by Donna Hill
She’d promised to visit every day until Lynnette’s release and she even met the handsome doctor Adam Moore. She could easily see why Lynnette was in no real rush to go home.
By day she tried to keep herself busy, reading, walking, cleaning. When she lay in bed at night, that was when the hurt was so heavy it was like an anvil resting on her chest. Foolishly, she’d thought she could handle it when she’d talked to him like she promised. But hearing his voice only made it that much more difficult. A chasm had come between them. It was as if each of them were standing on a frozen river, too afraid to move toward each other for fear of plunging into the black, icy waters below. And after that first conversation, she knew it would be too difficult to talk with him again. Both of them were trapped in their own worlds, wallowing in their own pain and disillusionment.
She’d thought that when the day came that her memory returned, she’d feel whole. He believed that if he were ever to find out the truth about his mother, he would be whole. But the reality was, it didn’t happen for either of them. They should be sharing their joys and their sorrows. But they never would, not until they were able to heal themselves first. They were each other’s half.
And on the third day, when Reese awoke, that reality enveloped her and soothed her ragged soul. She had to find a way to heal herself and when she did, she would go to Max and they would finish the process together.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, Reese’s spirits lifted. She finally knew what she had to do. She needed to talk to Victoria Davenport.
Reese could barely hear the phone ringing over the thudding of her heart. On the third ring she was on the brink of hanging up when she heard the soft, southern cadence of a very feminine voice.
“Hello?”
Reese swallowed down the last of her apprehension. “Hello…may I speak with Victoria Davenport, please?”
“Who’s calling?” she asked, suspicion lacing her voice.
“Reese Delaware.” Reese heard the short intake of breath, followed by silence.
Finally Victoria responded. “Well, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Do you want a story for your magazine, too? It seems every newshound on the face of the earth has either called or is camped out on my doorstep,” she babbled nervously. She ran a hand through her hair. “So, Ms. Delaware, what can I do for you?”
“I…read the letter.”
Silence.
“It’s all very hard to digest—” she pressed on “—but I want to know the truth as much as you do.”
Victoria lowered herself onto the edge of her bed. She sucked on her bottom lip, willing herself not to cry. The moment she’d lived for—for years—had finally arrived and she was at a total loss as to what to say. She wanted to rant and rave. She wanted to tell Reese how isolated she’d been all her life, how she’d been so jealous of her and her life. But now that the opportunity had presented itself, all the hurt and jealousy seemed to have vanished.
“What do you want to do?” she asked, surprised by the calm in her voice.
“I…was hoping that we could…work together, Victoria. Somehow, I feel certain the real answers will be found if we can find out how my father…” she swallowed “…our father died.”
Victoria expelled a breath of relief. Her full lips trembled as the unnatural sensation of kinship filled her. “I’d like to find out, too…Reese. How can I help?”
Reese smiled and blinked back her own tears of relief. “Can you gain access to the Air Force’s computer system? I’d bet anything that the answers are buried in the files…”
Maxwell plunged into his work like an Olympic diver jumping from the high boards. He spent inhuman hours working out the mechanics of an elaborate encoding chip. He met daily with the Board of Directors and the broker Harlan Black, preparing for their market launch. He went to the gym at night, or ran for miles around Central Park. He swam, practiced his martial arts—anything to keep his mind from Reese. After their initial phone conversation, he realized that the strain was much too great. He couldn’t remain miles away from her and not be able to touch her, hear her cry his name in ecstasy, to feel her writhe beneath him, listen to her laughter and her wisdom, feast on her chocolate-coated beauty. He needed more than just an occasional call, visits on holidays and long weekends. He thought she wanted that, too.
He pushed himself away from his drafting table and arched his back. He crossed the room and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window peering down below. He braced the maplewood window supports that ran vertically along the smoked glass.
Even knowing how much he wanted and needed Reese, he also knew that he would be no good to her now. He needed time to adjust, time to regain the equilibrium he’d lost after meeting his “dead” mother in the flesh. He needed to be on top of everything within his company, and within a phone call away from the broker once M.K. hit the boards. Sighing heavily, he turned away.
He had yet to contact his father and confront him with his thirty-three years of lies. He was just not ready to deal with or listen to his explanations. It was enough that he’d had to accept the fact that she was alive and preferred to keep their relationship a secret. He slung his hands in his pockets. He had not spoken to Tasaka about the issue, not wanting his uncle to “lose face” by having to discuss such a personal matter, which involved his sister.
When everything was up and running with M.K. Enterprises and Tasaka Industries, and when he found a way to do away with the emotional baggage that plagued him, he would go to Reese. He would make her understand that without her, he was nothing; what he had or could ever acquire meant nothing—not if she weren’t in his life. But first he must bring order and harmony back into his life in order to make one with her.
Victoria sat down behind her desk in the small room she used as her home office. Years ago, because of her seniority and wizardry with the Air Force’s computer system, most of which she designed herself, she had her system at home linked to their mainframe at the communications center. She’d been the one to set up the codes for access to various areas. She maintained her high security clearance in the event that any one of the systems crashed she would be able to get in and get it operational.
These were the skills and the tools she was banking on now. Through a series of intricate maneuvers throughout the tangled web of classified and unclassified documents, defunct departments that existed only within the computer’s memory, passwords that had to be overridden by a string of codes—and all to be done without alerting anyone that she’d broken every security dictum ever written—she arrived at the location she’d spent the past four hours attempting to reach.
Taking a long shuddering breath, she picked up the headphones from the desk, put them on. Through her built-in modem she dialed Reese in Chicago. Reese answered on the second ring.
“I’m in,” she stated. “I’ll begin to download the files now.” Rapidly she keyed in a sequence of numbers and immediately files, notes, and minutes from meetings dating back more than fifteen years flashed on the screen in succession. “Sit back and relax, this is going to take some time. I need to scan the files to see what’s in them. There’s no point in transmitting unnecessary data.”
Reese’s heart began a rapid rhythm as the first page glided through the printer. “Here it comes,” she said with a breathless catch in her throat.
They were both seeing the information virtually at the same time. As fast as it came up on screen it was printing.
“Oh, my God,” they both gasped in unison, watching the damning words scroll across the screen and onto paper.
Frank Murphy keyed in his password and accessed his archival files. He’d been removed from duty, the day the Post’s article hit the stands. But there were still several security personnel who owed him favors.
Frank’s breathing pumped in short staccato beats. This was the only chance he had to keep himself from possibly spending the rest of his life behind bars.
After several moments, the
files he wanted were brought up. It had been years since he’d looked at them. Even now, years later, the guilt of what he’d been a part of assaulted him. Yes, his actions had been sanctioned by the government. He was merely a pawn in the chess game of life. But he’d also had choices. His choice was to follow orders and move up the ranks. He pressed Delete as the first completed file scrolled along the screen. The next one came up. Guilt stabbed him again, twisting the knife a bit deeper. He stared at the orders to “remove all obstacles.” He swallowed hard. That obstacle had been Hamilton Delaware, his best friend—his nemesis. His eyes burned with the memories. Again he pressed the delete key. The rest of the files contained all of the names of the parties involved, what their assignments had been, who was in charge of each phase, and the names of the Air Force doctors who compiled the data. This page he printed. He might just need it for insurance. Then he pressed Delete.
“Something’s going on, Reese,” Victoria blurted into the headphone.
“What?” Reese’s pulse raced. They’d been caught, was her first thought. She sat up straighter.
Victoria’s fingers flew across the keyboard, trying to bring up and transmit the files. “The files are being deleted.”
“How?”
“Someone is in the system, taking them out. Someone with high security clearance.” She tapped out the send sequence. “Are the pages still coming through?”
Reese’s eyes shot across to the printer. “Yes.”
“I’m going to try something. These files are coming down faster than I can send them to you. There’s no time to read them first. How much memory to you have on your hard drive?”
Reese must have been asked that question a dozen times and she always felt like an idiot for not knowing. But the fact was, she didn’t. For the most part, she really didn’t care. All she needed to be sure of was that when she pressed the power it came on and that her word processing program worked. “I don’t know,” she said lamely. “It’s a Pentium,” she added, hoping it would help.
“Good. It should work. I’m going to send the balance of the files to your hard drive. I’ll tell you how to locate them later.” Victoria started the transfer process and Reese could hear her machine click and hum as it took in the information. “We’re almost there,” Victoria said. “Four more files to go.” And then her screen went blank as deletion complete flashed like a strobe light. “Dammit!”
“What happened?”
Victoria let out a long frustrated sigh. “I couldn’t get the last two. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure we have plenty,” Reese responded. “You did everything you could. I know I couldn’t have pulled this off without your help. Thank you, Victoria.”
“My time for doing the right thing is long overdue, Reese,” she said, forcing a weak laugh. She paused for a long moment. “Now that we know what happened, what are we going to do?”
“Are you sure that no one can find out who tapped into those files?”
“Positive. This line is scrambled. There’s no way to track it.”
“Good.” She released a sigh of relief. “I think we both need to look over what we decided, to figure out what we should do. All I ever wanted was the truth. This isn’t a vendetta against anyone, except the darkness that has enveloped the better part of my life.” Her throat tightened as a crystal-clear image of her beautiful mother kissing her good-night snapped into view.
“We’ll talk again in a few days,” Victoria said.
“Sure.”
“And Reese…”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Reese’s brow crinkled. “Thank me…for what?”
“For giving me a chance. For trusting me.”
“Hey, whatever happens, we’re in this together. Okay?”
Vicky blinked away the water that clouded her green eyes. “Okay.”
Frank pulled the printed sheets of paper from the machine, folded them and shoved them inside his jacket pocket. He patted his pocket, shut off his computer and the lights, and closed his office door softly behind him.
“…After the disastrous aftereffects of ‘Agent Orange’ during the Vietnam War, the world thought we’d learned our lesson,” Reese said softly. “And to think that the testing of chemical warfare was resurrected and tested on our own men again is too reprehensible to comprehend.”
Reese shut her eyes and tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth. “My father was killed, Lynn, simply because he found out and threatened to expose what was going on. My mother was an innocent bystander. They were on their way to the Senate hearings when they…were killed.”
Lynn reached across the metal rail and squeezed Reese’s hand. “It’s all right, hon, let it out.”
“I…I remember everything, Lynn. They were fighting the night before because my mother’d found out that Dad was having an affair with her sister. She told him to get out and he begged and pleaded with her. I got so upset and I didn’t want to believe what my mom was saying about Aunt Celeste. My mother was saying that when Celeste brought her car back that afternoon, she broke down and told her everything, even the fact that they had a child together.” Reese turned tear-filled eyes toward Lynn. “Oh, God, Lynn. My Mom was so hurt. She was hysterical.”
Lynn pressed her lips together unable to find the words to console her friend, her own eyes filling with tears.
“I ran out of the house. I was going to get my aunt and make her tell me that everything was a lie. I ran down the path from the house to the street and just as I opened the gate, I saw a man getting up from crouching beneath the car. He turned when he heard my footsteps.” She paused a beat. “It was Max’s father. According to what Murphy’s notes said, James Knight was assigned to put a tracking device on the car that could be detonated by remote control.” She swallowed hard. “When I asked him what he was doing, he said he’d dropped his wallet and he hurried off. I didn’t have time to think about it because my mother and father came running out when they realized I’d left.”
“What in the world did they say to you?”
“The things parents usually say when their children hear them argue. They tried to tell me it was nothing that they couldn’t work out and they wanted me to go back to bed. They apologized for upsetting me…and my mom…” Her voice cracked. “My mom hugged me. She hugged me so tight that, if I close my eyes real tight, Lynn, I can still smell the White Linen perfume she always wore.” Her voice wobbled like a warped record. “My dad called me princess and kissed my cheek.” Absently she rubbed the spot. “I know they were up for the better part of the night. I heard their voices every now and then.
“The next morning, my mom told me that she wanted me to ride with her into Washington. We would drop Dad off and she and I would spend the day together so that we could…talk.” She choked back a sob and swatted the tears away. “We…we never had that talk, Lynn.” Her eyes clouded over as she fixed her gaze on the past, reliving the final moments with her parents.
“My father was driving and my mother was sitting very still in the front seat. We were just approaching the Fourteenth Street Bridge when the car started swerving. He couldn’t get it to stop and it just kept going faster and faster. I heard him yell that the brakes weren’t working, or the steering. My mother started to scream. I unfastened my seat belt to grab them just before the car slammed into the embankment. I heard my father say to my mother, ‘I love you, Sharlene.’ Then I remember pain, squealing, horrid twisting sounds, tumbling and falling. When I opened my eyes, Larry Templeton was standing over me. He picked me up and ran with me to safety. Then I heard the explosion.”
“Why was Larry there? Do you know?”
“According to the files he was the lookout. When the car approached he was to detonate the explosion with a remote.”
“But he never got to do that.”
“No. He didn’t. And if it hadn’t been for him, I’d probably be dead, too.”
“That still doesn’t explain why the car wen
t out of control.”
“I know. And according to the files it says that everything went according to plan. Apparently, James Knight’s and Larry Templeton’s superiors gave them credit for a job well done.”
Reese plucked a tissue from the box on Lynn’s nightstand and blew her nose.
“You said your aunt had borrowed the car the day before. Right?”
Reese’s gaze lighted on Lynn’s still bruised face. The question immediately intrigued her. “Yes. And what are you getting at?”
“Do you think your aunt may have done something to the car before she returned it? I mean, from everything you’ve found out and even according to Victoria, your aunt was obsessive about your father. If she did do anything to the car, she probably figured that only your mother would get in it. Your father always had a car pick him up every day.”
The chilling possibility of what Lynn implied clutched her by the throat. Without much conviction she shook her head in denial. “She wouldn’t…would she…her own sister?”
Lynn’s eyebrows rose in speculation. “People have done much worse for a lot less, Reese. You know they say, ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ If your father let your aunt know he had no intention of leaving your mother, and he obviously wasn’t claiming Victoria, maybe she reached her breaking point. Maybe she figured that once your mom…well…you know.”
Reese nodded and let out a long shaky breath. “She’ll never admit to that. And at this point, it can’t be proven. If anything, the notes point to the Air Force.”
“You need to deal with her, Reese, whether she admits to anything or not. She needs to know that you remember everything. I think she deserves it after the hell she’s put you through for the last fifteen years.” Lynn rolled her eyes.
Reese crossed her arms along the bed rail and lowered her head. She knew Lynn was right. Nothing short of confrontation would exorcise her pain. What she didn’t know was how soon that confrontation would come.