Brenda’s heart was pounding wildly in her chest and she was shaking, as she stared at the picture in her hands. JD was Jax’s brother, Jerry? This can’t be true! This simply cannot be true! Perhaps she’d misunderstood Gwen… But the longer she looked at the picture, the more she saw the truth in it. And she realized that perhaps she’d seen the truth all along…

Even that first day, as she was examining the proofs of “Jack Thomas” running in the park, she had commented on his physical similarities to JD. Then, last night she’d noticed Jax’s profile and jawline that were remarkably similar to JD’s. And then the series of hallucinations she’d had, thinking she saw JD everywhere; first in Jax, and then in his father. They hadn’t been hallucinations at all, but her instincts telling her that there was a connection there - but she hadn’t listened. Instead, she’d chalked it up to stress and fatigue and even to hereditary insanity. She wasn’t crazy after all, she thought; although at this point, perhaps madness would be easier to accept than the horrible truth: she was in love with brothers.

Above the dull roar of the pain in her head, she could faintly hear Gwen rattling on about Jax and Jerry - something concerning the incredible bond between the brothers. Her mind raced wildly as she tried to recall what each had told her about the other… They were close… Brenda remembered that each had given the impression that, although they didn’t keep in the best of touch with one another, their brother was still their best friend, and Jax had remarked just last night that he didn’t know what he would do if anything came between him and Jerry… If anything came between them… And now she was between them!

It had been bad enough when she loved them as total strangers to one another, but this situation was impossible! As strangers to one another, she might have eventually been able to choose one man over the other after the danger for them all had passed - but she could never choose one brother over the other. She loved them both too much to divide them that way, and it would be too hard for her to remain with one, with the other always connected to them, always stirring up bittersweet memories and past passions.

Brenda could feel the panic rising in her. Jax’s office suite was becoming smaller and smaller, constricting closer around her, until she suddenly felt that she couldn’t breathe. She had to get out of there! She grabbed her jacket and her camera case and shot out Jax’s open office door, while Gwen continued to organize Jax’s desk, prattling on about John Jacks’s complaints about both Jax and Jerry’s proclivity to disappear at the drop of a hat, seemingly unaware of Brenda’s own disappearing act that was happening at that very moment.

A pain, unlike anything he had ever felt before, ripped through him, and Jerry staggered backward as the cold realization hit him: Brenda had been pregnant when the Agency had snatched him away from her. He felt the sting of bitter tears in his eyes, as he thought of the many fantasies he’d had about a child of theirs. He’d always imagined a little girl - a miniature version of Brenda but with his deep blue eyes - a child he would have loved from the first moment he knew she was on her way. He had imagined doting on her and spoiling her in every conceivable way, doing everything and nothing with her and Brenda, while always letting her know that she was loved. He never wanted their child to know the unhappiness and uncertainties that Brenda had experienced as a child, and he had hoped that by raising their child together in love that he could help Brenda to know the joys that childhood should contain when unconditional is love there.

And from what she had written to their child, she had planned on that herself. He re-read the inscription she had written inside the album cover: “For my sweet JJ…You were conceived in love and you will be raised in love…This is my promise to you… Mommy.” He slowly ran his hand across the inscription; his heart nearly breaking at the intense love that he knew that Brenda had felt for both him and their child at the moment that she had written it.

JJ - Brenda had called the baby JJ… JJ - where had he heard that before…? He searched his memory, suddenly realizing that she had whispered that phrase when they were talking about the Agency’s assault on her that summer…

The conversation between her and Andrew that he had overheard the day before made sense now. She had said that Andrew had saved her life after she had lost him and then all that she had left of him… He understood what she had meant now. She had been referring to his leaving her and then losing his baby, too. Then it hit him: she had lost the baby as a result of the assault ordered by the Agency, and she would probably have died if it hadn’t been for Andrew!

A wave of guilt washed over him. Had he been wrong about Andrew, after all? Had Andrew really been the true friend he had hoped that he was? Had he misjudged him and jumped to the wrong conclusions simply from snippets of an overheard conversation the day before? It seemed that he had… And perhaps Andrew had kept the information about the miscarriage and then about Jax and Brenda from him because he knew how much it would hurt him. Perhaps Andrew’s intentions had been good all along, only acting as a friend to protect him from the ugly truths that he knew all too well now.

But there was still that gnawing uncertainty deep within him that questioned both Andrew’s intentions and his part in all of this. Jerry couldn’t easily rid himself of the feeling that he couldn’t really trust Andrew and never should have in the first place. And Jerry had learned long ago to always follow his gut in any situation, which is why he knew he needed to follow up on his hunch in order to know if he could once again trust Andrew fully.

He needed to find concrete information that told what really happened around the time of Brenda’s accident, and he knew that he needed to do it quickly. If Andrew could still be trusted as an ally, Jerry needed to use him as such now in order to get Brenda to safety. But if Andrew was not trustworthy, as a part of Jerry still suspected, then he also needed to know that and to move accordingly. Jerry had tried yesterday to find out more about that time when he had gone to Andrew’s apartment and searched it, but he’d come up empty-handed. The evidence was most likely hidden in Andrew’s office or elsewhere, but time was now at a premium for Jerry, and he didn’t have time to be tracking down possible leads on that front.

He knew what he had to do. He remembered the note concerning information about Brenda’s “accident” that had been scrawled on the back of the picture that he’d received earlier. As distasteful as the proposition was for him, Jerry made the inevitable decision to once again call the anonymous person who had supplied him with that picture.

As an agent, he’d been forced to pay for information many times before, and nothing that he had learned in those instances was nearly as important as what he needed to know now. Had his good “friend,” Andrew, actually been complicit in harming Brenda before on the Agency’s behalf, and was he capable of hurting her again - possibly even killing her - if he thought it was for the good of the Agency? That thought made his skin crawl, but he couldn’t shake it from his head, and he knew that there was only one way to truly know exactly what role, if any, other than Brenda’s supposed savior, that Andrew might have played that night all those years ago.

He gingerly placed the photo album back on Brenda’s clothes in her open bag, closing his eyes as he tried to tamp down the nearly overwhelming feelings of pain and loss that he felt now. First his discovery about Jax and Brenda and now this: the knowledge that he and Brenda had once created - and then lost - a child… He felt as if he could break apart into a thousand pieces at any moment, but he knew that loss of emotional control was not an option for him - at least not now.

Instead, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number he’d dialed before to get the picture. He’d get the missing pieces of this entire incident first, then he’d find whoever was responsible for killing his child and nearly killing Brenda and make them pay dearly. Then he’d find Brenda and whisk her to safety, and they’d be able to grieve together; after which, he’d spend the rest of his life loving her and healing the hurt that knowing him had caused her.

“Where do ya wanna go, lady?” the irritated cab driver repeated, as he looked at the fragile young woman with the panicked expression on her face, who was in the back seat of his cab, staring at the J&J Jacks building that she had just left. “Lady, are you okay?” he asked, reaching back and lightly tapping the young woman on the shoulder. The driver was beginning to wonder if this beautiful woman, who had jumped into his cab the minute his earlier fare had exited, was high on something? Her face was pale, and she was breathing hard, and she looked as if her mind was definitely elsewhere.

She jumped at his touch, bringing her out of her daze. “Ummm… I’m sorry… I… uh, I need to get away from here,” she apologized, as she finally tore her eyes from the building to look at the driver; her eyes wide with fear.

“That’s the plan, lady, but first ya gotta tell me where ya wanna go,” the driver whined, impatient that this woman had practically run over his departing fare in her haste to get into his cab, and now she was wasting his valuable time by just sitting and staring off into space, instead of telling him her destination.

By all rights, he should just throw her out of his cab and drive off. After all, he was officially off-duty as of 9:00 a.m., and it was now 9:15, according to his watch, and he was more than ready for bed after the night he’d had. He’d been driving twelve hours already, and that was more than legally allowed, but since he could always use the extra cash, he had opted to do just one more fare - this one - since she had leapt into his cab, evidently in a hurry to be anywhere but here. Now he was beginning to wonder if he should just tell her to get out so he could go home; let her find her own way to wherever it was she was going. But there was a vulnerability - and a look of pain and panic in her dark brown eyes - that stopped him; so instead, he waited for her to gather herself together enough to tell him her destination.

Brenda finally felt as if she could breathe once again, as she settled into the back of the cab, but everything still seemed so confused and incoherent. In the past few minutes, her already chaotic life had managed to become even more complicated, and she was unsure as to where to turn or what to do next. It was then that she realized that the driver was talking to her, asking her where she wanted to go, but she had no idea how to respond to that. All she knew was that she needed to get away from here - and fast. But he needed a specific destination, didn’t he?

“The airport,” Brenda finally answered, and the driver nodded, muttering under his breath and sighing exasperatedly as he turned around to head out into the crush of traffic that continued to fill the streets of Los Angeles. She’d head back to LAX, she decided, and after that she wasn’t sure… She just knew that she had to get away from this town - and from Jax - as quickly as possible.

It was then that she glanced down and saw that she was still clutching the framed photo of Jax and JD - correction, his brother, Jerry - that she’d found on Jax’s desk. Finding this picture had caved in what little that had been left of her world. She’d come to LA earlier this morning, ostensibly to say good-bye to Jax, knowing that when she left him that she’d be returning to New York and JD, if only to flee to safety with him. Now she was leaving LA and Jax, but she knew that she couldn’t return to JD - not now… not ever.

But where could she go? Back to New York and her apartment? JD - Jerry - was probably waiting there for her, worrying about where she had been, wondering if she were all right. “No, I’m not all right - and I’ll probably never be all right again!” she said aloud, causing the cab driver to turn around to give her a puzzled look. “I’m running lines for acting class,” Brenda covered, realizing that she had been muttering aloud like a crazy woman.

The driver nodded and returned his attention to the dense traffic; he was used to actors and their craziness.

A crazy woman… Just an hour ago, the possibility of being crazy was a frightening prospect for Brenda, but now it would be a welcome relief. If she were crazy, she could attribute the unfathomable events of the past several hours to the shattering of her mind instead of the shattering of her heart. At least if she were having a nervous breakdown, she could eventually recover and move on, couldn’t she? But how could she recover and move on from this? The only two men she had ever loved in her life were brothers who loved one another dearly. They had both asked her to marry them - to be with them forever, but a life with either of them was impossible.

This was all so complicated! She needed a place to go to think and to hide out for a little while, and she needed to be with someone whom she trusted to help her sort through all of this mess until she figured out what to do next. But where could she turn? Her half-sister, Julia, was out. Brenda hadn’t spoken to or heard from her in four years; since the day she left Julia’s London flat for Monaco and her fateful meeting with JD. She mentally ran through the list of people she counted as friends, and - discounting both JD and Jax - she realized that she had always remained emotionally detached from people in her life. Even as a young child and then throughout the years of boarding school after boarding school, she had never had a close friend, always finding it better to remain emotionally isolated than to connect with someone, only to lose them in the end. Everyone in her life had always left her; how ironic that now she was the one who was choosing to leave instead.

She pulled her mind back to the task at hand: finding somewhere to go while she sorted everything out… She had Ned and Lois, and they were as close to family as she’d really come in her life, but neither of them knew the whole story of who she was and what had happened to her before she’d met them. She knew she didn’t have the strength now to try to explain everything to them. Besides, contacting them could put them in harm’s way with JD’s “employer.”

That left only Mr. Buehler. He knew everything about her past with JD, and he had guessed that she was involved again with someone now. She knew that he was still in New York, having promised her that they would get together again before he left the city for parts unknown again. Parts unknown… Perhaps he would take her with him when he left New York this time? After all, he had offered to whisk her away with him when he left again. Even though his offer had been made jokingly, perhaps he would take her with him; besides, he had proven over and over again what a good and trustworthy friend he could be.

But could she afford to involve him in all of this? She turned to glance back at the shrinking outline of the J&J Jacks building and then down at the photo of Jax and JD that she still held in her hands, and she sighed as she realized that her options were practically nonexistent. She wondered if perhaps the better question was: could she afford not to involve him?

She pulled out her organizer from her camera case; quickly finding the number that Mr. Buehler had given her just yesterday of where he could be reached while he was in the city. Pulling out her cell phone and dialing, she prayed that she could reach him there now.

Avery Buehler had willingly been her lifeline on more than one occasion, and as things now stood, he appeared to be her best hope of temporary escape from this madness in which she was now involved. She just hoped that she wasn’t abusing their friendship by asking for his help yet again. He’d saved her life once before; she hoped he’d be willing to do it yet again. She only hoped that she wasn’t risking his life now…

“Do you really think everything that has happened here over the past several hours is connected?” Jax asked, as he sat in his father’s office with his father and security head, Mike Moriarity. He was trying to keep his mind on the monumental task at hand: getting J&J Jacks International back on track and figuring out what had happened to cause all of their problems in the first place. But his mind kept wandering to Brenda and what she told him - or rather, didn’t tell him - about JD and his sudden reappearance in her life.

It had been over an hour since he’d left her back in his office, and he was anxious to get back to her, so that she could explain more about JD and his “dangerous” business associates. He knew that she was upset about JD’s return, and he hated to leave her alone like this after what she had begun to tell him, but this meeting was important to the company.

Besides, she needed to rest and recuperate after the rough several hours that she’d had, and she was most likely lying on his couch, trying to rid herself of her headache. So it would be pointless to rush back to his office, merely to sit by her side to watch as she slept. It would be pointless, perhaps, he smiled to himself, but it would be so pleasurable to sit there as she slept peacefully; holding her on my lap; watching the soft fluttering of her eyelashes and slight movements of her lips; and the gentle rise and fall of her chest… He pulled himself back from the erotic images that were beginning to form in his head and forced himself to once again focus on the seriousness of the situation the company was currently facing.

The heads of the teams of technicians from both Digital Computers and CalTel had just assured them that they were hard at work tracking down the problems the company was experiencing with both their computer systems and their phone service to the outside world. In fact, the computer files that had been irretrievable all morning were finally accessible again, but the Digital technicians were uncertain as to why the problem had occurred in the first place and could not promise that a similar problem would never reoccur. The outgoing phone system, however, was still inoperable, and CalTel had no idea how much longer the system would be down, nor what had caused the problems in the first place. It truly was a mess, but was it all connected, as both his father and Mike seemed to think?

“Think about it, son,” John Jacks replied, as he leaned forward across the cherry conference table, gesturing toward Jax to make his point. “This company has run nearly flawlessly since its inception, and yet in the span of less than twenty-four hours, we’ve lost all phone communication with the outside world, our files from the close of business day yesterday were virtually irretrievable until just a few moments ago, and Addie was effectively taken out of commission as well.”

“You think Addie’s accident is tied into this, too?” Jax exclaimed incredulously, looking from his father to Mike, who was nodding in agreement with his father’s theory. “How did both of you manage to jump to that conclusion?” he asked, wondering when his father had become a proponent of conspiracy theories?

“It’s not such a leap if you really think about it,” Mike defended. “It’s widely known in the business community that Addie is invaluable to this company - No disrespect meant to either of you, of course,” he added hastily, hoping that he hadn’t overstepped his bounds in stating the obvious.

“None taken,” John laughed, shaking his head as he rose from the conference table and walked to the wall of windows to look outside at the cityscape. “Jax and I would be the last to dispute that fact! Addie has been with me forever, and she knows what I’m thinking usually before I even think it! And Jax has known her most of his life, so she’s like a favorite aunt to him, sometimes doting on him, but always knowing what’s best for him - and the company - in the long run. She knows every aspect of this company like the back of her hand - especially the computer system, and I can’t imagine anything being lost in the system had Addie been here to oversee things.”

“Exactly!” Mike interrupted, jumping excitedly from his seat to make his point. “So what better way to begin a subtle sabotage of the company than to take out the bulldog at the gate, so to speak?”

“Okay, so I can see how Addie’s absence from the executive wing could help in losing yesterday’s computer files,” Jax relented finally, “but she certainly couldn’t have prevented the phone system collapse. She’s a whiz, but she’s not omnipotent!” he added, shaking his head as he tried unsuccessfully to connect all the dots between the relatively minor, disparate incidents that had become collectively crippling, and suddenly feeling as if Mike and his dad were trying to spin this into an outrageous episode of The X-Files.

“No, but doesn’t it seem strange to you that Addie was involved in a hit-skip accident the night before a slow meltdown begins here?” Mike continued, undeterred by the skepticism in Jax’s tone. “And the car that the police found and identified as the one that cut her off in the first place had been stolen and wiped clean of all prints and fibers… In my opinion, Addie’s removal from the company was important to the overall scheme of things.”

“And just what would that overall scheme of things be?” Jax asked, still not buying into the interconnectedness of all of these unfortunate occurrences.

“To temporarily disrupt the smooth flow of business in this company - to what end, I’m not exactly sure - but I still think they’re all connected,” Mike answered, continuing to disregard the doubtful look that Jax still wore. “It could be a business rival you’ve bested who wants revenge, or a disgruntled employee who thought they were treated unfairly… or it could be someone else trying to momentarily shut down this company for their own purposes… But from my standpoint, I think whoever brought this off had inside help.”

“That’s if we’re talking connection and not coincidences - and that’s still a big if in my book,” Jax shot back. But even he was beginning to see the faint outlines of the dots that could very well connect all of these minor irritations that had managed to cause major chaos by occurring within hours of one another. Sabotage here in this company? He knew that corporate espionage existed - He’d seen and heard about its insidious effects within other companies. Beyond the obvious damage of pilfered secrets or stolen accounts, it destroyed trust and morale - both of which had always been solid here at J&J Jacks International, and both of which were rapidly waning as this day wore on.

“We have to be open to all possibilities, Jax,” his father interjected, understanding his son’s hesitancy to think that intentional sabotage was behind all of this upheaval.

Mike took a deep breath as he saw John’s latest statement as the opening he needed to introduce the other hypothesis that he had about all of this. “As long as we’re being open to all possibilities…” he began, measuring his words carefully, as he knew that this speculation that he was about to offer would likely draw protests from both Jax and John, “…I think there’s something else - or someone else - who may be tied into all of this as well…”

“Go ahead, Mike,” John coaxed, sensing an uncharacteristic hesitancy in Mike. “Anything you have to say on this particular issue would be greatly appreciated. Jax and I both trust your instincts and opinions.”

Mike turned to look squarely at Jax as he continued, “Just how well do you know this young woman who suddenly showed up here this morning - this Brenda Wilding…?”

Smiling, Andrew Buxton hung up the phone and took a long sip of his tea, once again able to relax for the first time since he’d learned that Brenda had somehow managed to elude that incompetent Jackson’s surveillance and flown to LA to be with Jax. Earlier he’d wondered if all of his plans to save JD would be for nothing, but now things seemed to be working out just fine - just as he had tried to reassure himself before. In fact, this was actually working out better than he’d hoped; and best of all, Brenda had come to him!

Brenda had called him earlier as she was in a cab on her way to LAX to catch the next available flight back to New York. She had sounded desperate - and so alone. She’d not only left Jax, but she was on her way back to New York to run straight to “Avery Buehler” for help and guidance. And, being the good “friend” and confidante that “Avery” was to her, he’d gladly offered not only a shoulder on which she could cry, but also a safe haven to which she could run as she tried to piece together the remnants of her life.

He had “consoled” her as best he could on the phone and assured her that he would be here, waiting for her when she arrived. She hadn’t gone into detail on the phone, never mentioning Jax or the reason for her trip to LA, but he had the sense that things had not gone well between her and him there. Perhaps Jax had been too preoccupied with business problems to attend to her needs, he thought gleefully, laughing out loud at the can of worms his associate had opened at J&J Jacks International. It would take them hours, possibly days, to iron out the wrinkles he’d added to their lives, and he doubted that Jax would be in the mood to even think about Brenda during that time, let alone chase after her. And by the time all was back to normal at his business and Jax did have the time to devote to Brenda once again, Brenda, unfortunately, would no longer need his time and attention. In fact, she’d be beyond any earthly needs at all by then.

A twinge of guilt hit him at that thought - but only a twinge. He had genuinely grown to like and respect Brenda, but duty always had to come before friendship and personal relationships in this business. He’d forgotten that once, and the results had been disastrous; he’d not make that mistake again. And he wasn’t about to allow JD to make that same mistake either, no matter what. Brenda Barrett was a distraction and a temptation, whose lure called constantly to JD, and Andrew knew that if he didn’t act quickly, JD would eventually try to contact Brenda - or, worse yet, find out on his own about Brenda’s affair with Jax - and then all hell would break loose. He had to eliminate Brenda in order to keep peace in JD’s family and to keep JD within the Agency. And he had to do it carefully because if JD even suspected that he or the Agency was tied to her disappearance and subsequent death in any way, then he’d be uncontrollable, taking down anyone and everyone in his path.

Which is why this new plan of his seemed to be working out so perfectly today. Brenda was coming to him; he hadn’t needed to surreptitiously seek her out with some lame excuse to whisk her away. She had called him and asked him to hide her away for a few days. And being the “true friend” that he was, he had quickly offered to come to her rescue, even offering to have her picked up at the airport. And that was what had truly worked so perfectly in his favor, as his plan was to have none other than Rick Jackson, in the guise of a limo driver, pick her up at the airport.

This really was working out nicely… He’d called Jackson and he’d jumped at the chance to act as Brenda’s chauffeur from the airport. Andrew had just hired the limo that Jackson would use, using Jackson’s name and credit card number. Jackson would be seen publicly with her at the airport and outside the apartment that Buxton had rented, also in Jackson’s name. He’d stocked the place with enough food to make it look like Jackson planned to keep Brenda as his prisoner for some time, and he’d supplied the place with enough alcohol to loosen Jackson’s already loose inhibitions and set the stage for Jackson’s inevitable romantic overtures toward Brenda. He had no doubt that Jackson would succumb to the temptation sooner or later, and he was willing to bet that it would be very soon, given the way he’d seen Jackson salivating over the lewd photos the man had recently taken of her and Jax together.

And he knew that Brenda would fight like a wildcat to fend him off. She had fought him off once before, aided by the fact that Jackson realized that she was miscarrying and he had simply left her to die, but not before she’d left a sizeable bite mark on Jackson’s left forearm. Jackson still bore the scar from that bite, and Andrew knew that Jackson would like nothing better than to exact his revenge on her for that lasting reminder of that night. He harbored a major resentment that she’d injured him when he’d been foiled in his attempts to take her, and Andrew had no doubt that he’d kill her before he’d be denied what he thought she owed him. And then Andrew just had to make sure that it appeared that Jackson had killed her in a drunken rage and that he was still very drunk and unable to defend himself when JD found them.

Andrew planned to plant copies of photographs of Brenda that Jackson had taken in the apartment, giving JD the very clear picture that Jackson had become obsessed with Brenda to the point of stalking. Jackson would be his shill in all of this. Andrew could never be tied directly to Brenda’s unfortunate disappearance and subsequent demise. All roads would lead to Jackson when both homicide and JD did their investigations later, and no one - least of all JD - would be any the wiser.

Up until now, he’d been able to rein in Jackson’s more primitive urges where Brenda was concerned, fearing that a second assault on her would send JD completely over the edge and out of the Agency permanently. But now those carnal urges would actually work to Andrew’s advantage, especially if he left a trail of evidence implicating Jackson in her assault and subsequent death. Then JD would follow the trail, find a very dead Brenda in Jackson’s lair, and kill Jackson before he even knew what hit him! And once JD killed Jackson, he’d be a wanted man, unless he had the Agency to cover up the deed. So by killing Jackson, JD would not only be doing Andrew an inadvertent favor, he’d also be assuring his future with the Agency, whether he liked it or not!

Of course, knowing JD’s suspicious nature - especially when JD figured out that Jackson had worked for Andrew, following Brenda and taking pictures of her to supply JD with information about her - he’d confront him, and he’d be forced to feign ignorance about Jackson’s obsessive tendencies toward Brenda. It would be a boldface lie, of course, since he had seen ample evidence of Jackson’s fixation on her throughout the years, but lying was second nature for him. He’d become a practiced liar over the years, and in some cases even he had grown to believe his own lies, often no longer able to remember what the truth really was. That was an occupational hazard in this business; you lie to stay alive and for the greater good, he rationalized. Besides, he had been JD’s mentor and confidante for years, and JD had to believe him.

He leaned back in his desk chair and took another sip of his tea. Suddenly, he felt a sharp twinge in his chest and he immediately grabbed for his nitroglycerin tablets, which he kept constantly at the ready. He slid one under his tongue and waited for it to work its magic. As he sat there, he realized that over the past few days he had used more tablets than he had previously used in a month. “Must be the tension from this entire situation,” he muttered testily to himself. But as the pain began to slowly subside and he began to feel his earlier optimism return, a macabre thought hit him: “And if JD doesn’t buy my lies, then I’ll just feign a heart attack. Considering all the chest pain I’ve had lately, I bet I could be pretty convincing at that,” he laughed sardonically, taking another sip of tea, as he toasted the success of his plan to finally rid both his and JD’s lives of the extraneous people that had bothered them both for far too long.

Jax eyed Mike warily, unsure that he had heard him correctly. “What does Brenda have to do with any of this?” he asked angrily, as he jumped up from his chair and stood over Mike, glaring down at him and wondering how Mike had managed to drag her into this conspiracy scenario that he and his father had been weaving all morning?

“Maybe nothing - maybe everything,” Mike answered enigmatically, never blinking as he stood so that he was eye-to-eye with Jax. “But it’s my job as head of security to look at any unusual occurrences, and I’d say that her showing up here unexpectedly this morning in the midst of all this other chaos was an unusual occurrence… How long have you known her, and just how well do you know her?”

“I just met her recently, but I know her intimately,” Jax answered without hesitation, his eyes narrowed in anger. “But you’d already guessed that, hadn’t you?”

“Jax, please,” his father pleaded, stepping between the two men. “Mike has to look at all possibilities here…”

“Dad, you met her! You can’t possibly think that she had anything to do with what’s happening here with the company!” Jax gave his father an exasperated look, wondering when his father had taken leave of his senses?

“I’m not saying that she’s directly responsible for what’s happening,” Mike interrupted before John could answer his son. “I’m just saying that there could be the possibility that what’s happening here at this firm today could be tied in some way to your recent association with her.”

“You think that she’s the inside help that someone used to sabotage this company?” Jax asked, throwing his hands up in frustration at Mike’s rationale here. “I can assure you that when Brenda and I were together, getting me to divulge company secrets was not a high priority for her! In fact, she was barely around when I was conducting business, and the only question that I can even remember her asking about this company was last night when I was telling her about my family and she asked if Jerry was involved in the business, too.”

Mike continued to stare stonily at Jax, unmoved by Jax’s impassioned defense of Brenda.

“Jax, please… Mike’s not suggesting…” John repeated, but he was once again interrupted by Mike, eager to defend his position.

“Jax, you’ve known me since you were a teen, and you’ve always trusted my instincts before… I’m just wondering if your association with her might be detrimental in the long run. Perhaps, she…” Mike began slowly, but Jax didn’t wait for him to finish his thoughts.

“I have more than a mere association with her, as you so euphemistically put it - I’ve asked her to marry me!” Jax exclaimed loudly, eliciting astonished looks from both his father and Mike. “Why are you so surprised, Dad? I told you that I planned to ask her to marry me.”

“Yes, you did, Jax, but you also said that you planned to propose to her on the beach at sunset someday; not in the early morning hours of a business day in the middle of a major crisis today,” John answered, still somewhat astounded that Jax had fallen so completely and so quickly for this woman. But then, without hesitation, he grasped Jax’s hand and shook it firmly before pulling him into his arms for a full bear hug. “But it doesn’t matter how or when you asked her, does it? All that matters is that you and Brenda are happy! Congratulations, son!”

Mike watched with raised eyebrows, unsure as to how to proceed now. It was one thing to suspect your boss’s lover of possible involvement in something clandestine and another thing entirely to suspect his fiancée… “Ummm… yeah… congratulations, Jax… I… I had no idea…” he stammered, wondering if he’d still have a job when the smoke cleared here?

Jax pulled away from his father’s grip and smiled sheepishly at both John and Mike. “Actually, she hasn’t accepted my proposal yet,” he reluctantly admitted, “but I do know her well enough - and love her enough - to ask. My point is, Mike, she isn’t a corporate spy who pursued me in order to bed me and then somehow distract me while her associates wreaked havoc with this company. If anything, I pursued her - to the point of making a nuisance of myself.”

“I never meant to imply that her feelings for you were anything but genuine,” Mike apologized, feeling more awkward than he had ever felt before in his life. But he still couldn’t shake this feeling that Brenda Wilding was somehow tied to this whole mess. “And I didn’t mean that she was even necessarily aware of someone using her to get to you and this company…” he hesitated slightly as both Jax and John gave him puzzled looks. “Listen, you both are well aware of my background. I was FBI for nearly twenty years before coming here. John, you even said that it was my experience there that landed me this job as your security chief. You said that my instincts were honed from my years at the Bureau and that you felt you could trust those same instincts to protect this company - and you have always trusted me completely before this. My question is: why can’t you trust me now?”

“Because you’re wrong!” Jax exploded, as he pounded his fist on the conference table. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying here, Mike? Brenda has nothing to do with any of this - consciously or unconsciously. She’s simply a photographer from New York. She’s even a bit of recluse. Up until me, she rarely dated and barely even socialized - and then only when it was absolutely necessary to publicize her work. She’s not connected to anyone or anything sinister. She certainly hasn’t been traveling in circles where corporate espionage…” Jax stopped mid-sentence and the blood drained from his face, as things slowly began to fall into place for him.

“What is it, son?” John asked, seeing Jax’s sudden pallor.

Jax sank down on a nearby chair, as bits and pieces of information began to fit uncomfortably together in his head. “Maybe she has some questionable connections after all… Brenda confided in me last night why she was so reluctant to be in a relationship with me… A few years ago she was involved with a man who called himself Jarrod Davis. She was in love with the guy and she thought he felt the same, but one day he just disappeared without a trace… On top of that, when she went to the authorities to report him missing, she said it was like he had never existed in the first place…”

A look of unease crossed both John’s and Mike’s faces at that disclosure, but Jax missed it because he was too absorbed in his own feelings of unease as he continued, “They’d been in Europe at the time, traveling from country to country, and yet customs had no record of a Jarrod Davis - or any man traveling with her, for that matter…” He hesitated slightly, taking a deep breath before once again continuing with the story, “When I first met her, I had Tom Peterman run a background check on her, and he found that there are big chunks of her history missing, like someone edited out periods in her life…”

“That’s odd,” John observed, as he sat down across the table from Jax. “Tom’s the best. His agency can usually ferret out anything.”

“Right, Dad, but they were stymied when it came to piecing together the missing pieces of her background…” Jax continued. “An entire summer of her life was gone, as well as bits and pieces from the months that followed. Tom felt that whoever deleted that information had to have had easy access to all parts of her private information - maybe even government clearance or something…” Mike inhaled sharply at that piece of information, as Jax continued, “He said that if she was mixed up with someone like that, then she was most likely nothing but trouble and it would be better if I steered clear of her… I told him where he could stick his opinions, and then I kicked him out… Since then I’ve learned from Brenda that that was the summer that she and this Davis were involved…” His voice trailed off, as he looked up at his father, embarrassment evident on his face. “I let my libido and my pride get in the way of my good sense, didn’t I? And now it may have cost all of us!” Jax exclaimed, his face hardening as he jumped up and headed toward the door.

“Jax!” his father called after him, realizing his son’s intent. “Don’t do anything rash here, son! You said that she was with this man years ago. There’s no reason to believe that she or her mysterious past has anything to do with our mess.”

Jax stopped, his hand poised on the doorknob. “But Mike does, and as Mike just pointed out, you and I both have always trusted his instincts before this.”

“True,” John concurred, as he stood to make his point, “but your instincts have always been good also, Jax, and you trust this girl… Besides, we still don’t have any more than mere coincidence and Mike’s gut feelings to even suspect a tie between her appearance in your life and the monumental mess we have here.” He moved to where Jax stood, putting his hand on Jax’s shoulder. “Don’t go rashly throwing away your future happiness on mere supposition. Let’s think this thing through before you confront Brenda with any of this.”

“Listen, I know that I’m the one who planted the seeds of doubt in your mind in the first place, but this really could be all just coincidence,” Mike broke in, trying to sound conciliatory, although he truly still felt that Brenda Wilding was smack dab in the middle of everything, whether she knew it or not.

Jax gave Mike a hard look. “Do you really believe that, Mike?” The fact that Mike averted his eyes gave Jax his answer. “I didn’t think so,” he said as he once again moved to open the door, intent on going to Brenda and getting some answers.

His father’s voice stopped him: “Jax, don’t go off half-cocked here. If she is somehow involved in this, we at least know where she is right now, and with Gwen watching her, she won’t be going anywhere soon… We can’t be overreacting here on supposition based on her possible ancient history. You said yourself that she was involved with this man a long time ago, and since then he seems to have completely disappeared from her life. So it really is doubtful that any of this is related to her at all.”

“You don’t understand, Dad. She thought he had disappeared from her life, but he showed up again, out of the blue - just last night,” Jax answered tersely. He paused momentarily, his hand still poised on the doorknob, as he weighed his next words carefully. “I don’t think this is coincidence at all anymore, but I also don’t think Brenda has any idea that she could be an unwitting pawn in all of this mess here… She came here this morning to tell me good-bye… She was ready to take off to parts unknown with this Davis. She said that Davis had shown up suddenly to warn her that she was in danger from the people he worked for, and he’s convinced her that the danger is real enough to run off with him. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone - and she didn’t want to tell me - but I forced it out of her. She says that she still loves and trusts this Davis despite everything he’s put her through in the past four years, yet I got the feeling that she was trying to protect me in some way - possibly from him, possibly from the people he works for. But Gwen interrupted before she could go into detail about any of this.”

“You know,” Mike offered, his heart beating faster at the information Jax had just disclosed about Brenda and this Davis, “her relationship with this guy could be the key to all of this. I mean, you said Tom Peterman assumed that someone pretty high up somewhere had tampered with her history in order to cover up certain details, especially this man’s entire existence in her life.”

Mike paused, as his mind was now racing with possibilities, based on what Jax had just told them. “When I was at the Bureau, we always heard rumors about agencies within the government that are so super secret that even Congress doesn’t know they existed. Now - this is just supposition, mind you - what if this Davis is affiliated with one of these so-called ‘invisible’ agencies, and his agency views his relationship with Ms. Wilding as a possible threat of some kind. I would imagine that those in charge in such an agency would go to great lengths to protect the anonymity of the agency and the agent from any enemies - both real and imagined.”

“Okay, let’s suppose your theory is true, Mike,” John interrupted, trying to follow Mike’s reasoning. “I could understand Brenda’s life being turned upside down by her association with Davis, but how does that connect with what’s happening within this company today? … I know that I was the one who urged Jax to listen to your theories, but now I’m the one who’s skeptical. I’m sure that tampering with a computer system and a phone system would be child’s play for some people - especially people who routinely live beneath the radar, like a secret government agency - but my question is: what would they want with J&J Jacks in the first place, and how does Brenda fit in? Where’s the smoking gun here?”

“John, I don’t think we can waste time looking for a smoking gun right now,” Mike answered as calmly as possible, given the situation as he saw it. “We may just have to go on the fumes if we’re to stop this before it goes any further. You’re right, though, tampering with computers and communications is a simple task for these people, and rumor has it they do it routinely and they do it well - along with other, far worse things…”

While John and Mike had been talking, the wheels had been turning for Jax, as he put together all the bits and pieces of information that he’d gleaned about Brenda and her life over the past few days. “Maybe the sabotage here wasn’t really meant to do any real damage to us - maybe it was meant to be more of a nuisance that required all of our immediate attention to handle,” he interrupted, his mind now racing with terrible possibilities. “Maybe all of this mess was just a distraction to get me to come back here and away from Brenda… Maybe she was the target all along…” He stopped his musings, as he suddenly understood Mike’s earlier inference. “… Murder is probably routine for them, too, isn’t it?” he asked, but he didn’t bother to wait for a response from Mike because he already knew the answer.

Jax ran out the door and through the crowded halls of the executive suites, racing toward his own office, his heart in his throat, berating himself as he ran. Just minutes ago, he’d been ready to accuse Brenda of using their relationship to undermine his business in some way. But now the fate of this company was the least of his worries. Despite the fact that he had left Brenda safely ensconced in his office not more than an hour ago, he needed to reassure himself that she was still there. He was suddenly glad that Brenda’s spontaneous nature had driven her to say goodbye to him in person. Now she was safe in his office and not 3000 miles away, running into the arms of a man who could possibly kill - or get her killed - as casually as most people order lunch.

Jarrod Davis hadn’t been just trying to scare Brenda into going with him when he warned that she was in danger; he had known what his people were capable of because he was capable of it, too! And now Jax had the overwhelming sense that Brenda was in far more danger than even she realized, and that danger most likely came from the one man she trusted to save her - Jarrod Davis. Jax could see that clearly now, and he had to make her see that, too, because her life depended on it!

“Brenda!” Jax yelled, as he threw open the door to his office and scanned the room. Gone was the chaotic mess that he had walked out of just over an hour ago; now everything seemed to be neatly where it belonged - everything but one, and that was Brenda. She wasn’t resting on the couch; she wasn’t sitting in his oversized, leather desk chair; and she wasn’t staring out the wall of windows that overlooked the city. His eyes went immediately to the door of his private bathroom; it was closed. She’s in there, he told himself as he ran the length of the room and knocked softly on the closed door.

“Brenda,” he called softly. “It’s me - Jax. I’m back from my meeting, and I have the rest of the day to spend with you…” His greeting was met by silence. Undeterred, he knocked again, more loudly this time. “Brenda… are you okay?” Still silence. Slowly he turned the knob of the unlocked door and opened it to find the large bathroom dark and empty. He felt the panic begin to rise in him again, but he tried his best to quash it back. She’d promised that she wouldn’t leave, so he had to believe that she was somewhere here in the building. But where?

“Gwen!” he bellowed, as he ran back to the door that led from his office to the outer area of Addie’s work space and the hall that connected all the office suites on the executive floor, but he didn’t see Addie’s assistant anywhere.

“She’s not there,” John Jacks answered, as he and Mike Moriarity entered Jax’s office. They had followed Jax the minute he’d left John’s office, and both were as concerned about Brenda’s whereabouts as Jax was.

“Where the hell are they?!” Jax exploded, as continued to yell down the hall for Gwen.

“Maybe Gwen took Brenda somewhere,” John offered, trying to put a positive spin on all of this; he could see the panic already rising in Jax’s eyes. “Maybe they went down to the dining room for something more to eat… Or - didn’t you say that Brenda had a splitting headache when you left her earlier?” he asked, and Jax nodded. “Well, then that’s probably the answer to this mystery of her whereabouts. Maybe the Tylenol wasn’t strong enough to ease her headache, and Gwen took her down to the clinic for something more potent.”

“You’re probably right, Dad,” Jax answered, forcing a smile and willing himself to relax. There had to be a logical explanation as to where Brenda was. He wanted to believe that she hadn’t lied to him when she promised not to leave before he returned. But he had a niggling sense of foreboding that he couldn’t seem to shake. Something inside him was screaming that Brenda had indeed left and that now she was headed straight for disaster.

“Jax, why don’t you go back into your office and call both the dining room and the clinic, and I’ll try to find Gwen?” John offered, and Jax nodded gratefully.

“I have something I want to check myself,” Mike said, then turned and quickly headed for the bank of elevators in the center of the floor.

Once back in his office, Jax continued to try to tamp down the uneasiness that threatened to overtake his sensibilities. Grabbing the phone, he hit the numbers for first the dining room and then the clinic; neither place had seen either Gwen or Brenda, although when Dr. Breyley heard that he was calling, she asked that he tell Brenda to give her a call sometime. He tried to push the doctor for details, but she just said it was nothing serious; she just needed to talk to Brenda briefly before she left. Another red flag went up for him at that; despite Dr. Breyley’s assurances that it was nothing serious, Jax now feared for Brenda’s health as well as her safety. He had to find her - and fast!

His father came in then with one of the pool secretaries, Lanie Thompson, following closely behind. “I couldn’t find either Brenda or Gwen, but Ms. Thompson said she saw Gwen racing down the hall just minutes ago.”

Jax turned his attention immediately to the pretty young blonde, who was fidgeting nervously in front of his desk. “When did you see Gwen last?”

“Ummm… It was not more than ten or fifteen minutes ago, I guess, Mr. Jacks,” Lanie answered, shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot as she spoke. She’d worked here at J&J Jacks for over two years now, but she had never actually spoken to the younger Mr. Jacks - or even been this close to him before - although he had been the fuel for her many fantasies since the first day she’d laid eyes on him. But being here in his office, standing so close to him that she could actually feel the heat from his body and smell his cologne, she thought she’d pass out from hyperventilation!

She stood staring at Jax, completely lost in her own fantasy world, as she imagined his piercing blue-green eyes looking right into her soul and recognizing the love that she felt for him and returning that love with his gaze. She could almost feel her fingers combing their way through his thick, blonde waves of hair, and his strong, muscular arms wrapping around her, pulling her tightly against that taut, buff body of his. And she could almost taste those ultra-kissable lips as they slowly descended upon hers, where their tongues would dance a tango unlike any his had ever danced before…! She finally came out of her haze and was suddenly aware that Jax was waiting for her to answer him.

“Ms. Thompson! I asked if you happened to see where Gwen was heading and if she had anyone with her?” Jax repeated, his tone uncharacteristically clipped and impatient. Time was at a premium now and he didn’t have any to waste on daydreaming secretaries!

“Ummm… She was alone, sir, and I assumed that she was heading toward the ladies room because she had her purse in her hand and she was going in that direction,” Lanie answered, embarrassed that she had been fantasizing about Jax while he was trying to talk to her, and now unable to get the image out of her head of his broad chest, glistening with sweat, after an afternoon of impassioned lovemaking between them.

Jax was oblivious to the lascivious thoughts that were running through the secretary’s head at that moment. His mind was completely focused on finding Brenda and Gwen. “Did you happen to see another woman leaving this office at any time? … Shapely; long, curly, dark hair; unbelievably beautiful?”

That stopped the erotic images in Lanie’s head dead in their tracks. She knew that there had been a beautiful woman in Jax’s office earlier - she’d actually seen her, in fact, racing out of the office about an hour or so ago. And the rumor going around was that Jax was actually in love with this one, but she’d chosen to ignore the fodder from the gossip mill because it didn’t fit into her fantasies about Jax and herself. But now, seeing the concerned look on his face and the unmistakable love in his eyes for this missing woman, she knew her dreams of ever being anything more than one of his many assistants were futile. She should probably just forget her fantasies and tell him what she knew… She probably should, but she wouldn’t, she thought stubbornly.

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t seen anyone fitting that description at all today,” she lied, smiling sweetly at Jax as she inconspicuously leaned closer to him, enjoying the immediate proximity that she now had to him. “But if I do see that woman, I’ll be sure to let you know,” she purred demurely, smiling seductively at him.

But her feeble attempts at flirting were lost on Jax, whose thoughts were completely focused on finding Brenda. “You said that it looked like Gwen was headed toward the ladies room, and that was - what? - about ten minutes ago, right?” Jax asked, as he ran around his desk to where Lanie was standing, grabbing her lightly by the shoulders.

The awestruck young woman merely nodded her reply, as she was rendered speechless by the presence of his hands on her body.

“Lanie, I need you to do a favor for me…” Jax began, oblivious to the effect that his touch was having on her.

“Anything, Mr. Jacks!” she finally answered breathily. This was her chance to get into Jax’s good graces.

“I need for you to go to the ladies room to see if Gwen’s there, and if she is, ask her to come to my office immediately. Also, check to see if that woman I described - her name is Brenda - might also be in there,” Jax instructed, his face calm, but his voice indicating the importance of this seemingly simple task.

“That won’t be necessary.” Everyone turned at those words to see Gwen standing in the doorway of Jax’s office. Her eyes were red, and it looked as if she’d been crying. “I just came from the ladies room, and Brenda’s not there. In fact, she doesn’t seem to be anywhere. I’ve called all over the building and no one - not even Tom Kincaid, down in security - has seen her, and he’s manning the main doors! It’s like she just vanished!”

Jax rushed to Gwen’s side, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her to face him. “Tell me exactly what happened here - exactly what she said and did - everything!”

“Mr. Jacks, I am so sorry!” Gwen cried, tears once again spilling down her cheeks. “Ms. Wilding didn’t say much of anything after I came in. She’d found and taken the Tylenol, and she told me she planned to rest until you got back from your meeting. That was all… I was talking away with her and I thought she was still listening - just quietly, you know… I didn’t realize… I mean, she was lying on your couch one minute, and the next minute, she was just gone! And I was so busy cleaning up your things that I didn’t even notice that she’d gone!…” she sputtered, wiping her nose with the tissue John handed her.

“It’s not your fault, Gwen,” John soothed, handing her another tissue.

“But she hasn’t been gone all that long,” Gwen continued, taking a deep breath after once again wiping her nose. “Because less than a half hour ago she was still resting on that couch,” she said, pointing to Jax’s couch on the wall near the door. “At first I thought she’d just gone into your private bathroom because she really didn’t look well at all…I mean, she was really pale, and I thought she would pass out at any minute… But anyway, after a few minutes, when I hadn’t heard any sounds at all from your bathroom, I knocked on the door. That’s when I realized that there was no light coming from under the door, so I opened it and it was empty.”

She took another deep breath before continuing: “That’s when I started to panic because I knew how upset you’d be if I let Ms. Wilding just leave like that - all pale and dizzy and all… Anyway, that’s when I started calling around to see if anyone had seen her, and no one had - not even security!” She wrung her hands as she looked at Jax with downcast eyes. “I should have called you right away, but I figured maybe she’d gone to the ladies room down the hall. So I ran down there to check, but she wasn’t there either, and no one who was there had seen her either since the moment she went into your office. It’s like she just vanished! … I’m so sorry, Mr. Jacks! I’ll understand if you want to fire me…”

“Gwen, it’s okay. It’s not your fault she left, and it wasn’t your responsibility to babysit her,” Jax offered, feeling guilty that he had been so harsh with Gwen. “I shouldn’t even have asked you to keep an eye on her when you had so many other things to handle today…You didn’t do anything wrong - Your job is safe. Why don’t you go back to Addie’s desk and try to pull yourself together, and then take an early lunch? The computers are back to normal and the phone systems should be operational again within the hour, so we’ll survive without you for the next hour or so,” Jax smiled, as he patted Gwen gently on the shoulder, then he looked to Lanie. “Lanie, could you help Gwen the rest of the day? She’s had a lot thrown on her with Addie gone, and I think it would be a good idea if you acted as her assistant until Addie gets back.”

“I’d be glad to help Gwen… Anything for you, Mr. Jacks,” Lanie cooed, seeing this as her opportunity to outshine Gwen and possibly wheedle her way in as Jax’s assistant while Addie was out of commission. Maybe if she proved competent enough she’d be kept on permanently as his assistant, even after Addie returned. After all, Addie was getting up there in years, and Jax really should have an assistant who fully recognized his special wants and needs and was young and willing to give of herself, day and night, to fulfilling those wants and needs. She turned to Gwen, who continued to sniffle, and suggested: “Let’s get back to our desks, Gwen, and you can show me what needs to be done while you’re gone.”

Gwen nodded as she and Lanie turned to leave. Looking back over her shoulder, Gwen added, “I wish I had more to tell you, Mr. Jacks, but she never said or did anything that led me to believe that she was planning on going anywhere, other than your couch.”

Jax and his father watched as Gwen and Lanie exited Jax’s office, pulling the door shut behind them. Jax grabbed for the phone and tried for an outside line “Dammit!” Jax swore, slamming the phone down in frustration when there was still nothing there. “I need to call the airport. I’m sure she’s on her way back to New York and him! She thinks she’s protecting herself and me by running with him, but I think she’s putting herself in more danger by going back to him!” He looked expectantly up at his father. “Dad, can I use your cell phone?”

John Jacks reached into his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. “Gwen still has it… I gave it to her earlier, and I guess she forgot to give it back.” He watched as the panic once again began to rise on Jax’s face. “Son, you don’t know that she’s headed back to this man… Does she know your address in Malibu? Maybe she decided that that would be the better place to rest - with her headache and all,” he pointed out, trying to think of a logical reason why Brenda would have run as she had.

“No, she didn’t have my home address. That’s why she came here as soon as she arrived in town instead of going to my home in Malibu. Besides, even if she did have it, I really don’t think she would have gone there without me or without telling me. But I suppose it’s worth a shot to check anyway,” Jax sighed, running a frustrated hand through his hair as he ran to his door and threw it open. “Gwen, I need my dad’s phone that he lent you.”

Lanie was at his office door within seconds with his father’s cell phone. “Thanks, Lanie!” Jax said absently as he snatched the phone from her hands and quickly punched in his home number, impatiently waiting for Charles to answer. “Charles! This is Jax. Has anyone dropped in unexpectedly this morning?”

“No, sir,” Charles, Jax’s longtime head of his household staff, replied. “You’ve had no visitors at all.”

“Charles, if a beautiful brunette shows up there any time in the next hour, I want you to call me on my Dad’s cell phone. The number is 555- 4637. Write that down because that’s the only way you can get ahold of me for the time being. We’re having some major problems here at the office with our outgoing and incoming calls, and we’ve been reduced to using our cell phones, but mine isn’t working so I’m using Dad’s for the time being. It’s very important that you call me if she shows up or calls. Her name is Brenda Wilding…” Jax instructed, even though he was certain she wouldn’t be showing up at his Malibu house.

“I understand, sir… By the way, your brother called and said that he needed for you to call him immediately. He said it was an emergency,” Charles said crisply.

“Jerry called?” Jax sighed, realizing that Jerry was probably wondering where the jet was. “Okay, Charles, thanks for giving me the message. I’ll take care of it, and you let me know immediately if Ms. Wilding calls or shows up there.”

“Very good, sir,” Charles answered, and then they both hung up.

Jax closed his father’s phone and moved to hand it back to him, but his father waved him off. “Why don’t you keep it? At least until we get the phones back up and running or Brenda is found - whichever comes first,” John suggested, and Jax nodded his thanks. “Now, what’s this about Jerry calling?” his father asked, curious as to what Jerry might want from his brother.

His father’s question reminded Jax about the corporate jet that he’d promised to send back to Jerry last night. “Most likely he was wondering where the jet was,” Jax answered, as he ran to his desk and hit the intercom button.

“Yes, Mr. Jacks?” Lanie Thompson’s voice answered.

“Is Gwen still here?” Jax asked quickly.

“No, sir. She was really upset, so she left for that early lunch that you suggested,” Lanie replied. “But I’m filling in for her now, sir, so anything you need…”

“Thanks! This is very important… Do you have a cell phone there?” He heard her murmur affirmatively. “Good… I need for you to get into Addie’s Rolodex and get the number for our private hangar and call it to make sure that the corporate jet hasn’t left for New York yet,” Jax instructed, his tone conveying the seriousness of this. “If it’s still there, tell them to wait because I’m going, too! Also I want you to call LAX and check with all the airlines to see if they have or had a passenger on one of their departing flights named Brenda Wilding - No, make that Brenda Barrett. My hunch is that she’ll try for the next available flight back to New York… And Lanie, let me know immediately once you’ve got answers on either front!”

“Why on earth does Jerry need the jet?” John asked, as Jax let go of the intercom and walked to the conference table, where his suit coat was now resting.

“Long story, Dad,” Jax answered, as he grabbed his coat and shrugged it on. “Let’s just say that Jerry has some great news to tell you and Mum, but it’s not my news to tell, and I don’t have time now to tell it anyway.”

“Okay, but what is this about Brenda Barrett? Is that Barrett - as in Barrett Industries?” John was totally confused now.

“Yeah, Dad, it is, and that’s another long story, which I promise to tell you once I find Brenda and know that she’s safe!” He hit the intercom again for Lanie. “Lanie, have you gotten the hangar yet?”

“Yes, sir, they were just readying to taxi to the runway when I called. They’re awaiting your arrival now,” Lanie answered informed him.

“Thanks!… Have you been able to find Brenda on any of the outgoing flights from LAX?” Jax asked.

“Not yet, sir, but both Delta and American are checking, and I’m holding for Continental now,” Lanie answered.

“Okay, let me know if you find anyone with a remotely similar name to Brenda’s!” Jax instructed curtly.

Just then there was a perfunctory knock at his office door and then the door opened before either Jax or John could say anything, and Mike Moriarity entered, carrying a videotape in his hand. “I’m sorry to barge in,” he apologized, closing the door behind him.

“Mike, no problem! Actually, I’m glad you’re here!” Jax said, as he grabbed for his father’s cell phone and shoved it in the inside pocket of his coat, which he then shrugged into. “We finally found Gwen, and she says Brenda hasn’t been gone more than thirty minutes or so. She says she checked with security at the main entrance and they hadn’t seen Brenda, but I was wondering if you could double check for me there, too. Also, I was wondering if one of those security cameras you have everywhere might have caught a glimpse of Brenda, either leaving the building or going somewhere else in the building that we haven’t thought to check.”

“Actually, I do have something that I think you should see,” Mike said, walking swiftly to the far wall of doors and throwing them open to reveal a wall of TV sets and VCRs. He held up the videotape that he carried with him. “I think you’ll find this very interesting, especially in light of what you just told me,” he said, as he turned on a TV and pushed the tape into a VCR, picking up a remote and hitting ‘play’ immediately.

They all waited as the screen silently lit up to show the interior of Jax’s office, and the time and the date stamp in the corner of the screen indicated it was just prior to when Jax had left Brenda alone to go to his father’s office. Jax and Brenda were standing by the couch, and Gwen was in the doorway. Jax’s eyes narrowed as he studied the screen. “That’s this office! You are not to tape this office without my express permission and knowledge!” Jax exclaimed angrily, glaring at Mike contemptuously.

“I know, Jax, and I never have before, but after bringing Ms. Wilding up here this morning, something told me I should keep an eye on things in your office, whether you wanted me to or not,” Mike explained. But when Jax appeared to grow angrier at that, he added: “I told you that I had a feeling I couldn’t shake, and I’m not one to just sit back and ignore a feeling as strong as that one was!”

“Brenda is not a threat to this company!” Jax yelled, his eyes flashing angrily.

“I never said that she was,” Mike answered calmly. “Just watch what happens after you leave the office.” Mike hit the fast forward button on the remote, taking the action to a point where Brenda is alone in the office and searching Jax’s desk.

“So, what’s your point, Mike? I was the one who told Brenda to look for the Tylenol on my desk. She’s not doing anything I didn’t know about,” Jax pointed out.

“I’m not accusing her of anything,” Mike defended himself again. “Just keep watching.”

And so they did… They watched as Brenda found the Tylenol bottle and started to move toward the conference table where the water pitcher was, when something else on Jax’s desk appeared to catch her eye. They watched as she pulled up what looked like a framed picture and smiled as she ran her fingers over it, and then she appeared dazed as she took a second look at the picture, closing her eyes and reopening them again, only to stare at the picture. Then she dropped both the picture and the bottle as Gwen suddenly appeared in the office and began clearing things on Jax’s desk. Brenda then held up the picture for Gwen, followed by a brief exchange between them, which appeared to unnerve Brenda. A few more seconds passed as Brenda stared at the picture, and then she grabbed her coat and her camera bag and raced from the room, while Gwen continued to straighten Jax’s desk. A few frames later, Gwen looked up and noticed that Brenda was no longer in the room. Smiling, she pulled a cell phone from her pocket and made a call, while she leisurely continued to straighten Jax’s office.

Both Jax and John continued to watch the flickering, black-and-white images on the screen in stunned silence for several seconds more, before Mike stopped the tape and removed it from the machine. “There really isn’t much more after that,” Mike explained, shutting off both the VCR and the TV. “Gwen speaks to her party for less than a minute, then goes about leisurely straightening your office. She makes a couple of more calls, and then she stands near the closed door and works herself into tears before exiting the office. As you can see from the time frame on the tape, she lied to you about when Ms. Wilding left. She told you that it was just a half hour ago, when it was actually within minutes of when you left this office for our meeting in John’s office.”

Mike looked from John to Jax, who continued to stare at the darkened TV screen and appeared to be trying to make sense of all of this in the context of the overall picture of the day’s bizarre happenings. “I know you think I’m too into conspiracies, Jax,” Mike continued, referring to Jax’s comments earlier in John’s office when Mike had offered his theory connecting Brenda’s appearance here with the company’s troubles. “But, in light of what we’ve just seen here, I think there may indeed be a connection between our troubles and Ms. Wilding’s appearance, and I think Gwen is part of that connection. Gwen definitely lied to you about how things happened here and the time frame they happened in. It appeared that Gwen’s purpose for coming into this office after you left was to get Ms. Wilding out of here for some reason. You gave her the perfect cover when you asked her to help Ms. Wilding search for that Tylenol, then she spent time straightening the office before appearing to go look for her.”

“I still don’t see how Brenda fits into all of this,” John said, looking from Mike to Jax, who had yet to say anything since Mike had played the tape.

“Gwen’s working for him,” Jax answered, his voice as hard as his face, as he thought over everything that had happened in the past twelve hours. “She’s working for Jarrod Davis - or whatever the hell his real name is - to keep Brenda and me apart. First he hired someone to handle taking Addie out of the picture, which he knew would bring me back here and away from Brenda and put Gwen in the catbird seat. Then to make sure I was sufficiently occupied until he whisked Brenda away from me permanently, he had Gwen act as saboteur here within the business to distract me completely and act as further roadblocks between Brenda and me. But what he hadn’t counted on was Brenda flying here to see me to say goodbye in person. He must have realized that it was a good possibility that she’d never return to New York and to him once we saw one another here, so he must have contacted Gwen again and gave her a message for Brenda.”

“But why would Gwen do this?” John interrupted, still trying to make sense of what they’d all just seen. “She’s been a loyal employee for nearly a decade! She’s proven herself time and again. She’s been Addie’s right hand for years, and Addie has told me more than once how capable and efficient she is,” John added, shaking his head. “She’s never given us a reason to ever doubt her…”

“Exactly!” Mike exclaimed, setting the tape down on the conference table and moving toward Jax’s desk. “Which put her in the perfect position to easily and efficiently carry out the sabotage on the company while arousing the least suspicion. She knew precisely what minor ‘adjustments’ to make to disable the company short-term, while not destroying it in the long run.”

“As for the why,” Mike continued, settling himself on the corner of Jax’s desk, “most likely money is at the top of the list. I’m betting that a check of Gwen’s bank account will show a very substantial deposit within the past few days. If what Jax has said about this Jarrod Davis is true, he’s most likely deeply hidden within the bowels of government service and he probably has connections out the whazoo. He could easily have looked into the inner workings of this organization to find its weak links. In my opinion, Gwen was only the tip of the iceberg. She certainly didn’t arrange Addie’s accident last night, and she didn’t single-handedly bring this place to its knees, and she didn’t single-handedly manage to delete from the security tapes Brenda’s escape route and eventual exit from the building.”

“You think someone in security was in on this, too?” John asked incredulously, shaking his head at the ramifications this held, if true.

Mike nodded. “I’ve got a pretty good idea who it was. I’m taking care of things on that front now, and if my hunch is right, I’ll clue you two in as to his identity later. But until I’m certain, I don’t want to be casting aspersions about anyone’s character here and tainting your future view of them if I’m wrong.”

“Why didn’t Gwen’s connection in security delete this tape, too?” John asked, pointing to the tape they’d just viewed. “This was Gwen’s ultimate downfall, after all. We would have believed her story if it hadn’t been for this tape.”

Mike smiled slyly. “That’s because no one else in the department knew that I turned on this camera, so no one but me knew that there even was a tape that might contradict Gwen’s cover story about Ms. Wilding’s leaving and then implicate her in this company’s sabotage. By the way, I noticed that Gwen wasn’t in the outer office when I came in…”

“That’s because I suggested she take an early lunch to make up for the bad morning she’d had,” Jax answered grimly, shaking his head at his blunder. “I can’t believe I actually felt guilty for yelling at her about letting Brenda go like that. Now I want to strangle her with my bare hands!”

He hit the intercom on his desk. “Lanie, did Gwen say where she was going when she left?”

“No, sir, she didn’t,” Lanie answered sweetly. “She just said she had to get some fresh air, then she left… That was about ten minutes ago, so I don’t expect her back for another fifty minutes or so… Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime?… By the way, I’m still on hold with Continental, waiting for an answer about Ms. Wilding.”

“Thanks, Lanie,” Jax replied. “Let me know the minute you have anything from LAX -and if Gwen returns.” Jax sighed as he looked up at Mike and his dad. “I really blew it when I suggested Gwen take off, didn’t I? Now we may never see her again, and we might never know for sure that Davis hired her and why.”

“Well, since Gwen has no idea we’re onto her, it’s my bet she’ll be back after her lunch. In fact, she probably has no intention of leaving her position here even with the likely recent infusion of capital into her account,” Mike asserted. “From what I’ve seen of Gwen Stevens, she likes her power position as Addie’s right hand, and with Addie gone, that theoretically gives her more power and control here in the executive suite. Once she’s back, I’ll nab her and call the police. Corporate espionage within an international corporation is a federal felony, after all, no matter the motivation or the extent of the espionage.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Jax said, extending his hand to Mike. “I’m glad now you went behind my back and taped this office without my permission. Otherwise, we’d never known that Gwen was lying to us. Now I wish you’d used all the cameras and the sound as well. I’d like to know what Gwen said to Brenda that made her panic and run out of here like that.”

“So would I,” Mike agreed, shaking Jax’s hand eagerly. “I’d also like to know what picture Ms. Wilding was looking at and why she seemed so thrown by it.”

“That’s right! She took off with the picture still in her hands, didn’t she?” Jax said as he glanced around his desk at the pictures that he had sitting on his desktop. They were mostly candid shots of his family; one was of his parents on their last anniversary; another was of his father and the prize-winning marlin he’d landed deep-sea fishing off the coast of Florida a few years back; a third was of his mother, posing in the midst of her favorite rose garden at his parents’ ranch; and the fourth… The fourth photo was the one that was missing.

Jax looked up at his dad and Mike, puzzled by what he’d found missing. “She took the picture of Jerry and me that Mum snapped a couple of Christmases ago… Why would she take it, and why did she look so shocked when she saw it?”

John shrugged his shoulders. “You said yourself that she came here to say goodbye before she went into hiding with this Davis fellow. Perhaps she knew all along that she couldn’t stay here with you, so she took the picture to remember you.”

“Dad, Brenda’s a photographer!” Jax pointed out. “She took scads of pictures of me, and of her and me, in the time we were together. No, there had to be another reason she took it - and why she reacted the way she did to the picture, too…”

But before anyone could offer a possible explanation, there was a knock on Jax’s door and then it opened to reveal a very excited Lanie Thompson. “Mr. Jacks, you said to let you know the minute I’d found something about Ms. Wilding with any of the airlines… Well, I found something! Continental has a Brenda Barrett on its 10:20 a.m. direct flight to New York, which just took off.”

Jax grabbed Lanie by the shoulders. “Lanie, remind me to give you a big, fat raise when I get back, but for now you’re going to have to settle for this!” He pulled her to him and gave her a big kiss directly on her very surprised lips, which literally made her weak in the knees. “You are the best - simply the best!” He headed out the door and then glanced back over his shoulder at the shell-shocked secretary. “Call the corporate jet and let them know I’m on my way and they’d better have clearance to take off for Kennedy the minute I get there!”

He looked at his father and Mike and added: “Let me know the minute the phones are back up and running and the minute you get Gwen and her accomplices. I have your phone, Dad, so you know how to reach me…”

“Jax, the clock’s ticking!” John scolded, waving his hands at Jax to shoo him out the door. “The faster you leave, the faster you’ll get on that plane and to New York! Call me the minute you find Brenda - I grew rather fond of that future daughter-in-law of mine in the brief time we had together. And when you catch up with this Davis fellow, don’t pummel him completely; save a piece of his hide for me to tan as well!”

Jax just nodded, as he raced out the door and headed for the private elevator that led from the executive suite down to his private parking area. It was just a short distance to LAX from here and it was well past rush hour, so with a little luck he could be airborne in thirty minutes flat. After that, he’d worry about the actual odds of finding Brenda and this Davis, which he knew were roughly comparable to finding a needle in a haystack. But he couldn’t dwell on that. Besides, he’d always been one who regularly beat the odds, and with Jerry helping, Jax had to believe he’d beat them this time, too. Because now the stakes were higher than they'd ever been before - Brenda's life depended on him finding her before Jarrod Davis got her killed!

Her heart was still racing as Brenda slid into her aisle seat and fastened her seatbelt, just in time for the flight attendant in coach to begin her safety spiel. She really hadn’t thought that she’d actually make this flight. It had taken some fancy talking and cost her a couple of hundred dollars, but she’d finally convinced a young man to take a later flight so that she could fly standby in his place. That exchange had left her cash poor now, but it was worth it since it got her out of LA and away from Jax that much quicker. Besides, she’d hit an ATM as soon as she got back to New York; she only wished she could make her problems with Jax and JD go away as quickly and easily as she could make her money worries disappear.

She started to stow her camera bag under the seat in front of her in preparation for takeoff, but instead she opened it and pulled out the framed photo of Jax and JD that she’d found on Jax’s desk. She ran her fingers slowly across the matte glass surface, sighing as she reflected on the monumental mess her life had suddenly become. What was it that she’d been telling herself just hours earlier as she reflected on her life about how lucky she was to have found love, not once, but twice? What kind of luck was it to have only loved twice in your life, and to have both of them turn out to be brothers, no less? What was that old saying… unlucky at love, lucky at cards? If that’s the case, then maybe I should be headed for Vegas to try my hand at blackjack or poker, she thought ruefully.

A tap on her shoulder brought Brenda out of her reflection. She looked up to see the tall, strikingly beautiful, African-American flight attendant, who had given the safety instructions, smiling down at her. “Miss, you’re going to have to put your bag under the seat. We’re about to take off,” she said softly.

“Oh, yes, of course… I’m sorry,” Brenda apologized, smiling back at the attendant, as she quickly put the bag on the floor under the seat in front of her, but keeping the photo firmly in her hand. The attendant merely nodded and continued with her seat inspection, working her way toward the front of the plane and her own seat.

“Which one is it that you’re in love with?” the woman in the window seat next to her asked as Brenda leaned back in her seat, while the plane taxied down the runway for takeoff.

Brenda had been so preoccupied that she hadn’t even noticed that anyone was seated next to her until just this moment. “Pardon?” Brenda asked, startled that someone was talking to her and even more startled by what she thought she’d heard the woman ask.

“I asked which man in the picture is the one you’re in love with - the blonde one or the dark-haired one?” the woman seated next to her repeated, pointing to the picture in Brenda’s hands. At Brenda’s astonished expression, she apologized: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so bold as to ask somethin’ so personal as that of a total stranger.” She extended her right hand to Brenda just as the plane’s nose pointed into the sky for the beginning of its long journey toward New York City. “My name’s Dee Hotchkiss, and I’m a Gypsy by blood and a romance writer by trade, so I guess I have romance in my soul, which means I see love everywhere - sometimes even where it isn’t. But I was sure that I saw love in your eyes when you looked at that picture.”

“Ummm… ohhh…” Brenda stuttered, purposely turning the picture upside down as she wondered how she could back out of this uncomfortable conversation without seeming rude, since they would be seatmates for the next five hours. “I’m Brenda… Brenda Wilding, and I’m a photographer,” she said, shaking the woman’s hand and trying to smile and act casually, despite the fact that she was shaking inside at the woman’s eerily accurate assessment. But, unbeknownst to the woman, Brenda wasn’t just in love with one of the men; she loved them both.

She decided that perhaps the best way to deflect the woman’s question was to hit it head-on, as if it were a harmless question that had no real bearing on her at all. “I suppose we see what we want to see,” Brenda offered, studying the plumpish, forty-something - though still youthfully attractive - brunette as they spoke. The woman has amazing cheekbones, she thought, and the most beautiful smile. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but there was something about her that Brenda immediately knew the camera would love. “I know that as a photographer, I find myself often visualizing things that aren’t there - or that others simply can’t see.”

“Ah, sort of the ‘eye of the beholder’ thing, I guess…” Dee offered, arching a dark eyebrow at Brenda, as she studied Brenda studying her.

“Yes, I guess so,” Brenda murmured, suddenly wishing that she could get some shots of this woman’s wonderfully spirited face. It had so much character and energy in it - especially in her vivid green, almost catlike eyes. There was something about this woman that seemed to be drawing Brenda to her - as if she had some sort of mystical powers about her… Brenda shook her head at that ridiculous thought!

“You see beauty where others might miss it, and I see love where others might also miss it - or deny it,” Dee smiled knowingly, and an uncharacteristic blush raced across Brenda’s face, signaling that Dee had indeed hit the nail on the head. “Of course, I suppose all of life is like that, isn’t it?” she continued. “I mean, our perception of everythin’ is based on our life experiences. What one person calls love could appear to another as an obsession, while a situation that one person views as a catastrophe could look to another as a potential for rebirth and spiritual growth… It really all has to do with one’s perspective, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice trailing off, as if she were having her own epiphany of sorts about something.

“Ummm… yeah, I guess… So you write romance novels, do you?” Brenda asked, immediately changing the subject, as she was not in the frame of mind to pursue a philosophical discussion on life’s perspectives. “I’m afraid that I’m not familiar with any of those… I tend to be drawn to mysteries and political thrillers - when I actually have time to read, that is,” she added with a small laugh that sounded rather stilted, even to her own ears.

“Hmmm… So you like angst and intrigue in your fiction, do you?” Dee asked, sensing that Brenda was trying desperately to lighten the conversation to keep both Dee and herself from focusing on the turmoil she was obviously experiencing. Dee had always had a sixth sense when it came to reading people - she always believed it came from her Gypsy blood - and she had the very intense feeling that this woman was troubled about something. And she’d bet the advance for her next book that it had to do with one - or possibly both - of the men in the photo that she continued to grip tightly in her hands.

“I guess I do. I never really thought about that before…” Brenda answered thoughtfully. “I wonder what that says about me?” she added softly to herself, as she thought about how much angst and intrigue seemed to be filling her real life as well lately.

“Well, you know that romance novels are filled with both of those ingredients - along with a good amount of love scenes, of course!” Dee continued, as Brenda remained lost in her own thoughts. “And they’re not all bodice rippers set in the 17th century either. In fact, I’m not a big fan of historical dramas, so all of mine are contemporary stories, set mostly in the nineties. Though I did set a couple in the seventies and eighties as well - both decades that were very good to me personally,” she added with a quick laugh.

Brenda smiled at that. For all intents and purposes, this woman was a virtual stranger, but at this moment Brenda felt very comfortable with her, almost like she were an old friend. The woman had an easy smile and a personality that bordered on exuberant and that ebullience seemed to spill over onto Brenda, suddenly making her feel more light-hearted than she had in weeks. Brenda liked the sound of her voice, which had the hint of a Southern drawl that became more pronounced as the woman became more animated, and that musical lilt seemed to lull Brenda into a gentle state of relaxation, almost as if she were hypnotized by it.

“In fact, my infamous past is where I get the inspiration for most of my stories - that and the vibes I pick up from the interestin’ people that I meet,” Dee said, as she stared unabashedly at Brenda, appraising her as a potential character in her next book. “Now you… you I could very easily see as the heroine in one of my stories…”

“Me - a character in a story?!” Brenda laughed, completely taken aback by Dee’s suggestion.

“Oh, you’re absolutely beautiful, and I think you’d make a wonderful character in a story…” Dee answered, undeterred by Brenda’s surprise. “…I see your character as headstrong and independent - and perhaps a bit of a recluse who’s hidin’ from love because she’s been badly burned in the past…”

Brenda’s mouth involuntarily dropped open at Dee’s description. Was her life written somewhere, or was Dee merely very perceptive? Or was there something else…? She suddenly felt as if this woman were able to read her heart and soul as easily as others might read the woman’s books. “Ummm… well, you really do have a vivid imagination there!” she laughed, nervously trying to hide the fact that Dee’s assessment had been uncannily accurate. “I’m afraid that my life is barely interesting to me, and I’m living it!” she lied, knowing that her life had recently become far more eventful than anyone could possibly believe, even as fiction. “I lead a very boring life, really… I mean, I take pictures for a living, which usually means that I’m more in tune with what’s happening in the lives of my subjects than I am in my own life!”

Dee’s smile widened at that, not at all believing Brenda’s pretense of a humdrum existence. “Oh, that makes it all the more intriguin’, in my opinion,” she cooed, shifting sideways in her seat so that she was now facing Brenda, as she took one of Brenda’s hands in hers. She studied Brenda for several seconds before continuing, “I see this character as one who has been so hurt by life and love’s outrageous fortunes that she’s content to live her life in romantic isolation, runnin’ from anything that smacks of involvement, in fact. She works hard and occasionally socializes, but she viciously guards her heart from intimately touchin’ another’s.”

“Well, that character sounds pathetic to me,” Brenda said, pulling her hand from Dee’s grasp and interrupting Dee’s profile of her character, which eerily echoed Brenda’s own life. “Why would anyone care about a character whose life seems so depressing and hopeless?” she asked quietly, wondering the same thing about her own life.

“Oh, she’s far from hopeless, I assure you!” Dee chortled, realizing that despite Brenda’s initial reticence and horror that she was profiling her life like this, that Brenda truly welcomed a little insight into her situation. “She just has to realize that she has options - and figure out whom she can and can’t trust. Of course, things won’t be easy for her… Life never is in reality, so why should it be in fiction, right?”

To Brenda’s surprise, Dee pulled the picture of JD and Jax from her hands and studied it carefully. “Yes… I visualize two great loves in her life. The first, a mysterious man whom she loved when she was very young, but who left her heartbroken and afraid to love again; the second, a man she has met recently and whom she loves very deeply, but there are major complications - includin’ the fact that she’s still in love with the first man and he still loves and wants her back…”

Brenda gasped aloud at the woman’s almost supernatural knowledge of her life. “How… how can you know…?” she stuttered, her eyes wide with apprehension. And then a terrible realization hit her: this woman was with the agency that JD had warned her about! She knew all about her because she had researched and followed her, and now she meant to kill her! She had to get away - and quickly! But how and where? She was in a plane at 34,000 feet, and there was no place to run or hide!

Dee saw the panic in Brenda’s eyes and knew that it was more than the usual fright that people felt when Dee unleashed her “sixth sense” on them. She reached once again for Brenda’s hand to calm her. “I didn’t mean to scare you - and I promise that I won’t hurt you…” she said quietly, slowly rubbing her hand across Brenda’s as she spoke.

Her voice was calm and soothing, and its soft, melodious tone seemed to caress Brenda gently, floating over her like a breeze and bringing a peace to her soul. Suddenly Brenda felt calmer than she had in days, and she knew instinctively that she had nothing to fear from this strange, yet delightful woman, but she still needed answers. “How can you know about me - about my life?” she repeated softly, but this time there was no fear in her voice, only genuine curiosity.

Dee shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “I’m not sure. Sometimes ‘feelin’s’ just come to me about certain people and certain situations… I can’t control it, and it’s not always there for everyone. I just feel things sometimes… It’s been like this for me since I was a little girl. My mama was like this, too. She said it was our Gypsy blood that gave us second sight. I don’t know if there’s any Gypsy blood in me or not, but I figure it’s as good an explanation as any as to why I can sometimes know another’s soul as clearly as I know my own.”

“Why me?” Brenda asked, wondering why this woman had felt a connection to her.

Dee again shrugged her shoulders. “As I said, I can’t control this thing; it’s either there or it’s not. But I felt drawn to you from the first moment I saw you runnin’ through the terminal to get to the gate. It was clear that you’d been cryin’, and you were clutchin’ that picture so tight to your chest that it almost looked like you were tryin’ to press it into your heart.

“I watched you approach passenger after passenger at the gate, tryin’ to get someone to agree to be bumped from the flight so that you could take their seat, and there was this look of desperation on your face as you worked the crowd. They called my row before you found someone to take you up on your offer, but I knew that I’d be seein’ you on this plane and in that seat,” Dee smiled, nodding toward Brenda’s seat. “I knew that we were destined to meet…”

“I wish you had let me in on that!” Brenda laughed sarcastically. “I really didn’t think I was going to make this flight - and I had to get away immediately!”

“Did you?” Dee asked pointedly, but when Brenda appeared not to understand her question, she added: “Did you really have to get away?”

“Yes…yes, I did,” Brenda said softly, inadvertently lowering her eyes to look at the picture, which Dee still held in her hands.

Dee immediately noticed the path that Brenda’s eyes took. “You never did answer my question, you know…” she said quietly, but then she already knew the answer: Brenda was in love with both men. She studied the picture once again, her eyes widening as she suddenly saw the true dilemma that Brenda faced - they were brothers! “Oh, my!” she gasped, and then her eyes softened as she looked back up at Brenda, once again taking Brenda’s hand in hers. “You just found out? I mean about their ‘relationship’ to one another?” she asked, and Brenda nodded. “This really is complicated for you, isn’t it?” Dee asked, her tone understanding and soft.

“Even more complicated than you know…” Brenda replied enigmatically, and Dee merely nodded, not pressing her for details, as she already had a sense of what those complications were.

“You must be very cautious,” Dee whispered, her eyes clouded with fear for Brenda, as she had the impression that there were some very dark forces working against this young woman. She waited momentarily for the flight attendant to hand Brenda her gingerale and Dee her diet Coke, and then she moved her head closer to Brenda’s so that no one could possibly overhear their exchange. “The path you’re on now is very dangerous… You need to rethink what you’re doin’, where you’re goin’ - why you’re goin’… And you must be wary of those you’ve called friends in the past…”

Brenda’s eyes widened at Dee’s pronouncement. “Can you actually see what will happen to me in the future?”

“No, the future isn’t static - it’s fluid. There are a lot of variables that can come into play to bring about or interfere with future events, so nothin’ is ever set in stone,” Dee explained as Brenda listened intently. “I can’t actually see anythin’ that’ll happen for certain. If I could, I’d be playin’ the lottery daily and livin’ on easy street, instead of writin’ for a livin’ and flyin’ coach to see my publisher in New York!” Dee laughed lightly, making Brenda smile also.

“Instead,” she continued in a hushed tone, “I get ‘feelin’s’ about things that could happen - and I’ve been getting’ very strong feelin’s of danger surroundin’ you since the moment I first saw you in the terminal. And if you keep goin’ as you are now…” Her voice trailed off, but Brenda understood her inference immediately.

“So I’ve made yet another wrong turn in my life, haven’t I?” Brenda sighed, as tears began to cloud her eyes. “JD warned me…” she said softly, more to herself than to Dee, “but I wouldn’t listen… I never listen to anyone… I always think I know what’s best and then I make a monumental mess of things… If I’d listened to my sister, I’d never have run off and met JD in the first place, and then I wouldn’t have started this entire chain reaction that’s going to destroy both JD and Jax…”

“Brenda, I’m goin’ to tell you somethin’ now, and it’s not based on what I think, but on what I feel,” Dee began, her tone soft and maternal. “I feel in my heart that these men…” She pointed to the picture as she spoke. “…love you very much, and knowin’ and lovin’ you has added to their lives, not taken from it. And they’re even gonna survive the shock of learnin’ that each is the other love of your life.”

“Ah, but will I survive that?” Brenda laughed derisively, realizing the irony of worrying about her heart when her very life was being threatened by some unknown, unseen source.

Dee took a drink of her diet Coke and then held it in front of her, staring at the dark, bubbly syrup, as if she were suddenly mesmerized by the play of the bubbles against the ice in the plastic tumbler. “You have such a strong life force within you, and you have so much joy awaitin’ you when all this is over…” she smiled, suddenly cognizant of something wonderful ahead for Brenda if Brenda chose her path carefully over the next few hours. “If you learn to trust your heart, then everythin’ will work out as it should - everythin’,” she added, as she set the tumbler down on her tray and patted Brenda’s hand reassuringly. “But you need to know what’s truly in your heart, and then act accordin’ly. I know that as well as I know my own name. Like I said before, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why I can ‘read’ one person and not another, but when I do connect with someone, it’s usually a powerful connection. And I feel a very powerful connection to you - maybe the most powerful connection that I’ve ever felt in my life to anyone. I think that we were thrown together for a reason, and I think that reason was to help you in some way.”

Heaven knows that I can use all the help I can get right about now, but is this woman really a godsend, Brenda wondered? She almost expressed that opinion to Dee, but thought better of it; instead, she merely sighed as she leaned back in her seat, taking a tentative sip of her gingerale. She noticed Dee’s raised eyebrows at her cautious sips of the bubbly liquid. “Nervous stomach,” she explained, answering Dee’s unasked question, which was met with a knowing nod from Dee. “I haven’t been eating or sleeping well in the past week or so, and it’s catching up with me, that’s all.”

Dee smiled gently at Brenda. “Then I suggest that you get some rest now. It’s very important to keep your strength up. You have some long hours ahead of you that will take all of your emotional, as well as your physical, strength,” she said, as she took Brenda’s gingerale from her hands, and set it on her tray, then hit the button that reclined Brenda’s seat. “You get some sleep. You know, things are usually much clearer when we’re rested, and sometimes we even find the answers to life’s greatest mysteries in our dreams…” she smiled enigmatically at Brenda, and then added: “I’ll make sure to wake you when they serve lunch because you need that food more than you know.”

Brenda should have been shocked by Dee’s boldness, but for some reason she was no longer shocked by anything this genial woman said or did, and she even trusted her to know what was best for her at this point. In fact, given the overall surrealism of the last twenty-four hours she’d experienced, Dee Hotchkiss - romance novelist, mother hen, and seer extraordinaire, who spoke in riddles and felt things deeply - seemed downright normal to her! Sort of that eye of the beholder thing that Dee had mentioned earlier, she supposed. As her eyes eagerly closed and she slowly drifted off to sleep, she thought about the whirlwind twenty-four hours she’d had and how it had changed her perspective on everything, and she wondered if she’d ever look at life the same way again?

Jax leaned back wearily in the plush leather armchair of the corporate jet and sighed. He was tired. It had been a long day already, and it was only going to get longer before it was over. He’d just gotten off the phone with his dad, who had brought him up to speed on what was happening back at the office.

External phone service to J&J Jacks International had been restored about an hour after he’d left, and as of this moment, things were pretty well back to normal there - as far as the business was concerned, that was. They had yet to flush out the person who had sabotaged the computer and phone systems. But for now it appeared that Gwen Stevens was still the likely candidate for that position.

But both his father and Mike Moriarity felt that although Gwen probably had carried out the sabotage alone, her plan of assault on the company was too well organized and too well executed to be hers and hers alone. Unfortunately, they were unable to glean any information out of Gwen about her possible motivations for the sabotage or about her probable partners in crime because Gwen had yet to be found.

Despite Mike’s earlier assertion that Gwen would be back, she had never returned from her early lunch, nor was she anywhere to be found, including her apartment. Mike guessed that she had somehow learned that they were onto her and decided to flee while she could. A neighbor of hers told the security team that had gone to Gwen’s apartment complex that she had seen Gwen leaving the building at about 11:30 that morning, carrying a couple of suitcases. The neighbor figured that she was leaving on vacation. Yeah, Jax thought, a very extended one! Gwen Stevens had most likely been handsomely paid to pull off her little coup this morning and she would probably never have to work another day in her life if she didn’t want to.

Tom Kincaid, the security man whom Mike had suspected of collusion with Gwen, had confessed to editing the tapes that showed Brenda leaving the building, but he swore that he knew nothing about what had happened with the phone and computer systems or Addie’s accident. He said he had edited the tapes because Gwen had told him that Jax had requested that Ms. Wilding be deleted from them. He thought it was odd at the time, but since he knew that Gwen was filling in as Jax’s personal assistant while Addie was hospitalized, he hadn’t questioned the request. Both John Jacks and Mike believed him, so they didn’t have him arrested, but they did fire him on the spot.

His father and Mike had also rewound and watched the surveillance tape of Jax’s office several times after Jax left to see what more they could glean from it, and they realized that whomever Gwen had called after Brenda fled the office, she’d called using John’s cell phone. So they had done a little investigative work and called John’s cell service provider for a fax of all calls made from that number that day. By checking the times of the calls against the time that Gwen was in possession of the phone, they’d found her call to Kincaid. They’d also found several calls to an unknown - and as of yet untraceable - phone number in the metropolitan New York area. At this point, Jax was ready to lay odds that that number belonged to none other than the now infamous Jarrod Davis.

It was still Jax’s belief that Jarrod Davis was behind this entire fiasco. It was also his belief that Davis orchestrated this chaos in order to distract Jax and pry Brenda from him. Davis most likely sensed that he would lose Brenda to Jax if she were given the opportunity to choose fairly between the two of them, in her own time and without the pressure of Davis’s insistence that she would be killed if she didn’t run off with him. And Jax also believed that Brenda would have chosen him over Davis. He was sure he could see that in her eyes when she had finally broken down and told him about Davis’s return from Never-Never-Land - or wherever the hell he’d been hiding for the past four years - and his demand that she leave with him “for her own safety.”

For her own safety - that was the part that really angered Jax! Mike Moriarity had said that if Davis were an agent for some super secret government agency, as they suspected he was, then death and danger were constantly in his realm of existence, and murder and mayhem were part of his everyday life. And, if what Brenda said was true and Davis’s own people were the ones who wanted her dead, how could Davis honestly believe she’d be safer by his side? Only a madman could think that! … A madman - or a man madly in love, a voice deep within him whispered.

Jax shook his head. Before he’d met Brenda he’d never understood the phrase “madly in love,” but since her, he not only understood it, he seemed to exemplify it. And if he were honest with himself, he could understand Davis’s motivations in wanting to whisk Brenda away with him, and even empathize with him. Brenda had said that Davis had been forced to leave her four years ago, and Jax could only imagine the emotional agony the man had endured in the intervening years; still loving her but forced to keep his distance from her. Jax knew that such an existence would be tantamount to emotional suicide for him because without Brenda, he was sure his heart and his soul would wither and die.

Not that his existence had been intolerable before he met her. In fact, he’d led what he’d thought was a very full and satisfying life back then - but not as full and satisfying as it seemed since she’d come into his life. Since meeting and falling in love with her, life seemed to resonate around him: colors were more vibrant, sounds more harmonious, food and drink more satisfying. It was as if love had heightened all of his senses, and he knew that he never wanted to go back to a life without that - or without her.

It had been just one week ago today that they’d first met in Central Park. At that meeting, he’d been overwhelmed by her beauty, but he’d seen her as just another short-term conquest - a beauty to bed and enjoy for the moment, but nothing more. Instead, she’d innocently woven a wondrous spell around him with her beauty, her charm, her very being, and he’d been the one who’d been captured in the long run. And he never wanted to be free again.

He imagined that was probably how it was for Davis also, so he could understand Davis’s need and desire to see her again, touch her again, love her again. He could understand it, but he couldn’t tolerate it - not if it meant placing Brenda’s life in danger. He’d kill Davis himself if he had to, if it meant saving Brenda from a life of living in the shadows and constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if or when Davis’s people would finally ferret out their hiding place and do them both in. That was no way to live; it was a death sentence with an open-ended date of execution, and Brenda deserved far more than that. She deserved to live in the open and with a man who would appreciate and love her enough to put her life before his own - she deserved to be with him!

But first Jax needed to find Brenda and that most likely meant finding Davis - and that required his brother’s help…

Jax had been calling Jerry’s number all afternoon, but there had been no answer. That seemed odd to Jax because Jerry usually had an answering service handle his calls for him when he was out. He wondered if Jerry had cancelled the service for some reason, but he doubted it since Jerry was planning to leave the country within the next several hours.

Jerry’s answering service was his only link to the real world, when he was off on one of his playboy jaunts to some exotic locale and the only way family, friends, and even his broker could reliably contact him. Sure, he had cell phones, but Jerry seemed to go through them like water, managing to lose one in every country he visited, so he always had a new phone and a new cell phone number for every occasion, it seemed. No one in the family even bothered to take down his cell number anymore because by the time you needed it, Jerry had a new one - which is why Jerry relied so heavily on his answering service.

“He’s most likely preoccupied with BiBi and wedding preparations - or other prenuptial activities,” he muttered, grinning as he thought about his brother, who had always been the poster boy for Playboys of the World, finally succumbing to the charms of a woman and willingly marrying her. Not only willingly marrying her, but, from what Jerry had said, surprising her with the wedding and the trip to St. Beliz.

Despite the happiness he felt for his brother at this moment, he couldn’t help but also feel a bit jealous. Jerry was about to embark on a new life with the woman he loved, while the woman Jax loved was about to disappear with a man who would most likely bring an untimely and gruesome end to her life sooner or later. There didn’t seem to be any fairness at all in that, but, then again, when was life ever really fair?

He supposed that if life were fair, then Brenda and JD would never have been separated in the first place and they’d be living happily somewhere with their child. Then she and Jax would have never met, and he would never have known what it felt like to experience her love - or know what it meant to lose that love either. But he hadn’t lost yet, and he wasn’t about to throw in the towel any time soon, even if that meant getting down and dirty. Besides, what was that saying - all’s fair in love and war? Well, this was both, as Jax saw it, and Davis had fired the first shot when he’d tampered with Jax’s business as a way to distract him from Brenda. Davis may have gotten off the opening salvo, but Jax was about to unleash his big gun - his brother, Jerry.

Since he’d left the family business and branched off on his own, Jerry had managed to amass both a sizeable fortune and an amazing network of well-connected acquaintances. It was the combination of those two things that made Jerry a powerful ally in this fight to locate Brenda and Davis- that and the fact that Jerry would do anything for Jax, just as Jax would do anything for Jerry. But this was the biggest “anything” he’d ever asked of his brother, and he hoped that Jerry’s connections and computer savvy would be enough to bring him the information he needed: Jarrod Davis’s real name and where he could find him.

Jax reclined his seat and closed his eyes, feeling far more confident than he had just hours ago when he’d boarded the jet in LA. He wasn’t sure whether it was the awed confidence he had in his brother’s hacking abilities or the fatigue that had settled over him, but he suddenly felt certain that by the end of the day Jarrod Davis’s true identity would be unmasked and Jax would be that much closer to finding Brenda.

Dee Hotchkiss watched as Brenda slept fitfully in the seat beside her. She could feel the weight of the world on this girl’s shoulders and she could see the exhaustion written on her face. The poor girl was depleted - both physically and emotionally - and it certainly didn’t take any psychic powers to see that. She just wished she could do something more to help her, but she wasn’t a miracle worker and this was just a five-hour flight, and it was already nearing its destination.

But just minutes into the flight she’d felt that she and Brenda would always share a connection and that they’d see one another again, even after the plane landed at Kennedy. She wasn’t sure how or when she’d be seeing her again, but she knew their association was far from over. In fact, she had the sense that they were just beginning a long and beautiful friendship - if Brenda chose wisely in the next few hours. The thought of any harm coming to Brenda sent an ache through Dee’s heart. She genuinely liked this girl; she brought out a maternal instinct in Dee that she hadn’t known even existed previously.

Dee was forty-five years old and thrice married - and thrice divorced. Yet even with three husbands, she’d never had any children - not even stepchildren. She’d always single-mindedly pursued her career, never feeling the mothering urge that so many of her gender felt naturally. Dee had simply never wanted children, and that little fact had been the deciding factor in the breakup of her first two marriages. The third husband had just been a skirt-chasing jerk, whom she’d finally kicked out after returning from a book tour to catch him in their own bed with the maid. Unbeknownst to her, that affair had been going on for months, so while Dee had been paying the woman cash for her services of keeping her house clean and orderly, her husband had been providing the woman with some pretty amazing side benefits for her other services!

She had often wished that her sixth sense had kicked in for her before she’d made her three disastrous forays into love and marriage, but for some reason, she’d never really been able to sense things about her own life. That was one of the many curses of this so-called gift she had. It gave her no real insight into her own life, she couldn’t control it, it wasn’t present for everyone, but when it was there, it was potent and sometimes frighteningly urgent, as it was with Brenda. She just wished she understood what exactly she needed to do to help Brenda remove herself completely from harm’s way. Perhaps in the end, all she could really do was listen and guide - and pray that Brenda’s own instincts would be her best protection against the dangers Dee still sensed lay ahead for her.

She knew she was dreaming…

The sun was warm as it played over her body, relaxing her, comforting her, soothing her. It felt so good just to relax - it had been so long… The sound of the surf, echoing just beyond where she lay, comforted her with its steady whish as it ebbed and flowed on the beach. A childish giggle followed by a man’s laughter caught her attention, and she looked up to see a little girl, not more than a toddler, and a tall, muscular man playing tag with the waves that gently lapped the shore.

She stood, squinting into the late afternoon sun, trying to see them more clearly, but the angle they were to her and the position of the sun in the sky made seeing much more than outlines impossible. She watched as the man scooped the giggling child up into his arms and covered her face with kisses before heading toward her, waving as they walked. She waved back; she knew in her heart that she would always love them both. When they were within just a few yards of her, the toddler wriggled out of the man’s grasp and ran toward her with outstretched arms as fast as her chubby little legs could carry her.

“Mama!” the child squealed, and she scooped the giggling girl up into her arms and cuddled her to her. She was a beautiful child - a baby really, no more than 18-months-old - with dark ringlets of hair and vivid blue eyes.

“Mama missed you!” she cooed, tickling the child under the chin, then nuzzling her wet body close to her as she wrapped a large towel around the child, cocooning her close to her.

She looked back up to see the man still walking slowly toward her, the sun still obscuring his face, but his toned and tanned body in that barely-there Speedo was unmistakable. She knew every inch of him by heart, as he knew her.

“And did you miss me, Brenda?” he asked, his sapphire blue eyes twinkling as he kissed her softly on the cheek, placing one hand on her arm and the other on the little girl’s back.

“JD…” she whispered, smiling up into his handsome face.

“Brenda…” she saw him mouth her name, but the voice seemed wrong - distorted and high, like a woman’s… “Brenda…” the voice repeated. “Brenda, they’re servin’ lunch now.” She awoke with a start, as she felt a hand gently shaking her arm. It was Dee, and, true to her word, she was waking her so she could eat something. But she wasn’t sure she could eat after that dream.

“Ummm… thanks for waking me,” Brenda smiled sleepily, trying to get her bearings again. It had seemed so real, but it had all been a dream… She wasn’t on a beach with JD and a little girl who called her ‘Mama’; she was in seat 17B on a direct flight from LAX to Kennedy and sitting next to a stranger who was the closest thing she had to a friend at the moment. She straightened her seat upright and looked up just in time to see the flight attendant hand Dee her tray and ask Brenda if she’d prefer a chicken club on whole wheat or a ham-and-cheese on rye.

Neither sounded particularly appealing at the moment, and Brenda was about to just ask for another gingerale to settle her still rebellious stomach when she heard Dee answer for her: “She’ll have the chicken club, and she’d like a milk with that, too.” Dee smiled at the attendant, who shot Brenda a questioning glance.

“The chicken club is fine,” Brenda sighed, furrowing her brow and frowning at Dee as she added: “but I’d prefer another gingerale instead of milk.”

“Okay,” was all the attendant said, as she flashed Brenda a practiced smile and handed her the lunch tray with her meal, then her gingerale, and moved to take care of the passengers in the row ahead of them.

“Why did you do that?” Brenda asked, slightly irritated that this woman, whom she barely knew but who seemed to know so much about her, had presumed to order for her. “I’m perfectly capable of ordering for myself!”

Dee was unperturbed by Brenda’s irritated tone, as she tore open the top of her creamer and added it to her coffee. “I knew you were plannin’ to skip the food, and I just think it’s important never to skip a meal - especially when you need to keep your strength up,” Dee answered matter-of-factly, as she stirred her coffee, then sipped it gingerly. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s really botherin’ you - We both know it wasn’t because I ordered for you just now,” she challenged, turning to Brenda as she set her coffee back onto her tray.

Brenda dropped her head slightly, embarrassed that she had overreacted to Dee’s solicitous actions. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to being mothered…”

“And…?” Dee asked, waiting for the rest of the explanation, knowing that something more than that was unsettling Brenda just now. “You might as well tell me because we both know that I know it had more to do with what happened while you were sleepin’ than with what happened after you woke up,” she pointed out, carefully opening her mustard packet and slathering it on her ham and cheese sandwich.

“I had a dream…” Brenda began, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully as she unwrapped her chicken club sandwich. “You said that sometimes our dreams clarify things for us…”

“Sometimes…” Dee nodded. She watched as Brenda tore off a bit of her sandwich and chewed it slowly, apparently pondering the meaning of her dream. “Now you’re wonderin’ if your dream was actually showin’ you the path you need to take. Is that right?”

Brenda nodded, taking a sip of gingerale to wash down the bite of food she’d eaten, then lowering her eyes once again. “I want your help in deciphering my dream, but you’ll need to know a few things from my past - if you don’t already know them,” Brenda added, which made Dee smile. “A few years ago, JD - he’s the dark-haired one in the picture - and I were together… We were so in love…but then one day he just disappeared without a trace…”

Dee nodded, rubbing Brenda’s hand supportively. As Brenda had guessed, she’d “felt” all of this history the first time she’d touched Brenda’s hand. But she also knew that it was cathartic for Brenda to tell her all of this anyway.

“What he didn’t know when he left was that I was pregnant… He still doesn’t know about that because I… I lost the baby a few weeks after he left,” Brenda said softly, tears crowding the corners of her eyes, and Dee once again nodded, continuing to gently stroke Brenda’s hand. “From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew the baby was a boy… I even had him named - JJ, short for Jarrod, Jr.,” she said, her eyes filling with tears as she remembered all the conversations she’d had with JJ and all the plans she’d made for him before the miscarriage. “And even after… even after I lost him, when I’d dream about our baby, it was always a little boy - it was always JJ… Sometimes, even after all these years, I dream about JD and JJ and the happy family we could have been, but today… just now…”

“What did you dream just now?” Dee asked, although she had a sense of what she’d dreamed, and she understood her confusion about the dream.

“I dreamed about JD and a baby - my baby - but for the first time ever, my baby was a little girl.” Brenda looked at Dee, confusion lighting her eyes. “What do you suppose that means?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Dee answered truthfully. “It could be a precognitive dream…” she began, her voice trailing off. Although she had certain feelings about this, she didn’t feel she had the right to tell Brenda what possibilities lay ahead for her because nothing for Brenda was certain as of this moment. Dee felt both life and death circling Brenda at this moment, and which was her immediate future depended on the choices Brenda would make in the next several hours.

“You mean that I could be seeing my own future - JD’s and my future - in that dream?” Brenda asked, completely overwhelmed by that possibility. She knew that she loved JD, but would she actually commit to him after what she’d just learned about him - about what he does and that he’s Jax’s brother? Perhaps the more appropriate question was could she commit to him - to either of them, for that matter? When she’d left LA, she was certain she knew the answer to that: it was a loud and resounding ‘no!’ But was her unconscious mind telling her otherwise? Was JD her future? Should she still run with him, despite knowing that he and Jax are brothers? And, if so, what about her feelings for Jax? She loved him as much as she loved his brother. How could she possibly choose? But evidently she did, if this dream was showing her the way.

Dee could see the wheels turning in Brenda’s head, and she sensed the confusion that was settling over her. “I said it could be a precognitive dream, Brenda. But that doesn’t mean that it is. It could just be a good, old, garden-variety dream that’s filled with hopes that you’ve had in the past, not necessarily promises of what will be in the future. Not every dream means somethin’, Brenda,” she cautioned, not wanting Brenda to pin her expectations on something as transitory as a dream, even though Dee herself had a feeling this dream had definite meaning.

“How do you know when a dream has meaning?” Brenda asked, shoving her now half-eaten sandwich aside, and absently picking a plump white grape from her fruit salad and popping it into her mouth.

“I’m not sure there’s a standard for measurin’ that sort of thing,” Dee answered thoughtfully, as she wiped a bit of mustard from the corner of her mouth. “But for me personally, I know a dream has meanin’ - and wasn’t just from big bowl of chocolate almond ice cream I sneaked at bedtime - when it’s especially realistic or when I have it over and over again or when I just can’t seem to shake its images for hours afterward.”

“Well, this one was certainly realistic… I mean, I could smell the tropical fruit on the ocean breeze, and I could taste the salt air, and I could feel their touch…” Brenda answered, distractedly popping another couple of grapes into her mouth.

“How would you feel if you were seein’ your future in that dream?” Dee asked, watching Brenda’s reactions closely.

Brenda closed her eyes, immersing herself completely in the memory of her dream. Immediately she was back on that beach, the tropical breezes washing over her, the welcome feeling of loving and being loved warming her. She opened her eyes and looked at Dee, smiling as she answered, “I could very easily handle that as my future.”

Dee eyed her carefully, noticing that the smile that came easily to Brenda’s lips didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “And what about your feelin’s for the other one - his brother - Jax - isn’t that what you called him? Could you handle bein’ with JD, and havin’ to deal with Jax at family gatherin’s?”

Brenda sighed heavily. “I love Jax, too… and I could just as easily see myself with him for the rest of my life…” Brenda admitted, throwing her napkin onto her tray in frustration as she sighed heavily. “But it wasn’t Jax I saw in my dream; it was JD…”

She straightened in her seat, handing her tray and Dee’s to the flight attendant, who was collecting them; then, putting her tray table back up, she turned toward Dee. “I don’t know what I’m going to do for the rest of my life, but I do know that I can’t just run away from both of them as I’d planned. I’ve kept myself emotionally isolated from the rest of the world for the past four years to keep from having to face a choice as I am now.” She closed her eyes and sighed, running her hand through her long mass of curls and smoothing it away for her face. “I guess that emotionally I’ve been running most of my life. I’ve always craved love, yet at the same time I’ve feared it… When you open yourself to love, you also open yourself to the possibility of pain. But that’s life, isn’t it?” she asked, shaking her head ruefully as she laughed slightly. “I’ve been avoiding life for far too long. I’ve spent a lifetime choosing the path of least resistance. That was what Jax told me and what JD tried to show me years ago. I’m just like that character you were proposing for your story. You know, you described my life to a ‘T’ when you were talking about her.”

“I know,” Dee smiled broadly, patting Brenda’s hand genially. “That’s because she is you - or will be, when I get her written. And you’ll make a marvelous heroine!”

“Well, I wish that I had you carefully plotting out my moves so I’d know which way to go and how this all will turn out in the end,” Brenda sighed, thinking about the tough choices from which she could no longer run. She wondered how she could possibly make the right choice - if there even was one right choice - and how she could do it while managing to stay alive and keep those whom she loved alive as well? She supposed that the first thing she needed to do was tell Mr. Buehler that she was no longer in need of his services, and then she’d go home to face JD. Together they’d call Jax, and take everything from there. She only hoped that this was the right thing to do.

She turned back to Dee, a shy smile on her face. “You know, you seem to have quite a handle on this character that you’re basing on me. You know her history, her motivations, the other players in her story… I’d like to know what choice she finally makes… Any chance you could give me a sneak peak at the end of the book as you envision it?”

Dee gazed at Brenda thoughtfully for a few seconds and then smiled. “Certainly,” she answered cryptically, “in the end, she chooses her heart and follows her dream…”

Rick Jackson grinned as he gazed into his dresser mirror, barely recognizing the reflection that grinned back at him. In the space of less than an hour, he’d gone from being dark-haired and dark-eyed to being a blue-eyed blonde, and his new look was amazingly natural, even to him! As he now looked, he doubted that even his own mother would have recognized him, let alone a woman who hadn’t caught much more than a couple of glimpses in the heat of battle four years ago, when she’d managed to pull his stocking cap off his face. The only similarities he now held to that man who had assaulted Brenda Barrett nearly four years before was his build, which was actually average and shared by tens of thousands of other men living in this borough alone - and, of course, that damned scar on his left forearm that she had given him as a lasting reminder of that night. And today he’d have the chance to “thank” her for that little memento…

Buxton had called him a few hours before, wanting to discuss some very important business with him. And that very important business was that Brenda Barrett had called Buxton, asking for his help in hiding out for a few days. And Buxton had asked him to act as a limo driver and pick her up at the airport, then take her to an apartment he’d rented, where Buxton would handle the rest of the operation. But what Buxton didn’t know was that Jackson had his own scenario as far as the lovely Ms. Barrett was concerned - and as far as Buxton was concerned as well.

He looked down on the dresser at the zip disk that held Andrew Buxton’s history with Brenda Barrett and quite possibly held Buxton’s fate as well. On that disk was every calculated move Buxton had made regarding Brenda Barrett since the first day that Agent JD Jacks had contacted him to help him leave the Agency four years before. It was a diary of sorts that recorded his exchanges with both JD and Brenda Barrett from that initial contact JD had made to Buxton begging him to help him get out. It spelled out in detail Buxton’s pretense of helping the man leave the Agency, all the while actually working to keep him forever tied to the Agency.

It also told about his meetings with Ms. Barrett - those that Agent Jacks knew about and those that he had no idea had taken place. It chronicled the time when Brenda confided to Buxton the news that she was pregnant, and the fact that he had even helped her to find an OB/GYN to care for her. But it also detailed Buxton’s plans to harm the woman in such a way as to assure a miscarriage, while still keeping her alive as bait to insure Agent Jacks’s continued service to the Agency. It seemed that Agent Jacks was kept deliberately in the dark about both the pregnancy and the subsequent miscarriage, as well as Buxton’s pivotal role in the assault. Buxton had then acted as Brenda’s savior and spiritual guide afterwards, finding her at the construction site and taking her to the hospital in time to save her life, then encouraging her to keep going when she contemplated suicide later.

The file also included all the details from both the police and the hospital files that were deleted from their official files, and on the disk Buxton had even bragged that it was all easier than he had ever thought possible. Of course, it had also had Jackson’s involvement clearly spelled out, but that information had been easy enough to delete and replace with the name and the description of another man, Mark Hanover, that Jackson had seen Buxton use on occasion for side work where Ms. Barrett was concerned. But in the end, the blame for all of her troubles four years before was placed squarely where it belonged: on Andrew Buxton’s broad, aristocratic, arrogant, and infinitely patronizing shoulders. And he hoped that JD Jacks could very plainly see that and act swiftly to kill the bastard!

But just in case that little scenario didn’t play out, Jackson had another, more foolproof plan underway. In fact, he’d been in the midst of setting up that plan when he’d “stumbled” onto this disk in the first place, several days before while on an after-hours excursion into Buxton’s office. He’d gone there to even the score with Buxton after Buxton had been particularly condescending and brutal toward him. It was the night that he’d shown Buxton the pictures he’d taken of Brenda and her new lover, none other than Mr. Secret Agent Man’s own little brother, Jax. At that time he had no idea that Buxton was upset about anything other than the graphic nature of the pictures, and it wasn’t until he did a little research on his own - along with finding the disk - that he began to put things together to realize that Brenda Barrett’s new lover and her old lover were brothers, and very wealthy ones at that.

That night had paid off in so many ways for him. He’d gone there on a sort of search-and-destroy mission, but it had turned into a recovery mission as well when he’d inadvertently stumbled upon this disk - or at least the original of this disk - hidden in the cabinet where Buxton kept his tea supplies. He’d been in the cabinet looking for Buxton’s container that he kept his sugar in for the many cups of tea that he drank day-in and day-out, but he hit the jackpot when he found this as well.

Jackson had done some extensive research on Buxton and had discovered that he had a bad heart, which is why he’d been sidelined in the first place from active duty to being a desk jockey. According to what he’d been able to dig up, Buxton’s heart problem was chronic and deteriorating, though it was under control for the moment, with only occasional pain that was kept in check by medication that he kept with him at all times. But Jackson had decided that it was time that the old boy’s heart gave out permanently.

He’d done some research on heart disease and found that a certain heart medication that his mother had been on for years until her death a few months ago could also be a killer if given in high enough doses, especially to someone with an already defective heart. In fact, he’d learned that even a healthy heart could be stopped with the administration of enough of the medication. But Buxton’s heart was far from healthy, which was a good thing for him, since the bottle that he had found in his mother’s medicine cabinet after she died only had about a dozen remaining pills in it. But planning to use those pills to take Buxton out permanently and actually getting them into his system were two different things… until he began to think about Buxton and his little idiosyncrasies.

In all the times Jackson had seen Buxton in his office, he’d never seen him without a steaming cup of tea within easy reach, and each of those cups of tea was sweetened with lots and lots of sugar. So Jackson had taken those dozen or so pills and ground them into a very fine powder, and he’d mixed it into Buxton’s sugar canister. Normally he would have worried about Buxton noticing the bitterness of the powder within the sugar mix, but the toxin that was destroying his heart muscle had damaged both Buxton’s sense of taste and smell as well. Jackson figured the three teaspoons of sugar that Buxton heaped into each cup of hot tea was more likely out of habit than out of a need to satisfy Buxton’s sweet tooth. He smiled now as he thought about how Buxton’s own force of habit would do him in - that was, if JD Jacks didn’t kill him first. But either way, Buxton and his condescending attitude toward him would both soon be things of the past.

And while Buxton would soon be wallowing in his grave, Jackson would soon be wallowing in lots and lots of money. Now that he thought about it, working for Buxton hadn’t been all that bad really. Doing Buxton’s dirty work had made his recent monetary windfall possible. He’d already made a cool $60,000 just in the past few hours from this JD, and he knew that far more than mere thousands was soon going to be within his grasp as well. Now, any way he looked at this situation, it spelled M-O-N-E-Y, and it was all thanks to the soon-to-be-late Andrew Buxton. “Some day I’ll have to return to the States to pay my proper respects at your grave, Buxton,” he chuckled, thinking about the sweet payoff that awaited him very, very soon.

Smiling, he slid the zip disk into an envelope and then wrapped that with tissue paper before slipping it into the gaily-decorated box in front of him. “Happy Birthday, Mr. Secret Agent Man!” he murmured, as he carefully addressed the card that would accompany this particular ‘present.’ “Don’t say I never gave you nothin’ ‘cause this is everything you ever wanted to know about what happened to your sweet, little Brenda while you were doin’ your best 007 impression,” he sneered derisively, as he crinkled more tissue paper and added that on top of the envelope.

“Well, almost everything…” he grinned, thinking about the information that he’d deleted from Buxton’s files that had detailed Jackson’s active participation in the woman’s assault. “But what you won’t ever find out is that while you were out tryin’ to keep the world safe for democracy, I was the one keepin’ a very close eye on your girlfriend, and gettin’ paid very well to do it, I might add!” He picked up a photo he’d taken of Brenda, as she’d emerged from the bathroom into her bedroom, wearing only bikini panties and a lacy demi-bra. “It’s a good thing she never was much for shuttin’ her curtains at night,” he chuckled, thinking about the many fantasies that this photo and others like it had fueled for him in the past.

But that photo was tame compared to the ones he’d gotten while she was with JD’s brother, Jax. The pictures he’d taken of the two of them were so hot that there were times when he thought his darkroom would spontaneously combust from the heat those two emitted. “She’s one little firecracker there, Mr. Secret Agent Man,” Jackson smiled, as he picked up one of the more explicit pictures he’d taken of Jax and Brenda together and slid it inside the gift box and on top of the layers of crinkled tissue paper, before putting the lid on the box and tying a bright yellow ribbon around the package. He then slid the card beneath the bow of the ribbon. “Too bad she’s not yours anymore… And by the time you get this, she won’t be your brother’s anymore either - she’ll be mine. And if you want her back… Well, that’ll just cost you both big time…”

He glanced down at his watch and saw that it was nearly 4:30 p.m. and Brenda Barrett’s flight was due to arrive at 6:00 p.m., so he’d have to hustle to make it to Kennedy and get things in place before her plane landed. He also had to make sure that JD was kept suitably busy twiddling his thumbs while he was snatching the lovely Ms. Barrett out from under his nose, which meant he needed to delay the arrival of this package for at least an hour or so.

He also wanted to be well beyond Buxton’s reach when JD went after him, just in case JD didn’t kill him or he hadn’t gotten enough of the medication in his system over the past few days to do him in either. He had no doubt that Buxton would easily point the finger at him as the one who had Brenda, especially since he was the one picking her up at the airport. But what Buxton didn’t know was that he had made a few contingency plans of his own; he just needed sufficient time for them to pan out.

He grabbed his cell phone and hit speed dial to call his cousin and partner-in-crime. “Yo, Vinnie! It’s me - Rick. I got another package needs delivered to that same address on the Upper East Side… Yeah, let’s go with a street kid this time… No messenger services… Make sure nothin’ can be traced back to you or me… Just make sure this one isn’t delivered too soon… In fact, make sure he don’t get it for a coupla hours… I want him to stew a little ‘n be really tense when he opens this little bombshell… Only wish I could be there to see him lose it this time…You’ll find the package that needs to be delivered on my dresser. Be sure to lock up when you leave, okay?…Vinnie, that other thing I asked for - You did get that all arranged and it’s right where I wanted it?… Good!… Yeah, no problem! And you used Buxton’s credit card number and name when you called for it, right? … Yeah, I don’t want no one mistakin’ who’s behind this… By the way, you and Theresa enjoy the limo and everything - have the time of your lives… Ya know I love ya like a brother… You’re a real lifesaver here, Vinnie! Bye!”

He closed the phone, tapping it lightly as he shoved it inside his jacket pocket. Then, taking one last look into his dresser mirror, he adjusted his coat and donned his chauffeur’s cap before grabbing a black leather carryon and heading toward the door. “It’s been nice knowin’ ya, Vinnie!” he whispered as he shut off the lights and left the house, intent on closing the door on his dismal past and opening one on a rich future - courtesy of Ms. Brenda Barrett and the very wealthy brothers who loved her dearly and would soon pay dearly to see her again.

Jerry pushed the key into the door of his penthouse apartment, unlocked it, then shoved it open, banging the door hard against the wall of the foyer and rattling the pictures on the walls there and in the hallway beyond. It had been a long and frustrating day thus far, and it seemed to be getting worse!

It was 5:30 p.m., and he still hadn’t heard from Jax, so he had no idea if Brenda was safely with him or not. He’d given Charles his latest cell number for Jax to call - at least he thought he had. The morning seemed to be a blur at this point. Jax was most likely busy with work or with Brenda, which is why he hadn’t returned his call. Besides, he tried to reassure himself, no news was good news - right? But was it really good news to think that Brenda was safely ensconced in his brother’s arms at his Malibu estate?

He grabbed the door and abruptly slammed it shut, not bothering to lock it behind him, and not even noticing that it had hit the door casing so hard that it remained slightly ajar. He was tired and angry and in need of a long, hot shower.

He wondered if he’d ever again be rid of either the fatigue or the anger? He wasn’t just physically weary - that he could handle with an hour or so of sleep and a hot shower; but this weariness went straight to his soul. In the span of just a few hours, he’d made some startling discoveries, one of which was that that his one and only brother was his one and only love’s other lover. How did one ever recover from that? He wasn’t sure that was possible, so for the moment he merely tried to push it from his mind. He’d deal with it once again when he knew that Brenda was safe and in his arms again. But the anger was something else entirely. That was something that he needed to deal with soon or he’d be the next guy on the news who had suddenly gone postal!

The other startling discovery he’d just made was that he and Brenda had conceived and lost a child that he never knew about. Now he suspected that someone at the Agency had known all along about the pregnancy, which is why Brenda’s “accident” had been arranged in the first place. He didn’t have proof of that yet - but he would, very soon, after he received the files that he’d just paid $50,000 to see.

He truly hated to pay for information like this, but he routinely paid scum for information far less valuable to him than this, so was this really any different? And once he had the information, he’d know whom he could and couldn’t trust. He prayed that the files didn’t in any way implicate Andrew, but his gut told him that Andrew had at least known beforehand that she was pregnant and hadn’t let him know. He had expected that from anyone else within the Agency, but not Andrew. Andrew had been his friend and his mentor, and he had entrusted Brenda to his care. If he had anything whatsoever to do with hurting her and killing their baby, he’d kill him with his bare hands!

But he was getting ahead of himself here… As an agent he’d been trained to understand that assuming too much can get you killed, and he knew that he had to wait to pronounce judgment on anyone, let alone Andrew, until after he had the irrefutable proof in his hands. But that brought him to another question: could he trust this unknown, unseen person to have the real goods, or would they be doctored files to frame an innocent person? He doubted it, given the authenticity of the photo he’d received earlier from this person. But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it, he decided. First, he needed to receive the information…

He’d spent the afternoon jumping through hoops in order to satisfy the requirements that had been set on his obtaining the deleted information about Brenda’s assault. As before, he’d been asked to supply the money in unmarked, non-sequential bills - all in hundreds - this time placing the money in a black leather carryon and leaving it with a very nervous desk clerk, named David, at the Park Savoy Hotel, just a few blocks from here. He’d thought about staking out the place, but decided against it, at this point wanting the information more than he wanted the identity of the supplier of that information. He’d then been told to return to his apartment, where he’d been told to expect a gift box to be delivered at any time. He’d already informed Abe, the doorman who was on duty today, to send the package up the minute it arrived.

It had been nearly two hours since he’d left the money-filled briefcase at the specified location, but the package had yet to arrive. Not that the delay surprised him. This guy had dragged his feet before when Jerry had bought the picture from him, and he had no doubt that the man planned to do the same thing this time. He really didn’t think the guy just planned to take the fifty grand and run because Jerry had the feeling that this guy had an agenda of his own concerning the contents of the file he’d offered him. He was sure that that was the reason he’d mentioned Brenda’s “accident” on the back of the picture he’d sent him. He wanted Jerry to act on that for some reason, other than to exact justice for the injustice done to Brenda and their child. He most likely had a vendetta against the person implicated on the file and wanted him brought down - and Jerry had no problem with that. Whoever had ordered the assault on Brenda and their child deserved to be killed, and he planned to do it with precision and with pleasure. Then he was walking away from the Agency and into the horizon with Brenda and never looking back.

Of course, there was the little problem of his brother. It seemed an untenable situation, but he’d deal with that when the time came. He loved Jax and hated to hurt him, but he also loved and wanted Brenda and he had waited four, long years to finally be with her again.

A little voice inside him whispered: And what if she ultimately chooses Jax over you?

“Then I’ll deal with that when - and if - the time comes,” he uttered aloud, as he settled onto one of the leather couches to wait for his package to be delivered. Glancing beside him at the box of photos that he’d had out the day before, he picked up a picture of Brenda and him on the beach in Monte Carlo, smiling as he remembered the day that it was taken and how much in love they were then. “But until then, it’s every man for himself!”

The plane finally came to a complete stop at their gate, but Brenda was out of her seat and into the aisle, her jacket and camera bag in hand, before the “FASTEN SEATBELT” sign had even been turned off or the pilot had announced their arrival. Smiling nervously, Brenda waved back at Dee, who returned both the wave and the smile, watching as Brenda inched her way toward the front of the cabin, eager to be one of the first to deplane.

Dee smiled, thinking that the young woman about to get off the plane was a far cry from the one who had boarded it nearly 5 hours and 3000 miles ago. Where that woman had been sad, frightened, and nervous, this one seemed determined and almost optimistic, though still somewhat nervous. That was understandable though, given the circumstances. Brenda was about to take control of her life for the first time in many years, and she was headed off to her destiny now. She hadn’t told Dee what she planned to do, but Dee sensed her path anyway. And she knew that Brenda’s dream would form the map that would lead her to safety and her true happiness.

She watched as the door of the plane’s cabin was finally opened and people were allowed to exit. Brenda was near the front of the line and just before she walked off, she turned back to give Dee one last smile and to yell: “Call me sometime!”

“I will!” Dee yelled back, standing and waving Brenda’s business card over the heads of the departing passengers. “Good luck,” she added, giving Brenda a thumbs-up sign.

She turned around to gather up her purse and her carryon so that she could make her way out into the sea of departing passengers, who now crowded the aisle, when she spotted something lying on the floor beneath Brenda’s seat. It was the picture that Brenda had guarded so closely when she’d first gotten onboard. “It must have fallen out of her bag when she handed me her business card,” Dee murmured. She looked up at the departing throng, hoping that Brenda was still there, but she wasn’t.

She tried to ease her way into the crowded aisle so that she could possibly catch up with Brenda before she got too far ahead of her, but she was unsuccessful. Realizing that Brenda had no intention of wasting time milling around the concourse once she’d gotten off the plane, Dee figured she wouldn’t even try to locate her among the masses of arriving and departing passengers here at Kennedy. “I’ll give her a call once I’m settled into my hotel room and see when would be a good time for me to drop it by her place,” Dee smiled, thinking this would give her the perfect excuse to see Brenda again and find out for sure how things were going for her.

But as she picked up the photo, she felt a sense of unease shoot through her like an electric current and it nearly knocked her flat. This was like nothing she’d ever felt before in her life. In the short time since she’d exited the plane, Dee knew that Brenda had somehow been diverted from her original course, and the path she was now taking led straight to disaster. Dee knew that she had to act quickly to try to find Brenda, otherwise she might never be found at all - at least, not alive!

Jax handed the cab driver a hundred-dollar bill as he exited the cab and waved him on for what he hoped was the last time. He had previously had the driver wait for him when he’d stopped at Brenda’s apartment, hoping to find her home, despite the fact that he hadn’t really expected to find her there at all. And he hadn’t. He was pretty certain that Jarrod Davis - or whatever his real name was - already had her somewhere. If that were the case, then his only hope of finding both of them was his brother, Jerry, and his mysterious connections, whatever they were.

Jax ran to the main entrance of Jerry’s apartment building, but before his hand could reach for the door, the middle-aged doorman, whose nametag read: “Abe,” recognized him and opened the door for him, nodding as he did. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Jacks. Your brother’s in right now. Would you like me to announce you or would you rather surprise him?” Abe asked, closing the door behind Jax after they’d both stepped inside.

“That’s okay, Abe. I’ll just run on up,” Jax answered, as he turned toward the private elevator that led directly to the penthouse. He knew his way upstairs, despite not having been here in years, and he certainly didn’t feel like waiting until he was announced, like some subject who was seeking an audience with royalty.

“Mr. Jacks!” Abe called after him, racing to keep up with Jax’s pace.

“Yes?” Jax asked, stopping just a few steps from the elevator to turn around to see what the man wanted now.

“This package was just delivered for your brother. He’s been expecting it, and I was just about to call him to let him know it’s arrived…” Abe explained, holding the gaily wrapped package gingerly in his hands.

“No problem,” Jax smiled congenially, despite the fact that every minute he wasted here was that much further Brenda slipped from him. Jax looked at the brightly colored package and rolled his eyes. Most likely a very expensive wedding gift from Jerry to BiBi, he thought, but to Abe he simply said: “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

He took the package from Abe and then and hit the ‘UP’ button on the elevator, watching as the doorman bowed once again toward him before turning and returning to his post just outside the main door of the elegant building.

Twenty-four-hour door service was just one of the many luxuries that came as a standard feature with this building. It was a posh, century-old building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that had been renovated in the past decade and now housed some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in New York, if not the world. Jax had been with Jerry when he’d found this place, six years ago. Jerry had quickly fallen in love with the penthouse apartment with its expansive view of Central Park and had secured the place immediately. Jax, on the other hand, found the apartment and the building itself to be ostentatious and pretentious - its fabulous view notwithstanding.

The last time he’d stopped by had been a little over four years ago. At that time one of Jerry’s many flames, who also claimed to be an interior designer, had redone the entire apartment with a Middle Eastern theme, filling it with lush Persian carpets and lots of large, brightly colored pillows and heavy draperies everywhere. Jax thought it looked hideous and like something out of a bad rendition of The Arabian Nights and had immediately dubbed Jerry’s apartment the Arabian nightmare. Jerry had just laughed, saying that it fit him perfectly, and then he’d asked Jax what better way to have a bachelor pad decorated than to have it look like it was worthy of a man with a harem?

And that was exactly what Jerry had always been: a man with a harem - and a very extensive one at that. He had a different woman on his arm for every occasion, and no woman stayed around for more than a week or two at the most. That was why Jax had been so surprised when Jerry had told him that he had found the one woman he wanted to marry and be with for the rest of his life, BiBi.

Jerry had never seemed interested in a monogamous relationship in his life. Even when Jerry had been in high school and college, he’d never dated any one girl steadily. He told Jax that life was a smorgasbord and that there were too many women out there for him to choose just one, so he never planned to settle down with one woman; it would be far too boring. He needed variety in his life!

But that was before Jerry met BiBi… Jax wondered what it was about her that had changed Jerry’s mind? He’d probably find out soon enough. Since Jerry had been impatiently waiting for the family jet to whisk him and BiBi off to St. Beliz, he imagined that BiBi was probably waiting in Jerry’s apartment at this very moment. She and Jerry would most likely want to leave as soon as Jax announced the jet was waiting at Kennedy for them. Jax hoped that BiBi was the patient sort because, one way or another, he was going to convince Jerry to postpone that trip with her until after Jerry could help him track down Brenda and this mysterious - and potentially dangerous - Jarrod Davis.

The elevator finally stopped at the penthouse, and Jax ran the short distance to Jerry’s door, preparing to ring the doorbell when he noticed that the door wasn’t completely closed. That seemed strange; even in a secure building like this, Jerry was fanatic about security, with lots of locks and high tech security gadgets in his apartment, and yet his front door wasn’t even closed, let alone locked? Jax cautiously pushed the door open, wondering what scene he might find inside?

There didn’t seem to be any reason for alarm. In fact, everything looked good. No - better than good - the place looked fantastic! There had been some drastic changes in the apartment since he’d last seen it - and they were all for the better! The gaudy Aladdin décor had been retired in favor of a far more sedate atmosphere, with earth tones the predominant colors and tasteful furnishings that seemed to blend seamlessly with the setting. Gone were the oversized, garish, velvet pillows that had once covered all the furniture, along with the gaudy furniture itself. The oversized, velvet brocade furniture that had once filled the massive main room of the apartment had since been replaced with matching leather couches in Sienna tones and several, leather occasional chairs, in a deep sand tone.

The heavy draperies that had once adorned the windows that overlooked Central Park were now replaced with lighter weight fabric draperies and pale sheers, both of which were pulled open now, offering a spectacular view below. The walls that had once been painted in dark colors and then covered with rugs and scarves and ornate, gilded artwork, were now painted a pale sand and groupings of magnificent photographs tastefully covered the wall space. Jax remembered his father mentioning that Jerry had become a collector of photographic artwork, but he hadn’t mentioned that it was this extensive!

Jerry’s taste in décor had certainly improved in the past few years. He hoped that was an indication that Jerry’s taste in women had improved as well, since Jerry had every intention of marrying this current woman and tying her to the entire Jacks clan for the foreseeable future. But right now, BiBi was not the woman foremost on Jax’s mind. That honor belonged to Brenda, and time was of the essence if he was going to find her before Jarrod Davis managed to whisk her away from him forever and possibly got her killed in the process.

He set the package down on the hall table and headed toward Jerry’s bedroom, where he could hear the sound of the shower coming from the master bathroom. He just hoped that Jerry was alone in there because it could be rather embarrassing to meet his soon-to-be sister-in-law for the first time while she was au naturel! Of course, then again, it could also be very pleasurable, knowing Jerry's predilection for especially beautiful women, he thought, grinning as he wondered how both BiBi and Jerry would react to his sudden appearance in their shower.

But as he headed down the hall, there seemed to be something very familiar about one of the picture groupings that filled the wall, and Jax stopped to get a better look at it and the other photographs that surrounded it. It was then that he realized that he knew this work… It was Brenda’s series on the homeless that he’d tried to purchase at the Ashton Gallery just yesterday! Ashton told him that it wasn’t for sale because it had already been sold to someone who collected everything Brenda displayed for sale… How did Jerry wind up with it?

He slowly moved from the hallway back to the main room of the apartment, examining all the photographs that hung around that room. Despite the fact that each grouping of pictures was of a different subject, the notably distinctive style of the photographer was evident in each picture. As he looked from picture to picture, he realized that the same photographer had taken all these - and that photographer was Brenda! … Was Jerry the mysterious collector that Ashton had been referring to? This made no sense at all! Why was Jerry exclusively buying Brenda’s work?

His mind was filled with questions, as he once again turned to head toward Jerry’s bedroom, when he caught sight of something lying on the edge of the coffee table that sat between the leather couches. Even from a distance Jax could tell that it was another photograph, but this was a snapshot - unframed and well worn, as if it had been handled and looked at over and over again. He picked it up and what he saw sent him reeling: it was a picture of Jerry and Brenda, and by the way their bodies were wrapped around one another and the intimate smiles they were exchanging, Jax knew that they were more than just casual acquaintances.

He narrowed his eyes as he held the picture in his shaking hands, bringing it closer to his face to make certain that he wasn’t imagining things. On closer inspection he could see that it was a few years old, but it was definitely his Brenda and his brother, and they were on a beach somewhere…

That’s the beach in Monte Carlo, four years ago, a voice inside him whispered. He shook his head, trying to convince himself of the ridiculousness of that possibility, but it continued to niggle at his soul.

Slowly he backed up, knocking into one of the couches and dumping over a small box that had been perched there, spilling its contents across the carpet. He bent to clean up his mess, which turned out to be more pictures - dozens of them. He picked up a handful of them - they were all of Jerry or of Jerry and Brenda together; some posed, others candid, but they all purveyed the unmistakable look of love and total intimacy between them. He felt the air being sucked from his lungs and he tried to catch his breath, as, one by one, all the pieces began to fit together, and the unmistakable picture that was forming made him nauseous… It was all so clear now; he wondered why he hadn’t seen it before?

He heard a sound from behind him and turned to see Jerry walking in, barefoot and clad only in jeans, his chest and hair still damp from his shower, a black towel hanging loosely around his neck.

Jerry stopped short, shocked to see Jax standing in the middle of his living room. “Jax, what… what are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes darting around the room.

Jax stared at his brother, a mixture of anger and disbelief on his face. It all made such perfect, horrible sense now: why Jerry needed the jet immediately; why Brenda had taken the picture from his office; why Brenda had always seen JD in him… The woman that Jerry was in love with was not “BiBi,” but “BB” - Brenda Barrett… And JD - Jarrod Davis - the man who had hurt Brenda so deeply four years ago and the man Jax had come to have Jerry help him find - was none other than Jerry himself!