Dead Secret

all the enterprises connected with them. Everything about Birmingham was downsized and laid-back compared to Atlanta. The airport was postage stamp-size compared to the Atlanta airport, and not nearly as hectic. Diane had heard it said in Georgia that Birmingham was 120 miles and fifty years away from Atlanta. Alabamians said that the road to hell ran through Atlanta. Truth on both sides, she thought. For her personally, it was like a trip back in time.
    She collected her bag from the overhead compartment and walked with the other passengers down the long passageway past security to where she hoped to see Susan waiting for her. She searched the crowd for her face.
    “Diane. Over here.”
    Susan stood in back of the waiting crowd, waving her arm. She looked just as Diane remembered her—conservative tailored dress, shoulder-length brown hair parted on the side with the ends turned under. A contrast in every way to Diane’s slacks, blazer and short-cut hair.
    Diane walked around the escalators taking passengers to the luggage pickup and over to her sister. The hug was perfunctory, their cheeks barely touching. Diane felt awkward. She wondered if Susan dreaded the arguments that would come as much as she did.
    “Susan, I hope you didn’t have to wait long. We were late taking off.”
    “No. I had to be here anyway to bring the kids to the airport. We sent them to stay with Gerald’s sister until this is cleared up.”
    Diane was disappointed. “I’m sorry I missed them.”
    Susan’s mouth stretched into what she probably thought was a smile. “They wanted to see you too. Especially Kayla. She’ll be starting college next fall.” Susan fished an envelope from her purse. “She wrote you a letter and wanted me to give it to you. She was hoping maybe next summer to get a job at the museum.”
    Diane smiled, glad to have something she could offer, glad her niece wanted to work at the museum. “Sure. There are several jobs she’d like. Is she wanting a museum career?”
    “No, she wants to be an archaeologist. Gerald and I are trying to talk her into something more useful, but kids can be so impractical.” Susan turned toward the escalators. “Baggage claim is downstairs.”
    “I have everything in here,” Diane said, holding up her duffel bag.
    “Is that all? We need you to stay awhile and help us with this.”
    Susan continued talking as they walked out of the airport terminal and crossed the street to short-term parking. “I’m glad to get out of there. I just don’t like being in the airport longer than I have to. There’s all kinds of people in there that I don’t like near me.”
    Diane let that pass. “I’ll stay as long as I’m needed. I’m hoping we can get Mother out quickly.”
    “We all hope that, but Alan says—” Susan stopped suddenly. “This is my car.”
    She pushed the remote and unlocked the door of a Lincoln Town Car. Diane put her bag in the rear seat and buckled herself in the front seat.
    “I have an appointment with a criminal lawyer this afternoon,” said Diane. “I thought the two of us could go.”
    Susan was backing out of the parking space, but stopped abruptly, throwing Diane against her seat back, hurting her arm.
    “Shit, Susan, what are you doing?”
    “Mother is not a criminal!”
    “No, she isn’t. But she is in the criminal justice system, and we have to get her out of it. That calls for a criminal lawyer. Let’s not argue about this.”
    Susan drove the winding circular exit lane through the parking deck out to the street. “We thought with your contacts in the State Department you could help learn what this is about. Have you called them?”
    “No. We first need to find out why she’s being held. The State Department probably has nothing to do with it.”
    Susan sighed heavily. Diane hated that sound.
    “And I suppose you have a theory?”
    “Yes, a couple. I’ve talked to a friend who’s a detective in the Metro Atlanta Fraud and Computer Forensics Unit. He believes she may be a victim of identity theft.”
    “That’s stupid. Her credit cards weren’t stolen.”
    “No, but her identity may have been. It’s like, say I’m caught for shoplifting, and when I’m arrested I give them your name and Social Security number. I could just not show up for trial and they would go looking for you.” A scenario that at the moment sounded rather appealing to Diane. “I believe something like that may have happened to Mother.”
    Susan didn’t