Page 14 of No Quarter

If only I could do the same for Mom, she thought, looking out the window.

Something flew past the glass. It was a blur. Valerie wondered if she was the only one to have seen it or not.

As Tom and Suzie laughed and joked with each other, a sense of dread returned. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the small transparent bag.

“What’s that?” Suzie asked, breaking away from her conversation with Tom.

Valerie opened the bag and produced a cotton swab.

“It’s to swab the inside of your cheek,” she said.

“You really want to know if we have the same dad?” Suzie said. “I think you should leave it alone.”

Valerie looked at Suzie. She rarely pleaded with her.

“Valerie,” Suzie said, her tone now changing to frustration. “I don’t want to drag up stuff from the past. I’m barely functioning in the present. Can we just leave it?”

“I can’t,” Valerie said. “I have to know.”

“I don’t want any part of this,” she said, crossing her arms. “You never know when to leave things alone. Maybe the truth will be worse than our fiction.”

“Suzie, please...”

“No!” she said, loudly. “I can deal with Dad abandoning us. I know who he is and what he is. You bring this other stuff ... It’s going to set me back.”

Valerie leaned over and touched her sister’s hand. “Please, Sis. I can’t let this go. It’s keeping me awake at night. It’s all I think about. I feel sick.”

Suzie paused for a moment and then let out a sigh.

“Oh, hurry up, then,” Suzie said. “I can’t stand those puppy dog eyes.”

“Thank you, Sis.”

Suzie opened her mouth and Valerie swabbed the inside of her cheek before placing the swab in a small vial and sealing it.

“Thank you,” Valerie offered, again feeling guilty for pushing her sister into it.

“Now what?” Suzie asked.

“I send off Dad’s and yours to a friend in Quantico at the Mesmer building,” Valerie said. “He’ll test both against my own DNA. Then we’ll know.”

Suzie didn’t say much.

Something flew past the window again, but this time, Valerie only saw its shadow on the floor. No one else reacted to it.

Valerie’s phone suddenly rang. An obscure song from the Seattle sound played as the ring tone.

“You still love that song, huh?” Suzie smiled.

“Hello,” Valerie said, answering.

“Agent Law…”

Valerie knew the voice immediately. It was that of her boss Jackson Weller.

His voice carried with it a deep undertow of seriousness and worry.

Valerie knew there and then that she needed to put her family problems temporarily to the side, and that Charlie would have to as well.

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