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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Truth and Consequences - by MMB
Chapter 14: The Pendulum Swings
Crandall had pushed the Taurus into the lane moving the fastest after skillfully navigating the freeway system to put them finally on I-15. Sam sat in the passenger seat hardly daring to breathe for fear that he'd dispel the aura of hope that had kept the mood of the car from being overwhelmingly morose. Two agents occupied the back seat, brought along just in case it WAS Davy and Deb in the small hospital - in which case they would remain behind and protect the two until both Duncan and Cordoba had been taken into custody.
Sam had debated calling back East when the excited call had come from the FBI office. Then, thinking about it, he decided that it would be better to call once with good news than to raise the hopes of those in Delaware only to call back and dash them should the patients NOT be the missing pair. Better that he shoulder the almost agonizing wishful hoping alone - better that it be he to handle the pain of not knowing yet - as part of the price for not having protected them well enough to begin with. Better that he be the one for whom the seconds crept by like hours.
He forced his mind to walk once more through the reported condition of the two in the hospital, and his stomach twisted hard. His memory of Deb had been of a smiling face with dancing blue eyes and a saucily tossed braid - to think that either Duncan or Cordoba had touched her, if it WAS her, was almost enough to double him over and make him lose his lunch. Crandall had told him that the doctor in charge was hopeful that the boy would revive soon, and that only barely helped him maintain his dignity.
The FBI agent found himself casting occasional glances to his side when he thought the Centre Security Chief wasn't watching. An almost defensive stoniness had descended over the man's face the moment that he'd heard the news - and Crandall remembered the earnest question that he'd asked the man when they had met that morning: "You're taking this awfully personally, aren't you?" The grim and jutting jaw and tightly pressed lips more than bore witness that this entire situation was agonizingly personal.
He didn't even want to think of how the man would feel if these were not the people he was searching so desperately for.
~~~~~~~~
Cordoba didn't even give Duncan a parting wave, but set off across the parking lot toward the stairs that led to the front door of his sister's apartment. He took the stairs two at a time, and then pounded on the door. "¡Sandra! ¡Abra la puerta!" [Open the door!]
There was the sound of stirring within, and then Rick had thrown the door open and pushed his face into his brother-in-law's. "She's still sleeping, cabrón," he growled angrily. "She didn't get much sleep last night with you coming and pounding at the door at a God-awful hour of the night... And now here you are again..."
"I know," Cordoba tried to push through Rick, only to get shoved back roughly. He tried again, only to have Rick's next shove become downright violent. He caught himself against the metal balustrade. "Hey!"
"Hey nothing," Rick's ebony eyes snapped. "I put up with you invading our home last night because Sandra asked it - but you aren't going anywhere near her today." He shoved at Cordoba's chest with angry fingers.
Cordoba straightened and pushed back. "Oh yeah? And you think you're man enough to keep me away from my sister?" he yelled.
Rick reached behind him and flipped his wrist, and suddenly had an ugly and lethal-looking switchblade pointed at his brother-in-law. "Look, I've asked nicely, but now I guess I have to be a little more clear. GET LOST! Get out of here and don't come back no more! We don't want you here."
"You little pulga," (flea) Cordoba narrowed his eyes at the audacity of his sister's husband - a man who had never had the cojones to join Los Cabrones when he'd had membership offered him as a favor to Cordoba. "You think you can handle that little mosquito-sticker?"
"Rickie? What's going on, querido?" Sandra's voice from deep within the apartment sounded sleepy.
"Stay inside, mi vida," Rick yelled behind him, partly turning to her but then spinning back just in time to not get slashed when Cordoba used the slight distraction to whip out a switchblade of his own. "You son of a bitch."
"I'M the son of a bitch?" Cordoba was shaking his head as he moved slowly in a circle, all the while watching for an opening. "I come here with an offering to help you get started with the muchachito, and what thanks do I get?"
"We don't want your money," Rick carefully kept himself between Cordoba and the open apartment door and never turned his head away from the more experienced street fighter. "Who did you kill to get it? How many kilos of marijuana did you sell?"
"I EARNED this money, fair and square, estúpido," Cordoba feinted to the right and gave a backhanded slash that came close to ripping Rick's arm open. "I wouldn't bring no blood or drug money to my little nephew..."
Movement behind him caught his eye - a police cruiser had pulled into the parking lot and the officers were climbing from the vehicle with their weapons drawn. "Drop your weapons!" the lead officer demanded of both men, his service pistol clearly set to drop whichever combatant made the first unauthorized move.
"This is just a friendly family argument," Cordoba raised his hands slowly in the air and turned toward the officer.
"Drop it!" the second office, still a few steps down the stairs, yelled with his revolver pointed directly at the jacketed Hispanic. "Drop it NOW!"
Cordoba turned and gave Rick a dirty look. "This could have been avoided if you'd just have let me talk to Sandra," he hissed and then dropped his blade on the walkway.
"Hands behind your head, turn and walk backward towards me," the officer ordered, then pointed his gun at Rick. "You - drop your weapon!"
Rick obeyed as Cordoba's wrists were one by one hauled behind his back and then affixed there with tight plastic ties. Soon both men were efficiently placed in custody and held several yards apart while the officers questioned each about the details of the confrontation.
At last Sandra emerged from the apartment, tying her bathrobe around her bulging middle and looking around sleepily. She took one look at her husband with his hands behind him, clearly in the custody of the police officer questioning him, and she flew at Cordoba, her hands bent into claws with which she tried to scratch his face and eyes. "You bastard! You bring trouble to our family every time you show up. What did Rick and I do to deserve this? We took you in last night, when you and your friend were too drunk to go anywhere else..."
The office caught Sandra back by the arms, more than aware that her size meant that she was literally ready to have the baby at any moment. "C'mon, lady - let us sort things out here..."
Meanwhile, the officer in charge of Cordoba was patting him down, searching for other weapons he might have on him, when he came across the thick envelope in the jacket pocket. "What do we have here?" He pulled the envelope out and opened it, then gave a low whistle. "Wanna explain this?"
Cordoba merely glared at him and decided that now would be a very good time to keep his mouth shut.
~~~~~~~~
"This is the last one, Doctor Russell," Rizzo said, sliding yet another paper across the desk in Jarod's direction.
"What's this one?" Jarod asked, picking up the paper and starting to read.
"It states that you are accepting physical custody of the child Ginger Simmons, and that you will take responsibility for her health and welfare while she is in your care. It spells out your rights in relation to the Department of Children's Services and CPS, tells you about the rights these departments have to inspect your home in order to make sure that you continue to provide quality housing and diet for her... Basically this one makes you an agent of those departments and agreeable to oversight by them."
Jarod browsed the document quickly and found it to be fairly straightforward and clear-cut. He bent and signed his name with a flourish. "You say that's it?"
Rizzo was gathering the many papers that Jarod had been affixing his signature to into a manila file folder. "That's it. Give me a moment to take care of these, and then we can go pick up your houseguest." He rose and left Jarod sitting in the chair in front of the desk.
The Pretender looked around him, surprised at the feeling of anticipation and insecurity that had come over him the moment that he knew that the last of the forms was signed. It was one thing to treat a sweet little girl, to dream of taking care of her the way she deserved. He was rapidly discovering that it was another entirely to consider that all the obstacles had just been cleared and he was now solely responsible for that child's welfare. He folded his hands in his lap and breathed deeply in order to calm himself as he stood literally on the brink of something he'd wanted for a very long time.
Rizzo popped his head around the corner of the office door. "OK, Dr. Russell. Why don't you come with me, and we'll collect your little girl." He waited for Jarod to stand and join him. "The secured facility is just this way."
The two men walked down a long corridor, then paused as Rizzo punched in a security code so that the thick, metal door could open. He let Jarod through and into almost a hospital setting - a corridor lined with endless closed wardroom doors and freshly waxed linoleum on the floors, where the hum of voices, not all of them happy ones, was non-stop. He counted down several doors and then checked the room number. "Here we are." He turned to face the Pretender before opening the door, feeling the need to explain the circumstances. "We put her in here by herself - her behavior was strange enough that we didn't want the other kids harming her." Rizzo punched in another code and then pulled the door open.
Jarod entered the room with a smile on his face, but that smile died a quick death. Ginger, her braid obviously untended and her clothing torn and stained, was sitting up and curled into a tiny knot up by her pillow, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her back was pushed as far into the corner of the tiny room as she could get, and her eyes gazed almost blankly at a spot on the bedspread. She paid no attention to anything going on in the room around her, and a tray with breakfast sat utterly untouched on the table next to the bed. Jarod turned half-angry eyes on Rizzo. "How long has she been like this?"
Rizzo could understand why the man was upset. "This is why things were expedited for you," he replied sympathetically. "She was withdrawn when she got here, but has slowly been getting worse, as you can see. Her psychiatrist was by to see her last night, and he expressed serious concerns about her ability to recover if she weren't removed from here as soon as possible."
Jarod wasn't listening anymore. He moved slowly over to the bed and sat down close to the little girl. "Ginger?" he called softly and then reached out to lay his fingers very softly on her closest arm. "Sweetheart? Can you hear me?" The child didn't flinch or even twitch, she merely continued staring at her bedspread as if nothing had happened. After a short time passed in silence and complete stillness, Jarod moved again to sit just a little closer and let his fingers move a tendril of dark and tangled hair out of her face. "Come on, Ginger, I know you know I'm here. Look at me, sweetie. I'm not going away. I'm right here next to you."
Rizzo couldn't say exactly what it was about the child that changed, but suddenly he had the feeling that she was listening and paying attention, even if not turning to look at the man who was going to be her new foster father. Then he blinked - a single tear had fallen to the little girl's cheek. It was the first sign of response he'd seen since she'd been brought in.
Jarod saw it too. Finally, he reached across the bed and surrounded the little body with his arms and pulled her up into his lap, leaning her against his chest and then holding her very tightly to him. "I have you now," he murmured to her softly. "You're safe, and I won't let anyone hurt you again."
The little girl finally breathed a very soft sigh and the eyes blinked closed, and then she turned ever so slightly into Jarod's chest as she relaxed into him. Jarod looked up into the social worker's astounded face. "Are her things all packed?"
"She never really got UN-packed," he replied, pointing to a small fabric suitcase that lay closed and zipped on the table next to the uneaten food. "Are you going to want some help..."
"Yeah... just give us a few minutes here." Jarod nodded then turned all his attention back to the girl on his lap. "You're going to come and stay with me for a while, sweetheart, where you'll be safe and I can take care of you all the time. Does that sound good to you?" The little head nodded almost undetectably against his chest and then pushed in against him just a little bit harder. He let her snuggle against him quietly for another long and quiet moment, feeling her relax just a little more. Then: "Time to go. Now, put your arms around my neck, so I can lift you," he directed gently at last, and finally the girl unfolded herself and turned to wind her arms around him and hold on tightly.
Jarod rose and settled her in his arms. "Sorry but... do you mind?" He nodded at the suitcase with lifted eyebrows.
Rizzo bent to pick up the luggage, turning his eyes from the way the little girl had settled her head on the tall man's shoulder with her nose buried in his neck. "We go back out the way we came," he directed, then led the way again. He'd seen the application land on his desk regarding this man's intent to adopt this little girl. From what he'd just witnessed, he was more than willing to throw whatever support he could behind the effort when the time came. Those two seemed to belong together.
~~~~~~~~
The processing officer handed Cordoba a piece of moistened paper towel to help wipe the ink from his fingertips and dragged him over to have his photo taken with his current case number. It was a process the Hispanic had been through many times in his life, and he knew better than to protest or struggle. The next stop was the pay phone for his one call - which would normally be placed to his sister, but now he only one other option...
"Bueno..." The voice answering at the Los Cabrones flophouse was one with which Cordoba was not familiar.
"Lemme talk to Miguel."
"He ain't here."
Cordoba waited, but no more information was forthcoming. "Well," he growled, "how about letting me talk to José."
"He ain't here either."
"Where the Hell is everybody?"
"Most all of 'em got nailed by the cops breaking into one of the warehouses on the Long Beach waterfront. They're in jail - Miguel, José, Nico, Pato, Cacho..."
Cordoba blanched. That was almost the entire upper echelon of his gang, now housed apparently where HE had now landed.
"How'd that happen?" he demanded.
"Miguel guesses that it was this dude Flores what set him up good," the voice confided, then hesitated. "Say! Who is this?"
"This is Cordoba, ése," the Hispanic retorted. "I just get outta the joint, and this is what I find?"
"Hey, man, don't jump my case - it ain't MY fault the cholos (idiots) got themselves busted!" the voice snapped back.
"Damn! Who I gonna get to bail me outta here?" Cordoba grumbled.
"Man, maybe you better call you a lawyer. It's just Julio and me around here right now."
"Shit!"
"I hear that..." the voice commiserated, then disconnected abruptly.
"That's it," the officer in charge of the telephone motioned to Cordoba to move along and let the next prisoner have his turn.
"Shit!" Cordoba was livid. This Flores must be one crafty diablo to order Duncan to bring him in on this the way he had on the one hand and sell out Los Cabrones on the other. Then Cordoba's eyes narrowed. That's what Duncan was doing, calling Flores all the time. The cabrón must have been getting instructions from the bastard all along. Flores had intended on stiffing him - and God knows how long Duncan would have played along. Well, TWO could play at THAT game. He knew things - things for which folks back East might be willing to deal to know.
"I wanna talk to someone..." he called over his shoulder at the officer behind him.
"You will, trust me," came the retort. "Just hang in there..."
~~~~~~~~
Sam, Crandall and the two other agents trouping through the corridor of the hospital en route to the Emergency Room sounded like the cadence of a military unit. Their strides were long and deliberate down the echoing corridor and then through the double doors. "You gentlemen," a nurse came charging forward with her hands held up defensively, "will have to..."
"We need to speak to the physician on duty," Crandall interrupted, flashing her his badge. "FBI. I'm Special Agent Crandall. I received a call in regards to two patients brought in here earlier - a young woman and a boy?"
"Agent Crandall? I'm Doctor Dannings." A tiny woman in a white coat over surgical blues complete with stethoscope wrapped around her neck pushed through a set of curtains and walked briskly to meet the group.
"Doctor." Crandall shook hands with the diminutive doctor. "This is Sam Atlee - he knows the individuals we're looking for. We need to have him see if he can identify..."
Doctor Dannings extended her hand toward the first curtain-ringed area. "Right this way, Mr. Atlee. I'd sure like to put something at the top of these charts other than John and Jane Doe..."
Sam moved up next to the boy's head and looked down at Davy, apparently asleep on the examination bed, and felt his stomach twist. Davy's face was beet red with a vicious sunburn, and he could see where the medical staff had slathered his skin with soothing salve. Davy's lips were cracked to the point that they had probably bled at some point, his hair dusty and tangled. He glanced up at Agent Crandall and nodded sadly. "This is Davy Parker... David Thomas Parker," he amended for the blonde Doctor taking notes at the top of the medical chart. "How... how is he?"
"He's stable," she responded, checking the monitor that measured blood pressure and heartbeat. "I don't know how much longer he would have lasted if he'd stayed out wherever it was he's been - but his vitals are picking up nicely as he rehydrates on the saline solution. Granted that he doesn't have any other serious medical issue, I'm hoping that he should regain consciousness sometime this evening."
"What about..."
"She's over here," the Doctor anticipated the huge man's question and moved the curtain aside so that he could move into the next cubical and see Deb lying motionless on the bed. Her face was as red as Davy's, her lips just as cracked.
"Is that..." Crandall began.
"Deborah Ann Broots," Sam nodded. He noted that Deb had two IVs. "How is she?"
"She's not so good. She's got the sunburn and probable heat prostration that the boy - Davy - has, and she has a deep laceration on her foot that probably bled quite a bit. She had it wrapped with a strip of cloth from somewhere, but it was quite dirty, which may be the cause of an infection that right now is raising Hell with her system. The blood loss from the laceration didn't help any as the dehydration began to play havoc with her BP either."
"Christ!" Sam blanched.
"She also had suffered bite marks about the breast area that indicated that she suffered some physical abuse, possibly sexual. We did a rape kit and it came up negative... thank God... but no penetration doesn't mean that she wasn't assaulted." Dannings could see that the news of the young woman's condition was truly upsetting to the huge man. "We have her on antibiotics for the infection and we're rehydrating her as quickly as we can. But her condition is far more serious than that of young Mr. Parker. When she arrived, she had an extremely low blood pressure and some cyanosis of the fingers and toes. Once we have her stabilized a little more, she'll be sent up to ICU for close monitoring until she rallies."
"Damn," Sam whispered almost inaudibly as he stepped close enough that he could brush a very gentle hand across the top of her head, barely touching her hair. "Deb - I'm so sorry..."
Crandall cleared his throat. "Doctor, I'm leaving my two agents here to keep an eye on these two while they're patients, and I'd like to make sure that one of my men is with each of these people no matter where they're taken."
"That's a little out of the ordinary, but..." Dannings shrugged. "Just as long as your men stay out of the way of the medical personnel, we should have no problems."
A beeper went off suddenly in the room, and Sam, the doctor and the FBI agent quickly checked their belts. "Mine. Is there a phone I can use?" Crandall demanded suddenly.
"The pay phone is in the corridor just outside the double doors," a nurse directed him with a pointing finger.
"What can you tell me about them?" the doctor moved closer to Sam. "Do you have any idea how they came to be in such condition?"
"They were kidnapped." Sam brushed his hand across Deb's head again. "We suspect that they were taken out into the desert and just dumped there somewhere."
"Jeez!" That shocked even the weary doctor. "Where were they kidnapped from?"
"Delaware." Sam's voice was defeated, and sounded as if he was almost on the verge of tears.
"Sam!" Crandall burst through the double doors again. "We've caught ourselves another lucky break. Seems a couple of officers went to a housing complex in East LA to answer a domestic dispute call, and who do you suppose they ended up arresting?" Sam looked up at the man blankly. "Cordoba."
The blank look slowly faded to an expression of pure fury.
"I take it you'd like to be in on the interrogation?" Crandall asked without really needing to hear the answer.
"You're damned right I do," Sam demanded. He turned to the doctor. "Do everything you can for them, OK? Money is not an object, trust me."
"We'll take good care of them for you," Dannings promised. "Give me your number, and I'll call the moment we have some good news for you."
While Sam was writing down his cell number, Crandall gave a few quick gestures of the pointing finger that indicated his fellow agents should stay and then was on his way once more out the doors with Sam right behind him.
"Back to LA, huh?" Sam growled dangerously.
"Yup. To the Central Jail."
Sam pulled out his cell phone as his long legs strode purposefully toward the exit and the car, keeping pace with Agent Crandall easily. He needed to let them know - to let Miss Parker know - that the two had been found. But he dreaded giving the news that while they'd been found, they had not been found in good condition.
"Miss Parker's office," Mei Chiang's voice announced efficiently.
"It's me, Mei. Lemme talk to her."
"She's in a meeting, Sam..."
"I need to talk to her NOW," he insisted vehemently. "It's important."
The Chinese secretary heard that special tone of voice, and then remembered WHY Sam was in California rather than in Delaware. "Oh! I'll connect you right away!" she breathed and clicked off the line and activated the intercom. "I know you asked not to be disturbed, Miss Parker, but it's Sam on two..." she announced. "He said it's important."
Miss Parker glanced over at Jake Swanson, the supervisor from Baltimore. "Would you mind stepping out for a few minutes? I need to take this call privately."
"Not a problem," the elderly gentleman smiled congenially at her. "Would you rather I just rescheduled?"
She nodded. "That probably would be best. I have no idea how long this is going to take."
"I hope it's GOOD news," the kindly man told her as he rose. The news of the kidnapping had spread through the Centre grapevine like wildfire, as had the updates on the more visible action taken in regards to it. Everybody who was anybody knew where Miss Parker's Security Chief had gone the previous day, and what he was there to do.
"Thank you," she replied with surprised honesty, and then waited until he had closed the door behind him to punch the blinking light on her telephone. "Talk to me, Sam."
"We found them - and they're alive," Sam told her succinctly as he climbed into the car and buckled his seatbelt again.
"Oh my God!" Miss Parker sat back in her chair and turned so that she could face out the window behind her with eyes that stared without seeing as they slowly filled with tears of relief. "They're OK?"
Sam's pause was enough to make the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. "They're alive, Miss Parker - but they aren't..." He took a deep breath to calm his voice to a more stable delivery. "They're both still unconscious, and suffering from dehydration and exposure. Deb..."
"Did they touch her?" she asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
"Assaulted, probably - raped, no." Sam heard the tiny whimper on the other end, and it cut him to the quick. "They're waiting for her to get a little more stable, then they're moving her to the ICU for monitoring."
"Where?" Miss Parker could hardly hold the handset to her ear because she was trembling so badly.
"They surfaced in a hospital ER in Adelanto - not too far from Victorville after all."
"You're staying with them, of course..."
"I'm on my way back in to LA," he informed her. "LAPD picked up Cordoba for unrelated charges."
"I want that bastard," she hissed, her fury spewing forth suddenly. "I want him..."
"We have him," Sam assured her. "We're getting there."
"Who's staying with..."
"The FBI has left an agent with each kid," he reassured her. "Nobody will get at them in the hospital - I promise."
"Are you going to call Jarod?"
"He's next on my list while we drive back in."
"What about Duncan?"
Sam shook his head as if she could see him. "We haven't had any word on him yet. But the day's not over yet..."
~~~~~~~~
Duncan sat at the stoplight and ran his hand through his short hair in frustration. NOW what was he supposed to do? Flores had deliberately left the follow-through of the scheme to push Miss Parker out of her position for after the kidnapping had taken place. He had entrusted his second with only the commission of the deed that would destabilize the Centre and allow Flores to assume control, not the particulars on how to cement that control into permanency. Without that second step being taken in a timely fashion, even HE knew that the chances of this scheme actually working were very slim.
And now Flores was nowhere to be found - the cell phone company was reporting the phone either turned off or out of the service area. He pounded his hand into the steering wheel in impotent rage. This had seemed so simple at the outset - swipe a kid and an old man, take 'em out into the middle of nowhere where they stood little to no chance of surviving, then head back to town and wait for things to start coming back to normal.
It wasn't simple any longer. The call that had put the kidnapping into motion had been way too early, the execution of the snatch had been flawed, and virtually nothing had gone right since then except that the two they DID snatch were taken out into the middle of nowhere as planned. Paying off Cordoba had emptied the discretionary fund Flores had set up in the Centre's name to handle such jobs, leaving very little for Duncan to fall back on until Flores got back to LA. Granted that paying Cordoba off had gotten him out of the man's company - and, considering the circumstances, that would give him a chance to think things through clearly.
The light changed, and Duncan pushed on the gas, his mind anywhere but on his driving. He HAD to consider the unthinkable now. If the Centre had Flores, and had put two and two together that he was involved in the snatch, then he couldn't go home. They'd be watching the place. He couldn't go to the Centre LA office either. No doubt there was a new supervisor in place that was loyal to the Parker bitch who would have no qualms about having a sweeper take him down, sit on him, hog-tie him, and deliver him back to Delaware with a bow around his Wilson. He had few real friends here in this part of town - and so many of the old gang were either dead or serving prison time now.
Wait a minute! Slowly he began to smile. There was always Las Vegas - Stu Berringer would know what to do. Flores had mentioned that Berringer had been supportive of the idea of dislodging the Parker woman from Chairmanship. He glanced down at the gas gauge and decided to use some of his rapidly dwindling cash to fill the tank and head north to Nevada.
He guided the heavy car into the filling bay of the AM/PM station closest to the 405 freeway and turned off the engine. With a deep breath of a man who finally had a plan and intended to put it in motion, he pulled the key from the ignition and climbed from behind the wheel. He walked toward the QuickPay box closest to him and pulled his wallet from a back pocket to extract a twenty and a ten sufficient to fill the huge gas tank.
Duncan had just watched the pay machine's suction slot gobble up the twenty when something or someone shoved him face-first into the machine - hard. His arms were commandeered then dragged and tied behind him, a piece of tape slapped across his mouth and a hood thrown over his head. Blinded and subdued before he had a chance to react, he felt himself get dragged a short distance by his forearms, then pushed until he fell backwards into what must have been the open trunk of a car. The lid slammed shut with a very final sound.
Before anyone at the station could react, the car had been thrown violently into gear and was vanishing down the boulevard, heading away from the freeway and leaving the brown Cadillac sitting abandoned at the gas pumps.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod pulled his car into the carport of his home and looked over at Ginger seated next to him. Under normal circumstances, he knew that it was safer if younger children rode in the back seat. But Ginger had clung so tightly to him when he'd tried to put her down in the back seat of his rental that he'd finally relented and, with an apologetic glance at the CPS representative carrying her suitcase, opened the front passenger door as well. Then it had taken only a little coercion to get the little girl to release her stranglehold around his neck and allow herself to be settled into the seat. He'd taken the suitcase and placed it on the seat behind her and then closed both doors.
And now he had her home. Serious and huge dark eyes watched while he reached over and unbuckled the seat belts for both himself and her, then climbed from behind the wheel. He came around the front of the car and opened the door for her to climb out and then opened the back door to retrieve the suitcase. He looked back, surprised to see that Ginger hadn't yet moved an inch from the seat. "Come on," he urged and held a hand out to her. Slowly she put her tiny hand in his big one and let him draw her out.
There were two ways to enter Jarod's home, and he decided that her first impression of her new home should be as she came through the front door. He led her around the edge of the carport and through the gate into the foliage-lined walk that opened into the small inner yard that had the house on three sides of a small, grassed area. He paused as he let her take in the peace of the lawn - the tall trees and bushes that hid the lawn from the street and protected it from stiff ocean breezes - and then led her to the front door. Putting the suitcase on the ground for a moment, Jarod punched in the security code and then turned the key in the lock, then pushed the front door wide open and let Ginger into her new home.
Her hand in his tightened as she stepped into the roomy foyer and looked through the living room at the wall of glass that overlooked the cliffs and the ocean beyond. Jarod let her cling, knowing that at the moment he was her only anchor in a wildly tossing world. He could remember wanting very much to have had a hand to cling to when he was only a little younger than she and had been turned loose, scared and traumatized, into a glassed-in room to await what turned out to be Sydney's first appearance. He could even remember the few times during those first few days at the Centre when Sydney HAD allowed him to cling a little during private moments when Sydney was taking him to or from his space. There had even been one time in Sydney's office when he'd been allowed to seek refuge in Sydney's lap very early on.
Those fleeting and rare times, along with the humane but distant relationship Sydney had allowed him after that, had been the only comfort he'd had to sustain him for decades. Yet the memory of how Sydney's huge hands had surrounded and sheltered his, of how those strong arms around him had given him a sense of safety amid loss and grief, had remained strong and comforting still. His entire relationship now with his former mentor had as its foundation that caring that had been expressed during those first, horrific days. Because of those memories and the caring it had implied despite everything, he had come back to Delaware looking for the man who raised him when his real father had died.
"Would you like to see your room?" he bent and asked gently. Ginger looked up into eyes as dark as hers and nodded very slightly. "Come with me, then," he said and pulled on her hand to follow him down a short hall to the right of the front door. He pushed the first doorway to the right open and walked into the larger guestroom. "This is your room." As if to punctuate the statement, he put the suitcase on the bed.
The little girl's dark eyes swept around the room, taking in the vanity and the dresser against the wall opposite the bed, which stretched below a long and high window that let the light in from outside. "You and I can go out sometime and get some things that would make this into more of a little girl's room," he told her gently, loosening his hold on her hand so that she could step away and explore if she wanted to. "I did get you something..." he remembered and moved to the dresser and opened the top drawer and drew out an incredibly soft teddy bear. "You'll have to name him, though," he told her and held out the toy.
Ginger's gaze slipped back and forth from his face to the bear several times before she finally put out a hand and touched the bear hesitantly. "Yes, he's really for you," Jarod reassured her without moving the toy. Finally Ginger's hand wrapped around one of the toy's arms and pulled it to her so she could rub her nose lightly against the soft velour at the top of the toy's head. At last she released her tight hold on his hand so she could cuddle her new toy tightly against her.
The telephone in the livingroom began to ring, and with a glance at the girl to make sure that she was OK, Jarod moved past her and out the bedroom door for the cordless handset in the base in the livingroom. "Hello?"
"Jarod? Sam." Sam's voice echoed in his ear.
"Sam!" Dark eyebrows climbed his forehead. "What's up?"
"We found them," Sam told him bluntly, without preamble.
Jarod reached out a hand for the edge of the couch and settled on the arm, feeling the strength drain from his legs to hold him upright. "Where?"
"Hospital ER not far from Victorville. In a little berg named Adelanto."
"Are they..."
"They're alive." Sam really didn't look forward to having to tell another parent that his child had been hurt...
"How bad?" Jarod squeezed his eyes closed as his mind sped ahead of Sam. Victorville was on the edge of the Mojave Desert - and they were in an ER. It didn't take a genius to connect THOSE dots...
"Exposure, dehydration..."
"Anything else?" The Pretender felt a soft touch on his thigh and saw that Ginger had emerged from her room and found him again.
"Probable sexual assault on Deb - but no signs of rape."
Jarod sighed. That wasn't good. "What about Davy?"
"What?!" That caught Sam utterly by surprise.
Jarod allowed his backside to slip from the arm of the couch to the couch itself and held out an inviting arm to Ginger, who clambered up into his lap still holding her new teddy bear tightly. It took discipline and iron control to keep his voice neutral and unaffected by the conversation he was having so as not to alarm or frighten her. "Duncan's psych evaluation said that he was a potential sexual predator that liked young boys as well as women..."
"Oh shit, Jarod! The ER staff didn't notice anything - at least, they didn't mention..."
"Are they conscious?"
"Not yet. And guess what? I'm on my way to sit in on the interrogation of Cordoba. He got picked up by the LAPD for other stuff and is sitting in the pokey. So we've almost got the lot." Sam let a hint of satisfaction slide into his voice.
"Have you talked to Mi... Miss Parker yet?"
"Yeah. Just before I called you."
Jarod slipped his arm around Ginger and dropped a silent kiss onto the top of that unkempt head - wishing for a brief and fervent moment that he could be holding and loving his son too. "Do you think I should take off for..."
"I'd wait for a while, if I were you," Sam shook his head. "Deb's in considerably worse shape than Davy, and we've got the FBI watching both of them. You confer with Miss Parker and get back to me on when you'll be coming down so I can see to it you have everything you need. In the meanwhile, I'll let you know what we get out of Cordoba."
"Fine. Let me know when you have news."
"Will do." Sam paused, wondering just how to end the call gracefully. "Take care of yourself, Jarod."
"You too, Sam, and thanks!" Jarod disconnected the call, put the handset down on the coffee table ahead of him and wrapped his arms tightly around the little girl on his lap. "Hey there," he said softly, talking to one child and thinking of two others.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker stared at the briefcase on her desk for a long moment before closing it and setting it aside again at her feet. What did she think she was doing - pondering walking away from work early? She had another appointment in... she checked her watch... ten minutes, and these were appointments that really needed to be kept. These were the men who would form the backbone of the New Centre she wanted to create, and whose loyalty would be cemented by the issuance of private stock in the firm and then with a stockholder's vote on the managerial direction of the Centre as time when on.
She and Jarod had spent long hours crafting the most effective and financially sound way to turn the Centre around, keeping it hugely profitable while turning away from the “black ops” projects and underworld dealings that had been its bread and butter for decades. Essential to that redirection was giving those with authority a substantial financial stake in the organization itself. She was the only one on-site in Delaware right now who understood the entire reorganization process from beginning to end - she couldn't just walk off. So much of what she was doing right now was time-sensitive negotiation with people who needed to return to their normal place of business as soon as possible.
What was more, she knew that even finishing her day at the Centre wouldn't be the end of her day. Now that she had news that Deb had been found alive, she knew she had to tell Broots the truth of what was going on. He was her friend - a brother to her for seven years now - he didn't deserve to be lied to for any longer than necessary. Just thinking about how she was going to break the news to him made her appreciate the tact that Sam had used when he'd called her.
But she had ten minutes - and in those ten minutes, there were two phone calls she HAD to make. Two others were recuperating at home from their injuries and worrying about those who had been taken, and another one had been quietly working in his office all day - all of whom deserved to be at least given some hope. Miss Parker picked up her phone and dialed.
"Hello?" Kevin answered after a few rings.
"Hi, it's me. Let me talk to Sydney."
"He's sleeping..."
She nodded. "I figured he would be, but it's important. Please."
She could hear that Kevin would have preferred that she give the news to him first, but had moved to rouse Sydney at her request after all. She heard Sydney's sleepy voice, then Kevin saying something softly, then the rustle as possession of the receiver was passed from person to person. "Parker, what is it?" Sydney rumbled, obviously working to awaken more fully.
"Sam just called. They found them - and they're alive."
"Oh, thank God!" Sydney breathed, then looked up into Kevin's anxious eyes and nodded so that the young Pretender could share the relief. "Where are they?"
"In a hospital ER not too far from where we were looking for them. Exposure, dehydration..."
"What about..." Sydney didn't want to say the words, but couldn't help thinking it.
"Deb was assaulted, but not raped," she answered, knowing what he wanted.
He sighed deeply as one of his wishes evaporated. "That's bad enough," he told her bleakly.
"I know, Syd." She glanced at her watch again. "Look, can you break the news to Kevin - and tell him that he doesn't need to SIM anymore now that we know where they are? I have to call Tyler, and then I have another meeting, or I'd tell him myself..."
"I'll take care of it. How are YOU?" he asked pointedly.
She sighed. "Functioning the best I can right now - and wishing I could just drop everything and go to California."
"Call Jarod. He's there - let him take point on this. Davy's his son too."
"I'll call him later - AFTER I talk to Broots."
Sydney could hear the bleak determination in her voice. From the sound of things, she would be a basket case by the time she got home again - he just KNEW it. "Drive carefully, Parker," he cautioned. "I want YOU home safely tonight too."
"I will." She struggled to get a handle on the Lyle mask again which had slipped away in the moments she'd spoken to Sam. "Talk to you later, Syd." She disconnected and took a deep breath to slide the mask into position before dialing an internal extension this time. "Tyler, I can't talk long, but I wanted to tell you - there's been news..."
~~~~~~~~
Sam's cell phone began chirping at him as Crandall began navigating the interchange between I-15 and the most direct route to LAPD's Central Booking. He checked the display and frowned - riding in a car with the FBI SAC for Los Angeles was not the best time to be receiving calls from this person. Still...
"Sam Atlee."
"Atlee-san, we have news for you." Mayeda's voice was cheerful.
"Oh?"
"We found one of the men you are looking for - he's being brought to our offices as we speak. A Mr. Duncan?" Mayeda stroked his moustache proudly.
Sam glanced over at the driver of the car, suddenly VERY grateful that Crandall couldn't hear what was going on. There was no way he was going to let law enforcement get their hands on the apparent leader of the kidnap party before Miss Parker could weigh in. "That's good news. Listen, I'm in the car on my way into LA with Special Agent Crandall to interrogate Cordoba at the moment..." He kept his eyes on the road straight ahead. If Crandall thought he was conferring with one of his Centre contacts or even his boss, the mention of Cordoba wouldn't raise an eyebrow.
"So - law enforcement has Cordoba, eh?" Mayeda could read between the lines. "And you're not in a position where you can speak freely.
"That's right."
"So... What would you like us to do with Mr. Duncan while we wait for you? Would you like us to... loosen him up a little for you?"
Sam had to work hard to keep a sadistic and vengeful grin from spreading across his face. "That might not be a bad idea. I'm not exactly sure how long it will be before I can get over there."
"Very well, Atlee-san. Please to give us a call when you're on your way so we can... clean up... Mr. Duncan for the more formal interrogation?"
"That I can do," Sam assured his underworld associate firmly. "Thanks for calling." He disconnected and tucked the cell phone away in the pocket of his sports jacket again.
"More news?" Crandall asked casually without taking his eyes off the road.
"Things are coming together on a number of fronts," Sam said cryptically. Let Crandall make of that what he would. He looked around him in apparent interest to divert attention from the side of his phone call that the agent had heard. "How far is it now?"
"About twenty minutes yet..."
~~~~~~~~
Rarely had Thomas Gillespie looked forward to an interview with a suspect as much as he did with his upcoming interview with Gilbert Flores. Two phone calls within an hour of each other had given his previously flagging mood a serious shot in the arm. The first had announced that the kidnap victims had been found alive in a hospital and were receiving treatment; the second that an accomplice had been taken into custody in Los Angeles for other offenses and was awaiting interrogation. With this in mind, he settled down at the interview table, his file folder sitting closed and prepared ahead of him, his partner ranging behind him prepared to note responses and the dynamics of the encounter.
Flores was wearing the orange-pink jumpsuit of a prisoner and had both his hands and his feet shackled with the stainless steel chain used in transporting prisoners. The attending officer brought him into the interrogation room and didn't let go of him until he'd planted his backside into the chair opposite Gillespie. The door to the room clicked shut - locking the Hispanic in with Gillespie and Andrews, a second FBI agent. Gillespie was sitting with a Cheshire smile below sparkling blue eyes while Andrews lolled in apparent disinterest against the back wall of the room.
"It's all falling apart for you now, you know," Gillespie said slowly and with obvious satisfaction, watching the man's response carefully.
Flores was good - the agent had to give him that - he never batted an eye. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he snapped back.
"No, of course you wouldn't," Gillespie flipped open the file folder he'd brought to the room with him. "And these aren't transcripts of telephone conversations that you had with Andrew Duncan telling him to “do it.” Nor are they transcripts of conversations with Stewart Berringer where you discuss your desire to move against Miss Parker. Nor are they the transcript of a meeting you had with a member of the Torzulo Crime Family..." Gillespie moved each document from one side of the folder to the other as he mentioned them.
"I know my rights," Flores shook his head confidently. "Unless all of those were obtained with a search warrant, you can't use them."
"Ah, but you see, I was not the one who obtained them," Gillespie smiled coldly. "These are gifts to the FBI, courtesy of a certain Miss Parker who happens to be the Chairman at a place called The Centre. Evidently she was investigating some questionable dealings involving some of her higher-ranking employees, and this is what she and her team came up with. She felt that since so much of what she was hearing was of interest to us that she turned her material and evidence over to us. And before you complain that we still can't use these," he inserted before Flores could more than get his mouth open, "you should review the legal ramifications of this paper that you signed when you started working for the Centre. Incidentally, this is only a copy..."
Flores looked down at the paper and groaned. Gillespie's grin only got wider. "You can see that by signing this form, you gave the Centre permission to keep you and your activities under surveillance while on Centre-owned properties or while using Centre-owned communications devices. The Centre OWNS the Regency Hotel in Dover, as well as Pakor Frozen Foods, incidentally - in case you weren't aware - as well as the contract on the cell phone you were using at the time you called Mr. Duncan..."
The FBI agent retrieved the copy of the permission form and filed it with the transcripts then began flipping through some of the other documents in the folder. "As the result of suspicion raised by the transcripts, we got a court order to search the LA offices of the Centre for further evidence of racketeering and other crimes. As you can see by the thickness of this folder, our initial findings have been very fruitful. You've been a very busy man, Mr. Flores - we have evidence of bribery, collusion, blackmail, assault... and that's just the stuff we have against you personally to date. There's plenty of other evidence that you ordered others to engage in such activities as well." Gillespie's smile died. "You might as well get used to wearing prison garb, because you're going to be a tenant of one correctional facility or another for much of the rest of your life."
Flores swallowed hard and struggled not to let his emotions play across his face. The fed was right, things WERE unraveling. Still, the fed hadn't mentioned anything about his latest venture. Miss Parker didn't dare say anything, if she ever hoped...
"Oh, and by the way, I got a couple of telephone calls just a little while ago. Davy Parker and Debbie Broots - the two you ordered kidnapped with your “do it” call - have been found alive. Also, a Jesús Cordoba, close associate of Andrew Duncan, has been taken into custody by LAPD - and just HAPPENS to be calling for an interview. He keeps saying something about how a man by the name of “Flores” double-crossed him and his gang in the acquisition of some drugs at Long Beach harbor in exchange for protection services. He says he has some other information that we would be VERY interested in..."
And with that, Flores' dreams of managing to squeak through this relatively unscathed and still in a position of some power fell like stones and shattered against the cold reality of shackles and prison walls.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker walked slowly down the hospital corridor from the elevator doors toward the room that Broots was in. She'd been trying to plan just how she was going to explain to him what had happened to both their children - and her mind had not been cooperating at all. Never, in all the years she'd known Broots, had she been downright nervous facing him. Then again, never, in all the years she'd known him, had she ever had to deliver bad news about his beloved daughter.
She paused outside his door and took a deep breath to steel herself against what was bound to come next and then pushed through. "Hi there," she greeted him as cheerfully as she could.
"Miss Parker! This IS a surprise!" He smiled as she bent over him and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I keep thinking that Debbie should be coming in..."
"How are you doing?" she asked, skittering away from that topic as yet.
He pointed to his midriff where the metallic framework literally holding his pelvis together had finally been removed. "They took me out of my cage," he deadpanned, then cracked a smile. "They put on a regular cast instead - and believe me, I'm much happier. Even if it does itch..." he grumbled good-naturedly.
"That's good news," Miss Parker smiled sadly at him. It WAS good news to hear that her friend was progressing along nicely.
Broots saw the pall of sadness flit past and dampen the smile. "Miss Parker? What's wrong?"
She took her time pulling the chair from the foot of the bed up to where she was close to his shoulders. "Broots," she began nervously, "I... have something to tell you..."
"God!" he breathed, all the blood rushing from his face. There was only one thing that would cause her to say those particular words. "What's happened to Debbie?"
If he had been frightened before, the way her face drained of all color at the mention of his daughter's name again made his stomach twist. "There was an attempt by one of the supervisors - the man in charge of the Centre's LA operations - to blackmail me into stepping down from the Chairmanship. The plan called for them kidnapping Davy and Sydney..."
"What?" Broots could hardly believe his ears. "WHY?"
"Because I'm going to take the Centre legit," she explained bluntly. "Because I was telling them that all our dealings with the Yakuza, the mob, “black ops” deals with elements of the government - all of those things were going to stop. Flores and a few others weren't happy with that."
"And they thought that by taking..."
"Yeah." Miss Parker shook her head. "But things didn't exactly go down as planned. They didn't know Kevin was staying with Sydney - and the two of them put up a fight. But in the chaos, Debbie ran from the house... and..."
Broots' hazel eyes were now blazing. "You mean to tell me that instead of grabbing Syd, they grabbed DEB? They have my daughter?"
"Calm down!" she patted his arm gently.
He jerked his arm away from her. "Calm down nothing! You're telling me my daughter is missing..."
"Broots! They found them. They're alive, and they're not with the kidnappers anymore." At least that part of the news was good - and hopefully it would give Broots a reason to settle down a bit.
And it worked. Broots paused in his tirade, suddenly realizing something that he'd not fully comprehended. "Did they grab Davy too, like they'd planned?"
"Yes." Miss Parker's gaze dropped to her hands in her lap.
"How long ago?"
"It's been almost two days now." Her voice was soft, almost breaking.
"They found them," he repeated, and she nodded. "Where?"
"In California - in a hospital emergency room. Sam's there - and he called to say that he'd seen them."
"California!"
"They were evidently taken out on the edges of the Mojave Desert and just dumped. They..." She paused and glanced up at him to find him listening to her very closely, worry written all over his face. "They both are still unconscious - suffering from dehydration and exposure."
She still wasn't finished, Broots decided, because she wasn't looking him directly in the eye yet. "What else?" he asked, dreading what else could be coming at him.
"Deb was... probably sexually assaulted..." He whimpered and put a hand over his eyes. "...but not raped, Broots. That's good news, considering she was with some really dangerous predators."
"And I have to lie here," he snarled, balling up a fist and knocking against the cast that covered most of his lower body in utter frustration.
"And if I want to save the Centre from men just like this guy, I'm stuck here too," Miss Parker told him, her voice as tired and frustrated as his. "But Jarod's in California, and so is Sam. They'll take care of them..."
"Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" Broots asked her, his brows furrowed in accusation.
"Oh God - I had come to pick Sydney up after knee surgery yesterday, and I wasn't expecting you to be waking up. I didn't know how..." She looked at him directly now, pleading in her eyes.
"You didn't know how to tell me," Broots realized.
She nodded. "I'm sorry I lied. I just couldn't face it yet..."
Broots stared at his friend for a long moment. She'd lost her child too - and around the edges of the control she was showing at the moment were signs of her own frantic panic and grief. She'd brought him the truth - along with news that his daughter had been found alive - as soon as she could, and told the tale herself rather than let another carry that load.
"When are you going?" he asked quietly.
She looked up at him, not surprised that he'd guessed. "As soon as things here are at a place that I can pause them for a bit," she said simply. "And a lot will depend on how soon they regain consciousness. Deb's condition is a bit more serious than Davy's."
"Look, I may be laid up in here and on some pretty strong pain medication, but I don't want to be kept out of the loop anymore," Broots told her firmly. "I want a computer link, and I want updates when you get them."
"You've got it. I'll have a laptop with me tomorrow when I come," she promised, "and you'll hear what I hear when I hear it."
"Fair enough." He extended his hand out to her. "Are you OK?" Her face was pale, and her fatigue was becoming very evident. Something told him that he was seeing only the tip of the iceberg that was her way of handling things while under that kind of pressure. He hoped that Sydney was staying on top of this; for at the moment, Miss Parker was all that was holding this little group together. If she fell apart...
"No," she admitted with a sigh, taking his hand in hers and finding comfort in sharing the truth of things at long last. "Not yet. I won't be until they're home."
~~~~~~~~
Duncan lay on his side on a hard surface - he had no idea what he was lying on or where he'd been taken. The hood over his head had not been removed, but rather tied about his neck tightly enough that there was no way for him to dislodge it by simply moving his head. His hands and his feet were secured - with handcuffs or duct tape or plastic ties, he couldn't be sure. The voices around him, when anybody spoke at all, were not speaking either English or Spanish - the two languages he did understand. He thought that they might be speaking Japanese, but he couldn't be sure.
He was confused, and he was more frightened than he'd ever been in his life. The ones who had snatched him had done so with a level of professionalism and ease that made his efforts in Delaware look like amateur hour. He had no idea how long he'd been held now - the only thing he knew for sure was that he'd been transported some distance, then hauled out of what was probably the trunk of a car and taken into a building in which he'd needed to travel by elevator. The sensation of going up in altitude while draped over somebody's shoulder as that person had stood stock-still had been unmistakable.
Rough hands grabbed at his elbows and hauled him painfully to his feet again, then broke whatever bonds had been holding his feet together so that he could actually walk on his own. The hands dug painfully into the flesh of his arm through his jacket as he was guided in his steps forward, then around a corner, and then forward for another short distance. There was a pause while a door was being unlocked, and then he was dragged forward once more and then pushed roughly into a chair.
"How does it feel to be captured completely by surprise, thrown in a trunk and dragged off to a strange place?" a heavily-accented voice asked from a short distance in front of him.
Duncan could only moan for the tape that continued to cover his mouth beneath the hood.
"How does it feel to be helpless and at the mercy of people you don't know? How does it feel to not know why you were taken, or what is wanted of you?"
The bonds of his hands were broken, and each arm commandeered by a set of very strong hands that forced his hands down on a table that sat in front of him.
"How does it feel to not know whether you're going to walk out of this room alive?" the voice hissed in a low and threatening tone.
Duncan swallowed hard. He had a feeling that before these people were done with him, he'd know the answer to each and every one of those questions that had been put to him - and probably a few others that hadn't been asked yet - intimately.
Chapter 14: The Pendulum Swings
Crandall had pushed the Taurus into the lane moving the fastest after skillfully navigating the freeway system to put them finally on I-15. Sam sat in the passenger seat hardly daring to breathe for fear that he'd dispel the aura of hope that had kept the mood of the car from being overwhelmingly morose. Two agents occupied the back seat, brought along just in case it WAS Davy and Deb in the small hospital - in which case they would remain behind and protect the two until both Duncan and Cordoba had been taken into custody.
Sam had debated calling back East when the excited call had come from the FBI office. Then, thinking about it, he decided that it would be better to call once with good news than to raise the hopes of those in Delaware only to call back and dash them should the patients NOT be the missing pair. Better that he shoulder the almost agonizing wishful hoping alone - better that it be he to handle the pain of not knowing yet - as part of the price for not having protected them well enough to begin with. Better that he be the one for whom the seconds crept by like hours.
He forced his mind to walk once more through the reported condition of the two in the hospital, and his stomach twisted hard. His memory of Deb had been of a smiling face with dancing blue eyes and a saucily tossed braid - to think that either Duncan or Cordoba had touched her, if it WAS her, was almost enough to double him over and make him lose his lunch. Crandall had told him that the doctor in charge was hopeful that the boy would revive soon, and that only barely helped him maintain his dignity.
The FBI agent found himself casting occasional glances to his side when he thought the Centre Security Chief wasn't watching. An almost defensive stoniness had descended over the man's face the moment that he'd heard the news - and Crandall remembered the earnest question that he'd asked the man when they had met that morning: "You're taking this awfully personally, aren't you?" The grim and jutting jaw and tightly pressed lips more than bore witness that this entire situation was agonizingly personal.
He didn't even want to think of how the man would feel if these were not the people he was searching so desperately for.
~~~~~~~~
Cordoba didn't even give Duncan a parting wave, but set off across the parking lot toward the stairs that led to the front door of his sister's apartment. He took the stairs two at a time, and then pounded on the door. "¡Sandra! ¡Abra la puerta!" [Open the door!]
There was the sound of stirring within, and then Rick had thrown the door open and pushed his face into his brother-in-law's. "She's still sleeping, cabrón," he growled angrily. "She didn't get much sleep last night with you coming and pounding at the door at a God-awful hour of the night... And now here you are again..."
"I know," Cordoba tried to push through Rick, only to get shoved back roughly. He tried again, only to have Rick's next shove become downright violent. He caught himself against the metal balustrade. "Hey!"
"Hey nothing," Rick's ebony eyes snapped. "I put up with you invading our home last night because Sandra asked it - but you aren't going anywhere near her today." He shoved at Cordoba's chest with angry fingers.
Cordoba straightened and pushed back. "Oh yeah? And you think you're man enough to keep me away from my sister?" he yelled.
Rick reached behind him and flipped his wrist, and suddenly had an ugly and lethal-looking switchblade pointed at his brother-in-law. "Look, I've asked nicely, but now I guess I have to be a little more clear. GET LOST! Get out of here and don't come back no more! We don't want you here."
"You little pulga," (flea) Cordoba narrowed his eyes at the audacity of his sister's husband - a man who had never had the cojones to join Los Cabrones when he'd had membership offered him as a favor to Cordoba. "You think you can handle that little mosquito-sticker?"
"Rickie? What's going on, querido?" Sandra's voice from deep within the apartment sounded sleepy.
"Stay inside, mi vida," Rick yelled behind him, partly turning to her but then spinning back just in time to not get slashed when Cordoba used the slight distraction to whip out a switchblade of his own. "You son of a bitch."
"I'M the son of a bitch?" Cordoba was shaking his head as he moved slowly in a circle, all the while watching for an opening. "I come here with an offering to help you get started with the muchachito, and what thanks do I get?"
"We don't want your money," Rick carefully kept himself between Cordoba and the open apartment door and never turned his head away from the more experienced street fighter. "Who did you kill to get it? How many kilos of marijuana did you sell?"
"I EARNED this money, fair and square, estúpido," Cordoba feinted to the right and gave a backhanded slash that came close to ripping Rick's arm open. "I wouldn't bring no blood or drug money to my little nephew..."
Movement behind him caught his eye - a police cruiser had pulled into the parking lot and the officers were climbing from the vehicle with their weapons drawn. "Drop your weapons!" the lead officer demanded of both men, his service pistol clearly set to drop whichever combatant made the first unauthorized move.
"This is just a friendly family argument," Cordoba raised his hands slowly in the air and turned toward the officer.
"Drop it!" the second office, still a few steps down the stairs, yelled with his revolver pointed directly at the jacketed Hispanic. "Drop it NOW!"
Cordoba turned and gave Rick a dirty look. "This could have been avoided if you'd just have let me talk to Sandra," he hissed and then dropped his blade on the walkway.
"Hands behind your head, turn and walk backward towards me," the officer ordered, then pointed his gun at Rick. "You - drop your weapon!"
Rick obeyed as Cordoba's wrists were one by one hauled behind his back and then affixed there with tight plastic ties. Soon both men were efficiently placed in custody and held several yards apart while the officers questioned each about the details of the confrontation.
At last Sandra emerged from the apartment, tying her bathrobe around her bulging middle and looking around sleepily. She took one look at her husband with his hands behind him, clearly in the custody of the police officer questioning him, and she flew at Cordoba, her hands bent into claws with which she tried to scratch his face and eyes. "You bastard! You bring trouble to our family every time you show up. What did Rick and I do to deserve this? We took you in last night, when you and your friend were too drunk to go anywhere else..."
The office caught Sandra back by the arms, more than aware that her size meant that she was literally ready to have the baby at any moment. "C'mon, lady - let us sort things out here..."
Meanwhile, the officer in charge of Cordoba was patting him down, searching for other weapons he might have on him, when he came across the thick envelope in the jacket pocket. "What do we have here?" He pulled the envelope out and opened it, then gave a low whistle. "Wanna explain this?"
Cordoba merely glared at him and decided that now would be a very good time to keep his mouth shut.
~~~~~~~~
"This is the last one, Doctor Russell," Rizzo said, sliding yet another paper across the desk in Jarod's direction.
"What's this one?" Jarod asked, picking up the paper and starting to read.
"It states that you are accepting physical custody of the child Ginger Simmons, and that you will take responsibility for her health and welfare while she is in your care. It spells out your rights in relation to the Department of Children's Services and CPS, tells you about the rights these departments have to inspect your home in order to make sure that you continue to provide quality housing and diet for her... Basically this one makes you an agent of those departments and agreeable to oversight by them."
Jarod browsed the document quickly and found it to be fairly straightforward and clear-cut. He bent and signed his name with a flourish. "You say that's it?"
Rizzo was gathering the many papers that Jarod had been affixing his signature to into a manila file folder. "That's it. Give me a moment to take care of these, and then we can go pick up your houseguest." He rose and left Jarod sitting in the chair in front of the desk.
The Pretender looked around him, surprised at the feeling of anticipation and insecurity that had come over him the moment that he knew that the last of the forms was signed. It was one thing to treat a sweet little girl, to dream of taking care of her the way she deserved. He was rapidly discovering that it was another entirely to consider that all the obstacles had just been cleared and he was now solely responsible for that child's welfare. He folded his hands in his lap and breathed deeply in order to calm himself as he stood literally on the brink of something he'd wanted for a very long time.
Rizzo popped his head around the corner of the office door. "OK, Dr. Russell. Why don't you come with me, and we'll collect your little girl." He waited for Jarod to stand and join him. "The secured facility is just this way."
The two men walked down a long corridor, then paused as Rizzo punched in a security code so that the thick, metal door could open. He let Jarod through and into almost a hospital setting - a corridor lined with endless closed wardroom doors and freshly waxed linoleum on the floors, where the hum of voices, not all of them happy ones, was non-stop. He counted down several doors and then checked the room number. "Here we are." He turned to face the Pretender before opening the door, feeling the need to explain the circumstances. "We put her in here by herself - her behavior was strange enough that we didn't want the other kids harming her." Rizzo punched in another code and then pulled the door open.
Jarod entered the room with a smile on his face, but that smile died a quick death. Ginger, her braid obviously untended and her clothing torn and stained, was sitting up and curled into a tiny knot up by her pillow, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her back was pushed as far into the corner of the tiny room as she could get, and her eyes gazed almost blankly at a spot on the bedspread. She paid no attention to anything going on in the room around her, and a tray with breakfast sat utterly untouched on the table next to the bed. Jarod turned half-angry eyes on Rizzo. "How long has she been like this?"
Rizzo could understand why the man was upset. "This is why things were expedited for you," he replied sympathetically. "She was withdrawn when she got here, but has slowly been getting worse, as you can see. Her psychiatrist was by to see her last night, and he expressed serious concerns about her ability to recover if she weren't removed from here as soon as possible."
Jarod wasn't listening anymore. He moved slowly over to the bed and sat down close to the little girl. "Ginger?" he called softly and then reached out to lay his fingers very softly on her closest arm. "Sweetheart? Can you hear me?" The child didn't flinch or even twitch, she merely continued staring at her bedspread as if nothing had happened. After a short time passed in silence and complete stillness, Jarod moved again to sit just a little closer and let his fingers move a tendril of dark and tangled hair out of her face. "Come on, Ginger, I know you know I'm here. Look at me, sweetie. I'm not going away. I'm right here next to you."
Rizzo couldn't say exactly what it was about the child that changed, but suddenly he had the feeling that she was listening and paying attention, even if not turning to look at the man who was going to be her new foster father. Then he blinked - a single tear had fallen to the little girl's cheek. It was the first sign of response he'd seen since she'd been brought in.
Jarod saw it too. Finally, he reached across the bed and surrounded the little body with his arms and pulled her up into his lap, leaning her against his chest and then holding her very tightly to him. "I have you now," he murmured to her softly. "You're safe, and I won't let anyone hurt you again."
The little girl finally breathed a very soft sigh and the eyes blinked closed, and then she turned ever so slightly into Jarod's chest as she relaxed into him. Jarod looked up into the social worker's astounded face. "Are her things all packed?"
"She never really got UN-packed," he replied, pointing to a small fabric suitcase that lay closed and zipped on the table next to the uneaten food. "Are you going to want some help..."
"Yeah... just give us a few minutes here." Jarod nodded then turned all his attention back to the girl on his lap. "You're going to come and stay with me for a while, sweetheart, where you'll be safe and I can take care of you all the time. Does that sound good to you?" The little head nodded almost undetectably against his chest and then pushed in against him just a little bit harder. He let her snuggle against him quietly for another long and quiet moment, feeling her relax just a little more. Then: "Time to go. Now, put your arms around my neck, so I can lift you," he directed gently at last, and finally the girl unfolded herself and turned to wind her arms around him and hold on tightly.
Jarod rose and settled her in his arms. "Sorry but... do you mind?" He nodded at the suitcase with lifted eyebrows.
Rizzo bent to pick up the luggage, turning his eyes from the way the little girl had settled her head on the tall man's shoulder with her nose buried in his neck. "We go back out the way we came," he directed, then led the way again. He'd seen the application land on his desk regarding this man's intent to adopt this little girl. From what he'd just witnessed, he was more than willing to throw whatever support he could behind the effort when the time came. Those two seemed to belong together.
~~~~~~~~
The processing officer handed Cordoba a piece of moistened paper towel to help wipe the ink from his fingertips and dragged him over to have his photo taken with his current case number. It was a process the Hispanic had been through many times in his life, and he knew better than to protest or struggle. The next stop was the pay phone for his one call - which would normally be placed to his sister, but now he only one other option...
"Bueno..." The voice answering at the Los Cabrones flophouse was one with which Cordoba was not familiar.
"Lemme talk to Miguel."
"He ain't here."
Cordoba waited, but no more information was forthcoming. "Well," he growled, "how about letting me talk to José."
"He ain't here either."
"Where the Hell is everybody?"
"Most all of 'em got nailed by the cops breaking into one of the warehouses on the Long Beach waterfront. They're in jail - Miguel, José, Nico, Pato, Cacho..."
Cordoba blanched. That was almost the entire upper echelon of his gang, now housed apparently where HE had now landed.
"How'd that happen?" he demanded.
"Miguel guesses that it was this dude Flores what set him up good," the voice confided, then hesitated. "Say! Who is this?"
"This is Cordoba, ése," the Hispanic retorted. "I just get outta the joint, and this is what I find?"
"Hey, man, don't jump my case - it ain't MY fault the cholos (idiots) got themselves busted!" the voice snapped back.
"Damn! Who I gonna get to bail me outta here?" Cordoba grumbled.
"Man, maybe you better call you a lawyer. It's just Julio and me around here right now."
"Shit!"
"I hear that..." the voice commiserated, then disconnected abruptly.
"That's it," the officer in charge of the telephone motioned to Cordoba to move along and let the next prisoner have his turn.
"Shit!" Cordoba was livid. This Flores must be one crafty diablo to order Duncan to bring him in on this the way he had on the one hand and sell out Los Cabrones on the other. Then Cordoba's eyes narrowed. That's what Duncan was doing, calling Flores all the time. The cabrón must have been getting instructions from the bastard all along. Flores had intended on stiffing him - and God knows how long Duncan would have played along. Well, TWO could play at THAT game. He knew things - things for which folks back East might be willing to deal to know.
"I wanna talk to someone..." he called over his shoulder at the officer behind him.
"You will, trust me," came the retort. "Just hang in there..."
~~~~~~~~
Sam, Crandall and the two other agents trouping through the corridor of the hospital en route to the Emergency Room sounded like the cadence of a military unit. Their strides were long and deliberate down the echoing corridor and then through the double doors. "You gentlemen," a nurse came charging forward with her hands held up defensively, "will have to..."
"We need to speak to the physician on duty," Crandall interrupted, flashing her his badge. "FBI. I'm Special Agent Crandall. I received a call in regards to two patients brought in here earlier - a young woman and a boy?"
"Agent Crandall? I'm Doctor Dannings." A tiny woman in a white coat over surgical blues complete with stethoscope wrapped around her neck pushed through a set of curtains and walked briskly to meet the group.
"Doctor." Crandall shook hands with the diminutive doctor. "This is Sam Atlee - he knows the individuals we're looking for. We need to have him see if he can identify..."
Doctor Dannings extended her hand toward the first curtain-ringed area. "Right this way, Mr. Atlee. I'd sure like to put something at the top of these charts other than John and Jane Doe..."
Sam moved up next to the boy's head and looked down at Davy, apparently asleep on the examination bed, and felt his stomach twist. Davy's face was beet red with a vicious sunburn, and he could see where the medical staff had slathered his skin with soothing salve. Davy's lips were cracked to the point that they had probably bled at some point, his hair dusty and tangled. He glanced up at Agent Crandall and nodded sadly. "This is Davy Parker... David Thomas Parker," he amended for the blonde Doctor taking notes at the top of the medical chart. "How... how is he?"
"He's stable," she responded, checking the monitor that measured blood pressure and heartbeat. "I don't know how much longer he would have lasted if he'd stayed out wherever it was he's been - but his vitals are picking up nicely as he rehydrates on the saline solution. Granted that he doesn't have any other serious medical issue, I'm hoping that he should regain consciousness sometime this evening."
"What about..."
"She's over here," the Doctor anticipated the huge man's question and moved the curtain aside so that he could move into the next cubical and see Deb lying motionless on the bed. Her face was as red as Davy's, her lips just as cracked.
"Is that..." Crandall began.
"Deborah Ann Broots," Sam nodded. He noted that Deb had two IVs. "How is she?"
"She's not so good. She's got the sunburn and probable heat prostration that the boy - Davy - has, and she has a deep laceration on her foot that probably bled quite a bit. She had it wrapped with a strip of cloth from somewhere, but it was quite dirty, which may be the cause of an infection that right now is raising Hell with her system. The blood loss from the laceration didn't help any as the dehydration began to play havoc with her BP either."
"Christ!" Sam blanched.
"She also had suffered bite marks about the breast area that indicated that she suffered some physical abuse, possibly sexual. We did a rape kit and it came up negative... thank God... but no penetration doesn't mean that she wasn't assaulted." Dannings could see that the news of the young woman's condition was truly upsetting to the huge man. "We have her on antibiotics for the infection and we're rehydrating her as quickly as we can. But her condition is far more serious than that of young Mr. Parker. When she arrived, she had an extremely low blood pressure and some cyanosis of the fingers and toes. Once we have her stabilized a little more, she'll be sent up to ICU for close monitoring until she rallies."
"Damn," Sam whispered almost inaudibly as he stepped close enough that he could brush a very gentle hand across the top of her head, barely touching her hair. "Deb - I'm so sorry..."
Crandall cleared his throat. "Doctor, I'm leaving my two agents here to keep an eye on these two while they're patients, and I'd like to make sure that one of my men is with each of these people no matter where they're taken."
"That's a little out of the ordinary, but..." Dannings shrugged. "Just as long as your men stay out of the way of the medical personnel, we should have no problems."
A beeper went off suddenly in the room, and Sam, the doctor and the FBI agent quickly checked their belts. "Mine. Is there a phone I can use?" Crandall demanded suddenly.
"The pay phone is in the corridor just outside the double doors," a nurse directed him with a pointing finger.
"What can you tell me about them?" the doctor moved closer to Sam. "Do you have any idea how they came to be in such condition?"
"They were kidnapped." Sam brushed his hand across Deb's head again. "We suspect that they were taken out into the desert and just dumped there somewhere."
"Jeez!" That shocked even the weary doctor. "Where were they kidnapped from?"
"Delaware." Sam's voice was defeated, and sounded as if he was almost on the verge of tears.
"Sam!" Crandall burst through the double doors again. "We've caught ourselves another lucky break. Seems a couple of officers went to a housing complex in East LA to answer a domestic dispute call, and who do you suppose they ended up arresting?" Sam looked up at the man blankly. "Cordoba."
The blank look slowly faded to an expression of pure fury.
"I take it you'd like to be in on the interrogation?" Crandall asked without really needing to hear the answer.
"You're damned right I do," Sam demanded. He turned to the doctor. "Do everything you can for them, OK? Money is not an object, trust me."
"We'll take good care of them for you," Dannings promised. "Give me your number, and I'll call the moment we have some good news for you."
While Sam was writing down his cell number, Crandall gave a few quick gestures of the pointing finger that indicated his fellow agents should stay and then was on his way once more out the doors with Sam right behind him.
"Back to LA, huh?" Sam growled dangerously.
"Yup. To the Central Jail."
Sam pulled out his cell phone as his long legs strode purposefully toward the exit and the car, keeping pace with Agent Crandall easily. He needed to let them know - to let Miss Parker know - that the two had been found. But he dreaded giving the news that while they'd been found, they had not been found in good condition.
"Miss Parker's office," Mei Chiang's voice announced efficiently.
"It's me, Mei. Lemme talk to her."
"She's in a meeting, Sam..."
"I need to talk to her NOW," he insisted vehemently. "It's important."
The Chinese secretary heard that special tone of voice, and then remembered WHY Sam was in California rather than in Delaware. "Oh! I'll connect you right away!" she breathed and clicked off the line and activated the intercom. "I know you asked not to be disturbed, Miss Parker, but it's Sam on two..." she announced. "He said it's important."
Miss Parker glanced over at Jake Swanson, the supervisor from Baltimore. "Would you mind stepping out for a few minutes? I need to take this call privately."
"Not a problem," the elderly gentleman smiled congenially at her. "Would you rather I just rescheduled?"
She nodded. "That probably would be best. I have no idea how long this is going to take."
"I hope it's GOOD news," the kindly man told her as he rose. The news of the kidnapping had spread through the Centre grapevine like wildfire, as had the updates on the more visible action taken in regards to it. Everybody who was anybody knew where Miss Parker's Security Chief had gone the previous day, and what he was there to do.
"Thank you," she replied with surprised honesty, and then waited until he had closed the door behind him to punch the blinking light on her telephone. "Talk to me, Sam."
"We found them - and they're alive," Sam told her succinctly as he climbed into the car and buckled his seatbelt again.
"Oh my God!" Miss Parker sat back in her chair and turned so that she could face out the window behind her with eyes that stared without seeing as they slowly filled with tears of relief. "They're OK?"
Sam's pause was enough to make the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. "They're alive, Miss Parker - but they aren't..." He took a deep breath to calm his voice to a more stable delivery. "They're both still unconscious, and suffering from dehydration and exposure. Deb..."
"Did they touch her?" she asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
"Assaulted, probably - raped, no." Sam heard the tiny whimper on the other end, and it cut him to the quick. "They're waiting for her to get a little more stable, then they're moving her to the ICU for monitoring."
"Where?" Miss Parker could hardly hold the handset to her ear because she was trembling so badly.
"They surfaced in a hospital ER in Adelanto - not too far from Victorville after all."
"You're staying with them, of course..."
"I'm on my way back in to LA," he informed her. "LAPD picked up Cordoba for unrelated charges."
"I want that bastard," she hissed, her fury spewing forth suddenly. "I want him..."
"We have him," Sam assured her. "We're getting there."
"Who's staying with..."
"The FBI has left an agent with each kid," he reassured her. "Nobody will get at them in the hospital - I promise."
"Are you going to call Jarod?"
"He's next on my list while we drive back in."
"What about Duncan?"
Sam shook his head as if she could see him. "We haven't had any word on him yet. But the day's not over yet..."
~~~~~~~~
Duncan sat at the stoplight and ran his hand through his short hair in frustration. NOW what was he supposed to do? Flores had deliberately left the follow-through of the scheme to push Miss Parker out of her position for after the kidnapping had taken place. He had entrusted his second with only the commission of the deed that would destabilize the Centre and allow Flores to assume control, not the particulars on how to cement that control into permanency. Without that second step being taken in a timely fashion, even HE knew that the chances of this scheme actually working were very slim.
And now Flores was nowhere to be found - the cell phone company was reporting the phone either turned off or out of the service area. He pounded his hand into the steering wheel in impotent rage. This had seemed so simple at the outset - swipe a kid and an old man, take 'em out into the middle of nowhere where they stood little to no chance of surviving, then head back to town and wait for things to start coming back to normal.
It wasn't simple any longer. The call that had put the kidnapping into motion had been way too early, the execution of the snatch had been flawed, and virtually nothing had gone right since then except that the two they DID snatch were taken out into the middle of nowhere as planned. Paying off Cordoba had emptied the discretionary fund Flores had set up in the Centre's name to handle such jobs, leaving very little for Duncan to fall back on until Flores got back to LA. Granted that paying Cordoba off had gotten him out of the man's company - and, considering the circumstances, that would give him a chance to think things through clearly.
The light changed, and Duncan pushed on the gas, his mind anywhere but on his driving. He HAD to consider the unthinkable now. If the Centre had Flores, and had put two and two together that he was involved in the snatch, then he couldn't go home. They'd be watching the place. He couldn't go to the Centre LA office either. No doubt there was a new supervisor in place that was loyal to the Parker bitch who would have no qualms about having a sweeper take him down, sit on him, hog-tie him, and deliver him back to Delaware with a bow around his Wilson. He had few real friends here in this part of town - and so many of the old gang were either dead or serving prison time now.
Wait a minute! Slowly he began to smile. There was always Las Vegas - Stu Berringer would know what to do. Flores had mentioned that Berringer had been supportive of the idea of dislodging the Parker woman from Chairmanship. He glanced down at the gas gauge and decided to use some of his rapidly dwindling cash to fill the tank and head north to Nevada.
He guided the heavy car into the filling bay of the AM/PM station closest to the 405 freeway and turned off the engine. With a deep breath of a man who finally had a plan and intended to put it in motion, he pulled the key from the ignition and climbed from behind the wheel. He walked toward the QuickPay box closest to him and pulled his wallet from a back pocket to extract a twenty and a ten sufficient to fill the huge gas tank.
Duncan had just watched the pay machine's suction slot gobble up the twenty when something or someone shoved him face-first into the machine - hard. His arms were commandeered then dragged and tied behind him, a piece of tape slapped across his mouth and a hood thrown over his head. Blinded and subdued before he had a chance to react, he felt himself get dragged a short distance by his forearms, then pushed until he fell backwards into what must have been the open trunk of a car. The lid slammed shut with a very final sound.
Before anyone at the station could react, the car had been thrown violently into gear and was vanishing down the boulevard, heading away from the freeway and leaving the brown Cadillac sitting abandoned at the gas pumps.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod pulled his car into the carport of his home and looked over at Ginger seated next to him. Under normal circumstances, he knew that it was safer if younger children rode in the back seat. But Ginger had clung so tightly to him when he'd tried to put her down in the back seat of his rental that he'd finally relented and, with an apologetic glance at the CPS representative carrying her suitcase, opened the front passenger door as well. Then it had taken only a little coercion to get the little girl to release her stranglehold around his neck and allow herself to be settled into the seat. He'd taken the suitcase and placed it on the seat behind her and then closed both doors.
And now he had her home. Serious and huge dark eyes watched while he reached over and unbuckled the seat belts for both himself and her, then climbed from behind the wheel. He came around the front of the car and opened the door for her to climb out and then opened the back door to retrieve the suitcase. He looked back, surprised to see that Ginger hadn't yet moved an inch from the seat. "Come on," he urged and held a hand out to her. Slowly she put her tiny hand in his big one and let him draw her out.
There were two ways to enter Jarod's home, and he decided that her first impression of her new home should be as she came through the front door. He led her around the edge of the carport and through the gate into the foliage-lined walk that opened into the small inner yard that had the house on three sides of a small, grassed area. He paused as he let her take in the peace of the lawn - the tall trees and bushes that hid the lawn from the street and protected it from stiff ocean breezes - and then led her to the front door. Putting the suitcase on the ground for a moment, Jarod punched in the security code and then turned the key in the lock, then pushed the front door wide open and let Ginger into her new home.
Her hand in his tightened as she stepped into the roomy foyer and looked through the living room at the wall of glass that overlooked the cliffs and the ocean beyond. Jarod let her cling, knowing that at the moment he was her only anchor in a wildly tossing world. He could remember wanting very much to have had a hand to cling to when he was only a little younger than she and had been turned loose, scared and traumatized, into a glassed-in room to await what turned out to be Sydney's first appearance. He could even remember the few times during those first few days at the Centre when Sydney HAD allowed him to cling a little during private moments when Sydney was taking him to or from his space. There had even been one time in Sydney's office when he'd been allowed to seek refuge in Sydney's lap very early on.
Those fleeting and rare times, along with the humane but distant relationship Sydney had allowed him after that, had been the only comfort he'd had to sustain him for decades. Yet the memory of how Sydney's huge hands had surrounded and sheltered his, of how those strong arms around him had given him a sense of safety amid loss and grief, had remained strong and comforting still. His entire relationship now with his former mentor had as its foundation that caring that had been expressed during those first, horrific days. Because of those memories and the caring it had implied despite everything, he had come back to Delaware looking for the man who raised him when his real father had died.
"Would you like to see your room?" he bent and asked gently. Ginger looked up into eyes as dark as hers and nodded very slightly. "Come with me, then," he said and pulled on her hand to follow him down a short hall to the right of the front door. He pushed the first doorway to the right open and walked into the larger guestroom. "This is your room." As if to punctuate the statement, he put the suitcase on the bed.
The little girl's dark eyes swept around the room, taking in the vanity and the dresser against the wall opposite the bed, which stretched below a long and high window that let the light in from outside. "You and I can go out sometime and get some things that would make this into more of a little girl's room," he told her gently, loosening his hold on her hand so that she could step away and explore if she wanted to. "I did get you something..." he remembered and moved to the dresser and opened the top drawer and drew out an incredibly soft teddy bear. "You'll have to name him, though," he told her and held out the toy.
Ginger's gaze slipped back and forth from his face to the bear several times before she finally put out a hand and touched the bear hesitantly. "Yes, he's really for you," Jarod reassured her without moving the toy. Finally Ginger's hand wrapped around one of the toy's arms and pulled it to her so she could rub her nose lightly against the soft velour at the top of the toy's head. At last she released her tight hold on his hand so she could cuddle her new toy tightly against her.
The telephone in the livingroom began to ring, and with a glance at the girl to make sure that she was OK, Jarod moved past her and out the bedroom door for the cordless handset in the base in the livingroom. "Hello?"
"Jarod? Sam." Sam's voice echoed in his ear.
"Sam!" Dark eyebrows climbed his forehead. "What's up?"
"We found them," Sam told him bluntly, without preamble.
Jarod reached out a hand for the edge of the couch and settled on the arm, feeling the strength drain from his legs to hold him upright. "Where?"
"Hospital ER not far from Victorville. In a little berg named Adelanto."
"Are they..."
"They're alive." Sam really didn't look forward to having to tell another parent that his child had been hurt...
"How bad?" Jarod squeezed his eyes closed as his mind sped ahead of Sam. Victorville was on the edge of the Mojave Desert - and they were in an ER. It didn't take a genius to connect THOSE dots...
"Exposure, dehydration..."
"Anything else?" The Pretender felt a soft touch on his thigh and saw that Ginger had emerged from her room and found him again.
"Probable sexual assault on Deb - but no signs of rape."
Jarod sighed. That wasn't good. "What about Davy?"
"What?!" That caught Sam utterly by surprise.
Jarod allowed his backside to slip from the arm of the couch to the couch itself and held out an inviting arm to Ginger, who clambered up into his lap still holding her new teddy bear tightly. It took discipline and iron control to keep his voice neutral and unaffected by the conversation he was having so as not to alarm or frighten her. "Duncan's psych evaluation said that he was a potential sexual predator that liked young boys as well as women..."
"Oh shit, Jarod! The ER staff didn't notice anything - at least, they didn't mention..."
"Are they conscious?"
"Not yet. And guess what? I'm on my way to sit in on the interrogation of Cordoba. He got picked up by the LAPD for other stuff and is sitting in the pokey. So we've almost got the lot." Sam let a hint of satisfaction slide into his voice.
"Have you talked to Mi... Miss Parker yet?"
"Yeah. Just before I called you."
Jarod slipped his arm around Ginger and dropped a silent kiss onto the top of that unkempt head - wishing for a brief and fervent moment that he could be holding and loving his son too. "Do you think I should take off for..."
"I'd wait for a while, if I were you," Sam shook his head. "Deb's in considerably worse shape than Davy, and we've got the FBI watching both of them. You confer with Miss Parker and get back to me on when you'll be coming down so I can see to it you have everything you need. In the meanwhile, I'll let you know what we get out of Cordoba."
"Fine. Let me know when you have news."
"Will do." Sam paused, wondering just how to end the call gracefully. "Take care of yourself, Jarod."
"You too, Sam, and thanks!" Jarod disconnected the call, put the handset down on the coffee table ahead of him and wrapped his arms tightly around the little girl on his lap. "Hey there," he said softly, talking to one child and thinking of two others.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker stared at the briefcase on her desk for a long moment before closing it and setting it aside again at her feet. What did she think she was doing - pondering walking away from work early? She had another appointment in... she checked her watch... ten minutes, and these were appointments that really needed to be kept. These were the men who would form the backbone of the New Centre she wanted to create, and whose loyalty would be cemented by the issuance of private stock in the firm and then with a stockholder's vote on the managerial direction of the Centre as time when on.
She and Jarod had spent long hours crafting the most effective and financially sound way to turn the Centre around, keeping it hugely profitable while turning away from the “black ops” projects and underworld dealings that had been its bread and butter for decades. Essential to that redirection was giving those with authority a substantial financial stake in the organization itself. She was the only one on-site in Delaware right now who understood the entire reorganization process from beginning to end - she couldn't just walk off. So much of what she was doing right now was time-sensitive negotiation with people who needed to return to their normal place of business as soon as possible.
What was more, she knew that even finishing her day at the Centre wouldn't be the end of her day. Now that she had news that Deb had been found alive, she knew she had to tell Broots the truth of what was going on. He was her friend - a brother to her for seven years now - he didn't deserve to be lied to for any longer than necessary. Just thinking about how she was going to break the news to him made her appreciate the tact that Sam had used when he'd called her.
But she had ten minutes - and in those ten minutes, there were two phone calls she HAD to make. Two others were recuperating at home from their injuries and worrying about those who had been taken, and another one had been quietly working in his office all day - all of whom deserved to be at least given some hope. Miss Parker picked up her phone and dialed.
"Hello?" Kevin answered after a few rings.
"Hi, it's me. Let me talk to Sydney."
"He's sleeping..."
She nodded. "I figured he would be, but it's important. Please."
She could hear that Kevin would have preferred that she give the news to him first, but had moved to rouse Sydney at her request after all. She heard Sydney's sleepy voice, then Kevin saying something softly, then the rustle as possession of the receiver was passed from person to person. "Parker, what is it?" Sydney rumbled, obviously working to awaken more fully.
"Sam just called. They found them - and they're alive."
"Oh, thank God!" Sydney breathed, then looked up into Kevin's anxious eyes and nodded so that the young Pretender could share the relief. "Where are they?"
"In a hospital ER not too far from where we were looking for them. Exposure, dehydration..."
"What about..." Sydney didn't want to say the words, but couldn't help thinking it.
"Deb was assaulted, but not raped," she answered, knowing what he wanted.
He sighed deeply as one of his wishes evaporated. "That's bad enough," he told her bleakly.
"I know, Syd." She glanced at her watch again. "Look, can you break the news to Kevin - and tell him that he doesn't need to SIM anymore now that we know where they are? I have to call Tyler, and then I have another meeting, or I'd tell him myself..."
"I'll take care of it. How are YOU?" he asked pointedly.
She sighed. "Functioning the best I can right now - and wishing I could just drop everything and go to California."
"Call Jarod. He's there - let him take point on this. Davy's his son too."
"I'll call him later - AFTER I talk to Broots."
Sydney could hear the bleak determination in her voice. From the sound of things, she would be a basket case by the time she got home again - he just KNEW it. "Drive carefully, Parker," he cautioned. "I want YOU home safely tonight too."
"I will." She struggled to get a handle on the Lyle mask again which had slipped away in the moments she'd spoken to Sam. "Talk to you later, Syd." She disconnected and took a deep breath to slide the mask into position before dialing an internal extension this time. "Tyler, I can't talk long, but I wanted to tell you - there's been news..."
~~~~~~~~
Sam's cell phone began chirping at him as Crandall began navigating the interchange between I-15 and the most direct route to LAPD's Central Booking. He checked the display and frowned - riding in a car with the FBI SAC for Los Angeles was not the best time to be receiving calls from this person. Still...
"Sam Atlee."
"Atlee-san, we have news for you." Mayeda's voice was cheerful.
"Oh?"
"We found one of the men you are looking for - he's being brought to our offices as we speak. A Mr. Duncan?" Mayeda stroked his moustache proudly.
Sam glanced over at the driver of the car, suddenly VERY grateful that Crandall couldn't hear what was going on. There was no way he was going to let law enforcement get their hands on the apparent leader of the kidnap party before Miss Parker could weigh in. "That's good news. Listen, I'm in the car on my way into LA with Special Agent Crandall to interrogate Cordoba at the moment..." He kept his eyes on the road straight ahead. If Crandall thought he was conferring with one of his Centre contacts or even his boss, the mention of Cordoba wouldn't raise an eyebrow.
"So - law enforcement has Cordoba, eh?" Mayeda could read between the lines. "And you're not in a position where you can speak freely.
"That's right."
"So... What would you like us to do with Mr. Duncan while we wait for you? Would you like us to... loosen him up a little for you?"
Sam had to work hard to keep a sadistic and vengeful grin from spreading across his face. "That might not be a bad idea. I'm not exactly sure how long it will be before I can get over there."
"Very well, Atlee-san. Please to give us a call when you're on your way so we can... clean up... Mr. Duncan for the more formal interrogation?"
"That I can do," Sam assured his underworld associate firmly. "Thanks for calling." He disconnected and tucked the cell phone away in the pocket of his sports jacket again.
"More news?" Crandall asked casually without taking his eyes off the road.
"Things are coming together on a number of fronts," Sam said cryptically. Let Crandall make of that what he would. He looked around him in apparent interest to divert attention from the side of his phone call that the agent had heard. "How far is it now?"
"About twenty minutes yet..."
~~~~~~~~
Rarely had Thomas Gillespie looked forward to an interview with a suspect as much as he did with his upcoming interview with Gilbert Flores. Two phone calls within an hour of each other had given his previously flagging mood a serious shot in the arm. The first had announced that the kidnap victims had been found alive in a hospital and were receiving treatment; the second that an accomplice had been taken into custody in Los Angeles for other offenses and was awaiting interrogation. With this in mind, he settled down at the interview table, his file folder sitting closed and prepared ahead of him, his partner ranging behind him prepared to note responses and the dynamics of the encounter.
Flores was wearing the orange-pink jumpsuit of a prisoner and had both his hands and his feet shackled with the stainless steel chain used in transporting prisoners. The attending officer brought him into the interrogation room and didn't let go of him until he'd planted his backside into the chair opposite Gillespie. The door to the room clicked shut - locking the Hispanic in with Gillespie and Andrews, a second FBI agent. Gillespie was sitting with a Cheshire smile below sparkling blue eyes while Andrews lolled in apparent disinterest against the back wall of the room.
"It's all falling apart for you now, you know," Gillespie said slowly and with obvious satisfaction, watching the man's response carefully.
Flores was good - the agent had to give him that - he never batted an eye. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he snapped back.
"No, of course you wouldn't," Gillespie flipped open the file folder he'd brought to the room with him. "And these aren't transcripts of telephone conversations that you had with Andrew Duncan telling him to “do it.” Nor are they transcripts of conversations with Stewart Berringer where you discuss your desire to move against Miss Parker. Nor are they the transcript of a meeting you had with a member of the Torzulo Crime Family..." Gillespie moved each document from one side of the folder to the other as he mentioned them.
"I know my rights," Flores shook his head confidently. "Unless all of those were obtained with a search warrant, you can't use them."
"Ah, but you see, I was not the one who obtained them," Gillespie smiled coldly. "These are gifts to the FBI, courtesy of a certain Miss Parker who happens to be the Chairman at a place called The Centre. Evidently she was investigating some questionable dealings involving some of her higher-ranking employees, and this is what she and her team came up with. She felt that since so much of what she was hearing was of interest to us that she turned her material and evidence over to us. And before you complain that we still can't use these," he inserted before Flores could more than get his mouth open, "you should review the legal ramifications of this paper that you signed when you started working for the Centre. Incidentally, this is only a copy..."
Flores looked down at the paper and groaned. Gillespie's grin only got wider. "You can see that by signing this form, you gave the Centre permission to keep you and your activities under surveillance while on Centre-owned properties or while using Centre-owned communications devices. The Centre OWNS the Regency Hotel in Dover, as well as Pakor Frozen Foods, incidentally - in case you weren't aware - as well as the contract on the cell phone you were using at the time you called Mr. Duncan..."
The FBI agent retrieved the copy of the permission form and filed it with the transcripts then began flipping through some of the other documents in the folder. "As the result of suspicion raised by the transcripts, we got a court order to search the LA offices of the Centre for further evidence of racketeering and other crimes. As you can see by the thickness of this folder, our initial findings have been very fruitful. You've been a very busy man, Mr. Flores - we have evidence of bribery, collusion, blackmail, assault... and that's just the stuff we have against you personally to date. There's plenty of other evidence that you ordered others to engage in such activities as well." Gillespie's smile died. "You might as well get used to wearing prison garb, because you're going to be a tenant of one correctional facility or another for much of the rest of your life."
Flores swallowed hard and struggled not to let his emotions play across his face. The fed was right, things WERE unraveling. Still, the fed hadn't mentioned anything about his latest venture. Miss Parker didn't dare say anything, if she ever hoped...
"Oh, and by the way, I got a couple of telephone calls just a little while ago. Davy Parker and Debbie Broots - the two you ordered kidnapped with your “do it” call - have been found alive. Also, a Jesús Cordoba, close associate of Andrew Duncan, has been taken into custody by LAPD - and just HAPPENS to be calling for an interview. He keeps saying something about how a man by the name of “Flores” double-crossed him and his gang in the acquisition of some drugs at Long Beach harbor in exchange for protection services. He says he has some other information that we would be VERY interested in..."
And with that, Flores' dreams of managing to squeak through this relatively unscathed and still in a position of some power fell like stones and shattered against the cold reality of shackles and prison walls.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker walked slowly down the hospital corridor from the elevator doors toward the room that Broots was in. She'd been trying to plan just how she was going to explain to him what had happened to both their children - and her mind had not been cooperating at all. Never, in all the years she'd known Broots, had she been downright nervous facing him. Then again, never, in all the years she'd known him, had she ever had to deliver bad news about his beloved daughter.
She paused outside his door and took a deep breath to steel herself against what was bound to come next and then pushed through. "Hi there," she greeted him as cheerfully as she could.
"Miss Parker! This IS a surprise!" He smiled as she bent over him and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I keep thinking that Debbie should be coming in..."
"How are you doing?" she asked, skittering away from that topic as yet.
He pointed to his midriff where the metallic framework literally holding his pelvis together had finally been removed. "They took me out of my cage," he deadpanned, then cracked a smile. "They put on a regular cast instead - and believe me, I'm much happier. Even if it does itch..." he grumbled good-naturedly.
"That's good news," Miss Parker smiled sadly at him. It WAS good news to hear that her friend was progressing along nicely.
Broots saw the pall of sadness flit past and dampen the smile. "Miss Parker? What's wrong?"
She took her time pulling the chair from the foot of the bed up to where she was close to his shoulders. "Broots," she began nervously, "I... have something to tell you..."
"God!" he breathed, all the blood rushing from his face. There was only one thing that would cause her to say those particular words. "What's happened to Debbie?"
If he had been frightened before, the way her face drained of all color at the mention of his daughter's name again made his stomach twist. "There was an attempt by one of the supervisors - the man in charge of the Centre's LA operations - to blackmail me into stepping down from the Chairmanship. The plan called for them kidnapping Davy and Sydney..."
"What?" Broots could hardly believe his ears. "WHY?"
"Because I'm going to take the Centre legit," she explained bluntly. "Because I was telling them that all our dealings with the Yakuza, the mob, “black ops” deals with elements of the government - all of those things were going to stop. Flores and a few others weren't happy with that."
"And they thought that by taking..."
"Yeah." Miss Parker shook her head. "But things didn't exactly go down as planned. They didn't know Kevin was staying with Sydney - and the two of them put up a fight. But in the chaos, Debbie ran from the house... and..."
Broots' hazel eyes were now blazing. "You mean to tell me that instead of grabbing Syd, they grabbed DEB? They have my daughter?"
"Calm down!" she patted his arm gently.
He jerked his arm away from her. "Calm down nothing! You're telling me my daughter is missing..."
"Broots! They found them. They're alive, and they're not with the kidnappers anymore." At least that part of the news was good - and hopefully it would give Broots a reason to settle down a bit.
And it worked. Broots paused in his tirade, suddenly realizing something that he'd not fully comprehended. "Did they grab Davy too, like they'd planned?"
"Yes." Miss Parker's gaze dropped to her hands in her lap.
"How long ago?"
"It's been almost two days now." Her voice was soft, almost breaking.
"They found them," he repeated, and she nodded. "Where?"
"In California - in a hospital emergency room. Sam's there - and he called to say that he'd seen them."
"California!"
"They were evidently taken out on the edges of the Mojave Desert and just dumped. They..." She paused and glanced up at him to find him listening to her very closely, worry written all over his face. "They both are still unconscious - suffering from dehydration and exposure."
She still wasn't finished, Broots decided, because she wasn't looking him directly in the eye yet. "What else?" he asked, dreading what else could be coming at him.
"Deb was... probably sexually assaulted..." He whimpered and put a hand over his eyes. "...but not raped, Broots. That's good news, considering she was with some really dangerous predators."
"And I have to lie here," he snarled, balling up a fist and knocking against the cast that covered most of his lower body in utter frustration.
"And if I want to save the Centre from men just like this guy, I'm stuck here too," Miss Parker told him, her voice as tired and frustrated as his. "But Jarod's in California, and so is Sam. They'll take care of them..."
"Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" Broots asked her, his brows furrowed in accusation.
"Oh God - I had come to pick Sydney up after knee surgery yesterday, and I wasn't expecting you to be waking up. I didn't know how..." She looked at him directly now, pleading in her eyes.
"You didn't know how to tell me," Broots realized.
She nodded. "I'm sorry I lied. I just couldn't face it yet..."
Broots stared at his friend for a long moment. She'd lost her child too - and around the edges of the control she was showing at the moment were signs of her own frantic panic and grief. She'd brought him the truth - along with news that his daughter had been found alive - as soon as she could, and told the tale herself rather than let another carry that load.
"When are you going?" he asked quietly.
She looked up at him, not surprised that he'd guessed. "As soon as things here are at a place that I can pause them for a bit," she said simply. "And a lot will depend on how soon they regain consciousness. Deb's condition is a bit more serious than Davy's."
"Look, I may be laid up in here and on some pretty strong pain medication, but I don't want to be kept out of the loop anymore," Broots told her firmly. "I want a computer link, and I want updates when you get them."
"You've got it. I'll have a laptop with me tomorrow when I come," she promised, "and you'll hear what I hear when I hear it."
"Fair enough." He extended his hand out to her. "Are you OK?" Her face was pale, and her fatigue was becoming very evident. Something told him that he was seeing only the tip of the iceberg that was her way of handling things while under that kind of pressure. He hoped that Sydney was staying on top of this; for at the moment, Miss Parker was all that was holding this little group together. If she fell apart...
"No," she admitted with a sigh, taking his hand in hers and finding comfort in sharing the truth of things at long last. "Not yet. I won't be until they're home."
~~~~~~~~
Duncan lay on his side on a hard surface - he had no idea what he was lying on or where he'd been taken. The hood over his head had not been removed, but rather tied about his neck tightly enough that there was no way for him to dislodge it by simply moving his head. His hands and his feet were secured - with handcuffs or duct tape or plastic ties, he couldn't be sure. The voices around him, when anybody spoke at all, were not speaking either English or Spanish - the two languages he did understand. He thought that they might be speaking Japanese, but he couldn't be sure.
He was confused, and he was more frightened than he'd ever been in his life. The ones who had snatched him had done so with a level of professionalism and ease that made his efforts in Delaware look like amateur hour. He had no idea how long he'd been held now - the only thing he knew for sure was that he'd been transported some distance, then hauled out of what was probably the trunk of a car and taken into a building in which he'd needed to travel by elevator. The sensation of going up in altitude while draped over somebody's shoulder as that person had stood stock-still had been unmistakable.
Rough hands grabbed at his elbows and hauled him painfully to his feet again, then broke whatever bonds had been holding his feet together so that he could actually walk on his own. The hands dug painfully into the flesh of his arm through his jacket as he was guided in his steps forward, then around a corner, and then forward for another short distance. There was a pause while a door was being unlocked, and then he was dragged forward once more and then pushed roughly into a chair.
"How does it feel to be captured completely by surprise, thrown in a trunk and dragged off to a strange place?" a heavily-accented voice asked from a short distance in front of him.
Duncan could only moan for the tape that continued to cover his mouth beneath the hood.
"How does it feel to be helpless and at the mercy of people you don't know? How does it feel to not know why you were taken, or what is wanted of you?"
The bonds of his hands were broken, and each arm commandeered by a set of very strong hands that forced his hands down on a table that sat in front of him.
"How does it feel to not know whether you're going to walk out of this room alive?" the voice hissed in a low and threatening tone.
Duncan swallowed hard. He had a feeling that before these people were done with him, he'd know the answer to each and every one of those questions that had been put to him - and probably a few others that hadn't been asked yet - intimately.
