Day 5

Finding the house proved more difficult than Jarod and Miss Parker had hoped. It had been many years since Ben had visited it, but he at least remembered it was close, which narrowed down Jarod's list of possibilities. They'd left Ben who still had his inn to attend to in the mean time. Fresh snow had fallen overnight and even Miss Parker understood that driving slowly wasn't a bad idea.

When they finally drove down the winding road and saw the White Pine sign, their bickering ceased and they were silent pulling into the drive. They realized that this was indeed the place where they needed to be. Miss Parker stepped out of the vehicle, her presence as domineering here in this secluded property as it could be on the right side of a T-board. Her trailing red coat was magnificent against their white-frosted surroundings. She made her way to the front door gracefully before Jarod could even slam his car door shut.

"It's locked," she hollered back, jiggling the knob roughly.

"Hold on I can pick it," Jarod called as he jogged up to the long stretching porch, his steps crunching the snow beneath him as he pounded toward her.

A booming shot startled him. Miss Parker was smiling victoriously and returning her gun to the small of her back, "No need."

"Sometimes patience pays off, Miss Parker."

She glanced at him, noticing the bits of snow flurries that had landed in his hair. One on his eyebrow that she really wanted to wipe away.

"Yeah and sometimes it's a waste of time. Come on."

Inside, the house was empty and the floorboards creaked as they carefully tread through the various rooms downstairs. The place was modest, but equally spacious. Looking past the peeling paint and now broken front door, it was clear by the house's wrapping porch and the grand fireplace in the living room that it would have made a very livable home for a growing family. Catherine's growing family. What could have been Miss Parker's own family.

"I wonder why nobody's lived here," Parker murmured.

Jarod ran his hand down one of the walls, "Your mother probably owned it if she planned to live here. Maybe when she died, it was given to Ben."

"My father would never have allowed that. He didn't even know about her coming here. We should have asked Ben before we left."

"We can do it later. There's nothing down here. Let's go upstairs."

They went, separating once they reached the top landing.

Parker opened a door and immediately focused on the lone object in the room, "Jarod, come here!"

"What?" he said, poking his head in. "Oh."

In the corner of the room was a metal safe. Jarod immediately knelt down in front of it and began twisting the knob, listening acutely for the clicks he desired. Parker knelt down beside him, brushing his hand away from it.

"Don't be an idiot, wonderboy." From her red coat's pocket, she pulled out the key she had been given merely three days ago. Easing the key into the lock, she grinned like a hyena when it turned easily and the door clicked open.

One more glance at Jarod, who was watching carefully, and she pulled back the safe door.

"Always files," she breathed, reaching for the contents inside which were indeed folders and notebooks, the metaphorical treasures they constantly sought.

Jarod too grabbed one of the files and began rummaging through the text within it. "This is all about you, Miss Parker."

She looked up from the file she held, "And this is about you."

"Me?" he shifted his body so he was leaning over her shoulder to read. "Those are the results of a simulation I apparently did. I can't remember Sim #04301970B."

"And here's the same Sim number, but the letter at the end is A." Her head tilted and her brow furrowed. "The Sim number."

Jarod was still shifting through his memories, "I don't remember any simulation codes of mine that had letters at the end."

"The number, Jarod."

"Hm? What about it?" He reviewed it again.

"That's the date my mother faked her death, her suicide," Parker's voice dropped and she shook her head. "But why? That's no damn coincidence. It has to mean something. What do you think it means?"

"I don't know," Jarod whispered, fearing the worst. She let him take the papers from her hand, watching him scan the lines over. His eyes darkened the more and more he read. Parker wanted to read with him but found herself caught up in the emotion exploding out of his eyes.

"What is it, Jarod?" she asked completely compassionately.

"This can't be real," he finally answered, shoving the papers back into the safe. "It's not true."

He was being a little creepy at this point, when all she wanted were the answers to her questions. "What's not true?"

"This simulation," Jarod said with disgust. "Is a designed escape plan. The ultimate escape out of the worst kind of prison. The easiest way to outrun one's problems is to simply stop playing the game."

"What game? What the hell are you babbling about?"

"I'm talking about suicide. I'm talking about life."

Miss Parker's eyes narrowed, "You mean to tell me that through your little simulation, you convinced my mother that suicide was her best way out of her problems?"

"No! Of course not. I would never do that." Jarod ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. "I constructed a way for her to reap the benefits of what suicide would bring, without actually having to do it. I showed her how to fake her death."

Her mouth gaped and she knew her hands were visibly shaking. That didn't matter right now and she snatched the file back from out of the safe, flipping it open in a whirl of fury. "You completed this not even a month before it happened. How in the hell could you forget you did it when you watched it happen before your very own eyes? I'm sure you planned out every damn detail too so she could get it just right and she trusted you so she would have followed your little plan perfectly. How could you not remember, Jarod, how?"

"I don't know! Damn it, Parker. You know I wouldn't hide something like this from you. I couldn't."

"Then how do you explain this?"

Parker was looking at him with little girl eyes and he could almost see within them the image of her being pulled away from that elevator screaming desperately for her mother. She wasn't angry with him, not really. She was just desperately trying to band-aid that wound she'd worn for so many years.

"I don't know. Maybe I was hypnotized to forget it like when she brought me to Raines' cabin. She probably wanted to keep me ignorant so that I'd be protected from any investigating. I'll check the DSA's when we get back to Ben's, but I don't think either of these are on them." Jarod took a deep breath. "I swear to you, I had no idea. It would have killed me to know I played a part in your pain. It does even now."

She believed him. She didn't want to. It would have made things so much easier if she could dismiss him as a liar and know that he had kept this lie a secret from her. As always though, she knew better than to believe that. She'd believed such ridiculous things for too much of her life.

Ignoring his last statement, she sighed. "What's in the other file?"

"I'm not sure I want to know," Jarod grumbled and picked up the discarded file, Sim #04301970A.

"Yeah what you want isn't really relevant right now," she mumbled.

Jarod glared at her. She shrugged. Whatever. It was the truth.

He was taking too long to read so Miss Parker leaned close over his shoulder to read it herself. The beginning was a lot of mumbo jumbo on Jarod the glorious child prodigy. Yippy skippy. The bottom explained the goals and procedures of the sim. She was just beginning to read the good stuff when she heard Jarod's "oh my God."

"What?"

Jarod took a deep breath. He hated playing with fire and nothing burned more than Miss Parker when it concerned her mother. "Your mother. Your trip to Europe. This place. All of it. I designed it. They were my ideas."

"What?" she repeated a little more intensely. "That's impossible."

His eyes were still scanning through the documents. "I mean I didn't choose this exact place, but I suggested somewhere just like it in a place out of Delaware, a place nobody else knew about where she could feel safe."

"You were helping her to escape from the Centre," Parker whispered.

"I didn't know it was her I was simulating but yeah I guess I was."

"Just like you're helping me now."

Jarod could hear the realization in her voice and he was scared to death that if he broke eye contact with her now, she would never look at him so preciously again.

"I don't even remember doing it," he tried to justify modestly.

The spell broke and she looked away toward the window where the snow was still falling with extreme dedication.

"She told me we were going to Europe so that she could show me the world," Parker shook her head solemnly. "But I'm sure that was just another step in your plan."

"It doesn't matter if it was part of the plan or not. The entire idea was meant to protect you. She did want to show you the world, the good parts of it. That's why she had to get you away from the Centre."

"Me. And what about you? And Angelo?"

"Well, that's in here, too," Jarod answered hesitantly.

Miss Parker's eyebrows lifted, "And?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Yes it damn well does."

"There are a lot of rooms in this house, Miss Parker."

"Point being?" Her words were sticky and slow. She knew the answer.

"She was going to bring us here, too."

Miss Parker massaged her temples gently, "So if this had worked out, we would have really grown up together. Living in the same house, eating the same meals at the same table."

She stopped, unable to muse any further.

"I guess. At least until we found my family and Angelo's too."

"God, even in my dream life I can't get away from you can I?"

Jarod's mouth bent at the sad irony, and the desperate way she said it, "I told you we've always been connected."

"Yeah and it's fantastic, really. In fact, this has all been nice to know but it's really gotten us nowhere."

"That's not true," the Jarod light bulb went off. "Your mother clearly had two plans. Plan A and Plan B. The question becomes why she had to resort to Plan B, the fake suicide. Something went wrong."

Parker was nodding, "Maybe if you could remember simming these things, that could help us. Maybe she told you something that wasn't written here."

"Maybe," he breathed out. "But if I was really hypnotized, I don't know how to get the memories out of my head without Sydney."

Miss Parker shrugged, "Blue Cove, here we come."

"My favorite place in the world," Jarod added in an uncharacteristically sarcastic manner. Miss Parker smiled. She was rubbing off on him.

*****

There were a lot of other files in the safe, but as the two had worked through them, they came to realize that they'd stumbled upon most of this information before. There were labeled copies of all eight red files, some work-ups on Timmy/Angelo, saved letters from and to Jacob and Fennigor about rescuing the children, Catherine's concerns on the preliminary reports for the Mirage project. What intrigued Miss Parker, to the point of granting Jarod the driver's seat when they were leaving so that she could investigate further, were the notes that the Centre had taken about Miss Parker's own innate gifts.

A thin notebook seemed to be completely dedicated to Miss Parker and her progress. Since when did the Centre study her? Sure she had the pretender gene, but that had never really been explored. This was the Centre though. For her to assume they hadn't pursued one of only eight known pretenders in the world was just ignorant.

The authorization was given by her father. "Surprise surprise."

"Hm?" said Jarod. Talking to herself was difficult with someone else in the car. The car that was struggling quite a bit through the snow. If she was stuck at this freezing cold empty house in the middle of nowhere with Jarod, someone was going to pay. And only one person was in close vicinity.

"Nothing. Are you going to get us out of this driveway some time today?"

"I'm trying," he replied, pressing the gas pedal again. He opened the door and looked back at her, "Hit the gas."

Miss Parker groaned and rearranged herself into the driver's seat. Jarod had dug up some snow or something around the front tires and now he was leaning against the back, telling her to accelerate. She did. Much to her amusement, the car went flying forward and when she looked in the rearview mirror, Jarod was lying with his face in the snow. With a light laugh, she braked and put the car in park, switching again to the passenger seat.

Jarod opened the driver's door and reclaimed his seat. She was grinning boldly and he decided it would be okay to laugh with her. So they did. They laughed.

*****

They were traveling so slowly and Miss Parker hardly had the patience. She devoted herself to her reading. She had actually undergone some experiments/simulations at the Centre. Little notes on the page margins in her mother's distinct writing made it clear that she had been unaware that her daughter was being sent through these circus hoops at the cheese factory. It was all Daddy. She'd been too young to remember. As a child, she probably assumed she was playing games where Daddy worked. Those preciously tainted days before they stole her innocence forever.

The car hopped and scraped along the snow abruptly and she had to grab the "oh shit"/dry cleaning handle above the window. The engine kicked and then she heard nothing.

"What the hell have you done?"

Jarod's face was tense. It had been for the last twenty minutes of attempted driving.

"Um, Jarod?"

But he was getting out of the car and Miss Parker huffed childishly as he tossed the door shut behind him. A few moments later, he returned.

"We have to walk."

She looked at him as if he's just asked her to fly home, "No."

Jarod rolled his eyes, "You don't really have a choice in the matter unless you'd like to stay here and freeze to death."

"Wasn't really on my agenda," Miss Parker muttered. "How far are we from civilization?"

"Not far," he answered a little too quickly. "Maybe a mile or three or four."

"Jarod."

"We should be thankful we have something to do to keep ourselves warm, Miss Parker."

There was the predictable scowl as she exited the car, "I can think of quite a few better activities actually."

"Oh really?" Predictably smug.

"Yeah really, like you putting that big brain of yours to use and fixing this heap."

They started walking side by side, her arms crossed and his hands snug in his coat pockets.

"Oh." Jarod paused. "That's what I figured you meant."

She glared at him and began walking faster.

Day 32

Parker's head had been throbbing for days. This latest batch of migraines had clearly aced the how-to-reek-the-worst-kind-of-hell class at migraine academy. Her cell was small, but she was well aware it could be worse in the grand scheme of the Centre. She never thought she'd have to be thankful for light, for the regular food and water that appeared in the mornings, for the four walls that surrounded her. Yeah walls. They were a little less humiliating than the bars she now knew Jarod was enduring sublevels away.

Eight sublevels away actually. Eight down. Despite the blindfold she'd been forced to wear, she still knew the elevators in this place better than anyone. When she first began using them after her mother's supposed suicide, she'd forced herself to focus on any sort of mind-numbing monotony that she could, including how long it took to get where she needed to go.

So her location was narrowed down a bit, but not nearly enough. Hopefully with enough field trips through the halls, she'd be able to piece more together. Right now, she was more concerned with Jarod. She'd completely cracked him, and it had been glaringly obvious in his eyes yesterday. The real tragedy would be if someone else had seen what she'd seen.

To stoop so low to mangle and manipulate their beloved pretender, Parker could only imagine the kind of soul someone needed to have. Or lack thereof. Lyle certainly had it in him. What she hated to ponder was whether the same held true for her father. To someone else maybe, but to his own daughter? Could he really?

Her door opened then and she sat up on her cot, sweeping her hair to one side as if she had any dignity left to preserve.

"Hey, sis." Well, she'd definitely hit the nail on the head there.

"Why am I not surprised?"

Lyle smiled arrogantly, "Because I've always been smart enough to know the strange infatuation you have with our favorite labrat."

"My infatuation? Seems to me you're banking on his."

"Yes well, that he's had a real soft spot for you has been clear from the start."

Her twin made himself comfortable on the other side of the cot. God she hated being in the same room with him.

"Then what the hell took you so long?" Miss Parker snarled.

Lyle shrugged, "Not everyone shared my views."

"Daddy," she whispered.

"Among others, but they certainly do now."

Miss Parker swallowed discretely, "You can't prove anything."

With an obnoxious laugh, Lyle replied, "Now that's funny. Real funny."

Any other time she would have had a thumb on his windpipe, but she was no fool so she let him cackle like the buffoon he was. Still, she refused to justify it with one word.

"You know he's just been sitting around in his cell all day, all teary-eyed and pathetic. Won't even answer when someone tries to talk to him. Might even have to pull Sydney in to get some English out of our chimp. I just can't wait for that beautiful moment when Jarod completely, what were your words yesterday? ‘Breaks down.’ Right. It will be a video for the permanent collection, that's for sure." He went on, still chuckling slightly. "Might be the most satisfying moment of my career."

Miss Parker stood abruptly, causing Lyle to twitch backward in surprise. She pointed a finger at him, "And I can't wait until he gets the better of you yet again, you sick sick bastard."

With his ever-present grin, he stood up to match her. "Now why would he even think of doing that when he knows we hold your precious little life in our hands?"

Their faces always seemed to end up mere inches apart as they challenged each other primally, the sibling rivalry blaring at its extreme.

"You're really going to regret messing around with him one day, Lyle. I guarantee it." Her blue eyes darted back and forth over his intensely. "But not nearly as much as you'll regret screwing with me."

"Somehow I doubt that."

Lyle licked his lips and winked, letting the creep factor wash over her for a moment before he edged his way to the door. She remained frozen where she was while he left, silently praying she was right. Miss Parker stayed that way for a moment, until she sunk to the floor, sitting cross-legged in the center of a mess.