Sydney looked around the wan circle of faces as they sat or lay close to the metal hearth that had a sizeable chunk of broken pine tree burning with a hot flame. The storm had not ceased blowing all day – although for a brief while early on, it seemed that the temperature had risen enough that the snowflakes turned to freezing rain – and beyond the makeshift shelter that was what was left of the first class cabin, the snow was beginning to pile up again. The hoped-for raise in temperatures with the coming of the morning sun had never happened to any great extent – and already the decision had been made to take shifts keeping an eye on the fire and keeping that necessary survival tool lit and fed through the night. The morning would see all of them gathering more wood, if at all possible.

Those who were in any way ambulatory and capable were bone-tired. Moving about in the chill of the storm had helped keep them warm, but had taxed what little energy resources they’d had. All but George had eventually participated in the luggage gathering process – and the success of that effort was visible in the motley array of mismatched colors and poorly-fitting sizes of the coats, jackets, pants, shirts, vests, and socks that had been applied in addition to the clothing they’d been wearing originally. Now, hungry and still somewhat cold, they were huddled around their precious fire – and Sydney could tell that there was a faint hint of desperation in everybody’s eye as their second night approached.

Bennings’ face was as tired as Sydney imagined his own was – and with good reason. The two of them had been the major contributors to the effort to haul two fairly heavy scraps of metal from other parts of the fuselage over next to their shelter, only calling upon the others to help them stand those metal sheets up and lean them against the most open end of their makeshift shelter. The result had been to shut off a greater share of the chilled wind that had whistled through the hollow cylinder with more and more vehemence as the day had passed. With a blanket thrown over his shoulders, and his sandy hair still looking plastered to his head after being out in the freezing rain collecting luggage to rifle through for the better part of the day, he was huddled as close to the flames as he could get.

Natalie once more had taken charge of little Emily and had her firmly tucked under her good arm and against her side beneath a blanket. The stewardess had donned a whole man’s suit over the top of her thin, polyester uniform, and then helped Emily fold back sleeves and roll up pants legs after helping the girl into a similar set of clothing. Sydney could tell that, about mid-morning, Natalie’s ability to maintain her fantasy about being in the air en route to their destination had begun to wane – and the woman had slowly become less and less communicative as the day had passed. Now her eyes stared into the dancing flame without really seeing it.

Emily’s little face peered out from the blanket that surrounded the two of them and also seemed to be looking at little or nothing. How Miss Parker had managed to get the child to speak at all was beyond him – but whatever she’d done, it had been of temporary benefit. The child had fallen silent again, and nothing anybody said to her was eliciting any response at all. She would do as she was told, and had proven an obedient worker in piling salvaged luggage up so as to block as much of the wind as would try to whistle in through the forward opening. But that was all.

George was in a great deal of pain, in bad shape overall and completely unable to do much as far as taking care of his own needs. Bennings had found a shirt and a warm vest and helped the invalid into them – and then tucked a warm overcoat around him before covering him again with a blanket. Bennings had also taken the matter into hand when George’s bladder threatened to burst – finding a coffee pot from somewhere out in the debris field and giving it to him to use as a bedpan. As all had finally collected around the metal hearth, the last ounce of energy Sydney and Bennings had was spent dragging the most injured of them closer to the warmth as well.

Miss Parker… Sydney eyed her shrewdly and saw the signs of the ravages of blood loss in her extreme pallor. She too had bundled up into a man’s suit to the best of her ability, although the right sleeves of the shirt and the jacket hung limp and empty. He’d seen her take off her expensive stilettos and smash the thin heels repeatedly against the foot of a seat to break them off – but even that hadn’t helped her stay any more steady on her feet when her dizziness came from within. She’d found some thick, hand-knit woolen socks and taken her shoes off entirely to enjoy the warmth they offered. She shifted in her seat next to him and leaned her head on his arm a little – and he lifted his blanket in an open invitation for her to snuggle with him as she had before. It was the best he could do for her now – the only thing he could do for her.

He already knew that he was in poorer shape than he’d want to admit. His double vision had never resolved itself, and the lump on his forehead had kept a mammoth-sized headache throbbing all day long. His neck and shoulders were stiff and getting stiffer – and every movement he made now came at the cost of extreme pain. He too had taken another suit and put it on, stuffing some of the empty spaces between garments with more garments, like the others had, so that there was padding helping him keep warm as much as possible. But he’d done just about all that he could as far as physical labor – other than toss in a piece of wood every now and then, he didn’t have the energy to move anymore.

“At least we’re warmer than we were last night,” Miss Parker said to him, her voice low and intended not to travel very far as she felt him pull the blanket about both their shoulders, and she pillowed her head gratefully on his chest.

Sydney grunted wordlessly and held her close, carefully avoiding her right shoulder and arm as he tucked the blanket into his other hand and then wrapped his arm about her waist. It was a good thing that they were settling down for the evening already – he could hope that a slightly warmer rest that evening, combined with a chance to just keep his eyes closed and not have to make sense of conflicting visual messages would mean that his headache would abate some. If what he suspected was the case, however, the relief he was hoping for wouldn’t happen.

“You OK?” Miss Parker asked, concerned at her old friend’s lack of response.

“I’ll manage,” he murmured back finally.

“Still seeing double?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“What else?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he sighed. “There’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

She lifted her head from his chest and looked up into his face. “Sydney… Talk to me.”

The chestnut eyes glanced down into hers and then blinked gently in acknowledgement of her concern. “I said I’ll manage, Parker. I’m just tired. Don’t worry about me – you need keep yourself warm…”

“Don’t you give me that ‘I’m indestructible’ male attitude, Sydney Green – it doesn’t play with me and never has. Now, where do you hurt?” Her brows had folded together stubbornly.

“It doesn’t matter,” he reiterated and closed his eyes in an attempt to put the discussion to bed.

“It does to me!” She suddenly realized that her voice was getting louder, and she lowered her voice while adding a note of pleading. “Sydney, please…” Her eyes searched his face and caught at his gaze, which had returned to her. “Is it your head?”

“Very well, if you must know…” he sighed in defeat, “I have the mother of all headaches, and have had all day – just to make the double vision bearable, I’m sure…” He closed his eyes again, wishing he dared leave them closed. Closed felt better – and she didn’t need to know about the neck and shoulders. She couldn’t do anything about them anyway, so the less she had to worry about, the better.

“Is that all of it?”

He opened his eyes and looked down at her again. “Isn’t that enough?”

“That’s not answering my question.”

“Parker, between all the bending and lifting I did today, and the talking now, my headache is getting worse. Can we just drop it for a while?” Please, his expression pleaded with her now.

The two of them kept their gazes locked in a well-meaning battle of wills, until Miss Parker finally looked away. “All right, I’ll let it go for the time being – but I want to know if you start to really hurt somewhere, Freud.” She laid her head back down on his chest and snuggled again. “I want my chance to start over – and I want us both to make it in one piece so I get that chance.”

“I told you, cheri, we’ll make it,” Sydney soothed, letting his eyes fall closed once more and then letting his cheek rest against the top of her head. “And as far as I’m concerned, we’ve already started over. Considering everything, I don’t think waiting for rescue is all that prudent in that regard.”

Miss Parker swallowed hard and thought for a long time before voicing what she was thinking: “Do you think they’re going to find us in time?”

“I don’t know, Parker,” he answered in a rare fit of honesty. “I don’t know.”

~~~~~~~~~*

“Mr. Carew, you must realize what this situation suggests to us?”

Phil frowned and nodded at the same time. Oh yes, he knew EXACTLY what these FBI fellows were thinking – and he was utterly unable to give them any alternatives until Mr. Lyle finally came out of hiding. “I understand your concerns, Agent Stein, but I’m hoping you’ll appreciate the situation that I’m in. My boss is out of town and incommunicado for at least another twelve hours – and no amount of harassment or threats can make me produce him any faster.” He threw out his hands. “Believe me, I would just as soon Mr. Lyle spoke to you himself – I’m no happier about our current situation than you are.”

“And when do you expect him to be back in contact with you?” Agent Gerald Stein was getting tired of the run-around this Centre lackey was giving him. They already had plenty of evidence that the car bomb that had killed William Raines had been the work of a well-known assassin-for-hire by the name of Colin Arnham. Preliminary investigation had Arnham meeting with Mr. Lyle a week before the bombing – and there was great interest to know exactly what the nature of that meeting had been.

Phil looked at the FBI agent over the massive Chairman’s desk with narrowed eyes. “I don’t know how many different ways I can tell you this, but Mr. Lyle told me that he’d be out of touch for between thirty-six to forty-eight hours. He’s been gone just a little over twenty-four hours.” In a sudden spate of pique, he shrugged. “You do the math this time.”

“Where did you say Mr. Lyle went again?” Stein could hope he’d catch the Centre middleman in a lie…

“I didn’t.” Phil almost laughed at the expression of disappointment that flitted across the agent’s face. “Mr. Lyle didn’t tell anyone where he was going – only how long he could be expected to be gone.”

“I want to be notified the minute Mr. Lyle gets back, is that understood?” Stein rose, knowing now there was nothing else to be gained by pressing Phil Carew. Either the man was stubborn and loyal to a fault, or he genuinely didn’t know where his boss was and couldn’t reach him. “If another twenty-four hours goes by without my hearing from you, I’m afraid I may have to arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

“I’ll consider myself warned,” Phil rose as well, but didn’t extend his hand as he had before. “Good day, Agent Stein.”

He remained standing while the FBI agent stalked from the office, and then sat back down in the comfortable leather chair that by rights was Lyle’s heavily. Not a minute went by before the glass doors opened again, and Vinny – tall, dark-haired, muscular to the extreme – came walking quietly in. Phil shot Vinny a withering glance and then spun in the chair to look out the window. “Any news?”

“Nothing. If they were on the plane, they bought the tickets under assumed names and probably kept those names when registering for a hotel room.” Vinny was disappointed – he’d transferred in from the Salt Lake City branch office three months earlier, and he knew the investigative prowess of some of the sweepers there. But he also had become aware of the reputation of the sweeper who had eluded them – and if the rumors were to be believed, only one other sweeper in the entire organization was as talented – and that sweeper was now dead.

Phil rubbed his chin and stared at the darkening water beyond the grassy expanse and then spun around again. “OK. This is what I want you to do,” he spelled out, his forefinger stabbing at the leathered desk surface. “Get on the phone and call Salt Lake City. If they haven’t got their best team already on their way to the Wasatch National Forest, you tell them they have exactly six hours to get there or face the consequences. I don’t give a damned how they do it, but I want them into the park and up on the mountain and taking care of things – with or without the official Search and Rescue team – by dawn tomorrow. Mr. Lyle wants there to be no Centre-related survivors to this crash – let’s make sure he gets no Centre-related survivors.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get on it right away.” Vinny turned to leave.

“And see if you can touch base with some of our contacts within the FBI. We need to see what it is that has them so hot and eager to get their hands on Mr. Lyle.” Phil’s eyes glittered. “If it’s damning, then maybe it could be made to be… misplaced?”

Vinny’s eyes began to glitter too. “I know just the person to call on that one.”

Phil spun back around. This was a nice desk, he decided, but he wouldn’t want the responsibility of handling everything that came across it. Not for long, anyway…

~~~~~~~~~*

Jarod snapped another pencil in half and then threw it across his office in frustration. Other than anecdotal evidence about the skill of George Stoller to stalk and take out whoever he’d been hired to eliminate, and one person’s claim that Stoller had gotten ON the airplane with Carl, there had been nothing to go on. And the word from out West was that the storm had kept all the airplanes grounded and not up searching for wreckage and any possible survivors for the entire day. There wasn’t enough information for him to run a quick SIM on the situation, and that fact more than anything else was eating at him.

There was a quick knock on his door, and Hendricks stuck his head around the corner. “I’m heading out to a dinner meeting with Coral Jennings – wanna come?”

Jarod remembered the name and the face of the woman who had been a local hero lately in trying to advocate for after-school programs designed to keep young people off the streets and out of gangs after school. She was a personable but daunting lady. Under normal circumstances, having dinner with stimulating company would have been just the answer to his mood. But Emily had said that their brother was coming in for supper. “Nah – I have my brother coming in from Virginia tonight, and my sister’s doing dinner for us. Rain check?”

“Sure.” Hendricks looked a little disappointed. “You look at wit’s end, Jarod.”

The Pretender rose and pulled his briefcase up to the desk and threw a few folders into it – including the folder containing the information on Stoller. “I feel as if I’ve been spinning my wheels all day,” he complained as he snapped the briefcase closed noisily. “I don’t like feeling out of the loop.”

“Tell you what,” Hendricks said, walking into the office and putting a friendly hand on the tall man’s shoulder. “I’ll walk you out to your car, and you can tell me all about how to keep Coral from weaseling concessions from the Foundation while we’re still up in the air about who’s running the show.”

Jarod nodded and shrugged. There was probably little if anything that he could do at the moment anyway. “Let me call Evan,” he stated and reached down to his phone to dial a well-known extension. “I’m on my way out, Evan,” he stated the moment he had his driver on the line. “I’ll meet you in the front.”

“So,” Hendricks asked once they were out of the office and Jarod had locked the door behind him, “what’s next?”

Jarod was the one who reached the elevator first and punched the button that would summon the elevator to take them down to the first floor lobby. “I’m still digging into the assassin angle. There’s a chance that the man I’m looking for was on that United flight WITH Carl – and I’m waiting to see the survivors list.”

The elevator dinged. “That’s going to take a while,” Hendricks remarked sharply. “What else?” The two of them stepped into the elevator together, and this time it was Hendricks who pushed the button for the ground floor.

“I’m working on closing loopholes in our security systems,” Jarod added darkly. “I don’t like the idea that Blair can just make a couple of calls and find out the itinerary of our chairman and sic an assassin on him so easily.”

“You’re still convinced this is all Blair’s doing?”

“Face it, Carl didn’t have all that many enemies outside those in the industry,” Jarod insisted. “Blair has made public threats – not the least of which was the one he made must this past July, remember?”

Hendricks nodded. It wasn’t hard to remember something that had hit national headlines the way Blair’s very public altercation with Bennings had. “There’s a chance that he was just spouting off…”

Jarod was shaking his head. “No. I’ve got plenty of evidence that it was anything BUT just spouting off – I just don’t have anything solid that would tie Blair to that accident last week with the brakes on his sports car, or that bullet through his window the morning after that.”

“Is it Bennings himself this unnamed enemy is after – or is it just someone at the head of the Foundation?”

“I’m not sure,” Jarod replied. “Until I find this guy, there’s no way to know for sure either.”

The elevator door slid open silently, and the two men stepped out into the marble and brass-festooned lobby of the office building. Beyond the glass doors at the side entrance curbing were two limousines – one of which had Evan leaning against it patiently. “You have fun with Coral tonight,” Jarod told his superior.

“And you have fun with your si…”

There was the sound of a gunshot – and Jarod whirled when he felt Hendricks spin violently against him with a grunt of pain. “Gun!” he yelled and took Hendricks to the floor with him, pulling his weapon from his shoulder holster and taking aim at the small man in the yellow windbreaker who was obviously stuffing a gun in his pocket as he turned to dash away. A single shot rang out in response, and the yellow windbreaker was tumbling to the ground amid the screams and panicked cries of the Foundation workers nearby.

“Somebody call an ambulance and the police!” Jarod yelled and turned to Hendricks, who was holding his shoulder with a pale face. “Are you hurt badly?” he demanded.

“I don’t think so,” Hendricks answered through gritted teeth. “What about him?” he asked, pointing with his nose at the figure writhing in pain a few yards away.

“You just stay down and quiet,” Jarod instructed him, pulling his hand away from the wound and then helping Hendricks to lie down prone on the floor. “Here – press against it with this,” he told him, putting his linen handkerchief into the wounded man’s hand and guiding it back to the wound. “I’ll be right back.”

Very cautiously he rose and walked over so that he could kick away the gun the shooter had used from where it had fallen when the man fell. He eyed the blood that was flowing from the shattered knee, and the grimace on the face of the man. “You’ll live,” he announced sharply, crouching next to the wounded man with his gun trained. “Which is either good or bad, depending on whether you decide to cooperate…”

“Screw you…” the wounded man ground out.

“Oh, I’d say that it’s you that is screwed, my friend,” Jarod responded mildly, deliberately not allowing the stress and tension of the moment to influence his tone of voice. “Assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder – I’d say you’re seriously screwed.”

The light eyes of the wounded man flicked once to Jarod’s face and found the expression there hard and cold. There was no mercy behind those dark eyes – no sympathy for the pain he had inflicted. The shooter closed his incredibly light colored eyes and cradled his shattered and bloody knee with both hands.

Jarod pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket and punched a button to rapid-dial a number. “Em? Me. I’m going to be a little late for dinner tonight. Something’s come up that I have to take care of…”

And the sound of sirens came closer.

~~~~~~~~~*

“Sydney…”

The old man stirred reluctantly. “I thought you were asleep, Parker…”

“No. Wake up. Isn’t that my briefcase over there?”

Sydney opened his eyes and tried to focus them into the haphazard pile of luggage beyond the hearth that was illuminated mostly by the flickering light of the small flame. “Which one?” he asked, not seeing what she was pointing at with a hand protruding from beneath the blanket.

“There – on top of that outrageous pink backpack. Isn’t that my briefcase?”

He squinted again. “I think so, Parker,” he nodded and closed his eyes again. “We’ll check it out tomorrow.” He tucked his cheek back down against the top of her head. “Go to sleep, ma petite.”

But Miss Parker wasn’t sleepy anymore. She was weak, and her stomach was beginning to roil in a none-too-pleasant manner that was keeping her from resting easily. With Sydney’s lukewarm confirmation putting an end to her wondering on that account, she needed something else to keep her mind occupied other than the fact that she wasn’t feeling very well at all. “Do you think Jordan could really be my son?” she asked after a long moment of silence.

The old man stirred again, pulling her a little closer against him in their flight seats. “What’s the matter?” he asked her gently.

“If he is, then what am I going to do?” she persisted.

He took a long, deep breath. His headache was a little better – but not much. “That depends on you, Parker,” he murmured, keeping his voice low to prevent the headache from burgeoning again.

She snuggled down against him and tried to ignore the pain in her belly. “If he is, I’m getting him out of there.”

“You’re ready to play fulltime ‘Mommy’ to him?” His voice, while soft, was filled with surprise.

“I’m not leaving him to be raised by the Centre,” she replied with a touch of bitterness. “I’m not that heartless.”

“I never said you were.”

“I’ve just been thinking lately that I don’t want him to have to go through the same kind of childhood I did,” she announced firmly. “Even if he’s not my son, I think I’m going to adopt him outright and give him a home and family life.”

Sydney chuckled soundlessly. “Family life?”

“Yeah.” She smiled with him. “How do you feel about being called ‘Grandpa?’”

She could tell from the way his whole body stiffened slightly that she’d floored him with that one. It took a moment for him to process all of the implications of what she was suggesting. “I think I could get used to it very easily, Parker,” he replied eventually, long after moving his head just enough that he could kiss the top of her head when no words could adequately express his emotions for a while.

“Broots would make a great uncle – and Debbie a cousin…”

“She’d probably insist on being your personal and exclusive babysitter,” the old man added, finding that thinking about such positive things was actually helping him feel just the tiniest bit better. It was probably lowering the blood pressure or something, he thought to himself in a fit of medical logic.

“I might even introduce Sam as another uncle,” she continued, glad that she’d finally nudged Sydney out of his monotone responses and gotten him to participate with her fantasizing.

“Sam?” Sydney mulled that one around in his mind for a while. “You’re taking a fair-sized chance with him, aren’t you?”

“Not really. I know Sam better than most there, and I happen to know that he’s a marshmallow when it comes to little kids.”

“Oh?” Sydney actually lifted his head and looked down at her face as she leaned against him. “And how did you discover this – other than hearing about Debbie wiping the board with him at checkers on more than one occasion?”

“Remember when we chased Jarod to that daycare center in Orlando – about six weeks before… Mr. Parker died?” Sydney nodded silently, not wanting to plumb that still-sore subject. “You weren’t with us – something about your research…”

“I was finishing a paper on the dynamics of advanced intelligence in relative isolation,” he remembered. “Something that Raines desperately wanted me to finish, for some reason…”

“Anyway, you should have seen Sam when he ended up in this small mob of preschoolers. He turned from this big, bad sweeper into a gentle giant – you should have seen it! I think that if I hadn’t barked at him and got his attention back on the job at hand, I might have lost him for good…”

Sydney smiled to himself at the thought of the hulking sweeper who so rarely had any emotion on his face at all making himself benign and open to interaction with the very young. “Maybe you’re right, then,” he responded. “If Sam…”

“Oh!” Miss Parker suddenly pitched forward as she tried to double over. “God!”

“Parker?” He reached for her, catching her by her sides. “What is it?”

“Oh God, Sydney! My stomach…”

“Is it your ulcer?” God, not now, he thought to himself desperately. Not when she’s getting ready to put her life together in a healthy manner for the first time!

“I don’t know,” she groaned. “I haven’t felt like this…” She had ended up with her head in his lap and her legs curled up as tightly to her belly as she could manage.

Sydney was scrambling to get the blankets rearranged so that she was adequately covered. His hand brushed her forehead casually, and he jumped as if burned. “Parker! You have a fever!” How could he have missed this before?

“Oh shit! Broots’ flu!” She was sick and furious at the same time. “That moron…” Her stomach spasmed again. “Jesus!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The day we left, I chased Broots out of the Centre when he started to come down with his daughter’s flu.” She was certain that, despite her injuries and feeling rotten at the moment, if Broots were within reach, she would have throttled him right there on the spot. She struggled to sit up. “You need to get away from me, Syd,” she winced. “You don’t need to come down with this on top of everything…”

“There’s nowhere for me to go, Parker – or you either, for that matter.” Sydney stroked her hair back. “It’s too cold for either of us to be anywhere else. Settle down now – and try to rest.”

“If we ever get back…”

“WHEN we get back,” he corrected with a sigh.

“I’m going to kill him – slowly,” she finished and then curled tighter as another cramp wracked her body. “Oh God, Sydney…”

“Shhhh…” he soothed her, wishing he had access to his medical bag – which had been checked through to San Francisco and could well be either scattered to the winds on the mountainside or buried somewhere in the pile of luggage beyond the fire. His hands smoothed her hair back over and over in a caressing gesture. “We’ll be OK, Parker. Just hang in there.”

~~~~~~~~~*

The sun was already set by the time the lobby of the Foundation building had emptied of all but just a few bystanders, the witnesses, and forensics personnel taking pictures and collecting evidence. Yellow warning tape surrounded the area where Hendricks and the shooter had fallen – and it would most likely remain there after the forensics team had left and into the next day. The other uniformed officers had climbed back into their squad cars – and the EMTs had already loaded their gunshot patients into their respective ambulances.

“What we gonna do now?” Lou asked his boss after the second ambulance had taken off down the boulevard with sirens blaring.

“Now we check out this joker,” Jarod replied, pulling his hand from his jacket pocket, and with it, the wallet he’d taken from the shooter while waiting for the police and ambulance to arrive.

“Oh, man!” Lou wasn’t pleased. “The cops aren’t going to be very happy about that when they find out…”

“I don’t care,” Jarod spat as he stalked off in the direction of his limo – gesturing brusquely to Evan to get behind the wheel. “This is just starting to be too much of a good thing – and I want to know who put this guy up to shooting Hendricks. If I’d left this for the cops to find, I’d never be able to get a head start on figuring out what this guy was doing.”

“You think it was Blair?” Lou had to walk fast to catch up to his superior.

“I’m not sure,” Jarod answered honestly. “It’s too damned early for Blair to start going after Hendricks – I mean, the man hasn’t even been confirmed to take over Carl’s spot yet.”

“If not Blair, then who?” Lou asked, confused.

“That’s a good question,” Jarod grumbled as he climbed into the passenger compartment of the limo and then moved over so there would be room for Lou to follow him. “Get in. I’m not doing anything without backup from now on.” He tapped on the glass so that Evan would turn and open the window. “3786 Franklin Drive,” he directed, “as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, sir,” Evan said and put the big vehicle in gear.

Lou studied his boss. Jarod was normally a rather easy-going and jovial person – except when dealing with the recent attempts on his boss’ life. But even then, there had been the glimmer of a sense of humor through the seriousness. Now, however, there was not a sign of that humor. The Jarod Green that sat with him in the back of that limo was all business, and had a deadly serious attitude about him. There were smudges under his eyes that betrayed the fact that he hadn’t slept well the night before – which only confirmed the fact that Bennings, the Big Boss as everyone called him, had been a personal friend as well as an employer.

“You OK, Boss?” he finally asked cautiously.

Jarod glanced over at his assistant. Lou was a quiet and capable man, someone that he’d learned early on to trust implicitly. His only flaw was his lack of imagination – he was dogged, however, whenever given a scent and told to follow where it lead. “Yeah,” Jarod sat back finally and took a deep breath. “I didn’t sleep well last night – I really didn’t need another assassination attempt this early on with Hendricks.”

“They’re talking about putting the planes up in the air tomorrow morning out there, if the weather will cooperate…” Lou mentioned, hoping that hearing a little bit of hopeful news might drag Jarod out of whatever funk he’d gotten himself into. “Maybe we’ll find them all alive.”

“All of them would be nice,” Jarod commented in a brittle tone. “Including the hired killer that got on the plane with Carl. Him I’d like to take apart with a tweezers, personally.”

Lou didn’t have a response to that. Jarod was in an odd mood – very dark. He’d never seen him like this before, and frankly, he hoped when this was all over that he’d never see the man act like this again.

~~~~~~~~~*

Erin leaned into Lyle’s shoulder and then smiled when he moved to wrap his arm about her and draw her closer. The afternoon had been a delightful respite from the worries of academia – they had wandered through the zoo and then stood for nearly an hour waiting in line at an outdoor café where they’d just finished a delicious meal – and Lyle had once more proven to be fun to be with. He’d talked about anything that had struck her fancy – even told her a little more about his younger days in Africa. Now, as the streetlights began to wink on, she found the prospect of her time with him ending unacceptable.

“I’ve had fun today,” she told him, running her finger along the edge of the collar of his sweat suit. “And it was good to see that you know how to wear something besides a power suit…”

“Excuse me. That power suit is part of what let me entertain you today,” Lyle chided her with a wide smile to blunt the edges of the comment. “Right now, I feel like Cinderella – tomorrow, I end up back in my regular rags at my regular job…”

“You have to leave tonight?” Erin was disappointed.

“I have to be at work first thing in the morning,” Lyle reminded her apologetically. “Cinderella had to go back to taking care of wicked stepmothers after the ball, you know…”

“Did your fairy godmother give you a similar curfew?”

Lyle turned and studied her face, not failing to note her dancing eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Her finger traced the line of his neck up to an ear, raising gooseflesh. “…your fancy coach doesn’t turn back into a pumpkin until midnight, right?”

Lyle leaned toward her and breathed in of her soft scent of summer flowers. “Something like that. Why? What do you have in mind?”

Erin’s fingers were threading themselves through his hair in a gentle yet stimulating caress. “Hanging onto you until the very last possible moment – maybe even serving you a nightcap to put a perfect end on the perfect day.”

Lyle smiled and nuzzled her neck, kissing her very softly and gently. This was nothing like what he was used to – this soft, willing young woman in his arms – and yet there was an air of anticipation between them now that he hadn’t expected to hold such a draw. Erin was sweet, kind, honest, trusting – all the things that he’d once thought inferior traits in general, traits that in women were imminently open to manipulation. Why was he so drawn to her? Why now? How long would it last?

“That sounds like a very interesting idea,” he whispered into her ear and felt in her leaning even more into him the beginnings of a response that made his heart beat ever so slightly faster. What would it be like, he wondered, making love to a woman who genuinely wanted him, rather than to one who was fighting him for her life or else had been paid to let him work his will upon her? It would be a new and interesting experience, if nothing else. “Are you ready to go?”

Erin nodded contentedly. She had him to herself for a while longer – and that thought made her toes tingle in delight.

~~~~~~~~~*

“I’m tellin’ ya, he didn’t have a thumb on his left hand,” Clarence insisted loudly. “He kept droppin’ things as he loaded up the car…”

The pen moved across the notebook page. “Did you see what kind of car he was driving?” Detective Bill Lowe asked, “note down a license plate…”

“Now what would I have done THAT for?” Clarence was aghast. “All I knew was that they’d been going at it all night – not that he was in there butchering someone…” He rubbed at his face nervously. “You don’t suppose he was doin’ it with…” He turned green.

“Tell me about him again,” Lowe carefully steered the man’s thoughts away from the more sensation – and sickening – possibilities. “What color hair?”

“Dark. Relatively short. Clean-shaven guy, and sporting one helluva shiner.”

“Which eye?”

“What?” Clarence squinted at the detective.

“Which eye had the shiner?” Lowe sighed. Drunks as witnesses were never fun.

“Oh.” Clarence thought for a moment. “Left one.”

“How tall? Any idea how much he weighed?”

Clarence squeezed his eyes closed and tried to remember the man as he’d walked to the driver’s door from the trunk. “Six foot, maybe – a hundred eighty, maybe two hundred pounds…”

“What kind of car?”

The salesman’s hands flew out in an unclear gesture. “Big and black – that’s about all I saw.”

“And you say you didn’t see him carry anything else out except the luggage?”

Slowly Clarence shook his head. “Nope. Nuthin’.”

Lowe stowed his notebook and pen in his pocket. “OK, Mr. Evans. Thank you for your time. If you’ll talk to the officer over there, we’ll need to have a number at which we can get a hold of you – in case we find a suspect.”

“Uh…” The idea of letting the cops know how to find him was less than inviting. “Can’t I just call in…”

“I don’t think so, sir.” Lowe walked out of the drunk’s motel room and over to his colleague, Stan Bridges, who was standing in the doorway in back of the yellow police tape watching the forensics people go through the blood-spattered room carefully. “Either this isn’t the guy we want, or he’d already taken the body to the car by the time our witness there…” He jerked his finger backward over his shoulder at Clarence. “…got a look at him.”

“The guy had a lot of balls, hauling a stiff out like that,” Bridges, an older man with grey hair in a crew cut to match his hard, hazel eyes, remarked. “Of course, our witness there having passed out for a while doesn’t help things…”

“Did we get anything from the motel manager?”

Bridges shook his head. “The room was registered under the name Lyle Parker and paid for with cash. Manager can’t even find the pen he used to sign the register with so we can dust it for prints – he says he thinks the guy palmed it.”

Lowe just shook his head – and then was struck with a thought. “This guy was too smooth for this to be his first job,” he remarked in awe.

“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“Let’s hit the wires with what we have – and see if there are any other cold cases that resemble this one.”

The two detectives took one last look at the scene of horror. “You know, Bill, I hate this kind of shit.”

“You and me both, Stan. You and me both.”

~~~~~~~~~*

Sam put the key to the motel room down on the dresser and immediately turned on the TV to look for a current news broadcast.

“It’s still a little early out here for news,” Broots commented as he dragged his and Debbie’s luggage into the room. “And the way it is out there,” he gestured at the door and the pouring rain beyond, “I doubt the planes went up today.”

Sam’s glare touched Broots’ sympathetic gaze and then bounced away guiltily. “I’m sorry,” the sweeper said finally. “I know I haven’t been the most pleasant person to be around…”

“You’re worried about Miss Parker,” Broots shrugged. “We all are.”

“I just get the feeling that I need to be up in the mountains NOW – and not wait for the Air National Guard or the Search and Rescue people…”

“Uh-uhn. No way.” Sam turned in surprise at the display of vehemence from the otherwise mousy computer tech. “Don’t look at me like that,” Broots defended himself. “What am I going to tell Miss Parker if they bring her down from the mountain and you’ve gone and got yourself lost or killed looking for her without backup?”

“You tell her I didn’t ask your permission.”

“And you know how far that would fly on a normal day.” Broots’ voice was mocking.

“I just have this hunch…” Sam’s words faltered into silence when he found it almost impossible to voice his thoughts and feelings. “It’s like…” He threw out his hands in a futile gesture. “It’s like someone’s back there telling me, ‘you gotta get to her first.’” His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Do you know the park?” Debbie asked in a soft and hesitant voice. “Have you been to the Wasatch National Forest before?”

Sam looked over at her sharply. “No, but…”

“So how would you know where to go from here without somebody showing you the way?”

If it had been anyone but Debbie, Sam would have spat back an answer that basically asserted his preference for independent action. But being as she was one of his favorite young people, and because he respected both her and her father, he merely stared at her for a second and then stalked from the room to stand at the railing of the upstairs motel room, staring out across the skyline at the mountains in the distance.

“Did I say something wrong?” Debbie asked her father.

Broots shook his head and gently closed the door behind Sam to keep the warm air in and not try to warm the whole outdoors. “I think he’s just really worried about Miss Parker, Sweet Pea,” he said as he drew his daughter into a quick embrace, “and he doesn’t want any of Lyle’s men to get to her first – dead or alive.” He looked back at the door. “And if truth were told, I don’t blame him.”

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