Conspiracy (Alex and Cassidy Book 4)

by Nancy Ann Healy

  “I wish I had an answer for that,” McCollum replied. “I don’t have a choice now. Not now. Your father is gone,” he told Krause. “And, your father,” he turned to Eleana, “does not know that I am alive.”

  “How is that?” Krause asked. He was seething. All Krause wanted to do was reach across the seat and throttle the older man into oblivion.

  “You won’t believe me,” McCollum asserted.

  “Good bet,” Krause agreed.

  McCollum chuckled and then sighed deeply. “We did not want to compromise him as well,” he said. “Edmond was always the barometer for us. He would never have agreed to this knowingly. Not to my exit. It was necessary to protect all of you. Part of that was closing the loops. Only your father knew for a very long time.”

  “And now?” Krause challenged.

  “That’s a discussion for later. When he became compromised, arrangements were made. We had hoped to avoid this scenario, all of us. That’s not possible now. The Admiral suspects one of us is alive and that has no good place to lead. You and Alexis are on a bridge, and there is more than one person who is ready to blow it out from underneath you. That will mean compromising your work and your lives, and if you or anyone else should become casualties…Well, that is the price of war. For these people, this is a war. It’s a war they make every day. You might not believe me right now if I told you the truth. Some people will not relinquish what MyoGen has. It is too valuable.”

  “You still haven’t told me what that is,” Krause reminded him.

  “No, I haven’t. I have my reasons, Jonathan. Look, Cassidy has lost enough. I will not allow her to lose Alexis too.”

  “What could be that important?” Krause asked doubtfully. “That you would come back from the dead? That you would kidnap O’Brien? I’ve seen some crazy things,” Krause said. “What is there to gain? What are you so afraid of that you would fake your own death?”

  “Let’s leave it at this, the ultimate spy is the person who does not even know he is spying at all.”

  “What does that have to do with MyoGen?” Eleana asked.

  “Everything,” McCollum said.

  Chapter Nine

  “Mom! It was so cool!” Dylan practically screamed through the phone.

  Cassidy held the phone away from her ear slightly and winced at the volume. She chuckled at the thought that if Dylan continued at this decibel, she might receive some hearing loss. “I’ll bet it was,” Cassidy replied, a smile lighting her face.

  “Grandma said to tell you that she and YaYa only have wine at the bottom of the hill like she promised.”

  Cassidy laughed. “Tell Grandma I am glad to know I won’t have to ground her when you get home,” she joked. “I’m glad that you are having a good time.”

  “Oh! We saw a moose too!” he told his mother. “Man, I wish you could have seen him, Mom. He was outside the cabin this morning.”

  “I wish I could have seen him too,” Cassidy said honestly. She was thrilled to hear the excitement in Dylan’s voice. Sometimes things that seemed like tragedies turned out to be blessings in disguise. She would have loved to have spent the weekend with Dylan at the cabin skiing. But, she understood that there was something magical in time away with your grandparents. Cassidy recalled those times in her childhood often. She had little doubt that what started as an outing tainted by disappointment would become a memory Dylan would cherish for the rest of his life. And, while Mackenzie was still not feeling up to par, Cassidy was enjoying her one on one time with her daughter. She did not get much of that for extended periods. Another unexpected bonus was the fact that Alex would arrive sometime today. Cassidy seemed to find silver linings everywhere.

  “Is Kenzie still sick?” Dylan asked.

  “She’s okay,” Cassidy promised.

  “I wish she could have seen that moose!” Dylan exclaimed.

  Cassidy chuckled. She envisioned Alex trying to ascertain what sound a moose made so she could teach it to Mackenzie. “Well, you will have to tell her all about it when you get home,” Cassidy said.

  “Is Alex there?” Dylan asked.

  “No, sweetheart. She had a trip to make. I won’t tell her about the moose. You can tell her tomorrow when you call. She should be back by then.”

  “Nah, it’s okay, you can tell her,” he said. “YaYa wants to talk to you.”

  “Okay. You have fun. I love you.”

  “I will. I love you too, Mom. Say hi to Kenzie for me,” he said as he passed the phone to Helen.

  “Hi there,” Helen greeted Cassidy.

  Cassidy was still chuckling. “I hear you’ve had some visitors.”

  “Oh yes, we love to entertain,” Helen laughed.

  “I wonder if your visitor was related to Marvin?” Cassidy mused aloud.

  “Who?” Helen asked.

  “Oh, sorry….Marvin the moose. When I was a kid, there was a family of moose that used to wander nearby the cabin. My dad named them all—Marvin, Mabel, Marian, and Martin,” she explained. “He said they were spies sent by the forest faeries to see what we were doing. He had some crazy stories when I think about it,” Cassidy giggled.

  Helen sighed deeply. She had spent hours talking with Rose the previous evening about their husbands, divulging more than she would have ever thought about her own life. The truth was, Nicolaus had done his best to shelter her and their children from his activities. Helen’s mother had different ideas as did Nicolaus’ mother. They were both well aware of Carecom’s dealings, and while neither divulged specifics regarding Nicolaus’ role beyond Carecom, Helen had surmised a good deal just by observation.

  She had seen her husband’s turmoil when their daughter had chosen and insisted upon a career in the military. He had maintained it was not a proper place for a woman. Helen had been and remained certain that his concerns ran along a different line, and much deeper. For those reasons, she had chosen to share with Alex what she did know about the family and about Alex’s father. It had taken Alex by surprise, the fact that her family had a legacy in intelligence. Helen knew it stunned Alex to realize that her mother had any inclination at all about any of it. There was no doubt in Helen’s mind that Alex had apprised Cassidy of all or nearly all of it. Alex did not subscribe to her father’s theory that keeping her wife in the dark was necessary. Alex took the approach that Helen’s parents and in-laws had, she maintained transparency between herself and her wife as much as possible.

  It had been an unsettling realization for Helen at first, but she understood that she and Nicolaus Toles had not found each other by accident. Nicolaus had not found his best friends through happenstance either. Everything had been orchestrated. It did not make their relationships any less authentic, but it did make them less organic. They had been led to one another deliberately, put in situations that would foster connection. It had never once occurred to Helen that Cassidy and Alex might have been pawns in a similar game, not until she had seen the photo of Jim McCollum and Edmond Callier. It was too much of a coincidence. In Helen’s experience, few coincidences happened of their own accord, at least, that was not the case in her world.

  Silence hovered longer than Cassidy was used to. “Helen?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Are you okay? I lost you there for a minute,” Cassidy said.

  “I'm all right,” Helen assured her daughter-in-law. She momentarily debated sharing what she had discovered with Cassidy, but dismissed the notion just as quickly. She would have to tell Alex. That was not a question. Helen would leave the decision of how to proceed with the information to Alex and Rose. It was not her place. “How is my granddaughter doing?” Helen changed the subject.

  “You know how Alex gets when she doesn’t have coffee?” Cassidy asked. Helen sniggered. “Imagine that times five,” Cassidy said.

  “Oh dear.”

  “She’ll be okay in a day or two,” Cassidy said. “I just hope this doesn’t end up being a common malady.”

  “Mmm. Alexis got th
em quite frequently. Almost had to put tubes in her ears, poor kid. Of all the things she could take after Alexis for—that would not be the one I would choose.”

  “Oh, well, she takes after her momma in a lot of ways,” Cassidy said affectionately.

  “That she does,” Helen agreed. “Speaking of my daughter, have you heard from her?”

  “She left a message yesterday. Said she would be back to your house sometime today, but I haven’t heard from her since. Kind of strange. I thought she would call when I left the message that we were here.”

  “Well, who knows? She probably got caught up with something,” Helen observed.

  Cassidy groaned softly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “I’m sure she is too. This merger has really taken a toll on her,” Cassidy explained.

  “I know it has,” Helen agreed. “She’s a lot like her father in that way. He had many a sleepless night when it came to decisions that cost people their jobs.”

  Cassidy listened to the hint of melancholy in Helen’s voice. Alex had told Cassidy many times that she was perplexed by her father. On the one hand, he had been involved in activities that made Alex’s skin crawl. At the same time, she’d found everything from documents and memos to personal notes that expressed his grave concerns about the people Carecom employed. Cassidy rarely commented. She listened attentively and let Alex express her confusion and frustration. On some level, Cassidy remained angry with her father-in-law. She had witnessed the pain that his words and actions had caused Alex. That did not bode well with Cassidy. On the other hand, when she listened to Helen, or even her wife at times, she could capture glimpses of a man whom she was certain revered his daughter. Cassidy understood Alex’s confusion. Alex, much like her father, constantly worried about the people under Carecom’s umbrella. She felt responsible for them.

  “I imagine she is quite a bit like him,” Cassidy conceded.

  “He always found a way to make things work. She will too,” Helen said assuredly. “You know where everything you need is there?”

  “I do,” Cassidy said gratefully. “I hear there is snow headed your way.”

  “That’s what they are saying,” Helen said. “Do you think we should cut it short? I mean, I know Dylan has school on Wednesday.”

  “No,” Cassidy answered. “He’s so happy right now. What’s the worst thing that happens? He gets an extra day with you two? He’ll be in heaven.”

  “You sure? That could be a possibility.”

  “I’m sure,” Cassidy said. “Tell my mother to behave herself.”

  “Oh no,” Helen said. “I know better than to tell your mother anything.”

  Cassidy laughed. “Smart woman.”

  “You call us if you change your mind,” Helen said.

  “I will, but I won’t,” Cassidy told her. “Say high to Marvin for me.”

  Helen heard the wistful lilt in Cassidy’s voice. The memory she shared clearly held affectionate meaning for her. “I’ll leave some snacks for him from you,” Helen promised.

  “You do that. I’ll talk to you,” Cassidy said.

  “You will,” Helen agreed as she disconnected their call. She set the phone down and closed her eyes.

  “How were things on the home front?” Rose asked.

  “They are fine,” Helen said

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Rose guessed.

  “Not my place,” Helen said. “I’m not sure she needs to know something that we don’t even know matters,” Helen smiled at her best friend. “She was interested in Marvin.”

  “Marvin?”

  “The moose,” Helen explained.

  A knowing smile crept onto Rose’s lips. “He certainly was creative,” she said. “He had Cassie searching for wood nymphs. I think she believed they were real until she was in high school,” Rose mused.

  “She probably did,” Helen guessed.

  Rose nodded. “He was her hero,” she said.

  “I understand. Believe it or not…While Alexis would never admit it, there was a time when she followed her father everywhere.”

  “I believe it,” Rose said. “I just hope Cassidy can keep that image of him.”

  Helen nodded. “I know, so do I.”

  ***

  “Alex?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Steven,” she told her old friend. “You haven’t told me much at all.”

  Brady nodded. “Not because I don’t want to,” he said honestly.

  “You see, in my experience, that’s what is called bullshit,” she replied. “You disappear to God knows where, and you don’t think I should be skeptical about you watching my back? Or, Fallon’s?”

  “I would expect nothing less from you than reservations,” Brady replied. “I’ve never lied to you, Alex. Not in all the years we’ve known one another.”

  “There’s not a very fine line between deception and omission,” Alex observed.

  “Fair enough. For the record, I have as much to lose in all of this as any of you,” he said as he brought the car to a stop.

  Alex stepped out and stretched her back until it popped. Fallon watched his friend closely, noting the familiar wince and slight twitch of Alex’s temple.

  “Alex,” Fallon began quietly as he made his way to her side. “Are you okay?”

  Alex nodded in spite of another involuntary wince. Traveling as much as she had in the last twenty-four hours had stiffened her back to the point that it was difficult to move. She needed to stretch. Whenever possible, Alex avoided long car rides. Unlike most people she knew, she deliberately scheduled layovers when she flew. Her back did not cooperate with long periods of idleness, a result of the injuries she had received while serving in Iraq. She had been fortunate that to date, her injury had never seriously impacted or compromised her work. She smiled unconvincingly at Fallon.

  “Just stiff, Fallon,” she promised. Inwardly, Alex was hoping she could trust Steven Brady. She doubted that if they had the need to move quickly, that her body would currently comply with any agility. That only served to heighten her anxiety about her old friend.

  Gray had held true to his word, outfitting the threesome with a Maryland State Police car for travel. Alex was certain she did not want to know the connections he had used to accomplish that. She’d been making mental notes about every oddity and every detail she had observed in the last day. And, she had every intention of calling Jane and demanding some concrete answers. The ride back to Massachusetts had moved between unsettling silence and heated accusation. Alex was not pleased with the turn of events. Brady was not forthcoming with information about where he had been over the last year. She pressed him. He remained unwavering. The only thing that Alex had surmised was that in some way her good friend Jane Merrow was involved—again.

  Alex looked ahead at the building that held the company her grandparents had established and that her father had cared for. She pinched the bridge of her nose, stretched her back again and sighed. If she was following Gray’s insinuations correctly, her determination to take over MyoGen had served to compromise Carecom completely. Something Gray had said kept repeating in her brain. “The work we provide is more nuanced.” If Alex was reading the innuendo correctly, Rand and MyoGen were engaged in developing pharmaceuticals for the purpose of altering consciousness. That was territory that Alex was explicitly opposed to. She had suspected that one of the programs she had ended earlier in the year was seeking to do more than to simply create an effective drug to reduce anxiety. The world of psychotropic drugs presented a slippery slope. In the end, the aim was always to change behavior. It was not a stretch to imagine how those applications might benefit people in Alex’s line of work. She was curious as to what MyoGen might have undertaken that would cause such a knee jerk reaction by the intelligence complex. Alex had seen no evidence of any programs that had given her grave concern at MyoGen, and Alex was always thorough in her assessments. That mea
nt one of two things: either Gray was lying to her to cover up some other agenda or whatever MyoGen was involved in had been buried deeply and deliberately. Neither scenario was desirable. Alex wasn’t certain which possibility gave her more concern.

  “Alex, if you are not up to this,” Fallon said gently.

  Alex forced a smile. “I’ll be fine, Fallon.”

  Alex looked across to Brady. He nodded his silent acknowledgment. There was no way that Alex was going to allow Steven Brady into the halls of Carecom with her to accompany him. “Ready?” Brady asked. Alex nodded. “Lead on then,” Brady said.

  ***

  “What are we looking for?” Claire asked as she rounded a corner.

  “Not sure,” Anderson confessed.

  “That’s helpful,” Claire mumbled.

  “What?” Anderson chimed. “You expect me to have all the answers?”

  Claire spun around and glared at him. She watched as his playful expression gave way to a look of apprehension. Claire followed Anderson’s line of sight and groaned. “Aw, fuck.”

  ***

  “Looks like someone beat us here,” Krause observed.

  McCollum nodded. He felt tired in his bones, and it was not simply as the result of sitting on a plane for nine and a half hours. Ahead of him lie both the past and the future. The present would force him to confront what had passed, and he knew that whatever came to pass now would forever change the future for the people he loved. He looked at the State Police car parked a few spaces away. It seemed too overt for Dmitri Kargen and his cohorts. That left McCollum wondering who else had been tipped off, and who had informed those parties. “The question is who.”

  Krause moved toward the police car and assessed it for a moment. “Not Kargen’s MO,” he surmised.

  “I agree,” McCollum responded.

  Krause stroked his chin and looked at Eleana. “Any ideas?” he asked her.

  Eleana shook her head. “From what I know, Kargen and Ivanov are a bit more old school, if you know what I mean.”

  McCollum could not help the chuckle that escaped his lips. Eleana’s assessment amused him, not because it wasn’t accurate, but because of Eleana’s choice of words and inflection. It was a sincere observation laden with just a touch of humor. For a split second, it conjured images of old James Bond films for McCollum. Ironically, he imagined that Dmitri Kargen saw himself much in that light—a modern day Bond of some kind. Wrong allegiances and Kargen hardly possessed Bond’s magnetism. Nonetheless, McCollum could imagine Kargen making such a proclamation to his reflection.