Chapter 89

I

“Well, Nik, we know who the poor unfortunate soul was we found in the bathtub of Lawrence Carr’s house back in July,” Jeremiah told his brother.

“If I recall, we discovered that the body was female, correct?” Nik asked.

“Yes, and you’ll never guess who it was,” said Jeremiah.

“Question is, do I really want to know?”

“We know it’s not Carr,” Jeremiah said. “He died some time before this discovery. And no females came up missing in the year leading up to the discovery of the body. None that were reported, at any rate.”

“So how did you find out about the identity?” asked Nik; “FOIA request?”

“I wish,” Jeremiah said; “The fucking government wouldn’t grant me a FOIA request, so I got the info illegally. If Dixon finds out about what I had to do, he could throw me in jail.”

“Without going into all the gory details, Jere, just tell me who the bitch was,” Nik said, getting impatient.

“A woman who worked for Lincoln Marsh named Kyla Scardino,” Jeremiah said; “After Marsh essentially abandoned A.R.M., someone decided that someone else had to pay. So Scardino was chosen because she supposedly had first hand knowledge of what happened to Marsh. She didn’t, so she paid with her life.”

“Isn’t she the woman who took Krysta Banks’ place after she defected?” Nik asked.

“Yes, the Public Information Rep,” Jeremiah said. “And I think I know who ordered the hit.”

“Probably not Marsh,” Nik said.

“Obviously not, since he was gone long before this happened,” Jeremiah said; “No I think it was one of Marsh’s hired guns who didn’t take to not being paid to try and kill Julia, so he took it out on the person closest to Marsh.”

“That being Scardino,” Nik said; “She probably didn’t know anything.”

“That’s what I think,” Jeremiah said; “Kyla Scardino was the sacrificial lamb for the ineptitude of A.R.M. After that, someone else took over for Marsh and took the group underground. Problem is, we have no fucking idea who that may be.”

“They’re still on your radar, aren’t they?”

“Damn straight, brother,” Jeremiah said. “If they think that by going underground they’ll get me off their back, they’re sadly mistaken. My expose stops here for now.”

“That sucks, brother,” Nik said; “You’d been working on that story for months.”

“I might still be able to use what I’ve learned about the group to be able to spot a copy cat group or if A.R.M. reemerges at some later date. My investigation shows the group is still broke as a joke. Unless they get someone like Christian DeWitt to back them, they’re shit out of luck. And DeWitt has pretty much turned away from his desire to finance another Occupational government. His family means more to him than that.”

“He has a family?” asked Nik. “I was sure he was a lone wolf.”

“He has young daughters, Nik,” Jeremiah said; “and they mean everything to him. Them and their mother.”

“Can’t say that I blame him,” Nik said; “The love of a good woman, and young children do wonders for some men.”

Jeremiah sighed; I know that’s right, he thought.

===

The interview and evaluation of Kathryn Hope had gone quite well. Rayne Devereaux was still floored by what she found out about Kathryn’s alter Chastity Edwards current status.

It seemed to Devereaux that Chastity was no more. She couldn’t coax the alter from her dominant personality. It was like Chastity never existed.

Devereaux had only read about such occurances in medical journals. She had been right about what she learned from both DeWitt and Kathryn: that a traumatic event, in this case being shot at by her own father, had integrated Chastity’s personality back into Kathryn’s; just as the traumatic event that occured when Kathryn was 14, the abandonment by her “friends” in a drug and sex den and the subsequent rape that followed brought Chastity out to begin with.

Devereaux was more than happy to sign the release papers so that Kathryn  could go home with her family the following morning.

In her notes, Devereaux wrote: thirty-one year old female with one alter was interviewed by me on 19 October, 2035. Patient had a gunshot wound on upper left arm that will cause significant scarring. She reported that she had no idea how she got to the location, her father’s home at Misty Lake, nor any memory of being shot until being brought to the hospital.

Suspecting that this trauma may have permanently suppressed patient’s alter, an evaluation was done to determine if patient could live outside the medical setting. An attempt by me to communicate with patient’s alter failed on two occasions. In my expert opinion, patient is fully integrated and her alter has been permanently suppressed. Patient has agreed to undergo counselling in order to come to terms with the damage her former alter had done during the years she was active.

I have signed papers to release patient back to her family, thus ending my association with her at this time. Signed Lorrayne M. Devereaux this 20th day of October, 2035.

“Go home to your family, Kathryn,” Devereaux said. “and never worry about Chastity again.”

===

II

She had been watching her back since she escaped from the men who wanted to kill her. That was in April. Now October, she kept running until she felt she was safe.

It confounded her that the very people she worked for wanted to kill her for the failures of someone else.

Kyla knew she could never go home. Once she escaped, she went home, grabbed her little girl, and started running with only the clothes on their backs. Now about to move into the state of Illinois, she knew that she and Justina would be safe. Chicago was her destination, and a man named Jere Donovan was who she ran from upstate New York to see.  

She only knew him by reputation. She’d been reading his articles online since she took over for Krysta Banks eighteen months before. He’d published articles on the American Republic Movement, the people Kyla had worked for until their leader Lincoln Marsh abandoned them. She knew there was a price on his head. Men who had worked with him wanted answers from her about where he was. She had no idea where he was, nor did she care. He got away. He was unhappy with the whole group.

One night, as she was leaving to go home, several men surrounded her. Shouting at her, they wanted to know where Marsh was. When she said, again, that she didn’t know, they started to beat her. When she passed out from the pain, they left, sure they had killed her.

Hours later, she came to and found herself in an abandoned house, and these same men were plotting how to dispose of what they thought was her dead body. She heard the words “dismember” and “mutilate” and knew she had to get away.

How, she didn’t know, because she had several broken bones from the beating. Her legs weren’t broken, but her left arm was, as well as all the fingers in her left hand.

Gingerly using her right arm to lift herself from the floor, she saw her way out. Willing herself not to cry out in pain, she ran until she reached her house, where the babysitter was watching her daughter.

Justina was awake, but the babysitter was passed out from booze and pills. Grabbing her three year old, Kyla grabbed the keys to the sitter’s car and her wallet, and she and Justina got in and drove to where Kyla’s car was parked at the office.

Switching cars, Kyla drove her daughter and herself as far as she could before she had to fill up the car again. The only ID she had was the sitter’s, so she became that person. They looked enough alike to be sisters. Using her money card to fill up the tank, Kyla kept going.

When the sitter’s money ran out, Kyla, using the sitter’s name and ID, got medical care for her injuries and got a job waiting tables in a steakhouse. The tips were incredible and the pay was good. She was a hard worker and her bosses liked that she was friendly and popular with the regulars. They even believed the story that she was an abused wife trying to make a better life for herself and her daughter.

After saving a considerable amount of money from that job and a second job cleaning office buildings, she decided to run again, but now, she had a place to run to.

Chicago. To spill the beans on A.R.M. to one of The Triad.

Jere Donovan.

She told her bosses at the steakhouse that she needed to leave immediately, and knowing her story, allowed her to go. One of the owners even gave Kyla extra money to help her out.

She didn’t even bother to tell the people she cleaned offices for. She just didn’t show up for work one night.

Justina didn’t understand why they were leaving. She had just started pre kindergarten and had new friends. All Kyla told her was that the bad men who hurt her mama were coming after her and they had to go.

“Where are we going, Mama?” Justina asked.

“Chicago,” Kyla said. “There’s a man there I need to talk to. He may be able to help us.”

“Will we come back here?”

“I really don’t know, Tina,” Kyla said. “We’ll see.”

Within a week, they were gone and heading to Chicago.

She had no idea what happened to the sitter she left at the house in Collinsville, New York.

Kyla couldn’t have known that the sitter was the “poor unfortunate soul” was found in the bathtub of a house hundreds of miles away to be discovered to by the very man she was running to Chicago to see and his brother.

The whole way into Illinois, Kyla Scardino hoped and prayed that Jeremiah Donovan believed what she was going to tell him about how A.R.M. tried to kill her to pay for Lincoln Marsh’s defection.

===

III

Christine was still reeling over the news that she was pregnant with Jacob’s child.

She decided that she would leave the Army after the baby arrived. She could work as a nurse anywhere.

Now, her only problem now was how to tell Todd what happened.

She’d gotten in touch with him through Jacob’s contacts. Todd, needless to say, was thrilled to hear from her. He confessed that he didn’t have their marriage annulled as they agreed, hoping that she’d come back to him.

“I know you killed the men who wanted me dead,” Christine told him.

“I tried to get in touch with you to tell you, Bethie,” Todd said; “But you’d just pick up and run before I could make contact.”

“I’m sorry that I made it difficult,” she said; “I was always watching my back, and even the slightest hint that someone was getting too close for comfort caused me to run.”

“Is that why you were overseas for most of the time?” asked Todd.

“Partly, yes,” Christine said; “Mostly it was an opportunity to live in another part of the world, where no one knew me as Bethanie Crowley.”

“Yet you came back,” Todd said; “Why?”

“Because I was transferred to Walter Reed to work for my supervisor in Italy, Major Jennings,” said Christine. “She was pleased with my work and wanted me as part of her team here. I’ve been here four years.”

“Does she know about who you were?”

“Not until recently,” Christine said. “When I met Jacob Ross, I felt I had to tell the Major my true identity. She understood and promised to keep my secret.”

She knew Todd wanted to ask about the nature of her relationship with Jacob. She also had a feeling he already knew.

But how much, even Christine would be surprised.

===

Kathryn didn’t know quite what to think.

Chastity, gone forever? she thought; Did I hear Dr. Devereaux correctly?

After what seemed like a marathon session with questions upon questions about her past; about when she first realized that the black outs she experienced were actually the times that Chastity had taken over; what was the longest period of time that Chastity stayed away so that Kathryn could start a relationship and have children; how long before she ended up at her father’s house did she realize that Chastity was trying to take over again?

Then there was the two times that Dr. Devereaux tried to talk to Chastity. Kathryn hadn’t felt the all too familiar feeling that Chastity was trying to emerge during those two attempts to talk to her alter. Maybe Chastity really is dead, Kathryn remembered thinking.

Now, she might get to go home!

She was shocked at Christian’s confession that he needed her in his life more than she needed him.

“What does that mean for us, Christian?” she had asked.

“It means that I can’t live without you, and I would do anything-- lie, cheat, steal, kill-- to make sure you and the girls had everything you needed. That I always had your love,” Christian said. “I value your love above all else. Even my fortune.”

“But I’ve caused you so much pain and worry,” Kathryn said; “I don’t deserve you.”

“Oh, Kathryn, my beautiful girl,” Christian said; “It is I who doesn’t deserve you. You are everything to me! You say that I saved you from a life not of your choosing; but in reality, it is you who saved me from a life of loneliness. I was a very unhappy and lonely man before you graced my life.”

Kathryn felt the tears fall, and Christian wiped them away. “It amazes me that I’m worth your tears, Kathryn,” he said.

“I want to come home, Christian,” she said.

“Soon, my love,” Christian said; “Soon I will take you away from this place and take you home. It all depends on what happens with the doctor they’re bringing in to see you.”

But now, Kathryn dared hope that she was finally, after half a lifetime of battling someone who wanted to take over her life entirely, “normal”.

She was going home!

===

IV

Looking over some papers, Darren Dixon came to a conclusion.

If A.R.M. was still underground by the start of the new year, he would petition the President to allow Julia, Nik and Jeremiah to end their service to CIA and go back to their regular lives.

“Who am I kidding, they hardly have ‘regular’ lives,” he said aloud to no one in his office; “They’ll always be, like Natasha, ‘heroes of the Resistance’. How normal a life could they have?”

Things at home were changing, too; Sandrina had moved out before the start of the new semester at Georgetown to move in with her fiance, Alex. Danica was preparing to do the same and move in with her boyfriend, Bryan Costner, by the end of the year. It would just be he, Natasha, and the twins at home.

He and Natasha had agreed to try and have a child, though the odds were against them. Natasha began seeing specialists to see if she was still able to bear a child. The preliminary good news was that it appeared that Natasha had not entered menopause, and could still conceive a child. This made Darren happy. The twins, not so much.

“Aren’t you guys a little, um, old to be having babies?” asked Nikky. His sister kicked him for asking that question.

“It won’t be easy,” Natasha told her son, “but it’s not impossible. We’ll just have to see how it goes with the doctors and such.”

“I hope you can do it, Mom,” Vixen said; “I’d love to have a baby sister or brother.”  

“Eww, Vix...” Nikky said.

“Grow up, Nikky,” Vixen said, sticking out her tongue at her brother.

Natasha looked at Darren and said, “Oh this will be fun! Can you imagine nine months of this?”

Darren just shook his head.

As he sat at his desk in his office at Langley, he thought about a lot of things. His life with Natasha, returning “The Triad” to their usual lives, maybe even dare think about retirement.

But that was months off.

One thing at a time, he thought.

===

The following morning, a nurse poked her head into Kathryn’s room and asked, “Are you ready to go home, Ms. Hope?”

“I’ve been ready to go home since I got here, to be honest,” Kathryn replied.

“Your discharge orders have been signed and you’re officially not a patient of this hospital. When your family shows up, we’ll send you all home,” the nurse said.

“Thank you,” Kathryn said.

Less than an hour later, Christian and the girls showed up and Kathryn was more than ready to leave. She was eager to start her new life without worrying about Chastity invading it anymore.

“Mom,” Helene said; “Dad said we could all have breakfast at this little place we found not far from here. They have the best French toast!”

“Mmm, French toast,” Kathryn said, laughing; “I’ll be the judge of that!”

Christian was grinning from ear to ear. Kathryn couldn’t recall ever seeing him grin quite like that. She only had one request.

“Can we go see my father and Krysta?”

“Sure,” Christian said; “I’m sure they’d like to hear the good news. And you can see Kelly before she and Miri go home to Northwestern.”

“I hope Miri doesn’t think we’re all weird here in New York,” Kathryn said.

“Considering Miri’s family, I’m sure this is much different than what she has to deal with all the time,” Christian said.

They left the hospital, had breakfast (where the French toast was as fabulous as Helene implied), then headed toward Eric Hope’s house on the lake.

===

The phone rang at the main offices of the Times-Tribune. It was the tip line, and the number was published at the bottom of every page of the online newspaper.

“Times-Tribune TipLine,” said an operator; “How may I direct your call?”

“I’d like to pass along some information to Jere Donovan about a story he’s been working on,” said the caller in a nervous voice.

“May I have your name?”

“Do I have to? I’d rather not give it to anyone but Mr. Donovan.”

“You can give me any name, it doesn’t have to be yours,” the operator said.

The caller sighed on the other end of the line, then said, “Tell him that...Skylar Sullivan...would like to speak with him about his story on the American Republic Movement.”

“Let me see if he’s free, Ms. Sullivan. One moment please.”

“Thank you,” Skylar Sullivan said.

While she was on hold, Kyla Scardino-Sullivan wondered why she gave her given name to a man she’d never met.

===