Chapter 78

I

Miri knocked on the door of the entryway as she and John made their way inside, saying, “Anyone home?”

Just then Rachel literally came flying out of the kitchen yelling, “Miri! You’re home!”

Miri braced herself knowing that Rachel was going to jump on her, and that’s exactly what her little sister did. “Whoa, Rach!  It’s good to see you, too! Say hi to John. You remember him, right?”

Before Rachel could answer, Julia made her way into the foyer and gave her daughter a hug. “It’s about damn time you two got here!” she exclaimed jokingly; “I’ve been holding dinner forever!”

She then saw John standing behind Miri and said, “John, nice to see you again. Thank you for bringing Miri home.”

“It was my pleasure, Julia,” he said; “I hope that I can spend some time with Miri while I’m on leave.”

“Well, then,” Julia said, sighing slightly; “I hope you don’t mind coming to my father’s funeral. That’s where we’re headed tomorrow morning.”

“Mom!” Miri said.

“Now Mirielle,” said Julia; “If he wants to spend time with you, then unfortunately, your grandfather’s funeral will have to be part of the itinerary. Besides, I included him in our reservation.”

Miri and John looked at each other, then at Julia and said, “You did?”

“Yes,” said Julia; “But separate rooms, of course. John, you’ll be sharing a room at my sister’s house in Georgetown with Zach and his cousin Nikolai, and possibly Peter and Dan San Marco as well. I trust that won’t be a problem.”

“No ma’am. I’m okay with those arrangements,” John said; he noticed Julia’s tough as nails attitude and wondered if it was masking her true feelings. After all, the woman just lost her biological father. He knew they had been close. Julia Summers seemed to be the type to mourn in private.

He wasn’t too far off the mark.

He did notice that Miri looked horrified. He made a note to himself to ask her about it later.

“We’ve set you a place at the table, John,” Julia said now, smiling. “We’re doing potluck tonight. Everyone made something different. Take what you like.”

“I love potluck night!” Rachel said. “I made the brownies for dessert! Aaliyah helped me and Mom supervised.”

“I look forward to trying one, then,” John said.

“Jaime made the enchiladas before she and her Uncle Nik went to Belvidere to tend to her horses,” Julia said; “After we return from Washington, we’ll be moving up there, and Kimber, Jamey and their son will move in here.”

“I helped Jamey pack everything in their house,” Zach said to John. “The only things they’ll need to bring are themselves, their clothes, and all the baby’s stuff.”

“Rachel, you said Aaliyah helped you with the brownies,” Miri said; “She didn’t want to stay for dinner?”

“Uncle Jere and Aunt Jas came and got her so they could get ready to fly out for Grandpa Jacob’s funeral,” Rachel said; “They’re leaving tonight.”

“If you want to eat, you better get to the table before all the good stuff is gone,” Julia said. Soon, all her children, save for Jaime, and John Crossley sat around the same table that she sat around with her brothers and Peter and Kiera. Soon, Kimber and Jamey will sit at the same table with their family.

Mom was right, she thought; it’s just the circle of life.

===

Aaliyah looked out the window of the plane as it was in line to take off from O’Hare. She wanted to stay and have dinner with Rachel and her family, but her parents had other plans.

Jeremiah looked over at his youngest and asked, “What’s wrong, Liyah?”

“I’m officially pissed off.”

Uh oh, Jeremiah thought; he then asked, “Why is that?”

“Because Rachel is leaving tomorrow. Why couldn’t we leave tomorrow?” the girl said.

“Because we need to find our own arrangements for lodging, and we are staying the same hotel that Uncle Joe, Aunt Tracy and Kendria are staying in,” Jeremiah explained.

“So?”

“So, the only time we could get is late tonight, since Uncle Joe made the reservations,” said Jeremiah; “I’m sorry if that upsets you, Aaliyah.”

“Where’s Adriana going to stay, Daddy?” asked Aaliyah.

“She’s coming tomorrow and will stay with Sandrina and Alex,” her father said; “She’s flying out of Oklahoma City.”

“Hey Dad,” Adam said; “Is it true that the airport in Oklahoma City is named after a guy who died in a plane crash?”

Jeremiah looked at his son. Adam, of late, had been asking all kinds of questions about Oklahoma. He knew that Adam had made inquiries about going to the University of Oklahoma like his sister, but had not officially applied.

“I’m not really sure, Adam,” Jeremiah said; “We could look it up. I do know that Will Rogers was a humorist and made political commentary of his time. I think he did die in a plane crash, but I don’t want to say yes or no in case I’m wrong.”

“Jere, you’re almost never wrong about that stuff,” Jasmine said; She was sitting across the aisle with Arielle.

“But, Jas, I really am not sure about that. It’s not like we learned it in school or during our lessons as kids.”

Jasmine managed to convince Aaliyah to change seats with her, and she took her daughter’s place in the seat next to the window. Once situated, she whispered to her husband,

“The famous journalist Jere Donovan doesn’t know something? I think I may faint!”

“Stop it, Jas!” Jeremiah whispered in reply, embarrassed; “I’m only human, you know.”

“I know, baby,” Jasmine said; “I like teasing you. It makes being married to you and being the mother of four much more fun.”

“Jasmine...” Jeremiah said as he kissed the woman who had won his heart many summers ago; “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ve been in the doldrums since hearing that Jacob had passed. You just reminded me that the last person who would want people to mourn his passing is Jacob Ross. You always knew how to ease my mind.”

“That’s in the job description when I agreed to marry you, Jere,” Jasmine said; “Remember, in the airport when Joe, Tracy and Danica were going back to Maine?”

Jeremiah sat back in his seat, remembering.

It still wasn’t going to make the passing of his trainer any easier, but it was a nice memory to take his mind off it for a while.

===

II

Kendria Donovan and her service dog, Boat, were waiting at Reagan National Airport for her parents flight from Boston to get in. She tapped her foot nervously until Boat put his paw on it. He then looked up at her as if to say, Stop that! It won’t get them here any faster.

Kendria scratched the backs of Boat’s ears and sighed. She was not the most patient of people. She had always been that way, even before the accident that caused her traumatic brain injury.

Her doctors were pleased with her progress since she started attending Harvard earlier in the year. She was excelling in her classes, but overdoing it caused her to be tired. It was her service dog’s job to keep her calm and relaxed. He had become a fixture on the vast historic campus. A lot of young men took notice of Kendria because of her dog.

Because of a scheduling problem, Kendria actually was booked on a flight that left Boston’s Logan Airport three hours before her parents. Her dad was pretty cool about it and told his second born daughter that he and her mother would just meet her at the airport in Washington.

Meanwhile, she had called her sister, Danica. She and her boyfriend Bryan would meet her at a predetermined location at the airport and that is where Kendria and Boat were when Danica spotted her.

“Kendree!” Danica said as she hugged her sister; “How did the airlines get your reservations all fucked up?”

Kendria sighed, saying, “I have no idea, sis. One minute, I was waiting for Mom and Dad; the next, they’re telling me to get on a plane due a computer mixup. So, here we are.”

“Mom and Dad know about this?” asked Danica.

“Yeah, I called them while waiting to board the plane,” Kendria replied. “Dad wasn’t happy, but he just went with the flow.”

While the sisters were talking, Boat was growling at Bryan.

“Hey, boy, I’m not here to hurt Kendria,” Bryan was saying to the dog.

Kendria laughed; “Let him sniff you, Bryan. He needs to know your scent. To him, you’re a stranger.”

So Bryan allowed the dog to sniff him, and after determining that Bryan was a friend, laid down at Kendria’s feet without another sound.

Bryan just looked at the dog and asked, “Is he always like that with strangers?”

“Yeah,” Kendria said; “First day of classes, he was sniffing everyone. A lot of people thought it was funny and went along with it. Not even the profs were spared. Boat doesn’t like my Organic Chem prof though.”

“Why’s that?” asked Danica.

“I think it’s because the prof made a joke about using Boat for an experiment,” Kendria said. “I didn’t think it was funny and Boat picked up on that.”

“Smart dog,” Bryan said; “So he can sense your moods and emotions?”

“That’s his main job,” Kendria said; “He’s supposed to keep me out of trouble as far as stress is concerned. Doesn’t help that I’m taking 22 hours this semester. Stress is my companion just as sure as this dog is.”

“You seem to be handling it well, Kendree,” Danica said.

“I kinda have to, Danica,” Kendria said; “So I go to therapy twice a week, too. The docs in Boston are awesome! They’re teaching me stuff that I didn’t learn at home about managing my stress.”

“When do you sleep?” asked Bryan.

“When I’m dead,” Kendria said, echoing an overused quip of her father’s. Danica just rolled her eyes as Bryan laughed.

===

Pike looked at the lengthy obituary printed in the Times-Tribune’s online edition and said to himself, so The Triad are all going to be there. With their families. This is too fucking perfect!


“We won’t get Draiman’s twin daughters, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something to punish them with,” Pike said aloud in his penthouse apartment overlooking Times Square. “Maybe snatch Kimber Draiman’s baby boy; or make Niki Draiman watch as her husband is killed before her eyes.”

That made Richard Pike smile evilly.

He got on the phone and spoke with a man he hired to perform assassinations.

“Yes. Arlington National Cemetery. The Triad. Their families. Draiman, his whore and their sons. The whole lot of them if you can manage it. Leave no one alive to tell the tale. Payment is ten percent now, the balance when you can show me proof they’re all dead. If you don’t succeed, don’t even bother coming back. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

After getting the response he expected, Pike ended the call. He then sat back and thought about what he’d do to the Draiman’s twin daughters if he got the chance. Then he had another image pop into his head.

Redheaded girl about 13. Tall, lithe; gonna be a stunner when she’s grown, he thought. “Ah, Jameson, you’ll be my pet someday. You don’t know it yet, but you will cater to my every sick, demented fantasy. And you’ll do it because to refuse me means punishment, and I don’t care if it hurts you. I’ll never kill you because you’ll be mine forever. But having my way with you is something I can wait for. When you’re just old enough to satisfy me. And no one...not your mother; sisters, brother, cousins or uncles, will get in my way. I take what I want. And what I want in about eight years or so, my dear, is you.”

Pike went to his desk drawer and pulled out a large manila envelope. Inside was a photo of the young woman in question, taken while he was stalking her from her home on the old Disturbed Ones compound, to where her horses were kept in Belvidere, Illinois. “One day, my dear...” he said to himself.

===

III

David, Jordan, and the boys arrived in Washington around three-thirty in the morning. Though they all slept on the private flight from Austin, they were still tired when they arrived.

“Why are we here so fucking early in the morning?” asked Sam grumpily. “We couldn’t do this in the daytime like normal people?” What are we, vampires?”

“I feel like one sometimes,” John added, rubbing his eyes. “All this travelling in the middle of the night got old when we were about five years old. I wanted to go see Kimber and the baby, but noooo... we had to get on the Draiman happy flight as soon as Mom and Dad came back.”

“Good God, you boys complain a lot,” Jordan said testily. “How do your girlfriends put up with your crap?”

“They love us?” John quipped.

David was settling up with the pilot and making arrangements for the return trip.

“We will want to swing by Chicago for a couple of days to see the new grandchild and introduce him to his uncles,” David was saying. “I know Jordan and I were just there, but the boys were in classes, then Mr. Ross died. It’s been a wild week.”

“We’ll be waiting, Mr. Draiman,” the pilot said; “Whenever you want to go, we’ll be ready.”

“That’s great,” said David; “My boys are probably complaining about being yanked out of a sound sleep at this ungodly hour, but when you’re always under a constant death threat, we have to outwit the people who want me gone.”

David then walked over to where Jordan, Sam and John stood just inside the terminal at Reagan National.

“Let’s go find a cab and get to our hotel,” David said, suddenly sounding tired. “I’m beat.”

John and Sam had nothing to say about that, they were so tired; but their mother only raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” she asked.

“It is so, my dear,” David said. “I think I’m starting to feel my age.”

“Really?” Jordan deadpanned. “Maybe it’s this flying in the middle of the night that’s making you ‘feel your age’.”

“Jord, you have me pegged there,” David said, smiling. Even that looked tired to Jordan. “Which kid made the quip about vampires this time?”

“Sam did,” Jordan said as she saw that both their sons had fallen asleep on the chairs in the private terminal. “You want to wake them up, or shall I do it?”

“You do it, Jord,” David said; “They won’t bite your head off.”

Jordan awoke her sons for the second time that evening and they went in search of a cab. Even dog tired, John felt his sixth sense tingling. Someone was following them. And it wasn’t a good thing.

===

“Well, Drew, we get to go home later today,” Kimber said to her son as he drifted off to sleep; “This time tomorrow, you’ll be sleeping in your own little bed, in your own room. We’ll be across the hall at the new house. Auntie Julia is letting us have her house! Isn’t that cool?”

Drew’s eyes popped open for half a second, then he closed them again.

Kimber put the baby back in his isolette and got his little going home outfit ready for the morning. She had a bag loaded up with sample bottles of formula, newborn size diapers, bulb syringes, and a couple of thermometers.

Jamey would be there in the morning to bring his family home. Tonight, he was working the overnight shift at the paper. Kimber knew that he’d soon be going home to sleep so he’d be rested when he came to get her and Drew.

She got back into bed and tried to drift off to sleep herself, but sleep wasn’t coming for her. She thought about Jacob and how it must have been a relief to finally let go. She knew that he had been suffering from various physical maladies for most of her life.

I sure would have liked to have gotten to go to the funeral, she thought; but Drew had other plans.

Soon, Kimber had fallen asleep, but someone was watching who should not have been. They’d never get a chance to do what they came there to do, because before Jamey Duncan arrived to pick up Kimber and their son, they would get caught.

===

John Crossley usually had no trouble falling asleep in strange places. It was part of his training. He wondered if it was the place he found himself currently that was making it hard to sleep.

In the bedroom of the brother of the girl he was crazy about. Miri was just down the hall.

Pretend you’re in some overnight field training exercise, he thought to himself; forget that Miri is at the other end of the hallway from you.

“You not sleepin’either, John?” Zach’s voice came out of the blue, briefly startling John.

“No, I’m not,” John said; “Why are you awake, Zach?”

“There’s something not right going on nearby,” Zach said. “I can feel it.”

“Is this the sixth sense that Miri talks about a lot?” John asked.

“Yes, I think it is, and if I’m not mistaken, my sisters aren’t sleeping either,” Zach said; “Maybe not even my mom is sleeping.”

John just lay back on the spare bed in Zach’s room. He might be right, John thought. In all the letters Miri sent, she always mentioned the sixth sense thing. And she was never wrong. I wonder if having that ability was a blessing or a curse.

He would soon find out the answer to that, and not in a pleasant way.

===

The phone rang and Nik reached over to see who would have the balls to be calling him at... 4:38am. When he saw it was Jeremiah, he knew he had to answer it.

“Talk to me, Jere, what’s goin’ on?” he asked.

“You’re not going to fucking believe this, Nik,” Jeremiah said. He sounded tired.

“Probably not, but tell me anyway.”

“There have been threats made against our lives. All of us. You, me, Julia, Joe, Tash... and all our families and anyone who shows up at Jacob’s funeral on Friday,” Nik said, clearly disgusted. “And guess where it came from. Just take a wild stab in the fucking dark.”

Nik sighed, then said, “A.R.M.?”

“Winner, winner chicken dinner!” Jeremiah said sarcastically. “Whoever’s now in charge has sent an entire fucking army after us. Oh, and not just those of us who will actually be at the funeral, but family members who, for one reason or another, cannot be there.”

“You mean Niki in Austin, and Kimber here,” Nik said. Now he was just as disgusted.

Just then, Peter arrived at the doorway of his parents bedroom. “Dad?” he said.

“Hold on Jere,” Nik said; “Pete’s here for some reason.”

“Okay, brother.”

Nik turned to his son and asked, “What is it, Pete?”

“There’s something very wrong going on here,” the college freshman said. He had come home from Yale for Jacob’s funeral so he could travel with his family.

“What is it?”

“Like we’re being stalked. Just like that time that creep was following Sandy around.”

“I have Uncle Jere on the phone, Pete, hold up a sec, okay?”

The boy nodded, then Nik turned his attention back to the phone call. “You hear that Jere?”

“Yeah, we’re in some deep shit,” Jeremiah said; “We should be packing heat.”

“Tash has plenty of heat at her place,” Nik said; “We’ll talk about this with her and Darren when we get there.”

“I just got here, and I was thinking of doing that after I got a little sleep,” said Jeremiah; “I have a very pissed of nine year old who thinks we could have waited until today to travel.”

“We will be there about 1pm local time,” Nik said; “If it weren’t for the fact that KateLynn was at the hospital tonight, we’d arrive earlier.”

“We’ll talk when you get here, because Julia and her brood will be there about the same time,” Jeremiah said; “And, we’ll get to finally meet that Army Staff Sergeant that Miri is so crazy about. He’s coming, too.”

Great, Nik thought, nothing like having a stranger mixed up in this. Aloud to Jeremiah he said, “I’ve spoken to him a couple of times while Julia was still in hiding, but have never met him in person except that one time when the convoy came to pick up Julia and her family from Austin. This will be interesting.”

“Indeed,” Jeremiah said; “I know I woke you up, so go back to sleep and I’ll see you later on today.”

“Thanks, brother,” Nik said and closed out the call. Peter was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but he didn’t look like himself.

Oh, dear God, Nik thought; Peter’s taken over my boy’s mind again.

===