Chapter 25 – Nocturnal Movement
"And you're sure…" Miss Parker spoke softly into the telephone in the hopes that her worry about Sydney wouldn't be communicated to Evan – not yet, anyway. Her brother was still working on his homework at the coffee table in the living room, not all that far away, and tended to hear just about anything said in normal tones.
"There were definite signs that there was an intruder in the house – and that they probably had been waiting for him for quite a while, from the looks of things. The place was a mess – but no real forensic evidence to give anyone a starting place to look," Alexander Horsch told his client with real regret. He was acquainted with Dr. Sydney Green – since he'd become a part of fabricating the death of his client, Dr. Green's role as legal guardian of the Parker boy and executor of Miss Parker's will had meant they'd met several times. Sydney was a true gentleman of the old school. "The police are checking into a few possible leads, but it may be some time before we know anything for sure." He hesitated. He'd been the Parker family lawyer for long enough to be well aware of the way the Parkers handled bad news, and so he braced himself. "I'm sorry, Miss Parker."
"I know," Miss Parker remarked sadly with a shake of her head. She could almost hear the surprise in the silence on the other end of the phone at the lack of fireworks – but this was another time, and she was living another life. Cat Jamison – now why did she think of herself with THAT nickname automatically? – wouldn't blow up at the messenger bearing bad news. "Thanks for calling. Keep me informed of any progress?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Miss Parker replaced the telephone gently into the cradle and then turned to find Sam watching her quietly from the doorjamb, where he was leaning casually against the highly polished wood. "What did the lawyer say?" he wanted to know, pushing away from the post and stepping more fully into the kitchen.
"There was evidence that an intruder had been waiting for Sydney," she reported in a voice that was deliberately flat. Sydney HAD to be OK – he just HAD to be.
"They'll find him," Sam told her automatically, wishing he dared actually help comfort her. Miss Parker – Cat, he reminded himself – had always been closer to Sydney than she'd let on or even wanted to admit to herself. She was holding up well enough now, under the circumstances, but he could already tell that she was far more upset about this than she was going to allow to show. The stress of his disappearance was going to wear on her as time went by, which was bad news considering the precariousness of their roles in this Pretend. "You have to trust that the cops know what they're doing."
"I wish I dared turn YOU loose on the case," she admitted, noting Sam's proximity and finding it oddly comforting. "The Blue Cove PD hasn't exactly got a lot of experience in actually solving a crime, you know…"
Sam kept his mouth shut. He'd watched from the distance required as a mere bodyguard as she'd struggled with the BCPD years earlier, when the man she'd been seeing had been murdered on the front porch of her summerhouse. This was going to come close to that ugly time, he was willing to bet. Perversely, he rejoiced for a quick moment in the fact that she was here in Philadelphia and not Blue Cove.
"Speaking of the police, you haven't said much about your first day as a real, live police officer yourself," she ran fingers through her hair in a habitual gesture and then dropped her arm as if all strength to move it had evaporated.
"Well," Sam began, opening the fridge to pull out a can of decaffeinated diet cola, "you want one?"
"I'm fine," she shook her head. "Well?"
"My new partner is an interesting character by the name of Les Jarek – short guy about so tall…" Sam put out a hand at about shoulder height as he moved to the kitchen table, "…that looks like one of my old martial arts instructors back in the… back home," he corrected himself. "And I started out my new career working the case of a young woman who'd been beaten to death." He watched as Miss Parker shuddered and moved to sit down in the kitchen chair that she'd pretty much assumed as "hers" for meals. "How about your day? What are your first impressions of the Eire Foundation?"
She shrugged. "It felt too damned familiar, to be honest," she told him, letting her chin land in the palm of a hand supported by an elbow on the table. "Jarod managed to make contact and let me know where he is. AND I think I was recognized today…"
"What?!" Sam exploded in worry. "Who?"
"Do you remember the head of the accounting department – the fellow you were trying at the end to get the appointment with who always managed to have something else to do?"
Sam nodded. She nodded back, and Sam snapped out a whispered, "Shit! Who is he really?" he asked in a more normal tone then.
"The twin brother of the Eire Foundation Chairman," she informed him with a sigh. "We definitely had a mole – a high-ranking member of the family that owns and operates the strongest domestic competition to the Centre was in charge of running Centre finances." She scowled. "No wonder the place went belly-up for lack of funds."
"Wooooooonderful," Sam shook his head too. "What are you going to do if he really did recognize you?"
She shrugged. "I'm going to do my damnedest to convince him that he's mistaken – what the Hell do you think I'm going to do?"
"You should tell Jarod…"
Miss Parker rose and shook her head strongly. "Jarod has enough on his plate right now. His cover is secure, no matter what happens to me. And YOUR position is fairly safe from being uncovered too."
"If one of us falls, we all are at risk," Sam reminded her softly. "Don't do anything that would make this McKenna fellow doubt you more than he already does…"
"I figure that I'm going to have to be extra-good at my job," Miss Parker reached automatically for Sam's cola can and took a quick sip before putting it back down quickly in apology. "I'll have to find a way to do something security-wise that would normally prove that I have no loyalty to the Centre – or to anybody else."
"Watch your step, Cat," Sam warned gently. "I'm not close enough to defend you when you're at work."
Miss Parker rose. It had been a long day, and she was tired – and touched at the way Sam was still trying to play bodyguard for her. "I know what I'm doing, Sam," she reassured him, stifling an urge to give his shoulder a pat as she moved behind him for the doorway into the rest of the apartment. "I've been playing these kinds of games for a very long time now – and I'm damned good at it."
"The woman who played those games supposedly died weeks ago," Sam reminded her. "I don't want to have to tell Evan…"
"I'll be careful, I promise." She paused and looked over her shoulder. "It's late – you coming?"
Sam nodded and tossed down the rest of the cola with just a few gulps. Morning would come all too soon – and the image of the woman who'd been beaten to death had haunted his thoughts all day long. He hoped they wouldn't haunt his sleep as well – he hated the thought of what Miss Parker's reaction would be to his snuggling up to HER for comfort in his sleep.
oOoOo
Ray Carlisle studied the reports on the Pretender Project again. Somewhere in these records had to be SOME information that he could use to locate this Sydney Green that his gut told him would lead him directly to the mysterious Jarod. Frustrated yet again after a third careful study of the information in the newspaper article, he turned to the Internet. He Googled the phrase "The Centre" and clicked to bring up the first in what turned out to be an amazing number of webpages.
Amazingly, the Centre had maintained a rather slick website of its own – one that had as yet to be removed with the demise of the corporation itself. Carlisle clicked his way through to the staff page – and smiled grimly. So that was Dr. Sydney Green, he thought, staring at the visage of a rather distinguished elderly gentleman with silvered hair and an expressive, care-worn face. He gazed at the rest of the faces almost in afterthought – then blinked.
He turned back to the original article that had made him consider that this Pretender Project was the story that Susan's Jarod had been alluding to. There were three names listed prominently as having been staff assigned to the project even long after the alleged escape – Dr. Green's name being but one of them. Then there was a Ms. Melissa Parker, the nominal team "leader" and "organizer". Carlisle typed her name into Google and started following links, and then shook his head in regret. The Parker woman would have been a wonderful alternative, it turned out, except for the Dover news report detailing her death in an auto accident only a week or so before the Centre had fallen apart.
The third name on the list made him begin to search the Internet again. Dr. Lazlo Broots had been one of those child geniuses who had graduated from high school and gone on to graduate from college when most boys his age were still sneaking Dad's razor into the bathroom. Dr. Broots was a computer genius – the master-mind behind the cutting-edge and very profitable software technology that the Centre had peddled for the last eight years – and yet he'd been assigned to the Pretender Project. Googling the name didn't bring up any related news report of HIS demise…
So… Where was he?
Carlisle printed out a copy of the photograph of Dr. Broots from the Centre staff page and then reviewed the biography of the man. Divorced, Dr. Broots had been a single father of a pre-teen daughter. He smiled.
If Dr. Broots had moved, it stood to reason that he'd taken his daughter with him – and there would be the transfer of school records that would give him a paper trail to follow.
With a sigh, Carlisle shut his computer off. In the morning, he would hack the Blue Cove Elementary School computer system – after checking to see whether the Broots had stuck around after their source of funding had closed down. He was a step closer – he just knew it.
oOoOo
Zoe worked hard to stifle the fifth yawn in just a few minutes, then wiped beneath her nose with a rough hand to try to bring herself back to full alertness. It was late, she had been driving most of the day – first to the prison, and now to Dover – and she had a ways to go yet. She couldn't afford sleep. She had a job to do – and the orders had been redefined and clarified:
Kill Sydney. Then find and kill Jarod.
Kill Jarod?
Her brows folded as that tiny corner of her mind that had been locked down and forced to silence rattled against the container into which it had been put. She LOVED Jarod – didn't she? She wanted to find him so that she could be with him at long last – be with him the way she deserved and he wanted – right? After all, SHE decided who lives and dies…
The confusion faded as the trigger phrase reverberated through her mind once more. She needed to find Sydney, get him to tell her how to find Jarod, and then kill him. Nothing more, and nothing less than that. Then she'd find Jarod.
She frowned and then steered her convertible up the exit ramp and onto the narrow county lane that led from the interstate to the small ocean-side hamlet of Blue Cove. That was where Jarod had told her the Centre was located – and it stood to reason that THAT was where she could find Sydney. All she had to do was get there, find a motel, use the telephone book, and then take care of business.
Blue Cove. Sydney.
She decided who lives and dies…
oOoOo
Sydney grimaced at the finality of the metallic clang of the door to what must now evidently be considered his "space". Still, he'd been lucky to have managed to remain at the side of his new protégé for as long as he had – leaving only after having given very detailed instructions to the night shift medical technician in case Adam awoke again in pain. He could only hope that he'd be allowed to return to the Foundation's version of the Renewal facility early enough to clean and redress Adam's infected wounds before the young man was summarily hauled back to his feet and into the SIM Lab. Adam was in no shape to be on his feet, much less working SIMs.
The Centre had always been draconian in its techniques at times – it was just that, under normal circumstances, others had been made to pay the price for Jarod's recalcitrance at completing specified tasks rather than risking Jarod's physical wellbeing. He'd had his suspicions about Jarod's having been outright tortured only once – when Lyle had kept control of Jarod after the Pretender's having been captured trying to protect Parker when she'd been shot in the back. There had been the experiments that had taken place when he'd been lured away from his protégé – experiments that even now he still knew very little about – but their damage had generally been of a psychological nature, not a physical one.
What Adam had gone through at the hands of his Foundation handlers was both obscene and counterproductive – a sign that the Foundation had very little idea what to do with a real Pretender.
And yet, in the end, Adam had been willing to follow his directives – convinced to step back from his active death-wish to give Jarod and unknown others the time to work in his best interests. Sydney's idea had been a simple one: to appear to reconsider and then capitulate.
Just not exactly in the way the Foundation wanted.
Adam would appear to consent to work on the problem that the Foundation wanted resolved – and would seem, in a reasonable amount of time, to find the mistake and remedy it. However, Sydney had challenged the young man to find an alternative that rendered the final project just as impotent as it was already – only the impotence would appear in a more long-term setting. If Adam's quick assessment of the project was correct – and Sydney had no reason to doubt the information the young man had been given – then the short-term applications of the pharmaceutical in question had very few negatives involved at all. It was only the long-term applications or overdoses that held the real possibility of abuse and misuse.
From that point on, until whatever plan Jarod might put together to rescue the two of them was carried out, he and Adam would comply and appear to cooperate with their Foundation captors – only to be quietly sabotaging everything they possibly could in the process. It was a dangerous game, one with potentially lethal consequences for him personally, but the only other options at this point – full cooperation and/or utter refusal - were unthinkable.
At least Adam's physical condition had improved over the day. Dehydration and hunger had sapped the young man's body of its ability to rebound from the other pressures being put on it with the beatings – a few hours of a saline IV and then finally a large serving of chicken broth and milk had resolved a good deal of that. The antibiotics that he'd fed into the young Pretender's IV tube had taken quick hold and brought the skyrocketing fever back to a reasonable level, with the likelihood that continued dosages would finish the job. Whatever the Centre might have done or not done, they obviously had taken very good care of Adam – his health, up until just recently, had been excellent and the reason Adam had managed to survive this long.
Sydney stretched out on his back on the thin mattress and closed his eyes. It had been a very long and stressful day, and he hadn't rested well even unconscious in whatever vehicle had brought him here. He wondered briefly how Miss Parker and Jarod were taking the news that he was missing – or whether they had even figured it out yet or not. He wondered whether or not the surveillance of the medical bay in which he'd just spent the entire bay was complete enough that his planning with Adam had been overheard. He'd find out soon enough, he was sure.
At least he now knew – or hoped he knew – the fate of two of the other children who had been stolen from Montana. Jarod needed that information as quickly as possible – before the boys fell into the wrong hands or suffered from their near-lethal naivete. Two boys – boys Adam called "brothers" – three copies of Jarod, on top of JD.
And here he was, once more in the position of having to mentor a Pretender for a diabolical corporation more interested in dollars than the lives of those it touched. It was his life in redux – and ironical joke that a God that he could no longer believe in would be perfectly justified in pulling. But this time – THIS time – he didn't intend to remain a spectator or an uncomplaining observer to the mistreatment of an innocent. He'd spent thirty years as an accomplice – no more.
He drew in a long breath – satisfied at last that he was doing the right thing despite difficult circumstances – and floated off into an exhausted semi-slumber.
oOoOo
Lula Mutumbo was ready – or at least, she was as ready as she was going to get. The stockholder's meeting that would decide on the replacement for Ugo N'Deka's post on the council would be starting in a little over two hours – and there would be no chance that she'd be able to wrest complete and sole power for herself anymore. Londele's utter betrayal and threat of exposure had sealed her fate.
She should have known something was up when she'd been shuttled back and forth between Africa and America. Shinse Olabi was an intelligent, canny old man – one who, along with Siskele Adin, was in an ideal situation to have subverted any plans she could come up with. Her husband had underestimated his old comrade and died for it – it was ironic that she, in her turn, had made the same mistake.
There was only one possible way for her to survive the day with her fortune and her life intact, and that would be to give up her post on the council. If she resigned before Olabi had an opportunity to expose her subterfuge to the consortium at large, she could walk away from the position of power with a resource of reputation and prestige untouched and undiminished except for access to elite Triumvirate resources. What was more, she still had contacts in the underbelly of the African business world that could assist her in exacting her revenge on Imsi Londele.
Lula's eyes narrowed. Londele. The name – and the last conversation she'd had with the highly-esteemed assassin – was enough to bring her blood to a boil. By resigning from her position within the Triumvirate, she would neutralize any threat that his exposing her former plans could possibly pose to her. And then she would be free to take care of him properly.
But she still had to survive the day.
There was a soft knock on the door to her office, and her secretary peeked a closely trimmed head around the corner. "Mrs. Mutumbo? I have your letter ready…"
"Good," Lula nodded somberly. "Bring it here so I can sign it."
Chiuma Elende carried the three copies of the single-paged letter to the woman seated behind the large desk. "If I may…" she began, carefully placing the paper on the desk in such a way that Lula could just sign them without adjusting them much.
"Yes?"
"Are you certain this is necessary?"
Lula gazed at her young secretary – a woman who had just recently been promoted from the clerical pool to more robust duties. "Absolutely certain. I'll be putting in a recommendation that you continue in your position, however…"
"That wasn't why I asked, ma'am…" Chiuma blushed.
"I'm sure it wasn't," Lula agreed skeptically. It was too much to believe that anybody had altruistic sentiments in the Triumvirate – the basic premise of the kind of business conducted by the consortium ruled out such weaknesses rather early on, or made it impossible for those die-hard bleeding hearts to remain employed for long.
"What will you do then?" Chiuma asked, then blushed again. "If you don't mind my asking, that is…"
"Don't worry about me," Lula shook her head as she signed the final copy and then rose to hand two of the copies back to the secretary. "You'll see that these are delivered properly?"
"Yes, ma'am," Chiuma affirmed unhappily. "One to Archives, and one to Mr. Olabi's office."
"But not until fifteen minutes after the stockholder's meeting begins," Lula instructed firmly. "And do not share the contents of these letters with any of your friends either – I want my resignation to take a number of people by surprise. Having the news hit the clerical grapevine would not be a good idea, then…"
"Yes, ma'am." Chiuma nodded and sighed. "It has been a pleasure working for you, Mrs. Mutumbo."
"Go on with you then," Lula dismissed the young woman casually. "You have your instructions."
She watched the secretary retreat out the office door and then pulled open her top drawer. Inside were the cards on which she'd outlined the speech she intended to make to the assembled consortium members – and the time had come to start thinking through more precise phrasing and body language to go with the speech. She was ready – but a little more preparation couldn't hurt…
"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve your interests…" she began, and then frowned. "Serving on the council has been an honor…
Yes. That was better…
oOoOo
Cancer took in a long, deep breath and managed not to let it escape as a moan. The last time he'd made noise, the stranger had come with a curious look on his face and hands that weren't half as gentle as Sydney's. He wanted time to think – and he didn't want another dose of pain medication that would dull his thoughts.
The possibility that his former keepers had lied to him about the fate of the Pretender who had come before him was still enough to make him doubt just about everything about his life. Jarod hadn't died – hadn't been punished for refusing to serve. He'd found a way OUT and away – and had evidently been leading his keepers on a merry chase for years since then. In fact, it was very possible that the testing that he himself had been about to undertake – just before his home had been destroyed, that is – was to determine if HE was ready to assume the duties and obligations that Jarod had managed for so long.
And yet…
Would Sydney lie to him too?
Did he dare trust this gentle and concerned old man now – over and above those who had seen to his needs for as long as he could remember?
Did he dare NOT trust him?
The plan that Sydney had spelled out to him would be easily enough carried out – at least in terms of the pharmaceutical project his current keepers had kept throwing at him all this time. All he had to do was to make sure that the potency of the drug decayed along a very specific timeline.
Sydney had told him a lot of things during their long hours together – and if everything that the old man had told him was true, not only was it important to the two of them that he cooperate in this plan to cooperate-yet-subvert to buy the rescuers time, but it was important to the world at large. If the world at large were as ruthless a place as Sydney described, then any discovery he made – whether it be for the Centre or the Foundation – stood a chance of being misused at the first profitable opportunity. Delivering as benign a product as possible, then, was to work for humanity.
What was more, Sydney's questions to him had revealed that the old man knew the process of SIMming intimately – to the point that the old man had been anticipating the many ways in which the handlers here in this new place had made the job more difficult. Sydney knew about the meditations, the mind-clearing exercises – and had even led him through one when the time came to change the dressing on his back and the pain was intense. For the first time in his life, Cancer had found real comfort in following the direction and instructions of a knowledgeable mentor – and the soft, lilting accent to the old man's voice had softened even the most pointed instruction.
Cancer had never known the kind of consideration Sydney had given him – even the handlers from this new place hadn't been THAT concerned with his comfort or understanding. It had become obvious, as their discussion had progressed, that Sydney had been fond of Jarod – and that he still was. It was amazing – a mentor actually CARED for a Pretender! It was confusing too. How was he supposed to respond to this kind of treatment?
He'd seen too many mentors in his life – men who had stayed in his life just long enough to train him in a certain discipline or present highly specific information in an intelligible manner so that his extrapolations could be more precise. No doubt the moment that the two of them were free from this latest place – IF they ever were free, that was – Sydney would vanish back to wherever it was that he'd come from, and he'd never see him again.
And yet, he wanted Sydney to care – to care for HIM the way that he cared for Jarod.
Even at the worst of cleaning the wounds at his back, Sydney's touch had been gentle. Was that what it was like to have someone care – REALLY care? If so, Cancer wanted more – much more.
When would Sydney come back? Cancer turned his head and watched the white-coated stranger sitting at the desk on the far side of the room. This man was rough – he didn't like him at all. He wanted Sydney back.
He took a long, deep breath and let his eyes close again. Sydney would be back when the men who were in charge of such things allowed him to come back. Until then, he would lie quietly on his stomach and dream of accented voices and gentle hands and the concept of actually being free.
oOoOo
Imsi Londele shouldered his duffel bag and studied the signage on the wall of the airport. It was nighttime – his flight in from Africa had landed in New York at nearly midnight local time – and he still had a flight to Philadelphia to catch. He had exactly thirty-five minutes to make it from the gate he'd arrived at to the gate from which he'd need to depart.
Everything was arranged. From the Philadelphia airport, he'd catch a taxi to the Hilton near the airport where Mr. Adin had told him he had reservations. It would be from there that he would undertake fulfilling his new contract on the man responsible for the death of a Triumvirate council member. In his pocket was a Visa debit card drawing upon a bank account with a two million US dollars balance – and the guarantee of a second such account being made available to him upon completion of his task.
Better still, his plastic weapon – disassembled and hidden amongst his various personal belongings in the duffel bag – was right at his side. He'd not been challenged in any way by customs or airport security, neither in New York nor in London or Nairobi. Then again, he hadn't expected to be. He'd traveled too many times on similar engagements, and his weapon had been very specifically designed to break apart into many smaller and virtually unrecognizeable pieces to avoid detection. He was good at his job – good enough to warrant charging millions for his professionalism.
It was AFTER this job was over that things would get interesting. He had no doubt that Lula Mutumbo had every intention to carry out her threat – and it was highly likely that he would have to act pre-emptively with her out of self-defense. He would have a long talk with Mr. Olabi prior to actually making plans, however – the last thing he needed was to get on the wrong side of the Triumvirate with the assassination of one of their former council members.
There it was! Londele walked up to the desk with the tired-looking airline representative and very quickly had his boarding pass in hand. The plane would begin loading passengers, he was told, in about ten minutes. In the meanwhile, there was another round of security checks to go through…
Londele put his duffel bag down on the conveyer belt that would take it through the x-ray and then bent to remove his shoes. The latter was a bother – it really accomplished nothing in preventing someone with a real determination to do harm from getting where he or she was going. Then, once more cleared to wait in the consistently uncomfortable seats near the gate, he once more shouldered the strap to his duffel bag.
He had a picture, he had an address, and he had his orders. With any luck, he could be back on his way to Africa in a twenty-four hour turn around.
oOoOo
Sam sniffed and rolled onto his back, his mind busy reviewing all of the information he and his partner had received that day about the murdered woman's final hours. Murdered woman! He threw his arm up over his head. She'd been a living human being named Sarah Mitchell – from her driver's license, she'd been a relatively pretty woman to whom someone had taken a cudgel of some kind and literally beaten to a pulp. She wasn't just "the vic" – terms like that only served to dehumanize those who had been harmed, to make it easier to keep from getting upset at what had happened..
Then again, he knew that such terms had their uses. He'd seen all too many woman put up with that kind of treatment – from their husbands, boyfriends, pimps, fathers, brothers – in his own past. He'd never been on the abusing end, but many of his friends had been – even a couple of his brothers had regularly hit their girlfriends. In fact, two of his run-ins with the law before his recruitment by the Centre had been due to his defending girlfriends from their abusive boyfriends – and having meted out a measure of justice with his own fists that the law seemed unwilling to assign.
It was an unexpected side-effect from his own upbringing, this having trouble letting Sarah Mitchell become simply "the vic" of his current caseload. It had taken real self-control not to grab that smirking punk of a boyfriend up by his collar and just haul him out behind the building where nobody would see what would come next. That was street justice – the kind he knew best – and the Centre had but practiced a slightly skewed version of much the same. His use of force as a sweeper had been at the word of another – but the agenda behind it had generally been the same: someone had pissed off someone at the upper end of the food chain, and that someone had to pay.
Next to him, he heard Miss Parker give a low moan in her sleep. It hadn't been a restful night for her either, it seemed. Twice now already he'd felt her leave the bed only to come back a few short minutes later to slip between the covers. Once he thought he'd heard soft sniffles that suggested she'd been weeping – probably in worry over Sydney.
Tough Miss Parker crying over one of her former colleagues – someone she'd made a habit of deriding with epithets like "Freud" or "Dr. Mengele" or "Dr. Feelgood" – that was a revelation! In a flash, Sam understood her use of those terms – they had made it possible for her to deal with Sydney in an impersonal way. Miss Parker had been trained by her father never to show emotion – to never show weakness. "Freud" for Sydney and "Scooby" for Broots meant that her emotions when it came to those people were too close to the surface – she had to dehumanize them to protect herself – and them.
"No, Momma…"
Sam winced. It was a child's cry – and he knew where it came from. She'd lost too many people in her life – a mother, a best friend, a lover, a father, and now a surrogate father figure who had been a stalwart in her life all along.
"Sydney…"
She rolled and came in contact with his arm – and then wrapped her arms around it and hugged it close. Sam held his breath – there was no way in the world anything could convince him to move a muscle at the moment. If Miss Parker needed to cling to him, then he'd make sure that his arm stayed within reach at all times.
And in the morning, he'd pretend that nothing had happened – that she had kept to her side of the bed, not clung to him tightly. He would protect her – even from the thought that she was vulnerable in her sleep.
Besides, contemplating the sleeping woman beside him made the image of the dead woman's face in the crime scene photographs recede. He reached out a hand to carefully finger some of the blonde hair out of her face and then relaxed back into his pillow to close his eyes with something new to stew over.
This was a dangerous assignment he'd taken – far more dangerous than he'd ever stopped to consider – to assume the role of Miss Parker's husband to the extent of having these unguarded, vulnerable moments with her on a regular basis now. After all, with the Centre gone, her authority over him was now more a matter of habit than anything else – a habit threatened by nights like this.
Sam squeezed his eyes closed and then snorted in derision at the direction his thoughts had taken. Who the Hell was he fooling? Miss Parker, if she knew that he would awaken in the dark of the night and find her proximity and snuggling up to him both endearing and acceptable, would deck him – at the very least! It was this thought – and the idea of such a thing happening in front of Evan – that kept him from moving his arm and simply gathering her close to him. She could just use his shoulder as a pillow…
He groaned and carefully moved his arm from her grasp after all so that he could rise from the bed. A drink of water – yes, that was what he needed, that and a full-strength jolt of a reality-check. This was a PRETEND, he reminded himself brutally, padding barefooted to the sink of the bathroom off the master bedroom. The woman in his bed was NOT his wife – and what was more, she wasn't interested in him whatsoever. This entire charade was all merely to sell a role to unseen others who might be perverse enough to feel entitled to snoop on their private lives. It meant nothing – not to her – and it had to continue meaning nothing to him too, or he'd be jeopardizing everything.
Sam walked back into the bedroom and tried not to pay any attention to the other lump in the bed as he walked around to his side and slid his feet back beneath the covers. He settled down with his back to Miss Parker this time – and then held his breath as she once more slithered across the center of the bed to snuggle up to his back. She was soft and warm, and she sighed with something that sounded like relief as she pressed her face against the back of his neck.
Damn.
oOoOo
"Do you know what time it is?" Broots mumbled as he relaxed back into his pillow, the receiver pressed against his ear.
"Listen," JD exclaimed. "I think I know how to get things moving along a little faster."
"I told you," Broots explained again, "fast isn't exactly what we're aiming for here. We have to give Miss Parker and Jarod…"
"Yes, yes, I know that," JD brushed Broots' complaints aside. "But the thing is, if Jarod is right, then some of the Duplicity project subjects are at the Foundation too – right?"
Broots rolled himself up on an elbow. "Yeah – so?"
"Wouldn't an IRS audit put yet another monkey-wrench in the works?"
The computer technician blinked as his mind stopped working for a moment. "IRS?"
"Sure!" JD chuckled. "I'm taking a page from Jarod's old play-book. If I went in as an IRS auditor to check out the deductions declared in the last tax year, that would put TWO Pretenders on site at the same time, both working for the same end…"
"Jarod will never approve," Broots warned.
"Jarod doesn't have final approval on any of this," JD stated darkly. "Those are MY brothers being held at that place too – and I'll be damned if I sit quietly on the sidelines and wait for the Holy Jarod to grant me permission to protect my own…"
"Look… I know how you feel…" Broots began.
"No, you don't," JD reminded him in a sharp, cutting tone. "And whether Jarod thinks so or not, the truth is that we don't have a lot of time to do this take-down. The Foundation screwed up badly when it decided it could just steal humans from the Centre. I don't want to leave them at the mercies of those men any longer than absolutely necessary."
"There's also the matter of murder – and attempted murder," Broots spat back, his ire piqued. "Jarod is looking for justice for more than just the Duplicity boys who died in Montana or to rescue the ones who were taken – there's a man's wife and kids who need to know their husband and father was murdered – and then the man who tried to kill Miss Parker needs to be taken down too. This is too complex a situation for you to just run into full-bore without at least thinking things through with Jarod a LITTLE bit…"
"I'm leaving for Philadelphia in the morning," JD announced flatly. "I just thought I'd give you warning. You might want to tweak some of the numbers in the budget dealing with tax withholdings and FICA – give me some meat to work with in MY Pretend."
"I'll talk to Jarod…"
"I need this, Mr. Broots," JD said, his voice low and emotional. "Please."
Broots let out a long sigh. "All right," he conceded finally, "but I'm going to be calling Jarod first thing in the morning…"
"Let me call him first," JD requested, compromising when he knew he was beaten. "I'll break the news – and I'll take the flack."
"Fine. Call me when you're in place," Broots said with a sigh. "And not at half-past two in the morning next time."
"Sorry about that." JD actually sounded apologetic. "Go to sleep. I'll be in touch."
Broots put the receiver back in the cradle and lay back into his pillow again. Holy shit, he thought as he closed his eyes only to find that his mind was working too fast now to want to return to slumber.
Holy shit!
oOoOo
Abner Wilmot sat back down at his computer terminal and booted the system, then sipped on his beer as he waited for the system to go through its normal routine. He never could sleep well on nights when Suz wasn't with him – and finally he'd given in to the inevitable insomnia and come back downstairs to his office. He had his own homework to do – research he couldn't exactly do at the university, it seemed.
That day he'd tried to trace down the mysterious Jarod that had resolved the mystery at the university years earlier – and run into an immediate roadblock. It seemed that the credentials he clearly remembered being tendered at the time to apply for employment were false – the University of Delaware HAD no doctorate program in psychology. There had been no student named Jarod graduated there – not even in a related health studies major.
And yet, Jarod had had all the terminology down pat – according to Randy Holzt, the head of the Psych Department, he'd sat in on a few bull sessions in the Psych Department offices and participated with a surprising understanding of both theory and practice. Randy at the time had been thrilled to find someone whose education was so well rounded with practicum. If he wasn't a trained psychologist or psychiatrist, Abner would eat… he'd eat his printer – currently out of ink in the cartridge – Randal Holzt was not an easy man to fool.
But then why would Jarod have lied about his background? People generally lied when they had something they felt they needed to hide – what would Jarod have been hiding?
Wilmot frowned and thought for a while, then clicked on the icon that sent him to his web browser and brought up a search engine site. Into the search field he typed "Jarod" and hit enter.
That was little to no help at all. There were several thousand pages with "Jarod" somewhere in the description. Wilmot clicked and scanned the entries for something that would catch his eye, and then clicked and scanned again. About half-way down the third page, a news item made him follow the link – and he began to read.
Slowly his mouth fell open. If it weren't for the fact that the name given to one of the main characters in the news story was "Jarod", he'd swear he was reading a story very much like the one that Stu had said that Leo and Virgil had told him in the car on the drive up to Albany. The facts were too similar to be mere coincidence: a child held virtually prisoner far from civilization, trained in highly specialized disciplines and made to run "simulations"…
Wilmot's eyes widened. Stu had said the boys had mentioned "SIMs" – were those what the news article was calling "simulations?"
It was just too much to be coincidence – it had to be. Wilmot zeroed in on the supposed locale for this fantastic story, and then felt his heart do a swan-dive. This was supposed to have happened at the Centre – that evil corporation that had been in the news for weeks now – and have happened ten, twenty – even thirty years previous.
And yet…
Wilmot sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap to think. The stories told by the uniquely intelligent boys brought to him by Stu Markham and this news story that had evidently been buried and forgotten as being remotely newsworthy held too many parallels to be ignored. AND the story had claimed that "Jarod" had eventually escaped the Centre – causing a serious drop in Centre profitability – about eight years previous.
"Jarod" had landed at the university in Albany about four years ago. Even now, the story fit.
It stood to reason, then, that someone who had once been involved in the Centre would have some idea how to get in contact with this young man. Wilmot leaned forward again and began reading the article in earnest – noting down names of Centre staff that were listed specifically as having been involved.
Melissa Parker. Dr. Lazlo Broots. Dr. Sydney Green.
Wilmot reached out and absentmindedly took a long gulp of his beer and moused himself back to the search engine.
This was going to be a long and interesting night after all.
oOoOo
Angelo turned over and straightened his body out on the carpeted floor. Friend Sister didn't like it that he slept on the floor – but Friend told her it was OK. Friend understood Angelo's need to sleep on floors, not beds. Bed meant locked up in the little room with the likelihood that No-Thumb Man would be coming for him soon – floor meant Angelo was free in the silver tunnels.
But even on the floor, Angelo was troubled by the voices and the emotions. He could feel Daughter's anguish at the way Sydney had vanished, and how Friend was trying so very hard not to think about it at all. He could hear Sydney's thoughts as if the Mentor were just in the next room – Sydney worried about Friend-Not-Friend and about having to go back into the darkness. Friend-Not-Friend's mental voice was no longer screaming – and no longer reaching out for the deeper darkness. Friend-Not-Friend had found Sydney.
But the danger still loomed – and it came closer everyday. And there were new voices that had just begun to resound – voices seeking Friend. Angelo couldn't tell if the voices were good voices or bad voices – they were strange voices never heard before.
Friend had gotten home from work late that night – Friend Sister had been frustrated with the wait. Angelo had felt the tension and stayed in his corner of the living room, looking out the curtains at the street below. The two had talked long – Friend Sister had had news she'd been waiting to share with him all day – and then Friend had called Daughter about Sydney.
And Angelo had stayed quiet and out of the way. He'd given his warning – and he didn't know how to explain what he knew about Sydney and Friend-Not-Friend.
Or about the other Friend-Not-Friends – the ones who were together and moving away soon.
Be calm, my son, Her voice sounded in his mind. Angelo trembled – it had been too long since he'd had Her in his mind. All is as it should be. Everything is in its place. Now we wait. Be at peace, my son. Sleep now. You will be needed soon enough.
Angelo sighed and closed his eyes, letting go of his grip of the bottom hem of the draperies that covered the picture window. She was watching – it was safe to dream then.
oOoOo
Jarod lay on his back, his arm cast up over his head on the pillow, staring at the spackling on the ceiling without seeing it. How could things have gone so wrong so quickly?
Sydney wasn't supposed to have been in any danger whatsoever – and yet, now HE was missing. He could tell the disappearance was taking its toll on Miss Parker, her voice had been tense and her mood far too dark. The two of them had spent more time on the phone than perhaps had been wise – sharing a little of what Sydney meant to each of them in an effort to use that knowledge to comfort the other.
And now, with no one else to talk to, Jarod found himself faced with the hole that was his mentor's constant presence in his life. Suddenly, there WAS no way to reach out with a simple phone call and touch the rock that had anchored his life since his first memories. Even after having dropped away from Centre radars and ceased all contact with Centre intimates, the fact that he COULD reach out and touch Sydney if he wanted to had been all the security he'd needed.
And now that security was gone.
He shared Miss Parker's misgivings and her desperation to find the old man – but like her, he could spare no real energy to join in the search. He had already scripted out the next day's activities – activities that included an after-hours excursion into that forbidden wing in the guise of janitorial staff. IF the Duplicity subjects were being held, then perhaps just being there and cleaning the floors outside the new SIM Lab would give him a chance to actually SEE the young man or men.
After all, tomorrow would be a very interesting day at the Eire Foundation. Emily's first installment of her expose would be published in the morning edition – it wouldn't take long for corporate paranoids to make the connection between the "unnamed corporation in our midst" with the Eire Foundation. That news story – published with a deliberately oblique "anonymous" as the author – would be like throwing a rock into a pit of rattlesnakes. Enough people would be riled that an extra janitor here or there wouldn't necessarily get noticed.
Still, his mind slowly returned to the most aching problem at hand. In the time they'd spent together since this roller-coaster ride had started, neither he nor Sydney had made any effort to clear away the decades of questions or recriminations that stood between them. Now that Sydney was gone, the possibility of those questions and/or recriminations having to remain unvoiced was a painful one.
He would call Broots in the morning, he decided. Broots, with his access to the Foundation mainframe and the resources that represented could initiate a search much like the one that had run for him all those years – and the Foundation would never necessarily be the wiser. Maybe THAT would help set Miss Parker's mind at ease a little bit.
She had looked every inch a good corporate security expert when he'd deliberately run into her in the hallway that morning. And she'd known what he'd done and why – he'd seen the flicker in her eyes that told him she'd made the connection. It was good – he'd try to make sure to become an apparent acquaintance tomorrow at lunch. The two of them had agreed that this would be a wise move that might explain their needing to discuss things in the future.
Perversely, his mind then slipped over to the situation he'd installed her into in that apartment. How was it working out, he wondered, pretending to be a married woman and sleeping with Sam? He deliberately forced down the resurgent wave of jealousy that thought brought forth with it. He had no reason to be jealous – after all, it was HE who had suggested that they fulfill their Pretend roles to that extent. Sleeping together, as a man and wife normally would, MIGHT save her life.
Still…
Jarod sniffed and pushed himself up and out of bed. Silently he padded out of the bedroom, down the hallway and into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door and took out the carton of milk, opened it, and drained the rest of its contents. At least there was another, he sighed as he closed the fridge door and moved to the sink to rinse out the container before putting it in the trash. Em would kill him if she didn't have at least a little milk to go in her coffee in the morning.
He padded back to his bedroom, climbed between the covers and yawned. He needed to sleep – but he found that he'd only come back to the same place he'd been for the last hour or so. He was lying on his back, his right arm cast over his head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.
He'd spent too many nights like this. By God, when this was finished, he'd NEVER do this again.
This was the end of his Pretending. It was becoming far too real.
oOoOo
Author's Note: This mostly in response to the Oct 21, 2022 review by "Guest".
Anybody still reading this fic needs to realize that this story is, to date, STILL unfinished. I know that some of you (the above-mentioned "Guest") think I've had "enough time" to finish it, but I have not been writing all that much at all for quite a while now, much less working in this fandom specifically (and yes, I write for another fandom under another author-name.)
The truth is that my husband's death, followed by the pressures of the pandemic on my life and remaining family/friends, have really knocked me for a loop creativity-wise. I simply haven't been writing at all, not fan-fic and not original stuff, period, end of statement, full stop. I haven't even touched my piano that much in 2½ years. That said, I do occasionally get spurts that have me putting 100 words here, maybe 1000 words there, but nothing consistent or substantial. I'm hoping that will change eventually. We'll see.
Therefore all I can promise y'all is that I will continue to work on this when inspiration strikes – and MAYBE it will get finished. Know, however, that the chapter I'm currently working on is Chapter 33 of hopefully a total of 34 or 35; so you still have a fair ways to go before I've run out of story to give you. I do promise I will eventually post everything I have – probably not regularly - but I'll post to the end even if it ultimately remains unfinished. So please, be patient. -MMB