Notes: Apologies for the delay in posting. The holidays, unfortunately, killed my available time to write. Here's hoping you all enjoy the chapter! Comments are always appreciated!
Sydney's townhouse was exactly the kind of place Miss Parker imagined the elder bachelor would gravitate to. A red brick dwelling standing at odds with its vinyl-sided neighbors, on both sides, as if affronted by the expectation of conformity. The contrasting dark grey of its shutters and front door, with a surrounding white trim, gave the building's entrance a quiet air of sophistication that matched its owner well. She was certain the line of hedges flanking the short stairwell had been personally planted and tended to during Sydney's rare downtime. As she and Broots pulled up in front of the building, she almost wished he'd be out front trimming them.
"Miss Parker, is this really necessary?" Broots whined, finally voicing what he'd been silently stewing over the entire ride over. He turned in his seat to face her as she put the car into park. "Even if he's not really sick, everyone's entitled to take a- a personal day every now and then. Aren't they?"
She leveled a raised eyebrow at him, not even dignifying the comment with a verbal response. Fishing the spare key pilfered from the Centre's HR office out of her purse, she handed it to him with a quick jut of her chin towards the house. On the (extremely rare) chance Sydney might actually be ill, better Broots catch the disease than she did.
"Entitled is a strong word," she said, a feral smirk slipping past at the sag in Broots's shoulders before he reluctantly took the sliver of metal from of her grasp. "Though I suppose he could be If I didn't think he was going to use the time to do something incredibly stupid."
She refused to elaborate further, holding a meaningful glare until Broots finally shook his head in abject surrender to her demand. Unbuckling from his seat, he slipped out of the vehicle and trudged up the short path towards the front steps; his entire demeanor instantly and recognizably suspicious had there been any neighbors present. Miss Parker rolled her eyes. Maybe it would have been better if she'd just come herself?
No, she thought, watching as Broots tentatively knocked twice before glancing over his shoulder back to the car with a questioning expression. She motioned for him to proceed, acknowledging to herself that it was better to have an eye on the technician than risk her brother (or God forbid Raines) potentially bully information out of him. Her conversation with Sydney the night before replayed its mental loop once again; this time accompanied by her family's meeting in her father's office an hour before that. Her brother's accusations of the psychiatrist's complicity in Jarod's extended disappearance still rang mockingly in her ears despite it being the same song-&-dance she'd been listening to for almost three years. Sydney suddenly taking the opportunity to go AWOL was not going to help the situation. In fact, all it could do was provide the kind of ammunition the forces arrayed against him would use to their advantage.
She watched Broots disappear through a narrow slit in the doorway, leaving the door conspicuously open behind him. Exhaling sharply, she gritted her teeth at the incompetence, scanning the surroundings to make sure they weren't being watched and coming up with several plausible excuses should they be seen. A minute or two passed before Broots came hurriedly out of the building, again forgetting to close the door, and scuttled towards the passenger side window. Bending down, eyes practically bulging in surprise, he exclaimed through the opening, "He's not there!"
"You don't say!" Miss Parker snapped sarcastically. Then, noticing the flash of hurt in his eyes, reigned herself in with, "Did you actually see anything in there, Broots? Any clues to where he might have gone, maybe?"
"No, not really. I was mostly just worried I might…" His words drifted off as his face scrunched into a look half-apologetic, half-sheepish. "Might run into his dead body or something."
Well, there's a sobering thought. Miss Parker turned her gaze to the windshield, unable to summon a retort strong enough to fire back. Realizing the scene inside might need a cleaner's eye, she unbuckled her own seat and stepped out of the car. Rounding the front of the vehicle, she waved for him to follow as she stormed towards the front steps. If anyone asked, they were simply siblings checking in on their sick uncle. A quick scan of the door informed her that either a sloppy break-in had been attempted recently or Sydney was clumsy inserting his key in the evenings. Given the circumstance, option A gave her gut a painful twist.
The longer-than-expected entrance hallway felt eerily oppressive on the other side of the door, even with the lights Broots had flicked on during his first run through the house. Herringbone wood flooring and light grey walls continued the cultured thread from the house's entrance, stretching down to a series of four opened doors (more evidence of Broots's chaotic run through the house) and the curving stairwell to Parker's right. The lack of wall decorations or even a rug, however, gave the space a cave-like, uninhabited quality. It wasn't a home so much as a space for Sydney to occasionally lay down his head or try to get some work accomplished.
"Am I the only one who finds this a little creepy?" Broots's senses seemed to be telling him the same thing, though the translation of those impressions from his brain to his mouth could use a lot of work. "I mean, it's kind of like we're getting to see a whole other side of Sydney."
"It's an apartment, Broots." She had to be cold, if only to keep him on task. Her eyes fell on the briefcase sitting upright on the small console table midway between the two doors on the left. "See what you can find upstairs."
Broots followed her gaze, glanced back at her for a moment, and turned without argument to head up the steps. Miss Parker's hand flew out, catching him by the elbow as she added, "Make sure it's a thorough search this time, Broots. Anything that strikes you as odd or out of place. Treat it like you would one of Jarod's hovels."
His eyes widened at that. "You don't think Jarod's responsible, do you?"
She turned to look at the front door as she released him. "Maybe. Though it looks like he's losing his touch when it comes to breaking and entering." She glanced back to find him squinting down at her in confusion. "The marks on the front of the door, genius. Someone broke in here last night."
He glanced over as if expecting to see through the wood to the scratches on the other side. "Oh! I totally missed that!" His face crinkled again. "But that doesn't sound like something Jarod would do, does it? I mean he's usually better at hiding his tracks."
"Well, maybe he's gotten rusty in the last six months. Upstairs! Now, Broots!" She pointed towards his expected destination with finality. Better to let the irritation show than the fear currently curling its way through her chest. Because Broots was right. None of this seemed like Jarod at all. He and Sydney thrived on their coded messages to each other. On arranging secret rendezvous under her, and more importantly the Centre's, nose.
As Broots's footsteps faded to the second level, Miss Parker inhaled sharply. Mentally, she began setting the facts as she knew them, in order, before herself, as she stalked toward the console table and the briefcase Sydney had been packing the night before.
Fact one: Someone had managed to break in either before or after Sydney arrived home. Apart from the scratches, the break-in appeared to have been clean. No destruction of furniture, no obvious items missing, no noise complaints from neighbors which would definitely have summoned a sweeper team to the scene. She wouldn't put it past her father or Raines to have surveillance set up around or even in the house which led to…
Fact two: Whoever had broken in either knew how to circumvent that surveillance or they were working for the people who set it up. She wasn't sure which option she found less comforting. Bluster though they did, she knew her father and the Triumverate, at least, wouldn't risk Jarod's connection to Sydney. They might torture the psychiatrist when he got caught fighting back or generally manipulate his life, like they had hers and every other Centre employee. But Sydney was more valuable to them as a living, if occasionally maliciously compliant, asset than a dead one. Which begged the question, why take him at all?
Fact three: Because with nothing stolen, Sydney was the operative or operatives' obvious target. Given there was little to no sign of violence, not even Broots would fail to miss blood stains or the smell of cleaning solutions, they had either taken him too quickly for Syd to resist or he had gone willingly. Again, she wasn't sure which option she preferred.
She opened the briefcase to find the folders she'd seen him packing the night before. Pulling one out and then another, she flipped through them discovering little but standard research subject profiles. It seemed Sydney hadn't been lying to her on that front. Setting them down on the table beside the bag, she scanned the three doors in front of her. The one at the end of the hall seemed to lead to what looked like a library or study. Knowing Sydney, that would be the first room he would head to on settling in.
Fact four: The park bench. It was the one piece of this hellish jigsaw she had yet to make fit. From the beginning, the clue had bothered her. It wasn't above Jarod's capabilities to send large and obnoxious items as a taunt. God knew he'd done so before. However, there was always a purpose behind the items. A direction or link, some more obvious than others, she and the team were meant to follow.
Then again, the instructions from this set of clues were simple: sit and wait. If Jarod had organized Sydney's kidnapping, for whatever purpose, it stood to reason the bench might his way of warning her to back off. To sit by patiently and wait for him to return Sydney in his own time.
Bastard. If he thinks that's going to stop me, he is in for one nasty surprise, she thought as she entered the study. Her heart twinged at the sight of it. This, she realized immediately, was Sydney's favorite room in the house. Bookshelves crowded almost every available wall surface, barring a few small pieces of art and the large single-pane window overlooking the bare slip of yard in back. Miss Parker knew without needing to inspect that each shelf was meticulously organized by subject matter or genre. Where books were absent, small, personal trinkets lined the panels in their place. A grey chair, floor length lamp, and small wooden side table sat in notable prominence in the far corner of the room. The large, Persian-style rug stretched across the floor beneath them was the first sign of personalization she'd seen in the place.
Miss Parker stepped forward, giving the room a quick once over. Her focus narrowed in on the uncovered window. Messily pushed-back green curtains flanked it on both sides, easily missed by someone without training or ignored by someone without a personal connection to Sydney. Brushing her fingers down the edge of the closest drape, she was satisfied to find the material thicker than most of the crap sold at any local furniture store. The Sydney she knew would never risk giving such easy viewing access to his most private of sanctuaries. Ergo, for it to be open, meant the kidnappers screwed up or Sydney himself did it as a signal for when she inevitably came to find him.
"C'mon, Sydney," she muttered aloud to herself, turning back to the room at large. "Tell me something. Anything! Tell me who took you."
The glint of metal on the bookcase next to the door provided part of an answer. Sydney's pistol, the one he'd missed killing Raines with nearly two years ago, lay on its side placed on the edge of the shelf at eye-level with her. Easily missed when glancing into the room from the door, her examination of the curtains had drawn her far enough into the room to see it.
"Shit!" she cursed, walking over to pick the weapon up. I guess I can cross Jarod off my list of suspects. Because the pretender would never allow such an obvious clue to be left behind, and because he trusted Sydney enough, he wouldn't think disarming the psychiatrist would even be necessary.
"Miss Parker?" Broots's call echoed from the other end of the hall.
"In here, Broots!" She yelled back, staring at the metal in her hands. The wood flooring creaked as he approached, stopping just outside the room's entrance.
"Did you find any–….is that Syd's gun?
She looked up to find his attention bouncing in horror between the weapon and her face. His swift recognition of the gun only amplified the sick feeling now crawling from her chest down into her lower gut.
"It is," she confirmed, tucking the piece away into her pants' pocket. She slipped the familiar mask of cold professionalism on as she stalked towards the exit. "We'll need to call a cleaner team in here ASAP. Have them see if they can collect any foreign DNA samples. I want to know who was in here last night."
"You think someone took Sydney?" Broots bleated, following at her heels. She noted he refrained from using the somehow nicer word: 'kidnapped'. "But why?"
"I can think of a number of reasons, and pretty much all of them related to our missing pretender." She yanked the front door open with more force than she intended. God damn, Jarod, if I find out you dragged Sydney into another of your messes. I'll….
"Oh!" The woman on the other side of the door just missed being bowled over by the pair as they pulled into a sudden stop. "Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you. Are you friends of Sydney's?"
Miss Parker eyed the woman maliciously. Mid-thirties. Middle of the road income based on the neat but cheaply made t-shirt, jeans, and blouse combo she wore. Her hair was pulled up in a messy top bun and she'd been unsuccessful in completely cleaning bits of – was that paint? – off her hands. Housewife maybe, or recent addition to the neighborhood.
"Can I help you?" She demanded icily.
The woman, to her credit, barely flinched; though she did turn to Broots as she replied, "I'm Maggie. Sydney's neighbor from across the street. I saw you all going in, figured you had a key–" She darted a quick, appraising glance in Miss Parker's direction, as if she wouldn't put it past her to enter without one regardless. "But, I was hoping you could tell me how Sydney's doing? He left so late last night, I–"
"Wait, you saw him leave last night?" Miss Parker cut in sharply. "When? Was he with anyone?"
The woman blinked in surprise. "Yes. Me and my fiancée got in late from our date night just as Sydney and…I just supposed it was his daughter were getting into his car. She didn't look so good and was leaning pretty heavily on him. Then, when I saw you two, I figured you were stopping by to pick him up items for…the…hospital. Am I missing something?"
"Hospital, right." Miss Parker could see the shrewd deduction in the other woman's pale blue eyes. Knowing how quickly this could spin into a bigger headache for the Centre, she lied.
"Well, thankfully Uncle Sydney' and his…daughter are just fine. Cuz just got a little tipsy, last night, you know how twenty-year olds –" No reaction from the woman. So, the kidnapper had to a least appear young. "Anyway, she thought she left her bracelet and jacket here and I offered to stop by and check during lunch. Did you by any chance catch what she was wearing?"
"Uh, a black tracksuit, I think." The woman's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure she's okay? She really didn't look well, and I've never seen Sydney that concerned before."
"Positive," Miss Parker slapped a cheek-aching, appeasing smile while subtly elbowing Broots into the ribs. He nodded in agreement, his own smile far more sincere than her own. "Sorry to have worried you. I'll let Uncle Sydney know you stopped by."
The woman cast one final, doubtful look at Broots, who thankfully managed to maintain the façade long enough for her to breathe, "Well, I'm glad he's okay. He's been the friendliest neighbor in the bunch, always asking how James and I are settling in whenever I see him. I just wanted to return the favor."
With that, she turned to leave, and Miss Parker felt the tiniest prick of guilt at her treatment of her. Not that anyone would blame her. Besides protecting the woman from Centre interests, Blue Cove itself was hardly a community renowned for its friendliness. Hell, her first interaction with Thomas had set off all her alarm bells by virtue of its pleasantness. Broots let out a long breath beside her.
"That was close, and it's sounds like Sydney may have been with a woman last night?"
"Kidnapped, Broots," Miss Parker tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she glared over at him. "Sydney was kidnapped by a woman last night. And I think that might have just been our first solid lead."