Lexington Connection (36 page)

Diana drew a deep breath.
If only I had said something. Margaret was right. Brenda even said it last night. I don’t share enough.
“Timing.” She looked at Jessie and now she could see vulnerability. For the first time she could see she had been part of the problem, it wasn’t just Jessie. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

Jessie gave a deep sigh. “By the time you did come back to town, I’d already given a commitment to Julie.” She looked up at Diana and her eyes narrowed. “I was pissed too. You would waltz in and out of town whenever you pleased. No communication. Me never knowing where I stood. You just always had to be in charge. I wanted to show you I wasn’t there just waiting for you.” She looked back at the napkin and her voice dropped. “I didn’t think you would just leave and not come back. So I decided I really wasn’t important to you and Julie was a good choice for me.”

“Ohhh, Jessie,” Diana said with a moan. She buried her face in her hands at the thought of the lost opportunities, the mixed messages, the words that didn’t get said. She looked up when Jessie sighed again.

Jessie straightened up, seemed to gather herself. She shook her head and looked down at her hands, evidently just realizing what she had been doing. She began to pick up the pieces of the napkin. “The story of my life,” she commented. “Pieces and shreds. In college I couldn’t keep Julie because of family obligations. I couldn’t hold on to you because…” She stopped and looked up at Diana. “I don’t even know why. Because I asked too many questions? Because I got tired of you making choices about my life? Because I didn’t want to be taken for granted?”

“Maybe all that,” Diana offered. “Maybe none of it.” Her voice lacked conviction.

Jessie shrugged in dismissal. She wadded up the paper shreds like she was wadding up their past. “Doesn’t matter anyway. It ended.” She got to her feet and reached for Diana’s discarded plate. “You done?” Diana nodded and Jessie took the plate. “I’m going to get something to drink. You need anything?”

Diana checked her cup and shook her head. Jessie took the plate and napkins to the trash barrel in the corner and then walked over to the counter. Diana turned to watch her go, watched her scan the crowd before she approached the counter.
So many missed opportunities,
she thought even as she drank in Jessie’s form, watched her pull change out of her pocket.
Damn, she has turned into one handsome woman.

She took a drink from her cup, reflecting on what Jessie had said. All the stupid assumptions we made, my thinking she should know because I kept coming back. And I guess in a way she did because when I didn’t come back, she assumed it was over.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why didn’t I say anything?

“And you’re still doing it,” Jessie said as she sat back down across the table.

Diana blinked, Jessie’s words merged with her thoughts as if she were a mind reader. “Doing what?”

“Making choices about my life.” Jessie popped the can and poured it into the Styrofoam cup of ice. “Even when you’re out of my life, you made an impact. You warn me about a bad sting, tell me not to go. I go and damn near get killed. Chalk one up for you. I get kidnapped and you coming running to my rescue. Chalk another one up for you.” She took a drink, watching Diana over the rim of her cup, her expression less vulnerable now. She swirled the drink in the cup, mixing it with the ice. “I could not believe my eyes when you came bursting through that door. On the other hand.” She gave a cynical look up at Diana. “Who else would show up?”

Diana considered Jessie’s change of subject. Was she following the time and event sequence?
Or is safer talking about almost getting killed than being romantically rejected?
“Didn’t look like anyone else was able to do anything.”

Jessie tipped the cup, watched the dark liquid flow over the ice. “I saw you at the funeral,” she said carefully without looking up at Diana. She lifted her cup for a long swallow. “The mysterious woman in black.”

Diana stilled. That was how the papers had dubbed her at her father’s funeral because they didn’t know who she was. The funeral had been a crowded event, as many from law enforcement as family members. Diana had never before felt so on display, and it was then she realized just how alone she was and how much she missed Margaret. “Why were you there?”

“Identification,” Jessie said simply. “Normally I wouldn’t have been but there were individuals there who we were not previously aware of. I would be able to recognize some of them.” She seemed to be making an effort to remain casual, as if she guessed talking about Czar’s funeral might be touchy.

“Like me.”

“Well, yes,” Jessie admitted, “but you had such an escort we knew who you were. There were others we were interested in.”

An understatement, Diana considered. There were people there to pay their respects, yes; and, it was an opportunity for potential leaders to size each other up as they jockeyed to fill the void. “Yes,” Diana admitted. She made the effort to keep her tone neutral. “There were lots of people there. You must have run out of film,” she added dryly.

“We don’t use film anymore, Diana. But I get your point.” Jessie took another drink. “The Feds kept you pretty well under wraps. You disappeared after that.”

Safe houses. Interrogations. Frequent moves. Seeing no one.
“Yes,” she could say now. “Hurry up and wait. I was never sure if they thought I would skip or someone would kill me.”
And in the end
…

“I couldn’t find you.”

“That was hardly my choice.”

Jessie shrugged. “Wasn’t mine.” She met Diana’s gaze. “Seems like I never knew where you were, Diana. I was always waiting, first on you, then on the system. Even when I knew you were down here, I had to wait until the Feds and Kentucky were through with you. And all the time you’re sitting here, getting pissed as hell because I haven’t talked to you.” She took a piece of ice, chewed on it, watching Diana. “How do you like waiting?”

Diana frowned at the new edge in Jessie’s voice, not exactly antagonistic but there was something there. “About as much as I like surprises.”

Jessie nodded. “I figured as much. I never liked it either.” She thoughtfully ran her finger around the rim of the cup. “You know, I used to keep a log on my calendar trying to figure out the best guess as to when you’d show up.” She looked up at Diana expectantly.

“I didn’t know.”

Jessie nodded again. “No, I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you. Or the fact that I took extra duty, extra shifts so I would have the time banked when you did show up so we could have some time together.” She raised one eyebrow as she looked at Diana. “Never occurred to you, did it?” Diana shook her head. “Thought not. So why am I surprised that I rearrange my life to come see you and you throw me out?”

Rearrange her life?

“After all, you just pop up in the damnedest places, and I’m supposed to be just delighted to see you and just go along with it?” Jessie lifted her hand, holding up one finger before Diana could say anything. “Don’t get me wrong, that last time I was damned glad to see you even if I didn’t have the foggiest idea what you were doing there. Somehow the ‘how’ and ‘why’ just wasn’t germane.” She dropped her hand. “And it all got explained. At least most of it. In due time.”

Diana said nothing but she felt the warning bells go off.

“I suppose,” Jessie went on casually, “I might as well ask questions about those missing parts now while we’re talking. All the investigations are over, cases are closed. You should be able to tell me the things I want to know. I might never have another opportunity.” She paused with a questioning look at Diana.

Still a cop
, Diana thought with resentment.
Might have known.
“Go ahead. I can’t promise you I’ll answer but you can ask.”

“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Jessie moved around in the chair. “That little drug deal that went south: how did you manage that?” She gave Diana a more than inquisitive look. “I mean, I know what you told me at the cabin but there had to be more. All the hoopla with what’s-his-name getting killed, and my surviving must have caused some commotion inside the Family.”

Diana speculated as to whether she was being paranoid about Jessie’s questions. One of her flights of fantasy during the years she had watched Jessie being a cop was just this: being taken in and Jessie being the one to interrogate her. So she wasn’t taken in, but it still had the feeling of interrogation. The long table, the cop sitting across from her. This was where her dreams had led her.

“Perhaps Czar thought if daddy’s little girl saved her ex-lover’s life, he’d have another cop in his pocket?” Jessie suggested.

Diana felt her face flush with anger at the insult. She had to force herself into calmness. “Hardly,” she replied in a frosty voice, not sure which she disliked more, Jessie thinking Diana would let herself be manipulated by Papa or that Diana would even consider the possibility Jessie might be for sale. “Papa didn’t know anything about you. And he had old-fashioned ideas about women. They weren’t supposed to be cops.”

“No,” Jessie agreed in an infuriatingly calm voice. “Women were supposed to stay in their place, and you and I both know what kind of places Czar Randalson had for them.”

Diana set her jaw but said nothing. She should be accustomed by now to having her father used against her. She had finally gotten past arguing that his rules weren’t her rules. She just hadn’t expected it from Jessie. But then what should she expect? If she got defensive, Jessie would just pounce on it like every other cop had. So she said nothing and wondered why Jessie was baiting her.

“Well, we’ll set that to one side,” Jessie said mildly after a long wait. “Czar had his cop anyway. Henderson going down must have cost him a pretty penny. Can’t convince me that didn’t cause a rumble in the backrooms.” She eyed Diana in a speculative way.

I can’t believe she’s doing this. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation sitting here under a tent, out in the open.
“I wouldn’t even try to convince you,” Diana said in controlled even tones. “It did cause quite a rumble.”

“And I can’t believe Czar Randalson just ate a few million because of…” She paused and cocked her head at Diana. “Why?”

Diana debated about answering. She hated that bland, noncommittal look on Jessie’s face, hated more that Jessie thought she was part of that operation. She had struggled so long for a way to live with herself with Papa, and now to have Jessie, of all people, sit there and ask questions like Diana was part and parcel of it.

“He thought it was a double-cross,” she said finally. “Only the thought of a bloodbath that would leave no one standing kept him from retaliating.”

Jessie raised an eyebrow. “And where did he get that idea?”

“He put someone he thought he could trust in place to investigate, no holds barred, they could go anywhere, ask anything. Anything held back was just suspicious in itself.”
That should be neutral enough to answer her and maybe satisfy her.

Jessie leaned forward as if this was suddenly getting interesting. “And who, pray tell, did he trust that much? Czar Randalson trusted no one: that was how he survived so long. And it doesn’t answer the question of how you managed to survive. How did you evade detection? What did you do? Bribe them? Or did you get away with it because you were daddy’s little girl?” The last came out in a grating patronizing tone.

Diana leaped to her feet, choking back the
Sanctimonious bitch
comment she was ready to spit out. This cop was just like every other one she had dealt with: they all took her for some birdbrain piece of fluff who just had some influence because she was daddy’s little girl. She could stand all the others thinking that; it kept them from digging too deeply. She couldn’t stand Jessie thinking that of her.

“I didn’t have to evade or bribe anyone,” she said in acid tones. “He put me in charge.”

“You!” Jessie came to her feet so suddenly she tipped the table.

Diana jumped backward, stumbling over the folding metal chair, catching her balance even as the chair collapsed and the table came back down on its four legs.

“My God, Diana, what did you do?!”

“Like I said,” Diana spit back. “Convinced him a bloodbath would leave no one standing and he’d never recover.”

Jessie came around the table after Diana. “Good God, woman. You could have been killed!”

Altogether a most likely possibility. Thought Margaret was going to kill me herself when she found out what I was doing.
“I wasn’t.” Diana still stepped back from Jessie, who was reaching for her. “No one was. Not even you. Especially not you.”

“Why?” Jessie grabbed Diana by the upper arms, shook her. “Why did you take the risk? What made you do that!?”

“Because I loved you!” Diana spit out.
Why else do you think I would do it?
“Because I didn’t want to see you killed. Because it was your life that was in danger.” She never meant for it to come out like this. What other reason would she have had and why couldn’t Jessie see that? “Because I couldn’t bear living in a world where you didn’t exist anymore even if I couldn’t have you.”

Jessie let go of her so suddenly Diana almost fell, stumbling backward in an effort to regain her balance. She still would have fallen if she hadn’t bumped into someone, someone who caught her by the waist and steadied her onto her feet.      

“Ladies. Ladies, some decorum, please.”

Diana turned with an apology even as she stepped back, and then she saw the green uniform. “Oh, shit,” she muttered, even as she stepped back.
Someone called Security.

Brenda eyed them both, her gaze sweeping, rather pointedly, at the overturned chair. “Are we having problems here?”

“No, Officer,” Jessie answered immediately. “I can explain.”

Brenda gave her a speculating look. “I’m sure you can.” She turned back to Diana. “Problems, Diana?”

Diana shook her head, appalled someone had called Security. At least, she thought with some relief, it was Brenda instead of any of the other officers. “No, Brenda, we’re fine. Just—just some discussion.” She bent down and picked up her chair in an effort to hide her lack of composure. She set it up against the table and stood by Jessie.