For Winterfest Online 2025

(it may start out sounding like it's Season 3, but hang in there. 😉)

THE RETURN

Janet Rivenbark

 

Vincent looked down at the child sleeping in the crib… the child… his son. He was sure of that. Father had doubts, but he was sure; he had a Bond with the child. It was different from the Bond he’d had with Catherine, but it was there, and it was very strong. 

He knew the date that the child had been born: December 12, the same day Catherine had died. But if you counted back the usual 9 months… Father insisted on doing that, and pointing out that it put the conception date at some time in March. But Vincent knew that wasn’t right. He had regained his memory of his life before he was sick, and he knew that he and Catherine had not been together at that time, not in that way.  

She had said, “We loved… there is a child,” with her dying breath, there is no way he could doubt that. The child was his; he could feel it. 

But that timeline was why Father doubted that the child was Vincent’s. Vincent knew that the only time he didn’t remember was most of the time he was sick. He had a few vague memories of being inside Catherine’s apartment; he even remembered waking up in her bed. He also remembered his return to the tunnels, but much of what happened after that, from all accounts over two weeks, was still completely blank. He didn’t know if he’d ever recover those memories. 

But from that time to December 12^th, he was only about 6 ½ months old. Father insisted that there was no way this child could have been almost 3 months premature. In fact, he even doubted that he was born on December 12th. That would have made him two months old when Vincent brought him home, but his Father insisted the child was at least a month older since he weighed as much, if not more, as most three-month-olds.

Vincent had talked to Sarah, who had been in the tunnels when he was a baby. She had told him he’d been about the average weight for a newborn: 6½ pounds when he was first brought Below. And once he recovered from that initial illness, he’d grown quickly. She swore he’d been about the same size as this child when he was two months old. She told him he’d grown like that and advanced faster than most children until he was about seven years old. Then, until he was well into his teens, he’d grown more slowly and the other children his age caught up. Then suddenly, not long after the first time he was sick when he was a teenager, he’d shot up, and by the time he was 19, he was tall, lanky, and awkward. It wasn’t until he’d stopped growing upward that he started to fill out and build the lean muscle he now possessed.  

They’d had the naming ceremony only hours ago. He’d named his son Jacob. Peter had filled out a birth certificate and promised to make sure it was filed. He’d needed a middle name for that document and had told Peter to use Charles, after Catherine’s father. Then he had watched as Peter filled in the last name as Chandler, but instead of leaving the father’s name blank, he’d written ‘Vincent Wells.’

“I’ll see that this is filed tomorrow,” he’d said, “and I’ll get a certified copy for you as soon as I can. That way, you'll have it if Little Jacob ever needs it.” 

Most of the people Below had accepted the child as Vincent’s and called him Little Jacob. Diana, who had helped him find Jacob, had started calling him Jake. She said all her family had nicknames; she was Di to all of them, and her sister was Sue. But he doubted that anyone Below would call him Jake, at least not the adults. But he had heard Jamie refer to him as JC.  

Diana didn't go Below often, but when she did, she always showed up with a bottle of her favorite whiskey as a gift for Father. She knew he would offer her a drink, and she would accept; it was certainly better than drinking alone. 

Since it had become known how she had helped Vincent and later Father when Coyle had started killing Helpers, she had been readily accepted Below. It hadn’t been that long. 

“You haven’t visited us in a while,” Father commented after a sip from his glass. 

“I’ve been on a case,” she told him. “It’s been a real mind-bender, but we figured it out.”

“You mean you figured it out. Vincent says you never work with a partner.” 

“Never say never,” she said with a weary smile. “I might not work directly with other detectives, but I don’t ignore evidence they have gathered. It’s still a team effort.”

Father nodded and took another sip. 

“So, how has everyone been?” Diana asked. “I’ve missed the whole month of December: Jake’s first birthday, Winterfest; I barely took the time to eat Christmas dinner with my family.” She looked at her watch to confirm the date. It was well past the middle of January. “Geez, I even missed Vincent’s birthday.” 

“Everyone is well. The usual stomach upsets and colds, but other than that…”

“Good to hear… Um, I was wondering… Is Vincent around?”

“I’m sorry. He’s taking supplies to Narcissa, and we don’t expect him back until late,” Father told her. He could see the disappointment on her face. 

“Would it be out of line for me to give a word of advice?” he asked. 

“Never!” she said. 

“It’s plain how you feel about Vincent, but I don’t know if he will ever return those feelings. It’s been over two years, and he still mourns Catherine. He still has bad dreams about the night she died.” 

“I know,” she said with resignation. “But I’m willing to hang around and be his friend. I’d rather have that than nothing.”

“I seem to remember Catherine saying something similar,” Father mused. “But I’d hate to see you waste your life waiting for something that may never happen.”  Diana shrugged. “Got nothing better to do.” 

 

Vincent was sitting on his bed reading to his son. Jacob had fallen asleep halfway through “Goodnight Moon,” and Vincent had stopped reading a page or two later. Now, he closed the book and set it aside, then looked up at the painting on the wall of his chamber. He had hung Kristopher’s painting when Jacob was about eight months old. And since then, he’d made sure to point it out to him and tell him that the pretty lady in the painting was his mother. Jacob had started pointing and saying, “Pity lady,” but lately had been pointing and calling her “Mama.” That was what Vincent had wanted. He wanted his son to know what kind of woman his mother had been. He tried to keep her alive for him. 

  

Catherine sighed. It had been a long trip, and it had taken longer for her to get from the small west Texas town where she’d been to New York than she had expected. 

Now, she was sitting on a bench in the Port Authority bus station at 3:00 AM with her backpack on her lap and a small suitcase in front of her, trying to make up her mind about what her next step would be. She knew what she wanted to do but didn’t know if that would be the best move. 

She’d been kidnapped. A few months later, she’d given birth; she thought she remembered seeing Vincent and telling him about the baby; she thought she was dying. But she woke up, and there were a lot of holes. When she woke up she had been in a stark white room that looked just like where she’d spent most of her pregnancy. 

 

Her hands went to her stomach and found it mostly flat, so she knew that what she remembered was real, but where was she? It wasn’t a hospital, the bed wasn’t a hospital bed, it was just an iron cot painted white. She tried to sit up but was as weak as a kitten and couldn’t manage. 

That was when the woman, the nurse, came into the room. She didn’t say anything at first but helped her sit up on the side of the bed. 

“I’m Tenko,” the nurse said. “Don’t try to get up on your own. You’ve been unconscious for a lot time, and it will take some time for you to get your full strength back. I’ll get you something to eat. It will be liquids for a few days, but it will improve.” She almost smiled before turning to leave. 

Over the next few days, Tenko answered Catherine’s questions but with as few words as possible. The only questions Tenko didn’t answer were the ones about her son. All Tenko said was that she didn’t know; she had been tasked with looking after Catherine, not the child. 

Tenko did tell her that everyone at home thought she was dead. She even went so far as to explain how the hoax had been perpetrated. The drugs she’d been given had put her into a deep coma, and once she was in the morgue, her body had been spirited out and replaced with a Jane Doe who bore a striking likeness to her. Everyone believed that she was dead.

Tenko helped Catherine regain her strength. They started walking up and down the empty hall with Catherine using a walker. After a while, she progressed to a cane; then, finally, she could walk unassisted. When she got to that point, Tenko had a warning for her. 

“All the doors are locked. There are only three sets of keys. I carry one, Mr. Pope carries one, and the boss keeps the other set. The boss is not here now but will join us in a few weeks.”

Catherine assumed that “the boss” was the man who had come into the room while she was in labor. He’d left with her son. Tenko said that he would be joining them. Would he bring her son? 

Those were the thoughts that were always first and foremost in her mind: Where is my son? How is he? Will “the boss” bring him when he comes here? Is he still alive? She hated that last question. But the question was always there. She’d been barely two months along when she was kidnapped. She’d been subjected to a lot of drugs before they knew she was pregnant. And although she hadn’t had any idea of the dates, she hadn’t felt like it had been long enough. She was sure that her son was born prematurely. But how premature? Had he been able to survive?

The question nagged and was always the last thought before she went to sleep and the first one when she woke. Is he still alive?  

 

She had figured out that the building she was in was only one floor. She didn’t have a window in her room and hadn’t seen any windows, but she was sure of that. She hadn’t seen a stairwell or an elevator, just two windowless exterior doors, one at each end of the long, white hall.

And the only person she saw was Tenko. Someone was cooking somewhere; she could smell it, and she assumed there were guards somewhere, but she never saw anyone but Tenko. 

During her pregnancy, she hadn’t been allowed any diversions, except for books, mostly classics, nothing current, but now there was a TV in her room. She couldn’t get any TV channels, but there was a VCR and a bookcase full of tapes.  She was also allowed to read books. So, at least the time passed a little faster. She was also allowed paper, there was a notepad and several pencils. She tried keeping a journal, but nothing ever happened to write about. She sometimes wrote about her feelings, but then she felt more numb than anything. 

But she didn’t know what they were waiting for. She assumed it was for the boss to arrive. 

 

Time passed; she figured it was maybe a couple of months. Her room was always unlocked during the day; she could leave it and walk the halls to exercise. There were no cameras in her room this time, at least none that she could see, and she also exercised in her room. She did situps and started doing pushups. She found that the shower curtain rod in the bathroom was actually a pipe that was embedded securely in the walls, probably to keep it from being pulled loose and used as a weapon. She took advantage of that and started doing chin-ups. She was determined to stay in shape just in case she had the chance to get out of this place and had to run. If she was in good physical condition, maybe that, combined with what she had learned from Issac, could get her out. 

 

One day, not that long after she woke up that first time, she was walking back and forth in the long hall and could hear raised voices. It was always so quiet that the slightest noise drew her attention. 

Before she could think much about it, Tenko and a dark-haired man exited one of the offices.

Tenko’s complexion had gone pale, and the man looked worried and a little frightened. 

“Do you think they know where we are? Tenko asked before either of them realized that Catherine was listening. 

“No, the boss was clear that no one was to know. The only person who knew all the alternate locations was his brother, Snow, and he’s dead, too.”

That was when they noticed Catherine standing there. Tenko hurried to her and coaxed her back to her room.

“What’s going on,” Catherine asked when the door closed behind them. “And who is that man?”

“He just arrived. He brought… some news,” Tenko said, obviously changing her thought in midsentence. His name is Jonathan Pope. He runs this facility.” 

“Does he know anything about my son?” Catherine blurted. 

Tenko just looked at her and shook her head. Catherine didn’t know if she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. 

Catherine was left unsatisfied. Things returned to how they had been and continued for a long time. 

 

She now occasionally saw Mr. Pope in the hall, but he never spoke to her. 

At one point, she asked Tenko what the date was. After some thought, as if weighing the pros and cons, Tenko told her. 

“It’s Thursday, September 26^th.” 

“What year?” Catherine was pretty sure she knew that answer but wanted to make sure.

“1991,” Tenko supplied. 

Catherine chuckled. “Tomorrow is my birthday; I’ll be 34.” And it’s been two years since I was kidnapped. My baby must be almost two years old, she added to herself. 

Tenko just nodded, but the next day, there was a chocolate cupcake with a single burning candle on her lunch tray. 

Catherine closed her eyes and blew out the candle. If anyone had asked her if she made a wish, she would have told them that she’d wished to be anywhere but where she was.

After that, Catherine kept track of the days. She used the pad of paper to make a calendar and marked off the days every night before she went to bed. 

 

Over a year later, Catherine woke to activity in the hall. 

She got up and dressed in her usual dark cotton pants and white tank top. She was sitting on her bed reading when Tenko came into the room with her breakfast tray. 

Tenko had never been exactly chatty but usually at least greeted Catherine cordially. Today, she set the tray on the table and quickly left. 

Catherine wondered what was going on. She ate breakfast and decided to walk the hall; she might overhear something. But she was surprised to find her door locked. 

She tried to distract herself with a taped movie, but the noise in the halls intensified. There were a lot of doors slamming and what sounded like shouting and running. 

Finally, the door opened again, but it was Mr. Pope this time. He carried a coat and a backpack. 

“You are going to have to leave,” he told her, shoving everything at her. 

“What? Leave?” 

“Get out of here.” 

“Okay, and where is ‘here?’” she asked, taking the things he was holding out to her. 

“This building was part of a warehouse complex on the outskirts of a small town called Van Horn in West Texas.” 

“And where am I supposed to go?” she asked. 

“As far away from here as possible.” He handed her a wallet and she was surprised to see that it was her wallet. She opened it. Everything was still in it: credit cards, driver's license, ADA ID, and a little cash. She counted it, and there was just over $100.

“If I can get to an airport, it will probably cost more than this to fly home,” she said. 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band. She didn’t count it but stuffed it in the backpack. 

“You should stay away from the airport,” he advised. “Walk, hitchhike as far as you can, then take a bus, but don’t take a direct route to wherever you’re going. If there is anyone on your tail, you want to try to shake them. And don’t use the credit cards; they might be traced. And if you are going back to New York, you might want to lay low there too,” he added cryptically 

“The accounts have probably been closed,” she said. “Everyone thinks I’m dead, so my will has been executed, and the executor would have paid off everything and closed the accounts.”

The man nodded absently. “Well, whatever it is, use cash as much as possible.”  “When do you want me to leave?” she asked. 

“As soon as you can. Get as far from this place as you can as quickly as possible. And try to find somewhere warm for the night; it’s supposed to be in the 30s tonight.”

Catherine took his advice. She found a knit hat and a pair of gloves in the backpack. She put on the coat, hat, and gloves and followed Mr. Pope down the hall, where he unlocked the door and pointed her in the direction of the main road. She started out at a brisk walk. It felt strange to be outside. Even though it was overcast, the light made her squint. 

She had gone several miles on the main highway when it started to sprinkle. Not long after that, a semi-truck pulled over, and the driver pushed the passenger door open and leaned across the seat. He was an older man and looked friendly.

“Young Lady. You need a ride? There ain’t much of nothin’ on this road for the next 50 miles.” Catherine made a quick decision.

“As a matter of fact…” she said with a smile. “I wasn’t looking forward to getting rained on.” 

He motioned her in, and she climbed up and closed the door. 

“Where you headed?” he asked. 

“Where are you going?” she asked. 

“Straight through to Albuquerque,” he told her. 

“I guess I’m going to Albuquerque,” she said. 

The truck had been back on the road for a few minutes, and as she looked through the windshield of the cab, she noticed several black vans with dark windows traveling at a fast pace in the opposite direction. Something told her that she’d left that place and got off the road at just the right time.   

“You got a music preference,” the driver asked. 

“No, I’ll listen to anything,” she told him. She set her backpack on her lap and started rummaging through it. Someone had put some thought into packing it. There were several sets of clean underwear and socks, a pair of jeans, and a sweatshirt. There was a plastic bag of trail mix, a whole box of granola bars, and another of beef sticks. There were two bottles of water that she transferred to outside pockets. There was even a road map of the Western US. 

She surreptitiously counted the cash Pope had given her. There was exactly $500 in $20 bills. She put the bills into a zippered pocket inside the bag. There was a hairbrush, lip balm, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. She felt a lump in one of the outside pockets. She unzipped the zipper and found a washcloth wrapped around something. She unwrapped it and found her crystal and her watch. She teared up but quickly brushed them away. She was sure Tenko had packed it.

She put on the necklace, then pulled off the knit hat and used the hairbrush to brush her hair before pulling it back into a ponytail. She set the watch from the clock on the dash and put it on. 

She settled back on the seat and drew in a breath. “How far are we from Albuquerque?” she asked. 

“Not quite 400 miles.” He looked at the clock. “We should get there about 7:00-7:30. You got a destination in mind?” 

“Are you going anywhere near the bus station?”

“It’s in the city, and I can’t drive on the city streets, but the highway is only a couple blocks from it. I can let you out and tell you how to get there.” 

“Thanks,” Catherine said. “And by the way, I’m Cathy…” she didn’t add a last name. 

“Hal,” he said with a nod.  

As they made their way north, she learned that Hal was looking forward to getting home for Thanksgiving. 

“I hadn’t realized it was almost Thanksgiving,” she commented. “It’s this Thursday,” he told her, “the 26^th.”  

 

At some point, she dozed off, and when she woke, it was dark, and Hal was pulling off the highway.

“Are we here?” she asked groggily. 

“That we are,” he said. “The bus station is just up the street from here. Just cross the road here and go up two blocks. It’s on the left. You won’t miss it; it’s all lit up.”

She opened the door and almost gasped at the cold air that hit her. She turned to Hal.

“Thank you so much; from what it feels like out there, you may have saved me from hypothermia.” 

“You are very welcome, young lady. You be safe now.” 

Catherine slid off the seat and climbed down from the truck. She closed the door and stood waving at Hal as he drove away. 

She followed his directions and was soon in the bus station lobby. 

Where to from here? she wondered. She pulled out her map and studied it. 

Maybe I should continue north for a while before I head east, she thought. She looked at her map then went over and looked at the bus route map. There was a direct bus that went straight to Billings, Montana. It only made a few stops, and she could get off the bus anywhere along the way, stay as long as she liked, and then catch another one on the same route using the same ticket.

Billings, it is, she decided and went to the window.

“When is the next one?” she asked as she paid for the ticket. 

“You’re in luck. A bus leaves at 10:55 this evening,” the clerk told her. 

“Is there a place to eat?”

“There is a diner one block up. Tonight is pot roast night.”

Catherine left the bus station and turned to the left in the direction the clerk had pointed. The diner was on the next block, and a sign proclaimed that it was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

She had the pot roast, and it was delicious. Being out among people after so long was as exhausting as it was invigorating. She was in a booth in a back corner and could see the whole diner from there. It wasn’t busy, but busy enough to hold her attention. 

After she paid, she made a quick trip to the lady's room, where she redid her ponytail, splashed some water on her face, and brushed her teeth. 

She was back at the bus station well before the bus was supposed to leave. 

The map on the wall said the trip was around 1000 miles and would take about 20 hours, not counting stops and driver changes. Catherine thought she wouldn’t leave the bus, just stay on it straight through to Billings. There were meal stops, and the passengers were given long enough to at least go in somewhere and grab a burger, and she had the food in the backpack. She arrived in Billings the next evening.

The bus station was in an industrial part of town, and she knew she wasn’t likely to find a hotel very close. The clerk verified that, telling her that the nearest hotel was several miles away. But there were cabs in front, and she decided to use some of her cash. She got in the cab and told the driver she needed a hotel, which was not expensive but not the worst. 

He drove up to what looked like a mom-and-pop motel straight out of the 1950’s. 

She was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t expensive but was clean, and next door to a restaurant. There was a grocery store and a discount store two blocks away. She told the clerk she would check out on Friday or Saturday, depending on the bus schedules.

And where I decide I’m going from here, she told herself as she let herself into her room. 

She didn’t know if she was more exhausted or hungry but finally decided that she needed to eat. 

 

She was surprised that she slept so well. The desk clerk hadn’t asked for an ID when she checked in, so she’d used a different name, and she was sure that no one could have followed her. For that matter she wasn’t sure why anyone would want to, but Pope had been adamant that she stay out of sight; she had to take him at his word. 

She’d eaten a big dinner the night before, and even though she’d slept in, she didn’t feel hungry. So, she decided she would do a little shopping before lunch. 

She walked to the discount store and passed a beauty salon with a sign next to the door that proclaimed “We take walk-ins,” so she walked in. 

The salon was busy, but the girl at the front desk smiled and told her it would be a few minutes. A few minutes later, a woman came into the waiting area and asked her what she wanted to have done. 

“Nothing extensive. Shampoo and a good conditioner, then a trim. I have several years’ worth of split ends.” Catherine told her as she took her hair out of the ponytail. “And my eyebrows,” she added as an afterthought.  

When Catherine left the salon about an hour later, she felt much better. Even without any makeup, she knew she looked a lot different.  

At the discount store, she got a cart and headed for the women’s clothing section. She’d worn the same clothes for the last few days, and although she’d put on the clean underwear, jeans, and shirt from the backpack that morning after her shower, she didn’t know if she’d be able to find a place to do any laundry. She had also decided it might be prudent to get rid of the clothes she’d been wearing when she left, even the coat. So, she found another pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, large men’s t-shirts to sleep in, some socks and underwear, a quilted jacket with a hood, and new athletic shoes. Then, as an afterthought, she added a small suitcase and a purse to the cart. She would look a little more like a normal traveler when she got on the bus again.

After that, she headed for the toiletries and picked up shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, facial moisturizer, tinted lip balm, a razor, emery boards, and a small kit with clippers and tweezers. 

She packed her purchases in the new suitcase and walked back to the motel, where she left it, and went back to the diner for lunch. It was a novelty to be able to make the decision about what she ate.  

After lunch, she studied her map and the schedules she’d picked up at the bus station and plotted a route. She decided that she would go to Fargo, North Dakota, from Billings. She used the notepad by the phone to write it all out. She thought she might stop for two or three days every time she reached a destination, but once she was on the road, she found that the closer she got to home, the less time she was willing to spend in each town she stopped in.

And that was how she found herself on a bench in the Port Authority Bus Station in New York City in the early hours of December 8^th, trying to decide what to do next. She’d been traveling for two weeks. 

She finally decided to wait until the sun rose and then go to Peter’s. She checked the cash in her wallet and found she still had more than enough for a cab, so as soon as the sky started to get light, she went outside, got into a cab, and gave the driver Peter’s address. It was Tuesday morning, and she knew that Peter would be going to his office soon. She wanted to get there before he left. 

 

She was surprised when Peter answered the door still in his robe and slippers. 

He stood for a moment staring before he stepped back and motioned her inside. 

“Catherine?” he asked. “How?”

“It’s a long… long story. Can we sit down?”

As soon as she started speaking, Peter started smiling, and then he grabbed her and hugged her. 

“It is you!” he exclaimed, finally letting her go. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just sprung this on you. They told me that everyone here thought I was dead, and I just wasn’t thinking.

“No, I don’t think there would have been any other way to do it. Come into the kitchen, I just made coffee, and there is oatmeal in a pot on the stove.” 

He poured her some coffee and then sat down across from her. 

“All right, now start at the beginning.”

Catherine started at what was the beginning for her: the kidnapping and told the whole story up to her arrival on his doorstep.

“What happened here?” she asked. 

“Vincent looked for you for months,” he told her. “You said you remember seeing Vincent. He said that you died, and he carried you back to your apartment and left you. He called the police on his way back to the tunnels. EMTs arrived and pronounced you dead; you were taken to the morgue and supposedly autopsied, then the body was released to me, and we had a funeral.” “Did you ever actually see a body?” she asked. 

“Not to identify. Your boss, Joe, and the Detective on the case, Bennett, took care of that.”

“How about after that, at the funeral?” 

“All I did was a graveside service since there was really no family. So, there was no open casket.” 

“Wow, everything was working in their favor,” Catherine mused. “I was told that at the morgue, they replaced me with a look-alike Jane Doe. Someone at the morgue must have been in on it.”

Catherine reached up, pulled out the band holding her ponytail, then rubbed her head.

“I’ve always hated ponytails,” she said with a sigh. “They give me a headache.”  

Peter got up and went to the stove to turn the burner back on to reheat the oatmeal that had gone cold. Before he could finish, Catherine heard a child’s voice behind her. 

“You got, compny, Uncle Peter?”

Catherine turned around. The child was a blond, blue-eyed cherub. At first, she thought he might be Peter’s grandson, but he’d called him ‘Uncle Peter.’ Then the little boy’s eyes got big, and she had just enough time to register that they were exactly the same color as Vincent’s before he shot across the room and into her arms with a shout.

“Mama!”

As soon as he was in her arms, she knew him and hauled him up into her lap. Vincent had found their son.  

For the second time that day, Peter felt weak in the knees. He turned away from the stove and sat down as he watched the reunion taking place in front of him. 

But is it a reunion? he wondered. She never really had a chance to see him or hold him.

It was a very long time before Catherine raised her head to look at Peter. Peter handed her a paper napkin from the stack on the table, and she mopped her face. 

“Vincent found him? How?”

“He has a Bond with him,” Peter explained. “And he had the help of that detective I mentioned.

He brought Jacob home when he was about six weeks old.”

“Jacob.” She smiled. “I like that.” 

“Jacob Charles Chandler, according to his birth certificate,” Peter told her.

She nodded and looked down at the little boy, who had finally loosened his hold and was leaning back to look at her. 

“Daddy has a picture,” he told her. “He told me that the pretty lady was my mama, and I talk to her; sometimes Daddy does too.” 

Catherine looked at Peter, who nodded. “It’s a painting of you and him, almost life-sized.” 

“Kristoper’s painting,” she acknowledged. 

Everyone had caught their breath, and Peter spoke to Jacob. 

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get dressed? Breakfast will be ready when you come back down.”

Jacob looked doubtful but was obviously used to following directions. 

“I’ll still be here when you come back,” Catherine promised him. 

That seemed to be all he needed. 

“What is he doing here?” she asked. “Does he live here?” 

“No. He lives Below with Vincent. But they are planning a big birthday party for him on

Saturday, and he’s such an inquisitive child that they knew they couldn’t put one over on him. I’m semi-retired and volunteered to take him for a few days. We were planning a trip to the museum today and ice skating tomorrow. I was going to take him shopping so he could buy gifts for Vincent, Jacob, and Mary, and then a small birthday party is planned for here on Friday evening. That way, we can throw him off, and he will be surprised when I take him to the actual party Below at lunchtime on Saturday.

“Oh, my goodness.” She looked at the date on her watch. “I never knew when his birthday was. I couldn’t keep track of the days before he was born. I had no idea!”

“It’s the 12^th,” Peter told her. 

Before she could answer, there was a noise from the basement, and the door opened.

 

Vincent had just finished his breakfast when he got a strange feeling from Jacob. For the first time, he couldn’t tell what the feelings meant. It wasn’t pain or fear; the feeling was very confusing. 

He turned to Devin, who was visiting, and his father. 

“Something is going on with Jacob,” he told them. “I’m going to go check on him.” 

He took off at a brisk trot. By the time he reached Peter’s, the feeling had changed, more or less leveled off, and he almost didn’t go in, but then, he hadn’t often spent time away from his son, so he decided to go up and see him, if only for a few minutes. 

He went up the stairs and opened the door to the kitchen. He barely had time to register that there was a woman with long, light brown hair sitting on one of the kitchen chairs when she turned.

She exploded off the chair and was in his arms almost before he realized who she was. 

“I can’t take much more than this,” Peter mumbled as he watched Vincent swing Catherine up into his arms and walk into the living room. 

Peter checked the oatmeal; it was burned on the bottom, and it wasn’t salvageable. He dumped it into the trash and got some eggs from the refrigerator.  

The hell with the heart-healthy diet, he told himself as he broke eggs in a bowl. Jacob will be down in a few minutes and will be hungry… and so am I.

 

Vincent was so confused. He looked down at the woman on his lap. If the Bond hadn’t returned with so much force that it almost knocked him over the moment he touched her, he would have doubted his own eyes. But she was here, safe and healthy. She smelled right, and she felt right, both physically and mentally. 

“Catherine… how?” he began. 

She launched into the whole story again, but only a few words in, Jacob had come down. When he realized his father was in the living room, he joined them, climbing up to share Vincent’s lap with Catherine.  

No one could speak for quite a long time. 

“I hate to interrupt this,” Peter said from the door, “but I have breakfast ready. Are you hungry, Jacob?” 

“Nuh, uh,” Jacob said, trying to snuggle closer to both his parents. 

“Jacob,” Vincent said. “Go ahead and eat. I need to talk to your mother.” Saying that made him smile, and he could tell from the Bond that Catherine liked the sound of it, too. 

“Now, please go on with the story,” he prompted when Jacob was gone. 

“Can it wait?” she asked, snuggling closer. “I’m finally where I have dreamed of being for literally years.”

“I’ve been having the same dreams,” he said before he lowered his head and kissed her. She had been used to him kissing her on the head, even the cheek, but his kiss on her mouth was a huge surprise, and she immediately wanted more, but instead, enjoyed what she had.

Neither of them spoke. Catherine felt relaxed and safe for the first time in years. She felt almost as if her heart was syncing back with Vincent’s, even though she knew that wasn’t possible. His heart rate was much lower than hers. 

At one point, Catherine started to pull away, and he didn’t want to let her go.

“I know we can’t stay here all day,” he whispered, “but now that you are finally back where you belong, I don’t want to let you go.” But his arms did loosen.

“I know, but I must stink,” she said, making a face. “I don’t think I’ve had a decent shower since… ah… Milwaukee? I’m not sure. It seemed like the closer I got to home the less time I wanted to stop to rest or anything.

“Where were you?” he asked. 

“I started out in a little town in west Texas a few days before Thanksgiving. Since then, it’s been

Billings, Montana, Fargo, North Dakota, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.”

“Why the convoluted route? Were you being followed?” he asked. 

“That’s just it; I don’t know. The man who let me go seemed to think it was a possibility. I hadn’t gone far on the road when a trucker offered me a ride. When I was in the truck, we were passed by several black vans with tinted windows going in the opposite direction. I couldn’t help but feel that maybe Pope had been right.”

“Pope?” 

“He was the man in charge of where I was being held.”

She went on and told him the rest of the story, and when she finished, they went back to the kitchen, where Peter was trying to keep Jacob distracted. 

Jacob quickly abandoned the coloring book and crayons and climbed onto Catherine’s lap. She welcomed him. 

“I hate to drag the real world into all of this,” Peter said with a grin, “but do you have a plan?”  “A plan?” Catherine repeated, looking at him.

“Do you plan to take up your life, or do you just plan to go Below and stay there?” 

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she admitted. She looked at Vincent. “As much as I’d love to live Below permanently, I think I can be of more use to everyone if I’m Above. And I’d like to know as much about what happened after I disappeared as possible; find out if there is still anything pending and if I have any additional information that could help. But since I’m legally dead, I think I can take my time.”

Vincent looked at Peter, before he spoke. “You should probably start with Joe, and I’m sure that Diana will be able to let you know about the case. She was the detective on your kidnapping case and she and Joe probably know more about it than anyone.” 

“She knows you?” Catherine asked. 

“Yes, we met by chance. I’ve also met Elliot Burch. He and I were both investigating your death.”

“Wow, there have been a lot of changes.”  

“They are both Helpers,” Peter put in. 

“Uncle Elliot brings me books,” Jacob added. 

“Uncle Elliot?” she looked over at Vincent. 

“He’s become a great friend,” Vincent said with a nod.  

“So, what else have I missed?” she asked.

“Kanin was released last spring,” Vincent said. 

“What? Already? His sentence was ten years. He shouldn’t even have been eligible for parole before five years.”

“He helped out in an emergency. One of the other inmates attacked a guard and was going to kill him. The other guards couldn’t get to them, but Kanin talked him out of it and talked him into giving the guard back his gun. He’d been a model prisoner, and the governor commuted his sentence along with several others in jail for non-violent crimes.” 

“I bet Olivia was over the moon.”

That made Peter chuckle. When Catherine looked at him, he quickly explained. 

“She was that. She was pregnant with a little brother or sister for Luke before he’d been home more than two months.”

Catherine laughed. “I’m happy for them.” 

After lunch, Peter suggested that he and Jacob continue with their original plan to go to the museum, but Jacob had none of it. He didn’t want to leave Catherine. And when it was time for him to take a nap, he insisted that she take him upstairs. 

“Quite a surprise,” Peter said as he put their lunch dishes in the dishwasher.

“The best kind of surprise,” Vincent said with a smile. 

“Are you going to take her Below?”

“When she’s ready. I’ll ask her if that is what she wants. 

 

When Vincent asked her later, she brought up the birthday party.

“Peter said that Jacob was staying with him because you were going to try to surprise him with a party on his birthday. I could stay here with him until then, so the surprise doesn’t get spoiled,” she suggested. 

“I didn’t think of that,” Vincent admitted. 

“Please don’t misunderstand,” she rushed to explain. “There is nothing I would love more than to go Below with you right now, but if I do, we will both be mobbed, and I won’t have the opportunity to get to know my son. I’ve missed the first three years of his life. I know nothing about him, not his favorite food, or favorite color, what toys he enjoys playing with.”

“I understand,” Vincent told her. “And I know what he would feel like if you went Below with me, and we left him here. It would be what I’m feeling, thinking about going back without you. But I am an adult, and I understand and agree. Our son comes first. You can come with him when he comes home on Saturday.”

It was wrenching to part again so soon after being reunited, but they promised each other that it was only a few days. 

“What’s a few days?” Catherine tried to laugh about it when Vincent left that evening after Jacob had gone to bed. “We survived over three years; we can handle a couple more days.” 

 

“So, do you want your old room?” Peter asked after Vincent left.

“Um, I was wondering. There are twin beds in the room Jacob is in. Is it all right if I take the other bed?” 

“Of course. I should have thought of that.”

It was obvious that Jacob was a sound sleeper when Catherine carried her things into the room later. She put her suitcase on a chair, took out the few toiletries she had, and went into the attached bathroom, where she finally got the long hot shower, she’d been craving for the last few days. 

She fell asleep quickly when she got to bed, but she woke sometime in the night to see Jacob standing next to her bed. 

“What is it?” she asked.

“You’re real. I didn’t dream you,” he said. 

“And I didn’t dream you.” She lifted the covers, and he climbed in next to her and snuggled up close. 

“’Night, mama,” he said sleepily and fell back asleep. 

That brought tears to her eyes. During the last three years, she had tried not to think about what had happened to her son. But the questions were always there, and her dreams were unguarded; sometimes, they were good, but other times, they showed the horror that she imagined he might be living in. But the relief that he had been with his father all along was great. He wouldn’t be scarred for life by being raised by that monster. 

She woke the next morning to find Jacob sitting up in bed, staring at her.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling at him. “What time is it?”

She was surprised when he looked at the clock and answered her. 

“It’s almost ten minutes after eight,” he told her. “I’m hungry.”

Catherine sat up and stretched, “I think I am, too,” she told him. 

She had worn an oversized t-shirt to bed but didn’t have a robe. She looked in the closet, but there wasn’t anything there; then she remembered that there might be something in the closet in the guest room she used to use. 

“I’ll be right back.” 

She looked in the closet in the other bedroom and had to laugh. A robe in it looked like it would fit, but it was bright pink, the kind of pink that almost hurts your eyes, and she and Susan had gotten a little carried away with the Bedazzler Susan had gotten for Christmas one year. 

She put it on, and it went down to her knees. It fit. 

At least it covers me, she said with a wince when she saw herself in the mirror. 

 

When she and Jacob went down to the kitchen, Peter couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Oh my. That thing was still in the closet?” 

“This one was. What happened to Susan’s?” Catherine asked as she poured coffee and watched Jacob climb onto a chair. 

“I took it to Santa Fe and gave it to her daughter. They were going through one of those motherdaughter phases where Susan didn’t want to let Abby out of the house because she was wearing outlandish clothes, or at least she wanted to. I thought it was time for me to meddle a little.” 

They were both laughing when Vincent came up from the basement. Jacob bounced up from his chair to hug him, and Vincent leaned down and kissed Catherine on the cheek. 

“Back in your chair, young man,” Peter said. “Breakfast is served.” He set a plate with a waffle and two strips of bacon down where Jacob had been sitting. He eagerly turned loose of his father in favor of the waffle. 

“Waffle, Cathy?” he asked. 

“No, not yet. It's too early for something that sweet. Coffee is fine for now.” 

“Are you still not eating properly?” He turned to Vincent. “Never could get this girl to eat right.”

“I’ve been eating very well for the last few years,” she retorted. “I never had any choice over what I ate, and every meal I had was balanced and nutritionally sound. It’s just that I’ve never liked eating sweets in the morning. Waffles and pancakes are more for brunch.”

“Can I scramble you some eggs?” Peter offered.

“No, thank you, not yet. Enjoy your breakfast, and I’ll get mine later.”  Peter finally gave up and sat down to have his breakfast. 

Vincent had watched the whole exchange with interest and was smiling when Cathrine looked at him.

“What,” she asked. 

“You sound like Susan,” he observed. She used to say it was quite a trial being the daughter of a doctor, who was always trying to get her to eat what was good for her.” “Peter always was like a second father,” Catherine agreed.

A few minutes later, Jacob finished his breakfast and announced that he was going upstairs to get dressed. 

“Are you sure he’s only three?” Catherine asked after he’d left the room. 

Vincent smiled. “He is bright, but Father said I was like that at that age.” “He can tell time,” she commented.

“And he reads,” Peter pointed out. “Probably at about a second-grade level.”

“Oh my. He certainly doesn’t get that from me,” she said. “I couldn’t read very well until I was in the second grade. Then my teacher tried a different way to teach me, and after that, I caught up pretty fast.”

“I remember that,” Peter said. “Your mom was worried that you didn’t seem to be catching on, but suddenly, we couldn’t get you to put the books down.”

“So, what was the plan for today? I know I messed up the idea of going to the museum yesterday,” Catherine asked. 

“We were going to go ice skating,” Peter said, “but if yesterday was any indication, I don’t know if we will be able to pry him away from you.” 

“Maybe I can go with you,” Catherine suggested. “What’s the weather supposed to be like today?” 

Vincent picked up the paper and turned to the correct section.

“It says that it’s supposed to be in the mid-40s today, no snow or rain, but there will be a brisk breeze.”

“The wind will make it feel colder than it is. I know I want to stay off anyone’s radar, but I think I can get away with covering my lower face with a scarf and wearing sunglasses. I’ll look like any other mother skating with her son.”

“And I can go to run interference if needed. I won’t skate; I’ll just be the doting grandfather watching from the sidelines,” added Peter. 

“I doubt there will be anyone I know,” Catherine said. “At least not in the middle of the day on a weekday.” 

When they told Jacob the plan, he was a little upset that his father couldn’t go too, but even at three, he understood that Vincent was different and that sometimes that could upset people. 

Catherine went up to Peter’s attic and returned with two pairs of skates. 

“Where did you find those?” Peter asked when she showed them to him. 

“I remembered that Susan and I used to like to skate, and I remembered seeing them when I was in the attic with you looking for the cradle when Susan was pregnant the first time.” She held up the larger ones. “My feet haven’t grown since I was 15 or 16, so these still fit. These are an old pair. I’m not sure if they were mine or Susans, but they might fit Jacob.” 

They tried them on Jacob, and they fit, and they didn’t look like the typical white girl’s skates; they were dark brown.

They were only a short distance from the rink, so they walked over. 

“I have my own skates,” he announced to the people around them when they reached the rink at Rockefeller Center.

An hour later, Catherine was amazed at how quickly he’d mastered the skates. He wasn’t doing anything fancy, but he was doing well skating in a straight line and staying on his feet. 

When it was time to go home, she showed him how to tie the laces of his skates together and carry them on his shoulder. She suggested they take a cab back, but Jacob wanted to walk and show off how he carried the skates. She and Peter walked a little behind and watched him.   “He’s so coordinated,” she observed. “And look at that swagger.” 

They both laughed. 

“If you go again, you need to take the camera so you can show Vincent,” Peter said. 

When they returned to Peter’s house, Vincent was there, making hot cocoa for everyone. 

“I thought you were preparing for a birthday party on Saturday,” she whispered as she helped him pour cocoa and plate cookies. 

“Mary has that well under control,” he whispered back. “William is baking a cake, and the children will decorate the dining chamber tomorrow evening.” 

“Who is going to be here on Friday?” 

“Father and Mary will be here. Mouse will be here since he’s one of Jacobs's favorite people, but Mary was afraid that he’d give away the real surprise, so Jamie is coming with him to keep an eye on him.” 

“Any of the other children?” she asked. 

“No, the children his age might give away the Saturday party, and the older ones will be decorating for it. 

“Does everyone Below know about me?” she asked. 

“Word has gotten around, but everyone knows not to share it with anyone Above, not even our most trusted Helpers.” 

 

Jacob knew about the Friday night party. He was in on the planning and had been given free rein over the menu. He said he wanted pizza, and Catherine was in charge of ordering everything they would need for a pizza party. Vincent was in charge of the entertainment, and everything was kept pretty low-key since the only real guests would be Jamie, Mouse, Mary and Father. 

Guests arrived around 4:00. Catherine was on the phone in the kitchen ordering the pizzas when they started coming up the basement stairs into the kitchen. Mary and Jamie hugged her before following everyone into the living room. 

Catherine had ordered a birthday cake, which arrived earlier, and the pizza was supposed to arrive around 5:00.

When Catherine joined everyone in the living room, suddenly all the attention was on her. She could see that Jacob was a little sad because it was his birthday, and they had all been watching a kid's movie with him. He even turned the TV off. 

When the pizza arrived, she sent him to help Peter and reminded everyone that it was Jacob’s birthday.

“We can talk later,” she told everyone. “I’ll be down with him tomorrow for the surprise party.” Vincent looked at her from across the room. He nodded and smiled. He approved. 

When Jacob returned, everyone went to the dining room, where the table had been set for their pizza party. 

 

“You handled that very well earlier,” Vincent told her after they’d finally put Jacob to bed. 

“It was just natural,” she said with a smile. “It was his party…”

“But you know, it’s just going to be more of the same when you go Below. I want to spend time with you and Jacob, but I know several people who will want to have equal time,” he pointed out. 

“And won’t you be called on to help with the Winterfest planning?” she asked. 

“There isn’t that much they will need me for this year. Cullen and Kanin kept up with the repairs all year, and Mouse has devised some contraption that will supposedly help with the heavy loads.” 

“Maybe the three of us can sneak off sometime for a picnic at the falls or the mirror pool, then.” 

“Are you planning to come down and stay?” Vincent asked. “Or will you stay here and come down when you can?”

“I want to come down and stay; get to know Jacob,” she told him. “When I’ve had the chance to settle in, I’ll make some decisions.” She reached out and took his hand. “But Vincent… no matter what I decide, one thing is sure: we will raise our son together. I won’t bring him Above permanently. And I won’t stay Above permanently.”

 

“But I want to stay with Mama!” Jacob was adamant about that the next day. 

“I’m going with you, Jacob,” Catherine said, pointing at the suitcase and backpack next to the basement door. “I’ll be staying with you.” 

“And Daddy?” he asked, still not convinced.  

“And your daddy. In fact, we talked about doing some things together, just the three of us,” Catherine told him.

“Can we go camping?” Jacob asked, his eyes lighting up.

“Camping, picnics, or just walking around so I can see everything I missed for the last few years.” 

 

That settled, she and Peter were finally able to get Jacob to go. Geoffrey and Kipper met them at one of the junctions. Kipper took the luggage to leave it in Vincent’s chamber, and Geoffrey took them to the dining chamber. 

“You’re just in time for lunch,” he told them, with a nod. “Vincent said to bring you straight to the dining chamber so you could have lunch with him.” 

“That sounds great,” Peter said. “I’m hungry!”

Jacob didn’t have any idea what was going on. He thought it was just an ordinary Saturday

Below. Not even that they didn’t meet anyone on their way to the dining chamber gave it away. 

Peter, Catherine, and Geoffrey hung back and let Jacob run into the dining chamber ahead of them. They entered right after the shout of “Surprise!”

Jacob was standing inside the door with a stunned look on his face. He turned to his father. He was so surprised that he was speechless for probably the first time since he’s started talking. 

After a few seconds, he recovered and started laughing and clapping his hands, and the party was off to a good start. 

Birthday gifts weren’t given very often. Below, he received a few: books and a soccer ball, and Mary made him a new quilt for his “big boy bed.” 

 

Even though the party only lasted about an hour, Catherine ended up staying in the dining chamber talking and becoming reacquainted with old friends until dinner. Then, after dinner, they all gathered in Father’s study; Jacob was enticed to go off and play with his new ball, but not until Vincent and Catherine had promised to read to him from one of his new books before he went to bed. 

 

They finally got Jacob to bed. It was later than his usual bedtime, but he was tired and fell asleep before they were more than a couple of pages into the story. 

“He’s had quite a day,” Catherine commented as they left his chamber. 

“He’s had quite a week,” Vincent corrected her. “We all have.” 

“I’m still in a bit of a disbelieving fog,” Catherine admitted. “I keep thinking I will wake up back in that place. I’m almost afraid to open my eyes when I wake up each morning.” 

“It will take time,” he agreed. “Father had a question about the Winterfest preparations,” he added. “I’m going to go talk to him. Would you like to come with me?”   “No, I think I need some quiet time. I’ll just wait here.” 

 

Catherine looked around Vincent’s chamber after he left and noticed a lot of changes. 

First of all, the bed was missing, and a small sofa sat in front of the bookcase under the stainedglass window. On closer examination, she found it was one of her old sofas. 

The shape of the chamber had changed somewhat. It was always roughly rectangular, but now the walls were smoother and the shape more regular. There was an opening on one wall to the right of the entrance that she knew led to the bathing chamber and a small storage chamber that was now Jacob’s chamber. But there was a new opening in the center of the wall to the left of the main chamber. She peeked in and realized it was the guest chamber she used to use. The tunnel route to the other entrance to the guest chamber was longer, and she’d never realized it was so close. Vincent had cut a hole in the separating wall and turned that chamber into his new bed chamber, and other entrance to the tunnel was blocked.

The storage chamber that was now Jacob’s chamber had old rugs and carpet scraps covering the walls in a patchwork of color that made her smile. 

“Catherine?” She heard her name called and went back into the main chamber. 

“I was just being nosey,” she told him. “I love the changes.” 

“Discovering that I was a father made me realize that it was time to grow up and stop living in my bed chamber,” he said sheepishly. “Now, when I teach a class, I don’t have children perched on the bed and other pieces of furniture. I have a desk that I sometimes use, and the children are usually on the floor, and they all bring small lap desks to class with them.”  

“More conventional,” she added. 

“Well, if conventional includes me teaching a medieval history or physics class,” he agreed.   

“Physics? Goodness, you teach physics?” she exclaimed. 

“Only introductory and only to the older students hoping to study math or science in college… What did you think of Jacob’s chamber?” he asked. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention it when we were in there, but I love it. It’s so bright and cheerful.”  “Elliot spent some time down here shortly after I brought Jacob home, and he suggested that using special lamps that simulate sunlight would be a good idea. He provided them. We have them in all the children’s chambers and the dining chamber. He said that the lack of sunlight can cause depression, and we have noticed that the children don’t get cranky as often, and the adults are much more cheerful.

“I’ve heard that. The room I was in for the last few years didn’t have any windows; there weren’t any windows in the whole building as far as I could see. But I did notice that my room and the hall seemed to have a different quality of light than you would expect from an ordinary fluorescent. I don’t know if it did me any good, but at least I didn’t get so depressed that I gave up hope.” 

Catherine knew that they were just making conversation to avoid talking about the “elephant in the room.” 

Vincent took her hand and led her to the sofa, and they sat down. 

“We need to talk,” he told her. “How are we going to do this?”

“I would think it is obvious… at least as long as your feelings haven’t changed,” she said.

“They haven’t.” 

“Neither have mine. I’ve been holding out hope for the last three years, more than three years, that we would finally be together again. But what is important is what you want. I want to be close to you and Jacob, but I don’t want to rush things. I can go to a guest chamber, but my preference would be to stay here. I can sleep on the fold-out bed on this sofa; it will keep me close. I don’t want to push you, especially since I don’t know how much you remember; we haven’t had a chance to talk.” 

“We can talk now. Jacob is asleep, and I think everyone else has gone to bed, too.”

“So, what were you thinking of?” she prompted. 

“I would like you to stay here with Jacob and me,” Vincent said. “You can take my bed, and I’ll sleep here on the fold-out bed.”

Catherine was shaking her head before he even finished. “No, I will not take your bed. There is no way that you could sleep on this comfortably. It’s the size of a double bed; it’s only a little bit more than 6 feet long.”

“I slept on that size bed until last year,” he pointed out. 

“How big is that bed in there?” she asked. 

“Peter said it was a California King,” he said. 

“And a California King is seven feet long. It doesn’t make sense for me to take a bed that size and for you to sleep on this bed. I fit just fine on this; if I remember correctly, it’s quite comfortable,” she insisted. 

“But Catherine…”

“No! Besides, if I sleep in here, I’ll be closer to Jacob; right now, that is where I want to be. I’d be on a cot there if his chamber was a little larger.”

Vincent knew when he’d been out-argued. 

“All right. You win!” he said with a chuckle. “But there is something you need to see.”

He went and got her suitcase and backpack from where Kipper had left it and carried it into his bed chamber. He walked to a corner and opened the door on an old chifforobe. It was full of clothes. 

“Is that all mine?” she asked after looking closer. 

“All of it. When I came back Below and told everyone that you had returned, Mary told me that she’d kept all the clothing that Peter had sent Below. She said it was locked up in the clothing storage room. She said she didn’t feel right about handing it all out to the people below; she was afraid that I would see something and recognize it and that it would hurt me. This is only the more casual things.” He pulled open some drawers. “And your lingerie and nightgowns.”

“I’ll have to thank Mary.” She pulled a pair of jeans out of a drawer. “I’ve missed my favorite jeans.” 

“She said that all your work clothes and formal wear are in another armoire if you should need it.”

“Once we’ve made some decisions, I might need something,” she said.

Vincent allowed her to use the bathing chamber first, while he made up the fold out bed in the small sofa for her. When he was headed that way a little while later, she was sitting in her bed reading.

“Is Jacob good about sleeping through the night?” she asked when he came back through later. 

“Most of the time,” he told her. “But you’ve been sharing a room with him at Peter’s.” 

“Yes, but I would put him to bed; I went to bed later; but every night, I woke up to find him standing next to my bed, and then he would crawl in with me.”

“He did that with me for a couple of weeks after I moved him to his chamber and before I finished the new bed chamber and moved into it. He’d been out of the crib for almost a year, but his bed and mine were still in the same room.” 

“He just had to get used to sleeping in his own room,” Catherine said. 

“That’s what Mary said.” 

Vincent walked toward her bed, and she thought he might be going to kiss her good night, but he just reached into the book case behind the bed and picked a book. 

“Good night, Catherine,” he said then turned to go to his chamber. 

“Good night, Vincent.” She sighed. It’s going to take time, she said to herself. 

 

The next morning, and for several mornings after that, she was awakened by a hurricane named Jacob flying across the chamber and into Vincent’s bed chamber. The morning ritual made her smile, even if she did feel just a little left out. 

And Vincent was true to his word. They spend most of Sunday just walking through the tunnels, visiting old friends. She was shocked to find that Elizabeth had already started a new painting about her return.  

She spent Monday morning with Mary, going through her stored wardrobe, deciding what she might need to use when she decided to go Above. Then Vincent and Jacob picked her up and they went to have a picnic lunch at the Falls. They spent Tuesday morning at the Mirror pool. 

They were at lunch on Wednesday when Geoffrey came to her and told her that Father wanted to talk to her alone in his Study after lunch. 

“Am I in trouble?” she asked Vincent with a smile. 

“I doubt that, but I have no idea why he would want to speak to you alone.”

 

Actually, Vincent was a little worried when he left Catherine at the entrance to the Study a little while later. He hoped Father wouldn’t do something like ask her what her “intentions” were. 

 

Catherine walked into the study and was interested to see that they weren’t alone. A tall, thin woman with long red hair stood next to Father’s desk.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked. 

“No, my dear,” Father said. “I just wanted you to meet Diana Bennett. Diana, this is the real Catherine Chandler.”

The woman extended her hand and smiled.

“I’m glad to finally get to meet you.” 

Catherine recognized the name and took the offered hand. 

“I’m so glad to meet you. Thank you so much for helping Vincent find Jacob. I was never so relieved in my life as I was when I discovered he had been with his father the whole time.”

“I don’t know how you did it,” Diana said sincerely. “I would have been beside myself with worry the whole time.” 

“Believe me, I was, but I tried to redirect it. I would imagine him growing up just as he was; I didn’t realize I was imagining the truth.”

Both women sat down. 

“Father tells me that you might have more pertinent information about your case.” 

“I might, and I’d like to know more about what you learned.”

“Actually, there wasn’t a lot once Gabriel died,” Diana said. 

“Gabriel?” Catherine asked. 

“The man who kidnapped you,” Diana told her. 

“A thin man? Almost too thin?”

“Yeah, you ever see him?” 

“Only once, when Jacob was born. The doctor handed Jacob over to him, and he left. But he wasn’t the one who kidnapped me.” 

“He wasn’t? We kind of assumed it was him since he had Jacob.” 

“He was behind it all,” Catherine said. “Did Elliott ever get that book decoded?” 

“He did, but it was just a list of what looked like pay-offs. There were some names, individuals and companies, but there was a lot more that was just jibberish beside the dollar amounts. And we never figured out that part to. Elliot’s code breaker thought that the book contained more than one code. We only decoded about a third of it.”

“Who’s the DA?” Catherine asked, seeming to change the subject.

“John Moreno, same as when you left. He was just reelected.” 

“That might explain why Pope told me to lay low, to use his words, once I got back here… It was John Moreno who had me kidnapped and handed me over to that Gabriel.” Catherine’s voice had hardened, and her smile had disappeared. 

“Are you sure?” Diana asked.

“I looked him right in the eye while he ordered his goons to grab me,” she told Diana. It was interesting to see that Diana didn’t seem to be all that surprised. 

“That actually might explain a few things,” Diana said thoughtfully. “He ordered Joe to drop the case much quicker than anyone thought was normal when investigating the disappearance of one of their own.” 

“He was protecting his own ass,” Catherine said, surprising both Diana and Father with her language. “He knows what a good investigator Joe is, and he also probably realized that if Joe found anything out, he wouldn’t be able to bribe him to cover it up.”

“But other than your word, I’m going to need more to back it up,” Diana told her. “You should probably stay out of sight a little longer while I do some digging. I would also like you to write out everything you remember from the time you got the book until… well, until you arrived back here last week. If I can come up with some hard facts, with your testimony, we can see that Moreno gets what he has coming to him.” 

“What about Joe? Do you think I could see him?” Catherine asked. 

“I don’t know. I know he can keep a secret, but he married your friend Jenny about a year ago. He told me that it’s hard to keep a secret from her.” 

At that revelation, Catherine’s face lit up. “Jenny and Joe? I love it! But you are right. Jenny is kind of psychic. She sometimes has dreams that tell the future; they aren’t always clear, but she has always had an uncanny knack for knowing if someone is lying to her or at least not telling her the whole truth. It’s a good idea to wait a while before talking to Joe. But he’s going to be crushed when he hears about John. John was his mentor; he hired Joe right out of law school even before he passed the bar.”

“His involvement with Gabriel might have gone back a long way. He might have thought he was grooming Joe to bring him into the conspiracy, too.” 

“That’s possible, but Joe is one of the good guys; he’d never go along with that.” 

“I agree,” Diana said. “Now, I need to get to work. I’m between official cases and off for the holiday until next month. I’ll have the time for this.”

“No one will think it’s odd that you are looking up old cases?” Catherine asked. 

“No, I keep copies of everything in my private files at my place. I can refer back to those easily; if I need any additional information, I have a contact in the DA’s office. I think you know her. Edie? She came back to work for the city not long ago and she’s running the computer division. They are putting all the files on servers that can be accessed from any office. She’s given me dial-up access to the network so I can work from home.” 

“It’s great that she’s back. She was always a huge help to me when I needed it, on a professional and even on a personal level. I can’t wait to talk to her again.”   

 

Vincent had a group of children in his chamber when she returned after talking to Diana. Jacob was sitting on the couch next to the bookshelf, and she joined him. 

“What are they doing?” she whispered to Jacob. 

“They’re doing something for Winterfest and asked Daddy to help them.” 

Catherine listened. They were doing a radio-style reading of “A Christmas Carol,” including sound effects.

They finished a few minutes later and after speaking to Catherine, they all left. Jacob reluctantly went with them. Mary had organized a group of children to make decorations for Winterfest. 

“What did Father want?” Vincent asked as he joined Catherine on the couch after everyone had left. 

“He wanted me to meet your friend Diana. She wanted to talk about my case, and she’s going to reopen it unofficially.”

“I thought she might do that. What did you tell her?” 

“Well, I hadn’t told anyone the whole story, not even you,” she said contritely. 

“Tell me.”

“I only saw Gabriel one time. It was when Jacob was born. The doctor handed Jacob over to him, and Gabriel left with him. And that it wasn’t Gabriel who kidnapped me. He was behind it, and the person who did it was following his orders, but it was actually John Moreno who was there and gave the order. He turned me over to some other men who were the ones who questioned me about the book, and then later about you.” She looked up and saw shock in Vincent’s eyes. 

“Moreno? The DA? Your boss?” He paused a moment. “But Diana did mention that she thought it was strange that he would order that the search for you be stopped, even before everyone thought you were dead.”

“Yes, Joe was the one on the case, and I guess Moreno was worried that he might actually find something out.” 

“But he didn’t order Diana off the case,” Vincent pointed out. 

The DA has little authority over the police; he generally goes through the police commissioner. But I would think that unless the commissioner was also in on the conspiracy, Moreno would be hesitant to interfere.”

“I don’t think the commissioner was implicated,” Vincent told her. “There was a list published in the newspaper after the people from the book were arrested. I don’t remember seeing his name. I kept everything I could find about the case. I thought that Jacob might someday want to know what had happened. I’ll give it to you.” 

“Thank you. I’d love to know that happened,” she told him. 

“I also wrote about my experiences with everything: meeting Elliot, Diana, Gabriel. I’ll let you read that, too.” 

 

After dinner, Vincent gave Catherine a shoe box full of newspaper clippings and his journal with everything he’d written about his search.

She set herself up at Vincent’s desk and started reading after everyone else had gone to bed. She read his journal first, and parts of it were heartbreaking. Especially after her supposed death. It had taken him a few weeks to remember that she’d told him that there was a child, and then he’d refocused his energies on finding the child: the time he’d spent in a cage in the basement of one of Gabriel's houses, his joy at finally being able to bring his son home. It brought her to tears more than once.  

Then she read the newspaper clippings. He’d kept everything from the original reports of her disappearance through her obituary and, finally, the stories and lists of all the city officials and businessmen involved in the corruption case. Some of the names surprised her, but some didn’t. She was happy to see that although she had met some of them while working for her father’s law firm and later at the DA’s office, she didn’t know any of them well… Except for John, but then he wasn’t on the list. She wondered if Diana had a copy of the decoded book; maybe she could look at it and find some kind of a connection for the amounts that they hadn’t decoded. 

She glanced at the clock on the other side of the room when she finally finished. It was after midnight. She stacked everything, then headed to the bathing chamber to change, brush her teeth, and wash her face. Her nice nightgowns had been in the chifforobe in Vincent’s bedchamber, and she had recently started wearing them again. Tonight, it was pale blue with spaghetti straps. Vincent was worried that she would be cold and always ensured that the brazier in the main chamber was adequately warming the room before he went to bed.  

She had a hard time clearing everything she’d learned out of her mind so she could sleep, and it seemed like hours passed before she finally fell asleep. 

She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep when the dream woke her. It was the same one she’d had over and over while she was being held. She was back in the room where Jacob was born. The doctor was wrapping him and handing him over to that man. She’d only been given one brief glimpse of her son before that man had left with him. 

When she woke, she was breathing hard, and she was momentarily disoriented. Then she realized where she was, but still couldn’t relax; she had to see Jacob and ensure he was all right.

She didn’t go into Jacob’s chamber but stayed in the entrance. She just stood, watching him sleep. She lost track of time; watching him sleep was just what she needed to calm her. 

She was startled when Vincent appeared next to her.

“What is it, Catherine?” he whispered. 

“Nothing,” she said, unconsciously leaning against him. “I just had a dream, and I had to see Jacob to make sure he was all right.”

“A nightmare?” he asked. 

“One that I had over and over almost every night since Jacob was born. I thought it was over; I hadn’t had it since I returned.” 

“You probably stirred it all up again by reading all those clippings and my journal just before going to sleep,” he admonished gently.

She nodded, and then he felt her shiver. 

“You’re cold,” he said as he swept her into his arms and headed back into the main chamber. She thought he was taking her back to her bed but was surprised when he went straight through and into his chamber to his bed, where he tucked her in. He went around to the other side, got in, curled around her, and put his arm around her waist. He pulled her close. 

“This is where you belong,” he whispered. 

Catherine was so stunned that it took her a while to get back to sleep. She didn’t feel as if she’d been asleep very long when she was jolted out of her slumber by a 35-pound weight hitting the mattress and almost bouncing her out.

But Jacob wasn’t fazed by finding his mother in his father’s bed. He just snuggled down between them. 

“What are we gonna do today?” he asked. 

Vincent started chuckling and tickling his son. “How about we tickle you until your sides hurt from laughing?” he suggested. 

“Nah,” Jacob managed to get out in spite of the laughter. “That’s no fun.” 

“How would you like to spend the day with Mary, playing with the other children? It’s been over a week since you spent time with them.” 

“What about you and Mama?” 

“I thought that your mother and I would spend some time together, just us,” Vincent said, looking over at Catherine, who was still yawning and pushing her hair out of her eyes. 

“But you won’t have any fun without me,” Jacob was quick to point out. 

“That may be true,” Vincent said with a nod. “But sometimes Mama’s and Daddy’s have to give up some fun, so they can talk about serious things.” 

“Well, I guess so,” Jacob said after some thought. 

“And do you think it would be all right if you spent the night with the other children?” Vincent asked seriously. 

“Do I hafta? I like my bed.” 

“But you also like your grandfather’s bedtime stories and he always reads to the children in the dormitory chamber before bed.” 

Jacob looked from one parent to the other. Catherine was slightly confused about what Vincent might be planning but smiled at Jacob and nodded. 

“I guess I can,” he agreed. “What you gonna do?”

“I thought we might just go exploring. We'll take you there next time if we find something interesting.”

That settled, Vincent sent Jacob off to his chamber to dress. 

“What was that all about?” Catherine asked as Vincent got up. 

“If you are in agreement, I think we need some time alone. You’ve been back over a week, and we’ve hardly had time alone to talk. You’ve told Diana and Father more than you’ve been able to share with me, and I have many things I need to tell you.” He noticed that Catherine sat up and was looking interested. 

“In the last year we have become aware that sometimes the people here must get away from everything. Take a vacation from their regular duties. Sometimes it’s just one person, but sometimes it’s couples or even a whole family. So, Mouse and I set up a chamber on one of the lower levels. It’s far enough from the pipes that they can’t be heard. It’s a fairly large chamber, bigger than this one. There is a sleeping area, a small kitchen, and a seating area. Mouse was able to install plumbing for both the kitchen sink, a sink in the bathing chamber, and a toilet. There is no hot water in the kitchen or bathing chamber sink, but a pool is fed by a hot spring. It’s not very big, maybe almost six feet on a side, and roughly square. No one is using it right now, and we could stay as long as we want to.”

“What about Winterfest?” she asked. 

“Today is Thursday. Winterfest is Monday. That’s several days.” 

“I agree, we need to talk,” she said. “When do we leave?”

“After breakfast?” You can pack what you’ll need. I’ll do the same and get some supplies from

William. Walking there only takes about an hour; we can be there before lunch.”

Catherine was trying not to let her curiosity and anticipation show too much. She did a lot of smiling and nodding while Vincent told his father their plans. Catherine had expected protests from Father, but he only agreed that they needed time alone to process everything that had happened. It was more of the same when they stopped at Mary’s table to leave Jacob with her. 

An hour later, they were on their way. They each carried backpacks, and Vincent pulled a child’s wagon packed with supplies. 

“Does William think we will be gone a month?” she asked, eyeing the wagon. 

Vincent laughed. “This is only the perishables. There are already plenty of canned goods in the chamber, but he packed us sandwiches for our lunch and a pot of stew for dinner tonight. There’s a loaf of bread, fruit, eggs, milk, cheese, and cold cuts. And that is only what I saw him pack. William doesn’t want anyone to go hungry.”

“I can see that. What about refrigeration for some of that stuff?” 

“The water that Mouse tapped into is very cold; it stays around 40 degrees. He piped some of it into a metal tub, it’s constantly being replenished and works very well to keep things cold.”  “That was brilliant!” Catherine commented. 

“He’s been studying some engineering books over the last few years. He’s learned a lot, and where about half of his inventions used to work, now he’s up to about 75% of them working.”

When they reached the chamber, Catherine was amazed at what she found. She had envisioned a bare-bones kind of chamber but saw what looked more like something out of a European castle. The stone walls were all covered with large rugs, and there were rugs on the floor. The bed was a big four poster that was partitioned off from the rest of the chamber in the back corner by a curtain suspended from a pipe framework. The entrance to the bathing chamber was through a short tunnel that ran from near the bed at the back of the chamber. The other rear corner had a table and several chairs. On the right side, as they went in, was a kitchen, and across from that, on the left, was a sitting area. Catherine was amused to see that the other sofa that used to reside in her living room was part of that. 

That makes sense, she said to herself. Vincent said that sometimes, whole families come here on vacation. They would need the bed.

“This is a lot more comfortable than I imagined,” she said as she helped Vincent unload the wagon. “I’m surprised that no one is living in it.” 

“It’s a little too far from all the amenities of the main chambers,” he told her. Perfect for taking a break, but too far to walk to meals and chores, not to mention childcare daily.”

When they finished putting everything away, and Catherine had been given a tour, they were back in the kitchen preparing the sandwiches William had packed for their lunch. 

After lunch, Catherine took the opportunity to ask a few questions. Vincent was sitting in a big wingback chair, and Catherine was curled into another smaller chair next to him, and they both had books. 

“I was wondering…” she said before Vincent had a chance to open his book. “How did you know that I was awake last night? Did I disturb Jacob?”

“No, that is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” he told her. He put the book down on the table next to his chair. “The instant I touched you last week, the Bond came crashing back. But I didn’t know whether I should trust it, so I did the same thing I did when it first appeared. I waited until I knew the extent of it. I thought at first that it might be only because I was touching you, but when you left the room, it was still there. And I could still feel you when I came back Below that evening. By the time I was to the point where I felt that it was back to stay, we weren’t getting two minutes alone to talk.” 

“You didn’t say anything last night,” she pointed out. 

“I knew that you were tired; that was when I was struck with the idea of coming here for a day or two.” 

“So, you sensed that I was awake,” she said. 

“I was still awake; I had been reading too. I knew that all that you were reading was upsetting to you, and I was relieved when you put it all away and went to sleep. But I was still awake when I felt your dream begin. When you got up, I knew I had to comfort you.” 

“Thank you. I did really need that reassurance that everything was okay. But what you said last night when you took me back to your bed… that it was where I belong… what did you mean? Was it just for last night, or will I be back on the couch here tonight?”

Vincent had to smile. Catherine never was one to beat about that proverbial bush. 

“I meant exactly what I said. If it is what you want, I want you to sleep in my bed and wake in my arms every morning. I think we both slept better last night together than apart. If either of us have a bad dream, the other will be there for comfort.” 

“It is what I want,” she told him. “I slept next to you while you were in my apartment, both when you were on the floor and later when you were in my bed. Then after, while you were recovering, Mary and I found that you rested better if I was next to you and touching you. Even Father went along.”

“I remember none of that, except for one brief memory of waking to hear you quoting Dylan Thomas. I remember hunting for the book that those lines were in, and I remember being surprised that you knew them.”

“Do you remember anything after that?” she asked. 

“I vaguely remember going back Below, but nothing after that until I woke in my chamber days later.”

Catherine nodded, then looked back at her book. A few minutes later, she looked up, another question on her lips. 

“So, if the Bond is back, just as strong as ever…” 

“It might be even stronger,” he put in. 

“All right, maybe stronger; then you know that I have something on my mind now.” 

“Yes, you have questions, or at least a question.”  “I’d stick with the plural, but I have one big one.”

“Ask,” he said. 

“Back when I was Below after my father died. I asked you if you thought that we would ever be together, truly together.  And you answered, ‘Only if and when we understand how great the sacrifice and how large the fears and are able to move through them.’ I told you that I wasn’t scared. I’ve often wondered if you and I were on the same wavelength, talking about the same thing that day.” 

“I think we were. You were asking if there was a chance we would ever have a physical… sexual... relationship. But I will admit that I knew you weren’t scared even before I said that. The fears I was speaking of were my own; I felt that the sacrifice was yours, but the fear was mine.” 

“What were you afraid of?” she asked quietly. She thought she knew, but she needed to hear it from him. 

“Many things. That you would finally see me, all of me, and reject me, or that if we did get to that point, I would do something wrong, and you would reject me, but most of all, I was afraid of that other, darker part of me. He wanted you as much as I did, but I didn’t trust him to treat you gently. I feared I would hurt you in the heat of the moment.”

“But you didn’t,” she was quick to point out. 

“But I don’t know that; I have no memory of what happened. I’ve dreamt of how I would have liked it to happen, but I don’t know what actually happened.” “What was the dream?” she asked, curious. 

“It’s always the same. I’m in your apartment and your bed. You were lying next to me. I hear your voice, but it doesn’t register what you say. Then you could tell I was upset about something, so you rolled over and rubbed my back. Then, I rolled over, took you in my arms, and started kissing you. I could feel the Bond, and I could tell that you liked it and welcomed it. It progressed, and… we made love.” Embarrassed, he didn’t look at her.

Catherine was so overcome for a moment that she couldn’t speak. When she finally did speak her voice cracked. 

“Vincent… That wasn’t just a dream. It is what happened. Exactly like that.”

“That can’t be. I thought it happened in the cave when you saved me.” 

“No, it happened before then.” She looked at him. “What did you think? That I saved your life by having sex with you? It wasn’t like that. I saved your life with good old CPR. The city required all city employees to have CPR training. I finished the class just a month before. And I used it when you collapsed. I checked for a pulse, and there wasn’t one, so I quickly did a few breaths and then started the compressions. I only had to do four or five cycles when you responded. That was when I yelled for Father. By the time he got there, we had moved, and I was sitting on the ground with your head in my lap.”

“I didn’t hurt you?” he asked. 

“No, not then and not when we made love: it was over quickly, but you didn’t hurt me.”

Vincent leaned his head back and drew in a breath. 

“I was always afraid that I… I forced you,” he said in a low voice. 

“You didn’t rape me, Vincent. Nor did I take advantage of you. I did have the feeling that the reason you picked that particular time to make that move was because your illness weakened you, and you felt that you would be less likely to hurt me.” 

“That, and I likely thought I was dying, and I didn’t want to die a virgin, never having expressed my love for you in that way,” he said wryly. 

“Does it make you feel better that you now know what happened, that you do remember?” 

“It does. And there is something else I want you to know.” 

“What’s that?” 

“When you told me that there was a child, I will admit that I didn’t remember that until sometime later, but when I did, I pictured a child like me, especially when I realized that the man who had kidnapped and killed you had kept him. I could feel him; I could feel Jacob. I knew he was a boy, and I knew he was getting weaker and that the only way I could save him was to give myself up to that monster. When they brought Jacob to me, I was stunned. He didn’t look like me; he was a perfectly normal human child.” He moved to kneel in front of Catherine and took her hands.

“Catherine, you gave me the proof of all the things that you have believed from the beginning. Jacob is the proof of my humanity.” 

He lowered his head to her lap, and she leaned down and hugged him.

A few minutes later she gently pushed him away, rose then took his hand and led him to the couch. 

“I never realized that was how you felt. I’ve always seen you as self-assured and supremely confident.” 

“It’s hard to be self-assured when every time I wanted to do something as a child, I was told that I couldn’t because of my appearance. I was never told that the way I looked was bad, at least not by Father, or anyone who loved me, but it was still the reason I was given for not being able to do things with the other children, like go Above and play in the park in the daytime, or go to museums, zoos or libraries.”

“Is that why Devin used to take up Above at night?” she asked. 

“Devin and later some of the other children older than me. I enjoyed the freedom, but I always knew that my friends did it for me because they felt sorry for me.”   

She had no answer to that; she’d often felt the same, wanting to do things for him because she was sorry he’d never been able to do them. She put her arms around his waist and cuddled into him. 

“This may have been one of the things I’ve missed the most. I missed the talks, but I missed this closeness, sharing the quiet. I used to put myself to sleep thinking of it.”

“I lost track of the number of times that I returned to your balcony after you were gone, even after I thought you were dead. I would sit on the floor and imagine us together there.” 

“We were definitely on the same wavelength then,” she said as she cuddled closer. “How long was it before Peter sold the apartment?” 

“Almost a year. I think it was the last thing he did. And I think it took him that long because he didn’t want to go through all your things. Susan came and did it with help from Mary, Brooke and Jamie. That was how most of your things wound up Below. Mary wanted to make sure that anything with sentimental value was put aside for Jacob. I didn’t tell you, the chest of keepsakes that you had in your closet is under my bed. You know that all your clothes are in storage Below, and all your furniture is also Below. Susan said that the dressing table in your bedroom belonged to your mother. Mary put it in storage, too. Before we left, I asked her to see that it was moved to my bedchamber. And there are several boxes of decorations that you had in your home that will also be there when we get back. You can decide if you want to put them out there or save them for when you move back Above.” 

Catherine sat up and looked at Vincent. 

“Vincent, I won’t be moving back Above, at least not on a full-time basis.” “But if you go back to work in the DA’s office, what will you do then?

“That’s a big ‘IF,’ but if I do, I’ll have an address Above, but I’ll be here Below most of the time.” 

“And are you going to take Jacob Above?” he asked. 

“That will be a decision that you and I must make together,” she told him. 

“If you do, how will you explain him?”

That almost made her laugh.

“That’s the easy part. I was pregnant when I left; there are hospital records to prove that. He was born while I was being held, and when I escaped or was released, I brought him with me.” She paused before going on. “I was wondering. Did Peter make any provisions for Jacob?”  Vincent pulled her back into his arms. 

“He executed your will exactly as you wrote it,” he told her. “As you said, there was a hospital record that you were pregnant, and since he was your doctor of record, that was forwarded to him, but not until we already knew about Jacob. He was gathering all your medical records in case they were ever needed in the future. But your will had a provision for a trust for any future progeny, natural or adopted, so other than what you set aside for him to donate to a charity or charities of his choice, everything was put into a trust for Jacob, only there is no name on it. It’s being handled by your father’s law firm.” 

“So, all the properties: my apartment, some real estate Daddy owned that I hadn’t sold yet and the lake house in Connecticut have all been sold?”

“You’ll have to talk to Peter, but I believe that he said that he held on to the lake house.” 

“That’s wonderful,” she said. Maybe once I get everything straightened out, the three of us can go up there for a few days. You may finally get your chance to explore the woods.”

“How will you go about getting it all straightened out?” he asked. 

“I’m not sure. I’ve never had to do it before. But I think I will need to talk to a good probate lawyer. I’ll likely have to prove that I’m me. Peter has my medical records and that will help, once that is proven. I’ll have to pay back a couple of life insurance policy payouts. But I don’t think that there would be anyone who would object to it. But all that will have to wait until we hear what Detective Bennett can find out. I don’t think it would be safe for me to just show up and accuse Moreno of kidnapping. He may still have connections and that could put me in danger. For that matter, even if we can dig up enough evidence, besides my word that Moreno was responsible for my kidnapping, I might still be in danger if any connections he has aren’t happy that he was finally accused. They might fear that he would talk to save himself.” 

“It sounds like it’s going to be complicated.”

“No doubt will be, but I’ll take it one step at a time. The important thing is that I’m back and with you and Jacob.”   

“You know what I’m going to do right after dinner?” Catherine asked after a while. 

“What?” 

“As you pointed out, I’ve been back for over a week. It’s been a busy week, but I haven’t made any time for myself. One of the first things I did when I stopped in Billings was take care of a lot of the personal grooming I hadn’t been allowed to do. But the tub in the motel wasn’t big enough for a good soak. So, I’m going to soak in that pool until my skin prunes up.” 

That made Vincent laugh.

“Then, I guess if I want a bath, I’d better do it now,” he suggested. 

“Might be a good idea,” she agreed with a wink. 

Vincent got his backpack and headed for the bathing chamber. When he came out a little while later Catherine looked up from her book. 

“That didn’t take long,” she commented.

“I didn’t need to soak,” he told her. “Besides, it’s not the bathing that takes time. It’s the drying. I have a fan in my bathing chamber that I can use to speed up the drying process. It’s going to take a little longer here. 

He was dressed in worn jeans and a short sleeved t-shirt that was showing signs of dampness. 

“I put some extra wood on the brazier, and put the stew we brought with us on the rack over the fire,” she told him. “Maybe the heat will help with the drying.”

“I think William packed some biscuits to go with the stew. Did you find them?” 

“They are in the foil packet on the edge of the brazier.”

A little while later, as they were dishing up the stew, Catherine noticed something. She grabbed one of Vincent’s hands for a closer look. 

“What have you done to your hands?” 

“I clipped my nails and filed them,” he told her. “I’ve done it before when I’ve taken a turn in the nursery and I kept them short until Jacob was a year old.” 

Catherine stared down at the hand, which looked oddly ordinary in spite of the extra hair. 

“Why?” she asked, looking up at him. 

“Because I want to love you, and I don’t want to take any chances.” 

Catherine didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But she did throw her arms around him and hug him. 

 

Catherine enjoyed her soak in the hot pool. She had done her best to get back to the standard of grooming that she had adhered to before the kidnapping when she had stopped in Billings. Now she stepped it up, using the body lotion she’d brought. She’d also packed a nightgown in the backpack. It was another of her old ones that Mary had saved. It was a simple, pale pink silk. She hung it on a hook, hoping that the steamy warmth of the chamber would release some of the wrinkles from being rolled tightly and packed in the backpack.

When she finished and went back into the front chamber, Vincent was adding more wood to the fire. He’d cleaned up after their meal. 

“I made tea,” he pointed at the teapot on the table. “I’m going to change.” 

He disappeared into the bathing chamber, leaving Catherine to smile. She could tell that he was a little nervous; she’d seen the look he’d given her when she’d come out wearing the nightgown and no robe. 

She turned down the bed and fluffed the pillows then poured herself a cup of tea and took it to the couch. She was reading and sipping tea when Vincent returned. She was pleased to see that he hadn’t put on the old layered pajamas that he used to wear. He had on a pair of old sweatpants but was shirtless. 

She loved the look and wanted to say so but felt that it might make him even more selfconscious, so she kept it to herself.  

 

Vincent picked up his book and went to sit on the side of the bed. 

He didn’t move, but Catherine rose and stood in front of him. 

“We don’t have to be in any rush, Vincent,” she told him. “We can take this at your speed.”

He looked up at her, then put his arms around her hips and pulled her closer, hugging her. She reached down and rubbed his back. 

When she stepped back a few minutes later, he put the book back on the nightstand, stood and went to put out the candles and put more wood on the fire. When he returned to the bed where Catherine was still standing, he took her into his arms and kissed her. 

His hands resting on her shoulders, he slipped his fingers under the straps of the nightgown. 

When he asked, “May I?” Catherine smiled and nodded. 

He moved the straps down her arms and let the nightgown slide easily down her body. 

Vincent sat on one side of the bed, slid over to the other side, and held his hand out to her. 

“Come to bed, Catherine,” he said. 

Catherine didn’t have to be invited twice. She joined him and cuddled close. 

Catherine slowly moved her hands over his upper body, hoping that he’d take the hint and do the same. He did and moved his left hand down her side until it rested on her hip. 

She tilted her head back and stretched up a bit so that their lips met. This time everything seemed to slow down as they kissed. Lips parted, and tongues met for the first time. And a thrill went through Catherine’s body. After a moment Vincent pulled away and looked down at her. 

“You liked that,” he said incredulously. 

“Of course I liked it. I love you and I’ve been dreaming of you kissing me like that… and you are good at it,” she added mischievously.

That seemed to give him more confidence, and he kissed her again, then moved down to her breasts, where he took one nipple into his mouth. Catherine’s gasp, then moan, made him pull away. 

“Catherine?”

“Why did you stop?” she asked. 

“That wasn’t pain?”

“No, it was pleasure. What did the Bond tell you?”

“I wasn’t really paying much attention to it,” he admitted. 

“Go with what you feel, Vincent. You are the most gentle, loving man I’ve ever known. Don’t worry that you might hurt me; you won’t, but if you did, you’d know it as quickly as I would. Take your time. Learn what I need, and let me know what you need.”

“You,” he said reverently. “I need you. I need to touch you and kiss your sweet body the way I need oxygen.” 

His words surprised her. Her eyes wide, they stared at each other for several long minutes. Vincent was now paying attention to the Bond, and he could feel her arousal, and he kissed her again. 

This time, his mouth on hers was more demanding and as hard as his muscular body pressed against hers. And she was kissing him back, giving as good as she was getting. 

A big, slightly rough but warm hand cupped her breast as he moved from her mouth and captured her other nipple in his mouth. This time, her moan of pleasure didn’t stop him. He moved to her other breast as he moved his hand between her legs and unerringly found the sensitive bundle of nerves there. 

Her gasp made him pull away long enough to whisper something that sounded like, “Beautiful, so perfect.” 

“Vincent,” she begged. “Take off your pants. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband, and started to push them down. 

He suddenly pulled away from her and rolled onto his back. Fearful she might have pushed too much, she propped herself up on her elbow, ready to say something, but then she saw that he was complying with her request. His pants were off and on the floor before she had a chance to take  a breath.  

He rolled back onto his side and pulled her close again, his mouth going to her neck this time. She felt his length press against her, then rub over the same place his hand had been moments before. The sensation was intense, and she knew that he was using the Bond this time because when she rolled to her back, he followed her. 

After that, the time that passed might have been only minutes, or it could have been hours; they both lost track. He knew what she wanted and delivered. 

Sometime later, Catherine lay on her back, staring at the ceiling of the chamber and catching her breath. Her whole body had gone limp, and she’d never felt so sated before. Vincent was doing the same. She’d never wished more that the Bond went both ways. She didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling. 

She rolled over and put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. 

He turned his head and looked at her. 

“Isn’t what I’m supposed to ask you?” he asked. 

“Under the circumstances…” she began. 

“I’m more than okay,” he interrupted with a slight smile. “I never dreamed it could be like that. The intense physical and emotional connection, shared pleasure. The Bond enhanced it. I not only felt my pleasure but yours. I don’t know how I could have ever thought I’d forgotten that first time.”

He leaned down and kissed her. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you,” he whispered. 

“I know I won’t ever get enough of you,” she responded. 

They were both quiet for a time, enjoying the closeness.

“It’s never been like this before,” Catherine said quietly.

“What?” he asked. 

“Making love. Afterward, they always rolled over and went to sleep or had to get up, get dressed, and leave. No one ever wanted to cuddle and talk.” 

“I’ve got nowhere more important to be than here with you, and I’m not the slightest bit tired. I’m more energized than anything,” he told her. “Your other lovers didn’t seem to have much regard for you.” 

“You can say that again,” she said with a sigh. “I was lucky if I climaxed at all, much less three times as it was with you.” 

“That’s unusual?” he asked. 

“For me,” she admitted. “I’m usually slow to arouse, and often the men I was with got impatient, and once I was aroused enough to make it comfortable for them, they just went for it. More often than not, I was just getting started when they were finished and either snoring or gone.” 

“Devin gave me some advice several years ago,” he said with a chuckle. 

“Advice? What kind of advice?” 

“It was when he was here with Charles the first time. He assumed that you and I were intimate, and the advice he gave was sound. He told me always to put my lady first. Your pleasure should come first. He didn’t go into details, but he referred me to several books he said I should read.”  “Devin being the big brother,” Catherine said with a chuckle. “Did you read the books?” 

“Some of them weren’t in Father’s library. I read the ones that were, but the others were hard to find. I discretely put out the word that I was looking for them, and a couple did show up in my chamber rather mysteriously.”

“Your friends were looking out for you,” she said. 

“I guess that is one way to describe it.” 

They did both eventually drift off to sleep, only to wake later to make love again. 

They slept late on Friday, or at least Catherine thought it might be late, she had removed her watch and left it in Vincent’s chamber, so she had no idea. Vincent seemed to know, so she relied on him. 

After lunch, they explored a little of the retreat chamber area. Vincent led her to a small opening in the side of a tunnel. It was a thin crack, but it was tall. They had to turn sideways to get through it, and he took her hand and led her through the dark for about 20 feet. She was amazed when they stepped out into sunlight. They were on the other side of the Chamber of the Falls. They could see the usual lookout cliff directly across from them. 

“This is amazing,” she said, leaning back against his chest. 

They watched as a figure stepped out onto the ledge several hundred feet away across the river below. Catherine could make out that the person was a woman, but it was hard to tell who it was.

“I think it’s Mary,” Catherine said, just as the person seemed to sense that she was being watched. She saw them and waved. They waved back. 

Vincent, whose eyesight was better, verified that it was Mary. 

“She usually spends a little time out of almost every day sitting there. She says that it calms her.”

“I understand that,” Catherine said. “I would often imagine sitting right there where she is. It always made me feel better and would renew my hope.” 

 

On Friday, they explored in the opposite direction and Vincent showed her a small chamber with one wall covered with crystals. 

The entrance to that chamber was much smaller and they had to crawl to get to it. But it was worth it, in Catherine’s opinion. 

“Is this where you found my crystal?” she asked, looking around in awe as she tried to brush the dirt off, and Vincent picked cobwebs out of her hair. 

“No, that chamber is much larger and is several days' walk from here. Narcissa told me how to find it. This was discovered by accident when we were working on the retreat chamber. There was already a hot spring next to the chamber, we just had to make a hole in the wall to access it, but Mouse was looking for a way to pipe in some cold water. He has an uncanny knack for walking along a tunnel and tapping on the wall with a hammer to find hollow places in the rock. He was sure that there was water along the tunnel outside here, and when he found a spot he thought was hollow, he and a few others went to work, breaking through the tunnel wall. They didn’t find water, but they did find this. He calls it the Mini Crystal Cavern. I’ll take you to the original Crystal Cavern sometime,” he promised. 

 

Later, when they got back to the retreat chamber, they were both hungry. 

“Is it dinnertime?” Catherine asked as they washed their hands at the sink. “I’ve completely lost track of time and am not even sure what day it is.”

“That’s easy to do when there is no sun to keep your circadian rhythms properly synced,” he told her. “It is about dinner time, and it’s Saturday. We need to go back tomorrow.” “Do we have to?” Catherine was only half joking. 

“Jacob is starting to miss us, and Winterfest is on Monday,” he reminded her. 

They ate dinner, and since they had been crawling around in the dirt, they both needed baths.

“You go ahead first,” Catherine told him. “I want to brush all the cobwebs and sand out of my hair before I wash it.”

Vincent gathered his things and went first. 

It didn’t take as long as she expected to get her hair brushed, and instead of waiting, she had an idea. She undressed and wrapped a towel around herself and walked into the bathing chamber. 

Vincent was under water, rinsing shampoo out of his hair.

“Do you need some help with that?” she asked when he surfaced. 

Vincent was startled. They had slept in the same bed and made love several times, but there were other everyday intimacies that they hadn’t indulged in. Bathing together was one of those. When he wiped the water off his face, he was surprised to find Catherine was already in the pool, moving toward him. 

“You are still good at blocking the Bond when you want to,” he told her. “I didn’t know what you were doing.”

“The only way I can sneak up on you is to block it,” she said with a laugh. “Even then, I usually can’t move quietly enough that you don’t hear me. Seriously, do you need someone to wash your back?” 

“No one has washed my back since I got old enough to bathe myself,” he said. 

She grabbed the sponge and the bar of Ivory soap as they floated by. She lathered the sponge. 

“Turn around,” she told him. 

The water in the pool wasn’t as deep as in Vincent’s bathing chamber. If he stood in the middle, it came to his waist. The water was to about the bottom of Catherine’s rib cage. There was hair on his back, but it was sparse and golden, and she could tell from the way he flexed his shoulders as she scrubbed that it felt good.

“I used to have a long back brush that I used in the shower,” she told him. “Sometimes I’d just use it as a back scratcher.” 

“Would you like me to wash your back,” he asked when she finished, and he turned around.  “Please,” she said, handing him the sponge.

His back washing was less vigorous than hers had been but still felt good; it was even better when he reached around, dropped the sponge, and started washing her front. He pulled her back against him.   

“Some of the reading materials that Devin recommended suggested that an occasional change of venue might keep lovemaking from getting boring,” he whispered. 

“We’ve hardly been doing this long enough for it to get boring,” she pointed out.

“I believe in being pro-active,” he told her as he turned her around and moved to sit on the lower step of the three steps down into the pool.  

 

Catherine was laughing when they left the bathing chamber a while later. 

“I don’t think we should try that in your bathing chamber,” she said as they dressed. 

“Why not?” he asked.

“With all the splashing and well… vocalizations echoing off the stone walls, I’m sure someone would hear and think someone was drowning and send help. It could be embarrassing.” Even Vincent laughed at that. 

 

That evening, they straightened the chamber and packed everything they wouldn’t need in the morning. And before they left the next day, they stripped and remade the bed and took all the dirty laundry and trash back with them. 

 

Jacob knew they were coming back and insisted that Jamie take him to meet them, but Jamie wouldn’t go beyond a certain point. When they turned the corner into the tunnel where he was, they could see the little boy dancing from one foot to the other. When he spotted them, he took off and ran and hit them with enough force that all three of them almost wound up on the ground. 

“I missed you!” he shouted.

“And we missed you,” Vincent said as he unwound Jacob’s arms from around his and Catherine’s legs and picked him up. 

“I was ‘fraid that you would miss Winterfest,” Jacob told them. “It’s tomorrow.” 

“We know,” Catherine said. “I wouldn’t miss my first Winterfest back home and my first one with you for anything.” 

Jabob lunged out of his father’s arms to throw his arms around Catherine and place a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

Vincent handed Jacob to Catherine, and he went back to pulling the wagon as they walked. Catherine carried Jacob for quite a distance before she put him down. 

“You’re heavy!” she told him. “Have you grown while we were gone?” 

“Probly,” Jacob said with a grin. “Mary says I’m growing like a weed.” 

They had left early enough that they made it back in time for lunch. They dropped their things in Vincent’s chamber and then used the wagon to carry empty storage containers back to William before they joined Father at the table for lunch. 

 

“Father, do you have a moment?” Vincent asked as they were leaving the dining chamber.

“Of course, what is it?” 

“I just want to talk,” Vincent told him. 

Catherine was sure she knew what Vincent wanted to talk about, so she left them. 

“Jacob, do you want to help with something?” she asked, taking the little boy’s hand. 

“Sure. What we gonna do?”

Catherine leaned down and whispered something in Jacob’s ear and his eyes lit up. 

 

The two men watched as Catherine and Jacob walked away before they turned to go to the Study. 

“Will she be staying then?” Father asked. 

“She’s still not sure what will happen Above. Diana is looking into it. Catherine’s hands are pretty much tied until she is able to tell people she is alive. Diana isn’t sure yet how safe it would be.”

“I can understand that.” Father sat in his desk chair, and Vincent took a seat in front of the desk. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I just wanted to let you know that Catherine and I finally talked. She does intend to be Below; she doesn’t intend to take Jacob Above, at least not permanently.” 

“How is she going to explain him?” Father asked. 

“She was pregnant when she left; there are hospital records to prove that. She said that her story will be that he was born while she was being held, and when she left… escaped, she took him with her.” 

Father nodded. “And what about you… the two of you? Where do you stand?”

“The Bond returned as soon as I held her the first time after she returned. It hit me like a tsunami. I can feel what she is feeling, and she has told me that she wants to be with me, and I want to be with her. Jacob is thrilled to have his mother. We agreed that we would work on it together. I thought, perhaps a house in the city with tunnel access.” 

Father looked thoughtful. “You know that Peter is planning to retire and move to Santa Fe in a year or two. Maybe the two of you could buy his house.” 

“I never thought of that; I’ll talk to Catherine,” Vincent was smiling. It sounded like Father was on their side. 

“And are you planning to get married?” Father asked.

“We haven’t discussed it,” Vincent admitted, “but I have thought about it.” 

“Then you might need this.” Father reached into one of the desk drawers, took something out, and set it on the desk in front of Vincent. 

Vincent eyed the iconic blue box. 

“Tiffany’s?” he questioned. 

“It’s Margaret’s wedding set,” Father told him. “She kept them after she no longer wore them.

She gave them to me and told me that you would need them someday.” 

“Are you sure? Maybe Devin might use them…” 

“No, Margaret said that you, specifically, would be in need of them. Devin never knew her; you did. The engagement ring is a diamond with sapphires on each side of it. The wedding band has sapphires and diamonds. I chose sapphires for her eyes.” 

“Thank you, Father. I never thought I would be able to give Catherine anything like this.” 

“The settings are rather old-fashioned, so if she’d like to reset the stones, that would be all right.” 

 

“Where are we gonna find a dress?” Jacob asked. “Are we going shopping?”

“Kind of,” Catherine told him as they walked. “Mary kept a lot of my things safe while I was gone, and we are going to look there. You can help me make up my mind.”

They reached the storage area, and Catherine pulled out the armoire key that Mary had given her.

There was a screen in the corner, and she tried on a few things to show Jacob. 

“This one Mama,” she heard Jacob shout. “You need to wear this one.” 

Catherine put on one of the robes that had been in the armoire and went to see what he’d found. 

He had pulled the bottom of a dark russet-colored velvet dress out of the back where it appeared to have been buried. 

“I don’t remember having anything that color,” she said as she pushed the hangers apart to get the dress. 

“It’s the same color as the dress in the picture,” Jacob said. 

Catherine held the dress up and looked at it. “I don’t think this is mine.”

“But it’s the one that you have on in the picture with Daddy,” Jacob argued. 

Catherine was looking inside the dress for a tag when Mary joined them. 

“Mary, where did this come from?” Catherine asked, holding up the dress.

“It was with the other things from your closet that we packed up,” Mary told her. “I think it’s old and appears to be handmade since there is no tag. I thought it might have been your mother’s since it was in the back of your closet.”  

Catherine held it up again. 

“Put it on, Mama,” Jacob pleaded. 

Catherine went behind the screen and put it on. She had to take her bra off since it was off the shoulders.

She stepped out and looked at herself in the mirror. 

“I think you’re right, Jacob. It looks just like the dress in the painting, but your daddy and I never posed for that. The artist made it up; painted us from memory.” 

She turned and looked at it from the back. 

“About the only difference I can see is that it’s not as long as the one in the painting. This one just reaches the floor, and I don’t have shoes on.”

“You gonna wear it for Winterfest?” Jacob asked. 

“What do you think?” she asked. 

“Wear it! Daddy will be surprised!” 

Mary circled her, looking at the dress with a critical eye. 

“It appears to fit perfectly,” she said. “How does it feel?” 

Catherine moved her arms around. “The top is good. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about it slipping down. And that is a good thing; since it’s off the shoulder and the way this fabric drapes, I won’t be able to wear much more than my skimpiest panties.” She glanced over at Jacob, whose attention had been taken by a box on a table on the other side of the room. 

Catherine and Jacob carried the dress back to their chamber, where they hid it all in the armoire there. 

 

Catherine was getting ready for bed after they had put Jacob to bed. 

“Do you have a moment, Catherine?” Vincent asked when she came out of the bathing chamber. 

“What is it?” she joined him on the sofa.

Vincent had been thinking about how he would ask her all day, and he’d finally decided that the best way was to just come out and ask. 

He took the blue box out of her pocket and held it out. 

“I can’t imagine growing old with anyone but you; I know you are the only one I want to do that with. You deserve everything. I might not be able to give you that, but I will love you without end and let you live your life without borders. I love you, Catherine. Will you be my wife?”

Catherine was so stunned that for a moment, she couldn’t speak, but when she saw doubt start to creep into Vincent’s eyes, she threw herself into his arms. 

“Yes! Yes!” she said as his arms went around her. “If you hadn’t asked me, I would probably be asking you.” She kissed him and when she was done, Vincent was laughing. 

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” he said, presenting the box again.

“Tiffany’s?” she questioned, as he had earlier.

“They were Margaret’s. She gave them to Father and told him to give them to me because she thought I’d need them. 

He opened the box, and Catherine gasped. 

“It’s beautiful!” 

Vincent removed the engagement ring and slipped it on her finger. 

“And it fits perfectly!” she exclaimed. “I love it!”

“Father said that you can have the stones reset if you like. The settings are old-fashioned.”

“But I love the settings. I don’t want to change a thing.”  “Do you want to let everyone know?” he asked a little later. 

“Can we announce it at Winterfest?” she asked.

“We can. That’s perfect; everyone, including Helpers, will be there.” 

 

The next afternoon, Catherine helped Jacob dress for the party and then went to get dressed herself. Once dressed, she stood in front of the mirror on the chifforobe. 

These long sleeves will be good, but my neck and shoulders are bare. I’ll be okay once the Great Hall warms up, but the trip down will be chilly. Why didn’t I grab a coat out of storage while I was at it? 

She hunted around in the chifforobe and found a black cashmere shawl, which would be just the thing. 

Vincent returned from helping carry food down to the Great Hall and was stopped in his tracks when he was Catherine.

“That’s the dress from Kristopher’s painting,” he said. “I didn’t know that you actually owned it.”

“Neither did I, but it was with everything Mary had stored. She said it was in the back of my closet. It looks like it might have been handmade; there are no tags in it.” “Another of Kristopher’s pranks?” he asked. 

“Maybe,’ she said with a smile. 

 

They were all dressed and ready to leave when they heard someone outside the chamber. 

“Knock, knock,” someone called. “Is anyone home?” Vincent recognized the voice and answered. 

“Come in, Diana.” 

She came in and they greeted her. 

“Wow! You two look just like the painting.” 

Vincent had decided to go along and was wearing his cloak and gloves. 

“This is the first chance I’ve had to dress up in years,” Catherine commented. “I decided I should do it right.” 

Neither of them mentioned their other reason for celebrating. 

“I hoped to catch you before you went to the Great Hall. It won’t take long; do you have the time?”

Vincent shrugged, “They can’t really start without me, and I know a shortcut that will get us there much quicker. What is it?” 

“I just have some news, and things are working out.” She looked from one to the other. 

“Jacob,” Vincent said. “Please run ahead and catch up with Mary and the other children. Tell

Mary we might be a little late but will be there soon.” 

Entrusted with an important message and the chance to get to the Great Hall quicker, Jacob was happy to leave. 

“All right,” Catherine said, leading the way to the sitting area. “Please sit down and tell us.”  After they were seated, Diana began. 

“I have copies of all the files from your case, and I got everything out and read it all. I also have a copy of the partially decoded black book that Joe gave you. 

“As I was reading the file, I discovered that Burch’s cryptographer wasn’t really a cryptographer. He was just a guy who was good at doing the Cryptograms in the newspaper. But I will admit that he did better than anyone else did. He was able to figure out that there were actually at least two and possibly three different codes used in the book. Each page had fifteen entries on it. He managed to decipher the top five or one-third of every page, but he quickly found out that the code used for those entries wasn’t the same as was used for the bottom twothirds of each page. So, we had about a third of the people listed in the book. None were very consequential, mostly police officers, a few stockbrokers, a couple of lawyers, and hardly any higher-ups. And it turned out that none of them knew the identities of anyone else. Both Joe and I knew there had to have been people on the list with more clout, but we just couldn’t break the code. 

“So, I sat down with a bottle of Jamison and a glass and went to work…” 

“You figured it out?” Catherine said.

“I did, and it was so obvious that I really felt dumb.” She laughed at herself. “The code for the first part was a simple substitution code. Nothing fancy, just cryptogram stuff. I played with it for a while. I started with the assumption that it was done in thirds, so I worked on the middle five entries on each page, but nothing was working. But then, after a substantial amount of Jamison, I got an idea; I started to see a pattern. So instead of starting over from scratch, I applied the first code to the second section then I worked from there, and names started appearing. These names were of slightly more important people. Names that almost anyone in the city would recognize. 

“Then I did the same thing with the last section; applied the second code to that, and the same thing happened. It took almost the whole bottle of Jamison, and all night, well into the next morning, but I did it. But since I was more than a little drunk, I decided I’d better wait until the next day to see Joe about it. 

“I went to Joe’s office the next morning, only a little hung over…” she grinned and winked. “When Joe saw the list and saw who was on it, including Moreno, he was livid. He wanted to go and confront Moreno right then, but I convinced him to slow down; that we needed a plan. 

“I started by telling him that you were all right; that you were home and in hiding. He almost cried…” 

“Then I made him go to lunch with me, and we talked and devised a plan. First, we called the Mayor and the Police Commissioner, neither of whom is on the list and arranged to meet with them. From there we quickly put together a task force and moved first thing Friday morning. 

“I convinced them to let Joe and me confront and arrest Moreno. We went to Moreno’s office, and I asked him what he would say if I told him, you were alive and well and in the city. At first, he just pointed out that he’d attended your funeral. I asked if he’d seen a body, and he reminded me that Dr. Marks had identified the body when it arrived at the morgue since he knew you, too, and that I had been present at the autopsy.

“But when he saw how serious Joe and I were, he got worried and asked what was happening. That was when I read him his rights and arrested him, citing several charges, including conspiracy and kidnapping. We escorted him out in cuffs. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it in the papers.” 

“Catherine and I have been away for several days, and Father never gets the papers until they are at least two or three days old. Even if he has them, he probably hasn’t touched them since everyone has been busy with Winterfest plans.” 

“And speaking of Winterfest,” Diana said. “We should probably get moving, or they are going to come looking for you.” 

As they walked, Catherine fell into step next to Diana. “So, what do we do next?” she asked. 

“You should probably visit Joe as soon as possible. That will start the ball rolling. Isn’t Dr. Alcott your family doctor? Maybe he can go with you to verify who you claim to be.” 

“Yes, Peter delivered me. I’ll talk to him tonight. I’ll ask him to bring my medical records if he still has them.” 

 

Right after the opening ceremony, Father told everyone that Vincent had something to say before the festivities began. 

Vincent rose and stood behind Catherine’s chair. 

“I just wanted to thank everyone for their support over the last few very difficult years, and I would like to ask all the Helpers one last favor. As you can see, Catherine has returned to us, but we would like to keep it a secret for at least a little while longer, at least until you see mention of it in the papers. Catherine has also accepted my proposal and has agreed to be my wife.”

Cheers and applause followed that announcement as everyone rushed over to congratulate the happy couple. 

Father made his way to Diana’s side, where he surprised her by putting his arm around her and giving her a quick hug. 

“I can see that it was a shock to you.” 

“Yeah, but not totally unexpected,” she admitted. “And I might be upset if I didn’t like her so much.” Both she and Father chuckled at that. 

“So, am I right when I assume you have news?”

Diana told Father everything that she’d just told Catherine and Vincent. 

“It’s going to take a while to get all the legalities straightened out, but she’s a lawyer and will know what to do, or at least will know someone who will take care of it. There are plenty of people who know her, who can vouch for her if it’s needed.” Diana was thoughtful for a moment. 

“Something I came across in the file I have is that there is a hospital record that she was pregnant. I was present at the autopsy of what was supposedly her body. However, Dr. Marks had a cloth over her face. He said it was difficult to do an autopsy on the body of someone he knew.”  “Was he in on the body switch?” Father asked. 

“No, he wasn’t listed in the book, but his assistant was, and the assumption is that he was the one who did that. Dr. Marks will be questioned, but he’s not a suspect. But whoever provided the body overlooked the pregnancy. There was no evidence that the woman that Dr. Marks autopsied had recently given birth. I just thought that it was strange that they’d matched everything else so perfectly but had overlooked that.”

“Maybe they assumed that since there was no proof that anyone knew of the pregnancy, that no one would notice that.” 

“Probably, or maybe they thought that if someone did know that she’d given birth, they would look for the child. And they didn’t want to take that chance. And that might also be the reason they took her all the way to Texas and held her for three years. I thought I had some understanding of how Gabriel’s mind worked, but that doesn’t make any sense. And I thought he was in charge, but now I’m wondering about that.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, Gabriel was dead, why were they still holding Catherine? Was there someone else giving the orders? And then why was she suddenly released? I just don’t get it.” 

“So, the case is no longer closed?” 

“It was never really closed, at least not in my opinion. That was why I kept a copy of the file in my files at home. There were just some things that didn’t add up. Now I’m beginning to see why.” 

 

Catherine had spoken to Peter who agreed to go with her when she went to see Joe. 

She saw Diana talking to Father on the other side of the chamber and went over to speak to her. Peter went with her.

 

“How about tomorrow?” Diana said when Catherine asked her about going to see Joe. 

“Does that work for you?” Catherine asked Peter. 

“My office is closed all week for Christmas,” he told her. “You want to meet at my house and leave from there?”

Catherine looked at Diana. “Will you go with us?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Diana said. 

 

Catherine was back to the armoire with all her old work clothes early the following day, despite the late night the night before. She hadn’t slept very well but was still up early. 

Mary found her there. 

“Do you know if it’s snowed Uptop?” Catherine asked as she pulled two pairs of boots out of the armoire. 

“It hasn’t been very cold, and there hasn’t been any snow. The children have been disappointed; they look forward to going up to the park and playing.” She watched as Catherine sorted through some blouses. 

“You could wear one of your winter pant-suits, and a sweater; that way, you might not even need a heavy coat,” she suggested. 

Catherine held up a charcoal gray suit and a red cashmere turtleneck sweater. 

“That sounds like a good idea,” she said, then draped the items over the back of the chair and went back to hunting for some black boots. “With the pants I won’t need hose, maybe just some warm socks.” 

She closed the armoire and looked at herself in the mirror on the front of the door; she held the red sweater up in front of her.

“That reflects a little color in my face,” she said with a laugh.  

Vincent found her back in their chamber about an hour later. 

“Are you going to have breakfast?” he asked. 

“I don’t think so,” she’d put on the outfit she’d picked and was checking it in the mirror. “I’m too nervous, and my stomach is in knots. How do I look?” she asked, turning toward him. 

“Like the old Catherine,” he told her. “I remember the last time you wore that sweater.” He ran his fingers over the cashmere of the sleeve as she moved into his arms for a hug. “You’re strong,” he whispered. “You can do this.” 

A moment later, she moved away from him and put on the jacket to the suit. 

“I’ll walk you to Peter’s and wait there for you to get back,” he told her. 

 

Catherine, Diana, and Peter walked into the DA’s office a little after 9:00. Not everyone recognized Catherine, just those who had been there when she worked there, and they were mostly standing around slack-jawed. Everyone had been stunned the week before when Moreno had been escorted out in cuffs; now Catherine Chandler was back. 

“What’s next?” one of the staff quietly asked the man standing next to him. “Santa Clause is real?”

Catherine and Diana heard the remark and looked at each other. Diana grinned at her before turning to the secretary outside Joe’s office. 

“We’re here to see Joe,” she told the woman. 

“His door is open,” the secretary said; she recognized Catherine. “Go right in. 

Diana signaled to Catherine to go first. 

“Good morning, Joe,” Catherine said, using her normal greeting from almost four years before.

“You got a minute?” 

Joe was out of his chair in a flash, crossing the room to pull Catherine into his arms for a hug. 

“God, I missed you Radcliffe!” he said, pushing back to look at her. “You okay?” He waved everyone to seats and they sat. 

“I’m good… now,” she said. “Just trying to reorient myself.” 

“I get it. You coming back to work?

That made Catherine laugh. “That’s going to take some time. First I need to convince people I’m me and that I’m alive. I need to catch up on my continuing education unless I can get the last few years waived. It’ll be a while, Joe.” 

“And we have to make sure that she’s safe, that we got the last of the gang with that last wave of arrests,” Diana said. “She has more than just herself to think about now.” 

Joe looked at Catherine. “How’s that?” he asked. 

“I have a son, Joe. I was pregnant when I was kidnapped. He’s with me now.” She’d managed not to give away too much information while still not telling an outright lie. 

“We can put you in witness protection,” Joe suggested. 

“NO! I’m fine where I am. No one will find me, and if I need to come out of hiding to do anything, I can call you, and you can provide protection.” Catherine told him. 

“You staying with Dr. Alcott? Everyone knows your connection with him. Are you sure you’re safe?” 

“I’m not staying with Peter,” she told him. “I have other friends I’m staying with, and it’s the last place on earth that anyone would think to look.” 

“If you say so,” Joe said doubtfully. Then he looked at Diana. “I’m sorry, when the news of all the arrests hit the news, my wife knew that something was up. I told her everything, but she has promised that she will keep it to herself. She just wants to know when she can see Cathy.”

“By the way, Joe, Diana told me about you and Jenny! Congratulations!” Catherine said. “And tell her that I will be in touch as soon as I can.” 

Joe nodded. “So, what is the next step?” he asked.

Catherine looked over at Diana, and she took over the narrative. 

“I think you should announce that Catherine is alive and well; maybe tell an abbreviated version of the story, then she can start on the legal side of getting her life back.” 

“I don’t know the story.” Joe said. 

Catherine reached into her purse, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to him. “It’s all there. I wrote it up in the correct format for a statement. It’s handwritten; you can have it retyped if you like. Just let me know, and I’ll arrange to sign it. And please tell Jenny that she’s an aunt.” “Huh?” 

“I have a son, Joe. His name is Jacob. I was pregnant when I was kidnapped, and he was born a few months later. He’s with me now.” 

“I have a feeling that this is going to be some interesting reading,” Joe said, tapping the envelope. 

“A real page-turner,” Catherine agreed with a smile. 

“So, where to from here?” Joe asked. 

“I think I’m going to visit Chandler & Coolidge and give one Mark Coolidge a stroke,” she said. “They have a Wills, Trusts, and Probate division. They did my will for me and should be able to sort all this out.” 

 

Catherine was right; her visit to Chandler & Coolidge did cause an uproar, even more so than her visit to the DA’s office. But Mark was nowhere to be seen, which surprised Catherine. 

Diana had decided to stay with Catherine in case she needed protection, and the three of them followed the secretary down the hall to Jay’s office. 

Jay was on his feet and hugged Catherine. He immediately started apologizing, and all three guests looked surprised. 

“Wait, Jay. What are you apologizing for?” Catherine asked. 

“You don’t know?”

Catherine shook her head. 

“Come to my office, where we can talk in private.”

When they were all seated, Jay started again. 

“Mark was involved in that corruption ring here in the city. He was arrested last week. I thought you knew.” 

“No, I’ve only been back for about a week and was out of touch during much of that time. I’m sorry to hear about Mark, Jay.” 

“I think he did it out of spite,” Jay said sorrowfully. “He wanted me to promote him after your father died. He was a junior attorney like you were before you left the firm. He thought he should be a senior attorney because he was my son and would someday own part of the firm. But he’s younger than you and hasn’t been here even ten years. He’s always been his mother’s son.” Jay added with a shake of his head.

 

Catherine was able to see an attorney before they left. He took Peter's medical records and other paperwork and promised to get in touch. He didn’t seem to think that it would present too much of a problem. 

The three of them took a taxi back to Peter’s where Vincent was waiting. 

 

Later at dinner, Mary sat down next to Catherine after Vincent got up to speak to Pascal. 

“I found something that you might want,” she said, putting a long, narrow gift-wrapped box on the table between them. 

Catherine looked at it in puzzlement for a moment, then lit up when she remembered. 

“Oh! I’d forgotten all about that. I wrapped it intending to give it to Vincent, but the opportunity never arrived.” 

“What is it? If it’s all right to ask.” 

“It’s an antique fountain pen that was my grandfather’s. My dad used it occasionally. It was in his desk at work when I cleaned it out. I knew that Vincent had recently broken his fountain pen and had been using one that Father had but didn’t like it. He said it was too thin. This one has a larger barrel and more weight.” 

“As far as I know, he’s still using that pen Father gave him.” 

“I was wondering what I could give him for Christmas; now I have it,” Catherine said with a

smile. 

“I also found this with your things.” Mary placed an old copy of The Velveteen Rabbit on the table next to the box.

 

Catherine put the box on the bench next to her as Vincent sat down next to her.  He set a plate with a piece of cake on it in front of her.

“William sent this,” he whispered. “He said you are too thin.” 

Catherine laughed and picked up her fork. 

“I was wondering if you had any Christmas gifts for Jacob,” she asked.

Vincent suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights. 

“Your return completely knocked all other thoughts out of my head,” he said. “It will be difficult to find anything at this late date.” 

“Not necessarily,” Catherine said thoughtfully. “I still have some cash left from my trip, and I could go shopping tomorrow.” 

“Is it safe?” he asked. 

“I was thinking I could go Above through one of the thresholds in Chinatown and go to Mr. Smythe’s bookshop. He used to have a whole section of children’s books. I’ve noticed that Jacob loves his books… and Mary found this in with the stuff brought down from my apartment.” She handed him the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. “We could give him that and some other books.” 

“And I’m sure that I can find something here Below. Cullen always has a collection of handcarved wooden toys, and I’ve still got some of my old toys in a chest under the bed.” 

“Then I don’t think we have to worry. I’ll go early tomorrow. I’ll blend in with the crowds of people on the street.” 

“Won’t Mr. Smythe recognize you?” Vincent asked. 

“Probably, he never forgets a face,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m sure I can convince him to stay quiet about it until he sees something in the papers.  

 

The next day, Catherine dressed casually, and Vincent walked her to the threshold in Long’s Grocery basement. He told her he’d wait for her there. 

It was only a few blocks to the bookstore; she hoped it was still there and would be open. She needn’t have worried; it was there, open, and Mr. Smythe was at the cash register when she went in. 

He looked up and gasped. “I should be used to ghosts by now,” he said. “Kristopher spends a lot of time in the shop.” 

“To quote Mark Twain,” she said with a grin, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” “Thank goodness,” Mr. Smythe said. “I don’t think this building can accommodate another haunting.” He came out from behind the counter and surprised Catherine by hugging her. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“I’m Christmas shopping for a little boy of three, but not the usual three-year-old picture books. He can read well above his age level.” 

“The Children’s section is still in the same spot,” he said, leading the way. They are all new books. Most children don’t respect old books or first editions.” 

 

Catherine selected half a dozen books for Jacob and a couple for others, mentally adding them to ensure she had enough money. She did and still had enough to stop at a shop up the street, where she bought several other small gifts.  

She was safely back to Long’s before lunch.

 

The tradition Below was for families to gather and open gifts on Christmas Eve. When they gathered in Father’s study, Catherine surprised everyone by giving gifts to both Mary and Father. 

“It’s not much,” she said as she watched them open their gifts. She’d found a bottle of good brandy for Father and had given Mary a box of chocolates. 

When Vincent opened his gift, he was more than surprised. 

“This is perfect,” he told her as he tried the pen. He leaned down and kissed her. Then they watched Jacob open his gift. 

“Oh wow! Books!” he sounded very pleased. He held up the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. “Daddy said that it was your favorite.” 

“It was, and that was my book when I was little.” She pointed out the inscription in the front of the book. It had been written by her mother. Underneath it, Catherine had inscribed it to Jacob. “My mother, your grandmother wrote that, and I wrote underneath it.” 

Jacob hugged her, then opened a box that Vincent had carried in. It contained his metal carousel and a couple of hand-carved wooden cars.

“Just like the one in the park!” Jacob exclaimed, holding up the carousel. 

Finally, Vincent handed Catherine a box; she opened it and found several of his journals. She looked at him questioningly.

“I thought you’d like to read about our son’s early days. He wasn’t with me until he was two months old, but I recorded everything after that time; every milestone, along with my thoughts and feelings at those times.” 

Catherine hugged him. “Thank you! I missed so much. But now it’s all coming together and I feel like I’m finally getting my ‘happily ever after.’” “We all are, Catherine,” Vincent assured her. 

 

END