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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon
The Third Highway Series Part 4:
Refugere
Chapter 1
Witch1
Santa Cruz, California
Among many other things, Valerie Beyer disliked the thick and relentless fogs of northern California, and as she stood at the big windows and watched it roll in through the redwoods clinging to the cliffside and lap at the wood siding of her house she gnawed her lip. Wishing more than anything for a manhattan, she tried to settle for a sip of the lukewarm diet Pepsi in the heavy glass, shaking slightly in her hand. She put the glass down too hard--splashing the dark liquid onto the table-- and took another long drag on the cigarette in her other hand.
"Jesus, Ed," she interrupted, "I really don't give a fuck how you found out about this guy! If he's as good as they say, then let's just hire him and get it over with."
"Valerie, I know how upset you are. You have every reason to be upset right now. But I just want to make it clear he comes only with these really rather vague recommendations. I've never actually met the man, myself. But Tom says he heard that he's the best attorney in California at--well, damage control. At keeping a low profile. And at keeping his client's name out of the press. Even Tom has never met the guy--that's what I mean about a low profile. He heard the buzz in LA is he's the expert at deflecting the media glare on to someone else--God only knows that's what we need, Valerie. Which is why you don't recognize his name--that's the whole point. We don't need another OJ trial, here. I'm warning you, though, he doesn't come cheap." Ed Claghan paused, recalling that even he had been stunned by the hourly fees demanded. And the retainer required--he'd hated writing that check. But if Valerie Beyer was going to fend off the press--and the police--now that her son was missing and her husband murdered, she was going to have to pay the freight.
Lighting yet another cigarette from the one that was almost burned down, she gave her blond head an impatient shake. "Let's do it, Ed," she said. "Let's just do it. What's his name again?"
"Howell," Ed told her, "Jarod Howell."
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Laura Greggor looked appraisingly at the rambling house from the window of the limo as it slowly eased into the driveway. "Very impressive. Big bucks, definitely. But there's something weird here-- some kind of strange vibe--can't shake it, this whole place gives me the creeps. Plus of course now we have to convince these people we're hot shot lawyers. . . " She looked at Jarod, who sat casually across from her showing no sign of nervousness at all. "You are really amazing--doesn't it ever cross your mind that one of these impersonations might not work?" She remembered what he always said, that he wasn't just pretending, but was instead BEING this other persona. That was clearly the case--he seemed completely at ease. And looked great, she thought, in that twelve hundred dollar suit and the obscenely expensive watch. And big black shades.
"One thing, though, " she said, "I think you should leave Godzilla in the car."
He pulled the Pez dispenser out of his jacket pocket, offered her one, and dropped it on the seat when she refused with an impatient shake of her head. "Just relax," he told her. "You'll be great. Do what you do best--that psychic thing. I need to know if she's telling the truth. We don't want a repeat of Valdosta--another dead end, another dead body."
"Let's not get started on Valdosta again, OK?" she replied, clearly annoyed. "But it's the same sort of feeling I had there ---of course, it doesn't help that I'm stuck in this damned garter belt," she added, shifting and trying to tug at the scratchy lace through her skirt. "When exactly will your obsession with lingerie run it's course, Jarod? There's a reason women around the world embraced pantyhose so enthusiastically--"
"But you like it when I embrace you enthusiastically!" he replied. "And you were right about garter belts--it just instantly completes that connection between my brain and my cock--in fact, if I think about how you'd look in just the lingerie right now, I find it very soothing." He stared at her chest for a moment. "That's the Venice lace demi-cup bra you're wearing, right? In melon."
"Has it occurred to you that when every gal who takes orders at the Victoria's Secret catalog recognizes your voice when you call, Jarod-- and knows my measurements by heart-- your obsession may have crossed some unspoken line--"
"Into what?" he asked, "total insanity?" He laughed lightly. "Or total perfection? Because you do have the perfect body, Laura--I love your smooth flat tummy and your firm, round ass and the way your tits sort of mound up over the top of--"
"Stop! Geez--you find this 'soothing'?" She shifted on the leather seat again. "Now you expect me to just walk in their casually and try to pretend I know at least something--at least one blessed thing-- about the law . . "
"Sex takes one's mind off things. Aren't you more relaxed now than a moment ago?" he mused, stroking the barely visible line of the garter belt as it ran down her long thigh.
"Relaxed! Do I look relaxed to you? I feel like it's about a hundred and twenty degrees in here, I'm dripping wet and I don't think I can remember my own name right now-- good lord, what are our names, Jarod- -you never told me what last names you decided on!"
"You're Laura Seers again--I like that, don't you? Remember, get everyone to call you by your first name as soon as possible--insist on it. That way you won't get tripped up when then use a last name you're not used to. I decided to go with Jarod Howell, after all--"
"But not with the law firm, I hope?" she asked, smiling.
"No," he answered, "I think 'Jarod Howell' works alone--although 'Duey, Soaccum & Howell' was very tempting."
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The house they had rented in Santa Cruz was smaller than the Beyer house, but just as luxurious. Laura felt instant relief when the limo dropped her and Jarod back there after their lengthy interview with Valerie Beyer. She was worn out from trying to read the woman's thoughts while fighting off the vague sense of unease she had felt since they'd arrived in Santa Cruz and wanted only to soak in the Jacuzzi with a glass of merlot. The fog had burned off as the afternoon progressed, but even the weak sunshine didn't make her feel more cheerful. She had found the place unsettling from the start-- those tall, almost unnaturally straight redwoods, the constant, turbulent surf, the unpredictable fogs and constant dampness. They'd been on the road for over a month now--having left New York to escape Parker after losing the killer they sought there. Valdosta, Georgia had been a major set back--they both were still depressed about it: Jarod, as always, blaming himself--all the things he should have done differently. All the ways in which he might have foreseen the outcome and saved another life. But Laura simply felt an increasing sense of despondency about the entire situation. She was worried she was losing her psychic talents since they had let her down in Georgia and made Jarod doubt her. And she also missed her home, her dog, her life. As much as she wanted to be with Jarod, she wished it didn't mean being constantly on the run. He seemed to thrive on it--such a sense of freedom, she guessed, after being locked up at The Centre all those years. And he was driven by his compulsion to right the wrongs society had overlooked. But Laura mostly felt exhausted. And she knew it was making her even more irritable than usual.
But the thought of going home was insane. If she had been annoyed by The Centre's constant surveillance before, she could only guess at how frustrating it would be now to be a prisoner in her own house while Jarod pursued a mystery she felt very much involved in. Not to mention that she doubted that Parker and company would leave her alone after how close she and Jarod had come to their assassin--or whatever he was--in New York. And never mentioned between them was another issue--she had found Jarod merely by focusing on him--found him in the middle of New York City when he could very well have been literally anywhere in the world. She knew it positively terrified him that anyone could find him like that--and she knew he wanted nothing less than for her abilities to be used by The Centre, should they abduct her. As much as she wanted to believe that Jarod was as honest as he seemed, she wondered if he wouldn't do almost anything-- including 'pretending' to be in love with her--just to keep her in his sight and out of The Centre's control. And she was in email-touch with Paul, her security guy at home--Jarod and Paul had installed some amazing firewall on her computer system and they were convinced even Broots at The Centre could not trace them through a modem--who insisted all was well, although her dog Harry had bitten a UPS driver and Laura thought he probably missed her. So she had flown to California, leaving her accountant and Paul to keep her house in Pennsylvania functioning.
Jarod poured himself a generous glass of Chivas--whether he was still in character as the slick LA lawyer-dude, she was unsure, but suddenly he'd developed a minor obsession with single-malt scotch. The 'pretending' always disoriented her a bit. As if the character changes weren't enough to deal with, his own personality was often unfathomable. He went from being a slightly goofy kid overjoyed at discovering some pop culture kitsch to being this vaguely sinister, deadly serious avenging angel so quickly she had given up on trying to understand him and just took it as it came. It didn't help that as she found herself becoming more fond of him, she was increasingly unable to read his thoughts. She sighed, wondering what she had gotten herself into, and joined him on the deck.
"Tell me what you feel about Valerie Beyer, Laura--was she telling me the truth?" Jarod requested as she sat down beside him at the big outdoor table with an audible sigh.
"You know that about as well as I do at this point, don't you, Jarod? " she said, watching the rough surf pounding the rocks below them.
"No--not yet, anyway. But it is sort of rubbing off on me--the psychic thing--isn't it?"
"It was always there, Jarod: so much of what you do--the 'pretending' thing--is intuitive. You just never thought of it that way, you'd been taught to look at it as a purely intellectual exercise. But you do it too well for it to be just a conscious effort--especially the interpersonal skills and things like adjusting the language to suit the persona--so that today you were this rather loathsome, slick lawyer with that LA thing goin' on, and a few weeks ago you were accepted by a crew of guys working the high steel in New York as one of their own, cursing with the best of them--and with Valdosta in between. You do know I find it a bit spooky, don't you?"
"Why wouldn't you--it is pretty spooky. But you're the one who insists we're both freaks of nature. So I would think you'd be used to it by now," he answered thoughtfully. "I still think you've taught me a lot of it, however--or it literally has rubbed off on me, whenever I rub against you."
Laura laughed. "So a genius learns by watching, learns by doing, learns by reading--learns by screwing?"
"Clearly," he said with a laugh," and of course that's my only motivation--purely an educational interest."
"Right--just like Valerie Beyer was only interested in learning about her legal rights when she was hovering over you like that. I know, I know--you told me in the car: her husband was murdered mysteriously, her son is still missing--she's not the least bit interested in you as a man. Get real, Jarod--she kept doing that--you know--that flippy thing with her hair."
"'Flippy thing'?"
"Sure. You know, how she would sort of flip her hair out of her face and then lean forward to look you intensely in the eye . . ." Laura demonstrated with exaggerated hair flips and a direct, come-hither stare.
"So that when women flip their hair they want to have sex with me?" he asked, clearly pleased with this bit of information.
"Except for me. When I want to fuck you I grab you by the collar and tell you so! Most people are not so direct. Some women can't help themselves--the only way they can relate to any man is to tease him-- and of course they get results: attention. Whatever trouble she's in, she's still a major cock tease and there's a part of me that absolutely despises women like her. Besides, she knows more than she's saying, Jarod--she's absolutely terrified of something and all her protests of complete innocence just don't cut it with me. I'll tell you one thing: I was glad to get out of that damned house! There's definitely something there--it made me feel physically sick-- some sort of presence. Maybe the killer--maybe I'm just picking up what happened to her husband--except he didn't die in that house. And the kid was allegedly abducted from school. So why should that house give me the creeps? This whole thing is just getting more mysterious. The thing I don't get is that the kid sounds like he was so average . .. . in ll the other cases the missing child was gifted in some obvious way. But little Michael Beyer sounds like just this relentlessly normal eight-year-old. So why did The Centre want him, if that's what happened, and they indeed took him."
"It may not be that simple, Laura," Jarod explained. "He may indeed have had some special talent we just don't see. Or perhaps he is some sort of control in the experiment--the one 'normal' kid. There's just so much I don't know about how The Centre operates--you forget I was not exactly told the truth, myself. Certainly all that has happened here fits the pattern--plus you said yourself you felt the killer was here. That's why we came here, Laura--you had that vision of him by the ocean, the fog . . . And since we got here you've been distracted, somehow. I get the feeling something is about to happen. "
"Do you think she's attractive?" Laura asked, out of nowhere. Jarod looked surprised but she continued: "You might find out more if you slept with her. I'd think she'd tell you what really happened --"
"Laura! I can't do that--it's not ethical, first of all . . "
"Ethical? Geez, Jarod, we only passed ourselves off as lawyers in order to interview her--although I did notice you cashed her retainer check--it's not like there's some real ethical issue here! I just mentioned it in passing because--"
"Suppose I said 'yes'? Suppose I said I think she's a beautiful, desirable woman and I want her very much. Does this help, somehow? Or do you just want to fight with me about something?"
"I like fighting with you. I know you don't understand anger and it frightens you and that's pretty scary--which I like. Why should we be normal?" She shrugged. "What exactly is normal about either one of us? And what fucking good has being normal ever been in this world, anyway?"
"You're jealous, Laura!" he exclaimed, having a sudden flash of insight into the convoluted tangle of her emotions. "Because Valerie Beyer was flipping her hair at me! I didn't know you could get jealous. I'm not sure I understand--is this a good thing? Should I be pleased?" he reached out to touch her and she pulled back with a literal snarl. "Ah--that look! That angry, don't-you-dare-touch-me look--why do I find that so arousing, Laura?"
"Because you enjoy my discomfort, you slime. I am not--repeat NOT-- flipping my hair at you, Jarod--"
But he grabbed her when she stood and kissed her hard, holding her arms pinned at her sides and amazed, as always, by just how exciting her anger was for him. He felt the hard muscles in her arms and back through her thin blouse and felt himself stiffen as his body focused it's attention on his growing erection, which suddenly seemed the center of the universe. She struggled against him which only increased his need--he pushed her against the edge of the heavy iron table that dominated the deck and when she was lying back on it he felt no surprise that she was working at getting out of her clothes as breathlessly as he was, or that when he finally spread the lips of her labia she was wet and ready for him to enter. It continually amazed him that the first thrust felt just as good and as exciting as the very first time, as though they were still somehow strangers to each other. And even though he always meant to kiss her longer and hold her gently, somehow their lovemaking became some sort of frenzied contes and the only way he found to tell her that he loved her was to fuck her as hard as he could since she was demanding that he never, never stop and telling him in no uncertain terms that she wanted "every single drop." And after he'd come and staggered away from the table for a moment to catch his breath and try to remember where he was he heard her soft laughter behind him.
"See," she was saying, "I don't have to flip my hair at you."
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The Centre;
Blue Cove, Delaware
Miss Parker was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands when Sydney entered without knocking.
"I need to speak to you immediately--" he began., clearly upset.
"Make an appointment," she interrupted without moving.
"You have not been completely candid with me. I thought we were supposed to be working together," he continued, undaunted, moving to stand directly in front of her. "You have known for some time that Jarod is in very real danger, but I was not informed--"
"Don't you get, Syd?" she answered, finally looking up. "It's a need- to-know situation. And you didn't need to know."
"That's absurd! I should have been the first to be told what was happening. If Jarod is in real physical danger--"
"You really don't get it, do you?" she said, her voice growing even colder. "Jarod has been in 'real physical danger' ever since he left here. You didn't notice that he's been driving race cars and jumping out of planes and fighting fires--"
"Are you implying that Jarod is in some way self-destructive? Because I assure you that is simply not the case. If he's chosen some dangerous activities it's only because in many ways he's still a child--"
"Oh, right: a CHILD! I keep forgetting that, since now we have two of his girlfriends under surveillance and of course there was that girl in Atlanta--but that hardly counts as a romance, does it, Sydney? But it does appear that for the moment he's chosen bachelorette number one: you know, that nice girl in black leather, with the belly button ring and hand-cuffs. Look, we have been trying to capture Wonder Boy since he got out, and we still are. We just missed him in Valdosta, and we have Houston, Peoria, Santa Cruz under twenty-four hour surveillance. And if you want to think we're trying to find him purely for his own protection, that's fine, Sydney, that's just fine. I don't give a fuck."
"But this is different, " he insisted, "this is a maniac that's out there--a soulless killing machine. And Jarod is getting way too close- -if he dies, no one wins, Miss Parker, neither you nor I."
"'Soulless' Sydney? How ironic you should use that word."
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Santa Cruz, California
Jarod had left Laura asleep in their room overlooking the ocean and driven to Valerie Beyer's house as soon as he'd gotten her phone call. She'd sounded upset but insisted she had something else to tell him and since he hadn't thought she'd been honest with him before, he'd wanted to talk to her before she changed her mind. He pulled the red Mercedes he'd picked out as his 'LA lawyer's car' into her driveway just as the sun broke over the mountains to the east, bathing the landscape with a pink glow. As he rang the door bell he watched one of the many security cameras he'd noticed on his previous visit tracking his movements--whatever she was afraid of, Valerie Beyer had been willing to make a major investment in home security.
The same slender maid he'd met the day before let him in, looking slightly bleary-eyed--no doubt she'd just been awakened. Valerie was standing looking out at the Pacific and he noticed she was smoking and had a nearby glass of a dark fluid he doubted was soda.
"Thanks for coming, Jarod," she said without turning to look at him.
"Have you slept at all?" he asked.
"No," she answered, but he noticed when she turned that her face was freshly made up, her eyes clear and her blond hair perfectly brushed into a shining mane. "What do you want, Jarod," she asked, "coffee? Breakfast? Scotch?" She gestured toward her own glass. "Maria will get you whatever you want."
"Coffee sounds great," he answered and the younger woman disappeared.
"You think I'm insane, don't you, calling you to come over here this early? Look, I've got to talk to someone. This whole situation--it's not what anyone thinks. Ed thinks I had my husband murdered, you know- -that I hired someone to strangle him before he could talk to the police about what happened to our son. He hasn't come right out and said it, but--"
"Whatever Ed thinks doesn't matter, Valerie," Jarod said, moving closer to her. "What matters is the truth. Why don't you just tell me the truth, and we'll go from there."
She shook her head briskly from side to side and her hair caught the sunlight finally starting to enter through the windows. "The truth. You make it sound so simple. But if I tell you the truth you'll never believe me. Because the truth is simply impossible."
Maria brought his coffee and he sat beside Valerie, who promptly flipped her long blond hair back out of her face. "So, Jarod," she asked, "are you used to taking confessions from strangers?"
"I thought we were just going to talk, I didn't know it was going to be a confession."
"Perhaps I actually seek some sort of absolution," she responded, and she placed one delicate, well-manicured hand on top of his.
Jarod felt his body responding to her flirtatiousness without his wanting it to, but sought words to keep her talking, without going off further on this tangent. "The confession has to come before the absolution, Valerie, " he answered, looking into her blue eyes and hoping he sounded charming and interested--but not too interested.
She sighed and pulled her hand away with a look of regret.
"I guess I should stick to business. This is billable time we're on, isn't it?" she laughed. "At least I can honestly claim I've never had to pay a man to flirt with me. OK, let's start from the beginning then, shall we? The first thing you need to know is that Michael wasn't really our son. We couldn't have children together--my fault. Michael was an in vitro baby--a test tube baby. It would have made more sense to adopt--but Jay wanted the baby to at least be partly his. And I wanted so much to be pregnant--to have that experience. But I never believed Michael was Jay's baby, either. He wasn't even remotely like Jay. Michael was different from the day he was born. I think we both knew--just knew--he wasn't ours. I could tell you stories about the things he would do and say . . .Let's just say Michael was different. Very different. So that when they came to take him--"
"Wait a minute, Valerie: when who came to take him?" Jarod interrupted, very interested in the answer.
"The doctor. Dr Green--the one who had done the in vitro. And two other men. We were warned it might happen. It was so new, the technique used, so that I could actually carry a baby, and so expensive. I know, we're rich now, Jay did very well for himself the last few years, but we weren't then. We just couldn't afford it--the procedure. We promised them--I promised them--that if they ever needed to take him back--"
"Valerie, I don't understand," Jarod interrupted, increasingly concerned. "You promised they could take your child--your baby--away? If they 'needed' to? For what reason--what possible reason. And how could you possibly promise a thing like that?"
"I sound awful, I know--like a monster. But I wanted it SO much--and Jay would have agreed to anything, by that time we'd spent every dime we had on fertility treatments--he was at the end, really, he couldn't have gone further with it. It would have ended the marriage, I think, to keep trying and failing like that. And I never thought it would actually happen--that they would come back for Michael! We were told maybe, perhaps--that there was just the slimmest chance something might go wrong--"
"'Go wrong'?"
"Right. That's what they said: 'something might go wrong and then we'll need to have the baby back."
"So let me understand this: you let them--this Dr. Green and these other men--just take Michael away--"
"But he wasn't ever really ours anyway, don't you see? I'm not a bad person. He just wasn't mine! There were times--many times--I didn't think he was even really human. He saw things--or said he did. We had therapists, you know, all these specialists with their diagnoses--it was useless. Michael wasn't like other kids. He wasn't like other people!" She shook her head bitterly, seeing the look on Jarod's face. "Jay didn't understand either. He thought I was insane. When he came home and Michael was gone---he said he hated me. That's why he was going to talk to the police--that's why he got killed, because he was going to tell them about Dr. Green and the others. They told us that if we just kept quiet there would be nothing the cops could ever do to us, don't you see? There was no proof of anything--there never would be. We were supposed to just shut up and refuse to talk to anyone. It was simple. But Jay couldn't do it."
"Did they tell you WHY they wanted Michael back? Where they were taking him--anything at all except that 'something had gone wrong'?" Jarod asked, trying to fathom why after eight years a mother would hand over a child she had raised as her son to The Centre and then try to convince her husband it was the reasonable thing to do. And curious as well about the timing of all this--had the thing that had 'gone wrong' been his own escape--was The Centre desperate enough to replace him they were collecting as many kids as they could get?
"You think I'm a total bitch, don't you?" she demanded, raising her voice in anger. "I was trying to do the only reasonable thing. They had guns--they weren't just normal people taking Michael away. And we were compensated. Compensated very well. We could have lived well the rest of our lives. All we had to do was stay quiet until the cops lost interest. But Jay was like you--he thought he knew what's right and what's wrong--all tidy and black and white. Am I right, Jarod-- you feel you can judge me, too, don't you?"
He had to look away, he was so filled with grief and anger by her words. It took every ounce of his self control to remain calm, to stay in character, to keep pretending.
"I'm only trying to understand, Valerie. I'm not judging you. I can't help you unless I know the truth of what happened."
She took a long drink and visibly calmed down. "Michael's dead, anyway. They took him and killed him. Don't look at me like that! He blames me enough. I live with that guilt every day. "
"How do you know that Michael's dead, Valerie--did Dr. Green tell you that?" Jarod asked, puzzled.
"No. No one told me anything. They came back and killed Jay and I'm alone now, but I know--I know because of what I've seen"
"What you've seen? You need to be more specific--"
"Michael is dead, Jarod. I know because I've seen his ghost."
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The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
She didn't knock before pushing open the door to his office, but Sydney had gotten used to Miss Parker's brusqueness. "Are you coming, Syd?" she demanded. "We've got a sighting--in Santa Cruz, California. If we leave immediately, we're looking at maybe ten hours, earliest possible arrival."
He was out the door and half-running down the hall behind her immediately, trying to ask one question: "You do understand that no matter what may have happened in New York--you are not authorized to shoot Jarod on sight, Miss Parker?"
She stopped abruptly and turned on her heels to face him--he nearly ran right into her as she glowered at him. "I'm authorized to bring him in however I need to do it. And if your precious freak gets clipped by a bullet in the process, I would only guess it might make him more--tractable."
Sydney stood in the hallway for a moment as she turned and disappeared around a corner, pondering her words. Then he turned and walked briskly back the way he had come, heading for Mr. Parker's office. He would let her go to California without him if he could get her father to send her an order she could not ignore, reminding her that they needed Jarod back alive and unharmed.
Refugere
Chapter 1
Witch1
Santa Cruz, California
Among many other things, Valerie Beyer disliked the thick and relentless fogs of northern California, and as she stood at the big windows and watched it roll in through the redwoods clinging to the cliffside and lap at the wood siding of her house she gnawed her lip. Wishing more than anything for a manhattan, she tried to settle for a sip of the lukewarm diet Pepsi in the heavy glass, shaking slightly in her hand. She put the glass down too hard--splashing the dark liquid onto the table-- and took another long drag on the cigarette in her other hand.
"Jesus, Ed," she interrupted, "I really don't give a fuck how you found out about this guy! If he's as good as they say, then let's just hire him and get it over with."
"Valerie, I know how upset you are. You have every reason to be upset right now. But I just want to make it clear he comes only with these really rather vague recommendations. I've never actually met the man, myself. But Tom says he heard that he's the best attorney in California at--well, damage control. At keeping a low profile. And at keeping his client's name out of the press. Even Tom has never met the guy--that's what I mean about a low profile. He heard the buzz in LA is he's the expert at deflecting the media glare on to someone else--God only knows that's what we need, Valerie. Which is why you don't recognize his name--that's the whole point. We don't need another OJ trial, here. I'm warning you, though, he doesn't come cheap." Ed Claghan paused, recalling that even he had been stunned by the hourly fees demanded. And the retainer required--he'd hated writing that check. But if Valerie Beyer was going to fend off the press--and the police--now that her son was missing and her husband murdered, she was going to have to pay the freight.
Lighting yet another cigarette from the one that was almost burned down, she gave her blond head an impatient shake. "Let's do it, Ed," she said. "Let's just do it. What's his name again?"
"Howell," Ed told her, "Jarod Howell."
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Laura Greggor looked appraisingly at the rambling house from the window of the limo as it slowly eased into the driveway. "Very impressive. Big bucks, definitely. But there's something weird here-- some kind of strange vibe--can't shake it, this whole place gives me the creeps. Plus of course now we have to convince these people we're hot shot lawyers. . . " She looked at Jarod, who sat casually across from her showing no sign of nervousness at all. "You are really amazing--doesn't it ever cross your mind that one of these impersonations might not work?" She remembered what he always said, that he wasn't just pretending, but was instead BEING this other persona. That was clearly the case--he seemed completely at ease. And looked great, she thought, in that twelve hundred dollar suit and the obscenely expensive watch. And big black shades.
"One thing, though, " she said, "I think you should leave Godzilla in the car."
He pulled the Pez dispenser out of his jacket pocket, offered her one, and dropped it on the seat when she refused with an impatient shake of her head. "Just relax," he told her. "You'll be great. Do what you do best--that psychic thing. I need to know if she's telling the truth. We don't want a repeat of Valdosta--another dead end, another dead body."
"Let's not get started on Valdosta again, OK?" she replied, clearly annoyed. "But it's the same sort of feeling I had there ---of course, it doesn't help that I'm stuck in this damned garter belt," she added, shifting and trying to tug at the scratchy lace through her skirt. "When exactly will your obsession with lingerie run it's course, Jarod? There's a reason women around the world embraced pantyhose so enthusiastically--"
"But you like it when I embrace you enthusiastically!" he replied. "And you were right about garter belts--it just instantly completes that connection between my brain and my cock--in fact, if I think about how you'd look in just the lingerie right now, I find it very soothing." He stared at her chest for a moment. "That's the Venice lace demi-cup bra you're wearing, right? In melon."
"Has it occurred to you that when every gal who takes orders at the Victoria's Secret catalog recognizes your voice when you call, Jarod-- and knows my measurements by heart-- your obsession may have crossed some unspoken line--"
"Into what?" he asked, "total insanity?" He laughed lightly. "Or total perfection? Because you do have the perfect body, Laura--I love your smooth flat tummy and your firm, round ass and the way your tits sort of mound up over the top of--"
"Stop! Geez--you find this 'soothing'?" She shifted on the leather seat again. "Now you expect me to just walk in their casually and try to pretend I know at least something--at least one blessed thing-- about the law . . "
"Sex takes one's mind off things. Aren't you more relaxed now than a moment ago?" he mused, stroking the barely visible line of the garter belt as it ran down her long thigh.
"Relaxed! Do I look relaxed to you? I feel like it's about a hundred and twenty degrees in here, I'm dripping wet and I don't think I can remember my own name right now-- good lord, what are our names, Jarod- -you never told me what last names you decided on!"
"You're Laura Seers again--I like that, don't you? Remember, get everyone to call you by your first name as soon as possible--insist on it. That way you won't get tripped up when then use a last name you're not used to. I decided to go with Jarod Howell, after all--"
"But not with the law firm, I hope?" she asked, smiling.
"No," he answered, "I think 'Jarod Howell' works alone--although 'Duey, Soaccum & Howell' was very tempting."
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The house they had rented in Santa Cruz was smaller than the Beyer house, but just as luxurious. Laura felt instant relief when the limo dropped her and Jarod back there after their lengthy interview with Valerie Beyer. She was worn out from trying to read the woman's thoughts while fighting off the vague sense of unease she had felt since they'd arrived in Santa Cruz and wanted only to soak in the Jacuzzi with a glass of merlot. The fog had burned off as the afternoon progressed, but even the weak sunshine didn't make her feel more cheerful. She had found the place unsettling from the start-- those tall, almost unnaturally straight redwoods, the constant, turbulent surf, the unpredictable fogs and constant dampness. They'd been on the road for over a month now--having left New York to escape Parker after losing the killer they sought there. Valdosta, Georgia had been a major set back--they both were still depressed about it: Jarod, as always, blaming himself--all the things he should have done differently. All the ways in which he might have foreseen the outcome and saved another life. But Laura simply felt an increasing sense of despondency about the entire situation. She was worried she was losing her psychic talents since they had let her down in Georgia and made Jarod doubt her. And she also missed her home, her dog, her life. As much as she wanted to be with Jarod, she wished it didn't mean being constantly on the run. He seemed to thrive on it--such a sense of freedom, she guessed, after being locked up at The Centre all those years. And he was driven by his compulsion to right the wrongs society had overlooked. But Laura mostly felt exhausted. And she knew it was making her even more irritable than usual.
But the thought of going home was insane. If she had been annoyed by The Centre's constant surveillance before, she could only guess at how frustrating it would be now to be a prisoner in her own house while Jarod pursued a mystery she felt very much involved in. Not to mention that she doubted that Parker and company would leave her alone after how close she and Jarod had come to their assassin--or whatever he was--in New York. And never mentioned between them was another issue--she had found Jarod merely by focusing on him--found him in the middle of New York City when he could very well have been literally anywhere in the world. She knew it positively terrified him that anyone could find him like that--and she knew he wanted nothing less than for her abilities to be used by The Centre, should they abduct her. As much as she wanted to believe that Jarod was as honest as he seemed, she wondered if he wouldn't do almost anything-- including 'pretending' to be in love with her--just to keep her in his sight and out of The Centre's control. And she was in email-touch with Paul, her security guy at home--Jarod and Paul had installed some amazing firewall on her computer system and they were convinced even Broots at The Centre could not trace them through a modem--who insisted all was well, although her dog Harry had bitten a UPS driver and Laura thought he probably missed her. So she had flown to California, leaving her accountant and Paul to keep her house in Pennsylvania functioning.
Jarod poured himself a generous glass of Chivas--whether he was still in character as the slick LA lawyer-dude, she was unsure, but suddenly he'd developed a minor obsession with single-malt scotch. The 'pretending' always disoriented her a bit. As if the character changes weren't enough to deal with, his own personality was often unfathomable. He went from being a slightly goofy kid overjoyed at discovering some pop culture kitsch to being this vaguely sinister, deadly serious avenging angel so quickly she had given up on trying to understand him and just took it as it came. It didn't help that as she found herself becoming more fond of him, she was increasingly unable to read his thoughts. She sighed, wondering what she had gotten herself into, and joined him on the deck.
"Tell me what you feel about Valerie Beyer, Laura--was she telling me the truth?" Jarod requested as she sat down beside him at the big outdoor table with an audible sigh.
"You know that about as well as I do at this point, don't you, Jarod? " she said, watching the rough surf pounding the rocks below them.
"No--not yet, anyway. But it is sort of rubbing off on me--the psychic thing--isn't it?"
"It was always there, Jarod: so much of what you do--the 'pretending' thing--is intuitive. You just never thought of it that way, you'd been taught to look at it as a purely intellectual exercise. But you do it too well for it to be just a conscious effort--especially the interpersonal skills and things like adjusting the language to suit the persona--so that today you were this rather loathsome, slick lawyer with that LA thing goin' on, and a few weeks ago you were accepted by a crew of guys working the high steel in New York as one of their own, cursing with the best of them--and with Valdosta in between. You do know I find it a bit spooky, don't you?"
"Why wouldn't you--it is pretty spooky. But you're the one who insists we're both freaks of nature. So I would think you'd be used to it by now," he answered thoughtfully. "I still think you've taught me a lot of it, however--or it literally has rubbed off on me, whenever I rub against you."
Laura laughed. "So a genius learns by watching, learns by doing, learns by reading--learns by screwing?"
"Clearly," he said with a laugh," and of course that's my only motivation--purely an educational interest."
"Right--just like Valerie Beyer was only interested in learning about her legal rights when she was hovering over you like that. I know, I know--you told me in the car: her husband was murdered mysteriously, her son is still missing--she's not the least bit interested in you as a man. Get real, Jarod--she kept doing that--you know--that flippy thing with her hair."
"'Flippy thing'?"
"Sure. You know, how she would sort of flip her hair out of her face and then lean forward to look you intensely in the eye . . ." Laura demonstrated with exaggerated hair flips and a direct, come-hither stare.
"So that when women flip their hair they want to have sex with me?" he asked, clearly pleased with this bit of information.
"Except for me. When I want to fuck you I grab you by the collar and tell you so! Most people are not so direct. Some women can't help themselves--the only way they can relate to any man is to tease him-- and of course they get results: attention. Whatever trouble she's in, she's still a major cock tease and there's a part of me that absolutely despises women like her. Besides, she knows more than she's saying, Jarod--she's absolutely terrified of something and all her protests of complete innocence just don't cut it with me. I'll tell you one thing: I was glad to get out of that damned house! There's definitely something there--it made me feel physically sick-- some sort of presence. Maybe the killer--maybe I'm just picking up what happened to her husband--except he didn't die in that house. And the kid was allegedly abducted from school. So why should that house give me the creeps? This whole thing is just getting more mysterious. The thing I don't get is that the kid sounds like he was so average . .. . in ll the other cases the missing child was gifted in some obvious way. But little Michael Beyer sounds like just this relentlessly normal eight-year-old. So why did The Centre want him, if that's what happened, and they indeed took him."
"It may not be that simple, Laura," Jarod explained. "He may indeed have had some special talent we just don't see. Or perhaps he is some sort of control in the experiment--the one 'normal' kid. There's just so much I don't know about how The Centre operates--you forget I was not exactly told the truth, myself. Certainly all that has happened here fits the pattern--plus you said yourself you felt the killer was here. That's why we came here, Laura--you had that vision of him by the ocean, the fog . . . And since we got here you've been distracted, somehow. I get the feeling something is about to happen. "
"Do you think she's attractive?" Laura asked, out of nowhere. Jarod looked surprised but she continued: "You might find out more if you slept with her. I'd think she'd tell you what really happened --"
"Laura! I can't do that--it's not ethical, first of all . . "
"Ethical? Geez, Jarod, we only passed ourselves off as lawyers in order to interview her--although I did notice you cashed her retainer check--it's not like there's some real ethical issue here! I just mentioned it in passing because--"
"Suppose I said 'yes'? Suppose I said I think she's a beautiful, desirable woman and I want her very much. Does this help, somehow? Or do you just want to fight with me about something?"
"I like fighting with you. I know you don't understand anger and it frightens you and that's pretty scary--which I like. Why should we be normal?" She shrugged. "What exactly is normal about either one of us? And what fucking good has being normal ever been in this world, anyway?"
"You're jealous, Laura!" he exclaimed, having a sudden flash of insight into the convoluted tangle of her emotions. "Because Valerie Beyer was flipping her hair at me! I didn't know you could get jealous. I'm not sure I understand--is this a good thing? Should I be pleased?" he reached out to touch her and she pulled back with a literal snarl. "Ah--that look! That angry, don't-you-dare-touch-me look--why do I find that so arousing, Laura?"
"Because you enjoy my discomfort, you slime. I am not--repeat NOT-- flipping my hair at you, Jarod--"
But he grabbed her when she stood and kissed her hard, holding her arms pinned at her sides and amazed, as always, by just how exciting her anger was for him. He felt the hard muscles in her arms and back through her thin blouse and felt himself stiffen as his body focused it's attention on his growing erection, which suddenly seemed the center of the universe. She struggled against him which only increased his need--he pushed her against the edge of the heavy iron table that dominated the deck and when she was lying back on it he felt no surprise that she was working at getting out of her clothes as breathlessly as he was, or that when he finally spread the lips of her labia she was wet and ready for him to enter. It continually amazed him that the first thrust felt just as good and as exciting as the very first time, as though they were still somehow strangers to each other. And even though he always meant to kiss her longer and hold her gently, somehow their lovemaking became some sort of frenzied contes and the only way he found to tell her that he loved her was to fuck her as hard as he could since she was demanding that he never, never stop and telling him in no uncertain terms that she wanted "every single drop." And after he'd come and staggered away from the table for a moment to catch his breath and try to remember where he was he heard her soft laughter behind him.
"See," she was saying, "I don't have to flip my hair at you."
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The Centre;
Blue Cove, Delaware
Miss Parker was sitting at her desk with her head in her hands when Sydney entered without knocking.
"I need to speak to you immediately--" he began., clearly upset.
"Make an appointment," she interrupted without moving.
"You have not been completely candid with me. I thought we were supposed to be working together," he continued, undaunted, moving to stand directly in front of her. "You have known for some time that Jarod is in very real danger, but I was not informed--"
"Don't you get, Syd?" she answered, finally looking up. "It's a need- to-know situation. And you didn't need to know."
"That's absurd! I should have been the first to be told what was happening. If Jarod is in real physical danger--"
"You really don't get it, do you?" she said, her voice growing even colder. "Jarod has been in 'real physical danger' ever since he left here. You didn't notice that he's been driving race cars and jumping out of planes and fighting fires--"
"Are you implying that Jarod is in some way self-destructive? Because I assure you that is simply not the case. If he's chosen some dangerous activities it's only because in many ways he's still a child--"
"Oh, right: a CHILD! I keep forgetting that, since now we have two of his girlfriends under surveillance and of course there was that girl in Atlanta--but that hardly counts as a romance, does it, Sydney? But it does appear that for the moment he's chosen bachelorette number one: you know, that nice girl in black leather, with the belly button ring and hand-cuffs. Look, we have been trying to capture Wonder Boy since he got out, and we still are. We just missed him in Valdosta, and we have Houston, Peoria, Santa Cruz under twenty-four hour surveillance. And if you want to think we're trying to find him purely for his own protection, that's fine, Sydney, that's just fine. I don't give a fuck."
"But this is different, " he insisted, "this is a maniac that's out there--a soulless killing machine. And Jarod is getting way too close- -if he dies, no one wins, Miss Parker, neither you nor I."
"'Soulless' Sydney? How ironic you should use that word."
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Santa Cruz, California
Jarod had left Laura asleep in their room overlooking the ocean and driven to Valerie Beyer's house as soon as he'd gotten her phone call. She'd sounded upset but insisted she had something else to tell him and since he hadn't thought she'd been honest with him before, he'd wanted to talk to her before she changed her mind. He pulled the red Mercedes he'd picked out as his 'LA lawyer's car' into her driveway just as the sun broke over the mountains to the east, bathing the landscape with a pink glow. As he rang the door bell he watched one of the many security cameras he'd noticed on his previous visit tracking his movements--whatever she was afraid of, Valerie Beyer had been willing to make a major investment in home security.
The same slender maid he'd met the day before let him in, looking slightly bleary-eyed--no doubt she'd just been awakened. Valerie was standing looking out at the Pacific and he noticed she was smoking and had a nearby glass of a dark fluid he doubted was soda.
"Thanks for coming, Jarod," she said without turning to look at him.
"Have you slept at all?" he asked.
"No," she answered, but he noticed when she turned that her face was freshly made up, her eyes clear and her blond hair perfectly brushed into a shining mane. "What do you want, Jarod," she asked, "coffee? Breakfast? Scotch?" She gestured toward her own glass. "Maria will get you whatever you want."
"Coffee sounds great," he answered and the younger woman disappeared.
"You think I'm insane, don't you, calling you to come over here this early? Look, I've got to talk to someone. This whole situation--it's not what anyone thinks. Ed thinks I had my husband murdered, you know- -that I hired someone to strangle him before he could talk to the police about what happened to our son. He hasn't come right out and said it, but--"
"Whatever Ed thinks doesn't matter, Valerie," Jarod said, moving closer to her. "What matters is the truth. Why don't you just tell me the truth, and we'll go from there."
She shook her head briskly from side to side and her hair caught the sunlight finally starting to enter through the windows. "The truth. You make it sound so simple. But if I tell you the truth you'll never believe me. Because the truth is simply impossible."
Maria brought his coffee and he sat beside Valerie, who promptly flipped her long blond hair back out of her face. "So, Jarod," she asked, "are you used to taking confessions from strangers?"
"I thought we were just going to talk, I didn't know it was going to be a confession."
"Perhaps I actually seek some sort of absolution," she responded, and she placed one delicate, well-manicured hand on top of his.
Jarod felt his body responding to her flirtatiousness without his wanting it to, but sought words to keep her talking, without going off further on this tangent. "The confession has to come before the absolution, Valerie, " he answered, looking into her blue eyes and hoping he sounded charming and interested--but not too interested.
She sighed and pulled her hand away with a look of regret.
"I guess I should stick to business. This is billable time we're on, isn't it?" she laughed. "At least I can honestly claim I've never had to pay a man to flirt with me. OK, let's start from the beginning then, shall we? The first thing you need to know is that Michael wasn't really our son. We couldn't have children together--my fault. Michael was an in vitro baby--a test tube baby. It would have made more sense to adopt--but Jay wanted the baby to at least be partly his. And I wanted so much to be pregnant--to have that experience. But I never believed Michael was Jay's baby, either. He wasn't even remotely like Jay. Michael was different from the day he was born. I think we both knew--just knew--he wasn't ours. I could tell you stories about the things he would do and say . . .Let's just say Michael was different. Very different. So that when they came to take him--"
"Wait a minute, Valerie: when who came to take him?" Jarod interrupted, very interested in the answer.
"The doctor. Dr Green--the one who had done the in vitro. And two other men. We were warned it might happen. It was so new, the technique used, so that I could actually carry a baby, and so expensive. I know, we're rich now, Jay did very well for himself the last few years, but we weren't then. We just couldn't afford it--the procedure. We promised them--I promised them--that if they ever needed to take him back--"
"Valerie, I don't understand," Jarod interrupted, increasingly concerned. "You promised they could take your child--your baby--away? If they 'needed' to? For what reason--what possible reason. And how could you possibly promise a thing like that?"
"I sound awful, I know--like a monster. But I wanted it SO much--and Jay would have agreed to anything, by that time we'd spent every dime we had on fertility treatments--he was at the end, really, he couldn't have gone further with it. It would have ended the marriage, I think, to keep trying and failing like that. And I never thought it would actually happen--that they would come back for Michael! We were told maybe, perhaps--that there was just the slimmest chance something might go wrong--"
"'Go wrong'?"
"Right. That's what they said: 'something might go wrong and then we'll need to have the baby back."
"So let me understand this: you let them--this Dr. Green and these other men--just take Michael away--"
"But he wasn't ever really ours anyway, don't you see? I'm not a bad person. He just wasn't mine! There were times--many times--I didn't think he was even really human. He saw things--or said he did. We had therapists, you know, all these specialists with their diagnoses--it was useless. Michael wasn't like other kids. He wasn't like other people!" She shook her head bitterly, seeing the look on Jarod's face. "Jay didn't understand either. He thought I was insane. When he came home and Michael was gone---he said he hated me. That's why he was going to talk to the police--that's why he got killed, because he was going to tell them about Dr. Green and the others. They told us that if we just kept quiet there would be nothing the cops could ever do to us, don't you see? There was no proof of anything--there never would be. We were supposed to just shut up and refuse to talk to anyone. It was simple. But Jay couldn't do it."
"Did they tell you WHY they wanted Michael back? Where they were taking him--anything at all except that 'something had gone wrong'?" Jarod asked, trying to fathom why after eight years a mother would hand over a child she had raised as her son to The Centre and then try to convince her husband it was the reasonable thing to do. And curious as well about the timing of all this--had the thing that had 'gone wrong' been his own escape--was The Centre desperate enough to replace him they were collecting as many kids as they could get?
"You think I'm a total bitch, don't you?" she demanded, raising her voice in anger. "I was trying to do the only reasonable thing. They had guns--they weren't just normal people taking Michael away. And we were compensated. Compensated very well. We could have lived well the rest of our lives. All we had to do was stay quiet until the cops lost interest. But Jay was like you--he thought he knew what's right and what's wrong--all tidy and black and white. Am I right, Jarod-- you feel you can judge me, too, don't you?"
He had to look away, he was so filled with grief and anger by her words. It took every ounce of his self control to remain calm, to stay in character, to keep pretending.
"I'm only trying to understand, Valerie. I'm not judging you. I can't help you unless I know the truth of what happened."
She took a long drink and visibly calmed down. "Michael's dead, anyway. They took him and killed him. Don't look at me like that! He blames me enough. I live with that guilt every day. "
"How do you know that Michael's dead, Valerie--did Dr. Green tell you that?" Jarod asked, puzzled.
"No. No one told me anything. They came back and killed Jay and I'm alone now, but I know--I know because of what I've seen"
"What you've seen? You need to be more specific--"
"Michael is dead, Jarod. I know because I've seen his ghost."
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The Centre
Blue Cove, Delaware
She didn't knock before pushing open the door to his office, but Sydney had gotten used to Miss Parker's brusqueness. "Are you coming, Syd?" she demanded. "We've got a sighting--in Santa Cruz, California. If we leave immediately, we're looking at maybe ten hours, earliest possible arrival."
He was out the door and half-running down the hall behind her immediately, trying to ask one question: "You do understand that no matter what may have happened in New York--you are not authorized to shoot Jarod on sight, Miss Parker?"
She stopped abruptly and turned on her heels to face him--he nearly ran right into her as she glowered at him. "I'm authorized to bring him in however I need to do it. And if your precious freak gets clipped by a bullet in the process, I would only guess it might make him more--tractable."
Sydney stood in the hallway for a moment as she turned and disappeared around a corner, pondering her words. Then he turned and walked briskly back the way he had come, heading for Mr. Parker's office. He would let her go to California without him if he could get her father to send her an order she could not ignore, reminding her that they needed Jarod back alive and unharmed.
