Chapter Twenty Eight
I know that you don’t want to talk about this sort of thing, Christopher, so just listen okay. None of us is going to live forever, I know that. But if anything ever happens to me I want you to promise me that you will allow yourself to fall in love again. I want to hear you say it to me right now.
-Hoshi Givens in May of 1988
Angel
Timber Pines Cabins; Blairsville, Georgia, November 2011
After the Dupree’s had made love Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree watched the expression on her husband’s face change.
He had exhausted himself on her and had nothing left so she quickly and skillfully spun their bodies over until Seth was now lying on his back and she was off to his side. She ran her long manicured fingernails through the thick hairs on his chest. His breathing was finally slowing to normal levels. They smiled at each other. He sat up enough to peck at her thick lips with his thin ones. She ran her fingers through his hair then.
Seth told her over and over again that he loved her until his words sounded like lyrics to a lullaby. Angel made jokes about his throaty rendition and then she tickled him in a very tender spot. Finally, she squeezed that very special part of him—until they were at it again.
When both reached their climax again it was Angel’s chest that rose and fell with considerable effort. Ten minutes later she found herself lying back on her pillow when she heard Seth snoring ever lightly next to her.
You are a smart man, my husband. Yet, Angel had continued to fool him over the past six months the same way that she’d fooled him during their entire marriage. She certainly respected him as a man. She felt safe when she was in his arms. She watched him sleep for a minute. A part of her had always adored him. But she had to accept the facts as they were. She owed both of them at least that much.
In her heart Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree had never felt love, not in a romantic way, for her husband Dr. Seth Dupree.
And in all of the hell that the man had gone through during the worst of Scar trying to reach her—in an attempt to save her from Roxanne Sanchez’s ire…hadn’t changed that fact.
The truth is that Angel still didn’t love him in that way. I think I keep you around is to relieve myself of the loneliness that I would feel otherwise. I have my work and I have you, Seth, and nothing else.
And this holiday weekend excursion of sex and slumber in these vacation cabins here in Blairsville, Georgia hadn’t changed that fact one damned bit.
And that made her a little sad—
Angel felt a little paranoid…as if she could feel someone watching them.
It was him.
It was him at long last.
And she wasn’t going to lose him again.
“Just relax in here until I call return for you,” She touched his face with just enough force to wake him without startling her husband. She slid on her panties and wrapped a silk housecoat around her waist. She left it open at the top so that the constant threat of her breast spilling out would distract even the most focused perpetrator’s invasion that she was expecting any moment. “I’m going to fix us some breakfast,”
Angel knew that the FBI was watching of course. And knowing that they were constantly close by provided her an elevated sense of eroticism that she valued so much. Seth wasn’t nearly as comfortable with it. Still, as evidenced by their last session together, he was becoming more accustomed to their intervention in their lives.
Something felt different here tonight.
The mole had finally found her.
Joseph Champion was here in this mountain retreat.
“Breakfast,” Seth glanced up just long enough to look at the alarm clock on his side of the nightstand. “Angel, its 12:15 in the morning, who eats breakfast this time of night?”
She planted on hand on her hip and cocked a brow in mocked effort to show defeat.
“Alright, Seth…well allow me to whip you a midnight snack of eggs and bacon that you will never forget.”
Seth scrubbed at the gray in his hair and shrugged.
“Sure,” And when she turned around to walk towards the kitchen he added: “Angel, make absolutely certain that you turn on all the tracking devices that the FBI provided us. Now is not the time to start taking chances, especially with us being so isolated out here in these woods.”
“Alright,”
“Angel,”
“Yea,”
“I love you.”
And it hurt like hell to hear him say it then after the finalization of her feelings for him manifested itself so openly a few minutes ago. So she blew him a kiss instead. Seth deserved the truth. Likely he would have to settle for getting in line on that front. A part of her—the decent woman deep inside of her—told her that she would grant him the divorce that he so richly deserved after Champion was caught. But the real Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree, the woman who stood half naked in this doorway, would likely continue with this charade of lies that kept her husband close enough…
…close enough that she wouldn’t be alone.
So she only flashed Seth one of her a wicked smiles, her left breast, the .22 strapped to her thigh and hit the alarm button on wall.
Angel never could cook worth a damn.
She whipped up some eggs but any the bacon seemed to be in short supply. She settled for some frozen pizza she found in the freezer and stuck it in the microwave that this cabin provided. She looked out of the kitchen window at a grand view of mountainside while she waited on the pizza to warm.
There was enough landscape between each cabin here to give each renter a true sense of camping out, but still providing enough restaurants and other conveniences of home to give the appearance of civilization nearby. Angel truly liked this place and the certain level of isolation, to use her husband’s word for it, which its location provided. If she were truly trying to save her marriage and make it work this was exactly the prescription and therapy she would have recommended to her and her husband long ago. The world is so quiet—
Angel heard a single heavy thump rise out of the silence of the bedroom where Seth likely was sleeping.
She started for the bedroom but stopped her progress almost after her first step. The microwave beeped in its completion but her eggs were burning so she shut the stove off.
And when she turned back around Joseph Champion was holding a Colt .45 in her face.
“Hello, Angel,” Champion shushed her and waved his own gun at her so that she would back away from him slowly.
“It’s been a long time, Joseph,” She tied her housecoat in a loose knot better to conceal her .22 from him. “How have you been getting along?”
Champion closed the bedroom door behind him where Seth could be dead or worse and leaned his narrow ass on the nearby counter. “I have been a little busy, you know me, Angel… I’ve always got something going on.” He did a little waving motion with his index finger. “Before we start with why I came all this way to see you I need you unfasten your robe, Angel,”
Angel rolled her tongue across her full top lip.
“You haven’t changed a bit have you, naughty boy.”
“It isn’t like that at all, Angel.” Champion was sweating like a pig. Angel knew that the FBI Agents would have been scrambling to activate the bypasses to the complex decoding systems to the alarms on the cabin and the area nearby. The rules stated that her friends with the wire taps were not to immediately fear the worse, but they were to work fast while they ascertained why she was suddenly out of contact from them.
She had to work fast as well…without betraying the fact that she was working on the timer ticking in her brain.
She sighed.
She took off her robe and tossed it away from where he was standing. She saw his face lighten up and his eyes widen when he saw her .22. The question of how she fit even that small a caliber of a gun into the string of her drawers was etched across her face. He gripped his handle tighter.
“I’ll need to take that from you,
Angel.”
“Sure,”
She limped over to where he was and let him snatch it from her panties. No tricks, she told herself. Champion’s roughness had popped the string—and now she stood completely nude in front of this man. And this weapon you’ve uncovered may provide me more protection than any gun may have.
Champion wasn’t an idiot however. He saw through her plan. He walked over to and scooped her robe off of the floor and tossed it back at her and instructed Angel to put it back on. Angel could feel the silk hugging her shoulders as she as had asked her to. She tied a new knot that was only faintly tighter than the one before it.
“Is my husband alive in that bedroom?”
“Maybe,” Seth nodded his head twice and showed her a mean looking blade that was in his possession before he laid it on the counter behind him. “The fact of whether or not he remains in any salvageable condition is entirely up to you. I’ve made three surgical cuts in strategic areas that I’m sure a man of his professional experience would appreciate. The short of it is this, Angel: Your husband will die if this conversation between us goes on to long.”
Once again, Angel was reminded that Joseph Champion was no fool. But he may be insane. Either he knew that this room was wired and the FBI was nearby and planned for all three of them to die all along—or he’d truly felt that they were isolated enough to seek her out and reveal what he knew.
“So if looks as if you have the floor, Joseph,” She said. “What would you like to talk about?”
“I know that the FBI has been monitoring you and your husband’s movements. I would have never been able to get this close to the both of you if you hadn’t taken this weekend sabbatical up here.” He did a semi-circle in a small space. “I’m surprised at you, Doc. You should have known that I wouldn’t give up on finding you. I couldn’t give up on you, not this soon. It’s only been six months.”
“You’re right, Joseph,” Angel relaxed her stance and put her forearms on the counter behind her. “I should have known better as well. I should have especially known not to trust you.”
Champion waved his gun at her.
“Save all of those guilt trips for someone who gives a damn. You are far from innocent yourself, Angel. Word on the street is that you are facing a Grand Jury and potential jail time for your involvement with Pandora and with that butt fucker known as Hugh Keaton. You trained him…you trained that monster how to conduct himself while he kidnapped those children.”
“I can’t deny that I spent months with him.” She responded quickly. The FBI should have been done with her checks by now and first point of the operation should be online by now. “And you are also right that I know, at least at a conscious level, that Serena Tennyson would one day unleash this monster as a weapon against people of color. I can tell you that Keaton’s growth into his role went far beyond either of our expectations. By the time he had taken his first child he could have been labeled a machine. He could have been far more deadly. He could have been far more lethal in every aspect.” She dared step towards him. “But he was not any of those things, Joseph. He died as he had lived: A troubled soul with too many time bombs ticking in his brain. He liked to fuck young boys. He wasn’t organized or conniving enough to do anything else beyond what his brain was programmed to do. And that is why I know that he didn’t kill Erica Lovings, Joseph.” Angel’s voice softened and spoke volumes at the same time. “I know that you did kill her.”
“What are you talking about?” Champion laughed like a madman. “You’re crazier than shit, Angel.”
“You could certainly argue that, Joseph. But that point doesn’t change the fact of what you’ve done.”
“Why would I kill her, Angel?” Champion’s bushy brows rose to the top of his forehead. “I had no particular beef with Chris Prince or his estranged ex-wife.”
Angel nodded.
“And that’s why I couldn’t put it all together—at least at first.” She admitted to him. “I know the story of your wife. I know how she was beaten and murdered by those drug dealers in Texas. And I know that Serena helped sooth your pain somewhat when you were able to match an eye for an eye when you killed Erica in what served as your idea for retaliation for wrongs done to you.”
“This isn’t about Chris Prince,”
“I know that now as well,” Angel said and meant. And then she raised her voice. “You believe in paying your debts in full, sometimes two fold, Joseph. Pandora gave you the opportunity you’d sought since your wife’s murder to set things right, at least in your own mind. Erica Loving’s murder was your gift to Serena in aiding in an attempt to throw Christopher off his metal game both of you found necessary if you were going to beat him.”
“And I paid her graciousness with weakness and treachery and betrayal.”
Angel shook her head.
“Save it, Joseph. You’ve played this game—you’ve played this game like a Champion but it’s over now. I know the truth about you, Joseph.”
“What—“
“It has all been a game since we slept together in Macon. You’ve been setting yourself up as a mole, this martyr to the cause of Pandora. Sure, you were running alright. Serena wanted you dead for being disloyal but even she didn’t know the extent of what you had truly done outside of her sphere of influence.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Champion said but his foundation was showing its first sign of cracking. “Yes, I killed Erica Lovings for the reasons that you stated. And all of the personal beefs she had with the Bishop and his people in Carver provided an easy cover for me and my motives when Roxanne Sanchez came looking for her.”
“But Erica wasn’t the only one that you killed was it, Joseph.”
Champions face frowned in confusion at first—and then hardened with a new resolve.
“I didn’t shoot President Adolphus Sweet,”
“I believe you, Joseph,” Angel said. “But you were and still are a member of the renegade band of Pandora working outside out of Oracle’s knowledge or consent that forced her to have him shot to cover the poising that you are responsible for. You killed the President of the United States with this poison of yours. You killed the Mayor of Atlanta as well—“
“By God, I should have killed them all.”
“What?”
“Tell me that you aren’t so naïve, Angel. Damn, girl, I’ve got to give you full props. You are a world class doctor, yet I still think you chose the wrong field to make your living. You’re a born investigator, Angel. You’ve figured this whole thing out from its origins. So I don’t want you to go all stupid on me now.”
Seth, sweet Seth, you may be dying just a few feet away from me, but we need to learn the entire truth about this right now. “What in the hell are you talking about, Joseph?”
“The president and the mayor were mere test subjects of a far greater experiment in scope. An associate of mine, a former high level operative of the Atlanta Office for Disease Office, created a toxin that specifically kills people of color while leaving the rest of us alone?”
“What,” She sounded doubtful but the world had witnessed two examples of its lethalness thus far. “How does something like that work?”
“I’m so glad you asked, Angel. You don’t know how long I wanted to share this with someone outside our little group of patriots. Soon after 911 Pandora suspended its initial plans of an assault on A House in Chains indefinitely. We—the renegades as you called my people—marched on and dumped ton after ton of our toxin into the water and food supplies across North America. There it sat dormant until our people felt necessary to call it into action.”
“Cut do the chase, Joseph, you aren’t a scientist. Where does your piece fit into this jigsaw puzzle?”
“I had people in the Houston Field Office of the FBI who share my hatred for them. They are a talented group of scientist. They designed the delivery system necessary to make our weapon operational at a moment’s notice.”
Angel consid
ered the possibilities.
“You used an airborne triggering mechanism.” She said after some time and thought. “You had gained access to the heating ducts inside Ernestine Johnson’s home and the hotel where President Sweet was supposedly shot.”
Champion’s brows rose to the cabin’s ceiling, impressed that she’d put it together so quickly—and apparently correctly as well. Yet, Angel felt her own eyebrows rising with her next thought:
“If what you said is true that we all have been affected by your poisoning of the food and water supplies. Why haven’t more people—“
“The toxin is engineered to aggressively attack the higher percentage of melon compositions that exist within a certain population group in North America. In English, Doctor, the darker a person’s skin tone the more likely they are to fall victim to our toxin’s bite.”
“You’re insane, Joseph,” Angel said to man who she thought she once knew. “And what you were doing was contemplating the eradication of an entire race of human beings from this planet. The sane of us would name that genocide, Joseph.”
“You are wrong on both accounts.” He replied in a quiet voice. “The insane don’t feel, Angel. Even after all that I’ve done I still have enough of the rage brewing inside of me to know that I am far from crazy. And what you call genocide, Angel, I would call liberation from an inferior race of savages...the Whirlwind as I’ve chosen to call it. I am saving us from them.”
“Did Raymond Rice know?”
Champion nodded once.
“He suspected. That was the reason that he wanted me off the streets at all cost. He planted the notion that I was a mole so that agents of both the FBI and Pandora wouldn’t go digging for anything else that could be motivating my real intentions. Rice was only concerned with neutralizing Xavier Prince and a House in Chains. He was a fool. The witch, better known to all of us as Serena Tennyson, was wrapped up in her own distorted world of dirt piles, hallucinations and dragons. Don’t get me wrong, she was a powerful force in her own right, but Oracle would be standing by myside right now if she had blessed with a broader vision and scope—if she had seen the bigger picture for what it is and not what she wanted to believe it was. Eventually, I had disappeared off of the grid. Rice got desperate. He even tried to talk Serena into standing down as a last act of desperation to protect the truth from getting out to the masses, but Danielle Rohm killed him protecting her Oracle.”
“So your wife’s murder to the lowest dominator of a man—one black man is worth the lives of millions of people of color. And you call Serena’s beliefs of her Dragon distorted?”
Angel dared to walk close enough to hear Joseph Champion’s breathing.
“There is something I don’t get about all of this, Joseph. You’ve had this weapon of mass destruction at your disposal for months now. If you’ve have the means of ending your pain and destroying countless lives at your whim why haven’t you done so already?”
He pushed Angel back a foot with the barrel of his bun. Yet, she saw a new point of fury in his eyes that replaced the one that had dwelled there only minutes before.
“Raymond Rice and Serena Tennyson aren’t the only ones in this world who are shortsighted.” And when Angel failed to comment on that he continued. “The scientist who developed the contaminant got cold feet and dipped on us shortly after the Peacekeepers began their murderous crusade against former and underground agents of Pandora during Scar.”
“Or perhaps he had a change of heart, Joseph,” She said, her voice nearly a whisper. He’s purposely not giving up this man’s name. He knows the FBI is listening. “Or perhaps he couldn’t wrap his mind around being a major player in the unconditional eradication of a people from this planet.”
“It makes no matter. People loyal to me—loyal to my belief of peace in our time have been searching for him since the night of his disappearance. We’re close—“
“Any diabolical mind that could conjure up something as destructive as a weapon that attacks it’s victim’s melon composition won’t be found, Joseph. If you were off the grid then a man like this one was never on it. He’s gone.” She said and couldn’t help but smile a little.
“Perhaps,” He picked up the dagger from behind it and examined it as if he’d seen it for the first time. “That’s why I came I risked everything I had left to find you, Angel.”
“What does that supposed to mean?”
“It means that once again you are right and I’m unlikely to fulfil my wildest aspirations of the Whirlwind in its full glory— but I will have to settle for a race war instead.” Champion ran two fingers the length of the blade. “I’ve often been told that information is power, Angel. And right now everything that I’ve told you,” He looked at the ceiling here and there. “Everything that I’ve told them—your friends in the FBI, will be repeated in a court of law…and soon,”
“Joseph, I—“
“Save it, Angel,” He screamed at her. And this his lip quivered as he said, “I know that they are coming to kill me. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I have grown tired of running from them. I am tired of running after him. What matters now is that you and everyone listening know the truth. And you aren’t the only ones—I’ve taken the time and effort to send this classified data to two other parties who would be interested in answering the third question that every American has asked: What is the Whirlwind? Thomas Pepper and the new leader of a House in Chains Christopher Prince will possess the answer to that question just as you will. There will be no earthly way to keep the truth from our adoring public. Thousands died in the streets in this country during the final nights of Scar and Serena’s Whirlwind, Angel. How many tens of thousands will parish when this truth is revealed in the weeks to come?”
Angel could hear something rattling just outside the front door and the sliding window behind her.
“So your people have a choice, Angel,” He said “They either tell the truth about the knowledge they possess or they become a part of a larger conspiracy. And remember, Angel, the larger the conspiracy bubbles, the more vicious the pop is when the truth finally burst from the cover-up.”
Joseph Champion looked like a king ever relaxed in his kingdom even with the knowledge that the FBI would be coming within seconds to prematurely end his reign.
Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree decided that she couldn’t even that long.
She squeezed his hand causing his own index finger to engage the firing mechanism of his gun firing a non-lethal but painful round into his left foot.
She got steadily more lethal from there however.
With Champion still screaming and trying to recover from his wound, Angel wrestled the knife from her would be assailant, grabbed it herself and stabbed her former lover through his neck with it like a deadly kiss—
The FBI, led by Agent Tabitha Blue, broke through the front entrance of the cabin with their weapons hot and finished the job she’d started by firing countless rounds into Joseph Champion until he was filled with bloody hole after hole…until his dead carcass struck the floor at Angel’s feet.
Two more agents dashed past them into the bedroom where hopefully her husband Seth hadn’t joined Champion in eternity. Angel heard first responder units climbing the mountain from all sides. The FBI had dispatched a helicopter to patrol the skies against any countermeasures against their people.
Angel lost all of her cohesion…and fell to the floor on her ass. Agent Blue ran over to her secured the knot on her housecoat while she barked out instructions to the remaining agents in the room.
After handing her a glass of water Blue asked: “How did you know, Doctor? How did you tie all of the bits of information Champion was feeding you, about the President, about everything so quickly?”
“It’s been a theory of mine,” Angel said between baited breaths. She rested her head on her knees. She watched the paramedics wheel her bloody husband out of the cabin without even a glance in their direction. Seth didn’t look good.”
B
lue wasn’t blind to her husband’s condition.
“Dr. Hicks Dupree, about what Champion said before. He had a sick, deranged mind but we won’t let him win.”
“But your people—“
“My people will keep silent—at least long enough for us to find this doctor from the Houston branch of the Center for Disease Control. This is exactly the kind of thing that Sheridan tasked me with when he assigned me this title. Give me a chance to do my job. I’ll have whoever this scientist is either in custody or in a casket soon enough. You have my word on that.”
Angel nodded her head, appreciating the younger woman’s fierce determination and drive. Although that won’t likely be enough to save us, Angel was more than willing to sacrifice herself—willing to risk her freedom for not stating everything that she knew in front of a Grand Jury. Yet, she was far more concerned about how Christopher or Thomas Pepper would react with knowledge of just how far Pandora had gone to end this game of race and relations once and for all.
“Doctor, can you hear me?” Agent Tabitha Blue’s yelling in her ear brought Angel back from future difficulties back to the troubles of the here and now. “You’ve been so corporative and helpful in our investigation. We owe you. Is there anything that I can do for you right now? Are you alright?”
Angel heard the ambulance drive away. And when Agent Blue and her team had bagged up Joseph Champion’s remains and closed the door behind them she would be alone again. He had not been the only person who had been entrapped tonight.
She would be so very alone.
When Angel smiled at the younger woman she was sure that it couldn’t hide the sadness and the wanting for the company that only a bottle had ever provided her.
“Actually, no, Agent Blue, I’m not alright.” She said after the longest time. “But then I probably never have been.”
Roxanne
Christopher Prince’s new residence in Buckhead, March 2012
Four men dressed in black hoodies, khakis and sneakers met Roxanne Sanchez on the curb, verified her ID but still asked her wait outside Chris’ new gated residence on the city’s far Westside. The new Peacekeepers seem much like the ones of old. The last time Roxanne had been this close to a House in Chains military arm she had sprayed rounds of bullets into him fighting for right to live trying to escape Carver nearly a year ago. And if any of you gentlemen dare touch me…
A bald headed man, skeleton thin, who may have been ten years her elder, greeted Roxanne with a toothy smile, a firm handshake and an apology for her delay. The One—as Chris’ people referred to him as—had left instructions for her to be admitted as soon as she showed up on the property. The extra precautions had been his and his alone. A House in Chains had lost a significant number of their governing body in the suicide at the mansion in the fall, but the organization had not been crippled as much as the world had been led to believe. Hundreds of Board and Committee members had been either promoted or reassigned. The man who greeted her finally said that the nature of her relationship with the One wasn’t his business, but if she would indulge their over protectiveness of a House in Chains leader for a small while longer—
He walked her in. Where Chris had chosen to become the new regional headquarters of his organization was quite impressive. The architecture matched the bricked layouts of the nearby buildings including a church on the corner. What caught Roxanne’s eye specifically were the nuances that had Chris’ imprint completely. Next to the American flag were posts of the new banner of a House in Chains that whipped about on this spring day in March. There were busts of great black leaders: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Isaac Prince and Xavier Prince sat there together side by side. Just above those bust was a larger one of the former President of the United States Adolphus Sweet.
She found his father’s mandates lining the sidewalk passage to the front door. All of his sayings and recollections as well as some of those from Xavier were embedded in the concrete as well. Just above the door was a plaque that showcased highlights from Chris’ speech from the courtyard of Georgia’s State Capital back around November, almost six months ago now.
She finally met Chris inside. He looked up and saw her. He dismissed an underling by patting the smaller man on the shoulder.
“Roxanne,” He said by way of greeting. And for the second time within a year his surprise at seeing her in his presence warmed her heart.
“Hi, Chris,” He hugged her fiercely. “Wow. You look good.”
And he did. He looked as if he had lost an additional ten pounds or so in addition to the 20 that he had already disposed of in the fall. This morning Chris looked as if he’d stepped out of the shower minutes ago after another long intense workout.
Chris showed her to a nearby couch which she found both soft and firm enough for her liking. He had begun drawing again. Roxanne noted that most of the portraits were those of his immediate family. The one woman that she didn’t immediately recognize was probably his mother. Roxanne’s investigative instincts noted to herself that every picture of Isaac Prince had a drawing of this woman next to it. Although Roxanne had never met either one she could knew for a fact that Xavier’s rendition was spot on. And the woman’s portrait next to his brother had to be none other than a House in Chains intelligence officer Grace Edwards.
Chris had done two new drawings of the first love of his life Hoshi Givens as well—and bless his heart he had honored the memories of his dead ex-wife and step daughter Denise Prince and Erica Lovings. Every detail, especially the women’s facial features were so dead on that it gave Roxanne Sanchez pause. She nearly teared up when she glanced at the portraits a second time.
“Where have you been, Roxanne?” He finally asked her as she could feel him sitting next to her. “I respected you’re your request for some time away. You told me that you would contact me when you were ready and for me to wait until you did. I can understand that you needed to tie up some loose ends in your personal life.” She heard the sadness in his voice. “I expected you to be gone maybe a couple of weeks, or maybe a month or so at most, but not six months.”
Does that mean that you’ve moved on, my love? And to be perfectly honest, that had not been a contingency she had considered. And yes, she did not say aloud, she had indeed tie up some loose ends in both her personal life with her mother about the death of her sister Maria …and an unexpected professional matter—a debt that could not go unpaid—and the cost associated with it that she would not soon forget.
But none of that is what kept her away for this long.
“I wasn’t going to rest until Joseph Champion was either in custody or dead.” She said.
Chris nodded in understanding.
“You’ve been working underneath Special Agent Tabitha Blue on Sheridan’s team.”
“I’ve served more in a consultant capacity. Your former boss wants to keep me in a more unofficial capacity. He said that he had his reasons.”
“So Joseph Champion was responsible for the shooting of the president.”
I don’t think that’s the case, My Love. Yet, no one, involved would answer that question, at least to her satisfaction.
And now comes the most difficult part. Roxanne was unsure how much Chris and his people knew about Joseph Champion and his renegade band of Pandora. Once again Roxanne’s investigative instincts warned her that there was even more to what Blue’s people had discovered than they were telling even her.
“Yes, Champion was responsible for Sweet’s death in some shape manner or form and paid for the crime with his own life. Your girl, Angel, gutted him up in the mountains Thanksgiving Weekend, but I’m sure you know that already.”
“I do.”
Roxanne had lived with and around the Dupree’s almost night and day for six months. And yet, she was taking care of that other professional matter when that thing went down at the mountain retreat, even though the whole idea of luring Champion with the sudden vacation was her idea in the first place.
“I ju
st want you to know that I’m back, Chris.”
“I missed you as well, Roxanne.” Chris held her hand in his.
“And I missed you, Chris.”
He put his forehead on hers but they did not kiss and for that she was thankful. There was something unpleasant about his breath—about the scent reeking from his pores that wasn’t there before she left.
“I needed the time to clear my head as well, Chris. I wasn’t sure where I belonged or where I was going next.” She stared into his eyes. “I wanted to be sure that we could go further or not.”
“Well, you’re here, now, Roxanne. You’ve obviously come to some type of decision.”
“I have.”
After Roxanne narrated her conclusions about her mother and her sister Chris said, “I understand the pressures of family, Roxanne. If anyone knows about the legacy and all that comes with the responsibility of it then it’s me.”
She nodded.
“What you don’t know is that you’ve saved me, Chris.”
“Look, Roxanne,” He shook to his head and got to his feet. “We talked about what happened to you down in Mexico before—“
“Then you understand that I would have killed those girls…that I would have done anything to make sure that they didn’t return to that cartel family and the hell that would have faced if they had lived afterwards.”
“Yea,” Chris said ever cautiously. “Yea, I guess that I do.”
“No, Chris,” She corrected him in a soft tone. “The answer is actually no. Only a monster would understand what I did that day down in Mexico. But then this here is a monster’s ball.”
“Maybe,”
“Only a monster would have bitched about the way that the FBI conducted its business concerning a perceived entrapment of my sister and then aided and abetted them in rounding up and killing Joseph Champion in the same manner.”
“Maybe,”
“And maybe, just maybe, it takes a monster to kill another monster.” She said and then paused long enough to make sure she had his attention before she spoke again. “One monster tosses a coin up, catches it and tosses it again in the hope that somewhere—someday the opportunity presents itself that he can truly apprehend the thing that the coin represents.”
“Maybe,” Chris rubbed at his dark jaw, but said nothing else so she continued.
“One night a few weeks ago there is meeting of these monsters at long last—a clash of titans. Someone finally found him after all of this time. Someone finally caught him in the act of a mercy killing. And then it was on. The creature known as Pennywise’s reign of terror against the poor and the disfranchised came to an abrupt end in a glorious battle that the few who witnessed it will never forget. Or so I’ve been told. You happen to know anything about this, Chris?”
“Maybe,”
“I’m in love with you, Christopher Prince.”
Chris spun back around with a suddenness that startled her.
“And I love you, Roxanne.” He helped her to her feet and into his arms for a long passionate kiss. She fought back against the alcohol smell and let her affection for this man guides her. “I believe that I fell in love with you when I first saw you after so many years, that night in the park right after I escaped the siege at the Fox Theatre.” He said and leaned in to kiss her once again.
Afterwards he walked her over to where the largest of his portraits sat with a sheet wrapped over the top of it.
“I needed you to be here before I allowed anyone else to see it.”
The drawing is of her.
Roxanne stared at the mirrored image of herself, biting back tears of gratitude the entire time. And speaking of time—
“I need you to come with me. We still have time to make it.”
“We have time to make what, Roxanne,” He smiled at her but was confused at the same time. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Do you trust me, Chris?”
“Do I trust you?”
“Yes, do you trust me?”
“Of course I do, Roxanne.”
“Then I need you to make the necessary arrangements with your people.” She kissed him one cheek and then the other. “I need a couple of hours with you alone without Peacekeeper interference. You’ve saved me Chris and now I want to return the favor.”
One hour later the two of them walked through the main gate that led them into Turner Field, home of the hometown Atlanta Braves, the local professional baseball team. Roxanne watched his level of anxiety rise as they drove ever closer to the stadium. She could smell the hotdogs grilling and the peanuts roasting. She could hear the buzz of an early morning season crowd even on a cold night as this one was.
“Look, Roxanne, I understand what you’re trying to do here and I appreciate it,” Chris was struggling to steady his voice. “But I don’t think that I can do this. I don’t want to do this.”
“While I was gone, Chris, I had to go face to face with some difficult memories of things that I could and could not control during different periods of my life. This is how we survive. I understand how you felt that night when you learned the truth about what your father had done to you. I know that coming back here—that coming back here across the street from where it all started brings it all back to you. You don’t want this, Chris. You need this. I’m no doctor like your friend, Angel, but I know your pain. I won’t let you go, Chris. I won’t let go.”
“My father sacrificed me to better his cause, Roxanne.” Chris said after a long time. “No matter what the greater good might have been, how could a man who loved his son do something so hideous? How am I supposed to get over such a thing?”
“You don’t,” Roxanne answered him. “You never do, not really. You do go on. You rely on the people and the resources that you have in your defense. You trust the ones that you have by your side. You believe in the one’s that love you. You believe in the one that loves you.”
“I will,” Chris fought back tears. “I can try.”
“But you will have to do something even more difficult than that, Chris. You will ultimately have to do something that you don’t want to do.”
“I already know what you are going to say.”
“Well then you should know that I mean it,” She said. “I’m changing Chris. The one thing that remains in me from the old Roxanne that you knew is my desire to fight you on your vices. I’ll help you every step of the way. I love you, Chris, but either the drinking goes or I do.”
Chris nodded his answer and let his head collapse on Roxanne’s shoulder where she held him there with all of her might.
By the bottom of the ninth the Braves found themselves down by a three runs. They had the bases loaded with two outs and a full count on their cleanup hitter who had failed to produce in his first three at bats.
In the moments after he delivered a grand slam homerun to win the game for the home team Chris Prince and Roxanne Sanchez engaged in a long, glorious kiss.
Afterwards, she looked into the eyes of the only man that she had ever loved. She thought that the Braves weren’t the only ones in this town who could stage a rally—who could come back from the dead.
She saw her dark eyes in the reflection as well.
How could either one of us continue to love a monster, she wondered as they filed out of the ballpark with tens of thousands of other patrons into the darkness of the Atlanta night.
Angel
Mississippi River Landing: Memphis, Tennessee, March 2012
“My dear, you look as if you could use a drink?”
Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree cocked a brow and smiled sadly. Am I that obvious? Am I that pitiful looking? “I’d might, Mrs. Healy, but I’ll take a glass of water with a side of lemon instead if you would please.”
Lisa Healy, Hugh Keaton’s mother, hurried off to retrieve her drink from the bar. Agent Blue’s report said that this woman had worked at the Mississippi River Park here in Memphis, Tennessee for a couple days a week to supplement her social secur
ity for nearly three years now. She had put in enough time do that she could ask her boss to give her a full hour’s break to speak with an FBI consultant who’d flown over from Atlanta to speak with her.
This establishment planted here on the banks of the Mississippi was filled with noisy regulars and tourist this evening enjoying unseasonably warm day for this point of the spring. Still, it was still enough of a chill for Angel to button the top button of her jacket. The bartender was stirring up miracles, the chef sweetened the air with the smell of beef and pork and fish and the waitresses were marching to beat of their own drum. Angel smoothed out her skirt and crossed one booted leg over the other.
She damn sure could have used that drink—especially after what she’d experienced at the airport flying in. She’d run into a blonde bombshell, a biker at that. He told her that he owned a pawn shop just across the river from Memphis in Arkansas but had been flying back from business in LA. He was short on brains, but long on hair and his ass fit snuggly in his tight jeans the way she liked it. He was definitely her type. Somehow, Angel had politely declined his invitation for a drink or two…but had accepted his address and phone number anyway—
“Young lady, do you hear me?”
“Sorry,” Angel bounced herself back into the present. “I’m a little distracted. Thank you for agreeing to see me, especially on short notice.”
Lisa Healy waved Angel off with one wrinkled hand off as she made herself as comfortable as one could consider the lack of cushion in these chairs.
“Forgive me, young lady, but sometimes I forget things. I must ask you again, Agent Hicks Dupree, what agency do you work with?”
“I’m a doctor actually,” Angel took her first sip of her drink. Gin would have worked so much better—especially against this backdrop. “I’m a Clinical Psychologist by trade. The short story is that for a brief time I was a member…of an organization that treated your son on more than occasion.” She stopped long enough to allow the older woman to absorb what she said and to allow a cool breeze to comb her hair. “I was with Hugh when he died near Stone Mountain last year.”
Lisa Healy sat back in her chair and looked down the river. Angel switched her leg position and let the information she’d fed the old woman breathe. Agent Tabitha Blue had provided Angel with all of this Intel and location of Hugh’s mother in return for the danger that she and her husband Seth had faced down in order to catch Joseph Champion back in the fall. Angel knew that she probably had one hour to make this work. She wouldn’t blow it by talking too much, especially here at the onset.
“Oh my,” Lisa Healy finally said. “Oh, yes, I guess I understand. What can I help you with?”
And in speaking of talking too much, “If you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs. Healy, you don’t act like you are overly surprised to see someone like me come all of this way to see you here in Memphis.” Lisa Healy didn’t answer her right away. Angel reached over the half table and locked her fingers into the older woman’s wrinkled ones. “You’ve had other visitors haven’t you?”
Lisa found interest in a casino boat chugging its way up the Mississippi with the evening crowd aboard more than happy to gamble today’s earnings away. When Hugh Keaton’s mother finally looked back at Angel she looked as if she’d aged 20 more years.
“My Hugh was a troubled boy who had grown into a troubled man.” She swallowed, audible, even over the chattering of the dinner crowd. “And to answer your question, Doctor, yes, I’ve had visitors from you people more than once or twice asking about him. When those poor children started going missing in Atlanta, I always envisioned that someone would go digging into my boy’s past.”
“May I ask who came to see you, Mrs. Healy?”
The older woman folded her arms against her tiny frame, but not against the cooling Memphis day. She is an old woman. Maybe her memory isn’t what—
“Are you asking me if a member or members of Pandora came to see me? Why don’t you ask me how many times they came to disrupt what little life I’ve made for myself here?” She smiled as she nodded but there was nothing but sadness scribbled on her wrinkled face otherwise. “Yet, when Serena Tennyson came here about this time a year ago I could only wish that disruption was all that Pandora had brought to my life.”
“Serena,” Angel struggled to keep her voice down. “She was here in Memphis?”
“Yes,”
Angel squeezed both of the other woman’s hands with her own. Lisa Healy looked as if she needed Angel’s strength to get through this.
And Angel felt as if she needed Lisa’s strength as well.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Angel cocked a brow. “Will you tell me what happened?”
“It wasn’t as serious as you think, dear, at least not at first. We did a lot of girl talk like you and I are right now.” Lisa’s eyes got glassy. Angel felt a nerve twitching in her shoulder. “You would be surprised at what total strangers have in common sometimes.”
“I’m sure but I have the feeling that this casual conversation ended with her threating you somehow.” Angel put what she said in statement form.
The old woman nodded her head once and a single tear ran down her cheek.
“One of Serena’s people handed her a knapsack. She pulled my brother’s severed head out of it for starters.” Lisa’s smile was back and the lack of warmth was ever present as well. “She put it right on the dining room table next to my uneaten peas and potatoes that I had cooked earlier in the day. The two of us sat at the table with my brother’s severed head and conversed for a while longer; mostly we talked about Hugh’s childhood.”
“What happened then?”
“Serena pushed her chair over to where I was seated, pulled out a very large handgun and planted it on my forehead.” Lisa’s new tears had joined the single one in a race down her slight wrinkled cheeks. One of the nearby patrons noticed. Angel jumped out of her seat and hoped that Lisa Healy would follow her lead. Two minutes later they were standing in a semi secluded area of the boardwalk although they were both freezing their ass off as the sun began setting in the west. The old woman, to her credit, had gained a small measure of her control back. “When I finished telling her all that I had to say about our past she told me that I deserved to die for what I had allowed to happen to Hugh. She told me that no woman would have disgraced motherhood like I had.”
Lisa told Angel the same story that Serena Tennyson had taken to her fiery grave with her. And then she folded her arms over her breast both in exasperation…and curiosity to why Oracle had allowed the old woman to live.
“Why didn’t you report this—“
“Report this to whom, young lady?”
“Listen, Mrs. Healy, I know that you were afraid,” Angel heard herself say. And she stayed silent a second while she exercised the use of a different tactic. “You survived, Mrs. Healy. You are a survivor. You must have said or done something or the other that she allowed you to get up from that table alive. Serena Tennyson is dead, Mrs. Healy. She’s no threat to hurt you any longer. Yet, I’ m damned curious to what you said to her that she allowed you to live on?”
Lisa shrugged her bony shoulders.
“She just let me live is all, Doctor. I really wish that I could give you something more professionally more interesting than that. I wish that I could explain it better than that.”
Angel kicked at a rock that was littering on the boardwalk and folded her arms again.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Healy,” Angel found the composure that she’d momentarily lost. “But it almost sound disappointed that she didn’t do you any harm?”
The old woman turned away to watch yet another casino boat cruising down the Mississippi nearly out of their site.
“Angel said, “Mrs. Healy—“
“Let me tell you something, Missy,” Lisa frowned and her voice sounded as if the words were being mouthed by another woman. “When you’ve stunk it up like I’ve stunk it up over the years, when you’ve done so much wrong,
when you’ve made mistake after mistake as I have—you expect judgement to cometh…even before His judgement comes.”
“But she let you go, Mrs. Healy.”
Lisa only nodded at that.
“Serena was in total control. I wouldn’t have had time to scream. She was younger than me, of course. She was fit and strong and even if I had escaped her she still had a couple of her other operatives waiting in my living room.” Lisa Healy told her. “At the precise moment in time, I was living the last minutes of my life the way that I guess inmates on death row whose stay of execution was over.”
Angel found herself turning away this time.
“Why didn’t she finish this…?” Angel mumbled louder than she had intended.
“I haven’t gone one day, not one single precious day since that evening without asking the same question that you are now, Doctor.” Angel heard the old woman speak behind her. “Every day I see my brother’s head sitting on that table. And by everything I’ve read in the papers, everything I’ve seen in the news in the year since, tells me that Serena wasn’t known for being merciful to her victims.”
Angel shrugged at that and turned to face the old woman again.
“Perhaps Serena felt that you seeing firsthand the gruesome murder of your brother were enough punishment for you both.”
“Maybe she did,” Lisa’s silent frown afterwards spoke volumes to Angel that the doctor could have phrased that last statement better. “But sometimes I think that she allowed me to live long enough to see my boy dying the way she figured he would might be a far sterner punishment.” She bit into a clenched fist. “And now my precious boy is gone. I saw it on national TV when it happened. I saw you there as well.”
“I’m sorry,”
Lisa patted Angel’s hand…and then held it tight in her own. If there had been tension between the two of them over the past few minutes it had passed with the last gust of cool wind.
“It’s alright, Doctor. My faith tells me that I’ve already been forgiven for my mistakes.” She glanced at her tiny watch.
Can I ever be forgiven for what I’ve done? Will God forgive me? What about Seth? What about Christopher?
“I know that you have to get back to work soon.” After a moment of silence Angel said: “I’m sorry to disturb your life once again, Mrs. Healy. I shouldn’t have come here to Memphis at all.”
“But you did come, dear. We all learn to live with our decisions, Doctor. Whether I am forgiven or not I’ll spend however days I have left coping with the decisions I’ve made. My precious boy is dead. Look at me though, I’m clean and sober for one of the few times in my life. I’m doing…okay financially. I’m just an old working girl. I’m trying to have some of the things that I couldn’t provide us when Hugh was a small boy.”
“I tried to save him,” Angel found herself suddenly saying. “I tried to reach out to him…all of him. I tried to get inside of him. I want you to believe that about your son.”
“I do believe you, Doctor,” Lisa Healy pulled Angel in for a fierce a hug as an old, scrawny woman could provide. “In the end—at the end the four of us failed him equally. You, I and Serena all failed Hugh at crucial points of his life, Doctor but she failed him in the end. ”
Angel pulled herself away from the older woman’s embrace with considerable effort. What she saw next in Lisa Healy’s brown eyes was something she would not soon forget. It looked as if someone had placed a dark mask over the other woman’s face. It was if a dark cumulous cloud was blanketing an otherwise docile woman that stood here on this boardwalk only a minute ago.
“What do you mean by that,” Angel worded her question more carefully this time. “Who is this fourth person that you are referring to?”
“Serena left my kitchen that night promising to watch over my Hugh for as long as she could. She said that she would be his guardian unlike one that he’d ever had before. She promised to keep him from harm. But then she can’t keep her promises if your friends in the FBI killed her too.”
Angel kept her tone and her answer neutral.
“She died a few hours after your son did.”
Lisa Healy shook her head back and forth until Angel was sure the woman’s brains were rattling inside.
“Don’t be silly, Doctor,” Lisa smiled but the darkness cast over her had remained. “Serena Tennyson is very much alive and she’s with her now.”
And as shocking as Lisa’s proclamation was it would be her final words that both shocked Angel into disbelief—and answered the question to why Serena Tennyson had allowed Hugh Keaton’s mother to live that night nearly a year earlier.
Two very long hours later Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree found herself lying nude in Brad’s—the Blonde from the airport—bed sipping on her sixth or seventh shot of gin. In fact, after she drained the last glass she sat the glass on the nearby nightstand and angled for the bottle from which the shots had come.
She saw Brad watching her out of the corner of his blue eyes.
The sun had set. If she hurried she would still have time to make her flight back to Atlanta for the connector flight home to Macon and her devoted husband Seth. She would still have time to save the last of her dignity. It is still time to stop this before it starts. Sure, they’d played around a little and drank a lot. They’d touched a few body parts that belonged to the other, yet they had not crossed the barrier to intercourse. She hadn’t had sex with any man other than her husband since her trip to Atlanta the night 411 was unleashed on that city and the world.
Seth, her husband, who was both physically and mentally recovering from his ordeal at the dagger, filled hand of Joseph Champion in that mountain cabin in Tennessee. The attending physician told her much later that another 30 minutes or so of bleeding and he would not have survived.
Anyway, Seth had suffered some temporary memory loss as a result of lack of oxygen flowing back and forward to his brain. In fact, the therapy he was enrolled in right now didn’t seem to be aiding his bouts of long term memory lapses. You still have time to stop this, she thought again. And yet, she looked over her bare shoulder at him anyway. She had a ton of problems back in her life. This man would be a welcome distraction—especially considering the Grand Jury testimony still to come about her involvement with Serena Tennyson, Pandora, and her role in what history would remember as the newest round of Atlanta Child Murders.
And then there was always the X factor known as Christopher Prince and how he would react to her testimony and revelations about what she knew about Erica Lovings murder and when she knew them. And even worse, she would have to speak aloud about her interactions with Hugh Keaton earlier could have…might have nudged Keaton ever closer to the edge that placed Atlanta’s children directly in harm’s way.
“Thank you, Brad. Thank you for everything that you’ve done for me this evening.” She leaned over and planted a close mouthed kiss on the man’s lips. “You have been a very tempting distraction. The truth is that I’ve overstayed my welcome as it is.”
“Really,” This, the most beautiful of men kidded her back but thankfully kept his hands to himself. One glance between his legs told her that he was horny—but he wasn’t desperate or stupid enough to take this any further than she wanted to go. “Let me push this idea your way. Why don’t you reschedule your flight? I’ll pay for the difference for your airfare.” He pulled his credit card from out of his wallet and laid it in the tiny space between them on the bed. “Spend the night with me. I guarantee you that this night won’t be one either one of us will forget it.”
Angel stood up naked and unashamed.
“I shouldn’t,” She smiled as she said it. “I can’t.” She let her smile float away. “I have to go.”
“You have to go, but you are staying anyway?”
After a minute of thought and nude pacing Angel said, “I’m not going to make you any promises, Brad.”
“I wouldn’t think of asking you to.”
She awoke in the middle of the night as
naked as she was before. Brad had left her a note that there had been a break in at his shop in Arkansas and he had to attend to it and didn’t want to wake her. Perhaps they could truly finish what they’d started here another time. He left the hotel rooms’ key on his pillow and asked her to lock up and turn the key in when she left. He left his cell phone number and thanked her for a wonderful time.
She sat up against the bedpost and ran her fingers through her unkempt hair. She drowned what was left in the gin bottle, felt suddenly disgusted with the drink’s taste and the predicament she’d allowed to fester, got up, and poured the last drops of it down the drain.
She fell to the porcelain floor in the shower crying.
And while the steamed water pounded her back, all Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree could think about was the final few words that Hugh Keaton’s mother had ushered to her while they stood together along the banks of the Mississippi River.
“’Don’t be silly, Doctor,” Lisa had smiled but the darkness that cast over her had remained. “Serena Tennyson is very much alive and with her right now.”
“What?” Angel had remembered saying then. “That’s quite impossible, Mrs. Healy.”
“Well of course it’s possible, dear.” The old woman said as if to question the sanity of Angel or anyone else who didn’t believe this to be true. “Serena told me that she’d only gone through a Baptism by Fire when that truck exploded with her in the back of it after her arrest during a Whirlwind. She told me that she’d seen me in the flames. She told me that I was her other wing that she’d searched high and low for all of her life.”
Oh my, God was all that Angel could mentally put into in coherence of speech then and now.
“My dear, you thought that I was referring to you letting my boy down—now that’s just plain silly,” Angel heard the old woman say that then. “I let my boy down; Serena in turn did the same when she failed to protect him as she said she would. And the Dragon, our blessed Dragon that sits high and looks down low let him down in the end. I saw it in the flames.”
“Mrs. Healy please stop it—“
“Now don’t you fret about this one second longer, Doctor,” The old woman had continued as if Angel hadn’t spoken at all. And her grip on the Doctor’s hand had become vice like. “But I do pity you, oh yes I do, Doctor. Serena saw in her flames what you are soon to face. And I have seen it to. This body of mine is likely to meet its end soon—and I will join Serena and we will fly off into eternity with the Dragon. Our Baptism into the fire will at last be complete.”
Angel had wanted to escape the woman’s grip then.
She could not.
She did hear her words.
“But we can look down and pity the loneliness that you are certain before the flames take you at last.”
Dr. Angle Hicks Dupree could still hear Lisa Healy’s words over the shower’s waterfall.
And the words were growing louder by the minute.
Chris
New South Cemetery, March 2012
Angel nudged him by grabbing his coat sleeve and whispered hot breath in his ear that she wanted—no she needed to speak with him in private.
He glanced back, asked her if it could wait until after the ceremony ended…he could see her working it over in her mind.
And then Angel shook her head no she couldn’t wait that long.
And then, just as suddenly, she changed her mind again.
The One could see that his childhood friend was troubled. He probably stared a little too long because he thought that there were tears falling underneath her thick shades—or were those wet streaks the aftermath of the downpour that had been going on all morning.
The three of them drove to the cemetery in separate cars. Chris rode in the family car with four of his Peacekeepers in tow. Roxanne drove her own car as close to the big Lincoln as she could. Angel settled for bringing up the rear riding shotgun with her husband Seth.
This impromptu ceremony was Roxanne’s idea.
The love of his life seemed to be full of ideas lately. He had to agree though, that this one was long past due.
He heard each car door slam as the ones who were still closest to him met him by the new gravesite. He’d had his father’s remains removed from that middle school where Serena Tennyson had housed them for so long moved here. He now had his old man’s bones, both his biological mother and step mother lined up in the same section as his brother Xavier. One aisle over were the gravesites of Denise Prince and his step daughter Erica Lovings.
He’d done this all at a considerable expense his new Circle of a House In Chains had more than willing to pay as a gift for his inauguration as the new One. He thankfully denied their offering and paid for this out of his severance packet that he’d received after over two decades working for the federal government.
Chris’ best friend in the world stood to one side of him holding hands with her husband. Chris had always thought of the Gray Man as slightly aloof but he looked even more distracted than he’d ever seen him before. Angel leaned over to him and whispered in his ear that he should meet her in the park after the ceremony ended. He silently nodded in agreement.
And yet, Chris couldn’t help but steal glances at Seth. Angel had told him that her husband had been rapidly improving in a physical sense the past few weeks after his near death experience in that cabin in Northern Georgia when they nabbed Joseph Champion…but Angel also said that he was struggling more and more each day with retaining events from his long term memory.
Four Peacekeepers guarded his immediate surroundings while at least a dozen more heavily armed men set up a perimeter. He knew that he would have been fine even without their help but he didn’t argue when the Circle asked for him to carry this heavy a detail around with him today. Many of these folks served a House in Chains—had served his brother Xavier in one capacity or the other—
They felt Xavier’s loss as much as he did, especially after the insurrection led by Quincy Morgan led to his murder. And many of them believe what I believe…that if Xavier had lived through the night that the mass suicide that the others planned during Scar’s waning hours would not have come to be.
And in speaking of that tragedy… Chris had wanted to add Grace Edwards’s body to those who were here in this burial ground but her family politely but sternly refused his offer. He understood.
The new Deputy Director of the FBI, Nicholas Sheridan, had sent flowers and a carefully crafted but genuine statement that showed the man’s kindness. He apologized for his absence…and mentioned that he had an urgent matter to personally speak to him about at Chris’ earliest convenience.
Special Agent Tabitha Blue sent nothing.
Yet, the biggest surprise of the morning was still to come.
Thomas Pepper exited as quickly and his bulk allowed him and was quickly seated in a wheel chair by an old woman who began pushing him up and over to the gravesite. Chris laid a single hand on the largest of the Peacekeeper’s shoulders and the big man greeted the old woman half way. She thanked him kindly as the Peacekeeper wheeled Thomas over to where the remainder of the mourners stood.
If Dr. Seth Dupree didn’t look well then Thomas Pepper was a dead man riding. He didn’t look anything like the man he last saw trying to aid the FBI nab Serena Tennyson in that hotel without further incident six months ago. He’d dropped 50 pounds easily. He had dark circle camped out underneath his eyes. He gave Chris and the others only a faint nod in acknowledgement of his arrival. Chris decided after a few awkward minutes that Thomas either didn’t speak to him because he didn’t know what to say, or because he lacked the strength to say it.
So Christopher Prince stooped as low as his own frame allowed and wrapped a single arm around the frail looking man and hugged him instead.
Thomas Pepper’s face was a casserole of emotions.
Roxanne Sanchez looked as emotional as she released him after all of the tributes had been paid, after all of the tears had been shed, and after some good
byes had been said.
Chris needed Roxanne.
Chris needed a drink nearly as much.
Chris needed the smallest measure of peace that he knew he was never going to find.
He hid his discomfort by twisting back around and peering at the gravesite of his loved ones one last time.
No man should ever bury his family.
No man should, but Christopher Prince was going to bury his.
He had the love of his life standing next to him, but the path that he’d chosen to walk as the One of a House in Chains had altered his path forever.
He searched the gray sky, he searched the headstones of his father and brother and then he searched the eyes of the woman that he loved so very dearly for a sign—any sign that he would receive absolution for all of his past sins.
He was now more certain than ever that that day would never come.