Redemptio Animae
“When translated from Latin, means Redemption of the Soul.”
By Sydney Gibson
Copyright 2015 Sydney Gibson
Edited by Michelle Packett and A.E. Vikar
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any of the content within cannot be used or distributed without the permission of the author.
This novel is dedicated to all those who believed in me from the start and kept me writing when I wanted to stop. To my parents who gave me the foundation to have this incredible imagination and drive I have now. And lastly, this book is a result of some of my best friends supporting me. Felicia, Justin, and Victoria, ya’ll better read this thing!
A special thanks to Michelle and Donna for helping with this massive project and getting it to where it is now.
This story is told in two point of views, look for the below images to signify a change in character’s point of view.
Catriona “Kit” Witmer Claire Avondale
Chapter 1
The only time I had normal dreams was when I was dead drunk. Sleep would come to me easy and I would get lost in a hazy cloud of not caring. My mind would finally rest and let go as much as I did when I finished half a bottle of scotch.
I was dreaming about swimming with penguins in the ocean. The cool water and weightlessness it brought with being submerged, was freeing. I half knew I was in a dream and half wanted it to be a reality. I wanted to float away to the other side of the world and spend time with these quiet birds.
When the ice cold water hit my face, shocking my system and my drunken mind out of the scotch haze. I gasped and sat up from the couch I had passed out on. For a split second I wondered if I was still in the dream. Until I looked around my small living room, panicked at where the water actually had come from. Wiping the freezing water from my face and eyes, I saw him. Smirking and holding the pot that was still dripping with the water that now soaked my hair and my shirt.
“Wakey wakey Witmer.” The words came out childishly sing songy, making me want to slug him.
I swung my legs to the edge of the couch, the cold water replaced by the rising heat of anger I felt when my eyes focused in on Davey Janes, my ex-partner and sometimes boss. I stood up quickly, taking the towel he held out to me, “What the hell, Davey. Did you break into my house again?” I rubbed the towel through my drenched hair.
“You can’t call it breaking and entering when the door is unlocked.” He set the empty pot down on the coffee table that was covered with overdue bills, old magazine and newspaper ads with red circles around possible jobs. Davey picked up the almost empty bottle of scotch with two fingers, holding it up to the light before giving me a dirty look. “Are you ever going to break up with the bottle, Kit?”
I grabbed the bottle from his hands, slapping the wet towel onto his shoulder and his immaculate black suit, “It’s none of your business. You know I sober up and stay sober when I have a job.” I smirked as he cringed and groaned that I had water stained his thousand dollar suit. I walked to my kitchen, one that was also a mess. My whole house was a mess, it happens when you sort of stop caring about a lot of things. I took a quick look around at the mess now that the cold water had cleared my vision. I looked away; the house was just a big of a mess as I was if not bigger. I decided to occupy myself with making coffee rather than noticing hadn’t cleaned up in almost six months. My home or myself.
“Did you stop by to tell me how to lock my door or do you actually have something for me.” I slid the bottle of scotch in a cabinet, frowning when it hit me that it was the last bottle I had. I turned to look at Davey, still swiping at whatever water he thought was on the suit. “I could use some grocery money.”
Davey rolled his eyes, reaching for the silver briefcase he had next to him, “Let’s be real, you need beer money.” He sat in my old beat up leather chair that I had begun to fall asleep in more than my bed these days.
Clicking open his briefcase he smiled, looking at me. “Kit, you do remember the first time we met?”
I ignored him, pointing a relatively clean coffee mug to silently ask if he wanted some. He nodded and kept on as I fidgeted with the screw top of the giant red can of coffee on my cluttered counter. “It was your first day on assignment. You were bright faced and eager, as all rookies are. I had heard a lot about you during your academy run. Caitriona “Kit” Witmer, top of her class in classwork, field work, shooting, defense tactics and the best negotiator the agency had seen in a handful of years. You were so neat and put together that a pin would bounce off the collar of your shirt.”
I clenched my jaw, watching the dark brown liquid take slow languid drips to the empty and stained glass pot. I remembered the day Davey was talking about like it was happening right now. I wanted to cover my ears when Davey continued.
“I knew there was something special about you Kit. We all had bets that first week you were going to be assigned to the Presidential detail by the end of the year. You were THE perfect agent. Neat, professional, respectful and smarter than the rest of us. Sober.” The last part was thrown in as a slight dig. He took a deep breath as I glanced back at him. He was scanning around the pit I had turned the small house into, “What the hell happened, Kit?” it wasn’t a question; it was a friend asking out of concern.
I shook my head, laughing lightly, “You know what happened. You were there.” I waved my hand at him, “Bottom line, life happened. The shitty parts that became my life happened and yeah, I have obviously stopped caring a little bit.”
He raised an eyebrow, “A little bit?”
I angrily pulled the pot of coffee free from the machine, slopping fresh coffee into two cups, “Do you have something for me or not? If not, then I will kindly ask you to leave so I can get back to searching out my next temp job.”
I heard the soft click of the briefcase closing mixed with the soft slide of papers across the arm of the leather chair he sat in. “I do.”
I turned and walked back to Davey, handing him his cup. Which he looked at questioningly for signs of stains before taking a sip. Setting the cup down on a tattered magazine he folded his hands over the notorious brown file folder that the government loved to use to keep secrets from prying eyes. Davey looked at me with his deep coppery brown eyes.
I had to admit the man was handsome. Only a few years older than I, Davey Janes had black hair with brown eyes that almost bordered on copper if the light hit them just right. I could see the Eastern European in him, but I never asked where he was from originally. I only knew he lived in D.C. when I lived there. He was open about his life when he needed to be, but rarely shared much outside of what he told me over the years. Davey was tall, athletic, neat and even smelled good no matter if he was in a cool clean room or in a dumpster digging out evidence.
Davey had also been my closest friend and only friend for the last three years. He had started his own contract security firm the year after my world went to shit, and took pity on me. Throwing me low level celebrity security jobs. The kind of jobs where you scanned the crowd at award ceremonies for nuts or drove the obnoxious stars around to hair appointments. It paid decent and I could pick and choose when I wanted to sober up or when I did actually need grocery money.
I took a deep breath, leaning back in the couch cushions, “What is it this time? I know the Oscars are coming into town.”
Davey smiled tightly, focusing back on the file under his folded hands. “Kit. You were one of the best if not the best. You still are, I can tell in the reviews I recei
ve from clients.”
I rolled my eyes, drinking the black coffee, “It’s not that hard to babysit the spoiled.”
“Kit, I need today to be the last day that you take a drink.” His tone turned serious, making my dumb joke lose humor even with myself, “I need you to clean up, clean this house up and dig deep. Find that agent I served with for two years.”
I shrugged, “Davey, you’re acting weird. Acting like we are back at the Secret Service in pre- assignment briefing.”
Davey met my eyes, staring hard in them, “Promise me. You will sober up, stay sober and get your shit together.”
In that stare, I instantly knew that he was briefing me. Briefing me for something bigger than driving a sassy starlet around town or protecting the next sexiest man alive from being groped on the red carpet. I leaned forward, gripping the warm cup with both hands, “What is it.” My tone changed to match his, cluing him in with a silent promise. He had peaked my interest enough to promise I would set the scotch aside.
Maybe.
Davey handed me a thick file, “This came across my desk yesterday. Through back channels and hush hush communication. This is outside of the government’s knowledge and wishes. It will pay big for a long time. Long enough for you to stock up on enough groceries to last you for at least the next three years, Kit.”
I wrapped my fingers around the thick file, not ready to look at it. “Why me? You have a legion of people that are already sober and still following the path of a good agent, within your firm and within your connections to all the agencies.”
Davey leaned back in his chair, crossing well-tailored legs, “Because you are the best, Kit. And you have fallen off the radar of being significant enough to question why you are suddenly part of a protection detail.” He straightened his pale grey tie, “Which by the way, this is not a protection detail. If you get my drift.”
I rubbed my forehead. I hated the fringe word game the world of federal protection and deep undercover played. I sighed and opened the front page of the file. I looked at the photograph of the blonde woman paperclip to the thick personnel file.
I shot my eyes back up at Davey, “Senator Avondale? Senator Claire Avondale needs secret protection?”
He nodded, “I cannot say too much because I don’t know too much. This request came from her personal assistant as a direct request from Senator Avondale herself. Requesting undetectable protection from an outside firm that is not connected to the agency or the government she works for.”
I looked up at the ceiling, “She already has Secret Service agents assigned to her.” I could feel this request was going to be steeped in bullshit that went beyond the usual political kind.
“Yes she does, ones that she has denied more than just perimeter security for. They only follow her to work and to home. They are not allowed to enter her home or her office on the hill. They even have strict orders to park at least two blocks away from her personal residences. The senator is bit of a cold, staunch woman when it comes to her privacy.”
I focused back on the file. I knew of Senator Avondale in my short time in the Secret Service. She had just been elected and I passed her once or twice in the halls of the capital. Senator Avondale was cold and standoffish, but did her job and did it better and fairer than most of the politicians in the government. I could also admit, only to myself, that I was a slight admirer of how beautiful she was. Senator Avondale was tall, dark blonde, bluish green eyes that bordered on the color of blue sea water, lean, and carried herself with a perfect mix of elegance and fierceness that made her extremely attractive, even in her boring posed Senate photographs. I could recall a moment or two where I had caught myself staring at the quiet woman who always had a look of determination in her eyes, but would always issue a genuine smile at you if paths crossed.
I vaguely knew from CNN and CSPAN that Senator Avondale was a forerunner for healthcare reform and using science to further medicine in the right ways, not the ways to make better erectile dysfunction drugs or create better insurance premiums. But the ways to help children with birth defects, cure simple forms of cancer and even possibly eliminate the common cold in a handful of years versus the predicated decades it would take by other scientists.
I read through her file quickly. It was a standard personnel file straight from the agency. Primarily Her educational and family background. The fierce Senator had grown up in Baltimore, Maryland. Only child to a wealthy family who had made money during the steel boom of the industrial revolution. Their money was old money, the best kind to have. Senator Avondale had attended Oxford and received her first doctorate in research medicine there, then returned back to the states and worked her way through Princeton for a law degree.
All accomplished before the age of thirty.
It did help that the Senator had been graced with a genius IQ at birth and used it to her advantage. The rest of the file was just her political career and the small campaigns that took her from local city council up to seated Senator for the Republican Party.
I flipped through the rest, “So why does she need me?”
Davey shrugged, “I have no idea. She nor her assistant have not told us what the exact nature of protection she is looking for or why.” He shifted and leaned forward in the leather chair, “She hasn’t even technically hired us, you kind of have to interview with her first.” Davey threw me a meek smile.
I blew out a laugh, tossing the file onto the newspaper covered table in front of me, “An interview? Really?”
Davey nodded. Pulling out his vibrating phone, checking the caller ID, I could see that this was the end of our visit. “Yes an interview. Today at five.” He turned the phone off and jammed it back into his pocket, “I need you to sober up, take a cold shower than a hot one to scrub as much of the scotch stink off of you. I will pick you up at two thirty and we will drive together.”
I stared at him, smirking, “I haven’t had to interview for anything since meeting my agency recruiter in college.”
He dug around in his front pocket and handed me a thin stack of bills, “Go out and buy yourself a new suit. I need the best you have to bring to the table Agent Witmer.”
The smile on my face dropped at the sound of a title I had not heard in a long time. I knew he was serious about what he was asking of me and this request from a high profile Senator. I hesitated until Davey raised an eyebrow, “Do this for me and we are even. Clean slate.”
I cringed, “Dammit Davey. “ I knew exactly what he was getting at. He had held me up more than a handful of times when my life went to shit, even if the cause was completely out of my control. I stood up and took the thin stack from him slowly, “What if I don’t interview well?” The sudden fear of going back into a suit, back into the world that had overturned me and tossed me out, crept in fast.
He grabbed his briefcase and the file I had tossed aside, tucking it back in safely. Davey stood up and smiled at me, “You will. Because for all the fuck ups thrown your way, you still put everything you have into the job you have to do.” He turned and walked through my messy living room, “Two thirty, Kit. Clean and sober.”
He left me standing in the middle of my messy living room holding onto crisp hundred dollar bills, wondering what the hell I just agreed to. I tucked the bills into the back pocket of my jeans, walked over to the last of the scotch I had in the cabinet. I screwed off the black plastic cap and dumped the rest down the drain. I then walked through the mess and to the bathroom, turning on the shower I tossed my wet clothes in with the rest of the pile outside of my bathroom door.
I proceeded to climb into an ice cold shower that made me think about my dreams and why the hell was I dreaming about penguins again.
The tarmac reflected the heat from the California sun straight to my body the moment the jet door opened. Forcing me to take off my suit jacket. Leaving D.C. in the middle of the winter had proven difficult when the fifth snowstorm of the month threatened to make me late. I hated being late and was thankful t
hat my private jet pilot was a former fighter pilot. Telling me that flying through snow was no worse than flying through sand and RPG’s.
I could feel and see how bright the day was through the aviator sunglasses I threw on the moment the plane door cracked open. Filling the cabin with yellow light, I took a deep breath of the California sun soaked deeply into the air around me. Every time I came here, I could feel and breathe in the sun it was always so bright. I took a moment to enjoy the warmth and light, it had been a dreary beginning of winter back at the capital. Letting us all know winter was far from over even as it just started.
“Senator? How was your flight?”
I tore my eyes from the Mountain View that sat on the edge of the small airport my family owned. Smiling at my long time personal assistant, Rebecca Marcus. The small brunette had been my personal assistant from day one after I left Princeton and set sights on a political career. She was also a close friend, a trusted friend that extended past her duties as my assistant.
“Rebecca, you can leave the Senator back in D.C. We are on my time and my dollar now.”
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