Red Sky at Morning

Chapter

Eight

“MAMÁ.” MAYTE SLIPPED inside the outer office of Señora Dar, where her mother was sorting mail. “I just heard something very bad.”

“Sí?” María looked up. “What is it now? Is Jose flirting with the new señorita in Accounting once again?”

“No.” The slim girl looked upset. She walked over and sat down next to her mother’s desk. “It’s about Ms. Kerry.”

María was very surprised. Rumors about her boss, yes, that she was used to; and just after Kerrisita had joined them, she had heard the things they had said about the two of them when they were together.

They had made such a cute couple; it was true. “What have you heard?” she asked her daughter, realizing that Mayte looked very anxious.

Mayte fiddled with her hands. “They are saying that Ms. Kerry, she was with a man here, at night last night, after we all left.”

María’s jaw dropped. “Come mierda,” she snorted.

Mayte’s eyes opened wide. “¡ Mamá!” She was shocked. “Someone was here, and they said they heard them, that she was with her hands all over this man and everything!”

“Who is saying that?” the older woman asked agitatedly. “Who is passing these lies? I want to know this, Mayte, right now!”

“B...b...” Mayte stammered. “Mamá, I heard it in the break room.

Everyone is saying it.”

María drummed her perfectly painted nails on her desk. “Why would they say this? Why would anyone want to hurt Kerrisita?” She thought a minute, then dialed a number on her phone. “Sí, Ricardo? Can you check for me the log, please? Was there someone to visit Ms. Stuart last night?”

There was the sound of ruffling papers. “Looks like...” Ricardo paused, then ruffled some more. “Oh yeah, here it is. Yeah...she had a guy come up last night. ’Round six-thirty, I guess.”

Mayte and María looked at each other in stunned shock. “May I have his name, por favor?” María asked quietly. “I need to send him something.”

“Sure. Roberts,” Ricardo answered genially. “Andrew Roberts.”

María covered her eyes with one hand. “Gracias, Ricardo. I will 134 Melissa Good speak with you later.” She released the phone. “Jesu…”

Mayte blinked. “Who is that, Mamá? Do you know him?”

“Sí.” María looked troubled. “He is Dar’s papá. He is a very nice, a very sweet man. He is very much accepting of Kerrisita; she is like another daughter to him.”

“Ay.” The younger woman exhaled. “I have heard her speak of him. There is a picture in the office, I think.”

“Sí. That is Dar’s mamá and papá. It was very hard, I have told you, when Kerrisita had such troubles with her family.” María was thinking hard as she spoke. “Mayte, we must fix this problem,” she told her daughter firmly. “I cannot let this be said about Kerrisita. Dar will be so upset.”

Mayte blinked. “Oh.”

“We must find who is saying this.” María got up. “Come. We will go to someplace where I know that all the talk gets to be heard.” She led the way out of the office and down the hall. As they passed the break room she could hear the chatter, and Kerry’s name, and she grew very angry. “Do they not have better things to be doing?” She stopped and peered inside. “Go to work!” she told the startled occupants.

“Vámonos!”

Mayte just looked at her as the assorted administrative assistants and junior clerks bolted from the room, streaming down the hallway like an assortment of colorful birds.

“I am getting very bold, no?” María asked. “I am learning from Dar.”“Yes, Mamá,” Mayte murmured as they continued off down the hall.

At the end of the long walk, María lifted a hand and knocked on the thick metal door before them, waiting a few seconds, then knocking again.

“Hang on; hold your chupacabras.” The door swung open. “Oh...”

Josh, one of Mark’s assistants, blinked. “Hi, María. What’s up?”

“Shoo shoo.” María waved him backward. “I am here to speak with Mark. He is here?”

“Uh...uh...sure...um...he’s in his office...but I—”

“Tch tch.” María brushed by him and circled the equipment-packed console, where three techs were busy monitoring different screens.

Mark’s office was in the back and she made for it, reaching out to tap on the half-closed door.

“Look,” Mark’s voice floated out, “I don’t give a crap what you think. If you can’t deal with other people having private lives that are not your business, find another place to work, dude.”

María hesitated, listening.

“From what I hear, it ain’t that private,” a softer, less distinct voice answered.

“Don’t start that shit,” Mark warned. “I’m telling you right now, Red Sky At Morning 135

Brent. Don’t talk about them, don’t repeat bullshit you hear at the urinal, and keep your redneck attitudes out of the office or I’ll bounce you right on out of here.”

“For what?” The response was outraged. “For having an opinion?”

“For insubordination and fucking with the antidiscrimination regs,” Mark stated.

“What about everyone else? They’re—”

“Everyone else ain’t in Dar’s chain of command,” the MIS chief interrupted. “You are.”

There was a moment of silence. “Fine,” Brent finally said. “Can I go now? I got stuff to do.”

“Sure,” Mark replied. “Take off.”

The door swung open a moment later and Brent emerged, his face crimson. He almost crashed headlong into María and Mayte, and he paused to stare at them for a few seconds before he brushed by and left.

María eyed him, then she shook her head and walked into Mark’s office.

“Hey.” Mark looked up, pausing in the act of listening to his voice mail. “Guess you heard.” He chewed his lower lip. “About last night, I mean.”

“Of course,” María agreed. “And we are going to fix it.”

“Fix it?”

“Sí. You have the little program there, that goes to all the PCs?”

María folded her hands. “That makes the funny noise, no?”

“Our messenger service, yeah,” Mark replied, puzzled. “What about it?”

“I want you to send a message, please, from me, to all the people, yes?”

“Okaaay...” Mark sat down slowly. “What kind of message?”

“I will write it.” María took a piece of paper and one of Mark’s cushion grip roller balls and got to work. Mark watched her, twisting his head to one side to read the upside-down letters.

His eyes widened. “Oh boy.”

DAR HAD TAKEN a breath to say good morning to María when she opened the outer door and realized the office was empty. She closed her mouth with a faint click of teeth meeting and entered, shouldering her laptop as she made her way across the quiet space and into her inner office.

The sun was pouring across the floor and she stepped into it, feeling the faint warmth through the fabric of her skirt as she circled her desk and put her briefcase down. She pulled the leather chair out, and settled into it with a tiny sigh.

“Morning, guys.” She greeted her Siamese fighting fish, removing their jar of food from her desk drawer and sprinkling a little bit into the small tank. Her chin resting on one fist, she watched the fish gobble 136 Melissa Good their breakfasts before she sighed again and turned her attention to her monitor.

“Wonder what disasters we have to deal with this morning?” Dar asked the empty office, spinning her trackball to douse her screensaver and reveal her running programs. Her eyebrows contracted slightly when she saw the blinking Dogbert head in the lower corner, and she clicked on it to bring up the corporate messaging alert the symbol represented.

Slowly, Dar’s head tilted to one side, then the other, then she leaned forward and blinked as she read the message. “What in the hell?”

“To All Corporate HQ Miami Employees—you are please to read your handbooks in the section twelve, page 23. This page is saying that you may not say to everyone bad things about the officers of the company that are not true, or we can make you the termination. There is someone who is doing this, and when this is found out, this person I will myself see the termination if these bad things do not stop. Gracias.

María.”

Dar’s intercom buzzed and she slapped at it absently. “Yeah?”

“Did you see that message?” Kerry’s voice floated into the office.

“What the heck is she talking about?”

“I haven’t a quarter clue,” Dar murmured, shaking her head.

“Whatever it is, sure pissed her off though. I’d better find her and figure out what’s going on.” She shook her head. “I’ll call you back.”

“Okay.” Kerry released the intercom button and opened her mail.

“Weird...very weird way to start the day, that’s for sure.” There was a knock on her door, and she realized Mayte must have stepped away from her desk. “C’mon in.”

Clarice entered, giving Kerry a very sweet smile before she closed the door behind her and crossed the floor to settle in one of Kerry’s visitor chairs. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Kerry folded her hands on her desk. “What can I do for you?”

MARK LEANED BACK in his chair, unconsciously putting distance between himself and the dangerously glaring ice blue eyes boring into his. “Hey, boss...um...”

Dar rested her hands on Mark’s desk and leaned forward, lowering her voice to a mere raspy growl. “I want to know who it was that started that story.”

Mark took a breath. “Dar, you know how hard it is to track shit like that down.” He tried to keep his tone even and calm, his mind casting for the last time he’d seen Dar this mad. Ah. That would be never. “I bet María’s message stopped it.”

Dar could feel her body shaking with rage. She knew that lack of Red Sky At Morning 137

sleep was making her hold on her temper very tenuous and that she should go back to her office and calm down before she did something extremely stupid. “I want to know who it was,” she repeated softly.

“Don’t you tell me you can’t track it down, Mark. There was X number of people in this building, X number of people on this floor, and X

number of people in the operations suite between the hours of X and X, which you know from the security log.”

Mark took his courage in both hands and leaned toward his boss, reaching out one hand and covering the fist Dar had planted on his desk.

“Okay, boss. I’ll find that out for you, if you sit down and take it easy for a minute.” There was no response in the stern mask looking at him.

He tried again, lowering his voice. “Dar, please, go get a drink of water, huh? You’re scaring the shit out of me, and I just dry-cleaned these pants.”

Nothing for a few seconds, then Dar’s eyelashes fluttered closed briefly and her body relinquished some of its tension. “Sorry,” she murmured. “But God damn it, Mark, of all the people in the company to be targeted by that crap, why her?”

Mark winced at the pain in his boss’s voice.

“Me, I’m used to it,” Dar went on softly. “I’ve given so many people so many reasons to hate me, I don’t even think about it anymore.” She took a breath. “But what has Kerry done to deserve that?”

Picked you? Mark wisely decided to not voice the obvious response.

“You know how people are, boss. They get jealous and all that crap.

And you’ve got to admit, there’s a hell of a lot for people to be jealous of Kerry for.”

Dar sighed. “Find out who it was,” she replied. “I’ll be in my office.”

Mark watched her leave, the heavy door swinging shut behind her tall form. “Sonofabitch.” He cradled his head in his hands. “Why the fuck do I always get this shit to deal with?”

“’Cause you, like, can?” his assistant Shaun ventured. “You gonna tell her who it was?”

Good question. Mark leaned back and considered. “I’m gonna let her chill for a little while first,” he decided. “Because otherwise she’s gonna haul back and take the jerk’s head off.”

Shaun pondered that. “She can kick some ass,” he eventually offered. “You think she’d just do it for real?”

Mark thought about those icy, dangerous eyes. He’d known Dar for a long time, and he’d heard the stories about her younger years. “Yeah,”

he said. “She’d drop kick him off the balcony for sure,” he added. “And I’m not into losing my bosses today. So let her chill.”

“EXCUSE ME?” KERRY felt her voice sharpen.

“I said,” Clarice drawled, “you lasted longer than any of the rest of 138 Melissa Good them, honey. Was it a getting bored thing?”

Kerry wondered if she looked as bewildered as she felt. “Clarice, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you should just cut to the chase and be specific.”

Clarice leaned closer. “Look, in this place, you can’t keep anything secret.”

“Right.” Kerry nodded faintly. “And?”

“And everyone’s talking about last night.”

She felt like she was in a dinghy, floating further and further away from the shore. “Last night?” Her mind went to her unexpected waking up, and she felt a blush color her skin. “What about last night?”

Clarice chuckled. “You obviously know. Look, they saw you meet that guy here in the office.”

The shoreline receded further. “Yeah, so?” Kerry’s brow knit in perplexity. “What about it?”

“What about it?” Clarice repeated. “Honey, do you two have, like, an open relationship? I had no idea.”

“Huh?” Kerry felt like grabbing her own head and shaking it.

“Excuse me, what in the hell does me getting picked up here last night have to do with my relationship? Which, by the way, is personal and my business, and not any of yours.”

Now it was Clarice’s turn to look a little uncertain. “Are you saying that wasn’t your lover?”

“What wasn’t?” Kerry asked.

“The man who picked you up here last night, who you had your hands all over, who you told Dar abandoned you?” Clarice almost shouted. “What the hell did you think we were talking about here?”

It was like being trapped inside a cartoon. Kerry fully expected a clown to pop out of her desk and start laughing at the absurdity of it all.

“My lover?” She enunciated the word carefully. “That guy who picked me up here last night?”

“Yes.” Clarice nodded, relieved they were finally communicating.

“Then he was.”

“No.” Kerry covered her eyes with one hand. “He was not.” She got up and went to the small bookshelf in her office, selecting a framed photo and bringing it back with her. “I think this is who you mean.”

Clarice took the picture and studied it. Kerry was standing near a wooden pylon, apparently at some dock, dressed in a pair of water shorts and a bathing suit. She had one arm wrapped around a very tall, powerfully built man, who had an arm draped over her shoulders, and she was pointing to a dangerous-looking lobster clutched in the man’s other hand.

“That’s my father-in-law,” Kerry supplied. “Andrew Roberts.”

Clarice peered at the picture, then up at her. “Honey, that’s kinky.”

Oh no... She was at sea again. “What’s kinky? The lobster? We ate it,” she told Clarice in exasperation. “He’s not my lover, okay? Would Red Sky At Morning 139

you get that idea out of your head? Yes, he picked me up, yes, I hugged him, like I usually do. Why the hell am I standing here explaining this to you?” Kerry’s voice rose. “As a matter of fact, get the hell out of my office before I throw your ass out!”

Clarice jumped up and laid the picture on the desk before ducking behind the chair. “Hey, look, I was just trying to warn you—”

“Out!” Kerry yelled at the top of her voice. “Tell all the jerks who want to know that we pay you people to provide information services, not come up with internal freaking company Soap Operas!”

Clarice fled. She turned and scuttled across the floor as fast as her heels would allow, getting around the door and shutting it securely behind her before Kerry could find something else to verbally pound her with.

For a second, all Kerry could hear was her own labored breathing.

Then she sat down in her chair with a thump. “Jesus.” She expelled her breath explosively. “What in the hell is wrong with these people?”

A soft creak alerted her, and she swiveled in her chair to face her inside door as it opened and a disheveled, aggravated, stormy head poked itself inside her office. “Have you heard the total idiocy going around here?”

Dar slid inside and walked over, taking a seat on Kerry’s desk.

“Yes.”

“Is that not the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?” Kerry went on.

“What a bunch of total bonehead losers we have around here sometimes.” She stood up and started ordering Dar’s unruly locks with her fingers. “Honey, what did you do here, stick your head out your window or something?”

“I was outside on the balcony down the hall,” Dar admitted.

“Drinking half a gallon of milk and trying to calm down enough not to fire the entire fourteenth floor just to get rid of the jackass who started the whole thing.”

Kerry rubbed a bit of white off her partner’s lip. “Ah, so that’s what that is.” She let her hands rest on Dar’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Dar managed a smile. “I think so. I was more worried about you.”

“Me?” Kerry chuckled. “Dar, you forget I grew up in a very public household. I’ve had stories told about me since I was seven and got bitten by a duck while I tried to steal her chicks.” She patted her lover’s side. “Your poor father. That’s twice in one night. The lady at the car dealership mistook us for husband and wife when he dropped me by there.”

Dar blinked. “So you’re okay with this?”

“Well, I don’t like it, but I’ll live. Why, you weren’t really going to fire the entire floor, were you?” Kerry asked. “Dar?” She traced the flutter of nervous motion under the skin of her lover’s cheek. “Hey?”

A sigh. “No, I wasn’t.”

140 Melissa Good

“You okay?”

Dar gave her an unhappy look. “I have a stomachache from drinking too much cold milk, I’m tired, and I’m cranky, and I want to take a baseball bat to the person who thought you were making out with my dad.”

“Oh.”

“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I enjoyed the play.”

Kerry touched her forehead to Dar’s. “With a start like this, the day can only get better.”

As if on some evil signal, both of their pagers went off and Kerry’s main line lit up.

THE PHONE BEEPED twice, softly, before Dar lifted her head from her hands and touched the response key. “Yes?”

“Dar, it is Mark here to see you,” María stated quietly. “Do you have a minute for him?”

“Sure.” Dar returned her chin to its resting spot on her fists and exhaled. “Send him in.” She’d given up trying to focus her overtired vision on her monitor a short time before and had merely been sitting there, waiting for time to pass and bring her to the end of a very long day.

The door opened and Mark entered, moving quickly across the floor and taking a seat across from her.

For a moment they studied each other, then Mark shifted. “You look like shit, boss.”

For some reason, that brought a smile to Dar’s face. “Thanks. It’s been a suck-filled day.”

“Yeah.” Mark nodded. “I know. Listen, that T1 you ordered for the base is in. I had them terminate it and did a loopback to make sure it’s solid. The Telco tech confirmed your hub’s onsite, and everything looks okay.”

“Good.” One thing off her mind, at least. “I’ll connect everything tomorrow morning, then I’ll need you to give me space on the big boxes to suck everything up.”

“No problem,” Mark assured her. “We’ve got the slots already allocated for you. Just let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll open the pipe.”

Dar nodded. “I will. Did Houston get their data center back up? If the payroll computer doesn’t come back online before tonight, we’re all in deep shit; you know that, right?”

Mark felt a prickle of surprise at the unusual use of an expletive, which Dar tended to avoid in her normal workplace speech. “I can’t believe the power block blew up in there,” he said. “American UPS sent a team in and they’re working on it, but so far it looks like they’re going to have to run an emergency three phase panel in just to fire the main Red Sky At Morning 141

CPUs up. ETA is midnight, but I’ve got my fingers crossed for sooner.”

“Will going there and yelling help?” Dar asked.

“No,” Mark answered, not even caring if it was the right answer for the company or not. “They’re doing their stuff, Dar. It’s all moving; it just takes time to split the power off the main transformer and run the big cables.”

“Okay.” Dar accepted that with a feeling of relief. Flying to Houston was something she so didn’t want to do at the moment. “Can we find out the liability limits of AUPS, and what’s going to happen if they can’t get the power restored?”

“Kerry took care of that already,” the MIS director reassured her.

“She’s been on it since this afternoon. I think we’re covered.”

“All right.”

Mark cleared his throat slightly and crossed his fingers, held below the level of the desk where Dar couldn’t see them. “I also gave Kerry the information on who it was that was hanging around here last night and peeking into offices.”

One dark eyebrow lifted sharply. “I thought I told you to bring that here.”

“You did,” Mark said. “But Kerry asked me to let her handle it, and since she’s my direct report, I respected her directive.”

Dar observed him for a few seconds. “I don’t think I like having my direct orders countermanded,” she stated flatly. “Especially by my subordinates.”

“I know you don’t,” Mark responded bravely. “But Kerry said she’d take the responsibility for the decision.” It felt cowardly to hide behind Kerry’s skirt like that, but one look at the expression on Dar’s face made him grateful for the shield. He only hoped it would be a big enough shield to keep him from getting his butt burnt off.

Dar remained silent, watching him from under half-lowered eyelids until Mark started to fidget nervously. Then she drew in a breath. “Fair enough,” she remarked. “I’ll take it up with her.”

Looking profoundly relieved, Mark stood up and circled his chair, resting his hands on the back of it. “Hope you have a better day tomorrow, Dar.”

That got a faint grin back. “Me, too.” Dar watched Mark leave, then sat back and pondered. Was she mad at Mark?

No. He just did what he was told. Was she mad at Kerry? Dar regarded the wood panel walls. She was too damn tired to be mad at Kerry, and besides, she didn’t want to be mad at her. But should she be?

Dar considered the question seriously. Kerry had been the person involved, had been the one with rumors spread about her and was, in fact, Mark’s direct supervisor. On the other hand, Dar had given a direct order, which had been ignored and countermanded, something she couldn’t recall ever happening before.

No one else would have dared, she decided. Was Kerry using their 142 Melissa Good relationship to take an unfair advantage of her? Dar scowled. Or was Kerry simply making a good business decision, using her admittedly unfair knowledge of Dar to realize having the CIO beat an employee over the head with a paper shredder was not only bad employee relations, it was also just plain stupid? Especially since the CIO in question would be doing it because the employee in question had insulted her strictly-against-company-rules lover and partner?

Hmm. Dar idly watched her fish swim around. Looking up as the inner door opened, she watched as Kerry visibly squared her shoulders before she entered and proceeded across the room, arriving at Dar’s side with a look of sober determination.

“Listen.” Kerry’s hands flexed slightly, the fingers curling into a partial fist in unconscious reaction to confrontation. “I just talked to Mark. I want you to back off and let me handle this situation, because it’s my department, my issue, and my staff.”

“Mm,” Dar responded.

One of Kerry’s pale eyebrows rose. “What does that mean?”

“That color looks really cute on you.” Dar evaluated the coral silk blouse Kerry was wearing. “Very tropical.”

The blonde woman put her hands on her hips. “Dar, I was being serious.”

“I know. You’re right. Go ahead and handle it.” Dar nodded in agreement. “I’ll be down at the base all day tomorrow anyway, so have at it.”

Kerry sighed. “Do you know how long I’ve been standing in the corridor, screwing up my guts and trying to figure out exactly what approach to use with you on this?”

Dar allowed her face to relax into a smile for the first time that day.

“Sorry about that. I was just thinking it over when you came in. I know my first reaction was to appease my ego and yell, but you know what?

I’m just too tired.” She shrugged. “Besides, you are right, it’s your issue to handle; and the only reason I wanted to do it is because I go into a crazed overprotective mode when it comes to you.”

Kerry’s lips twitched, then eased into grin. “Yes, you do.” She relaxed and moved a little closer, perching on the edge of Dar’s desk.

“Very self-aware of you to notice.”

Dar smiled and propped her head up against one hand. “They finally got the T1 in place. Now I can get that entire data set transferred, and we can really take a look at it.”

“Think you’ll find anything?”

“Maybe.” Dar shook her head. “There’s something there; it’s just really hard to pinpoint. Little discrepancies in the programs, things that just don’t feel right...I can’t really be specific. Just that I know there’s something not one hundred percent clicking.”

“I’ve got an idea.” Kerry reached out and pushed a few strands of dark hair off Dar’s forehead. “I just finished my last conference call for Red Sky At Morning 143

the day, want to take off? Are you covered here, or do you have something else you need to handle?”

“Nothing I can’t handle with my cell phone,” Dar said. “Pushing to get the payroll systems back online. I don’t need to be here to do that.”

She straightened. “Sounds like a plan. Go get your stuff, and I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

Kerry got up and twitched her skirt straight. “You’re on.” She turned and made her way back to the inner door, pausing with her hand on the sill before she exited. “Dar?”

The pale blue eyes flickered as Dar’s eyelashes fluttered. “Hmm?”

“It was Brent.” Kerry’s expression was regretful. “Mark feels pretty scummy about that.” She ducked through the doorway and closed the door behind her, traveling quickly down the back corridor and past the cleaning closets to her own office.