Lexington Connection (28 page)

She listened to Margaret and Diana talk in a low voice, felt Julie’s hand on her back. She stood up. “I need to—” To what? she thought. The four of them were in this house. There was no place to get away.

“The exercise room,” Julie suggested.

“Yes,” Jessie agreed. “That would be good.” Julie started to get up and she laid her hand on Julie’s shoulder. “No, I need to be alone. For a while, work this out. I’ll be all right.”

***

The treadmill was not the same as an open run, and that was what she wanted. She wanted to run away. When she went into the closet, she found the gloves, and she glanced at the punching bag. That was something she usually didn’t do, but today, maybe.

Hitting something felt great even if it hurt, even if she wasn’t clear what or who she was hitting. Czar Randalson’s daughter was a nice target. Why hadn’t she mentioned that little fact? Why had she hidden it? Well, duh, that was a stupid question
. Hey, lover, even though you’re a cop, how would you like to meet my dad, the kingpin of crime?
That would go over well.

Jessie shivered. She could have lost her life. She could have lost her career. Just being remotely associated with anyone from the mob would have cast shadows on her reputation. After just two more punches, she clung to the punching bag, leaning her head against it, smelling the leather, her sweat, a faint fragrance of Diana’s perfume.

She wanted to cry. She’d almost died, she would have without Diana there. How was she supposed to deal with that?

She sat down and cried, not even sure why she was crying. What had she lost? Diana had been gone for a long time, it wasn’t like they were still lovers. Her career was intact. Diana had saved her not once like she thought, but twice. How could she be angry with her? Why did she feel like she had lost something precious, that something she remembered as so good never was?

She went upstairs, showered and changed clothes. She was clearer in mind now, almost crystal clear. She came back downstairs to find everyone in the kitchen.

“We need to talk,” she was able to say, calmly fastening her gaze on Diana.

“All right.”

Margaret half turned, but Jessie forestalled her. “I’m not angry. I’m not going to do anything rash. I just want some answers. I think I deserve that.”

Margaret and Diana exchanged glances and Diana nodded. Jessie looked at Julie and she appreciated her concern more than she could say. “I’m all right,” she told her. “I just need to do this.”

When Diana started for the kitchen door, Jessie stopped her. “Can we go out front? I know Margaret’s going to watch, but I’d rather her not be hanging over my shoulder.”

Diana changed course and went through the living room and out the front door. Jessie followed, pausing at the bar long enough to pull out a bottle of Seagram’s and two shot glasses. She had the feeling they might be needing it.

Diana sat down on the top step and Jessie came down to sit beside her. “I’m not going off the deck,” she protested in anticipation of Diana’s warning.

“I know.”

They sat there, side by side, looking down the drive through the trees in silence for a few minutes. Neither one spoke and the sounds of nature were their only background.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jessie asked finally, never looking at Diana.

Diana shrugged. “About what? My Family? At first, it didn’t matter.  Brief encounters. By the time it mattered, it was a little late to say anything. I mean, what was I supposed to do? ‘Hi, Pops, here’s my lover,  and oh, by the way, she’s a cop.’ That would have gone over big.”

Jessie didn’t turn to look at her. She couldn’t argue. As she had figured this out downstairs, she had envisioned an almost identical introduction.

“So that was really you who called in the tip and then at the clearing?” she asked without turning around. She could deal with all this information if she didn’t have to see Diana, watch her formulate an answer, see whatever emotion she was hiding. She didn’t want to see if she was lying.

Diana picked up the bottle and broke the seal. She filled both shot glasses. “Yep,” she answered like she was confirming a mail delivery.

“You saved my life.”

“Someone had to. You didn’t have anyone else at your back.” She handed Jessie one of the glasses.

Jessie knocked it back. She should have had one of these earlier instead of the tea. She swallowed, examined the glass. “The follow-up calls, you stayed around to check.”

“I needed to cover some tracks, and I wanted to know you survived.”

“Wasn’t that a little dangerous?”

“As compared to what?” Diana drank her shot a little slower. “That was a piece of cake. Tracking down Henderson was the dangerous part. There, I went poking into areas I really didn’t have any business in.”

So many questions
, Jessie thought. “Do I want even want to know what your business was?”

Diana chuckled. “The dull part, I kept Papa’s books.”

Simple enough, into nothing and knowing everything. “So how’d you find out I’d been set up?”

Diana looked down at the steps. “Papa wanted me to attend this party. I didn’t want to go. He did some arm twisting. I kept wandering around the fringes trying to escape. Overheard Sticks and Monahan talking about this guy they brought in from out of town, setting up this Lexington female cop. It pinged my radar. I started snooping around, figured out it had to be you.”

Jessie thought about it, the clearing, the bad feeling she’d had coming through the trees. It would have been a fatal shot if she hadn’t turned around; wouldn’t have turned around except someone, Diana she now knew, had yelled at her. She calmed the flutter of panic in the pit of her stomach. “You could have gotten killed yourself.”

“Never occurred to me. Not until about six months later, then I had a panic attack.”

“Yeah,” Jessie agreed, “sometimes it’s like that. You’re not scared until everything’s over.”

Jessie looked out over the trees, trying to incorporate all this new information. Diana was the daughter of Czar Randalson, she kept his books, but she had tipped Jessie about a deal destined to go sour, had been there to save Jessie’s life, had exposed a leak in the department and then disappeared again. Jessie rubbed her temples. “Tell me something.”

“If I can.”

“When we first met, there at the Bungalow, were you there on Family business?”

Diana hesitated. “No, not exactly. Papa was using me but I didn’t know that, not until later. He asked me to do him a favor, just go and sit in on this trial that was going on. Seemed harmless enough.”

“That was Waldo’s first trial.”

“Figured that part out later. My being there, just being there was a message to him from Papa that he wasn’t forgotten, that he wasn’t in any trouble.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Were you looking? We didn’t know each other until afterward. I’d never sat in on a trial before, thought it was interesting. God, was I naïve.”

“And later, when you kept coming back. You always said you were on business, were in the area. Was that so?”

“Yeah. My business. I started up a courier service, very select clients, very lucrative.” She smiled at the memory as she set the glass down on the step.

“Drugs?” Jessie asked tentatively.

“Drugs might have been safer,” Diana said with a rueful laugh. “I transported gemstones. Sometimes when I stopped in Lexington I may have had a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of gems either on me to deliver or I’d already delivered.”

“Jesus!” Jessie shot up, her anger forgotten. “Are you kidding me? Stones are untraceable. You could have gotten robbed.”

“Did once. Went crying home to Papa. The stones were returned the next day. The insurance companies loved me. I looked like a college girl out on a lark, vacationing, going on a shopping spree. Except for that once, which I really think in hindsight was just a fluke. They had no idea what was in my jacket when they lifted it, just an expensive jacket.”

Jessie shook her head. Diana’s revelations were just one shock after another. “What made you get into that?”

“Met someone who needed some gems transported. I’m not even sure if that first one was legal. I mentioned I was going to Atlanta, he asked if I’d deliver a package. It seemed like a fun thing to do, harmless, so I said yes. When I delivered it, the jeweler asked was I taking on any other clients. He thought I was in business, so I said yes, and started up the service. Just sorta fell into it. Used the money to put myself through college. By that time I knew about Papa’s money. Didn’t want it. This paid lots of money for very little work, and I got to see different parts of the country.”

“I never would have dreamed,” Jessie said slowly.

“Well, that was part of it too. I never looked like one would expect. Still waters and all that. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” For the first time, she turned and looked at Diana. She still felt the rush of anger at Diana’s deceptions, but she didn’t see Diana as a monster any more. “What happened to your mother?”

Diana poured herself another shot. “She went into a depression after I was born. Probably postpartum. She committed suicide.” She slowly drank.

“I’m sorry.”

Diana set the half-drank glass down. “One of the things we had in common: motherless, with great relationships with our dads.”

Jessie bristled at the thought of her father being compared with Czar Randalson about anything.

“I’m not stupid or naïve,” Diana went on in a low voice before Jessie could protest. “I know what Czar Randalson is. I know he could be a cruel and vicious man. I know he did terrible things, things I turned a blind eye to. But he was my papa, and he loves me as much as your father loved you. And in turn, I love him as much as you loved your father.”

If he loved you, why is he leaving you in this position?
Jessie wanted to demand but she couldn’t say it. All she could think of was the legacy her father had left her, his good name, and how supportive and sympathetic Diana had been when Jessie’s father died. And now Diana’s father was dying.

“You don’t have your father’s name.”

“He made me take my mother’s. I’m not sure Randalson is even the name he was born with. He always talked that my mother’s name was a good one for generations, I could be proud of it.”

Jessie didn’t make any response, unable to say anything positive. She was silent for a few minutes before she spoke. “This is,” Jessie started slowly, “really hard for me to take in.”

“I understand.”

Probably not
, Jessie thought, but left it alone.

“Your papa…” Jessie discovered she could not refer to Czar by name, not without anger coming back. “Your papa,” she repeated carefully, “when he dies, there will be a lot of changes.”

“That’s true.” Diana sounded noncommittal as she took out her cigarettes.

“Your position will change.”

“Yes.” Diana lit her cigarette.

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Could be.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Maybe.”

“Can I ask?”

“No.” Diana sounded firm. She picked up the rest of the drink. “It took me a little while to figure out how much this could reflect on you and your job,” she said after she finished it. “If you don’t know, you don’t have any conflict. If you do know, I’m afraid there might be some idea of collusion from your peers.”

Jessie nodded, surprised Diana had thought of that. She breathed a little easier that Diana had thought of her. But she still needed to think about how she felt. That would come later, when she was home safe, and Julie was home safe, and she didn’t have to worry about what might happen next. “How long are we staying here?”

“Until Papa dies,” Diana said simply.

“Are you ready for that?” Jessie could ask with some sympathy.

“Yes, I’m ready for it to be over, get things settled. No, I don’t want to lose him.” Diana drew up her legs, wrapped her arms around her legs. “Always mixed emotions.” She rested her forehead on her knees.

“I have to ask one more thing, Diana,” she said quietly. “There’ll probably be more later, but I just need to know one thing.”

“What’s that?” Diana didn’t raise her head.

“Was I just a toy, something to play with when you felt like it?”

“You were never a toy, Jessie.”

Somewhere deep inside, Jessie breathed a sigh of relief. And with that settled, she could move over to Diana, set the bottle on a lower step, and put her arm around Diana’s shoulders. “I’m sorry you’re losing your papa,” she could say with some sincerity.

And I hope Czar Randalson dies soon, and we get through this.

That night, Jessie dreamed of Diana, old dreams of her Diana, when they were young and together. She was holding her again, wrapped around her, burying her face in soft flesh. She moaned, holding tight, not wanting to leave even though someone was calling her, repeatedly, insistently.

“Jessie, Jessie, you’ve got to wake up.”

She came awake abruptly, looking around, staring unbelieving at the pillow in her arms. She shook her head, shaking off the dream.

“Something’s going on,” Julie was saying. “You’ve got to be awake.”

Jessie rolled over, still trying to acclimate herself to wakefulness. She sat up, put the pillow down. It was early morning, the room was just barely light. Then she heard it, vehicles, voices.

“Get dressed,” she ordered Julie. She was already reaching for her clothes. Damn, she was a fool. Diana had said she had a plan, and with the old man dying, she wouldn’t delay.

“What do you think is happening?” Julie asked even as she dressed. “I hated to wake you, you were dreaming.”

“Yes.” Jessie didn’t even want to go there. “How long?”

“Dreaming?”

“No,” Jessie rasped, glaring at Julie. “Cars. How many did you hear?”

“Two, then a third one. But there were more voices than three.”

“Could you understand what they were saying?”

“Sounded just like greetings, friendly sounding, like old friends greeting.”

Just then they heard another car pull up. Listening carefully, Jessie could hear car doors slam, one, two, three. She moved over to the door, tried it. It was locked. She pressed her ear against it.