by ROCFanKat

Disclaimers: See Chapter 1.

•••

It was almost too easy. The fish were all in the barrel, and even a child with a cap gun could take them out now with one shot. But I was a grownup with much better weapons, content to watch and wait for the time being. There was no hurry, and like I'd always heard, watching fish did help lower a person's blood pressure.

There was nothing especially devious about the plan, on its face. It was all in the press release: J/J/G would have no further comment on the Family Foundation thing, but it would have its own little public-service announcement soon. The agency was already working on it, for a client to be named later, and no agency in this market had ever done a PSA like this.

I'd known Jenner would go for that last part--he loved thinking of himself as a maverick--so it had been child's play to put the idea over the top.

"What we want," I'd told him, "is to wake the dead. Have you ever heard of Culture Club, Mr. Jenner?"

Seeing his face go blank, Vanessa had thought to be helpful. "It's a band, Nat. They were big a few years ago. You know--Boy George?"

"Never met him. Who's his lawyer?"

I'd been prepared for that. Rather than try to explain to Jenner what I wanted to do--much less who Boy George was, which could take days--I'd decided to show him. With J.B.'s help, I'd rough-cut a demo ad to "Church of the Poison Mind" that afternoon. So instead of answering the question in so many words, I'd simply played the tape and watched Jenner watch it.

"We can't do that on TV," he'd said--but with a faint question mark at the end of the sentence.

"We've already done it, sir. All the clips are from ads we've already run. They weren't cut this way, but anyone with a computer could do the same edits at home." That wasn't quite true--it would take a multimedia system and a person with way too much free time--but we weren't in the truth business anyway. "We can't use these clips again, but we can come as close as we want. I think we should shoot our own footage this time. Go for a cinéma vérité look."

Jenner had gone blank again. Before I could explain, though, Vanessa had jumped in. "Like home movies, or that tape of Devlin and Cassie."

I'd started to protest--but she was smirking at me, much too knowingly. She was starting to trouble me in a serious way. What didn't I get about this woman?

Jenner hadn't really heard the last part, though; he'd just chewed on the cap end of his expensive fountain pen for a while. "Home movies. I like it. It's cheap. What about the song, Derry? Can we use it?"

"Too expensive for a PSA. But we'll get a jingle house to give us something along those lines. I'll have Kurt write the lyrics. That'll save us some money."

"Wheeler? Can he write lyrics?"

Sure, he could. Kurt was always writing parodies, usually when he was supposed to be writing ad copy. Officially, I didn't know about "Dev Is a Battlefield," but Cassie liked to sing it when she wanted my goat. "Yes, sir. He's got a knack for that kind of thing."

"I don't know, Derry. He isn't very mature, is he?"

"There are no old copywriters," I'd said, totally serious. "Besides, we don't want mature for this. If it doesn't shock people, we're not doing it right. You do want to stay out ahead of the competition, don't you? Say, Stu Bennett at Ad House?"

There'd been long silence in the office--so long that we could hear Sanchez on the phone outside, telling several callers in a row that Mr. Jenner was out of town again. Bennett was Jenner's bête noire, having wooed a series of very young women away from him over the years. Right now, he was still sulking about the loss of the Hardware City girl.

Pressing my luck, I'd continued. "His people did a piece of work on that last spot for WKKK, don't you think? I personally would never have dressed the DJs up in sheets, for a client with those call letters, but..."

"All right," he'd said abruptly. "Get started. Let me see something in two weeks. You can go, Derry. Miss Hudson, please stay."

I'd given her a meaningful look, which she'd returned. That much, at least, she understood. Then I'd headed for the door, already thinking about how I was going to work Kurt.

"Derry?"

"Sir?"

"You're sure this'll kill that bastard Bennett?"

"As dead as Nixon," I'd assured him.

"Then spend all the money you need," he'd said happily. "Have a good day."

I had had a good day, actually. Kurt was no challenge at all; he loved the idea. Jack didn't want to be bothered with the details. Vanessa was closeted with Jenner for the rest of the day; I didn't want to be bothered with those details. And Cassie, who didn't approve, was out of the way, off seeing clients. It took 5 minutes to call Heather, Troy, and Chip in; issue them camcorders; and tell them to have fun. They understood.

I wondered whether this was how Monica felt when she toyed with me...and dismissed the thought. This was different. They'd asked for it.

•••

The Monday of the week before Thanksgiving, I went into the office early to get caught up on some work. Nothing unusual about that. No surprise, either, when Cassie let herself in. We hadn't seen each other since Sunday morning, and it was curious how often we both got to work early the morning after a night apart. Convenient, too, that we both had offices that locked--and duplicate keys.

"Do you have an appointment?" I asked, watching her relock the door.

"Do I need one?"

"Depends. What do you want?"

She perched on the arm of my chair, close enough to touch but not touching yet. "What can I have?"

"I hate these kinds of conversations," I complained. "Out with it."

"You're a hard case, Kerry. My last three boyfriends would've kissed me hello by now."

"Your last three boyfriends would've been smoking a cigarette by now." Not that I didn't understand. She was wearing a perfectly proper business suit, but the blouse was half-open at the moment; the way she was sitting hiked the skirt way up; and not looking didn't help, as close as she was. "Sometimes I wonder if I should be insulted that you're with me. You always had terrible taste in men."

Cassie just laughed and leaned over to kiss me. After a few seconds of that, I pulled her the rest of the way down, and she pressed all the way in. My father had been right; it did pay to be nice to your co-workers.

"Damn you, Devvy," she murmured, "I just wanted a kiss hello. Now I won't get any work done all day."

"You're welcome."

"Yeah, well, same to you." Reluctantly, she got up, moving to the edge of my desk, and started rebuttoning her blouse. "We'll finish this later. I wanted to talk to you about something."

"What about?"

"Thanksgiving."

"What about Thanksgiving?"

"It's a week from Thursday."

"It's always on a Thursday. So?"

"Be serious for a minute. I talked to my mother last night."

"And...?"

"I mean, I talked to my mother last night." She waited expectantly.

"Got that part the first time. And...?"

"You're not following this, are you?"

"No," I admitted. "But if you hum a few bars..."

Cassie drew a long breath. "She wanted to know when I'm coming home for Thanksgiving. I said I'd have to ask you. So she asked why you, and I said..."

Oh-oh. "You mean you talked to your mother?"

"She's my mother. I wasn't going to lie to her."

Well, why in hell not? Grimly, I remembered the last time the Wolfes had been in town. There'd been a two-hour lunch, at which Mr. Wolfe had kept ordering wine, and somehow, there'd been a misunderstanding between him and me about Cassie's virginity. I hadn't meant to laugh when he brought it up--how was I supposed to know that he still believed in it?--and Cassie had defended me like a lioness, but lunch went straight downhill from there. Mrs. Wolfe had practically turned into a pillar of salt. I was never so glad to see two people get on a plane back to Kansas City.

"If you're thinking about that lunch," she said, "forget it. I straightened it out with them later. I told you that."

"Well, if you talked to your mother last night, you just unstraightened everything all over again. Do me a favor? The next time they're coming to town, let me know, so I can get a good head start. Your dad's going to kill me for this, for sure, if he ever catches me."

"He's not going to kill you. I made Mom promise."

"Of course she promised. She wants the kill for herself," I grumbled.

"Let me finish. It's all right. They sort of knew anyway."

Damn. I suddenly wondered whether my parents sort of knew. If they did, I was dead four times over, because they were going to kill me too.

"Devvy?"

"What?"

"Mom wants you to come home with me for Thanksgiving."

"Out of the question."

"It's not that far. We might still be able to get a cheap flight."

"That's not the problem."

"You can stay in one of the guest rooms, if you'd feel better about it. You probably won't like my bedroom anyway. It's kind of pink." She frowned. "Come to think of it, I don't like it much either. Maybe I'll stay in your room."

"What room doesn't matter. Who's in it does. Were you planning to sleep with me?"

She gave me the not-even-you-can-be-that-stupid look.

"That's the problem," I told her.

"I don't see why. They already know how it is with us."

"I know a lot more about how it is with us than they do. I've been there. And I'm not going to be a party to that at your parents' house. What if they got the wrong idea and called 911?"

Cassie considered that possibility. "No problem. We'll stay at a hotel."

"That would look bad. Forget it, Cass--I'm not going. Tell your mother I appreciate the invitation, but..."

"Then you call her and tell her yourself. I told her you'll be there."

Coolly, I regarded the stubborn woman parked on the edge of my desk. Lord knew I loved her, but she lost her mind like this sometimes. "When did I give you power of attorney?"

"I think it's more like custody. The witch handed you over to me." When I didn't bite, she looked disappointed. "All right, maybe I shouldn't have promised without talking to you first. But I really wish you'd come with me."

Suddenly, I got it. "Afraid of facing your family alone?"

"Something like that."

"You didn't have to tell them, you know. As far as that goes, you don't even have to go yourself. Would you rather come home with me? Spend Thanksgiving with my family?"

"God, no," Cassie said instantly. "Your family scares me."

I smiled faintly. "They scare me, too."

"You're not going to tell them, are you?"

"No."

"There's something wrong with that. Remind me to have a big fight with you about it soon. But I suppose we don't have to tell them right away."

"Or ever."

A few seconds' silence. "What about Christmas?"

"Drop it," I warned.

"Oh, all right." With an elaborate sigh, she slid off the desk and returned to the arm of my chair. "What's your day look like? Can you get away early?"

Hopefully, I paged through my planner. Like most days, that one was filled up and double-booked--and I had a private meeting with Heather, Troy, and Chip at 5 about the PSA. When it came to the fine points of the plan, what Cassie didn't know wouldn't hurt me. Then again, neither would an extra hour or two with her tonight. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well..." She maneuvered herself onto my lap and got closer than strictly necessary; then she whispered her suggestion. Had she not been sitting there, I would've shot straight up into the air.

"Seriously?"

"After you call my mother, of course, and talk to her about Thanksgiving."

Half-annoyed, I pulled away. "Not even a nice try, Cass. I'm not that easy."

"Uh-huh," she said dryly...and then caused me to grip the arms of my chair for dear life. She never had fought fair. I had a terrible feeling I was going to Kansas City.

•••

(c) 1999, ROCFanKat

Continued - Part 15