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 entered 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?”

“Dar.”

“Don’t you ‘Dar’ me.” Dar’s temper built. “I risked my damn life going back in that hell hole because you asked me to, and now you tell me never mind?”

“You don’t understand,” Easton responded forcefully.

“There’s more at stake here than one measly base, Dar. This could rock the entire Navy. Do you want that? Do you want everything your father fought for dragged through every inch of muck Thicker Than Water 47

between Key Largo and DC?”

Dar stared at the phone. “The people in that report,” she took a breath, “deserve that.”

“I don’t give a damn about them,” Easton shot back. “It’s the Navy I care about. I’m not going to let something like this make us the laughingstock of the damn country. Of every other country.

I’m just not going to do it, Dar!”

Dar settled into her chair, folded her hands carefully on the desk, and leaned forward. “If you don’t,” she enunciated the words very, very carefully, “I will.”

For a moment, dead silence reigned. Dar waited, anger puls-ing through her veins and making her nostrils flare as her breathing deepened and her heartbeat slowed. Her hands twitched, as though sensing an impending battle.

“You wouldn’t do that,” Easton said quietly. “I know you, Paladar.”

The very faintest hint of a wry smile appeared on Dar’s face.

“You only think you do,” she growled softly, reveling in the tension. “I will do it, Gerald.” She paused. “I have to.”

A final parry was inevitable. “Think of your father, Dar.

Don’t you care what he thinks, how he’ll feel if you do this? You know how he loves the Navy.”

A sense of peace settled over Dar. “I am thinking of him. He’d whup the tar out of me if I did any less, Gerry, and we both know that.”

Another silence stretched between them. “Well, damn it.”

Easton sounded more than frustrated. “I’m calling that boss of yours in here tomorrow and I’ll see if I can talk sense to him then, if I can’t get through your thick skull!” He slammed the phone down, leaving a ringing in Dar’s ears.

Damn it.

She took a deep breath, surprised to find herself shaking a little. “Damn.” She lowered her head into her hands and closed her eyes, thinking about what she’d said. Did Easton have a point?

Would the report do irreparable damage to the service? “Guess I better warn Alastair.”

“DAR.”

Dar jumped almost a foot in her chair and whirled, shocked to see her father standing just inside the door that led down the back hall to Kerry’s office. She stared at him, then relaxed back into her seat. “Dad.”

Andrew Roberts removed his hands from the pockets of his pullover, walked around the desk to her, and looked down, his 48 Melissa Good face quiet and very serious.

Dar knew a moment of self-doubt. Gerald Easton had been right in one thing, she knew her father’s love and loyalty to the service ran very deep and very strong. She looked up into those pale blue eyes so like her own and wondered, Is the general right?

Is this too big a sacrifice? “Guess you heard all that.”

“Yeap.” Andy cupped Dar’s cheek in rare, gentle touch. “I ain’t never whupped you, Paladar.”

She gave a faint, mildly embarrassed shrug. “Sounded good.”

Dar looked down, then back up. “Was I wrong?”

A grin remarkably like her own appeared. “Hell no, you weren’t wrong.” Andy eyed the phone. “But that there’s gonna be a hell of a problem.”

Dar nodded.

“Heard about Kerry’s pop.” Andy’s expression sobered.

“Don’t rain but it pours, don’t it?”

Dar nodded again, tiredly. “Yeap.” She thought about what Alastair would say and winced.

Trouble. Oh yeah.

“I was about to head home,” Dar said. “Been a long day.”

“C’mon.” Andy offered her a hand up. “Got me some dog hairs I need to give back over by your place.” He put an arm around Dar’s shoulders as they walked to the door.

IT WAS ALMOST like looking at a stranger. Kerry curled her fingers around the cold metal bars and gazed at her father’s face, half-hidden by the tubes and machinery keeping him alive. His eyes were taped closed and there was no expression on his face, as though he were no longer a person but rather a mannequin used for training.

He would hate this so much, Kerry thought. Hate their pity, and the helplessness, and the indignity of it all. She lifted her eyes and studied the machines, then returned her gaze to that still, closed face. It was hard to know what to feel.

Kerry tried to remember the last time she’d felt joy in her father’s presence. When he’d been “daddy,” and she’d smiled just to see him. Her eyes moistened as she acknowledged just how long ago that was and how very young she’d been.

Too young to understand.

Maybe, five, six? Kerry’s lips tightened as a dimly remembered scene flickered before her—a birthday party. She’d gotten a pair of roller skates she’d desperately wanted, blue ones with silver tassels, and she’d thrown her arms around her father in sheer delight because she knew he’d gotten them for her.


Thicker Than Water 49

Five, then, before she’d gone to school, when life had been as simple as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the long days of fall she could skate in. She had a picture, somewhere, of herself in those skates, with kneepads and a grubby T-shirt. Grinning.

He’d hugged her back. Patted her. Called her his little girl.

Kerry flexed her hands on the bars, and released a shaky breath. That had been a very long time ago, indeed. She reached through the bars and laid her hand on her father’s arm, the skin feeling dry and papery beneath her touch. Then she slid her hand down until she curled her fingers around his, a simple touch she hadn’t felt since she’d been a child.

What she chiefly felt right now, Kerry acknowledged, was a deep sense of regret. “I’m sorry, daddy. I wish it hadn’t been like this.” She watched the unresponsive face. “I never meant for us to hate each other.”