Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,57
okay,” the younger woman reassured her. “I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you. I do know how rough it is for Maggie, though. I can tell you with complete conviction that she would never do something like this when you’re gone. She lives each day, trying so hard to make you proud of her. She’s careful never to do anything that might even remotely get you upset. She doesn’t want you distracted when you’re out there.”
“She crosses off the days on the calendar,” Will quietly told his sister, coming out of Maggie’s tiny bedroom, holding a Battlestar Galactica calendar—Lieutenant Starbuck on the front in a devil-may-care pose. “Like she’s in prison, counting down the hours until the end of her sentence—until the day you get to come home. Only here it is. You’re finally home. And look.” He opened the calendar to May—holy shit, was it already May?
“She’s still crossing off the days,” Will continued, “but now she’s counting down to the day that you’re going to leave again. You’re safe—but it’s not going to last. There’s an end date, Leenie, and she’s gotta be dreading it. God knows I am.”
“Let me tell you what it’s like,” Robin told Arlene, taking her hands because, once again, her eyes had filled with tears. “Jules just spent over a week in Afghanistan, and while he was gone, Arlene, I swear to God, I didn’t breathe. There was not a single second of that entire time that I wasn’t hyper-aware that he was someplace dangerous. I didn’t even escape it at night, because when I finally did fall asleep? I dreamed about him being in danger. Eight days, and I’m ready to tear my hair out.” He touched the top of his head. “Not that there’s a lot left right now to tear, but you know what I mean.”
As Jack watched, she nodded.
“And I was in Kabul, which is a relatively safe part of the country,” Jules said, and they all looked up to see him standing in the doorway, a piece of paper in his hands. He held it up. “Got her. According to an email she sent at 1500 this afternoon, her partner in crime is someone named Lizzie. She’s over at her house.”
“Liz Milton,” Dolphina said, whipping out her cell phone and dialing. “That girl lied, right to my face.”
“Wait,” Arlene stopped her. “Maggie told me about Lizzie in one of her emails. Doesn’t she live nearby?” She looked from Dolphina to Will.
Will answered, “Her parents have a condo across the street.”
“I don’t want to call and have Maggie leave and go somewhere else.” Arlene turned to Dolphina, and swallowed the last of the lingering jealousy she had to be feeling for the younger woman. “Please, she admires you so much. Will you go over there, and … and talk to her?”
Dolphina nodded. “Of course.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” Will suggested, “for you to go over, too. Meet Lizzie’s parents.”
“I want to get Maggie safely home first,” Arlene said. “Believe me, I’ll be meeting Lizzie’s parents in the very near future.”
“Maybe Jules should go with Dolphina,” Robin suggested. “In case Maggie’s uncooperative. He could play the FBI card.”
Jules was shaking his head. “I’m not here in an official capacity,” he said as Jack opened his cell phone, checking to see if Maggie had texted him back. His last text should have elicited some kind of response from her.
“Yeah, but Lizzie and Mags don’t know that,” Robin countered.
“I’ve kinda already played that card,” Jack spoke up, and everyone turned to look at him. “I’ve been texting Maggie,” he explained, “telling her that she better get home, stat, or else—” but he didn’t get any further, because the front door opened, and Maggie herself burst into the apartment, followed by a dark-haired girl who no doubt was Lizzie.
“It’s all my fault,” Maggie announced. “Don’t arrest Will.”
“No one’s going to …” arrest me, Will started to say, but Jack kicked him in the ankle. “Ow!”
Jules Cassidy was on the ball, good man. “It’s lucky you came back when you did,” he told the girl in what had to be his official FBI agent voice, crisp and cool. “Or I would have had to bring Will in.”
“For what?” Lizzie apparently wasn’t as gullible as Maggie, attitude dripping off of her. “No one’s done anything wrong.”
“For neglect of a minor,” Jack supplied the made-up excuse he’d texted to Maggie several minutes earlier, before Jules could answer.