of white wine. She took a long drink and as she felt the icy liquid slide through her system, she hoped to heaven it would help her relax.
But she had to admit the odds of that happening were pretty slim. She hadn’t been able to settle down for what seemed forever. Her nerves were jangling, her stomach was in a constant churn and every time the phone rang or there was a knock on her door, she braced herself to be arrested.
The living room in her townhome was dark but for the fire burning in the white-tiled hearth. Firelight spilled through the room in a soothing pattern and she watched the shifting colors chase each other around the room. She sent a quick look at her cell phone again, hoping to see it light up with a text message, but there was still nothing.
“God, you idiot,” she murmured to herself as she took another sip of wine.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. That was all she could cling to for comfort. Staging a prison break at a small internment camp in Omaha should have been simple. They had done all the research. They had had the plans for the place, and a man on the inside, so Deidre’s group had known exactly where the guards were stationed and what time they made their rounds. It should have been simple to avoid them. Heck, Deidre had managed to give her Secret Service detail the slip. Anything after that should have been a cakewalk.
She let her head drop to the back of the sofa as she stared up at the ceiling, her gaze tracking the dancing shadows even as she concentrated on the soothing hiss and snap of the fire.
And while she zoned out, her mind replayed the last few moments of the mission she and her group had called Operation Deliverance. Shaking her head now, she sighed at their naïveté. Filled with righteous indignation at their government’s treatment of women and witches alike, they had been so sure they could pull it off and give the “justice” system a black eye at the same time.
But it went so wrong.
Everything was going according to plan. They had five witches free of their cells, the white-gold chains off their necks. Six members of RFW were in on the raid and four of them were already out in the vans, having done their part in cutting open the fences to allow Deidre and one other to go inside and get the witches.
Susan Baker, the same woman who had argued with Deidre’s mother at their White House meeting, had made all the arrangements. She’d paid off their informers and had vans waiting outside to hustle the women away to where they could hide until RFW could come up with a permanent place to take them.
Deidre, terrified but determined, had led the witches down the dimly lit hallway. In a hurry because the two guards were due back in fifteen minutes, she kept them moving, signaling them all for silence.
She needn’t have worried about that, though. These women had been tortured and locked up. They now knew to keep quiet if they hoped to survive. Their bare feet hardly made a sound on the cold cement floor and Deidre ran on her toes, the soles of her ballet flats whispering gently.
Susan waved her on and as Deidre and the others passed her, she pulled a gun from under her jacket.
Horrified, Deidre could only keep going. It was too late to stop and question her friend about what she was up to. But weapons hadn’t been part of the plan. No one was supposed to be armed, just in case they were caught. Bad enough to be captured breaking into a federal facility—especially if you were the president’s daughter—but to be carrying weapons, too?
Besides, no way was Deidre prepared to kill someone. No one was supposed to get hurt in this raid. Their mission was to save people. Raise the plight of witches in the public consciousness. Garner sympathy for them.
Why did Susan have a gun?
Deidre led the five women down the long hall and through the darkened reception area toward the front door. Then they were outside, darting across the dead grass, puffs of their breath clouding in front of their faces. The cold October night pressed down on them and Deidre felt …
Something.
A presence.
She could have sworn that someone was watching her. But she shook off the feeling, knowing that if