Time Storm Shockwave (7 page)

Dierdra
just smirked at him while pulling away. She yelled through the wind at Mark, a menacing smile on her face, “See you soon.”

Ashlyn was there beside him,
“Why didn’t you shoot her?”

He gawked at her. He hadn’t even considered doing that.

“I told you to give me the gun.” She grabbed it out of his hand, and shot at Dierdra, but with the boats pitching, there was already too much distance between them.

He followed Ashlyn back to the aft deck where they watched the boat shrink into oblivion. “I couldn’t kill her. I’ve never killed anyone.”

They stood there in silence. Finally, she said, “I’m not mad at you, I just want her dead!”

Mark winced at
Ashlyn’s coldness, “But she’s your sister?”

She
stared at him, mouth open, and then insisted, “She is not my sister!—” Ashlyn closed her eyes, and when she opened them again said “—She’s not my sister, she’s my clone.”

Chapter 7

The best relationships—friendship and otherwise—tend to be

those where you ‘can say’ anything to the other person but you ‘don’t say’ everything. — Audrey Beth Stein

~

“What—” Mark asked “—h
ow is that even possible?” 

The wind was
still blowing, and their voices had been hushed until that question. Stewart had not heard what she had said, but he heard Mark’s alarmed voice clearly over the ambient noise, and sat up suddenly.

Stewart
forced his battered body off the couch, and limped over to where the others were standing. An incredulous look still covered Mark’s face.

“What’s going on?” Stewart was holding his stomach
, and he looked worse than ever—his strength entirely gone.

They didn’t answer
him.

Ashlyn
was preoccupied with watching Mark’s reaction. “You had an easier time believing in time travel?”

Mark
stared at his feet. “It’s not that I don’t believe it’s possible—” he glanced back up at her, a troubled expression contorting his face and then he gazed out at the water and shook his head slightly “—I just hoped that no one would do it.”

He met her eyes;
clearly, she was not happy about it either. He turned to Stewart as if seeing him for the first time. Ashlyn followed Mark’s gaze, and for the first time, fully took in Stewart’s miserable appearance.

“Hey
guys”—Stewart looked as if he might pass out—“what’s going on?”

Mark started to answer, but
then realized that he never gotten a name. He turned to Ashlyn, “What’s her name?”

“It’s
Dierdra”—Stewart interjected—“what’s going on?”

Mark was surprised that Stewart already knew, but then remembered that the two had spent plenty of time together. Of course, she would have told him.

“Dierdra is—” Mark hesitated “—well …She is Ashlyn’s clone.”

Mark
wouldn’t have believed it possible, but Stewart suddenly looked worse than he already had, and his mouth dropped.

“What
—” Stewart asked, sounding drugged “—how?”

Ashlyn turned
to him, stepped closer, and touched his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you taken care of, we can talk later.”

Too overwhelmed to argue, he followed her
down to his room, and then she went up into the galley. She mixed up a concoction, poured it into a glass, and took it to him.

“Drink this,” she prompted
, and helped him to sit up.

It was green
and looked disgusting. He studied her imploringly, “Do I have to?” He sounded like a child.

“Yes
Stewart”—she answered gently—“it will make you feel better, I promise.”

“What’s in it?”

She cringed almost imperceptively. “You really don’t want to know. Just trust me, okay?”

He nodded
his acquiescence, and closed his eyes as he poured the liquid down his throat as if not seeing it might make it taste better. She redressed his wounds, and then sat there with him for a few moments stroking his hair softly.

“I am so sorry Stewart. It’s my fault that you got left behind on Bimini.”

His eyes had been closed, but at her revelation, he opened them, and looked at her. “I shouldn’t have left.”

“You were right about some things. Meeting Mark was no accident, but I wasn’t trying to hurt him or get anything from him, and I didn’t think they would hurt you. Why don’t you sleep for now, and when you feel better I will answer all of your questions?”

“Can I ask you one question first?”

“Of course,”
she answered.

“Did you jump off the boat to save Mark, or did you do it to kill Dierdra?”

She smiled, and her eyes misted ever so slightly, “I jumped off the boat to save Mark.”

“Alright
,” he said, seeming satisfied.

Ashlyn pulled Stewart’s blankets over him. He closed his eyes and was fast asleep before she had even left the room.

Back in the salon, Mark had just finished cleaning up the glass from the broken coffee table. He turned to her as she walked in.

“Thanks for taking care of him.”

Her eyes drifted away, “I’m partly responsible for the treatment he got.”

Mark didn’t understand entirely, but there was plenty of time for
questions later. He studied her split lip and spoke quietly, “You look like you need a little first aid yourself.”

She leaned against him and closed her eyes. He put his arms around her and whispered into her ear, “I love you too.”

His delayed, yet timely, response made Ashlyn smile. She looked up at him, and when she did, he leaned down and brushed his lips softly against her cut mouth.

When he pulled his face away
back, she apologized, “Sorry I shoved you off the boat.”

He almost laughed. He had actually forgotten
about that in all the excitement. She put her arms around his neck.

“I can’t believe you did that.” Then he spoke earnestly, “Do not ever
—” he raised an eyebrow for emphasis and pulled her closer “—I repeat, do not ever stop me from protecting you again. Okay?”

A tear rolled down her face, and she shook her head
. “You don’t understand.” She followed her hands with her eyes as she ran them down his chest. Studying her them, she was silent at first. Then she looked up at him, “I can’t let
her
ever hurt you—” she paused and then almost choked on the words “—because she’s me.”

She pulled away from him and walked out onto the aft deck. He waited for a bit and then followed her. He
came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. He pressed his lips against the side of her head and kissed her hair, dry now, but still messy from her swim. It smelled of seawater and wind, and he breathed it in.

He spoke softly into her ear, “She is not you
, and she is nothing like you either; believe me, DNA means nothing.”

When she didn’t say anything, he moved around in front of her. She had tears running down her face, and kept her eyes averted.

“How did they …?” he trailed off, not knowing what to ask.

When she didn’t respond, he led her to the sofa on the back of the aft deck, the very one that they had been hiding behind only hours before. He put his arms around her and held her
tightly.

After a few minutes, she glanced around nervously. “
Do you have any kind of proximity alarms on the ship? Anything to make sure that Dierdra doesn’t show up, and murder us in our sleep, or worse.”

He reflected on her statement for a second. He wasn’t sure what she meant by
or worse
, and somehow, he didn’t think he wanted to know the answer.

“I do have an alarm system. I generally don’t use it when I’m out at sea, but I can turn it on.”

“I think that it would be a very good idea. Also, we should make sure that the communication systems are working again.”

“What do you mean?” Mark hadn’t known that
Dierdra had disabled his radio and satellite telephone.

“I tried calling you right after you left the harbor. I wasn’t surprised. The first thing I would have done is dis
able the communication systems,” Ashlyn answered.

He
felt violated. He hadn’t had time to process fully what had happened, and a shudder ran through him at the realization of what could have occurred.

“I guess we had better check.”

They went together into the pilothouse, and it didn’t take long for Ashlyn to find Dierdra’s sabotage.

“That was quick.”

“We do tend to think alike.” Ashlyn didn’t try to hide her disgust.

“I guess that makes sense,” he said, h
owever, nothing in the last few days had actually made any sense at all.

When they were done securing the boat
, Ashlyn asked, “Why don’t we leave this place?”

She wanted to be as far away from this location as possible. Not only did
Dierdra know where they were, but also it was where they had experienced the time distortion.

“I don’t want to go far because I need to go diving here in the morning.”

“You’ve got to be kidding—” Ashlyn was shocked “—there are people trying to kill you. Why does it matter so much?”

“The
very fact that they are is the reason that I have to go diving. I need to find what it is I’m not supposed to know.”

“Aside from that statement making you sound deranged, what does this spot
have to do with anything?”

“I’m not sure. Why do
you
think they are trying to kill me?”

Ashlyn sat on the sofa in the pilothouse and let out a long breath. “I don’t know. I only know that the people who created her sent her after you.”

“And who is that?”

“It’s quite complicated. I will explain, but you didn’t answer my question. What makes you think it has something to do with diving?”

“
Dierdra
told me.”

Ashlyn did a double take. “What did she say?”

“She told me that I was getting too close, sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. She had my charts and my notes. She had been looking through them. I asked her what they had to do with anything, and she just mocked me for not having figured it out yet.”

Ashlyn
was sitting on the sofa staring out at the ocean.

“Do you have any idea at all?
—” he asked “—I mean, you know who she works for, right?”

“It’s a bioengineering research company called
Neuronex Pathtronix. They have some kind of connection to the military, I think”—Ashlyn threw up her hands—“I never got those details.”

Mark had been standing against the command desk, back to the window, facing her.
He moved across the small room to sit on the sofa next to her.

“You think there’s a military connection?” The idea was troubling, but he wasn’t naive enough to think that the government didn’t cover things up now and then.

“I don’t know—” she answered slowly “—but I do know that there was a Navy admiral involved at some point. I saw him a few times. I don’t know whether he was on official business for the Navy or just corrupt.”

Mark sat there thinking for a few minutes. “There is a naval base near here called AUTEC, on Andros Island. It’s supposed to be for some kind of research and development pertaining to undersea warfare, but I’m not sure.”

“Well, they wouldn’t have sent
Dierdra
after you if they didn’t want you dead. I know that much.”

“How did
you find me Ashlyn? It can’t be coincidental that you have a clone that just happens to be trying to kill me.” He shook his head slightly as if he was trying to wake up from a bad dream.

She paused only for a second before answering, “I have been trying to track
Dierdra down, but every time I have gotten a lead she’s disappeared just before my arrival. This time I got lucky and got there before her.”

“You found
something”—he was unnerved—“I mean something that had to do with me?”

“I found the hotel she had been staying at, and there was a crumpled note on the floor that somehow missed the garbage.”

Sardonically he mused, “It’s a good thing that they did such a bad job of cleaning the room.”

“
Yeah”—she let out a deep breath—“anyway, it had your name written on it and Nassau, Bahamas. I learned as much about you as I could and then I came. It took me a few days of questioning people, but I found out that you were supposed to be meeting someone at the restaurant on Paradise Island.” Guiltily, she admitted, “I paid him not to show up.”

Mark sat forward, surprised by the revelation. “Why didn’t you just tell me
right then that someone was trying to kill me and that you wanted to protect me?”

She cringed.
“I wasn’t trying to protect you—” she turned away “—I was trying to find Dierdra.”

She loathed the way she had used him
, but spoke honestly, “I knew if I was with you, eventually she would come to me. I concocted a story to get onboard your ship. At that point, I didn’t know you, or if you could be trusted.”

He eyed her warily, “So Stewart was right, you didn’t just accidentally meet me?”

She nodded.

He felt sick
about the way he had treated Stewart, his best friend, whom he now knew had only been trying to protect him from his own gullibility. Mark sat there for a while, wondering whether to ask her if her declaration of love had been true.

He decided to start with something else. “So the story about being raised in Hawaii and your grandfather’s boat, that was a lie? The reason you didn’t seem to remember it when I mentioned it later?”