all those years on the run. But something had to give or she was going to watch her sisters tear each other apart. The emotions were too broken, the pain too deep, on both sides. She ached for Mandy while she understood and felt the same as Tracey.
“Talk to the chief, Mandy. You trust him? You must or he wouldn’t have been able to set this up. Talk to the chief and see what he can work out. If the risk is too great, we’ll stay away, we won’t search to try and find you, and we’ll let you go back into the shadows again. But if there is a way-please, you owe it to Tracey and me to try it and see. We need you in our lives. We love you so much, and our lives have been hollow with that void of your being gone. Don’t ask us to endure that again if there is any way to avoid it.”
Mandy gave in abruptly, a nod of consent, but clearly afraid. “I’ll talk with the chief. But it’s all I can promise, Marie. I can’t put you two in danger even if that means I have to break your hearts.”
Marie offered a broken smile and reached over to squeeze Mandy’s hand. “I know, Sis.” The dilemma Mandy was in was unsolvable, and Marie understood, even as it cut, why Mandy had stayed away so very long. “It’s a plan then. We’ll see what the guys say is possible.” Marie looked around. Connor, Marsh, and the chief had not returned, but they had to be somewhere nearby.
Tracey came back over from the window and nudged Mandy to slide over on the chair more so she could sit on the armrest. “I’m getting engaged whenever Marsh finally gets around to asking, and I want you here to share that,” she offered, trying hard to stop the pain they were both in and to explain the anger.
Mandy hugged her. “I love you. I desperately want to be here for that. Don’t ever think I don’t want to be here. It’s just got to be safe; it’s the only thing left I’ve got to give you.”
Tracey cried and Mandy held on to her. Marie knew it was going to break Mandy’s heart to walk away tonight, but she’d do it because she thought it had to be done. Somehow this had to turn out right again. They were family and it had to turn out right.
Tracey eased back. “I need a mop for my face.”
Mandy laughed. “I think I do too.” She rubbed at her own wet face.
Marie reached up and slid free the fine chain and pendant she wore. “I’ve got something you might want to have back. This is yours, I think.” She had given Mandy the locket before she entered the army, and Mandy had taken it with her everywhere she traveled and even worn it into combat. The locket had been a connection to home.
Marie slid the chain and locket back around her sister’s neck and carefully latched the clasp. “I knew you never took it off, so it did its job. Sam used it to convince me you were really gone. I gave up looking after that. It’s good to have it back where it belongs.”
“I’m sorry, so sorry I had to do that.”
“I understand now why you did.”
Mandy hugged her hard. “Thank you, Marie.”
“We’re sharing the money with you equally-you do know that, Mandy, don’t you? No half sister and other protests getting shoved toward us. We’re a family, and it’s going to be handled the way it should have been all along.”
“You don’t have to do that, please. I’ve lived with the reality that money has been the source of so many problems in my life that I honestly don’t want it.”
“It’s not open for debate. Let it sit in trust for your kids if you like, but we’ll be telling Daniel our decision tomorrow.”
“No. For now, for lots of reasons, just let it be. To the world at large I’m dead, and it’s easier to stay that way for now. I’ll let you help with what I need and gratefully accept that, but we’ll talk about anything else only after this situation is ended.”
“It can sit for now, but know it’s going to be there. I’m not going to wade through the dilemma of how to be wealthy without also watching you figure it out too.”
Mandy smiled. “Tell me about college, Tracey. And about Marsh,” she said, trying to shift the conversation.
Tracey moved to settle back into the couch cushions, not wanting to follow the change of conversation, but at Marie’s soft look in warning, she picked up the topics. “School is school. I’d rather talk about Marsh,” she offered lightly. “We met over at the college when he came to take a refresher course in criminal law. I overheard him registering and decided it was worth auditing the class.”
“You did?” Marie asked, surprised, having not heard that before. “I thought you said you met him in class, that it was an elective that fit your schedule.”
“So maybe it was a bit more than that…,” Tracey conceded.
Mandy laughed. “You never were one to hesitate when you thought a guy was interesting. How long before he invited you out?”
Tracey rolled her eyes. “Forever. I ended up taking Criminal Law II the next semester just to wear him down. He was nice and all and would buy me coffee at the breaks, but forget a date. He thought I was a nice college kid and half his age.”
Mandy was having a hard time subduing her laughter. “Ten years between you?”
“Nine, but he’s the only one counting.”
“I gather you got past that eventually.”
“He’s not such a bad guy once he admits he likes you,” Tracey replied, smiling.
Marie refilled her drink as she listened to Mandy and Tracey, and a smile lightened her mood. They were going to be fine. Somehow, they were going to be fine.
“Tell her about your recent ski trip, Tracey,” Marie suggested, folding herself back into the cushions of the couch. She didn’t want this night to ever end.
Chapter Twelve
MARIE HUGGED MANDY, trying to share a final time with a touch just how much her sister meant to her.
“I know,” Mandy whispered.
Marie felt Connor’s hand rest against her shoulder and reluctantly released her sister. “Good-bye, Mandy.” Tracey had already left with Marsh, her farewell the hardest thing Marie had ever watched. She memorized her sister’s face one last time and let herself step back.
“Good-bye, Marie,” Mandy whispered.
Connor’s hand urged her to step away. She lost sight of Mandy as they cleared the doorway and stepped outside, aware the chief had been moving across the room to join her sister.
“Marie?”
“Give me a minute,” she choked out, fighting the tears wanting to consume her. She feared to the depth of her soul that she had just seen Mandy for the last time.
“She’ll be okay. The chief is going to make sure of that.”
The confidence Connor had in that man came through, and Marie let herself nod, let herself hope.
“We’ve got to be going. Anyone watching you and Tracey will be expecting the date to be over and you to be home soon. It’s best not to disappoint them.”
“Yes.”
She walked with Connor to his car, and when he unlocked and held the door for her, she slipped inside.
Marie cried for most of the trip back to town. Connor didn’t know what to say that might help the situation so he didn’t try to talk about it, just held Marie’s hand to remind her she wasn’t alone in this.
He’d sat with Marsh and the chief in the great room while the sisters talked, and when the voices had raised, they’d heard enough to know the stress going on in the next room. The night had gone better than he expected in some ways and been so much harder in others. They hadn’t been distant sisters in the early years; they had been
