Lexington Connection (31 page)

“I’m not,” Diana said slowly. “But this is not the time.” She took a deep breath and stepped back. “I told you earlier, I’ve lots of things going on. I don’t need any more complications.”

She examined Jessie’s face in the moonlight, in the half light from the kitchen.
And I can’t trust you,
she thought.
Not at this point, not with everything going on.

“Time for bed,” she said in a steadier voice.

They went in the house, and Jessie went on upstairs as Diana shut up the house for the night. She put her glass in the sink, looking at her reflection in the window. She shook her head, still feeling Jessie’s hands on her, feeling Jessie’s nearness. “God, Jessie, your timing sucks,” she muttered.        

***

“Margaret, you seem like a reasonable person,” Jessie said carefully.

Getting to see Margaret alone had been tricky. Diana was off doing something somewhere; Jessie suspected she was finalizing plans in one of her rooms that was off-limits to Jessie and Julie. Julie had succumbed to Jessie’s suggestion that now was the time to catch up on her journal reading. Margaret had been very generous in downloading much information for their restricted afternoon and since Julie had always complained she never had time to do all the reading she wanted, why didn’t she take advantage of this time? After Jessie had assured her she wouldn’t cause any problems, she would be on her best friendly behavior, Julie had given in, so she was ensconced in the library. That left Jessie in the kitchen with Margaret. She picked up the dishtowel and began to dry the dishes as Margaret washed them.

“I mean,” Jessie went on. “I can understand now your loyalty to Diana. I don’t even question it. Considering the circumstances, yes, she went way out of her way to do everything she could to protect you. Not many sixteen-year-olds would be able to do that, much less face down someone like her father.” Even now, Jessie could not say his name.

“I told you, she has a good heart.”

“And a lot of nerve,” Jessie admitted. “It looks like she could do anything she set her mind to. She always talked about family loyalty and taking care of each other. I guess it’s not surprising she joined the Family.”

“I didn’t want her to,” Margaret said slowly. “I thought for a long time she would not. She made her own money to go to college.”

“Yes, she told me. Transporting gems.” Jessie shook her head. “That really surprised me and yet, you know, when I thought about it, it seemed just like her. Like she had that secret no one else knew and she could just breeze through.”

Margaret gave Jessie a measuring look. “Diana always liked her secrets.”

“Well, she did keep those,” Jessie said, thinking what an understatement that was. “I knew there was something in her life, never dreamed she was in the Family.”

“She wasn’t.”

Jessie stopped. “She wasn’t?”

Margaret shook her head, continuing the dishes. “No. She knew what her papa did, and didn’t want to know. To his credit, he didn’t flaunt it in front of her. Maybe he wanted to keep her out of it. He encouraged her to travel so he could operate more freely. There were just things he didn’t do when she was with him.”

“Did he know she was a lesbian?” Jessie could imagine how someone like Randalson could react if he disapproved.

“Yes. I think he was pleased.”

“Pleased? Why?”

“His ego. If she never married, he would not be replaced as the man in her life.”

“So he knew about me?” Jessie said cautiously.

Margaret shook her head. “No one knew about you,” she said firmly. “Diana traveled a lot, she saw lots of women. I was probably the only one who knew there was someone special and even I didn’t know you, I only knew
of
you. I didn’t know who you were until last week.”

Jessie put the plate down, totally confused now. “Margaret, if you didn’t know me, why don’t you like me? I mean, I know, I’m a cop. You’re not predisposed to like cops, but that’s not the reason, is it?” Margaret said nothing. “Diana and I, we were lovers a long time ago. That’s over and done with. Diana walked out of my life and didn’t even want to be friends.” Margaret still had nothing to say, just set her mouth in a grimmer and grimmer line. “You said the other day that I put Diana in danger. I appreciate her saving my life, but I didn’t know she did it so it wasn’t like it was something I asked her to do.”

Margaret set her jaw firmly. Jessie had the feeling she really wanted to speak but was holding back.

“Margaret, what’s the deal?”

Margaret turned on her. “If it wasn’t for you,” she spit out, “my Diana never would have joined the Family.”

Jessie stepped back from Margaret’s anger. “I don’t know anything about that,” she protested. “I didn’t know about the Family. I don’t know when she joined. How did I cause that?”

Margaret glared at her. “We took a trip out west, we were there for almost the entire summer. Her papa, something changed. Maybe it was just because she was getting out of college. Maybe people were noticing. It was getting dangerous for her just to be around. He told her she would have to decide, to join or to leave. It was her choice but she had to decide. She said she would have to think about it.” Margaret shook her head. “She didn’t have to think. I knew she didn’t want to join. She went to Lexington. I assumed she went to see you.”

“To see me?” Jessie thought back and she nodded. “That’s right. She was gone the entire summer. I didn’t think she was ever coming back. She had just found out I was a cop. I knew she was upset but I didn’t understand why. She had never been gone so long. Julie came back that summer.”

Margaret nodded. “Yes. I know.” She went back to the dishes. “My Diana can do anything, but she cannot be alone. She needs to have someone there for her even if only in the background. She had her papa and she had you. When you turned her down, she had only her papa. That’s when she joined the Family.”

“Turned her down? What are you talking about?” She stopped and thought about that day. “Diana said there was something she wanted to talk about with me,” she remembered. “She said something about an opportunity, she called it. But she said she thought I had news for her. So I told her about Julie.” She stared at Margaret. “She never told me about her opportunity then, she said it didn’t matter.”

“It mattered,” Margaret said in a hard voice.

“Are you saying that it was joining the Family—that was her ‘opportunity’?”

“Yes.”

“And so you think that was why she came back and joined?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Margaret said in a chilly voice. “I know so.”

“No!” Jessie was emphatic, almost shouting. “No, you are not blaming me for that!” Margaret said nothing. “Margaret, she didn’t tell me anything. She didn’t ask me anything. She just said she hoped Julie and I could work things out and then she got up and left.”

“You could have stopped her,” Margaret said stolidly.

“Margaret, I didn’t know. She didn’t say anything. You can’t blame me for her joining the Family. That was her choice.”

Margaret shook her head. “No, she felt she had no place else to go.”

“That’s not my fault!” Jessie almost shouted back at her.

“What’s not your fault?” Julie asked from the doorway.

Jessie gave her a quick look and turned back to Margaret. “Margaret doesn’t like me because she blames me for Diana joining the Family.”

Julie came into the kitchen. “How is that your fault?”

“She said Diana came to talk to me about it. Her father gave her an ultimatum. But Diana never said anything to me that day. She said she wanted to talk to me about something but then when I told her about you, she said it didn’t matter.” Jessie turned from one woman to the other, disbelief on one face, surprise on the other.

“When was this?” Julie asked as she came further into the kitchen.

“That summer you came back. We were just beginning to work things out; we hadn’t even moved in together. She came to town and ran into me downtown.”

“And up until then?” Julie asked. “You never said much about your relationship about Diana.”

“We got together whenever she came to town,” Jessie said with some discomfort. Talking to Diana about Julie was a whole lot easier than talking about her relationship with Diana to Julie. “Just friends.”

“Who slept together?”

“Well, yes, there was that. But not always. Sometimes we just talked, had lunch, did things. I had told her all about you, how I felt about you. She always understood I was waiting for you.”

“And how long did this go on?”

Jessie shrugged, shook her head. “Whenever she was in the area, a number of years, I don’t remember how many off hand.”

Julie’s and Margaret’s gazes met through Jessie’s bewilderment.

“And how did she take the news about me?”

“She was a little surprised, okay, speechless maybe.”

“I’ll bet,” Julie muttered.

“She said her news didn’t matter. She hoped you and I would be able to work everything out. She was confident we could if we worked at it. And then she left.”

“And that was all she said?” Julie asked. “You never mentioned any of this before.”

“I told you there had been someone but never anyone serious.”

Julie closed her eyes and shook her head as she leaned against the door frame. “Jessie, you’re one good cop but in other areas, you are blind as a bat.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She means that besides not hearing real well, you don’t see so well either,” Margaret said with some bitterness.

“No,” Jessie protested as she threw the dishtowel down. “No. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking she was in love with me. She wasn’t. There was someone else, she would never tell me who, someone who was committed. Diana’s always been loyal, you know that, Margaret.” She turned back to her for confirmation.

Margaret dried her hands and leaned against the counter, looking at Jessie with a look of profound exasperation.

“She told me she couldn’t tell this woman how she felt as long as the woman was committed. Even the other night, on the deck, she said she’d never been able to tell her because of that.” She looked from Margaret to Julie. “She didn’t see her anymore,” she added weakly. “You know she wouldn’t say anything to someone who was committed.”

Julie folded her arms and leaned against the door frame, shaking her head.

Unbidden, phrases came back to Jessie now. “You’ll never be a substitute for anyone, Jessie—I haven’t found anyone anywhere who can turn my head and fill my senses the way you can Jessica Ann Galbreath, so I’ve always come back—I just need you, more than air—I want to be a vampire and take in your life’s blood—I want you like you’ve never been taken before. I want you to shiver at the memory and remember Diana did that to me, with me, for me.—I would never ever let you be hurt.” She turned again from Julie to Margaret.

“When she came back,” Margaret said, “she was different. She turned harder, colder. It wasn’t just joining the Family. She had no joy in her life. Even her papa noticed.”

The front door opened and Diana came in. They all turned toward her as she crossed the great room and came into the kitchen. As soon as she stepped in, she realized everyone was looking at her and she stopped. Jessie and Margaret at the sink, Julie across the room, all looking at her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Revelations,” Julie said cryptically.

Diana immediately looked at Margaret, who straightened up and braced herself. Finally she looked at Jessie.

Jessie didn’t know what to say. She stood there for a moment, completely blank. Neither Margaret nor Julie were going to say anything, they were looking to her. “Margaret was telling me she dislikes me because she blames me for you joining the Family.”

Diana frowned. “Margaret talks too much. We’re going to have to come to a new understanding about that.”

“Margaret says you came to talk to me about, how did you word it, an opportunity? But you never said anything to me.”

Diana glanced at Margaret and back to Jessie. “That’s right.”

“Why not?”

“You said Julie had come back to town, the two of you were working things out.”

“What did that have to do with your opportunity?”

“You just weren’t available anymore.”

“And so you couldn’t talk about your opportunity to a friend.”

Julie moved backward into the hallway.

“I didn’t want to talk to just a friend.” She watched as Margaret moved around them and went into the pantry.

“Margaret and Julie think you were in love with me. I told them that you were in love with a mystery woman who was committed to someone.”

Diana made no response.

Jessie took a step toward her. “Are they right? Or am I?”

Diana opened her mouth but said nothing. When Jessie advanced another step she finally spoke. “I guess both.”

Jessie digested that. “You were in love with me,” she said in a disbelieving voice. “Not just ‘here and now.’ You were in love, like in a relationship.” She waited for Diana’s denial but nothing came. Then she looked into Diana’s face, and she knew it was true. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“You were waiting for Julie. You made that clear all along. You never said anything to indicate you had stopped.”

“And then you found out I was a cop.”

Diana shook her head. “It didn’t matter anymore.”

Jessie thought over that entire weekend, how much she had wanted Diana to come to town, how eager she had been. In light of Diana’s mob ties, she shivered. But no, Margaret said Diana didn’t belong then. Jessie remembered how she had wanted Diana that weekend, she wanted Diana to want her and Diana had shown her she had. “You said,” she said slowly, remembering something else, “that my waiting for Julie was what stood between us.” The expression on Diana’s face confirmed it. “I was the woman you loved, and you wouldn’t say anything as long as I was waiting for Julie.” She closed her eyes. “God, how stupid I was.”

“You could say that,” Diana said sadly. She turned back to the living room.

“No, wait.” Jessie grabbed hold of Diana’s arm and turned her around. “But then you found out I was a cop. And you left. And you didn’t come back. I didn’t think you were ever coming back.”