Red Sky At Morning - DK4 Read Online Free PDF Page B

sweetie.”
    “Later.” Dar hung up the phone and set it on her mostly bare chest.
    She’d stripped out of her silk suit almost as fast as the damn shoes, and was in her half-slip and bra, the air conditioning raising tiny goose bumps over her exposed belly. She rubbed her chilled skin, then sat up, using one hand to work a kink out of her neck. She got up and trudged over to the dresser, yanking a shirt out of her bag and tugging it on over her head.
    “Okay.” Dar addressed her now rumpled reflection, blowing a bit of dark hair out of her eyes with a quick puff of air. “Dinner, a drink in the bar, and we’re outta there.” She took off her slip and exchanged it for a pair of jeans, then tucked the shirt in and buckled the belt. “Might as well get some work done while I’m hanging around waiting.”
    Minutes later, she was sitting on the bed with her laptop resting on her legs, reviewing her mail and the two system status reports Mark had sent down. An e-mail opened, and she reviewed it. “Kiss my ass.”
    She typed in a response and sent it back, then opened a second. “Bite me.” Another mail winged its way back. Then she opened the third, reading it several times, then cocking her head to one side to watch the tiny gopher graphic dance along its edge sideways. “Ooh. Cool, you got the toes working,” she praised Kerry in absentia.
    Then she leaned closer and squinted at the small creature, who seemed to have acquired spectacles from somewhere. “Ah.” A Red Sky At Morning 19
    chagrined look crossed her face as Dar nodded in wry acknowledgement. Kerry had been nudging her for a month to get her eyes checked, and so far, she’d found a lot of different excuses not to.
    “Cute, Ker, very cute,” she replied to the e-mail, blithely ignoring the addition.
    Pausing briefly, she grabbed the remote for the room’s television and flicked it on, thumbing through the channels before a graphic caught her eye. She studied the screen with a frown. “Great.”
    Another flick brought the volume up.
    “A winter storm warning has been raised for the Northeast,” the man on the screen was saying. “New York is expecting snow and freezing rain, so tonight’s a good night to be staying inside.”
    Dar snorted. “Thanks, buddy. Now I don’t even have to make up an excuse.” She glanced at her mail. “Glad your flights going the other direction after all.” She finished typing and hit send. “No sense in both of us getting dumped on, huh?”

Chapter
Two
    KERRY SETTLED BACK in her seat and debated whether or not to take out her laptop. When she traveled alone, she was always conscious of who was sitting next to her—idle eyes that might take in whatever her laptop screen had on display—and while the chances of her being seated next to a competitor were fairly slim, she never knew.
    Her seatmate this trip was a bookish-looking young man with heavy glasses and an academic air about him. She spared a moment to imagine what his profession might be, a game she often played with herself while traveling. Professor? Probably not old enough. Research scientist? Maybe. The man solved her musings a moment later, when he tugged a pad from a notebook and started scribing lines on it in a familiar programming language.
    Kerry smiled and leaned back. Figures. Another nerd . She lazily eyed the dark window, observing the clearly not twinkling stars outside. She leaned a hand against the glass to shade the light and peered out, amazed as always at the complete explosion of lights spread so thickly across the sky. Below her stretched only dark land, an occasional brief island of light indicating a city. Far off in the horizon they were traveling toward, she could see a line of darkness shot through with lightning that had to be the storm front the Weather Channel had promised.
    A slight clank caught her attention, and she turned her head to see the stewardess standing there, waiting to take her dinner order. “I’ll take the