Asking For It

by Alyssa Kress

  Griffith waved the red paint back and forth, making a brighter rectangle on the rust-colored trailer. How many campers were out there, alumni, as Kate called them, who might have heard of his dastardly plans? How many had the means or motivation to drive all the way out to Sagebrush Valley and make trouble?

  Griffith took his finger off the spray can and stepped back, frowning at the bright red rectangle. He thought of the dead rat and wondered what kind of trouble one of these allies of Camp Wild Hills was willing to commit.

  ~~~

  Deirdre was holding down the fort again. This time, however, the responsibility was just fine with her. She didn't mind that Griffith had decided he, himself, had to go out and babysit the construction trailer on Mineral Road in Sagebrush Valley. She didn't mind that he put the load of carrying every other project in the office on her shoulders. She was thrilled to take care of the host of details necessary to run Blaine Development.

  What she did mind was Griffith gently scolding her for doing all this good work for him when he called on the telephone Friday afternoon.

  "I thought I told you to take the day off," Griffith grumbled over the land line. "You worked both Saturday and Sunday last weekend, didn't you?"

  "Griffith." Seated behind his now-cluttered desk, Deirdre smiled wryly at the piles of work waiting to be done. "I'm head of this office when you're out of town. What do you suppose would happen if I simply didn't show up on a regular workday?"

  "Nothing." Griffith laughed. "I was gone for two weeks and nobody even noticed."

  Deirdre folded over the corner of a page in a construction schedule. "They'd notice if I were gone."

  Griffith laughed again. It was a very different laugh from the kind he would have given his principal assistant two months ago. Then his laugh would have been pure devilment, a cheerfully ferocious happiness. Now he sounded wry and muted, wiser but not happier.

  "If you don't watch out," Griffith told Deirdre, "you'll end up as dispensable as I was."

  "Unlikely. Say, I got the plans for the Wildwood site that you were waiting for. Alternate E, right?"

  "You have them?" Thankfully, Griffith was distracted from further discussion of Deirdre's life, or lack thereof. Actually, he was entirely accurate in saying she was spending too much time at work. She was trying to lose herself there. Heck, she needed to.

  Ricky was calling her every day, sometimes more than once a day. With the miracle of call screening, Deirdre had been able to avoid actually having to speak to him. It was bad enough he was calling, clearly wanting to do damage control. She didn't want to compound the temptation by hearing his voice. She'd melt.

  Deirdre didn't want to melt. She didn't want to be a doormat for that man one more time. Maybe she was giving up a real life in her work, but for right now she had to. Real life was over her head. She reached out to rock the rolled-up plans for Wildwood, the latest option from the architect. "Want me to run Alternate E out to you?" she asked Griffith.

  "You mean, you personally?"

  "Sure."

  "And spend six hours of that life I want you to have in driving out here and back? Nah. I'll be back in L.A. tomorrow. I'll see them then."

  "It'd be a nice drive," Deirdre argued. "And I've never seen this famous Sagebrush Valley. I'm curious."

  "Satisfy your curiosity another time...maybe with a friend. Meanwhile, knock off early tonight, go out for drinks with somebody, a movie."

  "'Somebody,'" Deirdre repeated mockingly. She curled the telephone cord around her index finger. "You mean Ricky."

  "Well-l-l." Griffith had the grace to sound sheepish. "I don't know exactly what he did to you, but he does seem to want to beg forgiveness — "

  "Take advantage," Deirdre translated. She uncurled the telephone cord.

  " — and I certainly know how it feels to be in the doghouse," Griffith went on.

  "No. You are a completely different story." Deirdre sat up straighter in Griffith's big chair.

  "I am?"

  "Yes. Kate Darby has every reason in the world to let you talk to her. She absolutely ought to listen to you. You're bending over backward — more than backward — to do the right thing for her and her camp."

  "And exactly how is she supposed to know that?" Griffith sounded sincerely curious.

  "By giving you a chance!" Deirdre exclaimed.

  "But..." Griffith appeared to be feeling his way with care. "Doesn't Ricky deserve the same kind of chance?"

  "He already had his chance." Deirdre had to stop and swallow to get the bitter tears out of her voice. As far as she was concerned she'd given Ricky one chance too many: a 'last date,' opportunity for her to go and perform one final 'class act' for him. The memory alone could scrape her raw.

  "I see," Griffith said, but Deirdre could tell that he didn't, really. Especially after he sighed. But he was considerate enough to change the subject. "So don't talk to Ricky if you don't want to, but I'm asking you — I'm ordering you — to leave the office by three o'clock, y'hear? Do it for me, okay, Deed?"

  Deirdre rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. The new, soft Griffith Blaine. "Fine. For you, I'll knock off at three."

  "Good. And I'll see you Monday."

  "Sure thing." Deirdre rotated the architect's roll of Alternate E another inch across the desk top. She'd leave the office at three... She rolled the drawings back toward herself. But what she chose to do with her time after that would be up to her, not Griffith.

  ~~~

  Ricky was hard at work on a memo for one of the junior partners when the phone at his polished desk deep in the warren of associates' offices rang. Annoyed, Ricky glanced over. When he saw the name displayed on the screen he froze, all annoyance transformed to paralyzed excitement.

  Blaine Development.

  Deirdre. Ricky's heart started pounding so hard he could barely breathe. After all the bluster she'd used in walking out on him, and after refusing to take any of his calls for two weeks, she was calling him back.

  Was that really possible?

  Ricky's pounding heart said yes, while his brain shook a mournful head no. Deirdre was through with him. The dump had been total. Of course it had. He'd engineered it that way. He'd wanted to get dumped.

  He just hadn't known how bad it would feel.

  If Deirdre were calling him now, it was probably to threaten him with a restraining order.

  So, not sure whether to hope or to dread, Ricky reached out for the phone with a hand that trembled.

  "Hello?" he ventured.

  "Mr. Ascensios!" The voice booming from the other end of the phone was definitely not Deirdre's. Ricky blinked and tried to assimilate his disappointment, along with his surprise. Griffith Blaine was calling him? The very man? In a way, this was even more unlikely than Deirdre calling.

  "Uh...Mr. Blaine." Ricky glanced toward his open office door. With the phone to his ear, he got up and closed it. "Does your attorney know you're calling me?"

  "Granger?" Griffith scoffed. "This call has nothing to do with him."

  "I think Mr. Granger would disagree." Actually, Ricky was sure he would. "It's not at all ethical for me, an attorney in the action, to speak directly to a party."

  "But I'm calling you," Griffith pointed out. "And, like I said, I don't want to talk about that silly lawsuit."

  "You don't." Ricky was baffled.

  "Nah, screw that. But, listen. Doesn't Kate need those new cabins built as soon as possible? I mean, they won't be ready for the campers in the summer if they don't start, like, immediately, right?"

  Ricky couldn't make heads or tails of this. Carefully, he replied, "Kate could not conscientiously spend money on new cabins when she has the threat of losing the whole camp hanging over her head."

  Griffith made a rude sound.

  "Excuse me?" said Ricky.

  "Sorry." But Griffith sounded more disgusted than apologetic. "She didn't tell you, then."

  "She didn't tell me what?"

  "No, she wouldn't have," G
riffith mused. "She will never believe me."

  Wondering at Griffith's exasperated tone, Ricky asked, "Exactly what is it Kate should have told me?"

  "That I'm not taking the water."

  Griffith had managed to flabbergast Ricky, once again. "Excuse me?" Ricky asked, hoarse.

  "I'm not diverting the stream. I told her that. More than once. But Kate is convinced I'm the big, bad wolf and I'm gonna blow her house in, no matter what I say or do."

  Ricky put a hand to his forehead. "You aren't diverting the stream."

  "Of course not." Impatience came across over the phone wires. "Not only do I love Kate, but I wouldn't do that to the kids. Come on."

  For a long moment Ricky could only stand there, dumbfounded. Griffith loved Kate, enough to cede back to her the water. Ricky shouldn't have been so surprised, really. Arnie had said as much. He, himself, had guessed Griffith's vulnerability.

  But, for some reason, he wanted to hear Griffith say it again. "You love Kate?"

  Testily, Griffith asked, "Is that so hard to believe?"

  "Uh..." Actually, it was very hard to believe. Griffith was a hard-ass businessman. He had a reputation for ruthlessness and a cold eye on the bottom line. In many ways, despite the evil he'd planned against Camp Wild Hills, Ricky admired him. Griffith had focus and determination.

  And, until he'd met Kate, he'd had strength.

  "Never mind," Griffith said. "You don't have to believe in my true love." He tossed the 'L' word off as if it didn't rub any skin off his nose. No, more than that. He said it as if being in love made him stronger, not weaker. Better, not worse.

  "The thing is," Griffith went on, oblivious to Ricky's disorientation. "The thing is I need some feedback here. It's a given Kate won't give me any, but you know the camp. You know what they need the most, in the way of construction and such. So the reason I called is to ask if you'd come and look at some plans I've had drawn up. I could ask Orlando — He actually got in touch with me, after all — but though he's willing, he's only fourteen years old, and I could use a...more adult perspective."

  "Plans," Ricky echoed, still thinking about Griffith cheerfully admitting his love, his debilitating love.

  "Yeah, for more new cabins. And maybe a — Well, you gotta see them to understand."

  Ricky paced to the end of his telephone cord. "Where are you now?"

  "I'm in our trailer on Mineral Road in Sagebrush Valley. Don't ask. It didn't work. Kate still wouldn't come inside. But I'll be back in L.A. tomorrow afternoon."

  "I'd rather meet you in Sagebrush Valley." Indeed. If Ricky intended to break about fifty ethical rules he'd rather do it far from the eye of his opposing counsel, the one whose client he was planning to meet on the sly.

  Jesus. Was he? Was he really going to do this?

  But Griffith sounded sincere. And in love. If he really didn't want to divert Wild Tail Creek, then by meeting him Ricky would be doing everybody a favor.

  And, in the process it might lead to Ricky seeing Deirdre again...

  "O-kay," Griffith said, slow.

  "I can be there by about seven," Ricky said.

  He paced off to tauten his telephone cord again. His heart went into a heavy, excited rhythm. Why did he even want to see Deirdre again? But of course, Ricky knew the answer. He was in the same boat as Griffith. He absolutely adored the woman. He'd walk over coals for her.

  Ricky stifled a sudden laugh as he reached the end of his telephone cord. Yeah, he'd walk over coals. He could do anything. Even ask Griffith... "Do you think..." Ricky stopped at the very end of his telephone cord. "Do you think Deirdre would want to be there?"

  "Ah." Ricky could hear Griffith's regret. "That's the thing. See, I was specifically requested, with regards to all this, that she not have to see or speak to you. God, I'm sorry, bud."

  Ricky shut his eyes. "Yeah."

  "For what it's worth," Griffith said, "I've been standing up for you."

  A short laugh escaped Ricky. "Odd bedfellows."

  "Or not. We do have similar...challenges."

  Another laugh managed to jump out of Ricky.

  "Will you still come look at the plans?" Griffith asked.

  Ricky sighed and opened his eyes again. Notes for the memo he was supposed to write littered his desk. "Sure, I'll come look. It's for the camp, right? And Kate?"

  "Right."

  Ricky sighed again. The camp and Kate: saving those had been his original goals, the goals that had sent him into Deirdre's arms in the first place. "Where, exactly, is this trailer?"

  He took careful notes as Griffith told him how to find the place.

  ~~~

  Griffith discovered the power was out when he tried to switch on the light over the plans table. He thought it was a burned out bulb in the table-mounted fixture but then learned, as he walked through the trailer and tried each one, that not a single light in the trailer was working.

  He swore with some creativity, already knowing what he was going to see when he went out into the growing dusk and looked up at the temporary power pole. Someone had shimmied up the thing and snipped the cable, just near the top.

  "Shit," he said, noting that the other cable, the one for the telephone, the one he'd had brought in at great expense, by the bye, was also cut.

  He had no power, and no telephone.

  Uttering an impressive set of further curses, Griffith went back into the trailer, in the vain hope he was wrong, and that his land line — the only telephone that would work way out here — hadn't actually been severed.

  It had been.

  Outside, the sun was plunging toward the La Panza mountain range. It would be too dark to see inside the trailer soon. About an hour from that, it would be too dark to see outside.

  There was no point in waiting for Ricky. Griffith would call him on his cell as soon as he got within range of a signal. Thinking about it, Griffith strode toward the company pickup truck.

  Ten yards from the truck, Griffith saw that its tires had been slashed.

  Creative didn't begin to describe the series of oaths Griffith let loose. He had no power, no communication, and now no transportation. The vandal who'd been spray-painting the trailer and dumping dead rats had just demonstrated he was willing to up the ante.

  Griffith was considering his options, which weren't many, when he saw the note stuck under the windshield wiper of the pickup.

  With a very bad feeling, he reached out to slide the sheet of paper from under the wiper. It was smudged in one corner, as if it had been held in dirty hands, and was covered with a childish, black marker scrawl.

  Kate is next.

  For a moment Griffith could only stand there, feeling like he'd been turned inside out. Kate? The vandal was now going after Kate? The why of it didn't even matter to Griffith. Instead an image of the dead rat, its little mouth hanging open, flashed sickly behind his eyes. The vandal so far had only attacked Griffith behind his back. A coward avoiding a direct confrontation.

  But toward a woman he might not be as timid.

  Griffith nearly lost it then, just buckled. But losing it wouldn't help Kate. He drew in a deep breath, straightened, and narrowed his eyes across the valley toward the setting sun.

  What could he do? Sit tight and wait for Ricky to arrive? But that would be hours from now, hours during which the vandal could do anything to Kate. Another option was hiking across the valley ten miles to Sagebrush Valley City for help — but that would also take hours. And once he got there, he'd be that much further from Kate.

  Griffith turned toward the hill looming to his left. It was only five miles up to Camp Wild Hills, actually less than that from this side of the hill. Under normal circumstances he'd laugh at the idea of being able to find his way up the hill. He couldn't find his way between his condo and his office on well-marked streets.

  But these were not normal circumstances. Griffith's fingers crushed the note he held. The woman he loved was up there, with some creep going after her. The creep d
idn't have such a head start. He must have been down here, cutting the wires, within the last hour.

  Griffith jumped back into the trailer to get a flashlight. Then, turning toward the mountain, he started to run. It was a quarter mile to the start of the upward trail. He knew from the maps it was half a mile from there to the closest fork in the road when he'd have to make a decision.

  Until then, he could race.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  His words stung. Kate didn't want them to, but they did anyway.

  She drove to Taft and existed through her dental appointment, staring at the acoustic tile ceiling and doing her damnedest not to see Griffith up there. Griffith, with his sober, sincere expression. Griffith telling her he wasn't taking her water.

  Griffith gently suggesting that she wanted to feel guilty. That it was a security blanket.

  After her dentist appointment, Kate picked up groceries and headed back across the Valley, chasing the shadows of the mountains as the sun began to dip behind them. As she drove, she did everything possible to push her conversation with Griffith out of her mind.

  It wouldn't go.

  Up at the camp, Kate pulled her car into the lot behind the dining hall and carried her bags to her cabin. For ten years she'd lived in this cabin. It was a wonderful dwelling, just the right size for a woman living alone. Cozy, protected, hers.

  Safe? Insulated? Escapist?

  With a brisk movement, Kate set her bags down. Her lips pressed tightly together as she unpacked her groceries.

  Down at the trailer, Griffith had just been doing what Griffith was great at doing: feeding a line of bull. Thanks to her own impulsive confession, Griffith had figured out a point of weakness in Kate, a place to dig his way in.

  Once everything was out of the paper bags, Kate folded and stored them for recycling. That done, she found the latest report from the accountant. At the kitchen table she looked down at the numbers for the camp's finances and attempted to concentrate.

  A joke.

  Because a niggling idea had crept into her brain sometime between peeling out of Griffith's parking lot and her present moment sitting at her kitchen table.