Lexington Connection (24 page)

Diana nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“What are we going to do?”

“What we have to.”

“I don’t know if I can deal with this.”

“Yes, you can.”

Jessie gave a mirthless chuckle. “You have more confidence in me than I do at this point.”

“You’ve had some hard shocks, one right after another. You thought you were going to die. You thought your partner was dead or dying. Julie was pulled into it. Even me showing up had to be a shock. Give yourself a break and let the dust settle. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I feel like I’ve been through an earthquake and all the landscape’s different.”

Diana gave a small smile. “That’s how I felt when I found out you were a cop. Everything changed.”

“And then you left.”

“But not because you were a cop.” She gave a rueful smile as Jessie ran her hands through her hair. “Give yourself some slack, Jessie. Things that matter will fall back in place.”

“You say that with certainty.”

“I am certain.”

Jessie shook her head, not at all certain. Diana still looked so calm, sounded so confident. Then she saw Diana’s hands, gripping the table hard enough that her knuckles were white. So she wasn’t having an easy time either. She looked up to meet Diana’s gaze.

“Go soak in the hot tub,” Diana suggested. “Explore the exercise room. Go lay out on the deck, the sun’s coming out. Should be nice.”

Jessie stood up. “Do anything, just go away?” she asked ruefully.

“It would probably help us both right now.”

Jessie nodded. “I guess so.”

She wandered out of the room, listening, waiting for Diana to stop her, for some reaction. She paused at the door, shook her head, straightened her back. She would have to deal with this, one way or another, although for the life of her, right now, she didn’t have the faintest idea how.

***

“Margaret doesn’t like you,” Julie said that night as they were preparing for bed.

How’d she find out so fast? Did Diana tell her?
was Jessie’s first thought. “What makes you say that?” she asked instead. “Did she say something?”

“No, it was more like what she didn’t say.”

Jessie came out of the bathroom. It hurt to brush her teeth. “How so?”

“She never says your name, just ‘the other one’ or ‘your friend.’ Haven’t you noticed? She watches you but never when you’re looking at her. Are they lovers? Is she jealous?” Julie sat cross-legged on the bed.

“No, not lovers, at least Diana denied that.” She walked around the room. “Nice jammies.”

“Silk.” Julie slid her hand across the material. “Margaret picked them out for me. That was another thing: she kept picking out clothes for me, concerned about style, color, like she was dressing me for some show and she was the fashion consultant. You picked your own, she didn’t care, couldn’t be bothered.”

“Maybe she knows how I hate shopping. I wondered what took you so long. Maybe she’s attracted to you.”

Julie shook her head. “No, didn’t get those vibes. It was sorta fun, you always hated shopping. And I figured the longer I kept her up there, the longer you had to search the house or talk to Diana or do whatever cops do to investigate.”

Jessie sat down in the chair. “Am I that transparent?”

“You’re a cop, twenty-four-seven.” Julie shrugged. “Find out anything?”

“Diana’s room is next door. Margaret’s down the hall. I get the feeling there’s security, maybe closed circuit, but I couldn’t find any wires, any cameras. But this house isn’t a rustic cabin. If there is anything, it’s probably so built-in that it’s not apparent.”

“Were you able to have any type of conversation with Diana?”

“Of a sorts,” Jessie admitted. She shook her head. “It’s really strange, like one minute I know her and the next minute, who is this woman?”

“I can imagine.”

No you can’t.
Jessie sat there. “But I didn’t find out anything. It would probably help a good deal if I could find out who
Papa
is.”

“I think I can do that.” Then she laughed at Jessie’s expression. “Well, I’m not a ninny, Jessie. I was supposed to have treated her papa. I’ll just ask. I imagine there’s a whole lot she’d like to ask me.”

Jessie nodded thoughtfully. “Probably so.” She got to her feet and came over to the bed to crawl in. “And for the record, I do not now nor did I ever think you’re a ninny.” She ran her fingers over the silken material of the pearl-pink pajamas. “So what other kinds of clothes did you get out of Margaret?”

Diana glanced at the kitchen clock. Nine a.m. Another six maybe seven hours and Waldo would be taken care of. That would be one thing out of the way, one item crossed off her list. She glanced at Jessie eating her eggs, Julie asking Margaret something about the coffee cake she had made. She watched as Jessie casually glanced at the clock then back into the living room. She was watching the clock also.

Diana pushed her plate away. She hated waiting, hated that she couldn’t be there supervising. She had good people, she didn’t worry about that. She just hated most that she hadn’t been able to talk to Helen in person. There was something there she just couldn’t put her finger on. She had been pissed at Waldo when she called Helen, knew Helen would jump at the chance to take that flight. Now she was second-guessing herself. Helen was a more than capable pilot. She had gone through that bad time after Jillian died when she was so depressed Diana didn’t dare put her in the cockpit. She had come through that, the depression was gone, turned into grief at the loss of a partner. She kept saying she wanted back in the loop, wanted to get back to work, needed to get back to normal.

“Are you all right?” Margaret asked as Diana got up.

“Yes,” Diana said shortly. The cabin was too confining, she needed to be outside.

She went out on the deck, paced from one end to the other. By now, Helen should be getting ready. Damn, she hated being stuck here. She took a deep breath. She had made all the plans, everyone knew what they were supposed to do. She just needed to let it go, but her gut instinct just wouldn’t.

When she came around the corner of the house, Jessie stood on the corner of the deck, leaning back, her elbows resting on the railing. She watched as Diana walk toward her after an initial hesitation.

“Waiting’s hard, isn’t it?” she said conversationally. “You make all these plans and then pray everything got covered and goes the way it’s supposed to.” Diana didn’t answer. “I guess it’s the same no matter what you’re planning.” She turned around and leaned on the railing. “Would you be there except for us?”

“Yes.”

“You could take me along,” Jessie suggested slyly.

Diana laughed, just as much from tension as she did at Jessie’s suggestion. “In your dreams.” She leaned on the railing.

“Well, I thought I’d try.”

“Good try, not a chance.”

They stood there in silence for a while, a comfortable silence, Diana realized. Then something changed and Diana knew Jessie was a cop again. “You do things like this often?”

“Like what?”

“Getting people out of the country.”

Diana didn’t turn to look at her. “I’m not going to answer that.”

Jessie ducked her head. “You know it’s all going to come out sooner or later.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Since you’re holding us here, you could still be an accessory to kidnapping.”

“Better than murder,” Diana commented. She straightened up. “If this is the way the conversation is going to go, Jessie, I’m not in the mood. If we were on your turf, you would only be asking if you thought a crime was being committed.”

“I heard you make those plans,” Jessie said carefully without turning to look at Diana.

“Then you wouldn’t be talking to me. You’d be talking to my lawyer.”

Jessie pressed on. “You know, if what you said was true about what Waldo planned, I’m sure a very favorable deal could be cut.”

“Crap. I don’t need this today.” Diana turned and took several steps away before she turned back. “Jessie, you’re a good cop. We’ve got quite a history. Don’t press your luck.” Then she left, jerking open the door to the living room, stepping aside to let Julie go by her to go out on the deck herself.

She needed to work off this nervous energy. If she couldn’t go outside, then a good run on the treadmill might work. She went through the kitchen, where Margaret stopped her.

“Did you get a chance to speak with Helen? Was she all right with this?”

Diana paused. “Spoke to her. She seemed okay.” She glanced back to see Jessie and Julie talking on the desk. “She says she got a good bill of health. She apologized for blowing up when she learned I agreed to transport Waldo. She said it was unprofessional of her.”

Margaret chuckled. “Unprofessional. Is that what you call a screaming rampage?”

Diana was able to smile about that. “That pilot’s license is important to her. She likes our little jet. She was asking me if there was a chance I could get another.”

“Why? She wants to fly two?” Margaret shook her head. “I never thought she’d come back after Jillian was killed. She blamed Waldo for a long time, botching that deal. You know that, don’t you?” Diana nodded. “You think he won’t reach back here for your friend?”

Diana raised her eyebrow at Margaret’s designation of Jessie. “Not if he knows what’s good for him.”

“I don’t know,” Margaret said as Julie came back inside and the subject was dropped.

Diana went on down to the exercise room and set up the treadmill. A good run, mindless, draining. That was what she needed.

Diana didn’t come up until lunchtime, fresh from a shower, the towel still draped over her neck. Margaret wasn’t saying anything more but then she wouldn’t say anything in front of Jessie or Julie. Julie looked a little scared again, moving carefully around the kitchen as she helped Margaret. Jessie stood at the door, her hands in her hip pockets, watching as if she expected Kentucky State Police to swoop in and rescue them.

“Let’s eat,” Diana said abruptly although that was about the last thing she wanted to do. Salad, a clear soup. Diana recognized Margaret’s coaxing to eat, to relax, to calm down. She took a deep breath. It would soon be over. By now, they should be half way there.

She was just reaching for the salt when the alarm went off, a loud blaring sound that sounded like a fire siren. Diana and Margaret both leaped to their feet, throwing back their chairs while Julie and Jessie both freaked out, came to their feet, searched for the source of the noise.

“Stay in the house, don’t even try the doors,” Diana ordered as she headed for the living room, the library. Margaret disappeared into the pantry. They met downstairs in the communications room, the computer up and running, phones ringing.

“She reported a mayday,” the voice came over the speaker phone when Diana picked it up. “Over international waters.”

Margaret took the other phone, while Diana sat down at the computer. She was still aware enough to initiate house security. She glanced at the monitor showing Jessie and Julie picking up chairs, talking to each other. Then she dismissed them from her thoughts.

“Any idea what happened?” she asked as she went through security to access links.

“Negative.”

“They get off on schedule?”

“Package was picked up with little difficulty. Takeoff on time.”

“Anything unusual?”

“Helen dismissed the crew.”

“She what?”

“Dismissed the crew.”

“What the hell…”

With some trial and effort they managed to make links to find out what was going on, but even the links didn’t tell them anything.

“Should they be close enough to anywhere to make a landing?” Diana muttered. She pulled up maps of where the flight plan took them.

“Lots of open water,” Margaret reported. She put on headphones and started searching. “Cruise ships should be in vicinity. They might see something.” She listened. “Something’s going on, lots of chatter.”

Flight plans. Checkpoints. Diana went through the list, her gut instinct doing a fire dance. Weather was clear, no storms. No conflicting flight plans. No one scrambled. What would have prompted a mayday? Mechanical? Helen was a good pilot, she would manage. The ground crew was dependable.

“Lost them,” reported the voice over the phone. “Diana, what happened?”

“Don’t know, how the hell should I know?” Diana muttered. “I’m not there. I’m stuck here. Damn it, Helen, what did you go and do?”

Margaret looked at her. “Do you think she did something?”

“She wasn’t any fan of his, but—”

“Getting something.”

Hours passed before they were through sifting through reports, listening in on radio communications. Diana was still in some area of numbness that something could change so quickly, and she was conscious of Margaret covertly watching her.

“Diana, stop,” Margaret said finally. “Going over it and over it isn’t going to change the outcome.”

“There’s got to be a reason.”

“I don’t think you’re going to find it in those reports.”

Diana stopped, rested her head on her bent arm. “Damn, what the hell happened?”

“We need to go back upstairs,” Margaret suggested.

***

Diana hardly noticed that Julie had cooked dinner. She was still so lost in the problem that she hardly ate. She ignored everyone, everything, her tunnel vision kicking in as she searched for an answer. Margaret accepted this, Jessie watched. Julie, only conscious of discomfort, tried once or twice to make conversation, first with Margaret then with Jessie.

“I’m sorry,” Diana said as she got up to leave the table. “I know it’s rude. It’s not your fault, and it’s nothing you’ve done. It’ll be better tomorrow. Please just overlook my rudeness tonight.” She moved her chair back under the table. “Excuse me, there’re still things I need to take care of.”

Things to take care of
, she thought as she went back downstairs.
Like talk to papa.

***

By the time she came back upstairs, the house was quiet. Margaret was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for her. When Diana entered, Margaret immediately got up and poured hot tea for her. She didn’t ask anything, just put the mug down for Diana and pulled out the chair. Diana sank into the chair, buried her face in her hands, as Margaret moved in behind her to massage her shoulders, her neck.