The Screaming Lady, A JEZ Ghost Negotiator Mystery

Chapter Fourteen: PLAN B

At that point, Zakary leaned forward and put his hand on her knee, "We will be there in the kitchen, right on the other side of the swinging door, if ANYTHING goes wrong, or if you are uncomfortable in any way, we can be there in a second."

"I assure you; we will not let anything happen to you," Jessica said, "We will be with you every step of the way."

"Why me?" Rosie said. "Why not Remy? It has made a home in HIS Diner, for gosh sake, I am sure he would make better bait than me?"

Jessica softly said, "Rosie, it is the connection, there is something there, we need to use that if we can, but we need to understand it first."

Elizabeth reiterated, "We will be there, you are safe; no harm will come to you. It may be a little scary, but that is all."

After along moment, Rosie conceded, "Ok, I will do it."

Jessica jumped up excitedly, "GREAT! We are on for tonight, you can meet us there at 9:00 pm, or we can pick you up if that is more convenient?"

Rosie looked at Jessica through slit eyes, "wait a minute, what do you mean 'we are on for tonight'? What if I would have said No? How did you know I was going to say Yes?"

Jessica smiled a shy smile and said, "Well, I didn't, but I figured that we would take a chance and go ahead and ask Remy to have the Diner ready, just in case. We really need to put this investigation to bed."

All four of them started laughing, mostly due to nervousness. Rosie said, "I will have my driver bring me over at 9:00 pm, I'll pull up to the back and come in through the kitchen."

The three nodded and stood up and proceeded for the door. Jessica said, as they were going out the door, "see you at nine."

Rosie said, "it's a date." And smiled, but as she turned around, her smile faded and fear crossed her face.

The triplets had left to go set up the Diner; Rosie was left in the sitting room to ponder what was going to happen that evening.

Josephine walked in very gingerly, and put her hand on Rosie's shoulder, "Are you really sure you want to do this?"

Rosie was staring out the window, she sighed, "No, Josephine, No, I am not sure at all."

The triplets had all the equipment set up in the Diner by 8:30 pm that evening. This time they secured all the equipment out of eye shot. They had a computer station set up in the kitchen that had eyes on the whole Diner, so that they could stay in the kitchen while Rosie was in the Diner. They also had microphones and speakers set up to keep constant voice communication with her, so that they would know what was going on that was not visible, such as how she was feeling and what the environment was; also if she decided she did not want to go through with it, she could call out for help.

Remy had left the Diner to the triplets; he left them the keys and had shut it down early. The Diner at this point was dark and all locked up to give the impression that it was closed for business, to keep any unwanted patrons out of harms way.

Once the clock hit 9:00 pm, and there was no Rosie, Elizabeth said, "I had a fleeting thought this afternoon that we should have insisted on picking her up, so that she could not back out."

Both Jessica and Zakary looked at the back door, Jessica said, "give her time, she may be just running late."

Zakary said, "Rosie is not the type to run late."

Just as Zakary was making his comment, they heard a car drive up. It was driving up very slowly, they could hear the tires crunching in the gravel of the parking lot behind the Diner. Zakary opened the back door and a large black car with tinted windows was parked behind the Diner. As Zakary approached the car an older gentleman got out and opened the driver's side rear door and assisted Rosie out of the car.