Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 44

Deidre Sterling turned the stereo down with a click of the remote, then reached for her glass of white wine. She took a long drink and as she felt the icy liquid slide through her system, she hoped to heaven it would help her relax.

But she had to admit the odds of that happening were pretty slim. She hadn’t been able to settle down for what seemed forever. Her nerves were jangling, her stomach was in a constant churn and every time the phone rang or there was a knock on her door, she braced herself to be arrested.

The living room in her townhome was dark but for the fire burning in the white-tiled hearth. Firelight spilled through the room in a soothing pattern and she watched the shifting colors chase each other around the room. She sent a quick look at her cell phone again, hoping to see it light up with a text message, but there was still nothing.

“God, you idiot,” she murmured to herself as she took another sip of wine.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. That was all she could cling to for comfort. Staging a prison break at a small internment camp in Omaha should have been simple. They had done all the research. They had had the plans for the place, and a man on the inside, so Deidre’s group had known exactly where the guards were stationed and what time they made their rounds. It should have been simple to avoid them. Heck, Deidre had managed to give her Secret Service detail the slip. Anything after that should have been a cakewalk.

She let her head drop to the back of the sofa as she stared up at the ceiling, her gaze tracking the dancing shadows even as she concentrated on the soothing hiss and snap of the fire.

And while she zoned out, her mind replayed the last few moments of the mission she and her group had called Operation Deliverance. Shaking her head now, she sighed at their naïveté. Filled with righteous indignation at their government’s treatment of women and witches alike, they had been so sure they could pull it off and give the “justice” system a black eye at the same time.

But it went so wrong.





Everything was going according to plan. They had five witches free of their cells, the white-gold chains off their necks. Six members of RFW were in on the raid and four of them were already out in the vans, having done their part in cutting open the fences to allow Deidre and one other to go inside and get the witches.

Susan Baker, the same woman who had argued with Deidre’s mother at their White House meeting, had made all the arrangements. She’d paid off their informers and had vans waiting outside to hustle the women away to where they could hide until RFW could come up with a permanent place to take them.

Deidre, terrified but determined, had led the witches down the dimly lit hallway. In a hurry because the two guards were due back in fifteen minutes, she kept them moving, signaling them all for silence.

She needn’t have worried about that, though. These women had been tortured and locked up. They now knew to keep quiet if they hoped to survive. Their bare feet hardly made a sound on the cold cement floor and Deidre ran on her toes, the soles of her ballet flats whispering gently.

Susan waved her on and as Deidre and the others passed her, she pulled a gun from under her jacket.

Horrified, Deidre could only keep going. It was too late to stop and question her friend about what she was up to. But weapons hadn’t been part of the plan. No one was supposed to be armed, just in case they were caught. Bad enough to be captured breaking into a federal facility—especially if you were the president’s daughter—but to be carrying weapons, too?

Besides, no way was Deidre prepared to kill someone. No one was supposed to get hurt in this raid. Their mission was to save people. Raise the plight of witches in the public consciousness. Garner sympathy for them.

Why did Susan have a gun?

Deidre led the five women down the long hall and through the darkened reception area toward the front door. Then they were outside, darting across the dead grass, puffs of their breath clouding in front of their faces. The cold October night pressed down on them and Deidre felt …

Something.

A presence.

She could have sworn that someone was watching her. But she shook off the feeling, knowing that if anyone was watching their escape, floodlights would have flashed on and a warning siren would be wailing. Still, that prickling sense of something different stayed with her.

They were at the front gate and Deidre hurried the witches on, waving her hands, pointing at the two black vans waiting for them. The women didn’t need any further encouragement. They took off at a dead run once they were free of the compound and Deidre smiled as they piled into the vans and were driven off.

“Mission accomplished,” she murmured just before she heard a single gunshot from inside the building. It was inordinately loud in the stillness and the echo of its report shocked Deidre like a cold hand that fisted around her heart.

She whipped around and the floodlights snapped on, nearly blinding her. She ran back to the small enclosure she had just left, afraid that Susan had been shot and knowing she had to get her friend out of there before the guards responded to the noise.

From somewhere close, she heard men shouting and she realized they didn’t have long. Heart pounding, straining for breath, she dashed down the hall, then skidded to a stop.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

Susan was standing over a guard, the gun still pointed down at him. A fresh pool of dark red blood had formed around him and continued to grow, spilling across the cement, tracking toward the toe of Susan’s shoe.

“He tried to stop us,” Susan whispered, her voice nearly lost over the sudden shriek of the siren erupting. “I had to do it,” she said, flicking her gaze up to Deidre. “I had no choice.”

“Damn it, Susan,” she cried and reached out to grab her friend’s arm. Pulling with all her strength, she tugged her along behind her, down the hallway, back toward the front of the building and the only escape route they had. “Come on!”

“I had to,” Susan muttered, shaking her head, looking back over her shoulder at the dead man lying in a puddle of blood. “I had to. I had to.”

Deidre kept running, kept dragging a reluctant Susan along behind her. Heart in her throat now, she could hardly draw a breath. Her nerves were screaming and tears blurred her vision and still she kept running. They were locked in now. They had to get out. If they were caught, they’d all be jailed and it wouldn’t be for helping witches escape.

They’d be tried for murder.

And being the president’s daughter wouldn’t save her.

She bolted around a corner, paused long enough to make sure no one was there, then ran for it, tugging at Susan’s arm. She heard a sound behind her. A series of sighs, then a couple of heavy thuds as something hit the floor. Deidre spun around frantically to look. And in that split second, she thought she saw—No.

“Run, Susan! Run!” She yelled it now, no need for quiet and stealth as the sirens wailed and more men shouted, their booted feet crunching on the cold, dead grass.

Susan seemed to wake out of her stupor and suddenly bolted alongside Deidre, the two of them racing for the car they’d left outside the fence. The license plates had been blacked out and there was nothing distinguishable about the plain beige sedan.

They jumped into the car and Deidre put it into gear and stepped on the gas. In moments, they were peeling away from the camp and losing themselves in the darkness.

But nothing would ever be the same again.



Her cell phone rang and Deidre jumped, sloshing wine over the rim of her glass and down her arm. She grabbed the phone, recognized the caller and answered gratefully. “Susan? Are you okay? Where are you?”

“I don’t think I should tell you where I am, Dee,” she said and her voice sounded distant. It wasn’t so much a miles thing as an emotional distance, though.

Deidre set her wineglass down, picked up the remote and turned off the stereo. Somehow, the silky sounds of soft jazz were a discordant note in all of this. “I’ve been so worried. Are you okay? Tell me that at least.”

“I’m fine. Really. I’m just …”

Heart aching, Deidre could imagine what her friend was feeling. Guilt. Misery. Fear. She knew because she was feeling the same thing and she hadn’t killed that guard. Though she might as well have. As far as the courts were concerned, she was as guilty as Susan. Hell, as far as she was concerned, she was guilty. If they hadn’t broken into that camp, the guard would still be alive.

But, she wondered, would the witches?

“What about—” She broke off, not wanting to ask a question about the rescued prisoners. Cell phone conversations could be overheard or recorded. Hell, in today’s world, there wasn’t a lot to feel safe about.

“They’re good, too,” Susan told her. “They’re visiting a friend and everyone’s okay.”

“Thank God.”

“Yeah.” Susan paused for a long moment, then said, “I’m not going to be coming back to D.C., Dee. I … can’t.”

“Sue—”

“I’m really sorry, but there’s just no way I can go back there and pick up like nothing happened.” A broken sob carried across the air and Deidre’s heart clenched in despair for her friend. “You’ll have to take over at RFW, Dee. They’ll need a leader and—”

“No,” Deidre said quickly, her voice sounding as lost as her friend’s. She’d been avoiding the members of RFW ever since that night and still couldn’t bear the thought of seeing any of them. “I can’t do it, either, Susan. Someone else is going to have to step up to the plate.”

“I’m so sorry, Dee,” Susan said and her voice broke again on the words. “I ruined everything for both of us. If it hadn’t been for you, I never even would have made it out of there. I really owe you.”

“No, you don’t.” Deidre took a breath and blew it out. “I’m not even sure how we got out, to be honest.” Their escape was pretty much a blur. She remembered running like mad, terrified, the sounds of men shouting and running feet echoing throughout the building. She remembered feeling someone watching her as surely as if that someone had reached out and touched her.

Frowning, she lifted one hand and rubbed a spot between her eyebrows, where a headache that had been born on the night of the escape was still pounding. As a throbbing, incessant reminder of what she’d done and what she’d seen.

Just for a second, she let herself try to remember what had been there in the room with them at the last moment before she and Susan had escaped. But when her friend started talking again, Deidre shook off the memory and listened.

“I don’t know yet where I’m going,” Susan said quietly. “But once I get settled, I’ll call you. Promise.”

“Okay. Just … be careful, Susan. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Right. You, too.”

When she disconnected, Deidre just sat there, staring at the phone, her last link with her friend gone. She knew Susan wouldn’t be calling her again. She would want to cut all ties to that night at the camp. She wouldn’t want a reminder of what had happened. Deidre would miss her friend, but honestly, this way was better. How could they ever just go out to dinner or to a movie or laugh over guys together again? With this terrible secret haunting them both, normalcy was not an option.

Reaching for her wine, Deidre took another long sip and sighed. She turned her head to the window overlooking the small park in her Capitol Hill neighborhood, and stared through the rain that slid like tears down the glass—and saw something entirely different.

For just an instant, she let herself go back to that night. To the moment when she’d heard the scuffling sounds and spun around prepared to defend her and Susan against whatever came for them.

She remembered the darkness.

The shadows.

And she remembered clearly one more thing.

The pair of gray eyes watching her.