Chapter 2 – Now You See Him…
(Nearly three years later)
The Centre – SL-5 – Sim Lab
Blue Cove, Delaware
10:30 AM
"Where do you want this, Miss Parker?"
The tall brunette looked up from the red notebook from Jarod's last lair that she and Sydney were studying to look at the burly sweeper with his hands full with the next box of "clues" that the elusive Pretender had left behind for them. "Over there," she pointed vaguely, knowing that somewhere behind her was another work desk that often ended up the receptacle for such boxes. "Go ahead and unpack it so we can sort through it when we finish here."
Sam stifled the sigh that welled up within him and simply moved as he was told and deposited the box on the floor next to the work table. Once, just once, he wouldn't mind being included in the tight little wad of people bending over the notebook. Surely his take on what was taped and written within that book was just as potentially valid as anything that Broots could come up with – and yet the computer geek was always given access, while HE was relegated to grunt work.
Considering the contents of the box, he was seriously tempted to just upend the thing and dump everything on the table – but he was fairly sure the noise and subsequent mess would generate a sharp rebuke from his boss at the very least, if not an outright cutting remark. He didn't work quite as closely with Miss Parker as Broots and Sydney did, so he generally didn't end up on the receiving end of many of those emasculating barbs – a condition he really wasn't in the mood to threaten for any reason. So he reconsidered his non-verbal complaint and quietly began doing exactly as he'd been asked.
First out of the box were numerous empty books on environmental law, chemistry and biology; an Auto Club map of the road systems of Dade County in Florida; and finally and most telling, an employee handbook from the Environmental Protection Agency. Those – from what he'd been able to gather, being the muscle at the fringes of the raid on the apartment in Miami – had been research materials for the Pretend that had just taken place. Jarod had Pretended to be an investigator with the EPA while uncovering a fellow investigator who had been filing fraudulent reports in exchange for kickbacks – and in the process had allowed a major pollution spill that was now even now causing a high rate of pediatric cancer in a very small town o the edge of a remote swamp. The arrest of the EPA investigator and the looming civil court case against the polluting manufacturer had been front-page headlines across the nation for the past two days.
What he had a harder time understanding were the books on Feng Shui, Tarot and I Ching that were mixed in among them. In lifting out a copy of _The Illustrated I Ching_, an envelope floated to the ground that slipped out from between the pages. "Miss Parker," he called softly, picking up the envelope and reading Jarod's handwriting to know to whom it was addressed.
"What is it now, Sam?" She sounded irked at the second interruption.
"I think this was meant for you," he replied blandly, handing her the envelope.
"From Jarod?" Broots asked in his characteristically excitable tone of voice.
"Who else would it be from, Scooby," Miss Parker replied, shooting Sam a glare for his pausing to watch her slip her finger along the edge of the envelope to open it. Sam took the hint and returned to unloading the rest of the heavy box of books onto the table.
Sydney sidled closer to the impeccably dressed woman, finding her new three-inch heels put her at the same height as he was and not allowing himself to be intimidated by the fact. "What does it say, Parker?"
Miss Parker pulled the single white sheet of paper from the envelope, opened it, stared at it in utter confusion for a while, and then tipped her hand over to let Sydney take it away from her. "I haven't got the foggiest idea what the Hell your trained rat is saying this time, Syd. I swear, there are times that I think…"
"This is I Ching," Sydney declared suddenly.
"Say what?" she asked in a bored and almost disinterested tone. "What the hell is 'itching' other than a nuisance – which is a good description of Jarod, if you think about it…"
"I Ching," the Belgian psychiatrist corrected her patiently, "otherwise known as the Book of Changes. It is a very ancient Chinese form of fortune-telling…"
"Wonderful!" She threw up her hands in exasperation. "Next thing we know, he's going to be reading tea leaves…"
"So what is that, Syd?" Broots asked his colleague in a soft voice so as not to disturb his boss' tirade.
"They're hexagrams – a set of six lines, two sets of three. The I Ching catalogues all 64 possible combinations of broken and unbroken lines and assigns each one meaning…"
"But…" Broots complained, staring at the paper, "…there are two of them…"
"Brilliant, Broots, just brilliant," Miss Parker growled dangerously. "How'd you figure that one out?"
"This is a reading," Sydney glanced disapprovingly at Miss Parker, who merely shook her head at him and made a rude noise. "Three coins are cast six times, once for each line, starting with the bottom and going up. Where the dot is next to the line is called a 'changing line' – where a broken line becomes a solid one or visa versa. That's where the second hexagram comes from. The fourth line changes from solid to broken – see?"
Miss Parker suddenly charged over to the two of them and snatched the paper from Sydney's hand. "This is absolutely fascinating, Freud, but you're still no closer to telling us what the HELL Jarod's trying to tell us… tell me," she corrected herself.
Sydney merely turned around and looked at Sam. "Sam, was there a book in that pile on I Ching?"
"Yeah," the sweeper replied, digging through the stack on the table to the one from which the paper had fallen. "This one – the one the envelope came out of in the first place."
Miss Parker snatched the book out of his hand and thrust it at Sydney. "Do you need a turban and crystal ball, or can you get to the point?"
"Parker, please!" Sydney chided openly this time. He took the book and held out his hand patiently. After a long moment during which he and Miss Parker stared at each other – or glared, in Miss Parker's case – she finally handed him the contents of the envelope that Jarod had left for her. He then carried both over to the table where they'd been, and spread the paper out to see it more clearly.
"The first hexagram is thirteen," he announced after studying the chart in the front of the book, "and the second one is thirty-seven." He flipped through the book. "Thirteen is 'Community' – 'Community in the open brings progress … an enlightened person, therefore, recognizes his fellow man's place in the outside world…'" he read aloud.
"As if we haven't gotten the message before this, Wonder-Boy," Miss Parker hissed under her breath. "What else?"
Sydney was flipping to the back of the book. "Next, we read the changing line for the thirteenth hexagram… ah, here it is: 'Fourth Line…'"
"But it's the third line down," Broots pointed out the obvious.
"Yes," Sydney explained, "but you create the hexagram from the bottom up, so you number the lines from the bottom as well. Let me see…"
"Stupid Chinese," Miss Parker grumbled. "No wonder Lyle loves them so much – they do everything bass ackwards. Hurry up – I'm not getting any younger, Syd…"
Sydney's finger found the right spot again. "'The more you pursue your dream, the further you drift from your Community. In time, your loneliness will bring you to your senses. Good fortune.'"
Broots raised his eyes to gaze at Miss Parker knowingly; unfortunately, she caught the movement and stared at him sarcastically. "What?" she demanded challengingly.
"I didn't say anything," Broots looked back down at the paper quickly, still stunned at how close that little passage came to describing Miss Parker's situation precisely.
"Anything else?" she barked at Sydney self-consciously, pricked by the short passage.
He sighed, giving up trying to get her to behave herself – chasing from Delaware to anywhere sufficiently distant only to come up virtually empty handed after months of few clues at all never failed to put her in a thoroughly sour mood. His best bet, he knew, was to humor her – answer her questions with as little to do as possible and then keep out of her way. "Now we read the main text for the second hexagram – 'Family'."
"He's really trying to hammer the message home, isn't he," she grumbled to herself.
Sydney's eye was caught by a highlighted section at the very bottom of the page. " 'Try to see all organizations, whether familial, social, or political, as Family groups and then determined your most comfortable position within them. Be certain, however, that you are not involved in carrying out a role for which you are unsuited, or a role that has been cast upon you. This will rob your life of meaning."* (see author's note at end)
"OK, that's enough." Miss Parker grabbed the book up from the table and tossed it carelessly in the general direction of the table that Sam had piled high with books. When the volume landed spraddle-paged at Sam's feet, she pinched the bridge of her nose to try to prevent the sharp stab from a burgeoning migraine from progressing to blindness. "I'm going to go back to my office, take some aspirin and lie down for a while – you idiots see if you can figure out any clues about where our mentaliste genius might be heading next." Fingers gingerly massaging temples, she walked slowly out the Sim Lab door.
"Jarod was laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?" Broots commented to Sydney, who merely shrugged.
"I'm going up to the cafeteria for some lunch," Sam announced to the two men remaining. "You fellows want anything?"
"No, I'm fine," Sydney answered absently, flipping through the pages of _The Illustrated I Ching_.
"See if they have any Fun-yons in the vending machine," Broots replied, walking over and handing Sam two one-dollar bills. "The lounge down here is out already."
"Fun-yons," Sam grimaced, pocketing the paper money. He never had understood what Broots saw in those things – they were truly disgusting, as far as he was concerned. "Got it." He headed for the door and then paused right at the threshold. "If Miss Parker asks, tell her I'll be right back."
"Not a problem," Broots told him as he wandered over to the table piled with books and began rifling through the pages of the top one, looking for another envelope or clue. When Miss Parker's headache abated to the point that she'd be willing to rejoin the group, it would be nice to actually have something new to offer her…
oOoOo
"This is getting us absolutely nowhere!" Miss Parker yelled and then put her hand to her aching forehead. Her medication was wearing off, she could tell. "Why the hell has he changed the rules by which he's played the game for all this time? He always used to leave us some oblique hint at where he was heading next…"
"He hasn't done that for quite a while now, Miss Parker," Sydney kept his voice low, knowing that raising it not only wouldn't improve her mood, but would only make the pounding headache she was fighting even worse. "Face it – we're lucky to get a hit on his whereabouts once every two to three months – at best!"
"That means we must be slipping, and you know how well THAT will go over in the Tower," she threatened ominously. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want to face another T-board like the last one."
"Me neither," Broots chimed in softly from his seat at the computer terminal, from which he was once more running one of his highly sophisticated global searches for any reference to anyone remotely matching Jarod's description.
"I didn't ask you," she snapped, and then whirled around, looking all around the otherwise unoccupied Sim Lab; and then whirled back to face off with her colleagues again, obvious even more irked than before. "Where the Hell is Sam?"
Broots and Sydney glanced at each other, stumped. "He said he was going down to the cafeteria…" Sydney began.
"He said he'd be right back," Broots added. "He was going to get me some Fun-yons…"
"That was right after you went up to your office to rest," Sydney finished in an attempt to supply a comprehensive time frame.
"Well, he's not here now," Miss Parker put a hand on her hip. "Call down to the cafeteria and get him on the line – and tell him to haul ass back up here or he won't have an ass left when I get done with him!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Broots knew better than to say anything but when she was in this kind of mood. He picked up the phone and dialed the extension for the checkout clerk at the cafeteria.
"I swear, Sydney, the next person that even breathes wrong in this place is going to be looking down the business end of my nine-millimeter," she grumbled with her fingers to her temples again.
"Getting angry doesn't help the migraine, Parker, you know this," the old psychiatrist soothed at her in smooth and accented tones. "Stress only makes things worse."
"Tell me something I don't know," she retorted tiredly, then whirled when the sound of Broots' voice speaking into the telephone had ceased. "Well, is he on his way?"
Broots shook his head and prayed that being the bearer of bad news wouldn't prove fatal. "The gal at the checkout counter – you know, the one with the lazy eye…"
"BROOTS!!!"
"She said that he was drinking his coffee and suddenly didn't feel well – and he headed for the Renewal Wing for something for his stomach. He's been gone for at least an hour."
Miss Parker blinked. "That's odd. Sam's got the constitution of a horse – and a cast-iron stomach to boot. I've seen him polish off jalapeños like popcorn…" She stopped her musing self-consciously. "Call Renewal – get an update on his condition."
Broots obediently dialed again and spoke to the duty nurse, and then hung up the phone with a totally confused look on his face. "That's even stranger, Miss Parker – she said that there's no record of Sam coming into Renewal for anything."
Miss Parker shook her head. "There's got to be some mistake."
"You could always try his cell phone," Sydney suggested quietly from his seat at the table, examining each and every book Jarod had left behind.
Miss Parker pulled out her cell and hit a pre-programmed number, listened, and then pulled the device from her ear with a withering obscenity. "What the hell is this – the cell phone I dialed is no longer in service?" She pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment and then looked down at her computer technician again. "Broots, pull up Sam's home address. Something's decidedly fishy here…"
"Yes, ma'am." Broots' fingers flew across the keyboard, paused, then flew again, and once more fell silent. "Miss Parker," he started, sounding definitely spooked, "this is really off the wall."
"What?"
"There is no record of a Sam Alderman ever being employed here at the Centre…"
"That's ridiculous!" she exploded, shoving his shoulder hard and nearly dumping him from his swivel chair onto the floor in order to move him from in front of the terminal. "Let me do this…" She typed in her password for a higher security clearance access and ran the search utility again. She typed, then waited and typed again – with the same response. "But…" she attempted to reason with the inanimate screen in front of her, manicured hands waving ineffectually in the air, "…he's worked for me for nearly ten years…"
She turned wide and confused eyes to her two colleagues, neither of whom could think of any remotely appropriate response to her comment.
oOoOo
Miss Parker deposited her purse in the drawer of her desk, as was her habit as the first thing she did when she arrived for work every morning – and then reached for the bottle of antacid, which was the second normal item on her morning agenda. Third on her list was retrieving a very strong cup of coffee from the supply room just down the hall from her office, which was not on her normal schedule of tasks every day but was going to be essential today. She'd not been able to sleep well the night before, wondering why in the world the Centre would want to make a loyal and valuable sweeper vanish into thin air – that being the only possible explanation for the way in which Sam had apparently evaporated from the face of the earth.
Broots had spent what little had remained of the day searching high and low for the slightest sign that Sam had ever existed. The Blue Cove phone book had been scoured unsuccessfully – although Sydney reminded his colleagues that most sweepers kept their phone numbers unlisted for security reasons. City property tax rolls had then been examined; with no 'Sam Alderman' listed as a homeowner. The talented computer tech had even hacked into the Delaware Department of Motor Vehicles – and found no license issued to a Sam Alderman of Blue Cove, Delaware.
Returning to her office, she put the coffee mug down on her desk in front of her and leaned back in her chair, her fingers steepled beneath her nose in a gesture she'd picked up long ago from Sydney. The loss of her personal sweeper had her completely stumped – and a little concerned. Sam had been a very necessary member of her team all along, and one of the very few people she could actually trust to watch her back in a tight situation. Without him, she wasn't exactly sure she could continue to do her job with any consistency.
There was a knock on her door, and she looked up as a tall and rather thin man entered at her call to come in. "Who the hell are you?" she asked rudely, knowing full well that she wasn't scheduled to see clients until much later in the morning.
The tall man blinked in surprise. "You know me, Miss Parker," he replied easily. "I'm Tim, your personal sweeper."
"Bullshit," she spat. "Look, I don't know what Raines and Lyle are smoking, but there's no way in Hell that I'm accepting anybody but Sam as…"
"Who?" Tim looked genuinely confused. "There isn't a sweeper here in Blue Cove by the name of Sam."
Storm-grey eyes that looked like the oncoming front of a hurricane snapped beneath furled brows. "Get out," she barked and pointed. "I don't know you, and I don't trust you – get out and don't let me see you in here again."
"Why Sis," an oily voice oozed across the office from where Lyle had pushed the door open without knocking, "are you abusing the hired help already this early in the morning? Coming in to work with a hangover…"
"You can just get out too," she hissed impatiently, "and take your pet goon with you. It isn't going to work, Lyle…"
The dark-haired man who was her twin walked across the office floor with an expression of innocence that went only a millimeter deep. "I swear, Parker, I haven't got the slightest idea why it is that you suspect me of every possibly form of conspiracy. And what is it that you have in for Tim today anyway – didn't he get your coffee for you early enough, or something?"
"No, he didn't get my coffee for me," she snarled. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't trust him to bring in the mail. I've never seen this man in my life…"
Lyle frowned. "Are you sure you don't need a vacation, Sis? All these non-stop seven day work weeks must be starting to get to you. Tim's been around…"
"Get out, Lyle," she merely shook her head, not listening to her brother any longer. "and take my 'personal sweeper' with you. I want Sam back – I don't know what you did with him, or where he's gone, but I want him back."
"Sam?" Lyle gazed at Tim, and both gazed at Miss Parker with looks of confusion. "Who's Sam?" Lyle asked.
"I told you, there isn't a sweeper by that name here at the Centre, Miss Parker," Tim added earnestly.
Miss Parker grabbed her coffee mug and rose to her feet. "Fine. You keep this office – I'll be down in the Sim Lab."
Lyle made a grab for her arm as she pushed past him. "C'mon, Parker, this isn't funny."
"You're damned right it isn't," she steamed, jerking her arm free from his grasp. "And I intend to get to the bottom of it – just watch me."
oOoOo
Sydney watched as Miss Parker sighed and accepted that Tim was going to get up from his chair in the furthest corner of the Sim Lab and follow her back to her office whether she wanted him to or not, just as he had done for the last two weeks. Tim was becoming a distraction, both for her and the rest of the team, despite her having taken the precaution to keep a distance between the team and the ever-present stranger in their midst.
About two days after Tim's first appearance, Broots had remembered seeing him once before, during an encounter with Raines' personal sweeper staff months back that had included the man. All three of them were completely convinced that he was a mole, intended to dig information about the team members themselves to be used against them by Raines or Lyle – they couldn't be sure which. So Tim was given the odd-man-out treatment, relegated to a chair near the main entrance to the Sim Lab and commanded to stay there until told otherwise.
The psychiatrist had no doubt that whoever it was to whom Tim was reporting must be getting tired of hearing the same report night after night – that there were no further hints to Jarod's whereabouts, and no hint that any team member was involved in aiding or abetting the Pretender's continued freedom. Tim had been called away from the Sim Lab twice since he'd begun occupying the post left vacant by Sam's disappearance, and both times he had reappeared an hour or so later looking slightly paler and stony-faced.
It was late, and Sydney was tired. All of the books from the Florida lair had been catalogued now, and it was his task to page patiently through each and every one of them now to see if there were any hidden clues that had been missed. It was a tedious and time-consuming task – and one that he would have gladly turned over to Sam and Broots so that he could transfer his attention to a pending twins study pending any discover – but with the change in the members of the team, Miss Parker had insisted that he do the paging himself. He'd been through half of the stacks now – flipping through books that he could only marginally understand.
But it was nearly seven in the evening; and all around him, the sounds of the normal Centre hustle and bustle of sweepers and clerks and scientists in the hallway outside the lab had dwindled until the only sound he could hear was the dull hum of ventilation motors and air conditioning units. Customary beret in hand, Sydney turned off the lights to the Sim Lab and headed for the elevator that would take him back up to the ground floor, from which it was a short walk to the parking structure where he'd left his Lincoln. As the silver door slid silently to the side, the thin and swarthy man already inside the tiny metal box stepped to the side to make room. "Sydney," the man intoned in a musical East Indian accent.
"Ravi," Sydney nodded in reply. He often rode the elevator to the ground floor with the psychiatrist from the Centre Mental Health Facility in the evening. Their acquaintance was mostly limited to the few minutes they spent together on the elevator – although through departmental meetings, both knew the general shape of the work the other was doing.
"Say – did Miss Parker fire her sweeper recently?" the short man asked suddenly.
"Noooo," Sydney drew out and gazed down into the dark face in surprise. "Why would you ask that?"
The East Indian shrugged. "Because when I was down in the gym exercising yesterday, I thought I saw Miss Parker's pet sweeper off in a corner with Willy, drilling on self-defense moves with Mr. Lyle watching."
Sydney hit the halt button and put a hand on the other man's arm. "What did you say?"
Ravi blinked. "I said I saw Miss Parker's sweeper practicing moves with Raines' Willy down in the gym yesterday morning. I was just wondering if Miss Parker had fired him – if that was why he was working for Raines now?"
Sydney pushed at the resume button with a numb finger. "Miss Parker didn't say anything about it," he answered honestly for as much as he was admitting. "I'd have to ask her."
The rest of the trip up to the ground floor passed in silence, and Sydney was anxious to escape to his car the moment the door slid to the side. He barely even acknowledged Ravi's wish that he have a good evening as he pushed through the trio waiting for the elevator and almost ran out of the Centre lobby doors.
The moment Sydney had his car door closed, he pulled out his cell phone and pressed the button that dialed Miss Parker. He didn't have long to wait – he knew she was still upstairs in her office, finishing reports. "Miss Parker…"
"Syd…" Her voice sounded tired. "Can't this wait…"
"This is important," he barked at her with uncharacteristic vehemence. "I spoke with an associate of mine just now that thinks he saw Sam…"
"What?" Her voice had changed dramatically – become very sharp and focused. "Where?"
"In the gym yesterday morning, practicing moves with Willy – and under Lyle's watchful eye," he repeated what he'd been told.
"Son of a bitch," Miss Parker's growl began in a low register and only grew in volume. "That son of a bitch…"
"Sam?" Sydney was shocked.
"No, you idiot – Lyle! He pretended… he told me…" It was obvious she was fuming. "I just KNEW he was in on whatever the Hell is going on…" There was a pregnant pause. "By the time I'm through with him this time, he's going to wish I stopped with just taking the other thumb…"
"Parker," Sydney shushed at her frantically, "if Lyle is involved, perhaps a bit of caution might be advisable. We don't know…"
"I don't give a damn if Lyle's up to his earlobes in whatever's going on. I'm going to the gym tomorrow morning and see if Sam really is there. And if he is…"
"For God's sake, be careful!" Sydney urged her, wishing that she would listen to his advice – even just this once. "We don't know what we're up against…"
"I don't care," she announced firmly. "This has gone on long enough. I want my sweeper back – and by God, I'm gonna GET him back!"
oOoOo
The training gym on SL-2 was a well-used facility – used to train sweepers in advanced hand-to-hand combat techniques as well as to rate the abilities of everyone involved in the Safety and Internal Security Department. At any one time, the huge room could hold up to twenty people involved in various body-building or martial arts activities at once, with plenty of room at the sides for observers or coaches to stand safely out of the way. The center of the room was a basketball court; but on both sides, weight-lifting equipment was in perpetual use, and two sets of thick wrestling mats were laid out on the polished hardwood floor for self-defense practice.
The one concession to going to the gym Miss Parker had made that morning upon arriving had been to change from her three-inch stilettos into a set of athletic shoes – mandatory on the fine, polished floor. She was still garbed in her designer silk pantsuit when she pushed through the swinging doors from the locker rooms into the gym itself and paused to gaze around the room slowly. Her eyes paused on each face they encountered, on the back of each head, contrasting memory with what was before her with a single goal in mind.
And there he was – with his back to her, facing Willy with his feet wide, knees bent and hands spread as if waiting for a chance to catch the huge black man in a crushing hold. She held her breath as the two big men circled each other, obviously searching for a moment of weakness to exploit and take the other down – and at some signal she couldn't perceive, the two of them suddenly crashed together like huge bulls. In the ensuing struggle, Willy suddenly lost his footing; and Sam tucked his foot behind an unstable leg and took the big man down hard. The slap of Willy's hand on the mat was the only thing that made Sam lift his knee from the other man's throat and let him breathe again.
"Sam!" Miss Parker called as the two men separated, and Sam extended down a hand to pull Willy to his feet again. She frowned as her sweeper seemed not to notice his name being called, and she moved forward into the gym calling out, "Sam!" again a little more loudly.
Just when it seemed as if Sam were going to turn around and answer her call, Miss Parker found herself jerked around by the elbow. "I don't know what you're doing here," Lyle hissed into her ear dangerously as the fingers of his right hand dug painfully into her arm, "but it stops right here, right now. Get out!"
"Let go of me!" she struggled against his grasp, only to feel her other arm suddenly to be equally trapped. She looked up into the hard, cold, dark gaze of Willy, who merely looked to Lyle for direction.
"You are to leave immediately – and stop bothering Jerry," Lyle demanded. "His training is almost complete, and I don't want anything to keep him from being accepted into the elite unit assigned to the Chairman. He's too damned good to let slip through our fingers."
"That's MY sweeper, you asshole," Miss Parker shouted at Lyle, not caring who heard. "His name is Sam, not Jerry – and you know that as well as I do. Now, I don't know what you're doing, but…"
Lyle's fingers dug even more painfully into the elbow, straining where tendons and ligaments connected to bone. "You listen to me. There is no Sam – there never HAS been. Your personal sweeper's name is Tim. Get that through your head, and stay the hell out of sweeper training programs. You have enough to do, considering the recent lack of progress in the hunt for Jarod – any further extra-curricular activities will be dealt with severely. Do I make myself clear?"
Miss Parker turned her head and tried not to shudder at the way Willy's eyes had a cold look of expectation in them that she suspected was in anticipation of what her continued refusal would give him license to do. She looked up and over into the distance, where another sweeper had his arm around Sam's shoulder and was talking to him privately and very quickly in order to distract him from continuing to glance in her direction. Whatever was going on, they were keeping Sam from getting close to her – and there was at the moment no way for her to fight a battle without losing badly.
She glared at Lyle, looked down at where he still held her arm, and then back up into his face again. His face smoothed into a contented smile, and he dropped his hand away from here. With a nod, he'd ordered Willy to follow suit. But the two of them stood still, obviously waiting for her to either try to get at the man across the room again or do as she was told.
Frustrated and furious, Miss Parker threw her head back and marched through the swinging doors of the gym, heading for the locker room and her three inch stilettos. Willy and Lyle glanced at each other and then together walked back to join the other two at the wrestling mat to continue the training session.
At the other side of the gym, a dark-haired head turned briefly and watched the stunningly beautiful brunette storm from the room. Jerry then turned back to his coach and his returning practice partner, wondering not only why that beautiful woman looked so familiar, but why she was calling him by another name – and why the name 'Sam' made something in his stomach knot suddenly.
*Author's note: Sydney is quoting snatches from hexagrams 13 and 37, as found in _The Illustrated I Ching_, trans. By R. L. Wing, 1982, Dolphin Books/Doubleday& Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. And yes, his instructions on how to cast the coins for a reading are correct.