It was the quintessential Centre standoff, and Jarod wasn’t certain if he wanted to laugh or run. Sam had a look of determination on his face that warned anybody with even the lowest IQ that messing with him would be a bad idea. The other sweeper looked surprised and disquieted for a moment, and then his face soured down into an equal level of determination.

“I suggest you turn around and go in the other direction,” Sam stated softly and dangerously. “No paperwork and no codename for a termination order means that if whatever power politics are being played go down badly – or if whoever is organizing a coup decides to eliminate loose ends – you’ll end up wishing you had walked away when you had the chance.”

“Something tells me that the termination order we were given yesterday included you,” Tom responded without moving a muscle. “That same something tells me that all of you folks are on the wrong side of whatever’s going on in the Tower – and that ain’t my fault. A sweeper doesn’t ask questions, he does as he’s told.”

“I don’t give a shit what you’ve been told. You’re not getting anywhere near Miss Parker,” Sam announced in a deathly calm voice.

“Try and stop me, asshole,” Tom replied in an equally determined tone. With a movement that had most of the other sweepers fascinated, he swept his right hand up and under his jacket to pull out his sidearm. Normally, the movement happened faster than anyone would expect and was quite deadly.

But this was a unique situation. In the first place, Tom’s hand discovered that the zipper to his jacket hadn’t been pulled down far enough – and he had to grope for the opening. Finally and more telling, however, was the fact that Sam simply was faster and more prepared than the average sparring partner. The moment Sam saw the hand begin to move, he lowered his head and rushed the other sweeper. The two big men crashed together, with Sam’s momentum temporarily driving the other sweeper back toward the door.

Jarod caught at the arm of a passing nurse. “Call hospital security!” he snapped at her. “A man in there just threatened my friend with a gun, and now they’re fighting!”

The young woman scurried off quickly, and Jarod turned to address Ethan – only to find his younger brother halfway into the waiting room. Tom had managed to extricate his sidearm, and only Sam’s strength was keeping the arm pointed straight up in the air rather than at his head or heart.

Suddenly Sam knew he had help – someone had joined the struggle and was pounding the other sweeper on the back of the skull with clenched fists. Tom whirled in Sam’s hold and threw Ethan a stunning roundhouse blow that knocked the young man to the floor. Sam took the opportunity that the diversion created, however, and wrenched the arm with the gun in hand backwards, against the way joints were supposed to bend.

From out of nowhere, it seemed, a foot kicked at the hand holding the gun and sent the weapon flying across the waiting room – and another set of doubled fists landed on the back of the Centre sweeper’s skull, knocking the man to his knees. Sam doubled up his fists and threw two lightening-fast punches – one to the nose and one to the left cheek – that finished the job of putting the would-be assassin on the floor, unconscious.

Sam raised grateful eyes to the person who had been vital to finishing off the threat to Miss Parker – and ended up staring open-mouthed at the elusive, fugitive Pretender that he’d spent years chasing. Jarod was shaking out his fists, and gave Sam a look of pure admiration. “No wonder she keeps you around,” he commented and then turned and bent to give Ethan a hand-up.

“What the hell are YOU doing here?” Sam gaped, stunned.

Jarod didn’t get a chance to answer immediately, for two uniformed officers darted into the waiting room, obviously prepared to be pulling combatants apart. “The gun’s over there,” Jarod pointed to a spot near the television and a wastepaper basket. “And this is the man who just attacked my friend there.” Jarod’s finger pointed at the man on the floor.

“Wolsey over in the ER reported a suspicious-looking man inquiring after the United survivors too,” the second cop reminded his partner. “I wonder what his story is going to be – probably some nut case on a mission from God or something…”

The pair of hospital security men rolled Tom onto his stomach and tied his hands behind him with plastic handcuffs – and then they dragged him off between them. “You’ll come along to file a complaint - right?” the first officer asked Sam.

“In a minute,” Sam told them and then turned to Jarod again, once more in a defensive mode. “Listen, she’s in no shape for you to…”

“Since that man was the ‘danger’ Ethan was worried about, I thought he belonged here with his sister now. Sydney doesn’t need guarding anymore.” Jarod interrupted the sweeper without hesitation. “And I think you’ll agree that having family around right now isn’t such a bad idea.”

Sam shifted his gaze from Ethan to Jarod. “I need to go file a complaint that will keep that sweeper tied up in knots until long after Miss Parker has been released,” he said in a slightly frustrated tone.

“I’ll stay here, in case she comes out of surgery,” Ethan told the sweeper. “I want to be here when she wakes up.”

Jarod didn’t flinch under Sam’s steady gaze. “I’ll call Michelle and Nicholas,” he said suddenly. “Sydney needs his family here too. He shouldn’t be alone, going through this.”

It was in that moment that Sam knew that Jarod wouldn’t be sticking around – that this meeting, this assistance given to him and through him to Miss Parker, had been entirely by chance. The sweeper put out his hand. “Thanks, Jarod.” When the Pretender merely stared at the outstretched hand, he added, “I mean it. I needed your help right then – and I’m glad you came along. Thanks – from me, and from Miss Parker.” He looked Jarod directly in the eye. “I owe you one.”

Jarod’s hand was warm and strong, just like Sam’s. “Take good care of her,” the Pretender told the sweeper with a fierce light in his eyes that matched the strength of the grip of his hand.

“I always do,” Sam replied confidently and walked away to follow the security men, who were halfway down the long hall by now.

“You’re not leaving!” Ethan gaped at his brother. “You just got here!”

“No, I’m not leaving quite yet. I have to get my cell phone back from Carl first, call Sydney’s family, and then make arrangements for Carl to get back to Pennsylvania – or California, whichever.” Jarod put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Listen, tell her from me when she wakes up that I said hello, will you?”

“You’re not coming back to see her after she’s out from under the anesthesia?”

Jarod shook his head. “No. I’d better not. Tell her I’ll be in touch, though.”

“She’s going to be so pissed at you…” Ethan warned.

Jarod chuckled dryly. “When is she ever NOT pissed at me?” he asked as he waved. “You know how to reach me.”

Ethan stared after his half-brother, amazed at the echoes of sadness and regret that colored the attempt at humor. Jarod’s determination to put and keep distance between himself and these two people who were so important to him in his youth was tearing him apart. It wasn’t right. It was time Jarod reconciled himself with Sydney and Miss Parker somehow – because ignoring and walking away from the problem was only going to make matters worse.

~~~~~~~~~*

Broots dove for his cell phone when it chirped. “Yes? What? Hello?”

“Mr. Broots,” Jarod’s voice was calm, but there was an amused note in the background at his salutation.

“Jarod! Where are you?”

“At the Ogden hospital. The danger has been defused – if you and Debbie want to come visit after a while, it will be safe.” Jarod sounded tired.

“And Miss Parker and Sydney?” Broots’ smile had attracted the attention of his daughter.

“Miss Parker is still in surgery, Sydney will be in surgery soon – but they’re still alive.” Jarod paused. “I just thought you should know.”

“Jarod…” Broots began, not exactly knowing how to express what he felt.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Stay well, Mr. Broots – and good luck.”

Broots pulled the device from his ear when it became obvious that Jarod had disconnected abruptly. “Well, Daddy?” Debbie pressed against her father. “What did he say?”

“He said it was safe again,” he repeated in bemusement. “And I think he just said goodbye.”

“Are we going to go in to see Miss Parker and Sydney, then?”

The question brought Broots out of his reverie. “You betcha,” he answered his daughter and pointed. “Dress warmly – its cold outside.”

~~~~~~~~~*

Erin opened the door to her apartment slowly. Watching a good romance movie hadn’t been the best idea – the theme of the movie kept bringing her back to her liaison with Lyle the night before. So she’d walked out of the multiplex and sauntered home, not hurrying at all. Not ever the first flurry of snow in the air could make her feet move any faster.

She turned on the light, dropped her keys on the table and then bent to pick up MacGyver, who immediately turned on the high-volume purr that had so charmed Erin at the pound. “I’ve been ignoring you, haven’t I?” she asked her cat rhetorically and walked into the kitchen of her little apartment, cuddling the cat and petting him. “OK, down you go so I can feed you,” she told him and moved to open the fridge door.

Feeding the cat was a rote activity – something that she could do with her eyes closed and her brain in neutral. It didn’t detract from her ability to note that there were still two wineglasses in the sink from the night before. She set the dish with the cat food on the floor where MacGyver was used to getting fed and then turned immediately to take care of the lapse.

But putting the glasses in the dish washer didn’t stop the flood of memories from washing over her – of Lyle’s smile and toast as they had clinked their glasses together, of his setting both glasses on the coffee table when both of them became more interested in each other than in imbibing. She shook her head at the memory of how they had practically made out on the couch before finally heading to the bedroom to shed clothing. She didn’t WANT to remember how it had been like making love to a man who acted as if he’d never done such a thing before – she didn’t WANT to remember how wanted and cherished he’d made her feel.

There was a bottle of rum in the cabinet above the fridge, and she got it down and poured herself a very liberal helping into the bottom of a water glass that she then finished filling with some orange juice. Cherry was dead – raped and tortured and murdered, possibly at the hands of the same man who had made HER feel like a princess while making love to her! It was like a surreal nightmare come to life.

If only Lyle hadn’t been so gracious, funny and such good company. If only he’d had some quirk or odd behavioral trait that had made her wonder about him, however briefly. She searched her memory of their time together, looking to see if he’d given her any clues to a less than savory side of his personality – and gave up when nothing jumped out at her as odd or questionable, until...

That was when she remembered. It had been such a tiny thing that it hadn’t even seemed odd at the time. When he’d met her at the Student Union, while she’d been caressing his neck, there had been a tiny drop of blood on his skin. Her eyes widened. At the time, she’d thought that he’d just nicked himself shaving, but now that she was thinking about it, the droplet had been far from anywhere where he’d have been shaving. Where had that drop of blood come from?

The implications had her slamming her glass down on the kitchen table hard enough to slosh some of the orange liquid onto the tabletop. Had that been Cherry’s blood she’d so conveniently wiped away? If not, then where had the blood come from? What had he said when she mentioned it? “Did you get it?” Was that the kind of question to be expected from someone who’d cut themselves shaving?

Shaking like a leaf, she walked over to the kitchen counter and dragged out the phone book, looking for the number for the police headquarters. She knew that even if that wasn’t the station the detectives who had spoken to her twice came from, a call to headquarters would be relayed until the message arrived where it needed to be. “Hello?” she said when the calm voice of the police switchboard operator came on the line, “I’d like to leave a message for either Detective Lowe or Detective Bridges… no, I don’t know which precinct number. Would you have one of them call Erin Patterson as soon as possible?”

When she hung up, she suddenly remembered that her phone lines had been tapped – the likelihood that the message would find the detectives quickly was very high. Maybe letting them listen into her calls hadn’t been such a bad idea in the first place. Still shaking, Erin reached for and then slumped into her seat at the kitchen table and took another big gulp of the strong drink.

Now all she had to do was wait.

~~~~~~~~*

Lyle poured the steaming stir-fry into a serving bowl and carried it to his table with two hands, as befitting the offering it was. As usual, the amount of meat was greater than the amount of vegetables, but it was a dish that he dearly loved and had always been scrupulous about the proportions. Already on the table was the small rice cooker with a bamboo paddle at the ready, along with his place setting and a delicate arrangement of a daisy and blood-red rose bud.

He seated himself and arranged the rice and half of the stir-fry dish on his plate, and then closed his eyes and gave over a moment in remembrance of the life that had been given in the celebration of his triumphs at the Centre. The first taste of the tender and seasoned meat brought forth the face of the pretty girl just at the moment when she’d realized that she was to be made a sacrifice. The expression in the eyes of his Prey had always been of great interest – and never more so than at the very moment that they realized that the end of their short life-span had been plotted and now approached apace.

This one had been a fighter. At first she had just lain there, taking whatever degradation he’d chosen to deal her, her dark eyes glaring at him malignantly and impotently. Then, as he’d lain beside her after his first shower, she’d deliberately not looked at him – kept her face turned away from him – until that Moment. Finally she’d turned to look at him, and the look in her eye had been exquisite – the brilliance of life facing its own mortality.

Reverently he tucked another long strip of the meat into his mouth and chewed pensively. So much about this latest Hunt had been memorable. He’d had the time to indulge a few fantasies that had been building over the last few Hunts – including experiencing the act of renewal while bathed in blood. In his mind, it had been like being born anew – and his Prey could no longer ignore him or what he was doing. The tears had come, making her face wet with regret and terror. The next bite he took with a small clump of white rice.

Tomorrow would begin his true first day as the Chairman of the Centre, he just knew it. Any chance that his sister had survived that plane crash in Utah should have been snuffed out by then – and he could report to Mr. Orinde, the Triumvirate representative, that there could be only one Parker heir to the Chairmanship. A few hundred thousand dollars here and there could make the police investigation into the car bomb that had killed Mr. Raines disappear into a deep, dark drawer labeled ‘Cold Cases’ – which is exactly where it belonged.

Another few hundred thousand dollars would need to be spent – through indirect means again, of course – to ‘take care of’ Mr. Arnham. Friend or not, he had outlived his usefulness both to Lyle and the Centre to the point that his continuing to live threatened Centre security. The same kind of arrangements – this time without the need for the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent – would remove the sweepers who had undertaken the covert termination orders on Miss Parker and her team.

Lyle glanced down and noted that he’d polished off the helping he’d dished for himself in the midst of all his musing – and he’d not even managed to keep his mind on the Prey. For such an important event, he needed to do this right – and he was still hungry. He put half of the remaining stir fry and a little more rice on his plate.

That was something else he’d have to do in the morning – make sure that the proper amount of money was greasing the proper palms to make sure that the file on either the disappearance or murder of that Chinese girl also landed in the ‘Cold Case’ file. It just wouldn’t do to have this Feast tainted by the possibility of a police investigation from getting anywhere near Blue Cove.

He deliberately put the face of his Prey before him as he reverently took bite after bite of his meal. What kind of person had she been otherwise, he wondered – and what had she wanted with Erin that day?

No, he couldn’t think of Erin right now – now while he was enjoying this gift of life from his Prey. Erin was a creature of light – where this gift had come about in darkness and pain.

But once the face of the pretty blonde university student had popped up in his mind, she wouldn’t be dismissed again. Lyle finally put his chopsticks down and dumped the rest of his stir-fry into the pot from the rice cooker and then into the fridge to keep for leftovers the next evening. His plate and chopsticks rinsed and in the dishwasher, he poured himself a stiff whiskey on top of a single ice cube and repaired to his couch.

Erin – she was what was wrong about this entire Feast. She was the first person completely innocent of everything that had gone into creating the person Lyle was that had caught his eye – his eye and his heart. She was sweet without making that sweetness into a tool for an agenda. What he wouldn’t give to be able to share the Feast with someone…

No! The thought was discarded as impossible almost immediately. His world and Erin’s could never coexist in such close proximity. There could be no connection between the Centre and the University of Maryland – not where Erin and he were concerned.

And yet…

Her face wouldn’t leave him in peace. He slouched on the couch and closed his eyes, finally letting himself relive the previous night’s events. Her touch had been intoxicating, and her small cries of pleasure enough to drive him wild. It had been a night unlike any other in his experience – and a night that he didn’t want to let rest in isolation.

He opened his eyes and took another very big swig from his whiskey. There was no getting away from the fact that he very much wanted to see her again. There was something so relaxing and liberating about not having to wear a mask of invulnerability or nonchalance – of letting that very secret, inner man who could never be Chairman and exercise any real authority at all have a spot in the sun. And once more he found himself wondering whether he’d ruined everything by climbing from her bed and walking away without a single word of thanks or fondness or even farewell.

There was only one way to find out. Lyle put his whiskey down on the coffee table and walked back into the kitchen. The paper with her telephone number on it had been slipped into his wallet – and he retrieved his cell phone from his jacket pocket and dialed the number, then immediately disconnected the call before she could answer.

What was he doing? She tied him to Baltimore at the time when his Prey went missing. Calling her was running the risk of discovery – it was running the risk of watching what had been true fondness and affection turn into rejection and disgust. He knew those latter two emotions well – they had been the stuff of his latter adolescence. Did he really want to walk that fine a line?

He folded his cell phone and walked over to the fridge, pulling the rice pot out and taking the lid off so he could pinch out another tender slice of meat. Then he began to grin and reached for his phone again. Walking a microscopically thin line would be the ultimate challenge – and he’d be damned if he walked away from a challenge of this magnitude. This time, he didn’t disconnect before the call was completed.

“Hello?” Erin’s voice sounded soft and shaky – had she been crying.

“It’s me,” he said gently. “Are you OK?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Lyle!” she exclaimed in surprise. “I didn’t expect…”

“Erin, are you OK?” he asked again. “Was it something I did?” He closed his eyes after pinching another slice of meat from the rice pot and slipping it between his lips. “Look, I know I should have awakened you when I had to leave, but…”

“No, it’s not that…” Erin seemed to take a dragging deep breath. “One of my best friends was found dead, and they don’t know who killed her.”

“Really!” Lyle’s eyes opened very wide, and he took another piece of meat from the pot. “Do they have any leads?” he asked, chewing carefully.

“No…” Erin’s voice got shaky again. “At least, I don’t know – they haven’t even released her name to the media yet.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your friend,” he felt his heart go out to her, knowing all too well the pain of separation and loss. “I just wanted to call and make sure that everything was OK between Us, despite my being a real bastard this morning.”

“You had to go to work?” she asked in a small voice.

“I told you last night that I had to be at work first thing in the morning, remember?” he reminded her. “Do you really think I would have left you if it hadn’t been important?”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end broken only by what sounded like soft sobs. “Look,” Lyle said earnestly, “I can’t get away for the next couple of days, but I don’t want you going through this alone…”

“I’m not…” she said finally. “I really… I gotta go…”

“I’ll call you in a couple of days, to see how you’re doing – is that OK?” he asked, his eyes closed and hoping she’d let him know that he hadn’t completely burned his bridges.

“Uh… yeah… sure,” she said after another long pause. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I… you take care,” he urged her gently.

“Yeah,” she responded, almost as if by remote control. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Lyle looked down into the rice pot and popped another piece of meat into his mouth. She was so vulnerable right now – the world could be such a dangerous place for an innocent such as she.

He grinned as he snitched a final slice of meat with a piece of onion and put the top back on the rice pot. At least he knew she wasn’t angry with him…

~~~~~~~~*

Carl Bennings looked up as his Chief of Security came back into his hospital room and then frowned. “You look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, my friend,” he scolded as he picked up the cell phone from the wheeled tray that stretched across his bed and held it out to the Pretender. “Here. Take your phone back and sit down and talk to me.”

Jarod sighed when he saw in his friend’s emerald eyes a curiosity that he knew from experience wouldn’t back down until it was satisfied, and he pocketed his phone and pulled the chair close again. “It’s nothing…”

“You might be able to get away with dishing that shit to others who don’t know you very well,” Bennings shook his head, “but don’t think you can get away with it with me.”

“It’s just that I’ve run into some people on this trip that I thought I’d left in my past,” Jarod admitted obliquely. “I’d just as soon they’d stay there…”

“And who is that?” Bennings’ curiosity was truly piqued now – Jarod had been very closed-mouthed about his past except in regard to his bonafides as a security expert. When the chocolate eyes just touched his briefly before looking away again, he sighed. “I’m not giving up – you might as well spill. We can keep it just between us, if you want…”

“Carl…”

“Don’t even start, Jarod. We’ve been friends for years – you know every last skeleton in my closet. I’ve trusted you with a few secrets that I haven’t told another living soul. Don’t you think it’s about time you see whether or not you can trust me in return?”

Jarod buried his forehead in his hand and then looked up. “I tell you what – I’ll tell you when we have you out of here and either on a plane to California or back to Pennsylvania. Will that satisfy you?”

“Yes,” Bennings answered after a thoughtful moment, “but only if you answer one question for me.”

The Pretender sighed. “What?”

“Do I know them?”

After a moment, Jarod shrugged. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Yes.”

Bennings’ brow furled. “OK,” he replied slowly, “I’ll be content with that for the time being. Now – about getting me to San Francisco…”

Jarod nodded, grateful that the subject had been changed that easily. “So you still want to go on to California after all?”

“I have that office to open yet, you know,” Bennings replied, “and there are a lot of people sitting in jail right now who have done just about everything short of murder to keep me from getting there. I sure would like to disappoint them, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jarod nodded, “especially a couple of guys in Pennsylvania.” He rose from his chair. “Let me talk to your doctor about how soon I can spring you, and then I’ll be on the horn to Sandy to get me some plane tickets…”

“Uh…” Bennings held up a hand. “Let’s drive the rest of the way, shall we?” He let a look of chagrin cover his face. “I don’t think I want to look another airplane in the face for a while.”

“If you’re going to be opening this corporate office on the other side of the country, you’re going to have to get used to cross-continental flying,” Jarod told him earnestly, “or you’re going to be handing over a lot of authority to somebody else again – just like you did to Hendricks…”

“I know what I’m doing,” Bennings interrupted. “Go make the arrangements – and figure that I’m stuck here until at least tomorrow morning. That’s what the doc in the ER told me he wanted…”

“And visiting hours are just about finished,” the nurse who was accompanying the kitchen worker handing out dinners informed the two men. “You can see your friend again in the morning,” she pointed out bluntly.

Jarod’s brows rose, and then he waved. “Guess that’s it for the evening, Carl. See you in the morning.”

Jarod walked from Bennings’ room on the medical floor to the huge, open and glassed lobby and found a seat near the volunteer’s desk. He had three calls to make: first to the FBI, regarding Stoller; secondly to Sandy to get reservations in San Francisco for when they finally got there; and finally to Albany, to let Michelle know that Sydney had been injured.

The last call would be the hardest.

~~~~~~~~*

“Visiting hours are from ten in the morning until five in the evening, sir,” the nurse said firmly as he put a hand on the shoulder of the man who had been sitting next to Miss Parker’s bed ever since she’d been wheeled in from the Recovery Room.

“I’m not a visitor,” the big man said softly and without moving a muscle. “I’m here to keep her safe. There’s already been one attempt on her life today.”

The nurse’s eyes got wide. “I’ll have to speak to my supervisor…”

“Talk to whomever you want to,” Sam replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The nurse huffed and bustled about for a moment, checking the IV drip regulator and taking note of pulse and blood pressure readings in the chart she was carrying before walking away. Sam settled back into his chair, his eyes trained on Miss Parker’s face. It was where he’d been looking since Ethan had left with the Broots’ for the motel, and trained on her face was where his gaze would stay until Ethan returned in the morning to take over.

In the room next door, Sydney had also finally been put to bed next to a critically ill George Stoller – but only until a federal agent had arrived on the scene and ordered Stoller moved to a private room. It seemed that Stoller was suspected of being some sort of assassin – Sam didn’t stick around to hear much more than that. Sydney’s head had been bandaged, and he was wearing a cervical collar. In some ways, he looked far healthier than Miss Parker did now – his color was good, and he didn’t have anything packaged in plaster of Paris.

Miss Parker’s right arm had been immobilized, and tubes ran from a point beneath her hospital gown on that side that fed antibiotics directly to the wound. Her face was ashen except for the pink in her cheeks that spoke of the fever she still was running. She hadn’t moved at all nor made any sound save the small sigh of complaint the last time the nurses had stuck the aural thermometer in her ear.

Sam was bone-tired, his head ached again and his stomach was no longer steady. He’d forgotten the pain medication for his concussion in the motel room, and now he was paying for that lapse. Just a few more minutes, he promised himself, just to see if she was going to wake up – if he could last, then maybe he could stretch the time that way for the rest of the night.

One thing was for sure: he wasn’t going to budge from her side except to make a regular check on Sydney.

~~~~~~~~*

Erin rose a bit unsteadily and walked slowly over to the door. A quick check through the peephole told her that the men on the other side of the door were safe to allow in, and she disengaged first security chain and a flip-latch before unlocking the deadbolt and letting Detectives Lowe and Bridges into her apartment.

“You OK, Miss Patterson?” Bridges asked, seeing the almost overwhelmed look in the young woman’s face.

“Lyle called a while back,” she answered. “I hope you got it on tape.”

“We did,” Lowe answered and smiled at her. “You did very well. We got an ID from the trace – and now we can back-track this guy and see if he was anywhere near Baltimore…”

“I called you earlier – I remembered I saw something that I didn’t tell you about,” Erin blurted and put a hand out to the wall to steady herself. “Blood.”

“Blood?” The detectives looked at each other in alarm. “Where and when?”

“It was on the side of Lyle’s neck when he came to pick me up at the Student Union yesterday afternoon,” Erin told them, trying to ignore the way her stomach was once more on the warpath. “I think he was glad when I wiped it away…”

“Did this Lyle say where the blood came from?” Lowe was writing frantically in his notebook.

Erin shook her head. “I assumed it was from having nicked himself shaving – and he didn’t say or do anything to convince me otherwise. It wasn’t until I started to think about the way Cherry died…”

“You did the right thing, Miss Patterson,” Bridges put out a friendly hand to her elbow, as if to steady her. “It could be nothing, and it could be important. Now – why don’t you point on Detective Lowe’s face where it was that you found this drop of blood…”

Erin pushed herself away from the wall and up to Lowe’s face. She then pointed to a spot on Lowe’s neck, in her mind seeing that tiny droplet again and having it nearly make her ill.

“Interesting,” Bridges commented, doing a quick sketch and noting where she’d indicated. “Now – about that call… It sounds as if he may want to see you again.”

“You’ll tell me before then if you’ve cleared him, won’t you?” She gazed back and forth at the two with wide eyes. “I mean, if you’re fairly sure he IS the one…”

“We would never put you in harm’s way, Miss Patterson,” Lowe reassured her. “You look like you’ve had a hard day – why don’t you lie down and rest. You’re safe, as far as we can tell, for the time being…”

“What if he calls me at work – or what if he shows up?” Erin worried at them. “Sometimes he just shows up…”

“From the sounds of it, you have a day or so before he intends to try to see you again – we’ll work on getting a tail on you for your protection otherwise before then.” Bridger patted her shoulder. “Hang in there.”

“I hate this,” she muttered to herself after she’d locked her door carefully behind the departing detectives. She walked over to her couch and slumped against one of the overstuffed arms. There was no way in Hell she was going to sleep in her bed tonight.

In fact, she doubted she’d be getting any quality sleep at all.

~~~~~~~~~*

Phil Carew was pissed. In fact, he was more than pissed, he was apoplectic. After the entire staff of the underground facility had spent nearly an entire afternoon wearing gas masks and respirators, and after over twenty men had spent five hours combing through every known nook and cranny of the Centre sublevel ventilation system, there had been no sign of Angelo. Not an empty Cracker Jacks box, not a pillow or blanket – nothing. It was as if the semi-verbal Centre empath had evaporated into thin air.

And it was going to be his job, as head of Security now that Willy’s death had left the post wide open, to report to the new Chairman that carrying out his orders had accomplished nothing. Lyle wasn’t known for being a very forgiving individual when it came to lesser Centre employees who consistently disappointed him – and this would make the second big disappointment that could be laid at Phil’s door. Suddenly Phil was once more contemplating the downsides to being in that rarified upper stratosphere of Centre hierarchy. The higher a person climbed, the harder the landing when he – or she – fell.

For that matter, there had been not a peep from the Salt Lake City office of the Centre either. Phil was frankly getting anxious on that account – his boss’ hold on the Chairmanship depended entirely upon the success of that task. Already Mr. Orinde, Triumvirate watchdog and observer, was getting tired of sorting through budgets and projections and had suggested very bluntly that Mr. Lyle had a report that was due and would be considered late after noon the next day. So much was riding on the good graces of that one Zulu…

And there had been another call from Agent Stein, requesting another interview – not with Lyle, but with him again. Phil had flinched as he’d directed his secretary to make the appointment in the latter afternoon. Hopefully a few fingers could be strategically placed in the dike to prevent the entire edifice from crumbling like a house of cards.

This wasn’t what he’d expected when he’d accepted the position as Lyle’s personal sweeper and assistant. He frankly wondered that if Willy had had this kind of chaos to put up with, why the former number one sweeper either hadn’t grown a head of grey hair during his tenure at the top – or quit.

Then again, considering the reputation of both Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle, maybe that one was a no-brainer. Either way, it didn’t look good for HIM – and he wasn’t fool enough to want to stick around when things started to really fall apart. The Centre had pulled him off the streets and bought him a house and a fancy car – but he’d be damned if he went to jail for it.

~~~~~~~~~*

Miss Parker shifted and then let go a deep breath. She was warm, she was comfortable – well, as comfortable as she could get with a shoulder that felt as if it had been torn to pieces – and she could swear that there was a dim light just on the outside of her eyelids. It took work to get the heavy lids to obey the directive to move upwards, and then time to adjust her eyes to the light level.

She was in a room – not the shattered first class cabin that was one of the last things she could remember clearly – and she was in a comfortable bed rather than draped unceremoniously over a pair of laid-back airliner seats. She sighed again and came just a little more awake so that she could try to move her neck. Amazed that the pain that had essentially kept her immobile before was either gone or completely medicated into submission, she turned her head.

Sam leaned forward in his chair, his blue eyes intense in the dim light. “Relax, Miss P,” he said softly. “You’re safe.”

Her mouth was dry, and it sounded like it. “You aren’t just a dream, then.”

“No, ma’am.” His lips quirked in the beginnings of a smile. “I’ve been here for quite a while – ever since you got out of surgery.”

“How…” she tried to move and then drew in a painful gasp at the stab of pain from her shoulder that made it even through the cloud of medication. “Where’s Sydney?” she managed finally.

Sam jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Next room over,” he reported, “still unconscious.”

“What about George? He was hurt…”

“He’s in a private room, courtesy of federal agents. Seems he was an assassin, sent to kill someone on the plane…” Sam shrugged “I didn’t get all the story…”

Miss Parker’s mind simply wasn’t ready to process the details. “Sorry,” she said after her eyelids drooped closed for the second time. “I don’t think I can…”

“That’s OK,” Sam told her gently. He scooted his chair close enough that he could capture her left hand as it lay motionless on the top of the blanket. “Go back to sleep. You need your rest to get better.”

She lay still again for a while with her eyes closed, and Sam was about to deposit the hand back onto the blanket and back off again when her mouth worked against its desiccated state. “Don’t get any ideas… not going steady or anything like that…”

Sam smiled widely at that. “No, ma’am,” he replied with a chuckle. “I don’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

One eye managed to crack open again. “But you aren’t going anywhere…”

“No, ma’am,” he answered with a gentle squeeze on the hand in his. “I’m here until morning, and Ethan can take over.”

She didn’t hear the second part of his answer. All she’d needed was to hear his reassurance that he was going to stay with her – and she dropped off the edge of consciousness into the black nothingness of deep sleep.

~~~~~~~~~*

Al Douglas was bone-tired and thoroughly traumatized. He’d seen carnage in Vietnam thirty years earlier – and he’d thought that he’d be able to handle what the snow on the mountainside was covering. He was wrong.

It was one thing to see body parts and know that they belonged to men who had been intent on killing him – that they were dead so that he could keep living. It was another thing entirely to see small feet and hands and torsos ripped away and scattered and know that these had been children guilty of nothing more than having gotten on a plane destined to plow into a mountainside. He’d worked stoically, not stopping to think or speak – just as he had in ‘Nam – until he’d come across a half-melted Barbie doll clutched in a disembodied hand.

Now he was on the back seat of a snowmobile, heading back down the mountain and the rangers’ station for hot chocolate, a hot meal, and an appointment with the NTSA shrink for evaluation. He hadn’t intended to stand there blubbering like a rookie – it was just the sight of that doll… The tears welled once more, just thinking about it.

He’d had it. Being a sweeper had been a matter of pride, even if some of the jobs he’d been given over the years were of questionable ethics and even more questionable legality. But this had been an assignment too far – to kill someone who had survived this kind of horror was beyond cruel.

Very briefly he wondered if Tom had had better luck at finishing the assignment than he had – and didn’t regret the choices he’d made that day at all. That, of course, meant that his name would most likely land on the next termination order to be issued from the Tower – the kind that put a fair price on the head of a disloyal sweeper.

He wondered if he dared try to get in contact with Miss Parker’s sweeper – Atkins, he thought the man’s name was. Perhaps sticking around to help guard Miss Parker, IF she still lived, wouldn’t be a better idea.

At the moment, however, he’d just be glad to get off the damned mountain – away from little girl’s hands clutching Barbie dolls in the snow. It was enough to give a man nightmares.

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