17. Game Over

by Fern Michaels

  “Move and you’re dead!” Jack shouted, loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Stop being so damn dramatic and turn that stupid alarm off. The neighbors are all awake now. If the cops show up here, you’re the one who is dead,” Harry shouted, to be heard over the screeching alarm.

  “What the hell! You kicked my door in! Do you know what time it is, Harry?”

  “Of course I know what time it is! If you had answered your door, I wouldn’t have had to kick it in.”

  When Jack made no move to turn off the alarm, Harry walked over to it, clenched his fist, and smashed the security panel. The sudden silence was deafening.

  “Did someone die? What? You better start talking, you son of a bitch, or I really am going to shoot you. Don’t go thinking you can catch the bullet in midair, either.”

  “You want to bring it to a test? Ha! I didn’t think so. Get dressed. We’re going over to Maggie’s house.”

  Jack still looked dazed as he ran his hand through his spiked-up hair. “I can’t go anywhere until the alarm company calls. Otherwise, they send the cops to investigate. I could have you locked up for what you did, you…you ninja terrorist!”

  The phone rang.

  Harry listened as Jack said, “No, I set it off. I got in late and forgot I had the alarm on. Yes, of course. My mother’s maiden name was Terrance. Thank you. Yes, I will be more careful in the future. Thank you again.”

  “Your pajamas have yellow ducks on them,” Harry said, guffawing.

  “You have a problem with yellow ducks, Harry? My aunt gave me these pajamas. They’re high-grade flannel and very comfortable, not to mention warm. What kind of nephew would I be if I didn’t wear them? What the hell are you doing here, Harry?”

  “Put your jacket and boots on. We’re going to Maggie’s house. I figured it all out. I’m not going through this twice, so get a move on.”

  “You want me to go to Maggie’s dressed like this?”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to carry you. Move it, Jack!”

  Jack picked up the cushion on the sofa and wedged his gun down into the back. He yanked at his ski jacket, hanging on the clothes tree by the front door, as he slid his bare feet into a pair of rubber boots sitting in the boot tray. “This damn well better be good, Harry. I’m holding you responsible if anyone breaks into my house while we’re at Maggie’s.”

  “Don’t you ever shut up?” Harry grumbled as he stomped his way from the house.

  “Look! You woke up the whole damn neighborhood,” Jack said as he waved his arms wildly about. “These good people are all worried about a home invasion, and it’s all your fault. Even Maggie has lights on.”

  The front door opened before either Jack or Harry could ring the doorbell. “You kick in my door, and your ass is grass, gentlemen,” Maggie remarked.

  Stunned, Harry looked at the fiery little redhead, who was glaring at him. “How’d you know I kicked in Jack’s door?”

  “I’m a reporter, that’s how. I had woken up to go to the bathroom, and I always look out the window when I’m peeing. Tough if that’s more than you need to know. I was going to call the police, until I recognized you. What are you doing here? Did someone die? Oh, I like your jammies, Jack.”

  “A gift from my aunt. That’s what I asked, and he didn’t answer me,” Jack said smugly. “He said he wasn’t going to repeat his story twice. Are you making breakfast?”

  “Why didn’t you just kill him?” Maggie said to Jack as she shuffled to the kitchen. “You want breakfast, go to Denny’s. Coffee is all I’m offering. If whatever you came here for isn’t good, I’m going to plaster your faces all over the front pages of the Post and label you both terrorists. So, talk. I can listen while I’m making coffee.”

  Harry Wong was a stubborn man. He sat down and waited until Maggie settled herself next to Jack.

  “Yoko called me a little while ago. I was meditating. What that means to you both is I was on a higher plane and receptive to all manner of universal messages, aside from what Yoko was calling me about. She told me about Charles’s visit to one Henry, also known as Hank, Jellicoe, who lives at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. He owns and heads up Global Securities. The man has had the ear of several presidents, including the current one. It appears he has the run of the White House, and he confirmed to Charles that he and the president have a thing going on. Meaning an intimate thing.”

  “You woke me up and kicked in my door to tell me that?” Jack snarled.

  Maggie looked appalled. “You should have killed him. That front page is almost a definite now, Harry.”

  Harry leaned back in his chair and glared at his two friends. “Am I the only one with a brain here? Why aren’t you getting it?”

  “Getting what?” Jack bellowed.

  “It’s all a game! There is no Supreme Court appointment in the offing! It’s all a setup!”

  Maggie and Jack could only stare at Harry. Maggie found her tongue first. “And you’re basing this on the fact that Charles went to see the head of Global Securities and he’s maybe, sort of, kind of, sleeping with the president. Is that what you’re saying?” A vision of the booty she’d promised Abner Tookus danced behind her eyelids.

  Harry shook his head. “No. It was what happened when Charles returned to the mountain. Actually, Yoko said he was at the base of the mountain when he got a call from Jellicoe, who has a source, a stool pigeon if you will, inside the White House. The source is an aide to the president. The source said that since Christmas the presidential pardons for the girls have been on the president’s desk. As of yesterday, they’ve been relegated to a desk drawer. That’s one step away from being put into a file cabinet, which will then be moved to the bowels of the White House, never to see the light of day again. In other words, the president is reneging on her promise to grant the pardons.

  “It seems on January second, the president had a meeting with her closest advisors, and it got extremely heated, with threatened resignations if she went through with the pardons. The advisors called granting the pardons political suicide. Did I mention that the pardons are signed? They are. Desperate to cover up, the president came up with the Supreme Court bit to tide her over until she can find a way out of her own mess. There is no appointment, Jack! Do you hear me, Maggie? It’s all a setup!”

  “My God! You not only said whole sentences, but you said paragraphs…you…you silver-tongued orator, you!” Jack quipped.

  Maggie looked like she was in a daze as she poured coffee, got cream out of the refrigerator, and fumbled around in the cabinet for the sugar bowl. “It makes sense if you stop to think about it. But, how cruel to do that to Lizzie. They’re supposed to be friends. We damn well put her in the White House. This is definitely pissing me off, guys.”

  “See, you still aren’t getting it,” said Harry. “Lizzie is not supposed to know anything about this. At least for the moment. At the appropriate time it will be leaked. The president has to appease Lizzie because she knows Lizzie is tied to the vigilantes. Connor either doesn’t understand or refuses to understand Lizzie’s loyalties to the girls.”

  “So what do we do now?” Jack asked as he gulped at his coffee.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know, Jack? I just delivered the news. You’re the one who always comes up with ideas and plans that don’t work,” Harry said as he, too, sipped at the strong coffee. He was going to ask for tea, but one look at Maggie’s face had told him not to bother.

  “Who’s going to tell Lizzie it was all a…a game?” Maggie asked.

  “Don’t look at me,” Harry said.

  “Don’t look at me, either. You’re the one who couldn’t wait to run to her house to tell her in the first place. Guess you’re it, Maggie,” Jack said.

  “I’m not telling Lizzie anything. At least not right now. First, I’m going to have Ted and Espinosa do a little fishing. Does either of you happen to know where Justice Leonard hangs his hat when he isn’t in Washington? And we
’re going to want to know about his wife Florence’s medical condition. Once we have that information, we can go after him to find out what he was promised to take part in this little charade.”

  “Harry, did you tell Yoko you…uh…figured it out? Maggie, I have no clue about Justice Leonard. He could live in a tent, for all I know,” Jack said.

  “No. Because I didn’t figure it out until after we hung up, and I was back to meditating,” Harry replied.

  “Damn good thing,” said Jack. “What that means is you can stay in the boys’ club. Shit! Do we call Cosmo or just hug this stuff to our breasts? What are we supposed to do with this information?”

  The trio looked at one another, their faces glum.

  Finally, Maggie said, “I don’t know.”

  Harry shrugged.

  “Harry, your best guess here. How long before Yoko puts it together and tells the girls?”

  Harry shrugged again.

  “The girls are not going to like this one little bit. Whose side is Jellicoe on. Do we know?”

  “Yoko said Lizzie’s side, which means our side. But he was conned, too, is what I’m thinking,” Harry said. “We have to keep Cosmo Cricket in the loop. I think Maggie should be the one to call him. Makes it more professional.”

  “You dumb shit! Maggie is not supposed to know, just the way Lizzie is not supposed to know. Cosmo doesn’t know we all ratted him out. Maybe we could sic Ted and Espinosa on him,” Jack said.

  “Hold on here! I’m not calling Cosmo Cricket, and I have plans for Ted and Espinosa as soon as it gets light out,” Maggie said.

  “Where does that leave us, then?” Jack growled.

  “Sitting in Maggie’s kitchen, sucking our thumbs, that’s where,” Harry said. “This is not good, Jack.”

  “No, Harry, it definitely is not good. The girls are going to go nuclear when they put it together. I just don’t know if they’ll be more pissed that Lizzie isn’t going to the Supreme Court or that they aren’t getting their pardons.”

  “Both,” Maggie snarled. She wanted to cry when she thought about Abner Tookus and all she’d had him do. Now she was going to have to explain the large expenditure to Annie. Her insides jumping all over the place, she reached behind her for her cell phone, which was charging. She punched in Abner’s number and waited.

  “I want a freebie, and I want it right now,” she demanded. “If you don’t give it to me, I have this guy sitting here in my kitchen who will kick your ass all the way to the moon, and he won’t be there to catch you when you land. Do not say one word. Just listen and get back to me in thirty minutes. Yes, I said thirty minutes. I want to know where Supreme Court Justice Leonard lives when he is not in Washington. I want his and his wife’s medical records, and I also want their financial statements, plus their address here in Washington, or wherever they live during the nine months of the Supreme Court term. Thirty minutes, or you’re on the way to the moon.

  “Gentlemen, I am hungry. In fact, I am starving. And since there is no way I am going out to breakfast, I am going to cook. How do eggs, bacon, and pancakes sound? I’ll even brew you a pot of tea, Harry. Jack, you make another pot of coffee and nuke the bacon. Make the whole pound. Harry, you’re in charge of the toast, and, yes, I like toast even when I have pancakes. I also have a melon in the fridge, which you can cut up.”

  “Go for it!” Jack said happily. “That person you just called, he can get all that in thirty minutes?” His voice was so skeptical, Maggie actually laughed when she really felt like crying.

  “He probably already has it and will wait a full twenty-nine minutes before he calls, but, yeah, he’s that good. His fees are astronomical, but he always comes through. Plus, he is in love with me but won’t admit it.”

  Neither Jack nor Harry knew what to say about that, so they just looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

  “What? You don’t believe me? You don’t think anyone but Ted Robinson could love me? Well, he does. Love me, I mean.” And then she burst into tears.

  Jack and Harry started to twitch, unsure what their next move should be. Maggie solved the problem by swatting each of them with a spatula.

  Things settled down in the kitchen as the trio worked together to put breakfast on the table. The conversation mainly concerned Lizzie and how disappointed she was going to be that her possible appointment to the United States Supreme Court was all a hoax.

  “I bet if we tried, we could get Justice Leonard to resign and make it happen for Lizzie,” Harry said thoughtfully as he snatched a piece of bacon to nibble on.

  Jack stopped what he was doing; so did Maggie. It was Jack, though, who gave voice to the question. “What do you have in mind, Harry?”

  “Well…”

  Chapter 11

  Yoko stared at the cell phone in her hand for long minutes before she slipped it into the pocket of her robe. She’d been wide awake all night, long after the others were sound asleep. That was why she had called Harry. He’d answered on the first ring, even though it was three o’clock in the morning. At the time she had smiled, knowing they were on the same plane, and he knew that she would be calling, just the way she knew he was waiting to hear her voice. She and Harry were soul mates, destined to find each other and to love one another into eternity. There was no doubt in her mind that it was all true, and she knew there was no doubt in Harry’s mind, either.

  She stared into the dancing flames as her being literally transported itself to somewhere else that she couldn’t identify. She sat down in front of the fire, relaxed, and assumed the lotus position. She didn’t have to be told that Harry, who was three hundred miles away, was doing the same thing. No, he was moving. He was going somewhere.

  Something was wrong. Something she had missed when she spoke to Harry a short while ago. Jack’s house. Harry kicking in the door. She smiled. What was it she had missed? She leaned forward and saw images in the flames, images that she didn’t recognize but that were somehow vaguely familiar. Maggie’s house now. Jack in his pajamas with little yellow ducks on them. She smiled again. The flames flared, then died down.

  Yoko blinked, then blinked again. In one graceful movement, she was on her feet and headed to her bedroom, where she dressed quietly and let herself out of the building. She crossed the compound to the dining hall. The first thing she did was build up the fire, even though it didn’t seem as cold as it had been when they all retired for the evening.

  In the kitchen she made a pot of tea and waited for it to brew. She reviewed the events of the evening, her call to Harry, the urgency of that call. She pulled out the cell phone she’d transferred to her jacket, the same cell she’d used earlier to call Harry, and stared at it thoughtfully. Should she call him and…say what? Ask him what it was she’d said to him that warranted a trip to Jack’s and Maggie’s houses in the middle of the night?

  Her tiny fingers drummed on the kitchen counter, tiny fingers that could kill, maim, or incapacitate. Something was wrong. That much she knew. But what? Her thoughts were lightning fast as she blinked and did everything in her power to bring whatever it was to the forefront of her mind.

  It was all wrong. They had too much information. “They” meaning Charles, the Sisters, Maggie, and the boys, as she called them. Way too much information. There were too many people involved in something that was supposed to be a secret. All wrong. All wrong. All wrong. It was…almost like there was a puppeteer in the wings, tugging and twisting everyone’s strings. A master puppeteer? If so, not only was it all wrong, but it was also a game. Games had winners and losers.

  Yoko stopped drumming her fingers on the countertop. She stared into the dining room from the huge cut-out kitchen window. Winners and losers. The winners were obviously…who? The president of the United States and Justice Douglas Leonard? The losers…who? Well, one didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. The answer was so obvious, Yoko wanted to scream. The losers were Lizzie and the vigilantes and anyone involved with either the v
igilantes or Lizzie herself.

  Yoko’s mind was feverish now as she shifted and collated what she knew. How devilishly clever of the president. The Sisters were not going to like this news, not even one little bit. Annie would go nuclear. Kathryn would go ballistic, and the others would bite down and figure a way to close in for the kill. As would she.

  The clock overhead read 5:50. Charles would be arriving soon to prepare breakfast. Maybe she could help out while her thoughts whirled and swirled. She’d always been good at multi-tasking. Today, even at this hour, should make no difference. But first, she was going to call Harry.

  Harry’s usual greeting of “What can I do for you, my little cherry blossom?” did not make her smile and hunger to be in his arms. “Harry, listen to me. It’s all wrong. It’s a game. They’re trying to ruin Lizzie and get rid of the vigilantes at the same time.”

  “I know. I knew you’d figure it out. Maggie is going to give me a lift back into town. We’re almost certain we’ll all be coming to the mountain either later tonight or tomorrow. Everyone has to clear their schedules. The best part is, they don’t know we’re onto them. Did you tell Charles or the girls yet?”

  “I was going to do it after breakfast. I’m in the kitchen now. Charles should be arriving any minute now. The girls are not going to like this. I think we should agree not to say anything to Lizzie, at least not yet.”

  “I’ll tell the others. Maggie’s ready. I’ll see you soon.”