Most of the conversations focused on security of the palace, meetings about security of the palace, or changes in security of the palace. Nothing stuck out to Parker as unusual until she walked by an office with two men in a heated discussion. She immediately recognized the first man as the Vice President. The man he argued with looked like one of the staff members since he wore the same crisp, white uniform everyone else did.
She walked by the door as quickly and quietly as she could, stopping once she reached the other side so she could listen, translating their conversation in her mind.
“They are going to find out about the cat.”
“They aren’t intelligent enough to put that together. You shouldn’t worry so much.”
“You and I both know what he’ll do if this is uncovered.”
Parker knew her Portuguese was spot on and there was no doubt in her mind she translated what they said perfectly. But what the hell did it mean, she wondered.
“Mrs. Miller,” a familiar, booming voice echoed in the hall behind her, causing her to jump and turn around. “You look lovely this afternoon.”
Parker easily masked the look of guilt on her face and smiled politely at Fernandez.
“Thank you, Mr. President. I hope you don’t mind. I was just enjoying some of your art pieces before our late lunch,” she said, the lie easily rolling off of her tongue.
Fernandez stared at her with a smile on his face, but it wasn’t one of joy. He was using it to cover up his irritation because she was wandering around alone.
“And which piece have you enjoyed the most?” he asked her, attempting to trip her up, most likely knowing full well she hadn’t been paying a bit of attention to any of the paintings or sculptures as she wandered.
Parker had spent the better part of eight years studying this man. She knew the name and location of every single piece in the palace, along with how much it cost and the date it was purchased. She didn’t need to pay attention to her surroundings to know how to answer his question.
“I am particularly fond of the Salazar, 'Unscathed Earth', in the northwest corner of the third floor, next to the executive office balcony,” Parker replied confidently, raising one of her eyebrows in challenge.
If Fernandez was ruffled by her knowledge, he didn’t show it.
“I do believe we should be heading down to the dining room. It would be a pleasure to escort you,” he replied, bending his elbow for her to take.
Parker had a feeling he didn’t really care about being a gentleman, he just didn’t want her snooping around anymore. She wondered if the guards would get a good tongue lashing later for not stopping her.
Garrett stood up from his place at the table as Parker entered the room on Fernandez’s arm. He’d spent the better part of the last two hours wondering if something had happened to her. The only thing that kept him calm was the subtle, clean smell of her soap from the shower and the exotic scent of her coconut perfume she’d sprayed while getting ready in their room. It permeated the air when he finally let himself in after wallowing down by the pool for an hour after she left.
Fernandez walked Parker over to Garrett’s side and he greeted her with a kiss on her cheek. The dress she wore clung to every inch of her curves and showed off a generous amount of cleavage, and Garrett had to remind himself that it would be inappropriate to maul her at the dinner table.
“I found your wife roaming the palace unaccompanied, so I thought I’d escort her back to your care,” Fernandez said as Garrett pulled Parker’s chair out for her.
The condescending way he spoke of Parker, making it seem like she’d sneaked away from her husband without permission, made her curl her fists in anger.
Garrett nodded his head in thanks and put his hand over Parker’s fist that rested in her lap so he could try and calm her down. He knew full well that comment would bring her claws out, and it would be incredibly hard for her not to say something snarky to the man in response.
“Thank you for the use of the pool today, Mr. President. It must be wonderful to have such a beautiful retreat right in your own backyard,” Garrett told him as one of the waiters began serving lunch.
“I’m happy you were able to take advantage of it. I’m afraid with my busy schedule I’m not afforded much free time to appreciate my surroundings. I was informed that you and Mrs. Miller had a wonderful day and that you were able to find a little privacy from the guards,” Fernandez said simply with a sly smile aimed at Garrett.
This time it was Garrett’s turn to curl his hands into fists at Fernandez’s blatant admission that he’d been told exactly what he and Parker had done that day. It disgusted him and made him want to punch the smug look off of the man’s face for thinking he could just take advantage of them like that.
Parker was just as enraged as Garrett was at the President’s words, but she quickly changed the subject to diffuse the tension in the room.
They made a good team, even if neither one of them could admit it.
When lunch was over they made their way up to the President’s office. Parker stopped in the suite along the way and picked up her camera.
Fernandez sat down behind a giant oak desk, pointing to the chair directly in front of it for Garrett. He pulled out a small tape recorder, a notebook, and a pen and began the interview.
Parker attached the new lens Garrett had bought her for her birthday to the end of her camera, adjusted the settings for the dimly lit office, and began circling the room, taking random pictures. She listened to Garrett’s questions, knowing that none of them would cause the President to slip in any way. But at least the interview had gotten them close to him, close enough to know he wasn’t what he seemed.
Garrett watched Parker out of the corner of his eye as she slowly and quietly took pictures of the President during the interview. The new lens allowed her to zoom in so close to items that she could see particles of dust on them. Parker made sure to snap a photo of every single piece of paper in the room. She knew the President wouldn’t be careless enough to leave something laying around that would blatantly point a finger at him; she just needed a clue―something that could tie him to the missing girls or to what happened to Milo.
Luckily, Parker was behind the man when Garrett saw the small look of surprise on her face as she stared at something on Fernandez’s desk. He didn’t pause or lose his concentration at all while he asked Fernandez what made him run for office, still watching Parker as her breath quickened and she slowly lowered the camera from her face concentrating whatever it was she had noticed.
Parker shook the fog from her head and quickly pulled the camera back up to her face before Fernandez noticed the clicking behind him had stopped. She adjusted the focus ring, set the shutter speed, and zoomed in as close as she could, snapping several pictures before walking back around to the front of the desk as if nothing was amiss.
The interview concluded a half hour later, and Garrett thanked Fernandez for his time and the use of the palace. The three of them walked down the front steps together, Fernandez being whisked off in one vehicle while Parker and Garrett were placed in another, along with their bags.
Garrett watched Parker’s knee bounce nervously the entire ride back to the resort. Whatever it was she saw in that office had put her on edge. Given the use of recording devices in their room, he wasn’t about to question her in the palace’s car. The limo dropped them off at the front entrance and the driver handed their bags over to one of the resort staff before pulling away.
“What’s going on, Parker?” Garrett whispered as they walked across the resort to their room. “What did you see back in that office?”
Before Parker could answer him, they were at their door and the staffer unlocked it for them, placing their bags at the foot of the bed. Garrett tipped him and waited until the door before turning back to Parker with a questioning look.
“Just…give me a second,” she said with a frazzled wave of her hand as she quickly rounded the end of the bed and
grabbed her laptop off of the table by the window. Her knee continued to bounce nervously as she waited for the computer to power up, finally opening Google and typing in the name she’d seen on the matchbook on the edge of the President’s desk. As soon as she saw it her blood had run cold and a flash of memory shot through her mind.
Parker had let herself into Garrett and Milo’s apartment and shouted a greeting as she shut the door behind her. She had just flown in from Puerto Rico and her first ever assignment as a CIA agent. She was exhausted, but she’d promised the boys she’d stop by for dinner. The three of them had just signed the lease to the small ranch they’d be sharing in another month, but for now, Parker had her own apartment a few miles away from them. Parker and Milo had been dating for almost a year, and for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was part of a family. She could never deny Garrett or Milo anything they asked. Even if it meant coming to their apartment straight off of a three and a half hour flight from Puerto Rico to Washington, DC for debriefing and then another almost four hour flight from DC to California.
Milo came out into the living room as she dropped her bags on the floor by the door, double-checking to make sure she'd removed the destination tags from the handles before she turned to greet Milo.
"Hey, babe," he said as he kissed her cheek. "How was your trip? Get some good pictures?"
They walked over to the couch to sit down, and Parker put her feet up in Milo's lap.
"It was good. The weather was beautiful," she told him as he untied her shoes and removed them for her.
She'd learned one of the main tricks of leading a double life was to stick to the truth as much as possible. It had been nice in Puerto Rico. And according to the Weather Channel, it had also been nice in Mexico, where Milo thought she'd been.
Milo told her to relax as he got up from the couch to take a frozen pizza out of the oven. She opened the drawer of the table next to the couch to pull out the remote to the TV. As she picked it up, she noticed a blue matchbook with the name "Occidental El Embajador" etched on it in silver. She had been in the same drawer just four days ago and it had been empty, save for the remote. She pulled the matches out and turned them over in her hand, the cover flipping open with the movement. A date and time was scrawled in Milo's handwriting on the inside. It was for two days ago.
Milo walked back into the room and stopped when he saw what was in her hand.
"Hey, where did these come from?" Parker asked curiously.
Milo smiled and hurried over to take them out of her hand and push them into the pocket of his pants.
"Oh, just from some club we went to a few years ago."
Milo had smoothly changed the subject back to Parker's trip and her photography, the matchbook quickly forgotten.
Until now.
Parker had been young and new to the CIA at the time. She had no reason to question her boyfriend, of one year, about whether or not he'd been lying.
The sight of a blue matchbook with "Occidental El Embajador" peeking out under a pile of papers on Fernandez's desk was too much of a coincidence to her.
Garrett listened as Parker retold the story of the day she came home from her first mission and watched her frantically type away on the keyboard..
"He told me it was a club he'd been to, and the way he said it made me just assume it was someplace the two of you had been," Parker said as she waited for the website hits to pull up.
"I've never heard of it before. It's definitely not a place I ever went with him."
The only hit was a hotel an hour outside of Punta Cana, where they were currently located. She clicked on it.
"Maybe that place has a club inside it," Garrett suggested as he looked over her shoulder, grasping at straws. He didn't want his best friend to be guilty of something. That wasn't the point of the trip. They were there to find out why he died, not to accuse him of something else entirely.
Parker didn't see a listing for a club anywhere on the website and a quick call to the hotel confirmed that. It also confirmed that the hotel was roughly three miles from the palace.
"Okay, so he lied about it being a club, not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things," Garrett said, an inkling of doubt worming its way into his mind as much as he tried to avoid it.
"It doesn't explain why he had a book of matches from a place right down the road from the palace though. And according to his military records, he was never sent to the Dominican before his final assignment."
Garrett shrugged. "It's probably just a coincidence."
Parker was getting frustrated with Garrett’s nonchalance about the entire thing. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him as he casually walked to the side table and picked up the remote for the TV.
“Jesus, Garrett. You don’t find it a little suspect that Milo had matches from a place seven years before he supposedly first went there?” Parker asked as she tapped away at the keys.
Garrett huffed in annoyance and tossed the remote back onto the table where it landed with a clatter. He stalked over to his bag at the foot of the bed and began yanking things out of it roughly just to give him something to do.
“The matches Milo had listed a date and time on them from two days before I found them. It was Milo’s handwriting. He met someone here in the Dominican. I know he did,” Parker said as she turned from her computer to watch Garrett empty his overnight bag.
Garrett would have known if Milo ever went to the Dominican. As his superior for most of their career, he was privy to all of the missions he was sent on. And as his friend, Milo confided in him about everything.
He glanced quickly at Parker as she stared at him and realized Milo hadn’t confided in him about everything. He’d failed to mention the fights he’d been having with his fiancé and how distant they’d become. Not only that but Milo had looked him straight in the eye and lied to him about it.
Everything about this situation pissed Garrett off and made him feel like he didn’t have any control. When he was on a mission, he was in charge. He led his team, he made decisions, and he always knew what he was getting into. Now the rug was being pulled out from under Garrett with every turn. It frustrated him, pissed him off, and made him want to lash out. Unfortunately, Parker was the only one there to take the brunt of it.
Garrett picked up his empty duffel bag and flung it across the room, wishing he had something heavier within reach to throw.
He faced Parker with his hands on his hips, the fury rolling off of him in waves.
“So, because you guys were having a few problems, you’ve suddenly decided to turn this mission into a way to...what? Find out if he was cheating on you? Dig up some dirt on him to make yourself feel better?” Garrett said heatedly. “All of a sudden you want to make him out to be the bad guy. Have you already forgotten who he was to us? Just a few short months of doubt and you’re ready to turn him into the enemy.”
Parker sat there staring at Garrett with a complete look of shock on her face. She knew from the first moment he said he was doing this mission it was going to be a strain on him. She lived with Milo; she had to deal with his ever changing attitude and emotions day in and day out. It was gradual and didn’t happen all at once. This was the first time Garrett was witness to the fact that Milo might not have been everything they thought he was. Parker knew it was a hard pill to swallow, but she’d had time to get used to the idea. Everything was being thrown at Garrett all at once, so she tried to keep her frustration with him to a minimum.
“I really hope you aren’t serious right now,” Parker said, standing up from the table and walking towards him. “I am not trying to turn Milo into the enemy. You don’t know me very well if you think any of this is making me feel better.”
Garrett knew he should shut up before things got worse, but once he started, he couldn’t stop. He watched Parker walk across the room to him and all the years of lies and regret were suddenly too much to bear. The doubt that was eating away at the friendship he’d had for
almost sixteen years was crushing him, and the confusion over what was happening between Parker and him was breaking Garrett in two.
"Oh, I know you plenty, sweetheart. Is making Milo out to be the bad guy a way to ease your guilty conscience about what you did in the pool today?" he said icily.
The sound of the slap across his face echoed in the room before he actually felt the blow of Parker’s hand connecting with his cheek. He reached up to rub the sting from his face, knowing he deserved the pain and more but unable to take back anything he said. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but he needed to get it all out, and Parker was the only one there to listen.
"About what I did?” Parker repeated with an angry whisper as she stood a foot away from Garrett with her hands clenched angrily at her sides. She was shaking with fury and her throat was closing up with the burn of unshed tears.
“I get that you’re angry, and you’re confused, but don’t you dare put the blame for what happened today at the pool all on me. You were just as much of an equal participant as I was. I am not about to feel guilty for what happened today, even if you are.”
Garrett kept his head down, refusing to look at Parker. He could hear the hurt and anguish in her voice, and it tore his heart to shreds knowing he was the one who put it there. She was right. He was feeling guilty for betraying his friend and for thinking just for a moment that Milo was this totally different person who had secrets and lies that Garrett knew nothing about. He was taking it out on Parker and he had no right to do that.
“I am here for one reason and for one reason only,” Parker continued angrily. “And that is to find out the truth. Good or bad. You want to pretend like nothing happened today at the pool or last night in bed, fine. You want to look me in the eye and tell me that touching me, kissing me…” Parker faltered, “That it meant nothing to you and it was all part of the show we were putting on for the President, go for it. But if that’s how you want to play it, then when we’re finished with this mission, you stay the fuck away from me,” Parker told him with a sob in her voice.
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