Chapter 63

I

“I don’t need that many clothes, Mom!” Julia protested to Jordan. “Just a couple of pairs of jeans, some tshirts, and a skirt. Really, you guys, you’d think I was naked or something!”

“Julia, just let us get you what you need, okay sweetheart?” said Jordan. “Besides the girls are all having such a good time with it all.”

“This is payback for me making Niki buy clothes that actually fit her,” Julia said just as her sister came up with yet another outfit for Julia to try on.

“This would look so good on you, Jules,” Niki said, handing over the sundress and matching jacket to her sister. “It’s been so hot!”

“And this from the girl who wanted to wear a sweater in 110 degree heat just a few weeks ago!” laughed Julia. “I’m glad to see your internal temp gauge is more or less back to normal.”

Julia took the dress and went to try it on.

She thought it made her look about fourteen. But it was comfortable and easy to get into and out of. She rolled her eyes at her mirror image and thought, okay, I’ll get this to make Niki happy.

Then she looked at the pile of clothes that her daughters, mother, sister, cousins and aunt had already brought for her to try on and sighed.

I certainly hope they’re not planning to buy all this stuff, Julia thought as she removed the sundress ensemble and replaced on the hanger to put into the “keep” stack.

Soon she had gone through them all, and had more in the “put back” stack than in the “keep” stack.

It was when the things she wanted to get were rung up that she nearly had sticker shock. What shocked her even more is when her mother got out a card to pay for it all.

“Mom!” Julia said; “I could have done that!”

“I know, Julia, but we all wanted to do this for you,” Jordan said; “Consider it a late birthday gift.”

Oh, yeah, Julia thought; I did miss my birthday, didn’t I?

“Is it time to eat yet?” asked Rachel as she and Aaliyah snacked on apple wedges.

“That’s all you think about, Rachel!” Arielle said; “You and Liyah are always eating something.”

“So?” Aaliyah said as she popped another apple wedge into her mouth. “We’re growing girls.”

“Right!” added Rachel; “Especially me! I don’t want to be a little runt.”

“Who called you a little runt, Rachel?” asked Jordan.

“All the boys,” Rachel said; “Adam and Danny were the worst.”

“Oh, don’t worry, cousin,” Kendria said; “they’ll get theirs, trust me. Oh, and don’t give Boat any apples. They give him gas.”

“Eww,” Aaliyah said. “I’m glad I don’t have to sleep in the same room with him.”

“My dad says if the Allies had just dropped a ‘Boat bomb’ on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the War would have ended right then and there!” Kendria said.

“They must be, um, really bad,” Miri said.

“You have no idea!” Tracy chimed in.

Boat just looked at Kendria, making sure she was okay, then plopped back down on the floor at her feet.

As the group left the store after making the purchase for Julia and headed to a nearby eatery, Jaime thought, I miss Tripod. I hope he and Aunt Kimber are getting along.

===

“Must you bark so much, Tripod?” Kimber asked the Golden Retriever that she was watching while his family were out of town.

Kimber was feeling fat and lazy. She couldn’t wait for Drew to finally arrive, and she wondered how the surrogate who carried her and her twin did it.

Tripod’s response was to bark more and wag that constantly moving tail. I like you, Kimber, he seemed to be saying.

He then brought her his favorite toy, and Kimber couldn’t say no. “You’re a crazy dog, you know that?” Kimber laughed. She then threw the clown doll and Tripod went after it.

Kimber laughed as Tripod returned the clown doll to her to throw again. “Dad would so like this,” she said to the dog. “He hates clowns. He wonders why they have to smile all the damn time.”

She threw the toy, and Tripod went after it, nearly knocking down Jamey in the process as he entered the living room where Kimber was relaxing on the couch.

“Tripod!” he yelled as he was nearly tackled by the dog retrieving his toy. “Boy, you do more on three legs that most dogs do when they have all four!”

He picked up the toy and threw in the direction of the couch, watching the dog slide on the floor past it to get to the doll.

Ooh, you want to play, too, Jamey? Tripod seemed to say as he returned the doll for Jamey to throw again.

“Now, Tripod, why don’t we give this a rest,” Jamey said; “Kimber needs to rest.”

Tripod barked, waiting for Jamey to throw the toy. When he saw that Jamey just let the toy lay on the floor, he picked it up in his mouth, trudged to the couch and plopped on the floor beside it next to where Kimber lay.

“What a good boy,” Kimber said as she reached down to scratch the dog’s ears. “We’ll play again later, okay?”

Tripod snorted and lay on the floor. He was waiting for Lady Marmalade to make an appearance. He liked to chase the cat. But Marm was sleeping on the bed in Kimber and Jamey’s room. Tripod would have a long wait.

Marm just wanted to go home with the young people who lived in her house. There were no little kids to play with here. Just the stupid dog.

===

II

“I think I may have managed to shock my daughter, David,” Jordan said as she returned to the hotel room that she and her husband shared.

“How so?”

Jordan told the story of the shopping trip, how everyone was bringing Julia clothes to try on, then when she found what she wanted, watched in horror as her mother whipped out a credit card to pay for it all.

“She’s used to doing for herself,” Jordan said; “I don’t think she liked it that I bought her all that stuff. She said she’d have to buy a dufflebag just to get it all home.”

“Julia has always had that independent streak, Jord,” David said; “can’t say that I blame her for being shocked. But at least she has something to wear other than the fatigues she was found in.”

“True,” Jordan said; “Now if I could just figure out how to make that weird short hair grow more...”

“It’s just hair, Jordan,” David said. “It does grow back eventually. I think it’s too late for me though. I’ve been bald by choice for near 40 years.”

“Julia just doesn’t look like herself with that buzz cut she’s got,” said Jordan.

“Maybe that was the point of her having it shaved,” David said. “But she doesn’t remember that, does she?”

“No, and she thinks she’ll never know the whole story about what happened,” Jordan replied. “She has no memory of it at all. Just what people have told her about what happened; Miri shaving her mother’s head; having powerful weapons in her car; travelling from her home to where she was found. I’ve never seen Julia at such a loss before, and David, it scares me. What if she’s in the first stages of insanity?”

“I really don’t think we should be thinking that,” said David. “Honestly, I think it was an extreme reaction to her friend, John’s, death.”

“I know that if I lost you, I’d probably lose my marbles,” Jordan said. “But there wasn’t that kind of relationship between him and Julia. Was there?”

“We’ll never know, because Julia won’t say anything, and John obviously can’t.”

Jordan sighed. Even as an adult, Julia still managed to confound her mother. And Jordan didn’t like it all that much.

===

Dinner with the captain of the cruise ship was okay, thought Natasha; certainly nothing to write home about. Even though she got to converse with the man for all of ten minutes; mostly in German, the man’s native tongue. She remembered the pleasantly shocked look on his face when he asked her,

“Wie geht es Ihnen an diesem Abend, Mrs. Dixon?” (How are you this evening?)

“Ich bin gut, Captain, ich danke Ihnen,” replied Natasha.

Darren looked on in amusement as Natasha and the captain spoke to one another in a language he only heard Natasha use while they were making love. His elementary German couldn’t even compare.

Throughout dinner, Natasha couldn’t get that voice out of her head; the one she had heard over the security team’s radio earlier that day. I know that’s Kylee’s voice, she thought, but how could it be if she’s supposed to be dead?

Darren noticed her preoccupation, and thought it strange. Something’s bothering her, he thought. Maybe it was the cleaner than clean state that their stateroom was in when they were finally allowed back into it. Even he thought it was odd, but let the matter drop.

Later, as they were heading back to the stateroom to retire for the evening, they were intercepted by Mariah.

“We’ve moved your belongings to another stateroom,” she said. “It’s on another level but still faces the ocean as your previous one did.”

“Why are we being moved?” asked Darren. “Because of what happened earlier?”

“Partly, Mr. Director,” Mariah said; “There are agents on board to attend to your safety, and it was best that you not be allowed back into your original stateroom. If you’ll both follow me...”

“There are agents on board?” asked Natasha; “At whose request?”

“I believe it was at the request of the President, Mrs. Dixon,” said Mariah as she absentmindedly twirled her long hair around her right index finger.

Natasha noticed this, but kept silent.

“Everything has been moved, Mariah?” asked Darren.

“Yes, Mr. Director,” said Mariah; “including the weapon that your wife brought onboard. Normally, we don’t allow weapons on our ships, but considering who the two of you are, it’s perfectly understandable.”

“It must have been in one of the suitcases and I forgot about it,” Natasha said by way of explanation, even though she purposely brought the firearm with her.

“Not a problem, Mrs. Dixon,” Mariah said; “It’s still where you left it. We just happened to notice it as we were moving your belongings.”

“Don’t you search passengers for weapons?” asked Natasha; “What if someone intent on doing harm came onboard?”

“We do. Everyone gets a security check prior to boarding,” Mariah said; “But if you can’t trust the CIA Director, who can you trust?”

“Indeed,” Darren said. “I think I might have wanted to be searched anyway. I don’t really like special treatment. I still take the kids to the ice cream shop like a normal step-dad.”

“We’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Mariah said as she showed them to their new stateroom. When she opened the door, Natasha was surprised how large it was compared to the one they originally had.

Mariah gave Darren the new key and wished them a pleasant evening. She then turned and walked back down the corridor. Natasha watched as the woman walked away. She saw something that she didn’t expect to see.

A slight limp.

Kylee had a slight limp from a childhood accident. It only showed itself when she was really tired.

Combined with the hair twirling, Natasha was convinced that even though Mariah didn’t look like Kylee, or sound like her,  her mannerisms gave her away.

That’s not possible, she thought. I hope that I’m wrong in thinking I’ve uncovered a government secret. One that Darren doesn’t know about.

She’d try to put it aside and enjoy her honeymoon. She’d look deeper into it when she got home.

“Natasha, my Queen...” Darren said, “you coming to bed or what?”

“Yes, darling,” she said, knowing what lay ahead for the rest of their evening. It would be even better than the dessert they just had at dinner.

===

III

Christine knew how she’d be spending part of her month long leave.

With Jacob.

She knew that Julia Summers would have long since been discharged from the hospital by the time she returned to work, and regretted not having a chance to say goodbye before she left. Christine liked Julia. She was tough as they come, but saw a side of the former Disturbed Ones assassin that only few people outside her family and close friends saw.

But it was Jacob who captivated her, and she, him. Though she thought she was much too young for him, she didn’t have a problem with spending time with him. He was intelligent, well read, interesting, and a good lover on top of all that.

Christine often wondered about Todd and their agreement that if he had not heard from her in a year’s time, to have the marriage annulled. Did he do it? she often asked herself; or are we still legally married?


She loved Todd. He was her best friend during the times immediately after her divorce from her abusive ex-husband. They were pals in high school, even going to the prom together. Everyone thought they, of all couples, could make a go of it. Instead, Todd moved to North Carolina to attend college, and Christine (then known as Bethanie) wanted to go to nursing school.

Then she met her husband and things were good between them.

Then they got married and everything went to hell.

He knew who she was, who her mother was, who her grandmother was. He’d seen her as the weakest between her and her twin sister, Brittyn. This he told her after they’d been married four months, that he sought her out specifically to punish her for her family’s role during the Occupation. He was drunk, and Bethanie wrote it off to alcohol. One night, he demanded that she withdraw from school and stay home and “be a wife in the real sense”, as he put it. When she refused, he beat her up so severely that she miscarried their child, suffered broken bones in her face, and had to have her spleen and one kidney removed.

She spent the next year trying to get away from him long enough to get her LPN. Once she had that, she’d run.

Bethanie filed for an annulment based on fraud, and it was granted. When her husband found out, he swore he wouldn’t rest until he found her and punished her.

How Todd was able to get her name changed without months of waiting, she had no idea. One day she was Bethanie Lynn Crowley; the next, she was Christine Travis. After making their agreement and getting married, Christine ran again, this time to Florida to join the Army.

All this happened before she was 21 years old. Her family had no idea where she was, or whether she was still alive. Christine was sure her sister, Nico, who was a detective in Chicago, was looking for her. When no one came looking for her, she finally felt safe.

Still, she wondered about whether she was still married to Todd or not.

I’ll have to look into that, she thought as she got ready to meet Jacob. He’d planned a trip for them to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where he’d ask her questions she didn’t want to answer.


But he’d have some answers for her. She just didn’t know it yet.

===

Julia put on the dress that Niki picked out for her. It doesn’t look that bad, she thought as she slipped the matching jacket on. At least it hid the scar from the gunshot wound she got when she was living in Wyoming with Jack. Was all that nearly a year ago? she asked herself.

She then put on the bracelet that Miri chose for her, and the sandals that Jaime, Rachel and Aaliyah picked out, and she was ready to go to lunch with her family.

Folding up the rest of the clothing and putting them into the newly purchased dufflebag she had bought for herself to take all her stuff home in, then slipping the sneakers, socks and jewelry into the bag, she was waiting for her mother to knock on the door. Her girls were in the main part of the series of suites the family had booked for Natasha’s wedding.

“She had to be a gorgeous bride,” Julia said aloud to no one in particular; “How could she not? I only wish I had her height and her curves.”

Julia just wanted to get the lunch date with her mother, daughters, nieces, her sister and sisters-in-law out of the way. She desperately wanted a nap.

There was a knock on the door, and Julia went to answer it. Looking through the peephole, it wasn’t her mother who stood on the other side, but KateLynn.

Opening the door, Julia said, “I thought Mom was going to come get me?”

“That’s what I thought, but apparently, David has other plans for his wife, so Jordan won’t be joining us,” KateLynn said. “So it was up to me to come fetch you.”

“I’m not Tripod’s clown toy, you know,” Julia said, laughing. “I don’t need to be ‘fetched’.”

“I’ll bet David hates that thing,” KateLynn said as Julia closed the door and locked it.


“He’s the one who bought him the damn thing!” Julia said. “Had it in a box with a freakin’ bow on it and everything.”

KateLynn laughed. She could see David doing that, all so that he didn’t have to look at it.

“Well, Jules, let’s get going;” KateLynn said. “I know some young ladies who are, to put it in their words: ‘starving’.”

“Aaliyah and Rachel hardly are starving,” Julia said; “They must be in a growth spurt, because Rachel simply doesn’t eat that much.”

“Aaliyah is going to need some ‘support’ here soon,” said KateLynn; “Before she left to go home, Jasmine said that Aaliyah has pretty much outgrown her trainer.”

“At nine?!”

“They develop earlier now, Jules,” KateLynn said; “I was eleven, maybe 12.”

“I was 12 as well, as were Miri and Jaime.”

“You won’t have to worry about Rachel for a while then,” KateLynn said; “She might be older than 12 when that happens for her.”

“Did you hear them giggling over boys at Kimber’s graduation?” asked Julia. “It’ll happen sooner than I’d really like.”

“They did the same thing at the wedding reception,” said KateLynn; “Rachel dared Aaliyah to go up to one of the teenage boys on Darren’s side of the family and flirt with him. And Aaliyah did it.”

“How did the boy react?”

“Turned as red as your kids’ hair.”

Julia laughed, saying, “Oh I would have loved to have seen that!”

“I’ll bet,” KateLynn said; “Sandrina got herself engaged yesterday. Alex took her completely by surprise. It’s the first time I’d ever seen Sandy at a loss for words.”

“I gather she said yes,” Julia said.

“She did,” KateLynn said. “I hope she and Danica are sleeping the sleep of the dead, because those girls worked damn hard getting that reception together.”

Julia and KateLynn arrived in the lobby, where all the females, except for Jordan, waited for them.

“Where are we going?” Julia asked.

Rachel grinned her gap-toothed smile and said, “It’s a surprise!”

Oh. Great,  Julia thought. I haven’t had enough surprises for one lifetime?

===

IV

As she sat in her stateroom, Mariah took a long, hard look at herself.

She tried to see if there was anything in her face that still looked like her former self.

She was afraid that Natasha had noticed way too much about how she behaved.

You can change your looks, she thought, but you can’t change your mannerisms. That will be my downfall. You don’t live with someone for eight years without noticing things about their behavior.

Mariah had looked at the tape of the conversation between herself and the Dixons in the corridor before she led them to their new stateroom, and she was angry at herself for one thing that she did.

It was twirling her hair.

It was a nervous habit, and most of the time, Mariah had it under control. Today, she didn’t, and she surmised that it was because she felt comfortable around Natasha. Mariah was certain that the older woman noticed.

She had agreed to work for DeepCon, a secret government agency that was in the business of protecting certain members of the President’s Cabinet. Whereas the President himself had the Secret Service, everyone else from the Vice President on down had DeepCon. It was an agency so secretive, that its existence was routinely denied. Not even those being protected by them knew it existed. Darren
Dixon did, because DeepCon was established by his predecessor right after the Government was reformed after the Occupation ended 16 years before.

Mariah’s involvement directly tied into her service in BlackOps, one of the two Disturbed Ones assassin teams. Even though she had been away from it, she still trained with weapons, even while working for the State of Tennessee as the Governor’s press liaison and spokeswoman. It took two years to become Mariah Gadsden. Kylee Sears would die of some fatal malady and be forgotten.

DeepCon didn’t count on one of Kylee’s former BlackOps teammates being the subject of their protection.

Now, however, Mariah worried that the people she had been assigned to protect would recognize her simply from something she did unconsciously.

She decided that if Natasha confronted her about it, she’d give the cover story she had been indoctrinated in from day one of her training.

Mariah hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

===