“I’m fine.”
“I was so scared and worried about you, but you’re okay.”
“Yes, I am,” Avery said, her gaze locked on John Paul. “Carrie, who’s the agent in charge of watching over you?”
Her aunt spoke at the same time that Avery asked the question. “They said they’re going to put us in protective custody. I’m assuming they’ll fly us to Florida.”
“Why Florida?”
“Because of the trial.”
“What trial?”
“Oh, Avery, you didn’t know? That bastard Skarrett has a trial date set. Didn’t anyone notify you? They sure as hell didn’t call me.”
Avery was stunned by the news. She had known that there was a possibility of a new trial, but she hadn’t thought it would happen this soon.
“No, I wasn’t notified.”
Carrie was beside herself. “They told me this killer Jilly hired won’t stop until we’re dead.”
“Or until we get him,” she said. “And we will, Carrie. Now, please, try to calm down. Have you talked to Tony yet?”
Carrie’s voice mellowed. Sniffling, she whispered, “He’s beside himself with worry. He wants you to call him as soon as possible so he can hear your voice. I want to go home, Avery, and I want you to come with me, but they won’t let us. I don’t even know if they’ll let Tony come stay with me. I’m trying to cooperate—”
Avery interrupted. “How is the judge doing?”
“What? Oh, Sara. Her name’s Sara. She’s hanging in there. She trashed her knee and had to go to surgery, but she’s doing okay now. They’re keeping her in ICU for another couple of hours because of her age, but that’s just a precaution. The doctors already let me sit with her and talk to her for a few minutes. Oh, my God, I forgot to tell you. Sara Collins is the judge who sentenced Skarrett.”
“No, that can’t be right. I remember the judge. His name was Hamilton.”
“Yes, Judge Hamilton heard the case and convicted Skarrett. We went back to Bel Air once the verdict was in, remember?”
“I remember.”
“But Skarrett hadn’t been sentenced yet. Anyway, Hamilton died, and when Skarrett came up for sentencing, Sara was the judge.”
“So that’s the connection,” she said. “But what about the other woman?”
“Anne Trapp wouldn’t go with us. It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you everything as soon as you get here. Are they going to bring you to the hospital, or will I meet you at the airport? If they want us to fly to Florida, I’m not going without you. We’ll have three full weeks to catch up before they decide if they’re going to let us testify or not. If Monk is still on the loose—”
Avery interrupted. “Three weeks? You’re telling me the new trial will start in just three weeks?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll put us in a safe house near the courthouse so that, if we do get to testify, it will be easier getting us there.”
Avery couldn’t compute the information in her head. “And you’re saying there’s a possibility we won’t be allowed to testify?”
“Honey, what’s the matter with you? Aren’t you listening? Yes, there is that possibility that we won’t get to testify. Okay? We’d be sitting ducks, and it would be a perfect opportunity for Monk to hurt us.”
Avery gripped the phone. “No one is stopping me from testifying.”
“Be reasonable.”
“Do you want Skarrett to walk?” Her voice shook with her fury.
“Your safety is more important to me.”
“I’m not letting him walk.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about the trial,” Carrie said. “Why aren’t you asking me about Jilly?”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“I hope when they catch her, I get to have five minutes alone with her.”
“She’d annihilate you.”
“But not you, not with all that tai chi and karate stuff you learned.” Carrie sighed. “Don’t be afraid of her.”
Avery felt like laughing. After all the hellacious stories she’d heard about Jilly over the years, she would have to be as crazy as Jilly not to be afraid.
“Did you see her? Was she inside the house?”
“Yes,” Carrie answered. “I’ll tell you everything when I see you.”
“I want you to promise me that you’ll do whatever the agents tell you to do. Okay, Carrie? Promise me.”
“Yes, of course I will.”
“Don’t make their job . . . difficult. You know how you can get when you’re upset or scared.”
“I’m not scared; I’m angry. Very, very angry. Why the hell couldn’t Jilly stay dead?”
“She never died,” Avery pointed out.
“They better not put us in a flea-infested shack while they’re protecting us. The house is in Florida, so I want something on the beach.”
“Carrie, that isn’t your decision.”
“If it’s not nice, you can pull some strings for us. I can’t wait to see you.”
Avery braced herself. Her aunt had a very short fuse when things weren’t going her way, and Avery was about to ignite it.
“I’m not going to be joining you. I’m not going to the safe house with—”
That was as far as she got. Carrie’s scream made her cringe, and she had to move the phone away from her ear.
From where John Paul was seated, he could hear the aunt shouting. The color left Avery’s face as she listened. He got up, walked to the phone, and gently took it from her.
“Say good-bye, sugar.”
“She’s very upset.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I love you, Carrie, and I’ll see you soon,” she said. “Bye now.”
She heard Carrie shouting, “Avery Elizabeth, don’t you dare hang up this—”
John Paul placed the phone back in the cradle. “She sounds nice,” he managed with a straight face.
The waitress was watching them as she placed their plates on the table. Avery pulled away from John Paul and went into the ladies’ room to wash her hands. By the time she sat down in the booth, he had already devoured his sandwich and was finishing his iced tea.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my aunt. Granted, she can be difficult, but I’m sure, once you got to know her, you’d love her as much as I do.”
He grinned. “I don’t see that happening.”
She took a bite of her turkey sandwich, thought it tasted like pressed sawdust, and picked up her glass of iced tea to wash it down.
“You want this?” she asked as she pushed the plate toward him.
He pushed it back. “You need to eat that,” he said as he helped himself to one of the limp potato chips.
She noticed him watching the highway beyond the parking lot. “They don’t get much business here, do they?”
“They’re closing in fifteen minutes. Maybe that’s why we’re the only customers. Tell me something, Avery. When you filled out your application to work for the Bureau, was it your goal to become an agent?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
She was about to give him her standard answer, but then decided to be completely honest with him. Besides, she was pretty sure he’d cut through the bull and know she wasn’t telling him the truth.
“I thought I should want to be an agent. An FBI agent saved my life, and I think that was when I got it into my head that I wanted to be just like him. You know, save people.”
“So you were going to save the world. How old were you when you made this momentous decision?”
“Twelve. I’d just turned twelve.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Why?”
“That you didn’t change your mind, that you held on to that goal all through high school and college.”
“Do you remember what you wanted to be when you were young?”
“I don’t remember how old I was when I decided it would be pretty cool to be an astronaut. Maybe ten or eleven.”
“That plan didn’t work out?” she asked, teasing.
“Life got in the way,” he said. “I ended up in engineering at Tulane, graduated, and joined the Marines.”
“Why the Marines?”
“I was drunk.”
She didn’t buy it. “Tell me the real reason.”
“I thought I could make a difference. I liked the discipline, and I wanted something different than Bowen, Louisiana.”
“But you live in Bowen now, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I had to go away to realize what I really wanted in life. I actually live outside of Bowen, in the swamp.”
“You really did drop out of life, didn’t you?”
“I like solitude.”
“Guess you don’t get much company in the swamp.”
“I like that too. Where did you go to college?” he asked.
“Santa Clara University,” she answered. “Then Stanford.” She took another bite of her sandwich and could barely get the horrible food down. The bread was soggy; the lettuce was wilted, and the turkey was dry.
“Neither one of us went very far away. We both stayed close to home. Carrie wanted me to go to college in L.A. so I could work part-time for her company.”
“Doing what?”
She blushed. The instantaneous reaction made him all the more curious.
“She was pushing me to do more commercials. I got roped into doing one for her when she was in a bind.”
“So what’d you have to do in this commercial?”
“Hold up a bar of soap, bat my eyelashes, and sing a silly jingle.”
He didn’t laugh but he came close. “Sing it for me.”
“No,” she said. “I was awful and I hated it. I guess I’m an introvert,” she added with a shrug. “Since I’d had this dream of becoming an agent for so long, Carrie gave in and stopped nagging me. We both gave in actually.”
She pushed her plate to the side, and John Paul reached over and took a couple more potato chips. “How did you give in?”
She folded her paper napkin just so and placed it on the table. “I did a project at a grade school in San Jose for one of my classes, and I really enjoyed working with the children, so much so that I considered becoming a teacher. I was good with them,” she added, a hint of surprise in her voice. “I even went so far as to take a couple of the classes I would need to get a teaching certificate. I thought I could teach history. I didn’t tell Carrie, though.”
“Why not? What does she have against teachers?”
“Nothing. She just didn’t want me to become one.”
He leaned back and stared at her. “Avery, what aren’t you telling me?”
Ignoring the question, she called out to the waitress to please bring them their bill.
“Come on, babe. Answer me. Why didn’t she want you to teach?”
“The pay’s terrible.”
“What else?”
“Teachers don’t get much respect. You know what they say. Those who can do, and those who can’t teach. Carrie didn’t think there was much . . . status in teaching. My aunt isn’t a shrew,” she said. “I know I’ve made her sound terrible, but she isn’t like that. Honest.”
“So was that all? That was your reason for not teaching? There wasn’t enough status?”
“Carrie didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to be around kids.”
“Why not?”
He wasn’t going to let it drop. “She thought it would be too difficult for me.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
He homed in like a pigeon. “You can’t have kids, can you?”
She wanted to tell him. She felt an overwhelming need to tell him everything, to spill her guts, as her uncle Tony would say. She’d never felt this need before, but John Paul wasn’t like any other man. He didn’t give a hoot about silly things like status. He wasn’t a game player, and he didn’t have a hidden agenda. What you saw was what you got. Maybe that was the reason she was so attracted to him. And so comfortable.
“I don’t know how you made that leap.”
“You told me you weren’t ever going to get married, which I thought was a little odd.”
She jumped on his comment with a vengeance. “Why? Because all women should want to get married? You can’t really believe that. Lots of women are very happy living the single life.”
He put his hand up. “Whoa,” he said. “I don’t disagree, but when you told me you weren’t going to get married, you were damned defensive about it. That’s what I thought was odd. Now I understand why. You can’t have children, and that’s the reason Carrie doesn’t want you working with them. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
She was primed for a fight. She’d let him see her vulnerability, and she knew that if he gave her an ounce of sympathy or was the least bit compassionate, she would lose it. She’d either pull his hair out or her own. Worse, in her estimation, she might cry. She knew her reaction was a defense mechanism, but she didn’t care. Staring into his eyes, she waited, daring him to be nice to her.
He stared back. “Well?” she finally demanded when he didn’t say a word.
“That’s just damned stupid.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, sugar. You love working with kids, so that’s what you ought to do. Listening to your aunt and trying to please her is just damned stupid.”
“But I’m good at my job in the Bureau.”
“So what? You’ve got more than one talent, don’t you? You can be good doing a lot of different things.”
He got up to pay the bill and then made a phone call, but all the while, he never took his gaze off the parking lot. Avery looked over at the waitress who blew a bubble twice the size of her face and then leaned on the counter and stared at him.
Five minutes later he hung up the phone. “Come on. We need to get going.”
She followed him to the car. He was about to open the door for her when she asked, “What are you good at doing?”