LITMIR.BIZ

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a hand?” a male voice asked, behind her.

      Kennedy turned to find her downstairs tenant—a techie type—eyeing her curiously. “Yes, Ed, that would be great.”

      “How was your trip?” he asked, scooping up two of her bags as if they weighed nothing.

      “Long, but I got a lot of work done so that was good.”

      “You liked working with Japanese businesspeople?”

      Kennedy tried not to yawn. Jet lag was quickly setting in and she was in no mood for stupid questions. “Loved it. I got to use both my Japanese and organizational development skills. It was fun teaching American business protocol.”

      Kennedy started up the stairs to her apartment carrying the lightest of the suitcases. Underfoot in the foyer and hallways the Berber carpets were stained and smelly. She did not own a dog, but there was a definite ‘doggie’ scent to the place.

      Ed snorted and filled her in. “Wow! That rottie your cousin had in here really wasn’t toilet trained.”

      Her head began to ache. “What rottie?”

      One of her strengths was remaining cool, calm and collected. She taught people how to cope with unexpected life-changing events. Therefore she should easily be able to deal with this.

      “Marna’s dog, Lulu,” Ed said. “I told her the dog was bored and needed toys.”

      “Since when does Marna have a dog?” Kennedy threw over her shoulder.

      Ed shrugged. “Oops! Talk about open mouth and insert foot. Lulu’s a stray Marna found wandering the streets. She’s a sweetheart but totally untrained. She ran Marna.”

      Kennedy sucked in a breath while using the green key to unlock the top lock. “Where is Marna anyway?”

      “Uh, didn’t she call you?”

      Kennedy narrowed her eyes and again looked at Ed. Mentally she counted to ten. “Why would Marna need to call me? She knew when I was coming home. I e-mailed her.”

      “Did she e-mail you back? That’s better than what she’s been doing to me.”

      Come to think of it, Marna hadn’t responded but Kennedy had thought nothing of it. Her cousin was notoriously scatterbrained and always acted as if she was overwhelmed.

      Ed set down Kennedy’s two bags. “You should be good to go from here.”

      “Uh-uh. Not until you tell me what you know.”

      Ed was beet red. He wore the uncomfortable expression of a man caught between rock and granite. He shuffled from one foot to another.

      “Ed,” Kennedy groused. “Better fess up if you know what’s good for you. Seattle’s rentals are pretty steep and you’ve got a great deal as my tenant.”

      Ed exhaled loudly. “Never thought you’d be a fan of bribery. Marna’s been gone for almost three months. Some kind of an emergency came up and she had to leave.”

      Kennedy’s throat closed down. She tried to control the wheezing sounds coming from her nose and the buzzing in her ears. She was close to hyperventilating. “Then how on earth have you and the Dopwells on the second floor been paying your rent?”

      “Marna told us to send the rent to a P.O. box.”

      “What! Better give me that box number.”

      “No problem, I’ll get it to you.”

      Kennedy’s temples were pounding. She could not allow herself to get out of control. There had to be a logical explanation to it all. She kept thinking of her silver car that had just been repossessed. Was the triplex that she’d saved so hard to buy on the brink of foreclosure, too? How many months late was everything anyway? She’d need to call the bank immediately.

      The minute she pushed open her top-floor apartment door, Kennedy knew she had her hands full. A damp, stagnant odor almost knocked her over. The rott-weiler had left her mark here, as well. Kennedy flipped on the lights and braced herself. The suitcase she was holding fell from her limp fingers, making a dull thud. She felt Ed’s steadying hands on her shoulders as she surveyed the destruction.

      “Sit and I’ll get you a glass of water,” he proposed.

      Unable to answer him, Kennedy just gaped. Her beautiful place was in ruins. The Persian carpets were a mess and the sofa she was still paying for had ugly yellow markings. She shuddered thinking about what those stains were. Her lovely wooden floors were scratched. The baseboards and moldings had been chewed on.

      No wonder Marna had bailed before Kennedy came home and killed her.

      Ed lined up the suitcases in the foyer and hastily opened up windows. A cool spring breeze soon filled the interior. It wasn’t enough to camouflage the smell.

      “Airing the place out should help,” he announced, his voice chipper. “It’ll be too much for you to do alone but tomorrow you can call a cleaning service.”

      Kennedy exhaled loudly and willed herself to calm down. She’d been named after John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, and a man her mother thought walked on water. She’d liked that he promoted equal rights and world peace. But Kennedy’s thoughts right now were anything but peaceful.

      “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

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