Out in the Cold

by MMB

Chapter One – Variations on a Theme

It was a small, out of the way café not far from the university campus – and it was one of Lyle's favorite hang-outs. From here, he'd been able to find two young Asian lovelies to grace his dinner over the years he'd been trapped at the Centre – and it was here, amid the ebb and flow of articulate, intelligent humanity, he'd been able to come up with some of his best plotting. It was natural, then, for him to choose to come here when he wanted to think through what would inevitably be his most audacious and hopefully successful plan to date.

For three years now he'd languished under William Raines' Chairmanship of the Centre – three long years when he'd been fundamentally in a life-or-death struggle with his twin sister to see who could be the first to bring the Centre's most prized possession back into the fold. But Jarod, genius that he was, hadn't cooperated with either of them. No, the damned Pretender had gone to ground and cut all ties with the Centre. No amount of badgering or threats had been able to uncover either his whereabouts or that of any member of his family. The last any of them had seen or heard of him was on that airliner returning from Scotland, when he'd saved them all from death and then so rudely and deftly escaped. There had been one phone call to Miss Parker a few days later, and one short one to Sydney just a few minutes thereafter – and then nothing.

But did that mean that Raines would eventually get the hint that the Pretender had finally decided to vanish after years of being the one to provide the clues that the Centre had been following? No… it HAD meant, however, that the threats to all of them – and HIM in particular – had simply gotten more frequent and more lethal. Both his team and his sister's had been subjected to a minimum of two grueling and demoralizing t-board examinations a year as the result of their continued collective failures to produce results of any kind. The last of those inquisitions had been a few months earlier – and Lyle was certain that there was another in the offing within the next few weeks if something wasn't done to change the rules of the game. That was a situation that he just didn't want to face again.

Casually he smiled up at the pretty girl that brought him his customary coffee. "You're new here, aren't you?" he asked in an interested tone.

"I've been here almost a week," the young blonde grinned back at him, please to have been noticed by such a debonair and sophisticated man.

"How do you like it here?"

She looked around in that proprietary way that an employee would when they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. "It's a great place to work. The customers are the best, and the tips are pretty good too, for being this close to the U." Then her eyes focussed on him, and he could tell that she liked what she saw. "Are you here often?"

Ah, to be twenty-something and that naïve, he thought to himself. "Often enough, although not as often as I'd like sometimes," he told her somewhat cryptically. "I'm sure that if you continue to work here, I'll be seeing you off and on…" His eyes sought out the embossed name on the tag. "…Erin."

She flashed him a delighted smile that told him his use of her name had been taken as a compliment. "Is there anything else I can get for you, Mr…."

"Lyle," he finished for her, feeling oddly companionable. "No, not at the moment."

"Enjoy your coffee, then," she said with a nod and walked off to the next table.

Lyle let his attention remain caught by her – by her smile and easy-going friendliness – and then he shook his head. What a commentary on his life it was that he found the openness and charm of a university student – for that was what she HAD to be – so alluring. After all, his tastes generally ran to the exotic – Oriental women with delightfully subtle accents that came from overseas and few family members here in the States to miss them when he decided to go on one of his hunts. Then he chuckled at the thought of the look on Sydney's face should the old psychiatrist ever get a hint of his thoughts at the moment.

Then his face folded into serious contemplation again. Back to the problem at hand, which was plain – Raines HAD to go, and Miss Parker would have to go at roughly the same time. What made the problem a stickier one was that each of those people had those around them that would make any serious attempt to do away with their nominal superior difficult – or who would make an inordinate fuss should something happen to their superior. Willy, Sam, Broots and Sydney would therefore also need to be dealt with along with their superiors.

Lyle sipped at his coffee thoughtfully. It wasn't an impossible task he was contemplating here – but damned close to it. After all, Raines' sweeper could be easily trapped with his boss – a car bombing would most likely take care of the both of them quite effectively. In his pocket was the name and telephone number of just the man to take care of that side of his problem.

The Triumvirate, he knew, would heave a huge sigh of relief when Raines was no longer in the Chairman's office. Raines had an almost psychotic predilection for ungainly and virtually impossibly complex attempts to restart the Pretender project without the key player in that project – Jarod. A new cloning project had just recently ground to a halt when the senior biologist had pointed out that the tissue that was being used as source of the DNA was too old and in poor condition to hold much hope for success. He'd been to the lab himself – he'd seen some of the unsuccessful results of Raines' insistence on proceeding. Between the smell of formaldehyde and the grotesque samples of something definitely not human floating in the various glass containers, he'd had nightmare fodder for the better part of a week. Then there had been another abortive attempt to steal another child and start the project the 'old-fashioned' way – an attempt foiled by a very alert and watchful teacher and one parent being in law enforcement. As the operative in charge of that attempted theft, Lyle himself had only barely escaped detection and arrest.

But he'd been close enough to the Triumvirate for long enough to know that there was little chance that any real authority at the Centre would be handed over to him and him alone – especially considering his own extended lack of performance when it came to snaring Jarod. No, simply removing Raines wouldn't be enough – because the Triumvirate would demand a joint Chairmanship with him AND his twin sister. They had already spoken to him once about the eventuality of Raines' demise and what they wanted to see in place at the Centre in the hours following that event. A return to profitability was uppermost on their wish list – combined with an almost fanatical insistence that the Centre remain at least nominally in the hands of a member of the family which founded it.

And therein lay his problem: getting rid of Parker and her entire entourage wouldn't be quite so simple as a car bomb. For one thing, she was deeply suspicious of him – anything approaching car bomb simplicity would have to be simultaneous with the car bomb that would take out Raines and Willy. For another, Sam was suspicious of everyone – him and Raines in particular – and was well-known for giving any vehicle that his boss was going to ride in a very thorough security check before letting her anywhere near it – up to and including Miss Parker's own Boxster every night before leaving work. For yet another, there was the fact that it was extremely rare that the whole team was together on an excursion anymore. Half the time, Broots was left behind in the Centre to watch computer data traffic in regards to whatever scenario of which they suspected Jarod to be a part. Another significant percentage of the time, Sydney remained behind in the Sim Lab, finishing research and waiting for the contents of Jarod's lair to arrive – or Sam was left behind in the case of their knowing ahead of time that they were coming in too late to catch the Pretender.

"Are you kidding? Don't you know how cold it is out there right now?" Lyle turned his head when the slightly sharper voice of an older woman caught his attention away from his musings. The woman, her hair an even mixture of salt and pepper, was staring in exasperation at the man who was facing her. "I have no intention of getting out there and ending up snowed in for the rest of the winter – or getting caught in a storm on the way and being found during the Spring thaw…"

Lyle began to smile. Maybe getting to Miss Parker and her entourage wouldn't be quite as difficult as he'd thought.

"Can I get you anything else, Mr. Lyle?"

He blinked and turned to face Erin, who'd approached him from the other side of the cafe. For some reason, he found her smiling face pleasing and her determination to keep a good mood going comforting. "Actually," he smiled, feeling expansive enough for having finally thought his way through his conundrum that he didn't want to loose that refreshingly optimistic ambiance so soon, "I was wondering when you got off work."

"Why?" She set the coffee pot down on Lyle's table and tipped her head to the side.

"Because I'm here in town alone today, my business is finished, and I thought I might enjoy the company of a pretty lady to dinner later. Since you're one of the only people I know here…"

Erin's eyes grew a little wary. "Well, I don't know… I don't think my bosses here will appreciate my hitting on the customers…"

"Ah," Lyle lifted a forefinger to emphasize his point, "but I'm the one hitting on you – not the other way around." He gazed at her evenly. "Now if you have a boyfriend who isn't particularly fond of sharing…"

"No," she shook her head almost before she had a chance to think it through. "It isn't that…"

"I can make it easy for you," Lyle told her gently. "You choose the restaurant, and we can meet there at a time convenient for you."

Green eyes fluttered self-consciously. "It's just that I'm sure a good-looking guy like you can get a date with a far more sophisticated woman…"

"You're right," he replied without any guile, "but at the moment, I'm finding you a refreshing change. Sophistication isn't always everything it's cracked up to be – believe me! So what do you say?"

The young woman was obviously thinking about the offer, and cast a couple of glances in the direction of the cash register and the slightly pudgy man who was manning it. "OK," she allowed finally. "I don't suppose one dinner will do any harm. Do you know where Gianinni's is, on Elm?"

"I'm sure I can find it," Lyle breathed a sigh of relief. "What time?"

"I can meet you there at seven this evening," she told him.

"Seven at Gianinni's, then," Lyle smiled up at her. He reached into his pocket for a twenty when Erin deposited the receipt for his coffee in front of him. "Here – and keep the change." He drained the rest of the coffee and rose – finding that he was considerably taller than she was. "I'll be looking forward to our dinner."

"Me too," she told him with a smile. "See you then."

Lyle even tossed the man behind the cash register a warm smile on his way out the door. Once more, this café had worked its magic for him; he'd figured out his problems – at least more or less – and life would soon be going much more his way. Why not have an old-fashioned date with a woman almost young enough to be his daughter? It had been a long time since he'd been with someone simply because he wanted to enjoy the company of another human being without some Centre agenda being part of the experience, that was. Tonight he would just be a businessman, enjoying the company of a pretty young coed without any echoes of his past, his present, or his unusual hobbies or culinary tastes seasoning the conversation.

He waited until he was out of the café entirely before pulling his cell phone from his jacket pocket, along with the slip of paper that had the name and phone number he needed to call and began dialing. "This is Lyle," he intoned after the voicemail message had finished and the beep had sounded in his ear. "Call me ASAP – I have a job for you. There's twenty K as ready deposit, and twenty K when the job's successfully concluded. You know the number. Don't wait too long."

He disconnected, thrust the phone back into his pocket and walked away down the sidewalk, whistling merrily.

oOoOo

"Just checking in before I'm taking off for the evening," Miss Parker announced breezily as she stuck her head through the door into Broots' space. "Anything on our lost Pretender?"

Broots looked up at her with an expression that clearly stated, "Are you kidding?" but schooled his voice to the proper level of subservient decorum. "Nothing, Miss Parker. But," he allowed the wisps of a smile to lift the edges of his mouth, "I've been working on a new algorithm for my search program that should mean a thirty-five percent increase in the efficiency of the search…"

"Good going," the tall brunette let the more candid expression go without comment, but frowned as the technician turned back to his frantic typing. "But didn't you tell me this morning that you have something going with Debbie tonight?"

"Oh, yeah!" Broots gave a sudden and vicious poke at his keyboard to exit all of his programs at once and then rose from his seat so fast his chair slid halfway to the partition behind him. "She has the lead in the school play this time around – and tonight's opening night. I promised her I'd be there with bells on – and maybe a flower or two. I'm taking her out to dinner first, though – to celebrate her first opener as the 'star' of the show." He glanced down at his watch. "I REALLY need to get going, or she's going to kill me!"

Miss Parker's face softened. There were two people in the world that could bring out the latent gentility she'd inherited from her mother – and Debbie Broots was one of them. "What time does the performance start?" she asked, tipping her wrist to look at her watch.

"Seven-thirty," Broots replied, his eyes widening. "Why? You going to come?"

"I might," she grinned mischievously at him, "but I don't want you to tell Debbie, OK? Let it be a surprise."

Broots' face slowly cracked into a huge grin. "That's one secret I don't mind keeping," he chirped happily. "I'll see you later then, Miss Parker?"

"Get going," Miss Parker ordered with a voice reminiscent of her old Ice Queen days. "You don't want to keep your daughter waiting."

"No, ma'am!" The computer tech gave her a jaunty wave and then strode briskly down the row of cubby openings toward the door of the Computer Technologies Center.

Miss Parker snickered and then followed him, only she turned left and walked down the corridor toward the Sim Lab rather than right toward the elevator. She had an idea, and she would need the assistance of the third member of her team to carry it off. "Sydney!" she called the moment she was through the automatic sliding glass doors.

"Down here," came the accented reply, and she walked across the platform and down the metal stairs to where she could see the silver-haired Belgian psychiatrist patiently coiling up the wires with which he had attached electrodes to one of his latest research subjects. "What can I do for you at this late hour on a Friday?"

"You can tell me if you have any plans for the evening," she answered, walking across the room with deliberate grace.

The silvered brows climbed his forehead and his hands slowed at their task. "What did you have in mind?"

"Debbie Broots is female lead in the high school play that opens tonight. I was thinking of attending and showing some support." The grey eyes were twinkling. "And frankly, I'd just as soon not go by myself…"

"Uh-huh." Sydney turned to finish his task with a sedate smile. "What time does this performance begin?"

"Seven-thirty."

The psychiatrist straightened again and glanced up at the wall clock. "That leaves just enough time to go home, change, grab a sandwich…"

"Hell, Syd," Miss Parker put a hand on a hip, "I was thinking that if I buy the tickets – and maybe spring for a nightcap afterwards, I could talk you into taking me to a half-ways decent restaurant…"

That brought Sydney around to face her with a look of surprise on his face. "Why, Miss Parker! Don't tell me…"

"Oh, stuff it, Freud," she cut him off before he could start pontificating when time was short. "I promise, you can psychoanalyze my motives and actions to your heart's content over the nightcap – but for now…" She cast a hard eye at the coils of wire in his hand, "put it in gear, will you? I'd like to get to the high school auditorium in time to get good seats, wouldn't you?"

Sydney tossed the wires on the table and motioned brusquely to a hovering lab assistant to finish the job as he marched to the coat tree to collect his jacket and beret. "Have I told you lately that you are a very impatient person, Miss Parker – and that such impatience can have a seriously debilitating effect on ulcers?"

Miss Parker tucked her hand into his elbow and smiled with a sweet and toothy grin. "You're such a flatterer, Sydney. I just don't know what to say to such riveting commentary. I can tell our dinner conversation tonight is going to be captivating."

Sydney used his free hand to perch his beret on his head. "You're in a particularly interesting mood tonight, Parker."

She shrugged. "I just have a hunch that things are going to be changing soon."

He glanced at her sharply. "For the better, I hope…"

"I'm not sure," she admitted, and then used her free hand to encircle Sydney's arm possessively. "But I'm not going to worry about it tonight. Just for a little while, let's pretend that the Centre didn't exist – that you and I are simply old friends having dinner and seeing a play together. OK?"

Miss Parker's hunches were nothing to ignore, Sydney knew this far too well; but he decided to humor her. He would tend to be a little more mindful and aware of what was going on around him otherwise from now on – but for the evening, he'd let her good mood be contagious. "That doesn't seem too difficult a task," he responded. "How does a trip to Gina's sound."

Miss Parker smiled. It was a favorite of hers, and Sydney damned well knew it. "I thought you'd never ask," she smiled at him, more honestly this time.

oOoOo

"So what is your major?"

Erin looked at her companion over her bite of salad. "What makes you think I'm a student?" she answered.

Lyle shrugged. "Your age, the general proximity of your work place from the university…"

She laughed softly, a musical sound to Lyle's jaded ears. "OK! OK! I'm an English major," she admitted and put her bite of salad in her mouth. "You found me out." She waved her empty fork at him. "What about you? You're no student…"

"No, I'm not," he replied as he reached for the goblet of ice water. "I work for a research firm in Delaware that has close ties to some of the science departments here at the university."

"In administration?" Erin surmised astutely.

Lyle smiled in appreciation of intelligence at work. "You could say that," he replied after putting his goblet back down. "I am a direct assistant to the Chairman there, and I have my own team responsible for important tasks."

"Sounds positively ponderous," Erin remarked with twinkling eyes. "What do you do for fun?"

"You don't think being responsible for administering research that will benefit humanity isn't fun?" he teased back.

"I think it could get overwhelming after a while," she answered after a decent moment to think things through. "I'd imagine that one would have to exercise a fair amount of creativity to make up for the pressures of responsibility."

"True, very true." Again Lyle was struck by her simple, straight-forward honesty and acuity. How very close she was coming to the truth without very many clues given at all! Suddenly the challenge of giving her, in cryptic form, everything she'd need to know about what he was about without really tipping his hand as to what he actually did became clear – and he knew the game was afoot. "Very well. I like the outdoors – hiking, and backpacking – and I also am a reasonably competent Chinese cook."

"Maybe I should have chosen the Sichuan Palace for our meeting spot tonight," Erin said in a sudden rush of insecurity. "Are you sure Italian…"

Lyle reached out spontaneously and patted her hand as it lay on the table next to her plate. "For the most part, the only Chinese food I really enjoy is my own. When it comes to eating out, Italian is my favorite."

His companion visibly relaxed and smiled her relief. "Good."

"So," he continued, busying himself with his own salad, "tell me more about yourself. Are you from Baltimore, or did you just move here to go to school?"

Erin studied her dinner companion as she contemplated her reply. He had been kind, considerate and quite knowledgeable in the short time she'd been with him, and had a winsome sweetness that didn't reflect the callowness of youth. His face had its share of incipient laugh lines and a pair of worry lines between his brows that spoke of his being considerably older than her – and yet, he smiled with the ease of someone comfortable with who and what he was. Lyle intrigued her – and the expression in his eyes bespoke of a genuine curiosity.

"I moved here," she told him finally. "My folks and my little brother live in upstate New York."

"How come you didn't go to school closer to home then?"

"I wanted to be independent," she replied saucily. "Dad's on the town council and Mom's a cop – so it's really hard to do much of anything at home without someone ratting me out. New York City isn't far enough away for them – they'd be down every weekend, checking out my friends, telling me what I should and shouldn't do, who I should and shouldn't see…"

Lyle nodded. "So you came here because it's far enough away that a trip would take a little more planning and happen less often," he concluded.

"Something like that," she chuckled. "You sound like you had parents like mine."

"Not exactly," Lyle worked hard not to flinch when the comment unexpectedly brought the memory of the Bowman's faces to his mind. "I grew up with foster parents – and my dad was really strict and hard on me. My mom was…" How DID one describe her? "…life with my dad was hard on her. I left as soon as I could, and I haven't looked back."

"You went to school where?" Erin asked, her curiosity fully piqued.

"I did some of it in South Africa and some of it in Asia," Lyle told her, not quite ready to admit that his 'schooling' was more in martial arts, assassination and the arts of the hunt. "Then I spent time in Hong Kong before coming back to Virginia and getting a degree in business administration."

"Wow." Erin was duly impressed. "You've been all over the world!"

He shrugged dismissively. "I've done my share of traveling," he admitted casually, and then added, "No doubt your chance will come, one of these days."

"I don't know about that," Erin shook her head and then relaxed back in her chair as the waiter delivered her plate of linguini. She waited until it was just the two of them again. "We English majors tend to end up nicely housed in ivory towers – or else holed up in some garret somewhere writing our little hearts out."

Lyle looked across the table at the young woman who had so captured his fancy. "Is that what you want to do with your life," he asked in amazement, "end up either teaching kids who barely can write their own names, or starve honorably while writing the Great American Novel?"

"I don't think teaching kids would be such a bad thing," she countered, a fork entwined with linguini hanging in front of her. "I like kids – especially high school aged ones."

"Not surprising," he remarked before he could stop himself, "you're not that long out of high school yourself."

Erin grew just a little indignant. "I'm 23," she announced proudly. "I'm a long way from high school."

"Sorry," Lyle backpedaled quickly. "I didn't mean that to come out the way it sounded."

Erin glowered at him, but couldn't miss the look of genuine contrition. "I suppose I should feel flattered," she stated, as much to herself as to her companion.

"Mark it up to my advanced old age, please?" Lyle put on his warmest smile.

She tried, but she really couldn't stay put out with him. After all, she had a feeling that he really didn't get out with many people younger than himself very often. He had that lonely 'little boy lost' air about him tonight. "You're forgiven," she smiled at him then, and rejoiced in the look of relief on his face.

"Good," he speared another bite of his lasagna, "I didn't want the entire evening spoiled because I can't keep my mouth shut when my brain's in neutral."

"Something tells me that that's something that doesn't happen very often with you," Erin commented, her intuition speaking to her loudly.

"In my business, I sincerely hope not," he replied. "So tell me, what do YOU do for fun?"

oOoOo

"Thank you, Daddy," Debbie beamed as she carried the red rose bud that had been handed her right after the performance over to where her father was waiting for her next to… "Miss Parker! Sydney!" If Debbie's evening had been complete before, it was perfect now. "You came too?"

"When your dad reminded me of why he had to leave work, how could I resist?" Miss Parker smiled at the girl. She gave the girl a tight hug and then stood back so that Sydney could hand her the rose bud that he'd insisted on picking up before the performance.

"You were magnificent, cheri," the psychiatrist purred at her as he bent forward and deposited a fond peck to the young woman's cheek.

"You didn't tell me they were coming," Debbie accused her father with a wide grin.

"Miss Parker was only thinking about it when I left," Broots reasoned in his own defense, "and I didn't know anything about Sydney's showing up." The look in the technician's face as he gazed at his psychiatrist friend was filled with gratitude.

"Miss Parker invited me to come with her," Sydney filled in the gaps with a patient grin, "and I'm glad she did."

Debbie smiled back at him, warmed and thrilled by the support of her father's closest friend and a woman she considered a surrogate mother. "Dad, there's a cast party over at Moe's in about a half hour – can I go?"

Broots' brows furled. "How late will it go, and how will you get home?" were his first thoughts.

"I don't know," Debbie shrugged in youthful nonchalance, "maybe eleven, maybe midnight. I can catch a ride home with Cheryl and Grace, though…"

Broots put on a show of thinking about the event, although Miss Parker and Sydney could see the glint of the twinkle in his eye. Debbie shifted from foot to foot nervously. "I guess there's no reason to say no," he announced finally. "Tomorrow's not a school night – and I have your promise you'll call if the ride with Cheryl and Grace falls through?"

"I promise!" She went up on tiptoe to kiss her father's cheek. "Thanks, Dad! I'll see you later – and thanks for coming, Miss Parker, Sydney!"

Sydney chuckled at the sight of a very excited high school freshman heading back into the cloud of recently un-costumed teenagers. "You have a very talented daughter, my friend."

Broots glowed under the gaze of his boss and colleague. "She is, isn't she?" he gushed. "She really has blossomed with this theatre class she's been taking – she's so much more out-going and active lately." He ran his hand over his bald pate. "In some ways, it's almost comforting – but in others, it means I have just that much more to worry about. I mean, high school always seemed so far away – and now…"

"You're doing fine," Sydney assured him.

"Well," Miss Parker slipped her hand once more into the bend of Sydney's arm, "I believe I owe you a nightcap."

"That was the agreement," the Belgian nodded serenely.

She looked up at her technician colleague. "Would you like to join us for a drink at the Velvet Glove before heading home?"

Broots blinked at the invitation but then shook his head. "Nah. I want to be home when and if Debbie has to call. I appreciate the offer, though…"

"Maybe next time," Miss Parker nodded.

Sydney raised his hand in a farewell. "We'll see you Monday, then."

"Provided my new search program doesn't turn up something interesting," the younger man added as a proviso. "You never know, when it comes to Jarod…"

Miss Parker snorted. "We wish! Good night, Broots," she said. "See you later."

"Good night Miss Parker – and thanks again for coming." Broots smiled fondly. "I think you made her opening night."

Sydney led Miss Parker through the throng of milling family members, waiting for their young performers and then out the front door of the high school auditorium. "If I remember correctly," he commented as he walked sedately with his boss – a woman he'd watched grow from a small girl and then tried hard to nurture despite her resistance – on his arm, "part of the enticement you offered when you invited me originally was a promised that I could psychoanalyze your motives and actions at this point in the evening."

She was silent a moment, unsure whether or not he was teasing her or serious. With Sydney sometimes, it could be hard to tell. "I know," she admitted finally, deciding that the truth was the best way to deal with whatever the wily old man had in mind. "Can it wait until I have one vodka and tonic in me, though?"

"Of course it can," he told her with a fond pat to her hand. "Actually, all I wanted before was to ask was one question."

"One question I think I can handle," she told him confidently as she waited for him to unlock the passenger door on his Lincoln. "What was it?"

"It was more commentary than a question, as a matter of fact," he shrugged as he pulled the door open for her. "I was only going to note how nice it was to see you getting out a bit in general nowadays – and how proud I was of you specifically for wanting to support Debbie. It meant a great deal to Broots too – did you see?"

Miss Parker's smile was soft. It wasn't often that she was given such an overt pat on the back for any reason by anybody who wasn't serving an agenda – and to get such an obviously sincere one from Sydney out of the blue like this was like having won the approval of a parent whose opinion mattered greatly. "Debbie's a good kid…"

"And you two have managed to get close despite your telling me all those years ago that you didn't 'do Mommy'…" Sydney's smile was wide as he slipped behind the steering wheel. "I take it you don't consider her a chihuahua nipping at your heels any longer?"

"Now I KNOW you're picking on me," she grumbled, still in a good mood. "That was a long time ago."

"Let's just say that I've been thoroughly enjoying spending a relaxing evening with one of my all-time favorite people," he responded as he turned the key in the ignition. "It doesn't happen even halfway often enough, as far as I'm concerned."

"I know," she replied truthfully again, finding it interesting that she actually agreed with him on this. "Maybe that's something I'm going to have to work on a little more diligently from now on."

"Who are you and what have you done with Miss Parker?" Sydney quipped with a mischievous grin aimed in her direction as he pulled the car to a halt just before turning toward the edge of town at which the classy and quiet Velvet Glove lounge was located.

A snort from the passenger seat was all the response he got, but it was enough to set him chuckling softly.

oOoOo

"What is it that was so all-fired important that you just HAD to call me back to the Centre on a Saturday morning?" Lyle demanded of the wizened and pallid old man seated behind the massive and carved Chairman's desk. "I finished talking to the representatives from the Prozuito family, got us the terms you wanted…" He stared. "DON'T tell me you've got a solid lead on Jarod…"

"I know more about what you've been doing than you might think. Just who is this?" Raines wheezed at him, tossing a set of glossy photographic blow-ups of what were obviously surveillance photos taken during his evening with Erin onto the desk. Lyle calmly straightened the stack and picked it up to sort through it. The first few shots were of them discussing things very seriously – the way they had at the very first part of their time together. The next were of the two of them dancing at the nightclub that they'd gone to together. The final shot in the stack was of him giving the young woman a genteel and chaste kiss on the cheek just before she climbed into her cab to go home.

Lyle bristled and then forced himself to calm and cool collectedness as he tossed the pictures back onto the desk with deliberate casualness. "She's just a young lady I met at a café and asked out to dinner," he related truthfully. "She's nothing to me." That one was the lie, for he'd been inexplicably entranced by Erin's entire demeanor – by her naivete, even her rather conservative values. It had been a very long time since he'd had such an enjoyably innocent date – and he had no intention of having it be the last one.

Raines' eyes narrowed as he noted the slightly defensive shift of Lyle's posture. "What do you know about her?"

Lyle's blue eyes collided rebelliously with the ice blue of the man who claimed to be his sire. "I know she's from upstate, her mother's a cop and her father's a city councilman in her hometown. She's an English major at the university…"

"All of that is unimportant. She's an outsider, and you know it! How can you be certain she can be trusted?" Raines almost shouted at him after a very noisy and painful-sounding gasp of oxygen from his ever-present tank. "What's more, how dare you take your mind off your work?"

"How can I be certain about anybody in this world," Lyle retorted, "including some of the people in this room." His eyes lit on Willy. "I'm telling you that she was just my date for the evening – and that's as far as it goes." His blue eyes shot iced lightning at the sickly man behind the desk. "What I do on my off-hours is none of your business."

Raines' voice got lower and more breathy. "What you do at all hours of the day IS the Centre's business – just as what your sister does at all hours of the day is our business. Or have you forgotten what happened the last time SHE decided to test that condition?"

Lyle swallowed. He'd been a part of making sure Parker had stayed on track with the Centre by 'taking care of' Thomas – by hiring Brigitte to murder him in such a manner that the message "Don't stray" had been conveyed very clearly. "I haven't forgotten," he stated sourly. "I'm telling you, this was only an isolated date."

Make sure that it stays that way," Raines wheezed at him in a threatening tone. "And now, there's another small matter that I want you to take care of for me – a reporter in Boston is getting too close to discovering our connections to people on the waterfront. I want you to take care of the problem."

"I'm not an assassin anymore," Lyle retorted hotly.

"You are what I tell you to be and when I tell you to be it," Raines barked back and then drew noisily on his oxygen again. "And right now, I want you on a Centre jet to Boston in an hour – and I want that reporter problem resolved by the end of the day. Is that clear?"

"As crystal," Lyle growled in frustration.

"Willy will go with you, to make certain that all the loose ends this reporter may have left behind him will be trimmed short as well," the balding ghoul in the big chair announced with a nod to his tall, dark associate.

"I don't need a babysitter." Lyle's rejection was absolute. "I move better and can get closer on a job like this when I don't have someone running around with me whose very posture screams 'heavy muscle' from every pore!"

"Willy will go with you," Raines reiterated. "The discussion is closed. Better get to the airstrip – the jet leaves in exactly one hour from now."

Lyle glowered at Willy as the dark sweeper turned to follow him out of the Chairman's office. "I've got a couple of things to collect from my office first," Lyle told him in a thoroughly disgusted tone. Wait for me down in the car pool – I'll be there in just a few minutes."

"Mr. Raines…" Willy began, unhappy at being summarily dismissed like that.

"Wants you to baby-sit the hit. I don't need a babysitter to take care of the rest of my business, and that wasn't your directive." The blue eyes snapped. "Now, I said I'll meet you down in the car pool in just a few minutes. You'd better get moving too, because if you're not there when I get there, I'll leave without you."

Ebony glower met blue-grey glower, and only after seeing that Lyle wasn't going to back down from his stance did Willy head off toward the elevator.

Lyle watched and waited until the elevator had closed behind Willy's tall form, and only then did he head down the hall to his office. Once the doors were closed behind him, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number.

"You'll have to wait for a bit before you can take care of the job," he announced unhappily. "The bodyguard has been temporarily re-assigned…" He listened for a long moment. "No. Listen to me. I want them caught in the same event – that way, there will be no questions. I'll call you when the bodyguard's back in the picture. What about…" He listened again, and this time the news he was hearing was more to his liking. "Good. Get everything set up so that we can make the final call on Monday morning, before any reassignments can happen." He listened again. "I'll leave the extra ten K in our regular drop – just get the arrangements all ready. I want this to happen simultaneously, do you understand?"

He pulled the phone away from his ear when the call disconnected, and punched in another number. "Hi, Erin? I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make our date this afternoon. Something important has come up here at the office that I have to take care of right away. Can you give me a rain check until next weekend?" He listened with a soft smile slowly spreading across his face. "You aren't mad?" He listened again. "You're a doll, you know," he crooned warmly at her. "Don't work too hard between now and then, OK?" He listened, and then chuckled. "You take care too. See you."

The phone call concluded, he shoved the cell phone into his jacket pocket and walked over to the glass-faced bookcase in which he kept some of his most valuable treasures from his days in Africa and Asia. On the third shelf, behind a shaman's mask from Nairobi, he pulled out an oaken box and carried it to his desk. Within the box, cradled in the red velour was his custom balanced Ruger semi-automatic handgun, its two ammunition cartridges and an extra box of bullets. He picked up the gun and one cartridge, which he inserted into the handle and chambered a round, then put the loaded weapon, extra cartridge and box of shells in his other jacket pocket.

NOW he was ready, he told himself as he stalked to his office door and strode purposefully down the corridor toward the elevator, looking at his wristwatch. Five minutes. Willy wouldn't have quite had enough time to get impatient with him yet. Good. He only had to keep the African-American from guessing what was in store for him for a little while yet.

A smile lit his face as the elevator door closed. With any luck at all, by the time he saw Erin again, he would be sitting in that fancy, comfortable chair behind that fancy, carved desk – and then there would be nobody to tell him with whom he was allowed to spend time, damn it!