Hard Time

by Chloe Fischer

  “Oh, this is not a government agency,” he assured her. “This is righting what is wrong with our government, one rogue threat at a time.”

  Somehow, learning that the man was not a government employee made her less skeptical.

  “What do you want me to do?” she sighed. “And how much are you paying?”

  His name was Jessup and it turned out that the job had been very simple.

  On occasion, he would send word of a target who needed to be assessed.

  Danica would arrange a chance encounter with the mark, ask him or her a string of pre-determined questions and report back to Jessup.

  The amount she was paid depended on the success of her interviews but it did allow for other benefits as well. Suddenly, Danica had good credit, for example, and her taxes were always filed with a generous return despite the fact she had never signed a single tax form in her life.

  Twila had also been recruited by a member of Oculus and while she reported to a different operative, she too had been afforded some excellent benefits.

  “Tell me more about this Oculus group,” Xave demanded as they rode toward Sasha’s condo on South Austin Street.

  Danica’s mouth pursed into a line.

  “Why?” she asked, studying him as he drove. They had already washed the car and she was surprised to find that he was increasingly tense instead of losing the steam of stress.

  “I have heard the name before,” he replied, shooting her a look out of the corner of his eye.

  “Where?” she demanded, suddenly on edge.

  She had been on retainer for the group for almost two years and no matter how hard she had looked, she could find no record of anything relating to the elusive group.

  Still, she was paid well enough and not required to do anything illegal as far as she could tell but it did not stop her from wanting to learn more about their origin and purpose.

  Long ago, Danica had learned to stop asking Jessup.

  He had disclosed everything he was going to tell her about Oculus and the more she pushed, the angrier he seemed to become.

  She did not want to bite the hand that fed her but she had mixed feelings about working for such a secretive organization. It seemed shady, somehow. And although her life had always been a little shady, Danica had the feeling that she didn’t even know the true meaning of the word when it came to Oculus.

  “I don’t know where I’ve heard it,” Xave confessed. “But it comes back to me…like in a dream sometimes. I hear someone warning me about them.”

  He clamped his mouth closed as if he had said too much and focused intently out the windshield.

  He’s still wondering if he can trust me, Danica realized, shaking her head. I literally helped him hide a body and cover up a killing yet he still doesn’t know if he can trust me.

  “What do you do for them?” he asked her again. “What do you mean that you do whatever they ask you? What do they ask you to do?”

  Danica shook her dark head. She had said too much also and she didn’t want to discuss Oculus anymore with Xave.

  It felt strange and disloyal somehow, but to whom, she couldn’t say.

  I don’t owe Oculus anything, she reasoned. But I also don’t owe Xavier Sinclair anything.

  “I don’t want to talk about them,” she said firmly. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  Xave gritted his teeth.

  “It may have more to do with me than either of us know,” he muttered but he didn’t push the issue and they stopped outside the condo building.

  They would drop off Sasha’s car and make their way back to their respective houses, never to speak of the incident again.

  It hadn’t been necessary for her to join him on the trip to Sasha’s but she had insisted, still not ready to let him go from her sight, as if the invisible hold he had on her should not be broken.

  Moreover, she knew that Twila would be livid, and she wasn’t ready to deal with her roommate, not yet.

  She didn’t have any logical explanation to give Twila for what she had done and the blonde would be expecting some sort of justification.

  “You should go,” Xave told her as she jumped from the car. “Sasha is sketched out enough as it is. Having you here will only increase her paranoia.”

  A stab of jealousy pierced through Danica’s heart, shocking her. She had never felt envious of anyone but she could not stop herself from growing upset at the thought of Xave touching another woman.

  “Is she your lover?” Danica demanded before she could stop herself. He stared at her in complete surprise, his dark eyebrows almost at his hairline.

  “Really?” he scoffed. “Are you playing the possessive girlfriend card?”

  Humiliation colored her cheeks and she shook her head, lowering her eyes.

  “I’m rambling,” she murmured. “Lack of sleep. Someone kept me up all night.”

  Xave grunted, his heart squeezing for some reason.

  “Just wait here,” he relented, speaking softly while he gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m going to drop off the keys and I’ll be right back.”

  Her head jerked up as relief flooded through her.

  She couldn’t understand why, but she was beyond trying to make sense of the rollercoaster of emotions she was feeling.

  All she knew was that Xave Sinclair was somehow meant to be in her life and she would do almost anything to ensure he remained there.

  Twila leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling of the AV room.

  She had stricken the charge from Clark Jameson’s credit card but she had a bad feeling that they had unlocked a world of bad in doing so.

  Twila could not fathom why Danica had brought home the stray or where she had found him but she had known the dark-haired beauty long enough to know that there was always a method to Danica’s madness.

  He’s the same weirdo who was staring at the house, Twila knew. She had recognized him as soon as she had spied him rolling around on the living room floor with Danica the previous night. She had watched the almost violent sexual act with both arousal and anger, unnoticed by the couple lost in their own lust.

  Obviously Danica is using him as a mark, but for what? He doesn’t look like he has any money and he comes with baggage; a frickin’ body no less.

  She considered the fact that Danica might use him for blackmail, but again, it was clear by his clothes that he did not have any large influxes of cash.

  I shouldn’t doubt Danica, Twila told herself. She has always protected us, ever since that day at the market. She has killed for you and would do it again.

  Twila sat up, a twist in her chest.

  But what if he’s not a mark? she thought. What if he’s more than that to her?

  The idea made her stomach flip dangerously.

  Twila would be lying to herself if she said that she was not in love with her roommate, a fact she had tried desperately to hide.

  At first, she had thought the feelings for her roommate were born from gratefulness and would subside as she grew to know Danica better.

  After all, Danica had taken her from a meager existence on the street to a series of charming houses and apartments.

  She was never cruel, and as the years went by, it was obvious that Danica would always protect her.

  But her feelings never dissipated and no matter how much Twila tried to stifle the mounting love she felt, she could not help but feel waves of jealousy whenever Danica brought home a lover.

  Of course, the men never lasted; how could they? None of them knew the real Danica, not like Twila did.

  But this one could be different, she thought with dread. Now that Danica knows his secrets, she might tell him ours.

  The silent cell rang, causing Twila to jump slightly.

  It was the Oculus phone and she begrudgingly answered it. She was not in the mood to hack anything again that day.

  “Did you access Visa a few moments ago?”

  The demand was sharp, with no hello or st
andard greeting.

  The hairs on Twila’s arms prickled.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “Is that a problem?”

  “Why?”

  “I had to strike a charge…for a friend,” she faltered.

  “What friend?”

  Twila gulped.

  “It was a friend of Danica’s,” Twila answered quickly. “I think his name is Xavier.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Xavier?” he echoed. “Xavier what?”

  Twila wracked her brain for a last name but nothing immediately came to mind.

  “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I only met him today.”

  “Do you have footage of him?”

  Confusion flooded her.

  “Yes,” she answered slowly.

  “Send it to me.”

  The line went dead and Twila stared at the cell phone in her palm.

  What the hell? Who was this guy that Danica had brought home?

  Fear trickled through her but she knew that her contact would be waiting. She desperately wished that Danica was there to speak to about it, but there was no time to second guess her orders. And what if Xavier was dangerous? Maybe they knew something about him that Danica didn’t.

  Gulping back the lump in her throat, she turned to the security cameras and downloaded the images she had of Danica’s stray, emailing them to the dark net server.

  She waited, beads of sweat forming on her brow.

  It’s probably nothing, she reassured herself, her blue eyes fixated on the cell phone. They are just doing their due diligence.

  But Twila could not shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen and when the phone rang again, her fears were confirmed.

  “Yes?”

  “Where is he?”

  The sinister note in his tone was unmistakable.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, swallowing her nervousness. “With Danica.”

  “Find out where they are and call me. Do not tell Danica we are looking for her.”

  Again, the phone call ended abruptly in her ear and Twila realized she was shaking.

  She didn’t give a damn what happened to Xavier but he had said “find them” which could only mean that Danica was in trouble too, especially if Danica was not warned that Oculus was seeking her.

  There was no way that Twila would let anything happen to her friend.

  She picked up her own phone and fired off a text to Danica.

 

  Twila had no way of knowing that that single message would be the seal on her death warrant.

  Chapter Nine

  Harlem, New York

  He couldn’t reconcile what he had been told with what he was staring at, as he stood outside the abandoned residential complex.

  It was inhabited by squatters now. Needles and the stale smell of meth assaulted Drake’s senses.

  No, he thought desperately. No, this can’t be! This is not where Xavier grew up. Vance would not have left him to rot with a crackhead.

  But the evidence was overwhelming; the city records did not lie. Vance’s coordinates had led him to the building which had been condemned in the late nineties but Sonia Sinclair had already been dead for years by then.

  Sonia had been a secretary to the Assistant Secretary of Health in the Department of Defense in 1989.

  Abruptly, she had left her job without an explanation to anyone but no one had thought anything of it.

  After some digging, Drake was able to learn that she received monthly payments but she never held a steady job after that.

  Drake had a good sense what she had done with her generous allowance after leaving Virginia with Xavier and it filled him with dread, knowing what kind of childhood his second born must have had. Drake felt his heart crumble further, a great yawning hole opening up where his heart was. The feelings of guilt he had lived with for decades grew tenfold. It was bad enough living with the fact that he had given his own children up. Even if it was for their own safety, Drake would never forgive himself for putting his family in the position where his children had been forced to flee to survive. But to find out that Xavier had been forced to struggle to survive, likely without any love or support, it was almost too much for Drake’s tenuous hold on his sanity. The waves of crushing guilt nearly took him under.

  It had taken a great deal of research but with Goetz’s help the two men realized that Sonia was the only office personnel connected to the military in the late 80s and it jived with the information he had been given.

  It had to be Sonia Sinclair. S 40.811550/-73.946477. S is for Sinclair. The coordinates lead here. This is Sonia’s last known address and she is the only link I can find between the Department and my son.

  He looked around helplessly, vaguely aware of Goetz standing behind him.

  “Sir, obviously no one lives here anymore.”

  Drake eyed him through his reflective glasses, scowling slightly.

  “Thank you for pointing out the blatantly obvious,” he snarled. “I am thinking.”

  “If Sonia Sinclair died in 1995, there’s a good chance that her son went into foster care,” Special Agent Goetz volunteered. “We can start checking records for April of ’95.”

  Drake nodded curtly. He had no way of knowing if Sonia had kept Xavier’s name or changed it for security reasons. But it was a start.

  “Do it,” Drake said gruffly. “Something tells me we’re running short on time.”

  Goetz nodded and turned back toward the car, leaving Drake to gaze at the flop house apartments, a combination of sick anger filling his bones.

  How could he have simply left my child with such a person? Why would Vance have done such a thing?

  Drake knew that Vance would not have intentionally given his son to a drug addict, but time had not been on Vance’s side back then. He had had to relocate the children before Oculus learned where they had been taken.

  What choice did Vance have but to give them to the first people who would take them? They were Department employees. They were subject to background checks and psychological assessments, but how can anyone really know? And where were you? You were lying in a hospital bed, clinging to life. You were of no use to anyone. Vance did what he had to do without any guidance or counsel.

  There was no way to ask Vance any longer of course. Any secrets Vance had had, were now buried with the man.

  Elise would certainly not help anymore.

  If I showed up there, she would likely shoot me dead, just as she had promised. Not that she had anything useful to contribute anyway.

  Drake couldn’t understand any of it.

  His mind did not want to accept that Xavier had been reared by a woman who didn’t care for him. The idea was intolerable.

  If he had been with me, we would have spent our lives dodging Oculus but we would have been together and he would have been loved. Drake’s heart broke a little more at the thought.

  A glimmer of hope coursed through him suddenly as he considered something else; maybe he had been wrong and he wasn’t on Xavier’s trail after all. Maybe Xavier had been given to completely different people. Loving and caring people. But the hope died in the next instant. Drake was a realist at his core – always had been. He’d just have to learn to deal with this as he had everything else.

  As he spun to leave the offensive sight, stepping on an empty baggie, he knew that he was on the right path.

  There was no other connection to the Department of Defense. Goetz had been thorough as always.

  Vance had left the information in plain view for him to find, knowing that once Drake saw what was etched on the desk, he would comprehend its meaning.

  It had always been there for him to find.

  It had just taken Drake too long to find it.

  Slipping into the backseat of the black SUV, he found himself trembling with rage.

  Except Drake was no longer angry at his former second-in-command; now he was furiou
s with himself.

  Part III

  Chapter Ten

  Lubbock, Texas

  How the hell did we get here? Xave asked himself, staring at Danica almost accusingly as she paced around the hotel room, pausing to peer into the night as if expecting visitors.

  Xavier could imagine the type of visitors she was expecting.

  Only hours before, Xave had bequeathed the car keys to Sasha, who had been in a state of hysteria when he appeared at her door.

  “Oh my God! What took you so long?!” she accused, throwing herself into his arms. “I thought you had been arrested! I’ve been so scared!”

  It had taken every ounce of resolve in Xavier’s body not to lose his mind on the girl as she clung and sobbed like a small child.

  He could not wait to be rid of both Sasha and the umbra of Clark Jameson which seemed to be breathing down his neck.

  I should get out of Amarillo, he thought. Xave had had a good run, but he had no ties, no reason to stay…except perhaps Danica.

  The thought was insane and he couldn’t believe he was entertaining continuing his involvement with the enigmatic woman, especially in light of how they had met.

  Yet as Xave disentangled himself from Sasha’s clutches, he was glad that Danica would be waiting for him downstairs.

  A half smile crept onto his face as he thought of her, fighting for dominance against him. How long had it been since any woman had challenged him, especially one so sultry?

  Boarding the elevator, Xave felt himself growing hard again.

  I want to take her home and forget this insane day ever existed, he told himself. He wondered if Danica would invite him back inside.

  You’re delirious. You shouldn’t be thinking about banging a psychic right now. You should be putting space between yourself and Lady Katrine’s, just in case anything comes to light.

  But by the time the doors opened on the lobby level, Xave knew he was not going to leave Danica’s side. She seemed to have cast a spell on him somehow.

  Maybe she does have some sort of magical talent, he thought, grinning to himself. In light of his own ability, it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility. Most of the population wouldn’t believe that Xave could do what he could do either.