“Tch tch.” María brushed by him and circled the equipment-packed console, where three techs were busy monitoring different screens.

Mark’s office was in the back and she made for it, reaching out to tap on the half-closed door.

“Look,” Mark’s voice floated out, “I don’t give a crap what you think. If you can’t deal with other people having private lives that are not your business, find another place to work, dude.”

María hesitated, listening.

“From what I hear, it ain’t that private,” a softer, less distinct voice answered.

“Don’t start that shit,” Mark warned. “I’m telling you right now, Red Sky At Morning 135

Brent. Don’t talk about them, don’t repeat bullshit you hear at the urinal, and keep your redneck attitudes out of the office or I’ll bounce you right on out of here.”

“For what?” The response was outraged. “For having an opinion?”

“For insubordination and fucking with the antidiscrimination regs,” Mark stated.

“What about everyone else? They’re—”

“Everyone else ain’t in Dar’s chain of command,” the MIS chief interrupted. “You are.”

There was a moment of silence. “Fine,” Brent finally said. “Can I go now? I got stuff to do.”

“Sure,” Mark replied. “Take off.”

The door swung open a moment later and Brent emerged, his face crimson. He almost crashed headlong into María and Mayte, and he paused to stare at them for a few seconds before he brushed by and left.

María eyed him, then she shook her head and walked into Mark’s office.

“Hey.” Mark looked up, pausing in the act of listening to his voice mail. “Guess you heard.” He chewed his lower lip. “About last night, I mean.”

“Of course,” María agreed. “And we are going to fix it.”

“Fix it?”

“Sí. You have the little program there, that goes to all the PCs?”

María folded her hands. “That makes the funny noise, no?”

“Our messenger service, yeah,” Mark replied, puzzled. “What about it?”

“I want you to send a message, please, from me, to all the people, yes?”

“Okaaay...” Mark sat down slowly. “What kind of message?”

“I will write it.” María took a piece of paper and one of Mark’s cushion grip roller balls and got to work. Mark watched her, twisting his head to one side to read the upside-down letters.

His eyes widened. “Oh boy.”

DAR HAD TAKEN a breath to say good morning to María when she opened the outer door and realized the office was empty. She closed her mouth with a faint click of teeth meeting and entered, shouldering her laptop as she made her way across the quiet space and into her inner office.

The sun was pouring across the floor and she stepped into it, feeling the faint warmth through the fabric of her skirt as she circled her desk and put her briefcase down. She pulled the leather chair out, and settled into it with a tiny sigh.

“Morning, guys.” She greeted her Siamese fighting fish, removing their jar of food from her desk drawer and sprinkling a little bit into the small tank. Her chin resting on one fist, she watched the fish gobble 136 Melissa Good their breakfasts before she sighed again and turned her attention to her monitor.

“Wonder what disasters we have to deal with this morning?” Dar asked the empty office, spinning her trackball to douse her screensaver and reveal her running programs. Her eyebrows contracted slightly when she saw the blinking Dogbert head in the lower corner, and she clicked on it to bring up the corporate messaging alert the symbol represented.

Slowly, Dar’s head tilted to one side, then the other, then she leaned forward and blinked as she read the message. “What in the hell?”

“To All Corporate HQ Miami Employees—you are please to read your handbooks in the section twelve, page 23. This page is saying that you may not say to everyone bad things about the officers of the company that are not true, or we can make you the termination. There is someone who is doing this, and when this is found out, this person I will myself see the termination if these bad things do not stop. Gracias.

María.”

Dar’s intercom buzzed and she slapped at it absently. “Yeah?”

“Did you see that message?” Kerry’s voice floated into the office.

“What the heck is she talking about?”

“I haven’t a quarter clue,” Dar murmured, shaking her head.

“Whatever it is, sure pissed her off though. I’d better find her and figure out what’s going on.” She shook her head. “I’ll call you back.”

“Okay.” Kerry released the intercom button and opened her mail.

“Weird...very weird way to start the day, that’s for sure.” There was a knock on her door, and she realized Mayte must have stepped away from her desk. “C’mon in.”

Clarice entered, giving Kerry a very sweet smile before she closed the door behind her and crossed the floor to settle in one of Kerry’s visitor chairs. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Kerry folded her hands on her desk. “What can I do for you?”

MARK LEANED BACK in his chair, unconsciously putting distance between himself and the dangerously glaring ice blue eyes boring into his. “Hey, boss...um...”

Dar rested her hands on Mark’s desk and leaned forward, lowering her voice to a mere raspy growl. “I want to know who it was that started that story.”

Mark took a breath. “Dar, you know how hard it is to track shit like that down.” He tried to keep his tone even and calm, his mind casting for the last time he’d seen Dar this mad. Ah. That would be never. “I bet María’s message stopped it.”

Dar could feel her body shaking with rage. She knew that lack of Red Sky At Morning 137

sleep was making her hold on her temper very tenuous and that she should go back to her office and calm down before she did something extremely stupid. “I want to know who it was,” she repeated softly.

“Don’t you tell me you can’t track it down, Mark. There was X number of people in this building, X number of people on this floor, and X

number of people in the operations suite between the hours of X and X, which you know from the security log.”

Mark took his courage in both hands and leaned toward his boss, reaching out one hand and covering the fist Dar had planted on his desk.

“Okay, boss. I’ll find that out for you, if you sit down and take it easy for a minute.” There was no response in the stern mask looking at him.

He tried again, lowering his voice. “Dar, please, go get a drink of water, huh? You’re scaring the shit out of me, and I just dry-cleaned these pants.”

Nothing for a few seconds, then Dar’s eyelashes fluttered closed briefly and her body relinquished some of its tension. “Sorry,” she murmured. “But God damn it, Mark, of all the people in the company to be targeted by that crap, why her?”

Mark winced at the pain in his boss’s voice.

“Me, I’m used to it,” Dar went on softly. “I’ve given so many people so many reasons to hate me, I don’t even think about it anymore.” She took a breath. “But what has Kerry done to deserve that?”

Picked you? Mark wisely decided to not voice the obvious response.

“You know how people are, boss. They get jealous and all that crap.

And you’ve got to admit, there’s a hell of a lot for people to be jealous of Kerry for.”

Dar sighed. “Find out who it was,” she replied. “I’ll be in my office.”

Mark watched her leave, the heavy door swinging shut behind her tall form. “Sonofabitch.” He cradled his head in his hands. “Why the fuck do I always get this shit to deal with?”

“’Cause you, like, can?” his assistant Shaun ventured. “You gonna tell her who it was?”

Good question. Mark leaned back and considered. “I’m gonna let her chill for a little while first,” he decided. “Because otherwise she’s gonna haul back and take the jerk’s head off.”

Shaun pondered that. “She can kick some ass,” he eventually offered. “You think she’d just do it for real?”

Mark thought about those icy, dangerous eyes. He’d known Dar for a long time, and he’d heard the stories about her younger years. “Yeah,”

he said. “She’d drop kick him off the balcony for sure,” he added. “And I’m not into losing my bosses today. So let her chill.”

“EXCUSE ME?” KERRY felt her voice sharpen.

“I said,” Clarice drawled, “you lasted longer than any of the rest of 138 Melissa Good them, honey. Was it a getting bored thing?”

Kerry wondered if she looked as bewildered as she felt. “Clarice, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you should just cut to the chase and be specific.”

Clarice leaned closer. “Look, in this place, you can’t keep anything secret.”

“Right.” Kerry nodded faintly. “And?”

“And everyone’s talking about last night.”

She felt like she was in a dinghy, floating further and further away from the shore. “Last night?” Her mind went to her unexpected waking up, and she felt a blush color her skin. “What about last night?”

Clarice chuckled. “You obviously know. Look, they saw you meet that guy here in the office.”

The shoreline receded further. “Yeah, so?” Kerry’s brow knit in perplexity. “What about it?”

“What about it?” Clarice repeated. “Honey, do you two have, like, an open relationship? I had no idea.”

“Huh?” Kerry felt like grabbing her own head and shaking it.

“Excuse me, what in the hell does me getting picked up here last night have to do with my relationship? Which, by the way, is personal and my business, and not any of yours.”

Now it was Clarice’s turn to look a little uncertain. “Are you saying that wasn’t your lover?”