So it was over, finished. The Delmans were going down-payback complete, and a good deed done besides, even if Judge Mantle and Doctor Easy didn’t agree. Revenge is sweet, right?
Then how come she felt low again? How come the taste was more bitter than sweet?
Somebody’d said that it was like eating a skimpy meal: you wanted it bad and it went down pretty easy when you got it, but it didn’t fill you up; it didn’t satisfy you for long. Yeah. Could be.
Could also be emotional wipeout. You couldn’t go through what she’d gone through tonight without a bad reaction. Happened that way twice before, hadn’t it? The Christmas hostage thing in the old agency offices and the kidnapping nightmare in the East Bay. The high might come back again tomorrow and last for a while. And every time she looked back on this week in her life she’d smile, feel satisfied and vindicated.
Maybe.
And maybe the high wouldn’t come again; maybe she’d be looking back and wondering if she hadn’t been six kinds of fool, and a lucky fool at that, to let herself get caught up in a personal vendetta that’d almost cost her her life.
She knew what Claudia would say when she found out, the same thing she’d said any number of times before. “When are you going to grow up, Tamara? When are you going to get wise to yourself?” She’d scoffed at that before because she’d always thought she had grown up, was wise to herself. Wrong?
No.
Yes.
Anyhow, she’d learned some things, some hard lessons. About men and relationships, about professional ethics and self-protection, about herself. One thing for sure: she wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.
