Red Sky At Morning - DK4

by Melissa Good

  “Now, Dar,” the general chided. “He’s a good legal guy. Give him a chance. Once he goes through all that, he’ll step up to the plate, don’t you worry.” He added, “He didn’t know you were one of us.”

  The room went still for a moment, and Dar heard those words as though they were crystal shards falling on the tile floor. She drew in a breath, and when she exhaled, she knew herself for a different person.

  Her voice, however, remained casual. “I’m not.”

  “Eh?”

  “One of you,” Dar said, looking him in the eye.

  Gerry didn’t know what to answer to that. He blinked for a minute, then he shook his head. “Well, like I said, don’t you worry, Dar. We’ll Red Sky At Morning 347

  take care of it.”

  Was she worried? Dar considered. She’d turned over what she’d found to the proper authorities. Was it her problem what they did with it? She sat down in one of the leather chairs and exhaled. “Sorry.”

  Her old friend got up and walked over, sitting down in the seat next to her. He patted her knee. “No, it’s me who should be sorry, Dar. I owe you a big apology.”

  Dar gazed at him from under dark lashes. “For what?”

  “Asking you to go out there,” General Easton replied in a quiet voice. “Contract’s one thing. I should have known this was more than it seemed. Risking you wasn’t on my battle plan, Dar.” He shook a finger at her. “Especially if you were hurt, you little polliwog. You should have told me that.”

  “It turned out all right.” Dar stretched carefully, avoiding stress on her shoulder. “Guess I’m done here, eh?”

  Gerry studied her for a long moment, then nodded. “Just leave it in our hands,” he assured her. “You go on back home and take some rec, hear?”

  Dar got up and brushed her jacket off. She extended a hand to him.

  “I will,” she said. “Let me know when you’ll be in my neck of the woods, Gerry.”

  “Certainly will, Dar.” The general took her hand and clasped it.

  “I’ve got a handful of other bases I’d like you to check out, but let’s wait for the feathers to fall on this one for a month or so, eh?”

  “Yeah,” Dar agreed. “Be in touch.”

  She picked up her briefcase and shouldered it, then made her way out of the office, turning and giving Gerry a half wave before she left.

  He smiled and waved back. Dar closed the door with a sense of guilty relief and headed out to the outer corridor.

  There. Glad that’s over. Dar walked through the busy halls, her progress noted only by a few quick glances, most of them merely interested in the tall, dark stranger in their midst. Dar granted her ego the right to preen for a moment, then she turned and headed out the door to the street.

  It was cold, and she paused to zip her jacket up before she made the trip out to the parking lot and got into her rental car. She set her briefcase on the seat next to her and closed the door, starting up the engine before she exhaled, gazing back the way she had come, at the massive building.

  It seemed to her, as it always did, a bland facade full of dusty secrets.

  Dar sat back and thought about that. She’d never been a conspiracy theorist, truthfully. She accepted that sometimes the government didn’t tell what they knew, and she accepted that sometimes the government didn’t know its ass from a hole in the wall. It was made up of people.

  Having a treasury seal on your paycheck didn’t make you any smarter 348 Melissa Good or more capable than anyone else, and Dar reckoned that in a general sense she hired more capable people than the establishment did—and paid them better to boot.

  So. Did she really trust the major? Dar gazed at her own hands, curled around the steering wheel. Ringless, they were long fingered and powerful, and she flexed them once or twice as she pondered the meeting she’d just left. “Should I really care?” she asked herself aloud.

  “Let ’em do what they want with that damn stuff. I’m out of it.”

  With that, she put the car into reverse and backed out of the spot, sliding on her sunglasses to block the rich rays of the setting sun that angled in and highlighted her face.

  KERRY FOUND HER way out to the small balcony on the fourteenth floor. It overlooked the ocean, and a cool breeze counteracted the retained heat of the sun in the stone bench she dropped down onto. Her body was tired, and she rubbed her neck to relieve the stress, closing her eyes against the throbbing headache that had snuck up on her after her conversation with Brent.

  The sun had dropped behind the building on its way to setting, and she laid her head back against the wall, allowing the sound of the waves, distinct even this far up, to infiltrate her senses and bring their own kind of peace to her.

  Dar used this spot, she knew, and after a few visits up here she understood why. Even in the heat of summer, the wind kept the temperature bearable; now, nearing sunset, it was a good place to be even when the day wasn’t as troublesome as hers was today.

  She wished Dar would call. She knew her partner had been very upset when she’d left, and not hearing from her all day was adding to the stress from the dozen or so problems she was working on as well as the personnel issues that were now cropping up.

  Her eyes opened when she heard the door latch work, and she looked over to see Clarice emerge onto the balcony. Kerry mentally articulated a curse she was sure would surprise the other woman, then wrestled her manners into place and merely gave her a polite nod.

  Clarice opened her mouth to speak, but she was forestalled by the sound of Kerry’s cell phone ringing.

  Saved by the bell. Kerry unclipped the instrument and checked the caller ID. A smile crossed her face at the readout, and she flipped the phone open with a sense of mildly vengeful relief. “Hey, sweetie.”

  She could almost hear Clarice’s teeth grinding.

  “Hey,” Dar drawled softly. “Why are you outside?”

  Kerry extended her legs and crossed them at the ankle. “How did you know I was?”

  “I can hear airplanes. I assumed you hadn’t gotten into model racing while I was gone.”

  Red Sky At Morning 349

  The droll response made Kerry chuckle. “You know, I didn’t even hear ’em. How’s it going?” She made a point of ignoring Clarice, who went to the railing and looked over.

  “Eh,” Dar replied in a verbal shrug. “I gave Gerry the info, he gave it to some jerk in JAG. I get the feeling it might end up lining the president’s secretary’s birdcage before long.”

  “Mm,” Kerry murmured. “That’s a shame, after what we risked for it,” she said. “So are you coming home now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “To hell with them, then.”

  There was a brief silence. “Everything okay there?”

  Kerry’s eyes went to the stiff back facing her. “Everything’s peachy.

  I’m going to clean up some garbage, then pack up my gear and take off.

  Can I interest you in a midnight cruise?”

  “Mmm.” Dar purred in response. “For that I’d climb to the top of the Washington Monument and flap my way home without the plane.”

  Kerry grinned in pure response. “See you soon, sweetie.” She paused, her green eyes distinctly twinkling. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Dar replied. “See you in a bit.”

  Kerry folded up her phone and put it back in its clip. Then she leaned back and spread her arms across the back of the stone bench, taking possession of it, the space around it, and the situation she could feel brewing between her and Clarice.

  She’d felt guilty about Clarice, she’d realized, because of what had happened over Thanksgiving. But now she realized she could no longer hide behind that guilt in dealing with the woman.

  Clarice turned and looked at her. Kerry gazed coolly back.

  “You know what, Kerry? I think—”

  “Shut up,” Kerry interrupted her in a quiet, yet carrying tone.

  It caught the black woman
by surprise, and she hesitated.

  “I did you a favor and found you a place here,” Kerry said. “And you repaid that by being as obnoxious as you could possibly be to me and undermining me with my staff.”

  “You didn’t do me any favors,” Clarice snapped back. “That was Dar.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Kerry replied. “If it were up to Dar, you’d be in Nome.” She got up and leaned against the wall, minimizing their height difference. “So you’d better decide if you want to keep on like you have been, because I’m losing my patience with you.”

  “You think you’re so hot just because you’re humping her—”

  Kerry refused to get angry. “No, you think just because she and I are lovers, that gives you the right to attack me because Dar wouldn’t sleep with you.”

  Clarice stared at her. “I guess she just likes white bread.”

  Kerry exhaled, realizing suddenly that her line in the sand had moved unexpectedly, and it was now right up against her toes. All 350 Melissa Good along, she’d felt a sense of guilt about Clarice, because of how it had all happened, how it had all come down, and how she’d forced the woman to fly across the country because of a silly quirk in her own psyche.

  Now, with this almost offhanded attack on Dar’s character, it was as though all that vanished, erased from her conscience as though it had never happened.

  To insinuate smarmy things about her, and about their very visible relationship...well, they’d made the choice to expose that to their coworkers. She and Dar had long ago decided to take the fallout when it happened and deal with it.

  But accusing Dar of racism? Kerry had realized at some point in their relationship that as far as it was possible for a person to be so, Dar was color blind. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, it was that the factor just didn’t enter her thought processes and this self-martyring assumption on Clarice’s part just burned her shorts.

  She exhaled, and found the decision actually far easier than she’d thought. “Actually, she likes raisin toast with cream cheese,” Kerry told Clarice, in a firm, final tone. “And you can pick up your severance check next Friday, in Personnel.”

  “What?” The woman’s jaw actually dropped. “You are not firing me.”

  Kerry pushed off the wall and squared her shoulders. “Yes, I am,”

  she informed Clarice. “For insubordination after a verbal warning.” She paused. “It’s in the handbook.”

  Clarice was visibly stunned. “You’re joking.”

  Kerry shook her head. “I’m not.”

  “You can’t fire me. I’ll sue your ass!” The woman’s voice rose in shrill anger. “I’ll haul your ugly ass into court, and I won’t have to work a day the rest of my life!” She stepped forward, her hands clenching into fists.

  Kerry stood her ground, even though Clarice topped her by several inches. Adrenaline rushed through her body, washing away the ache and the exhaustion. Without her realizing it, her own hands curled into loose fists also. It brought on a sense of almost confusing power and she stepped forward instead of backward, her body responding to a fight-or-flight reflex in a completely unexpected way.

  Fight? Her?

  “It’ll make a very interesting case.” Kerry’s voice rose. “I’ll enjoy hearing your justification for your documented insubordination.” She added, “Maybe Dar’ll testify how she had to push you out of her office the last time.”

  “Bitch.”

  Kerry smiled grimly. “Sometimes,” she said. “When I have to be.”

  She took a deep breath, but half turned as the door opened. Mark’s head poked out, along with that of a security guard.

  Kerry wondered yet again if their MIS manager was some kind of Red Sky At Morning 351

  clairvoyant. “Nice timing,” she complimented. “Keith, please escort this lady from the building. She’s been terminated.”

  The security guard edged around Mark and came out onto the balcony, obeying her without question. “Yes, ma’am.” He gave Kerry a respectful nod, then said to Clarice, “Please come with me, ma’am.”

  “You have not heard the end of this, whorebait,” Clarice hissed. “I will see your ass in court.”

  The guard took her to the door and they disappeared. Mark closed the door behind them, sliding out onto the balcony to Kerry’s side.

  “Whoa, chief. That was radical.”

  Kerry felt her knees shaking. She went over to the bench and sat down before she fell down, letting her arms fall to rest on her thighs.

  “Son of a fucking bitch.”

  Mark’s eyes widened.

  “Yes, Republicans curse.” Kerry lifted a shaking hand to her head and tried to catch her breath. It hadn’t quite worked out how she’d planned, and she could only imagine the round of e-mails that would have to start between her, Mariana, and Hamilton Baird, ILS’s legal council.

  Mark sat down next to her and handed her a lidded cup with a straw sticking out of it. Kerry took it, surprised at the chill that stung her fingers and caused condensation to run down the outside. She sipped gingerly at the straw and was rewarded with a mouthful of chocolate milkshake. “Mm.”

  “I saw you guys out here,” Mark said. “I figured it wasn’t a cool thing. Brent ran down and got that from the shop. He said you guys talked.”

  Kerry sucked down another mouthful. “We did.”

  “So...he’s going to be okay?”

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  Mark looked out over the water, and then back at Kerry. “I’m really glad you fired that bitch,” he said. “Because I was getting ready to, like, do something radical to her driver’s license record and get her ass arrested for something really gross.”

  Kerry exhaled. “I’m not sure it was the right way to do it,” she admitted. “But it’s done. I guess I’ll deal with the fallout.”

  And she would, she realized. In a series of decisions whose repercussions would probably be with her for a long time to come, it was just one more she had to come to terms with.

  She thought it was the right choice.

  Time, of course, would tell.

  DAR PAUSED AT the stoplight, casting her gaze at the bulk of the Capitol building while she waited for the traffic to flow again.

  Suddenly a familiar figure appeared, accompanied by two younger 352 Melissa Good men. Dar blinked, surprised at the coincidental presence of Roger Stuart at just the same moment that she was passing the spot.

  Obeying an impulse she didn’t stop to analyze, Dar swung the car into a parallel parking spot and shut the engine off; then she opened her door and got out just as the senator reached her car.

  They stared at each other for a moment, then the statesman relaxed slightly, watching her warily as she approached. “Roberts,” he murmured, inclining his head a trifle.

  “Hello, Senator,” Dar found herself saying. “Mind if I have a word with you?”

  It was obviously the last thing in the world Roger Stuart expected.

  He hesitated, watching her intently with his cold, green eyes, then he shrugged. “Go to the office. I’ll meet you there,” he instructed his aides, who were watching Dar with equal suspicion.

  “Sir—”

  “Go on,” Stuart instructed sharply. He waited for the men to reluctantly retreat, then turned back to Dar. “Well?”

  Why the hell am I doing this? Dar wondered. I can’t trust this man further than I could pick up that car and toss it. What the heck am I doing?

  And yet...

  “I’d like to give you something,” Dar said. “It’s information I obtained from a naval base in Florida.”

  The senator looked at her as though she’d grown a second head.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What’s this all about?” Stuart asked, slightly intrigued despite himself. “Why are you bringing this to me? Is it a trick? Another one of your machinations?”

  With a sigh, Dar turned and removed her briefcase, taking a secon
d copy of the data from it and handing it over. “No,” she said briefly.

  “Look at it. If you think it’s worth your attention, do something about it. If not, chuck it. I don’t care.”

  The senator let his eyes fall to the top page. “What is this?” He picked up the cover sheet and examined the summary. “I don’t know what you ex...” He looked up at Dar sharply.

  “I gave it to the military’s legal department,” Dar said evenly. “I think it’ll end up in a shredder. Now I’m giving it to you. I’ve done my patriotic duty, so whatever happens, the ball is in your court.” She turned and tossed her briefcase into the car.

  “Why me?” Stuart asked curiously, half his attention still on the summary.

  Dar looked at him. “You’re the only senator I know,” she said, then her lips quirked. “Not to mention, the only one I’m related to.”

  Sour lemons had nothing on the face she got for that claim.

  “Kerry’s fine. She thinks of her family a lot. Call her sometime.”

  Red Sky At Morning 353

  Dar got it all out, then she got back into her car and started it, rolling up the window and pulling out without a backward look.

  Dar felt a weight she had hardly been aware of lift off her shoulders. Now she could go home.

  She hoped there would be ice cream at the airport.

  Roger Stuart stood on the sidewalk, watching the car disappear into the distance. His hands curled around the papers, and after a moment, he tucked the sheaf under his arm, straightened his coat lapels, and started off down the street with a determined stride.

  Chapter

  Twenty-one

  THE BOAT BOBBED lightly up and down on the waves, a round moon painting a pure cream stripe across the black waters. On the stern, a small table was set with candles and crystal, the remains of a light supper evident.

  Kerry lifted her glass and extended it. Dar touched hers to it without comment, and they both took a sip.

  “Long week,” Dar said after a quiet moment.

  “Very,” Kerry agreed. “Glad it’s over.”

  Dar got up and reached out, catching Kerry’s hand and pulling her up. They walked to the padded benches and sat down together, Dar enfolding Kerry in her arms. The ocean rocked them gently, cradling them as the tide moved outward, tugging against the boat’s anchor.