Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 04 - Jupiter Returns (12 page)

“Either she thought we were fooled into believing
Christina was Julia, or she sent Christina here knowing we would find her out but try to make a deal with her.”

I could feel myself tearing up and blinked rapidly.
“She waited to make sure I had grown to love Christina before she took her out. She saw us in the window from up there in that tree and saw me comforting Christina then she shot her.”

My tears dried up as anger took over, “I’m so damned mad, if she was here right now I would kill her with my bare hands.
I hate her. How much more evil will satiate her?”

No one said anything for a few seconds then Mark spoke up, “We need to find Julia really fast.
I hope and pray she is still alive. Are we at a dead end now that Christina is dead?”

“It looks that way,” Tracy said as she got up and started pacing. “Tomorrow is the funeral.
Agents will be everywhere looking out for Jupiter. I think she will want to be there to see the grief she has caused you, Judith.”

CHAPTER 24

There were very few people at the funeral.
Besides me and my family there was Rudy, the kid who stood up for Christina when we had met him in Tulsa.

“Her parents ca
lled and told me but said they weren’t going to the funeral,” Rudy said as tears streamed down his face. “I rode on a bus all night to get here.”

The other person other than the family and the agents was Wade Russell, the local cop who had questioned me when I had found the body of Emily Goddard, Bettina’s mama.
He sat behind us and next to Rudy and nodded at me when I turned around.

This was the second funeral of a loved one in under a month and I didn’t know how much more I could take before I lost it.
There would be another when the coroner was done with the body of Bettina’s mama.

I kept looking around trying to see if I could spot
Jupiter but didn’t see her. She would have been easy to spot with so few people in the church.

There was a McCain family plot within the cemetery that I didn’t know about and I intended to check it out after the service.
Christina was buried here because she should have been in the family all along.

As
we gathered around the grave, I noticed a group of men and women walking up the hill. They were all dressed in black suits and I figured they were here for another funeral. They gathered on the other side of the grave, across from us and I thought they must be a group of agents.
What a good way to hide, in plain sight.

The minister was a New Age minister and her words were comforting.
But I was having a hard time concentrating on what she was saying and, as I was looking around, I noticed the rest of my family was doing the same thing.

The cemetery was in the River Oaks area of Houston, one of the few places that have trees.
I looked up in the trees that had new tender green spring growth. It would have been hard to see her if she was hiding behind the foliage.

As soon as the minister said, “amen,” the group across from us walked down the hill and got into limousines.

“That was really smart of you to hide the agents in plain view, Tracy,” I said as I put my arm around her while we headed toward our cars.

“What are you talking about, Judith?”

“I’m talking about the group of agents at the gravesite across from us.”

“Those weren’t some of your colleagues?”

It dawned on both of us at the same time. “Son-of-a-bitch,” she yelled as she punched numbers into her cell phone. She was giving orders so fast I wondered how the other agents knew what she was saying.

Wade Russell had walked up, heard Tracy
, and got out his cell phone. It seemed like only seconds passed before we heard sirens.

Wade, John, and Tracy got into Wades squad car and sped off with the sirens going.
Mimi, Mark, Rosa, and I stood watching them take off and I explained to them what had happened.

“You mean one of them was Jupiter?” Mimi said.
“I thought they were some of your psychology friends.”

“Yeah, everyone else did too and I thought they were agents.
I was telling Tracy how smart I thought it was for her to hide them in plain view, when we both realized who they were.”

We all got in the limo and headed home.
I felt like someone had beaten the hell out of me. I looked at the rest of them and they all looked like I felt. There were no piles of food waiting for us at home. Mimi had given up on her high society friends after finding Julia and me.

I was glad we didn’t have to contend with
other people. We all headed for the nursery and were greeted by Brad and Jennifer.

“Did Aunt Julia go away?” Brad asked and I knew that he knew more than we at first thought.
A couple of years ago, Tracy had to fake her own death to bring down Jupiter.

We all thought she was dead but when Jupiter was caught and she was able to come home, Brad had said he knew she would come home.

“She will be back,” I now answered Brad and avoided looking at the others. I hoped I was right.

“Can Bettina come over and play with us?” He now asked.

“I think that would be a wonderful idea,” I said. “I’ll call and see if it’s all right with Mrs. Frazier.”

Before I left, I motioned for Mimi to walk out with me.
When we got outside I turned to her, “Mimi, I’m worried about everyone close to me. They have someone watching Trudy and her family but now I’m worried about the Fraziers. I’m scared to even go pick up Bettina today.”

“Do you want to bring them over here?
We still have plenty of room. In fact, if all we were all under one roof, the FBI could use the extra manpower to look for Jupiter.

“Let’s see, we can turn the daisy room into the nursery.
Do you think Jesse would mind if we moved a cot in there for her?”

I hugged her, “I knew I could count on you.
And Jesse won’t mind at all. I think the kids would like to sleep on the daisy beds. We could let Jessica and Bettina sleep on the daisy beds and Brad could sleep with me.”

Mrs. Frazier said Bettina could stay with us as long as it was all right with the court.
I had become friends with Judge Tanner during the pedophile case and she agreed to allow Bettina to live with us.

Trudy and her family moved right in without any argument.
Now we were all under one roof and I hoped it would frustrate Jupiter enough to cause her to make a mistake.

Tracy called to say that she, John,
Wade and Jake had arrested the occupants of one of the limousines, three men and a woman. They were taking them in for questioning.

With everything else going on we had forgotten about Dr. Walter Prescott, Julia’s profe
ssor until he called later that day.

Brad had been downstairs and answered the phone and I happened to be walking by.
I heard him say, “Aunt Julia left but she will be back.” He looked up at me, “Here’s Aunt Judith.”

I took the phone, “Hello?”

“This is Walter Prescott, Julia’s fiancé.”

Guilt washed over me.
No one had called to tell him what was going on. “Dr. Prescott, I’m so sorry I haven’t called you…”

“Has something happened to Julia?”

“Julia has been kidnapped. Jupiter took her. Dr. Prescott, I’m so sorry we haven’t called you…”

“Call me Walter, please.
Who is Jupiter? What do you mean she’s been kidnapped? I was just leaving to come to Houston to see her. She invited me. Can I still come? Then you can explain everything when I get there.”

“Tell me when your flight is and I’ll have Arnold pick you up
. You are welcome, of course to stay here. In fact, it would be for the best. We’re getting everyone under one roof to try and frustrate Jupiter, but I’ll tell you all about that when you get here.”

CHAPTER 25

Jesse asked me if she could go with Arnold to pick up Dr. Prescott from the airport.
I told her I would keep an eye on the kids.

We had so many adults in the house now Jess could pretty much take all the time off she wanted as long as she was with the kids from their bedtime on.

As Arnold drove off in the limo, the squad car pulled in and Tracy and John got out. I was standing in the circular driveway where I had been talking to Jesse.

Wade Russell rolled down his window and motioned me over, “Is it too soon to ask you out to lunch sometime?”

When I hesitated he said, “Just lunch, not even dinner. I know you are still grieving but you still have to eat, right?”

“Well, okay, lunch one day.”

“How about tomorrow?”

I laughed, “You move right along don’t you?”

He smiled and I thought he was, without a doubt, the best looking man I had ever seen. Then I started feeling guilty which logically I knew made no sense.

Ben would want me to move on eventually.
But I needed to complete the grieving process. On the other hand, it was just lunch, so I agreed to being picked up at eleven thirty the next day.

I was almost afraid to tell Mark and Tracy
; and John and Rosa about my date. I remembered their reactions when I had started dating Bill during the pedophile case.

Ben had just broken up with me and I had always
been attracted to Bill since he had arrested me for prostitution when I was sixteen. I had a love affair, or I should say a lust affair with him and he turned out to be working for Jupiter.

It turned out that he had been the son of one of the judges who had been placing kids in the homes of the pedophiles for a fee.

I felt that I was a better judge of character now, but was still surprised when all of them encouraged me to go to lunch with Wade, even Mimi.

We waited for the new arrival to have supper.
He was a surprise. I was expecting to see a tall sophisticated man with a full head of hair and maybe a mustache who maybe smoked a pipe.

Dr. Prescott was my height
, five-seven and a little overweight. He didn’t have a hair on his head or anywhere else that I could see, no eyelashes or eyebrows.

I loved him immediately like a brother.
He was one of these people who make you think that who you are and what you say are very important to him. I would have been so happy for Julia if I had known she was safe.

As we were telling him what had happened he looked worried but kept assuring us that everything would be all right and I was so glad Julia had found him.
I was beginning to believe him. Mimi came into the room to tell me that Tracy was on the phone and wanted to speak to me.

“Judith
, I’m sending Jake to pick you up,” Tracy said. “Tell Mimi not to worry. There’s a patrol car outside watching the house. We need you down here to help question these Jupiter disciples.

“They are all more afraid of Jupiter than of going to jail, just like the last time.
Maybe you can get through to them since you’ve become so good at seeing through people.”

I explained to everyone what was going on and told Dr. Prescott to make himself at home.

CHAPTER 26

I found them all in the conference room. Several other agents had joined them and Tracy made the introductions.

“I want you to question the
woman, Judith. Maybe you’ll have better luck with her. Each of us has tried. But she’s not budging.”

When I walked into the interrogation room, I thought Tracy had made a mistake.
The woman had her back to me and her hair was cut like a military man’s.

I had thought she was a man at the gravesite.
Her hair was dyed pitch black and it was a poor dye job. She was sweating and black was running down the back of her neck and staining her shirt color.

When she turned around I noticed she wore no makeup but had also dyed her eyebrows black.
Her eyelashes were blond. Her eyes were very light gray-blue.

She was built like a man, with no breast or
hips. She wore a black tie and a black suit. She had a tiny little mouth that she kept pursing like she was kissing someone.

Tracy had told me her name was Gertrude Winslow.

“Please sit down, Ms. Winslow.” I said to her. “Can I get you anything, coffee, tea, a coke?”

She sat down but didn’t answer me.
When I started to introduce myself she interrupted me, “I know who you are, bitch. You look just like the other one. What are you going to do? Try offering me another deal?”

I had gotten thick skinned as far as criminals were concerned and if she thought she was going to hurt me, she was mistaken.

“I don’t do deals,” I said. Suddenly I noticed something I wondered if the others had noticed.