Note: I know it's been a long time between posts. Sorry for the delay but, RL interfered again (I hate when it does that!) Anyway, thanks for your patience and, of course, theemails asking for another post. Hope it was worth the wait.
Disclaimer in Part 1
Guilty
Part 19?
He looked at his watch, glared at the driver but kept his comments to himself. Due to the weather, the plane from San Francisco had not only been late in leaving California but, also, late in arriving in Minnesota. In addition, the car ride he had been told would be no more than two hours was entering its third.
"How much farther?" he demanded.
The driver made brief eye contact via the rear view mirror, then looked back at the road. "Another thirty minutes, give or take."
"Give or take what? Divine intervention?"
The man shrugged his response.
Looking back at his watch, he released a heavy sigh and leaned back in the seat, urging himself to relax. Despite the wild goose chase on the West Coast, he was, once again, on the right trail. Soon, he would soon have the key.
About an hour after the breakfast dishes were washed and put away, Jarod began roaming the large house, moving slowly from room to room. Intermittently, he checked the telephones for dial tone or his laptop for a satellite connection. Each attempt, however, resulted in disappointment, causing Jarod to sigh heavily and disappear into another room.
She watched him, silently noting that, when he finally arrived at the threshold to his mother's room, Jarod did not enter. Leaning heavily against the door, he slid into a crouching position and dropped his head to his hands.
Deep in thought, he did not seem to notice Miss Parker's presence until her hand fell gently onto his shoulder. Without a word, the Pretender pulled himself to his full height, shot a quick glance at the closed door, then crossed to the large window in the living room. His arms were crossed in front of him and, though he was facing a breathtaking view, Miss Parker was convinced that his eyes were closed.
"Would you like me to search her room?"
He flinched at the sound of her voice then slowly gazed at her over his shoulder. "Why would you ask me something like that?"
She shrugged and moved to his side. "Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know if she left anything behind?"
Turning back to the view, he hesitated slightly but answered, "No."
She considered calling him a liar, but settled for admitting, "Well, I am."
"Stay out of her room, Parker," he warned. Dropping his arms, he pivoted in place and faced her, "I mean it."
His sudden, deep voice surprised her but Miss Parker held the man's stare. When she spoke, she took on a daring, taunting tone of her own. "What are you afraid I will find?"
"I just don't want her privacy invaded," he snapped. Then, looking away, he added softly, "Besides, my mother is gone and so are her belongings."
"Amazing. Your conscience won't allow you to enter the room of a woman you've known less than a week but invading Sydney's privacy, or Broots', by searching their rooms, is acceptable?"
"I did not search their rooms," he replied tightly.
"Really. Then, tell me, Jarod, what were you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" she repeated skeptically.
"That's what I said. Now, leave it alone, Parker."
She watched him fold his arms tightly across his chest and his eyes glaze over as he lifted them to the window. Though she had heard a hint of sadness and longing in his voice, when he spoke about his mother's departure, Jarod's body language had told her a different story. The muscles in his jaw were tight and his shoulders were pulled back, defiantly.
Finding his mother had been Jarod's number one goal for so long that, when he finally tracked her down, Jarod had been willing to do anything to keep her happy. She abandoned him after the accident, and he forgave her. She kept secrets, refusing to answer questions about her presence on Carthis until she had no choice, and he made excuses for her. And, now, though Miss Parker had told him otherwise, Jarod was convinced that his mother was going to abandon him again, once she had the scrolls. He was trying desperately to believe that Margaret was doing what she felt was best for both of them.
Whether Jarod was ready to admit it, or not, he was at odds with himself.
"It's been a long week, hasn't it?" she asked, softly.
Jarod nodded.
After another moment of silence, Miss Parker slipped her hand under his arm and gently released the hold he had on himself. When Jarod faced her, she waited until his hand wrap around hers and a small, shy smile graced his lips before she pulled him from the window. Though he followed her for a few steps, the Pretender suddenly resisted her tow and brought them both to a halt in the middle of the room.
"Let's get some fresh air," she said, answering his unspoken question. "Maybe, by the time we get back, the phone lines will be up and you can do whatever it is you have been dying to do on Broots' computer."
"And, if they aren't?"
"Then, at least we will have spent some time together without thinking about the scrolls, the Centre, or your mother," she answered. Leaving him where he was, she crossed to the closet and opened the door. "Who knows? A walk might even tire you out enough to take a nap. I'd say you could use one."
"I do not need a nap," he snapped, folding his arms defiantly.
Staring at him, she shook her head and pointed at his posture. "Face it, Jarod, you're as cranky as a two-year old."
"So, that's what it's come to?" Catching the heavy jacket she tossed in his direction, Jarod moved to her side, holding the garment to his chest. "In less than twenty-four hours, you've gone from treating me like your lover to treating me like a child?"
"I'm just following your lead," she shrugged.
"Highly doubtful. I have never known you to follow anyone," he grumbled.
"There's a first time for everything."
Smiling at the frown that appeared on his face, Miss Parker closed the distance between them and brushed her lips against his. "Jarod, in a few hours, Broots and Debbie will be back. If we don't take this opportunity, we might not get the chance to be alone again, for a long time."
"Is that what this is all about? We can be alone, right here, you know."
"Been there, done that," she replied, stepping away. "The fresh air and exercise we get from a walk will put us both in better moods."
"What I have in mind will provide us with a great deal of exercise and put us in better moods, too," he murmured, sliding his left arm around her waist and pulling her back. "If you want, we can leave a window open for the fresh air."
She grinned and ran her hand across his lightly bearded face but, just as Jarod leaned down to kiss her, the woman turned her back on him. Sliding into her long coat she pulled open the door and announced, "There are boots in the closet that should fit you. I'll meet you outside."
"That's the house," he said, slowly pulling the van to the side of the road.
Alex scrutinized the structure from a distance and smiled. "Very scenic. Isolated. No neighbors."
"Not for a couple of miles, anyway."
"Are we sure they're in there?" he asked, facing the man in the driver's seat.
Nodding, Victor retrieved a set of binoculars from the glove compartment and handed them to his companion. He pointed toward the house as Miss Parker appeared on the porch.
They watched in silence, their car hidden by the row of bare trees that lined the road, until Jarod emerged from the house. Then, as the couple wrapped their arms around each other and started down the steps, Alex's smile broadened.
Without taking his eyes off his prey, the man motioned for Victor to move the vehicle further down the road and said, "This is good. This is very good."
"You're awfully quiet, all of a sudden," she said, looking up at him. "Are you all right? Do you want to head back?"
Jarod shook his head. "No, you were right about the walk. I'm feeling much better."
"Say that again."
"What? I'm feeling much better?"
"No, the other part. The part about me."
His confusion suddenly gone, Jarod pulled them to a stop.
"The part about you," he repeated, playfully.
"Yes. It isn't often that you admit someone else is right. I want to hear it again."
"I wanted to stay back at the house, and do unspeakable things to you," he countered. "We don't always get what we want."
"Maybe you don't, but I do," Miss Parker promised, adding over her shoulder, "At some point in the very near future, you will repeat those words. You will say I was right."
"Don't bet on it," he grinned, following her up a slight incline.
As they continued the walk, their conversations were varied and brief. They talked about the snow, the view, and the wildlife that kept their distance but, less than a half hour later, they were once again engulfed in silence.
"Are you sure you're all right?" she asked, when Jarod stopped to catch his breath.
"When did you become such a worrier?" he asked, finally pulling his eyes from the wooded area in front of them. "I would tell you if I wasnot feeling well."
"Right. Like you did last night?"
Sighing loudly, he glanced at the open, snow-covered field they had just crossed, then faced the woman again. "For the last time, you did not hurt me last night."
"Liar."
"Parker . ."
"Save it, Jarod. It's not important."
"But it is important," he said, grabbing her arm as she turned away. With both hands on her shoulders, he leaned down so they were at eye level and continued in a soft, but determined voice, "Last night was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. Being with you, holding you, loving you, was like something out of a dream and, no matter how hard you try to make me think otherwise, it was perfect. Do you understand me? There is not one second of last night that I would change because I was with you. You did not hurt me. You could never hurt me."
She stared at him for almost a full minute before, slowly, Miss Parker began to shake her head and back away. He had meant for his words to comfort her, instead they released the fears she had been trying so desperately to suppress.
When she found him at the hospital, she convinced herself that he was still the Pretender and she was still his huntress. The only thing that had changed was that they needed each other, for the first time since they were children. She needed him to help her sift through all the lies of her past and he needed her to help keep him out of the Centre long enough to discover the life he had been meant to have.
With the exception of Thomas, most of her adult relationships had been fleeting and based more on convenience than passion. When she and Jarod became intimate, she told herself they were still free of emotional ties. She told herself that she could relegate Jarod's name to the list of men that had been nothing more than one-night stands, without a problem. It would be easier than having him join Thomas on the list of people she cared about.
In the past five minutes, she realized she had failed. After a few steps, as his expression warned her of questions that were imminent, she turned her back on him.
"This was a mistake," she whispered, following the trail they had already made with her eyes.
"Parker, what are you talking about?"
"This," she said, motioning between them as she turned to face him. "Us. It was a mistake. If I had kept to the original plan . ."
Suddenly, Miss Parker was quiet. Her eyes found his and, as Jarod's face darkened. Her heart began beating faster.
"What plan?" he asked.
Closing her eyes, she dropped her head and hugged herself. "My plan. The plan I had when I left San Diego two weeks ago."
"San Diego."
She nodded.
"I was in San Diego last week. I was in San Diego when I got the tip that led me to my mother."
"I know."
A sharp wind blew and, as he watched her hair tangle in front of her face, Jarod realized he was cold. Curling his hands into fists, he shoved them inside the jacket's pockets, and, without taking a step, shifted away from her.
"You never told me how you found me at the hospital, or why you helped me get my mother away from Alex and Cox. Tell me now."
She paced a few steps, with her head down, her fingers pressed against the bridge of her nose. There was no mistaking the feel of the weight of his eyes as she moved, and there was no mistaking the cold, heavy feeling of guilt in the pit of her stomach. She was at a loss, unsure of how he was going to react when she finally confessed that she was responsible for everything that had happened in the past week.
Finally, Miss Parker stopped her pacing and, standing directly in front of the man, looked into his dark eyes. While she searched, he was doing the same. The dark orbs flicked from side to side, never breaking her gaze and providing her with a glimpse of his of his confusion, as well as a hint of his frustration. Jarod was struggling to keep quiet, to give her a chance to explain. And, though she told herself they were caused by the cold, all Miss Parker could concentrate on were the tears that were teetering at the edge of his lids.
"Maybe we should go back," she whispered, dropping her eyes. "It's cold out here and . . . "
"No. Tell me now, Parker."
Glancing back at him, she waited a heartbeat before nodding and taking a deep breath.
"About a month ago, as a part of his normal duties, Broots accessed the Centre mainframe and stumbled upon several references to your mother. He showed me what he had found and, though he could not track the data back to any one person, he did discover that, whoever it was, was filing the information from a remote site."
"References? What kind of references?"
She shrugged. "The usual. Places, dates, times she'd been sighted in the last six years - including Carthis, her appearance, who she interacted with, what she did. Things like that."
"Six years," he repeated softly. "They've had my mother under surveillance for six years. I don't know why I'm surprised."
"That was all they seemed to be doing. She'd been in Minnesota for almost a month when I read the report. Based on what was written, it seems that whoever was watching her thought she would be moving again in the next couple of weeks. They even speculated about where she was headed."
"And where was that?"
"San Diego."
"She was looking for me?" he asked, as the brunette turned away. "Are you telling me that my mother had tracked me down in San Diego? Why wouldn't she have told me?"
Keeping her back to him, Miss Parker shook her head. "I don't think that it was part of her plan to find you."
He stiffened at the words, then relaxed as he realized they made sense. From the moment he found his mother, she had been telling him he'd made a mistake.
"So, it was coincidence?"
"Possibly."
"But you don't believe in coincidence."
"Neither do you," she smiled, facing him again. "If the Centre knew where your mother was, and where she was headed, why were they leaving her alone? It was obvious you had no idea where she was, so the idea of them watching her, on the off chance they could catch you, was so farfetched it was almost absurd.
I had Broots dig deeper into the mainframe and archives, hoping for something that would make everything make sense, and then I booked a commercial flight to San Diego. I hoped that, by being there when she arrived, I might be able to piece together what was really happening between her and the Centre."
"What did you find?"
"You."
Jarod's eyes widened and, instinctively, he took a step back.
"I saw you on the street, entering a bar in the Gaslamp District."
"I was working there as a bartender. It was part of my pretend," he explained, slowly. "You knew where I was, yet you didn't notify the Centre. Why?"
Taking another deep breath, Miss Parker hugged herself and glanced at the house they shared, on the other end of the open field. When she turned back, Jarod was standing directly in front of her, his gaze demanding an answer.
"I remembered how you reacted on Carthis, when you found out your mother was so close. I remembered what you told me in the limo - that I could change the ending to our story," she said.
Her voice was almost a whisper, but Jarod heard every word. He drank in her body language, the soft features of her face, and the way she held his gaze with an insecure confidence he rarely saw in her. For an instant, she allowed him to see the woman he knew she was - a woman very different from the Ice Queen persona she had developed over the years.
"I followed you to your apartment," she continued, "and spent the rest of the day, debating about how to tell you your mother was on her way. It was almost noon when I remembered the website."
"You knew about the website I designed to help find my mother?"
She laughed and gently stroked his cheek. "Of course I did. Believe it or not, Jarod, I was very good at my job at the Centre."
"If you were so good," he countered, in an equally playful tone, "why is it you never caught me?"
She hesitated, her smile fading as her hand slipped from his face, and softly replied, "I guess my heart wasn't in it."
Her sincerity made him falter and, after swallowing hard, he asked, "So you were the one who posted the clue that led me to my mother? You started the sequence of events that led us to this moment? You must have known that the Centre would, eventually, figure out what you did."
Taking a step back, Miss Parker nodded and dropped her eyes briefly. "I thought it was time you and I had control of our own destinies."
Reaching out, as she started to move away, Jarod brought the woman to him and slid one arm around her waist. Holding Miss Parker gently in place, he moved his free hand behind her neck and leaned forward, covering her mouth with his. When her hands slid under his jacket and began crawling up his back, Jarod brought his mouth to her ear.
"You were right," he breathed.
Half a mile from the house, they found a clearing about thirty yards from the road and stowed the van. The hike back, through the trees, was made difficult by the high snow drifts but they were in good physical condition and, made the trek back to the house in less than fifteen minutes.
They watched the house through binoculars, from a hiding place among the trees at the back of the property. Satisfied that they saw no movement, the two men quickly crossed to a low window and expertly let themselves inside.
"Now what?" Victor asked, as he jumped from the window well into the basement.
Alex moved to the stairs and looked up at the closed door. "We check each room for anything useful and we wait."
Emma shot a quick glance in each direction before crossing the hall and entering the hospital room unannounced. Startled, the woman looked at her, then turned her eyes back toward the window when the man rose from his chair and met Emma in the middle of the room.
"I am afraid she is not feeling up to any visitors," he whispered. "We hoped the police would have come to talk to her before now. But, with the storm . . "
"Someone is here, Sydney. That's what I came in to tell you."
Sydney cocked his head to one side. "If the police are here, why do you look so worried?"
"I don't think he's with the police," she admitted. "Theguy isn't asking about Margaret. He's asking about Jarod."
"Jarod?"
Emma nodded.
"If you have any information about my son, I would prefer that you did not ignore the fact that I am in the room."
Taking a deep breath, Emma looked away from Sydney and faced the woman. Pushing herself to a sitting position, Margaret stared at the nurse with such intensity that, for a moment, the younger woman considered fleeing. From the moment Jarod's mother had been admitted, under false pretenses, the woman had been demanding, obstinate and, worse of all, oblivious to the fact that she was not the only person with something at risk.
"Well?" Margaret snapped.
While Sydney crossed to the door, Emma moved closer to the bed. "I don't have any information about Jarod," she answered, "except that all roads to the ridge were closed late last night."
"How would you know that?" she demanded, glancing over the nurse's shoulder to where Sydney was standing.
"It was on the radio."
"So my son is trapped in the house with that woman."
"I'm sure he's fine."
The woman nodded and, for a moment, Emma thought she saw her features soften. When they hardened again, her brows knitting in confusion, Emma turned and followed Margaret's line of vision.
"Sydney, what's wrong?" Margaret asked, when the peered out a small opening in the door.
Letting the door close, he placed his finger over his lips and crossed to the edge of the bed. With a quick glance at the door, he whispered for Jarod's mother to keep her voice down.
"Emma, those men are not with the police," he said, facing her, "How long have they been here?"
"About twenty minutes ago," she answered. "One of them mentioned being on the road all night."
The psychiatrist nodded thoughtfully and looked at the closed door. "It is important that they not find out we are here."
"Of course."
Grabbing Sydney's arm, Margaret forced the man to look at her and, in a harsh whisper, demanded, "What men? Who did you see?"
"There are three men on the floor, asking about Jarod," he said, calmly patting her hand. "They are Centre employees."
Margaret's eyes widened at the words. "Are Alex and Cox among them?"
"No. The man asking the questions goes by the name of Mr. Lyle."
"You said there were three men."
"The other two are Sweepers."
While Margaret digested the information he gave her, Sydney reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and small notepad. After scribbling something on the top sheet, he tore it away from the pad and handed it to Emma.
"This is the number to Broots' cell phone. He and Debbie spent the night at a motel in town because of the road closures. I want you to find a safe place, somewhere no one will overhear you, and call him. Tell him about Lyle and tell him to get back to the safe house as quickly as possible."
"What about the two of you?" she asked, "What do I tell him when he asks about you?"
"Tell him that we are fine. Lyle is looking for Jarod. He has no reason to believe we are in the building." Then, looking at Margaret, he said, "Once he is gone, we will leave."
The woman started to nod in agreement, then stopped abruptly and turned her piercing eyes on the psychiatrist. "What about my case? The scrolls?"
He shook his head. "It is no longer safe to go through with the plan.."
"But . ."
"Jarod would never forgive me if I let something happen to you."
"You don't understand. The scrolls must remain out of Centre control. Jarod's life . . ."
"I do understand," he interrupted. Rising from the bed, he glared down at the woman and, in a low but controlled voice, told her, "Jarod, and his welfare, have been my primary concern for a very long time."
"Your primary concern," she repeated slowly. "What, exactly, does that mean? Are you saying that you care more about my son than I do?"
"It means that I know more about your son, than you do," he replied. Then, seeing the woman stiffen, Sydney softened his voice and added, "Trust me, Margaret. Right now, Jarod' well being hinges on yours."
As she watched the man walk way, Margaret released a soft breath and leaned against the pillows. Despite her initial mistrust of the psychiatrist, and his colleagues, she was relieved by his determination to protect her son.
Whether he realized it or not, Sydney, had helped her make the hardest decision of her life.
TBC
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