bright, you’re a real idiot sometimes.”

Dar had no answer for that one.

“That’s all this company’s been focused on for the last twelve hours.

Not one goddamned bit of work got accomplished and probably fifty percent of the net bandwidth corporate wide was taken up by everyone tun-ing into streaming video feeds from CNN.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Alastair responded. “You think I’d be sitting here at four a.m. in the goddamned morning, after spending the night pacing the halls for just anyone?”

“No…I…” Dar felt very off balance. “I’m sorry, Alastair. It’s just been a very long day.”

“I know it has,” her boss told her gently. “Kerry’s sister called me and told me you two were in there. I can’t tell you how that made me feel.”

Dar blinked, then rubbed her eyes. “Thanks.”

“Go get some rest. You sound like hell.”

“It was like that in there.”

“Hell?”

“Yeah,” Dar replied. “We got out right before the place we were in blew out.”

Alastair rattled some keys. “Wait, I thought I saw… Sweet Jesus, that Eye of the Storm 399

was you,” his voice sounded shocked, “hanging out of that damn window!”

“Yeah.”

“Handing those kids out!”

“Yeah.” Dar sighed. “Dad and I were the last ones to get off that floor.”

“After the senator? The press made a huge deal about that.”

“Yeah.”

“That must have been comfortable for you all.”

“It sucked.”

“Mmm. Well, put Ham on for a minute, willya Dar? And you go get some sleep. That’s an order.”

“I will. Goodnight, Alastair.” Dar hesitated. “Um…thanks for being concerned.” She handed the phone back to Hamilton and slid down, letting her head rest against the chair back. She felt a warm touch on her arm and she turned her head, to see Kerry gazing at her. “Apparently we’re the news at eleven.”

“Ah.” Kerry stifled a yawn. “I don’t want to be news. I just want to be clean and asleep.”

“Right there with you,” Dar muttered. “Hope it doesn’t take long at the hospital.”

There was a moment’s silence then Kerry cleared her throat. “Listen.

I’m feeling a lot better. They put some stuff on my arm and the doctor said everything else pretty much looked okay. Could we just go back to the hotel?”

Dar rolled her head to one side and peered at her. “You sure? That’s a nasty bump on your head. Might be better to have it x-rayed.”

“I can go back tomorrow,” Kerry argued. “You know it’s going to be packed there with all these people. I want to go tomorrow early anyway, to see Angie, but right now,” she hesitated, “I’d kinda like to just go to bed.”

A quiet room. A shower. A bed, clean clothes, and Kerry. Dar didn’t even stop to think or argue. “All right,” she murmured. “That sounds great to me.” She glanced over to where her mother was already dozing in her father’s arms and nodded. “The hotel it is.”

ALASTAIR LEANED BACK in his seat and blew out a long, relieved breath. “Damn, that was good news.” He glanced at his monitor, where responses were coming in acknowledging his announcement.

A denim clad admin seated across from him nodded. “Yes, sir, did you want to have an official statement made up? With the heavy presence, I’m guessing the press will be calling shortly.”

The CEO put his hands behind his head and grinned. “Yeap. I sure do want a statement. In fact, I want a couple of them. Got a sharp pencil?”

he asked. “Let’s start with the one about how relieved we are about our two very, very valued employees.”

400 Melissa Good The man grinned. “Gotcha, sir.”

“Then, I want one about how it doesn’t surprise me that one of...ahem… my employees turns out to be a hero.”

The admin stopped scribbling and glanced up. “Y’know, sir, this is going to be great press for us,” he said, earnestly. “Between this and the great stuff over the ATM crisis, our stock’s gonna go through the roof.”

Alastair chuckled softly. “You betcha, son. You betcha.”

THEY MANAGED TO get to their rooms without major incident, though Dar spotted several packs of reporters roaming in the main lobby.

She slid her card into the door with a sense of utter relief and watched the green light blink, then pushed the handle down and shoved the surface inward.

It was dark and quiet inside, lit with only one light, and the bed was turned down invitingly. The message light was blinking, but neither of them had any intention of answering it. Kerry trudged into the bathroom and turned the light on, then leaned against the doorframe wearily. “I’m going to need some help here.”

Dar had gone to their bags and was kneeling next to hers. She peered over her shoulder. “I figured.” She held up two pairs of pajamas.

“Mmm.” Kerry nodded. “Wish I had some hot tea to go with it. My throat’s raw.”

“Mine too,” Dar admitted. “How about you start the water, and I’ll have some sent up?”

“Deal.” Kerry turned the shower on and let it run over her good hand to test the temperature. It took a while to warm up, long enough for Dar to finish her task and enter the bathroom. “Almost ready.”

“Mmhm. Here. Let me get that off for you.” Dar carefully removed the sling, then studied her gauze wrapped arm. “You want plastic over that?”

“I guess.” Kerry swayed on her feet. “I don’t think I…oh, okay. Yeah.

That’ll work.” Dar unbuttoned Kerry’s shirt and slid it off and down both arms, taking care not to pull her injured one. “Ew.” She gazed down at her body, covered in dirt and smoke residue. “I look like I live in a garbage can.”

“Nah.” Dar unhooked her bra and removed it, exposing startlingly white skin against the rest of Kerry. “Remind me to send a nice note to…”

she glanced at the tag, “Hanes.”

“Tch.” Kerry fumbled with her belt. “I don’t think they had this in mind when they designed that model.”

Dar stripped her own shirt off and glanced down. “Hmm.”

Kerry glanced up. “Oh, shit, Dar.” She forgot about her trousers and focused her attention on the raw, vertical shallow slashes across Dar’s belly. “Where did you? Oh, wow. That must hurt.”

“Um.” Dar reached around and unhooked her bra, wincing as the fabric slid down and caught on a jagged cut just below her collarbone. “I Eye of the Storm 401

think I was crawling over that glass I broke down that first tunnel.”

“Jesus.” Kerry wet a washcloth and gently cleaned around the injuries. “Dar, you should put something on these. They’re going to get infected.”

“Later.” Dar unbuckled Kerry’s belt, undid her jeans, tugged them down, and pulled them off over her already sneakerless feet. “Glad we were wearing denim.” She patted one thigh, then slid a finger under the waistband of Kerry’s cotton underwear.

I should be way too tired to feel anything. Kerry closed her eyes briefly, as the familiar tingle worked its way up her body from its center in her groin. That must say something about us.

“Kerry?”

“Mmm?” She blinked her eyes opened to see Dar’s concerned look.

“Oh, sorry. Just reflecting…here, let me…” She managed, one handed, to undo Dar’s jeans and watched them slip down. “Ooo, are those new?”

“Yes.” Dar dredged up a weary grin. “C’mon. I have grunge in places even the biology books couldn’t find.” She pulled off her bright red briefs and helped Kerry step into the tub shower, letting the warm water wash over the both of them.

Twin sighs of appreciation emerged. Dar took the soap and a washcloth and set to work cleaning Kerry’s skin, rubbing very gently over the scrapes and bruises that liberally covered her upper body. “Does your neck hurt?”

“Yeah.” Kerry rocked her head back and forth a little. “And I’ve got a headache that would drop a manatee at two fathoms.” She took a little soap in her good hand and started to work on Dar’s tall frame.

They were quiet for a few minutes as they rinsed off, then Dar got some shampoo and carefully worked it into Kerry’s thick blonde hair, avoiding the lump on the left-hand side.

It felt so wonderful. Kerry moved a step forward and just leaned against Dar, nuzzling her chest as the water washed the soap away, taking the dirt and sweat with it. She stayed there while Dar scrubbed her own hair, then stepped with her outside the shower and let Dar towel her dry.

The room air felt cold against her skin as they left the bathroom and she stopped long enough for Dar to ease her T-shirt over her head, the soft fabric smelling of sunlight and cedar from her chest of drawers at home. Then Dar led her over to the bed, pulled the covers back, and guided her down onto the soft surface. “Easy.”

“Ungh.” Kerry slid under the sheets and put her head down, glad beyond reason to be still and quiet and comfortable. She closed her eyes and listened to the soft sounds of the room, hearing a faint knock, then Dar’s low voice as she answered it. The door closed and there was a soft clink as a tray was set down, then the sounds of liquid pouring and a spoon being stirred.

The bed next to her moved and dipped and she opened her eyes to see Dar seated next to her, damp hair slicked back, with a mug of steam-402 Melissa Good ing tea in her hands. “You’re pretty darn good at this.”

“Good at what?” Dar got an arm behind her and supported her as she took the mug.

“TLC.” Kerry sipped at the tea, which had a wonderful mint scent and a nice, sweet taste. It slipped down her throat and warmed her and she sighed in relief. “Here. Have a sip.”

Dar obeyed, then leaned back, letting out a long, exhausted breath.

The bombardment of people and emotions was over at last and she sat still for a moment, collecting herself with a weary effort.

But she found herself not wanting to think at all. She just wanted to lie here, with her arms around Kerry and block out the last twelve hours, setting it aside until her mind could deal with it.

Right now, that wasn’t an option. Dar shivered a little, not entirely from the chill air. She cradled Kerry in her arms and closed her eyes.

Hoping like hell she wouldn’t dream.

Kerry put her nearly empty cup down and snuggled down into Dar’s embrace, letting out a sigh and tugging the covers up a little around them both.

It was over.

She was safe.

For right now that was enough.