Thicker Than Water - DK5

by Melissa Good

  A quick glance around told her she wasn’t being met, not that she’d expected to be since she hadn’t informed Angie of her flight plans, but part of her felt a tiny bit disappointed, all the same. On second thought, maybe that was for the best, Kerry decided, as she shouldered her bag and headed off towards the rental car counter.

  Best for me to do this on my terms, right? Isn’t that what I told Dar?

  She thought about that as she walked. Keeping a little distance from everyone seemed like a good plan, especially since tensions would be high, the press would probably be present, and the last thing anyone needed was a family spat right in the middle of a crisis.

  In fact, on the way up, not going at all had crossed her mind several times. It was only Angie’s quiet finality that had pushed her forward, knowing in her heart that staying away and letting her father die without at least saying goodbye to him was something she just wasn’t capable of.

  Or am I?

  Kerry sighed unhappily and stepped up to the counter. “I’d like a car, please.” She’d picked the chain ILS usually used from habit.

  “For how many days, ma’am?” the young man behind the counter asked politely.

  Good question. “A week.” Kerry supplied her credit card and Florida driver’s license.

  “Thanks.” The man took them and keyed in something, then paused, evidently surprised at something. “Oh, Ms. Stuart. We already have a reservation here for you.” He handed back her card. “ILS is taking care of it.”

  One of Kerry’s eyebrows lifted. “They are, huh?” She found herself unable to be upset with Dar. “Okay.” She took the prof-40 Melissa Good fered keys and went outside, wincing as the cold wind bit her face. “Ugh. Forgot about that.”

  She tugged her jacket closed and zipped it, then searched out her assigned car and opened the trunk to toss in her bag. Hospital first, she decided. Let’s find out the bad news. She got in the car, then drove carefully out of the parking lot and onto the icy streets.

  It wasn’t that big a town and the drive to the hospital was fairly short. At midday, the place didn’t seem that busy, and she parked in the half empty visitor’s lot. She spotted a news truck parked near the back entrance, though, and several cars haphaz-ardly pulled up near it, and her suspicions were confirmed when she entered the main doors and saw the cluster of men and women, complete with cameras, standing nearby.

  Will they recognize me? she wondered. The national news people had pegged her in DC, but it had taken a while, and these locals hadn’t seen her in a few years, if at all, given the turnover rate.

  Certainly, if they were old timers, they wouldn’t expect the girl they’d known in lace blouses and knee length skirts, with carefully styled hair and a model slim build, to have morphed into the muscular figure in jeans and a leather jacket she knew she presented today.

  Her attitude had changed as well. Kerry had studied Dar’s use of her considerable charisma and personal energy when she interacted with others, and she’d tried to inject a little of that dynamic into her own personality. Part of it was self confidence, which success at her job had given her, and part of it was an awareness of herself and her effect on other people. “Excuse me.”

  She moved past the reporters with a polite nod.

  They didn’t even give her a second glance. Kerry repressed a smile as she went to the reception desk. She waited for the woman behind the desk to look up, then leaned forward a little. “Could you tell me where in CCU Roger Stuart is?”

  The woman gave her an immediate, guarded look, and glanced behind her at the reporters. “Are you family, ma’am?”

  Kerry removed her driver’s license and showed it to the woman. “Yes.”

  A quick look at the license, then at Kerry’s face, and the receptionist replied, “Hold on a moment,” as she got up and motioned for a guard. “George will take you up. George, CCU 4, okay?”

  “Yes’m.” The tall, red haired guard nodded. “Come this way, please.”

  Kerry followed the man through a restricted access door and down a long hallway to where a small elevator was located. Very Thicker Than Water 41

  few people were in the hall, just two orderlies pushing beds and one man with an X-ray machine. She followed the guard into the elevator and waited while he inserted a key and pressed a floor.

  “You part of the senator’s family?” the guard asked.

  Kerry nodded. “Yes. He’s my father.”

  “Hm.” The elevator reached its destination and he held the door for her. “Second alcove on your right, ma’am.”

  Kerry stepped out and walked quietly across the tile floor.

  Her heart pounded and shivers went up and down her spine. She could hear, faintly, the sounds of machinery around her—beeps and the gurgling of oxygen and it reminded her unpleasantly of Dar’s stay in the hospital down south.

  Outside the room she paused, hearing voices. One was her mother’s. It didn’t sound good.

  Oh boy. Kerry steeled herself, then took a deep breath and forced her legs to move forward into the room where a circle of strange, familiar faces ringed a bed full of lines and machines, and the almost hidden form she realized was her father.

  Eyes shifted and looked at her, some in surprise, some in distress, as the doctor who’d been speaking broke off his speech and turned. “Are you part of the family here?”

  It was a very awkward moment. Kerry had no idea what the real answer to that question was.

  “That’s my daughter,” Cynthia Stuart murmured. “Please, go on, Doctor. Kerrison, come here.”

  There wasn’t much else she could do. Kerry walked across the silent room to her mother’s side, shocked when her hand was grabbed and held in desperation. She felt Angie move closer to her as they turned and faced the somber looking man in the white coat.

  “Ms. Stuart,” the doctor said gently, “we were just going over what we mean when we talk about a coma.”

  DAR ALMOST HAD to laugh when she looked up to see Mark peeking cautiously around the door to her office. “Yes?” she growled.

  “You…um…ready to review that firmware?” Mark asked.

  “I’ve got my whole bunch of guys reviewing how something got upgraded and we missed it.”

  She picked up her cup of steaming coffee and sipped it.

  “Sure.” Now soberly dressed in her iron gray suit and silk shirt, she leaned back and watched as he entered with a clipboard. “So, how’d we do?”

  Mark took a seat across from her. “I have no clue.” He 42 Melissa Good grinned briefly. “Here’s the network paths to the dump; I figured you’d know what to do with them.” He handed the clipboard to Dar. “There you go.”

  “Thanks.” Dar accepted it and reviewed the page, then glanced up to catch Mark intently studying her. One of her eyebrows lifted. “Something wrong?”

  He hesitated, then gave her a slight shrug. “Didn’t expect to see you here so early.”

  “Earlier I start, earlier Alastair has his answer,” Dar replied.

  “Why don’t you take off?”

  “I got some sleep in the center,” Mark said. “What about you?”

  Dar sighed. “Kerry had to fly up to see her family. Wasn’t much time to sleep.”

  Mark nodded. “I saw on the newscast he was sick. Stroke, they said, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That sucks,” Mark said. “I know stuff is all screwed up between her and her family, but it still sucks.” He glanced around.

  “Listen, Dar, if you want to head up there, I can try and…”

  It was almost funny. Dar rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers and wondered how she had managed to get her entire staff to morph overnight into solicitous nannies. “Mark, get your ass out of here and go figure out how the hell we slipped up by not testing that new release before it got put into production.

  Something got missed.” She pinned him with a look. “Now!”

  He jumped. “Okay.” One hand lifted. “O
kay, I get the message, boss. No problem.” He slid out of the chair and ducked around the door, leaving Dar in peace.

  Silence settled for a moment before she pulled her keyboard in front of her and called up the files, glad of the large, flat screen with its crisp display. However, tired as she was, she couldn’t avoid acknowledging the fuzziness of the characters unless she squinted at them, and she admitted to herself that her long deferred trip to the optometrist’s had to be well and truly scheduled.

  Damn. Her lips quirked in annoyance. The hell if I want to wear glasses. A scowl appeared as she started up her analysis program.

  Or contact lenses.

  Hey. She studied the screen for a moment, then tapped it with one long finger. If I only need the blasted things when I look at the monitor… A sly grin crossed her face. Why not just have whatever adjustment I need built into a screen shield?

  “Yeah.” Dar felt a little more cheerful. She settled back and reviewed the files. As the screen filled with data, she searched for Thicker Than Water 43

  patterns, trying to ignore the growing unease inside her guts.

  THE WAITING ROOM for the critical care unit was small and discreet, tucked away behind the medical area and reserved for the families of the patients who were sequestered there. Kerry cradled her cup in her hands, using the coffee’s mottled surface as a concentration point while she thought.

  My father is dying.

  Kerry felt the styrofoam surface under her fingers dent slightly as she flexed her hands. The interruption of blood supply due to the stroke had hit in the worst place imaginable—the parts of his brain that kept him alive and breathing without assistance from the noisy machines that dominated the space he was in. The machines that were the only thing keeping him alive.

  Around her, the family was seated in grim silence. Her mother, breathing in short, sobbing gasps, sat between Kerry and Angie. Michael was on the other side of her, nervously twisting a tri-fold napkin into a thin, tight line. Richard paced back and forth on the far side of the room, where one of her aunts also sat with an uncle. Nobody wanted to talk.

  Kerry knew she was the focus of uneasy attention. She’d heard the ugly whispers as they’d left the CCU unit and walked down the hall: how she didn’t belong there, how her father had hated her. How it was her fault—causing the strain he’d been under that finally got to him.

  Kerry couldn’t even lie to herself and say it wasn’t true, because she knew at some level it was. She’d come to terms with that in her heart, during that week they’d spent in Key West after the hearings. Come to terms with the fact that she’d done what she’d done for the reasons she’d done it, and reluctantly accepted that if she’d had to make the decision all over again, she probably wouldn’t have done it.

  But she had, and good or bad, she had to live with that decision for the rest of her life. She’d always held out a faint hope that someday, somehow, after enough time had passed, she’d have a chance to go home and maybe she could sit down with her father and just…talk.

  Kerry drew in a breath, feeling the finality of the moment.

  There will be no chance of talking now. The doctor had been gentle and kind, but he’d held out no false hope to them. He’d just given them some time to sit down and absorb the truth, and told them of their limited options. The machines could not give him a life again, but they could keep him alive; did they want them to?

  Kerry was surprised to feel tears gathering behind her eyes.

  44 Melissa Good Surprised that losing him hurt as much as it did—after all that had happened and everything that had come between them, he was still her father.

  “Mama.” Angie’s voice was shaky. “Can I get you a drink?”

  Kerry looked up to see her mother jerk her head up and down, one hand pressed to her mouth in evident agony. Their eyes met and Kerry slowly extended her cup. “Here, mom, take mine. I haven’t touched it.”

  For a moment, she thought her mother would refuse, but then her hand lowered and accepted the cup, spilling it a little as Kerry released it.

  “Thank you,” her mother whispered, as she brought it to her lips and took a sip.

  Kerry exhaled, slowly looking around the room. The tension was almost a visible fog, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be out of there. She stood up. “I’m going to,” she could almost feel the stares on her, “stretch my legs. I’ll be right back.”

  Before anyone could think of joining her, she made it to the door and slipped out into the hallway, a puff of cooler air from the vent overhead feeling very welcome in the warm indoors.

  She’d forgotten what needing heat was like and had shed her jacket when she’d found herself sweating after a few moments inside the building. At least she thought that was because of the heat.

  Kerry stuck her hands in her pockets and paced across the tiled floor, threading through a maze of conflicting emotions.

  When she looked up, she found herself outside the CCU unit, looking through the multiple glass windows to the alcove in which her father lay. For a moment she simply stared. Then, with a quiet breath, she went to the quiet corner full of hissing noise and soft beeps…and lost chances.

  DAR SAT WITH Duks and Mariana in the lunchroom; the busy crowds lessened in the late afternoon, leaving the big room mostly empty and pleasantly quiet.

  “Sure you don’t want a bite of this, DR?” Duks nudged his plate of chocolate cake towards her. “You’re getting me worried about you today.”

  Dar waved a hand at him, settled back in her chair, and nursed her glass of milk. “No thanks, Duks. Damn painkillers I’m taking for my shoulder are making me queasy.” She indicated her mostly uneaten lunch. “I’ll take a rain check.”

  Mariana chewed a bite of her salad and swallowed. “Dar, why not go home?” She studied her friend’s face. “We can cancel the Thicker Than Water 45

  staff meeting.”

  Home. Dar felt the strain of the long day and longer night, and the thought of lying down and letting her wound up body relax was very, very tempting. Then she remembered how quiet the condo was without its other occupant, and scowled a little.

  “Maybe later.”

  “Heard from Kerry yet?” Duks asked casually. “News is very circumspect from there.”

  “Not yet.” Dar shook her head, somberly studying her milk.

  “Hey, anything come of the internal audit this quarter?”

  Duks gracefully accepted the change of subject. “One or two very small things, but they are inconsequential. We are very good at chasing our own tails, is it not true?”

  “True,” Dar said. Duks’ alert and aggressive internal auditors watched the computer systems like hawks. One digit out of place brought them sniffing around, even in her area, where the problems usually tended to be misplaced receipts and forgotten cellular bill overages rather than anything more criminal. Their one line woven in the carpet was the one leading to inside her office—

  if any of them had any questions, they fed them directly to Duks, who could be depended on to pay Dar a visit and present them.

  Or not. Dar had been surprised to find out that Duks would sometimes merely sign off on things that were slightly out of line from Operations, and she’d cornered him on it once. The big VP of Finance had laughed, then seriously told her that just as her judg-ment was trusted without question in her realm, she should extend the same courtesy to him.

  Good point, Dar had admitted, after a moment.

  Duks had shaken a finger at her. “Just don’t try to get away with anything more than a stick of chewing gum.”

  “Worst thing I think you found this time was José taking home cases of Bustelo,” Mari commented with a dry chuckle.

  “Mm.” Dar shrugged. “Sounds about right.” She decided she’d had enough chitchat, and got up. “I’ve got problems in the Northeast. Later.” She picked up her tray and deposited it in the collection bin, then left the café.

  DAR’S PHONE WAS ringing as she entere
d her office, and she hurried over to it as she realized it was her private line.

  “Yeah”

  “Hello, Dar?”

  Ah. “Afternoon, Gerry.” Dar circled around her desk and sat down. “What can I do for you?”

  The general cleared his throat. “Just came from a meeting, 46 Melissa Good Dar. Me and a few top brass going over your report.”

  “Ah.” Dar felt a touch of unease. “Guess it’s going to stir up a lot of crap, huh?”

  General Easton paused, then sighed audibly. “Dar, I wanted to talk to you myself about this. Wasn’t the thing we were looking for when we brought you in here, y’know.”

  “I know,” Dar replied. “I wasn’t glad to find it.”

  “Of course, of course,” Gerry acknowledged hastily. “You wouldn’t, after all, would you? You grew up there, mostly.”

  “Mostly.”

  There was another awkward pause. “Damnable thing, Dar. If half of what’s in here pans out, it’s a disaster. A big disaster: for the Navy, for the country…Damnable thing.”

  Dar drew in a breath, then released it. “Guess they should have thought of that before they did it. You sound like you’re regretting the project.”

  Easton cleared his throat a bit. “I have to shut it down, Dar.

  We can’t use this.” His voice took on a cooler tint. “The government doesn’t accept the results of your investigation.” He paused and then had the grace to add, “I’m sorry.”

  For a moment, Dar wondered if she’d heard right. “What?”

  “Look, we’ll pay off the contract, no worry about that,” Easton said. “You won’t be the loser for it, Dar. But it has to stop. I’ll discard this package, and you have to destroy any copies you have.”

  Dar blinked. A sense of shock made her skin prickle and she stood up in pure reflex, animal energy surging. “Am I hearing you right?” She paced around the desk. “Are you saying you’re not going to do anything?”

  “Now, Dar.” Easton tried to sound offhand. “I’m sure a lot of this can be explained in any number of ways. Not everything’s a plot, y’know.”

  Dar slammed both hands on her desk and leaned over the speakerphone. “Plot? Goddamn it, Gerry, it’s not some kind of damn plot; it’s a criminal act of major proportions! Are you telling me you’re just going to sit back up there and let those son of a bitches get off scot free?”