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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Truth and Consequences - by MMB
Chapter 15: Breathing Again
Sam stood next to Jack Crandall with his arms folded over his chest and a very tight expression on his face while he watched through the one-way glass into the interrogation room. An LAPD detective was seated at the table waiting for the prisoner to be delivered, while one of Crandall's FBI agents ranged casually behind him. As the door opened and an orange-garbed and shackled Cordoba was escorted into the room and to his seat, Crandall could hear Sam breathe in and out in a sudden snort. He was glad that he hadn't given permission for this very big and very well-muscled Centre security man to actually be in the room with the prisoner - he couldn't be sure that Sam would attempt to take Cordoba apart before anybody could stop him.
"You've been asking for an interview, well here I am," Detective Jim Porter opened his notebook and pushed the button on the tape recorder sitting in the middle of the table. "Before we start, I want to remind you that you have the right to remain silent, and that anything you say here can and will be used against you in court. You have a right to have an attorney present during questioning..."
"Let's get on with it," Cordoba waved his hand in front of his face. "I've heard that spiel a thousand times - if I didn't get it by now, I doubt I ever would."
Porter took from his pocket a folded paper. "Before we start, then, I'll need to you sign this statement that you understand and wave your rights to council and to remain silent."
"If that'll get things moving faster," Cordoba growled and waited for his LAPD guard to release his right hand from the restraining shackles so that he could take the pen and scribble his name on the paper. "There. Happy?"
"Thank you," Porter replied, refolding the paper and putting it back in the inside breast pocket of his jacket. "Now, I think, we're ready to listen to what you have to say."
"Who's this?" Cordoba pointed at the man leaning against the far wall and watching him with deceptive nonchalance.
"This is Agent Smythe from the FBI. You suggested to the people you spoke to that someone from that office might be interested in what you had to say as well."
Cordoba peered suspiciously at the apparent mirror at one end of the room. "Is there a representative of the Centre here too, I hope?"
"You can say whatever it is that you have to say to us," Porter told the Hispanic, "and if we think the Centre needs to be informed, we'll see to it the information gets passed along." He clicked the ballpoint pen a couple of times, staring at the man across the table from him. "Now..."
Cordoba seemed to be directing his words to the FBI man at the back wall. "You heard about that kidnapping in Delaware - little boy and cute girl?"
"I may have," Smythe responded, not sounding all that enthusiastic. "What about it?"
"Well, I have information about who organized it, and who was in on it, and where the... where they were left." Cordoba sat back and waited to be pumped for information.
"OK," Porter wrote in his notebook quickly. "First, where are the victims being held?"
"Duncan said that the man's name that owned the place was Peterson, Patterson... something like that. It looked like nobody'd been there for years. We left 'em..."
"“WE left them”?" Smythe repeated. "You were part of the group that carried out the kidnapping?"
"Yeah," Cordoba admitted softly. "But you need to get to those kids before too much more time goes by. Duncan said that Flores didn't want them to survive, and that was why we were leaving them out there in the middle of nowhere on the desert. It was supposed to look like they died of natural causes if they DID get found."
"You've mentioned two people here," Porter halted the narrative. "Duncan - who's he?"
"He's an old friend of mine from the old days," Cordoba said with a crooked smile. "We like to hang out together sometimes."
"And what about this Flores?"
"That cabrón is a snake, man. He was the head of the LA office of the Centre. He and Duncan and I used to get hired to help another gentleman from back East with... finding Asian ladies for the evening sometimes." Cordoba smiled coldly at the detective. "If you know what I mean, that is..."
Sam snorted again. This low-life was one of the ones who... He glanced at Crandall and found the SAC almost as carefully watching HIM as he was observing the interrogation, so he reined in his disgust and ire.
"No, I DON'T know what you mean. Why don't you explain it to me?" Porter sat back in his chair comfortably.
"Uh-uhn." Cordoba shook his head. "I wanna know what my testimony against either one of those assholes will get me."
Porter looked over his shoulder at Smythe, who only shrugged silently. "A lot will depend on what all you tell us. Give us plenty of information, and the DA will hear about your willingness to help out."
"I want guarantees..."
"Well, you ain't gonna get them right now," Porter cut him off effectively. "Give us something else - like maybe where Duncan is right now."
"Hell, I don't know," Cordoba threw his one free hand in the air. "He paid me my money for giving him a hand in Delaware and dropped me off at my sister's - and that's the last I knew of him."
"You mean the twenty thousand dollars we found on you when you were arrested was your pay for kidnapping two people?" Smythe asked from his leaning post.
"That's right."
"Did you touch them?" Smythe moved forward and leaned on the table. "The girl was pretty..."
Cordoba smirked. "She was, wasn't she. I think she was virgin meat too - but Duncan told me to leave her be. He didn't want no DNA evidence on the bodies when and if they ever did get found." He chuckled. "I got me a little bit of titty and couple of good feels on the babe before he stopped me tho... and I think Duncan copped himself a little feel on the kid too just before we locked 'em in the house. Andy's a pervert, ya know - likes little boys almost as much as he likes broads - although he usually like to have 'em awake while he..."
Sam snorted louder and dropped his hands to his sides balled up in fists. "Don't let him get to you," Crandall warned the big man warily. "This slime just ain't worth getting yourself locked up back there with him..."
"He's standing there and bragging!" Sam shook his head in absolute wonder of the audacity and stupidity of the man. "He's talking about molesting those kids as if it were the most natural thing in the world...
"Kidnap, sexual assault, conspiracy to commit murder - his big mouth is getting him so far in a hole he'll never climb out again," Crandall pointed out in a firm and soft voice. "And he's tied Flores firmly to the plot - which corroborates the evidence your boss turned over - AND made it clear that Flores intended that Davy and Deb not live to tell their story." The FBI SAC shook his head. "He thinks he's giving us information we don't already know. I think Smythe's about to let him know the error of presuming..."
"Well," the lanky FBI agent straightened from leaning on the table and walked back to his place on the far wall, "to be honest, Jesús, you haven't told us much of anything we didn't already know - except, maybe where the kidnap victims WERE held. They walked out, you know..."
"Whaddya mean, they walked out?" Cordoba was aghast. "We left them so trussed up with duct tape that they weren't going to get loose much before next year - and the heat woulda got 'em a whole lot sooner than that..."
"I don't know what to tell you," Smythe shrugged again. "They're in a hospital right now, both of them very much alive. And we knew about Duncan and Flores already - although having you confirm the story on Flores and tell us that he intended those kids dead helps a little, it isn't enough to give you anything to deal with."
Cordoba stared. All of his bargaining power had just slipped through his fingers - leaving him with the sudden realization that he'd just implicated himself in several very serious offenses that would land him right back in the joint. "I want a lawyer right now," he suddenly demanded.
"Fine," Porter replied and shut off the tape recorder. "We'll have someone from the Public Defender's Office get in touch with you as soon as they can." He rose and went over to the door and pounded on the heavy wire-filled glass for the police office to take the prisoner back to lock-up.
"Looks like the show is over," Crandall commented as he observed Sam running his hands through his hair as Cordoba was led away.
"I want to see that weasel suffer," Sam hissed.
"Don't worry about that part - we're just getting started on this slime," Porter responded as he joined the men in the observation room. "We have that pair of dead hookers in East LA that we think we're going to be able to tie him to - him and Duncan too, for that matter. They thought they were being sneaky, but we got a few eye-witnesses to their picking the girls up."
Sam twisted his gaze away from the room beyond the glass as Cordoba was led away. "I suppose," he conceded reluctantly, then remembered that he had one more stop to make that day before heading back to the office - the Yakuza headquarters and Duncan. "Thanks for at least letting me watch," he backpedaled carefully and, "I should probably get back..." he hinted at Crandall and stalked from the room.
"Oh. Right." Crandall remembered that Sam had left his car at the FBI office. "Thanks, Porter - we'll be in touch."
"Don't mention it," the detective gave the pair a casual salute as they turned to leave. It felt good to get one of the genuinely “bad” bad guys - very good indeed.
Crandall walked toward the exit of the building keeping a very close eye on his Centre associate. The man was like a tightly-wound spring, just itching to mix it up with someone who got in his way - but he was walking away from Cordoba all too easily. If he didn't know better, he'd think that he knew something else - something he wasn't sharing.
It was just a hunch, and without some reasonable justification, he couldn't act on THAT.
~~~~~~~~
"Hello?"
"Jarod, it's me."
"Missy." Jarod backed out of the bathroom where Ginger was now contentedly playing with some of his own bath toys, her teddy bear watching the goings-on from the safety of the toilet seat. "Sam called you."
"Yeah." Her voice was tired.
"You sound awful," he told her gently. "Are you OK?"
"I just talked to Broots - told him everything," she explained, running her fingers through her hair and leaning back against the headrest of the driver's seat. It was getting dark now, and the hospital parking lot lights were beginning to blink on.
"How'd he take it?"
She sighed. "About as well as you'd expect."
"When are you coming out?" he asked after a pause.
"As soon as I can get free for a bit," she told him. "I told Tyler to have the Centre jet on standby, and I'm hoping I can be ready to let things sit here maybe tomorrow sometime."
"Put a jet on standby at the Monterey airport for me too, OK?" he asked, leaning back against the doorjamb and watching the little girl run her ducky through a mountain of soap bubbles. "It's a helluva long drive from here to..."
"I'll take care of it," she promised tiredly. "And I'll be calling the hospital and getting a report myself after a while - I'll tell them to expect your call as well."
"I appreciate that."
She fell silent again, and Jarod could feel the anguish pouring over the phone line. "Did you talk to Sydney last night?"
"Yes."
"You're going back there tonight too, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"You need to talk to him again," he told her firmly. "I can hear it in your voice, sweetheart."
"I know. Talking to Broots was just so... hard... you know?" Her voice broke.
"I know."
"Look, I gotta go. I want to get back to Blue Cove before Sydney takes his pills and is out like a light. I just wanted to bring you up to date..."
"I love you."
"I love you too, Jarod. I just wish..."
"Hush. They're alive. We can overcome anything as long as they're alive."
"But they're so far away..." Her voice trailed off.
"Don't think of that right now. They're alive, and they're where they can get the care they need right now. Just think of how good it will be to have them home again. Focus on the positive, Missy - the other stuff will eat you alive."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow evening - sooner if I decide to fly out there."
"Rest, if you can," he suggested. "Take tomorrow off completely - and sleep in tomorrow morning."
"I can't sleep," she said very softly. "I keep thinking that if I hadn't been asleep in the first place..."
"Sweetheart..." he warned, now concerned. "Have you told Sydney this?" Her silence was an eloquent answer. "You need to tell Sydney this - have him help you work through that - or I will."
"Don't blackmail me, Jarod," she warned back, her anger a tired and half-hearted one.
"I don't want to," he said gently. "But I don't want you falling apart or getting yourself in trouble because you're suffering from sleep deprivation either, though. Too many people are depending on you right now."
"I'll talk to you later," she promised.
"You promise me that you'll talk to Sydney," he repeated, "and I'll talk to you tomorrow. I love you."
"I'll talk to Syd, Jarod, I promise. I love you too."
Jarod turned off the handset and turned to watch Ginger continue her bath play with fully half of his mind now thoroughly absorbed with the fear that Missy was on the verge of losing it. He thought for a minute, then dialed a number from memory.
"Green residence," came Kevin's voice.
"Hi there, Shadow. Lemme talk to Sydney, OK?"
"Jarod!" Kevin's smile echoed through his voice. "You heard?"
"Yeah, I heard. Is Sydney there?"
"Yeah, just a minute." There was a rustle of a telephone exchanging hands.
"Jarod!" Sydney's voice sounded tired but strong. "How are..."
"Sydney, I haven't got a lot of time..." Ginger was starting to make movements like she wanted to climb from the tub at last. "I just wanted to tell you that you REALLY need to talk to Missy tonight. She's falling apart."
"I'm not letting Kevin give me my evening dose until she gets home," Sydney assured his protégé gently. "She didn't sound good when I talked to her just before she went to Dover. I'm worried about her too."
"Good - because I just got off the line with her, and she sounds like Hell."
Sydney sighed. "I'll do what I can for her," he said.
"She's not sleeping, Sydney..."
"What?"
"Survivor's guilt - or something akin to it. She feels that if she hadn't been asleep originally..."
Sydney nodded - yes, that would be one way that Miss Parker would blame herself for everything that had happened. "Thanks for the head's up, Jarod. I'll take it from here."
"Don't tell her I called, and you take care too," the Pretender told his mentor. "How's the knee?"
"It hurts like Hell," the elder psychiatrist grumbled. "And I'm already tired of being tied to this damned contraption for hours at a time."
"Just get well this time - don't go off and hurt yourself again before you get a chance to enjoy some good health for a while. I'm sure Missy will want you to walk her down the aisle too - so that knee HAS to get better." Jarod moved into the bathroom and handed Ginger a big and fluffy towel. "I gotta go."
"You take care too," Sydney replied and disconnected the call the moment he heard the empty air from California. He leaned slightly and put the handset down on the coffee table within reach while watching Kevin make sure the pillow under his injured knee was fluffed properly. "You look tired," he told his new protégé.
"I am," Kevin admitted. "That SIM took more out of me than I expected, and then the news..." The SIM had indeed been hard enough - as had the sense of having failed, even after getting the extra material, to uncover anything new as yet. Then the relief of hearing that Davy and Deb had been found had collapsed into a realization that he didn't need to do the SIM at all anymore...
"Why don't you head off to bed early then," Sydney suggested easily. "Mr. Ikeda can get me some water to take my pills when the time comes. You go get some rest."
Kevin frowned. "You sure?"
Ikeda bowed shallowly. "I shall be honored to assist your uncle so that you can get some rest, Kevin-san."
"Go on," Sydney urged. "I don't want you falling apart on me. I can't do much on my own. Get some rest - between Mr. Ikeda and Miss Parker later on when she gets here, I'll be fine."
"OK." Kevin gave Sydney a slight wave, then nodded at Ikeda before turning and heading back for the kitchen and the stairs beyond. Sydney rubbed a finger beneath his nose thoughtfully. Kevin had been very quiet and subdued - almost withdrawn - since he'd received the news that the lost had been found and he was off the hook as far as SIMming was concerned. He had a sneaky hunch that the morning would be occupied as much with intensive therapy for a frustrated Pretender as it would be with more of that damned machine therapy for his knee.
"You worry about him," Ikeda commented quietly after watching the older man remain pensive.
Sydney's chestnut gaze connected solidly with the deep ebony of the Japanese, and then he nodded.
"And you worry about Parker-sama," Ikeda continued, his face a calm and serene neutral.
"Yes," the psychiatrist offered cautiously, not exactly sure where the inscrutable ninja was intending this conversation to go.
"Kevin-san has asked me to teach him what I know," the Japanese moved to the opposite side of the coffee table and then sat on his heels as if at a dining table in his own apartment in Tokyo. "He said he wanted to be able to defend his family."
Sydney nodded. "I'm not surprised," he responded. "He took what happened here very hard. He and Deb..." He paused. "He feels very close to Deb Broots, and having her taken from here has shaken what little security he's begun to feel with us." He gazed at the ninja. "Are you going to teach him?"
"I don't know," Ikeda admitted freely. "My time is Parker-sama's to allot - if she gives her permission..."
"Her attention is likely not to be on Kevin right now," Sydney said gently, "and it would probably ease Miss Parker's mind not to have other issues brought to her at the moment. Besides, I can imagine that you are quite capable of teaching him while you are here in the evening anyway." He relaxed into his pillows. "Frankly, I think it would be a good idea. He needs an ethical framework upon which to begin to base his life, and if I'm not mistaken, that's one of the major elements of most martial arts, is it not?"
Ikeda's eyes were concerned as he nodded. "Kevin-san has no ethical background training?" The accented voice sounded both surprised and appalled.
Sydney sighed again. "Kevin was, until only very recently, a virtual intellectual slave of the Centre - a young man with a powerful and flexible mind forced to use his intellect in service to the avarice of others. Mr. Raines, as a matter of fact..." Ikeda shuddered. He HAD done the world a favor it seemed. Sydney continued, "When we rescued him, he'd never been outside the house in which he'd lived all his life, never even seen a girl, gone to a movie, watched television... He'd never had any instruction in telling right from wrong, and never known anybody who actually cared about him and about whom he cared in return."
That was hard for Ikeda to believe - and yet between the utter naivete of Kevin and the deep sadness of Sydney's voice, he suspected that it was a very uncomfortable truth. "How did he end up with you, then?"
"I have considerable experience working with such individuals," Sydney explained lamely. "The man who is the father of Miss Parker's son - Jarod - was once my... responsibility... in the same way that Kevin had long been the responsibility of the man who was HIS trainer. When we rescued Kevin, Jarod felt that I would be the best suited to the task of undoing the damage of a lifetime of abuse - because I knew intimately what went on in such a situation."
Ikeda could see the ocean of guilt and remorse swimming in the back of those chestnut eyes - eyes that had seen too much in their time. "Karma has given you the same lesson again, and incentive to learn differently from it," he nodded serenely, "and you take that lesson very seriously. Not all of us get that opportunity, and even fewer know to use such a gift wisely. In many ways, you and I are in the same situation, Green-san. We each have a second chance to use our talents and chosen art in more beneficial ways than we did previously - and we both take our precious opportunities very seriously."
Sydney's gaze flicked up and connected with Ikeda's again, finding it remarkably free of judgement or condemnation. "Yes," he said slowly as understanding dawned, "I suppose you're right at that."
Oddly, he found the unexpected company of someone who understood him so well in such a short time very comforting.
~~~~~~~~
Duncan was too busy focusing on his right hand and sweating to notice that someone had come into the room to his side. The point of the knife wielded by the man across the table from him was thunking into the table in the small spaces between his outstretched fingers with incredible speed, moving from one space to the next up and down his hands. The one time he'd flinched and moved a finger precipitously, the razor-sharp blade had sliced easily through the webbing of skin between those fingers.
This was only the latest in a series of tests of endurance and self-discipline that he'd been put to. His shirt hung on his body in tatters from where that same incredibly sharp blade had been flipped in his direction and sliced material without at the same time slicing the skin beneath it. His other arm had a long and thin red line on it as if drawn by a pen - when the point had been driven home just how sharp and lethal the blade could be.
Sam watched the man sweat for a while, feeling an incredible satisfaction at seeing the bully who had taken Davy and attacked Sydney so completely cowed. His gaze rose to that of Mayeda's as the Yakuza boss stood to the side of the table, and he felt his gut twist in a sick spasm of happiness at the suffering of another such as this.
"Mate kudasai," [Stop!] Mayeda uttered softly, and the blade ceased its rhythmic thunking. The black eyes of the warrior with the skill with the blade flicked up at Sam, and then the man rose and bowed first to Mayeda and then Sam. Mayeda gestured at the Centre Security Chief to take the recently vacated chair, and Sam seated himself slowly and deliberately across from Duncan.
"I see my friends have been keeping you company while I was otherwise occupied," Sam said quietly in a deceptively calm tone. He slapped a palm down on the table without warning. "I hope you've been well entertained..."
Duncan's eyes glanced up into the face of fury, and he licked nervously at his lips but refrained from saying anything. This man looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place him.
Sam could see the man's confusion, and it only added the enjoyment of the moment. "I'm sure you're wondering what this is all about - who I am, who they are," he waved about the room at the silent Japanese, "and why you're involved. Although..." he smiled coldly, a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "to be honest, seeing you sitting there without a clue does me good."
Duncan felt the beads of perspiration bud on his upper lip again. This man was easily as dangerous as any of these Asian devils that had been tormenting him, and something told him his situation had just gotten a lot more precarious. "What do you want of me?" he whimpered.
"I'm sure that those two that you stole from Delaware were thinking much the same thing," Sam hissed, his eyes narrowing. "I'm sure we'll find out all about it when they start to talk."
Duncan blinked. What WAS this man talking about? The two from Delaware - the kids he'd left for dead out at the Pederson ranch? "I don't know what you're talking about," he choked out, his mouth going dry.
Sam shook his head and tsked at him. "Come now," the voice cajoled none too kindly. "For an assistant supervisor, you have a lousy memory. Let me jog it." He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved the photos Mayeda had returned of Davy and Deb and laid them very gently on the table in front of the prisoner. "I'm sure you remember them - a cute kid of eight and a pretty young girl of nineteen."
Duncan's eyes refused to meet and hold Sam's. "I haven't ever seen them," he lied and licked his lips again.
"Of course not," Sam took the photos back and tucked them in his pocket again. "That will be a good thing for you, then, when I take them YOUR picture and see if they know you." He leaned forward menacingly. "You see, they got away from the ranch - made it to safety, both of them. They WILL identify you, you know..."
Duncan's gaze now did meet Sam's, and it was filled with apprehension. "What do you want?"
"A friend of mine calls what is about to come your way 'payback,'" Sam grinned toothily. "Just exactly the kind and duration of yours being entirely of your choosing. Depending on whether you tell me the truth, of course."
"What?"
"What were your precise orders regarding your prisoners, and who gave them to you?"
"It was Flores' idea," Duncan sagged. "He wanted them dead, I told him I knew where I could take them where chances were they'd never be found." He shook his head. "I didn't want to..."
"Who was part of this?" Sam demanded harshly, "and where can we find them?"
"I got Jesús Cordoba from East LA to come over, and then hired some Big Apple muscle. One was named Jones, the other Smith - they were old friends of Stewart Berringer's mob cronies. They were dumb as posts, but they did what they were told. We let them out in Jersey City on our way to the airport..."
"Jones and Smith," Sam slapped the table again hard, making Duncan jump. "Just what kind of fool do you take me for? FULL names!"
"Shit - I didn't ask, and I didn't want to know," Duncan found himself hemmed by menacing Japanese again. "I called a contact of mine in the Torzulo family, and they made the arrangements. All I had to do was pay 'em when the job was done..."
"How about the kids - did you... do anything to them?"
Duncan's gaze slithered up to Sam's. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean," Sam said very softly and dangerously. "Did you touch either the girl or the boy... other than to just truss them up, that is?"
"Cordoba was doing a good job of messing with the girl," Duncan replied slowly with a shudder. "I stopped him from actually... doing anything... you know?"
"What about you? Did you touch the boy?" Sam demanded with his voice still soft but the restrained fury becoming hard to ignore.
"I..."
"DID YOU TOUCH HIM?" Sam yelled, his hand slapping the table again even harder this time.
"Only a little bit," Duncan whimpered, "and he was unconscious at the time, so he didn't know..."
"Do you want us to dispose of this piece of human excrement for you?" Mayeda leaned close to Sam and whispered in his ear.
Sam was tempted to take the Yakuza boss up on the offer. Then again, disposal of Duncan really was something for the Centre to handle since it was the Centre that he'd struck at. If it were up to just him, he'd be tearing the man apart limb from limb for what he'd done - but Miss Parker deserved to get her own back from this man in whatever form SHE wanted to collect it. "Can you hang onto him until I get back with Miss Parker? If she doesn't want him, I have some ideas on how we can give him a taste of his own medicine."
"I have a nice storage bin all chosen for him then," Mayeda grinned at Duncan, and the man felt a shudder climb his spine.
Sam nodded, then rose and bowed deeply to Mayeda. "Thank you for all your help. I'll call you in the morning with Miss Parker's decision."
"Sayonara, Atlee-san. Until tomorrow, then." Mayeda gave a curt gesture, and Duncan found himself hauled to his feet and his hands once more bound tightly behind him. One of the Yakuza soldiers tore off a fresh piece of duct tape and slapped it over the prisoner's mouth just before the hood was once more replaced. Duncan didn't know whether to be alarmed or relieved that he was remaining with his Japanese captors - all he knew was that the Parker bitch would be the one making the final decision as to what happened to him, and that wasn't good.
~~~~~~~~
Catherine Ryder walked into the hospital room and began her hourly monitoring of vitals for the little kidnapped boy, as he was now called on the floor. From a chair at the foot of the bed, the watchful gaze of the FBI agent responsible for keeping an eye on the boy kept track of the nurse's movements as she checked the flow and level of the IV liquids being dripped into the boy's system.
She smoothed the dark hair back from the forehead, as much to feel the heat from his sunburn and see whether another application of the soothing salve was called for yet as to give what little comfort she could to the unconscious child. Her son wasn't all that much younger than this lad - it made her heart ache to think of the rumors that were circulating about him and why he'd landed here.
Davy felt the light caress against his inflamed skin and moaned. His face was on fire and he ached everywhere. At least it was cool, however, he decided - maybe it was still night? He worked at it and finally convinced his burned and sore eyelids to flutter open - and then his brow tried to fold in confusion. This wasn't the California countryside he'd been in when last he could remember anything... He looked around him in increasing confusion and concern - where was Deb?
"De..." he tried with a mouth that hadn't had much moisture in over two days. The woman standing next to him reached and patted a shoulder as if to comfort him.
"Your friend's in Intensive Care," she told him as if reading his mind. "You're in a hospital - and you're going to be fine." She twisted to the tray table behind her and poured him a tiny bit of water into a cup and took a straw out of a protective paper wrapping. "Here," she said as she slipped the straw between his cracked lips, "just a little bit, now..."
Davy obeyed, sucking weakly at the straw and finding that nothing in his short life had ever tasted or felt as wonderful as the spurt of water that filled his mouth. He held the liquid in his mouth for a long moment, feeling it refreshing the tissues of his mouth and tongue, and then swallowed slowly to feel it work its magic all the way down his throat. The water landed in a stomach that had been completely empty for over a day, and the sudden sensation was almost painfully pleasant.
He whimpered as the straw was withdrawn, and the nurse smiled gently at him as she replaced the cup and straw where it was within reach. "You will want to take it very slowly with the water," she told him, "because your system is still recovering from not having had any for so long. Trust me, you don't need to throw it up."
He shook his head - she was right. "Mommy..." he said next.
"I'll call and see that your people know that you're awake now, kid," the FBI agent said, rising and heading for the telephone on the little cabinet behind Davy's head. "I know there's some guy who flew in and was real glad to see you earlier today..."
Davy settled back on his pillows and closed his eyes against the feeling that he wanted to cry but had no tears to work with. The relief was crushing. They'd done it - they'd actually made it out alive. He could hardly believe it.
~~~~~~~~
Sam's cell phone chirped just as he was unlocking the front doors of the Centre office. "Atlee here," he answered as he pushed the doors open and then locked them behind himself again.
"Jack Crandall. Just got a call from Iverson, the agent who stayed behind with Davy Parker. He said the kid is awake." Crandall's voice sounded comforting. "I just thought you'd want to know right away."
Sam breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. "That's good news, Jack. Thanks." Then he thought and asked, "Any news on Duncan yet?"
"Nope," Crandall replied. "It's as if the guy just vanished into thin air. I've had my guys check out all his regular haunts, according to any information we have here, and not a hair."
"Well," Sam smiled grimly, knowing that for the time being, there WOULD be no sign of the other kidnapper. "Let me know if you hear anything."
"You got it," Crandall answered. "You heading out to Adelanto again?"
"Yeah, I think so," Sam nodded. "The kid could probably do with a friendly face right about now - and I'd like to check on the girl's condition too."
"Gotcha. Talk to you later, then."
Sam disconnected the call and then immediately punched in another number and put the device to his ear.
A continent away, Miss Parker pulled to the side of the road as her cell phone chirped its melody at her. "What?" she demanded tiredly. She was only two blocks from Sydney's and a chance to let down all her defenses again, and to get a call now was almost distressing.
"Sam here, Miss Parker."
She turned off the ignition. "Sam. You have news?"
"Good news all around. Cordoba's in LAPD custody and singing like a canary. Duncan, on the other hand..." He chuckled coldly. "Mayeda's got him, and depending on what YOU want done with him, we'll go from there."
Miss Parker leaned back against her headrest and felt the hot rush of anger and frustration simmering just below the surface. "I want him back here - where I can look him in the eye..."
"I kinda figured you might want something like that," Sam commented with a chuckle. "Our Yakuza friends are keeping him on ice for us for a while, until they hear from me in the morning."
"Have they hurt him yet?"
"Not really," he replied. "Scared him pretty good - had him sweating just before I got there with some of their knife games."
Miss Parker nodded. She could remember seeing some of that knife skill being practiced in Tokyo when she was younger. She had even met a challenge that Tommy Tanaka had issued for her to put her hand on the table and let the practice take place around HER fingers without flinching or needing to be held. She'd won a very nice dinner with that... She turned her mind back from the memories. "Good." She paused. "Any news from the hospital?"
"As a matter of fact, I'm on my way back there," Sam put as much hopefulness as he could in his voice. "Davy's awake."
"Oh, thank God!" she breathed. "What about Deb?"
He shook his head. "Nothing on that front yet. I'll check up on her, though. You want me to call again?"
"No. Give me a call in the morning, especially if things change at the hospital, though."
"Yes, ma'am. And get some rest tonight. They're safe and sound, and we've got at least one of the bad guys ourselves. I haven't shared him with the feds yet."
"Thanks, Sam," she sighed tiredly. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Miss Parker." The line between California and Delaware fell silent. Sam unlocked the door and let himself back out again. There was a map to the LA freeway system in the glove box of his rental - it couldn't be THAT hard to get back out to Adelanto...
~~~~~~~~
"Anybody home?" Ethan called from the front door of Jarod's home.
"We're back here," Jarod called back from in the direction of the bedrooms.
Ethan followed the sound of his older brother's voice to the open doorway of Ginger's new bedroom and then stood with an amazed look on his face. Ginger had bathed and was now wearing a clean set of warm, flannel pajamas, and she now stood between Jarod's legs while the Pretender was sitting on the edge of a bed very cautiously and carefully working a brush through wet and tangled, dark hair. "Congratulations, big brother," he nodded in impressed approval. "You've done better in the little time you've had her than the CPS folks managed to do in almost twenty-four hours. Seems your little angel here wouldn't let anybody touch her," he told the older man as he leaned against the doorjamb. "Anytime anyone would even come close, she'd scream and..."
"That's what I figured," Jarod commented in a very calm and gentle voice, drawing the brush very gently through the hair and smoothing after it with a caressing hand. "I doubt they would have left her in that condition for long otherwise. I almost bit the head off of the representative who walked me through the rest of the process when I saw the state she was in."
Ginger was standing very still for Jarod's ministrations, her arms tightly wrapped around a very new-looking teddy bear. Ethan quit his post at the door and came over the crouch in front of the little girl. "So, what do you think of your new home?"
Dark eyes that just a little over twenty-four hours earlier had been nearly dead gave a very tiny and shy twinkle of cautious happiness, and then the child buried her nose in the soft velour at the top of her toy's head again.
"What's your new friend's name?" Ethan asked again, encouraged that the girl was actually responding to what he said again. He put out a finger and flipped the teddy bear's ear.
Ginger twisted her head to look over her shoulder at her new guardian, and Jarod smiled down at her. "You haven't told me either," he informed her as if answering her and with a gentle hand turned her head away from him again. "I guess you'll find out when I do," he told his younger brother with an indulgent smile.
"I'm going to make a bet with you, big brother," Ethan rose to his full height and gazed down at the pair. "I'm going to bet that you aren't going to be able to get much accomplished this evening until this little wood sprite has crashed for the night."
"No takers," Jarod chuckled. "She's been sticking pretty close to me ever since we got here. Haven't you?" he aimed the question at the child in front of him, and Ethan chuckled again as she tucked her nose into her teddy's head again. Jarod gathered her hair together and began twisting it into a single braid down her back as if it were something he'd done nightly for years. "Wood sprite?" he asked his younger brother, then peeked around the corner of Ginger's shoulder. "Is that what you are - a fairy child?" His answer was a little more obvious twinkle of dark eyes over the top of a teddy's head.
"You got anything to eat around this place?" Ethan decided to go foraging while waiting for Jarod to finish, to give him just that much more private time with the little girl. It was amazing the change in her in the few hours his brother had had her already. Maybe Jarod had been right all along, and Ginger just needed a secure and loving home to give her the space to find herself again.
"We just had sandwiches," came the answer from the bedroom, "but I think there's enough left for you to make yourself something. Chips are on top of the refrigerator."
"Thanks." Ethan proceeded to make himself a double-decker sandwich and heap a plate with chips, then pour himself a tall glass of milk and carry his load back to the kitchen table. While he ate and waited for the other two to join him, he stared out at the dwindling play of colors in the sky over the ocean as the sunset faded to blackness.
"Here we are," Jarod announced finally, leading a cleaned and ready-for-bed Ginger into the kitchen. He poured her a shorter glass of milk and brought it over to her at the table. "I thought she might like to say goodnight before we see about settling down for our first night."
"I don't think we're going to get much SIMming done tonight, Jarod," Ethan said after watching the way Ginger hung on Jarod's every gesture.
"I heard from Missy," Jarod told him without taking his eyes from the little girl. "They found the kids - I don't need to SIM anymore."
"Thank God! They're alright?"
"In a hospital recovering from dehydration and exposure, mostly," Jarod replied. "So you're off the hook for having to SIM Sydney so I could do a full SIM to find them."
"That's good - because I don't know Sydney well enough to SIM him properly," Ethan answered with a wide grin. "And that explains some of the release of tension I got earlier today from Miss Parker. She's feeling better, even though things are very hard for her being so far away."
"I wouldn't be surprised if she flies out to be with Davy soon," Jarod told him frankly. "She said she wants to get the Centre to a point where she can “put it on pause.” At least, I think that's the way she put it." He glanced up at his younger brother. "I'm actually hoping that I can talk her into staying here for at least a day when she comes. She's... not doing well..."
"I know," Ethan sympathized with his older brother. "But be careful. I get rage from her sometimes as well - she's very tightly controlled right now. She doesn't need unexpected surprises." He nodded at the little girl who had, by now, finished her milk and was sitting cuddling her bear and just listening to the conversation flowing around her.
Jarod shot his younger brother a sharp and aware look and then followed his glance to Ginger. "Ah-hah!" he crowed, rising, and reached down to pick the girl up in his arms from her chair. "Say goodnight to Doctor Ethan, Sprite, and it's off to bed with you."
Ginger turned her expressive, dark eyes on the younger man. "Good night, Ginger," Ethan ran a hand over her head gently. "Shall I hang around?" he asked his brother.
"We could discuss those applications for my replacement instead of running SIMs - if you don't mind waiting?" was the reply. The telephone rang, and Jarod cast a pleading look at Ethan. "Will you get that and take a message for me, please?"
"Sure." Jarod carried off his new foster daughter, and Ethan turned back to pick up the handset before the third ring.
"Russell residence."
"Jarod?"
Ethan's smile grew wide. "No, Miss Parker. This is Ethan. Jarod's... busy at the moment. Can I take a message?"
She sounded incredibly exhausted - and now confused. "Busy?" She decided to ignore it. "Tell him Davy's awake - and that Sam called to say that we have both the bad guys, one way or the other. It's over."
"That's good news, Miss Parker. I'll be glad to pass it on." Her younger half-brother paused. "Are you OK? I've been so worried about some of the feelings I've been getting from you..."
"You and Jarod... I swear - I never had the two of you pegged as a couple of worry-warts," she chuckled tiredly. "I'm just about to drive up to Sydney's, and you can tell Jarod that I'll keep my promise and talk to him - that I haven't forgotten."
"OK. You take care..."
The call was disconnected from Delaware, and Ethan found himself very glad that she was almost home. There was an undercurrent of rage and pain that she was ignoring at the moment that was genuinely frightening. He found himself hoping that Sydney was as astute as Jarod kept claiming - the man was going to have a real job on his hands this evening.
~~~~~~~~
"Hi," Miss Parker called into the depths of the house.
"Parker-sama." Ikeda moved into sight in the pool of light that was the door to the kitchen. "We're back here." It appeared the only lights on in the house were the foyer light, the kitchen, and then the den.
She sighed as she dropped her purse and briefcase in the hall closet and walked tiredly toward the welcoming light. "It's awfully dark in here for only nine o'clock..."
"Kevin-san has retired already, and so it has just been myself and Green-san."
"Parker..." Sydney called from his lair.
Ikeda bowed to her as she began to move past. "I'll be in the front of the house, Parker-sama," he told her and then moved so that his employer and her foster father could have total privacy.
Miss Parker stepped into the den and gazed at Sydney. His face was obviously pale again in the light of the reading lamp next to him, and she suspected that he'd not taken his pain medication on time again. "Sydney, you promised you'd take your pills on time..."
"Sit down, Parker," he ignored her chiding and shifted on the couch to make room for her.
He wasn't that surprised when, the moment she had settled next to him, she leaned forward and put her head on his shoulder. As he wrapped his arms around her, he could feel the fatigue in the tension. "Talk to me, Parker."
"I got a call from Sam just before I got here. He said that Davy's awake again - and that we have both of the men responsible for taking them. It's over. And I talked to Broots - at least he knows what's going on now..."
"Parker..."
"According to Sam, evidently LAPD has the one who... assaulted...."
"Parker, stop..."
"...and Mayeda has the other one. Sam said they'd keep him on ice for us until..."
"For God's sake, Parker!" He pushed her shoulders until he had forced her to sit up again so that he could look into her face. "Listen to yourself. You sound like a robot, reciting math facts. TALK to me!"
Her face was bleak, and her eyes dry. "What do you want me to say, Syd? That I want - NEED - to fly to California to be with my son? That I'm sick to death with worry about Deb and what this is going to do to her? That I want to tear those men apart limb from limb and leave NOTHING behind for the court system to deal with?" Her eyes began to snap as, at long last, the anger she'd been stomping down could no longer be held back.
"Do you know how hard it is for me to sit in my office and do interviews with supervisors to make sure the financial underpinnings of the Centre remain stable and viable while my son lies in a hospital bed..." Her voice broke, and she needed to breathe deeply a few times to regain her control. "Do you know how hard it is to know that I'm the one responsible for all this - your knee, Davy and Deb..."
"NO!" Sydney burst forth loudly and vehemently enough to break through her ranting. "You are NOT responsible for this."
"Yes I am, Syd! I chose to accept this damned job. I chose to try to turn the Centre around - turn it legit..."
"Parker, yes. You made those choices - they were yours to make. But you did not choose to sic kidnappers after your family - those were the choices of another." Sydney cupped his hand around her cheek. "You did NOT do those things."
"But if I'd just said “no” to Ngawe, none of this would have happened..."
He gazed at her in indulgent fondness. "You know you couldn't have done that," he chided gently. "Once I got over my being upset at your decision, even I could see that you couldn't walk away. The Centre is in your blood - just as it is in Jarod's."
She glared at him in amazed frustration. "But here I am, doing to my son exactly what was done to me when I was a child - I'm putting the Centre's interests ahead of my own family..."
"You are NOT - stop whipping yourself like that!" He glared back at her unflinchingly. "You forget that I was THERE when Centre interests came ahead of you and your well-being, Parker. I SAW Mr. Parker not only thrust you aside, but also put you out of his mind entirely. You forget that I was there and ended up picking up the pieces for you for a while - before you were sent away to school." He relaxed back into his pillows with a challenging look in his eyes. "Convince me then that you've put Davy and Deb out of your mind utterly over these last few days while at work - that you haven't thought of them even once..."
"I used Lyle..."
"I know - you told me about your Pretending." He gazed at her calmly. "But a mask only hides what's behind it, Parker. If you were truly doing to Davy what Mr. Parker did to you, you wouldn't have needed the mask in the first place."
The glare in stormy grey eyes abated. "Sydney..."
"Don't you see?" The hand cupped her cheek again. "That's where all of this is coming from - the fact that you HAVEN'T been able to completely shove your son out of your mind and forget him completely so you could do your work. Look at you - you're so itchy to throw over the Centre's interests and run to be with Davy that you can't even think straight."
"Right now I'm so mad at myself for being determined to take this place legit - and the only thing worse is that now all I want to do is resurrect the “old Centre” long enough to take care of Flores and his cronies..."
"Parker, you're a much better mother than Mr. Parker ever was a father to you. I am so proud of you, and your mother would be too." He reached out both hands to her shoulders and pulled her down into his embrace. "It's OK to be angry at those who hurt you and those you love - it's really not a crime to wish you could take revenge personally. God knows that if I were feeling better, we'd be in a race to see who could tear them apart first. You're human, sweetheart, just like I am. So give yourself room to have the emotions of a healthy human. Don't tear yourself apart with guilt you don't deserve."
She trembled as she lay against him. "Right now I hate this job, and I hate the way I feel. I..." She knew she'd promised she'd talk to Sydney about her sleep difficulty. "I can't even feel safe at home anymore. I keep thinking that if I'd stayed awake that night, they wouldn't have been able to take Davy in the first place. Look at how you and Kevin fought off three men..."
"Sweetheart, the only reason we were able to fight them," Sydney tightened his arms around her, "was because Kevin's attack was a complete surprise - they didn't even know he was here. And even then, if you think about it, it didn't help Deb at all. Face it, even awake, you would have been alone against three, Parker. I don't think the results would have changed - except that you would very likely have been seriously hurt."
"Sydney, I'm afraid to go to sleep, in case..."
"Mmm-hmm," she felt him nod above her. "I was thinking there was more to this than just guilt. No wonder everything seems so acute, so distressful. You're exhausted, and not thinking clearly." His hand found the back of her head. "For what it's worth, you're not the only one feeling less than secure. Kevin is showing signs of stress, and even I don't like the way the medicine clouds my mind because I wouldn't be able to defend myself. We were ALL assaulted in a fashion that night - Davy and Deb just caught the worst of it. It's going to take time for all of us to feel really comfortable and secure again. Until then, none of us are going to sleep all that well..."
"That isn't going to help me sleep, Syd..." she said quietly, grateful for his arms around her. Other than Jarod, he was the only one with the power to make her feel safe and protected just by putting his arms around her.
"Yes, it will - eventually," he told her. "You said it yourself, Parker - it's over. You have Flores, and Berringer, and Duncan, and the other guy. Davy and Deb are being taken care of in a hospital, where they'll get the kind of care they need right now. You know that they'll be on their way home soon. And slowly life will come back to the way it was before - as much as it can, that is. Tonight, at least, you can rest better knowing that nobody is still in danger - not Davy or Deb, and not us."
"Easier said than done..." she commented wryly.
"Go bring me my physician's bag then," he pushed at her shoulders to rouse her into sitting up again. "I can give you something that will help you relax - your body should be able to take it from there."
"Syd, I don't want a sleeping pill..."
"Hush!" he shook his head at her. "You heard Doctor Hightower lecturing me on taking my pain medication - that I don't need to suffer needlessly. Well, the same holds for you. If you need a good night's sleep, then let me help you get one. You don't need to suffer needlessly either." He smiled at her. "We just won't make a habit of it, agreed?"
"You'll take your pain pill then too?" she asked him with an eyebrow cocked.
"Yes, I'll take mine then too," he answered without hesitation. He didn't mention that it would be a relief to take the medication - that these late-night therapy sessions were agony because of the clear mind needed to manage them properly. She was already feeling guilty enough about things that weren't her fault. "Go on. It's in my bedroom, on the floor of the closet on the right-hand side."
As she rose slowly to follow his instructions, he wondered how much more effort it would take to talk her into dropping the Centre business into Tyler's lap for a few days and flying out to California. Maybe he'd tackle that one in the morning, before he was strapped into that contraption again...
~~~~~~~~
Sam walked through the halls of the hospital toward the room to which the volunteer in the lobby told him Davy had been moved. He stepped into the room and nodded at the FBI agent seated against the wall - and the man silently rose from his chair and nodded to let him know that he'd be just outside. The two men quietly exchanged places - Sam gazing up the length of the hospital bed at Davy.
The boy was again asleep, but the redness of his sunburned face wasn't quite as angry and painful as Sam remembered. His lips were still broken from where they had cracked with dryness, but there was a cup with a straw in it on the tray table near the bed that looked as if it had been used.
A nurse bustled into the room, glancing with surprise at the apparent changing of the guard at the foot of her patient's bed. Without a word to Sam, she moved to check on the IV that continued to drip steadily into Davy's system, then took his wrist in her fingers to take his pulse. Her touch roused the boy, who whimpered at the handling of skin that was also red and painful-looking. His eyes eventually flickered open, aimed at the nurse.
"Do you want some more water?" she asked him gently. When Davy nodded, she reached for the cup.
"I'll give him the water," Sam interrupted her.
"Sam!" Davy gave a happy but hoarse whisper of joy.
"Just a sip or two - he has to take it slowly still," she instructed the big man who towered over her. She handed him the cup and backed away to let him step up to the head of the bed.
"You heard the lady, Squirt," Sam told the boy with a twisted grin of pure relief on his face. "Just a sip now..."
Davy sipped obediently on the straw until he had his sip, then held it again in his mouth for a long moment before letting it slip deliciously down his throat. Then, as Sam set the cup back on the tray, the boy held out his arms to his friend.
Sam settled on the edge of the bed and gently took the boy in his arms and held him very carefully, very aware of not wanting to hurt him at all. Davy sighed and settled against the big ex-sweeper. "I thought nobody knew..." he managed finally.
"We know, Davy, we know," Sam murmured to him gently and felt him relax as if a burden had fallen away. "I talked to your mom just a little while ago - she knows you're awake again. I talked to your dad too." He stroked the boy's back very gingerly. "They're worried about you and send their love. You'll see them soon."
"I want to go home..." Davy whispered, his voice still not completely recovered.
"I know you do. But right now you need to get better." Sam released his hold on the boy and laid him back into his pillows.
The small hand came up and landed on the husky forearm. "You're not going away, are you?" Davy croaked.
"Not for a while," Sam promised.
"Deb?"
Sam shook his head. "I haven't had a chance to check on her yet. Do you want me to?" Davy nodded. "OK - I'm going to call the FBI agent back in to keep an eye on you while I go see how she's doing, and then I'll be back. OK?" Davy nodded again, his eyelids already drooping a bit again. "You snooze for a bit - I'll probably be back when you wake up next time."
"OK." Davy let his eyes fall closed again. He was safe - Sam was here.
Sam brushed his hand carefully through the dark hair and then rose to his feet. He nodded at Iverson to resume his post and headed back up the hallway to the nurse's station. "Is there any news on Deb Broots' condition?"
The nurse ran her fingers through the charts on her desk then looked up at him. "I don't have a Deb Broots on the medical floor, sir."
"I think she was being taken to ICU..." Sam remembered.
"I doubt you'll be allowed in," the nurse warned him, "but you can go down that hall, hang a left to the double doors and talk to the duty nurse just beyond."
"Thank you." Sam turned on his heel and headed down the hall. He turned left and walked until he'd gone through the swinging double doors and found himself at a nurse's station in front of a glassed-in ward of several beds beyond. "I'm here to see about the condition of Deb Broots - I think she was brought here this morning..."
The nurse only had to glance over at a particular pile of forms and documents. "She's in serious but stable condition. She had some trouble with her blood pressure earlier, but she's starting to rally finally."
"Can I see her?"
The nurse shook her head. "Visiting hours at the ICU are 10 AM to 4 PM. You'll have to wait until tomorrow morning. But you can see her from here..." She swiveled her chair around and pointed to one of the curtain-defined spaces.
Sam stepped closer to the glass. Deb was so quiet with all those tubes running into her arm and nose - and her sunburn still a very angry red. Like Davy, her lips were broken and scabbed from having dried out and burned in the hot sun. He nodded at the FBI agent who, like Iverson, had taken up a post out of the way but close enough to be but a pace or two away.
The nurse touched his arm. "Are you family?"
Sam shook his head. "Just a very close family friend. Her father's in a hospital in Delaware - she doesn't have any close family other than him..."
"Give me your name, then," the nurse reached for a pen and one of the documents in what must be Deb's stack, "and I'll get your name on the approved visitor's list for her."
Sam gave her his name absently, staring at the still form on the bed and feeling his heart twist into a tight knot. Deb almost died, he told himself, because I didn't do my job well enough to protect her. They both almost died - and it was my fault.
With that, he nodded his farewell at the nurse and opened the door to head back down the hall to Davy's room again. By God, he'd see to personally it that Davy was protected properly until the boy could be returned to his mother's care. Agent Iverson could take the rest of the night off, for all he cared. The Devil himself wouldn't be able to pry him out of Davy's room until morning.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod waited until he heard Ethan's car pull out of his driveway before he extinguished the outside light and sighed. Only one of the three applications that had come in the morning's mail had been worth processing - the others had come from recent graduates from medical school looking for an internship. Ethan would need a full partner - a fully qualified psychiatrist capable of carrying a full load of his own. Between the two of them, they had decided to give their ad two weeks to see what kind of responses they got, then call the survivors of the initial sorting process in for preliminary interviews.
This had been a discussion that had been needed for days - and one that had ultimately had its share of interruptions from first an over-excited and then a more terrified little girl unused to sleeping by herself in a strange place, even if it did have a night light. The last time she'd come padding out of her bedroom on bare feet, her new teddy bear clutched to her in a stranglehold and eyes wide with terror. Jarod had simply opened his arms to her and let her climb up into his lap to nestle down against him while he rubbed her back and continued his discussion with his brother. Ginger had fallen deeply asleep almost immediately.
Ethan had helped him tuck her back into her bed once more just before he'd left - then given Jarod a pat on the back and a "Have fun, Daddy," on his way out the front door. Jarod went through the house turning off lights and locking up, getting ready to retire. It had been a big day for him too; he'd had his share of excitement, bringing his little girl home with him at last. And tomorrow's schedule was entirely up in the air - so much depended upon reports from Sam and Missy about Davy that he couldn't predict whether he would be actually seeing patients or...
What was he going to do if he needed to drop everything and fly down to the hospital to be with Davy? Where would he go with Ginger? She knew nobody in the family - she had just arrived - he couldn't just hand her off to Em or to his mother. And he couldn't take her with him...
He dismissed those troubling thoughts in order to debate how many lights to leave burning in the house through the night. If Ginger awoke again, frightened and confused, how would he lead her to his room to find him? The last thing he needed was to wake up to a child traumatized at HIS hands this time...
Eventually he decided to use a night light in his room and leave his door open so that if a lost child decided to go looking, she'd have an indication where to look. Just to make sure things were still settled he tiptoed to the door and peeked in at Ginger - only to find her still dead to the world and snuggling her teddy tightly. He smiled, thinking how such a simple toy could provide a sense of security for such a tiny child. He closed her door again and plodded into his own room, stripped to his boxers and slipped into a pair of pajama pants and finally slid between the sheets with a sigh. He WAS tired...
His eyes seemed to droop of their own volition and finally fell closed, and he dreamed of a family picnic with himself, Missy, Davy and Ginger, everyone smiling and laughing.
Chapter 15: Breathing Again
Sam stood next to Jack Crandall with his arms folded over his chest and a very tight expression on his face while he watched through the one-way glass into the interrogation room. An LAPD detective was seated at the table waiting for the prisoner to be delivered, while one of Crandall's FBI agents ranged casually behind him. As the door opened and an orange-garbed and shackled Cordoba was escorted into the room and to his seat, Crandall could hear Sam breathe in and out in a sudden snort. He was glad that he hadn't given permission for this very big and very well-muscled Centre security man to actually be in the room with the prisoner - he couldn't be sure that Sam would attempt to take Cordoba apart before anybody could stop him.
"You've been asking for an interview, well here I am," Detective Jim Porter opened his notebook and pushed the button on the tape recorder sitting in the middle of the table. "Before we start, I want to remind you that you have the right to remain silent, and that anything you say here can and will be used against you in court. You have a right to have an attorney present during questioning..."
"Let's get on with it," Cordoba waved his hand in front of his face. "I've heard that spiel a thousand times - if I didn't get it by now, I doubt I ever would."
Porter took from his pocket a folded paper. "Before we start, then, I'll need to you sign this statement that you understand and wave your rights to council and to remain silent."
"If that'll get things moving faster," Cordoba growled and waited for his LAPD guard to release his right hand from the restraining shackles so that he could take the pen and scribble his name on the paper. "There. Happy?"
"Thank you," Porter replied, refolding the paper and putting it back in the inside breast pocket of his jacket. "Now, I think, we're ready to listen to what you have to say."
"Who's this?" Cordoba pointed at the man leaning against the far wall and watching him with deceptive nonchalance.
"This is Agent Smythe from the FBI. You suggested to the people you spoke to that someone from that office might be interested in what you had to say as well."
Cordoba peered suspiciously at the apparent mirror at one end of the room. "Is there a representative of the Centre here too, I hope?"
"You can say whatever it is that you have to say to us," Porter told the Hispanic, "and if we think the Centre needs to be informed, we'll see to it the information gets passed along." He clicked the ballpoint pen a couple of times, staring at the man across the table from him. "Now..."
Cordoba seemed to be directing his words to the FBI man at the back wall. "You heard about that kidnapping in Delaware - little boy and cute girl?"
"I may have," Smythe responded, not sounding all that enthusiastic. "What about it?"
"Well, I have information about who organized it, and who was in on it, and where the... where they were left." Cordoba sat back and waited to be pumped for information.
"OK," Porter wrote in his notebook quickly. "First, where are the victims being held?"
"Duncan said that the man's name that owned the place was Peterson, Patterson... something like that. It looked like nobody'd been there for years. We left 'em..."
"“WE left them”?" Smythe repeated. "You were part of the group that carried out the kidnapping?"
"Yeah," Cordoba admitted softly. "But you need to get to those kids before too much more time goes by. Duncan said that Flores didn't want them to survive, and that was why we were leaving them out there in the middle of nowhere on the desert. It was supposed to look like they died of natural causes if they DID get found."
"You've mentioned two people here," Porter halted the narrative. "Duncan - who's he?"
"He's an old friend of mine from the old days," Cordoba said with a crooked smile. "We like to hang out together sometimes."
"And what about this Flores?"
"That cabrón is a snake, man. He was the head of the LA office of the Centre. He and Duncan and I used to get hired to help another gentleman from back East with... finding Asian ladies for the evening sometimes." Cordoba smiled coldly at the detective. "If you know what I mean, that is..."
Sam snorted again. This low-life was one of the ones who... He glanced at Crandall and found the SAC almost as carefully watching HIM as he was observing the interrogation, so he reined in his disgust and ire.
"No, I DON'T know what you mean. Why don't you explain it to me?" Porter sat back in his chair comfortably.
"Uh-uhn." Cordoba shook his head. "I wanna know what my testimony against either one of those assholes will get me."
Porter looked over his shoulder at Smythe, who only shrugged silently. "A lot will depend on what all you tell us. Give us plenty of information, and the DA will hear about your willingness to help out."
"I want guarantees..."
"Well, you ain't gonna get them right now," Porter cut him off effectively. "Give us something else - like maybe where Duncan is right now."
"Hell, I don't know," Cordoba threw his one free hand in the air. "He paid me my money for giving him a hand in Delaware and dropped me off at my sister's - and that's the last I knew of him."
"You mean the twenty thousand dollars we found on you when you were arrested was your pay for kidnapping two people?" Smythe asked from his leaning post.
"That's right."
"Did you touch them?" Smythe moved forward and leaned on the table. "The girl was pretty..."
Cordoba smirked. "She was, wasn't she. I think she was virgin meat too - but Duncan told me to leave her be. He didn't want no DNA evidence on the bodies when and if they ever did get found." He chuckled. "I got me a little bit of titty and couple of good feels on the babe before he stopped me tho... and I think Duncan copped himself a little feel on the kid too just before we locked 'em in the house. Andy's a pervert, ya know - likes little boys almost as much as he likes broads - although he usually like to have 'em awake while he..."
Sam snorted louder and dropped his hands to his sides balled up in fists. "Don't let him get to you," Crandall warned the big man warily. "This slime just ain't worth getting yourself locked up back there with him..."
"He's standing there and bragging!" Sam shook his head in absolute wonder of the audacity and stupidity of the man. "He's talking about molesting those kids as if it were the most natural thing in the world...
"Kidnap, sexual assault, conspiracy to commit murder - his big mouth is getting him so far in a hole he'll never climb out again," Crandall pointed out in a firm and soft voice. "And he's tied Flores firmly to the plot - which corroborates the evidence your boss turned over - AND made it clear that Flores intended that Davy and Deb not live to tell their story." The FBI SAC shook his head. "He thinks he's giving us information we don't already know. I think Smythe's about to let him know the error of presuming..."
"Well," the lanky FBI agent straightened from leaning on the table and walked back to his place on the far wall, "to be honest, Jesús, you haven't told us much of anything we didn't already know - except, maybe where the kidnap victims WERE held. They walked out, you know..."
"Whaddya mean, they walked out?" Cordoba was aghast. "We left them so trussed up with duct tape that they weren't going to get loose much before next year - and the heat woulda got 'em a whole lot sooner than that..."
"I don't know what to tell you," Smythe shrugged again. "They're in a hospital right now, both of them very much alive. And we knew about Duncan and Flores already - although having you confirm the story on Flores and tell us that he intended those kids dead helps a little, it isn't enough to give you anything to deal with."
Cordoba stared. All of his bargaining power had just slipped through his fingers - leaving him with the sudden realization that he'd just implicated himself in several very serious offenses that would land him right back in the joint. "I want a lawyer right now," he suddenly demanded.
"Fine," Porter replied and shut off the tape recorder. "We'll have someone from the Public Defender's Office get in touch with you as soon as they can." He rose and went over to the door and pounded on the heavy wire-filled glass for the police office to take the prisoner back to lock-up.
"Looks like the show is over," Crandall commented as he observed Sam running his hands through his hair as Cordoba was led away.
"I want to see that weasel suffer," Sam hissed.
"Don't worry about that part - we're just getting started on this slime," Porter responded as he joined the men in the observation room. "We have that pair of dead hookers in East LA that we think we're going to be able to tie him to - him and Duncan too, for that matter. They thought they were being sneaky, but we got a few eye-witnesses to their picking the girls up."
Sam twisted his gaze away from the room beyond the glass as Cordoba was led away. "I suppose," he conceded reluctantly, then remembered that he had one more stop to make that day before heading back to the office - the Yakuza headquarters and Duncan. "Thanks for at least letting me watch," he backpedaled carefully and, "I should probably get back..." he hinted at Crandall and stalked from the room.
"Oh. Right." Crandall remembered that Sam had left his car at the FBI office. "Thanks, Porter - we'll be in touch."
"Don't mention it," the detective gave the pair a casual salute as they turned to leave. It felt good to get one of the genuinely “bad” bad guys - very good indeed.
Crandall walked toward the exit of the building keeping a very close eye on his Centre associate. The man was like a tightly-wound spring, just itching to mix it up with someone who got in his way - but he was walking away from Cordoba all too easily. If he didn't know better, he'd think that he knew something else - something he wasn't sharing.
It was just a hunch, and without some reasonable justification, he couldn't act on THAT.
~~~~~~~~
"Hello?"
"Jarod, it's me."
"Missy." Jarod backed out of the bathroom where Ginger was now contentedly playing with some of his own bath toys, her teddy bear watching the goings-on from the safety of the toilet seat. "Sam called you."
"Yeah." Her voice was tired.
"You sound awful," he told her gently. "Are you OK?"
"I just talked to Broots - told him everything," she explained, running her fingers through her hair and leaning back against the headrest of the driver's seat. It was getting dark now, and the hospital parking lot lights were beginning to blink on.
"How'd he take it?"
She sighed. "About as well as you'd expect."
"When are you coming out?" he asked after a pause.
"As soon as I can get free for a bit," she told him. "I told Tyler to have the Centre jet on standby, and I'm hoping I can be ready to let things sit here maybe tomorrow sometime."
"Put a jet on standby at the Monterey airport for me too, OK?" he asked, leaning back against the doorjamb and watching the little girl run her ducky through a mountain of soap bubbles. "It's a helluva long drive from here to..."
"I'll take care of it," she promised tiredly. "And I'll be calling the hospital and getting a report myself after a while - I'll tell them to expect your call as well."
"I appreciate that."
She fell silent again, and Jarod could feel the anguish pouring over the phone line. "Did you talk to Sydney last night?"
"Yes."
"You're going back there tonight too, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"You need to talk to him again," he told her firmly. "I can hear it in your voice, sweetheart."
"I know. Talking to Broots was just so... hard... you know?" Her voice broke.
"I know."
"Look, I gotta go. I want to get back to Blue Cove before Sydney takes his pills and is out like a light. I just wanted to bring you up to date..."
"I love you."
"I love you too, Jarod. I just wish..."
"Hush. They're alive. We can overcome anything as long as they're alive."
"But they're so far away..." Her voice trailed off.
"Don't think of that right now. They're alive, and they're where they can get the care they need right now. Just think of how good it will be to have them home again. Focus on the positive, Missy - the other stuff will eat you alive."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow evening - sooner if I decide to fly out there."
"Rest, if you can," he suggested. "Take tomorrow off completely - and sleep in tomorrow morning."
"I can't sleep," she said very softly. "I keep thinking that if I hadn't been asleep in the first place..."
"Sweetheart..." he warned, now concerned. "Have you told Sydney this?" Her silence was an eloquent answer. "You need to tell Sydney this - have him help you work through that - or I will."
"Don't blackmail me, Jarod," she warned back, her anger a tired and half-hearted one.
"I don't want to," he said gently. "But I don't want you falling apart or getting yourself in trouble because you're suffering from sleep deprivation either, though. Too many people are depending on you right now."
"I'll talk to you later," she promised.
"You promise me that you'll talk to Sydney," he repeated, "and I'll talk to you tomorrow. I love you."
"I'll talk to Syd, Jarod, I promise. I love you too."
Jarod turned off the handset and turned to watch Ginger continue her bath play with fully half of his mind now thoroughly absorbed with the fear that Missy was on the verge of losing it. He thought for a minute, then dialed a number from memory.
"Green residence," came Kevin's voice.
"Hi there, Shadow. Lemme talk to Sydney, OK?"
"Jarod!" Kevin's smile echoed through his voice. "You heard?"
"Yeah, I heard. Is Sydney there?"
"Yeah, just a minute." There was a rustle of a telephone exchanging hands.
"Jarod!" Sydney's voice sounded tired but strong. "How are..."
"Sydney, I haven't got a lot of time..." Ginger was starting to make movements like she wanted to climb from the tub at last. "I just wanted to tell you that you REALLY need to talk to Missy tonight. She's falling apart."
"I'm not letting Kevin give me my evening dose until she gets home," Sydney assured his protégé gently. "She didn't sound good when I talked to her just before she went to Dover. I'm worried about her too."
"Good - because I just got off the line with her, and she sounds like Hell."
Sydney sighed. "I'll do what I can for her," he said.
"She's not sleeping, Sydney..."
"What?"
"Survivor's guilt - or something akin to it. She feels that if she hadn't been asleep originally..."
Sydney nodded - yes, that would be one way that Miss Parker would blame herself for everything that had happened. "Thanks for the head's up, Jarod. I'll take it from here."
"Don't tell her I called, and you take care too," the Pretender told his mentor. "How's the knee?"
"It hurts like Hell," the elder psychiatrist grumbled. "And I'm already tired of being tied to this damned contraption for hours at a time."
"Just get well this time - don't go off and hurt yourself again before you get a chance to enjoy some good health for a while. I'm sure Missy will want you to walk her down the aisle too - so that knee HAS to get better." Jarod moved into the bathroom and handed Ginger a big and fluffy towel. "I gotta go."
"You take care too," Sydney replied and disconnected the call the moment he heard the empty air from California. He leaned slightly and put the handset down on the coffee table within reach while watching Kevin make sure the pillow under his injured knee was fluffed properly. "You look tired," he told his new protégé.
"I am," Kevin admitted. "That SIM took more out of me than I expected, and then the news..." The SIM had indeed been hard enough - as had the sense of having failed, even after getting the extra material, to uncover anything new as yet. Then the relief of hearing that Davy and Deb had been found had collapsed into a realization that he didn't need to do the SIM at all anymore...
"Why don't you head off to bed early then," Sydney suggested easily. "Mr. Ikeda can get me some water to take my pills when the time comes. You go get some rest."
Kevin frowned. "You sure?"
Ikeda bowed shallowly. "I shall be honored to assist your uncle so that you can get some rest, Kevin-san."
"Go on," Sydney urged. "I don't want you falling apart on me. I can't do much on my own. Get some rest - between Mr. Ikeda and Miss Parker later on when she gets here, I'll be fine."
"OK." Kevin gave Sydney a slight wave, then nodded at Ikeda before turning and heading back for the kitchen and the stairs beyond. Sydney rubbed a finger beneath his nose thoughtfully. Kevin had been very quiet and subdued - almost withdrawn - since he'd received the news that the lost had been found and he was off the hook as far as SIMming was concerned. He had a sneaky hunch that the morning would be occupied as much with intensive therapy for a frustrated Pretender as it would be with more of that damned machine therapy for his knee.
"You worry about him," Ikeda commented quietly after watching the older man remain pensive.
Sydney's chestnut gaze connected solidly with the deep ebony of the Japanese, and then he nodded.
"And you worry about Parker-sama," Ikeda continued, his face a calm and serene neutral.
"Yes," the psychiatrist offered cautiously, not exactly sure where the inscrutable ninja was intending this conversation to go.
"Kevin-san has asked me to teach him what I know," the Japanese moved to the opposite side of the coffee table and then sat on his heels as if at a dining table in his own apartment in Tokyo. "He said he wanted to be able to defend his family."
Sydney nodded. "I'm not surprised," he responded. "He took what happened here very hard. He and Deb..." He paused. "He feels very close to Deb Broots, and having her taken from here has shaken what little security he's begun to feel with us." He gazed at the ninja. "Are you going to teach him?"
"I don't know," Ikeda admitted freely. "My time is Parker-sama's to allot - if she gives her permission..."
"Her attention is likely not to be on Kevin right now," Sydney said gently, "and it would probably ease Miss Parker's mind not to have other issues brought to her at the moment. Besides, I can imagine that you are quite capable of teaching him while you are here in the evening anyway." He relaxed into his pillows. "Frankly, I think it would be a good idea. He needs an ethical framework upon which to begin to base his life, and if I'm not mistaken, that's one of the major elements of most martial arts, is it not?"
Ikeda's eyes were concerned as he nodded. "Kevin-san has no ethical background training?" The accented voice sounded both surprised and appalled.
Sydney sighed again. "Kevin was, until only very recently, a virtual intellectual slave of the Centre - a young man with a powerful and flexible mind forced to use his intellect in service to the avarice of others. Mr. Raines, as a matter of fact..." Ikeda shuddered. He HAD done the world a favor it seemed. Sydney continued, "When we rescued him, he'd never been outside the house in which he'd lived all his life, never even seen a girl, gone to a movie, watched television... He'd never had any instruction in telling right from wrong, and never known anybody who actually cared about him and about whom he cared in return."
That was hard for Ikeda to believe - and yet between the utter naivete of Kevin and the deep sadness of Sydney's voice, he suspected that it was a very uncomfortable truth. "How did he end up with you, then?"
"I have considerable experience working with such individuals," Sydney explained lamely. "The man who is the father of Miss Parker's son - Jarod - was once my... responsibility... in the same way that Kevin had long been the responsibility of the man who was HIS trainer. When we rescued Kevin, Jarod felt that I would be the best suited to the task of undoing the damage of a lifetime of abuse - because I knew intimately what went on in such a situation."
Ikeda could see the ocean of guilt and remorse swimming in the back of those chestnut eyes - eyes that had seen too much in their time. "Karma has given you the same lesson again, and incentive to learn differently from it," he nodded serenely, "and you take that lesson very seriously. Not all of us get that opportunity, and even fewer know to use such a gift wisely. In many ways, you and I are in the same situation, Green-san. We each have a second chance to use our talents and chosen art in more beneficial ways than we did previously - and we both take our precious opportunities very seriously."
Sydney's gaze flicked up and connected with Ikeda's again, finding it remarkably free of judgement or condemnation. "Yes," he said slowly as understanding dawned, "I suppose you're right at that."
Oddly, he found the unexpected company of someone who understood him so well in such a short time very comforting.
~~~~~~~~
Duncan was too busy focusing on his right hand and sweating to notice that someone had come into the room to his side. The point of the knife wielded by the man across the table from him was thunking into the table in the small spaces between his outstretched fingers with incredible speed, moving from one space to the next up and down his hands. The one time he'd flinched and moved a finger precipitously, the razor-sharp blade had sliced easily through the webbing of skin between those fingers.
This was only the latest in a series of tests of endurance and self-discipline that he'd been put to. His shirt hung on his body in tatters from where that same incredibly sharp blade had been flipped in his direction and sliced material without at the same time slicing the skin beneath it. His other arm had a long and thin red line on it as if drawn by a pen - when the point had been driven home just how sharp and lethal the blade could be.
Sam watched the man sweat for a while, feeling an incredible satisfaction at seeing the bully who had taken Davy and attacked Sydney so completely cowed. His gaze rose to that of Mayeda's as the Yakuza boss stood to the side of the table, and he felt his gut twist in a sick spasm of happiness at the suffering of another such as this.
"Mate kudasai," [Stop!] Mayeda uttered softly, and the blade ceased its rhythmic thunking. The black eyes of the warrior with the skill with the blade flicked up at Sam, and then the man rose and bowed first to Mayeda and then Sam. Mayeda gestured at the Centre Security Chief to take the recently vacated chair, and Sam seated himself slowly and deliberately across from Duncan.
"I see my friends have been keeping you company while I was otherwise occupied," Sam said quietly in a deceptively calm tone. He slapped a palm down on the table without warning. "I hope you've been well entertained..."
Duncan's eyes glanced up into the face of fury, and he licked nervously at his lips but refrained from saying anything. This man looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place him.
Sam could see the man's confusion, and it only added the enjoyment of the moment. "I'm sure you're wondering what this is all about - who I am, who they are," he waved about the room at the silent Japanese, "and why you're involved. Although..." he smiled coldly, a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "to be honest, seeing you sitting there without a clue does me good."
Duncan felt the beads of perspiration bud on his upper lip again. This man was easily as dangerous as any of these Asian devils that had been tormenting him, and something told him his situation had just gotten a lot more precarious. "What do you want of me?" he whimpered.
"I'm sure that those two that you stole from Delaware were thinking much the same thing," Sam hissed, his eyes narrowing. "I'm sure we'll find out all about it when they start to talk."
Duncan blinked. What WAS this man talking about? The two from Delaware - the kids he'd left for dead out at the Pederson ranch? "I don't know what you're talking about," he choked out, his mouth going dry.
Sam shook his head and tsked at him. "Come now," the voice cajoled none too kindly. "For an assistant supervisor, you have a lousy memory. Let me jog it." He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved the photos Mayeda had returned of Davy and Deb and laid them very gently on the table in front of the prisoner. "I'm sure you remember them - a cute kid of eight and a pretty young girl of nineteen."
Duncan's eyes refused to meet and hold Sam's. "I haven't ever seen them," he lied and licked his lips again.
"Of course not," Sam took the photos back and tucked them in his pocket again. "That will be a good thing for you, then, when I take them YOUR picture and see if they know you." He leaned forward menacingly. "You see, they got away from the ranch - made it to safety, both of them. They WILL identify you, you know..."
Duncan's gaze now did meet Sam's, and it was filled with apprehension. "What do you want?"
"A friend of mine calls what is about to come your way 'payback,'" Sam grinned toothily. "Just exactly the kind and duration of yours being entirely of your choosing. Depending on whether you tell me the truth, of course."
"What?"
"What were your precise orders regarding your prisoners, and who gave them to you?"
"It was Flores' idea," Duncan sagged. "He wanted them dead, I told him I knew where I could take them where chances were they'd never be found." He shook his head. "I didn't want to..."
"Who was part of this?" Sam demanded harshly, "and where can we find them?"
"I got Jesús Cordoba from East LA to come over, and then hired some Big Apple muscle. One was named Jones, the other Smith - they were old friends of Stewart Berringer's mob cronies. They were dumb as posts, but they did what they were told. We let them out in Jersey City on our way to the airport..."
"Jones and Smith," Sam slapped the table again hard, making Duncan jump. "Just what kind of fool do you take me for? FULL names!"
"Shit - I didn't ask, and I didn't want to know," Duncan found himself hemmed by menacing Japanese again. "I called a contact of mine in the Torzulo family, and they made the arrangements. All I had to do was pay 'em when the job was done..."
"How about the kids - did you... do anything to them?"
Duncan's gaze slithered up to Sam's. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean," Sam said very softly and dangerously. "Did you touch either the girl or the boy... other than to just truss them up, that is?"
"Cordoba was doing a good job of messing with the girl," Duncan replied slowly with a shudder. "I stopped him from actually... doing anything... you know?"
"What about you? Did you touch the boy?" Sam demanded with his voice still soft but the restrained fury becoming hard to ignore.
"I..."
"DID YOU TOUCH HIM?" Sam yelled, his hand slapping the table again even harder this time.
"Only a little bit," Duncan whimpered, "and he was unconscious at the time, so he didn't know..."
"Do you want us to dispose of this piece of human excrement for you?" Mayeda leaned close to Sam and whispered in his ear.
Sam was tempted to take the Yakuza boss up on the offer. Then again, disposal of Duncan really was something for the Centre to handle since it was the Centre that he'd struck at. If it were up to just him, he'd be tearing the man apart limb from limb for what he'd done - but Miss Parker deserved to get her own back from this man in whatever form SHE wanted to collect it. "Can you hang onto him until I get back with Miss Parker? If she doesn't want him, I have some ideas on how we can give him a taste of his own medicine."
"I have a nice storage bin all chosen for him then," Mayeda grinned at Duncan, and the man felt a shudder climb his spine.
Sam nodded, then rose and bowed deeply to Mayeda. "Thank you for all your help. I'll call you in the morning with Miss Parker's decision."
"Sayonara, Atlee-san. Until tomorrow, then." Mayeda gave a curt gesture, and Duncan found himself hauled to his feet and his hands once more bound tightly behind him. One of the Yakuza soldiers tore off a fresh piece of duct tape and slapped it over the prisoner's mouth just before the hood was once more replaced. Duncan didn't know whether to be alarmed or relieved that he was remaining with his Japanese captors - all he knew was that the Parker bitch would be the one making the final decision as to what happened to him, and that wasn't good.
~~~~~~~~
Catherine Ryder walked into the hospital room and began her hourly monitoring of vitals for the little kidnapped boy, as he was now called on the floor. From a chair at the foot of the bed, the watchful gaze of the FBI agent responsible for keeping an eye on the boy kept track of the nurse's movements as she checked the flow and level of the IV liquids being dripped into the boy's system.
She smoothed the dark hair back from the forehead, as much to feel the heat from his sunburn and see whether another application of the soothing salve was called for yet as to give what little comfort she could to the unconscious child. Her son wasn't all that much younger than this lad - it made her heart ache to think of the rumors that were circulating about him and why he'd landed here.
Davy felt the light caress against his inflamed skin and moaned. His face was on fire and he ached everywhere. At least it was cool, however, he decided - maybe it was still night? He worked at it and finally convinced his burned and sore eyelids to flutter open - and then his brow tried to fold in confusion. This wasn't the California countryside he'd been in when last he could remember anything... He looked around him in increasing confusion and concern - where was Deb?
"De..." he tried with a mouth that hadn't had much moisture in over two days. The woman standing next to him reached and patted a shoulder as if to comfort him.
"Your friend's in Intensive Care," she told him as if reading his mind. "You're in a hospital - and you're going to be fine." She twisted to the tray table behind her and poured him a tiny bit of water into a cup and took a straw out of a protective paper wrapping. "Here," she said as she slipped the straw between his cracked lips, "just a little bit, now..."
Davy obeyed, sucking weakly at the straw and finding that nothing in his short life had ever tasted or felt as wonderful as the spurt of water that filled his mouth. He held the liquid in his mouth for a long moment, feeling it refreshing the tissues of his mouth and tongue, and then swallowed slowly to feel it work its magic all the way down his throat. The water landed in a stomach that had been completely empty for over a day, and the sudden sensation was almost painfully pleasant.
He whimpered as the straw was withdrawn, and the nurse smiled gently at him as she replaced the cup and straw where it was within reach. "You will want to take it very slowly with the water," she told him, "because your system is still recovering from not having had any for so long. Trust me, you don't need to throw it up."
He shook his head - she was right. "Mommy..." he said next.
"I'll call and see that your people know that you're awake now, kid," the FBI agent said, rising and heading for the telephone on the little cabinet behind Davy's head. "I know there's some guy who flew in and was real glad to see you earlier today..."
Davy settled back on his pillows and closed his eyes against the feeling that he wanted to cry but had no tears to work with. The relief was crushing. They'd done it - they'd actually made it out alive. He could hardly believe it.
~~~~~~~~
Sam's cell phone chirped just as he was unlocking the front doors of the Centre office. "Atlee here," he answered as he pushed the doors open and then locked them behind himself again.
"Jack Crandall. Just got a call from Iverson, the agent who stayed behind with Davy Parker. He said the kid is awake." Crandall's voice sounded comforting. "I just thought you'd want to know right away."
Sam breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. "That's good news, Jack. Thanks." Then he thought and asked, "Any news on Duncan yet?"
"Nope," Crandall replied. "It's as if the guy just vanished into thin air. I've had my guys check out all his regular haunts, according to any information we have here, and not a hair."
"Well," Sam smiled grimly, knowing that for the time being, there WOULD be no sign of the other kidnapper. "Let me know if you hear anything."
"You got it," Crandall answered. "You heading out to Adelanto again?"
"Yeah, I think so," Sam nodded. "The kid could probably do with a friendly face right about now - and I'd like to check on the girl's condition too."
"Gotcha. Talk to you later, then."
Sam disconnected the call and then immediately punched in another number and put the device to his ear.
A continent away, Miss Parker pulled to the side of the road as her cell phone chirped its melody at her. "What?" she demanded tiredly. She was only two blocks from Sydney's and a chance to let down all her defenses again, and to get a call now was almost distressing.
"Sam here, Miss Parker."
She turned off the ignition. "Sam. You have news?"
"Good news all around. Cordoba's in LAPD custody and singing like a canary. Duncan, on the other hand..." He chuckled coldly. "Mayeda's got him, and depending on what YOU want done with him, we'll go from there."
Miss Parker leaned back against her headrest and felt the hot rush of anger and frustration simmering just below the surface. "I want him back here - where I can look him in the eye..."
"I kinda figured you might want something like that," Sam commented with a chuckle. "Our Yakuza friends are keeping him on ice for us for a while, until they hear from me in the morning."
"Have they hurt him yet?"
"Not really," he replied. "Scared him pretty good - had him sweating just before I got there with some of their knife games."
Miss Parker nodded. She could remember seeing some of that knife skill being practiced in Tokyo when she was younger. She had even met a challenge that Tommy Tanaka had issued for her to put her hand on the table and let the practice take place around HER fingers without flinching or needing to be held. She'd won a very nice dinner with that... She turned her mind back from the memories. "Good." She paused. "Any news from the hospital?"
"As a matter of fact, I'm on my way back there," Sam put as much hopefulness as he could in his voice. "Davy's awake."
"Oh, thank God!" she breathed. "What about Deb?"
He shook his head. "Nothing on that front yet. I'll check up on her, though. You want me to call again?"
"No. Give me a call in the morning, especially if things change at the hospital, though."
"Yes, ma'am. And get some rest tonight. They're safe and sound, and we've got at least one of the bad guys ourselves. I haven't shared him with the feds yet."
"Thanks, Sam," she sighed tiredly. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Miss Parker." The line between California and Delaware fell silent. Sam unlocked the door and let himself back out again. There was a map to the LA freeway system in the glove box of his rental - it couldn't be THAT hard to get back out to Adelanto...
~~~~~~~~
"Anybody home?" Ethan called from the front door of Jarod's home.
"We're back here," Jarod called back from in the direction of the bedrooms.
Ethan followed the sound of his older brother's voice to the open doorway of Ginger's new bedroom and then stood with an amazed look on his face. Ginger had bathed and was now wearing a clean set of warm, flannel pajamas, and she now stood between Jarod's legs while the Pretender was sitting on the edge of a bed very cautiously and carefully working a brush through wet and tangled, dark hair. "Congratulations, big brother," he nodded in impressed approval. "You've done better in the little time you've had her than the CPS folks managed to do in almost twenty-four hours. Seems your little angel here wouldn't let anybody touch her," he told the older man as he leaned against the doorjamb. "Anytime anyone would even come close, she'd scream and..."
"That's what I figured," Jarod commented in a very calm and gentle voice, drawing the brush very gently through the hair and smoothing after it with a caressing hand. "I doubt they would have left her in that condition for long otherwise. I almost bit the head off of the representative who walked me through the rest of the process when I saw the state she was in."
Ginger was standing very still for Jarod's ministrations, her arms tightly wrapped around a very new-looking teddy bear. Ethan quit his post at the door and came over the crouch in front of the little girl. "So, what do you think of your new home?"
Dark eyes that just a little over twenty-four hours earlier had been nearly dead gave a very tiny and shy twinkle of cautious happiness, and then the child buried her nose in the soft velour at the top of her toy's head again.
"What's your new friend's name?" Ethan asked again, encouraged that the girl was actually responding to what he said again. He put out a finger and flipped the teddy bear's ear.
Ginger twisted her head to look over her shoulder at her new guardian, and Jarod smiled down at her. "You haven't told me either," he informed her as if answering her and with a gentle hand turned her head away from him again. "I guess you'll find out when I do," he told his younger brother with an indulgent smile.
"I'm going to make a bet with you, big brother," Ethan rose to his full height and gazed down at the pair. "I'm going to bet that you aren't going to be able to get much accomplished this evening until this little wood sprite has crashed for the night."
"No takers," Jarod chuckled. "She's been sticking pretty close to me ever since we got here. Haven't you?" he aimed the question at the child in front of him, and Ethan chuckled again as she tucked her nose into her teddy's head again. Jarod gathered her hair together and began twisting it into a single braid down her back as if it were something he'd done nightly for years. "Wood sprite?" he asked his younger brother, then peeked around the corner of Ginger's shoulder. "Is that what you are - a fairy child?" His answer was a little more obvious twinkle of dark eyes over the top of a teddy's head.
"You got anything to eat around this place?" Ethan decided to go foraging while waiting for Jarod to finish, to give him just that much more private time with the little girl. It was amazing the change in her in the few hours his brother had had her already. Maybe Jarod had been right all along, and Ginger just needed a secure and loving home to give her the space to find herself again.
"We just had sandwiches," came the answer from the bedroom, "but I think there's enough left for you to make yourself something. Chips are on top of the refrigerator."
"Thanks." Ethan proceeded to make himself a double-decker sandwich and heap a plate with chips, then pour himself a tall glass of milk and carry his load back to the kitchen table. While he ate and waited for the other two to join him, he stared out at the dwindling play of colors in the sky over the ocean as the sunset faded to blackness.
"Here we are," Jarod announced finally, leading a cleaned and ready-for-bed Ginger into the kitchen. He poured her a shorter glass of milk and brought it over to her at the table. "I thought she might like to say goodnight before we see about settling down for our first night."
"I don't think we're going to get much SIMming done tonight, Jarod," Ethan said after watching the way Ginger hung on Jarod's every gesture.
"I heard from Missy," Jarod told him without taking his eyes from the little girl. "They found the kids - I don't need to SIM anymore."
"Thank God! They're alright?"
"In a hospital recovering from dehydration and exposure, mostly," Jarod replied. "So you're off the hook for having to SIM Sydney so I could do a full SIM to find them."
"That's good - because I don't know Sydney well enough to SIM him properly," Ethan answered with a wide grin. "And that explains some of the release of tension I got earlier today from Miss Parker. She's feeling better, even though things are very hard for her being so far away."
"I wouldn't be surprised if she flies out to be with Davy soon," Jarod told him frankly. "She said she wants to get the Centre to a point where she can “put it on pause.” At least, I think that's the way she put it." He glanced up at his younger brother. "I'm actually hoping that I can talk her into staying here for at least a day when she comes. She's... not doing well..."
"I know," Ethan sympathized with his older brother. "But be careful. I get rage from her sometimes as well - she's very tightly controlled right now. She doesn't need unexpected surprises." He nodded at the little girl who had, by now, finished her milk and was sitting cuddling her bear and just listening to the conversation flowing around her.
Jarod shot his younger brother a sharp and aware look and then followed his glance to Ginger. "Ah-hah!" he crowed, rising, and reached down to pick the girl up in his arms from her chair. "Say goodnight to Doctor Ethan, Sprite, and it's off to bed with you."
Ginger turned her expressive, dark eyes on the younger man. "Good night, Ginger," Ethan ran a hand over her head gently. "Shall I hang around?" he asked his brother.
"We could discuss those applications for my replacement instead of running SIMs - if you don't mind waiting?" was the reply. The telephone rang, and Jarod cast a pleading look at Ethan. "Will you get that and take a message for me, please?"
"Sure." Jarod carried off his new foster daughter, and Ethan turned back to pick up the handset before the third ring.
"Russell residence."
"Jarod?"
Ethan's smile grew wide. "No, Miss Parker. This is Ethan. Jarod's... busy at the moment. Can I take a message?"
She sounded incredibly exhausted - and now confused. "Busy?" She decided to ignore it. "Tell him Davy's awake - and that Sam called to say that we have both the bad guys, one way or the other. It's over."
"That's good news, Miss Parker. I'll be glad to pass it on." Her younger half-brother paused. "Are you OK? I've been so worried about some of the feelings I've been getting from you..."
"You and Jarod... I swear - I never had the two of you pegged as a couple of worry-warts," she chuckled tiredly. "I'm just about to drive up to Sydney's, and you can tell Jarod that I'll keep my promise and talk to him - that I haven't forgotten."
"OK. You take care..."
The call was disconnected from Delaware, and Ethan found himself very glad that she was almost home. There was an undercurrent of rage and pain that she was ignoring at the moment that was genuinely frightening. He found himself hoping that Sydney was as astute as Jarod kept claiming - the man was going to have a real job on his hands this evening.
~~~~~~~~
"Hi," Miss Parker called into the depths of the house.
"Parker-sama." Ikeda moved into sight in the pool of light that was the door to the kitchen. "We're back here." It appeared the only lights on in the house were the foyer light, the kitchen, and then the den.
She sighed as she dropped her purse and briefcase in the hall closet and walked tiredly toward the welcoming light. "It's awfully dark in here for only nine o'clock..."
"Kevin-san has retired already, and so it has just been myself and Green-san."
"Parker..." Sydney called from his lair.
Ikeda bowed to her as she began to move past. "I'll be in the front of the house, Parker-sama," he told her and then moved so that his employer and her foster father could have total privacy.
Miss Parker stepped into the den and gazed at Sydney. His face was obviously pale again in the light of the reading lamp next to him, and she suspected that he'd not taken his pain medication on time again. "Sydney, you promised you'd take your pills on time..."
"Sit down, Parker," he ignored her chiding and shifted on the couch to make room for her.
He wasn't that surprised when, the moment she had settled next to him, she leaned forward and put her head on his shoulder. As he wrapped his arms around her, he could feel the fatigue in the tension. "Talk to me, Parker."
"I got a call from Sam just before I got here. He said that Davy's awake again - and that we have both of the men responsible for taking them. It's over. And I talked to Broots - at least he knows what's going on now..."
"Parker..."
"According to Sam, evidently LAPD has the one who... assaulted...."
"Parker, stop..."
"...and Mayeda has the other one. Sam said they'd keep him on ice for us until..."
"For God's sake, Parker!" He pushed her shoulders until he had forced her to sit up again so that he could look into her face. "Listen to yourself. You sound like a robot, reciting math facts. TALK to me!"
Her face was bleak, and her eyes dry. "What do you want me to say, Syd? That I want - NEED - to fly to California to be with my son? That I'm sick to death with worry about Deb and what this is going to do to her? That I want to tear those men apart limb from limb and leave NOTHING behind for the court system to deal with?" Her eyes began to snap as, at long last, the anger she'd been stomping down could no longer be held back.
"Do you know how hard it is for me to sit in my office and do interviews with supervisors to make sure the financial underpinnings of the Centre remain stable and viable while my son lies in a hospital bed..." Her voice broke, and she needed to breathe deeply a few times to regain her control. "Do you know how hard it is to know that I'm the one responsible for all this - your knee, Davy and Deb..."
"NO!" Sydney burst forth loudly and vehemently enough to break through her ranting. "You are NOT responsible for this."
"Yes I am, Syd! I chose to accept this damned job. I chose to try to turn the Centre around - turn it legit..."
"Parker, yes. You made those choices - they were yours to make. But you did not choose to sic kidnappers after your family - those were the choices of another." Sydney cupped his hand around her cheek. "You did NOT do those things."
"But if I'd just said “no” to Ngawe, none of this would have happened..."
He gazed at her in indulgent fondness. "You know you couldn't have done that," he chided gently. "Once I got over my being upset at your decision, even I could see that you couldn't walk away. The Centre is in your blood - just as it is in Jarod's."
She glared at him in amazed frustration. "But here I am, doing to my son exactly what was done to me when I was a child - I'm putting the Centre's interests ahead of my own family..."
"You are NOT - stop whipping yourself like that!" He glared back at her unflinchingly. "You forget that I was THERE when Centre interests came ahead of you and your well-being, Parker. I SAW Mr. Parker not only thrust you aside, but also put you out of his mind entirely. You forget that I was there and ended up picking up the pieces for you for a while - before you were sent away to school." He relaxed back into his pillows with a challenging look in his eyes. "Convince me then that you've put Davy and Deb out of your mind utterly over these last few days while at work - that you haven't thought of them even once..."
"I used Lyle..."
"I know - you told me about your Pretending." He gazed at her calmly. "But a mask only hides what's behind it, Parker. If you were truly doing to Davy what Mr. Parker did to you, you wouldn't have needed the mask in the first place."
The glare in stormy grey eyes abated. "Sydney..."
"Don't you see?" The hand cupped her cheek again. "That's where all of this is coming from - the fact that you HAVEN'T been able to completely shove your son out of your mind and forget him completely so you could do your work. Look at you - you're so itchy to throw over the Centre's interests and run to be with Davy that you can't even think straight."
"Right now I'm so mad at myself for being determined to take this place legit - and the only thing worse is that now all I want to do is resurrect the “old Centre” long enough to take care of Flores and his cronies..."
"Parker, you're a much better mother than Mr. Parker ever was a father to you. I am so proud of you, and your mother would be too." He reached out both hands to her shoulders and pulled her down into his embrace. "It's OK to be angry at those who hurt you and those you love - it's really not a crime to wish you could take revenge personally. God knows that if I were feeling better, we'd be in a race to see who could tear them apart first. You're human, sweetheart, just like I am. So give yourself room to have the emotions of a healthy human. Don't tear yourself apart with guilt you don't deserve."
She trembled as she lay against him. "Right now I hate this job, and I hate the way I feel. I..." She knew she'd promised she'd talk to Sydney about her sleep difficulty. "I can't even feel safe at home anymore. I keep thinking that if I'd stayed awake that night, they wouldn't have been able to take Davy in the first place. Look at how you and Kevin fought off three men..."
"Sweetheart, the only reason we were able to fight them," Sydney tightened his arms around her, "was because Kevin's attack was a complete surprise - they didn't even know he was here. And even then, if you think about it, it didn't help Deb at all. Face it, even awake, you would have been alone against three, Parker. I don't think the results would have changed - except that you would very likely have been seriously hurt."
"Sydney, I'm afraid to go to sleep, in case..."
"Mmm-hmm," she felt him nod above her. "I was thinking there was more to this than just guilt. No wonder everything seems so acute, so distressful. You're exhausted, and not thinking clearly." His hand found the back of her head. "For what it's worth, you're not the only one feeling less than secure. Kevin is showing signs of stress, and even I don't like the way the medicine clouds my mind because I wouldn't be able to defend myself. We were ALL assaulted in a fashion that night - Davy and Deb just caught the worst of it. It's going to take time for all of us to feel really comfortable and secure again. Until then, none of us are going to sleep all that well..."
"That isn't going to help me sleep, Syd..." she said quietly, grateful for his arms around her. Other than Jarod, he was the only one with the power to make her feel safe and protected just by putting his arms around her.
"Yes, it will - eventually," he told her. "You said it yourself, Parker - it's over. You have Flores, and Berringer, and Duncan, and the other guy. Davy and Deb are being taken care of in a hospital, where they'll get the kind of care they need right now. You know that they'll be on their way home soon. And slowly life will come back to the way it was before - as much as it can, that is. Tonight, at least, you can rest better knowing that nobody is still in danger - not Davy or Deb, and not us."
"Easier said than done..." she commented wryly.
"Go bring me my physician's bag then," he pushed at her shoulders to rouse her into sitting up again. "I can give you something that will help you relax - your body should be able to take it from there."
"Syd, I don't want a sleeping pill..."
"Hush!" he shook his head at her. "You heard Doctor Hightower lecturing me on taking my pain medication - that I don't need to suffer needlessly. Well, the same holds for you. If you need a good night's sleep, then let me help you get one. You don't need to suffer needlessly either." He smiled at her. "We just won't make a habit of it, agreed?"
"You'll take your pain pill then too?" she asked him with an eyebrow cocked.
"Yes, I'll take mine then too," he answered without hesitation. He didn't mention that it would be a relief to take the medication - that these late-night therapy sessions were agony because of the clear mind needed to manage them properly. She was already feeling guilty enough about things that weren't her fault. "Go on. It's in my bedroom, on the floor of the closet on the right-hand side."
As she rose slowly to follow his instructions, he wondered how much more effort it would take to talk her into dropping the Centre business into Tyler's lap for a few days and flying out to California. Maybe he'd tackle that one in the morning, before he was strapped into that contraption again...
~~~~~~~~
Sam walked through the halls of the hospital toward the room to which the volunteer in the lobby told him Davy had been moved. He stepped into the room and nodded at the FBI agent seated against the wall - and the man silently rose from his chair and nodded to let him know that he'd be just outside. The two men quietly exchanged places - Sam gazing up the length of the hospital bed at Davy.
The boy was again asleep, but the redness of his sunburned face wasn't quite as angry and painful as Sam remembered. His lips were still broken from where they had cracked with dryness, but there was a cup with a straw in it on the tray table near the bed that looked as if it had been used.
A nurse bustled into the room, glancing with surprise at the apparent changing of the guard at the foot of her patient's bed. Without a word to Sam, she moved to check on the IV that continued to drip steadily into Davy's system, then took his wrist in her fingers to take his pulse. Her touch roused the boy, who whimpered at the handling of skin that was also red and painful-looking. His eyes eventually flickered open, aimed at the nurse.
"Do you want some more water?" she asked him gently. When Davy nodded, she reached for the cup.
"I'll give him the water," Sam interrupted her.
"Sam!" Davy gave a happy but hoarse whisper of joy.
"Just a sip or two - he has to take it slowly still," she instructed the big man who towered over her. She handed him the cup and backed away to let him step up to the head of the bed.
"You heard the lady, Squirt," Sam told the boy with a twisted grin of pure relief on his face. "Just a sip now..."
Davy sipped obediently on the straw until he had his sip, then held it again in his mouth for a long moment before letting it slip deliciously down his throat. Then, as Sam set the cup back on the tray, the boy held out his arms to his friend.
Sam settled on the edge of the bed and gently took the boy in his arms and held him very carefully, very aware of not wanting to hurt him at all. Davy sighed and settled against the big ex-sweeper. "I thought nobody knew..." he managed finally.
"We know, Davy, we know," Sam murmured to him gently and felt him relax as if a burden had fallen away. "I talked to your mom just a little while ago - she knows you're awake again. I talked to your dad too." He stroked the boy's back very gingerly. "They're worried about you and send their love. You'll see them soon."
"I want to go home..." Davy whispered, his voice still not completely recovered.
"I know you do. But right now you need to get better." Sam released his hold on the boy and laid him back into his pillows.
The small hand came up and landed on the husky forearm. "You're not going away, are you?" Davy croaked.
"Not for a while," Sam promised.
"Deb?"
Sam shook his head. "I haven't had a chance to check on her yet. Do you want me to?" Davy nodded. "OK - I'm going to call the FBI agent back in to keep an eye on you while I go see how she's doing, and then I'll be back. OK?" Davy nodded again, his eyelids already drooping a bit again. "You snooze for a bit - I'll probably be back when you wake up next time."
"OK." Davy let his eyes fall closed again. He was safe - Sam was here.
Sam brushed his hand carefully through the dark hair and then rose to his feet. He nodded at Iverson to resume his post and headed back up the hallway to the nurse's station. "Is there any news on Deb Broots' condition?"
The nurse ran her fingers through the charts on her desk then looked up at him. "I don't have a Deb Broots on the medical floor, sir."
"I think she was being taken to ICU..." Sam remembered.
"I doubt you'll be allowed in," the nurse warned him, "but you can go down that hall, hang a left to the double doors and talk to the duty nurse just beyond."
"Thank you." Sam turned on his heel and headed down the hall. He turned left and walked until he'd gone through the swinging double doors and found himself at a nurse's station in front of a glassed-in ward of several beds beyond. "I'm here to see about the condition of Deb Broots - I think she was brought here this morning..."
The nurse only had to glance over at a particular pile of forms and documents. "She's in serious but stable condition. She had some trouble with her blood pressure earlier, but she's starting to rally finally."
"Can I see her?"
The nurse shook her head. "Visiting hours at the ICU are 10 AM to 4 PM. You'll have to wait until tomorrow morning. But you can see her from here..." She swiveled her chair around and pointed to one of the curtain-defined spaces.
Sam stepped closer to the glass. Deb was so quiet with all those tubes running into her arm and nose - and her sunburn still a very angry red. Like Davy, her lips were broken and scabbed from having dried out and burned in the hot sun. He nodded at the FBI agent who, like Iverson, had taken up a post out of the way but close enough to be but a pace or two away.
The nurse touched his arm. "Are you family?"
Sam shook his head. "Just a very close family friend. Her father's in a hospital in Delaware - she doesn't have any close family other than him..."
"Give me your name, then," the nurse reached for a pen and one of the documents in what must be Deb's stack, "and I'll get your name on the approved visitor's list for her."
Sam gave her his name absently, staring at the still form on the bed and feeling his heart twist into a tight knot. Deb almost died, he told himself, because I didn't do my job well enough to protect her. They both almost died - and it was my fault.
With that, he nodded his farewell at the nurse and opened the door to head back down the hall to Davy's room again. By God, he'd see to personally it that Davy was protected properly until the boy could be returned to his mother's care. Agent Iverson could take the rest of the night off, for all he cared. The Devil himself wouldn't be able to pry him out of Davy's room until morning.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod waited until he heard Ethan's car pull out of his driveway before he extinguished the outside light and sighed. Only one of the three applications that had come in the morning's mail had been worth processing - the others had come from recent graduates from medical school looking for an internship. Ethan would need a full partner - a fully qualified psychiatrist capable of carrying a full load of his own. Between the two of them, they had decided to give their ad two weeks to see what kind of responses they got, then call the survivors of the initial sorting process in for preliminary interviews.
This had been a discussion that had been needed for days - and one that had ultimately had its share of interruptions from first an over-excited and then a more terrified little girl unused to sleeping by herself in a strange place, even if it did have a night light. The last time she'd come padding out of her bedroom on bare feet, her new teddy bear clutched to her in a stranglehold and eyes wide with terror. Jarod had simply opened his arms to her and let her climb up into his lap to nestle down against him while he rubbed her back and continued his discussion with his brother. Ginger had fallen deeply asleep almost immediately.
Ethan had helped him tuck her back into her bed once more just before he'd left - then given Jarod a pat on the back and a "Have fun, Daddy," on his way out the front door. Jarod went through the house turning off lights and locking up, getting ready to retire. It had been a big day for him too; he'd had his share of excitement, bringing his little girl home with him at last. And tomorrow's schedule was entirely up in the air - so much depended upon reports from Sam and Missy about Davy that he couldn't predict whether he would be actually seeing patients or...
What was he going to do if he needed to drop everything and fly down to the hospital to be with Davy? Where would he go with Ginger? She knew nobody in the family - she had just arrived - he couldn't just hand her off to Em or to his mother. And he couldn't take her with him...
He dismissed those troubling thoughts in order to debate how many lights to leave burning in the house through the night. If Ginger awoke again, frightened and confused, how would he lead her to his room to find him? The last thing he needed was to wake up to a child traumatized at HIS hands this time...
Eventually he decided to use a night light in his room and leave his door open so that if a lost child decided to go looking, she'd have an indication where to look. Just to make sure things were still settled he tiptoed to the door and peeked in at Ginger - only to find her still dead to the world and snuggling her teddy tightly. He smiled, thinking how such a simple toy could provide a sense of security for such a tiny child. He closed her door again and plodded into his own room, stripped to his boxers and slipped into a pair of pajama pants and finally slid between the sheets with a sigh. He WAS tired...
His eyes seemed to droop of their own volition and finally fell closed, and he dreamed of a family picnic with himself, Missy, Davy and Ginger, everyone smiling and laughing.
