Inside the house, he watched her as she went up to her bedroom to change. He then called Scholes, who had left concerned messages on both his and Lara’s phones, and then Donna, as he’d promised.
“Put this call on-screen.”
Donovan frowned, but complied.
“Good,” Lara’s best friend said. “I wanted to see your face.”
“Donna, what—”
“I wanted to see that you love her. I heard that you do. When we spoke. The way you . . . But I wanted to see.”
Donovan said nothing. He just let Donna look at him, see the obvious truth about him. He knew why she needed this. She didn’t only know everything about Lara and her past, she also knew a bit about his. Her grandparents had been his neighbors for some years, they had already owned this very house, the house Lara now lived in, when he moved into his. He was a single man, living alone, and being with women was easy, with his looks. And it suited him, the transience of it.
Until Lara came along.
He remained silent and looked at Donna. She was protecting her friend, would naturally feel the need to do so. She had trusted him with Lara so far, and he wanted her to see it on him, see what he was now, what Lara was to him.
He needed this for Lara.
Donna finally nodded. This, Lara and Donovan, was the one thing she never thought of, had never even considered. And yet that’s exactly what was happening, and she accepted that it was real. Gladly so. Donovan was a good man. “Look, it was more than that,” she began, then stopped, hesitating.
Donovan looked at her questioningly.
“Ask her how Oracle began.”
“You know about it?”
“Sure. I was there when it started. We don’t talk about it, we have this rule about talking about work, and I told you it’s better that way, it’s how I get her to not always think about her job. But I know.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean how it began?”
“Lara should be the one to tell you. Look, after it happened, she went there, okay? And she never really came back. In a way, I think only Oracle returned. Too much of Lara is still back there. And it was fine with her. All this time, she’s never tried to change that. But then you came along. And now she’s finally trying to come back. But she’s doing it alone, because she doesn’t know how to do it differently, not anymore, by now she is used to being alone.” She shook her head, the memories, what her friend had been through, bringing tears to her eyes. “She is never going to be the same person she was before Brian and Jason died. That’s just the way it is. And that’s okay, she’s done so much since then, been so much since. But that part of her you need is there, five years ago, where living stopped for her, and you can bring her back.”
“Donna, I don’t understand. What—”
“Just ask her,” Donna said. “Ask her what happened five years ago. Get her to tell you everything. Everything.” Donna couldn’t believe she was saying this. “If you want a life with her, you’ve got to break into her first.”
Ending the call, the furrow in his brow deeper now, Donovan turned to see the woman he loved descend the stairs.
Chapter Six
Once she was sitting comfortably huddled on the sofa, wrapped in a soft robe and with a mug of hot soup in her hands, he came to sit on its opposite end, sipping from his own mug. She was here now, safe, with him. That’s all I need, he thought, that and for her to be happy, and even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew Donna was right. Lara had to go through it all, had to go back to those painful days in her past and to take him there with her. Otherwise, she would never be able to live now, in her present. With him.
He watched her silently, let her sit quietly with her thoughts, her gaze lowered to the mug she was holding. Eventually she raised her eyes to meet his, and he held them. She nodded slightly, then lowered her gaze again.
“Jason and Brian were high school friends, unlikely ones at that, I guess,” she began after a pause. “Jason had an unruly streak in him. He was a good kid, but a tough one. Never thought twice about intervening in situations others would walk away from. He would protect the weak and could do so easily—no one messed with him.” Her lips curved up a little, the sadness in that slight reminiscing movement sending a pang through Donovan’s heart.
“He really was a good kid, you know. I was always protected, everyone knew he would beat up anyone who came anywhere near his little sister. Tom, that’s his twin, the brother I still have, he preferred to reason. Anyone talking to Tom would understand very clearly that any action taken that Tom did not approve of would be certain to lead to dire and long-term consequences that would impact their lives in a way that would make them regret they ever met him. Even at that age he had the words, the posture. That effect on people, kids and adults alike. Tom reasoned, Jason battled. And Brian”—she smiled—“Brian was the one who stepped in, who pulled Jason away, who healed instead of fighting. An improbable friendship, Tom always said about the two of them. But it held fast.
“When they went to college, all of them, Tom was so obviously going to be a lawyer, Brian was set on being a doctor, like pretty much everyone else in his family, and Jason, about a year into college he knew it wasn’t for him. He enlisted to IDSD Defense and was instantly at home. He had found his calling. My brother, the protector of the innocent. Our parents would have preferred he stay close to home, join the police or something if he had to, but Jason was military at heart, a combat soldier. And that’s where he went.
“I’m six years younger than all of them, six and a half, and when I went to college, Jason was already deployed overseas, and Tom had graduated from law school and was interning with IDSD Legal in Brussels.” At Donovan’s surprise she laughed. “Yes, the original Holsworth at IDSD was Tom. He’s now a senior partner at a law firm affiliated with IDSD Legal, here in DC.”
He sat up, remembering. “Wait a minute.”
“Right,” she said. “You must have come across the connection when you were investigating me.”
He did, and now finally understood. Trying to find out who Lara Holsworth was, he had found that the house they were now sitting in was registered to IDSD, as was her car, and that all mail was sent not to her home but to IDSD Legal.
“I tend to be preoccupied, obviously. So Tom, who’s also my attorney, takes care of all the official bits and ends of my life, behind IDSD Legal’s cover. And IDSD prefers it that way too because it’s a way for them to balance their need to hide me with the fact that I refuse to live in their secure residential complex.”
“He knows about . . . ?”
“Oracle? Yes. Nothing specific about missions, of course, but yes. He knows quite a bit. He’s my cover outside IDSD, because he’s connected to both, well, Lara and Oracle. And he’s very protective.”
“You’re his little sister.”
“And the only sibling he has left. Losing Jason was tough. It would have been entirely unbearable for him, for both of us, for our parents, if not for Sarah.”
“Sarah?” He was finally learning more about her, and he wanted to know it all.
“Jason met a woman on one of his tours overseas, a foreign area officer, an International. Jenny. She died a year before Jason was killed. Sarah is their daughter.”
Donovan winced inwardly. That was a lot of loss in one family.
“She lives with Tom and his family, his wife and two kids. They’re like siblings anyway, the kids, Sarah stayed with them when Jason returned to duty after Jenny died. And it has made it easier for her, Tom being her father’s twin and all. And Tom’s wife, Milly, she’s absolutely amazing. Sarah is eleven now, and she’s doing great.” Lara indicated the photos on her fireplace mantel, and Donovan remembered seeing children’s photos there. Happy children. Must be one hell of a family, he thought, and somehow this only accentuated more the loneliness the woman with him was trapped in.
She was looking at the mug, her eyes distant, remembering. Abruptly, she put it on the co
ffee table and folded her hands in her lap, the thoughts too painful.
“Is that where you and Brian became closer? College?” Donovan prodded, recalling what Donna had told him.
Lara nodded slightly, still not looking at him. “Jason and Tom asked him to look out for me. Brian was in med school by then, and I was enrolled in college not far from there.” She smiled a little. “And he was always around. We were . . . together since my last year in college.” She paused, and Donovan gave her the time she needed, knowing how overwhelming her memories must be. “Jason always tried to talk Brian into joining the military, but Brian just wasn’t the fighting type. He was a healer at heart. Still, he was affected by Jason’s stories and by the fact that his best friend was in situations that could harm him. So he went into trauma care, and when he finished his residency, he took a fellowship at the US-alliance military hospital here in DC. That’s where they bring those who were injured in the field, you know. The bad ones. He joined as a civilian, but trauma doctors are always needed, and he convinced them to take him by doing a stint in the trauma unit at the IDSD-alliance military hospital in Brussels and agreeing to join forward surgical teams in the field when they had a shortage of doctors. He eventually became a permanent member of one.” She raised haunted eyes to Donovan. “He loved what he did, you know. Helping people.”
She was silent for a long time. “He wasn’t even supposed to be there, that day. Neither of them was. Camp Vrede, that’s where they were. Did I tell you that? Camp Vrede, in Kuwait. That’s where Jason was stationed at the time, and he was supposed to be out of there a month before, it was his last tour. He asked to be transferred back here, he wanted to come back to Sarah for good, raise her himself. But he extended his tour by a month because the guy who was supposed to replace him had a new baby and wanted to be there for his family for the first few weeks. That month was over the day the camp was attacked, Jason was scheduled to fly out the next day. And Brian, he stopped there on his way back to me after three months at a field trauma unit in the region, thinking he’d fly out with Jason.”
She shifted, just a bit. It hurt, talking about it. Thinking about it. “I was at work, that day. I was a junior civilian analyst at IDSD Intelligence, of all places. Tom’s idea. I wasn’t like my brothers and Brian, I didn’t seem to belong to any specific profession and none of them attracted me, but I had a good memory and this ability to cross information, make out-of-the-box connections, so Tom suggested I work there until I figured out what I wanted to do. They put me on one of their task teams. The Asian Territories. And I was there for a while.” She paused again, then spoke quickly, as if trying to get through it, through the pain. “I remember looking up because everything was so quiet all of a sudden. And these man and woman in full dress uniform walked into the analyst teams’ open space, and they passed by my desk and went to my supervisor’s office—not the head of the Asian Territories team I was in, but the head of all task teams, Solly—and I breathed again. If anything happened they would come to me, I knew, because I was Brian’s contact for the military. But they didn’t come to me, they went to Solly, and they talked to him. And then he called me to his office.”
She still wasn’t looking at Donovan. “Frank was there, you know. That day. I’d seen him before, we never talked, though, he probably never even noticed me. He and Solly, they were friends, still are, and Frank had just been appointed second-in-command of IDSD Missions, so they would meet there sometimes and go out to lunch together—the intelligence building is not far from the missions building in the IDSD complex, I don’t know if you’ve seen it. Anyway, he was there that day. Solly, he had no idea what to do, but Frank, he’s been in the field and in command most of his life. He knew what to do. And then, I remember, this giant of a man came and sat beside me, and I had no idea what they were all saying except Brian was dead.” The tears flowed freely now, and Donovan had to hold himself not to take her in his arms, take the pain away.
“The notification officers, that’s who the man and woman were, they finally left. And Frank and Solly stayed there. I remember everyone outside Solly’s office was so hushed.” She looked at him then. “I never went back, you know. That was my last day there. I never set foot there again. Solly was so nice about it, he and Frank had everything done so I wouldn’t have to, later. Even now, I never go to that building, they come to me.
“They wanted to call Tom, but then he called. My phone. It rang. Frank took the call. And he went so pale, and I thought maybe someone had already told Tom except that Tom was at our parents’ house. I took the phone and Tom said that they’re still there, the notification officers. Telling them that Jason was gone. I didn’t tell him Brian was dead too. He was heartbroken because of Jason. He said I should come immediately. Jason was his twin, did I tell you? Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Her eyes were lowered again, her entire being in a world of hurt.
“They were gone by the time I got there, the officers, Tom had sent them away. My parents, they were devastated. And Sarah. She was so little, just six. Tom was trying to hold everything together. And then he took me aside and asked if I managed to get through to Brian. He was the only one who knew Brian was there, too, at the base. We didn’t want to worry anyone. But he knew. And he asked. So I told him.”
Her voice was hollow as she fought to keep anguish at bay, and Donovan’s heart broke.
“Tom and I and Brian’s sister, we took care of everything. The funeral, everything. The casualty assistance officers did everything they could, we had them from both sides you know, the US and the Internationals, and IDSD was amazing with Tom and me. And Donna was there, she and Tom’s wife were trying hard to take care of all of us, of the family.” She was finding it difficult now not to fall apart, and Donovan, fighting the urge to take her in his arms, moved his leg slightly. Contact, just the slightest. She stared at it, at the point of contact, moved slightly closer. Hanging on. Hanging on to now, to him, to this man she was finally letting in.
“The day of the funeral, after people left . . . we were all at my parents’ house, I was staying there, I couldn’t go back. Couldn’t return to the house I’d lived in with Brian. I was outside, sitting on the front porch, I remember. My parents were inside, with family that came to help, friends. And Tom came to me with Sarah, said he was taking her home, taking them home, his family. Trying to maintain some normality. For the kids, for Sarah. He asked me to come with them, to go with Donna, anything. Anything but just sit there that way. But I really didn’t care at that point. No one could get through to me. And then as they were turning to go Sarah ran back to me and she hugged me and then that little girl said something. She asked me if it was true that the bad people got away with killing her daddy and Uncle Brian.” For the first time, she raised her eyes to Donovan’s. “And she had all that pain in her eyes, she has Jason’s eyes, you know.” She shook her head. “I saw her entire life in her eyes, the question that would never go away, of how someone could take them away from us forever and get away with it. She’d just lost her mom the year before and now her dad. So I said no. And I remember Tom standing there, and he was about to say something, he almost did, but then he nodded, and he picked her up, hugged her, and they left. I don’t think he ever thought I would do what I did, didn’t know I could. No one did, not even I. He just wanted something done, by anyone.”
She breathed in deeply. When she spoke again, some of who she was now, some of who Oracle was, was in her voice. “I knew quite a bit, analyzed enough situations, followed enough missions from afar. I never acted on it before, never needed to, was never asked to. But apparently I could. I knew enough to know what to do. Who to go to. I knew that those who were still alive from Jason’s unit came back, they were at the funeral, the too few who survived and came home.”
Donovan sat up. What was she saying?
“Three days later, I was in the base Brian and Jason were killed in.”
“Impossible,” he blurted out, but then remembered who he was tal
king to. Wasn’t Oracle herself an impossibility?
“And yet,” she simply said, “that’s the way it was. I talked Donna into bringing me my personal laptop from . . . the house. She wanted me to come stay with her and Patty, they were already living together then, and I told her that I wanted to stay with my parents for a while. She knew me enough to know something was up, but at that point she’d let me get away with anything. Anyway, I used my laptop and my work authorizations to break into the right places, stole some higher authorizations to get to others, and got all the information I could about the incident and its investigation, which at that point had pretty much stalled. They knew who did it, who attacked the base, just not where they were and how to get to them.” She shrugged. “And then I talked Jason’s unit into taking me to where my brother and the man I loved died. Which was easy. They had an open door—they could go back whenever they wanted to, they weren’t ones to quit and Camp Vrede did, as you probably know, continue its operations. It was just a matter of getting me there. And for the record, I fixed everything so that all blame would fall on me.”
Donovan gaped at her. “Exactly how many laws did you break?”
“Internationals, US federal, alliance joint command, you name them, I broke them.” She gave him a small smile. “You fell in love with a criminal mastermind, my United States Federal Investigative Division agent.”
His heart missed a beat. This was the first time she acknowledged his feelings for her directly. And it sure sounded as if she was accepting him, and them.
“I knew I would be caught. And no, I really didn’t do anything to hide what I was doing, just enough so it wouldn’t be discovered until I got to Camp Vrede. I just had to get there. I had no idea what I would do, if I could do anything. I just wanted to go to where they died, and I had nothing to lose.” She moved a little, the contact between them more pronounced now.
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