The devil and Jessie Webster

by Lydia Burke

  Ben shivered, and Jessie noticed for the first time that he was in shirtsleeves. She hadn't stopped for her coat, either, but at least her suit jacket was wool. Even so, the icy air outside had cut through her clothing as she'd run to the taxi. Ben must have nearly frozen.

  "How's your headache?" he asked her snidely as they pulled away from the curb.

  Guilt stabbed her, but Jessie turned her head away and took refuge in silence. For all she knew, Ben could still stop the cab and get word to Leutzinger that Alhe was nowhere near the zoo. She couldn't take that chance.

  "Where in the hell are we going, anyway?" was Ben's next question. Wheat she didn't answer, he thunked the back of the driver's seat. "Hey, cabbie, where are we going?"

  "Don't tell him," Jessie ordered.

  The driver looked into his mirror at Ben and shrugged. "You heard the lady."

  "listen, fella, I'm a cop," Ben told him threateningly, "so if s in your best interest to tell me where we're headed."

  "Yeah? Show me your badge," the driver challenged.

  "I don't have it—I'm working undercover. Tell him, Jessie."

  She raised get-serious eyebrows and looked away obstinately. Ben swore again and slumped back into his seat. Jessie felt his eyes boring into her.

  "This is pretty damned stupid, you know," he said tightly. "I'd like to know what the hell is going on. Why did you sneak out?"

  She kept her face turned to the window and refused to speak.

  "C'mon, Jess, where are we going? I don't even have my weapon with me. How am I supposed to protect you? Does this have something to do with Allie?"

  Stubbornly she maintained her silence, though her conviction that she was doing the right thing wobbled. Until now, she'd pushed the possible danger in her actions out of her mind.

  "Tell me, dammit! What did the two of you cook up on the phone?" Ben caught the involuntary stiffening of her body. "That's it, isn't it? You weren't straight about what Allie said to you. She's not at the zoo, is she? Jess, I'm not the enemy, dammit. Talk to me. Where is she?"

  Jessie's eyes filled with tears. She detested this whole business and was probably going about it all wrong. Still, she couldn't throw Allie to the wolves. "I can't tell you."

  "Oh, this is great, just great," Ben snarled.

  She wheeled on him. "They were going to arrest her. I have to warn her, don't you understand, Ben? She'll change her mind about things if I can just talk to her face-to-face. She's.. .she's my sister!"

  The adrenaline that had propelled Jessie for the past half hour was depleted, and her tears overflowed.

  "Aw, hell," Ben muttered. He held out his arms to her and she flung herself against his chest, sobbing.

  With the onset of Jessie's tears, the urge to wring her damnably elegant neck evaporated. Ben wrapped her in his arms and let her weep, his emotions in as much a turmoil as hers seemed to be. He should be angry—he was angry—but in spite of her trickery, he was unable to quell the impulse to comfort her.

  He laid his cheek in her hair and rubbed his jaw against it as he stroked her back, shushing her quietly. She tied him in knots. She'd duped him—hard-nosed, I'm-no-fool Sutton—and here he was, soothing her tears. Worse, he even felt a touch of admiration for her audacity. She'd outwitted two seasoned law enforcement officers and a U.S. attorney, after all.

  By a stroke of luck she hadn't known about the warning signal his alarm system gave off when door and window locks were released from the inside. When Ben had heard that, he'd thought she was only opening the window to get some air to help her headache. He'd hurried to the bedroom to close it again, since he'd fully engaged the system right after Leutzing-er and Douglas had left and in ninety seconds both the alarm outside and one at the security monitoring headquarters a few miles away would sound, bringing the police. He'd found the bedroom door locked, and Jessie hadn't answered his calls.

  Suspicious at last, Ben had kicked in the door, taking in the damning scene at a glance. The window was open, all right, but Jessie was gone.

  At least he'd caught on in time, even though he hadn't had the foresight to grab a weapon before running after tor. By then it had been too late to do any more than take care of the alarm without losing her.

  But it could have been worse. She could have been out here on her own. At that disturbing thought, Ben's arms tightened around her.

  "Here, buddy, give 'er these."

  Ben took the small box of tissues the driver handed over the seat. "Thanks."

  Jessie's sobs had quieted to ragged sighs and sniffs against his shirt. He pulled a couple of tissues out of the box and pressed them to her damp cheek.

  "Want to blow your nose, princess?"

  "Uh-uh," she said in a small, rueful voice, nestling in closer. "I think I'll just stay here until your shirt dries."

  Ben chuckled and peeled her away from his chest. "Come on, time to mop up."

  She allowed him to dry her flushed cheeks, sitting as still as a child having her face washed. Her eyes were wet and luminous, her lips adorably pouty from her bout of weeping.

  "Blow," he told her when he was finished, placing the tissues in her hand. She sat back obediently and blew her nose.

  "Better?"

  Jessie nodded. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I broke down like that."

  "J do. It was a guilt attack and you deserve it," he said gruffly.

  A chagrined smile fluttered on her lips.

  "So are you ready to tell me the truth now? Where's Allie?"

  Her eyes locked with his uncertainly. Ben wondered how in hell he'd been taken in before, when her emotions were displayed on her face like headlines. He'd been unwary as a rookie, thinking with his gonads, not his brain. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

  "If I tell you—" Jessie started.

  **Here you are, folks." The cabbie pulled to a stop by a curb.

  Ben recognized the enormous building at once. Every child who'd ever gone to school in Chicago had toured the fascinating Field Museum of Natural History, probably several times, and Ben was no exception. The wonders inside, from dinosaur bones to Egyptian mummies, were enough to beep even unruly boys wide-eyed and awestruck for hours.

  "She's here?" He turned to Jessie.

  But she had already opened the door. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and exited the cab.

  Ben lost precious time scooting across the seat. "Wait a minute. Jessie, get back here! You can't—dammit!"

  She was one-third of the way up the massive bank of tiered steps, and moving fast.

  "Looks like she stuck you with the tab," the driver smirked.

  Ben gritted his teeth as he realized his gun was not the only thing he'd left behind. His wallet—and his money—were sitting uselessly on his dresser at home. He scrambled out of the cab on Jessie's side, keeping his eyes on her as she climbed the steps. "Wait for us. We'll need a ride back."

  "Wha—? Hey, wait a minute, dammit!" the cabbie sputtered, then called threateningly after Ben, "The meter's run-Din.

  Ben watched the plaid top of Jessie's suit being swallowed up by the entrance doors. A heartfelt curse exploded from his lips. He took the steps three at a time, aware that the woman he was supposed to be protecting could disappear in seconds into the huge labyrinth of corridors inside. He'd already known she was going to meet Allie; why hadn't he pressed her harder about their meeting place? If someone had followed Allie, hoping to get that damned journal...

  Fear for Jessie and fury that he'd let this happen drove Ben to the top of the steps and through the ornate portals of the museum into the vast lobby. He stopped just inside, the reverberating echoes of uncounted voices bouncing off the high ceiling and walls and assaulting his ears with remembrance. In his boyhood he had delighted in shouting "hey!" into the yawning, seemingly limitless space above him in this massive room, to hear his own voice come back to him louder and somehow larger than his original utterance. But his only interest now was to locate Jessie.

  The lobby was undulating
with patrons of all ages and nationalities this Thanksgiving weekend, making Ben's task all the more difficult. His eyes swept wide over the marked hallways leading to exhibits in the museum's bowels, trying to catch a glimpse of his prey before she eluded him completely. Methodically he scanned the crowd—left, right, then back again. Desperation rose in his chest with each unsuccessful pass of his eyes.

  Suddenly his brain registered a flash of plaid and he swung his gaze in a return arc to the center lobby. There was Jessie, dwarfed under the display of battling woolly mammoths, or "hairy elephants/' as he'd called them when he was a boy. Oh, yeah—elephants. Ben shook his head and started toward Jessie.

  He had just noticed the unkempt gray-haired woman dressed in shabby clothing standing next to her, when two things happened at once. Jessie glanced over at him with a start of recognition, and a small, exuberant boy of four or five ran into his path and tripped, his momentum catapulting his small body forward over Ben's leg. Ben heard the dull crack as the boy's head struck the stone floor, and a woman shrieked, "JoeyI"

  The next few minutes were pandemonium. The hollow acoustics of the enormous room amplified little Joey's cries, and the frantic mother rushed over, wild-eyed with fright. Ben started to pick the child up, but the mother attacked him with her purse. "Why don't you watch where you're going? Leave him alone!"

  Ben raised his arms to protect himself, moving as quickly as he could out of the line of fire. As soon as he was outside the woman's reach, she gathered Joey in her arms, bombarding him with worried questions about where it hurt and maternal reassurances that he'd be all right, mommy was here now. All the while she shot dirty looks at Ben. When they were joined by an anxious museum official, Ben's involvement was forgotten, and he looked over to where he'd last seen Jessie.

  She was gone.

  So was the old lady to whom she'd been so earnestly talking. Sudden realization struck him as he replayed his brief glimpse of the two women in the moments before Joey had collided with his leg. His mind ticked off what he'd seen. A

  frumpish old woman's face, garishly pale with makeup against the dark plastic frames of her glasses. A too-long coat hanging shapelessly on a stout body, hiding definitive lines of bone and muscle. Hands clasping Jessie's, telling of more than casual acquaintance.

  Allie.

  If there had been a wall handy to put his fist through, Ben would probably have broken his fingers in that moment. Instead his knuckles pummeled the more forgiving flesh of his own palm.

  What now? None of his options hdd much hope of finding either Jessie or her sister. If he'd had his badge, he might have ordered the museum sealed off until Leutzinger could come with some men to search the place. Without it, he had about as much chance of convincing whoever ran this place that he was a cop as he had that cab driver. Anyway, both women could easily have slipped out unnoticed in all the confusion of the past few minutes.

  Ben left the crowd around the boy and dashed outside. His gaze skimmed the steps, the wide stretch of pavement in front of the museum, and up and down the street as far as he could see. Nothing.

  Damn! Not only had he lost Allie and the journal, he'd let Jessie, their only link to the woman with the evidence, slip away as well. There was going to be hell to pay when he reported in. Ben walked back into the museum, thinking of Leutzinger and his men waiting pointlessly in the biting cold at Brookf ield Zoo.

  Jessie almost crashed into him inside the door. She pulled up short, looking relieved to see him. "I—I thought you were going to leave without me," she said.

  Ben grabbed her shoulders, unsure whether to hug or shake her. "Where did Allie go?"

  Alarm colored her eyes. "You recognized her?"

  "I'm not stupid, Jess," he said harshly. "Is she still in hoe?"

  "Id-don'tknow."

  "The hell you don't!" Ben rasped. He was dangerously close to shaking her teeth loose. "Stop shielding her, dammit! This is a criminal investigation, for God's sake, not a game of one-upmanship. Every minute that Allie is on the loose with that

  journal is one minute more that the wrong people have to find her and take it away."

  "She didn't have it," Jessie said miserably.

  "What?"

  "The journal. She didn't even bring it."

  "She didn't—hell, why not? I thought the whole idea behind this rendezvous was to turn over the journal."

  "So did I."

  "Yeah, right."

  "I did!" she insisted. "In fact, I was trying to get Allie to give me the book to take to Agent Leutzinger, along with her promise not to write her story prematurely." She sighed. "But it was all for nothing. She couldn't do what I asked even if she wanted to, she said, because she didn't bring the journal along. She wanted to make sure first that Leutzinger was willing to work with her on the story. She intended to take him to where she's hidden it after they'd talked things over face-to-face."

  "Where is that?"

  Jessie shook her head. "She wouldn't tell me."

  Ben tipped her chin up with his forefinger and searched her eyes. They were troubled, but clear and direct. She was telling the truth.

  "Where is she now, Jess? No, look at me." He nudged her chin higher when her lashes fell. "Time's running out now, for all of us, especially Allie. Where did she go? Or is she still here, waiting for us to leave?"

  "She left the museum during all the commotion. And before you ask, I don't know where she went. There wasn't time to find out where she's staying, not once we'd seen you. Allie was anxious to get away before you could arrest her."

  "You told her."

  "Yes, I did!" Jessie said. "She deserved to know what would happen if she kept trying to cut a deal." Wilting a little then, she added, "Not that it did any good. My sister has more courage than sense sometimes."

  Privately Ben thought stupidity, not courage, drove Allie Webster, but he kept his opinion to himself. Allie could be headed anywhere in the city by now, and thanks to Jessie's misplaced loyalty, she would be wary of the law. They might as well be back to square one.

  " Wfell, what's done is done. Come on, let's find a phone, I've got to break the news to Leutzinger that you've been jerking him around."

  Jessie's cheeks pinkened guiltily, but she followed him to a bank of pay phones nearby.

  Ben talked to the duty agent at FBI headquarters and was assured that word of what had just happened would be immediately relayed to Leutzinger out in the field. That done, he took Jessie's elbow and escorted her out of the museum.

  "We'll have to go over everything Allie said to you when we get home, probably several times," he told her as they descended the wide concrete stairs. He kept her close, his practiced eyes thoroughly checking the surrounding area but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. "She may have said something that will help us to find her."

  "All right." Jessie sounded subdued.

  Their cab still waited at the curb, and as they got in, the driver grumbled, "Took you long enough. I was beginning to think you were going to stiff me."

  "I told you I'm a cop," Ben said. "I'm sworn to uphold the law, not break it. Take us back home."

  He settled back as the cabbie pulled into traffic, thankful for the blessed heat that flowed through the taxi's interior. He was cold as a corpse.

  Jessie sat quietly in the seat beside him, hands fidgeting with her purse. Finally she spoke up. "I shouldn't have interfered."

  "You got that right," Ben grunted.

  "I thought I was doing the best thing for Allie."

  "Yeah, well, you weren't."

  She looked at him defiantly. "I won't grovel."

  "Who asked you to?"

  "A simple apology is all you'll get."

  Ben waited.

  "I'm sorry." She sounded more obstinate than remorseful.

  "Apology accepted. Now let's forget it."

  She glanced over at him, wariness in her eyes. "Thaf s it? Just like that?"

  "What do you want, a brass band?"

  She s
hook her head. "I'm just—surprised. After what I did and the way it turned out, I expected... well, some kind of retribution—the silent treatment, at the very least."

  "You know, Jess," Ben said with deceptive evenness, "I'm getting damned tired of being thrown into the same basket of rotten apples as your ex-husband."

  She looked startled for a moment, then said meekly, "You're right. I shouldn't do that."

  "I make it a practice to forget the last hand dealt to me and play the one I've got. One thing, though..."

  She looked up at him with questioning eyes.

  "If you ever try to run off by yourself again, I'll handcuff you to the bed for a month."

  She risked a teasing smile. "As threats go, I've heard worse."

  Ben wasn't playing. "Promise me."

  The smile disappeared and Jessie drew an X on her breast with a forefinger. "Cross my heart."

  "Come over here." He lifted his arm to make a place for her. Amenably she scooted across the seat to his side and adjusted her curves to the planes of his torso before settling with a sigh against him, her palm resting over his heart.

  Ben's hand fell naturally to her hip and pulled her closer. Thank God, she was safe.

  She'd made a mess of things.

  The whole situation reminded Jessie of her childhood, when she'd stood on the sidelines while her wonderful, foolhardy twin courted disaster in order to prove some point. She felt just as ineffectual today as she had then. She never had been able to turn Allie off course once her mind was made up. Why hadn't she remembered that?

  After today's fiasco, Jessie decided she'd better forgo adventurous living and stick to writing about it. Easier on the pocketbook, for one thing, she thought with a flash of humor as she shelled out close to seventy-five dollars for cab fare.

  The fact was, if she'd kept her nose out of the whole business, her sister would now be in Leutzinger's custody, which Jessie concluded was no more than Allie deserved. Maybe being arrested would finally open her eyes to what was at stake.

  Ben's gate had stood open the whole time they were gone, and after dismissing their cab, he made her huddle in the cold outside the unlocked front door while he made sure there was no one inside the house. Which was no more than she deserved after the trouble she'd caused.