Defying the Shadows APO is hit hard when three of their best agents wind up in the hospital, but the intrigue and deception is deepened when it is discovered one of them has dark secrets, and the only one that can discover the truth doesn't remember…
Chapter 7: Pure Misfortune
Disclaimer: I don't, nor did or will I ever, own any aspect of Alias. All recognizable characters and plot strands belong to JJ Abrams, not to me. But this plot in this particular fic is mine. And I have no characters to claim all for my own like in some of my other fics. Like Jeffrey…I love Jeffrey!
Sydney's cell phone vibrated in her hand, and she quickly punched a button and held it to her ear.
"Bristow."
She couldn't believe she was driving down what amounted to a main road in the small West Virginia town, and hers was the only car on the road.
"Syd, hey, it's me, Marshal. I know you wanted to keep me out of this, but I found an unencrypted audio file, and I think I have the kid's name," Marshal said excitedly.
"What is it?" Sydney asked, swerving at the last second to miss a pothole on the right side, but hitting it anyway and muttering a soft curse under her breath.
"Rick. Well, at least, it could be the kid. And the audio wasn't very clear, so it could have been Ricky of Ritchie. May be even Richard. But it really sounded like Rick," he hastened to add.
"Great," Sydney said, swerving her SUV around another large pothole. "I have an address from the obituary I found in an old newspaper. I'm going now to talk to neighbors, and hope I find someone who knew the Mosley's. May be it I have a name, I can trigger some of the right memories."
"Syd…" Marshal hesitated.
"What?"
"I just thought you might wanna…you know, keep it in mind that this was around thirty years ago. I mean, you don't want to get your hopes up and find that none of the people in that nationhood lived there back then."
Sydney smiled. After a depressing search of hundreds of obituaries in an astounding eight local papers that morning, she was glad to have a reason to laugh and shake off the cloud of doom and gloom hanging over her head.
"Thanks, Marshal. I know the odds, but it's my only lead at the moment. I'll follow it until it runs out, which may be sooner rather than later," she finished dryly.
After an encore of doors closing in her face with the standard, "We've only lived here a few years," or even the more creative, "Never heard of any Mosleys on this street," Sydney was quickly approaching her wits end as well as the end of her lead. Oak doors, one bright red door, a beautifully intricate carved pine door. All lovely doors. But having them closed in one's face wasn't exactly conductive to noting their positive attributes.
Taking a deep breath, Sydney raised her hand and rapped on the last door on the street. A Mrs. Branson, according to a girl of possibly six or seven who'd popped around the corner of her house when she'd heard Sydney talking to her father about a Mosley family that lived there thirty years ago.
"Mrs. Branson is real old," the little girl had helpfully informed her before her mother had called from the backyard. "Sometimes she doesn't really know who I am, but she's always lived here and she likes to talk about it," she'd added over her shoulder as she took off toward her mother's voice.
An old woman that struck Sydney as being at least eighty years old opened the door and peered hard at her through squinted eyes. The woman was tall and stood straight and proud, with a generous head of fluffy gray hair.
"Um…Mrs. Branson?" Sydney asked as the woman leaned closer to get a look at her face.
"That's me," the old lady crowed. "Who are you?" She leaned over closer. "Why, you're Helen Ratzinger's daughter! I never! You always were a cheeky little thing, Susie, climbin' my fence to get that boy's baseball that time."
Sydney frowned, hoping that this was one of those bad days the child had alluded to and the poor woman wasn't expecting this Susie person. The lady had a vibrancy about her that drew Sydney to her instantly.
"Come in, come in," Mrs. Branson rushed on, limping slowly back toward a good-sized kitchen. "I baked some cookies this mornin' thinking' that little girl up the street might come by to see me. Can't think of her name just now."
"Actually, Mrs. Branson, I…"
"Lemonade's in the fridge where it always was. Not too many kinds in the neighborhood these days, not like the old days when you young rascals had street games of baseball goin' every dadgummed day durin' the summer."
"I wanted to ask you about a kid that used to live here," Sydney said quickly when the lady paused to lower herself into a kitchen chair. "He lived here about thirty years ago…"
"You talk too much girl. You used to sit quiet for hours. Don't just stand there, child. Get those cookies off the counter there and get yourself a glass of lemonade. You'll insult me if you don't."
Sydney moved obediently around the kitchen, hoping the old woman didn't notice her open all of four cabinet doors before finding one holding glasses. She waited until she set the tray of cookies on the table and sat down herself with her glass of tangy sweet lemonade to speak.
"Now, what were you blabbin' about child?" Mrs. Branson interrupted again.
"A boy. I think he lived here about thirty years ago, and I was hoping you might remember him. Jacob Mosley's son?" Sydney asked carefully.
"Mosley…hmph," she said after a moment. "An odd lot, they were. But their boy, he was a handful," she said, grinning fondly in remembrance. "That boy…Richard, that was his name. Rick as his father called him. Boy adored that man, but he worked a lot." She paused. "Seems to me there was some sort of scandal hit them Mosleys. Hmmph. Was all that Jacob, you ask me. Poor little Richard. He confided in me hat he thought his daddy's death was all his fault because he'd bragged on him. Never did get that. Boy was so proud of his lump of a father."
"Why would bragging about his father have gotten him killed?" Sydney asked, leaning forward eagerly. This dear old gossip was a treasure trove of information.
"Well, Susie! Have you been gone so long? "Jacob Mosley's death was a legend among you kids!" the old woman burst out, surprising Sydney into sitting back again. "Do have another cookie, dear," she added. "Don't you remember? They said he was a secret agent for the FBI! Undercover, right in our own neighborhood! Well, when little Rickard found out somehow that he was an agent, well, every little boy's hero is Super Man. He was ecstatic to find his daddy was a real live secret agent!"
"What was Mr. Mosley doing? Busting a crime ring?" Sydney asked, intentionally injecting a certain amount of simple ignorance into the question.
Mrs. Branson got all hushed and leaned in to say dramatically, "The government covered it all up, Susie. Denied it all." She sat back with a sniff. "Of course, I was a sharp young woman then. I knew it was true."
Weiss skidded into the hospital barely ahead of Sloane. As they'd exited APO, Sloane had worn a look of utter hate, surely wondering how Weiss had garnered himself a similar call to the one he'd received himself.
By pure misfortune, Dr. Simons was standing by the nurse's desk dictating orders when Weiss hurried through the door, Sloane only steps behind him.
"Gentlemen," Dr. Simons said, a distinct displeasure in his voice.
"Nadia," Weiss said. "Can I see her?"
"I'm her father," Sloane added, coming up behind him. "This buffoon is nothing to Nadia. I don't want him near her. I'll see her alone."
"That will not be possible at the moment, Mr. Sloane," Simons said, using the same tone Sloane had used. "Nadia asked that we allow no visitors."
"Why?" Sloane and Weiss demanded as one, then threw angry glances at each other.
"Ms. Santos has discovered that she has little control of her left arm and leg. I understand her line of work had a strong physical aspect to it. I believe she needs a certain amount of time to come to terms with her loss of muscle coordination, and to come to understand her therapy options before she is up to dealing with the obvious controversy the two of you represent."
The insult left in place, Simons turned on his heel and left the unfortunate nurse to deal with the two shocked men he left behind.
I have a habit of making my hospital staff either amusingly dense, or hilariously sharp. I think I've made Simons the latter, don't you?