“Michael!! That’s you!”

“No, it’s not. It’s someone else.” Michael quickly scanned the caption. Charles Dupree and his twin sister, Celeste Dupree at the groundbreaking ceremony. Twins.

Twice over. Once as aliens, and again from their human donors’ DNA. Michael couldn’t stop the crashing of his heart in his chest. Twice lost. Twice betrayed. A string. A connection. Denied.

Unable to live with his thoughts, he took Maria’s hand and they quickly vacated the scene of his wrecked life. Questions. He had stopped asking them over time. In that one glimpse, so many things rushed back inside his mind. One thing stood out - he had a name. Dupree. Charles. And Isabel had been his twin sister, Celeste.

~~~

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

Maria just shrugged. Michael had his dark places, and she respected that. She had to, because her life wasn’t without shame, without prisons and walls. But he was hurting, and it was coming off of him in waves.

It was late. They had spent the last few hours preparing to break into her private investigator’s office. Finding something about him and his past wasn’t part of the plan. Maria frowned and looked down at her feet. She didn’t want to talk about that or anything else. Nothing. Nothing about her, nothing about him, and nothing about her father. She was tired. Bone tired.

“C’mon, let’s take a bath and go to bed. I’m tired. It’ll all wait until tomorrow.”

Michael nodded. It would wait. It had waited for years, and for lifetimes. It could fucking wait forever. Everything he had, he had created himself. No handouts, no help, no parents, and no history. Dupree? It was just a name, some junk DNA. He had no more connection to that family than he did to his alien one. Finding it was a fluke. Another mistake. Like him. He would fix it…later.

~~~

She never woke. He stood in the upper loft watching her. Dressed only in one of his shirts, she stood in front of the easel as she painted, smearing a story across canvass. Her hands were covered in paint from when, irritated at the slowness of the brush, she used them to move the color across her creation, a medium of oils and acrylic.

Michael slowly moved down the stairs using the moonlight streaming in from the windows and skylight to see. She painted in a world of darkness, but this time it reeked of rage and anger.

“What is this?” Maria asked. Her voice rising in anger, anger and something else…disappointment.

“A present. A present to…”

“To what? Pay me off?” She handed it back to him. “I don’t want this. I never did. All I wanted was for you to care, to want to care. Dammit! I’m not going to cry!”

She did cry. Inside there was nothing but pain. The anger and despair were choking her. They choked off her memories, hid them from herself, because they were the things she couldn’t ignore or forget. Open. Vulnerable. That was how Michael had found her. No defenses, except that shroud of white, hiding her from sight, from his ability to read her. Her mind had created its own walls when those she had built all her life were shattered.

Her father had made her cry. She had cared, and it hurt to find him, knowing he lived all that time without a thought of her. Wasted pain.

Michael stood apart, uncertain if he should wake her. The painting was stark and raw, an abstract that was like looking into a well so deep, so dark, that no light shone there. Sitting down, he waited for her to finish, but she didn’t.

One painting after another in waves of raw emotion. It was the final one that caught his attention. The dead man. Three bullet holes to the chest. Blood. But this time it was different. His eyes were open and staring straight at her, the artist.

Michael had to see this. His hand reached out for the lightswitch, illuminating the lower studio, he watched as she just stood there with her paintbrush in her hand, dripping the color of blood on her bare foot. She stared at the painting, but Michael suspected she was really seeing only what was inside her head, trapped in her mind and nothing in this world.

The eyes. They were alive. Begging. Pleading. Open and full of fear. She had captured his last glance of life. She had been there.

She had watched her father die.

Michael was startled from his thoughts as the brush hit the floor in a loud clatter, made more so by the surrounding stillness. She dropped to the floor in a heap, as if a player in a silent movie, exhausted, cold and shaking. She was still asleep.

Reaction? Shock? The pain of pulling up unconscious memories? Michael was unsure what was pushing her. Picking her up, he took her upstairs to the bathroom to wash away the paint and revive her with warm water. She never woke up. Tucking her back into bed, he went downstairs to put away her paintbrushes and turn off the lights.

Captured by the paintings, he stood before them unmoving for what felt like hours. Finally he turned off the light and went upstairs. Propped up against the headboard of the bed, he watched her sleep and then, turning on a low bedside light, he took out his yellow pad and started to write.

The walks in the desert were the loneliest. Branded and marked as undeserving, he searched for that place in his mind, that journey of spirits. Herculean in life, the walls of fear were the hardest to climb, but every hero’s journey had to start somewhere. For him it was with a word. A spoken sound that gave him a voice after all those years, a way to scream in pain that wasn’t just the echo in his head. At seventeen, he had already died three times. In his dreams he relived the first time, his body broken, with the skin peeled from his carcass. In the dark, he feared the shadows, but it took years for him to grow to a point where it became the only place he could feel alive.

Standing before him was a rising wall of broken stone, shorn and rough, cut harsh against the desert sky. He held out his hand as he walked ,taking him away from despair. There he relived his second death, the death of the forgotten. Alone. Nothing felt more biting than the echoing pleas in his mind for them to return to him, to come back…"Don’t leave! " His cries were the only sound he heard for the entire next year. It drowned out all other sounds, and in that entire time he never spoke a word. Not even to beg not to be beaten, not to be hurt.

The third death was late in his seventeenth year, when he decided to murder his foster father. That thought was enough to kill him, remove what little remained of his soul. This must be what they all had seen in him from the time he was small. It was why he had been left behind. Standing in the bathroom in front of the sink as he prepared to shave, he stared at his face. A stranger’s face. Cold. Hard. Unyielding. Resolved to complete an act of murder, patricide against his foster father. Standing there, he calmly stroked his face with the blade, scraping away the coarse uneven hairs as he cut too deep and the fresh blood ran down his cheeks.

He couldn’t feel it. When did he stop feeling things?

Staring at his bloodied hands, he saw the instruments that had already broken his foster father’s arm. It was during that last battle that the boy rose to defend himself against an enemy that hadalways been too strong before, and for the first time in his life, he spoke out, letting the pent-up echoes free. “No!” he screamed. “No! Enough! This is the last time!” It was the last time.

The old man, mockery of humanity that he was, stood there shaking in fear and holding his broken arm. !"Freak! Loser! Worthless piece of crap! No one wants you. You were so worthless, that’s why they left you." The sick old man, that bastard, said words that the boy had said a thousand times to himself, but were only spoken out loud by the man who should have loved him, cared for him, and protected him. With a thoughtless swipe of his hand, he watched, detached, as the old man hit the wall hard and sank to the ground in a pile of human waste. Interesting. He felt nothing. All the years that had gone by, and in that time, he had always felt that that when he was older, stronger, more able to protect himself, and finally avenge that broken child inside, he would feel something. Joy. What was that? Pity for the old man who needed to destroy a defenseless child to feel better, to feel in control and powerful? No. Nothing. When did his soul leave him? His first death, or maybe the second, when those like him refused to acknowledge him? Or this time?

Looking down at his side, he was still bleeding from where his father had cut him with a knife. But the boy wasn’t a boy anymore, and he fought back. Took the knife. He would not die at that bastard’s feet in his own bile and stink. He would not die that way. So he took the knife and broke the old man’s arm doing it. Child’s play. This filthy human was nothing. An annoying fly. Easily removed.

He went to shave. He wanted to look neat and presentable when they came to take him away for murder. They must have always known it would come to this.

Staring at his bloodied face, it was as if a moment of clarity hit him. The old man would still win. He’d rot in a prison, a prison much like the one in which he had lived his entire life. The first one forged in a mental bath of pain and humiliation, but this one…it would be a physical one as well. And all those who turned their backs when he walked by would be vindicated, saying they knew. Of course they did! They always knew he’d end up that way. A murderer. He didn’t belong. No wonder they never came back for him.

The belief that the old man was right hurt more than any fist, or even the cut of the knife. They were right. He was worthless piece of shit.

So the door was open. The prison walls stood there, hard as stone. Courage. It wasn’t cowardly to run from abuse, to take back a chance to breathe. Finally understanding, he reached out and closed the prison door. Here was a place that didn’t have to merely hold him inside. It was also a place that no one could enter. It was twofold, a prison and a sanctuary. He closed the door on everything and everyone. Here he could finally rest in some sort of peace, because they couldn’t get to him and hurt him anymore. Grabbing his coat, and what little he owned in his life, he left that broken-down trailer, never even sparing a glance at the unconscious old man with the broken limb. Hell takes care of their own. He would survive.

Standing in the cold rush of air, the cooling rain chilling his bones, it was like being born again. He slung his bag across his shoulders, not running from his life, but finally walking towards it. The cold rain slowly washed the blood from his face; the red blood tears that were the only ones he cried as he left the only home he had ever known. There was nothing there for him. Nothing and no one. They all had left him alone, and it was too late. He learned to breathe on his own that night, and he no longer needed them. Any of them. Alone. He could live on. He had walls to protect him now.

“I killed him.”

Her small voice brought Michael out of his reverie. He looked over at her. The sound was like his own. Staring at her, he couldn’t move or think of anything to say.

“I killed my father.”

~~~

“Alex, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Let me take care of it. You said he was gone?”

Kyle nodded. “I checked with the security company. He called and told them he turned on his system and he’d be gone a few days. I don’t think he’d leave her behind, not after last time.”

Alex nodded. He discreetly took note when his cousin walked by on his way to collect supplies they needed. He didn’t bother to introduce Eddie to Kyle. The two things were connected, but how was uncertain, so until the time came…

“Now, I can bail out on dinner tonight, huh?”

Kyle just laughed. “Fat chance. Vicky's excited. Started cooking early this morning, and she invited another guest. Looks like some nice friendly matchmaking to me.”

Alex choked on his coffee, spitting it out. “She set me up on a blind date? Dammit, Kyle, can’t you control your woman?”

Kyle laughed even harder. “Buddha says that a man who thinks he can control woman, also thinks he created the earth.”

“Hey, don’t start with the Buddha crap on me. I think living with you through Dr. Tyrey’s Philosophy 101 was bad enough. Who’d have known Jock Boy would want to become so self-aware?”

“The girls really dug it. They loved sensitive men who looked masculine, and weren’t questionably gay.”

“Right. Another Betty Sue bites the dust. I’m telling Vicky tonight, you wait.”

“Bastard,” Kyle frowned. Maybe they weren’t doing the right thing. He just needed to confirm that Maria DeLuca was with Michael Guerin, so he could stop looking for her and turn his attention to keeping his father and Amy DeLuca out of trouble.

Alex always seemed to be able to read his mind. He jumped into his car and gestured for Kyle to do the same. He was going to bypass Guerin’s security system, and they were going to search the place for clues confirming that not only was Maria DeLuca alive and well in Roswell, but that she had found herself a protector in Michael Guerin.

Kyle kept a lookout, condemning his soul to hell for breaking the very laws he was sworn to uphold. He was not better than Burns. That was a scary thought, given how Burns ended up.

“Alex…”

“Yeah, just a second. I bypassed his security, but the lock will take a few minutes.”

“I’m going to hell for this.”

“Yeah, well, don’t take it so hard. It’s not like Mr. Guerin is being honest and aboveboard himself, though I tend to give him points for his motivation, protecting a damsel in distress. Didn’t know the modern world bred men of honor any longer. I swear, the Michael Guerin I remember could barely stand to have people walk next to him.”

“You’ve gotten so fucking jaded, Alex. And you’re not wrong. Michael wasn’t big on helping people. He wasn't big on people in general. Still isn't. Over the years, his tolerance has hit rock bottom. He likes his privacy and his home. Only merely tolerates Max and Isabel Evans, and at times he barely pays attention even to them.”

Alex grunted as the last tumbler fell into place. They entered Michael’s place, and quickly looked around, avoiding searching drawers and closets. They were looking for evidence that Maria DeLuca was alive and present. It didn’t take long. They found the painting in the living room.

“Unless our Michael Guerin has turned artist himself, I’d say that he has a very talented one staying with him.”

Kyle just stared at the painting. He could hardly breathe. The punishment. The fire. The fear. It was overwhelming. All he could remember was that burned-out car, the broken window and the bullet holes. Jesus. He didn’t even want to imagine her dreams. He was seeing a small portion of her living nightmare, so the rest had to be truly horrific.

“No. He’s a writer.”

Alex nodded. The place was clean, and had Michael taken pains to hide the painting, they would’ve had no proof she had ever been there. Alex wandered upstairs. Curiosity was a killer. This home, coupled with the articles he had read over the years authored by Michael Guerin, painted a different view of a man that he never bothered to know when he had the chance. Not that Guerin would have let him or anyone else get that close, for that matter. Now taking a woman in trouble into his home and protecting her from the FBI, police and other persons unknown was another stroke in the larger canvass of who Guerin was.

The image of him from their youth wasn’tjibing with what he was seeing in the man’s adulthood. Alex wandered through the room and checked out the bathroom, then went downstairs. Kyle was still studying the painting.

“He has her. I think there's no doubt that he'll keep protecting her, so I think we can safely leave here.”

“How do you know?” Kyle asked softly.

Alex just shrugged and walked to the door as Kyle followed. He relocked the door, and removed the security bypass. On the way back to town, Kyle looked at his old friend again.

“How do you know he’ll take care of her, Alex?”

“They’re lovers.”

Kyle stared in amazement at Alex, eyes wide.

~~~

“Here, drink this.” Michael handed Maria a cup of hot tea, extra sugar.

Maria took it and cautiously sipped. “Always feeding me or fixing me drinks. Are you sure you’re not married or something? I keep getting this distinct impression that you need someone to take care of, or at least you have a houseful of children to worry about.”

“I never said I wasn’t married.” Michael was shocked how accurate her instincts were and how much it hurt that those were things he’d never have. When did he start feeling pain again?

Maria looked at him sharply. “Are you?”

“No.” Michael actually smiled at the look on her face. Damn. His breath stuck in his throat, and suddenly he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Pig.” Maria put down her cup and stood next to him. “Artists are very volatile and passionate. I own some interesting artists’ knives that are sharp. I already killed my father. You sure you want to be messing with me?”

Michael tipped her chin up higher and looked at her face, searching it. “You didn’t kill your father. And me? I can take care of myself. Plus I hid the key to your handcuffs.”

“Personal property, buddy!” Maria stepped away from him and self consciously ran her hands down her sides. They were sweating. “How do you know I didn’t kill him?”

Michael thought about it. What to say? How much to tell? The flashes. She had been angry, but she left him very much alive. She left. But somehow, someway, she found herself with him again, looking at him, and watching the last moments of his life fade away. Holes. There were holes everywhere.

“I just know. Trust me on this.”

Maria looked away from him to her paintings. “I trust you. But I know what I know. And I might not remember any details, but I know that his death was my fault. I killed him.”

“Maria…”

“What do the records say?” Maria picked up her cup of tea and sat on the sofa. Michael understood she was shutting a door. Doors he understood well, especially closed ones. He backed off, respecting her silence and the horror she was feeling. She needed to understand what happened, and why she lost her life in the process. More importantly, she needed to figure out why someone wanted her dead.

“The investigator was asked to find your father. From personal notes, it suggests that you felt that he was the reason you were unable to form strong intimate attachments to men, and you wanted to resolve issues with him.”

“Great, so 'Great Dane' was correct. I was a mental case.”

“Heh. 'Great Dane' is a dick. Don’t let that cloud the issue. If you loved him, you wouldn’t have sent him away. You would have fought to keep him.”

Maria looked at Michael and appreciated how well he seemed to understand her, a woman that was a stranger even to herself. True. She would stay with Michael forever if he asked, but he wouldn’t ask. He was going to set her free.

“So where did I start to find my father?”

Michael sighed. He had hoped that the information was wrong. That the number found in the hotel room trash was left by a prior guest. But it wasn’t.

“Meta-Chem in Roswell. Your father worked for Meta-Chem. He’s a paper pusher in the front office.”

Maria turned on the sofa. “Meta-Chem. Isn’t that the place we called? The number?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah. You must have contacted him at his work, made arrangements to meet him, and somehow you became involved in his death.”

“I killed him.”

“Maria,” Michael took her head in his hands. “Stop it! I don’t know what happened, but I think he involved you in something, and not the other way around.” Michael paused as he considered telling her about the medallion. Her disappointment. He could still feel it. It would’ve been the same for him. If he had found his people and they paid him off with a simple religious medallion, it would have felt like another betrayal.

“But…”

“I think you didn’t kill him. I think you witnessed it, and while witnessing it you made yourself a target, a liability to the real killer. Think about it, Maria. Think. Someone chased you down, ran your car off the road with a barrage of bullets, and then left you trapped in that car to die. They never dreamed you'd risk your hands and life to get out. They left you for dead.”

Maria’s whole body began to shake. Michael quickly pulled her into his arms and leaned back against the arm of the sofa. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting whatever it was about him that seemed to calm her and make her feel safe, work its magic.

“Others will die. You could die if you get too close to me. You know that, right?”

Michael ignored that. He wasn’t going to die. No one was. “What is it you want, Maria? You want to go away and hide? I’ll find your mother and send her to you. Maybe things will come back over time, and you still have your art and your life…”

“No. We finish this. A man is dead. I might not know him...not really...and he left me at an early age... damn, I might have actually pulled the trigger... but he's still dead. I need to find some justice for him, some sense in his death. I can’t live my life afraid and in hiding. I can’t. I’ve wasted so much of my life already.”

Michael nodded. “Justice. Then we try to find out why he was killed, and how you figure into it.”

Maria nodded her agreement. “So where do we start?”

“The fucking yellow brick road. Roswell. We're going home to frickin’ Oz.”

~~~

“Any word from our people staking out the girl’s place in Tucson?”

The man shook his head slowly. “Sorry, Sir. We have no one in Tucson any longer.”

The other man looked up from his papers with a frown. “Mr. Gerard! Did I not tell you to post watchers at the girl’s home in case she magically showed up there?”

Gerard nodded at the other two men to leave. “Yes, Sir. You did. Unfortunately they followed the girl’s mother to Roswell. That left no one in Tucson.”

“Fire them.” The man looked at his personal assistant. “You served my father well for many years, but I see this as a breakdown in your efficiency. See that this doesn’t happen again.”

Gerard bowed slightly. “Yes, Sir.” On his way out, he paused, “Sir, Merris wishes to see you.”

“Tell her I can’t take the time today. I’ll see her at home tonight.”

“Very good, Sir.” But before Gerard could leave, a woman barged into the office.

“Clayton, I think you can tell me yourself, don’t you? I think you owe me that much in the very least. I demand a personal brush-off, not one from one of your donkeymen, braying their ‘Yes, sirs’ at me.”

“Merris, I don’t have time.”

“Make it. I haven’t put this much of my life on hold to be shoved into the background.”

The man nodded for his assistant to leave. Merris. He really needed to have her taken care of. She had outlived her usefulness. Now she was becoming an embarrassment.

“What is it you want?” He looked at his watch. “Make it quick. I don’t have all day.”

“Too bad! I want money. Lots of it.”

“And I’m to give you money for what reason?”

“My silence.”

Clayton became deadly still. “Careful, Merris. Make sure you want to threaten me.”

“I don’t care. You think I’m afraid of you? I’ve been involved in this project longer than you have. I put everything I had into it, and if you think you can just suddenly stand up to the plate and…”

She never finished her sentence. The loud explosion of the smoking gun heralded the flight of death to welcome her home. Clayton looked at the body of the dead woman and at the carpet in regret. He had really liked the color and design.

“Gerard, I need you to take out the garbage. Call my personal interior decorator. Yes, the one with the large breasts. I liked her. Tell her I have a new job for her.” Clayton paused and smiled. “Tell her to wear something tight.”

~~~

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Kyle,” Jim acknowledgeddistractedly from his desk. “I’m checking over these phone entries from Maria DeLuca’s suite.”

Kyle swore under his breath, but forced himself to appear interested. “Anything interesting?”

“Actually a few things. She called Meta-Chem five times, and there's also a number that is unknown. I've called it six or seven times. There’s been no answer. I have Ray running a reverse directory on it right now.”

“Is the number here in Roswell?”

“Same exchange.” Jim was getting ready to go check out Meta-Chem, to see about Maria DeLuca calling them.

“Dad, I thought you had an performance tonight with the Kits.”

“I do.”

Kyle grimaced when his dad got through to Meta-Chem. Kyle stayed and held his breath. Great. The old man wasn’t going to find Maria anytime soon, but he was going to find out what she was doing in Roswell, and more than likely in the same breath, find out who was trying to kill Maria DeLuca. Or maybe not why, just who. And when he did, he wouldn’t even know it, but they would. They would know he was close to figuring it out, and the next thing Kyle knew he’d be looking either at his dad’s car full of bullets, or his dad's body after it took a tumble from a mile up. Or both.

“Where’s Ms. DeLuca today?”

That got Jim's attention. “She’s feeling the heat. Migraine this morning, so she's staying put today.”

“Wonder if it’s better? I bet she could use some time off from her worries. Maybe even some fun. Bet she hasn’t had any fun since Maria went missing.”

“No, she probably hasn’t,” Jim agreed. He put down the phone after his third runaround from Meta-Chem. No one remembered a Maria DeLuca calling. The phone person suggested that if she was indeed calling, she was more than likely asking for a specific person, and could Jim tell them who that was. “What are you saying, Kyle?”

Kyle just shrugged casually. “Maybe a night free of stress...oh I don’t know...maybe like watching good music, good food, and good company?”

“Take her out? You think I should take her out?” Jim asked softly.

Kyle watched in wonder as his dad’s neck exploded in a creeping red. Well, he’d be damned. The old man was shy! Amy DeLuca turned him into a shy schoolboy.

“I think she could use a break for just a day.” Kyle took the list of phone numbers. “Look, I'll run down these numbers, and you go talk Amy into dinner and a good time at the Cow Patty, listening to the singing sensation of Jim Valenti and the Kit Shickers.”

Jim was suddenly thoughtful. True. The woman was so distressed, he bet she hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days. No sleep. No food. Just worry. Just sitting in that hotel room staring at her daughter’s things, wondering if she’d ever get her back. A dinner at Senior Chows and a fun evening designed to keep her from thinking was what she needed.

“Are you coming to see us tonight?” Jim asked curiously.

Kyle shook his head no. “Sorry, dad. Vicky's playing matchmaker tonight. So dinner is already arranged. My poor friend is going to find himself eating across from a friend of Vicky’s. And the twins will be between them, flinging spaghetti at each other and screaming, ‘Worms!’.

Jim smiled. Perfect. Good. Wonderful. The last thing he needed was his son there to watch him court Amy DeLuca. That would just make him trip over his feet even more. Court? Damn! When did that old-fashioned phrase and thought enter his head? Jim smiled even wider. Oh, that was Amy’s fault. He rarely thought of her in any other way but an old-fashioned one. She was definitely the marrying kind. All these years and she could still have him stammering with a just a look. God, it felt good to feel young again. Amy DeLuca was better than Viagra.

Jim took his hat and playfully slapped Kyle on the shoulders with it on his way out. “Just take care of those numbers, and I’ll check with you on it tomorrow.”

“Fine, dad.” Kyle watched his dad, the sheriff, create chaos on his way out the door. Kyle checked his watch. Three-thirty. He folded the phone list in half and shoved it in his pocket. He needed to get going too. Vicky might need some help with the boys and getting the house ready for guests in two hours. He left the station quickly in his dad’s wake. He had only stalled the investigation for a few hours; his dad and Amy would be back to work on it tomorrow. But for the first time in a week, Kyle left work with a clear conscience. He knew where Maria DeLuca was, and that she was safe. Now his job was to make sure she stayed that way.

~~~

“So, what do you have?”

“Nothing.”

Alex laughed. “Damn, Valenti. I thought after all these years that you’d find a way to fix that poker face. You're as open as a book.” Alex looked over to where Vicky and Isabel were gabbing, trying to finish up the last preparations for dinner. “What gives?”

Kyle looked over at his wife. “Honey, Alex and I are taking the boys into the backyard. It’ll get them out from under your feet.”

Vicky looked up and smiled at her husband. What a sweet loving stud. “Thanks, honey.”

Isabel watched them go and tried to think of a way she could follow, but she couldn’t leave Vicky, so she swallowed her disappointment and applied herself to helping cook dinner.

“My dad got the phone list from Maria DeLuca’s hotel. He was calling the numbers. There were numerous ones to Meta-Chem.”

Alex became totally still at the mention of Meta-Chem, despite the two monkeys swinging off of his arm and leg. Fuck. A closer connection, but still…

“Who was she calling?”

“That’s the thing. Dad couldn’t find out. She would have had to ask for someone specifically, and no one he talked to ever heard of her, except through coverage on the media about her being missing.”

Alex nodded. He could find out. He had a list of Meta-Chem’s entire personnel records. Maybe he found his anonymous caller. And somehow, someway, that person was connected with Maria DeLuca.

“Your dad needs to not make waves. Stay out of this, both of you. All I can tell you is that it’s dangerous, and if he causes enough of a stir, it could get bad.”

“You have no idea, Alex. No idea. Trying to get my dad to back off is like trying to unlock the teeth of a bull terrier. And Amy DeLuca isn't any better. They’re going to try to run down the name on the other number, and it’s going to get…”

“Close. It’s all too close for comfort.”

“Dammit, Alex. Just tell me. Give me a fucking bone so I know where this is coming from!”

Alex sat back and smiled when the twins heard their dad and echoed him

…“fukin’ bone”…

“Hey! Who said that?” Both of the boys pointed at the other and giggled. “Well, forget that phrase or your mommy will be on the warpath.” Kyle put his hands over their ears and they giggled and ran away to…well…eat the lawn. Kyle just shook his head in wonder and yelled into the house. “Vicky? That dinner coming along? The boys are grazing.”

“Fifteen minutes. In ten you can bring them in to wash their hands. Here, feed them these.” Kyle ducked as two small boxes of raisins came flying at his head.

“Hey, little goats, lookie at what Mommy sent…” He never got further than that, as two wiggly bodies assaulted him and rolled him for raisins.

Alex laughed. “Whoa! Damn, Valenti, you’re raising future football players.”

“You have no idea.” Kyle watched his boys sit together on a swing and chat about the wonders of raisins. “They’re starving all the time.”

Alex nodded and reached for a cigarette, but then remembered his manners and the presence of small children. Putting the pack away, he clasped his hands and tried to think about something else. Something not Isabel Evans.

“Alex…”

“Okay. Okay.” Alex gave up and lit up. The twins were far enough from the toxic zone. Filthy habit. “A week ago last Monday, the Monday before your missing girl’s accident, my cousin, Eddie got a call real late. It was from a man, a very desperate man, that said that the kids and people on the Mescalero Reservation were in danger - that their health was. He had proof that illegal dumping was occurring and that it was polluting the area.”

“Eddie. Your cousin?”

“Yeah, he’s a doctor at the Indian Clinic on the Res.” Alex shrugged not wanting to go into great detail. “Anyway, he had been active in environmental issues, demanding a governmental survey of the region. Over the last decade, the children in the Res and surrounding areas have been showing marked birth defects, increased losses in mental acuity, and some severe mental retardation. Eddie started to compile information and birth rate success. He sent it to me. It was alarming. One out of every four pregnancies on the Reservation miscarried. One out of three live births showed an increase in arrested mental development. But whatever this is, isn't stopping with people of color. He collated information for Roswell proper. The women in Roswell have an abnormally high miscarriage rate, starting with abdominal cramping early in pregnancy and by the second trimester, they lose the baby. One in every five results in a miscarriage. These stats aren't as bad as the Res, but they're catching up.”

Kyle stopped and thought about it. “They know. I mean the government was tracking the problem. Vicky wants to be a Special Ed teacher, and they're offering her a full scholarship if she teaches in this area when she finishes school. The amount of special needs has increased to an alarming proportion.”

“It’s worse than that. On the Reservation it’s becoming a mortality thing. Children are dying of blood diseases, and some aren’t making it to school age. They have all the symptoms of radiation poisoning. There is an increase in infertility in men and women on the Reservation, in Roswell, and in the surrounding area. The only explanation is the dumping that's been going on for a decade. Maybe more.”

“Your source…the man that called you...he works for Meta-Chem doesn’t he?”

“I think so. Thing was, I did a Federal database search. Doctors in the Roswell area and on the Reservation reported and requested investigations before. The first was over three years ago.”

“They ignored it?”

“No. They sent out a team. FBI. Topolsky and Burns. Burns lived. Topolsky mysteriously died. She was new to the region. She and her immediate supervisor, Stevenson had been reassigned from some top secret special unit that went defunct about five years ago. Guess budget cuts and lack of any real success was the end of it. She and her boss were reassigned to the FBI local office in Albuquerque. She worked the assignment and filed a completely different report from her partner. She came to the main offices of the Bureau and issued a complaint about her partner and ended up dead. The office did an internal sweep, but nothing came up.”

“Burns was paid off to turn the other way.” Kyle swore, and thought about bumming a cigarette as well.

“Worse. I think he was on the payroll to actively reroute the request and make sure no one else came asking questions, which is one of the reasons I’m not here officially, and can’t afford to be associated with this investigation until it’s necessary.”

Kyle made a face and leaned back looking at his old roommate. “Hence, the song and dance around Isabel Evans?”

Alex laughed. “You have no idea. She was like my dream girl half my life, the unattainable dream. Here she is on a blind date with me, and I’m going to be one lying sack of shit.”

“Old habits die hard, huh, Al?”

“Yeah.” Alex leaned back and hit Kyle on the stomach. “It’s just good to see you, little Buddha.”

“You too, Grasshopper.” Kyle looked at his sons. “I had a hard time dealing when I heard you were dead. It just didn’t connect that you were part of that. I saw your picture in Time Magazine when they pulled you out. Jesus, Al.”

“Oh yeah, that damn article. I hope it finds a place in hell. Reporters all over the place, asking questions. I didn’t even have any skin left on my back spending time in that damn prison, and they wanted an interview.”

“You walked out and brought a ton of people with you. Children. That was admirable Alex.”

Alex just laughed bitterly. “I was computer support, Kyle. Not Special Forces. I was lucky to survive. I spent eighteen months in that prison, with another six months hiding for my life and then walking out of that hell hole. All I thought about strangely enough…was Isabel Evans.” Alex laughed. “She was like this person in my head I talked to, and at night, under the stars I could hear her voice telling me to get the fuck up, to be strong, and survive. How could that be, Kyle? I mean I don’t think she ever said more than three words to me in my life, and her voice was all I could hear.”

“The mind, Grasshopper. It was pointing you to your karma, your destiny.”

Alex just shook his head bitterly. “No way, man. Nooooo way. She's like a Princess. She deserves a hell of a lot better than me. I’m all used up. I’m diseased. My last girlfriend, Patyrenia, no…Paula..something...never could pronounce it. Anyway, I woke up choking her to death. I can’t risk letting anyone that close again.”

“I thought you were in therapy for that? You said…”

“That I took care of it. I did. I decided no more live-in relationships, and if I’m going to sleep over, then I take myself home before dawn.”

“Alex, that’s no way to live. You wanted a family. A home. How can you…”

“I can’t. I react without thought, Kyle. Totally reflexive all the way. Someone sneaks up on me and catches me unaware, or touches me when I’m not expecting it…I can’t.” Alex laughed bitterly. “Remember when I took the job?”

Kyle nodded. He remembered quite well, senior year of college. Alex told him about this great government job, travel, excellent benefits, and training in self defense.

“I laughed at the training. Me. Dodgeball Boy doing something so intense as learning how to do martial arts and self-defense. They just trained us in the basics. Support staff. But the instructor said I was a natural for the martial art stuff. To me, it didn’t feel physical. More mental. Learning control. Balance. Inner peace shit. Reminded me of you, Kyle.”

Kyle smiled slightly but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“When I was out there, after I escaped and had to run for my life, and the life of those children I saved, it all came back. The training. The discipline. That natural instinct.” Alex took a drag on his cigarette, and quickly stomped it out and then lit a new one.

“Those things will kill you, Al.”

“Nah. Not fast enough. Three packs a day for thirty years, and at best, it’ll take off maybe ten years of my life. Not enough. Not fast enough. Too slow.”

“Dammit, Alex…”

“I've killed, Kyle. Not just a few people. I've killed legions.” Alex looked down at his hands and clenched them. “How can I ever come back from that? When I touch your babies, all I see are the hands of a killer touching something pure, innocent and clean. I haven’t even heard music in my head in almost three years.”

“You survived. There is a difference.”

Alex looked off somewhere, to a place only he could see. “Not to me,” he said softly.