Perry winked. “You are too, Wyden. You know what to do now.”
Sarah. May 2. 5 pm.
The text message came in first, and Carrie looked at her phone. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Sarah.
“Sarah, do me a favor,” Carrie whispered.
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. In the months since the accident, she’d gotten to know her much older sister a lot better. And right now Carrie’s posture radiated tension. Her back was unusually straight, and Rachel, normally a fairly docile baby, was starting to squirm.
“What’s up?”
“Go over to the front door. I want you to watch. In a couple of minutes a car’s going to pull up. Julia and Crank. Make sure they let them through.”
“I thought Bear said we couldn’t give anyone the address,” Sarah whispered.
“It’s Julia,” Carrie replied, even as Sarah stood.
On door duty was Lucas Steelman, a twenty-four-year-old uniformed agent of the Diplomatic Security Service. Sarah was sure he’d changed his name, or just made it up, or found it in a puddle of pure testosterone. No one was actually named anything so stupid.
On the other hand, he was easy on the eyes. The name might be stupid, but it fit. An obvious weightlifter, his biceps bulged underneath his sleeves, which looked tailored for someone just slightly smaller. Extremely muscular. In fact, Sarah thought, he looked like a lunk. A delicious lunk, but a lunk nonetheless.
She was pretty sure Eddie could take him in a fight. Eddie was a pretty big guy too, but more importantly, he was smart as hell.
Right now Steelman—she couldn’t think of his name without wanting to chuckle—leaned against the wall near the front door, whistling in a low tone.
She leaned against the opposite wall. “Hey.”
He looked at her with impassive eyes. “You aren’t supposed to be at the door.” But his eyes grazed slightly down the front of her chest, as she knew they would. She leaned back against the wall a little more, her back arching slightly, probably setting off every serotonin receptor in the poor guard’s brain. His eyes widened slightly, but unconsciously.
“This job must get boring for you,” she said in a low tone. Her voice laid out a lure at the end of a not very long line. He wouldn’t take long before he started nibbling.
“Sometimes. You do a lot of waiting, but then when the chips are down, you gotta man up.” Now his eyes were fully on her. Predictable. He was hooked. Already.
“Have you done that sort of thing often? Where you had to um … man up?” She let one side of her mouth curl up a little, and parted her lips just slightly. This was ridiculous.
He shrugged, failing to appear modest. “I’m a federal agent. You do what you gotta do. Say, how old are you, anyway?”
“I turned eighteen three weeks ago,” she said, intentionally making her voice a little husky. She crossed her legs at the ankles.
Agent Steelman blushed involuntarily, his ears turning bright red. Sarah almost burst into laughter, but she needed to keep him occupied for at least another minute or so. Instead, she licked her lips.
That was when the grey rental car turned into the driveway. Steelman instantly tensed, reaching for his sidearm.
“Stop,” Sarah said. “That’s my sister Julia and her husband.”
“What the hell?” he shouted. Four agents ran up to the car, weapons out, shouting.
“Stop them! That’s my sister.”
“Son of a bitch!” he muttered. He opened the door and snarled, “Stay here!” She watched him as he charged out the front door, shouting to the other agents, who quickly lowered their weapons.
A pale faced Crank and Julia Wilson emerged from the car. Immediately, the four agents hustled them into the safe house, where a tense Ben Crosby confronted Carrie.
“Someone want to explain what the hell just happened here?” he demanded.
“I think the answer to that is obvious,” Julia replied.
Crosby ignored Julia, facing Carrie. “We explicitly told you not to tell anyone where you were.”
Carrie shifted Rachel in her lap. The baby, whose arms were flailing around, began to burble as Crosby spoke.
“I’ll thank you to not shout at me,” Carrie said. “You’ll scare my daughter.”
“What the hell were you thinking, Carrie?” Crosby’s face was red as he spoke.
The baby chuckled, a deep gurgling sound, and began waving her arms at Crosby.
Sarah leaned against the wall and snickered. Crosby’s angry face looked funny anyway, almost like a caricature, but the laughing baby just topped off her sense of the ridiculous. His face worked in indescribable antics, his jaw twisting a little, and finally Carrie spoke, since he’d apparently lost his capacity to do so.
“We’re not prisoners, Crosby. This is my sister, and she’s as much a part of this as the rest of us. And since you weren’t telling us anything, I took it in my own hands. End of discussion.”
Crosby shook his head. “I’ll be reporting this to Bear.”
Scorn filled Carrie’s face. “Report it to the President, for all I care. I understand you’re trying to protect us, and I’m grateful. But I’m not keeping my sister away.”
He sighed and walked away. Lucas walked by Sarah, diverting his eyes from her. He knew he’d been had.
As the agents walked away, Carrie stood, holding Rachel in the crook of one arm, and reached for Julia. “Thank God you’re here,” she whispered and they embraced.
The two eldest sisters held each other for a long time. Crank walked over to Sarah and said, “Hey, kiddo,” then pulled her into a hug. “You hanging in there?”
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “You?”
“Julia’s carrying the brunt of all this. I don’t even know what’s going on, really.”
Sarah shrugged. Of course Julia would. Her oldest sister had left home when Sarah was little more than a toddler. She was confident, assertive, and competent. She managed the band and ran her own company and never seemed entirely human to Sarah. She remembered times when she was younger, when Julia would visit, or they would meet her. The house would fill with tension, their mother sometimes angry and inconsistent. But those visits were few and far between, and became less and less frequent over the years as Julia’s career became more and more successful.
It wasn’t exactly that Sarah didn’t love her eldest sister. She did. It was more that she just didn’t know her that well. A long gap of years and experience left them distant, and she didn’t know how to bridge that gap.
At the opposite side of the room from Sarah, Alexandra stood in the doorway, looking just as unsure as Sarah felt. Of course, she’d been a gigantic bitch to Carrie earlier, and Carrie would undoubtedly tell Julia about it. The two of them were very close. Sarah looked at Alexandra. She loved her sister, but didn’t always like her. Alexandra was the middle sister, and never seemed quite sure of who she was. It was as if her older sisters had taken all the talent, leaving Alexandra nothing but sheer determination to push through.
She at least had that in spades. Sarah met Alexandra’s eyes for just a second. As if they’d shared an invisible signal, both of them moved to the center of the room and hugged Julia.
When they parted, Julia said, “Listen—we need to catch up. On a lot of stuff. But in particular—Crank and I found some stuff in Dad’s office you need to know about.”
“In Dad’s office?” Carrie asked, a frown pulling down the corners of her mouth.
Julia nodded. Her eyes darted to Crank, and she described the scene they’d found at the house in San Francisco last night. Sarah’s eyes widened at the details. Jessica and their mom were gone. Vomit on the floor in the dining room, and a spoiled gallon of milk in the middle of the kitchen floor. The diary.
Julia handed the diary to Carrie as she spoke. She spoke words that Sarah barely comprehended. Their mother was sixteen when she got pregnant with Julia. Sixteen. Julia looked at Alexandra with what Sarah would have sworn was a pitying look, then sho
wed them the police report.
Sarah blanched at the pictures, but froze, keeping her reaction to herself. Alexandra was pale, a hand covering her open mouth. She began to shake violently, and Carrie said, “Alex, it’s—”
“Leave me alone,” Alexandra said. “That’s not possible. You’re lying.”
“Alexandra,” Julia whispered. “I know this is hard…” Her voice trailed off.
Sarah looked at Alexandra, her mind calculating the months back from Alexandra’s birth to the assault.
There was no question. If their father had raped their mother, and the police report and documentation of the assault was accurate, then Alexandra had been conceived in that rape.
Horrified, Alexandra stood. “Leave me alone,” she demanded. Then she stumbled off to her room, slamming the door shut behind her.
Alexandra. May 2. 8 pm.
When Alexandra’s cell phone rang three hours later, she almost declined the call. It was from an unfamiliar number with a 571 area code, and she didn’t even know where that was. She was groggy from crying until she fell asleep. She’d ignored Carrie’s entreaties to open the door earlier—she just couldn’t face it. After the third ring, she picked it up, suddenly in a panic.
“Hello?” Her voice was urgent and cracked a little.
“Hey, babe, it’s me.”
Panic and elation ran simultaneously through Alex and she urgently whispered, “Oh my God, are you okay?” As she did it, she found herself looking around. Was Ben Crosby around? Or one of the other guards from State Department? They’d report Dylan in an instant.
She looked out in the hallway, then hurried down the hall to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. As Dylan spoke, she turned on the shower, letting the water run.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Andrea’s okay. We’re hiding out for now.”
She closed her eyes, pressing a hand to her chest. She knew she couldn’t ask where he was. But she ached to know.
“Are you safe?” she whispered. Tears formed up in her eyes, involuntary tears that she couldn’t do anything to stop, and they began to run down her cheeks.
“We’re okay for now. You’ll probably get some questions at some point. But there was a bunch of cash in the apartment.”
“Bear told us,” Alexandra said. “He said they found drugs too.”
“Yeah. And I don’t know where they came from. Andrea doesn’t either. Alex, someone set us up.”
Alexandra whispered, “Bear said you killed the intruders to protect Andrea.”
Silence. Breathing on the other end. Then he said, “I don’t want to talk about that. Not now. I’ve got too much to focus on.”
Oh, Dylan. She couldn’t even imagine what he was going through. “You know I love you,” she whispered. “No matter what.”
“I know,” he said. “And I love you. Now talk to me. What’s going on? I’ve tried to check the news but it’s all bullshit.”
She sighed. “We’re at a safe house. State Department security picked us up during dinner last night. Right after … right after … you were attacked.”
“You’re safe there?” he asked.
“We’ve got guards. A bunch. Julia and Crank are here now, at least for tonight.”
“They’ve got trouble,” he said.
“Yeah. You read about it?”
“It’s all over the place. It’s bullshit.”
“That’s not the worst of it. Carrie went to see Senator Rainsley. He’s not her father. But … Dylan…” Her voice began to shake. The bathroom was beginning to steam up, and she sat on the closed toilet seat and wrapped one arm across her stomach.
“What is it, babe?”
“See, my dad found out Carrie wasn’t his. Julia had … she had a report from some testing place. It was from February 1990. And … the next day my Mom got beat up. Like … badly. Assaulted and raped, and the police thought it was my dad. Everyone thinks it was my dad. My sisters do.”
“Yeah? It wouldn’t surprise me.”
She flinched. She knew Dylan and her dad had never gotten along. Her over controlling father had run a background check on Dylan when they were still in high school. She still didn’t know exactly what had occurred when Dylan and her father had talked back then, and she didn’t really want to know. Dad was overprotective. But he couldn’t be—evil.
“Dylan, it’s … you don’t understand. It was … it was almost exactly nine months before … before … I was born.”
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t say the words, even to herself. That her mother had been raped. That she was the product of a rape. Unwanted. Just a … a thing.
“Jesus, babe,” Dylan muttered. “Are you serious?”
She closed her eyes. “It can’t have been my dad. He would never do that.”
Dylan was silent for a few seconds. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I love you, babe.”
“I love you,” she whispered back. “Dylan…”
“Yes?”
“When can you come home? When will it be safe?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I promise I’ll be careful, and I’ll take care of your sister.”
“Will you stay in touch?”
“Yeah. I’ll be calling from different numbers, and at random times, okay? So keep an eye out. I don’t know who is after us, so we’re keeping a really low profile. And I want you to be careful too. Stay in the safe house, or wherever you can that’s safe.”
“I will,” she whispered.
“And Alex … I need you to hear me for a second.”
“I’m listening.”
He exhaled slowly. Then he said, “I haven’t been much good since Ray died. I know that.”
Her voice cracked as she spoke. “Dylan, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.” His interruption was forceful. But then he paused a moment and said, “I’ve been a disaster. I’ve been a lousy husband. And I haven’t been honest with you.”
“Dylan…” She felt her heart twist at his words.
“Stop interrupting and listen to me. The thing is … I … shit. I can’t say it.”
“You can,” she said.
He groaned. Then said, almost whispering, “I’ve been drinking again.”
“I know,” she replied.
“I’ll get help. I promise.”
She leaned her head back against the wall, letting the steam envelop her. Then she whispered, “You know I’m proud of you. And I love you. I’m here, Dylan.”
“I know. I won’t screw it up anymore.”
“Maybe you should consider AA like your mom?”
He sighed. “I—I can’t do all that God stuff. You know that.”
“Will you just think about it? You’ve been trying to do everything on your own, Dylan.”
He didn’t answer right away, but after a few seconds of silence, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
She sighed, then said, “Thank you for telling me, Dylan. You know I love you.”
“And I love you,” he responded. “Listen—keep watching your Facebook. I’ll call or message when I can. And I want you to keep your status updated and message me so I know where you are. Okay?”
“I will. And Dylan?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I love you. No matter what. Just come home.”
“I will,” he said. And then he hung up the phone.
George-Phillip. May 2. Midnight.
“Really, sir, I don’t see how I’m going to be able to continue in this work if you cannot keep regular hours. It’s past midnight. Poor Jane nearly cried herself to sleep when you didn’t come home. I should tender my resignation right now.”
George-Phillip sighed. Jane’s nanny, Adriana Poole, stood erect in the doorway of his office, color on her cheeks, as he sagged into his chair. She was right, of course, and normally George-Phillip fought to ensure that he was home at a reasonable hour, even if it meant working late into the night after Jane was in bed.
“Miss Poole, I’m going to ask you to bear with me for a little while on this. Unfortunately we have a crisis developing.”
“What crisis?” Her voice was high pitched and loud enough to be heard at Whitehall.
“Please, Miss Poole, lower your voice.” His tone was urgent as he spoke. Jane’s room was right down the hall, and she’d already been disturbed enough.
“The only crisis I see is a daughter missing her father.”
“It seems likely I’ll have a great deal more time soon enough,” he said. The words escaped from his mouth before he could do anything about them.
“Whatever are you talking about, sir?”
“I just told you we have a crisis brewing. There’s a possibility I’ll be forced to resign. In the meantime, I’ve just found out I must travel to Washington in the morning, and I need you to look after Jane. You simply cannot quit now.”
“You’re leaving! Now? After some lunatic shot at the house just last night? I think you’ve lost your senses, sir.”
George-Phillip groaned. He might be a Prince and a Duke and a member of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, but this twenty-four-year-old girl routinely dressed him down, and he couldn’t do anything about it because she was right. He couldn’t leave his daughter now, when she was terrified after the attack on the house.
He thought it through for five seconds, then said, “Well, you’ll both have to come with me, then.”
“To America?” Adriana screeched.
“Yes, to Washington, DC. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone—perhaps a week.”
“I couldn’t. I don’t have anything to wear.”
George-Phillip closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he counted slowly to ten. And then ten more, just for good measure.
When he opened his eyes, she still stood there. “Miss Poole, I’m asking you to please accompany my daughter to Washington, DC. It’s urgent, and at least for the next few days, I will not be able to spare the time to find someone else. I’m begging you. It’s a matter of national security. I must go.”
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