Sam slammed Jarod up against the wall, his thick forearm pressed hard into the Pretender’s windpipe. “I told you not to upset her!” he growled.

“Sam!” Miss Parker’s voice filtered through the closed door. “Let him go!”

Slowly the pressure from the forearms eased, and Jarod could breathe again. He didn’t move a muscle until Sam had moved back from him, and then he merely turned and walked slowly down the corridor toward his friend, massaging his neck with a hand. Jarod walked past where Bennings stood gaping and down the corridor toward the lobby, and after a scowl at Sam, Bennings followed.

Sam ran his hands through his hair and took several deep breaths to calm himself again under Al’s watchful gaze, and then pushed through the hospital room door. “Miss Parker…”

He halted when he saw that she had her face turned to the wall and her chest was heaving. She was crying – and that bastard Pretender had done it. “I swear I’m going to skin him alive, the next time I see him,” he growled impotently.

“No, you won’t,” she corrected in a broken voice without turning. “I picked the fight with him. This is my fault this time.”

Sam swallowed back his automatic ire at yet another instance of the Pretender hurting his boss and stepped closer to the bed. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Miss Parker shook her head. “Unless you can turn time backwards and let me live the last ten minutes over again, there’s not much you can do. Just…” She turned a tear-stained face to him. “…don’t go too far away, OK?”

“He hurt you again, damn it,” he complained softly, knowing he was stepping over an invisible line but not caring. “Every time he comes near you, he hurts you.”

“I gave as good as I got, Sam – let it go.” She tried to smile through the tears. “But thanks for being concerned.”

Sam heard the veiled warning and nodded as he backed away. “Sure thing, Miss Parker.”

Miss Parker closed her eyes so that the wall vanished, wishing that the glimpse of total devotion she’d seen in her sweeper’s gaze would vanish as well. She’d always known Sam to be loyal to her, but it had finally sunk in what it meant that he’d signed himself out of a hospital bed and come halfway across the continent to make sure of her safety, with total disregard for his own wellbeing. She had no doubt whatsoever that, if the situation warranted it, he would die for her. She’d known, but she’d never fully appreciated the full implications of that single-minded devotion.

The look in his eyes had told the story, and now she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know that he loved her – in his own way. It was almost beyond belief – she had done nothing but treat him as a trusted colleague, and in turn had earned that kind of emotion. She would never be able to look at him and think of him only as a piece of Centre-provided muscle again. He deserved better – starting now.

“Talk to me, Sam,” she said suddenly, turning back to face him and wiping at her face with her free hand.

“About what, Miss Parker?”

“I don’t know, just talk to me,” she repeated. “Something inane and meaningless that has nothing to do with the Centre or Jarod or any of the rest of it.”

Sam was confused. “I’m not sure I understand, ma’am.”

“I don’t want to think right now, Sam,” she replied with a quick and silent sigh. “Give my mind something completely non sequitor to focus on.” She thought for a moment. “I know - tell me about where you grew up.”

Sam blinked. Well, he thought to himself wryly, you asked what you could do for her… “You know I’m from Los Angeles…” he began, pulling the chair a little closer to the bed and sitting down.

~~~~~~~~~*

Carl Bennings folded the rest of the clothing he’d worn the day before into the overnight bag that Jarod had brought for him and then walked over to the connecting door between the two rooms to knock. Jarod had been particularly uncommunicative since his clash with Miss Parker’s sweeper outside her hospital room, quietly refusing to disclose anything about what had gone on before to set the big man off like that. Their dinner had been almost uncomfortably silent with conversation limited to nearly monosyllabic responses, and each had repaired to his own room to sleep without much more than a grunt and a nod to the other.

Jarod opened the door quietly and walked through bearing his own overnight case. “I’m ready,” he stated in a low voice. “Let’s go.”

“Hey!” Bennings put a hand on Jarod’s arm to detain him. Jarod’s face was bleak and pale, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink all night. “Not like this. You’re a wreck…”

“I told you that what you asked of me was hard,” the Pretender shrugged off the hand on his arm, “and that Parker and I didn’t exactly always get along.”

“I thought you were going to talk to her – make things right…”

Jarod could hear the word of accusation ringing in his mind all over again. “I don’t know that there’s a way to make things right between us,” he replied with a grimace. “Too much water has gone under the bridge, more likely.”

“So that big guy nearly took your head off because you argued with her?” Bennings frowned. “That isn’t like you…”

“It was more a case of she argued with me – although I got a couple of decent shots in myself after a while,” Jarod admitted. “Sam was pissed because he warned me not to upset her. He just didn’t know that just seeing my face upset her – I didn’t have to DO anything.”

Bennings crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re going to leave it at that?”

“Yeah,” Jarod said flatly. “By mutual agreement, I’ll get in touch with her when neither of us is emotionally… vulnerable. Besides, I need to get you to San Francisco one of these years.”

“You look like shit, my friend – you didn’t sleep, did you?”

“Don’t let it worry you. I’ve done without a whole lot more sleep than this more often than I want to remember, and I’ll be fine.” Jarod sounded as if he were more trying to convince himself than convince Bennings. “Trust me.”

“Just do me a favor,” Bennings stated as he picked up his overnight bag. “Don’t let it stay this way for long. Let things settle – maybe until we get back to Philly – and then call her.”

“When we get back, I’ll call Sydney,” Jarod told him. “He’ll know when it would be safe for me to try again – and no doubt he’ll be talking to her in the meantime.” He pointed over to a coffee shop across the street from the motel. “Let’s get some breakfast and get on the road. I’m sure you have some very anxious trustees by now.”

Bennings reluctantly let Jarod lead the way to the car. He’d done his best to help his friend make amends with his past – the next moves would have to Jarod’s alone.

~~~~~~~~~*

“We have a problem,” Phil stated urgently as he burst through the etched glass doors without knocking. “Mr. Orinde…”

“You know, my sister used to walk into my office without knocking,” Lyle stated in a slightly reminiscing way, “and it used to piss me off something fierce. From her, of course, it was deliberate disrespect – she did it BECAUSE she knew it pissed me off. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about sweepers was that they knew their place.” The last few words were uttered with an increasingly hard and cold tone. Lyle looked up and glared.

Phil was tired of the grandstanding. “Mr. Lyle, Mr. Orinde is gone,” he announced urgently.

Lyle’s face lost the glare as the surprise set in. “Gone? As in…”

“As in when the limo showed up at the hotel in Dover to bring him to the Centre this morning, the driver was informed that the African delegation had checked out over an hour earlier and had taken cabs to the airport.”

“Damn!” Lyle sprang from his seat and began to pace behind the desk. “They haven’t confirmed me in my position yet – this isn’t good. Something must be wrong.”

“What do you want me to do?” Phil asked, glad that Lyle was now focusing on the problem at hand, rather than pondering ways to kill the messenger.

Lyle paced and thought for a while. “Anything from Salt Lake City?”

“No, sir.”

“Shit!” He paced some more and then forced himself to sit back down. “OK. We’re going to conduct business as usual – jumping the gun where the Triumvirate is concerned never does anybody any good. Make sure you get things in order in Baltimore…”

“What is it with Baltimore, sir?” Phil asked, his curiosity finally getting the best of him. “I mean, why has the Centre ever shut down a murder investigation it didn’t have a direct…” He stared, and Lyle raised his gaze to stare back with a flat expression. “Oh.”

“Just get it done,” Lyle said softly. “Quietly, through fourth and fifth parties, if necessary, but get it done! Any luck on finding another empath?”

Phil shook his head. “The records show that there were two – Angelo and a woman named Claire – but Claire died about three years ago during an experiment…”

“Shit! That bald demon just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could he?” Lyle muttered to himself. “OK. Keep up the pressure to find Angelo – he’s got to be here in the Centre somewhere.” He gazed at Phil, who stood there in shock. “Don’t just stand there like a statue, Get To It!”

Phil shot an unreadable glance over his shoulder at his boss as he walked toward the door. Lyle didn’t bother to try to penetrate his sweeper’s thinking. His entire evening was in jeopardy – he had intended to take Erin out to celebrate his promotion as much as to comfort her for the loss of her friend. By rights, with the African delegation gone without a decision rendered, he needed to stay close to the Centre, to keep an eye on things and respond if circumstances started to brew out of control.

Briefly he thought about calling and canceling his evening with Erin – and then discarded the idea. No, by God! He wasn’t going to let those damned Africans control every aspect of his life the way Raines had attempted to do! He punched a determined finger into the intercom button. “Sung-Li? Cancel all my appointments after two and have the Centre jet ready to depart at three.”

“Yes, sir. Where shall I say is the destination for your flight?” the crisp, musical accent of his secretary came back to him immediately.

“Baltimore,” he replied with a smile. “I have business there that just can’t wait.”

~~~~~~~~~*

“You have a visitor,” Michelle announced as she pushed through the door to Miss Parker’s room – and then held it open so that Sydney could walk slowly through.

“Syd!” Miss Parker grimaced as she sat up straighter and reached for the controls of her bed.

Sam, who had been sitting in the chair next to her, quickly abandoned his seat so that the older man could rest in it once he’d gotten closer. Michelle touched the sweeper’s arm. “Let’s let them talk privately,” she said, motioning with her head toward the door. Sam’s gaze touched his boss’, and she nodded agreement.

Sydney’s steps were slow as he walked the short distance between the door and Miss Parker’s bedside, keeping a hand on the nearby wall for balance. That same hand was warm when he reached out a grasped hers – and he then moved close enough to run the back of his fingers against her cheek. “Your fever’s down, thank God,” he commented, letting the fingers remain just long enough that the gesture of medical concern could transform into a gentle caress.

“Lucky you, you’re back on your feet,” she said wryly. “They won’t let me do anything except trips to the bathroom yet.”

“You were the worse injured,” he reminded her in a soft and accented voice. “And you had an infection that I had no way to control up there. As for me, I’m all bundled up in a back brace and this cervical collar – I have to turn around just to turn my head!” He had to turn, to illustrate the point, to see where the chair was that Sam had left unoccupied – and then turn again to back into it to sit down, his movements still very slow and careful.

“I’m so glad you decided to stop by – I’ve been worried about you,” she told him with a gentle smile. “Oh, and did Sam tell you the news about Raines?”

Sydney’s shake of the head was only barely perceptible. “Jarod told me about it yesterday,” he said, then watched when Miss Parker’s face clouded over. “He said he was going to look in on you too…”

“He did,” she confirmed, averting her eyes. “He left not long after – he said he’d promised to get Carl Bennings to San Francisco. THAT lucky stiff has already been released.”

“Parker…” Sydney began cautiously, “what are you not telling me?”

“Nothing,” she insisted, groping for the façade she inevitably wore when her emotions were just too raw to be dealt with directly. She pasted on a smile. “I see Michelle is here.”

“Yes,” Sydney decided to let the matter slip for the time being and then smiled softly at the thought of the woman he loved being back in his life just a little bit. “She came the minute she heard – and considering the hassle it takes to get me into this back brace contraption, I’m hoping I can talk her into coming back to Blue Cove for a little while at least.”

“You did hear what Lyle tried, didn’t you?”

“Jarod filled me in on all the main points – specifically that Lyle pushed through some termination orders on us that didn’t quite work out as planned,” Sydney nodded, and then gazed at her. “Is there more?”

“I called the Triumvirate today and found out that Lyle had written a prospectus report for his assuming the Chairmanship at the Centre that took my – our – deaths as a given. Sometime today, I’ll be getting a visit from Mr. Abé himself to discuss the issue.”

Sydney shook his head. “That should rattle Lyle’s little dream.”

Her answering smile was cold. “That’s the main idea. Lyle should know better than to assume when it comes to me.” But suddenly, her face cleared and she looked at him with almost hesitancy in her eyes. “Sydney, I wanted to talk to you about something important…”

“What is that?” He bent forward as best he could.

“About what we talked about… up there…”

“Yes?”

“That’s still…” She swallowed hard. Putting her emotions out in the open had always been difficult – making herself vulnerable to anyone since her mother’s death had been a recipe for disaster. And yet… “We’re still working on that fresh page – between just us – aren’t we?”

Sydney carefully scooted his chair much closer to the side of the hospital bed. “I told you… up there… that as far as I was concerned, we’d already wiped the slate clean and started over.” He caught her left hand in his. “I meant what I said – and I wouldn’t go back on that, even if I could.”

“I mean, I just…” This was so hard!

“Parker…” Sydney’s hand tightened on hers so that she couldn’t pull away. “What’s wrong?” Why would she be acting this way? She wasn’t normally this clingy… “What happened with Jarod?” he asked, guessing at the cause of her out of character behavior.

She glanced at him, her face struggling for that imperious façade again but failing miserably. “We argued, of course,”

“Uh-huh.” Sydney doubted that it had been one of their normal arguments – there wasn’t much of anything that Jarod had to disclose to Miss Parker that she didn’t already know, and even less reason for him to be taunting her or attempting to prick her conscience. “And what else?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“To have you suffering from a fear of abandonment again, frankly, no.” He held on tightly again as she tried to extricate her hand. “Listen to me, cheri. We became family on that mountain – you aren’t saying you want to forget…?”

“No!” The hand in his turned and clung. “I was just afraid that, now that we were safe, you’d tell me you were just trying to keep me calm…”

Sydney wished that his movement wasn’t so restricted, or that the brace he was wearing didn’t make it seem as if he were wearing a plastic tortoise shell. Without loosening his grip on her hand, he rose carefully from his chair and moved to perch precariously on the edge of her bed. In doing so, he pulled her hand so that it lay against his chest, close to his heart. “I didn’t say to you what I did simply to calm you. I meant every word. You are the daughter I never had – and I mean to hold you to your wish to start over.”

Miss Parker looked at his face for a long time, and then tipped forward into his arms. “I just need…” she sighed, unable to complete the sentence.

Sydney’s arms closed around her. “I’m here, Parker,” he soothed into her hair. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Her left arm slipped around him, not caring that he felt as if he were encased in hard plastic. Not since Tommy died had she felt so cherished – safe. “I’m going to hold you to that,” she quipped with a hitch in her voice.

Sydney closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the fact that he was holding the woman he’d always thought of as a daughter and comforting her the way he’d always wished she would allow. “Be my guest,” he murmured and kissed the top of her forehead. “Knock yourself out.”

Miss Parker smiled. This was at least one good thing to come from an absolutely terrifying and agonizing crisis in her life.

~~~~~~~~~*

Agent Stein watched with a triumphant expression as Lyle unknowingly walked away from him across the tarmac toward the black jet belonging to the Centre. He nodded as he listened to the voice in his ear. “Yes, sir, he’s getting on the jet as we speak. I have two men waiting outside his apartment building for the word to execute the search warrant…” He nodded again. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

He pulled the cell phone from his ear and used speed dial to reach another number immediately. “Move in,” he ordered brusquely.

~~~~~~~~~*

Sam carefully kept his face composed in an expression of strict neutrality, but couldn’t help the inward chuckle at the appearance of a visit from a head of state. Mr. Abé, nominal head of the Triumvirate, came into the small, private hospital room with a contingent of two bodyguards who ranged themselves against the back wall by the door of the rest room. Sam and Al were on either side of Miss Parker’s bed. It was ridiculous that in a room the size of a large postage stamp, there were more bodyguards than principles – and neither of the principles looked in any shape to do anybody any harm at all.

“Miss Parker,” Mr. Abé intoned with a very polite bow. “We are gratified to see that you are feeling better.”

Miss Parker’s grey eyes showed neither fear nor submission. “Since my brother not only has me written out of the game entirely, but sent along men to make sure I didn’t suddenly resurrect, I’m not surprised.”

Mr. Abé moved into the chair next to the bed. “He moved against you?”

Miss Parker’s hand waved. “This is Al Douglas, one of two cleaners Lyle had dispatched from the Salt Lake City office to make sure that I didn’t survive to come down from the mountain.”

The steel-grey head nodded slowly. “That does change the dynamics of the situation considerably. For one thing, it calls into question the dependability of anything that Mr. Lyle might try to claim in future.”

“I’m sure the Triumvirate is very aware of Lyle’s dependability,” Miss Parker deadpanned grimly. “He did spend quite a bit of time training with your organization.”

“Be that as it may,” Mr. Abé waved a graceful hand to brush aside uncomfortable truths, “we have come to hear from you what your intentions would be if you were appointed as the new Chairman.”

Miss Parker’s storm-grey gaze bored a hole in the ebony gaze of the older African. “Then I’ll make it simple for you. I have no intention of vying for the Chairmanship. Keep the job – I don’t want it.”

“Are you saying that you’re willing to step aside and let your brother’s application for the job take precedence?”

“I’m saying I’m through with the Centre,” she announced quietly. “I have lived my entire life in that place – and I’ve watched it eat people alive. I find that now that I’m just barely a survivor, I value my life even more than before – and I don’t want to waste it inside Tower walls. I want out – and I want guarantees that I can get out someway other than in a box.”

“Frankly, Miss Parker,” Mr. Abé squirmed in his chair, “we are not pleased with the idea of Mr. Lyle as Chairman. Are you sure that you wouldn’t consider…”

“You dealt just fine with Mr. Raines as Chairman,” she reminded him sharply, “and he was a monster.”

“We were preparing to remove Mr. Raines from his position when he met his untimely demise,” the African announced calmly. “The Centre’s profitability has suffered greatly during his tenure – we were hoping that with a less draconian hand at the helm, you could restore much of the lost prestige and earning power…”

“It’s very easy for you to say that now,” Miss Parker shook her head carefully and winced when the movement made her shoulder ache. “I’m sure you’re aware that Mr. Parker’s and Mr. Raines’ leadership of the Centre was questionable on a number of fronts, not just profitability. The Centre has frankly outlived itself, Mr. Abé – for a very long time now, it has been eating away at itself from the inside out. The time has come for it to be put out of its misery.”

“How so?” Mr. Abé folded his hands.

“The Centre needs to close and all its assets to be absorbed into the greater Triumvirate organization. It will take time to make all the arrangements necessary for the corporate organ to cease to exist – and that would be the only thing I’d be willing to do for either the Centre or the Triumvirate. I will preside over shutting the Centre down, but I will not be responsible for keeping it running.”

“Your brother disagrees,” Mr. Abé told her calmly. “He foresees a return to profitability with a turning away from the failed Prodigy and Pretender projects and a renewed focus on more traditional forms of research.”

“My brother would run the Centre into the ground,” Miss Parker snarled, “and will take down anyone and anything remotely associated with him. He sees the Centre as a personal power tool and limitless bank account with which to fund his various ‘diversions.’” She watched Mr. Abé’s face wrinkle in disgust. “That you know what I mean tells me you know that what I’m telling you is the truth.”

“And the Centre cannot exist without a Parker running it,” Mr. Abé mused aloud, and then looked at her. “That is one of the conditions of the supportive relationship the Triumvirate has had with the Centre all along. If no Parker is willing or suitable to take the job, then the Centre must close.”

“So you agree with me that the Centre should be closed?” Miss Parker didn’t dare believe that it had been that easy to convince the wily old African to give up a major US cash cow.

“We are intrigued by your vision of the future – and we would want a report from you predicting the way in which you would attempt to salvage as much of our investment as possible while shutting the Centre down.”

Miss Parker shook her head. “So much of what I would be basing any prediction on is information that I was never allowed access to. Frankly, a report would be a waste of my time and yours. Either you want to keep the Centre open, in which case you will accept whatever bilge Lyle wants to feed you – or you can see the same handwriting on the wall that I do, in which case you’ll let me try to make extracting your investment as painless as possible.”

Mr. Abé narrowed his eyes. “You don’t seem willing to leave many alternatives.”

“There aren’t all that many alternatives in this situation,” she insisted. “Besides, I can’t see where closing the Centre isn’t in the Triumvirate’s best interests anyway – for as long as I can remember, your associates have been trying to gain an upper hand at the Centre…”

“The Centre has contacts and influence in areas that we do not,” Mr. Abé informed her with simple frankness. “Part of the reason that we don’t necessarily want to see the Centre close is that we don’t want to lose those contacts and a way to exert influence…”

“I can almost guarantee you that you’re going to lose them one way or the other,” Miss Parker was adamant. “Lyle’s use of contacts and influence will be mostly to try to buy his sorry ass out of one jam or another – he has no appreciation for the kind of research that the Centre COULD be involved in that would be profitable and influence-stretching. He’s been walking on the unsavory side of the street too long.”

Her finger pointed into the blanket on her thigh to illustrate her point. “What’s more, the Triumvirate has been too supportive of the Centre’s less than ethical projects and techniques – all in the name of pure profit. Under Lyle’s aegis, you could expect the nature of the work done here to slip even further – and eventually you will have to consider the question of how long the American government will allow such perversions to be committed at taxpayer expense before it begins to balk. Once you lose the blessing of government contracts, it won’t take long until the public sector begins to grow wary.”

“The Centre has always been able to deliver the bottom line on its project contracts, has it not?” Mr. Abé asked, concerned.

“Up until now, yes – but only because Mr. Raines, monster that he was, didn’t shirk on the idea of living up to the terms of a contract. I can guarantee you that Lyle won’t have such scruples.”

Mr. Abé rose. “We will have to think about your offer. We will be back to you with our decision by the end of the day tomorrow – I will need to confer with my associates back in Nairobi before I can finish deliberations.” He put out his hand. “My sincere wishes for a speedy recovery, Miss Parker.”

“Thank you for coming,” Miss Parker nodded at her visitor, and then watched with an unreadable expression as the bodyguards waited for their boss to walk ahead of them and finally leave the three Centre employees alone in the room.

“Close the Centre?” Sam asked quietly after all three of them had taken a deep breath to relax.

“Sorry about that,” Miss Parker let herself fall back into her pillows and then reached for the control to her bed. “It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it’s better that it happen on our terms than on someone else’s.” She glanced over at Al. “I’m really very tired. Why don’t you both go take a break and have some dinner? I don’t think I’ll need guards this evening…”

Sam nodded and then jerked his head, ordering Al from the room. “You going to be all right, Miss Parker?”

“If Mr. Abé takes my offer, I will be,” she said with another sigh. “Tell Al that he’s off duty until the morning, and I want you to go back to the motel and get a good night’s sleep too. I’m hoping to talk my doctors into letting me out of this prison tomorrow or the next day, so I want you in good shape – because I’m not going to be.”

Sam wasn’t quite sure her getting herself released from the hospital already was a good idea, but he knew better than to argue with her. “Yes, ma’am.”

~~~~~~~~*

Agent Stein showed his badge to the officer standing guard at Lyle’s apartment door and then moved through. “C’mon, you guys! They’d really like to move on this guy tonight, before he comes back…” he urged the several plainclothes officers taking Lyle’s apartment apart piece by piece with latex gloves. “Haven’t you found anything yet?”

“Well, we have some possibilities,” one officer announced from the kitchen area. He walked into the living area – where the forensics officer had a small testing area set up – carrying a baggie. “Tell me I’m wrong, but doesn’t that look like blood or meat juices?”

“We’ll see,” the forensics officer told him and took charge of the baggie. She took a swab from a sterile package and wiped it through the interior of the bag, and then took a small bottle of liquid from her test kit and let a drop land on the swab. When the swab turned brilliant red, she nodded. “It’s blood all right…”

“But is it human?” Stein asked anxiously. “The killer took a very sizeable hunk of Miss Fu with him when he left – we’re nowhere if we can’t prove the blood’s human.”

“Hold onto your panties,” the forensics officer quipped and then swabbed the inside of the bag once more. This time, she deposited the material into a small cylindrical testing tube and added another chemical to the sample. She closed the top over the cylinder and shook it vigorously for a moment, and then turned the cylinder on its side to look at the display. “We have a plus,” she announced with a triumphant yet dark smile. “That means the blood’s human.”

“Damn!” The officer blanched. “What do you suppose he did with…” Then he blanched just a little more. “Oh shit!”

“What?” The officer’s extreme reaction had Stein moving to follow him into Lyle’s austere and yet very utilitarian kitchen.

The officer opened the stainless steel refrigerator door and pulled out a pot with a lid on it. He opened it, and swallowed hard at the pleasant and savory aroma that began to escape. “How do we test THIS?” he asked, thrusting the pot under Stein’s nose and showing him that there were several pieces of cooked meat nestled against the remains of cooked white rice.

“Sheila!” Stein bellowed and carried the pot in to the forensics officer. “What about this?”

The woman looked into the pot and shook her head. “That will take a little more time, and need the lab.”

“Hey, Stein! I think we got him!”

Another officer came into the living area with a black bag that he opened in front of his boss. “Here,” he said to the forensics officer, handing her a shining stainless steel scalpel. “Test this.”

Sheila took the scalpel gingerly and reached into her kit for a spray bottle. The luminal spread across the surgical instrument and glowed blue. “We have blood,” she announced and then swabbed one of the bluish blotches. Another test cylinder was brought out of her kit and had the sample from the scalpel added to it. Again the test chemical was added and the tube shaken vigorously. “It’s human!”

“That’s it!” Stein crowed and hauled out his cell phone. “We can at least arrest him on suspicion of murder – that will give us the time to finish the rest of the forensics and DNA tests.”

~~~~~~~~*

Erin took another bite of her seafood salad, wishing that she weren’t so nervous that she could hardly taste it. Her stomach was in knots from the thought of the miniature microphone that had been hidden beneath the bulky sweater she was wearing, worried that Lyle somehow would be able to see or detect it. She’d been grateful that there had been no wires or tape recorder taped to her body, like she’d seen far too many times on TV – the range of the microphone was great enough that the officers sitting outside the restaurant would be able to hear ever word said.

“How’s your salad?” Lyle asked, taking a sip from his white wine. “You’re very quiet.”

“I told you that I wasn’t going to be very good company,” Erin reminded him. “The salad’s fine – I’m just not very hungry.”

“You can’t stop eating over this,” he shook his head at her. “You’ll make yourself sick…”

“She was my best friend,” Erin cried softly, battling tears. “The idea that she was killed already HAS made me sick…”

“OK, OK,” Lyle soothed, reaching out and patting her hand on the table very gently. “I know how you feel…”

“How the hell would you know…”

“My best friend was murdered too, when I was in high school,” Lyle told her in a very matter of fact voice. “My foster father went to prison for it.” There was no reason to tell her that his best friend had died at HIS hand in order to be mistaken for HIM so that HE could escape the prison that was his foster home.

Erin stared. “That’s awful!” she blurted, stunned. “How did…”

“He pushed him over a cliff. They didn’t find him for a while…”

She continued to stare at him, once more conflicted. He seemed to be so sincere, so caring – certainly he couldn’t have done what the police wanted to believe he’d done… “What did you do?”

“I left my foster mother and started traveling,” he remembered, sitting back in his chair and relaxing a bit. “That’s about the time I ended up traveling to Africa, like I told you about the other night…”

Erin nodded. “I remember.”

“So you see,” he stated, pointing to the fork in her hand which had hung in the air with a bite of salad on it for a while now, “I know how devastating the loss of a friend can be – and how easy it is to make yourself sick over it. I’m not going to let you make the same mistakes I did.”

She obediently put the bite of salad in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. As much as she didn’t want to, she was finding herself relaxing and wanting to enjoy the evening with him again. The police just HAD to be wrong. “Better?” she asked with the very tiniest trace of humor.

“A few more like that, and it will definitely be much better,” he smiled at her.

Erin found herself smiling back and then looking down into her food guiltily. She hoped that whatever the police were doing that was being aided by her keeping him occupied would exonerate him – because it was very difficult not to enjoy his company. “So, tell me about your day,” she asked suddenly, wanting something else to occupy her thoughts than Cherry’s death and Lyle’s potential involvement in it. “You’ve been in such a good mood…”

“Well,” Lyle found himself smiling proudly at her, “I think I’m on the verge of a big promotion. The last man at the top where I work just recently moved on, and the powers that be are considering my recommendation.”

“You mean, a promotion to CEO?” Erin stared. “You’ll be the boss of everybody there?”

Lyle’s grin grew wider. “Yup. And then, perhaps, I can make a little more space in my schedule to come up to Baltimore. Would you like that?”

Erin hesitated before nodding. If Lyle were innocent, she would very much enjoy his company on a more regular basis. “When will you know for sure?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. The men responsible for making that decision got called away today – I’m hoping to hear from them tomorrow morning.”

“You have to be back at work in the morning.” It wasn’t a question.

“Just like the last time,” Lyle answered softly, but with plenty of meaning behind the simple words. “I have some meetings I just can’t miss – especially if I’m going to be Number One around there.” He reached out and claimed her hand again. “But I can stay for a while,” he promised her in a low and seductive voice, “if you want me to.”

The young blonde caught herself as she was about to agree. What would he think if, as he undressed her, he found the microphone? No – tonight would have to be just the dinner. The next time, however, would be much more memorable for having had him cleared of any wrongdoing. “I have to get the paper written that I was supposed to do with Cherry,” she told him with a voice filled with genuine regret. “I’m afraid that this time…”

“That’s OK,” Lyle soothed, bringing her hand to his lips before letting go again. “These things happen.” No, he wasn’t happy at all. He wanted to spend the night in her arms again – to feel the intoxicating freedom of making love to a woman who wanted him. But circumstances were conspiring against him.

“Mr. Lyle Parker?”

Lyle looked up into a very taciturn face. “Yes?”

“Also known as Mr. Robert Lyle?”

Lyle’s face froze at the mention of the very old alias. “Is there something I can do for you?”

The two men facing him pulled badges from their overcoat pockets. “We’re Baltimore P.D. homicide detectives, Mr. Parker – or whatever your name really is. You’re under arrest for the kidnap, rape and murder of Cherry Fu.”

Lyle glanced at Erin’s face and found it a mask of surprise and sudden loathing. “No! Erin…”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Bill Lowe told him as he hauled the man up and out of his chair so that his partner could handcuff Lyle’s hands behind him. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…”

“Erin!” Lyle was desperate. “Call the Centre – tell them to send a lawyer…”

His last vision of her was her pale and stunned face sitting behind a plateful of seafood salad before Stan Bridges had turned him to walk face forward through the restaurant doors and toward the squad car.

~~~~~~~~~*

Jarod sat staring at his TV, a can of raspberry ice tea – a recent discovery – in one hand and the remote in the other. Carl Bennings, he knew, was downstairs at the dinner being thrown for the founder and the trustees of the foundation, having the time of his life. Too overwhelmed by the last few days’ events, Jarod had begged off and retreated to his room to channel surf and try not to think too hard. Unfortunately, nothing on the TV caught his attention, and his mind refused to simply stop.

So much of what Parker had told him had rung true – that in most cases, everything he’d done with or to her had inevitably been more about him than about her. His desire to puncture the balloon of her unconditional love of Mr. Parker had even had a selfish facet to it – namely to win her loyalty to himself and his cause than to free her from an illusion that was slowly eating her alive.

Was that all he’d been doing – feeding a selfish desire to reshape the world according to his own whims and wishes? And if so, how did that make him any different than the hated and despised powers that be in the Centre Tower who had held him prisoner for most of his life to serve THEIR purposes? What kind of a person did that make him?

Confused and for the first time utterly demoralized, he reached for his cell phone before he knew what he was doing and pressed a speed dial number that he hadn’t touched for nearly six years.

The phone on the other end rang three times before the line was picked up. “This is Sydney.”

“Sydney.” That one word was a cry for help and a sigh of comfort rolled into one. Jarod hadn’t realized just how much of a touchstone Sydney’s availability on the other end of a phone call had been – or how much he’d missed it dreadfully in the years since he’d forcibly prohibited himself from reaching out.

“Hello, Jarod.” The Belgian psychiatrist’s voice sounded calm and secure – almost knowing. “I’ve been expecting your call.”

“How do I stop making it all be about me and my wishes?” Jarod blurted out, summarizing his dilemma.

“You can’t,” Sydney’s voice was comfortingly warm. “It’s the downside to having a sense of self. You’re reaching for an ideal form of altruism – something unattainable.”

“I didn’t want to hurt her…”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” the softly musical voice rumbled in his ear. “All of us do what we think is right – for ourselves and for those around us. Many times, we can be very blind to the impact our actions have on those others until they’re brought forcefully to our attention – and then the realization does US damage in the process.” There was a pause. “That was, after all, some of the substance of our discussion just yesterday, was it not?”

Jarod blinked and for the first time recognized the same type of motivation in his actions toward Miss Parker as had existed in many of Sydney’s actions over his lifetime. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but…”

“The problem comes in assuming the authority to make decisions for another,” Sydney continued as if giving a lecture. “Because we believe we’re right, we tend to overlook the fact that those others whom our decision affects may not agree with us – may believe quite differently.”

The Pretender slouched in his chair, his raspberry ice tea temporarily forgotten. “How do I make it right again?” he asked plaintively.

“In regard to Miss Parker, I’m not sure you can,” Sydney answered with gentle honesty. “I know I’ve been working for nearly ten years to make up for my part in what was done to you, and I’ve only just scratched the surface.” There was another pause. “There’s another thing – in my experience, it’s far harder to forgive yourself, once you realize what you’ve been doing, than to win the forgiveness of the one you hurt in your single-minded zeal. Apologies are only words, they may make the one apologizing feel better, in many cases may justify the anger or hurt in the one being apologized to. But as a resolution technique, they are insufficient on their own.”

Jarod leaned into the cell phone, propping it and his head up by propping the elbow on the overstuffed arm of the chair. “But I can’t leave things like this, Sydney. How do I start showing that I’ve changed?”

“By not making the same mistake again,” Sydney told him bluntly. “Learn from the recognition of your mistake, and don’t do it again. Be aware of how and when you tend to make your mistake and be more mindful in similar situations in future. Finally – although this is where patience and persistence comes into play – you have to demonstrate to those you’ve harmed that you’ve changed, and you do so by demonstrating by your actions over time that you aren’t making that same mistake again.”

“So I shouldn’t call her and apologize?”

“I didn’t say that,” Sydney countered. “On the contrary, your calling her would go a long way toward preventing either of you from believing the other wants to just ditch your relationship completely. You do feel your friendship is worth preserving, do you not?”

That made Jarod sit up a little straighter. “Of course I do!”

“Then call her one of these days. I think she could probably use the lift.” Jarod was quiet for a long moment. “Jarod? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. You know, I was thinking that I’ve missed our talks.”

Sydney’s voice had never been warmer. “I missed them as well.”

The silence that grew spoke eloquently of bridges being mended. “Thanks.”

“Take care of yourself – and say hello to Mr. Bennings for me.”

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