With a sigh, she wriggled into a more comfortable position and allowed her attention to be distracted by Space Ghost strangling something with tentacles on the screen. “I love a good violent cartoon,” she commented to the empty condo.
The words echoed off the walls, and she turned the sound up a little, a faint grin twitching at her lips as her thoughts drifted, the fingers of her right hand flexing slowly against the couch’s soft leather.
“SO, WHAT HAPPENED?” the tall, dark-skinned man asked, his eyes on the broken window.
“Um, a rock,” Kerry muttered. “Must have…fallen off the highway overpass, or something.”
Brown eyes gave her a disbelieving stare. “C’mon, honey, you got to give me something better than that.” Jerry wagged a finger at her. “You have a new boyfriend, maybe? You get in a, how you call, a fight?”
Kerry laughed softly. “Uh, no. No, no new boyfriend. I…” She glanced around. “Jerry, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some guys just decided to take a crack at the car. I got away.” She made a face. “I don’t want to make a big deal about it. I didn’t see them, so…”
“Ah hah.” Jerry waggled his fingers at her. “I got you. No problem.” He 68 Melissa Good studied the car. “Sixty dollars.”
“Great.” Kerry smiled and handed over the keys. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Cherry, I hope.” The man laughed. “My favorite flavor.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Hey, did you get cut?” He lifted her hand and studied it.
“Looks like you hit something.”
“Um…” Kerry ran her fingers through her hair. “An accident.”
Jerry looked at her, serious now. He tipped her chin up so she had to look him in the eye. “Girlfriend, are you in trouble?”
“No.” She shook her head positively. “I almost was, last night…but someone showed up, and chased the guys off, and I was fine, really. They even gave me a ride back here.”
“Mmm-hmm…was he nice? Was he a gentleman?” Jerry inquired.
Kerry bit off a grin. “He was a she.” Her eyes twinkled a little. “And she…was wonderful.”
“Ahhh…okay.” The mechanic chuckled. “I’ll finish this probably tonight, maybe tomorrow, okay?”
She nodded. “Great.”
Colleen came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, girl.”
Kerry turned and smiled. “Hey, listen, thanks for calling to check on me last night. Sorry I gave you a scare yesterday.” She motioned towards the door to her apartment. “Come on inside, it’s wet out here.”
The redhead followed her, closing the door behind them, and moving quickly across to where Kerry was stacking printouts she no longer needed on her desk. “So, now tell me everything.” Her voice was eager. “I could have killed you last night. Five words and you’re gone.”
Kerry finished her task, then grinned and pulled her friend over to the couch. “Sit, it’s a long story.” She waited for Colleen to sit down, then she tucked her legs up under her and leaned an arm on the back of the couch.
“Well, where do I start?” She told Colleen the whole story, watching Colleen’s jaw drop in amazement.
“Whoa. Whoa, whoa... Hold on just a Jesus, Mary and Joseph minute.”
She held up her hand. “Let me get this tale straight: you found out you all were gonna be fired; so you drove out to the Key; then you run out of gas on the way back; get stuck near the tracks in downtown; get carjacked; then you get rescued, like a full-blown-caped-crusader-flying-to-the-rescue kind of thing, by Dar Roberts. Am I clear on this so far?” Her voice was incredulous.
“The same Dar Roberts that just fired you? That one?”
“Um…essentially, yes.” Kerry grinned. “Only she made like it was nothing—like she just sort of happened by, and the guys ran off or something.
But I know she had to have done something to them, because her hands were all banged up, and I heard at least one of the guys scream.”
“Wow.” Colleen squealed. “Is she, like, into karate or something?”
“Mmm.” Kerry thought about that. “I don’t know, but I think she’s into something. She’s got all these muscles all up and down her arms…like here.”
She patted her shoulders. “And when she walks, she kinda…well, you can tell she doesn’t just sit around her office all day.”
“Ooo…” Colleen giggled. “So, what was she doing, wandering the streets looking for damsels in distress to save?”
Tropical Storm 69
“Tch.” Kerry slapped her leg. “No, actually. I, um…I called her. No, don’t look at me like that, okay? I had this number she told me to use if I had any problems with her goon squad. I figured it was some flunky of hers, so I called it. I thought I could get him to call Triple A for me or something.”
“But it wasn’t, huh?” Colleen looked fascinated. “This is more and more intriguing.”
“No. No, it was her,” Kerry admitted. “So I hung up, but she called back.
And she asked me where I was. I felt like such an idiot telling her I ran out of gas, but…” She sighed. “Anyway, these guys came at me, and I told her to call the police. Then they hit the car, and it got really scary. Then the next thing I knew, they were gone, and she was there.” The blonde woman chuckled a little. “Boy, for someone I was hating a half hour before, I sure was glad to see her.”“So…you’re fired, though?” Colleen said, concerned. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, I’m not, actually. See, we went back to her office after the whole thing, and she went over the numbers again, and she finally had a brainstorm or something…and she worked it out so we were okay.” Kerry took a breath.
“It was pretty amazing. She told some big boss of hers she’d been working on whatever this thing was for forty-eight hours without sleep.”
“Jesus!” The redhead snorted. “So, you’re not fired.”
“No,” her friend agreed.
“And your guys are okay?”
Kerry lifted a hand and let it drop to her knee. “As okay as I could work out,” she admitted. “Some of them are going to be let go.”
“Figures.” Colleen now looked skeptical. “That leopard isn’t changing its spots any time soon, I think.”
“No. No, it’s…” Kerry shook her head. “She made it okay, Col. She’s letting me give them six months’ severance.”
The redhead’s jaw dropped wide open, and she goggled at Kerry. “Six?”
“And six months’ benefits,” Kerry concluded. “I couldn’t believe it.
That’s the part that was so hard, Col. I knew even if I worked it out, I’d still have to face those people.”
“Six?” Colleen repeated, seemingly in a daze. “Kerry, nobody does that.”
“She did.” The blonde woman leaned back. “What a weight off my shoulders. I could have ki…” She fell silent. “Anyway, it’ll be a little tough, but we’re in.”
“Unbelievable,” her friend said. “But can you trust her? You sound like you’re thinking she’s not so bad after all.”
“No.” Kerry shook her head and smiled. “She’s really not. I mean, she’s all business, right? And I think she’d fire someone like most other people would just blow their nose or whatever. But towards the end of the night, she was kind of just okay. And, I got the feeling we could actually…sort of get along, if we really wanted to.”
Colleen whistled. “My boss wouldn’t believe it. You should hear how he talks about her. You’d think she was the daughter of the devil himself.”
Kerry looked up as her PC chimed. “Whoops.” She got up and checked the screen. “Mail, on Saturday?” But a thrill of anticipation ran up her back as 70 Melissa Good she opened the program, scanning the inbox and letting out a soft breath as she saw the first name on the list. “Well, speaking of Dar Roberts.” She clicked on the message, and read it, then read it again. “What in…”