"I-," Jarod hastily stammered, straightening in his seat, "I'll get out of your way, and you can climb over."

"Yeah," Parker murmured quietly, immediately dismissing whatever the hell that was. She couldn't attribute it to guilt sickness; after all, Jarod, too, had been thrown offbalance. The Pretender recovered nicely, however, and swiftly exited the plane. He collected Parker's bag and his own, and offered to assist Parker in stepping out of the plane.

"I got it," Parker politely declined, "but thank you." She stretched and yawned, and grimaced in the heat. "What now?" She asked, swiveling. "Of course," she said, studying the asymmetrical two-story stone structure, its pair of four-story octagonal towers-- and the domes that crowned them. "You live in an observatory. One with an airstrip. A fast escape if this goes sideways. Clever."

"Necessary. My family- uh, doesn't trust you."

"Can't say that I blame 'em. I don't need them or you to trust me. I need you to help Broots, and when he's safe you'll never have to see me again. I'll pay you," she reminded him. Again. "I want to pay you."

"No," Jarod said, "you want to frame this as tidy business transaction, instead of something personal, but this isn't business no matter how much you want it to be."

"Whatever," Parker groused. "How the hell could you possibly have a pied-a-tier in Dover without the Centre knowing about it?"

"Is that rhetorical," stammered Jarod thickly. "I have one in Blue Cove as well," he confessed, closing the door.

"You're kidding, right?" Parker asked, following Jarod along the tongue of hot asphalt that split a sunflower farm. "You can't possibly be that insane," Parker chided, attempting to retrieve her bag from Jarod.

"No?" He asked. "Why can't I be?"

"If you wanted to run for the rest of your life you wouldn't have faked your death. I'll take my bag now."

"Ah, right," he said, relinquishing the black garment bag that he had, at the behest of his family, painstakingly examined for listening and tracking devices, and weapons. "I hope she didn't forget to swing by Gabi's," he murmured.

"She?" Parker asked.

"My-- associate," Jarod answered vaguely.

Associate? Mm. Weird way to pronounce lover, but whatever. "And Gabi's?"

"Gabi's Cafe," Jarod clarified. "The pancakes are-- otherworldly. Pillow-y, delicious other-worldliness."

"Jarod, we don't have time for you to eat again."

"That wasn't eating," Jarod corrected sternly, his eyes wide with incredulity. "It was toast. And that was hours ago. I need you to-- to trust the process. Careful," he cautioned, stepping onto a narrow, sloping, and poorly maintained, stone footpath.

"Two hours ago," Parker corrected Jarod.

"Hmm, I'm famished."

"And what process?"

"I have a process," Jarod said, defensively. "Eating is a part of that process."

"I hope to hell there's coffee in your process," groused Parker.

Jarod grinned, adjusted the duffel on his shoulder. "The first step can be tricky," he said a moment later, and observed Parker's inscrutable gaze. "The steps. Up ahead," he clarified. "Erosion," he explained succinctly. "I usually just jump over it."

The erosion had decimated a retaining stone wall, archway, one of the transit houses, and a pavilion as well- in addition to the footpath and the crumbling stone step. Jarod, a man of his word, leapt nimbly over the eroded stone with ease, and jogged up the intact steps that encircled the exterior rotunda wall.

"The portico on the north side's in even worse shape, believe it or not," Jarod said conversationally, pushing a key into the lock. "The ivy was the only thing holding up one columns."

Oh, I believe it.

"Well, welcome to the observatory," he announced with a sweeping gesture into the vestibule. "I haven't gotten around to repairing the telescope just yet," he explained, closing and bolting the door. "But the view from the balcony's not half bad."

"An observatory without a functioning telescope? Pff, disgraceful," Parker exclaimed quietly, following Jarod into a wide, dim corridor, and past half a dozen closed doors. "That's going to cost you a couple stars on the ol' yelp review, Mister."

"Then you definitely don't want to see the moisture damage in the basement."

"Ugh, what a dump," Parker jested with a light chortle.

"Hey, the raccoons that lived in the attic would have disagreed; it took me two years to evict them."

"I'm outta here," Parker joked.

"Ha. Ha." Jarod said dryly, slowing his pace when they arrived at the spiral staircase. "Before we go up I should probably warn you that all of these steps were missing when I bought the place, and these things," he said, tracing ornate newel caps with a fingertip, "weren't even here."

Parker drew to a halt halfway up, moments later, and swung her gaze at Jarod. "Wait, you're not seriously-- you are restoring the observatory?"

"Sporadically," Jarod answered with a shrug, "over the last seven years."

"Seven?"

"I get a bit uneasy when I'm this to close Blue Cove for too long. You're surprised, aren't you?"

"No," Parker insisted. "It isn't what I was expecting."

"What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. The exterior steps are crumbling, the trim's peeling."

"Ah, you judged it by its façade. Tsk-tsk."

"I surmised," Parker argued, joining Jarod on the second floor landing. "And I- wow, clearly, was mistaken," she added softly upon entering a room whose walls were lined with bookcases- several of which were ceiling-to-floor, and could be accessed only by rolling ladder.

An antique apothecary chest, with its dozens of tiny drawers and compartments, sat opposite a matching card catalog cabinet. Two pillars on either side of the room were original- scarred, worn, beautiful.

The hardwood floors had been repaired and polished, however, and the fireplace had been upgraded. The sofa, half dozen accent chairs, and five lamps scattered about the room were, evidently, recent additions.

Only thing missing is a contentious ghost and a secret passage.

Jarod set his keys on a sturdy banquet table that stood in the center of the room, and inventoried the contents of a large insulated tote that had been delivered, moments earlier, by his mother. A dozen pancakes. A thermos filled with coffee. A bottle of maple syrup. Butter. Heaven.

"Make yourself at home," Jarod said to Parker, although by then she already had. She'd been drawn to the century-old gramophone, and was presently spinning Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor, and flipping through a worn leather-bound.

Frankenstein.

Of course.

Manor. Music. Novel. Gothic trifecta achieved.

Jarod decided not to tell Parker about the secret passageways just then. Instead, he said, "I'll grab some plates from the kitchen."

"This place have a bathroom?" Parker asked, hastily returning the book to its home on the shelf between a leather-bound Byron and a creased Lovecraft.

"Several," he answered. "Behind you," he said, looking over her shoulder. "Down the hall. Third door on the left."

Parker nodded her understanding, and casually strode off, and Jarod did the same- in the opposite direction.

Sunlight poured into the vertiginous corridor from skylights that ran its entire length; the sky was a flawless blue beyond glass. And that felt, inexplicably, wrong, incongruous.

The plane could have at least had the decency to sputter a couple of times. They could have crash-landed, been stranded, forced to thumb rides to Dover.

It was all too perfect. And nothing had ever been perfect.

There was a pattern of sidequests, setbacks, storms, all troublesome and tiresome, yes, and also familiar. Unfamiliarity made each decision feel incorrect, and the future both predestined and unalterable regardless of any decision she made. Fuck these appointment-in-Samarra feels.

"Mm," Parker hummed, gazing curiously at the third door on the left; it stood open to reveal a bedroom, and six closed doors. She entered the room, pulled open what she was certain should have been the bathroom door. "Men and directions," she groused, staring into a massive walk-in closet. She opened a second and third closet, and groaned in frustration. "There's gonna be more moisture damage if I don't find--- finally."

Correction, Jarod. Down the hall, third door, inside the master bedroom, second door past the third chiffonier on the right.

She zipped her slacks, straightened her blouse, and glared at herself in the mirror while she washed her hands. 

Not just any mirror. No. Geniusboy's antique mirror inside geniusboy's restored bathroom inside geniusboy's restored bedroom inside geniusboy's partially restored observatory house.

What in the hell am I doing here?

Parker dried her hands.

Drew a breath.

"Okay. Let's get this the hell over with," she said, and promptly returned to the library to find Jarod paging through blueprints and tucking away his phone. "Am I interrupting?"

"No," Jarod answered sheepishly. "Of course not. Sit, eat."

"Let me guess," Parker said, sliding a chair from the table and sitting. "If you don't call every hour your family's going to assume this was a trap, and come after me?"

"Something like that," Jarod answered, stabbing the stack of pancakes with a fork, and sawing off a section with a butter knife.

"Mm," Parker hummed, thoughtfully chewing. "That's reasonable."

"Not really, no," Jarod argued softly, "considering you've known where to find me and them all this time."

Shrugging noncommittally, Parker tore off a piece of pancake with her fingers, thrust it into a small knob of softened butter, and bit into the salty-sweet fusion with a low hum of approval. She rose, and retrieved the blueprints and plans, and spread them out on the floor. "Avoiding gas lines is going to get dicey," she said, kneeling, and leaning over the papers.

"Dicey," Jarod said. "Not impossible."

"Are you certain? Because you said even a small leak is capable of triggering a catastrophic explosion, which would destroy evidence of Lyle's crimes, and Broots' motive."

"I'm certain."

"I'm not," Parker said. "The blast has to be small enough that it won't level an entire neighborhood, but large enough to kill a person, and knock down enough walls to reveal Lyle's shed of savageries."

"That's the plan. The Centre will blame the insufficient amount of explosives on Broots' inexperience."

"And blame him for blowing himself up. He isn't an idiot, Jarod."

"I know," Jarod agreed, nodding somberly. "And I know you don't like this- no more than you like the idea of Broots looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, or what living like that would do to him."

"Killing them all would be so much easier."

"You can't kill them all. The Triumvirate will simply appoint a new board, recruit new operatives. Could it be possible that maybe your mother and Ethan sent you to me to talk you out of doing something you'll regret?"

"It's bold of you to assume I'd regret killing Lyle."

"Lyle is Catherine's son, Ethan's brother."

"He. needs. to. be. put. down."

"And what does your mother and our half brother have to say about that?" Jarod asked, and observed Parker's strained expression. She pressed her lips together so tightly they blanched, nearly disappeared. "All right," she said in a taut voice. "Let's talk explosives."

---