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Part Two

Miss Parker

As we all know, I am not exactly one to make friends easily. Okay, let’s face it, I have never been known to make any friends at all. That is why it felt spectacular every time I walked into that bar called “Notorious” and was greeted by a friendly cheer from the impeccably dressed woman that had been calling herself my friend for a little over two years now.

She hadn’t spotted me right away this time and as I approached her, I felt the icy lump inside my throat slowly melt away. Christine was tall and slender and the perfect helmet of light-brown hair on her head had been groomed to perfection. She had crossed her legs on the stool by the bar and looked fabulous in a velvet suit and white blouse. I still had to smile when I remembered our first meeting on a bench in the park not far from my house. I had been sitting there with Sam who had just learned to talk and kept firing questions at me that I did my best to answer. I had never been patient with children, but when they are your own and you’re somewhat crazy about them, you gradually learn that patience.

Christine had been sitting on the bench opposite me in a suit, wearing giant Dior sunglasses that reflected the brilliant sunlight back at me and texting away on an expensive-looking cell-phone.

“Mommy, why does the woman look so mean?” Sam had asked in a loud and clear voice that could probably be heard in the outskirts of Scotland. I had been embarrassed at first, but had then resigned myself to answering, but Christine had reacted more quickly.

“Honey. I eat children. Are you expecting me to smile serenely?”

There had been a loud silence for a moment and Sam had crunched her little face up to cry. I had known enough about the other young mothers (whom I detested by the way) to know that I was supposed to leap to my feet and march over to give her a passionate speech about how little children were our future and how evil it was of her to scare the adorable apple of my eye. Instead I had kissed Sam’s head gently and had burst into roaring laughter.

Christine had been taken aback for a moment, unsure what to make of me and later she had explained that she had only then realized that I could not be the impertinent mother hen she had mistaken me for. Taking in my black suit and expensive earrings she had grinned appreciatively and then walked over to me. Still in silence, probably listening to my hysterical laughter she had taken a seat next to me and Sam and pulled her sunglasses down onto the top of her nose.

“I like you,” she’d said and that was that.

“Darling!” she yelled now, heads turning across the room. “I am over here. Bartender, give that woman a nice martini and make it strong enough to kill a horse so she’ll feel anything at all.”

To be honest, I was devastated that I would have to be forced to decline that offer. Sipping martinis with Christine had become one of my favorite pastimes. She blew a kiss at me and gave me a beaming smile. Being a good decade older than me she was even richer than I was thanks to several bank accounts that were the more enjoyable legacy of the evil that the Centre had been. Having married rich at a young age she had lived with her broker husband and raised their son only to discover him in bed - or rather on the desk- with his secretary one night. To make a long story short: She now received more alimony than she could spend while he drove a battered old sedan and compared prices at Wall Mart. Or at least that was what she had told me.

“You look pale! Add more vodka.” While she was giving the barman instructions, I made myself comfortable on the bar stool and enjoyed the fact that my best friend was just as sarcastic and fearless as I was.

To be honest, Jarod had been worried sick about my staying away from all the other young mothers that he deemed completely adorable. So when I had told him that I had made a friend, he had been over the moon. A feeling that had quickly subsided when he’d first met Christine who had called him a “cutie” and then inquired about the contents of our liquor cabinet. Later when she had gone, he had shrugged and put his arms around me, somewhat resigned.

“So? How do you like her?” I had asked him, teasingly.

“Well... She’s quite nice. But she’s...” he had trailed off and only continued when I’d urged him to. “She’s so much like you.”

“I take it you like her then.”

“Well. Yes. But I had hoped you’d met somebody who’d have a positive influence on you.”

Maybe back then he had still hoped I would return to the rather sweet ways of my amnesiac self, but of course he had been mistaken. After a while he had begun to cherish her sarcastic humor and our entertaining interaction just as much as I did and sometimes called us a sitcom.

“Now, what.” Christine slid a nasty looking drink across the bar and gestured towards a free table at the other end of the room. “Tell me all about the trial. Did you ground his sorry ass?”

“We had to adjourn,” I told her, grabbing the drink and heading over to the table.

“Adjourn? Why for god’s sake? Was he in tears?” She took a generous sip of her drink and obviously waited for me to do the same. I toasted her weakly, then set the glass down.

“I sort of blew it.”

Christine gave a sharp laugh. “You never blow anything, Darling. Well... at least not in the courtroom.” Her laughter was even more obscene than her comment and shook my head, smiling beside myself.

“Nah. I fainted.”

“Oh! Did you hit your head on the judge?” Before I could react to her insensitivity, she reached over the table and gave me a stern look. “Are you okay, pal? You do know you don’t need to work so much, don’t you?”

“Of course. It wasn’t about work. Christine. I’m pregnant.”

There was a short silence in which Christine kept her eyes looked with mine, then began to shake her head. “For god’s sake, Parker!”

Before I knew it, she had grabbed the martini glass and pulled it towards her.

“You really shouldn’t drink.”

As if I had been about to!

“And why wouldn’t she? Hangover?” I looked up and looked into the face of my second partner in crime. Two girlfriends in two years! Jarod hadn’t been able to believe it and had been just as expectant as he had been when we’d first invited Christine over, when Val had barged in and demanded beer. His disappointment had been just as great.

“Not at all. She’s having a baby!” Christine exclaimed in a stage actor’s booming voice, causing a couple of people to toast us.

“Ah,” Val lowered her bulky frame onto the chair and toyed with her bottled beer. The only German brand they sold.

“So soon enough I won't be able to call you Skinny anymore?”

Her deep throaty voice had all the characteristics of a good old Scotch and her kind brown eyes that looked from rather bushy eyebrows scrutinized me without being obtrusive. Gradually, I managed to let go of the fear I had been feeling all day and relaxed to the comforting presence of my friends.

“You may always call me Skinny, Val.”

Val was my boss at work. Fifty years old, British, six feet tall and everything but anorexic, Val possessed many qualities of a big brother. She liked soccer, German beer and - quite curiously - Sex and the City. While looking robust, she was one of the most caring people I had ever met, although she only showed that side of her to a few select friends.

Val had transferred to D.C. only a year ago and had marched into my office right away, to set me straight about a strategy I had been meaning to pursue during trial that day.

“Well, you can’t be serious!” she had called, her strong deep strong voice seeming exceptionally loud. “There is no way you’ll get that bastard in jail that way!”

Without introducing herself or waiting for me to react, she had thrown herself into the chair opposite my desk, gestured at the file and had scrunched up her face in something that looked like disgust.

“Look, Skinny, if you had taken the time to read the file while you got your nails done...” she had shot a pointed look at my hand and I’d had a hard time not pulling it from her view. “... you would have noticed that this particular jury is a bitch for your cause.”

Aware of the fact that nobody but a superior would dare to talk to me like that, I had raised an eyebrow at my new boss.

“Then you listen to me...” I had paused for effect, enjoying the prospect of a fit opponent. “... not-so-Skinny: This is my courtroom and I know how to deal with a trial, okay? And if you ever got your nails done...” Pointed look on my behalf. “You would have had time to read the file properly. There is a good chance to achieve my goal.”

Val had flipped a few pages, found the page I had indicated and had given a roaring jolt of laughter. “Well, well, Skinny. Let’s see how it turns out. A beer on me if it works.”

I had gotten my beer. And a few shots of Scotch. When I had shown up at home, tipsy enough to start giggling at the sight of Jarod’s stern face, I had known I’d made a new friend.

Now my two friends were sitting opposite me, as different as actually possible at the outside, but both equally smart, sharp-witted and loving at the inside. I suddenly felt like bursting into tears.

“You won’t be able to drink for nine months.” Christine looked gloomy. “That will be me and beer-woman on our own round here.”

“Don’t be silly,” I managed to choke out. “I’ll just have soft drinks.”

“It will not be the same,” Christine sulked, indicating our always funny slightly intoxicated taxi rides home that regularly made the cabbies want to hand in their resignations.

“Lighten up, Chrissie,” Val comforted her in a sarcastic yet good-natured grumble. “She can always have nonalcoholic cocktails and pretend to be drunk.”

I shook my head, thankfully almost over my tearful moment. I wondered whether I should tell them about my worries or just try to enjoy the evening as it was.

“I am almost three months along, anyway. It will only be half a year that you will have to refrain from ordering martinis for me.”

“So that’s with the fainting in the courtroom.” Val grinned. “Classic moment, Skinny. You’re what everyone is talking about.”

“Well, great.” I sighed. “From now on I will be Mommy who fainted in the courtroom to all these young lawyers I have spent years on to terrify.”

Val patted my hand. “Life is hard, Darling. Start anew. It’s fun. I asked your clerk to look after you a bit. Make sure you eat and always have water around, things like that.”

“You did what?” I asked, immediately furious with her. “You can’t be serious! On what grounds...?”

“Told him you were pregnant.”

“Well, how would you know?”

“I called that lovely husband of yours, silly inquiring after you and your trip to the hospital. Told me you were upstairs reading goodnight stories to your daughter, then spat it out mid-sentence. He is pretty damn excited the poor sod.”

Christine sipped her martini, still not overly enthusiastic. While listening to Val you wouldn’t believe that she was one of America’s most brilliant lawyers but she always made me smile. Even if she had just embarrassed me in front of the young blond man I had recently started to use as a substitute for Broots whom I had loved to terrorize back at the Centre.

“Anyway, congratulations, Parker.” Val grabbed my hand and squeezed it over the table. “You don’t look too happy though, pal,” Christine chirped in. Her voice had a wonderful silky quality when she lowered it to speak privately and it always soothed me.

“Oh, I am happy.” I managed a small smile. “It’s just...”

For a moment I felt lost in the memory of fainting in my office at the Centre just like I had fainted today, grabbed by Sydney instead of the bailiff, my stomach cramping and my legs suddenly blood-stained. I had been exactly eleven weeks along then, a fact I deliberately hadn’t told Jarod. I remembered the scratchy sheets at the Centre infirmary and the little nurse’s apologetic voice, telling me that I had had a miscarriage. I closed my eyes briefly, inhaling the air deeply and listening to the signs my body was sending. There was nothing. I didn’t feel sick anymore, I wasn’t in pain at all and the only feeling that came to me was a certain vigilance. When I had learned I was pregnant with Sammy, I had been shocked and frightened and unable to get to terms with any of my feelings. Now my maternal instincts were kicking in a lot faster.

“Pal? Are you alright?” I looked up into Christine’s worried face and shrugged. I had never told them about my miscarriage, afraid that they would see me as weak, which I somehow couldn’t bear.

“It’s just that the neighbor’s kid has vanished. The police think he was kidnapped.”

It was true, this was a topic that also weighed down on my mood so I decided to tell them just that and not about my strange sense of foreboding.

Jarod

I looked up from the book I had been reading when Miss Parker exited the bathroom in her pajamas. She slid under the covers and lay on her back for a moment, eyes closed. I set the book aside and touched her arm softly. She still didn’t like her face to be kissed or touched when she wasn’t expecting it, so I simply wove my fingers through hers and waited for her to look at me.

She smiled when she opened her eyes and sat up to hug me.

“So I was right,” I observed. “A little time with the girls did you good.”

“True,” she sat, the huge smile still in place. “Christine isn’t too happy about my pregnancy, though, because she feels obliged to have all the martinis I won’t be having.”

I grinned, imagining the woman in my head. Her impeccable sense of taste, her ability to talk my wife into those short skirts I thought she had stopped wearing after landing her new job and her sarcasm came to mind. At first I hadn’t really liked her. She had reminded me too much of the person Miss Parker had been at the Centre. After a while, though, I had realized that she wasn’t half as bitter. The rejection from her ex-husband still stung her, but she was generally kind and, as opposed to Miss Parker, didn’t comment sarcastically to hurt people, but because she simply couldn’t help it.

“So you told them about the baby?” I asked and she cocked an eyebrow. “No need to tell Val! A little birdie had told her already.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I am not very fond of the whole ‘I’m pregnant- be happy for me’ routine anyway.”

The shadow that had hung over her all through dinner crossed her face fleetingly and I was instantly worried again. The way she behaved she seemed almost resigned to the fact that something would go wrong.

“Can I put my hand on your stomach?” I asked, feeling a bit foolish, but she was still touchy about some subjects and although she had generally improved in all departments, her pregnancy seemed to enhance all the difficulties that still remained.

“If you want to.” She flipped her beside lamp off and lay on her back, her arms over her head and the pillow, eyes closed and eerily silent. I decided to not be too hard on her. Even if she was a perfect mother and wonderful wife to me her insecurities were still very obvious. She refused to talk about her nightmares and during all these years that we had just grown closer and closer I had never managed to convince her to consult a psychologist about her issues.

She had never talked to anyone about who she had been at the Centre, the amnesia or the fact that her first real relationship had been staged by the Centre. There was a lot in her past that she was still struggling with and had never really spoken about. The miscarriage, her short but traumatic imprisonment at the Centre or her dysfunctional relationship with her father were just part of what still affected her. She still hurt and although she did her very best not to make her family feel it, there were a few automatic responses from her, that she probably didn’t even notice.

I carefully slid my hand under her pajama top and placed it on her flat smooth stomach. She hissed quietly. “Your hand is cold.”

I lay next to her and wondered whether what I was doing made her feel safe at all. She wasn’t going to talk about her fears anytime soon, but I sincerely hoped that one day she would come around.

“Do you think we’ll have a boy this time?” I asked into the darkness and her sleepy voice responded almost immediately: “Jarod, it’s a bit too soon to wonder about that, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t.” I said with emphasis, hoping that she’d notice by herself that she was doing it again. The easiest way to pretend to yourself that nothing can hurt you, is distance yourself. Miss Parker did it frequently without even noticing. “I would like a boy.”

She didn’t answer and so I listened to her breathing for a while, sure that it sounded a bit too regular. She was pretending to be asleep.

Val Cornwell

Skinny looked up as I entered her office and cocked her head as - true to our little tradition - I collapsed into the chair opposite her desk without greeting and slapped a file on the overly tidy desk. I had no idea how exactly she did it since my desk always looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. It was something I would have never allowed my subordinates, but I was the emperor of chaos and could find anything.

One thing I liked about my friend was that she never asked too many questions. Instead she leaned back in her chair, folded her arms in front of her chest and waited for an explanation for my appearance.

“I had a look into the police investigation on the disappearance of your neighbor’s kid,” I said and she leaned forward immediately. Yep, I had caught her attention.

“Spare me your detailed account of how great your relations to the local police are this time, right, Val?”

I grinned and punched her shoulder lightly. Since my brother was at the top of the food chain there, my relationship with the local law enforcement was better than that of other district attorneys.

“Got it,” I said. “It seems they are treating it as a possible crime. They’re pretty convinced that he’s been kidnapped.”

She shook her head regretfully and I noticed that her usually pale skin looked almost ashen today. “So there hasn’t been any word from the kidnappers yet?”

I nodded. We both knew what that meant. If they didn’t ask for ransom, the kidnapping had either been about rape or murder.

“How is the family holding up? Jarod promised to go over there this morning, but I really haven’t had time to call him yet.” She took her blackberry from her hand-bag and looked at the display. There were two missed calls from Jarod and a text message from the Broots guy. Without checking on them, she threw it back.

“Not well, of course. Police is trying to keep them calm but of course it doesn’t work. They had a liaison officer sent over there along with counsel.”

“Do we know when exactly he was taken?” Parker asked, all prosecutor again. I could imagine what was going on in her head because it must be pretty much what was going on in mine. True to our profession we already ran scenarios and tried to calculate just for how long we would get the bastard behind bars if he was caught.

“The mother said she went inside because of a phone-call at about four o’clock. Returned ten minutes later and he had vanished.”

“That sounds as if it had been planned. I don’t believe anybody would just wander by and decide to grab the kid in such a short period of time.”

I nodded appreciatively. “Bingo. They’re looking into all kinds of relationships right now. His pre-school, friends, guitar-lessons. The whole drill. Hope they’ll find a lead soon.”

There was a short knock at the door and Greg Meyers, Parker’s clerk, hustled in. She leaned back in her chair, menacing mask immediately in place.

“What is it?” she almost snapped and I had to hide a grin behind my hand. It was always priceless to watch her do that.

Greg came closer, his tie slightly askew, his hair a little too long and hanging into his eyes. He carried a bag in his hand and dropped it onto the table as if he was about to storm out of the office in a run.

“I brought you lunch. Noticed you hadn’t had anything yet.”

Watching her now was even more entertaining as her face changed from furious to touched and back in quick succession. In the end she settled for a solemn, unmoved expression.

“Thanks,” she said and dismissed him with a nod.

“You know what they say about you?” I asked as soon as he had walked out and closed the door behind him.

“I am sure you’ll enlighten me.”

I gestured at her expensive black suit and grinned as I rose from my chair. “They say the devil wears Prada.”

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head regretfully. “Amateurs,” she growled. “This is Armani.”

Miss Parker

When Val had left, I became aware of the lunch bag on the desk again. Shaking my head I consulted my watch. Was it really that late already? I had been so absorbed in paperwork and research for my next trial, that I had completely forgotten about the time.

“Four seven!?” I exclaimed when I consulted my watch. That meant I was already half an hour late to pick up Sammy from preschool. I was about to bolt for the door when I noticed Val just outside my office, pouring coffee for herself. She was a good indicator of the time, since she never had coffee after three.

I compared my watch to the clock on my computer screen and realized that it was in fact only two o’clock. Sighing, I leaned back into my chair and straightened my jacket in a tired motion, then shot up again.

My watch must have been damaged when I had hit the floor in the courtroom yesterday. I took it off and tried to get it running again, but failed. Great. That meant there was a trip to the watchmaker in store for me this afternoon.

Suddenly Val’s words came back for me:

“The mother said she went inside because of a phone-call at about four O’clock. Returned ten minutes later and he had vanished.”

Oh no!

I stared at my watch for a few minutes. Was it really possible that I had fainted right that moment when Donald had been taken by his kidnapper? I put my elbows on the desk and buried my face in my hands. There had been something at the edge of my conscious right that moment before dizziness had washed over me and I had tried to hold on to something to stay on my feet.

Who are you?” Those words, spoken by a little boy’s voice suddenly echoed through my mind and the feeling of dread I had been plagued by yesterday suddenly reappeared.

You mean you’re as perceptive as you were during your last pregnancy?”

Exactly.”

“Oh god, help me...”

TBC










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