Chapter Four
IV
It was a little bit before six that evening when Quatre strolled into Heero’s office. By then, the business day was drawing to a close for most, and even Quatre had his tie loosened, which signaled his own winding down. Heero, however, abided by no man’s timeclock, save for his brother-in-law’s (well, enough to suit them both), and still worked on the problem that had plagued him this morning. Quatre watched him carefully, noticing that he looked a bit worn-out. He frowned. Crys had mentioned she had noticed things had not been quite right between Danie and Heero the past couple of years, but he hadn’t noticed how much of a toll it had taken on Heero until just that minute.
With firmed resolve, Quatre knocked gently on Heero’s open door to get his attention. He knew his friend; Heero had known Quatre had been standing there all along but hadn’t acknowledged Quatre until he had demanded it, more or less.
Heero looked up. Quatre said pleasantly, “Evening, Heero. Still working on the mystery caller case? Duo told me that you found a hair at a pay phone in Spanish Gracia.”
Heero shuffled the page at which he was currently looking to the back of the stack so that he could look at the next one. “It might be from the mystery caller, so I sent it to be analyzed. The results will probably be back tomorrow. It’s a long shot.”
“Sometimes long shots have a way of turning into leads,” Quatre reminded him. He paused before making his next statement. He wasn’t sure how raw Heero was over the subject of his wife and he didn’t want to risk upsetting him. Still, concern won out over prudence. “Duo also told me you saw Moira-Selene. She gave you a description of the person who may have called you.”
Heero’s blue eyes didn’t change, just kept that scanning motion as he took in the page in front of him. “Moira-Selene informed us that the person was wearing an onyx and opal ring. Duo tricked her into looking up all of the jewelry stores in Gracia during lunch.”
Quatre couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I imagine Moira-Selene was quite mad when she figured out Duo had conned her into doing something for him. I couldn’t be an easy thing to trick her. She’s one of the smartest women I know.”
Heero said nothing to that. Quatre decided that it was time to get to the point. He had come into Heero’s office for a reason and he wasn’t about to let it get lost in small talk.
“Do you have any plans this evening, Heero?” Quatre wanted to know.
Heero’s brow furrowed briefly at the question but then promptly straightened. “I was planning to work on this a little longer.” That was Heero’s speak for I plan to work until sunrise, whether you like it or not. And Quatre didn’t like it. Fortunately he had a way to prevent it…
“Well, put away your work and come visit us for dinner.” Quatre saw that he was about to protest and knew he had to bring out the heavy artillery. “Crys would be very upset if you didn’t come…”
Shit. Heero fought a sigh. Quatre’s ammunition had been dead on. “Fine, I’ll be there.”
“Splendid. We’re having pot roast—”
As if conjured up by an impish witch who wanted to give Quatre and Heero hell, Duo appeared at Quatre’s left. His eyes glittered with anticipation and Heero stifled a groan. “Hey, Quatre! You heading home?”
“Here in a little while. I was just inviting Heero over for dinner. We’re having pot roast.”
“Well…” Duo turned to Quatre with a puppy dog look on his face. “I don’t have any plans tonight… Could I come over for pot roast?”
“Ooh!” Suddenly, out of nowhere like Surprise Pestilence, Nicole appeared at Quatre’s right. “Did somebody say roast? Ohmigawd—that sounds good! I haven’t had roast in a good minute!”
Flabbergasted, Quatre opened his mouth to say something but Duo spoke instead. He seemed to be dismayed that Nicole has stolen his shine. “Nicole, nobody wants you at the Winner dinner table, least of all Quatre. You’ll eat up all the dinner rolls and put hot sauce on everything.”
Nicole beaned him with her Excuse me? look and cocked a hip outward. “For your information, I don’t put hot sauce on everything.” Heero gave her a dubious look, and she felt it, adding, “Well, not anymore I don’t. I got bad acid reflux. And additionally, I don’t eat bread anymore either. So you can just kiss my black ass, Duo.”
“Sorry,” Duo tossed back with a smirk. “I don’t feel like kissing your black ass. It would take me ‘til Christmas, and quite frankly I have other things I’d rather be doing.”
Nicole’s brown eyes flashed, for she was a bit sensitive about her ample behind, and Quatre had to raise his arm to keep her from pouncing on Duo. He was used by now to being the mediator of fights in their little grouping, and he knew the best way to diffuse the situation.
To that end, he said to Nicole, “Nicole, you are more than welcome to come to dinner—”
Quatre was not able to finish the sentence because Nicole glomped him and nearly knocked him over. “Man, Quatre—I always knew you were my favorite! And that’s not ‘cause you be signing my paychecks and stuff…” Nicole disentangled herself and her tanzanite and diamond earrings quivered on her ears. “I gotta close up shop. See you at the house!” With that, she rushed off, leaving Quatre in a state of half-amusement, half-disbelief. He had certain affection for Nicole, but, well, sometimes it was hard to find in moments like these.
Duo shook his head in dismay. “You think Crys is going to like Nicole at her dinner table, Quatre?”
“Duo, you may not know this, but Nicole has been at my house for dinner before,” Quatre told him. “She has a bit of refinement, believe it or not.”
Duo snorted. “Yeah, right. And I’m gonna be a contestant on America’s Next Top Model.”
Heero eyed him, wanting his peace and quiet back. “If you don’t leave now, you will be.”
Needless to say, Duo left shortly after that. Quatre bid him goodbye as well, not wanting to be a eunuch after all his efforts.
* * *
A few thousand miles away in New York, Danie let herself into Cameron Prescott’s apartment as if she lived there. In her line of work, knowing how to let yourself into a locked building or room was a useful tool. She was quite fond of the thought that not even locks could stop her. (Now walls on the other hand—well, she could take them, but they required quite a bit more work and planning.)
She had observed the pedestrians and street traffic for a couple of hours, making sure she wasn’t being watched. Her canvas had not unearthed anyone. She had seen Cameron return home around that time, noting that it was not usual doctor’s hours; most of the doctors with their own practices she had known (and loathed save her twin) went home at a decent hour. But then again, this was New York. Who knew what had happened?
Danie guessed that he was currently in the middle of a lovely microwave oven-cooked dinner, judging from the strong smell of Lean Cuisine in the air, and felt she wouldn’t be doing him a terrible disservice by interrupting. When she found him sitting at his desk, his dark cap of hair still wet from a shower, he was reading a comic book. She found it oddly but terribly endearing.
She stopped a foot behind his chair and waited. He didn’t notice her, which was not a surprise since she had crept up so stealthily. She had mostly dealt with evil men who had been suspicious with every creak and small sound. Cameron was so engrossed that he seemed so innocent in contrast.
A welcome change, Danie thought. But she wasn’t going to linger for long. She had things to do.
“Those are bad for your health, you know,” she remarked in a matter-of-fact tone as if she were merely continuing a conversation with him. She put her hands on her hips and watched as he jumped, startled, and choked on a piece of chicken breast. He vaulted to his feet and whirled around.
Cameron held up his hands, blue eyes filled with fear when he saw her behind him. “Oh God—I’m being robbed. Okay. Look, if you want any money—”
“Cameron,” Danie began on an exasperated sigh.
“If you want to take my stuff, you’re more than welcome,” Cameron babbled. “I mean, this shit doesn’t mean anything to me.” To prove his point, he knocked over a Waterford vase and had Danie looking at him incredulously. “See? Now it’s a heap of fucking glass on the floor and I could care less. So take it all,” he continued, making an expansive gesture to include the affluently furnished room. “As a matter of fact you’d be—” Frustrated, Danie unearthed her gun and pointed it at him. He stared at the gun, eyes even wider. Then he frowned as if he had remembered something. “Hey…how did you know my name?”
Danie gave him a bland stare. “If you don’t shut up and listen I’m gonna shoot you in the foot. And I assure you, it won’t be a picnic either.”
Cameron swallowed. “Yes, sure, whatever you say, um…”
“You can call me whatever you want,” Danie told him at the hint for an introduction. “As long as you answer my questions.”
* * *
Dinner at the Winner mansion on most nights was a sedate affair; being at the head of a world-renowned corporation required Quatre to open his dining room to relative strangers. However, tonight was more relaxed. Tonight, they were all family. Even Nicole, much to Duo’s dismay.
Conversation had started out well. Crys had discovered that Nicole’s older sister Melanie had worked with her when she had been a dance instructor before marrying Quatre.
“Melanie was a very talented dancer,” Crys was saying as the roast was being portioned. “There were a couple of times that she out-danced me. She wouldn’t agree, though, and I guess that was the most refreshing thing about her. What’s she up to now?”
“She still teaches at the Sakura School,” Nicole responded, referring to the Sakura School for the Arts. Frowning, Nicole picked up her wineglass and sipped. It was some good stuff in there. “So why’d you quit?”
Crys’s eyes simply slid in her brother’s direction in response. Heero glared at her back. “You were in too much danger to be working at a place like that,” Heero said.
“Danger? What the hell are you talking about?” Nicole asked incredulously. “I mean, it wasn’t like she was instructing the kids from the Sopranos. The Sakura School has decent security—”
“At the time, Heero wasn’t the most reasonable person on the planet when it came to his sister,” Quatre broke in, seeing the storminess in Heero’s eyes. “He tended to over-protect her where strangers were concerned. Particularly if they were male. He didn’t leave Crys alone with Duo for a full year.”
Nicole nearly choked at Duo’s hurt expression. “Shoot, I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t let Duo baby-sit a goldfish.”
“I’ve got a bum rap, I have you know,” Duo complained. “I’m not near as wayward as you make me out to be.” Nicole raised an eyebrow at him. “So I like a nice, hearty meal and the company of an engaging female every now and again. It doesn’t make me a bungling idiot or Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”
“You mean all the time,” Crys said with a snort.
“Now Crys dear,” Quatre scolded gently. She looked at him innocently. “Duo is more mature than we all give him credit for.” Duo nodded and prepared to thank Quatre when he added, “But he’s still worse than Kristana when he gets on a sugar high.” Duo pouted as Nicole and Crys laughed. “I’m just teasing you, Duo.”
“How is it that I get to be on the butt end of the jokes and the teasing? There are other people in the room, you know.”
“Man, I ain’t about to pick on Quatre because I’m on his payroll and I ain’t crazy,” Nicole explained as she forked up roast beef. “So that counts Crys out, too. And…” She eyed Heero, who had been quietly eating in front of her. “Well, Heero would probably end my life if I made a joke about him.”
“How astute of you, Nicole,” Heero responded.
“So tell me,” Nicole began, addressing Crys and Quatre, “did Heero let you two in a room alone together?”
Crys replied defiantly, “Heero didn’t let me do anything. I did anything I wanted.” As Heero’s eyebrows arched as if his memory of the past was different than she way she was coloring it, Crys beamed at her husband. “And I loved Quatre that I was willing to go toe-to-toe with Heero over whatever when it came to him.” Nicole seemed quite fascinated with the statement, and nodded slowly as if she was imagining a younger Crys and Heero in a knock-down, drag-out fight. “But that isn’t to say that I didn’t take consideration for Heero’s feelings from time to time. Especially when Relena Peacecraft—”
Crys snapped herself out of storytelling mode and closed her mouth abruptly. Duo and Quatre’s gazes switched from twin to twin, feeling the strange jarring of hitting an emotional wall. The air was suddenly fraught with tension, and Nicole, as astute as Heero said she was, could feel the hair standing up on her arms.
“I feel like I’m missing something here,” Nicole said, blinking. Everyone went back to their plates and Nicole scrutinized their faces. “Relena Peacecraft?” Nicole frowned as she placed her wineglass back in its place and looked at everyone inquisitively. “Who was that? The name sounds familiar but…”
Quatre and Crys shared a glance. Kristana ate placidly, the turn of topic going over her pretty little head. Crys then looked in her brother’s direction, watching him for his reaction. Heero’s face was blank, but, being his twin sister and knowing him, she could see the anguish in his eyes.
“You don’t know who Relena Peacecraft is?” Duo asked, tone incredulous. The way he sounded, you’d think Nicole had just indicated she didn’t know about the earth being round.
Nicole raised an eyebrow. “Look, my family had our minds on things other than the war, thank you. Excuse me for being ten years old and not paying enough attention back then. But I’m paying attention now.” Pause. “So who was she?”
No one said anything for a moment. Nicole sat back in her chair and peered at them suspiciously. She was old enough to realize when someone was keeping something from her, and she knew all their poker faces. Heero didn’t meet anyone’s gaze, so Crys was the one who nudged Quatre on.
“She was our age,” Quatre explained in an even tone. “During the war. She was a young diplomat who had been the princess of a destroyed kingdom. Eight years ago, she…” Quatre hesitated, feeling Heero’s sadness from his left and Nicole’s curiosity from in front of him. The truth was, as much as he trusted Nicole, he knew that his comrades—particularly Heero—had not been completely forthcoming about their pasts. Relena Peacecraft and her sudden, unwarranted death was still a raw subject for Heero. Quatre, along with everyone else, wished it weren’t, but there was nothing that time had been able to do for him…
Nicole gestured for Quatre to continue. “She…what? What happened?” She froze as she read the answer in Quatre’s eyes. She looked down at her plate, sobered. “Oh…well. That explains the past tense.” Feeling the heavy pall that had fallen upon the room, she turned to Kristana on her left and asked, “So Baby Girl, are you ready for tomorrow?”
Kristana turned toward her, her blue eyes alive with happiness. She was ecstatic on the subject of her impending birthday, so the subject shift was a good move on Nicole’s part. It covered up the silence from the other adults and lightened the mood drastically. By the time Kristana began describing her special birthday dress, her parents, Nicole, and Duo resumed their meals.
However, Heero didn’t touch anymore food for the rest of the evening.
* * *
Danie sat down on the couch facing the frustrated Cameron Prescott, placing her gun on the coffee table between them—well, closer to her of course. She saw his eyes rest upon it, saw the wheels in his head indicating that he was gauging how long it would take to grab it before she did.
“Don’t even think about it,” Danie warned him. “I can pick up this gun and have two shots in your head before your hand leaves your knee. So don’t fuck with me, Prescott.”
“You think threatening me is going to get you what you want,” Cameron remarked, seeming a bit irritated by being held at gunpoint now. She didn’t blame him though.
“Damn straight,” Danie shot back without having to think. “You’re still here aren’t you? So I would be lucky for that.” She paused, letting him take that in. “I have some questions about your father.”
Cameron blinked, frowning. He had not been expecting that. “What does my father have to do with anything? He’s dead, for godsakes.”
“Which is why I’m talking to you.” Danie switched gears, trying to appeal to a more emotional side of him. She added to her tone a bit of desperation—not enough to lose her ground but just enough to optimistically open him up. “Listen, I’m hoping you can help me find out some things. Something very serious happened to me ten years ago and he was a part of it.” Danie eyed Cameron closely. Indignation was slowly being overwhelmed by guilt, horror, and incredulity. She could see it in his face. “Which is why you’re here and not working some frou-frou girly clinic in Greenwich Village.”
Cameron looked at her and shook his head. “You know nothing about me.” Danie pursed her lips together to keep from swearing. He leapt up before she could catch him and snatched the gun away, much to her dismay. She lunged after him, her ponytail bouncing, but he moved out of her grasp and behind the couch. He had the gun pointed at her head. Danie cursed and tried to think of a way out of this mess before gray matter stained the walls.
Dammit, maybe I wasn’t ready to do this yet, Danie thought hurriedly. Apparently Kane saying I knew everything I needed to know was total and utter bullshit. Here I am about to get killed by a single comic-reading doctor who eats Lean Cuisine and I haven’t even gotten anything out of him! Shit! Danie—what the hell are you good for?
She inhaled, trying to keep calm. Maybe if she pretended that he had the power and that she was a poor, desolate female, he wouldn’t bust a cap in her skull. Yeah. She could try that, see if that would work. It was better than dying.
“I’m sorry for pulling the gun on you,” Danie began in a low, non-threatening tone. “I had to do something. I need information and I know you have it…”
Danie trailed off as Cameron’s panting found her ears. She could faintly hear his heart thudding against his ribcage. Was he afraid to shoot her? He was a doctor, after all. He was supposed to preserve life, not take it. As her curiosity assailed her, Danie turned her head and saw a trembling Cameron staring back at her in her peripheral vision.
“Y-you,” Cameron managed, eyes glassy with remembrance. “It’s…you…”
“What do you mean?” she demanded, turning around fully. “Where have you seen me before?”
Cameron continued to give her that astonished stare as he rounded the loveseat and stood above her. He looked several shades paler than he had when she had pulled the gun on him, which told her that whatever he remembered was very weighty. He sat down beside her, still visibly shaken. She opened her mouth to press him further but he placed his fingertips on her jawline and turned her head so that he was seeing her profile. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out what he was doing.
It stopped cold when she felt those same fingertips touch the usually hidden scar on her scalp.
Danie sucked in a breath and tried to keep the sadness and rage from spilling out. Hardly anyone knew about the scar on her scalp under her hair except for her sisters and her husband. It was concealed usually unless she wore her hair in a ponytail as she was now. Flashes of memories zipped across her mind’s eye, each one more heart-breaking and infuriating than the last. Some of them were fuzzy; others were blazingly, sickeningly real. For a moment, she was sixteen years old and waking up in a Manhattan hospital without any knowledge of how she’d gotten there or what had happened.
The gun clanked to the ground. Cameron didn’t move to pick it up. Neither did Danie.
“You want to know how I remember you,” Cameron said in a soft voice.
“Yes,” Danie affirmed, barely able to speak. “I do.”
“A girl, lying on her right side in a bloodied hospital gown with matted, sweaty dark hair. A pretty face twisted in pain and anguish because she doesn’t understand what is going on or why it is happening. A voice, thunderous in fury, echoing off the grimy walls and promising revenge.” Cameron paused so that this could sink into Danie’s brain as it had been branded into his own over ten years ago. “I’ll tell you anything you want.”
* * *
Crys walked her brother out after they had wished Kristana good night. Quatre was currently reading her a bedtime story and probably cursing himself for not doing this himself. The summer night boasted a clear sky and a breeze that dulled the edge of the late July heat from the air. She would have cherished such a night if it hadn’t been for the waves of unhappiness emanating off of her twin.
“You still think about her, don’t you?” Crys asked gently as they walked down the steps toward Heero’s car.
“And why would I be thinking about her?” Heero countered.
“Relena died a month from tomorrow, eight years ago,” Crys reminded him, feeling rather than seeing the pang of pain that went through him. She studied him for a moment before speaking. Hiroshi Yuy was not a weakling, but even the strongest person had their breaking point. “I know you go to visit her grave every year.”
“I have some respect for the dead, Crys,” Heero said in a tone that was faintly defensive.
“What does Danie have to say about that?”
Heero tried not to flinch at the question. “Danie doesn’t know.”
Crys looked at him incredulously. “Heero…you haven’t told Danie about Relena?”
Heero’s jaw clenched, and he continued to look in front of him. Emotions swelled that he had thought were long gone, and he put a clamp on them. He was feeling far too unstable at the moment and he didn’t want that to spill over onto his twin. He sucked in a breath to steady himself then said, “I told her in vague terms. She knows enough. It wasn’t important.”
It was Crys’s turn to control her own emotions. She could have hit him then, but it wouldn’t have solved a thing. “You should have been clear about everything, Heero.”
“Everyone has secrets they keep to themselves,” Heero said flatly. Danie’s words from their therapy session came back to him, unbidden: Well, we all have secrets we keep from one another. Doesn’t everyone? He had inwardly agreed with that assertion because he knew she too was hiding something. It was a sad, sorry state of affairs.
Crys exhaled through her nose in another attempt to calm herself. “No—just you, Heero. And let me tell you something: if I were in your shoes that would have been the first thing I told Quatre. I can’t see how you’ve kept this from Danie for your entire marriage.”
Heero shook his head and unlocked his car door. “We shouldn’t talk about this now.”
“Tell me something, Heero,” Crys pressed as he climbed behind the wheel of his car and closed the door. “Do you really love Danie or are you afraid that breaking up will make you a failure?”
Heero wondered that himself, which was why he focused on turning his ignition. He wasn’t sure he’d like the answer to that inquiry. “Good night, Crys.”
Crys’s lips parted in shock as if she wanted to say something but was unable to. The Camaro’s engine purred before Heero roared off and left his sister in his wake.
He drove home in a state of silent numbness. The only thing that snapped him from his stupor was his cell phone located in his pocket. He deftly fished out his phone as it buzzed. He had put it on vibrate after dinner began and had forgotten to switch the setting. Because of it, he had missed a call. Danie. How ironic.
He hated to think it, but he was suddenly glad Danie was away at the moment. He couldn’t talk to her in his current state of mind where part of him was still grieving for a woman who was long gone.
* * *
A continent away, Anne Katherine Meredith awoke for her day.
Where she was it was five-thirty in the morning, and even though everyone else was in bed, she rose with purpose. Anne was not one to indulge herself very long. She rarely slept in, hardly ever took an extra cookie when she wanted it. She tamed her wild world with discipline, controlled impulses with grim reality. She would not be living if she didn’t play it by the book. She would not be living if she hadn’t followed the rules. She had already been killed once. There was no need for it to happen again.
After a shower (a minute-and-a-half of precise bathing, none of that Herbal Essences ooh-ah stuff), a quick session with the blow dryer, and the selection of her clothes for the day (a blouse and slacks), she walked out of her bedroom and down the hall to the door marked Enter at Your Own Risk. Anne heard the snoring of the ten-year-old behind the wood and fought a sigh. She was still sleeping.
Anne opened the door and walked into the room, promptly toeing a lavender-hued tank top. The rest of the room was in similar disarray with clothes draped haphazardly on the backs of chairs, on the desktop, out of open dresser drawers. Even the occupant of the room slept messily; she was sprawled about the space of the bed as if she were determined to take up the most space, the comforter was askew, and a lone, cotton-candy-pink-tipped foot appeared from the right corner edge. Anne shook her head in disbelief and shook the uncovered foot.
The pre-teen groaned like she did every morning. “Mother…five more minutes…please.”
Anne looked at her watch. “You can’t afford five more minutes. If you sleep any longer, you’ll be late for school.”
The dark-haired girl sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. She looked rumpled, a complete foil to her perfectly coiffed mother. She swung out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. The water started running, and Anne went downstairs to start on breakfast, as she usually did.
Some minutes later, Anne was putting the freshly cooked scrambled eggs onto a plate with toast and fruit when her daughter strode in, clad in her prep school uniform. She scented the food in the air and sat down at the island in front of the eggs.
“You’ll have to eat quickly,” Anne told her as she dug in. “We haven’t the time to linger.”
Her daughter shook her head and picked up an apple slice to munch upon. She didn’t say much of anything to Anne; she was not a morning person. About ten minutes later, Anne and her daughter climbed into Anne’s car and headed toward school. After another ten minutes, they were at the front door, hovering by the curb.
Anne turned to her daughter and straightened a crooked barrette. She fought a sigh over the beautiful features which were nothing like hers.
“Bye Mother,” her daughter said. “Go out and do something fun today. Don’t stay stuck in the house like a recluse.”
“Not on your life, dear,” Anne remarked, and then bid her a good day at school. Anne watched her saunter away and find some friends with a faint smile on her face. Her daughter was so vibrant and outgoing, able to do and say things that she had not been at that age. Despite all of her breeding, Anne’s daughter still possessed a smidgen of brassiness, something that was inherent and not learned. Something that had come from her blood.
Anne Meredith may have raised her daughter, but she did not birth her. Someone else had done that. For some odd reason, that bothered her today. She could not figure out why.
Then her eyes strayed to her cell phone sticking out of her purse. Wednesday, July 26, read the date. Anne exhaled as memories of what had happened nine years and eleven months ago threatened to ravage her brain. She didn’t need to think about the past. The future was more important.
She had tried to bring peace to the world in her former life, but in her new existence, she couldn’t even bring it to herself.
