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The sky was deep cerulean and partially obscured by a patchwork of waxen clouds; Jarod stared up at its vastness until beads of perspiration dotted his brow, threatened to grow heavy and drop down his face.

He withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket, erased the moisture, observed as a breeze stirred the trees, loosened the clouds. The lie lingered on his tongue, a bitterness that was reminiscent of something Raines might have meted out to him in massive doses when Sydney was away at some Centre-mandated symposium or during the holidays. The lie was, in fact, something the Centre had meted out to him daily until his escape.
 
He warred with the temptation to open the door, confess to the Livingstons that they would in all likelihood never see their daughter again, neither alive nor dead. Someone should apprise them, caution them. Even in the unlikely event she was found alive, the child returned to them wouldn't be the girl they'd known, no more than he was the same person taken from his childhood bed. The longer she was out there, the more of a stranger she'd be to them, to herself.
 
He'd found the lie more palatable, however, than the horrible truth; the words had unfurled effortlessly from his lips. He'd lied with an ease that was startling. Maybe she's right. Maybe I am Triumvirate material.
 
He drew his hand from the door, wended his way through the thirsty gardens, beneath arches and down terraced steps, over a retaining wall, and couldn't help but be marginally surprised to see the sedan by the curb where he'd left it, engine idling. He realized with a start that he'd expected Parker to be gone.
 
She certainly had the wherewithal to flee; she wouldn't have even had to take the trouble to hot-wire the vehicle. Mexico bound. He imagined her on a beach, sipping margaritas with Kyle, laughing uproariously, grounding out her cigarette in the sand. He imagined her free, preferred it to reality.
 
Bypassing the tangle of vines, he hurried down the remaining steps and towards the car, and then came to an abrupt halt.

Parker observed as he retrieved his mobile.
 
The conversation was short. She heard his low chuckle, his "me, too,"—a halfhearted reply to Rachel's declaration of love no doubt before the call was disconnected.
 
With brusque, choppy movements, he fondled the device for several moments examined it? and then, rather than slip behind the wheel, walked briskly to the rear door and swung it open.
 
"Get out," he demanded.
"What," Parker said in mild alarm, her eyebrows raised high, inquisitively over sunglasses.
"Out," he repeated. "This is as good as place any to stretch your legs."
She leveled a scowl at him, noted her reflection in his mirrored aviators. What next? A lecture on deep vein thrombosis? "I'm fine," she said crisply. "Thanks."
 
"Miss Parker," he snarled at her. His expression however, was rather incongruous to the exaggerated rage in his voice. Exaggerated. She observed as fear flitted across his face and disappeared so swiftly she couldn't be certain she didn't imagine it. "I won't ask you again," he said to her in a voice generally reserved for victims of his retribution.
 
She wasn't impressed.
 
"If you insist, Dollfuss," she said with a resigned—and rather protracted—sigh, following the cue, playing the part. She stepped out of the car and followed him across the quiet avenue, and past several feet of crumbling sidewalk. He slowed to a stop on a wooden footbridge engraved with love and peace hieroglyphs and bits of poetry written in heavy grunge lettering.
 
"Tell me," she commanded.
"I'm sorry I shouted at you," he said. "I didn't know how else—"
"Skip the credit roll," Parker said impatiently.
"They're listening," Jarod said. "Not with this," he added, indicating the mobile.
"You believe they bugged the car?"
"I don't know," he said with a measure of distaste and then amended with more certainty, "Yes, I do. They weren't completely honest with us— with either of us. They had a suspect and didn't mention it."
"Was the suspect investigated? Cleared?"
"That doesn't matter. It would have been in the file, should have been in the file. They falsified documentation. And just now— she knew exactly when to call."
 
Rachel. Downgraded to a contemptible she.
 
How tragic, love on the rocks.
 
"What are you going to do?"
 
"I don't know. Yet." He turned to her then beneath the gathering clouds and inquired gravely, "Do you trust me, Miss Parker?"

"What," she exclaimed, incredulity straining her voice.
"That's not a very encouraging answer," he said rather blandly and with a grimace. "Look: you said I couldn't trust them. Do you have any proof of that? Something-"
 
"Tangible," she interrupted sharply, feeling as if she'd been struck. Just like Daddy. And she remembered all too vividly the endless disappointments and bitter tears and how she'd never had anything tangible to offer the man and how he had never given her anything but pain. It had been a relentless cycle of give and take and she'd given all she had and it had never been enough. It wasn't a place she longed to revisit, not with Jarod, not with anyone. Ever again. Jarod didn't trust her, no more than her father had trusted her, no more than she trusted him. "No, I don't," she said, pivoting.
 
"Then I'll take your word for it," Jarod said, and observed as Parker's feet slowed to a stop, mid-stride. "I trust you," he added simply, as if it were truly simple. Maybe it is.
 
Parker concealed her astonishment behind dark sunglasses, and waited quietly for him to continue.

"You said it didn't make sense. Us being here. And you're correct. However, there were extenuating circumstances, special circumstances. We both have a knack for languages-"
 
"Jarod, listen to yourself," she interrupted.
 
"You believe this is some sort of diversion, that they want us out of their way, but within their reach."
 
"Do I?"
 
"Yes, you do," he said, noting her caution, and easily comprehending her reasons for it. Given the paucity of evidence, she fully expected him to dismiss her claims as specious. Because that's what her father did. He concealed the burgeoning anger (at Mr. Parker) with a compassionate smile."You think they're trying to decide whether or not we pose a threat to them, and how best to discard of us if we do. I'd like to know why."
 
Parker composed a shrewd smile. "Your words. Not mine. And there is a reason you chose them."
 
"And that reason is?"
 
"You've been in the FBI's cross-hairs before."
 
"Kyle was an escaped felon," Jarod said after a brief moment of reflection. "They were doing their jobs. Weren't they?"
 
"He still is an escaped felon," Parker reminded. "Their job was to arrest, not kill, the felon or the innocent citizens who accompanied the felon."
 
"You have a point there. I'm listening," he said.
 
"I know," she answered weakly, blowing out a breath and then pursing her lips. "The kill order came from Raines," she said softly, and then drew a fortifying breath and dropped her gaze to her feet. She then continued hesitantly, and so quietly that Jarod almost didn't hear. "and my father. I'm aware that it- it's a flimsy argument," she added with a thin smile.
 
"Maybe a flimsy argument was the intention," Jarod said, his voice revealing no hint of doubt. "I always assumed that I was indispensable, essential. Hours after the van exploded, however, Raines raised his gun at me and if Sydney hadn't intervened he would have killed me. It makes sense that he'd want to eliminate threats, kill Kyle even if meant killing me, kill me rather than allow me to find my family, because we each had our own strengths and intel. We were stronger together, strong enough to be a threat." Jarod surveyed his surroundings, thriving cedars that nearly concealed a warren of small prefab outbuildings, wild flowers withering along a steep ravine. "The FBI put this deal on the table," Jarod said, and the words echoed through his head. Intelligence. Munitions. Languages. Proficient in -
 
Thunder murmured in the distance, and both Parker and Jarod started; they expected to see a ball of fire, the burning shell of the sedan.
 
"You are I are in a position to expose any ties the FBI may have had to the Centre."
 
"May have had? Jarod, my father was close friends with the Secretary of Naval Operations. The Centre influenced elections, brokered coups and defense contracts, negotiated dictatorships. Some of the crimes were more covert than others, but all were perpetrated under the watchful eyes of the CIA and the FBI. Who do you think authorized funding for that special school you attended?"
 
Jarod frowned. "That explains why they're listening. They're trying to find out how much we know." He withdrew the mobile from his pocket, swiped the device's face. "Let's walk back, " he said and then lowered his voice intimately. "Look, it's no excuse, but you should know: I was angry at you because you skirted another turning point. I don't think you'll ever comprehend how frustrating that was for me. Kyle and I waited for you to show up. We waited hours. I was angry- that's why I met with the Triumvirate elders."
 
"And ripped up the road and redrew the map," Parker said with her usual snark. "I wouldn't go to the turning point so you brought the turning point to me."
 
"Uh, something like that," he said with a smile tugging his lips, earning himself a scowl of disapproval.
 
"It wasn't your decision to make, Jarod."
 
"You're right," he said. "It was your mother's."
 
Parker threw up her hands in a dismissive gesture. Experience had taught her that arguing with him was futile. Not because he's right. He's not.
 
"And later," Jarod added softly, "I was hurt."
 
Hurt?
 
The mobile chirped back to life. Parker dropped her gaze to the device, and then studied him for a brief moment.
 
He was hurt?
 
"I promised our brother I would bring you back to him in one piece," he said, pausing to look both ways before crossing back to the car. "I take my promises seriously, Miss Parker," he added, and then reached over her shoulder and pulled open the car door.
 
"Hurt," she said with knitted brow. "Why?"
 
"Because," he said quietly, his lips motionless against her hair, his words reaching only her ears. "you slept with my brother."
 
She turned her head, arched an eyebrow. "And?"
 
"Get in the car," he said.
 
"Answer the question."
 
"I already have," he said enigmatically and then clarified after a sigh of resignation. "Six years ago," he continued softly with a slight inflection that suggested she already knew the answer.
 
Parker looked askance at him, scrutinized the tender smile and the fire in his eyes, and then she unceremoniously slapped him hard across the face, knocking his aviators aslant.
 
"Don't ever pretend with me, Jarod," she said in an eerily calm voice, and then slid into the car and slammed the door closed on his rebuttal.
 
He staggered, clenched the muscles in his stinging face, tested range of motion, ascertained injury. He'd live, he deduced- so long as he kept his mouth closed. The other guy—or rather, woman—looked a hell of a lot worse than he did. Emotionally battered, it seemed. She sat in the front passenger seat with her arms crossed tightly over her breasts and he didn't have to remove the sunglasses to know her eyes were brimming with tears. The truth had struck her much harder than she had struck him.
 
"It shouldn't have," he murmured to himself and then walked around to the driver's side of the car.
 
I've never pretended with you, he wanted to tell her. He couldn't pretend with her. The simple fact was: he'd never had to pretend with her. He'd never feared revealing his true face to her, being brutally honest with her. He knew she'd never accept pretenses, the easy lies he offered to others, the masks he wore. He had never comforted her with dishonesty, placated with a lie. And I'm not going to start now.
 
They traversed the winding avenue in tense silence. Turning abruptly to link up with the freeway, he'd never felt farther from the woman sitting beside him. He observed as a bolt of lightening split the darkening sky and drove, unblinking, straight into the storm.
 

Parker was napping (or pretending to) when he swung the sedan into the parking spaces reserved for field agents.
 
She was out of the car before he threw the gear into park. When he finally caught up with her, she was sipping from a paper cup the hot, vile sludge that someone had the audacity to accuse of being coffee. Parker gulped the brew at a steady pace, seeking the caffeine boost, ignoring the taste. Brave woman.
 
"Whoa, no, no, no," a lean, bald man exclaimed from across the narrow corridor. He observed as Parker met his gaze in the steam winding upward from the small cup. "That stuff's not suitable for human consumption," he said, widening his pale blue eyes for emphasis. His gaze swept the length of her and then riveted on the cup. "And you look human to me," he said, coaxing the cup from her hand. "I keep the good beans in here, Miss?"
 
"Parker," she said.
 
"Vella," corrected Jarod, slipping his sunglasses into the pocket of a pressed shirt. "Agent. I'm Mortenson. We were told you'd be expecting us."
 
Kirkland's gaze slid past Parker. He studied Jarod briefly, returned his gaze to Parker. "Some proper coffee first, Agents?"
 
Parker eagerly trailed the man into a low-ceilinged fifteen by twenty space lined with books. A yucca in a clay pot sat on a squat window sill, Thoreau's Walden—dog-eared and ragged—occupied an oak desk alongside a laptop, a small stack of files and a single notepad.
 
"Agent Sawyer Kirkland," the man said, his tone even, his words leaving his mouth in rapid bursts. "Sawyer works for me but I generally answer to anything these days," he explained as he measured out beans and emptied them into a burr grinder. "I guess I get no argument there from you, eh, Agent Vella," he addressed Parker and chuckled. He held up an index finger and then with a fluid nose-dive gesture pressed a button and brought the machine to life. "We've had a call about your girls," he said, shouting over the grinder. He moved with ease around the office, filled a kettle with water and thrust it onto a two burner cook-top. "But the description of the vics is shaky and the eyewitness who called it in even more so. She's eighty-nine, legally blind, suffers from essential tremors. I've been told you'll want to follow it up although I can't imagine why. A legally blind eyewitness? Tough break, eh. I don't know what it was you two did to piss off the Director and I don't want to know. I'm here to provide gear, weapons, and back up if necessary." He returned to the grinder just as it sputtered to a halt. "Sugar and cream," he asked, spilling the ground beans into a coffee press. "Soy? I make a mean latte."
 
"Black," Parker said.
 
"Well," Kirkland answered cheerfully, "at least you're certain of that much." He opened a folder, peeled two segments of paper from the top and offered them to the pair. "Supply room is at the end of the corridor, third door on the left- the one with the large sign that reads supply room. You can't miss it. Choose a duffle and fill it with everything on this list. Oh, and if you're interested, these are Agent Clemente's files on the trafficking case."
 
Jarod accepted the stack of folders, skimmed casually. Parker, on the other hand, had no intention of lingering any longer than necessary.
 
She walked with purposeful strides to the supply room, and was grateful for the few moments' respite, for even a single moment without Jarod. Just a moment. The air between them was stifling, combustible. She shut the door behind her, pressed her back against it. Removed the sunglasses. Closed her eyes. But could not escape Jarod's voice.
 
"Did you know Agent Clemente well?"
 
Kirkland nodded. "Dedicated. Misha worked nineteen hours a day on this thing. These babies—you know how it is. You look at the photos long enough you begin to imagine it could be your kid. And you start imagining what those monsters could be doing. And you know what they're doing. Selling these girls to wealthy businessmen, bringing them out as party favors for millionaires, circulating them with the trays of champagne and mini pissaladières. It becomes personal. Sometimes it becomes too personal," he added, averting his gaze.
 
"Too personal," Jarod asked.
 
"Clemente told me once she'd do anything to break the case," Kirkland explained with a arched eyebrow. "Anything is exactly what she did. You might as well hear it from me. She engaged our only suspect."
 
"Engaged?"
 
"She embedded herself, got involved. She developed a relationship with him that became sexual in nature."
 
"This man," Jarod said, tapping a finger on a photograph of a man who appeared to be in his early forties, in possession of a full head of dark hair, and thin, angular features. "Dante Benedetti," Jarod read the man's name.
 
"Yeah," Kirkland said with a nasty grimace. "He's being careful about soiling his hands, but Misha said he was guilty and I believe her."
 
"You don't believe he orchestrated her murder?"
 
"He didn't know she was FBI. Hell, he was at her memorial service- the public one, that is. He sobbed, still hasn't left his house. If I wasn't familiar with his work, I'd swear he was grieving, had a heart, that he might have loved her." Kirkland thrust a index finger at Jarod. "You two are here to look and listen. Scut work. Nothing more," he said. "You might as well get packed up, huh," he suggested and observed as Jarod pivoted.
 
Parker heard the supply room doop open and quietly slipped out of the ladies room and returned to Kirkland's office.
 
"Coffee," Sawyer Kirkland said, offering Parker a ceramic mug. He glimpsed the splint on her hand, said, "What happened there?"
 
"Fracture."
 
"Fracture, huh? Interesting. You didn't happen to fracture your hand on your friend Mortenson's face, did you, Agent Vella? I detect tension."
 
"We're not friends," Parker answered sullenly, just as Jarod returned to the room.
 
"I see," Kirkland said, smirking over his cup. "You didn't answer the question."
 
"Minor altercation."
 
"When and where?"
 
Parker waved dismissively and sipped her coffee.
 
"Wrong place, wrong time," Jarod said. "Overt neglect, child abuse."
 
"In public?"
 
Jarod nodded. "I guess you could say the woman didn't appreciate a stranger's words of advice on child rearing. She attempted to assault Vella when she intervened."
 
"Unaware that Agent Vella here is an expert in Jujutsu," Kirkland said and filled a thermos. He offered it to Parker. "This is for you. Come back in three hours with an update and you'll win a free refill and a dozen doughnuts."
 
"My lucky day," Parker said crossly.
 
Kirkland swung his gaze at Jarod. "She always this cheerful?"
 
"I'd say this is her baseline."
 
"Ah, such fun," Kirkland said with a wink.
 
"I'm right here," Parker said with an expansive gesture, leaving the obvious unsaid: if you have a question about me, ask me.
 
Kirkland became quite serious. "Okay then. This is unorthodox and I can't say I'm pleased with the Director's decision, but here we are. Might as well make the best of it, eh? Can I get you two anything else before you go?"
 
"You wouldn't happen to have something with a little more horsepower," inquired Jarod.
 
"Ready to trade up from the old sedan, are you? Can't say I blame you. We have thirteen vehicles out in the yard. I'll radio Ron in the guard house. He'll be down to sign you out whatever it is you want."
 
Jarod nodded his gratitude, smiled. What I want is to prevent the Feds from eavesdropping on my conversations.
 
"Radio checks at the top of the hour," Kirkland said. "No high speed chases- no matter how tempting. Call me if you have any questions or should any problem arise."
 
"You're not anticipating trouble, are you," inquired Jarod warily.
 
"I wasn't," answered Kirkland conspiratorially, "until your partner walked in."

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