Truth and Justice - Fern Michaels Page 0,50
greeting.
“No place like home,” Myra gasped, as she tried to hold down her skirt and fight the wind at the same time. She was struggling to take a deep breath when she finally managed to open the door.
“You got that right, my friend. Thanks for letting me stay with you. I hate staying in that big house all by myself when Fergus is away. I think I spend more time here than at home,” Annie grumbled, as she did her best to finger-comb her wiry curls.
“When are you going to marry that man, Annie?”
Annie mumbled a response that the wind carried away. It didn’t matter, since Annie’s answer was always the same. “When the time is right I’ll know it, and the time isn’t right yet.” And that was the end of that, so Myra didn’t bother to ask her to repeat her mumbled answer.
Inside the kitchen, the dog-sitter moved to the side so the dogs could go through their welcoming routine, which was to drop to the floor and roll around so they could lick the women to unconsciousness before they responded by tickling them in all their sweet spots. The dog-sitter, Artie, who happened to work for Myra’s veterinarian, timed the reunion. Ten minutes to the second.
Myra clapped her hands for the dogs to settle down, and handed out treats. She listened to the dog-sitter’s report, which wasn’t really a report because all he said was, everything is and was fine, and there were no glitches. He accepted his pay and waved airily, calling over his shoulder, “Call me if you need me.” Myra said she would.
“It’s only seven thirty, Myra. Coffee or wine. Or how about two fingers of that fine Kentucky bourbon you have stashed in the cabinet.”
“I’ll get the ice,” Myra said.
“Attagirl, Myra.”
Once they were seated at the kitchen table, Annie leaned forward. “I think we’re slipping, old girl. We came home with nothing. How can that be, Myra? I hate it when we draw a blank the way we did. Makes me start to doubt our capabilities, and yet we covered all the bases.”
“There wasn’t anything else to get, Annie. What there was to get we got. You can’t get information, facts, details out of a rock. We did our best. You talked to Avery. He’s not doing any better than we did, and he’s a spy. And his people are trained investigators. I know this is going to sound . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe crazy or bizarre, but you don’t think she, meaning Sara, would . . . you know . . . go after Bella and maybe try to . . . to . . . do something to her, do you? She has to know by now that Bella either found out or would find out about the transfer of eggs and start to question the military about her husband’s insurance and his back pay and . . . and everything that goes on when there’s a death.”
Annie drained her glass of the hundred-proof bourbon, topped off Myra’s, then poured more into her glass. “I’ve more or less been wondering the same thing, Myra, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. Maybe we should have her move out here to the farm until we can resolve this. The question is, how do you feel about that? This is your house. She was a sweet girl. I don’t think she’d give you an ounce of trouble.”
“I’m more than okay with that,” Myra said. “We should run the idea by the others, but we can’t do that until tomorrow. We’ll call a mid-morning meeting. Maybe by then, we’ll have heard something from Avery. I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower. How about you call Isabelle and the others to see if she found anything in her hacking. Maggie, too. I won’t be long.”
Annie nodded agreeably as she reached for the bottle of bourbon. She was feeling no pain, as well as downright happy, which always happened when she drank good bourbon. She pressed the number 4 for Isabelle’s number on her smartphone and waited for her to pick up.
Outside, Annie could hear the wind whistling in the eaves over the kitchen. She felt a moment of panic as Lady got up and walked over to the door, stood still, and listened, then lay down on the carpet. She gave a soft woof to let Annie know things were all right. Annie sighed with relief as she