Chapter Nine – Revelations
"Sorry about being late," Jarod told his sister as she let him through the front door of her house. "Couldn't be helped."
"I swear, the way things work with you sometimes, it's like being the sister of a cop," Emily gave him a hug. "Ethan was starving when he got here, so I'm afraid you're eating leftovers. Sorry…"
"Speaking of whom…" Jarod looked about the living room and stretched his neck to see if he could catch sight of his younger half-brother in the dining room. "…where is he?"
"You talkin' about me, big brother?" Ethan's voice sounded from the side, where he was coming down the hallway to the bedrooms. His face broke into a happy smile as he and his older brother caught each other up in a tight and back-slapping embrace. "So you finally decided to grace us with your presence, eh?"
"You should talk," Jarod gave his brother a gentle punch in the arm. "You're the one who decided Virginia was all the excitement you wanted. How's Mom and Dad – and Jason?"
Emily and Ethan exchanged an indulgent look, and then each grabbed an arm and started pulling Jarod toward the dining room. "They're fine," Ethan assured him. "Mom and Dad send their best – Jason was pissed that I didn't offer to bring him with me."
"He's got school!" Jarod shook his head. "Even a genius has to learn to jump through the hoops and climb the ladders properly before he can play hooky with impunity."
"Tell that to an eighteen year old who graduated high school two years ago and has already moved past his Bachelor's degree to start post-grad studies in Richmond." Ethan shook his head too. "I think I would have had a harder time telling him no if I hadn't already decided to come over on the bike. The kid doesn't like the way I drive that thing…"
"I'm not surprised – I don't like the way you drive that bike. You're damned scary when you get on that thing!" Jarod agreed with wide eyes. "Here and I thought I was the dare-devil of the family!"
"Here," Emily moved past the two men and on into the kitchen. She stopped at the stove to take the simmering teakettle and fill a mug, which she handed to Jarod, and then moved to pull from the microwave a plate she'd set aside earlier. "I have an article to finish writing, boys, so I'll let you two talk about whatever it is you need to talk about. I've got some beer in the fridge for after I'm done, when we three can socialize properly."
Jarod leaned down and dropped a kiss on his sister's cheek as she moved through the dining room again after depositing a well-loaded plate at his normal place at the table. "Thanks, Em. I'll make it up to you, I promise."
"I'm going to hold you to that one day," she smiled up at him in response and headed out into the living room and then down the hallway to her office and the computer that resided there.
"So," Jarod stated after he'd seated himself and had taken the first bite of a tender and delicious pork roast, "I'm assuming this isn't just a social call, since it's usually a case of Em and I coming to Virginia for social occasions. What brings you back to civilization?"
"I need to know," Ethan stated in a stark voice that had Jarod looking at his brother again sharply. "I know something's wrong – I felt it yesterday and it's been haunting me all day today." Jarod's face folded into something approaching guilt. "You know what I'm talking about. What's happened?" Ethan urged again.
Jarod studied his half-brother, wishing there were an easier way to break the news. "There's been a plane crash," he said quietly. "She was on it. We don't know if…"
"She's alive," Ethan filled in the gap immediately, although his gaze had moved on to something only he could see. "She's hurt, and she's cold, but she's alive."
"What about Sydney?" Jarod couldn't help himself – if Ethan knew that…
Ethan shrugged. "I only feel her." He rubbed his right shoulder. "I'm just worried…"
"They say the storm will be clearing sometime in the night," Jarod rushed to reassure his brother, "and that they'll be sending the planes up to look for them at first light again."
"There's danger gathering, Jarod," Ethan told him with worry creasing his face. "She has to be warned."
"What kind of danger?"
Ethan shook his head. "I wish I could see it more clearly. But the voices tell me that it's vital that the warning get through."
Jarod put his fork down and reached for the mug of herbal tea that Emily had poured for him before she'd left the two of them to talk. "Raines is dead," he announced in a flat voice, "and Lyle's probably taken over at the Centre. Nine chances out of ten, if you're sensing danger, it's Lyle deciding he doesn't want any challengers to his authority coming from any left-over branches of his family tree."
"Raines is dead?" Even after all this time, Ethan wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.
Jarod nodded slowly. "The thing is that I don't know how any warning's going to get through if they don't even know where the wreck is, Ethan," he said gently. "Believe me, if I knew where that plane was, I'd be on my way there already anyway – and not because Parker was on the flight," he told him frankly. "I don't dare have any contact with any of them…"
"I know that," Ethan said sharply. "Neither of us dare have any direct contact – but that doesn't mean that I don't worry about what's going on with my sister, especially in a situation like this one." Then something Jarod said finally registered, and he looked at his half-brother in surprise. "But you said that if you knew where the plane was, you'd be on your way anyway. Why?"
"Because my boss – and one of the best friends I've made since I got away from the Centre – was also on that plane. That's part of why I wasn't able to come home right away. I've been protecting Carl against assassination attempts now for months – and now his successor, IF Carl died in that crash, has just had an attempt made on HIS life." Jarod resumed eating. "I spent the last hour searching his apartment for a hint of who's behind all of this – and I have some interesting reading awaiting me in my briefcase later on tonight.
"I'm thinking of taking the next flight out," Ethan announced somberly. "If and when they find the plane and her – one way or the other – one of us should be there."
Jarod ate in silence for a while, pondering the powerful draw that was calling him to tell Ethan to make arrangements for two rather than one. Staying true to what he knew he needed to do first was more difficult than he'd ever imagined. Still… "I need to finish up the investigation of the attempt today," he told his brother slowly, "and I'll call you when I'm done. If they still need folks to go up on the mountain to help bring back down the survivors…"
Ethan nodded. "I haven't told Em yet," he confessed in a soft voice. "I'm not sure how to tell her."
Jarod glanced up and into the living room, as if expecting to see his sister appear any moment. "You know she's not going to be happy," he told his younger brother apologetically. "She still resents the Centre and anybody remotely involved with it – I didn't even dare tell her that I had my first nightmare last night in a long time, and I know it's because I'm worried about Parker and Sydney being up on the side of that mountain." He shrugged. "Em thought that my lack of sleep was because they were catching up to me again – she has no idea how upsetting it's been to be the one doing the catching up to THEM."
"I'll call Mom – tell her what's going on and that I'm not coming straight back," Ethan sighed. "She won't be any happier about it than Em will, but at least she'll be a little understanding. Will you help me explain everything to Em?"
Jarod used the last piece of pork to clean up the rest of the juices and the leftover potato from his plate. "Yeah," he said finally. "I'll help you – I at least owe Em the truth. Then I'll help you get your ticket. Maybe we can still get you a seat on the red-eye."
oOoOo
Lyle lay very still and aware, examining his feelings in the moment and finding himself bemused and frighteningly confused and adrift. In the darkness, Erin stirred slightly and settled down when she'd nestled herself just a little bit closer to him, already asleep.
How strange it was to relax in bed with a woman – a living, breathing woman at that – nestled in his arms who was there willingly. How strange it had been to have had sex – no, scratch that, to have made love – with someone who actually WANTED him and had actively gone through the motions of letting her desire for him be known. He could now compare the experiences of early that morning – when he'd finally released the life of his Prey back to the bosom of Mother Nature – with the experience he'd just had; and the difference in the way each was equally moving had him utterly flabbergasted.
With his Prey, it had been nothing BUT sex – the pulsing, heart-stopping force of Life itself – made more acute and imminent by the fact that he had slowly closed his hands about her throat to hold the power of Life and Death in his hands for a short time. He had long since become addicted to the climax he could achieve when, at the very moment of his release, the body of his Prey was spasming hard in its final battle for air. It was one of the experiences of the Hunt to which he was most attached – second only to the sacrament of consuming the ritual meal. He'd been initiated as a man into this, and had known nothing else all this time. Prostitutes and mail-order brides – all his experiences as a sexually active man had involved that violent, incredibly satisfying method of release.
And yet, in Erin's arms, he'd discovered a whole new meaning to the act of physical intimacy. She'd done everything she could think of to please him – and surprise of surprises, he'd found that pleasing her in return had suddenly become a very interesting challenge to him. How different it had been to experience her actually climaxing as the result of his lovemaking and having the pulsing of THAT drawing him over the edge into his own release. And what a feeling of tenderness had engulfed them both afterwards, to the point that he lay submissive to her hand while she had cleaned them both with a cool, damp towel and then pulled the covers over them so that they wouldn't get chilled. It had been a feeling of wellbeing and peace that had been overwhelming in its strangeness and languor.
He'd always looked down on and pooh-poohed the idea of romantic love being anything more than lust seen through the rose-colored glasses of wishful thinking. Thanks to so many people in his past who had made it their business to teach him that tender feelings were dangerous and inferior, that the only things that mattered were violence and power and being the one who exercised it first, he'd never allowed himself to actually try to care about anyone or anything other than his rise within the hierarchy of the Centre. And now, just as he ascended the apex of power and influence, he was presented with this contrary experience of love – romantic attachment – that demonstrated that love and romance WASN'T just lust viewed sideways, and that there was a power that existed outside the exercise of violence and control.
He couldn't stay – not like this. The confusion of knowing that there was something beyond the power of the Centre or the exhilaration of the Hunt and its ritual sex was too much to deal with right now. Tenderness – genuine affection – for this soft, sweet, trusting woman cuddled next to him could be his very downfall.
Lyle raised himself up on an elbow and moved a tendril of blonde hair back with a finger gently, wondering not for the first time since their lovemaking if he shouldn't kill her right then and there – if it wouldn't be better for all concerned that he release her soul quickly and painlessly. And yet… In her sleep, Erin smiled and smoothed her hand unconsciously over the warm skin of his lower abdomen possessively, and Lyle's budding urge to protect himself from everything she represented melted into warmth and fondness. He couldn't kill her, he argued with himself. It would be an affront to Nature – at the very least a violation of the rules of the Hunt.
Very slowly, he moved his pillow so that it was soon taking his place at her side so she wouldn't miss him, and then he rose from the bed and rapidly began to collect his clothing and dress himself. He had to get out of there immediately – he had to get away before she awoke and entrapped him with her gentle smile and innocence again. Thankfully, her sleep seemed profound and deep – she didn't even rouse when he turned the light on in her bathroom to retrieve the towel she'd used to clean them both. Habit dictated that he could leave no essence of himself behind – not on anything that could be used as evidence against him later.
He paused in the bedroom doorway, gazing at the woman who had so confounded him and turned his world view upside-down, and engraved the sight of her huddled beneath her coverlet into his mind. He would not see her again – he didn't dare, for a number of reasons. He had the Centre to nursemaid into a new era of profitability and power – that would be more than enough to keep his hands full. And when he hungered for sex, there was always the Hunt. He didn't need the vulnerability of this softer emotional entanglement, and that was what she offered him: a life free of the need for defensive shields and so made vulnerable in the process.
He waited until he'd exited the apartment altogether, being careful to lock it behind him so as not to endanger Erin any more than necessary, before he pulled his car keys from his pocket. He knew his place in the scheme of things – and this apartment, with its warmth and gentle affection and life-affirming passion of a new and strange kind, wasn't it. He had his ritual meal makings in the back of his car that needed to be properly prepared and consumed, and he had the Centre to run from now on. He knew the rules of that kind of life and was comfortable with it and them.
This unexpected detour into normalcy had been a mistake. He should never have come.
oOoOo
Broots paced silently back and forth in front of the heavily curtained window. Behind him, Sam snored loudly – exhausted by the strain of the long drive and the tension that Broots assumed the sweeper to be living under. Debbie, once more, was probably out like a light in the adjoining room, having stayed up late and watched television until he'd finally insisted that she go to bed an hour earlier. It was two o'clock in the morning, and he was the sole insomniac.
The events of the last two days played over and over in his mind, and each time he found them more fantastic and horrifying. What if Sam's instinct had been wrong – and Lyle had only wanted to tell the three of them not to worry? Broots frowned at himself; Lyle was a despicable creature with no humanity or sympathy – and very little time for those who had worked with his sister. No, Sam had been right – Lyle had probably taken over the Centre and sent sweepers out to hunt them down and take them out.
He'd been on the run before – but then, he'd had Jarod calling the shots and keeping them both out of the line of fire, more or less. Still, it was no more pleasant to know that there were sets of crosshairs that would love to train on his back now than it had been years ago.
Jarod. Just thinking about the man made him wonder what the Pretender was doing. There had been a link between Jarod and Miss Parker – not to mention the huge link between Jarod and Sydney. Would the Pretender continue to remain out of the loop, far away from the nexus of the action? He knew Jarod's cell phone number – it had been given to him on the condition that he reveal it to no one, and that he use it only in emergencies. Should he…?
No, if it was two o'clock in the morning here in Utah, it was far too late to make a phone call to wherever it was the Pretender was hiding. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to contact Jarod and see if he'd managed to garner any additional news that wasn't being spread on the media.
Broots turned around and stared at the desk to the side of the television. That was where he'd put the laptop that he'd brought with him – the one with the firewall that Jarod had shared with him to keep at least one computer safe from Centre spying while still making it possible to access the mainframe. He could find out what was going on that way at the Centre – see if it were true that there was a team of sweepers combing the countryside for him…
With a glance over his shoulder to make sure Sam was still asleep, he carefully pulled the laptop from its protective case and unplugged the telephone for access to the phone line. He booted the system and quickly hacked into the mainframe looking for any recent text strings that included his last name or Sam's. Sure enough, it took only a few moments to bring up transcripts of a discussion between a sweeper in Blue Cove and one in Salt Lake City, the latter bemoaning the fact that they had not seen the three fugitives from Delaware alight from their flight. Broots smiled in satisfaction. Sam had been right – and had kept them all safe.
The memo concluded with a veiled threat to the Utah sweeper to get men into the Wasatch National Forest and up onto the mountain immediately – that Mr. Lyle 'wanted his problem handled.' Broots' blood ran cold. If Miss Parker and Sydney had survived the crash, it looked as if Lyle wanted to rectify that mistake. Sam would need to know this, so he could be on the lookout for sweepers with less benign agendas.
The computer tech saved a copy of the memo onto the laptop's hard drive. He was about to log off when a thought occurred to him. Just as he'd dragged himself home with his flu, Miss Parker had been very worked up over the questionable heritage of her little brother – and Sydney had sent in a complete set of blood samples to a friend of theirs in a genetics lab outside Las Vegas by overnight express. What had happened to that? Was there a response from that lab waiting for someone to remember it existed?
Broots logged out of the Centre mainframe and moved immediately to his private email client – an account he'd created out in the open, where nobody would think to look for him – for outside resources to use when necessary. Just as he'd suspected, there was an email from the former Centre geneticist – a man he and Sydney had helped a couple years back, when the pressure to attempt another clone had finally become too much to bear. Sydney had developed, and then Broots had used his skill with computers to manufacture, a completely bogus ID and personal history for the man so that he could just leave the Centre one night and vanish as if he'd never existed. Broots knew that the moment the man had seen the request, he'd known that these tests would mean evening the score between them all.
The email was sizeable enough to contain a very in-depth and complete report, and Broots opened the email immediately and began to read. As he did, his jaw dropped open – and when he'd finally read the email to the very end, he sat back in his chair in complete shock, trying to wrap his mind around the explosive revelations.
They all knew that the Parker family tree was twisted – even Miss Parker had come to reconcile herself to the fact – but nobody could ever have ever guessed the half of it!
oOoOo
Sydney winced and leaned against the fuselage wall, made flimsy from having been ripped away from itself only a few feet further along. His headache had not improved with the rest and the warmth, mostly because he hadn't had much of a chance to rest at all. Finding a more or less private place where Miss Parker could sit bent over and try to throw up from a stomach twenty-four hours deprived of food without taking her out into the storm hadn't been easy. Now all he could do was wait for her – or wait for a call for help. He closed his eyes, temporarily giving himself respite from conflicting visual images that only made his headache worse. Even in the dark, double vision was no picnic.
The others, thankfully, were asleep – or at least, pretending to be. Not that there was much to be done to alleviate the situation, but he could sympathize with their really not wanting to know what else waited in the wings to make their ordeal any more trying.
"Sydney…"
With a grunt, Sydney pushed himself away from the fuselage and made his way between the edges of the two pieces of metal sheeting he and Bennings had worked so hard to get leaned up against the end of their cabin only the day before. Together, he and Miss Parker had found a relatively sheltered alcove between the two sheets of aluminum and insulation, as well as taken one of the larger suitcases from the pile at the other end for sitting on. He could only barely make out her figure in the darkness. "How are you doing?"
"I feel like crap, what do you think?" she snapped at first, and then reached out a seeking hand. "I'm sorry, Syd – I shouldn't be…" She swallowed against another stomach spasm. "…biting your head off."
"Do you think you dare come back inside, where it's warmer?" he asked, shivering beneath his blanket and wondering how she'd tolerated it as long as she had. He quite honestly didn't have the strength to walk over to where her hand stretched out to him. "You've got to be freezing…"
"That's not why I called you…" she said, bending over to help ease the spasm that she knew all too well would bring nothing up anymore – not even stomach juices. "You need… Ung!... To get my briefcase."
"For heaven's sake, Parker," he frowned at her. "What is it with you and your briefcase? You'd think…"
"My gun's in it," she managed in a single breath, "and the painkillers I use for my migraines. We could use the painkillers – and it would be better if I were the one with custody of my gun… Ung!... don't you think?"
Sydney sighed and tried not to show the wave of dizziness that flooded over him. "When we head back to our seats," he promised in a weak voice, "I'll bring it to you then."
She nodded silently, and then doubled over again. When the long spate of retching passed, she looked over at the silhouette of her old friend in the narrow space between the metal sheets. "You know you don't have to…"
"I know…" he answered, wiping his face down with his hand and wishing that simple act would help restore his equilibrium. "I'd rather, though – unless you don't want me here…"
"No…" This time it was Miss Parker's voice that sounded weak – and she flinched hearing it and knowing how it violated her sense of propriety and independence to have to admit that she genuinely needed Sydney to at least be near. "Don't go…"
"I'm not going anywhere," he promised, knowing it to be more a statement of his own inabilities than reassurance, but unwilling to let her know that. "Are you sure you don't want a blanket out there?"
"No." The refusal was a little stronger, more certain of itself. "I don't want to get it soiled. Oh, damn!" There was the sound of scrambling all of a sudden – and the faint outline of Miss Parker's body suddenly disappeared from view.
"Parker?" Sydney called out in concern. "Parker!"
"I'm OK," her voice floated back to him in a little bit. "I just… This bug hits the intestines as well, it seems…"
"Oh." It was more information than he needed, but it at least disarmed his greater distress on her behalf. Sydney relaxed and leaned once more against the fuselage, pulling his blanket a little tighter about his upper body and trying not to pay much attention to the fact that his left hand was losing feeling in the fingers. He could still move his fingers, and his hand would more or less do as he wanted it to do – and there was little he could do to improve the situation. It wasn't frostbite or blood loss. It was probably nerve damage – and he really didn't want to think about the kind of injury that would have caused it to behave that way.
It seemed like he waited forever, leaning against that cold sheet of metal and insulation – and he was certain that Miss Parker wasn't any more thrilled at the time it took her to finish what she'd needed to do. Finally, however, he heard a rather diminished, "Syd? I could use some help…"
He opened his eyes and pushed away from the fuselage into her general direction again, feeling his way along, only to be met by a thin and obviously shaking Miss Parker halfway to the suitcase. "What…"
"I can't zip them with only one hand," she murmured in a voice that came from the depths of humiliation. "My pants, I mean. I got them up…"
He moved his arms around her and patiently manipulated the zipper of her storm-dampened trousers back up to the waistband without a word. As he did, she leaned into him – hard. "There," he said when finished, "all fixed." He wrapped an arm about her waist, as much to steady himself as to support her. "Ready to go back to our seats?"
She nodded. "For the time being. I covered… that… best I could… Oh, God!" Her stomach spasmed yet again, and she needed the support his arm afforded her to keep from falling down.
"Don't worry about that now," he reassured her as he waited until she was once more upright in his grasp and then led her carefully back over the obstacle course that was the back end of the cabin until they were at their seat again. "Sit down now, and then you can put your head in my lap…"
"The briefcase," she reminded him, pointing. "Sydney…"
The old man sighed and handed her into her seat. She was right, however – having somebody else – like little Emily – discover the gun in the briefcase didn't lead to a very positive image of the future. "All right – wait here."
He picked his way with care around the metal hearth with its simmering log that still erupted with low flames from time to time until he was at the pile of luggage. She'd been right – it was her briefcase all right. A small brass plate near the closures announced "Parker" – something he'd seen a million times before in his association with her. He bent to reach for the handle and very nearly fell into the pile of suitcases when his sense of balance momentarily abandoned him.
"Syd!" he heard her hiss. "You OK?"
He grunted at her, grit his teeth, grabbed for the handle and straightened up again once he had it firmly in hand. It took a moment the world to finally stop tipping at odd angles, and then he was making his way back around the hearth.
"I need to sit down," he demanded, handing her the briefcase and then landing hard in the seat next to her.
"Damn it, you've got more wrong than just a headache and double vision, haven't you?" she asked quietly and intensely. "Why the hell didn't you say something?"
He ignored her ire and her question. "Curl up, put your feet up on the seat, and put your head in my lap again," he instructed her instead, already moving the blankets around that she'd abandoned when her flu had forced her from her rest. "We need to get you warm and keep you that way. It's bad enough you spent all that time in the cold with your fever…"
"Sydney…" she complained, all too aware of what he was doing. She deposited the briefcase against the seat back behind her knees, where it would be out of the way and very much in her keeping, and then obediently tipped to her left and put her head in his lap again.
He reached down next to his seat and grabbed one more log and threw it noisily into the hearth to land next to the burning log. "I'm OK, Parker," he insisted as he finished tucking the collected blankets back about the both of them again. "I'll be OK."
From her extended moment of silence in lieu of a retort, it was very obvious that the both of them now knew that wasn't true – and that both realized that talking about it would accomplish nothing. "Get some rest, Sydney," she ordered in the best imitation of her old fire as she could manage for feeling as rotten as she did. "Something tells me you need it as much as I do."
His right hand landed gently on her head and began stroking her hair over and over again; and it was questionable, even in his own mind, just who it was he was trying to soothe more with the caress.
oOoOo
Ethan stared out the porthole in the fuselage of the jet as it began the slow descent into Salt Lake City, tired to the bone but exhilarated and invigorated as well. It was as if every minute he'd been in the air, traveling west at over six hundred miles per hour, he could feel his connection with his half-sister growing stronger. He was worried – she was feeling even worse now than she had been earlier – but he was hopeful.
In an hour or so, he'd be calling Jarod – reporting that he'd landed safely and was in his rental car, ready to follow the freeway south to where he could turn off to head up into the mountains that were the Wasatch National Forest. It was dark outside, but even in the dim light that illuminated the red-eye flight, he could see by his watch that back East it would be nearly sun-up.
The evening had ended badly. Jarod had kept his promise to try to explain to Emily what was going on, and why he was going to have to take Ethan almost immediately to the airport – and Emily had, as Jarod had predicted, been furious. She'd railed on and on about how the Centre had cheated them all of so many of the better things of life, and demanded over and over again how either one of them could continue to feel any kind of attachment to people who insisted on working there. Ethan's blood ties hadn't mattered to her whatsoever – and Jarod had borne an even fierier blast of anger for having in essence lied to her that morning. He'd said his lack of sleep had had nothing to do with the Centre – or THEM. How dare he!
Poor Emily. Ethan shook his head. That was one half-sister who didn't want to understand the situation – she only knew what kind of life they'd all been forced to live before, and the potential for any involvement – however indirect – for messing up the good life they all enjoyed now. At least Margaret, his foster mother, had been easier to deal with – and she'd promised him to have some words with her daughter later on.
How could he explain to her that the living essence of his half-sister was with him all the time – and that when she hurt, he knew it? How could he explain that he had that same connection with Jarod, with Charles, with HER? How could he explain that protecting those fragile ties to blood kin had become the entire focus of his sanity – even as he'd worked hard at his job with a small software firm?
It didn't matter. His half-sister – the one who wanted everyone to believe that she was completely independent, completely impervious to sentimentalism, completely in control of herself and her situation – needed his help. There were others, too, who were already closer to the situation, poised to head out to lend their help too. He needed to find them – to join his efforts with theirs.
His eyes refocused on the billowy, moon-lit cushion of cloud cover beneath them that was the storm that Jarod had told him had kept the search planes on the ground. Here and there, the cushion was almost translucent – the storm was breaking up at last, at least this far north. Hopefully by the time he'd followed the directions the voices were already beginning to give him to the side of the one whose help he needed to save his half-sister, the storm would have run its course.
It was a race, he realized – a race he didn't dare lose.
oOoOo
Jarod stared at the letter and accompanying photograph that had been included amid Kevin Ganzetti's personal effects that he and Lou had lifted from the shooter's home before the police could get to them. Unable to sleep more than just a few hours, he'd risen and made himself some hot chocolate and decided to start the job of sorting through everything – only to find this apparently innocuous envelope almost at the top of the heap.
It was unbelievable – but here it was, in black and white and the man's own hand at that: Blake Hendricks had set up his own hit – or at least, an attack that would look like a hit. The instructions in the letter were very clear – the shooter was to aim for the shoulder and make sure whatever wound was left wasn't life-threatening. The timing of the shooting was left up to the would-be assassin, with the only proviso being that it take place at the Foundation building itself – and take place when there were plenty of people around.
Jarod threw the letter down on the kitchen table and leaned his unshaven chin on his open palm. Why? What on earth would Hendricks gain by having himself shot?
He straightened suddenly. Being an attempted assassination victim would tend to take any suspicion of wrong-doing away from the would-be victim – convenient, if that victim were also the person responsible for setting up another assassination. The moment he'd thought that, he knew the connection. Hendricks had been the one to set up the contract negotiations with Stoller on Blair's behalf. Hendricks HAD to be in Blair's back pocket.
But how to prove it?
Jarod stalked to his office and booted up his computer – and promptly hacked into the phone company database. He researched both Hendricks' home phone and cell phone lines – and with the latter finally hit pay dirt. Two calls – each nearly ten minutes in length – had been made four days earlier. One of those calls was to a known associate of Blair. The other he was sure, and verified quickly with his notes, belonged to George Stoller.
Hendricks - a Blair mole! How the HELL had he let this happen?
The he shook his head. Hendricks had been involved with the Bennings foundation since long before he'd moved to Philadelphia – he had nothing to do with how Hendricks had weaseled his way into the organization. What he DID have something to do with, however, was what he was going to do, now that he knew that there was a viper nesting in the bosom of the Foundation.
He glanced at his watch – it was almost five-thirty in the morning, too darned early to put a call in to Lou's home yet. No, he had about an hour before he'd have to take his own shower and prepare for another day working ostensibly for a man who was working for someone trying to do in the Bennings Foundation and all that it stood for. He sat forward to the computer again and slipped quietly out of the phone company's computer and directly into the Bennings Foundation mainframe. First on his list of things to look up was Hendricks' resume – there should be plenty of places to look into Hendricks' past history listed there.
He saved the file to his hard drive and immediately printed out a copy, and then slipped out of the Foundation mainframe and started a search for the organizations and people Hendricks had listed as either past employers or references.
He'd be damned if he let a traitor continue at the top of the food chain – and if that traitor had had any part in what had happened to Carl… Jarod shook his head. No, he wouldn't think about that now. Now he needed to make his case against Hendricks and, by association, Blair. AND he had to figure out how to get this material BACK into Ganzetti's house again, so that the cops could find it once they figured out who he was.
And that would have to the top of his list of things to do in the morning.
Jarod sighed and turned off his computer. He might as well shower now – he'd drive himself into the Foundation today, and stop at Ganzetti's on the way. With luck, the cops wouldn't have been there at all yet.
oOoOo
The wail of a fire engine roaring past her apartment complex roused Erin, and she rolled back toward the center of the bed with the intent of snuggling once more against Lyle's warm side. Then she came more fully awake when she realized the only thing in bed with her at the moment was the pillow from his side of the bed, laid lengthwise so that she would have something to snuggle against. She put out a hand, and the sheet on that side of the bed was cold.
He was gone, and had been for quite a while now.
She relaxed back into her pillow, mildly disappointed. Then again, she reminded herself that he'd told her very clearly that he had a curfew – that he had to be back at work, wherever that was, first thing in the morning. They'd joked for a while about his car turning into a pumpkin – but evidently he'd been serious. And evidently he was kind enough to not want to awaken her when the time came for him to leave.
Ah well. She reached over and pulled the pillow to her chest, still able to smell some of his scent on the pillowslip. The evening had ended very well indeed – and Lyle had been a very innovative and yet conscientious lover. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn that this had been his first time with a woman. She'd had to tell him how to please her – where to touch her, how to touch her – and she'd sensed his surprise when she'd done some of the things her various boyfriends and live-ins had taught her pleased men.
Lyle was such an interesting set of contradictions. On the outside, he was confident, casual, self-assured and almost cocky – and yet on the inside, she had the sense of a shy and wary person who didn't show his face very often. It was that person who had eventually been the man she'd made love to the night before – his wistful nature had been irresistible.
Smiling to herself as she remembered the events of the evening, she rolled so she could look at her alarm clock. She had another hour yet before she had to get up to get to her first class on time. She groaned and rolled toward the pillow that had been Lyle's again, catching it to her and hugging it to her chest. She could dream of making love to him again – and hopefully he'd show up in the deli within the next week again, so they could make plans for another day together. Maybe he'd even call sometime during the day and finally give her a number at which she could reach him.
And hopefully Cherry would show up with a halfway decent excuse for her absence, so that they could get on with writing that research paper.
