by Melissa Good
"WHAT EXACTLY DO you want?" Kerry asked.
"Nothing much," Meyer replied. "Except a nice, suspenseful, dramatic ending that will suck ratings and pay off for my backers."
"Like what?" Kerry persisted. "Mr. Meyer, in case you hadn't noticed we're IT. Last time I checked, nerds weren't hip and trendy media darlings."
"Exactly. That's why this story turned out so interesting," Meyer said. "Because frankly, if you'd told me a bunch of geeks and a dirty shipyard would make good television before I was on this project, I'd have kicked your sorry asses' right out of my office."
"And?" Dar asked.
"And I've found there's drama in all this in very unexpected places," Meyer said. "Big drama in those old ships and the people on them, big drama in the idea of four companies going head to head to win something, and big drama in everyone fighting like cats and dogs, stabbing each other in the back at every turn. Lady, I couldn't have hired a top flight scriptwriter to make up something sassier than this has been."
"So what do you want from us?" Kerry asked, again. "If you've got such a great story here, I mean."
Meyer smiled at her. "We know what you're doing," he said.
"Do you?" Dar smiled back at him.
"Oh yes. Your friends at Telegenics were very emotive and detailed in relating your little plan to scotch my ending," Meyer said. "I know you've been helping the other ships to finish, and I know you coerced Telegenics into giving up some of their spare equipment for those other guys."
"Coerced?" Kerry gave him a puzzled look. "They offered."
"Ms. Stuart, please." Meyer gave her a condescending smile.
"And?" Dar asked again. "So you're right. We're not playing your game. We'll all finish dead even, present our bills, and go home."
Cruickshank had positioned herself carefully, standing to one side of her apparent boss and at an angle, so she could look at both Dar and Kerry. She kept her hands folded in front of her, her fingers moving restlessly as though playing with worry beads.
The motion caught Kerry's attention, and she watched the reporter from the corner of her eye. The conversation so far had seemed to her to be mostly just hot air. It was as though Meyer were merely spouting off for the record, as though...
Kerry's eyes narrowed.
"No, no you won't," Meyer said. "I've learned a number of things about you in the last few months, Roberts. At first I thought you were just a high priced jackass."
"Half right." Dar drawled. "Which half depends on who you ask."
"But you're not." Meyer strolled closer to her. "And that's the only reason I'm here, Roberts. Because I know you can deliver what I'm asking for."
Dar's eyebrows lifted.
"And I won't waste either of our time playing to your sense of fairness."
"My sense of fairness?" Dar chuckled. "I'm not the one who sweated my tail off trying to rig the contest here, Jason."
Kerry felt a slight buzz at her belt. Distracted, she glanced at her cell phone, but the vibration didn't continue. She lifted and examined it, a tickle of familiarity tugging at her memory.
"Most of the people here, they just didn't get what I was after," Meyer said. "They didn't feel what I felt, about how this story could really be a groundbreaker."
"I'm not sure why you think anyone would care." Dar finally got up, pacing around the chair and twisting to loosen a kink in her back. "I sure don't."
Meyer looped both hands around one knee. "Let me lay it on the line for you."
"Here's a first for this project." Kerry muttered, leaving her phone for the moment and concentrating on the scene before her.
Meyer ignored her. "It's really simple. There's a lot of money being put into this deal, money I'm not prepared to either risk or lose." He moved a little closer, facing off against Dar. "So here's the deal. You play ball with me, and I give you one million US dollars. In cash."
A small silence followed his words. Then Dar shifted a little. "I think you know that's not a big figure for ILS." She half shrugged. "That's the coffee budget for the year."
He smiled. "I think you know I'm not offering it to your company," Meyer replied. "And even someone who makes what you do, has desires that money could take care of, now couldn't it?"
Kerry's phone buzzed a little again, but she ignored it, her attention fixed on her partner's profile. She could hear her own heartbeat thundering in her ears as she strained to listen for Dar's answer, uneasily aware that for one of the rare times in their relationship, she really didn't know what that answer would be.
Fortunately, she didn't have long to wait.
Dar's eyes glinted gently. "You can't buy me," she said, with a quiet smile. "Even if I only had my last paycheck in the bank, I'd still tell you to kiss my ass."
Meyer didn't even look at Kerry. It was as though she wasn't even there. He nodded a few times, giving Dar a wry look. "I thought you'd say that. So, here's the real deal." He leaned forward. "The one you can't say no to."
SHARI WALKED PAST the back doors to the pier building, giving the guards with their noses plastered to the glass a puzzled frown as she passed them. What in the hell were they looking at? Free freak show, maybe? She gave her quarry a quick glance, then dismissed the windows and hurried on so as not to lose them. Probably wasn't interesting anyway. Probably just staring at Psycho Bitch's legs.
Well, to hell with them. She paused behind a stack of pallets as Andrew and the little guy stopped just short of the gangway. It appeared to her that they were arguing, or at least, the larger man was lecturing, and didn't that just figure?
Only thing you get out of a jackass is another jackass. Andrew's vicious attitude toward her left a nasty sting, and she'd decided if he was doing something shady, well, she'd just find a way to screw him over it, just like she had his pissant offspring.
"Let's play nice, huh? Let's end up even. Fuck that." Shari muttered, as she edged around the stack of pallets and skulked over to the next one, trying to stay out of sight and yet get close enough to listen. She'd agreed to hear Dar out only to see what the bitch was up to, and she'd figured Michelle was after the same thing, but after that last piece of crap...
Fucking Michelle. All she wanted was to be part of their little clique. She should have realized that since Orlando, with all that breakfast and dinner bullshit. She'd finally cut that out after they'd gotten stood up in that grunge pit.
Blew up the whole glamour, Shari had thought. But apparently she'd been wrong, since it was pretty clear that all Michelle wanted now was to suck up and probably get a job with them.
Asshole.
She watched the two men walk up onto the gangway and enter the ship, and after a moment to let them get past the rusted iron, she followed.
It was quiet now. Most of the dock workers had left, and the ships were sitting placidly in their piers with just a soft clanking sound coming from them.
Shari walked up the gangway and paused in the entrance, looking around the somewhat dark interior. She didn't see anyone, so she continued on and prowled inside the hold. Some boxes were stacked against the back wall, and she searched around them, but they were apparently towels or something equally boring.
There was no sign of the two men. She searched further, sticking her head warily into a small cul-de-sac before she reluctantly headed for the stairs. She'd gotten up two steps when she heard voices behind her, and she stopped, listening intently.
"Mister, ah am telling you that you cannot hide yerself in this here boat no more." Andrew's voice rumbled through the silence, almost making the dust motes on the stair railing dance.
"You listen. We go soon, and no more BS." Another voice answered, equally deep, but with an odd accent. "What you think you did here, to bring someone to touch my ship? I should kill you."
Andrew just laughed. It was an odd, out of place sound, and listening to it Shari could hear a clear echo of Dar.
"Little feller, ah am not going to mess with what you just said. Either you go tell th
e man upstairs you got you some trouble, or ah will."
"I come to you for help, because you know the sea and this is how you treat me?" The other man said, indignantly. "You are no sailor."
"Git." Andrew's voice sounded more stern. "Or ah'll pick yer ass up and tote you up there."
The voices faded, amid a few clanging, metallic sounds.
Shari popped out of the stairwell and followed the noise, ducking her head around a metal doorway and spotting two small staff elevators. One was just closing. "Damn."
Was it worth following them? Hell, whatever the dumpy guy was doing was probably something stupid like smuggling Cuban goddamn cigars. Not worth her time.
Shari drummed her fingers on the metal. No, that wasn't worth her time, but maybe she could cause some damage on her own. Wouldn't it be a kick if the bitch sisters went to demo their wonderful crap and it died?
With a smile, she went back to the stairwell and started up it.
Chapter Twelve
THE MEMORY CAME to Kerry with a startling fury. She reached over without thinking and took hold of Dar's wrist, her fingers tightening on the bones under the skin.
Dar looked at her and an eyebrow quirked.
About to speak, Meyer paused. "Something wrong?"
How to let Dar know? Kerry wished they really had the psychic connection she sometimes wondered about. There was nothing she could say that would clue her partner in, without also cluing in the other two.
Or was that a bad thing?
"You okay?" Dar half turned, her voice dropping in concern.
What, what, what, what...oh. "I just remembered something," Kerry said. "What we were talking about when you were hanging upside down in the closet."
Dar blinked, her face caught between puzzlement, and the obvious notion that Kerry had lost her mind. Then her gaze shifted slightly, moving past Kerry, before it came back and focused again. "And how this is different than that was?"
I love you. "Yes."
"Ah." Dar nodded. "Yeah." She turned back to Meyer. "You were saying?"
"I was saying this." Meyer gave her an odd look, but continued. "The bottom line is I want my company to come out ahead. You want your company to come out ahead. We all know this ship deal's a scam, right?"
"Right." Kerry murmured, trying not to look at Cruickshank.
"My brother's on the Board of Directors of the biggest cruise line on earth," Meyer said. "So what I'm prepared to put on the table is an assurance that ILS will get that nice, big, lucrative juicy contract that we all know you're lusting over, and that we all know you know is the only possible gain out of this."
"And?" Dar folded her arms over her chest.
"And, what you need to deliver to me is you taking the checkered flag. Is that so hard?"
"So, let me get this right," Kerry said. "You want to film us showing Quest our system, and 'winning' the bid."
"Exactly."
"And for that, you guarantee ILS that big contract?'
"Exactly."
"Mr. Meyer, if we 'win' this 'bid', we'll get that contract anyway." Kerry remarked simply. "In fact, even if we do nothing, we'll probably get that contract because the fact is, we're the best at what we do and everybody knows it."
Meyer stared at her. Dar bumped her gently with her shoulder, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips. "Got anything else? Because frankly, it's beer time." Kerry added. "And we're done here."
Cruickshank edged a little closer, then went still again.
"Not everyone in your company shares your confidence, I'm afraid," Meyer said. "Like your Board of Directors. They'll take a bird in the hand and leave you two in the bushes. Want to see?"
"Sure." Dar felt a jolt of unease.
"No problem." Meyer put his cell on the desk and dialed a number, the sound of the tones echoing softly in the room.
"HOLY SHIT." MARK had paused, halfway through the crowd. He'd gotten close enough to the screen to hear the last thing said, and everyone went quiet, to hear what would happen next.
He'd never get across in time. He knew it. Damned if he wanted to stand there and watch Dar get shafted though. He knew the board well enough to know if they were offered that much bucks, they'd toss Dar to the wolves.
He thought Dar knew that too, though you couldn't tell it from her face.
Man. This was gonna suck.
"What's happening?" Carlos whispered.
"Serious suckage." Mark uttered back. "Where the hell's their power cords. I'd love to yank them out of the...Jesus, is that a UPS?"
"Yeah."
"Guess they're smarter than they look." Mark realized glumly. He could start yelling and cause a scene, but he was stuck at the moment, not sure what to do. He didn't want his boss and friend to be embarrassed on tape, but on the other hand, breaking the crowd up wouldn't look great either.
"Can we do something?" Carlos asked. "I know where is the power and the lights. They are using the UPS for their cameras, but that television is coming from the wall over there."
Mark's eyes brightened. "Great. C'mon."
"The power door, it is for sure locked."
Mark smiled. "Buddy, that's the last thing you need to worry about with me around. Lead. Go. Move." He nudged Carlos, who started working his way through the back of the crowd.
"Hello?"
Mark stopped and grabbed Carlos. "Too late."
"What?"
Slowly, Mark turned toward the screen, recognizing the voice that had just echoed slightly in the room.
KERRY FELT LIKE her entire midsection was tied in square knots. She had a sick feeling that Meyer had trumped them, and now it would give him, the bastard, exactly the ending he'd been looking for.
They'd fallen for it. They'd been suckered.
Muskrats! Stupid, neutered, pissant muskrats!
"Hello?" A voice answered the cell phone. "Hello?"
"Ah, Mr. Maclean," Meyer said. "This is Jason Meyer. Remember me?"
"Absolutely! Sure do," Alastair replied. "Was just discussing what you told me with some of my colleagues, in fact. They're pretty darn excited."
Kerry looked at Dar, wondering how she could keep that stolid expression when she, more than anyone, knew what the score was here. Her partner's half smile and look of mild unconcern hadn't budged an inch. Dar was no actor; could she really think the board would back her?
Kerry knew the board. Some of them were okay. Some she even liked, and Alastair had a special place in her heart because she sensed in him a genuine caring for Dar that went past their business relationship. She suspected, in a way, that the CEO had gone out of his way to guide Dar as she was developing her skills and provided some needed support to her when things got tough.
But money was money, and business was business. Kerry eased closer so their shoulders made contact and just hoped it was over fast.
"Good to hear. Listen, I've pretty much gotten that deal sealed up here, but I've run into a roadblock, maybe you can help me with it," Meyer said. "In fact, I'm sure you can."
"Sure." Alastair agreed cheerfully. "What do you need?"
Meyer looked across at his adversary, and smiled. "Well, here's the problem. We're about done here. Your team's done a great job, and they finished first. Great job!"
Alastair chuckled.
"I told your folks here all I need is for them to let me get that on film, and the contract's yours." Meyer continued. "And they turned me down."
"Eh?"
"Seems they made a deal with the other folks here not to win." Jason continued. "So they're turning down my offer. Now you can fix that, right?"
"Well, I'm sure I can, but..."
"Now, I don't have time to waste on phone calls or meetings. It's sundown. Deal's done. Can you fix this, Mr. Mclean? I'm sure you can. Give me your word right now, and I'll consider it done."
Dar felt her throat go dry, and she was glad she wasn't speaking. Alastair would think she'd lost her mind, along with her better business judgment.
> This was it. She'd crossed the line. Dar drew in a breath, and wanly wished only that Kerry wasn't there to have to witness this.
"Mr. McLean? Can I get your promise?" He gazed across at Dar with a look of quiet triumph.
Kerry put her arm around Dar's waist. To hell with the cameras.
There was a long moment's silence, then Alastair's voice came through the crackling connection with uncommon clarity. "Well, Mr. Meyer, no you can't."
Drawing in a breath to speak, Meyer halted. "What?"
Dar's lips twitched, just slightly.
"'Fraid I can't give you that promise." Alastair did sound regretful.
"Why the hell not?"
"Folks on the scene there made a decision," Alastair stated. "I respect that."
Meyer stared at the phone in utter disbelief. "Wait, you're telling me that I'm offering you a golden deal, and you're not going to take it because some idiot here who works for you, and who obviously doesn't have your company's best interests in mind, said otherwise?"
Alastair's voice dropped into a cold, startling crispness in a heartbeat. "You know something, mister? That idiot's been with me a long time. Never could get her to do anything she didn't want to do, but you know what? It's always for a damn good reason."
"Well, what about your board? I'm sure they don't feel the same way." Meyer rallied desperately, his eyes darting to Cruickshank.
"Have a great day, Jason. Sorry things didn't work out," Alastair said, just before he hung up, sending a solid click down the line.
A tenuous silence fell. Meyer looked up, finally, and met Dar's eyes.
Dar found a smile somewhere that she really wasn't feeling. She produced it anyway, just to watch Meyer grind his teeth in reaction, as she felt Kerry relax against her in relief.
The silence lengthened as nobody seemed to be sure what to do next. Then Dar caught the faint hint of light reflecting off something moving in the frame of Cruickshank's oversized sunglasses, and with a determined look, started toward her.
MARK STOOD IN the middle of the crowd, a grin on his face. The people around him were stirring and conversation buzzed louder, as the camera people stood in silence, now unsure of what to cover.