Untold Page 6

“I’d never seen you look sad. You looked so sad,” Dylan said.

  Alex nodded. “He was my best friend, Dylan. In many ways, he was my best friend.”

  “I know,” Dylan replied. “Then what I remember most was seeing you standing in the doorway in your uniform.”

  “That’s the first time you saw me in uniform.”

  Dylan nodded. “I think I sort of knew ever since then.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That I would follow you in my own way.”

  “Dylan…”

  Dylan shook his head. “I don’t want to work for the FBI,” he chuckled. “I don’t really want to think about serial killers and criminals,” he said. “I want to fly. I’ve always wanted to fly.”

  “I know.”

  “Yeah, and I want to serve—like you.”

  Alex released her breath slowly. “There are a million ways to serve,” she said. “Not every way requires a uniform.”

  “Maybe. I just know that this is what I am meant to do.”

  Alex smiled. “Then that’s what you have to do,” she told him.

  “You won’t be disappointed?”

  Alex looked at Dylan proudly. “Dylan,” Alex took a deep breath. “You know, I’ve always admired you.”

  “Me?” Surprise lighted Dylan’s face.

  “You are so much like your mother—kind, patient, thoughtful, intelligent—more than that; you’re strong and resilient. You were that way at six-years-old,” she chuckled. “I haven’t said this in a long time to you,” she began.

  “What?”

  “Remember when I asked you if I could marry your mom?”

  Dylan chuckled. “Yeah, you were so nervous, you stuttered.”

  Alex laughed. “Thanks for reminding me,” she winked. “I think about that night a lot.”

  “Really?” Dylan asked.

  “Yeah. You might not remember how sick you were that day.”

  “Yeah, I do. I don’t think broken bones compare to that ear infection,” Dylan shuddered.

  “That was the first time you were sick. I mean, the first time for me.” Alex explained. “I remember thinking there had to be some way I could make it go away for you.”

  Dylan listened as Alex continued. Her eyes strayed from his—a weak attempt to conceal her burgeoning emotion. He’d always been close to Alex. From the moment, he had walked into the kitchen to see the tall agent standing with his mother, Dylan had felt safe in her presence. He wondered where her thoughts were traveling. He’d always known how to talk to his mother. He could tell Cassidy anything. Alex? Dylan wanted to impress Alex, not because she required it, because she was his hero. He doubted that would ever change.

  Alex steadied her breathing. Why do they have to grow up? She let her eyes track back to Dylan’s. “I couldn’t do anything to stop it,” Alex said. “All I could do was be there for you,” she recalled. “Your mom reminds me of that all the time,” she chuckled. Dylan smiled. “I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t want to see you hurt. I know you’re seventeen. I know someday you’ll be forty-seven. The truth is, Dylan it won’t matter how old you get. To me, you are still that little boy rubbing his ear, standing at the side of the bed asking me to make it better somehow. You might not ever understand this, but you’re my son. I told you a long time ago that I never thought I would have a son. I didn’t. I didn’t think I’d ever have kids—a family. I didn’t even think I wanted one.”

  “For someone who didn’t want kids, you sure hit the mother lode,” Dylan laughed.

  Alex chuckled. “That’s one way to put it,” she agreed. “The thing is, you never stop wanting to protect your kids, Dylan—not ever.”

  “I get it. But something bad could happen no matter what I do.”

  Alex nodded. She smiled again affectionately. So much like your mother. “True,” she conceded. “Also, true that I will support whatever you want to pursue. I wouldn’t be any prouder of you if you chose a university or a military academy. Just like if you wanted to be an actor or a playwright—if you wanted to be a mechanic or a pilot; I would love you just as much,” Alex said. “You’re right. What I hit was the jackpot. No one could ask for a better son, Dylan.”

  Dylan pushed back his tears, even as a few trailed over Alex’s cheek. He nodded and closed his eyes for a moment.

  Alex moved to embrace him. “Too old for a hug?” she asked. Dylan shook his head. Alex took him into her embrace. “I love you, Speed.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  ***

  “Good evening, sir,” the security guard greeted a well-dressed man as he left the building.

  “Brandon. Nice night.”

  “Finished for the evening?” Brandon asked.

  “I am,” the reply came.

  “Off again or will we see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be back on Monday,” the man replied.

  “No rest for the weary.”

  “None at all,” the man agreed with a smile. He made his way to the white van parked a few feet away, turned and waved to the security guard. “See you next week, Brandon.”

  “Not me, I’m afraid. Another job next week.”

  The van started and the man gripped the wheel tightly. “No rest for the weary,” he said. He turned to look at the long silver box in the back of the van. “No rest at all.”

  ***

  Cassidy rolled over the minute she heard Alex close the bedroom door.

  “You’re awake,” Alex commented.

  “So, it would seem. You okay?”

  Alex flopped onto the bed beside her wife. “I don’t know.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex chuckled. “Dylan thinks he’s disappointing me.”

  Cassidy nodded. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “I told him that he couldn’t disappoint me. Shit. Cass, I can’t believe he would think that.”

  “You’re his hero. What you think about what he does means more to him than what anyone else has to say.”

  Alex sighed. “I don’t know why.”

  “Yes, you do,” Cassidy disagreed. “You two have had a special bond from the day you met.”

  “I love him so much, Cassidy,” Alex said as she looked to the ceiling. “I just want him to be safe.”

  “I know that, love. He knows that too. He just needed to hear you say it.”

  Alex looked at Cassidy. She shook her head sadly. “I want you all to be safe.”

  “What happened today?”

  Alex grimaced.

  “I know it was bad. I don’t need the details. What happened with you?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex admitted. “They found her in the woods, just thrown in a pile of leaves. Jesus, Cass… He restrained her. He stabbed her so many times that the,” Alex shook her head. She would spare Cassidy the gory details. “Crazy? Maybe he is. Evil? If there is such a thing, this is it. I don’t know what to think. She was seventeen, Cass. Just a kid like Dylan. I sat there with Dave when he told her parents—her mother’s eyes…”

  Cassidy reached over and took Alex’s hand.

  “What the hell can you say?” Alex asked rhetorically. “I’ve sat in that seat dozens of times—telling a family that their loved one is gone—murdered. Today…”

  “I’m sorry, Alex.”

  “The FBI is taking over.”

  “So, you won’t be involved at all?”

  Alex took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

  “Alex?”

  “Hawk was in town.”

  “Here?”

  “No. She was in the New York bureau office this morning.”

  “Huh.”

  “She wants me to come back,” Alex looked back at the ceiling.

  “Excuse me?”

  “To the bureau.”

  “She wants you to go back to the FBI?” Cassidy sought clarification.

  Alex nodded. “And, tak
e this case under AD Bower.”

  “Are you going to do it?” Cassidy asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Alex turned back to face her wife.

  “Well?” Cassidy urged Alex to answer.

  “I… Cass… This case… I… I haven’t been in the field for a long time.”

  “So?”

  “What do you mean—so?”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  Alex closed her eyes. “I can’t get her face out of my head.”

  Cassidy squeezed Alex’s hand. “Then you have your answer.”

  “I can’t go back, Cass.”

  “Alex, it's who you are,” Cassidy said.

  Alex shook her head. “No. It’s what I do. It's what I did.”

  Cassidy nodded. She watched as Alex's fingertips pinched the bridge of her nose. Cassidy reached over and gently removed Alex's hand. “Alex, all of us are made for something, some purpose in this life.”

  “Maybe that's true,” Alex agreed.

  Cassidy smiled at Alex, noting the battle raging within her wife. She waited patiently for Alex to continue.

  “Mine is you,” Alex told Cassidy. “It's always been loving you.”

  Cassidy closed her eyes, the truth in Alex's words washed over her in a warm rush. She breathed in the emotion that coursed between them and opened her eyes again. “I know that,” she confessed. “Just as loving you is what I was always meant to do,” Cassidy said. “It's loving you that gives me the strength and the courage to be all the other things I was meant to be. To be the mother I am, to teach what's inside me—to make the difference I can make. Loving you, Alex, for all its ups and downs, it's the centerpiece that anchors everything else. But, it isn't the sum-total of my purpose. Loving me is not the sum-total of yours either.”

  Alex huffed in frustration. Cassidy had always possessed a powerful command of words. Alex admired that, but at times it could frustrate her. She struggled to express the competing thoughts and emotions that collided inside her.

  “Alex,” Cassidy called softly.

  “What if it had been you, Cass? Or Mackenzie or Abby?”

  Cassidy had anticipated the wall that held Alex back. “What if it was?” She threw the question back to Alex. Alex was stunned. Cassidy nodded and continued. "Wouldn't you want to know—need to know who had done that to me? Wouldn't you want that person found so that they could never do that again?”

  “Maybe,” Alex said. "There are lots of people who can do that. I teach them how. That's how I make a difference now."

  “Because that's what you feel called to do or because you think it's a way to continue while keeping us safe?” Cassidy challenged.

  “We’ve been having this argument for almost five years!” Alex’s temper flared and she jumped to her feet.

  Cassidy remained calm. “It's not an argument, Alex. It's a simple question that you insist on circling. Maybe you've finally come to a point where the circle has broken.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Cassidy sighed heavily. “It means that you have to make a choice.”

  “I made my choice.”

  “You did. Choices change, Alex. Life isn't static. You know that. Things get thrown into our path for a reason. When they do, we each need to decide what to do about them. Isn't that what you told me once about Dylan?”

  “That's not the same thing and you know it.”

  “Of course, it is,” Cassidy disagreed. “I slept with someone other than my husband. That misstep gave me one of the greatest treasures in my life. I made the decision to pretend that Christopher was his father. Dylan spent the better part of fifteen years believing he was someone else.”

  Alex groaned. “You made the only decision you could at the time. We made the only decision we could...”

  “No. There are always choices, Alex. I made the decision I felt I should. We made a choice to tell him when he was older because we believed it was best. It was not the only choice we could have made.”

  “It was the best choice. And, it all worked out.”

  Cassidy lifted her brow and smiled.

  “Oh, don't think I don't know what you just did,” Alex said. Cassidy shrugged. “Cass—Just my being in the fray again could put you back at risk.”

  “We're always at risk,” Cassidy said pointedly. Alex grimaced as Cassidy continued. “Look at that young girl. What did her parents do? What did she do that put her at any greater risk than me or you or anyone we know?” Cassidy challenged Alex.

  “That's not what I'm talking about and you know it.”

  “Maybe not, but it's the truth. Alex, when I was sitting in that chair in New Rochelle and Carl Fisher had that knife to me,” Cassidy began to recall her abduction.

  “Cassidy—don’t.”

  Alex was in no frame of mind to revisit the horrors of the past. The case that had brought her into Cassidy’s life had nearly taken Cassidy from her. She vividly recalled learning that Cassidy was being held against her will. Seeing Kaylee Peters’ wrists had instantly conjured memories of the angry red circles that had once twisted around Cassidy’s. Alex had found her thoughts drifting to memories of the knife mark on Cassidy’s thigh, and the fear in her lover’s eyes that Carl Fisher had left as evidence of his transgression. It made Alex sick.

  “You need to hear this,” Cassidy said flatly. “I thought for a moment that I was going to die—just for a moment. Then? Then I thought of you. I knew if I could just hold out, just be smarter than he was for a little while, you would get to me. I knew you'd figure it out. I knew.”

  “You have too much faith in me,” Alex said.

  “No, but I do have every faith in you.”

  Alex sat back on the bed with a thud. “I'm not sure I have it in me anymore.”

  Cassidy took Alex's hands. “You do or we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

  “Cass, I need to be here for you. Who knows where this case will lead?”

  Cassidy kissed Alex's lips. “The only way you will know is to follow.”

  “What about you? This pregnancy… I…”

  “You worry too much, love. We will all be okay, and we will be right here for you—all of us, even this little one. I promise.”

  “And, if I decide not to follow?”

  “We'll still be here.”

  “I don't know what to do.”

  “Yes, I think you do,” Cassidy replied, pulling Alex into her arms. “Just stop thinking and let it come to you.”

  “I don't want to lose you.”

  “Alex, we've been to hell and back again. I would do it all over without a second’s hesitation. We have a basketball team here to manage. It might be short of your original plan, but I still need a coach.”

  Alex chuckled. “Or a butler.”

  “That too, Alfred. One more kid always equals a dozen more dishes and a lot more boxes of cereal for some reason.”

  Alex snickered.

  Cassidy looked down at Alex and wrinkled her nose. “Alex?”

  “Hum?”

  “Why does Connor think you like blue corn flakes?” she asked. Alex coughed a bit. “Alex?”

  Alex started laughing. “I never called them blue,” she said.

  Cassidy looked at her curiously. “Why do Connor and Abby think that?” she repeated her question. Cassidy noted the sheepish grin on her wife’s face. “I don’t want to know. I know I don’t, but tell me anyway.”

  Alex shrugged. “I never said they were blue. I said they taste like poo.”

  “What? You used to have Corn Flakes almost every morning.”

  “No, only when Dylan insisted.”

  Cassidy’s gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Alex,” she drew out the name slowly.

  “What?”

  Cassidy lifted her brow. “Just how did you get Dylan to eat that cereal?”

  Alex suddenly found the ceiling of great interest.

  “Alex?”

  “Okay, s
o maybe I put a little sugar on them.”

  Cassidy shook her head. “Is that right?”

  “Well, they taste like poo! Who wants to eat a bowl of poo with milk?”

  “Is this still your preferred method of getting our children to eat breakfast?”

  Alex shook her head. “Not anymore.”

  “Really?”

  “No way. Kenzie full of sugar?”

  “And, here I thought I was deficient all these years.”

  “You do use too much milk. Slightly crunchy with sugar—trust me.”

  Cassidy rolled her eyes.

  “Am I in trouble?” Alex asked.

  Cassidy’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe you need a time-out,” she offered suggestively.

  “Oh?”

  “Mm.” Cassidy moved to straddle Alex’s hips.

  Alex closed her eyes when Cassidy’s lips began a tender assault down her neck. “Cass?”

  “Settle down, Agent Toles.”

  “You just want me to go back to the FBI so you can call me that again,” Alex remarked.

  Cassidy’s hands were methodically mapping out the curves of Alex’s body. “Makes me think of the day you showed up at my door,” she whispered in Alex’s ear.

  Alex sucked in a ragged breath. “I remember. You had Playdoh on your foot.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Blue, in fact,” Alex commented playfully.

  “Mm-hum,” Cassidy said. She placed her lips on Alex’s and kissed her gently.

  Alex sighed into their kiss. Her hands traveled softly over Cassidy’s back, drawing Cassidy closer. She smiled at Cassidy when Cassidy broke their kiss, and shook her head.

  “What?” Cassidy asked.

  “I love you so much, Cass.”

  Cassidy kissed Alex’s forehead. “I love you too.”

  “It’s funny; I think somehow I knew the moment you opened that door and peeled that Playdoh off your foot.”

  “Knew what?” Cassidy asked.

  “Sounds crazy.”

  “What?”

  “I think I fell in love with you at that moment.”

  Cassidy stroked Alex’s cheek. “You are such a romantic.”

  “No. It’s just….”

  “What is it?” Cassidy asked, seeing a myriad of emotions play across Alex’s face.

  “I’ll never get used to it,” Alex said. “I mean it. I will never get used to this. I still can’t believe it some days.”