Chapter 16

It was well after dark before the security team from the airport arrived and set up shop at the new Chalet. Just before dinner, a deputy with the Sheriff's office brought back their personal weapons, Doug's tablet and the laptops belonging to JJ, Christine, and Lane.

It was too late to do anything that night, but the group agreed that they would plan to leave the following day. The helicopters were laid on and the pilots of the chartered jet notified before everyone sat down to a dinner of takeout from the resort restaurant.

"Doug, don't think because I survived that ... nightmare, that you are forgiven." Christine said between mouthfuls.

"Excuse me? " Doug asked, surprised and confused by the statement.

"You heard me. You are on my shit list. If you had come to me when this whole thing started instead of hiding it from me, I might have been able to help before it went this far. You put my life in danger and, more importantly, JJ's. I may have to forgive you some day, you are my only brother, but you listen close. If JJ had been seriously hurt, I would never have forgiven you." Christine's eyes were full of unshed tears, but her voice was strong, and cold.

"Baby, I knew." JJ said, her voice barely a whisper.

"You knew what?" she asked, confused.

"Doug came to me when it started. I've been helping him all along." she said, not meeting her wife's eyes. "I didn't want to worry you. We had it under control."

"Under control? UNDER CONTROL?" Christine visibly got a hold of herself, got her anger under control, and spent several moment breathing in and out, in and out.

"He is my brother, my baby brother, my only brother. Didn't you think I would want to know? That I had a right to know? I know you two have a special relationship, always have. Hell, sometimes I think you two are closer than we are, but I am your wife and his sister!"

Christine looked more hurt than angry now and, shaking her head, she stood up and pushed back from the table. When JJ went to stand up as well, a single look from Christine had her sinking back into her seat.

As Chris turned away, heading for the bedroom, her parting comment dropped into the room with the emotional equivalent of an atomic bomb.

"I should have let you fuck him before boot camp like you wanted, maybe you would have gotten over it already."

Doug sat there stunned, not believing his own ears. He didn't look at JJ, didn't dare. If it were true, he would see it in her eyes, they had always been that close. If it were not true, he would see that too and know his sister was being hateful, an almost equally painful realization.

Aside from the shock and even the pain that hearing that caused, there was the awful realization that Lane had heard it too. He turned his head and looked her way. Her expression was thoughtful, rather than shocked, as he met her eyes. He could see that she had questions, but he knew she would wait until they were alone.

Looking across the table at Carol, he saw that her face was set in her professional mask of polite indifference, but her eyes were bright and focused on him. Stella was just looking a bit confused, but more about the reaction from the table instead of the comment itself.

Doug steeled himself and turned towards JJ, but she wasn't in her chair any more. He found her, striding purposefully out of the room towards the front of the house, cell phone in hand.

"I don't fucking care where you find one, I want a car here in the next ten god damned minutes. Make sure there is a plane waiting, I want to be in Miami before dawn," and she was gone. Doug turned his chair, wanting to go after her, afraid to go after her. The slamming of the front door told him that he had waited too long to decide.

Doug was suddenly exhausted; too much, too fast, too long without sleep. He knew he should go and comfort his sister, but he was afraid that he didn't have the energy.

Lane took his hand, her face showing her concern, and tilted her head back towards the bedrooms.

Once inside the room, stripped down and laying in bed, Lane put her head on his shoulder and snuggled up to him.

"You want to talk about it, Tiger?" she knew he was having a hard time with that parting remark. He had a remarkably close relationship with JJ, had admitted to being in love with her as a teen, but was he still?

Doug just shook his head, then shrugged. "Hell, I don't know what to say. What do you say to something like that anyway?"

"Do you love her?"

"Christine or JJ?"

"Do you love her?" she asked again, not fooled by his evasion.

"Yes. I guess I always have. She chose Christine before I ever got around to showing her I was interested, and I respected that. We moved on, she and I. She married my sister, I went into the Army, and now I have you."

Lane was quiet, her hand slowly stroking his chest, almost absentmindedly.

"Lane? This doesn't change how I feel about you. I love you, make no mistake about that, okay?"

"Oh, I know."

"So why am I freaking out over your reaction?" Doug asked, tilting his head to try and see her face.

Lane pulled back and rolled to her stomach, propping her chin on her hands and her elbows on the mattress.

"I was just thinking how hard it must be for both of them. Your sister knows that her wife also loves someone else. That she desires someone else, enough to ask for permission at one time. For JJ, now hard must it be? She loves your sister, there is no doubt in my mind. She loves you too, no doubt there either, I could see it the day we met. I didn't realize it was romantic love, though the signs were there." She sighed, looking up at him.

"Do you believe that there is one person out there for everyone? One soul mate?"

Doug shrugged. "I never really thought about it. It all seemed so ... distant. I never connected with anyone on a really romantic level, not until I met you. Well, other than JJ, and I thought that was totally one sided, so it didn't count."

"I think that that it is silly to believe in the one soul mate. With billions of people in the world, what are the chances of meeting that person? Almost zero, I think we have several, perhaps even thousands of people we can connect to, bond with, love and be loved by. Still hard to find, but it makes love sound less impossible."

Lane rolled back onto her side and scooted next to him again, putting her head back on his shoulder and draping herself across him with a sigh.

"I know that I love you, Doug Ramos. That is enough for me."

The flight back to Miami was a quiet one. Christine was withdrawn, not engaging with anyone. She had been heartbroken when she had learned that JJ left, and had tried calling her a dozen times or more that morning but with no answer. Doug tried to get her to talk, but she would just shake her head, saying that she needed to talk to her wife.

Lane was quiet too, but still lovingly supportive. He hadn't pushed her on the topic, but he was sure that their discussion was not over either.

When the plane landed, they were met by a trio of blacked out and obviously armored Suburbans, courtesy of Intrepid Security Solutions, but JJ was not one of the people in the vehicles. She had even thought to include a wheelchair, a manually powered, folding version that fit easily in the storage area of the big vehicles.

When Doug arrived at his apartment, Lane stopped at the door and kissed him, a passionate, no-nonsense, "I want you" kind of kiss, but didn't move to go inside.

"I have things to do, Tiger, but I will be back tonight, I promise. Carol, can you get me an escort? I need to go and see my boss about my next trip, but I should be ready to leave the building in about fifteen minutes, if that is okay."

Carol nodded but didn't reply, making a hand gesture to one of the armed security in the hall, then walking in to clear the apartment. When she gave the all-clear, Stella followed.

Doug looked worried, and clung to Lane's hand for a moment longer. "I am sorry I dragged you in to this. Please be careful out there."

She just smiled and laid her hand on his cheek.

In the apartment, Doug checked on his office, finding one of JJ's security people was still there. Along one wall, connected by cables strewn across the floor, were several new black boxes, each one about the size of a desktop computer case. The security man at the desk turned when he heard the wheelchair, nodding at Doug, then turned back to the cameras again.

"Fillipe, right?" Doug asked, advancing into the room. He remembered Carol telling him that the man was ex-military, having served with the 10th Mountain Division, a first rate outfit.

"Yes sir." Fillipe said, seeming pleased that Doug had remembered.

"What are the new boxes?"

"One DVR and the rest are uninterruptible power supplies, backup batteries. The boss wanted duplicate records for the feeds and she put all the cameras, and your system, on the UPS's as well, just in case. A tech is supposed to come by tomorrow to clean it up, make it part of your system. This is just the initial setup, make sure it all works." he answered, pointing out the units as he identified them.