Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (26 page)

“EXCUSE ME?” KERRY felt her voice sharpen.

“I said,” Clarice drawled, “you lasted longer than any of the rest of 138
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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
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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.”

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“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
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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
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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
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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.