by Melissa Good
“Thanks, Uncle Jeff,” Dar replied, turning her head to watch him make his way through the tables, threading through a forest of salutes and stiffening bodies as he headed out the door. Then she turned her head to see curious green eyes watching her. “Hmm. That was a surprise.”
“Mm, yeah, I gathered.” Kerry cupped her chin in one hand. “He seems nice, though.”
Dar leaned back and exhaled, scratching her neck with one hand.
“He is. And his wife’s a sweetheart. They were pretty good friends of my folks. Dad and Jeff used to fish together at night.”
“Uh-huh...and Chuckie?” Kerry teased, having noted the faint blush that colored Dar’s face at the mention of the name. “Sounds like he liked you.”
Dar’s face scrunched up into a half-amused, half-embarrassed Red Sky At Morning 77
scowl. “Yeeeahh...he um...”
“Another crush?” Kerry laughed.
“Not exactly,” her lover admitted. “My first boyfriend. He was my high school prom date.”
Kerry’s blonde brows shot up in silent amazement.
“I was young and still pretty clueless.” Dar folded her arms and sighed. “But we had a good time together,” she added. “I know my folks’ll be glad to see them.”
Kerry sipped her ice tea thoughtfully. “He’s pretty Republican, isn’t he?”
Dar nodded, her lips twitching.
“Want me to find something else to do that night?” Kerry offered with quiet grace.
Dar gazed sightlessly at the center of the table for a long moment, her brow wrinkled slightly in thought. Then she drew in a breath and met Kerry’s eyes. “No. I really don’t.”
“Fair enough.” Kerry accepted the answer. “C’mon, as long as I’m here, I want to get some souvenirs,” she changed the subject. “Maybe a cap, since I’ve got enough Navy sweatshirts to outfit the entire Florida Marlin baseball team.”
“You got it.” Dar stood, and they put their trays away, then left the cafeteria, aware of the curious eyes that followed them.
“GOOD MORNING, MS. KERRY.” Mayte looked up as Kerry entered her office, giving her boss a bright smile. “Did it go okay Friday?”
“Sort of,” Kerry replied, pausing before Mayte’s desk. “It started off pretty rocky, but it turns out the officer in charge of the base is an old friend of Dar’s, so things smoothed out after lunch.” Remarkably so, in fact. Dar had gotten all the data she needed or asked for, and they’d departed early, heading back up the long, lonely road home while the sun was still a decent angle in the sky.
That meant they’d had time for a nice long workout in the gym, a walk on the beach, and dinner at the club before Dar sat down to digest the information they’d gleaned. Kerry stretched her shoulders out a little, still tight from the climbing wall, and wished briefly she could repeat the day. “What’s going on here this morning?”
“You have marketing sessions at nine and ten and the operations meeting at one,” Mayte answered promptly. “Mrs. Anderson, from the new company where we are buying cable, is to be here at three.”
Kerry exhaled. “Okay.” She spared a moment of envy for Dar, who had ambled out early dressed in jeans and hiking boots, then tucked her laptop case under her arm and headed for her desk. “Can you print me the meeting minutes for this afternoon and remind me what we’re fighting with marketing about this week?”
78 Melissa Good
“Of course.” Mayte’s voice floated after her. “Would you like some cafecita? I was just about to get some.”
“Yes,” Kerry called back. “I’d kill for a large café con leche. Thanks.”
It was quiet then, for a bit, and she settled down in her large leather chair, its cool surface warming against her legs as she nudged her computer on and investigated the inbox on her desk. “What have we here?” she mused, pulling over a folder and flipping it open. “Ah.”
Requisitions for new computers for the accounting department. After a moment’s study, she nodded and picked up her pen, checking the totals carefully and signing off on the papers.
Duks didn’t ask for new hardware often. She’d talked to him last month about the depreciation on the systems they’d last bought for his department, and he showed a studied reluctance to changing what he viewed as perfectly acceptable workplace tools. Kerry had disagreed, considering 386 DX systems that still ran Windows 3.11 to be something along the lines of what she’d use as a door stop.
But Duks had said no.
So, Kerry had reviewed the accounting software they were using and called the vendor, discovering a new, upgraded version with lots of nifty new features and reports they just couldn’t live without. She’d told Duks, and he’d agreed. “Great,” she’d said. “Now you can put in your order for new systems, because this software won’t run on the ones you have.”
“Heh.” Kerry put the folder into her outbox. “Accountants...fastest way to their hearts is through their report writers.” She turned and opened her mail program, watching as the screen filled quickly with black lines of new messages, a good percentage with red exclamation points next to them. She sighed and propped her chin up on her fist, waiting for the download to end.
LIEUTENANT PERKINS TUCKED a folder under one arm and knocked lightly on the door. She paused to listen for a reply, then opened the door and slipped inside. She crossed the wooden floor quickly and put the folder down on her boss’s desk, her eyes meeting his as he sat behind it. “I found her.”
Albert raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Not good.” The lieutenant shook her head. “Take a look, sir.” She waited for Albert to open the folder. “Her actual name is Paladar Roberts. Her father was in for twenty years; he just retired a few months ago. She was born here, spent fifteen years on and off on the base. Left after she graduated from UM.” She paused. “BS in Computer Science, tops in her class. Been with ILS ever since.”
“Mmph.” Albert studied the contents of the folders, flipping through transcripts and documentation. “Wonder why she never...oh.
Did you see these ASVAB scores?”
Red Sky At Morning 79
“Yeah. Did you see what program she was qualifying for?”
His eyes flicked over the papers. “Aha. Wanted to follow in Daddy’s footsteps, but he was a SEAL. I get it. She’s probably got a grudge the size of a flat top.” He chuckled dryly. “She seems the type.”
“She passed the physical,” Perkins commented.
“Mm.” Her commander prowled through the papers, then selected a black-and-white photo, examining it curiously. An adolescent Dar Roberts stared dourly back at him, dark hair half obscuring the pale eyes, her lean body encased in a tight sleeveless black shirt and well-used fatigue pants. “Scary.” He flipped the picture over to her.
Perkins picked it up and studied it. “Very.” She tossed it back.
“What are we going to do about her?”
The commander sorted through the papers. “Can we keep her out of the inside systems?”
A shake of her head. “Probably not. Based on the questions I was getting, I’m going to guess she actually knows her way around a programming language. I could try to throw a pile of code at her, but I don’t know how long that would hold her up.”
“Give it a try.” Commander Albert sighed. “I’ll see what else I can do. Get everything you can and stick it behind the number six firewall.
We need to find something to distract her.” He closed the folder and pushed it back across the desk. “The timing just sucks.”
“You told Scrooge you had it under control,” Perkins reminded him in a worried tone.
“That was before I found out she grew up with Dudley Do-Right’s kid,” he snapped back. “I didn’t figure it’d be a problem getting her thrown out of here. Now we have to find another way.” He sighed.
“What about the other one?”
“We got lucky there.” The lieutenant smiled. “She’s Roger Stuart’s daughter.”
&
nbsp; Their eyes met. “No shit?” The commander’s eyebrows lifted.
“No shit, no, sir,” Perkins said. “I thought you’d be glad to hear that.”
Albert leaned back in his chair, and laced his fingers behind his head. “I guess we don’t need to worry about her, then. I don’t think she’s coming back here anyway.” He exhaled. “But that might be the leverage I need. I’ll have to call Scrooge. He’ll know if we can use it.”
SHE WAS EARLY. The guard let her in without comment this time, and Dar drove slowly through the base, allowing her memories to surface without interruption this time. She parked at the far end of the lot and got out, locking the doors to the Lexus with a negligent flick, then turned around and leaned against the side of the car, just letting her gaze travel across the scene.
Damn. It looked different, but in some ways, the same. The 80 Melissa Good buildings had been altered, new construction changing the outlines subtly, and everything had fresh coats of paint on it. But as she stood there and looked, older images floated before her eyes; and without much conscious thought, she started walking toward the neatly trimmed pathway that wound its way around the base.
Of course, there was activity. Unlike most of the rest of the city, the day here started before dawn, and she listened to the familiar chants as groups of men and women jogged by her, some sparing a curious glance as they moved past. Dar regarded their backs thoughtfully and wondered for the hundredth time if she’d have ever had the internal fortitude to get through training if she’d chosen to join the Navy after all.
Physically, she knew she could have. She’d been all whipcord and iron back then, strong and tough and more than up to whatever demands the Navy would have chosen to dump on her shoulders. Even now—Dar glanced down and considered her tall form with a touch of conceit—even after all the years of desk-bound work and a plush lifestyle she’d never imagined back then, even now if she really pushed, she could probably force herself through the basic course.
On sheer stubbornness, if nothing else, she wryly conceded.
Mentally, though? Dar sighed, pausing and leaning against the fence to peer at the tiny houses just beyond it. She had the self-discipline, but she hadn’t had the ability to accept taking orders from anyone just because they had a stripe on their arm or a collar insignia. Not then, and, her lips pursed into a slight smile, certainly not now.
Her eyes found that one small house, third one on the fourth block.
She examined the neatly painted outside, then she circled the fence and walked down the sidewalk, stopping as she came even with the front door. It appeared vacant, and she walked up the small driveway into the carport, putting out a hand and touching the cement brick surface. It felt rough under her fingertips, and a familiar scent of dust and sun-warmed tar filled her nose as the breeze puffed through the enclosure.
Home.
She walked through and out the back into the yard, over to a ficus tree still firmly entrenched near the side of the house. Her eyes lifted and found the old, rotting bits of wood held by rusty nails that once, long ago, might have been the outlines of a tree house. She looked between the branches into a blank window, seeing the faint outlines of a plain, small room inside that had once been hers.
It felt very strange. Dar leaned against the tree and tried to remember what it was like being a small child looking out of that window. She found she couldn’t. Too much time had passed, and she was too different a person now to feel a link here.
Hell. Her face tensed into a scowl. She hadn’t even wanted to bring Kerry here to see this. Not that her lover would have laughed; in fact, Kerry would have been interested, as she was in everything Dar had to Red Sky At Morning 81
tell her about her childhood. She wasn’t ashamed of the house, either. It was just that it was so unremarkable a place, and she could no longer feel any kind of connection to it.
With a sigh, Dar pushed back from the tree, then she glanced up and craned her neck, shifting a hand to part a thick branch full of leaves.
Her eyes fell on her own initials carved into the bark of the tree, and even after all these years, plainly visible.
Then her brow furrowed, and she leaned forward, blinking as her eyes tried to make sense of the freshly cut markings right next to her old ones.
Kerry’s initials. Dar’s jaw dropped in open shock. When in the hell had she... Then Dar recalled the long stretch of time her lover had been gone on one of their breaks from the endless data gathering. She’d returned, cheerfully claiming a walk to clear her head. Dar remembered the smell of warm skin as Kerry had brushed against her, and now knew where it had come from. A silly smile appeared on her face as she gazed up at the letters.
Friday’s date, with a plus sign joining the old and the new, all carved into the gray bark in slightly awkward, but competent letters.
Without looking, she fished her cell phone from its holder clipped to her belt and speed-dialed a number. She waited for a voice to answer, then she closed her eyes. “You are the most incredible person I’ve ever known.” She heard the slight intake of breath. “I love you.”
Then she closed the phone and tucked it back into its holder and walked away from the house, headed back toward her waiting job, humming softly.
Kerry glanced at the roomful of marketing executives, all intently focused on her, and folded her phone back up. “That was a...um...a status report.” She smiled weakly, knowing her face was as red as a boiled beet. “I’m sorry, what were you saying about fourth-quarter projections?”
Eleanor cleared her throat. “We were talking about the emerging South American IT market.”
“Right.” Kerry rubbed her face. “Sorry. Go on.”
“AH, BOY.” KERRY put her cup down and filled it with hot water, waiting for her tea to steep. The break room was quiet, and she leaned against the counter reading the message board with idle curiosity.
She decided she liked the board in Operations better. It usually had good Dilbert cartoons posted on it.
“Well, hello.”
Kerry turned, to find Clarice entering the room. “Hello,” she responded cordially. “Getting settled in?”
The slim, black woman poured herself a cup of coffee in a bright pink mug. “Yes, I certainly am. It’s nice to be back home,” she replied.
82 Melissa Good
“Thanks for making it so easy for me.”
Kerry smiled. “No problem.”
“In fact, I think I have a much better handle on things in Chicago now that I can see the whole picture,” Clarice continued. “I’m working with Paul to try and get things settled.”
Kerry stirred her tea and turned, leaning against the counter. “I’m glad to hear it. I know it was kind of a rough week, but I’m sure you can get it all worked out. I heard from the account manager out there this morning—he feels a lot better about the client relationship now.”
Clarice leaned on the counter as well, studying Kerry. “Well, sometimes things just do happen for a reason, don’t they? Who’d have guessed a little winter storm could end up causing all these changes.”
A hint of a smile crossed Kerry’s face. “Storms sometimes do that,”
she agreed. “Excuse me,” she went on politely. “I’ve got a conference call I’m late for.”
“Oh, please, don’t mind me!” Clarice said. “Work comes first, and we sure don’t want to mix work and pleasure, now do we?” She gave Kerry a big smile and eased out ahead of her, strolling down the hallway and not looking back.
“Urgurf.” Kerry winced, catching the edge in the words. Not the way she’d wanted the conversation to go. After Clarice’s initial volley, which she’d ignored, she’d hoped the woman would just let bygones go.
Apparently not.
“Or maybe, Kerrison, you’re just being too sensitive, and she just was using a common expression,” Kerry told herself as she opened the door to her office and entered its cool peace. “Don’t go looking for trouble. You live with it, rememb
er?”
Dar’s words on the phone came back to her and she dismissed Clarice’s, chuckling softly as she headed for her desk.
Chapter
Five
DAR LEANED BACK in the hard wooden chair and rubbed her eyes, closing them for a moment as she reloaded data for the hundredth time. She listened for the hard drive to stop spinning, then sighed and rocked forward, scanning the results with a tiny scowl on her face.
“Damn it.” She checked and rechecked the figures. “Something’s just not adding up.” Dar paged through the reports strewn over the desk and shook her head. She’d taken the performance data of the base first and dumped it into her analyzer, letting the custom-built scripts she’d written sort through the columns of figures, matching dollars spent with viable product—in this case, qualified personnel who were assigned out to various Navy installations around the world.
Something just wasn’t matching. Her scripts kept returning errors, finding discrepancies between the list of expenses and the lists of demands for payment, and so far she hadn’t been able to put her finger on the reason. It was almost as though parts of the data were misplaced, not missing, because the end result balanced, but in the wrong areas—
so that the orderly progression of bookkeeping went every which direction.
Hmm. Dar scratched her jaw. Maybe that was why her data parse on the base hadn’t brought back snips of relevant data, like who the new base commander was. Her eyebrows hiked and she dove into her briefcase, retrieving the case study she’d done before starting the project. Impatiently she flipped through the already ruffle-edged papers, her eyes darting back and forth until she found the spot she was looking for. “Ah.”
She leaned back and rested the report on her knee as a warm draft of air entered through the window and stirred the pages, bringing with it a scent of freshly cut grass and the sound of rugged chanting. Dar had requested, politely, a small office space for her use, and Commander Albert and Lieutenant Perkins had, equally politely, led her to this tiny room with its single scarred wooden desk and unpadded chair.
