When David and Jordan arrived at Julia's house, it was very late. The children had all gone to bed, and Kimber was asleep on the couch with her feet propped up on the arm to keep the swelling in her ankles down. Jamey was in the kitchen, making snacks for when Kimber's parents arrived.
Jordan opened the unlocked door, calling out softly, "Anyone still up? It's Nonna and Granpa David."
Jamey came out of the kitchen to greet them. "All the kids are in bed, and Kimber's sacked out on the sofa. I'm the only one up."
David shook the young man's hand, saying, "At least we don't feel like we've broken into the house."
Jordan went into the living room where her youngest daughter lay sleeping. "Kimber, it's Mom," Jordan said, shaking Kimber's shoulder gently.
"Mom?" said Kimber, still half asleep; "What are you doing here?"
"We told you we were coming up," Jordan said; "How are the kids?"
Kimber woke up a little more, then said, "Miri's taken over her mother's role and keeping the younger ones in line, but she's understandably concerned for Julia's welfare. The others are just scared."
"What about you, Kimberlin?" her father asked as he and Jamey came into the room; "How are you feeling?"
Kimber looked at her father, half smiled and said, "Fat; this is the only time of day that Drew calms down. He's going to be a handful when he gets here."
"Drew?" asked Jordan; "You're already calling your baby by the name you're giving him when he's born?"
"Sure, Mom, why not?" asked Kimber. "I don't like the way 'Andy' sounds, so Jamey and I are calling him Drew."
David pretended to check something off an imaginary list. "Okay. Call my grandson 'Drew', not 'Andy'. Check!"
"Dad!" Kimber exclaimed, laughing; "You're so funny!"
David just grinned.
"I have snacks if you two are hungry," Jamey said; "And, David, there's no pork or anything in them. Turkey, chicken, cheese, or hummus. For some reason, Kimber loves the stuff. I don't care for it personally."
"Craving?" asked Jordan to Kimber.
"Not really, just picked some up at the store one day, and I've been buying it ever since," said Kimber.
After having a little bite to eat, Kimber showed her parents to Miri's bedroom. Miri was sleeping in Rachel's room during their grandparents visit.
Upon seeing Miri's full size bed, David remarked, "Well, Nonna, think we can both fit in there?"
"Yes, Grandpa," Jordan said sarcastically. She hated it when David called her "Nonna". She wasn't his grandmother after all; "I think we'll be just fine."
David looked to Kimber for help, and all she did was rub her two fingers together in a "shame shame" sign.
"Goodnight Mom, Dad," Kimber said as she turned to walk back downstairs; "Hope you get out of the doghouse soon, Granpa David!"
And Kimber laughed all the way down the stairs.
"When did she become such as smart ass, Jord?" David asked his wife; "Is this a pregnancy thing?"
"When your parents are smart asses, it kind of rubs off," was all Jordan said as she kissed the top of David's bald scalp.
As Marsh left the warehouse where he killed Brandon Byers, he had no idea he was being so closely watched.
He was now the hunted, and not the hunter.
Julia dogged his every move. She was determined to bring him down.
Voices talked in her head. She couldn't make out a familiar voice in the cacophony of chatter she was hearing. It was like everyone who had ever died in her lifetime, whether by her hand, someone else's or by illness or disease, were all speaking at once. It was driving her to distraction. She kept focused by remembering what Marsh did to Jack.
"I will end you, Lincoln Marsh!" she said under her breath as she drove, following him to wherever he stopped next; "You and your band of misguided assholes who want a second Occupation. Not as long as I draw breath will that happen!"
After about ninety minutes, Julia was in a place that was familiar to her.
Virginia Beach. What used to be known during the Occupation as the Tidewater Region. Her Aunt Miranda and cousins lived there.
She didn't know that Miranda Cooper was dying. And Julia didn't have time to visit, anyway.
Marsh ended up at some cheap motel near the Little Creek Amphibious Base, but soon left without checking in. From Julia's observations, it appeared to her that Marsh was looking for something specific.
Or rather, someone specific.
He soon ended up on the Norfolk/Virginia Beach Expressway, that ended at the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach.
Julia followed him to a relatively nice hotel right on the oceanfront. It was here that he checked in.
So Julia decided to wait.
II
Marsh found the hotel by a stroke of good luck. He'd hole up there for a couple of days before abandoning the car and flying back to Collinsville.
He had the feeling he was being followed, but whoever it was, they were good at it. He saw no one that stood out as someone who could be trailing him.
It was getting late and he just wanted to sleep.
He came to Virginia Beach for only one reason.
Nicoletta grew up there. He wanted to be where he felt something of the woman he couldn't stop thinking about, fantasizing about, since he left her in a cheap motel room off an interstate in Chicago back in January.
After washing up and changing clothes, he decided to take a walk along the beach.
It was something he hadn't done since he was about 14, a year after he went to live with his grandfather.
"Why'd you bring me here?" Eddie asked sullenly.
"It's part of the lesson I've been teaching you about ecology, Edward," Abraham said; "A lot of what people dump in the ocean, thinking it will never be seen again, end up along the shores of the beaches. Like that shoe, for example." Abraham pointed to a long abandoned shoe, half buried in the sand of the beach at Coney Island.
"If stuff like oil or poisons or something were dumped in the ocean, then it would make its way here, possibly to hurt people and wildlife?" asked Eddie.
"Exactly, Edward," said Abraham. "That shoe is harmless. A boater may have lost it. But when people or corporations purposely dump toxic materials in the ocean, we all feel it at some point."
"That's gross, Grandpa!" the boy exclaimed.
"It is," Abraham said; "But there's another reason I came here besides teaching you about ecology."
"What's that?"
"I wanted to show you some of the places I went to when I was young," Abraham said. "Like this particular beach, and ones like it in this area of New York."
"I can't see you hanging out at the beach," Eddie said.
"Edward, I was young, too, once. I met your grandmother here when I was sixteen. She was fifteen," said Abraham, remembering. "Her father wouldn't let me date her until she was sixteen, so we'd meet here and see each other behind her father's back."
"I don't remember her, Grandpa," Eddie said.
"She died before you were a year old, Edward," Abraham said; "Cancer took her much too soon."
"What was she like?"
"Ah, Edward, you really want to hear the musings of an old man?"
"Yes," Eddie said, surprising himself. "What was she like? Was she pretty?"
"Yes, very much so," Abraham said; "She was the prettiest girl I'd ever laid eyes on and I told her so. She didn't believe me. 'That's just a line,' she said. I told her it wasn't, and that I didn't say things that I didn't mean."
"When did you get married?" Eddie asked.
"After she graduated from high school," Abraham said; "She was 18, I was 19 and in college. Her parents thought we were crazy to get married so young. Her mother kept asking if she were pregnant. She wasn't. We waited until we married to have relations. Then about four months after we married, we learned that your father was on his way."
Eddie noticed that Grandpa was sad at the mention of Eddie's father.
"I don't even know what Grandmother's name was," Eddie said.
"Monica," Abraham said; "Monica West was her name. The most beautiful girl in the world to me. And she remained so until she died. I miss her every day. She's the reason you were named Edward. She lost an uncle in the War...World War Two. His name was Edward Michael West. She was his only niece and he doted on her as much as her parents did."
"I didn't know I was named after anyone," Eddie said. "My parents never told me."
"That doesn't surprise me," Abraham said. "Monica had to insist upon that name if you were a boy. Your father didn't want to name you Edward, and your mother didn't seem to care."
"I hope someday, Grandpa, that I find someone like Monica," said Eddie. "Girls I know are stupid."
"Maybe back in the mid 1950s girls were a little more aware of who they were and where they came from," Abraham said; "Girls these days seem to think about shopping, makeup, and boys."
"Grandpa," Marsh said to himself as he walked along the beach; "Why did I have to be so old before I met someone like Monica? I wish you could meet Nicoletta. She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen. And she loves me, I know she does..."
Just then, not twenty-five feet in front of him, was Nicoletta.
And he remembered the promise he made to her and felt instantly sick.
Turning back in the direction he came, back toward the hotel, Marsh ran away from where saw Nicoletta.
He couldn't see her, couldn't talk to her. The shame he felt overwhelmed him.
He arrived back at his hotel, went up to his room and locked the door. Marsh then went to the bathroom, knelt before the toilet, and vomited.
After he had purged everything out of his system, he got up and went to lay on the bed. He realized at that moment he could never have Nicoletta all to himself.
And a life without his green eyed angel was inconceivable.
God, he thought, please just let me die!
He'd followed her as far as he dared. If she found out that he was sent to bring her home, she could very well end his life.
He would not fail at his mission. Her family depended on him completing it without harming her in the process.
He'd soon get his chance.
III
Cole noticed the man walking down the beach in his direction, but he thought nothing of it at first. His mother wanted to go back to Bisnonna's house and lay down. Bisnonna agreed with her.
"Come on, Cole," Stefanie said to her great-grandson, "Let's get things packed so we can go back to the house."
Nico was walking along the beach, trying to burn off some restless energy. She saw everyone getting ready to leave, and went to go help when she saw a man turn suddenly and run back in the direction from which he had come.
Wonder what got into him? she thought. Her last thought about the man is that he looked a lot like Eddie from behind. "Probably wasn't him anyway," she said aloud.
"Wasn't who, Mom?" asked Kit, slipping a shirt over her bikini. When did she get curves? Nico wondered; she's only 13!
"Nothing, Kit," she said to her daughter. "Thought I saw someone I used to know, but it probably wasn't him."
"All the way here?" Kit asked.
"I did grow up here," Nico said, laughing; "It could have been anyone."
"Well, yeah," conceded Kit; "That's true."
They all headed back to the car they had rented, and Nico thought of Eddie. She remembered that he told her he'd never been to Virginia. I'd like to come here with you someday, Eddie, she thought as she got into the front passenger's seat. She was too distracted to think about anything else, something her grandmother had picked up on.
I'm worried about that girl, thought Stefanie.
Once back at the house, Nico went to the bedroom she had chosen when they arrived nearly four days before, laid on the bed, and instantly fell asleep.
Where her dreams were filled with the handsome older man with the troubled past she'd met six months before.
"Come away with me, Nicoletta," Eddie said. "I'm leaving A.R.M., taking my name back, and leaving the country for a while. Please, sweet angel, come with me!"
"You know I can't, Eddie!" exclaimed Nico in an anguished voice; "I have children to raise. I can't abandon them!"
Eddie looked sad. He knew she would put her family before their relationship. He was okay with it. He'd wait forever for her if that's what she wanted.
"If you change your mind, Nicoletta," he said; "You know how to find me."
"No I don't!" Nico cried out in her sleep. "Tell me, Eddie! How do I find you!"
Stefanie walked by Nico's bedroom at that precise moment and poked her head in the door. Nico was still sleeping, but had clearly said something about Eddie, the man she had fallen for while working undercover.
She walked away, troubled. Just how deep was Nico's involvement with Eddie, she thought; I'd be willing to bet that it's more complicated that she told me about. Poor girl... she needs a friend and can't go to him.
Stefanie knew exactly how she felt. It had been years since Dale died, and she still wished she could go to him when she was troubled.
"What do I do?" she said aloud.
The next morning, Marsh checked out of the hotel and headed not to the airport, but to a picnic area near the beach. He needed to clear his head. His dreams the night before were of Nicoletta, her gentle touch, her perfect kiss, those captivating emerald green eyes...
He stopped at the first picnic area he found, surrounded by trees and back from the main road. He went to a table and just sat there.
Marsh felt like he'd let down the only person in his life who understood him. He broke his promise to her, and he wasn't fit to be in the same world with her.
He thought of all the ways he could end his life, because life without Nicoletta and her accepting nature he could not accept.
Then, he heard his name sharply behind him. He turned to see a short woman dressed in fatigues, a thin layer of dark hair, and the look of someone out for revenge. Marsh knew it was Julia Summers.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"One of the ones you want to eliminate so you and your group can hijack the country," Julia said.
"You're Summers?"
"I am," she said. "You killed Jack Coltrane. He was dying! You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?"
Instead of running, knowing he couldn't outrun a woman twenty years younger than he was, he said,
"If you really are Julia Summers, then I'll only ask this once. I'm not fit to live in this world with the woman I love. Please, Summers, shoot me!
That took Julia back slightly. He wants me to kill him? It's a trap! she thought.
"How do I know you're not bluffing, and the moment I raise my weapon, several of your goons come out of the woods?" she asked.
"I'm alone," Marsh said. "I am not armed. Please...?"
Julia decided not to take any chances if he was or was not Lincoln Marsh. She raised her weapon to the man who stood less than ten feet from her.
IV
He saw the scene play out in front of him. Julia raised her weapon to the man standing in front of her.
When he was less than three feet behind her, he took his weapon and hit his own flesh and blood on the back of the head with the butt of the gun. She crumpled and fell forward. Her weapon fell off to one side, but did not discharge.
"What the fuck...?" Marsh exclaimed as Summers fell to the ground.
"She was going to kill you, Marsh," Collins-Ross said; "She followed you here from Chicago. I suggest you high tail it out of here. I have to take her back home."
"Who are you?" asked Marsh.
"Who I am is of no consequence to you," said Collins-Ross. "I just saved your ass. Now get the fuck out of here before I take back my offer of escape."
Without another word, Marsh ran from the picnic area without looking back. Summers has been stalking me this whole time? Since I left Chicago? That was nearly three weeks ago!
He got into his car and went to the airport. He'd sort this all out when he got back to Collinsville.
Collins-Ross picked up Julia's unconscious body and carried it back to the truck he was driving. He gently laid her in the backseat on her side.
"You're going home, Jules," JT said. "You sure know how to scare the living shit out of people!"
He dialed a number as he climbed into the driver's seat. When the call was answered, he said, "Objective reached. Subject is in backseat of truck. Instructions?"
"Go to Portsmouth Naval Hospital and await further instructions," he was told; "They know you are coming and will be waiting."
"Yes, sir," JT said and closed the connection.
Nik's phone rang, interrupting the perfect quiet he and KateLynn were having out on the back porch.
"Who is it, Nikky?" she asked sleepily.
"Business, Katie," Nik said; "Just a sec." He flipped open the phone and said, "San Marco."
"Nik. Dixon," said the voice of his boss; "Julia is in custody and will be home within 36-72 hours."
"Where was she found?"
"Virginia Beach,Virginia."
"I'll let everyone here know, Director," Nik said.
"I'm going to try and get her into Walter Reed for evaluation before sending her home," Dixon said; "I'll call you back when I hear something."
"Very good, Director," Nik said; "I'll await your call." He then closed out the call.
"Julia?" asked KateLynn.
"She's okay, save for a headache," Nik said. "I need to call Jordan and let her know her daughter's okay. But I'm going to call someone else first."
KateLynn got up and headed back to the house. "See you inside, Nikky?"
"I'll be there, baby," Nik said. "In a little bit."
Once his wife was in the house and out of earshot, Nik made another call.
"Jacob Ross."
"Jacob, it's Nik. Julia's been found. She's in Virginia Beach. How far is that from you?"
"About three hours," said Jacob. "Shall I go there and wait for her?"
"No, I'm waiting for Dixon to call me back," said Nik. "She might be going to Walter Reed. Dixon was going to check,"
"That's closer to me," Jacob said; "Will you let me know when Dixon calls you back?"
"Certainly, Jacob," Nik said. He then hung up.
Flipping the phone open once more, he called Julia's mother, who was watching her grandchildren at Julia's house.
"I'd love to know what got into you, Jules," Nik said as he waited for Jordan to answer.
Marsh got as far away from that scene as possible. As he waited for his flight to be called to head home to Collinsville, he couldn't get over that Julia Summers was trailing him, while she herself was being trailed by someone else.
Then his thoughts wandered over to Nicoletta once again.
"Please forgive me, sweet angel," he said under his breath; "This life just isn't worth living if I can't have your forgiveness and your love."
"All passengers on Flight 2341 to Buffalo please begin pre-boarding now..."
Marsh got up silently, grabbed his carryon, and boarded the plane.
He decided that his days with A.R.M. were done.
No comments:
Post a Comment