Audrey

Chapter 10 Final Destination

Warning: possible abuse of italics below...

Dave greeted Nathan easily as the police chief entered the Herald's office. "Chief." It wasn't odd anymore to refer to the young man by his father's title. Two years, and despite everything, Nathan was still here, the town was still here. The Troubles were still here, too, but Dave knew that was not Nathan's fault. Of all people Dave knew that.

He stood, would have offered to shake hands – it wasn't actually often that the Chief stopped by, not anymore – but Nathan paced by the door, as if coiled on the rebound. What he wanted wasn't here, apparently. Headed out to search elsewhere.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Vince. Is Vince around?"

Dave scrolled through in his mind any possible crimes Vince might have committed before answering. Couldn't think of anything that would have concerned the police…

But Nathan's tone was worried, and frustrated. Not the murderous anger he'd had the last time he'd barged in the office with that question. Of course, Dave knew exactly where Vince was; morning deliveries, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Nathan should have known it too.

Nathan took a deep breath, as evidently the memory came back to him, too. "Sorry. I should have… I'm sorry." Uncoiling. Recoiling… Clearly Nathan was wound up about something. Dave was who he was, and watching the other man now was like a tennis ball to a Border Collie.

It was interesting that Nathan had come in looking for Vince though, Dave thought. Despite their history. It was Her, as Dave thought of her. Sarah/Lucy/Audrey. Dana/Audrey, now. Her, like that was her name. It was something about that connection she made – with Nathan, with Vince once upon a time – that somehow ineffably connected the men in her lives to each other. A connection that had from the beginning threatened the relationship even between brothers, and that Dave had… ah, well, they'd all been younger then. And foolish.

"Maybe I can help?" Dave offered again. Nathan looked out on the street, considering perhaps, how much to share. How much to trust.

"The Cape Rouge is out of port, I see," Dave observed, getting himself a cup of coffee.

Nathan ignored this as an opening too, but Dave had guessed that it had to have something to do with Duke Crocker. There was a special kind of twist in his shorts that Nathan always got…

Nathan planted himself, there in the foyer, arms crossed and feet fixed shoulder width – braced against whatever storm was coming, looking out the front windows. Looking like he was going to stay. Keeping watch. Only by a flick of eyelids could Dave read the worry there. He wasn't going to talk about it, but he couldn't stand being alone with it anymore either. Thus the search for Vince.

Dave sat, pulled up the front page he'd just been working on. Council debate on the speed zones in town. About actually increasing the speed limits for once.

It was fully possible that Nathan would decide to just wait for Vince to come back.

"When are they due back?"

"Four hours ago." Three words bitten out reluctantly like chewed leather. "She's late for work."

New front page, Dave mused. Missing boat, lost at sea, excellent story – great for selling papers. And then the thought as if from the other side of his brain… Her and the Crocker heir. Audrey was out with Duke on that boat. Everyone knew that. Audrey/Dana was out with Duke and that wild card of a half-brother Dirk. He could not wish harm to Audrey Parker or Dana Bellamy but…

Was it now, could it be? Was it over, now, after so long? Not what he'd hoped – dammit, not what he'd worked so hard for so long for – but if the Troubles were over, at least this time 'round…

"Maybe it's just engine trouble," Dave suggested, as if Nathan was a worried father with a teenage daughter. On a date with Duke Crocker.

Nathan's head turned on a swivel at the unfortunate choice of word. Dave fidgeted at his desk, back to the window and didn't he feel exposed just at the moment.

"Maybe," Nathan allowed, but did not seem to believe it.

More watching for someone who was not coming.

"It wasn't Audrey," Nathan announced – more or less out of the blue, a full five minutes later. An announcement with a question mark attached.

Dave blinked, and waited. The picture of innocence. Doddering innocence, even, though he knew Vince was much better at the age-impaired façade. Maybe because more of it was true.

"That wasn't Audrey who went on the boat with Duke," Nathan expanded, still not looking at him.

A virtual walking wiki of information, Dave considered. Although, maybe playing dumb was not the best move at the moment. Maybe, this was Nathan's way of asking for his help.

Twitch of glasses higher, and Dave bloody knew that was his tell. Goddammit. "I figured." Cleaning his glasses now, and he may as well have signed a confession. Well, Audrey wasn't likely to go off anywhere with Duke, though, was she? It had to have been the other one, Dana. Dave cursed his slowness. He should have realized.

Now what?

"Dana came back after the fire," Nathan said.

That surprised him, and he didn't try to hide it. "That… long ago?" That… was new information. That meant… Dave wasn't sure right away what that meant.

It meant that Nathan had been keeping it secret, to start with. It meant... jesus, it meant that she'd gone out there with Duke Crocker and Dirk Harrison – she was alone with both of Simon's sons – innocent of their archetypal if not preordained roles in each other's lives. Thinking they were all just good friends.

"Was that what you wanted? What you intended?"

Dave reaction was not feigned this time. It actually took him a couple seconds to follow the change in tone, the change in accusation. "I'm sorry?"

"When you set fire to the Gull. You were trying to bring Dana back?"

"Nathan, I don't –" Interesting phrasing, Dave noted, a little remotely. Positive angle, 'help me understand' questioning. He'd never actually been under police interrogation before. And – he breathed the realization – that's what was going on now.

Nathan suspected him.

"Because now I really don't understand. I don't understand how you thought it might …help… in the first place, but if that isn't what you wanted… What did you hope to accomplish?"

Nathan hadn't come here to talk to Vince.

He knew perfectly well that Vince was on deliveries right now.

"I don't know what you mean."

"What I don't get is why you did it yourself." As if Dave hadn't spoken. "It was amateur hour really, Dave. Don't you have a firestarter or someone like that, just on call or something?"

Dave wiped perspiration from his upper lip, as Nathan's words – soft, almost sympathetic, not an accusation at all, certainly not from the Chief of Police – brought the memory back vividly. The dishtowels that he'd tried first (as if laid on an open flame) had only smoldered weakly, and threatened to set off the smoke alarm before any real damage was done. The kitchen was spotless – no greasy dish left on the stove, no spilled oil, and even the trash emptied every night. His final attempt with gasoline had worked, but not without a terrifying brush with a near explosion. Professional arsonist he was not. He figured his eyebrows were mostly recovered… Was Nathan just guessing?

But then Dave saw the way Nathan fingered Dave's hat, resting on the coatrack by the door. Fingered the singed and sad looking feathers that had once graced the band there, now reduced to mere stubs.

"That's the thing about this condition of mine," conversationally, "the smell of gas just sticks to everything. For weeks."

Dave steepled fingers in front of his face. Fine, not a guess.

"You can't keep a firestarter as a pet, Nathan." Obviously. That was the kind of Trouble that could crack the world in two. There hadn't been one of those in Haven for a couple generations, and with any luck that particular curse had burnt itself out. So to speak.

But not courtroom level evidence either. Otherwise he'd be in a cell by now. He wasn't going to confess… so why had Nathan come barging in with the story about wanting Vince?

Nathan wanted something, still.

"Are they really overdue?" Dave asked, not sure where ruse ended and reality began. Hope faded that Dana had finally ended the Troubles. That Duke Crocker was dead. Nathan was fully capable of burying the lead – even a good cop had to keep secrets all the time – but not, surely, that his sense of touch had suddenly come back. Or that his sense of smell was less acute.

Which meant… something on the Cape Rouge had possibly gone badly wrong.

"Just tell me why."

Dave didn't miss that anger that was reluctantly and forcibly tucked back under control, but the affable surface of Nathan Wuornos was gone. "Nathan, you should really find Audrey – or Dana. Her. Find her." Not to deflect his own culpability, but… not just to deflect his own culpability, but because – even though the Teagues curse of writing something that later came true had long ago been cured by one of Duke's ancestors – Dave still knew, somehow. This was it.

This was what he'd been working towards for three iterations of the Troubles.

"Nathan, hon? They want you down at the docks."

*.*.*

The Cape Rouge was tied up at her regular spot when he got down there, looked in good shape. For a forty-year-old fourth-hand ex-trawler turned smuggler/cruiser/liveaboard. Seaworthy, anyway. The only thing that looked amiss were the uniformed Coast Guard officers crawling all over her, securing her lines, inspecting her holds.

Nathan shook hands with someone – by the number of gold braids someone of up-there rank, but someone Nathan could barely manage to be civil to, because he insisted on standing on the dock talking about jurisdiction when Nathan wanted to walk right through him if need be.

"… crimes at sea are of course federal jurisdiction…"

Nathan focused on him. "What crime?"

"Well, we haven't – with a suspicious death it's better to assume the worst and then determine charges. And we know this boat. There may be smuggling charges depending on what's hidden under all that ice."

"Whose death?"

The officer blinked at him, thrown off course by an unexpected shoal. "I thought they told you."

*.*.*

The party started early. Duke turned the music up loud, brought out wine for her, scotch for himself and his brother, and they danced. Out on the deck, the sun rising behind them, the Rouge unzipping the sea under full steam – or diesel, as the case may be – her workhorse heart seeming fully realized to be back at work again, making a mockery of her time bound to the shore. This was why she was made.

They danced, and made fantastic plans for the new restaurant. A tropical theme. A space alien theme. An ice and arctic theme, in order to honor the iceberg that had given so much of itself to them. No, Vikings!

Duke even danced with Dirk – held his neck while they were forehead to forehead. Called him brother, and promised equal shares in everything, from now on. They were family. They were young and pretty and they were going to be rich.

Duke danced with Dana, and they said nothing. Promised nothing, not verbally. There was no need.

*.*.*

Up on deck were the remains of a party, looked like, now scattered and trashed. Broken glasses, bottles. The forward cabin door was wide open – whose, Nathan didn't know. Dirk's, possibly. Nathan knew enough about boats that he knew you didn't leave a door open like that while underway. The coasties surely did, too. So someone had…

The heavily braided officer was still nattering on about the investigation, crime scene techs that had to come from Quantico. Don't touch anything, but she wanted to see you and since she is Haven PD we thought…

Wait, what? "Me?" She? She was alive. For the first time, Nathan thought the thought that he hadn't allowed himself to think because he already knew the answer. She was alive.

"Audrey Parker? Your detective? She says she'll only talk to you. Didn't ask for a lawyer yet, just so you know, and while I understand she's your officer, she's also our suspect."

*.*.*

"It's you, isn't it?"

Dirk's whole body shouted 'threat', no matter the soft, even silky words, catching Dana by surprise in the narrow passageway between their cabins. Duke was up on the bridge…

The thought surprised Dana, as much as Dirk's sudden appearance. She blinked at him. Alarm and alarum – but why? "Is what me?" Her voices – if they'd had feet they would have scurried for cover by now. She told them to hush.

She wasn't afraid of Dirk. She'd just faced off a whole family – pod? school? – of water-breathing men who'd leaped from the deep to try to kill her boyfriend and they'd fled, let Duke go and jumped back into the cold sea just because she'd said so. Because she was who she was… and that meant something to them.

She was not afraid of Dirk annoying Harrison, whatever had spooked her voices. Her past lives. Her other selves. She was who she was, and that had to mean something.

Dirk held up a small black notebook, hers. Her diary, her sanity, which had been deliberately if inadequately hidden under her pillow. The violation of it struck her first.

" 'The next time you drink that much you might at least stick around for the hangover.'" Her words in his voice sounded weak, and snide.

"You bastard." She didn't demand he give it back or not read it. Obviously it was too late for that, and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. But her tentative bravado in even that puny attempt to communicate with Audrey, and Dirk's liquid hatred as he ripped the page from the book… and ate it… made her feel sick. All at sea, as they said.

She stared at him. "There is something really really wrong with you."

"Says the woman who is Audrey Parker one day," shaking the notebook like a piggybank with one last nickel rolling around inside it, a secret he would get out one way or another, "and the next, some other person entirely," he hissed.

He tore out another page.

"Stop that!" This time she reached, tried to grab it, but he held her off with one hand, held the diary aloft with the other. He was strong – nearly a foot taller than her, and not shy with using it against her. He tossed her aside one-handed, the effort effortless, and she banged her head on some out-poking bit of steel, her skull rattled like a dried out gourd. She tried to stand, couldn't make it.

This pleased him, as he tore the paper into neat square bits. Showered her with the pieces.

"Who is Dana Bellamy?"

*.*.*

She sat on the stateroom bench, handcuffed, with two armed Coast Guard officers stationed in the room with her.

She couldn't help the little gulp of relief when Nathan finally appeared, tried to hide it, tried to be strong and independent and even in charge. She could do annoyed. Nathan ignored it – like he knew instantly that she was not okay and not even a little in charge, pulled her to her feet, wrapped her in a full body hug in front of everyone. Brushed her hair behind her ears, noted bruises and checked her eyes. Nodded minutely. She was Audrey.

"Don't say anything."

What you say can be used against you… she knew that. "Hi?" She didn't need a lawyer to represent her. "I'm fine."

"Hi, yourself." You're not fine, his eyes said, and don't bother trying to tell me you are. He laughed briefly, and she understood the message that she wanted to see him had somehow become garbled, and she'd scared him unnecessarily. "Duke?"

She shook her head. Trouble and trouble. "Not fine."

*.*.*

"WHO IS DANA BELLAMY!?" Dirk threw the notebook at her, hard enough that she flinched, but she kept her attention on him.

"Me. I am."

He lifted his head, surprised by her direct answer. "Who is Audrey Parker?"

She lifted her hand, answering the teacher. "Me."

That seemed to stump him for a second or two. Dirk leaned in even closer. "'The one who changes, and never changed.'" Obviously a quote, and Dirk's voice was clenched and hoarse, fisted against her ear. Dana forced herself not to shudder, not to react at all.

"My father came to see me, the night before he died." An intimate confession, shared between the two of them. "He said there was a woman hunting him – one who changes and never changed. He told me she was coming to kill him." Her pulled out a gun – her gun, Audrey's gun Dana realized, - Christ- when Duke had rid the Cape Rouge of all of his two years ago. She felt a little ridiculous as he put the nose of the weapon under her chin, and lifted it, almost gently. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Did you kill my father?"

It wouldn't hurt, she thought, a little randomly. Not like the last time. But her death would probably kill Duke, and that is what finally stung tears to her eyes. His pupils flared, satisfaction for getting a reaction from her at last. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't remember."

"But it could have been?" he questioned, maybe his real question after all. "It could have been you, thirty years ago?" The one who changes, and never changed.

She attempted a smile, and Dirk reacted by twitching her chin higher, then backing off a step. Dana rubbed at her throat. "Could have been, I guess. I don't know how it works," she admitted. "You read –" and then stopped, because reminding him of the dropped diary was probably not a good move. "I wake up one morning and I'm me. I wake up the next and… it's two weeks, twenty days later and someone else – Audrey – has been in control. They tell me I've been other people in the past too. Dirk, I don't know." She wiped her eyes, wiped snot from her nose.

It was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. Because she could feel the others within her. Feel their reactions to Simon Crocker's son holding a gun on her, feel their conflicting impulses to fight and to flee. All these different women, all their various experiences and lives, different shades of courage and fear – some braver, some more cautious, some thoughtful and forgiving. And one or two warriors, like her, whose instincts were to take up arms.

Dana Bellamy had not suffered from these conflicting voices. That much she remembered. She'd lived her life in the moment nearly every moment of her life, not looking back nor too far into the future. An impulse to help had led to joining the Army, while a dislike of shooting and hurting people had led to the medical corps, ironically bringing her closer to the front lines than nearly any other female soldier. Dana's world had been very black and white – friends and enemies easily defined – and then she had died.

But she wasn't just Dana Bellamy, not anymore. She was Audrey too, and she felt other names floating up to her consciousness, Lucy, Sarah, Marie, Joan… she could almost see them, as they stood up within her, broke free from the bonds that had suppressed them for so many years.

She stood, managing slowly. It was a bit of a kaleidoscope in her head right now. A bit like those movies and TV shows with multiple camera views shown all at once. It took some effort to focus on just one. Simon – no, Dirk, this one was Dirk – took another step back, the gun wavering in his hand as he pointed it at her. She wondered what he saw that frightened him so.

"Stop it! Stop looking at me like that!"

She didn't know how she was looking at him – she barely noticed him as her others filled her, nearly overwhelmed her.

She knew. She understood. Everything.

Lucy recognized him. "I'm so sorry, Dirk. I didn't kill Simon – your father. But he died because of me, in a way. I would have saved him if I could. But his curse," she reached out to Dirk, so like the man she had cared deeply about, before the terrible Crocker curse had changed everything…

"Put down the gun, Dirk," Duke said slowly.

Duke was not on the bridge, not anymore. Oh god, he couldn't be here.

Dirk spun her around, flash bright and quick, twisted her into his arms and held the gun to her head as he faced his brother. She was hostage, and she watched as Duke stepped out into the passageway, open hands wide.

"Duke…" How could she explain it all to him? "I'm so sorry."

His eyes narrowed, then flicked up. He was watching his brother, not her. "That bullet isn't going anywhere but to me, you know. Put the gun down."

"It goes through her first." Dirk said.

"You don't want to shoot me, do you, my big brother?"

"It's all her fault! She is going to kill us. She has to, that's what-" Duke waved the gun around, pointing it at Duke, then back at her as he spoke – once more at Duke, more to make his point than as a threat really – and Duke charged.

Dirk fired.

She screamed, as Duke went down clutching his chest, his eyes locked on hers. Not even time to draw breath as he died before he hit the floor. Her elbow to Dirk's kidney – he went down to one knee. She kicked the gun from his hand, sending it spinning down the hallway – but Dirk backhanded her into the wall, the steel corner of the bulkhead bursting her shoulder out of joint.

Dirk went for the gun, stumbling himself.

One look at the too still form of Duke, crumpled in a heap like a forgotten doll, and she crawled away.

tbc...

A/N: So close... but it is not going to get done before the premiere. So this little taste to whet the appetite of you lucky folk in the US. One more chapter to go.