Weekend Warriors (Sisterhood #1)(28)

“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

Nikki walked into her office and sat down and kicked off her shoes. She eyed the mini-bar under the counter and decided another beer was in order. She scooted her swivel chair over to the bar and uncapped a beer. She slid the chair backward and then propped her feet on top of the desk. She rifled through the mail. Nothing urgent, nothing even remotely important. She sifted through the pink message slips. Like the mail, there was nothing urgent, nothing even remotely important except possibly the message from the university where she taught first-year law three days a week. The message read, Call me up till 8:30 here at the office or home later. It was signed by the Dean. She swigged from the bottle as she opened the gray envelope that had been delivered by a messenger.

Nikki took another long pull from the beer bottle before she ripped at the envelope. She frowned as she read it, wondering who she had to thank for it.



Dear Miss Quinn,



I want to thank you for everything you’ve done on my behalf. I know I let you down and I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but I can’t abandon my children and my husband. Please don’t think too harshly of me.



I know the police will be looking for me but they’ll never find us. Never in a million years. I’ve planned this for a long time. The only thing I wasn’t sure of was the time and the place.



I know I have no right to ask this of you, but will you please do me one last favor. Tell the police no one helped me. No one else is involved. Even my husband and kids didn’t know until it was the right moment to leave. I left the deed to the house in the cabinet over the sink. You can sell the house and whatever equity is in it, donate it to a victims’ rights organization. Please do it in my daughter’s name.



I don’t know if you can explain this to Mrs. Rutledge or not. Please try. I know I can never pay her back and I won’t even try. Just thank her for caring enough about me to want to help.



Maybe someday we’ll meet again.



Marie Lewellen





Nik walked over to the copy machine and slid Marie’s letter underneath the cover. She carried the original and the copy back to her desk. She dialed Jack’s cell phone number from memory. She didn’t bother with niceties.

“I just received a letter from Marie Lewellen. It came by messenger earlier today. Come by now and pick it up. I’ll have a copy hand delivered in the morning to Judge Olsen. Now, Jack. I’m getting ready to go back to the farm.” She hung up before he had a chance to reply.

Her next call was to the Dean at the university. Her gut told her she wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. She identified herself and waited while he inquired about her well-being. “I’m sorry, Nicole, but the board feels you are too controversial right now. A leave of absence until possibly the next semester was the board’s suggestion. At that time we will evaluate —”

“You’re firing me, is that it?” she pressed.

“A leave of absence with pay is not firing you, Nicole. We do hope that Mrs. Rutledge’s…the board feels…”

Nikki felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up in anger. “You’ll have my resignation first thing in the morning, Dean. I think it’s safe to say Mrs. Rutledge’s endowments will cease first thing in the morning. Have a nice evening, Dean. Like Myra said, everything comes with a price.” She hung up and looked around the room.

“Hey, Barb! I’m calling your name! Can you hear me? I could use a friend right now.”

“I’m right here, Nik. The dark stuff hit the fan, huh?”

“Yeah, and it’s splattering in all directions. Can you…what I mean is, do you know what’s going on, or do I have to tell you?”

“I know. So you lost your teaching job. Big deal. Three days a week was three days too many. You were overworked anyway. You were on your way to burnout, girl. It’s not like you need the money. What you and the others are doing is so much more important. Concentrate on that and you’ll be okay.”

“Jack is on his way over. We had a parting of the ways and I feel…awful. You never liked him, did you, Barb?”

“Not really. Maybe that’s because I never really got to know him that well. He tries to put you down but you refuse to see it. Maybe I was looking at it all wrong. You are so much smarter than he is. He knows it and resents it. I think he’s calculating as well as manipulative just like you are, Nik.”

“I already figured that out, Barb. I wouldn’t put it past him to bug my office and my apartment. Shit, I didn’t ask for my key back.”

“He’s on his way. Ask him for it. I hear the elevator. See you back at the farm.”

“Yeah okay.” Am I nuts! Am I really talking to dead people? I’m breaking the laws I swore to uphold by the dozen. Yeah, I’m nuts.

Jack Emery strode into her office and looked around. “Really nice digs, Nik. I know I say that every time I come here. Your rent must be half of what I earn in a year.”

No matter what he said, she wasn’t going to let him get to her. “Here, this is your copy. I keep the original. Check it over before you leave. This is the envelope it was delivered in. DBY Messenger Service on K Street. I don’t know when they got it or how they got it. Now, I’d like my key back.”