CHAPTER SIX The tall blond man looked down at the tiny blonde girl in his charge, and smiled, in spite of himself. She was probably around four or five--he wasn't absolutely certain, nor did he know a lot about her except that she loved frozen rainbow sherbet, grape flavored shaved ices, and that she was as bright a child as he'd ever met. In fact, he was wondering if she might be a teenager in disguise. She glanced up at him through slightly lowered eyelashes, and not for the first time, the man breathed a prayer of thanksgiving that he wasn't her father. This child was definitely going to be a handful when she grew up. Which, he paused to consider, was the problem. She was in danger. Real danger. The kind that might well keep her from growing up. "I have to go again, Daddy," the child said, flashing him a smile accented by a pair of deep set dimples. "You just went," he told her, wondering how anybody could want to harm an innocent child. "But I need to go again." "Not now, sweetheart. You know the rules." "Momma would let me go." "Momma isn't here." Seeing the pout on her childish lips, he counter offered, "How about tic-tac-toe again?" "You're too easy to beat, Daddy." The blond man grinned. "You're just too smart, Jillie." "That's what Momma says," Jillie confided. "Does that mean you aren't smart, or are you letting me beat you?" "That's a pretty grownup question from such a little girl." "I'm a pretty big little girl," Jillie observed, then continued. "Momma said that I have to be 'specially big 'til she comes to get me." "You're doing a great job so far." "So are you. Momma said that you aren't really a daddy." "I'm not." "But you're doing a good job. A real daddy wouldn't have let me go to the bathroom again, either." "That's comforting. So, you think we make a good team?" The little girl looked up and him and nodded. Then, her eyes twinkled. "Do you know who my real daddy is?" "No," he answered honestly. "Your Momma didn't tell me that." "Me, neither," she told him, only slightly forlorn. "But I heard Momma say that he has 'killer dimples'. Just like mine." "Jared," Marty began, without glancing up from her computer. "We appear to have a problem. A serious problem." "And what might that be?" "You know the honeymoon we'd decided to take soon?" "Don't tell me...business with pleasure?" "Maybe more business than pleasure," Marty grumbled. "You know, there are times when being on the side of law and order, being good guys is damned inconvenient." "Whom should we have killed when we had the chance?" Jared grinned. Marty, for all her calm reserve, could be as blood-thirsty as Anna Devane when it came to protecting those she loved. "Frank White." "What's he done now?" "He's disappeared." "You've had him under surveillance?" "Of course. Ever since he was released from the high security mental care facility. He tried to kill you and then copped an insanity plea. Now we both know that he'd been under treatment by Faison, who, is dead, but we can't be certain that Faison didn't do some serious mental damage like leave some sort of delayed order in the man's warped mind. He was fiendishly clever with hypnosis, and White was apparently an excellent subject. He had it in for you because he thought you killed Angela." "But Angela is in jail. I didn't kill her." "I know that, you know that, and Frank knows that, but instinct tells me that the psychiatrist assigned to his case may have missed something, though whether intentionally or not, I don't yet know." "Why do you say that?" "Because Dr. Wu is missing, too." "Wu, too?" Marty scowled. "We have to take this seriously, Jared. Wu's credentials were about to be challenged by a friend of mine when Wu vanished, and Wu had been the one to push White's early release." "Why the challenge?" "According to my friend, Wu's thesis was completely plagiarized. You see, my friend wrote the original paper on hypnosis and repressed memories that Wu lifted. His paper discussed and documented the fact that repressed memories freed by hypnosis aren't always valid. He proved that false 'memories' could be implanted in a subject who would then be unable to tell reality from implanted fiction. He argued that this was a form of mind control." "Interesting, considering that White may well have some false 'memories' implanted by Faison." "My point exactly, which means that there is a very real chance that White is a walking timebomb." "Was Wu the one who worked with White?" "Wu was which makes me more than a little uncomfortable, knowing what we now know. Who knew Wu would be assigned the job? Was this a backup plan? And, if so, who initiated it? Jared, we may be seeing only the tip of the iceberg here. And, between this, and the problems that Peter and Suzi have had--the car bomb, still no sign of their nephew, or his mother, along with the disappearance and presumed death of Brenda Barrett." Jared paused, hearing something in Marty's voice. "Disappearance and presumed death? We aren't certain yet? What did the autopsy show?" "Precious little," Marty told him. "A female of the approximate age and size. Dental records are being checked, but there's not a whole lot to go on. The body was all but completely cremated by the fire which was, in itself, suspicious, so the bone and tooth fragments are rather limited. Somebody died, Jared, but who and when must be considered in doubt, especially given what we know about Sonny Corinthos and his thirst for revenge." "I don't know which would be worse," Jared commented. "Being dead, or being alive and facing Sonny's vengeance." "I'm not shaving my head," Lucky told Luke who was standing in front of the three teenagers, holding saffron colored robes. "It ain't gonna happen." "No way, Jose," Jer added. "I'm not into bald." Nik just shook his head and silently turned away, wondering what sort of insanity had made him Luke's son. This couldn't be happening. He caught what he considered a demented twinkle in Luke's eyes, and asked, "You aren't serious, are you?" "Serious as a heart attack," Luke answered. "Everybody in Switzerland is looking for a guy with three homely daughters. Pretty soon, it will come out that I'm Luke Spencer, and that I only have one daughter who's definitely not a teenager. Then, it will be extrapolated from there that you guys may be my sons, and that the other kid might be the one I mentioned to the gendarmes that I saw before and therefore that I may be traveling with three teenaged boys. That means that if we intend to stay free, we either call for help from known sources--the Cassadines, from whom you just escaped, or some of our other friends. Or, we hide in plain sight. The former ties our hands and turns Jer over to the authorities. The latter keeps us free a while longer." "Going bald in yellow robes is hiding in plain sight?" Lucky was incensed. "Get real, Dad. I'm not shaving my @#$%^&* head." Nik nodded thoughtfully. Whether he liked it or not, Luke had a point, and, hair would regrow. Besides, he hated wearing wigs, and definitely didn't want to get back into the media spotlight. "He's right, Lucky. Nobody would expect us to shave our heads. Wigs, fake mustaches, and like that, yes. This, no. Okay......" Nik met Luke's eyes, and said, "Let's do it." Luke grinned. "There's definitely a Spencer in there somewhere. Come on, Son. Time to chrome the domes." Julia Barrett looked around her, wondering if she'd done the right thing, and knowing that while it was the right thing on one level, if she lived through her current set of problems, she'd have a whole new assortment waiting for her back in Port Charles. She prayed that her friend wouldn't fail her, that he'd be able to do as she'd asked. Port Charles might be dangerous, but it could provide the safest haven in the storm that threatened the safety of the sweetest thing that had ever happened to Julia, the same storm that had apparently taken the life of her sister, Brenda. "And if I don't see you again, Jillie," Julia whispered into the crisp Swiss air, "then Jamie knows what to do. He'll take you to your real Daddy." Julia hugged her arms tightly around herself, wondering how she'd ever gotten involved in this mess, then how she'd ever get out. It had all seemed so reasonable at the time, so uncomplicated, so rational. And then, she'd begun to see the flaws in the plan, the evasions, the lies that her former partners had told. She'd suspected illegalities, but when she'd gone to investigate the financial side, the accidents had begun. Then the threats came. Then Brenda's death. But, Julia wouldn't let them take this battle to her tiny daughter, wouldn't let them involve her in any way. She'd give the child to the father who knew nothing of her existence first, a man who still haunted Julia's dreams. Jillian Rose must be protected at all cost. Julia would never allow her daughter to be used as a pawn to secure her mother's cooperation. Never.