Lexington Connection (29 page)

“God, I hate these early morning things,” she heard someone say, an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

Jessie went to the windows. They faced away from the parking area, and all she could see was the back end of an SUV, red. She pressed against the glass, trying ineffectually to see around the corner.

“Damn it,” she muttered, going back to the door. She tried the doorknob, tried shaking it. It didn’t budge. Julie stood off to one side, watching her. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.” To know there was something going on, and not being able to do anything. She pressed her ear back to the door. They were probably coming in through the kitchen but where would they meet? The library? And it was right underneath them.

Jessie went over the room, the bathroom, listening at the vents, anything. The house fell silent.

“What do you think is happening?”

“I don’t know. Diana said last night she had a plan.”

“About?”

“What she was going to do.” She searched the room, checking each wall, even the floor to see if any sound traveled. She heard muffled conversation and then it moved away. There had to be a fake door in the library somewhere. Diana had disappeared there or appeared there more than once. She was stupid, she should have checked the bookcases. There had to be something from this room. It was the master bedroom, Diana wouldn’t let herself be trapped. She went over the entire length and width of the flooring, stamping.

“Isn’t someone going to hear you?” Julie demanded.

“They’re too busy elsewhere.” She moved the bed, the dresser, gritting her teeth and ignoring the pain until finally Julie helped her. She finally sat down on the corner of the moved bed, exhausted. She had to think. She was surely missing something. A sharp knock on the door brought her to her feet, her heart pounding. Julie looked fearfully first to the door and then the reorganized room. Had someone finally heard something and come to investigate?

“Yes,” Jessie called, determined to get some answers.

“Ready for breakfast?” Margaret called.

“Yes,” Julie responded at Jessie’s direction as Jessie moved up against the wall, beside the door.

“Very good. As soon as both of you sit on the bed.”

Jessie immediately looked around for the camera. Stupid, why didn’t she think the bedroom would be under surveillance? She had let Diana lull her into false security. She shrugged and walked back over to the bed. When Julie sat down on the bed, they heard the lock in the door.

Someone else opened the door but it was Margaret who brought in the card table. She carefully set it up then reached back for the tray of food that someone handed her. The door closed, and they heard the lock click.

Margaret glanced around the room. “Been busy this morning, haven’t you?”

Jessie said nothing, the time for congenial conversation was over. Julie looked from one to the other.

“Go ahead and eat,” Margaret invited. She stepped back against the wall. “Diana sends you a message.”

“And what might that be?”

“She’s sorry for the inconvenience. It just seemed best this way.” For the first time, Margaret looked sympathetic. She glanced around the room again. “Glad you’re feeling stronger, Jessie.”

“How long do we have to stay in here?” Julie asked.

“Until her meeting is over.”

“And then?” Jessie asked. She hadn’t overlooked that Margaret had used her name. The old girl was softening in her attitude toward Jessie.

“Then we wait for the end.”

Julie slowly went over to the table to see their usual breakfast, eggs, bacon, pancakes this morning instead of french toast. “Why aren’t you in the meeting?”

“Diana will tell me what I have to do.”

“And you’ll just blindly do it.”

Jessie got up and went over to the breakfast table. Maybe she could needle something out of Margaret.

“Not blindly.” Margaret watched as they took their plates. “You underestimate Diana. She is her own person, and she has a good heart.”

“Perhaps you don’t have the best perspective,” Jessie replied caustically.

“Perhaps better than you. I’ve known her longer.”

Jessie took her plate and went back to sit down on the bed. “That’s right. You were her nursemaid, weren’t you? So how did that happen? You seem about the same age.”

“Don’t say that to Diana, please. She’ll think you think she looks old. She would be upset.”

“So?” Jessie sat back, trying to look relaxed. If she could get Margaret talking, perhaps, well, if nothing else, she could learn something. Maybe. “How did you come to be Diana’s nursemaid?”

“Her papa bought me.” She watched them for their reaction.

Jessie stopped eating but Julie was scandalized. “Bought you?”

So they are into trafficking, Jessie thought, feeling sick. She really had been blind to Diana.

“You know Czar?” Margaret asked and Jessie realized the question was directed to her.

Jessie nodded. “Know of. Saw him once or twice.”

“He’s not charming,” Margaret commented, glancing at Julie.

“No,” Jessie agreed. “He’s not charming.”

“I was born in the Ukraine,” Margaret said slowly. “My name was Margarta. We were very poor.” She gave a cynical smile and shook her head. “Poor there is not like being poor here where you can get food stamps, go to school, and get government aid. No, we were poor because there was no work, no money, no nothing. I was always hungry, there was no education. It was terrible.”

She took a deep breath and went on. “My—” She stopped to rephrase. “The man who was my father sold me. He promised I would work to pay off the debt. The money he got for me fed the rest of the family. So I went away. I was fourteen. The man who bought me had brothels. He decided I wasn’t pretty enough for the sex but there were other things to do.” Jessie watched the tough, contained woman shudder at the memory.

“One day, this man comes in. He’s well-dressed, nice suit, very polite. He wants to buy a woman, a girl. He has very specific conditions. Young, impressionable, not stupid but not smart, not pretty. Must be a virgin, healthy. Virgins in a brothel.” Margaret shook her head and laughed, but it was a bitter laughter.

“He had eyes like ice, cold, devoid of feeling. A lot of the girls hid. I did too. But they brought us all out. He went down the line. Too pretty. Too smart. Too flirty. I was so scared as more and more of them went away and I was still there. This man was not good.” Margaret paused, lost in thought. Then she came back to the present. “He picked me.” She looked up at Jessie and Julie. “He took me to one of the rooms, took my clothes off, looked at me, felt me. Felt my hair, looked at my teeth, my fingers, my toes. Like he was buying a horse or a cow. Then he nodded. I got dressed and we left.”

She paused again, perhaps lost in memories, perhaps trying to find the words.

“I was so afraid, but I thought, at least he is just one, not like different men each night. He’s rich so maybe I would have better food, more clothes. We went to a hotel, and there’s all these men around him. Then one woman comes in, and he gives her instructions. I didn’t understand any of this. She took me away. She gave me a bath, brought me new clothes to wear, brought me a big dinner. I did everything she wanted but I was so scared. I waited, waited, and I waited. And finally I fell asleep.”

Jessie went back to eating. They had long suspected Czar had his fingers in the Eastern European trafficking. This seemed to confirm it. “What’s this got to do with Diana?”

“Oh, you’re interested now?” Margaret asked with some sarcasm.

“I’m listening. And I hear you.”

Margaret shook her head but she moved over to the chair. “Do you mind if I sit? It can be a long story.”

“Go ahead,” Jessie said. “Have some coffee. It appears we have time.”

Margaret poured coffee from the insulated pot. She sat down where she could see them. Then she began again.

“When I woke up, I wasn’t there anymore. I felt terrible, I had a headache, I was hungry. Everything was different. It was very bright. I was in this room all by myself in some strange house. A woman came in, took me to the bathroom, checked me over. She took me back to the room, brought me a meal. She won’t talk to me. Well, she talked but I don’t understand. She was speaking some language I never heard. I was terrified. I had no idea what was going to happen.

“Later, the man you know as Czar comes to see me. He took me downstairs to a nursery. This little baby was in a crib, laying there, bright-eyed, kicking, dark hair, gurgling. He picked her up and there was no ice in his eyes. ‘This is Diana,’ he tells me. ‘You’re to take care of her, all the time. If anything bad happens to Diana, it will happen to you. Understand?’

“I understood. So I took care of this little baby, me who never had babies.” Margaret’s face softened. “She was such a good baby, a happy baby.” She looked up at Jessie. “At first, it was hard for me, tied down, but then one day, she grabbed my finger in her tiny little hand and wouldn’t let go, like she was telling me that we were in this together.”

“Bonding,” Julie said.

“Yes. So I cared for Diana, and anything I needed I could have, as long as Diana was taken care of, full time, twenty-four hour a day job.” She drank some coffee. “He didn’t like my Ukraine name so I became Margaret. When she started to talk, he doesn’t like my accent, so I must learn proper English. And then I must do this or do that, all for Diana.” She looked at Jessie. “And this man who can look at you and your blood turn to ice turned to mush when she looks at him. Oh, yes, I took great care of Diana.”

Julie began to eat again, and Jessie began to relax a bit. Interesting about the old man, but she saw lots of men melt at babies, daughters and sons. Interesting side to the old man. God, what a scary thing for a fourteen-year-old. “Then what happened?”

“When Diana was three…” Jessie noticed her tone changed. “Czar sent me away. He said Diana didn’t need a nursemaid anymore. He sent me to one of his sweatshops. After three years of having almost everything I wanted with Diana, that was hell. Within three days, I knew I had to get out of there, one way or another. Before I could do anything, I saw Czar’s right-hand man. He came back for me. Took me out of there without a word. I’d been gone for four days. He told me Diana had been screaming for three, regular little temper tantrums. Czar was beside himself. She’d hold her breath mid-scream, pass out, come to, look for Margee and start all over again. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t go to bed, searched the house over and over again, cried for Margee. Czar was furious. He could make men wet their pants with one look, and this little three-year-old screams at him demanding where has he hidden Margee.”

Jessie bit her lip. She thought of the time she had called Diana a spoiled rich kid used to getting her own way. Evidently it had started early.

“She was coming down the stairs, big wide fancy stairs, when I came in the front door. She catapulted off those stairs; she hit me so hard she knocked me down. She was hysterical. Czar followed her down and I remember laying on my back looking up at him. ‘You seem to have a champion,’ he said, looking at me. ‘You’d better make sure you’re worthy.’”

“Yes,” Jessie agreed. “I’ve noticed Diana can be demanding upon occasion.” She ignored Julie’s look. “So you’ve been with her ever since?” Somehow she thought Margaret had a stronger point than talking about a three-year-old, even if it was Diana.

“When Diana was fifteen, he tried to send me away again. This time he told me in advance, but I was not to tell Diana. He would send her on a trip and I’d be gone when she got back. By that time, I knew a lot of what he was doing, if only to keep Diana from knowing what her father did. She adored him.”

She looked up at Jessie. “I hate that bastard,” she said flatly. “There’s not a day goes by I haven’t looked forward to his death, but he doted on Diana. He was as good a father to her as any girl would ever want. He would spoil her rotten and then I would have to clean up the mess when she had her tantrums, and she had her tantrums. That seems to be part of the deal. In any other area…” She didn’t finish the sentence. It was a moment before she started up again.

“I had interfered with something, I can’t even remember what. Maybe insulted one of his girlfriends or did something that bothered him. I don’t even know. It was hard to tell what motivated him. He just said he was getting rid of me and I wasn’t real sure just what he meant. It could have meant anything in those days. I was real upset, had nowhere to turn, didn’t dare talk to anyone, afraid to stay, more afraid to run. Diana found me crying one night. She wouldn’t stop in the next days until she got the story out of me, and then the whole thing came out, how I came to be her nurse and everything. She didn’t believe me, not about her papa. She withdrew from me, wouldn’t talk to me. Czar was delighted I’d lost my champion.

“Then one afternoon, she came in. She had been out and about. She wouldn’t let me go along, said she would use one of the guys with her because she wasn’t to go out alone. He said she went shopping but I don’t know where she went. It wasn’t shopping. She came right up to me and apologized, said she believed me now. She would take care of it. The way she said it gave me chills: it was just what her papa would say when he had a problem. He would take care of it.”

“What did she do?” Julie asked cautiously.

“Her birthday was coming up. She teased and tormented Czar so much about how he was going to celebrate her sixteenth birthday.” She paused as if remembering and smiled. “She could wrap that man around her little finger. He thought she wanted a car, so he promised, publicly promised, that she could have anything she wanted. We had a big dinner party in the Family. She dressed like a coming-out party, I could see she would be a beautiful woman but I knew she was going on a trip and I wouldn’t be there to see her. She looked lovely and I saw more than one man look at her and think about marrying into the Family. Czar was so proud of her, so pleased with her, pleased with himself. He had a car all ready for her, keys in hand, ready for when she would ask for it. So when he turned and asked, she had only one word for him. She said ‘Margaret.’