“I sent one of our people. She said everything looked normal, almost as though 43 and 44 went out for a walk and hadn’t gotten back yet. The phones were in the kitchen on the counter. I will personally go shortly, but my gut is telling me they’re gone,” Pearl said miserably.

“Isn’t it odd that two women came to you together? Is it a mother and daughter, two sisters, what?” Yoko asked.

“Yes, odd, but one helped the other, so it was only natural that we had to take them both to prevent any blowback on the helper. We’ve only had one other case like that over the years, and nothing went awry at that time. We really didn’t have a choice,” Pearl said.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Jack said. “Off the top of your head, what do you think? You’ve been doing this for a lot of years, Pearl. What is your gut telling you?”

Her eyes still wild and unfocused, Pearl looked around at the others and groaned. “My gut is telling me two of my people are in serious trouble, and since I have never had this problem before, I don’t know what to do or think other than that I now realize I can’t do this myself, and I need help.”

“What do you want us to do, Pearl?” Dennis asked.

Pearl stared across the table at the young reporter she liked so much and respected. Her thoughts were all over the place. How did she go from being a Supreme Court justice to this place in time? One minute she was applying and interpreting the law, and the next minute she was breaking the law, knowing full well she could go to prison for the rest of her life. She’d done it all for her daughter at first as she tried to save her and her granddaughter from an abusive husband and father, and the whole thing had grown legs. And now she was totally in charge of her underground railroad, saving women’s and children’s lives. Finally, she found her tongue. “Help me. Do whatever you have to do to find out what went wrong. Rescue the women.”

Kathryn massaged her leg as she listened to Pearl and the others. This weather was killing her, and she was in so much pain with her leg that she wanted to cry. Perhaps another place, another time, she might have held her tongue, but not now.

“Well, you see, Pearl, here’s the thing. I’m speaking for myself right at this moment, but I can almost guarantee that the others are thinking what I’m going to say. I’m tired of your bullshit with giving your people numbers and not sharing their names with us. This is the second time you’ve come to us to save your sorry ass, and we stepped up to the plate for you. Not this time, Miss Supreme Court Justice. You give us the people’s names and let us decide how to handle it. Secrecy is a wonderful thing, and in your case, I doubly respect it. But there comes a time when that doesn’t work, and that time is now. I am not putting my ass on the line for you again. Either you tell us everything, or I am outta here. As in now.”