Chapter Five

 

V

The next morning, Nicole Smith went on a hunt.

As the office manager (her official, according-to-the-IRS title; Wufei—that chauvinistic asshole, him—still referred to her as a receptionist) of the Wild Wing Agency, she was privy to information that would make CIA agents drool over themselves. She had access to thousands of databases for which Quatre had paid an arm and a leg and had rarely used them. She knew of a database that the guys had started themselves, aided by Heero’s computer expertise, but had never perused it. That was about to change.

She had not been paying enough attention, as she had put it the night before, about the war raged nearly thirteen years ago, but now she was. She’d been ten then. She was twenty-three with eyes wide open.

She’d come in early, even before billionaire Quatre or workaholic Heero, clad in a white blouse and plain black slacks—and no earrings.

The girl was serious.

Nicole signed onto her computer first, putting the phone on message mode. She did a little topical search on Relena Peacecraft, browsing through articles about her role in the war and her activities afterward. Apparently, she had been involved with the influential Theodore Baxley in the eighteen months before her death. There had been numerous memorial pieces after her death, and Nicole skimmed them idly. She paused over an article from London Times reporter Mitchell Davenport that had been written on the two-year anniversary. “Regal Evils: the Conspiracy Behind the Death of the Peacecraft Siblings,” the article had been called, and she was piqued by Davenport’s assertion that an unknown source had told him they had been gunned down by an elusive assassin dubbed Firestar.

That name sounds familiar, Nicole mused, and finally switched to her employers’ database. She typed in the name and waited for the result. She wasn’t waiting long; there wasn’t much to unearth.

FIRESTAR
Real Name: Unknown
Gender: Unknown
Age: Unknown
Known Affiliations: None
Nicole frowned at the slim entry. Man, this Firestar must be the shit. There’s no way you can skulk around for years and years without these guys knowing who you are unless you have mad skills. She shook her head thoughtfully and skipped down to the part of the file under the heading Relena Peacecraft. Ah ha! All right—let’s see what happened to this chick.

RELENA PEACECRAFT
Other Names: Relena Darlian
Date of Birth: 7 April –80
Date of Death: 26 August –98
Place of Death: Frankfurt, Germany

Incident Summary: During a visit to Germany to meet with other world leaders and further her peace ideals, Peacecraft and her older brother Millardo (also see Zechs Merquise) were fatally shot by a sniper rifle in front of The Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Fountain of Justice) mid-morning on 26 August. Three shots were fired; the brother sustained a fatal wound entering the front side to the heart, while the sister was shot twice in the back. After being rushed to the nearest hospital, both Peacecrafts were pronounced dead after several minutes of unsuccessful resuscitation, the elder at 12:02 p.m. local time, and the younger at 12:11 p.m. local time.

Investigation into the incident left much unknown except for the cause of death and the direction from which the shots were fired; measurements indicated that the shooter was staked out on the fourth floor of the Ostzeile vom Römer. Witness statements and area canvasses revealed very little about the identity of the killer. Months after the incident, an Italian woman named Sadie Castevetes came forward and said that she vaguely remembered a dark-haired person of indeterminate gender roaming around after the shooting. Castevetes helped law enforcement create a rendering of the Peacecrafts’ murder; however, since some time had elapsed since the incident, Castevetes’s memory was not altogether clear, and the rendering was another dead end.

The case remained open, and speculation ran rampant as Peacecraft supporters demanded answers. An unknown source claimed to London Times reporter Mitchell Davenport that the notorious assassin known only by the name Firestar had dispatched the Peacecraft siblings. Many attempts by international law enforcement agencies to locate and identify Firestar failed, leading to more conjecture. The most prevalent of the theories was that Baxley Industries head and dubious pacifist Theodore Baxley had ordered Relena Peacecraft dead once their personal and professional relationship had soured. Murmurs connected to Baxley’s controversial management of the Megaera Institute also surfaced after the death of Institute heir Nadia Randall, who, while not completely agreeing with her, had been an ardent supporter of the younger Peacecraft and her pacifist beliefs.

Grimly as her head swam with the images invoked and the information she had gleaned from the entry, Nicole tapped her pen on her desktop for a moment before writing a few names she had noticed down on her notepad. Mitchell Davenport. Theodore Baxley. The Megaera. Nadia Randall. She downloaded Firestar’s file from that database, printed out the section on Relena Peacecraft, and started looking up the other names.

She searched for the Megaera first since she knew the least about it.

THE MEGAERA INSTITUTE
Founded by: Alberta Parrish Randall
Concentration: Genetics, Fertility, Molecular Biology
Locations: Valladolid, Spain; St. Petersburg, Russia (Main); Warsaw, Poland

A quick look-up of Alberta Parrish Randall revealed that she had been Nadia Randall’s grandmother on her father’s side, and she had died when Nadia was twenty-eight. Nadia had inherited control of the Megaera until her death eight and a half years ago. It was now being managed by Theodore Baxley and a man named Harlan Taylor. Nicole grunted and scribbled this on a pad.

When Duo arrived promptly at eight, Nicole had switched to coffee and was listening to “The Lonely Shepherd” from the Kill Bill Vol. I soundtrack. He had not slept well or long, so he was not in the best of moods. He brandished his usual sugar-filled breakfast and didn’t care what Nicole had to say about it. Still, he was not impervious to the grave expression on Nicole’s face and her lackluster clothing. He was even more shocked to find her listening to the Kill Bill soundtrack—but that was another issue for another day.

Duo paused in front of her desk. “Hey Nicole? You all right?” He scrutinized her carefully. She appeared slightly weary, and her brown skin didn’t have its same glow. “You’re not sick are you?”

Nicole didn’t move, didn’t say anything, for several seconds. When she phone rang, she sent it straight to voicemail with a sharp jab at a button. When she raised her brown eyes to him, they were amazingly blank. Duo’s brows furrowed. He had never seen this from Nicole before; usually she was either annoyed, upbeat, or focused. Today she seemed very distracted, as if she were somewhere else on the inside. He had a feeling their discussion over dinner had struck a chord with her.

“Have you ever opened a canister of biscuits?” Nicole suddenly asked.

He blinked at the question. Of all the things in the world he had been expecting her to say, that was not one of them. Biscuits? What the hell…? “Yeah—who hasn’t, you know?” Duo admitted, puzzled. He tilted his head at her. “But what does that have to do with anything?” Then his eyes widened. “Are you going to make some—?”

Nicole raised an eyebrow. He cleared his throat and apologized. Noiselessly, Nicole leaned forward on her elbows and placed her chin in her palms. “I used to be all scared and shit to open one of those things. Not to mention Mama used to hate canned biscuits—but that ain’t the point. Anyway, you tug off the paper and everything, and you know you’re gonna have to get to what’s on the inside, but you’re waiting for that pop when the dough starts oozing out of the cracks.” She lowered her arms and shook her head. “I’ve started on this canister of biscuits, and I’m scared of the pop.”

Wordlessly, Nicole picked up a stack of papers and laid them in front of her. Duo couldn’t help the movement of his eyes traveling downward and reading the page upside down. Something flickered in those cobalt blue depths when they rested on the name Relena Peacecraft.

T’was an odd day indeed when he put Relena and the Pillsbury doughboy in the same thought.

“You just jumped right into this feet-first, didn’t you?” Duo murmured, picking up the top page and reading it. After a moment, he put it down. “Here’s a tip for you, kid—don’t let Heero catch you.”

Nicole looked at him puzzledly, the most like herself she had been since he’d walked in. “Kid my ass. And what would Heero have to say about me looking this up?”

“Trust me on this one, Nicole,” Duo responded with seriousness that had Nicole’s hackles rising. “I know that you’re just curious about Relena Peacecraft because the subject had come up at dinner last night, but you don’t know the whole story.” With that, he walked away.

Nicole chose not to say anything about that, because, as a wise woman, she knew the value of silence. And in this instance, her quiet was like gold. It gave her a moment to think. For whatever reason, Heero and the bunch were sore on the subject of Relena Peacecraft. Okay. Fine. They were entitled to their feelings; the fact that those feelings existed did not bother Nicole. It was the why. It was always the why. She may have been a loud-mouthed nuisance as far as the boys were concerned, but that didn’t mean she had no brain.

Heero and Relena Peacecraft had been involved at some point before she died.

It explained everything. His strange moods between the ends of July and August. The odd absences every year from August twenty-seventh to the twenty-ninth. The fact that the others around him wouldn’t touch the subject of her with a ten-foot Teflon pole. And the feeling that last night’s revelation would not have happened if the Missus Yuy had been there…

“Aw hell,” Nicole muttered aloud. “Danie is going to fillet his ass when she finds this one out…”

*           *           *

Heero should have felt his ears burning, but being as it was, he was otherwise distracted.

At the moment, he was on his cell phone talking to his wife while navigating himself through morning traffic. The guilt that had plagued him overnight had induced him to do something he hated doing: hold a phone conversation while driving. There were too many stupid people in his opinion crowding the streets, and he usually wanted to devote all of his attention to dodging them. However, this morning, he had decided to make an exception.

“I apologize for missing your call,” Heero said as he braked for a red light. “Quatre invited Duo, Nicole, and me over for dinner.”

On the other end, Danie chuckled, but Heero noticed that she sounded a little tired. “I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that one. You’ll have to tell me about it later. How is everyone?”

Heero thought of the dinner again but banished the thought. “Everyone is fine. You?”

“I’m fine, Heero. Just peachy.”

“Danie,” Heero began as he tapped the gas, “you’re not telling me the truth.”

Heero listened to his wife’s silence, knowing that he had struck some sort of chord. He had not been married to Daniella Thomas for five—or six, maybe—years without knowing which one of her strings to strum at what moment.

“I promise you, I am fine.” Her voice was quiet and slightly weary. “You should be worrying about your niece, remember? It’s her birthday today.”

Why can’t you tell me the truth about something as simple as your health? Heero’s eyebrows furrowed slightly at her attempt to deflect. “Danie…” he repeated.

She sighed then, and he could hear the frustration in it. He wasn’t sure if it was directed toward him, the circumstances, or both. “I’m sorry, Heero, but I have to go. It’s the last meeting of the day, and it’s very important. I’ll be on the plane to California afterwards. See you at the house?”

“Yes,” Heero answered. “And Danie—”

“Dammit—the meeting’s starting. I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.” With that she hastily ended the conversation, leaving her husband in a cloud of frustrated confusion.

He knew that she worked for an important man, but the toll he sensed that it was beginning to take on their personal life made itself known with every passing moment. In the past, Danie had been more than happy to divulge her ailments, physical or emotional. Now she lied and said she was fine. Heero was good at watching people, especially his wife, and it gave him no pleasure to realize that she was unhappy. Sadly, he was just as unhappy as she.

When Heero arrived at work, the air was different. He could not put his finger on the strange quality that lingered in the air, but he could feel it. He paused in the doorway, adjusting the strap of his laptop’s carrying case, and looked around. Nicole had cleaned satisfactorily; everything was in order. He could hear Wufei in his office talking to a current client about a kidnapping case. Quatre had a meeting downstairs. Trowa’s door was closed, signaling that he was either out or hadn’t arrived yet. Duo’s shuffling in the break room confirmed he was here. The front desk, however, was unoccupied.

Nicole, Heero thought, and quickened his pace to his office.

He found his office door open; he had left it closed upon leaving last night. He stopped outside of his doorway as Nicole, back turned, placed something on his desk. She turned and jumped at the sight of him.

“Damn,” she said, hand on heart. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to kill me.”

Heero just gave her a bland stare that indicated that he probably was.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Least you could do is say thank you or something. I had to go through hell trying to get that damned present. It was almost as bad as trying to score a Tickle Me Elmo.” She stalked past him. “You’re welcome.”

Heero stared at the large wrapped box on his desk and said, “Thank you, Nicole.”

A bit taken aback, Nicole paused and turned. She nearly smiled. “Mm-hmm. I’ll be back to collect.”

After Nicole had walked off, Heero closed his door behind her and took the seat at his desk. He placed the box on the floor, noticing at once that it was nearly as tall as his desk. I have this bad feeling Nicole went more than a little overboard, Heero mused with a little sigh. He shook it off and decided it was the price he would have to pay for asking her in the first place.

He started up his computer and checked his e-mail. He had two new messages. One of them he had been expecting; it was the results of the DNA analysis on the hair sample he’d had sent off the day before. He opened it and learned the hair sample had come from a male, and his DNA was not in any databases. Heero was not surprised; he had a bad feeling that his little messenger was quite stealthy. He thanked the lab tech for his help and went to check the second one.

The other message…

It was simply titled The Suppressed.

Eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully, Heero clicked on the letter icon to open the mysterious message. It was blank but had some attachments. Heero had his custom-made virus program scan them before he opened them.

The first was a PDF document. It appeared to be a record of some kind. As Heero perused it closely, he realized it was a medical entry from a hospital in New York State from over ten years ago. The patient had been a female minor of indeterminate age, and some of the injuries were very severe. There had been major blood loss, along with some trauma to the person’s reproductive system due to a recent birth. An injury to the left side of the girl’s head had to be closely watched, and the sum of her injuries resulted in a week-long hospital stay. She had checked herself out after seven days.

The second attachment was another PDF document containing information about a girl named Abigail Taylor, and she had been covertly examined by scientists due to her acute powers of clairvoyance. The document detailed her testing and the progression of her gift. She had been born a day before the unknown girl in the first document had been admitted to the hospital. Heero didn’t think that was a coincidence.

The last attachment was like its predecessor in format except that the subject was cannily named Baby Jane, and her birthdate confirmed that she and Abigail Taylor were possibly twins. Baby Jane had started to display a marked physical prowess at six months old when she had deftly caught a fallen vase before it hit her on the head. Further testing had been halted by her disappearance, and toward the end of the document, there was a date he knew very well. Leaning toward the screen, he read a paragraph grimly. Subject Baby Jane was kidnapped sometime during the early morning hours of 26 August 98. Other occupants of the house at which she was staying did not notice any signs of foul play until it was time to awaken her for the day. According to house staff, her belongings were intact except for a stuffed bear that had been given to her by the late Relena Peacecraft, who had been fatally shot around the time the one-year-old had been taken.

Heero sat back in frozen shock. As his mind processed this new information, he idly touched the wrapped box containing his niece’s present. He wondered where the anonymous little girl was now and if she was safe. He also pondered the girl’s connection to a dead woman who had been killed the same day she had been kidnapped. He could not decide which unknown was more troubling.

*           *           *

In southwest London, eleven-year-old Shannon Marieanne Meredith stood in the doorway of her mother’s study and watched her.  

Her back was to Shannon, and her long honey blond hair cascaded down her back. Her thin pajamas were a gossamer sheen over pale peaches-and-cream skin. She could hear the crinkle of the pages of a photo album turning and wondered what her mother was doing up at this hour.

It was after midnight now; another day of “school” had been completed, and there was little thought of the day to come. For that, Shannon was happy that one more day was behind her; it had been her mother’s idea to enroll in summer classes to make up for the time she had lost because of their move a year ago. Shannon was a bright child, but she disliked school. She liked sports better. However, upon her mother’s insistence, she could not enroll in any sports until she was at secondary levels and could keep her grades at a satisfactory point. Shannon had grumbled but accepted the compromise. Despite her tendency for rebellion, Shannon wanted to please her mother. It was one of those inherent things she couldn’t stop herself from doing.

She knew that there were things that her mother didn’t tell her, but she knew that they only had each other in this world. She had chosen not to question her mother’s self-imposed oblivion. She knew little of her mother’s life before her own cognizance. She recalled stories of a man named Eric Drake, the man who had bequeathed insane amounts of money upon his widowed wife and bereaved daughter, but she did not know him, could not bring up a memory of his face to her mind. Her mother dominated her memories.

Shannon crept up behind her mother as Curiosity gripped Good Sense in a choke-hold. It was a battle continuously waged inside her young heart, and the outcome never changed. It was her only imperfection, Anne had said.

And it was that imperfection that allowed her to glimpse a young woman not much older than she was at that very moment. She looked up at her mother and found an inscrutable emotion in her eyes. The space between her brows crinkled, and she spoke aloud before she could stop herself.

“Mother,” Shannon began, startling her mother, “who is that?”

Anne whirled around, eyes a little wide. She slammed the album closed and stood, putting herself between Shannon and the mysterious scrapbook. With her eyebrows knit together, Shannon tilted her head quizzically and stared up at Anne with eyes that were a strange mix of smoke gray and violet. The disbelief and terror in her mother’s eyes caused a flash of discontent inside of the ten-year-old who had rarely seen her mother in such uncertainty.

“Mother…” Shannon repeated, alarm growing.

Backlit by the desk lamp, Anne placed a hand on her daughter’s cheek. She had quickly composed herself. “Oh—don’t worry about that. It’s someone from the past, dear.”

Shannon’s interest peaked. “Can I see—?”

“I think you should go to bed,” Anne interrupted. Shannon darted forward quicker than Anne could catch her. “Shannon—?!” Shannon grazed the book with her hand as Anne clutched the rest of her and it got knocked to the ground. The book fell open onto a newspaper article accompanied by a large color photo of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed teenager in full political regalia. Shannon bent to look closer at the picture, transfixed by the slightly faded image. Behind Shannon, Anne flinched and braced herself for the inevitable.

Shannon scooped up the album and rose with it. She placed it on the desk as some sort of comprehension dawned. “That’s the lady they were talking about in school,” Shannon remarked. “She was a pacifist or something.” Shannon idly fingered the outline of the unsmiling face, frowning. When she tilted her face up to her mother’s, the only thing that kept Anne from abandoning her vow to her former self was sheer willpower. “She sort of looks like you, Mother. Isn’t that strange?”

“Oh, it’s something all right,” Anne replied. She leaned over and tried to close the book but Shannon was too fast. She flipped a page and Anne was face-to-face with a younger version of herself and a man whose face had bile rising at the back of her throat. Swallowing it, she said, “We should put this away. I’m sure you would like to get a decent night sleep before school in the morning—”

“Why do you have this scrapbook, Mother?” Shannon interrupted. “Did you know the lady in the snaps?” She looked down at the current photograph then back up at her mother as something occurred to her. “Maybe you two were long lost twins or something!”

Anne managed a laugh at that. In a sense, she was the other half of the young woman in that picture; they had come from the same egg, had been born at the same moment. The thought sobered her, though, and she ruffled her daughter’s raven hair. “You have such an active imagination,” Anne said, causing Shannon’s face to fall. “Oh sweetheart, life is not nearly as exciting as you’d like it to be, and honestly that’s not such a bad thing. Trust me.”

Shannon blinked up at her. “So who was she to you? I mean, I wouldn’t keep an album full of stories about a stranger. Would you?”

Would you? Anne sucked in a breath before speaking. “She was a very pivotal figure from my history, and I wanted to remember her. That’s all.” Anne was successful in reaching over and closing the scrapbook this time. “Let’s get you into bed, sweetheart. We both have to be up in a few hours.” Anne herded her grumbling daughter up the stairs and back into bed. “You know, when you’re an old woman like me you’re going to be begging for sleep.”

Shannon rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like you’re walking corpse, Mother. You’re not at all old. Though sometimes I wonder…”

“Very funny, young lady,” Anne said wryly. She placed her lips on Shannon’s forehead and pulled the covers to her chin. “Get some rest, okay?”

Shannon nodded and Anne gently exited the room. Once she was alone, she grabbed her favorite bear she’d had since she was very small and hugged it close. In her restless sleep, she dreamed of a woman who looked like her mother, talked like her mother, walked like her mother, but was not.

*           *           *

Around six that evening, Danie entered the Arashi Corp building in Gracia. Her mind was not focused upon her engagement in an hour because a bit of unpleasantness had to be taken care of first.

She rode on the elevator to the highest floor where Takeshi Arashi’s office was located. Since she was his executive assistant (on paper at least), it didn’t look odd for her to be roaming around his office suite. His secretary was gone for the day so she didn’t have to jump through that hoop. She walked into his office without knocking, interrupting a meeting with his son Miyori and Kane. Danie crossed her arms over her chest as they all turned to her. How fitting is this?

Takeshi Arashi was a tall Japanese man with a trim body and a cap of short black hair that was yet marred by no gray. He still looked as if he had been a samurai in a former life despite his age. When shock-induced silence descended upon them, he regarded Danie with a bit of resignation. He was not silly enough to think that she didn’t have a bone to pick with him. Still, he was just a bit displeased at her lack of manners, and he guessed that manners were not paramount for her right now.

“Is there something wrong, Daniella?” Arashi asked with a mild displeasure.

Danie leveled him with a glare that that would have scared him if he were a lesser man. Luckily he was not a lesser man. “Danie—” Kane began.

Danie stood ramrod straight and shifted her bag strap on her shoulder. Kane and Miyori watched, frowning. “I’m fine. I’ve just run into a little problem that I decided I need to discuss with you.”

Kane exhaled. “Danie, if you need to delay—”

Danie eyed him. “Delay? Why should I stop now?”

“That wasn’t an insult to your competence, Danie,” Miyori assured her, deciding to say something before she hurt Kane. “We’re just worried. You’ve avoided all of our calls and you haven’t checked in at all since you boarded the plane over twenty-four hours ago. That is unusual behavior, even for you. You’d at least pick up the phone to say fuck you or something.”

Danie said nothing. Kane broke the silence. “I assume you took care of business in New York?”

“No. I took care of business in New York and Miami.” The men frowned at her. “Cameron Prescott and I had a little talk, and he supplied me with information that led me to Bruce Richards in Miami with his girl-toy de jour. Cameron is still alive for his assistance, but Mr. Richards met his well-deserved bloody end. But not before he got to recognize the person who helped him to it.”

“So you’re feeling vindicated,” Miyori hedged.

“Quite,” Danie responded.

“You’re lying,” Miyori’s father countered, making Danie’s mouth tighten and nose flare in anger. “You have a problem. What is it?”

The younger men braced themselves for a fantastic show of Danie’s formidable temper. Instead, Danie quietly stepped up to the desk and tossed a file folder on Arashi’s paper-laden desk. It landed in front of him with a soft snap. He raised dark eyes to hers after glancing at it. Danie nodded at it when he didn’t move. “Go ahead. Open it. I assure you, it’s not empty like the one you gave me.”

As tension hummed in the air, Arashi placed a hand on folder and acted like he was going to open it but didn’t. Danie raised an eyebrow, and he finally opened it. Kane and Miyori did not move. Something flickered in Arashi’s black eyes, but he did not speak. Seeing that, Danie did, however.

“So you knew,” Danie remarked in a solemn tone that had dread pooling in Kane’s and Miyori’s bellies. “You knew all of this time that they were going to be poked and prodded and bent to some asshole’s evil will and did nothing about it.” She finally regarded the two men at her sides with a glare. “And you two knew it, too—didn’t you?”

Kane exhaled through his nose and was about to speak when Arashi held up a hand for silence. Arashi measured the woman, her fury. He decided he needed to know a few things first—but alone.

“Miyori, Kaneshi, would you excuse us?” Arashi asked in a tone left no room for argument. Miyori and Kane exited the room wordlessly, leaving Danie alone standing in front of him. He closed the file folder and motioned for her to sit.

“I’d rather stand, thank you,” Danie said icily.

“If that is your choice.” He steepled his fingers in front of him and paused. “Where did you find this, Daniella? I have to assume this just didn’t come out of nowhere.”

“Does it matter?” Danie inquired testily.

“Greatly,” Arashi responded evenly. “You see, if I know the source of your newfound information, I can best help you come to the truth.”

She felt like that was bullshit but went on anyway. “It was among the belongings of the late Bruce Richards, who met a quite bloody end by my hand some hours ago,” Danie answered. “As you know, he is the shady sonofabitch who crafted the adoption agreement I signed over a decade ago. Additionally he is—or was, since his last meal was lead—bosom buddies with Harlan Taylor, the adoptive father to the gifted Abigail, whose talents are outlined in that folder.”

“Yes, she is a clairvoyant,” Arashi commented, nodding. “However, much to your disbelief, I do not know much about Taylor’s plans for Abigail, and that simple fact worries me.”

She threw her hands in the air as questions swirled in her head. “What else are you keeping from me that I should know? Like, for instance, what happened to her sister? There is no information about her in Bruce’s belongings.”

“No one knows what became of her after August of ’98,” Arashi admitted, making Danie go cold. “She disappeared during the early morning hours of the twenty-sixth…”

An icy lance went through Danie as she remembered that day. She recalled the gunshots that came from above, the looks of horror and surprise beyond her crosshairs as the only remaining members of the Peacecraft family were slain with cold, deadly efficiency.

“Daniella,” Arashi began futilely.

A pressure cooker of emotion, she shook her head and turned to leave the room before she blew. “Forget it. I’m done with this shit. I’m done with the whole damn thing. I quit.”

He called after her, but she wasn’t listening. She was so cocooned in her anger and resentment that his words were useless. She was tired of being jerked around, sick with the fact that she had submitted to it for ten long years. All for what? A redemption that really wasn’t hers? A glory that had been besmirched by guilt? The glory wasn’t really hers anyway, she understood now. It hid behind a name, a dangerous persona who struck fear in the hearts and minds of people everywhere.

“Danie,” yelled a familiar voice.

Her eyes went flat. Kane. “Leave me alone, Tsukimori,” Danie warned him as she gave the down button an irate smack.

“You don’t understand what’s going on here,” Kane insisted, breathing heavily. “I know you’re pissed right now. You have every right to be. But there is more going on here than meets the eye.”

“Are you going to enlighten me or are you just gonna stand there?” The elevator door slid open and Danie walked inside. She turned to face Kane and saw fear in his eyes. Yes. You oughta be afraid now. Very afraid. “You set me on this road and I’m gonna see it through. But if I find out that you had anything to do with any of this, you’re going down along with them.”

The elevator door slid closed. Danie found that a very fitting end to that conversation.

The head full of steam she had built up on the plane ride back to California had lessened by the time she had gotten down to the garage, leaving shakiness and throbbing that were going to be a bitch to deal with later. The gnawing disquiet also still remained. Something was beyond her comprehension, and things would not be rectified once she understood it.

Relena Peacecraft. And that name. It made her sick to think the role she had in that woman’s death. Furthermore, it troubled her that one of her daughters had disappeared the same day Relena had been killed. What could that mean?

At that moment, she came up to her car, and the sight of all four of her tires (new tires, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her) slashed jolted her from her musing. She groaned and prepared to kick something when a strange sense buzzed in the back of her mind. It sounded like the agony of twisting metal. Something is coming…

Whirling and eyeing the concrete expanse, she flipped her phone out of her purse. Number one on her speed dial was her target.

The call was picked up on the second ring. “Danie? Is everything all right?”

Danie opened her mouth to speak. She only managed, “Darling, my tires—” before the buzz came again and she had to pull the phone away. She could hear her husband’s voice, tinny at this distance, pressing her to tell him what was wrong. She felt someone behind her and her senses sharpened.

She quickly pirouetted on her the ball of her left foot and flung her right leg outward. Her boot heel slammed into something solid and she heard an all-too-human grunt. She followed up with a high kick that collided with his chin. Fuming at the darkly clad person doubled over in front of her, Danie went to her phone again.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said, trying to sound normal. “Had a little bit of interference. It looks like I’m gonna need a ride home. Could you come get me?”

When Heero spoke again, Danie could hear concern mingled with frustration that came with knowing something was amiss but having no power to change it. “Danie—where are you?”

Danie didn’t have time to answer because two more men appeared—and one of them she recognized. It had been several years since she had seen him, but she would always remember Avery Royce.

The phone was knocked out of her hand and went clattering away. She was punched hard and stumbled backwards onto her car. Avery loomed over her as two pairs of hands tried to restrain her. She struggled with her hands trapped behind her when she heard the sound of a gun cocking.

“Avery,” Danie said softly but with zero affection. “So we meet again.”

Avery looked at her, shook his head as if she were a disobedient little girl. “Danie love, it’s a shame you couldn’t just let things go and mind your own business.” He pointed his gun at her and something inside of her stilled. “I’m going to ask you one question. Where is the file?”

Danie raised an eyebrow as her fingers felt behind her for some vestige of defense. “You’re going to have to give me some incentive. What do I have to gain from answering your question?”

Avery lashed out and pistol-whipped her. In the aftermath, she lost touch with reality for a moment as her cheekbone burned with pain and her stomach ignited with fury. There was no way in hell that asshole was going to get away with hitting her. You just wait until she got free. You just wait.

“I let you walk away alive,” Avery responded as Danie worked out her jaw. “That’s some pretty damn good incentive. Now where is the damn file?”

Danie stared at him, her insolence rising. “What file? You have to be more specific than…shit!” She cried when he shot her in the shoulder. “What the bloody hell was that for?”

“I have several more of these in this handy little gun, princess,” he told her. “The more you stonewall me, the more of these will end up inside you. So let’s be frank with one another. Where. Is. It?”

Danie put a clamp down on the pain so that it did not overwhelm her. Her left arm had gone numb, but the fingers of her right hand brushed across her windshield wiper and she had a thought…

Come on, baka, her conscience bleated. There’s no way in hell you can hurt three armed men with a freaking windshield wiper! That’s like trying to stab someone with a spoon.

But she had to try something. She was not planning to die tonight, if she had any say about it.

“Fine,” Danie said. “The file is in my bag.” Avery nodded to the goon on her left. He walked around the car to retrieve her fallen purse. Her right hand wasn’t in the best position to dislodge the wiper but her left one was. Nearly cursing, she shifted and tried to work the stubborn fingers of her left hand. The goon snatched it off the ground and she snapped, “Be careful, idiot. That bag is Prada.”

Her divaesque comment had its desired effect; Avery rolled his eyes. Now he probably thought of her more annoying than dangerous. Good. “Still worried about designer labels, I see.”

“A girl’s gotta have the best,” Danie remarked. “Though, I can’t see how you would know anything about that, Avery.” She smiled as her inert fingers finally obeyed and his face changed. “I heard your last amour left you for a Jon Cryer look-a-like.”

The goon on her right side sniggered, and Avery glared at him, throwing off his aim a couple of inches. He refocused a couple of seconds later, and pointed the gun at Danie. At that moment, the second goon announced, “There’s a file in here, Ave. She was telling the truth after all.”

Avery eyed her with suspicion and took the bag from him. He gave another slight nod and the snickering goon on the right let her go. As soon as she was loose, she used her newfound mobility to work the windshield wiper free. Her hurt jaw clenched when Avery pointed the gun at her again. Her lips curved sardonically when realization dawned.

“There is no honor among thieves,” Danie said as her mind raced. “You lied to me, Avery. I gave you what you wanted.”

Avery shrugged. “Like you said, there’s no honor among thieves. Besides, I get more money if I report back that you are dead. You should have known they’d be pissed at you once you took that file. I can guess you killed Richards, too.”

“Believe me, he had it coming. So why don’t you not kill me and say you did?” Danie suggested.

“It won’t work like that, princess,” Avery responded. He cocked his gun again. “I’m sorry.”

Triumph coursed through her when the wiper came free. “I’m not.”

Avery faltered a bit, and that was all the opportunity she needed. She swung her right arm around in a wide arc and caught one of them in the back of the head. Unconscious, he fell. Avery tried to shoot at her, but she kicked the gun out of his hand and followed up with the same left jab/right cross combination that had felled him the last time they’d met. She shifted the wiper in her hand and lashed at the goon that had picked up her purse. The wiper abraded his skin where it met flesh, and he stumbled while holding his face. For good measure, she whacked him in the temple with all the force she could muster and he fell.

Avery charged for her and she feinted right. He lashed out with a kick and had her falling to the ground. He climbed on top of her and wrapped his hands around her neck. With a burst of desperate strength as her breath was being squeezed out of her, she jabbed upward with the wiper and it stabbed him in the stomach. His eyes went wide as the life drained out of him. She shoved him away, and his lifeless gaze focused on the ceiling.

Danie panted heavily, sitting in the center of the fallen bodies. Her left shoulder was bleeding, her head ached, and she was exhausted. At her back, she heard sirens and squealing tires nearing. She tried to stand but her knees buckled from under her. Her vision swam as she found herself in a sitting position. She decided that she would not move until she got her strength back.

It felt like hours had passed when she felt hands on her weary body. She heard the murmur of voices, the patter of feet. Those same warm hands, ones she knew intimately, lifted her face and she stared into a pair of worried blue eyes. So she said the only thing she could think of.

“Tell Crys she can kick my ass later,” Danie slurred, and then passed out.

 

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