The first thing that Miss Parker could sense was pain – sharp and insistent – in her right shoulder. Slowly pushing herself toward wakefulness, she moaned and tried to shift to alleviate the pain and very nearly lost her fragile grip on consciousness for her trouble. For a long moment she remained completely still, almost afraid to breathe lest it bring back the agony, and then finally she forced her eyelids to flutter open so she could begin to take stock of her situation.

Her left arm was in an odd and uncomfortable position, twisted almost backwards behind her; but by biting her lip and moving slowly and carefully, she was able to draw it back into her lap without much distress. About then the silence that surrounded her finally penetrated her shocked brain, and she lifted her head to look around her, groaning when even that was painful.

To her left, Sydney was very still, slumped with his chin down on his chest. What she could see of his face was deathly pale. “Oh God, no!” she breathed and carefully lifted her left hand to place practiced fingers against his neck – ignoring the ache that came with movement. Beneath her fingertips, she could feel the pulse in the carotid artery tapping strongly and regularly. Whatever else might be wrong with him, it was most likely that Sydney had been knocked unconscious at roughly the same time she had, and was just taking a little longer to come around again. Her fingers straightened some of the silver hair back behind an ear in an unthinking gesture of fondness and comfort-taking – the tiniest corner of her world had stabilized just a bit knowing that he, at least, was still with her.

Now she was brave enough to actually look around her to assess their situation – and what she saw and heard was not encouraging. There was an eerie silence hovering over and around her – one that made her skin crawl. She remembered that there had not been many people in the first class section with them – only a man and a woman who from their behavior had been newlyweds sitting two rows up on the opposite side, and another man two rows behind them on the opposite side. There was now an ugly rip in the side of the fuselage where the couple had been seated, and broken tree limbs protruded through the metal and had demolished the seats even as they had forced them back a complete row. Miss Parker could see a very limp hand dangling over the bent arm of the seat – and it looked as if there had been a steady stream of blood that had flowed down past the wrist, down the fingers to puddle on the warped floor.

From behind, however, the eerie silence was suddenly broken by a soft moan and then the sound of movement. “Hey!” Miss Parker called out. “You OK?”

The moaning ceased, but the sound of movement continued for a while. Then, finally, “I think I’m OK – but I’m not sure.”

“Can you move?”

“I can’t get the damned seatbelt loose,” the man’s voice stated in a flat and almost detached tone. “What about you?”

“I’m hurt,” she replied. “I can’t move my shoulder at all without practically passing out again.”

“How’s your father?”

Miss Parker opened her mouth to deny the relationship, but the sound of a soft moan from Sydney cut off her statement before it was uttered. Immediately she turned back to her companion and moved her left hand a little more surely, brushing silver hair back as the Belgian began to stir. “Syd! Talk to me.”

Slowly the chin came up off the chest, and slowly the hooded chestnut eyes fluttered open. Sydney blinked several times in rapid succession, and then sighed. “Parker?”

“I’m here,” she said softly and ran her hand along the side of his head again. “You OK?”

Again, moving slowly, Sydney began to move each extremity very cautiously. He straightened further in his seat and turned his head to the side – only then giving a low grunt of pain. He turned to face her, displaying a huge lump on his right temple that had dried blood trickling down from the small cut that was in the center of the lump and the ugly bruise that covered it. “I’m seeing double at the moment,” he told her wryly, “and my neck is stiff - but as far as I can tell otherwise, I am… intact. How about…” His eyes traveled from her face to her right side, and then quickly back up to her face again. “Oh.”

Miss Parker suddenly realized she hadn’t looked down to see what it was that was so very painful, and moved carefully to remedy the situation. “Oh,” she repeated Sydney’s sound when she saw a shattered and broken length of wood as big around as his thumb – probably a splintered shard from one of the heavy branches that had torn things to shreds not far ahead of them – protruding from her shoulder three inches. Her blouse front was entirely drenched with blood.

Slowly she moved her left hand to reach for and grab the wood to pull it out of her body – only to have that hand caught and held in Sydney’s. “Don’t,” he ordered sharply, “not yet. Wait until we have enough bandages around to staunch the wound afterwards.”

“It hurts like a son of a bitch,” she hissed.

“I know.” His voice shimmered with sympathy. He carried her hand back to her lap and left it there with a couple of fond pats. “But I don’t want you bleeding to death on me after surviving this far.”

Grey eyes darted up to meet chestnut and then looked way, the amount of raw emotion they’d witnessed having made Miss Parker first very uncomfortable and then inexplicably warm and safe. “I can’t stay this way forever,” she snapped to cover her confusion.

There was a soft snick of metal on metal, and then the sounds of movement increased dramatically from behind the pair. Sydney looked up as a hand suddenly touched his shoulder. “Folks, we can’t stay here,” the stranger, a tall man with a full shock of sandy hair and vivid green eyes, said in a worried tone. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Where do you suggest we go – the closest hotel?” Miss Parker quipped after having shifted to see who owned the voice and not quite screaming as the movement tore at her shoulder again. “And can we get limo service – you see, I really don’t think I’m up to the walk.”

“Parker,” Sydney chided gently. “Really.”

The stranger merely shrugged. “I really don’t give a damn about niceties, Pops – all I’m concerned about at the moment is getting the hell out of here.” He looked down into startled grey and suddenly very worried chestnut. “I don’t know about you two, but I really don’t want to be in the area should there be any open fires from the crash reaching unspent jet fuel that spilled during the crash…”

Sydney’s fingers began fumbling with his seat belt even as the stranger bent and reached down to unfasten Miss Parker’s. Once she was free, the stranger waited until Sydney had staggered slowly to his feet and moved out of the way before bending down again and slipping his arm around Miss Parker’s waist.

“Hey! At least, if you’re going to manhandle me like this,” she grumbled softly, “you could tell me your name.”

“Bennings, Carl Bennings,” the stranger replied with a slightly surprised look on his face. “And I heard your dad call you Parker – I take it that’s your name?”

“I…”

Again she wasn’t given time to deny the relationship. “Fine,” Bennings took her expression for confirmation. “Now that we know each other, hang on…” And Bennings very carefully pulled Parker out of her seat and to her feet – ignoring entirely the grinding yell that grew in intensity as time went on.

“Wait a minute.” Sydney move in front of the pair to halt any movement and then took very careful hold of Miss Parker’s right hand. He moved it slowly and carefully just far enough so that he could tuck it securely into the tight, blood-soaked waistband of her trousers. “That should keep it more or less immobile for the time being,” he told her, wishing he dared hold her as she struggled against the sobs of agony that had her biting her lip viciously. “And scream if you have to – you don’t need to bite so hard to you start bleeding from the lip too.”

“Ready?” Bennings asked the woman whose weight he was almost completely supporting.

Sydney moved closer and wrapped his arm about her waist from the other side. “Let’s take it slowly.”

~~~~~~~~~*

Sam rose painfully from his seat on the molded plastic benches of the hospital lobby when he saw Broots’ familiar face coming through the front door. Broots didn’t look a whole lot better than Sam felt – his face was very pale, and his eyes had that tired look that came when one was having to struggle to put on a game face. “You look wonderful…”

Broots gave the sweeper a quick, assessing glance. “You’re no feast for the eyes either,” he commented and then coughed. “Ready to go – or do you have paperwork to finish?”

Sam shook his head. “I started the paperwork to get myself discharged against medical advice several hours ago.” He gestured. “Let’s go.” The two men, neither of whom were moving very quickly at all, moved through the automatic door as a team. “Anything new happen?”

“I heard from Jarod…” Broots answered flatly.

Sam stopped in his tracks and stared. “Say what?”

It took Broots a moment to discover that his companion had halted a few steps behind him. “I said Jarod called,” he repeated, turning to face Sam.

“What the hell did Jarod want, of all people…” Sam shook his head at the mysteries of life – just when the entire Centre was getting to the point that they figured the lost Pretender would never surface again, up he popped!

“He said he’d seen the news about Raines and wanted to talk to Miss Parker – but couldn’t reach her.” Broots’ face mirrored his unhappiness. “I had to tell him the rest of it.”

“And now I suppose he’s going to drop everything and help us,” Sam postulated in a seriously exasperated tone.

“Not exactly.” Broots smiled inwardly – like himself, Sam obviously hadn’t appreciated the self-doubts that Jarod’s clues to Miss Parker had inspired anymore than he had. For the first time, he felt something in common with the huge, muscular sweeper other than the fact that they both worked for Miss Parker. Still… “He did say, however, that somebody he had been working for recently was also on that plane – and that from what he could gather, there were no signs of tampering or sabotaging anything before take-off. In case we were suspecting Mr. Lyle, of course…”

Sam nodded. “Well, that’s something, at least.” He moved to the opposite side of the car that Broots had approached and was now inserting the key in the car door lock. “Get in. You do realize we’re both going to need to make ourselves scarce…”

Broots turned a haunted in his direction as he slid behind the wheel. “You don’t think…”

“Look – Lyle’s no fool. He knows we’re more loyal to Miss Parker and Sydney than to either him or to the Centre,” Sam told him frankly. “I’m a little surprised that he hasn’t sent a cleaner team out for us already.”

“Damn!” Broots hit the ignition and threw the car into gear. “Debbie!”

“We’ll stop at your place – you two can pack as much as she can as quickly as she can – then we’ll make a similar quick stop at my place to pick up some things. After that…”

“Where will we go?” Broots asked, aiming the car in the direction of the same two-lane road that Sam had been on just the night before.

“I know where I’d WANT to go,” Sam stated emphatically and then shrugged at the questioning look he got from the driver. “Utah,” he answered the unvoiced question. “I sure as hell don’t intend to be twenty-five hundred miles away when Miss Parker needs me closer to where she is.”

“Utah.” Broots rolled the idea over in his head. “The mountains – at this time of year?”

“You don’t have to come with if you don’t want to,” Sam told him seriously. “In fact, maybe you and Debbie should head off in a completely different direction…”

“If you think you’re going to help Miss Parker and I’m going to run scared in the opposite direction…” Broots shook his head firmly. “I’m already packed – I keep a bag with essentials ready in the trunk just in case Miss Parker gives one of those ‘we gotta go now, boys’ calls to go try catch Jarod. I’ll get on the computer and have plane tickets for the three of us while Debbie packs. I’ll drop you at your place first – then pick you up again on the way out of town.”

“You’re sure?” Sam gazed evenly at his companion. “This ain’t gonna be a cakewalk, you know…”

“Since when has anything having to do with the Centre been a cakewalk?” Broots asked back rhetorically. “Just tell me how to get to your place, willya?”

~~~~~~~~~*

It had been easier than he’d thought.

Lyle gazed contentedly at the unconscious Chinese beauty in the passenger seat next to him while he was sitting at the stoplight, and then turned his attention back to the road when the light turned green. This one had as much of a ‘thing’ for Caucasian men as he had for Chinese women, it turned out – all it had taken was a smile and an offer of a drink to have her climbing into his car. Cherry Fu was about as uncomplicated and fearless woman he’d ever met – she’d even left him briefly to take a short trip to the powder room, giving him enough time to slip the Rohypnol into her drink.

And now she was quietly stretched out on a seat laid back slightly, as if a girlfriend who had gotten too tired. That was the story he would tell the manager of the motel he’d chosen to be the location of the Kill and all that went before – that he needed a place for the night because his girlfriend had fallen ill and needed a warm and private place to rest. Dark would be falling in not too long a time – and there were ways to get motel and hotel personnel to not see what they didn’t need to see.

Lyle guided the black sedan around the corner and up into the parking space in front of the office to the Evening Star Motel – a more ramshackle and shady establishment he’d been unable to find on his quick circuit of Baltimore’s red-light district. He jumped from behind the wheel and walked briskly into the office without a backwards glance at his captive, knowing the drug in her system to have at least another half hour’s worth of stupor left in it before she began to come around.

With a grin and a wink, he had the two of them registered under “Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lyle” and the key to room 67 in his pocket. The managed gave him a jaunty wave as he’d exited the office and headed right back to the car. Room 67 was on the far end of the building – far enough away that any… ahem… noise… would cause as little commotion as possible. Lyle shook his head at the amazing capacity for people to believe his stories – a relatively isolated room at the far end of the low building had been easy to acquire with a simple story of having disturbed the neighbors at the LAST motel they’d stayed at.

Lyle pulled the car practically up to the door of room 67, jumped out, opened the door, and then came back to the car for Cherry. She moaned softly as he picked her up and carried her through the door of the room – and once more when he placed her in the middle of the king-sized bed. He had one more trip to make – to retrieve luggage from the trunk of the sedan – and then one small task to do before he could seal up the room for the rest of the night and into the morning.

His overnight bag was as light as usual – it held a sweat suit, tennis shoes, hangers for his business suit and toiletries only, after all. It was the black Samsonite suitcase that held the weight of his tools of the Hunt – handcuffs, leather straps, condoms, a roll of duct tape, a box of latex gloves, a scalpel, a meat cleaver, a plastic laundry bag, a plastic freezer bag and a very small, battery-powered ice box. Lyle lugged the two into the motel room and closed the door.

As was his wont, he stood for a moment in quiet appreciation of a world that would allow him the full enjoyment of such beauty. Cherry Fu was a delight to the eyes with her slim and strong, sinewy body, her long, straight, blue-black hair and clear ebony and almond eyes. Her sparkling laugh and impish sense of humor had made the Stalking a real pleasure – it wasn’t often he’d been so entertained in the process of making a capture. He took a deep breath and enjoyed once more the scent of her perfume – light but musky.

Still, there was plenty of preparation to be done before the final act of the Hunt could be concluded. Careful not to touch anything with his hands unnecessarily and thus leave fingerprints behind, Lyle put the heavy Samsonite on the luggage rack near the television, and then carried the overnight bag into the bathroom. He returned to the Samsonite and opened it, withdrawing latex gloves which he pulled on immediately. A return trip to the bathroom garnered a damp washrag, with which he wiped down the outside knob of the motel room door, hung out the “Do Not Disturb” sign. That finished, he closed, locked and chained the door from the inside before wiping that down too.

Next, he returned to the Samsonite suitcase and extracted the leather straps that would hold Cherry’s arms and legs securely so that she couldn’t escape before the finale of his personal ritual. He’d had them specially made for him in Africa – each one hooked very effectively to the bottom of the bed frame and was long enough that the set of four together could hold the tiniest of women immobile in the middle of the biggest bed made. One by one he fixed the strap to the frame and then to a limb until Cherry was spread-eagle, utterly immobilized and helpless in the middle of the bed. He went back to the suitcase and cut a length of duct tape with the scalpel and pressed it firmly against her skin – covering her mouth and chin to down under each ear.

He moved into the bathroom and began by spreading the bath mat, one bath towel and the hand towels on the floor so that his feet wouldn’t touch the bare tile and leave any prints that way. He then slowly and carefully removed every stitch of clothing he was wearing – taking the time to hang up the suit and dress shirt on the hangers, which he then hung on the back of the bathroom door. He laid out the sweat suit and tennis shoes near the end of the counter and unpacked his toiletries – then put his dress shoes and socks in the overnight bag for the return trip to Blue Cove.

Lyle took a deep breath. It was this next part that demanded patience. It was all too easy, and in his experience highly unsatisfying, to play with his Prey just lying there, unconscious. The Hunt celebrated Life after all – it wasn’t simply a case of overpower and conquer. Especially this Hunt – he was celebrating the achievement of a lifelong dream. Having his victim virtually comatose wouldn’t be at all proper.

The dose of Rohypnol he’d given Cherry would be wearing off in the next half hour – and he would wait for her to fully regain consciousness before continuing. Instead, he would spend the time sitting next to her, running his hand down his completely clean-shaven body and fantasizing about how good she would be when he took her the first time – how her fear and horror would make her heart pump faster, how her futile attempts to get away from him would add to the passion of the moment,. How his tightening his hands about her throat and squeezing off her air supply as he approached his climax would make her body spasm even more and give him the kind of release that mere consensual sex could only suggest.

He chuckled to himself as he rehearsed his first words to her when she was fully awake and aware of what was going on. He would remind her of her words of bravado earlier – about how there were very few real human monsters in the world – and then gently tell her that those monsters like him that did exist treasured brave souls like her.

The duct tape over her mouth would keep her screams from traveling far – but he’d be right there to enjoy them. It was enough to make his groin tighten already…

~~~~~~~~~*

“Sydney, please…” Miss Parker’s voice was pleading. “I can’t go any further…”

Sydney cast his eyes about the area for some good place to let Miss Parker find a seat, and then he motioned toward a fallen tree trunk with his nose. “Over there,” he directed.

Bennings could feel in his hold on the woman that her strength was failing, so he did what he could to move her over to the log as quickly as possible and then helped her settle down. “Better?” he asked her gently.

Miss Parker shivered and clung to the front of Sydney’s jacket. “Is it j..just me, or is it g..getting c…c…colder?”

Bennings cast his eyes skyward and then looked back down. “There were a lot of clouds under us before we started our descent,” he told her frankly. “And from the looks of things, we’re up pretty high…”

“I’ve got to get that wood out of your shoulder and get you bandaged up before you bleed to death,” Sydney said, stepping back and stripping off his sports jacket to drape about her shoulders. “That’s probably why you’re cold.”

“Are you a doctor?” Bennings asked with a surprised look on his face.

“Psychiatrist,” Sydney replied as he sat down on the fallen log next to Miss Parker and pulled her over so she could lean her good side into his shoulder – not quite frowning when she leaned a little more heavily than he’d expected. “I may spend most of my time healing shattered psyches, but I had to get through med school to get to that point.”

Bennings gave Miss Parker a measuring look. She didn’t look at all well – her face was pale, her eyes closed, her lips were blue. “What do you need to take care of her?”

“Optimally, a sterile field, suturing equipment and a cauterization tool. But,” Sydney shrugged, “at the moment, plenty of clean material to tear apart for bandaging and a sling, some alcohol to sterilize the wound once the wood is removed and blankets to keep her warm and from going into shock once I’m through.”

Bennings cast his eyes back over the terrain they had just traveled and back toward the wreckage. “Stay here,” he told the older man. “I’ll see what I can find. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a galley.”

“Some of the overhead compartments had blankets and pillows,” Sydney suggested – for once grateful for his experience in air travel. “Pillows have pillowcases…”

“Which, if we’re lucky, won’t be paper,” Bennings finished for him. “I’ll be back.” With that, he pushed off to head back up the mountainside toward the wreckage of the first class section they’d just left.

“S…Sydney…”

“Shhhh…” the Belgian soothed, using his left hand to smooth back some of the dark tangles from Miss Parker’s face and mouth. “Just rest against me for a while. Bennings has gone to see if he can find something for bandages, so we can get you tended properly…”

“Are you s…still s…seeing double?” Even through the shivering, the wariness was clear.

“A little,” he admitted reluctantly, “but we don’t have time to worry about me right now.” He lifted the jacket from her shoulder to study the wound and the sticky crimson that had soaked the entire right side of her blouse and trousers – and still looked to be oozing steadily. “Bear with me Parker. This might hurt a bit – but I need to see how bad this is besides the obvious…” He touched her shoulder to the side of the protruding wood carefully and tried not to allow her hissed intake of air knot his stomach. Beneath his fingertips, he could feel her collarbone move in a manner it wasn’t supposed to. “Your collarbone is broken,” he announced bleakly.

“The n…news j…just gets better and b…b…better,” she quipped with forced bravado.

Sydney very gently pulled the jacket back around her and lifted the collar so that just a little more of her exposed skin at the throat and back of the neck was covered, then took her left hand in his left as he moved his right hand very carefully around her back to hold her to him, avoiding a possibly damaged shoulder blade. “Yes, well, the good news is that we’ve both survived this so far,” he reminded her in as warm and comforting a voice as he could manage. “I’m not giving up on either of us yet.”

“I never r…realized what an op…optimist you could b…be,” Miss Parker whispered into the base of his throat.

Sydney didn’t answer. He didn’t need her to know how genuinely frightened he was for her. They were out in the middle of nowhere, high up on a mountainside, and she had already lost a lot of blood. The temperature at the moment was crisp – but the sun would be going down soon, along with the temperatures. Hypothermia was a real danger at this point for her – she didn’t have the blood volume to keep her body temperature properly regulated under such circumstances. Holding her against him for warmth more than comfort, with her wearing his sports jacket, was the best he could do for the time being – it wouldn’t suffice for long.

He gazed up the hillside, through the trees, and prayed that Bennings would return shortly.

~~~~~~~~*

Bennings wrinkled his nose as he pushed himself closer and closer to the wrecked forward section of the aircraft that he’d just escaped not that long before. A little to his left, he could see wreckage far more crumbled and singed and devastated than the forward cabin had been – and there was plenty of evidence that the carnage of the back two thirds of the aircraft was horrific. It was almost obscene to think that he’d virtually walked away from something like this without a scratch, while so many others had had their lives snuffed out like candles in the wind.

The forward cabin had somehow separated from the rest of the plane – both the commercial class section behind them as well as the nose where the flight deck had been located. That front bit of twisted metal lay several dozen yards off to his right yet – mangled and flattened almost beyond recognition. Wires and torn, sharp edges of metal decorated the break where the sections of the plane had pulled or been forced apart, obstacles that took care and some planning to work around and through.

He had to admit, once he’d made it back inside, it was a little less uncomfortable within the broken first class section than it was outside in the breeze. The smell of jet fuel infused the entire area – even the small clearing down the mountainside where he’d left his fellow survivors – and it was no stronger or diffuse within the cabin than it was in the open. If things got any colder outside – and it was possible that if they ended up spending the entire night on the mountain before they were found and rescued, that it would get a LOT colder – it might be wise to bring Miss Parker and her father BACK into the first class cabin for shelter. It meant he’d have to admit he’d made a mistake – and maybe have to carry the injured woman back up the mountainside himself, if she was unable to make the climb on her own steam. But if he could survive this, he thought to himself, looking out the back of the separated section toward the field of carnage, he could survive being discovered to be fallible. And right now survival – his and that of the only other survivors he’d found so far – was the only thing that mattered.

Enough musing, Carl, he finally chided himself. He looked down the line of seats and then up toward the ceiling of the cabin, noting that most of the overhead compartment hatches had fallen open in the violent shaking of the crash. He reached into the first overhead compartment and felt around, only to pull out an empty hand – with the same result for the next three compartments. It was the fourth compartment where his hand first encountered soft fleece – and he pulled out first one grey blanket, and then another.

That would help a little. He put the blankets in the seat closest to the break in the fuselage and went back to his search, slowly and methodically working his way toward the very front of the cabin on the one side of the plane and then back down the other side. By the time he was back where he’d started, he’d found over a dozen of the fleecy blankets and had stripped at least as many pillows of their fine linen pillowcases, thanking God for the high-class tastes of first class passengers overall. He stuffed three of the pillowcases with as many blankets and empty pillowcases as would fit, in order to make the job of carting them easier.

When he went looking for the galley – or the storage cabinet for the little bottles of liquor – he discovered that the first class section had separated from the rest at right about the galley. There was a cabinet right at the torn edge of the section that showed that it once had been secured with a lock – but the crash had broken it open and allowed everything within the cabinet to tumble to the floor and shatter. But amid the shards of glass lay a single intact bottle of Absolut, which Bennings picked up carefully and then pushed further through the pile of broken glass in case it wasn’t alone. It would have to do, he decided after a few moments of ultimately futile searching, slipping the bottle into the breast pocket of his dress shirt and reaching for his bags of cloth.

Only then did he hear it – the sound of movement from that mess that he’d been so carefully avoiding looking at. A low, keening kind of moaning that went up and down the scale. Bennings halted near the edge of the debris field and carefully placed his pillowcase bundles where he could find them again, and then began listening and following the wordless sound. He tried desperately not to see the body parts lying scattered about like so much trash – to avoid looking into startled dead eyes – as he scanned the debris field for signs of the source of the almost inhuman voice.

Finally he found the point of origin in a bank of seats that had completely separated from the fuselage and from the rest of the debris field entirely. It was a seven or eight year old girl seated next to a headless torso of a woman and pressing the shoulder of that torso in a desperate attempt to rouse a sleeping mother. “Hi there,” Bennings approached the child and crouched down in front of her, carefully avoiding looking at the dead woman. “Are you OK?”

The only answer he got was a slight elevation in the volume of the keening as the child pressed harder and more frequently into the shoulder of the corpse.

“C’mon, honey,” he said and crouched down to push the button and release the child from the seat, and then reached out and pulled the child to him.

The child stopped her keening suddenly and gazed with a shocked and almost uncomprehending intensity into the face of the man who held her close. “Let’s go find the rest of my friends,” Benning said gently and rose to his feet before turning to go back to his pile of pillowcases. The child gave one short cry, reaching over his shoulder toward her mother and then settled her head almost defeatedly on Benning’s shoulder.

With an armful of child, Benning had to work a little to get a good hold on the three pillowcase bags – and he took extra long on his trek back down the mountainside so as not to trip and slip, causing injury to himself or the child, or lose his hold on the bags.

~~~~~~~~*

Sam took in the expression on Broots’ face as he climbed into the back seat behind Debbie. “You look like the cat that ate the canary,” he announced as he buckled his seat belt.

Broots coughed lightly as he backed the beat-up sedan that he’d been nursing along for so many years out of the sweeper’s apartment complex parking lot. “I finally took a page from Jarod’s playbook,” he told Sam without taking his eyes from the road as he began steering the car back toward the highway again. “I dipped into one of Lyle’s so-called ‘secret’ bank accounts.” His eyes met Sam’s in the rear view mirror. “A rather liberal dip, even if I do say so myself. And since my bank was still open for business, AND because my bank is accustomed to receiving electronic deposits and withdrawals of varying sizes from the Centre already, I was able to make a withdrawal…”

Debbie giggled. “I like your new way of defining things, Dad,” she commented pertly.

“It’s the Centre,” Broots deadpanned back at his daughter. “It brings out the worst in people sometimes – and then in others, it brings out the best in them.”

“I give up,” Sam shrugged and tried to ignore the ache in his shoulder and neck that even a double dose of pain killer hadn’t entirely wiped out yet. “How much did you take?”

“Give him the bag,” Broots directed his daughter.

Sam opened the zipper on a small overnight bag that Debbie tossed over the back of her seat – and his eyes bulged. There were at least a hundred neatly wrapped bundles of hundred dollar bills tumbled into the simple canvas bag. “How much is in here?” he asked in a considerably smaller voice.

“About three hundred thousand,” Broots chirped triumphantly. “If we have to be on the run for a while, we might as well carry it off in style.”

“Shit!” Sam ran a shocked hand down his face, and then glanced up guiltily to see Debbie’s bright face smiling at him over the back of the seat. He let his eyes touch her father’s in the mirror again. “Ooops. I’ll have to watch that…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Debbie grinned impishly. “Miss Parker doesn’t – and sometimes she says things a whole lot worse than that…”

“Where to now?” Sam asked, desperate to change the subject.

“Dover – where we hop a commuter to La Guardia and then fly out to Salt Lake City.”

Sam nodded very carefully. “Renting a car shouldn’t be a problem on that end,” he commented, eyeing the bag with the cash.

“I’ve already made reservations at the Hilton close to the airport for us,” Broots continued explaining what his feverish fingers had managed to accomplish in what was, even for him, record time. “We can rest, freshen up, and then head towards the Wasatch National Forest when we’re ready.”

Sam leaned back against the cushions of the back seat. “Sounds good to me,” he said, letting his eyes fall shut.

It was a relief to actually be doing something. Hang on, Miss P., Sydney, he cast his thoughts and prayers to the wind that whistled past the defective weather-stripping at the top of his car window. We’re coming for you.

~~~~~~~~~*

Sydney opened his eyes as he heard the flop of cloth hitting the ground at his feet, and then stared up. Bennings had found another survivor – a little girl, whose face wore the blankness of shock even as she clung to his neck. “Where did you find her?” he asked softly so as not to startle Miss Parker, who was dozing fitfully against him. The little newcomer in Benning’s arms seemed almost oblivious to what was going on around her too, her injuries not as visible but equally debilitating.

“In a bank of seats that got torn away from the rest,” Bennings recounted briefly, not really wanting to remember. “Her mother was dead in the seat next to her.”

The psychiatrist shuddered and then nodded in the direction of the bags at his feet. “Blankets and cloth pillowcases?”

“Yup.” Bennings used his free hand to carefully extract the tiny bottle of Absolut from his pocket. “This is it as far as alcohol, though. There might be more in the back galley – if it didn’t explode when the tail section of the plane hit.”

Sydney slipped the bottle into his left trouser pocket. “What about the jet fuel?”

“It’s all over the place,” Bennings admitted, “but it doesn’t seem to be concentrated anywhere specifically. AND it looks as if there was a fairly big explosion in the back two-thirds of the plane – I have a feeling most of the problem was taken care of then. To be honest,” he continued contritely, “we weren’t in any danger at all. I shouldn’t have…”

Sydney shook his head. “Don’t worry about that now.” He eyed the child. “I need to take care of Parker – and that little one doesn’t need to be here when I do.” The chestnut eyes rose to capture Benning’s gaze. “Why don’t you take one of the blankets from the bags you brought and wrap her up so she doesn’t go into shock and…” He looked around him. “Check to see whether there is a stream nearby down the mountainside. We’ll need water soon enough – all of us.”

Bennings nodded and carefully bent down to extract a blanket from the nearest pillowcase bag. “Here,” he said, seating himself on the fallen tree not far from Sydney and perching the little girl on his knee so he could manipulate the warm fleece around her body. “That should make you feel better.”

The little girl’s only response was to lean into him again wordlessly, staring off over his chest at nothing in particular.

Benning’s gaze and Sydney’s locked sympathetically for a long moment, and then Bennings got to his feet again. “Let’s go see if we can find us some water, shall we?” he told his little armful before picking her up again and walking slowly and carefully away from the fallen log down the mountain.

Sydney watched them go and then turned to the woman in his own arms. “Parker,” he called softly, patting her left hand with his. “Parker, I need you to wake up now.” She moaned and pressed closer to him. “C’mon, Parker, wake up. I need you to sit up so I can make the bandages and take care of your shoulder now.”

The grey eyes opened slowly and then blinked. “Shit. It wasn’t a dream,” she murmured in disappointment.

“I wish it had been,” Sydney commented soothingly. “Can you sit up on your own for a bit? I have a little bit of preparation I have to do first before I can get that piece of wood out of your arm.”

“I’ll try,” she told him and slowly straightened away from him until she was sitting upright unassisted. She shivered, missing his warmth. “I don’t know how long I can last,” she stated, closing her eyes briefly in concentration.

“It won’t be for long,” Sydney promised and pulled one of the bags over to within better reach. The wad of pillowcases was at the top of this bag, which Sydney removed one by one and patiently tore into three inch wide strips and draped each finished strip over his knee. He pulled out a fleece blanket and spread it on the ground in front of him, rolled each individual strip of pillow case and placed them on top of the blankets remaining in the bag. He pulled over another bag, extracted a pillowcase from the top, opened it so that it was a small and flat piece of material, then folded it to return it to the bag again.

“OK,” he said, turning to Miss Parker and carefully removing his jacket from about her shoulders. “You need to lie down on this blanket.”

“I’ll never get up again,” she remarked, eyeing the fact that the blanket hid a surface that could have rocks and other painful protuberances beneath its uneven appearance.

“It will be easier for me,” Sydney told her, moving to her left side and wrapping an arm around her firmly to help her shift, “and if you pass out, you won’t injure yourself any further in falling.”

She grunted in pain and exertion as he pulled her once more to her feet, and then gave her steady support as she sank first to her knees and then rolled onto her back with a cry of pain.

“Hold on,” he told her, still supporting her head, and then reached for the third bag – which he moved behind her head to serve as a pillow. He then went down on his knees next to her and pulled the other two bags close so that he could access their contents easily.

“C…cold,” she shivered, wishing she could wrap her arms about herself but knowing better than to even try to move her right arm.

“That can’t be helped at the moment,” Sydney told her sympathetically. He caught her gaze tightly with his. “Ready?”

She swallowed hard but didn’t flinch from his gaze. “Do it.”

He studied the wood again to make sure when he took hold of it, he got a good purchase on it – and then grasped it and pulled it straight out with a sharp jerk without a word of warning. Miss Parker’s shriek cut through the silence of the mountainside. “Crap, Syd!” she spat at him once she’d stopped panting in agony, “Warn a girl next time!”

Sydney was already busy. “And have you tense up and make it hurt even worse? I don’t think so.” He already had her blouse unbuttoned and had moved it aside to press one of the tight little wads of pillowcase pressed into the wound to staunch the bleeding. He reached into his pocket for the vodka. “I’m afraid I’m not quite done yet. I need to at least try to sterilize the wound and the bandage.”

The grey eyes focused on the tiny bottle. “Oh hell.”

“Hang on,” Sydney counseled and twisted the top off, and then tipped a healthy portion of the clear liquid into the wound under the bandage. Miss Parker gave a low, tearing groan and grit her teeth at the stinging on top of the outright agony and glared up at him. Sydney’s eyes clearly showed his regret before he looked away and dumped a little more of the alcohol onto another wadded bandage and replaced the one stopping the bleeding with the alcohol-soaked one. He twisted the top back onto the bottle to conserve what little remained and slid it back into his pocket before reaching for another rolled wad.

“At least you c…could have l…let me d…drink the rest,” she complained.

“Sorry,” he replied, sounding anything but. “I may need it for later.”

“I s…swear, your m…m…middle name is T…Torquemada.”

“‘Sticks and stones,’” he quoted at her. “At least it’s over.” He smiled back down at her. “That part of it, anyway.”

“I s…suppose I’ve had this c…coming for sh…shooting you in the l…leg b…back when, haven’t I?” she asked, teeth chattering now with shock and cold.

Chestnut eyes touched her in mild surprise. “I’d long since forgotten about that, Parker, you know that,” he chided gently and pressed yet another wad over the first two. “Hold this,” he instructed her and brought her left hand over to press against the bandages while he reached for and unwound two more strips and tied them together. He wadded the two together and placed them in his lap. “You need to sit up now,” he told her quietly and firmly. “I have to get that blouse off so that I can bandage you properly.

She bit her lip again and managed only to moan as he inserted his arms around her upper torso and pulled her up into a sitting position. As much as she would have liked to continue to lean into him, she forced herself to sit erect so that he could gently pull her blouse down from both shoulders and completely off her left arm.

“I’m going to be moving your right arm a little,” he told her apologetically, “and it’s going to hurt.”

“H…hurry,” she shivered at him and then drew in a hiss of pain when he shifted her right elbow just enough so that he could slip his hand between her arm and her torso. The first strip was quickly made fast around her upper chest, above her bosom. He pulled her left hand away from the bandage to make sure the binding seated the bandage properly over the wound, and then wrapped another loop of bandage quickly up over her shoulder and then back around on top of the first in a sort of figure eight configuration.

“I’d rather you not have to wear this,” Sydney began, drawing her bloody blouse back up her right arm and then helping her left arm back into the sleeve, “but you’ll need all the covering and warmth you can get when the sun goes down and it starts getting colder.” He buttoned the blouse quickly and efficiently for her, carefully not looking at her face so as to preserve her modesty even just a little, and then reached for the small, flat, opened pillowcase. “Let’s see how well this goes,” he stated, easing her right arm up and out of her waistband and into position across her stomach, again ignoring the sudden intakes of breath that told him that moving that arm was still agony for her.

He used the opened pillowcase to catch the weight of the arm and hold it close to her body while draping the corner over her left shoulder so as not to put any strain on an already broken right collarbone. He tsked to himself silently as, after leaning her into him so he could reach around her, he noted that she was slender – too slender, really – and that the pillowcase easily reached itself at her back to be tied tightly into place.

“There,” he declared as he finished tucking stray edges and corners into place and reached once more for his pillowcase bags. He dragged out another fleece blanket that he then draped about her and drew it closed over her bound arm. “All done.”

It was as if his words released her – as if she finally had his permission to stop pretending to be strong and stoic any longer – and Miss Parker suddenly slumped forward again into Sydney’s startled arms in a dead faint.

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