by Cara Bristol
The avalanche roared toward her, but Stephanie could do nothing to dodge it, to save herself. No one at WAN had ever been fired.
“Since you’re a salaried management staff member, your employment contract stipulates you serve at will and can be dismissed without cause.”
Gladys glanced at the other board members. Five of them nodded. Elizabeth looked like she wanted to spit nails. “This is a farce!” Elizabeth said.
They weren’t even going to vote? Stephanie realized she’d never had a chance. Her fate had been decided before she’d ever walked into the room. Why hadn’t Elizabeth warned her?
“Although you have given us ample reason, let the record show that your employment with Women Act Now has been terminated without cause. Bethany Laurent will be appointed acting administrator until a replacement can be hired.”
Big girls don’t cry. Tears of heartbreak and rage froze within her. It was as if her internal temperature had descended into hypothermia, and she didn’t even have the energy to shiver, encasing her in numbness.
“Board Member Harrison will accompany Ms. Gordon to retrieve her personal items and then escort her out the building. Might I remind everyone that personnel issues are confidential and are not to be discussed outside this room.”
Elizabeth shot to her feet, but Stephanie ignored her and stumbled out of the boardroom.
The crash of the door reverberated in the empty corridor. Fired. Fired. Fired. Bethany leaped from the bench. “My God, Steph, what is it?”
Her throat constricted, and she couldn’t answer for fear she’d burst into tears and humiliate herself further. She lifted her hand, an ineffectual attempt to communicate, and let it drop. Bethany would find out the details soon enough. She had to get out of this building, but it was all she could do to force one foot in front of the other. It was as if she had cement blocks chained to her limbs.
Behind her the conference doors opened, then clicked shut. “You may go in now,” said Virginia Harrison to Bethany.
“What’s going on?” Bethany asked.
Stephanie focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
The doors opened again, then banged closed. Moments later Elizabeth caught her arm. “Stephanie, wait!
She stared straight ahead, unable to look at Elizabeth because she’d break down.
“I’m so sorry,” Elizabeth said.
She kept her gaze averted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If I’d caught wind of it, I would have. The board knows I support you, so they didn’t inform me of the investigation until ten minutes before you walked in.”
Someone cleared their throat, and Elizabeth glanced back and snorted. “Give us a minute, Virginia, okay?”
“I need to escort Steph—Ms. Gordon to get her stuff so the meeting can continue.”
“A few minutes won’t make a difference,” Elizabeth huffed.
No, it wouldn’t. “It’s okay,” Stephanie said. “Please go back to the boardroom.” The weight of sympathy was too much to bear. She was going to lose it. She blinked and tightened her jaw. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
“Let me drive you home.”
“I’m okay,” Stephanie lied. She risked a glance, and the concern etched on her friend’s face almost toppled her, so she quickly focused on the end of the hall. “Please. Return to the meeting. I want you to,” she said and began the long trudge down the corridor.
“I’ll call you,” Elizabeth said.
Chapter Fourteen
Her apartment building loomed in front of her. Stephanie had no memory of driving home, but obviously she had. The last thing she remembered was the doors slamming with a booming finality as she ignominiously descended the old city hall steps with a box of her coffee mugs, some framed photos, and her plaque, the mayor’s award for “Women Who Make a Difference.”
After shoving open the car door, Stephanie dragged herself out of the vehicle more from a need to not attract attention than a desire to go inside. She shivered, though she suspected the night wasn’t cold. Her fingers were like icicles, her heart a frozen, aching stone under her breastbone. How did one get expelled from the organization one had founded? Policies she’d put into place to protect WAN had been used against her. Why hadn’t Evelyn come to her? When the office manager had objected to the butt glass, she’d immediately hidden it.
In retrospect she’d been totally insane to bring it to the office, but it was a stupid mistake. There’d been no intent to offend anyone.
The board knew that, damn them. They’d used it as an excuse to force her out. Stephanie had had issues with a few members, notably Gladys, when she’d raised concerns with what she saw as misplaced priorities.
FOUNDER OF WAN FIRED. Would she end up a news item in the Sentinel? How would she get another job? Though Gladys claimed the matter would be kept confidential, information had a way of leaking.
Inside her apartment, Stephanie had just dumped her purse and the box on the nearest table when her cell rang. She glanced at the display and let it go to voice mail. What could Elizabeth say that could change anything? Nothing, and Stephanie wasn’t up for a conversation. Hell, she could hardly remain upright. Her wobbly legs threatened to collapse at any moment.
Her cell played again. Bethany this time. No doubt she sought answers, but Stephanie didn’t have them to give. I’ve gotta lie down.
In the bedroom, she blinked at the sight of her overnight case.
Mark! She was supposed to catch a plane in a few hours. If he so much as hugged her, called her “kitten” in his rumbly voice, which, of course, he’d do, she’d lose it. She’d become a wailing, shrieking lunatic. No telling what would come out of her mouth. She couldn’t let him see her like that. Mark appreciated discipline and self-control. She needed to get a grip before she saw him.
She checked her wristwatch and verified the time against her alarm clock. Midnight in Kansas City. He was probably asleep.
Her bedside phone rang. Caller ID displayed Elizabeth’s name. Persistent in her sympathy. Stephanie sank onto the bed and clutched her cell. She had to call Mark. What if she started sobbing? Breathe in. Breathe out. Stephanie pinched the bridge of her nose.
Big girls didn’t cry. Not when they got knocked down on the playground, when teenage girls joined with adolescent boys to taunt them, when guys they thought cared about them stomped on their hearts, when dreams were torn from their grasp. She’d always been a big girl even when she’d really been a little girl inside.
Silently she rehearsed a speech, fortified herself with another breath, and punched in Mark’s cell number.
Voice mail picked up, and she sagged with relief. “I hope you get this message before you leave for the airport. Something has come up—” Her voice quivered, so she paused and squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment. “Something has come up,” she repeated, stronger this time, “and I’m not able to come to Kansas City. I’m sorry. I’ll…uh…see you when you get home. Bye.” She pushed End and expelled her breath.
Her home phone jangled again, and Bethany popped up on caller ID. Stephanie yanked the cord out of the wall, powered off her cell, turned out the light, and crawled into bed fully clothed.
* * * *
Mark’s wake-up call came dark and early, but he’d been up for an hour in anticipation of seeing Stephanie. In a month of dating, they’d spent nearly all their nonworking hours together, and he could no longer imagine what his life had been like before she’d entered it. Two days into the conference, he longed for her with an urgency that exceeded his desire. His mind drifted at the seminars and meetings. He missed her smile, her cute voice, her snarky quips, the way she sweetly submitted one moment and hotly challenged him the next.
She would be the perfect wife. He couldn’t recall exactly when he’d started thinking marriage. Maybe around the time he realized he’d fallen in love with her. He was thirty-nine; she was thirty-five. They weren’t kids, although they both wanted them, so waiting some arbitrary length
of time seemed silly. When Stephanie arrived, he would tell her he loved her and raise the subject of marriage. After the conference, he’d buy her a ring and ask her officially.
But first he would hug her, kiss her, make love to her, and spank her. He relished the idea of turning her ass rosy again. He disliked punishing her, but spanking for foreplay or afterplay or any kind of play? Hell, yeah. Like other natural redheads, she had fair skin and blushed easily. He planned to keep her in pink for the rest of their lives.
Which would commence in a couple of hours. Mark threw off the covers and bounded out of bed. He shaved, then jumped into the shower. He had a mandatory meeting with police chiefs from across the country, but it didn’t begin until eleven a.m., so he’d have plenty of time for a morning session with Stephanie. He did intend to ditch the information seminars at the end of the day so they could start their evening early.
He padded into the bedroom portion of his suite to dress. Better check my messages. He detoured to his cell phone docked in its charger and powered it up. When the music finished playing, the screen flashed with a voice mail message.
Seeing it was from Stephanie, he smiled, but his grin died on his lips as he listened. Well, shit. His shoulders slumped with disappointment. Uneasiness followed. What if something serious had happened? It was the weekend, so her cancelation was unlikely to be work-related, but if she’d fallen ill, wouldn’t she have said so?
He replayed her message and this time heard a little catch in her voice, noted the repetition of the phrase something has come up. Whatever “something” was, it had upset her. Shit.
And he was almost two thousand miles away. Quickly he called her cell. Voice mail. Of course. If she wasn’t on the plane, she was most likely asleep, her cell switched off.
“It’s Mark. I got your message, and I’m worried about you. Call me when you get this.”
Still naked, he flung himself into a club chair and swore.
* * * *
The sun stabbed at her eyelids, and Stephanie jackknifed in bed. Wasn’t she supposed to be somewhere? Her gaze fell on the overnight case. Shit. Shit. Shit. She’d missed her plane! Why was she even in bed? She flung aside the covers.
And froze. She was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, right down to her boots. She frowned in confusion before the dam broke and memories poured out. Evelyn. Gladys. Blindside. Betrayal. Kicked out on her ass.
If not for the damn sun, she’d still be cocooned in oblivion and not weighted down by heaviness, circled by memories that nipped at the edges of that numbness, threatening to shatter her control. She didn’t want to be awake to be bombarded by nightmarish reality. Better to sleep.
She eased to the edge of the mattress, planted her feet on the floor, and stood. The room swayed as if she’d drunk one too many Bottom Burners, served in signature keepsake butt glasses. She choked back a sob. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
She trained her gaze on the window blinds like they were the finish line at the end of a marathon, and hobbled to them. A twist of the wand transformed the room to dusk. That would do. She wrestled her boots off her feet, a tussle that exhausted her small reserve of strength.
Still clothed, she fell into bed and let sleep anesthetize her once again.
* * * *
Mark called upon his criminal justice training to remain calm during his criminal justice meeting. He said the right things and kept his butt in the chair as the dozens of men and a few women droned on about methamphetamine use and crime, Internet applications for law enforcement, and ye old standby, community education and policing.
He’d expected Stephanie to call him with an explanation. But she hadn’t.
Everything in him demanded he dash out of the conference, grab a plane, and find out what had happened. She wouldn’t flake out. Something had occurred. A family emergency, maybe? He knew she had a mother, an aunt and uncle, cousins. She’d had a board meeting, but she’d said it was routine. If work had buried her, she would have said.
After he’d listened to her message three more times, the hitch in her voice had grown in significance. When he called her home, the phone rang and rang and rang as if it had been unplugged. Her cell dumped immediately into voice mail.
Where the fuck was she?
Woe to her ass if he discovered she had flaked out and just had decided not to come. He’d paddle her until she couldn’t sit for a week. He almost hoped that was the case; better to think she’d acted inconsiderately than had been injured. What if she’d been in an accident?
He tried to convince himself he was overreacting, but he trusted his gut too much. So all he could do was cool his heels and wait for Stephanie to call. At the very least they were going to have a conversation about appropriate communication. “Something has come up” did not cut it.
* * * *
She couldn’t lift her head! Stephanie’s eyelids popped open in panic. Was she in the hospital? Had she been kidnapped and tied up?
With a hard jerk, she peeled her face off the pillow.
In the dusky dimness of the room, she stared at a dark splotch on the white pillowcase. Blood!
She touched her cheek. Her skin felt tight, crusty, but didn’t hurt.
What the hell had happened? She scrutinized the room; nothing appeared amiss. When she reached for the bedside lamp, she spotted the carton stuck between the headboard and mattress. She probed her face lightly, then tentatively licked one finger.
Ice cream.
She’d fallen asleep with a near-empty carton of chocolate mint. But near empty wasn’t near enough. It had melted and then dried on the bed and all over her.
Now she remembered. She’d spent Saturday alternately sleeping and staring at the television. At some point she’d removed her clothes but had left the bed only to pee. By Sunday morning, a dry mouth and a gnawing hunger had awakened her, so she’d padded naked to the kitchen, where she drank two glasses of water and searched for something quick to eat.
A container of ice cream three-quarters full served the purpose. She’d squeezed chocolate sauce into the carton, along with a generous squirt of whipped cream, then taken her makeshift sundae to the bedroom to eat.
And sleep with. Yuck. She touched her face again. She glanced at the bedside clock. Six p.m. It would be dark soon. Had everything gone as planned, she would have been returning from her trip to Kansas City with a sore pussy and most likely an even sorer ass. Nix that. There would have been no fun and games, because she would have cried day and night until Mark had gotten disgusted and gone to his seminars for a respite from the histrionics. She’d done the right thing to cancel.
She eased out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom. She showered, dragged a comb through her wet hair, and defuzzed her mouth with a quick brush. When she returned to the bedroom, she replaced the icky sheets with fresh linen.
People hated Mondays because they had to go to work. She hated the thought of Monday because she had no work to go to. She tugged a nightshirt over her head and crawled into bed. With any luck she’d sleep until Tuesday and avoid it altogether.
Chapter Fifteen
Get off the fucking plane, people! How the hell long did it take to grab a goddamn bag out of the overhead? Mark gritted his teeth while the passengers took their sweet-ass time disembarking. He had to call Stephanie again but needed privacy.
Once off the plane, he charged to baggage claim, where he waited with foot-tapping impatience for his suitcase to arrive. Fortunately, due to last-on-first-off, his luggage dropped onto the conveyor immediately. He grabbed his oversize duffel and strode out of the airport. He located his vehicle, flung the bag into the trunk, then slid into the driver’s seat.
When he hadn’t heard from Stephanie on Saturday, he’d tried to get a flight out on Sunday, but the planes were overbooked. Finally he’d gotten a standby in the wee hours of Monday morning.
Sitting in his car, he phoned her office. She wouldn’t miss her morning staff meeting.
“Women Act Now. Thi
s is Evelyn. How may I direct your call?”
“This is Deputy Police Chief Mark DeLuca. Please connect me with Stephanie Gordon.”
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Gordon is no longer with WAN. May someone else help you?”
“What?”
“May someone else help you?”
“Not that! Where is Steph—Ms. Gordon?”
“She’s no longer employed at WAN.”
Was it his imagination, or did the woman sound smug? “Since when?” he demanded.
“Since Friday.”
“She quit?” Impossible.
A tiny moment of silence. “Um…not exactly.”
“Well, what exactly?” Mark ground his teeth.
“Her employment was terminated.” Evelyn’s voice dropped conspiratorially, as if she was sharing a juicy piece of gossip.
What the fuck? “Terminated as in fired?” He sounded like an idiot repeating everything the woman said, only in question format, but he was floored and had to verify the information.
“Uh-huh.”
“What the fu—for?”
“I’m not supposed to say…”
“This is WAN, right? Women Act Now? The organization Stephanie Gordon started? Who’s in charge now?”
“That would be acting administrator Bethany Laurent.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“Certainly. Please hold while I connect you.” Music filled the line.
Mark expelled his breath. He remembered the quiver in Stephanie’s voice when she’d left her message. She’d obviously just been canned. Aw, kitten, why didn’t you come anyway? Why didn’t you let me comfort you?
The music stopped. “This is Bethany.”
“Mark DeLuca. What the hell is going on? What happened to Stephanie?”
Silence.
“Are you there?” he asked.
“I’m here.” She was scarcely audible. “You’re Steph’s boyfriend, aren’t you?”
That didn’t begin to describe it. “Yes.” He heard a sniffing on the other end of the phone. “Why are you crying?”