by Nancy Allan
Amy looked across to Cape Peril and the lighthouse that had, for over a century, flashed its powerful strobe intermittently across the ocean, warning unwary sailors away from the rocky cape. Maybe she should have paid heed to the warning. For a second Amy thought she saw a small flicker of yellow light, perhaps from a flashlight, behind the lighthouse, but after watching a few moments, decided she must have imagined it.
She watched for a few minutes, and then her eyes traveled beyond the back deck to the gardens she’d planted years ago. They were impossible to see in the dark, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling an enormous sense of loss. Thinking of the gardens reminded her of the hopes and dreams she’d also planted here. Like seeds placed lovingly in rich soil, she had nurtured and protected them, believing that as the roots spread deeply into the ground, her hopes and dreams would grow and blossom, prospering from the love that she gave.
Suddenly cold, she turned around and cast the penlight across the room, thinking how much things had changed since her departure a week ago. Was it just a week? If felt like eons.
Like a ghost re-living the past, she drifted through the main floor of the house. In the hall, outside the study, her flashlight rested upon a wall photo taken in the park last summer: Dan, smiling his million-dollar smile, his arms around her and Jamie, creating the illusion of a happy family on a beautiful summer’s day. So deceptive. How could he have maintained the charade so long, without her knowing? Because I refused to see reality. That’s how. I was so damned afraid of feeling any more pain and being forced to do something about it, that I existed in a bubble.
She wandered listlessly into the study. Her real work seemed a world away from her current existence. Even though she loved architecture, it would become meaningless without Jamie. She couldn’t live without her son.
Glancing out the study window, she thought of the night that had launched this morbid chain of events and wondered what had become of her twin. Is she still alive? Will I ever have the chance to meet the sister that’s virtually identical to me in every way?
Amy looked down at the desk, the thin beam from her flashlight illuminating the stack of bills. She expected to see the letter describing Dan’s indiscretions, but it wasn’t there. She re-positioned the light for a closer look and shuffled through the bills. Gone!
Dan?
Had he arrived ahead of her? Had he found the letter and taken it with him?
Turning in thought, the flashing green light on the answering machine caught her eye. Distracted, her finger went automatically to PLAY, but her thoughts were on Dan. There were several work-related messages. Then, a gravelly voice caught her attention. It was the spike-haired woman Amy had talked to in Beaverdale.
“Hi. Remember me? You left your card and said to call if anything came up. Well, something came up. An older woman came to my door this afternoon. Said her name was Doris Eickher. Anyway, she had a photo of the woman you were looking for—or maybe it was you, who knows? Anyway, she told me that the photo was actually of her daughter. Believe me, this woman was totally stressed. She was going on about how her daughter’s life was in danger, and how she had to find her quickly, and so on. I would’ve thought she was nuts if I hadn’t met you and your sister, no pun intended. I gave her your phone numbers. Well, anyway, just thought I’d let you know.”
Amy replayed the message, listening intently, imagining this woman, Doris Eickher, holding a photo of Alesha, filled with the same hope and desperation that drove Amy day and night—the need to find her endangered child.
Amy played the next message. Then, there was a long pause and she heard tiny breaths and a soft cry.
Jamie! Her heart leapt in her chest as his voice filled the room. “Mommy.” There was a sniffle, then, “—come get me, Mommy, pl-e-a-se.” He hesitated a minute, then added, “I’m not lost. I can see the caves from my room—”
A male voice shouted in the background. Then there was a click and the machine went silent. Amy hit RE-PLAY, her mind racing, fear for Jamie forming a painful rock in her chest. She listened to his voice again, hearing the fear, and the loneliness. When the tape ended, another voice, this time behind her, sent Amy leaping into the air.
“Smart kid.”
Amy whirled around. Dan was barely visible in the dark doorway. She turned the penlight on him. “Dan!” Her heart was crashing in her chest.
Blinded by the beam of light, he groped for the light switch and flipped it on. Light flooded the study. “For crying out loud, Amy!”
Amy looked behind him. “Where’s Jamie?”
“He’s safe, which is more than I can say for you,” Dan said, stepping toward her.
Amy retreated, her hand flying to the Beretta in her coat pocket. “Don’t come any closer.”
Dan took another step, “Come on, Amy—”
She pulled out the gun and aimed it at him pointblank. Dan froze in surprise. “What the hell—”
“Don’t come any closer. Where is he, Dan?”
Dan reached for the gun. “Put that thing away before it goes off. Have you gone mad?”
As his hand shot past her face, Amy inhaled a strange mix of antiseptic and bacterial soap. It spiked a memory of the break-in—the gloves—that strange smell. “You!” She pointed accusingly, recalling his mottled complexion—a result of his allergy to wool—and the stocking cap that had covered his face. “It was you! You broke into our house. You threatened me with Jamie’s life! How could you do that? Your own wife and son! Why?”
Dan shook his head. “I was trying to warn you Amy, to scare you off, for chrissakes. The way you were going, you were going to get yourself killed. You still are.”
“Why would that bother you?”
“I’m still your husband, that’s why!”
“That’s a little hard to believe, all things considered. Do you have any idea what’s been happening? What kind of hell I’ve been living? Gramps being burned alive in his own house. Grams being pushed in front of a moving car. Me being run off the highway, chased down by an animal, nearly raped, and drowned. All the time I just wanted to find my little boy.” Her voice shook with anger, but her expression changed when she saw the truth in his face. “You knew, didn’t you, Dan? You knew what they were doing to me.”
He became still. “Not the details. Look Amy, you’re in terrible danger.”
“And why is that?” She asked, breathless.
“They’re going to kill you. Trust me, we don’t have much time. You’ve got to come with me now, while there’s still a chance to escape.” He pleaded.
Amy took a step forward, the gun wavering dangerously. “Come with you?”
Dan jumped back. “No! Don’t! Amy, listen, I know you think I’m a jerk for running out on you—”
“Jerk? You were unfaithful for years! You took my child! You left me alone to fight for my life! Jerk? How about a disloyal, unfaithful, narcissistic bastard.” Amy’s voice echoed shrilly through the near-empty house. The gun shook violently in her hands.
“Take it easy, Amy. Take it easy!” Dan’s eyes were glued to the semi-automatic. “Believe me, I never thought it would turn out like this!”
“I lived with you for seven years. Seven years! And never once did I guess you were with other women. Nor would I have thought you capable of abandoning me to killers!”
Dan swallowed and looked away.
Amy paused to catch her breath, fighting for control. They stared at each other in a cold silence. She reached deep inside herself, to find some sense of calm. Finally she whispered, “Your father, Dr. George Johnstone took a tiny newborn baby from my mother. He lied to her and told her the infant had died. Then he and your mother flew that tiny baby to some facility in Paraguay, of all places.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You knew all this?”
Dan looked down. “Yes.”
Appalled, Amy studied him. Her voice rose angrily. “Tell me, Dan, why did you marry me? Was it some kind of sick setup? Co
nsidering everything your father did or knew about… the kidnapping of my sister, the death of my parents, and everything that’s happened, why would you, son of George & Vera Johnstone, marry me?”
Dan pressed his lips together, his face ashen, his voice a whisper. “Alesha.”
Amy’s mouth fell open. The name hung in the air between them. “Alesha?” Amy murmured in disbelief.
Dan looked at her, his expression pained. “Yes. Alesha.” He closed his eyes. When he spoke again, Amy could barely hear him. “I loved her from the first moment I saw her… when we were just kids.” His voice was a hoarse whisper as he explained. “My dad used to take me with him on business trips to Paraguay. When I saw her for the first time, she was just eight. She was standing there with the other kids in the facility—”
“Facility?”
Dan took a shaky breath. “She lived in a huge research facility in Paraguay along with sixty-seven other kids of various ages.“
Amy groaned, her arm falling to her side, the gun heavy in her hand.
Dan cleared his throat. “Alesha stood out from all the others. Not just because she was so golden, so beautiful, even as a child, but because she was so, so…” He struggled for the right word. “Vibrant. It took me two years to work up the nerve to go up and talk to her. The second I did, that was it for me. She has a brain that sears paper and a presence that melts your heart. She makes people laugh when they wanted to cry. She has a spirit that soars. Alesha is special. Like no one on this earth.” His eyes were glassy, distant. “She is life itself. She’s magical…” His voice faded away.
Amy was stunned. When she found her voice, she asked, “And then?”
Dan ran his hand over his face. “Then she got in trouble. When she was sixteen she raided Eickher’s files and found out who her real parents were—”
“My mother and father.”
“Yes.” He shifted his weight miserably and continued, his voice choked with emotion. “Eickher was outraged about that. He arranged to send her away to Germany, but when she and her bodyguard landed in Miami, Alesha took off. They found her in Portland a few days later, drugged her, and shipped her to Eickher’s satellite facility in Germany.”
Amy winced. “She came to Portland. That must have been when she called my mother.”
“That’s right.” Dan paused for a while, struggling with the last part of his story. “Afterward, they told me to forget her,” he hesitated, “but I couldn’t. I could never forget Alesha.”
Amy felt hollow. Empty. “So when you couldn’t have her, you settled for me.”
Pain filled Dan’s eyes. “It wasn’t like that. I withdrew so badly that my father finally told me about you, in the hope of reviving me, I suppose.” Dan looked at her strangely. “You see, the first time I saw you the same thing happened to me all over again.” His expression grew tender. “You were walking across the campus, your long golden hair blowing in the wind, your movements so graceful. Your beauty was absolutely breathtaking. I stood there mesmerized, watching you. I was so awed I could hardly breathe.” Dan reached out for Amy, “By then it had been years since I’d seen Alesha, so it was a shock to see this exquisite young woman with a different name: Amy.” He touched her cheek. “I loved you, Amy, the same way I had loved Alesha. Only—”
Amy stepped away from his touch, finishing the sentence for him. “Only I wasn’t Alesha.”
Dan dropped his arm. “No. You weren’t. I began to see that right after we were married, but it wasn’t until Jamie was born, and I saw you as a mother, that I knew I’d made a mistake.”
“And you still love her.”
“I’ve always loved her. I always will.”
A huge piece of the puzzle suddenly crashed into place and for the first time Amy could see part of the picture. Dan had, in many ways, been caught in the same web that had brought tragedy and sorrow into her life. He too had been born into a situation that had taken over his life. But there was one big difference. Dan knew about his parents’ and about Amy’s past. And he had kept it hidden from her. “You lied when you said your parents were dead to hide your father’s horrific involvement with my family.”
“It was best you didn’t know.”
Amy stared at him coldly. “Who is Helmut Eickher?”
When Dan looked up, she saw that his face had aged, lines etching deeply around his eyes. “He owns, amongst other things, an international company called CellBIX. They do cellular research. The man’s a scientific genius gone amuck. His obsession is cellular research, and along those lines he’s made millions. Aside from that, he believes that by creating a group of elite, super-intelligent beings, that he can place some of them in positions of power around the world and control them.”
“How does that involve twins?”
“From the late 70’s to the 90’s Eickher targeted pregnant women with high IQ’s, like your mom, who were expecting twins. He figured he could slip one twin away, explaining it as a death, as long as he left the mother with the other infant. Of course, he never did any of this personally. Just arranged for it.”
Amy concluded, “That’s where your father came in. He coordinated everything for Eickher, delivered the babies, and transported them—my twin and all the others, to some God-awful facility in Paraguay, to be raised like lab rats.”
Dan closed his eyes, his face haggard. “Back in 1979, Eickher made my father an offer. Dad refused, but Eickher found his weakness. Money. Still, my father resisted until Eickher convinced him it was in the interests of humanity. Finally the right sum of money was put on the table and my father relented. Dad told me that he had planned to do just one delivery to make the man happy, but after the first one, Eickher had him. Dad couldn’t extract himself and because my mother had assisted him, she was trapped as well.”
“And the trap snared all of us.” Suddenly Amy heard a sound. Something foreign. Something odd. Her scalp prickled and she tensed.
Then an explosion rocked the study.
CHAPTER 34
Dan yanked Amy through the doorway and together they dove onto the hallway floor.
The shotgun blast exploded the study window and blew a hole right through the back wall, detonating a lethal spray of glass shards, drywall, and wood chips in a deafening blast.
Dan and Amy belly-crawled along the floor, and then scrambled to their feet, Dan yelling, “Out the kitchen door. Run!”
A second explosion blew the front door to pieces. Amy bolted for the French door in the kitchen, crashing hard against it. Locked. Dan reached around, twisted the lock, and pushed her onto the porch. “The beach. Hurry!”
As they raced for the staircase leading down to the beach, another shotgun blast followed them. Amy could hear Dan’s heavy breathing behind her as they tore down the rickety staircase. Knowing they were targets on the stairs, Amy twisted her body over the wooden rail, and with a push, flung herself off. She landed on the packed sand with a heavy thud. A second later, another shot rang out and Dan hit the sand beside her.
“Keep going! Run!” he shouted.
The surf was up, leaving only a slender strip of damp, hard-packed beach. The frigid wind whipped the tops off the waves sending an icy white froth racing up the sand. They spurted toward the cape, adrenaline pumping, the roaring sea preventing them from hearing their stalkers. Where were they?
There was a spitting sound and the sand by Amy’s feet exploded. Instinctively she dodged right. The shot had come from the bank, high above them.
“They’re up on the bluff,” Dan yelled, “Run for cover.” He reached for her arm, pulling her toward a rock outcropping. The night was so black Amy could see nothing in front of her. Suddenly her right foot hit the end of an old log and she pitched forward into the sand. Dan stopped, scooped her up, and pushed her ahead of him. “Keep going—don’t stop!”
Another deadly spit of the gun. Dan spun around. Something warm and wet spurted across Amy’s cheek. Dan grabbed his chest and fell forward onto his knees.
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br /> Amy put her arms around him and tried to help him up. “We have to keep going, Dan, or they’ll pick us off like birds.” She put his arm over her shoulder and using her hip, leveraged him onto his feet. Her hands were slippery with his blood. Dan lurched forward, his chest heaving, his breath ragged.
With his weight resting heavily on her, Amy staggered the last few feet, toward the bluff, her feet now sinking into the dry sand, her knees giving out repeatedly. Only a few more feet and they’d be under the cover of the bank.
Another shot, so close to Amy’s leg that sand peppered her jeans. She tried to run, but Dan was too heavy and he was slipping from her grasp. Just a few more steps. Finally, with the outcropping protecting them, she took one last step, landing heavily, beneath the overhang. Dan fell beside her, moaning and gasping for breath.
She couldn’t see his face or his wound and didn’t dare use her penlight, as it would expose them. She trailed her hand across his damp jacket until she felt his wet shirt beneath. The coppery scent of his blood mixed with the salty mist from the sea and lingered sickeningly in the damp air, before being carried away by the wind. Then, another cold blast of wind hit her, and with it came the knowledge that Dan was dying. “Hang on, Dan. I’m going for help!” Amy found his hand and pushed it down hard over his wound. “Press down here.”
Instead, Dan reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Amy, I’m sorry,…so sorry—” he gagged and, turned his head to spit out the blood that filled his mouth.
All the alarms were going off for Amy. His time was short. “Just rest. I’m going—”
“No!” His voice was suddenly stronger. “I’m a doctor, if I know anything,” he coughed, “I know when it’s over. You can’t help me, Amy, but you can save yourself. Go before these bastards get both of us!”
Amy pushed the handle of the Beretta into the palm of his other hand. “Here. If they find you, kill them.”
Dan shoved it back into her hand. “No,” he choked, “You’ll need it. And Amy,” he coughed, “use it!”