Mint On The Pillow
Part Five - Devil's Advocate
Miss Parker had never of thought herself as the kind of person that would crack easily. However, just two days after Sydney's offer of a friendly ear, she found herself walking towards his office. She'd had virtually no sleep since Minneapolis, and her sanity was beginning to suffer. Both her father, Lyle and Brigitte, in their different ways, had expressed concern about her lack of focus and her haggard appearance; she knew she was drawing dangerous attention to herself with her incessant moping.
Sydney's door was ajar, and hewas hard at work analysing CAT scans which she guessed were probably from some other poor Centre guinea-pigs, she didn't really want to think about it. He looked up as she walked in without knocking. If she was going to talk to him, she decided coolly, she was going to be in control.
"Miss Parker," he greeted her mildly, but there was a note of appreciation in his voice which calmed her somewhat. He turned off his monitor and motioned to the comfy swivel chair opposite him and she sat down, tilting back with a sigh.
"You look exhausted," he commented sympathetically as she sat down, "If you like I could give you a herbal drink to help--"
"I'm going to catch him, Sydney!" She blurted out, "I'm going to drag him in here butt naked and make sure they stick him in the darkest hole they can find!" She choked out the words, angry tears already brimming and her face flushing with rage. Sydney reached over for a tissue and set it down in front of her.
"And will that erase what happened between you?" he asked. Parker thought his tone was a little like a parent with an irrational child. She folded her arms.
"It'd sure as hell teach him the consequences of betrayal!"
"You're so certain he betrayed you?"
"Sydney! You were there! He handcuffed me!"
"Look, why don't you start from the beginning?" he suggested calmly. Parker's eyes widened, and her face flushed anew, this time not from anger.
"I... I caught him. He thought he was being soooo clever, calling me from right outside the hotel. But I outsmarted your boy genius, Syd. I had him at gunpoint. But then..." she closed her eyes, remembering for the umpteenth time the way he had so audaciously wriggled out of his restraints, walked towards her with that easy confidence... "He disarmed me," she finished vaguely as she opened her eyes.
To her surprise, Syndey nodded as though he had been watching the images in her head. "Part of what makes Jarod so difficult to capture, Miss Parker, is his ability to use our own weaknesses against us. Your anger is what makes you determined, and on this occasion he managed to dissolve it somehow, right?"
Parker nodded, remembering how her rebuttals of him had become less vehement, how, in the end, it was his surrender which melted her resolve. Yes, he had found her weakness alright. There was only one word for how she felt: used. It must have been plainly obvious on her face.
"Miss Parker, whatever you are feeling right now, there's no doubt that for one night you shared something very special with Jarod. The two of you--"
"Special!" she cut him off angrily, "If it was so goddamn special why did he run out on me? Why did he fasten me to the bed like a whore! He left me to be humiliated!" She snatched up another tissue and pressed her face into it, trying to keep from breaking down.
Sydney thought about the moment he had burst into the hotel room, the horror on Miss Parker's face. Sure, Jarod had set up plenty of practical jokes to embarrass her in the past, but this went way beyond a joke. If nothing else, Jarod was an unswervingly moral man. He would never use sex as a way to hurt someone, least of all the one woman he truly cared for...
"I don't believe that Jarod wanted to hurt you."
"Why, because your Golden Boy has always been soo nice to me?" she spat in reply.
Sydney opened the top drawer of his desk and took out the hotel alarm-clock-spring-release device Jarod had rigged up. Parker stared at it.
"How did you get that?"
"I went back for it. I felt it was important somehow, and now I think I understand. Jarod had a very different plan for that morning. Unfortunately I interfered with it. I think it's me you should be angry at, not Jarod."
She wiped her eyes one last time and looked at the psychiatrist coldly. "How's that, Syd, where the two of you planning a surprise party or something?" Sydney noticed that she had dropped back to her defensive, icy tone of voice.
"This timer was set to go off at seven thirty. The key would have dropped and been right there for you when you woke up. It was only that I came early to pick you up. Jarod didn't want to humiliate you, in fact, he never imagined anyone would find you."
"So why cuff me at all?"
"You really think that he would just wait for you to get up and bring him back to the Centre? He had to give himself time to escape, don't you see? But he left you the means to free yourself without anyone ever finding out what happened."
For a moment Parker simply stared into space, her mind moving from scepticism to realisation, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Jarod had rigged it up so she could let herself out! He gave himself time to get away, but had meant for her to wake up, find a key sitting right next to her, and simply leave, no one the wiser. How was he to know Sydney would turn up? She purposefully shut up the little voice which reminded her it was her shouting that had drawn Sydney in there.
She closed her eyes, her disobedient mind flying back to that night, the heat of it, the pleasure... she remembered lying in his arms, the covers thrown haphazardly on the floor...
Fast-forwarding to that dreadful morning, she remembered that she had awoken carefully covered up. Once again, as much as she wanted to hate Jarod for orchestrating her shame, the opposite was true, he had tucked her in like a tender lover, saving her from an even greater embarrassment had she been found completely nude.
This was impossible! She'd been torturing herself for days over the deception, letting her bitterness consume her, dreaming of revenge, and now all of a sudden she saw Jarod's point of view. One night was all he asked for, and even if it did change the way they felt about each other, he was still a hunted man, and he wasn't going to make her have to betray him. She could almost let her fury go, except for one thing...
"Miss Parker," Sydney's gentle tone infiltrated her epiphany, "Are you alright now? Often learning the truth only leads to more questions..."
"There's just one question, Sydney. If Jarod never intended to hurt me, why hasn't he tried to contact me? He used to call me all hours of the goddamn night before this."
Sydney frowned. "Jarod has probably been just as confused by the incident as you have. You've had a complicated relationship all your life, but now..."
"Well, he's doing a great job making me feel like a one-shot." She got out of her chair and started for the door. Sydney followed hastily.
"Parker, try to see how he might feel--"
At the door, she turned, all business. "Thanks, Syd, really. You've cleared up a lot for me. But at the end of the day, I've got a job to do, and I'm gonna do it. Let me know if Romeo tries to contact you." Parker walked out and closed Sydney's door firmly behind her.
End of Part Five