Chapter 14 – Setting the Trap

Sydney finally stirred himself when he saw that the sweeper driving the Centre sedan was carefully navigating the curved driveway of Miss Parker's summerhouse. "I thought I was going home," he commented to Jarod, his confusion apparent.

"Uh-unh," Jarod shook his head. "In the first place, I'm sure Parker will want to see you in something other than that stupid orange jumpsuit – and she's in no shape to be going from here to your place and then back again. In the second, I've called the entire gang together here – Broots is coming as soon as he finishes one last chore for me at the Centre."

Sydney merely sighed and reached for the seatbelt buckle without another word. Jarod watched his slow and deliberate movements for a moment, and then unbuckled himself. He'd already decided that the only way to adequately protect either Miss Parker or Sydney was going to be to keep them under the same roof. But not under the same roof as he – and therein he'd eventually have to ask for Sydney's permission to install security in his house in much the same way he'd had to get Miss Parker's. He didn't look forward to the asking.

Another reason he wanted Miss Parker and Sydney under the same roof was that he was hoping that Miss Parker would be able to pull Sydney out of his doldrums. This morose, barely communicative Sydney was someone Jarod had never dealt with before in his life – he understood what was going on inside the man better than possibly anybody, but he had no idea how to counter the despair and resignation. His mentor had always been a very complicated and private person – getting through the barriers the man was rapidly erecting around himself due to the humiliating circumstances that had landed him in jail would take someone who was a lot closer to him than he was. Jarod could only hope that Miss Parker was such a person – and that she'd be up to the task.

The purr of another powerful engine slowly overpowered the whisper of the breeze through the trees, and then Sam was nosing the black sedan he was driving to a gentle stop. Even Sydney paused in his laborious trek up the walk to turn back, and between him and Jarod, helped extricate Miss Parker from the passenger seat. Jarod stood back as the two of them shared a brief and awkward hug, and then Sydney slipped his shoulder under her right arm so that she didn't need to use her crutch.

"Looks like neither one of them is in great shape," Sam commented as he stepped close to Jarod to watch the pair work their way up the steep walk to the front steps. In his hand were the discarded crutches that he still hadn't quite figured out how she was going to use.

"That's for damned sure," Jarod agreed readily enough, and then with a nudge and a jerk of his head, indicated that they should follow. He turned and tossed an "I want you to watch the vehicles," at the sweeper that had been his and Sydney's chauffer before mounting the steps himself and following the others into the house.

Sydney was settling Miss Parker comfortably on her couch, and although Jarod could see the restrained impatience in her eyes, she was silently accepting the fussing and pampering. She knows, he decided – she knows that giving Sydney someone or something other than his own situation to stew about right now would be the best thing for the man. He caught her eye and earned himself a small nod of agreement before she caught at Sydney's hand and convinced him to find a seat on the end of the couch next to her, moving her legs out of the way to make room for him.

"So what now?" Miss Parker could stand the suspense no longer. She looked around her and, to both her surprise and approval, noticed none of the security measures she was sure were already in place in her house. "I take it we're wired for sight and sound in here?"

"In the house, it's mostly motion detectors," Jarod told her. "One camera aims down the stairwell, so anybody trying to get to anybody or anything up there will be caught on video, and there's another one in the kitchen, in case our friendly Mr. Cox decides to try to tamper with the food again…"

"Tamper with the food?" She frowned.

"Yeah, Miss Parker," Sam piped up as he stowed the crutches within easy reach, his voice far from pleased. "Seems that you suddenly have a liquor cabinet completely filled with unopened bottles – even though I distinctly neither bottle we drank from the other night being anything near empty. And from the way that brandy you gave me the other night hit like a ton of bricks, I'd say that he'd tampered with just about everything in there, just in case you decided to drink something different for a change."

"Oh wonderful." She leaned back into the pillows Sydney had insisted on putting behind her and closed her eyes. "I'm surprised he didn't just poison me and be done with it."

"That would have been too obvious, " Jarod stated with certainty. "He could get away with outright poisoning Raines because he knew by that time, there were few around to mount an investigation. To poison you just beforehand would have been too much of a coincidence – and it might have shown too much of his hand."

"You sound like you've started to get inside his head after all," Sydney remarked quietly, watching his protégé's face carefully. "You know what's going on."

"Most of it now," Jarod admitted. "This has been a rather clever plan all along to get Cox firmly in the Chairman's seat. Sydney, you were set up to get Miss Parker off balance and to get my attention, especially with all the contradictory evidence against you. The circumstances of your frame were designed specifically to keep the police nicely chasing their tails – and give cover to moving Lyle out of the way as well through much the same means. Miss Parker, your accident was no accident, but neither was it meant to kill you – just to sideline you from being in any position to take control of the Centre when the time came AND to finish pulling me out into the open. No doubt if things had gone the way our Mr. Cox had intended, you would suffer another accident somewhere along the way after he took over – only that one WOULD be fatal. I'm fairly certain he considers you not only expendable, but a liability."

"I still don't get it," Sam shook his head. "You say the Doc here and Miss Parker's troubles were meant mostly to pull you out into the open?"

"That's right," Jarod said somberly. "If Cox's plan had worked the way it was intended, he would have lured me out and into a trap of HIS – so that when he went to the Triumvirate with me nicely in a cage, he'd have the proof of his ability to handle the job. There were a number of things he hadn't counted on, however. One of them was Willy noticing the pattern of events and what it meant to the Centre almost immediately – and taking his suspicions to someone else capable of action. Another was my finding that strange little button that must have dropped out of his pocket in the motel room while he was setting the stage for Sydney's arrest, and thus having the means of figuring out who was responsible early on. Another was Miss Parker getting suspicious and taking the answering machine tape with her the night of her accident, providing proof of the plan. And last but not least, he didn't count on was Willy talking to Sam and their talking to me and causing me to step completely out into the open to take his prize away from him."

"So those two murdered women were nothing but diversions to keep the local police confused, to take Lyle out of the picture and set me up as bait to lure you out?" Sydney was aghast to hear his circumstances for the last few days boiled down to an agenda.

Jarod could hear the pain in the older man's voice. "I'm sorry, Sydney, but that's about the size of it."

Sydney leaned on the arm of the couch with his face in his hand. "So what ARE we going to do now?" Miss Parker demanded, her eyes glued to the figure of her old friend and colleague on the other end of her couch in obvious emotional agony.

"We're going to wait for Broots to get here, for one thing," Jarod said firmly. "Hopefully he'll have a DSA we can turn over to the police for voice printing comparison against the voice on the answering machine tape. He already called to report that our other suspicions were correct too – that Cox has been quietly making very large purchases of Centre stock. That would have been another argument in his favor, had events happened the way he'd originally planned."

"But the Parkers own a majority interest in the Centre," Miss Parker frowned. "Even with Lyle in jail…"

"And with you unable to do what Cox WOULD have done," Jarod reminded her. "His intent was to produce results by capturing me and show a sizeable investment in the Centre as well. It would make his application for the job of Chairman reasonable and, to the Triumvirate, potentially profitable. He would have produced results, where you wouldn't have – and thus stood a good chance of being ruled the better choice."

A knock sounded at the door, and Sam moved to peek through the spy hole with a hand at his shoulder holster. After seeing who it was, he relaxed and opened the door to let Broots into the room. "Miss Parker! Sydney!" The technician's face showed his delight in seeing his colleagues all together again.

"Well, Mr. Broots?" Jarod's question cut through what might have been a lengthy greeting. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Oh - got it," Broots handed over a small case and a manila folder. "That's a DSA of Cox meeting with Raines and Mr. Parker and Lyle, planning the way they were going to kidnap that girlfriend of yours," he nodded at Jarod. "There are plenty of clear shots to use for picture identification – as well as several very clear sentences that could be used in a voice printing test."

"Good work, Scooby," Miss Parker stated from her spot on the couch. "Now maybe Wonder Boy here will deign to share his plan for what we're going to do to catch that rat-bastard."

With Broots and Sam moving to stand behind the couch, Jarod moved aside some magazines so that he could sit down on the coffee table in front of them all. "OK," he began, "but I'm going to tell you ahead of time that what I've been working on will be pretty risky – and some of you probably won't like parts of it at all…"

oOoOo

"Hey, Dave," Captain Stoker called across the squad room, "we've finally got a positive ID on your first murder vic. The name's Charlene Mott from Baltimore – and she's got a rap sheet for prostitution."

Detective Miller rose from his desk and met the Captain halfway so that he could take the folder of information and look at it. The face just inside the cover was nothing like the face that had been on the forged driver's license – that young woman had been relatively pretty, where Charlene was about as plain a woman as Miller had ever seen.

A thought occurred, and he moved back to his desk where he had the latest mug shot of the young prostitute that had come forward as having been with Doctor Green in the tavern the night the first woman had been killed. He sat down and dragged out an enlargement of the picture from the fake ID, the picture of the prostitute he'd spoken to, and place them both next to the picture of the victim. In both of the previous pictures, the women were wearing plenty of makeup – in the photo of Charlene Mott, there was no sign of makeup. The women in the previous pictures bore a remarkable resemblance to each other – Miller suddenly had a suspicion that were the Mott woman to apply makeup, she too would be one of what could have been a set of sisters.

Then why didn't Green seem to recognize the woman he'd been with?

All three pictures had been taken in color – but Miller bent over and examined the one of Mary, the prostitute he'd spoken to, to see if he could see just what it was about her… He glanced back and forth from her picture to that of the fake ID several times before it hit him: Mary had vivid green eyes – the woman in the fake ID had blue eyes. He glanced over to the information on the dead woman and saw the same thing – blue eyes. Green must have remembered, and caught that detail of difference.

Score one for the shrink's powers of observation, even while under the influence.

That still didn't account for Green's semen in Mott's body, however. Hell, he was starting to suspect that the semen evidence was a red herring; because although there was no way in hell that Green could have had sex with the Chang woman, his semen was present there too. And, frankly, the fingerprints on the bloody razor that tied Green to the crime could also be a plant. There was no way for the motel room to have been the murder scene, and toxicology – not to mention the testimony of the prostitute he'd been with in the tavern – had established very firmly that Green should have been virtually helpless. He'd have been in no shape to do anything at the time when the blood would have been put in the bed. An unconscious man could easily have his hand manipulated around the handle of a bloody razor – a razor just dipping in the blood poured out on a bed.

Jarod Bailey had proposed that the two women were murdered in relation to and to hide the murder of the Chairman of the Centre – and considering that the two men held in conjunction to the case were all top brass at the Centre, maybe the new Chairman was onto something. It was the first reasonable theory about this case he'd heard.

"Say Cap – have we heard back from CSU about any prints from the stuff that Bailey fellow turned over?" Miller asked, even though his Captain had made it almost the entire way back to his office by then.

"I haven't had anything cross my desk about that," the older man replied, scratching his head. "Maybe you should light a stick under 'em and see if you can't push that along some."

"Maybe I should," Miller nodded and reached for the telephone. Maybe it was time to see about a number of things – including investigating a man by the name of Nathaniel Cox.

oOoOo

"You're not serious!" Sydney gaped at the man seated so casually on the coffee table.

"Sydney's right," Miss Parker shook her head at Jarod, "you're out of your ever-lovin' mind."

Jarod felt the temptation to sigh – he'd known that neither of them would easily agree with him – but repressed the urge. "Look," he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands spread wide, "we know that Cox's ultimate goal is to be sitting in the seat I currently occupy – and we know that, like it or not, HE knows that I'm vulnerable where you two are concerned. He's GOING to try to come at me through one or another or the both of you again – I guarantee it. My aim is to control how and when he does, so that I can surprise him again and, hopefully, trap him."

"I don't mind your using me as bait," Sydney insisted, "because it finally gives me a chance to be something other than a liability – but I don't want Miss Parker involved."

"Now wait a minute, Freud…" Miss Parker sat up straighter, her brows folded. "I'm not a child or an innocent bystander here. Who the hell do you think you are…"

Sydney turned concerned and determined chestnut eyes on her. "Face it, Parker, you're about a invalided as you've ever been. You aren't mobile, and are on some high-powered pain medication that would slow your reflexes otherwise. There's no need to…"

"I'll tell you exactly what I told Jarod a while back," she retorted. "I have a gun – nice and shiny, makes a big sound when I pull the trigger and puts big holes in things I aim at…"

"The idea, people," Jarod interrupted the two of them, "is to keep you BOTH safe, even while giving Cox the impression he can still get at you to get to me. I don't intend to endanger either one of you anymore than I have to. It's ME I want him to come after, ultimately. Security around you two will be as tight as a drum, where I leave him one open avenue to get to me so I can control the situation beyond his understanding."

"I don't like it," Sydney stated flatly.

"Neither do I," Miss Parker agreed with him and glared at the Pretender – and then turned and glared up at the sweeper standing behind the couch. "You're not saying much," she accused Sam.

"Not much TO say, Miss Parker," the big man shrugged in response. "It's a clever plan, and sure looks like it will work from here." He turned his somber gaze on the Pretender. "It's risky, though. I'm not too happy about that part of it."

"But what about you, Jarod?" Broots finally found his voice. "Cox has been very clever in finding ways to get to the others, despite all of the security measures they've had to protect them before now. How do you be sure you can control him once he starts to come directly for you?"

"It's just too risky," Miss Parker nodded in agreement with Sam.

Jarod shook his head. "We have a day or so to set this up – I doubt that anything Cox might want to do can be put in motion before then. In that time, we'll be working our butts off with the police, putting together enough admissible evidence to put that man on Death Row so that when we do set the trap, we have backup."

"Cops?" Broots blinked. "You're going to have the cops involved too?"

"I'm going to use every resource I have at my disposal, Mr. Broots," Jarod answered, his dark eyes snapping. "That includes the police in both Dover and Blue Cove, if need be."

"I know you said you've beefed up the security around this place," Sydney glanced around the room and, like Miss Parker, noticed nothing new or out of the ordinary. "But I don't have half the security system that she has. How…"

"That's one thing I was going to talk to you about," Jarod finally did sigh. "I need your permission to essentially do to your house what I did here – make the security as tight as it can be."

"Cameras?" Sydney's willingness to participate was fading rapidly. "I don't want to come away from this with a feeling that I can't even have any privacy in my own home…"

"Tell me about it…" Miss Parker grumbled.

"Whatever gets put in now can be removed when this is over," Jarod reassured his mentor, "but I need it in place for when, not if, Cox finally makes his move."

"The Centre removing surveillance equipment, right…" Sydney's voice made his skepticism clear.

"Remember," Jarod reminded him, "the people who would be most likely to want to keep or improve their spying on either you or Miss Parker aren't in charge of things at the Centre anymore. And when this is done, it will be Miss Parker who is responsible for giving any orders about that sort of thing."

"Believe me, Syd, the moment I have the authority, I'm having the whole works ripped outta BOTH our houses," Miss Parker glared at Jarod again, her voice vehement. "I hate being watched almost as much as your Boy-Genius here does."

Sydney stared at Jarod for a long moment, searching his protégé's face for any signs of insecurity or wavering and finding none. "All right. Do it," he growled finally and leaned back against the tall back of the couch and closed his eyes. "I haven't heard any better ideas floating around, so I might as well go along with it."

Jarod allowed himself a small smile of gratitude. "Thanks, Sydney. I know this is an intrusion, and I appreciate your help." He looked around the small circle of faces. "OK. This is how we're going to play this. Sam, you're with Sydney and Miss Parker – like I told you before, on 24/7 duty until this thing is over. You give me the name of one other sweeper you trust implicitly to share the duty, and we get him over here post-haste." He thought quickly. "Two you trust implicitly, actually, because I want you supervising the installation of security at Sydney's house – I'll help so the job goes faster. We already have Willy and his team out in the garage apartment, watching the monitors on a 24/7 basis, so that's covered – they'll be monitoring Sydney's house too when everything's in place."

"Those cameras have sound capabilities too?" Miss Parker asked suddenly.

"No," Sam replied before Jarod could open his mouth. "They're to catch and video record any unauthorized access – not be full surveillance. When I requisitioned them, I chose the ones without microphones built in." He looked up at Jarod and shrugged. "I figured you'd want to protect at least a semblance of privacy…"

"You figured right," Jarod nodded approvingly.

"What about me?" Broots asked in a small voice.

"You I want digging and finding out where Cox is currently holed up. He's got to have a fairly isolated place somewhere, considering the kind of violence he did to those women – I need you to find that place, and any apartment or house in town where he keeps up appearances. I'm betting his more public dwelling is in Dover – but that he also is using someplace in the countryside between here and there as his 'workroom.'"

"You don't think he'll think of coming after me or Debbie, will he?"

Jarod cast Broots a measuring gaze. "Good question. Tell you what – Debbie can catch a sudden case of the flu and miss a few days of school. You take the two of you into the Centre and set up a temporary place down in Sydney's Sim Lab – or maybe even take over my old apartment there. It gives you access to computers for your work, and you won't have to worry about Debbie's safety. That gets you out of harm's way while you continue to provide information. Sam can even recommend a couple more sweepers for bodyguard detail on the both of you – although one of my first orders as Chairman was to order a Detain On Sight order on Cox. If he comes through the doors of the Centre again, we'll nail him."

Broots wasn't looking too happy now either. "I suppose…" he grumbled.

"Welcome to the Unhappy Campers Club," Miss Parker told him darkly. "We're now almost unanimous."

Jarod frowned at her. "Definitely unanimous, because if you think I'm any happier about this than any of you, you're dreaming. Do you HONESTLY think I'm happy having anything to do with the Centre up this close and personal?"

Miss Parker's gaze caught and locked with his for a long moment, and then she looked away again with a shake of the head. "Point taken."

With that, Jarod rose. "C'mon, Sam – you're with me. Get me two sweepers to keep an eye on our friends here, and then we'll head back to the Centre for the equipment for Sydney's house. Broots, go home and collect Debbie – have her bring enough of something to keep her occupied and entertained for a few days."

"What about us?" Sydney looked up questioningly.

"You two just relax. You're doing your part just resting up and unwinding from what Cox has done to you so far. Stay alert, and don't go anywhere without an escort."

"I don't think I'll ever be able to fish again," Sydney grumbled to Miss Parker as the others began to move away from the couch. "Now I know how the worm feels – and it isn't all that pleasant."

"Think of it this way, Syd: at least you're out here, playing worm, rather than in jail like a Thanksgiving turkey waiting for the axe to fall," she commented pointedly.

Sydney looked at her sharply and then looked away. In many ways, he wasn't exactly sure which was worse.

oOoOo

Miller sighed and hit print screen for the fourth time. Information on Nathaniel Cox was turning out to be not easily come by. But Jarod Bailey's clue that the man was a physician had been the one that had finally yielded some results. A Nathaniel Cox had graduated from Harvard Medical and then gone on to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. He'd received a license to practice medicine in Maryland that had been revoked in 1995 after several allegations that he'd taken liberties with some of his patients. Before any of the cases could be brought to trial, Cox had fled the state – and there had been no record of his whereabouts or his activities since then.

He reached over to the printer and pulled the sheets to his desk, sorting through them until he could look down into the face of the man that Bailey suspected of being responsible for the mess he was currently trying to unravel. Cox had brilliant blue eyes in the color photograph that had been the most recent picture of him, slightly curly dark hair and very fair skin. Just looking into that face, Miller bridled at the impression that the man had been very quietly smirking into the camera.

The ringing of the telephone broke into his musings, and he reached out automatically for the receiver. "Yeah, Miller…"

"This is Hicks over at CSU. We finally managed to find one fingerprint on the evidence you turned in to us. We've run it through CODUS, and we got a match – a man by the name of Nathaniel Cox."

Miller grinned down at the photo on his desk. "So Bailey was right and you ARE involved, you son of a bitch," he murmured to the picture, then spoke louder into the phone. "Thanks, guys."

"Oh, and that button is what your friend at the Centre told you it was – an eye used by taxidermists."

"Thanks." He hung up the phone and pulled out a new file folder and began to assemble a dossier on Nathaniel Cox, MD. "Now all we have to do is find out what you've been up to for the last few years, Doc," he nodded at the picture at the very front of the file.

oOoOo

Miss Parker watched with concern as her colleague rose to his feet and moved once more to the front window to stare down her driveway for a long moment. It was the tenth or eleventh time in the last hour he'd done so, and it was starting to get annoying. She shifted a portion of her paperwork from her lap to the nearby coffee table. "Sit down, Sydney, before you wear a rut in my carpet."

Sydney shot her a tortured look and then slumped before moving slowly over to one of the easy chairs near her fireplace. Once seated, he folded his hands in his lap quietly – but couldn't hold them still. "I hate this," he stated in a quietly desperate voice.

"I'm not having buckets of fun either, you know," she responded a little more sympathetically. "You know that Jarod said that we wouldn't necessarily like the roles he'd want us to play."

"It isn't that." Sydney rose again and moved to lean against the mantle and gaze distractedly at the photograph Miss Parker kept there of herself and her mother – a picture of what must have been much happier times for her. "It's that this is almost as bad as being in a jail cell – I have nothing to do, nothing to keep my mind occupied."

"I have some books," Miss Parker stated in her own defense and in defense of her home, pointing to a bookcase on a far wall. "It may not be a psychiatrist's library, but I'm sure there should be something in there that could keep you from jumping out of your skin every five minutes or so." She watched him follow her gesture and gaze at the bookcase for a moment before shaking his head and leaning his face into his hand as it rested against the mantle. "Talk to me, Syd."

That earned her a quick, sharp glance before he couldn't stand the weight of her gaze any longer again. "About what?"

She shifted the rest of the papers onto the coffee table and moved her legs so that there was plenty of room on the couch next to her. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing." His voice was flat, and he'd hunched his shoulders at her question.

"Like hell. Look at you – you look like a six foot snail working at pulling yourself into a shell so nobody can see or touch you."

"I knew about the law degree – I didn't know that you'd also gotten a degree in psychology," he tossed at her with a bitter tone.

"Face it, Syd, I've been around you too long – things have started rubbing off." She tried to give him a more open, inviting look. "Give me credit for being able to spot a depression a mile away after having you point out my own to me for so many years."

"This isn't a depression," Sydney complained, knowing full well that she'd pinned him rather nicely and not being at all happy about being so obvious.

"Oh yeah? Then what would you call it?" she challenged in return.

"Humiliation," he stated explosively. "Have you got any idea what it's like to have people around you who believe you to have been capable of actions that violate every possible principle you hold? Do you have any idea how it feels to have a portion of your memory missing that would make it possible for you to know whether or not you actually did the things that you're being accused of or not? Can you imagine having the physical facts tell you that you're an animal – or worse?" He buried his face in his hand again.

"Sydney," she called, holding a hand out to him, "come sit down with me again for a little bit."

"I'm not sure that would be wise, Miss Parker."

She bit off the retort that was on the tip of her tongue and continued to hold out her hand. "I am," she said simply. "I know you too well, Sydney. I know you didn't do any of what they say…"

"I had sex with that prostitute," he complained, "I let another man tuck…" His face was flushed and he choked on his words.

Miss Parker shot the sweeper in the room a quick, sharp look. "Give us some privacy, will you?" she muttered, and was gratified to see the sweeper move out of the room and hopefully completely out of earshot. "You were under the influence of a nasty cocktail of alcohol and drugs, Sydney. I know you'd never think of doing such things otherwise – and so do you."

"If I hadn't gone to the bar that night…" he began.

"Cox would have found another way to get at you – just look at what he was able to accomplish with me in my home and at work," she insisted.

"But to behave so reprehensibly and have it become public knowledge…" he choked.

"It isn't public knowledge," she told him in challenge. "Only a few people know the details…" She paused. "Syd, I didn't tell you what that little prostitute said to embarrass you, you know…"

"God," he whimpered and found his way to the open end of the couch and sank to a seat before his legs gave out on him. "How do I ever learn to look you in the eye again?"

Stretching forward painfully, despite her bruised ribs, Miss Parker took a firm hold of his chin and turned his face until he was looking at her directly. "Just like this, Sydney. You listen to me. Over the years, you've heard a great deal about my peccadilloes – you've had occasion to scold me for my dress code, my lack of morals. So of all the people in the world, I can assure you that I'd be the LAST one in any position to be casting stones at your one lapse. You're human, Sydney – give yourself permission to make mistakes every once in a while. You can look me in the eye for the same reason that I can still look you in the eye."

"A mistake is one thing," he pronounced carefully his chin still firmly within her control, "but rape? Murder?"

"Having sex with a prostitute isn't rape – and you didn't kill anybody." Her voice was certain. "Repeat that after me."

"Parker…" he cast her a cautionary glare.

"I mean it. You're being too hard on yourself – and nobody around here is sitting in judgement of you. So you stop digging yourself into a hole and trying to pull the hole in on top of you. I won't have it, I tell you," she ordered imperiously and then released his chin to brush the backs of her fingertips across his cheek. "Nobody is that hard on someone I c…" She stopped suddenly, caught on the admission she'd been about to make.

The chestnut gaze had warmed, and his big hand caught and held hers before it could flee to a place of safety at her side. "I'll work on it, Parker," he told her honestly. "Keep reminding me, OK?"

Her fingers turned in his and tightened around his hand for a long moment, and then she let go so that she could lean back into her pillows again with a sigh. That discussion had worn her out almost as much as the trip from the hospital to her home had – and something told her that it would be a discussion she'd have to have more than once if she wanted to get her old friend back.