It had been more than twenty-four hours since Jax and JD had discovered Jackson's body, and Brenda was still missing, with no ransom demand asked and no clues to her whereabouts. It was as if she'd simply vanished into thin air, and neither the FBI nor the police seemed able to offer explanations or comfort. And as each hour passed with no word from her kidnappers, it became more and more probable that Brenda could never be found alive - and that distinct possibility had caused a definite rift between Jax and JD, as each had taken their frustrations over the situation out on the other.

So the brothers had parted on less than favorable terms yesterday afternoon when the trio had left Brenda's apartment. And now Dee, who had reluctantly gone to her hotel to rest and to cancel her meetings with her publisher, was trying to track each of them down to see how things stood - not only as far as the situation with Brenda, but also between the two brothers. Because Dee felt more strongly than she'd ever felt anything in her life that if they were ever going to get Brenda back alive, both brothers would have to work together as a team to get that done. Now she just had to convince them both of that…

Dee had called JD very early that morning to find out how he was and if he'd heard anything yet, but he'd been terse in replying about Brenda and the only comment he'd made in reference to his brother was that he hadn't seen nor heard from him since they'd all left the loft the afternoon before. He told her that he presumed that Jax was back in his suite at the Plaza and that she could reach him there if she was worried about him; he wasn't his brother's keeper. He'd then told her that he was busy and didn't have time to talk. Sensing that that was not the right time to push him to make a conciliatory overture to his brother, she decided to turn her attentions to Jax instead. He'd always been far more receptive to her anyway.

She knocked sharply again on the door to Brenda's apartment. She'd been knocking for over a minute now without response, and she was beginning to worry. She *knew* that Jax was there. When she'd tried calling him at the Plaza this morning to see how he was, the desk clerk informed her that he'd checked out late last night and had left instructions that all calls be forwarded to his LA office. But Dee knew that Jax hadn't returned to LA - not with Brenda still missing. And she also knew that he wasn't staying at JD's place. At this point the brothers could barely tolerate one another, so sharing a living space was definitely out of the question. So that left Brenda's apartment as the logical place to find him.

She knocked once more, but when an answer was still not forthcoming from the apartment, she tried opening the heavy metal door. To her surprise, it was unlocked.

"Jax, it's Dee," she called softly as she slid open the door and cautiously peered inside. The apartment was completely dark, despite the fact that the noonday sun was shining brightly outside. The drapes, which had been open when they'd all left the apartment the day before, were now drawn, indicating that someone had at least been in the apartment at some point.

"Jax, I know you're here," she continued, as she slowly entered the dark loft, tripping over luggage that was piled just inside the door. "Dammit!" she cursed, as she recovered her balance and then carefully made her way in the darkness to the wall of windows on the opposite side of the apartment to open the drapes. Squinting against the bright light that suddenly burst through the windows, she glanced around the expansive loft, noting clutter and the disarray, where there had been order the day before.

Jax was definitely here, and from the looks of things, he'd spent a restless night. Pillows and books and clothes were scattered across the floor and the furniture. On the coffee table, a white bag bearing the name of Scribman's Deli peaked out from beneath a plate that held the remains of a half-eaten sandwich and an untouched pickle. Several empty Heineken bottles littered the tabletop as well. The couch cushions were also rumpled and it looked like Jax had slept there rather than in the bedroom.

It appeared that he'd been doing some reading as well; several open books were scattered haphazardly across the floor from the couch to the bookshelves, making navigation through the space difficult at best. Dee stooped to pick up a few of the books, basically to clear a path to walk, but also out of curiosity as to what books had caught Jax's interest.

The first book she picked up was entitled Treasures of Thailand, filled with some of the most beautiful pictures of the country and its people that Dee had ever seen. Inside the front cover of the book was a personalized note to Brenda from someone named Avery; it read: "I thought of you while I was here and the fun you'd have with that camera of yours."

She reached for a second book, this one entitled Italy for Lovers, filled with incredible pictures of the romantic Italian countryside; it was also signed with a personal note from this Avery. "You and Italy were made for each other - both beautiful beyond belief," it read. A third book, simply entitled Brazil!, was also filled with breathtaking pictures of that country and its inscription read: "The excitement and splendor of Mardis Gras and the beauty of Brazil's beaches have nothing on you."

Dee cocked an eyebrow as she wondered who this Avery person was and why he'd given Brenda all of these books of beautiful and exotic locales - and why did each inscription seem to carry an undertone of love and longing from this man? She realized that she hadn't known Brenda long, but she'd gotten the distinct impression that there had been only two significant loves in Brenda's young life, and those were Jax and JD. Then again, this could just be some man who'd fallen for Brenda, but she hadn't returned his affections. But Dee had the distinct feeling that there was more to this than that.

As she moved to pick up the rest of the books, she caught sight of what appeared to be a paper sticking out of a book that lay upside down and closed on the couch. That was most likely the last thing Jax had been looking at, since it was still on the couch.

She sat down on the edge of the couch, balancing the books she'd already gathered on her knees, and picked up the new book, turning it over to read its title: Great Castles of Europe. She opened it to see if this Avery person had also given this book to Brenda. "To My Beautiful Princess…" it read. "One day I'll build the most exquisite castle ever seen for the most exquisite woman ever born, and we'll live there, safe from the troubles of the outside world. Until then, look at this and think of me, and know that our love is everlasting… I love you now and forever… JD"

She turned to the page that seemed to be bookmarked by the paper that had caught her eye earlier to see what Jax had been reading. But when she got there she realized that it was most likely not the page that had captured his attention, but rather the paper itself, which was actually a black-and-white photo of a man. It was a nude, though tastefully done in her estimation, with the shadows and light playing in such a way that nothing beyond his magnificent form was exposed. It was a beautiful picture of a beautiful man, and she wondered why this picture seemed to be hidden in this book rather than displayed on a wall, where it could be appreciated for the work of art that it was? But then as she looked closer at it she realized something else about the picture…

"That's Jerry."

Startled, Dee looked up at the sound of Jax's voice to see him leaning against the corner of the massive bookshelves that served as a divider between this half of the loft and the back half. He'd evidently just come from the shower: he was dressed in clean khakis and was just pulling a navy polo shirt over his head, and his hair was still damp and messy, like he'd just shampooed it, but hadn't bothered to comb it. He may have just come from the shower, but he looked anything but refreshed, she thought as she gave him a motherly once over. Even from this distance, Dee could see the fatigue on his face and the weariness in his eyes. And the bruised chin he'd received, courtesy of yesterday's scuffle with JD, made him look even more forlorn. Brenda's disappearance and the rift with his brother were definitely wearing on him.

Embarrassed that she'd been discovered studying the picture so closely, she hastily dropped it back into its hiding place and closed the book, setting it and the others that she'd picked up onto the only clean corner of the coffee table.

"That picture is Jerry and that book -" He nodded toward the book on castles that lay on the top of the pile. "- is from Jerry. She kept them as her treasures - her remembrances of their time together," he added, his tone hard and bitter.

"In fact, all of these books are from Jerry," he continued, sauntering over to where Dee remained seated on the couch.

"JD is Avery?" Dee asked, thinking that didn't sound like an alias that someone like JD would ever use.

"Not exactly…" Jax answered, leaning forward as if he were looking at the top book on the stack that Dee had just picked up. "Jerry sent all of those books through a mutual friend of theirs, who signed them using an alias but with Jerry's sentiments. It was Jerry's way of feeling close to her, without actually being there for her."

"Brenda never suspected who really sent them? She just accepted that they were from this Avery?" Dee asked, wondering how Brenda had missed - or simply ignored - the romantic theme of both the books and the inscriptions?

Jax shrugged his shoulders as he settled onto the other end of the couch. "I guess she just took the books at face value, although I think that a part of her must have felt the connection to Jerry because she treasured each and every book - especially this one," he continued, picking up the book on castles and opening it to re-read the inscription. "And now I know why…"

Dee studied him for several seconds, trying to decide what was going on with him. "Does it bother you that Brenda loved JD before she met you?" Dee finally asked.

"No, not at all… Everyone has a past, including me… What bothers me is that she *still* loves him," Jax answered, pulling his brother's picture out of the book. "Even after all these years and all the pain he's put her through, she *still* loves him," he added, through gritted teeth.

"Did you just come to this earth shatterin' discovery last night?" Dee asked impatiently, not in the mood to help Jax wallow in self-pity.

Jax was surprised by Dee's tone. He'd expected her to be sympathetic, given the fact that Brenda was still missing and both of them were still worried sick over that. "No…" he conceded, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. "She told me that she still loved him… It's just that when she told me, I had no idea that her JD and my brother were one-in-the-same," he added morosely.

"But you already knew that by yesterday, didn't you?" Dee pressed, her tone still impatient, as she tried to get to the bottom of his sudden problem with Brenda's past with JD when he'd seemed to accept it before. Did this have something to do with the fight between the brothers that she'd walked in on yesterday?

"Yeah… I found out just before we learned about Brenda's kidnapping. I figured it out when I saw pictures of the two of them at Jer's... I felt as if I'd been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer when I finally began to see the whole picture - literally," he added, laughing bitterly at his own pun. "Jerry had boxes of pictures of the two of them together, so it was hard not to get the big picture - and they looked as if they were just as in love as Brenda had said that they were."

"Did you think that she'd exaggerated about that?" Dee asked, wondering why this all seemed so important to Jax now? Had he spent all night looking at keepsakes his brother had given Brenda and stewing about the love Brenda felt for JD?

"No, I had no doubt that she and this JD had loved one another. It's just that I'd never expected that JD would turn out to be my brother and I never dreamed that my brother ever have loved any woman, let alone loved her that intensely - and still loves her like that," Jax replied, turning the picture of his brother over and over in his hands as he spoke.

"And that bothers you - that and the fact that Brenda has readily admitted that she still loves JD?" Dee asked, needing clarification as to what was truly eating at Jax.

"Doesn't it bother you, given the fact that Brenda's kidnapping is all Jerry's fault?" Jax snapped, exasperated that Dee, who was supposed to have this sixth sense about things, seemed unable to comprehend this very important fact.

"What do you mean: it's his fault?" Dee had sensed that JD had felt responsible all along, but she had never heard the particulars as to why he felt that way. And now it seemed that Jax also held him accountable.

"You don't know the whole story?" he asked, and when she shook her head, he added sharply: "I guess that since you seem to instinctively know so much about things, especially Brenda's life, I just figured you knew everything."

"As I've said before, I'm not a psychic," Dee answered evenly, knowing that Jax hadn't meant to sound condescending; fatigue and worry were making him edgy. "I have feelin's about certain people and things, but I usually don't know specific details unless people tell me… So why don't you fill me in on Brenda's story? And be sure to include how this Avery fits in."

"It's a long story, but I'll try to give you the condensed version…" Jax said, sighing as he leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch. "… If you haven't already guessed, my brother is a very dangerous man," he began, his voice taking on a hard edge once again. "Or at least he's chosen a particularly dangerous career path for himself… And from what little I've seen of him in action over the past couple of days, he's quite good at it. He reacts instinctively to situations, always on the alert for danger. It's like the job is a part of him now, ingrained in him. He's addicted to the danger, the intrigue, the adrenaline rush that accompanies living on the edge day-in and day-out… He'd probably deny this - especially now - but I think that he loves what he does - every aspect of it, both good and bad. And for the longest time his job was his first and only love."

"I take it that that changed when he met Brenda?" Dee asked, although she had the feeling that Brenda's appearance in both brothers' lives had had a profound effect on each man.

"He met her four years ago in Monte Carlo," Jax nodded, continuing. "He said that he had no intention of having anything more than a brief fling with her when he first spotted her on the beach there. He lusted after her and he was prepared to do anything to satisfy that lust, then move on to greener pastures. He was there for a little R&R and she was living there, supporting herself by taking pictures for rich tourists. He approached her under the guise of hiring her to take pictures of the countryside for him, but his whole purpose was to get her into bed - which he did," he added sarcastically.

"Against her will?" Dee asked, although she was certain of the answer.

"No, the attraction was mutual," he admitted reluctantly, and Dee noted the bitterness in his tone at that admission. "She'd fallen in love with him almost instantly and he realized after they made love that first time that he was in love with her, too - for the first and only time in his life, in fact - and it scared the hell out of him, so he ran."

"A lot of men react like that when they're faced with those feelin's for the first time," Dee commented dryly.

"Not me," Jax stated flatly, looking Dee squarely in the eyes, and the earnestness in his own eyes bore out the truth of that statement. "I knew that I was in love with Brenda almost from the beginning and I welcomed that feeling. Brenda was the one who ran from it," he added sadly, remembering how she'd fought so hard against admitting her true feelings for him.

"And did that have anything to do with her experience with JD?" Dee asked, knowing once again what the answer would be.

"It had *everything* to do with it," Jax replied bitterly. "He ran after their first night together because he said he didn't think he could handle all the feelings being with her stirred up in him. But he said that he returned to her within hours because he *knew* he'd never be able to handle all the feelings being *without* her stirred in him."

"So if he returned to her immediately, then what separated them in the end that he needed for someone else to send her gifts under an alias for him?" Dee prodded curiously.

Jax sighed wearily as he continued: "As I said before, Jerry's profession is dangerous, which also means that it's almost impossible for anyone deeply involved in it to have a stable family life. But he knew that from the beginning of his relationship with Brenda, so he spent most of their six weeks together - the time he had remaining of vacation - devising a way to safely leave the people he works for without endangering Brenda's life in the process."

"Wait a minute," Dee interrupted, her Southern accent creeping fully to the forefront as she became agitated by what Jax was implying here. "Are you tellin' me that these people that JD works for would have hurt Brenda simply because he wanted to leave them to make a life with her?"

"Not only would they have hurt her, but they *did* hurt her - and the very man that JD enlisted to help protect Brenda - Andrew Buxton, the 'Avery' in these books - is the very man who is responsible for all the harm that's come to Brenda, four years ago and now!" Jax answered angrily.

Dee's face paled at that. "It… it's a colleague of JD's who's behind Brenda's disappearance…?" Dee repeated and Jax nodded. Why hadn't she realized that before? So many things were becoming clear now: why JD felt responsible for Brenda's disappearance, and what events possibly precipitated the blowup between the brothers the day before.

"Andrew Buxton… JD mentioned him yesterday when we were tryin' to get inside Jackson's head," Dee murmured, recalling why that name seemed familiar to her. "JD said the man died recently."

Jax nodded. "Andrew was very important to Jerry. He wasn't just Jerry's colleague, but his mentor and his friend," Jax continued. "Almost as soon as Jerry realized he was in love with Brenda, he began fantasizing about a life with her, but he knew that in order to live that life he'd need help in getting things ready for him and Brenda once he left. So he turned to Andrew for help. Andrew was the one person in the Agency that Jerry felt he could trust to help him get safely out and to shield Brenda while he was setting his plan into place - or so he thought.

"Jerry had Andrew supervise everything for him, including the renovations on this apartment for him and Brenda, in preparation for his 'retirement' and the real beginning of their life together."

"So this was their apartment?" Dee asked, wondering why she felt none of JD here if they'd both lived here at one time.

"No, Jerry planned for it to be theirs together, but he got pulled back into his work before he could bring her here. Jerry's never lived here," Jax explained. "But a few weeks after Jerry disappeared, Brenda came here to New York to look for him. The two of them had discussed one day living in the city, and Brenda hoped that she'd find him here. And in a way, she did when she came to live here."

"And how did that happen?" Dee asked. "I'm a firm believer in fate, but findin' this place out of the blue is too coincidental even for me."

"Exactly!" Jax nodded, looking around the expansive loft. "I don't think anything in Brenda's life has been left to fate since the day that Jerry first laid eyes on her, four years ago in Europe," Jax added sardonically.

"Does that include meeting you?" Dee asked intuitively.

At that, Jax smiled the first genuine smile that Dee had seen from him all day. "No, that was definitely fate at work there," Jax smiled, remembering every second of that brief encounter that had changed his life forever. But then his smile dimmed, as he added: "But it seems that nearly everything else in Brenda's life has been either carefully orchestrated or closely monitored since she and Jerry met."

"So how exactly did she come to move into this place - the very place that your brother had planned for them to live together?" Dee prompted, wanting as much information as possible on Brenda's background since meeting JD.

"Well, as I said, Jerry had asked this Andrew Buxton to keep an eye on Brenda for him, so when she came to New York looking for Jerry and a place to live, Buxton arranged an *accidental* meeting between them," Jax continued, remembering both Jerry's and Brenda's version of events as they unfolded after that. "Brenda had been looking in this area for an apartment for about two weeks when Buxton finally made his move. It was a hot July day, not unlike today, and Brenda said she was tired and frazzled and disappointed that she couldn't find a decent place to live that she could also afford. She saw the sign for the Scribman's Deli, just down the street, and she went inside for lemonade. That's when Andrew Buxton, known to her as Avery Buehler, *accidentally* bumped into her, dumping his iced tea all over her white dress. She said that he apologized profusely and offered to replace the dress, but she just laughed it off and told him that if he really wanted to make it up to her that he'd help her find a place to live."

"And this is the place he helped her find," Dee supplied, piecing that part of the puzzle together.

Jax nodded. "Yeah, Buxton told her that he was just on his way to advertise this place for rent when he'd stopped in to get something cold to drink. He told her that he'd just redone the place, but then decided that he'd rather travel the world in his golden years than stay in the city, so he was advertising for a new tenant for the loft."

"I take it that the travel scenario was a cover story?" Dee asked, and again Jax nodded.

"The only traveling Andrew Buxton did from that point on was from his apartment to his office, all just in another part of this city," Jax continued. "But that cover story provided Jerry, whose profession requires frequent, extensive travel to exotic locales, with a way to stay connected to Brenda. He'd buy these books nearly everywhere that he went and inscribe them, signing Andrew's alias of Avery, then send them to Brenda," he said, gesturing toward the stack of books on the coffee table then back toward the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were filled with the books Jerry had sent over the past four years.

Dee let out a low whistle, as her eyes scanned the vast array of books on different countries that dominated the massive bookshelves. "Your brother has indeed been well-traveled!" She looked to the book on castles that Jax still held on his lap. "I take it that he gave that to her when they were together."

"Yeah, and the inscription seems to say it all, doesn't it?" Jax murmured, once again reading the words that his brother had written to the woman they both loved. "How ironic that Jerry called her his princess and pledged to protect her when he's been the one who's brought all the tragedy down on her, over and over again. He's even responsible for Buxton hiring Jackson in the first place to monitor Brenda's activities for him - and look where that led: she was assaulted and nearly died not long after arriving here in the city and now she's missing and possibly hurt, and all because of Jerry."

Suddenly Dee felt a chill go through her as she realized something she should have sensed before. "That assault resulted in her miscarriage… She didn't just lose the baby through an accident of nature." It was a statement not a question; she could feel in her bones that someone had purposely cost Brenda and JD their child.

"You know about the baby?" Jax asked, surprised that Dee was aware of that fact.

Dee nodded. "Brenda told me on the plane," she explained, but she didn't go into detail as to what had motivated Brenda to divulge that secret to her. Dee knew that that was not her story to tell. But when Jax appeared surprised that Brenda had confided something so personal to a new acquaintance, she knew that she'd have to tell him something to satisfy his curiosity. "We were just talkin' about this and that and she asked me if I was married or had children and I asked her the same in return."

Jax looked at her skeptically through narrowed eyes. "Brenda just casually mentioned to a new acquaintance on a plane that she'd once been pregnant but she lost the baby when she was assaulted?"

Dee tried to push out of her mind the vivid image she suddenly had of Brenda fighting off her attacker, as she pondered how to answer Jax's astute question. "No, she just mentioned that she'd been pregnant once but she'd miscarried. I didn't know about the circumstances until you told me just now… Did they ever find the people responsible?"

"The authorities didn't, but Jerry found out yesterday that it was his good friend, Andrew Buxton, who was behind it. In fact, Jackson, the man who originally kidnapped Brenda is the one who assaulted her and caused the miscarriage four years ago," Jax informed her.

"Oh, Lord!" Dee gasped, imagining the horror Brenda must have felt upon discovering that fact. "If Jackson wasn't already dead, I'd kill him myself!" she cried angrily. "And the same goes for Buxton as well!" she seethed.

"That seems to be the predominant sentiment, even among the FBI," Jax sighed. "Weygandt said that he's seen a lot of horrendous things in his years with the Bureau, but Buxton's twisted sense of logic and honor and the depth of Jackson's depravity particularly sickened him… They were finally able to identify those bodies from the explosion - seems that Jackson somehow lured his own cousin and his ex-girlfriend there, then set them up to be killed. He killed them both in order to make it look like he'd committed suicide and killed Brenda as well, to throw us off his track, most likely.

That information sent another chill through Dee. The more information she heard about all of this, the more heinous it sounded and the more frightened she felt for Brenda's safety. She felt in her heart that Brenda was still alive, but she could also feel Brenda's intense fear. Both Buxton and Jackson had been evil men, but now they were out of the picture, leaving the distinct possibility that someone even worse now had Brenda and could hurt her in even far more sinister ways. She'd already lost so much - her innocence, her freedom, her child…

Her child… The child that she and JD had conceived and that JD supposedly never knew about... "JD knows about the baby?" she asked, and Jax nodded solemnly. "Brenda didn't think he knew…"

"He found out by accident… He overheard Andrew and Brenda talking and then I confirmed it for him later," Jax answered, hanging his head as he remembered the look of pain on Jerry's face at the moment that he'd so carelessly blurted that information out.

"He must be so devastated," Dee whispered, her eyes misting at the pain that JD must have felt, not only learning that he and Brenda had conceived and then lost a child but also knowing that he had unwittingly set up the situation that had resulted in their child's death.

"But it was Jerry's web of lies and his need for control over Brenda's life that cost them both that baby," Jax pointed out angrily, throwing down the book and the picture and crossing over to the wall of windows to look out at the horizon.

Dee stared after Jax, surprised at the depth of his hostility and bitterness toward his brother. When she'd first met them, both JD and Jax knew of the importance of the other in Brenda's life, but they still somehow managed to remain close throughout that time. But something had changed in the intervening hours that had eaten to the very core of their relationship and torn them apart, and it had fulminated into a full-fledged fight not long after they'd returned from the apartment across the street, where Brenda had been held by this Jackson.

She supposed that the strain of Brenda's second disappearance and the fact that there had been no word from whoever had taken her could have been the sole causes of the fight, but she sensed that that was only a part of what was bothering both men. Unfortunately, neither seemed willing to talk about whatever had happened between them…

She'd come in on the tail end of the fight that they'd had yesterday and the bitter words they'd exchanged - not to mention the brawl that they'd had - had both frightened and angered her. Had Jax not shot out the door immediately after she'd broken up their fight, she would have set them both down for a stern talking-to right then and there and possibly saved everyone a lot of angst. But that hadn't happened.

And when she'd tried to get an explanation from JD after Jax had gone, he'd merely told her that it was between them and to stay out of it. He'd even refused to allow her to put ice on his bruised cheek, where Jax had evidently landed a pretty good punch. He'd then told her it was time she went to her hotel, and he'd abruptly stood by the front door, waiting until she'd gone on ahead and pressed for the elevator, before he'd slammed the door shut behind them both. She'd held the elevator for him, but he'd sullenly walked past her, preferring the stairs and the solitude they would afford him.

She had hoped that the intervening hours would have mellowed each of their attitudes toward the other, but evidently it hadn't. JD had responded coldly this morning when she'd inquired about Jax, and Jax was reacting hotly now when talking about JD. She hadn't known them long, but she knew in her heart that nothing like this had ever divided the brothers before - and she also knew in her heart that if they remained divided, then Brenda didn't have a prayer of being found alive.

Jax hadn't noticed Dee's silence, as he'd been lost in his own world, staring at the building across the street, where Brenda had been held for so many hours. She'd been right under their noses all along, suffering at the hands of that pervert Jackson. And now she was missing again, and God only knew who had her now - God and Jerry, because Jax had no doubt that it was someone from Jerry's past - someone that Jackson had probably dug out of the sewers - who had killed Jackson and taken Brenda. He wondered what unspeakable things she'd had to endure at the hands of this latest captor? Had she been raped or beaten? The thought of anyone hurting her made him so angry that he could barely think straight.

He'd never been a violent man, but these past couple of days had seemed to change him. The press had once labeled him the 'Wall Street Killer' because of his reputation for making a killing on nearly every deal he'd pulled off. Those killings were figurative and carried out with a handshake and the stroke of a pen or the click of a mouse. Prior to the past 36 hours, he'd never understood a real blood thirst, where one could just as easily strike another person dead as look at them. And when he'd learned what Jerry had been doing for the past ten years, he couldn't understand how his brother could carry out the killing that was often a necessary part of his work.

But he understood now. He understood because the anger that boiled in him as he waited and wondered and worried for Brenda's safety could easily push him to kill the person or persons responsible for her disappearance. It had already pushed him to try to hurt one whom he blamed for all of this: his brother Jerry. And God help them both if Brenda died because he wouldn't be responsible for what he'd do to his brother then…

"You know, you and that brother of yours are both actin' like jackasses, fightin' like this!" Dee finally snapped, after she'd had enough of Jax's sulking at the window. "But maybe I'm bein' slanderous to jackasses by callin' you and JD that, 'cause even jackasses know when to stop kickin' the livin' daylights outta one another and when to start pullin' together to get somethin' accomplished!" she added, her voice raising incrementally with each step she took toward Jax, who continued to stare out the window.

"Don't you understand, Dee?" Jax shouted back. "There's nothing to pull together for - the odds are they killed Brenda soon after they killed Jackson! It's been over twenty-four hours since we found Jackson's body in that apartment across the street, and it's been over twenty-four hours since they took Brenda from there and we've heard nothing - NOTHING - in all that time! Even the FBI and the cops think that she's probably already dead - and it's all because of Jerry!"

"Dammit! She's not dead!" Dee snapped, her green eyes flashing with anger. "I can still feel her out there - she's alone and scared, but she's still fightin' to stay alive!… But she won't be alive for long if you and that stubborn brother of yours don't mend this stupid rift between the two of you and start workin' together to find her!"

She took a deep breath and then continued more calmly: "Okay, so blame JD for all of this if it makes you feel better - and hearin' the whole story I can understand your position, although I don't happen to agree with it… Hell, your brother even blames himself, so you're both actually in agreement on that, although I think pointin' blame here is useless… What you both need to do is stop fixin' blame and stop this fightin' and start forgivin' each other for all this stupidity between you. Then you two need to use those thick heads of yours for somethin' better than batterin' rams against one other - stick 'em together to figure out who has her, where she is, and how you're gonna get her home!"

"I don't know that I can ever forgive him for this," Jax responded quietly, then turned back to stare out the wall of windows once again. "I'll work on my own to try to find her."

"Oooohhh! You and that brother of yours are gonna be the death of me yet!" Dee seethed, as she grabbed Jax by the shoulders and jerked him around to face her. "You know, this is exactly what Brenda was afraid would happen between you and JD! That's why she ran when she found out that JD was your brother… She didn't want to be responsible for causin' trouble between the two of you."

She let go of Jax's shoulders as she continued, her tone gentler: "She loves you both so much. And she said that you both loved each other so much that maybe it'd be better if she just disappeared from both of your lives - which is what she was plannin' to do when she got on that plane in LA. But by the time that plane landed here in New York, she'd changed her mind. She realized that she loved you both too much to just leave like that. So she planned to face both of you to try to work all of this out because she didn't want anything to hurt the relationship that you and your brother have - or had, at least before yesterday! … I know in my heart that Brenda's not dead, Jax, but it would kill her to know that you and JD are at each other's throats because of her."

"It's not because of her - it's because of Jerry and his work and his lies," Jax retorted, but in his heart he knew that it was his jealousy toward his brother and the relationship that Jerry had - and still has - with Brenda that was the true driving force behind his anger toward Jerry. And he knew that jealousy had spurred a great deal of his brother's anger toward him as well.

He and Jerry had somehow managed to keep the green-eyed monster in check for so long: through the revelations that Jerry was JD and that Brenda was BiBi; through the tense hours after Jackson took Brenda; through the discovery that Andrew Buxton had been the driving force behind Brenda's tragedies; and through the explosion and its aftermath. But after discovering Jackson's body and that Brenda had disappeared for a second time - this time without a trace - it was as if the center could no longer hold for either of them and they simply broke apart, allowing their fears and jealousies and pain to surface, which resulted in the ugly fight that they'd had.

Dee just threw up her hands and shook her head. "You know, I did a little investigatin' of my own last night after I went to my hotel. I found out that you're considered a whiz in financial circles, and I figure that brother of yours must be near genius himself if he's managed to stay alive all these years, given the life you tell me he leads. But watchin' the two of you now makes me wonder if you two even have half a brain between you! And God only knows what Brenda ever saw in either one of you, let alone in the both of you!" she tossed over her shoulder as she grabbed her purse and marched toward the door to leave.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jax shouted after her.

"It means," Dee shot back, as she whirled around to face him, "that I think Brenda gave you two far more credit than either of you deserve! She thought you two had depth and the capacity for forgiveness and understanding," she continued, fixing her clenched fists on her hips as she fixed her flashing green eyes on his face. "She thought you two could handle anything because your love for each other - and for her - was strong and unshakeable. But I guess she was wrong, wasn't she? And it's probably better that she'll never know just how wrong she was wrong…"

She turned to leave again, but this time Jax was the one to stop her, as he grabbed her and whirled her around to face him. "What do you mean, she'll never know how wrong she was? … You've given up hope, too, haven't you?" he asked, his eyes wide with fear as it suddenly hit him that despite his words to the contrary, he'd believed in his heart that as long as Dee felt Brenda was alive, then Brenda would come back to him. But now… "She's never coming back, is she?"

"You're right, Jax," she answered quietly, her eyes softening as she saw the fear in his. "She's never coming back - not if you and JD don't work together to bring her back. That's what I've been tryin' to tell you all along. But you've been in this angry, jealous lover mode all mornin', and you haven't been able to hear or feel anything beyond your own bitterness and pain."

Jax hung his head, reluctantly acknowledging that Dee was right.

"Do you want to tell me what's goin' on with you, Jax?" Dee asked softly, gently laying her hand on his arm. "I'd expect this display from JD, but not from you. What's got you so riled? What are you so afraid of?"

"What am I afraid of?" Jax asked incredulously, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. "Brenda is missing and we have no idea where she is, who has her, or even if she's alive! Isn't that enough reason to be sick with fear?!"

"It's understandable that you're afraid for Brenda's life - we all are…" Dee cocked her head to the side and looked closely at him, noting the desperation in his voice and his face, but also noting something more in his eyes. "But there's another fear that's eatin' at you and it's just as powerful as your fear for Brenda's life… You wanna talk about it?"

Jax sighed, as he slid onto the arm of the couch. He hesitated momentarily before answering: "Yes… No… I don't know… It's stupid really… It was only a dream… It doesn't mean a thing in the overall scheme of things…"

Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't," Dee replied, pulling a nearby chair closer so that she was seated directly across from where he was perched on the arm of the couch. "But I can tell you that a dream that's got you this bothered is one that shouldn't be kept to yourself," she coaxed, leaning forward in her chair as she waited for Jax to open up to her.

He looked at her sheepishly, distractedly combing his fingers through his still damp hair as he thought about how to explain this to her without sounding foolish. "You're going to think I've lost my mind… I mean, obsessing about a stupid, meaningless dream when Brenda's missing and we've heard nothing about her for over 24 hours…"

"You know, dreams are sometimes our unconscious mind tellin' us what our conscious mind doesn't want to face," she said, watching as his face seemed to fall at her words. "And, then again, sometimes dreams are nothin' more than a spicy sandwich eaten late at night," she added, smiling as she glanced toward the half-eaten sandwich that lay on the coffee table between them. "Or the choice of readin' material," she added, her eyes resting on the Great Castles of Europe book that Jax had tossed down just moments before.

"Yeah, that's enough to give anyone nightmares, right there," Jax laughed ruefully, as his eyes also settled on the book and the picture of his brother that peaked out beneath it. "I'm making too much of this… I mean, now that I think about it, the dream *is* understandable and has no real meaning, other than pointing out my own insecurities. It was probably brought on by bad food and too many 'what ifs.' Dreams can't show what's to come…" he stated resolutely, but his tone and his face showed that a part of him feared that this particular dream did *indeed* portend the future.

Dee felt a sudden sense of déjà vu, as she remembered similar concerns Brenda had had about a particularly vivid dream she'd had on the plane, wondering if it was showing her what lay ahead for her. Was it merely coincidence that they both were disturbed by their dreams now? "What exactly did you dream?" she asked, hoping to answer some of her own questions about this, as well as Jax's.

Jax stood then, returning to the wall of windows to once again stare out at the horizon. "It started out pleasant enough," he began, smiling as the memories of the first few moments of the dream came tumbling back to him. "It started out on a beach somewhere - I don't know exactly where, but I felt as if I knew the place and I felt comfortable there. I could smell tropical fruit and I could feel the sun and the gentle ocean breeze, but I couldn't see myself. It was like I was there, but I wasn't really there - like I simply blended in with the other elements: the wind, the water, the air… Like I was meant to watch, but not participate - or interfere…" he added sadly, staring at a woman pushing a stroller down the sidewalk.

"Interfere in what?" Dee prompted, when Jax seemed preoccupied with something he saw outside.

"In the dream, Brenda was laying on a blanket on the beach, sunning herself," he continued at her prompting. "She was so beautiful… I wanted to reach out to touch her, but I couldn't… It was like I said: I felt I was only there to watch for some reason…" he repeated, his voice trailing off wistfully.

"So you saw Brenda on a beach somewhere, and she was sunnin' herself… Was anyone else in the dream?" Dee prompted again.

"Yeah… definitely," he answered ruefully, turning around to face her as he leaned back against the windows. "… I could hear a child laughing in the distance, and I watched as Brenda stood to look toward the sound. I saw her smile and I followed her gaze to see a dark-haired little girl - a baby really - playing in the ocean's waves, then the figure of a tall man, who was playing in the water with the baby. Brenda smiled and waved at the two and they waved back, then the man scooped the baby into his arms and walked toward Brenda. When the two were almost to her, the girl held out her arms for Brenda and called "Mama"… I could feel my heart overflowing with love at this point in the dream. I felt a sense of serenity - as if this was how things were meant to be… I knew that I had to be that man carrying that baby to Brenda on that beach… But when his face came into view, it was my brother and not me there with Brenda and the baby…"

He moved away from the windows and walked back toward Dee, who remained seated across from the couch. "So what do you think? Is it the real deal or just bad corned beef followed by too much beer?" Jax asked, focusing his blue-green eyes on Dee's placid face, as he searched for any sign as to what her interpretation of his dream might be.

Dee sat quietly, thinking about everything that Jax had just described. Brenda hadn't gone into detail about her dream on the plane, but she had told Dee certain elements of that particularly vivid dream - the smell of the tropical fruit; the warmth of the sun; the feel of the breeze - and she'd told her that JD and a little girl were both in it. Brenda had wondered at the time if it was some sort of a premonition of her future. Dee had been vague in answering because she felt it was not her place in that situation to say what would or would not be, just as she felt it was not her place in this situation to confer her judgment on this dream, knowing it would shatter one brother's hopes, while building up the other's. And that would not be what was best for any of them - especially not Brenda. Her very future depended on both brothers working together to find her, and they'd never be able to do that if one or both of them knew what truly lay ahead for them after Brenda returned.

So Dee Hotchkiss did something that she had rarely done in her life: she lied. "I think you need to lay off the late-night snacks," she smiled her most practiced smile, praying it looked genuine enough to fool Jax at the moment.

It did. Jax visibly relaxed and smiled broadly. The dream had weighed more heavily on his mind than he had realized, feeding on his burgeoning insecurities where Jerry and Brenda were concerned. And telling Dee about it and getting her assurance that it was nothing of consequence made him feel relieved. He almost laughed at how irrational that sounded, especially coming from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, who was usually as rational as they come. But Dee had this sixth sense - he'd seen just how acute it was - so he trusted that she also knew about dreams, and when she pronounced his dream harmless he literally breathed a sigh of relief.

But if he trusted her to know about his dream, then why didn't he trust her when she insisted that he and Jerry would need to work together to bring Brenda safely home? After all, his father had said the same thing to him the night before when he'd called. The truth was that he did. And he knew that his fit of anger the day before with Jerry and his continued bitterness and jealousy toward him would have to be set aside in order for them to return to the trusting relationship they'd always had and would need again in order to help Brenda.

He probably would have been well on his way to calling Jerry long before this if he hadn't spent the night making himself more miserable and compounding his jealousy of Jerry by going through all the books Jerry had given Brenda. Then taking out that book on castles and finding the picture she'd hidden inside and knowing that she's treasured both had further inflamed his anger toward his brother. But what had really done him in was the dream. It had all felt so real to him that he'd been afraid that it was the future he was seeing - or rather his brother's and Brenda's, complete with a beautiful little girl. But thankfully Dee had assured him that it was nothing more than bad food and his own jealous fears that had fed this dream.

His own jealous fears… He shook his head, feeling ashamed that he'd allowed those fears to control him for the past several hours. He thought he'd had them under control - and he had - but things seemed to spiral out of control from the moment he and Jerry set foot in that apartment across the street until the moment that they had their fraternal meltdown at ground zero here in Brenda's apartment. In the heat of that terrible moment, they'd exchanged some powerful blows, with the verbal punches inflicting far more pain and injury than the physical blows ever could. He gently rubbed his hand across his chin, thinking that this bruise and Jerry's would both soon heal and be long forgotten. But he wondered if their hurtful words could ever be forgotten?

He glanced up and his eyes caught sight of his picture of him and Jerry that Brenda had left on the plane and that Dee had returned the other night. It was sitting on the dining room table, where Dee had placed it that night. He walked over to the picture and picked it up, remembering how close he and Jerry were then, and how far apart they were now. So much had transpired between them since this picture was taken, especially over the past couple of days. Could they ever get back to the relationship that they had when this photo was taken, he wondered? How had it come to this point for them?…

Twenty-four hours earlier…

"Freeze!" a chorus of voices yelled, as a swarm of NYPD officers descended on the apartment just as Jax and Jerry were leaving the scene. Just inches behind them in the stifling hot apartment lay Jackson's bloody, lifeless body.

"NYPD! Hands above your heads!" one of the officers yelled, and Jax and Jerry immediately complied as another officer quickly searched them for weapons, while several others searched the rest of the apartment.

"We had nothing to do with this!" Jerry argued, but his plea of innocence was met with the muzzle of a gun against his back, as he and Jax were shoved against the wall.

Jax tried to protest their treatment, but a third officer cut him short, as he roughly grabbed his arms and jerked them behind his back and handcuffed him

"This one's armed!" the second officer declared, as he secured Jerry's 9mm, then handcuffed Jerry's hands behind his back.

"I have a permit for that," Jerry pointed out. "Besides, any rookie can tell that this gun didn't kill that man. It's a peashooter compared to the murder weapon."

"Search the area!" the first officer commanded. "A weapon that could do that amount of damage can't just vanish into thin air, so it has to be here somewhere!"

"For god's sake! We had nothing to do with this! If we had, do you think we'd be stupid enough to still be here when you arrived?" Jerry growled angrily, as he tried to jerk away from the officer holding him. His efforts to wrest himself free were met with the butt of another officer's assault weapon to his stomach, which sent Jerry to the ground, the wind temporarily knocked out of him.

Jax was shocked by the officer's treatment of Jerry and he jerked to try to stop any further assault on his brother, but the officer holding him interpreted his movement as an escape attempt.

"Don't move a muscle!" the officer shouted, as he knocked Jax unceremoniously to the floor, aiming his weapon squarely at Jax's head, as several other officers did the same. "Or you'll have less of your head left than that poor guy has!" he shouted, motioning with his head toward Jackson's bloody body.

"Do as they say, Jax!" Jerry whispered hoarsely, as he lay doubled over on the floor, having just caught his breath and barely able to talk again. Jerry silently berated himself for being so unprofessional in his treatment of the officers. He could have saved both himself and Jax a lot of pain had he just kept his cool, instead of shooting off his mouth like he did.

Just then Agent Weygandt and several other FBI agents entered the apartment. "I'm FBI Special Agent David Weygandt, and this is my case," he said, flashing his badge for all the police officers to see as he took in the situation before him. "Who's in charge here?" he barked, bending to help Jerry up off the floor as he motioned for one of his fellow agents to do the same for Jax.

"I am, sir," the officer who had ordered the search for the murder weapon stepped forward. "Sgt. Robert Avalon, NYPD, 5th Precinct, Detective Squad." The man was in his late forties, with thinning salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin moustache. He was average height, with just the hint of a gut beginning to peak over his well-worn Brooks Brothers pants. He'd disposed of the matching suit coat in the car, and the short-sleeved dress shirt he wore was already wrinkled and wet with sweat, not to mention the iced tea he'd spilled on it at the station house.

"Well, Sgt. Avalon, your unit did a commendable job securing the scene. Unfortunately, you and your officers have collared the wrong men," Weygandt continued, his voice firm and unyielding. "These men are working as liaisons with the FBI on this case, and they should have identified themselves as such immediately."

Jerry gave Weygandt a wary glance, warning him not to divulge his complete identity, and Weygandt gave him a small nod in return, assuring him that his secret was still safe with him.

"Release them. These are the Jacks brothers and they're working with me on this case," Weygandt continued. "In fact, they were the ones who gave us the heads-up on this place," he added, as he watched one of the police officers uncuff both Jax and Jerry.

"They didn't identify themselves," Avalon retorted, feeling the need to defend his actions. "And they were armed and attempting to flee the scene when we arrived."

"Yes, well, we tried to identify ourselves, but our efforts to speak were not welcomed," Jerry pointed out, gingerly rubbing his stomach that still ached from the blow he'd received earlier. "And we weren't fleeing the scene; we were trying to get down to the street to try to find whoever shot this guy and took the woman he was holding!"

Sgt. Avalon remained unapologetic, and chose to ignore Jerry's rebuke, instead focusing his response to Agent Weygandt. "At any rate, sir, they could possibly have trampled important evidence. As I said, they were standing over the body when we arrived and they'd evidently already been through the apartment because there are footprints everywhere and the body looked like it had been rolled."

"We were looking for the hostage in the apartment!" Jax snapped. "And the only time either of us touched that body was when my brother was looking for a pulse."

"Well, with half his head blown off, I don't think that was really necessary," Avalon responded heatedly. He didn't care if these two seemed to have the FBI's stamp of approval, there was something about them that rubbed him the wrong way. Perhaps it was because they were young and handsome and they were the kind of men that always had beautiful women dripping from their arms, while he had a hard time even holding his wife's interest these days. Or perhaps it was the fact that, despite their casual attire of blue jeans and cotton shirts, everything about these two reeked of money and privilege: from the tops of their heads, with their high-priced haircuts; to the tips of their well-manicured fingers; and finally to the bottom of their expensive boots, which Avalon figured cost more than he brought home in a month. Which meant that neither of them was living on cop's wages, and he knew the Bureau didn't pay that well either, so just who were these guys and why did they seem to have free rein in this investigation?

"Perhaps not necessary, but still customary nonetheless," Weygandt offered in Jerry's defense.

"So they're with the Bureau?" Avalon pressed Weygandt, as he reluctantly handed Jerry back his weapon. He was determined to find out just where these guys came from and why they were here interfering in this investigation.

"I said that they're working with us, and that's all you need to know," Weygandt answered tersely.

Weygandt's curtness tweaked Avalon's curiosity even more. If Weygandt wasn't going to be more forthcoming with information, then he'd just have to find that information out in his own inimitable way, he decided.

"Look, we're wasting time standing around here, exchanging credentials and all, while the real culprits are escaping with Brenda!" Jerry said impatiently, exasperated that he and Jax had somehow been caught in this idiotic web of jurisdictional chest thumping when they could be out chasing whoever had Brenda.

Weygandt gave Jerry a nod as he answered: "I already have people covering all exits to the building and also people canvassing the streets and alleys surrounding the building, looking for possible witnesses. If anyone saw anything, we'll know it soon enough," he assured Jax and Jerry.

Avalon gave Jax and Jerry a glare for Weygandt's earlier reprimand because of them, then turned his full attention once again back to the crime scene. "It looks like a professional hit here - possibly the mob or one of the drug cartels… They most likely used a silencer, since a shot like that should have been heard a block away, but so far none of my men have been able to find anyone on any of the rest of the floors of this building who heard anything. In fact, no one in the building seems to have heard anything unusual coming from this apartment over the past several days, including the time this guy supposedly was holding Ms. Wilding here."

"Barrett - Her name is Brenda Barrett," Jax interjected, which brought a puzzled look from Sgt. Avalon, who'd been briefed on the case just as this call had come in, and he'd been told that the missing woman was Brenda Wilding.

"Brenda Wilding was the name she used professionally - she's a photographer. Brenda Barrett is her real name," Jerry supplied. He figured that explanation was close enough to the truth to suffice. They didn't need to know that she'd changed her name after she'd lost their baby; it was her way of breaking from him and their past.

"And she wasn't *supposedly* here; she *was* here. I found this in the bathroom. She was wearing these the last time I saw her!" Jax said angrily, pulling Brenda's clothes from the duffel bag as proof.

Avalon raised an eyebrow at Jax's admission. "That's considered tampering with evidence," he said, pulling the bag from Jax's grasp. For the moment he wouldn't press the other issue that this man had inadvertently let slip: that he was somehow involved with the missing woman. "Is there anything else that the two of you touched that we should be aware of?" he asked, gesturing around the room with a sweep of his hand. "I mean, was that chair and that fan knocked over as a result of a struggle, or did one of you two knock it over in your zeal to gather up things?" he asked sarcastically.

"Moron!" Jerry muttered under his breath, as he glowered at the sergeant. He knew the man was just doing his job, but there was something about him - his arrogance perhaps - that needled Jerry. Or perhaps it was just that Jerry felt his hope for finding Brenda alive slipping away with each minute that they all spent here, following procedure and playing twenty questions.

"Did you say something to me, hot shot?" Avalon demanded, his eyes flashing as he pushed Jerry slightly.

"Hey! It's hot enough in here without you two adding to the steam by flexing your muscles," Weygandt shouted, stepping between Jerry and the sergeant before Jerry had the chance to return the sergeant's nudge with something even more physical.

Jax pulled his brother back a few steps, just as Jerry was preparing to deck Avalon. "Weygandt's right, Jer! Besides, we're all on the same side here - we all want to find Brenda before it's too late!" He pulled Jerry closer and then whispered to him through clenched teeth: "Just calm down out or we're going to be completely frozen out of this investigation!"

Jerry knew that Jax was right. It didn't matter how much this Avalon rubbed him the wrong way, they all had the same goal: finding Brenda alive - and soon. And he also knew that they were here at Weygandt's discretion, and they could be removed just as easily as not. "Okay, you can let go of me, Jax! You're right - we need to work together here. I'll behave from now on."

He then turned his attention to Weygandt, although he answered Avalon's earlier comments. "This is exactly the way things looked when we arrived," Jerry assured the agent. "Which was just minutes before New York's finest here," he added disdainfully, throwing Avalon a barbed look, despite his earlier assurances to Jax to behave.

"I trust that these men were careful," Weygandt replied, looking at Avalon as he spoke. "And I trust that they'll both behave from this point on. They know exactly what's at stake here," he added, noting the grim expressions on both Jax and Jerry's faces.

Sgt. Avalon grunted his response, then walked into the bedroom to confer with his fellow detectives, who'd been taking pictures and archiving evidence in there.

Satisfied that he'd made his point to all involved, Weygandt then turned his full attention to the body that lay sprawled just a few feet away. Bending down over Jackson's body, he involuntarily grimaced; a hole the size of a golf ball had been blown through one side of the man's head and out the other. Despite having been with the Bureau for the better part of nearly twenty years, he still hated the carnage that he saw day-in and day-out, and sights as horrendous as this one were never easy to take, no matter what.

"I take it that this body *is* Jackson this time?" he asked, directing his question to Jax and Jerry for confirmation.

"I'd lay odds that it is," Jerry said as he stooped down to get another look. "His size and build is the same as Rick Jackson, but the hair is different. The pictures we found of Jackson showed that Jackson had dark hair, although it does look like this guy recently dyed his hair - I think that may be blonde, if I'm not mistaken," Jerry added, as he looked closer at the bloody mat of hair on what remained of Rick Jackson's head.

Weygandt nodded at Jerry, then looked up to see that Jax had discreetly turned away from the bloody sight. That didn't surprise Weygandt. He knew that Jax had a reputation as a corporate shark, but the bloody bodies he left in his wake were figurative, not literal. His brother, on the other hand…

David Weygandt had sensed an air of danger about Jerry Jacks from the moment that he'd met him, and after Mike Moriarity explained about Jerry's clandestine background, he understood why he'd felt that. When Moriarity had confided in him about the man, however, he'd only given him the barest of information on him and Weygandt hadn't pressed the issue. He understood the need for secrecy concerning both Jerry and the organization for which he worked. If word got out about him, even within the Bureau itself, his identity would be compromised and he could be killed. Jerry lived with that threat hanging over his head daily. And Weygandt was just as sure that Jerry had seen more than a few dead bodies in his time, probably killed several of those himself, which explained why Jerry had no problem looking at this man's corpse now as dispassionately as if he were examining carpet samples.

Weygandt stood back up, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to mop the sweat from his brow. It was not even noon yet, but the heat and humidity were already high, indicating that this would most likely be another scorcher for the city. And the number of people in the tiny apartment, along with the sickening smell of blood and something else Weygandt couldn't quite identify, not to mention the swirling mix of festering testosterone, made things even more oppressive in the limited space. "Have the windowsills been dusted for prints yet?" he asked, looking toward the only windows in the room. One of his agents replied in the affirmative. "Good! Then open those windows and get some air circulating through here. It's hotter than hell in here - and the smell -! What *is* that?"

"Most likely the it's coming from the mess in the bedroom," Avalon supplied, returning to the room just then. "Looks like someone got sick on the bed in there - probably the woman, since it looks like that's where he kept her. There are two sets of handcuffs still attached to the side of the bed… And you should see what he has plastered on the walls… If we need a picture of this Barrett woman to circulate, we got quite the selection to choose from in there… Looks like this guy had quite an obsession with the woman…" he added, his voice trailing off as he looked at Jax and it suddenly dawned on him that this was the man in the pictures that covered the wall by the bed.

Avalon stood to the side, continuing to stare unabashedly at Jax, as Weygandt and Jerry went into the bedroom area of the apartment. What the hell was the FBI doing, allowing someone who was intimately involved with the victim to help with the investigation? At this point, he'd give his pension to know the full story behind all of this - especially why these two guys seemed to have free rein like this.

Jax seemed oblivious to the officer's stare, as something else had his attention - he'd spotted Brenda's sandals under the dinette table.

Avalon followed Jax's gaze and saw the discarded shoes as well. "You recognize those?" Avalon asked, walking over to the table and stooping to point at the shoes.

"Yeah, they're Brenda's," Jax answered, suddenly wondering why her shoes had been left behind?

"Was she wearing them when you last saw her?" Sgt. Avalon pressed.

"No, she had on the boots and the clothes in that bag the last I saw her," Jax replied, nodding toward the duffel bag, which was now on the table. "But I saw these sandals in her closet one night when we were getting ready to go out… I asked her why she didn't wear them because they'd look great with the dress she was wearing. She laughed and told me that those sandals were gorgeous and they looked great on her feet, but they were impossible to walk in - let alone run in, if she needed to make a quick getaway from me." He smiled slightly at the memory, then pulled himself back to the present as he looked at Sgt. Avalon. "Jackson broke into her apartment and got them for her to wear, probably along with whatever clothes she's wearing now. But she knew those shoes were uncomfortable. She must have slipped them off so she could get away… She was trying to escape!" Jax added excitedly.

"Could be…." the sergeant answered slowly, as he tried to reconstruct a possible scenario in his head.

"It makes sense!" Jax shouted excitedly. "That explains why the chair was knocked over! She was seated there -" He pointed toward the end of the table where her shoes were. "- And she must have seen her chance to make a break for it." His eyes lit on the fan, which lay on its side on the floor. "She could have used that fan to hit Jackson, so she could run… That means that Brenda was well enough to try to escape on her own!"

Avalon listened carefully to Jax's theory, fighting back his initial urge to scoff, simply because he hated to give either of these men any credit for brains here. But it made sense. The shoes appeared to have been casually slipped off the feet; the position of the chair looked like it had come from the end of the table where the shoes were; and the fan would have been an ideal weapon for the woman to use to try to clock this guy. "Sounds plausible," he conceded, not wanting to appear too eager to accept this man's ideas as sound reasoning, but his 15 years on the force told him that Jax was probably onto something here. But even if his theory was true and the woman was strong enough to make a break for it at the time, it didn't mean that she survived the second abduction, and it didn't explain where she was now or who had her and why they'd taken her.

Avalon watched as Jax stared wistfully at the sandals as if they were the last vestiges he would ever see of this Barrett woman. That finally answered the question that had been gnawing at him since he'd first recognized this man as the one in the pictures with the woman: Was he somehow complicit in her disappearance? But the look in his eyes told Avalon that this man was only guilty of loving the woman, not arranging her disappearance. Now, if he could only get a handle on the other guy…

"Got any ideas as to who did this - or why?" Sgt. Avalon asked, watching carefully as Jax appeared ready to answer, then immediately shut up when he saw his brother re-emerge from the bedroom with Agent Weygandt. That made Avalon's antennae go up even further. This one might not be involved here, but what about the brother, he wondered?

"Not offhand, no…" Jax answered coolly, realizing that he'd come very close to divulging everything he knew about Jackson and his connection to Jerry and the people he works for.

"Anything new here?" Jerry asked, looking pointedly at Jax. From the looks of both his brother's and Avalon's faces, it appeared that he and Weygandt had just interrupted a cozy tete-a-tete between Avalon and Jax. Jax definitely looked like he was on the verge of saying something important to the sergeant, but now appeared to have thought better of it. Had he been on the verge of spilling everything to this man?

"Your brother noticed the woman's shoes underneath the table, and he was just offering a possible scenario on why and how they got left behind," Avalon answered, wondering why this brother seemed so upset that the other brother might be talking to him? Did this one really have something to hide?

"Care to share?" Weygandt asked, when neither Jax nor Avalon seemed to be forthcoming with more.

"Mr. Jacks there seems to think that the woman slipped the shoes off on purpose because she knew she couldn't run in them - she'd even told him once how uncomfortable and impractical they were," Sgt. Avalon answered, when Jax just stood staring at his brother. "He thinks that she was seated there -" He pointed to the far end of the table. "-slipped her shoes off, readying herself for the escape, then somehow managed to hit the guy with the fan, and then jumped up to run." Avalon turned back to Weygandt and Jerry as he added: "Not too shabby a theory, and it does explain the positions of the chair and the fan and the shoes. And maybe it also explains why there's no trace of Ms. Barrett… Maybe she made her escape after all and is trying to find her way home to her loved ones, even as we're here busting our balls trying to figure out who took her and where she is…" He looked directly at Jerry, anticipating the reaction that his comments were sure elicit, as he added: "If she was ever *really* missing in the first place."

"You son-of-a-bitch!" Jerry exploded, grabbing Avalon by the collar and slamming him against the wall before anyone, including Avalon, realized what was happening. "Do you see this as some sort of a game? Do you think we're all here for the fun of it? That Brenda is some bored, rich girl who decided she needed some excitement in her life so she staged her own kidnapping then hired someone to kill her kidnapper when she got tired of playing the game?! I can assure you that this is no bloody game! There's a woman's life at stake here, and every minute we waste like this is another minute she slips further and further away from me!"

"Jerry!" Jax tried to pull Jerry off the officer, while several of Avalon's fellow officers stood poised with their weapons drawn and aimed at Jerry's torso.

But Sgt. Avalon merely smirked, as his bait had worked. Whether he'd realized it or not, in the heat of that moment Jerry Jacks had let slip a crucial bit of information that was not lost on Sgt. Avalon's keen detective mind: he'd said that she was slipping away from *him.* Not from us; from him… So that told Avalon that both brothers - not just the blonde one who was so prominently featured in the photo spread in the other room - were involved with the missing woman. And it also told him that this one saw her as his and his alone… And the speed and agility with which the man had attacked him had told Avalon something more: this man was a highly trained commando, possibly Special Forces. The plot did indeed thicken…

"I don't know where your head is, Sgt. Avalon," Weygandt shouted angrily, as he once again got between Jerry and the sergeant. "But this is a tense enough situation as it is, with a brutal execution, a missing woman, and this damn stifling heat, without you making things worse by doubting the seriousness of the situation!"

"You're right. I shouldn't have said what I did. It was uncalled for," Avalon apologized, although he didn't feel the least bit sorry about what he'd done or said. He'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted out of the situation - crucial information.

Jerry loosened his hold on Avalon and then backed away, continuing to glare at the sergeant, his fists now alternately clenching and unclenching at his side. He saw the glint in Avalon's eyes; this had been Avalon's plan all along: manipulate him into losing his cool, and in the process disclose more about himself and his feelings for Brenda than he had wanted anyone on this investigation, beyond Weygandt, to know. Jerry was supposed to be the imperturbable operative, who had stared down death countless times and never broken a sweat, yet he'd allowed himself to be goaded into foolishness by this man. Now he could be thrown into jail for assaulting a police officer, which would certainly keep him out of the hunt for Brenda, and he couldn't afford that. He had to be in on this every step of the way.

"Put the guns away, guys," the sergeant advised his fellow detectives, as they continued to surround both him and Jerry, their guns still drawn. "Nobody's doing any assaulting here; just a little miscommunication. No harm, no foul," he added, trying hard to hide the smirk on his face, but no one - not Weygandt, nor Jax, and least of all Jerry - missed it. Everyone knew that Avalon had purposely provoked Jerry into attacking him.

Weygandt, who remained between Jerry and the sergeant as a precautionary measure, sighed heavily as he looked from Jerry, who looked as if he wanted to kill Avalon or anyone else who stepped into his path at that moment, to Avalon, whose smugness at that moment made even Weygandt want to throttle him. Finally he pulled his damp handkerchief back out of his pocket, giving his dripping forehead a quick swipe, then turned to Avalon and said: "Sergeant, I suggest that you and a couple of your people go down to the street and help canvass for possible witnesses."

The smug look completely disappeared from Avalon's face then. "This is *my* investigation," he sputtered, his face reddening now more from anger and embarrassment than the incredible heat in the apartment. "You can't just relegate me to scut work, like some rookie!"

"Correction, Sgt. Avalon," Weygandt replied evenly. "This is the Bureau's case, and I'm the lead investigator here for them, so it's *my* case. You and the NYPD are working in cooperation with the Bureau on this one, so I suggest that you cooperate and do as I ask. So if you can't manage to get along with *all* the investigators that I've brought in on this, then I suggest that you make yourself scarce from this apartment now. The conditions are bad enough in here without you trying to raise the temperature even further!" he added sharply.

"Besides," he continued, his voice more conciliatory, "It's a good bet that a witness to their arrival or escape may be our best bet in breaking this case. I'm doubting that the man or men who did this -" He inclined his head toward Jackson's body. " - left much physical evidence behind… I agree with your assessment, sergeant, that these guys were pros - in and out in a matter of a minute or two… This poor schmuck probably never knew what hit him… And as for Ms. Barrett… well, let's just hope that the hit on Jackson was not related to some other criminal activity of his and that whoever ordered it wanted the woman alive to use as a bargaining chip, otherwise hers will probably be the next body we find…"

Both Jax and Jerry blanched at his words, but they knew he was only being truthful. Hard as this seemed, their best hope for Brenda's survival was that Jackson had had a silent partner in his abduction of Brenda and that he would make himself known soon to hammer out the details of what he wanted from Jax and Jerry in exchange for her safe return.

"I don't think this hit on Jackson was related to anything else Jackson may have had his hands in," Jerry spoke up, giving his ideas on all of this. "I think that the person behind this was after Brenda. Maybe they had a deal with Jackson for her all along, but simply decided to cut Jackson out of the picture altogether for one reason or another."

"What makes you say that?" Avalon asked, deciding that cooperation with this man was better than working the street in the heat of the noonday sun. True, the man rubbed him the wrong way and he'd purposely goaded him just minutes before to learn the man's connection to the missing woman, but Avalon was still curious as to why the FBI would allow these men access here like this. He'd learned that this one was quick and adept physically; perhaps now he'd get a glimpse into the man's mind as well.

"Well, several things actually," Jerry answered, his differences with Avalon momentarily forgotten as he once again remembered their purpose here: to find Brenda before it was too late. "We found that bag with Brenda's clothes that she was wearing when she was taken. There were also some of her toiletries and towels, so Jackson evidently wanted her cleaned up and changed for some reason, and my guess is that he was handing her over to a partner, who, for one reason or another, decided that he didn't need Jackson around any longer."

"What makes you think he had a partner? Why couldn't simply have been someone who wanted Jackson gone?" Avalon asked.

"Simple," Jerry replied, pointing to the corner where a stack of unused fax paper remained, "there appears to have been a fax over there that he used to keep in touch with someone."

"Maybe he used it to contact the woman's family for the ransom," Avalon offered, wondering how this man seemed so sure that the fax was to keep in touch with the partner?

"Then why is it gone?" Jerry asked. "Why take the fax if Jackson merely used it for ransom demands? I think whoever killed him took the fax to make it harder to trace who he was contacting with it - in my estimation, the partner…"

"Harder, but not impossible," Weygandt supplied. "We can get that information easily enough." Almost as soon as he'd said that, another agent nodded and pulled out a cell phone to call Bell Atlantic to get a rundown on all fax transmissions into and out of the building in the past couple of days.

"Well, that just proves that whoever did this isn't too bright. It doesn't prove that the fax was used to keep in touch with a partner," Sgt. Avalon murmured, still wondering how this man had jumped to these conclusions about a partner simply on that basis?

"That just means that the ones who handled Jackson's execution and Brenda's abduction aren't too bright," Jerry corrected. "I think whoever's truly Jackson's partner and behind this double-cross of Jackson knows exactly what he's doing… Jackson didn't use this fax to contact us for Brenda's ransom. Those faxes were traced back to a store in Harlem - but I can see him using it to keep his partner apprised of events, which would explain why he chronicled last night's events in the pictures we found scattered by the bed in the other room."

Avalon's ears perked up when Jerry mentioned that Jackson faxed *them* for the ransom demands. His instincts had been right: both brothers were somehow involved with the woman. The blonde was definitely intimately involved with her; the pictures plastered on the wall were the undeniable truth of that. Yet the dark-haired one's emotional reactions seemed more like that of a lover than merely those of the concerned brother of the lover.

And if they were both involved with the woman, why was the Bureau allowing either of them - let alone both of them - them access to this investigation? The dark-haired one seemed at ease with the criminal investigation and even with the sight of the dead body, while the blonde seemed to avoid looking at the body. And the agility with which the dark-haired one had nailed him after he'd baited him indicated that the man was no ordinary citizen - or ordinary criminal investigator, for that matter. He'd rarely seen cops or even FBI agents with that degree of agility. And the force behind the blow the man delivered to him left no doubt in his mind that he was capable of deadly force when necessary and wouldn't hesitate to use it, unlike most law officers. If Avalon were a betting man - which he was - he'd lay odds that the dark-haired man was deep into some government agency, which was why Weygandt wasn't forthcoming with information on the man's credentials and why he and his brother were allowed access here. If that were the case, Avalon knew it would be smarter to leave well enough alone, but for some reason he just couldn't…

"I took a gander at those pictures you were referring to - the ones you said were from last night - and they all seemed to involve you and your brother here…" Avalon pointed out. "Could this guy Jackson's partner - if he has one - know one or both of you and this is a vendetta against you - personal or professional? I mean, if your theory is right and Jackson was faxing his partner a blow-by-blow of the night's events and all those photos seem to show one or the both of you, then it stands to reason that one or both of you are the real targets, not the woman," he added hurriedly. "I mean, what exactly are you two into that could bring this kind of trouble down on you and the people you know?"

Jerry gave him a measured glance. "My brother's into high finances, and I'm into globetrotting and gambling, so I suppose Jackson could have dug up someone with a grudge against one of us," he hedged, although Jerry was certain that Jackson's partner was bent on revenge against him, not Jax. But the sergeant didn't need to know any more about him than Jerry had already let slip.

Besides, Jax's profession was not a secret, and anyone who knew the financial world knew of Jasper Jacks, whether they recognized his face or not. Both Jax and his father had most likely made a few enemies over the years, so perhaps that explanation would satisfy the detective's burgeoning curiosity when he delved into both his and Jax's background files - which he had no doubt he would. Jax's would be overflowing with possible enemies, while his would be relatively banal, other than the occasional casino patron whose rancor he had purposely raised as a cover for other activities. And Jerry could live with the sergeant learning that.

Jax gave his brother a pointed look, knowing why Jerry was trying to deflect Avalon's attention from himself and onto Jax but resenting it just the same. "I can't think of anyone I might have undercut so deeply that they'd want a pound of flesh like this," Jax said evenly. "I try to play by the rules."

Sgt. Avalon looked from Jax to Jerry. "A financial whiz kid and a globetrotting playboy, huh? … And you two just happen to also be crime fighters in your spare time, sort of like a buddy version of Hart to Hart?" Avalon asked sarcastically.

"They're here at the Bureau's discretion. That's all you need to know," Weygandt warned.

So they're rich; at least that explained the perfect tans and the expensive haircuts, Avalon thought. But it didn't explain why the Bureau was allowing them in on this - and why the dark-haired one - Jerry Jacks - could probably handle the Terminator, if pressed. He recognized Jax's name now, and he vaguely remembered reading an article in Time or Newsweek that he was a cutthroat businessman. But Jax's brother seemed far more dangerous in his estimation and far more likely to have angered a few people in his lifetime, and Avalon's gut told him that the man was not merely the carefree, gambling playboy he professed to be. "And do you play by the rules?" Avalon asked, looking directly at Jerry. "I mean, in your globetrotting and gambling, that is," he added sarcastically.

Jerry appeared unruffled by Avalon's astute question, but his heart skipped a beat as he realized that Avalon was smarter than he'd given him credit for and might not be so easily thrown off his trail. "Definitely," Jerry replied evenly. "But you know how it is in any game of chance - where there's a winner there has to be at least one loser, and since I rarely lose, I suppose that I have managed to ruffle a few feathers along the way."

"Care to hazard a guess as to whose feathers you might have ruffled so much that they'd resort to kidnapping and murder to get back at you?" Avalon pressed.

"That's enough, Sgt. Avalon! I think you have witnesses to canvass," Agent Weygandt barked impatiently.

"That's okay," Jerry interjected, smiling benignly as he spoke. "I wouldn't want to deprive Sgt. Avalon of not being able to follow up on whatever hunch he may have about me and my connections… Here's a partial list of some of the people I've bested at one time or another at the gaming tables over the years: Steven Jobs, several times; Michael Dell, at least twice; Jeff Bezos, several times; Bill Gates, once or twice…" he rattled off, his eyes twinkling as he watched Avalon begin to write down the list, then stop as the name recognition finally sunk in for the detective. "And those are only the Americans. I can give you the international list also, if you'd like… Sgt. Avalon, has your pen run suddenly out of ink?" Jerry asked coyly. "By all means, get these names down immediately! And please contact each and every one of them and check on my gaming credentials and also be sure to find out if any of them is angry enough at me to do something like put out a hit on this scum and kidnap an innocent woman!"

"Okay, I get your point… Your gambling buddies are all above suspicion and rich enough to not care about losing the occasional fortune to you," Avalon conceded, glaring at Jerry for pointing out that he was out of the Jacks brothers' league socially and financially. "Unlike the rest of us, who have to scramble for a living and watch every penny that goes out," he added angrily. "I'm tired of playing games here, too, Mr. Jacks - I'm just trying to do my job, yet you seem to try to thwart me at every turn. Why is that? Do you have something to hide?"

"I have nothing to hide from you, Sgt. Avalon, but I can assure you that while you're busy digging into my background and my possible associates, whoever *did* kill Jackson and took Brenda is getting further and further away!" Jerry shouted, his face reddening from both the heat and his building anger, as he moved menacingly toward Avalon.

Jax stepped in front of his brother to restrain him once again, while Weygandt grabbed the sergeant, who was gladly stepping toward Jerry as well, appearing to welcome the chance to duke it out with him.

"I think we've had enough of this for one day!" Weygandt shouted, tired of playing referee between these two. "Sergeant, I think you're supposed to be on the street canvassing witnesses, aren't you?"

Sgt. Avalon pulled out of Weygandt's grip and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping the beads of sweat from his brow. "Yeah… I'm just on my way… Besides, the stench in here is overwhelming," he muttered, fixing an angry glare on Jerry as he sauntered out of the apartment.

"Asshole!" Jerry shouted after him, as he watched the veteran detective throw an obscene gesture at him as his parting shot.

"That seems to be a one-size-fits-all adjective today!" Jax announced angrily, as he stood glaring at his older brother.

Jerry simply ignored Jax, instead turning to Weygandt. "Jackson faxed us from someplace in Harlem and then he showed up later at the scene of the explosion, and since it's safe to assume that he didn't take a cab or use mass transit to get there, his vehicle has to be parked around here somewhere," Jerry pointed out. "If we check on vehicles parked in a three-block radius of here, chances are we'll find Jackson's. It might have information in it about who his partner is - a note, a phone number, something…"

"Although it's rather like looking for a needle in a haystack, we're already on that," Weygandt assured him. He pulled his handkerchief out again to sop at the ever-present beads of sweat on his forehead, as he looked thoughtfully at Jerry. "You know, if we're right and the people who killed Jackson and took Ms. Barrett were partnered with Jackson all along, then they may try to contact you the same way Jackson did. Why don't you let us handle the rest of this part of the investigation?"

"You expect me to simply go back to Brenda's apartment and wait for a call?" Jerry asked incredulously. "You can't shut me out of this!" he retorted angrily.

"I *can* and I *will* - at least for the moment," Agent Weygandt answered coolly, putting his sweat-soaked handkerchief back into his pocket. "As I told Sgt. Avalon, you and your brother are here at my discretion, and at this moment I'm using that discretion to ask you to leave… No, actually I'm *telling* you to leave, Mr. Jacks."

"This is the reason I never wanted the Feds or the police brought into this!" Jerry answered angrily. "With all your bureaucratic red tape, you can't make a move if it isn't procedurally sound. There's no room for quick maneuvering because you have to build a sound case to protect the criminal. Well, that kind of slow, by-the-book investigation could get Brenda killed!"

"No, Mr. Jacks, that kind of investigation is going to build a solid case and help us find her," Weygandt replied, remaining calm as he spoke. "I understand your frustration with all of this procedural red tape that we in the Bureau and the police are bound by, since I gather that you're used to working with very little legal constraint, but we're operating in my venue now, not yours. Let me and my people handle this the way we were trained to do it. In any other situation in which you had no emotional stake in the outcome, I'd welcome your help and your expertise, but at the moment, your emotional outbursts are hindering, not helping, this investigation, and *that*, in my opinion, is what could get her killed!"

"If you're talking about Sgt. Avalon, the man was purposely pushing me," Jerry defended. "He's out of here now, and I promise to keep my distance from the man, but I need to be working on this!"

"I understand your 'personality clash' with Sgt. Avalon - sometimes that happens," Weygandt conceded. "I just met the sergeant a few minutes ago, so I don't know him any better than you do, but he rubbed me the wrong way, too, and I doubt I'd want to spend time bonding with him over beers after work; he's brash and opinionated and he wouldn't know tact if it kicked him in the rear. But I do know the NYPD, and he'd have never made detective sergeant with a good number of years of service under his belt if he didn't know his stuff. So let the man do his job the best way he knows how."

He lowered his voice considerably, as he continued: "As for Avalon's budding curiosity about who you really are and what you really do, let me handle that. I won't blow your cover but I'll feed him enough information that he'll buy it without question and he won't go any further with it. But if you'd just ignored him from the beginning, he wouldn't have caught the scent that there's more to you than meets the eye in the first place!

"Now, I know that you aren't usually that sloppy about hiding your physical acuity, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to maintain your cover all these years, so I'm chalking today up to fatigue. And by the looks of the two of you, I think that both of you could use some much-needed rest and a good meal right about now. You've both been pushing yourselves for the past day, and I know what last night's experience at the fire did to both of you. You're not any good to anyone - least of all Ms. Barrett - if you're both dead on your feet," he said, gesturing toward the doorway, indicating they should leave immediately.

"He's right, Jer," Jax said. "I think we need to step away from here for a little bit. The heat in here -" He cast a furtive eye in the direction of Jackson's body, which was now being loaded onto the ME's gurney. " - and everything else is pretty intense right now. Besides, Dee is waiting to hear from us."

"Then *you* go and tell Dee what's happening because I'm not stepping away from anything!" Jerry lashed back at Jax.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough for you," Weygandt challenged, moving in front of Jerry so that they were standing toe-to-toe. "You *will* step away now from this investigation or I'll make sure that you're locked out completely! I don't want to do that, given the promise that I made Mike Moriarity and you when I first came onboard, but your actions right now are jeopardizing both the investigation and Ms. Barrett's life!"

Jax and Weygandt both watched Jerry, unsure exactly how he would react to the agent's ultimatum, and both readying for a fight if need be. Jax could see the anger building in his brother, much the way he'd seen it in him when Jerry had gone after Andrew Buxton in Buxton's apartment the day before, and he worried that Jerry was about to lose it once again. Jerry, who had always been so cool and calm and in-control all of his life, seemed like a loose cannon to Jax now, and he knew that Weygandt feared that as well. As much as Jax wanted to be in on every step of this investigation, he knew that Weygandt was right to send both him and Jerry back to Brenda's now. Both he and Jerry were exhausted and they were both on edge, and neither was any good to the investigation or to Brenda in their current states. He just hoped that Jerry would see the wisdom in it as well.

Jerry and Weygandt stood staring at one another for what seemed to Jax like an eternity. Jax recognized the steely glint in his brother's eyes, his firmly set jaw, the slight twitch just above his left eye, and he held his breath, fearing that Jerry would finish with Weygandt what he'd begun with Avalon. And Weygandt seemed prepared for that as well, as he slowly shifted his right hand so that it was resting on his gun.

Jerry's eyes caught Weygandt's deliberate move to his weapon, and he knew that further discussion was pointless. Weygandt was warning him that he wouldn't hesitate to draw his weapon against him, and if that happened then Jerry would be arrested, tying him up legally for hours, possibly days, and putting him completely out of the hunt for Brenda. Weygandt was giving him an out here and he planned to take it, although he wasn't really planning to follow Weygandt's suggestions to stay away. But he recognized that the only way he could win this particular fight was by appearing to concede defeat.

A strange look spread across Jerry's face, and he backed away from the agent, throwing his hands up in mock defeat. "You're both right," Jerry said, looking from Weygandt to Jax. "Jax and I are both tired, and we need to step away for a few hours to rest and get our perspectives back in focus. Right now we're just all over the place, and we could possibly taint this investigation by our further presence at this point."

Agent Weygandt accepted Jerry's change of heart at face value. "You're not banned from this completely, but it is better for this investigation and for both of your sakes that you step aside here and let us do our jobs," he said, once again wiping at his face and neck with handkerchief. "All of those people that you see here are fresh, and they're professionals. Each and every one of them is giving this case their best effort. They may not know Ms. Barrett personally, but they'll each throw themselves into this case the same way they would if it was someone they loved who was missing."

"Yeah, I know," Jerry replied, his tone conciliatory, which pleased Weygandt, but surprised Jax. Jax remained skeptical of his brother's words, but he also remained silent.

"Listen, we have work to do here," Weygandt said, as he ushered both Jax and Jerry toward the hallway. "I have your cell number, and I promise to call the minute we find anything that points to who has Ms. Barrett or where she was taken. If forensics picks up anything, I'll call. Dr. Bowers' team was digging into dental records of some recent missing persons, so they should have IDs on those bodies from the explosion by now, and I'll call you as soon as I get that info, too. But for now, I want you two to stay away."

Jerry merely nodded and then left without another word. Surprised by his brother's sudden acquiescence, Jax followed behind as they fought their way through the small army of FBI, police, and auxiliary personnel that filled the hallway of that floor and the floors below as well. He saw Jerry head for a distant exit at the rear of the building, and Jax realized that he was trying to leave the building as inconspicuously as possible. Anything smacking of FBI involvement was an automatic magnet for the press, so it stood to reason that if this place was teaming with Feds on the inside, then the outside would be teaming with TV and news crews from both the local and the national affiliates, and it wouldn't be wise for either of their faces to show up on the evening news.

Fortunately for them, Weygandt had managed to keep all news crews far enough away last night that his and Jerry's faces had been kept hidden. Of course, that hadn't stopped Jackson from breaking through the barricades to take the shots that he had, but his pictures hadn't been for public viewing, so their anonymity was still preserved; they'd been for his own private, perverse use. He could imagine Jackson showing them to Brenda and Brenda's horror at realizing that he and Jerry thought that she was dead.

He wondered if she'd given up hope then, or if she knew in her heart that they were still looking for her and that they'd never give up that hope? Yet there was this niggling fear at the back of his mind that she was already lost to them forever. He tried to push it out of his mind, but it persisted nonetheless. He shuddered at that. She couldn't be dead; he simply wouldn't allow it! He'd just found her; he couldn't lose her - not now; not like this. But the truth was that he had no power in this situation - none of them did. Brenda's fate, whether he or Jerry or anyone else wanted to accept it, was in someone else's hands entirely, and he just prayed that she was more valuable to them alive than dead…

Jax followed Jerry at a discreet distance as they left the building and took a series of alleyways back to the rear of Brenda's building, where Jerry used his master key to gain them both access once again. Once inside the building, Jerry ran up the fire stairs, leaving Jax in his dust. Neither man had said a word since they'd left the bloody scene across the way, which was probably just as well, since Jax's emotions were raw and he knew that Jerry's were right at the surface, too - as he'd demonstrated all too well just moments before with both Avalon and Weygandt.

Eager to know what had happened, Dee had Brenda's apartment door open and was standing in the hallway by the time Jax and Jerry reached the fourth floor fire door. "Was she there?" she asked anxiously.

"We'll talk inside," Jerry answered gruffly, breezing past her and into Brenda's apartment, heading straight to the kitchen, where he began opening the kitchen cupboards, and looking inside.

"She was there, but she's disappeared again," Jax said, as he waited for Dee to go back inside the loft, then he followed her inside, sliding the door shut behind them.

"You mean Jackson took off with her?" Dee asked, looking from one brother to the next.

"Jackson was there all right; just not Brenda," Jerry replied cryptically, as he continued to rummage through Brenda's cupboards, finally pulling a glass out of one, then continuing on to the next set of cupboards.

"Did he say where Brenda is?" Dee asked anxiously.

"He's not doing a hell of a lot of talking right now, since he had half his head blown away by a gun as big as a Howitzer," Jerry replied, mentioning that gory fact as casually as if he were merely discussing the weather. He continued to move systematically around the large kitchen, searching through the nearly empty cupboards and leaving open cupboard doors in his wake.

"Oh, God!" Dee gasped, swaying slightly at the image his words conjured in her head. Jax pulled a chair from the nearby table out for her to sit on. She wasn't normally a woman prone to faint-heartedness, but this certainly made her feel faint. "I hope Brenda didn't witness that…"

"Are you okay?" Jax asked, suddenly worried how Dee would handle the entire story they had to tell: the struggle, the clothes left behind, the room literally filled to the rafters with pictures of Brenda.

"Yeah…I'll…I'll be fine," Dee replied shakily, as she leaned against the table, her head in her hands. "Then there's no trace of Brenda anywhere?… But she had been there -"

"Oh, she'd been there, all right. The whole time we were here waiting for Jackson's call as to where to find her, he had her there… He was watching us from there, photographing us, laughing at us the whole time," Jerry answered, leaning his head momentarily against an open cupboard door as he thought about the irony of how close yet how far she had been all that time. "And there are plenty of traces of her left behind there as well…" he added, his voice taking on a caustic flavor. "In fact, the walls are literally plastered with pictures of her: Brenda running… Brenda eating… Brenda sleeping… Brenda working… Brenda making love -" He gave Jax a pointed look, then went back to his cupboard search.

"Oh, my!" Dee muttered, clasping her hand to her mouth in horror. "The pictures I saw in my vision last night… I couldn't make them out… They were all of her… That means he'd been stalking her, too…" Her face paled at that revelation and all it implied.

Jax glared at his brother for his insensitivity toward both him and Dee, but said nothing, instead grabbing a glass from one of the open cupboards, filling it with ice water from the refrigerator door, and handing it to Dee. "Here, drink this," he instructed.

"Thanks," Dee nodded, taking a quick sip and then placing the cool glass against her forehead. "I don't want you two to get the idea that I'm some frail, little Southern belle, who gets the vapors at the slightest little thing - 'cause I'm not. It's just that…" Her voice trailed off. She wasn't sure she could explain this because she wasn't sure what was happening herself. She had never felt such a strong bond with another person in such a short time as she had with Brenda and now all that had happened with Brenda seemed to be taking its toll on her as well.

"This is hard on all of us," Jax replied, while Jerry continued to bang open cupboard door after cupboard door.

"She's not dead, you know," Dee said suddenly. "She's out there - I can still feel her! You can't just give up!"

"We're not giving up," Jax assured her, but that niggling fear that she was already lost to him forever quickly resurfaced.

"No, I'm certainly not giving up - although the good *professionals* would like me to do that very thing… In fact, they've temporarily suspended my services; they've sent me for a damn R&R, like I could actually relax while Brenda's still missing!" Jerry huffed, as he headed for the highboy in the dining room area of the loft, having exhausted his search of Brenda's kitchen cupboards. "I'm to sit here and twiddle my thumbs and wait for the kidnapper to contact me, while the *professionals* gather the evidence that will lead them right to the kidnapper's doorstep," he added sarcastically.

Jax gave his brother another glare, but chose not to reply to his sarcasm, instead turning his attention back to Dee. "We came back to let you know what we know at this point -" he began, but Jerry immediately interrupted him.

" - Which is basically that she's still missing, only this time no one has a clue as to who might have her or where in the world they might have taken her," Jerry supplied. "And with the FBI and that bunch of idiot cops that Weygandt has assembled for his team of experts, she'll probably stay missing!" he added, as he began rifling through the drawers and cupboards of the antique highboy, the same way he had the kitchen cupboards.

"They aren't idiots!" Jax refuted. "Mike thinks highly of this Weygandt; he knew him when he was with the Bureau, and he certainly wouldn't have called him in on this if he didn't trust him to be the best and the most discreet. And from what I've seen of him, he's competent and smart. He quickly caught up to speed on this case, despite having been brought in at the last minute, and I think he's as good as his word when he promised to call the minute they found anything there. As far as the police are concerned, I think we both just got off to a rocky start with them…"

"Well, it certainly didn't help when they tried to collar us immediately for Jackson's murder, without even looking at any of the evidence or even listening to what we had to say!" Jerry answered angrily, as he continued to rifle through the highboy as he had the kitchen cupboards.

Dee watched in fascinated silence as the brothers argued back and forth, for the moment apparently having forgotten that she was even there.

"I think that was an honest mistake on their part," Jax defended. "After all, you were armed and we looked like we were fleeing the scene."

"But it didn't take Columbo to deduce that my gun didn't do the job!" Jerry answered angrily. "Yet Weygandt allowed that incompetent Avalon to stay on the case!"

"I think Weygandt was right to send us back here," Jax answered evenly. "We were both just spinning our wheels there - We're too closely involved to be in on that part of the investigation, Jer. We could compromise the whole thing."

"*You* may have been out of your element and spinning *your* wheels there, but I know my way around a crime scene," Jerry shot back hotly. "I resent being treated like an outsider on this!"

"And you're definitely no outsider, are you?" Jax replied angrily.

Jerry didn't reply; he just returned Jax cold glare and increased the intensity of his banging and door slamming, as he moved from the highboy in the dining room area to a low chest in the living room area. Finally Jax couldn't take any more of it. "What the hell are you looking for?" he exploded, grabbing his brother's arm before he could slam another door open.

"The hard liquor, little brother. As you said, this has been hard on all of us, and I need a drink!" Jerry replied flippantly.

"Brenda generally doesn't keep hard liquor on hand," Jax replied, adding harshly: "I would have thought *you* would have known that."

Jerry stopped dead in his tracks and stared coldly at his brother, catching his inference immediately: Jerry may have spied on her for four years, but in many ways Jax knew more about her after only one week of being with her.

Dee remained silent as Jax and Jerry appeared to be headed for their own private war here. Despite her own upset about the fact that Brenda was still missing, she couldn't help but notice that the level of tension between Jax and Jerry had risen considerably in the past few hours. The pointed barbs and angry looks had been flying fast and furious from one to the other since they'd returned to the loft. She understood that finding Jackson dead and no trace of Brenda would be difficult for them, but could it account for this level of hostility? What had happened in that time that seemed to have turned them against one another, she wondered? Whatever it was, she planned to put a stop to it once and for all. Things were tense enough as it was, without the brothers turning against one another and losing focus on the goal of getting Brenda back quickly and alive.

She planned to tell them just that when Jax broke the silence, looking directly at his brother as he spoke: "There's a bottle of bourbon in the storage closet in Brenda's studio. She said it was a prop in a photo shoot she did and the client left it with her as a perk, but she never bothered to open it since she doesn't like the taste of hard liquor and she doesn't entertain all that much. She just shoved it into the closet with the other props she used and forgot about it until I asked about it a couple of days ago…" He continued speaking, his remarks directed to Dee, though he never took his eyes off his brother's face. "Dee, could you go get that for us? It's on the right side of the forth shelf in the closet. The closet's locked, but Brenda keeps the key for it in that little table by her bed, clear in the back of the drawer."

Jax saw the flicker of pain in his brother's eyes at his mention of Brenda's bedroom and the familiarity that Jax had with her possessions and where she kept things. He knew he should feel guilty for putting that pain there, but he didn't. In fact, it felt satisfying for him at that moment.

Dee knew that asking her to retrieve the bourbon was Jax's way of getting her out of the room so that he and Jerry could privately discuss whatever the bone of contention between them was. Her instincts told her leaving them alone was a bad idea, but she complied with Jax's request anyway; after all, how much damage could they do to one another in the short time she'd be gone?

"Oh, and Dee -" Jax added emphatically, " -Take your time."

"Fine," she nodded. "But if I hear the sound of furniture breakin,' I'm gonna be back here in a flash!" she added as she left, looking back over her shoulder at the brothers, who suddenly reminded her of a movie she'd seen about the shootout at the OK Corral.

"Real subtle, little brother," Jerry sneered, as he watched Dee walk past the bookshelves and back toward Brenda's studio and bedroom.

"I wasn't going for subtlety; merely privacy," Jax replied tersely.

"Well, it looks like you've got that," Jerry pointed out derisively. "And since the studio and bedroom are clear at the other end of the floor, we can be as loud as we want in our little *private* discussion - as long as we don't break any furniture," he added sarcastically.

Jax just stared at his brother, trying to keep his temper in check, but it was simmering just below the surface, where it had been for quite some time now. His father's admonishment to them to always think carefully before saying or doing something they might later regret kept running through his head on continuous playback, and he knew if ever he should heed those words, it was now, but too much had happened for him to keep quiet any longer. "Do you want to tell me what the hell is wrong with you?" Jax finally asked.

"I told you that I need a drink - a tall, stiff one at that!" Jerry tossed back, as he headed for the windows to look out at the street below, which was overflowing with FBI, police, news crews, and curious onlookers. Although he knew exactly what Jax had meant, he didn't feel like having a meaningful heart-to-heart with Jax at this particular moment. Right now he just wanted to numb his brain momentarily so he didn't have to think about how his rash actions had set in motion a chain of events that he couldn't stop no matter how hard he tried.

"Jerry, you're out-of-control and you've been that way from the moment the cops arrived over there," Jax chastised, expectantly awaiting his brother's angry denial or at least an explanation, but neither was forthcoming. "Jerry! Did you hear what I just said?" Jax demanded, as Jerry just stared out at the street scene below, seeming to ignore Jax altogether.

"I heard you - in fact, the whole building probably heard you," Jerry replied sarcastically, continuing to stare out the window, his gaze now fixed on the apartment across the way, and the activity inside, where the investigation was in full swing.

"And you have nothing to say about that?" Jax asked, surprised that his brother wasn't offering a quick denial or a ready excuse for his behavior.

"What's there to say?" Jerry asked, his back still toward Jax. "You think I'm out-of-control; that's *your* opinion. I don't happen to agree with you," he replied matter-of-factly.

"You think that's just *my* opinion?" Jax asked incredulously. "Why do you suppose Weygandt threw us out of there like that? You're supposed to be a professional, trained to keep your cool in any situation, and yet you couldn't hold it together in the face of a little grilling from a middle-aged cop who's just a few years away from getting his pension!" he pointed out angrily.

"A little grilling?" Jerry snapped, whirling around to face his brother. "He suspected both of us of being behind Brenda's kidnapping and Jackson's murder." He stopped and looked strangely at Jax and then added slowly: "…Or rather he suspected both of us at first, but then he only seemed to suspect me, and that was only after you were left alone with him… Just what did you say to him to throw his suspicion onto me alone?" he asked, his eyes narrowed.

Jax gave him an incredulous look. "You actually think that I'd say something to him that would make you look like you were behind all of this?"

"That *is* what you think, isn't it?" Jerry asked angrily. "You think that if I hadn't set this whole sordid mess into motion then Brenda would be safe and sound right here in your arms in this very apartment right now, instead of out there who knows where…"

"Isn't that what you've said all along, Jer - that this is all your fault!" Jax shot back. "Well, you know what? I would never say this to Avalon or Weygandt, or even to Dad or Dee, but I *do* think this is all your fault! *All of it*!… You may not have kidnapped Brenda or pulled the trigger of the gun that did Jackson in, but it's all on your shoulders just the same!"

He straightened up, taking a couple steps toward his brother, as he continued, his eyes flashing with anger: "Your lies and your manipulations put Brenda in this situation to begin with! If you'd been honest with her from the start, she might have had a chance - and I don't just mean now with whatever lowlife has her this time! She might have had a chance to live a real life for all those years, and not the sheltered life she lived here - always in your shadow, whether she knew it or not! Living here in the place you provided for her; unknowingly selling her pictures to you and living off the money you paid her; providing you with your daily reading material, so thoughtfully documented without her knowledge by that pervert Jackson!"

"I didn't ask Andrew to detail *all* of her activities. I just wanted to know she was okay! I did it to protect her!" Jerry denied bitterly.

"You did it to protect yourself!" Jax challenged him. "And it worked, didn't it? Your carefully constructed web of lies kept her a hostage for years. She locked herself away from the world to keep from being hurt the way she was when you just disappeared from her life. You knew that as long as you remained *missing* that she'd wait for you forever, unable to give any other man her love because she was too busy loving the memory of the two of you!"

"I did it because I love her!" Jerry roared.

"If you really loved her you would have set her free long ago!" Jax shouted. "Instead, you selfishly kept her tied to you with the possibility that you'd return - that isn't love, it's obsession, and it's just as sick as what Jackson felt for her!"

"It was love - and it still is!" Jerry answered angrily. "I've never stopped loving her from the moment I first set eyes on her. She is the only woman I've ever wanted to marry - and I *will* marry her when all of this is over!"

"You don't know the first thing about loving her!" Jax spat out.

"And I suppose that you do?" Jerry taunted. "Do you really think those few idyllic days you shared were about love? That wasn't love - that was lust, pure and simple! … And do you want to know why she was attracted to you in the first place, little brother? Because you reminded her of me - unfortunately, you're just a pale imitation of me, and if you two had had much more time together she would have realized that sooner than later, but you would have never lasted like she and I have."

"You haven't lasted, Jerry. You've simply held on!" Jax answered angrily. "But she didn't; she finally let go of you - of that sainted memory of the man you never really were - and she moved on to me, Jer! She loves *me* now, and when she gets back she'll be marrying *me,* not you!… Do you really think she'll want to marry the man who's ultimately responsible for the danger she's in now and for killing her baby four years ago?!"

Jax couldn't believe those words had come out of his mouth, but before he could retract them, Jerry's fist connected with Jax's jaw and he went flying backwards against the peninsula counter. All the pent-up anger that Jax had for everything over the past few days - finding out that his brother was Brenda's JD, Brenda's initial kidnapping, the explosion and the fire where they thought Brenda had been killed, and now Brenda's second disappearance, this time without any word - came pouring forth in full force, as he lunged at Jerry, landing a hard blow just below Jerry's left eye.

Jerry staggered back a couple of steps and then regained his balance, quickly grabbing Jax and shoving him back across the counter. The minute Jax had brought up Jerry's responsibility for killing the baby, it was like something in Jerry had snapped. It was no longer his brother standing there, baiting him; it was Andrew, laughing at him for ever trusting him to watch over Brenda; and Jackson, taunting him for not finding Brenda before it was too late; and even his own image, hating himself for all the pain he had ever brought Brenda when he'd only wanted to love her. He was suddenly blinded with rage, pressing his right forearm harder and harder across Jax's chest, as the anger for all of his own past mistakes came bubbling to the surface.

"JD! Jax! Stop it!" Dee screamed, as she came tearing back into the living room area of the loft. She'd heard their shouting clear back in Brenda's studio and she'd come running immediately, knowing that if they were that angry for their voices to carry that far, then the talking part of their *discussion* was most likely over for them. And from the looks of things, she'd gotten there none too soon. JD looked like he was in some sort of a trance and Jax looked like a crazy man, too, and both brothers had blood on their faces. "What the hell is goin' on here?!" she shouted, the sound of her voice bringing Jerry out of his murderous rage and he quickly backed away from Jax, who pulled himself off the counter.

"Well, is one of you gonna explain what I just walked in on?" Dee demanded, as the brothers stood glaring at one another, breathing hard, and looking as though they could go for round two at any moment.

Finally, Jax broke the silent standoff, turning to Dee and answering cryptically as he headed out the door without a backward glance: "Looks like the detective team of Jacks and Jacks has been officially dissolved."

"Damn bureaucracy!" Jerry cursed, slamming the door behind him and tossing his keys and cell phone down on the small table just inside the foyer, before pouring himself a Scotch from the bar and collapsing onto one of the matching leather couches in the living room of his penthouse apartment. He felt drained. It was just past noon and he'd been out since early morning working with the FBI and the police, trying to track down leads as to who had taken Brenda and where she might be, but all he'd been able to find was bureaucratic doubletalk and hollow assurances that everything that could be done to locate Brenda was being done. Weygandt had finally suggested Jerry go home to rest, promising that he'd call with any new information they turned up.

To his credit, Agent Weygandt had been extremely patient with him, allowing him total access to the evidence that they had been able to get from the apartment where Jackson had been holding Brenda - what little there was of it. Unfortunately, the only fingerprints they'd been able to lift from the place were Jackson's and Brenda's, which wasn't surprising, since the hit on Jackson appeared professional and most professionals are smart enough to wear gloves to prevent leaving a trail of evidence. They had gotten some fiber evidence but it was a good bet that it would probably prove to belong to either Brenda or Jackson as well, once again leaving the trail cold to whomever killed Jackson and took Brenda.

But Weygandt *had* given him some good news in all of this. Forensics had analyzed the body fluids on the bed linen and they'd found sweat and gastric contents where someone - most likely Brenda - had vomited, but no semen or vaginal fluid, for which Jerry was thankful. Once he'd realized that the man who'd taken Brenda had also been the one who'd assaulted her before, his biggest fear was that Jackson would finish what he'd started four years before. Thank God that she'd been spared that, at least.

But he wondered what other indignities she'd been subjected to, courtesy of this man whom Jerry had unwittingly introduced into her life? If Jackson and Buxton weren't both already dead, Jerry could easily have choked the life out of them with his bare hands for all that they'd done to Brenda, now and over the past four years. And now she was missing again - possibly dead -and that trail most likely led from Jerry to this kidnapper as well.

He'd spent a long night at his computer, tapped into the Agency's mainframe, searching files and trying to follow up on anyone who might want revenge against him, but he'd soon learned that the list could be endless. Just about anyone anywhere in the world with whom he'd crossed swords could theoretically be bent on retaliation. Up until now he'd never really worried about such things as retribution and retaliation against him or his loved ones because his identity had always been safeguarded. But since Rick Jackson had managed to ferret him out his true identity, Jerry no longer felt comfortable that his cover was impenetrable.

Jerry had had one worry eased in the past day, however. He'd learned that the Agency had never issued orders to kill Brenda if he tried to leave, nor had they ordered the assault on her four years before. That had all been Andrew Buxton's doing.

Somewhere in his sick and twisted mind, Andrew had felt that he was working to benefit both the Agency and Jerry by keeping Jerry in the fold for life. And Andrew had seen Brenda as a threat to that end, which is why he'd ordered the assault four years ago. That assault had had a twofold benefit for Andrew: it had eliminated the baby that Brenda was carrying - a baby that he knew would only deepen Jerry's love for Brenda and reinforce his desire to leave the Agency permanently; and it had served to send a message to Jerry, ostensibly from the Agency, that the next time Jerry tried to leave the Agency Brenda would be killed. And it had contained Jerry most effectively.

Over the past four years Jerry had never questioned his mentor's tactics and loyalty, while he had continually questioned the Agency's. If he had only trusted the Agency more and Andrew less, he and Brenda would be together now, and their child would have lived. But instead, he was still with the Agency, their baby was dead, Brenda was missing, and someone who most likely knew his past, now held his entire future in their hands as well.

Whoever had taken Brenda from Jackson had to have had access to the files on Jerry that Jackson had broken into. No one outside the Agency, besides Jackson, even knew of Brenda's connection to him. Even his own family hadn't known before the past day or so, and even then his parents didn't all the details. If Jackson had sold this information to someone else - and by now Jerry had no doubt that he had - he was certain that he'd asked top dollar for it. And if that were the case, why not just go after Jerry directly? Why go to the trouble and the additional expense of snatching Brenda and then disappearing with her without a trace?

And why hadn't this person contacted him by now? Over twenty-four hours without a word made Jerry more uncomfortable than anything else did. Whoever had taken Brenda was playing the waiting game now to raise the stakes, and Jerry knew that if it went on much longer he'd be the one to fold first. He'd give anything to get Brenda back - anything… including his own life. And that was most likely the wager this person ultimately wanted. Which brought him back to that endless list of possible suspects…

He'd had an extremely successful career with the Agency, which meant that he'd helped topple a few dictators, destabilize several guerilla movements, and anger more than a few sociopaths along the way, and any one of them could be Jackson's partner now. But that had all been professional, and for some reason this felt more personal. Whoever Jackson had linked up with now knew Jerry's one vulnerability - Brenda - and opted to use her to get him. Jerry had spent the past six years walking through fire trying to protect her, and Jackson was well aware of that - and now so was whoever had Brenda, which is most likely *why* they had her in the first place. But the major question was still: *who* had her?

Jerry had fallen asleep the night before pondering that very question - if one could call 45 minutes of nonstop tossing and turning on this very couch sleeping. In that brief time he'd had one of the most unsettling dreams he could ever remember having in his life, and not surprisingly, given the circumstances, it involved him and Brenda and Jax.

In his dream, Brenda was gliding toward him, smiling, her arms outstretched to him. She was dressed in a long, white, diaphanous gown that billowed softly around her legs as she moved. Her hair - long and free flowing, just the way Jerry loved it - swirled slightly around her face in soft curls. A gentle breeze was blowing, carrying the fragrant scent of gardenias and passionflowers, and the heady combination of Brenda and the flowers was intoxicating. He could feel his heart beating faster and swelling with love as she came closer and closer to him, and when she was finally in his arms, he felt as if his heart would burst with happiness. But then suddenly he was no longer holding her; she was in Jax's arms, and she was smiling up at him with the same look of love that she'd worn for Jerry just moments before.

Jerry could feel his heart breaking as he watched them, but then just as suddenly as Jax had replaced him, a tall, dark stranger, whose face was hidden in shadow, replaced Jax. The look of love that Brenda had worn for both him and Jax was instantly replaced with a look of fear and loathing. She screamed and tried to break free of the stranger's arms, but he placed a hand to her head and she closed her eyes and fell limply into his embrace. All the while, both he and Jax stood frozen in place, unable to do anything more than watch helplessly as the dark stranger disappeared back into the shadows, carrying Brenda's lifeless body in his arms.

He'd awakened from the nightmare drenched in sweat, the overwhelming feeling of helplessness he'd felt in the dream following him into consciousness. It didn't take a psychoanalyst to recognize why he'd dreamed what he had, but it might take one to help him forget it. Even now its images were as vivid as they had been the night before, especially those of the dark stranger carrying Brenda's lifeless body away with him, while he and Jax watched helplessly from the distance.

He shook his head, trying to clear those images from his mind and to shake the feelings of helplessness that he seemed to wear like a second skin now, but the gesture was futile, as both persisted. He knew of only one sure way to banish such thoughts and feelings, so he lifted his glass to his lips, cautiously taking a sip of the liquid balm that filled his glass. It was far too early in the day to be drinking, but he didn't give a damn. He deserved this after the day he'd had! He relished the taste and the feel of it, as swirled it in his mouth, slowly swallowing it as he silently debated the merits of sipping the rest over guzzling it. Whichever would make him stop feeling quicker, he thought, taking another sip and swallowing it immediately.

He sighed wearily and rubbed his free hand across his face and through his hair, wincing involuntarily as his palm grazed across the tender bruise on his left cheek, a lasting reminder of the fact that he'd not only lost the woman he loved in all of this, he'd lost his brother and best friend as well. And for the moment he felt as helpless in rectifying that situation as he did in trying to locate Brenda.

Their fight had been a longtime coming, yet unexpected at the same time. At the time he'd felt justified in his anger with Jax, but now he simply felt empty, and he wasn't sure what to do about that. He supposed that he could take his father's advice to call Jax and apologize, but the truth was he wasn't sure he had energy right now to call to make amends with Jax. Besides, Jax had given as good as he'd got, so they were even as far as Jerry was concerned. But his father's phone call the previous evening still weighed heavily on his mind.

His father had evidently gotten wind of the fight when he'd called Jax earlier that evening to discuss business and to find out if there had been any word about Brenda yet. When Jax had not been forthcoming with information as to how Jerry was, their father had sensed discord and had finally wheedled out of Jax that the brothers had fought. He'd also gathered that it was the biggest falling out they'd ever had, which is why he'd called Jerry, ostensibly to see how he was holding up, but in reality to try to get Jerry to take the first step toward brotherly reconciliation.

But Jerry had held firm to his position and to his bitterness and stubbornness, refusing to even discuss the subject of the fight or Jax, preferring instead to keep the subject on the search for Brenda and anything further that his father and Mike had been able to dig up on Rick Jackson. His father had been momentarily silent when Jerry refused to talk about either Jax or the fight, let alone the possibility of reconciliation with Jax, but then he'd readily given Jerry a quick rundown of all the known contacts Rick Jackson had had in his short, wretched life.

John Jacks hadn't pressed the issue about Jax further until just before he was ready to end the call. Then his father had pulled out all the stops: "I know that you don't want to hear this, but this is not the time for you and Jax to be on the outs," he admonished. "It's a time for all of us to pull together as family - especially you and Jax."

"Dad, we're not kids anymore. We don't need you and Mum to monitor our behavior and try to make things right!" Jerry replied curtly.

"We never monitored your behavior," his father protested. "And that's certainly not what I'm trying to do here, but I *am* trying to talk some sense into the two of you! You two need each other, especially now. You've been there for one another and shared so much in your lives. Don't let this be what tears you apart!"

"Oh, we've definitely shared a lot!" Jerry laughed ruefully at his father's choice of words. "Including the same woman - which is how we got to this point in the first place!… No, actually, how we got to this point was that Brenda's original kidnapper was killed and she was kidnapped a second time, only this time we haven't heard a word from her kidnapper and it's been over twelve hours. And, as Jax pointed out, I'm the one responsible for all of this!"

"Jax doesn't mean that, son," John countered. "He's just -"

"He's just what, Dad?" Jerry interrupted. "Angry? Frustrated? Yeah, he's all that, but he's also right! I *am* responsible for all of this. Even the mess at J&J Jacks can be linked back to me - not to mention Brenda's social isolation for all those years, and both of her kidnappings, and the assault on her four years ago, then the miscarriage -" Jerry ranted, all the self-hatred he felt pouring out at once.

"Miscarriage?" John Jacks interrupted. "Brenda was… was pregnant - with your child?" he asked, his voice little more than a whisper now.

Jerry sighed heavily. Could this day get any worse, he wondered? This was not how he planned to tell his parents about their first grandchild. "Yeah," he answered quietly. "She was a few weeks pregnant when I left her, only I never knew about the baby until yesterday… And the irony of all of this is that the very man I trusted to watch over her until I could get back to her was the one who ordered the assault on her, and he did it precisely so she *would* lose the baby… He knew that if I knew about the baby that there was no way I'd stay with the Agency another day, let alone a lifetime… So I'm even responsible for my own baby's death…" he added, his voice cracking with emotion.

"Oh, son… I'm so sorry… I had no idea…" His normally articulate father was momentarily speechless, as he felt the loss of his first grandchild weigh heavily on his heart. "But you had no idea that this would happen. You can't control other people's motivations. It's *not* your fault," he soothed, wishing now that 3000 miles weren't separating them. There was a brief pause and then he added: "Listen, I know that both you and Jax had vetoed this idea earlier, but I really think your mother and I should come to New York to be with you both now through all of this."

"No, Dad," Jerry answered. "That's not necessary… Besides, you're still trying to dig the firm out from under that mess of the other day. And by all rights, Jax should be back in LA, helping you. This family has already lost enough because of me; I'd never forgive myself if you lost the business as well."

"That's nonsense!" his father replied. "We're not about to go under simply because of one day of lost business opportunities. J&J Jacks has weathered harsher storms than that one the other day. In the scheme of things, it was merely a minor irritation. We've already managed to recover nearly all the business we lost in those hours we were down, and you know very well that we have a crack team of executives that are perfectly capable of handling everything in both Jax and my absence… Besides, family has always come before business for us and you know that. And right now I think you and Jax need us more than the business does!… Now, what do you say? Your mother and I could be there by the morning."

Jerry smiled through his fatigue at his father's show of support. That's one thing he loved about his parents: no matter what, family was always first for them. It really didn't surprise him that they were ready to fly across an entire continent in the middle of the night to comfort him and to try to mend things between him and Jax. Perhaps that should be a lesson for him and his brother… "Dad, I know why you want to do this, and I love you for it. But I'm trying not to dwell on the baby now, and if you and Mum are here for me to see the pain of that loss reflected back on your faces, I wouldn't be able to hold it together. And right now I need to hold it together for Brenda's sake."

"Okay, son," his father agreed reluctantly. "I promise that your mother and I won't pack up and descend on you and Jax now, but you have to promise that the two of you will try to work things out between you. I know that the things you've said and done to one another can never be taken back, but they can be forgiven… It takes a big man with a big heart to forgive those who've wronged him - and to forgive himself, as well; and it takes a bigger man to admit when he's wrong," he added quietly.

There was a moment of silence between father and son as John's words sank into Jerry's heart. He knew that his father was right. No matter what, he and Jax were family, and they did need each other now more than ever. "I'm listening, Dad… Just give Jax and me some time to lick our wounds on our own before you and Mum come charging in to patch things up between us."

"We can do that," his father answered, then added softly: "You'll find her, Jer. I can feel it in my heart. But I also feel in my heart that it will take both you and Jax working together to get Brenda and yourselves through this. I told Jax the same thing. And then when she's safely home, we can all heal together."

He wished he shared his father's optimism about both finding Brenda alive and safe and healing their pain, but he wasn't about to disappoint his father by telling him how remote he thought those possibilities were now. So instead he simply said: "I love you, Dad. Give Mum my love, too. I'll call if we hear anything…" And then he hung up.

As he recalled that conversation, he knew in his heart that his father was right: he and Jax did need each other now. They each needed to put their jealousies about the other's relationship with Brenda aside for the moment, and they needed to wipe the slate clean between them as to what each had said and done to the other yesterday. And after Brenda was safely back, they'd deal with everything fully then. Now he just needed to work up the courage to call Jax and suggest that very thing…

He stared at his half-glass of Scotch, silently willing the amber liquid to be the courage-builder he needed for this particular task, then he leaned back against the couch cushions and finished the rest of the drink in one quick gulp, grimacing slightly as the cool liquid burned its way down his dry throat. He wasn't sure how much courage it was giving him, but it certainly was helping to relax him.

His cell phone rang and he set the empty glass on the coffee table in front of him, then walked to the foyer to retrieve his phone, answering it on the second ring. "Jacks here!" he barked, his voice brusque from the aftereffects of the acrid liquor on his throat.

"It's Sgt. Avalon," came the reply. "Sheesh! You sound like hell!"

"Is that why you called?" Jerry growled. "To make snide comments about me?" He was tired and frustrated, and he was certainly in no mood to trade insults with this fascist cop who hated his guts.

"No… that was just an observation," the sergeant replied, his tone apologetic. "Listen… I know you and me got off to a rocky start with one another yesterday, and I want to apologize for that. I acted like a jackass 'cause I was too embarrassed to admit that I'd made a mistake by cuffing you and your brother. Then I resented you 'cause I thought you two were just a couple of rich boys slumming it. And then, when you seemed to be running the show there, I resented you for having brains, along with looks and money…"

Jerry was caught off-guard by the sergeant's apology. It was the last thing he'd expected to hear from this man. "Apology accepted," Jerry mumbled. What was it his father had said about it taking a big man to accept an apology, but a bigger one to offer one? "I wasn't exactly at my most pleasant either yesterday, and I'm sorry for the way I acted. As both Weygandt and my brother pointed out, I was hindering the investigation with my hostility more than I was helping…"

"Yeah, well, we were both wrong then, I guess," Avalon mumbled in reply. He hadn't expected an apology in return, and he was momentarily thrown.

"Is there anything else?" Jerry asked, when an uncomfortable silence seemed to settle between them.

"Yeah, actually there is," Avalon replied. "Agent Weygandt gave me your number and asked me to call you. He thought you might like to know that we've found a vehicle that Jackson was using. It was a late model black Jeep Cherokee with dark tint windows, which fits the description of the vehicle that a couple of people thought they saw Jackson using the other night. And it was rented by an Andrew Buxton, using his credit card, but Jackson's prints are everywhere in it."

Jerry perked up at that information. "Where did you find it? And did you find Brenda and the people who took her?" he asked excitedly.

Avalon hesitated momentarily before answering: "First of all, we pulled this vehicle from the East River…"

Jerry felt his heart plunge there. "And what did you find inside?" he asked quietly, praying that if there were bodies, that Brenda's wasn't one of them.

"There were two bodies inside," Avalon answered. "Both male."

At that piece of information, Jerry let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Their IDs were still on 'em - Manny Ortiz and Tino Martinez, two gorilla enforcers for some smalltime hood, named Rafael Rodriguez. He's into import-export, which roughly translates as drug trafficking, although we've never been able to nail him for anything illegal," Avalon continued, his tone all-business. "You recognize any of those names?"

"No," Jerry answered. "I've never heard of them… Is there any sign of where they took Brenda? What about this Rodriguez? Does he have her? Have you brought him in for questioning?" Jerry asked impatiently.

"Hold on!" Avalon shot back. "I'm getting to all this… There's no sign of where they might have taken Ms. Barrett. There was nothing in the SUV, beyond the two bodies, which were whacked the same way Jackson was. Both men were armed, and the one man's weapon is a match for the gun used to kill Jackson, so we're pretty sure that these are the same guys who killed him and kidnapped the woman." He paused briefly. "We talked to this Rodriguez and he insists he knows nothing about any of this. He says Ortiz and Martinez must have been working on their own 'cause he's just a businessman trying to eke out a clean living here in the city, and he never heard of this Jackson or Ms. Barrett."

"Likely story!" Jerry growled. "Let me at him!"

"No need for that," Avalon answered. "We have a man shadowing him and a couple more posted at his 'place of business,' so if he knows anything about the whereabouts of Ms. Barrett, we'll know soon."

Jerry's attitude toward the hard-boiled detective softened a bit more then. He knew the man was giving this case his all and he appreciated that. He wasn't the hard ass Jerry had originally pegged him to be. "You'll let me know immediately what you turn up?" Jerry asked, although by now he trusted that the detective would without hesitation.

"You'll know as soon as Weygandt does," Avalon replied.

"Thanks," Jerry answered softly.

"Yeah, well…" the sergeant stammered, not sure how to take Jerry Jacks in his conciliatory mode. "Oh, there is one thing Weygandt said you might find interesting," he added.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"It seems that there is at least a vague connection between this Rodriguez and Jackson, despite Rodriguez's protests to the contrary - although, to be fair, I'm not sure that Rodriguez is even aware of it," Avalon began.

"Spit it out!" Jerry exclaimed, his heart once again in his throat.

"Well, it seems that the man who died in that explosion and fire - the one you thought was this Jackson - was actually Jackson's cousin, Vinnie Carlson, and he worked for Rodriguez off and on. So there is a connection, albeit a slim one. But it could be coincidental," Avalon finished.

"Yeah," Jerry agreed, but something told him that there was nothing coincidental about any of this. Jerry then asked: "You're following up on it anyway, aren't you?"

"Yeah, we got a couple of people digging into that now," Avalon assured him. "We'll let you know if we find anything."

"Yeah, thanks," Jerry replied. He hesitated for a second then added: "You said that Rodriguez was suspected of drug trafficking… Any idea who's supplying his drugs?" Jerry asked, as a sick feeling suddenly crept over him. It couldn't be… Could it? The Agency hadn't been able to find anything on Juan Carlos Sanchez since the shootout and fire four years ago. He was presumed dead, according to all their reports. But had he somehow escaped death, and now he was somehow managing to operate under everyone's radar? The thought that Sanchez could be somehow connected to all of this sent a shudder through him, and he tried to dismiss it as ludicrous, but now that that unsettling thought had crept into his mind, he wasn't able to shake it.

"Not a clue," Avalon replied. "Like I said, no one's ever really been able to nail Rodriguez, although we've picked up a few of his alleged pushers. We've never found a trail even to Rodriguez, let alone from Rodriguez to his source."

"You have undercovers working his operation?" Jerry asked.

"Yeah. Why?" Avalon asked, curious as to where Jerry was leading.

"Just a hunch, really," Jerry answered. "And one I hope I'm wrong about… See if any of those undercovers has heard the name Juan Carlos Sanchez mentioned by anyone in Rodriguez's organization, even in passing."

"Juan Carlos Sanchez?" Avalon repeated, surprised that Jerry would wonder about him. "Wasn't he some major Mexican drug lord, who was killed a few years back in a big fire after a shootout with his own people?" he asked, recalling the news reports of the time. "It was all over the place - The DEA was crowing about it for weeks afterwards… What's a dead drug czar got to do with any of this?"

"Hopefully, nothing," Jerry answered, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the man had everything to do with it, and if so, then Brenda was in even more danger than anyone had even imagined. "Just see what you and the FBI can find, and I'll do some digging on my end, too."

As Jerry closed his cell phone and laid it back on the table, he realized that he was actually shaking. He took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. "It can't be him. He's dead and gone," Jerry murmured aloud. But every instinct in him told him that Sanchez was very much alive and very much involved in all of this…

The disturbing images of his dream came flooding back to him then: the dark stranger with his arms around Brenda as she struggled; then subduing her as he put his hand to her head… Jerry recoiled as, for the first time, he realized that the stranger in his dream had made a gun with his hand and touched it to Brenda's temple, and Brenda had fallen limply into his arms then… (Just the way he'd killed Maria…) It's only a dream, he told himself. Dreams mean nothing… They only magnify your fears; they don't tell the future… But he knew that the only way he could reassure himself that this meant nothing was to find proof that Sanchez was either truly dead or at least rendered harmless.

He moved to get his laptop, when there was a knock at his door. He opened it to find Matthew, the building's day doorman, holding an envelope in front of him.

"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Jacks," Matthew stuttered, noting the wild-eyed look Jerry had at the moment and remembering the reception a similar envelope he'd delivered a couple of days ago had gotten. Thankfully, Matthew didn't see any gun in sight this time. "But this just arrived for you, special delivery." He handed Jerry the envelope. He thought he saw Jerry's face pale, but when Matthew blinked and looked back at him, Jerry was smiling at him.

"Thanks, Matthew. I've been expecting this," Jerry smiled, handing him a ten in exchange for the special delivery envelope, then closing the door as the doorman pocketed the money and headed back to the private elevator that serviced that floor.

Jerry scanned the outside of the envelope, hoping to find a postmark or other distinguishing mark to signify from where it had been sent, but only his name and address appeared on the front. He slowly opened the envelope, and inside there was another unsealed envelope, this one of fine, premium-quality linen. On the outside of that envelope was written in exquisite calligraphy:

Jerry's heart caught in his throat, as he peered inside the open envelope and his greatest fear was realized…

To Dee it seemed as if the weight of the world had been lifted off Jax's shoulders at her pronouncement about his dream. She hated lying to him, but it was for the best. She had to help re-establish some sort of a working relationship between the brothers; otherwise Brenda was literally dead.

She watched him now, the picture of him and JD in hand, as he collapsed onto the couch. She realized that she might have eased his mind about his dream and his fears about his brother and Brenda in the future, but he still was distanced from JD, and she wondered if he would take the necessary steps to bridge that gulf between them? She had done all that she could to nudge him in that direction. She'd planted the seeds of reconciliation; now he needed to tend to them to make them grow. She supposed that she should do the same for JD now, but she wondered just how far she would get with him?

When she'd first met JD, she'd accused him of being intimidated by her - and he had been. He'd feared her insight and her instincts and what they told her about his and Brenda's future. But the truth was he intimidated her as well. Not that she feared that he'd hurt her physically - although she knew firsthand that he was capable of that. And she also was witness to the fact that he could hurt someone he was close to if properly provoked - as she had seen when she'd walked in on his fight with his brother. But she still didn't fear him in that sense.

She had spent some time the previous evening mulling over what exactly it was about JD that frightened her so much. Was it his dark side that lurked just below the surface of this devastatingly handsome man, with his easy, charismatic smile and practiced charm? She had witnessed his dark side twice now - the first time was when he'd suspected her of being in on Brenda's abduction and the second time was when she'd walked in on his fight with Jax. Both times she'd looked into his eyes and they'd seemed empty - like, for those few brief moments, he was a man without a soul. Both times she'd felt unsettled by that, wondering what could cause a man to appear more machine than man at times? But since her talk earlier with Jax in which he'd filled in the blanks about his brother and JD's history with Brenda, she actually understood JD's need to detach emotionally at those times. She understood it, but it still frightened her.

She wondered if he'd ever shown that side to Brenda or if it only surfaced at those times when he was threatened? Sort of like the Incredible Hulk, she thought, but to her he actually seemed more like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - charming and fun one minute; frightening and deadly the next. She imagined that Brenda had never seen Mr. Hyde - not even briefly - in the short time that Jax had said that she and JD had had together. But there was a part of Dee that sensed that Brenda might never have seen JD's dark side no matter how long they were together, unless someone threatened Brenda in some way, as was the case now - or threatened their love, which was the case with his brother, Jax.

She shook her head as she remembered walking in on that fight between the brothers. It had been viscious, and she had no doubt that it could have been deadly had she not shown up when she had. She wondered if JD would have backed away from his brother had she not arrived when she had, or did he just go on auto pilot at those times when he felt threatened and stayed there until an outside stimulus brought him back - or until he finished the task at hand? That thought sent a chill down her spine. But having glimpsed the emptiness in his eyes at those times, she guessed that his training to kill or be killed was often at war with his moral imperative to preserve and protect any life, and auto pilot was the only mode that worked for him - the only way he could justify in the end what he had been forced to do.

But now as she thought about it, she realized that it wasn't his dark side she feared, but rather his own sixth sense, which she sensed was in many ways more powerful than her own - although she also sensed that he had never honed it as she had her own. To be sure, he used it routinely in his work, but she sensed that he had never really focused it, instead rationalizing that his instincts were based more on past experiences than on anything innate or paranormal.

To be fair, both brothers had a fair amount of the "gift," as her mama had called it. Jax seemed to trust and follow his gift more than JD did, although he hadn't seemed to trust it this morning in regards to his dream. But that was probably just as well at this point; besides, the truth of that dream would bear itself out in due time - but that was only if Brenda came back and that would only happen if the brothers reconciled.

And at this moment, she felt more strongly than she had ever felt anything in her life that it would take both brothers working fully together to save Brenda. Looking at Jax now as he continued to study the picture of him and JD in happier times, she had no doubt that he was ready to make amends with JD, but would JD be ready to accept and to move on?

She finally decided that she would need to take that particular bull by the horns and talk to JD herself to make sure that he was ready to make up with Jax, but before she had the chance to tell Jax that she was calling his brother, the sound of the service elevator clanging to a stop on the floor caught both of their attentions.

"Were you expecting anyone?" Jax asked Dee, as they both stood at the sound of the elevator.

"No one knows I'm even here," Dee answered, but then she added: "I did see that Mrs. Shapiro as I was entering the building this morning. She asked about Brenda again and I told her that she had gone away unexpectedly and asked me to water her plants for her. She seemed to accept that because she asked me to let Brenda know she'd speak to her when she returned and also that she'd get that birthday cake baked for her then also."

Jax nodded. "Well, Brenda's friends think she's out of town for a few days, thanks to the note she sent them before she left for LA, so I doubt that any of them would show up out of the blue. Her studio work is by appointment only and she had cancelled all of her appointments before she left for LA, so I doubt it's a client. And since the FBI and police have kept their word about keeping Brenda's identity under wraps, the press has no idea about her," he said as he walked toward the door to open it.

But the door flew open before he could reach it, as Jerry tore into the apartment, his breathing hard and his face pale. "We've heard from the kidnapper," he announced, handing Jax the envelope that had been messengered to Jerry just moments before.

Jax pulled the second envelope from the larger one and looked at it. "It's addressed to both of us?" Jax said, looking from the calligraphy on the envelope's front to his brother. "Whoever has her knows about both of us…"

"Yeah," Jerry nodded. "And it gets worse…"

Jax opened that envelope and pulled out the note contained in it, this also on fine, premium quality linen stationery and written in exquisite calligraphy:

Jax read the note aloud, giving his brother a puzzled look. "That's all there was?" he asked.

"That's more than enough," Jerry replied ominously. "He wants us both there, otherwise…"

Dee looked from Jerry to Jax. "I don't understand Spanish. What does it say?"

Jax and Jerry continued to stare at one another, the blood draining from Jax's face, as he fully understood the meaning beyond the cryptic lines of the note. Jax finally answered Dee: "Roughly translated, it says: 'Casino del Caribe… You took what was mine; now I have what is yours… An eye for an eye…' "

"I still don't understand…" Dee stuttered. "What does it mean?"

Jerry took a deep breath, as Jax nodded, then he turned to Dee and answered gravely: "It means that things are even worse than we'd feared; Brenda has gone from the frying pan straight into the fires of Hell, because Satan himself has her now, and the only way we can get her back is to try to exchange our lives for hers…"

Juan Carlos Sanchez turned away from his computer monitor and leaned back in his chair, smiling as he contemplated the information he'd just read and the remarkable events of this past day. It was just a little over twelve hours since this unexpected windfall had arrived. He'd been expecting a nice payoff from his most recent business venture, but he hadn't anticipated that it would be this lucrative. This bonus nearly made up for the bumbling of the men who had secured the bounty in the first place - nearly, but not quite.

He'd been understandably angry when he'd been informed about the sloppiness of the completion of this transaction in the States. If there was one thing Juan Carlos could never abide it was less than precision when carrying out his orders. The men who had handled this particular situation had acted impetuously and less than professionally. Juan Carlos had been specific in his instructions: locate this man, Rick Jackson, and discreetly bring both him and the woman that he was holding here to him. But instead they had burst into Jackson's lair in broad daylight, killing Jackson right there on the spot and allowing the woman to witness it.

Juan Carlos had wanted the man dead - at least, eventually - but he had not wanted the woman to witness the execution, nor had he wanted the man killed where he could be easily found. Besides, he had wanted the pleasure of carrying out the death sentence himself. He had wanted to look into the eyes of this Jackson, who was arrogant enough to seek him out in order to try to extort money from him. It had not been enough for this Jackson to bargain in good faith with him; that Juan Carlos could have respected. Instead, Jackson had greedily and haughtily demanded a cool million dollars for the woman and had left no room for negotiation.

Not that Juan Carlos didn't think she was worth the price that was asked. Looking at her and knowing her immeasurable worth to his enemy made her priceless to Juan Carlos, but he resented that Jackson had simply demanded, rather than negotiated. Had Jackson respected him enough to negotiate, Juan Carlos would most likely have gladly settled on that sum and spared Jackson's life as well, especially now that he'd had the chance to see the scope of Jackson's talents.

The information that Jackson had been able to inconspicuously garner on James Barrington, AKA JD Jacks, both personally and professionally, had already proven invaluable to Juan Carlos as he launched his plan to even the score with Jacks and the organization behind him. Rick Jackson had been a smart man - near genius in his planning and in his achievement - and Juan Carlos could have used a man like him in his organization; too bad that he'd been such an arrogant man as well.

But there was no time now for regrets over Jackson's unfortunate early demise. Those responsible for the fiasco had been dealt with swiftly and surely, and their deaths would send the proper message to the rest of his organization, both here and in the States: that Juan Carlos Sanchez would not tolerate any deviations whatsoever from his orders. And in the end, all had worked out well for Juan Carlos, as he now had not only the woman and his million dollars, but he also had all the information he needed to drop JD Jacks to his knees and make him beg for mercy before Juan Carlos finally had the pleasure of killing him himself.

It all seemed almost too good to be true, he mused as he gazed back at his computer and the information that danced before his eyes. All of this had simply dropped serendipitously into his lap, as had nearly everything over the past several days. After four, long years of searching and finding nothing, it had all suddenly been handed to him. He supposed it was true after all: all things come to those who wait.

And this was certainly worth the wait. Contained in these files was everything that he needed to know to destroy his enemy finally and completely, just as the man had once tried to do to him. And that man had nearly succeeded - nearly… But Juan Carlos was invincible and, like the Phoenix of legend, he had literally risen from the ashes of his life. But unlike the Phoenix of legend, which was a gentle creature, Juan Carlos was not. He was a man bent on revenge, and as far as he was concerned, for JD Jacks the more painful the revenge, the better.

Juan Carlos had not forgotten what Jacks had done to him all those years ago, nor was he one who was prone to forgive - not that Jacks's actions could ever be forgiven. What Jacks had done - what he had taken from Juan Carlos - was unforgivable. He had stolen Juan Carlos's life when he had lured his beautiful Maria into his bed and soiled her forever. The shot to her head that Juan Carlos had been forced to deliver to finish her off was merely a formality, as he saw it; Jacks had delivered the fatal blow to her when he had dared to touch her. And Juan Carlos had spent the past four years hating the man with every fiber of his being because of that very fact. But now his time for retribution had finally come.

He glanced to the wall of closed circuit TV monitors in front of him that kept him apprised of everything that was happening throughout his sizeable compound, and his smile broadened as he realized just how fortuitous all of this was for him. This new information that Jackson had so graciously provided had helped to up the ante considerably in this little game of chance that he had planned for his enemy, Mr. JD Jacks. And it had also opened up the game to yet another player - his enemy's only brother, Jax. In fact, their joint invitation to join him in this particular game had already been issued, and he had no doubt that both men would eagerly accept it. After all, they both wanted to claim the prize that was at stake here - the woman who was just beginning to awaken in the adjoining suite. Unfortunately for them, there was no way that either brother could win, as he held all the cards…

This dream was more vivid than any she'd had before…

She could smell the scent of wild orchids and fresh mangoes and papayas carried on the warm tropical breeze that she felt ruffling her hair and tickling her nose. And she could hear the calls of exotic birds, twittering as they welcomed the dawn of a new day. She stretched, and the cool sheets beneath her felt like she was cocooned in a soft layer of fluffy cotton balls.

She snuggled in deeper, relishing the warmth and the safety she felt. It had been so long since she'd felt this safe. She liked this dream…

As she drifted deeper and deeper, she could hear the trill of a child's happy laughter edging ever closer to her. She smiled, knowing that her sweet baby was nearby, waiting to jump into her arms. She stretched and sleepily opened her eyes, instinctively knowing that she was still dreaming, yet somehow feeling that this was reality nevertheless. Peering over the side of the bed she saw the now familiar curly mop of dark hair just beyond her reach and looked down to see those incredible blue eyes and bright smile gazing adoringly up at her. "Mama!" the toddler squealed, as Brenda held her arms out to scoop her into her lap, but the child slipped through Brenda's grasp, laughing at the game she was playing.

"It's time to get up, Brenda," she heard familiar voices crooning, and she sat up quickly, eager to face the ones who were calling to her. She saw them then - JD and Jax, the ones who held her heart. She smiled as they came closer to her, their arms outstretched for her. Their smiles were identical and for a brief moment they looked almost as if they were one person - two halves of the same whole; one dark, one fair, but both inexorably intertwined with one another and with her, and each holding a part of her heart forever.

They stopped just beyond the bed by the child, who continued to giggle as she played and danced at their feet. Simultaneously, they both bent to stroke the child's dark curls, two sets of incredible blue eyes gazing into an equally incredible set of blue eyes, and each man giving the toddler a gentle kiss on the top of her head before standing in tandem to once again face Brenda.

She smiled, her arms outstretched, beckoning all three of them to come to her, but they shook their heads. "No, it's you who must come to us. It's your choice, not ours," they said, their voices blending so well that at times it seemed as though only one was talking to her, though both mouths were moving.

She hesitated. She'd been through so much, and she finally felt safe and comfortable where she was. Why couldn't they just come to her?

Together they frowned at her hesitation. "You have to find your own way, Brenda. We can only do so much; the rest is up to you." At their feet, the toddler stopped playing and looked up expectantly, her chubby arms reaching for Brenda.

She knew what she had to do, but as Brenda tried to go to them, she was suddenly unable to move. The bed, which moments ago had been her haven, had now become her prison; the cool, soft cotton sheets became as cold and as hard as steel as they wrapped around her body, tying her fast against the bed.

She heard the child burst into tears and she looked up in horror to see a dark figure walking toward her baby. She tried to scream for Jax and JD to protect her baby, but she couldn't make a sound and they seemed oblivious to the impending danger. She fought against the restraints to get to her child, but her attempts were futile and she watched helplessly as the dark figure scooped the crying toddler into his arms.

Then she watched in horror as the dark figure turned his attention to Jax and JD, and as he cast his dismal pall across both Jax and JD, they both fell to the ground, bright red blood pouring from identical wounds in their now inseparable bodies. Then the darkness slowly swallowed them up, and there was nothing left for her except endless emptiness and pain.

"It's up to you, Brenda," she heard a familiar voice whisper into the dark nothingness that now surrounded her. "This is all up to you… You're the one in control…" And as she felt the darkness shrink around her, slowly suffocating her in its tenacious grasp, she finally realized that the voice was her own.

She fought to wake up from the endless void that seemed to be swallowing her. "It's only a dream!" she reminded herself. "It's not real… It can't be real…" But as she slowly emerged from the unconscious world to the conscious one, the nightmares that had plagued even her waking life as of late began to re-emerge. She closed her eyes tighter as her last conscious memory suddenly came flooding back to her in horridly vivid color- the sight of the bullet tearing through her captor's head, splattering blood on everything, including on her. She could still feel the warm stickiness as it sprayed over her, and she tried feverishly to wipe it off, but it seemed to have stained her flesh just as it had surely stained her soul.

The memories of both her dream and her most recent reality proved overwhelming for Brenda, and she suddenly felt as if she were suffocating. She sat up, clawing desperately at the sheets that surrounded her, gasping for air, as she tried to bring herself fully into the light of consciousness.

She abruptly opened her eyes wide and looked frantically around at her surroundings, which felt strangely familiar to her. She was in a bed in an opulently appointed room that was decorated entirely in white. The only splashes of color came from the vases of tropical flowers and bowls of fresh fruit that were everywhere. The smell that they imparted was heavenly and soothing, and she realized that this was the smell that had permeated the beginning of her dream.

She shook her head, trying to banish the rest of her dream from her mind, but as she became more fully awake the dream seemed to become more real to her. Her eyes scanned the room and she realized why everything seemed so familiar to her: this had been the setting of her dream.

She heard movement behind her, as a door opened and closed and heavy footsteps slowly edged came toward her, and she suddenly wondered what more from her dream had followed her to her waking world? Her answer came only seconds later.

"Ah, you're finally awake, my beautiful one," she heard a slightly accented, male voice croon from directly behind her.

She felt the fear she'd known in her dream slowly overtake her once again as she hesitantly turned, coming face to face with the dark stranger of her dream…