by Melissa Good
“Well,” Steve patted her cheek, “you think about it, okay? Watch yourself.” He eyed Andrew. “And you, my old friend, better not move an inch until I get back here with a camera.” He bustled out, leaving father and daughter alone.
Andrew glowered at her. “That man gonna be where you’re going to?”
Dar hesitated, then grudgingly nodded. “I really don’t think he’d…he’s an asshole, Dad, but…”
“He been in the military?”
Dar gave another grudging nod. “Two hitches as a Ranger.”
“Wall, don’t that just figure.” Andrew made a face. “That’ll settle it.
Ah am gonna go with you.”
“Dad.” Dar snorted. “Now, come on. This is a business trip, not an undercover game.”
“Ah do not like that man and ah am going with you,” her father repeated stolidly.
She put her hands on her hips. “I can take care of myself, you know,”
she objected. “I’ve been doing it for quite a while.”
“This ain’t your kind of fight, Paladar,” he shot right back. “And besides, I have t’go.” He straightened and put his hands on his hips, mimicking her stance. “I made me a promise.”
“A promise? To who?” Dar asked in exasperation. “Dad, I can handle myself on a business trip for crying out loud. This is my job and my life, damn it.”
A finger tapped her chest as he leaned closer and went eye to eye with her. “And you are mah only kid, and the apple of that green eyed gal’s eye, and I swore to her I’d make sure you stayed outta trouble.”
Dar glared at him.
Andy tweaked her nose. “C’mon, Dardar. I always wanted to get me one of them cowboy hats.”
“Dad.”
“Maybe I’ll take you on one of them pony rides.”
“I’m big enough to carry the pony.” Dar gave up. “All right, fine.
Waste your time and ride over there with me, if you have to. What are you going to tell Mom?”
“Um.” Andrew scratched his ear. “We kinda talked about all ready.”
Dar sighed.
“’Sides, she’s got her own little covert mission.” Andrew patted her on the shoulder. “C’mon. That there plane’s waiting.”
“Ah ah.” Dr. Steve came back in with a digital camera. “You just hold on one minute, Andrew B. Roberts.” He pointed. “I want a shot of the both of you.” He waved them closer. “G’wan.”
Dar shook her head, but turned and slid an arm around her father’s 286 Melissa Good waist, as he circled her shoulders. A pose that brought a wholly unconscious smile to her face.
Steve snapped the picture, then another for good measure. He lowered the camera. “Two of a kind.”
They eyed each other, then Dar finally laughed. “Yeah.” She shook her head. “He still out stubborns me, though.”
“Damn straight,” Andrew agreed instantly. “Had me lots more practice.”
Impulsively, Dar leaned over and kissed him on the head, making him snort.
“You have been hanging around that green eyed gal some, tell you that.”
Dr. Steve was busy snapping away, chortling with glee. “Want to come back and have dinner with us, Andy?”
“Can’t,” the ex-SEAL stated shortly. “Got me a plane to catch too.
Rain check?”
Steve nodded.
“I know Ceci’d love t’see you.”
Dr. Steve blinked. “She here?”
“Yeap.”
The doctor shook his head. “Unbelievable.” He sighed. “All right.
Give me a call when you get back. It’s a great excuse for a party.” He watched them leave together and then walked out to find his daughter sitting on the counter. “How’d you like that?”
“Wow,” Aliene replied. “That was like, way too cool.”
“Mmhm,” her father agreed.
Chapter
Thirty-one
“WHEW.” KERRY GLANCED appreciatively around at the airport.
“Boy, it’s nice to go out of here instead of Miami.” Her flight had been scheduled to leave from the much smaller Fort Lauderdale International Airport, some twenty minutes north of its larger, more hectic cousin.
“Thank you very much, by the way, for dropping me off.”
“Mmm.” Cecilia held back a smile. “Actually, I was dropping us both off.”
Puzzled green eyes focused on her. “Excuse me?”
“Well, the Woman’s Art Museum asked me to sign off on that collection, so I can have it shipped to the South Beach place we found,” Dar’s mother explained.
“Oh.” Kerry was surprised, but not unhappy. “Wow, that’s great.
Are we on the same flight?”
“Mmhmm.” The silver blonde head nodded. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Kerry gave her a warm smile. “I’d love the company. It’s not exactly a fun trip for me.” Kerry noted the bag slung casually over Cecilia’s shoulder. “Is that all you’re taking?”
“Yes, it is.” Ceci nodded. “I see a coffee shop over there. We’ve got time before boarding, care to stop?”
Kerry felt a sense of relief that she’d have someone to talk to for at least the trip. “Lead on.” She followed the older woman across the concourse towards the small shop, spotting cinnamon rolls also being sold.
“Mmm. Cinnabons.”
“My daughter’s rubbing off on you, I see.” Ceci smiled to remove any sting from the comment.
But Kerry laughed. “Oh, no. I didn’t need any help there.” She set her bag down, went up to the counter, and ordered two cups of coffee.
“Want one?” She pointed at the rolls.
“Sure.” Ceci took a seat and watched Kerry collect their snack and return. What a nice kid. She couldn’t help but smile at the warm, open face.
“Thanks.” She found herself looking forward to spending a little time with this person who had chosen to live with her daughter, whose personality was so different from Dar’s and so much like the child she’d 288 Melissa Good always wished for.
Smart, social, friendly. A poet brought up in the same general class as she had been.
And her parents had spurned her.
Life just didn’t make sense sometimes.
“What got you interested in computers, Kerry?” she asked lightly, sipping her coffee.
Kerry thought about that for a bit, then propped her chin up on a fist.
“I think…I think mostly it was because they represented something I could totally control.”
A very unexpected answer. “Really?”
The younger woman nodded. “Yeah. They’re like that. Garbage in, garbage out, you know how it is. They’ll do whatever you tell them to do.
I think because my family was always so strict, and so confining, it maybe gave me an opportunity to have this one area of my life that I was totally in charge of.” She paused. “And it was something so different. My major was in English and I took all kinds of general stuff in college, but I was fascinated by the technology, and realized in my sophomore year that all my elective courses were turning out to be programming and electronics.”
Definitely unexpected. “What were you going to do with an English degree?” Ceci asked.
“Teach,” Kerry replied succinctly.
“Is that what you wanted to do?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s what my father wanted me to do.
Looks good for a politician, you know? One kid a lawyer, one kid a housewife, one kid a teacher. Very all American.”
Cecilia blinked at her. “Well.” She sipped her coffee and reflected.
“My family had expectations, yes, but at least they let us pick our own poison.” She sighed. “I wondered, for a while, what I’d have done in college.”
“You didn’t go, then?” Kerry asked surprised.
“No,” Ceci replied. “We moved around a lot and I had a little girl to take care of.” She was surprised at the
lack of bitterness. “I just read everything I could get my hands on and besides, I’m not sure exactly how much good college does for artists.”
“Maybe if you had gone, you wouldn’t have gone into the art thing,”
Kerry suggested quietly. “What would you have picked if you had?”
What indeed? “Oh, I don’t know. Anthropology, probably.”
“Really?” Kerry smiled in surprise. “I took a few classes in that as part of my social sciences requirement. I had a great professor, who was a practicing anthropologist in the summers. He’d come back in the fall with all kinds of stories and pictures.” She paused. “Hey. If you have a few extra minutes, maybe we could go to the Museum of Natural History in DC.”
“Sounds like an idea.” Ceci smiled and leaned back. She wondered if Kerry’s parents had ever even bothered to talk to her about what she Eye of the Storm 289
found interesting—this intelligent young woman who still somehow had a core of wonder inside her that Ceci could fully appreciate.
What a pair of total idiots.
She was looking forward to meeting them.
IT TURNED OUT better than she expected. Dar adjusted the seat of the rental car she’d wrestled from the terminal and glanced at the tall figure peering alertly out the passenger window. Flying with her father had shortened the trip considerably, and she’d actually had a pretty good time playing a favorite word game with him that brought back memories of a far more innocent period in her life. “Pretty dusty, hmm?”
“Huh.” Andrew relaxed, folding his arms over his chest. “So what do you have to do at this meeting?”
Hmm. Good question. “I don’t know.” Dar put the car into gear. “It depends on what they hit me with.” She gave him a quick glance. “That’s a figure of speech.”
“Who’s gonna be there?”
“The whole board, I guess—except the international members.
They’ll teleconference in, probably.” Dar ran the list through her mind.
“The only one I really count on as a friend is Alastair. The rest are pretty recent acquaintances.” She turned onto the freeway. “Won’t be much sympathy there.”
“What the hell they got against you?”
Dar drove in silence for a few minutes, evaluating the last fifteen years. “I’m not the nicest person to deal with,” she admitted. “I tend to ram issues I think are important through, without much regard for anyone’s feelings or opinions.”
Andrew watched her with quiet interest. “That what the job calls for?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well then?”
“It’s all right when you’re on top, Dad. But if you slip, it’s a hard fall with no allies to cushion it.” Dar sighed. “I worked very hard to always be right, because I knew if I wasn’t, there were a lot of teeth snapping at my heels.” She watched the signs and turned off at the next exit. “What bothers me is the fact that I,” she hesitated, “that they got me on something I…”
“They caught you with yer britches down.”
“Mmm.” Dar had to smile. “Not literally, but yeah.”
“Posterior sphincters.” Andrew shook his head. “Got no more sense than the good Lord gave a grasshopper’s left…um…leg.”
“Dad?” Dar gave him an affectionate look. “I know what assholes and balls are.”
“Watch yer mouth, young lady, before I turn you over mah knee and make you sing Dixie.”
Obligingly, Dar started to sing. “Oh I wish I was in the land of cot-290 Melissa Good ton, old times there, are not forgotten, gone away…gone away…gone away to Dixieland…”
“Smart aleck.” Her father laughed, then joined in. He had a low, growly singing voice that sounded a bit like Dar’s and wasn’t unpleasant at all to listen to. They finished the song just as Dar pulled up to the gates and rolled the window down. She showed her ID to the guard, who gave her a quick respectful nod and allowed them through.
Andrew peered around the huge complex as they drove in. “Holy Jesus.”
Dar chuckled and pulled into the parking area. She selected a spot and turned the car off—now feeling butterflies in her stomach. She picked up her security card and examined it, tracing the familiar features reflected back at her along with the sharp black letters of her name.
Her employee number. Her hire date.
She knew a moment of profound sadness. “Guess I’d better go get this over with.” She exhaled. “C’mon. There’s an area upstairs you can wait in.”
“Ah could just go in there with you,” Andrew suggested, as he got out of the car.
“Daddy.” Dar leaned on the roof of the car as she removed her laptop and shouldered it. “Thank you, but I really can handle this.” She hoped. “And whatever happens, there’s one of the best steak places I’ve ever eaten in down the road. Dinner’s on me.”
They walked into the building and Dar angled her steps towards the security desk. The man behind the counter glanced up at her as she approached and straightened, responding more to her sleek neatly pressed gray suit and black silk shirt than anything else. “Morning.” Dar handed over her identification. “I need to sign in a guest.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The guard handed back her badge and provided a temporary one, as Dar wrote in her name, then smiled a little as she wrote in her father’s. She signed the book with a flourish, then handed him the clip-on identification. “Here you go.”
“Ain’t this special.” Andy amiably clipped the badge to his shirt and followed her across the huge, echoing lobby to the elevators. The building was built with cold granite walls, and the high atrium featured a spi-raling architecture that had offices and corridors overlooking the large cavernous center. “Place looks tighter than Fort Knox,” he muttered, as they entered the elevator car.
“Not quite.” Dar found a smile somewhere. “I caught a report the other day where they found bums sleeping inside unused offices in the upper floors.” She chuckled. “Heads rolled in security.” She drew a breath in as the car stopped and the doors opened, allowing them onto the executive floor. It was quiet here as usual and Dar led the way down the corridor and into the large antechamber outside Alastair’s office.
Beatrice glanced up as she entered and gave her a sympathetic smile.
“Hello, Dar.”
“Morning.” Dar held the door open. “Bea, I’d like you to meet my Eye of the Storm 291
father.” She paused. “Andrew Roberts. Dad, this is Bea. She’s known me here since I was hired.”
“Mr. Roberts, it’s a pleasure.” Bea came around her desk and offered her hand. “So nice to meet you.”
“Ma’am.” Andy took her hand carefully and clasped it.
“He in?” Dar tilted her head to the right. Beatrice nodded. “C’mon, Dad. Alastair remembers meeting you but it’s been a while.” She walked over to the door and knocked lightly, hearing the grunt on the other side.
She opened the door to see her boss seated behind his desk, his chin resting on his fists.
“Dar, come on in.” The older man leaned back, then blinked in surprise as his ever troublesome employee was followed by a slightly taller, older, more muscular and male version of herself. One look at the lean, angular face and Alastair had no problem guessing his identity. “Ah,” he stood, “Commander Roberts, I believe.” A genuine smile edged his face and he came out from behind his desk. “It’s a pleasure, sir. We met once before, though you probably don’t remember me.”
Andrew padded forward and took the outstretched hand, shaking it, and allowing a half grin to emerge. “Ah surely do remember. Ah came by that company picnic you all were having and watched you darn near set a pair of sea grapes on fire.”
Alastair laughed. “You do indeed remember correctly,” he admitted.
“A little too enthusiastic with the starter fluid, unfortunately.”
Dar’s cell phone went off and she unclipped it, stepping to one side.
“Excuse me.” She opened it. “H
ello?”
“Dar?”
“Hey, Mark. I just got to the compound. Anything I can do for you while I still have a chance?” Dar forced the macabre humor.
“Yeah. Got a pencil?” The MIS manager’s voice was full of milky satisfaction. “Listen up.”
Alastair offered his unexpected guest a drink. “What brings you to Houston, Commander?” He poured glasses of honey colored ice tea and handed Andrew one.
“Mah kid.” The ice blue eyes, so weirdly familiar, fastened on him.
“Had to come out here and see what kind of place it was that would be thinking of kicking out someone as smart and talented as I know she is for some dumb fool reason.”
Alastair blinked and took a step back, a little startled at the direct-ness. “Oh. I see, well…” He looked at Dar, who was still busy with her phone. “You know, I agree with you on that. I’ve always been one of Dar’s biggest supporters.”
“Yeap. She did say that,” Andy allowed. “And I’d like to thank you for watching out for my little girl.”
“Lit—” A stunned pause. “You me—ah.” Alastair cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, Commander. I’ve known your daughter for fifteen years and it would never in my wildest dreams occur to me to think of her as anyone’s ‘little girl.’”
292 Melissa Good
“Sir?” The voice from the intercom.
“Yes?” Alastair answered it gratefully.
“The board is waiting. Is Ms. Roberts there?”
“Oh. Yes, yes, she’s here.” The CEO sighed. “We’ll be right over.” He straightened. “Dar? Are we ready?” He looked saw a chilling, almost predatory smile on Dar’s face.
“Oh yeah,” his CIO agreed. “We are definitely ready.” Her phone rang again and she answered it. “Yes?”
“Dar, it is José.” The Sales VP’s voice was excited. “Listen to me.
That new thing of yours. How soon?”
“For what?” Dar asked, as she adjusted her briefcase and prepared to follow Alastair. “José, I’m about to go into a meeting. The network’s up, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“¡Bueno! ¡Bueno! ” José chortled. “It can hold up bandwidth for a T3, yes?”
Dar gave Alastair an exasperated look. “Of course it can. José, this has got to wait.”