Chapter 15.
The next two hours pa.s.sed in a blur for Lynn. Dawn explained to her that they would be flying into Phoenix, and would rent a car there and continue on to the Athens, Arizona.
They boarded the plane, and she and Dawn made small talk until they were served soft drinks and pretzels by the flight attendant. It was only when the flight attendant left them alone that Lynn began to ask questions.
"Tell me about you," Lynn said. "Where have you been, what"s your background?"
"I was raised in the lab by scientists," Dawn began. "I trained at the lab and was educated there except for one year that I spent attending the Athena Academy. I was there my junior year, then went back to the lab to continue my studies and training."
"What"s the academy like?" Lynn asked. She wanted something, anything, to keep her mind off her painful goodbye to Nick.
"It"s a wonderful place for girls between the seventh and the twelfth grade. It has state-of-the-art training facilities and the best educational programs in the world. Students there not only do the usual studies, but also are trained in martial arts, weaponry, survival courses and at least three languages."
"Why did you only attend for a year?"
"Look, my background isn"t important," Dawn said, her eyes flashing more green than gold. There were secrets there, Lynn thought, secrets that Dawn wasn"t willing to share. "What"s important is finding out the truth about us and about Rainy."
"Tell me about Rainy," Lynn said, eager to learn anything she could about the woman who had been their biological mother.
"From everything I"ve learned about her, she was a wonderful woman. She was one of the students the first year that Athena Academy opened. She started there when she was thirteen and remained one of the top students in her cla.s.s until she graduated. But if you really want to find out about what kind of a person Rainy was, you need to talk to the Ca.s.sandras."
"The Ca.s.sandras?"
Dawn ripped open her bag of pretzels and nodded.
"When Rainy was a senior at the Athena Academy, she became the leader of a group of girls who called themselves the Ca.s.sandras. They began as schoolmates working as a team, but they became the best of friends. Rainy was going to meet with the Ca.s.sandras on the night she died." Dawn popped one of the pretzels into her mouth as Lynn digested all she was learning.
"Did she tell the Ca.s.sandras why she wanted to meet with them that night?" she asked.
Dawn shook her head. "All she told them was that she needed them to meet her and Christine Evans, Athena"s school princ.i.p.al, at Christine"s bungalow on the school grounds. All the Ca.s.sandras who could showed up to wait for Rainy. All she"d told Christine was that she wanted to look through the school records, but Christine didn"t know what she wanted to look for."
"And Rainy never showed up for the meeting." Lynn was surprised to discover a wave of grief sweeping over her. She"d long ago mourned the death of her imaginary parents, and now she mourned the mother she"d never know.
Dawn reached over and touched Lynn"s hand. "I know," she said softly.
Lynn cast her a smile. "It"s just sad. In the s.p.a.ce of a sentence I found my mother and lost her." She took a sip of her soda. "Tell me about these other women, the Ca.s.sandras."
"There are six of them. Alex Forsythe is a forensic scientist, Josie Lockworth is in the Air Force and is an aeronautical engineer. Tory Patton is..."
"I know her," Lynn interjected. "I mean, not personally, but I"ve seen her as a reporter on television."
Dawn nodded. "That"s right. Then there"s Kayla Ryan, who"s a police lieutenant. Samanatha St. John works for the CIA and Darcy Steele is a former Hollywood makeup artist and private investigator."
"Wow, an impressive bunch of women," Lynn said. And what was she? Nothing more than an ordinary thief. When this was all over she vowed to make something of herself, to use her talents to become a dynamic and positive influence.
"They"re more than impressive because of the jobs they do," Dawn continued. "What"s really so special about them is the bond they forged while they were cla.s.smates. When these women were at the Athena Academy they made a promise to one another, that if any of them called for help, they would be there for each other. That night Rainy called on the Ca.s.sandra Promise."
"Well, what happened when she didn"t arrive at the meeting place?"
"Initially it was thought that Rainy"s car wreck had just been a tragic accident, but since then investigators have learned otherwise. Alex and Kayla were the main force behind that. Rainy was murdered, and at the time of her death we think she had realized that her eggs had been mined and was pursuing the truth. We think that"s what got her killed."
"My head is spinning," Lynn said. "This is all so confusing."
"It"s a lot of information," Dawn replied. "And there"s so much more to tell you. But maybe we should both try to catch a nap. When we get to Phoenix we"ve got a short car drive ahead of us, then we"re meeting with Kayla. I have a feeling it"s going to be a long day."
Dawn punched the b.u.t.ton to put her seat back, and Lynn turned her attention out the plane window. Outside was nothing but blue sky, and she felt as if she"d been thrust into a vast sea where nothing was as it should be and what had been was nothing more than a dream.
Had she made a mistake in coming with Dawn? Certainly the stories Dawn had shared with her sounded fantastic, yet they held a ring of truth she couldn"t deny. No, this wasn"t a mistake. This was her destiny.
It seemed impossible to believe that only last night she"d been in Nick"s arms, and that mere hours ago he"d held her in his arms and told her goodbye.
She felt as if a lifetime had pa.s.sed. She lowered her seat and closed her eyes, knowing that she would need every ounce of her strength to face what lay ahead.
She awakened when the plane began its descent. Dawn was already awake, and she smiled at Lynn. "Feel better?"
Lynn put her seat up straight. "I don"t know. I think I"ve been numb ever since you broke me out of jail."
Once again Dawn touched her hand. "It"s going to be all right, Lynn. We"re going to make things right."
Looking into her sister"s eyes, eyes so like Lynn"s own, Lynn felt a surge of strength. Yes, things would be all right. She and Dawn and the Ca.s.sandras would get to the bottom of things and make them right.
Dawn had arranged for a car to be waiting for them, and within minutes of arriving in Phoenix, they were leaving it behind, headed for the small town of Athens.
The scenery was like nothing Lynn had seen before...barren and brown and filled with rock formations that looked like alien landscapes.
As they traveled through the desert, they shared with each other bits and pieces of their former lives.
Lynn found herself telling Dawn about life with Jonas, about the loneliness and isolation of that life and about the nights she"d gone to retrieve precious treasures, believing she was doing something good.
"I know you"re unusually fast and agile," Dawn said. "Are there any other enhanced traits?"
"Nothing like your healing ability," Lynn replied. It still amazed her, remembering that moment when Dawn had cut her wrist and the wound had healed before her eyes. "I have enhanced senses. Smell, touch, hearing and sight-they"re all unnaturally heightened."
"That must be awful," Dawn exclaimed.
Lynn was surprised by Dawn"s reaction and pleased that her sister obviously understood the ramifications of such a gift.
"It can be awful," she agreed. "If I allow myself, I hear a cacophony of sound that hurts my head. I can smell every product anybody has used on their body, what they had for lunch and everything in a mile radius. But I learned fairly early on to block out everything extraneous. The enhanced eyesight isn"t bad. It"s nice to know I"ll probably never need gla.s.ses, and the enhanced senses of touch and feel are a real gift."
"How so?"
"When a nice breeze blows across my face, I think I feel it more than other people. The warmth of the sun, the feel of a particular fabric against my skin..." Her voice trailed off as she thought of making love with Nick...the feel of his hands against her skin, the whisper of his breath on her face, on her body. The pleasure had been near mind-blowing. She blushed as she caught Dawn eyeing her curiously.
"I would imagine that means you feel pain more intensely."
Lynn frowned. "I guess. I never really thought about it much before." She reached a hand up to touch the side of her head where Jonas had hit her. It was still tender to the touch, but not bothersome.
She looked at Dawn once again. "If Rainy was our mother, then who is our father?"
"We think he"s a man named Thomas King. He"s a Navy SEAL commander and his sperm was stolen from a fertility clinic around the time that Rainy"s eggs were mined."
"Is he alive?"
"Very much so. I don"t know how much you watch the news, but he was held captive for a year in a secret prison on the island of Puerto Isla in Central America."
"Puerto Isla!"
"You know it?"
"I"ve been there many times. It was one of Jonas"s favorite places to visit." Imagine, the last time she"d been there her biological father had been there as well-as a prisoner. "Small world, I guess."
Dawn flashed her a dark look. "Or huge conspiracy."
They fell silent after that. They drove for about an hour leaving behind the Phoenix/Glendale area and arriving in Athens. They drove down Olympus Road, the main street, and Dawn pulled into a motel parking lot.
"Good, Kayla is already here."
Lynn tried to remember which one Kayla was...the six Ca.s.sandra women had become jumbled in her mind. "And what does she do?"
"Kayla works as a police lieutenant on the Youngstown, Arizona, police force. Part of her area is Athens."
As they got out of the car nerves jittered through Lynn. With her past burned to ashes, she realized how important it was that these women accept her, like her.
Kayla had been friends with the mother Lynn would never know, and more than anything Lynn wanted Rainy Carrington to be proud of the woman Lynn had become.
A beautiful, tall woman with long brunette hair, brown eyes and a honeyed complexion to envy answered Dawn"s knock on room 1. She wrapped her arms around Dawn in a hug and at the same time eyed Lynn in open curiosity over Dawn"s shoulder.
"You must be Lynn," she said as she released Dawn. She held a hand out to Lynn. "It"s wonderful to meet you. I"m Kayla, and I loved your mother very much."
Together the three of them went into the room, and Kayla motioned them to the small table in the corner of the room. "I"m expecting Darcy at any moment," Kayla said to Dawn. "She called a little while ago and said she had news for us."
While they waited for Darcy to show up, they talked, letting Lynn and Kayla get to know each other.
Lynn learned that Kayla was a single mother. She had a daughter named Jazz who was twelve years old. Jazz was starting Athena Academy in the fall. Kayla explained that she was half Navaho and had grown up on a reservation with loving parents.
Kayla also gave her more information about the other Ca.s.sandras and about the woman who was Lynn"s surrogate mother, Cleo Patra. Lynn learned that Cleo was a beautiful African American.
"Years ago she was a prost.i.tute in Phoenix," Kayla explained. "She answered a newspaper ad about becoming a surrogate and was placed in the care of Dr. Henry Reagan and Betsy Stone, who was also the nurse for Athena Academy. Cleo"s been frightened for a long time by what happened the night the baby was stolen from her, but now she"s helping us get to the bottom of all this."
"I want to help. I"ll do whatever is necessary to take down the people responsible for our mother"s death," Lynn said.
"We need all the help we can get," Dawn said. At that moment a knock sounded on the door.
Kayla jumped up. "That must be Darcy." She opened the door and hugged the woman who stepped in.
Lynn looked at the woman with interest. She knew from what Kayla and Dawn had told her that Darcy was a former Hollywood makeup artist who now worked as a beautician and a private investigator.
Darcy Steele was fragile looking, with dyed brown hair that she was growing out, judging by the blond roots, and blue eyes. She greeted Dawn with a hug, then turned and smiled at Lynn. "I can see the resemblance," she said, and gestured toward Dawn. "It"s amazing. You both have the very same eyes."
For the next couple of minutes it seemed as if everyone was talking at once as the three caught up with each other, and Lynn sat back and watched. She knew from Dawn that Darcy ran a sort of underground railroad for abused women and realized the woman"s appearance of fragility hid a wealth of inner strength.
They also told Lynn more about Lab 33, that it was built underground with an entrance in the side of a rock formation. It was Dawn who told her about the many levels of the structure that went down into the earth, and to Lynn it sounded like something from a science-fiction novel. However she knew from the look in Dawn"s eyes when she spoke of the place that it was very real and the people who worked there could be very dangerous.
It was a conversation of discovery for Lynn as she learned more about the Athena Academy and the women who had been Rainy"s friends.
"You mentioned on the phone that you have news," Kayla said to Darcy.
"I got a late response to the ad," she said.
Lynn looked blankly first at Kayla then at Dawn. It was Dawn who explained. "Darcy has been hunting down the surrogate angle. She found ads in some of the tabloids in the Phoenix area and decided to place an ad of her own."
"I offered a reward for anyone who might have information about surrogate mothers from about twenty years ago. It"s through the ad we found Cleo. And now I found somebody else."
"Who?" Kayla asked and leaned forward.
Darcy looked at all of them. "A woman called me. She told me that years ago she worked with a woman who answered an ad for surrogate mothers. She also said that this woman, Tamara Hallwell, paid her to give her a urine sample at the doctor"s office. According to the woman who called me, Tamara Hallwell had unusual pale blue eyes. She sounds like a woman Cleo remembered seeing in the doctor"s office."
"When Cleo went to the doctor"s office for her pregnancy test, she remembered seeing a nervous-looking woman with startling blue eyes," Dawn explained.
"What are you thinking?" Lynn asked. "Why would a woman pay another one for a urine sample?"
"So that n.o.body would know she was pregnant?" Kayla said.
Darcy nodded and leaned back in her chair. "I"m thinking that maybe this Tamara Hallwell was a third surrogate and she didn"t want anyone to know that the pregnancy was a success."
"So she paid a woman who wasn"t pregnant to provide a urine sample-and then what happened to her?" Kayla asked.
"She disappeared. Or maybe was killed," Darcy replied. "I"ve tried to find her and there"s no trace."
"If what you"re saying is true, then it"s possible there"s another one of us." Dawn looked at Lynn. "We could have another sister."
Hours later Lynn sat in her motel room alone. The four of them had talked until after ten, then Kayla and Darcy had left to return to their homes, and Dawn and Lynn had gone to separate rooms for the night.
It had been a night of revelations, ending in a new mystery. Someplace there might be another sister, and if that were true then they needed to find her. She and Dawn needed to find the rest of their family.
Family. She got up from the bed and undressed. As she slipped her silk nightgown over her head, she thought of the women she"d met tonight and the rest of the women she knew she"d meet in the future.
Funny, but in a matter of hours she"d felt as though they were family. She"d felt the bonds that tied them together, bonds of love and respect for each other.
Their obvious love for Rainy Carrington, and their commitment to each other, was as strong a bond as any family could ever offer, and Lynn wallowed in the warmth of knowing that she was now a part of such a warm, caring, strong group of women.