in.”
“I’m going to invite everyone I can think of,” Annie said. “There’s Rena Gold out in the desert with Paula Woodley. Maggie, I’m sure you’d like to invite your new best friend Emma Doty and her friends and that person with the strange name, Abner Tookus. Then there’re Pearl and a few of her closest… allies. Lizzie and Cosmo, of course. We’ll make a real party of it. Maybe Joseph would like to bring his family. While the hotel has excellent security, I’m also thinking I’d like Mr. Snowden helping us out. As an added precaution.”
“You’re willing to close the casino on a weekend?” Isabelle asked in awe. “You’ll lose a fortune, Annie.”
“No, dear, I will be deducting it from Fish’s side of the ledger. I’m thinking I’ll even empty out the hotel. We’ll need the rooms. Not all of them, but why not? That way, we’ll have total privacy.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea, Annie. You can count on Charles and me. It will do him good to get away from here for a few days.”
“The best part will be the whole strip wondering what I’m up to. We need a theme, though.”
Alexis cleared her throat, a signal that Kathryn and Yoko were on the way with the coffee and brandy.
The conversation quickly switched to other matters as Myra poured coffee.
“So, girls, how is life in town these days?” Myra asked as she watched Annie pour brandy into each coffee cup.
“Jack and I are managing,” Nikki said. “Since he and Bert made the decision to take over Lizzie’s office, things are a lot better. But it’s just temporary. Basically, they’re closing up shop, clearing the decks, so to speak. He still complains that he’s not a defense attorney, but he is, and he’s a good one. I’m back with my firm, and it’s all working out. More or less.”
“I’m back on the road a few days a week,” Kathryn said. “Bert and I agreed to each keep separate residences, at least for a while. We still have some issues to work through, but we’re getting there. I think. He doesn’t think like I do, however.”
Annie saw her opening and jumped right in. “Kathryn, who do I have to call to get some of our slots picked up and taken in for repair? We have an order for fifty new ones. Do you want the job?”
“Well, yeah, Annie, I’d love to haul your machines. I’ll give you the number later. Tell the dispatcher you want me doing the hauling. Are you going to Vegas?”
“I am sometime in the next week or so. There are a lot of legal ends that have to be tied down,” Annie said vaguely.
“Sounds good,” Kathryn said. She reached down to pat Murphy on the head.
“Yoko, how are things with you and Harry?” Myra asked.
“Harry is very busy. He likes it when his classes are full. I’m working back at my old nursery. My people took very good care of the business in my absence. I have no complaints.”
“Joe wants to get married, and I don’t,” Alexis blurted. “I do love him, but that piece of paper bothers me. I’m willing to live together, but Joseph said no. He said he’s tired of living in sin, and his mother doesn’t approve of such things. So, I stay in my little house, and he stays in his apartment, but somehow or other we manage to hook up six days a week. I’m the new office manager at Lizzie’s firm. Jack and Bert are working me to death. The pay and benefits are really good. The plan is for me to transfer over to Nikki’s firm once they close down Lizzie’s office.”
The girls hooted to show what they thought of that and offered a ton of advice, none of it good for Jack and Bert.
“I really don’t have a story,” Isabelle said, “other than I’ve sworn off men. I opened a small office downtown. I used some of Stu’s money to fund the start-up. I’m keeping enough of it in reserve to help me pay the rent for two years, because that’s how long I had to sign the lease for. I plan to donate the rest to worthy charities. I have three clients. Small jobs, but I have to start somewhere. I bought a ramshackle house on Connecticut Avenue that’s a work in progress. I rescued two cats from the SPCA, Lily and Lennie. And I got a fish tank. I haven’t gotten any fish yet. Like I said, small steps.”
Maggie held up her left hand, her emerald-cut diamond engagement ring sparkling in the sunlight. “Ted and I are happier than two pigs in a mudslide. We might get married someday, then again, we might not. Time will tell.”
“Elias and I are very contented. Well, he is; he sleeps most of the time. I do my thing with the shopping channel, he feeds all the cats and oils the lawn mower for the gardener. My new hips are working out well. I’ve been able to ride as of last month. Not much, but it’s a start. Like Isabelle said, small steps,” Nellie said.
“Charles and I just putter around. We have the dogs now, and with Annie here, it’s wonderful. So, what we’re all saying is we are reasonably happy and content, at least for now, is that it?”
The Sisters jumped in with, well, there’s happy and there is happy and similar remarks ending with yes, they were all reasonably content.
“What we’re really saying without saying it is, we’re missing the adrenaline rush,” Annie said.
“We’re still on the Big Five’s payroll, and we have all that glorious immunity that we can activate anytime we want,” Myra said slyly.
Annie chewed on her lower lip. “That only applies to Henry, call me Hank, Jellicoe. Do you girls really think he’s going to come after us? By the way, last night I had a dream that there was a line of people outside Myra’s gate begging us to help them. We were getting ready to vote on it when I woke up. Maybe it wasn’t a dream but a nightmare,” Annie said fretfully.
The Sisters as one said there was no doubt in their minds that Hank Jellicoe, even though he was on the run, would somehow, some way, come after them.
“I heard Global was being sold off, division by division,” Kathryn said. “It was on the news last week. That means to me that Jellicoe has no one to call on to help him. We took all his money, so he has to scavenge for funds. I’m sure he’s got safe houses all over the world he can hide out in until things cool down. The man could be anywhere. For all we know, he could be living down the road from Myra, and we’d never know it. As far as the public goes, he’s already just a memory. I don’t know what his priority is in the spook world. My gut tells me he is not at the top of anyone’s list but ours. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
“Did you see his face when Nikki said, ‘Hello, Mr. Graverson’ back there on Dolphin Drive? It was so priceless I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” Isabelle said. “He literally didn’t bat an eye when Kathryn crashed her truck through his house, and he didn’t seem surprised to see us all come off the Jet Skis at his dock. Nope, it was that we knew who he really was. In a million years he never thought we’d find that out, and we wouldn’t have except for Emma Doty,” Isabelle said.
“He also didn’t figure that you and Annie would incapacitate Fish and Stu as quickly as you did,” Myra said. “He was counting on them to keep him safe. What a silly, stupid man he is.”
“Ah, here come the boys,” Maggie said. “Do we need more coffee? Dessert?”
“I’ll have another piece of that banana
