Mercy Mild—Chapter Four
They ate carryout, which was fine with Victoria. Mummy ordered from a bistro on Clark, and one of the FBI women picked it up. Victoria could tell Daddy was having a hard time staying put because he kind of fidgeted, something he rarely did, and he kept looking out the windows, putting a hand in the pocket where he kept his phone. Mummy simply tried to remain calm, though Victoria didn't think Daddy's fidgeting helped.
Victoria used their distraction to plan.
After dinner, during which Daddy managed not to fidget and Mummy managed to relax a little, Daddy helped Mummy clean the kitchen. Victoria wondered if she could use the iPad to get online again. Her mum was pretty strict about bedtime, and while Daddy could sometimes be persuaded to let her stay up later than usual, she had a feeling this would be one time he would insist she go to bed on time. Victoria watched her dad slide an arm around her mum and lean down and kiss her cheek as they finished loading the dishwasher. It would be to her advantage to be a good girl and go to bed without complaint.
After all, she was pretty sure Daddy was going to be distracted taking care of Mummy or by finally going to find Jack, so that made it more likely Victoria could use the computer without them knowing.
Mummy looked really tired when she suggested Victoria get her bath. That suggestion was never really a suggestion, though Mummy usually phrased it like it was. Victoria didn't complain, but she noticed Daddy gave her a suspicious look when she didn't argue. She would have to think of some way to make sure he didn't figure out what she had in mind because she had a feeling he'd tell her not to do it.
As she took her bath, she decided the smartest thing to do would be to use Mummy's iPad. It was still in Victoria's room since she and Mummy had used it that morning to look online for part of Daddy's Christmas present. As long as Mummy didn't pick it up and take it with her after she and Daddy read her bedtime story, Victoria would be able to get online and find out if Tori or any of their other friends had seen anything Daddy could use to find Jack.
It was hard not to be impatient while Mummy read from On the Banks of Plum Creek. They had started reading the Little House books after coming to Chicago, and Victoria liked them—except for Farmer Boy, which she had found kind of boring since Almanzo and his family weren't nearly as interesting as Laura and her family. When Mummy finished, Victoria scooted down under her blankets, let Mummy kiss her.
While Mummy crossed her room to put the book away, Daddy gave Victoria a look that almost made her confess her plan, so she was glad it was just firm look and not a hard one. After a moment, Daddy bent and kissed her goodnight before telling her quietly, "No playing spy, Victoria."
She couldn't stop the frown, especially since she wasn't going to play spy; she was going to be a spy, and a good one, like Daddy.
Before she could protest, Daddy added, "Let the grownups find Jack. This is very dangerous, and your mother and I would really rather not have to worry about you as well as your brother."
"I wouldn't do anything that would make you worry," she assured him, tried to give him the big blue eyes so she would look innocent.
It was easy to see Daddy didn't miss that she hadn't said she wouldn't spy. "Victoria, you're not to interfere."
She wasn't going to lie because Daddy was really good at spotting them. She must be like Uncle Chuck and do something with her face that told him she wasn't being truthful even when she was absolutely certain she hadn't moved a single muscle in her face. "I love you, Daddy," she said instead, hoped he'd leave it at that.
Mummy put her hand on Daddy's shoulder and gave Victoria a worried look. "Your father is right," Mummy said. "You mustn't try and help, Victoria, because you aren't equipped for this."
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that if Daddy had let her bring her gun to Chicago, she would be better equipped, but she knew better than to do that because she and Daddy both would be in a lot of trouble. Her mum clearly expected an answer, though. If Victoria gave one, it would either have to be a lie or the truth, and if she told her mum what she planned, they'd take the iPad and anything else she might use to find out about Jack and the people who took him. "I'm not a spy," she sighed, put a little disgust into it, "so why would I try to be one?"
Mummy looked kind of relieved, but Daddy's eyes narrowed. Victoria could tell he knew what she was doing, but he apparently decided not to call her on it, moved her blankets up her chest a little, and, finally, cranked up one of his brows and said, "Just don't." Then he kissed her forehead.
She closed her eyes, waited until Mummy and Daddy shut off her light. She waited some more to make sure they didn't come back to check on her. She heard them walk down the hall, heard their door close, and still she waited. Finally, she got up and got the iPad from her desk, took it back to her bed.
It took Victoria a little while to find Tori on FaceTime. It was a good thing Tori hadn't been creative with her ID. She had to put up with some boring stuff about what Tori had been doing that day, but when the other girl said, "Something happened at the market this afternoon," Victoria perked up.
"I know," she told Tori. "Did you see anything?"
Tori made a face. "I was watching for my dad to come home," she said. "I saw a bunch of men walking Clara Woodcomb and her mom out of the store. They had some other little kid, too."
Victoria's heart raced. She couldn't say she knew what was going on or that the other kid was Jack or that they'd been kidnapped, so she asked, "Where did they go?"
Tori shrugged. "My mom said there was a kidnapping at the store today, so I guess it was the police taking them somewhere safe."
It figured that Tori would get it wrong, but then Tori wasn't interested in much of anything that wasn't about her. Victoria tried to figure out how to get her to tell her more of what she saw without having to tell the other girl what had really happened and what she had really seen. "Why do you think it was the police?" she asked. Uncle Chuck hadn't said the extra four men wore police uniforms, so she wondered why Tori thought they might be police.
Another shrug lifted Tori's shoulders. "They all wore suits, and they got into a big, black SUV."
Victoria wanted to pounce on that and demand that she tell her more, but she swallowed her excitement, remembered how Daddy did things, and simply asked, "Which way did they go?"
Thankfully, Tori didn't shrug again because that was really beginning to annoy Victoria. "They drove toward Deming."
Tori changed the subject then, started talking about what she asked Santa to get her for Christmas. Victoria wondered how long she had to listen to Tori's list before she could say goodnight and move on to Karen Banks who lived on Deming near Orchard. Finally, Tori's mom yelled it was time for her to go to bed, so Victoria said goodnight and disconnected.
She'd talked to Karen online before, so it was easy to find her.
"Clara Woodcomb and her mom got kidnapped!" Karen said breathlessly when they connected.
That made it easier, Victoria thought. "I heard."
"The news said there was some other kid taken with them," Karen rushed on, "but they didn't say who it was."
Victoria knew not to tell her it was Jack. "I was just talking to Tori," Victoria said, "and she said they got in a big black SUV that headed toward Deming."
Karen frowned. "My mom and I were walking down the street. There was nearly a wreck when a car like that ran the stop sign."
"Yeah?" Victoria asked and tried not to sound very excited.
"They turned in front of a car and headed toward Orchard," Karen rushed on. "Mom said it was a miracle no one got killed."
Victoria wondered if there had been a wreck after all. Then again, Deming wasn't a really big street, and it was one-way.
Before she could ask, Karen told her, "The car they ran in front of hit two parked cars."
Karen described the wreck in more detail than Victoria wanted to hear, including that another car nearly hit the one that wrecked, but she supposed it didn't matter since she couldn't think of anyone else who might have seen where they went after Karen saw them. At Orchard they would have had to turn right, and that would take them out of the area where anyone Victoria knew lived. She and Karen talked a little about Christmas, and then Karen's mom came and told her it was time to go to bed.
Victoria got out of bed and turned on her lamp so she could find a notebook and pencil to write down what she had learned. She was nearly finished when she heard a noise in the hall. She flipped the light off when she realized it was her parents' bedroom door opening. She held her breath, hoped it wasn't one of them coming to check on her. Their footsteps went in the other direction. After a few minutes, she turned the lamp back on and finished writing everything down.
Then she thought about what to do with it. It was important, she knew, but it was also possible the FBI already knew what she did from talking to people at the store. She considered taking it to one of the FBI women Daddy's friend left with them, but she would really prefer to give it to Daddy. She didn't think he'd be mad that she had played spy when he knew what she'd found out, especially since she'd done it in such a way that she hadn't been at risk.
She decided Daddy could ground her if he wanted as she put her robe on and stuck her notes in a pocket before she left her room. The FBI agent at the end of the hall crossed her arms and eyed Victoria.
"Um," Victoria said while she thought hard for a believable excuse for her to be out of bed. She knew Mummy and Daddy wouldn't be too mad when they found out what she knew about the men who took Jack, but she had a feeling the FBI agent would be really mad at what she'd done. "I need a drink."
The agent eyed her for several long seconds, but then she dropped her arms and moved so Victoria could pass.
There were voices in Daddy's office. Victoria was relieved to hear her grandpa's voice. He'd know what to do with what she had. She was sure he wouldn't ground her, thought Daddy might not ground her when she told him what she had learned, and only then did it occur to her to wonder if Chicago had webcams in Lincoln Park. Mummy, when she was a little homesick for Canada, sometimes looked at the ones of St. John's in Newfoundland. She would point out houses or shops and tell Victoria stories about the people who lived in the houses or shopped in the stores. She looked at ones from Ottawa sometimes, too.
Her Daddy was at his desk, and Grandpa V. H. sat on the other side of it. Both of them looked kind of sad. She closed the door so the FBI wouldn't hear. Daddy and Grandpa V. H. had that smelly stuff they liked to drink in front of them. Grandpa V. H. let her taste it once, but it had been awful, made it hard to breathe since it felt like it burned her chest from the inside out. She couldn't understand why they drank that stuff.
Grandpa V. H. said, "Hello, Victoria." There was something in his voice that wasn't quite suspicion.
"Why are you out of bed?" Daddy asked, but he didn't sound mad.
Victoria breathed in deeply and walked around the desk to Daddy's chair. "Don't get mad," she said.
"That's never good," Grandpa V. H. growled. She gave him one of Daddy's stares and wondered why everyone laughed when she did that.
"Why do you think I'll get mad?" Daddy asked.
Turning her attention back to him, she reached in her pocket. She took out her notes and said, "I talked to Tori and Karen on Mummy's iPad. Tori saw the men who took Jack and Aunt Ellie and Clara get in an SUV and drive down Cleveland to Deming. Karen saw the SUV pull out in front of another car that wrecked."
Daddy's eyes bored into her. "You shouldn't tell people what happened," he began, but Victoria, even though she knew it was rude and would get her in trouble, cut him off.
"I didn't," she swore. "Tori just told me what she saw, so I asked questions. When her mum made her go to bed, I talked to Karen. She said she'd heard Clara was kidnapped, and I told her I heard that, too. I told her what Tori told me, and she told me about the wreck." She put her notes on Daddy's desk. "I wrote down what they said so you can use it to find Jack."
Daddy pulled her onto his lap and read through what she'd written.
Victoria looked over at her grandpa. He gave her a smile, one of the encouraging kind. She looked at Daddy when he finished reading and asked, "Do they have cameras on the streets here like the ones Mummy looks at when she misses Canada?"
Her daddy wasn't often taken by surprise, but there was a flicker that told her he just had been. He quickly hid it, though, and Victoria stored that away. She wondered if he ever missed where he was from.
"I'll find out," Daddy promised.
"That was a good idea," her grandfather said, "asking your friends what they saw, but you need to let us look further." He lifted a brow. "No one can find out Jack was the other child taken."
Victoria knew that was because they were spies. She didn't think that should matter, knew there were people who would recognize Jack anyway, especially their neighbors. She wondered if there would be some kind of picture they would put on TV that would show her brother, like those Crime Stopper things they saw sometimes.
She knew what was expected, though, so she sighed and said, "Okay."
Daddy hugged her, kissed her cheek, and to her surprise, he didn't make her leave, go back to bed. Instead, he took his phone and set it on the desk, called the mean general he worked for and put it on speaker. He told General Beckman what Victoria had learned, and the little redheaded lady said, "I'll let our agents on the ground know. Tell your daughter she did well."
Victoria grinned at her grandpa, but she didn't say anything. She had a feeling Daddy's boss wouldn't be happy if she knew Victoria was there.
After they hung up, Daddy looked at Victoria and said, "Since you're up, why don't you go down to the kitchen and help your mother and aunt Emma hold off your grandmother."
She'd rather stay with them, but she knew Daddy got mad when her grandmother upset Mummy. Victoria hugged him, and he whispered, "You did good," in her ear.
She ran around Daddy's desk and hugged her grandpa, who hugged her back. "Well done."
When Victoria got to the kitchen, Mummy looked upset as Grandma Ariel fired questions at her about Jack and the men who had taken him. Aunt Emma shut her up by saying, "Hi, Victoria."
She ran to her aunt, threw her arms around her, and hoped it would make Grandma Ariel stop making Mummy shake and stammer out things that sounded more like apologies than information about Jack being stolen. Daddy usually didn't leave Mummy with her mum because Grandma Ariel was good at upsetting Mummy, and that always made Daddy angry. Sometimes he and Grandma Ariel said terrible things to one another, but that only upset Mummy even more.
Though she was tempted to tell Mummy what she had found out, she didn't. Instead, when Aunt Emma let her go, Victoria crossed to her mum and hugged her. Mummy gave her a kind of wobbly smile. Victoria tried to think of a way to get a real one.
They talked about Christmas, and Victoria felt a little sick. She didn't think they should plan because they didn't know if Jack would be there. She hoped Daddy found him quickly, but she knew that sometimes things like this took a long time. They wouldn't still be in Chicago if things could always be done quickly.
Mummy must have known what she was thinking because she hugged Victoria closer and bent to say softly, "They will find him."
Victoria really wanted to tell Mummy what she knew. Instead, she whispered, "I know."
This time, Mummy's smile was more normal.
-X-
Once they had fed Victoria—one of the agents had gone to pick up carryout from a bistro on Clark that Riah ordered—Casey and his wife followed through with their daughter's normal nighttime routine. He doubted it would settle either mother or daughter, but he went along with it, suspected Riah was the one who most needed that bit of normalcy. He was certain of it after he saw her expression when she walked past Jack's closed door after they tucked Victoria in and read her a chapter out of one of the Little House books of which she had become enamored. Casey's throat had thickened, when he saw the naked pain on his wife's face, and he'd taken her hand, held it tightly as he walked her to their own room.
She finally broke when they were inside, and he very nearly broke with her.
He held her while she cried, great wracking sobs of the sort she normally repressed when she was hit hard emotionally. Each one scraped, lacerated, and he once more thought he should have gone to her immediately, shouldn't have stayed with the job.
Afraid of saying something wrong, afraid of making it worse for Riah, Casey remained silent, clung to her just as she clung tightly to him, and as her grief poured out, he took her to their bed, drew her down with him, wrapped himself around her, and let her despair cut into him. Casey second guessed everything he'd done since he answered his daughter's telephone call, but he didn't like the conclusions he reached. He couldn't have prevented what happened—logic told him that—but he couldn't help feeling he should have left his post immediately, gone to Riah when Victoria called, and tried to see what he could do.
When Riah finally stopped, only let out a sniffle now and then, he still held her. By then he'd moved from recriminations to thinking about early that morning when the jostling bed had awakened him.
He'd been sprawled on his back in the dimmed morning light created by the drawn curtains and the snow falling outside. Something stalking across the mattress caused the movement that had awakened him, and he'd heard Jack's rich giggle as Casey struggled to get fully awake. He'd cracked an eye open as his son flopped down beside him and smiled at the boy. He shifted his arm and put his hand on his son's head, ran his fingers in the silky hair covering Jack's scalp.
The boy's hair was soft, a little too long, and prone to curl. It had been a very long time since his own had been long enough to show the same tendency. Jack had batted his hand away, so Casey asked in a voice like gravel, "Where's your mom?"
"Food!"
Jack was a miser with words, rarely doled more than one or two out at a time, apparently from some belief that when one word would suffice, more than one was a waste of time and breath. When Casey complained, Riah generally told him their son's tendency toward truncated communication was a sure sign his own genetic material ran true in Jack, claimed it must be something in the Casey Y chromosome.
It probably had more to do with the fact that Jack was only two, nearly two and a half, and he apparently had no need to use words to communicate in most circumstances.
Casey interpreted Jack's monosyllabic response to his question as Riah was making breakfast downstairs.
He lifted his head and squinted at the clock. It had been a late night. He, Walker, and Bartowski had done a little reconnaissance for the operation they would move to the next phase that afternoon. He figured he'd had maybe three hours sleep before Jack decided to wake him. Then Casey saw the cup on the nightstand. He loved his wife for that still-steaming mug of coffee, even if she'd used the opportunity to dump Jack safely out of her way with him when she left it there. He lifted on his elbows, shifted on the mattress so he could pull one of Riah's pillows over, and moved so he was propped up enough to drink the coffee without spilling it. He stretched an arm to move Jack before he reached for the cup.
Jack, though, eluded him, rolled to his knees and walked on them to Riah's side of the bed. He plucked a lidded sippy cup from the nightstand and then scrambled back across the mattress before he lay back down, his head on Casey's shoulder and drank some of whatever his mother had given him while Casey took a hit of caffeine. Casey folded the arm beneath his son so his hand rested on Jack's stomach. "What's your mom fixing for breakfast, little man?"
His son screwed his head up and around to look at him. "French toast!" The boy's enthusiasm punctuated the words. Casey knew french toast was Jack's favorite, but then he remembered that Riah had made that swirled pound cake with the molasses and pecans he liked for dessert the night before—not to mention the bourbon sauce she'd served with it. Grimes often swore he could eat a car if Casey's wife poured that sauce over it first. He gave a little grin, knew his wife was probably reheating that thick, buttery sauce to use as syrup and making the french toast out of the leftover cake. She would serve scrambled eggs and sausage links, too, perhaps some fruit, so that it wasn't purely sugar their children fed on, but Jack would do his best to only eat the repurposed cake.
He had, too, Casey reflected. Riah had turned a blind eye once their son nibbled a little sausage and dutifully ate two or three mouthfuls of egg and a chunk or two of melon. Under other circumstances, Casey would blame that particular bit of willfulness from his son on his wife, but now he simply hoped his son really did take after Riah, who had almost always kept her head, even, apparently, as a child.
Riah had been abducted when she was seven years old, the same age Victoria was now. His wife had never once spoken of it, but Casey had seen ISI's files. He would kill Quinnell and the others if they inflicted on Jack even a fraction of the damage Riah's childhood kidnappers had on her.
His hand stroked up and down his wife's spine. Casey remembered what Victoria had said while they were still in the grocery: She had known what happened to her mother. Casey sincerely hoped she didn't know all of it. His daughter worried more than a child ought to.
He swallowed thickly again. Riah had more than once pointed out that being their child was neither a safe nor easy path, but for the most part, Victoria and Jack had been spared any of the things she had endured in her own childhood. They had both of their parents, and Casey and Riah loved each other, rarely fought in front of their kids, and never on the scale of the battles Riah had once described between her own parents.
It occurred to him then that he and Riah had prepared Victoria for what could happen, had taught her how to be wary, to escape grownups, to be suspicious of people, to survive, but by the time Jack had come along, they had simply been vigilant for him.
Domesticity led to complacency, and Casey knew now he'd been right to distrust it all these years.
"Victoria says we should have taught him what we did her," Riah said in a voice barely above a choked whisper.
He leaned back, studied her pale face. Her red-rimmed eyes held a kind of agony he hadn't seen there in a very long time. Briefly, Casey considered making a joke. "When we get him back," he promised instead. He didn't point out that Victoria had been older than Jack when they began that "training." Their son was barely able to control his own limbs, as Victoria pointed out in continual exasperation, let alone execute evasive maneuvers.
The corners of Riah's mouth lifted slightly, briefly, but that emotionally gutted look remained. "That's what she said." For a moment, he thought she might be about to cry once more, but Riah simply breathed deeply a time or two, calmed a little. "That doesn't help him now."
Casey pressed a kiss against her forehead, tempted to remind her that she hadn't been prepared when it happened to her, but he didn't. Like Jack, she'd been raised by a spy (two, in their son's case), but unlike Jack, she'd not had a stable childhood, and she'd apparently always distrusted grownups. His son, on the other hand, seemed to believe grownups existed to entertain him. Jack might not talk much, but he trusted, sometimes when he probably shouldn't. Casey wished, for once, that their son had more of his parents' reticence. He'd seen Jack's easy comfort with others as a plus, even slightly envied it. Now he was less certain it was an asset.
The only comfort he could offer was, "Ellie's with him."
Riah screwed her eyes tightly closed a moment, tensed. "We don't know that," she said softly, a slight hitch in her voice. Before he could tell her they could hope, she opened her eyes and met his gaze. "I first met Isobel Gerrard a month or so before I was abducted. Dad took me to ISI where she taught me some very basic self-defense."
For a second, he wondered what that had to do with the possibility that Ellie might not have been allowed to stay with the children. Then, Casey held his breath. He wondered if she would finally tell him, wondered if she'd fill in the blanks of what he'd read in the file V. H. had sent him years before.
"There were things I knew that were instinct—listen, watch and remember everything. Don't trust any of the men in the masks, don't eat or drink anything they gave me, don't let them hurt me badly enough I couldn't survive, and don't do anything that might provoke them into killing me." She sighed, her eyes dropped closed again, and she burrowed closer, buried her head beneath his chin. "Most of all, say nothing."
Casey studied her when she finally tilted her head back away from him, slowly opened her eyes. He noted the paleness of her skin, the shadows in the blue depths of her eyes, and wondered what she might have been inculcating in their children based on that long-ago event.
"They took me from my bed, John. I never fully woke up, and when I finally did, far from where I'd gone to sleep, I thought I was imagining it because it was so dark." She went on with an eerie, clinical precision to tell him how she had figured out she was being held in a modified walk-in closet with no light and no discernable door from the inside. She explained how she had walked it off, estimated its size based on the length of her feet, and how she had carefully listened, tried to figure out all she could from the voices of the men who held her.
He had a whole new appreciation for her paranoia as she explained further about half-heard, half-understood things her father and his friends had said in her presence. "They were good lessons," she assured him. "They kept me alive."
His wife sighed then, and Casey took the opportunity to move her just that little bit closer, to kiss her. He wanted to tell her Jack would be fine, but unlike their son, she'd had the advantage of being old enough to know things, even if she hadn't completely understood them.
"I never saw him, John," she said quietly, and Casey frowned, wondered who she meant. "I never saw the man Victoria saw. I've gotten sloppy, forgotten we aren't normal people, forgotten people come after us, forgotten our children are at risk."
He pulled her closer. "This isn't your fault, Riah."
"We don't know that," she said. "This could be about me, about the Montreal Project, or about us—you and me." She swallowed thickly. "I should have been more observant, should have been looking for threats. I should have seen the man Victoria saw, the woman, too."
Casey wanted to tell her that she couldn't have known, but there was some truth in her self-chastisement. She was out of the habit of looking for threats. "Riah, this is no more your fault than it is Victoria's."
Once more, he itched to be doing something other than providing an anchor for Riah, a tether she could hold onto in order to keep from sinking beneath the waves of misplaced guilt. He felt he should be out doing something that would see to it Jack came safely home.
There was an epiphany then, though it didn't blindside him quite the way the ones he'd had earlier in their marriage had: she needed him.
It wasn't that great a shock, really, but it was the first time it consciously occurred to him that she needed more from him than the kind of support he'd always been told a husband should provide: money, shelter, children, love. It wasn't as if she was financially dependent on him—certainly he could have quit work and their joint funds could have kept them in luxury for the rest of their lives, Jack's and Victoria's, too. She didn't need the money or the rest of it, though; she simply needed him.
That troubled him. He pulled her even closer, thought hard for the very first time about what might happen to her if he finally ran into the asshole who could outsmart him, if he finally overlooked something in planning an op that got him killed, or if he finally faced an opponent who was simply faster.
It had been different when he was young and single with only his immediate family to be upset by his loss—though even then he had largely been absent from their lives when his own became imperiled as a matter of course. It had been only a little different when he'd been not-so-young, hadn't known he had a child, let alone watched two of his children come into the world. He simply hadn't given thought to all the possible consequences of something going fatally wrong on his job.
He'd done what he was supposed to so that Riah and their children—Alex, too—didn't suffer materially. There were insurance policies, a will, trust funds. It simply never dawned on him to think about what it would do to Riah if he died in the line of duty while their children were still too young to understand.
Casey mentally stepped back, reconsidered. It was quite possible it wasn't him on whom she had become dependent but that she was instead dependent on her role as mother. Admittedly, she had been left with little else when she quit ISI the second time. Riah repeatedly told him she didn't mind, that she wanted to stay home with Victoria and Jack, but now Casey wondered if she had simply been telling him something she thought he wanted to hear.
After all, it wasn't like she didn't dive in enthusiastically on those occasions when she could be of use to him and his government. It wasn't as if she didn't take on the odd bit of work her father sent her way, either. She thrived on the excitement every bit as much as Casey did, but she seemed to find it surprisingly easy to return to being the housewife she claimed she wished to be once the excitement was over.
For the first time, Casey wondered if she might want to do something else when he finally retired and was home more, something likely to happen within the next decade. In that moment, Casey realized how much he needed her.
He'd always prided himself on his self-reliance, on his ability to walk away from emotional entanglements, to come out unscathed from nearly every previous relationship in which he'd been involved.
Casey paused there, knew there were two relationships from which he still had scars, and amended that thought. He ran a hand up Riah's spine again, let it slowly slide down once more. He had a few from this one as well, but for the first time, he realized that unlike Kathleen or Ilsa, losing Riah would wound him far more than losing the other two women had.
After she'd been shot on that ISI training ground, he'd first had an idea of what Riah's death could do to him. Losing her now would bleed him dry. Losing his children would cut as deeply. He closed his eyes, pictured Jack, and hoped like hell he didn't have to find out whether he could survive losing any of them.
Faint music sounded. Riah tensed, then pushed at him. "My phone," she said flatly. He let her go, watched as she rolled off the bed to find it. She moved stiffly across the room to the small table near the love seat where she'd plugged the phone in to charge and picked it up. Casey sat up, wondered who it was.
It didn't take long to discover the answer. He heard Riah's voice break on the word, "Mum."
She looked as though she was about to cry once more, so Casey got off the bed, walked toward her. "They're all over the street, Mum."
So Ariel must already be in town and considering visiting her daughter, Casey concluded. He thought it would be good for Riah to have her mother there—provided Ariel played nicely. He figured the media voyeurs outside would keep her away, though. Even as he thought it, he couldn't quite stop his own knee-jerk reaction, which was that she might like playing the distraught grandmother for the cameras.
He was surprised to hear Riah say, "John's right here."
She handed him the phone. She gave a soft snort at his puzzled frown and shook her head as he gingerly took it and held it to his ear.
"V. H. and I are a couple of blocks over," Ariel said briskly. "We're going to park on the street behind yours and come through the yard behind you to the back. V. H. thought I should tell you so none of your people shoot us."
"I'll let the agents know we're being invaded," he assured her.
Ariel dryly stated, "That would be appreciated—especially if one of them could unlock the gate."
Because he had the feeling she wasn't finished, he waited.
"Emma's with us," she told him. "She's worried about Mariah and Victoria, so if it's alright, she's coming with us. If not, I'll need you or your people to help her get home again."
Casey assured her Emma was more than welcome.
"We're almost there," she said. "See you in a few minutes."
Handing his wife's phone back to her, he said, "Let's go."
He took Riah's hand firmly in his, and when they stepped off the stairs on the ground floor, they were intercepted by Kelly. He quietly explained to the woman his in-laws were headed through the yard behind them and asked that someone make sure they got safely inside. Kelly was on her radio and headed toward the back door the second he finished.
"We should go, too," Riah said.
Casey shook his head. "We both need to stay out of sight. Let them do their jobs."
Emma came through the kitchen door first, and he released Riah's hand as she started toward her sister. The taller girl hugged his wife, and Casey nodded at V. H., who came inside behind her. Ariel was next, and then Kelly. Kelly quickly left them alone in the kitchen, but Casey couldn't help wondering if she was listening in despite giving them the illusion of privacy.
"I've got people hunting Quinnell," V. H. told him softly as he shook Casey's hand. "Diane does as well, and your friend Dietrich has been in touch." Having apparently managed to get him up to speed as much as V. H. could with possible listeners, his father-in-law then asked, "How is she holding up?"
"Better than expected," Casey admitted, then wished he'd simply said fine. He watched Ariel cling to her daughter, noted his mother-in-law's distress, and wondered if he had once again underestimated the woman.
"That means she'll probably crash even harder when this is over."
Casey frowned at V. H. when it sank in that the other man hadn't said when they got Jack back. He knew they had to consider the possibility, and Casey suddenly understood the false optimism he'd watched others give the distraught as well as the false hope victim's families often fed on so they could keep going. It used to irritate the hell out of him, made him want to reinforce that there might not be a happy ending to the situation in which they had found themselves. Now, he wanted to cling to the idea that Jack and the others would be fine, that they would find them and rescue them.
Ariel had released Riah, who wrapped her arms around her abdomen. Casey noticed his wife had cracked a little further. He wanted to go to her, but Emma was suddenly in front of him. Then she crushed him.
It was easier these days to hug her back, though a part of him still squirmed. Like V. H., she softly asked how Riah was doing; Casey told her she was fine.
Emma's face was solemn when she let him go. "You have to get him back," she said. "It'll kill Mariah if you don't."
Well aware, Casey found he couldn't speak, couldn't say what he thought or even the words that would reassure her. He knew what she said was true, and he was equally aware that he had already failed his wife and son by not acting sooner.
"Have you eaten?" his wife asked. They told her they had, and Casey got the feeling Riah was disappointed, would have liked having something to do, something that would require her to focus on anything but her worry about their son.
"Where's Victoria?" V. H. asked.
"Asleep," Riah told them, which reminded Casey he had a bone to pick with the man. He caught V. H.'s eye as Riah turned to Emma and asked if she'd be staying with them or going home. Casey tilted his head and gave his father-in-law a hard stare.
V. H. followed him out of the kitchen to Casey's office. When he unlocked the door and ushered the other man inside, Casey didn't bother with the usual niceties for these kinds of discussions. "Why in hell did you tell Victoria about her mother's abduction?" he ground out.
His father-in-law lifted his hands in surrender. "It's a good cautionary lesson."
"It's a good way to scare the hell out of my daughter, who blames herself for what happened," Casey countered roughly. "It'll probably contribute to her nightmares tonight, and it makes her worry more about her mother." V. H. only reacted to the last part, so Casey drove his point home by adding, "She stayed with Riah in the store because she was worried her mother would be abducted. Instead, her brother was."
Half expecting V. H. to tell him it could have been worse—a fact Casey was well aware of—he was surprised when the other man paled, looked haunted a moment. "Have you considered your daughter needs more fun in her life?"
If that was supposed to be a joke, Casey didn't find it in the least funny. "I could say the same of your daughter, but that doesn't change the fact that my daughter needs to be aware of the risks. Your daughter should have been more aware when she was Victoria's age."
Anger drove the last part of that, Casey admitted, but he didn't soften his expression or his stance. He admitted, though, he generally blamed both V. H. and Ariel for much of the pain his wife suffered, knew many of Riah's hang ups were traceable to the former couple, so he wasn't about to apologize, especially not when Casey had enough trouble knowing where the balance of caution and fear was with his own daughter.
A momentary twinge of conscience made him realize he should have considered that balance with his son as well.
"Point taken," V. H. clipped out. "If we're finished accusing one another of being bad fathers, then let's figure out what we're going to do—because you and I both know neither of us is willing to sit back and wait on the FBI and the Chicago police."
Setting aside his own feelings, Casey gestured at a chair. He got the scotch bottle and a couple of glasses, handed one to V. H. and splashed whisky in it before taking his own glass around the desk and pouring his own. He recorked the bottle and set it to the side, watched V. H. lift his glass and hold it so the light filtered through it. "No one has a line on Quinnell yet," his father-in-law began, "though I've been told that before today he was last seen in Detroit."
"How long ago?" Casey asked as the man sipped his whisky.
"A week." V. H. sat back and eyed him. "I assume he was on his way here. He crossed the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor." V. H. reached inside his coat and pulled out a stack of papers he handed across to Casey.
The top photograph showed Quinnell behind the wheel of a truck. There was a familiar man with him. The report accompanying the pictures said they used American passports claiming they were Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Casey decided he was going to insist whoever was in charge of that particular border crossing be fired along with the customs agents and anyone else who should have caught on. He'd have admired the chutzpah it took to use those names if he weren't so pissed off that whoever checked their ID hadn't known the old comedic duo or questioned the identities of Quinnell and the man with him. He looked closer at the sidekick, thought the man might be one of the goons who'd been with Quinnell at the store.
He handed the photographs and the report back to V. H. "Any idea what's going on?"
The other man stuffed the papers back in his jacket. "None. There are no whispers we can run to ground about what Quinnell is after, but I've already fired two people for not knowing he'd been in Canada." V. H. steeled himself. "We traced him to Newfoundland immediately prior to his jaunt across the border. He apparently knew you and Mariah were going there for Christmas."
Casey felt heat ride up under his skin. "I thought Riah should go back, face her fears," he admitted, "but the only person I told was the caretaker so the house would be ready."
"She's in detention until we know more," V. H. assured him angrily. "The only thing she's admitted so far was that she told a man she'd gone out with a few times that her boss was coming for the holidays. She claims to have met the man in St. John's while she was shopping."
"Quinnell?" Casey asked tightly.
V. H. shook his head. "She didn't recognize his photograph, but she did identify one of Bailey Ford."
Casey's temper heated from simmer to rolling boil. He knew Ford. The little weasel was CIA, and he couldn't help wondering why V. H. had shown the woman the operative's photo. He asked.
"It was a decoy," V. H. admitted. They often used agents to pad out a photographic line up if they didn't have enough pictures to draw from that met the general description, but Casey was still curious how his father-in-law had happened to have a photograph of a CIA officer. "Our bureau chief in St. John's used him on a case involving American fishermen smuggling in sex workers from central Europe. Some of the women were spies finding an easy way into the United States. Ford was the liaison with ISI. The bureau chief apparently scanned a copy of the man's passport and ID."
It was a violation of protocol, but Casey was more than willing to let it slide since it meant they had another puzzle piece.
"Had you told Diane you were taking Mariah and your kids to Witless Bay?"
Shaking his head, Casey repeated, "I'd only told the caretaker." He stopped a second, realized he'd told five others—if he didn't count Alex and Grimes. Dietrich didn't count since he hadn't given the man specifics. "I told Walker, but she wouldn't have told anyone."
"You're certain of that?"
Casey had been until V. H. asked. The truth was that if Chuck was in danger, Walker would deflect the enemy to a more convenient target—even if that target was Casey's wife. No, he decided, Walker wouldn't have told anyone except Chuck. He thought hard, finally decided the weak link was probably Grimes. "I told Bartowski and the Woodcombs, but I doubt they would have told anyone else." He sighed. "I think we'll have a chance to interrogate the most likely source tomorrow."
The other man's expression suggested Casey spill. He nearly didn't, but he realized fingering Grimes as the culprit could kill a couple of birds—and if Morgan Grimes was one of them, Casey wouldn't be bereft. "I told Alex," he admitted, "and I suspect her husband shared with others."
"Ford?"
Casey shrugged. "Or someone else from the Company who might have told him. After all, my daughter and her idiot husband are coming here to go to Newfoundland with us." He sighed. "Grimes kept his hand in the spy business," Casey admitted, stifled the instinctive cringe he felt at the idea. "The Burbank Buy More underwent a turnaround." He didn't admit that was because the government began routing some purchases through the store to keep it and their investment in what was underneath it alive and viable. "He's the store manager, and he makes sure we still have access to Castle when we need it."
The man opposite him looked stunned. Virtually no one knew what Casey had just told him. Truthfully, Castle was mostly used by Bartowski and Walker, though other CIA officers occasionally made use of it. At least one CIA officer remained on the Buy More payroll at all times—though they had, thankfully, given up calling them Greta.
"Grimes told someone," V. H. deadpanned. "Great."
Casey shared his sarcasm since it was self-evident Grimes remained a moron. "It's the most likely possibility."
V. H. sighed. "Quinnell must have decided making a move before you left Chicago was his best bet, and since this was timed for while you were otherwise occupied, they got my daughter and grandchildren at their most vulnerable." He raked his good hand over his iron-gray hair. "What I don't understand is why they didn't take Mariah and Victoria as well."
Casey took a fortifying swallow of his Macallan. "Victoria thinks it's because they mistook Ellie and Clara Woodcomb for them."
"Quinnell would know Mariah if he saw her," Adderly reminded him, "but I'm not sure he'd recognize Victoria."
He had agreed to let the FBI tap his landline, so he drew his cellphone from his pocket, put it on speaker, and called Beckman. The general sounded her usual cranky self when she answered. "V. H. Adderly is here," Casey told her.
His father-in-law caught his boss up to date with what he'd learned.
"I'll find Agent Ford," she said crisply. "I think, though, Colonel, we should get all the players in one place. Alex and Morgan Grimes need to be brought to Chicago, preferably as soon as possible."
Casey met V. H.'s eyes.
"I'll send my plane for them, but let's pick them up at a smaller, more out of the way airport," the other man told Beckman. They agreed on John Wayne Airport in Orange County.
It was left to Casey to tell his daughter and son-in-law. He considered how to get them safely to the airport, but he finally concluded it was best not to have them escorted. He doubted they were under direct surveillance. After all, Grimes had likely already spilled anything he knew.
He quickly placed the call, talked to Alex. It meant he had to explain about Jack, and while he would have preferred not to worry her, he decided she needed to know why he insisted she be more careful than usual. He trusted her, but he couldn't quite say the same of Grimes. Casey prefaced his explanation with a warning not to tell her husband what he was about to tell her, and once he secured her promise, he explained.
Casey had long felt fortunate that Alex loved her half-siblings, but as her concern welled, Casey wished he'd waited until she arrived in Chicago to tell her what had happened. It was done though, so he did his best to reassure her, convince her there were no threats to her or Grimes. Casey figured Bartowski would be more than a little stir-crazy by the time they arrived, so he'd be happy to have something to do, Walker, too. They could protect Alex and her unborn child.
Alex asked about Riah and Victoria, and Casey told her the truth, that both of them were on edge.
"Hug them for me," Alex said, and though many people said such things as a matter of course, Casey knew his daughter actually meant it. He promised to do so.
It was only after she told him, "I love you, Dad," that Casey began to choke up. He grumbled the sentiment back at her, and then he sat at his desk and realized how fortunate he was that she hadn't resented him, refused further contact with him when he told her who he was.
"It never goes away," V. H. said softly, finished his scotch. "They could be little old women, never face a single threat, but you'll still worry about your daughters."
Before Casey could answer, Victoria came in the door. She looked impossibly young with her long hair in twin braids wearing lavender pajamas and a purple fleece robe. She also wore a determined look so uncannily like her mother's it set Casey on edge.
V. H. shot him a look before offering a mild, "Hello, Victoria."
"Why are you out of bed?" Casey asked. It was obviously not a nightmare because his daughter didn't appear frightened or upset, and while she was prone to prowling the house at night, she normally tried to avoid her parents who would only send her back to bed.
His daughter marched determinedly around his desk to stand beside him. "Don't get mad," she told him.
"That's never good," V. H. growled. Victoria turned and gave her grandfather a hard stare. Casey was amused by that, though his daughter certainly wasn't amused when it simply made the other man laugh.
"Why do you think I'll get mad?"
Victoria returned her attention to him and fished in a robe pocket. She removed several sheets of paper and told him, "I talked to Tori and Karen on Mummy's iPad. Tori saw the men who took Jack and Aunt Ellie and Clara get in an SUV and drive down Cleveland to Deming. Karen saw the SUV pull out in front of another car that wrecked."
Stunned, Casey wondered who Tori and Karen were and why they had told Victoria what they had. His heart sank that Victoria might have told them what had happened in order to get that information, and he rapidly considered damage control, worried about what might be repeated, what might spread, how that might taint their investigation. "You shouldn't tell people what happened," he told her tightly, tried not to sound mad because she managed to get the first real lead that might help them find where Quinnell and his thugs took Jack and the Woodcombs.
"I didn't," she swore. Casey could tell she told the truth. She told him the two girls already knew about the kidnapping, said she asked questions after they raised the subject first. He wondered whether the Chicago PD had talked to either girl when they canvassed the neighborhood. Victoria put her pages on his desk. "I wrote down what they said so you can use it to find Jack."
Uncertain how to respond, he pulled her into his lap while he read through what she'd written. The details were listed much like he would see in a routine intelligence report, and he wondered if she had been practicing some of her spy skills on his files.
Casey studied her when he finished, wondered how he was going to explain this to Dietrich when he suggested they look for any CCTV the city kept on their streets and intersections.
Victoria asked him, "Do they have cameras on the streets here like the ones Mummy looks at when she misses Canada?"
Despite making a career of not showing his thoughts, there were times when he would swear his wife knew exactly what he was thinking, but this was the first time their daughter had demonstrated a similar talent. The part that surprised him most, though, was her assertion that Riah missed Canada. His wife had never said so, never suggested going unless she'd received an invitation from her father. Casey wondered if Riah thought he would refuse to go if she asked.
For now, though, he set that aside, needed to get Dietrich the information his daughter had learned. It wasn't a lot, but at least they had a vehicle and witnesses who had seen it. They had a direction to chase as well. He promised Victoria, "I'll find out."
Her grandfather praised her before sternly adding, "No one can find out Jack was the other child taken."
That saved Casey from having to make her feel she was in trouble.
When she agreed, Casey pulled her in, kissed her cheek, and then decided she could be party to one part of reporting her information forward. He chose to tell Beckman first. Dietrich would involve strategy. Casey wanted his daughter out of this investigation. He took his phone, set it on the desk once more, and called Beckman for the second time that evening. Victoria remained silent while he told the General what Victoria had learned. When he finished, his boss simply said, "I'll let our agents on the ground know. Tell your daughter she did well."
Victoria grinned, but she didn't say anything.
After they hung up, Casey looked at his daughter and said, "Since you're up, why don't you go down to the kitchen and help your mother and aunt Emma hold off your grandmother."
Her little face wasn't hard to read, but he needed to call Dietrich when Victoria wouldn't know what they decided. He wanted her out of this investigation before something happened that made the situation worse. Not that he thought his daughter would be the cause of that, but he didn't want her to think she had been.
Still, he was proud of what she'd learned and how she'd done it. His daughter hugged him, and he whispered, "You did good," in her ear.
She ran around his desk and hugged V. H., who told her, "Well done."
He was dialing the phone before the door completely closed. "I was about to call you," Dietrich growled in his ear. The FBI agent sounded out of breath. "I'm coming up your walk, and you and your daughter have some explaining to do."
