Chapter 20

            “Miss Parker, you’re here!”

            She turned from the window as Broots burst into her office.  This time, his surprise was understandable.  She wasn’t supposed to be here.  She was supposed to be on a plane halfway to Las Vegas by now.  “My flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems,” she said.  “A decision made after we sat on the runway for an hour.  Guess I’ll have to take the Centre jet, after all.”

            She normally would never have flown commercial – too unreliable - but she’d been hoping to check out this lead on Jarod – the first promising one in the month since he’d escaped – without Lyle tagging along.  Yes, she’d agreed to work with her brother on the search for Jarod, but that was mainly to appease her father.  Her true agenda was to keep Lyle as far from Jarod as possible, while she worked on ways to discredit her twin with the Triumverate.  So far, she’d managed the former – mainly because Jarod had not made even a blip on their radar for weeks – but failed miserably at the latter.  The Triumverate was being unusually patient; they hadn’t blamed anyone for Jarod’s escape and they seemed content to give them all another chance to bring the wayward Pretender back. 

            Knowing that Jarod would need money, and finding no evidence that he had recently siphoned funds from Centre accounts, they had been focusing their search on casinos.  Jarod could easily win at the tables, and Las Vegas also offered countless poor saps down on their luck who could benefit from a stranger’s kindness.  When Broots triumphantly showed her that Jarod had been caught on one of the many cameras in the swankiest casino in town, Miss Parker had wondered (not for the first time) why Jarod never changed his appearance when he was on the run.  How hard would it be for him to bleach his hair or grow a beard?  Or even have plastic surgery to drastically alter his features?  Not that she wanted him to do that; she thought he looked fine – very fine – just the way he was.  He’d never needed an external disguise to become anyone he wanted to be, and in all the years they’d been chasing him, the fact that he kept his own face hadn’t made him any easier to find.

            Until now.  Miss Parker had found it odd that Broots had so easily stumbled upon Jarod’s image on the casino’s security footage.  She’d suspected it was a red herring or bait to lure his pursuers into a trap.  He’d fooled them many times before.  But then she’d received that e-mail last night.

            The subject line had read What happens in…  With the Vegas lead on her mind, she’d been intrigued enough to open the e-mail instead of trashing it.  The rest of the message had been simple: … the elevator, stays in the elevator.  Like the code word “refuge” he and Sydney used when they wanted to speak privately, this sentence had particular meaning for her and Jarod.  What happens in the elevator stays in the elevator. She took it to mean that he would actually be in Las Vegas if she followed up on that lead.  And that he wanted to see her alone.  She had no idea why, but she figured she owed him the chance to explain.

            Which was why she hadn’t requested use of the company jet.  She’d hoped to sneak out of town on a regular plane, something Lyle would never expect her to do, but that wish had been shot to hell.  Jarod, if he was still waiting for her in Vegas, would just have to deal with a whole contingent of hunters bearing down on him.  He’d done it before, and she had no doubt he could elude them all with ease.  She just regretted that whatever he’d wanted to communicate to her in person would have to wait for another time and place.

            “I’ve been trying to reach you, but your phone keeps going directly to voice mail!”  Broots sounded aggrieved.

            “Oh, I had to turn it off on the plane,” she said, retrieving it from her blazer pocket.  “I must have forgotten to turn it back on.”  She did so now and discovered several missed calls, all from Broots.  “What’s so urgent?”

            “Jarod’s been spotted here in Blue Cove!”

            “What?  That doesn’t make any sense, especially after he –”  She stopped, remembering that Broots didn’t know anything about the e-mail she’d received; she’d made sure to delete it and empty the trash right after reading it.  “Especially after he showed up on camera at that Vegas casino yesterday afternoon,” she finished.

            Broots looked thoughtful.  “Maybe that was just to throw us off track.  He wanted to send us far away while he did something right here in our back yard.”

            “What could he possibly want to do here?  I told him –”  Again, she stopped.  Broots was not aware of that last conversation she’d had with Jarod when she’d suggested he concentrate solely on finding his family and stay far away from the Centre.  Advice he’d clearly ignored.

            She stifled her irritation and asked, “Exactly where was he seen?”

“The old warehouse district.”

Blocks and blocks of crumbling brick buildings perfect for hiding out.  And regularly used by the dregs of the city for just that purpose.  Why would Jarod choose to hang out with the homeless crowd instead of the high rollers?  Another misguided mission of mercy?  Or just a convenient base of operations while he hatched a plot against the Centre?

Broots went on:  “Sweepers were doing one of their regular searches in town – because Jarod does have a tendency to hide right under our noses, you know – and three different people recognized him from his photo and said they’d seen him recently.”

“Are you kidding me?  They actually held up his picture and asked ‘have you seen this man?’  And that’s how we got this lead?”  If so, Jarod really needed to reconsider using some sort of disguise.

Broots looked embarrassed by this crude method of detection that had trumped his high-tech techniques.  “Yeah, I know.  Real old school, huh?”

Knowing what kinds of people frequented that area of town, Miss Parker asked, “Just how reliable are these witnesses?”

He looked down at the floor, picking at the collar of his tee shirt.  “Well… two of them are local residents…”

“You mean the drunks and drug users who camp out in those abandoned warehouses?”  The Centre had really gotten desperate if it was now taking the word of those people.  “I doubt those bottom-feeders can barely see straight!  You really think they could recognize Jarod from his photo?”

“Well, um, the manager of the small convenience store in that area also identified Jarod,” Broots said.  “He said he’d been in the store yesterday afternoon buying supplies.  Um…”  He consulted a small spiral notebook he pulled out of his pants pocket.  “He said Jarod purchased a bottle of water, a flashlight, a can of Spam, and a pack of Twinkies.  He remembered because usually people from that part of town just buy cigarettes.”

“Yesterday afternoon?  The same time Jarod was caught on the camera at that Las Vegas casino?  Unless he has a double – and I don’t mean his Gemini clone who’s much younger – even Jarod can’t be in two places at the same time.”

“I know!  I mean, it’s impossible, right?  Personally, I would trust the camera recording more than the local eyewitnesses,” Broots said, showing his true techie colors, “but your father thinks the Blue Cove lead warrants serious attention.  He dispatched Lyle and a team of Sweepers to go down to the warehouse district and look around.”

A sense of urgency gripped her.  “How long ago?” she asked as she moved over to the couch where she’d deposited her overnight bag.  Not that she’d planned to stay that long in Vegas, but she’d had to check her gun in an approved container in her luggage.  Another reason she never flew commercial.

“Um, half an hour or so.”

Miss Parker retrieved her weapon then dug deeper into the bag for the ammunition, which was required to be stowed separately from the firearm.  “Where’s Sydney?” she asked.

“Down in the sim lab.  He’s having some sort of anomalous results with one of his twin studies and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

She paused in her hunt for the ammo to look at Broots.  “This is Jarod we’re talking about.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I mean, of course Sydney would want to know any leads on his whereabouts, especially ones that point to him being right here in town.”  Broots cleared his throat.  “I was planning to head down to his office to tell him personally.”

“Then get going.”  She bent her head over her luggage again.  But then she imagined the car ride with Sydney, having to endure his questions about her decision to fly commercial to Las Vegas.  “No, wait!”  She glanced up to see Broots, already at the door, stop and spin back around to face her.  “Don’t bother Sydney with this.  Let me check it out first.”

“Are you sure?” 

She knew Broots hated being asked by one member of their team to keep something from the other.  But she wasn’t about to admit that she dreaded a mini-session with Sigmund Syd, who would somehow know she was holding something back about the Las Vegas lead on Jarod.

There was another reason she could offer for temporarily keeping Sydney out of the loop, a pretty good one, in fact, and one that would appeal to the wannabe hero in Broots.  Her hand closed around the box of ammunition, and she straightened. 

“Look, Broots, something doesn’t feel right about this,” she said.  “If I’m walking into a trap, I want to make sure you and Sydney are safe back here and able to come to my rescue.”

Broots stood a little taller.  “Of course,” he said.  “You can count on me.”

She moved to her desk to load her gun.  “The last thing I want is to end up locked in a shipping container with Lyle again,” she muttered.  “If that happens, there’s no chance in hell of us both surviving.”

Broots nodded solemnly.  “I understand,” he said.  “Knowing what we know about your brother now, I’d be afraid to be stuck in an enclosed space with him, too.”

“I’m not afraid, I’m prepared.”  She slid the ammo clip into her Smith and Wesson with a satisfying snap.  “Lyle’s the one who won’t live to see another day.” 

“Oh!  Right.”  Broots laughed nervously then coughed to cover it up. 

Miss Parker holstered her gun and tucked it into her back waistband.  “Relax, Broots, I doubt it’ll come to that.”  Jarod may like to play games, she reflected, but she knew he’d never purposefully place her in danger, especially not in a situation involving Lyle.  “No,” she added, “I don’t think I’ll be lucky enough to be handed an excuse to kill my brother.”  At Broots’ slightly horrified look, she hastened to assure him, “Just joking.”

He attempted a laugh and failed miserably.

Miss Parker headed for the door.  “I’m sure we’ll all be back soon, empty-handed as usual, but if you don’t hear from me in an hour, send reinforcements to the warehouse district, alright?”

He nodded.  “Got it.”

“In the meantime, double check that casino lead and see if Jarod could have faked that recording somehow.  This doesn’t make sense,” she murmured, half to herself, thinking again of the e-mail he’d sent her.  If he wanted to meet her in Vegas, why would he be here in Blue Cove?

“I’m on it,” Boots said.  Then: “Miss Parker?”

She reluctantly paused in the doorway. “What?”

His usual air of anxiety surrounded him, but this time when he spoke the jitteriness did not jumble his words.  He said slowly and clearly:  “I agree with you that something doesn’t feel right about this.  So, please… be careful.”

Although she was impatient to be away, she took a moment to acknowledge the concern of her friend.  “I will, Broots,” she promised.

 Then she hurried out into the hall, hoping she wasn’t too late while a small part of her wondered, too late for what? To help capture Jarod?  Or to help him escape again?

The old warehouse section of town spanned several blocks, but Miss Parker had no trouble determining exactly where the search for Jarod was focused.  As she drove farther into the dilapidated district, she started seeing Centre-issue vehicles everywhere she looked: pulled over on both sides of the rough macadam street, poking out of alleys, or diagonally parked right in front of the faded brick buildings.  She sighed.  So much for a sneak attack.  Her father had obviously decided this lead called for a whole contingent of Centre personnel to brazenly invade the area.  Or was this show of force Lyle’s idea?

Either way, she doubted Jarod was still in the vicinity.  He would have left at the first sight of a Sweeper.  Unless he was luring them all here for some reason.  The possibility of a trap seemed more and more likely, and Miss Parker was glad she’d left reinforcements – such as they were - back at the Centre.

She parked her own car at the end of the block in a small vacant lot with weeds growing through the cement and hoped it would be in one piece when she returned.  With her gun drawn – as a deterrent to the locals more than a precaution against Jarod - she continued on foot to the nearest warehouse, a two-story brick structure with graffiti covering most of the lower half.  She entered through a dark green door with a broken padlock.  The smell of cat urine and worse assaulted her the moment she set foot in the cavernous room that stretched the length of the building.  Despite the heat and humidity of the mid-July day, the dimly lit interior of the old building was surprisingly cool.  Enough daylight filtered through the small grimy windows near the top of the brick wall to her right to let her quickly ascertain that other than a few battered boxes, crates, and dusty tarps, the room was empty.  She could tell this space had been used by squatters at some point not too long ago, but no one was here now.

But she had better check out the whole place.  She headed for the narrow staircase to her left.  As she carefully side-stepped her way up to the second floor, she reflected that it was lucky she was wearing pants and sensible heels.  Intended for comfort on her long flight to Las Vegas, the outfit now made it easier to safely and quietly navigate the minefield of debris – broken bottles, dented cans, empty cigarette cartons, discarded fast food bags, and other items that she preferred not to inspect too closely – that littered the warped wooden stair treads.  Lyle and his gang may not mind being seen a mile away, but she didn’t want to announce her presence prematurely.

Then she heard a shout from above.  The response made her heart seem to skip a beat as she recognized Jarod’s voice.  He was actually here?

Abandoning any attempt at stealth, Miss Parker ran the rest of the way up the stairs and darted through the open doorway on her left.  Upon entering the room, she stopped and automatically swept her gun in a graceful 180-degree arc from left to right, but she had no trouble spotting the room’s inhabitants.  Standing in the center of the spacious loft was Lyle, his gun drawn and trained on Jarod, who appeared to have been caught in the act of trying to escape through one of the tall arched windows that lined the exterior wall at regular intervals.  He was perched on the low sill, his customary all-black outfit making him a stark silhouette against the afternoon sun blazing through the glass behind him.  He also had a gun out and aimed at Lyle. 

So intent on each other, neither man had reacted to Miss Parker’s entrance.  She could feel the electricity in the air, like the atmosphere before a storm.  She knew she needed to defuse this situation at once.

Hurrying forward, she called out, “Jarod!”

He turned towards her, his dark eyes widening in shock.

She noticed his gun had also come to bear on her.  She came to a halt and tightened her grip on her own weapon.

A shot rang out, and she flinched, but it was Jarod’s body that was flung backwards by the impact of Lyle’s bullet.  He smashed through the window and fell from sight.

Miss Parker’s brain had trouble processing what her eyes had just seen.  The event seemed to replay itself – the sound of the gunshot, Jarod hurtling back through the window amid shattering glass and disappearing – one, two, three times as if trying to make her mind accept what she had just witnessed.

In real time, Lyle strode to the window, looked outside, cursed, and rushed from the room, brushing past her without any sort of acknowledgment.

As she went to take a look for herself, she knew what she’d see: Jarod running away down an alleyway, pulling off yet another superhuman escape.

The soles of her ankle boots crunched on broken glass as she peered through the jagged remnants of the window.

She saw the alley.  She saw Jarod.

He wasn’t running away.  He was lying flat on his back in a garbage-filled dumpster, and he wasn’t moving.

Again, her brain felt a bit sluggish as it tried to understand what her eyes were reporting.  She stared down at Jarod, wondering why he was so still.  Probably just had the wind knocked out of him, she thought.  Any second now he’d leap up and make a dash for freedom.

Any second now.

He remained motionless.

She heard shouts from below and saw Willie and Brigitte approaching from the far end of the alley.  She opened her own mouth and then closed it again as she realized she didn’t know who she had been about to warn.

She turned and raced from the room, this time taking the stairs at a breakneck pace and somehow managing not to trip over the detritus on the steps.  She burst from the building and careened around the corner into the alley.

Again, the scene that met her eyes made no sense.  She’d expected the usual frantic pursuit of Jarod with a collection of Sweepers, led by the fleet-footed Willie, desperately running, suit coats flapping, after a fleeing figure in black.

Instead, she saw Tony and Sam loitering beside the dark green dumpster, while Brigitte paced in front of them, her gaze directed down at the broken asphalt in the alley. Willie was nowhere in sight.  Lyle was standing off to the side a short distance away, bent almost double with his lower back pressed against the brick wall of the warehouse.  He looked incredibly pale, like he was going to be sick.  Was he so out of shape that a sprint in this heat and humidity had completely done him in?

The atmosphere in the alley was oppressive but it seemed more like it was emanating from the people standing around, rather than from the humidity in the air.  Miss Parker couldn’t quite identify the feeling but if she had to label it, she’d call it dreadful anticipation. 

 “Where’s Jarod?” she demanded.  “Did he get away?”

Brigitte looked up.  “No,” she said flatly.

She didn’t understand.  Then why wasn’t he standing in front of her in handcuffs?  Why wasn’t Lyle strutting around with a smirk on his face?

When no one else seemed willing to volunteer any more clarification, Miss Parker moved forward, pushing past Tony and Sam to check out the dumpster.  She grimly contemplated the rusty metal receptacle and wondered if anyone had bothered to check to see if Jarod was hiding beneath heaps of trash?

Before she could hoist herself up to look over the edge of the container, slight sounds just beyond the dumpster drew her attention, and she went to investigate. 

She was completely unprepared for the sight that met her eyes.  Willie was kneeling on the ground, his dark face bathed in sweat while he methodically performed chest compressions on Jarod.

A wave of dizziness threatened to knock Miss Parker off her feet, and she clutched Willie’s shoulder for support.  “What are you doing?” she managed to get out past the invisible vise around her throat.  “He’s not… he’s not…”

Sam stepped up behind her and touched her arm.  “Give Willie room to work, Miss Parker,” he said in a voice that was raspier than usual.

She was about to argue, to insist that Jarod was faking, when she suddenly noticed the blood.  His left shoulder was soaked with it, and the Sweeper’s hands on Jarod’s chest were covered in it. 

She holstered her gun and fumbled in her blazer pocket for her cell phone.  She finally managed to pull it out, only to have Brigitte snatch it out of her hand.  “What the hell–?” she snarled, turning on the impertinent blonde.

“What do you think you’re doing, Miss Parker?”

“Calling 9-1-1.”

“You know better than to involve the authorities with Centre business,” Brigitte said.

“Jarod needs an ambulance!”

“We’re pulling a car around,” the petite woman said briskly.  “As soon as he’s stabilized, we’ll get him to the infirmary.” 

Willie’s tired voice cut clearly through the heavy air:  “It’s too late.  He’s gone.”

Miss Parker whirled back around to face the Sweeper but felt like she was moving in slow motion.  The Sweeper was leaning back on his haunches, his arms hanging limply at his sides, the picture of defeat.

No!  She shoved him out of the way and threw herself to her knees beside Jarod.  Leaning over him, she tilted her head as if listening for breath and whispered fiercely in his ear, “Stop pretending, Jarod, or I swear to God I’ll kill you myself!”

There was no response.  She searched for a pulse at his neck.  Her own heart seemed like it was beating out of her chest, but she felt not even a flutter under her fingertips.  She could sense a scream rising from somewhere deep within her, and it took every ounce of willpower she had to force it back down.

She had to do something!  Recalling her own CPR training from years ago, she started giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation alternating with chest compressions.  Two slow breaths, then fifteen compressions, then check his pulse, then two more breaths, and so on.  She worked mechanically, focusing only on the count and concentrating on keeping the breaths slow, the compressions smooth and even. 

“Damn it, Jarod, breathe,” she said through gritted teeth at one point.

Eventually she had to stop.  Her arms felt like lead, and her head was spinning.  As she struggled to get her breath back, she stared down at Jarod’s still white face.  Is this how it ends? she wondered numbly.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.  As if from far away, she heard Sam’s voice:  “Miss Parker, the car’s here.  We need to move the… we need to move him now.”

She nodded and slowly rose to her feet.  Keep it together, Parker.  She watched Sam and Tony pick up Jarod, noticed the care they took when handling the… the body.  Quite a change from their habit of dragging him around.  Should she be grateful that they were finally showing him some respect, even though it was too little, too late?

There was tightness in her chest that made it difficult to breathe.  The heat rose from the sun-baked macadam in shimmering waves; the surreal procession towards the car appeared almost like a mirage.  If only this was an illusion…

Someone laughed.

For one horrifying second, she wondered if she was making that slightly hysterical sound. Then she realized it was coming from Brigitte.  “This is bloody marvelous, this is,” the blonde said in her phony British accent, gesturing to Jarod’s body as it was loaded into the back of the black SUV.  “The Centre’s precious Pretender is dead!  Any bets on which one of us will be next once the Triumverate hears of this?” 

A surge of anger propelled Miss Parker forward, right into Brigitte’s face.  She said evenly, “My money’s on you…” Her gaze slid sideways, and she raised her voice, “brother.”

Lyle detached himself from the wall and came over to them on slightly unsteady legs.  His color had improved, but the flush on his cheeks was no healthy glow.  “Do you think I meant for this to happen?” he hissed.  “I had no choice.  He had a gun on you!”

“He wouldn’t have shot me!”

“How can you be so sure?” 

Because I know he would never hurt me, because he cares too much about me.  Cared too much about me.

Feeling like she was about to choke on words she could never say, Miss Parker grabbed her phone back from Brigitte then quickly climbed into the front seat of the SUV.  She slammed the door behind her and ordered, “Drive, Sam!”

As the Sweeper rapidly reversed out of the alley, she realized she should probably call…someone.  She looked down at the cell phone she was clutching and saw Jarod’s blood all over her hands.

Her stomach lurched.  She hastily directed the vents so that the car’s air conditioning hit her full blast in the face.  The nausea abated somewhat.  Leaning back in her seat, she closed her eyes. 

And hoped that when she opened them again she’d discover that this had all been just a nightmare.