Altered Fates: Return To Kennet Cove free porn video

ALTERED FATES: RETURN TO KENNET COVE by BobH (c) 2004 (Author's note: This tale is a sequel to, and contains *major* spoilers for, ALTERED FATES: THE X-FILE. It also features appearances by several characters who have encountered the Medallion of Zulo in other stories of mine.) ****************** Having driven down the hill and into the town proper, Julia Tamm parked her car next to the harbor wall. Smiling lovingly at her infant daughter asleep in the child seat next to her, Julia climbed out of the car, sighing with pleasure at being able to stretch the kinks out after so long a drive. A tall, exotic-looking woman of indeterminate ethnicity, she was clad in crisp new jeans and a cream silk blouse, the high heels she usually favored replaced by flats for ease of driving. The expensively tailored skirt suits she needed for her job were packed away in suit- carrying cases in the trunk. Julia gently and quietly closed the door behind her, taking care not to wake the slumbering toddler. Leaning against the harbor wall, she lit a cigarette, savoring that first long, slow drag and looking around her with interest. Kennet Cove appeared to be very much like any number of other small towns along the coast of Maine, though maybe more prosperous. The houses Julia had driven past on her way down the hill were all freshly painted, their small gardens well-tended. Though not affluent, it was clear Kennet Cove was very far from being down at heel. The harbor took up one end of the cove, a shingle beach sweeping around the rest of its curve. There were several boats bobbing within the protective arms of the harbor walls, most of which were pleasure craft of various sorts, rather than the fishing vessels that would have filled it in earlier days. Looming large among these was a spectacular yacht that clearly belonged in warmer and wealthier climes - though it probably would not have looked too out of place further down the coast at Kennebunkport. There were also a number of floating platforms, mostly jerry-rigged, that were part of the reason Julia had been sent here. "'Morning, ma'am," said a voice behind her. Julia turned to be confronted by a tall man in a uniform, a holstered pistol at his hip. There was an almost equally tall, chestnut-haired young woman beside him, wearing mirror shades but otherwise similarly attired. "Good morning, Sheriff," she said. "You have a beautiful town here." "Yes, ma'am, that we do. I saw as how you'd stopped and wondered if you were having trouble with your car." "No," chuckled Julia, "I'm staying at the Danner house for a couple of days and I don't think they allow smoking up there, so I decided to stop for a cigarette and to take in the view. I'll be reporting from here, so it also seemed like a good opportunity to get my first taste of Kennet Cove." "Ah, so you're that reporter Mrs. Danner was telling me about, come to report on the movie. Pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand. "Sheriff John Nottingham," he said. "And this here's Alice Jones, my deputy." "Julia Tamm," she replied, shaking first his hand then the deputy's. "And it's nice to meet you too, Sheriff, Deputy." "I see you have a young 'un with you," he said, indicating the sleeping child in the car. "My daughter, Maisie," said Julia. "Just coming up to her third birthday. My partner's currently on a job in Europe, so I brought her along with me." "Ah, a good age that," smiled the Sheriff. "My oldest, Callie, is thirteen now, but we've also got a five year-old, a four-year old, and a two year-old - all boys. My wife is expecting another in a few weeks, a girl according to the doc." "That's a big family," said Julia, inwardly wincing at the thought of having to manage that many young children. "Sure is. We always wanted a large family and now, praise God, we finally have one," he said. "Children are the lifeblood of a small community like this, the next generation that will keep it alive. Fortunately, we've been very fecund in Kennet Cove in recent years." Julia could not recall ever hearing someone use the word 'fecund' in conversation before. "Alice here has stuck with the one, so far," he continued, "a six year-old daughter, but that's another child born in our town." Deputy Jones gave a slight nod of acknowledgement, but otherwise remained as silent and impassive as she had since arriving. She looked vaguely familiar, but Julia could not remember where she had seen the woman before. It would help if so much of her face wasn't concealed by her glasses. "We'd best be on our way now. You have a nice day and enjoy your stay, ma'am." "Thank you, Sheriff." After he had gone, Julia took a final drag on her cigarette before dropping it and crushing it out underfoot. Getting back in her car, she set off up the road at the other end of the seafront, the one leading to the Danner house. The 'house' was actually a mansion. It was, thought Julia as she parked her car on its drive, in a wonderful location. Built high on a hillside, it commanded a view of the whole town and of the entire sweep of the cove. Maisie barely stirred as her mother unstrapped her from the harness of the child seat and lifted her out of the car. When Julia turned to face the front door, it was already opening, the Danner butler rushing over to retrieve her baggage. Standing in the doorway smiling at her was a beautiful, slender, elegantly dressed blonde woman in her early thirties. "Hello, Julia," said Lucy Danner, "I hope you had a pleasant journey?" "As pleasant as a flight from Los Angeles to Brunswick followed by a three hour drive in a rental car could be, I suppose," said Julia. "At least Maisie slept through most of it." "Oh, she's so cute!" said Lucy, cooing over the sleeping child. "They're so totally adorable at that age." "That's right. You have your own child. How old is she now?" "Jane just had her fourth birthday last week. She thinks she's a big girl now." "Ah, children!" chuckled Julia, standing in the entrance hall of the mansion, taking in the fine workmanship and overall high quality of its Victorian finishing. "Here's our nanny," said Lucy, indicating a young woman descending the stairs. "She'll take Maisie and put her upstairs with Jane so they can take their afternoon naps together." Julia allowed the nanny to take Maisie from her, then followed the butler up to the room she had been given. When he had deposited her bags and left, Julia freshened her hair and make-up, swapped her flats for heels, then rejoined her host downstairs. As she entered the drawing room, a man rose from his chair and held out his hand to her. "I believe you know Mike Hudson," said Lucy, who was sitting in another chair. "We met briefly at his son's wedding a few months back," said Julia, shaking Mike's hand. Hudson was around fifty years old, his hair thinning and graying and his waist betraying more than a little middle-aged spread, but while no longer as handsome as he had clearly been in his youth, he was still very striking. Julia could see where his son had come by those film-star looks that were his fortune. "Ah yes, I remember now," grinned Mike. "We compared notes on the differences between being a reporter on a newspaper and doing the same job on TV." "It's kind of you to compare what I do with what you do," said Julia, "but I'm more of a presenter than any sort of hard-hitting journalist. I'll be getting my own local talk show two weeks from now, but assignments like this - reports from film sets and celebrity gossip - are my beat. When we talked at Tom's wedding, you'd just quit your job as an editor in Des Moines after thirty years with a paper there and were about to start working for a small in-house journal. How's that working out?" "Pretty good, so far," said Mike, sitting back down only after Julia had first seated herself. "Got to see relatives in Connecticut as part of my job, and to spend some time in Baltimore and New York after that. It beats sitting in an office in Des Moines every day editing copy. So anyway, what about you? Congratulations on the talk show. Do you have any guests lined up yet?" "Do we ever," said Julia, excitedly. "We've got a real scoop for the third show. Karl Stark is finally being released from prison after more than thirty years inside and, despite approaches from all the major networks, he specifically asked to do our show." "Karl Stark?" said Mike, exchanging a quick glance with Lucy, his face and voice suddenly grim. "Is there something wrong?" asked Julia. "Wrong?" said Mike, forcing a smile. "No, of course not. Listen, I'll be out in L.A. then so do you think you could arrange a back-stage pass for me? I'd kind of like to meet him." "Yes, of course," said Julia, frowning slightly. "Professional courtesy. I'll make sure security knows to expect you." "So," she said, turning to Lucy and changing the subject, "I've heard of people taking in stray cats, but you're the first person I've known to take in stray reporters." "Oh, it's just you two," laughed Lucy. "You and I really hit it off when you interviewed Greg and me in Los Angeles last month and took us to dinner afterwards, so I thought it would be fun to have you here. And, anyway, the film crew have pretty much taken up all the hotel space and rooming houses in the town." Greg was Greg Danner, Lucy's husband and the author of hugely-successful novels of modern horror mostly set in and around New England. It was several scenes in an adaptation of one of his books that the crew had come here from Hollywood to film, and Julia to report on. "I'm an old friend of Greg's from way back," said Mike. "He and I have a shared interest in the occult. So when he heard I was in the area and wanted to catch up with him and with my son, particularly since Tom is starring in the film of his book, he invited me to stay for a few days." "Where is Greg, if you don't mind me asking?" said Julia. "On one of his never-ending book tours," sighed Lucy. "He gets back to Kennet Cove tomorrow, and boy will I be glad to see him again! In the meantime, I'm having a reception here tonight for the cast and crew of the movie. You'll be able to meet those you don't already know and finalize the details for your interviews then." "That'll be great," said Julia. "Incidentally, I love this house. How long has it been here?" "It was built by Greg's ancestor, Abraham Danner, in the mid-19th century," said Lucy. "His ghost is supposed to haunt the place, but I've never seen it. Still, it was family stories about the ghost that sparked Greg's interest in the supernatural as a child and later led to him writing the books that keep us living in the lap of luxury, so I'm certainly grateful to that particular legend." "Tell her what you found out about Abraham a few years ago," said Mike. "That he was some sort of warlock." "Warlock?" said Julia. "That sounds romantic." "I'm not sure 'romantic' is the right word for it," said Lucy, "but it's certainly interesting." "OK, but how did you discover this?" "Well," said Lucy, "as the fortunes of the town declined with the gradual loss of the fishing industry, so the fortunes of the Danners and of this house also declined. It fell into serious disrepair, with a whole wing being boarded up and abandoned at one point. With the money he made from his books, Greg has reversed that decline and has been gradually having the house restored. Anyway, after Jane was born we increased the household staff, which meant having more of the unused rooms properly restored. The wall paneling in one of them had suffered a fair bit of rain damage before Greg had had the roof replaced so it had to be torn out. Behind the paneling, we discovered a box containing Abraham's personal journals, some obviously occult paraphernalia, and a young girl's dress. The journals confirmed Abraham's interest in the occult, and according to experts who've examined the paraphernalia, he was into some pretty heavy stuff." "What about the dress?" asked Julia. "What was the story there?" "Oh, that's so sad," said Lucy. "Abraham had a son and a daughter, William and May - Greg is William's direct descendant, obviously. One night, for reasons no one seems to have known, May fell from the window of her bedroom on the second floor. The fall broke her neck. She was 6 years- old. People, and particularly men, didn't talk about their feelings back then, but even through the stilted writing in his journals you can feel his grief. That was her favorite dress, and he kept it to remember her by." "The journals, the paraphernalia, and the dress are in a display case on the second floor landing," said Mike. "You should check it out next time you go back to your room." Julia did just that. Afterwards, in her room, she called up the pages on her laptop that she had downloaded from the web before setting out from Los Angeles. There were sections there on the Danners and on Kennet Cove itself. She had been surprised to learn of the strange events of six years earlier when not one but *three* doppelgangers of Lucy Danner had shown up, each of them physically identical to her, two of them dead. The third was in prison, but none of them had ever been identified or any plausible explanation found for why they were her exact doubles. At the same time, John Nottingham's predecessor as town Sheriff, Dan Turton, had vanished leaving only a suicide note. No connection had ever been made between these events, but that had not stopped people speculating. It had been a big story for a while but, eventually, had slipped from the public consciousness and was now only usually referred to in articles in magazines such as Fortean Times and the Skeptical Inquirer. One of the profiles of Greg Danner mentioned he had held a summer school here in this house for the past several years for what the article referred to as 'gifted youngsters'. Julia wondered what that might be all about. She would try to remember to ask Greg about this when she got to meet him tomorrow. As she was shuffling through the pages, her eyes alighted on one particular profile of Lucy Danner. This one mentioned her brother, a small-time criminal by the name of Frank Jensen, who had vanished without trace six years earlier. The profile included a photo of Jensen and his girlfriend, a familiar-looking woman who the text below the picture identified as 'Alice Jones'. "So *that's* where I recognized her from," murmured Julia. "I wonder how she ended up as Sheriff Nottingham's deputy?" It was something to ask Lucy Danner when the opportunity presented itself. It was now late afternoon, so after gratefully eating the plate of sandwiches Lucy had had the butler bring to her room, which would tide her over until the buffet at the party that evening, Julia decided to check in on her daughter. In the nursery she found Maisie in a large playpen with Lucy's daughter Jane, the pair of them playing with some soft toys. Julia had been worried by Maisie's reluctance to interact with other children so she was delighted to see this and smiled down at her daughter indulgently. It was at this point Maisie finally noticed she was there. She gave her mother a guilty look incongruous on one so young, but Julia just laughed, leaning down and ruffling her fine hair. "Don't worry, sweetie," she smiled. "You can play with Jane until it's your bedtime. Mommy's just going for a walk outside. I'll come and tuck you up when I put you to bed." Once outside, Julia lit a cigarette. She took a deep drag, exhaling the smoke with a long sigh of pleasure. She wandered around the outside of the house as she smoked, looking up at it with appreciation and not a little envy. At the rear of the house, she came across a pretty teenager with long blonde hair, kneeling down in front of a dog kennel and deeply engrossed in whatever it was she was doing. "Hello," said Julia. "Oh!" yelped the girl. "You startled me." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," said Julia. Wiping it on her jeans first, the girl stuck out her hand. "Callie Nottingham," she said, as Julia shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you, ma'am." "Julia Tamm. And please just call me Julia. People calling me 'ma'am' always makes me feel old." "OK...Julia," chuckled Callie. "'Callie Nottingham'," said Julia. "So you're the Sheriff's daughter?" "You've met my dad, already?" "He was the welcome committee when I arrived in Kennet Cove. Seems like a nice guy." "Yeah, I suppose" shrugged Callie, in that non-committal way teenagers have. "What are you doing here, anyway?" "Oh, Mrs Danner lets me take care of her and Greg's...I mean Mr Danner's...dogs," said Callie, her face brightening. "Dad won't let me have any of my own. He says with all of us kids in the house there isn't room. Anyway, Rhona here had a litter of pups last week." She indicated the kennel behind her, and the black Labrador bitch lying on her side, her pups tumbling over each other in that floppy, ill-coordinated way, as they fought to suckle at her teats. One pup, the smallest, was brushed aside by his brothers and sisters, mewling as he failed to find a teat. "This is Buster," said Callie, picking the pup up and frowning. "The others never let him get his share. He's a lot smaller than he should be and I'm really worried about him." "The runt of the litter," said Julia, gently stroking the puppy's tiny head. "I've been bottle feeding him, but he's not getting any stronger." From his appearance, Julia could tell the puppy was almost certainly not going to make it. It was clear he was Callie's favorite, and that it would break her heart when he died, as he surely would. Nature could be cruel. "Well, anyway, it was nice to meet you," said Julia. "You, too," said Callie, smiling. Julia resumed her circuit of the house, finished smoking her cigarette, and went back inside. That evening, at the reception for the cast and crew of the movie, Julia confirmed her interview arrangements with the stars and the director. Tom Hudson was huddled in a corner in conversation with his father as she approached. She had no idea what they were talking about, but both had astonished expressions on their faces. "No way!" said Tom, "Mom? No fucking way! I don't believe it!" "Uhh, is this a bad time?" asked Julia. "What?" said Mike Hudson. "Oh, no, no. Just a little family business. We're finished now." Mike Hudson stood, shook his head at his son with a look of bemused amazement. Then wandered off. "Whatever you two were talking about," said Julia, noting the still stunned expression on Tom Hudson's face, "it must have been a real doozy. Anything you'd care to share?" "Huh? Oh, hello, Julia. No, no it wasn't anything the press need to know about, or that anyone would believe if I told them. So, what can I do for you?" He smiled the megawatt smile that melted female hearts across the globe. It was impressive. Julia was grateful she was immune to his charms. "It's about my interview," she said. "I just wanted to confirm we're still on for me to come out to the yacht tomorrow to film it." "Yes, of course," he replied distantly, still distracted by whatever he and his father had been discussing. "Make sure my PA has it penciled in." After leaving Tom Hudson, Julia scanned the room looking for the man playing the US President and Tom's father in the movie, veteran actor Ben Ryan. She found him out on the balcony, the designated smoking area, looking out at the glow from Kennet Cove below, and the twinkling lights of the boats out on the water in the darkness beyond the cove. He was leaning on the rail, a large Havana cigar in one hand, a brandy in the other. "Ben Ryan?" she said, standing next to him. He turned towards her, in his mid-sixties yet still handsome, silver-grey hair lending him an air of distinction. "Guilty as charged," he smiled. "Hello Ms Tamm. I'm a big fan of your TV work." "I'm flattered you've even heard of me," she smiled, taking her cigarettes out of her purse. "Here, allow me," he said, lighting her cigarette. "I guess when you were my age, people were still allowed to smoke inside buildings," she said, blowing a long stream of smoke. "Ah, back when the world was young and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth," he chuckled. "Actually, not that I remember much prior to 1964, as you probably know, but I was about your age when JFK's Cuban embargo made importing fine cigars such as the one I'm currently enjoying illegal. Knowing he was about to sign the embargo into law, Kennedy first had an aide go out and buy up all the Cuban cigars he could find. I'm sure I'd have done the same in his position. He enjoyed a good cigar, did Jack Kennedy, which is one thing we have in common. Now, while men of my advanced years are always immeasurably cheered by the company of beautiful young women such as yourself, I imagine you've sought me out to confirm the arrangements for our interview tomorrow, yes?" "Yes, though no-one has ever needed an excuse to seek out your company, surely?" He bowed his head at the compliment, but this was more than idle flattery on Julia's part. Ben Ryan was witty and incredibly charismatic. A noted fund-raiser for the Democrats and an inspirational speaker, the party had tried to tempt Ben into standing for national office on several occasions, but he had always refused. Those who knew the couple put this down to the influence of his wife, Marcie, who was adamantly opposed to him standing for office, though no-one knew why. "So on the yacht, then," said Ben, "after you've interviewed Tom. They're filming the big boat chase with the cultists tomorrow. We're both needed for close-ups but our stand-ins will be doing most of the action stuff." "That works just fine for me," said Julia, checking this against her PDA. Just then, their hostess joined them. "Hello," said Lucy Danner. "I trust you two are getting along well?" "Like a house on fire," grinned Ben Ryan. "What red-blooded heterosexual male wouldn't enjoy the company of a beautiful woman? And now I've been joined by another beautiful woman." "Ben is the most terrible flirt," said Lucy, winking conspiratorially at Julia. If even half the rumors about his libido were true, he was more than just a flirt, thought Julia. No-one had ever doubted the depth of his love for his wife, but there had also been stories over the years about his conquests of most of the women who had ever starred opposite him on film and on the stage. The man was a hound. "Oh, now that you're here there's something I wanted to ask you," said Julia. "Yes?" said Lucy. "It's about your brother, Frank Jensen..." "I can't imagine what you could want to know about Frank," said Lucy, eyes narrowing. "He vanished six years ago, and neither I nor anyone else I know has seen him since." "Actually, it's his girlfriend I'm interested in, Alice Jones. How did she end up as deputy sheriff of Kennet Cove?" "Oh that's easy," said Lucy. "She came here looking for Frank a few weeks after he disappeared. She needed work, had no criminal record, and we needed a new deputy, so I put her in touch with John Nottingham. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must rejoin the other guests." "That was interesting," said Ben, after Lucy had left. "Did you notice the way the shutters came down when you asked her about her brother? You hit a nerve there, for some reason. Then there's her body language when you asked her about his girlfriend. Whatever the truth of the situation may be, what she just told you was a lie." "You're really very good at reading people," said Julia, impressed. "And I agree with you." "A small talent," he said, as Julia stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray, "but a useful one for an actor or a politician." "I'm heading back in," said Julia, "how about you?" "When I've finished my cigar," he smiled. "In the mean time, good luck with whatever it is you're investigating." That was just it, thought Julia, she didn't really have any clear idea of what this might mean beyond it having something to do with the strange case of the four Lucy Danners, six years earlier. But it was something she was now resolved to get to the bottom of. Julia was up bright and early the next morning. After feeding herself and Maisie she lifted her daughter out of the high chair and carried her outside. "Mommy's taking you for a little walk, sweetie," she said. "Won't that be nice?" With Maisie strapped into the foldaway stroller she retrieved from the trunk of her car, Julia made her way along the path from the house that led down to the seafront. Though the road up to the house was pretty steep, the gradient of the path was a lot gentler due to being much longer and going down the hill in a long zigzag. There were wooden benches strategically placed along the path, and Julia stopped at one of these half-way down the hill. Locking the stroller brake into place, she sat down, and took in the vista before her. There was a good view of the sun-dappled waters of the cove and of the town itself from here. Out on the water, small boats carrying film technicians dashed back and forth as they set up all the equipment needed for the day's filming. She fished a camera from her shoulder bag, one with an impressively powerful zoom lens. Peering through the viewfinder, she zoomed in on the figures on the water, then pulled back, casting her gaze over the small streets of the cove. As she did so, something in the back garden of one of the houses caught her eye. She zoomed in on it. "Well I'll be damned!" she chuckled. There, locked in a passionate clinch with his deputy, was Sheriff John Nottingham. And since you could only see into that back garden from a vantage point as high as this, and only make out what you were looking at with high-powered magnification, it was clear both wanted to keep their tryst a secret. Putting her camera away, Julia released the brake on Maisie's stroller and continued down the hill and into Kennet Cove proper. She headed straight for the local library, where she asked to see back issues of the weekly Kennet Cove Chronicle from six years ago. Fortunately, Maisie had fallen asleep in the stroller on the trip into town so Julia could give the bound volumes of the newspaper her full attention. Her interviews were all this afternoon, so she was able to devote some time to the secrets of Kennet Cove. People were hiding things, and that intrigued her. She was determined to uncover what she could. Within an hour, she had pieced together the bare bones of the events of six years earlier. It had all started one night with the naked body of a woman being washed up on the shore. Dan Turton and John Nottingham, then Sheriff Turton's deputy, had recognized the body as being that of Lucy Danner and had driven up to the Danner house to break the news to her husband, Greg. To their astonishment, the door was opened by none other than Lucy Danner. Greg was out of town, but she went back with them to identify it. She was, not surprisingly, shocked by what appeared to be her own dead body. After returning Mrs. Danner to her house, Sheriff Turton, acting on a hunch, waited outside in the car, it's lights off. Sure enough, she eventually came back out with a shovel and a flashlight and went into the woods up behind the house. The Sheriff and his deputy followed, and they came upon her digging up another dead body. This, too, turned out to be the corpse of Lucy Danner, only this time the cause of death was a blow to the head rather than drowning. So they arrested Lucy Danner number two and called in a forensic team from the county sheriff's office to secure the crime scene, who in turn called in the FBI. As they were taking Lucy Danner number two away, Greg Danner returned. He had no more idea what was happening than anyone else did. The following day, Greg Danner summoned Deputy Nottingham to the Danner house, where he was introduced to Lucy Danner number four. It turned out that this was the real Lucy Danner, and that for the previous two weeks she'd been locked away in the attic while number two took her place. At least, that was what they claimed. Later that same day, Sheriff Turton's uniform was discovered on the shore, and a suicide note found on the computer in his office. It seemed he was suffering from terminal cancer and had decided to take his own life by drowning. To this day, no one had ever figured out who the other Lucy Danners were, the one incarcerated in the Washington County Women's Correctional Facility still insisting she was the real deal and that the one living with Greg Danner was the imposter. Julia had already learned most of this from surfing the web before coming to Kennet Cove, but the reports in the Chronicle included lots of local detail that had never made it to the national press. Using the Danner case as her starting point, she scanned later editions for any items of interest. In an issue published several weeks later, she found one. Susan Prentice, a woman who had once worked for the Danners, and to whom Turton had left ten thousand dollars, committed suicide in exactly the same manner as Dan Turton had; clothes left on the shore, suicide note left on her kitchen table. And in that handwritten note she had left her house and all her worldly goods to John Nottingham. Reading further, she discovered that Sheriff Nottingham had later let the house out to Alice Jones. A quick look at a local street map confirmed her suspicion that it was in the back garden of that very house she had seen them kissing. One final tidbit she discovered in the newspapers was that Alice Jones' daughter, Heather, was not her biological child but an adoptee. Why exactly *had* Alice Jones come to town, Julia wondered. That she was looking for her boyfriend seemed plausible enough, but was there something more to it than that? Frank Jensen was an habitual criminal, one believed by the authorities of being capable of murder. Was he planning some sort of criminal activity in Kennet Cove, something involving his sister? And if so, was Alice Jones a part of it? She must have known what sort of man he was. She might not have a criminal record, but that did not mean she was an innocent. She could easily have been a part of whatever plan he had. Leaning back in her chair, Julia pondered all she had learned since coming to Kennet Cove. It was remembering what John Nottingham had told her about his children when she arrived, that gave her the final piece of the puzzle. "No way!" she whispered, as it clicked into place in her mind. It seemed fantastic, and yet it would explain everything. Filled with renewed purpose, she started searching through copies of the Chronicle published between eight months and a year prior to the Danner case. What she found - or, rather, what she didn't find - helped strengthen her suspicions. When she next had some time alone with her laptop, she would get the confirmation she needed. It was now late in the morning, time having flown by as Julia immersed herself in her research. She needed to get Maisie back to the Danner house so that she could prepare for that afternoon's interviews. Pushing Maisie's stroller back up the hill was harder than pushing it downhill had been but Julia was grateful for the exercise. She met Lucy Danner at the door. Lucy seemed distracted. "Good morning," she said. "Is anything wrong, Lucy?" ""What? Oh, good morning, Julia," she said. "Someone broke into the display case last night, the one containing the Abraham Danner artifacts. With all the people who were in the house then, it could've been anyone." "Oh, that's terrible," said Julia. "Was anything taken?" "Yes, but it's kind of weird. Whoever was responsible cut a small piece out of the daughter's dress but didn't touch the journals or the paraphernalia, which are far more valuable. It doesn't make any sense." "Are you going out?" asked Julia. "Yes," said Lucy. "Just some shopping down in the town. If you want to put Maisie in with Jane the nanny's here and they're upstairs in the nursery. It's the butler's day off, so the only other person in the house at the moment is Mike Hudson. Oh, that reminds me...." She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a cell phone. "This is Mike's. He left it downstairs last night. I've been meaning to return it to him. Do you think you could give it to him for me? Only I really do need to go into town now." "Sure thing," said Julia, taking the phone. They said their goodbyes, Julia watched Lucy crunch her way across the gravel to the top of the path she had just struggled up, then went inside. After dropping Maisie off with the nanny, she approached Mike Hudson's room. She was about to knock the door when paused. She couldn't make out the words, but he was talking to someone, and getting quite animated doing so, by the sound of things. She knocked on the door. After a second or two, Mike came to the door, throwing it wide open. He was the only person in the room. "Good morning, Julia," he said, pleasantly. "What can I do for you?" "It's your cell phone," she said, handing it to him. "You left it downstairs at the party last night." "Ah, yes," he said. "I was pretty distracted after my run-in with Tom. I was wondering where it had got to. Thank you." Afterwards, in her own room, Julia puzzled over this. Mike had clearly been talking to someone, even though his had been the only voice she had been able make out. What she had heard was definitely one side of a conversation. Yet he was alone in his room and, anyway, there was no one in the house unaccounted for. He could not have been using a phone since there wasn't one in his room and she had had his cell phone. It was a mystery, but one to file away for later. For now, she needed to do some serious computer work with her laptop before the afternoon's interviews. It was a productive session, as were her interviews that afternoon with Tom Hudson and Ben Ryan. Whatever Tom and his father had discussed at the party the previous night, it had clearly spooked them both and Tom seemed as distracted during his interview as his father had confessed to being earlier. Still, he was a pro and he gave Julia all the amusing if vapid material she needed. It amused her that he kept glancing over her shoulder during the interview to check his reflection in the mirror behind her, but that was Tom. A nice guy, but one of the vainest actors in Hollywood. In contrast, Ben Ryan was dry and urbane, looking every inch the President he was playing in the movie when, after his interview, he and Julia stood at the rail of the yacht, watching the boat chases and explosion on the water as the second unit filmed shots of the intruders, all members of an apocalyptic death cult, trying to get to the yacht and being repulsed by special forces led by Tom Hudson - or, more specifically in this instance, his stand-in. By the end of the afternoon, Julia had pretty much everything she had been sent to Kennet Cove by her network to get, and she was weary but happy when she got back to the Danner house late that afternoon. As she approached the house, Callie Nottingham came hurtling around the building from the kennels. The teenager was in tears. "Callie, what's wrong?" asked Julia concernedly. "It's Buster," she sobbed. "He's gone and I can't find him anywhere." It took Julia a moment to remember she was referring to the sickly puppy she had seen the previous day. "He'll turn up," said Julia, "I'm sure of it." Actually, she was pretty sure the poor thing had crawled off somewhere to die. Animals often knew when it was their time. "Yeah, maybe," said Callie, hopefully. "Gotta go. My folks are waiting for you inside." With that she ran off. Her folks? What would Callie's parents want with her? Stepping into the study, Julia was surprised to see the group of people waiting there for her. As well as Lucy Danner, there was Alice Jones, John Nottingham, and a heavily-pregnant woman who, from the way he had his arm around her protectively, Julia assumed must be Mary Nottingham. She was small, rather plain, and looked tired - hardly surprising given the number of children she had already given birth too in recent years and was now raising. Standing next to Lucy was a good-looking man Julia recognized from the picture on the dust jackets of his books. Greg Danner was back in town. All present were grim- faced. They did not look pleased to see her. "This is a surprise," she said. "What's going on?" "That's what we'd like you to tell us," said Lucy. "I invited you to stay believing you were coming here to interview people about the movie, but you've been asking questions about us and you were seen digging up what you could in the library. Was the movie assignment just a cover-story? Are you really here to investigate us, for some reason?" "God, no, Lucy," said Julia, "and I'm sorry if I gave that impression. But I'm a journalist and, even before I became one, mysteries and puzzles had always fascinated me. When I realized where I'd seen Deputy Jones before, I was intrigued by how the girlfriend of a known criminal ended up as a cop in the town where his sister lived, and I decided to investigate. I won't deny that if I'd uncovered anything of a criminal nature that was juicy enough I'd have reported on it, but all my digging was mostly just to satisfy my own curiosity. Your defensiveness when I asked you about her only piqued that curiosity further. Of course, now that I've figured out what happened here six years ago, I understand why you were so defensive." Greg and Lucy exchanged a quick glance, as did John Nottingham and Alice Jones. "What is it you think you understand?" asked Greg Danner, speaking carefully. "That Kennet Cove had an encounter with this artifact," she said, taking a photograph from her purse and tossing it onto the coffee table. "It's called the Medallion of Zulo, and I see from your eyes and the sharp intakes of breath that you all recognize it. Actually, as someone who's encountered it herself, I'm embarrassed it took me so long to realize it was responsible for what happened here." "You encountered it," said John Nottingham, looking at her sharply, "then that means...." "That I haven't always been as you see me now, yes," said Julia. "Since you're all assembled here like the suspects in the final scene of an Agatha Christie novel, why don't I lay out what I think happened and you can correct me if I get it wrong." They warily nodded their agreement. "Six years ago, Lucy Danner's brother, a small-time but dangerous criminal named Frank Jensen brought the Medallion of Zulo to Kennet Cove. Given the number of Lucy Danners you ended up with, I figure he was one of them and that his plan had been to take his sister's place, kill her husband, and inherit his millions. Something obviously went wrong, however, hence the other doppelgangers. Since the Lucy Danner currently doing time was caught digging up the murdered body of another, I assume she is in fact Frank Jensen and that the murder victim was the original Lucy Danner. I have no idea who the Lucy Danner who drowned and was found on the shore really was, but you..." Here, she paused to look directly at the current Lucy Danner. "You probably used to be Sheriff Dan Turton, and you faked his suicide." Lucy inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement, and Julia turned to face the Nottinghams. "Either before or after Sheriff Turton was exposed to the medallion, you two were also exposed to it. Or am I wrong in thinking each of you started life as the other?" "How on this God's Earth did you figure that out?" said John Nottingham in amazement. "It was after I'd decided the medallion must be behind the four Lucy Danners," said Julia. "That was when I remembered what you told me about your children and how you and your wife had always wanted a large family. Your children are thirteen, five, four, and two, with another due any day. So after an eight-year gap, you suddenly have four children in quick succession, the first of whom would have been conceived six years ago. Something obviously changed in your relationship then and, given the timing, I figured there was a good chance it was down to the medallion. I'm puzzled why the body switch would lead to you producing lots of babies, I have to admit, and I'm curious as to how you came by the medallion." "I found it on the shore when I went to investigate where the drowned girl had been discovered," said Lucy Danner. "It had some of her hairs caught in the chain. When I examined it the next day in our office, my hand came into contact with both the medallion and the hairs. As the changes started, I thought at first I must be coming down with something, so I went to the bathroom. That's where I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I spent the whole half an hour the change took just looking at my reflection in absolute wonderment. It's the weirdest thing to go through, to feel your body, your bones, your very flesh, altering from that of a man to that of a woman, to watch as you slowly become someone else." "I know," said Julia. "I've been through it. Both male-to- female and female-to-male." Lucy's eyes widened in surprise at this admission, she and the others looking at Julia with new respect. "Lucy left the medallion on her desk when she went to the bathroom," said Mary Nottingham, "and it was while she was in there that I took it. I was still John at the time, and I thought it was something of our daughter Callie's that she had left there. We told the FBI agents Callie had been given the medallion and then lost it playing in the woods up behind the Danner house, but that isn't actually what happened, not then." "No," said John Nottingham, picking up the story, "what happened is that we both touched the medallion at the same time, and we turned into each other. Freaked us both out big time, naturally, and we tried to get it to switch us back, which it wouldn't, of course - we didn't know about the twelve hour limitation at the time. Anyway, that's when I realized the opportunity the switch had given us. You were right about the long gap between Callie and our other kids. Callie's birth was not easy on me, in fact it left me with a dread of ever getting pregnant again. Our doc assured me there was nothing wrong with me, that I could have more children and that later births would be easier, but my dread hardened into an irrational, immoveable phobia, and that was that. Only now we had been given a second chance. The Lord had answered our prayers, even if He had found a strange way of doin' it. When I suggested to Mary that we could now have the large family we both wanted, that I could get her pregnant and she could have our babies, she wasn't at all keen on the idea at first. She was still coming to terms with being a woman, after all. But I used all my powers of persuasion on her and, eventually, she agreed. I've been keeping her pregnant these past few years, and now we finally have the family we always wanted. Mary's really got seriously into motherhood, too, and she's never happier than when she's knocked up, are you my darling?" He gently placed a hand on her 'bump', and smiled down at his wife, lovingly. From the strained smile she gave him in return, Julia suspected she wasn't quite as enamored with her lot as he thought she was. "It was kind of a funny situation when I was pregnant with Jane," said Lucy, smiling at the memory. "Mary was pregnant with their third child at the same time. There we were, two formerly male lawmen, the sheriff and his deputy, now heavily-pregnant young women. It was my first time since becoming female but her second. She was a great comfort and support to me, particularly in the final stages." She smiled at Mary, then exchanged a quick glance with John Nottingham before turning her attention back to Julia. "Which brings us to you, deputy," said Julia, turning to face Deputy Jones. "You're not the original Alice Jones, are you?" "No," she admitted, "I'm not. Do you know who I used to be?" "Yes," said Julia, "yes, I do. What I imagine happened was that Alice Jones was originally part of Frank Jensen's plans. He may well never have intended to remain as his sister forever and planned on having Alice assume the role of Lucy Danner after he'd inherited all Greg's money, with him then marrying her after he'd assumed a new male identity. He wouldn't have wanted to be Greg because he couldn't have carried off being someone that well known on the talk show circuit, or who had all those delivery dates to meet on so many book contracts. As for why Alice didn't just assume Lucy's identity from the outset, I suspect that was down to issues of trust and to Frank being the killer of the two. Anyway, I imagine that when she read about the four Lucy Danners in the press, Alice knew the medallion was involved and that something must have gone seriously wrong with Frank's plans. So she traveled to Kennet Cove. Once here, she somehow figured out that Lucy wasn't the original, but then she wrongly assumed she must therefore be Frank." "She came to the house, a few weeks after the FBI and county sheriff's people had left," said Lucy. "When I said I had no idea who she was, she started ranting and raving about how I was trying to cut her out of the deal and how I'd be sorry. When she left, I called John and told him about her threats. I included all the stuff about her claiming I was Frank Jensen, thinking he'd dismiss it as the ravings of a madwoman. I had no idea he'd also encountered the medallion, of course, and this was when the penny dropped for him. Deducing now who I used to be, he came up to the house, bringing the medallion with him to back up his story, then told me about him and Mary." "We knew Jones was serious in her threats," said John Nottingham, "and the medallion suggested a way of dealing with her." "Susan Prentice," said Julia, looking at Alice Jones. "Susan Prentice," agreed Lucy. "She had just been diagnosed with the same terminal cancer I'd been fighting as Dan Turton. We needed someone to take Alice's place and, given her circumstances, we thought she'd jump at the chance once we showed her what the medallion could do." "A long period of pain followed by death on a morphine drip less than two years later, as against being fit, healthy, and twenty years younger," said Alice. "It wasn't a difficult choice to make. And since I was struggling with the same disease Dan had, it seemed like poetic justice to fake my suicide the same way he had done, too. Naturally, I left my house and all my belongings to John so that he could give them back to me later. Part of the deal with Lucy and John was that I would also be responsible for the original Alice." "Who is your daughter, Heather, of course," said Julia. "She's six years old, which suggests she was either conceived seven years ago, or an adult who was transformed into a newborn by the medallion six years ago - and there's that timeframe again. I've seen the medallion turn people into newborns more than once, so I know it's possible. I also know that leaving the medallion on someone for a reasonable length of time after the physical transformation into a newborn will effectively wipe away their adult memories, leaving them in all respects the infant they appear to be. Let's hope Heather grows up to be a better human being than she was as Alice." "You seem awfully sure of yourself," smiled Greg Danner. "Do you have anything to back up that belief?" "Yes," said Julia, returning the smile. She knew now that she had won them over, that Greg was just testing how good she was. This was the moment for her to hit it out of the ballpark. "For instance, I know Heather is an exact duplicate of Angela Morris of Minneapolis," she said, sweetly. They all looked thunderstruck by this, mouths dropping open. "How can you possibly know that?" said John Nottingham. "There's no way you can know that." "Actually, it was you that set me on the trail," said Julia, "with an unnecessary lie. Lies can trip you up, so always avoid unnecessary ones. When I arrived in town, you told me that Heather had been born in Kennet Cove. When I later learned she was adopted, I went through the birth notices in the Chronicle from the appropriate period to see who her birth mother might have been. There was no birth of a female baby in that period that could have been her. I then checked for any reports of babies being abandoned in Kennet Cove by outsiders during that period. Again, nothing. Clearly, you'd lied to me. That's when I knew Heather had to be the original Alice Jones." "How does that follow?" said Greg. "It goes to the reason behind the lie," explained Julia. "When Alice Jones arrived in Kennet Cove she wasn't pregnant, nor did she have a newborn baby with her. Since no mother with a newborn is going to go off for several days and leave her child behind - and even if she did, no new mother would stay somewhere for several days without at least mentioning to people she'd just given birth to a baby - Heather's sudden appearance was explained to the townspeople as an out-of-town adoption. Except, there never was an adoption, nor any paperwork trail to an adoption agency. When I turned up, I knew I recognized Alice Jones from somewhere, and my face probably betrayed that recognition. Seeing this, and knowing an investigation on my part would turn up that lack of a paper trail, the Sheriff decided on the spur of the moment to suggest Deputy Jones was Heather's biological mother as a way of diverting me away from even looking down that avenue. Having done this, I'm sure he later told your little group of his concern about this reporter whose face had betrayed her recognition of Alice Jones, and what he feared I might uncover. That would explain why you had people watching me, and why someone at the library would have been interested enough in what I was reading to report it to you." "Very good, Julia," said Greg Danner, watching her thoughtfully. "Having deduced Heather had to be the original Alice Jones, it seemed clear that whatever had been used with the medallion to transform her must have been brought in from out of town. That made sense - you wouldn't want a child who was the unexplained twin of another in town, after all, particularly in a community as small as this one. At the very least, an innocent husband might find himself accused of having an extramarital affair. In fact, the further away from Kennet Cove you acquired the necessary item the better. Of all of you who had to know about the medallion, Greg Danner was the one whose never-ending book-signing tours regularly took him the furthest. Using the date of Susan Prentice's apparent suicide as my starting point, I checked out Greg's itinerary for the period immediately prior to this. It's very convenient that all his engagements are so faithfully listed in the Chronicle, by the way, one of the consequences of being a major celebrity and living in a small town, I suppose. Anyway, from this I discovered he'd been doing a benefit reading from his latest book at a hospital in Minneapolis a few days earlier. Even better, it was his last date on that particular tour. He got back into Kennet Cove the following day, and didn't leave town again until almost three weeks after the suicide. This being so, and Lucy knowing his itinerary, how easy it would have been to phone and ask him if he could steal an item of clothing from the hospital's maternity ward to use with the medallion. Thinking about it, I realized a blanket would be too big to easily conceal, and that, anyway, all most newborns in maternity wards wear is a diaper and a plastic identity bracelet. Stripping a diaper off a baby takes time and so increases the likelihood of discovery, but an identity bracelet could be quickly and easily snipped off. I wondered if they would keep a record of such thefts. So I phoned the hospital and asked them if any had been taken on the day Greg had done his reading. It took a bit of convincing before they gave me the information, but eventually they did. Only one had gone missing. And it had been taken from the wrist of one Angela Morris." "My, you really are good!" said Greg Danner, raising his hands and applauding her. "A masterful combination of research, deduction, and intuitive leaps." He was clearly impressed. "So what happens now?" "Now?" said Julia, puzzled. "Nothing happens now. I've solved the mystery and that's it. There's nothing here I'd dream of trying to put into a news item. By the way, Sheriff, since my encounter with the medallion was only a few months ago, I know you must have lost it. How did that happen?" "Funny thing, that," he said, giving a wry chuckle. "We told those FBI agents Callie lost in playing in the woods, and that's exactly what eventually happened to it. A coupla weeks after the fuss with Alice Jones comin' to town, Callie somehow got ahold of it, thought it was the medallion she'd lost in the sheriff's office - they look similar enough that I mistook a replica the female FBI agent had for Callie's - and then lost it in those damn woods. We looked for it, of course, but it never did turn up." The door to the study opened then, and drew everyone's gaze. It was Mike Hudson, his baggage at his feet. "I'm heading off now and just wanted to say goodbye to everyone," he said. "It's been good seeing you all and getting to visit with my son." "Goodbye, Mike," said Julia, giving him a hug. "I'll be taking off myself in a few hours. I hope you continue having fun in your new job." "You, too," he said, "and don't forget to get me that backstage pass for your TV show." "I won't," she promised. He shook hand with the others, gave Lucy a kiss on the cheek, then picked up his bags. "Here, let me help you with one of those," said John Nottingham, picking up the largest case. Julia went with them out to Mike's hire car. Mike didn't want anything put in the trunk, so they stowed it all away on the back seats. This done, He got into the car and started the engine. Julia turned to face John Nottingham. "I saw you kissing Alice Jones, you know," she said. "With all Mary has sacrificed for you, becoming a woman and having your children, don't you think you owe it to her to be faithful?" "It's the testosterone," he replied. "When I became male my sex drive got ramped up like maybe a thousand percent. It wasn't easy, but I still managed to stay faithful until Alice became my deputy, then it just got too hard. Or maybe I'm just weak. Did you know she's pregnant too, now? She just got the results of the test." "No," said Julia, "no I didn't. What do you intend doing about it?" "Things'll work out, you'll see. When I explain to Mary, how I still love her as much as ever, but I have a responsibility to Alice and her baby too, I'm sure we'll be able to work some amicable arrangement that works for all of us. I mean, she knows I'd never leave her." Julia wondered if he had acquired a heavy dose of self- delusion along with all that testosterone. Oh well. it was none of her business, and people's domestic arrangements were their own affair, after all. Who knows, maybe he was right and Mary would welcome Alice and her baby into their family. Small towns. They could be a hotbed of illicit passions. As John Nottingham stepped back into the house to rejoin his wife, Julia briefly contemplated one other intriguing item she had turned up during her research, something she had kept to herself. She told the others she used persuasion to find out about that missing identity bracelet, but this wasn't true. As a teenager, her interest in intellectual puzzles had led her to become a master hacker and she had used those skills to get into the hospital records. Doing a search on Greg Danner's name, she had been surprised to discover not just details of his benefit reading but also a medical file on him. He had visited the hospital's fertility clinic, and the tests they ran had confirmed he was incapable of fathering children. So who then was the father of the Danner's daughter? Julia remembered that look between Lucy and John Nottingham, and she wondered. She suspected she had only scratched the surface when it came to the secrets Kennet Cove still held. Greg Danner joined her on the porch, and together they watched Mike Hudson's car sail down the driveway. "You know," she said, "it's quite a coincidence that someone like me who had been affected by the medallion should cross the country and find others it had also affected. The odds against that happening must be pretty high." "Maybe," said Greg. "Isn't it weird to think the medallion is out there somewhere right now, probably altering the fate of someone even as we speak. I wonder where it is?" "Probably thousands of miles away," said Julia. "About the only thing we can be certain of is it's not here in Kennet Cove." EPILOGUE: A few miles out of town, where the road was straight and clear enough to let him see another car coming from either direction several minutes before it would reach him, Mike Hudson stopped his car. Popping the trunk open, he helped the figure inside climb out. "Are you OK?" he asked. "I'm sorry you had to leave town hidden away like that, but you would have been difficult to explain if anyone had seen us together." "I am well," said his companion, stretching out the kinks caused by confinement in the trunk. "Thank you once again for traveling to Kennet Cove to aid me." "My pleasure," said Mike. "I regret some of the things I was forced to do, like breaking into Greg's display case and stealing that poor puppy, but everything turned out well. There are some people I know who are going to be very, very pleased to finally meet you. You weren't the only reason I came here, though." "Ah yes; your son. Did that work out as you had hoped?" In reply, Mike Hudson reached into his shirt and pulled out the object that had hung around his neck for the past few weeks. As he held it up, the Medallion of Zulo glinted in the sunlight. "Well," he said, looking at the medallion thoughtfully, "let's just say that though I was expecting to, I didn't need to turn him into a woman after all." "OK," he said, tucking the medallion back inside his shirt, "get into the passenger seat and strap yourself in. We have a long drive ahead of us." As the car accelerated away, leaving Kennet Cove further behind with each passing second, its occupants' thoughts were on the trials that lay ahead. They did not look back. THE END. ***************** (Author's Note: Just what Mike Hudson was up to in Kennet Cove, the meaning of that cryptic Epilogue, and many of the secrets of the town and its inhabitants, will be just some of the things from many stories explained in the forthcoming Altered Fates: Project Zulo. Between that story and this, however, will be Altered Fates: The Cult. The story of Julia Tamm's first encounter with the medallion will be told in Altered Fates: Tempest, which is finished and will be submitted when this story gets posted. Ben Ryan's story can be found in Altered Fates: Triptych, and those of Mike and Tom Hudson in Altered Fates: A Quick Study, and Altered Fates: The Bitter Bridegroom, respectively, all of which are already available on Fictionmania. Just click on my name. These should give you some inkling what Tom and Mike were discussing in this tale. If you're interested in the continuity of these tales, a chronology is given at the end of Altered Fates/X-Files: The Scam.)