Blindsided

by Fern Michaels

  The women started to babble again. Sparrow tilted his head as he listened. It was almost like the women could see him sifting, collating, and forming a plan right in front of their eyes.

  “Okay, I got it. This is what we’re going to do first. Tomorrow, at first light, I’m going to be making a call, a mysterious call, to Justice Barnes. We need to determine if her home and cell phones are being monitored. My guess is they are. I will have one of my people meet Justice Barnes at some out-of-the-way café or park or someplace she knows, then the rest of my people and I will be following whoever it is that follows Justice Barnes.

  “My people were dropped off at the hotel we’re going to be staying in. There is no need for you all to meet them at this time. Better they’re strangers to you. I brought along special phones that we’ll be using among ourselves. Ted will bring them to you all tomorrow. With instructions, of course. It’s going to take a few days to establish a pattern, a routine, of the agents assigned to Justice Barnes. Are you all following me here?”

  The women nodded, their eyes sparkling.

  “I want them gone as in gone, never to return. Can you do that, Mr. Sparrow?” Pearl asked, her spirits rising.

  “Without a doubt, and at the same time, I just might be able to settle a few scores of my own. I don’t want you to get the idea I’m doing this for myself, because I’m not. It’s just the icing on the cake, if you follow me, and I think you all understand about vengeance and what it does to the psyche.”

  “We do! We do!” the women bellowed as one. Ted’s and Espinosa’s fists shot high in the air.

  “Then I think I should be getting back to the hotel and my people. All I need right now are phone numbers and Justice Barnes’s address. When I call you in the morning, Justice Barnes, just follow my lead and don’t be afraid to talk to me, and respond accordingly.”

  Jack Sparrow gave a curt nod, then surprised everyone in the room by walking around the table, lifting each woman’s hand, and kissing it.

  The women preened.

  Ted Robinson glowered when he saw Maggie’s smile of pure delight. Show-off. Ass-kisser. Brown-noser. He just knew Maggie thought the guy was suave, debonair, and dashing. Jesus, the guy had to be at least in his late fifties, maybe early sixties.

  Espinosa paid careful attention to what was going on and seemed stunned at the expressions he was seeing on the women’s faces. He really needed to practice Sparrow’s move and try it out on Alexis. The guy was smooooooth. Something he was not.

  The dogs gave the trio a rousing send-off by barking and wagging their tails as they raced to the van waiting in the courtyard. Sparrow held up his hand for silence and whistled. The dogs, startled, went silent and sat back on their haunches, panting.

  “How’d you do that?” Ted asked grudgingly.

  Sparrow grinned. “For some reason, dogs like me. I like them, too. Guess they sense it. Best answer I can give you.”

  Still miffed, Ted climbed behind the wheel and waited till Espinosa and Sparrow were belted in. Then he floored the gas pedal and cleared the gate by a hair.

  Back inside, the women were chattering like magpies as they gathered up their files as they prepared to leave.

  “I like the guy,” Maggie said.

  The others agreed, especially Annie, who said, “We’re in good hands. Trust me on that.”

  Myra fixed her gaze on Marti. “This was the first I heard that you’d pardoned Mr. Sparrow. How’d that happen?”

  “Bert Navarro happened, by way of Kathryn, who got to Lizzie Fox, who got to me. I took a lot of flak and heat for that, but I’m glad I did it. I hope he gets his pound of flesh. There can’t be anything worse in this life than spending time in prison for something you didn’t do, especially if you were in the FBI.”

  “Well, we’re here to help him if he needs our help. He seems pretty efficient to me, and his appearance . . . As Bert said, he’s one of those people you never look at twice because he’s so ordinary, which I think will work in everyone’s favor. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m excited for you, Pearl. I think you’re finally going to get those monkeys off your back,” Annie said.

  “From your lips to God’s ears, my friend,” Pearl said, as she slipped her arms into her jacket. “Good night, girls, and thanks for all the help.”

  The women all smiled and hugged one another as Myra walked them out to their cars.

  Myra stood in the courtyard watching the line of cars until the last red taillight was just a speck of red in the distance.

  “Nice going, Mom. I liked your Mr. Sparrow.”

  “Oh, darling girl, how sweet of you to visit again. Is there anything I should be worried about? Talk to me, sweetheart.”

  “Not one little bit, Mom. Pearl is going to be okay. Expect some fireworks.”

  Myra looked around, half expecting to see her spirit daughter materialize. “Hold my hand, sweetie. I need to feel you next to me.” Myra almost fainted when she felt a rush of warmth in her hand, warmth that went all the way up her arm. She wasn’t sure, but she thought her spirit daughter had just laid her head on her shoulder. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she savored the moment.

  “ ’Night, Mom. Get some sleep. I’m going to see Daddy now and tell him not to work so hard.”

  “Good night, darling girl.”

  There was a bounce in Myra’s step as she herded the dogs into the kitchen. Like she was going to be able to sleep after talking with her spirit daughter. Highly unlikely.

  Definitely unlikely. Actually, it was an impossible thought.

  Chapter 9

  Pearl Barnes stood at her kitchen window, her yard lit by the halogen lamps she’d turned on when she came down to the kitchen. It was only four-thirty, and she’d already consumed an entire pot of coffee.

  Returning home from Pinewood, she’d been so wired up she knew that sleep was impossible, so she hadn’t even tried. Instead, she’d taken a shower and gotten dressed, her thoughts all over the map as she tried to imagine what was going to go down in only a few hours. Her cell phone was in her pocket so that she could catch the call when it came on the first ring.

  Pearl craned her neck to see beyond the yellow pool of light on her sheltered terrace. Was it raining? She opened the back door and stepped out to check. Yes, it was raining. Any other time, she would have heard it, as she’d trained herself over the years to be alert to any and all sounds, ordinary and otherwise. She must be slipping. She made a mental note to be more observant.

  Pearl walked back into the house. She’d deliberately turned on every light in her house to alert her surveillance that something was about to go down. Let them scramble as they tried to catch her doing something that would warrant an arrest and put a huge feather in the cap of the FBI. Retired Supreme Court Justice arrested for running underground railroad. Alphabet City would run wild with that. If that happened, she’d spend the rest of her life in prison with no parole.

  Pearl sat down at the table and let her thoughts turn back to the moment in time when her daughter came to her and confided that her husband was abusive and she was afraid he was going to do something to her small daughter. Years of lawyers, court hearings, and wrangling left her daughter an emotional wreck as her little daughter started to regress until Pearl took matters into her own hands. Through friends, and through ex-convicts they knew, she was finally able to make contact with nameless people who ran an underground railroad for people like her daughter. Without a second thought, she’d resigned her seat on the Supreme Court and joined up, so to speak. Her daughter was in a safe place now, and she managed to see her and her only grandchild at least three times a year. While it wasn’t an ideal situation, she’d accepted it because in the end all she wanted was her daughter and granddaughter to be safe.

  To date, her organization, small as it was, had saved over thirty-nine thousand women and children. She was proud of what she now called her life’s work and would do it all over again. It was true, she thought. A mother w
ould go to the ends of the earth for her children and not think twice. In her case, going to prison just wasn’t important enough compared to the well-being of her daughter and grandchild and other women and children in the same position.

  Pearl looked at the clock. Then she looked outside again. It was still pitch-dark. Dawn wouldn’t arrive for another hour. She decided to make fresh coffee even though she didn’t want any. It was something to do. She was watching and listening to the coffee drip into the pot when her phone rang. She almost jumped out of her own skin as she fumbled for the phone in her pocket. She struggled mightily to take a deep breath before she answered the phone. She clicked it on in the middle of the second ring. “Hello.”

  “Ah . . . I know it’s early in the morning, and I’m sorry,” said a shaky-sounding female voice. “This is . . . this is 39674 . . . and I need your help. Will you help me? I can meet you someplace for . . . for breakfast.”

  Pearl drew another deep breath. “Of course. Do you have a location in mind?”

  “They said you would know where that place is and not to mention it on the phone.”

  Pearl’s mind raced. How would Jack Sparrow know about the place she met her runaway mothers? Was she supposed to give it up on the phone? Unlikely. The voice obviously wanted anyone listening to the conversation to think she knew where the breakfast place was. That had to mean Jack Sparrow would tail her when she left the house, then call the voice on the phone and give her the location. “Of course. I’ll meet you there in half an hour. I’ll leave right now. Are you okay?”

  “At the moment I am. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Pearl dusted her hands. She turned off the coffeepot in middrip. Feeling like she was back in the groove again, she reached for a hoodie hanging on a rack by the back door. She slipped into it, zipped it up, grabbed an umbrella, and headed out to get her car from the garage. There was no doubt in her mind that there was a tracking device on her car, which would make it easy for her to be followed. Right now, that’s what it was all about: making it easy for her surveillance team to follow her.

  The pouring rain slashed at Pearl’s windshield as the wipers struggled to keep up with the onslaught. It was hard to tell if anyone was following her or not. She could see headlights behind her, but they could belong to anyone. Amazing, she thought, how many motorists were on the road before five in the morning.

  Ten minutes later, Pearl saw the huge, high, backlit sign announcing that Betty’s Diner was an eighth of a mile down the road. She put on her signal light for Sparrow’s benefit so he could alert his operative that, she, Pearl, had arrived at her destination. She took her time turning off the windshield wipers, the heater, and the engine. Then she stalled a little more by pretending to rummage in her bag for something. Finally, she zipped her hoodie back up, settled the head portion more securely on her head, and climbed out of the car. By her estimate, she’d given Sparrow’s operative an additional five minutes, seven or eight if she dawdled crossing the parking lot. She took her time.

  Betty’s Diner was like every other diner around the country. The windows were steamed up, the booths were red plastic with rips in them, the tabletops Formica, the swiveling stools at the counter were red. Domed plates of pastries were spaced out on the counters ten inches apart. Huge Bunn coffeemakers filled the back counter and smelled wonderful. The waitress behind the counter looked tired. Pearl knew from long experience that her shift ended at six.

  “How’re you doing, hon? Haven’t seen you in a while,” the waitress, whose name tag said she was Margie, said.

  “I’ve been out of town. Coffee please, and a sticky bun. I’ll take the back booth. I’m waiting for someone, a young lady,” Pearl said. She hoped the person she was meeting was a young lady. At the moment, she was flying blind, but that would change shortly. The only good thing about meeting on the fly like this was that whoever was tailing her wouldn’t have had time to attach any listening devices anywhere near where she was sitting. The doorway was not in her line of sight, but she could hear the bell every time the door opened.

  Pearl smiled up at the waitress when she set a plate with a warm sticky bun in front of her. The heavy mug of coffee smelled just the way she remembered it from countless meetings over the years. “I think the person you’re waiting for just arrived, hon. I’ll send her on back. Enjoy.”

  “Wait a minute, Margie. I know you’re going off duty soon. Here, let me pay now.” Pearl pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of her pocket and handed it to the tired waitress. It was to ensure that the waitress didn’t talk to anyone who might ask questions about her at some point in time. Margie nodded her thanks.

  In the blink of an eye, a young, mousy, wet, bedraggled young woman slid into the booth across from Pearl. Her lips barely moving, she said, “Jack’s at the counter, and one of your tails is in the parking lot. In case you don’t know it, there’s a GPS tracking device on your SUV. Two of our people are checking your house right now for listening devices. Jack said to give you this phone. You only contact him on this phone, not your landline or your cell phone. We have someone in the parking lot watching the agent who’s watching you. There’s another one, but he or she hasn’t surfaced yet.”

  “How do you know there are two agents?”

  The mousy-looking woman looked at Pearl like she’d sprouted a second head. “Because Jack said there were two.”

  Before she could ask if the young woman wanted coffee, Margie was back with a cup and another sticky bun. The operative wolfed it down. “Jack said not to stay more than twelve minutes,” she said, looking at her watch. “I have six more to go. Say something, Your Honor.”

  “What do I do next?”

  “Whatever Jack tells you. Remember, if you want to call him, just hit the number one. You hit TALK if he calls on that phone. Simple. If one of us calls you on your regular phone, just play along with the cues we give you. I probably shouldn’t say anything personal to you, but I admire what you do, lady. I have a sister who got tied up with the wrong guy. That’s how I got into this. Any questions?”

  “I think I’m good. Who do you think they’re going to follow, me or you?”

  “Both of us. I’ll lose him before I head back to the hotel. Not to worry, we got it covered. Nice meeting you. Thanks for the coffee and sticky bun. I haven’t had a sticky bun in years.”

  Pearl blinked, and the contact was gone. She dallied long enough to finish the coffee she didn’t want. She balled up several paper napkins just to kill time before she slipped her soaking-wet hoodie back on and zipped it up. She reached for her purse and slid out of the booth. Jack Sparrow was eating scrambled eggs at the counter. She waved to Margie and left the diner. It was starting to get light out, and cars were pulling into the parking lot to go through the drive-through at the side of the diner. She did her best to appear nonchalant and not look around.

  Pearl was halfway down the highway when her brand-new phone rang. She clicked it on and listened to Jack Sparrow telling her to go home and wait for him. She clicked it off, and a second later, her regular cell phone rang. She picked it up and said hello.

  “Uh . . . ma’am, this is 39674. I want to thank you for meeting with me. I have a message for you. Star 67 said to tell you there will be four at the dinner party. She wants to know what the ETA is.”

  “Four? I wasn’t prepared for four. It’s okay, it’s okay. I can accommodate four. I’ll just have to do some juggling and make a few calls. You need to calm down. But I will have to get back to you on the sit-down time. Is that okay?” Pearl asked, allowing just enough anxiety to alert her tails to creep into her voice.

  A choked voice said it was okay. The connection was broken.

  The clock on the kitchen range read 6:20 when Pearl entered her kitchen. She saw the note on her kitchen table immediately.

  Bug in landline. Bug in light fixture in master bedroom. Bug in vent under microwave oven. Tracking device on your SUV, and a bug in the remote control that opens your garage.r />
  Talk on new phone outside only.

  Pearl took the note, shredded it, then tossed it down the garbage disposal. The machine gurgled to life as the water washed away all evidence of the yellow sticky note.

  Now what was she supposed to do? For sure she couldn’t drink any more coffee. She poured out the pot that she’d been making when the first call came through at four-thirty. With nothing left to do, she washed out the pot and dried it.

  Then she waited. But she was good at waiting. Actually, she excelled at the waiting game because the end result was always worth waiting for.

  Around the corner, Special Agents Barry and Landry sat huddled in Barry’s Dodge, whispering.

  Senior of the two, Landry asked why they were whispering.

  “Force of habit. I can’t believe it, Landry. We’ve been on this shit detail for eight goddamn months, and today, at four-thirty in the morning, the woman finally makes a move. Eight months! And we sign off in fifty minutes. We’ve been busting our humps here, and those two are just going to walk into it and get the collar. Tell me, how fair is that?”

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, but Zander said to wait and brief Mahoney and Palance,” Landry said. “Personally, I don’t think she’s going to be doing anything during the daylight hours but talk on the phone and make plans. I’m thinking if there’s any action, it will be after dark. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

  Barry, junior to Landry, was forty-two, buffed and ripped, and, according to him, a real lady killer with no desire to get married. In his opinion, his talents were wasted on this pissy-assed stakeout. Landry, fifty-six, was a bachelor by choice, married to his job, twelve pounds overweight, and ideal for stakeout work. He had two more years to go before he’d be a thirty-year man and retire on a very generous pension.