Conspiracy (Alex and Cassidy Book 4)

by Nancy Ann Healy

  Then Congressman Christopher O’Brien had begun to receive a stream of threatening letters. At first, President John Merrow had stayed out of the fray. When he was apprised that the letters had targeted Cassidy, his involvement had changed. John Merrow shared something with Cassidy O’Brien that only three people in the world knew about at that time. He was her son’s biological father. It had never been discussed between Cassidy and President Merrow. He was certain of that truth. In her own way, Cassidy had acknowledged it silently many times, and John Merrow had no intention of allowing harm to come to his family. For the president, that family included Cassidy and Dylan. When he had begun to suspect Congressman O’Brien’s connection to the letters, John Merrow had reached out to the one person he believed would help in any way that he could— Nicolaus Toles.

  “Joshua, John went to Nicolaus immediately when he began to suspect that O’Brien might be complicit. He felt he owed it to Nicolaus to tell him that he was going to involve Alex,” Jane explained. “And, he knew that as angry as Nicolaus would be, he would help.”

  “Why?” Tate asked.

  Jane sighed. This was a story she had yet to share with anyone outside the innermost circle of her life. “Nicolaus, Jim, and Edmond were best friends,” she said. “From what my father told John, they were more like brothers. I don’t know all the details, Joshua. I know more now than I did then. There are things that they kept close to the vest, so close that even I have yet to uncover it all. I do know that O’Brien put Fisher on Cassidy—intimately speaking. At whose behest remains a question that none of us have been able to answer. And, that answer would tell us many things. That is what Jim was hoping he could get O’Brien to divulge.”

  Tate tried to take in all the information. “I thought Claire had been pulling Fisher’s strings.”

  “Claire? She might like to think so, but no. She thought O’Brien was a pawn then. Really, she was his. They used her long history with Fisher. She and Fisher had known each other since childhood.”

  “That seems to be a theme,” Tate observed.

  “It is, and not an accidental one,” Jane told him.

  “Well, now you have them all under one roof, or close to it. You really think that’s the answer?”

  “I don’t know if there is an answer, Joshua. At least, this might be a solution to the immediate problem. Ivanov is the least of our worries now.”

  “The Admiral?” he guessed. Jane nodded. “What is his agenda?”

  “Duty.”

  “To what end?” Tate asked.

  “That really is the question, isn’t it?” Jane said. “The other is who is playing on his team besides Daniels. We both know there are more assets there.”

  “You know, I can listen in almost anywhere,” he told his friend. “That doesn’t mean I will hear anything that can help you.”

  “I know, but we have to try. Keep digging. Hawk will meet up with you before she heads to Alex.”

  “You’re sure this is necessary?” he asked. “This plan to compromise Rand?”

  “I’m not sure of much anymore,” Jane said. “This has been in motion a long time. It was a contingency plan long ago. Before Viktor or The Admiral make a move, we need to put them on the defensive.”

  “Strickland?”

  “Not my problem. He put himself in this when he…”

  “You think he knew about John’s assassination beforehand, don’t you?”

  “He knew. He doesn’t know who made that final call. I intend to find that out,” she said assuredly. “His ambition has always been greater than his conscience. Now, his legacy is threatened,” she said harshly. “He cared more about sitting in the Oval Office than he did about John’s life, maybe even than his own. But, no one wants to go down in history as the losing president in a war.”

  “Is that where this is headed? War?” Tate asked nervously.

  “There is more than one kind of war,” Jane reminded him. “There are always people who gain at the expense of those who lose. You know that. John understood that intimately. Strickland only cares about his own neck.”

  “That’s why you want to compromise Rand?” he looked for clarification.

  “Rand cannot get what MyoGen has. If Ivanov and the Russian contingent get MyoGen’s research and blend it with what they already have developed—if they get MyoGen’s records somehow…Joshua, that cannot happen.”

  “Why not just take what MyoGen has now?” he asked.

  “That’s what Alex is trying to do. She doesn’t have any idea what it is she is taking possession of. At least, she didn’t a few days ago. MyoGen is the offspring of Lynx. Trust me, we need what they have intact—for now.”

  “Jane, if Alex finds out that we had anything to do with Rand….”

  “She won’t.”

  “What if McCollum tells them?” he asked.

  “He can’t. He doesn’t know.”

  “When?” Tate asked.

  “Soon,” Jane replied. “Deal with Hawk. I’ll deal with Alex.”

  “Good luck with that,” Tate said.

  Jane chuckled. “Luck might be exactly what we all need right now.”

  ***

  “Jonathan?” Eleana said softly.

  “Hum?”

  “What is it?”

  Krause offered Eleana a reassuring smile. “Just thinking.”

  “I see. Thinking about Cassidy?” she guessed.

  “Thinking about all of us,” he corrected her, “but, yes. I can’t imagine how she must feel.”

  “I know. What do you think this Lynx program is all about? You do think that is why he left, don’t you?”

  “I’m sure that’s the reason he will give.”

  Eleana studied Krause’s expression. “What?”

  “I have some ideas what it was or is,” he confessed. “None of them are good.”

  “There’s something else bothering you,” she observed. He just smiled uncomfortably. Eleana sighed. “I see. Is it me and Claire that is bothering you or is it you and me?”

  “Eleana…”

  “Talk to me, Jonathan—please.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Krause admitted.

  “About what?” Eleana questioned him.

  “Eleana, I’m not who you think I am.”

  “And, who is it that I think you are? Enlighten me. Apparently, you know my thoughts better than I do.”

  Krause covered his eyes. “You don’t understand…The things I did…Things I have done…”

  “I understand more than you give me credit for,” she replied.

  Krause removed his hands from his eyes and looked at her. “How can you even…”

  “Can you change any of those things, Jonathan? Even one of them?”

  “If I could…”

  “That’s not what I asked you. Now. Right now, can you change any of those moments?” she challenged him.

  “No. That doesn’t change who that makes me.”

  “It doesn’t make you anyone,” Eleana told him. “What makes me who I am?” she asked.

  Krause smiled. “You would never…”

  “You don’t know that. I never confronted those choices.”

  “You would never have put yourself in that position,” he argued.

  Eleana sighed in frustration. “Jonathan, sometimes,” Eleana’s thoughts trailed momentarily and she closed her eyes before continuing. “Sometimes people change.”

  “We’re not talking about me now, are we?” he guessed. “Eleana, Claire is not likely to change. People don’t…”

  Eleana opened her eyes and shook her head. “Claire was not always the person you know,” she said honestly. “There is another Claire. Another side to her…Lost long ago,” she said sadly.

  “You still love her,” he surmised.

  Eleana smiled. “I will always love Claire,” she said honestly. “I am not in love with Claire. She is not as hard as you think.”

  “Maybe that’s what you need to believe,”
Krause said.

  “No,” she sighed heavily. “You are sitting here mulling over a past that you can’t change. Thinking about your father, both of them. Thinking about John. Wondering…Am I right? How you ended up here, right now?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It has everything to do with everything,” she said. Eleana took a seat on the bed next to the man she loved. “Claire’s father loved to tell her stories, every night, in fact,” she said. Krause looked at her curiously. “When we were small and I would stay there, he would sit at the end of the bed. Sometimes he read from a book, sometimes he just made them up.”

  “I can’t even imagine that,” Krause admitted.

  Eleana shrugged. “We were small. I loved going there. Claire was different then.”

  “As a kid, you mean?”

  “Umm…until we turned thirteen. That’s when it started,” Eleana said. Krause wrinkled his brow as Eleana’s pleasant memory gave way to something that made her eyelids grow heavy with worry. She smiled at him sadly and continued her story. “It was February,” she recalled. “Claire had gone home for her birthday for a long weekend. I remember that because I was so disappointed that she didn’t invite me,” Eleana chuckled at the memory. “I hated being at school without her,” she admitted. “I was excited for her to come back. And then….”

  “What?”

  Eleana closed her eyes as images began to race through her mind. “She didn’t come back right away,” Eleana said. She pried her eyes open and looked at Krause. “Her mother…”

  “That’s when she died,” Krause guessed. Eleana acknowledged the statement with a solemn smile. “I knew Claire was young when she died…”

  “Yes. When she came back, she was different.”

  “Eleana, you’re not suggesting that her mother’s death is a reason for all she has caused? Cassidy lost her father when she was ten…”

  “Claire is not Cassidy,” Eleana said flatly. “And no, I’m not,” she said assuredly. “You don’t understand, Jonathan. I tried for a long time to get her to talk to me. She wouldn’t. Every night—nightmares.”

  “That’s not uncommon,” Krause said gently.

  “No. But this? She would wake up in the night screaming, sweating, thrashing in the bed,” Eleana recalled painfully. “I tried. I tried to get her to tell me. She would just say she couldn’t remember. That was it. Finally, I just gave up on talking and started holding her—every night. Every night for the next five years I held her. It’s the only way she seemed to be able to sleep at all. Even then sometimes I would wake to a fist balled, striking me in desperation.”

  Krause listened attentively. “She never told you?”

  “No, but I put the pieces together. Some of them anyway. There were times she would talk in the middle of a dream.”

  “What do you think caused them?” he asked. Eleana shut her eyes again. “Eleana?”

  “I hope that I am wrong. If I am right? I’m not sure that is my place to tell—even to you,” she said.

  ***

  Claire woke up with a pounding headache. She blinked rapidly in an attempt to process her surroundings. “Where the hell am I?” she wondered. She heard voices in the hallway and closed her eyes again to concentrate.

  “You look like you are on a mission,” Krause said to Alex.

  “You look like you didn’t sleep at all,” Alex observed. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she asked lightly.

  “Nothing happened,” he told her. “We just talked.”

  “You are such a girl sometimes,” Alex teased him.

  “Why are you in such a good mood?” he asked.

  “I’m not,” Alex replied. “But, I don’t need Cassidy to see that.”

  “How is she doing this morning?” he wondered.

  “Hard to say. She’s quiet. She was up before me. That never happens unless Kenzie is fussing.”

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “Me? I am headed for coffee and answers, necessarily in that order,” Alex said. “I’ll see you downstairs,” she said just as Eleana emerged from Krause’s room. Alex raised a playful eyebrow at Krause.

  “Shut up,” Krause grumbled.

  Alex waved to Eleana and walked away laughing. She expected her older brother might provide the only levity in her day. She had meant what she had said to him. Alex expected answers, and not just from James McCollum. She would be making some demands of her good friend Jane Merrow before the day was over as well.

  “Morning,” Eleana greeted Krause softly.

  “Hey.”

  Eleana stretched up and placed a light kiss on his lips. “You okay?” she asked. “You didn’t sleep very much.”

  “That’s not unusual for me.”

  “I’ll keep that on file,” Eleana said.

  “What the hell?” Claire mumbled to herself in bed. “Eleana?” she strained to hear the conversation just outside the door. Claire moved abruptly to get out of the bed and promptly fell backward. “Fuck!” she groaned.

  Eleana gave Krause a sheepish smile and opened Claire’s door. “What are you trying to do?” she scolded Claire.

  “Where the hell did you bring me?” Claire demanded. Eleana slowly made her way to Claire’s bedside.

  Krause peeked in the room. “Need me for anything?” he asked. Eleana shook her head and Krause took his leave.

  “Am I dead?” Claire asked seriously. “I am, huh? This is my penance.”

  Eleana giggled. “You’re not dead,” she promised. “You still don’t remember last night?”

  Claire closed her eyes and tried to put the pieces together. She shook her head in frustration.

  “It’s the painkillers and the loss of blood. Plus, you haven’t eaten yet. Give yourself a bit to come out of the fog,” Eleana told her.

  “Where are we?” Claire asked again.

  Eleana smirked. “We’re at Alex’s parents’ house.”

  Claire’s immediate reaction was to sit up, which sent her backward again with a thump. “Damn, that hurts!”

  “I’ll bet it does.”

  “Wait,” Claire started to regain her bearings slowly. “Wait…Alex shot me! Why did Alex shoot me?”

  “She thought you were about to shoot her,” Eleana said.

  Claire closed her eyes again. “Dmitri. That son of a….”

  “You certainly are sunny this morning,” Eleana teased.

  Claire opened her eyes and glared at her old friend. “So, what? They gave you nursemaid duty?”

  “Claire…That’s not fair.”

  “Sorry.”

  Eleana looked at Claire compassionately. “Come on, you know me better than that. I’m here because I want to be here.”

  “What does that mean?” Claire asked.

  Eleana sighed. “It means that you are still someone I care about,” she said honestly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Claire whispered.

  “Everything is always all or nothing with you,” Eleana observed. She rubbed her eyes, feeling her emotions beginning to surface. She did love Claire. No force on earth would change that. She just didn’t love Claire the way she once had. And, Claire, Eleana suspected, did not love Eleana the same way either. But, Eleana had always been the only person Claire Brackett trusted at all. On some level, Eleana’s decision to walk away from their love affair undermined that for Claire. “Claire…”

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said again.

  Eleana smiled. Claire’s apology was sincere. “Come on, what do you remember?” she urged Claire.

  Claire shut her eyes tightly. Images started to roll through her mind. Eleana watched as Claire’s brow twitched and her forehead creased. “Was following a lead…Anderson said they would make a play…A play for you,” Claire said.

  “For me?” Eleana was puzzled.

  Claire nodded but held her eyes closed. “All of you, any of you…Dmitri,” Claire rolled through the events of the prior evening in her min
d. “Then Toles with Brady…Where the fuck did he come from? She was walking into the bee’s nest…I had to go…Sent Anderson to security….Had to know who was there.”

  “Agent Anderson took the security files?” Eleana asked.

  “Supposed to. I don’t know,” Claire said. “Then…Dmitri…Strange….Why is he in the closet? Why here? Doesn’t add up. Toles is outside….Sure it is her….Dmitri…Shit, if she walks in, she’ll never see him….”

  Eleana exhaled slowly. “Dmitri tried to shoot Alex.”

  Claire opened her eyes and nodded. “She couldn’t see him, only me.”

  Eleana smiled. “Why did you try to save Alex?” she asked.

  Claire stared at Eleana for a long moment. “You would never forgive me.”

  “Claire….Maybe so, there’s more, though….”

  “He can’t win this time,” Claire said.

  “Who?” Eleana asked.

  “My father.”

  ***

  Alex had taken a few minutes to savor her coffee in the kitchen. She had watched at a distance as Krause led McCollum into her father’s study. It was time for a long overdue conversation. Alex was determined to try and keep an open mind. That would prove to be difficult, and she knew it. This entire situation, her entrance into the CIA, her takeover of Carecom—all of it was personal. She was lost in her silent contemplation when Eleana entered the kitchen.

  “Morning,” Eleana greeted Alex.

  Alex looked up from her study of her coffee cup and smiled. “Morning. How’s the patient?”

  “Her usual sunny self,” Eleana replied. Alex nodded and looked back at the contents of her cup. “Not sure that holds the answers you’re looking for,” Eleana offered.

  Alex laughed. “Would be nice.”

  “Yeah, I guess it would. Look, Alex….I think I know where the security footage might be.”

  “What?”

  “Claire was with Marcus Anderson. She sent him to get it.”

  “Jesus! What is her….”

  “Alex, listen,” Eleana held up a hand to calm her friend. “I know that you don’t trust her. I don’t think she was there to compromise you.”