Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, Steve found that Jaime had the Monopoly board set up and waiting, a sure sign she had things she needed to discuss. It didn't take long.

"Can I ask you something?" she ventured, just minutes into the game.

"Sure. Ask me anything."

"If I was engaged – to him – and we've been split up for years...why were you here when I woke up? I mean, I'm glad you were, but I was wondering..."

Steve paid for his newly-purchased railroad and handed Jaime the dice. She seemed able to talk more freely when they played at the same time, and if it helped her, he was all for it. "I never stopped loving you, Jaime," he said simply. "Maybe part of it was the fact that we didn't actually 'break up'..."

"That must've been so hard on you: one day, boom – he love you knew is just...gone. Sort of like what happened to Chris."

"Not at all," Steve argued, trying his best to keep a lighter tone. "What happened with Chris was his own doing; I have no sympathy for him."

"Trade you Vermont for Reading?" she suggested.

"Not on your life," he laughed. "But try me again later."

"Oh, I will." Jaime rolled her third doubles and Steve helpfully placed her token in the Jail space. "Did he...talk to you...?" she asked, grudgingly putting $50.00 into the bank.

"Yes, he did."

"And?"

Steve set the dice down and took Jaime's hand. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"No, but I need to hear it. What'd he say?"

"He set you up to scare you into retiring."

"Huh?" Jaime frowned. "I don't get it. He almost...retired me – permanently."

"He said you weren't supposed to get hurt, just run off the road and frightened badly enough to agree to enter Parr's little non-resort community with him." Jaime knew very little about her life as an operative, so Steve tried to gloss over it as much as he could. "He wanted to retire and wanted you to be with him."

"Oh." Jaime sighed and leaned over onto Steve's shoulder, the game temporarily forgotten.

"I talked to Parr this morning, too, and he confirmed what Chris told me – to a point. He said Chris set up the accident, but..." Steve's voice trailed off. There seemed to be no way to tell her the rest without bringing up a subject she still knew nothing about: bionics.

"What?" Jaime probed.

"Well, Parr said Chris paid to arrange the accident...to kill you."

"Somebody's lying."

"Maybe they both are; Oscar's looking into it for us," Steve told her. Senator Renshaw was being re-questioned as they spoke, and it was hoped he'd put the remaining pieces into place in an effort to keep himself from the same fate as Parr and Williams.

"I like Oscar," Jaime said, brightening. "Too bad he doesn't play Monopoly."

- - - - - -

"How's Jaime's condition?" Oscar asked, sitting down at the conference table with Rudy, Russ and Steve that afternoon.

"She's made dramatic improvements," Rudy reported. "She's ready to get up and walk again, which means -"

Steve nodded. "Which means she's about to start wondering why that doesn't exactly feel the way she's expecting it to."

"Right. And knowing Jaime, nothing but a full explanation will do."

"She'll be OK with it; I'll help her," Steve stated. He turned to Oscar. "What'd you get from Renshaw?"

"Our friend Mr. Parr didn't take kindly to having to back down on sending Jaime to his 'community'," Oscar explained. "He played on Chris' emotions – in front of the Senator, no less – by telling him how safe and happy he and Jaime could be together, with their own house and never having to work. Told him they could spend every waking moment with each other -"

"Conveniently leaving out the part about being locked up like animals," Steve grumbled.

"Right. Williams wanted out of the CIA even more than Jaime had wanted retirement, and Parr spun the facts around until he made Chris believe it was the only possible way to keep Jaime with him. Chris thought that a good scare might get Jaime to agree to go, and he suggested running her off the road."

Steve bristled. "Son-of-a -"

"But it was Parr who offered to make all the arrangements. He set it up, including the supposed theft of Chris' car. But he double-crossed Williams, too."

"How? What happened?"

"We went back to Parr with what we knew, and he finally broke," Oscar told them. "He saw Jaime as someone who would always rebel against being locked away -"

"And he got that part right," Steve confirmed.

"He never intended for Jaime to live through the accident. Chris, either. If Williams hadn't pulled a gun, they were supposed to have killed him, just to tie up the loose end. They'd planned to put him behind the wheel of his own car – a double-fatality accident. Then Parr and his cronies would've made a fortune selling Jaime's body to the highest bidder."

"I'd rather not tell Jaime that part, just yet," Steve said softly. "But she'll get it out of me eventually. She just has this way..."

"Just let her call the shots," Rudy suggested. "She knows what she's ready to handle. And since she's demanding to get up and start moving, I guess we know what the next step has to be."

"Good luck, Pal," Oscar told Steve. "We'll handle the legal end, but I think the toughest job is probably yours."

"I hate to have to lay all of this on her," Steve said quietly, "but I'm just grateful she's still here...and that I'll be the one she asks about it." He chuckled softly to himself. "Maybe one of these days, I'll even manage to beat her." Seeing Oscar's raised eyebrow, he hurried to explain. "Monopoly. The lady is a shark."

- - - - - -