Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [90]
“Nice boots,” he said as she drew near.
“Like these?” She grinned, never taking her eyes from his face. “I had to trade my shoes for these babies.”
“Ahhh, the person you traded with . . . was she dead?”
“Dead? No. She was in the infirmary, though.”
“That would explain why your signal hasn’t moved for over a week.”
“Sorry about that.” She smiled. Just looking at him made her smile. Every time. “Were you worried?”
“Yeah, I was. I was worried about you.” He held her as she slipped into his arms. “Welcome home, Gen.”
“Good to be home.” She rested her head on his chest. “You don’t know how good it is to be home.”
“You did a great job, getting Julianne out. You know we’re going to have to pick your brain now about the operation out there, about Reverend Prescott’s doings, so we can go back in and shut him down.”
She nodded. “Pick away tomorrow. I’m taking the rest of the day off. Let’s go home.”
He tossed the keys to the driver of a second car that had pulled up, and caught a set of keys in return.
“Hey, I don’t get to ride in the limo?” Genna pretended to be offended.
“You’re not going where that limo is going,” he said as he led her to the passenger side. “That limo is headed for Linden. This car is headed home. Still want the limo?”
“Nah. I want the driver, though.” She leaned over and kissed his mouth after he’d gotten into the car.
The limo pulled past them.
“How do you think that’s going to go?” John rubbed his cheek against Genna’s.
“I don’t know. Julianne is going to be one very confused little girl. She wants her mother, but she won’t want to believe what her father did. She won’t want to believe he lied about everything. I feel so sorry for her. For her and for Mara.” She sighed, her heart heavy again. The past weeks had worn her out more completely than even she had realized.
“Can we go home now, John? I just want to go home. . . .”
Miranda had been watching Will’s face for much of their drive to the prison from Landry’s farm. It had been a quiet drive. Very quiet. Miranda couldn’t remember the last time Will had had so little to say. So a few miles back, she began to study his expression. When she realized that merely staring was not going to shed any light on his silence, she decided to resort to interrogation.
“So, I guess you’re thinking about what you’re going to say to Giordano.”
“No. I figured you’d do most of the talking,” he said without looking at her.
“Why would you figure that?”
“Because you usually do.” He pulled into the left lane. “Most of the talking, that is.”
“Should I be insulted by that?”
“Does the truth hurt?”
Miranda watched for the sly smile that generally accompanied such a remark. When no smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, she tried another tactic.
“Wonder how Genna’s doing. Wonder if they’ve landed yet.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“Aren’t you at all concerned about how all this is going to play out? I mean, with Julianne having been gone for seven years, thinking her mother was dead. . . .”
Will shrugged. “I have no clue what’s going to happen. The only thing I know for certain is that Annie will be there to help keep things from getting out of hand. Hopefully she can keep things on the right track.”
“That’s all you have to say on the subject?”
“Why speculate? We’ll find out soon enough what’s going on, since we’ll head to Mara’s right from the prison.”
“Do you think John’s right?”
“He usually is.”
“So you think Jules is going to come for Julianne?”
“I think someone is. We can only hope it’s Jules.”
“You think Prescott would send someone else for her?”
“I think Prescott has got to be feeling a bit tense right about now. As far as we know, no one has left the Valley of the Angels who didn’t leave at the reverend’s command to go into a situation he controlled. Now, he has to be worried about where Julianne might be, just what she knows about his operation, and who she might be talking to.”
“You don’t