up and stomped her feet. “Listen up! Are you all saying we are not capable of helping out a fellow Sister? All right, all right, she’s almost a Sister.”
Before anyone could respond, there was another wave of phone calls. Judge Easter, Lizzie, then Maggie calling in.
All Annie would say is, “We’re taking it under advisement.”
“Maybe we should have told them about Charles and Myra,” Isabelle said fretfully.
“And maybe we shouldn’t,” Annie said spiritedly. “They don’t live on this mountain, so that makes them the auxiliary or the second string. That means they do not, I repeat, they do not need to know everything. I don’t think Charles or Myra would want their private business being talked about, even with friends. We’re family, so to speak, so it stays right here and goes no further. But, we need to have a show of hands to show total agreement.”
Annie’s Sisters knew she was spot on as five hands shot in the air.
“All right, then. My first decision as PW is that we are all in agreement, and we act accordingly. I don’t know what that means exactly, so we’ll more or less wing it for now. Now, let’s sit down and figure out what if anything we can do to help Pearl without Charles and Myra and still keep their business private.”
Chapter 2
Within seconds, the high-tech world that none of the Sisters truly understood kicked into high gear when their special phones warbled a symphony that left the women breathless.
Annie’s beringed fingers wiggled in the air, the signal for each of them to say who was calling according to their caller ID displays. Confusion reigned as one call clicked off and another one came in at the speed of light.
Pearl.
Maggie.
Lizzie.
Nellie.
Jack.
Harry.
Bert.
Annie wagged her finger. “Okay, we know why all the phones are ringing. We have to make a decision to shelve Myra and Charles, then we have to decide what if anything we can do for Pearl. That’s not to say we aren’t going to help Myra and Charles at some point, but for the moment, Pearl’s problem seems to be the most pressing.”
Isabelle leaned forward. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that, Annie. We’re just going to…what, ignore whatever it is that’s going on with Charles? Shouldn’t we be thinking about a way to get to England to help? I understand all about Pearl but she’s not really one of us. I don’t mean to sound ugly, but that’s the way it is. She helped us, we helped her. It was supposed to be a one-shot deal. End of story.”
“Charles doesn’t want our help,” Nikki said. “If he did, he would have left instructions for us. Look, this is as personal as it gets for Charles, and he doesn’t want us mucking around in his private life. We have to accept that and the fact that he may very well not be coming back. I understand where you’re coming from, but I think Annie is right. We have to shelve Charles and Myra.”
“Utah is not around the corner. I should know, I had that run for years when I was driving my rig,” Kathryn said, “especially at Christmastime when I used to haul Christmas trees. Let’s face it, who can we call to help us? Charles never shared his roster of contacts with any of us.” She looked pointedly at Nikki, and said, “Unless you know how to access all that secret spy stuff.”
“I can try, but Charles never…I just helped him, he didn’t share secrets. There is some guy he depended on named Avery Snowden, but that’s all I know for sure. Let me make sure I understand what you just said, Kathryn, and what I think you’re all worried about. What you’re thinking is, we can’t take on a mission without Charles. Well, if that is what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. We can make it work. We all know people, our second string know people. If we pool our strengths and our knowledge, I wager we can pull this off.”
“Does that mean we’re going to help Pearl?” Alexis asked.
“Damn straight that’s what it means,” Annie said.
Yoko hopped off her chair and danced around the room. “That’s all well and good, but what does Pearl do in the meantime? We should call her, get her to some safe haven, then kick it up a few notches. Until we formulate a plan, we let the second string kick some ass. Charles always dotted every i and crossed every t.”
“I do like the way that sounds, dear. I’m going to call Pearl right now and get the particulars. The rest of you start calling the others. Someone make some more coffee, this is going to be a very long morning. Wait! Wait! One more thing,” Annie said, drawing herself up to her full height. “This is WAR!”
“Well, damn,” Kathryn said as she punched in Bert’s private cell phone number, a number no one in the Hoover Building knew existed. Her legs felt rubbery when there was no response. She didn’t bother to leave a message.
Two thousand miles away in Las Vegas, Lizzie Fox’s encrypted cell phone rang. She reached a long arm over Cosmo Cricket’s barrel chest to snag the phone off the night table. Her sleeping partner groaned loudly enough to shiver timber. He did his best to roll over, but his bed, while huge, didn’t quite accommodate someone his size plus a partner. Lizzie stifled a laugh as she giggled a greeting. And then she listened. Before she snapped the phone shut, she said, “I’m on it and on my way.”
Cosmo Cricket, legal guru to the Nevada Gaming Commission, groaned again. “You just got here, Elizabeth! Tell me I didn’t hear what you just said.” He rolled over and the bed felt like it was tilted on two legs.
Oh, how she loved the sound of her name on Cosmo’s lips. Lizzie leaned over and kissed the big man so soundly she felt his ears radiate heat. “I know, but I have to go. The good news is, I’ll be back. I promise. We talked about this, Cricket, and you said you understood and would never stand in my way…in regard…to…certain things.”
The big man propped himself up on one elbow and stared at the woman who had somehow, magically, made him fall in love with her. “I did say that, didn’t I? Go on, do what you have to do. If you need me, call.”
Lizzie planted a second liplock on the big man that made his whiskers sizzle. “Count on it,” she said breathlessly.
“Where are you going, can you tell me?”
“Utah.”
“What the hell’s in Utah?”
“A bus full of stranded pregnant teenagers.”
“Oh,” was all Cosmo could think of to say.
Oh, indeed, Lizzie thought as she stepped into the steaming shower, her mind already on the problem at hand.
While Lizzie was showering and plotting, retired judge Nellie Easter Cummings flipped open her special phone, the phone that drove her almost-brand-new husband, the recently retired FBI director, out of his mind because each time it rang it represented a crisis of some sort. She wasn’t completely sure but she thought Elias looked forward to the ringing phone.
He
