Home Free - Fern Michaels [95]
Myra forced herself to smile, even though she felt like she’d been kicked in the gut by a mule. “Damn straight! I’m with Annie all the way. Joint ownership of the bookends it is. This will give me more time to knit afghans for hospice, like my old friend Claudeen does in Arizona.”
All eyes turned to Charles. “I understand, and I congratulate all of you. I’ll be more than happy to turn in my gold shield so you can send it along with the rest. I’ll get back to writing my boring memoirs and planning Sunday dinners for you all. I hope that won’t change. We’re family.”
The Sisters all started to cry. Annie the loudest. “Okay, okay, you can have the damn bookends to send along. It won’t be unanimous unless we all turn them in, right, Myra?”
Myra reared up. “No,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m keeping mine! I want something tangible in my hand to remember how it all started and how it all concluded. I’m keeping it!”
And no one argued.
“Well, now that that’s settled,” Charles said, with a catch in his voice, “let’s all get back to the matter at hand so we can wrap up this one last mission and go out in a blaze of glory.”
It took another two hours before the Sisters had their plan down pat. When they returned to the main part of the house, they were surprised to see the boys cooking up a storm in the kitchen, to Charles’s dismay.
“Whatever you’re cooking, it smells wonderful, but did you really have to use every pot and pan in the house?” Charles asked.
“Don’t worry, dear. We’ll clean up. Just sit down and enjoy whatever the boys prepared for us,” Myra said.
What the boys prepared turned out to be homemade chicken soup from the freezer, which just needed to be thawed and heated, grilled bacon and cheese sandwiches, and Jell-O that failed to set so they had to drink it out of cups.
Ninety minutes later, when the kitchen had been restored to its normally pristine condition, the Sisters took center stage, first by saying that everyone now knew that the vigilantes would retire after the completion of the current mission. The boys’ collective sigh of satisfaction was duly noted.
“Now, this is what we decided while you guys were out there playing in the snow,” Nikki said, an impish grin on her face. “We ran off copies of the plan for all of you, so follow along with us. The pictures are of the interior of Mr. Orzell’s house. We plan to get there around noon tomorrow afternoon and will wait for him to come home from work.
“Right now we are waiting for Mr. Snowden to get back to Charles so he can tell us about what time we can expect Orzell to get home from the office. What we want you guys to do is go to Jason Parker’s residence, wherever that may be, pick him up, and bring him to Mr. Orzell’s house. We’ll stash him in his client’s, Joel Jessup’s, third-floor apartment until Orzell gets home. Nice, neat, and tidy. Everything will be contained.”
“What about the tenants on the first floor?” Ted asked.
“First thing in the morning, before they leave for work, one of Snowden’s men is going to tell them they’re installing a new furnace and there will be no heat until the next day. They will also give them some money to go to a hotel. Just in case Orzell doesn’t leave first, the way he did this morning, Snowden’s men will wait it out. After we are all safe inside, they’ll stretch yellow caution tape across the front and put a new lock on the foyer door.”
“Who is picking up Parker?” Bert asked.
“All of you. Ted is going to say he’s bringing him new clients. Espinosa is going to be taking pictures for a phony layout and say that Ted is going to be doing an article.