The girl’s eyes wandered over her appreciatively. “Anytime.” She smiled, then turned to leave.

Dar’s brow lifted, and a speculative smile crossed her lips, then she sighed as the night manager got back on the phone. First things first. “Thank you.” She took down the men’s names and the corporation who was paying for them to stay there. It caused another smile to appear, this one not pleasant.

“But ma’am, are you sure you don’t want us to call the police?” the man protested. “I mean, surely they should be thrown out of here, at least.

“No, no,” Dar objected. “I’ll take care of it. You just leave them alone.”

“Ms. Roberts, are you sure?” The manager sounded worried.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” came the quietly confident reply. “Thank you.” Dar hung up, then noticed the room service waitress was still at the door.

“Sorry to eavesdrop.” The girl didn’t look sorry at all. “But are you talking about those creeps on the second floor?” She leaned against the door and regarded Dar. “The four guys who look like overaged football players?”

Dar nodded. “Probably, why?”

A shake of her blonde head. “No one’ll go up there except for the older guys from the kitchen. They keep grabbing anything that’s capable of wearing a skirt.”

The executive smiled quietly. “Oh really?” She had booted her laptop and watched it connect to the system in Miami. She started a terminal session and logged into the corporate database, sending a rapid query and drumming her fingers until it came back. She nodded, then picked up the phone and dialed, aware of the hazel eyes watching her with interest. On the fourth ring, it was picked up. “Gary Sanrichon?”

“That’s me. Who is this?” The voice sounded puzzled.

“Dar Roberts.” No introduction, no company name. She suspected it wouldn’t be needed.

“Oh! Uh…” Sanrichon sounded startled. “My god, it’s… What can I do for you, Ms. Roberts?”

She read off the names of her attackers. “They yours?”

“Salesmen, yes,” Sanrichon replied warily. “Why?”

“They’re drunk and attacking women here in the Hyatt in DC,” Dar replied. “You could do me a favor and make them gone. Now.” She paused and waited, hearing mostly breathing on the other end of the phone. Her peripheral vision caught the room service attendant listening avidly, and she stifled a smile.

After an obviously shocked silence, he said, “I’ll take care of it.”

Sanrichon’s words were hard and clipped. “Don’t you worry, Ms. Roberts. I’ll take care of that right now for you.”

“Thanks.” The executive smiled contentedly. “ ’Night.” She hung up the phone and glanced at the girl, who was watching her with wide eyes. “Too bad for them they work for a subsidiary of ours, huh?” Dar commented, as she 36 Melissa Good watched the laptop download mail, then wandered over to the tray and picked up her milkshake, sucking at it with a satisfied slurp. She lifted her eyes and looked up under dark lashes at the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Sherry,” the blonde replied softly. “What’s going to happen to those guys?”

Dar shrugged. “Don’t worry about them. They’ll be out of your hair by the morning; I can guarantee that.” She peeked under the domed lid of one of the dishes and captured a jalapeno popper, biting into it and chewing with pleasure. “Maybe they’ll learn a lesson.”

“Maybe.” The girl replied. “I’ll…be back to get that tray later on.” She motioned toward it.

Dar lifted ice blue eyes to hers and smiled. “Sounds good to me.” She watched the girl swallow hard, then slip out, not without a backward glance at her; Dar chuckled wryly as the door closed. “Oh Dar, you seducer of children. That was awful.” She sighed, then got out of her still-damp bathing suit, hanging the thin black fabric over the shower bar in the bathroom to dry.

Her cotton T-shirt felt good after the dampness, and she sprawled out onto the bed, pulling the tray closer and examining its contents, then flicking on the TV and setting it for the movie. She was about to start it when her laptop chimed; she scowled at it. “I know I have mail. I always have mail. I even had mail after the goddamn servers were downed for eight hours, and it was three AM.” The laptop chimed again, and she sighed, then slid off the bed and padded over to it, grabbing the machine and taking it back with her to the bed after disconnecting the phone line.

She settled back down on the dark blue comforter, and peered at the mail list. “BS, BS, BS, corporate newsletter. Oh, like I need to read that. BS, Dukky, BS... Ah.” She clicked on the seventh message down, from fairly early that morning.


Sent by: Kerry Stuart

Subject: Clarification

Time: 10:32 AM

Ms. Roberts—

There are some additional items that I need

clarification on. Firstly, regarding the support issue.

If you were to take over the support of these products, you would need to add several skill sets to your existing support center.

These would include hardware support for the POSIX

backends, the thermal slip printers, and the touch screens, none of which duplicates existing support environments you currently have. The training on these items is extensive and ongoing. Your cost center would have to include budget for this training, where we already possess the skill sets.

Likewise, your programming group is concentrated in TPF, and our code is written in C, with a good number of assembler modules custom designed for the service sector.

You do not have programmers qualified in this, and would Tropical Storm 37

have to acquire ours or provide extensive training to bring your own staff up to speed. Our clients require frequent patches and updates as their environments change, and they are dependent on us to be able to rapidly react to the changing food service world.

Therefore, I believe it is in your best interests to retain the services of the existing groups employed by Associated. My proposal regarding your budgetary demands will be directed accordingly.

Please indicate if you feel this reasoning is

incorrect.

K. Stuart

I apologize for my tone and manner this morning—but you can imagine how disturbing the actions of your procedure team was.

Dar munched another popper and took a sip of her milkshake, a smile tugging at her lips . Kerry had obviously put her access to their corporate systems to good use, and she had made some very valid points. “Good girl, Kerry.” She paused, remembering the woman’s hostile response at having her first name used and some of her good mood evaporated.

Why the hell should I care? The logical answer was, of course, that she shouldn’t, but for some reason she found herself intrigued by Kerry Stuart’s potential, and her intelligence, and she really didn’t want to be the damn woman’s enemy.

She sighed. Trouble was, Kerry didn’t seem to have a mutual admiration for her. In fact, Dar was hard pressed to recall being spoken to with that much venom by someone she’d just met in quite a while.

Hmm. Dar drummed her fingers on the laptop keyboard. Their first meeting had been a disaster. Maybe…well, that last line indicates she was at least willing to listen. Perhaps I could mend fences just a little. She stuffed a laden nacho into her mouth, then started a reply.

KERRY ABSENTLY MUNCHED on a slice of lukewarm pizza as she paged through yet another spreadsheet. She’d been at it for hours, since she’d gotten home, and she realized she was about ready for a break when the screen started to go fuzzy on her.

Coincidentally, a knock rapped on her door at the same time. She stood, hissing as her back protested its tenure in the same position, and limped to the door, peeking through the security hole before pulling it open. “Hey, Colleen.” She smiled at the short redhead who bounded inside. Colleen McPherson was the first neighbor she’d met after she moved into the complex, and they’d remained close friends ever since.

“Hey, Kerry, whatcha up to?” Colleen wrinkled her snub nose and looked around. “Whoa. Hold on. Don’t tell me you are eating pizza? No, no. Must be a pod. I’m calling the FBI.”

Kerry laughed a little sheepishly. “I had no choice. I’m doing this project, and I didn’t have time to cook. I was starving.” She closed the door and 38 Melissa Good walked back over to her desk. “You want some?”

Colleen peered at the box. “Ohmigod. You actually ate half of it. I’m going to pass out,” she teased her friend. “It’s not even a veggie pizza.”

Kerry sat down, letting her arms rest on her thighs. “I’m not a vegetarian, Col. You know that,” she objected. “I just like to eat healthy. Is that a crime?”

The redhead took a slice and chewed it. “What is a crime is that you hardly eat enough to sustain a rabbit, much less a human being.” She plucked at Kerry’s shirt, which hung on her. “Now that is not healthy.”

Kerry shrugged a little. “I’m fine, I just…” She hesitated. “I get a lot of grief at home if I put on weight. It’s just easier not to.” She shrugged. “You know how it is.”

Grief was a mild way of putting it. The first year she’d been down here, things had been hectic, work was very involving, and she really didn’t have time to do much other than go to the office, come home, try to get the apartment settled, and study for her networking certifications. It led to a lot of late nights and take-out food, and an extra twenty pounds that had gotten her nothing but nagging and complaints when she’d gone home for Christmas.

Which was a lousy time for that and had caused her to end up spending most of the holiday avoiding people, her father especially. She’d vowed she’d never have to go through that again. So she stuck to carrots, and lots of walking and bike riding, which got things pretty much under control. In fact, Colleen was her walking and Rollerblading buddy, since the short redhead was constantly battling her own tendency to roundness.

Kerry sighed, because she was an admitted chowhound. She loved to eat, and it was so hard to constantly say no to that. But she did, because hearing her father’s censorious voice was even worse, and her mother never failed to ask her about it on their weekly phone calls.

Then of course, there was Brian. Her nominal fiancé. His daddy had done a big favor for her daddy, so when he asked to marry her…Daddy had said yes. Kerry didn’t dislike Brian. He was a tall, very good-looking young man with impeccable manners, intelligence, and good work ethics, who was just about to graduate law school. By all accounts, a great match, and he was crazy about her. And to be fair, she liked him. They’d been friends for years, and she’d had a lot of fun doing things together.

In fact, they seemed like a natural pair. He’d taken her to their senior prom, and one of her mother’s favorite pictures was the two of them posing in front of her parents’ house, dressed in formal wear and very serious expressions for that very occasion.

Natural. Hmm… Yeah. Kerry exhaled, then put a smile on. “So, like I said, it’s just easier. My folks give me such a hard time; you know how that is.”

Colleen rolled her eyes. “Do I ever.” She put her hands on her hips.

“Colleen Katherine McPherson, if you don’t start doing something with yourself, you’ll be big as the Queen Mary one of these fine days.” Her voice went high and singsong, to imitate her irrepressible Irish mother.

Kerry laughed. “Oh god, that’s so like her.” Colleen’s family lived nearby, and Kerry had been invited over several times for dinner. She liked the feisty redhead and was glad to have someone to just hang out with sometimes. Colleen worked for Barnett Bank as their chief teller and was a few Tropical Storm 39

years older than Kerry. She was funny and very outgoing, the legacy of growing up in a large, boisterous family.

“So, what’s the project?” Colleen looked around her apartment. “Jesus Mary, Ker, did a paper fairy poop all over here or what?”

The blonde woman leaned back in her desk chair and took another slice of pizza. “No.” She sighed. “We got bought out.”

“Ew. I heard.” The shorter girl made a face. “Are you guys in trouble?”

“Yeah,” Kerry admitted. “They’d really like to just get rid of us all and keep the customers, but I’m trying to pitch them a plan where at least some of us keep our jobs.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t think they’re going to buy it, though.” She spared her computer a glance as her mail indicator lit. “Here’s the confirmation, probably.” She reached over and clicked on the envelope, bringing the new message to the foreground. “Yep,” she confirmed, seeing the name of the sender.