Page 63 of Fortress
“Yeah.” Roger waved the empty bottle. “Grabbing another beer. You want anything?”
“No, thank you. I could get it for you, if you wanted?”
“Thanks, but I'm gonna hit the head too. You stick with Jake a while. He's tired of me and my old bones.”
Toby smiled, unsure but at ease, and stepped past Roger. He came over to Jake and didn't resist when Jake pulled him downbeside him, hip to hip. Jake wrapped his arm around Toby's waist, hooking his fingers into Toby's belt loop.
“What're you looking at?” Toby asked.
“Fireworks over Las Cruces.”
Toby leaned against him. “They're beautiful.”
“Yeah, they are.” And if Jake wasn't looking at the fireworks, well, that was between him and the night.
For Alice Dixon, the Fourth of July was one of the few days in the year that she felt she could let her hair down, literally and metaphorically. Neither hunting nor politics encouraged informality, but today was about family, fireworks, and the U.S. of A., and she was going to relax.
After digging a pair of cutoff jeans out of her closet (probably hadn't been worn since the last Fourth of July), pulling a short-sleeve plaid shirt over a white tank, she drove out of town with the windows down and the radio's Top 40 blaring loud enough to leave after-echoes in her ears. Her destination was her cousin Jonah's lake house outside of D.C.
Director Jonah Dixon had started the annual Fourth of July party the year after Uncle Elijah passed away. Before then there had usually been some kind of annual family gathering, but Jonah made it official. That first year he had even sent out invitations. The older Dixons (more than half drunk, some still wearing black bands to mourn Elijah's passing) had talked about how nice it was to see different branches of the vast Dixon tree outside of a hunt or a funeral.
Since that first party, anyone with a speck of Dixon blood was welcome to Jonah's place to drink, eat, and be merry, but some other exclusive invitations were sent as well. At least a quarter of the guests would be politicians and lobbyists, the exact sort ofasshole suits that Alice would usually have to pretty herself up for and smile.
But not on the Fourth. Jonah's party was a Dixon event, held on Dixon property. Not a fundraiser, not in honor of any Hill bigwig or Pentagon general. It was simply a celebration of family, Dixons, and America. No one had better proof of their love and commitment to America than the Dixons. Alice Dixon had nothing to prove to anyone today, and she intended to enjoy it.
D.C. was sweltering, but the day cooled as she left behind the concrete of the city's neatly arranged streets and reached more open land. Jonah's property was well guarded and heavily armed, as befitted the home of the leader of an important (arguably the most important) government agency. Alice knew that the only difference between the security there and some of the smaller ASC facilities was that in his own home, Jonah preferred his defenses to be subtly attractive or concealed so as to not attract unwanted attention from his less defense-minded neighbors.
The guard at the gatehouse checked her ID and administered the silver prick and holy-water test with neat efficiency. Afterward, he grinned at her. “Welcome to the party, cuz.”
She grinned back. “Thanks. I'll save you a brew for when you get off, yeah?”
“Ha, you do that, Alice! Enjoy!”
She rolled on through, waving back, making a mental note to get his name from someone at the party.
Plenty of cars, ranging from rust-buckets to Porsches, were already parked along the long driveway. She pulled her BMW up behind a gorgeous hotrod red Camaro and stepped out to join the party.
A refreshing breeze rustled the trees shading Jonah's spacious and carefully trimmed lawn, and Alice dodged barefootchildren chasing one another as she walked down to the pier. She waved at Jonah, who was already flipping burgers and brats on his shiny two-tiered grill. Somehow he was still impeccable in his polo shirt and khaki shorts. He barely lifted a hand in acknowledgement, deep in conversation with a man who had “bigwig” practically written on his forehead. Alice gave a couple friends a quick hello or hug and then leaped into Matthew's motorboat just before he pulled away from the dock.
She took a seat near the stern, accepting the beer her uncle Andrew passed over, then sat back to enjoy the feel of the spray. Her position had had her stuck at a desk so long that fieldwork was like a distant, blurred memory of adrenaline and gunpowder. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd spent hours in the sun, laughing with a drink in her hand, throat bared to the wind whipping around the speedboat. It had been too long since she'd felt so alive.
Her cousin Matthew was at the wheel, his beer balanced in the cup holder next to him, arguing good-naturedly with Daniel (a more distant cousin, not officially a Dixon) about how to steer the boat. Occasionally they passed another boat or jet ski, and Alice waved at them as they whooped back.
Uncle Andrew tried to start up a conversation about her recent CNN appearance, leaning in just a little too close, but she waved him off and changed the topic to the Ravens' draft picks. After she returned to shore, she stuck to the same tactic when dodging grabby semi-relatives and insecure politicians who wanted to put a word in her ear. Weather, sports, car mechanics, and the suggestion that they touch base with her after the weekend deflected the lot of them, and she finally made it to the volleyball sandpit.
Just after her second match with some of the younger Dixons, Jonah began serving up plates of hamburgers, hot dogs, shrimp, salmon, and vegetable kabobs. Alice visited thebathroom to freshen up and wash her sandy hands before joining the line for food.
Debbie Dixon—one of the matriarchs of the Dixon family, though she had never hunted, and she avoided discussing the business with almost comical determination—stood behind the serving table, checking the silverware and condiments supply.
As Alice moved closer, she called, “Aunt Debbie, did you make that gorgeous pie I saw in the kitchen?”
Debbie beamed at her. “That's an old recipe of Carol's—Jonah's mother, I mean, not your great-aunt Carol. She used to make it every Fourth. Thought it was time to bring it back.”
“What happened to that amazing blackberry and peach pie we used to have?” Daniel asked. “I still dream about that pie.”
Debbie frowned at him. “That recipe was Ruth's. We can do better than that.”
Alice winced inwardly. Ruth Dixon was almost never mentioned in front of family, though she'd been Elijah Dixon's wife and Sally Dixon's mother. After the Liberty Wolf Massacre and Elijah created the ASC and built Freak Camp, she'd separated from her husband and moved back home to Maine. Elijah had tried to reconcile with her, but she'd never returned. Since his death, loyal Dixons didn't acknowledge her existence, let alone try to contact her.
