Sweet Fortune

her father, who was probably still at his desk, was not answering his phone.
    Jessie knew the pattern all too well. He would not get back to her now until after the weekend. Then he would apologize and explain that he had been called away on business. And everyone knew that business came first.
    All the old anger and pain from her own childhood boiled within her anew. Most of the time she could keep it buried, but it had a bad habit of resurfacing whenever Elizabeth was threatened with the same rejection.
    “Bastard.” Jessie picked up a pen and hurled it across the room.
    She listened to the pen clatter as it struck the wall and bounced on the floor. Outside the window a late-spring twilight was fading rapidly into night. It was starting to rain. At least the ugly yellow haze which had blanketed the city for the past few days had finally cleared.
    Jessie got to her feet and went into the inner office. She yanked open the bottom drawer of Mrs. Valentine's small file cabinet and picked up the bottle of sherry her employer kept there for medicinal purposes.
    Jessie poured a dollop of sherry into her coffee mug and replaced the bottle. She returned to the outer office, turned off the light, propped her feet on the desk, and sprawled back in the squeaky chair. She sipped the sherry slowly. For a long while she sat watching the gloom descend outside the window. It was like a black fog that seemed to be trying to seep into the office, filling every vacant corner.
    “You bastard,” Jessie whispered as she took another swallow of sherry.
    When she heard the footsteps on the stairs, she paid no attention. It was Alex, no doubt, heading for the rest room. He would assume she had gone home for the day hours ago, as she usually did.
    She waited for the footsteps to go on down the hall. But they halted, instead, on the other side of the pebbled glass. Belatedly Jessie realized she had not locked the door.
    She glanced across the width of the room and saw the dark shadow of a man through the opaque glass. She held her breath, torn between getting up to lock the door and thereby betraying her presence inside the office and sitting tight and hoping he would leave.
    She hesitated too long. The door opened and Hatch came into the room, his jacket hooked over his shoulder. His shirt was open at the throat and his tie hung loose around his neck.
    “I take it you've changed your regular working hours?” he asked calmly.
    “No.”
    “I see.” He paused and glanced around the office. “This looks like a scene straight out of a hard-boiled-detective novel,” Hatch said. “There sits our tough, alienated heroine guzzling booze from a bottle she keeps in the desk drawer. She is clearly lost in moody contemplation of the hard life of a private eye.”
    “I'm surprised you find time to read anything except the Wall Street Journal ,” Jessie muttered. “How did you know I was here?”
    “I went to your apartment. Got there shortly before eight o'clock, I might add. Per your instructions. When you didn't show, I decided to try here.”
    “Very clever.”
    “You're in a hell of a mood, aren't you?”
    “Yeah.” Jessie took another swallow of sherry and did not bother to remove her feet from the desk. “I get that way sometimes.”
    “I see. Got any more of whatever it is you're drinking?”
    “It's Mrs. Valentine's tonic. Bottom drawer of her file cabinet.”
    “Thanks. Don't bother getting up.”
    “I wasn't going to.”
    Hatch went into the inner office and returned with the bottle and another coffee mug. “Mrs. Valentine's tonic looks like good Spanish sherry. Is this the source of her psychic powers?”
    “Bastard.”
    “Are we discussing me or your father?”
    “Dad.”
    “Figured I had a fifty-fifty shot at guessing right.” Hatch pulled up a chair and sat down. He put the bottle on the desk. “What's he done now?”
    “He's found something more important to do than take Elizabeth to her school science fair.”
    “Yes. That's Saturday, isn't it?” Hatch took a long swallow of the sherry and contemplated the remainder.
    Jessie snapped her head around sharply. “That's right. Saturday. What's Dad doing on Saturday that's so important he has to miss Elizabeth's big day?”
    “He's going down to Portland,” Hatch said. “I told you we're having some problems there.”
    “ Damn him .” She slammed the mug down onto the desk, her rage flaring high once more. “Dear God in heaven, I could strangle him for