Great Big Beautiful Life(102)
The diner was grubby and mostly empty. The air inside was stiff and thick with cigarette smoke. Margaret took a seat with her back to the corner, where she’d have a clear view of the front door. A man in drab gray clothes sat in the corner exactly opposite her, and she couldn’t tell whether he was watching her or not, but she decided it was wise to treat him as if he were, just in case.
The bells over the door rang three times, two customers coming and one going, before Laura finally walked in, and at first, Margaret’s eyes grazed right over her the same way they had the strangers.
It took her several seconds after Laura made eye contact to recognize the emaciated woman in the sagging brown dress as her sister.
Her hair looked lank, her face pale and sickly. Worst of all, when she saw Margaret, something like fear flared through her eyes.
Fear.
She was afraid. Of her sister.
Margaret thought she might throw up. She willed herself to smile. Laura began walking toward her. She seemed to float almost. She lowered herself into the booth, and with a frail, rattling voice said, “Dad was supposed to come.”
Margaret’s heart split open. She’d had a plan. She’d meant to get answers. To talk sense into her sister, but all of that went out the window when she saw her. She noticed the man in the corner again, definitely watching them. They wouldn’t have much time.
She dropped her own gaze to the tar-thick coffee she’d been nursing since she got there. Her voice broke as she murmured, “Tell me what you need, to get out.”
When she chanced a glance up, that same fear had coalesced in her sister’s peaked face. “I’m not leaving,” she whispered.
“Do you want to?” Margaret asked, to no response. Laura’s eyes were downcast, her hands trembling against the edge of the table. “Tell me what you need,” Margaret said again, more slowly.
Her eyes darted sideways, paranoia wafting off her. But was it really paranoia if there was something to be afraid of? She whispered, “He’ll never let me go.”
“Tell me,” Margaret said once more, low, quiet.
“He won’t let me,” Laura replied. “He says I belong to him.”
An unprecedented rage knifed through Margaret. “And you think he loves you more than I do?” she hissed. “You think he’d do more to hurt you than I’d do to protect you?” She leaned forward, eager, trying to school her face into something like calm, willing the man in the corner to give them just another minute. “You can’t think that,” she whispered fiercely. “I know you, and you know me. I’ll win. If it’s him versus me, I’ll win. I won’t let him take you. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and he can’t have you.”
Laura stared back at her, tears glossing over her eyes. Back in the corner, the man in gray coughed, and Laura blinked the emotion away, her face going blank.
So blank that the moment would haunt Margaret’s dreams for the rest of her life, the moment she truly believed her sister had slipped away from her.
Then coolly, dispassionately, Laura said, “3488 Gates Road. September first. Eleven a.m.”
That was all. The man in the corner had risen and tossed some bills on the table. At the sound of his boots approaching, Laura went rigid.
Margaret pulled the suitcase out from under the table and set it between them. The man appeared right at Laura’s shoulder and reached for the suitcase before she could.
Margaret didn’t recognize him. He was younger than Dr. David, with a buzzed head. She thought she spotted a gun under his jacket, but it might’ve been her imagination.
He slid the suitcase off the table and said calmly, “Go wait in the bathroom for ten minutes. If you come out before then, we’ll know.”
“And then what?” Margaret asked.
He looked from her to Laura with a smile that chilled Margaret’s core. She nodded and stood, excusing herself to the tiny, dumpy bathroom in the back of the too-hot diner. She hadn’t worn a watch, and there was no clock in the restroom. So she counted. Sixty seconds for a minute, ten times. And then, because she wasn’t sure she’d counted correctly, she did it all again.
She went back to her table, finished her coffee, and waited for Darrin to loop back for her.
With the information Laura had given them, Freddy went to the police. The police took them to the FBI. The address was an old warehouse. They had no idea what they’d find there, or if Laura would have led them on a wild-goose chase, but the Ives family had enough power and money to be taken seriously.
There were so many ways it could go wrong. Laura could’ve lied. Laura could’ve told the truth, then admitted as much to whoever was controlling her. Laura could’ve gotten it wrong. She could’ve gotten it right, and whatever was meant to happen at 3488 Gates Road had been postponed or moved up, or canceled entirely.
Even if they found evidence of criminal activity, there was no guarantee they’d have enough to prosecute David. But none of that mattered as much as getting Laura away from him.
This was a means to do that.
At eleven a.m. on September 1, the FBI raided a warehouse registered to a man named Bill Jones. They arrived several minutes after a large shipment of illegally obtained guns.
Three members of the People’s Moment were killed, along with one agent, in the cross fire that followed. Each of those people had a name. Each of them had loved ones they’d cut themselves off from, fear and anger and pain that the world would never know about.