get any better than that, does it, Myra?”
Myra bit down on her lower lip. “For a time, it was like you said. I was the happiest woman in the world. I had it all, my cup runneth over, that kind of feeling. Then my world turned upside down when that Chinese diplomat’s son killed my daughter. Now, Pinewood is simply a place to live. A place where we all conduct our business. If I had to leave here, I could do it. Your day will come, dear. You’ll find the happiness you deserve, you’ll be vindicated, and then you can get back into the world you were forced to leave because of those hateful greedy people.”
Alexis picked up a blueberry, wondering where it came from at this time of year. “One can’t go home again, Myra. I think I’m a little nervous about what will happen to me after … after I’ve been vindicated. How do you go back to your old life, pick up the pieces and …?” Alexis threw up her hands in frustration at her inability to finish her thought.
“You aren’t going to go home again, dear. You’re going to go forward to a new life that isn’t ugly and controlled by greedy, manipulative people. Once you get your reputation back, you may well decide you don’t want that kind of life anymore. When you’re whole again, then it will be time to make decisions. Whatever those decisions turn out to be, all of us will be behind you. Is there something else bothering you? I’m a good listener, Alexis.”
Alexis picked up another blueberry and bit into it. “I have this fear that we’ll get caught and I’ll have to go to prison again. I can’t go back there again, Myra. I just can’t. I have awful dreams, night after night. Even in the bright daylight, I hear that cell door clanging shut. In my dreams my hands and feet are raw and bleeding from kicking and hitting the bars. I sleep with the lights on and my bedroom door wide open. I thought about going to therapy but what good would it do? It happened. I can’t change that. The fear is real. More real because of what we’re doing. You’d think I would have run long and hard instead of opening myself up to the possibility of going to prison again when Nikki invited me to join the Sisterhood. Is there something wrong with me? When I’ve been vindicated, will I feel differently? Will the past go away?”
Myra knew she was in the tall grass and that the young woman sitting across from her needed answers she wasn’t sure she had. Still, she had to try. “The short answer is, I don’t know, Alexis. When I was vindicated, so to speak, I thought … I hoped … the pain would go away. It didn’t. There is nothing worse in the whole world than losing a child; especially painful is losing your only child. I had to accept the fact that no matter what we did to that horrible man it wasn’t going to bring my daughter back to me. Did I get personal satisfaction out of caning and skinning him? Yes. I know he will never, ever, kill anyone again. No other mother will have to go through what I went through at his hands. I still dream of my daughter. I hope that never stops. When I wake in the morning, my pillow is wet.
“I am well aware that if we get caught, which I don’t think will happen, I will go to prison. I’m prepared for that because I know that with my help, your help, Charles’s help, the others were vindicated. Whatever happens, you’ll be able to handle it. You will, Alexis. Did that help at all?”
Always truthful, Alexis grimaced. “Yes and no. It’s one of those wait and see things. I wish I were as tough as Kathryn, as gentle as Isabelle, as smart as Nikki, and had the inner peace that Yoko has. I wish … I wish …”
Myra laughed. “Charles always says, be careful what you wish for because you might get it.” This brought a smile to Alexis’s face.
“I think I can handle it. No, that’s not right. I know I can handle it.”
Myra nodded sagely. She wanted to say “you have no other choice” but she held her tongue. Alexis would prevail, just the way she and the others had.
It was a given.
Chapter 1
Maggie Spritzer sat at her desk staring at her blank computer screen. She’d been sitting there ever since she returned from Pinewood at two o’clock. She looked at her watch, stunned that a whole hour had gone by. She was aware of Ted’s eyes at full bore on her back. Sometimes Ted could be tiresome. She thought about all the promises she’d made to Ted about sharing, about maybe getting married. Her stomach started to churn. She didn’t want to share. That was her bottom line. Her motto had always been “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” Ted didn’t see it that way. Right now, she realized, she had enough togetherness to last her into the next century. How she was going to break it to Ted was something she didn’t want to think about right now.
Ever since that night in the cemetery when they had the ladies of Pinewood in their cross hairs, only to be rendered useless by some guy’s Taser, things had been different between them. Ted blamed her for getting tasered, if there was such a word, and she blamed him.
No one, and that included Ted, would ever convince her that the man at the cemetery who felled them wasn’t Jack Emery. Ted said it was impossible. Said he knew where Emery was that night and it wasn’t at the cemetery. Guys always stuck together. It had to be Emery and not Bobby Harcourt, as Ted suggested.
Maggie drummed nervous fingers on the desk top. She needed to do something and she needed to do it quickly before Ted got an edge on her. Her gut told her she had the inside track on a Pulitzer if she could get something concrete on those upscale ladies. Maybe it was time to be bold and brazen and head out to Pinewood again and confront the ladies. Woman to woman.
Her fingers continued their mad dance on the scarred desk top. Better yet, maybe a one-on-one. But the only one she could get close to would be Isabelle Flanders. The truck driver and the personal shopper were too elusive. She had a chance with the Asian woman if she went to her nursery but she hadn’t been at the cemetery that night. Any one-on-one meeting had to be with one of the women who had actually been there. Then again, maybe she should schedule an appointment with Nikki Quinn at her law office.
She really wanted a Pulitzer.
Right now, though, she had to figure out a way to outwit Ted. She wondered if he’d lied to her when he said that after the ladies of Pinewood did their dirty work, they took a hiatus and didn’t regroup again for several months. He said they took time off to rest on their laurels. Fact or fiction? What she did know was that the women had all met up at noon. Her gut instinct told her they were gearing up for another caper. She felt a little envious, almost wishing she were part of that team. Almost.
Maggie thought she would feel guilty at not sharing everything with Ted but surprisingly, it didn’t bother her at all. She must not be a nice person even though Ted thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. She remembered when she’d first started to work at the Post and thirty-year veteran curmudgeon Adele Matthews had given her some sage advice: never trust a male reporter; never go with a dual by-line, especially with a male; and always look out for number one because no one else will. And, whatever you do, never forget that your ultimate goal is a Pulitzer.
Maggie got up from her desk, slipped into her light spring jacket, her thoughts on her really big secret, the small handheld recorder she’d used that night at the cemetery. She knew Ted had one, too, but at the last second, when he was occupied with something else, she’d removed the miniature cassette. She’d never told him she had one, too, in her pocket. She had the goods on the gals but she couldn’t use it. Not yet.
Maggie tried to work some animation into her facial features. Her voice was short of a trill when she reached Ted’s desk. “Hello there, sweet cheeks. How’s it going today?”
Ted’s eyes narrowed. She was up to something. He could smell her deviousness. He felt like giving
