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“I can stick around and help you straighten up,” Ed offered.
“You’ve done enough. Just get me that mailbox address and I’ll take it from here.” She thanked him and walked with him to the door.
“I really don’t mind helping,” Ed insisted. “In fact I would be glad to do what I can.”
“You’re sweet, but no. I need to do this alone.”
After he left Kennedy wandered through what she playfully called her penthouse, assessing and itemizing the damage. Many of her personal possessions would have to be dumped. They’d been either chewed or soiled on. She began a list of things she needed to do first thing tomorrow.
She’d need to call someone in to clean the carpet in the bedroom and the living room’s upholstery. She’d have to find someone to look at the wooden floors and see what could be done about them.
Kennedy glanced at the blinking answering machine. All of her friends and family knew that she’d been in Tokyo. They knew how to reach her via e-mail or cell phone. She’d entrusted her cousin on her mother’s side, to house sit and pay her bills. Marna was between jobs and needed a place to live. She seemed grateful for the small income Kennedy was willing to pay.
Kennedy had had some trepidation about turning over a responsible job like collecting rent, and bill paying to a flake. She would have much preferred her brothers to take on the task, but Lincoln lived in Eastern Washington, too far away to be tracking down rent checks, or so he’d said. He had a brand new baby and didn’t have the time or inclination to be playing landlord.
Roosevelt who lived in Edmonds, much closer, had urged Kennedy to give Marna a chance. He was holding down two jobs and felt he had a roof over his head and an income coming in. Marna didn’t. He’d also promised to keep an eye on their cousin. Given what had gone down that hadn’t happened. Marna had botched the job that she’d claimed she badly needed. Now she’d turned Kennedy’s orderly life into a nightmare. Why, oh why, hadn’t she listened to her gut?
Kennedy was so angry she jabbed the answering machine’s rewind button with more force than she intended. Surprisingly, the machine wasn’t full and the few calls recorded were from telemarketers. Toward the end there was one call that made her pause.
She rewound it, listening carefully. A woman identified herself as Diane, the assistant to the president of TSW Studios, wanted Kennedy to return her call ASAP.
What would a television station want with me? Yes, she’d heard of Tanner Washington, the studio’s owner, but she and he didn’t move in the same circles. He was notoriously low profile and never even allowed himself to be photographed. Kennedy had never seen him. Curiosity prompted Kennedy to scribble down the number. She’d call Diane tomorrow.
Jet lag was beginning to kick in when Kennedy made her phone call to the bank where she had her mortgage. She navigated the voice activation maze and finally got a living, breathing person.
“Ms. Fitzpatrick,” a stern-sounding service representative said, “you’re two months late on your mortgage. In another month you’ll be in foreclosure.”
Even though she’d been expecting something like this, the cold hand of fear grabbed her heart. She was so angry she could spit. Her precious triplex that she loved, and had worked her butt off to buy, was in danger of being sold to someone else.
Kennedy started to ramble and make excuses, then caught herself. The representative didn’t need to hear her problems, nor did she care.
“What will it take to get current?” she asked quickly.
The woman named a figure. Kennedy did some mental calculations. She should have enough in her savings to make that payment and bring her mortgage up to date. She also had a rather hefty check in her purse. She’d insisted that the Japanese pay her in U.S. dollars, and she’d planned on depositing that check tomorrow. She’d just need to find some way to get to the bank.
Her world was toppling down around her and it seemed as though there was nothing she could do to stop it. She’d tossed the tow truck driver’s card in her purse. His company would be the next place to call. She needed wheels to take care of business and get her life back in order.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” the customer service representative asked, reminding Kennedy she was still on the line.
“Can you take my mortgage payment over the phone? Will that payment register today?”
“I’ll have to transfer you to our account services department,” the woman said, sounding smooth as silk. “As you know your account is delinquent.”
Forty minutes later, Kennedy finally hung up with the credit manager. It had taken some explaining, even pleading, but at least she was now paid to date. She’d coughed up the money for the hefty finance and late charges, but she was certain that her credit score had taken a beating. It would take years for her to rebuild good credit.
Several months of rent checks, money she’d counted on to take care of her bills, had disappeared along with Marna. The excess money she’d hoped to have in her bank account would now be used up to pay off delinquent bills. She’d thought she was doing a good deed helping Marna. What was the saying? No good deed went unpunished.
Kennedy’s head continued to pound as she punched in the number for Joe’s Towing. She was placed on an interminable hold only to have an automated voice tell her she was calling outside regular business hours.
“Dammit!” she muttered, hanging up.
As she was close to tossing the receiver across the room, the phone rang in her hand.
“Hello?” she tried not to growl.
“Yes, I need Kennedy Fitzgerald, please?” a female voice she didn’t recognize said.
“This is she,” Kennedy said. Please let it not be a creditor.
“Ms. Fitzgerald, I’m Diane, assistant to Tanner Washington, the president of TSW Studios. He’s been hoping to speak to you.”
Trying to make up for her less than friendly greeting, Kennedy said, “Can you tell me what this is about?”
“Mr. Washington would prefer to discuss the issue in person. He learned through a source that you’re back in town. Since the matter is of some urgency, he’s wondering if you could meet him at the studio tomorrow morning, say around eleven?”
Midmorning would give Kennedy enough time to go to the bank and contact the towing company again. Maybe she would even have a car.
“I’ll be there,” she answered, then hung up.
Bright and early the next morning, Kennedy tried calling the company that had towed her car. She kept being transferred from one area to another, and then decided it might be in her best interest to just show up in person. The challenge now was to rent a car. She called several automobile rental companies until she found one willing to pick her up at home. When she attempted to reserve the vehicle her credit card was turned down.
“How could that be?” she asked the rental agent.
“I don’t know, ma’am, it just says declined and I’ve run it through several times.”
Another call to the credit card’s customer service department revealed her bill hadn’t been paid in months. The account was canceled. Yet another strike against Marna.
Desperate, Kennedy used her bank debit card to reserve the vehicle. She was on her way and had a small measure of peace.
Her first stop was at Puget Sound Mutual, the bank that financed her car and where she did her personal banking. After she’d explained what had happened over and over, a sympathetic bank clerk took her to see one of the vice presidents. By then Kennedy was through talking and very close to crying.
She really was going to knock Marna out when she got her hands on her. She would have been better off trusting her tenants with her bank routing number and having them make their own deposits. She wouldn’t have this headache now if she’d paid her bills electronically. But no, she’s thought it best that someone closer to home pick up her rent checks and pay her bills. What a mistake that had been.
The bank’s records showed they’d made numerous attempts to contact Kennedy and work out arrangements. Hearing nothing back, they’d repossessed the car.
Kennedy explained her situation and the officer expressed sympathy and made several phone calls, but to no avail. The vehicle was most likely being auctioned as they spoke.
By then the headache had become a migraine. How on earth would she get from Bellevue to downtown Seattle in twenty minutes? If there was traffic on the bridge she was toast.
Driving like a speed demon, Kennedy managed to make it into the parking lot of TSW Studios with five minutes to spare. She used that time to comb her hair, shove her headband back in place and apply fresh lip gloss. She’d never been much for makeup and no one would ever describe her as trendy. Kennedy’s clothing was always more functional than stylish.
Once inside, she handed her ID to the guard at the desk in the lobby and waited for Diane to come and get her. Five minutes into her wait a thirty-something, athletically built man came sauntering in.
He was the kind of African-American male who, although casually dressed, turned heads. His hunter-green flannel shirt stretched across his broad chest, and was tucked into baggy jeans that slouched at the knees. His scuffed boots looked as though they’d seen better days. Although his overall appearance shouted mountain man, there was a sensuality and confidence to him that was very appealing.
He approached the guard’s circular desk and flicked a finger at him. “Morning, Andrew. How’s it going?”
The guard, who’d been hunched over his station with an eye on the newspaper, folded it quickly and gave him his full attention. “Good morning, Mr. Washington. It’s been a long time! How was safari?”
This couldn’t be Tanner Washington. Kennedy was expecting someone much older.
“Please call me Salim, Andrew. Mr. Washington is my father,” the man who looked as if he could straddle Mount Rainier in one leap corrected. “Zimbabwe was incredible. Just a beautiful country, but no safari for me. Just my usual humanitarian work for two months.”
“What I wouldn’t give to visit Africa,” the guard said, longingly.
“The Peace Corps might be the way to go. You’d be doing something worthy while at the same time experiencing a new country. I signed up for a two-year stint after graduating college. Since then it’s been very difficult for me to stay in one place for any length of time. Is Mr. Washington around?”
“I didn’t see him leave.”
Salim’s complexion was the color of raw brown sugar and his eyes were equally as light. He did a quick scan of the lobby as if expecting his father to jump out from behind one of the potted ficus plants. His glance rested briefly on Kennedy and she was treated to a warm smile that began at the corner of his tawny eyes and settled in his square jaw. She liked his full lips and the way his mouth turned up at the corners. He looked as though he laughed a lot.
“Who do we have here?” he said loud enough for Kennedy to hear him, turning back to the guard.
She didn’t hear the guard’s response. Probably just as well, she didn’t need some wealthy playboy flirting with her right before she had a meeting with his father. Her priority was getting back her car and she would focus on that once this meeting was over.
The petite, smartly dressed woman who came bustling out of the elevator must be the studio head’s assistant. When she approached the guard, Mountain Man swept her off her feet.
“Di, you look younger than ever,” he gushed.
“Put me down!” she said, chuckling. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. Though I am glad you’re back. We’ll talk later. I’m here to collect your father’s visitor,” the assistant said.
Salim Washington set Diane back on her feet.
The guard pointed to Kennedy and the petite woman came mincing over.
“Ms. Fitzgerald,” she said. “I’m Diane, Mr. Washington’s assistant. Have you been waiting long?”
“No, your timing is perfect.”
Kennedy looked over at Salim and he was no longer the smiling, affable guy who’d come sauntering through the lobby. He threw her a thunderous look of surprise and what looked like—no, it couldn’t be—disgust.
What was that all about? No time to psychoanalyze now, the television mogul was waiting.
Chapter 2
Salim would rather be anywhere but here. TSW Studios was a place he’d avoided like the plague. It was much too artificial an environment for him. But the old man’s assistant had called acting as if it was a life-and-death situation and because it was Diane, and he liked Diane, he’d dropped everything to come.
He was not here for the man who called himself his father, that was for sure. He wasn’t interested in anything that philanderer had to say.
His father, Tanner Washington’s autocratic approach to everyone in his life had turned Salim off. They were worlds apart in the way they conducted business and dealt with people.
Salim’s mother, Lucinda, had also called Salim telling him to go see his father. She was the peacemaker in the family and she’d finally persuaded him to hear the old man out. His self-suffering mother was the most wonderful woman in the world and he would do almost anything she asked, even meet with a man he disliked intensely.
He’d made one hour for Tanner Washington. So far that whole hour had been taken up by the young African-American woman with the Asian cast to her features. She was the woman who’d been seated in the lobby, the one he’d thought was very attractive.
More than attractive actually. More like beautiful, in a wholesome but classy sort of way. In an era where tats, weaves, piercings, bling and barely there clothing were in vogue, this woman, who wore minimal makeup and a conservative hairstyle, stood out. Salim had been especially intrigued by the outfit: a classic navy suit worn with sensible pumps and pearls. She certainly didn’t seem the type to work in a television studio, more likely a bank.
As the minutes ticked by, he was getting more and more irritated. She’d been behind closed doors with his father for far too long. He had places to go and people to see. What exactly are they doing in there anyway?
“Di, how much longer will he be?” Salim quizzed the old man’s assistant. It took a lot to address the old goat by “father.” An adulterer did not deserve that kind of respect.
“I scheduled his interview for an hour,” Diane answered in her usual, unperturbed manner. “If I’d known you were planning to pop in, I would have booked you time.” She lowered her glasses, looking at him.
Salim winked at Diane. “If you can fit me in I’ll take you to lunch, you gorgeous thing.”
“I can buy my own lunch, thanks. Save your flirting for that string of wide-eyed young things your own age that you impress with stories of your travels.”
He wished there was a string of young things. Lately he’d had no time for romantic entanglements, not even flings.
“You’re a hard woman, Di,” Salim said, clutching his heart. “One day you just might succumb to my charm. You know you’re a cougar in a fab suit.”
Diane settled her glasses back on her nose and gave him the full effect of her cold, unsettling stare. “I don’t think so. I like my men buttoned down and settled. I’m too old to babysit.”
Salim chuckled. He absolutely loved the woman and her droll sense of humor.
She was one of those ageless matrons who must have been a knockout in her heyday. Diane was the complete package: efficient, good looking, intellectual and fearless. She took no guff from her tyrannical boss, which was another reason Tanner kept her around. As studio head he was used to intimidating people. Diane simply could not be intimidated.
Salim hovered at Diane’s circular desk, listening shamelessly while she buzzed her boss.
“Your son’s been waiting to see you for almost an hour,” she said in an even voice that never changed, even when Tanner was having a hissy fit, which was often.
When Diane’s eyebrows rose a fraction, Salim guessed the old man’s response wasn’t exactly positive. Not that that came as a big surprise.
“You’ve got about fifteen minutes free after you’re through with Ms. Fitzgerald,” Diane reminded the mogul. “And you did have me call Salim earlier this week. You said you wanted to see him.”
Salim tapped the face of his Timex and whispered to Diane, “Tell your boss I have to be somewhere in forty minutes. Never mind, I’ll tell him myself.”
“Salim!”
He ignored her and strode toward the closed office door.
“You can’t just go bursting in on an interview,” Diane called after him.
“Watch me. My time is just as valuable as his.”
He paused briefly in front of the smoked-glass double doors that had Tanner Washington, President of TSW engraved on them. The T stood for Tanner and the S for Salim. It had never occurred to the pompous old ass to make it TSCW and include his daughter Christiane’s initials.
Tanner’s dream had been that one day his son would take over from him. Except Salim couldn’t care less about the superficial world of media entertainment and placating high-maintenance stars and volatile executives. That had always been a bone of contention between them.
Christiane was the one better suited to running a studio. She loved the glamorous life and had married Leonard Green, one of TSW’s executives. She enjoyed being the trophy wife and although she was at home raising two children, much of her time was spent hosting parties her husband threw.
Salim had always thought it a total waste that a studio like TSW would focus on lighthearted sitcoms and trashy talk shows. They should be making documentaries educating the public on the HIV situation in African countries, or life in war-torn Iraq.
He rapped on the door while Diane hissed behind him, “Salim, come on now. Your dad’s in the middle of an interview.”
Without waiting for an invitation, Salim waltzed in. He found the mogul on his knees in front of the seated woman he was supposedly interviewing. Tanner looked up, his pinched expression reflecting his surprise.
Salim cleared his throat. It was obvious what the dirty old goat had been up to or was about to do. And to think he’d admired the woman and thought she was classy.
