“No. He would’ve taken the kids if the situation had become that desperate.”
“Okay, we’ll see what Jonathan can do to track him down.” Sheridan tried to follow this statement with a smile, but Skye could sense the effort behind it, the worry. She hadn’t seen her friend so concerned about TLS since those rocky months after they’d first launched the charity. That they were overextended wasn’t a big surprise, given the number of cases they’d taken on after the last newspaper article had heightened public awareness of their existence. She should’ve been more sensitive to their limitations. But it was always difficult to choose whom to help. And she wasn’t especially in tune with their financial situation to begin with. Sheridan handled the accounting; Skye oversaw or taught the classes they offered in self-defense, self-esteem, trauma recovery, and, as an adjunct, gun safety and target shooting. Jasmine worked with investigators to find evidence, people, anything that had gone missing. Beyond that, they each spearheaded different cases, acting as a sort of director by determining what was needed, what was available and how to mesh the two.
“Our next fund-raiser is a week from tomorrow, right?”
“That’s right. Saturday evening.”
“I have a few bucks left over in my account this month.” Because she had bills that would now have to wait, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Sheridan. “I’ll pay Jonathan.”
Closing her eyes, Sheridan shook her head. “Skye—”
Skye nudged her. “The organization can pay me back if the fund-raiser is as good as we hope. Okay?”
Sheridan sighed but nodded. “Okay. Let’s get out of the cold. It’s starting to rain.”
She turned to go inside, but Skye caught her long enough to give her a quick hug. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Of course I understand. That’s what we do. That’s why we’re here.” She held the door. “By the way…”
Skye dropped her keys in her purse. “What is it?”
“Have you got a date for the fund-raiser?”
“Not yet. It doesn’t make sense to me. Why do we need an escort?” she asked as they moved down the hall.
“I told you. It’s all about public perception. The majority of our financial backers are businessmen, bankers, farmers, ranchers, dairymen. You know, conservatives who favor law and order.”
“So what?”
They reached the reception desk, which was unstaffed until the volunteers began to arrive later in the day, and Sheridan sat down to sort through the mail. “So the senator who’s agreed to come is also very conservative. When his aide called, he hinted that they have to be very careful about whom they appear to support.”
Skye rested her elbows on the counter and watched to see if anything had come in for her. “What’s wrong with supporting people who help the victims of violent crime? Who’ve been victims themselves? What could be unpopular about that?”
“We’re not exactly friends with local law enforcement, for one thing. That makes us seem like a bit of a gamble. And we’ve gotten so engrossed in our work that we’ve let our private lives go.”
They’d talked about this before. They discussed it more often as they wandered further and further from what others would term “a normal life.” But Skye wasn’t in the mood to address the subject again. Not when she was giving up her grocery money to hire an investigator. “He said that?”
“No. But…”
“What?” Skye said, growing impatient.
Sheridan set two letters aside for Jasmine, threw out some junk mail and handed what looked like a card to Skye. “He hinted that he wanted to avoid any speculation about our sexual orientation.”
That immediately diverted Skye’s attention from her mail. “No way!”
“I wouldn’t make that up.”
“I hope you told him to go to hell.”
“No, I assured him that associating with us wouldn’t threaten the support of the people who got the senator elected.”
“I would’ve told him to go to hell.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You would’ve realized that it’s a small sacrifice for the cause.”
Skye sighed and checked the return address on her envelope. It was from Joanna Lintz, a woman she’d helped when The Last Stand first opened. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But it really galls me to let someone else direct what I do with my personal life.” Opening the card, she glanced through it. Joanna wrote that she was happy and doing better than ever. But even that news wasn’t enough to counteract everything else that had happened today. “What does speculation about our sexual orientation have to do with fighting crime?” she asked Sheridan.
“We spend a lot of time together. We don’t go out very often. We have no men in our lives.” Sheridan grimaced. “Well, at least, no one who isn’t on our ‘needs help’ list. Even Jasmine hasn’t been with a man since God knows when. You don’t see anything wrong with that picture?”
Skye put the card in her bag and tossed the tail of her knitted scarf over one shoulder. “Nothing that should concern anyone else! Besides, Jasmine’s been married.”
“That doesn’t mean anything and you know it.”
“It’s just…annoying.”
“I agree, but this fund-raiser has to work.”
No kidding. Skye wouldn’t have running water and electricity if it didn’t. “Fine. I’ll find someone to drag along on Saturday,” she grumbled. “Anything else for me?”
“Not today.” Sheridan set the rest of the mail aside. “And make sure it’s someone who cleans up well,” she added. “It’s formal, and we want to make a good impression. This is our chance to network with people who have serious money and to make contacts in the political world.”
Skye started toward her own office but turned back at the door. “Getting a guy who makes a good impression isn’t as easy as it sounds. Remember Charlie Fox at the Christmas party?”
“I told you not to ask him.” Sheridan stood and slid the chair back under the desk. “He’s still crying in his beer over the divorce.”
“You didn’t say that, Sher. You said your neighbor was lonely. That it might be nice for him to get out and circulate.”
Sheridan wouldn’t look her in the eye. “I’m pretty sure I warned you,” she said as she made her way to the office directly across from the reception area.