by Tiffany Snow
“I’d prefer another man doesn’t buy you pajamas,” he said, frowning.
I looked at him. “They’re Star Wars. From the kids’ section at Kohl’s. It’s not as if it’s a slinky negligee from Victoria’s Secret.”
“You’d prefer the Star Wars ones anyway,” he said. “I guess that’s why it bothers me. Clark knows you.”
“He’s my friend,” I said. “But I’m marrying you, aren’t I?” Yes, we’d had the argument in the bathroom, but that was before my life-and-near-death experience.
“I spent last night stealthily watering down your grandma’s mint juleps while refereeing Mia and Oslo arguing, and answering Bill’s one thousand and one questions about what it’s like to be a billionaire. I certainly hope all that wasn’t for nothing.”
I had to laugh at the image he presented. “Thank you,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Only a man who really loved me would dare to water down Grams’s mint julep.”
He smiled at my teasing and kissed me. “I brought you this,” he said, taking my left hand in his and sliding my engagement ring on. “Thought you might want to wear it.”
There was a pang inside that had Clark written all over it, but I ignored the feeling. Marrying Jackson was the right thing to do. It was the logical thing to do. I loved him. He loved me. And he knew me, thought like me—we were on the same wavelength, in the vernacular. I didn’t like surprises, I didn’t like the unpredictable—neither of which described Jackson.
Clark and I had a connection built on shared mutual experiences, most of which were highly dangerous and emotionally charged. It wasn’t unexpected that we’d forged a close friendship. And given his very pleasing physical appearance, it was a perfectly natural reaction to be attracted to him.
“Neither of you has said anything about the file we retrieved from the personnel center,” I said, trying to arrange my hair to cover the little bald patch and bandage from where they’d done the surgery. My hair was thick enough to cover it okay, so I fastened it into my normal ponytail. “Did you print it out?”
“We can talk about that later,” he said. His gaze skated over mine, which normally wouldn’t have struck me as odd, but I’d gotten much better at reading his body language.
“You’re keeping something from me.” I scrutinized him. “And Clark was here last night, something about ‘protecting’ me.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jackson just gave me a thin smile. “Let’s talk about it on the way, okay? Everyone’s waiting on us.”
“Everyone” was indeed everyone. Clark was already in the car, and he’d kicked Mia out to ride with Oslo and Bill. I objected at first, but then realized they might not tell me whatever they had to say if she was present.
Once I was ensconced in the back seat, with Clark and Jackson in the front, we left, following Oslo and heading toward Omaha.
“So, what’s the big secret?” I asked once we hit the outskirts of the city and the highway stretched before us. “Where’s the file?”
Jackson rummaged in his bag and pulled out a file identical in thickness to the one Mia and I had photographed. Mark Danvers’s file. He glanced at Clark, who nodded, before he handed it to me, which I thought was strange. Since when did Jackson and Clark have a secret handshake?
“Okay, then,” I said, settling back in the seat.
Jackson had piled pillows and blankets all around, ostensibly in case I wanted to take a nap, but in reality it was in case we got in an accident. I flat out refused to wear the bike helmet he’d gotten me to protect my head from further injury. He’d compensated by confiscating half a dozen pillows and two blankets from the hospital, telling them to add it to the bill, even though I said the insurance company wouldn’t cover linens.
“Do you guys want to tell me what’s in here or what?” I asked, opening the file. “Anything on Operation Gemini?”
“You don’t need us to explain things for you, Mack,” Clark said. I glanced up and caught his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I heard you’re a pretty smart chick.”
That made me grin a bit, and I turned my attention to the file. Some sentences—particularly places and times—were blacked out, but enough remained for me to get the general idea of who he was and what he’d done.
Mark Danvers was the kind of Cold War warrior they made movies about. He’d been born nearly sixty years ago and had cut his teeth on Beirut and Libya. Trained in an elite and highly classified branch of the military, he’d crossed over into the CIA, becoming a one-man assassination squad. He’d also planned and executed highly sensitive operations that were under the flag of deniability and disavowal.
“Why would they allow me to see this file?” I asked. “Even surreptitiously. This is . . . classified. He said so, but this . . . I never imagined this.” Glancing up at the men in the front seat, I waited for an answer, but Jackson just looked at me. His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses.
“Keep reading,” he said.
Clark didn’t respond at all.
Frowning, I returned my attention to the file. Mark’s career continued and he proved remarkably adept at transitioning to post–Cold War times. He spoke six languages—wow!—and was a key analyst at the Middle East desk at the CIA through the nineties. He’d managed what looked like a long career.
I’d been studying the file for more than an hour by the time I came to a section on a mission he’d gone on with another agent, posing as husband and wife to infiltrate a Saudi royal family’s household. The partnership must’ve gone well because I saw he’d been paired with the same agent—code-named Raven—on two other occasions. Their last mission together had been about fifteen years ago.
There weren’t a lot of photos in the file, but they did have a small black-and-white of Raven. Curious, I looked more closely at it. Then I blinked. And blinked again.
“Oh my God . . .” It couldn’t be. I looked up at Jackson, who was watching me. “This . . . this can’t be. It’s not right. This file is fake. It has to be.”
He said nothing. I looked back down at the picture. “It’s . . . it’s my mom.” I looked back up at them. “Isn’t it? I mean, it is. That’s what you didn’t want to tell me. That’s what’s so important. My mom was this . . . CIA agent.”
“I’m sorry,” Jackson said. “But you need to see this.” He handed me a photograph.
It was a man. And I knew when I saw him that my world had just turned upside down. Again.
“Wh-who is this?” I stammered, my eyes glued to the face I held.
“That . . . is Mark Danvers.”
I was looking at a photo of a man with my eyes, my shade of hair, and the same smile that I saw in the mirror when I practiced.
“Sweetheart?”
I glanced up at Jackson.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, of course I’m all right. This was just very . . . very unexpected. The news that my mom was an agent and that my dad . . . isn’t my dad.” I paused, thinking. “I guess that explains why he couldn’t be bothered to come to the hospital. I’m not even his.”
A laugh bubbled up in my throat that I didn’t even recognize. I caught them exchanging glances again and forced myself to stop.
“Why don’t you lie down?” Jackson suggested. “A nap would be good for you.”
Rage boiled up like a match set to tinder. “I don’t need a fucking nap,” I snapped. “I’m not a child.”
The silence in the car was deafening.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “That was rude.”
“You’re entitled,” Clark cut in. “You just found out your mom was a spook and your dad’s not your dad.”
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. “I need air. Can we just . . . can we stop? Please? Just . . . stop the car.” I jerked at the car handle, but it was locked.
“Don’t!” Jackson’s voice cut through me, and I stopped.
Clark screeched the car to a halt on
the shoulder, and the doors unlocked. I lunged as Jackson grabbed my arm.
“This way.” He yanked me to the other side of the car, opposite the traffic.
I threw open the door and stumbled out. It was freezing, and my breath was a white puff of air. Jackson was by my side immediately.
“Be careful, please,” he pleaded. “It’s slippery.”
I barely heard him. All I could think of was trying to breathe. There was nothing in front of me but an ice-encrusted field. Traffic passed by sporadically. We were figuratively in the middle of nowhere.
I didn’t know how far I’d walked from the car. I just kept going until I couldn’t hear anything anymore. My dad . . . wasn’t my dad. And he’d never told me. He’d just . . . hated me. All this time. It explained so much.
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” Jackson said.
Had I been talking out loud?
“China, please, stop,” he said. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” I asked. My voice sounded strange to my ears. “I don’t know what’s an appropriate reaction for this.”
He grabbed my arm and turned me toward him. “There is no appropriate reaction. However you feel is how you feel. There’s no right or wrong.”
I stared at him. “Why did you tell me?”
“You’d rather I’d have kept it from you?”
“No, I-I just don’t know what to do with this information. This . . . man—this stranger—is my biological father, and was somehow involved in Operation Gemini—which we still don’t know the full extent of—and now he’s trying to kill everyone who took part in that mission?”
“It would appear so,” he said. “And what’s more . . . I found phone logs at the personnel center from before and after you went in. They were from inside Vigilance. Someone wanted you to have that file. Maybe someone who’s trying to warn you.”
Data. Facts. Those I could deal with. The emotions running through me . . . those I couldn’t and didn’t want to deal with.
“It’s cold,” Jackson said, taking my hand. “Let’s get you back in the car. We can talk some more if you want.”
I let him lead me back to the car. Clark was leaning against the side, arms crossed, watching us. Our eyes met but we didn’t speak. Jackson put me in the back seat and wrapped a blanket around me. I was shivering and hadn’t even noticed.
We got under way again and I stared out the window, my thoughts going a mile a minute. Had Jack and Oslo known? Did Dad even know who my biological father was? Why hadn’t he ever told me? I’d always thought his dislike had stemmed from the fact that I survived the wreck that killed my mom, whereas she hadn’t. It wasn’t logical, but emotions rarely were.
“Did you do any digging on my mom?” I asked Jackson.
“I tried, but there wasn’t much I could find,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Was her marriage to my dad just a sham?” I asked. “Part of her cover or something?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
I felt . . . numb. And I didn’t want to think anymore.
“Why are we still bothering to go home?” I asked. “We should just find the other guy, Buckton, and warn him. That’s what we were going to do anyway, before . . . everything.” Brain surgery was now on my permanent list of Things Not To Say Out Loud.
“Stashing you on the farm is a good place to hide you,” Clark answered. “You can spend a few days recuperating, have a heart-to-heart with dear old dad, and we can meet Buckton when he returns, and lie in wait for Danvers.”
We? Since when were Jackson and Clark buddies? “I don’t want to go home. I’m not even related to my dad. I don’t belong there.” I didn’t recognize the feelings I had, and didn’t want to put a name to them. I felt as though I was drowning—my own mind felt unrecognizable.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Clark replied. “Listen, we’ll see how it goes. If you want to leave, we’ll leave. But you can’t just never see your dad again.”
I looked at the front seat. Jackson was half-turned, watching me. Clark’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror.
“Do you promise? You won’t just leave me?” Jackson and Clark were the only sure things—the only real people—in my life right now. I didn’t even know if my brothers were my brothers.
“Promise,” Jackson said. “We won’t leave you.”
“I pinkie swear,” Clark chimed in. “It doesn’t get any better.”
That made me smile. Leave it to Clark to make me smile even under the worst of circumstances.
I settled down in the seat and closed my eyes. For doing nothing but riding in a car and finding out my dad wasn’t my dad and my mom was an ex–CIA agent, I was exhausted.
The ride went swiftly while I snoozed. When I woke up, we were already in Omaha and heading north. My family’s farm was a few miles outside the city, by the river. Butterflies started in my stomach as nerves assailed me. Besides the fact that I hadn’t seen my father in months and months, I was now armed with knowledge that made me question my very identity.
The drive down the country road to our old farmhouse was surreal. I’d left here when I was fourteen and never looked back. The fields were barren and coated with a couple of inches of snow. Dead stalks thrust through the frozen carpet at regular intervals. The clouds were heavy and the sky was already growing dark.
We arrived at the house much sooner than I was prepared for. Clark parked and turned off the engine. I didn’t move.
“It looks the same,” I said quietly. “And yet, not.” The house was a two-story farmhouse built in the forties. It had a deep wraparound porch, clapboard shutters, even a storm cellar. But the white paint had faded and chipped. The house looked forlorn and empty, like a grand old lady past her prime and aging less than gracefully.
I looked up at my old window. Second floor, last room on the right. It was dark. As were most of the windows.
“You ready?” Clark asked.
They were both looking at me. Usually, that would make me extremely uncomfortable. Instead, I felt reassured. I wasn’t alone, itself an uncommon occurrence.
I nodded. “Yes. I think so.”
We got out of the car, and I was trailed by my two rather large, imposing men up the steps of the porch to the front door. I raised my hand to knock, but it swung open.
“Dad,” I said reflexively, in spite of myself. “Um, hi.”
He was tall and rail thin, the sun having wizened him beyond his years. But his eyes were still sharp, despite the hunch of his shoulders. His hair was still intact, though a lot thinner and a solid silver now rather than the salt and pepper that I remembered. Dad wasn’t unfriendly, but he was also the kind of person who made children hurry on past. Instinctively they seemed to know he was more likely to chastise them for playing on his lawn than be charmed by youth’s exuberance, and they wouldn’t be wrong.
His smile was faint but there as he patted my shoulder. He’d never been one for hugs, and apparently not even brain surgery changed that habit. “The boys said you were comin’ to stay a spell, after your surgery. I’m glad to see you.”
I realized I was holding my breath, so I let it out. I didn’t know what I expected. It wasn’t as though there was a sign on my forehead that said NOT REALLY YOUR DAUGHTER, but it felt as if there were.
“Yeah,” I said, “and I brought a couple of people I’d like you to meet.” I turned. Jackson and Clark had taken up flanking positions a couple of feet behind me. “This is Jackson Cooper, my fiancé.” Jackson stepped forward and shook Dad’s hand. “And this is my . . . work colleague, Clark Slattery.” Clark took his turn as well.
“Fiancé,” Dad echoed, his eyebrows raising slightly. “I guess I should congratulate you, then. Come on in.”
The foyer was the same, right down to the old wooden floor creaking under my feet. Dad led us through the hallway to the kitchen. It was warmer in there, as far as temperature went, but not cheerful. The whole house was just too quiet, as if it
were holding its breath and waiting for something.
“I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee, if y’all want some,” he offered.
“That would be great, thank you,” Jackson said.
The three of us took chairs around the table while Dad got mugs and the coffeepot. I could feel Clark’s and Jackson’s eyes on me, as though waiting to see what I was going to do next. I wished I knew myself.
“Oslo and Mia went on over to Bill’s place,” Dad said as he poured the coffee. “Said they’d be over later with some dinner for everybody. Heather wanted to see you. She was pretty darn upset, hearing about your surgery.”
“More than you were, it would seem.” The words were out of my mouth without my planning them first.
He sighed as he lowered himself into a chair, moving more slowly than I remembered. “I knew you’d be upset.”
“Your daughter could’ve died,” Jackson said.
“It wasn’t as if she was having her tonsils removed,” Clark chimed in.
Dad was quiet, looking from one to the other as though measuring their worth. “Oslo said you had a couple fellas lookin’ after you. I see they take their job serious.”
“China’s important,” Jackson said. “And she’s my future wife. I don’t like to see her hurt.”
Dad’s gaze swung to mine. “I couldn’t come because I had an appointment. You see, I’ve got cancer. Stomach cancer. Nothin’ they can do at this point. They still try the chemo. Trying to give me a bit more time, I guess. But I should’ve come down. You’re right.
“I told the boys not to say anything to you,” he continued. “I don’t want a big fuss. Everybody’s got to die at some point. I just know mine’s gonna be sooner rather than later.”
I stared at him, in shock. His thinning hair and wan appearance made sense now. He’d also been moving more carefully, as though something inside hurt. Because it did.
“Oh, Dad . . . I don’t know what to say—” Tears blurred my vision.
“Now, don’t go doin’ that,” he said, awkwardly patting my hand. “Not everyone gets a warning about death coming. I’ve got time to set my affairs in order.”