“She’s a witness. She saw Paul Warner abduct you. The Attorney General’s staff is taking her statement right now.”
“Oh my god! A witness! That’s … almost the best news yet!”
“Almost?” Simon asked, smiling at her a little quizzically.
“This is the best!” she said, chuckling as she held up the ugly vegetables they’d considered discarding. “Oh! I need seawater.”
The demand confused them all. “What do you need seawater for?” Caleb asked curiously.
“Oh, these won’t grow without it. I designed them to grow in seawater contaminated soil. I’ll have to get the soil prepared before I can see if they’re still viable.
At the very least, I’ve got them and I can reverse engineer to replace the notes I lost, but it would be much better if I can present the plants and the produce when I write my paper,” she said, more to herself than them.
“I guess that’s why Mrs. Bagley didn’t have any luck growing them.”
Anna nodded, but absently. She’d gathered up the seeds and moved to the lights to study them. “I had special soil trucked in for my experiments from the fields that had been contaminated. I’ll have to see if I can recreate the conditions with seawater and the potting soil.”
“They’re sea plants?”
Anna glanced a little absently at Caleb when he asked the question. “Partly. I started with sea plants, because of course they grow in salt water, but I had to engineer something that would grow on land and produce food.”
She looked up at them and smiled. “This ugly little franken-veggie will grow in seawater contaminated soil and produce a prolific crop, but it gets even better and it’s the most important thing about this little plant! It draws the salt from the soil into the plant, which means after one or two growing seasons with these, the soil is restored and whatever was grown there before can flourish. Without something like this a field that’s been contaminated can be lost to generations while nature slowly leaches the salt from it.
In the mean time, people are starving because they’ve lost some of the richest farming land and, in a lot of cases, it’s land used to produce their staple food.” She shrugged, a little embarrassed to make such a grandiose statement, but she knew it was true. “This little plant can change the world.”
Not surprisingly, they didn’t look like they quite knew how to take that. When she glanced around again, she saw they’d left, but she was energized by the recovery. It was still disappointing that they hadn’t been able to retrieve all of her notes, but this put her years closer to full recovery. She needed both the notes and the plant itself as proof that it worked.
Simon and Ian, she discovered when she went to the atrium in hopes of dipping water from the pool, had taken the sub and left. She spent the rest of the day carrying seawater into her greenhouse and carefully adding water to the soil and then analyzing it against what she remembered about the original soil she’d used.
Caleb met her at the top of the ladder when she climbed up to the main floor of the house. He chuckled when he got a good look at her. “Is there any dirt left in the trays?”
She gaped at him in dismay. “I’ve got it on me?”
He laughed outright then and walked her to the mirror in the bathroom off the living room.
She’d smeared it on both cheeks and her forehead, she discovered, probably pushing her hair out of her face. She even had dirt in her hair. She supposed that had fallen off the trowel while she was fussing with her hair.
“I need a bath.”
“Want company?” Caleb asked instantly.
She turned to look at him searchingly, feeling her pulse leap despite the weariness and aching muscles from working in her greenhouse most of the day. “It wouldn’t …cause trouble?”
She saw he was already regretting the impulsive suggestion, though. He sighed in disgust. “Probably,” he muttered. “Go bathe. I was just about to start supper.”
“Oh! I wanted to cook some of my veggies! Could you bring them up for me? I would’ve brought them myself, but I couldn’t figure out how to climb the ladder with the bowl.”
He didn’t look very enthusiastic, but he left her to bathe and went to get the bowl.
* * * *
Anna decided it was actually fun sharing the kitchen. There were some traffic problems at first, but when she’d finished chopping her vegetables and set them in water to soak, she merely ‘assisted’ Caleb.
“Did your mom teach you to cook?”
Caleb frowned. “My dad.”
Surprise flickered through her, but she managed to refrain from showing it.
“You’re close?”
“We were.”
“Oh! I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Me, too. Simon sort of took me under his wing then so it wasn’t as rough as it might’ve been.”
Anna frowned. “How did that come about?” she asked curiously.
“He was a watchman—my dad. Simon was his partner. That was before he came up through the ranks and became High Guardian—before his father was killed.”
Anna felt her belly clench. “It’s that dangerous?” she asked, dismayed.
Caleb sent her a piercing look. “Life ’s dangerous these days,” he said dryly, “or hadn’t you noticed?”
She grimaced. “Mostly lately. Not so much before.” When she saw that he was almost done frying up the fish he was cooking, she checked the time and decided her vegetables had soaked long enough. Getting up, she mixed the batter while Caleb finished up the sides he’d been cooking. “So … Simon was your father’s partner before he was yours?” she asked as casually as she could.
Caleb flicked a knowing look at her. “Does it matter?”
She sent him a blank look. “What?”
“How old he is?”
Anna felt her face redden. “Not really … I mean not to me … uh … I was just curious,” she stammered.
“Not curious about me?”
She smiled when she saw he was teasing. “I am. None of you really seem to want to talk about yourselves. You all know my life history and I hardly know more about any of you than I did the first time I came.”
He sent her a look of innocence. “I’m an open book.”
She chuckled. “No, you aren’t. You seem that way, I suppose, to most people.
They see you smile, and joke … probably flirt outrageously with any female you happen across, but ….”
“But what?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter to watch her while she patted the vegetable chips and dropped them in her batter.
“Better stand back! These probably still have enough water to pop like crazy!”
He moved a little further. “But?”
She threw a smile at him as she very carefully placed a few chips into the hot grease he’d left. “You’re … a lot like Simon, I think. Inside.”
“Those are going to taste like fish,” he observed.
“They do anyway, trust me!”
He picked up the first one out of the pan, blew on it a minute, and popped it into his mouth. “Not bad. Pretty good, actually,” he said, sounding surprised.
She smiled wryly. “Proof positive that you can batter just about anything and fry it and it’s better.”
“So … what else have you deduced, Dr. Blake?”
She frowned at the frying chips, flipping them. “That you’re good people.”
He uttered a cynical snort. “How did you come to that conclusion? Because we’re watchmen?”
“I’m not that naïve!” she retorted sourly. “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There are at least as many men wearing a badge who only wear it for the power behind the shield and the benefits they can reap from it as there are good cops, maybe even more. I concluded that you’re good people because you don’t use your positions for self-gain or
to bully other people. You could, but you don’t.”
“And you think you’ve been around us enough to know we don’t?”
“I’ve seen enough to know you have respect. You wouldn’t have it if you hadn’t earned it.” She sent him a sober look. “You’ve earned mine.”
His face reddened. Trying to hide the fact that she’d made him uncomfortable, he gathered the dishes he’d cooked and set them on the table.
Ian and Simon returned as they were finishing setting the table and, although it was a rare occurrence, they all sat down together to eat.
Ian and Simon were tense, Anna noticed. She wasn’t certain what it was, but they barely waited until the food had been passed around for distribution before Simon made the announcement they’d clearly been bursting to tell.
“He made a mistake,” he said with satisfaction.
No one asked who. They didn’t have to. Anna felt excitement waft through her.
“What kind of mistake?”
Ian grinned at her. “He admitted that he’d sent Paul Warner to get you.”
Anna grimaced. “I know … and you were right. The minute I said I’d been kidnapped, his lawyers started setting me up, trying to make it sound as if I was lying.”
“That was his fatal mistake,” Simon said with satisfaction, “admitting he’d sent Paul. Mrs. Bagley will testify that you were kidnapped. That means his admission is going to hang him.”
Anna was afraid to get too hopeful, and yet she felt a great uplifting, felt suddenly light, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “You think she can convince the jury?”
Simon chuckled. Anna felt her pulse leap, but it went beyond her pleasure at the certainty it seemed to suggest. It lightened his entire face and made him so handsome it took her breath. “She’s something else,” he murmured with appreciative amusement, “but she’s damned convincing. Unless his lawyers really get her rattled, I think she’ll be a fantastic witness.”
“Of course,” Ian added, “his lawyers are currently battling letting her testify at all.
She wasn’t introduced during discovery and they’re claiming we deliberately withheld her.”
“Because, of course, if they’d known about her, Miles Cavendish would’ve tried to disclaim any connection with Paul Warner. Of course, he couldn’t disclaim any connection, but he would’ve come up with something else to cover his hide. Now that he’s admitted that he sent Paul, and she’s going testify that you were kidnapped …. It’s a nail in his coffin.”
“You think they can get her excluded?” Anna asked uneasily.
Simon sighed. “We’ll know by tomorrow, end of day. The judge is considering it.”
“What about the other evidence?” Caleb asked. “You mentioned that Mrs.
Bagley had given you something with potential.”
The sparkle left Simon’s eyes. “We have chain-of-command issues. The Attorney General is concerned about trying to use it at all since Mrs. Bagley picked it up from the crime scene.”
“Did they get anything off of it?”
“Mrs. Bagley’s fingerprints and DNA,” Ian said dryly. “She tried to clean up all the things she’d found and get rid of the ‘smoke smell’ and that included those pieces.
She told us she thought she’d thrown them out when she was sorting because it was clearly broken. And that she must have thrown something ‘good’ in the trash and those pieces in with the ‘good’ by mistake.”
Everyone was disappointed, not just Ian and Simon. “The worst of it is that it might’ve broken the case wide open.”
“You tied it to the bomb at the island?” Joshua asked quickly.
“We did. We also tied one of the pieces to the bomb that blew up the desalinization plant.”
“They can’t throw it out!” Caleb exclaimed angrily. “On a technicality?”
“Whoa!” Ian interjected. “He said it tied the three bombs together. We haven’t managed to tie any of them directly to Miles Cavendish. Even if we could get it in, he could still walk away from it.”
“Well that just fucking sucks!” Anna snapped angrily.
All four men turned to stare at her as if she’d suddenly grown another head. She felt her face heat. “What?”
Caleb burst out laughing. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘fucking’!”
She shrugged. “You guys say it all the time.”
“We’ve corrupted our little magpie!” Ian said mournfully. “Instead of chirping sweet, off-key little melodies, she’s going to be cursing worse than we do.”
Anna couldn’t help but chuckle, but she felt her face turn redder. “Well, it does suck!”
“It does,” Simon said, amusement threading his voice.
* * * *
Anna headed back to court the following day. She was a nervous wreck before they ever left because she knew she would be called upon to testify. The trial had begun the week before, but except for the one appearance when she’d been called to testify that she’d been kidnapped, she hadn’t been required to be there.
It didn’t help that she still wasn’t used to the sub. She thought it might be something she could get used to—over time—but it was still new enough that every creek, every noise she couldn’t readily identify, sent a shaft of fear through her.
She tried meditation, not merely to calm her nerves from the sub trip, but to prepare herself for her court appearance. The whole situation unnerved her, but having to perch on a seat in full view of the entire courtroom, which was packed, was the hardest thing to endure. It made her feel horribly exposed and vulnerable and, unfortunately, her father’s lawyers were like sharks. Despite her best efforts to appear calm and collected during that first bout, it seemed they’d caught the scent of ‘blood’, realized what pure agony it was for an introvert like herself to find herself the center of attention. They’d managed to rattle her enough she’d begun to stammer, almost broke down and cried.
They weren’t going to do it to her again, she decided. She wasn’t going to let them push her until she made another mistake.
She had just enough time to sit in the audience to grow completely relaxed, almost bored, when she was called. Her stomach instantly tied itself into a knot. Her knees felt like rubber as she got up and headed toward the front of the courtroom.
They reminded her that she was still under oath and then the defense came out swinging. It was clear what the name of the game was today—recover the ball they’d dropped.
“You said before that you felt as if Paul was a threat to you and that you were being kidnapped.”
Anna nodded.
“Answer, please.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you feel that way?”
Anna’s mind went perfectly blank. “Because he worked for my father.”
The lawyer frowned, made a great pretense of thinking things over and reading back over her testimony. “Why did you feel threatened by your father? Had he done anything to make you feel threatened? Said anything?”
It was a trap. Everything he said was a trap, she reminded herself. “I’d been informed by the watchmen when they took me in to question me that my father was the leader of a terrorist organization. They believed he was responsible for the bombing in New Atlanta that killed so many ….”
He cut her off. “So, you’re saying it wasn’t anything specific that your father did?”
“He killed a lot of people,” Anna said blankly.
The lawyer gritted his teeth. “Your honor, I’d ask that this witness be classified as hostile and request that she answer with a yes or no.”
The judge looked him over. “Be more careful with your answers, Dr. Blake.”
Breathe, Anna! Deep breath in! Slowly exhale! “Let me rephrase that question, Dr. Blake. Your response, your state of mind, was entirely due to what you’d been told by the watchmen, not because of anything
you knew, personally, to be the truth.”
Anna frowned. “You’re suggesting they lied to me?”
The lawyer looked like he was going to explode.
“Sorry!” Anna said hastily. “I’m just not sure what the question is or what you’re getting at.”
The lawyer eyed her malignantly. “Are you involved with any of the watchmen?”
“Involved how?”
“Romantically.”
Anna felt the blood leave her face and then rush back. It hit her like a ton of bricks, so suddenly she wondered why she hadn’t realized it before, that this was why she’d felt as if all of them were holding her at arm’s length. They were afraid they would be accused of influencing her. She dragged in a calming breath, feeling strangely relieved by the realization, not further unnerved. “No.”
“You aren’t romantically involved with any of the men that have had you in ‘protective’ custody?”
He was hinting at something. She wasn’t sure what, but he knew something and he was setting a trap for her. “No.”
He sprang it. “You’ve never been intimate with any member of the group of watchmen?”
“In what way?” Anna asked, feeling her belly tie itself into a knot.
“Sexually.”
That was it! The bastards had video of her having sex with Caleb! She felt her face redden. “Oh! Well, yes. I had sex with Caleb.”
The lawyer stared at her. “You just said you weren’t romantically involved with any of them, Dr. Blake.”
“I’m not. I said we had sex.” She didn’t dare glance directly at Caleb, but even in her peripheral vision she could see that he was just as uncomfortable as she was.
“And wasn’t it your lover who convinced you that you should be afraid of your father?”
“No. I don’t have a lover.”
“Dr. Blake. You just admitted you’d had sex with watchman Caleb Andreas!”
Anna stared at him. “A lover implies a relationship. We don’t have a relationship.”
“But you had sex with him?”
“Yes—once. It’s called a one night stand. Haven’t you ever had one?”
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