by Margaret Kay
“Because I said no to it,” Kennedy replied before Gary could. These people were all crazy, as far as she was concerned.
Sloan’s phone vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket and viewed the screen. It was a message from Garcia. Come to Michaela’s lab, alone. His eyes flashed to Kennedy, then to Jackson. “I’ll be back in a few. Garcia needs to see me.”
Jackson nodded. Sloan knew he’d watch Kennedy.
He took the stairs up to eight. When he went into Michaela’s lab, he found that Shepherd was on the monitor from his office. He knew whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. But when he looked at the expression on Garcia’s face, which was the grin of the cat that ate the canary and all his brothers, he had to wonder why Shepherd was online.
“So, we finished running DNA samples,” Garcia said. “And what we discovered was interesting, to say the least. Which led me to do some digging into Kennedy’s parents’ background and her sister.”
He paused for what Sloan guessed was a dramatic effect. “Are you going to tell me or make me guess?”
“Oh, you’d never guess this one,” Garcia said.
“DNA samples from Melody and Kennedy show an identical match,” Michaela said.
“How can that be?” Sloan asked.
“The only time two people can have identical DNA is if they are identical twins. Even siblings do not share identical DNA.”
“Twins?” Sloan repeated.
“So, I checked into the Bristow’s at the time of Kennedy’s birth. They lived in Fremont, California. There are no records of them seeing an obstetrician nor of Sandy Bristow being a patient at any local hospital on or around Kennedy’s birthdate, never actually.”
“Home birth?” Sloan asked.
“It took a lot of checking, but I discovered that Kennedy’s birth certificate is from Los Angeles. I checked there too, no hospital records for Sandy Bristow. But when I checked Melody Sawyer, I found hospital records for her mother, Jade Sawyer. The records indicate she gave birth to twin daughters on Kennedy’s birthdate. But only one birth certificate was filed with Los Angeles with Jade Sawyer as the birth mother, and that was Melody’s.”
“Holy shit,” Sloan swore. “They were twins.”
“So, with this information coming to light,” Shepherd said over the monitor, “I made a call to my Department of Defense contact. Given that Kennedy’s sister, Kaitlyn, is active duty, I had them access her DNA records from the repository in the Rockville Maryland vault and we compared Kennedy’s DNA to hers. There was no familial match.”
“Oh, fuck! Kaitlyn’s not her biological sister,” Sloan said. He was genuinely stunned, and he knew Kennedy would be too.
“Did Kennedy ever mention she was adopted?” Michaela asked.
“No, I’m sure she doesn’t know,” Sloan replied. “Holy shit. This is a lot for me to take in. She’s going to be floored.”
“You know her, Sloan. How is she going to handle this information?” Shepherd asked.
Sloan thought about it for only a second. “Lassiter needs to be in the room when she’s told. She’s not going to take this well. I don’t understand how her parents could have kept the fact that she was adopted from her.”
“It could be because it was a less than legal adoption, from what I’ve dug up,” Garcia said.
“Keep looking into that, Garcia,” Shepherd ordered.
Garcia nodded.
Sloan’s eyes were fixed on Garcia. He was still processing what Garcia said. “What do you mean less than legal?”
“The fact that the birth certificate is an original that shows the Bristow’s as birth parents, and isn’t an amended certificate is a huge red flag,” Garcia said. “It was also filed less than a week after birth, which is another red flag. In legal adoptions there is a wait period where the adoption agency does check-ins with the adoptive parents to ensure the household is the best fit for the child. That didn’t take place in this case.”
“I thought hospitals filed the birth certificate before the mother or child were released,” Sloan said.
Garcia nodded. “They do, so that tells me someone at the hospital skirted the law and released that child without the birth certificate or a death certificate being filed. This was a smooth-running operation back then.”
“We need to keep looking into it to ensure that operation isn’t still going on,” Shepherd ordered.
Garcia nodded again. “We’ll stay on it and see what we can dig up, but it was over thirty years ago.”
“My heart goes out to her. It’s not bad enough to find out like this you were adopted, but to have the legality of it in question too, is more than most people could handle. Add in finding this out after someone who you considered your best friend, who turns out to be your sister, is murdered, and I’m not sure how anyone recovers from that,” Michaela said.
“Then maybe we should hold off telling her till this is over?” Garcia suggested. “We need her focused to go in and talk with the kid.”
“She needs to know now,” Sloan argued. “We can’t keep this from her, and I’d feel like I was lying to her by not sharing what we’ve learned.”
“Sloan is right,” Shepherd piped in. “She needs to know, and Lassiter is the right person to be there when we do it. I’ll set it up in about an hour. Bring her to my office, Sloan.”
“Yes, sir,” Sloan acknowledged.
And then Shepherd signed off.
Lima
When Sloan and Kennedy got to Shepherd’s office, Shepherd was already seated on the leather couch in the comfortable seating area of his office, that he rarely used. His wheelchair was beside the arm of the couch. Sloan knew this was for Kennedy’s benefit. Lassiter entered a few minutes later. Sloan noticed that Lassiter’s limp was a bit more pronounced today. Joe took a seat beside Shepherd.
“Kennedy, this is Joe Lassiter. He’s our team mental health professional,” Shepherd said.
Sloan snickered. The team always just called him the team shrink. Between the increased check-ins all the men were now required to do with Lassiter, and restating his title, Sloan had to wonder if more had gone down than he’d realized. As far as he knew, Lassiter never minded being called the team shrink. He even called himself that.
Kennedy smiled and shook his hand. Her glance back at Sloan after, showed him that she was confused by meeting Lassiter.
“Kennedy, in the course of our investigation we have come up with several inconsistencies. Further investigation brought us to some facts that you probably are not aware of, but we believe you have the right to know,” Shepherd began. He nodded to Sloan.
“Kennedy, do you remember me taking the DNA samples from you at the hotel that first day I found you in the attic?”
Kennedy nodded that she did.
“Our on-site laboratory ran those samples and Melody’s that Sloan had obtained from her body at the funeral home too,” Shepherd continued.
Sloan squeezed Kennedy’s hand. “The results proved that you and Melody were identical twins. There is no disputing the fact that the DNA is identical and that is only the case with identical twins.”
“How can that be?” Kennedy demanded, stunned. “Why wouldn’t my parents keep us both? And how could they not tell me I was a twin?”
Dr. Lassiter refrained from speaking. He watched Kennedy closely. He judged that her reactions were genuine. This young lady had no idea she had a twin, or that she was adopted.
“They may not have known,” Sloan said. “Kennedy, there are strong indicators that the Bristow’s are not your birth parents.”
“What do you mean they’re not my birth parents? I have pictures of me as a newborn in my parent’s arms.” Her voice raised a few octaves as she spoke. “Their names are on my birth certificate.”
“Kennedy,” Joe Lassiter spoke up. “Often in adoptions, the newborn is taken from their birth mother and given directly to the adoptive parents just hours after birth. We believe that to be the situation in this case. Your paren
ts may or may not have known there were in fact two babies. That depends on the agency or the baby broker they went through to arrange the adoption.”
“How could anyone split twins up? My God, Melody was my twin?” She ran her hand through her hair, only now seeming to grasp that part of it. “But wait, so that means that Kaitlyn is not really my sister, doesn’t it?”
Sloan shook his head no. “We ran your DNA against hers and the results show no familial match.”
Kennedy sat silently for a few seconds, her mind racing with this news. How was it possible? And did she and Melody become best friends because they were in fact twins? Was there some connection they shared because of it? And her sister that she had grown up with, she really wasn’t her sister after all.
“Did you ever feel you were adopted or weren’t biologically a part of your family?” Lassiter asked, breaking the silence.
Kennedy shook her head no. “Never. I never felt treated any differently than my sister.”
Lassiter gave her a reassuring grin and head nod. “Regardless if your parents shared the fact that you were adopted or not, is irrelevant. They are still the parents who raised you as their own, your sister is still your sister. They chose you to be a part of their family, which is always a special thing.”
Kennedy processed what he just said. “Is it wrong to feel angry?”
“No emotion is ever wrong. The only wrong thing is to bury it and not acknowledge it.”
Kennedy nibbled on her fingernail. “I’m not sure angry is the right word. I feel confused, lied to, yes, angry. I do feel angry.” She felt Gary squeeze her hand.
“And that’s okay to feel all those things,” Lassiter said. “Normal even. The good news is, both of your parents are still alive. You can ask them all the questions that you have about this.”
Kennedy shook her head. “Kennedy Bristow is dead, which is how I need it to stay. I don’t think I’ll see or talk to my parents ever again.”
Joe Lassiter considered his words carefully for a moment. “Your situation now is not how it will always be. The goal one day will be for them to know that you are alive and well, which may or may not involve you reclaiming your identity. You need to be patient and keep an open mind to all outcomes.”
She shook her head again. “I know I don’t want to be Kennedy Bristow any longer. I don’t want the life I had, and I don’t want to go back to Cleveland.”
“As I said, be patient and keep an open mind to all outcomes,” Lassiter repeated. “Your future is not defined. It can be whatever you want it to be. You’ll be surprised by the opportunities that present themselves.”
Kennedy sat back against the couch. A new level of exhaustion overtook her. “I can’t even think that far ahead yet.”
“And nor should you,” Lassiter said. “If you ever want to talk more, just have Sloan let me know.”
Kennedy nodded faintly.
“You have an appointment with Michaela to get the bracelet installed,” Shepherd said. “And then you are leaving for L.A.”
Sloan knew they had just been dismissed. “Yes, sir,” he replied. He stood and then held his hand out towards Kennedy. She reluctantly took it and came to her feet. Her eyes swept over both Shepherd and Dr. Lassiter. She felt as though she should say something to them, but what it was, escaped her.
After Sloan and Kennedy had left the room, only then did Shepherd speak. “Joe, when they get back, I want Sloan in your office immediately. He has no professional distance.”
“I’m surprised you’re letting him continue on this mission,” Joe replied.
“If I’ve learned anything over the past few years, since Jackson became involved with Angel, it’s that our Operators have heart. When they have a personal stake, there’s no stopping them. It has the potential to make them liabilities, but so far, it’s only made them more effective. This one is different though, because of their history. I’m not sure if Sloan is blaming himself for leaving her to the abusers she fell in with or not.”
“Lambchop isn’t sure he can forgive her actions over the past ten years,” Lassiter said. “Lambchop is concerned, and that speaks volumes to me, Sam.”
“I’ve sanctioned him to continue. Lambchop will watch him closely and let’s not forget Cooper and Madison are out there, as well.”
Joe Lassiter nodded. “I’ll make sure I call him in the second they get back.”
Shepherd nodded. “Thanks, Joe. Don’t let him bury anything related to her and their past. Push him to fully explore his feelings and motives, beginning with him bolting out of here as soon as he heard she was dead. There’s more here than he’s admitting to and it’s something that could come back and bite him.”
Lassiter came to his feet. “Yeah, it sure could.”
“Kennedy, this is Michaela,” Sloan introduced.
Kennedy’s eyes swept over the woman before her. She had long, smooth, dark hair, light mocha skin that was flawless and radiant over perfect bone structure. Kennedy wasn’t sure what her nationality or ethnicity was, but she was beautiful.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Michaela greeted. After she shook Kennedy’s hand, she grasped both of Kennedy’s hands in hers. “I know you just came from Shepherd and Lassiter and I know what was discussed. Are you okay?”
Kennedy was taken aback by her. “I don’t know if I am or not.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” Michaela said.
“Michaela and Razor ran the DNA tests,” Sloan said.
“Well, I did,” Michaela clarified. “He did the computerized part. Let’s not give Garcia credit for the extraction, quantitation, amplification, and capillary electrophoresis processes. That was all me and my equipment.” She winked. “We don’t want to give Garcia any bigger of a head than he already has. I don’t try to take credit for his digital skills, so he shouldn’t get any credit for what takes place in my lab.” She released Kennedy’s hands and lifted the silver bracelet with the heart charm from her worktable. “But you’re not here for that. You’re here for me to apply the bracelet.” She measured it around Kennedy’s wrist. “I’ll have to take a few links out. You have tiny wrists.”
“It’s fine. I like my bracelets on the loose side.”
Michaela’s brown eyes went to Sloan. He hadn’t told her it would be snug and unremovable. “The idea is for it to not be able to be removed by anyone.” She inserted her tool into the links and removed two of them.
“There’s no clasp to remove it,” Sloan said. “Michaela will remove it with her tool when we return from L.A. Remember, this is just to keep you safe.”
“Yes, like the two babies,” Kennedy griped.
“I wanted to inject the tracker into you. You’re the one who said no.”
“It was actually hell no,” Kennedy corrected him.
Sloan chuckled. “It was actually, hell no, you must be high.”
Kennedy chuckled too. “Yes, I think it was.”
Michaela fastened the chain and secured it with the tool. The chain was not coming off her wrist. “The tracker is on and Ops has the ID. I tested it with them before you came up.”
“Thanks, Michaela,” Sloan said.
Kennedy rotated her wrist, watching the charm twist with it. “It’s cute. I just wish it wasn’t so tight.”
“It needs to be,” Michaela reiterated. “It was nice to meet you. Good luck with everything, Kennedy.”
Kennedy looked into her beautifully shaped brown eyes. She saw sincerity. “Thank you. It was nice to meet you too.”
“We need to get a move on,” Sloan said, nodding to the door. “They’re waiting for us to leave for the airfield.”
Kennedy smirked. “I’m going to need that luck,” she said to Michaela.
Ten minutes later, Sloan escorted Kennedy to the parking area in subbasement two. The three other members of his team waited beside the loaded SUV. Sloan sat their packs in the back with the rest of their gear. Then he prompted her to slide in the back seat so that she sat in th
e middle between him and Sherman.
Kennedy sat silently during the drive wondering if the other members of Gary’s team knew about the bracelet, and if they knew that Melody was really her twin sister. Her eyes glanced to Brian beside her. He gazed at her with sympathy.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She couldn’t be anything but honest. She looked back at Gary. “Do they know about Melody?” Her voice was quiet.
Sloan nodded. “Yes, all mission details were shared with the team.”
A new level of outrage hit her. “It’s facts about my life, not mission details,” she whispered.
