by Melissa Good
“What’s it about?” Dar slipped a bookmark into her book and put it down, turning on her side and focusing her attention on Kerry.
Ah, those eyes. Kerry suddenly found herself lost in them, until the rising brow over one made her realize she was staring like a loon. “Sorry, what was the question?”
“You still feeling the rum?” Dar asked curiously.
Kerry put her head down on her arm. “Maybe,” she admitted.
“I just feel a little silly, I guess.”
Dar got up and walked over to the bed. She sat down next to Kerry and rubbed her midriff through the covers. “Want to try some toast or cereal?”
Kerry curled herself around Dar instead, and rested her head on Dar’s thigh. “I think I just want you.” She planted a gentle kiss on the tan skin and closed her eyes.
Dar had never considered herself a sentimental person, but since she’d met Kerry she’d felt like she was living inside a circle of perpetually adorable Golden Retriever puppies all the time. It worried her sometimes. Dar felt parts of the image she’d always had of herself falling away and disappearing, and it was a little unsettling to know it was happening and be helpless to stop it.
Ah well. Dar draped her arm over Kerry’s shoulders and resigned herself to it. “Tell you what,” she said. “Let me go get my laptop, and we can take a look at what we’ve got so far.”
Kerry reluctantly released her and sat up. “Okay.”
Dar got to her feet and retrieved the device, then returned. She sat down on the bed and leaned back, resting the laptop on her thighs. Kerry squirmed over and settled next to her. They both looked at the screen as Dar smoothly keyed in a request.
“Okay.” Dar reviewed her programmatic results. “What I was looking for—”
“Was a link between the piracy and DeSalliers,” Kerry murmured, reaching out and touching the screen. “Nice code, honey. I like that recursive parse.”
“You always say such romantic things to me,” Dar remarked. “I love that.”
“Nerd.”
“Thanks.” Dar smirked at the screen a little. “Let’s see what it found.” She brought up two screens and locked them into concurrency, scrolling down evenly and looking from one to the other. “That bartender said there had been six; there’ve been more than two dozen. Damn.”
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Kerry was shocked. Two dozen hijackings in the area, and no one had said anything. That information bordered on substantiating a definite collusion. “Are those from the police files?” she asked, pointing to the piracy records.
“You’re joking, right?” Dar looked at her. “No. Those are the insurance filings.” She nudged a key. “Ah. Looks like the insurance underwriters are starting to get suspicious. This one’s pending investigation.”
“Hm. So the hijackers will get their money, but the guy they hit might not?”
Dar shook her head. “No, they’ll have to pay out, unless they think the owner’s in cahoots with the pirates just to make a claim.
Most of the guys who can afford to buy boats like that wouldn’t bother.” She ran a cross-check. “I was hoping I’d see a correlation between DeSallier’s salvage operations and the missing boats, but it looks like this is the first time his bunch has shown up in this area.”
“Mm.” Kerry frowned. “Yeah.” She rested her chin on Dar’s shoulder. “Can you plot the piracies graphically?”
Dar studied the data, then she brought up a code screen and started typing rapidly, stopping only to tab to a different window and clip some data before she resumed programming. After a few minutes, she ran the program and a new window appeared with a somewhat rough outline of the islands, the space around them dotted with ominous little plus signs. “Ain’t pretty, but there ya go.”
“Hmmm.” Kerry studied the graphic, then sighed. “No real pattern, huh?”
“Nope.”
“We’re hitting big nulls here, Dar.”
“Yeah,” Dar had to admit. “So much for being a nerd.”
A knock startled them both. Kerry felt Dar’s body stiffen, and she put a hand on her arm. “I’ll get that.” Before Dar could protest, she rolled off the other side of the bed and walked to the door, running the fingers of one hand through her hair self-consciously.
She peered through the peephole, relieved to see one of the hotel staff outside. Kerry opened the door and issued an inquiring smile.
“Hi.”
The man held up an envelope. “Ma’am? I have a note for a Ms.
Roberts?”
“I’ll take it.” Kerry extended her hand.
Reluctantly, he gave it to her. “The gentleman said to make sure Ms. Roberts got that note.”
“She’ll get it. I promise.” Kerry pulled her head back inside and closed the door firmly. She turned and nearly jumped right out of her T-shirt when she found Dar standing silently in back of her.
“Yipes! Jesus, Dar!”
150 Melissa Good
“What?” Dar took the note. “You didn’t expect me to be in the room? What’s up with that, Ker?”
“I didn’t hear you come up in back of me, you fink.” Kerry peered past her shoulder as Dar opened the envelope. It was standard hotel stationery, and the note was written in black ink in a distinctively strong script. “Who’s it from?”
Dar’s eyes dropped the bottom, then lifted. “DeSalliers,” she answered briefly. “Looks like he wants to set up a meeting to talk.”
Kerry read the note. “Arrogant SOB, isn’t he?”
“I nearly knocked him on his ass outside,” her partner murmured. “I don’t think he likes me much.”
Ms. Roberts.
I will omit any polite preambles. I have business to discuss with you.
I will be available this afternoon to meet with you and determine if this business can be handled between us, or will be remanded to the authorities. Be at my dockside at three.
J. DeSalliers.
“You should have knocked him on his head. Maybe it would have let some sense leak in.” Kerry shook her head. “Did he forget he was chasing us?” she added. “Or is this something else?”
Dar folded the note and put it back into the envelope. “Guess we’ll find out,” she remarked. “Though, if you’re not feeling up to it—”
“Ah ah ah.” Kerry clapped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t you even try that,” she said. “You’re not leaving me behind.” Blue eyes widened above her fingers and Kerry removed her hand. “Isn’t going onto his boat a little risky, though?”
“Might be,” Dar acknowledged. “We’ll have to play it by ear.”
She tossed the envelope onto the desk and went to the window, gazing out at the still stormy weather. Am I crazy to be doing this at all? They were away from home, and operating all by themselves.
Dar wasn’t stupid, and if she had to look logically at the scenario of two women executives out in the Caribbean playing with fire like this, she’d be forced to admit it wasn’t the smartest idea in the world.
Damn it. Dar knew herself to be a risk taker, and she had a lot of confidence in her judgment and ability to take care of herself, but was this taking it too far? Was she just indulging her own ego?
“You know what?” Kerry had wandered over and leaned on the sill next to her. “I think we’re just natural troubleshooters.”
Dar looked at her.
“We’re so used to problem solving, we never really stop to think about it, even if the problem really should be solved by someone else.”
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A little unsettled, Dar turned and folded her arms. She was surprised to hear her own thoughts so eerily echoed back at her.
“You think someone else should be solving this one?”
Kerry kept her eyes on the horizon and nodded slightly. She turned to face Dar. “But the people who should be the solution might be part of the problem,” she said. “That’s what you think, isn’t it—that the cops are
in on it?”
Dar nodded. “I think they are, yeah.”
“Everyone’s attitude seems to be to hush it up. Let the fat and happy tourists keep coming, and if a few get hit, well, then that’s okay because most won’t and we need their money,” Kerry said.
“They didn’t hit us, so we could go along with that, Dar. Just take our boat and cruise on out of here. Let them solve their own problems.”
“We could.”
The green eyes glinted. “Fuck that.”
Dar smiled.
“I lived the first twenty-six years of my life maintaining the status quo, Dar,” Kerry said, in a firm tone. “I want to rock boats and make a difference, even if that means taking a risk.” She pointed at Dar, poking her in the arm. “And you, Paladar Roberts, are a natural-born caped avenger, no matter how much you deny it.”
Dar rubbed her neck. “I’m not sure I’d put it like that,” she protested. “But I like to fight the good fight, and win it, if that’s what you mean.” She glanced out the window. “And I don’t trust people to fix things just because they’re supposed to.”
“I know.” Kerry eyed her with gentle amusement. “I always get a kick out of seeing your log-in checking up on me.” She saw Dar stiffen and realized she’d caught her flat-footed. “It’s like passing a senior exam,” she went on quickly. “Because I know if you don’t say anything to me, I did it all right.”
Dar turned, her expression a mixture of consternation and sheepishness. “I trust you,” she said. “You just do things so differently than I do, it’s…”
“Dar, we’ve had this argument already,” Kerry interrupted her quietly. “It really is okay. You’re my boss, and it’s your job to make sure things happen.” She sensed the upset in the woman next to her. “I know you trust me.”
“It has nothing to do with trust,” Dar muttered. “I was just curious.” She sighed. “I like to know how things work, so I was curious as to how you did what you did. So, after you were all done, I went in and looked.”
Kerry blinked. “You mean you weren’t—”
“No.” Dar shook her head. “I’m sorry you thought that.”
“Oh.” Kerry sat down on the sill, her head cocking to one side 152 Melissa Good as she absorbed this new information. “Wow.”
“I checked up on you the first couple of times, but that was before you went to closure on anything,” Dar said. “So if there was a problem, I could fix it. After that…no.” She sat down next to Kerry. “You didn’t do things the way I would have, but it worked, and that’s all I really care about in the long run.”
Kerry scratched her jaw. “Um.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry for assuming.”
“S’okay.” Dar sighed. “It’s a reasonable assumption to make.”
They looked at each other. “I think we got a little sidetracked there,” Kerry suggested. “So, are we going to go after this creep?”
Dar exhaled. “Yeah, I think we did get a little off course,” she agreed. “Let’s go see what he wants. Maybe we can just talk to him and cut through some of the crap.”
Kerry nodded. “Okay.”
They both sat there for a few moments in silence. Then Kerry took a breath. “So, did I—”
“You did great,” Dar cut in. “You impressed the hell out of me,” she added. “Or, as your boss, I would have said something.”
Kerry kicked her heels gently against the wall. “I figured that.
But it’s nice to hear it.”
Dar made a mental note, again, to work on her positive feedback. It was so easy to tell everyone when they did something wrong, and she often forgot to take care of the flip side. Bad mistake. She knew better. “Sorry I didn’t take the time to let you know,” she told Kerry. “I’ll try to do better.”
Kerry peeked at her. “Thanks, boss.”
They looked at each other. “Aren’t we supposed to be on vacation?” Dar asked plaintively.
“We are,” Kerry replied. “Sorry about that.”
Dar gave her a wry look, then chuckled. “Let’s get dressed. We can go get you some soup for lunch.”
“You’re on.” Kerry leaned over and gave Dar a one-armed hug.
“Let’s go be crusaders.”
Rolling thunder boomed an enthusiastic endorsement.
KERRY STOOD JUST inside the door to the verandah of the restaurant, watching the rain fall. She’d managed a bowl of cream-of-something bland soup with some crackers for lunch, and her body seemed to have settled back down to near normal.
Dar had been very quiet since they’d left the room, though, and Kerry sensed there was still a little strain between them from their abrupt foray into the business side of their lives. There are times, she admitted privately, when I wish we didn’t work so closely together. She didn’t mind having Dar as her supervisor—as far as corporate Terrors of the High Seas 153
officers went, Dar was better than most in that department. It was just that as their relationship deepened and evolved, separating their lives at work got tougher and tougher on both of them.
In this case, she knew she’d made Dar feel bad about her assumptions, even though Kerry didn’t actually mind if they’d been true. The first time she’d spotted the log-on, she’d been a little unsettled, but after that, she’d watched for it with a sense of anticipation. “Dar’s final check-off” became a way for her to put closure on a project, and she knew once she’d seen it, she could put that puppy to bed and not have to worry about it coming back to nip her in the butt. It was a very safe feeling.
Kerry sighed. Ick. Though, now that she thought about it, the fact that Dar took the time to review her techniques, evaluating them and learning how she did things, was extremely flattering.
However, she realized that her thinking Dar was snooping after her wasn’t. So… She heard footsteps behind her, and Dar emerged onto the porch, standing quietly as she sucked on a mint candy. Kerry backed up a step and leaned against her, feeling Dar’s body relax as she felt the contact. She curled her fingers around Dar’s and squeezed them, and smiled a little as the pressure was returned.
“You doing okay?” Dar asked.
“Almost,” Kerry replied, turning her head to look up at Dar.
“Are you okay?”
Dar gazed back at her with a quizzical expression, then her face relaxed into a smile. “I’m fine,” she reassured Kerry. “But do me a favor, wouldja?”
“Anything,” Kerry replied sincerely.
“Next time, ask me.”
Kerry understood what she meant. Ask instead of assuming. It was a key concept she thought she’d learned from Dar from the very start; she’d just seldom needed to apply it to her very straightforward boss. “I will,” she promised.
“Okay.” Dar gave her a pat on the hip. “You ready to go meet our mysterious adversary?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Kerry felt her insides unknot as they pulled their jackets closed and zipped them. Then they walked together down the steps and into the rain. The drops hit her shoulders heavily, beating a gentle tattoo across them as she put her head down and kept walking.
Dar threw an arm over Kerry’s shoulders and pulled her casually closer, turning slightly to take the brunt of the rainfall on her taller form. She focused her attention on the approaching docks.
Spotting the ominous form of the big black boat at the very end of them, her pulse raced.
There were two men guarding the gangplank when they arrived. Dar stopped comfortably short of them and put her hands 154 Melissa Good into her pockets. She stared at them until they got uncomfortable, then she pulled the envelope out of her pocket and frisbeed it over to the nearer one, smacking him in the chest with it.
Ten points for style. Dar returned her hand to its dry haven and waited.
The guard scrambled for the envelope and snatched it before it hit the ground. He gave Dar a threatening look, then opened it and unfolded the paper. After he read it, he turned away and spoke into the radio c
lipped to his shoulder.
Kerry rocked up and down gently on her heels, taking the opportunity to study the boat. The bow near the waterline bore fresh paint, and she gauged they’d had to patch at least ten feet of the fiberglass. She chuckled silently, but looked up as she heard the guard coming closer.
The lackey spoke gruffly to Dar. “Come with me. Just you.”
“Kiss my ass,” Dar replied in a pleasant drawl. “Tell your boss if he wants to talk, c’mon out here.”
The guard just looked at her.
“G’wan.” Dar shooed him off. “Yes or no, sixty seconds.”
The man snorted, then turned away again and spoke into his shoulder.
“Don’t you get a stiff neck after a while like that?” Kerry whispered to Dar.
“You start doing it even when you aren’t wearing the damn thing,” Dar whispered back. “Like in the supermarket. There ya are, buying milk next to a guy talking to his arm.”
“Is that like ‘talk to the hand, buddy, talk to the hand?’” Kerry snickered as she moved her fingers in a puppet-like motion.
Dar shook her head. “These guys are like cartoon characters.”
She indicated the guard approaching them again, his bodybuilder’s physique flexing like a Macy’s balloon.
“Mr. DeSalliers says he doesn’t have time to play games with you,” the man announced.
“All right.” Dar lifted a hand. “Hasta Manana, jackass.” She turned and started back down the dock. “If he changes his mind, we’re in slip 30.”
“Bye.” Kerry waggled her fingers at the men before she ambled after Dar. She caught up to her partner after a few steps and they strolled along together. “So,” she commented. “Now what?”
Dar glanced down at the keychain watch looped through her belt. “Give it a minute.”
It really was a big game, of sorts. Kerry had gotten used to the delicate and sometimes not so delicate maneuverings of the boardroom. This didn’t seem that different.
“Ms. Roberts!”
Kerry clucked her tongue. “Ooh, you’re good.”
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