Well, apparently she wasn’t as decrepit as she’d imagined. “That’s good news,” she remarked calmly. “Now the hard part starts.” She rapped her head with her knuckles, then assembled what she wanted to do and typed in a second command to her system. “Go.”

The asterisk returned, but this time Dar slumped back in her chair and relaxed.

“Now we wait, right?” Kerry perched on the corner of the desk. “To see if we have anything.”

“Right,” Dar agreed. “We wait.” She paused and looked around the office. “Listen, no sense in all of us sticking around.”

“No,” Kerry agreed. “Mark said he’d stay and watch.”

Dar had opened her mouth to continue and now she closed it, giving them both a dour look, realizing she’d been outflanked. “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect I’m being coddled.”

“Nope,” Mark jumped in. “I figured once this sucker runs and barfs up the results, you’re the one who gets to figure out what it means,” he said. “So the least I could do is watch the pretty lights flash for ya.”

Dar looked at him, then at Kerry, who looked back at her with a gentle smile. “Okay.” She dropped her hands onto the chair arms and pushed herself to her feet. “C’mon, Kerry, let’s get a couple hours’

sleep.” She turned toward Mark. “Want me to double lock the doors?”

she teased with a rakish grin. “I think I heard some phantom chicken men outside.”

Mark cleared his throat. “Nah, I’m fine. G’wan.”

Dar nodded. “Thanks.” She lifted a hand in a half wave. “Call me if anything doesn’t look like it’s going right.”

“Will do.” Mark settled in the chair Dar had just vacated, and leaned back. The door closed behind them, leaving him in peaceful silence.

BEING HOME FELT good. Kerry scrubbed her teeth industriously, turning as she felt a warm body nearby. “Hfero, Chirf,” she greeted her pet, who was standing up on her hind legs, peering into the mirror with Kerry.

“Argorf,” Chino barked, very glad to have her family home.

“What are you guys doing?” Dar wandered into the bathroom behind her and snuggled up, putting her arms around Kerry’s stomach.

“Giving her pointers, Chino?”

Kerry spit out her mouthful of toothpaste. “No, she’s showing me you didn’t quite get all the blackberry sauce off her face.” She pointed at the mirror. “How on earth did she get into the refrigerator, Dar?”

“Opposable paws.” Dar picked up one of the Labrador’s feet and 332 Melissa Good examined it, getting a kiss for her pains. “Glad you didn’t leave that container of pasta sauce on the bottom shelf.” They’d come home to find purplish blobs everywhere and a suspiciously meek-looking dog trying very hard to appear innocent with a face covered in jam.

“Bad girl,” Kerry scolded their pet. Chino cupped her ears and folded them downward in an expression only a Labrador could come up with, looking soulfully at Kerry all the while. “Ooh...you think you have me so fooled, don’cha?” She had to laugh at the hopeful tail wag.

“Spoiled brat.”

Dar chuckled and rested her chin on the top of Kerry’s head, hugging her and swaying a little. “Mm...bedtime for nerds?”

Kerry spent a moment just absorbing how wonderful it felt to have Dar hugging her. Then she turned around in her lover’s arms and the sensation trebled as she slid closer and returned the hug. “Mm.” She took a breath filled with the scent of clean cotton and Dar’s distinctive smell. “Definitely bedtime for nerds.” She took a step forward and guided Dar toward the waterbed, tumbling onto it with a sense of exquisite relief.

Dar immediately curled around her, capturing her in a net of long arms and longer legs, creating a warm nest she snuggled into, letting out a pleased murmur of contentment.

Dar reached over and turned the light off, ignoring the clock, which reminded her it was after four. Then she resettled her arm over Kerry, who squiggled closer and sighed, warming Dar’s chest with a minty scented breath. The still-nagging aches faded, and she closed her eyes as her body relaxed at last.

What would the analysis come up with? she wondered drowsily. She’d thrown the dice on capturing the data she had, hoping it would deliver to her the mechanism they’d been using to move around the funds that she’d seen in the accounts. But what if it didn’t? Dar felt Kerry’s breathing even out and slow, becoming deep and regular as her partner fell asleep. Curiously, she found herself unconsciously trying to match it.

She thought about that for a moment, then returned her attention to their problem. Or at least, that’s what she’d intended to do. But sleep snuck up on her, ambushing her best intentions and taking her out before she could form another thought.


Chapter

Twenty

“MORNING.” KERRY GAVE Mayte an apologetic look as she entered, closing the outer door behind her. “Sorry I’m late.” She shifted her laptop case to her other shoulder. “Anything blowing up that I should know about?”

Mayte smiled at her. “There is nothing that I know of. Mamá said there have been some messages for la jefe, but it is nothing too serious.”

“Good.” Kerry opened the door to her office and went inside, circling her desk and dropping her briefcase behind it. She collapsed into her leather chair and nudged the switch on her PC, leaning back and watching as it booted.

Late or not, she hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep. Her eyes were sore, and she could feel a heaviness in her head that made her hope she wasn’t coming down with something.

Her phone rang. With a sigh, Kerry sat forward and answered it.

“Yes?”

“Hello, Kerry.” Eleanor’s voice sounded a touch on the smug side.

“Did you forget our meeting?”

Oh, pooters. Kerry rested her head on her hand. “Not exactly,” she said. “We were here on a project until almost four last night. I just got back in.”

“Four?” Eleanor replied. “Good grief, woman. I can’t think of anything fun I’d like to do until four in the morning, let alone anything involved in work.”

“Yeah, well, you know how it is.”

“No, and I’ve got no urge to find out,” the marketing VP said.

“Well, how about a reschedule for tomorrow?”

“Fine.” Kerry rolled her trackball and studied her schedule, now displayed on her fully booted PC. “How’s 3:00? I’ve got two reviews to do in the morning.”

“3:00 it is. Try not to sleep through this one, huh? Though I hear the company’s worth it.” Eleanor chuckled, and hung up.

Kerry had to think about that for a moment before she groaned and let her head hit the desk with a soft thump. Then she got up and trudged around the desk, snagging her coffee mug and heading for the door.


334 Melissa Good Mayte’s desk was empty when she passed it, as was the hallway when she ducked across it to the little kitchenette that served the fourteenth floor. She went to the cappuccino machine and started some milk frothing, studying it as the coffee poured out of its nearby funnel.

The scent itself made her perk up a little, and she breathed it in, trying to extract some alertness from it.

“Well, well!” Clarice entered with her own cup. “Everybody was wondering where you were.”

“Really?” Kerry was very aware of the ragged edges of her temper.

“They could have done something out of the ordinary, like ask my admin.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Clarice chuckled. “Not that anyone blames you, Kerry.”

One, two, three. “Blames me for what?” Kerry asked with studied innocence, pouring her coffee into her steamed milk and stirring it gently.

“Sleeping in,” the black woman explained with a grin. “Not with that bedmate.”

Kerry turned and looked at her. “Clarice, that’s inappropriate,” she stated quietly.

Clarice’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she let her cup drop to the counter with a slight bang. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Here I thought what you two were doing was inappropriate. Silly me.”

There weren’t numbers high enough for her to count this time.

Kerry walked over and got into Clarice’s space, mustering up as much attitude as she could, given her sleepless state. “That’s also inappropriate. One more time, and I’ll put it on your record. You want that?”

Clarice studied her in silence for a short time.

“Do you?” Kerry repeated.

“No, I don’t.”

“Dar and I keep our personal lives out of the office. Why don’t you try doing the same thing?” With an almost verbal snap of her fingers, Kerry turned and walked out, stalking across the hall and jerking open her door to continue inside.

Fortunately for both of them, Dar’s reflexes were not quite as burned as Kerry’s were, and she caught the cup of hot coffee as it went flying from the blonde woman’s grasp as they collided. “Whoa!”

“Crap,” Kerry exhaled. “Sorry.”

Dar carefully handed her back her cup, with only two lonely drips.

“S’all right. Wasn’t your fault—you had no way of knowing I was in here,” she added reasonably. “So what put a barracuda in your shorts?”

“Grr.” Kerry walked to her desk and put the cup down. “Just a personnel problem.” She sighed. “Your friend Clarice.”

“Ah.” Dar scrubbed a hand through her dark hair. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll transfer her to the Nome office. Give me a minute.” She started Red Sky At Morning 335

back toward the inner corridor that connected their offices.

Kerry intercepted her. “No. No, Dar, this is my problem. I’ll handle it.”

Her lover eyed her. “Point of fact, Kerrison, this is actually my problem, and we both know it,” she disagreed.

“Actually,” Kerry went and sat down at her desk, “it’s really her problem, but she’s my employee and I’ve got to deal with it. I’m not going to run away from another issue.” She spun her trackball. “How’s the data dump coming?”

Dar studied her, deciding if she should accept the change of subject. She walked over and perched on the corner of Kerry’s desk, reaching out to take her hand and tugging a little to pull her around so they were face to face. “You deal with it,” she said. “But if it gets to be too much, you come to me, Kerry. I’m the reason she’s being a bitch to you. It’s not your fault.”

Kerry pulled their joined hands over and kissed Dar’s knuckles. “I appreciate the offer.” She rubbed her cheek against the back of Dar’s hand. “And I’ll remember it.”

“Okay.” Dar ruffled her hair. “The data dump’s going, but it’s taking sixteen forevers,” she admitted. “I hope we can get something out of it, or this is going to be one big expensive waste of time.”

Kerry grunted softly. “Do you want to get something, really, Dar?”

she asked in a quiet voice. “Sometimes proof is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Dar looked at her. Kerry’s face was pensive, and the weight she carried on her shoulders from the choices she’d made was evident to her partner’s watching eyes. Without a word, Dar leaned over and gave her a kiss, then a brief hug, before she stood and headed back to her own office.

Kerry reached up to touch the spot where Dar’s lips had been, and found a smile somewhere. “Kiss my ass, Clarice,” she announced wryly.

“Just kiss my Republican WASP ass.”

IT WAS DARK outside, and the MIS office was very quiet. Only one light was on, in the small office that once had been Dar’s and was now temporarily again as she worked on her database project.

She leaned back in her chair and propped one knee up against the desk, reviewing the screen with tired eyes. An entire screen of characters faced her, white letters on a dark background that didn’t change no matter how many times she read them.

With a soft curse, she got up and stretched out her back, careful not to jar her shoulder as she circled the tiny room with weary, slightly rocking paces. Finally she stopped and gazed at the wall, studying the spidery traces of the network diagram—her network— that was tacked up in all its glory.


336 Melissa Good Her cell phone rang. Dar turned and leaned against the wall, unclipping the instrument from her belt and answering it. “Yeah?”

“Hello, Dar!” Alastair’s voice sounded, as always, resolutely positive. “How are things going?”

“Lousy,” Dar admitted.

“Ah.” Her boss cleared his throat. “No luck, huh?”

Dar gazed at the computer, aware of being balanced on a knife of decision. After a moment, she inhaled, aware of the sting as the knife cut her. “Wish I hadn’t had any,” she said. “It’s all there, Alastair.”