Lexington Connection

by M. E. Logan

  She lowered her head to her knees. She had so many secrets and she was going to have to give some of them up, but not necessarily all. Right now she just really wanted to disappear but that wasn’t possible. She had Jessie and Julie to return. She leaned back against the tree. Places to go, and things to do. Wasn’t that what she and Jessie always said? And the other thing, it’s a rough world out there.

  She got up and started back for the house. She would have to face Jessie sooner or later. Nothing new, just old news recycled. Well, maybe Jessie knew it now. That was different.

  Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out of her pocket to read the text message, stopping in a shady spot so she could read the small text. Papa was taken to the hospital. It wouldn’t be long now. She leaned against the tree and wept.

  ***

  By the time the next call came in at three in the morning, Diana was all cried out. She lay there for a moment. “Goodbye Papa. Godspeed.” She felt guilty for her sigh of relief and then she got up.

  Margaret was sound asleep but came up like a catapult when Diana shook her. “It’s time,” she said quietly. “The call just came through. I’m going to shower downstairs.”

  “What about them?” She indicated down the hall with her head.

  “Let’s get things started first. We’ll be able to move around better if they’re still asleep.”

  “Are you all right?” Margaret asked.

  Diana nodded. “Fine,” she said simply. “Let’s get moving. We’re on a time schedule now.”

  At six, she knocked on the master bedroom door. She hesitated just a moment before she swung it wide. “Good morning, ladies,” she greeted. Jessie sat bolt upright, Julie stirred sleepily. “Time to rise and shine. I want to be on the road in an hour and a half.”

  “On the road?”

  “Coffee’s brewing. Shake a leg.”

  Diana seemed to be on the move constantly, skipping breakfast except for coffee which she drank standing up, her gaze constantly roaming the house. The additional difference was that she had a phone in her hand all the time. She looked Jessie and Julie up and down like a mother sending her kids off to church. She wanted a good impression. She pointed to Jessie. “No blue jeans,” she said, sending her back to change. “I’m not going to have anyone say you were treated badly.” Even then, she stepped in front of Jessie at the door, impersonally turning her face one way then to the other. “Well, at least it was long enough for most of the bruises to heal.”

  “What?” Jessie couldn’t resist saying. “Don’t you want us to look like you rescued us from something bad?”

  “I’ve got pictures,” Diana commented. “Now go change.” She went on to examine Julie, nodding in approval.

  “Diana,” Julie said in a passing moment.

  “What?” Diana said curtly.

  “I’m sorry you lost your father.”

  Diana took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said. And then she went right on. “Are you ready?”

  The SUV pulled up, the driver got out and disappeared somewhere around the house.

  “Let’s go, ladies,” Diana ordered. She opened the back door for them to slide into the late-model SUV. “Seat belts,” she ordered. “Now, I’m asking for cooperation on this.” She pulled out two blindfolds. “Just put these on, lay back and take a nap.”

  Before Jessie and Julie could as much as really catch their breath, they were on the road.

  “You didn’t forget the box, did you?” Margaret asked.

  “Right here.”

  “Are you sure you want to do it this way?”

  “Nope,” Diana said briefly. “I just don’t know any other way.” She looked over her shoulder to see both women had their nightshades on. They were both leaning back, for all the world looking like they were sleeping. Diana, for one, did not believe it.

  When they came out of the mountains, before they hit the highway, Margaret pulled over. “You’re sure, last chance?”

  “Last chance. This is the best way. You can take your blindfolds off, ladies.”

  Diana got out of the car, went around to the driver’s side. Margaret got out. Diana and Margaret hugged tightly.

  “Be careful,” they both said at the same time.

  With great reluctance and just as strong purpose, Diana got in on the driver’s side and slowly pulled away. Jessie and Julie looked at each other and then both turned around. Diana drove slowly, just long enough to see the other vehicle pull up and Margaret got in.

  “What the—?” Jessie turned around to Diana who looked at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Don’t ask,” Diana said. “That’s a request, not an order.” She picked up the metal box in the passenger seat and passed it back to Jessie. Rectangular, locked with a combination, Jessie felt the contents slide. “Your weapon, your identification, your badge, all intact. I’ll give you the combination when we get there.”

  “Get where?”

  Diana gave her a warning look.

  When they got into the area Jessie began to recognize, Diana made two phone calls. “Don’t turn me in because I’m on the phone while driving,” she said with a smile as she caught Jessie’s eye in the mirror. The first call went to Nicki.

  “Yeah, who is this?”

  “You want to see your sister?”

  “Yes, where? Who?”

  “Three o’clock, Two Ten High Street. Be there.” She hung up even as Nicki was sputtering.

  The next call went to the police department. “Peterson, please.” She listened. “Patch me through.” There must have been a protest. “Regarding Galbreath.” It took a moment but he came on. “Peterson. You want Galbreath? Three o’clock, Two Ten High Street. Be there.” Then she hung up on him as well.

  “What are you doing?” Jessie asked.

  “Taking you home.”

  “But—but—”

  “Just hush, Jessie. There’s nothing you can do at this point anyway. It’s all arranged.”

  They drove through town in after-lunch traffic, without speaking. Diana pulled around to the back of a three-story house that had been converted to offices. Jessie glanced at the attorney’s name as they pulled in.

  “Showtime, ladies. Please smile pretty for the cameras.” Diana opened the door for Jessie and Julie scooted across the seat to come out the same side.

  “Diana,” Jessie said as she got out. “Are we going to have a minute to talk?”

  “Time for that is past,” Diana said without looking at her.

  She left the keys in the car and pointed to the side door where a woman was motioning them in. “Combination for the box is your birthday. I finally learned when it was.”

  Inside, the office was organized chaos. Nicki hit Jessie with a hug, grabbing Julie also. They were pulled across the large room and then Peterson along with Captain Conrad was there, grabbing her arm. Jessie turned frantically around to see what happened to Diana, where she was, what was happening to her, only to see her being led away by two men and a woman, all dressed in black suits, looking like Federal agents, along with one man in a gray suit who looked like an attorney.

  Diana didn’t look back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Three years later

  Diana unlocked the door to her apartment. She had made it through another week. Friday night movies and pizza beckoned. She mixed her first drink of the evening and took it with her to the shower.

  Something raunchy tonight for the movie, she decided as she washed off the week. Something that would take her mind off all her frustrations, something that would let her escape from her tiny apartment, her unexciting, stressful job, her much smaller world than she had once lived in. All she wanted to do was to escape from reality into her own little space and make the world go away.

  She fixed her second drink after she called for the pizza. Now that dinner was taken care of, she could put her feet up and have her night. Tomorrow would come soon enough. She lay her head back on the couch and stared at t
he ceiling. Saturday was the powwow and she needed to make an appearance. Had to keep up the good relations when you worked with the Indians. Carlton should be the one to go, he was the executive director, but he had pressing family concerns demanding his attention. Diana snorted. In a pig’s eye. He just hated the PR stuff and shoved it off on her every opportunity. And she didn’t have much choice these days. No one really cared to hire her for anything financial when every financial record she worked on got audited, when there were Federal agents coming around. She had to work outside her field at what she could and in this case, she was Program Administrator for the Florida Native American Indian Society.

  She closed her eyes. There was a party on Sunday and she needed to go. She had been isolating herself more and more, and friends were beginning to notice. She didn’t know which was worse: the Feds coming around to have a friendly little chat or her friends coming around to check up on her. She wished they would all go away. Sometimes she wished everything would go away.

  She sat with her head back, trying to clear her mind. She had never dreamed it would be so bad. Maybe she should have taken the offer to go into the witness protection program, get a new identity and just escape, start fresh. Why hadn’t she? It wasn’t like she had anything to hold on to in this life. Everything was gone.

  There was a knock at the door and she got up, expecting pizza. Instead she opened the door to Jessie.

  It is a sin, was her first thought, that someone can change so little since I first laid eyes on her fifteen years ago.

  Jessie stood there, still long and lanky, again wearing blue jeans and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She was a little fuller in the face, had a few gray hairs, the same dark soulful eyes only now marked by character lines. The dark sunglasses were in her hands. Diana’s mouth went dry.

  And she has the same damn effect on me now as she did then!

  “You’re not delivering a pizza,” Diana said when she could find her voice.

  “No, I gave up that second job a long time ago.” Jessie half turned to look over the apartment parking lot. “However, I do believe your dinner has just pulled in.” She stepped back as the gangly kid threw open his car door, left the vehicle running and leaped up the steps two at a time to Diana’s door.

  “Thank you,” he said breathlessly already turning and leaping down the stairs when she told him to keep the change.

  “Well, come on in, don’t just stand there,” Diana said crossly as she took the pizza and set it on the table that separated the kitchen from the living room. “What are you doing here?” Is Kentucky trying a new tactic sending you? But she decided that was just her distrust and suspicious mind.

  Jessie closed the door behind her as she glanced around the small apartment. “Oh, I’m traveling through. Thought I’d stop and look you up.”

  “Traveling through? Where’re you heading?” Diana turned back to face Jessie, drinking in the sight of her. Her delight at seeing Jessie warred with her suspicion and resentment. The last time had been when Diana delivered her and Julie to the lawyer’s office, and under normal conditions, that probably would have been the last of it. However, considering the role Jessie had played in her life, she hadn’t been able to let her memory go. Thoughts of Jessie had preyed on her mind a lot in the past three years. Preyed: what an appropriate word.

  Jessie stood just inside the door, not moving further into the living room. Diana knew she could see the entire apartment, small kitchen with an altar table separating it from the living room, the two small bedrooms at the far end, a doorway leading to the bathroom.

  Quite a change, isn’t it? Diana thought, but pride kept her from saying, Not like the luxury of the cabin or hotel rooms we shared, is it?

  “Ocala,” Jessie finally answered. She turned a questioning gaze back to Diana.

  “Seems like you’re close enough you could have made it. It’s only a couple of hours further down the road.” Diana moved over to her desk and started to search for her cigarettes. Months had passed since she’d had one, but she knew there was a pack in there somewhere. Ahhh, there they were.

  “Am I stressing you?” Jessie asked as she eyed the cluttered roll-top desk, the bulletin board on the wall beside it. “I don’t mean to.”

  “Of course not.” Diana picked up the lighter and bent her head to light the cigarette and then tossed the lighter down. She turned back to Jessie, curious but not enough to ask, Why the hell are you showing up now?

  “I promised Nicki if I got close to Tallahassee, I’d look you up,” Jessie explained as if she had heard Diana’s question.

  Nice you promised Nicki. “Why?” In spite of trying to keep her voice neutral, the question came out sharp and demanding. Why even bother after all this time?

  Jessie leaned back against the door. She looked a little surprised, but Diana could almost see her thinking that soon they’d be talking like they always had, like old times.

  “Old times,” Jessie said. She glanced around the apartment, taking in the two bedrooms. “You living alone now?” Diana gave her an appraising look. “I remember Nicki told me she thought you might be with someone but she wasn’t sure.”

  “Kelly and I split up about eight months ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. I gave her a raw deal. She deserves better.”

  “Hmm.” Jessie moved over to sit on the arm of the chair beside the door. “Where’s Margaret?”

  “In Europe.”

  Diana pulled the desk chair out with a jerk and sat down. “All right, Jessie. What do you want?”

  Jessie pulled back, surprise on her face. “Just a conversation.” She frowned, tilted her head as if in puzzlement, as if Diana had ripped up her script. The openness faded from her eyes and the guarded expression appeared as if it were finally dawning on her that perhaps Diana wasn’t so happy to see her. This time Diana kept quiet and let Jessie fill the silence. “We haven’t talked in a long time.”

  Diana still didn’t say anything, didn’t look away, but refused to speak.

  “We used to have a lot to say to each other,” Jessie said after several moments had passed.

  “Did we? As I recall, we usually went right to bed,” Diana said coldly.

  “Not always,” Jessie protested quietly. She waited a moment and then started again, this time on a different tact. “Nicki tell you she was pregnant?”

  “No. The last thing I got from her was a Christmas card.”

  “Baby’s due in early December.”

  Diana made no response.

  “Did you know Julie and the clinic got some big award?”

  “No.”

  Jessie sat there and searched Diana’s face, frowning at Diana’s coldness.

  “Now that you have totally exhausted all conversation about people we mutually know, was there something else you wanted to say?”

  Jessie looked down at the beige rug and then looked up. “I know I never called.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I probably should have,” Jessie went on.

  “So? You didn’t.” Diana ground out her cigarette. I only saved your life. Not once. Twice. Can’t imagine why you might call. She ignored the thought buried even deeper. Never mind that I loved you.

  “You know, we never got a chance to talk about everything that happened.”

  “I know.” Diana pulled out another cigarette but only played with it. Like, whose fault is that? “I’ve been so busy for the past few years that I just couldn’t find the time to fit such a minor conversation like that into my schedule.”

  Jessie drew back as if she had been slapped. “You know,” she started again, still in a mild voice, “my therapist explained to me that sarcasm usually hides a hint of anger.”

  Diana thought about the statement for a minute. A therapist. That’s interesting. She finally nodded. “Your therapist might be right. Of course, I didn’t need to go to a therapist to figure that out. I simply pinned images up and used them for
target practice.” She turned to watch Jessie to see how she was responding.

  Jessie paled and her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. “You’re angry with me,” she said after a moment.

  “Your hearing’s improved.”

  “I was afraid to contact you because I didn’t know how it would look, what it would cost me on the job. I was afraid it would cast doubts on my professional integrity.” Jessie said it in an even tone, without looking up at Diana.

  “And to think once I admired you for your openness.” Diana shook her head as she ground out the newly lit cigarette. “That might be a true statement, Jessie. It’s probably even part of the reason.” She stiffly turned back to give Jessie a challenging look. “But I think it’s more likely you didn’t want to feel any gratitude toward the daughter of Czar Randalson for saving your life. Except for me, you’d be nothing but a name on the monument in the city park dedicated to those officers who died in the line of duty.”

  Jessie gave a sick little smile as she spread her hands, examined her fingers. “Something my sister reminds me of every year.”

  Glad somebody does. “She sends me a thank you note every year.”

  Jessie nodded. “On my birthday.”

  “I wondered if that was deliberate timing or just coincidence.”

  Jessie seemed to gather herself to start again. “I know I should have called.”

  “Why?”

  “You saved my life.”