Free A Deeper Dimension by Amanda Carpenter

else in her life seemed quite as important any more to her. All her concentration was centred on something beside herself for the first time in her life.
    Carrie arrived, and Diana told her in an outpouring of words of Owen’s conviction and their dread of what the morning would bring. Carrie merely nodded her head with no surprise.
    “I don’t find it hard to believe,” she said, when asked by Diana. “I’ve met Alicia, and you haven’t. It makes a difference.”
    Diana could only shake her head blankly, at a loss for words.
    The shrill sound of the telephone in the other room made both women jump. They looked at each other silently. “I hope it’s Alex,” Diana whispered. “I hope he shouts at us for being fools.” She moved quickly to the desk and picked up the receiver. At first she instinctively held the phone away from her ear, the noise was so loud. Then she was shouting back into the phone, “Calm down, for God’s sake! I can’t understand you!”
    “—it doesn’t make any sense!” the voice on the other end was shouting back. There was a slight pause. “Diana?”
    “Yes, Neil.” Neil Stratton was the head accountant in their accounting department.
    “Have you heard what happened yet? Payne lowered his price of steel this morning—it’s down almost twenty-three per cent of what our prices are! Diana, he’s starting a price war with us!” His voice was rising as he became more agitated. “He’s committing financial suicide! What in Hades’ name are we supposed to do, Diana?”
    After the first stunned moment when she heard his words, she began to think furiously, her mind working quickly and clearly. “Neil—listen to me! I’m going to call Alex and ask him what we need to do, and I’ll be right down. In the meantime, you and the others start figuring out how much we can afford to knock off our prices without going under. Figure it down to the bare minimum. If Payne wants a price war, then that’s what he’s got to expect. Be right there.” She hung up without listening for a goodbye.
    For a moment she simply sat there, her body motionless as her mind continued to race frantically. She then called for Carrie, telling her to try and reach Alex.
    “Don’t stop trying. We’ve got to find out where he is,” Diana told her. “I’ll be leaving to go down to Owen’s floor, and then to the accounting department. Send the call through to me if you reach him.” Carrie hurried back to her office and Diana picked up her own phone. She looked around for the phone booklet; she had a few calls to make too.
    Fifteen minutes later, Diana walked into Owen’s office. He looked up from the jumbled pile on his desk. Sitting back, he immediately asked, “Have you got in touch with Alex?”
    Sighing, she replied, “No.”
    “I suppose you’ve tried to get in touch with the vice-president, Jim Marshall?” Owen looked down at his hands as he spoke. There was little hope in his voice, for the vice-president of the company was a mere figurehead, a title bestowed on an incompetent who earned the seat on the board of directors of Mason Steel by virtue of his large share of stocks in the company. He was invariably absent from the day-to-day working at Mason Steel, a fact that in the past had brought many sighs of relief from Owen and Alex, and showed up rarely at any of the board meetings. He was usually away on some fishing trip, out in the obscure reaches of the wilderness with no modern conveniences and no troublesome phones.
    She slumped in her chair. “Yes,” she sighed again. “He’s away. Some new fishing spot, Mrs. Marshall said. He’ll be gone for weeks.” Diana had never met Jim Marshall.
    Owen was savage. “We don’t even have a figurehead of authority to work with!”
    She was invaded with a sense of panic. Something had to be done right away, or Mason Steel could be ruined beyond repair. Derrick Payne’s move had been a dead giveaway as to who had been the culprit behind the