Page 66 of Thankless in Death

“Ms. Farnsworth, you sneaky bitch. You’ve been sitting on all this money with that fat ass of yours. Why the hell did you waste all that time dragging it around the classroom?”

She only stared at him with dead-tired eyes, rimmed with red from fatigue and tears, and from the occasional backhand he delivered to keep her sharp.

She’d loved teaching, she thought. He’d never understand the satisfaction and fulfillment of honest work. He was rotten down to the core. And she knew now he’d kill her before he was done.

He’d make her suffer first; he’d hurt her in every way he could devise. Then he’d kill her.

“We’ve still got work to do, but some of it’s going to have to wait. I’ve got to get some shut-eye.” He rose, stretched luxuriously. “You oughta get some, too. You look like hell.”

He laughed, cracking himself up so much he bent over from the waist. “Tomorrow, we’re going to finish routing all that money. And the big new assignment? We’re going to work on that ID. I need your best work now, remember that? Remember how you said that a million times? ‘I need your best work, Jerry.’ Stupid bitch.”

He gave her a last backhand, in case she forgot.

“See you in the morning.” He gave her chair a good shove so it slammed against the wall, then strolled out, calling for lights off on the way.

She sat quivering in the dark. Then steeling herself began to squirm, rock, twist her aching limbs in the faint hope she could loosen her bonds.

•••

Eve woke to the familiar and the not. The life-affirming scent of coffee hit first, to her eternal gratitude. The sense of an empty bed with Roarke close by. Those were every-morning things.

But the bed wasn’t her bed, and no sky window above it showed her the filtered roof of the world.

Hotel, she thought. Downtown, near work. And a dead body waiting for her at the morgue.

She sat up, glanced blearily around at the muted gold of the walls, the single white orchid (she thought it was an orchid) arching out of a deep blue pot on a dresser.

And caught the muted mumble from the parlor beyond. Media reports, stock reports, she concluded. Roarke usually kept the sound off as he reviewed all that from the bedroom sitting area.

She rolled out, snagged the robe draped at the foot of the bed where the cat would often be, and shrugging into it, went out to join him.

Already showered and dressed for business-world domination in a dark suit. Some blonde in hot red sat at a glass counter on screen talking about the market holding its breath in anticipation of the potential acquisition of EuroCom by Roarke Industries.

Eve wandered over to pick up his coffee cup, down the contents.

“You can have your own, you know.”

“I’m going to. What’s EuroCom, why are you potentially acquiring it, and how come it makes everybody hold their breath?”

“It’s been the major player in Europe’s joint communication development over the last decade or so. Because I can, and it will slide nicely into other holdings in that region. And because it’s been badly mismanaged the last few years, resulting in lost jobs and revenue, and the acquisition should right that ship as well as add to it.”

“Okay.” She walked to the table where plates already sat under silver warmers, got a cup of her own and came back to pour coffee from the pot on the low table in front of Roarke.

“Why aren’t you over there making the deal?”

“Because EuroCom is the one under the gun, and I had them come to me here.”

“Your turf, their hand out.”

“Close enough. Much of it’s been negotiated through ’link and holo-conferences, and my liaison there. As it happens, I just signed off about ten minutes ago while having my coffee—or what had been my coffee. The announcement should hit shortly.”

Eve wagged her thumb at the screen. “Blondie thinks it’s a big deal.”

“Blondie’s quite right.” He held up his cup so Eve could fill it. “After the transition, which on my terms will be swift and clean and final, there’ll be some restructuring.”

“Heads rolling.”

“Asses booted more like. And some retooling. Within the next quarter we’ll generate about a half million new jobs.”