Miss Parker slapped the photo on the deli counter, wrong side up. The man behind the counter gave her a stony glare. He picked up the photo, wiped the counter beneath with a well-loved dishrag, and dropped the photo back on the counter. Wrong side up.

“Lady, I’m working. Order or leave.”

Miss Parker gnawed on her lips to keep the impatience from spilling out of her.

“You haven’t even looked at the photo,” she pointed out, keeping her voice as even as she could muster.

The man had thick, dark eyebrows and thick arms hairy enough to make Miss Parker wonder how many stray arm hairs typically sneaked their way into the average hoagie. As Miss Parker looked on, he tipped a cutting board lined with sliced meat into a shallow tub behind the counter. He took exaggerated care, seeming to revel in every second he kept her waiting. Finally, he turned back to the counter.

“I don’t need to look at it,” said the man. He pointedly did not look at the photo, a year-old employee ID photo of Jarod from when he’d been working out of a college. Instead, he pushed the photo back to her with the tips of his callused fingers. “You’ve never worked retail before, have you? Or any kind of job involving customers? I see so many faces every day, if I tried to memorize them all I’d have no room left in my head for my own ma’s face.”

Miss Parker turned the photo around right-side-up and tapped Jarod’s face. “I never said he was a customer. He’s probably an employee, maybe someone who’s shown up in your life recently. Goes by Jarod, last name varies. That ring a bell, Marco?”

She’d found the man’s name on a piece of paper in a pants pocket previously belonging to Jarod. The pants had been through the laundry, and the paper along with it. The name had been almost completely illegible, but she and Broots had set the Centre linguistics team on the task and came up with four statistical possibilities for first names and three possibilities for surnames, given parameters of… letter shapes, word lengths, a bunch of nonsense Miss Parker was content to leave behind the scenes. Of the twelve possible combinations of first name and surname, only one identified someone currently living in the northeastern United States, according to the latest census: a Mr. Marco Lorefice, proprietor of a sandwich shop in Philadelphia.

Marco frowned at the invocation of Jarod’s name, and in that moment Miss Parker knew she had him. He took the photo to look at it properly. Miss Parker watched his eyes; she saw the moment he recognized the face, first vaguely then with growing certainty. The clinching moment happened when Marco used the tip of his thumb to cover up the bottom of Jarod’s face. His eyes widened, just barely. Finally, he spoke.

“Who is this guy, anyway?” He wasn’t the world’s most gifted actor. He had one glaring tell, which was to speak slightly louder than usual. “He your husband? He run out on you, or what? Looks the type.”

“You know him?” asked Miss Parker, as if she didn’t know.

A beat, as Marco continued to stare at the photo. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“Nah,” said the man, making a special effort to look her straight in the eye. “I thought for a sec, but nah, sorry. Like I said, I see a lot of faces. Who is he?”

She could call him out, of course. He was clearly lying. But would it help? Probably not. Easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar, she was sure she’d heard that somewhere before.

“I’m a reporter,” she said. One good lie deserves another. Besides, she’d had occasion to practice her small-p pretender skills lately. “He’s a person of interest on a case I’m covering, and I’m up a creek if I don’t get an insider quote for the weekend edition. My boss grants me an informant fund, if you point me in the right direction I could send some your way. What do you say?”

Marco’s hands gripped the edge of the counter like an acrophobe hanging onto his roller coaster seat for dear life. He slowly unclenched and turned back to his work.

“Tempting,” said Marco. “But as I don’t know the guy, I can’t give you anything worth any money. Except maybe one of Philly’s best sandwiches. You going to order, or what?”

She ordered. A shrimp po boy was ready in five minutes, and eaten in another ten as Miss Parker loitered in her rental car outside the restaurant. Lorefice knew where to find Jarod, it was only a matter of waiting for him to lead her back to wherever Jarod was hiding, and then…

Well, and then she’d catch Jarod.

And then?

And then she’d bring him back to the Centre.

And then?

And then Raines would let her move on.

To what?

Shut up.

Marco Lorefice might have been a terrible liar, but he wasn’t too shabby at shaking a tail. As far as she was aware, she hadn’t given him significant reason to suspect he was being tailed, but maybe shaking a hypothetical tail was simply de rigueur for the sort of guy Jarod would target. He ran several stale yellow lights, abruptly pulled over twice, switched lanes at every given opportunity, and worst of all, his blinker signaling appeared to have little to no relationship with the direction he actually planned to turn. Of course, it was always possible that on top of being a terrible liar, he was also a terrible driver. Regardless, Miss Parker had been tailing a genius for over five years (never mind unsuccessfully) and would not be deterred.

Finally, Lorefice’s car turned without signaling into a parking garage at the base of an imposing office building, a dozen-odd floors of aggressively boring architecture which put Miss Parker in mind of a prison. She looped around the block and pulled into the same garage. An elevator from the parking garage took her to the ground floor, and Miss Parker emerged into a deserted lobby.

Whomever had furnished the place had spared every expense, only allowing the bare minimum of comfort: three cramped chairs with upholstery stinking of cigarette smoke, all barely within shouting distance of a vacated front desk. It took a moment for Miss Parker to recall, oh that’s right, it was past clock-out time on a Friday. All the nine-to-fivers were home with their two-point-five kids.

But then why had she been able to access the building through the parking garage? Why weren’t the entrances locked?

Miss Parker slid behind the front desk and pawed around, hoping for more information about where she might catch up with Lorefice. Something that read ‘Floor 9: Department of Corruption and Orphan Abuse’ would be perfect, that would be right up Jarod’s alley. She wished she’d brought some backup, even Syd would have helped her be in more than one place at once. The one time she’d thought to cover the exits, and there was nobody there to cover them for her.

She found a building directory mounted to the wall near the front desk, and she was skimming the contents when something dark moved in her peripheral vision, followed by a muffled, hollow thump. When she turned to look, at first she could see nothing awry. She was still alone in the lobby, so whatever had moved, it couldn’t have been inside the building. Then she saw it: an artichoke green filing cabinet lay on its side on the strip of lawn that ran along the side of the building. It was badly dented and vomiting neon file folders onto the grass.

Just like the parking garage entrance, the front doors were conspicuously unlocked. Miss Parker pushed through them and rushed over to the fallen cabinet. A crunch underfoot alerted Miss Parker to a minefield of broken glass around the cabinet. She looked up. Sure enough, a window many floors up had a cavernous hole through which the cabinet had presumably fallen. If Miss Parker strained her hearing, she thought she could hear distant shouts, floating down to her from high above.

She stepped back several paces and counted the floors, from the broken window down to the ground floor. Seven floors.

Miss Parker had the safety on her gun switched off when the elevator doors opened on the seventh floor, revealing another sterile lobby. The back wall was made of glass, with an ornate pattern of frosted glazing and transparent glass allowing unpredictable glimpses of the hallway beyond. At first, it seemed just as deserted as the ground floor. She paused on the threshold to the elevator, listening hard.

The first sign of life was the sound of footsteps — an irregular gait: step, drag, step, drag — and laboured breathing. A figure soon came into view through the warped glass looking out onto the hallway. It was a tall man with broad shoulders, curled in on himself as he stumbled down the hall, putting as much weight as he could on his right leg. As Miss Parker watched, he stopped and put out a hand to the glass wall to brace his wavering balance, smearing red on the glass as he did so. His profile passed by a transparent section of glass, and Miss Parker’s breath caught.

It was Jarod.

His hair was shorter than when she’d last seen him, and he’d grown out a short beard, but it was unmistakably him. She’d last seen him in person over a year previous. As far as she had discerned, his rate of Pretends had slowed over the last couple of months, and the opportunities to run into him were abruptly thin on the ground. In a backwards kind of way, she’d missed him.

Jarod, cornered. For once, she was covering the exits, and he was clearly in no shape to run. He wasn’t in any shape to do much of anything, in fact — trying for dispassionate, she noted the strain in his expression, the tension in his mouth and jaw, the sheen of sweat at his temples. Her study of Jarod’s face was interrupted by the sound of more footsteps, running this time, and an angry shout.

“Jarod, you narc bastard, get back here,” called a scathing voice. Miss Parker recognized the voice from the deli: it was Lorefice. The shout spurred Jarod to action, setting him off at a slightly faster hobble. He reached the door separating the hall from the lobby and flung it wide. On automatic, Miss Parker brought up the barrel of her gun to point in his direction. Jarod’s eye caught the movement and looked straight at her. His glazed eyes took a lethargic moment to register recognition, then:

“What — uh!”  Two loud barks of a pistol, and the sound of shattering glass.

“… Jarod?” she whispered.

Jarod staggered sideways into the shattered door. His feet wobbled beneath him and one hand shot out to grab something to stop his fall. It closed on empty air, his feet gave out, and he crashed to the floor.

Despite the evidence playing out in front of her eyes, it took a moment for Miss Parker to realize what had happened, as if her brain was trying to overwrite the incoming information rather than process it.

Jarod had been shot. At least twice, if the limp was anything to go by. He was still alive and sitting upright, one shoulder braced against the remains of the door to the lobby. But his attacker wasn’t finished.

Lorefice came into view at the far end of the hallway. He no longer bothered to run. He took no notice of Miss Parker, standing still as a piece at a wax museum with her gun pointed uselessly at the floor. He ambled up to Jarod, close enough that Jarod had to tilt his chin up to meet his eyes. Lorefice was the type to get expressive with the barrel of a gun, and he brandished the thing theatrically at Jarod’s slumped figure.

“Gotcha,” said Lorefice.

Jarod swallowed, his throat working in stuttering, groping jerks.

“I’m not — I’m not who you think I… what do you…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it. You’re loyalty itself! You’d knee yourself in the balls before you’d turn against us! Uh-huh, right. Bye, Jarod.”

He raised his gun and pointed it squarely at Jarod’s forehead.

Miss Parker didn’t think. It was pure instinct.

The next moment, there was a hole in Marco Lorefice’s temple and a new, gory mural in reds and greys on the opposite wall. Miss Parker’s index finger trembled on the trigger. One suspended moment of silence passed, and Lorefice’s body toppled.

… It toppled onto Jarod.

The only reaction Jarod had to having a two hundred-and-change pound man dropped on him was a soft, pained grunt. After that, not a twitch.

You killed him, said something inside Miss Parker. The thought spiraled.

You killed him. You killed Jarod. You killed him you killed him what if he’s dead? You killed him. What if he’s dead? What if he’s gone? You killed Jarod! You killed him. What if he’s dead what if he’s dead what if he’s gone and dead. You killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him.

And so on.

The next moment, it was like someone had pressed play on Miss Parker. She rushed forward, skidded to her knees, grabbed two great handfuls of Lorefice’s dead flesh and shoved. Throwing her weight bodily into the man’s torso, she managed to push Lorefice’s corpse off of Jarod, onto the carpet. One of the dead man’s eyes was half-open. It met her gaze with one dilated pupil — not shocked or accusatory, just a dead eye. She growled in disgust and turned her face and her attention back to Jarod.

Miss Parker would never admit, even in the privacy of her own mind, to the stab of overjoyed relief which lanced through her chest when Jarod stirred to life. He gasped, grimaced and grabbed at his leg. He was alive. She hadn’t killed him; just the opposite, she’d saved his life. At least, for the moment.

Jarod’s left leg captured all his attention. His leg wound bubbled up a slow, regular geyser of blood, creating a dark, growing stain on the thigh of his pants. He clamped one hand over the wound, and with his free hand, he felt up under his shirt for the second wound. Once he found it, he slapped his palm down firmly, with enough force to make Miss Parker wince with visceral sympathy.

Only when he’d accomplished this sequence of tasks did he focus his gaze on Miss Parker.

Miss Parker was used to Jarod’s typical reaction to spotting her, usually across a crowded room at the end of that week’s flavour of three-dimensional Where’s Waldo?. It wasn’t unusual to see wariness, even some alarm. It had been a while, however, since she’d seen real fear. She saw it now.

The fear blew Jarod’s unfocused eyes wide and he jerked back. Before Miss Parker could say anything, he scrambled back on his hands and elbows, dragging himself away from her, wounds forgotten. He soon collided with the closest wall and — and this was where Miss Parker’s sense of the real and the surreal skewed crazily back-to-front — let out a panicked whimper. The sound tugged at her heart.

“Jarod! Calm down, stop moving,” she hissed. As far as she was aware, there was no reason to whisper; if Lorefice had pals, they weren’t exactly queuing to back him up. She didn’t feel that loud noises would help Jarod’s clear distress, however, so she kept her voice low. “I’m not going to — well. I’m not going to kill you. Calm down, lie still.”

With that, she wrapped her own palm around the thigh wound, and tried her best to ignore the full-body wince which resulted. She’d been about to say ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ a statement which would have had a shaky relationship with the truth, at best. She wasn’t here to kick him in the ribs, sure, but she also wasn’t here to bake him a birthday cake. Hence, she supposed, his fear.

Jarod stared at her a moment. He said nothing. He seemed to have come back to himself, if barely. His breathing sounded odd, sounded muted. The panic had dissipated as suddenly as it had appeared. Jarod pushed his hand up under his shirt again and held it to his chest.

“Where did —” She cleared her throat and nodded to Jarod’s torso. “Where did he get you?”

“Lung,” Jarod grunted.

“Oh. Oh. That’s, uh. That’s not good,” she said, and even through the distraction of the moment it sounded stupid to her ears. Jarod noticed, too. He gave her a deeply patronizing glare.

“No, it’s not.”

Miss Parker waited a moment for him to expand, but he didn’t. His lips were pressed together, hard.

“Well, you’re the sometimes-doctor,” she pointed out. “Are — are you going to be all right? Can you make it to —”

“To where?” Jarod snapped. “To a helicopter? To Delaware? No. I can’t.” Miss Parker opened her mouth to correct him, to tell him she’d been about to say ‘to a hospital’, but he continued. “Your hand. Need it.”

“… What?”

His next response was slow in coming, like he needed a run-up at it.

“On the chest wound, so. Doesn’t coll-apse. More.” His words came out in fits and starts. Miss Parker hesitated, thinking how to approach the manoeuvre. Jarod spotted the hesitation, and promptly misinterpreted it.

“Centre doesn’t want —” He inhaled a thin, drawn-out breath. “— me dead. Help. Please.”

“Neither do I, Jarod. Christ, you think that little of —” She stamped down her defensiveness. “Agh, shit. Brace yourself.”

She bent close, taking care not let go of Jarod’s thigh. Her free hand she slipped under Jarod’s reddening shirt, travelling up until it met his slippery fingers clamped over the sucking wound. His fingers shifted, and hers quickly replaced them. Like the idol swap in Indiana Jones, a tiny hysterical corner of her mind pointed out. Jarod hissed from the pain, then both of his hands disappeared under his shirt. Miss Parker couldn’t see what he was doing, but she felt a successive rapping, on one side of his chest, then the other.

He stared straight at her (through her?) the whole time, and Miss Parker stared straight back. Staring into Jarod’s eyes, with her hand on his chest — it’s not exactly how you pictured this happening, is it? The hysterical corner of her mind was back, and growing bolder by the second. But no. No, it wasn’t how she’d imagined it.

The rapping stopped, and Jarod took over again on wound-plugging duty. Miss Parker sat back, relieved for an excuse to break eye contact.

“Hemothorax,” Jarod muttered. In response to Miss Parker’s raised eyebrow, he expanded: “Blood in… chest cavity.” Miss Parker didn’t know what to do with that. It didn’t sound great. Mutely, Jarod jerked his head in her direction.

“Hm?” she said.

“Ambulance,” he gasped.

“I can’t call an ambulance.” She wasn’t sure when she’d made that decision, but it was made. Jarod’s jaw slackened and a look of hurt and confusion unfolded on his face.

“Why not?”

There was that disappointment again. The worst part was — or was it the saving grace? — he wouldn’t look so disappointed if he hadn’t thought better of her in the first place. But she was thinking of both of them, she wanted to argue. She wasn’t sure how true that was. Possibly very. Possibly not at all.

“Jarod, have you forgotten the dead body next to you? We’d be arrested.”

Jarod gave her a mute look which pointed out, very eloquently, that only she would be spending any time behind bars for their flat-lined friend. Miss Parker ignored him and got to her feet. Jarod squirmed and grabbed for his leg.

“We’re not staying here, though. We gotta move,” Miss Parker said, half to herself.

“To wh—”

“Stop talking with that sucking chest wound, you sound like Raines, for God’s sake.” She tried for her usual bravado, but couldn’t keep a waver out of her voice. Jarod snapped his mouth shut.

Miss Parker stepped over Lorefice’s body and set off down the hall at a half-run. She tried not to envision what could happen if she were too slow, if she returned to find two cooling bodies on the linoleum rather than one. In the third room she checked, she found a box of page protectors; in the fourth, a roll of medical tape in a first-aid kit. She returned to Jarod and brandished both tools. Jarod gave her a wobbly, half-dubious smile.

Five minutes later, a square cut from page-protector plastic was taped inelegantly over the hole in Jarod’s chest. She craned her head back to admire her handiwork. It was a messy job — Florence Nightingale she was not — but it seemed stable and (most importantly) air-tight. Jarod nodded jerkily and gave her a mute thumbs-up.

She didn’t consult Jarod on the next step in the plan. She couldn’t bet on him agreeing, especially since he’d wanted an ambulance. So, without a word of explanation, she:

1. Helped Jarod to a sitting position, 
2. Got behind him, 
3. Hooked both her arms under both of his, and 
4. Pulled.

Jarod gasped and clawed at the floor for purchase.

“Like tearing off a band-aid,” muttered Miss Parker. She began tugging Jarod along the lobby floor towards the elevator. She pointedly did not look at the lengthening smear of blood they were leaving behind. “Except longer and more annoying. So not really much like a band-aid at all.”

“Where —”

“Shh.” She couldn’t bear to hear the pain in his voice. She’d never been able to deal well with feeling sympathy for Jarod. It only ever made her job harder.

At the last hump of the journey, one of Jarod’s feet got caught on the doorway to the elevator. Miss Parker didn’t notice, and heaved again from her under-arm grip. Jarod’s yell of pain should have echoed through the building; instead it was barely louder than a murmur, like a broken Speak n’ Spell. Miss Parker winced.

“Sorry,” she said softly. She didn’t check to see if he’d heard; she just leaned over, cleared his foot from the obstruction, and pulled him the rest of the way into the elevator.

Miss Parker kept her eyes on the floor number display on the elevator trip down. She could feel his stare, from floor seven all the way to the parking garage. Still her eyes stayed glued to the shifting numbers.

“I’m not going to drag you across the parking lot,” she announced to the elevator at large, still avoiding Jarod’s eyes. This was the approach to take. All business. No muss, no fuss. Just the facts, ma’am. “I’m going to get the car. You keep your hand on the leg wound.”

The parking lot was still empty, save for Marco Lorefice’s Pontiac, parked two rows over from her own parking spot. She wondered fleetingly how long it would take the cops to find it once Lorefice’s disappearance was noted. Or maybe it wouldn’t even take as long as that; after all, the body had fallen on Jarod, there was little chance there wasn’t some of the sandwich artist’s DNA material somewhere on Jarod’s person. If he had a record — and from all his posturing and gun-waving, it seemed like there was a good chance he would — they wouldn’t have to find the body to know to look for Lorefice. Jarod’s blood was all over that the hallway.

Turning the contingencies over in her mind, Miss Parker pulled her rental car up to the elevator.

Jarod was gone.

For a moment, she wanted to yell in frustration. Then, she applied the bare minimum of logic. He had gun shot wounds, one in his lung and one in his thigh, with only some tape and page protector plastic plugging the former and his own hand putting pressure on the latter. He could not have gone far.

He hadn’t. Miss Parker found Jarod using a railing as a crutch, speed-limping towards the darkened toll booth at the garage exit. He had a cellphone in one hand, and as she watched, he mashed one of the buttons on the keypad. It was Miss Parker’s cellphone. He could have grabbed it at any point — while she was lending her hands for help with his chest wound, while she was avoiding his eye in the elevator, when she’d dislodged his foot from the doorway. It didn’t matter.

Miss Parker didn’t raise her gun, didn’t raise her voice.

“Jarod, stop. Drop the phone.” He froze. His shoulders sagged. He didn’t turn around, nor did he relinquish the phone. Miss Parker sighed. “Don’t make me shoot my own phone.”

The phone dropped. Jarod turned around, swaying on the spot. He looked as though will alone kept him on his feet.

“Centre?” he wheezed.

Miss Parker hesitated.

“Eventually.”

It took some doing, but finally Jarod was bundled into the backseat of the rental. Miss Parker had put down a foil blanket from her field kit, feeling very much like a serial killer as she did so. The blanket was large enough to both cover the back seat and to fold around Jarod’s shoulders. To keep the blood off the upholstery, she’d said, though she also detected the shivers travelling up and down Jarod’s body. It was a disgustingly humid day, so she guessed it was due to blood loss.

Four blocks from the hospital, Jarod closed his eyes. One block later, Miss Parker noticed.

“Jarod, you still with me?” she said. No response. “Jarod?” Nothing. Miss Parker glanced over her shoulder at the back seat. She turned back to the road, ashen. There was a puddle of blood pooling on the floor of the legroom area. From Miss Parker’s quick impression, it seemed as though it stemmed from the leg wound.

“Damn it. Damn it. Son of a bitch,” said Miss Parker, and followed these up with several successively ruder word choices. “I’m going to kill you if you die, Jarod, don’t you dare.” Then, after a pause: “I need to get you back to the Centre alive.”

As if she needed to give a reason why she didn’t want him to die. She wasn’t sure who she was arguing with. Jarod? He was out cold. Herself?

Maybe.

She pulled into the hospital’s temporary parking zone outside the emergency department.

“Jarod?” she called, gently shaking him after coming around to the back door. Then, when there was no response, not-so-gently shaking him. “C’mon, Jarod. Jarod, wake — wake up. Help! I need some help over here!” She shouted this last in the direction of the automatic doors leading to emergency intake. “Someone, help! I need help with my — help!”

Two paramedics fresh off a patient delivery jogged over with a wheeled stretcher. They didn’t blink at the blood in the backseat, simply loaded Jarod onto the stretcher and bustled him off. Miss Parker leaned back against the car and watched Jarod disappear around a corner, thronged by emergency personnel. There was a nurse at her shoulder, barraging Miss Parker with questions, but to Miss Parker he sounded a thousand miles away.

For the first time since Jarod’s escape, she was letting him out of her sight willingly. She had better not get too comfortable with the feeling. It couldn’t happen again.

“Miss, I need some kind of identification.”

The nurse at the emergency department’s reception desk was down to the penultimate straw on the camel’s back. In her defence, there were two discrete screaming kids harmonizing in the waiting room at the moment. To make matters worse, this woman who’d come in with the GSW John Doe was stonewalling her.

Miss Parker blinked at the nurse. She’d been functioning at maximum adrenaline for a good hour and a half and was now running on fumes. She straightened in her chair, a cheap plastic thing which rubbed runs into her stockings at the back of her legs. Identification. The nurse wanted to know her name. If she gave her name… now, how would it go? The Centre would find out. The name would show up on Broots’s radar, and knowing her luck, it would get back to Mr Lyle. Lyle would blunder into the situation with all the subtlety of a sawed-off shotgun and would try to steal the Jarod collar out from under her. She couldn’t hand over any identification.

“Don’t have it,” she said, words slightly slurred.

“None at all?” The nurse’s expression could be described as ‘politely incredulous’.

Miss Parker had a light bulb moment.

“Look, we were mugged,” she snapped. Indignation came easily. “We didn’t have much on us, and it pissed the guy off. He took my wallet and my phone.” She made a mental note to make sure her phone was turned off or silenced, so it wouldn’t ring later and give the game away. “Then he —”

“Don’t worry about the rest of the incident, you can tell the officer later,” said the nurse. Every word was clipped with chronic impatience. “Can I get a name, at least?”

“Officer?” Miss Parker echoed.

“Yes, officer. We have police on the facilities for cases like these, where the injury appears to have resulted from an act of violence. That is, a crime. He’ll go over the details with you. Now please, miss, a name?”

“Jamison,” Miss Parker blurted, distracted by the idea of having to deal with yet more questions, this time from a cop. The name came automatically to mind. It had been her mother’s, before she met Daddy.

The nurse raised her fingers, poised to type.

“Jamison. J-A-M-I-S-O-N? Good, thank you. Is that your name or the patient’s name?”

“Mine,” said Miss Parker.

“First name?”

“Ma—” Her real name in combination with her mother’s maiden name could still send up red flags at the Centre. She changed tack mid-word. “Margot.”

“Thanks, Margot. We’ll get back to your details later. What is the patient’s name?”

The name ‘Jarod’ would summon Centre sweeper teams even more effectively than Miss Parker’s own name. She scanned her recent memories for inspiration and landed on a recent conversation with Sydney about his twin brother.

“It’s, ah. His name is Jake.”

The nurse caught the stammer and frowned.

“Jake…?”

She couldn’t appear to hesitate, so she gave the first name that came to mind.

“Parker.” Miss Parker grimaced, internally cursing herself. The nurse didn’t seem to notice. She tapped away at her keyboard.

“Jake Parker, great. What’s your relationship to Jake, Ms. Jamison?”

‘His perennially unsuccessful kidnapper’ wouldn’t open any doors, she knew. She’d have to be family to have access to Jarod while he recovered.

“I’m his wife. I kept my name.”

The nurse gave her a tight-lipped smile and slid a form across the desk to Miss Parker. “You can fill out this form on behalf of your husband. This mugger, I suppose they got Jake’s wallet too?”

Miss Parker nodded.

“And I suppose you wouldn’t happen to know Jake’s insurance information off the top of your head?”

Miss Parker shook her head. “I can get the information from his employer. It’s after hours right now, though. They’re closed for the weekend.”

“Understandable. You’ll need to get that information to us as soon as you’re able.”

The Centre would agree to cover Jarod’s medical expenses, no question. They had money coming out of their ears, and to boot, they had a vested interest in making sure their lab rat remained alive. This did, of course, put a very concrete deadline on her capacity to avoid reporting back to the home office. She wanted to delay that eventuality as much as possible. The less time Lyle had to swoop in and spoil things, the better.

Some time later, she was rescued from her front-row seat to a performance of Infant Distress in A Minor by a police officer. The officer handed her a cup of coffee (gratis, yet revolting), introduced himself as Sgt. Hobbes, and requested her statement. Miss Parker tried to keep the story light on details, and as close to the truth as possible. Fewer details meant less potential to accidentally contradict herself later.

“Jake and I were out on a walk together when we heard a noise coming from the parking garage under AdeptMax Industries.” She gave the address to a building two miles west of Lorefice’s last resting place, which Hobbes dutifully copied down. “It sounded like it could be someone in pain, and Jake likes to try to be a good Samaritan, so we decided to have a look. We didn’t see anybody at first, but then a man came out from behind a car, and —”

“What did he look like?”

“I was getting to that, keep your hair on.” She had a choice to make here. She could invent someone. There was a lot of potential there for forgetting or confusing details later on, which could lead to trouble in the time it took the sergeant to flip between one page of his notebook and the next. Or she could describe someone specific. She could pick an acquaintance at random, paint a word picture by memory. Or — “He was about six foot two, dark curly hair, thick eyebrows. Looked like he worked out a lot.”

Had a hole in his head. Two, in fact, her mind supplied.

The thing about describing Lorefice as the mugger was, it had potential to turn out either very convenient or very inconvenient. Bullet point A, Jarod likely had Lorefice’s genetic material all over him. And, bullet point B, what with Lorefice’s comfort with firearms it seemed like a fair bet that the man was in the criminal database. So, it probably wouldn’t hurt for Jarod to have an established reason for having Lorefice’s DNA on him, if only to keep the cops out of their hair for a couple extra hours. QED.

It also created a link between the two of them and a dead body which might not have otherwise existed. You take the bad with the good.

“Caucasian, or…?”

“White guy, yeah.”

“And the car?”

“Pontiac. Grey, I think.” It had been a desaturated blue colour, but she didn’t need to leave him all the bread crumbs. Grey Pontiac, she repeated to herself. AdeptMax Industries. Jake Parker, Margot Jamison. So much for ‘light on details’, her exhaustion must be spurring her to run her mouth. She hoped like hell she could keep all the fudged details straight.

“Thanks, this is great. Then what happened?”

“He had a gun, a pistol I think. He asked for all our valuables, but we were just on a walk, we hadn’t brought much. We gave him what we had, our wallets and my cellphone. He seemed frustrated, and he started waving the gun around more, at Jake and then at me. Jake tried to get between me and the gun, and the guy shot him.” It wasn’t hard to act as though she was still shaken from seeing her ‘husband’ shot by a mugger. She simply had to collapse a few barriers in her mind and the memory made her voice shake. “I think he panicked, he must have thought that Jar — that Jake wanted to attack him. He shot him twice, in the leg and the chest.”

Miss Parker replayed the true incident in her head — Jarod spotting her across the lobby, the gun shots echoing down the hallway, Jarod staggering sideways into shattered glass and sliding into a heap on the floor. Miss Parker’s fingers stopping up the hole in Jarod’s chest, Jarod’s heartbeat hammering erratically under her hand.

For a jarring, impotent moment, she’d thought Jarod was going to die. While the barriers were down, she could admit the idea had been terrifying. Why it had been terrifying, she didn’t care to think about. What would the Centre have done if she’d let Jarod die in front of her? Knowing the Centre they’d probably have ordered the body retrieved. Dead or alive, Jarod was important. A shudder ran across her shoulders and up to the nape of her neck.

Sergeant Hobbes looked up from his notes, having noted the break in her story.

“Nearly there, Ms. Jamison. What happened next?”

Miss Parker blinked rapidly to shake herself from the flashback.

“Once he’d shot Jake, the mugger looked scared,” she continued. “He took off in his car. I didn’t see the plate, before you ask. There wasn’t anyone around, but I’d parked the car not too far away so I ran to get it. And then I brought Jake here.”

She let out a shaky breath.

“Is that enough? I’m exhausted. I need to see my husband.”

“Almost. When —” He caught the full force of Miss Parker’s tired glare and trailed off. “You know what, it can wait. Don’t leave the premises without informing me or another on-site officer. I hope your husband pulls through, Ms. Jamison.”

But when Miss Parker asked after Jarod at the intake desk, she was rebuffed.

“He’s in surgery, ma’am. We’ll let you know.”

Miss Parker ducked into a single-occupancy washroom and pulled out her phone. If she hadn’t silenced it, it would have been ringing off the hook. Broots had left over a dozen messages, Syd a mere two. Miss Parker pulled up the most recent one from Broots.

“Miss Parker!” said Broots’s tinny voice. “I wish you’d pick up your phone. That is, I hope you’re OK, and if you’re OK, I wish you’d pick up your phone. Mr Lyle worked out that I know where you went, and he’s been hounding me non-stop. He also tracked down the linguist we asked to figure out the surname, but of course he doesn’t know it’s — he doesn’t know which we identified as the most likely.” Miss Parker spared a moment of gratitude for Broots’s latent paranoia. She wouldn’t put it past her brother to pull a recording of this call. If Broots hadn’t self-censored, Lyle would have gained the name Lorefice, which was sure to pop up in a police report sooner or later.

“And he doesn’t know the first name’s Marco,” Broots continued. Miss Parker winced. Never mind. She took back every compliment she’d ever paid Broots. “So, uh, you’ve still got your head start. Lyle’s threatening to send me to a T-board, though. Really wouldn’t mind some help keeping him off my back. Anyway. Call me back! Buh-bye. Why did I say buh-b—”

Miss Parker shut the phone off and stuffed it into her bag, alongside her firearm. She shouldn’t worry. Broots might be an origami bird under pressure but he was loyal. He wouldn’t blab, not from a brute force approach. Maybe Brigitte could have pulled it out of him, but she was long gone.

When Miss Parker let herself out of the washroom, she caught the intake nurse’s eye across the waiting room. The nurse frowned and gave her a small shake of the head. Miss Parker looked over to the double doors through which Jarod had been pushed on a wheeled stretcher. He’d be all right. Even in her head, she didn’t pose it as a question. It was Jarod. He’d be fine.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Jarod sprawled in the back seat of the rental car, red pooling under him and dripping off the foil blanket onto the floor.

He’d be fine.

The waiting room was quieter, and Miss Parker realized after a moment that the two screaming children had left. Grateful for a small morsel of peace, she sank into a grubby chair and closed her eyes.

When Miss Parker opened her eyes again, it felt like it had been five minutes. Judging by the reddening skyline outside, however, she’d slept straight through ‘til dusk. She straightened in her seat and immediately felt the compounded aches and twinges coming back to bite her in the ass for sleeping in a deeply unergonomic hospital waiting room chair. She groaned aloud.

“Jamison! Margot Jamison!”

Miss Parker looked around to see what had woken her up. The intake nurse wasn’t at her desk. The waiting room had emptied out some. Miss Parker counted two more people who were trying to catch some shut-eye while waiting for their turn to see a doctor.

“Jamison!”

Damn, where was this Jamison woman? Holding everything up for everybody else, how rude could you get?

Wait.

The events of the day rushed back to Miss Parker. Tailing a sandwich artist to an empty office building. Jarod’s lung shredded by a bullet. Jarod losing consciousness in the backseat of her rental sedan. The police interrogation. Margot Jamison. She rose from her chair.

“I’m Ms. Jamison,” she said.

“I know,” the intake nurse snapped. She stood not two yards away, arms akimbo, looking very much like she’d like to give Miss Parker detention and have her write lines. “I’ve called for you six times now. I don’t have time to come out from behind the desk to fetch patients and family members.”

“Got it, fine. Won’t happen again,” said Miss Parker with sarcastic humility. “Is there news?”

The nurse deflated slightly. “Yes. Your husband is going to be OK.” She tried for a reassuring smile; Miss Parker tried to return it with a reassured smile. They both gave the impression they were acting out a scene in a community theatre production. “The procedure was a success. He is healing, and will need a lot of rest, but you can see him. There was blood in his chest cavity, and it will take time to drain. The doctor will tell you more when she meets with you.”

And she gave Miss Parker directions to Jarod’s hospital room.

Jarod was going to be OK — as she knew he would be. Miss Parker closed her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t unreasonable to be relieved. This would make her job easier.

It was a private room, which seemed a lucky break.

(Miss Parker would later discover that in fact this hospital had a policy of putting GSW survivors in private rooms, to better cooperate with Philadelphia PD presence. For now, though, it seemed like a real stroke of luck.)

She stepped into the room and her eyes fell on Jarod. He was sleeping. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him asleep before, not even on any of the DSAs Sydney had recovered from Jarod since the initial escape from the Centre. The old cliché was that being asleep made a person look younger, and in a way that was true here as well. Or, more accurately, he looked… uncomplicated. Sweet, even. His sleeping expression reminded her of the snippets of guileless enthusiasm she’d seen in him in the early days post-escape.

As if in response to her thoughts, Jarod’s brow furrowed.

“Won’t,” he mumbled. “I won’t. Let me go, I won’t.”

He hadn’t opened his eyes. Miss Parker froze and strained to pick up his mumbled words, wondering what he could be dreaming about.

His voice grew louder. “Stop! Don’t… hm. I’ll.” He broke off for the span of several seconds, like someone had pressed pause on his nightmare. Then it started up again. “I’ll do it. Leave… alone. Stop!”

His body pitched violently to one side, towards Miss Parker, such that he was inches from sliding off the mattress. For the first time, Miss Parker noticed a thin tube tucked under his hospital gown, leading away to an opaque cylinder which reminded her of some sort of antique vacuum cleaner. The contents of the tube were dark red, and the plastic had twisted during Jarod’s nightmare. Miss Parker thought back to what the nurse had said — Jarod would have to have blood drained from his chest. The suction had been cut off, however, when he’d moved.

Miss Parker stepped close and shook Jarod by the shoulder. He jolted awake with a gasp.

“Miss Parker! What —”

He stared around at his surroundings. His gaze paused on the door and on the window, lingering long enough to note the lack of an obvious opening mechanism on the latter. Always looking for a way out.

“You were dreaming,” said Miss Parker.

Jarod’s eyes snapped back to look at her. This time, there was no eruption of irrational fear, as there had been back at the scene of Lorefice’s death. She remembered his panic-stricken look, scrambling backwards away from her, reduced to prey instincts by terror. What had that been about? Now, he only looked cautious.

After a pause, he nodded warily.

“Nightmare.”

“Sounded like a bad one.” She kept her tone light as she stepped around the bed and straightened out the drainage tubing as best she could. Jarod watched as she did so.

“Still in it,” he said bitterly. He grabbed a fistful of blankets and pushed them off his wounded leg. “Or the prologue to it, at least. In the dream I was back at the Centre, hanging out with your brother. I guess I have that to look forward to. I have to admit, I’m surprised to wake up here, and not in Blue Cove.”

Miss Parker pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down. It was more comfortable than the chairs in the waiting room, but not by much.

“You said you wouldn’t make it to Delaware,” she said simply. “You’re the one with medical experience on your resume, I thought I’d take your word on that. Anyway, I’m not in a rush. You’re not going anywhere like that.”

Jarod’s facial expression smoothed out, all expression vanishing. He stared at his leg. There wasn’t anything to see — it was wrapped in layers upon layers of dressing and gauze — but he seemed to be boring through to it with his blank gaze.

“I’m not going anywhere like this,” he repeated. “That’s, yeah. I’m not. I can’t escape.”

Miss Parker opened her mouth to respond, but found she was too disconcerted to speak. Jarod was nothing if not certain in his capacity to beat the odds, at least when it came to going up against the Centre. Never in all the time she’d known him had he ever sounded so defeated. It was wrong, that’s what it was. Jarod shouldn’t sound defeated. She almost had the vaguest urge to say something encouraging. Almost.

“No,” she said, because she could think of nothing else to say. “Not today.”

“Not today, and —” Jarod broke off, and Miss Parker wondered with horror if there was some emotion clogging his throat. Instead, he grabbed at his thigh and groaned. Miss Parker got to her feet.

“I’ll get a doctor,” she said automatically, business-like, turning to the door. Jarod gestured for her stop. She hovered in between.

“No,” he said, muffled by gritted teeth. “It’s OK. It hurts, but it’s fine.”

“Oh, Christ. Machismo, Jarod? Really?” said Miss Parker. “I'm not a doctor but I’m pretty sure going on pain meds after being shot, twice, is normal and expected. I'm getting a doctor.” But she didn't leave.

Jarod closed his eyes, apparently to ride out the pain. He jerked his head to the door.

“Their anesthesia drugs are too strong,” he said. “I’ve been through withdrawal before, it was a similar dependency mechanism. No interest in doing it again.”

Withdrawal? Miss Parker stared incredulously for a moment before a neuron kicked a memory into gear. The synthetic narcotics the Centre had tried out on him, twenty-odd years ago. Teen-aged Jarod sweating through his blankets and vibrating out of his skin while a stranger held him through it. She couldn’t blame him not wanting to repeat the experience, no matter how long ago it had been. She sat back down.

“Why did he shoot you, anyway? How’d you piss him off?”

Jarod’s eyes opened again, and he shot her a weak glare.

“Lorefice was a kind of middle-management figure in a protection racket. Recently promoted and paranoid about it. I joined the group at an uncomfortable time, Lorefice was almost positive there was a mole, or an undercover cop or that someone was gunning for his new position. Then some lady shows up at his day job asking about his new hire, who’s a person of interest in a case she’s working on. She has a picture of me, looking tidy and upstanding and not at all like a rough-around-the-edges prospective racketeer.”

He watched calmly as realization spread across Miss Parker’s face.

“Then, of course, he was certain there was a mole or an undercover cop in his operation, and just as certain it was me. So he showed up to our next meeting armed.”

She’d gotten Jarod shot. Twice. This was her fault. For one wild moment, Miss Parker considered apologizing. Then her face hardened.

“One of the risks of your vocation, Jarod,” she said, only barely above a whisper. If she spoke any louder, the wobble in her voice would be audible. “Or former vocation, as of now. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

Jarod turned away from her and stared at the ceiling.

“How did you find me so fast this time?” he asked the ceiling.

Miss Parker’s shoulders were so tense her shoulder blades were making dents in the fabric of the chair’s backrest. She forced them to relax.

“You left some notes in a pants pocket in the clothes dryer before you left Cedar Rapids.”

Jarod chuckled ruefully.

“One mistake,” he said. “I guess it only ever had to take one stupid mistake.”

They both fell silent for a long moment, until Miss Parker realized Jarod’s breathing had shifted to a long, deep rhythm. He’d fallen asleep again.

Sometime during the night, Miss Parker woke for the second time in twelve hours to a tremendous crick in the neck. She didn’t have to wonder what had woken her this time: Jarod was groaning in his sleep. Sweat dampened his hair and one hand unconsciously tried to creep under the gauze and dressing on his chest. Miss Parker reached over and pulled his hand away from the wound. They couldn’t be held up by complications with his recovery, she told herself.

She couldn’t bear to fall asleep sitting in a chair again, nor could she afford to let Jarod out of her sight. In the closet opposite the washroom, she found extra pillows and a scratchy blanket. A love-seat next to the window served as her bed, once she’d pushed it between Jarod’s bed and the door — he’d have to limp around her if he wanted to try to escape. Once she’d made herself halfway-comfortable, she glanced over to check on Jarod. He no longer looked uncomplicated; his features were pinched and pained. The heel of his hand — the one she’d pulled away from his chest — pushed against his upper thigh, as if trying to push the pain farther away from himself; his fingers were white-knuckled, digging into the flesh.

She pulled his hand away, but within seconds it drifted towards the wound again. On the third attempt, she held on, gripping Jarod’s hand tight in her own. After some brief resistance, Jarod’s hand relaxed in hers. Miss Parker fell back on her stacked pillows and drifted back to sleep.

And held on ‘til morning.

“Cut to the chase, please. When can I take him home?”

The doctor blinked in surprise at Miss Parker’s brusqueness.

“Hm! Very well,” she blustered. “Barring complications, likely Sunday.”

“Sunday when?”

“If he has another good night, Sunday morning.”

Miss Parker snorted. ‘Good night’, she supposed, was relative. She was still massaging feeling back into her hand after a night of Jarod using her fingers as a stress ball. She cast a glance over her shoulder at the bed; he was still asleep.

“What can I do to expedite things?”

The doctor laughed, a laugh of startled shock. It froze when she realized Miss Parker was being serious.

“Expedite. Hrm. That’s one way of putting it. You can help him by letting him rest. It’s the best thing for him right now. Minimize stress as much as possible. Does he have a stressful job?”

Miss Parker quickly turned a laugh into a cough.

“In a way,” she said.

“Well, I’d recommend limiting his contact with work as much as is feasible. I recognize that’s not possible for everyone, but if he needs an excuse to go off the grid for a bit, being shot twice is a pretty good one.”

Minimize stress, thought Miss Parker. It was a big ask. Every moment Jarod spent conscious, he was likely anticipating the move back to the Centre. No matter her perspective on the prospect, she could see how the idea would be stressful. A Parker-led Centre had had its problems, that was true enough. A Raines-led Centre was a different story. Things had gone downhill quickly the moment Daddy had… left. Died. Disappeared.

… Died.

Anyway, she could see why he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

“Good to know,” Miss Parker said, giving the woman a quick, tight smile. “Thanks.”

And she closed the door, leaving her and Jarod alone, with the doctor blinking at the closed door in front of her face. Miss Parker turned back to Jarod, and found him sitting up and looking at her in complete silence. He seemed to have picked up this habit of silent staring since being shot. She wasn’t complaining about the silence, but she could have done without the staring. Miss Parker picked an unopened yoghurt off Jarod’s untouched breakfast tray and peeled off the lid. It was mango with fruit on the bottom.

“Morning,” she said. “Any more nightmares?”

“What?” Jarod blurted. “How did you kn— what do you mean?”

“Nightmares,” Miss Parker repeated. “Like yesterday.”

She looked around for an extra spoon. They’d left one for Jarod on the tray, wrapped in plastic, but she wasn’t so much of a jerk she’d steal the man’s only spoon.

“I had a nightmare yesterday?” His surprise looked genuine. He must have lost some memories from yesterday. Granted, he had seemed foggy at times.

“Yep,” said Miss Parker, trying to fashion the yoghurt lid into a scoop shape. “You said it was about being at the Centre with Mr. Lyle. Which, incidentally, I wouldn’t worry about. Lyle’s going to be on the outs with the higher-ups when I get back with you. That was the deal. Whoever catches you climbs up the ladder. Whoever doesn’t gets dropped down a chute.”

“A chute?” Jarod repeated with alarm. “Raines has threatened to drop you down a chute?”

“Wouldn’t put it past him, but no. Chutes and Ladders?” Miss Parker said, ladling a mouthful of yoghurt into her mouth with the makeshift spoon. It was an awkward process. Jarod shook his head. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t know it… a board game for kids. It’s nothing to write home about. You didn’t miss much.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Jarod’s mouth sagged at the corners, and he leaned his head back on the pillow.

“Chutes and ladders,” he repeated.

Miss Parker had a sudden premonition — none of that Inner Sense stuff, just regular old intuition — of Jarod sitting in a featureless cell, cut off from the world again. No more discoveries of missed childhood landmarks. It had always been the way things were going to go, if and when Miss Parker succeeded. In that moment, however, it felt more tangible. And more depressing.

“It doesn’t have to be like it was before,” she offered. Jarod looked at her, radiating skepticism. “I’ll have some pull. I’ll… I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense for someone who’s meant to simulate real life to be separated from real life, does it? I’ll have some culture shipped in, to keep you in touch with things.”

“Generous,” said Jarod acidly.

Miss Parker rolled her eyes. “Or I won’t, suit yourself.” She sat at the bedside to finish her snack. “You shouldn’t have to worry about that nightmare anymore, anyway. Like I said, Lyle’s going to be lucky if he keeps his job. He won’t be in charge of the Pretender project.”

“That wasn’t what the dream was about,” said Jarod. “It was about what Lyle did last time I was at the Centre. And whether he’s in charge or not in the future, the Centre endorsed his approach. They would endorse it again in the future, since as far as they knew it was working. Not that I don’t feel reassured by your offer to send me board games through inter-departmental mail.”

“What do you mean, his approach?” She tried to think back to when Lyle and Brigitte had brought in Jarod a couple of years ago. Anything she knew about it, she knew second-hand. She’d been recovering from her own gun-shot wound at the time, laid up in an off-the-grid psychiatric institution. She hadn’t heard much, though she’d badgered Syd enough for details. Jarod had been taken in, he hadn’t done any simulations, they’d tried to move him to Africa and he had escaped en route. Nothing about Lyle’s involvement.

“Don’t pretend to be ignorant, Miss Parker, it doesn’t suit you. His attempts to make me cooperate. The —” He waved a hand. “The electrocution, the cell in the sub levels. Telling me my father was dead.”

The scoop of yoghurt froze half-way to Miss Parker’s mouth. A chunk of mango fell unheeded onto her wrinkled blouse.

“The what?” she said faintly. “Electrocution?”

Jarod raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know? Sydney knew, so did Broots.”

“I got shot, jackass. I missed weeks. When I got back to work, you’d already escaped. But —” She remembered Jarod’s gift to Lyle, post-escape: a sponge and a pair of electric leads. She hadn’t understood the reference at the time. She did now. Her voice softened, almost against her will. “He was torturing you? I swear, Jarod. I didn’t know.”

“It’d be on DSA, if you think I’m embellishing.”

Miss Parker scowled. “I believe you. Whatever you are, you’re not a liar.” It sounded ridiculous as soon as it left her mouth. He lied vocationally. That was his whole gimmick. “Well. Not to me. Usually. It sounds like something Lyle would do, anyway. Bastard. You — you didn’t deserve that.”

Jarod’s mouth twitched at one corner.

“I know,” he said. “But thank you.”

There was a knock at the door. Miss Parker opened it to find Sergeant Hobbes.

“Hello again, Ms Jamison.” The officer bent his head to look past her at the bed. “And Mr Parker is awake and on the mend, I see. That’s great! That’s great. Can I come in? I have a few more questions for the both of you.”

“My husband is healing from a very serious injury, Sergeant,” said Miss Parker, channeling entitled middle-class suburban stay-at-home mom with every fibre of her being. “The stress of being interrogated is the last thing he needs right now.”

“It will only take a minute,” said Hobbes, and cheerfully shouldered past her into the room with a customer service smile. Far from looking stressed by this development, Jarod looked as though he was trying to contain a laugh bubbling up out of his throat. He caught her eye, raised his eyebrows and mouthed ‘Parker?’ in her direction.

She glared.

‘Husband?’ he mouthed again.

She mimed a vicious cutting motion at her throat. Jarod was less than intimidated, but he swallowed his laugh.

“Jake, is that short for Jacob? Can I call you Jake?”

“Of course,” said Jarod with a warm smile. He didn’t blink at the pseudonym. But then, slipping into a role was his bread and butter.

“Thanks, Jake. Glad to see you on the mend.”

“So you said,” said Miss Parker icily. “What are your questions, Sergeant? I’d like to get this over with.”

Hobbes’s eyes flicked back and forth between Jarod and Miss Parker, plainly trying to add up the logic of their ‘relationship’. He pulled out a glossy photograph and held it out for the both of them to see.

“This should be quick, thank you for your time. Does this man look familiar at all to either of you?”

It was a head-shot of Marco Lorefice. Miss Parker couldn’t help the flicker of recognition tinged with revulsion that traveled across her face. She’d last seen that face dead. She’d hoped never to see it again.

“Who is he?” she said, instead of answering.

“Marco Lorefice,” said Hobbes. “He’s a suspected racketeer, a rising star.”

“A racketeer?” said Miss Parker. Inside her head, she was scrambling. She should have thought to clue Jarod in earlier on her established story with the cops. Then again, could she have counted on him to play along even if she had? “We were mugged, Sergeant. We didn’t have our mom-and-pop bakery threatened.”

The sergeant laughed politely. “True. But y’know, Ms Jamison, when you described your mugger, it stuck in my head. I couldn’t shake it. It sounded just like Lorefice — I’ve been trying to nail him for months. Then yesterday, his girlfriend reported him missing, and two puzzle pieces, y’know, they came together. They fit. Yes, mugging is not exactly his M.O., but I don’t know what could lead him to be in that parking garage, we don’t know the circumstances. Maybe he had to get some cash fast, we don’t know.”

Miss Parker caught Jarod’s eye, and some silent communication passed between them. Jarod nodded.

“Yes, that looks like the man who shot me.”

The stale thought of Jarod’s blood on the floor of the seventh floor lobby niggled at the back of Miss Parker’s mind. Nothing had come of Jarod coming in with Lorefice’s blood on him, or at least nothing yet. Had she given the cops a clue to Lorefice’s murder (if that’s what you could call it) for nothing at all? When the cops eventually found Lorefice’s body, would they think to try to link it to Jarod? As far as she was aware, neither Jarod’s fingerprints nor his DNA were in the system. If the cops wanted to try to link Lorefice’s death to Jarod, they’d have to get a warrant. Or Jarod’s permission, but she didn’t plan on letting him give that. A warrant would take time, as would a DNA analysis. They’d be out on a chopper before any arrest warrant could come down.

All this screamed through Miss Parker’s brain as she nodded along.

“Yes, that’s him.”

She’d already given the description. It was too late to take it back. She’d have to hope it wouldn’t bite them in the ass later. The Centre would forgive a lot when she came back with Jarod, but they wouldn’t be pleased if she came back with the Philadelphia PD on her trail.

“Thank you both for the positive ID,” said Hobbes with a wide grin. He was a little too excited, Miss Parker thought. New to the job, probably. “This is very helpful. Of course, we haven’t found him yet. When we do, though, would you be prepared to testify against him?”

“We’ll have to think it over, Sergeant,” said Miss Parker loudly, in case Jarod tried to contradict her. It was a non-question, but the fewer ties they had to the case, the better. “You said yourself this man is part of organized crime, a racketeer. We don’t want to be on some… mafia don’s radar. It would be a big risk, and a big decision.”

She looked over at Jarod. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he watched her with a small smile on his face.

“First of all, we don’t believe this to be a mafia case,” said Sergeant Hobbes. “But I understand your concern. We’d protect you, y’know. The Philadelphia Police Department takes pride in our thorough and effective protection of witnesses to violent crimes.”

He sounded like a public service announcement, and a naïve one at that. It was an effort not to snort.

“I’m sure,” Miss Parker said curtly. “Nevertheless, we will have to think it over. Is that all, Sergeant? My husband has not eaten breakfast yet.”

“Oh, by all means —” Hobbes indicated Jarod’s breakfast tray with an expansive gesture.

“No, I meant we’d like you to leave. To have breakfast in peace.”

Hobbes’s face was an open book, and as Miss Parker looked on, it rifled quickly through pages of rage, calculation, and finally reluctant acceptance. His rookie charm facade slipped an inch, then he pasted it back on.

“Of course. Please tell a nurse if you need to be in touch with me. And again, do not leave the premises without informing me or another officer. The on-premise police presence all have a picture of Lorefice, in case he shows his face; so do the nurses. Not that he’s going to show up!” Hobbes held out both hands, fingers splayed, in a gesture intended to calm. “We just want to be ready for anything.”

“OK,” said Miss Parker.

“Thank you,” said Jarod. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while.

“Yeah, no problem!” said Hobbes. Miss Parker caught a slight frown as he turned to the door. Maybe he’d expected more effusive gratitude.

Once Hobbes had left, Miss Parker turned back to Jarod, and was greeted by a broad, unguarded smile. The smile caught Miss Parker off guard — she’d rarely been the focus of a genuine smile from Jarod since they were kids. It transformed his face, she noted. He was always handsome — even on his most annoying days she couldn’t deny that — but the smile brought forth that same uncomplicated, sweet quality she’d seen while he slept, before the nightmares started up. It made him, well. Beautiful.

She realized after a too-long moment of contemplation that he was speaking.

“It’s nice being able to sit back and watch you Pretend in my stead,” he was saying. “You’re good at it. But you stay… you. You don’t lose track of yourself.”

Miss Parker pressed her lips together to keep from smiling at the compliment. She scrambled for a cutting comment about having a life or not being lab-grown, but everything she tested out felt a little too cruel with Jarod shortly heading back to his sheltered existence at the Centre. She cleared her throat.

“Yeah, sure. Eat your breakfast.”

Jarod picked up a miniature box of Cheerios and opened it.

“You weren’t worried I’d ask Hobbes for help getting away from you?” he asked as he shook O’s into a small plastic bowl.

“No.”

Jarod frowned at the milk carton he was using to drown his cereal. “Why not?”

“Because you never have.”

Jarod didn’t reply right away, and the only sound in the room was the crackle of the spoon’s plastic wrapping.

“I’ve never asked for help from the police when you’ve caught me? No, I guess I haven’t. But they haven’t been around. In Florida, during the hurricane. After the Isle of Carthis. Or any of the other times you’ve come close.”

“Jarod, you’ve had people trying to illegally abduct you for over five years. You’ve been near the cops, hell, you’ve been a cop. But you’ve never tried to sic them on me beyond short-term diversions. Never tried to attack the Centre through legal channels, even though you could dress down a courtroom blindfolded. Not that I want you to, but don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Jarod munched on his Cheerios for long enough that Miss Parker assumed a monologue was in the works.

But then: “You got me there.”

And that was all.

“I got you there,” Miss Parker echoed flatly. He was being deliberately obtuse. “OK, my turn for a question, then: Why not?”

“Good question.”

“And I expect you to answer it.”

More cereal-munching.

“I’ve Pretended to be law enforcement a couple times, at different levels. I’ve unearthed corruption in many industries and institutions, and law enforcement is one of the worst. I also know the Centre’s potential for taking advantage of corruption. Going to the police has a good chance of creating another enemy, or giving my current enemy more foot soldiers. And that, I definitely don’t need.”

It was a good answer. But maybe not the full answer.

“Is that all?”

Jarod stared into his cereal bowl.

“You in prison, that’s not something I want. I don’t want Sydney to go to jail, or Broots either. There are people at the Centre whose imprisonment I wouldn’t lose sleep over, yes. But the collateral damage would be… I wouldn’t want that.” He looked up into Miss Parker’s eyes. “I want you to be free.”

“I…” I want you to be free, too. No, that wasn’t right, hang on. “I want to be free, too.”

Abruptly, Jarod looked bone-tired.

“You’re more free than you think you are, Miss Parker.”

She didn’t like where this was going. A little déjà vu trickled back from their conversation after the take-down of the corrupt landlord in Cedar Rapids. This again?

“How’s that? You’ve said yourself we’re both prisoners of the Centre.”

Jarod nodded. “Yes, I did say that. There’s also a difference between fighting against and being complicit in your own imprisonment. You fought for a long time. You’re not fighting anymore. What changed?”

Miss Parker stood and dropped her unfinished yoghurt in the trash, no longer hungry. She wheeled on Jarod.

“You want to know what changed? Your moles at the Centre must be sleeping on the job. Leadership changed. My father jumped out of a plane, and that walking corpse Raines took over. Daddy would never have hurt me. Raines would have me executed for giggles if the mood struck him. That kind of pressure has a way of focusing a person’s priorities, wouldn’t you say?”

It all came out as a breathless rant of pent-up anger and no small amount of fear. Insufferably Unflappable Jarod raised his eyebrows.

“You’re scared,” he said finally.

“Of course I am!” she burst out. She found she was shaking in her anger. “All the time. And you just make it worse every time you slip away, every time you deprive me of the chance to be the one left standing when this is all over.”

Jarod’s smile was sad.

“I’m scared too, Miss Parker.”

“Stop calling me that here,” she snapped. “Someone will overhear you. It’s Ms Jamison.”

Without waiting for an answer, she stalked over to the windows and checked for vulnerabilities. Jarod watched her skeptically.

“I’m not going to break through the window,” he said dryly. “You’d hear it, and I can’t run on this leg.”

Miss Parker didn’t reply. She focused on scanning the room for obnoxiously large air vents. When she found none, she swept out of the room, leaving a non-plussed Jarod in her wake.

There was a family lounge kitty-corner from Jarod’s private room, with a pile of magazines and a television set airing a soap opera with the volume on mute. It wasn’t a five-star tourist experience, but at least she wouldn’t keep getting caught in emotionally fraught conversational cul-de-sacs by a man with a crippling addiction to head-shrinking. Miss Parker chose a seat with a clear view of the door to Jarod’s room, and settled in to wait. One more good night, the doctor had said. And then she’d be headed home to trumpets and fanfare.

And freedom.

The whole car smelled like hot bananas. It was a scent to turn Sydney’s stomach. After Broots had offered to drive the two hours from Blue Cove to Philadelphia, however, Sydney could hardly begrudge him his choice of snack. And besides, he didn’t have to endure it much longer. They were almost to their destination, just as the shine was wearing off the day.

“We’re taking a gamble that Lorefice’s place of work is open on a Saturday,” Sydney mused. Broots shushed him, the better to concentrate on taking the exit off route 95.

Sydney should have guessed he’d be a nervous driver. He was the type. He would have crumpled under the pressure if he’d been subjected to a T-board solo, which was another upside to going on an impromptu road trip to Pennsylvania. Raines and the Triumvirate couldn’t T-board them if they weren’t there, right? Sydney carefully ignored the niggling thought that they were merely delaying the inevitable.

Only when Broots pulled off onto the correct side road did the moratorium on musing lift.

“It’s where Miss Parker said she was going,” said Broots, as if no time had passed, though it had been a good twenty minutes. He kept his hands rigidly at ten and two. “It makes the most sense to pick up the trail wherever she did. Jeez, why didn’t we just go with her? She could be in real trouble.”

“Did you want to be the one to demand that she bring us along, when she’d already decided she was going alone? Have you ever known her to put up with superfluous acts of chivalry?”

“We-ell, not —”

“That was rhetorical.” Sydney scanned the buildings flitting by his passenger-side window. “Could that be — is that it, there? We can’t already be there.”

“Oh! Yep, that’s the place,” said Broots, squinting as it as they passed by. “It looks like it might be open? I think I see movement inside.”

After finding a parking spot, Sydney and Broots approached the sandwich shop. Sydney took in great lungfuls of air as they stepped up to the front doors, revelling in a completely banana-free bouquet. As Broots mentioned, there seemed to be people inside. The limited lighting suggested the place was probably not open for business, however, and the figures were likely not customers.

Sydney and Broots looked at each other dubiously, then Sydney rapped on the door. The man who answered was a police officer.

“Can’t you read? The place is closed,” he said, jabbing a finger at the ‘CLOSED’ sign in the window.

“I realize that, thank you,” said Sydney with a warm, unruffled smile. “We are looking for a friend of ours who was last seen at this establishment.”

The officer perked up, and open the door a fraction wider.

“A friend? Who’s this friend, what’s he look like? Hairy guy, thick eyebrows, big arms?”

“Not —”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Broots interrupted. Sydney looked at him askance. “Marco. We were expecting a call today and he never — eh, he didn’t call us. Is he in there? We were, well. We were worried.”

“Marco Lorefice?” the officer said. Sydney and Broots nodded, Sydney a little reluctantly. The cop gave the two Centre employees a once-over. “You don’t look like the sort of people Lorefice would get mixed up with.”

“Mixed up with? Nah,” Broots back-pedaled hastily. The last thing they needed was to be implicated as associates to someone with Lorefice’s record. Broots had done some research on the sandwich artist since Miss Parker’s departure. By his description, Sydney could understand why he’d been a prime target for one of Jarod’s Pretends. “Friends of the family. We know his, uh, mom.”

The cop’s interest flickered out.

“He’s not here,” he said curtly. “If you hear anything about his whereabouts, though, call into the station, wouldja? Your boy’s in hot water.”

“He’s not our —”

The door closed in their faces.

“Wonderful,” said Sydney. “That was a fair attempt, Broots, but I think you’d better leave the Pretending to Jarod.”

“Worth a try,” Broots muttered.

“Of course it was. Let’s go back to the car, see if — oh, I beg your pardon.”

Two officers shouldered past them out of the door and down the steps, one of them their acerbic doorman. They addressed neither Sydney nor Broots, but made directly for their patrol car across the street.

“Broots,” Sydney hissed. “Let’s get to the car, quick. We should follow these two.”

“But —”

“There’s no time to second-guess, let’s go.”

Miss Parker caught a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision: the door to Jarod’s room, easing open. What was he up to? This was one of the hazards of not cuffing him to his bed, but she couldn’t risk the cops or hospital staff noticing and throwing her out of the building. As she watched, Jarod limped out into the hallway, his eyes darting this way and that. Almost immediately, he was accosted by a nurse. The woman was short but well-built, and she applied her considerable brawn to gently-but-firmly guide Jarod back to his room. The susurration of their whispered conversation caught Miss Parker’s ear, though she was unable to make out any distinct words. As she got to her feet, she groped in her bag for her gun. Just in case.

The nurse gave Jarod a look of concern and stopped her efforts to push him back towards his room. Damn him, what was he giving away? Miss Parker’s fingers curled around the gun. She wasn’t planning anything concrete. If she could get close to Jarod without making the pistol visible, however, she’d be able to coerce him away from his would-be accomplice.

She drew close and finally caught some of the words.

“Mr Parker, you really should be off your feet. I know you’ve been through a lot, but there’s no cause for concern. We have officers keeping an eye out for your shooter. But really, it’s just a precaution. You’re perfectly safe.”

“The shooter is not who I — hello,” Jarod said, spotting Miss Parker’s approach and grimacing. “You’re back.”

“I’m back!” said Miss Parker with a grin more closely resembling bared teeth. “You all right, honey? You should be in bed.”

Jarod appraised her for a long moment, and his gaze drifted to the hand she had buried in her purse. His eyes widened fractionally and flicked over to the nurse. He was scared she’d kill the nurse, Miss Parker realized. She felt vaguely offended. To drive home the point as intended, she stepped behind Jarod and pressed the barrel of the gun into the small of his back.

“Come on back inside, Jake.” The threat was implicit. “The dinner menus are coming around soon, aren’t they? We’ll have to decide what to order.”

The nurse visibly relaxed. “That’s right! I’ll give you yours now, and here’s a dry-erase marker so you can check off what you’d like. I recommend the soup, it’s always wonderful.”

And she handed them a long, laminated card with, yes, an attached dry-erase marker. They both thanked her and she bustled off, pushing a cart.

Back in the private room, Miss Parker laughed.

“That was a lame attempt, Jarod,” she said, earning her a glare. “No pun intended. It would have been a lame attempt from your down-the-hall neighbour the octogenarian, and it’s exponentially more pathetic from you. Don’t try me, Mr Parker.”

“Would you really have shot the nurse?” Jarod asked.

Miss Parker stuffed the gun back in her bag.

“Of course not.”

“Would you have shot me?”

No. I couldn’t watch that again. “Why would I pull a gun on you if I weren’t willing to shoot?”

“Dodging the question,” Jarod quipped, but there was no humour in his voice.

“I’m more interested in why you actually thought I’d kill a nurse in a public hallway. Trying to decide whether I’m more insulted that you’d think I’m that stupid, or that you think I’d kill someone just for getting in my way.”

Jarod sat back down on the bed.

“I don’t think you’re stupid.”

Miss Parker waited a beat but nothing was forthcoming.

“You think I’d — you know perfectly well I wouldn’t do that.”

“I do?” Jarod’s mouth twisted in a controlled performance of bafflement.

“Yes.”

“You told me yourself, not even a week ago, after you took down the landlord in Cedar Rapids. You said you couldn’t afford to consider whether you should do something, only that you had to do it. Survival decisions, not moral decisions. I may have figured out what your morals are, but apparently you’re deferring to Raines instead of your own mind. Or to your brother. And the two of them? They’d shoot the nurse.”

Bastard, twisting her own words against her. She hadn’t been back in his presence thirty seconds before he started tearing into her world-view to suck the marrow from its bones.

“That’s different.”

“Why.” A demand, not a question. Miss Parker found that she couldn’t look away. He had her pinned with his attention alone. “You can listen to your own morals when it’s a stranger, but when it’s me, what? The rules are different?”

“Of course the rules are different with you, Jarod,” Miss Parker spat. “The rules are always different for you.”

She felt as if she’d been running a race, the air all clogged up in her throat.

“So you would ruin —”

“Shut up, Jarod!” Too late, she realized she’d said the wrong name, far too loud. “Jake. Shut up… Jake. Don’t twist my words again. The rules are different because I know you. You’re a… a bigger picture.” She gestured vaguely at him.

“A bigger picture.” He frowned at her like she was a crossword clue he couldn’t quite puzzle out.

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

And she didn’t, because she couldn’t look any harder at it to find out. If she did, it would all fall apart. She couldn’t even look too hard at “because I know you”, or she’d have to admit how short the description fell from the mark. Because we were friends? Because I understand what you’ve been through? Because you’re important? Because…

It was a pointless, self-flagellating exercise. She looked down at the laminated menu in her hands and cleared her throat.

“The soup looks good.”

Sydney and Broots were at another darkened doorway, butting heads with another part-time cop, part-time bouncer.

“You shouldn’t be up here,” the officer said. As he spoke, he and Sydney carried out a quiet, unacknowledged tug-of-war over the door to the seventh floor lobby. “How did you get past the main floor lobby? This is a crime scene, you need to leave. Immediately.”

“Crime scene?” wheezed Broots. Climbing six flights of stairs had left him out of breath. He and Sydney had discovered on arrival that the police had decommissioned the elevators.

“Yes, and you are potentially contaminating the scene. Have you — yes, I can see you’ve been touching things all the way up the stairwell.” Broots released the railing as if he’d been burned. The uniform sighed. “You’d better come in. You’re employees, I take it? We’ll have to get some information from you, when I can get someone to take you back to the station. We’re short-handed tonight.”

“Employees, yeah,” said Broots, feeling much less confident in his ability to pseudo-Pretend than he had earlier. Sydney said nothing, and Broots imagined his silence was distinctly smug.

“It’s Saturday night, you gents ever heard of work-life balance?” the cop asked.

The question seemed rhetorical, so Broots fidgeted instead of replying. The cop struggled briefly with propping the door open, then gave up and ushered them inside. As they stepped in, the policeman tried to block their view of an adjacent hallway, like a parent using their body to obstruct a child’s view of half-wrapped Christmas gifts. It was in vain.

There was blood on the floor. There was so much blood. And, unless Broots for very much mistaken, that leg visible through the door to the hallway looked very dead.

“Jennings, are we done documenting the scene out here, near the elevators?”

Jennings was squatting over by the dead legs, pouring over a clipboard. She confirmed they were, indeed, done documenting the scene out here, near the elevators. She didn’t look up from her notes.

“Can I move some chairs?”

Jennings gave her permission for them to move some chairs. The doorman-cop moved two chairs to face the least interesting view available, which turned out to be a white, featureless wall. Broots and Sydney sat down without protest.

“I’m going to have a word with our guy on the ground floor, can you two sit tight? Jennings, can you make sure they sit tight?”

Jennings promised to make sure they would sit extremely tight.

“Whose — whose blood do you think that is?” Broots whispered once their doorman had left.

“There’s no sense in speculating,” Sydney murmured.

“Do you think it’s Miss —”

“That’s speculation, Broots.” Sydney sighed. “Yes, of course it could be Miss Parker’s. It could also belong to any number of people who are not Miss Parker. Much as I don’t like to think about it, it could be Jarod’s. It could be Mr. Lorefice’s, much more preferable. It could be a murder victim entirely disconnected with our purpose in Philadelphia, since all we’ve done is follow a police car to a crime scene.”

Broots was silent for a moment as his blanched complexion settled into something a little less zombie-esque.

“Whose leg do you think that is?”

“Broots!”

Jennings looked over at the raised voices. Broots flapped his hands at Sydney to be quiet.

“It’s not Miss Parker’s, that’s something. That’s a man’s shoe. Could be —”

“Don’t. Stop speculating,” Sydney hissed.

“Well, it’s not impossible. It could be Jarod. What do you think Raines would say if we brought Jarod back dead?”

A shudder ran the length of Sydney’s body as his mind rifled unwillingly through thoughts of the posthumous experimentation Raines would have planned.

“Broots, I won’t say it again, stop —”

“— Speculating, I got it, sorry.” Broots turned his head several millimeters to the right, trying to catch the crime scene in his peripheral vision.

There was so much blood.

“I have to go sort out my sleeping arrangements. Don’t sprint for the exits while I’m gone.”

“Hilarious. Was the couch uncomfortable, then?”

“… What?”

“You slept on that couch over there last night. Was it uncomfortable?”

“How’d you know that? I moved it back before you woke up.”

Shrug. “I woke up in the middle of the night.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Thank you, Miss Parker.”

“For what?”

“It was a hard night.”

“Yes? OK. So?”

Sigh. “Never mind.”

Pause.

“The couch was fine. I’ll pull it up alongside the bed again.”

“Whatever you like, Miss Parker.”

“What the hell are you smiling at?”

“Nothing at all.”