Winds of Change Pt 1 (Dar and Kerry Series Book 12)

by Melissa Good

  They walked along the upper hall and paused as Mark came out of his office. He had his nameplate in his hands and held it up, pointing a thumb at his own chest. “You’re kidding right? Me, a director?”

  “Expensive April Fool’s joke.” Dar smiled back at him. “Don’t like the title? You can make up one if you want. You guys took a risk coming with us. I want to make it worth your while.”

  Mark grinned and gave his plaque a brief hug. “I never gave a shit about titles,” he said. “But my family’s gonna get a kick out of it. ‘Specially my dad. He’s said for years Barb wore the pants in the family cause I was just some grunt geek and she had the degree and fancy job title.”

  “Your dad’s an ass,” Dar responded. “You haven’t been a grunt geek in a long, long time.”

  “No, I know,” he said. “He’s stuffed shirt that way. Banker.”

  “Enjoy it.” Dar gave him a slap on the shoulder and she continued along the hall. Kerry gave Mark a wink before she followed. “Saw the DSL was in,” Dar called back over her shoulder. “Let me know when you want to mount the WAPs.”

  “Speaking of grunt geeks,” Kerry kidded her. “I think you secretly like power tools.”

  “Secretly?”

  Kerry shook her head in mock despair as she parted from Dar and entered her own office. It smelled like new computer inside and she went to her desk, sidetracked when she spotted the wrapped items sitting on the surface. “Ah hah.” She sat down and pulled them over, unwrapping the larger of the two and turning it around so she could see it.

  For a moment, she studied it in silence, feeling a prickle of surprise, and a very slight shortness of breath. Just her new name over the logo, and the word owner, but seeing it there was almost a shock.

  Almost.

  She put it down on the smooth glass surface of her new desk, admiring the beautifully carved wooden letters.

  A soft knock came at the door and she looked up to find one of the carpenters there. “Oh, hi.”

  He pointed at the other wrapped item. “Want me to put it on the wall for ya? Been doing that for the others.”

  “Sure.” Kerry handed over the wall plaque. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” He retreated back into the antechamber, shutting the door as he worked on it.

  She heard Mayte talking to him, but the words burred out as she returned her gaze to her desk plate, resting her chin on her fist and smiling.

  “Like it?”

  She looked up to find Dar in the doorway between their offices, leaning against the jamb. “Do you really have to ask? C’mon, Dar.”

  Dar strolled across the room. “You know one thing I don’t like about these desks? I’m not sure I want to sit on them.” She perched on the windowsill instead. “We should get them to make these sills a little wider, and put a cushion on them for when we visit each other.”

  “Anything you want, hon.” Kerry turned in her chair. “I’ll go buy a recliner for you if you want. Spend your whole day chilling out with that laptop next to me. I’d love it.”

  “So would I, but I’d probably spend most of my time messing with you instead of working. Or tweaking Gopher Dar.”

  Kerry chuckled gently, watching the sunlight outline Dar’s tall form. “You need a haircut.” She leaned back and parked her boots on the sill. “Though the shagginess is kinda sexy.”

  “There’s a haircut place down the street next to that cafe. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go,” Dar said. “It’s nice to have a lot of stuff around in walking distance.” She got up off the sill. “Glad you like the paperweight. I’m going to go finish installing the mail server.”

  “Nerd.”

  Dar’s eyes twinkled. “Takes one to know one.” She gave Kerry’s ankle a pat and sauntered back through the door into her own office.

  Kerry’s gizmo beeped and she looked down to see a text message waiting. She scrolled over and clicked on it. “Ah.” She got up. “The replacement for the phone company. Let’s go see what that’s going to be like.”

  She took a moment to position her new desk plate on one end of her desk, making sure it was aligned with the edge of the glass surface. She backed up a step and regarded it with a happy grin and then went to the front door, opening it cautiously in case the carpenter was still working.

  He was, but not on her plate. He was putting Mayte’s plate up on the half wall that fronted her desk and he looked up as she entered. “You get these for everybody?”

  Kerry paused. “Everyone will get a name plate, sure. But these are special since this is the startup group for the company, like a day one kind of thing.”

  The man nodded “Nice, he said. “What do you people do?”

  Always a tough question. “Computer stuff.” Kerry fell back on her usual description. “Programs and things like that.”

  He stood up and put his hammer into his work belt. “Yeah? You hiring? My kid loves computers, but he don’t want to go work for no big company. He’s a little different.”

  “Send him over,” Kerry said. “We’re hiring for a whole bunch of positions.” She steadfastly refrained from asking him to quantify the difference, figuring if ILS could survive Scuzzy, there wasn’t much she couldn’t handle. “First floor, down the hall from the conference rooms, there’s a recruiting group there with all the paperwork.”

  He smiled. “See if I can get him off his computer game to come down here.” He sighed. “Kids.” He eyed her. “Got any?”

  “Dogs,” Kerry responded. “Two of them. That’s enough for me.”

  “Yeah, my wife says we shoulda stuck with cats.” He dusted his hands off. “Thanks, ma’am, see you all later.”

  Kerry continued down the steps to the front door where two men were waiting, one in a polo shirt and cargo pants, the other in a suit. “Hello.”

  “Uh...Ms. Roberts?” the man in the suit asked. “I’m Juan Carlos Jimenez, and this is Alfredo Rojas. We’re from Fortinet. You asked to see some information about an IP PBX?”

  “Yep.” Kerry barely remembered to answer to the name. “That’s just what we need, and in the short term. Let’s sit down in here, okay? I think we’ve got some coffee and drinks on the cart, too.”

  They followed her into the conference room, now tidied up and starting to resemble a business space. A projection system was piled against one wall waiting for installation, but a white board was already fastened to the opposite flat surface, and the small Rubbermaid cart did, in fact, have some coffee ready on it.

  “Kerry?” Mayte poked her head in, eyes lit. “Oh, I am sorry. You have visitors,” she said. “I had the cafe come in to do a service to see if you liked it, yes?” She pointed at the cart.

  “Yes,” Kerry said. “Looks great. C’mon in and sit in on this meeting, Mayte. I think I’ll ask you to take charge of the phone system implementation.”

  Mayte gladly complied, closing the door and joining them at the table. She put her pad down and took a pen from her sleeve pocket, waiting for them to go on.

  “Great,” Juan Carlos said. “So let me make sure I got all the details in. This building, it’s your only location?”

  “For now.” Kerry smiled.

  He nodded. “Sure. You said maybe fifty people?”

  “Yes. Right now we have about a half dozen. But we’re hiring, and we’ll eventually have around fifty people in this office.”

  Juan Carlos looked at his notepad. “So we figure a phone for every person, yeah? Plus ten public phones? You going to want them in the hall? What about in the conference space?”

  “We should have some nice phones in here to make the teleconferences,” Mayte said unexpectedly. “Many people will want to hear and speak clearly, and also, to put video.”

  Kerry could hardly manage to stifle a surprised grin. “Right,” she said.

  “Right,” Juan Carlos agreed. “Now, you understand, this isn’t an old style PBX, right? It’s IP?”

  The other man with him reached over and put his hand on Ju
an Carlos’s wrist. “JC, don’t embarrass us. These people know what IP is.”

  Kerry chuckled.

  “Oh.” Juan Carlos blinked. “Okay.”

  “You may not know who Dar Roberts is, but I do.” Alfredo’s eyes twinkled a little. “Though I don’t think the industry’s heard she’s parted ways with ILS yet.”

  “They haven’t,” Kerry said. “Couple more weeks for that. We just hung up our own shingle, so to speak.” She turned to Juan Carlos. “So, yes, we do understand this isn’t a traditional PBX. What I really want to know is, how soon can you install it.”

  “Well, sure. So you want to place an order then?”

  Kerry nodded. “We do.”

  “We have to do some paperwork.” Juan Carlos seemed flustered. “We have to get the business side done, I mean, the contracts, and I guess they will want to do a profile, and get credit check done and all that. It could take a few weeks.”

  Kerry leaned her arms on the table. “If I pay cash up front, how much can I shorten that?”

  Alfredo smiled. “Let me go make some phone calls. See what availability is,” he said. “Can I assume you want whatever the top of the line is?”

  “You can, but I don’t need anything with mahogany inserts or gold trim. Put all the value in the hardware.”

  “JC, pack your stuff up. We don’t need you.” Alfredo patted his shoulder kindly. “Just go book the order. I’ll take care of the delivery.” He glanced up at Kerry. “You’re going to need SIP circuits?”

  “I have Metro E being dropped,” Kerry said. “But if you can source yours, I’ll take them. Coordinate with Mayte, she’ll get you the node counts and she can sign off on the dial plan. Shouldn’t be too hard with only fifty people.”

  “Shouldn’t be.”

  “Got any cool new toys you want us to test out for you?”

  Alfredo smiled. “Maybe.”

  “We’re trying out these.” Kerry pulled out her Handspring and showed it to him.

  He took it and examined it.

  “Could you make it so our phones at the desk go to these when we’re not there?” Mayte asked. “And we would also like to find a way to take the faxes and put them in our emails. Can you do that?”

  Alfredo nodded. Juan Carlos just sat there, his eyes going from one to the other. “Can I buy you all some cupcakes or something? Do an errand?” he finally asked with a slightly embarrassed laugh. “Hold the door? Maybe carry a box?”

  “That’s a good idea with the faxes,” Kerry said. “Then we won’t need analog lines.”

  “Okay we’ll work up a deployment plan,” Alfredo said. “I’ll work with Mayte and we’ll get it done.” He handed the gizmo back to Kerry. “Any chance of getting to meet her?”

  Kerry laughed. “Sure.” She got up and went to the door, opening it and walking out into the front hall. She looked both ways, then spotted Dar on a ladder halfway down the long corridor. “Hey, hon?”

  Dar’s head turned. “Yes?”

  “Come meet our VOIP providers. One of them’s a fan of yours.”

  With a faintly exasperated snort Dar got down off the ladder and headed in her direction, seating a screwdriver into her tool belt as she walked.

  Kerry watched her dust her hands off, and noted the contented expression on her face and understood this hands on work really was something she enjoyed and always had. When she thought of the times Dar seemed the happiest, it was when she was in the thick of things, cables wrapped around her neck, making things work.

  Not when she was being an executive, having to deal with the politics of that. “C’mon, tiger.” Kerry took her by the hand. “Want to see the specs for the new phones?”

  “You bet,” Dar said. “They got gig pass through? What class PoE?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  DAR LOCKED THE door behind them as she zipped up her jacket, waiting for Kerry to move forward a little before she followed her down the path toward the parking area. “Good day,” she said, as they walked between the thickly planted hedges. “Want to go swimming tonight?”

  “Absolutely.” Kerry shifted the strap on her briefcase. “They’ve got a slew of resumes for programmers they want you to look at tomorrow to make sure they’re looking for the right people.”

  “Sure.” Dar hit the door opener for the truck and opened the cab door, putting her own briefcase in and grabbing Kerry’s to join it. “Who was the kid with the skateboard and the piercings I saw in the hall?”

  “Ah. One of the construction guys sent his son over. I had Mark talk to him.” Kerry settled herself, with a satisfied sigh. “He’s a hacker.”

  “Really a hacker or a script kiddie?” Dar started the truck, glancing around her out of long habit. They were almost alone in the parking lot, the rest of the staff having gone about fifteen minutes prior.

  “Really. Mark liked him,” Kerry said. “Said he’d be good for security as long as you made sure he didn’t turn the mainframe into a gaming server and put it out on the Internet. I think you should talk to him before we decide to take a chance.”

  “Takes one to know one, that what you were thinking?” Dar chuckled. She backed out and was about to pull out of the lot when something caught her peripheral vision. “Heh. There’s our belligerent friend.”

  Kerry peered across the trunk and spotted the man in the wheelchair. “What’s he doing?”

  “Arguing with someone, again.” Dar was about to pull out again when the argument suddenly escalated and the man the disabled man was arguing with grabbed him and pulled him out of the chair, dumping him on the ground and starting to kick him. “Whoa! Son of a bitch!”

  Kerry released her seat belt at the same time she felt the truck shift into park. She had her door open a second after Dar dove out of hers, and she was on the ground and running only a step behind her.

  “Hey!” Dar let out a bellow. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The attacker paused and turned, visibly surprised to see two women charging at him. “Get the fuck out of here!” he yelled, taking a step away from the disabled man and bringing his fists up. “I’ll kick your ass!”

  “Not before I call the police you won’t.” Dar pulled up in front of him, both of her own hands balling into fists. Her knees bent a slight bit as her weight came over the balls of her feet. “Leave him the hell alone.”

  “Lady, this ain’t none of your fucking business. So go back to your truck, and go the hell home,” the man said. “Stay out of my face.”

  “Or?” Dar asked, after a brief pause. Her voice dropped and she tilted her head slightly to one side, watching him.

  The man was caught flat-footed. “What?”

  Kerry circled him and went to the disabled man’s side. He was rolling over and trying to get to his chair, cursing under his breath. “Can I help you?”

  He froze and looked up at her.

  Dar edged to one side, drawing him away from Kerry. “You said, stay out of your face. I said, or, as in, or what? I enjoy pointing out to gutless jacktards their own lack of knowing what the hell they’re saying.”

  “You calling me gutless? Bitch? I just got back from Afghanistan. You want to see guts? Let me cut you open so you can see yours.” He pulled a knife from the small of his back.

  “This is not Afghanistan.” Dar held her ground, studying the angle of how she’d have to move if he did something stupid. “This is a public street, in the city of Miami, and you can’t kick the shit out of people, or stab them, without getting your ass thrown in jail.”

  “He’ll cut her,” the disabled man said, suddenly. “He doesn’t give a shit.”

  Kerry righted the wheelchair and swung it over. “She’ll kick him in the head first. Can I help you get up?”

  The man struggled upright and grabbed the edge of the chair. “Just hold it still, m’kay?”

  Kerry did, moving around so she could keep Dar and the knife wielding man in sight. “Dar, I’m calling the c
ops,” she said, in a loud tone. “I’m not putting up with this nonsense outside our office.”

  “Screw you all.” The man with the knife glanced behind him, then he shoved the knife into hiding and took off, running down the street and disappearing around a sharp bend in the road.

  Dar went over and helped Kerry hold the chair still, while the disabled man hauled himself up into it, showing significant strength in his upper body. “Thanks for fucking nothing,” he told them. “Now I have to deal with that asshole calling me a pansy cause some girls came and helped me.”

  “He’s the one who ran away,” Dar said.

  “You said you were calling the cops. Sure he ran. I would have, too, if I had legs anymore.” The man adjusted himself. “Fucking cigar eaters. Don’t need them patronizing my ass either.”

  “If you all weren’t always fighting in the street they’d probably leave you alone,” Dar said.

  “Right.” Kerry released the chair and stepped back. “But we really aren’t going to put up with this outside our office, so the next time I will call the police.”

  “So keep your jackassery away from us,” Dar added. “You and the rest of your buddies find someplace else to argue.”

  The disabled man looked from one to the other. “Who the fuck are you people? What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, rolling forward a foot or two.

  Both women took a step back.

  “My name is Kerry, and this is my partner, Dar.” Kerry felt a sense of the ridiculous that almost made her lightheaded. “We own the company that rented that office building.” She pointed at it. “That’s what we’re doing here.”

  “And we’re not going to have our staff tripping over people fighting on the sidewalk,” Dar said, glancing up as she caught sight of a patrol car slowly cruising toward them. “Better take off if you want to avoid the cops.”

  He stared at them for a minute more, then got his hands on the rails of his wheelchair and turned it around. “I need a drink anyway.” He shoved himself away, shaking his head repeatedly until he disappeared into the distance.