Danielle sat motionless in her kitchen after Ryan and Annie left. She was numb. Her day started out as it always did, a rush to wake the girls, make their lunches, and get them fed, dressed, and groomed for school. Michael left earlier than normal to beat the traffic for an all day healthcare policy meeting at Stanford. It always wound up a mad dash to the drop off lane at school. She got home and finally had her coffee and breakfast before preparing her meal orders for that day. Then that knock on her door interrupted her. Her day was all so normal, so comfortable and predictable until Ryan McQuaid and Annie showed up.
She tried for a long time to avoid the mental picture of her sister Annie inside her home. She didn't want to believe it, but the more she replayed the events since finding out Annie died, the more plausible it all seemed. Her sister was a spy for the CIA after all and she had doubts about the nature of Annie's death from the get-go. It seemed like she was living out the plot to a television show or something. It was all so surreal. She picked up the phone to call Michael a few times, but decided against it each time. Telling him didn't make any sense, telling him would make it real and she didn't want to believe it was real just yet.
Danielle decided to get back to work so she furiously finished up the desserts to go with the five meal orders she had for that day. She didn't need to work, but she discovered that it gave her something to do and she enjoyed it, so even after their windfall, she kept up her small catering business. She provided nutritious home cooked meals from locally sourced ingredients for a hefty sum and not surprisingly, the families Mill Valley were more than willing to pay. Danielle had to turn away orders, preferring to keep her business a small scale one.
Before she left to deliver the meals, she did some speed cleaning. It was her way to relax and decompress. By the time she was done, it didn't look like she spent the morning cooking. Her kitchen was picture perfect and ready for a photo shoot. But the more she cleaned, the more the anger she felt returned. She was so livid as she started thinking back to the shock of hearing that Annie had died. She remembered that day so vividly. And now would she remember this day just as vividly? She had fantasized a thousand times that Annie's death wasn't true, but in her heart and mind she knew that it was impossible. She had demanded the truth from the CIA, but received nothing but reassurances that Annie had died in a horrible aviation accident. Auggie had convinced her that there was nothing more to it and she believed him. How could they do this to her? Danielle called Auggie, but her call went straight to voicemail. She wanted to give him hell, she was still so shocked and angry and the furious cleaning hadn't cured her of it.
Danielle glanced at her mantle where she kept a picture of her and her sister. She cried and turned the picture over not wanting to see Annie's face. It was just too painful. She needed to talk to Michael, but she wasn't sure how she would tell him. He wasn't going to believe it. She still didn't believe it. Danielle went back into the kitchen and looked at the business card Ryan handed her. She had a few minutes before she had to leave so she opened up her laptop and Googled "Ryan McQuaid." Immediately a number of articles popped up.
After seeing an article from Forbes, Danielle recalled why Ryan McQuaid looked so familiar to her, Michael had a subscription to Forbes magazine and she had skimmed an article about the man who earlier stood in her kitchen. Danielle nearly lost track of time reading about her sister's fiancé. The protective big sister in her wasn't sure she would have given her blessing for Annie to marry the man Forbes described as "a new breed of renaissance soldier turned entrepreneur who was just as much at ease in a board room or senate chamber giving an intelligence briefing as he was holding sniper rifle or piloting an assault helo into enemy territory."
From the looks of it, Ryan McQuaid was a multi-millionaire, but his job was high profile and he seemed like a thrill seeker. Danielle always hoped Annie would marry someone with a stable and boring job who would be her constant and keep her adventure seeking sister's feet on the ground. It looked like that wasn't going to happen if she married this man. Danielle stopped after a couple of articles on Ryan McQuaid, she supposed that they really did deserve each other, but what the big sister in her really wanted to do was warn Annie about marrying someone whose job was to traipse around the world stopping insurgencies and protecting high profile people who deliberately go to hostile territory.
Danielle grabbed her keys to make her deliveries and pick up the girls. When she saw her girls, she gave him a huge hug and the day's drama melted away for a time while she drove them to piano lessons. She left Michael a text saying that they needed to talk after they put the girls to bed. She couldn't keep this news to herself, she'd go crazy and she wanted her life partner's advice on what she should do. She knew she didn't want the girls to know about Annie's resurrection, it would be so confusing to them, but she wasn't sure what to do about her relationship with Annie. Could she really pretend she was dead now that she knew the truth?