Take Down (The Men of the Sisterhood) (8 page)

Harry ran to the bathroom. Dennis turned away, and Jack laughed out loud. Ted Robinson just looked at Maggie and vowed never,
ever
to get on her bad side. Never, ever.

“Crap, I’m going to have to dig for it. I need gloves.” She set the curling iron on the counter and ran out to the garage, where she routed around for her gardening gloves, which had dry dirt all over them. She shrugged it off and pulled on the gloves, giggling as she did so. Wait till she told Myra and Annie about this.

Back in the kitchen, she waved her hands to show off her gardening gloves, reached for the curling iron, then bent over, where she started to poke and prod among the jewels. “Okay, since I can’t find it, I’m just going to fry your balls. Last chance!”

The room went silent. Even Hero stopped snarling and hissing. Cyrus crept closer to Jack to see what was going on.

The scream was so primal, everyone in the room clapped their hands over their ears.

“Sign now or you know what’s coming next,” Maggie singsonged.

Dennis inched his way to Jack and whispered, “Holy shit, I thought she was just kidding. She
did it.
Do you think he’ll hold out for the encore?”

“
Nah.”

Otto’s eyes rolled back in his head, Ted slapped him a few times, then Espinosa dumped cold water on him. He came around slowly, moaning in pain.

“Sign the papers, you dickweed,” Jack said.

Otto Andover signed his name as clearly as he could.

“Someone call Snowden and help Otto get dressed,” Jack said as he gathered up the contracts and the check that was going to make Nikki go over the moon.

“Abner, did you transfer all the monies out of their personal accounts? Where did you send it?”

“For now, the Antilles. We can decide tomorrow what we want to do. For now, it’s perfectly safe.”

“Dennis, call your friend Jamie and get his bank account number. Let Abner wire the money in now. How much do you want to give the guy?”

“Five million!” Dennis said smartly.

“Done,” Abner said ten minutes later as Dennis rattled off numbers to him.

“Snowden said he’s thirty minutes out. He’s coming in an ambulance. He said that’s the only kind of vehicle allowed on the road,” Ted said.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll take my leave of you all,” Harry said. “My job here is done and my family awaits me.”

“Hold on, Harry. You’re going to be driving right by Georgetown Messenger Service. They’re open twenty-four /seven. I need you to drop this off, and pay cash. Feel free to tell them your name is Otto Andover. Just plunk down this hundred bucks and tell them to keep the change. I think the fee is seventy-five bucks.

“Maggie, you got a manila envelope?”

“In the kitchen drawer behind you.”

Jack motioned for his friends to gather round. “This might be the only time in your lives—I’m sure in mine, too—that we will ever see a check for $650 million. I can’t wait for Nik to see this in the morning. Remember now, any questions, you all know nothing.” Heads bobbed up and down, faces smiling.

“What about all this other money?” Abner asked. “The money I sent to the Antilles?”

“Care to give us a number?” Maggie asked.

Abner laughed. “Upwards of $450 million. These three are rich. Oops;
were
rich.” He laughed again. “I left enough in their personal accounts so their families can live more than comfortable lives. Their spouses will presumably inherit their stakes in the company, if it doesn’t tank. We are good to go, guys.”

“Bastard!” Otto spat.

Maggie’s doorbell rang. She ran to answer it. A minute later, three guys as big as oak trees and Avery Snowden entered the kitchen. They picked up the three Andovers like they were rag dolls and walked out of the kitchen, none of them saying a word.

Snowden looked around. “This is gonna cost you, Emery.”

“Meet me tomorrow at Ding’s, noonish, and I’ll have your money ready, or we can do it right now, if you want. Abner is still set up.”

“Let’s do it now.”

The others watched as Abner’s jaw dropped at the amount Snowden told him to transfer. And then he grinned. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“Wiseass,” Snowden said and grinned in return. “Nice doing business with you.”

When the door closed behind Snowden, the others looked at one another. The manila envelope in hand, Harry waved good-bye.

Dennis slipped into his heavy jacket and followed him out the door, along with Abner and Espinosa. “Where do you think they’re taking them?” he asked nervously.

Harry shrugged. “Probably some potato farm in Ireland. Do you care?”

Dennis thought about it for a second. “Nope.”

Then it was just Jack, Maggie, and Ted. Jack already had his coat on. “Tell Nikki I said hi,” Maggie said.

“Can’t do that. I’m going to have to come up with some story about where I’ve been so she doesn’t chop me off at the knees. She’s been calling and texting me since early this afternoon. If she calls, you guys know nothing, okay?”

“Will you go already?”

“I’m gone,” Jack said, Cyrus at his side.

And then it was just Maggie and Ted and the slithery sheets that waited under the bed warmer.

“I just love it when things work out,” Maggie said as she started peeling off her clothes on the way up the steps.

Ted tried not to think about the curling iron in his beloved’s hands as he galloped up the steps. She would never...

Nikki Quinn unlocked the door to the offices of her firm, then quickly adjusted the thermostat. Today was going to be a nonstarter. So much snow. She’d be lucky if one, or possibly two, lawyers would make it in. Only those who lived within walking distance, the way she did, might give it a try. She shed her coat and headed for her office.

She didn’t want to be here, but she’d told Jack last night that she needed to walk through these doors one more time before she kept the promise to herself that she was taking a year off and possibly selling the firm.

She couldn’t do this anymore. She just couldn’t. “I’m not doing it anymore,” she muttered to herself as she picked through the mail, leaving a messenger-delivered envelope for last.

She ripped at a plain white business envelope that bore the name of the Stayman Pet Food Company, the firm’s other class-action suit. The single sheet of paper held only two short paragraphs.

Nikki blinked, then blinked again, just as the buzzer at the front door sounded. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew it was Alexis. Then she let out a whoop of pure joy just as Alexis appeared in the doorway. “They caved!” she said, waving the single sheet of paper under Alexis’s nose. “Do you believe that? They aren’t going to fight anymore. They’re going to settle with us for the full amount. I can’t believe this!”

Alexis sat down, shock written all over her face. “Why? Two weeks ago, they were going to go the distance and fight us till hell froze over. Such a stupid question; who cares why? We won! Oh, my God! We won!”

“You are so right, who cares why? Listen, Alexis, I need to talk to you about something. We talked about it while we were out west, and we talked about it ad nauseam while we were stuck in those airports for days, but I’m really serious now. I can’t do this anymore. At least for now. I’m going to take a year off and do absolutely nothing. At the end of the year, I might even sell the firm. I am so burned-out, I can’t see straight. I was so blinded by our cause, I could have lost Jack.”

Alexis started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “Now why do you think I braved all that snow out there this morning? I came here to tell you the same thing. If you weren’t here, I was going to leave a letter on your desk. Like you, I realized people like Joseph only come along once in a lifetime. I love him. I hope he still loves me. I will grovel if I have to when I ask him to take me back. No damn career in the whole world is worth the misery I’ve been going through. I’ve saved some money, and I’m going to ask him to go with me to some sunny island where we can get our lives back on track. Please say you aren’t upset with me, Nikki.”

“I am not upset. I want you to do it. I’m doing it. The firm can carry on without us. The one thing you don’t have to worry about is the cost of your getaway. The firm will pay for that. And if you need more than a year, take the time. Your pay will be deposited automatically in your account. You earned it. We were crazy, you know that, right? We thought we could take on Andover and make those skunks pay, and bring some closure to all those parents. We made a dent. There is nothing more we can do. Let the second string fight it now. We did the hard part, laid down all the groundwork. Whatever happens, happens. So, let’s get through all this”—Nikki motioned to the pile of mail and the Georgetown Messenger Service envelope—“then we can go home and veg out. You okay with that, girl?”

Alexis nodded as she tapped out a text to Joseph Espinosa. “You don’t think he’ll tell me to go fly a kite, do you, Nikki?”

“If he does, I’ll kill him. The short answer is no.”

Nikki ripped at the sealed envelope and withdrew another envelope. “Hey, look at this, Alexis! It’s from Andover Pharmaceuticals. Sent by messenger.” She ripped at the smaller envelope and the single sheet of paper that bore the Andover letterhead. Still inside the bigger envelope was a thick packet of papers. But it was the small blue-and-yellow check with butterflies on it that left her fighting for air. Alexis craned her neck to see what Nikki was holding in her hand while she gulped air like a caught fish.

“Oh, sweet Jesus. Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” Alexis practically screamed.

“If you mean a check that has butterflies on it and is written for $650 million, then yeah, you’re seeing what I’m seeing. Maybe we went snow blind on the walk here. This is real, Alexis. Look, here are the signoff contracts, signed by all three Andovers. We won! My God, we won! Alexis, we won!” Nikki whooped.

“Call the brokerage house to make sure it’s good! Do it now, Nikki, before I explode.”

Five minutes later, Nikki’s fist shot in the air. “It’s real! We have to get this to the bank! We need to call all of our people. All the names on the lawsuit. Every single one of them deserves a personal phone call. But first, we’re going to have a drink. I have a bottle of two-hundred-year-old brandy I’ve been saving like forever. A gift from a grateful client years ago.”

“It’s only nine o’clock in the morning!”

“I don’t care! Do you care?”

“I. Do. Not.”

While Nikki dusted off the brandy bottle, Alexis made a fire in Nikki’s fireplace. She set out crystal snifters from Nikki’s private bar and sat down, her head reeling. She was elated, over the moon about the class-action suits, but it was Joseph Espinosa who was on her mind. She said a little prayer that she wasn’t too late, that Joseph would forgive her for choosing her career over him.

The two women sipped. Then they gulped. Then they guzzled, and, finally, by ten-thirty, the two-hundred-year-old brandy bottle was empty. Sitting Indian style in front of the fire, the women looked at each other and said in unison, “We are soooo drunk!”

Neither Nikki nor Alexis heard the buzzer at the front door. They were so cockeyed drunk, they saw three of Jack Emery standing in the doorway. They saw three of him send off a text to Espinosa that said,
Get your ass over here to the Quinn offices. Your woman needs you. Fly if you have to, but get over here.

Jack walked back to the kitchen, a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon on his face. He made coffee, knowing full well that it wouldn’t do all that much good. The kind of drunk the ladies were on was going to have to run its course.

The phone rang at that moment. Jack picked up the extension on the first ring. It was Myra. He quickly explained the situation.

“Just like that! Amazing,” he could hear Annie drawl in the background. A shiver ran up Jack’s spine.

“Uh-huh. Just like that. So, where are you two, and what are you doing?” Jack asked, hoping to divert the conversation.

“We’re on our way home, dear. Annie got a brainstorm and wants to invest in something she said is going to make us millions.”

“Really! What is it?”

“Elastic!” Myra laughed. She couldn’t button her slacks this morning. Jack laughed right along with her. They talked for a few more minutes, then ended the call.

Carrying the tray with the coffee, Jack made his way back to Nikki’s office, only to find two sleeping beauties dead to the world. He smiled.

He did love it when a plan came together.

Be sure not to miss Fern Michaels’s
new Sisterhood novel

It’s been a long time since the Sisterhood and their allies gathered together at Myra Rutledge’s home—far
too
long, in Myra’s opinion. She’d had enough of missing Charles and feeling the weight of the passing months. What’s needed is another mission to pour her energy and the Sisterhood’s talents into, and her dear friend, Countess Anna de Silva, has provided the very thing.

 

Lush, exclusive Spyder Island is home to many of the world’s billionaires. Though the inhabitants guard their privacy jealously, resident Gretchen Spyder, daughter of the island’s namesake, is making headlines. Years ago, Gretchen gave her twin babies up for legal adoption. Now Gretchen and her father are trying to get them back. The twins’ adoptive parents are a loving but poor couple, completely outgunned by the Spyders’ wealth. Myra, with the full force of the Sisterhood behind her, intends to give them a fighting chance at keeping the family together.

 

After assembling in their War Room and gathering intel, the gang is ready for action. But nestled among the lavish mansions and immaculate landscaping of Spyder Island is a sinister enemy. And in a case that’s far more twisted than it first appeared, the ingenuity, courage, and friendship of the Sisterhood will be tested as never before.

 

Turn the page for a special sneak peek!
A Zebra mass-market and eBook
on sale in January 2015!

 

Jack pulled his car into the driveway of Harry Wong’s dojo and carefully maneuvered around to the back of the building. He sat for a moment, shivering, even though he had the heater going full blast. He looked at the clock on the dashboard—6:20—an ungodly hour to be making a visit to his best friend. But he couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to his best friend in the whole world before he and Nikki left for the islands for a whole year of sun and fun, and not necessarily in that order. Dennis West had been magnanimous in offering the use of his private plane, an offer Jack snapped up in a New York minute. Wheels up were scheduled for ten o’clock that morning out of Dulles.

A whole year’s vacation. Nikki had gone over the moon when he showed her the rental villa that came with a staff of three to see to their needs. The best part was, they were allowed to take Cyrus with them. Jack could hardly wait to feel sand between his toes and the warm sun beating down on his shoulders. He grinned when he remembered Nikki’s showing him her new bikini, which would fit in his ear. Oh, yeahhhhhh.

It was almost full light by now. Jack turned off the car lights, then fished around in his pocket for the key to the dojo. How well he remembered the day that Harry had handed him the key, like it was the holy grail. And in Harry’s mind, it was. That day, he and Harry had crossed the Rubicon together. He knew in his gut that he would lay down his life for Harry Wong and that Harry would do the same for him. Harry was the brother he never had, and he loved him as such.

Key in hand, Jack sprinted from the car. The arctic air body-slammed him. He slipped on a patch of ice, managed to right himself, then he was at the door. He ripped off his glove, placed his hand on the palm reader, waited for the light to turn green, removed his hand, pressed in the digits of Lily’s birthday, and inserted the key. The massive door opened slowly on its well-oiled hinges. Jack waited for the door to close behind him.

He knew the dojo like he knew his own house. He recognized the smells, the disinfectant, the sweat, the eucalypts, the lingering odor of the shitty tea Harry brewed daily. He knew every squeaky board, every cracked tile in the building, the sound of the wheezing air conditioner in the summer, the grumble of the heat in the winter.

Silence.

The fine hairs on the back of Jack’s neck moved. The heat hadn’t come on. Spook that he was, Harry should have called out his name by now, demanding to know why he was here at such an early hour. Because . . . Harry had security upstairs that showed both the front and back doors of the dojo and anyone even approaching the alley and the special security door he’d just entered. Plus . . . Cooper hadn’t barked. Cooper always barked. A friendly bark, but still a bark. Jack had always taken the bark to be a greeting, the same way Cyrus barked when someone came to the house.

Total silence.

Jack debated a moment as to whether he should go back out to the car for his gun. He nixed that idea immediately. As Harry always pointed out, he was his own weapon. A third-degree black belt meant he could, if necessary, kill with his bare hands.

Jack looked around the dimness of the dojo. The only light coming through was from the shuttered windows in the front of the building. And it was just slivers of light. Harry locked things up tight at night.

He moved then, through the locker room to the main training room of the dojo, out to the hall, down another hall that led to a staircase that would take him to Yoko and Harry’s living quarters. No one ever dared approach the stairs unless invited by Harry or Yoko. No one. Except for him. He approached the stairs now, cautiously, his heart pounding in his chest. By now, Harry should have swooped down somehow, someway, and had Jack’s head in a vise.

And Cooper wasn’t offering up a greeting.

Jack moved then, quicker than he’d ever moved in his life. He took the steps three at a time and banged on the door with both fists, shouting Harry’s name at the top of his lungs. When the door opened immediately, he lost his balance and fell right into Harry’s arms. “What the hell! Jesus, Harry, I thought you were dead or something! What the hell is going on? Why didn’t Cooper bark? Where’s Yoko? Are you guys being held hostage? Talk to me before I beat the living shit out of you, Harry. I mean it. Why are you looking at me like that? Your eyes are round. You need to talk to me like
now
!”

“You want some tea, Jack?” Harry asked in the strangest voice Jack had ever heard.

“No, I don’t want any damn tea, Harry. What I want is to know what’s going on. Where’s Yoko?”

“I’m here, Jack,” Yoko said, appearing out of nowhere. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?”

“I don’t want any tea. Maybe you can tell me what’s going on here. Your husband, my best friend in the whole world, is acting like . . . hell, I don’t know what he’s acting like. And you, Yoko, are starting to scare me. Where’s Lily? Where’s Cooper? If one of you doesn’t talk to me right now, I’m going to bust this place up on the count of three.”

Lily took that moment to bound into the room, followed by Cooper. Jack knew his sigh could be heard all the way downstairs. The little family was okay physically.

“Did you come to tell me good-bye, Uncle Jack? Are you going to miss me?”

Thinking the little girl was talking about his own trip, he missed the eye exchange between Yoko and Harry. “I won’t be gone long. I’ll be back before you know it, and when I do get back, I’ll have lots and lots of presents for you and Cooper.”

“You’re silly, Uncle Jack. That’s not right, what you said. When I come back, I will bring presents for you and Aunt Nikki. Cooper is going away, back home, because he has a new job. Daddy, tell Uncle Jack about Cooper’s new job. See all his stuff by the door? Cooper’s ready to go after I go. He did his job. See how silly that is, Uncle Jack.”

“Harryyyyyy
.”

As Harry led Jack into the kitchen, he could hear Yoko speaking softly to Lily, asking her if she was sure she had everything she wanted to take with her.

Harry pushed Jack down onto one of the kitchen chairs, his hands on the arms pinning Jack in place. “Yoko and I should have told you. We didn’t because we knew this would be your reaction. I’m sorry for that, Jack. I know you aren’t going to understand what I’m about to tell you, but Yoko and I both ask that you at least try to understand, and to take our feelings into consideration. Right now, Yoko and I are both . . . saddened beyond belief that we are sending our little girl away. We knew this day would come the day she was born. We’ve talked about it with Lily from day one, so she would understand when the day arrived. Believe it or not, she understands. She’s handling it better than Yoko and I. Even Cooper understands.

“Speaking of Cooper, you have to remember the strange encounter we had with him when we went to Julie Wyatt’s in Rosemont, Alabama, when Julie’s granddaughter Olivia said her spirit daddy had told her that Cooper was to go with me because he had a job to do. His job was to look after Lily until it was time for her to . . . to leave. You remember that, don’t you, Jack?”

All Jack could do was shake his head yes.

“Two days ago, Cooper started piling his stuff up by the front door. He knew it was time to go before we knew it. But Lily knew. She started packing up all her junk. Or her treasures, as she calls them. Then Julie Wyatt called and said she had a dream that it was time to pick up Cooper. I don’t know how all that happened, Jack. I’m driving to Atlanta with Cooper after Lily leaves. Julie will meet me there. Halfway for each of us.

“Lily is going to Shaolin Monastery or, as it is sometimes called, the Shaolin Temple. It’s a Chan Buddhist temple on Mount Song, near Dengfeng, Zhengzhou, Henan province, China. It is led by Abbot Shi Yongxin. It was founded in the fifth century. It has been long known for its association with Chinese martial arts, and particularly Shaolin Kung Fu. It is also one of the best-known Mahayana Buddhist monasteries in the world. I lived there, Jack. I promised in an oath of blood that all my children would be given up to them to train as I was. Boys or girls, it doesn’t matter. I am who I am today because of the monks who loved and taught me. I know you don’t believe me, but Lily will love it there, as I did.

“And before you can ask, yes, it is killing me and Yoko that we are sending our baby girl away, but it is our way, Jack. I would kill myself before I would break the promise I made to the monks. Just so you know.”

Jack struggled to find his voice. “But, Harry, she’s so little. She needs you and her mother. You’re right, I don’t understand.”

“I was the same age Lily is now when I was sent there. My parents were so proud of me. I missed them, of course, but that was the life I was destined for; even as a child I knew that, as did my parents.

“Cooper . . . Cooper was sent, we believe, to remind us of this day. Jack, I can’t explain it any better than I have. It will be okay. Today, things are more modern. Lily will be able to Skype us once a month. We can visit once a year, but we have to go there. She cannot leave until it is time for her to leave.”

“Promise me something, Harry,” Jack said, his head reeling with all that Harry had told him.

“What?”

“That I can go with you when you go to see her, and that you’ll let me know the day you plan to Skype.”

“Deal!” Harry said, his hand outstretched. His face contorted into something that was supposed to be a smile. Jack’s own smile was sickly.

The front doorbell of the dojo rang. Yoko came on the run, Lily right behind her, with Cooper bringing up the rear.

Jack felt sick to his stomach as he stood on the side and watched what he later described as the
send-off.

Lily, dressed in a cherry-red coat with a white faux-fur collar, kissed her mother and father, her eyes bright and sparkly. She didn’t dwell on her good-byes. She hugged Jack and made him promise not to forget her. Jack, his eyes wet, nodded. But it was with Cooper that the little girl spent the most time. She hugged him, rubbed his belly, then whispered something in his ear that took a good two minutes. When she was finished, Cooper backed up a few steps and barked three times. Lily smiled and gave the dog another hug before she headed for the door and the people who would take her to China and her new life.

They looked like gentle, caring people, with kind eyes and happy smiles. Lily reached up for the leader’s hand and said, “I’m ready. ’Bye, Mummie and Daddy. I will always love you, Cooper.”

The door closed. Cooper lay down across the length of the doorstep and put his big head on his paws.

Yoko shrieked her misery. Harry ran after her.

Left alone, Jack dropped to his haunches and stared at Cooper. “Listen, big guy, I’m not into dog speak, but I need to know how, what, and when. And add why to my list.” Cooper opened one eye and looked at Jack just long enough for a thought to enter Jack’s mind. The thought was that Julie Wyatt’s daughter Connie was due to give birth to a baby boy, and Cooper had a new job to do.

“Well, damn! And double damn!”

Cooper barked. Jack swore later, when he repeated the story to Nikki, that the big dog was grinning at him and he actually
got it.
And he did.

Jack looked up to see Harry putting on his heavy jacket. “Gotta go, Jack. Yoko is staying here. She said she needs some alone time. Cooper is in a hurry. By the way, I forgot to tell you: Julie Wyatt’s daughter Connie is due to have her baby tomorrow if things go off on schedule.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jack said. “Cooper just told me. Let’s not either of us go there, Harry, okay?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Harry said.

Cooper barked.

“Need any help with his gear?”

“Nah, I got it. Enjoy your vacation, Jack. You earned it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, if you need me, call, and I’m on the next plane, okay?”

“Yep.”

“You’re in charge of the BOLO deal.”

“Yep.”

“See ya, Harry.”

“Yep.”