One of a triple this week. And the start of twists to come. Thanks for all the reviews since Friday's update. I do appreciate all your feedback, it really makes my day checking in and seeing how lovely you all are.

Anyhoo, dedicated to the lovely Carol who's birthday it is today. Happy Birthday Lovely, hope you have a great day x

Chapter 8

John McRory's, the small neighbour hood bar below the Leverage Associates and Consulting was near enough packed to the rafters, when Alec Hardison stepped out of a Yellow Cab and on to the sidewalk outside with an over-stuffed holdall and a grin on his face that could have single-handedly lit the Boston skyline up with the minimum of effort. He paid the cab driver and unusually for him, gave him a substantially large tip, partly because he had taken the quickest route from the airport and also because he asked no questions as to the large collection of collectable World of Warcraft merchandise that included replica weapons and items that wouldn't have looked too out of place in a medieval dungeon. The driver hadn't spoken much either, which was just the way he liked his cab rides. Hearing four other voices in your head on a daily basis made one make the most of the peace and quiet, especially when one of those voices was always growling at him. His vacation trip to Los Angeles and the week long BlitzCon convention in which he hung out with some of his online gaming buddies, played a couple of RPG's, competed and won in a couple of tournaments and got to attend some rocking parties had been fun, but there definitely was no place like home, especially when home was with three people who he considered to be a mother, father and an older brother and a petite blonde girl who he would love to call his girlfriend. He had missed Parker like a desert misses the rain and had spent the flight cross country imagining lifting her into his arms and hugging the life out of her, her blue eyes sparkling and her soft pink lips which curved into a smile that told him without words that she'd missed him too. A week without the blonde thief was a week too long.

Hardison hurried inside the apartment block with his luggage and headed straight to Nate's and the place they used for an office. He pushed open the door and burst full force inside, still wearing a smile only to be greeted with silence. The apartment was empty, save for a heap of suitcases that had been haphazardly pushed up against the low stud wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the room. He dragged himself inside and deposited his own luggage in a similar manner and let out a heavy sigh of disappointment, he hadn't expected a welcome home party or anything but he had hoped that someone might actually be in.

'Well ain't this cosy?' Alec muttered aloud to no one in particular, 'the lights are on, but no-one's home.'

Realising that the others were probably catching up downstairs in the McRory's, the young hacker turned on his heels and exited the apartment – cum office just as quickly as he'd arrived and backtracked his way down the stairs to the over-crowed bar, taking the usual shortcut of cutting through the service corridors into the back room. It didn't take long for his cocoa-coloured eyes to scan the room and to spot Sophie Deveareux sat at the bar, looking as glamourous as ever despite being dressed down in a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and an over-sized grey and black striped batwing sweater that fell fashionably off of one shoulder all teamed up with her favourite stilettos, her shopping trip to Paris had clearly paid off as Hardison had never seen her looking so Continental. From his position he could see she had a glass of red wine in one hand and her cell phone in the other, her fingers sweeping over the smart phone quickly as though she was writing a text message.

'Whatup' he smiled as he slid onto the bar stool beside her, motioning to Cora, the red-headed proprietor to bring him a tall frosted glass filled with his favourite Orange Soda. 'Where's everyone got to?'

Sophie shrugged and dropped the cell phone on the bar counter, it landed with an audible thud and Hardison couldn't help but notice that she looked hacked off over something or in her case, someone. 'That bloody Italian woman called, so Nate, of course, dropped everything and rain-checked on dinner. Y'know he can sod right off if he thinks that I'm going to be at his bloody beck and call the next time that he ends up dealing with arms dealers and corrupt politicians and nearly gets everyone bloody killed. No, he can get that cow to do it, because I'm not going to.'

Although he hadn't been expecting her outburst Hardison nodded slowly feigning sympathy, and took a sip from the glass that had appeared in front of him while Sophie had ranted on, knowing Cora, she'd probably caught the opening act before his arrival had been occupying herself in order to avoid being dragged into the mess that was Sophie and Nate's odd relationship. Despite his poor acting had absolutely no idea what to say to the grifter when it came to this subject and he felt more than a little awkward and as per usual whenever she was on a 'I hate Nate Ford's guts' jag, he found himself looking for a cue to take his leave. However it seemed that there wasn't one – his computers and other tech was upstairs and Parker and Eliot where nowhere in sight. He chugged his soda and looked to Cora, who was attending something or nothing for help, her response though was not what he expected, rather than rescue him she gave him a grim look, while her pretty green eyes sparkled with laughter, she wasn't going to help him either, he was well and truly stuck.

'So,' Hardison interjected when Sophie took a brief moment to pause and stopped flapping her gums, 'where's the others? I mean are Parker and Eliot back yet?'

Sophie shook her head, 'No, not yet. We only got back yesterday, but you know it's strange, we haven't heard from either of them all week, I thought for sure Parker would have called me to complain about Eliot, but I've not heard a peep. You?'

'Naw, I thought fo' sure Parker would have text me at least once,' he replied, 'but she ain't even done that. You don't think that there's been a double murder somewhere in the backwoods?' He questioned, half joking, half serious, but swaying more towards the serious side of his question.

'No! Don't be silly,' Sophie smiled weakly, pushing a stray strand of her dark brown hair back behind her ear. 'I'm sure they just didn't want to disturb us and they've gotten along just fine. You'll see, they'll walk through those doors before Cora calls last orders.'

Hardison raised an eyebrow in her direction, challenging her statement but the grifter commented no more on the subject and went back to sipping her drink.

Sophie's words didn't bring him any comfort at all especially as he had known that Parker had been anxious about going on her trip with Eliot, the man he considered to be his brother from another mother was known for having a short fuse when it came to the blonde thief and her antics and he somehow doubted that they would return together as the brunette had predicted, there was no doubt in his mind that their trip had ended badly in some way, shape or form and he was preparing himself to be mad with Eliot for a long time. He figured that they hadn't even made it to Virginia on Eliot's errand before the bickering started and no doubt by the time they landed in Arizona, the hitter would have been at his wits end and by the time they arrived at their first scheduled stop, Eliot would have kicked Parker out of the rental truck and sped off into the distance, leaving her stranded and alone. It occurred to him that Eliot was probably already back in town shacked up his latest conquest, Brandy or some other woman that he'd picked up in a bar somewhere, as was the hitter's style. If he was right, then Parker would be back already too, having had to make her own way home, hauled up in her compound ready to make a grand entrance through the upstairs window. And if it hadn't played out the way he expected it to, well he didn't want to think about that, not one iota.

'So, how was Paris?' Hardison asked Sophie, hoping that her ramblings about boutiques, French food and the sights of the city would change his train of thought, although he didn't really want to spend the next half hour or so listening to the British woman gush about her and Nate's trip.

Sophie's mood visibly brightened instantly, 'Oh it was wonderful…'

/

The rest of the day seemed to crawl by at a painfully slow rate and by the time that the red-headed Irish fireball Cora McRory closed the down bar and locked the front doors, there was one thing that Hardison was sure of – that Parker and Eliot had not returned either together or separately and a small bubble of panic began to grow inside of his being. After listening to Sophie's on again and off again tirades between recounting the events of her vacation for almost an hour and a half, he'd been about ready to chew his own ears off or scoop his brains out with a spoon but he'd finally got an out when Nate had breezed back into the bar holding a large Manila envelope and the grifter had turned her attention to him. With stealth that even Eliot Spencer would have been proud of, he'd snuck back upstairs and spent the better part of the of the evening chatting online to a couple of his friends who hadn't been able to make the convention, filling them in on what they'd missed and bragging that when the next edition was released he'd kick their asses, and the rest of it was spent listening to Sophie complain about Nate, Nate justify cancelling on their dinner and Sophie telling Nate that he was playing with fire and going to get all of them killed on his stupid crusade to take on Moreau, in his opinion Sophie's side of the argument smacked of jealousy and contempt against The Italian as it was clearly obvious to everyone that she was in love with him, only Nate seemed either completely oblivious to it or knew and just ignored it in the hopes of it going away. However, neither of them seemed to show much concern for the absence of the hitter and thief.

He was beyond concerned now, he was bordering on full out panic and paranoia and he knew that he had to make the others realise that something was wrong, really wrong. He logged off online, promising to catch up with his friends again in the near future when work wasn't so hectic and ambled though into the den next door to find Sophie curled up on the sofa watching some television show similar to Project Runway and Nate sat in an easy chair reading over the information that he'd returned from his meeting with. If he'd have had a knife, he would have cut the thick tension that lingered between them with it, both of them were clearly silently seething at each other and for a brief moment he wondered if Eliot and Parker had the right idea about staying away, but as quickly as it popped into his brain, it popped straight back out.

Hardison perched on the arm of the sofa, his eyes glancing between his elders and back to the flat-screen, crossing and uncrossing his legs in a deliberate attempt to get some sort of reaction, earning him a stern glare from Sophie who wasn't impressed that the rustling of his clothing was impairing her ability to listen to a young woman on screen explain why she'd chose to make a shocking interpretation of a dress that looked like it made out of a piece of dental floss, some aluminium foil and a refuse sack, even he, who knew nothing about women's fashions knew that a Kindergartener could make a better outfit than that with some crepe paper and a paste. Hell even Gloria Pan could have done a better job with all her damn buckles and belts. He carried on being quietly annoying, letting out small sighs every now and again until Nate finally broke the silence between them.

'Problem Hardison?' Nate peered over the document that he was reading and stared hard at the hacker, his mouth set into a thin line.

'No, no problem,' Hardison replied shaking his head, 'a crisis yes, but a problem no.'

Nate put down the document and raised a quizzical eyebrow in his direction as he raised the tumbler of Scotch to his lips. 'A crisis you say? What's wrong? Has one of your computer thingies broken down?'

From the corner of his eye, Hardison could see Sophie's attention had shifted slightly and if it was possible for a person to pin back their ears like a cat to listen to what was going on around her then that's what the grifter would have done. 'No, no, all my gear's good, it's always good cause, y'know I only buy and build the best. The crisis is that that two of our dinosaurs are missing!'

'By dinosaurs you mean Eliot and Parker,' Nate furrowed his brow as if in thought and took his time in replying to the young man before him, 'I don't see why them not been here denotes a crisis situation.'

Hardison looked positively agog, opening and closing his mouth like a cod fish at Nate's words, how he couldn't see this as a real problem was beyond him. They were down two members of their crew; they were in the middle of systematically taking out Damien Moreau and he just happened to be one of the nastiest marks they'd ever encountered, although they hadn't actually had to face off against him… yet! They had so far taken out a few of his 'business associates' who had had dealings with him and while he was positively, absolutively sure that the demises of these corporations and individuals couldn't be traced back to them, there was always, always a slim chance that The Italian was leading them up the garden path, ready to hand them to Moreau just as soon as she'd got them to do all of her dirty work. There was also the matter of Interpol and more specifically Sterling who hadn't reared his ugly head in quite a few months, but that wasn't to say that he still wasn't keeping tabs on all of them – all of them were wanted for crimes all over the world, though none more so than Parker who was wanted in nine countries. And then there was Eliot who was wanted in five countries, with a price on his head in three and a Fatwa – which he was pretty sure that Eliot had misinterpreted as a death sentence when it was in fact not. The lack of contact from either of them was unusual – albeit for the few times that they'd had to scatter after things had gone bad and they'd agreed to not to make contact with each other for a specified time – there was always a text or an e-mail from the thief or a short phone call from the hitter.

'Y'all just didn't say that,' he replied eventually, 'are you forgetting who we are, what we do and what we've done in the past?'

'I know more than you think,' Nate commented as he pushed himself out of the chair and gathered his documents up before striding towards the door and disappearing into his apartment. Hardison followed quickly behind him. 'I chased you all numerous times over the years and I work with you all on a daily basis. I'm aware of the dangers.'

'So why can't you see that there's something wrong with this picture?' Hardison challenged, knowing that he was close to overstepping the mark, especially as his comment implied that he knew why Nate wasn't seeing what was in front of him.

'Oh don't ask him that,' Sophie's voice interjected from behind him, 'the 'Great Nate Ford' can't see past the end of his bloody nose, he sees what he wants to see.'

Nate, who had been topping up his glass in the kitchen smiled and raised his glass in the grifter's direction and downed the amber liquor in one. 'What? You think that Hardison here's right, that Eliot and Parker have been captured by someone who they've wronged in the past or that Sterling's managed to conquer and divide us? What I see is that they're late coming back and Hardison's jealousy is overshadowing his logical way of thinking.'

'Me, jel…' Hardison placed his hands on his chest and feigned ignorance as he struggled to get his words out. 'Jel… I'm not jealous. What do I have to be jealous about, ain't no jealousy here. Uh uh, not one bit.'

'You sure about that?' retorted the mastermind in a challenging voice.

Truth be told, he was jealous and had been from the minute that Eliot had agreed, albeit by force, to accompany Parker on her trip.

He's so badly wished it had been him that had been the one to plan truck stops and itineraries and lay down ground rules with the thief rather than the hitter, but it had taken only twenty minutes after she'd announced her trip and everyone else had agreed on some vacation time to get himself and some of his gaming buddies on the BlitzCon VIP list and it hadn't even crossed his mind to ask her if she wanted him to go with her – he like the others thought that she'd end up cancelling it and go steal a diamond or something, not road-tripping in close proximity to a ladies man like Eliot. That man had more notches on his bed-post than he'd had hot dinners and always seemed to get the unattainable girl, not that he truly thought that his friend would make a move on Parker, knowing how he felt about her, but still it hurt him deep inside to know that it he hadn't been with her this past week and she was with him instead.

'Look, this isn't about jealousy or not,' Sophie started as she placed a hand on the hackers shoulder, 'If Hardison's concerned then maybe we should hear him out properly instead of arguing. Have you tried calling Parker or Eliot?'

'Well yeah,' Hardison admitted guiltily. 'I tried a coupla times but ain't no reply. Sent a text too.'

'Well perhaps they're in bed… not together obviously,' Sophie stumbled over her words, although Hardison was sure he saw a small gleam of something or other in her eyes, 'I mean to say that maybe Parker's asleep in her compound and that Eliot's already in his apartment sleeping off the exhaustion of spending a week driving. Have you been to check?'

'Yeah, well Eliot's apartment at least. There's no one home and I know he's not in there sleeping 'cause his truck's not in the parking garage.' he replied. 'And also, I am technically his Landlord, so I let myself in to double check.'

'Okay,' Sophie nodded thoughtfully, 'Well maybe Nate's right and they've been held up on the way home. We don't have to meet with our client until late afternoon, so hopefully they'll be back by then, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed.'

'And if not?' the hacker queried.

'That's a bridge we'll have to cross if and when it comes to it.' Nate added with a small smile and a nod at Sophie. 'In the meantime, go home, get some rest. Don't try tracking either of them and don't try calling them again. Leave them be for the night.'

Hardison nodded solemnly, he would keep his word, but if they weren't back home by tomorrow he would do everything in his power to track the thief and the hitter down. There was no-where they could hide without him knowing, he'd track them to the ends of the earth, especially Parker and he knew that Nate and Sophie knew he would too.

'Aight, but if they don't show, y'all know I'm gonna do what I do.' Hardison agreed as he stalked towards the front door. 'I just hope you're right.' With that opened the door and was gone, leaving the heavy door to slam shut behind him causing a loud bang to echo all around him as he headed down the corridor and into his own apartment, hoping that Nate was right and tomorrow would being about the return of the blonde girl whom he loved but had never gotten the nerve to tell.