"I don't know."

"Yes, I think you do know," Rose said as she firmly took hold of her daughter's shoulders and guided her to come face to face. "Have you talked to Alex about this? Telling Chris, I mean."

In spite of all of their close relationship, Ca.s.sidy was still amazed by her mother's perceptiveness. "No."

"Why not?"

"Honestly, so much has been happening. I just..."

"I know, Ca.s.sie," Rose said softly.

"I should be worried about Dylan...I mean Chris is..."

"Dylan hasn't wanted to be with his father for months, you know that. Who else knows?" Rose asked.

Ca.s.sidy took a deep breath and covered her eyes. "No one except Alex.....and Jane."

"Ca.s.sie, did he know?" Ca.s.sidy nodded her head and Rose sighed. "You can't hide it forever. Secrets will drain your soul over time. Sometimes we hide things with the best of intentions and we create unforeseen consequences."

"Dylan will never forgive me."

"Dylan has what he has always needed, Ca.s.sie."

"I guess I was lucky."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked in confusion.

"Well, look at Alex. Look at Dylan with Chris. I have you. I had Daddy. I certainly haven't lived up to that mark, have I?"

"Lived up to what? Your father and I?" Ca.s.sidy nodded. Rose shook her head. "You think we were the Cleavers."

"We were happy. I was happy. I was loved," Ca.s.sidy said.

"You were happy and you are loved. Dylan is happy and Dylan is loved," Rose said turning her eyes downward.

"What? Mom, what is it?"

"You were so young when you lost your father."

"You lost him too."

Rose returned her gaze to her daughter. "You know, you are very much like him in some ways." Ca.s.sidy smiled. "Smart, strong, willful, and beautiful."

The younger woman's smile began to fade as she noted her mother's eyes slowly closing. "Mom?"

"He certainly did love you, Ca.s.sidy....your father. From the moment you were born his eyes were fixed on you whenever you were in the room." There was a sadness in the older woman's voice and Ca.s.sidy began to feel her heart ache. "The truth is I lost him long before you did. Long before."

Ca.s.sidy's mind began racing. She could not imagine what her own confession had spurred in her mother. How could this be happening? Her family had been close. She remembered so many moments with her parents at the beach, in the yard, at the playground. Her heart sank, certain her mother was about to reveal that her father had been much like her own ex-husband. Could history have repeated itself, she wondered? "Mom?"

Rose took a deep breath and let the air fill her lungs with courage before releasing it. "What do you remember, Ca.s.sie? When you think back? What do you recall about the three of us together?"

"I don't know....the beach. I remember the swing at the playground. He would take me on Sunday morning and sing to me, teach me songs. Sitting at the picnic table in the yard. The dinner table...."

"Mm."

"Mom...what? What did Daddy do? He had a mistress?"

"He did." Rose saw the crushing weight of her words fall on her daughter with a force that seemed to instantly diminish her stature. "His mistress was not a woman, Ca.s.sie." Ca.s.sidy looked up at her mother, waiting desperately for her to continue. Rose let out another heavy breath as a compa.s.sionate but apprehensive expression overcame her. "His mistress was a bottle. It was an infatuation I could never compete with."

"Fallon?"

"Alex?" he answered his phone in surprise. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah...fine," Alex answered as she reviewed the file in front of her on the long metal table. "This message you sent me on my phone...Tate is Taylor's informant? Is that what this means?"

Brian Fallon looked past his own desk and nodded silently to himself. "Yeah...it's in the files I sent."

"I don't have my laptop here. How do you know?" she asked. Agent Fallon smiled at a woman as she pa.s.sed his desk. He picked up his coffee cup and began to make his way past the cadre of agents seated in similar stations. "Fallon?"

"Yeah...."

"Where are you?" Alex asked.

Fallon shut the door to the small kitchenette. "At work."

"At the bureau?"

"Yeah, where else would I be?"

"Fallon, why would Tate go to Taylor?" Alex pulled another file folder in front of her as she awaited the answer.

"I don't know. You haven't seen what I sent?" There was no response. Alex's eyes were preoccupied on a piece of paper in front of her. She studied the words one at a time, Special Project Helix Installation Nigeria AxisSPHINX. "Alex?"

"Yeah....Sorry."

"You didn't see what I sent?" Fallon repeated.

Alex took a deep breath and let her fingers play over the words on the paper. "No. I changed and came straight here. There's more? I mean than Tate?"

"Yeah, Alex, the Corsica thing; it looks like they are sending O'Brien."

Alex's finger lingered over the words on the paper. "Interesting."

"That's all? Just interesting? I think Brackett went ahead."

Alex allowed her finger to slowly travel down the doc.u.ment in front of her. Even here, the doc.u.ment had been heavily redacted. That was one of the beautiful things about her job; for some reason people seemed to think the removal of key words protected their information; as if only those who owned black Sharpies could crack their secret code. They called it sanitization. Alex called it a challenge. It was like chess. The black marks were the unseen moves. The rest of the words on the paper were just like your opponent's board. If you studied it closely enough you could almost always predict what was to come. She smiled. "I'm sure she did."

"So, what are you going to do?" he asked.

"Well, they aren't sending the congressman on a mission."

Fallon was confused. "I don't understand."

Alex retrieved the small camera from her pocket. It looked inconspicuous enough. People would be amazed, she thought, at the things that existed in reality. Just a pack of mints. She opened the cover and popped a mint in her mouth, carefully triggering the shutter and photographing the doc.u.ment on the table. "He is the mission, Fallon."

"What do you mean?"

"Not here. When is he due to arrive?" Alex asked.

"Thursday, at least that is what I gathered. I should follow Brackett to Corsica."

Alex laughed and retrieved another page. She studied it for a few moments and then took another mint. "She won't be in Corsica, at least not yet."

"What are..."

Alex shook her head. Fallon was a terrific agent but this was a landscape he had a great deal to learn about. "You can never look too much. Trust me. Keep digging."

"Are you..."

Alex closed the file and turned to replace it in the tall metal cabinet behind her. "I'll be there by Thursday...more, Fallon, I need more."

He sighed as the door to the small room he had found moderate privacy in opened. "Yeah, I understand. Glad you are doing well," he said. "Tell Ca.s.sidy I said h.e.l.lo, all right?"

Alex chuckled as her hand reached the red b.u.t.ton on the panel next to the heavy steel door. "I will do that, Fallon. Watch yourself."

"Will do," he said with a smile directed at the agent walking past him.

"See that you do," Alex cautioned.

"Alex?" Ca.s.sidy picked up her phone.

"Hey, sorry I missed saying good night to Speed."

"It's all right," Ca.s.sidy said as she collapsed back onto the king size bed, feeling the empty s.p.a.ce next to her. "Is everything okay?"

Alex unplugged the small drive from her computer and shut the top. There was a somber tone to Ca.s.sidy's voice that immediately concerned the agent. "Ca.s.s, what's going on?"

Ca.s.sidy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I'm all right. I just miss you."

Alex was certain that was true; when Ca.s.sidy did not want to burden the agent with something she always answered truthfully, just not fully. "I miss you too. You don't want to tell me what's wrong?"

"I told my mother."

"Ooookaaayy....."

"About Dylan, Alex."

Alex let out an audible sigh as she began packing up her files and piling her bags on a chair. "And?"

"She was great."

"Of course she was. So, what's wrong?"

"Alex, it's okay, really."

Alex made her way to the double bed and flopped into the middle of it. "No. Not okay. What's up?"

"She just told me some things."

"What kind of things?" Alex was now truly curious.

Ca.s.sidy pulled Alex's pillow to her and inhaled. "About my father." The agent could feel the tension pouring through the phone. Ca.s.sidy adored her parents. She waited for a moment and was ready to ask another question when Ca.s.sidy continued. "Seems she dealt with a mistress too for many years."

The agent was stunned. In the few conversations that she and Ca.s.sidy had about their childhoods, Ca.s.sidy had always painted James McCollum as Super Dad. Alex wondered a couple of times if the man might actually have sported a cape and if that is why Dylan loved superheroes so much. If she was shocked by the statement, she could not imagine how Ca.s.sidy must have reacted to her mother's admission. "Ca.s.s, I..."

"Yeah...thing is it wasn't a Stephanie, Barbara or Violet."

"I don't understand," Alex said carefully.

"Nope. It was more like Scotch, Bourbon and Vodka."

"Ca.s.s, everyone has their..."

"Demons? Yeah, I know. Parents are people, right?"

Alex's heart sank. "I wish I was there."

"Ummm, still can't tell me where you are?"

The agent laughed and rolled to her side. "Strangely enough, I think I can."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm in New Mexico."

"I thought you were headed off to Moscow or Beijing or something," Ca.s.sidy joked, feeling her tension ease slightly at discovering Alex's whereabouts.

"Nope, sorry. Dry, dusty New Mexico."

Ca.s.sidy couldn't resist her next question. "Find any evidence of an alien invasion?"

Everyone, even Ca.s.sidy, knew that Alex loved X-Files and James Bond. They did not all know her infatuation with comic books, and even Ca.s.sidy had yet to discover the agent's strange pension for old Bing Crosby movies; though Alex suspected that little nugget would reveal itself to the teacher's great amus.e.m.e.nt when the holidays rolled around. "No. No aliens. But, the truth is out there, Ca.s.s."

Ca.s.sidy laughed. Just hearing Alex's voice was comforting and she loved their banter. "Any idea when you will be home?"

"If all goes as planned I'll be home by the weekend." The teacher closed her eyes again. It was clear in Alex's voice that she was certain it would not be sooner.

Ca.s.sidy bit her lip to quell her fear. "Alex, whatever you need to..."