"They were very interested to hear about that," her mother said. "They would like you to accompany me to Washington," she added. "I was sure you'd be more than glad to go."
For a moment, Kerry sat very still, aware of a flush of cold anger that made her hands tingle and left her slightly lightheaded. "Number one," she said, after waiting long enough to make sure she wasn't going to stand up and yell. "You had no right to tell them that, and number two, no I would not be."
"Kerrison, I don't think that's called for."
Now, Kerry did stand up, aware her body was tensing and her hands were curling into fists. "I don't give damn what you think," she said. "And I certainly don't care what your friends in Congress think. I don't owe them any explanations."
Her mother got up off the edge of the desk. "I told them you'd come talk to them," she said.
"Too bad."
"Kerrison!" Her mother's voice now lifted in anger.
"No, Mother." Kerry managed, just barely, to keep her own temper from getting completely out of control. "I'm not going with you, and I'm not discussing our business with anyone." She folded her arms across her chest.
Cynthia Stuart stared at her, but Kerry's grim expression and truculent posture didn't alter and she finally looked away. "Well, if that's your decision," she said, after a pause. "But I think you should consider carefully, and then we will talk again." She motioned the aide out, and followed him to the door, going through it with as much dignity as she could muster.
No slammed doors, no yelling.
After a brief silence, Angie made a face, biting her lip as she approached the desk. "Sorry, Ker."
"Blech." Kerry finally relaxed, leaning her hands on the desk and letting her muscles unlock. "My own goddamned fault. I should have kept the ear buds in and not shown off." She looked down at the screen when she heard an odd sound, to find Gopher Dar knocking on the inside, peering at her. "Wait until Dar finds out. Just what we didn't need."
"Maybe she'll drop it. I think she knows you were pissed," Angie suggested. "That look you were giving her could have frozen hot coffee."
"Hmph." Kerry grunted, and sat down. "Got any Advil?" She sighed. "I'm gonna need a case of it."
Chapter Ten
"WELL, HELLO TO you too, Ham." Alastair had answered his cell phone in some surprise when it rang for the first time in hours. "I'm in London. Oh, what? Sure, of course you knew that."
Dar was half sprawled across the desk, her legs wrapped around the chair base and her head propped up on one hand. The other hand was wrapped around the mouse, but now it released the creature and rattled over a few keys instead.
Ker?
"Dar? She's right here."
Dar looked up over her screen, one eyebrow lifting.
"No, she's fine," Alastair went on. "Bea's been keeping my wife and the board filled in on what's going on. Have to say, this digital assistant thing Dar made me start using sure paid for itself today."
Dar's screen beeped softly. She looked back at it.
Hey. Need to talk to you.
Dar's brows knit. She unhooked her cell phone from her belt. "If you can get a call in, I'm going to try a call out."
"Hm?" Alastair put his hand over the phone. "Ham says he had to call over and over again for an hour to get through. Seems there's a lot of hullabaloo around his area."
Their corporate lawyer lived, Dar recalled, in Boston. "Tell him I say hello." She opened the phone and started to dial, then looked back at the screen when the speaker crackled.
"Miami exec, this is Miami ops," said Mark.
"Go ahead." Dar listened to her phone with her other ear, hearing a fast busy signal. She hit redial.
"Boss, we can't get a good handle on how many pipes we need to replace," Mark said. "We need to eyeball."
Dar released the button, and dialed again. Having someone onsite in both Washington and New York was probably a good idea, especially in Manhattan where most of their presence was business services. "You think we can wait for the planes to start flying again?"
"Hard to say," Mark said, honestly. "I'd rather jump on my bike and start up there."
Dar triggered the dial again, considering the request. "Tell you what." She heard the line start to ring. "Rent a van and take three or four people with you. Don't make me worry about you ending up wrapped around a tree on that Harley."
The phone was picked up. "Hello?"
"Hey," Dar said, only barely remembering to click off her mic. "What's up?"
"Hey." Kerry exhaled. "I love you."
Mark cleared his throat. "Okay, I can do that. I've got a bunch of guys here who just held up their hands to volunteer to go."
"I love you too," Dar replied, with a relieved smile. "Damn, it's good to hear your voice."
Kerry chuckled a tiny bit. "Honey, you've been hearing my voice all morning, "
"Not the same thing."
"Thanks for sending Gopher Dar to keep me company."
"That okay, boss?" Mark asked. "We can leave tonight."
"Hang on," Dar said.
"Nah, I'll answer," Kerry replied. "Miami ops, this is Miami exec, that's fine. Make sure you pack a case of Jolt. "
"Uh. Okay." Mark seemed caught off guard with this sudden change. "We'll get moving."
"Why don't you take as much spare gear as you can pack in the back while you're at it? I'm not sure when we'll be able to ship anything in there," Kerry suggested.
"Good call." Dar complimented her. "Alastair thinks you're the bomb, by the way."
"Will do," Mark said.
"Miami exec, this is the Air Hub."
Kerry sighed. "Air hub, hold on a minute, would
you please? I need to take a call." "Air hub, will do." "Hey." Kerry's voice returned to the phone. "Where was I?"
"Saying you loved me." Dar was aware of the tiny, startled reactions from Alastair every time she mentioned the word. "What's up? You said you needed to talk."
Kerry sighed again. "My effing mother," she said. "Dar, she told someone else in--I guess another senator or something, about all the stuff we were talking about on the bridge and told them I'd come to Washington and talk to them."
"Dar, Ham says he needs the list of down customers as soon as we can get them, so he can head off any legal action," Alastair said.
Dar glanced over at Alastair, and nodded. "Well," she said. "How bad is that, Ker? You're doing a first class job. Maybe she's just proud of her kid."
Dead, absolute silence.
"Ker?" Dar asked, tentatively. "Granted the last thing we need to get distracted by is government bullshit but--I assume you said no, right?"
"I said no."
Dar could hear the tone. "Didn't mean to piss you off, sweetheart," she said, waiting until she heard the slight exhale. "I'd rather you go find a canoe and start paddling in this direction."
"Sorry," Kerry said, after a pause. "You just made my brain go somewhere I wasn't expecting," she admitted. "Dar, she has no right to go and tell people in the government the stuff we're doing. She was all freaked out about how we knew stuff she didn't. I think that's what she wants them to talk to me about. How did we know what we knew?"
"Hon." Dar almost chuckled, but thought better of it. "We get paid to know what we know." "Yes, I know that," her partner said. "But I told her off. I was so pissed."
Dar felt a bit out of her league. She understood how Kerry felt about her family, and for sure she understood what it was like to be at odds with a mother. But she had always felt the evil in the family had rested with Kerry's father.
Maybe she'd been wrong. "Well," she said. "You don't need me to be the bad guy for you, but if you want to tell her Alastair and I said absolutely no way anyone from our company is going to go and chat with Congress, feel free."