Amorphous and a shade darker than the door's surface, it could have been Bordeaux. That, mused Parker, could have explained Sydney's absence: he'd mishandled the bottle and gone out to purchase another.
 
Bordeaux could not have, however, explained the unlocked kitchen door Parker passed through an hour earlier, or why Sydney hadn't answered her calls the previous evening. Or why Syd's car is in his garage.
 
The answering machine was full; the messages therein provided no clue to the psychiatrist's whereabouts. Moreover, his closets were filled, his luggage untouched. The library was undisturbed, a novel lay on an end table, next to a lamp that burned bright and promised his amiable companionship, pleasant conversation.
 
It was only upon exiting his home via the kitchen door—through which she'd entered—that she glimpsed the odd stain on the door. She was careful not to disturb what could very well be potential evidence, all the while denying it was evidence.
 
 
When the door unceremoniously opened a fraction more, she instinctively raised the 9mm.
 
And managed quite nicely to conceal her surprise. The intruder wore a pressed suit, a tie, and a badge; his eyes were alert and appraising. The five o'clock shadow and slightly disheveled hair, however, told an altogether different tale.
 
Parker avoided eye contact with him and studied, instead, the Glock's dark eye- the piece was pristine, glorious. Truly.
 
Gun enthusiast that she was, Parker could appreciate proper maintenance even if the gun in question was pointed at her. Also, the gun provided a nice distraction; she preferred the indifferent gaze of the Glock to the steely cold glare of the gun's handler.
 
"Put it down, Parker," commanded the Glock's owner, interrupting the quiet standoff.
 
"You first," she returned haughtily.
 
Jarod conceded with a slight nod, peeled back the black overcoat he wore and coaxed the gun into his shoulder holster. His observant gaze strayed briefly from her face, dropped to the mocha camisole blouse, the black skirt, the heels. He sought incriminating attributes, and simply waited, expectantly, for her to holster her weapon.
 
At length, she compressed her lips and lowered her gaze. And lowered the 9mm; she did not holster the gun.
 
"What are you doing here," she said with a withering glare, and, for good measure, a sharp snort of annoyance.
 
"He wasn't answering calls," answered Jarod succinctly, entering Sydney's home and ignoring the several obligatory steps backward Parker walked to prevent a collision with him.
 
He moved about the kitchen as if it were his own, dominated the space, scrutinized it and its contents, and then wheeled around and met her surprised gaze. "What are you doing here?"
 
"Orders," answered Parker with an expression of disgust. "When Sydney didn't show up this morning for his post-employment examination, Lyle-" she stiffened, fell silent. "There were concerns," she concluded hastily.
 
"Orders," repeated Jarod woodenly. "You're taking orders from Lyle now? Hmm," he continued with a sharp, cruel laugh. "This is the different ending you wanted for yourself?" He folded his arms across his chest, shook his head. "If I'd only known you wanted to be submissive, Parker-"
 
"What I want," came her piquant riposte, "is to find Sydney."
 
"As if you care, interrupted Jarod. "You're only here because your sadistic brother ordered you to come. You forced Sydney out of the Centre. You forced him into retirement." Jarod's eyes narrowed. "How do I know that you didn't have something to do with his disappearance? How do I know he isn't in his bedroom bleeding to death right now," he snarled at her and then leveled a pointed look at the gun in her hand.
 
Jarod's words and eyes were incisive tools, were weapons, were as dangerous as the Glock he'd holstered. He was armed. Intrinsically well-armed. And he knew his adversary well, knew there were chinks in the armor, knew he'd personally deposited several himself, knew the coordinates of them all; he could trace with a finger the fissures in her facade. He knew where to strike; he did so with precision, with breath-stealing accuracy.
 
"It wouldn't be the first time you've shot him," he added, directing at Parker a brutal scowl that transported her instantly to another time and place: the walls of Sydney's cozy home dropped away to reveal a sandy shore, a receding boat.
 
She recoiled from the impact of his words—a violent head-to-toe undulation—and withdrew from him.
 
A bullet, she believed, would have been kinder. A bullet wouldn't have been quite as intimate or savage. Jarod clearly wasn't in the mood just then to be kind or formal.
 
Or merciful.
 
He observed her retreat with something akin to maniacal fascination. And he advanced on her without hesitation, with a predator's impulse.
 
"If you were involved in Sydney's disappearance," he said, hissing her name through clenched teeth—the name no one else dared to utter—and sidling dangerously close to her, "I will spend the rest of my life making you pay," he continued, pointedly didactic. "Do you understand me," he asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, added brutally, "I'll make you pay in a uniquely painful and horrific-"
 
Parker gaped blankly at the stranger before her and glimpsed the future- some distant moment in time when Sydney's mitigating expertise would be as elusive to her as it was essential.
 
Now, for instance.
 
She didn't recognize this particular incarnation of Jarod; it was the Jarod no one wanted to encounter, the Jarod who resorted to extreme measures to procure confessions, attain justice.
 
Parker did, however, seize at once the significance of his presence: the other Jarod, her friend, was unavailable to her, unreachable. Irrevocably.
 
The revelation was uniquely painful.
 
"You already have," she said softly, expressing her thoughts aloud, and interrupting his diatribe.
 
Jarod's brow knitted in perplexity, his face darkened in anger. "What," he fairly barked at her; he wasn't daring her to repeat herself; contrarily, he hadn't heard her over his rage. "What did you say?"
 
"Back off," she answered authoritatively, and then, gun still in hand, she fled. Jarod truly believed she was running. From him.
 
Oh, the times they are, indeed, a'changing. The change, bizarre as it was, wasn't nearly as gratifying as he believed it should have been, as it had been in dreams; cold reality was rather anticlimactic.
 
And he had never wanted their positions reversed.
 
He had never wanted her to run from him.
 
He had never wanted to pursue her.
 
And yet.
 
He lunged with appalling rapidity to halt her- an impulsive move, as autonomic as breathing.
 
She heard his footfalls behind her, felt his breath on her neck. When his fingertips sank into her skin, she cried out, hissed objections and obscenities; Jarod detected the word help among the litany of reproofs.
 
The instinct to obey her, to help, was so deeply ingrained that Jarod's grasp on her arm slackened marginally. In fact, he almost relinquished his hold on her completely, almost sought out an assailant. He almost wanted to comfort her, protect her. Help her.
 
He suffered a brief moment of disorientation after which he concluded that the instinct to save her was more puissant than it had any right to be. He concluded, too, that his feelings for her were unchanged.
 
Jarod didn't berate himself or his heart for betraying him; he supposed everyone was susceptible to moments of weakness. Even Parker, the veritable dragon woman herself, had suffered a moment of weakness- a fleeting bout in Carthis and, some months after, an entire weekend of uncharacteristic failings, one after another, and each shared with him.
 
Nothing had changed, but everything was different. She certainly seemed altered:
 
Help? Who is this woman and what has she done with Parker?
 
"Help," he repeated with an abrupt, mirthless laugh. "Help?"
 
Parker affirmed with an impatient nod. "Sydney needs help," she asserted, enunciating each word carefully. She watched his face expectantly, waiting for the moment when comprehension replaced perturbation, suspicion, rage.
 
Damn it, Sydney. You should have installed an abort button on your boy.
 
With a meaningful glance at Jarod's hand, she added irritably, "Don't make me shoot you."
 
Jarod's jaw—and grasp on her arm—tightened. He disregarded her gun, an instrument she had come to loathe over the years, the same gun that had taken her lover from her, and furthermore, and perhaps more disconcerting, he disregarded her and her words, her threats. Idle threats.
 
The threats were a thin defense, were crumbling battlements of a fallen fortress; they rang false:
she wasn't going to kill him, she wasn't going to shoot him, she wasn't going to drag him back to the Centre. Under any circumstances. Ever.
 
Her mother's work was sacrosanct; Jarod was part of that work. Returning him to the Centre was tantamount to taking up arms against Catherine. And Ethan. Parker could not, would not, betray her mother.
 
Nevertheless, for old time's sake, and more importantly to indulge Centre personnel who may or may not have been listening, Jarod thought she should expend the energy necessary to read once more through the forsaken script, deliver the lines, play the game.
 
Her disinclination to pursue him, her eagerness to ignore him and forfeit familial obligations were not new developments; they were, however, no less puzzling. And ironic.
 
Speaking of Centre personnel and puzzling developments-
 
"You're awfully certain that Sydney needs help," Jarod said. "Why is that? Hmm?"
 
"Jarod, let go of-"
 
"Tell me: is your brother using Sydney as bait?"
 
Parker's face twisted in incredulity. His query, appalling as it was, halted her efforts to free her arm. She chuckled. "I'm sure Bobby wishes he'd-"
 
"Yes or no," Jarod shouted. "Answer me damn it," he said impatiently through teeth clenched in anger, punctuating each word with a tug on her arm. "Look," he said, and drew a breath, and attempted to bridle his rage, and put away his fear. "Just tell me where they are holding him. Please."
 
"I don't know that they are holding him," answered Parker impassively. "There is no indication of Centre involvement." Prompted by the questions and accusations in his eyes—which were presently riveted on the large, wheeled Halliburton—she added, sourly, "Initially I was ordered to determine why he was a no-show. In light of the suspicious circumstances-"
 
"Of course," Jarod purred. "How convenient that you were once a sweeper. You're capable of finding evidence. And destroying evidence. That's why you're here. Why else would you come here without an army of sweepers?"
 
"Assembling a team requires authorization and time. I didn't want to wait. I telephoned Nicholas; he's flying in from Antibes."
 
"What if Nicholas arrives before you complete your sweep?"
 
"Nicholas is vaguely aware that his father and I are frien-" she stumbled briefly but quickly recovered, "associates. If he finds me here, I will-"
 
"What," interrupted Jarod. "Lie," he said with a measure of distaste, regarding her narrowly. "Tell him you're watering plants? Returning a novel?"
 
"A lie is preferable to the alternatives."
 
"Alternatives," repeated Jarod, vaguely amused. "Such as?"
 
"The truth," she answered simply. "If Nicholas discovers the truth, he could be-"
 
"Murdered," Jarod supplied when Parker fell silent. "You admit then," he added forcefully, "that you work for assassins."
 
"All the more reason for Sydney to resign," returned Parker coolly. "Before his loyalty to you gets him killed."
 
Parker felt Jarod's fingers twitch on her skin, felt the tension emanating from his body, and prepared herself for what might come next. A snapped humerous perhaps.
 
Jarod's hold on her didn't tighten, and was not painful; the weight of his hand simply conveyed the gravity of the situation, was a measure of his rage. It was, more than anything else, evidence of his desperation; nothing more than mere posturing.

His primary motivation was fear- Parker continued to bear that in mind. Jarod, however, made absolutely no effort to facilitate her decorous endeavor. 
 
"And that's it," he inquired with harsh brevity. "That's your explanation?"
 
"No," she said, violently jerking her arm free. "It's the truth. Believe me or don't," she added impassively. "I have work to do."
 
"I don't believe you," he stammered hastily, producing a pair of handcuffs from beneath the coat. Rage and despair had coalesced and culminated in illogical speculation, threats. "Last chance."
 
"Do what you have to do, Jarod," she said, resigning herself to whatever depraved interrogation tactics he conceived, all the while reminding herself that resignation in no way equated to surrender or consent, reminding herself that Sydney's life was likely at stake. 
 
There were other reasons for her capitulation, reasons that were as obscure as they were baffling, and entirely unrelated to the Centre's uncompromising policy on returning their Pretender alive and unharmed, reasons that perhaps should have been, but were not, interwoven with her loyalties to Sydney, Ethan, and Catherine Parker.
 
"When all of this is over," she added tartly and in no way ingratiatingly (she didn't want Jarod to mistake her words for a plea for leniency), "you can explain to Sydney that you wasted time tormenting me- time that we could have spent searching for him."
  
Jarod reached for her gun, and gently addressed her reluctance to surrender it to him. "This doesn't have to escalate," he said softly and with forbearing, albeit startling, politeness. Parker was certain she could scour the entire universe and not find a more considerate persecutor than Jarod.
 
"Sydney will be displeased if it does."
 
"Unlikely," said Jarod brusquely. "In light of the atrocities you've executed on the Centre's behalf, I'm quite certain that Sydney will believe I'm justified. He won't question any interrogation technique I employ to extract the truth from you. He understands that oftentimes the hapless marionette becomes ensnared in its strings and has to be disentangled, and sometimes even severed from its puppeteer, by an outside-"
 
"Christ, Jarod," she groused at the protracted digression. "Waterboard me and get it over with."
 
"If only time weren't a factor," he purred.
 
"Time is something Sydney may not have," she said, surrendering the weapon to him with a grimace of disgust. "Take it," she hissed, acutely aware that his incertitude prevented him from wresting the weapon from her, prevented the confrontation from becoming physical.
 
Jarod accepted the gun cautiously and with a brow knitted in apprehension.
 
Doubt was foreign and uncomfortable, an ill-fitting skin that he immediately wanted to discard. He rarely questioned himself, his intentions; intuition rarely led him astray. He lay the gun aside, observed her arms outstretched and steady, awaiting the cuffs. "You telephoned Nicholas," he inquired solicitously.
 
"My call history," she said archly, "doesn't lie."
 
"Even if its owner does," came Jarod's lofty retort. "All you have to do is tell me where-" Jarod words were clipped, his attention arrested by a heavy engine approaching rapidly. He estimated one, possibly two, Centre sedans.
 
Sweepers.
 
The squeal of tires acted as arbiter; they called the battle in Parker's favor.
 
 Or so she believed. Cold steel caressed her temple and prompted her to believe otherwise. "Not a sound," commanded Jarod.
 
"Miss Parker! Miss Parker," cried Broots. His voice preceded his footfalls on the front walk and Parker knew without knowing how that it wouldn't immediately occur to him to explore the rest of the property or follow the winding drive to the rear of the property where her car was parked.

"Miss Parker- oh, my gosh! Are you in there?" Parker and Jarod both observed as Broots pressed his face to the stained glass and shielded his eyes with his hands. The window, in turn, immediately fogged over. "Okay, I guess she's not," Broots said, grimly. "Voice mail," he murmured and rested his head on the glass and at the tone, stammered into his mobile,
 
"Miss Parker, I have good news and bad. The good news is Mr. Lyle isn't angry that you aren't on a jet accompanying him to Harrison, Arkansas where Jarod is working for the postal service."
 
Postal? How fitting. Jarod is nothing if not postal.
 
"He's worried about Sydney, too, although not for the same reasons you and I are. He wants you to stay behind and launch a full investigation. Effective immediately, you are authorized to use any Centre resources necessary to locate Sydney. He has concerns that Nicholas will involve himself and will definitely involve the police, and we both know what Lyle thinks of law enforcement- he really doesn't want them snooping around."
 
She could almost empathize with Bobby; she cast a sidelong glance at Mr. Law Enforcement and his badge and gun. And his fucking handcuffs. Her opinion of law enforcement wasn't exactly at an all-time high either just then.
 
"The bad news is," continued Broots, "Lyle's en route to Arkansas where Jarod is working for the postal service! I don't have to tell you that if you haven't already found Sydney we are probably going to need Jarod's help finding him and uh Jarod can't help us find Sydney if Lyle brings him in. Should I call for another jet? I don't know what to do. I don't - oh, gosh. I'm heading back to the Centre to snoop around Sydney's office again. Uh bye."
 
Parker closed her eyes, resisted the compulsion to call out to Broots; ultimately she decided she had a big enough mess to clean up already. The last thing I need is Broots strolling in here, seeing the gun to my head, and soiling Sydney's polished floors.
 
"I suppose you think Broots is colluding with the Centre, too," Parker said, petulantly, when the car pulled away.
 
"No," answered Jarod, holstering his weapon. "Apparently, you and Broots are both puppets," he added with chilly remoteness, and produced a mobile from a coat pocket and punched in a number. Her mobile. When the hell did that happen?
 
He activated the speakerphone function and offered her the device. "I want to know where Lyle is going," Jarod said peremptorily, certain that Lyle had abducted Sydney.
 
Parker revolved her eyes, and with as much grace as she could muster, and every ounce of belligerence she owned, accepted the mobile, jerking it from his hand grudgingly.
 
Pacing the floor of Sydney's library Parker rattled off her inquiries, or rather Jarod's inquiries, with professional ease. She then demanded radar confirmation of the Centre jet and crisply disconnected the call. "Harrison, Arkansas," she said, deflated, to the window facing Sydney's garden. "And as you heard," she added dourly, pivoting to return the device to Jarod and to deservedly upbraid him for wasting time.
 
The contemptuous words lodged in her throat.
 
She regarded the empty room with indifference and returned to the kitchen. There, she opened the Halliburton and pushed her hands into a pair of gloves. Working quickly, she retrieved a razor blade and envelope and collected from the door the substance that most assuredly wasn't Bordeaux.