Chapter 5: The Healing

Miami, Florida

November 24, 1998

Jake had never been a fan of the cellular phone. Even though he owned one, it was only out of necessity and he did not enjoy the luxury of being able to communicate with anyone at any time, or to have anyone attempt to communicate with him. He did have to admit, however, that the cell phone did make it much easier for a celebrity such as himself to pick people up at the airport without being recognized and mobbed—particularly right now, while the Celia Valdez pregnancy and abortion scandal was in full swing and he was known to be one of Celia’s close acquaintances (although his name was still not being suggested as a possible father to the embryo that was alleged to have been aborted).

At 6:45 PM, while Jake was sitting in a rented Lincoln Navigator in the free parking area out beyond the long-term parking lot of Miami International Airport, his cell phone began to ring in the cup holder between the two front seats. He picked it up, looked at the screen, and saw the name and number of Meghan Zachary, the Kingsley’s nanny, displayed there. He was not surprised. Meghan was who he was here to pick up and the Boeing 767 from Los Angeles that she and Caydee Kingsley had been flying on had been scheduled to land at 6:05.

He flipped open the phone and put it to his ear. “Hey, Meghan,” he said. “Arrived safely?”

“Hi, Jake,” she replied. “Yes, we did. We just got our baggage from the claim area and we’re heading for the Delta arrival terminal now.”

“Awesome,” Jake said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m in a white Lincoln Navigator.”

“That’s one of those big SUV things, right?”

“Right,” he said.

It actually took him closer to ten minutes to navigate the Navigator through the heavy traffic of the busy airport and make it to the terminal in question. Once there, he found that other vehicles were stacked three wide along the entire length of the loading zone. It took another lap around the terminal and a precarious parallel parking maneuver in the outside loading lane before he was able to shut off the engine and step out.

There was a large crowd of people on the sidewalk and in the loading areas. Jake scanned the sidewalk crowd. He finally spotted the most distinctive feature of the duo he was looking for: Caydee’s copper colored hair. She was riding in the backpack carrier on Meghan’s back. The nanny was wearing a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a navy-blue blouse. She had two large, wheeled suitcases with her, one of which had a carry-on bag stacked atop it. She looked a bit harried as her eyes tracked back and forth, searching for him.

“Meghan! Over here!” Jake yelled, waving his hand at her. She saw him and then smiled and began rolling her burden in his direction. Jake, after making sure he had the keys to the Navigator in hand, trotted toward her so he could help her. Halfway there, Caydee saw him and her eyes lit up.

“Dada!” she yelled. “Dada here!”

“I told you your daddy would be here,” Meghan said.

“Hey, Caydee girl,” he greeted, smiling at her warmly and caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. He had missed her.

“Owe me, Dada!” Caydee demanded.

“Daddy will hold you in a minute,” he promised. “Let me help Meghan with all this stuff first.”

“Dada elp May-kin,” she said, agreeably enough.

He grabbed one of the suitcases from her and slung the carry-on over his shoulder. They began to weave back toward the SUV. As they went, a few people obviously recognized him. He saw the whispered words, the pointed fingers and he sighed. So far, the press did not know where Jake, Celia, and Laura had gone when they left the Marriott of Charlotte just after noon today. A few of the more rambunctious reporters and paparazzi had tried to follow them but Jake lost them by driving aggressively and borderline recklessly long before they got to Concord Airport where the Avanti was parked. And since none of the media people knew that he had flown his own plane to Charlotte, it had not occurred to anyone to check the flight plans that had been filed. It had been a successful getaway but now their cover was potentially blown. Not that it really mattered though. They would be leaving Miami in the morning and heading southeast.

Thankfully, no one approached them—a much welcome small favor. “How was the flight?” he asked as he opened the large hatchback of the Navigator.

“It was okay,” Meghan said. “Just long, but sitting in first class helps with that. It was a little bumpy when we went over the Rockies, but nothing big. Caydee slept most of the way.”

“She gets that from her mother,” Jake said.

“And when she wasn’t sleeping, she entertained the other passengers by singing the ‘uv-eww song’. She’s really getting pretty good at it. She got lots of smiles and compliments on her voice.”

Jake grinned as he heard this. “That, she gets from me,” he said proudly. The ‘uv-eww song’, also known as Nights in White Satin, by the Moody Blues, was one of her favorites. And, while most people who did not hate children found it cute when an almost one-year-old sang, Caydee brought that cuteness up a few notches when she decided to vocalize (which she often did). Her voice was very sweet and she was quite capable of singing in time and in key, though she could not pronounce most of the actual words.

After tossing the suitcases and the carry-on into the cargo compartment, Jake pulled his daughter out of the backpack and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. She returned his kiss with several of her own and then raspberried his chin. “Tow me, Dada!” she ordered once the kissing and hugging was done. “Tow me air!”

“Okay,” he told her, “but just once. You know that Mommy and Meghan don’t like it when I do that.”

She expressed her opinion on this. “Fuck it!” she told him, scandalizing a sixtyish year-old couple that was loading their baggage into a Buick right next to them.

He laughed and then tossed her into the air about three feet above his head. She giggled wildly as he caught her and swung her in a wide arc. He finished up the maneuver with an extended raspberry to her tummy.

“Tow me gin!” she demanded when she stopped giggling.

“No again,” he said. “I told you only once.”

“Pleeeeeea?” she begged.

“While I appreciate your use of the word ‘please’, Caydee-girl, I must still decline another throw. Daddies have to stick to their word, both for good and bad things.”

“Awww,” she pouted.

“Get used to disappointment in life,” he said lightly. “It’s part of being a member of the human race. Now come on. Let’s go see Mommy and Celia.”

“Mama!” Caydee cried happily. “See-ya!”

“That’s right,” he said. “They’re at the hotel. Let’s get our booties over there, shall we?”

“Boo-dees,” she said, giggling again at the word.

He strapped her into the car seat that had been in the Avanti and then he and Meghan climbed into the front, Jake behind the wheel. As he started working his way out of the airport and back toward I-95 which would take them to the Miami Marriott Hotel, Meghan asked him how Celia was doing.

“She’s physically okay now, all things considered,” Jake told her. “All the press coverage and speculation is not helping her mental state though.”

Meghan nodded. “There have been some pretty nasty rumors about her,” she said carefully.

“Yes,” Jake said. “That’s the down side of being famous. All of your personal business gets thrown out into the world.”

“It’s ... uh ... not true what they’re saying about her ... right?” she asked hesitantly.

“About her having an ectopic pregnancy?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “They’re just making that up ... aren’t they?”

Jake sighed. He and Celia and Laura had already discussed what to tell Meghan about the situation. They had unanimously agreed to tell her the truth. She was pretty much a member of the family at this point and Jake and Celia both trusted her to keep personal information about their lives private. Celia did not know her as well, but she knew enough to trust her discretion. After all, Meghan had known the entire time about the three of them and had not said a word to anyone, not even her sister, who was the person she was closest to in the world. “They’re not making it up,” he said. “That is what happened. Celia ended up with an unplanned pregnancy and because she has narrowing of her fallopian tubes, the embryo lodged in the tube and ruptured it. She almost died.”

Meghan’s eyes grew wide. “Wow,” she said. “Really?”

“Really,” he said dryly. “I certainly would not make up something like that.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” she said. “Does that mean that ... uh ... that the person who got her pregnant is ... uh...”

“It was me,” he confirmed. “I’m the only male she has been with so there is really no doubt about it.”

“Wow,” she said again. “I’m so sorry for her ... and for you too.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. “It’s a little bit of a mind screw.”

“Is Laura okay?” Meghan asked next. “This has got to be a little ... you know ... weird for her too, right?”

“We’re all coping with the situation,” Jake said. “Celia wants to get out of the country for a little bit while she recovers. She wants to see her family. And she wants us to be there with her. That’s why we had you fly Caydee to Miami for us.”

“Caydee fie!” she yelled from her car seat. “Caydee fie kie!”

“You certainly did fly in the sky, didn’t you Caydee?” Meghan asked, smiling at her. She then turned back to Jake. “How did the reporters find out about what happened?”

“Someone blabbed their mouths,” he said sourly. “Probably more than one someone.”

“But that’s against the law,” Meghan said with all the righteousness a twenty-two-year-old upper-middle-class white girl could muster.

“Yeah, so is murder but that happens a lot too. This was just too juicy of a story to expect that everyone involved in it would keep their mouths shut.”

“What’s the official story?” she asked, meaning the story they were telling the public.

“Just what we said in the press releases and my little press conference: That she had a major medical problem that required surgery. It’s no one’s business what the problem was.”

“Do you think anyone believes that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “As long as we don’t verify the information or someone doesn’t give actual copies of her medical records to a reporter, she can maintain plausible deniability. In time, this will fade away like everything else.”

“The cocaine from the butt crack thing never faded away, did it?” she asked.

“No, but it lost some of its teeth after a while. Sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.”

Jake and Laura had offered to pay to let Meghan bring someone with her on her Caydee delivery mission—her sister, her mother, a friend, a boyfriend even—but she had declined this offer, stating that her sister had her own baby to take care of and her mother had her shop to take care of and she really did not have any female friends and she most certainly did not have a boyfriend currently. Now that she was in Miami with them, they put her up in a suite next to theirs and told her she could stay there as long as she wanted and enjoy a little vacation at their expense while they moved on to South America. She declined this offer as well, telling them she would rather just fly home tomorrow and sleep in her own bed.

“You don’t even want to go check out Miami Beach?” Laura asked. “I mean, you’re right here, less than twenty minutes away.”

“We’ll get you a rental car,” Jake added.

She shook her head. “The last time I was at a beach I didn’t have such a good time,” she said. “I’m just going to read in my room tonight and head home as early as you can get me a flight.”

Jake and Laura remembered her background report and nodded understandingly. “Whatever you want, Meghan,” Jake told her. “I’ll book you on the first nonstop back to LA.”

“Thanks,” said Meghan, who did not know or even suspect that they would understand her aversion to tropical cities and tropical beaches where lots of drinking went on.

Jake found a 9:15 AM nonstop to LAX and booked her a seat in first-class. It would work out perfectly. They could drop her at MIA at 8:15 AM and then head over to Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport southwest of downtown Miami where the Avanti was currently parked and where they had rented the Navigator. Jake had already filed his international flight paperwork and had specified to the authorities in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela the approximate time they would be touching down. Meghan’s drop-off time fit neatly into this plan.

Since they were still trying to keep a low profile, they ate a late dinner in the suite that Jake, Laura, Celia, and Caydee were sharing. Once the dishes and trays were sitting outside the door for collection, Meghan went to her own suite to relax and read (and maybe play with herself in the whirlpool tub, she thought naughtily) and Caydee was put to bed in her new portable crib that Laura had purchased for her today (Jake had taken measurements so they could be sure it would fit easily in the cargo compartment of the Avanti). Caydee did not go down easily since her body was still on west coast time and she had slept for more than four hours on the plane, but eventually she wound down and drifted off to sleep.

Jake checked the time on his watch. It was 10:25 PM. He had time for a drink or two before the eight-hour bottle to throttle rule came into effect. He mixed up a rum and coke for himself and opened a bottle of good chardonnay for Celia and Laura. They sat on the couch and talked of neutral things while they drank—the status of Jake’s new CD (it was being delayed considerably by all the goings on, but he did not mention that), the status of V-tach’s new CD (it was sounding very impressive and ahead of schedule since Jake was not taking half of the rehearsal time of late), the Matt Tisdale situation (he was still recovering at home, faithfully attending his cardiac rehab classes, amazingly enough)—staying well away from anything to do with why they were in Miami or Celia’s own tour.

At around 11:10, once the bottle of chardonnay was gone and Jake had two rum and cokes in his system, they turned out the lights in the main room of the suite where Caydee’s crib was and went to the bedroom. Celia stripped off her clothes except for her panties and put on a long t-shirt. Jake and Laura both looked longingly at her body as she did this. They had slept in the same bed with her the last two nights in Charlotte, even cuddling up with her, but no sexual activity had taken place between anyone. Celia had been told by Dr. Jenkins to abstain from vaginal intercourse (or any other sexual activity that involved her vagina) for at least four weeks. None of the three of them tried to initiate any alternate sexual practices during those two nights. Jake and Laura both assumed that Celia would not be in the mood for such a thing and both thought it would be uncouth if they did anything with each other while she was present. Tonight, however, despite the recent circumstances, both of the Kingsleys were now horny as hell. It had been five days since they had enjoyed each other last and whether it was appropriate or not, they were in the mood for love and the sight of Celia’s naked flesh and supple breasts stirred that wanting to a near boil.

Still, both figured that loving was not in the cards for now. It was time to be tough and ride out the storm. Jake stripped down to his underwear and climbed into the middle of the bed. Laura stripped off her clothes except her panties and put on a long t-shirt of her own. She climbed into bed on Jake’s left. Celia climbed in on Jake’s right side.

“Goodnight, sweetie,” Laura told her husband, leaning over to give him a kiss.

“Goodnight,” he told her.

“And goodnight, love,” she told Celia, leaning over Jake to give her a kiss as well.

“Goodnight,” Celia said. She then turned to Jake. “You made the call to the desk for wakeup?”

“I did,” he confirmed. “6:30.”

“Ugg,” Celia grunted. “That’s early.”

“Yep,” he agreed sourly.

“Well ... goodnight,” Celia told him. “Sleep tight.”

“You too,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. It was a soft kiss, one that lingered just a bit.

They turned off the lights and settled in. Celia rolled to her side and snuggled into Jake’s body, resting her head on his shoulder, her arm across his abdomen. Laura cuddled into him on the other side, snuggling her face into his armpit and her leg over his. Jake put his arms around both of them, his body sandwiched between the two of them, his left hand reaching down and cupping Laura’s left breast. The moment he felt the softness and the warmth of all the female flesh against him, his body began to respond in the predictable manner. Blood started to flow down below and all his mind could think about was how nice it would feel to sink into some of that flesh about now.

He tried to will his arousal away and go into sleep mode but his body was having none of that. As his member started to unfold itself and stiffen up, he removed his hand from Laura’s boob and shuffled his leg away from Celia’s silky-smooth thigh a little, hoping that the reduction of sensation would make the erection go away. It did not. He could still feel their soft bodies against him and could still smell their feminine scents. His schlong continued to grow until it was as rigid as a rail spike. Jake knew that sleep was not going to come easy in this condition.

His situation was not made easier when Celia put her leg back against his and snuggled even tighter against him. It was quite clear that she wanted to feel his body against hers for the comfort and intimacy. And Laura took his hand in hers and guided it back to her breast, non-verbally insisting that it stay there. He felt the smooth thigh against his, the wonderful feel of Laura’s breast and hard nipple through her shirt, and shuddered a little in arousal. You two are killing me, he thought desperately.

And then Celia, just to make herself more comfortable, moved her arm down a little and her forearm came into contact with the bulging protrusion of his manhood. He heard her take in a sharp intake of breath.

“Jake,” she whispered. “You’re hard.”

“Uh ... yeah, I know,” he whispered back.

“He’s hard?” Laura whispered from her side. “You mean his dick?”

“It’s hard as a rock,” Celia said with a little giggle, the first they had heard her utter since their arrival in Charlotte.

Laura reached down and slid her hand beneath his underwear, grasping him. “Oh my,” she said with a giggle of her own. “It’s a boner.”

“Yeah ... uh ... sorry,” Jake said. “I can’t help it. Having the two of you against me ... uh ... you know ... simple biology?”

“Why would you want to help it?” Celia asked. “Isn’t a hardon a good thing?”

“Not under these circumstances,” Jake said. “Right?”

“What’s wrong with these circumstances?” Celia asked.

“Well ... after what you’ve just been through,” Jake said, “and the fact you can’t ... you know ... participate right now even if you want to ... I thought that getting aroused might seem a little ... you know ... inappropriate.”

“I am actually quite pleased that you have a hardon,” Celia told her.

“But you’re not allowed to do anything with it,” Laura said. “Right?”

“That’s not the point,” Celia said softly. “I was afraid that you and Jake would ... uh ... not want to do that with me anymore after what happened.”

“Why would you think that?” Laura asked.

“Because I got pregnant from doing it with you,” she said. “And I lost the baby. And I almost died because of it. In my mind, that was something that might turn you off.”

“Amazing,” Jake said, shaking his head a little.

“What’s amazing?” Celia asked.

“We were worried you wouldn’t want to do things with us anymore for the exact same reason.”

“Really?” Celia asked.

“Really,” Laura replied.

“That is simply not the case,” Celia said. “I know I can’t have Jake’s dick inside of me right now, and I know that I can’t have your lips or tongue down there either, Teach, but I am soaking wet right now from feeling Jake’s body against mine, from being in the same bed with the two of you. I most definitely want to do it.”

“Oh, love,” Laura said, leaning over Jake and giving her a long, sexy kiss on the mouth. “I wish we could.”

“It is what it is,” Celia said, a little breathless now. “In the meantime, however, there is no reason why you two can’t do it.”

“Right here?” Jake said. “When you aren’t able to participate?”

“Isn’t that kind of rude?” Laura asked.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen you two fuck before,” she said. “And I can participate a little bit. I still have hands. And I still have a mouth.”

A minute later, Laura’s panties and Jake’s underwear were on the floor of the suite next to the bed and Laura was impaled on Jake’s erection, moving her hips up and down. Celia participated as much as she could. She slid her hands up under Laura’s t-shirt and squeezed and palpated her bare breasts, frequently tweaking the nipples. And she attacked Jake with her mouth, alternating between tongue kissing him and licking, sucking, and biting his neck and earlobes. He barely managed to hold off long enough for Laura to have an orgasm.

And just like that, the real healing began.

They lifted off from Kendall-Tamiami Executive at 9:20 AM the next morning, Jake behind the controls, Celia sitting in the copilot’s seat, Laura and Caydee in the seats behind them. The egress pattern took them just to the north of downtown Miami and its high-rises. They then went feet-wet over the Atlantic Ocean, where he turned to the southeast and headed further out over the open water than he had ever piloted an aircraft before. He was more than a little nervous about this, but he did not let it show. Everything would be fine as long as nothing went wrong.

The Avanti had a range of 1600 miles and a direct flight to Caracas from Miami was just a little over 1300 miles, so he could have made the flight in one hop of just under four and a half hours but had chosen not to do so for several reasons. In the first place, he would have had to take off with full fuel tanks and a cargo hold full of luggage, thus putting his weight a little closer to the maximum than he really cared for. He also would have had to fly further out over the open water on that routing after passing directly over the country of Cuba, which, though they allowed an international air corridor over their territory that was open to all traffic, was not exactly the friendliest nation to citizens of the United States. And finally, a direct flight would have left him with only a forty-five-minute fuel reserve in case of strong headwinds, a diversion to an alternate airfield, or some other issue that would delay landing. That was technically within safety parameters established by the FAA and other nations’ regulators, but it was the absolute minimum allowed for an IFR flight and about thirty minutes less than Jake, as a pilot, felt comfortable with, especially when his wife and daughter were aboard.

Instead of the direct route, he headed toward Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. This was a flight of 850 miles that would take only two hours and twenty minutes, would require him to only fill his tanks two-thirds full, and would keep him within forty miles of land and seventy-five miles of an emergency landing field at all times. Granted, a good stretch of that land was in Cuba, as were more than half of the potential emergency landing fields since the route took them along the east coast of the communist island nation, but that was still better (in Jake’s mind, anyway) than flying directly over their territory.

He hand-flew the aircraft until reaching his cruising altitude of thirty-three thousand feet and then let the autopilot take it. The day was beautiful, with bright blue skies and just a few scattered clouds about twenty thousand feet below. The water was a rich blue in color and seemingly smooth as glass from this altitude, marred only by the sparse smattering of V-shaped wakes from sea vessels. The only drawback was the sun. It was pretty much directly in front of them, still fairly low in the sky, and it glared in through the windscreen. Jake had his aviator sunglasses on to combat the brightness and Celia wore a spare pair that he kept just for such occasions. Even Caydee sported a baby pair of aviator shades in her car seat. She was, of course, sound asleep like usual (as was Laura), but she did look incredibly cute in them. Cute enough that Celia snapped a few pictures of her as she dozed.

They passed over the island of Andros, which was the largest, though least densely populated island of the Bahamas. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to make the flyover and Jake and Celia both enjoyed the scenery of the tropical island with its mountains and large areas of marshland, bays, and estuaries. Once they were over the water again, they were officially over the Caribbean Sea. Below, small islands were visible here and there, most of which did not have airstrips on them, many of which did not even have names. The density of the boat traffic was greater as well, with more wakes visible and more container ships and tankers which were big enough to be identified from this height.

“Aren’t we in the Bermuda Triangle now?” Celia asked, though she did not seem to be the least bit worried about this.

“No,” Jake said, “we were until we passed south of Andros, but now we’re paralleling the southeast angle of it for the rest of the flight, about forty miles outside of it.”

“Well ... okay then,” she said with a smile. “I guess we’re safe now.”

“Yep,” Jake agreed, taking a sip from his thermos of iced green tea. “The aliens will have to try to catch us on the way back.”

“Fuck it,” Caydee mumbled from behind them, making both of them laugh.

They traveled on, just barely able to make out the coast of Cuba far off to the right side and then it disappeared behind them. The clouds grew a little thicker. After about thirty more minutes of flying, the island of Hispaniola came into view through the gaps in the cloud cover. They made landfall over the nation of Haiti and then turned a bit more to the east. Just after they passed over the border into the Dominican Republic, Jake was given clearance to begin his descent for an ILS approach to Runway 17.

They saw little of the DR as they made the approach. The cloud cover was now pretty uniform, allowing them only the occasional glimpse of green or brown terrain below. The plane began to bump and bounce around in the unstable air, making Celia grasp her seat nervously. Laura remained sound asleep but Caydee woke up

“Bum-eez!” she said happily. “Bum-eez, Dada! Bum-eez, See-ya!”

“That’s right Caydee-girl,” Jake told her. “It’s the bumpies.”

Caydee smiled and squealed happily as the cabin bounced around. Unlike Celia, she actually enjoyed the bumpies. In her opinion, the bumpies were the greatest thing since baggies full of Cheerios and sippy-cups.

Jake, thanks to Suzie telling him he did not have a hair on his ass when she helped him get the plane home from South America after purchase, had long since learned to trust his ILS system, which was a good thing because the clouds covered almost the entire island of Hispaniola and the ceiling was only eighteen hundred feet. He was guided onto the approach path by an air traffic controller with a heavy Hispanic accent and then was engulfed in the clouds. By the time they broke through and he could see the ground and the wet, rain-soaked runway ahead of him, he had already achieved capture and the plane was descending on final approach. He pulled the flap lever and the sound of the machinery coupled with the noticeable slowing of the aircraft woke up Laura.

She blinked her eyes a few times and then yawned. “Are we here?” she asked, which was what she always asked at such times.

“Just about,” Jake said, giving her his standard answer to that question.

He touched down on the centerline and let the plane roll out and slow down without using the reverse thrust (once he got over the novelty of having it, he rarely used it anymore). He followed the ground controller’s directions to the international terminal and parked just behind the terminal building, in space number 17. Already waiting there were three uniformed and armed men, one of whom had a Labrador retriever on a leash.

Jake sighed. “Looks like we’re going through this gauntlet again.”

“Yep,” said Laura with a sigh of her own. “Should I just take my bag full of dirty panties out now and hand them over?”

They were indeed interrogated (politely at least) and had their plane and luggage examined by humans and the dog while they stood on the tarmac in the misty rain of Las Américas airport. The customs officers did indeed spend an inordinate amount of time examining Laura’s and Celia’s dirty underwear. This, despite the fact that the foursome was not even entering the country, but simply stopping for fuel and a little lunch inside the terminal building before moving on to another sovereign nation. Caydee helped the situation considerably. She showed absolutely no fear of the armed and uniformed officers and charmed them quite thoroughly when she asked their leader to “owe me” and held out her arms to him. He smiled and held her for a few minutes, long enough for one of his underlings to snap a picture of him with Jake, Celia, and Laura in the shot. Caydee was then allowed to play with and pet the doggie that they had. The lab licked her face happily, making her giggle and squeal. Several pictures were taken of this as well, a few by Celia, but mostly by the customs officers. They were soon cleared to go into the terminal to score a little Dominican lunch at the café.