Chapter 392

It was ten till one when I pulled into the drive of what I would always think of as the Bluebird House. Jerrod met me at the door without the shotgun. The shotgun was leaning within reach, but in a different spot than it had been in the morning, That showed me that he was being careful.

"So how's she doing?" I asked him quietly.

"She is feeling some better I think. She is not so timid now. She seems to be working herself up for this. She made the switch from the Vicodin to some over the counter thing, so she seems more with it." he suggested.

"Also good,"I said. Since she was a housewife of sorts, I had feared that I might have a prescription junkie for a client.".

She walked out of the bedroom at that moment. "I'm a bored housewife alright, and I had problems coping, but I didn't go to drugs. Harold would have loved that. It would have given him one more tool to use in controlling me."

"Well you have broken the chain, now you just have to make sure it is not going to be put back together. Then you will probably have to learn how to live free. Both of those might be equally hard to accomplish. I can help with one of them at least. So lets go pull the monster's teeth." I smiled warmly at her. Maybe she didn't live in grinding poverty but her misery was just as real to her. It was like Alvin in the silk prison, it was still a prison even if they had access to a golf course.

"Will this work?" Lydia asked me.

"Not in a single day, but you have to trust Jennifer and me. This might be your first time, but it isn't ours," I said.

I turned my attention to Jerrod. "Sylvia should be here for you in about two hours or so. Then you guys get Jack and go to my place. Sylvia knows what I want done and she is prepared to do it. You don't need to know right now unless you just want to know. It might ease your mind that Sean isn't going to be in any danger this time."

"As long as he doesn't find out where I am keeping Lydia, it's all the same to me." Jerrod said. "I'm enjoying the vacation. Well at least the vacation from those two."

"We can keep you on vacation a little longer. There will be a truck pulling in sometime tomorrow afternoon with a big ass trailer. They are going to drop at the end of the drive. Don't go meet them, and if they come to the door don't let them in, and especially don't sign for anything. The driver should know better, but you never know with these clowns."

Sylvia had already been told what she was to do. It involved driving out to pickup Jerrod and Sean, when I called from Tryon. Everything in Aster was as ready as it could be at the moment.

"Wow, you brought the class ride for me," Lydia said with a laugh after she noticed that I had parked the ragged old truck in the Bluebird House's drive. Since Lydia seemed up for it, we got into the pickup and off we went.

We were in the truck and driving toward Tryon, when I answered, "Nothing but the best for my clients," I said. "I did empty the trash out of the passenger side floor." I was serious about that. I used the passenger side foot well as my rolling waste paper basket. Anything with food of any kind, I toss into a trash can. But fast food receipts or papers of all other kinds ended up in that foot well. It had taken a large trash bag to hold all the trash from the pickup.

The drive to the TV station was uneventful. No one would expect the Judge's wife to be riding in a beat up old pickup truck with a middle aged ugly duckling. She was supposed to be all about glamor. So I felt that we were not in any danger,

Once we got inside the station and identified ourselves to the receptionist the trouble began. A tall, thick, not fat man, gentleman in a cheap suit walked our way. "Security," I said to Lydia.

"Ms. Stone are you armed?" He asked.

"Yeah, two of them and a .38 revolver as well," I said.

"You will have to leave the .38 with me," he said.

"Not going to happen," I said.

"Then you will have to leave," he said.

"Not a problem for me, but you might want to call Miss White, before I go. I will gladly stand here while you make the call. You can even put your hand on the butt of your pistol, so you have at least a chance of getting it out before me." I said with a smile. "If it comes to that."

He nodded and the receptionist made the call. It was just a very few seconds before Simi White was standing in front of me. "Ah we meet again and you are still as evil as ever," she said.

"And you are still as beautiful as ever, but dumb as a post," I said smiling at her. She had done the interview after I did the Russian in the parking lot of the bed and breakfast. The B&B was being used as a brothel. for the rich and infamous it seemed.

"So, you can't come inside the building armed, even if you have all the paperwork," she said.

"As long as I am on a protection detail, anyone who tries to take my weapon is likely to be in the hospital or worse. So if you want this interview, get your cameraman and lets go into the parking lot." I did say it with a smile. I aimed the smile at Simi White as well as the security officer.

"She is a real smart ass," I heard him say as he escorted Simi to the elevator.

"And if you are smart, you will not ignore her warning," Simi said with a smile as she entered the elevator.

"Where the hell is White," Jennifer asked as she came through the door.