Authors: Kathy Disanto
I choked on my ice again, then
gasped, “Bri? Kev?”
Tears threatened, but I dammed the
spillway, because
Never let them see you cry, never let them see you sweat
is one of my three unbreakable rules, the other two being
Dig until you find
the truth
, and
Tell it like it is
.
My brothers and I grew up on our
family’s sprawling estate in the Sierra Nevada foothills. We may be spread all
over the globe now—me in New Frisco; Jim in the D of C; Kevin in Connecticut;
and Brian the California equivalent of a nomad, with penthouses in L.A., Rio,
and Porto-Vecchio—but no matter where we hang our hats, when we say
home
,
we mean the ranch. Mom and Dad still live there when Congress isn’t in
session, and that’s where we all gather for Christmas and such.
As soon as I could walk, the guys
decided to raise me right. So, they took me under their collective wing and
included me in all their adventures. Rambling up rocky rises and plunging
through dry, brush-choked ravines in the wake of three older brothers
definitely gave me an athletic, rough-and-tumble skill set. Also a personal
style I like to think of as assertive, although I can be, and have been,
described as in your face. What can I say? My brothers helped make me the
woman I am today—a natural-born swashbuckler and unapologetic tomboy. I love
them so much it hurts.
“I’m here, too, Stretch.”
A hint of sandalwood, the warm grasp
of long, strong fingers. My oldest brother, Jim. I pictured his chiseled
features—tanned and clean-shaven with Dad’s square jaw and piercing, amber gaze
under arched black eyebrows. A face unreadable to defense attorneys trying to
poke holes in his prosecution but an open book to me.
“Hey,” I murmured, curling my fingers
gratefully around his.
He leaned down to kiss my left
cheek. “Hey, yourself. About time you woke up.”
“Remember what I told you,
gentlemen.” Ramirez’s voice sounded different—softer, less professional, sort
of ... honeyed. Despite the circumstances, one corner of my mouth kicked up
wryly. “Keep the conversation light. How she got here and the extent of her
injuries are strictly off limits for now. We’ll go over all that when your
parents arrive. Dennis and I will give you some privacy, but we’ll be right
down the hall, if you need us.”
“I don’t get it,” I muttered when I
was fairly sure the four of us were alone.
Kevin’s voice to my right: “What?
The fact that she thinks we’re gentlemen?” He ruffled my hair—which was how I
discovered the bandages didn’t cover my whole head—and I caught a whiff of the
cherry tobacco he favored.
The scent called up a quick mental
image of my youngest brother leaning back in his office chair, feet crossed
atop the leather blotter on his scarred cherry wood desk as he packed his pipe
and contemplated the mysteries of the universe. Jet-black hair curling down to
his collar, sparkling blue eyes, lethal dimples beneath high, sculpted
cheekbones. Six feet, three inches of lean, muscled male and a long step
removed from your stereotypical philosophy professor. But doctor of philosophy
he is, and he has the Mensa IQ, the list of publications as long as your arm,
and the office at prestigious Chandler University in Waterbury, Connecticut to
prove it.
“That, too. But what I honestly
don’t get is what women see in you guys.”
“Well, I know what they see in
me
,”
Brian offered. “But these two clowns? It’s a mystery, little sister. A
complete mystery.”
At six-two, Bri is an inch shorter
than Jim and Kev and four inches taller than my five-ten. He’s the only one of
us kids to inherit Dad’s dishwater blond hair. But unlike Dad, who’s always
impeccably groomed, Brian wears his hair finger-combed, if combed at all.
That, his easy-going manner, and his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped build are
classic surfer dude; but my brother’s interest in waves is purely commercial
and limited to those lapping the immaculate, white-sand beaches fronting his
highly profitable string of luxury hotels.
“Never mind him. How are you
feeling?” asked Jim.
I licked my lips. “A little rocky.”
“Yeah, well, you look a little
rocky,” he agreed with a blunt, brotherly candor I found oddly reassuring. “Here,
have some more ice.”
“Mm.”
“Did they give you something for the
pain?”
“Um-hm. Head’s not thumping so bad
now,” I mumbled around the ice.
“That’s good.” He lifted my hand to
kiss my knuckles. “I talked to Dad right before we came up. You know they’re
at the Les Grandes, right?”
“So I hear.”
“Well, they’re on the way.” He gave
it a beat before adding, “Dickson is driving.”
Another beat passed while they waited
for me to pick up on my cue.
“What’s the pool look like?” I
murmured, belatedly.
Betting on Dickson’s no-holds-barred
piloting is a time-honored Gregson sibling tradition. I wasn’t so far out in
left field that I didn’t get what my brothers were up to, of course. They had
been giving me the unruffled and ready-to-push-your-buttons treatment since
they walked through the door. Like I wouldn’t pick up on the undercurrents. They
were worried about me, but they would keep the conversation light, if it killed
them. No wonder I’m crazy about these guys.
“Twenty credits each. You in?” I
nodded. “Okay, I have it fifteen minutes from the time I called, Brian puts it
at seventeen, Kev figures twenty.”
“It’s rush hour,” Kevin pointed out
a tad defensively, and I was forced to admit he had a point.
In the fifty years since the Big One
weighed in at 10.5 on the Richter Scale and reduced eighty percent of old San
Fran to a smoking pile of rubble, New Frisco has been growing by leaps and
bounds. With two strikes against them, a less
Carpe diem, baby!
populace would have taken the hint and rebuilt the city further inland. But
San Franciscans have been teetering on the San Andreas brink for so long,
they’ve developed a taste for life on the edge. Besides,
City by the San
Joaquin
doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The new infrastructure is supposed
to be quake-proof. Nobody actually buys that, but we’re not a million Chicken
Littles waiting for the skyscrapers to fall again, either. Fog City has always
attracted the free spirit and the risk-taker like a magnet attracts pig iron.
We’re a boom town at heart—a little bit rough and ready, a little bit anything
goes. Knowing what’s here today could be gone tomorrow only adds spice to the
mix.
But with civic growth at an all-time
high, air traffic control has been hard pressed to keep up with the influx. Hence,
the legendary multilevel snarl known as Golden Gate Gridlock.
Mile-high traffic jam
notwithstanding, I shook my head. “Ten minutes. Tops.”
“From the Les Grandes at this time
of day?” scoffed Bri. “Never happen.”
“Unless Dickson uses the first-responder
tier,” Jim mused slowly. “Fast lane at a thousand feet, then a quick dive to
street level.”
“That maneuver is only for
emergencies!” Kevin protested.
“Yeah, but Stretch is Dickson’s
pet,” Bri countered.
“Damn. You may be right. He’s been
worried sick about her.”
“How can you tell?” asked Bri.
“He’s only got the one dour expression.”
Picturing the expression in question
brought a faint smile to my face.
Dad’s bodyguard cum chauffeur, Bart
Dickson, is a hard, square slab of a man with one of those don’t-mess-with-me
faces that encourages would-be assailants to think twice. His hawk-like nose
was obviously broken more than once in his special forces career. A jagged
scar zigzags down his left cheek, slicing whitely through perpetual five-o’clock
shadow. The grim, determined line of his lips rarely softens.
“He asked about her,” Kevin replied
glumly. “Twice.”
“And you waited until now to tell
us? We’re toast.”
As silly as it was, their banter was
a lifeline in my darkness. If it hadn’t been for my brothers’ voices, their
touches, their mingled scents, and the offbeat normalcy of the whole
conversation, I don’t know what I would have done. I was awake enough at that
point to have questions. A ton of them. Coherent enough to understand something
terrible had happened, aware enough to sense the world-tilt of events gone
horribly wrong. Memories threatened to surface, and given my present predicament,
it was safe to assume they wouldn’t be pretty. So be it. Better an ugly
story, than no story at all.
“—all right? Stretch! I said, are
you all right?”
Brian’s agitated tone captured my
wandering attention. “Sorry. Guess I zoned out for a minute. I’m fine, Bri.”
“Well, don’t do it again. You were
quiet for so long, we thought you went back under.”
I fingered the bandages around my
eyes. “I guess it is kind of hard to tell if I’m awake with—”
“Oh,
Amanda!
”
At the sound of Mom’s voice,
unsteady but brimming with relief, Jim let go of my hand. I sensed him make
room, and before I knew it, I was enveloped in the familiar scent of gardenias,
and her small, soft hands were cradling my face.
“Thank God,” she breathed against my
cheek. “Thank God!”
“How’s my girl?” Dad murmured
tenderly in his aristocratic Tidewater drawl. I felt him lean close, felt his
lips touch the crown of my head. His cologne was light, clean, citrusy. “You
gave us quite a scare, daughter.”
“I’m okay, Dad.”
“She’s a tough nut,” growled Dickson
in his gravelly bass.
Tough nut
was
Bart’s highest compliment.
Mom reclaimed my attention when she
let go of my face to take my left hand, her fingers carefully skirting the IV.
“How do you feel? What did the doctor say?”
“I’ve felt better and not much. I
hope she unwraps me pretty soon, so I can keep an eye on her. I want to be
able to see what she’s up to.” Dead silence. “Mom?”
“I heard you, sweetheart.”
But she sounded uneasy now. On
edge. I started to get one of those bad feelings you hear so much about.
“What’s wrong?”
Dad stroked my hair. “Not a thing,
darlin’. Your mother has been worried about you, that’s all. As were your
brothers and I. Now, what did Doctor Ramirez say?”
He gave it his best shot, but he
sounded exactly the way he had when that twerp Billy Jackson, whose head came maybe
to my chin, dumped me in front of the whole school on eighth-grade prom night.
I believe Billy’s exact words on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion were,
“Take a hike, Beanpole!” Dad held me while I cried, murmuring endearments and
reassurances the way people do when they know they can’t take away the hurt.
Hearing that tone now wasn’t a good sign.
“Like I said, not much,” I replied
slowly. “Claimed she didn’t want to get into the details until I was firing on
all cylinders. Promised to give me the whole rundown when the rest of you got
here.”
Again with the silence. Okay,
either being blindfolded was playing games with my head, or there was something
they weren’t telling me. If it was the latter—and my well-honed instincts jangled
a warning that it was—that could only spell one thing:
bad news
. I
didn’t want to hear it, but I
had
to know. Call it an occupational
hazard.
“You’re all here now,” I pointed
out.
After what felt like a highly
charged pause, Dad cleared his throat. “So we are. James, would you ask the
doctor to join us?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“Now you listen to me, Amanda Joy
Gregson,” Mom ordered in a fierce undertone, tightening her grip on my
fingers. “You’re going to be fine, do you hear? You’re going to be just
fine.”
“That’s what they tell me.” Over
and over. Which meant we weren’t talking
bad news.
I swallowed hard.
We’re
talking
very
bad news
.
Maybe two minutes later, Doctor
Ramirez said, “I hear our patient is ready for some information.”
“I don’t know how ready I am,” I admitted,
“but I think it’s time I got the story.”
“I agree. How do you want it?”
My brow furrowed under the
bandages. “Excuse me?”
“Do you want the executive summary,
or would you prefer a Q&A?”
She was offering me a measure of
control, I realized with a surge of gratitude. “I live for Q&A, Doc. You
can fill in the blanks afterwards. Okay?”
“All right.” I heard the scrape of
a chair being drawn up on the right side of the bed, opposite Mom. “You may
fire when ready, Gridley.”
It’s amazing how quickly you learn
to read voices when you can’t read facial expressions. Ramirez didn’t sound
flip, but she didn’t sound funereal, either. So why all the familial tiptoeing
around? My condition wasn’t dire, only serious bordering on dire? Slightly reassured
without knowing why, I got down to business.
“How did I get hurt?”
“There was an explosion.”
“You’re kidding! When did this
happen? Where?”
“The night of September fourth. Near
Pier One. Down where all those old warehouses are.”
An explosion near Pier One, down
where all those old warehouses are.
The words roused the dark memory coiled in the recesses of my mind; but when I
tried to grab it, it shrank back into its hole.
“What was I doing down there?” I
wondered absently, still probing the fissure in my consciousness.
“The authorities refuse to part with
the specifics, but it appears you were either with, or had followed, two CIIS
agents.”
CIIS being shorthand for Continental
Intelligence and Investigative Service. Sixty years ago—before the global
economic meltdown and rampant cross-border drug wars forced Mexico, Canada, and
the United States into the ultimate merger, giving birth to the country now
known as Tri-America—the U.S. tossed a mishmash of law enforcement and
intelligence services into a pot watched by an umbrella agency called Homeland
Security. But day-to-day operations were herky-jerky, turf wars were common,
and vital intelligence continued to fall through the cracks. When the three
countries joined hands to become one big, happy family, all law enforcement and
intelligence organizations were combined. One agency with two fluid divisions
under one chain of command equals zero competition. That’s the theory, anyway.
The question was, how and why had I
crossed paths with the feds on steroids this time?
I flashed on an image: a man’s
face. Round, coffee-dark, young. Skin smooth and unscarred.
“I think I remember one of them,” I said.
“He had dreadlocks and a gold stud in his left ear.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“I’m trying.” I shook my head.
“It’s there, but when I try to pin it down ….”
“You can’t force it, Amanda. With
the physical and psychological trauma you’ve sustained, you may never remember
the events leading up to your injury.”
Oh, no. I would remember, all
right. I would remember, because I had to, for reasons that went way beyond
personal. I didn’t understand how I knew that, but I was sure of it. Still,
the doc was right–no use trying to force it. Not yet, anyway.
“Tell me about the explosion.”
“All I know is, it was powerful
enough to ignite the entire block. Police and fire departments from all over
the city responded. Even with so many first responders on hand, they almost
missed you. You were dressed in dark clothing, crumpled unconscious against a
brick wall five feet beyond the entrance to an alley almost a block away from
the explosion’s point of origin. The buildings on either side of the alley
were fully involved.” She paused. “As precarious as that sounds, the location
actually saved your life by protecting you from the full force of the blast and
the worst of the debris and shrapnel.”
“And the two agents?”
“As I said, it was an extremely
powerful explosion. And they were evidently very close to the source.”
“Oh, God.” Emotion rolled over me
in waves. Sadness because two people were dead, the realization of how close I
had come to joining them, the guilt because I hadn’t. I bore the brunt of it,
then blew out a shaky breath.
Let’s get this over with.
The sooner I
knew the rest of the facts, the sooner I could start to deal with them. I
turned my head toward the doctor. “How long have I been here? How badly am I
hurt?”
“You were admitted a week ago and until
last night, you were in the ICU. You have multiple contusions and abrasions,
some of them quite severe. Two gashes, one on your right shoulder and another
on your forehead, required nanosutures. You suffered a concussion, probably as
a result of being thrown against the wall by the blast. Your right arm was
broken, as well. Fortunately, it was a clean, closed fracture of the ulna.
Barring complications, you should be in the ultrasonic cast for another week.”
In other words, I looked as beat up
as I felt. I would have shrugged it off as could-have-been-worse, but Mom’s
hand was still clamped around my fingers, which pretty much ruled out the
subjunctive. It
was
worse.
“What about the bandages around my
head?”
“You were apparently watching the
agents from your hiding place in the alley when the blast occurred. Frankly,
it’s a miracle your eardrums didn’t rupture. Perhaps you screamed, your open
mouth equalizing the pressure.” Imagining it, I shuddered inwardly, as she
continued, “In any case, the upper half of your face and your right shoulder
were peppered by shrapnel, some of it large, accounting for the gashes.”
“Am I ... disfigured?” That would
explain the half-turban.
“Not in the way you mean, no. The
collagen bonds formed quickly, and the wound edges knitted together
seamlessly. You won’t even have scars. The most serious damage was to your
eyes.”
My stomach slid queasily. “My
eyes?”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Catastrophic, I’m afraid. We had
to remove both of them.”