Part Seventeen

Charles Baxter

At first I didn't know what had roused me from my usually deep and undisturbed sleep. Had someone screamed? I slid my feet into my slippers and pulled my bathrobe from the chair next to the bed. I liked to sleep with an open window even when it was as cold as today so the air in the room was freezing. It helped clear my head instantly, however, and I began to recognize the interruption for what it was. I had known from the start, but had chosen to ignore it. But now a reaction was inevitable. I couldn't let that happen to her. We had formed too much of a bond. And her husband was in quite the surprise which I also already felt sorry for. I hadn't wanted to burden him with the knowledge but some people just aren't meant to live peacefully and in a steady environment. I reached for my wardrobe and pulled out a suit, already halfway into the bathroom. When dressed, I checked my watch. The middle of the goddamn night. So be it. I slid behind the wheel of my Mercedes and rolled off the premises slowly. No need to get stuck with a traffic cop now that a quick reaction was crucial. I was gathering speed on the deserted road and twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of Val Cornwell's door.

Miss Parker

I couldn't help but moan when another sharp pain had me in its grip. My fingernails dug into the covers of the bed and I gritted my teeth so hard that my whole face ached from it. It had been a while since I had felt the first contraction and it seemed as if it wasn't going to stop. There was no clock in my room and the windows were boarded up, but from Lyle's demeanor I suspected that it was the middle of the night and so a few hours would pass until they would bother to check on me again. Gradually, the pain subsided and I took a few deep breaths. Although I had done this before, I hadn't been prepared for the pain. When you are finally holding your baby, you tend to forget about the excruciating pain that you had to endure in order to get there. Probably a good thing mother nature came up with it since I doubt that any woman would have more than one baby otherwise.

I rolled onto my side, still not used to my stomach, and checked on Donald who was sound asleep, his thumb in his mouth. That poor child had been here for months and his father had been the one who had struck the deal with Lyle. Now I remembered rumors floating around that his agency hadn't been going well and I also remembered that its name had been all across the local papers in the wake of the kidnapping. I stroked Donald's cheek. Poor kid, but people such as Lyle regarded weaker persons as tools to achieve what they were striving for. And it had been a damn smart move to keep Donald here because I was indeed not willing to risk his life by trying to flee. Not that there had been any way. This room didn't have any air vents and there was absolutely nothing useful even in the small adjoining bathroom. Panic threatened to overtake me again. How on earth was I supposed to do this? I knew I had to do something to prevent all this from happening, but I didn't know what. Lyle's plan was vicious and it artfully exploited all my weaknesses. Baby on the way, young boy to take care of, no means to escape. I lay back on the bed and realized that I had to depend on others. Other who probably had no idea at all where I was.

Jarod

I was sick with worry, pacing the length of our living room that seemed painfully empty without Parker although Sydney was sitting on the couch, his hands pressed together between his knees. He looked just as uncomfortable as I felt but there was a determined light in his eyes that gave me the slightest bit of hope.

"There is a connection between Sammy and her mother. It is much like the one Miss Parker and Catherine shared. Parker felt Catherine's pain when she was shot in the elevator and she fled from a session with Raines to get to her. I think it is just the same with Sammy."

I shook my head in desperation. "But how does that help us? I have no idea where Dr Summers could have taken her! Does Sammy?"

Sydney shrugged regretfully. "She says that she is in a dark room and that someone is with her. That Kenny is threatening her, to be exact. And she says…" I noticed Sydney checking my reaction before he went on. "... she says that Parker has stomach cramps and that she's scared that the baby is coming."

"Sammy must be wrong. Parker is only four and a half months along. She can't possibly be in labor."

"I'm just telling you what Sammy said."

"Are you sure that it wasn't just a bad dream? She knows that her mother is missing and maybe her mind is just making up an explanation."

Sydney stood up and rested his hand on my shoulder. "I can't tell you why, but I am sure that she is right. You should have seen the look in her eyes. She looked as if she had aged ten years."

"I don't want my daughter to be forced to grow up too early because of all the horrible things in her life. I don't want her to become as haunted and broken as her mother!" My voice broke towards the end of the sentence and I ran my hand through my hair.

"We will find Parker. We have to." Sydney said and moved his hand to my arm. "And Sammy will be fine, okay? We'll make sure that everything will simply be a bad memory for her. Nothing that can threaten her."

"But how, Sydney? I don't know what to do!" I was so frustrated that I felt my body go from hot to cold and back. I suddenly remembered how cold Parker's hand had felt back in the hospital when I had been sitting with her all night, unsure whether she would survive despite the injuries that the collapsing Centre building had inflicted on her. I had tried to imagine a life without her again and had failed. But now it would be even worse. I loved her and I had spent the last five years sleeping next to her almost every night. I just couldn't accept the fact that maybe I would never see her again or find out what had happened to my son.

"Hey. She's asleep again." Christine's voice sounded softly from the door. She walked back into the room and brushed my arm with her hand. Her usual roguish grin was notably absent and the years the elaborate make-up usual took off her face seemed to have returned despite it.

"No news, I take it?" she asked and gave Sydney a small smile as she sat down on the couch next to him.

"Nothing." I said and my voice sounded hollow, but the ensuing silence was quickly drowned by the doorbell. I was the first to reach the door, Sydney and Christine hot on my heels. The door revealed a grim- looking Val who was accompanied by a very distinguished- looking gentleman who regarded me with a look that I couldn't place. His eyes were kind as he extended his hand towards me. "Jarod, I'm Charles Baxter and I think I know where to find your wife."

Charles Baxter

I hadn't always been Charles Baxter, king of the mob. I hadn't always been conducting major business which consisted of both perfectly legal investments on the one hand and pretty illegal frauds on the other. I hadn't always commanded an army of white collar criminals and attended glitzy parties that only the richest and most famous were invited to, to laugh into the FBI's face from the pages of people magazine. The life I had built had nothing to do with my past but everything with what had happened to me. People are different. Some react to a live-long imprisonment and exploitation of their genius with the sincere wish to make up for what their simulations have been used for. They try to do good deeds in life and settle down to find happiness in the small things: a family dinner, a kiss from the wife or a daughter's first smile. I was not that kind of person.

I had escaped my captors at the age of thirty-five and I was ruthless enough not to favor a life on the run, so I had used my very own genius to get my hands on a lot of dirty money and gather loyal and equally ruthless people around me. The Centre had had to watch while I lived the life but their hands had been bound. There had been attempts to capture me again and there had been desperate offers to conduct business. I had acknowledged none of them and watched as the Centre's granite took minor fractures until it had finally broken down five years ago. I was too smart and too experienced to ever feel free, so I had made sure I was informed about anything that went on with the Triumvirate back in Africa. Friends in the CIA can come in handy sometimes. And then I had discovered that there was someone else who had endured what I had gone through. Someone who had been locked away, too. Another pretender. They had perfected their ways, however. I had been eighteen when I had been snatched off the streets, Jarod had been much younger. It had been easier to break him. They had made Sydney his mentor. My captor had been Dr Raines who had ruled with violence and terror. Jarod and I were so different from each other and yet so much alike.

And then there was his wife. Beautiful, yet broken Miss Parker, so alluring in her complexity. Mr Parker's daughter who had been just a little girl when I had escaped the Centre. I had felt oddly protective of her without knowing just why. It felt as if she and I had something in common as well. What it was I had only realized when I had heard her screams in my dreams last night. Without his knowledge, Raines' experiments had left me with a poor shadow of the talent Miss Parker and her mother possessed. It was a bit like a radio station that is frequently in and out of reach. Sometimes I caught people's feelings, mostly I didn't and I could never control it. Still, it had come in handy one time or the other.

Had I ever regretted becoming a criminal? Someone who exploited others for a living? Someone who sometimes used a little force to get truths out of people? Well, I hadn't. Life had kicked me when I had been down and I had always felt the righteous need to get back what had been taken from me. But no riches in the world can give you back almost twenty years that you have lost to the most evil organization imaginable. Still, I wanted to help Jarod and Miss Parker. They needed me and I was ready to – for once – not only cater to my own needs.

I had met Kenny – or Lyle, as I had just found out – through business and he had always seemed a little off. It hadn't just been his scarred face and his complete lack of compassion. There had been something else that had bothered me and I had only been able to put a finger on it when in one of my rare moments, I had caught a glimpse into his soul. Or lack thereof.

With sudden clarity, that of course I could not confide to anyone in about, I had known that he had been the one who had abducted Donald. And now he had Miss Parker. My usual business practice was to check out potential associates and have thorough background checks run on them. Kenny had been a tough one. There hadn't been any family history. Even the Centre background he was bound to have – which I realized only now – had escaped my investigators. At least, he seemed to have come to work for me because he needed money, not because he knew about my past. What my men had found, however, was an old farmhouse he owned at the outskirts of town in a lonely area where nobody would hear your screams. It hadn't felt relevant back then, but pretenders have a lot of capacities in their brain to even store the most uninteresting bits of information.

After I had told Jarod the story in as few words as possible, I had bowed my head and looked at him. His face was grim, his jaw set. He wasn't ready to acknowledge our involuntary bond just yet.

"What are we waiting for?"

Lyle

When I next checked on my sister, she was on her back and her eyes were closed, but it was obvious that she wasn't asleep from the way her hand was closed firmly around the side of the bed.

"No need to pretend, Sis. I can see you're awake," I told her in the sing-song voice I knew she despised. A thin layer of perspiration covered her face and when her eyes opened, they looked slightly glassy.

"If you don't get me to a hospital soon, Lyle, you will not get very far with your vicious little plan. I've been having contractions for hours."

Conveniently, her revelation was followed by a painful grimace on her face with which she halfway sat up and pressed her hand against her middle. "See?" she panted. "What are you waiting for?"

I made it a point to look bored. "I'll nominate you for an Academy Award, but I will not get you to a hospital. Sis, I regret to inform you that the fire has taken away my handsome looks, but not my brain. Nice try, anyway."

She looked genuinely frightened for a second then shook her head. "No games, Lyle. I mean it. We both don't want this baby to die. And it will if I give birth here and now." Her voice had risen towards the end of the sentence and she was struggling to sit up properly.

I closed in on her and turned the worse side of my scarred face towards her, aware of the fact that she would be able to feel my breath on her skin. With delight, I spelled it out for her: "I don't believe you. And I don't trust you either."

Then I got up and walked towards the door. I would have Summers take care of her for now. My sister wasn't even fun to look at with those pleading eyes and that dreadfully big belly.

"Lyle!" she called after me, but I ignored her and walked towards the door which was opened before I could do so. Summers stood in the hallway, hair in a frenzy and her stupid blue eyes wide open.

"Lyle! There's someone downstairs!"

"You stupid little cow!" I yelled at her for no particular reason other than she had been getting on my nerves for a while. Although she usual hid it well, the girl was a total whack job. Pretty to look at, essentially, but blabbing on and on about how pretty my sister was. Plus, she was a real bore in bed. Always had been.

When I was nearing the stairs, her anxious little steps behind me, I knew that it was too late to prevent the intruders from entering, since in the hallway I found myself presented with an impressive array of grim-looking people.

There was Jarod in a leather jacket and jeans, looking much as I remembered him before he had succumbed to boring earthy colors, followed by Charles Baxter, whom I had done some dirty work for to get my hands on some bucks a few months ago. What had happened to solidarity between criminals, I wondered. He had probably ratted me out. And behind them, much to my dismay, the District Attorney from hell, Val Cornwell.

I had to give Summers credit for once since despite her very slow reactions in the bedroom, she had lurched at Jarod like an animal before I had even had time to pull the gun from my waistband.

Jarod

I hadn't expected Dr Summers to attack me so quickly and with so much skill. Her fingernails dug into the soft skin of my face and her knee came up to very effectively hit me in the groin. Next to me, Baxter was pointing his gun at Lyle who was backing into the room he seemed to have emerged from. The house was old and dark and slightly run-down. A clammy smell in the air led to the conclusion that it wasn't usually occupied. The pain in my stomach immobilized me for a moment and I gasped for air as the next blow hit my face. I stretched out my arms and grabbed Dr Summers by the shoulder, trying to twist her arm with the other, but she put up quite a fight. Her scream didn't help either since I had a strong aversion to beating up women. If she had just left me alone!

I struggled to catch her other hand whose long fingernails were about to dig into my left eye when a strong arm grabbed Summers from behind and wrapped itself around her chest, knocking the air out of her. One moment she looked surprised, the next she was flung towards the stairs and took a tumble around halfway down before she could be heard cursing with anger. Val clapped her hands against each other as if she was getting rid of dust.

"I swear I am going to get that little minion behind bars before she knows it." she growled and made towards the stairs. "Pretended like she was the sweetest thing on the planet and then conspired with someone as despicable as Lyle. I'm gonna barf!"

I didn't hear whatever was following because I had already started running into the direction of the room whose door was now ajar. Upon entering it, I almost jumped back. Miss Parker looked incredibly pale in the unflattering light of the dusty light bulb on the ceiling, but what was worse was the crouched position she was in on the floor right next to Lyle's foot, arms wrapped around her stomach, her nose bleeding. Lyle was holding his gun to a little boy's temple. Donald! He was alive! Relief was only temporary as I caught Baxter's exasperated stare. He was still pointing his gun at Lyle but didn't dare pull the trigger since he was using Donald as a shield.

There was a deadly silence in the room as we all became aware of the fact that this situation would not be resolved without leaving at least one of us dead. The only sound was Parker's low whimper as she tried to get up. The light did nothing to hide the burn scars that made Lyle's once handsome face almost unrecognizable. There were burns on his hands, too, but they didn't seem to affect their agility. The amount of smoke he must have inhaled was audible in his voice when he spoke, breathlessly and eerily sounding like Mr Raines: "Back off or I swear I'll kill this boy and Parker."

I couldn't avert my eyes from Parker's now still form on the floor. Had she passed out? No, the quiet moan could still be heard from time to time. She looked different from when I had last seen her. Something was wrong. With shock I realized what it was. Her stomach. She was much further along in her pregnancy then she was supposed to be. What had these psychopaths done to her? I suddenly remembered what Sydney had told me about Sammy's nightmare and felt the blood drain from my face. That was what the moaning was about.

"Lyle, please. Parker is in labor. We need to get her to a hospital."

Lyle didn't turn around but just snickered madly and began to slowly move towards us, careful not to give us room to shoot him. It was obvious, now, that he didn't care about Miss Parker anymore but simply wanted to escape like he had done what seemed like a thousand times before. The only reason he had grabbed the boy and not her had been the fact that he was easier to maneuver and less likely to put up a fight than Miss Parker, who would have barely been able to walk but would have used every opportunity to slow Lyle down.

"I'll kill the boy!" he threatened again and I braced myself for the moment he would have to pass me.

"Stand back!" he commanded and moved his finger slightly so the trigger moved the tiniest bit and the little boy began to cry with terror. Lyle would take him with him, I was suddenly sure. We couldn't let this happen. I stepped back slightly to allow Lyle to walk through the doorway where Val was waiting with a grim stare but raised her hands as Lyle pressed the gun deeper into Donald's temple upon passing her.

Baxter had stepped closer to me and followed Lyle with movements as smooth and noiseless as any of nature's own predators. "I'll take care of the bastard," he hissed into my ear and nodded towards Parker. "You, make sure she is fine."

As much as I felt responsible for Donald, Baxter was the one with the gun and my pregnant wife lay doubled-over just a few steps from me. What else could I have done? I nodded graciously, but he had already passed me. I sent a short prayer to heaven that he and Val would come up with something then hurried towards Parker. She moved slightly when I placed my hand on her shoulder and opened her eyes in the attempt of a smile.

"Jarod." Her voice was small and tight.

I gently took her by the shoulders and lifted her to the bed for a start. Apart from the half-dried blood from her nose, she didn't seem to be hurt and I was thankful for that. Once she was on the bed, she rolled onto her side and pressed her eyes shut for a moment.

"Has your water broken yet?" I asked her and to my relief she shook her head. Gently I began to stroke her back in soothing motions. "Try to relax, I'll make sure you two are okay. Do you know how far apart the contractions are?"

"I didn't have a clock…" she managed. "But I had a contraction just before you arrived and another one while I was on the floor and Lyle was still in the room. Is Sammy okay?"

I knew that she wouldn't be able to relax before she knew and nodded. "She's fine. She is at home with Sydney and Christine."

"They used something on me that made the baby grow faster…" she whispered. "I don't know how far along I am, I am… I don't know whether he'll be fine once he's here."

"It's okay. It's okay." I soothed. "If you think you can get up, I'll get you downstairs and into the car."

But before the car, there was a potentially lethal gunfight in store for us, which I obviously neglected to tell her.

"That bastard flung me on the floor when he grabbed Donald. I think I sprained something."

"It's fine." I edged my hands under her body and gently lifted her up in my arms. Parker breathed deeply as if in pain but remained otherwise silent, as I carried her towards the door into an uncertain situation. The stairs took me a moment to manage with my precious but rather long-legged burden and when we finally arrived at the foot of the stairs, I cursed myself for being stupid enough to walk right into a situation like that.

Like trapped animals, trapped psychopaths become even more dangerous than they already are when they are in good spirits. Somehow, Baxter had managed to get hold of Donald and block the front door, but Lyle was still holding his gun and was raising it, just as I had stepped off the stairs. Had I not brought Parker along, I might have been able to overpower him, since he had his back to me. And with me standing behind him, Baxter couldn't shoot him. I reacted quickly and turned around, ready to run back up the stairs but it was already too late. Lyle reached for Parker and she screamed when she was roughly taken from me and would have fallen to the floor if Lyle had not roughly grabbed her around the waist to steady her. Despite the pain that was written all over her face she struggled against Lyle's grip and managed to reach for the barrel of his gun.

"Skinny, no!"

Val had noticed the gleam in Lyle's eyes before anyone else could. And then a shot rang out and sounded monstrous in my ears. I only had one coherent thought: "How could I be stupid enough to get Parker into this situation?"

TBC