Part Two

“Want to join us, Parker?” Sydney asked, lifting an eyebrow as he glanced up from his hand of cards. The brunette had just wandered back inside from the short walk she had taken around the grounds. Grabbing a bottle of water, she raised an eyebrow at the psychiatrist.

“Poker, Syd?” her words were dry but filled with amusement. Casting a quick glance at Debbie, she smirked as the girl called the hand. She watched quietly as each player laid down his or her hand, taking great pride in the fact that her young protégé took the game.

“Clearly you’ve played with Debbie before,” Sydney replied, corners of his lips quirking upward.

Debbie crowed with delight, leapt from her chair, and danced toward Miss Parker. “See? I remembered! I can’t wait until I can lure Daddy into a game!”

Laughing, Parker grinned indulgently at the girl. “Might need to wait a while for that, Debbie. I’m not sure his heart can handle it! He’s not overly fond of the fact that his little Debbie is all grown up.” Debbie smiled happily, tugging at Parker’s hand and shaking her head.

“Come on and play with us, Miss Parker,” Debbie continued as the pair neared the two empty seats at the end. “She taught me how,” the girl added, explaining her skills unnecessarily to Ben and Sydney. “Who taught you?”

With a chuckle, she answered, “Lots of places, Debbie,” pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts. She eyed the table, taking in the bowls of M&Ms set near each player. Clearly, they had found a much more tasty form of betting. “Jarod, Angelo – Timmy,” she corrected, “and I used to play cards in the air vents. Before Mama died, anyway. I don’t think we ever played poker, probably didn’t know how then. When my father sent me away to school, it’s one of the things we did on weekends.” Sydney watched her shrug carefully, knowing the weight of angst she carried over the years she had been away. She had never discussed her years away, aside from a few brief and sarcastic comments, but the defensive posture she maintained indicated that it had not been a particularly pleasant time.

“Where did you go to school?” Debbie asked, cocking her head to the side with a curious expression gleaming in her eyes. The girl was wearing an outfit remarkably like that of the older woman’s – blue tank top and black jeans to Parker’s light blue blouse and dark slacks.

Laughing lightly, Parker took the deck of cards from her hands and began to shuffle them. “Lots of places, really. Daddy sent me to a boarding school in New Hampshire about a year and a half after my mother died. I was younger than you, then. I stayed there for a few years but it was miserable. Daddy finally sent me to a place in London where I finished high school. We played a lot of cards, did some fencing, a few other things. There wasn’t much in the way of options; we weren’t allowed off the grounds without an adult escort. Daddy only came a few times a year, and I didn’t have anyone else.” Hearing Sydney’s sharp intake of breath, she added, “Anyone who knew where Daddy had sent me, anyway.”

Sydney ventured a guess, “Somehow, I don’t imagine that stopped you, Parker. You were always a curious child.”

With a grin, she shook her head. “No, it didn’t. Daddy had to build them a new library to keep me enrolled my last year there.” Before anyone could ask her what she had done, the woman continued, “No I won’t tell you why. Let’s just say I had my reasons for what I did, and luckily a few people knew that.”

“Did you go to college?” Debbie questioned, watching the older woman cut the deck. Tapping the stack to the left, she passed the cards to the girl and folded her hands together.

“Yes, I did. In California and Japan,” her posture relaxed a little, and she reached for the bag of M&Ms to pour herself out a pile.

So that’s how she met Tommy Tanaka. A Centre-funded education that took her to his hometown, Sydney thought, nodding discretely to himself.

“Did you always want to work at that place?” the girl continued, dealing out cards to her three companions, then herself. “And what do you do there, anyway?”

Flashing back to a conversation with Thomas a few years before, she gave the answer she had given him then: “I’m a problem solver, Debbie. A trouble shooter,” Miss Parker paused, “No. No, I wanted to be a lawyer. A prosecutor. I had great dreams of putting the bad guys in jail and saving the good guys.”

“So, why didn’t you?” Ben asked, knowing – at least in part – the answer before she spoke.

“I grew up and realized that the bad guys don’t always wear black hats,” Parker replied, shoulders tensing slightly. “Daddy called me back to the Centre and offered me a position overseeing the Security Division. It would make him so proud to have me working with him, his only child, his legacy,” the last words were lower and a touch bitter. “So I came back to Blue Cove.”

“You could be a lawyer now, Miss Parker,” Debbie pointed out, picking up her cards and gesturing for the others to do the same.

Glancing over the five cards in her hand, the brunette shook her head. “There are some dreams, Debbie, that are better left behind.”

Somehow, Sydney and Ben both sensed that she was talking about far more than career choices.

--

Debbie’s curiosity, Parker realized later in the night, made her feel important. Made her feel like she mattered. With the exception of Tommy, no one had ever asked her about her college years or her time spent in boarding school. No one cared enough to be curious. Debbie’s innocent questions, she smiled, staring out the bedroom window, gave her a taste of what motherhood might be like. As quickly as the thought made her smile, a frown took its place. The things I have done, the mistakes I have made, the people I have hurt… should never be known to a child. The brunette sighed, arms wrapped around her middle as she sat in the window seat, I will not let my child live a life of lies and betrayal. It doesn’t matter who your father is, little girl. Your mama will keep you safe from that place and their poison. Nobody better, she thought bitterly, I’ve been party to it for years.

Before they had left, she and Major Charles had agreed not to attempt contact until after they had decrypted the blue box Friday night. Staring up at the star-peppered sky, Miss Parker cursed her insomnia for giving her mind more time to wander into territory she considered dangerous. She felt out of sorts, restless in a way she had not known for years.

Lonely, Parker acknowledged. It was a bone-deep, abiding sense of loneliness she had known only twice in her life: at the death of her mother and the death of her lover. In the last few days and nights, she had been able to chase away the dark edge of sadness as it eased over her. At first, Debbie’s need for companionship and a steady anchor had enabled her to keep her head above the water. Then, Sydney’s guiding hand and reassuring words mixed in with memories of her mother had made her feel like less of an outsider. And finally, Major Charles… the man who was so much like the Jarod she had once known, the one who had not hurt and betrayed her, withheld information and taunted her with knowledge he would not share. Sighing, Parker grimaced. Major Charles had been both a distraction and a friend in the days since she had first shown up on his doorsteps, moreso in the last few than before. To him she had been able to say the things she was not sure how to share with Sydney or Broots, knowing that they needed her to be strong enough to push them through the endeavor they had undertaken. With him, her friend, and her brother in Denver, and Sydney, Ben and Debbie asleep downstairs, Parker was without companionship and a confidante, and her bones ached with need. Need for what, exactly, she wasn’t sure, but something. What she wanted, she could not have, and it seemed that in that moment she did not even have the option to settle for anything else.

Mama? Your voice has been silent for days, Parker thought, biting her bottom lip. I hope what we’re doing is the right thing. No, I know it’s the right thing, I’m just not sure if the way we’re doing it is the best way. It just seems like it’s the only way. I don’t know what we’re going to find in those files, Mama… but it’s big, isn’t it, what they’re hiding? Letting her eyes droop closed, Parker leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window and slid her arms tighter around herself. I need you, Mama; I’m scared.

--

“That went precisely according to plan,” Jim acknowledged, nodding his head as the three men took seats around the hotel suite. “I’ve already picked up a test signal from the transmitter.”

A look of sheer panic crossed Broots’ face. “Wa…was that the best idea?”

Shrugging carelessly, the boy smirked. “It’s a transmitter with a 6.6 mile radius and can be accessed online. I set up a simple masking number to cover the dedicated IP the hotel was assigned. Even if they did find the transmitter, which they won’t, and they did realize someone had accessed it, which they won’t, it would take them more than a day to crack the mask and track the IP back to the hotel. We’ll be gone long before that’s ever a concern.”

Sucking in a deep breath, Broots nodded, conceding the point. He bent to untie his black sneakers as the other man continued.

“My plan for tomorrow night isn’t as detailed,” Major Charles spoke pointedly, eyes drifting from Jim to Broots, then to Ethan. The final man did not meet his eyes, instead staring out the window into the darkness of the street below. “There will be security guards and sweepers, likely computer personnel as well. We’re going to have to get in and out as quickly as possible, which means not going in until minutes before the backup is planned.”

“How… wh-what if we get caught?” Broots asked, holding his tennis shoes close against his body.

“We won’t,” the older man shook his head, taking a deep breath. Hesitating slightly, he continued, “I was able to get my hands on an incapacitating agent that we will begin delivering through the ventilation system at 11:28pm in a small but continuous vapor. Each of us will be armed with a gas mask, but when we enter the storage facility at 11:50, the gas will have dissipated enough that it won’t have much effect on anyone entering. If we continue dosing them, it could have long-term consequences to their health. Ethan will monitor the gas output while you and I, Mr. Broots, head into the storage facility. Once we reach the backroom,” he lifted a pen from the bedside table and walked toward the larger table across the room, “you’ll wire the blue box and the connected sister module to the necessary hardware for decryption and the decryption scheme. Once that is done, install the component the three of you designed for remote monitoring. You’ll have nine minutes. At 12:02, the files should be decrypted, all components installed. Ethan will release the gas into the ventilation system again, just to ensure our safe exit. At 12:05, the remote monitoring service light should begin blinking. As soon as it does, we exit through the ventilation shaft we’ll be entering through. Jim will stay here and monitor security and work on the decryption code he’s designed. We should be back here by 12:28am,” he tapped the pen against the blueprints on the table. “One hour, boys. Then back home for a little while. Hopefully, Jarod got my message and will keep the Centre occupied until we can return to the house and work on the next stages of our plan.”

Jim closed the laptop quietly, sliding it to the floor beside the bed he was propped on. Turning to his side, the boy placed his hand under his head and watched his father. “The Centre jet took off for a town outside of Grand Rapids at 8 o’clock last night,” he offered, receiving a nod in reply.

Ethan continued staring out the window, whispered voices echoing, blending in his ears. He could not make out any words or phrases, merely a restless clamoring of one voice to be heard over another. Raines’ training technique had exposed what might have been a natural gift, but had twisted it into something Ethan could not control or always even understand. When he saw visions, he tried to fulfill them. When he heard directions, he tried to follow them. Ethan could hear a variety of things his sister could not due to Raines’ tampering with his mind. But Parker had the clarity he lacked, an ability to piece together the visions and Inner Sense to determine what the essence of the matter was. She could translate what he often missed.

He was used to the hissing and mumbling, always right below the surface of consciousness. However, in the last half-hour the voices had grown louder, more frustrated. No words were communicated, no warning obvious. A general sense of sadness had settled over him as he listened, and Ethan knew the mood shift was somehow linked to his sister. Closing his eyes, he placed his hands against the cold glass and tried to imagine her before him. If he could just see her, he thought he could determine what was wrong.

“Ethan?” Major Charles spoke, a hand coming to rest on the young man’s shoulder. Eyes flying open, he stumbled backward into his father and spun away from the glass. “What’s wrong?”

Shaking his head, Ethan sighed. “Nothing, Dad. Just… my sister is sad, I think.”

Brow furrowed, Broots interrupted. “You can hear her?”

Ethan shook his head again. “No. I just… I just think she’s sad, that’s all.”

“It’s been a long few weeks for her,” Major Charles nodded, eyes resting on his son’s face as surely as his hands rested on his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed, looking to Jim who had fallen asleep on top of the covers. “I won’t leave her again, not after this,” he vowed, words settling around them like the blanket he went to throw over his brother.

A small smile graced the older man’s face. “Tomorrow, we head back. Hopefully with everything we need to ensure our safety – all of us. Maybe some of her answers, too.” He nodded once, then headed toward the next room to take to his own bed. Broots had not moved from the recliner, the words “incapacitating agent” running through his head. All those times Miss Parker told me to get a life…? I don’t think this is what she meant.