Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series

Chapter Four

THE CONDO WAS very quiet as Dar slipped inside, too quiet, until Chino came sliding out of the bedroom barking a greeting at her. "Hey girl." She set her briefcase down and knelt to greet the dog and ended up sitting on the floor with Chino climbing all over her. "Hey, hey, hey."

"Growf."

"Hang on." Dar managed to get to her feet and headed for the back door followed by an ecstatically prancing Labrador. Chino stopped halfway, though, and looked back over her shoulder as though missing something.

"Yeah, I know. It's just me." Dar told her, opening the back door to the small garden. "Kerry's not here." She watched the dog trot outside whisking through the evening sun still splashing through the trees. Kerry was at the ship working on her project.

Dar had almost gone there too, but she stopped herself with a stern reminder that she'd turned the damned thing over to Kerry and she needed to butt out already. So instead, she'd just gone home.

And here she was. Dar leaned against the door jam and surveyed the quiet kitchen. Usually she and Kerry came home together, but occasionally Kerry left before she did, and whenever she did, Dar always came home to something nice like dinner, or a waiting hot tub or...

But she had no idea when Kerry was coming home. A note sent earlier had gone unanswered, and so now Dar was at a bit of a loss. She removed her PDA and scribbled a second note, sending it on its way before she turned and headed off toward the bedroom.

Inside, she paused a moment tugging her shirt from her waistband and unbuttoning it before sitting down briefly to remove her boots. She removed the shirt and then her jeans folding them both neatly and putting them on the dresser.

Chino bounded back in and came over to her, wiggling happily against her knees. Dar played with her for a few minutes, and then she got up and retrieved a pair of shorts and a t-shirt slipping into them before she went back out into the living room.

She could watch television. Dar studied the blank screen, and then moved past it. She could go for a swim, or a walk with Chino, or go to the gym.

Or sit in the hot tub.

She went to the kitchen and closed the back door. She could do some work or play with her models. With a sigh, Dar went to the refrigerator and got some milk, leaning against the counter to sip it as she considered all of her various options.

None of them really appealed to her, so she went into the living room and sat down at the dining room table sorting through the basket of mail placed there by the island staff.

No bills, because they handled all theirs electronically. A few bits of junk mail, mostly related to software upgrades or offers of new computer hardware. Dar tossed all these to one side and pulled over a diving magazine that spurred a bit more interest.

She checked her PDA after a few minutes, finding it still silent, and then gave up on the mail. "Hell with it." Dar tossed the magazine and got up. "Okay, Chino, wanna come to the gym with me? You can help me lift weights, okay?"

"Gruff."

"Okay." Dar put on her sneakers, then headed for the back door pausing only to scribble a note on the small white board just to one side of the refrigerator. She'd spend an hour or so at the gym, then see if Kerry was home and stop at the club for dinner on her way back.

Satisfied with her plan, Dar headed off down the path to the gym with Chino trotting along after her. With the sun having set, the heat was dissipating and the breeze off the ocean was almost comfortable. She watched as Chino retrieved a tennis ball from somewhere and raced back to her with it. "Gimme that."

She threw the slimy ball across the beach and kept walking as Chino chased it down. Several tosses later, they were at the entrance to the gym, and Dar cheerfully ignored the glares from two other residents as she held the door open for Chino to trot past.

They'd had a problem with that since they'd started bringing the Labrador to the gym. At first, Dar had been delivered with six or seven letters of objection from the condo association over her practice, and she'd even been served with an official summons from the Island's legal office.

Unfortunately for all of them, she had Aunt May's original copy of the bylaws, and nowhere in any of them did it say you could not bring dogs into the gym. It hadn't made her popular with a few people, but Chino was well behaved, and she'd won over most of the residents after a while. "C'mon, Chi."

Unlike Dar herself, apparently. She gave the other two residents a charming smile, and went inside the inner door that lead to the dressing rooms. Inside, she went to her assigned locker and opened it, removing a towel and a pair of weighted gloves that she slipped over her hands and fastened.

They weren't that heavy, only two pounds each, but she found they gave just that little extra bit of punch to her workouts and she'd noticed a bit more definition appearing in the muscles of her upper arms from using them.

Or, well, she hadn't exactly noticed that. Dar went over to the weight bench and settled herself on it. Kerry had noticed, and commented on it in the shower the other day. Then, she'd just laughed, but now she had to sit here and acknowledge just how much she liked having Kerry notice things like that.

Total ego. Dar did a quick couple of sets with a relatively light barbell just to warm up. Total ego, and on the fringes a haunting insecurity she tried very hard to pretend didn't exist. She liked Kerry paying attention to her, and probably that was why she felt so out of sorts having two messages ignored so far today.

Stupid, really. Dar got up and moved to a leg press station sliding a pin into place and waiting for her body to settle into position before she started the exercise. Chino stood up and licked her arm, sliding up and down as she tried to keep her balance. "Chi, down." Dar muffled a chuckle. "Lie down."

Reluctantly, the dog obeyed, seating herself on the rubberized floor at Dar's side.

Kerry was probably busy doing what it was ILS paid her for-- taking care of details and putting her plan into effect with her typical detail oriented style. While it never matched her own, Dar appreciated her partner's very disciplined operating mode.

It matched her usual schedule in the gym. While Dar tended to wander from machine to machine, using whichever one struck her fancy at the moment, Kerry always followed one or two or three routines, studiously using all the machines in it until she either finished or exhausted herself.

Dar kept the image of her partner in her mind as she got up off the leg press and switched to an abdominal machine, lying flat on her back and taking hold of the handles before she started her sit ups. She enjoyed the exercise, though this one was a little harder for her than it was for Kerry due to her longer torso.

For a while after they'd gotten together, Dar had strongly suspected that Kerry was doing gym work more to fit in with her lifestyle than because she really enjoyed it, and it had made her feel a touch guilty even though she'd called Kerry on it more than once.

After all, Kerry had been forced into doing things she didn't really want to do for so long, was it fair that she escape from her family life only to feel obligated to change again to meet what she felt were Dar's expectations?

Except they really weren't her expectations. Dar didn't honestly care if Kerry worked out or not, and she'd tried really hard to convince her of that until Kerry finally just told her she really liked it. Or, actually, she didn't fanatically enjoy it, but she very much liked the results so she was willing to put the work in to get them.

Dar paused to add a little more weight to the machine's resistance and continued her sets. That had finally made sense to Dar, since taking control over her looks had been a big part of Kerry shrugging off her past.

Of course, now it meant that for the first time in a long time, Dar was concerned about what her body looked like, but it seemed a small enough price to pay for having found the most amazing love of her life.

Probably, though, Dar almost chuckled at herself, Kerry would tell her she didn't care what Dar looked like just as insistently as Dar had told her. Both of them probably wondered if the other really meant it, and neither wanted to find out for sure.

So her life was now complicated. Dar exhaled and let her eyes close, her thoughts wandering elsewhere as her body went through the motions. But it was a nice kind of complication and she had no desire to get rid of it, so hell with it all anyway.

Instead, she imagined herself underwater, in the peaceful blue of a dive doing lazy somersaults as Kerry floated nearby taking pictures of sea urchins. She loved watching Kerry take pictures because she'd get herself into the nuttiest positions doing it, usually standing on her head to be closer and get a tight focus on the tiny creatures.

Her hair would float around her head in a halo and she'd cross her ankles, her fins fluttering lightly to keep herself in position. Dar would sometimes get herself horizontal in the water and rest her chin on her clasped wrists, just hanging there and watching the show.

She could almost hear the bubbles of her own breathing.

So a warm, solid weight settling over her lower body nearly scared the shorts off her until she managed to get her eyes open and her hands untangled from the machine and found Kerry sitting on top of her dressed out for the gym and looking amused. "Bah!" She yelped in surprise, dropping flat on her back again.

"Hi there." Green eyes twinkled. "You didn't wait for me, you punk!"

Dar blinked, trying to get her tongue to work properly after having bitten it. "Abu." She cleared her throat. "Wait for you when? I had no idea you were coming home this fast." She protested. "I thought you'd be later at the port." Jerked so quickly out of her peaceful day dream, her body now didn't know whether to jump or completely relax and she felt like hiccupping.

"I answered your last note." Kerry replied. "I didn't realize when I was in the bowels of the ship my signal was cut off. I got topside and saw I had messages from you." She wiggled the fingers she had laying on Dar's stomach, giving her a friendly scratch. "So I answered them right there on the gangway, and annoyed the heck out of some really big guys trying to move wood onboard."

"Oh." Now that Kerry was here and more than paying attention to her, Dar felt a little abashed. "No problem. I figured you got tied up in details. Thought I'd come over here for a while then grab us some dinner." She looked around. "My PDA's in the locker."

"Details." Kerry eased herself up and off her living bench. "Oh, my god did I get details. I got introduced into the world of people who live on ships." She paused and adjusted one of her wristbands. "Please, please don't tell me the Navy is like this, because if it is, I can't believe your dad survived in it as long as he did."

"Eh." Dar watched as her partner went to the first machine, the bicep curl, and sat down in it, carefully adjusting the weight stack before she fit her hands to the handles and began her exercise. "People. Politics. Can't have one without the other. You know that."

"Hmm." Kerry grunted a little with the effort of bringing the weighted bar up. "More I see people, more I love Chino."

"Gruff." Chino trotted over and licked her knee.

Dar got up and decided she'd had enough of the crunches. She went over to the pull down machine and sat under the bar, sticking the pin into a fairly significant amount of iron plates. Fitting her hands over the handles of the bar, she carefully pulled it downward, wedging her knees under the supports as she tested out how her shoulder was feeling about the weight.

So far so good. Dar flexed her arms slowly and brought the bar down, glad the ache had finally faded from her injury. It had taken a long time, though Kerry had probably been right in telling her it would have been shorter if she'd done the physical therapy she'd been told to.

"How's that feel?" Kerry asked.

"Good." Dar straightened her arms and let the weight up. She pulled it down again, a little faster this time.

"You look great when you sweat."

Dar opened one eye and peered at the triceps machine. Kerry winked at her, and stuck her tongue out. "Everything going alright at the pier?"

"Yeah, it's coming together." Kerry straightened her arms out, forcing the machine lever down. "You find the hacker?"

Dar grunted, and released a little snort. "No, but if he comes back, he'll have a surprise waiting." She said. "But I spent some time in our gateways today and I gotta admit, Ker. I'm a little worried."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Kerry sighed. "Well, to be honest, I'm a little worried about how I'm going to pull off this project competitively, so we're even."

They were both silent for a few minutes, concentrating on their respective exercises. Finally, Dar let her bar up and sighed. "Know what I think?"

"What?"

"Ice cream." Dar got up from her bench and picked her towel up, extending a hand toward Kerry. "We can finish this later."

Kerry got up and took her hand without hesitation. "You're on. Let's go." She followed Dar out the door, not giving the room a single backward glance.

ICE CREAM ACTUALLY turned into dinner on the beach club's ocean facing deck. A nice breeze made it very comfortable sitting outside.

Kerry let her head rest against one of the roof supports, her eyes lazily taking in the waving palm fronds down the beach. "I don't know, honey," she said, "maybe it's a blessing in disguise. If you hadn't issued that challenge, you'd have never found the weaknesses you just told me about."

"Maybe we--maybe I--should have been looking for them before now." Dar was also leaning against the wall supports, one long leg slung over the chair arm.

"Dar, you're the chief information officer of the company. I think a lot of other people, like Mark, should have been looking for this stuff. Not you." Kerry replied honestly. "It's ridiculous that you need to be sitting on the floor in some closet trapping hackers, you know?"

A slightly stronger breeze made itself felt, whipping their hair around. Some sea grape leaves blew across the tile floor, one of them ending up on Kerry's foot. She reached down and picked it up, twirling it in her fingers. "Kinda windy."

Dar leaned to one side and looked out at the sea, spotting whitecaps. One eyebrow hiked up. "Don't tell me another damn storm snuck up on us." She checked her PDA, but there were no ominous looking messages on it.

"Mm." A slightly dreamy smile crossed Kerry's face. "Oh, man, I'd love it if it did."

That made Dar smile back, a frank grin of appreciation that lightened her entire face. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was." Kerry impulsively reached across the table and fit her hand into Dar's. "Want to go down to the cabin this weekend?"

Without even thinking, Dar nodded agreement. "Yeah."

"I have a meeting on Friday afternoon. How about we do this..." Kerry's mind raced over the details, thinking about their dual schedules. "How about we ride together Friday morning, and I get a ride over to the port, then you can pick me up and...vroom."

"Absolutely." Dar agreed instantly. "We can stop for dinner on the road somewhere and watch the sunset."

Kerry glanced at her watch and sighed mournfully. "It's only Tuesday."

Dar's cell went off before she could suggest something crazy like going after dinner. She took it out and checked the caller ID. "Uh oh." She opened it. "Yeah, Mark. What's up?"

"You in the building, boss?"

Dar glanced around her. "Me? No. I'm home. Why?"

"Shit. Someone's messing around in here and I thought it was you...looked like what was going on this afternoon." Mark cursed. "Okay, thanks. Lemme get back to you. Hey you like...locked that door, right?"

Dar's gaze went inward briefly, as she carefully traced her actions from the afternoon. "Yes. I went up to a meeting on fourteen, then came back down and did a few more scans. I left the closet around four. Shouldn't have been any access after that."

"Gotcha. Bye." Mark hung up hastily, cutting off a yell in the background, and the sound of a buzzer going off.

Dar looked at her cell, looked at Kerry, and then they both got up and headed for the condo at a run.

DAR COULD HEAR the beeping of the alerts as she cleared the doorway into her office and put her hands on her desk, vaulting over it to land near her chair on the other side. "Son of a bitch!"

Kerry forced herself to slow down enough to close the door behind them, making sure not to slam it on Chino's tail as the Labrador bounded in after her, tongue lolling out. She hesitated, then grabbed her briefcase from the dining room table where she'd left it, carried it into Dar's study and took possession of the couch.

As she hit the leather, it started raining, and for a brief second she had a flashback, startling and vivid, of the first time she'd been in the room. But it only lasted that one second, because then she was yanking her laptop out of its case and opening it, waiting impatiently for the machine to boot up. "What's going on?"

"Fuck if I know." Dar's fingers were nothing but a blur on the keyboard. "Something's loose in the network. Jesus Christ I hope I didn't do something stupid and leave something open today."

"The door?" Kerry was rapidly logging in.

"No...no, that I know I shut. Something in the router...I was doing those changes so damn fast." Dar's brow was furrowed. "When I was talking to you, when Mark was seeing the blocks."

"Oh." Kerry called up her network monitor and keyed it, sitting there for a minute as it started registering and lines began blinking red across the screen. "Holy cow." She looked quickly at Dar, seeing the tension scrawled across her face.

Dar hesitated, her fingertips flexing above the keys, undecided on what to do. She hated not understanding what was happening. As far as she could tell random data was flooding the network and she could not find the source of it.

She could shut everything down, and by definition that should stop the flood, but it also would take down everyone and everything using their network including the remote monitoring consoles.

Kerry watched the emotions cross her partner's face, and decided she should do something more productive. She started up her analyzer and grabbed the main switch, opening up the data stream and focusing her attention on what it was showing her.

A lot of garbage. Kerry flipped to her filters and cut off the standard network traffic, keying back to see what was left. "Dar."

"Uh?"

"It's not coming from outside."

"What?" Dar got up and sprawled on the couch arm to peer over Kerry's shoulder.

"It's coming from inside the office." Kerry traced a line with her finger. "Look. Here. I don't know what that is."

Dar blinked slowly, exhaling a little. "Neither do I." She admitted. "Worm? Better tell Mark."

Kerry hit enter on the text message she'd already been composing. "Done. Dar, what would put out that kind of traffic?

Dar slid back into her seat and continued her scanning, slamming filters into place on interface after interface, attempting to staunch the flow of traffic. "Son of a son of a son of a..."

Kerry got up and peered over her shoulder this time, her machine telling her nothing new other than the traffic was continuing to build. "That must be pretty damn close to the core, Dar. You want me to start shutting down the building floor by floor?"

"Might have to." Dar felt herself starting to sweat. She could imagine the calls beginning to come in to the ops center, and speculated on how long it would take before her phone, and Kerry's, started ringing. "What if it's directly in the core?" She pulled up another access list reviewing the results. "God damn it, where is this thing!"

Kerry slowly backed off then went to her laptop, acting on a hunch. "What switch is the conference center in, Dar?"

"Conference center? Ten. Why?"

"Let's just say I smell rotten fish." Kerry logged into the switch and checked the top traffic port. One switch out of twenty seven in the building. What were the odds? "Dar."

Dar scrambled out of her chair and nearly crawled into the seat next to Kerry, her eyes avidly searching the screen. "Bingo. Shut the damn thing off."

Kerry rapidly disabled the port, as Dar jumped up onto her desk and swung the monitor toward her, watching the read-outs in tense silence. The signals jumped for a moment more then slowly settling down to a more even keel.

Dar slapped the desk, and turned her head toward Kerry. "Talk to me."

"Okay." Kerry felt her heart rate slow down, though her fingers were still shaking a little. "Inside the office."

"Yeah."

"Security audit just completed two weeks ago, and it was clean. No new hires since then."

"Right."

Kerry got up and went over to sit in Dar's chair folding her hands together on the desk. "I think this is my fault." She paused, then looked right up into Dar's eyes. "Because I'm the jerk who had four competitors sitting in our conference center with laptops and gear, and didn't ask for a security scan afterward."

Dar's face remained absolutely still for a very long instant. Then she slowly released her breath, her shoulders relaxing as she leaned on one elbow. "Quest's meeting."

Kerry nodded.

"There was a lot going on then, Kerry."

"Don't make excuses for me," she replied. "There is no excuse for that, Dar, and we both know it." She watched her partner's expression carefully, a little surprised to see the strong planes relax, and a faint, almost sheepish, smile cross her lips. "Don't we?"

Dar traced a random pattern on her desk surface with her finger. "I'd like to agree with you." She finally said, in a quiet voice. "Except that I'm finding it hard to forget what you were being distracted by the most."

Mm. Kerry nibbled the inside of her lip. "Well."

Dar's cell phone rang. She picked it up and opened it. "Yeah?"

"Did you do that? You stopped it? What was it? Where is it? What'd you do?" Mark's words spilled out so fast and so loud Dar almost dropped her phone. "C'mon, Boss! Don't tell me it just stopped, please?"

Without answering, Dar just handed the phone over to Kerry. "Have him find whatever it is, and secure it. We'll do an analysis tomorrow."

Kerry took the phone as she watched Dar get up and wander out of the study into the living room. "Hi, Mark." She finally sighed. "I...um...found the problem. It's in the number ten switch, blade six, port thirty."

Rattling keys. "It's disabled!"

"Well, yes."

"That's the big conference room. I'll get some techs down there. What ya think--the projector system go nuts again?" Mark's voice sounded utterly relieved. "Son of a hoota...that scared the crap out of me. I thought we were getting slammed."

"We were." Kerry hardly knew how to feel inside. "I think we might have gotten something planted on us during that meeting we had here in the blackout. Remember?"

Silence. "Oh, man!" Mark nearly howled. "I had that on my schedule. I had a damn sticky note here to check... oh, crap. Crap. I'll go check it myself. Crap. Sorry, Kerry."

"S'allright."

"Call you right back." Mark hung up the line, still obviously very upset.

Kerry folded the phone shut and sat there for a moment. She heard a sound and looked up to see Dar standing in the doorway, leaning against one edge of it in almost the same pose she'd seen her in the very first time they'd met. "Did you ever think we'd come to a point where we both needed to quit?" She asked.

Dar pushed off the door jam and came over, flopping down in the couch and patting the seat next to her. Kerry got up and settled onto the cool leather, hitching one leg up over Dar's left knee. "You thought it was your fault, I thought it was my fault, Mark thinks it's his fault? The hell with it, Dar. Let's just all go open a taco stand down on Card Sound road."

"You like tacos?"

Kerry leaned against her partner. "Not particularly. I like fajitas better but a taco stand sounded easier and more fun."

"Would we have to get a Chihuahua?"

"No, but Chino would have to wear a hat." Kerry appreciated the quiet humor very much. She was upset at herself, but like Dar she was finding it very hard to regret her choices and so indulging in their light banter at least distracted her mind. "You think she'd like wearing a hat?"

"Sure." Dar leaned closer and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Don't beat yourself up, Ker."

Kerry sighed.

"Did I ever tell you about how I found out about the outage the night you ended up coming over and helping me fix it?"

More banter. Kerry gave in and snuggled up. "The night we kissed?"

"Uh huh."

"Mm...only thing I remember about that whole thing is opening the door, seeing you in your pajamas, and forgetting what my name was."

Dar chuckled softly. "Well, the ops center called me, and told me the whole damn network was down. You know what I said to them?"

"What?"

"No problem, guys. Just go on home."

"Oh, you did not." Kerry started laughing, despite herself. "C'mon, Dar. I know you're trying to make me feel better, but really."

"Really." Dar went nose to nose with her. "I told them to go home, no sense in them sticking around if everything was down, right? Made sense to me at the time."

"Really?"Kerry tried to imagine that, and just started laughing again. "Oh my god."

Dar gave her a hug. "Let's wait to see what Mark finds, and instead of beating ourselves up, figure out how we're gonna get even."

Would they? Kerry wondered seriously if they should. Oh well.

Tomorrow would be yet another day.

"HEY UGLY!"

Andrew looked up from the crate he was methodically ripping apart; correctly assuming the voice was addressing him. "Yeap?"

The supervisor hurried over to him. "Hey listen...remember that thing you told me about those invoices? You got any more tricks like that?"

Andrew leaned on his crate and considered the man, eyeing him with shrewd thoughtfulness. "Maybe. You got something better for me to do than mess with these here boxes?"

The man chewed his lip. "Well, I could...I'd hate to lose you out here because you're the only guy I got who doesn't bitch all the time, but I could do like a half day here, and half day in the office, how about that?"

"They got coffee inside there?"

The man chuckled. "Sure."

"All right." Andy nodded. "Saw them big trucks coming in this morning."

"No kidding. All that damn high tech crap with ten thousand little pieces and no manifest. C'mon." The supervisor motioned him to follow. "Let's see what we can do so it doesn't become a cluster."

Andrew followed him willingly, leaving behind his crate full of bolts and nuts and emerging from the dockside warehouse into the sun. It was early yet on Wednesday morning, but he was glad to get out of the noisy, chaotic building with an opportunity to do something more interesting.

Not that he'd never unpacked boxes. He'd unpacked more boxes than Dar had brain cells, but the action had limited opportunity for mental exercise though it did provide plenty of physical work.

They went into the trailer being used as an office. It was small and only barely cooled by an overworked wall air conditioner, and the four men sitting at old, scarred wood desks inside it were sweating as they worked.

"Hey, Brady, gimme that file." The supervisor held a hand out, and when the tattered manila file was put in it, he promptly turned and gave it to Andy. "There...see what you can do with that stuff. Most of it's Greek to me. I know carpet, hammers, and machine parts. This stuff is just garbage."

Andy opened the folder and studied the first page. "Wall." He sniffed reflectively. "Mah kid's one of them geek types. I think ah can figger this stuff out."

"Yeah?" The supervisor sounded interested. "He want a job?"

Pale blue eyes looked up at him. "She's got one already, thanks for askin'." Andy moved over to a chair near the side of the trailer sitting down and putting the folder on his knees. What he had here, he realized after studying the papers for some minutes, was all the stuff he'd heard Dar and Kerry talking about putting in their ship. So it was a sure bet the two people working against his kids had come up with their own list and here it was. "First off." He looked over at the supervisor. "Better make up some copies so I can mark on 'em."

"Right over there." Brady, the heavyset paymaster, pointed at a paneled wall without looking up.

Andrew got up and went around the wall, finding a copy machine there. With a satisfied grunt, he set the stack of papers down on the top sorter and punched the number 2, then copy.

The super poked his head around. "Listen, I cleared off the end of the table in there. You can use that to work on, okay?"

"All right."

"Great!" The man disappeared, leaving Andy to stand and watch the copier do its work. He bounced up and down on his heels a few times, whistling softly under his breath until he heard the door slam open.

"Where the hell is that asshole?" A woman's voice rasped.

Andy's eyebrow quirked as he recognized one of the two targets he'd heard the previous day.

"Pardon me?" Brady asked in a bored voice. "You'll have to be more specific, lady. There are a lot of assholes around here."

"Heh." Andy chuckled silently. "Ain't that the damn truth?"

"Don't give me that...oh, there you are. Where's our gear?"

There was a scrape and a thump as the door to the trailer's bathroom was closed, and heavy boots crossed the floor. "We're working on it, ma'am. I got my best guy sorting all the deliveries right now."

Andy's eyes twinkled wryly, and he shook his head. "Lord."

"That doesn't help me. I need to know what's here and what's not." The voice snapped back. "We don't have time to waste on your stupidity."

Andrew took his pile of copied papers and sorted them into two piles. He looked up as the super came around the corner. "Sounds like someone's got a bee in their buttocks." He drawled softly.

"Jesus." The super rolled his eyes. "You think you can get me a list of all this stuff?"

"Yeap." Andy allowed. "'Bout an hour, something like that."

"Great." The man ducked back out. "Ma'am, we'll have something for you in about an hour. We just got the invoices in now."

"You'd better, or else your company's going to explain to me why you can't even keep truck deliveries straight." The voice faded, then vanished as the outside door slammed shut.

"What a bitch." Brady snorted. "Sounds like she needs a good screwing."

"You can have her. Not my type." The super also left, closing the door more gently behind him.

Andy went to the small window and looked out, spotting the stocky form of the bigger woman retreating from the trailer. He watched her disappear into the pier building, then he returned to his task, picking up the stacks of papers and going back into the main room.

The other men in the room eyed him, then went back to their work as he took a seat at the end of a long banquet table. He set the papers down and picked up a pencil lying on the table, examining the first page thoughtfully.

When Dar had taken an interest in technology, he'd made a point of going out and reading up on the stuff she'd decided to make her living from. Most of it wasn't that much different from some things he'd encountered in the Navy, but it had its own language.

Since he'd retired, he'd taken the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the subject, and he felt he was almost at a point where he could at least have a somewhat all right discussion with his kid about it. So when he looked at the pages and pages of parts, at least the names and descriptions were somewhat familiar to him.

It seemed like they'd been shipped without any mind to what went with what though. Andy scratched his head and frowned. He knew the names, but had to admit that the functions of each of the gizmos were somewhat foggy, and he really had no way of guessing which part went with the next except by actually guessing.

Darn it.

"Wall." With a shake of his head he started sorting out the bits by the maker, figuring at least if he put all the ones from the same place together it was a start.

"That's a mess, yeah?" Brady looked over at him. "What a bunch of morons shipping that stuff."

"Yeap." Andrew scribbled some notes down. "Pain in mah butt, tell you that. Don't know what them folks was thinking."

Brady got up and looked over his shoulder. "Weren't." He commented briefly. "You got a background in this sort of thing? Thought you were just a loader."

"Done some stuff." Andy answered. "Spent thirty years in the Navy, had to learn something."

"Wow." Brady's attitude altered abruptly. "Really? Were you out on the ships?"

Pale blue eyes peeked up at him. "That is what the Navy does," he replied. "But ah tell ya what, someone be this disorganized on a carrier, they'd be pitched overboard or sent shoreside fastern' you could spit at 'em."

"Yeah." The paymaster agreed. "They don't seem to know what they're doing, you know. Like everyone's doing their own thing, and nobody's coordinating. Then you get those bitches like that one coming in here and thinking they own the joint."

"Woman did have her an attitude." Andy nodded. "Ain't a way to get things done."

"Yeah." Brady said again. "Maybe we should stop jumping when she barks. That way she'll back off."

"Could be." The ex-SEAL agreed mildly. "I sure wouldn't be saluting her, that's for damn sure."

Brady wandered off, going over to the other table and leaning over to talk to two of the men sitting there working. Andy peeked over at him, then put his head back down with a smile, continuing his sorting.

DAR PUSHED THE door to the computer center opened with a stiff armed motion, almost hitting one of the techs on his way out. "Sorry."

The tech jumped out of the way and stammered own apology, then slunk out past her as she walked on by. Dar went past the MIS command desk and headed for Mark's office, where she could hear voices already raised in excited conversation. "Hey."

Mark's head jerked up as she entered. "Oh, hey, boss." He greeted her. "Check this out!"

Dar obligingly circled his desk and focused her attention on the small, silver gray box sitting on top of it. "I'm checking. What is it?"

Mark turned it over and displayed a circuit board. "Integrated unit, plugged into our extra port for the projector down there, and get this..." he slid a small panel aside, "cellular."

Dar peered at it. "No kidding?"

"No shit, "Mark said. "They dialed in and activated it, sent the worm in over the cell link, then had it refocus out the network port. If Kerry hadn't found it...Jesus."

Dar picked up the device and studied it closely. "Damn."

"Yeah."

"That's pretty sophisticated." Mark's assistant, the lanky Peter, spoke up. "I checked it out on the web last night. That's like...black bag stuff."

"Mm." Dar nodded in agreement. "It sure is." She looked up. "So, tell me why we didn't catch a rogue MAC on the network?"

Peter stuck his hands in his pockets. Mark cleared his throat.

"Will you excuse us, please?" Dar looked at Peter. "And close the door on your way out."

The tall man escaped gratefully, shutting the door and leaving them alone in the office.

Mark gave her a look that could easily have been one of Chino's when caught stealing cookies from the closet. "It's not an excuse." He temporized. "But it's that damn projector. We've had it fixed like six times in the last four weeks."

"And?"

"So the guy told me last time he thought it was the MAC blocking that was making it freak out." Mark admitted.

"So you turned it off."

"For that port, yeah." He agreed. "It fixed the problem."

Dar folded her arms, then she walked over to Mark's office window and looked out. "That's a breach of our security policy." She remarked quietly, keeping her eyes focused outward as there was no answer behind her. "Here I have Kerry beating herself up for not asking for a scan, and the fact is the room was left deliberately wide open."

Mark shifted in his chair, the leather squeaking softly. "You want my resignation?" He asked, in a somber voice. "It was my screw up, Dar. I took the security off that port, not one of my guys."

Dar found a small boat to watch as it skittered across the water. "What I'm more interested in right now is who knew you did it, other than you and the projector tech."

Mark remained silent for a few moments. "I don't know, boss. I didn't tell anyone here."

Dar turned and leaned against the window. "So then either someone here just happened to see the change in the switch and got bought...or we have a problem with a vendor, because whoever put that..." She pointed viciously at the device. "Sure knew it."

Mark relaxed just a trifle. "You think it was one of those Telegenics goons, right?"

Did she? It was tempting to. They were in the room and no doubt about it, they had a motive. And yet... "That's more tech than Shari's capable of, and damn it, I think Michelle's too ethical for it."

"Huh."

"But you never know. Let's start hunting." Dar decided. She headed for the door, stopping as she reached it and turning. "No, I don't want your damn resignation. I screwed up, Kerry screwed up, you screwed up...that's it. We've exhausted our once in a blue moon big time. No more screw ups."

She walked out and shut the door behind her, leaving a slightly stunned Mark sitting at his desk in silence. After a moment the door cracked open again and Peter stuck his head warily inside. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Mark finally let his held breath out. "I think so. She's just really pissed." His brow creased. "I think."

"You think?"

"Yeah." Mark rested his chin on his fist. "But I can't really tell who she's more pissed at, the joker who stuck this on the network, or herself."

Peter looked confused then he slowly withdrew his head and shut the door again, leaving Mark to ponder the question alone.

"KERRY?" Mayte stuck her head around the corner of the door. "I have a fax for you." Kerry looked up from her pile of paperwork, one blond eyebrow cocking. "Nifty. I needed more paper on my desk. Bring it over." Mayte walked into the office and put the thick stack of paper down. "It is from the port, but I do not understand what this is."

Kerry glanced at the cover sheet, and saw a somewhat crude rendition of a seal scrawled on the page. "Ah." She tossed aside her current list of ordering and pulled the stack over. "I do, and boy, we sure did nail down which of her folks Dar gets her doodling from." She flipped through the pages, leaning a little closer to study the details. "Ah." She repeated softly. "Interesting."

"Kerry?"

Kerry looked up again. "Sorry Mayte. Was there something else you needed from me?"

Her assistant fiddled with her hands, then she sat down in Kerry's visitor chair. "Is it all right if I ask you something that is a little personal for me?"

Uh oh. "Sure." Kerry pushed aside the fax and focused her attention. "What's up?"

"Did you...I am sorry, this is very embarrassing, but...did you know right away when you were liking La Jefa?"

Liking? "Um...well, not really." Kerry replied very slowly. "If...I mean, Mayte, are you asking me when I knew I was in love with Dar?"

Mayte turned brick red, even under her already well tanned skin. "Si." She answered in a whisper.

"Boy, that's a tough question." Kerry frowned. "Because we came together in such an odd way--with work and all. But, you know, I will tell you this. I felt something in here," Kerry touched her chest, "from the very minute I set eyes on her. I just didn't know what that something was for a while."

Mayte nodded slowly. "That does make very much sense."

"Are you...uh..." Kerry hesitated. "Someone you're interested in?" She finally asked then they both looked up as Kerry's inner office door opened and Dar entered.

The blue eyes flicked to both women, and Dar paused. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt," she said, retracing her steps.

"No no. I was just leaving." Mayte jumped up and raced out, closing the door quickly behind her.

Dar looked at the door, then looked at Kerry. Both eyebrows shot up.

"Beats me." Kerry shook her head. "She was just asking me about how to know when you're in love."

"Uh oh." Dar advanced again. "Someone catch her eye? Maria hasn't said anything to me at any rate."

"I got the feeling yes." Kerry pushed the fax over toward her.

"Look what Dad sent, and did you talk to Mark? He gave me a rundown on the thing he found. Holy cow, Dar."

Dar flipped through the pages, then looked up at Kerry. "What did you tell her?"

Green eyes blinked in confusion. "Huh? What did I tell who?"

"Mayte."

"About what?"

Dar glanced out the window. "About how you know when you're in love." She peeked back at Kerry's face, with a half abashed grin. "Or did I interrupt that part?"

"Oh." Kerry leaned back. "Yeah, I think you sorta did." She pondered, twiddling her thumbs together. "Probably a good thing...I don't think my going into racing heartbeats and sweating palms would do anything for our professional rapport."

"Probably not." Dar's face eased into a smile.

"Though I did tell her I knew the second I met you." Kerry smiled back. "I'm not sure why she ran out of here like that, though." She idly stifled a yawn. "Was it something I said?"

Dar took a seat on the edge of Kerry's desk, regarding her with a faintly amused expression.

"Stop it." Kerry punched her in the leg. "Don't start with that crush stuff again, Dar. The last thing on earth she'd be asking me if she really had a crush was the question she just asked. Right?"

The taller woman shrugged one shoulder.

Kerry made a face. "You really think so?"

"I really do," Dar replied. "But I don't think you've got much to worry about. She knows you're taken."

Kerry's eyes that twinkled. "Now that's the truth." She leaned her head back against her leather chair. "I'm looking forward to class tonight. You going to be out of your meeting in time?"

Dar had been studying the fax. Now she dropped it lightly onto Kerry's desk and stood. "Yep." She indicated the papers. "Not sure what that gets us, besides what they're paying for the standard gear. Nice of Dad to send it though. Wonder why he had them?"

"Yeah." Kerry twiddled her thumbs. "At least I know we're paying less than they are. Volume has to count for something, eh?" She pushed the fax with her index finger. "What did you think of that thing Mark found?"

Dar had wandered over to the window and was gazing outside. "Slick."

Kerry waited, but Dar offered nothing else on the subject. "Okay." She leaned forward and went back to her mail, recognizing a rebuff when she felt one. "Guess I'll leave that in your ballpark. Mine's busy." She put her head down and concentrated on the screen, trying not to become hyper aware of the figure standing behind her.

She knew Dar was looking at her though. She could feel it, feel the impact of those blue eyes on the back of her head even before she heard the soft rustle of fabric as Dar turned. She heard the light scuff of her footsteps against the carpet, and against her will, she found herself straining to figure out if they were coming closer or leaving.

"I really don't know what to think." Dar's voice sounded unexpectedly loud in the office.

Kerry continued typing. "Well, I'm sure you'll handle it."

Dar resumed her perch on Kerry's desk, making it very difficult to continue to ignore her. Kerry tried, but after a moment she felt a nudge against her shoulder, and it was either look up, or really escalate her miffed feelings into a fight.

Did she want a fight? Kerry swiveled a little and rested her chin on her fist, gazing up at her partner. No. She never really did want to fight. It was just that sometimes their differences pushed them in opposite directions until they clashed. "Yes?"

"Was I being a bitch?" Dar asked.

Kerry shrugged one shoulder.

"I wasn't trying to be," Dar admitted. "That thing Mark found has got me confused."

"Why?"

Kerry's phone rang, and she gave it an evil look. She hit her intercom button. "Mayte, can you get that please? I'm in an important meeting right now."

"Si, of course." Mayte answered back promptly then clicked off.

Kerry returned her attention to Dar. "What's confusing you, honey? Was it more than you expected it to be? Mark showed me the details. It was pretty sophisticated."

Dar sighed. "It was pretty sophisticated," she admitted, running her fingers through her hair in some distraction. "Ker, I know you want to think it was Shari and Michelle, but I..."

"You don't think so? Really? C'mon, Dar. Who else could it be?" Kerry almost laughed. "I mean, let's be real. We have our worst enemies right here in the building, I leave them unsupervised for a half hour, and a couple days later we get hit with an internal probe." She put a hand on Dar's leg. "Honey."

Her partner exhaled. "So now you know why I didn't want to talk about it." She got up and headed for her office, shaking her head. "Just forget it. Yeah, it was probably them."

"B...? Kerry got up and chased after her. "Dar! Wait a minute?" She caught up to her at the inner door and gently took hold of her arm. "Hey, hey...hey--"

Dar stopped, but there was a perceptible pause before she turned, and when she did, her expression was dour. "What?"

As their relationship progressed, Kerry had learned bit by bit just what worked with Dar and what didn't. She had no idea what the heck was going on with her, but she knew enough to know that attempting to placate her at this point would do exactly jack squat. "Okay."

"Okay what?" Dar repeated, but in a slightly modified tone.

"Okay, we've both already cycled this month, and it's not a full moon. So let's blow this office and get some lunch." Kerry said. "Somewhere outside this building."

Dar hesitated, then she wrinkled her nose up and clucked her tongue. "I'm in a really pissy mood. You don't want to have lunch with me. Maybe I should just go to the corner and get a hot dog." She said. "Last person I want to wrangle with is you."

Kerry bumped her gently. "C'mon." She replied softly. "We'll talk about the new fish tank." She looked up into Dar's eyes, watching the strong planes of her partner's face shift a little as some of the storm clouds faded. "I'm sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, I didn't mean to."

Dar scowled, but it was one of her more engaging ones. "S'allright. I didn't mean to be a touchy, whiny ass this morning." She eased closer, exhaling as her body relaxed. "Lunch sounds great. You can try and talk me into those boxing crabs." She gave Kerry a gentle pat on the side. "Let me go close my machine down and we can take off."

Kerry stepped back and watched as she left, her own body relaxing from the tension she always felt in the times when they disagreed. "Thank god it doesn't happen often." She turned and went back to her desk hitting her intercom button as she sat down. "Mayte? Was that anything critical? C'mon in."

After a moment, the outer door opened, and Mayte poked her head in and entered, crossing over to Kerry's desk. "It was Mr. Jose. He has a gigantic problem with something in Los Angeles." She handed over a piece of paper with some notes. "I wrote down what it is he said, but he wants to talk to you."

Kerry reviewed the notes. "Well, he's going to have to wait until after lunch." She decided. "Dar's in a mood, and I'm going to work on getting her out of it. Let him know I'll be up to his office when I get back."

Mayte blinked at her. "Si." She agreed softly. "I will do that. And thank you before, Kerry, for your advice. It is appreciated."

"No problem." Kerry smiled. "Good luck."

Mayte smiled back, then left.

Kerry leaned back and studied the closed door. "Nah." She shook her head. "It's not me." With a click, she locked her computer screen, and headed off to wrangle fish.