Chapter 4

The escort from the Court back to the K5 was sadly lacking. Our entourage was a motorcycle cop and two cabs ... ours and Charles William's. He rode down to the harbor and had his cab wait.

"You know," he said as he walked into the salon, "I knew as soon as you told me to take a dollar out of the jar that you had somehow managed to come back. Life isn't like the KJV is it?"

"It doesn't seem to be ... some people ... people closer to the old ways recognize us as the twins straight away ... science, on the other hand, demands we be the Anderson couple."

"How did it start?"

"In 1998, I was a colonel in the special forces getting ready to retire ... the Pentagon has no use for warriors when there's no war." I said. "We ... our unit ... went places we didn't go, to countries we might have been allies with, and didn't meet people who had strayed from the acceptable path and weren't amenable to mending their ways. You could call us the Reapers. As you have sowed so shall you reap, could have been our shoulder patch ... if we had shoulder patches ... if we wore uniforms ... if we existed.

"Last mission and a wakeup sort of thing. I was never going to be a general ... not even as a retirement gift.

"Thirty-two years from now, my Gunnery Sergeant had been selling weapons over the fence for years and we finally caught him at it ... I caught him at it ... He gassed me ... straight into the ground ... ball of jelly ... dead ... except I didn't ... die. They ... we all know who they are ... sent me back to be a kid ... in my family ... that's how I knew the derby winners.

"I was supposed to change things ... I did. You are here. In my first life, you died in 1959. I must have been doing a piss poor job because I died this year in Vietnam and got resurrected in 1942..."

"You talked at birth."

"Yup ... you remembered ... and Grace was born fifteen minutes later ... mother died ... probably the best thing that ever happened to you ... surely the best thing that happened to me ... the first go round she hated me with a passion ... she didn't like you very much either. Mother would have been best off single. She probably married because that's what women did and mom was a great believer in societies rules.

"Grace and I were inevitable ... twins ... the most beautiful girl in the world? We were going to breed ... if it was the last thing we ever did ... it was. We died in each others arms.

"This Anderson thing ... I have a feeling ... I shouldn't say ... but, I think this is it. I don't think that THEY did this. There's something else out here running this show." I made gesture that included Grace and Daddy.

"David ... Grace ... it's love." Daddy coughed and wiped his nose ... and a secret swipe at his eyes while he had his pocket hanky out. He hemmed..."I need an Austin signature on some paperwork from both of you ... it's predated, we're pretending it was found in the auction of the California house. Strong Bicycles is being sold ... Arnold is a multimillionaire but he needs paperwork so," he opened the Lawyer Briefcase, "Sign here and here ... Grace ... here and here."

He took out another document, "Do you care ... really ... what happens to the Price Road property?"

Neither of us did and said so.

"Sign here, here, initial here, here, here and sign here. This gives the entire acreage to the Trust."