Tony's Salvation Chapter 17
Meanwhile, in Aspen, Colorado Laurie Fields sighs as she enters her suite of rooms above The Knotted C. She's home again, hopefully for a good length of time. She told both of her teams that she would be incommunicado for the next two weeks. It had upset most of them, but she'd put her foot down. She needed this time away; away from war, pain and death. Her dream the night before has shaken her; she hasn't dreamed about Rick or Richie as he was called in the dream, for almost ten years.
She heads for the shower and indulges in a long, hot, soul-searching downpour. Once she towels off, she pulls on a robe and lies on her bed. Knowing that sleep is beyond her for the moment, she focuses on the odd dream she'd had the night before. She realizes that the main person in the dream is supposedly her late husband's brother. Reaching over to the bedside table she picks up the phone and dials her favorite computer expert.
"Hey Cass, it's Cook. I need a personal favor."
"What's up sweetheart?" The green eyed, blonde haired former SEAL knows something is going on, his commander rarely asks him for personal favors.
"I need information on an Anthony DiNozzo. Possible NCIS agent, former Baltimore cop and Cass? I don't want current information. I want from moment of birth to approximately ten years ago."
"Copy that. Quick question?"
"He joined NCIS ten years ago. In particular, I want to know if he has or had a twin brother."
"Age?"
"Forties."
"Birthdate?"
"July 8th, 1968."
"Makes him younger than you boss."
"Jonathon Cassidy!"
"Checking," he says while chuckling softly. Then he says, "Yep, twin boys born July 8th, 1968 to an Anthony DiNozzo Sr. and his wife. Uh-oh…looks like child abuse and spousal abuse…oh holy mother…they sold their child!" Cass has nightmares about his own childhood; this was worse, much worse.
*No, worse was when they almost succeeded in destroying the twins' mental bond.* as the thought crosses her mind she knows now why Tony DiNozzo is so familiar to her. Her late husband had been Tony's twin brother.
"Who is he boss?" Cass knows he has to be someone important. Laurie doesn't have him do random searches.
"Rick's twin brother. The one he couldn't remember because his mental bond was so badly damaged. It's also why I couldn't save him. He was never able to form a stable mental link after the first one was almost destroyed."
"Do you need us?" Cass's concern is felt even through the phone lines.
Laurie sighs as she says, "No, I'll be all right. I'll work on supper for my guests and if I end up needing some brotherly support I know who to call."
"Okay. You know that you're always welcome here."
"I know, Cass, thank you."
"All right kid, keep in touch and call us if you need us."
"Thanks Cass."
Laurie hangs up and thinks about the information she's just been given. Heaving another sigh, she gets up and dresses in some comfortable jeans, and a lavender short sleeved pullover. She digs around and finds a pair of tennis shoes. After running a comb through her almost waist length white blonde hair, she puts it into a pony tail. Checking her appearance in the mirror, she then heads downstairs.
She smiles at the chefs as she passes through and lets her manager Bertie MacKay know that she's on vacation for the next two weeks and to please monitor all her calls. A former veteran, Max looks up at her in concern.
"You okay, boss?"
"Yeah, Max, just need some sleep to energize my batteries."
"We will have a guest tonight. I'm going to pick him up in a few minutes."
"That's fine, Max. Put him in the suite next to mine we don't really have anything else opened up. Or do we?"
"No and I anticipated that's what you'd want. Nancy and Caroline are airing it out as we speak. Of course, since you're here, you could always go get him boss."
"No Max, I'm not stupid enough to trust my tired body on the road right now. I'll start fixing supper and it'll be ready by the time you guys return."
Max picks up his keys and heads for the door. He turns around at the door and sees her sitting in the chair, 'resting her eyes.' He smiles and pulls a jacket on before heading for the garage and the midnight blue jeep housed within.
Laurie sits for another five minutes before heading into the kitchens. Danny Provost, her top trainee is there and gives her his usual hug. The tall light haired young man towers over her by almost three inches.
"Welcome back boss."
"Thanks Danny, it's good to be back."
As she settles into her routine of putting on protective hairnet and gloves she can feel the tension start to leave. For as long as she can remember, the best way for her to relax is to step into a kitchen and cook.
"What's our special menu item tonight boss?"
"Pizza. I found a fantastic recipe that takes just minutes to put together."
"We're not going to have to twirl the dough over our heads are we?"
Laurie smiles at the question and pulls out the dough that she'd had Max assemble earlier that afternoon.
"No Danny. We need to let the dough rise a few more minutes and while we're waiting for it, I'll show you a quick and easy sauce for impromptu pizza pies."
"Like this one?"
"Yep."
She pulls out one of their house jars of tomato sauce. Then she pulls out some fresh basil and oregano as well as some garlic cloves. She minces the herbs and the garlic then adds them to the sauce. She pulls out a small spoon and tastes it, then has Danny do the same.
He looks at her and nods. "That's good boss."
"We'll let it sit for a bit, so that the flavors can mingle together better then we'll top our dough with it. In the meantime, we need some sausage, pepperoni and grated mozzarella cheese."
Laurie sets Danny to work slicing pepperoni and grating the cheese. She pulls out several pans and lightly greases them. Pulling out a small hunk of dough she shapes it and gently stretches it without tearing it. Danny watches as she throws it up in the air and neatly catches it again. She then places the dough in the pan and keeps stretching it until it almost covers the edge of the pan.
Danny looks at her as she opens a drawer and comes out with a tool that reminds him of a steam roller with spikes. Laurie looks at him and smiles. "This is called a roller docker. When making a thin crusted pizza we need the crust to be able to breathe or it'll get pockets in it and cause it to cook unevenly."
She takes the roller docker and rolls it around the outer edges of the dough before bringing it to the middle and rolling it. She shows Danny what it looks like before taking out a small ladle and pours a small bit of sauce onto the crust. She carefully spreads the sauce out.
"Enough to cover it without overpowering the other ingredients. Now we take a bit of the cheese, and sprinkle it on then the pepperoni, in a circular pattern, edges touching, and now the sausage. Great job. All we do now is add more cheese on top. For extra cheese, it's about one quarter to an extra half cup of cheese. Clean the edges so that the cheese doesn't burn and pop it into the oven."
Danny looks at her as she cleans up the counter. "How long does it bake?"
"It depends on the oven Danny. If you were to make this at home, maybe 10 -15 minutes tops. As we have industrial ovens at the restaurants, it's about 5-10 minutes. A lot depends on the temperature of your oven, how thick your crust is and how heavy your toppings are."
Eight minutes later she pulls it out of the oven. Grabbing a spatula, she runs it along the bottom of the crust and gently eases it onto a cutting board. She then grabs a utensil that looks like a solid metal letter'd'.
"This is called a rocker knife. It's slightly easier to slice your pizza with one of these." Four quick rocks with the knife and Danny is eating one of the first slices of pizza made by the restaurant.
"I can see why they called you Cookie. This is good."
"Some of them still call me Cookie and thank you."
Danny finishes his pizza and washes his hands before turning to her and asking her the one question that's been on his mind since her arrival.
"Are you really retiring from the Navy and Dawes Guys?"
"I'm thinking about it. Why do you ask?"
"I just…I like my job and want to keep it, if I can." Laurie can tell by looking into his light blue eyes, that he's seriously afraid that he'll be out of a job with her retirement. She reaches up and ruffles his bangs.
"I have no intention of replacing you. You are the best cook I have on staff with the exception of Max."
"Yeah but if you retire doesn't that mean you'll be in here more often?"
"Not necessarily. I do have three other restaurants you know, and I'm hoping to open at least one more. I'm going to be doing some actual location shopping during the next two weeks."
"Does that mean you'll be leaving soon?"
"I have to sign some paperwork and then I'll be back here. I have a lot of new recipes to show you."
"Cool. You know, we could make pizza our Thursday night special."
"More like Tuesday or Wednesday. But I can see your point."
"If we add new toppings or maybe even let them come back long enough to put their own toppings on while we bake it, we could increase sales. Maybe even be competition for the big chains."
"We can try it for three months and see what happens. If we get a positive response, yeah, we'll add it to the menu. Keep in mind though…these are busy kitchens. We don't want a customer to fall or get burned."
"So we set up a toppings bar on those nights." Laurie smiles as he chatters excitedly about the pizza. This is what she'd hoped to see from him when she'd brought him in off the streets. No longer a defiant, scared kid, but an almost confident young man, just about ready to be in his own restaurant.
Max softly closes the door as he and Tony watch Laurie work with Danny. Tony is impressed with her patience and says as much to Max when the other man leads him upstairs.
"She's really devoted to her people."
"That she is kid, that she is."