by Meli Raine
How did my mother love a man who could be in such a sick dance with Monica for all these years? Too many feelings rise up inside me at the same time. Sadness for my mother. Disgust that she allowed herself to be a puppet.
Fear that my life relies entirely on the decisions of a man who never made me a priority.
And his cruelly crazy wife.
Glynnis is driving. She pulls into the airport parking lot and stops in front of a very familiar entrance. This is the same place where I showered Tara’s blood off me after she was killed in the bar bathroom.
I’m relieved I showered back at the inn.
Silas’s phone rings again. He rolls his eyes, but freezes when he picks up.
“Get the fuck over here. We’re in the apartment at the airport. Now,” Mark Paulson barks into the phone, loud enough for me to hear each word, the connection ending as Silas’s other line buzzes. He ends the call with Mark and turns to his other phone.
“Gentian. You at the airport?” I can tell it’s Drew by the way he says Silas’s last name.
“Yeah.”
“Get in the apartment. Don’t board yet.” Click. Drew’s voice is as tense as Mark’s, which means the shit has hit the fan. But why do we need to meet in person?
Whatever it is must be bad.
Silas
I hustle Jane into the apartment to find Mark and Drew pacing in opposite directions, both tense as angry silverbacks with blood lust.
I don’t even ask what’s going on.
Drew gives Jane an irritated look. Mark reads his mind and puts a hand out, pressing hard against Drew’s forearm. “Now’s not the time. Jane won’t leak, and she’s in as much danger as anyone in all this.”
“What is going on?” I demand.
“We got a hit on Lindsay’s DNA,” Drew says. From the way he and Paulson are acting, this is a catastrophe.
“El Brujo?” Jane asks, her voice half gasp. Eyes darting between Mark and Drew, she’s in full panic mode now. Not that she wasn’t before, but this centers her. Focusing on someone else’s imagined pain is always useful when you’re in the middle of your own.
“No,” Mark says. “That would almost be better.”
“Fuck off, Paulson. Uncalled for,” Drew says, but his tone isn’t aggressive. It’s almost deferential.
My radar is going crazy trying to read them.
“Then who?” I demand. “Who is her father?”
“We don’t have an exact match,” Drew spits out. Paulson shoves his hand through his hair and looks away.
“Then how do you know? You’re not making sense.”
“You found a relative,” Jane says softly. Her eyes shine with intelligence as she pieces it all together on the fly. “You had a hit on an uncle or an aunt. A cousin or a –”
“Brother,” Mark Paulson says, the single word a verbal hand grenade.
“Brother,” she repeats, lost in her analysis, not quite grasping what’s really unfolding here. As she speaks, laying out how you can find a match and close in on probabilities based on first, second, and third-order relatives, I look damn hard at Mark Paulson.
Drew’s watching him with an air of incredulity.
And just like that, I get it.
“Paulson,” I say, Jane’s voice fading out, her words spiraling down. “Paulson, it’s you. It’s you, isn’t it?”
“But Mark can’t be Lindsay’s father..?” Jane chokes out.
Eyes closing slowly, Drew’s shoulders sag, jaw clenched too tight. He taps a stapled report on a table in front of Paulson. “Not father.”
Jane frowns. “Then –”
“Brother,” I say, loud and clear to Mark, who stares me down. “You’re Lindsay’s brother?”
“What?” Jane cries.
“It’s... it looks like it.” Mark lets out a breath of air, lips pursed, like we’re doing drills in the Afghan heat, enduring hell for the sake of duty. “We’re a match. A match with my biological father. We’re in different databases, but our analysts caught the match and made the report. It’s pretty clear. I’ll ask my brother, Chase, for a sample to get confirmation, but holy fuck, it looks like Lindsay Bosworth is my half sister.”
Drew looks like he wants to punch someone. “Lindsay Foster,” he interjects.
“You said your biological dad is a deep undercover DEA agent,” Jane says slowly, processing it all. “How would Monica have even met him, much less slept with him twenty-five years ago?”
“How the hell would I know?” he snaps at her. I move between them, his tone pissing me off.
“Hey,” I say, an intense warning all over that one word.
“Sorry,” he mutters. Better than nothing, but not enough.
“Who knows about this?” I ask. “Harry? Monica?”
They both shake their heads.
“Drew,” I say, his body language answering my question before I ask it. “Does Lindsay know yet?”
“No,” he and Mark say at the same time.
“Jesus Christ!” Jane shouts. “You are all impossible! She needs to know!”
“I just found out. Less than an hour ago. Give a guy a break,” Mark says, his voice more emotional than I’ve ever heard. Even when we helped rescue his fiancée from El Brujo, he stayed in control. But this – this is different. This is about him. We can control every cell in our brains and bodies when it comes to taking care of other people.
When it’s about us? We’re just as human as the rest of the world.
“Whatever you know, Lindsay deserves to know. You can’t keep her in the dark about this. Where is she?”
“In D.C.” Drew tells me. “I’m supposed to be on the next plane out. Harry’s endorsement dog-and-pony show is already underway. We’ve got Romeo and Duff out there watching her until I get there. Then all hell broke loose with the money-laundering leak, and now this.”
“You coming with us on the plane?” I ask him.
“Don’t have a choice. We’re all going,” Drew says.
“Carrie, too?” Jane asks Mark.
“What does Carrie have to do with this?” he replies.
Her hands go up in frustration. “Men!”
Drew, Mark, and I look at each other, pissed and confused.
“You need to tell Lindsay she has a brother. Two brothers,” Jane amends. “Chase has the same father as you?”
He nods. “Yes. One look at us and Galt and you just know. Galt shaves his head now and has salt in his beard, but if you look at pictures of him when he was young, it’s obvious.”
Jane studies Mark for a few beats, then says, “I can see a resemblance between you and Lindsay.”
Drew lets out a choked sound.
She looks at him. “This means Mark is your brother-in-law.”
I snort. Can’t help it. The look on both their faces is priceless. I shove the sound down and turn my face into a mask.
“Your dad is Lindsay’s biological father,” I say, deflecting attention from my reaction. “Around the same time Anya and Harry were having an affair, Monica went out and slept with someone, conceiving Lindsay. Why? Why your father?” I say to Mark, who shrugs.
Glynnis walks in and interrupts. “Sir?” she says to Drew. “Plane’s ready.”
We file out into the dark night, runway and plane lights flashing, lighting up the short path to the steps up to board. My brain is a fireworks display right now. I can only imagine what Mark and Drew are feeling.
Much less thinking.
It’s bad enough that Lindsay isn’t Harry’s biological daughter.
What in the hell does her actual DNA-providing father mean in this bizarre political calculus?
We settle into our respective seats in a clustered foursome, Glynnis and Johann far away, out of earshot. Jane opens a bottle of water and gulps greedily. My stomach growls.
That’s right.
We need water. Food. Coffee.
Peace.
As the pilot makes quick work of takeoff, Drew talks into a pho
ne, ignoring us. I can hear the words “contained” and “fire” and “boxes a total loss,” so I know he’s talking about Jane’s apartment.
“Lily,” Jane whispers, her fingertips brushing against the back of my hand. “Can you find out?”
I nod, choking up suddenly. “Drew,” I say, the word strangled. He looks at me, tense. “Lily?”
His eyes dart to Jane and I hear him say her name. Covering the mouthpiece, he says, “Critical. Touch and go. Survived surgery.”
Jane sags against me and starts to weep, mouth a wobbly smile.
We all shut up as the plane levels off and the pilot announces we’re at cruising altitude.
Phones off, body needs met, we eat from a small tray of snacks and drink water, until Mark finally says, “I cannot believe this is true. I categorically can’t believe it.”
“Evidence is evidence,” Drew says.
“Oh, I believe it. I’m not in denial. It’s right there in front of us. But I can’t fathom it. Can’t comprehend it’s all true. Do you have any idea how big a clusterfuck this all becomes now, Foster?”
“No, Paulson. Tell me all about it. Because I need a beginner’s course on how this all works.”
“Twenty-five years ago,” I say, cutting through the sarcasm. “Why would Monica want to sleep with some undercover DEA agent?”
Mark waves his hand. “My bio dad wasn’t in the DEA back then. He worked for the DA’s office.”
Jane sits up, wiping her eyes with her palm. “Like Harry? Harry was an assistant DA around the time Lindsay was conceived.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“Lindsay told me. We talked about it the night she came over and we discovered all the PI reports Alice had on her.”
“Too bad the rest are gone in the fire,” Drew says, nostrils flaring in anger.
“Oh, right.” I find Jane’s phone in my pocket and hand it to him. “Turns out Jane took hundreds of pics of the rest of the reports. It’s all in there.”
His jaw drops. Takes a lot to shock Drew. “You –” He points to Jane. “You did that? You uploaded them to the cloud?”
“No. When Lindsay uploaded them, someone tipped off Monica. I just took the pics. Those are the only copy.”
With her words, the phone becomes a priceless object. “What’s in here?” Drew pats himself down, then stands, walking to Glynnis, who disappears after he says something to her, re-appearing with a cord and a laptop bag.
“Every report I found in those last twelve boxes,” Jane says, triumph in her voice.
“You would have made a good agent,” he tells her.
Before she can hit him, I tap her hand. “Tell them the basics while Drew transfers the photos.”
“Lots of pictures with El Brujo – Ignatio Landau. And Nolan Corning.”
“Anyone surprised?” Mark says, cocky and angry.
“And a third man. Someone we’d never heard of, but the private investigator noted a lot of times when they crossed paths. Gallery events, meeting for coffee. No hotel visits like with Landau –”
“Hotel visits?” Mark asks, agog.
“Yeah,” Jane says, making a face. “That’s why Lindsay was worried he was her bio dad.” She frowns at Mark. “Didn’t you see the first round of reports?”
“Not yet. I’ve been busy on another case,” he explains.
Recognition sets into her expression. “Ah! Did Drew give you the basics?”
“No. Can you start from the beginning? Or give me a bullet-point breakdown?”
“Alice Mogrett hired a private investigator to follow Monica Bosworth for about three months. Right around the time Lindsay would have been conceived. We found a bunch of typed reports from the PI. Lindsay took pictures of a bunch of them, uploaded them to the cloud, and after that, Monica came to my apartment to warn me to stay away from Lindsay,” Jane explains.
Mark just nods.
“It’s mostly a record of Monica meeting with three different people,” she continues. “El Brujo – Landau, I mean. And Nolan Corning. Plus a third man, Paul Ellison.”
Ever watched the blood drain out of a person’s face?
“What did you just say?” Mark asks, leaning forward, spine pulled up like a marionette in the hands of a brutal master, left hanging.
“Landau, Corning, and –”
“Did you just say Paul Ellison?” Mark barks at her.
“Uh, yes. I –”
“Why? You know him?” I ask, troubled by the way he’s reacting to Jane.
“Do I know him?” Men don’t sound hysterical, especially field agents and guys in high-level security, but I’ll be damned if Paulson doesn’t come close. “Do I know Paul Ellison? I sure as fuck do.” He leans forward and grabs Jane’s phone from Drew, who is staring at Mark like he’s crazy. Mark flips through the pictures of the reports on the phone, increasing the size on a few, eyes focusing on the glass screen like an assassin centering a sight on a target.
His eyes stop, eyelids widening as he reads.
And then Mark drops a bombshell on all of us at twenty-eight thousand feet:
“Paul Ellison is one of Galt’s names.” He points to Jane’s phone. “And that man is my biological father.”
Chapter 19
Jane
Six hours on a plane with a man who just realized he has a sister who is at the heart of a complicated mess involving the death of his own parents and the kidnapping and near-murder of his fiancée is... a lot.
Then again, I’m accustomed to a very full life lately.
For most of the flight, I keep my distance from the guys, letting them huddle and talk. My limit has been reached. From the way Mark’s acting, it seems he’s hitting his, too.
Life is nothing but stress. The stress reaches a point, though, where it stops setting you on edge. The feeling turns, twisting inside, becoming defeat.
I’m only here because Silas insists.
The defeat hasn’t set in for him.
Yet.
Sleeping on the plane is easier than expected. Comfortable seats that recline fully, plus down blankets, mean I’m out cold, earplugs and an eye mask in the console of my seat doing the trick.
Hitting my limit means I don’t want to know any more details. For someone who has spent most of her life believing that all information, good or bad, is critical to absorb for maximum optimization, this makes me feel weird.
But it also feels right.
Self-protective mechanisms I didn’t even know I possessed are rising to the surface. What used to be functional is now a source of dysfunction. Scanning the world for information to synthesize has become toxic.
I have to adapt.
Or die.
Our descent wakes me up with the strange pressure change that makes my ears feel like someone has poured copper-tainted water into them. As I pop my jaw to release the pressure, my ears make a smacking sound inside my head, relief palpable. Finding a way to get back to normal is like depressurizing your ears.
Sometimes it works, but when it doesn’t, all you can do is let time pass.
Mark seems calmer now. Maybe the shock has worn off. These guys are designed differently from the rest of humanity. They don’t break under stress. I’ve seen all three of them show more emotion than expected, though. Silas when he held it together for Kelly’s sake. Drew when he rescued me and Lindsay.
And now, Mark Paulson.
The same guy I irrationally blamed for my mother’s downfall.
He must be sickened by the thought that those bastards pretended to be him to convince my mother to have Lindsay board that helicopter.
And then I wonder.
Did they know? Did Stellan, John, and Blaine do that in an even more perverted form of psychological torture? Did they know Mark and Lindsay were half siblings?
Who knows this?
As the plane taxis, I get Mark’s attention and ask, “Are you sure no one else has figured out Lindsay’s related to you?”
“
No. Can’t be sure of anything.”
“Could John, Blaine, and Stellan have known?” I ask.
Drew lifts his head quickly from reading on his phone and stares me down. “I had the same thought. No way. No way they knew. It took us this long to match everyone up. First Mark was connected to Lindsay. Then it went from there. And we only have Galt’s DNA because of a fluke.”
“A fluke?”
“It didn’t come up under his real name. Not under Paul Ellison. Galt is a deeply complicated person.” He snorts, like that’s an understatement.
“What name did it come up under?”
“Can’t tell you,” Mark says. “Confidential.”
I roll my eyes. “If I were an agent, could you tell me?”
Silas grins.
“You couldn’t pass the background check,” Mark snarks back.
“Besides, with the money you inherited from Alice Mogrett, pretty sure special security pay isn’t going to blow your socks off,” Drew says with sarcasm. Silas shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the topic a wet blanket on our conversation.
While we’re here in D.C., I could meet with Hedding Stuva to go over details. Maybe they can release funds early and I can stop relying on Harry.
Then again, my apartment isn’t exactly worth the rent in its current state.
So many unaddressed issues flip through my mind. My money. Silas’s money. His work. My lack of a job. The fact that I’ll never need a job again. The hit that is clearly out for me. Kelly. His mom. Our future.
Do we have a future? Is this my forever? With him, but constantly being attacked?
I want a future.
But not a future that is an endless reliving of this.
Drew and Mark migrate toward the plane’s doors, deep in conversation. Silas takes my hand and catches my eye.
“We’re splitting here. Mark is meeting with sources. Drew’s catching up to Lindsay. You’re coming with me to a safe place.”
“A hotel?”
“Not quite.”
“Apartment?”
“A private club.”
“They have rooms with beds there?”
Drew looks over at us and smothers a smile, clearly hearing my question.