Refuge

by MMB

Margaret is on the run from the Centre - and Jarod enlists some unorthodox help in keeping her safe, with very unexpected consequences. NOW COMPLETE

5. Extreme Circumstances

Chapter 5 – Extreme Circumstances

I don't know how long the phone had been ringing – I'd only gradually become aware that the bells I was hearing in my dream didn't belong there. I stumbled from my bed and down the vaguely unfamiliar stairs in the dark and made my way to the kitchen. My hand had to swat at the wall a couple of times before finding the light switch – and then I picked up the receiver with a big yawn. My "Hello?" was only barely intelligible, I'm sure.

"Peg! Wake up!"

I blinked, and then I was rousing more fully. The voice on the other end of the line wasn't Jarod's, as I'd expected, but Sydney's. I squinted at the round clock on the wall above the kitchen window. "Sydney?" I asked slowly, awake but still not processing information as quickly as normal. "Do you know what time it i…"

"Forget that and listen to me verrrrry carefully." Sydney's voice sounded tight – his accent was a little thicker and a little coarser than normal. "I've been called back into the Centre – and informed that we're going on a little local raid while it's still dark out. Miss Parker received word that Jarod has been seen in the vicinity – and the plan is to take the inhabitants of the place he's suspected of being by surprise… a small cottage by the ocean not far from here…"

"But he's gone," I told him with another half-yawn. "He's not here."

"But you ARE there," Sydney stated bluntly, taking my breath away and bringing me finally fully and very clearly awake.

"Oh my God! Are you telling me the Centre is coming HERE?" I gasped, my heart suddenly pounding in my throat. "For ME??"

"I can't be certain – but I don't dare assume otherwise. So I want you to listen to me and do exactly as I tell you – do you understand?"

My mind was racing. They were coming HERE – and they'd finally find me! All of these years of outsmarting or simply out-running the Centre were about to come crashing down around me. I couldn't think – couldn't… "Peg!" I heard vaguely in my ear again – and Sydney was obviously raising his voice now. "PEG!"

"Yes," I practically sobbed into the phone. "What am I going to do?"

"Listen to me! Pack the computer and your purse. Turn off all the lights – and find yourself a small dark hole there in the house to hide in. A box – a wardrobe…"

"They'll find me…" My voice had gone up an octave – I was on the ragged edge of panic.

"LISTEN TO ME. Pack the computer and your purse. Take them with you – down to the basement, up to the attic… SOMEwhere where you can hide yourself and them. Let the house look as if the occupant is just out for the evening…"

"I could leave – go to the shed…"

"NO!" Sydney was shouting at me now. "If you leave the house, they'll see your tracks in the snow and find you. You have to stay IN the house and find a place to hide there. Now do as I say!"

I was starting to shake, but it was obvious that Sydney's instructions were the only thing that could possibly save me. "I will," I managed finally.

"I'll come for you as soon as I'm certain the coast is clear – and we'll move you somewhere safer," he told me, his voice moving into a calmer, more soothing tone that did wonders to my near-panic attack. "Take a deep breath…" He waited, and I finally obliged him. "Good. Now pack the computer and grab your purse. You have about a half hour to get hidden. Go."

The line fell dead against my ear, and I whimpered. His voice had been a lifeline of sanity and hope – and now it was gone. I put the receiver back on the cradle with hands shaking so hard they almost dropped it, and then I turned to the kitchen table. The black canvas tote that Jarod had bought to hold the computer and its attachments was on one of the unused kitchen chairs, and I threw the device, its wires and printer into the various velcroed compartments and then zipped it closed, not really caring if everything had fit together properly. I looked about the kitchen and then, as an afterthought, pulled the little paper with Sydney's and Jarod's phone numbers out from beneath the phone and slipped it into one of the computer case pockets. My purse was on the counter near the phone – I grabbed that too.

But where was I going to hide?

The basement was no option – it was nothing but a hole in the ground with very little furnishing it in which or behind which to hide myself. If the Centre descended on the cottage, the closets in the bedrooms would no doubt be opened and pawed through as well.

That left only one alternative – the storage room at the top of the stairs. It was clogged to almost impassible with boxes, trunks and old furniture and detritus – and I thought I'd seen a wardrobe over the top of the mess toward the back of the room. I'd have to find my way to it in the dark, however – if I turned on the light, I'd be discovered if for no other reason than the Centre people would tear the room apart piece by piece to see why the light was burning.

I carefully extinguished all the lights I'd lit on the way downstairs and headed back up again. I first went to my bedroom and made the bed I'd been sleeping in just a few minutes before – there was no reason to give any suspicion that someone had been sleeping in the bed in the very recent past. Then I slipped through the door to the storage room and carefully began to worm my way toward the back. My eyes fell on a large dark box – a trunk – sitting next to the wardrobe. In the dim moonlight that came in through the dirty and cobwebbed window, I could see it had a few boxes piled on top of it but would be big enough to hold me and my precious belongings, IF it could be emptied enough to make room.

I opened the wardrobe and felt around, found it filled with old, empty hangers, and then opened the trunk. The lid wouldn't stay open from the bulk and weight of the boxes piled on top of it, but by feeling around through the opening I could tell it was full of old clothes. I put the computer and purse on the floor for the moment and began pulling out and then hanging up the clothing bit by bit to make room for myself. Just about the time I began to hear the sound of powerful engines nearing the cottage, I closed the wardrobe, moved my computer and purse into the trunk, climbed in myself and let the lid fall closed over me – still with the lighter boxes piled on top of the trunk lid. In the dark I began digging my way through and beneath the stale old clothes so I could be as close to the bottom as I could get and still breathe while being completely hidden. I could only hope that, if the trunk were opened, the mess I'd made wouldn't give me away.

My heart once more leapt into my throat when I heard the loud crash of someone bursting through one of the doors – and I huddled as I could easily make out several sets of footsteps stomping up the stairs and shuffling through the other rooms both upstairs and downstairs. The door of the storage room had a distinctive creak that sounded briefly before crashing into one of the boxes that crowded the room – and then sounded again as the door was pulled closed again.

"Make certain he's not here," I heard a somewhat familiar voice order with a tone of frustration. I'd never thought I'd hear Catherine Jamison Parker sound so hard or impatient.

"You know, Miss Parker, this just doesn't look like the normal lair Jarod would leave," another voice sounded – and sounded as if it were just outside the storage room door. I held my breath. My God! That was SYDNEY'S voice!

"What do you mean, Freud?"

"Look around you. The place is immaculate – there are no visible signs of Jarod's normal fixation on any particular theme or career choice. And, most significantly, I've seen no sign of any notebooks. If this were truly one of Jarod's lairs, there would be at least one red notebook." Sydney sounded tired and, oddly enough, a little out of sorts – as if he resented being pulled out of bed to search an empty house. "There is absolutely nothing here to support the claim that Jarod was staying here – or had ever even visited the place."

"Nothing, Miss Parker," sounded another voice, quite deferential-sounding. "We've searched the basement and the rest of the house - and there's no sign that anybody left the house recently either. No tracks in the snow other than ours."

"I'm going to kill that bastard Lyle," the Catherine-like voice hissed lethally. "If he thinks that getting us all up and bothered at four goddamned o'clock in the bloody morning is cute – I'LL give him cute!" The storage room door creaked again. "What's in here?"

"Nothing, Miss Parker," another deferential voice replied. "Looks like storage. There's no way anybody could get through that mess…"

"Nonsense. Make sure nobody's hiding behind something back there," the Catherine voice ordered brusquely.

I held my breath and put my hand over my mouth as I could hear boxes shifting all around me. My trunk got jerked slightly – and then I could hear the boxes on top of it getting tossed aside. I felt rather than saw the top get thrown back – and then there was some poking and prodding of the clothing on top of me. I closed my eyes and bit my lip so hard I could taste the blood to keep from screaming my terror and erupting from the trunk in a panic. It seemed to take forever, but then the top slammed shut on the trunk again. "Not a thing, Miss Parker," was the eventually announcement, and I could hear at least one heavy person pushing through the boxes away from my trunk once more. I didn't dare breathe a sigh of relief yet, for fear that it would come out as a whimper that would lead them to me still.

"Let's get the Hell outta here before whoever belongs here calls the police," the Catherine voice ordered now, very obviously furious. "Syd, you want me to drop you at your house?"

"No, thank you, Miss Parker – my car's already at the Centre. I'd need some form of transportation to get to work again at the proper time…"

"Screw that. I'm giving you and the rest of the team the day off – and I'll be the one clearing it with Nosferatu and our favorite Ted Bundy before taking the rest of the day off myself. It's one thing to call us out to go traipsing all over the countryside and miss Jarod by minutes or hours and come home with another box of meaningless crap – it's another entirely to pull us all from our warm beds at the most ungodly hour to go on a wild goose chase to a place Jarod's never been in before. C'mon, boys – we're done here."

"At least whoever DOES live here wasn't here…"

"Yeah, the last thing Miss Parker needs is to have to deal with the Blue Cove PD again," a conspiratorially lowered male voice confided. "I hear last time she tangled with them, sparks flew…"

"Tom! Vince! Get your asses down here!"

I could hear those heavy footsteps descending the stairs and slowly but surely my house was quieting down. Eventually I heard the engines outside start up again – and then gradually fade as the vehicles moved away. Still, I stayed in my trunk, knowing myself safe as long as I didn't move, for a very long time.

This had been close – closer, even, than the narrow escape Jarod had managed for me from Oakridge just a while ago. Too close. I couldn't stop shaking. Even in the back pocket of the Centre, there was no certainty that the attention of an organization that Jarod considered "criminally myopic" couldn't be drawn dangerously near.

I was in a no-win situation: I couldn't stay here, and I had nowhere else to go.

oOoOo

I don't know how long I stayed in that stuffy, suffocating trunk, but it took real intestinal fortitude to finally push back up through the clothing I'd piled on top of myself and push the lid up. Early morning light was already beginning to come through the window as I struggled to free myself from the trunk and then move all the old clothing inside aside so that I could retrieve my precious computer and purse. I looked around me, and the boxes that had been stacked together relatively neatly were now pushed about randomly and haphazardly, as if to make room for large men to move more easily through the room. The big wardrobe was pulled away from the wall slightly and one of the doors was ajar. They had searched more thoroughly than I'd thought.

I was lucky – damned lucky. This time.

Shaking again, I wormed my way through the mess and went to my own room. There the closet door was standing open, as were several of my drawers. I sat down on the edge of the bed weakly, feeling violated and once more on the ragged edge of a panic attack I couldn't afford. I was trapped – I had no vehicle in which to flee, no clothing sufficient to the task of walking out of this 50's-era prison that had been intended as a safe house into the frozen hell outside – and I had to THINK. Once more, it took time and several attempts to pull myself together again before I could stand up again and go about the business of getting dressed. I found my suitcase where I'd put it at the bottom of my closet and began packing too. One way or the other, I wasn't going to stay here any longer – even if I had to walk away, and even if I ended up frozen to death in a snow bank somewhere.

Eventually I moved like a phantom through the house, not daring touch a light switch in case someone from the Centre had been left behind to watch the house for activity. I avoided moving anywhere near a window as I crept down the stairs and looked about as I made my way to my kitchen. Everything was askew or slightly out of place – but only to a point that the place looked cluttered, disorganized. They hadn't trashed the place.

I put my belongings – the things I would never again go anywhere without, my purse and now my computer – on the kitchen table, left the suitcase on the floor nearby and began making myself some coffee with hands that had yet to stop shaking.

I jumped hard and let out a small scream when the telephone began to ring. I backed away from it until my backside was pressed against the refrigerator door, hoping maybe it would just… stop… and then my mind tried to start working again. Sydney had said he would be coming back for me – to take me somewhere safer. To do that, he'd be calling to let me know that either he was at the end of my driveway again or to arrange for a time for me to be ready. Maybe this was Sydney, trying to fulfill his promise. Then again, maybe it was Jarod, having just clued in to the fact his "safe" house had been raided by the Centre and desperate to find out if I were OK or even still here. And then yet again, maybe it was the Centre, suspicious to see if anybody actually HAD been in the house.

Oh God! What was I supposed to do?

The phone rang and rang – and then… stopped. I was just about to breath a sigh of relief and had turned to take a mug down from the cupboard to pour myself some coffee when it started ringing again – making me jump and scream again, dropping the mug on the floor. Someone was desperate to reach the occupant of the house – and reason, what little I had left, told me that the Centre itself wouldn't be calling THIS often. I breathed a small prayer that I wasn't signing my own death warrant and picked up the receiver – without saying a word.

"Peg? Peg!"

I sagged into one of the kitchen chairs in relief. It was a fairly desperate-sounding Sydney. "I'm here," I finally managed, my voice very soft and shaky with sobs I could only barely repress.

"Are you all right?" the accented voice demanded.

"Get me out of here!" I sobbed at him.

"I'm at the end of the driveway – I had to wait to make sure they didn't leave anyone to watch the place…"

"Sydney, please!" I clung to the phone.

"I'm almost there, Peg – don't worry." His voice had calmed and gave me an anchor to cling to emotionally. "I'm almost to your back door now. Come on – let's go."

I dropped the phone into its cradle the moment I heard the quiet engine nearing the back door. I barely remembered to turn the stove off under the percolator in my haste to snatch up suitcase, purse and computer, dash out the back door and put this snow-bound trap behind me. My coat was flapping open, and I didn't have boots on over the top of my sneakers so the snow quickly filled the edges of my shoes – but I didn't care as I rushed toward the dark blue sedan. The front passenger door opened as I neared, and I practically fell into the warmth of the car.

"Is that everything?" Sydney asked, helping me shift my suitcase between the comfortable leather seats to the floorboard behind me and then settled the computer case between the front seats.

All I could do was shiver and nod and cling to my purse tightly on my lap.

Sydney reached across me and pulled the seat belt into place and fastened it with a click before wasting no time in putting the car in gear. The vehicles that had been there before him had crushed down the snow in the drive, so turning around without leaving detectable traces was no problem. Soon, he had steered the car down the bumpy drive to the narrow lane and was driving at a fairly fast pace away – away from the Centre facility, away from that little death-trap of a cottage. I leaned back into the cushions of my seat and closed my eyes – my heart still pounding in my chest as if I'd run a race.

The ride was a silent one – as if my rescuer knew that I wasn't in the mood for small talk just to settle rattled nerves. Frankly, I was grateful that Sydney didn't try to play shrink for me either – because I was only barely hanging onto what little was left of my composure. I wanted a quiet, safe, dark place in which to let go and be hysterical all by myself, not make a spectacle of myself in front of a virtual stranger. I had TOLD Jarod that I didn't want to stay so close to the Centre! I'd TOLD him – and look what had almost happened!!

I had no idea where we were going – and when the car made a sharp turn and then went over a bump, I opened my eyes to see us heading into the open maw of a garage. Sydney brought his car to a smooth stop and reached up to press again on a box-like device that started a growling around the car, indicating a garage door grinding closed. I was numb and unmoving, unable to make my mind even begin to function – and he unsnapped the seat belt for me again and took charge of the laptop before slipping from behind the steering wheel. Then he was at my door, opening it and, when I still couldn't bring myself to move, gently grasping both of my arms and twisting me until he could pull me to my feet.

With a hand firmly beneath an elbow, he steered my reluctant steps through the dark wooden door into a sunny and open kitchen – and then through that and into a dining room and then past an arch and into a living room. "Here," he said finally, pulling me to one of two overstuffed leather chairs that flanked the rather large stonework hearth, "Sit down."

His voice was gentle but filled with authority, and I obeyed him without a single glance or word. He placed my computer case against the side of the chair at my feet and then stepped away from me for a moment – and then was back and kneeling beside my chair. I felt the press of a glass against my lips. "Take a good sip," he directed firmly, and then used his free hand to cradle the back of my head to tip it back a bit when I shook my head in refusal. "Come on, Peg – work with me."

I let the liquid finally through my teeth, and then sputtered. It was whiskey – biting, sharp. "Wait…"

"Another sip," he insisted, tipping the glass back against my lips again. "Drink."

Ready for it now, I sipped at the liquor – although Sydney's ministrations meant that I ended up with more than I'd intended. This was the good stuff – the kind of expensive whiskey I usually could neither afford nor allow myself to desire. The alcohol burned all the way down my throat and warmed my very empty, slightly nauseated stomach. I was struggling my way out of my stupor, and I tried to put up a hand to prevent him from tipping the glass into my mouth again. "No…"

"One more, Peg – one more swallow." He was both cajoling and pleading, and I finally let him tip the glass against my lips again and swallowed the whiskey more carefully, letting it wash around my mouth a bit first to kill the bite. He withdrew the glass and let go of my head as he rose and placed the glass on the small table to my right. "Better?"

I was in control of myself now enough to the point that I could at least nod at him. I felt him bend and remove my shoes – and then leave me for a moment again. I shivered – my feet were wet from the melted snow that had gotten into my shoes as I'd run across the yard to the car, and the chill seemed to spread from them all the way up through my entire body. My heart was no longer beating as if trying to burst from my chest, but it was still pounding in my ears. Then Sydney was back – with a fluffy towel in which he wrapped first one foot and then the other to dry them, and then some kind of thick stockings that made me feel instantly warmer. His hands rubbing the outside of the stocking helped spread that warmth.

I couldn't let myself relax – I had to stay on guard for the next time I heard the sound of a car engine. I leaned back in the chair away from Sydney, my hands clasping the arms of the chair tightly – no doubt to the point of white knuckles. "Here," I heard him say again, and once more felt the glass at my lips. "It will warm you and relax you – drink, Peg."

This time I took the glass from him and took a tiny sip willingly. I could already begin to feel the warm glow of the liquor running through my system – but I didn't want any more. I had always been a cheap drunk – one drink being all I needed to get a very healthy buzz – and right now, I needed my senses keen – alert…

"Where are we?" I asked when I finally felt as if my voice weren't going to sound childish and weepy – and then grimaced when I still sounded like a whining three year old.

"My home," Sydney replied quietly, taking the glass from my fingers when he evidently figured out that I wasn't going to have any more of the whiskey on my own. "There is no reason for anyone to suspect your presence here – and Jarod knows where I live when the time comes for him to take you away again."

"Your…?" I blinked and tried to focus my vision. I was in a room that was decidedly masculine in décor – oak and brass accents on furniture and fixtures, and walls covered floor to ceiling with book shelves. But it was too much. I closed my eyes again. I wanted to withdraw – to pull away from everything for a while. I couldn't take living on the edge like this anymore – it was killing me.

"That's right," Sydney's voice soothed at me. "Close your eyes and rest for a while." I felt something warm settle about my shoulders and over my entire body – as if I'd been covered over with a blanket. "You're safe here, my dear. The Centre would never dream of looking for you here. Sleep for a while – it will do you good."

At this point, I didn't care if the Centre were pounding down the doors to get at me. The whiskey he'd given me had hit me very hard – not surprising, considering that I was still functioning on a very empty stomach and hadn't had anything to drink in a very long time to build up what little tolerance I could get to the alcohol. All I wanted to do was crawl into a warm, safe, dark hole and stay there for a good long time. I thought I might have felt a gentle touch, smoothing my hair back out of my face – but I had neither the ambition nor the energy to see if I was right.

oOoOo

I jerked awake – very quickly and very fully awake – after dreaming of musty clothing and telephones ringing and car engines. My heart was pounding, and I looked around me in distress. I wasn't where I was supposed to be – neither in that suffocating little trunk nor the cottage bedroom – I was upright in a comfortable leather chair, in a comfortable and quiet room that I didn't remember ever seeing before. I shifted and then looked down to find myself covered with an unfamiliar but obviously hand-crafted afghan from shoulders to feet – feet which were propped up on a matching leather footstool with the blanket tucked in carefully about them. What was more, I felt as if I'd been dragged through seven kinds of Hell – my head ached miserably and I seriously doubted that I'd gotten any true rest. And my mouth tasted terrible.

"Awake at last," sounded an accented voice from across the room – and I looked up sharply to see Sydney carrying a pair of reading glasses and what looked to be a cup of coffee into the room. "Do you feel any better?"

"Sydney?" I was confused – and it took my mind a little while to kick back into gear and remember the desperate morning I'd just been through – my nose wrinkling as I was again assailed by the stench of old, unused clothing. "Where…? Wait…" I could remember running through the snow. "I'm… I'm at your place?"

"Verrrry good," he smiled at me. "You were shocky enough when you decided to start your nap that I wasn't certain you'd remember where you were when you woke up again. I've been sitting here, waiting for you to awaken, so that you wouldn't awaken alone and completely disoriented." He gazed at me sympathetically. "You do remember how you got here, don't you?"

I really didn't want to remember those horrifying moments, being stuck in that suffocating trunk, being shoved about, having the clothing above me poked and prodded – and I shuddered at what little of that I did allow myself to remember. "How long have I been asleep?" I asked instead.

He tipped his wrist to look at his watch. "About two hours." He put his glasses and coffee cup on a small table next to the matching overstuffed chair across the hearth from mine. "I'd imagine you're fairly hungry by now. You haven't eaten all day – I have bagels and cream cheese – maybe with a few fig preserves…" I began to shake my head, but my host wasn't taking no for an answer. "Nonsense. You'll feel much better with some food in your stomach. I have coffee, or I can fix some tea for you, if you'd prefer…"

I shifted in my chair nervously. "Sydney – thank you – but I have to get away from here…" My eyes kept heading to the window in a vain attempt to see the cars coming for me before I could hear them.

"In good time, I promise," he nodded agreement, "but in the meanwhile, you're to make yourself completely at home here. AND you'll eat…"

"I'm not hungry," I told him petulantly, sitting up in the chair and letting the afghan fall from my shoulders. "I'm scared and I want to get the Hell away from the Centre." I hadn't realized how warm the afghan had been, and I shivered at its loss.

"Peg…" He was standing over me now. "Look, while you were asleep I called Jarod and told him what happened – he told me he had just a few things to wrap up in his latest Pretend, and then he'd be here to pick you up and… how did he put it?… ah, yes…" He sighed and continued, obviously quoting, ""…see about giving you the life you asked for", whatever that means." He shook his head at me. "If everything goes according to plan, he'll be here tomorrow evening. Until then, you are a guest in my home – which is about the safest place you can be at the moment."

"But my being here puts you in danger," I complained bitterly. He'd done so much for me already – I couldn't continue to place him at risk.

"Not really," Sydney shook his head. "I'm in no more danger now, with you in my house, than I am standing in my kitchen talking to Jarod on the phone. I've survived at the Centre for a very long time knowing exactly when the danger is coming too close to tolerate. Besides, there are a few things in this world that I reserve the right to do or not do – and this is one of them. Now…" He put a smile on his face again. "Do you want to come to the kitchen and eat, or shall I bring your bagel to you here?"

I glared up at him. "You're a very stubborn man, you know that?"

I then gaped as Sydney gave me a very continental bow. "Madame Pot, I am Monsieur Kettle – at your service. And now that we are through the formal introductions…" He looked down at me. "Kitchen or here?" he asked again.

I couldn't help it – I chuckled. Oddly, the small bit of humor was comforting. "You're also impossible."

He gave a very distinctive shrug at that. "I've been told that a good many times too – for all the good it's done. You're still avoiding the question at hand…"

"Kitchen," I stated finally, pushing the afghan aside and folding it over the arm of the chair. "But I'm going to have to at least brush my teeth – my mouth tastes like the bottom floor of an outhouse." I grimaced my distaste.

I saw the expressive face grimace at my verbal description as well, and then he was extending a hand down to me to help me out of the chair. "I took the liberty of putting your suitcase in my guest room while you were sleeping – allow me to show you where that and the bathroom are located. I'll make you some coffee and bagels while you freshen up."

I settled my hand in his and found the clasp warm and strong. He didn't pull hard on me, but rather made himself a firm anchor against which I was able pull to extricate myself from the chair. He didn't exactly let go of my hand immediately after I was on my feet either, but gazed at me with intense brown eyes for a long moment before finally dropping his hand to his side. "This way," he said quickly and turned to lead me from the warm living room toward the stairs at the very front of the house.

My emotions were careening all over the place. What was going on here? Did I just catch Sydney subtly flirting with me? And what was I doing, leaving my hand in his possession the way I did – encouraging him? This was ridiculous! I was less than four hours from being practically snared and imprisoned by the Centre itself – with Sydney as a witness to my capture. I knew that our email exchange had stayed friendly banter with a subtle subtext of mutual caring and concern for Jarod and each other as being important to Jarod's wellbeing – but when had it grown past that to the point that in-person exchanges had emotionally charged subtext to them too now that had nothing to do with Jarod at all?

I decided to ponder my situation from the safety of a warm shower stall – the one fixture that the little 50's Era cottage had been missing, as far as I was concerned. I let the hot water beat down on me and warm my body, while exactly what was going on in my head only managed to confuse me further. There was only one thing that I knew for certain – I was much more vulnerable now, here, than I'd been in a very long time. Sydney had stepped into my life in a rather substantial manner and become a sort of white knight – the kind of male companionship and assistance I'd been missing for a very long time. It would be very easy to slip into a needful dependence on him for the time I'd be evidently spending in his company until Jarod retrieved me – very easy, very nice, and very unfair to the both of us.

I'd have to watch my step with him very carefully. With all that was going on in my head and my heart, I didn't need to make a fool of myself emotionally as well.

oOoOo

I dressed slowly and combed my now-long hair simply back straight, and replaced the warm stocking on my feet before coming back down the stairs. I was more aware of my surroundings as I came down into the main part of the house. Sydney's home was tastefully furnished with oak and brass throughout – the banister of his stairs a highly polished oak with brass inlay strip. I was finally curious enough to want to stop and look into the living room – and then wander over to the stonework mantle over the hearth to look at the framed photographs displayed there.

There was a larger version of the pocket photograph of himself and his brother, photographs of a pretty woman both as a young woman and then with a young man who looked remarkably like Sydney himself. I blinked when I saw a picture of Jarod as a teenager peering somberly at me – and then one that must have been taken about ten years earlier that showed both keen intelligence and a quiet reservation in the dark eyes. There was also a picture of my old friend Catherine Jamison holding her little girl – and then a much more recent picture of Catherine, or was it Catherine? A certain hardness in the way the woman was posing made me wonder.

Stirring behind me made me jump – and Sydney was leaning against the archway holding two mugs. "I thought I'd heard you come down the stairs," he told me, pushing off and walking toward me holding out one of the mugs. "Here – this should help."

"I was admiring your photo collection," I explained, taking the mug from him and breathing in the welcome aroma of fresh-brewed coffee before taking a sip. I pointed to the photo of a much-younger Jarod. "I have no pictures of him at that age."

"I can remedy that for you," Sydney told me kindly. "Take that one – I'll have another printed from the archives."

I shook my head. "No. He wasn't mine at that age – he was yours." Still, I looked at the picture with longing as I sipped at the coffee. This was the Jarod I would never know – the Jarod he had been while I'd been raising my daughter on the run. "He doesn't look very happy."

"He wasn't," Sydney said, walking up to stand next to me. "As I remember, about the time the yearly photographs were taken that particular year, he was having a very difficult time with creating a sense of self-identity." He sipped at his coffee and then sighed deeply. "I told you, the SIMs were very hard on him." He pointed at the photo of the much-older Jarod. "That one was taken only about three months before he escaped."

"Is that your son?" I asked, pointing to the picture of the young man that looked so much like him with the middle-aged woman.

"Mmm-hmmm," he nodded. "And his mother, Michelle." His fingers stroked the glass near Nicholas' face. "Not long after I found them, she sent me this – and a few pictures of Nicholas when he was a boy." He looked at me, but his brown eyes were guarded. "I can understand your feeling as if Jarod didn't belong to you at that age," he indicated the picture of the young Jarod. "I leave other the pictures of Nicholas in the envelope for much the same reason – this is the Nicholas I know." He seemed to shake himself. "Your bagel is ready. Come on."

I followed him without complaint – I was actually starting to feel a little hungry, and that bagel and cream cheese and fig preserves sounded good. He pointed me to his kitchen table – a smaller and round version of the oaken dining table we had to skirt to get into the kitchen through the dining room – and brought out the bagel from where it had been warming in the oven. It was toasted to perfection – and the condiments and cheese were already on the table waiting for me.

My hunger pressed me, making my stomach growl at the sight of food, and I applied myself to spreading the cheese and then the dark fig preserves onto the bagels without another word. Sydney seated himself across from me and let me satisfy my hunger without speaking, although a few glances up at him showed me that he was watching me very closely. I was partway finished with the second half of my bagel when the silent watching began to get on my nerves. "Have I grown a third horn?" I asked as I reached for the coffee again.

"How close did they come to finding you this morning?" he asked me – startling me enough that I fumbled the bagel.

"Close enough," I muttered and covered my lapse by taking a longer sip of the hot coffee than I would have otherwise, then grimaced as I nearly scalded my tongue.

His hand reached out and stilled my arm from carrying the bagel back to my mouth. "Peg, how close?"

I didn't want to think about it – every time I did, my nose seemed to fill with the stench of musty, mildewed clothing. "Too close," I replied and pulled at my arm. "I really don't want to talk about it."

His hand withdrew, and he watched me polish off the rest of the bagel before asking, "Has it ever been this close before?"

I shook my head and sipped again at my coffee – more carefully this time. "Never this close," I managed finally. "Please, Sydney, I don't want to…"

"I know you don't," he told me kindly, "but it would be better if you did."

"Please don't play psychiatrist to me," I begged. "Right now, I don't need a shrink – I need a friend."

"Then talk to me AS a friend, Peg. Telling someone – like me – what happened to you will help YOU process the event better." He put out a hand to me again, just shy of touching me. "I can promise not to play shrink or try to psychoanalyze everything you say, if it would help."

"Just thinking about it brings it all back!" I complained bitterly and buried my nose in my coffee cup to try to combat the resurgent memory of the stench of mildew and dust. I gagged – and then had to make a quick run when my stomach rebelled entirely. I only barely made it to the rest room before losing what little was in my stomach into the toilet bowl. I felt rather than saw Sydney come behind me and support me with a hand at my forehead and around my waist.

Too miserable to care anymore, I let the tears roll down my cheeks – tears of humiliation and horror. It no longer mattered if I could find a small, dark, private hole or not – evidently I wasn't to be granted that kind of mercy this time around, but rather would have an audience to my conniption fit whether I wanted one or not. And that was the least of my worries – if I closed my eyes, I was back in that trunk again, and I was suffocating.

When it seemed that my now-dry heaves were finally letting up, Sydney stepped away from me long enough to get a small plastic cup of cool water, which he handed to me with a gentle directive to "Rinse and spit." He then physically maneuvered me until I was sitting on a closed toilet lid while he flushed the evidence of my hysteria away and wet a washrag to wipe my face gently for me.

What few defenses I'd managed to conserve were gone – and my legs were like jello. When he pulled me to my feet, I was grateful for his arm around my waist to support me – for without it, I would have fallen to the floor. He ushered me back out to the kitchen and back into my chair, removed both the coffee and the now-empty plate from in front of me and then turned his back on me while he set the tea kettle on the stove to boil and began other preparations.

It was just as well – had it mattered, I would have been glad he wasn't watching me anymore. As it was, however, I was now shaking inside so badly that I could hardly breathe, and I couldn't stop crying. My sobs, I knew, were coming out sounding more like hiccoughs, but they hurt nevertheless. Sydney took a moment out of whatever he was doing and moved a box of Kleenexes in front of me, which I immediately made use of. A gentle hand landed on my shoulder, squeezed gently, and was left there only long enough to be recognized as the gesture of comfort that it was intended before he moved back to his counter.

It hadn't been this bad when I was raising Emily – for her, I'd focused more on just getting through each day as best we could, staying at least one step ahead of the Centre. When we just barely managed to elude them, keeping Emily from having to suffer the terror of knowing herself to have been in danger had been paramount in my mind – and it gave me a reason to keep a tight lid on my own fears. But once Emily had gone, and that singular focus for my priorities was removed – and when Dan had come back into my life – THAT was when things had started to get worse.

Dan, when faced with one of my now-frequent panic attacks, had always tried to comfort, embrace – smother. He'd used hugs, kisses, even physical intimacy itself, to try to distract me from my fears. It had sometimes turned what was an already debilitating situation into a mildly combative one where I tried to fight him off until I simply had no more energy to resist. I'd never blamed him for anything – not even the fact that the need to try to fight him off usually only served to make the panic attacks more acute – I knew that my panics distressed him terribly and that he'd only wanted to help without knowing how or what to do.

Now, however, Sydney was keeping well away from me, except for that one glancing hand on the shoulder. And yet with that, oddly enough, I began to relax. He was silent still, neither pressing for information about what had set me off so completely nor prattling on, but very obviously there and aware and paying attention to what was going on behind him. The benevolent neglect, combined with the certain knowledge that I wasn't alone, was beginning to work – my sobs were less grinding, and the inner trembling was turning intermittent.

Then Sydney moved back to the table, placing before me a mug filled with a fragrant and light-colored herbal tea concoction and a plate with a lightly toasted and unbuttered piece of bread. He sat down in his chair again and reached for my hand that had the latest wad of drenched tissue in it. "Take a deep breath," he suggested in a calm and very quiet voice. "Just concentrate on breathing. Don't fight the tears – just work on breathing."

I tried to do as he said – and I'm sure that my trembling was traveling all the way down my arm and into the hand he was holding – but it was hard. It took several tries before I managed one good, deep breath without a sob at the end. "That's it," he squeezed my hand encouragingly. "Again." I had to use my other hand to grab another tissue as tears I could no longer control kept rolling down my face because, strange as it seemed, his hand holding mine had become an anchor. With that hand holding me in place, I was slowly able to concentrate on my breathing better – and after a while had managed two more deep breaths that didn't hiccough.

Minutes passed, and the two deep breaths had become four, and while my heart still pounded in my throat, I was no longer sobbing and hiccoughing. My tears were beginning to slow too – this calm, quiet, controlling and yet noninvasive presence that he was projecting was taking all the steam from my extreme panic. The kitchen was light, warm, friendly – the hand that held mine tight, warm and steady – and I was actually beginning to feel safe in spite of what my mind would have me do. "Have a sip of the tea," he suggested then, still without releasing his hold on my hand. I put the tissue down and did as he asked – the tea was mild and slightly sweet – and very delicate. Even my touchy stomach didn't complain as the warm liquid touched it.

"Better," I whispered, putting the mug down. "Thank you."

"Take it slow," he directed. "A sip of tea every minute or so – just concentrate on breathing between times."

I nodded, wiping a new spurt of tears away with the back of my hand and then reaching for the mug once more. As I was calming, I was realizing how exhausted I was. My eyes, which were already puffy from crying, began to droop.

"I gave you chamomile, which will help relax you," he told me gently, "combined with some mint to settle the stomach and honey for energy. When you're ready, take a small bite of the toast – but only a small bite. No need to have to race to the bathroom again."

"I'm very tired," I told him softly, reaching for the toast.

"I'm not surprised," he replied, still in that calm, quiet tone. "I shouldn't doubt that when we finish here, you nap again for another hour or two. You wore yourself out rather effectively there with your flashback."

"I'm sorry…" I fought the tears this time – and could feel the surge of sobs trying to break loose again.

"Calm down," he told me firmly. "Breathe, Peg. There's nothing to apologize for. Take it slow – remember, don't fight the tears. Just breathe. You're safe now."

I clung to him and did what he said – and trusted that he was telling me the truth.