“Damn it, Jessie.” Diana jerked her arm away. “You waited how many years for Julie to come back? And you couldn’t wait four months for me? Even to see if I would return?”
“I didn’t know if you were ever coming back!”
“And I wasn’t worth waiting for!” Diana filled in.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Yes, it is, it was. We said everything that weekend. You asked why we hadn’t done anything about a relationship, and I said that it was Julie between us. And you blew up like I threw a bomb instead of just stating facts. Even then, I did everything I could that weekend to eliminate her.”
“And then you found out I was a cop.”
“I told you it didn’t matter. I simply had to adjust to it.”
“I thought you were running away.”
“Like you do?” Diana sneered. “Jeeze, Jessie. You nursed the idea of Julie for years. You’re a cop. You have access to information the general public doesn’t have. Julie’s one of the leading hematologists in the country. Are you going to tell me that in seven years you couldn’t find her?”
Jessie let her hand fall. “I didn’t know where to start,” she offered.
“You didn’t want to,” Diana stated. “At first because you were too overwhelmed, and then because you couldn’t stand the possible rejection. So you became Romeo, the Friday night brass ring.” Jessie winced even though that’s how she had described herself. “And I tried to be there for you, not for some brass ring, not just sex. I might have started out enjoying Romeo but I ended up loving Jessie.”
Jessie swallowed, unable to comprehend. Diana had loved her. And she knew that. She had always known it somewhere deep inside her. But what to do now? By her own admission, Diana was in the Family, and the Family was not some minor little problem. And Jessie was a cop, all she had ever wanted to be was a cop. She met Diana’s gaze and said nothing.
Diana waited, watching with this knowing look in her eyes. She finally shook her head and turned away. “See? I loved you then and I love you now, but that’s not enough.”
She turned and walked out the door and down the steps where Jessie couldn’t follow.
Diana sat at the base of the tree. Safe house. She had never felt as alone as she did now, never as low. She had been afraid, adrenaline-rushed, panicky even, but never so totally alone. Everything she ever thought she had was gone. Papa, Jessie even in her dreams, and she was sending Margaret away. A person of interest, she was being called by the Feds, and she knew what they wanted. The men who were already jockeying for Papa’s position were calling her a marked woman. That South Sea island escape was looking better and better.
She had called the meeting of her shadows to make one last request before she cut them loose. To her relief, they had agreed, and for that she was grateful. They had protected each other’s backs for how many years? She had helped them, they had helped her. She wondered if they would continue without her, if there would be anyone who could or would step into the leadership role.
The shadows had been Margaret’s idea, starting out just as someone to cover their backs in ways the men didn’t dream of. When she brought Diana in, Margaret had abdicated her position and Diana had worked them. She had used them very quietly. Some of them, like the now-dead Helen, had been with her from the beginning. A shadow was at the hospital, she had a shadow on Nicki. She had shadows in almost all the women’s organizations in town, the battered women’s shelter, a midwife. She had set up self-defense classes, seed money for business, drug abuse prevention in the bordellos, anything she could do quietly to prevent Papa’s Family from getting complete control. She’d had to do it in order to live with herself. Now she wondered if they would continue without her or like so many things, just disappear until the next person came along and saw the need.
She lowered her head to her knees. She had so many secrets and she was going to have to give some of them up, but not necessarily all. Right now she just really wanted to disappear but that wasn’t possible. She had Jessie and Julie to return. She leaned back against the tree. Places to go, and things to do. Wasn’t that what she and Jessie always said? And the other thing, it’s a rough world out there.
She got up and started back for the house. She would have to face Jessie sooner or later. Nothing new, just old news recycled. Well, maybe Jessie knew it now. That was different.
Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out of her pocket to read the text message, stopping in a shady spot so she could read the small text. Papa was taken to the hospital. It wouldn’t be long now. She leaned against the tree and wept.
***
By the time the next call came in at three in the morning, Diana was all cried out. She lay there for a moment. “Goodbye Papa. Godspeed.” She felt guilty for her sigh of relief and then she got up.
Margaret was sound asleep but came up like a catapult when Diana shook her. “It’s time,” she said quietly. “The call just came through. I’m going to shower downstairs.”
“What about them?” She indicated down the hall with her head.
“Let’s get things started first. We’ll be able to move around better if they’re still asleep.”
“Are you all right?” Margaret asked.
Diana nodded. “Fine,” she said simply. “Let’s get moving. We’re on a time schedule now.”
At six, she knocked on the master bedroom door. She hesitated just a moment before she swung it wide. “Good morning, ladies,” she greeted. Jessie sat bolt upright, Julie stirred sleepily. “Time to rise and shine. I want to be on the road in an hour and a half.”
“On the road?”
“Coffee’s brewing. Shake a leg.”
Diana seemed to be on the move constantly, skipping breakfast except for coffee which she drank standing up, her gaze constantly roaming the house. The additional difference was that she had a phone in her hand all the time. She looked Jessie and Julie up and down like a mother sending her kids off to church. She wanted a good impression. She pointed to Jessie. “No blue jeans,” she said, sending her back to change. “I’m not going to have anyone say you were treated badly.” Even then, she stepped in front of Jessie at the door, impersonally turning her face one way then to the other. “Well, at least it was long enough for most of the bruises to heal.”
“What?” Jessie couldn’t resist saying. “Don’t you want us to look like you rescued us from something bad?”
“I’ve got pictures,” Diana commented. “Now go change.” She went on to examine Julie, nodding in approval.
“Diana,” Julie said in a passing moment.
“What?” Diana said curtly.
“I’m sorry you lost your father.”
Diana took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said. And then she went right on. “Are you ready?”
The SUV pulled up, the driver got out and disappeared somewhere around the house.
“Let’s go, ladies,” Diana ordered. She opened the back door for them to slide into the late-model SUV. “Seat belts,” she ordered. “Now, I’m asking for cooperation on this.” She pulled out two blindfolds. “Just put these on, lay back and take a nap.”
Before Jessie and Julie could as much as really catch their breath, they were on the road.
“You didn’t forget the box, did you?” Margaret asked.
“Right here.”
“Are you sure you want to do it this way?”
“Nope,” Diana said briefly. “I just don’t know any other way.” She looked over her shoulder to see both women had their nightshades on. They were both leaning back, for all the world looking like they were sleeping. Diana, for one, did not believe it.
When they came out of the mountains, before they hit the highway, Margaret pulled over. “You’re sure, last chance?”
“Last chance. This is the best way. You can take your blindfolds off, ladies.”
Diana got out of the car, went around to the driver’s side. Margaret got out. Diana and Margaret hugged tightly.
“Be careful,” they both said at the same time.
With great reluctance and just as strong purpose, Diana got in on the driver’s side and slowly pulled away. Jessie and Julie looked at each other and then both turned around. Diana drove slowly, just long enough to see the other vehicle pull up and Margaret got in.
“What the—?” Jessie turned around to Diana who looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“Don’t ask,” Diana said. “That’s a request, not an order.” She picked up the metal box in the passenger seat and passed it back to Jessie. Rectangular, locked with a combination, Jessie felt the contents slide. “Your weapon, your identification, your badge, all intact. I’ll give you the combination when we get there.”
“Get where?”
Diana gave her a warning look.
When they got into the area Jessie began to recognize, Diana made two phone calls. “Don’t turn me in because I’m on the phone while driving,” she said with a smile as she caught Jessie’s eye in the mirror. The first call went to Nicki.
“Yeah, who is this?”
“You want to see your sister?”
“Yes, where? Who?”
“Three o’clock, Two Ten High Street. Be there.” She hung up even as Nicki was sputtering.
The next call went to the police department. “Peterson, please.” She listened. “Patch me through.” There must have been a protest. “Regarding Galbreath.” It took a moment but he came on. “Peterson. You want Galbreath? Three o’clock, Two Ten High Street. Be there.” Then she hung up on him as well.
“What are you doing?” Jessie asked.
“Taking you home.”
“But—but—”
“Just hush, Jessie. There’s nothing you can do at this point anyway. It’s all arranged.”
They drove through town in after-lunch traffic, without speaking. Diana pulled around to the back of a three-story house that had been converted to offices. Jessie glanced at the attorney’s name as they pulled in.
“Showtime, ladies. Please smile pretty for the cameras.” Diana opened the door for Jessie and Julie scooted across the seat to come out the same side.
“Diana,” Jessie said as she got out. “Are we going to have a minute to talk?”
“Time for that is past,” Diana said without looking at her.
She left the keys in the car and pointed to the side door where a woman was motioning them in. “Combination for the box is your birthday. I finally learned when it was.”
Inside, the office was organized chaos. Nicki hit Jessie with a hug, grabbing Julie also. They were pulled across the large room and then Peterson along with Captain Conrad was there, grabbing her arm. Jessie turned frantically around to see what happened to Diana, where she was, what was happening to her, only to see her being led away by two men and a woman, all dressed in black suits, looking like Federal agents, along with one man in a gray suit who looked like an attorney.
Diana didn’t look back.
Three years later
Diana unlocked the door to her apartment. She had made it through another week. Friday night movies and pizza beckoned. She mixed her first drink of the evening and took it with her to the shower.
Something raunchy tonight for the movie, she decided as she washed off the week. Something that would take her mind off all her frustrations, something that would let her escape from her tiny apartment, her unexciting, stressful job, her much smaller world than she had once lived in. All she wanted to do was to escape from reality into her own little space and make the world go away.
She fixed her second drink after she called for the pizza. Now that dinner was taken care of, she could put her feet up and have her night. Tomorrow would come soon enough. She lay her head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. Saturday was the powwow and she needed to make an appearance. Had to keep up the good relations when you worked with the Indians. Carlton should be the one to go, he was the executive director, but he had pressing family concerns demanding his attention. Diana snorted. In a pig’s eye. He just hated the PR stuff and shoved it off on her every opportunity. And she didn’t have much choice these days. No one really cared to hire her for anything financial when every financial record she worked on got audited, when there were Federal agents coming around. She had to work outside her field at what she could and in this case, she was Program Administrator for the Florida Native American Indian Society.
She closed her eyes. There was a party on Sunday and she needed to go. She had been isolating herself more and more, and friends were beginning to notice. She didn’t know which was worse: the Feds coming around to have a friendly little chat or her friends coming around to check up on her. She wished they would all go away. Sometimes she wished
everything
would go away.
She sat with her head back, trying to clear her mind. She had never dreamed it would be so bad. Maybe she should have taken the offer to go into the witness protection program, get a new identity and just escape, start fresh. Why hadn’t she? It wasn’t like she had anything to hold on to in this life. Everything was gone.
There was a knock at the door and she got up, expecting pizza. Instead she opened the door to Jessie.
It is a sin,
was her first thought,
that someone can change so little since I first laid eyes on her fifteen years ago.
Jessie stood there, still long and lanky, again wearing blue jeans and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She was a little fuller in the face, had a few gray hairs, the same dark soulful eyes only now marked by character lines. The dark sunglasses were in her hands. Diana’s mouth went dry.
And she has the same damn effect on me now as she did then!
“You’re not delivering a pizza,” Diana said when she could find her voice.
“No, I gave up that second job a long time ago.” Jessie half turned to look over the apartment parking lot. “However, I do believe your dinner has just pulled in.” She stepped back as the gangly kid threw open his car door, left the vehicle running and leaped up the steps two at a time to Diana’s door.
“Thank you,” he said breathlessly already turning and leaping down the stairs when she told him to keep the change.