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Chapter or Story
Part 3 – Andante
Jarod pulled a chair out from the table and dropped into it with a sigh.
“Tired?” his father asked.
“Worried.”
“Join the club.”
Glancing up, Jarod noticed the expression that was on his father’s face and understood it immediately. “Dad, I’m sorry. We had nowhere else to go.”
“I’m not mad at you, son. I just don’t know how much we can trust them.”
He didn’t explain whom he meant by ‘them’ and Jarod didn’t need him to. “I trust them both, especially now.”
“Why now more than before?”
Jarod pulled out the laptop that he had placed, the night before, in the boat. He had been planning to disappear from the house while Miss Parker had been still asleep but the events of the morning had prevented that. Thus, he had had both his computer and DSA case, as well as his bags, with him when they had sped away from the house and now he was grateful for that. Opening the computer, he typed in the necessary code and was instantly connected to the Centre’s mainframe. While he did so, he told his father about what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. By the end of his explanation, the look of concern had left the older man’s face.
“Jarod, what did you bring me?”
The Pretender looked over his shoulder with a startled look on his face and then laughed as he saw the pleading look on his clone’s face. Standing up, he reached over and pulled a bag towards him, yanking out a plastic supermarket bag and throwing it across to his younger self.
“You’re the best!” The boy threw himself across the room and Jarod, had he not been prepared for such a reaction, would have been knocked over.
“One thing,” he spoke with an attempt at sternness.
“You have to share!”
“Not with you?” The boy looked down at the bag with the expression of a miser meeting a tax collector.
“No!” Jarod laughed. “With Dad.”
The boy heaved a sigh of relief, laughed and ran out of the room.
“He looks good,” Jarod turned to his father. “So do you.”
“And so does Emily,” Major Charles smiled. “She’ll be home soon and you’ll be able to see her then.”
Jarod looked down at his hands for a moment as he reseated himself. “Dad… is there any sign of… Mom?”
“Not yet.” Major Charles sighed. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with her since we last met, but I haven’t had any luck. And I take it you haven’t either?”
Jarod shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t even know where to start looking, and I didn’t want to contact Harriet Tashman again in case the Centre was still keeping tabs on her.”
“The Centre…” Major Charles trailed off. “Why would they want to murder this technician and his daughter? What reason could they possibly have for it?”
Jarod looked past his father, out of the window. “What reason do they have for anything they do? They just do it.” He reached down and started up the computer that had put itself into safety mode while they had been talking. As he was about to execute a program, a voice informed him that he had mail. Typing in the password, he heard his father voice the question that he was asking himself.
“Who could be sending you mail now?”
“Angelo, maybe?” Jarod murmured as he waited for the message.
“Well, who’s it from?”
Major Charles’ voice cut across Jarod's silence.
“Broots.” The answer was half choked and Jarod continue to stare at the screen with wide eyes.
“What?!”
“It was a time-delayed email message that he sent to me yesterday – less than an hour before Miss Parker said he was killed.”
“And what’s in it?”
“I haven’t opened it, yet.”
Jarod continued to stare at the screen in astonishment until his father got edgy and clapped his hands in front of his son’s eyes. Blinking once or twice, Jarod reached forward and activated the attachment. Immediately the screen began to fill with pages and pages of data, all of which the pretender scanned rapidly.
“What is it?”
”Business deal – and contracts.” Jarod's eyes lighted on the final few details, all of which were highlighted in red. “Including…” He choked and couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Son,” Major Charles spoke softly, “what is it?”
“Including the one on his own life, Miss Parker's and Sydney's.” He looked up at his father. “He got into that car, knowing that he was going to die in it. He got into it because he knew it would give Miss Parker and Sydney the chance to survive.”
The boy stepped into the room and walked over to the bed, offering Miss Parker a piece of candy from his new PEZ dispenser as he felt for Sydney's pulse. She shook her head and smiled at him.
“Have you decided on a name yet?” Her voice was soft, much as he remembered it from the discussion they had had in the cell.
“Kind of,” the boy shrugged. “I have so many to choose from. It’s not every kid who gets to pick what he’s called.”
“I know a really good name.”
“Really, what?”
“Steven.”
The boy thought about it for a moment. “Why is that such a good name?”
“Because it’s…it was the name of a very brave and kind man.”
“More brave than you know, Miss Parker.”
The soft voice from the doorway made the two conscious occupants in it turn.
“What do you mean, Jarod?”
She got up from the seat beside the bed and stepped over to him. He handed her the sheet of paper on which he had written some of the information that he had found in the email. Jarod slipped an arm around her waist and watched as the tears began to fill her eyes and slip down her cheeks. She buried her head in his shoulder and he looked across as his clone and nodded for him to go downstairs. The boy, his face suddenly serious, nodded in return and left the room.
“How did you,” Miss Parker sniffed and wiped her nose on the handkerchief that Jarod had pushed into her hand, “find out about it?”
“Broots sent it to me himself - in an email, before he was killed.”
They had stepped out of the room and Miss Parker felt her knees give way as she understood the statement that Jarod made. He caught her as she began to fall and held her tightly against himself. She gathered folds of his shirt in her hands and turned his face once more to his chest, sobbing violently as he swung her up in his arms and carried her into another room. It was his own room – the one his father had promised him – and Jarod put her down on the double bed before leaving to return with a glass of water. He sat down beside her and waited until she had exhausted herself slightly before helping her sit up and encouraging her to drink.
“He wouldn’t want you to react like this, Parker.”
“How do you know?” Her voice contained some of its old aggression and a new, emotional pitch.
“Because, if he had, he never would have sent me the information. He probably guessed what you would do and that’s why he sent it to me. That’s possibly also why he found my address for you – so you’d have somewhere to go.”
He got up from the bed and Miss Parker turned to him.
“Where are you going?”
“To check on Sydney. I’ll be right back.”
He pulled the door almost shut, leaving her the time she needed to cry out the worst of her emotions without him seeing it. Letting himself quietly into the other room, he turned to see that the anesthetic he had administered before he had commenced the operation had almost fully worn off. He didn’t want to give his mentor more sedative, but knew he had to do something so that the worst of the injury could be got over before the emotional burden had to be dealt with. Putting aside his personal wish, that Sydney could be awake so that Jarod could talk to him about what had happened, the Pretender allowed the professional side of his mind to take over and he administered the injection without a tremor. Checking the pulse, he was pleased to note that it was stronger than it had been and he nodded decisively before leaving the room once more.
The boy, his name now decided after a discussion with the man he called his father, allowed his feet to dangle over the edge of the veranda, but looked up as he heard footsteps. He saw the man he called his brother walking towards him, a look of deep sadness on his face. Steven moved over to make room for him.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
The Pretender nodded in response to this as if unsurprised and then sat down.
“Jarod?”
“Mmm?”
“Did he die a hero?”
Jarod thought for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Yes, he did.”
“And why?”
“Because he would have been scared by death, but didn’t let that stop him.”
“But didn’t the fact that he took his daughter with him count as murder?”
“No.” Jarod shook his head. “He knew that, if he was killed - and he would have been at some point, even if it hadn’t been then - his daughter would probably have been killed as well, or used by the Centre for one of their projects. By having her die with him, he probably saved her from a worse death or a terrible rest of her life. You do remember what it was like in that place, don’t you?”
The boy shuddered and nodded. Jarod put an arm around his shoulder and drew him close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think about it. I was just trying to make a point.”
“It’s okay.” The boy’s voice was muffled. “But I had that nightmare again.”
Jarod pulled the small shoulders away from himself and looked down at the face that was now streaked with tears. “We’ll do something about that, Steve. I promise we will. We’ll try to make that nightmare disappear for good.”
“Really?”
Jarod held him close again and let his eyes wander over the trees that grew around the house. “Really.”
Miss Parker descended the staircase to find Major Charles making coffee and Steven sitting at the table playing with one of his new possessions.
“Where’s Jarod?”
Major Charles looked over at her with a sad smile on his face. “He went outside for a walk. I think he finds it confining to be around people.”
Miss Parker nodded. “And Sydney?”
Steven looked at her. “I checked on him twenty minutes ago. He’s doing well.”
“Is he awake?”
“Not when I looked, but he might be now.”
She was about to turn and go upstairs when Major Charles stepped over and pushed a mug into her hand.
“My son insisted that you have this as soon as you came downstairs.”
Miss Parker smiled and accepted the mug, downing half of it before glancing at it askance and then up at the man who stood in front of her. “And did he tell you I don’t drink coffee with sugar?”
“He did,” came a voice from the doorway, “but he also aid that you needed it and should be given it anyway.”
“Jarod!” Miss Parker turned to him with an expression of relief as he walked over and stood in front of her.
“Are you okay?”
He brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and she mutely nodded, her eyes filling again at his gentle tone. To avoid the intensity of his gaze, she swallowed the rest of her mug’s contents, with a grimace for its sweetness, before handing it back to Major Charles.
“I’m going up to see Sydney.”
Jarod nodded. “Say hi to him for me.”
“You don’t want to come?”
“Not yet. Maybe later.”
Miss Parker silently entered the darkened room and crept across to the chair where she had sat before. Pulling it towards her, she looked up to find Sydney watching her.
“How are you feeling?”
He tried to shrug, but winced instead. “Sore.”
His voice was a croak and Miss Parker looked at the table to find a glass full of ice chips standing there. She nodded at it.
“Do you want something?”
He nodded and, picking up the glass, she gently slipped some through his dry lips, dampening them afterwards with the gauze.
“You’d make a good nurse.”
Miss Parker tried not to laugh. “Just following doctor’s orders.”
“Which doctor?”
“The one you trained.“
Sydney looked first amused and then slightly concerned. “Did it go well?”
Miss Parker nodded. “He said it did.”
Sydney nodded once and then closed his eyes. The expression when he opened them again was one of sadness. “Is it true?”
She nodded once more, her own face growing sad. She reached out one hand gently and placed it on his.
“Do you know why, Parker?”
“No. Jarod hasn’t told me that yet.”
“Does he know?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what he found out.” Miss Parker looked at him closely and saw that he was fighting to keep his eyes open. “Just relax, Syd. I can tell you the rest another time.”
She sighed as she watched him fall asleep in front of her, wishing that she could do the same, and then slipped back into the chair beside the bed.
Jarod dropped onto the sofa in the living room and threw an arm over his eyes, fighting the feeling that was coming over him. Somehow he knew his mind wanted him to go through the things that the former technician had felt as he had died, but Jarod was struggling against letting himself do that. He didn’t want to know. It was bad enough when he did it for people that he had never met or known, but to go through such a thing for somebody that he knew so well would be far more difficult. Moaning quietly, he turned his face to the sofa cushion and tried to pretend that everything could just go away. A hand on his shoulder startled him and he looked up into the smiling face of his sister.
“Welcome home, Jarod.”
He sat up and pulled her into a hug, relieved at having something to drag his thoughts away from their current problem.
“How are you doing?”
“I’d probably be better if I hadn’t been thrown out of a window a few months ago but, despite that, pretty good. And you?”
She looked at her brother, noting the dark patches under his eyes that she could recognize from both Steven and her father’s faces when they hadn’t had enough relaxation recently.
“I’ve been better.”
“No kidding.” Emily smiled at him. “I would never have guessed.”
As she stood up, he grabbed her wrist. “Where are you working now?”
“A small paper about twenty minutes drive from here.”
Jarod nodded, a smile on his face. “Couldn’t give up journalism, huh?”
“Well, it was a choice between that and housework…”
The two grinned at each other and then Emily went over to help her father cook dinner as Jarod rolled back to his former position and thought further about the situation in which he now found himself.
Sydney yawned widely and opened his eyes to find his protégée standing beside the bed checking his pulse.
“It’s fine,” he stated, pulling his hand away.
“My, my, aren’t we grumpy today?” Jarod tried to grin. “How are you feeling?”
“Tell you what,” Sydney snapped. “You get shot, cut open and wake up with a hangover and then tell me how you feel.”
“Yeah,” Jarod looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry about that. It was the only way I could make sure you wouldn’t feel anything when I extracted the bullet.”
He picked up a glass and slipped a straw into it. Sydney looked suspiciously from the dark red substance to Jarod. “What is it?”
“Hangover cure. It will help – a bit.”
The psychiatrist tentatively sipped it and made a face. “My God, what is that stuff?”
“I never said it was nice,” Jarod grinned.
“What’s it made up from?”
“All natural products. It’ll do you the world of good.”
”Except that my taste buds are going on strike.”
Jarod grinned and offered the glass again. “Trust me, it’s the most foolproof method that I’ve learnt about. Sure beats drinking several litres of water or raw eggs or something. Not that there isn’t a lot of protein in raw eggs…” He trailed off as he saw that the glass was empty and that the older man looked like he was about to get sick. He held out a piece of bread. “That might get rid of the taste.”
Sydney tentatively took it. “Might?”
“Depends how good your memory for taste is.” The psychiatrist nodded and took a bite of the bread, chewed it for several seconds and then swallowed.
“Better?”
Sydney glared at him under lowered brows and took another bite of the bread.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jarod laughed as he picked up the glass. “I’ll be back in about an hour to check on the dressing. If you need help, yell.” The Pretender headed towards the door but stopped when he was spoken to.
“Jarod?”
“Yeah?”
“Where are we?”
The younger man smiled. “Somewhere safe.”
“How’s Sydney?”
“Hung over.”
Miss Parker looked sympathetic while Steven tried not to giggle.
“Why?”
Miss Parker looked across at Emily, who had asked the question. “Because your brother made him drink almost an entire bottle of vodka and Sydney doesn’t usually drink at all.”
“He might get used to it.”
Jarod held up the glass and gave her a wicked grin. “I very firmly doubt it.”
Miss Parker ran a finger inside the glass and tentatively tasted the contents, pulling a worse face than the one she had made about the coffee. “What the hell is that?”
“A few roots and leaves – with a little tomato juice.”
“And when…?”
“I collected them this afternoon and made up the drink an hour ago. You can have a glass if you want. Anyway, you should recognize it. It’s similar to the stuff that a couple of people in this room were fed for years.” He slipped an arm around Steven’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow in Miss Parker's direction, who had the grace to blush, as she understood his meaning.
“And it’s good for hangovers?”
“When you next have one, let me know and I’ll make you some.”
Miss Parker shook her head and pushed the glass back into his hand, her lips still pursed in disgust. “No thanks. I’ll pass.” She got up from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“To see if Sydney survived your home-made remedy.”
Jarod disconnected the call and dropped his cell phone into his pocket, knowing that Ethan would be waiting for him tonight. Jarod wanted to bring his brother into the house so that he could be sure he was safe and Ethan had been equally enthusiastic about meeting his father and sister. But there was one other individual that Jarod didn’t want to leave to the mercy of the Centre, and bringing him to the house would entail more planning and danger. As he began planning for the evening, he discussed tactics with his father and Steven.
“Are you going to take her with you?” the young man asked, when everything was settled.
”Miss Parker or your sister?”
“Either.”
“No.” Jarod shook his head definitively. “There’s a contract out on Miss Parker's life, and Lyle is keen on ending Emily’s,” he smiled sympathetically at the woman, who was sitting on the sofa in the living area, out of earshot of the conversation, “so definitely not. I’m doing this all alone.” He looked at the map again and then at the notes he had made.
“And how long will you be gone?”
Jarod looked up at his father. “I wish I knew. Hopefully less than a day, but there are no guarantees. If there are any problems, it could take a lot longer.”
“Like forever,” Major Charles interjected, “if you get caught…”
“Dad, please…”
“Jarod, are you completely insane?”
The Pretender grinned. “That’s a possibility I definitely haven’t ruled out yet.”
“And when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow. Early. Around six-ish, I guess.”
“Good luck, brother.” Steven reached across and grabbed the pretender’s hand as he got up from the table. “I think you’ll need it.”
