Snowbound Snuggles

by T. F. Walsh

  So she confronted Everett’s faithful secretary, Ms. Dooley. It took three days of worried badgering before Ms. Dooley broke down and admitted that: “Mr. Kirk has retired to his summer house in the mountains.” Or maybe she was that worried too. She gave Edie the address.

  Saturday morning, before the sun was up, Edie drove to Utah. In the two weeks since the snowstorm, the roads had been plowed and treated with ice-melt, but her stomach churned as if they were still treacherous, and she clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles. Even with GPS, her nerves got her lost twice.

  Finally she found the long private driveway of frozen dirt and ice. She rounded the last curve to a clearing, twice as beautiful as their lost cabin because Everett, stripped to his T-shirt despite the clear, cold day, was there splitting wood. She was so glad to see those broad shoulders twisting with exertion that she didn’t even think to yell at him for doing such a dangerous thing alone. Well, for a couple seconds at least.

  He finally looked up when she parked the car. She hopped out and ran to him, arms open wide—

  His eyes were dead.

  She stuttered to a halt. Her arms dropped. “Everett?”

  “Hi.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Okay.” He put down his ax.

  “Everett, you need to come back. Fight for your job. Howell Senior said you were the best . . . ”

  He turned from her mid-sentence to trudge into the cabin.

  She ran after him into a rustic room with all the curtains drawn shut. “Everett, did you hear me? I talked to Howell Senior after that meeting, and he didn’t really want to lose you—”

  “Coffee?” Everett held out a battered metal pot that stank of burned dregs.

  Dust mingled with the sting of coffee to make her sneeze. “Um, no thanks. Everett, about that meeting, I’m glad for what you did for me, but it really wasn’t necessary because—”

  “Have a seat.” He waved vaguely at an old couch.

  Edie blinked. Had he not heard her? “You can get your position back. You did nothing wrong.”

  “I’m sorry, did you say you wanted coffee?”

  She stood in the doorway, completely at a loss. Her usual direct, in-your-face approach was failing abysmally. Everett was . . . not really here. Polite, but so very, very alone. Walled off.

  “Well. Maybe this was a mistake.” She shifted awkwardly. “But before I go, I want you to know . . . I think . . . well I’m pretty sure . . . Everett, I lo—”

  “Okay.” He turned from her to shuffle the coffee pot back to the stove.

  A tear brimmed in Edie’s eye. She dashed it away before it could fall. “Okay. I guess I’ll be going. Unless . . . ?”

  She didn’t know what she expected, a sudden declaration of need, a vow never to give up the good fight.

  A return “I love you.”

  But he only set down the pot and shuffled back outside.

  She shut the door behind her. As she went back to her car, she kept hoping . . . but he was absorbed in his work. She got in her car and started the engine, knowing she should do something but at a loss for what.

  Her last sight was of him splitting wood. His shoulders were just as broad, his strokes just as sure. He was her mountain man, rugged and individual. The Everett she’d thought she wanted.

  But he was no longer whole. A part of him had died—the part she’d thought she hated.

  She went home. When she woke Sunday, her pillow was wet.

  • • •

  Monday at work, Edie got sucker punched walking past Everett’s office. Howell Junior sat there, in Everett’s chair, dictating to Everett’s secretary. Bethany’s promotion over Edie, announced later that day, and her move into a corner office was almost anticlimactic. Bethany finally had the vast real estate to go with her ego.

  So it was a complete surprise when, at seven o’clock that evening, Bethany slipped into Edie’s cubicle.

  Edie was working late because she couldn’t bear going home to another damp pillow. Ms. B’Promoted-itch was the last person she expected to see, or frankly wanted to.

  But one look at the blonde’s ashen face and red-rimmed eyes and Edie pushed away her keyboard. “Bethany, what’s wrong?”

  “You’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.” Bethany ran a hand through her hair, messing its perfection. “I just don’t know where else to go. Everyone here is such a corporate animal.”

  Laughable, coming from Bethany, but Edie didn’t laugh. “It’s okay, Bethany. I won’t say a word. What’s going on?”

  Bethany dropped into the guest chair, twisted her hands in her lap. “It’s Houghton. Someone’s trying to get him fired. They’re circulating nasty rumors. Like I got my promotion by sleeping with him.”

  “Rumors happen, Bethany. Ignore them.”

  “It’s worse than usual. These rumors are vicious.” She hiccupped, a suppressed sob.

  Edie shuddered to think what sharkette Bethany might find vicious. “Can you be more specific?”

  “When he was young, well, Houghton did some bad things.” Bethany lost her battle with the tears. Mascara started running. “He’s not so naive now. Why can’t they see he’s a better man, a better leader because he’s learned from his mistakes?”

  Bethany, in her cubicle, asking for her help to rescue Junior. Edie would’ve looked for webcams but Bethany wasn’t acting—she’d never let her mascara streak. Edie pulled a tissue from her desk dispenser and offered it. “You’re sure it’s deliberate? Not just office gossip?”

  “The timing, the people talking . . . ” Bethany took the tissue and dabbed delicately at the mass of black, as effective as attacking burst toner with a cotton swab. “Yes, it’s deliberate.”

  And if it was the same corporate killer who’d targeted Everett . . . it implied Howell hadn’t been the one to ruin Everett. She’d have to let him know.

  Except Everett didn’t care. Her corporate Tarzan was gone, sacrificed for her.

  She’d just have to deal with this herself for now.

  She eyed Bethany thoughtfully. Maybe not totally by herself. “Pull yourself together, Bethany. Where is the girl who braved pepper spray to plant a protest sign in the mayor’s front yard?”

  Bethany colored. “That was a long time ago.”

  “You’ve changed, yes. But I can’t believe you’ve lost your nerve.”

  The flush deepened. “No. But where Houghton is concerned I . . . I just don’t want to screw up.”

  “If he’s going to get fired,” Edie countered, “how can you make that worse?”

  A steely glint entered Bethany’s raccoon eyes. “You’re right.”

  “Darn right, I’m right. And what did my grandparents teach us?”

  “Never give up.” A beat. “But then they left.” Bethany’s tone cooled.

  “I had college coming.” Edie had heard bitterness in Bethany’s voice but didn’t understand it. “They thought school was important.”

  “My parents didn’t.”

  “But you went anyway, didn’t you? You couldn’t be where you are today if you hadn’t gone to college.”

  “Shit.” Bethany stared at her. “You don’t know. You really don’t.”

  “Know what? Bethany, I tried to contact you—”

  “When you left, my life went to hell.” Bethany slumped. “You know why my parents joined the commune? Not the ideals, despite their public zeal. No, they wanted to grow ‘medicinal’ marijuana without getting jailed again. Those cross-country protest trips? A blind for selling drugs. After you left, my folks gave me a gift—my first tab of E. Ecstasy, for my fourteenth birthday.”

  “My God,” Edie whispered.

  “Without your grandparents there, my parents dropped any pretense of caring about me, left me to fend for myself. I got out of there.”

  “Your parents said you didn’t want to talk to me. But you were gone. I . . . I never knew.”

  “No. You didn’t.” Bethany crushed the tissue in he
r hand. “I clawed my way up the ladder to financial security. I sold what I had to, to make it through school, did what I had to, to enter the privileged world of corporate America. And I’m glad I did it, do you hear me? I’m glad!” She was trembling.

  “I’m so sorry.” Edie didn’t know what else to say. Bethany’s anger made sense now, and she had a right to it. “Nobody helped you? Not even Howell?”

  Bethany was silent for so long Edie thought she hadn’t heard. Then, in a voice Edie remembered from girlhood, Bethany said, “I love him.” Black rivulets trickled quietly down her cheeks. “At home he’s just the sweetest pussycat. But at work he . . . he’s ashamed of me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “My ideas . . . he cuts them down. Says they’re stupid.” She paused. “Just like my parents.”

  “Howell’s wrong. Your parents were wrong.” Briskly, Edie pulled out more tissue and handed it to her. “You’re strong and brave, Bethany. You have ideas worthy of respect.”

  Bethany looked away. “No one respects me.”

  “Everett does. He respects all the employees.” Edie made a face. “Even me.”

  “He’s got a thing for you.” Some of the old acid Bethany cut through.

  “And I thought you were the one in bed with him.” Edie’s whole face burned. “Corporately speaking.”

  “Hardly.” Bethany dabbed her eyes. “Mr. Kirk is out of my league. You only have to look at him to see he’s special.”

  Everett’s protective coloration. He’d let Edie see through it to the real man. Half of whom she’d rejected. Her eyes suddenly prickled. She grabbed her own tissue.

  Bethany shook her head. “Even Houghton feels intimidated by Mr. Kirk.”

  Such incredible personal power that he intimidated Mahogany Row just by breathing—yet he respected the employees. Respected her. At that moment, in Edie’s mind, Edward Everett Kirk rose to a place just a little higher than her beloved grandparents.

  She stood. “Bethany, I think whoever is sabotaging Howell got rid of Everett. We need to do something about this corporate killer.”

  “Us? You and me?” Bethany just stared at her. “We have no power. We aren’t even officers. What can we do?”

  “Together? What can’t we do?” Edie hooked an arm with Bethany and tugged her to her feet. “We will overcome.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  To: ED@mythicmail.com

  From: ThePrez@serenityrangers.com

  Subject: Re: Re: Meet?

  Dearest ED,

  Thank you for your honesty. Now it’s my turn to be honest with you—and myself.

  I’ve been playing the corporate game too long. It has lost me friends and made me enemies. And now, this stupid pointless game has cost the woman I love.

  Time for me to make my own game.

  Make your own game, ED. Grab that stupid man and shake him until his bones rattle if you love him.

  Make your own game, ED. It’ll be the best in town.

  I won’t be writing any more either. It was good knowing you. The best.

  —Prez

  “What the hell is that singing?” An irritated tenor presaged the appearance of Houghton Howell III.

  “Houghie!” Bethany flung herself into his pinstripe-clad arms.

  He caught her, hugged her briefly, and then held her at arm’s length with a grimace. “Please, Ms. Blondelle, not in the office. Especially not in front of the staff.”

  Bethany drew herself up with dignity. “It’s after hours, Houghie.”

  Edie, thanks to Everett, was too mature to stick out her tongue. But she thought “gotcha.” “Don’t mind me, Howell. I’m not the one killing your career.”

  That got his attention. “What do you know about it?”

  “Only what I’ve heard from Everett, and now Bethany.”

  “What does Everett have to do with anything?”

  “Come on, Howell. You think he got canned because your dad was anxious to sit your butt in his chair?”

  Howell frowned. “I was just glad to see him go.”

  “Open your eyes. Somebody helped Everett out the door. It wasn’t Bethany. Apparently it wasn’t you.”

  “Me? Hardly. Everybody knows you were the one always harassing the poor man. Those faked reports were just the killing blow.”

  “I didn’t fake them.” Edie stared into Howell’s eyes, trying to discover his real face behind the corporate mask. Everett had one, but she still wasn’t sure about Junior. “Believe me.”

  “Why should I?”

  Smack him with a clue bat. “Because we need to work together if we’re going to discover who’s really behind this. To do that we need to trust each other.”

  “Trust you? No way.” Howell stalked off.

  “Houghie, she can help.” Bethany ran after. “Please, Houghie? For me?”

  Howell turned, his narrow face astonishingly soft. “All right. For you.”

  Bethany touched his arm, smiling up into his eyes.

  Edie looked away. Couldn’t always choose your allies. At least she had allies. “So, we’re in this together. I have an idea to find out who planted the fake files in my directory, but I’ll need root privilege.”

  “Root?” Bethany said. “But only the vice president of MIS has root privilege.”

  “And the officers of the company.” Edie stared directly at Howell.

  Howell’s eyes met Edie’s, a feral gleam in them. “Ms. Rowan. If it catches this scum, I’ll be glad to help.”

  • • •

  The next evening, Edie waited for the last person to leave. Jack did the all call at 1 A.M., then keyed on the alarm system. The moment he left she keyed it off. Couldn’t have the motion detectors betray her. She’d erase her electronic tracks later. Corporate politics, she’d learned, required a mild touch of paranoia.

  Then she slipped into Howell’s office and cracked her knuckles.

  Time to show who was alpha geek.

  She called up remote desktop to log onto her own computer. A directory command on her private directory confirmed the fake profit/loss files were there, owner Rowan. Just for grins and giggles, she tried opening one. As Howell had said, password protected. Losing the grins, she tried her password, the name of her deceased goldfish.

  The file opened.

  “Shi . . . atsu massage.” These fake files used her real password. How the hel . . . en of Troy had someone gotten her password? She never wrote it down, never told anyone. Had a rootkit or a computer virus trapped her keystrokes? But no, she used a virtual keyboard. A sledgehammer, guessing all combinations? No, there was a three-try limit until lockout, and the lockout report was clean.

  She tapped her chin. Who knew about Jean-Luc Picardfish? She’d gotten him after leaving the commune, had him until just after she lost her first job. So her grandparents knew, and her high school and college friends. But no one here. Not Bethany, not Everett, not Howell, not even . . .

  No. He was impossible.

  She needed more information. She added flags to the directory command to view more information. The expanded list scrolled onto the screen. Date created was the Friday before the snowstorm, the time 7 P.M., well after she’d gone home. But he’d just argue that she’d netted in from home. Creator . . . Rowan. Either he’d actually logged in as her, or he’d managed to spoof all the attributes.

  Okay. Everett had taught her that if she couldn’t see the enemy in person, maybe she could find his spoor.

  Friday night. Wouldn’t be a lot of people working. How many computers were active? She got a break—only two IP addresses. One was Jack’s, accessing a video on the Internet.

  The other, located in the small conference room, was netting to her computer. “Gotcha.”

  She cross-referenced with the security cams, found camera fourteen covered the small conference room. She clicked to select the camera and started playback from Friday at 7 P.M.—

  “Damn.”

  There, typing away, was the ma
n responsible for the evil rumors undermining Everett, then Howell. The man who knew her password, because he’d known her three years ago. The savage corporate animal.

  Philip Sedgwick. Her mentor.

  • • •

  Edie had to get out of there. She triggered her cleanup routine, which ghosted an image of an empty office into the security footage, erased all traces of herself in the logs, set the building alarm to do an activation after five minutes, erased itself from the log, and shut down.

  She grabbed her coat and purse, and ran out of the building.

  But she was too worked up to drive. Pacing the parking lot, she tried to figure out what the H-E-rats-rats to do. She wasn’t dressed for the cold but was too angry to care. She wanted to strangle Philip for betraying her a second time. She wanted to murder him for destroying the man she was coming to love, just as she finally took off her blinders and recognized that love.

  When she calmed down it was 2 A.M. and she was bone tired and freezing. She got in her car and drove home.

  As she neared her door, she heard her landline ringing. She was still clumsy with the new key and fumbled with the lock several seconds before it opened. When she ran inside the answering machine had already picked up and the tone sounded.

  “Where the hell are you?” Everett’s baritone barked.

  She dropped her purse and ran to the counter, nearly squirted the handset onto the ceiling trying to pick the call up. “Don’t swear.” She was panting.

  “Edie, thank God. Where have you been?”

  Discovering Philip The Rat was a character murderer. But if she told Everett that, he’d swing in on his vine, straight into the spears of an enemy who’d already taken him out . . . she shivered. No, Philip had done enough damage. “Out.”

  “Out where?”

  Commander Kirk was apparently up and taking nourishment again. But she was not going to risk him in the front lines. She hardened her heart. “What do you want, Everett?”

  “To make sure you were all right. I heard something—”

  “You knew I was all right when I visited.”