David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

“Shhh!” Sean said. He put out a hand.

“Go!” she screamed.

He gathered his clothes and clumsily began dressing himself. “Daryn, I-”

All of her pain, all of her grief, all of her outrage, was right there, right then. Later, after he was gone, she would be calm again, she would accept everything and do what had to be done. But now…

She rushed him, beating his chest with both fists. She raked his chest with her nails. She slapped both sides of his face. She screamed like an animal descending onto its prey.

Sean pulled up his pants, staggering away from her. He got his shirt on, but didn’t button it. He kept his shoes in his hand and made for the stairs. He turned one last time.

“Who are you?” he said in a raw, wounded voice.

She wailed again, beyond words. Daryn vaguely remembered the fantasy, she and Sean escaping the world, moving to the mountains, to be completely different people. She would be neither Daryn nor Kat, and he would be neither Sean nor Michael. They would emerge anew with each other.

“No,” she whispered. The fantasy wouldn’t come all the way into focus, and then it was gone altogether.

She met Sean’s eyes; then he turned the corner and was gone. She heard him shambling down the stairs. She heard the door open and close. In a little while she heard a car engine start, then fade away.

Daryn collapsed onto the bed and wept bitterly.

Very gradually, over the course of the last year, Faith had come to feel comfortable in Scott Hendler’s Edmond condo. It was just off Danforth Road, not far from the safe house. It had a lived-in feel to it, but was still neat and tidy, like Hendler himself. He had a thing for windmills and old train stations, and there were numerous photos and paintings of both throughout the place, even over the bed.

She was propped up under the sheets, wearing only a long blue T-shirt and reading yesterday’s newspaper. She’d listened to Hendler’s end of the brief phone call, and realized with resignation that she still wasn’t finished dealing with Daryn McDermott. Even though Department Thirty had officially rejected her, there was still going to be cleanup duty. The call from Rob Cain confirmed it.

After Hendler hung up, she said, “He talked to her, is pretty sure she’s lying, and he wants to know what the hell is going on.”

Hendler settled back into the bed. “Not in those words, but that’s pretty much it.” He looked at her. “Faith, what the hell is going on?”

She put down the newspaper. “I’m not really sure, and that’s the truth. I just know Thirty couldn’t work with the girl.” It was as close as she ever came to giving him actual details of one of her cases. “None of her information was right.”

“And Sean?”

“I don’t know what to think about Sean. When I got home, he was so drunk he could barely move. I was so pissed off at him, that’s when I called you.” She tilted her head back until it was touching the frame. “I don’t know what to do with him.”

“I’m sorry, Faith,” Hendler said. “All the weirdness with your case aside, I know this business with your brother has been tearing you up.”

She leaned toward him. “Yeah,” she said.

They held each other. Faith savored the unspoken connection between them. They could just be together, nothing else required. For a few moments she felt safe, the last two weeks falling away. It was a frail feeling, and Faith was afraid that if she dwelled on it too much, it would be gone, and so would Scott.

Hendler turned off the light, keeping one arm around her. “He wants to see us in the morning,” he said sleepily.

“Who?” Faith said. She’d been far away from the FBI and Department Thirty and her brother and the bizarre events of the last two weeks.

“Cain,” Hendler said. “He wants to talk to us about the case. He specifically mentioned he wanted me to bring you.”

Faith nodded. “In the morning,” she said.

It took Daryn more than two hours to find the calm she needed for what came next. The whole gamut of emotions, some real and some imagined, had drained her. The exhaustion had been gaining on her, but she had more to do before she could rest.

It was nearly one thirty a.m. when she opened the dresser drawer that had come with the furnished apartment, and began to get dressed. She chose plain blue jeans, a pastel-pink T-shirt, and open-toed sandals with low heels. She stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t Daryn McDermott, or even Kat Hall. The look was nothing like her. It appeared like something Faith Kelly would wear. Daryn smiled at that irony, but it faded quickly. She touched her short blond hair, wishing for a moment she could take time to wash the dye out and have her natural dark color back. But there was no time. She also missed the long braid she’d worn for most of her life-it was part of her.

It occurred to her that this was a strange way to be thinking now. She’d wanted to become someone else, and had actually done it for a while. Yet here she was, feeling nostalgic for something that had physically defined her as Daryn McDermott. She blinked, feeling sudden tears welling. The tears were decidedly different from those that she’d wept upon throwing Sean Kelly out of the apartment. Now she cried silently, letting the tears run straight down while she looked at the image in the mirror.

She stood there for a long time, until the tears ran dry and her mind began to clear. She applied some light makeup, took one last glance at the mirror, and went downstairs.

She booted up her laptop on the cheap coffee table, then logged in to her Web-based e-mail account on the Hubopag server. She turned off all the lights, letting the only light in the apartment come from the glow of the computer screen.

In some ways, this was the most difficult part of the plan, yet ultimately would be the most satisfactory. She loathed everything her father stood for, hated what he had done to her mother, hated the unspeakable atrocity he had committed on her. Her father had used her as a prop for all her life. Now she would do the same with him.

She typed in the address: mcdermott@senate.gov.

She typed Dear Dad, then stopped.

Daryn closed her eyes.

Anything for The Cause. Anything for The Cause.

Anything.

She swallowed hard, and this time she warded away the tears before they came. The time for crying was past now.

I know I’ve been out of touch, she wrote. Daryn smiled.

You know me. I’ve been busy, traveling a lot. I have to tell you something now. Even though you and I don’t talk much, something tells me I need to reach out to you now.

I’m scared, Daddy. I’m really, really afraid.

She thought the use of Daddy would really get to him. Daryn kept typing.

Sean had no clue where he was, nor how he got there. He knew he was still in Faith’s car, and that it was damnably uncomfortable. How could Faith have bought a car this small? he wondered.

Light played across his face as he slowly awoke. He blinked fiercely, trying to orient himself. It was still dark outside, but the car was parked at the periphery of a lot of bright lights. His hearing started to awaken. He heard traffic sounds. The picture came into focus: gas pumps, a high canopy overhead, bright blazing fluorescence. In the distance was a straight line of black, broken by occasional headlights.

A truck stop, somewhere along an interstate highway.

He remembered the sex, and he remembered that by the time he climaxed, he’d just wanted it to be over with. It had become work, and he’d just wanted to finish and go to sleep. But Daryn had been maniacal, doing everything to stimulate him, oblivious to herself, determined beyond reason that he should finish inside her.