squeezed her friend’s shoulders. “Go sit down, I’m going to take care of this and dump the water.”
Kerry stared at the fish. “Look, Dar. I…”
“It’s okay, I’ve got this. Go sit down for a while, okay?”
Kerry felt exhausted, and she complied, mechanically putting the cushions back into place before she sat down on them. She faced the officer, who was still getting details. She tried not to watch what Dar was doing, and concentrated on the questions instead. Colleen came over and sat down next to her, and she gave the redhead a grateful smile.
Dar scooped the dead fish out of the water, putting them in a small container. She was carefully controlling her breathing and focusing on remaining calm when her first and most immediate instincts were to be yelling her fool head off. The random destruction in the room didn’t bother her. This pointed, deliberate, vicious cruelty to helpless creatures, on the other hand, made her so angry it was a wonder her hands weren’t vibrating from the force of it. Bastard.
She disposed of the dead fish, then dipped out a good portion of the water before she lifted the tank up and drained out the rest of it, removing the gravel and decorations and running them under clean tap water. Then she mixed a saline solution and cleaned the tank out, using the motion to calm herself. She did a thorough job of it, scrubbing the inside out to get out all the traces of chemical. Bastard. She rinsed the ferns and then ran water through the filter . Son of a bitch. Then she carried the tank back and filled it three quarters full with clean tap water, adding the rinsed gravel to it and putting in a few drops of water cleaner Kerry had in a bottle near the tank itself. Which she sniffed first, just in case. When she’d gotten it to her satisfaction, she turned to see Kerry shaking the officer’s hand and watching him leave, taking his partner with him, both of them giving Kerry looks of professional sympathy.
The door closed, and Kerry turned to look at her, the haunted green eyes beseeching. Dar crossed to her immediately. “C’mere.” She pulled Kerry into a hug, feeling her whole body jerk with a sob. “Shhh, I’ve got you.” Over the blonde woman’s shoulder, she met Colleen’s eyes, and the redhead glanced down, then back up with a faint smile as Kerry buried her face into Dar’s shirt and clung to her with desperate strength. “Give us a hand getting this place straightened up?” she asked Colleen.
“You bet your…uh, sorry, I mean…” Colleen blushed.
“I’ve heard the term,” Dar replied dryly. She felt Kerry take a deep, shaky breath, and released her a little, so she could pull back and look up.
“Sorry.” The blonde woman sniffled a little, disengaging one hand and rubbing at her eyes. “It’s just late, I guess.”
Dar pulled a handkerchief from her inner jacket pocket and handed it to Kerry. “Here.” She patted her back and left her arm draped over the blonde’s shoulders. “All right, let’s start in the kitchen, I guess—that seemed to be the least messed up—then do in here, then the bedroom.”
They started picking things up, and worked in mostly silence until Colleen trotted over, picked up all the CDs thrown around on the floor, and popped one into the changer. The soft strands of the Disney tune “Circle of 354 Melissa Good Life” drifted across the room. “ I know you like this.” The redhead gave her friend a smile, which Kerry half-heartedly returned.
It didn’t take as long as she feared, until the apartment began to resemble its former state, only the quiet waters of the fish tank a glaring testimony to the invasion. Kerry stood in the center of the room after they finished, listening to Dar putter around in the kitchen, and folded her arms across her chest. Colleen entered from the bedroom and went to her, giving her a little pat on the back.
“All done. Got you some fresh sheets on.” Her eyes twinkled gently at Kerry, who looked down and blushed. “Ah, c’mon now, Ker. For what it’s worth, I think you’ve got a real winner in there.”
That got a smile from Kerry, who glanced at the kitchen door, then back at her. “Think so, huh?”
“Yep. Someone who knows when to give a hug when it’s needed.”
Colleen nodded firmly. “That’s a very good sign.” She was glad to see Dar’s unquestioning support of her friend, which had surprised her a little, given the executive’s reputation.
The dark-haired woman interrupted the conversation by reappearing with three mugs of something hot and handing one to each of them. She then motioned Kerry and Colleen to sit down. Dar took a seat on the end of the couch and stretched her legs out, patting the cushion next to her, which got her a compliant Kerry. The blonde woman tucked her legs up under her, and she sipped her chocolate with a sigh. “Well, this has been a night.”
Dar dropped a hand to her knee and gently stroked it. “It’s over,” she said simply, before she took out her cell phone and dialed a number. “Mark?”
A pause. “I know what time it is. Get the light on and put on your glasses, because I need you to write something down.”
Dar waited, as ideas and plans started clicking into view. “All right, I need you to run a full profile. I need everything…on a Kyle Lewis. He’s an employee of Senator Roger Stuart of Michigan.” She waited. “You’ll probably have to tap Milnet.” Another pause. “Let’s just say I have a feeling about him, okay? Route the results to my inbox.”
Mark left the phone for a moment, and she sat waiting, drumming her fingers against her thigh. “You did? Thanks. Oh, one more thing, I need you to put a scope on the outbound router for Miami Dade, and filter any packets that contain the following number.” She read it off. “Just discard them…on the federal transfer.” She waited. “I know. It would be from the Kendall substation IP if that helps.” Another pause. “Good. Thanks, Mark. I’ll fill you in tomorrow.” She hung up and glanced at her audience, who was watching her with interest. She smiled. “Welcome to the information age.”
“Jesus, can you do that?” Colleen blurted. “I mean, why are you… That was the report number the cops gave us.”
Kerry nodded in understanding. “It will exist locally here, but not be updated to the federal system. That was really smart, Dar, thank you.”
Dar smiled briefly. “When you move the data, you control it,” she told Colleen quietly.
“Wow.” Colleen regarded her respectfully. “Remind me not to piss you off, you do our payroll transfer.”
Tropical Storm 355
That got a chuckle from Dar and a smile from Kerry. “I don’t generally do that sort of thing, but I think it would be better for Kerry. And it doesn’t hurt anything, since they didn’t find any fingerprints or MO, and that’s what the federal database checks.”
Kerry leaned her head against Dar’s shoulder. “My hero.” She dared Dar to refute her in front of Colleen, and was pleased when all the taller woman did was reach out and tweak her nose.
“You really think it was that stinker Kyle?” Colleen asked, watching them with a gentle smile.
Kerry sighed. “The fish…and the door wasn’t forced open. Did you notice that? Someone keyed in. And when I checked the doorlock, it had my code in it.”
“Ew, change it,” Colleen advised.
The blonde woman nodded wearily. “I did. But the only people with it are the building manager, you, and my family.” She paused and glanced up.
“And Dar, but she was with me the whole night, so that knocks her out as a suspect.”
“Only that?” Dar’s brows lifted teasingly.
“Well, that and a few other things,” Kerry admitted. with a smile. “But…
Well, I told my mother I wasn’t going to move back home last night. The timing’s just too coincidental.”