Blood Strangers: Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets
Page 10
“Okay.” She hadn’t taken a couple days to just do nothing in a long time. Of course, she wasn’t going to do nothing now. She’d stay sequestered at the cottage, but she’d be planning a life. Her life.
Maybe the most important work she’d ever done. And, she prayed, it would be the most successful.
“Behind the cottage there’s a path to a dock. From it, you can see the cove. Toss the old phone there. Remove the battery and then do that right away.”
“As soon as we’re done here.” She went on, asked him the question she’d awakened with on her mind. “Are you this good to everyone?”
“I wish I could say, yes, of course, I am. But the truth is, no, I’m not.”
“Why me?” she blurted out before checking herself. “Because I’m one of the troops?”
“Because you’re you.” He ended the call.
Gabby’s jaw went slack. What was she supposed to think of that? For a long minute, she just stared at the phone totally perplexed. Being protected and treated so well because she was herself was outside her realm of experience. She had no experience, nothing to grasp, for a clue of his intent.
Fortunately, she’d been spared from responding. Grateful for the reprieve, she grabbed her coat and shrugged it on, snagged the old phone and removed the battery, then headed out the French door. She crossed the deck, then the lawn and walked down the trail to the water’s edge.
Standing at the edge of the gazebo, she looked out on the sparkling sun-drenched water. She’d died today. Died, and her Mustang was gone forever. Her old life was gone forever. Her emotions rioted. Rebelled. She locked her knees to stay upright, stared out at the ripples the wind lifted on the water’s surface, and slowed her breathing to calm herself. The sharp wind stirred the trees lining the bank and cast dancing shadows on the dappled ground and the water’s edge.
Her hand throbbed. She lowered her gaze and realized she was squeezing the phone with all her might. The crisp morning air had a bite to it. Refreshing, yet inside an icy chill pulsed through her. Why was tossing a stupid burner phone into the water proving even more difficult than abandoning her beloved Mustang?
A knowing seeped into her. It wasn’t the phone. It was accepting her own death. And letting go of her old life.
Resentment ignited in her. She hadn’t been done with that life yet. It might not have been a perfect life. Honestly, there wasn’t much in it she had liked much less loved. But it had been her life, and she’d worked hard, really hard, to build it.
For all the wrong reasons.
Shadow Watcher had been right about that. She’d chosen a career she didn’t love to please a father who despised her and wasn’t at all hesitant to keep her on a shelf away from him until he needed to put her into lethal jeopardy to bail him out of trouble for poor decisions he made in his choice of business associates. He’d waited too long to snatch her from that shelf. She’d failed. He’d died. Taken Lucy with him and shredded Gabby’s last hope of ever having any kind of a relationship or bond with him. So, aside from her grandmother’s soap recipes and her considerable savings, what exactly was Gabby leaving behind?
There weren’t any warm and fuzzy memories. There were tons of memories of staying quiet and out of the way. Of being ashamed of being unlovable and unwanted. Of trying to fade into the background and escape anyone’s notice. Of avoiding entanglements with others because she couldn’t bear for them to know her sole parent considered her worthless and she had no reason to feel differently herself. That had been hard. Merciless. But even more merciless had been memories of year upon year of incredible loneliness. No real friends. Friends asked questions, made comparisons and judgments. But there was one thing she’d miss. The one thing she’d done for herself.
Engaging with Troop Search and Rescue. There, with that group of strangers, she’d been accepted, respected and even valued. Anonymous, yes, but that too now was gone. So, what in her old life was left to miss?
Nothing.
That cold fact slapped her hard. Her eyes blurred, and she blinked fast, dredging deep for resolve and determination, relieved when both swelled inside her. She had a second chance here. An opportunity for a fresh start that most people never got. Her new life could be whatever she wanted it to be with a few limitations. She couldn’t return to New Orleans or to Troop Search and Rescue, or to a job like her old one. But the forced job change was a blessing not a curse. And, at least for a while, she had to keep an eye out for Medros’s men.
Yeah, people didn’t look for dead women, until they did. She’d keep her guard up, just to stay on the safe side. There was only one thing worse than losing a life you didn’t love. Losing one you did. She had no intention of letting that happen.
As limitations went, hers weren’t bad. She could do this. “You want better? You want more? Then do better for yourself this time.”
She drew back her arm and hurled the phone into the water. “Goodbye Gabby Blake.”
Chapter Twelve
Thursday, December 10, 9:15 a.m.
When Gabby returned to the cottage, the expected second package lay waiting on the front porch outside the front door.
A box, this time.
Her fingers nearly frozen, she lifted the cardboard box and carried it through to the breakfast bar. She hunted down a pair of scissors, found them in a kitchen drawer, and then sliced through the tape and opened the box.
“A computer?” Shock fell to excitement.
A laptop—and a typed note taped to its top. “Don’t call me except in case of an emergency. Go to protonmail.com. Account in your name. Password—don’t change it—is Anonymous-Season. Don’t “send” anything on this account. Saved draft emails only. This account is solely for us to correspond. Create a second account through a different carrier for all other correspondence. Do not search for or contact anyone you used to know. Do not access any old accounts of any kind. I’ll be in touch when I can. A couple days. SW says you know the drill. Heed it. And stay alive.”
It was signed, “J.”
Justin Wade. So, he knew where she was, and he’d sent her a computer? Why?
She went to protonmail.com and checked. There was a draft email from “J” waiting for her. “Okay, so we deal in drafts but don’t send emails. Got it,” she whispered, and clicked to open the draft.
“No names. No sends on this account. Anything odd shows up, call the number provided. Otherwise, drafts only, this account only. Extra security precautions have been taken. Check this account tomorrow for the latest information. After then, unless something comes up, I will check in on Saturdays. Expect two deliveries tomorrow. Two items. One draft here, one package by truck. You don’t know me, and I have never heard of you.”
The truth slammed into Gabby. Justin Wade was helping her off-the-grid. Which meant he had no protection and neither did she. It also meant, like Shadow Watcher, Justin didn’t trust Agent Bain. Or someone in his own organization. Maybe both.
That should worry her, but it didn’t. It confirmed her judgment on Bain had been valid. A judgment mirrored by Shadow Watcher and confirmed by Justin Wade. Those affirmations of her instincts were reassuring. Their combined skills were far more honed.
A second draft came through. She confirmed the sender, then switched to read it.
“All drafts are military-grade encrypted and will be corrupted once opened and closed. Commit to memory. Don’t print or preserve a copy in any way, shape or form.”
The first draft she had read, she noted, had disappeared.
So even if NSA or the server preserved a copy, it would preserve a corrupted copy. It was imperfect, but the best shot they had for retaining privacy. Which was to say, unless someone looked really close, dedicated time and resources, they wouldn’t find anything.
She went through the software programs. The laptop was loaded. Justin must have owed Shadow Watcher huge to send her this. How in the world would she ever repay him—either of them—for all they were doing for her?
Thinking about that rattled her. She sucked in a couple of deep breaths, pushed away the reality that she was homeless, jobless, and nearly broke, and poured herself another cup of coffee. She was alive, and that was a big something, considering. She needed to suck it up and look ahead. Period. Full stop.
Her mind a little clearer, she sat back down at the breakfast bar to plan her life. “Okay, Gabby Johnson.” She set the mug beside the laptop atop the breakfast bar. “This is it—your second chance. What do you want most?”
FamilySecrets.Life
THE TRUTH ABOUT RUNNING FROM DEATH
Running from truth is like running from death.
Eventually, it’s going to catch you.
When it does, you’ll discover that running from death
is inextricably twined with running from life.
It’s impossible to run from one
without running from the other.
And like secrets suddenly revealed,
that discovery can be merciful or merciless.
FamilySecrets.Life
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday, December 10, 6:45 p.m.
Who knew?
Gabby had stared at the blank screen for hours. Lunch had come and gone, the afternoon had come and gone, and still the laptop’s screen remained totally blank. Figuring out what to do with your life when you could choose anything was a huge challenge. Having too many options was just as bad as having too few options. Where did you start? Geographically? Where did she want to live? What skills could she claim, computer security aside? That had to remain off the table, of course. She glanced at the clock on the microwave above the stove. Dinner time, and here she sat still groping for the right starting point.
Frustrated, her elbow propped beside the laptop on the breakfast bar, she sank her bent head into her hand and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the blank screen mocked her. This should be easy. It should be a dream come true, to actually get to pick and choose the things you love and want in your life and ditch everything you don’t want. So why was it so hard?
Having no answer, she scuffled to the fridge and pulled out the makings for a turkey and Swiss sandwich. Foraging in the pantry, she found a bag of chips. “Maybe you’re going about this all wrong,” she told herself. “You have no experience thinking about what you love or want.” That was sad but true. She’d spent her life trying to please her father. To get his attention and win his affection. She’d failed, but she had remained determined. She’d structured and spent all her mental resources on winning him over.
Now, everything had changed. She had to shift her thinking. But long-time habits are hardest to break, right? So how did she make that mental shift?
She thought about it halfway through the sandwich, and finally a method occurred to her that might work. It was worth a shot. “Maybe you should start with what you don’t want.”
Biting down on a chip, she slowly chewed, casting the laptop screen a sidelong look. What a person doesn’t want is important. Maybe it’s every bit as important as what a person does want—and she definitely had more experience with that. It was in her comfort zone. As she polished off the turkey sandwich, ideas began floating through her mind.
She didn’t want a desk job from 9 to 5 working for someone else. Translated, she wanted to be her own boss. She entered that on the page. “Okay,” she said aloud. “Where?”
It didn’t much matter. She’d only ever lived in New Orleans and she could never return there. A small town sounded a lot more appealing than a large one. Maybe a place with a sense of community. She had no family, but it’d be nice to one day have friends. At least, to feel accepted and as if she belonged.
That was important to her, but in this grand scheme of things, it had to be a lower-level decision that didn’t need to be made now. What she would do to earn a living held far more urgency, and to an extent, it could govern where she chose to live.
A thought took hold in her mind and ignited a fire in her bones. If she had her grandmother’s recipe book, she’d make soaps. Peppermint and oatmeal and aloe and lemon. She’d love that. Probably not much of a market for them, but how much of a market did she need?
“Dream, Gabby,” she told herself. Her whole life, she’d done the smart thing, taken the surest steps, the least risks. “Yeah, you did,” she muttered to herself. “And look how that turned out for you.” She had lost everything. Consider it gone, Shadow Watcher had said. Her mother’s trust fund that she’d never touched because it was all she had of her. Her considerable savings and investments. Her home and all she’d put into it. Her beloved Mustang. Her life . . .
She bit into a crunchy, salted chip. Maybe once you lost everything, the idea of losing everything isn’t as scary. Either way, she added to her list. “Make soaps.” In her mind, she smelled the oatmeal pomegranate, the lavender and cucumber and the peppermint. She’d loved the peppermint. It had been marked with a heart in her grandmother’s book. She’d added a heart of her own. “Supply local stores? Open an online shop? One day, have a store of my own.”
Now she was cranking. This approach worked much better. What else did she not want?
Before she realized what exactly she was keying, she watched the words appear on the screen. “Never spend another Christmas alone.”
A hard lump stuck in her throat, and her breath hitched in her chest. Odds on that not happening didn’t look good. The old Gabby would have accepted that and moved on. The new Gabby didn’t. She could fix it. She wasn’t sure how, but she had fifteen days to figure it out. If she did, great. If not, then by next Christmas, she would be celebrating with a group. Some group of some kind. Somewhere.
In bold type, in all caps, she made Gabby Johnson’s first promise to herself:
NEVER AGAIN WILL I SPEND CHRISTMAS ALONE
Satisfied for now, she saved the document and turned off the laptop. The progress had been slow, tedious, and more painful than she could have expected in ways, but it had been constructive. Gabby Johnson wasn’t floating in the ether without a tether or anchor or even a clue anymore. Seeds of her future had been found. Now she just had to plant them, water them, and see what grew.
Why, she asked herself, had she never thought to do this before now? To really think about what she wanted and didn’t want in her own life? What she loved?
The answer was complex and jumbled into feelings of wanting to belong, to be family and not blood strangers. It went to spending a lifetime being an unwanted nuisance. To being unlovable. Oh, Aunt Janelle might have fought for her, but did she want Gabby or just to win the battle against Gabby’s father? More likely the latter, since her aunt didn’t know Gabby. One meeting did not create bonds. They too were blood strangers. That truth stung, but better to face even hard truths than to live with comforting lies. There’d be plenty of those in her future, which was regrettable but essential to her staying alive. Yet she could not deliberately add more lies to the essential ones. That was a thin line she must never cross. Couldn’t cross and still meet her own eyes in the mirror. Self-respect demanded it.
Yawning, Gabby called it a night. She locked up and then headed upstairs. The stress and adrenaline high had ended and now it was all she could do to make it up the stairs.
By the time she got into bed and settled in, she was half-dozing, but still her mind wouldn’t shut down. The cottage was silent in a way her apartment or her father’s home in New Orleans never had been. Memories started running through her mind. Unpleasant memories. Chilling images of him and Lucy on that office floor.
Gabby flopped onto her side and punched her pillow. “Not going there. Not tonight.” Forcing her mind elsewhere, she focused o
n something good. A week ago, she had a different life. She had Troop Search and Rescue and no one else. Now they were not in her life, but she did have not one but two men she trusted—and that was a first. Shadow Watcher and Justin Wade. And once she met him, she’d have a third. Plumber. Shadow Watcher said she could trust him and his sister, Kelly Meyer.
Wasn’t it a kick that she had absolutely no idea what any of them even looked like? That she only knew two of them by actual name? That she could walk right past any or all of them on any street in world and never know it?
There was something appalling about that.
Shadow Watcher had told her to stay put for a few days and not to venture into Christmas Cove. But as soon as she could, she was going to do her best to meet some real person who just might become a friend. At least a friendly acquaintance. And she’d buy some flowers for the flower beds. It was too cold to be planting anything, but she would check at the garden center and do what she could anyway. The as yet unknown Plumber was kind enough to let her use his cottage. The least she could do would be to plant some bulbs or get some flower seeds to plant when it warmed up.
Gabby grunted. Likely he wouldn’t care either way. But she did. It’d be her first mark in her new life. Maybe planting some flowers wasn’t much of a legacy, but it was something.
And sometimes any something was better than every nothing.
Chapter Fourteen
Friday, December 11, 11:50 a.m.
The third package arrived just before noon. It wasn’t delivered by a traditional carrier. It was a woman about Gabby’s age with long brown hair that was sun-burnished from the ear down to the ends and hung low on her shoulders. She was pretty, and she smiled a lot. Quickly, she identified herself. “Hi, Gabby. I’m Kelly Meyer, Plumber’s younger sister.”