Chapter 1 – Where have all the flowers gone?

 

Sydney groaned as he roused.

 

His head felt like it was going to explode, and so did his bladder. He resisted opening his eyes, knowing that the light from the sun – however muted or indirect – was only going to make that explosive headache worse. He also refrained from moving at all, in case movement would make his bladder problem any more urgent than it already was. Very fleetingly, he wondered what time it was – and whether anybody at the Centre would be doing anything that would normally require his presence and so draw attention to his absence. /Too bad,/ he thought to himself in one of the first coherent thoughts of this uncomfortable morning after, /they’ll just have to muddle along without me until I can get myself moving again. Maybe I’ll just call in sick for the day./

 

Finally he stirred, shifting on the bed to get into a slightly more comfortable position on his stomach – and then froze, his bladder issue completely forgotten for the moment. He was naked. His brows furled in confusion. He always slept in pajamas – he was slightly cold-blooded and didn’t like either to sleep in the raw or to sleep with a window open. What in the world was going on? Certainly he hadn’t been THAT drunk the night before that he’d only managed to get half-ready for bed before collapsing?

 

He sniffed and resigned himself to having to roll over at least a little so that he could open his eyes and look around. As he did, he groaned – the movement and the additional light against his eyelids was threatening to make his hangover even worse, as he’d known they would. His bladder had also reissued its urgent scream for relief, and now he could taste the bitter residue of too much whiskey on his teeth and back of his throat as well as smell a coppery stench from somewhere closeby. How much had he had last night? Would it do any good to remember? How the hell was he going to get to the bathroom in this shape? Better yet, when would he ever learn NOT to go on benders like this when the Centre revealed its true face to him again – the aftermath made the temporary euphoria of inebriation simply not worth it.

 

Gingerly he cracked open one eye and peeked over the side of the bed. Yes, there lay some of his clothes from the day before, in crumpled and discarded clumps on the floor, obviously dropped the moment he’d climbed out of them. Then he looked a little higher, expecting to look at the window that overlooked his back yard, and found himself frowning again in confusion. There was no window, only a blank wall covered in faded wallpaper. This wasn’t his bedroom. As a matter of fact, the faded wallpaper looked more like what he’d find in a cheap motel room – certainly not in his comfortable master bedroom at home. Where the hell WAS he, and did he even know where the bathroom was?

 

He pulled his hands in and groaned as he pushed himself up onto one hip, the covers falling away from his body. He would have grabbed for the blankets again to at least cover his legs until his upper body acclimated to the chill of the room, but there was a wet feel to the place where his hand had been laying that had clung to him as he’d moved. And as he moved it again, the feel of a sticky substance on his right hand caught his attention. Blinking to try to chase the post-alcoholic fog from his eyes and brain, he brought the hand up and stared at it. His entire palm was covered in something – something dark. Something red.

 

That brought him fully awake in a hurry, and he reached out the hand and tossed back the covers on the other half of the bed. The bottom sheet was covered with whatever it was, and the pillow even had some of the stain near the bottom. Sydney felt his heart begin to pound hard in his chest as he could smell it even more strongly now — and recognized that coppery smell for what it was: difficult to forget, or mistake for anything else. It was stink of blood – LOTS of it. The soaked sheet and partially stained pillow both looked slept-on – as if the person who had been there had just arisen. But if whoever had lain there had been the one to lose all that blood, they wouldn’t be in any shape to move – would they?

 

His eyes wide and staring and his whole body trembling in shock and horror, he got unsteadily to his feet. A quick glance around the room told him a confusing story. There were pieces of a woman’s clothing scattered about the floor in the same kind of crumpled heaps as his own clothing – as if she had disrobed in just as much of a hurry or disregard as he had. And yet, not a sign of the woman in question was to be seen. He turned his head quickly – wishing in the next moment that he hadn’t as the movement detonated a minor nuclear explosion in his skull – in search of the bathroom. Maybe…

 

He was going to have to find the bathroom sooner or later anyway before his bladder burst, so he rose first to sit on the edge of the bed with his head hanging, and then he pushed himself carefully to his feet. His steps were uncertain, and he had to lean against the wall with his shoulder, carefully keeping his bloody right hand away from any surface that might attract a stain. It didn’t help his state of mind much to discover when uncovering the rest of his body where he had obviously partially lain in the pool of blood himself for some length of time. The line of sticky dark crimson mess ran from just below his armpit and down to a knee.

 

He moaned in confusion and horror as he turned the corner and had to use his left hand to open the bathroom door – which was latched but unlocked – so that he wouldn’t leave behind even more bloody smudges. Whoever had been bleeding out in his room wasn’t in the bathroom, and Sydney sighed a small sigh of relief before taking care of his urgent bathroom needs. He really hadn’t been looking forward to discovering a dead body in his bathroom. But his sigh of relief quickly reversed direction into a gasp of true horror when he turned to the sink to wash the blood from his hand and found a straight razor lying by the white ceramic bowl covered in the same red blood.

 

Once more badly shaken, he stepped into the bathtub and ran a quick shower – one with water that would rinse the blood from his hand and body on the one hand and cold enough to help him wake up a little more on the other hand. He dried himself on a cheap, industrial sized white bath towel and walked reluctantly back into the motel room itself. A few glances about the floor found his boxers dumped halfway under the bed, peeking out from beneath a woman’s blouse. He pulled them on after checking to make sure that they weren’t bloodstained, and did the same with his t-shirt and dress trousers.

 

Then he located his sports coat, pulled the cell phone from a front pocket, and perched himself precariously on the edge of the one easy chair in the room while he waited for the pre-programmed number to connect.

 

“What?”

 

“Parker,” he began in a shaky voice.

 

“Sydney!” Miss Parker was anything but amused or approachable. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Raines has been raising the roof all morning because you had to choose today to be a no-show. He wanted us in a meeting with…”

 

“Parker,” he broke into her tirade in a voice that obviously didn’t give a damn about whatever he’d bollixed up at the Centre. “Listen to me,” he demanded tiredly until she finally stopped scolding.

 

“OK,” she snapped at him in extreme frustration after a moment’s pause. “I’m listening – but this better be damned good or I swear to God I’ll kill you myself...”

 

He gazed at the crumpled bedclothes and the horrific pool of blood on the bed and closed his eyes against the idea of what might — must — have happened here.. “I need your help. I think ...”

 

There was a pounding suddenly at his motel room door, and a voice calling from outside, “This is the Dover Police. Open up, immediately!”

 

“What the hell is that racket, Syd?” Miss Parker demanded, unnerved by his tone of voice and the fact that he’d openly asked for her help. This wasn’t the Sydney she knew. This wasn’t the infinitely calm and independent Centre shrink.

 

“I think I’m in a lot of trouble, Parker,” he stated as he watched the door be kicked open and uniformed police officers begin to swarm in, some with weapons drawn and pointing threateningly in his general direction. “Something terrible has happened…”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Miss Parker stared out into her office without seeing anything as she listened to the sounds of chaos erupt on the other end of the line, and then blinked as the call was suddenly disconnected from the other end. It took her a moment to break loose from her shock to quickly push the disconnect button twice to establish a dial tone on her phone and then dial a three-digit extension.

 

“Broots here…”

 

“I just got a call from Sydney’s cell phone, Broots – I want you to tell me where he was calling from,” she demanded brusquely.

 

“M…miss Parker, I already have my assignment from Mr. Raines, and…” the computer tech on the other end stammered at her.

 

“Screw Raines and his make-work program,” she barked back, her almost-nonexistent patience wearing even thinner. “Sydney said he thought he was in trouble – I need to know where he is.”

 

“Sydney?” Broots’ voice easily conveyed its concern. “R…right away, Miss Parker…”

 

“And call me the moment you have news.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

Miss Parker hung up the phone with a decided click and sat back in her office chair. She should have known something was off when Sydney hadn’t shown up to work on time that morning. After all, it was with Sydney that Raines had spent the better part of the day yesterday – and Sydney had come out of that long meeting looking positively morose and behaving in a very uncommunicative and uncooperative manner. As a matter of fact, the last time she’d seen Sydney look quite that unhappy, he’d just been painfully reminded of how the Centre had interfered with his life by ripping away someone he cared about – how it had stolen his family, his future. His son. He’d been standing behind his desk in his office, interrupted by Broots and herself while packing to walk out, and had ended up railing futilely at the Centre and The Powers That Be that had hurt him so badly. She’s only barely talked him out of leaving right then and there.

 

The thing was, not that she thought about it again a little more carefully, she wasn’t really certain why Raines should have been so out of sorts when Sydney had been a no-show that morning. Unless there had been a project or something on the agenda after all that nobody had brought up because it had needed the psychiatrist’s direct input, the meeting had been mind-numbingly routine. Although… come to think of it, Lyle had been oozing with self-satisfaction every time Raines would explode about Sydney’s tardiness. If she didn’t know better…

 

Her phone rang and interrupted her reverie, and she grabbed for the handset. “What?”

 

“He was in Dover, Miss Parker,” Broots reported without a single stammer. “It was the Dover repeater station that had handled the call to you.”

 

“Tell me, does he have a Centre-issue cell with a tracking device?” she asked after thinking a moment.

 

“Don’t we all?” her technician asked bitterly in a rare show of bravado and disgust.

 

“So activate the tracking system and tell me where he is right now. Let me know the minute you have him.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

She disconnected the call and immediately dialed another three-digit extension. “Yes, ma’am?” Sam answered his summons with courteous neutrality.

 

“Bring me a car from the pool and be ready to leave as soon as I get to the garage,” she ordered without explanation.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam replied and disconnected the call immediately.

 

She rose and was just checking to make sure that the ammunition cartridge in her Smith and Wesson was fully loaded when her twin brother breezed through her office door without knocking. She aimed a quick glower at him as he sauntered to a stop in front of her desk. “And you lecture ME on the virtues of knocking,” she grumbled in a very out of sorts tone.

 

“What goes around, comes around, Sis,” Lyle shrugged off the complaint. “Think of it as an object lesson. However, I’m here because Dad has something he wants you to do…”

 

“I’m busy,” Miss Parker replied without looking at her brother again, slipping the weapon back into its holster at the waistband of her pants and reaching for her jacket, “as you can tell. Whatever it is the old ghoul has for me will just have to wait.”

 

“You know,” he told her in a serious tone, “you aren’t just an independent operator here, doing whatever the Hell you want to. When Dad gives the orders…”

 

“Save the lecture for someone who gives a damn,” she snapped, as an after-thought pulling another cartridge of ammunition from her desk drawer and slipping it into her pocket. “Tell Raines that I’ll be glad to consider his request AFTER I get back – capisce?”

 

“What’s so all-fired important that you’re willing to blow off an order from the Chairman himself?” Lyle inquired with narrowed eyes. “A new lead on Jarod that you haven’t shared with me yet?”

 

She shook her head in exasperation. “Lyle, when are you going to get it through your thick skull that I don’t HAVE to share my leads on Jarod with you? Raines made this a contest where ‘the one who wins, survives,’ remember? Besides, when was the last time you shared one of your real leads with ME?” Lyle opened his mouth to argue, but an upheld hand stopped him before he could get a word out. “Forget it – it isn’t that important. I’ll call you when I get back – and that’s the best you’re going to get from me.”

 

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Sis,” her twin warned her.

 

“So I’ve been told,” she shot back. “And now, if you don’t mind…” She indicated that she expected him to leave her office right then and there.

 

“Don’t be too long getting back to me, Parker,” Lyle’s tone was even more serious than before. “What with Sydney’s absence, there are questions starting to arise about the dedication of your team to the effort at hand.”

 

The telephone rang, and she picked it up. “What?” she barked into it.

 

“Miss Parker?” Broots answered immediately. “I found…”

 

“Hang on a moment,” she told her colleague and then held the handset against her shoulder. “If you don’t mind,” she told her twin, pointing at the door, “I need to take this call. You don’t have to knock on your way out, you know.”

 

Lyle gave his sister a strange look and shoved his hands into his trousers pockets as he moseyed toward her door. But she wasn’t about to continue the phone conversation until he was gone, and he finally pushed through the etched glass doors.

 

She waited until the doors were completely closed before putting the phone back to her ear. “OK. Spill.”

 

“He’s at the Dover Central Police Station,” Broots reported in a worried tone. “What do you suppose Sydney’s doing at the police station – and a police station in Dover, of all places?”

 

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Miss Parker snapped and disconnected.

 

“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Freud?” she muttered to herself as she strode purposefully toward her door and the elevator beyond.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Sydney heard the door to the interrogation room open and close, and yet he didn’t raise his head to look at the police officer that had entered. He knew his constitutional rights – knew that he didn’t have to make any kind of statement or answer any questions – and he’d been through enough T-Board interrogations at the Centre that the Dover Police had very little they could throw at him to rattle him. His head was still pounding from the drinking he’d done the night before and he was beginning to grow hungry – but there was no way he was going to communicate these things to the police only to have them used against him just a little while later.

 

“My name is Officer Miller, and I understand that you haven’t been saying much of anything to any of the other officers who’ve spoken to you, Doctor Green,” the plain-clothed officer began in a very conversational tone as he pulled out the chair opposite Sydney across the table and sat himself down. “Can’t you at least tell us what you were doing in that motel room?”

 

Sydney relented only so far as to raise his eyes to look at this new interrogator with a knowing and resigned look on his face. “I think not,” he answered in a monotone and then looked back down to where he’d folded his hands on the table.

 

“You know you’re in some pretty serious trouble,” the officer informed Sydney, as if Sydney didn’t already understand that.

 

“Am I under arrest?” Sydney asked in return.

 

“Not exactly,” Detective Miller answered uncomfortably. Despite the reported complaint about screams and loud noises coming from the motel room that they’d raided, the man they’d taken in for questioning had done nothing that they could prove except be found at the scene of a possible murder. He’d not struggled or protested his innocence, in no way resisted being taken in; and despite the horrific scene and the incredibly suspicious circumstances, it just plain wasn’t against the law to be found in a room with a bed on which it looked as if someone had been butchered. What was more, his record was squeaky clean – Dr. Sydney Green, MD didn’t even have a parking ticket to have brought him to the attention of law enforcement before.

 

“Then am I free to go?” Sydney looked up with a miniscule ember of hope burning in the back of his gaze.

 

“Not quite yet,” Miller answered with a firm shake of the head. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened. We could really use your help, you know…

 

The look in Sydney’s eyes transformed into frustrated resignation before he looked back down at his hands again. He’d done enough police-related SIMMs with Jarod in years past that he knew that he could be held without being charged for up to 72 hours. All he had to do was keep his cool and say nothing for the next three days – something he’d done often enough with Raines and the T-Board staff breathing down his neck.

 

“Where is she, Doctor Green?” Miller asked very gently, hoping that a non-confrontational method would elicit the information they desperately needed. “We know it was a woman – not only were her clothes scattered all over the place, but we found semen on the sheets.” The officer sighed silently. “It’s only a matter of time before we confirm the semen as yours once you give us a sample of your DNA.”

 

Sydney struggled not to show the shudder that had coursed through him. HAD he slept with a woman the night before? He closed his eyes and tried to remember, but could hardly even remember walking into the tavern near the Blue Cove Inn after work to try to drink away his distress at what Raines was wanting him to do – again. He’d sat down at the bar, in front of a bartender he’d known for the better part of his years in Blue Cove, ordered a double Chivas on the rocks… and everything that came after was still all in an alcoholic fog… wasn’t it?

 

His musing was interrupted as another officer tapped on the door and came in to whisper to Officer Miller, who then rose. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to take care of this…”

 

“Of course,” he answered semi-automatically, grateful to be once more left alone with his thoughts. Thinking about what Raines had demanded of him made him wish he was back in the tavern with another double helping of Chivas in front of him. To restart the Pretender Project with a new youngster… just the thought of how this young person would have been acquired was enough to turn his stomach. And despite the very real draw toward the kind of cutting edge psychological and psychiatric research working with another young genius would involve, he just had too many ethical and moral reservations about the entire premise of the project now to be an effective trainer anymore. But Raines had been determined – and had not been willing to listen to a solid “no!”

 

Oh yes, THAT must have been why Parker said Raines was so bothered when he’d not shown up for work this morning. Raines had promised to have him introduced to the new Pretender after the meeting – after which, he’d be expected to step right up to the plate and begin training the child as a replacement for Jarod. Sydney put his face in his hands. At this very moment, he didn’t know which was worse: awakening to the possibility that he’d murdered a woman, or awakening to the probability that he’d be expected – required – to repeat each and every sin he’d ever committed with Jarod with another vulnerable child. Either way, he was damned.

 

He hadn’t murdered anybody… much less murdered a woman… had he? He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands in frustration. Damn it! Why couldn’t he remember anything?

 

The sound of the door opening behind him cut into that painful self-doubt, and Sydney raised his eyes to look at his interrogator with curiosity. Officer Miller looked anything but happy as he flopped a folder down on the table in front of himself as he resumed his seat. “At least you could have told us you worked for that damned Centre place,” he growled at his witness/suspect in frustration, “instead of letting one of their high-flown lawyers simply come to your rescue without even needing to make a phone call.”

 

Sydney hid his surprise as best he could. An attorney had been dispatched to him already? Parker must have taken his plea for her assistance seriously. “I’d like to speak to my lawyer, then, when he gets here,” he stated quietly and firmly, knowing that this would hamstring the detective even further.

 

“She’s here already, and on her way in,” Miller grumbled, collecting the folder and the rest of the documents that he’d had in front of him earlier as the door behind Sydney opened one more time. “He’s all yours,” he sighed in frustration on his way out. The door closed behind Sydney again, and he looked up to see just who the Tower had sent to his rescue – and dropped his jaw.

 

“You know, you’re damned lucky I’ve kept my license to practice law here in Delaware current, Syd, even though everybody thought I was nuts,” Miss Parker said with exasperation as she slipped into the chair that the detective had just abandoned, putting her attaché case on the table between them. “Now, you didn’t tell me very much at all when you called. What the hell is going on here?”

 

“Parker,” he breathed, barely believing his luck. “You… you’re my lawyer?”

 

“For the time being,” she answered, folding her hands on the table in front of her. “What’s going on?”

 

Sydney threw his hands wide. “I wish to hell that I knew. All I do know is that I woke up this morning with a vicious hangover – and found myself in a bed half-covered in blood.” He heard her intake of breath. “That’s what I thought too. But there was no body… at least, none that I found…”

 

“What the hell were you doing in Dover?” she demanded.

 

He shook his head. “I don’t know the answer to that one either. Last thing I remember clearly was walking into the Land’s End Tavern in Blue Cove and ordering a double whiskey.” He ran frustrated fingers through silver hair that looked as if it had yet to have seen a brush that morning. “I don’t know how I got to Dover, I don’t know about any woman…”

 

“Who said this mysterious body would be a woman?”

 

“There were woman’s clothing scattered all over the floor… along with mine,” he answered, his voice hoarse with embarrassment. He couldn’t look her in the eye. “And… the officer said… there was semen on the bed…”

 

“Did you sleep with her, Syd?” Amazingly, Miss Parker’s voice was almost gentle.

 

“I honest to God don’t remember, Parker!” he burst out in desperation. “I swear to you, I remember getting the drink at the Land’s End – and I can remember absolutely nothing else until I woke up in that motel room just before the police burst in.”

 

She looked into his face and could see not the slightest sign that he was lying to her. His eyes were wide and frantic and more than a little bloodshot, his face grizzled for lack of a decent morning’s shave. “You look like shit, Freud.” The chestnut eyes touched hers wryly just before he put his face in his hands. “Well,” she continued in a slightly more business-like tone, “the first thing we need to do is get you the hell outta here.” She rose to her feet and went over to the door and opened it. “I need to speak to someone in charge here,” she called out into the room beyond.

 

“Yes?” Officer Miller replied as he walked up to and through the door again, noting that Doctor Green looked no more complacent or smug than he had when he’d left the room. He, on the other hand, finally felt as if he were on a little bit more solid footing.

 

Miss Parker struck her most intimidating pose. “I need to know if you are charging my client.”

 

“We can hold him…”

 

“…for seventy-two hours before you have to jump one way or the other, I know,” she finished for him. “At least, that’s how it works for people who aren’t important. Doctor Green, however, is essential to several projects back in Blue Cove – his absence is very keenly felt.”

 

“That may be, Miss Parker,” Miller replied archly, “but I just received the results of our forensics department’s test on the razor blade discovered in Doctor Green’s bathroom covered in the same type blood as was found covering the bed. The good doctor’s fingerprints are all over it.”

 

Miss Parker’s gaze met Sydney’s in surprise, and she knew that he was just as astounded and appalled at this development as she was. “Well, if it WAS his motel room…”

 

“The room was registered in the name of Miss Catherine Hallsey,” Miller informed her without need to check his reports. “So the question is, Doctor, what have you done with Miss Hallsey?”

 

“Don’t answer that, Syd,” Miss Parker barked at the tired psychiatrist, putting a hand on his shoulder to dull the bite of her tone slightly. She looked back at the police officer. “Let me rephrase my question: ARE you going to be charging my client?”

 

“From the amount of blood on the bed, we’re fairly sure a serious crime has been committed. Your client has been particularly unresponsive in answering any questions. We have preliminary forensic evidence that he was at the very least involved in whatever when on.”

 

“But you have no body,” Miss Parker reminded him sharply. “Has anybody even reported this Miss Hallsey missing?”

 

Miller’s face grew stony. “No, but…”

 

“Then how can you even be sure that you’re dealing with the right crime?” she concluded with an intense stare. “Can you tell me that you’re one hundred percent certain that the blood found at the scene is Miss Hallsey’s?”

 

The detective’s dark eyes glared at her. “Not yet. But there’s enough circumstantial evidence of a serious crime having been committed that I’m well within my authority to hold Doctor Green for questioning until we have more to go on.”

 

The look Sydney gave her in response to that told her he wasn’t surprised in the least. “Then you understand that I expect a call whenever you intend to be questioning my client,” Miss Parker announced as she handed over her business card. “And Sydney, I’m advising you as your attorney not to say a word to anybody in here – not to the officers, not to another prisoner, not even to the janitors – got it?”

 

He nodded in resignation, noting from the expression in her grey eyes that she would be trying to move mountains to get him out of this. When Officer Miller put a hand at his elbow, he rose obediently and, with a final nod of farewell, allowed himself to be escorted from the interrogation room.

 

Miss Parker collected her attaché case and walked slowly back out the way she came. Something was seriously amiss here — Sydney wasn’t the kind of man who got tanked and attacked other people. And nobody could lose that immense amount of blood and just get up and walk away. This whole situation stank.

 

As she walked back toward where Sam was waiting with the Centre sedan, she promised herself that she’d get to the bottom of this before it destroyed Sydney’s life.

Chapter 2 – Long Time Passing

 

 

“Where to, Miss Parker?” Sam asked solicitously, gazing into the rearview mirror at his boss. She’d been silent ever since she’d climbed into the back seat; in fact the only sound had been the unsnapping of her attaché case a few minutes back and the rustle of papers.

 

Miss Parker studied the police report carefully. “The Roadside Inn,” she answered finally, “just off of Highway 1.” She looked up and into the same rearview mirror so that her gaze connected with that of her personal sweeper. “That’s where they found him.”

 

Sam nodded and put the sedan in motion. “You don’t actually think Sydney did… whatever they say he did… do you?” he asked with a concerned glance at her. She hadn’t stopped browsing those reports at all.

 

“Sydney may have done many questionable things in his life, but he’s no murderer, Sam,” she answered bluntly, not even raising her eyes to glance at him.

 

“Murder!” Sam gaped into the mirror until he remembered he was piloting the car down the road. “What in the hell gave them that idea?”

 

“The fact that they found him in a motel room with a bed that looked more like a butcher’s block than anything else – and a bloodstained razor in the bathroom with Syd’s fingerprints all over it.”

 

“Shit,” Sam breathed softly.

 

“No shit,” she agreed distractedly. She noted that while there had indeed been a semen stain found on the sheet along with all the blood, no DNA had been taken from Sydney himself to run for comparison yet. That would probably be only a matter of time – the circumstantial evidence would probably provide any judge with enough probable cause to sign off on a warrant to take a DNA sample from him, maybe even before she could spring him from the jail.

 

Quite literally the ONLY thing that Syd had going for him was the fact that, as yet, no body had been found to go with all that spilled blood on the motel room bed. That and the fact that the man had evidently known enough to keep his mouth shut so far. She smiled a very grim smile; having been called before the number of Centre T-Board interrogations that he had over the course of his career, Sydney had obviously learned his lessons well. No wonder the police had been so disgusted when she’d shown up – he’d probably been just polite enough in refusing to answer them to piss them off royally, and now would have had legal advice to continue the trend.

 

“There it is,” Sam’s voice called her from her musings once more, and she looked out of the window at the decidedly run-down motel that had a section of yellow crime scene tape over one of the upstairs doors. “What do you intend to do?” the sweeper spoke again, speaking to the reflection of his boss in the rearview mirror.

 

“Come with me,” Miss Parker gestured to him, “let’s go see what we can find out from the manager.”

 

Sam turned off the ignition and was out of the driver’s seat in time to be able to close Miss Parker’s door for her. He found his place exactly one pace behind her and slightly to her left as they walked up to the office and pushed through the glass door.

 

Behind the desk, a slightly bedraggled and frazzled looking woman looked up at the interruption, a cigarette dangling from her thin lips. “What can I do for you folks?” she asked in an uninflected and automatic tone. “Rooms are sixty-five dollars for a night – although…” bleary blue eyes flicked over the tall brunette and the burly man behind her, “hourly rates can be negotiated.”

 

“We want information, not a room,” Miss Parker said quietly, refusing to rise to the bait. She moved steadily to the desk. “I understand you had some excitement here a little while back.”

 

The tired, blue eyes of the manager narrowed. “You folks more cops?”

 

“Not exactly,” Miss Parker admitted, “but we’re investigating the circumstances. What do you know about what went on here?”

 

“All I know is that this young fella came storming into the office about six o’clock this morning, saying as how there was a woman screaming her lungs out in one of the upstairs rooms and that I’d best call the cops. When they got here, I’d been outside – and it was quiet as the grave.” The blue eyes were deeply serious. “And when they checked out where that young fella told me that the screams were coming from, they found a bed plum full of blood and this older guy.”

 

“If this woman was making all that much noise, how come you hadn’t already heard something yourself?” Sam inquired suspiciously.

 

“I take sleeping pills,” the manager confessed without blinking an eye. “As it was, he had to bang pretty hard on my door to wake me up in the first place.”

 

Miss Parker frowned. “And just what did this ‘young fella’ who reported all the noise look like?”

 

The manager shrugged. “Like I told the cops already, he was wearing a baseball cap and jacket zipped up tight against the cold – I really didn’t get a very good look at his face…”

 

“Had you seen him before?”

 

“I rented to him about three days ago – but he’s gone now, I think.” She shrugged. “I’d have to check…”

 

“And this older guy that the cops found, is he the one who rented the room this other fellow said all the ruckus was coming from?” Sam followed Miss Parker’s lead in asking the questions, and Miss Parker found herself quite comfortable working this woman as a team player for a change.

 

“Uh-uhn,” the manager shook her head firmly. “I remember the girl who put the money down for that place. Cute little thing, she was – said she was going to go see if she could rustle herself up a little action while she was in town.” The woman put a hand to her tousled blonde hair nervously. “From the looks of things, she got more action than she bargained for.”

 

“So you never even saw the older guy before?” Miss Parker asked in astonishment.

 

The manager shook her head after thinking for a moment. “Nope.”

 

“Do you remember the older guy at all from anywhere else?” Sam asked over Miss Parker’s shoulder. She didn’t look back at him, but he knew he was pushing the limits of his role – but his curiosity was getting the better of him.

 

“I already told you, I never saw him before,” the manager reported with waning patience. “I bet she found him in some bar.”

 

“Why do you say that?” Miss Parker picked up on the statement at once.

 

“That’s where she said she was headed,” the woman told her tiredly. “She asked for where the closest watering hole was and told me she was tired of sleeping alone.” The bleary blue eyes flicked back and forth between her two interviewers. “That’s all I know.”

 

Miss Parker knew that the chance of getting much more from the woman was remote, and so with a push of the hand against a broad chest, she steered Sam to turn around and leave the motel office ahead of her.

 

“Did you notice how she wasn’t volunteering the name of the man in the baseball cap who reported the screams?” Sam commented over his shoulder to his boss.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied thoughtfully. “The name was in the police report – I remember reading it – we’ll look for that guy later. No,” she shook her head as she got to the car and saw him turn to look at her after unlocking the driver’s door, “there are just a lot of things that just aren’t adding up. Syd says that the last thing he remembered, he was in the Land’s End in Blue Cove – not some ‘local watering hole’ here in Dover. So how the hell…”

 

“…did he end up thirty miles north of where he started?” Sam finished for her.

 

“Something is REALLY not right here,” Miss Parker mumbled as much to herself as to her sweeper as he pressed the unlock button and then held the door open for her to slip into the sedan. “I’m missing something.”

 

“Where to now?” was the question from the man behind the steering wheel.

 

“The Centre,” she answered unhappily. “Somebody’s going to have to tell Raines what’s going on.”

 

Sam turned the key in the ignition, not for the first time more than grateful that he was only a sweeper. There was no way in the world that he’d want Miss Parker’s job – and especially not now!

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Even though he wasn’t technically under arrest, Sydney felt the pressure of his situation as he slumped back against the cinder-block wall of the cell in which he’d been placed. There was no other place to sit in the eight by five barred cubicle besides on the narrow metal shelf covered with a thin and lumpy mattress – so he propped one leg up with knee bent while the other stretched out in front of him and tried to get comfortable. They hadn’t taken his own clothing away – not yet, at any rate – but they’d taken his shoes and belt and suspenders, just in case, they told him, he had any ideas about doing himself a mischief. He tipped his head back against the block wall and closed his eyes.

 

It was essential that he try to remember what had happened – surely someone had seen or heard something that would stand to clear his name. He’d already told Parker about going into the Land’s End Tavern in Blue Cove – no doubt she’d be checking up on his story there. He needed to have more for her the next time he saw her – give her something more substantial to work with to exonerate him.

 

There was no way around it: he needed to remember – and nobody would be able to help him do that. He brought one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose and forced his mind back in time…

 

After driving home, he hadn’t even walked into his house to get rid of the briefcase – a briefcase that Raines had insisted on filling with documentation about the background of the young boy who was to be the new Pretender. He’d had orders to read and familiarize himself with the information, and to come to work in the morning with an outline of a training plan that would turn youthful potential into profit-making reality. But instead, he’d left the briefcase on the floorboard of the back seat of his Lincoln, climbed out from behind the steering wheel and started walking – hoping the fresh air and warm summer’s evening would help him clear his mind and begin to see a way out of this latest trap.

 

Eventually, his steps had led him to the sidewalk in front of the Land’s End Tavern – a relatively classy establishment that was a favorite place to relax for many of the Centre employees who called Blue Cove their home. He himself was known to enjoy a single, carefully-nursed drink from time to time, just to experience the flow of humanity around him as opposed to another lonely night reading psychiatric journals at home. He’d placed himself on a barstool in front of Clyde, the evening bartender, and ordered his regular Chivas with one ice cube. Clyde, a bartender long enough to see the signs of stress in his regular customers, had asked him if he was OK. Fine, he’d answered abruptly and downed the expensive whiskey in a single gulp. He’d have another, thank you.

 

It was about halfway through his third drink that he’d felt someone slip onto the barstool next to him. Sydney shuddered as he realized that it had been a woman – a very YOUNG woman at that – who had sat down next to him and struck up a conversation with him. He pushed against the alcoholic fog that was still trying to obscure his memories to try to focus on her face – to remember what she’d looked like. She’d been a tiny little thing, pretty, with long and curly auburn hair and twinkling green eyes and a ready smile. He remembered now… She’d nattered along about inconsequential things and slowly drawn him from his slough of despond over the course of another stiff whiskey or two. She’d been drinking… He frowned – why would he remember what she’d been drinking? Oh yes! She’d suggested at one point that his drink was too stodgy – that he should sample her tequila sunrise, and see what having a drink with some zip to it could do for him.

 

And then…

 

Oh God, he remembered more. She’d kept up with him with ease – finishing her drink even as he’d finish his and ordering a new one when he ordered his. And just about when the whiskey was beginning to give him a delightfully euphoric feeling that was almost enough to wipe away any thoughts of Raines or the Centre or a new Pretender child, she’d begun leaning into him. He stifled a moan as he remembered the first time she’d put her hand on his thigh – and moved it slowly and seductively. He remembered the first time she’d leaned over his shoulder and nibbled on his ear – and brought up goose pimples and… And…

 

And he now remembered walking out of the Land’s End with her tucked securely under his arm, her arm wrapped tightly around his waist and steering him to the now-dark alleyway. They’d found a spot behind the storage shed, where the pool of light from the street lamp didn’t reach, and she’d put her back to the brick wall of the tavern and pulled him roughly to her. Sydney put a hand over his eyes, as if doing so would wipe away the memory of hot and demanding kisses given and received; the feel of her little hands on his skin, on him – teasing him, arousing him; the feel of the soft skin of her breasts beneath his hands...

 

Sydney’s eyes blinked wide open, and he stared out into his cell without seeing anything. He could remember now — remember running his hands up her legs and thighs to her buttocks and finding that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath that prim skirt of hers. He could remember her opening his trousers, manipulating him to desperate, painful hardness. He could remember lifting her, of her laugh as he’d pressed her hard against the wall. And then…

 

Nothing.

 

No matter how hard he tried, it was as if the power had gone out in his memory and left him scrabbling in the dark. He could assume or deduce, from what he DID remember, that he’d had sex with the young woman right there in the alley, up against the brick wall of the tavern as if she were a common whore and he a desperate customer – but his memories just… died… there, prior to the actual consummation.

 

/So,/ he asked himself for the millionth time since the police had burst in on him, /how the hell did I get from Blue Cove to Dover – and what the hell happened? Did I really have sex with that girl…/ His eyes widened in anguish. /Oh God, was that the girl who rented the motel room – the one I supposedly killed? COULD I have killed her? Could I have raped her and THEN killed her?/ He keeled over onto his side on the thin mattress, his knees pulled up to his chest and his eyes tightly shut, now wishing he could shut off the memories that he had so painstakingly retrieved of that lost evening.

 

What was happening to him? Why couldn’t he remember?

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Miss Parker could rarely remember ever seeing Mr. Raines rendered utterly speechless, regardless of the cause. The normally pale face had faded at least another shade or two toward grey, and the sunken blue eyes were staring at her as if she had grown three horns. “Murder!” he whispered.

 

Miss Parker heard Sam shift nervously behind her, and she was grateful that she’d decided to have him accompany her into the lion’s den, as it were. Usually it was Sydney who was willing to brave the unstable environment with her – no! She wouldn’t think about that now. Her old friend would be back at her side soon enough. “Yes, sir,” she answered with deadly seriousness, swallowing back her repulsion at the honorific in order to put him in a mood to accept what she was intending. “I’ve taken the case as his lawyer…”

 

“You did what?” the gasping voice finally found a firmer tone.

 

“My license to practice law in Delaware is current – and Syd’s going to need a lawyer…” she began.

 

The sunken eye narrowed. “You already have responsibilities, Miss Parker,” Raines wheezed painfully. “We cannot allow this… development… to hamper the search for Jarod… The Centre HAS lawyers on retainer…”

 

“My search for Jarod is already hampered,” she snapped at him. “Without Sydney, I have no way of seeing into Jarod’s psyche…”

 

“Not that that has done you much good so far,” he tossed back, and then pulled a painful breath from his ever-present oxygen tank.

 

“Sydney is essential to any effort to retrieve Jarod… sir,” she insisted, harshly sitting on her impatience, the honorific bitter in her mouth. “He’s one of the very few reasons we still have a chance of finding him.”

 

Raines sat back in his chair and studied the woman in front of him, calculation clearly obvious in his gaze. “And what are you suggesting?”

 

“I’d like to head a Centre-run investigation into what is going on,” she forged ahead with confidence. “There’s something decidedly fishy about this whole situation, and I’d like the chance to get to the bottom of it.”

 

“And the search for Jarod?”

 

She shrugged. “I’m not asking for Lyle’s assistance. He can continue to follow up on any leads that come our way while I’m involved with Sydney’s case.” When the ailing Chairman still seemed less than convinced, she added, “I honestly feel it isn’t in the Centre’s best interests to let Sydney rot. He’s been too involved in high-level Centre activities for far too long. If some of the information that he’s been privy to for all these years starts to come out because we’ve abandoned him to his fate…”

 

At last, there was some sign of reaction – Raines flinched. “Very well, Miss Parker,” he wheezed at her. “Do what you need to in order to find out what really happened and bring Sydney home to the Centre.” He gazed over her shoulder at the tall and silent sweeper behind her. “I take it you’ll require the assistance of your entire, regular team?”

 

“That would be very helpful, yes,” she agreed quickly. She hadn’t bargained on getting official approval for more than Sam’s help, but having Broots in her corner on this might prove invaluable. “Thank you, sir.” One more ‘sir’ wouldn’t kill her… especially when she’d gotten more than she’d hoped for.

 

“One thing, Miss Parker,” Raines raised a skeletal finger to her. “Failure is not an option here. Sydney cannot be allowed to be convicted and sent to prison. You will find out what really happened and make sure the Dover police take into custody the real person in charge – or you will make sure that you find evidence that implicates another to a much greater degree than that which points to Sydney. Either way, Sydney walks on this.” The sunken blue eyes glittered malignantly at her. “Do we understand each other?”

 

“You are crystal, sir,” she said serenely, inwardly seething. As if she’d falsify evidence and put another innocent person away instead. Syd was innocent – and she’d prove it or die trying. Sam caught her quick glance and left the office with her in the lead. She stalked purposefully to the elevator and punched the down button.

 

“Are you OK, Miss Parker?” the sweeper asked solicitously.

 

“I’m not mad at you,” she said after a very deep, very vocal sigh. “I’m just…”

 

“Sis!” The call came from a distance away.

 

“Oh shit!” she whispered as she turned gracefully to watch her twin, Lyle, walking quickly toward her from his office at the opposite end of the corridor. “What is it NOW, Lyle – I’m still busy.”

 

“Dad…”

 

“For your information, I just got out of a meeting with Mr. Raines,” she told him in a completely exasperated tone. “He’s aware of what I’m doing, why – and has given me permission to continue. So do me a favor, why don’t you,” she poked her finger into his upper chest in a deliberately painful way, “go find someone else to annoy.”

 

He took hold of her finger and pulled it back away from him. “What the hell are you up to, Parker?”

 

Sam moved forward until he was standing right behind Miss Parker, and he stared at the way Lyle was hanging onto her finger with the cold and calculating look that told the more volatile Parker sibling that he’d best release the finger or risk losing the rest of the hand.

 

Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then reluctantly let her go. “What the hell are you up to?” he demanded again.

 

“None of your damned business,” she snapped back at him. The feel of Sam’s powerful bulk at her back had been reassuring. “If you’re so damned curious, go ask ‘Dad’ and see what he has to say about it.”

 

Lyle’s face suddenly smoothed into a gentle smile, one that would have been disarming if there had been an ounce of sincerity in his eyes to go with it. “We’re supposed to be on the same team, Parker, remember?”

 

“Since when?” she sneered at him and then deliberately turned and stepped around Sam to punch once more at the elevator button.

 

Sam remained utterly still, staring with ominous neutrality at this perpetual pain in his boss’ shapely hind side until he heard the bell announcing the elevator car’s arrival. He then turned away from Lyle and followed his boss into the elevator, taking his regular spot directly in front and slightly to the side of her as the silvered doors slid silently shut. He kept his face carefully schooled even as he chided himself internally for even THINKING about his boss’ shapely hind side – thoughts like those were dangerous these days.

 

“Thanks,” she said quietly. Sam had certainly been proving his worth that day.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered in a similar tone. “What now?”

 

“Now we bring Broots in and get three minds working on this thing,” she announced determinedly. “Time’s a-wasting.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Detective David Miller shifted the forensics reports and typed-up statements around on his desk, as if rearranging the papers would give him a clearer idea of just exactly what might have gone on in that motel room. The old man – a psychiatrist, he knew now – still wasn’t talking, and had a lawyer now who would have to be present at any subsequent dealings. That lawyer was a bright penny – and a smart one. At the moment, there was very little outside circumstantial evidence making it possible for him to hang onto the quiet European gentleman that had been found in that room with the blood-soaked mattress and bloody razor. If he weren’t very careful, that pretty and canny Centre lawyer would have his sole suspect sprung for lack of evidence.

 

He’d just gone down to the forensics lab and spoken to the technician about the amount of blood found at the scene. The best estimate the technician could give him, based upon the size of the puddle on the top of the mattress and the depth to which it had soaked prior to being analyzed, was that nearly two pints of blood had been shed there. There had been no doubt in the technician’s mind that whoever had lost that much blood would not have been up and walking around – that amount of blood, lost quickly, was nearly always fatal. What was more, moving a body that had bled out to that extent SHOULD have left some signs somewhere – even if only on the sheet itself.

 

But after all the test, all the photos, all the evidence-gathering, the only things known about the evidence were that the blood was human, the semen had been present on the sheet before the blood – but not by very long, and the blood on the razor was the same type as that on the sheet, and had been outside the body for approximately the same length of time. DNA testing was pending to confirm that it was indeed the same person’s blood, and the precinct captain had already notified the district attorney to get a court order for a DNA sample to be taken from the material witness for comparison against the semen stain.

 

But the evidence, when taken with the circumstances, had presented a very confusing picture. It didn’t make sense that a murderer would have remained behind in the room in which he’d butchered a woman, remained behind and submitted meekly to being taken into custody. It didn’t make sense that there was no sign indicating what had happened to the body. It didn’t make sense that the man who had reported the screams and initiated the police action to begin with was now nowhere to be found. It didn’t make sense that the woman who had rented the motel room to begin with evidently didn’t exist – a check for a Delaware driver’s license had yielded no Catherine Hallsey on the roles, and his requests to Maryland and Virginia had yet to get responses.

 

Frankly, Miller was starting to empathize with the man down in the lock-up – and to understand why he was being so reticent about offering any answers to any questions whatsoever. The blood-shot appearance of the man’s eyes when they’d brought him into the station gave testimony to what had probably been a fairly decent bender the night before – although they’d have to wait until they could take a sample of his blood to confirm or deny that, too.

 

The detective sorted through the documents scattered across his desk until he finally came up with the business card that the lawyer had submitted when she’d presented herself for her preliminary interview with her client. Miss Parker, yes, that was the name he’d remembered. MISS Parker? For a brief moment, he wondered what the MISS stood for, and then dialed.

 

“What?” The lawyer, whoever she was, could take a lesson from her client when it came to politeness.

 

“Detective David Miller, Miss Parker. We met at the Dover Police Station…”

 

“Oh yes, Detective.” The irritation in the woman’s voice notched back noticeably. “What can I do for you?”

 

“We will be wanting to speak to your client again later this afternoon – I wanted to notify you so that you or an associate of yours could be present for the questioning,” he informed her.

 

“Thank you, Detective. At what time will this happen?” It sounded as if she had propped the telephone handset against her shoulder and was reaching for a pad on which to note the time he’d give her.

 

“Will four o’clock be satisfactory?” That gave the judge plenty of time to sign the warrant for the DNA, and for any new evidence to hopefully shed some light on what looked to be a very complicated mystery.

 

“I’ll be there,” Miss Parker answered curtly. “Thank you for calling.”

 

/She hung up on me,/ Miller thought to himself in amazement. /That dame has brass ones, that’s for sure!/ He stirred at the documents and reports absently. This case was one of the most puzzling he’d ever encountered – and that bothered him… a lot.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“They want to question him again,” Miss Parker answered the unasked question from both of the men in her office.

 

“When?” Sam asked quietly.

 

“Four this afternoon,” she replied.

 

“That gives you time to check out Syd’s story a little, doesn’t it?” Broots tried desperately to sound up beat. “You could go over to the Land’s End on your way in to Dover…”

 

Miss Parker gifted him with a glare of exasperation. “Ya think, Scooby?” She lifted one of the documents from her desk. “In the meanwhile, I want you chasing down everything we have on a Calvin Dexter – the motel register states that he lives in Baltimore. And see if you can come up with an ID photo of this mysterious Catherine Hallsey.”

 

“I’m on it.” Broots turned on his heel and made a dash for the office door.

 

Miss Parker stared at the reports, her chin slowly sinking into the palm of her hand. The certainty that she’d missed something important hadn’t diminished over the hour or so that she’d spent committing most of the facts in evidence to memory. It seemed something so very simple – something that should just leap out at her…

 

“I’ve got it!” she exclaimed and shot quickly to her feet. “C’mon.”

 

“Where are we going?” Sam asked, suddenly finding that he needed to almost trot to keep up with her.

 

“Sydney’s. I knew there was something that didn’t compute…”

 

“What was that?”

 

“Did you see Syd’s car at the motel?”

 

Sam blinked, and then shook his head after thinking for a moment. “No, I didn’t.” Sydney’s car was like a Centre sedan – black and sleek – only slightly more luxurious on the interior. He would have noticed if a car looking as if it had just come from the Centre carpool had been parked in the motel parking lot.”

 

“Neither did I,” she replied, poking the elevator call button sharply three times. “Which only brings up the question that nobody’s answered yet: how did Syd get from Blue Cove to Dover?”

 

“And you’re going to see if his car is at his house,” Sam guessed.

 

“Bingo,” she remarked caustically as the elevator door slid open. “Before the cops think of it.”

 

“Ah…” he breathed, not quite following her line of thinking but ready to back her up in whatever she decided.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Oh shit.”

 

Detective Miller climbed from his car and walked over to where the body lay almost hidden behind a dumpster in the litter-filled alleyway. “What have we got, Jim?” he asked the coroner who was still crouched down next to the partially nude woman.

 

“She’s a mess,” Jim Carlton glanced up at the detective. “We’ve got ligature marks at her wrists and ankles, her throat and abdomen slashed, and someone did a real number on her face.” He lifted the black plastic tarp over the woman’s face and deliberately didn’t look up to see the detective flinch at the visible signs of horrific violence. The only recognizable feature that had been left intact was her long, straight, blonde hair.

 

“Tell me she’s the girl we’ve been looking for from the motel scene,” Miller pleaded.

 

“No can do without testing, Dave,” Carlton shook his head. “There’s not much blood here at the scene, so it’s fairly obvious that she was killed elsewhere and dumped here. But other than that, you’ll have to wait until I get her back to the lab.”

 

“Any ID?”

 

“Just that.” Carlton pointed to where a purse lay discarded a few feet away. “We’ve already done all the crime scene photos – so go ahead and take a peek. We’ll process it back at the lab.”

 

Miller pulled a pair of latex gloves from the pocket of his coat and put them on expertly before crouching next to the purse and gingerly unzipping the main compartment. “We’ve got a wallet,” he announced triumphantly and pulled the item from the depths of the bag. He unsnapped the wallet and stared at the picture ID that stared back at him. “Catherine Hallsey – we’ve got a Delaware driver’s licen… Hey! Wait just a doggoned minute!”

 

He frowned at the ID in his hand. “I checked myself - Delaware state records don’t show a driver’s license issued to any Catherine Hallsey…” He looked at the driver’s license closely – and then saw the very small details that indicated a forged ID, details that would normally escape a casual or uninformed glance. “I’ll be damned! This is a fake,” he muttered, to himself more than to anybody else, “and a damned good one. Somebody paid good money for this.”

 

“There are signs of recent sexual activity,” Jim announced grimly as he straightened to his full height and gestured to his assistants to collect the body. “I’ll be able to tell you more maybe by this evening.”

 

Miller didn’t listen as the back door of the coroner’s wagon was slammed shut and the wagon drove off toward the coroner’s office. He just stared down into what he assumed was the face of the dead woman, wondering what the hell was going on. Just who was the dead woman – really – and what was her connection to the bed full of blood on the other side of town?

Chapter 3 – Gone To Young Men, Every One

 

 

“Well, now we know one way he didn’t get to Dover,” Sam remarked dryly as he pulled his Centre-issue sedan into Sydney’s driveway to park right next to Sydney’s posh Lincoln.

 

“Gloves, Sam,” Miss Parker cautioned, reaching over the front seat and his shoulder to wave the first pair of latex gloves that she’d pulled from the box at him. “We don’t want to compromise anything that we have to turn over to the cops later.” With a snap, she pulled on gloves of her own.

 

Carefully the two of them investigated the exterior of the sedan without touching it. “We aren’t going to get into this,” Sam cautioned, pointing. “We do much more than breathe on this thing, and we’ll have the alarm going off in our faces – and no Sydney to turn it off afterwards.”

 

“I don’t think there’s very much to see anyway,” she replied, bending down to see what all she could make out inside the car. The Lincoln looked as if it had been freshly detailed not all that long ago – even the trash bag hanging from an unused ashtray looked empty and new.

 

Sam mirrored her action on the opposite side of the car. “I can see his briefcase,” he reported.

 

“Where?”

 

“On the floorboard behind the driver’s seat.” He straightened and waited for her to straighten too and look at him over the car’s roof. “So what now?”

 

She was peeling off her latex gloves. “Now we…” The sound of a cell phone cut through the quiet of the residential neighborhood. Miss Parker snorted and reached for her jacket pocket and pulled the little device out. “What?” she demanded when she had it to her ear.

 

“Where’s Sydney, Parker?” Jarod demanded without preamble.

 

“Why did you need to…”

 

“He’s not at the Centre, he’s not at home, and he’s not answering his cell.”

 

Miss Parker nodded in sympathy. Sydney had never been unavailable to Jarod in all the time that had elapsed since the Pretender’s escape – to have his mentor and psychological lifeline go completely incommunicado without warning was no doubt unnerving. “I know, Jarod,” she said, the edge falling away from her voice, bringing Sam’s attention swinging abruptly around to her phone conversation.

 

“Where is he?” the Pretender demanded harshly. “What have you done to him?”

 

“I haven’t done anything to him,” she snapped back at him in frustration. “I’m trying to help him.”

 

That evidently gave Jarod reason to pause in his tantrum. “What do you mean, you’re trying to help him? What’s wrong?”

 

“Jarod,” she sighed heavily, “Syd’s…” There was just no easy way to break the news to him. “He’s being held at Dover Police Headquarters…”

 

“For God’s sake, Parker…”

 

“They think he may have murdered someone.” From the long silence that answered that statement, she knew she must have shocked him badly. “Jarod? Are you still there?”

 

“What do you think?” Jarod asked in a very quiet voice.

 

She shook her head and threw out her empty hand in frustration. “Frankly, I don’t know what to think. He was found in a motel room in Dover where the bed was covered in blood, but no body – and there was a razor in the bathroom with blood all over it, and Syd’s prints. He says he can’t remember anything.”

 

“Do you believe he murdered someone?” Jarod asked again a little more forcefully.

 

Miss Parker thought for only a second. “No, of course I don’t, Genius. That’s why I got myself assigned as his attorney, and Sam and I are running around trying to carry out our own investigation.”

 

“Tell me how I can help.” Jarod wasn’t asking permission.

 

“Don’t get involved in this,” she warned him sharply. “Raines may have given me permission to focus on getting to the bottom of Sydney’s situation, but Lyle is still very much in the game and very much on the lookout for the least sign of your whereabouts. You keep your nose out of this – I don’t want to trip over you, do you understand?”

 

“I can’t just sit by and do nothing…”

 

“You can, and you will,” Miss Parker told him darkly. “I’ve got Broots running interference for me at the Centre – using Centre contacts and networking to look things up for me. I’ve got Sam at my back. I don’t need a…”

 

“Get something to write with,” Jarod ordered her quietly.

 

“Listen, I don’t take orders from…”

 

“DO IT, Parker, and stop behaving like a spoiled brat. Sydney needs help – and the more help he gets, the better. You don’t have to tell anybody I’m giving an assist on this, do you?”

 

“No, but…” Her eyes flicked over at Sam. He was listening; he knew with whom she was talking. He’d know…

 

“Good. Then shut up and get a piece of paper and write down this email address: labrat at Juno dot com. Scan in everything you’ve got so far and ship it to me – and let me do what Sydney trained me to do.”

 

Miss Parker felt a shiver run down her spine as she committed the email address to memory rather than write it down. “You’re going to SIM Sydney?”

 

“You have a better idea?”

 

“Damn it, Jarod – if Raines finds out I’m working WITH you…”

 

“Then get Broots to send the info. He’d know how to get it to me without raising any flags.”

 

She fell silent. Jarod was right – Syd needed all the help he could get, and having Jarod on the outside of her Centre investigation, feeding her insights and pieces of information that were a product of his unique abilities, could be the key to finding the person actually responsible for this mess. “Parker?” Now it was Jarod’s turn to wonder at her lapse.

 

“I’m here,” she responded. “All right,” she finally agreed with a note of resignation. “I’ll have Broots do it. When will you…”

 

“I’ll call you the moment I have anything solid for you to work with,” he promised.

 

She put her hand to her forehead and then ran frustrated fingers through her hair as she looked over at her sweeper and tried to gauge his reaction to what he was hearing. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

 

“I’ll be in touch,” Jarod repeated and then closed down the call abruptly.

 

“Miss Parker?” Sam’s voice was soft, hesitant.

 

“You didn’t hear that.”

 

“No, ma’am,” he answered firmly. Yes, he HAD heard that, but could understand why she wanted him to behave as if he hadn’t. If Raines DID find out that she’d accepted help from Jarod, there would be Hell to pay – for the both of them. He’d be damned if that information came from him.

 

“We’re done here,” she announced, walking back to the Centre sedan and reaching for the handle of the rear passenger compartment. “We have just enough time to talk to the bartender at the Land’s End before we’re going to have to hot-foot it back to Dover to be there at four when the police talk to Sydney again.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam yanked on his gloves and stuffed them in his pocket before opening his car door and slipping behind the steering wheel. This was turning into a damned long day.

 

oOoOo

 

Dave Miller hated visiting the coroner’s lab. He hated the hint of formaldehyde and rubbing alcohol hanging constantly in the air, the slight chill at which the lab was kept to keep the processes of decomposition retarded just a bit, the sterility of white tile and stainless steel, and the temptation to want to speak in whispers while in the presence of the dead. Today, Jim Carlton had classical music playing softly in the background even as he spoke into the microphone over the examination table on which Catherine Hallsey – or whatever her name really was – lay in nude, cyanotic repose.

 

Even more than the ambience of the coroner’s lab, Miller hated the reason that he had to visit the place as often as he did. If he had to be there, then that invariably meant that one human being had done something horrible to another – and that other had paid the ultimate price. The condition of the body on the examination table this very afternoon was a mute testament to the kind of savagery that could be perpetrated on one human being by another – and Miller hung back at the swinging doorway long enough to force the bile down from the back of his throat. “What have you got for me?” he finally asked the coroner.

 

Carlton beckoned. “More than I thought I’d have,” he admitted, switching off the microphone that hung over the corpse. “Time of death was between two and four this morning – the cause of death was exsanguination during vivisection, although the repeated blows to the face and head could have done the job just as easily, given a little more time.”

 

“Vivisection?” Miller was horrified.

 

Carlton nodded. “She wasn’t just sliced and diced, Dave – she’s missing her liver and one of her kidneys.”

 

“Good God!” This was even worse than anything he’d heard of in the area before. “Tell me, was she beaten postmortem?” Miller asked, trying not to look at the mess that was all that was left of a pretty face. What happened to you, he asked the silent body on the slab – and why?

 

“Uh-uhn,” Carlton shook his head. “There’s enough preliminary bruising in the intact tissue remaining at the neck to indicate that she was alive when that happened. Like I said in the field, we have ligature marks at wrists and ankles – probably she was bound with something like electrical or telephone cording. The incision in the abdomen was made with surgical precision – probably using something like a scalpel or straight razor blade – although the incision at the throat is ragged. Two separate cutting tools were used.”

 

“You said there were signs of sexual activity. Any semen?”

 

“Already sent in for DNA analysis,” the coroner answered, “and a comparison against the semen found on that motel bed.”

 

“Rape or consentual sex?”

 

Carlton shook his head. “That’s unclear. There’s not enough bruising to be a clear case of rape, but enough to demonstrate that it was pretty rough sex either way.”

 

Miller frowned, thinking of the scene he’d encountered earlier. “Tell me about what the scene would have looked like where this… animal… did this to her,” he demanded after he’d once more swallowed back the soured lunch he’d eaten hours earlier.

 

“Oh, the place would be a complete mess,” Carlton told him knowingly. “Blood would be splattered all over the place – walls, ceilings, certainly all over where she was lying.” He moved and pointed down toward the ruined face. “Facial and head wounds bleed profusely – getting hit often enough to cause this kind of damage would have sent blood and tissue flying.”

 

Miller frowned. “Then it wouldn’t be limited to just a pool on a bed?”

 

“God, no!” Of that, Carlton sounded certain.

 

“Thanks, Jim,” Miller said thoughtfully and turned toward the swinging doors again with a sense of gratitude and frustration. Nothing about this case was simple or straightforward. As a matter of fact, the evidence was starting to become downright contradictory. He looked down at his watch and noted that he had an hour yet before he could try to talk to Doctor Green again – an hour before the lawyer would be back.

 

He had an hour to stew over things that just weren’t adding up at all.

 

oOoOo

 

The interior of the Land’s End Tavern was a solid and classy combination of dark woods and red leather. Miss Parker knew the tavern well herself, and knew that most Centre employees frequented the place. She moved with the sureness of familiarity as the door closed behind her a few moments after Sam’s shadow had shut down the flow of late afternoon light through the open portal. “Hey, Clyde,” she called out to the man behind the bar.

 

“Hey, Miss Parker,” Clyde paused in his task of drying glassware and threw the towel over his left shoulder. “You want your usual?”

 

“No,” she replied, slipping onto a barstool and, with a glance, telling Sam to do the same. “I’m here after information this time.”

 

Clyde’s gaze slipped over to the silent and hulking man seated next to the Chairman’s daughter, and then he returned his complete attention to the striking brunette. “Sure thing. What do you need to know?”

 

“You know Doctor Sydney Green, don’t you?” Sam asked, drawing a startled look from the silver-haired bartender at the sound of the man’s voice rather than Miss Parker’s.

 

“Yeah, sure, I know him well enough. Chivas, one ice cube. He’s not exactly a regular, but he’s been in steadily enough over the years. Why?”

 

“Was he here last night?” Miss Parker followed up on Sam’s question.

 

Clyde nodded immediately. “He sure was – and in a pretty rotten mood when he walked in too. And stayed that way until that cute little barfly joined him… Even then, he was drinking doubles…”

 

“A woman?” Miss Parker’s eyebrows sprang upwards towards her hairline. “Did he often come here to meet a woman?”

 

“Not that I recall,” the bartender shook his head, the movement gaining momentum as time went by and he thought about the question. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in here with anybody – male OR female.”

 

“Have you seen the woman before?” Sam inquired after shooting Miss Parker a worried look.

 

“Maybe not her specifically, but I’ve sure as hell seen lots like her over the years,” Clyde sneered. “Either some chick turns twenty-one and decides to try her luck at picking up men in bars or she’s a working girl doing a reasonable job of keeping her youthful appearance. Still,” he grew thoughtful again, “I never thought to see Sydney go for that kind in that way.” He looked earnestly at Miss Parker. “She plunked herself down next to him here at the bar and struck up a conversation with him. It took her a while, but she eventually had him hooked.”

 

Miss Parker’s heart sank. “Hooked? How so?”

 

Clyde shook his head in disgust. “She was all over him – leaning on him, nibbling on his ear… God only knows what she was doing with her hands down where nobody could see, although there were times I’d see his eyes get wide for a moment for no good reason. I think if Sydney hadn’t been so determined to get smashed as quickly as possible, he’d have shut her down immediately – but the whiskey let her get her claws into him before he knew what was happening.”

 

“What happened then?” Sam knew he didn’t like what he was hearing anymore than Miss Parker did.

 

“Eventually they got up and walked out together – around one, I guess. I didn’t see them again.” Clyde leaned on the bar. “Hey - what’s this all about? Is Sydney in trouble for what happened to that little tramp?”

 

“We’re not sure,” Miss Parker answered noncommittally. “Can you describe the woman to us, please?”

 

“Sure thing,” Clyde was more than happy to comply. “She was a tiny thing – maybe five one, five two – with long, reddish-brown hair. She was twenty-one, maybe twenty-three tops. Dressed like a secretary – you know, prim skirt, button-down blouse, high heels…”

 

“She didn’t mention her name that you heard, did she?” Sam wanted to know.

 

Clyde thought for a moment and then shook his head slowly. “Nope.”

 

“Anybody else here that caught your attention last night?” Miss Parker glanced at her watch – it was almost time to head back to the car and make the dash to Dover.

 

The bartender thought for a moment and then leaned on the bar with a finger pointed that he tapped into the dark wood. “As a matter of fact – there was this guy who tripped and landed against Sydney, made him spill his drink. Never saw that one in here before.”

 

“What did this guy look like?” Sam was taking notes suddenly.

 

“Medium height, I’d say – maybe two hundred pounds…”

 

“Dark hair, light hair, moustache…” Miss Parker tried to lead him in his description.

 

“Actually, come to think of it, I didn’t see what color his hair was, or much of his face either” Clyde remembered suddenly. “The guy had a baseball hat on and never took it off. Kept looking down a lot too,” he noted. “A real creep. I don’t think he even ordered a drink – or at least, I never saw him with a glass.”

 

“And you say Sydney left with the woman after this?” Miss Parker asked.

 

“Yeah – about a half hour later. If you ask me,” Clyde gave her a knowing look, “I think ole’ Sydney was just about to get lucky. Considering the mood he was in when he came in, it had to be an improvement one way or the other, right?”

 

Miss Parker cringed. The Sydney she knew had more brains than to get picked up in a bar by a Sweet Young Thing out to have a night on the town or a prostitute out for a quickie score – didn’t he? “Thanks a lot, Clyde,” she said, masking her feelings carefully. “I owe you.” She patted the bar in front of her and then slipped from the barstool to head for the door.

 

“I’ll put it on your tab, Miss P,” the bartender chuckled as he pulled down his towel again from his shoulder and reached for the next glass on the drain board. “Take it easy.”

 

“You don’t think…” Sam said in sotto voce when they’d walked far enough away from the bar to not be overheard.

 

“What I think,” Miss Parker snapped back sharply, “is that we need to get to Dover and see if we can’t jog a few of those alcohol-soaked brain cells of his loose. Seems there WAS a woman in Sydney’s evening last night.”

 

“Think she’s the same one the cops think he offed?” Sam voiced the unthinkable.

 

“Good question, Sam,” Miss Parker sighed. “Good question.”

 

oOoOo

 

Even if he hadn’t been formally charged yet, Sydney already felt like a condemned man as he was escorted from the cellblock and down the corridor to yet another interrogation room. This was even worse than anything a T-Board examination had thrown at him – at least THEN the cell he’d been held at was in close proximity to the interrogation room itself. Walking down a corridor lined with steel doors, knowing full well that behind each was someone suspected of doing something thoroughly illegal, was a disheartening experience at the very least. Finally he could sympathize with Jarod’s nearly life-long trek from his living space to the Sim Lab – the police on either side of him as he walked could very easily have been Centre sweepers.

 

The last person he wanted to see was that detective that had been with him just before Miss Parker had come – that man was smart and more than able to put two and two together. But the only person in the interrogation room when he got there was Miss Parker herself. “Sit down, Syd – we need to talk,” she said in a very business-like tone that didn’t bode well. The officers withdrew from the room, leaving the two of them alone.

 

“Miss Parker,” he greeted her cautiously.

 

“I’m hoping you’ve managed to remember something,” she told him as she folded her hands on the table in front of her expectantly, “because what Sam and I have uncovered so far isn’t exactly encouraging.”

 

“Oh?” he looked into her eyes and was unnerved by the expression of utter neutrality that she’d put there.

 

“Don’t play me for a fool, Syd,” she snapped at him tiredly. “It’s been a very long day – first getting permission from Raines to work on your case, and then trying to follow your breadcrumbs and come up with anything approaching a coherent theory as to what happened to you. Now, have you remembered anything, or is your mind still a blank?”

 

“Only a little,” he admitted, looking away. Of all the people to have to hear him confess, the last one he would have wanted to hear his sordid little tale was Miss Parker. But, since she was the one taking responsibility for trying to exonerate him… “I remember walking from my home to the Land’s End Tavern and sitting at the bar.”

 

She was nodding, but her eyes weren’t giving away her inner thoughts. “We’ve tracked you that far,” she told him. “We found your car still parked in your driveway. What do you remember of what went on in there?”

 

“I was angry – upset…” he began, his hands becoming fists on the table. “I ordered a double – and when that was gone, another.”

 

Miss Parker promised herself she’d find out what had put him in such a dangerous mood when the more immediate problem was resolved. “Then what?” she demanded.

 

“Then…” Sydney could no longer meet her gaze. “A young lady sat down next to me. We eventually began talking.”

 

“Do you remember what she looked like?”

 

Sydney’s face grew soft. “Long, auburn hair, green eyes, pretty smile…” He caught himself, shot her a mortified look and then began studying his hands on the table. “She was very small – petite.”

 

Miss Parker found herself understanding and sympathizing with Sydney’s discomfort. God knew she’d hate to be in his position, describing one of the many episodes of casual, mindless sex that she’d indulged in before Tommy had entered her life. She’d been right – Sydney did know better than to indulge in that kind of behavior. This wouldn’t have been bothering him so much otherwise. “Then what happened?” she asked in a voice that was a little more comforting and understanding.

 

“We eventually left together,” he offered lamely.

 

“Where did you go?” she pried carefully.

 

Sydney glanced up at her guiltily and then back down again. “She… we went around the side of the building… to where it was dark…”

 

Considering the red flush that was slowly creeping up her old friend’s neck, she had a fair idea of what had come next – and she wished she dared not ask about it. “Sydney, what then?”

 

He was nearly choking on his embarrassment. “I… we… became a little… engrossed…”

 

“Did you have sex with her back there?” There – it was out and said and over with.

 

Sydney glanced up at her, confusion and guilt clear in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said plaintively. “I remember… her… and I think we were going to… but…” He threw his hands wide. “I’m not sure. That’s where my memory just… dies out.”

 

Miss Parker frowned. “Did you pass out, do you think?” she offered hopefully.

 

He shook his head. “I don’t know – I wasn’t feeling dizzy or woozy, I don’t think…”

 

“Helluva moment to have your memory check out on you,” she commented dryly.

 

“You think I don’t know that?” he snapped back at her. “I am the one who woke up naked in a bed half-covered in blood, after all…”

 

“Naked?” Miss Parker’s eyes widened. “You didn’t tell me this before.”

 

Sydney looked chagrined again. “I didn’t exactly have the opportunity,” he shrugged.

 

“So you’re telling me that from the time just before you got it on with the little barfly outside the Land’s End and when you woke up naked in a motel room in Dover, there’s nothing?”

 

“I know how it sounds…”

 

“You’re damned right, that’s exactly how it sounds,” she informed him archly. “Do you remember anything else about that time in the tavern? Did you talk to anybody else?”

 

Sydney leaned forward and put his face in his hands. “I don’t…” He looked up suddenly. “There was one thing. This man fell into me – damned near landed on top of me and took me all the way to the floor. I spilled most of a full double…”

 

“Did you get a good look at him?” she asked, carefully schooling her tone to disguise the excitement at hearing so much of the story Clyde had told repeated almost verbatim.

 

Sydney was shaking his head. “He was…” He frowned and worked at remembering. “…wearing a cap of some kind – with a brim that covered most of his face. I didn’t get a good look at him.”

 

There was a sharp knock on the door – and Miss Parker shot him a cautionary glare. “You follow my lead, Freud, you understand?”

 

Sydney nodded as Miller opened the door and carefully closed it behind him.

 

oOoOo

 

Sam climbed from behind the steering wheel and opened the back door of the Centre sedan as Miss Parker came down the steps toward him visibly fuming. “Is everything OK, Miss Parker?” he asked solicitously.

 

“I’m going to kill him,” she growled in a lethal voice. “That son of a bitch!”

 

“Sydney?” Sam was aghast that she’d feel that way against someone she’d known her whole life and had just spent the better part of a day working to defend.

 

“No,” she barked up at him, “Lyle.”

 

“Lyle!” Sam shut the back passenger door and made quick tracks around to the driver’s seat. “What the Hell…”

 

“They found a body…”

 

Sam hesitated between turning the key in the ignition and beginning to back out of the parking space in shock, but knew better than to interrupt his boss when she was just getting a good head of steam going. But when she fell silent, curiosity just wouldn’t allow him to remain quiet for long. “A body?” he asked very cautiously.

 

“Yeah,” she leaned back against the comfortable cushion and closed her eyes tiredly. “A young woman, all sliced open – and with a couple of internal organs missing.”

 

Sam swallowed hard and carefully turned the sedan onto the street headed in the direction of the highway back to Blue Cove. “And you’re thinking…”

 

“He EATS people, Sam,” she stated in a slow and disgusted tone. “Syd, Broots and I have seen the evidence of what he’s done and managed to get away with – until now.”

 

“And you think that Lyle had something to do with framing Sydney for a murder HE committed?” Sam gaped at her.

 

“It would be just his kind of stunt,” Miss Parker stated angrily. “He knows that Jarod is vulnerable where Sydney is concerned – this isn’t the first time he’s attempted to use Sydney to get to Jarod. You remember the hostage situation in the Appalachians a few years back, don’t you?”

 

Sam nodded at the reflection of his boss in the rearview mirror. “So he frames Sydney for murder in order to get Jarod to come out of hiding and attempt to exonerate him – at which point he’s sitting poised to jump out and catch Jarod the first time the lab rat makes a mistake…”

 

“Bingo.” She arched her back and pulled her Smith and Wesson from its holster and ejected the ammo cartridge to check and make sure it was fully loaded. “Only this time, he’s made it personal by going after Sydney himself. I’m not going to allow that.”

 

Sam swerved the car to the side of the road and pulled it to a stop so that he could turn in his seat and look at her directly. “The man is dangerous, Miss Parker, and he’s got Raines’ ear. You can’t move against him directly without it backfiring on you badly – and Sydney needs you in his corner and able to help him, not unconscious in the Renewal Wing…”

 

“I don’t intend to challenge him directly,” she told him, almost amused at his worry on her behalf, “but I AM going to let him know that I’m onto his little game. I intend to serve him notice that as much as I’m working to get Sydney off, I’m working to lay the blame right at his door. He’s gotten away with being a monster long enough.”

 

“And that isn’t a direct challenge?” Sam questioned her in a rare show of courage – it generally wasn’t wise to question either her motives or actions, but he was damned if he was going to stay silent and watch her do herself more harm than good. “There’s got to be another way…”

 

“When you figure out that ‘other way’ you can fill me in,” she told him in a low and dangerous tone. “In the meanwhile, you can put this car back on the road and get me the Hell back to the Centre so that I can look that bastard in the face when I tell him I know what he’s up to.”

 

“Can’t you wait for Broots – maybe there’s proof that you can use to blackmail him into providing exonerating evidence to get Sydney off without forcing the issue between you otherwise,” Sam pleaded, ignoring the order to start driving again. “If you say that you and Broots and Sydney found evidence linking him to other murders, there must be SOMEthing that links him to this one. Can’t you wait with your ‘I know what you’re up to’ until you have that evidence in hand?”

 

Miss Parker raised her eyes to those of her sweeper and finally saw the concern that was overwhelming him. “This is something I just have to do, Sam,” she told him almost apologetically. “It’s part of the dynamics between Lyle and myself. While I’m tilting at windmills, you can confer with Broots – see what he’s managed to dig up since we left and let him know what we suspect. Fair enough?”

 

“Don’t let him rile you too much,” Sam warned her as he turned back to his driving and eased the car back onto the road.

 

“You make a lousy mother hen, Sam,” she commented tiredly.

 

“It’s a shitty job, but somebody’s got to do it when Sydney’s not around,” he shot back at her and then focused all his attention on the driving.

 

oOoOo

 

Detective Miller waited while the officer of the watch unlocked the metal door to Doctor Green’s cell and then stepped through.

 

Sydney moved the arm that had been lying over his eyes so that he could see who it was that had come into his cell. “This isn’t a social call, I take it,” he commented sourly.

 

“You ought to know,” Miller looked down at the man. How could someone so urbane and genteel-looking have done such a horrific deed to a young woman? “We have the results of the DNA tests.”

 

“And…” Sydney prompted with a sinking feeling, preparing himself for what he was sure was to be the verdict.

 

“Doctor Sydney Green, you are under arrest for the murder of Catherine Hallsey. You have the right to remain silent – everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law…”

 

“Have you called my lawyer?” Sydney asked glumly.

 

“We’ll be notifying her very soon. If I may finish…” Miller replied impatiently. He paused until the man on the mattress nodded before continuing. “You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you do not have an attorney or cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed…”

 

Sydney put his arm back over his eyes. Yes, he was a damned man – and it seemed as if nothing and nobody could stop the runaway train that was his fate from crashing into disaster.

Chapter 4 – The Turn of the Screw

 

“Where is he?” Miss Parker demanded of the frightened Chinese girl who guarded Lyle’s inner office door.

 

“Mr. Lyle has gone home for the day, ma’am,” was the response in hesitant, accented tones. Kai-Hsu knew that her direct superior was an unstable and unpredictable man – and that rumor had it that his twin sister was no less unstable and unpredictable, although in different ways. It certainly looked as if the rumors were true.

 

“DAMN!” Miss Parker exploded and slammed her fist into the secretary’s desk hard enough to make a stack of file folders lean precariously. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

 

“Miss Parker.” Sam’s calm and collected voice directly behind her broke through the red curtain of her rage; and while she whirled to face him as if ready to tear him apart, she paused long enough to take a deep breath and at least pretend some of his calm had infected her.

 

She glanced down at the quailing secretary imperiously. “Thank you,” she hissed and stalked away – past Sam and toward the elevator that would take her back down to her own office.

 

Sam hurried to catch up with her before she could get much further away. “Good thing I came when I did,” he mentioned as he halted to stand a little behind and to the side of her while waiting for the elevator. “I think Lyle’s secretary was convinced you were going to tear her limb from limb.”

 

“I’m going to kill that bastard if it’s the last thing I do,” she growled dangerously and glared at him as the elevator dinged at them. “I swear it.”

 

“And then Sydney will still be stuck in jail, and you’ll have accomplished nothing,” the sweeper intoned somberly, following her into the car and arranging himself in front of her so that anybody trying to get into the car at her would have to go through him.

 

She balled up her fist and slugged him in the upper arm, hard. “Who appointed you my nursemaid?”

 

“I did,” he answered with rare candor without even acknowledging the blow to his arm. “Face it - you’re running on adrenaline and emotion right now because it’s Sydney’s head on the block. Adrenaline and emotion can make a person make stupid mistakes.” He turned around halfway and gazed down at her calmly. “I’d be a piss-poor personal sweeper if I stood aside and let you make them when I’m in a position to prevent it.”

 

“I’m still going to kill the bastard…”

 

“Fine,” Sam agreed, “but don’t get yourself killed in the process.”

 

Miss Parker threw her head back, eyes closed, and forced herself to breathe deeply and calm down. “What did Broots have to say?”

 

“Calvin Dexter doesn’t exist,” Sam reported cautiously, keeping a careful eye on her mood. “He checked Delaware drivers licenses, and then quietly hacked into the Social Security network and poked around. There’s no one by that name living in or around the Dover area.”

 

“It was probably Lyle,” she sighed, leaning back against the back wall of the elevator car. “He registered under a false ID – we’ve all done the same more than once while looking for Jarod. What else?”

 

“Seems Catherine Hallsey is an illusion too – like Dexter, there’s no drivers license and no Social Security number listed for anyone by that name living anywhere in the area either.”

 

Miss Parker frowned. “How can Sydney be charged with her murder if she doesn’t exist?”

 

Sam shrugged. “Maybe they’re using that name for her until somebody uncovers her true identity? They have a body, forensics that ties Sydney to it – charging him with murder, even if not knowing who she is, isn’t that much of a stretch…”

 

“Is nothing in this case going to be straightforward?” she vented, eyes to the ceiling tiles of the elevator in exasperation. She sighed again and forced her tired mind to start functioning again. “OK. Have Broots start a search of missing persons – using the photo ID that the cops collected from the body as a starting point…”

 

“Miss Parker,” Sam reminded her gently, “it’s five thirty in the evening. Broots was getting ready to call it quits for the day when I left him to find you – promising to send the rest of the information to Jarod from his home computer. Why don’t you just go home and rest – and we can start in again fresh in the morning.” He smiled grimly. “That way, when you rip Lyle a new one tomorrow, you’ll at least have the energy to do it right and enjoy it properly afterwards.”

 

The elevator came to a halt, and Miss Parker put a hand at his arm so that she could step from the car into the parking structure level before he did. She turned on him with one eyebrow climbing toward the stratosphere and a finger poking him in the chest. “Lemme tell you, Sam – as a stand-up comedian, you suck. Better keep your day job. You let me worry about when and how I talk to Lyle, OK?”

 

“You’re going to make me wonder if I don’t need to start working overtime, Miss Parker,” he told her truthfully. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid…”

 

“See you in the morning,” she called over her shoulder to him, walking briskly toward her Boxster with absolutely no intentions at all of heading home as yet.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod accepted the key to his motel room and walked from the manager’s office. As he approached the building, he could see where one room was still cordoned off with yellow police tape. He stopped by his SUV and extracted his duffel bag and computer case and mounted the stairs, deliberately having chosen the stairway that would force him to walk past the crime scene room to get to his new home-away-from-home. A quick hesitation told him that loosening the seal on the door wouldn’t be much of a problem – virtually guaranteeing him the opportunity to inspect the room by himself soon enough.

 

Satisfied for the time being, he walked the three more doors down and unlocked his room, turned on the light, and pulled the door closed behind him. A quick look around confirmed his hunch – whoever had set up this intriguing psychological maze had been a cheap bastard. The wallpaper was faded, the furnishings obviously worn and faded, the carpet a little threadbare. He couldn’t even be entirely sure that the bedclothes would be clean – but he’d slept in worse in the days since his escape from the Centre.

 

The duffel bag ended up on a chair near the window, not far from the nightstand next to the bed. The computer case he carried with him to the bed and pulled it out and plugged in the power supply to the wall socket. He then unplugged the telephone wire from the telephone, shaking his head when he found the device screwed down to the nightstand as if the owners were afraid someone would run off with it, and plugged the line into the computer.

 

Soon he was scanning the first of the documents that had been dumped into the email inbox that he’d created for himself after talking to Parker – police reports and scanned-in crime scene photographs both of the room three doors down and of the alley where the body had been found. Surprisingly, Broots had even included copies of Sam’s notes on the investigation he’d undertaken with Parker – interviews with the motel manager and the bartender in Blue Cove – and Parker’s notes from her two conversations with Sydney at Police Headquarters. Jarod was certain that he’d been provided with every last bit of information that Parker and her team had access to on their end.

 

It would be a lot of information to process properly in order to have a solid foundation for the SIM. He dug in the duffel bag and pulled out the box of Pop Tarts and bottle of Jolt Cola that he’d picked up at a convenience store just down the street from the motel. He tore two of the foil packages open and then opened the bottle of cola, took a hearty swig and put the bottle on the nightstand next to the discarded telephone. He then lay down prone on the bed with the laptop in front of him to begin to study the first document carefully.

 

oOoOo

 

“All right! All right! I’m coming!” Lyle walked through his living room to his front door still chewing appreciatively on his last bite of Chinese food, then paused to look through the peep hole to see who it was that had pounded so hard on his apartment door before opening it. His face folded into a frown of suspicious confusion as he undid the several privacy latches, chains and deadbolts to finally open the door to his twin. “Sis. I didn’t expect…”

 

He also didn’t expect her to come straight through the opening at him, her one hand like a claw digging its nails into the tender flesh of his throat and the other pulling the chrome handgun from its holster and shoving it into his temple. He stared at her wide-eyed as she casually caught the door with a toe and slammed it shut so that whatever followed would not be witnessed. “I ought to kill you where you stand,” she hissed in her most lethal tone, “you son of a bitch.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” he croaked with difficulty, the claw at his throat effectively cutting off much of his air.

 

“What am I talking about?” she repeated mockingly and then pushed the barrel of the handgun just that much harder against his temple. “I’m talking about that girl you sliced and diced and then framed Sydney for the murder.”

 

“W…” he struggled as the claw tightened on his neck even more. He reached up and pulled back on the hold she had on him for all he was worth, earning him a slight reprieve from suffocation. “What are you talking about? I haven’t…”

 

Miss Parker shoved back hard, and easy had him back against the wall choking again. “Don’t you dare tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about! You forget – I know your dirty little secret. You shouldn’t have taken your dinner from her belly before you left her…”

 

“P…” Again he latched on both hands and hauled back against the choking grasp on his throat, genuine fear for his safety making him bluntly honest. “Parker – I haven’t done that for over a year…”

 

“Yeah, sure, and pigs can fly,” she replied with a cold-blooded mocking tone that sent chills down his spine. “Damn it, I’ve seen the little Closet of Horrors you keep here, you monster. I’ve seen the newspaper articles about the girls you murdered and then somehow managed to not get caught for – how you butchered them.” She leaned forward, putting herself almost nose to nose with him, her voice turning low and vicious. “I’ve seen that tattoo, and I know what it means.”

 

“Will you listen to me for a moment, please?” Lyle pleaded. “All right – so you know about my unique… tastes. But I haven’t had the urge to… hunt… for over a year. Whoever killed this girl you’re talking about, it wasn’t me!”

 

“Go ahead. Lie. It will grease your way straight to Hell.” She cocked the gun and pressed it against his temple hard enough that it was painful.

 

“I didn’t kill anyone!” he practically screamed. “OK! All right! If you must know, Raines has me on a short leash – he told me after the last time that if I did any more hunting again within a thousand-mile radius of Blue Cove, he’d have Willy kill me slower than I kill my dinners. Hell, I don’t even have my own personal sweeper anymore – just one of Willy’s ‘associates’ watching my every move.” He stared at her with blue-grey eyes holding not the slightest hint of duplicity. “They probably even know that you’re here right now. If they start to think…”

 

“And I suppose you had nothing to do with framing Syd for the murder…”

 

“What the Hell would I want to do THAT for?” he demanded back. “Sydney’s the key to Jarod – mess with him and I’d have to face Jarod for not only what happened to Kyle, but that too. Kill him or incapacitate him, and Jarod would probably vanish forever- after he killed ME.” He stared at his twin. “I may be many things, Parker, but I’m not stupid. And I don’t want to die at Raines’ hand anymore than I want to die at Jarod’s.”

 

Blue-grey met storm-grey for a long moment in a battle of wills that neither would be able to win. Slowly Miss Parker’s hand pulled back from Lyle’s throat. “I don’t believe you,” she hissed at him, “but I can’t prove anything – yet.”

 

Lyle massaged his throat carefully, knowing he’d have to wear an ascot tie in the morning to hide the bruises that would indicate his sister’s tender touch. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I AM telling you the truth – I had nothing to do with this murder you’re talking about...”

 

“So you’re telling me you didn’t kill this tramp?” She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out a copy of the photo ID of Catherine Hallsey and thrust it into Lyle’s face.

 

Lyle took hold of the ID and stared at it for a moment, then handed it back to her carefully – she still had her gun to his head. “You know me better than that, Sis,” he chided. “My… appetites… run to Asian food – not European.”

 

Startled, Miss Parker pulled the photo ID out of Lyle’s hand and looked at it herself. He was right – all of the cases in which he’d been implicated had been for Asian women, and the one case she knew he’d committed had been of a young Chinese woman. The gun stopped pressing hard into his temple as she pocketed the picture again, but it still was within point-blank range. “So you decided to slum for a change, figuring the difference would take suspicion away from you.”

 

“I told you I didn’t do it.”

 

“And I told you I didn’t believe you.” The gun was pressing against the temple again. “I’m serving you notice – right here, right now – that I’m going to be doing everything in my power to prove that Sydney didn’t do it, and that you DID. And when I have that proof, I’m going to make sure I’m there when they stick that needle in your arm.”

 

He looked at her evenly. “Knock yourself out, Sis. I’m telling you I didn’t do it. For once, I genuinely AM innocent.”

 

“Like Hell,” Miss Parker un-cocked and holstered her gun and reached for the door. “If you think being under Raines’ microscope was fun – just wait until I get mine set up.”

 

“You know, I really admire your loyalty to that old geezer, Parker, but you’re being set up.” Lyle leaned back against the wall that Miss Parker had held him against, hardly daring believe that he’d managed to get away from her without being hurt worse than he had been. “If I didn’t do this murder, and Sydney didn’t do it either – then somebody who knows us both is feeding you crap.”

 

“The only crap around here is the stuff in your pants,” she spat at him, giving him the up and down glance that could emasculate most men. “Change your underwear, Lyle. You stink.” She pulled the door closed behind her.

 

“Holy shit!” Lyle breathed and closed his eyes for a long moment, massaging his bruised neck. As he straightened with the intent of going back and finishing his dinner – which was now probably cold – he was horrified by the realization that he had indeed soiled himself – and that she had known. As rattled as he was, he wasn’t exactly sure which circumstance was worse.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod stared at the computer screen, not seeing it any longer as his mind attempted to find patterns and coherence within the information he’d just digested.

 

But it was futile - none of this made any sense when looked at from a holistic standpoint. It was as if the evidence would lead comfortably in a certain direction for a time and then abruptly turn and point in the opposite direction again. All of the findings were solid and unassailable – utterly contradictory – and taken together were beginning to constitute a real puzzle.

 

The blood on the bed and on the razor matched DNA with the body found in the alley.

 

The semen on the bed and inside the body matched Sydney’s DNA perfectly.

 

Sydney spoke of having left the Land’s End with a woman – and of getting ready to have sex with her in the alley in Blue Cove.

 

But…

 

The amount of damage done to the body would have caused a horrific mess of blood splatter – not the neat and contained pool of blood found in the bed.

 

No sign had been found of the internal organs removed from the victim – although there was the possibility that they were waiting for Sydney’s digestive system to provide the samples to test for the ingestion of human tissue.

 

And the thing that confused Jarod the most was Sydney’s admitted behavior. Yes, Sydney had a tendency, when under pressure or distressed, to drink heavily at times – but Sydney was NOT a womanizer. He had never made a habit of frequenting prostitutes in order to relieve the pressures of living a celibate life after Michelle’s disappearance, not even during times of great stress. Sydney’s meek submission to the wiles of the young woman in the bar to the point that he was ready to have sex with her against an outside wall was completely out of character for the man.

 

Jarod frowned. The DNA taken from Sydney had been from a swab in the mouth – not a blood sample. Only from a sample of blood could there be any way to verify his tale of heavy drinking – or test for any other personality-altering chemical in his system. Jarod nodded. That HAD to be it. The alcohol he’d ingested might have made him less wary and possibly more susceptible to suggestion than usual, but to get Sydney to behave totally out of character would have required more than just alcohol and suggestion. He must have been drugged – probably when that man had bumped into him and made him spill his drink. The physical contact had probably been meant as a distraction while whatever was given to Sydney had been administered – probably in the remains of his drink. The only unanswerable was whether or not the woman was involved in the plan – although Jarod’s gut feeling was that she’d know and been a party to it.

 

The thing to do now was prove his theory. Time would be of the essence – chemicals capable of such personality manipulation could metabolize or be thrown off by the body far too rapidly to wait for a hurriedly cobbled Pretend to push official channels into action sometime the next day. This would require direct action in the immediate present tense. Jarod rose from the bed quickly and dug in his duffel bag for a change of clothing, his mind spinning and planning. He’d need to get into the jail to get the sample from Sydney, and then get into the lab to run the tests himself – and THEN get the results into the file Sydney was accumulating rapidly – all without calling too much attention to himself.

 

He debated calling Miss Parker as he tugged his black t-shirt over his head and reached for the white linen button-down shirt, then decided that he’d wait until he had something a little more concrete and hopefully supportive to give her. She’d probably had a hard enough day already – any news he had for her could probably wait until morning. He’d have his hands full enough between now and then anyway.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker sighed and tossed her keys onto the small table just inside her door, and then turned and locked and bolted and chained her door and set the burglar alarm for the night. Her encounter with Lyle had tired her more than she’d thought it would – mostly because he’d thrown at her the first indication that even this theory of hers wasn’t entirely straightforward and clear. Lyle’s tastes decidedly ran to Asian women – he had a Chinese secretary, and each of the cases he’d been implicated in had been regarding Asian women. For him to kill a blonde – a European – would have been out of character for him – especially if he’d taken pieces of her to eat later.

 

She pulled her jacket off and draped it across the back of her couch as she walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a very healthy dose of whiskey. She took a long, careful sip of the powerful drink and sucked in air so that it burned through her mouth and at the back of her throat. To Hell with what the drink would do to her ulcer – she needed something to help her unwind a little. She carried the half full glass over to the window seat and pulled one leg under her as she sat, staring out the window at the way the shadows of the trees and bushes surrounding her house were lengthening rapidly in the twilight and sipping thoughtfully and regularly at her drink.

 

Never, in all her years in Centre Security, had she ever dreamed that she’d be working as hard as she was to try to prove that Sydney was not a cold-blooded killer and possible rapist. Not Sydney – the mild-mannered and quintessentially reserved psychiatrist who reigned supreme down in the Sim Lab! Not the man who’d been a landmark figure of propriety and gracious civility in her life ever since she could remember! And yet she’d had to listen as he’d haltingly told her of his less than sophisticated actions from the night before – up to and including a casual sexual tryst carried out against a brick wall in a darkened alley…

 

The whiskey made her stomach twist slightly, and Miss Parker knew that she’d be better off if she went and got herself something to eat before she had too much more to drink. Although… The whiskey was having the desired effect – she was calmer, more relaxed. She’d needed that drink for longer than she’d thought. Actually… She blinked and tried to focus her eyes – the whiskey was hitting her harder than it had for a very long time. Had she had any lunch at all? She tried to remember, only to finally realize that the alcohol had gone down into a completely empty stomach.

 

When she stood up, the room twisted for a very brief instant – and she put a hand out to the wall to steady herself. Whoa! She DEFINITELY needed to eat something to give her drinking a better foundation! Her steps were remarkably unsteady as she headed past the liquor cabinet – dropping her drink glass off on the way – and headed for the kitchen. She leaned against the refrigerator handle for a moment to once more regain her equilibrium before pulling the heavy door open and peering inside at the contents. There was the remnants of a hero sandwich that she’d been working on for the past day – it had mayonnaise and lunch meat in it, not to mention the bread would help soak up the alcohol at the bottom of her stomach.

 

She pulled the sandwich out and seated herself tiredly at the kitchen table to begin to nibble. When had she gotten so sleepy? She barely managed to finish the sandwich before her head was nodding – and then slipped down to be pillowed on her arms in slumber.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod stood carefully still while the duty office of the night watch examined the authorization for drawing a blood sample from the suspect, then initialed it where indicated and grabbed up the keys to the lockup. The Pretender stifled a smile of triumph as the barred door to the jail itself swung open and he could follow the duty officer in. Three doors down, the officer inserted the key and threw open the metal door.

 

“Up and at ‘em, Doc. They get to poke and prod you some more,” he called crudely into the cell and then gestured for Jarod to do what he’d come to do.

 

Sydney roused and then blinked in surprise and recognition. But his calling out his protégé’s name died on his lips at a glance from Jarod – and he realized what the Pretender wanted of him. “What is it now?” he asked with a tone of disgust. “I already gave you ghouls my DNA.”

 

“I’m here for blood, doc,” Jarod drawled in a slightly Southern accent. “Seems there’s a few things that we need to test for that your previous sample just wouldn’t allow for.” He set a technician’s basket down on the table next to the pallet and pulled out a wrapped alcohol swab to clean the crook of Sydney’s elbow. He pushed up the sleeve of the orange jumpsuit that Sydney was wearing that made him look like a common criminal, glancing up into his mentor’s face with some muted sympathy and chagrin.

 

Desperate chestnut eyes peered deeply into chocolate brown, seeking reassurance as Jarod expertly applied the tourniquet and slipped the hypodermic needle into a very cooperative vein. Jarod allowed a small smile to brush across his lips as he released the tourniquet and watched the ampoule fill with Sydney’s blood, and Sydney then knew that Jarod was there because he was onto something – and knowing that would help make the waiting just a little more bearable.

 

“There,” Jarod drawled again, putting a cotton ball at the site of the withdrawal and bending Sydney’s arm so that the pressure would stop any residual bleeding, “that’s all I needed.”

 

“Come in the daytime next time,” Sydney forced himself to lie back down on his thin mattress as if disgusted by the entire affair. “I’d like to get some sleep – and it isn’t easy with you coming in like this.”

 

“Not a bad idea,” the duty officer agreed as he locked the cell door behind the medical technician and escorted the man out of the lockup. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

 

“Just checking out a few things in the suspect’s story,” Jarod answered vaguely. “The last guy didn’t draw blood – he’s a nincompoop and I hope he gets fired, because my having to come in like this is going to cost them plenty.”

 

The office chortled. “Sometimes the D.A.s and defense attorneys have their heads up their asses, don’t they?”

 

“They can be short-sighted people all right,” Jarod agreed and headed out the door. Step one was completed. Now to get to a fully equipped lab to run the proper tests…

 

oOoOo

 

Dave Miller sat at his desk, feet propped up on the desk, a half-dollar being rolled and tipped expertly back and forth across his knuckles in the semi-darkness of the quiet squad room. Inconsistencies bothered him, and this case was full of them – from the forensics that made certain statements as givens, even when they seemed to contradict each other and/or the anecdotal testimony.

 

Doctor Green had been relatively forthcoming when questioned under the watchful eye of his lawyer, and he’d told a sordid but understandable little tale – up to a point. He’d admitted drinking heavily, picking up a woman in a bar, and attempting to have consentual sex with her outside the bar later. The point at which the story began to have believability problems was where the memory loss began without full knowledge of whether or not sex had occurred.

 

What was more, Miss Parker reported that she’d done a little investigating on her own in Blue Cove – discovered Doctor Green’s car in his driveway right where he said he’d left it, AND talked to the bartender in the Land’s End Tavern who confirmed Doctor Green’s story to the point he had left the bar. Both Doctor Green and the bartender had stated that the woman he’d picked up had been a red-head – NOT a blonde. As a matter of fact, Miller had handed the psychiatrist a blow-up of the ID photo and watched the man’s face carefully – and there’d been not the slightest twitch of recognition in the man’s eyes.

 

Doctor Green had also related his experiences upon waking up in the motel room – discovering the blood in the bed next to him, showering to wash some of it away which explained the blood found in the bathtub drain but not the sink, of having called Miss Parker just before the police had burst through the door.

 

Miss Parker had even suggested that Doctor Green be given a polygraph test to confirm that he was telling the truth – regardless of whether or not such a test could be used at trial. At this point, Miller was fairly sure he had nothing to lose – he had Green’s semen in the body of the victim, and that tied the two of them together whether the man could remember what he did or not. Didn’t it?

 

He still couldn’t answer the question of why, if Green had raped and killed the woman elsewhere, he had brought the woman’s blood back to the motel room and drenched the sheet with it – and then slept in it. He still couldn’t answer the question of why there had been a report of screams – a report filed hours after the time of death and obviously in a place that had NOT been the actual murder scene. And he still couldn’t answer the question of how Green had gotten from the alley where the body was dumped to the motel if his car was still in Blue Cove and there were no unclaimed autos in the parking lot – and no taxi fares had dropped off a passenger there late at night.

 

It had been the District Attorney’s call to go ahead and charge Green with the murder, even though there still was no lead on exactly what the woman’s name had been in life. Neither Virginia nor Maryland had any record of a Catherine Hallsey in their files – and there was still the matter of the fake ID. He himself had tried to follow up and interview that man who had alerted the motel manager of the screams, only to hit a dead end on that as well. The address given for Calvin Dexter in Baltimore was to an empty lot on the waterfront – and like Catherine Hallsey, Delaware, Virginia and Maryland all disclaimed having any record of Calvin Dexter.

 

The half-dollar made another set of trips across the knuckle, and then Miller sat up with his feet on the floor and yawned. Nothing in the case made sense – and his sitting up and stewing over the contradictions wouldn’t accomplish anything. He was tired, and he needed a good night’s rest.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod heard the printer bell ring and rolled the chair across the room to grab the report even as it was emerging from the device. He’d been right – Sydney’s blood showed signs of an odd variant a date-rape drug known to often cause amnesia and unconsciousness combined with a rather pernicious variant of a drug used for men with erectile dysfunction that had components of a powerful aphrodisiac added. A few hours more and all traces of the drugs would have been gone from Sydney’s system – as it was, it was impossible to tell what levels of either drug had been in his system after he’d finished drinking and accompanied the girl to the alley. Either way, the amnesia was now explained, as was the sudden loss of sexual inhibition. He’d been chemically set up to exhibit behaviors relatively consistent with the attack and murder of that girl.

 

Jarod forged the initials of the head lab technician at the bottom of the report and activated the fax machine so that it would be found at police headquarters in the relative near future. He made another copy of the report to send to Miss Parker in the morning, and a third for his own records.

 

With a sigh, he set about cleaning up the lab of any signs of his nocturnal activity and then carefully let himself back out again, resetting the alarm so that it would appear that no one had disturbed the lab during non-business hours. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking back in the direction of the motel.

 

Sydney HAD been set up – and it was a twisted setup at that. There was the possibility that the girl that had been murdered and the girl Sydney had left the tavern with in Blue Cove was the same girl. With this development, Jarod had a hunch that there would be a reasonable solution to the puzzle – that it was only a question of time before the pieces began to make sense.

 

But as he ambled along, he kept asking himself: Somebody set up Sydney with extremely contradictory but damning evidence – WHY?

Chapter 5 – Redux in a Minor Key

 

 

“Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Wake up!” The whisper was soft, urgent.

 

Miss Parker head rolled on her arms. “Momma…” she moaned softly.

 

“Save Sydney.”

 

“Momma?” She blinked her eyes and slowly rolled her head to sit up. The kitchen was dark around her, and her neck was stiff from the position she’d been in for what looked as if it had been a fair length of time.

 

She hated waking up like this – having heard what sounded like her mother’s voice speaking softly in her ear and then rousing to find nothing and nobody at all there. Sydney would argue with her, she was sure – when it came to psychological terminology, he was a die-hard purist – but she considered these nightmares too, waking ones.

 

Sydney! She stretched and rose stiffly to go for the overhead light. The voice in her head had been exhorting her to save Sydney. Didn’t the ghost of her mother know that she was doing exactly that? Frustrated, she looked around the kitchen. Nothing seemed disturbed – the plate that her sandwich had been on was still where she’d landed on it when she’d fallen asleep, and the tea she’d made…

 

Wait a minute! She hadn’t made herself any tea – she’d just carried the sandwich to the table and started eating, and then fallen asleep in her dish. Where had this cup of tea come from? She put her hand around the cup and found it room temperature – and yet the tea had steeped. The water had been boiling at some point in time a while back…

 

That was damned odd! She glanced at her back door and the alarm panel next to it, but there was no sign that the alarm had been turned off or tampered with. She threw her head back with eyes closed for a moment in frustration, then ran her fingers through her hair. She WAS tired – maybe she’d just forgotten she’d made it after all.

 

She reached for the cup and lifted it, intending to take a sip, when the piece of paper the cup had been sitting on flitted to the table again like a lopsided butterfly. Frowning again, Miss Parker put the tea down again and reached for the paper to read the words printed on it in block handwriting: 731 Elm St., Dover - 3AM.

 

What the Hell, she thought to herself and looked up at the kitchen clock. It was 2:15 – when, if she had any brains in her head, she should be trundling up the stairs to her bedroom for an appointment with her mattress. Still… The appearance of the note fast on the heels of her mother’s exhortation to save Sydney wasn’t something she could ignore.

 

She debated calling Sam but then thought better of it. It was one thing for her to be up and around in the middle of the night looking for an address in Dover – it was another one entirely to wake up her sweeper and demand that he accompany her. Besides, his attitude as the afternoon had worn on meant that the chances were good that he’d be more than vocal in his disapproval of her actions – and she didn’t need that right now.

 

Sam would be right to tell her she was nuts, she decided rebelliously and sighed heavily. She was too tired to be effective – and she had no idea where Elm Street in Dover WAS, much less if there was a 700 block on it. Tomorrow would be time enough to be checking out such things – with Sam, and without the complaints. She reached for the teacup and tossed down the cold liquid, put it back down on the table next to the note and turned. The lights to the kitchen were turned off without really looking at what she was doing, and she made her way down the short hallway and then up the stairs by feel.

 

oOoOo

 

The garish ringing of the telephone penetrated Dave Miller’s dreams like fingernails on a blackboard – and where he stirred, his wife Rita moaned in complaint and then elbowed him in the ribs. Being the wife of a cop sometimes had a distinct down side – and being awakened in the wee hours of the morning seemed to be one of the more invasive and regular drawbacks. Miller grunted as the elbow connected and then jerked away to blearily fumble for a look at his alarm clock before swatting his hand around until it connected with the telephone in a way that he could grab the receiver. “Yeah…”

 

“There’s no rest for the wicked, Dave,” the night commander announced into his ear with a tone of voice that was sympathetic. “Rise and shine. We have another body.”

 

That brought Miller awake quickly. “No… It can’t be…”

 

“Tell that to the stiff,” the commander snorted dryly. “700 block of Elm, in the park. Coroner’s been called and will meet you there…”

 

“Who called it in?” Miller asked, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles like a child and slowly pushing himself to a sitting position with feet dangling off the edge of the bed.

 

“Anonymous tip,” the commander answered. “Get a move on – it looks like your ripper has struck again.”

 

“Shit!” he spat as he hung up the phone with a bang, then was instantly contrite and bent over his wife. “Sorry about that…” he murmured at her and kissed a cheek.

 

“Sometimes I think they kill people in the nighttime just to be able to get cops like you out of bed,” she grumbled without opening her eyes. “You’ll just end up with your days and nights mixed up.”

 

“As long as you don’t,” he purred at her and kissed her again. “I shouldn’t be too long…”

 

“I’ve heard THAT one before,” she grunted and rolled away from him to pull the covers a little more securely over her back. “Be careful.”

 

He rose to his feet and walked across the darkened bedroom to the closet, where he flipped on the tiny bulb so he could see to dress himself without disturbing Rita any more than she already had been. He had to admit that his wife would have had a legitimate complaint, had she not been warned that this would be a regular occurrence for the wife of a homicide detective. Still, he tried to minimize the annoyance factor as much as he could so that she’d wake up in the morning ready to face those thirty-odd fourth graders with the energy it would take.

 

He waited with his shoes, carrying them down the stairs and sitting on the arm of the couch to put them on. His coat hung in the hall closet by the door, car keys in the right hand pocket. He patted his sports jacket to make sure he had his wallet with him, and he was out the door. A glance down at his wristwatch as he walked to his car told him that he’d made it from resting in bed to walking out the door in ten minutes. Not bad, he congratulated himself.

 

Elm Street was on the other side of town – it took longer to get there than it had to wake up and get dressed and get out the door. It was one of the borders of a nice, middle-class neighborhood where the trees stood tall in the front yards of square 50’s vintage two-story houses – and opposite the 700 block, there was a well-used and maintained park named for the street. It was still dark enough that the streetlights made for pools of illumination broken by the occasional parked car. Miller headed for the pair of circling blue and red lights that were the patrol officers’ car and the coroner’s wagon. Jim Carlton, looking no happier to be there or rested than he felt, had beaten him to the scene. Again.

 

“I thought you had this monster locked up,” Carlton complained as he bent over the partly nude body of another young woman. “Ligature marks at the wrists and ankles, slashed throat and demolished face – this could be your boy again. Although this time…” He pointed to the right thigh of the victim, where a huge chunk of flesh seemed to have been excised.

 

“Time of death?” Miller asked wearily, drawing out his notebook.

 

“Rigor is just starting to set in – I’d say maybe two-thirty, three o’clock.”

 

“What about rape?”

 

“Can’t tell off-hand – you’ll have to come down and see me when I get her back to the barn.”

 

Miller closed his eyes and grunted. Just what he needed to start off a new day – another trip to the coroner’s lab. “Any other evidence to work with?”

 

“There’s a backpack over there,” Carlton pointed off toward a shrug. “Take a camera from my bag and photograph it in situ before you start rummaging through it, will ya? We can at least pretend to be trying to preserve the crime scene – although I’ll tell you, I don’t think she was killed here…”

 

“Why?”

 

“No blood in the grass around or under the body,” Carlton pointed out. “Just like the last time – she was killed elsewhere and dumped.” He looked up into the face of the tired detective. “Looks as if we’ve got us a serial killer on our hands.”

 

“I want all the blood work and testing done on this woman as fast as possible,” Miller bent down to pull the camera and a pair of latex gloves out of the coroner’s evidence kit and began taking pictures of the backpack and its location. Once that was done, he crouched down next to it and unzipped the smaller pocket – where many kept their identification. Sure enough, that was where the wallet was. “We’ve got an ID – Joy Chang.” He looked at it closely with his flashlight. “This one’s a real one, though.”

 

“OK, I’m through with her for now,” Carlton straightened after gesturing to the morgue attendants to bring a gurney and body bag. “I’ll start processing her as soon as I get her to my lab – stop by about noon for preliminary findings.”

 

Miller nodded and took the paper bag that Carlton was holding out and put the backpack – with the wallet back in the smaller pocket – away to be processed later as well. He watched Carlton follow the loaded gurney back to the dark station wagon that would be transporting the body as he stripped the gloves away, then pulled his coat a little closer around his neck as he began walking back to his car. At the very least, he had a preliminary report to write before he could head home for maybe another hour’s nap before he’d have to get up and start the day for real.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod looked around him carefully and then eased the tape marking the motel room as a sealed crime scene away from the door itself with a practiced hand. After that, it took very little work to have the lock picked and the door pushing open on silent hinges. He pulled his little flashlight from his pocket and turned it on, deliberately keeping it pointed mostly down and definitely away from the window that overlooked the parking lot.

 

The bed frame sat in the middle of the room, mattress and bedclothes missing. A quick examination of the walls and furnishings told him that this room wasn’t any better appointed than was the one he’d rented – and with a flash of insight, he could feel the confusion and repulsion that Sydney had probably felt when he’d awakened HERE rather than in his comfortable and luxuriously appointed bedroom on Washington Avenue in Blue Cove.

 

He added what he knew of the combination of drugs whose influence Sydney would have been just beginning to come out from under to that state and sighed. It had been a cruel and vicious blow to a decent man to have him awaken nude, in discomfort and disoriented – and then discover the bed next to him covered in blood. There had been a very personal statement in that situation – this was payback of a sort. Jarod frowned as he tried to think of anyone – anyone at all – that Sydney would have pissed off badly enough to have pulled this as a way to get even. Sydney’s work had been completely under the auspices of the Centre – anybody with even half a brain would be able to figure out that he would have had only a certain amount of latitude.

 

Damn it – another contradiction, he thought to himself. Whoever did this knew Sydney well enough to have a reason to hold a grudge, but must either not have been involved in the Centre or only marginally knew of what Sydney did there. But that made no sense – Sydney had been eating, breathing and sleeping his Centre research for decades – research that was carried out entirely at the behest of the Centre Powers That Be. For the most part, Sydney HAD no life except that which he led in the bowels of the Centre.

 

Jarod shook his head and concentrated on the floor of the room, the walls, the inside of the tiny closet… There! The light from the flashlight had reflected back at him from right next to the closet door – where any less casual an observer might have missed it under the door. He bent and picked it up and looked at it, puzzled.

 

It was a button – but unlike any button he’d seen. The edge was ringed in white, and most of the rest of the round surface was black. There was no sign of frayed thread in the little loop on the back – so no way of knowing what kind of garment it had come away from. Still, it was a clue left behind and probably missed by the police, and so worthy of note and collection. Jarod dropped it into a small baggie that he’d carried with him for just such an occasion, and then tucked it into his jacket pocket for later.

 

The bathroom held little for him other than the bit of dripped blood from where the razor had lain on the sink counter. The drops were unremarkable – and there was nothing else there to look at. Jarod turned off his flashlight and stood for a moment in the bathroom doorway, his mind spinning and picturing the scene. He’d viewed the photographs taken – the bloody bed, the razor in the bathroom. To that he added a confused and disoriented Sydney, struggling to come out from under the influence of a ‘rufie’ mixed with a substantial dose of Viagra laced with a hint of Spanish Fly – as well as one helluva hangover from the numerous double whiskeys he’d imbibed. It wasn’t a pretty scene.

 

But the evidence was contradictory enough that he simply couldn’t get a handle on the events that had preceded that. If Sydney had had sex with the woman in the alleyway behind the Land’s End in Blue Cove, how did his semen get on the sheet UNDER the blood on a bed in Dover?

 

The trip to the scene hadn’t helped much – the only evidence he’d found made no sense at all within the context of the situation. Jarod sighed and let himself back out of the room and carefully pressed the police tape seal back into place on the door so that it looked as if nobody had touched it. He then slouched down to his own room and let himself in and turned on the nightlight on the nightstand.

 

He was tired – he’d been working all night. He could afford trying to get a few hours rest before scanning and emailing a copy of the lab report on Sydney’s blood to Broots and Miss Parker. He moved the laptop to the floor next to the bed and stretched out, kicking off his boots over the other edge of the bed. He tucked his arms behind his head after turning off the light and watched the play of lights from outside his motel room on the ceiling.

 

This was ridiculous. Jarod knew that he’d run tough SIMs before – stacked up evidence that seemed to make no sense and easily seen the patterns and solved the riddle – but this was something else again entirely. There HAD to be a logical explanation for everything – but a vital piece of the puzzle was either missing or hadn’t been discovered yet. He closed his eyes in frustration, and wasn’t paying attention when sleep snuck up behind him and carried him off.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker swatted blindly at her alarm clock without raising and turning her head on her pillow to watch what she was doing. She didn’t really care if she hit the snooze button or the alarm switch proper – she just wanted that infernal buzzing to stop! Finally, on the third swat, she hit something and the racket ceased, and she sighed in relief – and then groaned. Her head felt as if she’d been on a full-fledged drinking binge the night before – and she knew she’d only had the one stiff drink on an empty stomach.

 

What was worse, as much as she wanted to stay in bed and just pull the covers over her head, she knew she had to get up. There was too much to do – not the least of which was collecting Sam and then checking out the address on that weird note she’d found the night before. Then there was Jarod to talk to – maybe he’d had some insights on the case from all the information that Broots had fed him the day before – and a trip in to see how Sydney was doing and reviewing the known facts of the case with him, in case he could remember something else. No, there was no way around it – she’d have to get up.

 

Just the act of getting to a sitting position was difficult – the back of her mouth tasted like a sewer and her equilibrium was still not completely up to snuff. She scratched at the back of her head and looked down at her garb – when all had been said and done after falling asleep at the table, the best she’d been able to do was strip down to her underwear. And from the snarls in her hair, she hadn’t brushed her hair out before retiring either. She ran her hand down her face in frustration – this just wouldn’t do!

 

A long shower did help – as did the two aspirin that she’d taken the moment she’d been within reach of the medicine cabinet. With clean clothes and a mouth that now tasted more like toothpaste and mouthwash than old whiskey, Miss Parker was starting to feel almost human. She came down the stairs and walked into the kitchen and set about immediately brewing herself her customary cup of espresso. Reaching into the refrigerator for the last bagel in a package, as well as the tub of whipped cream cheese, didn’t quite make her dizzy. She sliced the bagel and put the slices in the toaster, then turned the little AM radio on so that she could listen to the news while she ate. When the local news began, her movements in spreading cream cheese on her bagel stopped suddenly.

 

“Dover police are investigating the second murder in as many days, when the body of a young university student was found in Elm Street Park early this morning. Details of the crime are sketchy, but police representatives are looking into similarities with the body of an unidentified woman found in an alley early yesterday morning. While a suspect has been charged in that first murder, it is unknown how this latest event will affect that investigation.”

 

Did the newscaster say Elm Street? Miss Parker turned from her bagel to pick up that note from where she’d left it on the table when she’d gone to bed. Hadn’t the address on that note said something about Elm Street? But the table was completely clear.

 

The note – and the teacup she’d put down right next to it after draining it – had vanished.

 

Startled, she turned around quickly to survey the kitchen, battling nausea from the movement – but no teacup and no note. Her eyes then slipped over to the alarm panel next to the door – but it was still armed and set. The grey eyes narrowed – if Jarod knew how to get into her house without setting off the alarm, and he’d done so far too many times to count, then it stood to reason that somebody else must be able to do the same thing. She’d have to take the time to change the damned thing before she went to work that morning. But…

 

She frowned. Why would ANYbody break into her house just to fix her a cup of tea and write a cryptic note while she was fast asleep at the table – and then steal them both away again once she’d gone to bed? This made no sense at all. Had it all been a dream? Had her mother been telling her about another murder in her dreams – a murder that, if she were very lucky, would prove Sydney couldn’t be responsible for the first? She added to that list of imperative to-do’s a call in to Detective Miller about the second murder.

 

Quickly she finished preparing her breakfast, and then carried the bagel over to the alarm panel at the back door and reconfigured the disarm code. By the time that was done, so was the coffee. She poured herself a cup and then carried that with her into the front part of the house, setting it down on the little table next to her keys while she reconfigured the front door panel to the same disarm code as she’d just chosen for the back door.

 

The coffee was starting to work with the aspirin she’d taken earlier – she was feeling more herself. Her breakfast finished, she stopped in the downstairs bathroom to take two more of the analgesics before grabbing up her purse and keys. She’d worry about the mystery of the appearing and disappearing note and teacup another time. Right now, she had more important things to do.

 

oOoOo

 

“Broots, I want you to…”

 

“Miss Parker, guess what we got from Jarod this morning…”

 

The two stared at each other for a moment, not usually being caught in the position of each having something they so urgently wanted to tell the other that they would speak at the same time. Miss Parker was the one who broke out of her hesitation first. “You first – you say you have something from Jarod?”

 

“Yeah – and it’s important!” Broots handed her the toxicology report on Sydney’s blood. “Seems Sydney was drugged.”

 

“Rohypnol, sildenafil, cantharidin” she mused, then turned confused eyes to her computer tech. “What kind of crap is this?”

 

“Well – according to Jarod, it isn’t QUITE your run-of-the-mill rohypnol or sildenafil…”

 

“Broots!” she barked, then winced. That hadn’t done her headache any good! “What the hell ARE rohypnol and sildenafil – regular or otherwise?”

 

“Rohypnol is the date-rape drug – sometimes called a ‘rufie’. It’s a sedative, muscle relaxant, lowers inhibitions – and has unconsciousness and subsequent amnesia as some of the known side effects. As for the other, the common names for sildenafil is Viagra…”

 

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

 

Broots waved a finger at her, then pointed to the printout of the report. “Just wait, it gets better – or worse, depending on how you look at it. There was a very minute trace of cantharidin – that’s the active ingredient in Spanish Fly.”

 

“You mean to tell me,” Miss Parker backed away from him slightly, her hand at her forehead, “that somebody slipped Sydney a Mickey Finn that not only lowered his inhibitions, but made him horny as Hell – and gave him the staying power to make something of it?”

 

Broots put the report on his desk and looked up at her. “Sure looks that way…”

 

“Damn! That’s… that’s…” She was at a loss for words.

 

“Despicable,” Sam filled in for her from the entrance to Broot’s office. “Considering his age and physical condition, that combination of drugs could have killed Sydney. Spanish Fly, even in small amounts, can be a very potent poison, Miss Parker – whoever mixed up this Mickey Finn had to know exactly what he or she was doing, maybe even has medical knowledge.”

 

“If Syd gets convicted for this murder, it may well have done as good as kill him,” Miss Parker replied dryly. “I wonder if the Dover PD has this information?”

 

“Jarod said he’d faxed it over there last night, Miss Parker,” Broots replied quickly. “If they haven’t read it yet, they soon will.”

 

“OK,” she pinched the bridge of her nose and promised herself that she’d look for her bottle of Tylenol the moment she got back to her own office, “Broots, I want you to dig into missing person’s files – use the picture ID we have of the first victim…”

 

“FIRST victim?” Sam gaped.

 

“Yeah – they found another body this morning,” she explained tiredly. “It was on the radio.” She turned back to Broots. “Use the photo ID we have of the first victim as a comparison. But don’t forget our elusive Calvin Dexter either.”

 

“Got it,” Broots nodded. “Anything else?”

 

“Watch for emails from Jarod – and pass along anything he says to me PDQ. As a matter of fact, send him one that tells him I want to talk to him. Got it?”

 

“Yes, ma’am!”

 

“And what are WE up to today?” Sam inquired carefully. He’d pushed pretty hard at the envelope of the employer-employee relationship the day before – the sooner he found out if he was going to be allowed to get away with it again, the better as far as he was concerned.

 

“WE are going to head to my office for some Tylenol,” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling, “and then I think we need to have a little talk with Detective Miller about the toxicology report and the fact that there’s been another murder, don’t you?”

 

Sam nodded and found his customary place behind and slightly to the side of Miss Parker as she stalked down the Centre corridors as if she owned the place – watching with satisfaction as the lesser employees knew enough to move out of her way. Something told him that this day was going to be at least as full as the last one.

 

oOoOo

 

“Hey, Dave! Found this in the fax machine this morning – isn’t this your case?”

 

Miller took the paper from Detective Richards and looked at it curiously, and then frowned. “I wonder why it took the lab so long to do a toxicology screen on the suspect,” he asked aloud to nobody in particular.

 

“I’ve heard they were backed up,” Richards offered, glancing up from the rest of the documents he’d retrieved from the fax machine. “A couple of phlebotomists quit, and one of the main techs is on vacation…”

 

“Don’t they know how important this is?” Miller grumbled and flopped down behind his desk, carefully placed the report in the center of his blotter and began to read. His brows furled when he got to the list of substances that had been found in Dr. Green’s blood – then checked the time stamp on the report. Last night. The blood had been drawn at about ten, and the report submitted at nearly three in the morning. Somebody burned the midnight oil to get this report out!

 

He settled back in his chair, pulling out his half dollar and running it back and forth across his knuckles again. Had he known that Doctor Green had had this kind of chemical cocktail in his system, he might not have been quite so quick to suspect… But still, DNA evidence had been conclusive in tying him to the victim… Oh Hell. It was too early to contemplate conundrums yet.

 

The phone rang, and he reached for it. “Yeah, Miller.”

 

“Detective,” the voice of Doctor Green’s attorney, Miss Parker, purred into his ear. “I was wondering if I could speak for some of your time this morning. I think we have a few things to discuss.”

 

Yes, they did indeed have several things to discuss. “Come on into headquarters around eleven, and I’ll be happy to talk to you,” he told her easily. “I might even be convinced to buy you a cup of coffee.”

 

“That sounds like an interesting proposition, Detective,” the seductive voice of the Centre lawyer brushed his ear like soft silk. “At eleven then.”

 

Miller disconnected and then quickly dialed Carlton’s number at the coroner’s office. “Dover Morgue…”

 

“Yeah Jim, it’s me. What have you got so far?”

 

“You’re rushing me…” Carlton sounded peeved.

 

“I know I am – but I’ve got a man sitting in a cell, charged with a murder that sounds suspiciously like the one committed last night. I need to know if I have an innocent man in there or…”

 

“There are enough differences between the two cases that you may just have a copycat,” Carlton stated bluntly. “What was the hold card that you didn’t release to the press about the first one?”

 

“The missing organs,” Miller answered immediately. It was the one piece of evidence that had been held back in order to give some way of telling if a confession was bonafide or not. “Why?”

 

“Because this girl has all her parts and pieces – EXCEPT for that chunk out of her thigh. No vivisection. We’ve got ligature marks, a slashed throat and sexual activity again, just like before – I’ve sent the sample in for DNA analysis and comparison, although considering time of death, I don’t think we’re going to get a match there. We must have a different killer, Dave.”

 

“You’re sure?” Miller demanded. “You think it’s a copy-cat?”

 

“What else could it be?”

 

Miller sighed. Carlton was right - what else COULD it be? “OK. Sorry – I just got a call from the suspect’s lawyer, and I suppose she heard about the second murder on the news and was thinking that this would exonerate her client.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Carlton told his friend. “You’re under pressure, I’d imagine. You still want to come in this afternoon?”

 

“I don’t think so,” Miller shook his head. “But call me the moment you have any results of the tests. This whole case has been squirrelly from the beginning – I’d like something easy to understand right about now.”

 

“Will do,” Carlton promised.

 

oOoOo

 

“Sam, do me a favor…”

 

“Sure thing, Miss Parker,” he threw over his shoulder at her in the back seat. “What do you need?”

 

“Do you have any idea where Elm Street is in Dover?”

 

Sam thought for a moment. “Yeah – I think so…”

 

Miss Parker straightened in her seat. “Then could you see if you could find me 7…” she stretched her memory – what WAS that number on the note the night before… “731 Elm Street?”

 

Sam made a left turn that put the Centre sedan on one of the major cross-town streets. “What’s this about?”

 

She grimaced, not exactly sure how to explain her request. “Call it… chasing a hunch.”

 

Sam blinked. “OK,” he answered slowly. Miss Parker had been fairly quiet and not very rowdy that morning, as opposed to her ‘give ‘em Hell’ attitude the previous evening. “You feelin’ OK today, Miss Parker?”

 

Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. “I’m fine, Sam – that’s why I took the Tylenol.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked back down at his driving, knowing he’d just been told to back off.

 

The car turned another corner onto Elm Street and traveled about three blocks before Sam slowed down. “There’s 726,” he pointed to a house, then looked across the street at the open grass of the Elm Street Park. “Looks like there IS no 731, Miss Parker. Just the park.”

 

Miss Parker followed his glance, her eyes noting the section of a brush-covered area that had a police tape barrier around it. “731 Elm Street, 3AM,” she repeated slowly and softly. “I’ll be damned.”

 

“What was that?” Sam strained to understand what she’d said.

 

She blinked. “Nothing.” She settled back against the seat. “I suppose we’d better get a move on. I want to talk to Syd before my appointment with the detective.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Sam gently moved the Centre sedan away from the curb and turned right on a street that would take them back in the same direction they’d just come. It didn’t look as if she was going to tell him what that little side trip had been all about after all – but from the look on her face in the mirror, she hadn’t been very happy about whatever it was she was hoping to find.

Chapter 6 – Burning Bridges

 

 

Sydney looked as if he hadn’t gotten very much sleep the night before. His face was wan and his eyes slightly bloodshot, and the expression on his face was one of desperation. “Have you heard from Jarod?” he asked eagerly the moment he was escorted into the interrogation room and saw Miss Parker sitting there waiting for him. “Did he find anything?”

 

“Thank you,” Miss Parker told the escorting police office sharply. She waited until he had closed and locked the door behind her before turning her entire attention to her colleague. “Geez, Syd, you look like shit this morning.”

 

“You sound surprised. You try to sleep in a place like this,” he retorted, then rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Oh, don’t mind me – I’ve been in a thoroughly foul mood all morning.”

 

“Didn’t they let you shave?” she asked incredulously. Seeing Sydney with a one-day’s growth of grizzle was one thing – but at two-days’ worth, he was starting to look as if he was going to try for the ‘mountain man’ look.

 

“I didn’t feel very much like it, to be honest,” Sydney replied honestly. “I’m stuck in this stupid orange jumpsuit that makes me look like Bozo the Clown – why the Hell should I worry about whiskers?”

 

“Chin up, Syd, we’re working hard to get you out of this dump,” she told him, quashing her normal hesitancy about touching and being touched long enough to reach out to one of his hands and putting it between the two of hers. “You can’t give up hope on me.”

 

He looked up into her face, startled. “I’m trying, Parker, I really am.” His fingers turned in her grasp so that he was holding one of her hands back. “I guess what I really am is scared – scared that this is where I’m going to spend the rest of my life…”

 

She tightened her grasp. “Now you listen to me. You are NOT going to rot in jail, Syd – I’m not going to let it happen. And Jarod won’t let it happen either. You have GOT to trust us to find a way out of this for you.”

 

“”It isn’t you and Jarod that I don’t trust, Parker,” he relented slightly, “but enough of this. DID Jarod have anything to tell you – he came into my cell rather late last night and drew blood…”

 

Miss Parker held on tight to the hand. “Yeah – he found something all right. You had one helluva chemical cocktail in your system that night – did you know that?”

 

Sydney frowned. “The only thing I remember taking was alcohol – whiskey, to be exact – and in fairly sizeable doses.”

 

“Well,” she shook her head at him, “you ended up with a nice little pharmaceutical stew that included rohypnol, Viagra and Spanish Fly in your system.”

 

The chestnut eyes opened very wide. “What?”

 

“You were set up but good, Syd – and nine chances out of ten, it started in the tavern with that woman who picked you up. I was hoping that maybe something else had finally bubbled up, that maybe you’d managed to remember something – anything – else about that night…”

 

“No,” he shook his head at her, “no matter what I do, what technique I use, I get only to that one point and then nothing until I wake up the next morning. I still don’t know…” He looked at her imploringly. “Did I have sex with that girl after all? Can you at least tell me that?”

 

“We still haven’t found that girl, Syd,” Miss Parker told him gently. “Clyde had never seen her before – only her TYPE. He had her pegged as a working girl.”

 

Sydney closed his eyes in disgust at his own actions. “Oh God…” To have abased himself with a prostitute… He saw again in his mind’s eye her smile, her sparkling green eyes – surely she hadn’t just been leading him along in order to make a fast twenty bucks…

 

“And there’s also been another murder.”

 

That got his attention quickly. “Another murder!” he breathed. “Everything the same?”

 

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I have an appointment to talk to the lead detective in your case, Detective Miller – and you can bet your bottom dollar that’s going to be one of the first topics of discussion. After all, if you were in here all night, how could you have been ‘out there’ killing another girl…”

 

“I didn’t kill the first one either,” Sydney protested quietly.

 

“That’s the entire point,” she smiled at him gently. “I told you that I’d be doing my best to get you out of here, didn’t I?”

 

Sydney suddenly realized that she hadn’t let go of his hand yet. “Have I told you yet how much I appreciate everything you’re doing for me?” he asked back, letting some of the fondness that he’d felt for her all along creep into his voice.

 

“No, you haven’t,” she smiled at him, “but you’re forgiven. You’ve had quite a bit on your mind – enough to make for a good excuse for the momentary lapse.”

 

He smiled back, fully aware of what she was trying to accomplish. That gentle reassurance, combined with her hands still tightly around his, were an effective balm against the bitter resignation that he’d been fighting all morning. “At least you let me get on your good side once in a while,” he quipped back, knowing it was a lame attempt at humor but willing to do his part to lighten her load some. “I bet Raines wasn’t thrilled…”

 

“Actually, he was pretty pissed at first – especially when you didn’t show up to that meeting – but I didn’t have too much trouble talking him into giving me permission to spend my time working on springing you. He even gave me Broots and Sam as assistants, figuring I was going to ask for them anyway…”

 

“Tell the both of them that I said thanks, will you?” Sydney asked her.

 

“Of course.” Miss Parker glanced at her wristwatch. “I hate to, but I’m going to have to take off in just a couple of minutes – my appointment with Detective Miller is at eleven, and then I want to get back to Blue Cove and keep digging and see if I can’t find this woman you were with. If I can find her, perhaps she’ll know something more.” She let go of his hand reluctantly and rose. “I’ll be back this evening just to bring you up to date on developments. I won’t leave you out of the loop on this, I promise.”

 

“Thanks, Parker – again.” Sydney knew better than to get to his feet, despite decades of training in the art of gallantry. The escorting officer would want to have him seated and compliant when he came in, not on his feet and potentially dangerous. “Be careful – if this is a setup, as you suspect, something tells me the person arranging it is damned dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

 

“Don’t you worry about me, Freud,” she replied, bending over his shoulder as she patted it. “You just worry about not getting yourself all down in the dumps again. I need you to have a little faith – faith that I’m as good as I think I am, and faith that Jarod is as good as you used to think he was.”

 

He nodded. “I think I can handle that.”

 

Miss Parker nodded in satisfaction and then went up to the door and knocked. “I’m ready,” she called out to the officer on the other side of the heavy wooden door.

 

oOoOo

 

Detective Miller gestured to a bench outside the police headquarters building with a hand filled with a Styrofoam coffee cup. “So,” he began as he sat down next to the tall and striking Centre lawyer, handing her the cup he’d brought along for her, “what can I do for you, Miss Parker?”

 

“You can tell me about this other murder, for one thing,” Miss Parker replied, sipping at her coffee and deciding that the homicide squad’s coffeemaker didn’t do too bad a job after all.

 

“You heard about that,” he commented with a nod and then sipped at his own coffee. “I was pretty sure that was part of what was behind your call this morning…”

 

“That and I was wondering if you had a more complete set of results for the test that you put Sydney through yesterday – you know, DNA, toxicology…”

 

Miller had to work hard not to choke on his coffee. “We didn’t get the toxicology results back until everybody had gone home,” he offered as an excuse, “or I’d have given you those yesterday afternoon.”

 

“But you have them now, I take it,” she prompted.

 

“Yes,” he hedged, not quite ready to hand her the kind of ammunition that knowing the chemicals in Doctor Green’s system might prove in any attempt to win his release on bail once he’d been arraigned. “Has your client remembered anything else about the night in question that might support his claim that he’s innocent of the charges against him?”

 

“No, but there are still a number of questions that YOUR people haven’t answered to anybody’s satisfaction either,” she returned. “Now - about those toxicology results…”

 

“Doctor Green shows signs of having some pretty interesting drugs in his system,” Miller conceded. “Tell me, have you known him to take drugs recreationally…”

 

“NO!” Miss Parker snapped at him, and then took a deep breath. “Sydney is one of the most decent, circumspect men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, Detective – present company included.” She waited for his eyes to indicate that he recognized the side-handed insult, sipping at her coffee as she did. “What KIND of drugs did he have in his system?”

 

“Rohypnol – something most laymen know as the ‘date-rape’ drug…”

 

“That tends to cause amnesia, doesn’t it?” she asked pointedly.

 

“Yes,” Miller conceded again and took a long sip of his coffee as he thought about the fact. He hadn’t considered that side of things, but now that she mentioned it, the amnesia Green claimed now made a little more sense and was a whole lot more believable.

 

“What else?” she demanded when he didn’t elaborate.

 

“Viagra…”

 

“That’s not illegal,” she pointed out defensively. “Many men his age use that one.”

 

“Not generally mixed with a hint of Spanish Fly…”

 

Miss Parker stared at the detective as if shocked and appalled. “And you think that he would have done that to himself?”

 

Miller couldn’t meet her gaze. “No, I seriously doubt that he would have done that to himself. For one thing, my friend in the lab told me that the active ingredient in Spanish Fly is a very strong poison, even in very minute amounts. What’s more, the effects of Spanish Fly aren’t exactly the most pleasant under some circumstances – downright painful at times, in fact. But if we take into account that Doctor Green claims to have been in a bar before his memory took a hike – and that he had someone bump into him and spill his drink – then it’s not such a stretch to see how that could have been when the drugs were administered. This mystery man – or even the woman – could have dropped the dose into his drink in liquid form…”

 

“What does this do to the charges against my client?” Miss Parker asked steadily, secretly crossing her fingers.

 

Miller shook his head. “This makes for another interesting conundrum, but still not enough to warrant releasing him. There is still the matter of how his semen came to be both inside the victim and on the sheet under the blood…”

 

“Tell me, was this second victim sexually assaulted as well?”

 

Miss Parker watched with satisfaction as the detective began to squirm again just a bit. “There were signs of sexual activity, yes. But I haven’t had any preliminary reports from the coroner yet, so I couldn’t say if the sex was consensual or not. And either way, we’re not considering Doctor Green a suspect in this latest case – he was locked up in our jail at the time she was killed, so he COULDN’T have done that one. It doesn’t get him off the hook for the first girl, though – you understand, don’t you?”

 

Unfortunately, she could. “You can’t blame me for hoping…”

 

“No, not at all. If Doctor Green is as decent a person as you seem to think he is, and if he’s actually innocent of all this – although I’m not exactly sure how he could be – then I’d be wanting to help my friend too.” He gave her an appraising look. “It must be nice to have such talented friends working on his behalf.”

 

Miss Parker sipped at her coffee. “Thank you, Detective – and thank you for your time. I realize you must be very busy…”

 

“Thank you, Miss Parker. Do let me know if you happen to uncover anything else that you think might be of import.” Miller had no doubts whatsoever that the Centre was involved in its own investigation of the matter – and so getting his hands on any evidence they might manage to uncover would only make his job that much easier.

 

She rose and shook his hand with a firm and business-like grip, and then walked toward the parking lot, tossing her coffee cup and remaining coffee into a trash container at the curb.

 

oOoOo

 

Broots rubbed his eyes tiredly and stretched. He’d been staring at the computer screen – and hundreds of faces in the Delaware State register of Missing Persons – for the past four hours, and he was starting to go cross-eyed. Sam and Miss Parker were still somewhere between Blue Cove and Dover on whatever tasks they needed to take care of.

 

Nobody would mind if HE wandered down to the cafeteria and saw whether or not there were anymore jelly-filled rolls that were left from the morning rush.

 

The elevator ride up to the sublevel was in a car with several clerical workers, all chattering about the Big Meeting that Raines was going to be having later that day with representatives of the Triumvirate. Broots kept his own council, but kept his ears open, quietly delighting in the possibility that this visit would be discomfiting the new Chairman. After all, there was still no sign of Jarod anywhere, and now there was a two-pronged and still unproductive pursuit of the wily Pretender. As low on the corporate totem pole as he was, even Broots understood that the negative cash flow problems from the Pretender Project were bound to attract critical attention from those who controlled the Centre purse strings these days.

 

The cafeteria was less than crowded, and Broots sailed gamely up to the counter and grinned like a fiend when there were actually two of his favorite jelly donuts still available. He bought both – figuring that his chances of actually getting away from his computer terminal after he went back would be close to nil – and was carrying the little brown bag back toward the elevator when the silvered doors slid open, and the knowledge of who walked out of it dawned on him.

 

It must have been break-time for the Africans, for three of the colorfully festooned representatives of the Triumvirate disembarked chatting companionably in Swahili. But Broots’ eyes were glued to the man who got off the elevator with them – someone he hadn’t seen in a while: Mr. Cox.

 

He frowned. Hadn’t he heard that Lyle had been particularly irate over the ease with which Major Charles, Jarod’s father, had rescued Jarod’s girlfriend instead of letting her capture rein in the Pretender from foiling a pretty nefarious bombing scheme? He’d heard that Lyle had convinced his father, Mr. Parker, to fire Cox and send him on his way rather precipitously.

 

From the way Cox looked completely comfortable in the company of the Africans, it looked as though Lyle’s creepy former associate had found new friends in high places. Cox’s startling blue eyes touched very briefly on Broots, and the computer tech felt a shiver run the length of his spine at the tiny smile that flitted over the man’s lips before the whole group trouped into the cafeteria.

 

Hoo-boy! If all the rumors that had swirled back when were true, then when Lyle heard of his former associate’s triumphant return in the bosom of the Africans, the older Parker twin would be blowing a gasket! He’d have to call Miss Parker and let her know about the recent return of yet another Centre prodigal.

 

Then he’d have to figure out the best place for a safe box seat to watch the fireworks.

 

oOoOo

 

“Well?” Sam had been patient – getting the sedan back on the highway and heading toward Blue Cove – but his patience was running out.

 

Miss Parker’s gaze flicked up and into the face reflected in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry,” she said with an uncharacteristic lack of fire. “I’m not really with it this morning, I guess.” Her headache had yet to completely subside, and the news that morning hadn’t ended up being as good as she’d hoped.

 

“You OK?” the sweeper returned. He was starting to wonder – she looked a little pale.

 

“Fine,” she brushed aside the concern with a casual hand. “The cops have the toxicology report now – but it isn’t enough to spring Syd. And they aren’t even considering him for the second murder – or thinking that a second murder is reasonable doubt about his guilt in the first one. They’re hanging onto the fact that Syd’s semen was in the first victim…”

 

“Having sex isn’t a crime,” Sam grumbled, “killing your partner – THAT’S the crime.”

 

“The semen on the bed, under all that blood, is the other obstacle – it makes it appear that he DID kill his sex partner.”

 

“Damn it.”

 

“Tell me about it.” She sounded just as frustrated as she had the night before.

 

“So what was the deal about Elm Street?”

 

He watched as her gaze met his again very briefly and then dropped away to study the landscape flying by past her window. “I told you – I was playing a hunch.”

 

That may have flown before, but not this time. “C’mon, Miss P! It’s just the two of us here…”

 

“It isn’t important.” Again she brushed aside the question. “We need to focus on finding the woman that Sydney was with at the Land’s End that night. Any ideas?”

 

Sam coughed in embarrassment. “You mean, do I know where the brothels are in Blue Cove?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

 

“ARE there any houses of ill repute there?” she asked back in astonishment. “I didn’t think…”

 

“With that many unmarried men in the sweeper corps,” Sam pointed out self-consciously, “you gotta KNOW that somebody’s going to be making hay off of the excess testosterone.”

 

“And you know where this place is,” she stated dryly.

 

“It isn’t exactly a secret, Miss Parker,” he replied, studiously painting on a straight face and carefully keeping his eyes glued to the road.

 

“Then that’s where we’re going.”

 

He sighed. She was almost like herself again, but close association over a long period of time told him something was still off about her. He’d bide his time and try again later – it seemed she was warming to him again, letting him get just a little closer again as she had the previous day. She trusted him. He just needed to be patient.

 

oOoOo

 

Miller’s phone rang just as he was about to grab a fresh notebook and take off. “Yeah – Miller…”

 

“Dave.” Jim Carlton’s voice sounded confused. “We have a problem.”

 

Miller frowned. “What kind of problem?”

 

“There was semen in our second vic – and I ran the comparison DNA test. Rushed it a little, but even so, the test came back conclusive.”

 

“And…” Miller didn’t like the way the coroner was dragging this one out.

 

“Semen tests positive for the suspect you have in custody. And this time, Dave, it WAS rape.”

 

The homicide detective sat back down hard in his chair. “That’s impossible. Doctor Green was in lockup – he COULDN’T be the one who raped her.”

 

“Tell that to the test tubes,” Carlton sounded sympathetic. “I thought you’d like to know.”

 

“Gee, thanks,” Miller replied in deep frustration and hung up the phone. ANOTHER contradiction in a case absolutely filled to overflowing with them. It was a physical impossibility for Green to have deposited a fresh semen sample within a second murder victim. He ran his hand over his face – just as the forensics proved that the report of screams supposedly from the fatal attack in that motel room must have been false. Damn!

 

The phone rang again, and he picked it up automatically. “Listen, Jim, I’m sorry I hung up on you…”

 

“Get paper and pencil and take notes,” a strange voice answered in his ear, “because I’m only going to tell you this once.”

 

“Who is this, and what is this about?” Miller demanded, reaching for paper and pencil anyway.

 

“Bangkok, Thailand, 1985, Sujee Kamlinsuan and Bang Ngotuptee. New York, 1986, Ling Chao. Boston, 1988, Ping Su-Yang and Choi Xian-Fu. San Francisco, 1990, Cherry Lee and Yung Mei-Fang…”

 

“What the…” Miller’s pencil struggled to keep up with the list of dates, places and names that the man on the other end was slowly and patiently detailing. The man didn’t pause until there were fifteen lines of cryptic information. “Listen – if you don’t tell me…”

 

“And now you can add Dover, 2004, Joy Chang,” the man interrupted him. “Look to Blue Cove – and a man who now calls himself Lyle Parker.” At that, there was a click on the other end of the line – and Miller knew that his informant, if that was what he was, had hung up.

 

“What the Hell was THAT all about?” Miller grumbled to himself, looking at the list that made no sense. He shook his head and rose. It was a half-hour drive to Blue Cove, and he wanted to verify Miss Parker’s assertion that the bartender there confirmed Doctor Green’s story up to the point that he left the bar. He carried the paper with the scribbled list over to Officer Cherry Ryan – a new recruit to the force who had been given desk duty for the time being. “Do me a favor,” he smiled down at the red-head. “Check this out and see what you can make of it.”

 

The blue eyes widened excitedly. “Something to do with your murder investigation?” she asked expectantly.

 

“Could be – I’m not sure,” he replied truthfully. Let me know if you find anything to this.”

 

“Will do,” she promised and turned immediately to her computer terminal to begin typing. Miller walked toward the door of the squad room feeling distinctly torn – that he had two equally important lines of investigation to follow, and was having to ignore one to accomplish the other. He didn’t like that feeling one little bit.

 

oOoOo

 

“You’re kidding!” Miss Parker gasped in surprise. “Did you know that Broots lives just two blocks up…”

 

“This is the place, Miss Parker,” Sam insisted, putting the sedan in Park and turning off the ignition. “I’m not kidding.”

 

“Damn!” She was still shaking her head as she climbed from the car and waited for Sam to join her in walking up the sidewalk toward the unassuming tract house. The drapes were drawn at the front window, and there was a general lack of anything that seemed to imply homemaking or family life at the front of the house at all. Miss Parker pressed on the doorbell firmly.

 

“Yes?” a rather sharply dressed middle-aged woman answered the summons. “What can I do for you?”

 

“Hi, Susan,” Sam stated from over Miss Parker’s shoulder, calling the woman’s eyes up to meet his.

 

“Sam,” she acknowledged curtly. “Can I help you?”

 

“We’re looking for a girl who may have been with a friend of ours at the Land’s End a couple of nights ago,” Sam told the woman, sensing that Miss Parker was more than happy to let him take the lead. “Clyde pegged her as a working girl – and I was thinking maybe she worked for you. Short, petite, red-head…”

 

“Oh yeah, you mean Mary,” Susan nodded and turned toward the inside of the dwelling. “Hey, Mare – a couple of folks here to talk to you.” The woman held the door just open enough that very little of what was going on inside could be seen – but the hum of voices and activity was easily heard. After a long moment, the door opened just enough more that a slender young woman dressed in a t-shirt and hip-hugger jeans could slip through – after which the door closed firmly.

 

“Yeah?” The green eyes met Miss Parker’s gaze and held it brazenly. “What this about?”

 

“Were you at the Land’s End two nights ago?” Miss Parker asked her with no inflection to her voice at all.

 

“What’s it to you?”

 

“Look,” Sam interrupted, extending a hand with a twenty-dollar bill in it. “We’re not here to make trouble. We just need to know if you were there, and if you were with a friend of ours that night.”

 

Mary took the twenty and stuffed it in one of her jeans pockets, and visibly relaxed. “Yeah, I was there that night. That was a damned weird job, if you ask me…”

 

“Oh?” Miss Parker’s eyebrows had risen precipitously. “How so?”

 

“This guy nails me as I’m getting ready to walk in – hands me a hundred bucks and points out this old dude at the bar. The guy tells me to make nice with the old dude – to get him a little hot and bothered and then take care of business, if you know what I mean…”

 

“Go on,” Sam urged, sensing Miss Parker’s discomfort at the story.

 

“So I go sit by the guy and eventually get him talking. Neat accent, very polite, even if well on his way to getting thoroughly pasted…”

 

“You said this was weird,” Sam reminded her. “What was weird?”

 

“Well, about a half hour into my spiel with the old fart, the same guy who hired me comes over and just bumps the Hell into the old guy, making him spill his drink all over his shirt. But, you see,” she leaned forward confidentially, “I saw him dump something into the rest of the guy’s drink.” She backed off again. “The guy apologized and took off again.”

 

“What happened then?” This time it was Miss Parker urging the story along.

 

“Well, the old fart began to warm up to me at last, if you know what I mean. Finally I had him so hot that I figured I’d best get on with it – so I talked him into going out into the alley with me. And I did him out there.”

 

“You had sex with him,” Sam confirmed, being careful not to look at Miss Parker.

 

“And how! The Energizer Bunny had nothing on that guy, lemme tell you! It ain’t often that an old fart like that can do much more than just huff and puff and get nowhere – but this guy had staying power. He even got me off good before he blew his load… But then…”

 

“What happened after you had sex with him?” Miss Parker steered the story away from the sex – or tried to. She was feeling like she was prying into the sex life of a parent – and it bothered her a LOT.

 

“You know, it must have been whatever that guy dumped in his drink – but the old fart was still hard as a rock and really glassy-eyed by that time – still pumping away even though he should have been finished and limp as a noodle. Then, about the time I finished and was ready to move on with life, ya know?… The guy who paid me came around again, pulled the old fart off me, tucked him back into his pants, zipped him up and just kinda… walked off with him.” Mary shrugged. “I didn’t see him again.”

 

“The old guy just walked off with the guy who paid you – no discussion, no argument?”

 

“The old guy was out of it, I tell you. I don’t think he was seeing or hearing much of anything by that time. Face it, not too many men in charge of their wits will let another guy just pull ‘em off of a woman and tuck their dongs back into their pants for them…”

 

“And this guy that paid you – the one that just took off with the old man – what did he look like?” Sam asked, the beginnings of excitement playing at the edge of his expression.

 

Mary shook her head. “I didn’t really get a good look at the guy, you know – he was wearing this baseball cap down over his eyes, and looking down a lot.”

 

“T-shirt, jeans, business suit – what was he wearing?” Sam insisted.

 

“Polo shirt, actually,” Mary remembered after thinking about it for a while, “and dress slacks. Wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Land’s End except for that stupid cap.”

 

“You’ll need to tell this story again,” Miss Parker told the girl frankly, “to the Dover police.”

 

“Hey! I thought you said you weren’t here to make trouble,” Mary accused Sam bitterly.

 

“We’re not. But that ‘old fart’ you took care of in the alley has been accused of murdering a girl later that night…”

 

“No way,” Mary shook her head vigorously. “I’m telling you - he was so out of it by the time the other guy took him away that I doubt he could have hurt a fly. To be honest, I don’t know what was keeping him on his feet, at that point. He was cruisin’ towards a major crash, I swear. If he wasn’t unconscious within the hour, I’m a damned virgin.”

 

“Here.” Sam handed the petite woman a fifty-dollar bill now. “Tell Susan I’ve paid for your time to talk to the cops – half is yours, half is hers.”

 

“That’ll smooth things a bit,” Mary conceded, folding the bill in her hand. “Say! Is the old guy OK?”

 

“He’s fine,” Miss Parker answered abruptly. “Thank you for your time.”

 

“Don’t mention it – I mean that…” Mary answered as she reached for the doorknob. “And hey? Tell the old guy that I’m… I’m sorry?” Sam nodded mutely, and she backed through the door again and disappeared.

 

“Now what?” Sam asked as soon as they were alone again.

 

“Back to Dover,” Miss Parker told him firmly. “At least I can set Syd’s mind to ease on one score. He thinks the girl that ended up dead was the one he had sex with – at least I can disabuse him of that one.” She turned to walk back to the car, pulling her cell phone from her pocket to report her discovery to Detective Miller so that he could come along and get this testimony officially.

 

Sam hung back, glancing over his shoulder at the house and reviewing the story he’d just heard. “I’ll be damned,” he murmured to himself as he broke from his reverie to head back to the car a few paces behind Miss Parker. “I’ll be damned!”

 

oOoOo

 

“Naw, man, Sydney looked pretty well bombed when he walked out the door with the girl,” Clyde the bartender shook his head. “Like I told Miss Parker and her escort, I think the old fellow was about to get VERY lucky.”

 

Miller’s phone chose that moment to start ringing. “I need to take this,” he mumbled apologetically to the bartender and turned away slightly as he put the device to his ear. “Yeah – Miller…”

 

“Detective Miller,” Miss Parker’s smooth tones rippled into his ear. “I’m just calling to let you know we have found the woman who was with Sydney at the bar the other night.”

 

“Really?” Miller was impressed – and suspicious that the girl must have some fairly exculpatory testimony for the lawyer to be calling him on the cell phone instead of leaving a message at headquarters for him. “Can you give me an address – I’m here in Blue Cove already…”

 

Miss Parker obliged with the address and name to ask for and then informed him that she was on her way back to Dover to give the news to her client. Miller nodded, not surprised in the least. He folded his phone up again and put it back in his pocket to return to his questioning of the bartender. “Have you seen this woman since then?”

 

“Nope,” Clyde shook his head. “I think she’s new to the area. But from the way she acted, I’d say she was probably a working girl – if you know what I mean…”

 

Miller nodded understandingly. “Well, if you happen to think of anything else…” He was just beginning, his business card in hand, when his cell phone rang again.

 

“I’ll call you,” Clyde agreed and took the card from the detective’s fingers, smiling as the policeman gave an apologetic look and pulled the cell phone from his pocket again. “Yeah – Miller…”

 

“You’re not going to believe what that list you gave me was about,” the excited voice of Officer Ryan began without any preamble whatsoever. “Each one was a place, year and the name of an unsolved murder or two involving a woman raped, throat slashed and some part of the body removed. And in each case, the same man was questioned and often suspected for a while as being the murderer until, for some reason, he was dropped as a suspect – no reason given.”

 

“In each case, the same guy?” Miller was appalled. The first date the nameless voice had given him was nearly twenty years earlier. Was he on the trail of a serial killer who had been in business for almost two decades? “Who was it?”

 

“I checked the news photos of suspects, and I looked into the name you were given last. The guy is a major player at that Centre place there in Blue Cove – he used to be called Mr. Lyle – now he goes by Lyle Parker.”

 

Miller wrote the name down on his notepad. “Thanks, Ryan. I owe you one.”

 

“Don’t worry, Detective,” she chuckled at him. “I’ll be collecting, believe me.”

 

Miller tucked his cell phone away thoughtfully. He’d go talk to the girl Miss Parker had told him about, and then maybe he’d have a talk with this Lyle Parker fellow – and see what HE knew.”

Chapter 7 – A Hall of Mirrors

 

Miss Parker sat quietly at the table in the interview room, waiting for Sydney to be brought out from his cell and trying to figure out the best way to tell him what she’d found out. How much more embarrassing could it get to tell him that not only had he had sex with that prostitute, but that he’d been so out of it that he’d allowed another man to come along, make him decent again and then lead him off to end up naked in a bed soaked in blood?

 

The door opened, and she raised her eyes to greet her colleague, noticing with some satisfaction that he must have requested the wherewithal to shave away his quiet rebellion against his current circumstances. He slid into place at the table with a touch of the escorting officer’s hand, and she nodded to tell the officer that she wanted to be alone with him. “You look much more presentable now,” she commented gently as the door took its time swinging shut.

 

“I decided to take your advice,” he answered her. “Anything new?”

 

“Well, the good news is that you’re not a suspect in the second murder,” she began with a wry tone, “the not so great news is that another murder isn’t going to be enough to get you out of here.”

 

“I’m not surprised,” Sydney replied with a heavy sigh.

 

“But I do have something for you,” she added, shifting in her chair. “We found her, Syd – the woman in the bar.”

 

The chestnut eyes flew up to meet hers. “You found her – alive?”

 

“Alive and willing to talk,” she nodded reassuringly. “She was able to add a bit to your story – confirmed everything that you’d told us so far.”

 

“And I had sex with her?” The question was asked in a very soft voice.

 

“Yes,” she replied gently. She could tell from his suddenly closed eyes and intake of air that the news wasn’t welcome. “But evidently you pretty were well out of it by that time. The man who hired her to… um… get your attention was the one who slipped something into your drink after bumping into you – and she claims that he was the same guy who dusted you off after your… encounter… outside and walked away with you in tow.”

 

“But I didn’t hurt her? She’s OK”

 

“No, Sydney – and she said that you were in no state to hurt anybody the last time she saw you.” She gave him a small smile, trying to reassure him. “She told me to tell you that she was sorry.”

 

Sydney seemed to crumple a little, and he leaned forward with his face into his hands. The one thing he’d feared most was that he’d done that pretty young woman harm – either in taking her so roughly in the alley or afterwards, when he couldn’t remember anything.

 

Parker leaned toward him, putting a comforting hand on his arm. “Listen to me, Sydney. She said she SAW the guy with the baseball hat put something in your drink. And this was the same guy that hired her to seduce you in the first place – and the one who collected you when you were finished.” She tightened her grasp. “He’s probably the one who brought you from Blue Cove to Dover and dumped you off at that motel room…”

 

“That still doesn’t explain how my…” Sydney choked, “…that semen stain got on the bed under all that blood…”

 

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed gently, “but it gives us something to work with. That little prostitute swore that you were on the verge of collapse – not running on your own steam at all. Obviously you’d have been in no shape to have sex with another woman… at least…” she halted. Mary had told of Sydney’s unusual prowess and lasting power – could he have…?

 

He heard her hesitation and looked up again. “At least…” he prompted.

 

“You were evidently quite… um… energetic… and didn’t exactly…” she managed with a blush. “Oh God, Syd, this has got to be embarrassing for you…”

 

“It doesn’t look like you’re enjoying it very much either, Parker,” he replied, a deep flush creeping up his neck from under his collar. “Might as well spit it out and have it over with.”

 

“You were still… um… hard… um… when the man tucked you back into your pants and walked you off.” She could hardly meet his gaze.

 

Sydney nearly choked in shame. “So I could have done something to another woman – even if I can’t remember that any more than I can remember what I did with…” He sighed again and brushed a very embarrassed glance off of her face. “Well, I guess we know what I’m going to be having nightmares about tonight…”

 

“It still doesn’t make any sense, Sydney,” she stated, glad that she still had her hand on his arm. “I don’t think you did anything wrong – I think, if anything, you were under the influence of all that booze and the drugs in your system. The Viagra and Spanish Fly could easily account for your stamina and enthusiasm. The rohypnol and alcohol could account for your passivity and extreme suggestibility.” He still looked utterly miserable, and she shook the arm she held. “I KNOW you, Syd. You wouldn’t have done this. YOU didn’t do anything - it was the drugs.”

 

“I could have stayed home and drunk myself into a stupor there, Parker,” he accused himself bitterly. “I just didn’t want to walk into the house and have to walk past a picture of Jarod knowing…” He halted guiltily. She didn’t know – she wasn’t supposed to know – what Raines’ plans had been. Damn! He’d just put her in worse danger…

 

“Knowing what, Sydney?” She straightened, pulling her hand back. “What was it that made you so upset?”

 

The chestnut eyes met hers with a defeated expression in them. “You don’t want to know, Parker. Forget I said anything…”

 

She tipped her head and looked for a moment as if she were going to insist, but then slowly she nodded and then rose. “Tell you what. I’ll let it go – for now. But I’m not going to forget it, and you know it. Once this is all over, I’m gonna want to know what went on during that long meeting with Raines that left you with a driving urge to drink yourself into a stupor.” Feeling embarrassed for what she’d put him through as well as more than a little protective now, she moved around the end of the table and bent over him to drop a kiss on his cheek. “Hang in there, Freud, and try not to be too hard on yourself. I’ll let you know what news I get from Broots and Jarod tonight when I see you in the morning.”

 

Sydney nodded. There was little else he could do, after all.

 

oOoOo

 

Her cell phone rang just as she got back to the car. She plunked herself in the seat behind Sam and tapped him on the shoulder to get him to go ahead and begin the trek back to Blue Cove, and then she pulled her cell phone out. “What?”

 

“Miss Parker,” Jarod’s voice sounded in her ear. “I got your message.”

 

“Good. It’s been a long and trying day. I’m hoping you’ve made some sense of everything we sent to you and can now explain it all to me,” she sighed at him. “I really need to get Sydney out of there…”

 

“I wish I could say I understood everything, Parker, but I don’t – not really – and I don’t have any more insights for you now than I gave you already,” he replied tiredly. “The evidence is SO contradictory – I’m convinced we’re dealing with someone who is deliberately trying to make understanding as difficult as possible, although I can’t prove it yet. I can’t get a clear idea of who would do such a thing, or why. The way Sydney was left to wake up in that motel room was downright cruel…”

 

“It’s getting hard to keep him hopeful,” she replied, closing her eyes tiredly. It had been a very long and tiring day. “He was so worried about having hurt that girl, and he was mortified to think that she might have been a prostitute…”

 

“Well, when you find her…”

 

“We did,” she leaned over to look out the window. “We found her – she’s a prostitute in Blue Cove. She’s fine – and confirmed everything Syd told us and then added a little to the story herself. Evidently she was hired to seduce him – and saw the drugs be slipped into his drink. And then, after she and Sydney… well… the same man who hired her took charge of Sydney and walked him off.”

 

“That’s interesting,” Jarod replied, taking notes. “I’ll bet that’s the one who ended up taking him to that motel room…”

 

“No shit, lab rat. AND there’s been another murder.”

 

“What?” That shocked the Pretender. “Where? Who?”

 

“The detective I spoke to was being very close-lipped about the whole thing – except to tell me that Sydney wasn’t a suspect…”

 

“No shit.”

 

“Yeah, really.” She could feel his frustration, even over the telephone. “But he also said that this murder wasn’t enough to release him either – there’s still the question of the forensics that tie Syd to the first dead woman.”

 

“Damn.” He was quiet for a long moment. “I just don’t get it, Parker. There’s a huge element of pay-back in this, I swear. There’s also…” Jarod’s voice died away for another moment while he reshuffled facts in his head. “I think the contradictory evidence is meant to keep us all from figuring out exactly what’s REALLY going on for as long as possible.” His voice dropped ominously. “Which means that we probably haven’t seen the last of it.”

 

“Wonderful.” Miss Parker’s voice showed that she was no more enthusiastic about that idea than he was. “Keep in touch, will you? Don’t wait for me to have Broots email you to call me…”

 

“Be careful what you wish for, Miss Parker,” Jarod’s voice replied with an amused tone.

 

“Within reason,” she quickly added. “Two in the morning wake-up calls still won’t be appreciated much.”

 

“Aw… Party-pooper…” Jarod’s chuckle helped sooth the irritation his comment had caused. “Within reason, Miss Parker,” he said and disconnected.

 

Sam looked up into the mirror when he heard her snap her cell phone shut. “Well, did he have anything to add to the mystery?”

 

“Just a hunch that there’s something personal in the way things are happening,” she replied tiredly. “Let’s get back to the barn and see what Broots has for us and then call it quits for the day.” She focused her gaze out the window again. “Sydney’s arraignment is day after tomorrow. I’m just hoping that something breaks between now and then, so that we don’t have to get to that point.”

 

oOoOo

 

Miller watched the slender form of the young prostitute trot up the sidewalk and through the doors of the house, and then put his car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

 

No wonder Miss Parker had been so elated to tell him about her. She not only confirmed what Green had told him – elements of which had already been independently confirmed by Clyde, the bartender at the Land’s End – but she’d witnessed the tampering with Doctor Green’s drink and also witnessed someone literally taking custody of him and leaving with him.

 

He’d given the girl twenty dollars and driven her to a local café, where she had sat across the table from him and repeated her story into a tape recorder, then signed a paper attesting to the truthfulness of her statement. Actually, for a working girl, she’d been personable and had a good sense of humor. Miss Parker must have prepared her for his visit too – something for which he’d have to thank the Centre lawyer one of these days, when he had the chance – for she was remarkably cooperative.

 

This case just wasn’t coming together properly, he thought to himself. If it weren’t for the forensics that tied Green to the first murder victim, he’d be agitating for Green’s release himself. As it was, the case was just convoluted enough that the proverb of ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ seemed to be a wise choice. Keeping Green another day or two, seeing if any more exculpatory evidence turned up, wouldn’t be such an unwise thing to do. However, it wouldn’t take much more to convince him of the older man’s complete innocence – no matter what the forensics. Frankly, on that score, he was starting to get the impression that he and the rest of the police department were having their chains yanked by someone who knew exactly how to do such things. There was NO way Green had had any opportunity to do anything to the second victim – and yet the forensics tied him just as tightly to that body as to the first.

 

He twisted his wrist to check his watch for the time and then pulled out his cell phone and dialed into the office. “Hey, Ryan – it’s Miller.”

 

“Ready to buy me coffee for my trouble?” she bubbled back at him with a chuckle.

 

“Maybe when I get back,” he promised. “In the meanwhile, I need you to get me an address in Blue Cove for a Lyle Parker…”

 

“Ah-hah! You’re going to go talk to him after all?”

 

He’d have shushed at her, but he could hear her fingers working the computer keyboard. “Considering everything, I figure it couldn’t hurt…”

 

“Are you going to want backup?” she asked quietly. “I mean – if this Parker person is as dangerous as this list implies that he is…”

 

“What are you doing, volunteering?”

 

“Well…”

 

“Bucking for experience in the field?” he guessed. In her place and circumstances, he might well be doing much the same. Taking advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves was an important facet of police work, after all…

 

“I can be there in a little over half an hour,” she informed him. “And I know the Captain would really prefer you not do ALL your interviews single-handedly. Detectives are supposed to work with partners, aren’t they?”

 

“Yeah,” Miller sighed. His own partner, Griswald, had only been dead a week and a half – and this case had been assigned to him the very day after he’d returned from a week’s leave, before the watch commander had found him a replacement. He didn’t want to think about that – anything but that. “OK, Ryan. I’ll wait for you at the Land’s End Tavern here in Blue Cove – and we’ll visit this Lyle Parker together. Clear it with the watch commander first, though – I don’t want my ass in a wringer for this…”

 

“Will do,” Ryan agreed brightly. “If there’s a problem in my joining you, I’ll call back. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few.” She disconnected so that she could go looking for the permission she needed to go on the interview.

 

Miller sighed. He now had a half hour to kill. He thought about it for a bit, then leaned back in his seat and dialed his cell phone again. “Hi,” he said when the soft voice of his wife came on the other end of the line after three rings. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m running a bit late – but I have to wait around a while before I can finish up this one interview, so I thought that I’d give you a call and see how YOUR day has been…”

 

“But you’re on duty,” Rita began cautiously. “You don’t want to get in trouble, Dave…”

 

“Technically you’re right. But considering the day I’ve had, I’ve earned a little flexibility with the rules. Especially since I’m going to be running late after all.” He smiled. She was a good cop’s wife. He’d have to see about some flowers or something on the way home tonight to show her how much he appreciated her.

 

oOoOo

 

“Nothing?”

 

Broots looked up at his boss apologetically. “Absolute bupkis, Miss Parker. I swear I’m so tired of looking at the faces of missing women, I’m almost cross-eyed.” He glanced over at the sweeper standing against the wall. “So, did you two have any better luck?”

 

“We found the woman Syd was with at the tavern – she confirms his story and confirms our suspicion that he was drugged in the bar. She also told about the strange man who hired her to seduce Sydney, then did the drugging, and then kidnapped Sydney after the drugs had taken hold.” Miss Parker threw her head back and ran her fingers through her hair. “Listen – I’m going to go to my office for a while to take some Tylenol and see if I can get some of this clear in my head.”

 

“Are you going to be needing me anymore tonight, Miss Parker?” Broots inquired with a not of anxiety. “Debbie has a school program that I’d really like to make…”

 

“Sure, go on.” She waved her technician friend on. “Tell her I said good luck.”

 

“Oh! Before I go, you just GOT to know the latest! You’ll never guess who I saw walking the halls with the representatives of the Triumvirate,” Broots smiled while pulling his jacket on. “Cox!”

 

Miss Parker stared at him. “You’re kidding! I thought he got fired.”

 

“So did I,” Broots shrugged. “But it looks like he got an in with the Africans – who are here for some big meeting with Mr. Raines. Ya just wonder…”

 

“Lyle will love that,” Sam commented dryly with a smile growing on his face. “Sweeper scuttlebutt has it that Lyle threw a fit and damned near killed the man after the fiasco with Jarod’s girlfriend…”

 

“I hear he talked old man Par… er…” Broots swallowed hard as he turned to Miss Parker, “I mean… Mr. Parker…”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” she shook her head. “I’ve thought worse myself.”

 

“Does Lyle know?” Sam wanted to know.

 

Broots shook his head. “I can’t be sure. I haven’t seen him all day.” He looked away from his companions. “And that’s just fine with me, if it’s all the same…”

 

“Maybe he didn’t sleep so well last night,” Miss Parker muttered to herself, catching Sam’s ear and then a forthright gaze.

 

“You didn’t.” the sweeper scowled at her.

 

“I did,” she replied defiantly, raising her chin and facing him down.

 

“Shit,” Sam rubbed his mouth and chin with his hand in frustration. “I swear…”

 

“We’ll just have to see what happens when Mr. Raines hears about this,” Miss Parker yawned. “I’m in my office, Sam – why don’t you see if you can get any scuttlebutt down in the locker room, why don’t you?” She waved at Broots again. “Don’t forget Debbie and your time, Scooby,” she urged her technician to remember his personal calling for the evening.

 

“Oh. Yeah. See you in the morning, then.” Broots stated, and then the three left the office cubicle in three separate and disparate directions.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker walked all the way through her office and into her private restroom, straight to the medicine cabinet and the bottle of Tylenol she kept there just for occasions like this. She filled the water glass and tossed three of the pills down, then drained the glass as she realized that if she were wise, she wouldn’t be heading for the Absolut that evening when she got home. Just as well, she decided – she hadn’t had a lot more to eat during the past day than she’d had the day before, and she didn’t want to be falling asleep in her food again two nights in a row.

 

She filled the water glass again and carried it with her back into her office and seated herself at her desk, turning in her chair to stare out the window. She frowned at herself as she stared out across the broad expanse of green grass that surrounded the entire Centre complex – what did she think that she was going to be able to figure out that had as yet eluded Jarod? Nothing made sense, that was for sure. And she was fairly certain that the detective had left out some details about the second murder – maybe something important.

 

This wasn’t helping. She sighed and turned back to her desk, took up the water glass and drained half of it again before setting it down carefully to the side of her blotter so as not to get any moisture on the file folder that was waiting for her there. Maybe it would help if she could get her mind off of the case altogether, she decided, and rose from her office chair and walked over to switch on the small television and tune in a local news broadcast.

 

The newscaster sat behind their desk and in front of a computer-generated graphic that said “murder” in huge, red letters. “And in other news,” the pretty blonde was saying, “Dover police are asking the public for their help in the brutal slaying of university coed Joy Chang during the early hours of this morning. Miss Chang’s partially nude body was found at four o’clock today in Elm Street Park, and police representatives say that she died of knife wounds after being raped and bound…”

 

“I’ll be damned,” Miss Parker whispered to herself, faltering back a couple of steps. Another Asian woman? And Lyle had been missing from the Centre all day? It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to figure out what he must have been up to. She stumbled back to her desk and pulled her cell phone – with Detective Miller’s number stored in it – from her jacket pocket and dialed.

 

“Yeah – Miller…” came the answer on the other end of the line.

 

“Detective. This is Miss Parker…”

 

“Yes, Miss Parker,” Miller replied with a scowl at Officer Ryan. “I would love to speak to you, but now just isn’t the time…” He looked at the front door to the apartment complex in which Lyle made his home wistfully. “Can I call you back later?”

 

“No,” she insisted. “This second murder – Joy Chang – tell me, Detective, was there something… missing… from the body?”

 

Miller stopped short as if struck. “What the Hell are you talking about, Miss Parker?”

 

“Was her throat slashed?”

 

The detective had a hand on Officer Ryan’s arm, preventing her from climbing out of the car. “What if I said that you’re correct?” he hedged.

 

He heard an incredibly long and deep sigh on the other end of the line. “Then I may have a lead for you. My… brother… has been a suspect in a number of similar cases in the past. He’s always been released for some reason – sometimes for lack of substantiating evidence, sometimes because the Centre has very strong strings – but I have reason to believe that he wasn’t entirely blameless…”

 

Miller frowned. The pretty Centre lawyer was trying to tell him something without coming right out and saying it. “As a matter of fact,” he told her honestly, “the name ‘Lyle Parker’ has already been brought to my attention in regard to this case…”

 

“Really?” Miss Parker sounded very surprised. “Have you considered that the fact that the first victim was also missing… certain parts and pieces… might indicate that Lyle was more involved in THAT case than you might have thought?”

 

“The thought had occurred,” Miller admitted. “Listen, I’m just about to go upstairs and have a preliminary interview with Lyle Parker.”

 

“Lyle is a dangerous man, Detective,” Miss Parker almost hissed into the receiver. “You aren’t going in alone, are you?”

 

“No,” he answered, glancing at the rookie at his side. “Not exactly, anyway.” He knew he was supposed to wait for the Blue Cove PD unit to arrive before heading into the building, but he’d been on the verge of ignoring protocol just to get the interview over with.

 

“Look, you don’t want to know why I’m telling you this – but if you can make some excuse to take a peek in his refrigerator, you might find something of interest there.”

 

“Are you telling me that you KNOW, for a fact…” he demanded.

 

“No, Detective,” she answered patiently. “I’m telling you that I have my reasons for suspicion – and that one way to know whether I’m blowing it out my ass or actually onto something would be to get a peek in his fridge. And for God’s sake, have good backup with you.”

 

“You realize that if this pans out, you and I are going to have to have a VERY long talk, don’t you?” he warned her.

 

“If this pans out, you and I can have as long a talk as you want, AFTER you release my client,” she retorted earnestly.

 

“I’ll get back to you,” Miller promised and then disconnected. He glanced over at Ryan. “Be on your guard,” he warned her.

 

“You expecting problems?” she asked anxiously.

 

“Maybe,” he muttered as much to himself as in answer to her. “I sure hope not… Still, I think we’ll wait for the Blue Cove PD…”

 

“OK…” Ryan said, curious about the abrupt change of heart in the detective but unsure of whether or not it would be wise to say very much at the moment.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker hung up the telephone with a sigh of relief. Perhaps NOW Sydney would be released from his nightmare, she told herself with the strength of strong wishful thinking. This has GOT to be Lyle’s work – that damned son of a bitch…

 

Idly she opened the file folder that was sitting in the middle of her blotter. There were very few pages within, but a quick glance at the top of them confirmed that they were all concerning a Centre project known as ‘Fountain of Youth’. Considering that everything in the prospectus page dealt with pharmacology, she was surprised to find it in her office. There must be something pertaining to Security concerns here, she told herself and moved past the prospectus to the next page.

 

‘Fountain of Youth’ was an audacious project involving research into the recuperative powers of the very young. There had already evidently been about a year’s worth of research using newborn rats and very young rhesus monkeys. The next page was a statement by the researcher as to the readiness of the project to progress to human experimentation. Miss Parker just shook her head. Where in the world were they going to get ANY parent willing to subject their child to the kind of experimentation that the researching was suggesting…

 

Oh. My God…

 

The third document not only took her breath away, but turned her stomach. The researcher had evidently presented another proposal – one for which authorization to use the one child already present at the Centre was being granted. The first experiment to be carried out, scheduled to begin that very evening, involved giving the child in question a mild poison and then monitor the boy’s vital signs as the body attempted to deal with an overcome the poisoning…

 

Miss Parker dropped the documents on her desk and bolted from her chair. In her haste to reach the elevator, she pushed and shoved her way through a small knot of clerical workers on their way out of the Centre at the end of their workdays – and as the elevator doors slid closed between her and them, she could hear their complaints. She paced back and forth in the tiny space as the elevator descended into the bowels of the Centre – down to the level that held the Renewal Wing AND the nursery where her little brother was housed… She had her cell phone in hand, and barely waited for the voice on the other end of the line to answer before she was demanding, “SAM! Get your ass down here to my brother’s nursery, NOW! Raines has gone mad – he’s going to let somebody…”

 

The elevator door slid open, and she left her statement unfinished as she ran from the elevator and down the corridor toward the locked doors behind which was the nursery. She shoved the phone in her pocket and with trembling fingers typed in the access code to the facility. The moment the lock mechanism clicked, she was through the double doors.

 

As she pushed through the filmy and billowing curtains that hid the cinderblock walls from the child, she saw a white-garbed man bending over her little brother’s bed with a spoon in hand, urging the child to take the cough medicine. “Get the Hell away from him!” she yelled at the top of her voice and made a last, mad dash. Her momentum pushed the white-coated man almost off his feet and several feet from the bed, and the liquid in the spoon spilled all over her little brother’s white T-shirt.

 

“Sissy?” the little tot looked up into the face of the big sister he didn’t get to see half as often as he’d like to. “What da matter?” he asked with a slight cough.

 

“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” the white-garbed man demanded back. “I’ll have you know that…”

 

He gulped. Miss Parker had pulled her Smith and Wesson from at her back and was pointing it right at the middle of his forehead. “You keep your distance, you fiend!” she hissed lethally, reaching down to her little brother and hugging him tightly even while keeping a cautious eye on his attacker. “You OK, Charlie?”

 

“Me fine, Sissy,” the little boy responded, very taken aback by his sister’s actions. “You got a gun?”

 

“Tell Mr. Raines that I need him down in the nursery right away,” the white-coated man was demanding into a wall-mounted telephone. “You have no idea what you’re doing,” he shook his head at the woman with the gun.

 

“I’m protecting my brother from your schemes,” Miss Parker hissed back, and then looked up in relief when Sam came charging through the billowing curtains. “Sam!” she cried. “Cover this man and keep him away from Charlie!”

 

“What’s this about?” her sweeper demanded, pulling his own gun on the medical worker and motioning for the man to move away from Miss Parker even further.

 

Miss Parker put her gun away and swept her little brother up into her arms. “He was trying to poison him,” she exclaimed angrily. “It’s all a big experiment in the recuperative powers of the young…”

 

“What are you talking about?” Mr. Raines pushed through the curtains, Willy close behind him in charge of the ever-present oxygen tank.

 

“You know damned well what I’m talking about,” Miss Parker whirled on the skeletal Chairman. “You were going to let that… that fiend… experiment on Charlie…”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Miss Parker,” Raines wheezed painfully, struggling to catch his breath from his short exertion.

 

Miss Parker put her brother back down on his bed. “You stay here, Charlie,” she told him softly and gently, then whirled again with her gun in hand. “Sam, go up to my office and bring me back the file folder on my desk. It tells the whole story.”

 

Sam checked to see that Miss Parker had the white-coated man covered and then walked very briskly for where he knew the door was.

 

“I can’t have you racing through the Centre, knocking people over and waving guns in the faces of decent medical help,” Raines wheezed accusingly at her. “And for what? An accusation regarding something that I’d never allow…”

 

Miss Parker didn’t pay any attention to Mr. Raines, but rounded on the medical worker with her gun menacingly in his face. “Just what was in that spoon you were trying to feed my little brother?” she demanded in a very soft, low and dangerous tone.

 

“Cough syrup, I swear,” the man insisted with wide eyes.

 

“Bullshit!” she spat.

 

“Miss Parker, please,” Raines chided breathlessly. “There are children present!”

 

Sam chose that moment to push through the curtains. Miss Parker extended her hand to him. “Hand it over, Sam,” she said triumphantly.

 

“Miss Parker,” the sweeper began apologetically.

 

“Give me the folder, Sam,” she turned on him demandingly.

 

Sam shook his head sadly. “There wasn’t a folder on your desk, Miss Parker. I looked all over – on the floor – but nothing.”

 

She stared at him. “There HAS to be a folder,” she told him with brows furled. “I saw it – held its contents in my hand, a project named ‘Fountain of Youth’.”

 

“There is no such project,” Raines sneered at her.

 

“You were going to poison Charlie,” she turned accusingly to the white-coated man.

 

“If I were, do you think I’d be willing to do this?” the man retorted and promptly shoved the spoon he’d been about to administer to the child into his own mouth.

 

Miss Parker’s jaw dropped, and Sam frowned. She’d been so sure – about the contents of the spoon evidently, and about the file. She didn’t normally screw up THIS badly…

 

“Sam, will you escort Miss Parker from the nursery and see to it that she heads home,” Raines ordered darkly. “And when you come in to work in the morning, Miss Parker, see to it that your mind is focused either on the hunt for Jarod or the release of Sydney – and NOTHING else. Another stunt like this will earn you an extended stay in the facility just down the hall. Do I make myself clear?”

 

Miss Parker gaped for a long moment, then turned and gave her very confused little brother another tight hug. “I’ll be back to see you again tomorrow, Little Man,” she promised before kissing him repeatedly on the side of the head.

 

“Sam,” Mr. Raines ordered angrily, and Sam reluctantly approached his boss and took very careful hold on her upper arm.

 

“C’mon, Miss Parker,” he urged her sympathetically. “Let’s go.”

 

“Let go of me,” she snapped at him, jerking her arm from his keeping and stalking from the room with her head held high. Her mind was spinning. Sam wouldn’t have told her that there was no folder unless he hadn’t found one. Had she just been dreaming – like she’d dreamed about that stupid note the night before?

 

What the Hell was going on? Was she finally losing it?

 

Sam joined her in the elevator, concern very obvious in his carriage and expression. Something was VERY wrong here – and he didn’t like it one bit.

Chapter 8 – No End in Sight

 

Lyle poured himself another stiff whiskey and slumped onto his couch. He was tired and needed the drink desperately, and that first long gulp had burned all the way down and then warmed him from the pit of his stomach, where it joined the egg-fu-young he’d had for supper at the restaurant. The fatigue was probably from all the salt sea air that he’d breathed in that day – and the fact that he’d run twice as far as he normally did in a day and would probably be stiff as a board the next morning. Still, even if he hurt in every joint the next day, it would be worth it. He sipped at his second drink, not wanting to get himself too inebriated too quickly. Hangovers weren’t that much fun.

 

After humiliating himself in front of Miss Parker as he had the evening before, he’d been particularly unwilling to go in to work that day and have to look her in the face if he met her in a hallway – so he’d done something completely out of character. He’d left his cell phone in the apartment and escaped to a small, private beach just north of the Centre property line. Walking the edge of the water by himself after running off his frustration and humiliation had been very refreshing and restorative, giving him back a measure of calm that his twin had managed so easily to steal from him.

 

Damn her! Damn her for being a twin sister, and damn her for knowing exactly how to get to him. He had to admit that she’d done a damned good job on him – easily taken him by surprise and intimidated the shit out of him, literally and figuratively. He hadn’t thought she’d had it in her – not after facing off with her that evening on the dock years ago, when he’d forced her to shoot at him so that he could vanish for a while and let things at the Centre cool down in preparation for a triumphant return. Then again, she’d had a lot change in her life since then – she wasn’t the same person. And how!

 

She was magnificent! Not for the first time, he found himself wishing with all his might that she wasn’t his sister – his twin – and so available to him. Now SHE was a worthy mate for a man like him – a woman who understood the responsibility and privileges that power entailed and was ready and capable of handling it. Not to mention that she was one of the most beautiful creatures he’d ever seen! He could even ignore the fact that she wasn’t Asian – to possess her body and soul would be a gift from the Gods.

 

He’d just tossed back the rest of his drink and laid his head against the back of his couch when there was a knock at his door. He sighed and began to rise before he heard, “This is the Blue Cove and Dover Police Departments. Lyle Parker, please open the door!”

 

“Shit!” he spat in a vicious whisper. That bitch must have turned him in after all – proof or no proof. The one time that he actually had absolutely nothing to do with the crime in question was the one time that his magnificent, powerful, intimidating twin had decided he was guilty and turned him in.

 

He looked around nervously. No, he knew for certain that the secret closet where he kept all his implements of The Hunt was safely closed and hidden. And he hadn’t done anything in months, damn it! Why, then, was he so nervous? He could actually protest his innocence without having to worry about trying to fool a polygraph or smooth-talking away any evidence… He smoothed sweaty palms against the soft cotton of his sweatpants and began to move toward the door.

 

His delay, however, was much longer than the police were ready to take quietly. There was a huge crash as three men shattered the doorjamb to his apartment in the process of pushing their way through two deadbolts and a security hinge and chain. Lyle flinched hard and tucked his body away from the intruders, who were already waving their handguns. “FREEZE!” he heard the plainclothes officer yell, and he turned toward them again with his hands raised in the air.

 

“Turn around, asshole,” the Blue Cove PD officer closest to him growled and, taking hold of one raised arm, whirled Lyle around and dragged the arm down behind his neck painfully. “Down! Down on your knees!”

 

“What’s this about? What have I done?” Lyle hated to sound like a meek and mild common civilian, but he knew that the only way to preserve his secret closet from the careful eye of a forensics team, he’d have to play it very safe.

 

“You’re wanted for questioning in the death of Joy Chang,” the plainclothes officer announced somberly as he watched the Blue Cove officers apply the handcuffs to the kneeling man. “We’ve had two tips that claim that you know more about the murder last night than anybody else…”

 

“I don’t care what she told you, I didn’t do it!” Lyle exclaimed, starting to get angry. “She’s never listened to me…”

 

“You have a very interesting history, Mr. Parker – or whatever the Hell you’re calling yourself these days. Funny how whenever a case like this pops up, your mug ends up being somewhere very close by.” Miller watched the face of the suspect carefully as he told him that. Lyle gave very little sign, but Miller saw the flinch. It was enough to make him certain that there was going to finally be a little more to the story about these confusing crimes told at last. “We’ll take the suspect with us back to Dover,” he announced as he hauled up on Lyle’s cuffed hands hard to pull him to his feet, “and I’m sure my watch commander would appreciate it greatly if you would lock and secure the scene here until we can get a search warrant for our CSU folks. We’ll owe you guys – big time.”

 

“Listen to me,” Lyle tried to demand again, only to be hauled around and steered toward his shattered apartment door.

 

“Save it for until we get to the station house,” Miller warned him in a low voice. “And you might want to consider if you want to call that sweet sister of yours – you know, the one who’s a lawyer and is currently the attorney of record for Doctor Sydney Green…”

 

Parker? This joker thought that he’d want to call HER to defend him? If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, Lyle would have laughed in the man’s face. As it was, he was going to focus on not humiliating himself again before he could get hold of Raines, who would dispatch a REAL Centre defense attorney to his case. He’d gotten out of tighter squeezes than this…

 

oOoOo

 

“You might as well come in,” Miss Parker grumbled to Sam as she walked up to the driver’s side of his old Audi. “I’m sure Mr. Raines is going to want to have you report that you tucked me in nice and tight so I’ll stay out of trouble…” She whirled on her heels and stalked toward the front door of her house.

 

“Look, I’m not any more thrilled about this than you are, Miss Parker,” Sam answered defensively, climbing out of his car and trotting for a moment to catch up with her. “But you have to admit that he has good cause. There really wasn’t any folder on your desk…”

 

“It was there, I tell you,” she snarled, punching at the buttons of her alarm without success, and then grumbling and punching in the new code that she’d set just hours earlier. “I’m not making this up!”

 

“I don’t doubt you,” he responded quickly. “I’ve never known you to see things that aren’t there. But at the moment, however…”

 

“Don’t say it!” she snapped and jerked her head at him to follow her into the house. She closed and locked the door behind him and then threw her keys onto the little table. “Sit!” she ordered imperiously, and then cocked an eyebrow at him dangerously when he only crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. “I don’t intend to go straight to bed – and you don’t need to stand around like a damned tin soldier. Sit down!” she pointed and then walked to her liquor cabinet. “What do you drink? I’m having one, and you might as well join me.”

 

“Brandy and water,” he replied after thinking about it. “Not much of either – I didn’t eat much today, and I don’t want to get loaded.”

 

“It’s déjà vu all over again, I swear,” she muttered to herself as she poured him a quick splash of brandy into a snifter and then added a healthy helping of bottled water to it. “I shouldn’t after the Tylenol – but what the Hell…” She took an old fashioned glass and poured a stiff helping of Crown Regal. “Here’s to my not going nutso…” she offered, holding her glass out to him.

 

“Stop it,” he chided, touching his snifter to her glass. “What the Hell’s been with you today, anyway? You haven’t been yourself all day.”

 

“It’s this case,” she sighed, flopping onto the other end of the couch and kicking her shoes off. “I swear, Sam, there is something very fishy going on. The evidence the cops are collecting makes no sense – and now I’m seeing things…”

 

“More than one?” Sam asked cautiously. He shrugged when her glare rounded on him. “You said ‘things’ – that’s plural where I come from…”

 

“A note last night,” she admitted finally, “and a cup of tea that I don’t remember fixing for myself. Neither were there on the table in the morning, even though I remember clearly leaving them there.”

 

Sam put his drink down on the coffee table. “You checked the alarms?”

 

She nodded vigorously. “When I woke up and found the note and tea – and when I got up in the morning and found them both gone again. Both times I looked, nothing unusual had happened. The alarm was set and active.”

 

“And nobody else knows your access code?”

 

“Just Jarod,” she admitted after tossing back a healthy gulp of her drink, “but I don’t think he’s THAT twisted to mess with my mind when I’m working to get his Pretend Daddy out of jail…” She leaned her head back against the back of the couch and closed her eyes.

 

“Miss Parker?” Sam looked over at her in concern. “Are you OK?”

 

“I’ve had the headache from Hell all day long, and everything and everyone around me has done nothing but make it worse,” she complained quietly without moving or looking at him. “I feel I’m swimming in quicksand looking around for something as paradoxical as the sound of one hand clapping.”

 

“There’s gotta be a reasonable explanation for all of this,” he assured her. “I bet…”

 

“Jarod can’t see any rhyme or reason to it,” she countered and took another slug of her drink. “I think the cops are just as confused as we are. The further into this we dig, the more confusing things get.” She sat up again and was amazed at how quickly the alcohol was hitting her again. “Jarod thinks that someone’s deliberately setting up contradictions to get us all running around like chickens with our heads cut off.”

 

Sam considered sipping at his brandy and then set the idea aside. Miss Parker was exhibiting signs of her drink hitting her fairly quickly, and she’d not had much more to eat than he had. “C’mon, Miss P. Why don’t you just head up to bed and let me go home for the night. Just promise me you won’t go over and hassle Lyle again, and I might even be able to sleep…”

 

“I didn’t promise you I wasn’t going to,” she complained languidly.

 

“I still wish you hadn’t,” he retorted. “It probably didn’t help much…”

 

“It did my mood a lot of good to scare the shit out of him – literally,” she chuckled humorlessly. “You should have seen his face…”

 

Sam gently removed her glass from her hand and put it on the coffee table with his. “But you aren’t planning a return engagement tonight, are you?”

 

She shook her head. “I called the cops – with any luck, he’s in a detention cell in Dover as we speak.”

 

“Good.” Sam bent and grabbed both her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Get some rest, Miss Parker, and don’t worry about coming into work early tomorrow. Better you’re late than punchy for a second day in a row.”

 

Heartsick and clearly inebriated grey gazed into concerned blue for a moment, and then she nodded. “OK. I give in. I’ll let you out, and I’ll cash it in,” she promised.

 

“No late-night field-trips?”

 

“Scout’s honor,” she grinned, holding up three fingers.

 

Sam sighed. How had she gotten this wasted on less than a single drink? He looked over at the liquor cabinet. Maybe… He turned away. No – she’d had a stiff drink on an empty stomach, that was it. She’d finished her whiskey very quickly, where he’d only had a couple of sips of his brandy. “You lock this place up tight behind me…”

 

“Yes, mother – now get out of here!” she rose clumsily to her feet, and he threw out a hand when it looked as if she was going to lose her balance. “I’m OK,” she insisted indignantly. “Just very, very tired. Go home so I can go to bed.”

 

“Goodnight, Miss Parker,” Sam pronounced unhappily.

 

“Goodnight, Sam.” She unlocked and opened the door for him, and caught him by the arm as he stepped through to the outdoors. “And thanks for seeing me home.”

 

Yes, Sam told himself even as he graciously accepted her thanks, there was something very wrong with this picture. Thank God he’d gotten a promise from her this time to go to bed and stay there! If there was one thing he knew, it was that Miss Parker kept her promises.

 

oOoOo

 

“I’m telling you, you’re making a huge mistake. I didn’t kill that girl,” Lyle insisted for the umpteenth time. “I was at home, asleep…”

 

Miller merely shook his head and studied the thick file in front of him – something he’d done several times over the course of the afternoon and evening. Each time he’d read through the material, he’d been struck by the ease with which this man had evaded the question of his whereabouts. DID he have in front of him a serial murderer who had been on a campaign of terror and death for almost twenty years?

 

“I’m noticing that you always seem to have some kind of improbable alibi, no matter which murder you were questioned about,” he observed, flipping through the photo-copies of police reports from a dozen cities across the US as well as two sets from Hong Kong and an illegible one from Thailand. “You’re always asleep, or at the movies, or working late…”

 

The Detective shut the folder and pushed it aside. “The thing I DON’T get, however, is just why you somehow managed to be eliminated as a suspect – the reports aren’t very clear as to the reasons so many police departments just seem to have dropped any inquiries into your whereabouts and activities during the times in question. I see no testimony, no witnesses, who verified that you were elsewhere – no evidence that you could present to prove you had an alibi that would stand up in court.” Miller folded his hands on top of the thick folder and looked at the slightly disheveled man expectantly. “Perhaps you can explain that to me.”

 

Lyle put his head down and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. There WAS no easy explanation for how he had managed to be dropped from those inquiries, because in each and every case, it had been the Centre putting pressure on the agencies involved that had done the trick. “I can’t explain it,” he ground out between clenched teeth, glaring at the detective, “and besides, you didn’t haul me in here to ask me about those cases. I thought I was here in regards to your murder yesterday – which I’m telling you I had nothing to do with.”

 

“The problem, Mr. Parker, is that considering this vast history of yours, I’m not inclined to believe you,” Miller stated very simply and honestly – at which point Lyle looked down and ran frustrated fingers through his hair again. “And I’m not inclined to be very receptive to any character testimony that doesn’t directly address the timeframe in question. Your bosses may claim you to be a very powerful and influential man, your co-workers may paint you as a saint – but I’m going to need something a little more tangible than that…”

 

“I don’t HAVE anything more tangible than that!” Lyle burst out. “We’re talking about the middle of the damned night, for God’s sake! I was in bed, asleep – ALONE!”

 

“Uh-huh,” Miller nodded, completely unconvinced. He looked up as Officer Ryan entered the interview room with a smile and a paper in her hand, which she handed to him. “Tell them I’m coming along,” he told her and then returned his attention to the man across the table from him. “For your information, that’s a warrant to search your apartment for evidence linking you to the slaying of Joy Chang.”

 

“You can’t keep me here like this…” Lyle was outraged.

 

Miller actually smiled at him. “As a matter of fact, I can hold you for three days without charging you,” he stated with muted delight. “Ain’t the Constitution grand?”

 

“I want to speak to an attorney,” Lyle demanded then.

 

“If and when we decide to charge you, you’ll get your phone call,” the detective nodded at Ryan and rose. “In the meanwhile, we’re going to make you comfortable in one of our deluxe accommodations – just down the hall from your colleague, Doctor Green…”

 

The brilliant blue-grey eyes met Miller’s with a dangerous expression in their depths. “You’re making a huge mistake, Detective.”

 

Miller just shrugged and opened the door. “Go ahead and put him in the lockup, George.” He stood back as a large and powerful-looking officer came into the room to take custody of Lyle. “I’m going to join the search of your apartment. Our informants gave us a couple of places I want to look at myself.”

 

Lyle glared at the man as the huge officer pulled him past the detective and out the door, heading in the direction of what he supposed were the jail cells. Just wait until Raines heard about this! Heads would roll at this department…

 

oOoOo

 

The dream was jumbled, incoherent. Miss Parker was standing next to Sydney, watching as a man who looked remarkably like him was pressing a young woman up against a brick wall, moving… She looked over at Sydney questioningly. He merely pointed at the scene.

 

A man came from the shadows and pulled the first man away from the girl roughly, chasing the girl off with rough-sounding words that made no sense. He then adjusted the man’s clothing and took firm grasp of an arm in order to lead the man back into the shadows. As the two of them came nearer, glowing eyes seemed to sparkle out from beneath the rim of a baseball-type hat, and the second man’s face had a wide and unpleasant grin. A bell rang, and the man glanced around as if startled by the noise and then led his captive away.

 

The bell rang again – and resolved itself into the ringing of her telephone. Miss Parker moaned and rolled as she pushed herself from the depth of her dream. She blinked several times in order to focus her eyes on the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock, which finally unblurred themselves into a stark 12:15. She groaned again and, as she swung an arm out from beneath the warm covers, promised herself that if she ever saw Jarod again, she’d shoot him in the knee for all the times he’d done this to her. But first, by God, she’d dump acid in his ear…

 

Her hand connected with the telephone and eventually got a good hold on it – but not before her answering machine had picked up the call. She sat patiently through her clever, “This is a machine – I assume you know how to use it. BEEP!” to see just who was calling her at this hour – and whether or not she really wanted to pick up and talk to them.

 

“Miss Parker, pick up! My God! Debbie…” a frantic voice came out of the phone.

 

Miss Parker blinked and immediately picked up the receiver. “Broots?”

 

“She’s gone, Miss Parker! Help…” The call was disconnected before more was said, but by then, Miss Parker was sitting up in bed, one hand to her head to try to control the dizziness.

 

There was no question that she was going to answer the cry for help. Broots was more than just a colleague – a subordinate employee. He was a friend. She swung her feet out of bed and rose to gather some clothing. Her headache wasn’t completely gone, and she had to fight mild bouts of dizziness as she moved as fast as she could to make herself decent. She slipped her feet into light sandals and was heading out the bedroom door when something suddenly occurred to her.

 

She turned about-face and walked quickly back to the side of her bed to open the little flap on her telephone-answering machine. She’d already had two instances of seeing things that weren’t there – she was damned if she was going to run up against hearing something that hadn’t happened either. By God, Broots’ voice was on the incoming message tape – and it would prove that someone really HAD awakened her. IF there was any question, that is…

 

She slipped the tapes into her sweater pocket, promising herself that she’d keep them very close until she could make sure it was Broots who had called. With that, she moved swiftly through the door and down the stairs, reclaiming her keys and locking the door behind her as she headed for her car. The lights of the Boxster blinked silently as she unlocked the car with the button, and then she had slipped behind the wheel and had the powerful engine roaring to life.

 

It was normally a three-minute ride from her summerhouse on the outskirts of the little seaside village to the neighborhood where Broots and his daughter made their home. Miss Parker was cutting that time in half when she came to the stop sign that crossed the highway and halted, looking both ways and not seeing anything.

 

She’d gotten only halfway across the road when the sound of screeching rubber on the pavement and on-coming lights through the passenger side window told her that someone else driving the highway late at night hadn’t been paying attention to the fact that THEY were supposed to stop too. She only had time to realize that she wasn’t moving fast enough to be getting out of the way before there was a sickening crash of metal against metal and glass shattering rending the peace of the early morning.

 

oOoOo

 

Officer Ryan pulled on the latex gloves that Miller had handed her and whistled low as she studied the décor of Lyle Parker’s apartment. “You’d think the guy was a world traveler,” she commented appreciatively as she peered closely at the wooden mask that obviously came from Africa. “This place is like a museum.”

 

“You wanna tell us what we’re looking for?” the head of the forensics team asked Miller from the open doorway.

 

“We’re looking for something – anything – that will tie this guy to the last murder,” Miller answered briskly. “I got a call that made a suggestion where we could start looking too – that’s where I’m heading first.” He led the way through the apartment and into the kitchen.

 

It was a thoroughly modern and well-appointed kitchen, with all the latest appliances in stark white sitting on black marble counters. “Damn! This kitchen cost more than I’ll make this year,” Ryan offered, noticing that Miller wasn’t listening to her. He was closing on the huge, white refrigerator. “What are you doing?” she asked, curious.

 

“Following a suggestion,” he answered cryptically, reaching out and pulling the fridge door open and peering inside. The interior of the appliance was as clean and as stark as the rest of the kitchen – with milk carton stowed in the door, butter stowed in a dairy compartment along with what looked like a wedge of brie. Condiments and sauces were arrayed in other door compartments, and it looked as if Lyle had a very healthy selection of vegetables in his crisper drawer.

 

But it was the two plastic Baggies that were on the top shelf that caught Miler’s attention and, when he picked up the one to see whether it was holding what he thought it was, they damned near cost him every last bit of food he’d eaten that day. He’d seen enough of the autopsies Jim Carlton had conducted during his years as a homicide detective that he knew a human liver when he saw it. The nausea in his stomach twisted even tighter when, looking at the other baggie, he saw that the meat it held still had what looked like skin – pale and very smooth – along one edge.

 

“Christ!” He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and let the refrigerator door fall closed. “Hank – get in here!”

 

“What is it?” Ryan wanted to know. Something had the homicide detective seriously spooked – she hadn’t seen a man that pale in a long time.

 

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” Miller stammered to the CSU technician who answered his frantic yell and pushed past Ryan to get further into the room.

 

“Uh!” the technician said after opening the refrigerator door himself and getting a good look at what was inside. “You said you wanted something to tie him in to the murders… Looks like you have him tied very nicely to both of them.” Hank turned. “Fred – we’re going to need some ice!” he called to his partner in the other room, and then looked at Miller. “I’m not saying for sure, but it sure as hell looks like we’ve found us a cannibal as well as a murderer.”

 

Miller backed away a bit more as the forensics pair moved the Baggies of raw tissue from the fridge to an ice chest. “Make sure you check out all the knives in here too,” he grimaced, pointing to the rather impressive display of carving knives and cleavers on the wall. “Maybe we’ll get REAL lucky and score some blood to go with those appetizers.”

 

Office Ryan moved closer to the homicide detective who had very patiently and willingly taken her along with him in order that he have some kind of backup. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she asked, inferring that it wasn’t really a question. Miller was silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her. “That IS it, isn’t?” she asked again, this time with a note of concern.

 

“Under normal circumstances, this would be pretty hard to beat,” Miller hunched his shoulders. He was tired – he’d been working far later than he’d intended to be, and the case didn’t seem any less convoluted now than it had an hour earlier. If anything, the discovery he’d made in Lyle Parker’s refrigerator had confused things even further. He ran a hand down his face, noting that his five o’clock shadow had a five o’clock shadow already. “This case is starting to get to me,” he grumbled. “Every time I start to think I’m getting a clear handle on how things went down, I just end up making it more of a puzzle.”

 

“What’s to be puzzling?” she asked with a frown. “Doesn’t having the missing body parts in his fridge pretty well nail down who the murderer is?”

 

“What about the semen evidence?” Miller retorted. “That ties Green into the murders – or at least the rapes – just as much as this ties Parker into the murders.” He reached up and scratched the back of his head. “Right now, I’m not entirely sure what to think anymore – other than it’s long past time for the both of us to call it a day. That…” He pointed at the fridge. “That’s enough to give a man nightmares for a week!”

 

“If you’re ready to head out, let’s go,” Ryan shrugged. “I’m ready when you are. I’m just along so you have backup, remember?”

 

“I remember,” Miller mumbled, then called out, “We’re outta here,” to the CSU team. “C’mon,” he gestured toward the shattered door. “Let’s go home.”

 

oOoOo

 

“OK! OK! I’m awake!” Broots mumbled to himself as he rolled over and swatted at the lamp on his nightstand until his fingers finally found the switch. Then he grunted and squinted his eyes as he reached out for the receiver. “What?” he mumbled, barely conscious.

 

“Mr. Broots? This is Dover General Hospital. You’re on the emergency contact list for a Miss Melissa Parker…”

 

“Huh?” Broots scooted up on one elbow and peered at his alarm clock. It was 2:20 in the morning. “Say what?”

 

“Miss Melissa Parker has you listed as a secondary emergency contact, after a Doctor Sydney Green – whom we cannot reach. Miss Parker was injured in a car accident in Blue Cove about two hours ago…”

 

“Miss Parker!” Broots was very suddenly awake. “Is she all right?”

 

“She suffered a concussion, whiplash, a broken wrist and ankle and bruised ribs. She’s been admitted and is currently listed in Good condition…”

 

“Thank God!” Broots breathed out in relief. “What happened?”

 

“I honestly don’t know, sir,” the hospital representative said sympathetically. “But we do need someone to come down and sign some paperwork for her as soon as possible – and to collect her personal effects.”

 

“Do you need me immediately?” the bald man pushed himself up until he was sitting upright in bed.

 

“That would be preferable,” the voice on the other end announced with some relief. “See the switchboard operator when you get to the lobby – she’ll be able to direct you.”

 

“Thanks – I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Broots promised and then hung up on her – and turned around and dialed another number after looking it up in the phone book.

 

“Hmmm? Wha…?” Sam didn’t sound much more conscious than Broots had been at the beginning of his phone call.

 

“Wake up, Sam – there’s been trouble…”

 

“What is it?” Obviously, sweepers woke up far more quickly and thoroughly than computer technicians.

 

“Miss Parker’s been in a car accident – she’s at Dover General…”

 

“OH SHIT!”

 

If the situation hadn’t been so serious and sudden, Broots would have chuckled at the complete frustration in the sweeper’s tone. “I was wondering…”

 

“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” Sam announced, interrupting. “Your kid gonna be OK home alone for a while?”

 

“Debbie will be fine – she’s fast asleep,” Broots was certain of that. “I’ll be out front when you get here...”

 

“Goddamned son of a bitch! She promised…” Sam’s voice trailed away as the big man hung up the phone. Broots would have wondered at the man’s attitude, but he had just enough time to jump back into the clothes he’d worn the day before and to get out the front door before Sam would be there.

 

But he couldn’t help asking himself what the Hell Miss Parker had been doing driving around late at night? He’d have to ask Sam about it when he got there…

Chapter 9 – Now What?

 

“Here you go,” Broots said, handing the clipboard back to the woman in the billing office. All of the information for Miss Parker was roughly the same as the information for himself and his daughter – they worked for the same department at the Centre. The only differences were in her personal information – address, social security number – which he had quietly stored in his wallet a long time ago, after her first time being admitted to a hospital while in the field.

 

He knew Sydney also had Miss Parker’s information – but he’d never questioned that – anymore than he’d ask questions if he’d discover that she had Sydney’s information. The history between Sydney and Miss Parker went WAY back – they’d known each other when she had been a child. Their relationship was far more complex and deep than that of mere coworkers, and Broots had stopped trying to understand the dynamics involved – even when it spilled out unexpectedly where he couldn’t help but see. There was a depth to that relationship – hidden and barely even acknowledged by either of them – that tied those two together. That same depth and breadth of the relationship was certainly the driving force behind her single-minded pursuit of something – anything – that would prove him innocent of the charges leveled against him.

 

“Thanks,” the woman with the nametag that read “Nancy” accepted the clipboard back and reviewed all the areas that he’d filled in. “That should do it.”

 

“Can we see her now?” Sam asked quietly but firmly, having held his peace while Broots took care of the paperwork that was the primary reason for their having been called out of their beds at this hour.

 

Nancy looked at the two gentlemen in her small office, recognized that they had discomfited themselves for the sake of the hospital red tape and decided to throw them a bone. “I tell you what – if the duty nurse says that Miss Parker is still awake, I’ll let you go back for a very short visit. How’s that?”

 

“We need to pick up her personal effects anyway,” Broots reminded her.

 

She tapped at her computer keyboard for a moment and the rose. “Follow me,” she gestured and led the way out the door and down one corridor, around a corner and down another corridor. At the end, she turned again and led them up to the nurse’s station. “These gentlemen are here for Melissa Parker’s things – and would like to visit it with her very briefly, if she’s still awake.”

 

The nurse, a tall woman with pale eyes, nodded at her hospital coworker. “I was just in there a few minutes ago – and while she was starting to get groggy, she was still alert.” She pointed down the hallway. “Room 176.”

 

Sam tapped Broots on the shoulder and headed off down the hallway at a decent clip. Broots thanked the nurse and hurried after the sweeper. Room 176 was three quarters of the way down the hall and on the right – and Miss Parker was the only patient in the two-bed room, lying still in the bed by the window. While the light in the room was low, it was obvious that just the movement in the doorway was enough to attract her attention.

 

“Oh, now don’t you two just look wonderful,” Miss Parker’s voice sounded distant and weak despite its attempt to mimic her normal sarcasm. Neither man had taken the time to shave – and both were sporting rather dark shadows about their cheeks and chins. Sam’s hair looked decidedly ungroomed, with a few defiant cowlicks not quite sticking straight up in the air. It was a definite case of pillow-head, if she’d ever seen one – and a sight that touched her as little else had of late.

 

“You’re one to talk - you aren’t in any shape to be competing in a beauty contest either,” Sam retorted dryly. Miss Parker’s face had several bruises on it – one bad one just above her left eye – and her right hand and wrist were covered in plaster. From what Broots had told him in the car, there was probably a foot equally encumbered by plaster beneath the sheets and blankets on the bed. “I take it the truck won?”

 

“God, it just came out of nowhere,” she shook her head very carefully and then closed her eyes with a tiny moan. Her neck was sore as Hell and didn’t want to let her head move very far without shooting pains through her shoulders.

 

“Geez, Miss Parker! What were you doing out and about late at night?” Broots pulled closer and dared touch the back of the hand that wasn’t in a cast.

 

“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know too,” Sam moved closer to the other side, his tone of voice communicating his disappointment and disapproval. “You PROMISED me you wouldn’t…”

 

Miss Parker was looking confused, and she frowned at Broots. “But you called me – said Debbie was missing…”

 

Broots looked up at Sam sharply, then shook his head gently and patted her hand on the coverlet. “You must have been dreaming, Miss Parker. Debbie’s at home fast asleep – she’s fine. I didn’t call you.”

 

“But I heard you…” she protested, her gaze bouncing from one skeptical face to the other. “And I can prove it this time!” she announced triumphantly and struggled to sit up. “Where are my clothes?”

 

“You aren’t getting out of that bed,” Sam put up a preventative hand to her shoulder, “not in the shape you’re in!”

 

“No, you idiot! Look in my sweater pocket! I had a sneaky hunch that something might be up – considering our discussion last night just before you left,” she reminded the sweeper, “so I took the tape out of my answering machine before I got into the car. I wanted to have proof that I wasn’t dreaming this up, in case things weren’t the way they seemed...”

 

Broots had followed the gesture to the closet, where he found her clothing – wrinkled and some of it bloody – hanging as neatly as it could. And there within the pocket of the sweater jacket she’d been wearing, were two mini-cassettes. “Two of them?” he inquired, holding up his find.

 

“I couldn’t remember which was outgoing and which was incoming – and I didn’t have the time to make sure. My answering machine is completely nonfunctional at the moment.” She closed her eyes again against the many ways in which her body HURT, and then opened them again to look earnestly at her personal sweeper. “I know I promised I’d go to bed and stay in bed, Sam – but when I heard Broots, or somebody I thought was Broots, telling me that something was wrong with Debbie…”

 

“I understand,” Sam reassured her with a gentle expression on his usually taciturn face. “At least it wasn’t as if you were going down to ream Lyle a new orifice, after all…”

 

“That’s an activity worth trying at least once in lifetime, lemme tell you…” she chuckled at the memory and then moaned out loud. “Ow – my ribs…”

 

“It’s late – and we need to leave you alone so you can rest and start to mend a bit,” Broots gave Sam a sharp look and jerked his head toward the door. “We’ll just take your clothes and things and bring you back something cleaner when it’s time to spring you.”

 

“Thanks,” Miss Parker told them both very sincerely, “and thanks for coming up at this horrible hour of the morning.”

 

“You just get better now, Miss P,” Sam told her firmly. “I’ll call the Dover D.A.’s office tomorrow and see if I can’t get Sydney’s arraignment postponed until after you’re released from the hospital – barring the miracle of our discovering who the Hell is doing all this…”

 

“I’ll take the miracle, Sam, believe me,” she replied. Broots had her clothing down and folded into a neat heap in his arms, and Sam had found and taken charge of her purse.

 

“Goodnight, Miss Parker. Get better soon.”

 

“G’nite, boys. Thanks again.”

 

Sam and Broots walked out of her room and back down the hall in the direction they’d come from. “She says that someone pretended to be me and claimed Debbie was…”

 

“If that tape confirms her story, we have a bigger mystery than ever,” Sam stated somberly. “It means that someone has been deliberately gas-lighting her.” He noticed that Broots’ steps faltered a little in surprise. “This would have been the third time she’d have claimed to see or hear something, only to have it not be there later on. I’ll bet you honest green that her taking that answering machine tape herself is the only reason that it still exists.”

 

“You think somebody’s trying to hurt Miss Parker?” Broots asked in hushed, horrified tones.

 

“I think somebody’s having an awful lot of fun at the expense of a few too many people,” Sam answered dourly. “And I intend to get to the bottom of this, if it kills me.”

 

“Don’t say that,” Broots mumbled superstitiously. “It ain’t funny anymore.”

 

oOoOo

 

“Dad, what are these clothes doing here?” Debbie asked, pausing on her way to the breakfast table to check out the pile of bloody clothing sitting on the bureau near the stairwell.

 

“Leave those alone, Sweet Pea,” Broots called out from the kitchen. “Those are Miss Parker’s. I’m going to get them cleaned on the way to work today.”

 

Debbie walked into the kitchen with a frown on her face. “What are you doing with Miss Parker’s stuff, Dad?” she asked a little more seriously. “And is that blood?”

 

Broots looked up and sighed. Debbie had become very attached to Miss Parker over the last few years – and remarkably, his usually prickly boss had reciprocated. The two females had instituted a ‘girl’s day’ one Saturday a month, and both seemed to enjoy the hours they spent together shopping or seeing movies. “Miss Parker was in a car accident last night, honey,” he told her gently. “I went in to the hospital to see her, and picked up her stuff.”

 

Debbie’s blue eyes watched her father set the plate with Pop Tarts down. “How badly was she hurt?” she asked apprehensively.

 

“Badly enough that she’s going to be spending a couple of days in the hospital,” he answered as he poured her orange juice. “Whiplash, bruised ribs, broken wrist…” He broke off as the telephone began to ring. “Go ahead and eat,” he urged his daughter and walked to the hallway. “This is Broots…”

 

“Mr. Broots,” Jarod’s smooth tones sounded in his ear.

 

“Ja…Jarod? What are you d…doing calling here?” the balding technician stammered in surprise.

 

Jarod’s voice held no hint of amusement at the response he’d gotten. “Well, I’d have called Miss Parker – but it seems she’s not answering her home phone, her cell phone, and her answering machine doesn’t seem to want to…”

 

“Jarod,” Broots began nervously.

 

“What is it? She told me she wanted me to call her often, in case there was news…”

 

“She was in a car accident last night,” Broots burst out, knowing there was no good way to tell the Pretender the news. “She’s at Dover General…”

 

“How badly was she hurt?” Jarod demanded harshly.

 

“It could have been a lot worse,” he told him quickly. “Whiplash, bruised ribs, broken wrist and ankle…”

 

“She’s not going to be able to help Sydney very much from a hospital bed…”

 

“I know,” Broots acknowledged. “We’re intending to call the judge in Dover to see if we can’t talk him into postponing the arraignment until…”

 

“Good luck,” Jarod sighed. “Take down this number – and call me when you know anything.”

 

Broots had paper and pencil handy, having used it often enough over the years with Miss Parker doing the dictation. “Shoot.”

 

Jarod rattled off ten numbers quickly, which Broots immediately rattled back at him. “That’s my cell phone,” he told the technician. “Don’t give that number to anybody.”

 

“I won’t,” Broots promised. The click that followed his promise told him that the call had been disconnected. He pressed the “J” button on his electronic rolodex machine next to the telephone and inserted the scrap of paper with the number into that section without labeling whose number it was – but not until he’d committed the number to memory. Something told him that knowing the number off the top of his head might come in handy – if not during this crisis, then some time in the future.

 

oOoOo

 

William Raines breathing grew labored during the short time that Willy had his plastic canula line disconnected from the nearly empty tank and was moving the new tank onto the little cart. Finally he sucked in a deep breath of the top of the new canister with gratitude. “Ah! That’s better,” he looked up into the face of the one person at the Centre he knew he could trust above all others. This morning tank switch had become a routine over the years – there was just enough in the evening tank to hold him throughout the night and get him back in to work, but Willy needed to be ready and able to switch out the tanks first thing in the morning.

 

“You heard the news?” Willy asked his boss after moving the empty tank to the storage bay with the other depleted green cylinders.

 

“What news is that?” the old man wheezed curiously.

 

“Lyle’s a no-show again,” the dark-faced sweeper announced with just the tiniest hint of glee. “That makes two days in a row, when…”

 

“When Miss Parker’s attentions are turned elsewhere,” Raines finished for him and then breathed in noisily. “We cannot have that,” he agreed with a nod. “Go – and bring him back with you without fail. We’ll have to educate Mr. Lyle on the virtues of dedication again, I see…”

 

“Yes, Mr. Raines,” Willy turned sharply on his heel and strode proudly from the room. He was on a mission for his boss – and nobody had better get in his way.

 

Raines reached for the first file folder in his inbox, ready to start another exciting day as the Chairman of the Centre. Had he known back when just how much of the Chairman’s duties involved simple paper-pushing rather than overseeing the research, he might have not been quite so keen on earning the Big Chair for all that time. As it was, considering his physical condition lately, paper-pushing was about all the pushing he could do – short of having the vicarious thrill of having Willy do the pushing FOR him where he could watch and enjoy it, that was.

 

If the pile of papers on his desk weren’t so urgent – as they always were at this hour of the day – he might have insisted on accompanying Willy on his retrieval of Lyle. That young maverick was tricky to control, requiring a delicate touch at times combined with the harsh discipline that had been his primary upbringing. What was more, Lyle had… tendencies… that, if left unchecked, could bode ill for the Centre when they became widely known.

 

He looked up as the etched glass doors to the inner office opened slowly, and then frowned when he recognized the one who had just entered his sanctum. “Oh, it’s you,” he wheezed, thoroughly unimpressed. “What the Hell do you think YOU want?”

 

oOoOo

 

“I didn’t know you knew the security alarm code for Miss Parker’s house,” Broots gaped as Sam punched in the numeric code and turned the green lights on the panel off.

 

“I didn’t,” the tall sweeper admitted. “I watched her when she let us into the house last night after that fiasco with her little brother.”

 

“Oh,” the technician accepted the explanation, knowing that Sam’s observational abilities and intelligence being continually underestimated was one of the reasons Miss Parker valued his services so highly. “Mind telling me what we’re doing here?”

 

“Checking out a hunch,” Sam answered cryptically, pushing the door open after turning her key in the lock. “You should run upstairs and collect her some fresh, clean clothing while I do my poking about.”

 

“ME?” Broots gaped. “Go rummaging around in her dr… drawers…” The idea was enough to make him stagger back a step.

 

“Good God, man, buck up!” Sam barked at the smaller man in exasperation. “She’s not here, and she’s not going to bite you for bringing her decent clothing to wear when they let her out of the hospital.”

 

“Fine,” Broots retorted, summoning some courage from a hidden corner of his nature, “then YOU paw through her… unmentionables!”

 

Oh, no, Sam thought to himself. He had a very clear idea what Miss Parker would tolerate – and from whom. “Move it!” he growled at Broots and headed off in the direction of the kitchen.

 

“Man, why do I always have to do this,” Broots muttered indignantly to himself as he mounted the stairs and peeked in the first bedroom, finding it so clean and neat and undisturbed that he realized he’d discovered her guest room. There were only two other doors on the second floor – one of them HAD to be hers. The second door was to the spacious bath, and so he gathered a deep breath and pushed open the third door.

 

Yes, this was her bedroom all right. Bedclothes were tumbled in chaos on the bed, as they would have been for an abrupt, late-night rising. A silken nightgown lay in a shining pool on the floor – probably where she’d dropped it as she’d gotten dressed. “Man, Miss Parker, I really don’t mean…” he muttered to himself again as he pulled open the top left drawer in her dresser and found himself face to face with silken panties in every possible color of the rainbow. He pulled open the top right drawer and, as he’d expected, found the matching bras to those colorful panties. He reached in and grabbed a white set that he hoped matched – he wasn’t about to stare at them and make sure, that was damned sure – and dropped them on the end of the bed to move to her closet to get outer clothing and a pair of shoes for her.

 

Strangely enough, several delicate blouses were tumbled to the floor just inside the closet door, the hangers where they’d been arranged having been pushed back against their mates. Broots bent and retrieved a white one from the heap, tucking it over his arm while he moved down the way to unclip a pair of black trousers to finish the outfit. When he looked down to see what selection of shoes he had to work with, he noticed that they, too, looked disturbed.

 

“Sam,” he called out sharply. “Up here!”

 

After a moment, he could hear the heavy footfall of the sweeper’s rapid ascent of the stairs. “Broots?”

 

“In here!” he called back and stepped out of the closet.

 

Sam stuck his head around the door and then pushed it fully open. “What?”

 

“Something’s not right – I think someone was in her closet!” Broots pointed to the jumble of shoes and puddle of silken blouses.

 

“I think you’re right,” Sam agreed, his eyes narrowed. He turned around and gazed about the room, and then moved quickly over to the nightstand. There, the telephone-answering machine device had been pulled away from the wire that held it to the wall and dumped on the floor. “And I think Miss P’s little precaution pissed somebody off.”

 

“I didn’t even see that,” Broots breathed in surprise. “I was too busy getting… stuff…”

 

Sam dug in his pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves – something that each sweeper made certain they carried several of whenever they were in the field. He picked up the device and looked at it gingerly. “I’m hoping we can get some prints from this – maybe we’ll start to get a lead on who’s messing with her.”

 

Broots picked up the undergarments he’d deposited on the end of the bed and put them with the clothing he was already carrying. “Where to now?”

 

“The Centre,” Sam replied. “I want to go through her office with a fine-toothed comb. She swears there was a file folder talking about a research experiment that endangered her little brother – how much you want to bet she DID see it?”

 

“Man – what’s going on around here?” Broots mumbled in a whiney voice as he led the way out of the bedroom and towards the stairs. “Who’d want to do something like this – and why?”

 

“When I find out,” Sam promised from behind him, “they’re gonna be sorry they ever crossed paths with me.”

 

“Leave some for me,” Broots announced in an odd, serious tone. “She’s my friend too.”

 

Sam blinked. Yeah, the little man had a point. He was pissed because someone was messing with someone he cared about. SHE might not put it in so many words, but he DID consider her a friend. “You got it,” he promised darkly.

 

oOoOo

 

Willy’s steps as he walked toward the etched glass doors of his boss’ inner sanctum weren’t quite as quick or lively as they had been when he’d walked away. Even though he enjoyed a position of unprecedented access and privilege with Mr. Raines, he still detested being the one to have to give the man any bad news – the reaction was always so unpredictable. Raines’ secretary barely looked up and nodded him through – her standard mode of dealing with him. She had her headphones on and was typing as fast as her fingers would move, rendering from dictation a letter or document for her employer.

 

“Sir, we have a problem,” he announced as he pushed the glass doors open. “Lyle’s been arres…” He fell silent and his steps hesitated as he took in the scene.

 

Raines was sprawled across his desk, one hand outstretched toward the door and the other pressing on the intercom button. His eyes were closed, and his face was flushed.

 

“Sir!” Willy broke from his shock and ran to his employer’s side to press trained fingers into the man’s neck in search of a pulse. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt a pulse, weak and sluggish, but present. “Sir?” he called again, slapping Raines’ face none too gently in trying to get a response from the man. Raines’ eyelids fluttered a little, and he moaned.

 

In desperation, he reached out for the intercom button and pressed down hard. “We need a medical team in here immediately,” he barked – and then waited for a response. Waited too long for a response. With a frown, he dashed to the door and threw it open, startling the secretary completely.

 

“What?” she asked in a slightly panicked voice, throwing her earphones back from her head.

 

Willy’s eye shifted to the intercom – which should have had a light blinking on it from the summons he’d made. The light was dark – no summons had gotten through. “Call a medical team,” he barked again and hurried back in to his boss.

 

He’d not managed to help his boss regain consciousness by the time the two-man medical team arrived from the Renewal Wing. “What happened here?” the lead medic demanded.

 

“I’m hoping you can tell me,” Willy retorted, making room for the medics to move the stricken man from his position at his desk onto the gurney they’d brought with him.

 

“Has he been ill, or complaining of anything before now?” the second medic asked, picking up a clipboard from the kit he’d carried in with him.

 

Willy shook his head, and then shook his head several times more over the next few minutes as the questions kept coming, but no answers that could explain what had happened were forthcoming in reply. The first medic had the oxygen tank safely unfixed from the cart that was Willy’s main task when accompanying his boss and stowed on its side in a rack near the wheels of the gurney.

 

“We’ll take him down and see if we can’t figure things out from there,” the first medic finally announced, pulling up on the gurney so that it would be easier to handle.

 

Willy followed the gurney out of the office and stopped next to the secretary’s desk. “Nobody gets into this office until I get back, do you understand?” he told her in a very quiet and dangerous voice.

 

The young woman, recently reassigned from the Clerical Pool, could only nod with wide and frightened eyes. The sweeper, satisfied that whatever evidence might be in the office would remain safe for the time being, hurried to catch up with the gurney and the medics before they could enter the elevator and cost him time cooling his heels until the elevator could return.

 

oOoOo

 

“Close the door,” Sam ordered in his quiet and most authoritative voice, and watched with satisfaction as Broots complied without question.

 

The technician looked around Miss Parker’s office. It had never been overly furnished or filled with cabinets – even her desk was little more than a thick sheet of Plexiglas on a metal frame. She’d obviously adopted some of the decorating techniques of the Japanese – not surprising, considering the amount of time spent in that country.

 

Sam moved to behind the desk, peering into the trash container first, and then looking up at Broots, who stood stock-still in the middle of the room. “C’mon,” he urged in a growl. “Help me search this place…”

 

“There isn’t a whole lot to search THROUGH,” Broots complained softly, moving over to the one file cabinet in the room and opening the top drawer. “Are you SURE…”

 

Sam wasn’t paying attention. He’d pulled her answering machine over and opened it, and was pulling the tapes out of it. “Let’s see whether Miss Parker has sent us on a wild goose chase or not, shall we?” he told the technician as he plugged the first of the two tapes into a slot and hit the playback button.

 

“This is a machine – I assume you know how to use it…”

 

“That’s her outgoing message,” Broots chirped knowingly. “I’ve hit it often enough…”

 

Sam grunted and pulled the little cassette from the machine and inserted the other and hit playback and crossed his arms over his chest to listen.

 

“Miss Parker, pick up! My God, Debbie!”

 

There was the sound of fumbling, and then Miss Parker’s sleepy voice broke in: “Broots?”

 

“She’s gone, Miss Parker! Help…” and then the call was disconnected.

 

Sam looked up at Broots, who was staring in disbelief at the machine. “That sounded a lot like me,” the bald technician breathed in dismay.

 

“The value of this tape is that it not only proves that Miss Parker wasn’t joking about a phone call, supposedly from you, calling her out of bed to come to your rescue – but we have the asshole’s voiceprint now.” Sam stopped the tape and pulled the little cassette from the machine to slip back into his pocket.

 

“We can get it downstairs to the lab – I know that Jerry can…”

 

Sam frowned. “Jerry?”

 

“Yeah, he’s the fellow with the harelip that sing karaoke at the Mud Pit on Satur….”

 

“No!” Sam’s rejection was explosive. “I don’t want anybody working on this that I can’t trust to work for Miss Parker’s benefit.” He rounded a cold, blue stare at the technician. “I don’t know this Jerry.”

 

“Then who…” Broots’ mind was flying, trying to think of an alternative. There was only one dependable alternative. “What about Jarod?”

 

Sam stared. “Jarod!”

 

“Jarod would know how to test the voiceprint – and he can be trusted to work for Miss Parker’s benefit.” Broots stood his ground. “He’s already working this case for Sydney – and it does seem all tied together…”

 

It went against everything that Sam knew to trust the escaped Pretender with the welfare of his boss – but Broots was right. Jarod, for all his faults, had never deliberately done anything to harm Miss Parker. Feed her painful truths, yes – out and out harm, no. “OK,” Sam agreed reluctantly. “Do you know how to contact him?”

 

“I have an email address,” Broots said carefully, not willing to expose his much more immediate access to the man he’d spent the last eight years chasing all over the countryside.

 

“Then get to a secure terminal and get a message off to him,” Sam paced back and forth. “Tell him we need to meet – at Miss Parker’s.”

 

“I don’t think he’ll come,” Broots offered. “He might come for her – and maybe even for Sydney – but for US…”

 

“If he cares about either of them, he’ll come,” Sam stated in a dark tone. He seemed to snap out of a dangerous reverie and gestured abruptly to Broots. “Go on. I’ll keep going through things here, just in case that folder is still around but just hidden.”

 

Broots scuttled through Miss Parker’s office door, heading toward his own workspace and the security of a closed door behind which he could place a telephone call. He had a cell phone – and it was urgent. Surely Jarod would understand…

 

Sam walked over to the file cabinet and began to slowly go through the files. What had she said the project name was… oh yeah: Fountain of Youth. He started with the A’s and sifted diligently through each one, reading the name on the label tab conscientiously. If that folder were here, he was going to find it, by God…

 

oOoOo

 

Willy leaned back against the closed door of the Renewal Wing, trying to wrap his mind around the sight of the doctor slowly pulling the sheet over the face of his boss. Dead! After all this time, and after beating the odds so many times, William Raines was dead.

 

It was as if the props had been swept out from underneath his entire world. All of his authority, all of his intimidation strength, had come from being in the back pocket of one of the most powerful men at the Centre. He’d eschewed the comaraderie of the rest of the sweeper’s corps for the power of walking through the halls of the Centre and watching the rest of the peons move meekly to the side – just as they did for Lyle and Miss Parker.

 

And now…

 

And now his options were extremely limited. Mr. Raines had had him do many things in his time as his personal sweeper and confidante – things that had estranged him from the rest of the pool of Centre operatives. Those who stood to move up a rung on the Centre power ladder would want nothing whatsoever to do with him due to his past affiliation with the most despised man in the organization. He was alone now – and as lacking in power now as he had been in possessing it a mere two hours earlier.

 

Willy ran his hand down his face in frustration. He couldn’t think of that now. Mr. Raines was dead – and it didn’t look to be a natural death. Already, the doctors in the Renewal facility were talking poisoning – that even dead, Raines’ body had looked flushed. It could be carbon monoxide poisoning – if he weren’t sure that he’d given the man pure oxygen that morning…

 

This was just too much of a coincidence. Sydney – in jail. Lyle – in jail. Miss Parker – in the hospital. And now Raines – dead. Willy straightened up and pulled his sports jacket straight. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say someone was creating a vacuum of power at the very top of the Centre food chain – perhaps in order to make a leap for the Big Brass Ring.

 

But how to prove it – much less find out who was behind this? The only people working on anything approaching this were…

 

Willy’s posture sagged. The only people to whom he could go with his suspicions were people who would be the most suspicious of him and least likely to want anything to do with him at all: Sam and Broots – Miss Parker’s loyal minions.

 

He had no choice. He pulled himself stiffly erect and began walking down the hall. He’d talk to Sam first – Broots would be too cowardly to get a straight answer. He’d stop at his workspace and ditch his gun too. Perhaps Sam would take him seriously enough to at least hear him out if he came to the man unarmed.

 

He could only hope.

Chapter 10 – Dealing With The Devil

 

The cell phone only rang twice before Jarod had it out of his pocket. “Yes?”

 

“M… Jarod?”

 

The Pretender smiled grimly. “Mr. Broots? This IS a surprise – I didn’t expect to hear from you at all at least until this evening.”

 

Broots hunkered down near the surface of his desk, as if making himself smaller visually would do more to keep him from being overheard. “Sam asked me to get in touch with you – wanted me to write you an email – but I know that this would be quicker…”

 

“I get the point. What does he want?”

 

Broots took two deep breaths. “Promise you won’t yell at me or…”

 

“Mr. Broots, if you don’t spit out what it is that Sam wants with me, I WILL…”

 

“He wants to meet. Miss Parker was tricked into getting into the car last night – someone pretending to be me called her in the middle of the night and told her that Debbie was missing…”

 

Jarod stared. “Say what?”

 

“Sam’s convinced that this isn’t the first time she’s been… he called it ‘gas-lighting’…”

 

“Gas-lighting?” Jarod was thoroughly confused. “What the…”

 

“It was an old movie – Charles Boyer wanted to make Ingrid Bergman think that she was going insane, so he’d set all of these situations where she’d claim she saw something that ended up not being where she said it was – or said something was supposed to be in one place and it wasn’t…”

 

“I get the reference,” Jarod retorted. “I’m assuming that the only way for anybody to do this successfully would be for them to know their victim…”

 

“Sam has the answering machine tape – and it has the call recorded. He’s talking about getting a voice print…”

 

The Pretender shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why he wants to set up a meet…”

 

“I think… I think he just wants to have everybody working on this thing on the same page at the same time. Miss Parker’s in no shape to help Sydney, and if we can’t get the judge to postpone…”

 

“Where does he want this meet to happen?”

 

Broots’ smile was wide. “Then you’ll come? Really?”

 

“I haven’t said that yet – but I’ll consider it. Now, when and where?”

 

“Miss Parker’s? After dark tonight?”

 

Jarod’s mind was spinning. “I’ll think about it,” he promised. “And I’ll let you know in good time to pass the word to Sam.”

 

“Th…thanks, Jarod,” Broots said earnestly. “I’m sure Miss Parker and Sydney would thank you too – if they knew…”

 

The line clicked in the technician’s ear, and he knew that Jarod had disconnected the call. Damn, he thought as he replaced the cell phone in his pocket and sat up a little straighter in his chair. He’s not much more on being polite than Miss Parker was!

 

oOoOo

 

Sam stared down into the depths of the bottom file cabinet drawer, almost amazed at this point that he’d actually found it – he’d been at the point of admitting defeat on this score. The file folder he’d spent the last half hour going through each and every one of Miss Parker’s files to find had, at last, been located on the floor of the very bottom drawer – hidden from view under all of the hanging files. He reached out and pulled it to him, easily reading “Fountain of Youth” on the label – just as she’d claimed.

 

He straightened from his crouch and pushed the drawer closed with his foot, opening the folder and beginning to read as he sauntered back towards her desk. He scanned the first page, but started to frown at the top of the third. No wonder she’d gone off like a sky-rocket! If she’d thought this to be genuine – and there was no visible reason for it not to be – it would have been evidence of a cruel and downright obscene experiment getting ready to take place.

 

She WAS being gas-lighted! What was more, someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make these documents look genuine – using letterhead stationary and what looked to be forged signatures. Someone wanted her making a fool of herself – perhaps even beginning to question her own judgment. Why?

 

“Can I talk to you?” a soft and unwelcome voice asked from near the door to the office, and Sam looked up to see Willy standing just inside the closed doors.

 

“Get the Hell outta here,” Sam growled dangerously. “Go back to your Master and tell him that I just found proof that Miss Parker wasn’t lying down in the…”

 

“Raines is dead,” Willy announced abruptly and with a voice that sounded almost as dead as the man he was speaking about.

 

That took Sam aback, and he stared at the dark face of the other sweeper. “You’re sure?”

 

Willy nodded. “The doctors down in Renewal pronounced him about ten minutes ago.”

 

“How?”

 

“The doctor’s suspecting carbon monoxide poisoning,” the dark sweeper stated quietly. He was thrilled – at least Sam was talking to him. That was better than he’d hoped. “I think something’s going on…”

 

“You can say that again,” Sam growled and slapped the folder down on the Plexiglas desk surface. “Here’s the folder that Miss Parker sent me back upstairs to find – you know, the one that she claimed proved that there was an experiment involving her little brother when Raines insisted that there was no such thing…” Willy frowned and stepped quickly into the room and reached for the folder, only to have the manila document holder scooped up and away by Sam again. “I’m not having it sprout legs and vanish again…”

 

“Listen to me,” Willy stated earnestly, hoping that he still had some of the charisma that had brought him to his position of power and authority – because he was going to need every last ounce of it. “I’m thinking we’ve a big problem here…”

 

“No shit, Sherlock! What gave you the clue…”

 

“Listen to me!” Willy insisted. “Think about it. Sydney’s in jail, and so is Lyle. Miss Parker is in the hospital and Raines is dead.” He stared into Sam’s blue eyes. “Right now, there’s a vacuum at the top of the Centre – everybody who had any chance of taking over has been moved out of the way either temporarily or permanently.”

 

Sam gazed into those dark and intelligent eyes, suddenly beginning to see the pattern. “I see what you’re saying…”

 

“I’m thinking Jarod…”

 

Sam shook his head. “Nope. Jarod would never do anything to hurt either Sydney or Miss Parker, nor would he kill innocent people in order to frame anybody – not even Lyle.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Still, considering the ways in which everybody’s been taken out of the picture, it looks like an inside job.”

 

Broots came barreling through the glass doors. “He said he’d think…” His words died on his lips as he caught sight of Mr. Raines’ personal sweeper standing as if facing off with Sam. “I’m sorry…” he squeaked turning around. “I thought…”

 

“Broots!” Sam called and beckoned when Broots turned to give him a frightened glance. “He said he’d think about it?”

 

Broots sidled very carefully around Willy until he could move to a point where Sam was between him and the other sweeper. “Yeah. He’ll call.”

 

“Who’ll call?” Willy demanded.

 

“We need help on this,” Sam justified his decision, “help we can TRUST. I had Broots get in contact with Jarod.”

 

“Jarod? You’ve known how to find him all this time?” Willy asked slowly, his eyes narrowing.

 

“N…no,” Broots was nearly panting. “H…he called ME this morning… w…when he c…c…ouldn’t reach M…Miss Parker…”

 

“You TALKED to him? You actually spoke to him?” Sam gaped as the bald man nodded nervously. So the little man had more on the ball than anybody imagined, eh? “Just now, too?”

 

“Y…yes,” Broots stammered. “I figured it was f…faster than email…”

 

Sam pointed an imperious finger at him. “Get him back – now! Tell him things are critical and we need to put our heads together ASAP.”

 

“I’m not working with no damned Pretender,” Willy grumbled dangerously.

 

“You’d rather work for whoever is willing to kill the entire top echelon of the Centre?” Sam challenged back? “And you’d trust that person not to put a bullet in your brain the moment you set foot through the office door?”

 

Dark brown and ice blue gazes met in a clash of wills and intents, but Willy looked away first. “Damn!” he muttered to himself, turning away to look out Miss Parker’s window.

 

“Get him back,” Sam ordered Broots again. “And have him meet us in an hour at…”

 

“What about we let HIM set the place?” Broots suggested hesitantly. “Give him a little security, you know? After all, when he finds out about him…” His words died as his index finger pointed at the silent and morose sweeper staring out the window.

 

Sam followed Broot’s pointing finger to look at Willy. Yes, having him around right now might make it more difficult to reason with the understandably cautious, if not paranoid, Pretender. “Tell him that he can choose the where, if the when can be within the next hour or two. The way things are going around here, the sooner we get ourselves some sort of game plan in place, the better for all of us.”

 

Broots didn’t look encouraging. “I’ll see what I can do,” he stated and headed toward Miss Parker’s private restroom for some privacy.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod pressed a little harder on the fine mesh that was the basis of the moustache, pushing it into the spirit gum that he’d painted on his upper lip. Dover General Hospital was very close to the Centre – too close, under normal conditions – but Miss Parker being a patient there made the trip worth the risk. He wasn’t going to try anything fancy – visiting hours had started about a half hour earlier, so walking down the corridors of the hospital in street clothing wouldn’t call too much attention to him. Besides, he just wanted to talk to her for a little bit – as much to make sure that she was OK than anything else.

 

He adjusted the rear view so that he could take a good, appraising look at his minimal disguise, then put it back where it had been and climbed from behind the wheel of his current vehicle, a white SUV. He walked through the front door of the hospital as if it were nothing special, and aimed his steps for the volunteer’s desk. “Miss Parker?” he asked congenially.

 

“Room 176,” the older woman answered, writing the number down in a book. “Down this corridor to the first corridor to your left, then straight to here that ends and turn right. Left again at the nurse’s station.”

 

“Thank you,” he smiled as sweetly as he could at the woman, who gave him a thoroughly charmed smile in return, and then set out to follow her direction. At the nurse’s station, he inquired again and had the nurse point him in the direction of the long corridor with ward rooms on either side.

 

He entered the room quietly, realizing when he didn’t get some acerbic comment as he drew closer that she was at the very least dozing. He took the time, while he had the chance, to survey the visible damage. Her face had several bruises that were going to make her look as if she’d lost a prize-fight for a while, and her hand resting on the top of the blanket was encased in plaster.

 

But her senses were still sharp and conditioned in the Centre way – and just like him, she knew when she was being observed. Soon she was moving just slightly in her bed, and then finally she opened her eyes. “Hey,” she said softly.

 

“Hey yourself,” Jarod replied and moved into the room and over to where he could pull a chair closer to her bed. “How are you feeling?”

 

“Like I was hit by a truck,” she cracked, and then grimaced in the middle of her chuckle. “Bruised ribs are no fun.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Jarod commiserated. “I had to call Broots this morning when I couldn’t get through to you – he told me what happened.”

 

“I’ll bet you scared him out of several dozen lifetimes,” she quipped and shifted against her pillow. “Jarod, what am I going to do? I’m stuck here…”

 

“Broots said either he or Sam were going to try to talk to the judge…”

 

“Considering that Sydney is employed at the Centre, I doubt the judge will be very understanding,” she shook her head. “And I doubt Raines will bother with sending over anybody else…”

 

Jarod patted the top of her cast. “Don’t you worry, I won’t let Sydney down – I’ll represent him myself, if need be.”

 

“Jarod…” The idea was audacious – and dangerous.

 

“Broots called me earlier, told me that he and Sam have uncovered proof that you’d been what he called ‘gas-lighted’. Does that make sense to you?”

 

“I gave them some of that proof myself,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe they’ve found more – I don’t know.”

 

“Sam wants me to attend a meet.” Jarod watched her face carefully.

 

Miss Parker’s grey eyes held his steadily. “He must feel it’s important – because Sam isn’t the kind of person who goes to an outside agency for help – trust me!”

 

“So you think that it’s safe for me to meet with him?”

 

“Did it sound as if Broots would be there?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“Then it’s probably safe,” she replied with a nod. “Broots is no hero, but he’s also not likely to want to lead you into a trap.” She smiled with astonishing fondness. “He’s a man of principles.”

 

Jarod nodded, relieved. “He wanted to set up the meet in your house…”

 

“Just make sure you guys don’t leave the place a mess when you’re done,” she smiled at him.

 

From the depths of his trousers pocket, his cell phone chose that moment to start chirping at him again. With an apologetic look, he pulled it out and opened it. “Yes?”

 

“J…Jarod? It’s me again.”

 

“What do you want, Mr. Broots? You’re interrupting my visit with a very sore Miss Parker…”

 

Broots grimaced. “Sam wants to move the meet up – something else has come up that’s made things really urgent.”

 

“More urgent than they already were?” Jarod was surprised and let that be reflected in his voice. “How could that be?”

 

“Mr. Raines is dead,” Broots answered bluntly.

 

Jarod’s jaw dropped, and Miss Parker frowned. “What did he say?” she demanded, shifting in bed and trying to sit up straighter. “Damn it, Jarod…”

 

“He said Raines was dead,” Jarod told her flatly, then spoke to the man on the other end of the line. “When and how?”

 

“Less than an hour ago – and Willy says that the doctor suspects carbon monoxide poisoning…”

 

“Willy!” Now Jarod sounded downright skeptical. “Don’t tell me Sam is listening to that monster…”

 

“He’s making sense, Jarod – and you need to hear him out.”

 

Jarod was shaking his head vehemently. “No. I’m not coming anywhere near that man…”

 

“What if what he has to say helps us free Sydney and figure out what happened to Miss Parker? Huh?” Broots finally found his reservoir of courage and decided that now was a time to spend a great deal of it. “He came to US, Jarod – came to Sam, I think, looking for help.”

 

“He was Raines’ pet pit bull,” Jarod warned the technician. “He can’t be trusted.”

 

“He wasn’t too thrilled when Sam mentioned we were working with you either,” Broots told the Pretender frankly.

 

“What is it?” Miss Parker demanded again. “Jarod – for God’s sake, tell me what’s going on or I swear when I get out of this bed… Raines dead? How? When?”

 

“Hang on,” he told Broots and then explained the situation in terse terms.

 

Miss Parker listened carefully and then nodded. “Willy knows that with Raines gone, his days are numbered at the Centre unless he aligns himself with someone. He’s pissed off too many people. He might be dangerous, but he’s probably also desperate enough to find a new pocket to slither into that this might be one of the few times we can trust him.” At the continued look of suspicion and disbelief, she asked in exasperation, “What does Broots think?”

 

“He thinks I should hear him out,” Jarod replied sourly.

 

“Broots has a good head on him for things like this,” Miss Parker told him. “He’s got good instincts.”

 

Jarod stared at her for a while and then put the phone back up to his ear. “Two hours, then,” he agreed. “Where?”

 

“Sam and I agree that you should set up the where – make it someplace that you’d feel more secure.”

 

“How about right in front of Dover Police Headquarters – on the sidewalk in exactly two hours from NOW?”

 

“We’ll be there,” Broots replied with relief. “Thanks, man.”

 

“Don’t thank me yet,” Jarod warned darkly and disconnected.

 

“In front of the police headquarters?” Miss Parker couldn’t help but admire the irony of the setting. “That ought to tie Willy’s sphincter in knots. He hates getting anywhere near the civilian authorities…”

 

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Jarod agreed. “And now, in the meanwhile, maybe you and I can put our heads together and come up with some kind of plan to deal with Sydney’s arraignment.”

 

oOoOo

 

Sydney sighed hopefully. He hadn’t seen Miss Parker since the previous morning – although she’d called him from the office that afternoon. The police officers he’d seen had been looking at him with very strange expressions on their faces too – something that made him suspect that something had happened, something that concerned him. He stood patiently and let the police officer escorting him put the cuffs on his wrists and ankles, and then shuffled out the cell door and down the familiar path to the interrogation room.

 

But it wasn’t Miss Parker’s face that looked up into his as he stepped into the room – but Jarod’s. “Doctor Green,” the Pretender announced in a very formal tone, his eyes dancing to tell his mentor to go along with whatever he was going to say, “I’m your new attorney – my name is Jarod Bailey.”

 

“What happened to my previous attorney?” Sydney asked in alarm. For Jarod to be here must mean…

 

“She was involved in a car accident last night and will be unable to pursue your case file,” Jarod told him while keeping an eye on the officer as the man walked slowly from the room.

 

“Is she all right?” Sydney demanded.

 

“She’s been better,” Jarod told him, “but she’ll be fine after a while. She’s been beside herself, worrying that she was letting you down – so I told her I’d pick up the case for her.”

 

“Jarod,” Sydney looked about the room and then bent closer, “what about the Centre? Aren’t you afraid they’ll find you…”

 

“Sydney,” Jarod shook his head at his mentor, “usually I wouldn’t be doing this – but I’m in a unique position here today.” His eyes pegged and held those of his mentor. “Raines is dead.”

 

“Dead!” Sydney breathed out in amazement.

 

“And in about a half hour, I’m meeting with Sam and Broots and Willy…”

 

“WILLY!” the older man shouted. “Are you mad?”

 

“Calm down,” Jarod soothed at his mentor, shaking his head when the face of the escort officer peeked through the window in the door in concern. “Even Miss Parker thinks that it would be a good idea to at least hear the man out.”

 

Sydney’s gaze searched his protégé’s, looking for some sign that Jarod wasn’t fully invested in this mad scheme, only to find that the Pretender was completely serious. “You’re going to go along with this, no matter what I say, aren’t you?” he sighed eventually.

 

“I’m going to take full advantage of the opportunities this situation have presented,” the Pretender said with a small smirk. “Miss Parker helped me work out a few of the details just before I came here. She wanted me to tell you to hang tough for a little while longer.”

 

“I’m doing the best I can, Jarod,” Sydney promised tiredly. “When you see Miss Parker next, tell her I said to take good care of herself…”

 

Jarod looked at his mentor with some concern. Sydney’s entire mien seemed to be diminished – as if the circumstances he’d be thrust into were taking a horrific toll on the inner man. “You can’t let this bring you down, Sydney,” he said in a comforting tone. “You’ve got me and Broots and Sam and Miss Parker all doing our very best to get you through this unscathed…”

 

“Unscathed? I don’t think so,” Sydney shook his head. “I’m figuring that I’ll be lucky if I get through this at all.”

 

“I’m not about to let this go much further, Sydney,” Jarod promised. “One way or the other, Sydney, I’m getting you out of here – and soon.”

 

“Just make sure to take care of yourself, Jarod,” the old psychiatrist told him firmly.

 

oOoOo

 

Sam and Broots were sitting on the bench just outside the police headquarters while Willy paced back and forth nervously. “I don’t know why the Hell he had to choose this place,” the dark sweeper grumbled to the other two.

 

“Maybe because he knows that it would put you off-balance,” Sam commented dryly, appreciating the humor in the situation but not wanting to make Willy any more nervous than he already was.

 

Willy tipped his hand and checked his wristwatch. “He’s late on top of it all.”

 

“No, I’m not,” Jarod said from the open doorway of the police headquarters and then walked calmly down the steps toward the trio waiting for him, looking every bit the calm lawyer type. “Since Miss Parker is now indisposed, I’ve taken over as Sydney’s defense council.”

 

Sam nodded acceptingly. “Good – I take it you talked to Miss Parker about this?”

 

“It was her idea,” Jarod replied with a smirk. “As a matter of fact, when I told her what you wanted, she had a number of ideas. She may be stuck in a hospital bed, but her mind isn’t damaged, you know.” He moved to sit down between Broots and Sam on the bench and then looked up at Willy with some exasperation. “Well, I’m here. Will somebody please tell me what I’m here about?”

 

Willy looked over at Sam, who nodded to him. The dark sweeper took a deep breath, never having once believed that he would ever want to work in concert with the escaped Pretender, and then started. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that suddenly we have events happening that effectively take out each and every one of the top echelon of the
Centre?” he said boldly and then waited for the impact of his words to hit his target.

 

Jarod tossed the notion around in his mind and then was amazed that he hadn’t seen it before. “Wait a minute – why Sydney?” he asked.

 

The sweeper shrugged. “Threatening Sydney made for an opening for an attack on Miss Parker – or maybe it was a way to get back at YOU. Does it really matter?”

 

Jarod’s eyes were narrowed. “That would be clever indeed – to get us to take each other out of the equation. Miss Parker turned Lyle in when she heard some of the details of the second victim.”

 

“I talked to the officer of the watch,” Willy countered. “There was more than one call that the police were acting on when they visited Lyle. And it was a while afterward that the search warrant was served and they found the missing body parts from both victims in Lyle’s refrigerator…”

 

“Which keeps the police very nicely confused – do they accuse Sydney of both murders because his semen was found in both bodies, or Lyle because he had trophies of both in his fridge?” Jarod nodded appreciatively. “Whoever set this up, did their homework on how to tie everybody in knots.”

 

“They damned near had Miss Parker tied in knots too, with the appearing and disappearing evidence,” Sam remarked. “She told me, finally, that she thinks she was set up to discover the second victim herself – more of the gas-lighting – but somebody else found the body first. She had me drive over to the park where it was found – only the police were already there,” he explained to the Pretender. “I’m going to want to go over to her place again and take a look in her liquor cabinet. She got awfully wasted awfully fast last night – and I bet was still under the influence when that call came through about Broots’ daughter…”

 

“That’s mean!” Broots exclaimed, shocked.

 

“Considering that there is no mention of any other victim of the crash,” Sam stated ominously, “it stands to reason that our mystery person may have hoped to have Miss Parker taken out of the picture – permanently – with that stunt. Instead, she takes the tape from her answering machine with her – the proof that she really had been called out – and then managed to survive to boot.” He gave Jarod a hard glance. “Someone had been at her house looking to retrieve the tape – and they pulled the machine out of the wall when they found the tape gone.”

 

“I’m going to want to go back to the Chairman’s office,” Willy stated. “Raines was pushing on the intercom button when I found him – and I pushed it myself when I found him unconscious – and the intercom wasn’t working. Raines was set up to not be able to call for help – and I think someone tampered with his oxygen tank and replaced it with carbon monoxide.”

 

“Sounds like somebody at the Centre is doing this,” Broots observed cautiously.

 

“Someone with access to the Centre – and to many different levels,” Jarod agreed. “That means someone with a pretty healthy level of clearance.”

 

“Do we have anything tangible – other than the tapes and the folder, though?” Willy asked.

 

“There might be prints on the answering machine from Miss Parker’s bedroom,” Sam pointed out, “and the voice print from the tape. I haven’t had the time to check it out yet, but…”

 

“And then there’s this button,” Jarod spoke, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out the little white and black button that he’d found in Sydney’s motel room. “I found it checking out the motel room where they found Sydney. I’ve never seen anything like this before…”

 

“I have,” Broots stated in surprise after reaching over and grabbing Jarod’s hand to drag it closer to get a better look. “That’s not a button. That’s an eye.”

 

Jarod blinked in astonishment. “It’s a what?”

 

Broots nodded surely. “I saw one just like it once – down in the old medical facility sub-level. Miss Parker and I had followed Mr. Cox there after watching him pick up road kill – he does taxidermy, you know...” He nodded at the button. “That’s what they use for the eyes.”

 

“Cox?” Willy was frowning. “Didn’t he get fired after that bombing fiasco that Raines…”

 

“I understand that Lyle was furious with him for losing custody of Jarod’s girlfriend,” Broots filled in the story easily. “At least, that’s what I heard from Manny down in…”

 

“Didn’t you just tell Miss Parker that you’d seen Cox back at the Centre again?” Sam pushed at Broots’ arm.

 

“Uh… yeah…” Broots looked around the circle of faces with understanding slowly dawning. “Yeah…”

 

“I bet Lyle loved that,” Jarod chortled.

 

“Lyle didn’t know,” Willy stated firmly. “Lyle didn’t show up for work yesterday.”

 

“Did Raines know?” Sam wondered aloud.

 

Willy shrugged and shook his head, and Jarod waved his hand. “Let’s not get in front of ourselves here. What would Cox stand to gain by taking out the top management of the Centre?”

 

“Or doing it while the Triumvirate’s poking into things too,” Broots added. “When I saw him, he was tagging along behind a whole pack of Africans, here on an inspection trip.”

 

“More importantly, the Centre is vulnerable with no obvious leader at the top of the heap,” Sam thought out loud, and then stared around the group in surprise. “You don’t suppose…”

 

“Man! Talk about hostile take-overs!” Broots breathed in appreciation.

 

“We can’t let that happen!” Willy was adamant. “We have to stop it…”

 

“And how do you think we’re going to be able to accomplish that?” Sam demanded. “It isn’t as if one of us could walk in and just take over…”

 

“Why not?” Jarod’s voice was thoughtful, but not overly concerned – but the audacity of his suggestion had floored the others. He looked around the tiny circle of stunned faces with a look of surprise. “Oh, come on now! If you can believe that someone can and has arranged for the seat of power to be vacant without being detected, surely you can believe that someone ELSE can take advantage of the situation.”

 

“Who?” Sam asked in an astonishingly small voice.

 

oOoOo

 

The Triumvirate delegation had received the news of Raines’ death just long enough ago that the extreme shock and dismay had had a chance to dispel a little. A hurried phone call to Nairobi had been made, seeking instructions and a conference with the other members of the consortium, but those arrangements were pending.

 

The oldest and nominal leader of the delegation was a proud and seasoned banker and guerilla fighter, Siskele Mbala. When others of his staff were ready to charge out, demanding to speak to the next in the Parker line, it was he who cautions restraint and patience. “Let the Centre find its own balance first,” had been his advice. “The Centre is a complex and convoluted entity, fully capable of taking this latest blow in stride. We need only continue to study the information we came here to study and wait until that which is going to happen, happens. THEN we will respond appropriately.”

 

Certainly there was enough information to process – information that it had taken a lengthy and heated meeting with Raines to get permission to access – to occupy the time. The latter part of the morning sped by in relative quiet. The few trips outside their comfortable conference room to acquire supplies or refreshments discovered the everyday workings of the Centre to be continuing on as if nothing had happened. When lunchtime came about, the catering crew from the cafeteria was there with the latest in a series of tasty and nutritious meals, served in an efficient and professional manner.

 

The expected telephone call came a little after two in the afternoon – a summons to the Chairman’s office. Mbala looked around at his colleagues’ and aides’ faces and nodded sagely. “And now we get to discover with whom we shall be dealing in the months and years ahead of us,” he announced, pushing the file he’d been studying back on the table. “Letira,” he called to the one female member of the consortium that had come with him on this trip, “shall we?”

 

Letira Balenge was one of the youngest of the delegation – but one of the most powerful. Her father, Chelo Balenge, had been one of the founding members of the Triumvirate; and her seat had come to her by right of inheritance after the old man’s assassination three years ago. She was tall, slender, with soft ebony eyes and delicate features – and a lethal training in many of the martial arts. Her trading company was one of the lynchpins of Triumvirate holdings – a clearing house for global dealings that brought a great deal of wealth into the country.

 

As the two of them walked down the hallway after alighting from the elevator, they couldn’t help but note the increased number of Centre sweepers lining the walls. Mbala frowned – this was a sign that the transfer of authority had perhaps not gone as smoothly has he had hoped. He and Letira paused outside the etched glass doors while a somber-faced sweeper had knocked and entered the room to announce their arrival. Then the doors swung open, and they were escorted in.

 

“It’s good to see you,” the dark-haired man behind the massive desk announced, gesturing graciously at the two chairs that had been conveniently arranged. Mbala’s eyes flicked around the room and landed on the two sweepers obviously standing watch over the new Chairman’s shoulder. One he knew well – the man had been at the constant beck and call of the old Chairman, now deceased. The other he’d seen only in passing one other time he’d come to the States to visit and gather information.

 

Then his eyes lit on the gentleman at the desk and it was as if a light suddenly illuminated the room. He knew that man! Mbala’s jaw dropped open slightly, and his steps toward his seat hesitated. Letira, feeling the lapse, turned to her colleague. “Are you all right, Siskele?” she asked in concern, then frowned at the man behind the desk. “What is going on here?”

 

“Good morning,” the man repeated, a knowing smirk slowly spreading across his face. “My name is Jarod, AND, for the time being, I am the Centre Chairman pro-temp. Please have a seat – we have much to discuss.”

Chapter 11 – Race Among The Ruins

 

“So let me get this straight,” Letira rose as gracefully as a gazelle from her seat and began pacing back and forth between her older colleague and the massive desk. “You’re telling us that someone has been systematically removing the top corporate officers of the Centre from their posts as a prelude to a potentially hostile take-over attempt. You’re also expecting me to believe that you’re merely ‘sitting in’ as Miss Parker’s representative until she is healed enough to take up her responsibilities as Chairman – ChairPERSON – in due time.” The turbaned head turned to gaze evenly and skeptically at the man behind the desk. “Have I summarized things adequately?”

 

Jarod nodded. “That summarizes the current situation rather nicely.”

 

“And what do you want of us?” Mbala leaned forward, his colorful shoulder drape falling unheeded over his knee.

 

“My associates and I need time – time to gather evidence and see if our suspicions are justified, time for Miss Parker to get out of the hospital and back on her feet to take over the job that is rightfully hers, and time to ensure the Centre remains a profit-making enterprise,” Jarod listed patiently. “And finally, we need time to get the local authorities involved properly, to make sure this individual will never be able to threaten Centre or Triumvirate agendas again.”

 

“You intend to bring in the police?” Letira asked with raised brows. “Isn’t that a bit dangerous, considering the kinds of activities that have been taking place here for so long?”

 

“It would only be dangerous if we intended to continue in those less than legal activities,” Jarod stated firmly. “Miss Parker is adamant that she has no intention of pursuing projects that oppress or imprison others against their will – up to and including those projects involving ME,” he added with a satisfied finality. “The Pretender Project – among others – will be permanently shut down.”

 

“Some of those projects have been and are financed with OUR money,” Letira told him in her musically accented tones. “What about them?”

 

Jarod merely shrugged. “I’m not going to be the one making those decisions. I’m only here as a placeholder and a lightning rod for the time being. You’ll have to talk to Miss Parker about the specifics and particulars of any one project you wish her to continue.”

 

Mbala had been listening carefully to the man that the Centre had spent so much time and so much money trying to chase down, impressed with the way this Pretender had moved with such assuredness and confidence into his position – and he heard very clearly what Jarod had said in such dismissive tones. “What do you mean, you are a ‘lightning rod’?”

 

Jarod leaned back in the amazingly comfortable leather chair and steepled his fingers in front of his chest. “It’s really very simple. If the man we suspect of being responsible for several murders and other… mischief… that has created the Centre’s current power vacuum truly has done so in order to attempt to place himself in the Chairman’s seat, then my taking that prize away from him is going to… shall we say… piss him off royally. He will be forced to act again, more precipitously than before, because this development will not have been foreseen.” He smirked. “Men who are angry make mistakes – especially when forced to act without careful planning ahead of time – and we’re now on the lookout for his kind of tactics. Catching him in the act of trying again would go a long ways toward convincing the local authorities to take responsibility for him over the long haul.”

 

The elderly African gentleman nodded with a half-smile of approval on his face. “And you want time to set a trap, correct?”

 

Jarod’s smirk grew wider. “Something like that.”

 

Letira walked up to the dark sweeper who had been present at all of the meetings she’d ever attended at the Centre. “And tell me, Mr. Bodyguard Sweeper Whatever – will the Centre infrastructure go along with this scheme?” Willy’s eyes moved to hers briefly and then looked away again nervously. “Come on,” she insisted, running a finger just beneath the lapel of his jacket, allowing her voice to become just a little more musical and alluring. “Tell me if you think your fellow sweepers will be willing to take orders from the man they were all supposed to be trying to capture for all those years?”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Willy finally offered in terse tones, still not looking at her. “We’ve already talked to most of them – they’ll play along.”

 

“They don’t like uncertainties, ma’am,” Sam added quietly. “They know Miss Parker.”

 

“That still doesn’t explain what you want from US,” Mbala stated flatly.

 

Jarod leaned forward to put folded hands in front of him on the blotter. “Having the Triumvirate apparently approve my appointment to the Chairmanship would give me the time I need to accomplish my goals – and set my trap.”

 

“What’s in it for us?” Letira asked pointedly, sinking back into her seat next to her colleague.

 

Dark eyebrows rose on the Pretender. “I’m surprised you’d have to ask, Miss Balenge. When it comes down to the bottom line, the stability of the Centre is good for business and so, good for the Triumvirate. And right now, I represent the forces of stability.”

 

“He seems very sure of himself,” Letira muttered to Mbala in Swahili.

 

“I AM certain of myself,” Jarod interjected in the same language, earning himself a surprised and self-conscious glare. He switched back to English with a shrug. “Tell me, do you want to continue to deal with a Parker family legacy here at the Centre, or an outsider?”

 

“You don’t consider yourself an outsider?” she retorted.

 

“Letira,” Mbala cautioned with a hand to her arm, “The scrolls…”

 

“To the contrary, I’m about as inside as you can get,” Jarod replied easily. “I was raised here, I know how the system works from the inside out – and where the vulnerabilities are that can be exploited from the outside. The prophecy in the scrolls aside, the one advantage that my occupying this chair offers you that the alternative does not is: I don’t intend to make this a permanent entry on my résumé.” His smile was grim. “In the not-too-distant future, I will want out once and for all. My unchallenged right to walk away and not have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life will be my price for keeping the Centre out of interloper control.”

 

“There are TWO Parkers,” Mbala reminded the Pretender pointedly. “If Miss Balenge agrees, then you shall have Triumvirate support to your claim to the Chairmanship - and we shall convince our people in Africa to go along with this – on one condition. When you step down, you will hand over authority to a JOINT Parker Chairmanship.”

 

“Agreed,” Jarod replied reluctantly.

 

The two Africans leaned their heads together and spoke quickly in whispers to each other for a long time, occasionally raising their tones to almost audible tones, until finally they straightened. “We are agreed. You shall have your Triumvirate approval for assuming the role of Chairman pro-temp.” Mbala rose and extended his hand over the table, and Jarod shook first his hand and then Letira’s. Letira put her hand carefully in Mbala’s elbow, and the pair walked leisurely from the room, pulling the glass doors closed after them.

 

“Do you really think Miss Parker is going to agree to share authority with Lyle when you step down? She’s gonna have your guts for garters for that one,” Sam leaned forward a little and whispered into Jarod’s ear as the Africans took their leave.

 

“I know,” Jarod admitted to the sweeper. “But I had to agree to that to win the rest of the prize. Right now, Miss Parker doesn’t need to know about that part of things. By the time comes for me to hand things over, you never know what Lyle’s circumstances will be.” Already his mind was turning over ways in which to circumvent that part of his gentlemen’s agreement with the Triumvirate – without getting himself killed in the process.

 

oOoOo

 

“Have you ever even been IN this place before?” Officer Ryan asked Miller as he was waved through the front security gate after receiving instructions on where to park.

 

Miller shook his head. “I don’t think many people from the department have,” he replied, unable to resist the temptation to stretch his neck in appreciation as the full effect of the Tower came into view around a rather dramatic turn in the driveway. “Damn, this place is huge!”

 

Ryan refrained from response. She was still reeling from being dragged away from her desk once more by Miller when the call had come into headquarters from the Centre, implying that the Centre itself was now taking an active interest in the homicides, inasmuch as two of their top-level operatives had been implicated. Miller himself had been very casual about it – she’d already had a fairly active role in the investigation so far, he’d told her as he’d hurried her out to the car, she might as well stick it out to the end.

 

A black-suited man who reminded Miller more of Secret Service agents than a security man pointed to a spot at the curb and then came over to meet them as they climbed from the police cruiser. “The Chairman sends his regards and has asked me to accompany you to the Tower.”

 

Somehow, the way the man said “the Tower” made the shivers run down Miller’s spine. Still, he gave a nod to his erstwhile partner and set about following the security man. The landscaping in front of the massive main building was impressive and very restful, with the sound of water splashing rhythmically in the fountains and the tasteful arrangement of steps and greenery and buffed stainless steel and glass. The security man waved a laminated pass at the guard just inside glass doors and then ushered them into the vaulted lobby and in the direction of a bank of elevators.

 

Once inside the polished wood and stainless steel car, the security man inserted a key into the control panel and turned it, whereupon another panel slid to the side exposing three more buttons. The trip up didn’t take long – what this Tower lacked in height, it more than made up for with architectural majesty both inside and out. When the elevator deposited them at the requisite floor, they had only to walk down a short hall lined with several more of the somber, black-suited security men.

 

A young woman at a massive secretary’s desk pushed at an intercom button as she saw the trio coming closer, announcing their arrival. “You can go on in,” she smiled and rose to open the etched glass door to the inner office.

 

The interior of the office was tastefully decorated, but the massive desk in the corner dominated the entire room. A relatively young man sat at the desk, with two obviously security-minded associates ranged on either side of him, standing back and out of the way but remaining very aware of everything going on in the room. Miller’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he took in the face of the man sitting behind that desk. “You look very familiar,” he said cautiously.

 

“I’m not surprised,” the dark-haired man said congenially as he rose and extended his hand. “My name is Jarod Bailey, and today I’m the Chairman of the Centre. You probably saw me this morning at police headquarters, visiting my client – Doctor Sydney Green.”

 

“YOUR client?” Miller was shocked. “What about that Miss Parker?”

 

“Have a seat,” Jarod gestured gracefully and seated himself at the same time. “Miss Parker was injured in an auto accident last night and will be hospitalized for a while – making a change of attorney necessary. As I am also an attorney, and as I am a personal friend of Doctor Green, I offered to handle the case myself.”

 

“That’s…” Miller began, stunned by the easy explanation, “…rather remarkable, don’t you think? We hear a lot about the goings on here at the Centre, but until now, I don’t think I’ve met anybody who’s actually met the Chairman – or seen the Chairman anywhere other than in this office…”

 

“Yes, well…” Jarod folded his hands on the blotter, “that situation is about to end, and is part of the reason I called you here. I have a feeling that my ascension to this position may have something to do with a set of murders that you’ve been investigating…”

 

“You KNOW something about those murders?” Miller was incensed, “and you haven’t said anything until now?”

 

“You weren’t listening,” Jarod replied patiently. “I said that my getting my position MAY have something to do with the murders – I suspect, I don’t know. Not yet, at any rate. It’s part of the reason why I wanted to be on Sydney’s defense team as well.”

 

“Perhaps it would help if you told us how you came to be suspicious in the first place, and how or why you started to make connections between the murders in Dover and whatever it is that happened here?” Ryan surprised both herself and her erstwhile partner by being both practical and vocal.

 

Jarod nodded. “I’m in the process of transferring that reason into the custody of the Blue Cove coroner as we speak,” he stated quietly, “for, you see, we had a murder here in the Centre earlier today.”

 

“Here!” Ryan exclaimed in surprise.

 

Miller, however, was beginning to appreciate the way that this Chairman thought. “I see. Your immediate predecessor, I take it?”

 

“Exactly,” Jarod replied. “William Raines has – had – been diagnosed with emphysema years ago, and he’s needed to have oxygen on a twenty-four, seven basis for a long time. So when he suddenly is found unconscious in his office and dies in the medical facility downstairs of carbon monoxide poisoning…”

 

“You have a medical facility on the grounds capable of making such a determination?” Miller asked with eyes narrowed again.

 

Jarod looked at the detective evenly. “The Centre is a completely self-contained community, Detective, with doctors and pathologists capable of doing virtually the same job the public officials have to do, but with a minimum of distractions. We have a fully functional morgue too, for that matter – so that the body, which is being transferred into the care of the local coroner, has been stored properly. All the documentation of the autopsy will be available to the medical examiner when the time comes.”

 

“How many times in the past did the medical examiner HERE bypass the civilian authorities?” Miller growled. The idea that this place had been putting itself above the law was entirely in character with everything he’d ever seen or heard of the place – and it spoke of potential problems.

 

“I’m not sure, and I don’t think that to be germane to the issue here and now,” Jarod replied archly. “The fact is that the Centre is now cooperating fully, and we are willing to present our suspicions in regards to this and the other murders in Dover. We assumed that the Dover Police Department would want to arrest and prosecute the man responsible. Perhaps we were mistaken…”

 

“Of course we would want…” Miller blustered.

 

Ryan leaned forward, her blonde hair brushing her shoulder. “What led you to make this connection, Mr. Bailey?”

 

“Ah!” Jarod put up a single forefinger. “I told you that I just took over this position. The fact is that normally I wouldn’t have been in any position to even speak for the job, but for the fact that most of the other top echelon of Centre executives has been removed from the picture over the last few days for one reason or the other. Doctor Sydney Green, psychiatrist with a very long history with the Centre and the authority to speak to the psychological fitness of any candidate for the job, is in jail for the murder of a woman you haven’t even identified yet. Lyle Parker, son of the previous Chairman and in direct line to take over here, is also in your jail facing the possibility of similar charges. Miss Parker, Lyle’s twin sister, is now lying in a hospital bed after being tricked into driving to aid a friend and having an accident – an accident involving a head-on collision with another vehicle that resulted in her being the sole victim.”

 

Miller had his notebook out and was taking notes. He looked up skeptically. “You have an interesting set of coincidences on your hands, to be sure. But I don’t see…”

 

“We have now started to accumulate physical evidence,” Jarod added, “that calls into question the coincidental nature of recent events. We have the oxygen tank that was tampered with and filled with carbon monoxide. We have the intercom system that connected my desk with that of my secretary – this one is a replacement – that has the wiring tampered with so that the person here in the office couldn’t call out for help. We have the tape from Miss Parker’s answering machine; with a voice claiming to be that of one of her close friends claiming his daughter is missing. We also have the answering machine itself, which was pulled from the wall and left on the floor when it was discovered that Miss Parker had taken the tape with her when she left…”

 

“Why on earth would she have done that?” Ryan asked, captivated by the story at least.

 

“Because this was the third time she would have been responding to something that she’d either seen or heard – only to turn around and have the proof vanish practically under her nose,” Jarod replied frankly. “When I spoke to her in the hospital this morning, she told me that she’d not wanted to take any chances.”

 

“Was the answering machine handled so that any prints…” Miller began with a frown of worry.

 

“My security men are professionals, Detective,” Jarod answered with some pride. “The machine has been handled properly – as has the tape. And then there’s this…” He dug into his jacket breast pocket and pulled out the button-eye and handed it to the detective.

 

“What’s this?”

 

“It’s a piece of evidence your forensics team left behind at the motel room where your people found Sydney,” Jarod replied grimly, and Miller looked up very sharply. “I have some experience as a private investigator myself, so I took a look around, personally. Like I say, Doctor Green is a longtime personal friend of mine – and someone I know couldn’t have done what the evidence seems to say he did.”

 

“Are you as sure about Lyle Parker as you are about Sydney Green?” Ryan asked pointedly.

 

“No, I’m not,” Jarod admitted, “but that comes from my personal past history with the man more than any evidence to the contrary.”

 

“You still haven’t told me what this is,” Miller pointed to the button.

 

“According to my friend, this is an eye – the kind that taxidermists use when mounting animals.” Jarod put the button down on the blotter. “And there is only one man who at one time had the kind of security clearance here at the Centre to get away with a great many things without causing much comment who also practiced taxidermy as a rather unusual hobby.”

 

“Just what exactly do want of us,” Miller asked finally. “You seem to have all the answers so far – why don’t you just present the evidence when it comes time to arraign your friend on murder charges and blow the prosecution’s case right out of the water?”

 

“Because to do that, I’d have to break several laws, not to mention our evidence wouldn’t have a chain of custody validation or the proper warrants to make them presentable.” Jarod leaned back in his chair. “I’m more than willing to continue the investigation, Detective, don’t get me wrong. But I’d rather continue it in concert with the police department rather than in competition. I don’t want any of our evidence to be thrown out of court for not having followed procedure.”

 

“The Dover Police Department normally doesn’t investigate its cases in concert with outside agencies not direction law enforcement related,” Miller told the Pretender calmly.

 

“The Centre doesn’t normally conduct its investigations in concert with anybody else,” Jarod stated equally calmly. “But in this instance, I can see only good coming from our collaboration. IF I’m right, we’ve had three murders so far. Seems to me that bringing justice to the family and friends of those people – and making sure that the person responsible doesn’t get a chance to do it again – should be more important than who does the investigating.”

 

“You realize that much of what you’ve presented to us today wouldn’t be admissible in court…” Miller pointed out.

 

“This evidence only suggests a direction in which to look,” Jarod replied. “If we work together from this point on, however, the evidence will be unassailable – because since we would be acting as agents of the police from this point onward, we would be held to the same legal limitations that you folks are.”

 

“We’d need a judge’s permission,” Ryan looked her question to Miller.

 

“It would be unprecedented, that’s for sure,” Miller replied.

 

“Three people are dead – how many more need to die?” Jarod asked somberly.

 

“I’ll have to get back to you,” Miller answered very thoughtfully.

 

“That’s all I can expect,” Jarod said, rising. “I just wanted to present my case and see whether you thought there was enough there to perhaps warrant doing whatever it would take to… what? Deputize certain Centre operatives?”

 

“Let me get an appointment with a judge, and then I think I’ll let you do the selling of this crazy idea,” Miller rose too, and Ryan rose finally as well. “Even if nothing comes of this, I appreciate your taking the time to try to bring us in on what you’ve discovered so far.”

 

“Thank you both for coming and listening to my rather outlandish proposal without laughing me out of the room.” Jarod once more shook hands with the two police officers. “My man will escort you back to your car. Please do stay in touch.”

 

“And you too, Mr. Bailey,” Miller waved as he turned to leave the office.

 

“What do you think?” Sam asked the Pretender, relaxing his posture.

 

Jarod shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see,” he said with some resignation. “But in the meanwhile, there are a few things we could be doing…”

 

oOoOo

 

Siskele Mbala leaned toward Uluru, one of his clerical aides. “Have we dealt with this man before? His name is familiar…”

 

“Yes, sir,” the aide replied immediately, her notebook open and her finger slipping down a page to rest just below the last name of the man who had asked for an appointment with the Triumvirate delegation. “He was a close associate of Mr. Charles Parker prior to the unfortunate incident that lost us access to the scrolls. But after the botched attempt to disrupt that conference with the bomb on the subway, he was fired, I understand…”

 

Letira smoothed her skirt primly over her lap. “The question I have is what this man would want to speak to US about.”

 

“Perhaps Jarod was right about an interloper trying to take over things here – and this is the man responsible. In which case, it’s likely that this man is unaware that another has already filled the Chairman’s post and is seeking our approval to his application for the job,” Mbala answered with a graceful shrug. “Either way, we won’t know for sure until we let the man in and hear what he has to say.” He turned to the clerical aide. “Send the man in, but call Ketonga and Idin – and have them stand by closely. I do not trust this man.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Uluru answered and moved through the hotel-like suite that the Centre had assigned for their use to the foyer, where the man with the astonishingly blue eyes was waiting expectantly. Along the way, he stopped by the kitchen and muttered a few words into Ketonga’s ear that had the man quickly downing the contents of his mug and tugging on the arm of his associate to head toward the luxurious sitting room.

 

Once she was sure that her employers had ample security in place, she walked gracefully to the foyer. “Please follow me, sir,” she directed with her musical English and led the way through the suite to the sitting room. “Mr. Cox, sir, madame,” she announced with a slight bow and then headed for the edge of the room to take notes and observe the proceedings.

 

Mbala gazed at the newcomer with amusement. “Mr. Cox,” he began without rising. “We are wondering what your business would be with us.”

 

“I’m truly honored that you have agreed to see me,” Cox began with his words lightly accented from his years of education in London and Cambridge. He extended his hand.

 

“We are very busy, Mr. Cox,” Letira told him in an inflexible tone. “Perhaps you should get to the point of your visit.” She didn’t like the man’s servile and manipulative attitude, or the way in which he had his hands folded so very carefully in front of him now. She wondered if he knew the level of insult that was implied in the refusal to shake hands.

 

“I’m not sure that you are aware of the events that have gone on in the Centre today,” he began again, not at all encouraged by the arrogance of the woman. When he’d been with Mr. Parker during a meeting with a Triumvirate delegation, there hadn’t been a woman involved.

 

“Of what events are you speaking?” Mbala asked very neutrally.

 

“It seems that the Chairman of the Centre was found dead in his office this morning,” Cox announced with a slight note of triumph. “And both of the logical candidates for Mr. Raines’ successor are currently unable to take up the leadership of this great corporation.”

 

“Indeed!” Letira led the man further into his proposal, thoroughly disgusted at the crass spark of greed that was starting to shine behind his gaze. “And how is it that you know this, but we don’t?”

 

“I was a confidante of the previous Chairman,” Cox told her in a slightly miffed tone. “”I was privy to many things that go on here – and I was able to develop contacts within the Centre hierarchy who would keep me abreast of any news.”

 

“Why should you concern yourself with the demise of the Centre Chairman or the availability of the Parker twins to take over the position?” Mbala’s gaze was sharp and bore straight through Cox’s.

 

Cox’s hands moved in a graceful arc before resting once more folded in front of him. “I don’t want to see the Centre become adrift or unstable. And inasmuch as I have been involved with the upper management of the Centre previously, I thought that I would offer you my services as an interim Chairman.”

 

Letira could see that her colleague was on the brink of telling the man that his job was already filled, and she wanted to play with his intentions and aspirations just a bit more before disappointing him bitterly. “Do you have management experience, Mr. Cox?” she asked in a sweet and deceptively interested voice.

 

The slow, knowing smile that spread across the man’s face definitely gave Letira the idea that she was dealing with a man who could be even more ruthless than Mr. Raines had been in his life. This man had killed to get to this point, to this meeting, and he’d be willing to kill again, if necessary, to achieve what he wanted. For a brief moment, she found herself feeling almost sorry for Jarod in having to face off with this man – for coming out on top would by no means be a foregone conclusion.

 

Belatedly she turned her attention to his answer to her question. “I have worked for several private foundations during my career,” he replied easily. “I can provide you with a set of references, if you think that would help confirm my story.”

 

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Cox,” Mbala asserted finally, shooting his colleague a withering glare for her efforts. “The Centre is already in very capable hands. An interim Chairman has already been appointed and received our approval.”

 

Cox’s jaw dropped open in shock. “Wh… who?” he finally managed to squeak.

 

“A man by the name of Jarod Bailey.” Mbala gave a satisfied grin of his own at last. “I believe you know of him, at least…”

 

“Jarod…” Cox breathed, his eyes narrowing. “How…”

 

“How is not your concern,” Mbala was tired of the game and wanted this dangerous man out of his suite and out of his hair. The game was Jarod’s from here on out – best that Jarod take over the job and deal with this man as quickly as possible. “The fact remains that the Centre is not in danger of any instability in the foreseeable future. Your offer is appreciated, but entirely unnecessary.”

 

“But Jarod is…”

 

“Imminently qualified, don’t you think?” Letira smiled in cold sweetness at him. “After all, he grew up at the Centre, knows about as many of their secrets and procedures as anyone there would.” She gestured toward the door. “I trust you know your way out, Mr. Cox.”

 

Those incredibly blue eyes were snapping with an icy fire that she’d never seen the like of before. “Thank you for at least seeing me,” he said in a very soft voice. “I appreciate your time.” His gait was a little stiff and jerky, as if he’d received an electrical shock rather than an informational one.

 

“Call the Tower,” Mbala ordered Uluru immediately after the man had passed through their suite door and the aide had returned to them. “Inform the Chairman that the news of his ascendancy has been passed along to the man he suspects – and that the responsibility for what happens from here out is his.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Uluru nodded and headed for the door.

 

“I don’t envy Jarod’s task,” Letira commented as she settled down and smoothed her skirt over her knees.

 

“Neither do I, my dear,” Mbala replied. “I guess now we’re going to get a chance to see whether all those hundreds of millions of dollars US the Centre spent over these years trying to catch that man were worth it.”

 

“Do we really intend to honor the agreement that he be allowed to go free without fear when this is all over?”

 

Mbala smiled a very soft smile. “We shall have to see when the time comes. Much will depend on whether, when this is all over, we have a Parker sitting in the Chairman’s office, or that man there.”

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod hung up the phone and looked up into Sam’s face. “The game’s afoot,” he announced grimly. “Cox now knows that I’m sitting where he wants to be.”

 

“Now what?” the sweeper asked, not at all pleased.

 

“Now we start making it easier for him to get to me,” the Pretender replied thoughtfully. “We start by making sure that Miss Parker is OK with my moving into her summerhouse for the time being – until she gets home from the hospital at the very least.”

 

“But Cox already knows how to break in over there,” Sam complained.

 

“True – but he won’t be expecting some of my little toys to be there too now,” Jarod leaned back in the comfortable chair. “Parker never did install motion detectors there – I’m surprised you didn’t try to convince her…”

 

“Ever tried to win an argument with Miss Parker?” Sam asked rhetorically, thinking back on the long and vehement argument he’d had with her over that very subject over a year ago. “I’m lucky I didn’t come away with any scars.”

 

“Well, she’s going to get them now,” Jarod announced firmly, “and I’ll show you where I want them placed. We’re trying to catch a very perceptive and devious man – so we’re not going to be contented in putting the detectors in the usual, expected spots. I want some where he’d NOT expect to find them – until he trips over it.”

 

“Something tells me we’re going to be playing a very dangerous game,” Sam growled.

 

Jarod nodded silently. /You have no idea, my friend,/ he thought to himself.

Chapter 12 – Baiting the Trap

 

“So what do you want me doing in the meanwhile?” Broots asked, looking up into Jarod’s face.

 

Jarod began to pace in a large, slow circle to the side of the technician’s desk. “We know that Cox has probably spent a great deal of time setting things up so that even the slightest award of authority would put him in a position of real power. So we need to find those arrangements and tie them back directly to Cox.”

 

“Well,” Broots stated after thinking for a while, “both the Centre and the Triumvirate have stockholders and a board of directors. And while it stands to reason that Cox probably wasn’t able to finagle a seat on either board, he MIGHT have made some stock purchases…”

 

“That’s about as good a place to start as any,” Jarod nodded, satisfied. “Get things set up here tonight before you head home to begin a full-scale search for any sizeable stock purchases in the last month or so – either here in the US or in Kenya. Let’s hope that Cox wasn’t counting on having people wise to him so early in the game so that he may not have hidden his handiwork quite so carefully.”

 

“That’s a cinch, Jarod,” Broots smiled up at the pacing Pretender confidently. “Are you going in to see either Syd or Miss Parker tonight?”

 

“Both, actually,” Jarod answered. “I need to pick Sydney’s brain for observations about Cox from when he was still around the Centre…”

 

“That man always made my skin crawl,” Broots shivered at him. “Between his picking up road kill and stuffing it and telling stories about him and daddy working in the mortuary around the stiffs…” The balding man shivered again and shook his head.

 

“What about waiting for the Dover PD, or a judge’s permission to start collecting evidence?” Sam reminded the both of the other men in the room. “Anything that Broots finds won’t be admissible, you know…”

 

“Considering that we’re looking into the stability of the Centre as part of the process of an internal administration change, I don’t think we have much to worry about,” Jarod shook his head. “Not yet, at any rate. After all, it is our own records we’d be looking into in order to have a smooth transition to a new administration. Where the warrants and working in conjunction with the Dover PD will come in will be in making a link between anything that we find here and the crimes he’s been committing “out there.”

 

“What about the rest of us – what do you want us doing?” Willy demanded.

 

“I want you and Sam over at Miss Parker’s the moment I get her permission to stay there until she’s out of the hospital. I want you to have about a dozen pairs of motion detectors and six remote cameras complete with mounts and necessary electronics. By the time we’re finished, I want her place far more difficult to get into without being detected – but make no mistake: I want the place to LOOK as vulnerable as it always has been. The new security measures are meant to catch us a rat, not function as a deterrent.”

 

“You going to tell Miss Parker about that deal you made with the devil – about the joint Chairmanship that she’s gonna have to deal with when you walk away?” Sam wanted to know.

 

“I may behave like an absent-minded genius at time,” Jarod replied with a deceptively easy smile, “but don’t trust everything you see and hear. I may be determined, but I’m not stupid. That news can wait until she’s literally on the verge of having the job dumped on her. No need to give her cause to fuss about it before then. Besides, hopefully by then I’ll have figured out a way around that little condition.”

 

“You’d best get a move on then, genius,” Sam told him crisply. “If you want Willy and me to get that job done before nightfall, you need to get your ass over and talk to Miss Parker.”

 

Jarod nodded. “I know. So I’ll see you two at the summerhouse in a few hours – Broots, walk with me. I need you to remember everything you possibly can about that time when you learned about our Mr. Cox’s hobby – if you can, I need you to remember everything he said to you word for word.” Broots swallowed hard and nodded. “And then I want you to go home and rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy and trying day – I’ll need you and everybody else rested and ready to go.”

 

Broots turned off his terminal and grabbed up his sweatshirt to follow Jarod. Setting up the data search for stock purchases the next morning would be a breeze. Remembering exactly what Cox had said to him and Miss Parker in the bowels of the Centre – that would be a challenge!

 

oOoOo

 

“Dave, you’re the one who’s had the most contact with these people,” Jeremy Baker, deputy District Attorney for Dover, watched the face of the cop carefully. “Are they dependable enough to trust with an appointment with a judge?”

 

Miller took a moment to marshal his thoughts before answering, moving a pencil back and forth on the blotter of his desk absently as he did. “I get a good feeling from this Jarod Bailey. I think he’s sincere, and I think he’s genuinely out to help us solve the two murders properly so as to remove any residual doubt from his friend’s reputation. I do wonder a little at his unwillingness to go very far out on a limb for the Parker fellow – but for the most part… Yeah,” he answered finally, “I think they’re dependable.”

 

Baker pulled very long and artistic looking fingers through his wavy, blonde hair. “I know I’ve heard rumors that some of the trainers for the Secret Service get specialized training with the Centre before they can be certified, so I’m certain that the Centre is used to working within a proscribed set of limits and rules.”

 

“But you don’t trust Mr. Bailey – is that it?”

 

“I don’t trust the Centre, period, to be honest,” the deputy D. A. admitted. “The rumor about the Secret Service is only one of about a dozen I’ve heard over the years, each one more fantastic and unbelievable than the last. One of the others,” he leaned forward conspiratorially, “asserted that they were keeping this genius locked up there who could climb into the heads and lives of others and know what they were thinking or going to do. I mean…” he sat back after spreading his hands wide, “when you keep hearing things like that, what is a decent person supposed to think?”

 

“We need the help solving this case, Jeremy,” Miller asserted firmly. “We’re running around in circles here with contradictory forensics that make no sense whatsoever. If this guy has a reasonable suspicion – and if the autopsy the Centre’s coroner did on the body he had sent over to us is confirmed – AND if the Centre’s reputation in the fields of security is well-deserved, then we’d be a fool to let a chance like this to slide through our fingers.”

 

Baker sighed heavily. “I know that. All right, I’ll get you an appointment with Judge Fisher at the earliest possible time – but I still don’t have to like who it is we’re considering playing footsie with.” He shot the detective a sharp look. “If the judge decides he wants us to play this one out with Centre help, then I’m going to want assurances…”

 

“I was thinking about asking my watch commander for another team of detectives to be assigned to the case,” Miller was thinking out loud, “and then request that Mr. Bailey’s team investigating the case be similarly restricted to four people only. That way I can pair up one of my men with one of the Centre’s – and make sure that procedure is being followed and no laws broken.”

 

The deputy District Attorney nodded. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.” He tapped the corner of Miller’s desk a couple of times with a thoughtful index fingertip, and then turned. “I’ll call you when I have a time for you and Mr. Bailey to meet with the judge.”

 

“Thanks, Jeremy,” Miller called out.

 

“Just don’t give me cause to regret this,” Baker tossed back over his shoulder. “These cases are already pretty high profile with the press – and my boss isn’t going to be very happy about their going without any resolution for a whole lot longer. He’s already starting to press me about not arraigning either of the two suspects in the case yet.”

 

Miller scowled. Just what this case needed, he grumbled to himself, a DA with a politically pressing need to prosecute someone, ANYone, for the murders.

 

oOoOo

 

“Hey there,” Jarod called carefully from the doorway to Miss Parker’s hospital room.

 

“Jarod, get your ass over here…” her voice threatened him from behind the curtain that shielded her from the view of everybody walking past in the hallway. “I’ve called the Centre twice now, and nobody will tell me what’s going on…”

 

“I wanted to talk to you myself first, so I told them all to ask you to wait,” he replied, pleased that she was at least feeling enough like her old self to be running short of patience with him.

 

“If that’s the case, then you took your damned sweet time getting in here to talk to me,” she barked, although the look in her eyes as he moved past the curtain and into view was one of frantic desperation. She watched him pull up a chair. “So sit down and talk to me already, damn it…”

 

“Feeling better today, are we?” he couldn’t help quipping at her while carefully staying out of reach of that forearm of hers that was encased in plaster of Paris. Somehow he wouldn’t put it past her to try to thunk him over the head with it, if she thought it would get her what she wanted any faster.

 

“Jarod…” From the tone, he could tell that whatever little patience had existed when he’d walked through the door was rapidly dissipating.

 

“Easy.” He moved the chair from the wall closer to the foot of her bed and braved patting the closest foot he could reach. “Everything has gone exactly as planned – from the Triumvirate representatives approving my interim authority to Cox finding out that I’m standing in his way.”

 

“He’s a dangerous man,” Miss Parker warned him. “And an intelligent one. Just look what he’s managed so far without raising a single red flag.”

 

“I know, Parker, I know. I’m going to see Sydney in a little while – between talking to you and talking to him, I should be able to get a feel for this guy. Then once I start to understand how he thinks, I can begin to prepare a proper trap for him.”

 

“And Syd’s still in the clink?”

 

Jarod nodded with a sad look on his face. “I wish I could say otherwise, but that much hasn’t changed yet. We’re going to have to find something that can counter that forensic evidence a little more definitively before they’re going to want to let him go, Parker. You know this…”

 

“I know,” she slumped. “I just hate what this is doing to him. We gotta get him out of there!”

 

“I’m working on it, I promise. I’ve talked to the police detective – hopefully I’ve convinced him to talk to a judge about combining our internal Centre investigation into Cox with one that has all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed so that any evidence found is admissible in court.”

 

Miss Parker actually looked impressed. “How did he take the suggestion?”

 

“Better than I’d feared,” Jarod shrugged. “We’ll know, I suppose, by whether or not I get a telephone call tomorrow with a date and time to meet with a judge.”

 

“Is Sam taking care of you?” she asked critically.

 

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Even Willy’s been unusually helpful in getting most of the other sweepers to support my claim to the Chairmanship. Having the two of them both supporting me seems to have done the trick.” He smirked. “By the way, it was an experience worth having to watch Willy get pressured by one of the Triumvirate representatives to confirm that the sweeper corps as a whole was behind my taking the Chairman’s job.”

 

“I can imagine,” she chuckled and then turned sober again. “What about Broots?”

 

“Parker, we’ve got our bases covered,” he soothed, leaning forward and patting the nearest foot again. “But I do have one favor to ask of you…”

 

“Of me? I’m hardly in any position to…”

 

“I need your house.”

 

That stopped her. “Say what?”

 

“Well, in the first place, I need somewhere to stay while waiting for Cox to make his move. I figure your place – until you’re out of here – would be about as good as any. He already feels comfortable breaking in there with what he thinks is impunity.” He could see that she wasn’t entirely thrilled with the idea, so barreled on ahead. “I’ll be adding extra security so that we can catch that bastard when or if he decides to make a run at me there – which will be good for you later on, because you won’t have to install it yourself.”

 

“Oh, Sam must LOVE you,” she commented sourly. “He and I went around and around about this very same theme about a year ago – and I finally got it through his thick skull that I didn’t want my place turning into a fortress…”

 

“Yeah,” Jarod smirked, “he did mention something about being lucky about coming away from that discussion without any new scars…”

 

“Is it really necessary?” she pleaded with him. “I mean, I don’t mind you staying at my place – at least I won’t have to worry about it looking abandoned while I’m still stuck here – but still…”

 

He leaned closer to her. “What I’m talking about installing isn’t going to be all that obvious, Parker. And I suppose you could always have Sam remove it later on, once we’ve got Cox dead to rights and you’re ready to take over as Chairman…”

 

“As if he’ll agree to that once it’s installed,” she shot back in the sour tone again. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that he’ll figure you helped him win the argument after all and be absolutely adamant about leaving the junk in place.”

 

Jarod shrugged. “That’s between you and your sweeper, Miss Parker. In the meanwhile, however, do I have your permission to…”

 

Miss Parker sighed and leaned back against her pillow in resignation. “Oh, all right. Go ahead and do what you think you have to do,” she told him dejectedly. “Finding enough cause to spring Syd from jail once and for all is more important than whether or not my house is wired for sound.”

 

Jarod rose almost immediately. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “I’ll call Sam and Willy, then, and have them get right on it.” He blinked as he remembered where he was and why he was visiting with her there. “So, what does your doctor have to say – how much longer are they going to want you in here?”

 

“I can go home tomorrow,” she smiled at him. “On crutches, and with strict orders not to work for a few days while the ribs heal some more and while I’m on the kind of pain pills that give my blood street value, but I can go home.” She saw that Jarod’s gaze had grown wary. “What?”

 

“I was almost hoping they were going to hang onto you for another day or so,” he explained wryly. “Now that we’ve got Cox coming after me directly, if you come home, he’ll be coming at me with you too close for comfort…”

 

“Jarod, I gotta get out of this place,” she insisted firmly. “I hate hospitals in general, and being cooped up in a bed all day and all night and out of the loop while you and everyone else is working on this is driving me nuts. My ass is getting flat and sore just lying here. Besides, it wouldn’t be as if I’d be helpless…” At his skeptical blink she gestured vividly. “I do own a gun, you know – shiny thing, makes a big noise and puts big holes in people if necessary…

 

He still wasn’t happy at all. “I’ll have to think about this…”

 

“Think all you want,” Miss Parker announced as she smoothed the hand without the cast down the blankets to straighten them, “but I’m coming home tomorrow. You want my house as a trap for Cox – you get me as a door prize.”

 

“Damn it, Parker, this isn’t a joke…”

 

“Screw you, Lab Rat. Them’s the breaks. Take it or leave it.”

 

The two of them glared at each other for a long moment, until Jarod finally relented. “OK. But it means that I have Sam with you 24/7 until this is over – at your house, at the doctor’s office, wherever. I don’t want you sneezing without him right there to hand you a Kleenex.”

 

“He’ll just love that,” she quipped.

 

Jarod ignored the remark. “I’m out of time - I gotta go see Sydney yet this evening. Listen: when your doctor gives you the release, I want you to call me on my cell so I can send Sam to pick you up – I do NOT want you going home on your own. Understood?”

 

The finely arched brows avalanched dangerously toward a spot in the middle of her forehead. “Oh yeah? And just who the hell do you think you are telling me what to do?”

 

Jarod’s chocolate eyes grew hard. “I’m the Chairman of the Centre and, for the moment, YOUR BOSS – that’s who I am.” When he saw that he’d startled her badly with that one, he nodded in satisfaction. “You would do well to remember that for the time being.”

 

The surprise was very temporary. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you – you bastard!” she hissed at him. He was right – at the moment he technically WAS her boss, and she’d worked with him on the plan to get him into that position herself. Damn it!

 

“Sleep well, Miss Parker – I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” he replied congenially and put the chair back against the wall on his way out the door.

 

oOoOo

 

“I can hardly believe that he’d want us to put a motion detector INSIDE the liquor cabinet,” Willy shook his head at Sam.

 

“Actually, that one’s my idea,” Sam replied, breaking open another plastic bag so he could begin to retrieve the mounting screws and micro-circuitry. “And before we leave, I want to take a good look at some of the glassware and take samples of some of the booze. I had a very watered-down brandy here with Miss Parker the night she had her accident – and it packed a helluva lot more of a wallop than it should have.” He glanced over his shoulder at where Willy was patiently lining up the sight of the detector at the third step of the stairs to the second floor. “You gonna be able to get that thing out of sight?”

 

“Not a problem,” Willy replied, lifting his hand to show the tiny receiver’s location against the baseboard of the step. “It won’t be seen unless someone knows to look for it. I’ve done this before…”

 

“Here?” Sam asked suspiciously.

 

Willy glanced over his shoulder at Sam this time, his face a study in stoniness. “Yes, here,” he answered challengingly. “Those were my orders at the time.”

 

“Of course.” Sam nodded knowingly and went back to his own installation job. “And you were always just doing your job,” he shot back without looking at his target.

 

“That’s right,” Willy replied, almost offended at the insinuation that he was making excuses, and then returned his concentration to the job at hand. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand the concept of loyalty.”

 

Sam sprawled out so that he could get at a good angle to mount the right hand transmitter just inside the door of the liquor cabinet so that any attempt to tamper with the contents of any bottle would set off one of the silent alarms. “What I understand,” he grunted as he worked the long screwdriver to put a holding screw into the wood, “is that a lot of what you were asked to do was the product of paranoia and distrust – and the rest of it seemed like you enjoyed it immensely.”

 

The dark sweeper pulled a small meter from his jacket pocket and then deliberately broke the line of infrared to check to see that the transmitter was working properly. “And I suppose you didn’t enjoy pushing people around for Miss Parker?”

 

“I didn’t push people around just for sheer intimidation,” Sam countered, sitting up and shifting to his other hip so that he could line up and attach the receiver unit to the opposite side of the cabinet interior. “It was always in order to get people to tell us what they knew about Jarod and his whereabouts.”

 

“And you enjoyed it,” Willy pressed his point even as he adjusted the tiny transmitter’s aim again.

 

“No, I didn’t enjoy it,” Sam retorted as he pulled his meter from his pocket and began the same final tuning process. “I did it because that was my job.”

 

“Exactly,” Willy’s grin split his face with white enamel. “The very point I was trying to make.”

 

“Not quite,” Sam shook his head as he slowly got to his feet. “My job was to assist Miss Parker in her search for Jarod. Just exactly what was Mr. Raines’ job at the Centre, anyway?” He looked at his companion earnestly. “I never did quite understand Mr. Raines’ position in the hierarchy…”

 

Willy pocketed the meter after making sure that the transmission of a broken beam alarm was clear and then turned to face the other sweeper. “Mr. Raines was the Centre enforcer,” he explained in a very matter of fact tone, “and I was the muscle behind the threat.”

 

“Why threaten people who were already doing their jobs?” Sam insisted.

 

“To make sure they kept on doing their jobs properly,” was the response.

 

“Even when it interfered with them being able to do their jobs properly?”

 

“If they’d been doing their jobs right in the first place, nothing I could do would interfere,” Willy insisted. “Those people would screw themselves up by not being focused.”

 

Sam snorted and just shook his head. Raines had done a good job in conditioning Willy not to see the immorality in what he was doing – a single conversation wasn’t going to undo years of patient work. “That doesn’t explain why he had you install spyware in Miss Parker’s home…”

 

“She was one of the most unfocused of all, Mr. Raines told me,” Willy replied. “He just wanted to make sure that Jarod didn’t influence her so much that she would become a liability to the Centre…”

 

“A liability to your boss, you mean,” Sam snapped. “Miss Parker was always loyal to the Centre – to her father. It was Raines that she feared and hated and suspected of having taken part in her mother’s death.”

 

Willy turned and looked at Sam evenly. “You go to your church, and I’ll go to mine. In the meanwhile, where do we put the next ones?”

 

“This way,” Sam gestured, and together the two sweepers moved a little further in to the house to continue installing the new security system.

 

oOoOo

 

Sydney sat with his back propped against the cinderblock wall of his cell, absently running his finger over the dark blue ink that had been tattooed into his arm a lifetime ago. It seemed fitting, somehow, that he should end up in a place like this now, when his life was slowly winding down to a close. After everything he’d done – the years of treating Jarod like nothing but a science experiment – he deserved this.

 

It didn’t make any difference that he hadn’t killed anyone – by participating and guiding the Pretender Project for as long as he had, he’d been instrumental in the murder of hundreds, if not thousands. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t remember if he’d actually raped the woman he was supposed to have killed – the atrocities that clung to his name far outweighed it. He tugged on the orange sleeve and covered the tattoo again peevishly.

 

“C’mon, Doc,” the duty officer was holding out and shaking the shackles at him through the bars of his cell, “your lawyer’s here and wants to talk to you.”

 

Sydney scooted across the thin mattress and put himself on his feet so that he could be chained to the point that he could only shuffle noisily down the way to the interrogation room. He gave a perverted sniff at the thought that this might be the only outings that he’d get from now on – to walk from one enclosed space to another. No more walks in the park across the street from his house, no more sitting on the bench watching the children at play…

 

He barely even looked up to acknowledge Jarod’s presence as he was escorted into the room and pressed into his seat on the opposite side of the table. None of it mattered anymore – the mills of God, known to grind exceedingly small and justly, had caught up to him at last.

 

“Sydney!” Jarod called out to his former mentor a second time, seriously concerned when it took volume and movement to pull the psychiatrist from whatever dark musings had occupied his thoughts.

 

“Jarod,” Sydney dipped his head finally in greeting. “Anything?”

 

“They found the missing pieces of the women’s bodies in Lyle’s fridge,” he told his old friend gently, “but haven’t called off the arraignment for tomorrow. But we’re starting to get an idea…”

 

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Sydney said calmly, not really listening to his old protégé at all. “Maybe I did rape that woman…”

 

“Two women, Sydney?” Jarod asked bluntly. “You raped two of them?”

 

Bleary chestnut eyes came up to look into the Pretender’s face, shocked and appalled. “Two, you say?”

 

“Forensics show your semen in both women, Sydney. You must have been a busy boy…”

 

Sydney’s brows collided. “But… the second woman was killed AFTER I was brought in…”

 

“That’s right, Sydney,” Jarod nodded, grateful he at least had his mentor’s full attention at last. “And that fact, and the fact that the missing body parts were found in Lyle’s fridge, SHOULD at least mean that you are released on bail pending trial.”

 

“I didn’t kill…”

 

“You didn’t kill anybody, Sydney,” Jarod stated firmly. “We’re pretty sure now that this has all been a very complex ploy by Mr. Cox to move in and take over the Centre by taking out all the key players at the top.”

 

Slowly the psychiatrist’s mind was pulling itself out of the slough of despond in which it had become mired. “Cox! But I thought he’d been fired…”

 

“Broots saw him prowling Centre hallways the other day – and we now have a well-founded suspicion that he’s behind everything that’s gone on lately, from your arrest to Miss Parker’s auto accident.”

 

Sydney ran his hands down his face as if to wipe away his placid resignation to his fate and uncover the man who was willing to fight for his freedom. “So what do you intend to do?”

 

Jarod’s smirk leapt to his lips. “Well, we’ve taken the first step in laying a trap for him.” The Pretender looped his thumbs about his jacket lapel and stuck his chest out. “Sydney, you’re looking at the interim Chairman of the Centre.”

 

The older man’s jaw dropped. “You!”

 

“What’s more,” Jarod leaned forward conspiratorially, “I have Triumvirate approval of my plan to act as bait to catch an interloper.”

 

“They…” Sydney was beyond shocked. “They know who you are?” Jarod nodded. “And they… let you do this?”

 

“I had Sam and Willy at my back, representing the sweepers – and simply gave them an argument they couldn’t counter. Their interest is in the Centre remaining profitable – that interest is benefited by a Centre that is stable.” Jarod smiled grimly. “At the moment, I represent stability.”

 

Understanding dawned. “You’re setting a trap for Cox!”

 

“That’s right,” Jarod nodded. “With myself as bait. When he made his plans, he didn’t count on my being able to step into the Chairman’s job before he could speak for it. I’ve got him off-balance now – because I heard from the Triumvirate people that he’d come to talk to them and THEY gave him the news.”

 

“Cox is a psychopath, Jarod,” Sydney warned with a shaking finger.

 

“Not a sociopath, like Lyle?”

 

The psychiatrist shook his head. “No. He understands the morality of what he does – he just doesn’t give a damn. That will make him unpredictable – and very dangerous.”

 

“I need your observations, Sydney – your professional opinion and diagnosis of his mental state when last you knew of him.”

 

Sydney’s eyes widened. “My assessment may be woefully out of date, Jarod – several years have passed since he was fired.”

 

“But you were around him more than I – I have only the one contact with him by videophone, when he and Lyle had Zoë. I need more than that if I’m going to be able to get inside his head and outwit him.”

 

“What?” Sydney blinked. “Are you suggesting we run a SIM right here, with me in chains?”

 

Jarod shrugged. “We could wait until we know if you’re getting out on bail, but…”

 

The older man shook his head. “Never mind. The sooner it’s done, the sooner perhaps I can get out of this place.” He put his chin in the palm of his hand and forced his mind to go back in time to where he and the other members of the search team were having regular contact with Cox.

 

oOoOo

 

“This isn’t right!” Sam stared at the brandy bottle that he’d just retrieved from the liquor cabinet. “This bottle’s brand new – it hasn’t even had the seal broken on it yet.”

 

“So?” Willy sounded unimpressed.

 

“So, Miss Parker served me a drink from a brandy bottle just like this – and it wasn’t sealed or new when she poured for me.” Sam explained with a frown. “That son of a bitch replaced the bottles – probably when he came in for the answering machine tape.”

 

“What about the glassware?”

 

Sam put the bottle back in the cabinet and pulled out the first three old fashioned glasses and looked to the bottoms. “They seem perfectly clean and fine.”

 

“You’re thinking that whatever it was that was kick-ass about a brandy and water was in the brandy, not on the glass?”

 

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” Sam scratched his head after putting two of the three glasses back where he’d found them.

 

“Are any of the bottles in there opened at all?” Willy moved closer and peered over Sam’s shoulder.

 

Sam leaned in and checked quickly. “Nope,” he reported. “They’re all brand new, never opened.”

 

Willy bent down and checked out a few of the labels on the bottles and gave a low whistle. “Well, you have to give it to the man – he was willing to accommodate Miss Parker’s expensive taste in booze just to cover his tracks on that one.”

 

There was the sound of a key turning in the front door lock, and both sweepers turned rapidly with hands across their chests for guns in shoulder holsters when the door opened to reveal Jarod. The Pretender froze while the sweepers backed down from their alert – then nodded at them. “All done?”

 

“With the motion detectors, yeah,” Sam told him after letting out his breath. “We have the cameras left before we’re all done.”

 

Jarod nodded. “OK, this is how we’re going to play this. Willy, I’ll be wanting you in the garage with the monitoring equipment eventually. When you’re done with the installation, go back to the Centre and select two other men that you trust implicitly and bring me their names. Then you’ll come back over here with two cots and take up your position in the garage for first watch. The men you select will join you in short order, and the three of you will divide the day into eight-hour watches. I don’t want that monitoring station unmanned for one second – and if I find any one of you napping or goofing off, I’ll make sure you rue the day. Is that understood?”

 

“Yes, sir!” Something told Willy that he really DIDN’T want to see whether Jarod’s resolve was as strong as his threat.

 

“What about me?” Sam asked.

 

“You get to camp out in the living room here and rest up for tonight. Miss Parker comes home from the hospital in the morning, and I want you stuck to her side like glue. She doesn’t go ANYwhere without you either right with her or checking things out ahead of time for her. You, my friend, will be on constant watch.” He gazed evenly at Miss Parker’s personal sweeper – the one man to whom he knew he could entrust her safety and be confident. “Think you can handle it?”

 

“Not a problem,” Sam told him with a short nod. “I don’t have anything better to do anyway…”

 

“Go on, then,” Jarod gestured. “I don’t expect Cox to be ready to move tonight yet, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Get the cameras set, and Sam can watch the monitors in the garage until you get back, Willy.”

 

The two sweepers moved past him like silent giants to finish the rest of the installation. Jarod took his jacket off and laid it carefully across the back of Miss Parker’s couch and headed for the kitchen. His preliminary SIM with Sydney at the jail had laid the groundwork. Now came the challenge – out-thinking a madman.

Chapter 13 – The Game’s Afoot

 

Jarod had long since learned the art of sizing up a person in the first few moments of acquaintance. The Honorable Judge Harold Fisher looked to be a man of the old school – he bore himself with a posture and countenance that spoke of a long history with the weight of judicial responsibility squarely on his shoulders. His head was bald and quite shiny, he wore a thick and well-trimmed moustache on his upper lip and wire-rimmed glasses over ebony eyes. He wasn’t an old man by any stretch, but the weathered look of his face and the world-weary look in his eye made a lie of any illusion that he was young.

 

Judge Fisher paged very carefully through the proposal that had been brought before him, ignoring for the time being the two men who were sitting very calmly and quietly in front of his desk. The proposal itself was relatively straightforward. Because the Centre had some reputation for security and investigative work, and because so many of the players in this macabre little drama seemed to occupy relatively high positions of power within the Centre hierarchy, the Dover Police were asking that certain specialized members of the Centre staff be deputized to assist in the investigation of two horrific murders, and possibly a third.

 

“So,” Fisher said at last, raising his gaze to the two men and focusing on the one he’d not seen before in his courtroom, “you think that your people could serve and assist the Dover PD in its investigation, do you?”

 

“I think that the case the Dover PD is investigating has a great deal to do with the death of our previous Chairman, and that combining our efforts might uncover a serial murderer,” Jarod hedged carefully. “Inasmuch as some of the evidence we might uncover in the course of our investigation might bear on the Dover case, Detective Miller and I thought that having my people in the official chain of command and under the same strictures that would normally be on sworn-in police officers would mean that less evidence would have to be discarded during trial.”

 

“So you’re not suggesting that we let the Centre run the investigation?”

 

Jarod shook his head firmly. “By no means. We’ll continue with our own internal investigation. But should we trip over a suggestion that something we’re getting ready to look at might shed any light on the Dover PD case, we’ll call and get whatever appropriate warrants might be needed to keep the evidence from being tainted in a court of law.”

 

The dark eyes rounded on Miller. “Detective, I assume you know how often we allow outside agencies to take on the role of law enforcement…”

 

“With all due respect, your honor, we need the help.” Miller had decided, walking into this meeting, that he was going to be completely frank and honest. “We have forensic evidence that is frankly impossible to explain that yet ties one suspect to at least one murder while suggesting evidence tampering in the other case. We also have another person being held as a material witness whom we found in possession of still more physical evidence pointing to HIS guilt. If what Mr. Bailey has been suggesting is, in fact, what’s going on, then one if not both of the men we’re currently holding has been framed.”

 

“You’re telling me that someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to tie the police department in knots and put innocent people in jeopardy?” The judge sounded skeptical.

 

“It’s beginning to look that way, you honor,” Miller admitted. “And if the man responsible for the events occurring to some of the Centre staff is the same on responsible for what happened to those two women…”

 

Fisher rubbed his chin with his hand thoughtfully. “This is highly irregular, gentlemen, but…” He flipped through the paperwork yet once more for a while, and then suddenly reached for his pen. “Don’t make me regret this,” he warned as he signed his name to the document and handed it over to Miller before looking at Jarod. “How many deputizations are we talking about here – ten? Twenty?”

 

“Five, actually, your honor,” Jarod responded immediately, “and that includes one for me. Detective Miller’s watch commander was also having a few reservations, so I’m hoping that he can find additional men to assign to this case so that I can team them up with my people. That way, we’ll be sure to have someone present to make sure that we follow proper procedure.”

 

“Good luck, gentlemen,” Fisher pronounced, rising and shaking the hand of each man firmly. “Keep me informed of your progress, please.”

 

“Yes, sir,” both men agreed in unison and walked out of the judge’s chamber.

 

“I have to hurry or I’ll be late for Dr. Green’s arraignment,” Jarod told the detective, “but I can meet with you afterwards to coordinate, if that would be convenient…”

 

“I’ll see you in about an hour, then,” Miller shook Jarod’s hand and headed for the door of the courthouse while Jarod turned left and headed down the corridor toward the specified courtroom where Sydney and the District Attorney were waiting for him.

 

Sydney’s face lit up as Jarod put a hand on his shoulder from behind to tell him that he’d arrived. “You look like the cat that ate the canary,” he whispered to his protégé.

 

“The Centre and the cops are now working in tandem,” Jarod announced in a similarly quiet whisper. “I just left the judge that signed the permission.”

 

“So now what?”

 

“So now we see if we can’t at least spring you from this joint,” Jarod whispered and then rose to his feet with Sydney as the judge – a middle-aged woman by the name of Hammer – took her place at the high bench.

 

“The State of Delaware versus Doctor Sydney Green,” the bailiff read from his paperwork, “the charge is rape in the first degree and murder in the first degree.”

 

“How does the defendant plead?” the judge asked mechanically.

 

“Not guilty, your honor,” Sydney stated for himself without any prompting.

 

“On the topic of bail…” the judge began then.

 

“The State recommends remand, your honor. The crime in question was one involving particular cruelty and barbarism…”

 

“Your honor,” Jarod protested, “there is adequate evidence to constitute reasonable doubt in this case. Also, Doctor Green is an upstanding member of the community with no previous brushes with the law whatsoever on his record. He’s employed by a company who is more than ready to make certain of his attendance at any necessary court appearance…”

 

“I don’t want to hear about the evidence, Mr. Bailey,” the judge chided Jarod, “that’s a matter to be presented to a jury. I am, however, allowing that Doctor Green’s previously unspotted record does present reason to believe that remand is a little over the top.” She picked up her gavel. “Bail in this case is set in the amount of one million dollars, cash or bond – defendant will surrender his passport. Next case…”

 

“A million dollars...” Sydney sagged.

 

“Not to worry,” Jarod patted his former mentor’s arm. “I have a Centre checkbook with me. There’s just a little paperwork to do, and then you’re sprung. You have to go back to the jail and get your belongings – I’ll be there to drive you home in about an hour. I have a meeting with the Dover PD I’d also like to get through first.”

 

The expression in the Belgian’s face was one of intense relief. “Just knowing that I’m getting ready to leave that place will make the waiting easier,” he reassured his former protégé. “Take as long as you need to.”

 

Jarod shook Sydney’s hand firmly. “I’ll see you in a bit, then,” he said as the bailiffs took gentle hold of Sydney’s elbow.

 

oOoOo

 

Broots typed patiently until he’d hacked into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s central server unit, chuckling as he encountered first one after another of relatively easy to overcome anti-hacking protocols. “Our government dollars at work – NOT!” he grumbled to himself as he opened the database and began designing a report that would call up any and all stock purchases in either a corporation known as The Centre or an African consortium known as The Triumvirate.

 

He kept on typing with one hand when the telephone rang and he reached for the handset with his left hand. “Yeah – Broots.”

 

“How’s it going?” Jarod asked immediately.

 

“I’m into the SEC’s server and database – give me a little while, and I’ll be able to tell you if any stock purchases of either Centre or Triumvirate stock have been made in the last… what? Month? Two months?”

 

“Better make it two months,” Jarod answered after pondering the question for a while. “There’s no telling how long our Mr. Cox has been plotting and scheming.”

 

“Will do. Where will you be, if I find anything?”

 

“Don’t worry about that – just call me on my cell. I’ll want to hear the moment you find anything.”

 

Broots nodded and kept on typing with the receiver tucked between his ear and his shoulder. “Will do.”

 

He hung up the telephone with his left hand and continued to type quickly and surely into the keyboard. He wanting this one report to hold essentially everything that he’d need – and he wanted to get the report, to pull any pertinent data and then get out again before anybody noticed that he was there. He’d done this kind of thing often enough – but he still would be very glad when he’d pulled out and shut down the connection.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod had just disconnected from Broots when the cell phone in his hand started chirping. “Yeah?” he answered, “Jarod Bailey…”

 

“You told me to call you when I got my release papers, BOSS,” Miss Parker’s sarcastic tones came across the air clearly. “So, I’m calling.”

 

Jarod ignored the tone. “I appreciate that. I’ll have Sam to you in just a bit – so stay put for just a little bit more...”

 

“Yes, SIR.” Each of the instances of deference were coated with a thick layer of anger and sarcasm.

 

“For what it’s worth, Parker, Sydney’s being released on bail in just a little while.”

 

“How big was the bond?” She was curious, and the acid tone dropped away.

 

“A million,” he answered her.

 

“Shit!” she exploded. “You’d think they had Charles Manson or something…”

 

“Be that as it may,” Jarod sighed, “at least he’s getting out from behind bars for a while. I’ll be bringing him back to Blue Cove with me. So you hang tight until Sam gets to you, and I’ll have Sydney with me when I get home.”

 

“I’ve been laying here thinking, Jarod,” Miss Parker tucked away the frustration at his technically being able to boss her around for the moment. “Cox’s fingerprints should be on file in the Personnel database in the Centre’s mainframe. That will give you something against which to compare any prints you or the police might find.”

 

“IF Cox was officially employed by the Centre, that is,” Jarod returned. “He may very well have been an outside agent brought in by your father and paid for from a private account…”

 

“True,” she admitted. The way her father… Mr. Parker… used to do things, there was a very good possibility that Cox never had been put on the payroll at the Centre, despite having been given high-level clearances and almost carte blanche. “We also should have a few DSAs laying around – probably in Raines’ personal archive – that have Cox’s voice recorded. More comparison fodder.”

 

Jarod nodded approvingly. “Good thinking, Miss Parker. I’ll get Broots on that the moment I hear what he has to say about stock purchases.”

 

“Stock purchases?”

 

“Yeah – it stands to reason that Cox would try to get some foothold in the organization that would give him leverage to use when actually making his move. Since both Centre and Triumvirate stock are traded on the open market, he may have made some large purchases in order to make himself a prominent, if not majority, stockholder.”

 

Miss Parker was silent for a moment. “You really weren’t fooling when you told me last night that you had a handle on things.”

 

“That’s right,” he agreed in a soothing voice. “And as for your accusation that I’m enjoying this – you were right there too. I AM enjoying sitting in the driver’s seat at the Centre – calling all the shots. But I don’t want to stay here forever. I’m only keeping the seat warm for you – and you know it. The minute this is all over, the hot seat is all yours.”

 

“But in the meanwhile…” she retorted with just a hint of her former acid tone.

 

“In the meanwhile, you wait for Sam to come pick you up – and I’ll see you both back at your house when I get there with Sydney.”

 

“I hate being on the sidelines,” she grumbled.

 

Jarod smirked. He’d suspected that to be the underlying reason for her ill humor – it was good to see that she could recognize that herself too eventually. “I’ll let you get as close to the action as you can get safely, Parker, I promise.”

 

“Good,” she answered darkly, “because when we catch that weasel, I’m going to want to take my pound of flesh from him for what he did to Syd and me before we hand him over to the law.”

 

Jarod’s brows went up and he shook his head. “Can’t promise you that you’ll be THAT close to the action – but trust me, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

 

oOoOo

 

Detective Miller watched as Jarod popped open the trunk of his car and pointed. “Those sacks contain the machinery we suspect has been tampered with or touched by the man responsible for this,” Jarod announced. “We collected them in accordance with proper forensic procedures, but we haven’t run any tests on them yet. That includes an intercom set that we suspect was tampered with to prevent the last victim from calling out for help and the answering machine collected from Miss Parker’s residence.”

 

“What about that button you showed me earlier?” Miller asked as he gestured to the police officers behind him to move forward and take custody of the bags in question.

 

Jarod dug in his pocket and pulled out the little baggie with the “eye” safely stowed within. “Here,” he said, handing it over. “You might want to have your people confirm that it is what my assistant claims it to be – I’d hate to think that we’re suspecting the wrong man based on an erroneous assumption about this one little item.”

 

“If you handled the machinery properly, I’m sure fingerprint evidence will confirm or refute your suspicions,” Miller stated confidently.

 

“Provided that our perpetrator wasn’t also smart enough to have worn gloves,” Jarod cautioned. “Oh. And here.” He handed over a micro-cassette. “This is a copy of the tape of the call that resulted in Miss Parker’s being on the road the night of her accident. I’m hoping to search through the audio-video archives at the Centre and bring you a sample of our suspect’s voice to use in comparison.”

 

“Speaking of that accident, I talked to the mechanics who examined the car that hit your Miss Parker. Seems that there was a remote set-up – some electronic gizmo-gadget that put the car in motion. The steering wheel was tethered so that it would drive straight as a pin.” Miller’s face was thoughtful. “So it seems that between this tape and the evidence in that car, your Miss Parker really was set up – and only survived through sheer luck. Blue Cove PD is ruling the accident suspicious.”

 

“Any prints collected from the car that hit her?” Jarod asked immediately.

 

Miller shook his head. “It was absolutely clean of all prints.”

 

“Damn!” Jarod spat and turned away for a moment.

 

“You know,” the detective thought out loud, “it seems mighty strange that someone who would know enough to wear gloves so as not to leave fingerprints would be stupid enough to drop a taxidermy eye at a crime scene.”

 

The Pretender gave the detective a sharp look. “You’re right – UNLESS he didn’t know the eye was in his pocket, and it fell out when he pulled something else out.”

 

“Why in the closet, of all places?”

 

“It wasn’t exactly IN the closet,” Jarod told him. “It was under the closet door – I found it when I closed the closet.”

 

Miller just shook his head. “Nothing in this damned case adds up.” He sighed and looked at the Centre Chairman. “So what are your next moves?”

 

“I’m looking into stock purchases,” Jarod answered honestly. “If this guy’s smart, he would have gone for something he could use as leverage to springboard himself into the Chairman’s seat. I’m guessing stocks.”

 

“You know, I don’t think you’ve given me the name of the man you suspect,” Miller remembered suddenly.

 

“Cox,” Jarod answered darkly. “Dr. Nathaniel Cox.”

 

“Doctor?” the police officer’s brows shot up. “Another one?”

 

Jarod shook his head. “This one claims to be an MD – an ob/gyn rather than a shrink.”

 

Miller pursed his lips and nodded. “I’ll see what I can dig up on him in national databases – and I’ll be interested in hearing what you come up with in your stock purchases investigation.”

 

“We’ll be in touch,” Jarod promised, then glanced at his watch. “And now, if you don’t mind, I have an old friend to take home.”

 

oOoOo

 

The clothing Sydney was wearing looked a bit wrinkled and the worse for wear – Jarod suspected that they’d been to the forensics lab for at least part of the time. Sydney himself looked wan and a little pale, but there was a smile on his face as he accepted the manila envelope from the properties officer with his wallet and keys and a small amount of coinage. He signed his name where indicated and then turned to Jarod with a sigh of relief. “Get me out of here,” he told his former protégé with a soft but fervent tone.

 

“My car’s outside,” Jarod told him and ushered him through the front door of the police station to where a black Centre sedan stood waiting for them at the curb. A sweeper opened the back door to the sedan and waited until both men had climbed into the vehicle before firmly shutting the door and climbing behind the wheel.

 

“Where’s Sam?” Sydney asked, noticing that the sweeper driving the car wasn’t one with whom he was familiar.

 

“Picking Miss Parker up from the hospital and taking her home,” Jarod answered. “He’s under orders to stick to her like glue. She’s not as mobile as she usually is, with a broken ankle.”

 

Sydney nodded and turned to look out the window next to him, cranking it down just enough that the breeze could hit his face as he watched the scenery slip past. Jarod watched him with concern written on his face, but didn’t intrude on the man’s enjoyment of freedom after days locked away. God knew that he would want to just relax and soak up the wind and the knowledge of freedom himself, were he in the same position – and he had been several times now. But there was more to his mentor’s silence and reverie than just an appreciation of freedom, Jarod suddenly realized. There was an attitude of resignation – of defeat – that he’d never seen in Sydney before, a hopelessness that the older man was wearing like a burial shroud.

 

The Pretender quickly did what he’d promised himself he’d never do – SIMmed his former teacher – and came away from the mental exercise seriously distressed. Sydney had condemned himself – he couldn’t remember what had happened that night after a certain point in time, and so he was assuming the worst. He had convicted himself of rape and murder because he had no memories that told him irrefutably that he was innocent – and he was approaching this entire time free from jail as only a temporary reprieve. He’d wanted out desperately solely in order to properly prepare himself mentally for the lengthy incarceration he’d already decided was well deserved.

 

No wonder Miss Parker was so frantic to get her colleague out of that place! She’d seen this coming – where he’d been too involved in setting up the trap for the real culprit to see what the circumstances were wreaking within a soul already overburdened with guilt.

 

Jarod rubbed his chin, adding this new element to the mixture of circumstances and situations that together were the mess he was working with. He now had two very wounded individuals to deal with, as well as a precarious and volatile situation. Whatever he did from this point onward would have to be done with an eye to protecting the injured and fragile of their number while still luring the guilty into implicating himself.

 

And that was when it hit him. He knew why Sydney had been chosen – and why the accident Miss Parker had suffered had been just shy of fatal. HE HIMSELF had been a target of manipulation too! Cox already knew that the only way to pull him out of the woodwork and into the open was to threaten people who meant something to him. And when it came to Sydney and Miss Parker, he’d come to each of their rescues before – more than once. Why hadn’t he seen this earlier?

 

Cox was playing him; and like an obedient child, he’d walked the path that the little psychopath had intended him to walk – only he’d taken it a bit farther than Cox had anticipated. Cox might have intended to capture him when he came to the aid of his mentor and childhood friend and then planned to use his success at capturing him as proof of his worthiness to take over the Centre. The meeting with the Triumvirate representatives had been intended only as an introduction – to get them used to the idea of considering him a candidate.

 

This meant two things, Jarod decided. In the first place, it meant that any action taken by Cox from now on would be without consideration of the impression it would make on the Triumvirate – since they had already rejected his proposal once. Cox’s intent now would be to take over, by force if need be – and the Triumvirate would just have to deal with him in place as the Chairman as a fact rather than be the force that put him there. If the Triumvirate representatives became obstacles, then they too were now in danger of becoming targets.

 

In the second place, it meant that Cox would continue to try to use Sydney and Miss Parker to get to him – their welfare was his Achilles Heel. He was most vulnerable where they were concerned, and any threat to them could be used to coerce him to act against his own will. Sydney and Miss Parker would be safe only when Cox was no longer at large – and at no time before then.

 

Jarod had known that he’d changed the rules of the game Cox was playing – but he hadn’t realized just how much those rules had been rigged ahead of time, and so just how much they would have changed as a result. He was glad he was heading back to Miss Parker’s, where Sam and Willy were and Broots could be summoned. He’d need to bounce some ideas off of the group as a whole before going much further.

 

And the beginnings of an idea began to form in his mind, one that had him staring out the window of the sedan on his side of the car. It just might work – but it would be a horrible risk.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker carefully lifted her right ankle in its bulky cast from the footrest of the wheelchair and used the toe of her left foot to try to tuck the footrest up and out of her way while Sam was setting the handbrakes. “Just a moment, Miss Parker, I’ll get that for you…”

 

“I’ve got it,” she snapped, now using her toe to move the left footrest out of the way and planting her foot firmly on the sidewalk. “I’ve been walking for quite a number of years now…” She put her right hand down on the armrest of the chair to help give herself a boost, finding it an uneven aid when balanced against the weight of her other arm and its cast.

 

Sam moved in front of her and stared down at her until she stopped struggling futilely to get to her feet. “Are you ready to be reasonable yet?” he asked her finally.

 

“I hate this,” she grumbled as he got a good hold on both of her arms at the elbows and lifted straight up and forward so that she could balance on her good foot.

 

“You do too much and fall down, and you’ll hate it even more,” Sam answered very matter-of-factly and turned her carefully so that she could seat herself in the passenger seat of the Centre sedan. “And then how will you be able to help Sydney or Jarod?”

 

“Just get me home,” she sighed, putting her head back on the headrest and perfectly content to let him pull the seatbelt across her lap and chest and fasten it for her. She remained with her head back and eyes closed until the acceleration of the car told her that Sam had put the vehicle on the highway headed south – toward home. “So, tell me – is my house all wired for sound to the point that I can’t even go to my own bathroom in privacy?”

 

“No cameras in the bathroom,” Sam reassured her with a twisted grin. “Motion detectors in some of the most interesting spot though – places that make sense once you think about it, but that wouldn’t occur to you otherwise.”

 

“Oh, goodie,” she returned with very little enthusiasm. She turned her head at last to look at her personal sweeper. “I bet you think this is funny – that you got the last laugh after that argument we had…”

 

“Circumstances change, and we have to be ready to change with them,” Sam shrugged at her. “When you and I argued, we didn’t have a wierdo coming after the top brass of the Centre – so the circumstances were in your favor. Now…” He shrugged again.

 

“And now you boys have my house so full of electronics that nobody could get in without setting off fireworks,” she finished for him. “You won’t have to worry about me at all anymore.”

 

“I may not, but Jarod isn’t taking any chances,” Sam told her with a wry look. “His orders to me were to stick to you like flypaper – until this is over, I’m on 24/7 duty.”

 

The finely manicured eyebrows, always a good weather vane of her mood, climbed high. “He told you that, did he?” she blinked. “I’ll have to have a talk with our new Chairman, it seems. He must think I’m some stupid, defenseless female that needs the protection of a muscleman…”

 

“Well, face it Miss P,” Sam answered, hazarding a glance in her direction, “you aren’t exactly going to be swift on your feet, and while that cast on your arm may be good for clunking folks over the head and giving them headaches, it isn’t going to…”

 

“I’ve still got my right hand intact, you idiot,” she snarled at him. “I only need one hand to use my gun.”

 

“I suppose he’ll tell me that means I don’t have to go into the bathroom with you when you’re out shopping…”

 

The mere idea was ludicrous. “I… You… He wouldn’t…” she sputtered until she finally caught a glimpse of his quiet grin. “Since when do sweepers have a sense of humor on the job?” she sighed in exasperation.

 

He turned and smiled at her, and it was a completely open smile of amusement. “Oh, come now, Miss Parker. If you don’t start to see some of the humor in this, we’re not going to be getting along very well for very long.”

 

“Just drive,” she told him, pointing out the windshield. “We’ll discuss where you do and do not go with me later – once we’re home.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

oOoOo

 

Broots hit the key to save a copy of the picture of the larger of seven stock purchases to the hard drive – just as he had with the previous six. The plumbing of the SEC mainframe had been more successful than he’d allowed himself to hope for. Out of a total of twelve purchases of Centre stock made over the last two months, at least four of them were made to a Dr. N. Cox – and even included a signature on the stock order. The other three purchases had been made in the name of Mr. N. White – and it had taken the computer tech some time to make the connection.

 

Mr. White had been the name of a special expeditor that Lyle had once used to keep track of Jarod during transport – a man who had vanished over the waters off of Atlantic City when Jarod had gotten loose. Broots suspected that Cox knew that the man was dead, and was using his identity to hide the fact that between the two personas, he had almost a controlling interest in the Centre. Only the amount of stock that was held in the Parker family trust was greater than the amount of stock that was now held by Cox.

 

Broots quickly cued the seven purchase orders over to the printer and, at last, pulled out of the SEC mainframe. He’d taken notes on the various vulnerabilities of the security protocols, however, in case either Jarod or Miss Parker decided at a later date to take advantage of his knowledge and make some money off of selling his notes to the government. As ordered, he picked up his receiver and dialed a number he’d committed to memory.

 

“This is Jarod Bailey…”

 

“It’s me, Broots…”

 

“Yes, Mr. Broots. Do you have some information for me?”

 

The technician nodded, even though the person he was speaking to was nowhere near him. “And how! Cox has really been a busy little boy. I think Miss Parker and Lyle are the only ones who have a larger stock portfolio from the Centre than Cox does.”

 

Jarod sighed. “As I suspected.”

 

“I printed out the stock orders for you – Cox signed them personally and, get this! I think he was also using the name of a dead sweeper. Remember Mr. White?”

 

Jarod nodded grimly. “I do indeed.” The man had finally been pulled by suction through the porthole of a Centre jet – no small loss, for the man had been a mercenary hired by the Triumvirate to transport him to Africa. “Complete with Social Security Number?”

 

Broots hadn’t thought of that. He swiveled the chair around and pulled the freshly printed sheets from the printer and checked. “Nope. He used the same number all seven times. I wonder if it’s Cox’s – or White’s?”

 

“We’ll unravel that later,” Jarod’s voice was firm. “What I need you to do now is to dig into the DSA archive and see if you can’t come up with a clip that has a clear picture of our man – and him speaking. We need comparison material for a voiceprint. Also dig up Cox’s personnel file – if he has one – and print it out. We need all the information on this guy we can get.”

 

“Even if it’s fake?” Broots was surprised.

 

“Even if it’s fake,” Jarod replied. “Then, when you’re done, close down there and head on over to Miss Parker’s. We’re going to gather here and do a strategy session when we all can participate – even Sydney and Miss Parker.”

 

“You got it, boss,” Broots nodded, not even bristling when Jarod disconnected the call just as abruptly as Miss Parker did. Without even missing a beat, he brought up the archive software for the vast DSA library down in the vault and chose the year 1999 to search. 1999 had been the year that the little Parker baby had been born – and the year when Mr. Cox had been the most active in the Centre. Restricting his search to the cameras in old Mr. Parker’s office, it took him no longer than a half hour before he had a video clip of the man both walking and talking. He copied the clip onto a VCD, turned off his terminal and reached for his sweatshirt.

 

It was nice to get off of work a little early every once in a while. If he were lucky, the meeting at Miss Parker’s wouldn’t be so long that he’d have to eat cold leftovers from Debbie’s supper either.

Chapter 14 – Setting the Trap

 

Sydney finally stirred himself when he saw that the sweeper driving the Centre sedan was carefully navigating the curved driveway of Miss Parker’s summerhouse. “I thought I was going home,” he commented to Jarod, his confusion apparent.

 

“Uh-unh,” Jarod shook his head. “In the first place, I’m sure Parker will want to see you in something other than that stupid orange jumpsuit – and she’s in no shape to be going from here to your place and then back again. In the second, I’ve called the entire gang together here – Broots is coming as soon as he finishes one last chore for me at the Centre.”

 

Sydney merely sighed and reached for the seatbelt buckle without another word. Jarod watched his slow and deliberate movements for a moment, and then unbuckled himself. He’d already decided that the only way to adequately protect either Miss Parker or Sydney was going to be to keep them under the same roof. But not under the same roof as he – and therein he’d eventually have to ask for Sydney’s permission to install security in his house in much the same way he’d had to get Miss Parker’s. He didn’t look forward to the asking.

 

Another reason he wanted Miss Parker and Sydney under the same roof was that he was hoping that Miss Parker would be able to pull Sydney out of his doldrums. This morose, barely communicative Sydney was someone Jarod had never dealt with before in his life – he understood what was going on inside the man better than possibly anybody, but he had no idea how to counter the despair and resignation. His mentor had always been a very complicated and private person – getting through the barriers the man was rapidly erecting around himself due to the humiliating circumstances that had landed him in jail would take someone who was a lot closer to him than he was. Jarod could only hope that Miss Parker was such a person – and that she’d be up to the task.

 

The purr of another powerful engine slowly overpowered the whisper of the breeze through the trees, and then Sam was nosing the black sedan he was driving to a gentle stop. Even Sydney paused in his laborious trek up the walk to turn back, and between him and Jarod, helped extricate Miss Parker from the passenger seat. Jarod stood back as the two of them shared a brief and awkward hug, and then Sydney slipped his shoulder under her right arm so that she didn’t need to use her crutch.

 

“Looks like neither one of them is in great shape,” Sam commented as he stepped close to Jarod to watch the pair work their way up the steep walk to the front steps. In his hand were the discarded crutches that he still hadn’t quite figured out how she was going to use.

 

“That’s for damned sure,” Jarod agreed readily enough, and then with a nudge and a jerk of his head, indicated that they should follow. He turned and tossed an “I want you to watch the vehicles,” at the sweeper that had been his and Sydney’s chauffer before mounting the steps himself and following the others into the house.

 

Sydney was settling Miss Parker comfortably on her couch, and although Jarod could see the restrained impatience in her eyes, she was silently accepting the fussing and pampering. She knows, he decided – she knows that giving Sydney someone or something other than his own situation to stew about right now would be the best thing for the man. He caught her eye and earned himself a small nod of agreement before she caught at Sydney’s hand and convinced him to find a seat on the end of the couch next to her, moving her legs out of the way to make room for him.

 

“So what now?” Miss Parker could stand the suspense no longer. She looked around her and, to both her surprise and approval, noticed none of the security measures she was sure were already in place in her house. “I take it we’re wired for sight and sound in here?”

 

“In the house, it’s mostly motion detectors,” Jarod told her. “One camera aims down the stairwell, so anybody trying to get to anybody or anything up there will be caught on video, and there’s another one in the kitchen, in case our friendly Mr. Cox decides to try to tamper with the food again…”

 

“Tamper with the food?” She frowned.

 

“Yeah, Miss Parker,” Sam piped up as he stowed the crutches within easy reach, his voice far from pleased. “Seems that you suddenly have a liquor cabinet completely filled with unopened bottles – even though I distinctly neither bottle we drank from the other night being anything near empty. And from the way that brandy you gave me the other night hit like a ton of bricks, I’d say that he’d tampered with just about everything in there, just in case you decided to drink something different for a change.”

 

“Oh wonderful.” She leaned back into the pillows Sydney had insisted on putting behind her and closed her eyes. “I’m surprised he didn’t just poison me and be done with it.”

 

“That would have been too obvious, “ Jarod stated with certainty. “He could get away with outright poisoning Raines because he knew by that time, there were few around to mount an investigation. To poison you just beforehand would have been too much of a coincidence – and it might have shown too much of his hand.”

 

“You sound like you’ve started to get inside his head after all,” Sydney remarked quietly, watching his protégé’s face carefully. “You know what’s going on.”

 

“Most of it now,” Jarod admitted. “This has been a rather clever plan all along to get Cox firmly in the Chairman’s seat. Sydney, you were set up to get Miss Parker off balance and to get my attention, especially with all the contradictory evidence against you. The circumstances of your frame were designed specifically to keep the police nicely chasing their tails – and give cover to moving Lyle out of the way as well through much the same means. Miss Parker, your accident was no accident, but neither was it meant to kill you – just to sideline you from being in any position to take control of the Centre when the time came AND to finish pulling me out into the open. No doubt if things had gone the way our Mr. Cox had intended, you would suffer another accident somewhere along the way after he took over – only that one WOULD be fatal. I’m fairly certain he considers you not only expendable, but a liability.”

 

“I still don’t get it,” Sam shook his head. “You say the Doc here and Miss Parker’s troubles were meant mostly to pull you out into the open?”

 

“That’s right,” Jarod said somberly. “If Cox’s plan had worked the way it was intended, he would have lured me out and into a trap of HIS – so that when he went to the Triumvirate with me nicely in a cage, he’d have the proof of his ability to handle the job. There were a number of things he hadn’t counted on, however. One of them was Willy noticing the pattern of events and what it meant to the Centre almost immediately – and taking his suspicions to someone else capable of action. Another was my finding that strange little button that must have dropped out of his pocket in the motel room while he was setting the stage for Sydney’s arrest, and thus having the means of figuring out who was responsible early on. Another was Miss Parker getting suspicious and taking the answering machine tape with her the night of her accident, providing proof of the plan. And last but not least, he didn’t count on was Willy talking to Sam and their talking to me and causing me to step completely out into the open to take his prize away from him.”

 

“So those two murdered women were nothing but diversions to keep the local police confused, to take Lyle out of the picture and set me up as bait to lure you out?” Sydney was aghast to hear his circumstances for the last few days boiled down to an agenda.

 

Jarod could hear the pain in the older man’s voice. “I’m sorry, Sydney, but that’s about the size of it.”

 

Sydney leaned on the arm of the couch with his face in his hand. “So what ARE we going to do now?” Miss Parker demanded, her eyes glued to the figure of her old friend and colleague on the other end of her couch in obvious emotional agony.

 

“We’re going to wait for Broots to get here, for one thing,” Jarod said firmly. “Hopefully he’ll have a DSA we can turn over to the police for voice printing comparison against the voice on the answering machine tape. He already called to report that our other suspicions were correct too – that Cox has been quietly making very large purchases of Centre stock. That would have been another argument in his favor, had events happened the way he’d originally planned.”

 

“But the Parkers own a majority interest in the Centre,” Miss Parker frowned. “Even with Lyle in jail…”

 

“And with you unable to do what Cox WOULD have done,” Jarod reminded her. “His intent was to produce results by capturing me and show a sizeable investment in the Centre as well. It would make his application for the job of Chairman reasonable and, to the Triumvirate, potentially profitable. He would have produced results, where you wouldn’t have – and thus stood a good chance of being ruled the better choice.”

 

A knock sounded at the door, and Sam moved to peek through the spy hole with a hand at his shoulder holster. After seeing who it was, he relaxed and opened the door to let Broots into the room. “Miss Parker! Sydney!” The technician’s face showed his delight in seeing his colleagues all together again.

 

“Well, Mr. Broots?” Jarod’s question cut through what might have been a lengthy greeting. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

 

“Oh - got it,” Broots handed over a small case and a manila folder. “That’s a DSA of Cox meeting with Raines and Mr. Parker and Lyle, planning the way they were going to kidnap that girlfriend of yours,” he nodded at Jarod. “There are plenty of clear shots to use for picture identification – as well as several very clear sentences that could be used in a voice printing test.”

 

“Good work, Scooby,” Miss Parker stated from her spot on the couch. “Now maybe Wonder Boy here will deign to share his plan for what we’re going to do to catch that rat-bastard.”

 

With Broots and Sam moving to stand behind the couch, Jarod moved aside some magazines so that he could sit down on the coffee table in front of them all. “OK,” he began, “but I’m going to tell you ahead of time that what I’ve been working on will be pretty risky – and some of you probably won’t like parts of it at all…”

 

oOoOo

 

“Hey, Dave,” Captain Stoker called across the squad room, “we’ve finally got a positive ID on your first murder vic. The name’s Charlene Mott from Baltimore – and she’s got a rap sheet for prostitution.”

 

Detective Miller rose from his desk and met the Captain halfway so that he could take the folder of information and look at it. The face just inside the cover was nothing like the face that had been on the forged driver’s license – that young woman had been relatively pretty, where Charlene was about as plain a woman as Miller had ever seen.

 

A thought occurred, and he moved back to his desk where he had the latest mug shot of the young prostitute that had come forward as having been with Doctor Green in the tavern the night the first woman had been killed. He sat down and dragged out an enlargement of the picture from the fake ID, the picture of the prostitute he’d spoken to, and place them both next to the picture of the victim. In both of the previous pictures, the women were wearing plenty of makeup – in the photo of Charlene Mott, there was no sign of makeup. The women in the previous pictures bore a remarkable resemblance to each other – Miller suddenly had a suspicion that were the Mott woman to apply makeup, she too would be one of what could have been a set of sisters.

 

Then why didn’t Green seem to recognize the woman he’d been with?

 

All three pictures had been taken in color – but Miller bent over and examined the one of Mary, the prostitute he’d spoken to, to see if he could see just what it was about her… He glanced back and forth from her picture to that of the fake ID several times before it hit him: Mary had vivid green eyes – the woman in the fake ID had blue eyes. He glanced over to the information on the dead woman and saw the same thing – blue eyes. Green must have remembered, and caught that detail of difference.

 

Score one for the shrink’s powers of observation, even while under the influence.

 

That still didn’t account for Green’s semen in Mott’s body, however. Hell, he was starting to suspect that the semen evidence was a red herring; because although there was no way in hell that Green could have had sex with the Chang woman, his semen was present there too. And, frankly, the fingerprints on the bloody razor that tied Green to the crime could also be a plant. There was no way for the motel room to have been the murder scene, and toxicology – not to mention the testimony of the prostitute he’d been with in the tavern – had established very firmly that Green should have been virtually helpless. He’d have been in no shape to do anything at the time when the blood would have been put in the bed. An unconscious man could easily have his hand manipulated around the handle of a bloody razor – a razor just dipping in the blood poured out on a bed.

 

Jarod Bailey had proposed that the two women were murdered in relation to and to hide the murder of the Chairman of the Centre – and considering that the two men held in conjunction to the case were all top brass at the Centre, maybe the new Chairman was onto something. It was the first reasonable theory about this case he’d heard.

 

“Say Cap – have we heard back from CSU about any prints from the stuff that Bailey fellow turned over?” Miller asked, even though his Captain had made it almost the entire way back to his office by then.

 

“I haven’t had anything cross my desk about that,” the older man replied, scratching his head. “Maybe you should light a stick under ‘em and see if you can’t push that along some.”

 

“Maybe I should,” Miller nodded and reached for the telephone. Maybe it was time to see about a number of things – including investigating a man by the name of Nathaniel Cox.

 

oOoOo

 

“You’re not serious!” Sydney gaped at the man seated so casually on the coffee table.

 

“Sydney’s right,” Miss Parker shook her head at Jarod, “you’re out of your ever-lovin’ mind.”

 

Jarod felt the temptation to sigh – he’d known that neither of them would easily agree with him – but repressed the urge. “Look,” he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands spread wide, “we know that Cox’s ultimate goal is to be sitting in the seat I currently occupy – and we know that, like it or not, HE knows that I’m vulnerable where you two are concerned. He’s GOING to try to come at me through one or another or the both of you again – I guarantee it. My aim is to control how and when he does, so that I can surprise him again and, hopefully, trap him.”

 

“I don’t mind your using me as bait,” Sydney insisted, “because it finally gives me a chance to be something other than a liability – but I don’t want Miss Parker involved.”

 

“Now wait a minute, Freud…” Miss Parker sat up straighter, her brows folded. “I’m not a child or an innocent bystander here. Who the hell do you think you are…”

 

Sydney turned concerned and determined chestnut eyes on her. “Face it, Parker, you’re about a invalided as you’ve ever been. You aren’t mobile, and are on some high-powered pain medication that would slow your reflexes otherwise. There’s no need to…”

 

“I’ll tell you exactly what I told Jarod a while back,” she retorted. “I have a gun – nice and shiny, makes a big sound when I pull the trigger and puts big holes in things I aim at…”

 

“The idea, people,” Jarod interrupted the two of them, “is to keep you BOTH safe, even while giving Cox the impression he can still get at you to get to me. I don’t intend to endanger either one of you anymore than I have to. It’s ME I want him to come after, ultimately. Security around you two will be as tight as a drum, where I leave him one open avenue to get to me so I can control the situation beyond his understanding.”

 

“I don’t like it,” Sydney stated flatly.

 

“Neither do I,” Miss Parker agreed with him and glared at the Pretender – and then turned and glared up at the sweeper standing behind the couch. “You’re not saying much,” she accused Sam.

 

“Not much TO say, Miss Parker,” the big man shrugged in response. “It’s a clever plan, and sure looks like it will work from here.” He turned his somber gaze on the Pretender. “It’s risky, though. I’m not too happy about that part of it.”

 

“But what about you, Jarod?” Broots finally found his voice. “Cox has been very clever in finding ways to get to the others, despite all of the security measures they’ve had to protect them before now. How do you be sure you can control him once he starts to come directly for you?”

 

“It’s just too risky,” Miss Parker nodded in agreement with Sam.

 

Jarod shook his head. “We have a day or so to set this up – I doubt that anything Cox might want to do can be put in motion before then. In that time, we’ll be working our butts off with the police, putting together enough admissible evidence to put that man on Death Row so that when we do set the trap, we have backup.”

 

“Cops?” Broots blinked. “You’re going to have the cops involved too?”

 

“I’m going to use every resource I have at my disposal, Mr. Broots,” Jarod answered, his dark eyes snapping. “That includes the police in both Dover and Blue Cove, if need be.”

 

“I know you said you’ve beefed up the security around this place,” Sydney glanced around the room and, like Miss Parker, noticed nothing new or out of the ordinary. “But I don’t have half the security system that she has. How…”

 

“That’s one thing I was going to talk to you about,” Jarod finally did sigh. “I need your permission to essentially do to your house what I did here – make the security as tight as it can be.”

 

“Cameras?” Sydney’s willingness to participate was fading rapidly. “I don’t want to come away from this with a feeling that I can’t even have any privacy in my own home…”

 

“Tell me about it…” Miss Parker grumbled.

 

“Whatever gets put in now can be removed when this is over,” Jarod reassured his mentor, “but I need it in place for when, not if, Cox finally makes his move.”

 

“The Centre removing surveillance equipment, right…” Sydney’s voice made his skepticism clear.

 

“Remember,” Jarod reminded him, “the people who would be most likely to want to keep or improve their spying on either you or Miss Parker aren’t in charge of things at the Centre anymore. And when this is done, it will be Miss Parker who is responsible for giving any orders about that sort of thing.”

 

“Believe me, Syd, the moment I have the authority, I’m having the whole works ripped outta BOTH our houses,” Miss Parker glared at Jarod again, her voice vehement. “I hate being watched almost as much as your Boy-Genius here does.”

 

Sydney stared at Jarod for a long moment, searching his protégé’s face for any signs of insecurity or wavering and finding none. “All right. Do it,” he growled finally and leaned back against the tall back of the couch and closed his eyes. “I haven’t heard any better ideas floating around, so I might as well go along with it.”

 

Jarod allowed himself a small smile of gratitude. “Thanks, Sydney. I know this is an intrusion, and I appreciate your help.” He looked around the small circle of faces. “OK. This is how we’re going to play this. Sam, you’re with Sydney and Miss Parker – like I told you before, on 24/7 duty until this thing is over. You give me the name of one other sweeper you trust implicitly to share the duty, and we get him over here post-haste.” He thought quickly. “Two you trust implicitly, actually, because I want you supervising the installation of security at Sydney’s house – I’ll help so the job goes faster. We already have Willy and his team out in the garage apartment, watching the monitors on a 24/7 basis, so that’s covered – they’ll be monitoring Sydney’s house too when everything’s in place.”

 

“Those cameras have sound capabilities too?” Miss Parker asked suddenly.

 

“No,” Sam replied before Jarod could open his mouth. “They’re to catch and video record any unauthorized access – not be full surveillance. When I requisitioned them, I chose the ones without microphones built in.” He looked up at Jarod and shrugged. “I figured you’d want to protect at least a semblance of privacy…”

 

“You figured right,” Jarod nodded approvingly.

 

“What about me?” Broots asked in a small voice.

 

“You I want digging and finding out where Cox is currently holed up. He’s got to have a fairly isolated place somewhere, considering the kind of violence he did to those women – I need you to find that place, and any apartment or house in town where he keeps up appearances. I’m betting his more public dwelling is in Dover – but that he also is using someplace in the countryside between here and there as his ‘workroom.’”

 

“You don’t think he’ll think of coming after me or Debbie, will he?”

 

Jarod cast Broots a measuring gaze. “Good question. Tell you what – Debbie can catch a sudden case of the flu and miss a few days of school. You take the two of you into the Centre and set up a temporary place down in Sydney’s Sim Lab – or maybe even take over my old apartment there. It gives you access to computers for your work, and you won’t have to worry about Debbie’s safety. That gets you out of harm’s way while you continue to provide information. Sam can even recommend a couple more sweepers for bodyguard detail on the both of you – although one of my first orders as Chairman was to order a Detain On Sight order on Cox. If he comes through the doors of the Centre again, we’ll nail him.”

 

Broots wasn’t looking too happy now either. “I suppose…” he grumbled.

 

“Welcome to the Unhappy Campers Club,” Miss Parker told him darkly. “We’re now almost unanimous.”

 

Jarod frowned at her. “Definitely unanimous, because if you think I’m any happier about this than any of you, you’re dreaming. Do you HONESTLY think I’m happy having anything to do with the Centre up this close and personal?”

 

Miss Parker’s gaze caught and locked with his for a long moment, and then she looked away again with a shake of the head. “Point taken.”

 

With that, Jarod rose. “C’mon, Sam – you’re with me. Get me two sweepers to keep an eye on our friends here, and then we’ll head back to the Centre for the equipment for Sydney’s house. Broots, go home and collect Debbie – have her bring enough of something to keep her occupied and entertained for a few days.”

 

“What about us?” Sydney looked up questioningly.

 

“You two just relax. You’re doing your part just resting up and unwinding from what Cox has done to you so far. Stay alert, and don’t go anywhere without an escort.”

 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fish again,” Sydney grumbled to Miss Parker as the others began to move away from the couch. “Now I know how the worm feels – and it isn’t all that pleasant.”

 

“Think of it this way, Syd: at least you’re out here, playing worm, rather than in jail like a Thanksgiving turkey waiting for the axe to fall,” she commented pointedly.

 

Sydney looked at her sharply and then looked away. In many ways, he wasn’t exactly sure which was worse.

 

oOoOo

 

Miller sighed and hit print screen for the fourth time. Information on Nathaniel Cox was turning out to be not easily come by. But Jarod Bailey’s clue that the man was a physician had been the one that had finally yielded some results. A Nathaniel Cox had graduated from Harvard Medical and then gone on to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. He’d received a license to practice medicine in Maryland that had been revoked in 1995 after several allegations that he’d taken liberties with some of his patients. Before any of the cases could be brought to trial, Cox had fled the state – and there had been no record of his whereabouts or his activities since then.

 

He reached over to the printer and pulled the sheets to his desk, sorting through them until he could look down into the face of the man that Bailey suspected of being responsible for the mess he was currently trying to unravel. Cox had brilliant blue eyes in the color photograph that had been the most recent picture of him, slightly curly dark hair and very fair skin. Just looking into that face, Miller bridled at the impression that the man had been very quietly smirking into the camera.

 

The ringing of the telephone broke into his musings, and he reached out automatically for the receiver. “Yeah, Miller…”

 

“This is Hicks over at CSU. We finally managed to find one fingerprint on the evidence you turned in to us. We’ve run it through CODUS, and we got a match – a man by the name of Nathaniel Cox.”

 

Miller grinned down at the photo on his desk. “So Bailey was right and you ARE involved, you son of a bitch,” he murmured to the picture, then spoke louder into the phone. “Thanks, guys.”

 

“Oh, and that button is what your friend at the Centre told you it was – an eye used by taxidermists.”

 

“Thanks.” He hung up the phone and pulled out a new file folder and began to assemble a dossier on Nathaniel Cox, MD. “Now all we have to do is find out what you’ve been up to for the last few years, Doc,” he nodded at the picture at the very front of the file.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker watched with concern as her colleague rose to his feet and moved once more to the front window to stare down her driveway for a long moment. It was the tenth or eleventh time in the last hour he’d done so, and it was starting to get annoying. She shifted a portion of her paperwork from her lap to the nearby coffee table. “Sit down, Sydney, before you wear a rut in my carpet.”

 

Sydney shot her a tortured look and then slumped before moving slowly over to one of the easy chairs near her fireplace. Once seated, he folded his hands in his lap quietly – but couldn’t hold them still. “I hate this,” he stated in a quietly desperate voice.

 

“I’m not having buckets of fun either, you know,” she responded a little more sympathetically. “You know that Jarod said that we wouldn’t necessarily like the roles he’d want us to play.”

 

“It isn’t that.” Sydney rose again and moved to lean against the mantle and gaze distractedly at the photograph Miss Parker kept there of herself and her mother – a picture of what must have been much happier times for her. “It’s that this is almost as bad as being in a jail cell – I have nothing to do, nothing to keep my mind occupied.”

 

“I have some books,” Miss Parker stated in her own defense and in defense of her home, pointing to a bookcase on a far wall. “It may not be a psychiatrist’s library, but I’m sure there should be something in there that could keep you from jumping out of your skin every five minutes or so.” She watched him follow her gesture and gaze at the bookcase for a moment before shaking his head and leaning his face into his hand as it rested against the mantle. “Talk to me, Syd.”

 

That earned her a quick, sharp glance before he couldn’t stand the weight of her gaze any longer again. “About what?”

 

She shifted the rest of the papers onto the coffee table and moved her legs so that there was plenty of room on the couch next to her. “What’s going on with you?”

 

“Nothing.” His voice was flat, and he’d hunched his shoulders at her question.

 

“Like hell. Look at you – you look like a six foot snail working at pulling yourself into a shell so nobody can see or touch you.”

 

“I knew about the law degree – I didn’t know that you’d also gotten a degree in psychology,” he tossed at her with a bitter tone.

 

“Face it, Syd, I’ve been around you too long – things have started rubbing off.” She tried to give him a more open, inviting look. “Give me credit for being able to spot a depression a mile away after having you point out my own to me for so many years.”

 

“This isn’t a depression,” Sydney complained, knowing full well that she’d pinned him rather nicely and not being at all happy about being so obvious.

 

“Oh yeah? Then what would you call it?” she challenged in return.

 

“Humiliation,” he stated explosively. “Have you got any idea what it’s like to have people around you who believe you to have been capable of actions that violate every possible principle you hold? Do you have any idea how it feels to have a portion of your memory missing that would make it possible for you to know whether or not you actually did the things that you’re being accused of or not? Can you imagine having the physical facts tell you that you’re an animal – or worse?” He buried his face in his hand again.

 

“Sydney,” she called, holding a hand out to him, “come sit down with me again for a little bit.”

 

“I’m not sure that would be wise, Miss Parker.”

 

She bit off the retort that was on the tip of her tongue and continued to hold out her hand. “I am,” she said simply. “I know you too well, Sydney. I know you didn’t do any of what they say…”

 

“I had sex with that prostitute,” he complained, “I let another man tuck…” His face was flushed and he choked on his words.

 

Miss Parker shot the sweeper in the room a quick, sharp look. “Give us some privacy, will you?” she muttered, and was gratified to see the sweeper move out of the room and hopefully completely out of earshot. “You were under the influence of a nasty cocktail of alcohol and drugs, Sydney. I know you’d never think of doing such things otherwise – and so do you.”

 

“If I hadn’t gone to the bar that night…” he began.

 

“Cox would have found another way to get at you – just look at what he was able to accomplish with me in my home and at work,” she insisted.

 

“But to behave so reprehensibly and have it become public knowledge…” he choked.

 

“It isn’t public knowledge,” she told him in challenge. “Only a few people know the details…” She paused. “Syd, I didn’t tell you what that little prostitute said to embarrass you, you know…”

 

“God,” he whimpered and found his way to the open end of the couch and sank to a seat before his legs gave out on him. “How do I ever learn to look you in the eye again?”

 

Stretching forward painfully, despite her bruised ribs, Miss Parker took a firm hold of his chin and turned his face until he was looking at her directly. “Just like this, Sydney. You listen to me. Over the years, you’ve heard a great deal about my peccadilloes – you’ve had occasion to scold me for my dress code, my lack of morals. So of all the people in the world, I can assure you that I’d be the LAST one in any position to be casting stones at your one lapse. You’re human, Sydney – give yourself permission to make mistakes every once in a while. You can look me in the eye for the same reason that I can still look you in the eye.”

 

“A mistake is one thing,” he pronounced carefully his chin still firmly within her control, “but rape? Murder?”

 

“Having sex with a prostitute isn’t rape – and you didn’t kill anybody.” Her voice was certain. “Repeat that after me.”

 

“Parker…” he cast her a cautionary glare.

 

“I mean it. You’re being too hard on yourself – and nobody around here is sitting in judgement of you. So you stop digging yourself into a hole and trying to pull the hole in on top of you. I won’t have it, I tell you,” she ordered imperiously and then released his chin to brush the backs of her fingertips across his cheek. “Nobody is that hard on someone I c…” She stopped suddenly, caught on the admission she’d been about to make.

 

The chestnut gaze had warmed, and his big hand caught and held hers before it could flee to a place of safety at her side. “I’ll work on it, Parker,” he told her honestly. “Keep reminding me, OK?”

 

Her fingers turned in his and tightened around his hand for a long moment, and then she let go so that she could lean back into her pillows again with a sigh. That discussion had worn her out almost as much as the trip from the hospital to her home had – and something told her that it would be a discussion she’d have to have more than once if she wanted to get her old friend back.

Chapter 15 – The Best-Laid Plans

 

Debbie looked around the spacious apartment that had once been Jarod’s with some surprise. “This isn’t all that bad,” she offered, letting the strap from her backpack slip from her shoulder and into one of the chairs.

 

“You’re right,” Broots remarked in some surprise. He’d seen enough of the smaller, more Spartan cells that the Centre had sprinkled liberally throughout the underground complex – cells he’d always considered would have been similar to where Jarod had been held all those years. But this – this was…

 

“You know, if it weren’t for the fact that there aren’t any windows, this would be really nice,” his daughter observed astutely.

 

/Yeah,/ he answered her in his head, /but if this were all there ever was, it would get very old very fast. This is OK for now because we both know that one day, we’ll get back out into the sunshine where we belong./ “You get the bed, Sweet Pea,” he told her and pointed. “I’ll take the couch.”

 

“Are you sure that Mrs. Henmi won’t be angry at my missing so much school?” she asked then, sitting and bouncing on the edge of the mattress.

 

“She doesn’t have to know you came here,” he said in a conspiratorial voice, “in fact, it would be better if she didn’t. As far as Mrs. Henmi is concerned, you came down with the flu – got it?”

 

“But I feel fine…” Debbie protested.

 

Broots walked over and sat down next to his little girl. “I know you do, Sweet Pea. But right now, it’s real important to me to know that you’re safe.” He thought for a moment. “Do you remember those two times that Miss Parker took care of you a few years ago?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“Well, this is something similar to that – only Miss Parker isn’t in any shape to take care of you this time. So she made arrangements so that you could stay here inside the Centre with me instead. That way I know that you’re safe, and I don’t have to worry.”

 

Debbie’s big blue eyes gazed up into his worriedly. “Are you in trouble, Dad?”

 

“No, Sweet Pea,” he replied, putting his arm about her shoulders and pulling her closer. “I’m not in trouble – and our staying here is so that you don’t get in trouble either.”

 

“How would I get in trouble? I was just going to school like always…”

 

Broots dropped a kiss on his daughter’s forehead. “Enough with the Twenty Questions, Deb. Why don’t you see about getting some of your homework done or dig out a couple of movies to watch while I do a little work over here on the computer? We can go upstairs for supper in the cafeteria after I’m done.”

 

“OK,” she answered unconvinced.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod inserted the key into Sydney’s front door and paused to take a deep breath before pushing the door open. This was one place he’d never broken into in all the years he’d been outside the Centre – invading his mentor’s privacy had been an option he’d simply never allowed himself to consider. Part of the reason was out of respect – he’d known his mentor to be an intensely private man, and so to invade the home of such a person would be like an assault. Part of it, however, was fear – somehow, he’d never felt as if he’d earned the right to participate in this part of his mentor’s life, and so to visit or invade Sydney’s home would have been to enter into Forbidden Territory.

 

Not this time, however. Necessity – as well as having permission, however begrudgingly given – meant that he not only would enter the house to install a cutting edge security system but also would be living there for a short time thereafter. Still, he paused, sensing that to take that first step into Sydney’s very private domain was to cross an invisible boundary. This brought him closer to his mentor than he’d ever been in a very special way – in a way he’d never allowed himself to imagine possible. Such a move could not be taken lightly.

 

“C’mon, Lab Rat – move it! This box is heavy!” Sam urged from behind him, breaking the mood, and then nudged the Pretender with the large box filled with smaller boxes – each with either a camera-transmitter or a motion detector pair.

 

Without answering, Jarod moved into the house and automatically reached to his right for the light switch to the foyer. Illumination burst forth, and he saw for the first time the kind of home Sydney would make for himself – and found it warm and masculine and very much reflective of the man who lived there. The foyer was tiled for the first few feet, and had a coat rack and closet to the right of the door and a large, beveled mirror facing the portal itself.

 

Once past the tile to the short, carpeted hallway to the left of the staircase leading to the second floor, he saw that an archway opened to the left that led into a spacious living room, where the eye was drawn immediately to the stonework hearth and the scattering of photographs that graced the mantle. The seating – a lengthy couch and two easy chairs – was of leather, the coffee table was of oak and glass, and the walls were of warm wood. There was a small bar on the wall to the left of the fireplace with an impressionistic oil painting of a Parisian street hanging prominently displayed and lit directly above it. The wall to the right was mostly a picture window that overlooked the front lawn and street in front of the house and the park beyond.

 

On the right side of the hallway, there were two doors. Jarod could see through the open door into what must have been Sydney’s study. Again, the décor was rich wood and leather – only in this room the walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with bookcases filled to overflowing with books both obviously old and quite new. A fine, mahogany desk sat facing out a tall pair of windows, with matching file cabinets not far away. The second door opened to reveal a half-bathroom tucked quaintly under the staircase.

 

Jarod continued walking down the short hallway. At the end was a dining room that looked as if it rarely saw much use. There was a small bouquet in the middle of the light wood table, and the six visible chairs were pushed in primly. The door on the opposite wall opened into a modern and well appointed kitchen and breakfast area that had an arcadia door that opened onto a bricked patio and then to the back yard. To the left, another door opened into what must have been the more lived-in room of the house – the den. Magazines and psychiatric journals, similar to a pair that had been on the kitchen counter near the telephone, were stacked more casually onto the heavy, wooden coffee table in front of another comfortable-looking leather couch – this one with a hand-crocheted afghan draped over the back. An entertainment center took up an entire wall, and there was a well-used leather recliner off to the side with a reading lamp hanging over one edge that looked as if the favorite spot of the home’s owner.

 

Sam had followed Jarod on the quick tour of the downstairs, and he whistled softly. “Give the Doc credit – he sure has nice digs,” he commented and then turned to Jarod. “I’ll take the stairs and the hallway upstairs.”

 

“I’ll start in the living room and work my way back,” Jarod agreed. He pulled two motion detector boxes from the larger box and motioned for Sam to put the heavy box on the dining table. Sam pulled what he wanted from the box and together the two men headed for the front of the house. While Sam settled down near the edge of the third step from the bottom, Jarod moved into the living room and switched on the light.

 

The small, framed pictures placed on the mantle drew him like a moth to a flame. Those pictures represented the people in Sydney’s life for whom he cared – the side of his mentor he’d only rarely been allowed to either glimpse or guess at. Curiosity and a sense of envy made him walk slowly across the room, around the couch, to discover just who it was that Sydney called “family” or “intimate” enough to warrant display.

 

There was a black and white picture of himself and Jacob as children. Jarod had seen that one before – it had been taken on the occasion of their first Communion, not long before the Nazis had hauled the entire family off to Dachau. Next to that was a photo of identical young men in matching Yale tee shirts, obviously fresh from a tennis match with rackets in hand, looking relaxed and exhilarated one with an arm over the shoulder of the other.

 

There was a faded picture of Sydney with a lovely young woman – Michelle. Next to that was another picture, much more recent, of Michelle and their son, Nicholas. Jarod smiled – despite the jealousy he felt for that young man, he knew he’d done the right thing to return that part of Sydney’s life to him that had been stolen by the Centre. A son should know who his father is, and vice versa.

 

The next picture wasn’t much of a surprise – it was an old picture of Miss Parker with her mother, Catherine. Jarod touched the frame gently – this was the little girl who had been his friend in the bowels of the Centre, and now he could more fully appreciate just how much like her mother she truly appeared. Next to that stood a simple chrome frame with a portrait of Miss Parker as a grown woman. Jarod nodded, understanding now. He’d known the old man to be very fond of his colleague, even though her prickly personality probably didn’t let her return the sentiment. He wondered absently if Miss Parker had the slightest idea of just how much she must mean to the man who had watched from the sidelines as she’d grown up before his eyes. He had included her with his family – she must mean a great deal to him.

 

But it was the final two pictures that staggered him. The first was a small and very old ID photograph of himself, taken when he was no more than ten or twelve; the second an enlargement of another ID photo taken the same year he’d escaped – and the latter was mounted in another simple chrome frame, very much like the one of the adult Miss Parker. To someone who didn’t know better, it looked as if Sydney had framed pictures of his own children identically – setting them nearly side by side as well.

 

Jarod leaned heavily on the mantle for a moment. Sydney had included HIM in his private family photo gallery? It made no sense – decades ago, Sydney had thrown away the Father’s Day card that he’d made for him and told him that he didn’t have time for that kind of sentimentality. And yet, years later, he had a picture of his protégé here, on his mantle in his home along with his brother and son? Jarod blinked in confusion – what was the truth being told here?

 

“Hey Lab-Rat! I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to spend all night here. If you’re going to just stand there and gawk…”

 

Once more Sam’s ironic tone broke through the mood – and Jarod was thankful this time for the interruption. His contemplations were becoming desperately confused. He opened the motion detector box and began setting up a beam that would cross the entire room at about two feet inside the archway. “I’m on it,” he answered sullenly, his confusion finding expression through attitude.

 

He glanced over his shoulder one last time at the mantle with its confusing gallery. Maybe, after everything was over, he’d get a chance to talk to Sydney – REALLY talk to him. Or, at least, maybe he’d get a chance to get the one question answered that had haunted him since boyhood: did Sydney ever think of him as a son – did he ever care?

 

oOoOo

 

Miller knocked on the doorjamb of the CSU lab. “Hi there,” he nodded to the white-coated woman sitting at the high workbench, “Miller – Homicide. I understand you were looking for me?”

 

“Yeah, come on in,” Janet Bridger waved him in. “I’ve just got this set up so that you can see.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

Bridger flicked a switch below the surface of her workbench, and suddenly a screen on the wall lit up with what looked like two handwriting samples. “About an hour ago, I received a document from the Centre – a handwriting sample of a man you’re investigating. I thought that I’d start checking it against items already in evidence – like the motel register with the signature of the man who reported the sounds of screaming at the Roadside Inn.”

 

“Yes…” Miller could feel his excitement level notch up a level, despite the lateness of the day. “And…?”

 

“See for yourself.” Bridger picked up a laser pen and aimed it at the screen. “See how large the capital letters are in relation to the rest of the writing sample? And take a look at these o’s. See how the finishing up-stroke moves left past the starting point and the flow of the writing breaks? That’s a very unusual trait.” The laser pen moved. “And compare these h’s – see how angular the upstroke is, and how the downstroke that follows curves inward slightly? Again, unique, and distinctive. Also, look at the sweeping flourish with which he crosses his x’s.” She turned the laser pen off and nodded in satisfaction at the detective. “You’ve got yourself a match, detective. The same guy that wrote the document from the Centre registered at that motel.”

 

“Interesting.” Bailey was right – the case involving this Centre insider DID have something to do with the murder cases. This handwriting connection was the first piece of solid evidence linking the two.

 

So Calvin Dexter was Nathaniel Cox. What was needed now was to find the man – the address given in the motel registry didn’t exist. It stood to reason that Dexter – Cox – if he were the killer, that was, must have a fairly private and quiet place where he carried out his butcheries.

 

“Thanks. I owe you one for getting that processed so quickly.” Miller scratched his head as he left the lab and headed for his car. It was getting late, and he’d been at the case since early that morning. It was time to head home and get a good night’s sleep so that he could dig in fresh and motivated in the morning.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod was just adjusting the motion detector beam across the tiled foyer when his cell phone began to chirp at him. Carefully he tightened a final twist on the mechanism and then pulled the device from his pocket. “Yes?”

 

“Found him – I think!” Broots exclaimed into his ear without even a greeting.

 

“Cox?”

 

“Yeah! I started thinking, you know, that making all those stock purchases required a legitimate address – so I dug out one of the most recent buys that he made under his own name. And when I went to the public records department in Dover…”

 

“Broots,” Jarod interrupted with a sigh, “where is he?”

 

“There’s an old farmhouse about five miles from the southern edge of the Dover city limits that just recently rented to an “N. Cox” – and it’s the same mailing address as his last stock purchase.” Broots paused. “You don’t suppose…”

 

“I’m not going to try to second-guess this guy at all,” Jarod cautioned. “He’s been almost a step ahead of us all this way – I’m not going to assume anything until I know for sure that I’m finally a step or two ahead of HIM for a change. Now, give me the address.” The tech on the other end of the line complied immediately. “Great. I’ll give this to the Dover PD and see about joining them on a hunting expedition. You just hang tight there at the Centre – I’ll call you if I need you.”

 

“You know, your apartment isn’t all that bad, according to Debbie,” Broots offered carefully.

 

“It has no windows, Mr. Broots,” Jarod stated quietly, explaining what he felt should have been obvious.

 

“She noticed that too,” Broots added in a similar tone. “I didn’t know how to tell her that it would get pretty old if it were all she had to look forward to.”

 

“You have a pretty smart daughter,” Jarod smiled. “Why don’t you treat her to one of the better meals the cafeteria has to offer – on me. Tell the cashier to put whatever you two want on my personal tab, and I’ll be in to settle the account in the morning when I get to work. I’ve already warned the crew down there to take very good care of you.”

 

“Thanks, Jarod – for everything,” the computer tech told him sincerely, with a glance over at his partially bored daughter who was waiting impatiently for him to get off the telephone so that she could finally go get something to eat.

 

“I’ll be in touch,” Jarod promised and disconnected the call. “Sam,” he called out.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Broots found an address on Cox – I think I’m going to see about hitching a ride along with Miller when they go check it out. Are you up to finishing here?”

 

Sam appeared at the top of the stairs, gazing down at the Pretender. “Ducking out on me, eh?”

 

“Hopefully cutting your 24/7 guard duty down to size,” Jarod countered. “You want me to send someone to keep you company?”

 

“Cute, Lab Rat,” Sam scowled, “but I got it. Maybe you’ll catch that rat bastard and save us all a lot of time and trouble.”

 

“We can only hope,” Jarod raised his hand in a wave and made one last test on the motion detector pair that he’d been installing. “This one’s finished – I’ll leave the frequency on the boxes for those I’ve got in.”

 

“Lemme know how things go,” Sam waved back and vanished back to what he’d been doing.

 

oOoOo

 

“So,” Broots asked Debbie over the cherry pie ala mode, “how much more homework do you have left?”

 

His daughter grimaced and threw her long braid back over her shoulder in a studied, teenaged gesture of disgust. “I’m going to need to work on my paper for English – I have a five page report on Hamlet that’s due next week that I haven’t even started with yet.” She stuck a piece of the delicious pie in her mouth and chewed quickly. “I was SUPPOSED to be partnered with Juliet Morrison on writing it – but now, being stuck in here…”

 

“What?” Broots asked in exasperation.

 

“Now I’ll have to do it all by myself!” Debbie explained as if to a complete idiot. “And I haven’t even read the third act yet.”

 

Broots smiled to himself, but didn’t let any of it show to his daughter. He knew how she hated it when he started to behave in a way SHE considered condescendingly. “Well, I guess we know what you’ll be doing with a good portion of your time here at the Centre, don’t we?”

 

“Daddy!” she looked up at him suddenly. “I have to go home!”

 

Broots shook his head vehemently. “No can do, Deb.”

 

“But I have to have my notebook from class…”

 

“I told you to take everything that you were going to need,” the technician sighed. “Don’t tell me…”

 

“It’s on my chest of drawers,” Debbie pouted. “I set it out so that I wouldn’t forget, and then walked right past it when it came time to leave. I just CAN’T do my report without it…”

 

“What’s in it that you need so desperately that you can’t write your report without it?” Broots demanded.

 

“The questions that my paper is supposed to answer, for one thing,” she retorted. “C’mon, Dad. We can drive home real fast – we wouldn’t be gone long…”

 

“No way,” he shook his head again. “The way things are right now, we both need to stick right where we are now. Why can’t you just call Juliet and get the questions from her?”

 

“That isn’t the only thing in my notebook,” Debbie sighed again. “Mrs. Johnson lectured us for three days about the play and language and the setting – and she said that she wanted us to research further into some of those points and include that information in our reports. I’ve done a lot of looking on the Internet already as my part of the project – I NEED those links…”

 

Broots put his fork down next to his half-finished dessert and ran his hand over his balding pate. “What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t have your notebook to work from?”

 

“I won’t be able to write the report properly,” Debbie told him in exasperation, “and I’ll flunk the class. Mrs. Johnson said that this report was going to be fifty percent of our grade this term.”

 

“OK, OK,” he sighed finally. “You stay here, and I’ll go home and pick up your notebook real quick. But you listen to me, young lady,” he scowled and shook a finger at her nose. “You’re going to owe me huge for this. Jarod wanted me to stick close to the Centre – and if he finds out that I’m ducking out for a bit, I just MIGHT get myself into trouble after all.”

 

“I’m sorry, Dad.” Debbie actually was starting to look contrite. “I didn’t mean to forget…”

 

“I know, Sweet Pea,” Broots sighed and picked up his fork. “You just chose a really lousy time to do it this time.”

 

oOoOo

 

Detective Miller was just donning his jacket and getting ready to punch out for the evening when his telephone rang. “Yeah – this is Miller…”

 

“Jarod Bailey, Detective…”

 

“Mr. Bailey.” Miller paused and sat back down behind his desk. “What can I do for you this evening.”

 

“I think it’s more a case of what I can do for YOU, Detective,” Jarod replied with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “I may have an address on our Mr. Cox.”

 

“You don’t say!” Miller leaned forward and pulled a pad in front of him and then reached into his desk drawer for a pen. “My CSU team has confirmed that the man that registered at the Roadside Inn – the one that reported the screams just before Doctor Green was arrested – was indeed Doctor Cox.”

 

“Have they processed the stock purchase orders yet?” Jarod asked curiously.

 

“I didn’t know they were going to be processing them,” Miller answered honestly, “and there was no mention of them when I went over there…” He clicked the ballpoint into readiness. “Now, what was that address you said you had for me?”

 

Jarod rattled off the address quickly and then added, “I’d like to come with you to check this place out, if you don’t mind, Detective.”

 

Miller closed his eyes briefly and then opened them again. “I don’t know,” he hedged. “I’m not exactly comfortable going into a potentially dangerous situation with an untrained and…”

 

“I’m not entirely untrained, Detective,” Jarod interrupted, “AND I was deputized, remember? This is important to me – I want to be there, especially if we’re going to find Mr. Cox…”

 

“Doctor Cox,” Miller corrected.

 

“Whatever…” Jarod brushed aside the correction. “If he’s there when we arrive, I want to be there.”

 

“You don’t think we should wait until tomorrow?”

 

“Do you?” was the rejoinder.

 

Miller sighed. “Where are you?”

 

“On my way into Dover,” Jarod replied, glancing at the nearest mileage marker on Highway 1. “I should be at the police station within ten minutes.”

 

“I’ll wait for you for exactly twenty minutes, Mr. Bailey,” Miller announced. “If you’re not here by then, I’m going to take a team of police officers and knock on Dr. Cox’s door myself. Understood?”

 

“Absolutely,” Jarod answered and nudged the speedometer on the Centre sedan he’d borrowed from the sweepers up another eight miles per hour. He disconnected the call and tucked the cell phone into his breast pocket to concentrate on driving. There was no way in Hell that Miller was going to investigate that old farmhouse without him!

 

oOoOo

 

“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to help you up the stairs, Miss Parker?” Chet, the sweeper that Sam had called to replace himself while he and Jarod worked on setting up the security precautions at Sydney’s, asked. He hadn’t exactly been prepared for the way the woman had just suddenly announced that she was tired and more or less insinuated that the only help that she’d accept was that of the old psychiatrist. Sydney, for his part, had simply risen to his feet and reclaimed her crutches from against the living room wall, then slipped her left arm over his shoulder to provide a more sturdy form of assistance.

 

“No thanks,” she tossed back at him. “One of you in the hallway upstairs in about a half hour will be more than sufficient.”

 

Chet nodded and seated himself on one of her easy chairs after adjusting it to face directly up the stairs. This wasn’t exactly according to the instructions that Sam and Jarod had given him – but who was he to countermand an order by the old Chairman’s daughter?

 

Sydney patiently and carefully helped Miss Parker up the stairs one step at a time, never letting her put any of her weight on the broken ankle. She pointed to the room at the end of the short hallway once they were on the second floor and leaned on her old friend as he walked her to her room.

 

“Come in for a moment,” she invited when he would have let her take over her own movements at the bedroom door. “There’s something we need to discuss, and I thought you’d prefer to talk without anybody else listening in.”

 

“There’s nothing to talk about, Parker,” Sydney shook his head tiredly, “and, truth be told, I’m ready to turn in too. Goo…”

 

“Get in here, Syd. There’s a question that I need you to answer for me first,” she ordered in a no-nonsense tone.

 

Sydney sighed and moved inside the bedroom, only to find himself pointed to the little bench seat tucked into the vanity as Miss Parker made her way carefully across the room to sit on the edge of the bed. “What is it that can’t wait until morning, then?” he asked with a tone of infinite patience.

 

She skewered him with a sharp, grey gaze. “Now that we’ve got the time, and the privacy, you can tell me just what the Hell it was that Raines said to you that had you climbing into a whiskey bottle the moment you got home from work.”

 

That was NOT something he wanted to discuss – not even knowing that Raines and his plans to restart projects that really deserved to be shut down forever were no longer looming on his horizon. “You really don’t want to know,” he answered in a brittle voice. “Suffice it to say that, with Raines dead, a goodly portion of my concern is now moot.”

 

“Uh-unh – you’re not getting away that easily,” she shook her head at him as he started to rise. “I figure it must have been something pretty damned bad to upset you that badly…”

 

“Leave it alone, Parker, I’m asking you…”

 

“Spill, Syd. I’m looking to take over Raines’ job when we catch the bastard that messed with us – I need to know what it was that he thought he was going to get you to do that had you tied up in knots.”

 

Sydney found that he could no longer meet her gaze, and he looked down at his hands, hanging limp and empty between his knees. “He was restarting the Pretender Project,” he said very softly. “He had a new child – a small boy – and he wanted me to take on the responsibility of training him the way I’d trained Jarod.” His gaze flicked up and found, as he’d expected, that her gaze was now stunned. “And the reason that he was so angry that morning I didn’t show up was because he wanted to introduce me to the boy so that I could get right to work…”

 

“But what about your part in the hunt for Jarod?” she asked, her voice breathy from shock.

 

“I’m sure that had I come into work on time, you would have been informed that I was being reassigned,” he told her gently. “I’d imagine that he’d let me consult with you from time to time, when the clue was good enough – but my days of participating fully would have been finished.”

 

“Syd…”

 

“I couldn’t do it, Parker,” he threw his hands open wide and his voice grew stressed. “I couldn’t do to another little boy what I’d done to Jarod all those years. But I didn’t know how to get out of the trap that Raines had me in. If I refused, I’ve no doubt that Willy would have been under orders to convince me to ‘reconsider.’”

 

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Miss Parker asked quietly. “After what happened with Gemini, I was hoping that you’d have learned you could trust me…”

 

He shook his head sadly. “I was under orders to talk about my new assignment with nobody until everything was arranged.” His gaze met hers sadly. “I had no idea what his plans for you or anybody else would be if I opened my mouth against orders.”

 

“And you thought getting pickled was a good response?”

 

“Frankly,” he admitted with a look of chagrin, “I was hoping to get so plastered that I’d get rolled or mugged or something, and end up in such a poor condition that I would get a little time to think of some other way out of the mess.” He rose slowly. “Now you know all of it,” he told her.

 

“Except where that kid is in the Centre,” she commented darkly.

 

“I’m confident that you’ll take care of that as one of the first things you do as Chairman,” he replied with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “And now, if you don’t mind, I really am quite tired…”

 

“Sydney?”

 

“Hmmm?” He turned to look at her again from the door.

 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you – with Raines, I mean.”

 

His shoulders lifted in a uniquely French gesture, and then he’d vanished, closing her bedroom door very quietly after himself.

 

Miss Parker stared at the closed door with consternation. He’d been trapped – and he hadn’t felt that he could trust her to help him out of the trap. She sighed – he still didn’t trust her entirely. Despite her pep talk earlier, he was still very closed down – very defensive – and nothing at all like her stoic, calm, supportive old friend that had been at her side for years.

 

And, oddly, that hurt – a lot.

 

oOoOo

 

Broots turned into his daughter’s bedroom and reached for the light switch. The décor of his daughter’s room had changed considerably over the last year or so – ever since she’d started her freshman year in high school. Gone were the posters of Sylvester and Tweety, Roadrunner and Coyote – and in their place were new posters of young men who were the vocal talents behind some of the raucous music he’d wished she wouldn’t listen to. The furnishings had been moved around too – several times now – as she sought to find a configuration for her room that granted her as much privacy as possible while giving her something else intangible that only she understood.

 

Still, he was here for something very tangible. He glanced over against the far wall and found what it was that he’d come after – the very thick, very tattered notebook that
Debbie had told him one night was strictly for her English class. He walked over to where he could grab it up and tucked it under his arm as he headed for the door.

 

He turned off lights as he went – first the bedroom, then the upstairs hallway, then the stairs from just at the bottom, then the foyer as he opened his front door and pulled it shut behind him. It wasn’t as easy to find the keyhole to insert the deadbolt key in the dark, but a little fiddling found it finally, and then he turned to head back to the car.

 

Broots never saw what hit the back of his head – nor knew that the binder under his arm hit the pavement just right that it sprang open and let loose its store of notebook paper to scatter across the lawn like early spring snow.

Chapter 16 – Into the Darkness

 

Sydney muttered a curse in French and sat back up in the bed he’d just begun to relax in as his cell phone chirped a second time. Who in the Hell would be calling him at this hour? Jarod? He somehow doubted that one. Jarod was operating in the open now, with no need to make late night calls to purge his soul or get his head screwed back on straight once more.

 

He fumbled with the night lamp on the nightstand and finally had a way to see what he was doing when the third chirp came – and had his cell phone in hand and had connected the call before the call had hit his voicemail. “This is Sydney,” he intoned in his characteristic way, and then added, “and this better be good…”

 

“If you want to see your computer friend again, you’ll find a way to get past the sweepers Jarod has posted around you and come over to your friend’s house, alone,” a sinister whisper sounded in his ear.

 

“What?” Sydney was suddenly very awake. “Who is this?”

 

“You have an hour before your friend starts to understand just what has been happening in Dover in a very up-close and personal way,” the whisper insisted. “And it would be too bad for that pretty little daughter of his to grow up the rest of the way an orphan – wouldn’t it?”

 

“What do you want with me?” Sydney was pushing his feet out from under the covers and moving to the edge of the bed, getting ready to rise again.

 

“I want you at your friend’s house in an hour, or there will be more blood – MUCH more blood – on your hands. Come alone, or your friend will pay the price for your disobedience.” And with that, the call disconnected.

 

Very briefly, Sydney considered getting dressed and then going across the hallway to his injured but feisty colleague for help. Surely Miss Parker would know…

 

No! Broots’ life was hanging in the balance, and the whisper had told him to come alone. Any disobedience on his part would cost Broots… and there was no way that he was willing to be the cause of any more harm to another person. He reached for the hangers on which he’d put the clothing he’d been released from jail in and began to dress quickly. As he dressed, he was trying to figure out just how he was going to be able to get past the sweepers – including Sam – so as to get to Broots’ house within the one hour’s framework.

 

Very cautiously, he cracked open the bedroom door and peeked down the hallway toward the staircase. Chet, Sam’s replacement, had dragged one of Miss Parker’s dining room chairs up the stairs and had parked himself between the staircase and the bedrooms beyond. Defensively, it was a good move, but it meant that Sydney would have to find another way out of the house.

 

Sighing in frustration, Sydney moved next to the bedroom window and fingered the sheer curtains aside. Now he remembered – he’d heard Jarod and Sam talking about the cameras that had positioned outside the house to prevent any unauthorized approach. Somehow he suspected that the oak tree that stretched its branches tantalizingly close to the window was covered by one of those camera angles.

 

No, he’d have to finesse his way past the sweepers and out of the house. He glanced at his wristwatch and grimaced. Ten minutes wasted – he didn’t have much time to lose!

 

He looked down at himself and thought again, then removed his jacket and shoes. It would be normal for someone brought to a place not their own home to not have any clothing to run around in at night – say, for example, to go to the bathroom, or go downstairs for a drink of water. He even slid the suspenders that did the better share of the job of holding up his trousers away from his shoulders so that they drooped down almost to his knees. Finally, he ran his fingers through his longish silver hair, mussing it as if he’d been lying down in bed and sleeping for a time.

 

Satisfied that he looked sufficiently disheveled to disarm any wary sweeper, he pulled open the bedroom door and shuffled out into the hallway scratching his head and yawning as if he’d just awakened. With an abbreviated wave at Chet, he headed across the hallway to the bathroom and closed the door. He waited, studying his reflection in the mirror and training his face in a semi-somnambulant expression before flushing the toilet and running the water in the sink briefly. He pulled open the bathroom door and blinked sleepily at the sweeper as he turned off the light and walked toward the stairs.

 

“Problem sleeping, Doc?” Chet asked in concern.

 

“Thirsty,” Sydney responded in a weary voice and gestured vaguely. “I thought I’d go down and get some water from the fridge.”

 

“OK,” the sweeper nodded and released Sydney from the focus of his concentration. Sydney breathed an inward sigh of relief as he moved slowly and steadily – but in no way trying to hide his presence – down the staircase. Sam, he knew, had returned not long ago and had taken up a position in the living room.

 

“Hey there,” the sweeper greeted the sleepy-looking psychiatrist. “I thought you’d be sawing logs by now.”

 

“I got thirsty – would you believe it?” Sydney gave Sam a grimace of chagrin. “Is everything down here secure?”

 

“It’s quiet as a tomb – just the way I like it,” Sam grinned back at him. “You gonna need anything else?”

 

It was a gift from Heaven – and Sydney knew that although it would shortly raise the alarm, he had no other choice…

 

“As a matter of fact… I think I’m working on coming down with the beginnings of a migraine. I noticed a bottle of Tylenol on the counter of the upstairs bathroom – would you mind terribly fetching it for me?”

 

Sam nodded after a quick thought. “Sure thing, Doc – just hold it right there.” And with that, the sweeper headed up the stairs two at a time.

 

Sydney waited until the steps on the upstairs hallway told him that Sam was approaching the bathroom before he started to move. Carefully avoiding the motion detector that he knew from Jarod’s pointing it out had been placed a few feet inside the front door, he unlocked the front door and slipped outside. In the dark of the front porch, he slipped his suspenders back up over his shoulders and hurriedly put socks on that he’d stuffed into his trouser pockets against the night chill.

 

He wasn’t in bad physical condition for his age, but getting from Miss Parker’s house on the edge of Blue Cove to Broots’ home not far from his own would take the better part of three quarters of an hour at a steady walk. Praying his heart was in better condition than he feared it was, he began to jog.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod was frankly surprised by the number of Dover P.D. officers that poured out of the two other squad cars parked in front of the weather-beaten farmhouse at the end of a rutted and rough driveway. Not a single light shone in any window of the building, and the police slowly closed in with flashlights and high-powered hand torches aplenty. Miller took point and, with search warrant firmly in his left hand, closed his right hand into a fist and began pounding on the door. “Police Department – open up.”

 

Within the structure, nothing moved. “We have a search warrant, Doctor Cox,” Miller yelled again, pounding a little harder. “Open the door.”

 

“He’s not here,” Jarod offered.

 

“Makes no difference,” Miller growled and motioned for the two officers with the battering ram to join them on the porch. A single smash took care of whatever lock was holding the door closed, and the officers swarmed into the house. “No electricity,” the detective noted, flipping at the light switch inside the door several times to no avail.

 

“I doubt he actually lives here,” Jarod shone his light around the main living area of the house. It was mostly devoid of furniture – those few pieces that were there were dirty and not very sturdy looking. Only one of the windows had anything remotely resembling a set of curtains, and those hung crooked and looked decidedly tattered at the bottom hem. Visible cobwebs adorned the naked ceiling fixture and non-functional light bulb, and the entire place had an odd, vaguely familiar and decidedly unpleasant smell about it.

 

One by one, the other officers that had rushed off into other corners of the house began to report in, confirming Jarod’s suggestion that Dexter – or Cox – wasn’t at home. In fact, there was little to give evidence that anybody had been at home in this building for a good many years.

 

“Say, Detective, wonder where THIS leads,” one of the officers called to Miller from the back of the house, and Jarod followed the detective to see what was being spoken of. The uniformed officer pointed to another door and tried to turn the knob. “Locked,” the man commented. “Considering everything, it makes a person wonder why, now, don’t it?”

 

“Allow me,” Jarod stated, moving to the door and dropping to a crouch. From his pocket he pulled two thin, metal probes, which he moved about within the keyhole until there was a decided click.

 

“I don’t want to know how you learned to do that,” Miller told his Centre-spawned deputy dryly as he put his hands on Jarod’s shoulders to move him out of the way before he turned the knob and pulled the door open to reveal the blackness of a staircase leading down into the basement. Then it was Miller’s turn to stand aside as uniformed officers with their weapons drawn began down the rickety wooden stairs.

 

Then the smell from the basement began to waft up, and both Miller and Jarod were forced to cover their mouths and noses. “I think we’ve found our murder scene, Detective,” Jarod commented in a voice that sounded as if he were on the verge of being sick. Miller made a choking noise and then forced himself to follow the other officers down into a scene from Hell itself.

 

The basement was small – taking up only a fraction of the total footprint of the house itself. Once there were enough officers down there, the collective effect of the flashlights and hand torches lit every inch and exposed everything starkly to the point that there was no longer any doubt what had gone on there. Every cinderblock in the wall that surrounded the basement looked as if it had been hit by blood spray from one angle or another. At the back wall, manacles had been imbedded into the cement block that dangled malignantly against the bloody backdrop. On the opposite side of the space, set away from the wall far enough to allow for walking room, was a table that looked as if it had come directly out of a mortuary or coroner’s office. The stainless steel hadn’t been cleaned from the last patient that had lain on it, and there was a pipe into which any fluids spilled above drained and could be deposited in a container conveniently placed below.

 

Miller cast the powerful beam of his hand torch around the perimeter of the space, and then moved to a bookcase. “Bingo,” he called out to Jarod, who was still staring at the manacles and trying not to remember the last time HE had dangled from a pair such as they. Swallowing hard, Jarod joined his detective colleague in carefully pulling on latex gloves and taking plenty of digital pictures before they touched the red baseball cap that was tossed carelessly on top of the bookcase. On the next shelf was a black bag that Miller photographed in place from several angles before letting Jarod dislodge it and open it.

 

“Oh, geez!” Jarod wheezed and backed away. Inside the bag was a set of bloody scalpels and a huge thin plastic bag that had the remains of what looked like a very large quantity of blood inside it. “I think we know how the blood got on the bed in the motel now,” he told the detective with a sickened look.

 

“What about this?” Miller asked and reached in and under the bag to pull out another smaller container with traces of a white, milky substance in the bottom of it.

 

Jarod shone his flashlight on the container and sighed. “How much do you want to bet that it’s semen – Sydney’s semen, to be precise?” he queried the disgusted looking detective. “Once the woman is dead, artificial implication wouldn’t much of a problem…”

 

“No doubt,” the detective remarked as he pulled out a syringe with a similar residue within. “The rapes probably happened here – and he used your friend’s genetic signature after the fact.”

 

“This guy is sick and twisted in ways I’ve never seen before,” one of the uniformed officers said, coughing back his nausea. “I gotta git outta here…”

 

“Go on out to the squad and call it in,” Miller ordered as he carefully put the syringe back into the bag, settled the containers over it as they had been and carefully put the bag back where they’d found it. “We want the full CSU crime unit out here documenting this stuff properly.” He looked over at Jarod. “I think, when everything’s been processed, that we’ll have enough here to let your friend off the hook – even the other guy, although those other cases…”

 

“We still won’t have Cox,” Jarod reminded him darkly.

 

“That’s only a matter of time,” Miller responded, equally darkly. “I want this asshole off the streets and behind bars in the worst kind of way. He’s messed with my mind about all I’m gonna want to take.”

 

oOoOo

 

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Miss Parker pulled her bathrobe tighter around her and glared at Sam, who glared back guiltily. “How the hell could he have gotten out?”

 

“He sent me upstairs for some Tylenol, claiming to have the beginning of a migraine,” Sam explained in frustration. “When I came back down, he wasn’t in the kitchen or downstairs bath – and when I finally checked, the front door was closed but unlocked. He must have just walked out.”

 

“What about the damned surveillance – God, I just gave you and Jarod carte blanche to put cameras and motion detectors all over this damned place. Shouldn’t they…”

 

Sam put up a defensive hand. “Look. They were put in place to prevent people from breaking IN – not out! Willy had no reason to be worried about someone coming OUT of the house…”

 

“DAMN IT!” she exploded, pounding her crutch into the floor and then hobbling over to sit on the edge of her bed to get off her sore ankle. She threw her head back and closed her eyes while she ran her fingers through her tousled hair in frustration. Finally she opened her eyes and glared at the sweeper who stood silently and nervously to one side. “Call Jarod.”

 

“Miss Parker…”

 

“Call him. He needs to know what’s going on.”

 

Sam sighed and walked over to the telephone to pick up the cordless receiver. He thought for a moment and then turned to her. “You don’t happen to have his cell phone number, do you?”

 

“Shit,” she hissed. “Call Broots – he has it.”

 

The sweeper punched in a set of numbers into the handset and stood silently, waiting for someone on the other end of the line to pick up the call. “That’s odd,” he mumbled, disconnecting that attempt and dialing another set of numbers and waiting only a brief moment. “Give me the extension in the apartment down on SL-15,” he ordered, turning and shooting a concerned look at his employer before concentrating on speaking to the person who’d picked up the line. “Debbie, this is Sam…”

 

“Sam!” Debbie grinned. Sam was still one of her favorite people. “Are you going to come in and play checkers with me while I’m stuck here?”

 

“I don’t think so, kiddo – but maybe after you and your dad get home, I can come visit you some evening and see if I can even the score some. Speaking of your dad, can I talk to him for a moment?”

 

“He’s not here right now,” Debbie chirped brightly. “He went back to the house to pick up some school stuff I forgot.”

 

“Oh?” Sam’s face had clouded over with worry to the extent that Miss Parker knew something was VERY wrong. “How long ago did he leave?”

 

“About an hour and a half ago,” Debbie told him after a brief pause. “Is everything OK?”

 

Miss Parker opened her mouth as if to speak, but was restrained by Sam’s cautionary finger in the air. “No, Short Stuff, everything’s just fine. I’ll be talking to you later, OK?”

 

“OK,” the girl replied. “See you soon, I hope.”

 

“Me too, kiddo,” Sam nodded. “Bye for now.” He disconnected the call. “Broots took off to pick up something they forgot at the house – an hour and a half ago.”

 

Miss Parker wrapped her arms around her. “He shouldn’t have needed that much time…”

 

“I know.” Sam was already dialing another number. “I want three sweepers to meet me over at 157 Ash Street.” He demanded and then listened. “That’s right, the Broots residence. I think we may have a problem.”

 

oOoOo

 

Miller stood and stared at the farmhouse. CSU had moved in, as had the technology for searching out and discovering every piece of evidence. Halogen lights encircled the house, run by a gas-powered generator that had pulled up behind the truck bearing the lights. Already CSU technicians were starting to trickle from the house after having sent bag after bag of physical evidence of the horror that had gone on in the basement out to be transported to the lab for processing.

 

“I don’t believe this,” he sighed finally to Jarod when one of the technicians stopped by with a cardboard box that had been found on one of the out-of-the-way shelves – a box filled with carefully folded black plastic body bags. “Where in the hell did he get a hold of those?” the tired detective exploded.

 

“Probably from the Centre,” Jarod responded honestly.

 

Miller blinked in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

 

“Not at all,” Jarod shook his head and watched the box head up toward the van that had been collecting everything carried out of the house. “I haven’t had time to order everyone to do a physical inventory of supplies yet – our morgue could easily be light a few of them and nobody’d be the wiser.”

 

“Just what kind of place IS the Centre, Mr. Bailey?” Miller asked in a suddenly suspicious voice.

 

“WAS, Detective. WAS. And you don’t want to know.” Jarod looked down into the Styrofoam cup of coffee that Officer Ryan had handed him about fifteen minutes ago. “I know I wish I didn’t.”

 

“You and I are going to have to have a very long conversation one of these days,” Miller mentioned ominously. “Once this mess is all over and done with.”

 

Jarod nodded, not willing to tell the detective that once this mess was over and done with, he was history. “I’d imagine,” he commented vaguely and then shook himself. “I should call some of my colleagues who’ve been working this thing with me. They deserve to hear the news.”

 

Miller waved him away and went over to talk to another of the CSU technicians carrying a medical test kit. Jarod moved to the edge of the activity and pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

 

“Broots?” Miss Parker’s voice was sharp.

 

“Now that’s an interesting variable on the way you answer the phone,” he couldn’t help chuckling.

 

“Jarod!” The relief in Miss Parker’s voice was palpable. “Thank God! We were wondering how we were going to get in touch with you…”

 

He was instantly on the alert. It was after midnight – and she’d been fairly tired by the time he’d left with Sam. “What’s the matter, Parker?”

 

“Sydney’s gone – sent Sam upstairs on a snipe hunt so he could just slip out the front door. And…”

 

“Why the hell would Sydney go anywhere?” Jarod demanded. “How long ago was this?”

 

“About a half hour or so,” she answered. “And that’s not all.”

 

Jarod wiped his face with a hand. “Shit. What else?”

 

“Broots doesn’t answer his cell. Debbie said he went over to his house to pick up some school stuff for her she forgot and hasn’t come back yet – and now we can’t reach him.” Miss Parker’s voice grew worried. “You don’t think…”

 

“You listen to me. You hang tight and stick with Sam – I don’t want you going anywhere without him right there alongside you, not even to bed. Don’t let ANYthing lure you out of the house, is that clear?” Jarod ordered with a finger pointing into the air.

 

“What the…”

 

“I mean it, Parker,” he lowered his voice. “If you get tired, Sam stays in the easy chair in your room with you – or you crap out on the couch – either way, I don’t want you alone at all.”

 

She was beginning to catch on. “Oh God. Jarod…”

 

“I’ll get the detective and we’ll think of something,” he promised her, “I swear it. I’ll call back when I know more.”

 

“OK…”

 

“Let me talk to Sam.”

 

There was a fumbling noise. “Yeah?” the sweeper’s voice demanded urgently.

 

“I don’t care where she goes or what she does, you’re right there with her.”

 

“Understood.” Sam’s eyes caught and held his boss’ grey gaze. “She won’t get out of my sight for a minute.”

 

“And I don’t care what anybody says to her over the phone – she stays IN the house. Deck her if you have to.”

 

“Got it.” His blue eyes told Miss Parker very clearly that there would be no way he’d ignore Jarod’s orders. “Incidentally, I’ve already called in a sweeper team to go over to Broots’ and…”

 

“Call them back!” Jarod burst out. “Call them back and tell them not to get anywhere near the house! If Cox IS there, and if he has Broots, any unexpected disruption of his plans at this point will put Broots in danger – and if Sydney’s there…”

 

“OK! OK! I’ll call them!” Sam reassured the Pretender.

 

“You do that – and take care of Miss Parker for me,” Jarod said suddenly, and then disconnected the call. He closed his eyes in frustration and anguish at the thought of his mentor and father figure walking into a trap set by Cox willingly and under his own power. The reason wasn’t hard to come by. Cox had gotten to Broots somehow – and then called Sydney. He didn’t have to SIM his mentor to know that in Sydney’s current emotional state, there would have been no way for him to not follow the directions that had been backed up by the threat to Broots’ life.

 

And then there was the threat posed by unknowing sweepers swooping in precipitously and giving Cox a reason to harm either Sydney or Broots or both.

 

There was only one possible response.

 

“Detective! Detective Miller!” he called across the yard. “I need to talk to you – NOW!”

 

oOoOo

 

In the darkness that surrounded the house on Ash St., a cell phone sounded off. There was a muffled expletive and then a voice whispered harshly, “What?”

 

“Where are you?” Sam’s voice demanded to know.

 

“Outside the house. There’s binder paper blowing all over the place – especially in the driveway. There’s no sign of Mr. Broots’ car though. We were just getting ready to…”

 

“Don’t move in,” Sam ordered immediately, not waiting to hear the rest. “Hold your position and wait for instructions. Watch, but do not move – is that clear?”

 

“What the hell…”

 

“Just do it! This order comes straight from the Chairman himself!” Sam paused, thinking. “Nine chances out of ten, he’ll be there himself not too long from now, and you can get your orders directly from him.”

 

The call was disconnected, and then a soft call was passed from shadow to shadow. Sweepers bristled at not being allowed to proceed, but remained in the shadows for the time being.

 

oOoOo

 

Sydney leaned hard against the lamppost at the corner of Maple and Ash streets, knowing his combination jog and walk was nearly over. He pulled his sleeve back so that the light from overhead could illuminate his watch and sighed – he hadn’t really gained any time trying to jog, and he’d managed to wear himself out. His heart was pounding in his chest as if wanting to break through his ribs and his feet were sore from trying to jog without the proper protection from pavement and stones.

 

There was no alternative – no going back now. He waited only long enough that his severe panting died away to just a general case of being out of breath and then pushed away from the lamppost to walk the last leg of his journey. As he neared the driveway, he could see that the porch light at Broots’ house was lit – obviously awaiting his arrival. Keeping his eye on the goal, he didn’t see where the sidewalk had broken and lifted until he’d already stubbed his toe against the hard cement and nearly fallen. Swearing softly in French, he rubbed a big toe that he didn’t dare worry about whether he’d broken or not and then limped the last few yards up the drive and onto the porch.

 

He knocked, but there was no answer. Sydney looked around him and then reached down for the knob and twisted, not at all surprised to find the door unlocked and immediately giving to the slightest pressure inward. The interior of the house was dark, and Sydney left the door open so that a small pool of light could follow him from the porch into the house – and then shrank together when the door slammed behind him and the light was suddenly gone.

 

“Very good,” the distinctively accented voice of Mr. Cox – a man that even Mr. Raines had called “the boogieman” – sounded close behind him. “It’s so good to see you again so soon, Sydney.” A small, hard object was pressed into his kidney – something Sydney suspected was the barrel of a handgun. “Let’s move away from the door, shall we?”

 

“Where’s Broots?” Sydney demanded. “I’m here – now where’s my friend?”

 

Cox chuckled coldly. “All in good time.” The gun pressed deeper into Sydney’s side. “Move.”

 

“What do you want with me?” Sydney asked as he walked slowly through the unfamiliar house. “Haven’t you done enough already?”

 

The question brought about another cold chuckle. “I don’t know why you’re complaining so bitterly,” Cox retorted. “The last time I had anything to do with you, you at least got lucky. I’ve often thought that keeping a man’s libido adequately satisfied was one of the best ways of assuring productivity…”

 

“You bastard!” Sydney balked and felt the gun ram hard into him.

 

“Keep moving,” the cold voice insisted dangerously. “I realize that you probably haven’t got a real clear recollection of your conquest though,” Cox continued. “I could fix that – before we continue here. Would you like that? Should I call that little prostitute over to the house here for you – so you can have one last go at her…”

 

“You’re a sick man,” Sydney forced his voice to remain calm and collected, reaching desperately for the clinical objectivity he used with his patients. “What you’re doing…”

 

The gun was shoved into his side so hard that Sydney knew it would be leaving a bruise – if nothing worse. “Was that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?”

 

“No,” Sydney ground out. There was no way he’d give permission to bring another innocent woman into harm’s way.

 

“Too bad,” Cox sounded amused. “It was interesting watching a total lack of technique and finesse still getting the job done against a wall. I was hoping for some pointers.”

 

Fists clenched at his side in an effort to control an almost blind fury, Sydney refused to respond to the last, baiting remark. “You have me – you can do what you want with me, I don’t care. Just let Broots go…”

 

“I don’t think so,” Cox replied after a quick pause in which he pretended to consider the offer. “You do still have your cell phone on you, don’t you?”

 

“Yes,” Sydney replied, “you called me on it, remember?”

 

“Shut up and dial Jarod’s cell phone. I’m assuming you have it preprogrammed?” The gun pushed into his side again.

 

Sydney reached into his trouser pocket and pulled the little device out and pressed the key combination that dialed Jarod. “There. Now what do you want me to say to…”

 

“Give it here,” Cox demanded, reaching up and taking the phone from Sydney’s fingers as he was putting it to his ear. Instead, it was he who was able to hear when Jarod answered.

 

“Yeah… Jarod.”

 

“You are a particularly annoying person,” Cox snarled into the phone. “This makes a second time that you’ve taken away something I worked hard to get.”

 

“So sorry.” Jarod didn’t sound apologetic in the least. “But this also makes a second time that you’ve come after people I care about. You deserve to lose, Cox.”

 

“I’m not the one who’s going to lose this time, Pretender,” Cox stated very matter-of-factly. “In fact, you’re going to throw the game before it ever really gets started.”

 

“Oh really?” Jarod challenged. “And why, pray tell, would I want to do that?”

 

“To protect your precious Sydney and his weak-minded sidekick, that’s why,” Cox exclaimed victoriously. “Because if you don’t, you’ll be directly responsible for their suffering and deaths.”

 

“And you think I’m foolish enough to believe you when you say that they’re both still alive? I don’t think so…” Jarod tossed back.

 

“Of course I wouldn’t ask you to believe just my say-so,” Cox growled and then put the phone to Sydney’s ear. “Speak your piece,” he ordered, shoving the gun into his captive’s side once more.

 

“Jarod…”

 

“Sydney!”

 

“Uh-uh-uuUUuunh…” Cox pulled the phone away from Sydney’s face and put it back to his ear again. “You come – alone. This is between you and me.”

 

“Fine. Let them go, and I’ll be there.”

 

“I don’t think so. If you’re not here in an hour, your mentor and his cohort will be dead. Come alone, or they’ll be dead.”

 

“You bastard,” Jarod began snarling finally.

 

“Really,” Cox commented brightly into the telephone, “it would do you good to remember that an angry man makes mistakes. One hour, Pretender.” With that, he pulled the cell phone away from his ear, disconnected the call and shoved the device into his own trousers pocket.

 

“Go on,” he pushed at Sydney with the muzzle of his gun again. “You only have a little farther to go.” He steered Sydney with a hand tightly at an elbow around a corner and through another doorway – this one leading into an even more profound darkness.

Chapter 17 – Pas de deux

 

 

“You know where he is?” Miller asked with eyes narrowed dangerously.

 

Jarod nodded. “He’s at the home of one of my associates, whom I believe he’s holding captive along with Sydney.”

 

“Then that’s it.” Miller waved to some of his officers to gather round. “We’ll take it from here…”

 

“I don’t think so, Detective,” Jarod shook his head. “If you guys go storming in there, guns drawn cowboy-style, my friend and my associate will be dead before you get past the front door. This is a psychopath we’re dealing with – and a desperate one. He wants me, and he knows that if he harms them before he has me, he’ll have a damned hard time getting me, much less keeping me.”

 

“So you have a plan, do you?” Miller was getting tired of this calm and collected man who always seemed a step or two ahead of him but had to respect the man’s logic.

 

“Not yet,” Jarod returned with a frown, “but give me a few minutes, and I will.”

 

“If you haven’t noticed, my friend, that bastard only gave you an hour to get back to Blue Cove and your associate’s house. The drive will take twenty minutes…”

 

“Fine,” Jarod nodded. “You ride with me and let your men follow. I’ll tell you my plan on the way, and you can inform them when we get closer as to what we need them to do.”

 

Miller’s frown grew deeper. “I don’t like doing things by the seat of my pants, Bailey.”

 

“Neither do I,” Jarod retorted, “but I spent a very great many years in the Centre, making an obscene profit for them thinking up scenarios and contingency plans for situations very much like this one. Believe me, Detective, I not only know what I’m doing, but have a lot more experience in things like this than you do.”

 

The Dover detective searched the Centre Chairman’s face for the slightest hint that he was either stretching the blanket or trying to pull the wool over his eyes. But Jarod’s gaze continued to be earnest and convinced of his own abilities. “I don’t like it,” Miller grumbled.

 

“What’s up?” the nearest police officer asked curiously.

 

“We’ve just had word that our man is holed up in a house in Blue Cove – and there is the possibility that he’s holding hostages,” Miller announced to the uniformed officers around him with his eyes still glued to the face of the Centre Chairman in front of him. “I want you to put a call in to the Blue Cove P.D., requesting assistance, and tell them that we’ll meet them… Where?” he asked Jarod finally.

 

“Washington Street Park,” Jarod replied, the park across from Sydney’s house being the only place in Blue Cove proper that he could think of off the top of his head.

 

“The rest of you follow Bailey and me,” Miller finished. “No sirens, no lights. We don’t want anything to spook this guy before we can nail his ass.” He turned to his erstwhile partner. “C’mon, Ryan. You’re with me.”

 

oOoOo

 

The telephone only rang once before Miss Parker had pounced on the receiver. “Yeah?”

 

“That’s better…”

 

“Shut up, Jarod, and tell me what’s going on.”

 

“I got a call from Cox.” She pulled in a breath and held it. “He wants me there – alone – or both of them will suffer.”

 

“So that’s where Sydney went.”

 

“Are you really surprised?”

 

It didn’t take much for her to think through her colleague’s frame of mind. “I suppose not…” She swallowed, genuinely fearful for both of her friends’ safety. “So what now?”

 

“In a few minutes I’m heading back to Blue Cove with the Dover P.D. contingent I was with when we found Cox’s lair to join up with the Blue Cove P.D. And then I’m going to go in and get Sydney and Broots out of there – alive.”

 

“How are you intending on doing that, Boy-Wonder? Or have you forgotten that you can’t REALLY leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

 

“Calm down, Parker,” he soothed. “I’m working on a plan as we speak – I’ll have it mostly put together by the time we get to the park and rendezvous with the Blue Cove police.”

 

“Do you want me to send Sam over? I’m sure…”

 

“No!” Jarod exclaimed. “I want him staying with you. If my plan doesn’t work, you’ll be next on his list. You’re the one person who can actually challenge his legitimacy as Chairman both at the Centre and with the Triumvirate. I want your back covered.”

 

“But…”

 

“Besides, one more man won’t make that much difference, Parker. And until I get into the house so I can make an accurate assessment of the situation, he’d be stuck outside with the rest anyway.”

 

“So you’re going to wear a wire?”

 

“Yup.”

 

“And body armor, I hope…”

 

Jarod chuckled. “Cox would have me take that off almost immediately, Parker, and you know it.”

 

“So wear two layers – one on top, to allay suspicion, and one underneath, to handle contingencies.” Her mind was spinning. “Put the wire on under the inner layer of Kevlar.”

 

“I’ll handle it, Parker. You just hang tight. Somebody will call you when it’s all over.”

 

“YOU’LL call me when it’s over, damn you, or…” she growled into the phone.

 

“Careful, Miss Parker, or you’ll make a lie of the rumor that you have no heart,” Jarod’s voice mocked her gently. “Sit tight.”

 

“You be careful, Jarod,” she replied despite the fact that he’d already disconnected the call.

 

“Miss Parker?” Sam spoke softly, wanting to know the news as much as she had.

 

“Cox has Broots and Sydney. Jarod’s going in after them,” she announced with little preamble.

 

“Suicide mission?” the sweeper wondered aloud, earning him a sharp look from his boss.

 

“God, I hope not,” she replied as much to herself as to him.

 

oOoOo

 

Cox pulled the door to the garage closed behind him and bent to check the towels that he’d laid across the threshold. He could still just hear the sound of the engine purring gently beyond the door, and he smiled to himself coldly as he moved through the house once more, turning off the few lights that he’d turned on earlier.

 

Jarod would be here soon, and he’d be wanting to hear news about his mentor and the computer geek. It wouldn’t happen, though – he liked the idea of surprising the Pretender by not behaving like a typical James Bond-style villain, spilling every detail of his plans to the so-called hero before trying to take the hero out. It never worked out well for the heroes in the movies – and Cox knew better than to try to test out the theory in real life. No, the other two could just go on sleeping where they were, while he took Jarod by surprise and hauled his ass back to the Centre and demanded that the Triumvirate put HIM in charge. They would only try to obstruct him if he left them alive anyway – so it was best this way: gone before they caused the least problems.

 

He’d be talking tough to those Africans too, when the time came, pointing out that they were betraying their own principles by putting someone in charge of the Centre that was more rightfully an inmate OF the Centre. Jarod’s place was in a Sim Lab, working his waking hours on simulations that would bring the firm profit, prestige and clout – not sitting in the Chairman’s office, and most certainly not speaking to members of the Triumvirate as if he were their equal.

 

And then, when the Triumvirate had seen the light and put him in charge, THEN he could deal with Miss Parker and Mr. Lyle HIS way. That bitch that wouldn’t give him the time of day would see the mistake of her ways – before he took care of her in such a way that she’d never think of challenging him for the job. As for Lyle, he was a sick, twisted sociopath that deserved to rot – or get the needle – for his crimes. And if not for the crimes he HAD committed, then for the two crimes he hadn’t but which wore his trademark.

 

It had been Lyle that had turned on him after Jarod’s father disrupted their neat plan to sideline Jarod so that the bombing of the peace conference could go forward uninhibited. Lyle had gone whimpering to “Dad,” complaining about how he, Cox, had screwed things up and lost the advantage of a hostage – and “Dad” had bought the line of bilge hook, line and sinker. He’d ordered Cox to be out of Blue Cover – indeed, out of Delaware – by the end of the day. And then the Parkers had poisoned the Triumvirate against rehiring him. Had it not been for the money he’d acquired as an assassin for the Africans in the previous five years, he wouldn’t have survived the last two years.

 

But survive he had – and now he was poised to make his move. Everyone who had ever stood against him or who posed a threat of standing against him in the future had been dealt with or soon would be neutralized. And HE would take the reins of the Centre – a job for which he was imminently qualified.

 

Cox took his place and leaned in deceptive calm and serenity against the wall as he finally allowed himself to ponder the possibilities that the Triumvirate representatives would continue to balk at the idea of his taking the Chairmanship for himself. They certainly had seemed sure of themselves – too arrogant for their own good. Once Jarod was in custody, certainly the sweepers would recognize the familiar agenda of keeping him under lock and key – and he would organize them behind him in perpetuating the status quo operations-wise. He’d then have the clout and the backing to toss those arrogant, self-righteous Africans out of the Centre on their ears – advising them to stay clear of any attempt to influence, manipulate or coerce the Centre again.

 

But to free the Centre from African control, the Parker regime had to end – if for no other reason than it was time for new blood to take charge. The Parkers had turned out to be weak and easily twisted by men with stronger wills. Lyle had been stupid enough to lose a thumb to the Yakuza, old man Parker had… what? Rumor had it that the old man had jumped out of a plane after reading these mysterious scrolls that the Triumvirate put so much stock in. God knew Miss Parker was far too much like her mother – sentimental and emotional.

 

It took ice in the veins and steel in the spine to lead the Centre properly. Raines might have been the right man for the job except for his decrepit physical condition – too stupid to quit smoking before it did in his lungs – and his desire to play God. Cox knew better than to make either mistake.

 

The Centre’s strength came from it’s information base – and from the way a genius like Jarod could take pieces of that information and make something completely new and ingenious from them. It was time for the Centre to return to that tried-and-true formula for success.

 

All Cox needed was for Jarod to come through the door. He was ready to take it from there.

 

oOoOo

 

“I’m still not entirely sure what it is you hope to prove, going in there all by yourself,” Miller chided Jarod as he helped him smooth his shirt over the Kevlar vest that covered the wire taped to his chest.

 

“It’s called a distraction, Detective,” Jarod told him frankly. “Once I’m in the house, Cox’s entire concentration will be on gaining control of me and then getting me out of there so he can go about trying connive his way into my job. One way or the other, I will be slowing him down – making him vulnerable in ways that he hasn’t been yet.”

 

“Fine. So he gets you – then what?” Ryan burst out. She was holding Jarod’s sports coat up for him to slip into, and was no happier about the flimsy plan that had been explained to her than Miller was.

 

“Then you come in and get Miller,” Jarod explained for the third time. “Hopefully I can get him to say where Broots and Sydney are, so that if they are accessible from outside the house, your partner here can send in a rescue team to take care of them in the meanwhile.”

 

“What about the rest of us?” Miller demanded.

 

“You wait outside the house for my signal to move in…”

 

“What signal will that be?”

 

Jarod thought. “Every two minutes or so, starting the moment I get into the house, I will find an excuse to say the work “man” for one reason for another. Listen carefully – if I stop saying that word, or if I say the word “guy” for any reason, that ‘s your clue to come on in.”

 

“Why the repeated word?” Ryan wanted to know.

 

Jarod looked at the rookie cop indulgently. “If I am incapacitated, that will tell you that I’m incapacitated without giving Cox a clue what’s going on.”

 

“Clever,” Miller had to nod. “So we listen for the word “man” and “guy” – no “man” or hearing “guy” means break the door down, and until then, we wait.”

 

“That’s right.” Jarod slipped the second Kevlar vest over the top of his sports coat and pulled the straps tight before pressing the two Velcro patches together to hold it on. Miller stepped up to him and slipped a small electronic ear bud into the Pretender’s ear. “It’s wireless,” he told him, and one way for us to communicate with YOU in case of emergency.”

 

“It fits so far back into the ear that it almost can’t be seen,” Ryan assured Jarod when he frowned in concern. “Trust us.”

 

Jarod looked from the face of the detective to the semi-circle of faces above uniforms and then gave a huge sigh. “I guess it’s time to get this show on the road,” he stated calmly and began the three minute walk to Broots’ house.

 

“Good luck, Bailey,” Miller called after him, then put on one of the monitoring headphones to the wiretap unit Jarod was wearing. “OK, Chuck, move us up to the corner of Ash and Maple. I want us closer to the action.

 

Jarod walked forward for about a minute, the van passing him putting him nicely out of easy earshot, and then said clearly, “Sound check, gentlemen. How am I coming in?”

 

“Loud and clear,” was the response of Miller’s voice in his ear bud. “Are you reading this?”

 

“Just fine,” Jarod replied, “but find a way to make a clicking or popping sound instead of talking. Cox is no fool, and he may well have a very good set of ears on him. I don’t want him tripping over the fact that I’m wired for sound here until it’s too late to do him any good.”

 

There was a pause of silence as Jarod continued his walk, and then a soft popping sound came through the ear bud. “How was that?” Miller’s voice asked immediately thereafter.

 

“Good. Use that if I’m with Cox.”

 

Jarod grinned when the small popping sound came through the ear bud again, and he sped up his pace toward the Ash Street house that Broots shared with his young daughter. As he moved down the sidewalk toward the driveway and front lawn, he saw one after another of Sam’s sweepers step ever so slightly out of the shadows to let him know that they were there. He gave them a small nod that he disguised as looking down at his feet to avoid a rather sizeable crack in the cement and then walked with determination up to the front door.

 

He rapped on the door with his knuckles and then stood quietly, waiting and listening carefully. The silence from the other side of the door was deafening. He put down a cautious hand and tried the knob and found it turned easily. He rapped again without opening the door and waited again, then turned the knob and pushed inward. “Mr. Cox?” he called out without stepping over the threshold. “Are you in here?”

 

There wasn’t a light on in the house, and silence continued to reign supreme inside the building. Jarod heaved a very audible sigh. “C’mon, man, I’m here within the hour you wanted me – at least you could have the decency of greeting me after making me come all this way…”

 

Still no sound answered his taunt. “So you’re trying to be cagey about things, are you?” Jarod asked with a slightly mocking tone as he finally relented and took a first step into the pool of darkness that was the foyer of the home. “As you can see, I came alone, just as you asked. Where are you?”

 

It was as if the house itself was holding its breath. Jarod took another cautious step into the house, stepping beyond the front door and bending forward to see if he could see any light coming in from the street light outside through any front-facing windows. He took another step when he still couldn’t discern anything.

 

The slam of the front door behind him startled him, but he was too slow to avoid whatever it was that landed against the back of his neck, effectively knocking him unconscious. Jarod fell heavily onto the foyer tile in a crumpled heap.

 

Cox put his night-vision goggles down and grinned at the helpless man at his feet. “Got you, you usurping son of a bitch,” he crowed in a low and satisfied tone. “And now it’s time for you to go back to where you belong at last.”

 

oOoOo

 

“What was that?” the officer manning the audio monitoring station asked, looking up into Miller’s face. “Did Bailey just fall down?”

 

“Send him a pop in the ear,” Miller directed. “If he’s OK, he’ll do something to let us know.” He listened to the sound of Cox’s crowing. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

 

“Neither do I,” the officer nodded and pressed a button on the panel in front of him, and then sat back and listened for a while.

 

oOoOo

 

“You weren’t quite as smart as you thought you were, were you?” Cox gloated as he pulled at the Velcro straps to peel the bulletproof shield from his prey. “As if I’d want to damage your hide with a gun, Jarod. I need you alive – alive and able to do the work you spent your whole life training to do. You don’t need this…”

 

oOoOo

 

“Nothing,” the audio officer confirmed, looking again into Miller’s face.

 

Miller reached for a walkie-talkie and addressed himself to a few of the officers standing in wait for some word. “Get ready to move in if we don’t hear from Bailey within the next minute or so.”

 

The detective reached over and put another ear bud into his own ear. “I’m heading off to get closer to the house,” he informed the audio officer. “Pop me if you hear from him and he’s OK – pop me twice if there’s nothing from him in the next ninety seconds.”

 

“Got it,” the audio officer said, turning on another small console similar to the one sitting in front of him that corresponded to the ear bud Miller had taken.

 

“C’mon,” Miller touched Ryan’s forearm and pointed. “We need to get closer to the scene.” The two of them looked carefully and then slipped as carefully as they could across Ash Street and over one more house so that they too would be looking at the Broots residence directly.

 

oOoOo

 

Cox pulled the Kevlar vest over the Pretender’s head, letting the skull fall back against the tile with a hard thud. Then he frowned. “What the hell…?” He ran his hand over the man’s sports coat and could feel the extra padding that it hid. “Smart ass – thought you could pull one over on me, did you?” He tumbled the Pretender over on his stomach and got a loose end of duct tape from the roll he wore about his wrist to bind Jarod’s hands together at his back. “Like I said, I didn’t intend to kill you, despite what you may think of me – or what I may have done to get your attention. I need you alive…”

 

He flopped the limp body back over on its back and took a very short length of the duct tape and covered Jarod’s mouth. “Don’t need you making too much noise, though,” he continued to talk to Jarod as if he could hear. “Now all I have to do is get you out of here and into the Centre…”

 

oOoOo

 

Miller was beginning to get antsy when he got two pops in his ear in rapid succession. “That’s it,” he spoke softly into his walkie-talkie. “Bailey’s been incapacitated somehow. Time to move in closer – but wait for my signal before going through the door.”

 

“Hey, Detective, we have the sounds of an engine running in the garage,” an unidentified voice came over the system.

 

Miller and Ryan stared at each other. “Shit!” Miller exploded suddenly. “Can you get in?”

 

There was a pause. “No. Garage door is locked from the inside.”

 

“Hang on,” Miller positioned himself just behind the officer holding the same battering ram that had brought in the door of the farmhouse. “When I give the signal, I want you breaking a window and getting inside at the same time we storm the house.”

 

“Got it,” the unidentified officer agreed quickly.

 

Miller looked around him to make sure that all of the officers under his command were ready for whatever awaited them within, and then counted off with his fingers, “Three, Two, One. NOW!” The last was shouted.

 

Immediately the battering ram struck a resounding blow against the front door of the house, blasting the lock mechanism and shattering the door inward explosively. On the other side of the property came the sound of glass shattering as the officers there used a gun butt to shatter the garage window and begin cleaning the frame so that they could climb in.

 

Police officers poured into the house, and Miller reached for the light switch and then froze.

 

Cox was bending over Jarod, prone on the floor in front of him like a shield. The crash of the door inward brought him up with one hand holding a large and silencer-equipped handgun. Wild blue eyes sought the first easy target and homed in on the pretty blonde next to the plainclothes officer – and the gun went off with a muted pop.

 

Miller felt rather than saw Ryan falter next to him, and then turned and with a horrified expression watched her eyes turn to him in hurt and confusion before dropping from a very large hole that had appeared in her throat.

 

“GUN!” he shouted, this latest outrage from a twisted and homicidal maniac being the last straw. The officers around him moved, causing Cox to reach down as if to pull Jarod up in front of him like a shield. Miller’s aim, meant to take the man in the shoulder, ended up hitting the perpetrator directly in the top of the forehead, dropping him like a rock and causing the silenced gun to drop and skitter across the tiled foyer floor.

 

“Ryan!” Miller cried, turning now to his wounded partner again. The pool of blood around her on the light-colored tile was very large, and her eyes were looking up at him with a horrific combination of terror and resignation while her lips trembled. As he watched, her eyes rolled and her head lolled. “NO!” He bent over her in agony, wondering how the hell he would explain her death to her family – much less to his captain. She was so young, so full of life, so much at the beginning of what promised to be a long and respected career. It wasn’t fair.

 

He should have left her sitting desk duty in Dover, where she belonged. He knew that now. He should never have allowed her to convince him to take her with him so that he’d have backup.

 

Around him, the other officers tried to make sense of the situation without his direction. “Mr. Bailey!” One of the officers who had broken through the front door with Miller had bent over Jarod and was slapping him gently on the cheek to try to rouse him with no success. “C’mon, Mr. Bailey…”

 

Miller slowly peeled his jacket from his shoulders and dropped it over Ryan’s face, straightening it properly before he rose. One of the other officers had taken Jarod’s sports jacket and dropped it over Cox’s body too, he saw. Numbly he reached for his walkie-talkie. “Officer down and officer involved in a shooting. Send for the coroner and an ambulance.”

 

There was a noise from the back of the house that broke through Miller’s sense of shock, and he had his gun drawn once more when another uniformed officer came toward him with a shocked and worried look on his face. “We found the other two,” the officer announced grimly. “It isn’t good…”

 

“Are they alive?” Miller asked, barely able to piece together a sentence.

 

“The old man is – barely,” the officer answered.

 

“The other guy?”

 

The officer shook his head. “It looked as if the car has been idling for quite a while before we got to it – the younger fellow must have been put in right away. The only reason the old guy isn’t pushing up daisies too is probably that he was put into the car much later than the other guy.”

 

They had been too late for at least one of the hostages. It was a third body on a takedown gone sour. Miller rubbed his hand down his face. “Shit!”

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod sat, dazed, on the back bumper of the second ambulance and held the ice bag over the goose egg on the back of his skull. The first ambulance on the scene had already taken off for the hospital with Sydney fighting for his life in the back. The EMT that had remained behind to watch over him when he refused to follow his mentor told him very matter-of-factly that had Sydney been exposed to the car’s exhaust for another ten or fifteen minutes, his fate would have been the same as Broots’.

 

The thought was only barely comforting. He’d been too late – and two more innocent people had died as a result.

 

He had yet to figure out how to tell Parker the news that her computer tech friend had been sedated and trussed up like a pig at a luau and then thrown into a car with the exhaust piped into the passenger compartment with a garden hose to suffocate. He had even less idea how to tell here that her life-long friend – the man she’d turned the Centre on its ear to defend from trumped-up murder charges – was now on the verge of death from the very same treatment. She wouldn’t need to know until later about the police officer that Cox had dropped in her tracks.

 

He wasn’t the only one that was struggling to come to grips with the events of the past hour. Miller, he knew, had been driven away from the scene by members of the Internal
Affairs division of the Dover P.D. He’d watched as the detective had meekly handed over his service revolver and badge and climbed into the back seat of the police cruiser. There had been a blankness in the detective’s face that had echoed his own despair.

 

It was over – Cox was dead. He’d identified the body just before it had been placed in the coroner’s wagon for transport to the lab for autopsy. Considering the evidence that had been gathered from the farmhouse and the events just taken place, any remaining charges against Sydney or Lyle wouldn’t last another day. And then…

 

Jarod winced as he pulled the ice bag away from his lump and heaved a huge sigh. The time was rapidly approaching when he’d have to hand control of the Centre over to the Parker siblings, as he’d promised. Miss Parker, for all her injuries, would probably be just as glad to get back to work. At the Centre, perhaps she could get herself SO busy that the loss of a close colleague wouldn’t haunt her so. And Lyle…

 

“You really need to leave that in place, Mr. Bailey,” the EMT urged, taking Jarod’s hadn that had the ice bag and moving it back over the swollen knot at the back of his head.

 

“I really need to make a telephone call,” Jarod answered and winced at the agony just moving his jaw and talking made explode in his head. “Before that pain-killer you gave me makes me unintelligible.”

 

“Make it quick,” the EMT frowned. “We’re still going to want to transport you – to make sure that you haven’t got yourself a concussion.”

 

Jarod nodded, wincing painfully, and then pulled his cell phone from his trousers pocket.

 

“What?”

 

“Parker…”

 

“God, Jarod, you took long enough. What the hell were you thinking, leaving me out of the loop and worrying about all three of you. What happened? Where’s Syd? Broots?” Jarod sighed audibly, and Miss Parker’s voice immediately lost its emperious tone and became low and beseeching. “Jarod? Are you OK?”

 

“Parker, Broots didn’t make it – and Sydney may not either.”

 

Then he pulled the cell phone away from his ear as a low keening grew in volume until it was a howl of pure grief.

Chapter 18 - Waiting

 

 

Sam toed his shoes off and stretched out his long frame on Miss Parker’s couch, throwing an arm over his face tiredly and feeling like he’d been in a prizefight for his very sanity and come too close to losing. For the moment, all was quiet. Upstairs, Debbie’s sedative had finally kicked in about fifteen minutes earlier. He and Miss Parker had brought her back with them from the Centre after telling her the news about her father – and it had taken both of them to get her to take the sedative and then sit with her until the pill had finally worked.

 

Then, firmly, he had escorted Miss Parker across the hallway and into her bedroom with strict orders for her to climb into bed and rest too – reminding her that there would be much to do in the morning, and she’d need to get at least a little rest before then. She was pale and almost visibly shaking at that point – trying to be strong and comfort Debbie had taken almost more from her than she’d had available to give at the time. He wasn’t exactly sure whether she’d have it in her to get undressed before she’d slipped between the sheets, and he wasn’t exactly sure that she cared one way or the other. He hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out. At least he didn’t hear any sounds of grieving coming from behind her bedroom door either – with any luck, he’d be gone by the time she finally did let down and grieve again. It really wasn’t his place to be present at such private times – and he’d already seen enough.

 

Jarod had told him everything after he’d rescued the telephone from her – about Broots and Sydney and what had happened to them, about Cox, about his own injury, and about the discoveries at the farmhouse. Jarod had then told him in no uncertain terms to do what he felt necessary to support Miss Parker right now – to be there for her because he was going to be the only one she’d have to turn to for a while. Jarod had also recommended, even as the EMT’s had been urging him in the background to hang up the phone so they could take him to the hospital, that they fetch Debbie out of the Centre and break the news to her themselves – that she needed to get the news from them, and not a stranger. Then Jarod had hung up and left Sam – a mere sweeper – in charge of trying to hold everything together after it had all already gone to Hell.

 

Before he could do anything else, however, he’d had to calm Miss Parker down – there was no way he was going to take her to the Centre in the semi-hysterical condition she was in after hearing the news. He had no idea whatever Jarod had managed to tell her before she’d started sobbing, but he’d done his best to relate everything to her after the call was finished. Her response was to wrap both arms around herself and begin her low keening again, and he’d taken her by both arms and physically steered her to the couch and pushed her to sit down when mere words hadn’t made an impact at all.

 

He’d then abruptly sat down next to her and held very still when she’d unexpectedly tipped over and leaned hard against him as he bent over her. Jarod’s words directing him to ‘be there for her’ came hauntingly back to him; and eventually he put an uneasy arm about her shoulder in a clumsy attempt to provide some small comfort. After a long moment where she’d done nothing but shake and keen softly, he finally felt her relax into weeping. He’d patted her shoulder awkwardly, not knowing what to say and knowing better than to open his mouth at all.

 

When he’d felt her straighten away from him again, reasserting a more comfortable physical and emotional distance between them again, he’d sprung to his feet and fetched her a stiff shot of some of her brand new and previous unopened brandy. With a stern voice that hid his own shock and dismay at the whole situation, he insisted that she down the whole thing – that she’d have to get a hold of herself before he’d even think of taking her anywhere. That had earned him a very watery yet vaguely familiar quick glare before she’d done as he’d asked. Once he knew she was taking the alcohol that would at least steady her nerves a little, he vanished into the downstairs half-bath to bring out a moistened hand towel for her to press against her face and reduce the puffiness of her tear-swollen eyes.

 

From there on, events had sped up to an almost indistinguishable blur: from the silent and brooding drive to the Centre to awakening Debbie, her explosion of grief at the news, his calling the Renewal Wing for a dose of sedative to be ready at the front door when they finally got there on their way out, and the sight of Debbie huddled sobbing against a very shell-shocked Miss Parker in the back seat all the way back to the summerhouse. Getting both women settled and hopefully resting had taken most of the energy he’d had left.

 

Sam closed his eyes behind his sheltering arm and took a deep breath and all too quickly found himself fighting memories of Broots himself – cowering in front of a rampaging Miss Parker, smiling slyly in pride at a particularly effective computer task well-done, bravely facing the prospect of getting caught while breaking into Mr. Raines’ office. The man had been a marshmallow on the outside, and pure hardened steel deep within – few had seen, much less appreciated that.

 

He would be sorely missed, Sam thought to himself sadly as he twisted and tried to get into a slightly more comfortable position on the couch before his exhaustion caught up with him and dragged him off to sleep. The last thing he needed in the morning was a stiff neck – and the chances were that morning would be coming very early.

 

oOoOo

 

Dave Miller scrawled his name on the bottom of his transcribed testimony about the sequence of events at the house on Ash Street that had resulted in the deaths of not only the suspect, but also an up-and-coming police officer. His gun had already been confiscated by ballistics, and tests would be run to see whether or not the evidence supported the story that he’d just spent the better part of three hours telling. Under normal conditions, now would be the time that he’d head out for home, taking two weeks paid leave in order to meet with the police psychologist and finished the Internal Affairs investigation into the shooting. But by request, there was one more thing that he had to do.

 

Cherry Ryan was a local girl – she’d been born and raised here in Dover, attended community college and then had applied to the Police Academy. She had been posted to headquarters only a couple of months earlier – just long enough that most of the seasoned detectives and officers there had gotten used to seeing her face when they needed clerical assistance. She’d been a good sport – putting up with her share of flack for being one of the very few women in that particular department – and had had a contagious sense of humor. She’d had the makings of a good cop – a damned good cop.

 

And now she was dead.

 

The task of notifying the next of kin was generally left up to the watch commander or one of his assistants. Miller, however, had nailed his Captain the moment he’d returned to the station and requested permission to do the job himself. He owed it to Ryan, and to her family, to handle this personally. After all, it was his fault that she was dead.

 

Miller sighed and rose. The Captain told him that when he was ready to head off to the Ryan residence to stop by – he’d have the address for him by then. He walked the length of the squad room slowly and deliberately, and then knocked on the glass of the door. “Cap?”

 

The Captain looked up from his paperwork and gestured for his detective to come on in. “Close the door, Dave,” he directed sympathetically.

 

“I need the address,” Miller told him tiredly.

 

Dark black eyes peered at him intently, as if measuring the stamina left after such a tragic and disturbing evening. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “It is my job, after all…”

 

“I owe it to Ryan,” Miller countered almost emotionlessly. “I’m the reason she was out there, rather than safe in here, at her desk.”

 

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” the Captain stated just sharply enough to break through some of the torpor that had built up in the detective. “We didn’t exactly have another detective transferring in quickly enough to partner with you – Ryan was doing us all a favor by pitching in and at least providing backup.”

 

“She wasn’t ready, and I knew that,” Miller blamed himself. “I didn’t have to take her on that take-down – I had half the Dover department and probably three-quarters of the Blue Cove department with me. I had plenty of backup.”

 

“You’d let her into the case,” the Captain reasoned understandingly, “and you were letting her see the end of the case. It was the right thing to do.”

 

“If it were, she’d still be alive, wouldn’t she?” Miller exclaimed, obviously anguished. “Why…”

 

“Dave,” the Captain shook his head, “you know better than to ask that kind of question in this job.” He sighed and took a paper from his in-box and pushed it across the desk. “Here’s the address of Ryan’s parents – but I’ve decided that I don’t want you going out there alone.”

 

“Cap…”

 

“I’m going with you, and that’s it,” he finished firmly. “We will talk about what a good officer she was, and what a pleasure and an honor it had been to work with her. We will break the news to them as gently as we can. Is that understood?”

 

“They need to know…”

 

“No, they don’t,” the Captain insisted firmly. “We don’t need to upset them any more than they’re already going to be. I’m not having you commit emotional hari-kari in front of them – and if you don’t agree, I’m afraid I’ll have to deny your request to be the one to…”

 

“All right, all right!” Miller sighed again audibly.

 

The Captain gazed at his detective. The man was pale, grizzled, and obviously on the ragged edge emotionally. “I want you to go to the lounge and see if you can catch a couple of winks before we do this. You look like hell – like you’re ready to fall in. The Ryan’s don’t need to see that either.”

 

“I don’t think I’d be able to sleep,” Miller protested.

 

“I don’t care – I want you to go rest. That’s an order, Detective.”

 

Miller heaved another sigh and walked slowly out of the office again. There was a comfortable couch in the lounge – most of the detectives had already slept a certain share of hours on it in the course of long or complicated cases. Although sleep wasn’t exactly what he’d want to do – not yet, and not here. If he actually let himself sleep, he was sure to have nightmares of Ryan’s last few moments next to him – and of the sight of Cox falling forward after the bullet from his gun had crashed through his brain.

 

He’d never killed a man before. And even though he knew that Cox had probably deserved it more than some men on Death Row, the idea still made him sick.

 

He stepped through the lounge door and found the room softly lit by the soda machine in the corner. Miller sat down on the couch and then slowly tipped over so that his head rested on the overstuffed cushion of the arm, toeing his shoes from his feet and then tucking them up so that his long frame would fit the short length of the couch.

 

He knew the reason the Captain had sent him in here – there was no light filtering into the lounge through the window. The Ryan’s were probably fast asleep, unaware of the death of their daughter – their sister. It wouldn’t do to disrupt that sleep – the news wouldn’t change between now and the moment they did find out.

 

Praying that he didn’t spend the next couple of hours reliving her death and that of the man he’d killed, Miller closed his eyes. He’d been awake and on duty nearly eighteen hours and he WAS tired.

 

oOoOo

 

Willy moved quietly through the hospital corridors, looking for a particular patient room, and then pushed through the door. Sam’s call had been very specific – he was to resume the duty that he’d held for the last few years: that of protecting the Chairman of the Centre, no matter where he was. In years past, this had meant sticking to Mr. Raines’ side like glue during doctors’ visits and earning himself a chair placed in the Chairman’s office for those long hours of paperwork that Raines hated but refused to leave undone at the end of the day.

 

At this moment, that meant finding Jarod – of all people – in Dover General Hospital and sticking to HIM like glue. The absolute last thing Willy had ever hoped or dreamed of doing was riding shotgun for the elusive Pretender that had given his former boss fits and cost the Centre so much of its profit-making potential. But Sam had been very clear, both in his instructions and in his detailing of the consequences in store if, now that the threat to the Centre had been eliminated, he allowed a hair on Jarod’s head to be disturbed. Considering that he knew that his continued employment – and health – depended upon his doing exactly what Sam and/or Jarod told him to, there was no question about his course of action.

 

The room was bathed in a low light – enough for nurses to check on a sleeping patient’s vitals without necessarily waking him, but not enough to keep the patient awake. Jarod lay still and sleeping against the pillows on the slightly inclined bed, his face pale and with a bandage taped somehow to the back of his head visible. He had no IV line or oxygen – Willy took that as a sign that the Pretender had maybe had a serious crack to the skull, but nothing life threatening.

 

To be honest, he was happier pulling up a chair and sitting down to safeguard the life of a former Centre refugee turned boss than he had been watching the monitors and video feed from devices placed in Miss Parker’s and Sydney’s homes. After all of the excitement for those two over the past few days, the hours he’d spent staring at screens and meters had been incredibly boring. He was a man of action, accustomed to being in the middle of whatever had been going on at the Centre. He was better than just sitting surveillance.

 

But he’d also seen the looks on the sweepers that had been assigned to assist him – and once more had been made painfully aware of just how tenuous his position was. Those few sweepers who had aligned themselves with him during his glory days with Raines had faded back into the woodwork – none of them wanted to be a known associate of his any longer. As a personal sweeper, and therefore the one sweeper prominent enough to catch the responsibility for the excesses Raines might have ordered, he would also be the one demonized for following orders.

 

He might have thought himself better than sitting simple surveillance – but sitting there staring at monitors and meters had been to openly and positively work for the new regime that was taking over the Centre. Only by staying close to the power plays and aligning himself with those who would be running things from now on would he stand any chance whatsoever of retaining even a fraction of the authority, prestige and respect he’d demanded as Raines’ private sweeper.

 

Belatedly he thought of one sure-fire way to ingratiate himself with his new boss, and he rose quickly and walked out of the hospital room and down to the nurse’s station. “I’m sure Mr. Bailey would like to know what the condition of Dr. Green in ICU is,” he said to the nurse sitting at the desk, writing in the charts.

 

She looked up into the serious and imposing dark face and then picked up the telephone to speak a few words to whoever was on the other end. “Dr. Green is still in a coma, but his vitals are stabilizing,” she reported. “Any other details you’ll have to get from his physician directly.”

 

Willy nodded. “Thank you, nurse,” he said quietly and turned on his heel to return to Jarod’s room. It wasn’t much, but it was one way to begin to build a relationship of trust and respect between himself and Jarod for however long Jarod would remain in control of the Centre. Whether it stood a chance of even beginning to counterbalance the many years of persecution and outright pursuit of the fugitive Pretender was anybody’s guess.

 

oOoOo

 

As was his wont, Siskele Mbala was awake an hour before dawn – dressed and ready to start his day. It was a habit left over from his youth as a guerrilla rebel, fighting the military machine that had taken over his government instead of allowing the democratically elected leader to take office. This habit had become his behavioral trademark and was much of the reason behind the success of his business in his later years as a banker and now as a member of a powerful consortium. By the time most were crawling from their beds, Mbala would have been hard at work for hours.

 

Centre staff had been warned about this tendency, and the sideboard of the suite dining room had already been stocked with an urn of fresh coffee, orange juice, fresh fruit and croissants. At the end of the sideboard, a copy of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Dover Recorder were neatly folded. Uluru, a clerical aide with obvious intentions of doing whatever it took to get ahead in the corporation, looked up as he walked into the room. Since being chosen to be on the clerical team chosen to accompany the delegates to the United States, she’d taken to being awake and ready to work for him the moment he was ready to start working – and Mbala hadn’t failed to notice this loyalty and attention to duty. He understood ambition and wasn’t above rewarding it when it came accompanied with diligence.

 

“Would you like me to get you a coffee, sir?” Uluru inquired deferentially as Mbala seated himself at the small dining table that was just big enough to handle himself and Letira.

 

“Yes, please,” he replied absently, reaching for the New York Times, “and orange juice and a croissant.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Uluru answered and immediately hastened to compile her superior’s breakfast order. It took two trips, one for the drinks and one for the food, but within minutes she was standing at his side as he put the front section of the newspaper aside and reached for the little glass of orange juice. “Is there anything else you require, sir?”

 

“Any interesting news that you heard while coming up to the suite this morning?”

 

“As a matter of fact…” Uluru’s pretty face was split by a wide smile, “I did hear something a little interesting this morning – about the new Chairman. Something about him being injured…”

 

Mbala looked up sharply. “What did you say?”

 

“That there was some concern that he’d been taken to a public hospital in Dover rather than brought back to the Renewal Wing here at the Centre, sir,” she replied, startled by the sudden attention he was giving her.

 

“Anything else?”

 

Uluru was wide-eyed as she shook her head. “I only heard a very little of the conversation, sir, while I was in the elevator with a couple of the Centre security men – sweepers, I believe they’re called…”

 

Mbala picked up his coffee cup and sipped at the scalding liquid thoughtfully. If Jarod had been injured, that meant that either the threat to the Centre posed by that usurper Cox had been dealt with in a manner that had backfired somewhat, or that Cox had attacked the new Chairman but not managed to keep control of him. Either way, it meant that the hierarchy of control in the Tower would need very close supervision that next morning.

 

“Let me know the moment Miss Balenge awakens,” he ordered brusquely, picking up the newspaper again. “I will want to speak to her the moment she’d decent.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker rolled over and stared out the window at the gathering light on the horizon. She had managed to sleep a little, but her mind had been working overtime at remembering Broots as well as wondering what the condition was of her two friends who’d been injured taking out that bastard, Cox. Without knowing Jarod’s physical condition, she knew that she’d have to make arrangements very quickly to take charge of the Centre before the Triumvirate felt itself obligated to move to do it instead.

 

This was it – and she found herself a little astonished and appalled at how vehement her desire was to keep the Centre out of total Triumvirate control. The Africans had been all too ready and eager to just take and take and keep taking on that ill-fated plane trip from Carthis years ago – and it wasn’t an experience she wanted to see repeated now. She rolled a little further, this time up onto an elbow, and reached for the telephone.

 

“The Centre,” came the nasal voice of a faceless operator.

 

“This is Miss Parker,” she announced with her best Ice Queen tones. “Give me Security.”

 

“Just a moment,” the voice breathed and put her on hold with the innocuous Muzak that had been approved by the former Chairman.

 

“Security,” answered a brusque male voice only a few moments later.

 

“This is Miss Parker. Is Vince on duty?”

 

“Uh… He’s scheduled to come in at seven this morning, Miss…”

 

“Good.” Miss Parker glanced at her alarm clock and noted the time. “In an hour, I want you to call him at home and tell him that he needs to report for work over at my residence.”

 

“Is there a problem, Miss Parker?” the Security supervisor asked immediately. “I know that there are two or three sweepers already…”

 

“Events in the night have changed the situation out here,” she explained briefly. “Suffice it to say, I need one more sweeper – someone I know and have worked with before – out here before the day begins for too many others.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Security answered, knowing that was about the best explanation he was likely to get from someone that high up in the Centre hierarchy. “What time do you want him reporting there to your house?”

 

“Seven-thirty, if possible,” she replied, slowly pushing herself to a sitting position on the edge of her bed. “And I want you to assign a detail to keep an eye on our VIPs – I don’t want them wandering around unsupervised until either I or the Chairman have arrived. Is that understood?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

Miss Parker drew her fingers through her hair and sighed deeply. As much as she’d just as soon dive into a hole – or run as fast as she could to two bedsides in Dover General – there was work to do. The sooner she was up, bathed, dressed and ready to go, the better.

 

And maybe, after a shower and a cup of coffee, she’d stand a chance of winning the argument with Sam that was looming on her horizon. He was NOT going to like what her next move would be.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod fought his way back to the state of wakefulness, realizing that he still had a headache to end all headaches – and a goose egg on the back of his skull to match. He’d taken the analgesic that the EMT had given him and then suffered being awakened off and on through the rest of the night by diabolical but well-meaning nurses. He’d read enough medical textbooks to know that a concussion such as his meant constant observation to make sure that the patient continued capable of awakening and being aware and coherent. It was rough on the rest, but necessary.

 

Still, he didn’t care how long or hard the doctor was prepared to argue, he was checking himself out of this place the moment he felt capable of moving around without either getting very dizzy or very nauseated. He didn’t dare remain trapped here, in a hospital bed while the Triumvirate salivated over taking control of the Centre even away from Miss Parker. That would mean he’d be back to running again – only this time from the Triumvirate as well as the Centre.

 

With a hand lifting slowly to touch the bandage at the back of his skull, placed there to stop the superficial bleeding from the scalp wound caused by being pistol-whipped from behind, Jarod grunted in pain. Just a light touch was more than he wanted to attempt. That didn’t bode well… He cracked open his eyes and slowly focused on the room into which he’d finally been placed, frowning when an all-too-familiar and feared face came into view seated not that far away.

 

“You,” he murmured in a low voice.

 

Willy’s face didn’t fold into its usual victorious and gloating sneer, but stayed a firmly controlled neutral expression. “Sam sent me over,” he explained in a voice that dropped immediately in volume and tone when Jarod grimaced in pain. “He felt that you needed a bodyguard.”

 

“Why you?”

 

It was a question Willy would have liked the answer to as well. He knew his own agenda in being here – knew what was at stake and how far he was willing to bend in the opposite direction to serve that agenda – but he didn’t know Sam’s. “I was available, I suppose…” he answered with a small shrug. “If you’d rather I left…”

 

“No,” Jarod waved his hand in a weak and vague gesture and closed his eyes. “If Sam wants you here, then he must have a good reason.”

 

With the ease of long practice at making himself both useful and indispensable, Willy leaned forward. “Is there anything you want – anything I can get for you?”

 

The chocolate eyes opened and peered at him with cautious wariness. “News of Sydney’s condition would be nice…”

 

Willy merely nodded – it was as he expected. “I checked at the nurses station when I came in, and she called over. He’s still in a coma, but his vitals are stabilizing,” he reported calmly, as if on something he checked on regularly.

 

Jarod blinked, startled to have HIS thoughts and habits anticipated quite so effectively from a man he’d managed to elude for so long. “Thank you,” he managed finally. “That’s good news.”

 

“Anything else?”

 

“Yeah. You can locate my clothes,” Jarod directed him in a slightly stronger voice, “and the moment I’m able to navigate without either falling down or getting sick, you’re getting me the hell outta here. I need to get back to Blue Cove – there are some things I’ve still got to do.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Willy answered and rose to his feet immediately. It wasn’t trust, but it was at least tolerance. He could live with that.

 

oOoOo

 

Sam stared at his boss. She’d come down the stairs so carefully and quietly on her crutches that he hadn’t even awakened until she’d shaken him by the shoulders. And then, before he’d really had a chance to come fully awake yet, she’d dumped her plans for the day into his ear. “Miss Parker,” he complained, ready to argue with her.

 

“I know what you’re going to say,” she replied, throwing her hands up defensively, “so save your breath. This is something I have to do – and putting it off until I’m feeling better or in a better space emotionally will only make the situation worse.”

 

“But Debbie…”

 

“That’s why I’m going in with Vince and leaving you here,” she pointed out. “Debbie trusts you – and she needs people around her she can trust right now. I HAVE to go into the Centre today – I’m not going to lie around like an invalid and watch the Triumvirate take control of the Centre – and so I need to leave someone she knows and trusts here. I know Vince – he isn’t quite as good as you, but he’s not bad…”

 

“Jarod…”

 

“Is nursing a possible concussion at Dover General, remember? I may have been a basket case, but I was paying attention…”

 

Sam gave her a glare of frustration. “That isn’t what I meant…”

 

“But that’s my point,” she finished. “For the time being, he’s out of the picture – and it won’t take long for the Triumvirate folks to figure that out. I’m going to have to go in, prepared to pick up the job of Chairman from him just so that they don’t hand it off to somebody else – someone that none of us knows or can trust. That would make Broots’ death and what happened to Syd and Jarod meaningless, and isn’t something I can allow.”

 

“I hate being left on the sidelines,” he grumbled, sitting up and massaging a whisker-grizzled chin.

 

“Been there, done that just last night,” Miss Parker commiserated. “This time, better you than me.”

 

“Gee, thanks.”

 

“Can’t you see,” she pressed on, using her most persuasive tone, “Debbie… I can’t just… I owe it to Broots to make sure she…”

 

Sam nodded in defeat. “I know what you mean,” he muttered and then looked at her. “But just because I understand doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

 

“I don’t need you to like it. I need you to take care of Debbie for me until I get home.”

 

Disgruntled blue met earnest grey in a battle of wills for a long moment. Finally Sam looked away. “When does he get here?”

 

“I had Security tell him to be here around seven-thirty.”

 

“I’ll go make some coffee and get you something to eat, then,” Sam pointed toward the back of the summerhouse. “We don’t need you falling flat on your face in front of the Triumvirate from hunger either.” At her look of surprise, he shrugged his shoulders at her. “Jarod told me to take care of you – if I can’t go into work with you, at least I can make sure you’re as fit as possible beforehand.”

 

It was a reasonable request, and easily enough taken care of if it meant that she didn’t have to argue her case any further. Besides, a cup of coffee would do her a world of good to build a foundation of awareness to face what promised to be one of the more difficult days of her life.

Chapter 19 - Aftermaths

 

Vince was a slightly bigger man than Sam, taller and huskier of build – and speaking to him was like addressing an operatic basso profundo – but having him at her back rather than Sam left Miss Parker feeling a bit naked and unprepared. Still, there was no way around it, and she had too much to do today to worry whether Vince would prove to be yet another mistake on a continuum that seemed littered with them.

 

Ahead of her were the etched glass doors of the Chairman’s office – and the meek little secretary that had survived Raines’ tenure and had very little to do with Jarod’s at all. Miss Parker put on her best Ice Queen façade and strode up to the woman’s desk as best she could on crutches. “Your boss is in the hospital in Dover,” she announced bluntly, not caring that the news had the young woman blanching in her seat. “I’m here to do damage control and keep things on an even keel until he gets back.”

 

“I… I heard you were…” the woman stammered, her eyes obviously taking in the cast on the left arm and the fact that Miss Parker needed to lean heavily on her crutches to make up for the cast that was on her right foot.

 

“I was what?” The delicately manicured eyebrow soared, and the tone of voice was frozen.

 

The effect was as intended: the young woman was flustered past all ability to complain or challenge Miss Parker’s authority to do what she’d stated was her goal. “I… Yes, ma’am. I mean…” The secretary glanced at the doors behind her. “I guess it’s OK for you to go on in…”

 

Impossible as it seemed, the eyebrow rose even higher. How in the WORLD did this milquetoast deal with a demanding boss like Raines, Miss Parker asked herself. She nodded her head at Vince, who took the clue and moved to the glass door and held one open for her. “Bring me the schedule Jarod had made for today’s appointments and the schedule for all appointments that Mr. Raines had made for himself,” she ordered in a brusque tone as she turned away, “and be ready to take notes.”

 

“Y…yes, ma’am,” the now-harried secretary said as she began scrambling through the papers on her desk for the desired items.

 

Miss Parker made her way slowly across the office and then with a sigh settled into the huge and comfortable chair behind the mammoth, carved wooden desk. Vince was right there to take charge of the crutches that were no longer needed from her, stowing them discretely nearly out of sight against a polished wood file cabinet. A glance in his direction held her silent thanks, and the man nodded acknowledgement and moved smoothly to a straight chair that had once been Willy’s, set behind the desk and close enough to be of quick assistance but unobtrusive during paperwork hours.

 

So this was what it was like – and the shape of her future. Miss Parker ran her hands across the polished surface of the desk and pulled open the very top, center drawer. The Pez dispenser that had found its way in with the collection of pens and automatic pencils brought a smile to her lips for a moment, along with a sense of having intruded. It was a visible sign that she was filling another man’s shoes for the moment – evidence that someone else belonged in this chair.

 

The glass door opened, and the secretary hurried into the office with the desired documents in hand. “Uh… Mr. Bailey didn’t have any appointments made for today, Miss Parker. And when Mr. Raines died, we cancelled all his appointments for a week to make time to find another Chairman.” Finally the milquetoast seemed to be getting her legs under her and showing her capabilities. “Are there any appointments that you need to make for today?”

 

“No,” Miss Parker found herself answering with relief. “Just bring me any of the pending contracts that would have been needing Mr. Raines’ attention on the day he died – I’ll start with those and just roll with the punches from there.”

 

“Yes, ma’am. Would you like me to bring you some coffee?”

 

And that actually made the Ice Queen façade slip a little to allow the beginnings of a smile to peek through. “That would be fabulous… what is your name, anyway?”

 

“Dolores, ma’am.” Her dark eyes slid over to where the sweeper was sitting – obviously out of habit. “And for you, sir?”

 

“I’m fine,” Vince answered in his incredibly deep voice. “Thanks.”

 

Miss Parker found herself reaching for her chirping cell phone as the slip of a secretary vanished through the glass doors. “What?”

 

“I called the house – Sam told me what you’re up to,” Jarod informed her. “Good to see that our minds are working in the same direction.”

 

“Jarod,” she breathed in relief. “How ARE you?”

 

“Tired of hospital cuisine already and waiting to see my doctor before signing myself out – against medical advice, if need be,” he replied. “Sam sent Willy over here – so at least I won’t have to try to drive with the anvil choir still going off in my head…” He paused for a moment. “So where are you now?”

 

“Sitting in your office, in your chair, doing your job,” she answered saucily and then sobered. “You are coming back to the Centre, aren’t you?”

 

“I gave my word to the Triumvirate representatives that I’d hand over the Chairmanship when the emergency situation was concluded. I keep my promises. I’ll come back at least one more time.”

 

“So really, I’m sitting at what is going to be MY desk, right?”

 

“The moment I can make it happen, Miss Parker. Sooner than that, if at all possible.”

 

“What will you do then?”

 

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I suppose that will depend on whether or not I’ll be needing to look over my shoulder constantly,” Jarod replied carefully. “Will I?”

 

“Not on my account,” she answered him, one finger doodling and following the pattern of the wood grain of the desk’s highly polished surface. “Jarod…”

 

“In that case, I suppose I’ll wait to see how things go with Sydney, and then…”

 

Miss Parker looked up and nodded as Dolores carefully placed a ceramic mug of coffee on the desk off to her right and then arranged a stack of file folders directly in front of her. “I need your help here,” she announced honestly.

 

“Parker…”

 

“I mean it,” she hurried to continue. “I’m going to have Lyle to deal with as soon as the cops figure out that it WASN’T him – at least, not this time around – and you should see the stack of contracts that your secretary just deposited in front of me for review…”

 

“Lyle has already been dealt with,” Jarod announced flatly. “You won’t have to worry about that end of it. Think of it as a parting gift.”

 

“But…” She was confused. “What… how?”

 

“Trust me, Parker.”

 

“Damn it, I’m still going to need your help – Lyle is… was… only one part of it. I’m going to want to pull the Centre completely out of Triumvirate control… put an end to all of the… ugliness…”

 

There was another long pause from the other end of the line. “That’s a pretty ambitious agenda there.”

 

“I know,” she answered and sipped at the hot coffee carefully so as not to burn her tongue. “That’s why I need you here, with me. I can’t do this alone.”

 

“I have a family to put back together, Parker,” Jarod reminded her quietly. “I can’t do that if I’m trapped working for the Centre again.”

 

“We could look for them together during our time off,” Miss Parker offered, the words falling from her lips before she knew what she was going to say. “And you wouldn’t be trapped – you could go and come as you wish, like any other normal man goes to and from his place of employment.” From the length of the pause this time, she knew she’d shocked him. “Jarod?”

 

“I’m still here, Parker,” he answered eventually. “I’m just not sure I know what to say.”

 

“Tell me you’ll at least consider my offer?” she pleaded.

 

“I’ll think about it,” he promised, “and I’ll try to have an answer for you as soon as possible.”

 

“Fair enough.” She put her coffee mug back down. “Have you had any news about Syd’s condition?” she asked then, her voice soft and vulnerable. “Sam said he was in bad shape…”

 

“Willy did some checking on his way in, and he’s still in a coma…” He paused as he heard her quick intake of breath and then continued, “but evidently his vitals are stabilizing. That’s good news, Parker, considering the shape he was in when he was found…”

 

This time it was Miss Parker to pause for a moment, trying make sure she spoke next with a steady voice. “Is he going to make it, Jarod?”

 

“I honestly don’t know,” Jarod admitted sadly. “A lot depends on how soon they can get him into a hyperbaric oxygen treatment – and even then, there could be lasting consequences…” He sighed. “Before I come in, I’ll talk to his doctor and get a complete picture for you – but I want you to be ready for bad news. Carbon monoxide poisoning isn’t something a person just bounces right back from.”

 

“Oh my God!” She put her forehead in her hand and closed her eyes. She’d only been focused on Sydney’s survival, and not even thought about the shape he’d be in IF he survived.

 

“I’ll let you know when I’m out and on my way back to the Centre.”

 

It took her a while to pull her mind away from contemplation of her old friend being in no shape to ever come back to his Sim Lab fully recovered – and the empty feeling that contemplation left her with. “Good,” she began, rubbing her nose to bring herself back to an emotionally functional level once more. “I’ll arrange a meeting with the Triumvirate reps when I know your ETA.” She paused. “Take care, Jarod – and thanks for everything.”

 

The call disconnected abruptly, and she closed her cell phone with a soft click. Putting the device on the desk within easy reach, she opened the top folder on the stack and reached for her coffee. There wasn’t much more she could do at the moment than try to fill the empty minutes until Jarod was back – to try not to think about Sydney or Broots.

 

Or what she was going to do if Jarod didn’t agree to her offer, and left her alone in a place of power and authority she’d never really sought and once hoped to escape.

 

oOoOo

 

Debbie wrapped herself in her bathrobe, but still felt chilled from the inside out. She had to go to the bathroom, and she was hungry – but if it weren’t for the imperative nature of the former, she’d have just as soon remain huddled beneath the warm covers of Miss Parker’s guest bed, ignoring the latter. There she could keep her eyes tightly shut and pretend that the previous day hadn’t happened – that she was safe in her own bed waiting for her Dad to yell up the stairs that breakfast was ready.

 

But that wasn’t going to happen – not today, not ever again. Debbie caught back a sob and shuffled drearily from the bedroom door to the bathroom and locked herself in. She seated herself on the toilet and stared at the reflection of her face in the big mirror. It was all her fault – her fault that her father was dead, and her fault that Sydney was hovering near death. All it had taken was a single moment of carelessness and forgetfulness to bring chaos and tragedy crashing down on her and her closest friends.

 

That had been the unending nightmare that had accompanied her into dreamland, courtesy of that pill Miss Parker and Sam had finally convinced her to take. It was the mantra that echoed in the back of her mind even now. In a way, she was glad she wasn’t at home – the upstairs bathroom there was filled with her father’s toiletry items mixed in with her own and would have been an agonizing reminder that he’d never be home to use them again. He’d never fix her Pop Tarts again for breakfast on days when they were both running late. He’d never again sit with her and watch movies with her and talk through them with her.

 

And how would she ever be able to face Miss Parker again? She knew that Miss Parker was very close to Sydney – far closer than most people suspected. The few times she had spoken of him in Debbie’s presence, her voice had changed ever so slightly – and Debbie knew. She knew that Miss Parker felt about Sydney in much the same way that she herself felt about Miss Parker. And now it was her fault too that Sydney lay in a hospital bed in a coma.

 

All her fault.

 

She flushed the toilet and wandered automatically over to the sink to wash her hands, and the closer she got to that big mirror, and the more unable she was to avoid her own gaze in the glass, the harder the tears fell. Everything – EVERYthing – that had happened, had happened over a stupid notebook – a stupid, stupid notebook. She looked up into her own eyes and found only condemnation in that tearful blue gaze – a condemnation that she richly deserved.

 

Why did it have to be her Daddy that died? It was SHE who had forgotten the stupid notebook after all... Her eyes studied the arrangement of toiletries and personal hygiene items that Miss Parker had carefully spread across her own bathroom counter, and her gaze landed solidly on the razor tucked behind the shampoo and conditioner. She picked it up and looked at it carefully, almost disappointed to find it one of those cartridge jobs with the multiple blades. For a moment there… Her face grew grim and determined.

 

Nimble fingers disengaged the little cartridge from the handle, and with a sense of driving purpose, she took the handle and smashed it down against one end of the cartridge, hoping to break the plastic and pry one of the blades loose. Then, perhaps, she could take care of the mistake that Fate had made…

 

The bathroom door suddenly burst in from a well-placed kick, and then Sam was in the bathroom with her, prying the cracked razor cartridge from her hands and tossing it casually into the trashcan with one hand while gathering her close with the other. “You don’t want to do that, Squirt,” he told her gently, completely unaffected as she struggled against his restraining arm.

 

“Let me go!” she screamed. “I don’t want…”

 

“You don’t want to do this. You need to live, and Miss Parker needs you to live. Neither of you deserve to be left alone.” Sam asked with an honesty borne of his desperate concern for a young girl he’d come to know a little through the years. “She needs you right now – just like you need her. Don’t give up on yourself, Debbie…”

 

Debbie stopped struggling and simply went completely limp in his grasp for a moment. “It’s all my fault, Sam… This is all my fault…” she whimpered and then burst into noisy, violent sobbing.

 

Gently he picked Debbie up in his arms as if she were a small child and carried her down the stairs to one of the easy chairs next to the couch. He seated himself and began to rock her back and forth, one arm around her back, the other stroking her hair gently. “You know that isn’t true, Squirt,” he told her softly. “You didn’t do anything…”

 

“It was… my… fault…” she worked around her sobs. “He… went… home… to get… my…”

 

“Hush!” Sam just held her closer and tighter, promising himself that there was no way he’d let her get out of his sight for more than a moment for the rest of the day. He’d never know exactly what it was that had driven him up the stairs to knock on the bathroom door after hearing the toilet flush but not seeing her appear soon after. He wasn’t going to count on that mysterious whatever to help him again.

 

oOoOo

 

“So the entire top echelon of the Centre, as well as its prized Pretender, are now out of commission and unable to handle the day-to-day dealings?” Letira asked her colleague as she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and selected a small helping of orange wedges and melon chunks to begin her day.

 

“That’s the impression Uluru got,” Mbala stated calmly. “And you know what this means, don’t you?”

 

Letira gave the older man an understanding look. “Revenge for the death of your cousin on that Centre air flight when he was supposedly collecting the scrolls?”

 

Mbala glared at her briefly before shaking his head. “Not at all. I’m thinking that the time has come for the Triumvirate to take a direct hand in protecting our investment here. We cannot allow the Centre to continue on without leadership.”

 

“And just what are you suggesting we do to take this ‘direct hand’ – take over ourselves?” Letira asked scathingly. “I don’t know about you, but I have no intentions of moving to the United States.”

 

“You’ll do it if I tell you to,” Mbala growled at her. “The Centre is too valuable as a Triumvirate asset to do anything less.”

 

“This is provided that the Centre people don’t rally their own leadership again, just as they did not long after William Raines was assassinated,” she hissed in return. “Without solid evidence that there is a complete vacuum at the apex of this pyramid, you are making assumptions that could be completely erroneous.”

 

“That’s easily enough discovered,” Mbala tossed back angrily. He rose to his feet and stalked over to the internal telephone and dialed an extension. “I’d like to speak to the person in charge,” he demanded abruptly, “in person, and within the hour.” Letira almost laughed aloud when his face abruptly fell from its angered arrogance to an expression of shock. “Actually, that would be preferable. Thank you,” he stated in a much-subdued tone and listened again. “That will be most satisfactory. I’ll be waiting for your call.” He hung up the receiver with very slow movements.

 

“I take it that there actually WAS someone in charge with whom you needed to make an appointment?” she asked mockingly.

 

He turned and blinked, still partly in shock. “It seems Miss Parker came in to work this morning despite her injuries and is filling in for Jarod while he’s indisposed – although the secretary assures me that he’ll be in as soon as he can get here, probably later this morning.”

 

Letira shook her head and took another sip of her coffee. Mbala, already a member of the Council of Three, had been pushing himself and trying to climb to the very top of the Triumvirate heap – surely reeling the Centre in as a full acquisition would have assured his assuming the leadership role in Africa. But his way was the old way of intimidation and assumption. Letira had learned from her father before her to make certain of the conditions before making moves – of never going in a direction in which the destination was not assured. It was a lesson that had made her one of the very few female consortium members and definitely on a short list for consideration the next time one of the three seats came empty.

 

“So you have an appointment with Miss Parker within the hour?” she asked curiously.

 

He shook his head. “The secretary said that she would call me the moment that Jarod returned – which she assured me wouldn’t be that long from now – and arrange for me to meet with him then.”

 

“So the Centre isn’t as ripe for the picking as you thought it was.”

 

Mbala shot her a venomous glare. “We shall see,” he muttered ominously and then buried his nose in the financial section of the Wall Street Journal.

 

oOoOo

 

“What are we doing HERE?” Willy asked cautiously, as usual more than a little nervous this close to a headquarters of the civilian police. Jarod’s directions had been quite specific, but he’d been very closed-mouthed about the purpose behind the stop.

 

“You’ll see,” Jarod stated in a quiet and unusually ominous tone. Very carefully he pulled himself out of the back seat of the Centre sedan and walked over to where a very haggard-looking Detective Miller was waiting for him. “You look like you haven’t had a chance to rest yet, Detective,” he commented as he drew near. “Didn’t your Internal Affairs let you go home?”

 

Miller just shook his head. “It wasn’t that. I wanted to be in on telling Officer Ryan’s parents what had happened to her.” He looked at the Pretender with eyes that were almost hollow. “I got back from that about an hour before you called.”

 

“Are you going to get a chance to take some time off?” Jarod asked gently. The police officer looked as if he were in desperate need of the department therapist.

 

“I’ll be on two week’s paid leave once this last little bit is done,” Miller assured him. He looked around. “I thought they’d be here by now.”

 

“They’ll be here in time, trust me,” Jarod finally allowed a small smile of satisfaction to grace his lips. He glanced up as a large, tan-colored sedan pulled to the curb not far from the two of them, with all four doors flying open. “Agent Malone,” he greeted his friend from the Atlanta office of the FBI, “it’s been a while.”

 

“Jarod,” the dark and slightly taciturn man nodded somberly. “Well? Where is he?”

 

“He’ll be out in a moment,” Miller answered in Jarod’s stead. “When last I checked, they were just processing the paperwork.” He gazed tiredly at the federal agent. “So do you think you have enough to actually hold this guy this time?”

 

Bailey Malone nodded firmly. “All of the cases were still open – and it didn’t take rocket science to look at them as a group, rather than individually, and see the many similarities. What’s more, Jarod provided us with additional information not available to the investigating departments at the time that pretty much tied it up in a bow.” He looked up at the front stoop of the police headquarters building when the door opened, and a very smug and pleased Lyle stepped back out into the sunlight.

 

With a simple glance, Malone and his team moved and met Lyle halfway down the steps to the headquarters. “Lyle Parker, aka. Bobby Bowman, you are under arrest for the murders of James Radlaw, Ling Chao, Ping Su-Yang, Choi Xian-Fu, Cherry Lee, Yung Mei-Fang, Cheryl Fong, Sung Jiang-Wei, Barbara Young, Hong Dang, Tang Ling-Li, and Karen Choi. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used by the prosecution against you. You have the right to speak to…”

 

“Yeah, yeah – I just heard all that a couple of days ago,” Lyle sneered as one of the tall and very muscular FBI agents that had accompanied Malone moved behind him and one by one hauled his hands behind him to contain in handcuffs. Grey eyes very much like those of his twin sister settled on Jarod. “What is this, anyway?”

 

Jarod stepped very close to the man who had been so much a part of making his life a living hell for years. “You didn’t really think I’d forgotten about Kyle, did you?” he whispered into Lyle’s ear. He backed off as understanding dawned on Lyle’s face.

 

“You son of a bitch!” Lyle hissed and would have launched himself at Jarod, had it not been for the very firm hold that the pair of FBI agents now had on his arms. “This isn’t over, Jarod – not by a long shot!”

 

“We’ll see about that,” Jarod smiled coldly. “You see, they’ve seen your little storage room – they’ve seen everything, Lyle. I called them and made sure they’ve seen all your dirty little secret places. Without Mr. Raines to bail you out of your predicaments, there’s no way you’ll be able to argue or bribe your way out of what’s finally coming to you.” He reached out and straightened Lyle’s jacket lapel. “I’d say ‘see you around,’ but something tells me it ain’t gonna happen,” he said calmly and then turned and walked back to Malone’s side.

 

“Put him in the car,” Malone directed and then held his hand out to Jarod. “This will give some closure to a lot of people, Jarod. Thank you.”

 

“You can thank me by just making sure he’s found guilty and pays for what he’s done over the years,” Jarod replied somberly. “He’s hurt a lot of people in his time – and not all of them were on that list you just rattled off.”

 

“I can imagine,” Malone replied, and watching his fellow agents manipulate the prisoner into the car, he found the idea not all that far-fetched. “Take care of yourself.”

 

“Thanks,” Jarod said and lifted a hand in a wave when Malone walked away toward the tan-colored car and climbed into the passenger seat. Once the car had moved away, Jarod glanced at Willy and Miller. “OK. Show’s over,” he announced, finding that some of the adrenaline he’d produced in anticipation of this moment had drained away, leaving him feeling washed out. “I need to get back to the Centre.”

 

“Take care of yourself, Bailey,” Miller told him, shoving his hand out to shake Jarod’s. “Don’t overdo – that bastard cracked you over the head pretty good. You talk about me looking like hell, you look like worse than I do.”

 

“You take it easy yourself, Detective,” Jarod replied, pumping the man’s hand vigorously. “And I’m sorry about Officer Ryan. Do me a favor and call my office at the Centre so that I can send a bereavement card to her parents, OK?”

 

Miller nodded and stepped back. “Will do,” he promised. “See you around.”

 

Jarod waved and walked toward the parking lot where Willy had left the Centre sedan.

 

“Damn, man! What you did to Lyle - that was cold!” the sweeper exclaimed as he opened the back door for the Pretender.

 

“Remember that,” Jarod commented coldly. “You moved to the right side of that fence just in time, my friend. Make sure you stay there.”

 

Willy slipped behind the wheel of the sedan, very aware of the kind of fate he’d probably barely avoided. He didn’t need Jarod’s suggestion – he knew what side of things he needed to stay on now, and nothing would keep him from sticking to his new course of action. And at the moment, his new course of action meant that he needed to keep his mind on the road.

 

Jarod was glad that Willy wasn’t feeling very conversational anymore, because he’d need to gather his wits and emotions together if he were going to be able to handle the rest of what he needed to do that day without falling completely apart. He leaned back against the cushion of the seat and stared out the window next to him, not really seeing the Delaware countryside slipping past him.

 

For the first few miles, all he could see was Sydney’s pale face through the little window of the hyperbaric chamber into which he’d been placed. His case of carbon monoxide poisoning had been ruled serious enough that there was a chance that he would be permanently impaired by the affects of oxygen deprivation to the brain without the more intensive treatment. Even as he’d watched, his old mentor had suffered a very small seizure – and Jarod had had to walk away from the sight of the brilliant older man twitching like a laboratory monkey attached to electrodes.

 

It was all his fault. He’d wasted time getting himself the kind of protection that the police felt necessary for him to wear – and Broots had died and Sydney damned near had died too. After all these years of having run his pretends as if by the numbers, having things timed down to the second, he’d been late – way too late – and others had paid the ultimate price for his mistake, although the ones paying weren’t limited to just Broots and Sydney.

 

He didn’t even want to think of what this development was doing to Miss Parker emotionally. He had a sneaky suspicion that she’d been fonder of Broots than she’d been willing to admit even to herself – and her relationship with Sydney was easily as deep and complex as his own. With Broots dead and Sydney on death’s door, most of the supports that had allowed her to survive in her world had been ripped right out from beneath her. She had to have been a very good Pretender herself to have glued herself together well enough to go in to work where every corner of every corridor would remind her of everything that she’d lost the day before.

 

Debbie, he knew, would be devastated. He’d kept track of her over time and distance – and kept an eye on the mother who had been so inadequate. Laurie Broots had dropped out of her daughter’s life when she’d lost the custody hearing – but what neither Broots nor his daughter had known yet was that she’d lost her life a year ago, a victim of one too many gambling debts. The Las Vegas police were still maintaining her case in their open files, but there had been few leads – just as most cases involving loan sharks and casino owners tended to end up. Now that Debbie had lost both parents, she’d have nowhere to go if Miss Parker didn’t step in. She had no other family. She had no one.

 

Jarod understood that feeling well – but would never have wished it upon another, especially not an intelligent, charming and beautiful young girl standing on the brink of womanhood.

 

He rubbed his grizzled chin, trying to swallow the immensity of the consequences of a process that should have gone much easier and worked out much more beneficially to all concerned. Was he losing it – or had he just been incredibly, criminally careless? How could he go back to a life of walking fine lines to help those who couldn’t help themselves if he couldn’t trust his own reflexes and ability to nuance out a situation in a moment’s notice?

 

Maybe he SHOULD go back to the Centre – back to that apartment – and let them lock him away where he’d have the luxury of not having to see the faces of those whose lives would be irreparably altered by a mistake. There was an obligation and a responsibility that came hand in hand with the freedom that he’d enjoyed – and he no longer could be sure that he was able to meet that obligation or fulfill that responsibility adequately.

 

How would he ever be able to face Miss Parker with the knowledge of the depth of his failure? If Sydney survived – and if he still had his mental acuity – how would he be able to face HIM? Both of them had trusted him implicitly, been counting on his ability to pull rabbits out of hats and make the impossible seem like the everyday – and he’d let them both down in the worst kind of way.

 

He was a failure - untrustworthy. Better he just turn over the Chairmanship to Miss Parker post-haste and make himself scarce. She deserved better help than he was obviously capable of giving her.

Chapter 20 - Surviving

 

Miss Parker looked up from the contract she’d been reading when the glass door to the office opened suddenly without any knock or call of announcement. The moment she laid eyes on the person who came through the door, her eyebrows headed straight for her hairline and she dropped the contract on her desk, forgotten. “You look like shit,” she told Jarod bluntly. He was pale, unshaven, and the bandage at the back of his head and neck made him look as if he were wearing an ill-fitting turtleneck, rather than a fine linen dress shirt.

 

“Thank you so much,” he answered dryly, bringing his own gaze up to study her face.

 

“Are you sure it was wise signing yourself out of the hospital already?”

 

He shrugged. “There’s too much to do today that can’t wait,” he replied and eyed his desk, taking in the woman sitting comfortably behind it. “How’s it feel to be sitting there in the Big Chair?”

 

“Lonely and out of place, at the moment.” She pushed the contracts back and put both hands on the arms of the chair, the left one somewhat awkwardly. “You want your chair back?”

 

“You know and I know that the chair’s really yours, Parker,” Jarod shook his head. “I only sat there to keep the spot warm for you. Now that you feel capable of coming in and taking charge of things yourself, all that’s left for me to do is officially hand over the keys to the Centre to you with the Triumvirate’s blessing.”

 

Miss Parker’s gaze sought out that of Willy and Vince. “Uh… fellas? Could we have some privacy here – please?”

 

Vince rose and walked out the door with Willy leading the way. Miss Parker pointed to one of the comfortable chairs in front of the massive desk. “Sit down, Jarod, before you fall down.”

 

Jarod shot her a sharp look but did as she’d directed, moving forward into the room a little more and finally dropping into the chair like a sack of potatoes.

 

Miss Parker eyed him for a moment and then picked up her telephone. “Dolores, I need another strong cup of coffee in here, please – quickly.”

 

“Coffee’s a stimulant, and won’t play well with my headache,” Jarod commented offhandedly, resting his forehead against long fingers that massaged his temples delicately.

 

“Were you given a pain prescription?” she returned blandly.

 

“No,” he admitted. “I’m here AMA – against medical advice. My doctor was fuming…”

 

“I figured as much,” she sighed and bent for her purse, rummaged in it, and hauled out a pill bottle. “Heads up,” she warned and then tossed it across the desk at him. “Take two of those –with the coffee. If they can handle my migraines, they should be able to dull whatever you’ve got going.”

 

Jarod read the contents of the bottle absently and shrugged before opening the tamper-proof top and shaking two out into an open palm. He then looked up as the whisper-thin woman who had been sitting in the outer office put a mug of coffee on the desk in front of him without comment. He took up the cup, tossed back the pills and sipped at the hot liquid carefully to wash them down.

 

“Thanks, Dolores, that will be all. Make sure we aren’t disturbed for any reason.” Miss Parker gave the secretary a small smile of gratitude before the tiny woman turned away to go back out to her own desk again. She then reached for her own coffee and leaned back in her chair. “So… have you given any thought to my offer?”

 

“Quite a bit, actually,” Jarod admitted, following her example and leaning back in his chair with the coffee mug cradled between his hands.

 

“And…”

 

His gaze fell away from hers. “Parker…”

 

“Jarod, you gotta understand, this is more than just a job offer,” she leaned forward again, putting her coffee cup back on the desk in front of her and wrapping her hands around it as if it could help make the cold and lonely places inside of her a little warmer. “I can’t do this alone. God knows that I never wanted this job, but…”

 

“So walk away,” Jarod said numbly. “You don’t have to take it…”

 

“Yes, I do,” she replied sadly, “because if I don’t, then as sure as the sun comes up in the east every morning, I know the next person to sit at this desk will likely NOT let you live your life without having to constantly watch over your shoulder again.” He looked up at her again, startled, and she nodded. “The temptation to want to reel you in and make you a part of the obscenity that this place has been for years will be simply too great – and I can’t let that happen. The only way I know I can stop it is to take charge myself.”

 

“That’s ridiculous - I can take care of myself, just as I have been for the last six years,” he grumbled resentfully. “You don’t have to…”

 

“I want to be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning, Jarod,” she stated very frankly, “and I know I couldn’t do that if I walked away. I’d be sacrificing your ability to have a life for my own comfort. Too many lives have been sacrificed for this damned place – it stops now!”

 

“With you sacrificing yours?” Jarod’s face was one of frustration and sadness. “Somehow that doesn’t seem right.”

 

“Then stay here with me,” she answered quietly. “Run this place with me. God knows that there’s not another person alive more familiar with the way this place works than you nowadays. Help me make this place something to be proud of being involved in…”

 

“Parker,” he shook his head at her, “you don’t want my help.”

 

She frowned at him. “What the hell do you mean ‘I don’t want your help?’ I just got through telling how much I DO…”

 

“You need someone who can get the job done for you,” he explained patiently, carefully avoiding looking her in the face. “I’m not sure I can do that anymore – and I’m not sure I can handle being responsible for…”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Miss Parker was growing concerned and desperate. This wasn’t the cock-sure and confident Pretender she was used to dealing with – and the contrast was downright disconcerting.

 

Finally he found the courage to look her in the eye. “I screwed up, Parker. I was too late to do any good – and Broots is dead and Sydney…” He looked down again at his hands, which twisted ineffectually in his lap. “I was too late – and everything that happened is all my fault. You don’t need someone who screws up that badly…”

 

Miss Parker pushed herself awkwardly to her feet and craned to grab hold of one of the crutches Vince had conveniently stowed not far away. “That has got to be one of the most selfish, idiotic and short-sighted things I’ve ever heard you say,” she snarled at him, limping closer.

 

“Really? I could have driven straight from that damned farmhouse and over to Broots’ place – and maybe, MAYBE, Broots would have still been alive and Sydney wouldn’t have been quite so close to death,” Jarod snarled back, her condemnation of his attitude almost as painful as his own self-condemnation at his behavior. “But did I do that? Noooo… I stopped and took the time to put on a wire, and two bullet-proof…”

 

“Taking the time to protect yourself and have the capabilities to get enough evidence to put that monster away for the rest of his life wasn’t foolhardiness, Jarod, it wasn’t screwing up,” she snapped at him. “If Cox had wanted to kill you – and had managed it because you’d not taken the time to wear a vest – then I’d be mourning three friends, wouldn’t I?” At his glare, she retorted, “And it would have made a bad situation even worse. Broots would still be dead, but Sydney would have been too, as well as you.”

 

“That’s not the way it went down,” Jarod grumbled, frustrated, looking away again. “You don’t know…”

 

“I know that you’re alive, Syd’s alive, and Cox is gone,” Miss Parker told him very firmly. “It went down hard, and it went down screwy – and I suppose if I wanted to, I could let myself tear myself apart thinking that if I just hadn’t been driving over to Broots’ myself a few nights ago, I could have stopped Sydney from taking off…” Her voice caught. “God, Jarod, I can’t hold myself AND you together, and still hope to have anything left to try to work with Debbie too at the end of the day!”

 

“I’m not asking you to hold me together, Parker,” Jarod reminded her in a harsh tone.

 

“I need you here, with me, or it will all have been for nothing,” she said, her voice finally starting to show the signs of strain and distress. “Broots’ death, Sydney – all of it.”

 

Jarod stared at her, struck dumb by her simple statement. “But…”

 

Miss Parker carefully maneuvered herself so that she could sit in the chair next to him and, once she was settled, poked an index finger hard into his chest for emphasis. “Listen to me, you stupid goddamned genius. You didn’t screw up. We were working against someone who had us seriously outwitted for a while – and you may not have had enough information to get inside his head properly before you HAD to make your move. That isn’t your fault, or Sydney’s, or Broots’.” A lone tear started down a cheek. “It happened – it’s over and done with. Now we have to decide if we’re going to allow ourselves to be trapped by guilt and regrets, or move forward and deal with the hand we’ve been dealt as a result.”

 

He looked deeply into her eyes for a very long moment. “I don’t trust myself anymore,” he finally said very softly, the confession excruciatingly hard. “I’m afraid to let anybody else trust me or rely on me if I’m not sure of myself – and I’m not sure I can live with the idea that someone else could get hurt or killed when I make my next mistake.”

 

“Look, I’m not expecting miracles from you, Jarod,” she answered slowly, knowing that her words at this very moment could easily spell the difference between a future partnership and a future of bleak loneliness. “I have a pretty good idea of what you’re capable of, and I even know some of your failings too. So let me decide where and how to trust you until you get a handle on yourself again – all I ask is that you help me run this place. I can’t do it alone, and I don’t know how long it will be until Sydney can come back, if ever. Stay.” His dark eyes gazed into hers with deep pain. “Stay – and trust me until you can trust yourself again.”

 

oOoOo

 

Mbala nodded as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone line. “Yes, we can be ready by then. Thank you for your assistance.” He hung up and turned to where Letira had looked up from the documents she’d been studying. “We meet with Jarod in a half hour.”

 

“What do you intend to do?”

 

The tall and proud man adjusted the colorful woven drape carefully over the shoulder of his Armani jacket. “That will depend on Miss Parker and her brother – and on Jarod,” he replied cryptically.

 

Letira rose gracefully and sauntered across the room slowly. “I mean, do you intend to try to take direct control of the Centre?” she insisted.

 

“That remains an option,” he hedged. “Our visit here was meant to help the Centre realize that it is falling down on the job of making a profit – we cannot lose sight of that as a motivator in whatever action must be taken.” His steely gaze stopped her in her tracks. “You will follow my lead and do as I say at this meeting, is that clear?”

 

She thought for a moment and then raised her head proudly. “I will serve the interests of the consortium, Siskele,” she announced haughtily, “and I will not sacrifice the interest of the consortium to feed an agenda of personal or political gain – ANYBODY’S personal or political gain.”

 

This time it was Mbala on the move, stalking up to her and standing nose to nose with her. “Is that a direct challenge, Balenge?”

 

“That is a reminder,” she replied coolly. “You are here as a representative of the Council of Three – but you are not the Arunga himself. If necessary, I will make a phone call and inform the Arunga of your actions.”

 

“You would threaten me?” Mbala was appalled. He’d brought this up-and-coming consortium member along as a favor to an old friend long gone – not knowing that by doing so he would be nursing a viper in his bosom.

 

“No, not at all,” Letira told him frankly. “I’m just reminding you of what your priorities should be – and letting you know that I will be making sure that you keep those priorities in mind at all times.”

 

“I never suspected that you were such a friend to the Centre,” he tossed over his shoulder as he strode away from her.

 

“I’m not,” she called after him. “I’m here to help the Centre become profitable again – not steal it.”

 

Mbala’s hand in front of his stomach closed into a fist. This was an opportunity of rare value – he’d be damned if he’d let a foolish woman ruin it for him.

 

oOoOo

 

“I need to tell you something about my agreement with the Triumvirate, Parker,” Jarod said carefully as he emerged from the private bathroom with a freshly-shaven face that made him look considerably less haggard than he still felt.

 

“What’s that?” she asked curiously, closing the contracts folder and setting it aside on the desk in anticipation of the meeting only a few minutes away.

 

“They are expecting me to hand over control of the Centre to a joint Chairmanship of you and Lyle. The man, Siskele Mbala, was very explicit in making that a part of the terms of my being allowed to serve as Chairman pro temp.”

 

Miss Parker blinked and then shrugged. “But that won’t be a problem, will it? I mean, with Lyle in federal custody on multiple murder charges, I seriously doubt that the Triumvirate will view adding him to the administration now will be in the Centre’s financial best interest.”

 

He shrugged back. “I agree – but I just wanted you to know what the ground rules WERE when I took over. I’m sure we’re going to be doing an awful lot of explaining as to why those terms are not being met.”

 

“I’m not going to waste your time or my time explaining why such a thing is impossible to people who are only investors,” she replied archly. “We aren’t asking permission to assume a co-Chairmanship that is shared by the two of US, we’re informing them as to what we just spent the last hour pushing past the majority of our bigger shareholders.” Her grey eyes were hard. “It’s time for the Triumvirate to get a much clearer picture as to their role in the way the Centre is run will be from now on.”

 

Jarod didn’t reply – he’d spent the time that Miss Parker had spent on the telephone talking to shareholders doing his homework on the backgrounds and histories of the two Triumvirate delegates. He’d also spoken quietly to Willy and Vince – and now six sweepers, including the two who had been assigned to them personally, were scattered about the perimeter of the huge office. It was a display of force and strength designed to reinforce the message that they were going to be sending. And then he had spent the time it had taken to get himself clean shaven to SIM himself – a month ago. That was the only way he’d have the bravado and emotional stability to be a solid support for what they intended to do.

 

The telephone on the desk rang, and Dolores’ voice sounded in Miss Parker’s ear the moment she picked up the receiver. “Mr. Mbala and Miss Balenge to see you and Mr. Bailey, ma’am.”

 

“They’re here,” she shot over her shoulder at Jarod, who immediately moved to stand directly behind her. “Show them in, Dolores.”

 

Only a very brief moment passed before the etched glass doors were swinging inwards to admit the elegantly dressed pair. Miss Parker watched with guarded neutrality as a middle-aged man who dressed and carried himself as the much-feared Mutumbo had years ago walked forward, a tall and very graceful younger woman at his arm. “Mr. Mbala, Miss Balenge,” she greeted them with a bow from the waist, “you will forgive my not rising.”

 

“We had heard word of your accident, Miss Parker,” Mbala opened with dignity. “You are feeling better, I hope?”

 

“Better is a very subjective assessment,” she replied carefully. “I’m able to come in to the Centre again – that’s the important thing.”

 

“And you, Mr. Bailey?” Mbala turned his sharp gaze to the Pretender standing behind the desk. “We were told of your unfortunate encounter with the man trying to blackmail and murder his way into the Chairman’s job. How are you…”

 

“Well enough,” Jarod replied. “My injury wasn’t serious enough to prevent me from coming in to keep my promise to hand over the job to the person to whom it belongs by right of inheritance.”

 

“Wait a moment,” Letira put a gentle hand on the forearm of her colleague. “Someone who is supposed to be here is missing. We cannot continue this meeting without Mr. Lyle Parker, can we, Siskele?”

 

“Mr. Bailey,” Mbala’s eyes narrowed, “you know the terms of your agreement with us. I hope you don’t think you can hold this meeting without…”

 

“Excuse me,” Miss Parker interrupted the man without a shred of apology. “You people were the ones who called for this meeting, not Jarod. And considering the circumstances of events here at the Centre lately, your demand to meet so soon is not only precipitous, but presumptive – and yet, Jarod and I are here at your request.”

 

“And as for Mr. Lyle Parker,” Jarod added with a grin, “he’s currently in the custody of federal agents, facing multiple charges of murder.” He allowed his gaze to grow sharp and piercing. “And if the rumors and evidence I’ve uncovered is any indication, you – or at least some in positions of authority within the Triumvirate – were aware of Lyle’s predilection for murder. The authorities here would tend to look very dimly on such a thing.”

 

Mbala was caught short – it had been on his orders that strings the Triumvirate had cultivated been pulled the last four times Lyle had gotten himself under suspicion with the local police. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he asserted staunchly.

 

“It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t,” Miss Parker told him firmly. “The Centre stockholders have been polled, and there is a majority decision regarding the new Chairmanship. As you were expecting, it WILL be a joint Chairmanship – the difference being that Jarod will be serving with me as co-Chairman.”

 

“Unacceptable!” Mbala burst out. “Jarod’s place at the Centre…”

 

“Will be at my side,” Miss Parker repeated firmly. “He’s familiar with the way things at the Centre work, and is in a unique position to help bring the profit-making capabilities here back up to where they could be without having to descend to less than moral activities to accomplish that.”

 

Letira moved to one of the comfortable chairs in front of Miss Parker’s desk and seated herself, more than content to allow her colleague to fight his futile battle. Everything she saw and heard that day would be reported to the Arunga as soon as she returned to Nairobi – confirmation of the leader’s suspicions of Mbala’s participation in projects that not only hadn’t added to the Centre’s coffers, but tended to offend against even the toughest sensibilities.

 

“Confirmation of the Centre Chairman requires the approval of the Triumvirate, Miss Parker,” Mbala insisted angrily.

 

“It may have before, but it doesn’t any longer,” Miss Parker allowed her voice to grow cold and hard. “As a matter of fact, my new co-Chair and I will be reviewing the many policy decisions and investments the Triumvirate has made in the Centre recently, with an eye to becoming even more independent of external control or manipulation.”

 

“How dare you…” Mbala was incensed and frantic. This meeting, which he’d hoped would demonstrate Centre vulnerability and Triumvirate control was turning out quite the opposite – and his colleague merely sat in her chair, her turbaned head nodding occasionally as she followed the conversation. “Without the Triumvirate, the Centre would be bankrupt.”

 

“But the Centre isn’t bankrupt without Triumvirate money anymore,” Jarod lifted an index finger to remind the African. “It owes your organization a debt of gratitude for your assistance during a very dark time in its past – but that dark time IS in the past, I assure you. If you insist on attempting to obstruct the Centre stockholder’s wishes, it is entirely possible that we may have to reconsider any and all present and future business dealings with you as less than desirable.”

 

“I’m sure my colleague is just surprised at the change in attitudes that seems to be accompanying the change in administration here,” Letira finally spoke softly from her chair. “He’s used to dealing with men who prefer to deal in shadows – obviously, dealing with people who prefer the light of day will take a change in… perspective.” She stated the last word firmly, her ebony eyes boring a hole in the gaze of her colleague. “Perhaps we should retire and consult with our leadership before this meeting goes much further?”

 

“Consult with whomever you wish,” Miss Parker stated with a note of finality, “but know this: Jarod and I now have equal authority here at the Centre. Where you see one of us, you see the both of us. We will, as always, appreciate any advice the Triumvirate might share with us, but we will no longer brook any attempt to subvert control from the Tower any longer. The Centre will be business partners with the Triumvirate, not a subsidiary – is that clear?”

 

Mbala’s face was red beneath its dark color, but Letira rose and nodded calmly. “I think you’ve made your point quite plainly, Miss Parker. We want to thank you for your patience and time. We know you’re both busy and not exactly feeling well, so we should let you get back to work.” Again, the last phrase was meant more for her irate colleague than the Centre leadership, and now Letira put her hand back on Mbala’s arm. “Come, Siskele.”

 

The African pulled his arm away from his colleague’s grasp abruptly, turned on his heels and stalked from the office – banging hard on the glass doors as he did. Letira sighed and looked at Miss Parker. “My apologies to you both. I think he was expecting the outcome of this meeting to be considerably different than the one he received – his disappointment is great.” Then, with grace, she walked from the office, quietly closing the same doors that her colleague had crashed through so roughly.

 

“That was too damned easy,” Jarod said, bending down slightly.

 

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Jarod,” she retorted. “Go across the hall and start cleaning out Lyle’s office – your new home away from home. By tomorrow, we’re both going to have to be hard at it.”

 

“Gotta have a home to have one away from it,” Jarod told her with a frown. The comment had made an uncomfortable truth bubble forth from his subconscious: other than the apartment in the subterranean complex about seven levels down, he HAD no home – no home, and nobody to come home TO. Other than Sydney, of course, who at the moment was lying unconscious in a hyperbaric chamber a half-hour’s drive away and who might never walk the halls of the Centre again because… No. Now was not the time to retrace those mental steps.

 

Miss Parker sighed and pointed. “First order of business, Partner. Willy, you and the rest of you except Vince can go help him do whatever he needs to.”

 

Jarod blinked and pulled himself from his dark reverie with some effort. “Are you always going to be this bossy to someone with equal authority?” he asked her sarcastically, almost as a matter of habit.

 

“When he acts like he has his head stuck up his ass, yes,” she answered with a sweet and very forced smile that exposed far too many teeth. She had the feeling that the both of them were going through the motions automatically, but the spark that had always lit their repartee was flickering badly – and she wasn’t exactly sure how to address that, or whether she even had the energy to try.

 

Jarod stared at her for a moment, then turned with a sigh. “Come on, gentlemen, the boss lady has given us her orders…”

 

oOoOo

 

“Why, Sweet Pea?” Debbie turned to see her father walking toward her in an odd, stiff-jointed gait, his face pale and his lips blue, holding out a notebook to her. “Why did you send me for this?

 

She moaned and tried to back away from the horrific sight, but couldn’t move. She turned and found that she’d backed into Sydney, who stood looking down at her with accusing eyes and a face equally pale and blue-lipped. “Indeed,” she heard fall with the familiar accent, “Why did you send him for that?”

 

“I needed it for school…” she answered in a tiny voice, twisting away from Sydney and backing away from the both of them slowly. “I didn’t know it would be this way…”

 

“Ignorance is no excuse, Deborah,” Broots chided his daughter with a hollow voice.

 

Tears welled up in her eyes and she cringed. “Daddy, please…”

 

“There can be no more sweet-talking to your father, Debbie,” Sydney demanded in a voice that had also turned hollow and almost echoing. “We must decide what to do with you.”

 

“No…”

 

Sam put down his magazine as the girl on the couch began to moan and shift uneasily in her sleep. Debbie had fallen asleep in his arms after she’d spent nearly an hour crying herself out. He’d settled her gently down on the couch once he’d been sure that her slumber was deep enough and covered her with a blanket brought down from the guest room where she’d spent the night. After watching for a few minutes to once more assure himself of her slumber, he’d gone through the house very carefully – especially the kitchen and bathrooms – removing or hiding chemicals and sharp, pointy objects in case she decided to try to harm herself again. And then he’d settled into an easy chair to watch over her.

 

For several hours now, he’d heard her moan occasionally, seen her cry yet a few more tears in her sleep – but nothing had actually disturbed her rest until now. He rose and moved over to sit on the coffee table next to her, reaching out to straighten the warm blanket over her shoulders. When the very slight touch caused her to flinch as if burned and whimper another, “No, Daddy… please…” he frowned.

 

“Debbie, wake up,” he said to her gently and shook her shoulder.

 

She moaned a little louder and moved as if to try to get away from his hands.

 

“C’mon, Squirt, wake up now,” he stated again, shaking her shoulder one more time.

 

Debbie jerked awake violently, sitting straight up with a small cry and staring around the room as if searching for something. Finally her eyes rested on Sam’s concerned face and she began to relax, a tear making its way down an already tear-stained face. “They’re not here,” she said in a very shaky voice.

 

“Who isn’t here?” Sam asked, reaching out to brush her light brown hair away from her face.

 

“Daddy and Sydney,” she answered with confusion, looking all about her again as if searching.

 

“No, they aren’t here,” Sam assured her and left his hand on her shoulder as if to try to anchor her in the here and now. “You must have been dreaming.”

 

“They were mad at me,” she told him, yet another tear slipping from the lashes onto a pale and streaked cheek. “They were going to make me pay…”

 

Sam’s hand moved around her back as he shifted to sit next to her on the couch, and he pulled her into his arms. “Your dad and Sydney would never do such a thing, Debbie,” he soothed. “They both love you.”

 

“I killed them,” she murmured against the dress shirt that had already seen so many of her tears that day. “I did it.”

 

“Stop that,” he chided. “You did no such thing.”

 

“I did…”

 

“You listen to me,” he insisted, even as his arms tightened around her, “I’ve seen what it means to say one person killed another – and trust me, what you did does NOT qualify. You had no way of knowing…”

 

“What am I going to do, Sam?” she asked suddenly. “I’m all alone now.”

 

“No, you’re not,” he shook his head vehemently. “I’m right here…”

 

“But…” She sighed and huddled against the massive chest. “Only for a little while. I don’t have any family anymore, though.”

 

“I’m sure Miss Parker will take care of things,” Sam told her confidently. “You know she wouldn’t leave you on your own…”

 

“I’m so scared, Sam,” Debbie admitted finally in a very tiny voice. “What am I going to do?”

 

“You’re going to wait until Miss Parker gets home – she’ll have some idea what you need to do,” he told her kindly. “And until then, you hang onto me. I won’t let anybody hurt you, you know that…”

 

Debbie clutched at the material of his dress shirt and clung as if her very life depended on it. The dream – the nightmare – had stripped her of her ability to find rest in slumber now, and the only thing she could trust now was Sam’s gentle strength and comfort.

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod heard Miss Parker’s “Thank you,” just as he reached out for the glass door – only to have it open inward before he touched it to allow a slender old man to slip out past him.

 

He wandered into her office, finding her with her elbows on the desk and face buried in her hands. “Are you OK?” he asked in concern, moving forward.

 

“No,” she answered honestly, if mutedly, and then looked up. “That was Broots’ attorney. His will appoints me as Debbie’s guardian – if I agree.”

 

“He trusted you that much with her – I’m not surprised he would have taken this step,” Jarod stated soothingly. “Are you going to agree?”

 

“What do you mean, ‘AM I going to agree?’ Of course I am!” she barked at him, her eyes suddenly dark and angry. “The last thing I want to do is leave Debbie to the tender mercies of foster care. It’s just…” The anger vanished almost as quickly as it had arisen. “God, Jarod, how am I going to be able to do this? I can’t be a Mommy AND a Chairman…”

 

“Sure you can,” he reassured her.

 

“No, I can’t!” she exploded again and pushed herself awkwardly to her feet and hobbled with difficulty over to the window to stand on her left foot, staring down onto the manicured lawns and the ocean beyond. “Don’t you see? Since last night, I haven’t dared be anything but strong – you were hurt, Sydney was hurt, Broots was dead, Debbie was hysterical. I’ve been holding myself together by promising myself that I’ll have the peace and quiet to do my own venting when I get home. But now…”

 

“Parker…”

 

For a long moment, she stood at the window, her one hand over her mouth in an attempt to hold back the tearing sobs that had been threatening all day long and her other hand with an index finger pointed at him to keep him from getting any closer to her. Finally she took in an audible and deep breath, hobbled back to her seat behind the desk, pulled open her desk drawer, and retrieved a set of keys. “Here,” she said unstably, tossing them at the Pretender, who caught them easily. “These are the keys to Syd’s place again. You said you didn’t have a place – I figured maybe you’d be about as comfortable there as anyplace else for the time being. I’m sure Syd wouldn’t mind.”

 

“Parker,” he tried again, pocketing the key ring.

 

“No, Jarod,” she shook her head and pointed again to once more prevent his approach. “Go home to Sydney’s. We’ll talk again in the morning, OK?”

 

The wounded look in Jarod’s dark chocolate eyes was almost more than she could bear, but finally he nodded and turned. With a gesture, he’d signaled to Willy to follow him, and the two men walked slowly from the room.

 

And with that, the façade that Miss Parker had hidden behind for the entire day shattered, and she once more hid her face in her hands. At last, tears that had burned behind her eyes for hours on end were allowed to flow in a hot torrent.

Chapter 21 – Damage Control

 

Rita Miller pushed the button to close the garage door and sighed. It had been a long day of teaching – a day when she was the designated playground monitor always was. But the day had been made longer and harder to bear by knowing that her husband hadn’t come home the night before and being aware of the reason why.

 

She’d known that he was deeply involved in the investigation into the murders of those two girls, and that the case had interfered with his ability to rest for several days running now. But then Dave had called her not long before she’d gone into work that morning and told her what had happened – and her worry-meter had ratcheted up into the frantic zone.

 

His car was in the garage, meaning that whatever the aftermath, he’d come home at last – but in what kind of shape? Dave had sounded near tears when he’d told her about the death of that young officer who’d become attached to him on this case, and she knew that he was taking that death very hard. He’d taken his previous partner’s demise hard, but to lose two partners in very quick succession would be even more difficult for him to handle.

 

Before this case began, he’d finally agreed to start seeing the department shrink before his moodiness and inability to cope ruined their marriage. The one-week’s paid leave they’d given him when “Griz” had been killed had seen far too many arguments and long, tense, silent moments to have been good for either of them. The two sessions he’d had so far had helped matters between them – given him a safe place to vent his emotions without hurting relationships he wanted to preserve. And then this case had landed in his lap before he’d even had a chance to get his balance again as a cop. Now, she feared, it would be another fight to get him to go back to the shrink – vent safely – again.

 

She walked through the garage door and into the kitchen, turning on the light so that she could see better. The house was quiet as a tomb – Dave hadn’t turned on any music to keep himself company while she was still away. After pulling a package of chicken from the freezer to be the entrée for supper, she moved toward the front of the house and walked up the stairs slowly. The bedroom door was closed, not the way they normally left it when both were gone to work – and the sight of it brought the hackles up on the back of her neck. Almost fearful of what she was going to find, she put out her hand and turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly.

 

Her husband was sitting on the end of the bed staring at his reflection in the big mirror of her grandmother’s vanity, with his jacket and overcoat tossed carelessly on the bed next to him. “Dave?” she spoke softly, not wanting to startle him, “Are you OK?”

 

Slowly he shook his head. “I’ve been thinking,” he said gently, watching her put her coat on the bed on top of his and sit down on the mattress next to him, “that maybe the time has come for me to hang it up as a homicide detective and get into another line of work.”

 

Inwardly, Rita cheered. Many had been the times that she’d lain in bed wide awake while he worked his long and sometimes very odd hours, worrying that their last quick kiss goodbye before he’d walked out the door would be the last time she’d see him alive. Hearing about Officer Ryan’s demise had only brought that fear into sharper focus. But still… “But you love police work, honey – and you’re very good at it. You know this and so do I. Are you sure this isn’t just the shock speaking?”

 

His eyes flicked over her face before returning to contemplating his own visage in the mirror. “I’ve lost two partners in less than a month, Babe – the last one before we’d even finished our first case together. I’m thinking that something’s trying to tell me something – and that I need to cut and run while the running’s good, maybe…”

 

“Have you discussed this at all with your Captain?” she asked gently, putting a hand on his shoulder and rubbing it in small circles.

 

“Not yet,” he admitted.

 

“And what about with Dr. Jansen?”

 

“No.”

 

“Don’t you think you should?”

 

He lifted his shoulders almost lifelessly. “I don’t think it would make much of a difference, Babe. I just can’t take it anymore.”

 

Rita turned and placed both her hands on his shoulders and began working her fingers gently and carefully, feeling the knots in his muscles. “What can’t you take?”

 

Miller closed his eyes, feeling guilty at the enjoyment he was getting from the sensation of her hands gently massaging his back. “Losing another partner,” he told her grimly. “Not being able to keep the bad guy from killing innocent people.” He sighed. “Right now, just about everything.”

 

There wasn’t much that she could say in answer to that one, so she leaned forward and dropped a kiss on the back of his neck as she continued her gentle massage. “You have some time off coming, right?” she asked in a whisper. When he nodded his head, she leaned her forehead against the back of his skull. “Then don’t make a hasty decision. Take the time, talk to Dr. Jansen, and really think this through before you make such a big and final decision.”

 

“I was thinking of talking to that Centre fellow – seeing if maybe his security staff might have room for a broken-down, burnt-out old homicide cop,” Miller sighed.

 

“I’m thinking that you’re thinking too much,” Rita told him, her hands at his shoulders finally turning him enough that she could get to his cheek for a sweet peck. “I’m making chicken stir-fry for supper. You’ll feel better when you have some food in you – I’ll bet you didn’t eat all day.”

 

“I’m not hungry,” he replied in a detached tone. “I had a sandwich when I got here – I’m fine.”

 

Rita leaned her head into his shoulder, no longer able to think of a good way to keep the depression that she could see him visibly sliding into at bay. Tomorrow was Saturday – she’d call into the station house and see if she couldn’t convince the Captain to give her Dr. Jansen’s phone number. She wasn’t going to let things get quite so out of hand before calling for help this time. The resignation in his voice was almost as hard to deal with as had been the anger the last time – and she loved him too much to give up on their relationship without a pitched fight.

 

And maybe, once her husband was back on the mend emotionally again, maybe calling that man from the Centre about a security job wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe then she wouldn’t have to worry about him never coming home from work alive again – or getting calls in the middle of the night.

 

oOoOo

 

Miss Parker looked across the kitchen table at Debbie, and then shared a worried glance with Sam. The girl was pushing her chow mein and rice around on her plate dispiritedly, having had only a few mouthfuls of the Chinese take-out that Miss Parker had brought to them when Vince dropped her off after work. She would have said something to Debbie, but even her own appetite was depressed – she was glad she’d not gotten three orders. Sam’s food had vanished quickly, so at least she didn’t have to think that she’d gotten something that didn’t taste good to somebody…

 

“I talked to your father’s lawyer this afternoon,” Miss Parker said quietly, knowing that there would never be a good time to hold this conversation and opting for getting it out of the way as soon as possible. “It seems your dad made a provision in his will to make me your guardian in case something happened to him.” She watched Debbie’s face carefully for response. “So you’ll be living with me from now on – if that’s OK with you…”

 

Debbie gave an odd combination of a nod and a shrug, even as yet another tear found its way to her cheek. “Thank you,” she murmured softly, not having the energy to try to meet Miss Parker’s gaze.

 

Miss Parker looked back at Sam, who was watching Debbie with a very protective and worried look that hadn’t wavered through the entire meal. Obviously something big had happened here today, something that had managed to get to her stoic sweeper more than she’d ever suspected possible. Once Debbie was down for the evening, she would have to have a long talk and find out what that something was. For now, however, the challenge was to get the girl to interact. There were arrangements that needed to be made that would require her input.

 

“I’m thinking that Sunday, I’ll send Vince and Willy over to pack up your stuff to bring over here,” she told her gently. “I’m not sure you’d want to go over there…”

 

“No, I’d want to do some of that myself,” Debbie said in a bleak voice. “And I’d like to pick up a few things… of Dad’s…” Another tear fell.

 

“Of course,” Miss Parker told her gently. “Maybe we’ll all go then.”

 

Debbie looked up at her suddenly. “The man… the one who killed…” She swallowed hard. “Did he die there too?”

 

“Yes,” Miss Parker answered grimly. “Yes, he did.”

 

“Good,” the girl said with dark satisfaction. “I want to see. Is the bloodstain still there?”

 

Miss Parker glanced up at Sam in consternation and saw that he was no more pleased at the thought than she was. “Debbie…”

 

“I need to know that he paid for what he did to Daddy,” Debbie looked back down into her supper, “that he paid for what he did to Sydney.”

 

Then it was like Miss Parker had taken a step backwards in time and was remembering her own attitude when Thomas – her loving Tommy – had been murdered on the front porch of the house they’d been renovating. The need to know that those responsible for his death had paid for their actions had been acute. She knew exactly what it was that Debbie was feeling – and what it would take to satisfy that driving need.

 

“I understand,” she told her honestly. “And I promise you, you can see for yourself – he’s dead. I don’t think anybody’s been there to clean up the blood yet.”

 

Debbie nodded and then pushed her plate away. “I’m really not that hungry, Miss Parker. May I be excused? I think I’m just going to go up to bed.”

 

“Of course.” Miss Parker rose too and gave Debbie a quick but tight hug before she could escape. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

Surprisingly, Debbie didn’t head immediately upstairs, but walked around the corner of the table to claim another quick hug from Sam, who then kissed her forehead tenderly and told her, “Sleep well, Squirt.” Then, at last, she shuffled slowly in the direction of the stairs.

 

“OK, what the hell happened here today?” Miss Parker demanded very softly and vehemently of her sweeper once Debbie was out of earshot. She sat back down and pushed her own meal back. “Spill, and don’t leave anything out.”

 

Sam sighed and nodded. She needed to know what she might be up against.

 

oOoOo

 

Letira folded the last of her skirts and laid them carefully in the large suitcase. With the upset and chaos that came with a new regime at the Centre, much of the reason she and Siskele had come was at least temporarily moot. Only time and patience on the part of the Triumvirate would tell whether the new administration would be more fiscally prudent than its predecessor, or whether they would be continuing the downward spiral of a formerly great and powerful corporation. Either way, the ongoing presence of Triumvirate representatives in this re-organizational time would not be beneficial to either group. It was time to go home to Nairobi.

 

That was fine with her, frankly. She’d seen enough of at least this one of the Council of Three to suit her fancy for a good time to come. She had plenty to spill in to the ear of the Arunga when they got back – along with new suspicions that had been slowly arising as she’d studied the project prospectuses that supposedly were of interest to the Triumvirate. Many of the money-losing aspects of those projects had been under the direct supervision of Siskele Mbala.

 

And while she was willing to concede that Mr. Raines had been an incredibly cruel and maniacal Chairman to even consider some of those projects, it had been surprising to find out just how many of those projects had had Mbala’s fingerprints all over them. Chief among the activities that had sapped the financial strength of the Centre had been the futile and expensive search for Jarod, the Pretender. Now, with the Pretender willingly back at the Centre – albeit in a position of authority, and not virtual slavery in a Sim Lab – there was no reason to even keep that project on the books. And yet, the notes Mbala had made in the project folder showed an intent to not only continue to fund the project, but increase the funding.

 

Then there was the question of just how much Mbala had known about the murderous activities of Lyle Parker. She’d heard rumors in Nairobi of the cannibal that the Centre had cultivated and then nurtured at the highest levels of authority – but the idea that anyone in the Triumvirate would have known, much less used Triumvirate authority to enable, such behavior… When word of THAT got back to the Arunga, who was at heart an ethical and decent man as well as a genius in the world of high finances, it wouldn’t be long before Mbala’s name would come up before the entire consortium for reconsideration – a sure sign that his ability to serve on the Council had been deemed inadequate.

 

An open seat on the Council of Three was all she needed – and Mbala was vulnerable now.

 

There was a knock on the door, and Uluru spoke to her through a small crack that preserved the privacy of the woman inside the bedroom. “You sent for me, ma’am?”

 

“Yes,” Letira nodded. “Come in and sit down.”

 

Uluru was confused. “What can I do for you, ma’am?” she asked, perching herself very precariously on the edge of the chair indicated.

 

“I’m going to need your help, Uluru,” Letira said frankly, seating herself in the chair next to the clerical aide. “The entire consortium may come to depend on you carrying out the instructions I give you now.”

 

Uluru’s eyes widened, and she nodded somberly. “I understand, ma’am. What is it that you want me to do?”

 

Letira rose and moved to her bed, where a wrapped and sealed package was lying to the side of her suitcase. She picked it up and handed it to the nervous young woman. “This is information that the Arunga himself asked me to gather for him. This is a copy of what I have in my own possession.” She seated herself again and leaned toward the clerk. “If something should happen to me…”

 

“Nothing is going to happen!” Uluru burst out in surprise and distress. “Is it, ma’am?”

 

“These can be dangerous times,” Letira answered vaguely. “There are some who came here who would be displeased if this information made it back to Nairobi and the Arunga. I am trusting in you to make sure that, gods forbid, something should make it impossible for me to make the delivery myself, you will see to it that this is placed in the Arunga’s very hands yourself.”

 

Uluru eyed the package in her hands with some trepidation. “And what if, for example, Mr. Mbala asks…”

 

“Mr. Mbala is not to know that you have this, Uluru,” Letira told her firmly. “Nobody is to know about this except the two of us – and the Arunga. Here.” She pulled a sealed envelope from beneath her suitcase and handed that over to the now very wary clerical worker. “This is a letter from me to be handed to the Arunga, explaining everything. Keep both safe and out of sight.”

 

“Ma’am…” Uluru began.

 

“I’m counting on you,” Letira reassured the young woman. “And if we should get back to Nairobi safely, and the time should come when I can ask you for these materials back again, I can assure you that I will have other, more interesting duties for you in the future than simply standing around and taking notes at meetings. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

 

“Y…yes.”

 

“I’m certain that the Arunga will be more than willing to reward your diligence and discretion in seeing to it that this information makes it to him safely as well – and I have recommended you to him in my letter, should it be necessary for you to deliver it.”

 

Uluru, the daughter of a relatively poor merchant from the north of Nairobi, could hardly believe the fortune that was being put within her grasp. She clasped both the package and the envelope tightly. “You can count on me, Miss Balenge.”

 

Letira smiled at her. “I’m sure I can, Uluru. Go now – put these things among your luggage in a way that they won’t be found. Remember, I’m counting on you…”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Uluru left the bedroom and headed toward the door of the suite so that she could go to her own small apartment within the sublevel complex. For a rare chance at advancement within the Triumvirate itself to come her way was a treasure worth its weight in gold and jewels.

 

Letira watched the young woman leave and then walked across the bedroom to sit down on the edge of the bed near the nightstand that held the telephone. She picked up the receiver and dialed a long series of numbers, then waited patiently as the overseas operator took charge of the call and routed it to its destination.

 

“It’s me,” she stated briefly when a familiar voice answered on the other end of the line at last. “I have what you were looking for – and you were right.”

 

oOoOo

 

Jarod moved the straight chair that sat beside the windowsill closer so that he was within reach of the hyperbaric chamber that still held his comatose mentor. The report of the physician, given not long after Jarod had arrived and established himself on the list of permitted visitors, had been encouraging. Sydney had suffered fewer seizures as the day had worn on, and his vital signs were beginning to improve slightly.

 

There was a small window at one end of the cylinder that allowed an observer to gaze in at the face of the chamber’s occupant, and it was next to this window now that Jarod established himself. Willy, he knew, was cooling his heels in the visitor’s lounge at the end of the hallway – whether he would remain there or head back out to wait in the Centre sedan was another question. Jarod still wasn’t altogether comfortable around his newly appointed Centre bodyguard – it was very difficult to forget the way in which Centre sweepers had treated him for the better part of his life, Willy being one of the worst of the lot.

 

In the time he’d spent inside the hyperbaric chamber, Sydney’s face had lost a little of the extreme ruddiness that was one of the hallmarks of carbon monoxide poisoning; and Jarod began to allow himself to breath a small sigh of relief. With a great deal of luck, and with a talented technician to man the controls of the chamber as Sydney’s condition changed, it was possible to reduce the residual damage left behind to a case of unsteady hands – combined perhaps with an early difficulty in concentration or memory retrieval that would ease with time, therapy and retraining. The fact that Sydney hadn’t been seizing violently when he was brought in was in itself reason for hope.

 

There was a switch to the left of the little window for an intercom system, and Jarod turned the combination speaker-microphone on. It was said that those who were in coma could hear what was going on around them – and that stimulation often assisted in a faster recovery, if possible. “Hi, Sydney, it’s me,” he stated in a gentle voice that shook at the outset. “The doctor said that you’re getting better – I don’t know if he said anything to you about it, but I thought I’d tell you.”

 

“A lot has happened since last we had a chance to talk. We got him, Sydney – we got Cox. And even before that, we’d got all the evidence we needed to clear your name once and for all. Hell, even Lyle’s name has been cleared in these two cases – although I made a few phone calls to some FBI friends of mine and got him back on the hot seat for some of his own work across the country a few years back. What’s more, Cox is dead. We won’t have to worry about him ever bothering any of us again – or eluding justice on a legal technicality.”

 

Jarod leaned his forehead against the thick metal casing for the little window. “Miss Parker gave me the key to your place and permission to stay there for a while – I hope you don’t mind. I’ll see about taking care of your bonsai while you’re not feeling well, since I’m there. I checked them last night when I was there – the ficus certainly has filled out nicely since last I was with you in the arboretum. You’ll have to tell me when the pruning is due, though.

 

“Oh, yeah – Miss Parker made me her co-Chairman at the Centre today. I don’t think it sat very well with the guy from the Triumvirate, but she was in one of her don’t-mess-with-me moods and told him exactly what was what. I told her things went down too easily – we’ll have to watch those people until they finally head home. Miss Parker wants to declare independence from them – and I’m not sure how well that’s going to go over in Nairobi in the end either.”

 

He sighed again. “C’mon, Sydney. Time to wake up. Miss Parker needs you badly – and I need you too. I don’t think either of us are going to be able to handle the job of running the Centre properly if you aren’t there to back-seat drive.” He would have told him that Debbie was going to need his talents as a therapist desperately, but there was a chance that Sydney didn’t know that Broots was gone yet – and he wasn’t going to be the one bringing a comatose man that kind of bad news.

 

“I suppose I should go. Willy’s waiting to drive me over to your house to spend the night – I’ll just grab a pillow and a blanket out of the linen closet and bunk down on the couch, if that’s all right with you. I might even see what I can do to remove some of those motion detectors and cameras that I put in yesterday – at least when you come home, you won’t have to worry about anybody keeping track of you electronically in your own home.”

 

Somehow, putting his hand on the cold metal of the chamber was less than satisfying. “I… we… miss you, Sydney. Get better soon. I’ll be back tomorrow evening about this time. Hope I catch you awake next time. See you later.”

 

Jarod clicked the switch to the OFF position, rose and pulled the chair back to where it had been when he’d entered the room. Then, taking one last look through the little window of the chamber, he walked away. It surprised him how much it hurt to walk away when Sydney was like this – helpless – but there was no alternative. He could only wait and hope with the rest of them that the older psychiatrist would awaken from his deep sleep and be the same person he’d been before.

 

oOoOo

 

This wasn’t what Siskele Mbala had been hoping to be doing at this time of the day on this particular day. His intentions had been to be spreading out a definitively African presence throughout the Centre complex, redefining what it meant to work for the Centre. Instead, here he was in his luxury suite of rooms while a completely new administration picked up the reins of control outside those thick, double doors.

 

Bringing the Centre to its knees so that he could swoop in and “save” it had been his plan for a long time – it was the only reason that he had tolerated the excesses and insanities that had spewed forth from a Raines Chairmanship, or protected the vile cannibal Lyle. It had been generally accepted that Miss Parker, although raised to rule the Centre from infancy, had been proven too weak and sentimental for the job as the result of her inability to bring Jarod back into the fold. In fact, his entire plan for the day when the Raines administration died with its leader had been to depend upon her very vocal and obvious distaste for remaining at the Centre if opportunity for her to be free presented itself.

 

Insistence upon a joint Chairmanship with the Parker siblings, then, had been a pivotal element in his overall plan. Soon after the twins had taken over, he would have brought proof of Lyle’s depravities to the Arunga as reason to simply remove him from the equation – and combined with an offer of the freedom to leave the Centre without fear to Miss Parker, he would have been able to solidify his hold on the Centre. Then there would have been no question of his election to the seat of Arunga when Otamo Adinde became too old and feeble to retain the post.

 

And now…

 

That Balenge bitch knew too much now – thanks to Jarod and his big mouth. The Arunga had been very lenient with giving him oversight of the Centre; if she should report that he had been party to enabling a monster, it was sure to mean that his position on the Council of Three would come under very intense scrutiny. That situation couldn’t be allowed to continue, but his available resources to remove the problem without calling attention to his complicity were seriously limited.

 

Mbala moved smoothly to the double door and opened it, thinking to head down to the smaller suite that had been assigned to the Triumvirate security detail. It was time to have a nice talk with one of the bodyguards he knew could be trusted with small and delicate tasks – like the poisoning of a certain nosey consortium member who knew too much. A trip to the Centre arboretum before that might not be such a bad idea either. He had come to Delaware without any of his usual herbal concoctions, but he knew that some of the more potent ingredients had been part of another quiet project he’d pushed Raines into carrying out with the cooperation of the botanical department. What had been a small caprice was now proving a definite convenience.

 

To do it here, to have a Triumvirate consortium member die here at the Centre during the chaos of their administration change, might just be the destabilizing event he’d needed after all. Maybe the day wouldn’t such a loss after all…

 

Mbala skidded to a halt, however, at the sight of two husky Centre sweepers posted just outside his door that rose together. “Did you need something, sir?” the taller of the men asked solicitously.

 

“No,” Mbala replied, disgusted. “Actually, I was just thinking of taking a walk – nothing to concern yourself about…”

 

“With respect, sir, Miss Parker and Mr. Bailey have requested that you remain in your suite,” the sweeper replied evenly. “They are concerned that the Centre cannot see to your safety and that of your companion otherwise.”

 

“Do you mean that I’m a prisoner here?” Mbala allowed the shock and frustration he was feeling show clearly in his voice.

 

“Not at all, sir,” the other sweeper answered after a glance at his partner. “I will be glad to accompany you anywhere you wish to go.”

 

Damn! With a Centre sweeper in tow, watching his ever action, it would be impossible to harvest any of the deadlier blossoms from the arboretum. Once more, the team that was taking over the Centre was stymieing his ability to do what he needed to do. “Thank you all the same, but I think I’ll just stay here.”

 

As Mbala opened the double doors to slink back into the suite he was sharing with someone he now fervently wished dead, he could now hear the telephone ringing. It ceased when evidently Letira picked it up in her bedroom. A long moment passed – a moment that Mbala spent stalking over toward his own room – and then the door to her bedroom opened. “Siskele,” she called gently, “the call is for you – the Arunga.”

 

He stared at her but could sense no duplicity. Perhaps she really didn’t understand the hornet’s nest that was about to break over her head – surely he wasn’t going to let her know about it himself. “Thank you, Letira,” he replied with a condescending tone. “I’ll take it in my room.”

 

She nodded and retreated back into the sanctity of her room, and Mbala crossed the suite and closed the bedroom door behind him. He picked up the receiver. “Otamo – it is GOOD to hear from you.”

 

“Siskele…” the voice in his ear was strong and neutral – and there was no way of telling what Letira had managed to tell him from the tone. “I understand there is a new administration at the Centre now than when you arrived.”

 

“Yes. We have the Pretender back at the Centre – Miss Parker has demanded that he share the Chairman’s duties with her…”

 

“Interesting,” commented the man whose title was the name for the staff carried by the herders on the range back home. “This means that much of the reason for your visit is no longer necessary at the moment. We must give this new administration the opportunity to assess the situation without our interference, don’t you agree?”

 

“With all due respect, Otamo, now would be a good time to be watching very carefully over their shoulder, to make sure that they give the proper attention to Triumvirate interests,” he countered. No! Now was NOT the time to be called back to Nairobi – not when he was so close…

 

“Are you saying that Miss Parker, who has a family interest in the Centre’s continued viability, and Jarod, who knows the intricacies of the Centre inside and out, are incapable of allotting proper attention without supervision?” The Arunga sounded astonished.

 

Mbala pressed his point. “Now is not the time to take chances. The Centre has been hemorrhaging dollars as if a vein had been opened. We need to be ready to…”

 

“To what, Siskele?” the Arunga asked pointedly. “We do not own the Centre – despite the best efforts by both Mutumbo and Adama to the contrary. Both perished as the results of their attempts – and that was a lesson the Triumvirate has learned well.”

 

“Otamo…”

 

“No. I want you and your entourage to head home tomorrow morning. There are matters that need your attention here, and neither I nor Kinse are willing to sit around and wait for an indeterminate amount of time for you to return and help us address them.” The Arunga’s voice was very firm. “I’ve already informed Letira of my decision, and my secretary has called the Centre airstrip to have the pilot and jet ready to leave first thing.”

 

Mbala was seething, but there was no remedy. “I think you’re making a mistake,” he cautioned in a grim tone, “but we’ll be in the air in the morning.”

 

“Good.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded satisfied. “I will see you when you get back. Safe journey, Siskele.”

 

Mbala hung up the phone and immediately let loose with a long line of Swahili obscenities.

Chapter 22 – One Day at a Time

 

Jarod moved through the opening to the lathe house that occupied fully half of Sydney’s back porch with the small watering can. He could still remember, from years long gone, the schedule of watering that Sydney had insisted on giving his beloved bonsai – a small drink every other day would keep them from either drying out or drowning. Yesterday, the trees had had nothing, so this morning would have to be the beginning of a new every other day schedule. It could be an early morning ritual for him, something that would need doing before he could call himself ready to go to work.

 

As he walked along the line of shelves, he could see the patience and skill that had gone into the careful training of the plants. He blinked in surprise when he came upon the sole juniper in the lot – a plant he could remember watching Sydney move from its nursery-bought tub and into a formal bonsai planter more than twelve years earlier. From the looks of some of the wire that was carefully training the branches into a wind-swept look, Sydney hadn’t changed the wire at all in the years since they had repotted the plant. In other places, however, some of the copper wire looked shiny and new, as if it was a recent decision to choose just that sprig to become another weather-trained branch. Certainly the juniper looked far more like a weathered and wind-blown tree now than it had when Sydney had finished working with it twelve years ago.

 

Sydney loved these plants and tended them with a care and diligence that sometimes had made Jarod a little jealous when he was younger. In those days, he would stand back and watch his mentor move through his miniature forest, pinching a new and unwanted sprout here, smoothing soil away from an exposed root there – and he would wonder what it would be like to be the recipient of that level of caring from his mentor.

 

He finished giving each of the dozen or so pots their little drinks and took his musing back into the house to stand staring once more at the mantle with its confusing array of photographs. What did it mean that Sydney, who had gone to so much time and effort to disavow any paternal feelings or intentions, had a picture of his protégé in a very open and public place for anybody visiting the house to see and assume to be his son – while he, who had always wanted Sydney as a father-figure, had no photograph of his mentor whatsoever in his possession?

 

There were no answers for him here, only reiterations of questions that were becoming downright haunting. He needed to talk to Sydney – to set aside all of the obstacles he’d managed to erect between them since his escape – so that they could finally communicate like one human being to another. If nothing else, he needed Sydney to know that his feelings hadn’t changed in all those years – he still thought of Sydney like a father, and wanted and needed that sentiment to be returned in a manner he could understand. Only now he also desperately needed to know if it actually had been that way all along, that he just hadn’t been in the right place to see it for himself.

 

A knock sounded at the front door, and Jarod checked to make sure that it was Willy, there to pick him up and take him in to work before releasing the security chain and opening the door. Jarod bent and reached for the briefcase that he’d liberated from Lyle’s office while cleaning it out – although it was currently empty, he had no doubt that this wouldn’t be the situation for very long.

 

“Ready?” Willy asked with calm efficiency.

 

“Let’s go,” Jarod told him and followed him to the black sedan parked in front of the house, working hard not to shudder when he thought about how this very action seemed a repudiation of his entire life on the run. Had he finally been tamed – caught in a net of his own weaving and now domesticated to live his life working for the firm he’d tried so desperately to escape? Here he was, complacently following one of the most hated figures from his childhood to a car that would take him to the Centre. Where was the rebel who had found great joy and pride in eluding this man and those like him? Had he finally been broken – trained like a puppy to heel on command?

 

Maybe that was the price he paid for being responsible for Broots’ death and Sydney’s brush with death. After all, it wasn’t as if he could trust himself to go back to helping the underdogs of the world gain a small portion of justice. Miss Parker was doing him a favor, really – taking him in and giving him a sense of purpose when all he really wanted to do was slip down into the apartment down the corridor from the Sim Lab and curl up into a corner.

 

It was Saturday – a day when normal people didn’t go into the office. What was he doing?

 

He felt rather than saw the car door close next to him, and then Willy was slipping behind the steering wheel. Jarod sighed deeply and turned to once more watch silently as the scenery that lay between Blue Cove and the gates of the Centre would slide past. And whenever he started to feel sorry for himself, he brutally brought to mind the vision of Sydney, supine and unconscious in that hyperbaric chamber.

 

And at long last, he understood the gilded cage that had held Miss Parker in place for so many years – because he had willing walked into one just like it.

 

oOoOo

 

“Miss Parker, Mr. Mbala and Ms. Balenge are here to see you,” Dolores announced over the telephone.

 

“Is Mr. Bailey in yet?” Miss Parker asked, flipping her wrist over and looking at the time. It was eight o’clock on a Saturday morning – she hoped Jarod wouldn’t decide to sleep in.

 

“He’s on his way in, ma’am,” her new secretary answered.

 

“Well, show our Triumvirate guests in, and tell Mr. Bailey to join us as soon as he arrives,” she directed, and then set her first mug of coffee to the side and watched the glass doors of her office open to admit the Africans. “Good morning,” she greeted them with a bow from her waist. “Would either of you care for some coffee?”

 

“No,” Mbala stated very formally. “We’re here merely as a courtesy, to inform you that our task here at the Centre has concluded, and we’re on our way home to Africa this morning.”

 

Miss Parker’s eyebrows rose, and she moved her glance to the tall and graceful woman at Mbala’s side, who had already taken her seat. Letira looked a bit like the cat that ate the canary, she decided, while Mbala looked as if he’d just swallowed something extremely bad-tasting. “I hope that you’ve found everything that you needed, and that my staff has been helpful…”

 

“Considering the rather chaotic chain of events that unfolded while we were here,” Letira said before Mbala could open his mouth again, “your people have been remarkable cooperative.”

 

“Indeed,” Mbala added reluctantly, finally seating himself when Miss Parker gestured him to his seat. “We look forward to working with you and your staff again, Miss Parker.”

 

There was a soft knock on the glass doors, and then Jarod was walking through with a smile on his face that Miss Parker could easily see had been pasted on rather hurriedly. “Mr. Mbala, Ms. Balenge, my apologies for being late.”

 

“They were just telling me that they’re on their way home, Jarod,” Miss Parker announced as her co-Chairman came close enough to her visitors to shake hands.

 

“I trust you found everything satisfactory.”

 

Letira nodded. “We were just telling Miss Parker that we look forward to working with her and her staff again in the future.”

 

Jarod’s gaze swung around to Mbala, who he found staring at him with an indescribable expression behind his eyes. “Mr. Mbala – is something amiss?”

 

Mbala shook himself. “No, no. It must be… I never rest well before a long journey – it must be fatigue.” He rose. “We should be taking our leave of you now.”

 

Jarod stuck his hand out again. “Have a safe trip home, sir,” he told the unhappy African, and then bowed over Letira’s hand. “I trust this won’t be the last time we see you here with us.”

 

Letira’s lips twitched as she accepted the extremely gallant gesture, knowing that it had but rubbed salt in Mbala’s distress at being ordered home before he could put any other schemes into the works. “Thank you, Mr. Bailey,” she answered demurely, finally rising. “And thank you to you both for your hospitality.” She turned and inserted her hand in her colleague’s arm. “Come, Siskele, we don’t want to miss our plane.”

 

Mbala’s farewell nod in the direction of the co-Chairmen was perfunctory, and then he’d taken the lead and was moving the two of them across the office and out the door again.

 

Miss Parker waited until the door was closed behind them before she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “I wasn’t ready for that this early in the morning.”

 

“Nor was I,” Jarod agreed. The false smile had evaporated, and he sank into the chair that Letira had recently vacated with a sigh. “So what’s on the docket for today, Boss-Lady?” came out with a decided Southern accent.

 

“Stop it. I’m not in the mood,” she grumbled at him.

 

“Neither am I,” he responded. “You know, it occurred to me on the way in today that it’s Saturday.”

 

Miss Parker closed her eyes and nodded. “I know. If there were any other way…”

 

“I hope that I’m not going to be trapped into working a seven-day work week from now on,” he continued, “because it will make me want to seriously reconsider our agreement.”

 

“Jarod…”

 

He shook his head. “No, Parker, think about it. The Triumvirate is gone – they’re out of our hair. Cox is dead. Lyle’s in jail and bound to stay there for a very long time. We have loved ones in the hospital or at home needing our attention.” He leaned forward. “Tell me what is so damned important HERE that we can’t let it wait until Monday so that we can take care of family business.” There was a flash in her grey eyes before she looked away from him that told him that something was seriously amiss. “What’s going on, Parker?” he asked softly. “Talk to me.”

 

“It… it’s Debbie. Sam…” She sighed and put her forehead in the hand free of a cast. “Sam stopped her from attempting suicide yesterday.” She looked up. “I don’t know what to do, Jarod. I’m not a psychiatrist – Hell, I feel my own hold on sanity has gotten pretty loose lately.”

 

Jarod sat back in the chair and gave the situation the attention and concentration it merited. “Ignoring the problem isn’t going to help,” he began in an understanding tone that took much of the sting from his words, “nor is praying that Sam stays so completely on the ball.”

 

“I know that,” she snapped at him. “Tell me something new.”

 

“All right,” he agreed readily enough. “Here’s an original thought for you: go home.” He gazed at her pointedly. “Debbie needs you there – not here.”

 

“I told you, I don’t know what to do – and I don’t want to make a bad situation any worse…” she exclaimed. “I had thought, for a while, that maybe I should bring her in here – let one of Sydney’s colleagues work with her…”

 

“I doubt that will be necessary,” he disagreed with her mildly. “You are the closest person she has to a parent now, Parker. Her parents are both dead now. She needs you desperately, and she needs you not to be so obsessed with this damned place…” His hand swept around the room in a manner that was clear. “…that you neglect her in much the same way you were neglected when you were younger. Don’t make Mr. Parker’s mistake. Know when to take personal time, when to pay attention to a young girl who needs your full attention to get over a rough patch in her life right now.”

 

“Jarod, you’ve Pretended to be a therapist at least once that I know of – you can talk to her…” she blurted out.

 

Jarod’s smile was a sad one as he shook his head. “I hate to tell you this, but at the moment I’m in the same boat as you are. My hold on my sanity right now is about as tenuous as it gets. I still can’t shake the feeling that Broots’ death is my fault for not getting there soon enough, and I blame myself for Sydney’s being in the shape he’s in. I don’t know that I can effectively help neutralize Debbie’s grief with that kind of baggage floating around in my own mind.” He sighed. “I told you, I can’t trust myself anymore.”

 

“You could SIM Sydney,” she suggested desperately.

 

“And you could SIM your mother, for that matter,” he returned pointedly. “I have a feeling that would be the more effective answer.”

 

She stared at him for a long moment. “Will you come with me, then, for Debbie’s sake?” she asked again, reaching for her crutches. “I don’t think I can handle this alone, to be honest, and it isn’t fair to Sam to become a perpetual babysitter.” She saw his hesitation and nodded in acquiescence. “I’ll SIM my mom if you’ll SIM Sydney. Maybe between the two of us, and the two of them, we should be able to help her a little bit, don’t you think?”

 

oOoOo

 

“Stick around for a while,” Jarod told Vince as the two men climbed from the sedan and the sweeper reached for Miss Parker’s door. “You can take Sam home and then take a day for yourself.”

 

“Miss Parker?” Vince wasn’t ready to take orders from this upstart and former fugitive – HE had been assigned to Miss Parker and, by God, would take his orders directly from her and nobody else.

 

“It’s OK, Vince,” Miss Parker smiled, finding her new sweeper’s surge of protectiveness both amusing and comforting. “Jarod’s right. Take Sam home, and then take the rest of the day for yourself. Call here tomorrow morning – I’ll tell you if I need you.” She shrugged at Jarod, who simply sighed and then moved to her side. “Wait here – Sam will be out shortly.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Vince leaned against the hood of the sedan with his arms crossed over his chest and watched the wily Pretender patiently assist his boss up the steps of the front porch.

 

“I don’t think he trusts me,” Jarod commented quietly to her as she caught her breath after working her crutches to climb the steps.

 

“No shit, Sherlock,” she replied, then shook her head at his frustrated expression. “I’m sure you feel it too – they’ve had it pounded into them to think of you as an adversary for years. It will take a while to wrap their minds around the fact that you’re now, in fact, as much their boss as I am.” She pushed open the front door and let him walk into her house ahead of her.

 

Sam and Debbie were on the couch, squared off over a checkerboard – and while the look on Sam’s face betrayed the fact that she was once more beating the pants off of him, the look of resignation on Debbie’s face was troubling. A quick glance at Jarod’s face told Miss Parker than he’d seen exactly what she had.

 

“You’re home early, Miss P,” Sam said in consternation, rising and shooting Jarod a suspicious glance. “Is everything OK?”

 

“Yeah,” she soothed with a gesture. “I just realized that today was Saturday – and that I had more important things to do than be at work.”

 

Sam frowned. “The Triumvirate…”

 

“Left for Africa this morning,” she told him as she made her way to one of the easy chairs. “There isn’t anything that is so pressing or desperate that it can’t wait until Monday morning, as Jarod so vividly pointed out to me a little while ago.”

 

The sweeper nodded and looked down at the checkerboard, finally moving the only piece that had a move that wouldn’t result in Debbie’s cleaning him off the board. “So what’s up for the rest of the day?”

 

“I thought you might like to have some time off too,” she told him gently, and then nodded when he looked up at her in surprise. “You’ve earned it. Finish your game, and then Vince is waiting to drive you home.”

 

“There’s a Centre car here already,” Sam began and then stopped suddenly. “Oh, yeah – you’d need transportation yourself, since your car’s been totaled.”

 

“If you want to go, we can just keep the board set up,” Debbie offered with a sad sigh.

 

Sam saw Miss Parker’s very vague shake of the head and then shook his own. “Nah. Let’s finish this one, Squirt – as long as you promise to give me a chance to win back my honor next time around.” He smiled encouragingly at the girl, and saw her take a small breath of relief as she looked back down at the board.

 

“C’mon, Jarod – let’s go see what you can help me rustle up for lunch.” Miss Parker rose to her feet and moved carefully past the checkerboard. She paused suddenly and then turned to face the Pretender, searching his face. “I think we can feed Sam before he takes off, don’t you?”

 

“Absolutely,” Jarod answered, seeing the girl on the couch glance up and smile at the sweeper with a brief display of fondness at the statement.

 

“Sam, when you’re done with the game, go have Vince come in,” Miss Parker amended her instructions. “It wouldn’t be fair for us to eat and leave him out there, alone and hungry.”

 

Sam blinked, and then nodded. “Yes, Miss Parker.”

 

“Your move, Sam,” Debbie told him when he’d returned his attention to the board.

 

He followed Miss Parker into the kitchen. “She’s attached herself rather firmly to him, you know,” he pointed out.

 

“I know.” She slumped a little. “He’s the one who’s been here for her – he’s the one who stopped her from doing herself harm, watched over her and comforted her until she went to bed last night, and then took over from me after about the second set of screams and stayed in her room with her.” She glanced in Jarod’s direction and then busied herself digging for a loaf of bread. “I told you I wasn’t good at playing Mommy – and now I’m afraid…”

 

“It will be OK,” he reassured her, walking over to the fridge and pulling it open to check out the contents for sandwich makings. “She’ll come to you, don’t worry. You know what she’s going through, after all – for you, it was your mother’s suicide.”

 

“Alleged suicide,” she corrected him tiredly. “And I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. That’s about as close to this situation.” Her eyes turned tragic. “Oh God – I don’t know if I can do this… It hurts so much…”

 

“Sure you can – just be there for her the way you wished your father could have been there for you,” he counseled her, reaching into the fridge for the sliced beef and a brick of cheese to make into sandwiches, spying the mayonnaise on a lower shelf.

 

“The way Sydney tried to be,” she remembered, pausing in her laying out the slices of bread, “until my… Mr. Parker had me taken away.”

 

“All right, then,” Jarod handed her the meat and cheese as well as a jar of mayonnaise, his fingers touching hers during the transfer. “Be there for her the way Sydney was for you for however short a time he was there, then. You know how she feels, what she needs…”

 

“A shoulder to lean on, to cry on,” she nodded, deliberately pulling her mind away from the fact that right now she wanted Sydney – wanted to be able to lean against his stoic nature and know that the world would eventually stop pitching and tipping around here. Funny how she’d never considered how much a part of the stability of her world that stubborn and very private man had been over the years.

 

“And some stability when everything around her seems topsy-turvy,” he added with a nod of agreement. “Broots felt you could give her these things if he wasn’t around – and I’ve learned that Broots was a very intelligent and perceptive man, for the most part. He knew what he was doing…”

 

Miss Parker felt her eyes fill again at the thought of her friend. “I miss him,” she admitted softly.

 

“I know,” Jarod debated and then let his hand smooth across her shoulders carefully. “And Debbie needs to know this too. She needs to have someone to grieve with – someone who misses her dad as much as she does, so that she can know that it’s OK to be sad and feel bad and be hurt for a while.”

 

“You know,” she responded eventually, after she’d pulled herself back together and then shot him a very sharp and measuring glance, “when I asked you to SIM Sydney, I meant for you to do it for Debbie, not me…”

 

Jarod’s hand moved gently in small circles on her shoulders again. “I AM doing this for Debbie,” he told her truthfully, “and for you too. Maybe even for myself. Right now I’d do almost anything to hear a Belgian accent again.”

 

“I know,” she agreed with a voice that caught. “I know.” And with that, she put down the knife she’d been preparing to stick into the mayonnaise jar and turned to Jarod, leaning suddenly into his shoulder.

 

Startled, Jarod put a cautious hand to her waist and let the hand that had already been at her shoulder surround her. “It will be all right,” he soothed, not sure if he was talking to himself or to her but glad that they were, for once, not bickering but sharing in their anguish over a man they both cared for.

 

oOoOo

 

“You’ll be back later?” Debbie asked Sam as she gave him a very tight hug that bordered on clinging.

 

“You’ve got Miss Parker with you now,” the sweeper told her gently, his arms around her too. “But I’ll call over in the morning to see how things are going – and Miss Parker told me something about a trip over to your… your house to pick up some things tomorrow – I’ll help out there, if you want…”

 

“OK,” Debbie said and kissed the big man’s cheek. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Sam dropped a kiss onto a pale forehead and cupped a cheek with a hand as he stepped back. “You be good, now, Squirt – no more funny stuff. Promise me?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he caught her chin in his fingers and made her look at him. “Promise me,” he insisted very quietly but firmly.

 

Finally she nodded against his hand. “I promise,” she conceded.

 

Sam kissed her again. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told her and then straightened. “See you later, Miss Parker.”

 

“Thanks for all your help,” Miss Parker said earnestly. “You’ve gone above and beyond this time – I owe you huge.”

 

Debbie caught her breath at the phrase that had been one of her Dad’s, and Sam saw Miss Parker move as quickly and carefully as she could to get closer to the girl. “I’ll call in the morning. What time do you expect things to happen… over there?”

 

“Call about eight – we’ll figure it out from there.”

 

The sweeper nodded and followed Vince out to the car for his ride home. Debbie sidled away from Miss Parker and over to where the checkerboard still sat and slowly began putting the game away.

 

“I think this is your chance to talk to her,” Jarod told Miss Parker in a very quiet voice, “and you need privacy to do it in. I told Sydney I’d be back to see him today – so I’m going to walk back into town and then take his car to Dover. You have my cell phone if you need me.”

 

“Jarod…” Storm-grey eyes looked into his face nervously.

 

“You’ll do fine,” he reassured her yet again. “Just remember what you needed, and give it to her. And don’t be afraid to let her see your grief – she needs to know it’s OK to feel that way before it eats her alive.”

 

“You’ll come back?” she asked, her eye already on the girl folding the checkerboard.

 

“I’ll stop by on my way back to Sydney’s,” he promised. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine.” In yet another moment of impulse, he kissed Miss Parker’s cheek gently before turning and walking out the door, leaving the two alone.

 

Debbie had finished packing up the game and was now sitting quietly on the couch, staring at her hands. Sam – the rock to which she’d clung for the last day – was gone. Miss Parker was here with her, but she didn’t know how to reach out to her anymore. After all, it was all her fault that Sydney was hurt, that her Dad was dead and had burdened his boss with a child she’d never wanted. All of the harm she’d done to a lady who’d been kind to her – how could she ever look her in the eye again?

 

Miss Parker could see some of what was going on inside Broots’ daughter – the careful façade behind which a shattered soul was cowering – and remembered back to the reception of her mother’s wake, when Sydney had come to her. Again, the thought of Sydney led her to think of him now, in the hospital on death’s door; and that thought hurt desperately – but it showed her clearly what she needed to do. She made her way slowly to where she could sit down on the couch next to Debbie, stow her crutches on the floor at her feet, and then reached out for the girl’s hands.

 

“I know…” she started awkwardly, tucking Debbie’s hands carefully between her own, “I know some of what you’re going through. When my mother died, I was devastated – beyond grief. I didn’t know what to think, how to react – I didn’t want to feel, to remember…” Her voice shook. “I kept asking myself over and over if I’d done something wrong, if I’d been the reason she was dead.”

 

“I know,” Debbie found herself agreeing, tears spilling easily at the sound of her own thoughts coming from the lips of another. “It IS all my fault that Daddy died.”

 

Miss Parker closed her eyes and struggled to work against the memory of that long-past agony so that it wouldn’t debilitate her for what she needed to do. “As time when by, I let someone convince me that I shouldn’t show people how much it hurt – I hurt – that if I did, I was being weak and overly emotional and hurting others. I was taught that when others reached out to me, to comfort me or help me, I should pull back and away from them – that I could handle it all on my own. I was a Parker.” Her voice gained almost the growling tone with which Mr. Parker had pounded in that lesson over and over again. “But it didn’t help – I missed my mom more than ever, and I hurt so bad…”

 

Debbie choked a sob back, but listened carefully.

 

“The person who told me those things was wrong, Debbie,” Miss Parker told her in a shaking voice. “When I didn’t let others help me, when I pulled back or pretended to be OK when I wasn’t, I only made it harder for myself. There were even a few times when I hurt so bad that I thought the only way to stop the hurt was to kill myself – just like she had.”

 

Debbie’s breathing stopped for a second, and she looked up into Miss Parker’s face to find that the calm and collected woman who had been her father’s boss had tears running down her face too. “What happened?” she asked in a whisper.

 

“It didn’t work, obviously,” Miss Parker breathed out in a sobbing chuckle that released some of the emotions that were driving her now, “because I’m still here, aren’t I?” How had she forgotten that it was Sydney that had found her in the Sim Lab restroom and nursed her until she could handle herself again after an attempted overdose – successfully keeping knowledge of her act of desperation from Mr. Parker? “But I didn’t let others know I hurt – and I made it worse for myself.” What would have happened, she wondered suddenly, if she’d let Sydney talk to her at length afterwards, rather than avoid him for weeks and then avoid the topic completely? “I didn’t get over my mother’s death for a very, very long time. You remember – I still wasn’t really over it the first time I spent time with you.”

 

“I remember,” she whispered.

 

The hands that held Debbie’s hands tightened. “I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did,” Miss Parker stated, her voice no longer shaking so badly. “I don’t want you holding in your pain because you’re afraid to be seen as weak, or because you’re afraid it will hurt more to let it out. And harming yourself won’t solve the problem either. It won’t bring your father back.”

 

“Sam told you,” Debbie stated, her posture wilting.

 

“He was afraid you’d try it again – he was protecting you,” Miss Parker told her urgently.

 

“I killed my Dad,” Debbie accused herself bitterly. “I forgot my notebook and sent him home when it was dangerous, and he died…”

 

“Debbie,” Miss Parker sighed and pulled the girl into her arms, “You didn’t kill your dad – a very evil man did that. Yes, you forgot your notebook, and he went back to your house to get it for you, but that’s making a mistake, not killing him. And the mistake wasn’t all yours - your dad knew how dangerous it was for him to be out and about. He didn’t have to go, you know. He chose to.”

 

“But…” Debbie was shaking her head, “if he hadn’t… if I hadn’t forgotten… he’d still be here… and Sydney…”

 

“Sydney knew exactly what he was walking into, Debbie,” Miss Parker insisted. “If I know Sydney at all, he was going to try to help your dad. Sydney not only knew it was dangerous, but knew he wasn’t supposed to go anywhere – and he went anyway. It was his choice.”

 

“And now he’s almost dead too…” Debbie choked. “Can’t you see, I did it…”

 

“No, baby, all I can see is you trying to take the blame for what others did,” Miss Parker rocked her. “I miss your Daddy too, but I know for a fact that you didn’t kill him.” She thought for a long moment, then set Debbie back far enough that she could look into her face. “And I know that he’d probably be pretty ticked at you for tearing yourself apart like this – you know that too.”

 

Tear-filled blue eyes met tear-filled grey eyes. “Really?”

 

“Your Daddy loved you more than he loved anyone or anything else in the world – and he’d defend you against just about anything. Do you really think he’d blame you?”

 

Debbie thought for a very long moment – and remembered what had been said in the moments just before her father had left to fetch the notebook. “If it were anybody else but you,” he’d said with a twisted smile, pulling out his car keys. “But we can’t have you flunking your class, now, can we?” He’d kissed her cheek. “Do what you can while I’m gone – and I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Love you, Sweet Pea.”

 

Slowly she shook her head, and the tears flowed freely. The nightmares had been only that – nightmares. Miss Parker was right. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. Daddy probably wouldn’t blame her, but she still blamed herself. It was her mistake that had set everything into motion.

 

“I know you are,” Miss Parker gathered her close again.

 

“And I’m so sorry about Sydney – I know he’s like your Daddy too…”

 

Miss Parker closed her eyes tightly. Out of the mouths of babes… “He wouldn’t blame you either, Debbie,” she insisted. “You know that.”

 

“Really?” The question was so quiet that it was practically inaudible.

 

“Really.” The reply was equally quiet, but no less firm.

 

“I’m so sorry that you’re stuck with me now…”

 

“Oh, Debbie, I’m not ‘stuck with you’,” Miss Parker exclaimed and hugged her tightly. “I’m honored that your father trusted you in my care – and that you’d be willing to stay here with me.”

 

“I just want my Daddy back,” Debbie whispered and broke into harsh weeping.

 

Miss Parker hugged her closer as tears streamed down her face. “I know, Debbie,” she whispered into her hair. “I know. It’s OK. I’ve got you.” She clung to Debbie tightly and finally let herself cry too – cry for her mother long-dead, for a father who had stepped out of an airplane and fallen into a storm-tossed nighttime Atlantic Ocean, for a friend dead at the hands of a fiend, and for a man hovering between life and death in the hospital in Dover.

Chapter 23 – Turning Points

 

 

As Jarod approached the ICU, he caught sight of Sydney’s doctor just leaving and with a call to stay his step a moment, trotted up to the man. “How’s he doing?”

 

“Physically, your father’s doing well,” Dr. Langley told the young man who acted so very much like his patient’s son that he no longer questioned the different last names. “His heart rhythm has stabilized completely in the last twenty-four hours, and there have been no more seizures for the past twelve hours. We’ll be treating him in the chamber a few more times, and then simply keep him on 100% oxygen pending his regaining consciousness.”

 

“What about cerebral edema?” Jarod asked, voicing his worst fear – that his mentor’s higher brain functions might have been damaged or permanently impaired by the brain swelling that was one of the more dangerous and potentially catastrophic consequences of carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

“We have been able to control that, for the most part,” the doctor assured him. “When he was first brought in, we installed an intracranial pressure monitor – and we’ve drained fluid away several times when the pressure reached a dangerous level. With luck, we’ve prevented most of the potential damage from that condition – although I must be honest with you. Your father has suffered a significant period of oxygen depravation, and that can have a lasting effect on him, both physically and psychologically.”

 

“How soon will we know?” Jarod managed after taking a moment to get himself firmly in control. Sydney, permanently invalided by this encounter with a madman… It was almost too painful to consider.

 

“All I can tell you is what our eyes and instruments can see and measure, Mr. Bailey. The hyperbaric treatment has significantly reduced the levels of carboxyhemoglobin, which means his body is receiving a more correct supply of oxygen again. Your father has begun responding to external stimuli – his pupils are equal and reactive, his reflexes are appropriate, consistent and strong. His heart is no longer having any episodes of arrhythmia. But as to when will he wake up – and will he be the same person he was before this?” Doctor Langley’s face grew sympathetic as he shook his head. “That we won’t know until we know it.” He patted Jarod’s forearm. “I know ‘wait and see’ is a hard thing to say when someone you love is involved, but that’s the best I can do at the moment.”

 

“All right,” Jarod sighed. “Thank you, Doctor.” He pushed his way through the ICU door as the doctor walked in the opposite direction.

 

He dragged the chair up to next to the hospital bed with its clear plastic enclosure and, after seating himself, peered inside. Sydney’s face had lost all of the ruddiness, and he looked serenely asleep. Now that his mentor was outside the hyperbaric chamber, Jarod could see where the small monitor had been implanted in Sydney’s skull to measure the pressure of the brain and fluid – and how the cable trailed from the top of Sydney’s head to a monitor on a table behind him.

 

“Hi Sydney, it’s me again,” Jarod said, wishing he dared reach in beneath the plastic and touch his mentor’s hand. “You’re looking better and better each time I see you. Your doctor tells me that you keep improving all the time – so now all you have to do is wake up.”

 

This time, Sydney took a deep breath and turned his head toward the sound of Jarod’s voice, although his eyes remained closed.

 

Jarod was ecstatic. “Nurse!” he called excitedly. “He turned his head toward me!”

 

“He’s been doing that since this morning when we speak to him,” the nurse told him from behind her counter at the nearby station. “It’s part of the normal recovery process – a generalized reaction to external or environmental stimuli – and it means he’s starting to wake up a little. Keep talking to him – yours is a familiar voice, and maybe it will speed things up.”

 

He waited until the nurse moved away back to her station before speaking again. “Miss Parker sends her love. And guess what? I talked her into taking the weekend off and going home. I told her there was nothing earth shattering that required that she work a seven-day workweek. I’m sure you would agree…”

 

Sydney took another deep breath, blowing it out through pursed lips. Jarod worked to restrain his excitement at the response and continue chattering.

 

“By the way, I watered your bonsai this morning – I figured you probably kept them to much the same schedule you had for them when they were at the Centre, and I knew they didn’t get anything yesterday at all. You know, I was remembering the day you showed me how to turn a plain old juniper plant into a bonsai – and I saw what’s become of the tree you demonstrated with. It looks really good, Sydney.”

 

There it was! Sydney eyes had cracked open, and he was blinking as if trying to focus through that narrow slit.

 

“Sydney?” Jarod jumped up and waved at the nurse again. “Nurse! His eyes are open!”

 

The nurse came quickly. “By golly…” She moved to the other side of the bed and bent over her patient. “Doctor Green? You are at Dover General hospital. Do you understand me?”

 

Sydney groaned and craned his neck to the other side, following the sound of a voice.

 

“Keep talking to him – try to keep him calm – while I call the doctor,” the nurse instructed Jarod briskly.

 

Jarod nodded and bent closer. “Sydney – look this way. It’s me – Jarod. Can you understand me?”

 

The head turned once more, and chestnut eyes blinked tightly again and then caught and held the gaze of the dark chocolate eyes that were waiting for him. Again the old man groaned, this time trying to work his lips and form words.

 

“It’s OK, Sydney. Just lay back and relax. Everything’s going to be all right.” Jarod found tears rolling down his cheeks. “You’re going to be all right now.”

 

oOoOo

 

This was a private beach – one at which there would be no interruptions or distractions. Miss Parker had called in to the Centre and had another sweeper dispatched to serve as a driver. She’d then had him help her make it across the uneven ground to a log that sat at the edge of the grass where the white sand began before returning to the car to give them privacy and wait for them.

 

Debbie sat next to her, as she had for the last few minutes, huddling into her side a little bit. The girl had been very clingy since their emotionally charged discussion just after lunch – and considering her own state of mind, Miss Parker hadn’t minded the clingy-ness a bit. Only pride, and an idea that Debbie needed to see HER as the strong and stable one right now, prevented her from clinging back.

 

“Miss Parker?”

 

“Hmmm?” Miss Parker looked down into Debbie’s face. It was pale, but most of the traces of tears had been washed away earlier. She knew her own face didn’t look a whole lot better. “What is it?”

 

“I was wondering - what do I call you, now that I’m staying with you? Mommy? Miss Parker?”

 

“I don’t think Mommy is entirely appropriate – unless that’s what you WANT to call me,” Miss Parker answered after giving the question some thought. “And I’m not entirely keen about the Miss Parker part anymore either – not in this situation. Jarod and Sydney call me Parker – I suppose you could call me that…”

 

“Don’t you have a first name?” Debbie asked timidly.

 

“I do,” Miss Parker nodded slowly, “but nobody’s called me that since…”

 

“Since your mom died?”

 

She nodded. “Yeah.” She looked down into the trusting eyes of her best friend’s daughter – her new foster daughter – and came to a decision. “It’s Melissa. Mom used to call me Missy – and Daddy shortened that to Miss in order that I get the respect he felt I…” She caught herself. “But when I was at boarding school, some of my friends called me Lissa – so how about that?”

 

“Lissa?” Debbie turned the name over on her tongue. “I like it.” She looked out over the ocean for a long and silent moment. “Will I ever stop hurting? Did you ever stop hurting for your mom?”

 

“The hurt won’t be so bad after a while,” Miss Parker answered, her gaze turning to watch the waves washing the shore. “But I’m not going to lie to you – there will always be a hole.”

 

“We have to have a funeral for him soon, don’t we.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“Yes,” came the answer. “If you want, I can help you with the decisions. There are a lot of arrangements that need to be made in the next few days.”

 

“Thanks.” Once more a comfortable silence fell between them. “Mi… Lissa?”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“You really don’t mind my staying with you from now on?”

 

Miss Parker put her arm around the girl. “No, Debbie, I really don’t mind. I just hope that I can be there for you even half as dependably as your Dad was. You may have to be patient with me.”

 

“You sound like Daddy. When I first came to live with him this last time,” Debbie remembered, leaning into her new guardian, “he was all-thumbs. He didn’t know quite what to say or how to act – and he told me that I might have to be patient with him. I’d been with Mom for so long – and she’d never let me stay with him very long – he didn’t really understand that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. His idea of a good breakfast was a package of Pop Tarts, and he burned supper as often as not. But I never had any worries about his loving me.” An arm snaked around Miss Parker’s waist. “I don’t worry about you either – it’s just that I don’t want to be a burden to anybody – to you…”

 

“Deborah Broots! Wherever did such an idea come from?” Miss Parker was appalled.

 

“That was what Momma always told me that I’d be for Daddy or anybody else, if I ever went to live with them – even though she used to have some of her… friends… take care of me when she had to go away sometimes. Some of them made me feel bad… I learned later it wasn’t true for Daddy, but it scared me for a very long time.” Debbie sighed. “And now I’m scared all over again.”

 

“Then we’ll just have to work this one out the way you and your Dad did,” Miss Parker hugged the girl tighter. “You be honest with me when you get scared – and I’ll be honest with you too when I feel overwhelmed. Fair enough?”

 

Debbie’s head nodded against her side, and Miss Parker smiled gently to herself. Jarod had been right – Debbie had come to her eventually. And from the look of things, provided the two of them remained as close and as open as they were in this moment, he’d have been right about her being capable of handling the situation by herself too – just by remembering the way her mother and Sydney had treated her.

 

She had no illusions – she knew all too well how deep the wound of losing a beloved parent went. However, for the first time since hearing the news that Broots had chosen HER to raise his daughter in his stead, she was starting to have hope for both Debbie and herself.

 

oOoOo

 

Rita Miller looked out the patio door to where her husband sat quietly in the shade of the picnic umbrella and sighed. Dave had been restless, and now had pulled entirely within himself again. She saw a quick glint and then sighed again. The sight of that damned half-dollar flipping back and forth across the knuckles wasn’t a welcome one. It meant he was brooding again.

 

She opened the cupboard door and took down two tall glasses, which she then filled with lemonade from a pitcher she kept in the fridge. Then she pulled open the patio door and carried them both out to the patio table. “Here,” she said as she put the glass down just behind and to the right of her husband’s elbow. “I thought you looked a little parched.”

 

“Thanks.” Dave palmed the half-dollar and reached for the lemonade. He sipped quietly at his glass. “It’s good.”

 

Rita sat down and watched him stare back off into space for a while, and then reached out a hand to touch his. “Talk to me,” she insisted with quiet desperation.

 

“I’m sorry.” Dave shook himself a little and took her fingers in his. “I don’t mean to be so moody. It’s just that…”

 

“It’s just that you’re moody,” she filled in for him understandingly. “I know that part. But you can talk to me, you know – really talk – if that’s what you need.”

 

He lifted her fingers and bent to drop a very gentle kiss on them. “I know that,” he told her. “But I can’t talk about what I haven’t quite figured out for myself, now, can I?”

 

“I dunno,” she replied. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you haven’t figured out yet, and maybe I can help.”

 

“I’m trying to remember why I became a cop in the first place.”

 

Rita pushed dark hair behind her ear and then brought that hand out to join her other in holding onto his hand tightly. “Oh, Sweetheart – you told me you wanted to make a difference, to help people. Of course,” she smiled at him, “you were already a cop when I met you the first time, remember?”

 

Dave stared at his wife’s dark eyes and then nodded in remembrance. “Yeah, I remember.” He reached out his other hand and re-tucked that errant tendril of grown-out bangs behind her ear again. “Wanted to make a difference,” he repeated dully. “I guess I’ve done that all right…”

 

“Dave…” she complained, shaking his hand to gain his attention. “That’s not what you meant then – and you know that’s not the point now…”

 

“Isn’t it?” he asked, his eyes gazing into hers with pain rippling visibly in their depths. “I made a huge difference to Cherry Ryan… One minute she was alive – the next…”

 

“You didn’t kill her, Dave Miller,” she stated loudly and firmly. “Damn it, that crazy fellow who had killed two women and done all kinds of horrible things to them killed her.”

 

“Yeah, but I put her where she could…”

 

“David Jerome Miller, you know better than that!” she finally lost her patience and scolded him. “Cherry Ryan was a grown woman – a trained police woman. She knew the job was dangerous. She was there because she wanted to be – because, like you, she wanted to make a difference and help people. Now, damn it, you need to at least respect that fact – or she really did die for nothing.”

 

“It just happened so fast,” he admitted finally, his voice very soft and his eyes closed.

 

“I know,” Rita soothed, standing and moving behind her husband to rest her hands on his shoulders and bending over him to drop a kiss on his cheek and then on his ear. “And what scares the living daylights out of me is the idea that that madman could have just as easily taken aim at YOU rather than Ryan.”

 

He reached up and covered her hands with his. “I had a vest on…”

 

“So did Ryan, according to you,” she reminded him. “He shot her in the throat, you said. The vest doesn’t cover the throat – yours or hers. You would have been just as dead…” Her voice hitched on the last word.

 

“Honey…” He turned to look up at her.

 

“Don’t ‘honey’ me. The only reason we’re discussing this is because one man made a choice and shot the person standing next to you rather than you.” Tears of relief and worry that had been stifled and hidden now sprang easily into her eyes. “If you want to quit being a cop, I’m fine with that – at least I won’t have to worry about somebody doing to you what they did to Griz and Ryan.” She moved around him and then knelt in front of him. “But don’t quit just because you think you’re guilty – or jinxed – or anything like that. Quit because you’re tired of taking that path to making a difference.”

 

He clasped her hands as they rested against his knees and looked for a long time into her eyes. “Do you want me to quit?” he asked her finally.

 

“I want you to do what you think is right,” she told him fervently. “If that means staying a cop, then I’m fine with that too. I just don’t want to see you beating yourself up for the next twenty-some-odd years for losing two partners in a little less than a month and not being able to invest in being a good partner ever again – and having THAT cause your death or someone else’s.”

 

“You sound like a cop,” he commented with a wry look on his face.

 

“I’ve been married to you for long enough – don’t you think it’s about time it begins to rub off?” she replied with choked chuckle.

 

His hand cupped her cheek. “Then how come my spelling is still atrocious?” he asked with a similarly choked chuckle.

 

Rita moved into his arms, wrapping hers around his chest and leaning her head on his shoulder. “Maybe because cops tend to be denser than schoolteachers,” she replied – amazed that he’d remembered their private comedy routine at such a stressful time.

 

“God, I love you,” he told her fiercely, his arms tightening around her possessively. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

 

“Don’t you dare even try,” she sighed. Nothing had been resolved yet, she knew; but there was a feeling that this time the relationship between the two of them was stronger, more resilient – and she gave another small sigh. Maybe they’d be able to weather this one after all.

 

She’d still try to call Dr. Jansen – with Dave’s knowledge and agreement - but at least when she did, she could report that the lines of communications between the two of them were open.

 

oOoOo

 

“Hi, Jarod,” Debbie greeted the Pretender with quiet reserve as she opened the front door to let him in.

 

“Hi yourself,” Jarod smiled at her as he moved past. She still didn’t have that slightly mischievous sparkle that she sometimes did in the company of her father – probably wouldn’t for a long time to come – but looked just a little more relaxed and secure. He looked past her into the depths of the summerhouse. “Where’s Miss Parker?”

 

“In the kitchen, working on supper,” Debbie answered. “We bought some salad stuff and hamburger on the way home from the beach.”

 

Jarod frowned. “You went to the beach?”

 

Debbie nodded. “Yeah – we sat there for a long time and just talked. We didn’t get into the sand or anything…”

 

“How did you get there?”

 

“She called the Centre and had them send out a sweeper to be her driver.”

 

“I suppose I should go in there and see if I can help out,” he told the girl with a tiny smirk. “Or does she want privacy to do her cooking in?”

 

“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Miss Parker’s voice filtered out through the open doorway. “Debbie was slicing tomatoes – if you want to set the table so I don’t have to move around so much…” She gave Jarod a sideways look as he came into the kitchen with Debbie right behind him. “I’m assuming you know my kitchen almost as well as I do, so I don’t have to tell you where things are…”

 

“I may be familiar with your house, Miss Parker, but not quite THAT familiar,” Jarod smirked at her as he began opening cupboard doors. “As a rule, I didn’t spend much time snooping around in here…”

 

“As if I believe you,” Miss Parker smirked back and then turned back to nursing the hamburgers slowly frying in a pan on the stove. “Are you just back from Dover? How’s Sydney?”

 

“He’s waking up a bit,” Jarod reported as he set the three plates at their places on the table. “He’s confused, can’t speak as yet, but I’m fairly sure he recognized me.”

 

“That’s wonderful!” Miss Parker turned away from her cooking again. “Did you talk to his doctor? What’s the prognosis?”

 

“They want to run him through a few more treatments in the hyperbaric chamber, and then the exact timing and nature of his recovery will be up to Sydney.” Jarod was opening cupboard doors again, searching this time for drink glasses. “The doctor took me to his office and refreshed my memory as to the possible consequences and residual problems that he might face as time goes by.”

 

“You mean, he might not be OK?” Debbie asked in a small voice, looking up from where she’d been slicing tomatoes at the one empty spot on the kitchen table.

 

“He went without enough oxygen to his system for a while, Debbie,” Jarod explained gently. “We got to him as quickly as we could, and he started getting pure oxygen almost as soon as we found him – but just how much damage occurred before then, there’s no way of telling yet.” Jarod sighed and looked up into Miss Parker’s expectant and worried grey eyes. “He said it’s a case of ‘wait and see’ – probably over the course of the next week to month. He’ll seem to recover very rapidly at first, and then the recovery will slow down. Even if there IS some damage, it could slowly repair itself over time – but there’s no way to predict anything.”

 

“What are we going to do?” Miss Parker asked, turning back to her hamburgers quickly so that Jarod wouldn’t see how upset his report had actually made her.

 

“Well, for starters, I’m moving into the guest room over there,” he announced. “Sydney will most likely need help with getting along day by day at first – and my staying there will give him someone able to care for him.”

 

“I want to help too,” Debbie chirped plaintively, sliding the tomatoes onto the waiting plate and picking up her cutting board to carry to the sink and rinse. “Please. I… feel responsible…”

 

“Debbie…” Miss Parker began in a soothing tone.

 

“I’m sure Sydney would love to have the company,” Jarod responded quickly. “But that’s a while in the future yet.” He turned his gaze to Miss Parker. “Actually, I have an idea that directly impacts our shared responsibilities at the Centre as well. I thought we’d discuss it after dinner?”

 

“I can leave, if you want to talk…” Debbie said quietly.

 

“No, honey,” Miss Parker cast Jarod a scolding glance. “Whatever Jarod has to say, he can say it in front of the both of us. That’s one of the things about the way the Centre used to be that I won’t miss: keeping secrets.”

 

Jarod nodded and then put a gentle hand on Debbie’s shoulder. “There’s nothing secret about my idea, Debbie.”

 

The girl looked up into Jarod’s dark eyes and found them warm and understanding. “Can we talk about the arrangements we need to make too, Lissa?” she asked, turning to Miss Parker.

 

Miss Parker finished moving the finished patties onto a serving plate to carry to the table. “We can talk about whatever you want,” she told the girl, “as long as the topic doesn’t make you so upset you stop eating. You haven’t had very much today, you know…”

 

“I’ll try…” Debbie replied, slipping into her chair with a slight blush of embarrassment.

 

“Lissa?” Jarod asked his hostess with raised eyebrows.

 

Miss Parker caught herself before she bridled at the Pretender. He didn’t know. “A nickname I’ve given Debbie permission to call me instead of ‘Miss Parker’ now that she’s living here full time.”

 

“Ah…” Jarod commented with a knowing look.

 

And Miss Parker knew that it wouldn’t be very long before Jarod was using the nickname as well – and the prospect wasn’t as unpleasant as she’d thought it would be. After all, he’d known her name for years and respected her wishes that it not be used. Perhaps another facet of the ‘old Centre’ to fall away unregretted would be the necessity for such formality in her relationships even with her friends.

 

“C’mon, Boy-Genius. Soup’s on,” she announced, gesturing at the table.

 

“Soup?” Jarod looked at the waiting food in confusion. “But I don’t see…”

 

Debbie giggled when the exchange unexpectedly hit her funnybone; and Miss Parker just rolled her eyes, secretly pleased that there still was a tiny corner of her new foster daughter that could appreciate humor despite her overwhelming sense of grief. “Sit down, Jarod. I’ll explain later.”

 

oOoOo

 

Sydney fought against the heaviness in his mind and struggled to force the seemingly leaden lids of his eyes to retract again. There were sounds and sensations going on around him – people were moving around his bed, gentle fingers were at his hand, a slightly cold something pressed against his chest. Damn it, he wanted to see!

 

Why was it that his body simply refused to obey his wishes?

 

It took the same level of concentration and determination to once more get the lids to slide back just a bit – and then more work to force them to blink so as to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the light in the room around him. Slowly a pleasantly female face came into focus – a face that soon took in the fact that he was looking up at her.

 

“Hello, again, Doctor Green. I’m Gina – evening ICU nurse. Pam – the day-shift nurse – told me you were starting to wake up.” The pretty blonde took his hand in hers. “If you can understand what I’m telling you, move your fingers.”

 

Sydney concentrated hard – and finally he knew that he’d managed to raise his index finger away from the palm of the nurse’s hand.

 

“Fantastic!” Gina smiled. “I’m just getting you ready for your next treatment in the hyperbaric chamber. Do you understand what that is? If so, move your finger again.”

 

This time it didn’t take quite as much effort to get the finger to move – it was almost as if the finger was finally remembering who was the master.

 

“Very good, Doctor. I’m going to call the orderly now, and he’ll take you down the hallway to the treatment room. I’ll see you when you get back, OK?”

 

*NO, Sydney’s mind screamed ineffectually, *it isn’t OK! I need you to tell me what I’m doing here – why I have to go into a hyperbaric chamber. I need you to tell me why I’m in the hospital – why my body refuses to work – why Jarod was here, out in the open as if he had nothing to hide, where the Centre could find him so easily…

 

Gina’s face pulled back out of his circle of sight, and then there was the sound of heavier plastic sheeting being moved out of the way for something. “He’s awake,” he heard her tell someone, “so introduce yourself before you do much of anything.”

 

Suddenly there was another face moving close enough to be discerned clearly. “Hi there, I’m Jimmy. I’m here to take you down for your treatment. OK?”

 

*No – I need answers, Sydney thought desperately, working hard to get his mouth to open and words to form with no success at all. *What is wrong with me? He sent a surge of energy to a recently awakened finger – and sent the hand flying into the air.

 

“Here, now, Doctor Green, you calm yourself,” Jimmy patted the patient’s arm back into place at Sydney’s side before grasping the rolled sheet near his head and nodding to Gina. “Now,” he called, and the two of the pulled Sydney’s unresponsive body onto the waiting gurney. The arm flew again, almost swatting Jimmy in the head. “Wait a minute…”

 

Gina helped him slip the restraints across the legs and waist of the man on the gurney, and then Gina caught the arm and held it down so that Jimmy could restrain that too. She leaned over where Sydney could see her. “I know you probably have a lot of questions,” she told him with a gentle smile. “Maybe when your son comes to visit tomorrow, you’ll be in better shape to ask them, thanks to the treatment you’ll be getting in a few minutes.” A gentle hand landed on his shoulder. “You need to be a little patient, OK?”

 

Sydney worked hard until he could feel his eyebrows bunching the way he wanted them to – to let the nurse and the orderly know that he didn’t know who they were talking about. He didn’t have a son – did he? *My God, he suddenly realized, *is she talking about Jarod? Do they think HE’S my son?

 

A memory of Jarod’s face through the mild distortion of the clear plastic that had been around him floated past his inner eye – and he suddenly realized that Jarod had been crying. *Yes, he thought to himself as he felt the sensation of movement and began to see the ceiling tiles above him slip past his vision, *it’s very possible that they’re talking about Jarod. They’re expecting him tomorrow? Has he been visiting regularly? Merciful heavens – does Miss Parker know that Jarod’s nearby? I have to warn him…

 

But the arm was now restrained and refused to budge. Sydney moaned and craned his neck to try to catch sight of the orderly moving him along – now down a hallway. Perhaps if he could communicate his worry and concern through his expression, someone would try to get him to explain…

 

“He’s been a bit combative,” he heard Jimmy explain to somebody, and then he watched the underside of the top doorjamb pass overhead.

 

A new face moved into his circle of vision – that of a dour, middle-aged woman – and felt his hand being placed carefully on the palm of another’s. “I really don’t want to sedate you, you know,” she told him very frankly, “because the more you wake up, the better. But your doctor has ordered this treatment, and we have to have your cooperation.” She bent closer. “You want to walk out of this place? If so, move something.”

 

The finger lifted and then landed again.

 

“Then you are going to cooperate and not give me any grief. Right?”

 

Sydney could see that the woman – probably a skilled technician – had her job to do. And she’d asked the seminal question – he wanted to walk out of here eventually. The finger lifted and landed again. He’d do anything to get out of here – and get answers to his questions.

 

The sooner, the better.

Chapter 24 – Epilogue

 

(One year later)

 

Jarod rolled over and away from the sunbeam that was shining directly into his eye, and then grunted himself awake – mostly. He cracked one eye open and then the other, and looked around him – and then blinked and looked again until he woke up enough to recognize the room. He was in one of the guestrooms at Parker’s townhouse – and from the sounds outside his bedroom door, the other occupants of the house were already stirring vigorously.

 

There was a squeal – of delight or outrage, he couldn’t be sure – that told him that Jeremy Parker was awake and ready for the day’s mischief. Parker’s little brother had been rescued from his dreary nursery in the bowels of the Centre and adopted by his big sister over six months ago, and was now the apple of his family’s eye. Parker doted on him, Debbie pampered and teased him mercilessly, Sydney adored him and spoiled him whenever he could get away with it, and Sam played shamelessly with him on the floor of the living room with his trucks and dinosaurs. And he, Jarod, sensing a kindred spirit ready to bloom, took the intelligent little boy to the park and to the zoo and filled his time with the child with fun learning experiences – as well as the kind of sweet treats that his big sister tended to try to limit when at home. At four and a half, Jeremy was a handful to try to keep up with – but a sweet child that had survived his tenure in the Centre with few nightmares.

 

A heavy hand pounded on his bedroom door. “If you’re not awake from all the hubbub by now, Genius, you’re deaf.”

 

“I’m awake, I’m awake – I think,” he grumbled, sitting up in bed and scratching his head absently.

 

“Good, because if you’re not down when breakfast is ready, there won’t be any left for you – so put it in gear already!”

 

He rose and walked across the bedroom floor with bare feet, scratching on his bare chest above a pair of pajama bottoms, and pulled open the door. Miss Parker was just as disheveled as he, although she had taken time to pull a silken bathrobe over her nightgown and run her fingers through her hair to try to tame it. She looked him up and down with a simmering look that had him almost blushing. “Oh, don’t you just look peachy,” she commented dryly and turned on her bare heel. “You could at least put on a tee shirt before coming down for breakfast.”

 

“Hey!” Jarod reached out before she could take more than a step away from him and had hold of her hand. With a smirk he pulled her closer. “You’re getting slow on the get-away, Parker – must be all that desk duty you’ve been doing lately.”

 

“Stop that,” she fussed at him, swatting very softly at his shoulder after indulging in one tender kiss. “The kids could see…”

 

“They’ve seen this before,” he reasoned, tipping his head to nibble. “Besides, it isn’t as if it’s going to stunt their growth or anything…”

 

“Jarod…”

 

“Hush,” he told her with a finger to her lips. “I’m enjoying this.”

 

“We have a toddler to get bathed and dressed, not to mention ourselves – IF we intend to have our picnic, that is,” she reminded him, giving herself permission to lean against him for a moment and wrap her arms loosely around his middle. Having her fiancé in the house like this was a treat – and a pleasant foretaste of what married life would be like. Although their marriage was on hold until Sydney was self-sufficient enough that Jarod’s attendance wasn’t needed anymore, it was moments like these that kept the both of them sane.

 

“We could save water – and share a shower,” he suggested with an impish leer, after which she pushed herself away and swatted at him again.

 

“Stop it! We need to set a good example for Debbie for how to behave properly,” she countered, finally escaping his clutches. “She’s getting old enough that she’s probably watching how we act together very carefully – so she’ll know what she can get away with when it comes to HER boyfriends, and where we think the lines are.” One hand pushed hard against his bare chest. “Go – get a shirt on and come down for breakfast.”

 

“Are you still going to be this bossy when we’re married – and I’m the man of the house?” Jarod sulked playfully.

 

“I seem to remember a question much like this a year ago,” Miss Parker smiled a toothy smile at him. “I believe my answer back then was something on the line of ‘if you continue to behave like you have your head up your ass…’” Impulsively she leaned forward and dropped a tiny kiss on the end of his nose. “There. A bribe. Go on now – we have to get going.”

 

Jarod smiled at her and backed through his bedroom door again, turning with a chuckle to head for his old duffel bag and dig for a tee shirt. Already the day had had a good start.

 

oOoOo

 

Sydney stirred as the sunlight in the bedroom grew brighter, and then froze in horror when he realized that he didn’t have any clothing on. In that moment, it was as if the last year hadn’t happened. He found himself reliving with vivid and sickening clarity his awakening nude and disoriented in a bed soaked in the blood of a murdered woman – and the crash of the police breaking through the door to get at him only moments later. Then, evidently, his mind woke up enough to notice a few of the details of the reality now that were contrary to that vivid memory. That knowledge broke through the soul-crushing flashback and gave him a reason to relax with a long, expelled breath of relief as reality now faded back into his perception. As quickly as it had come, the hideous memory slithered back into the shadows of nightmares – and slowly Sydney’s heart was able to stop pounding painfully in his chest and resume a more normal pace.

 

This wasn’t déjà vu – this was a moment he’d longed for – and he settled back to lie very quietly with his eyes closed to enjoy the sensation, after all these years, of holding the woman he loved in his arms once more as she slept. Michelle, equally undressed, merely nestled back a little more snugly against his long body, which was wrapped around her back like a spoon, and pulled the covers a little higher over her bare shoulder. He shifted his head on the pillow and buried his nose into the fragrant hair at the back of her neck, breathing deeply and appreciatively of her scent.

 

He could still hardly believe the sequence of events leading up to this moment. After months of hearing nothing from Albany, Michelle had called the week before to ask if she and Nicholas could come down to spend the weekend with him. Thrilled, he’d agreed – and Jarod had met the train in Dover and brought them back to Blue Cove to stay in the guest room and on a couch in the den, with Jarod relocating to Parker’s guest room in the interim. But Michelle had had other ideas about living arrangements once the Pretender had taken his leave. While Sydney had continued puttering in the kitchen, putting the final touches on the meal he’d spent the better part of the day preparing due to hands that still could tremble uncontrollably at the wrong moment and a frustrating lack of stamina for standing at a kitchen counter, she had quietly spoke to their son and had him move her belongings into Sydney’s room and his own luggage into the guest room from the den.

 

When the time had come to retire, he’d expected Nicholas to assist him; after all, it was Nicholas to whom Jarod had given instructions before leaving. But no… Michelle had bid Nicholas a fond good night and closed the bedroom door firmly, shutting herself in with Sydney alone. She’d then followed his instructions carefully, helping him to undress into pajamas and then working him through the exercises that were slowly giving him a better range of movement with his knees and shoulders. Having it be her hands pushing against his feet and pulling on his arms had been a little bit of heaven, and he’d enjoyed the quiet intimacy of the moment despite the discomfort. It had been the closest he’d been to her – to the way they once were – for decades.

 

But then, just about the time he expected her to tuck him in and take her leave, she’d begun to undress. Sydney found he couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she’d slowly shed and folded away her blouse and slacks, and then more; and he finally stared in fascination and consternation as she moved to the other side of the bed once she had removed every stitch of clothing she’d had on. Words of caution and protest that sprang to his lips as she slipped between the sheets with him were at first silenced beneath soft kisses that grew very rapidly in intensity, and then were banished utterly with caresses that brushed aside the nuisance of any remaining reticence from either of them.

 

Michelle had then gently – and sometimes impatiently – helped him out of the pajamas she’d just helped him into and proceeded to make slow and achingly tender love to him. As she did, a healing balm finally began to seep into the hidden parts of his shattered psyche that had never had a chance to heal because nobody ever had been in a position to do anything about them before. In her arms, and in her embrace, he rediscovered his self-confidence as a man and was astounded by the revelation that she could still see him as desirable despite his many infirmities. Any lingering doubts about his ability to satisfy a woman again after all he’d been through had been put to rest when she’d whimpered his name over and over again as she found her release.

 

And now… He breathed deeply of her soft scent and wrapped his arm across her middle possessively. This moment was as close to Paradise as he’d been in decades.

 

He had no illusions. Michelle had her job in Albany as a child psychologist, and was only here for a weekend visit. He had to accept the fact that this was but a transitory respite; an echo of what might have been, had their lives unfolded differently. As precious as she was to him, and as much as he couldn’t help loving her as much now – if not more – than he ever had before, he knew he had no right to ask her to stay with him on a long-term basis. It was too much to ask anyone. After all, he was still a semi-invalid, with hands that sometimes shook so badly he could hardly hold pencil or coffee, legs that half the time refused to hold him up at all, and a mind that sometimes unpredictably tripped over the simplest of vocabulary words and left him stammering and fuming with frustration.

 

Still, despite the stern dictates of his logic and sense of reason, something inside him was wishing with all his heart that things could be different – that she would consider seeing whether or not they could reclaim some of the softer, gentler emotions between them that had so characterized their earlier life together. And so he lay very still and quiet, cradling her in his arms as he had so many times dreamed of doing and carving the perfection of the moment into his memory to enjoy in the days and weeks to come, when she wasn’t there anymore.

 

She shifted against him with a deep breath, and one hand reached for the one of his that rested possessively on the soft skin of her stomach and held it there with gentle pressure. “G’morning,” she mumbled sleepily.

 

“Go back to sleep, ma belle,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s still early.”

 

She cracked an eye open, closed it immediately against the light, and then turned in his arms so that she could pillow her head on his shoulder, enjoying the slip of skin against warm, soft skin down the entire length of her body. “I hate to tell you this, my love, but the sun’s already up,” she told him softly.

 

Sydney just couldn’t resist; he kissed her forehead. “So… just keep your eyes closed and pretend.”

 

As if determined to be contrary, her eyes opened and connected immediately with his gaze. “I think there’s been enough pretending between us, don’t you?” she asked as she slipped an arm over his waist and held him. When the silvered brows folded together in confusion, she turned her head and kissed the shoulder upon which she rested. “Then again, maybe it was just me who pretended.”

 

He had never thought that she could say anything that would hurt quite as much as that. After what they’d just shared… He shifted, inwardly cursing muscles and joints that didn’t want to bend and flex and move the way he wanted so that he could slip out from beneath her head and get away from her, but he finally raised himself up on an elbow and dumped her into her pillow. “Last night… when we… you mean… you were pretending…”

 

“No, no.” Michelle shifted her head onto the pillow but held onto him tighter, not letting him get any further away from her than he already had. “You misunderstand. Last night, I STOPPED pretending.”

 

Now he WAS confused. “Pretending what?”

 

“Pretending that I wasn’t aching to hold you, to be with you, the way we are now, the way we were last night. Don’t you see?” She brought her hand up and straightened some of the hair back from his face. She was amazed that his hair had turned snow-white in the months since last she’d seen him, only a week after his awakening from his brush with death. It was hard to square the man in bed next to her with the invalid lying in a hospital bed only barely able to garble out single word or disjointed utterances and with no muscle control of his body at all.

 

“Last night – God, last night…” She blushed at the memory of what she’d done – and what had happened between them as a result – still amazed at herself for having had the courage to be so brazen and presumptive. “Last night I finally worked up the nerve to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time now. I gave myself to you, hoping that there was some spark left between us still alive. I had no idea you felt… as strongly as you did… I was so sure you could tell how much what happened meant to me too.” Her fingers ran gently through his longish hair again. “I swear to you, Sydney, last night was as real as it gets. I love you.”

 

“I have always loved you,” Sydney told her with quiet urgency. “Always. I stayed away to protect you – to protect our son – and because I thought that was what you wanted. Then you’d lost your husband… and I stayed away so you could work through your grief without my complicating things for you; it was only right.”

 

“I know, Sydney, I know.” Michelle’s hands began to caress in order to soothe away the tension her words had caused. “But I didn’t have to keep staying away from you when Jarod called to tell me you were coming home from the hospital. I could have come then, and helped – I wanted to – and there were several times I almost did. But the truth was that, by then, I was afraid to come.”

 

Sydney’s hands moved to frame her face, even though they were trembling. “Afraid of what?”

 

Her blue eyes shone with unshed tears. “Afraid that I’d discover that you no longer loved me the same way I still loved you – that you didn’t want me the way I still wanted you – that I’d waited too long, stayed away too long and lost you forever…”

 

He smiled and gathered her close to him, relieved and once more reassured. “Never.” His hands might tremble as he held her, but there was no doubt that his grasp of his emotions regarding her was firm and clear. “Couldn’t happen,” he exclaimed with absolute certainty.

 

She turned her face up to his, and he lowered his lips to hers in a kiss that shook them both with the strength of the passion that flared between them as if decades of separation had been but a wink of time. “Je t’aime, Sydney,” she whispered when the kiss was done.

 

“Je t’aime aussi,” he murmured back, once more supremely contented to have her back into his arms where she belonged. “More than you will ever know.”

 

“Let me stay with you, then,” she asked very quietly, “and not just for this weekend.”

 

“But your job…” he protested, shocked and barely daring believe that she was serious.

 

“I’m retired now,” she told him. “Public mental health agencies, unlike the Centre, let a person retire when they reach a certain age. So you see, there’s no more job to get in the way. And no more Centre either, forcing us apart at the point of a threat.”

 

“But your home is there, in Albany…”

 

“Not exactly. I have a house in Albany. My home is here, with you,” she responded, her hands beginning to move more slowly, more deliciously, again, “if you’ll have me.”

 

“Why?” He couldn’t help the shiver of pleasure that accompanied the unavoidable response his body was having to her gentle and brazenly evocative caresses. He had always been hungry for her touch, that much obviously hadn’t changed over the years. Last night, she had been hungry and eager for his as well. Still… “I’m nothing but a broken-down shadow of a man now, barely able to function…”

 

“Sydney.” She raised herself up and looked down at his face lying against the pillow and saw how deeply the lack of self-confidence had eaten into his soul. “I want you; I want what we should have had years ago, and I don’t want to waste another minute apart that we could spend together. As for your being barely able to function…” She smoothed the backs of her fingers against his grizzled chin and smiled knowingly. “I think last night proved that, for a ‘broken-down shadow,’ you’re still… quite functional…”

 

He gazed deeply into her eyes and could only see the sincerity and want in their depths. “Are you sure?” he asked, finally allowing himself to hope. “Don’t do something you’ll regret…”

 

“I already regret not coming sooner,” she told him as truthfully as she knew how.

 

Finally, his emotions couldn’t remain unexpressed any longer. “Do you have any idea how much I was wishing this very thing as we were lying here together a little while ago, when you were asleep in my arms…” He put a trembling hand up and, using all his concentration to control the movement, cupped her face. “Stay with me?”

 

“I thought you’d never ask,” she smiled up at him and then lowered her lips to his in a scorching kiss that made everything crystal clear between them, including the fact that it would be a considerable length of time before either of them would be in the least bit interested in anything besides each other.

 

oOoOo

 

Lyle heard the clang that meant that his breakfast was being slipped through the opening in the bars and took a deep breath. Another day was beginning; another day just like the last and destined to be just like all of the rest of his days on earth. Life on Death Row was grim. His world had been reduced to an eight by ten square of real estate with nothing more remarkable about it than the graffiti etched into the cement walls by previous tenants. He possessed a none-too-comfortable mattress on a set of springs, a table, a reading light, a combination commode and toilet – and enough toiletries to keep himself groomed. His food – never Chinese – came from the prison commissary; and his reading material was limited to the inventory in the prison library.

 

He’d seen his twin only once since his original arrest – at the sentencing hearing – and she’d deliberately not spoken to him personally at all. She’d looked satisfied; and Jarod sitting next to her had looked downright contented at the multiple death sentences that had been levied. Lyle had always known that his fate would come down to a battle of wits between himself and the Pretender, and that Kyle would be the motivating factor behind whatever tactic Jarod used to try to bring him down. But for Jarod to exact his revenge in this manner – an inch at a time as Lyle and his pro-bono attorney began the long road of making and exhausting motions and appeals – was a kind of payback he hadn’t dreamed possible.

 

It was a chilly morning, and the stump of his thumb was aching again. Lyle rubbed the edge of his left hand, carefully avoiding the tender and sensitive skin over what little remained of his thumb, as if hoping the tender touch would relieve the need for the body to feel whole again. Then, finally, the smell of the coffee on the tray got to be too much for him, and he pulled himself free of the thin blanket and walked over to where the breakfast tray was waiting for him.

 

Today was a day when he got to go to the exercise yard set aside for Death Row inmates, a day when he’d once more have to watch his step out in the open. A new inmate had been admitted to their select number a month earlier: a Japanese fellow from San Francisco convicted of several gangland-related murders. He’d seen the man watching him with cold and calculating eyes, and a shudder had crept down his spine. The Yakuza had never really forgiven him for messing up a deal so badly that he’d landed one of their leaders in prison on a life’s sentence. The thumb they had removed at the time, he knew, had been only a warning; and now that he no longer had the Centre’s or the Triumvirate’s protection, it was now a race to see just who would be responsible for his death: the State, or the Yakuza.

 

As he sipped his coffee, his eyes slid up the wall to where the calendar his lawyer had given him was hung from a piece of double-sided adhesive tape. With a start, he realized that a full year had gone by since last he’d enjoyed the taste of freedom – a whole year. A year had passed since he’d been arrested for two murders he actually hadn’t had anything to do with, only after being cleared of that to be handed over to federal authorities for a number of killings that rightfully were attributed to him. A little over six months had passed since he’d been sent here, to a cell very much like the one in which his foster father had rightfully languished for years.

 

With that, he settled down to his scrambled eggs, eating with gusto. As grim as this place was, it was nowhere near as grim as the smaller cells in the lower levels of the Centre where Mr. Raines had kept him when he was very young – before he’d been sent off to live, and be tortured, by a sadist named Bowman – and the food here was at least edible. No matter what happened to him, at the hands of the State or even the hands of the Yakuza hit man down the cellblock, life on Death Row would be infinitely more humane than what the Centre could have and would have offered him in similar circumstances. He knew that all too well; he’d seen and ordered it done to Jarod.

 

The inherent fairness of the evolution of events was what would keep him sane in the months and years ahead, until the day they strapped him to a gurney and put a needle in his arm. The greatest comfort of all was the knowledge that even in that moment, there would be nobody reviving him from his eternal sleep over and over just to see how many times such a thing could be done without compromising intelligence or sanity.

 

And he thanked his lucky stars that even Jarod couldn’t force himself to be that cruel.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“So, which movie do we want to see today?” Rita Miller asked after putting down her part of the Sunday newspaper and reaching for her coffee cup.

 

“I dunno,” Dave replied absently, knowing that he had but a few moments to finish reading his article. It was a standard procedure around here now – suggested by the therapist and adopted months ago – that unless something interfered, Sundays were movie days. The two of them would pore over the listings in the newspaper and make a decision as to what they wanted to see that afternoon at the matinee. The time they spent together had indeed both saved and strengthened their marriage, even as Dave had wrestled with the question of whether or not he would continue to work for the police department. Ultimately, it had even made that decision easier; for by the time he was ready to choose, he knew without a doubt that Rita was solidly behind him no matter what his choice would be.

 

Dave sighed and flipped the section he’d been reading over and handed it over to his wife. “What do you want to see? I chose last time…” His eyes began to twinkle. “No chick-flick, though…”

 

“Fair enough,” Rita tossed her dark head. “No ‘Donna Does Dallas’ either.”

 

“I’ve NEVER suggested…” he complained, shocked and appalled.

 

“Just making sure it never comes up,” she tossed back with a grin. “What about this one?”

 

Dave craned his head to try to read the newspaper from the odd angle that favored his wife’s perspective. “Is that the one we saw that clip of on TV…”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“Sounds good.”

 

The telephone’s ringing broke through the conversation. Rita let Dave pick up the section and go back to the article he’d been reading as she rose and walked across the kitchen. “Hello?” she answered automatically. “Oh, hi, Carol…”

 

Dave’s head came up immediately. Detective Carol Higgins didn’t just call his house on a Sunday morning to chat, and Rita’s face reflected the seriousness of the call as she handed the phone over to him. “Yeah?”

 

His partner at least had the decency to sound apologetic. “Sorry to ruin your Sunday, Dave, but we’ve got the body of a socialite down by the railroad tracks – and it’s our catch. Jim Carlton will meet us there.”

 

“You gonna pick me up, or shall I meet you there?” Dave asked, and watched Rita’s face fall slightly before nodding in resignation.

 

“I’ll swing by,” Carol answered. “I’m still at home too, not even dressed yet. The Cap just called me; I told him I’d spread the joy in your direction.”

 

“You’re such a saint,” Miller chuckled grimly. “I’ll be waiting for you, then,” he replied and disconnected. “Honey…”

 

“I know,” Rita told him understandingly. “What’s up?”

 

“There’s a body down by the tracks – suspicious circumstances… You know the routine…”

 

She did indeed, and she also knew that her husband’s Sunday-go-to-movies mind was already starting to turn into the mind of a homicide detective. While mildly disappointed at the disruption, she knew that she was happy knowing that he was happy doing what he could to help others and make a difference. “So, any idea how long you’ll be?”

 

He shook his head. “Depends on the amount of evidence at the scene and what all we can follow up with today.” He was already on his feet, ready to head to the bedroom to change out of threadbare jeans and tee shirt into something more presentable. “How about I call you when I have some time for lunch – we can go to Paddy’s Deli for a quick sandwich? I know it ain’t our normal Sunday fare, but…”

 

“Paddy’s will be fine,” Rita assured him and gave him a kiss on the cheek as he walked by. “Better get ready – you don’t want to keep Carol waiting.”

 

oOoOo

 

“C’mon, Jeremy, race you; and if you win, I’ll give you a push on the swings,” Debbie called as she and the toddler piled out of the comfortable sedan. With a squeal of delight, the little dark-haired boy dashed off in a mad attempt to beat his foster sister in getting to the playground equipment in the far corner of the park. It soon became obvious that Debbie was going to let him win that time, although she trotted quickly enough that it would remain a challenge for him TO win.

 

“That’s the last we’ll see of them for a while,” Miss Parker smiled as Jarod popped the trunk and retrieved the picnic basket she’d packed for their lunch.

 

“Until they get hungry, you mean,” he replied and suggested a table in the sun with a nod of his head. “They had a good breakfast, though, so that may take a while.”

 

Miss Parker reached into the trunk before Jarod could close it and pulled out the small ice chest that held their drinks. “I can handle that,” she told him. “You and I need to talk shop for part of this time anyway, and it would be better if we didn’t do it around them…”

 

Jarod sighed. “I know, I know,” he grumbled as he led the way to the designated picnic table. “You know, it’s no wonder Mr. Raines finally just moved into the Tower penthouse. I’ve never seen another job occupy so much waking time of its executives.”

 

She put her ice chest down on one end of the table and seated herself on the other end, looking out across the expanse of green toward where Debbie and Jeremy were playing. “So - have you had a chance to look at the Triumvirate proposal yet?”

 

“Have you?” Jarod put his basket down next to the ice chest and then sat himself down next to Miss Parker and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You do realize, Parker, that if we can get that thing off the ground and working properly, we’re all going to be very, very rich…”

 

She turned to look at him. “You mean you think there’s a chance it would work?”

 

“Well…” Jarod tipped his head back and forth like a metronome for a moment. “That’s one helluva big ‘if’ I just gave you. I almost wish I could temporarily transfer to the Electrical Engineering department for a while. These were the kinds of projects that would come along when I was younger and convince me that I really WAS working for the betterment of humanity.”

 

“Only this time, you know that nobody’s going to turn around on you and sell the information to the highest-bidding weapons manufacturer or terrorist organization,” she nodded in understanding. “So, you’re saying we should green-light the project?”

 

“I was thinking more in terms of agreeing to do the preliminary research, testing feasibility and seeing how well scientific laws and theorems can be stretched and flexed to accommodate what would need to happen,” he suggested. “Then, if the project looks like it has a reasonable chance of succeeding, we can do some competitive bidding for the rest of the job.”

 

“That sounds like a plan,” Miss Parker nodded. “I’m glad Ms. Balenge decided to send this latest prospectus to us for evaluation. I have to admit, the last few we’ve received from them have been very interesting, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

“Absolutely. I’m glad we didn’t sever our business relationship with the Triumvirate over bad history with Raines and Mutumbo and Mbala,” Jarod responded. “Now that things have settled down over there, what with Ms. Balenge being chosen as Mbala’s replacement, I can see a lot of potential in our two corporations working together more closely. Incidentally, I spoke with the Arunga the other day, and he’s as pleased at the way things have been going lately as we are.”

 

“Not having to worry about the Triumvirate has made moving the Centre into more ethically sustainable areas of research a whole lot easier, I must say.” She smiled as Jarod’s hand on her shoulder began to move in small and very gentle circles. They had other shop-related topics to discuss – and they’d have to hold that discussion sometime before either of them were back in their Tower office – but right now she just couldn’t bring herself to ignore the setting in which they found themselves in that moment. “We haven’t done this half as often as we should have, you know,” she told him softly. “I’ve missed you, and I know Debbie and Jeremy have too. We need to make more time for US as a family, and… how did you put it back then… ‘leave that damned place behind’ more often.”

 

“I hate to say it, but I’m glad Michelle and Nicholas decided to come and visit Sydney. He’s needed a change of pace, and I wasn’t able to give it to him, what with all the Centre-related business and you and me taking turns taking care of Jeremy and him at his place.” Jarod’s eye sought out the little boy automatically. “Sydney needed time off away from me, and I needed some time away from him too. I needed more private time with you. I’ve missed you too.” He tore his eyes away from the children and gazed fondly at the woman next to him.

 

Miss Parker found her gaze moving toward where the two youngsters were having a contest to see who could swing the highest. In a move that had troubled some at the Centre, they had divided the workload between them – both at home and in the Tower – and then taken turns at either task so that neither were ignored or given short shrift. Poor Dolores had learned how to manage with two bosses and two completely different management styles and temperaments, and how to move back and forth between the two on a day-to-day basis. In a strictly business sense, the move had been instantly successful. With two people dividing the workload and staying in very close communication with the other on vital decisions, problems that had plagued the Centre for years had melted away.

 

In the personal realm, it had also been a wise move. Having a regular schedule of days off had given both the opportunity to both bond with the newly-adopted preschool child and assume more parental roles in his life, strengthen the bond with Debbie, and to keep close and helping out with Sydney’s recovery as well. Jarod’s living with Sydney rather than moving in with her had also been imperative; Debbie was an adolescent for whom the appropriate actions of role models would be essential. Out of respect for Broots and the upbringing he’d been trying to give his daughter, certain standards of behavior for unmarried couples had to be exhibited first between them before rules outlining that behavior could be established with any expectation that she’d follow them.

 

By the time Debbie had returned to school a week after her father’s death, she was buoyed by the support of two parental role models who were united in their concern for her. While she never had done well in the English class because of her inability to force herself to work on the paper that had needed the notebook that had been the catalyst for disaster, she had acquitted herself well otherwise and had moved ahead a grade right on schedule. Miss Parker and Debbie were now as close and fond of each other as Miss Parker had been of her own mother years ago, and Jarod enjoyed the shy way in which she was beginning to come to him for a father’s advice from time to time.

 

Sydney, too, had benefited from the time spent with both. Each had taken the time to be trained in the kind of physical therapy he was to receive on a daily basis to deal with the residual brain damage that had resulted from his brush with death, and both were united in encouraging him when he faltered and in showing patience when his disabilities made him frustrated or out of sorts. When Jeremy had joined the family, however, Sydney’s entire mood had changed. Suddenly, there was a small child around him on a daily basis – a small child who looked up to him – and Sydney had positively bloomed into the role of a surrogate grandfather. With Jeremy, he finally allowed himself to do all the kinds of things that he’d forced himself never to do with Jarod: he read to the boy, held him on his lap and cuddled him whenever asked, and was open and demonstrative with his affection.

 

Miss Parker roused from her reverie when noticed movement off in the distance a ways, and then she nudged Jarod’s rib with an elbow. “Hey, look at that, will you?” Jarod turned – and then broke into a wide smile.

 

It wasn’t often that Sydney ventured out of the house under his own power anymore. Generally, whenever the old psychiatrist wanted to go somewhere outside his home, he retreated to the wheelchair that would allow him to enjoy the time away without worries about lagging stamina or imperfect balance. Both Jarod and Miss Parker had gotten very adept at maneuvering the chair through tight spaces when Sydney wanted to visit the library or do some of his own shopping.

 

But obviously, today Sydney felt differently. Today he had one of his matched canes in his left hand and Michelle tucked tightly beneath his right arm. She had her arms wrapped tightly about his waist and was tailoring her steps to match his much slower pace down the smooth sidewalk that bordered the street. Beside them next to his mother was Nicholas, who looked more than a little bemused – although not unhappy – at the sudden familiarity the two older adults were demonstrating in front of him and everyone else in the world.

 

“Look at him, Lissa; I haven’t seen THAT smile for a long time,” Jarod breathed in wonder. It was a relaxed and wide grin that lit Sydney’s face from one side to the other; and, even more surprising, it wasn’t a fleeting one. Sydney looked almost deliriously happy in that moment.

 

“It’s Michelle,” Miss Parker realized as she watched him look down at the woman at his side with an expression of utter devotion the like of which she’d never seen on her old friend’s face before, and then saw a similar glow of contentedness in his companion’s face in return. “Do I really need to wonder what happened?” she commented to herself, pleased at what she was seeing and the probable reason for the display.

 

When Sydney paused in his steps to hug Michelle tighter and kiss the top of her head, Jarod knew too. “I think,” he turned to Miss Parker with a slowly growing smirk of his own, “that maybe we’re going to be able to start planning our wedding soon.” He chuckled as her grey eyes widened and she turned to watch her old friend and then turned back to her fiancé with warm amusement.

 

“How much do you want to bet it will end up being a double wedding?” she asked with a growing smirk of her own.

 

“Unca Sydney!” they heard Jeremy yell, and then both turned just in time to see the preschooler dashing across the grass as fast as his legs could carry him towards one of his favorite people in the world, Debbie not far behind. Nicholas looked around and finally located the two of them, pointed them out to his parents and then waved. Jarod and Miss Parker waved back, and Jarod gestured for the three to join them at their table. Nicholas waited until Sydney had ruffled the little boy’s hair before rescuing his father from Jeremy’s clinging to his legs; and he swung the child up high in his arms, earning himself a squeal of delight. Then it was Debbie’s turn for a hug from Sydney and a handshake with Michelle and Nicholas. Finally, the four of them began to slowly amble across the less even grass.

 

“Wedding plans can wait, the question now is whether or not we have enough sandwiches and cake for three more hungry people,” Jarod whispered into her ear as it became clear that their picnic had just grown to include others.

 

Miss Parker just nestled closer into Jarod’s side and sighed in contentment when the arm around her shoulder tightened as together they watched the procession come toward them. Only she knew the full depth to which the treacheries Cox had perpetrated had damaged her old friend; only she had been allowed to see, however fleetingly that day in the Dover police interrogation room, the level of humiliation he’d suffered. And only now, seeing as he drew closer the absence of the residual cloud of deep-seated pain and self-doubt in the depths of his eyes, did she allow herself to consider the day a true anniversary celebration.

 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Sydney quipped as Michelle helped him turn and sit down next to Miss Parker and then seated herself at his side.

 

“It’s good to see you out and about,” she said, her hand finding Sydney’s even as Sydney’s other arm wrapped itself tightly around Michelle. “You’re looking very chipper and frisky today, Freud.”

 

“I’m feeling chipper and frisky today.” Sydney’s answering smile came from a sense of contentment and peace that Miss Parker had never seen in him before, and it warmed her from the bottom of her soul up. “Life is good, wouldn’t you agree, Lissa?” he responded softly, his hand tightening on hers.

 

“Oh yeah,” she replied with a grin, looking up at Jeremy in Nicholas’ arms and Debbie standing next to him with a happy smile, and then over at a shyly contented Michelle who was once more tucked securely into Sydney’s embrace. Yes, she decided happily, the long nightmare that had entrapped them all was finally over – on a number of levels. “Absolutely.”

 

FIN