Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: The Pretender and its related characters don’t belong to me. There is no money involved here and no copyright infringement is intended. Actually it is intended but I’m not making any profit so there’s really no point in suing me over it.
-
Veil of Contentment - Part 9
- By Phenyx
- 05/21/04
Authors Note: Be warned! This will be so sappy that it should be served with an order of pancakes and waffles.
-
“Mmm,” Miss Parker sighed. “This is nice. We’ll have to get one for our porch.”
“Our porch,” the two words were a simple statement rather than a question.
Parker nodded. She liked the sound of Jarod’s voice. With her eyes closed and her head against his shoulder, the pretender’s low timber rumbled through her entire body. Parker had her legs curled beneath her as she sat yet the wooden swing continued to glide gently back and forth. It was a lovely sensation, not unlike floating. Jarod kept the motion going smoothly and methodically with a regularity that was nearly hypnotic.
It was late Sunday afternoon and the heat of the day was just beginning to ease away. Jarod and Parker were both nearly dozing in relaxation. Over the last couple of days, things had gotten easier with the pretender’s family. To Parker, it was obvious that Jarod and his mother had come to some sort of truce. The older woman hadn’t exactly been friendly, but in the last day or so she had managed to be civil.
Parker was greatly relieved. Though she would chew nails rather than admit it, Parker found the early barbs cast by Margaret to be slightly hurtful. Years of experience had taught Miss Parker how to laugh off such insignificant wounds, shielding her torn feelings from everyone. In the past, Parker had tolerated much worse treatment from her own family but she was glad that Margaret had eased up.
Jarod yawned loudly and leaned one cheek against the top of Miss Parker’s head.
“Tired Rat?” Parker asked.
“Hmm,” Jarod replied noncommittally.
“You aren’t going to fall asleep are you?” she said.
The pretender nodded his head in response. “It is a distinct possibility.”
Parker sighed. “Don’t let the swing stop,” she demanded.
“I won’t.”
Neither of them had been sleeping well since their arrival. Of course, the sleeping arrangements had a lot to be desired. They slept side-by-side on a heap of linen barely six inches deep. To be honest, it wasn’t the poor bedding that kept them up nights. It was the platonic nature of the nights spent beside each other that was the problem.
They had never actually shared a bed before. It was a distinctly distracting experience. Parker found herself drawn to the heat that radiated from the pretender’s body. Lying beside him, Parker felt every nerve ending acutely tuned to Jarod’s every move, every twitch. His scent surrounded her, enveloping her in the essence of him.
Parker wanted him. She wanted him in the most primal of ways. But Jarod was still married, still bound by an oath he’d taken before a minister. So, it was sheer frustration and unsatisfied longing that troubled them at night.
Why they chose to suffer this way, Parker couldn’t say. There were other rooms in this section of the house. There was even a bed upstairs in the master bedroom. More rational people would have chosen to remove the temptation and retire each night to separate rooms. Then again, there was little that was logical about the relationship between the pretender and herself.
Parker’s thoughts were abruptly halted. It wasn’t really a sound that had disturbed her musings, but rather a sudden change in Jarod’s demeanor. His body tensed up, as if preparing for flight, and the motion of the swing faltered ever so slightly.
Glancing up into Jarod’s face, Parker could see the frown creasing the pretender’s brow. Following his gaze, Parker watched with a strange detachment as a large red convertible made its way up the driveway. The car was driven by a woman who looked to be somewhere on the younger side of her thirties. She had curly red hair that billowed wildly around her head as the wind whipped it around. Beside her sat a man, obviously younger by several years. He had long blond hair and gloriously tanned skin. He was lovely to look at, of that Parker could not deny.
“Surfer,” was the first thought that flitted through Parker’s mind. Only when Jarod choked back laughter did she realize she’d spoken aloud.
As the car came to a stop, the two people cautiously stepped from the vehicle. Parker could feel Jarod practically vibrating with tension. The pretender had a well-honed fight or flight response, and at the moment, it was kicking into high gear.
“You okay?” Parker asked.
Jarod swallowed, glancing miserably at the beautiful brunette. “You shouldn’t have to do this,” he hissed. “It will be horribly uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry Jarod,” Parker told him. “I won’t start anything. But if she does, I promise to finish it quickly.”
Parker did not alter her position in any way. She remained curled at Jarod’s side like a contented cat. One hand rested casually on Jarod’s chest while the other moved to caress his upper thigh.
The red-haired woman slowly climbed the stairs and stepped onto the porch, her young man’s hand clenched tightly in her own. “Jarod,” she greeted with a nod.
“Hello Zoë,” Jarod said in an almost apologetic tone.
“I came by to get my mail,” Zoë explained.
Jarod shrugged. “You’ll have to ask my mother about that,” he said.
There was a long awkward pause.
“I didn’t know you were back,” Zoë said finally.
“Just visiting,” was the pretender’s curt reply.
“Oh.” Zoë’s eyes flickered meaningfully to Miss Parker, but Jarod did not volunteer any further information.
The strained silence stretched between them again until the red head could no longer stand it. “Does your boss know about his one?” Zoë asked cruelly as she gestured toward Miss Parker.
Parker applied a gentle pressure to Jarod’s chest, signaling to him that she would answer. “As a matter of fact I met Ms. Granger just a few days ago. We had a very nice chat.”
Crossing her arms, Jarod’s wife drawled spitefully, ”Deciding which of you would get to steal my husband from me?”
If no one else sensed the change in Miss Parker, Jarod did. Parker’s smile grew deadly cold. He imagined that it must be the same smile she would give a man before she shot him. The sweet tone in her voice did little to hide the malice behind it.
“Can’t be stolen from you if he doesn’t belong to you sweetheart,” Parker said. “He wasn’t yours to keep.”
Zoë’s jaw dropped. “You don’t own him,” she said in a voice trembling with fury.
“Perhaps not.” Parker rose from the swing and crossed the porch like a panther closing in for the kill. “But I won’t let him go without a fight. He’ll not escape me without a chase.”
The pretender made a sound low in his throat but Parker didn’t pause to identify its meaning.
“You let go too easily, without ever knowing the true value of the gift he has given you,” Parker said. Her voice softened as she went on. “It is an understandable mistake, one I made myself once. In a way, I feel sorry for you Zoë. You’ll never get a second chance with him. Because he has given that chance to me, and I do not intend to blow it this time around.”
Zoë sputtered in rage. For a moment, Jarod feared that his wife might try to take a swing at the other woman. The pretender cringed, only too aware of the damage Miss Parker could inflict when provoked, even without a weapon.
It was the long haired boy-toy that broke the tension. “Zoë,” he said softly. “Let’s go. Have the mail forwarded. There is no reason for us to be here.”
Zoë straightened. Gathering as much dignity as she could muster, she turned on her heel and walked away. Parker stood regally on the porch, glaring until Zoë and her lover had gotten back into the car. With a slamming of doors and screeching of tires the convertible disappeared.
Jarod moved soundlessly across the wooden planks to stand behind Miss Parker. He didn’t touch her or speak. Yet Parker sensed his presence.
“That was relatively painless,” Parker murmured.
The pretender’s silence drew Parker’s attention. He was looking at her with an amused grin on his face.
“What?” Miss Parker asked.
Jarod’s grin widened even more. “Incredible,” he said.
“What?” she asked again.
Leaning in close Jarod said, “I never thought you could make a mistake Miss Parker. Let alone admit to one.”
Parker heaved a long-suffering sigh. “You are a jerk.”
“But you love me anyway,” Jarod said, nearly bursting with glee.
Miss Parker crossed her arms over her chest and eyed the pretender haughtily. “Are you only just now figuring that out?”
Jarod shrugged helplessly.
“Some genius,” Parker muttered.
The pretender folded his hands behind his back and began to rock back and forth on his heels. He was positively ecstatic, like a child standing before a mound of presents on Christmas morning. “I really want to kiss you right now,” he declared.
“Why don’t you?”
Jarod sighed. His eyes raked down the length of her body and back before he answered. “If I start I won’t be able to stop. And I don’t think my mother’s front porch is the most romantic place to be ravaged.”
Parker bit down on her lower lip in an unsuccessful attempt to hide a smirk. “Probably not,” she agreed.
“But when I get you home,” Jarod growled as he leaned in close. “I plan to have my way with you.”
“Promises, promises,” Parker laughed.
--
As a point of fact, they didn’t actually get home before Jarod followed through on his promise. They made love for the first time on the leather seats of a private jet somewhere above the Georgia-South Carolina state line. Just after the flight had reached a cruising altitude, the pretender knelt before Miss Parker and solemnly offered her a thick envelope. The packet contained newly signed divorce papers, the ink barely dry. Parker accepted them with a smile and Jarod promptly tackled her. Amid joyous laughter and a little swearing over a stubborn button, they managed to consummate their decades long relationship.
Once they reached Delaware and settled back into daily life, Jarod continued to be an enthusiastic lover. Having a small boy in the house did a lot to hamper the couple’s rendezvous but the pretender was devilishly resourceful and imaginative. Doors with locks on them became precious commodities yet not a necessity. Jarod regularly found ways to catch Miss Parker alone. He was especially fond of joining her at the office during lunch hours and taking her right on top of the desk.
Teddy adapted well to the fact that his mother and Jarod now shared the bedroom at the end of the hall. The boy had lived a life full of changes. This newest one was easily accepted and even encouraged. The first time he called Jarod “Dad”, both adults had reacted with surprise but neither tried to correct him.
Jarod took his role as a paternal figure very seriously. He went out of his way to make time for the child. The pretender never tired of answering Teddy’s questions, no matter how trivial or strange. As a matter of fact, the only time the little boy ever made Jarod squirm was when he had asked about his birth mother over breakfast one morning.
“Hey Dad,” Teddy had chirped around a mouthful of granola.
Jarod folded his newspaper and set it aside before responding. “Yes Ted?”
“Did you know my real mom?”
Parker nearly dropped her coffee cup as she began to choke on the steaming brew. She regained her composure quickly and glanced warily at Jarod.
After a long thoughtful pause, Jarod said. “Yes. I knew her.”
The little boy’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Tell me about her!”
“Well,” Jarod cast a fearful look at Parker who could do nothing but shrug helplessly. With a heavy sigh the pretender answered, “She was very beautiful.”
“And?” Teddy urged.
Jarod licked his lips nervously. “She was strong and smart. Very determined.” When Jarod volunteered no further information, the little boy seemed to sag with disappointment. Guilt forced the pretender to press on. “We weren’t friends, Teddy. I didn’t know her well. But I know that she loved your father. I know she loved you very much.”
Later that night as they lay together in their bed, Jarod and Miss Parker discussed the incident. The pretender confessed to near panic. “I was terrified that he was going to ask me about Mr. Parker,” Jarod said.
“You would have come up with something,” Parker told him confidently. “You did a fine job discussing Bridgette.”
“I never disliked her as much as I did your old man,” Jarod admitted.
“Why not?” Parker asked. “She was a class-A bitch who deserved to be disliked.”
“True,” the pretender said with a nod. “But she had a nice ass. And I’ve always been attracted to the bitchy type.”
A pillow muffled Jarod’s laughter as Miss Parker began to thrash him with it. They spent the next several minutes wrestling on the mattress. Jarod snickered while Parker did her best to make him pay for his comments.
--
Parker rolled over in the dark and felt the cold empty space beside her. Jarod had been gone for three weeks now. It was the longest separation between them since he’d moved in eight months ago. Punching her pillow to fluff it, Parker sighed heavily before snuggling under the thick quilt. She missed him damn it. She missed his warmth in their bed, as the nights grew ever colder. She missed the murmuring sounds he made when his nightmares came. She missed his soothing arm around her when her own dreams surfaced. She missed him and wished he would come home. Or at the very least, call.
The abduction had been all over the news earlier that evening. The kidnapper’s arrest had been greeted with horror and astonishment. What had seemed a few weeks ago like a single missing toddler had actually been the most recent in a string of kidnappings.
Parker had watched with morbid fascination as the story unfolded on her television screen. Reporters chattered excitedly as pale-faced police officers and grim federal agents filed in and out of a quaint little farmhouse in rural Kansas. Parker had no desire to see the tiny body bags wheeled into the ambulances, nor did she want to know the life story of the “nice quiet lady” who owned the house. Parker’s only interest was in catching a glimpse of the private investigator that had cracked the case.
She had seen Jarod on the broadcasts only once. In his black leather jacket, he stood out like a beacon among the police uniforms and detective’s suits. He had looked tired, unshaven and dirty. The pretender had rushed from the house with his arm around a dark-haired police officer. The younger man was as pale as a ghost and as news cameras rolled, the officer had thrown up in a flower garden full of wilting mums. Jarod fended of the news crews with an angry snarl and held the other man’s shoulders as he vomited.
Details regarding the murders were still sketchy. Families still needed to be contacted so there was very little information being released to the public as yet. But the case was solved. There were even unconfirmed reports that the suspect had confessed.
Jarod’s assignment in Kansas was over. Parker had waited up until well after midnight, hoping to hear from the wayward pretender. But there had been no word. It had been a disappointed Miss Parker that had finally dragged herself to bed several hours ago, only to toss and turn all night.
It never occurred to her that Jarod might be wounded. She wasn’t in the least bit worried about him in the physical sense. After years of escaping whatever the Centre had thrown at him, with rarely a scratch to show for it, Parker knew that Jarod could take care of himself.
Parker curled on her side and stared sleeplessly into the dark. She was surrounded by silence, the rhythmic sighs of her breathing the only sound. When she glimpsed a subtle movement out of the corner of one eye, she froze. For long minutes, she waited for the motion to repeat. Just as she was beginning to think that she had imagined it, the darkness shifted again.
Parker’s body tensed. Her mind focused on her handgun, locked away in a metal case on the top shelf of her closet, far from the curious hands of a little boy.
“Don’t go for the gun Parker,” a weary voice broke the silence. “It’s only me.”
“Jarod!” sitting bolt upright in bed, Parker peered into the darkness.
There was a moment’s hesitation before the pretender moved again. He was blackness on blackness, a shadow amongst the shadows. Like a chameleon hiding among the foliage, it was only with motion that he became visible.
“Are you okay?” Parker asked.
The shadowy figure sighed. “Yeah. I’m fine,” Jarod said.
“I saw you on the news,” she added.
The darkness went frighteningly still once more.
“It was pretty bad. Wasn’t it?” Parker said knowingly. She sensed his nod more than she could actually see it. “Do you want to talk about it?” she pressed.
“No,” Jarod’s answer was brusque and brittle.
“Are you sure?”
“You don’t want to know,” Jarod groaned. “You can not imagine what travesties can be inflicted upon a child.”
“Can’t I?” Miss Parker whispered. “Remember who you’re talking to Jarod. I’m not Zoë. You don’t have to protect me from the horrors of this world. I grew up surrounded by them, just like you did.”
The pretender made a gasping sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Holding her arms out to him, Parker whispered. “Come here.”
Jarod moved slowly, haltingly, as though he was approaching the bed against his will. He sat carefully on the edge of the mattress. Parker gazed at him. Even in the dark room she could see the circles under his eyes. His beard was scruffy and his hair in disarray.
“I said, ‘come here’”, Parker urged.
Putting her arms around his shoulders, Parker pulled Jarod into a warm embrace. He resisted at first but quickly melted into her arms, pushing her down onto the bed with his weight. Parker held him tightly, running one hand through his hair. His clothes were damp. Somewhere along the trip home, he’d been caught in the rain.
They held each other for a long time. Jarod was fully clothed, still wearing his boots and leather coat. His cheek lay against Parker’s breast, just above her heart as though he was listening for signs of life.
After a time Parker whispered fervently, “Talk to me Jarod.”
“I couldn’t save him,” the pretender sighed. “I couldn’t bring Davy home to his parents.”
Parker squeezed her lover more tightly and waited for him to go on.
Jarod’s voice wavered as he spoke. “She snapped his little neck like a piece of tinder. He was probably dead before she even left the store with him.” The pretender began to tremble and his voice cracked. “No one seeing her would have thought twice about it. She would have appeared to be a sweet and loving grandmother, carrying her sleeping grandson to the car. No one would have realized he didn’t belong to her.”
Parker could feel Jarod’s tears seeping through her nightshirt. His words, once started, couldn’t be stopped. They tumbled out of his mouth so that Parker could only barely follow them.
“She did love him,” Jarod said in a faraway voice. “She loved them all. The clothes they were wearing were hand stitched. Such care and precision, the adoration she put into every minute detail. They were collected from all across the country. That’s why no one connected cases.”
Jarod fell silent, sniffling as he tried to reign in his distress. But that was the last thing the pretender needed, Parker knew. Holding it in, burying his pain would eventually backfire. There was already too much anguish eating away at Jarod’s soul.
“What did she do to Davy?” Parker asked gently.
At first Jarod didn’t speak. When he did, the answer came in gasps. “A tea party,” Jarod moaned. “She took him to a tea party. We found six children in that house. Not one of them was over the age of three when they died.” The pretender was weeping opening now. His body shook with the force of his sobs. “She dressed him in a tuxedo. A little groom doll. Another was dressed as a cowboy. A little girl from Tallahassee was a ballerina.”
“Oh god,” Parker murmured as she began to cry as well.
“There was girl from Pittsburgh dressed as a clown with face paint and everything,” Jarod hissed. “Her name was Kelly. She’s been missing for three months but the authorities thought that her father had taken her in a custody dispute. We found him crammed into an old freezer in the basement.” The pretender’s voice rose as he became more and more distraught. “Parker,” Jarod groaned. “She had given them all glass eyes. As their little bodies began to decompose she popped out the rotting eyeballs and replaced them with glass.”
“How do I get that out of my head Parker?” the pretender cried. “How?”
Parker held on tight as Jarod poured out his misery. He wept until exhaustion prevented more tears and he finally quieted.
“I couldn’t save Davy,” Jarod whispered just as Parker had begun to believe he had fallen asleep. “I couldn’t save any of them.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Parker offered up a silent prayer then asked, “Was there a girl in a white dress?”
“What?”
“A white dress and a veil,” Parker murmured.
Jarod paused. “No,” he said slowly, shaking his head.
“No doll collection is complete without one dressed as a bride, Jarod,” Parker told him. “You saved her. You saved that unknown little girl who would have been next. You saved the one after her, and the one after her. You couldn’t save Davy. But you saved all those who would have followed him.”
Jarod raised himself up on his elbows and gazed down at Miss Parker. She took his prickly cheeks in her palms and smiled reassuringly at him.
“That’s why you do it,” Parker said. “That is why you put yourself through this time and time again. It is easy to count the corpses and tally up the failures. But there is no way to measure the number of children that will never be part of the statistics because you were there before they were taken.”
Dark eyes, no more than pools of shadow in the night, stared at her in stunned silence for a full minute. Parker returned the look with conviction. Jarod swallowed and nodded his head as if coming to some kind of understanding within himself.
“I love you,” he said suddenly.
Parker kissed him and replied, “Are you just now figuring that out Genius?”
“Oh no,” Jarod sighed as he pillowed his head on Parker’s chest. “I’ve known that all my life. It’s the one truth that has never faltered.”
The pretender began to pluck half-heartedly at the buttons on Parker’s shirt, making her laugh indulgently. “Are you really feeling up to that, Jarod?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. “I just want to be closer to your heart.” He brushed aside the silk and snuggled back down against her bare flesh, sighing with contentment.
“Not possible, my love,” Parker whispered as Jarod began to drift into an exhausted slumber. “Nothing can get any closer to my heart than you already are.”
-
The End.
Author’s note: ::::Groan::::: Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Sugary sweet sap all over the place! What a mess!
-
Veil of Contentment - Part 9
- By Phenyx
- 05/21/04
Authors Note: Be warned! This will be so sappy that it should be served with an order of pancakes and waffles.
-
“Mmm,” Miss Parker sighed. “This is nice. We’ll have to get one for our porch.”
“Our porch,” the two words were a simple statement rather than a question.
Parker nodded. She liked the sound of Jarod’s voice. With her eyes closed and her head against his shoulder, the pretender’s low timber rumbled through her entire body. Parker had her legs curled beneath her as she sat yet the wooden swing continued to glide gently back and forth. It was a lovely sensation, not unlike floating. Jarod kept the motion going smoothly and methodically with a regularity that was nearly hypnotic.
It was late Sunday afternoon and the heat of the day was just beginning to ease away. Jarod and Parker were both nearly dozing in relaxation. Over the last couple of days, things had gotten easier with the pretender’s family. To Parker, it was obvious that Jarod and his mother had come to some sort of truce. The older woman hadn’t exactly been friendly, but in the last day or so she had managed to be civil.
Parker was greatly relieved. Though she would chew nails rather than admit it, Parker found the early barbs cast by Margaret to be slightly hurtful. Years of experience had taught Miss Parker how to laugh off such insignificant wounds, shielding her torn feelings from everyone. In the past, Parker had tolerated much worse treatment from her own family but she was glad that Margaret had eased up.
Jarod yawned loudly and leaned one cheek against the top of Miss Parker’s head.
“Tired Rat?” Parker asked.
“Hmm,” Jarod replied noncommittally.
“You aren’t going to fall asleep are you?” she said.
The pretender nodded his head in response. “It is a distinct possibility.”
Parker sighed. “Don’t let the swing stop,” she demanded.
“I won’t.”
Neither of them had been sleeping well since their arrival. Of course, the sleeping arrangements had a lot to be desired. They slept side-by-side on a heap of linen barely six inches deep. To be honest, it wasn’t the poor bedding that kept them up nights. It was the platonic nature of the nights spent beside each other that was the problem.
They had never actually shared a bed before. It was a distinctly distracting experience. Parker found herself drawn to the heat that radiated from the pretender’s body. Lying beside him, Parker felt every nerve ending acutely tuned to Jarod’s every move, every twitch. His scent surrounded her, enveloping her in the essence of him.
Parker wanted him. She wanted him in the most primal of ways. But Jarod was still married, still bound by an oath he’d taken before a minister. So, it was sheer frustration and unsatisfied longing that troubled them at night.
Why they chose to suffer this way, Parker couldn’t say. There were other rooms in this section of the house. There was even a bed upstairs in the master bedroom. More rational people would have chosen to remove the temptation and retire each night to separate rooms. Then again, there was little that was logical about the relationship between the pretender and herself.
Parker’s thoughts were abruptly halted. It wasn’t really a sound that had disturbed her musings, but rather a sudden change in Jarod’s demeanor. His body tensed up, as if preparing for flight, and the motion of the swing faltered ever so slightly.
Glancing up into Jarod’s face, Parker could see the frown creasing the pretender’s brow. Following his gaze, Parker watched with a strange detachment as a large red convertible made its way up the driveway. The car was driven by a woman who looked to be somewhere on the younger side of her thirties. She had curly red hair that billowed wildly around her head as the wind whipped it around. Beside her sat a man, obviously younger by several years. He had long blond hair and gloriously tanned skin. He was lovely to look at, of that Parker could not deny.
“Surfer,” was the first thought that flitted through Parker’s mind. Only when Jarod choked back laughter did she realize she’d spoken aloud.
As the car came to a stop, the two people cautiously stepped from the vehicle. Parker could feel Jarod practically vibrating with tension. The pretender had a well-honed fight or flight response, and at the moment, it was kicking into high gear.
“You okay?” Parker asked.
Jarod swallowed, glancing miserably at the beautiful brunette. “You shouldn’t have to do this,” he hissed. “It will be horribly uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry Jarod,” Parker told him. “I won’t start anything. But if she does, I promise to finish it quickly.”
Parker did not alter her position in any way. She remained curled at Jarod’s side like a contented cat. One hand rested casually on Jarod’s chest while the other moved to caress his upper thigh.
The red-haired woman slowly climbed the stairs and stepped onto the porch, her young man’s hand clenched tightly in her own. “Jarod,” she greeted with a nod.
“Hello Zoë,” Jarod said in an almost apologetic tone.
“I came by to get my mail,” Zoë explained.
Jarod shrugged. “You’ll have to ask my mother about that,” he said.
There was a long awkward pause.
“I didn’t know you were back,” Zoë said finally.
“Just visiting,” was the pretender’s curt reply.
“Oh.” Zoë’s eyes flickered meaningfully to Miss Parker, but Jarod did not volunteer any further information.
The strained silence stretched between them again until the red head could no longer stand it. “Does your boss know about his one?” Zoë asked cruelly as she gestured toward Miss Parker.
Parker applied a gentle pressure to Jarod’s chest, signaling to him that she would answer. “As a matter of fact I met Ms. Granger just a few days ago. We had a very nice chat.”
Crossing her arms, Jarod’s wife drawled spitefully, ”Deciding which of you would get to steal my husband from me?”
If no one else sensed the change in Miss Parker, Jarod did. Parker’s smile grew deadly cold. He imagined that it must be the same smile she would give a man before she shot him. The sweet tone in her voice did little to hide the malice behind it.
“Can’t be stolen from you if he doesn’t belong to you sweetheart,” Parker said. “He wasn’t yours to keep.”
Zoë’s jaw dropped. “You don’t own him,” she said in a voice trembling with fury.
“Perhaps not.” Parker rose from the swing and crossed the porch like a panther closing in for the kill. “But I won’t let him go without a fight. He’ll not escape me without a chase.”
The pretender made a sound low in his throat but Parker didn’t pause to identify its meaning.
“You let go too easily, without ever knowing the true value of the gift he has given you,” Parker said. Her voice softened as she went on. “It is an understandable mistake, one I made myself once. In a way, I feel sorry for you Zoë. You’ll never get a second chance with him. Because he has given that chance to me, and I do not intend to blow it this time around.”
Zoë sputtered in rage. For a moment, Jarod feared that his wife might try to take a swing at the other woman. The pretender cringed, only too aware of the damage Miss Parker could inflict when provoked, even without a weapon.
It was the long haired boy-toy that broke the tension. “Zoë,” he said softly. “Let’s go. Have the mail forwarded. There is no reason for us to be here.”
Zoë straightened. Gathering as much dignity as she could muster, she turned on her heel and walked away. Parker stood regally on the porch, glaring until Zoë and her lover had gotten back into the car. With a slamming of doors and screeching of tires the convertible disappeared.
Jarod moved soundlessly across the wooden planks to stand behind Miss Parker. He didn’t touch her or speak. Yet Parker sensed his presence.
“That was relatively painless,” Parker murmured.
The pretender’s silence drew Parker’s attention. He was looking at her with an amused grin on his face.
“What?” Miss Parker asked.
Jarod’s grin widened even more. “Incredible,” he said.
“What?” she asked again.
Leaning in close Jarod said, “I never thought you could make a mistake Miss Parker. Let alone admit to one.”
Parker heaved a long-suffering sigh. “You are a jerk.”
“But you love me anyway,” Jarod said, nearly bursting with glee.
Miss Parker crossed her arms over her chest and eyed the pretender haughtily. “Are you only just now figuring that out?”
Jarod shrugged helplessly.
“Some genius,” Parker muttered.
The pretender folded his hands behind his back and began to rock back and forth on his heels. He was positively ecstatic, like a child standing before a mound of presents on Christmas morning. “I really want to kiss you right now,” he declared.
“Why don’t you?”
Jarod sighed. His eyes raked down the length of her body and back before he answered. “If I start I won’t be able to stop. And I don’t think my mother’s front porch is the most romantic place to be ravaged.”
Parker bit down on her lower lip in an unsuccessful attempt to hide a smirk. “Probably not,” she agreed.
“But when I get you home,” Jarod growled as he leaned in close. “I plan to have my way with you.”
“Promises, promises,” Parker laughed.
--
As a point of fact, they didn’t actually get home before Jarod followed through on his promise. They made love for the first time on the leather seats of a private jet somewhere above the Georgia-South Carolina state line. Just after the flight had reached a cruising altitude, the pretender knelt before Miss Parker and solemnly offered her a thick envelope. The packet contained newly signed divorce papers, the ink barely dry. Parker accepted them with a smile and Jarod promptly tackled her. Amid joyous laughter and a little swearing over a stubborn button, they managed to consummate their decades long relationship.
Once they reached Delaware and settled back into daily life, Jarod continued to be an enthusiastic lover. Having a small boy in the house did a lot to hamper the couple’s rendezvous but the pretender was devilishly resourceful and imaginative. Doors with locks on them became precious commodities yet not a necessity. Jarod regularly found ways to catch Miss Parker alone. He was especially fond of joining her at the office during lunch hours and taking her right on top of the desk.
Teddy adapted well to the fact that his mother and Jarod now shared the bedroom at the end of the hall. The boy had lived a life full of changes. This newest one was easily accepted and even encouraged. The first time he called Jarod “Dad”, both adults had reacted with surprise but neither tried to correct him.
Jarod took his role as a paternal figure very seriously. He went out of his way to make time for the child. The pretender never tired of answering Teddy’s questions, no matter how trivial or strange. As a matter of fact, the only time the little boy ever made Jarod squirm was when he had asked about his birth mother over breakfast one morning.
“Hey Dad,” Teddy had chirped around a mouthful of granola.
Jarod folded his newspaper and set it aside before responding. “Yes Ted?”
“Did you know my real mom?”
Parker nearly dropped her coffee cup as she began to choke on the steaming brew. She regained her composure quickly and glanced warily at Jarod.
After a long thoughtful pause, Jarod said. “Yes. I knew her.”
The little boy’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Tell me about her!”
“Well,” Jarod cast a fearful look at Parker who could do nothing but shrug helplessly. With a heavy sigh the pretender answered, “She was very beautiful.”
“And?” Teddy urged.
Jarod licked his lips nervously. “She was strong and smart. Very determined.” When Jarod volunteered no further information, the little boy seemed to sag with disappointment. Guilt forced the pretender to press on. “We weren’t friends, Teddy. I didn’t know her well. But I know that she loved your father. I know she loved you very much.”
Later that night as they lay together in their bed, Jarod and Miss Parker discussed the incident. The pretender confessed to near panic. “I was terrified that he was going to ask me about Mr. Parker,” Jarod said.
“You would have come up with something,” Parker told him confidently. “You did a fine job discussing Bridgette.”
“I never disliked her as much as I did your old man,” Jarod admitted.
“Why not?” Parker asked. “She was a class-A bitch who deserved to be disliked.”
“True,” the pretender said with a nod. “But she had a nice ass. And I’ve always been attracted to the bitchy type.”
A pillow muffled Jarod’s laughter as Miss Parker began to thrash him with it. They spent the next several minutes wrestling on the mattress. Jarod snickered while Parker did her best to make him pay for his comments.
--
Parker rolled over in the dark and felt the cold empty space beside her. Jarod had been gone for three weeks now. It was the longest separation between them since he’d moved in eight months ago. Punching her pillow to fluff it, Parker sighed heavily before snuggling under the thick quilt. She missed him damn it. She missed his warmth in their bed, as the nights grew ever colder. She missed the murmuring sounds he made when his nightmares came. She missed his soothing arm around her when her own dreams surfaced. She missed him and wished he would come home. Or at the very least, call.
The abduction had been all over the news earlier that evening. The kidnapper’s arrest had been greeted with horror and astonishment. What had seemed a few weeks ago like a single missing toddler had actually been the most recent in a string of kidnappings.
Parker had watched with morbid fascination as the story unfolded on her television screen. Reporters chattered excitedly as pale-faced police officers and grim federal agents filed in and out of a quaint little farmhouse in rural Kansas. Parker had no desire to see the tiny body bags wheeled into the ambulances, nor did she want to know the life story of the “nice quiet lady” who owned the house. Parker’s only interest was in catching a glimpse of the private investigator that had cracked the case.
She had seen Jarod on the broadcasts only once. In his black leather jacket, he stood out like a beacon among the police uniforms and detective’s suits. He had looked tired, unshaven and dirty. The pretender had rushed from the house with his arm around a dark-haired police officer. The younger man was as pale as a ghost and as news cameras rolled, the officer had thrown up in a flower garden full of wilting mums. Jarod fended of the news crews with an angry snarl and held the other man’s shoulders as he vomited.
Details regarding the murders were still sketchy. Families still needed to be contacted so there was very little information being released to the public as yet. But the case was solved. There were even unconfirmed reports that the suspect had confessed.
Jarod’s assignment in Kansas was over. Parker had waited up until well after midnight, hoping to hear from the wayward pretender. But there had been no word. It had been a disappointed Miss Parker that had finally dragged herself to bed several hours ago, only to toss and turn all night.
It never occurred to her that Jarod might be wounded. She wasn’t in the least bit worried about him in the physical sense. After years of escaping whatever the Centre had thrown at him, with rarely a scratch to show for it, Parker knew that Jarod could take care of himself.
Parker curled on her side and stared sleeplessly into the dark. She was surrounded by silence, the rhythmic sighs of her breathing the only sound. When she glimpsed a subtle movement out of the corner of one eye, she froze. For long minutes, she waited for the motion to repeat. Just as she was beginning to think that she had imagined it, the darkness shifted again.
Parker’s body tensed. Her mind focused on her handgun, locked away in a metal case on the top shelf of her closet, far from the curious hands of a little boy.
“Don’t go for the gun Parker,” a weary voice broke the silence. “It’s only me.”
“Jarod!” sitting bolt upright in bed, Parker peered into the darkness.
There was a moment’s hesitation before the pretender moved again. He was blackness on blackness, a shadow amongst the shadows. Like a chameleon hiding among the foliage, it was only with motion that he became visible.
“Are you okay?” Parker asked.
The shadowy figure sighed. “Yeah. I’m fine,” Jarod said.
“I saw you on the news,” she added.
The darkness went frighteningly still once more.
“It was pretty bad. Wasn’t it?” Parker said knowingly. She sensed his nod more than she could actually see it. “Do you want to talk about it?” she pressed.
“No,” Jarod’s answer was brusque and brittle.
“Are you sure?”
“You don’t want to know,” Jarod groaned. “You can not imagine what travesties can be inflicted upon a child.”
“Can’t I?” Miss Parker whispered. “Remember who you’re talking to Jarod. I’m not Zoë. You don’t have to protect me from the horrors of this world. I grew up surrounded by them, just like you did.”
The pretender made a gasping sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Holding her arms out to him, Parker whispered. “Come here.”
Jarod moved slowly, haltingly, as though he was approaching the bed against his will. He sat carefully on the edge of the mattress. Parker gazed at him. Even in the dark room she could see the circles under his eyes. His beard was scruffy and his hair in disarray.
“I said, ‘come here’”, Parker urged.
Putting her arms around his shoulders, Parker pulled Jarod into a warm embrace. He resisted at first but quickly melted into her arms, pushing her down onto the bed with his weight. Parker held him tightly, running one hand through his hair. His clothes were damp. Somewhere along the trip home, he’d been caught in the rain.
They held each other for a long time. Jarod was fully clothed, still wearing his boots and leather coat. His cheek lay against Parker’s breast, just above her heart as though he was listening for signs of life.
After a time Parker whispered fervently, “Talk to me Jarod.”
“I couldn’t save him,” the pretender sighed. “I couldn’t bring Davy home to his parents.”
Parker squeezed her lover more tightly and waited for him to go on.
Jarod’s voice wavered as he spoke. “She snapped his little neck like a piece of tinder. He was probably dead before she even left the store with him.” The pretender began to tremble and his voice cracked. “No one seeing her would have thought twice about it. She would have appeared to be a sweet and loving grandmother, carrying her sleeping grandson to the car. No one would have realized he didn’t belong to her.”
Parker could feel Jarod’s tears seeping through her nightshirt. His words, once started, couldn’t be stopped. They tumbled out of his mouth so that Parker could only barely follow them.
“She did love him,” Jarod said in a faraway voice. “She loved them all. The clothes they were wearing were hand stitched. Such care and precision, the adoration she put into every minute detail. They were collected from all across the country. That’s why no one connected cases.”
Jarod fell silent, sniffling as he tried to reign in his distress. But that was the last thing the pretender needed, Parker knew. Holding it in, burying his pain would eventually backfire. There was already too much anguish eating away at Jarod’s soul.
“What did she do to Davy?” Parker asked gently.
At first Jarod didn’t speak. When he did, the answer came in gasps. “A tea party,” Jarod moaned. “She took him to a tea party. We found six children in that house. Not one of them was over the age of three when they died.” The pretender was weeping opening now. His body shook with the force of his sobs. “She dressed him in a tuxedo. A little groom doll. Another was dressed as a cowboy. A little girl from Tallahassee was a ballerina.”
“Oh god,” Parker murmured as she began to cry as well.
“There was girl from Pittsburgh dressed as a clown with face paint and everything,” Jarod hissed. “Her name was Kelly. She’s been missing for three months but the authorities thought that her father had taken her in a custody dispute. We found him crammed into an old freezer in the basement.” The pretender’s voice rose as he became more and more distraught. “Parker,” Jarod groaned. “She had given them all glass eyes. As their little bodies began to decompose she popped out the rotting eyeballs and replaced them with glass.”
“How do I get that out of my head Parker?” the pretender cried. “How?”
Parker held on tight as Jarod poured out his misery. He wept until exhaustion prevented more tears and he finally quieted.
“I couldn’t save Davy,” Jarod whispered just as Parker had begun to believe he had fallen asleep. “I couldn’t save any of them.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Parker offered up a silent prayer then asked, “Was there a girl in a white dress?”
“What?”
“A white dress and a veil,” Parker murmured.
Jarod paused. “No,” he said slowly, shaking his head.
“No doll collection is complete without one dressed as a bride, Jarod,” Parker told him. “You saved her. You saved that unknown little girl who would have been next. You saved the one after her, and the one after her. You couldn’t save Davy. But you saved all those who would have followed him.”
Jarod raised himself up on his elbows and gazed down at Miss Parker. She took his prickly cheeks in her palms and smiled reassuringly at him.
“That’s why you do it,” Parker said. “That is why you put yourself through this time and time again. It is easy to count the corpses and tally up the failures. But there is no way to measure the number of children that will never be part of the statistics because you were there before they were taken.”
Dark eyes, no more than pools of shadow in the night, stared at her in stunned silence for a full minute. Parker returned the look with conviction. Jarod swallowed and nodded his head as if coming to some kind of understanding within himself.
“I love you,” he said suddenly.
Parker kissed him and replied, “Are you just now figuring that out Genius?”
“Oh no,” Jarod sighed as he pillowed his head on Parker’s chest. “I’ve known that all my life. It’s the one truth that has never faltered.”
The pretender began to pluck half-heartedly at the buttons on Parker’s shirt, making her laugh indulgently. “Are you really feeling up to that, Jarod?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. “I just want to be closer to your heart.” He brushed aside the silk and snuggled back down against her bare flesh, sighing with contentment.
“Not possible, my love,” Parker whispered as Jarod began to drift into an exhausted slumber. “Nothing can get any closer to my heart than you already are.”
-
The End.
Author’s note: ::::Groan::::: Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Sugary sweet sap all over the place! What a mess!
