Chapter 11

Vancouver, Canada

"Alex?"

David Hayward repeated her name. Not that it should have been in the form of a question. There was no doubt that the woman standing in front of him, on this rainy afternoon in Vancouver, was Anna's twin sister.

Her reaction to seeing him was one of such obvious shock and fear, that for a moment David thought she was going to make a run for it. He got ready to grab her arm, not sure if he was up for a chase through a foreign neighbourhood.

"Alex," he repeated. "You remember me don't you?"

The colour of her skin had turned several shades paler, in sharp contrast to her long, dark hair. She was white as a ghost.

"Yeah..." she answered, although he could barely hear her voice.

"Alex, I..."

He was interrupted by a little, dark-haired boy running to the door, clutching a toy train in his hand. He looked maybe a year younger than Leah and he had big, beautiful, curious eyes.

"Mommy!"

David raised his eyebrows. 'Mommy?'.

Alex closed the door with shaking hands and turned back to David. "What are you doing here? Are you here alone?"

He nodded. "Yes, it's just me...I..." He regretted his words almost as soon as he said them. If Alex was mentally unstable and she didn't want to be found, there was no telling what she'd do to keep it that way.

'Stop it, you're being ridiculous,' he chided himself. 'Just because she once hated your guts, doesn't mean she's going to kill you.'

"How did you find me here?" she demanded, her face slowly losing its pallor.

His own shock was now giving way to irritation. It was an oddly familiar sensation, reminding him of past encounters with Alexandra Devane. "Look, Alex...it's raining." He was starting to get wet. "Can I come in?"

She looked as though she considered the idea. Then shook her head. "No."

"Alex!" He was exasperated already. He'd forgotten her ability to have that effect on him. "We've been looking for you for over two years! Do you have any idea how hard it's been for Anna, not knowing whether you're dead or alive? Now I find out that you're alive and well and living in Canada. Don't you think you owe us some sort of explanation as to why the hell you fell off the face of the Earth for all this time?"

Her features softened and he finally saw something other than shock written on her face. "I never meant to hurt my sister. Or anyone I love."

"What you meant...that doesn't matter."

"I know," she acknowledged.

David figured that was as close to an apology he was going to get.

"Alex, I don't know what you're thinking right now, but I want you to know that I don't want to hurt you. If you tell me there's a reason we can't know you're here, then I understand and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure you're safe. But I have so many damn questions for you," David pressed. "We all do."

"How did you find me?" she insisted.

They were still standing on her doorstep. David had given up trying not to get wet. Alex hadn't bothered to put her hood back on either, but she seemed oblivious to the rain. Clearly he wasn't going to get anywhere until he answered at least that one question.

He explained to her how Robin had found the article in the medical journal. How he'd enlisted Levy Rosenberg to contact her against the researcher's will. And then gotten his IT tech to track down her address via her server, and decided on a whim to fly here and check it out.

"Here I thought I hid my tracks so well," she mumbled. "I even checked out Rosenberg."

"Levy's very legit and for what it's worth...it's probably a one in a million chance that Robin spotted that article and made the connection she did."

"So you came here...not Anna?" she asked.

"I'll explain it all...but not here, Alex." It was time to put his foot down. "Not here out in the rain."

"Fine," she finally relented. "There's a coffee shop two blocks down. Give me one minute." She stepped into the house, giving him no invitation to do the same.

David shook his head in disbelief.

Hospitable as always, Alex.

He caught another glimpse of the little boy he'd seen earlier, when she opened the door. Obviously he'd been waiting patiently behind the door for Alex to come in. Again he stared at David with big, dark curious eyes. He looked so much like Alex, he didn't need to call her Mommy for David to make the connection.

So you have a son. That's the last thing I would have expected. The question now is, who's the Dad? If it's Dimitri does that mean he knows Alex is here? Is that why you won't let me in...because Dimitri Marick in hiding in there, in the broom closet underneath the stairs?

David wouldn't put it past the Count to keep Alex's whereabouts a secret from Anna. His dislike for her had become painfully obvious during Alex's kidnapping.

Not that any of that, made any sense. Why would the wealthy Hungarian hide his wife and son at the other ends of the Earth? In a gloomy, working class neighbourhood to boot?

David suddenly remembered something else. A night time conversation he had with Anna in Moscow over two years ago, after Alex's kidnapping ordeal.

"There's something else…while Faison still believed that Alex was me, she made an effort to gain his trust. She…" Anna had a hard time getting the words out. "She slept with him, David. At least that's what she told me…I don't know if it's true that he didn't force himself on her. I don't know whether that's my sister's way of regaining control of something she really had no control over…but on top of everything else…on top of the physical and the psychological nightmare she's going through, Alex feels this guilt for sleeping with another man!"

"Dimitri will understand…" David had tried.

"Alex doesn't necessarily think so," Anna cut him off, crying. "She's not even sure she wants his forgiveness. Not if it comes at the cost...of having him do something only because he feels he should."

"God, what a mess…" David had mumbled, almost regretting then, that he'd asked her for the truth behind her distress.

"This morning, Alex asked me to help her."

"Help her?"

"She wants my help to get away from Dimitri and Andrei."

"I don't understand…"

"Alex says she needs time on her own to figure things out. I have the means to make sure she could go somewhere where he wouldn't be able to find her. Alex knows that and that's why she asked for my help."

Except, David thought, Alex knew something else then too. She knew she was pregnant.

Had they taken any blood tests at the hospital in Moscow, which they would have, they would have informed her.

But you didn't tell anyone. Not even Anna.

Another realization hit him as Anna's words ran through his mind again. "She slept with him, David."

It all made sense now.

You didn't tell anyone because you knew then the baby wasn't Dimitri's. Oh, Alex...

David heard voices from behind the door. Another woman's voice, just before Alex stepped back outside and motioned to tell him she was ready.

"Can we drive to this coffee shop?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It's not far."

Maybe I was wrong. She is going to kill me.

Alex didn't bother with small talk as she walked beside him in the rain. Nor did she bother to put up the hood on her jacket, or offer him an umbrella. Maybe she was too busy concocting some sort of story for him.

Or maybe she really was insane.

She was right about the coffee shop being close by. They were there in less than five minutes.

He opened the door for her, rubbing his hands together when they got in. It was small and cosy, with a marble counter selling pastries at one end and there were small tables and a well-worn couch at the other. There was even a fireplace lit near the couch. Considering it was almost summer, the sight made him chuckle.

"Can I get you something?" he asked.

"Something warm, please," she replied. A drop of rain ran down the side of her face as she took off her jacket.

It would kill you to give me a straight answer, wouldn't it?

Alex looked at him as though she read his mind. "Coffee's fine. Milk, no sugar."

David's cheeks flushed. Alex had a way of doing that. A way of looking at him as though she was reading his thoughts, while at the same time, he couldn't even gauge hers, never mind read them.

Anna and Alex were like fire and ice. Anna could convey half a dozen emotions with one glance. One look from Alex, on the other hand, made him want to ask a half dozen questions.

He ordered two coffees at the counter, realizing then that he was starving too. Airlines didn't toss so much as a pocket-sized bag of stale peanuts in your direction these days, even when they flew you across the country. He saw a carrot cake that looked appetizing and got two slices of that as well.

He already felt warmer by the time he joined Alex at a corner table, next to the fireplace.

She took the coffee gratefully, cupping the mug in her hands, while he dug his fork into the cake. She watched him in silence as he hungrily ate a few bites.

He wondered what she was planning on telling him. How much of it would be the truth. For what it was worth; physically she looked good. Healthy. And lucid, as she stared at him with those intelligent eyes of hers.

Why not confront her from the start? Before she has a chance to concoct something?

David took a sip of coffee. "The little boy at the house. He's your son, isn't he?"

"Yes," Alex answered.

"Is he Faison's son too?"

The question came out of left field. Just as he planned. And it made her grip her coffee cup so tightly, it whitened her fingers. Then she turned away, unable to meet his eyes this time. Both ambushed and embarrassed.

Her unexpected reaction made him feel like a heel.

What made you so damn sure she was going to tell you a bunch of lies? Why are you always so prepared to think the worst of Alex Devane? Just because you had a professional rivalry with her nearly two decades ago? A time during which you can now freely admit you were a certified jerk.

"Anna told you," was all she said after a long moment of silence.

"Anna hasn't told anyone else what happened with you and Faison," he wanted her to know. "But she needed to confide in someone that night in Moscow. She was so torn on whether to help you or not."

"It's alright," she said softly. "And to answer your question, yes he is. Faison's son."

"It's why you left Moscow, isn't it?" he added. Of course it was. Knowing she was carrying the child of the monster who'd just branded her, had to have killed her.

The truth was already breaking his heart, he wasn't sure he had the stomach for more.

"I left Moscow because I was a mess. Because I didn't know what to do, and when I decided what to do, I couldn't go through with it."

"What do you mean?"

"I decided to have an abortion after I found out. I went to three different clinics in England but couldn't go through with it at any of them."

Her voice was level and her eyes met his again. She'd rather have a tooth pulled than tell him this, that much he could tell and part of him still thought she looked edgy enough that she might flee at any minute. But it seemed like she decided to give him what he wanted. Part of him wanted to tell her she didn't need to. I'm not the one who should be hearing this. Much as I don't like him, it should be Dimitri Marick sitting here.

But he didn't come this far to get half truths and half answers, even as his annoyance with Alex was slowly replaced with something kinder.

"So you had the baby," he coaxed.

She nodded. "I got rid of Dan O'Toole first. Anna had him keep an eye on me after helping me get out of Moscow. It was her way of keeping tabs on me. But the pregnancy was going to show soon. So, in the middle of the night I took off and headed for Glasgow."

"Just like that?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "He wasn't expecting it, so maybe it was easier than it would have been if he had."

David bit back a smile. That was classic Alexandra Devane. The one who'd be unable to hide her annoyance when he questioned her abilities. Maybe she wasn't as good at grandstanding as he was and maybe her arrogance was subtler than his, but she had just as much faith in her god-given genius as David had in his. She wouldn't have gone as far in her field if she didn't.

Alex was one of the smartest people he'd met in his lifetime. Of course she be able to outwit an Interpol agent, was what she was inferring.

"Then you created a whole new identity for yourself. That couldn't have been that easy."

"A slightly different identity," she corrected him. "I inadvertently picked up a few tips from O'Toole. For what it's worth, once you have one piece of respectable fake ID it's not that hard to make new ones. You use that to make new, authentic ones. You say there was an accidental spelling error, that Marick really should have been Merrick; a common name in England. I was told you had to pick a name close to your own, so that I'd answer if someone called it. I paid one of O'Toole's contacts to help me get a fake passport and to keep quiet about it." She paused. "Plus, in the first few months, needing ID to get around wasn't much of an issue. I didn't leave my apartment much." Again she couldn't quite meet his eyes.

One thing she didn't do well was lie.

I'm going to guess that's an understatement. That and I'm also guessing you had post-traumatic stress disorder. Big time. It probably segued into clinical depression.

"But you had pre-natal care at some point?"

"I went to the hospital when my water broke."

David's hand went to his mouth in shock. "Jesus Christ, Alex! None? Just think of the possible complications...as a physician you had to have..."

"Look..." She cut him off. "I wasn't thinking too clearly at that point."

"But the baby was alright?"

"Through some miracle the baby was okay, yes." She paused. "I still hadn't planned on keeping him even then, but once I held him in my arms those plans changed too."

So there you were. A complete mess and completely alone. With a newborn baby on top of it.

David winced just thinking about it.

"I realized that if I was going to keep the child, that I had to make efforts to get well and to keep him safe because if Faison found out about him...then he wouldn't be. Safe, that is."

"So you decided if no one knew where you were, no one would know about the boy, is that it?"

Alex took another sip of coffee. "Something like that."

"So you've been here all this time, in Vancouver?"

"No. "I went from Glasgow to Australia. Stayed there for just over a year and I've been in Vancouver for just a few months. It's something else O'Toole taught me. If you want to stay invisible, never stay in one place too long."

David didn't know what to say. Part of it made sense, part of it was sheer madness. "Alex...it's crazy. What kind of an existence is that? You have family that loves you...that needs to know you're okay. They can protect you and your son. With Dimitri's money...and Anna's connections surely there are ways..."

"Don't you get it?" Alex furrowed her brows, cutting him off again. "If Faison knows about him there is no way to keep him safe. He'll just keep trying and trying until he finds a way to get him. You of all people should know what he's capable of. Look what he did to your daughter."

David frowned. Two years ago Faison had injected Leah with a lethal virus, knowing he had the cure on hand. Knowing he'd dangle the carrot in front of Anna, using it as a means to coerce her into meeting with him.

Except Anna had been too ill to do much of anything, on that awful night in Paris. It was Alex who stood in for her hoping to help Leah before Faison found out he was meeting with the wrong twin.

"Alex..." It suddenly occurred to David that there was something he'd forgotten. Something that really should have been the very first thing he said today. "I never had the chance to thank you, for what you did that night in Paris. What you did...it took a lot of guts and it saved Leah's life."

And it nearly cost you yours.

"You don't have to thank me for that. I wasn't trying to do something... heroic. We were running out of options that night, and if that's what saved Leah, then I'm glad. Really glad. I would do it again, no regrets."

"I owe you."

"You don't."

"Alex, for god's sake, would you accept my gratitude...just one damn time?"

"It is kind of rare, isn't it? Your gratitude." She smiled, reminding him of Anna in the process. She had a smile that was just as warm and beautiful and it took him by surprise.

Because I don't usually see it when you're around me.

"You're right. I should milk this. Tell your friend Levy he needs to pay me a consultation fee if he wants to keep picking my brains. Convince him that Alexia Merrick is worth it."

David laughed. "I don't think you need me to convince him of that."

"And this...David, really, carrots?" She pointed to the uneaten carrot cake on her side of the table. "Do me a favour and exchange this for something made with chocolate."

He chuckled. "Serious?"

"Yes."

He chuckled. "I don't think they'll take it back." He reached for her plate. "But I'll eat yours and get you the chocolate."

Leonardo Da Vinci -Fiumicino Airport, Rome

If Anna thought she'd reached the end of her ropes twelve hours ago, she was wrong, because now was when she knew it with certainty.

She was sitting on the floor of Terminal 3, next to a Greek couple that was fast asleep, using their coats as pillows. They'd shared Athenian pastries with her earlier, but now both of them had given in to exhaustion and Nilos, the male half, was snoring loudly.

An entire day had come and gone and not a single flight had left Italy's biggest airport.

Initially, Anna debated another trip to the Alitalia ticket counter, if only to alleviate her frustration. But now she was thinking that course of action would probably have the opposite effect.

It was time to give up hope that anything would still happen today. One glance at the departures board and all she could see was line after line of 'volo cancellato' written in angry red.

Anna leaned against the wall, pressing two fingers against her temple. Her head was pounding now too. She wasn't sure whether it was because of exhaustion, frustration or jet lag. Or all three combined.

The migraines she got since the tanker explosion were just one more thing to thank Faison for. One more thing that was no longer under her control.

Anna used to be able to jet across an ocean or chase down an adversary knowing she'd be no worse for wear afterwards. She'd always been strong enough and healthy enough to be able to handle the physical demands of her job. Now there were physical limitations that she hated. David liked to remind her that they made her life worse because of her stubbornness.

"Your headaches get so bad because you won't slow down when you get them. You have no respect for them and you should before they kill you," he'd lectured her one afternoon, with a frustrated look of concern, when the pain had been so bad she thought she couldn't stand it anymore.

Respecting her new limitations felt like raising a white flag, and she was neither willing nor ready for that yet. It would be like conceding yet another battle to Cesar Faison.

Whether or not he knew it was beside the point.

Anna decided she'd rather pay the consequences. Besides, contrary to David's concerns, she knew that physically she was much better off than she was a few years ago, when she was still living in the middle of nowhere in Canada. Back then the headaches had often come with fevers and seizures. If migraines were the only fall-out from the tanker injury she had to worry about now, then she'd already come a long way. She sometimes had to remind herself how lucky she was.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a container of the prescription medication her doctor had given her. She swallowed one of the pills with the last sips of her Italian bottled water.

"There's a concession for you, David..." she mumbled aloud, taking another glance around the terminal. Weary travellers were littered everywhere. Young and old. Families with blankets on the floor and businessmen clutching to their laptop bags while asleep. It was late in the day and most had given up venting their frustrations at this point.

Anna suspected that many of them didn't have the means to get up and leave for the night. But she did and it was pointless not to make use of it.

The truth was she desperately needed a night's sleep in a dark room. Robin needed her to be functional if and when she finally got to Rwanda. And she could really do with a change of clothes and a hot shower.

Anna picked up her purse, straightened her wrinkled jacket and went to look for an exit, and then a taxi.

Vancouver, Canada

Alex thanked him when David brought back the chocolate cake, along with two more cups of coffee. One for each of them.

"So, tell me," she asked. "After tracking down my address, why is it that you're here instead of my sister?"

"When Robin first found your article she didn't want me to tell Anna about it," he explained. "Not until we were sure that it really might be you."

"Why?"

"After you disappeared, Anna put a lot of the blame for what happened on herself. And with it she put a lot of pressure on herself to try and find you. To try and make things right."

"I'm sorry..." she said. "Anna had nothing to do with what happened at Alexei Estate with Faison. I alone made the decision to go on that bridge that night. I'm the one who set the events in motion, not Anna. She has to know that."

David shrugged his shoulders. "No one's harder on Anna than Anna. You know that. She was running on fumes when she got hit by a car a few months ago, trying to follow some lead she thought she had on you."

Alex looked shocked. "Is she...?"

"She's fine now. But it made Robin think that maybe it wasn't a good idea to get her hopes up again over what might turn out to be nothing."

"So she doesn't know?"

David cringed and explained what happened two days ago. "She does now. But something came up with Robin and she's gone to Rwanda to see her."

"She's alright?"

"We hope so. She had a setback because she couldn't take her meds properly in her surroundings."

Alex put down her fork and looked at him as though she wanted to ask him a million questions. "I wish..."

"You wish you could talk to her," David finished for her. "Be there for her."

Alex's cheeks blushed red.

"She'd love it. She's always adored you."

"I loved the time I spent with her in Paris, and Hungary, she means the world..."

David looked at her and shook his head in disbelief of it all. "Alex, there's got to be way out of this! I can't just leave Vancouver and pretend I never saw you. What about Dimitri and Andrei? Do they have any idea? Don't you miss them?"

Alex took a sip of coffee and didn't answer.

Because you know you're a lousy liar.

The fact that her eyes moistened and she wiped away a tear with the back of her hand was all the answer he needed. He never thought he'd feel the urge to put his arms around Alexandra Devane, but he did now. Not that she'd let him.

"Is Faison really still a threat?" he asked, gentler this time. "I know Anna tries to keep track of him and as far as I know he's disappeared from the face of the Earth much like you did."

"He's in Asia last time I saw his name in print. Apparently he bought an import-export company in China a year ago. He also attended a big race in Hong Kong a few months ago. That's about all I've found. He's very good at laying low but he is still around. Getting away with everything, as usual."

Of course Alex would've tried to keep tabs on him. "But after everything he did to you...couldn't you accuse him of kidnapping and assault...have him tried...?"

Alex raised her brows. "Tell me you're not that naive? Even if it got as far as charging him...I don't even know what nationality he is. Belgian? Dutch? Danish? French? Would they extradite him based on accusation from a British national for crimes he committed in France and...Russia? Not bloody likely."

She had a point, David thought. Even Anna had given up trying to bring him to justice legally a long time ago.

However, there was something else nagging at the back of his mind now. "Alex...you said you didn't have any prenatal care. In other words, you had no idea of the exact due date and you were with Faison for what, less than three weeks? Isn't there a chance the boy could be... Dimitri's? I mean, have you had a DNA test?"

Alex stared at him. "A DNA test? No."

David almost choked. "Why not?"

"I had an accident at Faison's estate in Russia. I fell off a horse. The chances of a first trimester pregnancy surviving that kind of fall they're...next to nil."

David frowned, wondering what else had happened while she was there. Suddenly no longer wanting to know. "I'd still want to know...to be absolutely sure."

"Look...it doesn't matter anymore. He's my son. That's all that matters."

"If he's Dimitri's then all this...it's for nothing, Alex!"

"If Faison sees me with a little boy that he thinks could be his, then that's all that matters!" she shot back. "Don't you get it? He's not going to do a DNA test and then take him! I could return to England and pay for a full-page ad in a major paper announcing Liam's parentage and Faison still wouldn't buy it. He's not exactly rational. Trust me on this one."

David cupped his head in his palms. "Still. There has to be another way..."

"I don't expect you to keep this from Anna and Robin. Please tell them I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt them."

"I know."

"Please tell them I love them very much. But let me figure out what to do next on my own."

"Alex...for chrissakes, let us help you!"

"Not yet," she insisted. "Please. I need to contact Dimitri before you tell Robin. It would be so damn unfair if I didn't."

David shook his head, frustrated again. Was there anyone more stubbornly self reliant than Alex Devane?

Yeah, your wife.

Then again, if she'd accept anyone's help it would be Dimitri Marick's. The brooding Hungarian was the only person David had ever known to crack through Alex's walls. For a moment David wondered what he was up to these days. Anna had very sporadic contact with Dimitri and last he heard through her was that Marick had a new girlfriend.

Alex needs someone in her corner. Desperately. But it has to be someone who loves her so much he won't let her give in to her fears. I really hope you're still that guy, Marick.

"Fine," he conceded. "I said I owed you and I meant it. My daughter's alive today because of what you did two years ago. I won't forget that."

"Thanks," she said softly.

"Can I trust you not to take off and disappear again as soon as I leave Vancouver?"

She shrugged her shoulders and gave him a lop-sided smile. "I don't know, can you?"

David chuckled. Some things never changed. It was pointless to fight it. Maybe he should have enjoyed their verbal sparring a little more in their younger days, instead of trying so hard to come out on top. It's too bad my ego was too big to handle you then, 'cause professionally we could have made a hell of team.

"I think so."

They took their time finishing the coffee and cake, and as the conversation progressed, it was Alex who had the majority of the questions for him. Wanting to know everything from what he was doing at Seaview to how expansive Leah's vocabulary was these days.

By the end of it, he also knew that her son's name was Liam, that he was crazy about trains and that she worked nights at a downtown clinic. It felt almost felt like an afternoon catching up with an old friend. The feeling was cemented when Alex surprised him by giving him a hug afterwards.

So I'm not the only one who's changed.

"Never thought I'd say this," she told him. "But it was good to see you today, David. Really good."

He returned her embrace, surprised to find himself thinking the same thing.

Big thanks always to my two awesome editors, Kel and Annie!