My Man Pendleton(15)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

“Preferably in another city,” Bahadoori told him.

“Another state,” Carmichael added.

“Another country,” Washington threw in. “They might not have heard about her in Abu Dhabi.”

This was ridiculous, Pendleton thought. No human being could possibly wreak the single-handed havoc that everyone ascribed to Kit McClellan. Certainly she came across as a handful, sharp-edged, sharp-witted, sharp-tongued. Sharp-shooter?

Stop it, he ordered himself. No way would he believe she was anywhere near as destructive as these people made her out to be. “She can’t be as bad as all that,” he voiced his thoughts aloud.

A ripple of anxious chuckles was his only reply.

“Okay, then can I just ask one last question?”

The others nodded.

“If Miss McClellan is so awful, then why doesn’t McClellan, Sr. just let her stay wherever she runs off to? And why do you guys keep going after her, job description or no job description?”

“That’s two questions, Pendleton,” Novak pointed out.

“Okay, two last questions then.”

For a long moment, none of the other VPs responded. Then Carmichael, evidently the least fearful of the repercussions, smiled a little grimly. “McClellan, Sr. needs her back, Pendleton, because Kit McClellan, for all her questionable tendencies, is far too valuable a possession for the McClellans to let her stray far.

“And why do you all keep going after her?”

Novak answered this time. “Same reason.”

As answers went, Pendleton thought, those left a lot to be desired. “Valuable in what way?” he asked further.

“Sorry, Pendleton,” Carmichael told him. “But any more questions you have, you’ll need to run by one of the McClellans.” Her grim smile returned as she added, “And I think you know which one would be most likely to give you the most accurate answer.”

Pendleton nodded silently. That, he thought, was exactly what he’d been afraid of.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Pendleton shook his head in disbelief as he slumped back in his chair. He tossed his job description back down onto his desk, his gaze pinned to the bottom of page four. Page four, paragraph six, to be specific. Right underneath subheading A.

Good God, it really was in his job description. Right there, in black and white, Times New Roman on Fine Linen Southworth, it stated quite clearly that should Miss Katherine Atherton McClellan ever take off for parts unknown, at any time during the period of his employment, he might indeed be called upon to travel to those parts and fetch her back to the bosom of her loving family.

They sure did things differently in this part of the country.

He expelled an exasperated sigh and spun around in his chair, focusing on the quickly darkening sky outside his window. Below him, Main Street was alive with the hum and honk of cars headed home for the evening. Across from him, the assortment of shapes and sizes known as the Center for the Arts was awash with glitzy light. Beyond that, the dark ribbon of the Ohio River ambled languidly on its way, emptying into rivers, gulfs and oceans beyond. And somewhere amid one of those oceans was a madcap heiress he was professionally obligated to find.

One week. That’s how long he’d been granted to locate Kit McClellan, to bring her home to a father who demanded her return, yet clearly did not want her. For all the McClellan clan’s wealth and prominence and opportunity, Pendleton thanked his lucky stars that his own family was one hundred and eighty degrees away from them.

The legal pad his colleagues had so thoughtfully provided mocked him from atop his desk. Unwilling to tolerate the reminder of his duty, he ripped off the top sheet, folded it in half, then in quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths, and he stuffed it into his shirt pocket. He stood and straightened his tie, crossed to collect his blazer and overcoat from the coat stand near the door, and shrugged into the rest of his corporate uniform.

If McClellan, Sr. wanted his daughter returned, then Pendleton would retrieve her. It was, after all, in his job description. Bottom line, he needed his job. He needed the money his salary provided, the prestige his position afforded, the opportunity it offered him to show a certain person of his acquaintance that, hey, he could, too, hack it, so who’s laughing now, huh? Therefore, resigned to his fate, he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and prepared to face his destiny head on.

But his destiny was interrupted just then by a quick series of soft raps that greeted him from the other side of the door. “Mr. Pendleton?” Beatrice, his secretary, called out. “Are you still here?”

He opened the door to find her standing on the other side, her own coat buttoned up to her numerous chins, obviously on her way out, too. Beatrice had come with his office, having worked for Hensley’s for longer than Pendleton had been alive. In spite of that, she left a lot to be desired in a secretary. He discovered that on his first day of work, when she couldn’t seem to remember even the most rudimentary of company policies. Like, for instance, where they kept the microwave popcorn.

“I really apologize,” she said, “but this arrived for you this morning while you were in your meeting with Mr. McClellan, and I just now realized I forgot to give it to you.” She extended a cardboard overnight mailer. “I am so sorry. I hope it wasn’t anything too important.”

Actually, he thought, one might assume that the words EXTREMELY URGENT, in big red capital letters, emblazoned on both the front and back of the envelope, might have alerted her that there was some degree of importance attached to its delivery. But, hey, that was Pendleton—always assuming the obvious.

So all he said was, “Thank you, Beatrice. I’m sure it will be fine.”

She smiled feebly, surrendered the overnight mailer, then spun around and fled without another word. When he glanced down to open it, he noted that instead of having a fancy, embossed label, the mailer had been addressed by hand and embellished by the word, CONFIDENTIAL. Addressed by a bold, feminine hand, too, if he wasn’t mistaken, something that made a strange feeling of dread shimmy right down his spine.

Hastily, he tugged the plastic thread on the back and pulled the sides of the mailer open wide. For a moment, he thought it was empty. Then he tipped it upside down and shook it once, and a tiny bit of cardboard color came fluttering out, tumbling end over end to land on the taupe carpet. He bent over to inspect it, for some reason reluctant to pick it up. Especially when he realized it was a postcard.

Of a beach.