Storm Chaser: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Elena leaned her head against the door. All she wanted was to eat her pizza, do her laundry and get her mind ready to introduce outsiders to off world goods. She was still sleeping with her fingers crossed that Nibbles would go well.

‘Maybe I could ignore him,’ she thought. There was another series of knocks from the other side of the door. Elena could feel them vibrate the wooden door through her forehead.

“Ms. Calabrese I know you are at home,” Smith said. Elena straightened up and with a frown opened the door.

“I am home and I am not accepting visitors,” she told him, clipping the words. His frown deepened, turning his face into a mass of creased crags and crevices.

“We have been trying to reach you. If you had bothered to answer your phone this visit would be unnecessary.”

“If you had left a message with a phone number where you could be reached then I would have called you back.” She countered.

“I do not plan on discussing this in the hall where anyone can over hear.” His voice was scolding as if she were a petulant child. She lifted her left eyebrow.

“Well you certainly aren’t coming in,” Elena said. Smith’s frown deepened. Elena had visions of his face completely folding in on it self. A vein in his forehead stood out and she could swear it had begun to pulse. She hoped it didn’t explode.

“Then what do you propose, Ms. Calabrese?”

“I propose that you go home, call Peter Baranov and deal with him. My involvement ended once we returned from our trip.”

“There are issues.”

“Which Peter can deal with.” The timer for her pizza dinged. “Now if you will excuse me, my dinner is ready and I am hungry. Good night.” Although it was tempting to slam the door in his face, Elena closed it with no more force than normal. It was never a good idea to let someone like Smith know how much he had gotten under your skin. She did take a certain satisfaction in the gesture however. Elena went to the kitchen and using pot holders, transferred her pizza to a cooling rack.

“Do you believe the nerve? Showing up on my doorstep. Knowing I just got back into town?” She said aloud, hoping that her apartment was bugged. “He ought to be ashamed of himself.” Elena dug the pizza cutter out of the silverware drawer and began slicing her pizza. “I mean really? Talk about rude.” Elena transferred a couple of slices of pizza to her plate and a wicked thought crossed her mind. She smiled like the Cheshire cat. “After all Spin,” she said addressing the cat. “Everyone knows you catch more flies with honey. Rude just gets the door shut in your face. Now if they had started with something nice like maybe a thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to assist us and then moved to the by the way we have a couple more questions, that would be a different story.” Spin meowed in agreement while Elena ate her pizza.

She wondered if Smith was still at the door. She put the slice of pizza down. The thought of him lurking made her very uncomfortable. Elena stood up and as silently as she could walked over to the door. As she stretched to her tip toes to peer through the judas hole she held her breath. No one was on the door step. Elena let her breath out in a whoosh and returned to the kitchen, resumed her seat at the table and continued eating her pizza.

It was obvious the military was not interested in being transferred to Peter. And she doubted they would go away anytime soon.

‘Maybe they feel more comfortable bossing a woman around,’ she thought peeling a small piece of pepperoni off her slice and passing it down to the eagerly waiting Spin. Elena was going to have to do something about them though. She ran through her list of options. It was a depressingly short list. She could tell Peter. She didn’t think he would have Smith and Jonathan killed but after the way he reacted to their interrogation of her after Ian’s death she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell Peter about anything.

‘Besides, I don’t want him getting used to thinking of himself as my protector,’ she thought. ‘That line of thinking could have nasty repercussions.’ Staying skyside wasn’t really an option either if she was going to be on hand to assist her businesses. ‘Maybe they are still listening in on my every sound,’ she thought cleaning up from her dinner and putting the left over pizza in the fridge with some cellophane over it. The plate was the only thing besides condiments in the fridge.

Elena shrugged. The pizza would be good for breakfast too. She picked up her bag and walked it directly over to the washing machine. Most of the clothes in her bag were jeans, dark colors or clothing old enough not to run in the wash so she didn’t bother separating it and just moved the clothes from the bag to the washer. She stacked the non-clothing items on top of the dryer to put away later.

‘If Smith or Jonathan thinks to thank me for my efforts and or apologizes for their behavior then maybe I can use that connection,’ she thought. ‘It might not help me get rid of them but it might make putting up with them more fun.’ She closed the washer lid and clicked it on regular wash. As an after thought she picked up the empty, heavy canvas duffle and popped it into the washer as well. She gathered up the non-clothing and began putting things back in their place. With her toothbrush in its holder and her laundry chugging away, Elena pulled out her calendar to look at how her week was shaping up.

Monday had been effectively completed. Tomorrow she had the new employee training in the morning and a meeting with Consuelo McCracken after lunch. She thought of Benjamin’s talk of the mad chef and smiled.

“That should be interesting,” she said to herself. Wednesday Mateo arrived. Her cousin would be living close while they worked to save time and trouble. He had rented an apartment down the street. Not only would it provide them both a place to work that was more than likely not yet bugged but it would give Mateo some much needed personal space. She had no desire to develop a sock on the door system with her cousin. The apartment he rented wouldn’t be big enough for the full workspace Mateo would require but it was a start.

Friday would be the last minute things for Nibbles opening and the arrival of both Peter, her grandfather and god knew who else. Elena was aware people were paying attention to what was going on she just didn’t know if they would feel the need to personally investigate or watch from afar. Somewhere in there she had to deal with the business of the imports store. Elena eyed the stack of papers with a frown. Knowing it had to be done and wanting to do it were two totally different things.

And then there was the Thursday night movie thing with Andre. Was that a date? They had watched movies together before but it had always been a spur of the moment kind of thing. And what was she supposed to wear to a not-quite-maybe-possible date? Elena rolled her eyes and pulled the paperwork towards her. Somehow it looked more attractive than worrying about problems with no answers.