All there. She’d been wrong. Uncle Jeff had known, and more than that, he’d used knowing to buy Chuck his boat. There was no way to hide any of it—and Dar had in fact been more than a little shocked at herself for wanting to.

“Ah.” Alastair absorbed the information and the silence that followed it. “Well, we knew it wasn’t pretty, Dar,” he said briskly. “But we did what we got paid to do.”

“Yeah,” Dar agreed quietly.

Another silence ensued.

“But?” Alastair ventured.

“But what’s the price for it, Alastair?” Dar asked. “There’s a lot of dirt in here a lot of people, very powerful people, won’t want dumped into the sunlight. What about us?”

“Us?” Alastair asked. “As in you and me?”

Dar snorted, walking across to the desk and plopping back down into her chair. “Us as in the company. Thirty percent of our contracts are with the government, Alastair. You want them all pissed at us?” She looked at the screen, reaching over to scroll her mouse down a few clicks. “Is it worth it?”

This time, it was Alastair who was quiet for a span. “Y’know, I don’t think I ever thought I’d hear you say something like that, Paladar,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft in your old age.”

A faint, brief smile crossed Dar’s face. “Maybe.” She exhaled. “Or maybe I just don’t want to bury old friends today.”

“Ah.” The CEO acknowledged her reluctance. “Well, the company can stand the glare, Dar. We just did our jobs. The brass can be upset at the results, but not the methods, and given your natural bias, they can’t even fault the process.”

“Bias?”

“C’mon, Dar,” Alastair said. “At any rate, I know I can leave this decision in your hands, and I want you to know—whatever you decide, I’ll back you a hundred percent.”

Gee. Thanks. Dar tipped her head back and regarded the ceiling.

“Gee, thanks,” she repeated audibly into the phone. “You have a nice day too, Alastair.”

Her boss chuckled briefly. “I know how you feel, Dar,” he said.

“Had to sit in your seat once myself, and it’s not easy.” His voice grew Red Sky At Morning 337

more serious. “But that’s why they pay us the big bucks, lady. You know it and I know it. So you just make your best decision, and we’ll take it from there.”

Dar accepted the mild rebuke with a slight nod of her head. “Yeah, I know,” she acknowledged. “It’s just been a long week. Maybe Kerry was right after all; I was too close to this.”

Alastair gave that statement its due and proper regard. “Or maybe you’ve just swallowed a few too many painkillers,” he suggested.

“Sleep on it, Dar. Don’t choose now. Just go home, relax, and wait for sunlight to make your decision.”

Dar’s sensitive ears caught the sound of the elevator doors opening. “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll do that, Alastair.” She cocked her head, listening for Kerry’s distinctive walk and smiling when she heard it. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“Right-o, Dar,” Alastair said. “G’night.”

“Night.” Dar watched as Kerry’s figure filled the doorway of the small office.

“Say good night to Kerrison, too,” Alastair’s voice added, before a solid click indicated the line cutting off.

“W—” Dar looked at the phone in startlement. “How in the hell did he know you were here?”

“Ahh.” Kerry looked as tired as Dar felt. She entered the office and dropped into the chair across from her boss, unbuttoning the top button of her shirt and loosening the collar as she did so. “You smiled when you saw me. It makes your voice all different.”

“It does?” Dar responded in a slightly amazed tone.

“Yes, it does,” Kerry said. “How’s it going?”

Dar sighed. She propped her head up on one fist and looked across the desk at her lover. “I need a hug.”

Kerry got up and circled the desk. “Nicest request I’ve had all day.”

She willingly perched on one arm of Dar’s chair and wrapped herself around her lover, giving her the requested squeeze. “How’s it going?”

she repeated, glancing across to the monitor.

Dar threaded one arm under Kerry’s knee and let her head rest against the blonde woman’s chest. “I recovered the data,” she answered, after a brief pause. “Alastair says it’s up to me to decide what to do with it.” Kerry exhaled, resting her cheek against the top of Dar’s head.

“You going to decide now?”

Dar shook her head.

“How about we go home, then? I’m pooped,” Kerry said.

“Okay,” her lover agreed.

They sat there in silence for a little while, only the soft squeak of the chair audible as they rocked gently together.

“Wanna go get some ice cream?” Kerry finally said.

Dar perked up a little. “Mm.”


338 Melissa Good

“That little parlor on the beach? You, me, and a sundae?”

“Oh, yeah.” Dar finally smiled. “Lead on. I’m right there with you.”

After Dar carefully locked down her data, they got up and left the room, shutting the lights off. Arm in arm, they walked to the elevator, leaving the problem temporarily behind them.

THE PARLOR WAS busy, but they found a table near the back windows and settled into it. Dar half turned in her seat and leaned her back against the window, easing her arm onto the table for support.

Despite the crowd, a server wound her way over to the table immediately and presented herself, giving them both a big smile. “Hi guys! Tough day?” she asked sympathetically. “Haven’t seen you in here in a few weeks.”

Kerry gave the girl a wry look, acknowledging there were worse places to be a regular at. “We’ve been swamped,” she agreed. “Two of the usual.”

“You got it.” The girl scribbled something on her pad. “Want a couple Cokes while you’re waiting?”

“Sure,” Kerry agreed, leaning back and extending her denim-covered legs as the girl left. The parlor was a simple place—tile floors and Formica tables lending it a cafeteria look, along with fluorescent lighting that did not flatter it any.

But the ice cream was rich, and completely overindulgent, so when they visited they dismissed any lack of décor as merely incidental.

Kerry actually liked its plain functionality. It reminded her of a small corner drug store she and her sister used to frequent on their way home from school, with its cracked vinyl stools and chipped counter. They’d gone there enjoying the illicit thrill of it, knowing if their parents found out, they’d both be punished in a heartbeat.

Made the sodas taste better, she’d always sworn. The memory brought a smile to her face, even after all this time.

“What’s so funny?” Dar asked, her fingers plucking idly at the paper napkin on the table.

“Life, sometimes,” her partner responded. “I was just thinking how in my life, whenever something was supposed to be bad for me, I went right after it,” Kerry added. “Ice cream sodas, chocolate, beer—”

“Me.” Dar snuck it in craftily.

Kerry looked at her, then laughed. After a moment, Dar joined her as they both enjoyed the moment together. “Yeesh, how true that is.”

Kerry wiped her eyes. “Me, the Midwestern Republican rebel.”

“You forgot Christian,” Dar reminded her, reaching casually over and capturing Kerry’s hand.

“Ah, yes.” Kerry twined fingers with her. “Twelve years of orthodox indoctrination just so I can sit here in South Beach holding hands with you.” She rolled her head to one side and regarded Dar. “It’s Red Sky At Morning 339

funny, though. One of the things they try so hard to teach you is to do

‘the right thing.’ What they never tell you is how to know what that is.”

Dar nodded somberly. “I know what you mean.”

Kerry leaned on the table a little. “Dar, you don’t really feel sorry for those guys, do you? I mean, yeah, they were friends of yours once, but remember being in that hospital, okay? And remember how all of us almost got in a lot of trouble because of them.”

The waitress returned with both their sodas and their ice cream.

She set them down, and the women applied themselves to the serious business of eating for a moment before Dar decided to answer.

“I know they’re wrong, Ker,” she said, licking a bit of hot fudge off her spoon. “But yeah, I do feel sorry for them. Maybe I wouldn’t have at one time in my life, but I do now, and it’s your fault.”

“My fault?” Kerry looked up in surprise, getting the words out around a mouthful of banana split.

“Your fault.” Dar dabbed a bit of whipped cream on Kerry’s nose.

“You gave me back my conscience,” she said. “Now I have to make peace with it before I have to go do what I need to do.”

“Oh.” Kerry ate a bit of chocolate ice cream. “Is that a bad thing?”

Dar tapped the spoon on her lower lip, a thoughtful look on her face. “No,” she decided, shaking her head and spearing a cherry. “Just a damned inconvenient one sometimes.”

Ah. Kerry reflected on that. Life was damned inconvenient sometimes, if she thought about it. She just had to take the good with the bad, and make her best choices. She sucked on her straw and nodded a little to herself, almost feeling a sense of reconciliation with one of hers.

Almost.

THE SUN PEEKED slowly over a lightly ruffled gray ocean. Across an almost empty beach, a seagull wheeled, searching for a little breakfast for himself.

Dar sat near the shore, leaning against a half-buried, mostly dead tree, and watched the bird circle. Beside her sat her briefcase, on which she rested one elbow as she dug idly into the sand with her bare toes.

It had been a long night for her, lying in the darkness with Kerry’s warm body pressed against hers as she went over and over her options; how they might play out, and what the consequences could be. She’d finally gotten up and showered, dressing as a sleepy Kerry nuzzled her back and wishing the day was already over with.

She’d then come out here, to this beach, to let the cool morning breeze clear her head. It was the same beach she’d come to the night she’d almost fired Kerry, the same beach she’d been coming to for years when she needed a few minutes to ground herself, here within sight of the vast Atlantic that had been her playground since before she could 340 Melissa Good really remember.

Maybe that’s why she’d always been so damned sure she belonged in the Navy. Dar sighed. Even as a young child, there had never been a doubt in her mind that one day she’d be out there, living on the sea just like her father. It had been a world she’d been completely comfortable with—a world she’d been proud to be a part of.

Nowadays, it was considered a little old-fashioned to be patriotic.

Dar ran her fingers through the grainy sand, plucking out a bit of dried coral and examining it. Her father was, though; once upon a time, she had been, too.

Now? Dar’s lips pressed briefly together. With a slight groan, she pushed herself to her feet and shouldered her briefcase, walking slowly across the sand to the beckoning waves. She kept going until the water covered her feet, the incoming tide washing over her legs up to her rolled up pant legs, bringing with it the clean, tangy scent of the sea.

A bit of seaweed wrapped itself around her ankle, its touch a little prickly. Dar gazed off into the dawn, letting the onshore breeze blow her hair back as the sun lit up the waves.

KERRY SAT AT her desk, cupping her hands around a steaming mug of hot tea as she watched the sun rise through her window. She looked up as a knock sounded on her door, a little surprised. “Come in.” The door opened and Mark stuck his head in. “Morning, Kerry.”

Kerry’s blonde eyebrows lifted. “You’re here early.”

“Yeah,” the MIS manager agreed. “You, too.”

“C’mon in,” Kerry repeated. “Dar’s on a plane up to DC, so I thought I’d get in here and get some stuff done before the phones start ringing.”

Mark entered and crossed the mahogany carpet, settling in the seat across from Kerry’s desk. “Did she get what she needed from that array?”

“I think so,” Kerry said. “Now she’s just got to decide what to do with it. Sticky political situation, you know?”

Mark nodded. “Yeah. Speaking of.” He folded his hands together and rested his chin on them. “You figured out what you want me to do with Brent?” he asked.

“Is he here?”

“Yeah.”

Kerry exhaled. “Okay, send him over. I’ll talk to him,” she replied.

“Maybe we can get some communication going. I...” Another sigh. “It’s really too bad, because he’s a good tech.”