her and get her home right away. Good thing she’d given him the heads-up and an alternative plan. He didn’t waste any time arguing with his boss and probably earned brownie points when he mentioned he planned to get a taped statement from her in the car en route. In a matter of seconds, Frankie had scared up a pocket Dictaphone and led her toward one of the clustered police cars blocking the street.
She passed by a squad car and glanced at it. She jumped as Albadian glared out at her. Through the glass, he mouthed, “You’ll die, bitch.”
She nodded back at him grimly. She might at that. But not today.
4:00 P.M.
T he police got Diana across town in record time, but it was a breeze with the streets so deserted. Everyone was no doubt plastered to their TV sets or flat-out hiding from further possible terrorist attacks. Some brave new world it was turning out to be. She made a brief statement into the tape recorder her police escort shoved under her nose. She started her narrative at the point of seeing Albadian moving through the crowd with a backpack and thinking it looked suspicious. She might eventually tell the police how she recognized Albadian and how she knew to look for him in the first place, but first she needed to talk to Owen Haas and Delphi, and let them determine how much got released to whom about this threat to the President-elect.
When she got home, she had about a half hour before Owen’s man was due to arrive. Thank goodness. She couldn’t wait to get this awful black dye out of her hair. She jumped into the shower and turned the temperature up as high as she could stand it. As she thawed out, she edged the temperature up higher and higher until her skin turned pink and her bathroom filled with thick steam. Although she could stay in there happily for an hour, duty called. Three vigorous shampoos later, she stepped out of the shower, blond once more.
She dried off, blow-dried her hair quickly and dressed in a tailored wool pantsuit and matching turtleneck. The pale blue fabric had a touch of Lycra in it and followed the contours of her body closely. It was one of her favorite outfits. It was fully classy enough to see the President-elect of the United States in, but it was still comfortable, and just sexy enough to give a girl confidence. She put on a touch of makeup for good measure. She might not get to see Gabe when she talked to Owen this afternoon, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She was going to look her best for once.
Five minutes early, a knock sounded on her front door. The Secret Service must subscribe to the same definition of what constituted being on time as the Army did. If you weren’t five minutes early, you were late. She opened the door. And started in surprise. She’d expected a burly, serious Secret Service agent in a conservative suit, but instead her older sister stood there, looking better than any woman had a right to in a long, red coat.
Diana gaped. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to say.
“Well, gee, you don’t have to sound so thrilled to see me!” Josie exclaimed. “The family’s been frantic about you. When Gramps’ car got to the Pentagon and you were already gone, he got all worried about you. Then that bomb went off downtown, and the phone lines are all jammed, and you didn’t answer your phone-let’s just say Mom and Dad are panicked. They sent me over here to check on you.”
She’d been gone when her grandfather’s car had reached the Pentagon? Then who…? “I didn’t know you were in town,” Diana mumbled, stepping back from the door to let her sister inside before Josie ran her over and forced her way in.
“Diego had a couple meetings at the Pentagon and I had some shopping to take care of, so I took a couple of days’ leave and came with him. Mom wanted to visit Gramps so she tagged along. They’ve got some…catching up…to do.”
Now there was a delicate word for it. Her mother and grandfather had a huge rift to heal between them. He’d never been able to accept Zoe Lockworth’s clinical depression and had railed at her irresponsibility for wallowing in it for years. Now that the antidote had been found, Joseph Lockworth had some serious crow to eat with his daughter-in-law, and she had some serious forgiving to do.
Fortunately, she and Josie had already worked out most of their differences. When she’d flown out to California to help Josie, and got shot in the process, it had gone a long way toward reminding them what was most important among families. She just wished she could’ve helped Josie complete clearing their mother’s name. Heck, she just wished she could do something noteworthy all by herself for once without Josie coming to the rescue.
Diana commented lightly to her sister, “As you can see, I’m just fine. You can report back to the clan that I’m alive and well.”
“Thank God,” Josie replied fervently. “What a mess. Did you see it on TV? What do you think happened?”
Diana bit her lip and said nothing. Hopefully, Sis would interpret her noncommittal shrug as ignorance.
Josie barged into the living room, shedding her coat as she went. “We need to talk.”
Oh, Lord. Not now. The Secret Service guy would be here any second. Diana said with thin patience, “Look, Sis. I’m expecting someone in just a few minutes. Can’t this wait?”
Josie plunked down on the sofa and crossed her elegant legs. “You can’t keep running away from Mom forever. You’re going to have to talk to her sometime.”
“I have talked to her. We’re fine. She’s better and I’m glad.”
Josie rolled her eyes.
Damn. She never was any good at BSing her older sister. Josie had always been smarter, wiser, more in control in family situations.
“Diana, when are you going to stop running away from everything that’s the slightest bit difficult in your life? You’ve got to grow up and be responsible sometime.”
Right. As if she wasn’t being responsible by busting her butt and putting her neck on the line to save the next President’s life. That’s why she’d been chosen for Oracle and was one of the leading conspiracy theorists in the country. Because she was so freaking irresponsible. Thing was, it was all so secret she couldn’t tell anyone, not even her well-meaning family, about it.
“When are you going to get off my back and let me be my own person?” Diana sighed.
Josie’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched. “I’m not on your back and you know it. And when haven’t you been your own person? You’ve always done exactly what you wanted to.”
How wrong Josie was. Most of her adolescence had been shaped by doing the exact opposite of her older sister. It had never been about rebellion. It had always been about struggling to come out from behind her sister’s giant shadow. The true rebellion came later. When the strictures of an Army career started to grate on her.
“Tell me something, Jo. Do you ever get tired of the Air Force? Tired of all the rules and regulations and people telling you what to do all the time?”
Her sister frowned. “No, not particularly. Why do you ask?”
Diana remembered that flashback of her life on the Mall, the shocking realization that she rebelled within the Army because she was still angry over what the Establishment had cost her-the love of a mother, a unified family living under one roof, a normal childhood.
Diana answered belatedly, “I was thinking about everything that’s happened to the two of us, and I wondered why you came out of it so calm about what happened to Mom while I…well…while I didn’t.”
“What ever gave you the idea I was calm about Mom’s problems?” Josie exclaimed.
Diana stared. “You mean you weren’t okay with it all?”
Josie snorted. “I was terrified. And furious, and frustrated and a hundred other things. But I couldn’t change it and neither could Mom. So I accepted it.”
And maybe that’s where the two of them were so different. Josie could accept the inevitable, while she’d fight against it until she bloodied herself trying to change it. Which category did Gabe fall into? He had Josie’s refinement, her controlled elegance, her ability to fit in and play by the rules. But he was also a politician. The mother of all politicians, in fact, to have run for his country’s highest office. Surely somewhere beneath that polished exterior, he secretly wanted to change the world or else he wouldn’t have chosen to pursue that particular job.
“What’s going on with you, Die Hard?” Josie asked.
Diana smiled at the old nickname from their Athena Academy days. She used to hate the name. But this past year had seen a lot of healing between the sisters. Now she used it proudly as a computer handle. She opened her mouth to reply when a knock at the front door saved her from having to skirt the truth. Which was just as well.
