Eye Of The Storm - DK3 (64 page)

Dar leaned forward and took her hand. “Listen to me a minute.” Her voice was very serious. “Stop blaming yourself, Kerry. I mean it.”

Kerry looked at her.

“You’re not the one who did the wrong thing.”

“I released that information.”

“
You
are not the one who did the wrong thing,” Dar repeated. “You are not the one who accepted those bribes and you are not the one who let industry pay you off to look the other way while wildlife was slaughtered and you are
not
the one who used government funds to maintain a mistress and two illegitimate children.”

“I could have just kept quiet like everyone else does,” Kerry murmured. “If I had, maybe someday I could have eventually sat down and talked to them about us.”

Dar sighed and rubbed her fingers. “Kerry, even if nothing had happened, do you really think they’d have accepted me? Accepted us?”

Kerry shook her head slightly. “I don’t know. I’ll never know.” She sighed, seeing Dar’s perplexed look. “I can’t help it, Dar. They’re my parents and I love them.” She regarded the ceiling. “How could I have done that to them?”

Dar nibbled her thumbnail, trying to figure out what to say. She was tired, her stomach was in knots, she’d had a very, very rough day, and it was only the afternoon. Sensitive discussions were never her forte at any time, and frankly, there was no good answer to Kerry’s question, was there? “Well,” she finally responded, “I can only tell you what I would have done.” She paused. “I think if I’d have gone through what you’d just gone through, with the hospital and all, I’d have been furious.” Another pause. “Hell, I was furious.”

Kerry turned her head and studied her friend’s face.

“Sometimes you do things when you’re really angry, that seem right at the time,” Dar went on. “I know I have. And then when you look back, later on, you second guess yourself and think about all the other things you could have done or said.”

Eye of the Storm
351

“Mmm,” Kerry agreed glumly. “Hindsight.”

“Yeah.” Dar nodded. “But the other thing I’ve realized over the years is, that there’s no point in beating yourself up over what you’ve done. It’s done.”

“Move on.” Kerry extended the thought. “Recover and deal with it.”

“Yeah.”

“So. How, exactly, do I deal with knowing I ruined my parent’s lives and am going to be on every tabloid cover in America next week?”

Dar squirmed a little closer. “First, just like you have to accept responsibility for what you did, you’ve gotta realize that they have to do the same thing.” Dar put a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “Your father did those things, Ker. He knew if anyone found out, this could happen. He accepted the risk.”

Kerry sighed. “It hurts.”

“I know.”

But her brain was starting to work again, Kerry realized. She could feel it, the shock was fading and her mental processes were settling back down into a more normal pattern. “So what about the tabloids?” she joked faintly.

“Well, I was figuring.” Dar laid an arm over Kerry’s stomach and smiled as the blonde woman rested a hand on her shoulder. “When you and I are ancient, those things’ll make one hell of scrapbook to pull out and show people.”

Kerry’s face pulled into a real smile at the image. “My fifteen minutes of fame, you mean?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Dar returned the smile. “I’ll throw in a tape of my interview, and we got it locked down.”

Kerry moved a bit of dark hair out of Dar’s eyes. “Oh. How did that go? Is it on? Let’s turn CNN on. I want to see you.” Then she stopped.

“Hmm. Maybe not. I think I know what the lead story’s going to be.” She rubbed her temples. “You don’t have any aspirin, do you? My head’s killing me.”

“Sure.” Dar rolled off the bed, went to her briefcase, and tugged a bottle out. “Feel like eating something?”

Kerry shook her head.

Dar came back with the pills and some water and sat back down on the bed. “That can’t be helping your headache,” she commented, as the blonde woman curled onto her side and took the glass, swallowed several of the tablets, and washed them down.

“Probably not, but I think I’d lose whatever I tried to get down.”

Kerry put the glass on the bedside table and put her head down on her arm. “Maybe later.”

Dar stretched out next to her, letting her body relax against the bed’s mattress. She studied the tense back next to her and gave it a tentative scratch. Kerry’s shoulder blades moved, and Dar heard a soft grunt as she expanded the motion, making little circles with her fingertips.

I’m a big girl
. Kerry closed her eyes as the touch continued.
I don’t
352
Melissa Good
need to be coddled like a little kid
. One eye opened and peered around the empty room. “Hey, Dar?”

“Yeah?”

Kerry rolled over onto her back and turned her head. “Think we have time for a nap?”

A nap. Boy. That sounded good.
Dar spread an arm out, smiling in invitation. “Sure. C’mere.” She gathered Kerry in and fitted her body around the smaller woman’s, until they were a warm tangle in the center of the bed. It was quiet for a bit and then Kerry sighed.

“Dar?”

The dark haired woman had her eyes closed and kept them that way.

“Mmm?”

“Would you have done it?”

Dar considered that seriously. “I don’t know. I can be pretty vindictive, Kerry.” She shrugged. “Maybe it would depend on whether or not I was PMSing.”

“Dar, you don’t PMS. I had to listen to an hour long discussion on that in the lunchroom last week.”

“Sure I do, Kerry.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. It’s just that no one can tell the difference,” the placid response came back. “Think about it. What’s typical dropping eggs behavior? It turns you into a raving, overbearing alpha bitch with a thing for chocolate.”

Kerry had to laugh. She buried her face into Dar’s shoulder and muffled her snickering.

“This differs from my normal state exactly how?”

More snickering.

Dar smiled at the popcorn ceiling, glad she’d succeeded in making Kerry laugh a little. The chuckles wound down, and a warm hand slipped under her shirt and rubbed the skin gently.

“Thanks,” Kerry murmured. “I needed that.” She exhaled and closed her eyes, hearing Dar’s jaw crack as she yawned. Everything else would just have to wait for a while.

THE SOFT BURR of her cell phone nudged Dar out of a really good dream, one that involved fudge and cherries and a very messy boat deck.

She pried an eye open and glared at the instrument, then reluctantly disengaged one arm and answered it. “Yeah?”

A breath. “Um…is that…is…Dar?”

“You had a fifty percent chance and you won. What can I do for you?” Dar closed her eye.

“Dar, it’s Angie. Can I speak to my sister, please?”

Dar jolted awake. “Sorry. I didn’t… You don’t sound like…” She gently shook Kerry. “Are you okay?”

“I’m in the hospital. Please, can I talk to her?”

Eye of the Storm
353

“Ker.” Dar shook harder, feeling the gathering resistance as Kerry dragged herself out of a very deep sleep. “Kerry, c’mon. It’s your sister on the phone.”

“Mmm?” Kerry sucked in a breath, and rubbed her eyes. “Wh—” She lifted her head and peered upward. “Who? Angie?”

“Yeah. Here.” Dar handed her the phone. “She said she’s in the hospital.”

“Oh.” Kerry pressed the phone to her ear. “Angie?”

“Hey.” Her sister’s voice sounded exhausted. “Listen. The baby’s coming and I’m having a really tough time.”

“My god. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Kerry pulled herself up, her pounding heart sending blood to her head in a painful wave. “Where are you?”

“I saw you on TV,” Angie replied. “I…they brought me here yesterday, Kerry. It’s been hell all night. It just hurts…and hurts. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I wanted…I wanted to talk to you, so you…so I could tell you. I didn’t want anything to happen, and then I…”

“Angie, it’s okay,” Kerry murmured. “Don’t worry about anything.

What’s important is how you’re doing.”

There was a brief silence. “Ow.” Angie finally sighed. “I’m so tired of hurting.” A rustle of linen. “I saw you on TV, Sis.”

“You did, huh?”

“Yeah.” Angela took a breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t come over when Mike did yesterday.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay,” Angie replied. “You have to stand up and be counted sometime, Kerry.”

“Angie, don’t worry about being counted. Just worry about yourself and your baby,” Kerry told her. “Where are you? Can I come over and see you? Is Richard there?”

“No,” Angie whispered. “He’s out of town.”

“What about Brian?”

There was a long silence and then her sister sighed. “He’s chosen not to be involved.”

Kerry’s eyes closed. “Oh, Angie.”

“Yeah, well. Better this way for the kids,” Angela replied. “Maybe I’ll at least get points for a cute baby, right?”

“I’m sorry, Sis.” Arms closed around Kerry in a secure hold. “Listen, hang in there. I’m going to come over and see you.”

“Be careful,” Angie whispered.

“I will. Take it easy, Sis. I love you.”

Angie hissed in pain. “I love you, too.”

Kerry hung up and then scrubbed her face with a hand. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus, Dar.” She sighed. “Can we find a way over to the hospital without dragging half the DC press corps with us?”

Dar kissed her head. “We’ll find a way.” She looked up as the room’s phone rang and then answered it. “Yes?”

354
Melissa Good

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is the hotel operator, and I have a Mr.

James Herkins who is very insistent on wanting to talk to Ms. Stuart.”

“It’s the prosecutor.” Dar held her hand over the receiver. “You want to talk to him?”

“Now he wants to talk to me?” Kerry answered with a touch of sarcasm. “Not really but I guess I’d better.” She took the phone. “Thank you.

Put him through. Sorry if this is being such a pain for you.”

“Oh.” The operator seemed surprised. “Well, thanks for saying that.

Most people don’t.” She clicked off and then a male voice came through.

“Ms. Stuart?”

“Yes,” Kerry answered.

“I’d like to set up a meeting. We need to talk.”

“Now that I have something to say that you want to hear?” Kerry shot back, getting a mildly raised eyebrow from her listening partner.

There was a pause. “Ms. Stuart, I had no reason to think you were the cornerstone of the situation. My information on you was that you were just another one of Roger’s kids.” Herkins hesitated. “It’s not like you came forward and said otherwise.”

Well, that was true.
Kerry had to admit.

“And I don’t think you want to go through another day like today.

Am I wrong?”

Also true.
“All right. But it can’t be today. I have something I have to take care of,” Kerry told him. “Besides, I’ve pretty much said all I have to say.”

“Except why.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why, Ms. Stuart. You solved a big problem for me today by saying how—there was always a question as to how that information got released. The question that’s coming to everyone’s mind right now is why. Why would one of Roger Stuart’s kids—seemingly a nice, intelligent, successful young woman—deliberately release information so damaging?”

Kerry was silent for a moment. “I was just asking myself that same question. I guess I just felt it was the right thing to do at the time.”

“Still think that?” Herkins asked shrewdly.

Kerry let a breath out. “Morally? Yes. He did things that were not right and not legal.”

“Well,” the prosecutor’s voice sounded satisfied, “I’d agree with you there, Ms. Stuart, and you sent a very powerful message today, whether you realized it or not. How about you and I meet for breakfast and we can talk? Maybe I can work things out so you can finish up here and go home.”

Home.
“I’d like that,” she admitted. “Honestly, I really don’t have anything else to add to the case one way or the other. I didn’t know—or even suspect—until I was looking at it in black and white on my screen.”

“I believe you, Ms. Stuart,” he replied. “He fooled a lot of people.”

He paused. “Tomorrow morning then? I’ll pick you up in the back. We’ll
Eye of the Storm
355

go over to a little place near the hearing chambers. Okay?”

“All right,” Kerry agreed. “Are the hearings over for today?”

A soft snort. “They requested a delay. Apparently you rocked their apple cart pretty thoroughly.”

“Okay.”

“Ms. Stuart, don’t be surprised if they contact you. It’s up to you if you want to talk to them, but I think you realize they’re not your friends.”

“I understand,” Kerry answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Eight all right?”

“Perfect. Have a good night, Ms. Stuart.”

Kerry hung up the phone and stared at it. “He’s supposed to be the good guy.” She looked up at Dar. “So why do I feel like such a traitor?”

“Because you have a conscience,” Dar responded promptly. “And a good heart.”

Kerry sighed. “I want this to be over, Dar.” She rubbed her neck tiredly. “I want to be back in my office, listening to José complain and having something stupid and disastrous to work on waiting for me.” Her shoulders slumped. “I want to have a cup of
café con leche
and one of those cheese pastelitos, and know when the sun sets that there’s a climbing wall waiting for me.”

Dar rested her head on her arm. “Are you telling me you’re happy with your life?” The question slipped out without her realizing it and was more serious than she’d intended.

“Yes.” Kerry’s eyes were unfocused, as she stared across the nondescript hotel room. “Maybe I didn’t realize until this moment just how happy I am.” She blinked. “True hearts are such a rare gift, Dar.”

Dar wasn’t sure where this was coming from. “Yes, they are,” she answered cautiously.

Kerry turned and put a hand on Dar’s chest, right over hers. “How in the hell did I rate one?”

Dar had no idea of what to answer to that and was saved from having to improvise by a light knock on the connecting door. “Yeah?” She kept her eyes locked with Kerry’s, searching the shadowed green depths as the door opened inward and her father’s head emerged.