by Rachel Ehrlich
Author's Note: This story takes place almost a year after "Somebody's Daughter".
"Happy birthday, Rose!"
Rose's expression was hidden by the giant bouquet of helium balloons Jessica had just surprised her with. Fighting her way around the mass of shimmering, bobbing mylar shapes, she stared up at the balloons and then at her sister-in-law. "God, Jessica, I don't think I can fit all these in my bedroom and still have room for myself!"
Jessica shrugged. "That's the least of your worries, kiddo. Get your coat on; your brother is taking you downtown with every intent of spoiling you rotten."
"Do you always make such a big deal over birthdays?" she asked Joseph as he came into the room, pulling on his jacket.
He grinned. 'It's your first one with us, Rose. I missed the last 14, so I have a lot of catching up to do.'
'I'll need three hours, so take your time,' Jessica signed as Rose disappeared down the hall with her cluster of balloons. 'Her mother's former employees and their children should be arriving in a couple of hours, and they'll help decorate the place, but whatever you do, don't bring her home early!'
He saluted her and she laughed, pulling him closer by his jacket's lapels. Raising herself up on her toes, she gave him what she intended to be a quick goodbye kiss. He caught her as she tried to break away, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her again. She offered no resistance, pressing herself against him and running the tip of her tongue lightly against his.
The sound of a throat being impatiently cleared quickly broke their embrace. "Are his tonsils OK, Jess?" Rose asked sardonically. "You know, for two people who barely come into contact in public, you sure can't keep your hands off each other at home."
Jessica smiled up at her husband. "That's what marriage is for." She gave him a playful shove toward the door. "Get going, you two. Don't forget to have fun."
Rose took downtown by storm. Books, video games, computer peripherals, and new running shoes were all high on her list. Joseph decided she needed to acknowledge her more feminine qualities as well, and bought her a lovely beaded dress, which faded from deep purple at the hem to a pale lilac at the collar. When she complained that she would never have an opportunity to wear such a dress, he informed her that she was more than welcome at his mother's annual formal parties, and that she needed something to wear.
After a quick stop at a park bench to consolidate all the packages into fewer bags, they went for lunch at a nearby pizza joint. Since pizza places never ranked as kosher, Jessica always refused to go to them, which made pizza a rarity in their diet. Rose relished every opportunity she had to eat pizza. Especially the very non-kosher pepperoni pizza.
"Jess doesn't know what she's missing," Rose laughed, savoring the pepperoni grease that dripped from the end of the pizza slice onto her tongue. "You can't get closer to heaven than this!"
Joseph smiled, watching as his sister battled to break the string of mozzarella that stubbornly attached the rest of the pizza slice to the bite she had taken from it. Like anyone raised in Europe, Joseph ate his pizza with silverware, thus avoiding the very problem Rose was dealing with.
"I didn't mean to make fun of Jessica," she added after emerging victorious over the cheese. "She's a really cool sister-in-law; I like her a lot."
'You should tell her that,' he said in all seriousness. 'She knows she can't be your mother, and sometimes she feels that you resent her for adopting that role.'
Rose was surprised to hear that. "Is that why she didn't come with us today? Because she thinks I'd resent her being here?"
He shook his head quickly. 'No, not at all. She just thought you'd like to spend some time alone with your bossy, annoying big brother.'
She laughed, almost choking on her pizza. "Yeah, you're such a tyrant at home! I can't understand what Jess saw in you, you big bully!" She shot an uncertain glance at her brother, knowing that what she wanted to ask was probably considered rude. Curiosity drove her to ask anyway. "Um, speaking of Jessica, if she can barely hear, why does she talk so well? I mean, most deaf people either don't talk at all, or they slur their speech because they can't hear enough to correct it. But Jessica just sounds like she has an odd accent, or maybe a minor speech impediment."
Joseph sighed. 'Her parents couldn't accept her deafness.' He signed slowly; Rose was still learning to read sign language. 'They had her wear hearing aids and hired a speech therapist to teach her to enunciate clearly.'
"Why do you act like that's a bad thing?" she asked, noticing his irritated expression.
He gave her a lopsided grin. 'And what message would you, as a child, take away from such behavior? That wasn't the whole story, by any means. They home-schooled her -- but not her sisters -- and she knew there had to be a reason why. Add to that the fact that she wasn't allowed to wear her hearing aids in public, and she caught on very quickly that her parents were embarrassed by her deafness. She was only taught sign language because the speech therapist had no other way to clearly communicate with her; once she learned to speak well enough to be understood, she wasn't allowed to sign at home. Her parents never even bothered to learn to read it.'
"So that's why she wears those little hearing aids when she visits her parents, instead of her regular over-the-ear ones?" she asked. He nodded. "Why does she know sign language so well if she wasn't allowed to use it?"
'You haven't noticed that independent, rebellious streak in her?' he laughed. 'She deliberately enrolled in Gallaudet College -- you know, the all-deaf school. Her parents were mortified, but she didn't ask them to pay for it, so they had no leverage to keep her away.'
"And that's where she met her first boyfriend? What's his name, Hyman? Hyde? Something like that."
'Chaim. No, she didn't meet him at Gallaudet; Chaim isn't deaf. And he wasn't exactly her boyfriend, since it was an arranged marriage; she'd only met him three times, and then only briefly. We went to his wedding, remember? It was only a month or so after mine.'
"That was him?" Rose gasped. "He let her come to his wedding after she dumped him?"
Joseph smiled. 'Well, the whole thing was much more complex than that, but there were no hard feelings between them; he didn't really want to marry her, either, so it all worked out for the best.' He glanced at his watch. 'Any more stores you want to go to? We have another 45 minutes before we have to catch the subway back.'
She wiped her mouth and inhaled the last of her soda. "I still want to check the music store to see if the new Beastie Boys CD is in, and if I can find a decent rendition of Verdi's Il Trovatore; mom had a great version, but it's an LP, and the background noise is really bad."
Three music stores later they had the CDs, but had to run to catch their train. "Yes!" Rose exclaimed, squeezing in behind Joseph right before the doors slid shut. "Thanks for a wonderful shopping trip," she said, giving him a quick hug before having to grab a nearby pole in order to keep her balance as the subway jerked into motion.
They had a half-mile walk from the subway station to their condominium, but the day was sunny and neither of them minded. Although they had been gone nearly four hours, Joseph set a leisurely pace, in the event that preparations had lagged behind schedule. Rose fell into step and chatted about her plans to master the video game she had just purchased.
"Look at all these cop cars parked by our building!" Rose exclaimed as they approached the main entrance to the lobby. "What do you think's going on?"
He shrugged. 'Probably nothing; their lights are off. Maybe Cherise is having a party; she's a police officer.'
"You mean she'd throw a party and not invite you?" She gave her brother a quizzical look as she swiped her pass key through the magnetic slot and opened the lobby door. "Doesn't Jessica get jealous that all the women in the building seem to have a thing for you?"
'Why should she be jealous?' he asked. 'All they get to do is look; she gets the good stuff.' He smiled to himself.
"No!" Rose slapped him on the arm. "Get that lovesick look off your face! You two already make me heave with all the face-chewing that goes on 24-7 at home; give it a rest, already!"
'You have my permission to look elsewhere, then,' he grinned, pausing to gather the day's mail before heading to the lifts. The mail ended up being either birthday cards for Rose or bills; he dumped her cards into her shopping bag and tucked the bills into his jacket pocket.
Their condo was on the 13th floor. The view was unimpressive -- the surrounding buildings were higher than 13 stories -- but the air was cleaner the higher one went, and Jessica liked to open the windows in the summer. Unlike his mother's condo a mere mile and a half away, theirs was confined to a single level that occupied half the floor. The floor's other occupant, an elderly widow, lived in an identical unit with her pack of seven Shih Tzu dogs, and was usually gone on trips to Paris, dogs in tow.
Two spacious elevators serviced the 23-story building, with the emergency stairwell set across the hallway. Rarely were the elevators so busy that one had to wait more than half a minute for a lift to arrive, and today was no exception. The only drawback to the swift arrival was an equally-swift departure that left one feeling like an astronaut in training to withstand g-forces.
The 13th floor was unusually busy. Most of the individuals present were uniformed, but even those in plainclothes had their badges noticeably displayed. The sea of bodies parted briefly, revealing a bright yellow ribbon of tape stretched across the door to deny entry to anyone save police officers.
There were only two doors on that level, and their neighbor's door was closed.
Joseph broke into a run, only to be stopped by one of the officers milling about the hall. "Sir, I'm sorry, you can't go in there --"
'My wife! Where's my wife?' The officer obviously had no knowledge of sign language, staring blankly at Joseph. "Uh... Captain Hall?" he called over his shoulder. "Captain! Civvies, sir; you're needed out here!"
A middle-aged black man in a worn trenchcoat ducked under the police tape across the door and looked expectantly over at the officer who had summoned him. Recognizing Joseph, he immediately took charge of the situation. "Joe, she's alive," he said gently, holding the distraught younger man by the shoulders. "She's going to live, OK?" He waited for Joe to acknowledge the statement, then glanced around the hallway until his eye fell on the bench near the elevators where Rose was still standing, looking pale and frightened. He smiled reassuringly at her and said to Joe, "Come on, son, let's sit down."
Captain Hall took a deep breath as he settled on the bench next to Joseph. He didn't really know what to tell him or where to begin; making a police report was nowhere near as difficult as explaining the events to the victim's relatives. The years of experience he had never seemed to make the job any easier.
"I'll tell you right now, we don't have a clear handle on what happened or why," he began. "There were obvious signs of forced entry, but as far as we can determine, no signs of robbery, sexual assault, or even a prolonged struggle. Whatever the intruder was after, I don't think it had anything to do with your wife; she was just unlucky enough to be at home.
"From what we've been able to piece together, we think she was in the kitchen when the intruder broke in. There was an iron skillet found near her; we suspect she clocked the guy and made a run for it... and that's when the bastard shot her in the back. But from there on out, nothing makes sense. The guy was firing wildly, probably still dizzy from getting whacked with the pan; only half of the six shots fired hit her. But once she was down, he just left. My guess is that he was only trying to keep her from alerting anyone, since he had plenty of opportunity to kill her and never did. Or maybe he planned to and didn't have the time; a woman named Estella arrived and called 911 pretty soon after the shooting."
"Estella was one of mom's girls," Rose explained. She looked at her brother, confused. "But what was she doing here?"
'We were planning a party for your birthday,' he signed woodenly, clearly overwhelmed by the recent events. 'We invited all your friends from your mother's business.'
Captain Hall summoned one of his men over. "Alex, give them a lift to Island Medical Center in Hempstead, will you? Address is 800 Front Street." He turned back to Joseph and Rose. "This is Lt. Alexander Scott; he'll take you to the hospital where she's being treated."
The ride to the hospital could have taken minutes or hours; either way, it was over before Joseph fully registered that he was sitting in the police car. Rose had to take charge of the situation, thanking the officer for bringing them there and pulling her brother into the building and up to the front desk.
"Oh, I remember her," the woman at the front desk replied to Rose's description of Jessica. "She's in the ICU -- the Intensive Care Unit. I'll get Nurse Axelsen; she's in charge of that unit."
Rose waited impatiently while the registrar went to fetch the nurse after getting no response through the intercom. Looking around, she noticed some empty chairs shoved into a corner and led Joseph to them. He didn't seem to notice whether he was standing or sitting, but even if it was all the same to him, Rose preferred to sit. It was easier to hide her own tension when she sat.
Fifteen minutes later, the registrar returned, pointing the nurse toward the corner where Rose and Joe were seated. Nurse Axelsen was a tired-looking older woman with a kind smile. "I take it you're family?" When Rose nodded, she gestured for them to follow. "We try to limit visitations to the ICU patients to reduce the risk of secondary infections," she explained. "Even the staff attempt to touch the patients as little as possible. We make exceptions for family members, though, since we must consider the emotional impact of the situation." She glanced at Joseph, who still had a look of stunned disbelief on his face. "Is she your wife or your sister?"
"His wife," Rose answered her when Joseph did not. "I'm his sister."
The nurse sighed. "Sir, did you know that your wife was pregnant?"
That got Joseph's attention. 'What?'
"Um, I don't think he knew," Rose translated.
"I'm sorry," Nurse Axelsen apologized, "but the injuries she sustained were extensive. The stress was too much for her body; she had a miscarriage. It's actually rather common in pregnancies under eight weeks, as hers was, even for otherwise healthy women. I know that's of little comfort, but for her sake, it was good that her pregnancy terminated; now her body can devote all of its reserves to healing."
She held open one of the double doors leading to the ICU. "Please hang up your jackets in the closet, and leave the packages there, too," she told Rose, who was surprised that she was still carrying her bags of birthday presents. She had meant to leave them at the condo, but in the confusion, that hadn't happened.
When everything was stashed away, the nurse handed them each a bundle of green hospital clothes. "Wear these over your clothes; they tie in the back." In addition to the green smocks, there were disposable booties that slid over their shoes, green filter-paper masks, and latex gloves that gave them the appearance of surgeons. Nurse Axelsen was serious when she had said they tried to prevent infections.
The ICU itself was through a second set of double doors, after which they passed several rooms before coming to the one where Jessica was. Although it was set up as a double occupancy, the other bed was empty. That it was more spacious than most hospital rooms was hardly cause for consolation; the extra space was to allow for emergency equipment, such as the numerous devices to which Jessica was already attached.
She was nearly as pale as the sheets on which she lay, propped up on one side with wedge-shaped pillows. Various tubes and electrode wires sprang from her arms, chest, and face to connect to monitors, IV drips, and an oxygen tank. Other tubes, for wound drainage, led to collection bags concealed under sheets. It may have been necessary, but it sure didn't appear to be comfortable.
Nurse Axelsen turned a critical eye on the EEG. "She doesn't show any signs of brain damage." Rose wondered why the nurse would suspect brain damage in the first place, unless Jessica had lost so much blood that her brain had been oxygen-deprived. She felt suddenly nauseous; it hadn't occurred to her that Jessica might not recover completely from this ordeal. No wonder Joseph had been so upset -- he knew better.
"Mrs. Wilson," Nurse Axelsen called, trying to rouse Jessica. "Your family is here. Wake up."
"She can't hear you," Rose told her.
"I can see that," the nurse snapped. Rose quickly realized how her statement had been misinterpreted, so she bit down on a nasty response; the nurse had no way of knowing that she wasn't being sarcastic. Besides, Jessica didn't wear any sort of medical tag identifying her condition, so the nurse had no way of knowing that, either.
"No, I mean, she's deaf," she explained. "She's not wearing her hearing aids, so she really can't hear you at all."
The woman gave her an apologetic look before gently shaking Jessica's shoulder. "She's been pretty heavily sedated, so she may not be up to a conversation, but you're welcome to stay as long as you like. Please remember to keep your protective clothing on at all times, especially your masks; I realize they aren't comfortable, but some of the nastiest germs are airborne, and that's the last thing Mrs. Wilson needs at this time. Call me if you want anything," she said, pointing to the large red button on the rail of Jessica's bed. With that, she left them alone.
Joseph sank into the chair next to Jessica's bed and extended a shaking hand to her face. Touching her face was no easy task, with the curtain of tubes and wires that separated them, but he managed to brush his fingertips gently along her cheek. Her cheek twitched, and her eyes slowly fluttered open.
A shadow of a smile crossed her face as she recognized them. The look in her eyes told them how happy she was to see them; she simply didn't have the strength to express it. "Well," she said faintly, "the bullets must have missed my spine, because I can feel both my toes and that horrid, clammy catheter tube. Baruch HaShem, I'm not paralyzed."
Trust Jessica to find the positive in a situation like this -- not, Rose thought, that it seemed to be doing Joe any good. His face was almost as pale as Jessica's, the green mask striped with tear-darkened streaks. He would have taken every one of those bullets for her, without hesitation. Of course, that was no less than what she would do for him. Love really does make you crazy.
'I'm sorry, this is all my fault,' he signed with trembling hands. 'I should never have assumed that just because I was no longer a Titan I was also no longer a target.'
Surprisingly, she laughed -- or at least made a small noise that, along with her smile, apparently indicated laughter. "We've come full circle," she whispered, "only we've swapped roles. Now I'm the one attached to all the tubes and wires, and you're apologizing to me." Her hand moved slowly in his direction, and he covered it with his own. She squeezed his fingers lightly. "It's not your fault, any more than Number One was my fault."
'Lt. Scott said that Captain Hall thinks this whole thing might be Titans-related,' Rose signed, hoping that she got her sentence structure correct. 'But I don't get it; Joe hasn't been a Titan in years, and I was never really one to begin with.'
Jessica's head moved slightly in negation. "Not the Titans. The one you described at Donna's last year; your uncle, Wade. He's alive, and he's looking for you -- for both of you." She clutched Joseph's hand weakly. "He wants to kill you. Be careful."
The fury in Joseph's eyes frightened her; she had never seen its like. Even in his confrontations with Number One, Jacques Morel, and his own parents, he had never expressed anything other than a normal anger -- long-suppressed anger, perhaps, but still nothing out of the ordinary. This was different. This crossed the border from anger to hatred, igniting the cold flames of death that flickered in his eyes now.
"No," she ordered sharply, "promise me! Promise me that you won't spill the blood of family! It doesn't matter what he did to me, or to Rose, or even to you, so long ago! Promise me that you won't do this thing, this abomination in the eyes of HaShem!"
He didn't respond immediately. Wade represented everything that had gone wrong in his life, all the times that someone had tried to use him to strike at his parents. He was tired of being preyed upon by people who harbored irrational grudges, tired of devoting all his time and energy to protecting those close to him from the danger that stalked him. If killing Wade finally ended that cycle...
He sighed heavily and closed his eyes. It was a pointless conjecture; he didn't have the ruthlessness needed to kill someone, even someone as deserving as Wade DeFarge. He nodded his agreement to his wife.
"Todah rabah, ahuv," she smiled, relieved. Neither she nor Joseph noticed the look that flashed across Rose's mask-shrouded face, an expression which indicated that she had made no such promise to Jessica, and with good reason. If at all possible, it would be her hand that ended Wade's miserable existence, in retribution for what he had done to her mother.
"We should leave now, Joe," Rose said suddenly, breaking the silence that had settled over the room. He didn't turn to face her; he merely shook his head in negation. She crossed to the other side of Jessica's bed in order to get his full attention. "Do you want her caught in the crossfire again?" she asked, pointing to Jessica, who had drifted back to sleep. That was a low blow, but necessary. "We're the ones he's after; we're the ones with the targets on our backs. If we stay here, we're just asking him to come in here after us." She tossed out her final lure. "Your mother will want to know about this."
Joseph shot out of his chair and ran for the door; Rose followed, uncertain as to why her last statement should have provoked such a response. He had already removed most of his protective clothes by the time she reached the door, and she was hard-pressed to keep up with him. "Joe! What's gotten into you? This sudden rush --"
'My mother,' he signed quickly. 'He's after my mother, too -- he'll target anyone connected to my father. We have to warn her!'
The phone bank in the lobby was deserted. Joseph scanned the machines, irritated that none of them was connected to a TTY. Grabbing the nearest receiver, he handed it to Rose while he dialed his mother's number.
"Um, Adeline? It's Rose -- Rose Worth. Joe wants to warn you about Wade -- oh. No, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Yeah, we'll wait out front. Bye."
She hung up the phone and turned to her brother. "She already knew all about it, even the part about Jess being hurt. Estella must've called her after calling 911. Anyhow, she's sending a battalion of Searchers, Inc. troops to come pick us up; she said they'll be here in ten minutes."
Slightly less than ten minutes later, a long black limo pulled up to the front entrance of Island Medical Center. The back door swung open and they slid onto the backward-facing seat, across from Adeline and Amber. Despite the specially-installed filtration device, the air inside the car still smelled faintly like cigarette smoke.
"Great idea, putting all the eggs in one basket," Rose noted sourly as they pulled away from the curb. "One well-placed pipe bomb, and his work is done."
"If I ran such a sloppy operation, I would deserve to be taken out that easily," Adeline replied coolly. "As it happens, this car is armored and kept under 24-hour surveillance. Wade would have a simpler time getting to me than getting to this car. It's the safest place you could be right now." She turned her attention to Joseph, resting one hand gently on his knee. "Honey, I'm so sorry about Jessica. I'm sure she'll be fine; she's a strong, determined woman, and she's survived worse than this in the past."
Joseph nodded, more to reassure himself than his mother.
"I must admit to feeling more than a little responsible for this situation," she continued. "I used to date Wade, never realizing the fixation he'd developed about me. I called off our relationship years before I married Slade, but in Wade's mind, it never ended. I convinced myself he'd get over it, and ignored all the signs to the contrary. When he attacked you and Grant during our skiing trip in Switzerland, I was stunned; I couldn't believe I'd been that stupid as to entrust you to his care. And here I've gone and done the same damned thing, observing as he went after all of Slade's contacts and never once considering that you might be a target, too. Again."
'No,' Joseph signed angrily, 'it isn't your fault. It's his fault. He chose to do what he's done, just as we've chosen how we'll respond.' He met his mother's eyes with a look of hard determination. 'He has to be stopped, mother. Permanently.'
Startled to hear such sentiments from her son, Adeline made no response. Joseph abhorred violence, always choosing the more lenient, forgiving path. Not this time, apparently. His reaction was understandable, of course, after what Wade had done to Jessica, but it was still shocking. Their final confrontation with Wade, though, would be the telling point; Joseph was known for fighting as hard as he needed to win, then pulling back to allow his opponent to surrender voluntarily. If he did that this time, Wade would use the opportunity to kill him -- or someone else.
Kane Manor was located in upstate New York, nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. A three-and-a-half hour drive from New York City, the seemingly placid estate and its sprawling grounds were as fortified as any top-secret military establishment, only less obviously. It was entirely possible to drive right by and not suspect that the house, barely visible on a distant knoll, was anything unusual.
As they pulled up to the main gate, the driver activated the limo's intercom. "Nightcrawler to Shadowpanther; the shipment has arrived."
"Acknowledged, Nightcrawler. The main loading dock will do. Shadowpanther out."
Rose rolled her eyes. "The first time Wade showed up, he turned my life into a bad horror novel. This time, it's a bad spy thriller. If it shows any signs of becoming a bad Harlequin romance, I swear I'm gonna kill someone."
