Resolutions Chapter 7: A New Day, a pretender fanfic

Resolutions – 7

A New Day

by MMB

"Good morning, Mei-Chiang," Miss Parker sing-songed as she walked toward her secretary's desk and gave the Chinese woman an assessing look. "I hope you were able to celebrate your new circumstances properly last night…"

"Oh yes, ma'am," Mei-Chiang nodded and smiled up at her boss. "Sam had invited me to dinner, and…"

"Sam?" Miss Parker stared. "As in my Security Chief Sam Atlee?"

Mei-Chiang started and immediately paled. "Is that improper, Miss Parker? I didn't know…"

"No, no," Miss Parker reassured her secretary quickly when she realized how her surprise had been interpreted. "I guess I'm just a little surprised. Sam has been such a private individual for so long. It's good to see him getting out and socializing a little bit." She smiled again. "Did you have a good time?"

Mei-Chiang relaxed slightly, still not quite sure whether she'd broken some unwritten rule about fraternization with fellow employees. "Oh yes! He took me into Dover, to a very nice restaurant, and then we found a very pretty beach to walk on the way home…"

Miss Parker smiled wider. "I would have never thought of it," she mused aloud.

"Is such a thing allowed, Miss Parker? I didn't know that there was a rule that two people who worked for the Centre…"

Miss Parker shook her head and waved her hand. "No, no. There's no rule against you two seeing each other. Actually," she bent down toward the Chinese woman conspiratorially, "I'm glad to see that somebody has finally caught his eye." She straightened. "Sam is a good man, and he's been a trusted friend of mine for almost longer than I want to remember. What I want is to see him happy – and you too," she added quickly.

Mei-Chiang looked down with a deep blush of embarrassment. "I too would like to see him happy, ma'am," she said softly.

"Then I don't see where there's any problem at all," Miss Parker said knowingly.

"Then I have permission…"

"Mei-Chiang," Miss Parker interrupted, "you not only have permission but my whole-hearted support. Now, I need you to get a hold of Sam for me, and then make sure the conference room is set up for the meeting with the architects and interior decorators. I have a new Tower to whip into shape ahead of time."

"Yes, ma'am." Mei-Chiang's head had come up with the obvious approval of her spending time with Sam, and she reached for the phone as her boss walked past her into her office.

"Sam Atlee," Sam answered his telephone almost immediately.

"Mr. Atlee, Miss Parker would like to speak to you, please. Let me transfer you…"

"Wait," Sam said quickly, before he could be put on hold. "I just wanted to tell you again how much I enjoyed last night."

"I too," she smiled softly, remembering her evening with him with fondness.

Sam had been a gracious and conscientious host, escorting her to a beautiful and expensive restaurant with delicious food and a very refined atmosphere. In her best brocade, she had not been out of place at all among the other patrons – indeed, she had caught one American gentleman giving Sam a look of undisguised jealousy that had made her consider holding just a tiny bit tighter to his arm. When she told him of her good fortune earlier in the day, he had flagged down the waiter and ordered a glass of celebratory champagne for the both of them that had teased both her nose and her taste buds.

They had eaten slowly and talked constantly about whatever topic presented itself. He asked her about her home, and showed the same consternation Tyler had when she told him how she'd come to the country originally and for what purpose – and smiled in relief when she'd explained how the lawyer was going to make sure she was legal at last. She'd turned the tables and asked him about his home and family, and found out that he had been an only child – and that his parents were now dead. He told her the story of how he'd been recruited to work for the Centre as an alternative to jail – and how working for Miss Parker had turned his life around entirely.

After dinner, there had been a very mellow band playing in the lounge, and they had stopped when Sam asked her to dance with him. She had never felt so small as she had when her oversized date had so very carefully taken her into his arms and begun to sway to the time of the music with her. His huge paw had totally engulfed her hand and then pressed it back against his chest as she struggled not to step on his toes. The one time she had, he'd pressed a finger against her lips before she'd had a chance to start apologizing. "You'll learn," he'd told her in a warm voice. "It just takes practice."

They had started back toward Blue Cove and the Centre but turned off the main road and found a secluded beach that Sam knew about. The night was a balmy one, with a gentle sea breeze that took a while to chill. They had found a driftwood log and sat watching the moonlight on the dark water and continued to talk until she had finally shivered. Sam had shrugged out of his sports jacket and draped it around her shoulders, and then taken advantage of the moment to pull her closer to him. She had leaned against him, grateful for the warmth of the jacket, the protective shield of his arm around her and the respectful way he was treating her.

He hadn't pushed his advances beyond just holding her close beneath his arm. Eventually they both were chilled and had walked back to the car with her still firmly and warmly tucked against his side and under his arm. He had delivered her to her apartment door and smiled his goodbye. And now apparently he was telling her that he'd enjoyed their time together as much as she had.

"I want to see you again," he told her, his voice that same, warm tone from the beach the night before.

"I too would like that," she answered with a soft blush.

"Do you like spaghetti?"

"I've never had it," she admitted.

"Then how would you like it if I made you dinner tomorrow afternoon?"

She had hoped to spend Saturday morning looking for a car, so she could finally begin to explore her new home a little bit. "Actually, I was hoping I could ask a favor of you…"

"Anything."

She blushed again. "I would like to buy a car…"

"All right. How about I pick you up at about eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, and we can go into Dover and see what we can find for you. I'll make sure that whatever you do get will be trustworthy and worth what you spend on it." He paused. "Not many folks feel safe in trying to trick me into buying trash." She could hear the smile he was wearing and feel the warmth of his protecting her yet again flow over her.

She smiled back. How wonderful it was to have an American friend to turn to after all this time. "I appreciate that, Sam. And then I'd like very much to taste your spaghetti."

"It's a date. But you better let me talk to the boss-lady now," he said, his good humor apparent in his tone. "We don't want to do too much personal business on the company clock."

"Transferring…" she said and put him on hold. "Miss Parker, Sam's on line three for you."

"Thanks," her boss said.

Mei-Chiang sat back in her chair and gave a deep sigh. She was going to be seeing Sam again. Amazing how the mere thought of the better part of a day spent together could make her heart beat so much faster. She pushed away from her desk resolutely and headed down the corridor toward the conference room. There was a coffee urn to make sure was prepared and ready to serve and a delivery of donuts to make sure had arrived on time.

She would have to file her daydreams about a certain tall and blue-eyed Security Chief for later. She had work to do.

Colonel Stiller walked out of the bathroom in his skivvies and tee shirt to answer the telephone. He used the towel around his neck to wipe away moisture on his hands before he reached for the receiver. "Stiller here."

"Well?" General Curtis' tone was brisk with expectation.

Stiller grimaced, glad there was nobody in the hotel room with him to catch him making such a face at a superior officer. "She turned me down flat," he reported with no preamble.

"That's unacceptable," Curtis growled. "We need Veracity most of all – we NEED that drug, Doug, and we need it yesterday!"

"You don't have to remind me," Stiller growled back.

"You WILL watch your tone with me, Colonel," Curtis barked angrily. "I AM your superior officer!"

"Then what would you have me do, SIR," Stiller snarled into the telephone. "Dr. Mitchell was the chemist in charge – and Veracity really was almost a one-person project. Can't we just retrieve the documents and farm the project out to our R & D contacts at Dow?"

"No, we can't." Curtis sounded final. "Doing that would jeopardize other legitimate projects and call attention to us. We need to get a wedge into the Centre – I want you to find that wedge. One scientist who'll play ball with us is all we need – I don't give a damn if it's a biologist, a chemist, or even a damned lab assistant. The Centre has been the key player in our plans for years – we need them to stay in that position."

"Then tell me how to get that wedge," Stiller insisted in frustration, "because I'm running out of ideas fast!"

"Have you tried blackmail yet?"

"Easier said than done. Just who do you want me to dig up dirt on?"

"Shit, Danny, use your imagination! Start at the top of the heap and work your way down until you hit pay-dirt. Start with Miss Parker. We find the proper leverage to use on her directly, and all our problems are solved. If not her, then her assistant – or her top corporate officers. Somewhere there has to be at least one skeleton somebody doesn't want exposed."

"That's going to take time," Stiller reminded his superior. "I can't be investigating a whole bevy of personnel AND be trying to dig up the head of the team that worked Project Black Hole too. I need help!"

"You're on your own – you know as well as I that we simply don't have the resources to have more than one person working any one angle of our design at any one time. I've turned Black Hole back over to Craig Lewis again – he was the Navy liaison for us with that one. You focus on Veracity. Hell, dig up dirt on this Mitchell bitch, if you think you can. Scare the shit out of her and then let her know that she's in for more of the same if she doesn't cooperated. I really don't give a damn – just get that project back online!"

Curtis hung up before Stiller could formulate an answer. Frustrated, he wadded up the towel from around his neck and threw it as hard as he could at the unmade bed. That damned Pentagon pencil pusher had no idea what he was asking!

Sydney looked up from his reading at the sound of Deb's sandals on the kitchen floor. "Cherie, are you going to come in here this morning so we can continue?"

Deb grimaced as she finished her drink of water and re-shouldered her purse before walking to the den door to answer her grandfather. "I was thinking," she began lamely, "that I would go over to Oggie's and see about whether I can go back to work. Maybe this afternoon…"

Sydney straightened and peered over the back of the couch that served as his daybed in consternation, a concern that only heightened when he saw her literally prepared to walk out the door. "Deb, I don't think that's such a good idea. Can you please come in here so we can discuss it?"

"Grandpa, I can't just sit around the house all day…"

"Sit down," Sydney ordered in a no-nonsense tone and pointed at the recliner. He held her gaze steadily with his own until she finally realized that he WASN'T going to back down, and then she finally slumped, let her purse strap slip from her shoulder as she went over to the chair and perched her behind on the very edge. "You aren't ready," he told her firmly. "You still haven't even been able to look Kevin in the face and hold a decent conversation with him. What are you going to do with all those young men you used to chuckle about when they'd try to pick you up?"

She blanched but insisted, "I'll manage. I'm behind a counter where they can't get at me very well…"

"That you would think of their actions in terms of their 'getting at you' should be a warning flag, ma petite. How do you think Oggie will respond if you have an extreme reaction to one of your customers and fall to pieces there in the store?"

"I won't do that…"

He folded his brows together in a serious frown. "How can you be so sure? How can you know that when a man walks into the store that reminds you of the man who molested you…"

She shuddered. That was one prospect she hadn't thought of. "Grandpa…"

"Give it a week before you talk to Oggie, cherie – give me a week to help you over the worst of this." Sydney could only hope that she'd see reason. "Then, if you're genuinely doing better, I'll support your going back to work one hundred percent." He could see that she was wavering. "Give me until next Friday, Deb. Please."

"I'll be putting my life on hold!" she exclaimed in frustration at the logic of the suggestion.

"Don't be absurd," Sydney growled at her, starting to lose patience with the attitude. "Your life hasn't been put on hold. You just have some issues to work through from your recent adventure. Trust me, that's plenty of life to live."

"I'm not sick…"

"Not physically anymore, no." He gazed at her evenly and unflinchingly. "But your emotions are a mess. The moment anybody recommends you take the time to put yourself together again…"

"Why is everybody trying to tell me what I can and can't do?" Deb reached the end of her own patience and bolted to her feet. "I'm twenty-one years old."

"And at the moment acting like a spoiled four-year-old," Sydney said in a soft and disapproving tone. "The moment you start acting like a responsible adult again, you'll begin to be treated like one."

Furious blue glared into implacable chestnut for a long and silent moment. "I'm going in to Oggie's to see when I can start work again," she announced stubbornly. "I'll be back in about an hour." When she saw that she was not going to get approval for her plans, she slipped the strap of her purse once more up on her shoulder and stalked angrily from the room, her limp apparent because she was too mad to try to mask it. A few moments later the front door slammed shut, followed close by the sound of the little Nova's engine being revved and then pulling away from the house.

Kevin peeked his head around the corner. "Where's Deb going?" he asked, curious.

"Oggie's," Sydney responded in frustration and consternation. This was most definitely not the kind of behavior Debbie Broots had demonstrated for all the years that he'd known her. He had hoped the session they'd had together the day before would have created a bond that would establish him as a trusted advisor. But evidently her emotions weren't balanced enough for such a bond to be reliable yet — that would take concentrated effort over time.

All he could do was hope and pray that Oggie had filled her position during her absence. She really didn't need to be working so soon. She was about as unstable as any patient he'd treated had ever thought of being; and being outside full custodial care in her condition, she was liable to make unwise or even irrational decisions before anybody could step in and protect her. And that meant that she could easily get herself in over her head before she realized she was even in trouble.

"Colonel!" a call echoed down the hall of the Pentagon. "Colonel Fox!"

Colonel Fox's brisk gait faltered and he turned around to see who was calling him. From one of the offices he had just breezed by an Air Force Captain bustled out to meet him. "What is it, son?" he asked with a brisk salute.

The Captain returned the salute immediately. "Major Meyers wanted me to tell you that we recorded a very interesting call to Colonel Stiller's hotel phone this morning. He asks that you stop by his office to review the transcript at your earliest convenience."

Fox was more than willing to set aside the task he had been about to embark on in favor of heading immediately to Major Meyers' office. "After you, Captain," he ordered with a gesture. The Captain turned around and headed back into the office he had just left, Colonel Fox close on his heels. The corporal standing at the file cabinet tucking away paperwork snapped to attention as the two office breezed through the outer office and through the inner office door.

"Peterson said you had something for me?" Fox threw a hasty salute at the rapidly rising Major behind the desk.

The face of the African-American office broke into a wide smile. "Yes, sir! He received a call at o-seven-thirty hours this morning that was traced back here to DC — to an office here."

"HERE?" Fox stared. "Who the hell was it?"

"General Gerald Curtis."

Fox sank into the chair in front of Meyers' desk. "Curtis! Isn't he…"

"Attaché to one of the Joint Chiefs, yes sir." Meyers drew out a cassette player. "But listen to this!" He rewound the tape in it for a bit and then pushed the play button.

General Curtis' voice boomed out of the little speaker in mid-statement. "…wedge into the Centre – I want you to find that wedge. One scientist who'll play ball with us is all we need – I don't give a damn if it's a biologist, a chemist, or even a damned lab assistant. The Centre has been the key player in our plans for years – we need them to stay in that position."

"Then tell me how to get that wedge," Stiller's voice replied, "because I'm running out of ideas fast!"

"Have you tried blackmail yet?"

"Easier said than done. Just who do you want me to dig up dirt on?"

"That's going to take time. I can't be investigating a whole bevy of personnel AND be trying to dig up the head of the team that worked Project Black Hole too. I need help!"

Meyers turned the tape player off. "That was the gist of the call. Apparently Curtis was unhappy when that Centre scientist told Stiller to take a flying leap at a rolling donut."

Fox leaned forward toward the desk. "That may be, but we now have two other pieces of information. We have another project name to investigate — Project Black Hole — and we need to find out just who the hell Craig Lewis is. We know he's Navy, what we DON'T know is his connection to Curtis and Stiller and how it came about."

"What about the Centre, sir? Should we notify them of this?"

Fox thought for a moment. "They played ball with us," he said finally, "there's no reason not to play ball with them. Besides, they're the ones who know which scientist in their employ will need watching next." He rose. "I'll call them later and bring them up to speed. In the meanwhile, I want a tap on every phone line Curtis accesses regularly — here, at his home, at his favorite bar, whatever. And," he stabbed a finger in the direction of Meyer's desk, "I want the archived documentation for the Centre projects moved — especially the files on Veracity and this Black Hole. Then I want 'round the clock surveillance on the rest of the lot. Someone here has the authority and the agenda to think they can purloin that information right out from under our noses — I want that person caught red-handed when they make their move."

"Sir, I don't have the clearance to get into the locked-down archive where the Centre documentation is," Meyers reminded his superior officer carefully.

"I'll get it for you," Fox assured him, "and then I'll help you move the stuff. Only the two of us will know where we hide it from now on, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Then get to work and get those phone taps in place by this afternoon at the latest."

"Yes, sir!"

Fox gave Meyers another salute and then strode out of the office, leaving Meyers staring at his little cassette player.

Deb climbed into her little car and slumped behind the wheel, more disappointed than she'd been in a long time. Oggie had had to hire a high school girl to man the counter in the mornings to replace her during the time she'd spent in California. The girl had quickly traded hours with the afternoon counter girl so that she could keep her job and work afternoons after school started up again next week and so that the afternoon girl could have her afternoons free again. So at the moment, he didn't have any position open for her, but he'd assured her that the moment he had an opening…

Damn those men interfering with her life, she thought bitterly as she pounded her steering wheel in sheer frustration. Damn Davy for getting her out of that mess and not leaving her to die! Damn Oggie for not holding her job open for her return! Damn Grandpa for saying she wasn't ready to go back to work yet! And damn Kevin for…

A tear rolled down her cheeks. Poor Kevin hadn't done anything — he had carefully steered completely clear of her ever since he'd given her that welcoming hug. She'd seen him look at her a couple of times the day before when he thought she wasn't watching — and the look on his face had been that of a puppy that had been beaten for something it didn't understand. Last night at the supper table, he had sprung up to answer the door and let the Japanese bodyguard into the house and then found every excuse he could think of to keep himself at a distance from her. This morning he hadn't said a single word to her and headed off to the living room and his reading assignment for the Centre. No, Kevin had done nothing to deserve her listing him in her diatribe at all.

And yet she hadn't found the strength to apologize to him, and she knew she owed him a big one. And now she was faced with the situation Jarod had warned her against. She had pushed away someone whose only crime was caring — and right now, she was hurting too badly to want to face the task of trying to mend fences.

She stuck the key in the ignition and turned it resolutely. Maybe it was just as well that he stopped relying on her to teach him about the world. Her world had turned dark and ugly, like her — Kevin deserved someone who could show him a world filled with good things and people. She couldn't do that anymore.

Deb looked back over her shoulder and then nosed the Nova away from the curb when the traffic ebbed. She didn't have the slightest idea where she was going now. Grandpa had been pretty put out with her when she'd left — and she was surprised that she'd actually had the guts to stand up to and directly defy the man who had been one of her all-time favorite people for almost as long as she could remember. She'd been pushing him away too, she realized with a sick feeling in her stomach — and he'd been justified in telling her she was behaving like a spoiled brat.

Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms and have him tell her that things would get better again — but she doubted that open arms would be the reception waiting for her on Washington Street when she got back. No, she deserved and probably would be on the receiving end of a fairly stern chewing out made no less painful by the love and concern behind it. And as much as she knew that in the end she would be able to curl up in her grandfather's embrace the way she wanted and needed, she just didn't have it in her at the moment to face the chewing out that would inevitably and rightly come first.

Without even thinking about it, she turned down her own street and within minutes found herself pulling into the driveway of the home she shared with her father — or had before a bomb had brought the whole Centre Tower down on him. It had been quite a while since she'd stepped a foot inside her own home.

In a daze, she pulled her keys from the ignition and climbed out of the Nova, walked up the sidewalk and unlocked her front door. The house smelled closed up and abandoned, much the same way it had smelled when she and Dad had come home from their vacation in France all those years ago. She brushed against a bookcase near the front door and frowned at the smudge in the even layer of dust her action had caused.

She dropped her purse on the sofa and moved like a quiet ghost through her own home, tweaking curtains aside to peer out into a back yard where the flowers were obviously suffering from lack of water. She unlocked the arcadia door and went into the back yard, pulled the hose from the spindle it was wrapped around and set the sprinkler so that the spray would hit at least half of the thirsty plants. She turned on the water and adjusted the volume until she was watering everything she intended to for the time being and then headed back into the house. Even closed up and stuffy, the house was cooler inside than it was outside.

She sat down on the couch and then, after a bit, tipped over so that her head was on the cushioned arm of the couch. The day was completely in the toilet, she decided, and closed her eyes. Maybe if I can just rest a bit, I'll feel better. She took a deep breath and tried to go to sleep, but sleep stayed irritatingly just out of reach. Her mind was too busy replaying all the disappointments of the day — the argument with Grandpa, Oggie's bad news… After lying there for several minutes, she gave up and sat up, fully intending to shift the sprinkler to the other side of the yard.

The memory hit her almost before she could catch her breath and came at her completely out of the blue — the smell of old dust and long-unopened rooms, the overwhelming heat pouring in through the glass of the windows. Suddenly, she wasn't in Blue Cove, Delaware anymore but in an abandoned ranch house on the edge of the Mojave Desert. She staggered as she rose to her feet, almost tripping over the reality that her ankles and wrists WEREN'T held together with duct tape they way they had been in that house. Wild-eyed and desperate, she stumbled to a seat at her grandmother's piano and stared about her in terror that the men would come back — that HE would be back and start touching her again.

She couldn't let him catch her again! She jumped to her feet and without even thinking about it made a mad dash for the staircase and the sanctuary of her bedroom upstairs. Deb darted forward to grab up the handset of the telephone next to her bed and took it with her as she opened her closet door, slipped inside and pulled the door closed after herself. With shaking fingers, she dialed the first number she could think of.

Sydney barely even moved his eyes from the complicated diagram as he reached for the handset on the coffee table next to his cup of coffee. He pushed the button and put the device to his ear, still engrossed in the elegance of the design on the paper he was holding. "This is Sydney."

Deb had never been so glad to hear that voice in her life. "Grandpa?" she asked in a very tiny and very frightened voice.

Sydney could barely hear her, but he let the paper drop to his lap immediately. "Deb? What's the matter, cherie?"

"Grandpa…" She was almost sobbing now. The hard floor was under her backside, and the smell of heat and unopened house was nearly suffocating. The past was just far too real. "Please…"

"Where are you?" Sydney demanded immediately. "Talk to me, cherie…"

"I'm scared…" She huddled, cupping the phone to her face as if afraid of being overheard.

"KEVIN!" Sydney bellowed, covering the mouthpiece to prevent Deb's ears from being damaged. "Get me off this thing NOW!" He returned to the phone. "Come on, ma petite. I'll come for you. Just tell me where you are!"

Kevin scurried into the room, startled by the volume and desperation behind his mentor's call for freedom from his therapy machine, and immediately began working at the straps after stopping the machine's movement of the trapped leg.

"I… I didn't know where to go…" she stammered. "I thought… So I came home…"

"So you're at home." Sydney nodded and moved to put both feet on the floor the moment he was free from the CPM machine. "I'll be right there, cherie, don't worry." He hissed in pain as he dragged himself upright with a crutch and the injured leg was forced to bear weight again. "You stay put right where you are. I'm coming for you."

"Hurry," the terrified little voice urged.

"Here, you keep her talking," Sydney ordered, thrusting the handset into Kevin's hands. "Calm her down as best you can. I'm taking the car…"

"Are you sure…"

"Yes, I'm sure! Just do it, Kevin. She's scared and she needs your voice to hang onto until I can get there." Sydney was already moving toward the kitchen and the garage door, his car keys already pulled from his pocket. "Keep her talking."

Kevin put the handset to his ear. "Deb?" he asked carefully.

"Wh…where's Grandpa?" He cringed. He'd never heard Deb sound so small and unsure of herself before.

"He's getting into the car to come to you," he told her truthfully. "You don't live so very far away from him, do you?" He heard the muffled sound of the town car's engine revving and then getting softer as the vehicle left the garage enclosure.

"Kevin?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry…"

The apology was made so plaintively that it brought a lump in Kevin's throat. "It's OK, Deb," he told her gently. "Sydney will be there in just a little bit, and he'll bring you home, and it will be all right."

"I didn't mean…" He could tell she was crying. Deb put her forehead against her knees. She couldn't honestly tell if the men who had chased her were just outside the closet door or not yet. " I didn't mean it…"

"I know you didn't," Kevin soothed, her upset making his stomach knot painfully. "I didn't mean to scare you either."

There was a pause, and he could hear her breathing hard as if she'd run a distance. Then: "Where's Grandpa?" she asked suddenly, her voice small and even more frightened.

"He's on his way, Deb. Honest. Give him a little time to get there."

"I'm so scared…"

"I know you are, but it will be OK — I promise. You don't live far, do you?"

"No…"

"Then he should be there in just a few minutes…"

Sydney made the trek between his house and the Broots' family residence in record time. He pulled his comfortable sedan onto the driveway slab next to Deb's little Nova and then climbed carefully from behind the wheel, grabbing his crutches from behind the seat as he gained his feet. He carefully limped up the walk and tried the door, finding it unlocked. He pushed through into the house and listened for a moment.

"Debbie!" he called out and listened again. Not a sound answered him. He moved very carefully through the house and noticed how the sprinkler had been set in the back yard. "Debbie!" he called again, "Where are you, cherie?"

Kevin could hear behind the fast breathing of his friend the muffled sounds of his mentor's voice. "Deb!" he called to her. "Sydney's there — he's calling to you!"

"No, no," she shook her head. "That's HIM, coming back for me…"

"No it isn't, Deb," he soothed. "Listen to the voice. It's Sydney…"

"Deb!" Sydney was starting to grow worried. "Deborah Ann, answer me!"

That's when he heard it — the tiniest sound as if someone were scrabbling against the floorboard above his head. He eyed the stairs with trepidation, then sighed. There was no way around it. He took the steps one at a time and yet as quickly as he could. "Deb?" he called out again.

He paused in the hallway, listening again and then moving when he caught the sound of a soft voice. He pushed through a bedroom door — into Deb's room — and looked around. The first thing his eye rested on was the telephone base unit on the nightstand — without its handset. Then he saw that the closet door was ajar. He moved to in front of the closet door and slowly pulled it open. There was a very frightened squeak, and then Deb was scrabbling to put herself even further back into the far corner of the closet.

Sydney pushed at the rack of clothing until he had cleared the area above Deb's head so that he could see her and she could see him. "Deb!" he called sharply. "You're safe now, cherie. It's me!"

Slowly her transparently pale face turned up to look at him. "G…Grandpa?"

"Give me the phone, cherie." He put down his hand, and Deb slowly obeyed his directions. "I've got her, Kevin," he told the upset young man on the other end.

"Can I do anything else?"

"No, I can handle it from here," he assured him. "Deep breath, Kevin, crisis is over."

He disconnected the call and tossed the handset on the bed behind him just in time for Deb to unfold herself from the tight little wad she'd been on the floor and reach up to him. "Grandpa…" she called in a shaky voice.

Propping his crutches so that he could lean on them without holding on, he held out his hands to his granddaughter to help her rise and, once she was on her feet, then pull her to him. She immediately wrapped her arms around his body, and as he wrapped his around her he could feel the violence of her shivering. "Hush now, cherie," he soothed at her, smoothing his left hand on her shoulder in slow and comforting circles. "I have you now. You're safe."

That was all it took. Deb's fragile hold on coherence shattered, and she burst into grinding sobs that made her trembling even more acute. Sydney could only hold on and whisper soft and comforting words at her from time to time.

Miss Parker opened the door to Sydney's house and was struck immediately by the silence. "Davy?" she called into the house, putting her purse on the small table by the doorway.

"He's still over at the park playing softball," Kevin answered her from the living room.

"How are things here?" she asked, moving into the living room so she could see the young man when spoke to him. Then she caught sight of his distressed face. "What is it? Did something happen?"

"Well…" Kevin wasn't quite sure how to explain.

"Sydney!" She whirled to go check on her foster father.

"He's upstairs with Deb," Kevin's voice caught up to her before she'd reached the kitchen.

Miss Parker turned and slowly came back to the living room and stared at the young Pretender. "Upstairs?" After his knee surgery, Sydney had had strict instructions to avoid stairs whenever possible — it was the reason he'd taken up residence in the den. "What happened?"

"I'm not exactly sure of all the details," Kevin admitted, "but she left the house earlier today to go to Oggie's after arguing with Sydney. A couple of hours later, Sydney got a call from Deb — she was scared and panicking. She'd gone home and freaked out, I guess. He had to go rescue her, and had me stay on the phone with her until he got there. They didn't come home for quite a while — and when they did, she was still crying. He had her head straight upstairs and he followed her after getting his medical bag out of the closet. He's been up there ever since."

"Thanks." Miss Parker turned and headed up the stairs immediately. She walked to the end of the hall and knocked very softly on the door to Sydney's room, which Deb had been using as her own while Sydney convalesced on the daybed in the den. She pushed through the door.

Sydney was sitting on the edge of the bed, one of Deb's hands held in one of his while he stroked her forehead gently with the fingertips of his other hand. His face was tired, worn, and his expression one of deep worry. Deb's eyes were closed and her breathing deep and regular — she was asleep. Miss Parker walked over to stand next to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked up into her face with a tired sigh and then bent slightly over the young woman in the bed. "I'm going to be just out in the hallway for a little bit," he explained to the sleeping girl and then reached behind him for his crutches.

Miss Parker helped him to his feet and then led the way out of the bedroom. "What happened, for God's sake? What are you doing up here, of all places?"

"She had a flashback to the house where she and Davy were taken, and it got mixed up with a nightmare she's been having, and she panicked. I found her hiding in her bedroom closet." He shot a glance at the closed door. "I've sedated her for now. I'll probably sit up here with her through the night, in case her nightmares are any worse for what she's been through…"

"Is she going to be OK?" Miss Parker asked, "or should I call Broots…"

"I honestly can't say at the moment if she'll ever recover fully, Parker, and calling Broots at this point won't accomplish anything but give that poor man something else to worry over. But what I CAN tell you now is that she was more than just fondled by the man who molested her." Sydney's chestnut snapped with restrained anger. "She finally told me what happened — everything. She may not have been raped by any formal definition of the word, but she might as well have been from what WAS done to her."

Now it was Miss Parker's turn to glance at the closed door. "She hadn't said anything about that before…"

"I don't think she'd been able to remember everything until today," Sydney explained after a couple of cleansing breaths to calm himself. "This is a common occurrence in sexual assault cases — the mind will avoid memories it isn't prepared to handle. Once she started talking today, though, it just poured out of her. And the more she remembered, the more upset she became."

"Kevin said you two argued this morning…"

He snorted and nodded wryly. "Over whether she was ready to go back to work at Oggie's yet."

Miss Parker nodded. "Broots told me she was thinking about that when I talked to him on the phone last night — I was hoping you'd talk her out of it…"

"I didn't." Sydney's voice was stark. "She wouldn't be convinced with reason — and she got on her high horse and walked out when I told her she was behaving like a spoiled child. Then, when she got to the store, Oggie told her that he'd had to hire someone else. So she was working with a serious disappointment on top of a good mad when she ended up at her own house — and then evidently had a flashback to that house out in the desert when it was so hot and had been closed up for a while. That part is classic Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome."

Miss Parker put her hand back on Sydney's shoulder. "You're looking all in, Syd. Anything I can do for you?"

He shook his head. "Kevin brought me up a sandwich a while ago, and I'm not exactly feeling much like eating at the moment. I'm glad you're home early, I haven't been able to spend any time with Davy at all today." He blinked. "You ARE home early. Everything OK at the Centre?"

"Don't worry about me — things actually ran fairly smoothly today, and I'm hoping for a nice, quiet weekend for a change. I think you have enough on your plate right here right now. I'll take Davy off your hands for the evening, then, and let you get back to Deb." Miss Parker leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "You be sure to get your rest too — and don't over-stress that knee of yours. I thought you weren't supposed to do stairs."

Sydney looked at her in exasperation. "Right now, my knee is the least of my concerns — at most, it's a nuisance. But I'm not anxious to injure myself again, I promise you. The easy chair in my room has an ottoman, and I intend to use it."

"I'll call you later tomorrow morning, then — and I'll swing around later in the morning to do some cooking for us all."

"Thanks, Parker." Sydney reached out and hugged his foster daughter all of a sudden. She hugged him back and then let go so that he could go back through the door into the bedroom before turning to go back down the stairs.

Sydney settled back down on the edge of the bed near Deb's head, taking up the hand that he had been holding earlier. "I'm back, ma petite," he murmured softly. "You're safe. I have you now."

Deb murmured in her sleep, and her hand tightened on Sydney's. He smoothed the hair back from her forehead once more, as he had over a hundred times since she'd fallen into a troubled and drug-induced sleep. It was going to be a very long night.

"Mommy?"

Miss Parker turned off the TV and then bent and straightened some of Davy's hair away from his forehead, realizing that part of the back-to-school preparations that would have to start soon would include a haircut. "What?"

"What's wrong with Deb? Why is she so upset all the time now?"

Considering what her son had probably seen and heard that day, the question wasn't all that surprising. "It goes back to your bad time in California, Davy. One of the men who took you… touched her… in a bad way."

"He told me I should watch," Davy remembered with a frown of confusion. "I thought that Deb wouldn't like what he was doing — that it was wrong…"

"It was, believe me," she nodded vigorously, sickened by the thought that Davy had been forced to witness any part of that atrocity. "It was every bit as wrong as it was of them to have stolen you both in the first place. But remembering is what is making Deb have problems."

"Why? Did he hurt her?"

She looked down into storm-grey eyes that looked so much like her own, and she could see that she wasn't talking to an ordinary eight-year-old elementary school child, but rather to the near-genius who had rescued himself and another from a nearly impossible situation. Sugarcoating the truth to such a person would be a serious disservice — no matter how tempted she was to preserve his innocence a little longer. "Yes, Davy, he hurt her. He bit her until she bled, and he hurt her in other ways too."

"Why would he do such a thing?" He really wanted to understand — the scene of Cordoba bending over Deb's inert body, moving aside her clothing and touching her in private places, and inviting him to watch, had haunted him ever since it had happened.

Miss Parker sighed. "Some men are sick that way — they make themselves feel good by doing such things."

"Is it like sex?"

"Yes," she answered cautiously, forcing herself to remember that he had probably read far more on the human condition than most eight-year-olds would have — and that the topic of sex would most likely have come up at least once. She'd have to ask Sydney about that later. "But it was a bad kind of sex, you see. Sex is always most proper between two people who love each other very much…"

"You mean like you and Daddy?"

Miss Parker had to clamp down on herself to keep from blushing furiously. "Yes, like that."

"And what the man did to Deb was bad sex?"

She nodded. "Yes, because he forced himself on her — touched her in places she didn't want to be touched by him. It makes him feel powerful and in control — but it does that at the expense of Deb feeling helpless and like her wishes don't matter. And afterwards, the experience gives her nightmares and makes her doubt her own worth…"

"Is that why she's always so sad and doesn't have much to do with any of us anymore?"

"She's trying to understand herself and her reactions right now," Miss Parker defended her surrogate daughter. "Her emotions are all out of whack — so she gets mad easily or sad easily, or…"

"Or flips out like she did today?"

She put her arm around her son. "Yeah. That too."

"Is she going to get better someday? Is Grandpa gonna fix her?"

Miss Parker hugged her son to her tightly. "I honestly don't know, Davy. I hope so. I know Grandpa's going to be doing everything he can."

"It's all my fault," Davy mumbled to himself.

His mother blinked and pushed him back just enough so she could see his face. "Whatever makes you say such a thing?"

"Because I did look," he confessed very quietly. "It was kinda hard not to."

Her stomach knotted. "And you feel guilty about that?"

"Yeah." He shifted in his seat. "I shouldn't have looked, even though it was very hard to look away. I could have closed my eyes…"

"Does Deb know that you looked?" Davy looked up into his mother's face sharply at the question. "I remember reading your telling of your story. You said that when the man brought her into the room with you, she was knocked unconscious when he put her down. Was that the truth?"

"Yes…" Davy frowned. This had nothing to do with it…

"So she didn't know. You didn't tell her you saw…"

"No!" The very idea made him sick. Besides, he'd been too busy trying to think of a way out of that house, and then later to get them to safety.

"Then she doesn't know you looked — and so that can't be a part of her nightmare, can it?"

He thought about it for a while. "I dunno — I suppose not…"

"So how can this all be your fault then?"

Davy looked down at his hands in his lap. "I should have been able to do something."

"You were tied up with duct tape at the time," she reminded him gently, "and those men were a lot bigger than you. You did what you could when the time came."

"I should have been able to do more." It was a firm self-indictment. "I shouldn't have looked."

"You did more than most boys your age could have done," she reassured him with equal firmness. "And whether you looked or not isn't an issue for Deb. Right now Deb's getting over what that man did to her, and it's going to have to be her job — it isn't going to be something any of us can do for her. Do you understand?"

"I still shouldn't have looked. That part IS my fault."

"OK," Miss Parker said very slowly, her mind spinning. There had to be a way to make him forgive himself for being victimized himself through being forced to watch. "Tell me this, what if you're at a softball game; it's the ninth inning and your team is down one run with two outs already, and you have two strikes against you. If you swing and miss and lose the game, do your teammates make you feel bad for the rest of forever?"

"No…"

"It was a mistake, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Your looking that day is like that. You made a mistake, but it's behind you now. You don't have to feel bad about it forever."

He raised guilty grey eyes to hers again. "But what if I keep remembering?"

That, Miss Parker had to admit, was a very good question. "When you find yourself remembering, turn off the TV screen in your head, or change the channel to look at something else."

Davy stared at her. "How did you know I think of my thoughts as if they were pictures on a TV screen?"

She hugged him. "Because I think of mine that way, and you are very much my son."

"Change the channel?"

"Change the channel." She gazed down at him. "Does that help?"

"Maybe," he hedged. "I'll have to see."

"Give it a try and see how it goes, then. And maybe you can talk to Grandpa about this too one of these days when he's not working with Deb — he might be able to come up with some other suggestions that would work."

Davy didn't answer, but just leaned a little more heavily into his mother's side. Miss Parker tightened her arm around her son and held him to her more closely. She was glad it was the weekend — she needed the time to reconnect with her son and help him over some of his problems.

"It's down this way." Colonel Fox looked at the paper in his hand with the filing numbers for the box they were looking for, and then pointed. He headed off down the long aisle between tall shelves with Major Meyers close on his heel. "C-1281, 1286, 1293 — here we go! 1302."

Meyers moved past his superior officer to bring the sliding ladder from further down the aisle to where he could climb it and pull out the box marked "1302." Fox reached up just as the box came away from the shelf, and Meyers lowered it into the waiting hands before climbing back down. He waited while Fox put the box on the floor and opened it to begin sifting through the upright folders within. "You say both Veracity and Black Hole are in this one?"

"Thank God," Fox nodded. "I'd hate to think we'd have to look through all nine boxes for two project names." He reached the end of the protruding file tabs, then started once more from the beginning — this time with a frown on his face.

"What is it?"

Fox didn't answer, but sorted through the folders more slowly this time, but with the same results. "They're not here!" he said in shock.

"WHAT?!"

He looked up into the dark face of one of his most trusted aides. "Veracity and Black Hole have already been removed. Somebody got to them before us." He slapped the lid back on the box. "And only God knows how long it's been since they were removed, or what else is missing."

"Whoever did it would have had to sign in, wouldn't they?" Meyers asked from the top of the ladder, and then grunted as he shoved the box back into place.

"We can hope," Fox growled. "I tell you, Steve, I'm not liking playing catch-up to this band of mavericks."

The two of them headed down the aisle and cornered the desk officer. "Give us your logs for the last two weeks," Fox demanded. "That's an order."

"I'm sorry, sir," the officer quailed before the obviously upset superior but held his ground. "The logs are classified."

"Well, I need to know as of yesterday, Corporal. Information that is supposed to be under lock and key back here is missing — and I need to find out who removed it without permission!" Fox snarled, putting his face into that of the enlisted man. "I have clearance…"

"Not to look at the logs. You'll have to talk to the man in charge of the archive before I can give you access to the logs, sir," the Corporal said in a nicely intimidated voice.

"And who the hell would that be?"

"Colonel Harris, sir. I'm sure you'll be able to talk to him in the morning when he gets back into his office…"

Fox gave a curt gesture to Meyers to follow him and then stalked from the archive room. "I don't like this," he hissed as he marched down the corridor toward the elevator. "It seems just a little convenient…"

"What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to find out the chain of authority over the archives first — and check out if any of them have any business or contact with known conspirators like Curtis or Stiller or Lewis," Fox answered glumly. "At the moment, we can't trust that ANYONE isn't involved except you and me."

Meyers blanched beneath his dark skin. "You mean this entire investigation is going to have to go off the record? We're on our own?"

"No," Fox said after a long moment of deep thought. "The investigation we have in place at the moment will continue. We just aren't going to be able to expand it where it needs to go until we find a trustworthy person much higher in rank and position to give us sanction under his authority. We don't want to tip off the conspiracy that we're onto them at all yet — they'll either vanish like roaches under the fridge when the light's turned on, or we'll find ourselves up on charges of insubordination. This thing goes way far up the line — all the way to the Capitol."

Meyers halted next to his superior next to the elevator door. "With all due respect, sir, DAMN!"

"You have THAT right, Major," Fox mused unhappily. "You have THAT right!"

"What?"

"One of these days, you're going to have to learn how to answer the phone with something like 'hello'…"

Miss Parker fell back into her pillow. "Maybe when you stop calling me when I'm on the very edge of sleep…"

Jarod was immediately contrite. "I'm sorry — I didn't know you'd already retired for the day… Everything OK?"

She sighed. "At the Centre, yes for a change."

"But…"

"Deb broke today — she had a flashback while she was at her home and really lost it big time. Syd had to rescue her. He's got her sedated and is sitting upstairs with her tonight."

Jarod stretched his legs out on the couch. "I'm sorry to say that I'm not surprised. From what I saw when she was here, she was keeping things locked down pretty tightly — things that weren't going to want to stay locked down forever." He looked over to where Ginger was sitting on the floor in front of her favorite picture window, combing the hair on her pony for the millionth time. "How's Davy?"

She closed her eyes. "Well, congratulations, Wonder-Boy — we've spawned us another Pretender."

Jarod's brows furled a little. "You talked to Sydney, I take it…"

"I can't blame him for what he did," she admitted with a sigh. "At the time, he was just using all his training to help Davy through some rough spots. And, it seems, our son decided he liked the challenge his Grandpa could throw at him, so…"

"Did he actually test him?"

"Nope. He seemed rather incensed that I thought he'd do that to his own grandson — and reminded me that if word had gotten out, it would have been bad for all of us."

Jarod nodded against the handset. "I figured something like that had to be the case. He just loves Davy too much to put him at risk needlessly."

"And the reason he didn't tell me was because he'd made a promise to Davy to say nothing about his nearly failing in school due to boredom."

"Ahhhh..." Jarod breathed. "Sydney doesn't make promises lightly."

"He says that academically, Davy has been doing high school-level work for nearly half a year — but emotionally, he's still mostly a run of the mill eight or nine year old. As for being a Pretender, he's been Pretending to be a regular kid in school, earning slightly better than average grades, for years now."

"And no doubt, Sydney's been doing his best to make sure that Davy stays emotionally well-adjusted along the way."

"That does seem to be a major thrust of his work with him, yes."

"How do you feel about it now?"

Miss Parker sighed again. "Disappointed that my son and Sydney didn't trust me enough to tell me about it…"

"Understandable. But you're not angry anymore?"

She shook her head against the pillow. "Not really. And besides, I saw that other side of Davy tonight — the side of him that took care of getting them free and rescued."

"Oh?"

"You'll never imagine why he feels so responsible for everything…"

"Why?"

"Because the man who molested Deb did so in front of Davy for a bit — and invited him to watch. And Davy didn't look away or close his eyes."

Jarod closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Oh man!"

"I tried to tell him that he wasn't a part of what Deb was going through now at all — I don't know if that sunk in or not."

"Does he know that it was wrong?"

"We had a very interesting talk about 'good sex' and 'bad sex' tonight. I'll be glad when you're home and can take over the 'birds and bees' talks with him. And I'm going to have to have a chat with Sydney — find out what the two of them have discussed along those lines already."

"At least you know now, though," Jarod reminded her gently. "He trusted you with a pretty big secret, there, Missy."

"I know." She was silent for a moment. "Here I've been doing all the talking. How are things on that side of the world?"

Jarod's eyes lit on Ginger again for a moment, then he decided to keep his daughter's latest achievement a secret for a little longer. "We had CPS come down to the house and do a spot check and an interview. The woman was a bit of a martinet — scared Sprite pretty badly — but Rizzo was the fellow who called me to pick her up, and she finally relaxed enough to answer some of his yes-no questions."

"Did she stay with you today, then?"

"Uh-unh. Mom had her. Just as well — Ethan and I have chosen the man who's going to take my place. We did a final interview today, and he'll start work on Monday, sitting in on my sessions so the kids get a week or so to get used to him before I turn over the entire caseload."

"You mean, there's actually a light at the end of the tunnel?"

"A little one," Jarod smiled. "I miss you."

"I miss you too. I love you."

"I love you too. I'd better let you go so you can get some sleep now."

"Give Sprite a big hug from me."

"Will do. Goodnight, Missy."

"Goodnight, Jarod."

Jarod sat up as he disconnected the call, his movement catching his daughter's attention. "Mommy says for me to give you a big hug. So why don't you come over so I can do that?"

Ginger climbed to her feet and trotted over to Him. She put her arms around His neck and sighed in happiness as His arms tightened around her. "Tan-koo," she said softly.

"You're welcome, Sprite," Jarod smiled. "And you know what I think we're going to do? I think we're going to keep your talking a secret from Mommy for a while so you can surprise her with it when you see her next time. OK?"

Ginger's eyes twinkled. "'Kay…" she answered readily, even though she still nodded vigorously out of habit. It felt so good to not have the silence in the way anymore.

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