Page 1 of Under Fire

Chapter One

Alisa

“No, I am already cleaning three houses.” Alisa Kelly ran her golden-brown fingers around the edges of the note that had been handed to her by her manager. Analyzing the property details, she shook her head upon hearing the woman’s challenge.

“You don’t want an extra hundred bucks a month, then?” Maria asked. “This will be a regular client.”

“I don’t have time for more work.”

“This client is rarely home. He’s usually away for work, so you won’t have to deal with people.”

Maria, a middle-aged lady with dyed eggplant-colored hair, leaned back in her white office chair, something twinkling in her eye. She waited for Alisa’s next move.

Alisa frowned, tossing her long black hair behind her shoulder.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad.Three-bedroom home in a gated community. No kids. No pets.She grazed her teeth over her bottom lip, thinking. Shedidneed the money, but she needed time for her studies as well. Skipping out wasn’t an option, even for a few hours, not if she wanted to get licensed the following month.

“Look… Try it out once, and if you can’t manage, I’ll give the job to someone else, okay?” Maria said as she shuffled papers on her desk. It was her typical signal that the meeting was concluded.

Alisa arched her eyebrow. The cost of her exams flashed before her eyes. Those things weren’t cheap, and the last thing she wanted to do was put her hand out to beg for money. She was almost at the finish line.

“Fine.” Alisa pushed herself up and out of her chair, stuffing Maria’s note with the address into her purse.

She’d have to find a way to make it work, which was what she’d been doing for the past four years anyway. Buried in a textbook most of the time, all she’d done was study, work and study some more.

Maria shot her a self-satisfied smile, grinning like the cat that had eaten the canary. It was the look she gave when she was up to something. Running a property management company, Maria was the sharp-as-hell businesswoman and motherly figure—always watching out for Alisa like she was her daughter. Damn right, Alisa had endless respect for Maria’s business acumen and, frankly, her sheer nerve—the type that Alisa hoped to grow over the years.

“One last thing”—Maria reached behind her desk and pulled up a used shopping bag—“the client is expecting our services this morning.”

“This morning? Like, rightnow?”

“Like,rightnow. I promised him.”

“No”—Alisa waved her hands, unwilling to bend—“I didn’t wear clothes to clean in. This was supposed to be my study day.”

“We work around the clients’ schedules, my dear. You know that.” Maria tossed the bag at her, a devilish glare in her eyes.

Catching the squishy bag, which clearly had clothing inside, Alisa knew without a doubt that Maria had a game plan. And when Maria was conniving, it wasn’t good. The matron stiffened her spine, shooting Alisa the ‘don’t defy me’ expression.

“God, fine. You owe me,” Alisa said.

It sure as hell wasn’t how she’d wanted the day to go—but jobs were scarce, let alone ones that were flexible enough to work around her demanding schedule. So, Alisa did what she had to do. Tucking the bag under her arm, she spun and strode toward the office door.

“Enjoy,” Maria said.

The matron’s self-satisfied chuckle forced Alisa to turn back, perplexed. Maria then offered a wink, validating all Alisa’s concerns.

“Let’s get this over with,” Alisa grumbled to herself as she exited.

She took a deep breath and pushed out of the small building toward the parking lot. She had to get the job done fast if she had any designs on studying how voxel pixels were made to be proportional to the sum of the attenuation coefficients.

The drive across the city toward the Bixby Hill gated golf community could have been a lot faster if Alisa hadn’t been slowed down by at least ten car accidents on the way. It was unbelievable how slow LA traffic could be, even considering it was just past morning rush hour. Signing in at the golf community’s security post as the house cleaner, Alisa silently huffed that she didn’t have time to change at a coffee shop along the way. Side-eyeing the lumpy bag of clothes provided by Maria as she drove into the beautifully manicured neighborhood, Alisa regretfully accepted that she was going to have to change at the house.

That wasn’t something she liked to do. God only knew the type of people who lived there.

Her clunky silver economy car—too old to be nice, too new to be vintage—brought her to the address provided, making a strange new noise that drove an embarrassed flush up Alisa’s cheeks. The car was beginning to whine like a dying rhinoceros. She groaned quietly to herself, wishing her entrance could sound a little less conspicuous—a little less helpless. She shouldn’t have ignored that check engine light for so long.

She parked in the driveway next to an expensive-looking navy-blue pickup truck, turning her car’s engine off as quick as possible before the damn thing blew. She grew a little more anxious as she drank in the beautiful stonework and natural wood finishes on the outside of the sizable home she was approaching.Who the hell is the client?

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