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"Jarod was here, huh," Broots tenderly commiserated, averting his eyes hastily from Parker's face and accepting the samples she had collected.
"Focus on Sydney," snarled Parker, snapping her fingers impatiently. "It's blood," she stammered with a gesture at the door, "isn't it?"
"What did he say to you? He didn't-- you know, uh, do anything, did he?"
"I haven't confirmed that Jarod was here."
"But he was here," Broots asserted gently. "Did he hurt you?"
"No, and mm, my gun," Parker explained contritely, instinctively following an exhausted script, "must have jammed."

Fucking guns.
They have one job; one fucking job.

Parker's audience was neither amused nor convinced.

Broots smiled sympathetically. Jammed. Again? "I hope you're more persuasive when Lyle inquires," cautioned Broots in a low, tight voice. "What did Jarod say?"
Parker shrugged, answered at last. "He thinks I had something to do with this."
"You," exclaimed Broots, cynically.
 
"Sydney raised him. He loves Sydney like a father."
 
"And-- what? You don't? You retired Sydney out of concern, love, for his own safety."

"For all the good it's done," Parker murmured with a groan of remorse, her face clouding in tumult. "Sydney, evidently, isn't safe."
 
"Hey," rebutted Broots sternly, "Now you listen to me: this isn't your fault. Jarod had no right to accuse you of anything. This. Isn't. Your. Fault."

Parker wasn't convinced.

Neither was Jarod, who materialized, unapologetically, in Parker's home half past three, and, standing in a pool of dim moonlight, promptly began interrogating her.

"Why didn't you tell me that Raines is missing?"
 
Parker revolved her eyes, and, exasperated, murmured, "How the hell did you break into my home this time?"

Jarod straightened, his face darkened in anger, fingers curled into fists, and the expression of mild suspicion he wore morphed into something dangerous, something Parker had always known existed and that her father had instructed her to fear.
 
"Why," Jarod repeated sharply, "didn't you tell me Raines is missing?"
 
"Even if I'd believed his disappearance warranted a telephone call to you I wouldn't have known how to reach you."
 "You could have mentioned it to Sydney; he knows how to reach me."
"Sydney informed me of Raines' absence; I'm surprised he didn't tell you."
 "Do you honestly expect me to believe that?" Asked Jarod skeptically.
 Parker averted her gaze, shook her head. "No," she answered flatly.
 "I know you never visit his home and haven't telephoned him in years. I took a look at your phone records."
"Of course you did," remarked Parker, bitterly.

"Or," speculated Jarod, "is there another device I don't know about?"
"Among other things that are none of your god damned business," Parker said, "yes."

Jarod absorbed her hostility with a grimace, and lowering his voice, asked, "How am I to verify that Sydney knows how to reach you or any contact the two of you have had?"
"We dined at Satari's last week. Sydney always orders saag paneer and lavender tea."
"Always," repeated Jarod with an expression Parker could only describe as homicidal, and her father's warnings returned to her in rapid succession.

He's a dangerous man, Angel.
Never make the mistake of believing that he's incapable of murder.

Parker closed her eyes, massaged her temples.
"The two of you are regulars there then," Jarod said. "Fascinating. Sydney never mentioned it. I wonder why that is. Hmm. Did you specifically ask him not to tell me that you are a part of his life?"

"Sydney understands that I don't need any impediments -"

"I see," interrupted Jarod, hotly. "I've been downgraded from a colossal mess to a trifling impediment?"

"I don't have the energy to do this anymore, Jarod."

"You realize, don't you, how quickly I can revert back to being a colossal mess, or worse, and that is precisely what I'm going to do if you don't answer my questions."

"Get out of my house," ordered Parker, fiercely.

Jarod's lips curved into a malicious smile. "What are you going to do if I don't," he challenged darkly. "Hmm? Are you going to call this in, forsake your mother, shoot me, kill me?"

Parker expelled a soft snort that aspired to be a laugh. "I should have listened to my father when he told me not to trust you, shouldn't have let you get close," she murmured in a low voice that illy concealed the self-loathing and anguish strangling her.
"You've known all along there's nothing I can do; it's why you wanted me to lead the pursuit team. I can't even call the cops," she added with a mirthless laugh. "You'll contrive some tale, flash FBI credentials, send them away. It must feel truly satisfying, Jarod, to know your adversary's weaknesses, to be confident that—regardless of errors, wrong turns, and close calls—you're incapable of losing.
Just don't forget who it was that paid for your salvation with her life, and make no mistake," Parker added, tearfully, "you weren't worth the cost."

Wounded by Parker's words, her tears, Jarod inhaled a sharp breath, and, with a jaw clenched in anger, continued staring steadily at her face. "I intend to follow up at Satari's."

"Send my regards to Yasmine and Ousaf," Parker returned coolly, pinching a Davidoff from a small box that shared a sofa cushion with her, attempting, desperately, to restore the appearance of impenetrable indifference.

Jarod isn't here because he wants to be.
He's here because he doesn't know where else to go; he doesn't know what else to do.
He's terrified.
And, yes, Daddy, he is capable of murder.

"If you're lying to me," cautioned Jarod, gravely, ashamed of himself for threatening her, terrorizing her, and, yet, quite unwilling to silence himself, "life is going to get rather unpleasant for you."

Parker fashioned a false smile, and, with enormous effort, concealed the movement in her throat that accompanied her attempts to swallow the hard knot that had assembled itself there. "Mm," she hummed disinterestedly, lighting the Davidoff with a trembling hand and inhaling deeply, "as opposed to the goddamn delight life already is for me."

Titling her chin skyward, Parker exhaled a thick column of smoke, and announced nonchalantly, "My mother is dead because of you, Jarod. If Sydney dies, too, because of you, because you wasted time trying to prove that I had something to do with his disappearance, I'll never forgive you."


No, mused Jarod, as he sped towards Lyle's home, continuing a dangerously escalating, and, inexorable, cycle, that would lead him back to Parker.

And I'll never forgive myself.

 

 

 

 










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