Today was going to be a heady day of celebration for the Trayhern family. Jason and his wife, Annie, were coming for brunch, driving from their mountain cabin, twenty miles away. Kathy would get to see their baby, little Alexander. This afternoon, Kelly and Pete were flying into Anaconda on a commuter flight from Annapolis, Maryland, where they’d just graduated. Both were choosing to go into the Marine Corps, following in their father’s footsteps, as she had.
Sighing, Kathy shut her eyes. For her, it was going to be a day of exquisite, silent anguish. How could she tell each of them goodbye without revealing that they’d never see her again? She ran over this point again and again in her mind. Already immersed in grief, Kathy didn’t even try to banish the heavy feeling wrapped around her heart. At no point, however, did she reconsider her choice to go after the Garcia drug cartel, to try to hurt Carlos’s family as much as his father had hurt theirs. Not once.
She turned on her side and pressed her face into the soft feather pillow. Outside the open window she heard a robin trilling its long, beautiful song, along with a cardinal vying for territorial rights.
Looking at her watch, she saw it was 0600. Hearing no sounds in the house, Kathy knew the rest of the family must still be asleep. She threw off the sheet and placed her feet on the cool cedar floor, rubbing her face and pushing her thick blond hair over her shoulders. What to do?
The answer came as she showered, scrubbing her hair with a light jasmine-scented shampoo and contemplating the dilemma. After completing her toilette and climbing into jeans and a pink tank top, she sat at her desk in the corner. Over the next two hours, Kathy penned a letter to each member of her family. Sealing them in envelopes, she painstakingly printed the name of each of her loved ones on the outside.
Kathy saved the most painful for last: Alex Morgan Trayhern, the newest member of their clan. Frowning, she pulled another pink linen sheet from the drawer beside her and scrawled the date in the upper right-hand corner.
To Alexander Morgan Trayhern
Dearest Alex, You and I don’t know each other so well just yet, but I already feel close to you. I have to go away for a while, but before I leave, I have a few things to say.
I want you to know that your dad, my brother Jason, loves you very, very much. And your mom, Annie, thinks the world of you. There are so many children around the globe that would love to have what you have: two loving parents who think you are the most wonderful little boy in the world.
I remember flying home on special leave when Grandma Laura called to say that you were about to be born. I remember sitting on that plane, wondering what you would look like, thinking about how we would watch the miracle of your birth and how it would impact us in the most wonderful of ways. I was truly looking forward to meeting you.
Well, as things would have it, you decided to come early! When I arrived, Annie and you were at home, where a midwife had helped deliver you. Your mom doesn’t like hospitals! I found out that your dad had helped with your birth, too. And of course, your grandma was there with the video camera. So I got to see your whole birth on film, which was great.
When we first met, you had long, black hair, and I marveled at how thick a head of hair you had for such a new baby! Your mom said it was the Apache blood in you. When she let me hold you for the first time, I felt such a thrill, Alex. You were a big baby—ten pounds!
As I sat there in the rocking chair, holding you like the fragile gift you were, I marveled at all your little fingers, how perfectly formed they were, and how innocent you looked in sleep. I rocked you for nearly half an hour, and as I did so the world seemed to stop, and my heart opened.
I found myself wondering what kind of life you would have. What would you be interested in? What kind of a career would call to you? What kind of woman would eventually capture your heart? How many kids would you have? Would life treat you kindly or roughly? I had all these questions, as I’m sure your parents did, and no answers. I do know that I loved you and will continue to do so until I draw my last breath.
What is so great is that you are half Apache and half Anglo. Of course, I know Grandma Laura will fill you in on our proud Welsh history. You’ve come into a great family with great traditions, great honor, and a calling to help the world in large and small ways. Your mother, Annie, is an Apache medicine woman with wisdom far beyond her years, and I know she will teach you the ways of her people. You will be the first child in the Trayhern family to be half Native American blood. You should be proud of that. I’m sure we will all learn more about your mother’s side and her warrior people. Already, I can see your mom’s way of living making a better life for my brother Jason. Your dad was very gravely wounded during the war in Afghanistan, and he nearly died. If not for what your mom knew about healing his spirit and heart, he might not have made it. Your mother is a powerful, heart-centered woman, and I know she will bring good things into your life that will help you surmount challenges and obstacles.
Alex, this is a hello and goodbye letter to you. As the oldest daughter of my generation, I feel it’s my duty to right a grave wrong. Someday you will know about the awful kidnapping that took place, where your dad, Grandpa Morgan and Grandma Laura were all captured and made to suffer gravely at a drug lord’s hands. I have seen the damage this has done and I feel it my duty to square things with the Garcia drug cartel, which is responsible for this heinous act against our family.
I know that what I must do will cost me my life. I know that I’ll never get to see you grow up. That makes me ache with a pain that I can never ignore. Just know that what I have done is for the family’s honor.
Please know I love you with all my heart. That I got to hold you the day after you were born, to rock you in my arms, to smile down at you, to touch your tiny, perfect little fingers…and that I’ll always love you. Kathy Alyssa Trayhern, your aunt.
Tears burned in Kathy’s eyes, blurring the letter as she carefully folded it in half and slipped it inside the envelope. She heard the family stirring to life outside her door. Wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, she sniffed and wrote Alex’s name on the envelope. She set it aside and pulled a tissue from the box. After blotting her eyes and blowing her nose, Kathy got up and looked around her room. One side held nothing but books, because she’d been a voracious reader as a child growing up. How many times had her mother read to her and her siblings at bedtime? Oh, how Kathy had looked forward to that! All that had been missing from those nightly readings was her father. Rubbing the area above her heart, Kathy told herself she’d better get used to the pain there. It was the pain of goodbye.
Where to put the letters so they wouldn’t get discovered? She knew her mother had a housekeeper, Sally, who came twice a week to clean. Where to put the letters…
“HEY, KAT!” Jason called as he entered the living room. “How are you?”
Kathy grinned and walked over to her older brother. He was dressed in a pair of jeans, a short-sleeved white cotton shirt and loafers. His blue eyes were alive with joy as he hauled her against him and gave her a fierce hug of greeting. For just a moment, Kathy allowed herself to be crunched against him. He was slightly taller than her, slightly huskier, and now, three years after his near fatal head wound, was looking much more like his old self. His lopsided grin was there once more.
The air rushed out of her lungs and she hugged him back. “Hi, Jas.” Kathy pulled away and smiled up at him. It always pained her to see the jagged scar that ran along the right side of his face. He’d gotten that wound when flying shrapnel landed in the tent where he had been sleeping at the Kandahar air base in Afghanistan. He and Annie were the only two survivors of the horrifying experience.
“Hey, this is great, Kat. Dad said you came in unexpectedly.”
“Yeah, I wrangled some time off before a black ops.” At least that wasn’t a lie. Kathy looked around Jason to see Annie carrying her son into the house on her left hip. “Hi, Annie.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Kathy
. Welcome home,” Annie said, laughing. She held up Alex, who was dressed in a blue romper and tiny white tennis shoes. “You know, I think our son is very psychic. The day before you came home, he kept going to the screen door and looking out of it.” She hefted Alex into Kathy’s awaiting hands. “He started walking six months ago, and now he has a fixed routine of where he toddles. But that day he went straight to the door, put his hands on the screen and looked out. He kept saying ‘Ninya.’”
Holding Alex in her arms, Kathy noticed his thick black hair was short and neatly cut. She looked down into his wide blue eyes and grinned, her heart expanding with love for this precious little one. “Ninya is the name he gave me.”
Jason chuckled and slid his arm over Kathy’s shoulder. “Yeah, that’s his name for Aunt Kathy.”
“So,” she whispered, placing several soft kisses across Alex’s broad little forehead, “you knew I was coming home, didn’t you?”
“Ninya…” Alex cooed and grabbed a lock of her blond hair.
Laughter erupted and Kathy smiled at Annie, who stood at Jason’s side. She was a full-blood Apache, her copper skin and nearly waist-long braids proclaiming her proud heritage.
“Watch it,” she warned. “Alexander has taken to yanking on my hair, so you’re liable to lose some of yours if you aren’t careful.” She picked up one of her braids and grinned. “I learned a long time ago to keep my hair away from this little guy.”
Kathy reached down and gently removed the lock from his greedy little hand. The baby smiled up at her and her heart broke. She cuddled him for a long moment and then, reluctantly, set him down. Once his feet touched the gleaming cedar floor, he was off, darting one way and then another. Kathy followed, making sure he didn’t lose his balance and hit the coffee table between the leather couches.
“He’s like a tank in high gear with no driver,” Jason called, chuckling as he settled his hands on his narrow hips.
Kathy laughed. “No kidding! Is Alex always in this much of a hurry?”
Annie walked around the living room and stood at the opposite corner, where her son was heading. “Sometimes. I think he smells the cookies Grandma made and he’s making a beeline for the kitchen—” she hooked a thumb over her shoulder “—which is directly thatta way.”
“And he knows that?” Kathy was amazed as she watched the toddler maneuver between the couch and coffee table. The boy confronted his mother, who stood between him and the cookies in the kitchen.
“He’s not dumb,” Jason said. “In fact, he’s probably too smart. He’s very visual.”
“The eyes of a wolf, the ears of a bat,” Annie murmured with a smile, taking her son’s hand and walking with him toward the kitchen and those cookies.
“Wow,” Kathy said as Jas came up and stood near her. “That’s amazing. He’s only one and a half and in this big house he knows exactly where the cookie jar is. I don’t think we learned that until we were around four.”
Grinning, Jason rubbed his chin. “Yeah, compared to him, we were slow on the draw. This little guy of ours is special.” He held up his hand. “I know, I know, every parent says that about their child. But Alexander really is unique.”
Watching Annie and Alex disappear around the corner, Kathy said, “I believe it.” She looked up at her older brother. Since his traumatic brain injury Jason had recovered at home as well as going to the Veterans Hospital in Anaconda for additional medical treatments. His skin was ruddy with good health and he’d gained back all the weight he’d lost. His eyes burned with a fierce passion for life that Kathy knew existed because of his love for Annie and his new son.
“He gives his babysitter hell, let me tell you,” Jason chuckled. “He’s got her figured out and gives her a run for her money.”
Giggling, Kathy said, “I feel for her, then.”
“This little guy is going places. I don’t know where yet, but he’s definitely got a mission in life.”
Kathy noted the catch in Jason’s voice and saw worry in his dark blue eyes. “We all have a date with destiny, Jas.” She said the words quietly, and when she saw him nod his head, his gaze fixed on the empty doorway to the kitchen, she knew he would replay this conversation someday and take her words in a different light. She hoped Jas wouldn’t blame himself for not picking up on the double entendre.
“Hey,” she said, mustering a playfulness that she knew was the “old” Kathy, “how’s work with Dad going? Are you enjoying learning the ropes at Perseus?”
Groaning, Jas sat down on the couch and stretched out his long legs. “Yeah, I empty the wastebaskets, sweep the floors, dust the cobwebs out of the corners of the offices—you know, things like that.”
Laughing softly, Kathy sat on the couch opposite him. “Oh, come on! It can’t be that bad. Dad said he wanted you to join Perseus and to learn it from the ground up.”
“He meant every word, Kathy.” Her brother smiled wryly. “I’m lucky he doesn’t have me on my hands and knees waxing the floors.”
“Mom said you were working with Mike Houston, learning mission planning. Sounds interesting.”
Losing his smile, he sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, it is. I’ve only really been working at Perseus for six months. Before that, you know, the head recovery thing…” He pointed to his skull.
“And the baby. You were a little busy, Jas. I’m glad Dad gave you time off to be with Alex.”
“Yeah. And I’m discovering he’s quite the handful.”
“Oh, he’s a curious little boy, Jas. I’m sure Mom told you about your own growing up years? Remember how you used to get into everything? Mom told me you drove her crazy when you were going through your terrible twos.” She laughed.
“Guilty as charged.” Jason sobered. “Hey, what’s this newest black ops about?”
“Oh,” Kathy lied, “same old thing. I’ve been flying Marine Corps helo support for Navy SEAL missions for over a year. This is just another one. It’s no big deal.”
She could see Jason’s concern etched on his face. He knew she’d loved Curt Shields and that he’d died in combat. Kathy hadn’t come home after that, but had buried her grief and shock in her work. No one in her family knew of the rage she carried over his death. He’d been a good man trying to right wrongs in the world. And right or wrong, she felt she could never love another man. There was only one Curt and he was gone forever.
“Usually you come home for thirty days once a year, not between missions,” Jason said, giving her a worried look. “Is there something different about this one? More dangerous? Longer time out in enemy country?”
Her stomach knotted. She and Jason were two years apart in age, and in some ways he knew her better than anyone. They’d been the ones to suffer through the kidnapping. It had bonded them in a way that few children experienced, and that tie was strong and supportive.
Lifting her hands, Kathy said, “No more dangerous than any other, Jas. I missed the twins’ graduation at Annapolis, and I knew they were coming home now, so I thought I’d do a post-grad celebration here and congratulate them.” Kathy was hoping he’d buy that explanation. She was amazed at how well she lied, and she didn’t like doing so. Seeing Jason’s worry dissolve and a grin replace it, she drew a deep breath of relief.
“Oh hey, that’s great, then. Mom is sure planning a nice shindig for them. I hear we get beef Wellington tonight for dinner, with all the trimmings.” He rubbed his hands together. “My favorite meal, and she only makes it once or twice a year.”
“That’s why you’re here so early!” Kathy exclaimed.
“Caught red-handed! And my son is already into the cookie jar!”
For the next few hours, Kathy planned to savor every moment with Jason, Annie and Alex. She had to tuck a lifetime’s worth of memories into one day. And her heart tugged with sadness as well as joy when she anticipated the twins returning home that afternoon. The house would ring with rare happiness, and Kathy was so glad to be a part of it. The perfect farewell
.
CHAPTER FOUR
SOPHIE TAYLOR LANGFORD tore through the Peruvian jungle, racing just as fast as her seven-year-old legs would take her. She was barefoot, dressed in a long white nightgown. Sobbing for breath, she held her hands up to protect her face from branches as she raced down a narrow animal path outside the villa, from which she’d just escaped. The morning was drizzly, with drops of water dripping on her as she ran. The sky was a dull gray where she could see bits of it peeking through the lush, thick jungle canopy.
She heard heavy footfalls behind her. Soldiers! Oh! She had to get away! But she had no idea where she was! She’d awakened two days ago to find she’d been kidnapped, taken from her home in Lima. Frightened now, she cried out as she heard a man screaming at her in Spanish. He was so close! Lungs burning from her exertion, Sophie darted down the vine-entangled, muddy trail. She had to get away from him!
Her bare feet flew over the slippery red clay. The earth was soggy and tree roots crisscrossed the trail as if trying to trip her. Leaves of bushes slapped at her repeatedly.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Fear jolted through Sophie. Having lived for two years in Peru, she knew Spanish. She shrieked in terror and ran even harder.
Just as she rounded a turn, a huge root caught her left foot, and Sophie cried out. She flew end over end and landed at the side of the trail, nearly lost in the thick underbrush. Gasping for breath, she rolled over, her white nightgown catching between her legs as she tried to scramble up again.
“No you don’t, you little bitch!”
A man’s hand grabbed at her long, blond hair, which was now damp and coated with crimson mud. Dressed in green khakis and holding a rifle in his left hand, the soldier grabbed Sophie and hauled her out of the bushes onto the trail.
Her scalp burned as he lifted her to her feet by her hair. Sophie screamed, her hands flying to her scalp.
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