Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
And once again, people please remember I am ‘no-english’. Though my beta is truly an angel, she cannot perform any miracles and turn me into a native here. So please remember that when reading! Thanx
House of Cards
Part 10
Parker stomped out of Lyle’s office. On her way to the elevator she spotted Willie at the corner. After stepping inside she shot her hand forward to stop the automatic door from closing.
With a raised eyebrow and a dangerous smile she asked in a sarcastic inviting tone: “Care to follow.. er.. join me?”
Willie tried to hide his surprise and mumbled: “Ah, no Miss Parker.”
“Good. Because,” she said, stepping out of the elevator again, “if I ever see you in the vicinity of my house again, you won’t have the time to be sorry for it.” Parker stood face to face with the huge sweeper. Despite her high heels he was taller by a few inches. But she nevertheless managed to stare him down.
She stepped back, slamming at the call button without looking. “Don’t mess with me, Willie! Trust me, not even Raines would be able to help you if you do!”
The elevator car had arrived again. Parker stepped in once more and waited for the door to close. She kept him locked with her look, shooting daggers at him with her eyes. Willie was virtually unable to move.
When she was gone, the sweeper swallowed hard and dared to breathe again. This little incident had shaken his courage mightily. It took him quite a while to collect himself. Going face to face with a pissed Miss Parker was a recipe for humility.
But he needed to talk to Mr. Lyle about that. He only hoped that Lyle would not order him to keep her under surveillance.
******************
Ethan more stumbled than walked up the steps to their current home. He was dead tired, but glad he was back. It was eight in the morning and he hoped Jarod was already up.
This unspoken question was immediately answered when he entered the house. With a stack of pancakes in front of him, Jarod watched morning-television -- cartoons as usual.
When Jarod noticed his brother’s entrance, he was more than surprised. Thinking that something must have gone fatally wrong, he jumped up.
“Ethan you’re back! I didn’t expect you so soon! What happened? Did you see your sister? Is she all right?”
Ethan raised his hands in a calming way and offered him a tired but assuring smile. “Hey, it’s ok. Everything is fine. I saw her, I talked to her and she sent me right back.”
Though relieved, Jarod braced himself for more. “I see. But you told her about the plan?”
“Yes Jarod. That’s why she wanted me back here today.”
This was what Jarod had expected and dreaded. She was not interested in participating and much less in coming along with them. She had even sent her own little brother away. She must have been quite angry.
“She thought I sent you, didn’t she? She thinks I didn’t get it, and now she’s angry at you. I’m sorry Ethan.”
“You’re right. Miss Parker is angry but not at me big brother. At you. And not because she has mistaken my appearance as one of your games.”
“Huh?”
They were interrupted when Margaret and Charles entered the room. “Ethan,” both exclaimed synchronically. Margaret approached him quickly and started her questioning.
“You’re back so soon. Did Miss Parker come with you?”
“No. Not yet anyway.”
Ethan struggled with how to explain why he was back so soon; how to tell them what, or rather who it was he had come back for. He didn’t know why, but he felt that it was better if the others stayed in the dark for now. So he had to lie. Well, his sister had told him to do just that if necessary. That she had suggested it thinking about different circumstances shouldn’t matter now.
He more felt than saw the curious and rather confused look Jarod gave him at his ‘not yet’ answer. He hurried to continue: “She wanted to come, but there is something she needs from Jarod first. Miss Parker wants me to take Jarod to a safe place where they could meet.”
Now it was Charles who interrupted his son. “Again? So why didn’t she come here in the first place? And what does she want from Jarod?”
“Dad, Margaret, please try to understand. This is a big step for her. All she wants to do is to talk to Jarod again. Then she could leave too. There is something she needs help with first.”
Jarod couldn’t believe what he heard. She wanted to see him again. And apparently she thought about leaving too. But if that also meant leaving with him was still unclear. And his brother’s earlier words were still clear in his mind: ‘she’s angry at you’.
“When and where?” Jarod asked.
“We should get going soon. Parker wants to meet us later this afternoon at a place called Lake Catherine.”
Jarod smiled knowingly. Ben’s place. A good choice. He watched Ethan closely and realized how tired his younger brother was.
“Ethan, you’re dead on your feet. You need some sleep. I’m sorry, but would you mind sleeping while I drive. I’d like to get up there as soon as possible. You know, to make sure it’s alright there.”
“I’ll be fine sleeping in the car, Jarod. We can go right away.”
They left within half an hour with Jarod’s parents waving goodbye. Charles wasn’t worried much, He had faith in his sons. Margaret was a bit more nervous. This would take another day off their work on the plan and she was a bit apprehensive about Miss Parker’s motives.
***
A few miles down the road, Jarod couldn’t hold back anymore. He wanted an answer to at least two questions before Ethan could fall asleep.
“Is it about her baby brother?”
“Huh?” the sleepy man replied, ripped out of his reverie. “Her baby brother? No. She…”
“Is she really planning to leave?”
“Jarod, I know you want answers, but please, be patient.”
“At least tell me what you meant when you said she was angry at me! Ethan, please!”
“A little while ago you said she was always angry at you.” He shot his older brother a sad smile before he added: “I’m sorry bro, I really don’t think it’s my place to interfere here. This should be between you and her. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Jarod slammed his head a few times against the head-piece of the car seat. He would not get any answers here.
Ethan had his eyes already closed, but before he succumbed to sleep, the broadest grin appeared on his face. A sudden need to share the incredible news rose within him.
“She told me her name, you know,” Ethan whispered before finally giving in to sleep.
Jarod looked at his brother in awe, surprise and joy. Parker had obviously shared her secret with her brother. It was her way, her beautiful way, of showing complete trust and love. He knew that, because once -- a long time ago -- he was at the receiving end of this trust, this love.
**************
The sweeper knocked politely at the glass door, though he rather wanted to rush in to the room. He impatiently awaited the ‘come in’ grunt by the occupant and entered as if haunted. “Mr. Lyle, I …”
“Oh Willie, good. I wanted to talk to you anyway.” Lyle looked up at the sweeper and was caught off guard by the look on his face.
“What?” The only thought that the sweeper had was that his boss sounded more and more like his sister.
“Sir, I just,… I just ran into your sister and she … apparently she … though I don’t know how…. I was very cautious…. but she’s found out anyway that…..”
“Oh that. I know. That’s why I wanted to see you. We have to change strategy. You do as follows. You’ll assign your two best men to do it. Your best men. And two she wouldn’t recognize of course. Send them over right away, and when she arrives later they better not let her out of sight anymore. Got that? And tell them they are not to be caught. Because if they do and my sister doesn’t finish them, I will.”
Willie nodded and left. He was more than relieved that Lyle had not assigned him to do it anymore. Another encounter with the Ice Queen was not on his wish-list.
**************
Three hours later the two brothers arrived at Lake Catherine. Jarod tapped Ethan’s shoulder to wake him up. The younger man grunted and stirred slightly, obviously fighting to stay asleep.
“Hey little brother! We’re almost there. Get. Up!” This time Jarod patted a bit more forcefully on the sleeping figure’s left knee with apparently more success.
“Are we there?” Ethan still struggled to gain his wits.
“Yep. Almost.”
“Almost? Jarod, I haven’t slept for two days!”
“Stop the whining. We are just five minutes away. Besides, I bet you wouldn’t give that attitude to your sister if she’d been the one waking you up!”
Jarod said it in a teasing way, but there was a slight hint of jealousy in his words. Ethan detected it nevertheless. Thinking about his position, the younger man sighed heavily. Standing in the middle of two strong, stubborn and oh-so-complicated people -- two personalities he liked and he depended on -- was very hard for him.
To lighten up the mood Ethan fell into a teasing tone as well: “You might be right there, big bro. But she has a gun, you know. And contrary to my current driving companion, she is a sight to behold. A presence. Who would want to fall asleep around her?”
Jarod immediately knew what his brother was doing. But he could only agree to what he had said. It was true. HE definitely wouldn’t fall asleep around her! And not because of the fact that she was the one who chased him with a gun.
The memory of their earlier conversation was still very fresh in Jarod’s mind. He glanced over at his brother with a slight smirk on his lips.
“And,” Jarod said, “she told you her first name.” No teasing in his tone this time, and no trace of jealousy at all.
“Yes she did.” A broad and proud smile appeared again on Ethan’s face. Nodding his head as if to assure himself of the fact, he repeated, “She told me her name.”
The brief moment of being two of the very few people who shared the same knowledge ended when Jarod steered the car into a dead-end driveway. He killed the engine in front of a medium-sized house that looked rather abandoned. No other car was around and the window shades were closed.
While he got out of the car a rush of panic rose in Jarod as he looked around suspiciously. Nothing else was out of the ordinary, but it was so quiet. Too quiet.
“Jarod? What’s wrong?” came from the other side of the car. Ethan had seen the hunted look on his brother’s face before.
“I don’t know. But I’m gonna find out.”
As the pretender headed towards the front door, a voice from behind stopped him in his tracks.
“It’s not open, ya know!” Jarod whirled around, ready to grab his brother and run. He looked in the direction of the voice. Then he saw a grey haired woman, barely looking over the bushes which created a natural fence between Ben’s property and his neighbor. The woman waved with her hand to be more visible.
Both men let out a concerted sigh of relief at the sight.
“Excuse me, Ma’am, but where is Ben? We’re friends of his and wanted to say hello.”
“Oy, that’s a shame! You’ve missed him by a day. He left yesterday for Arizona. Went for a week to see his brother over there. He too rarely allows himself a holiday, but once in a while he….”
Jarod interrupted the woman’s story about Ben’s habits.
“I see. Well we’re really sorry that we missed him, but I’m sure it’ll do him good!”
The older woman went on, wanting to be helpful: “If you need a place for the night, there is this other …”
Again she was interrupted, this time from Ethan though. “Thank you Ma’am. But we’re just passing through. We only wanted to meet with our sister here and say ‘Hi’ to Ben. Since she hasn’t arrived yet, I guess we’ll just wait a bit here in our car. Then we’ll move on. We need to get up to Vermont tonight to see family.”
Jarod was surprised - and impressed - at this. Ethan usually was rather people-shy and stayed back. But his handling of the situation and the intended ‘hint’ at Vermont was ingenious.
“Oh well,” came from the bushes. The woman was already walking back to her own house. “I’ll tell Ben that you were here next week. Have a good trip, y’all!”
The two brothers looked at each other smiling. “Well done,” Jarod complimented.
Ethan was about to give a sheepish reply, something he got more and more accustomed to when around either one of his siblings, when another car drove up the driveway.
It was not her own car, not her beloved Boxter. Though a sports car that had definitely just been used to its limits for the first time, it was a rental.
**********************
What the two sweepers assigned to wait for Miss Parker at her house didn’t know was that Miss Parker never had the intention of going home that day. By the time she left the Centre, only half an hour after her run-in with Willie, she got into her car and drove north. She didn’t tell Broots or Sidney where she went. Parker simply stopped at her older colleague’s office and told him her ulcer was pretty bad and she would work from her home.
After a few hours of waiting, Roger, one of the sweepers, called his superior to tell him that she still hadn’t arrived.
When Willie, along with a handful of cleaners and sweepers got there a bit later, the team-leader could only conclude – to his misery – that she’d never went back there in the first place. She was gone without a trace. Willie contemplated on what to do next. Call his boss? Well there maybe was another chance before getting into trouble big time.
“You two stay here in hiding. Keep me informed if she shows up. Mike, you’re with me. The rest of you, go back to the Centre and wait for instructions. C’mon, lets go and see how much the good doctor knows ‘bout this.”
***********************
Ethan immediately walked up to the parked car. His beautiful sister stepped out of it, looking around expectantly. Ethan approached her to give her a hug which she reciprocated easily. Jarod looked at the scene with another wave of jealousy rushing through him. Would she ever greet him like that?
“Hi little brother. I see you at least talked some sense into boy-wonder here.”
Parker got out of the embrace and regained her usual goal-intended posture. The young man smiled and greeted her. He let her name roll off his tongue in endearment, beaming with pride.
She was rather disappointed to hear that Ben was not around. But she reminded herself that she hadn’t come up here to catch up with her mother’s old friend. She had come to do some serious business.
“Ethan, would you mind if ….”
The addressed man interrupted her. He already knew what she wanted to say. “Listen, what if I go back to the car and wait, so you two can talk. I have some sleep to catch up on anyway.”
His sister flashed him a grateful smile and gave him one more hug. All the while Jarod watched the scene from a few yards away. She had yet to pay any attention to him.
With a heavy sigh she finally walked up to him. But she didn’t acknowledge him, nor face him nor did she stop. Parker simply passed by and motioned Jarod to follow with her hand. As they strolled down towards the lake and she still kept quiet, Jarod’s patience finally ran out.
“Only a few days ago you asked me to leave; to stop contacting you, quit leaving breadcrumbs. And now, look who contacts me! Funny, how things turn out sometimes, don’t you think?”
Parker briefly closed her eyes. She had expected this, but she refused to get into it. Collecting her thoughts, she replied:
“Grew a little overconfident lately, huh? Having done all the jobs there are, now you’re planning on playing God?”
Jarod immediately changed from his earlier taunting tone to a defensive one: “I can do it,” he said with more conviction than he felt. “I’ve figured it all out. Checked and double-checked. It’ll work.”
Parker stopped in her tracks, whirled around and faced him for the first time since they met there. Her eyes were flashing angrily. A jolt, as if electrified, rushed through Jarod when he realized how beautiful she was. He had often been the reason for her rage, but he rarely had the chance to actually see her up-close at those times.
“Yeah. Genius-Boy has it all covered, hasn’t he? You’ve ventured into the gene-manipulation and DNA-sequencing with mighty success, I believe. I’m sure you even dissected Dolly and you re-did all the newest experiments in the field,” she spat out.
House of Cards
Part 10
Parker stomped out of Lyle’s office. On her way to the elevator she spotted Willie at the corner. After stepping inside she shot her hand forward to stop the automatic door from closing.
With a raised eyebrow and a dangerous smile she asked in a sarcastic inviting tone: “Care to follow.. er.. join me?”
Willie tried to hide his surprise and mumbled: “Ah, no Miss Parker.”
“Good. Because,” she said, stepping out of the elevator again, “if I ever see you in the vicinity of my house again, you won’t have the time to be sorry for it.” Parker stood face to face with the huge sweeper. Despite her high heels he was taller by a few inches. But she nevertheless managed to stare him down.
She stepped back, slamming at the call button without looking. “Don’t mess with me, Willie! Trust me, not even Raines would be able to help you if you do!”
The elevator car had arrived again. Parker stepped in once more and waited for the door to close. She kept him locked with her look, shooting daggers at him with her eyes. Willie was virtually unable to move.
When she was gone, the sweeper swallowed hard and dared to breathe again. This little incident had shaken his courage mightily. It took him quite a while to collect himself. Going face to face with a pissed Miss Parker was a recipe for humility.
But he needed to talk to Mr. Lyle about that. He only hoped that Lyle would not order him to keep her under surveillance.
******************
Ethan more stumbled than walked up the steps to their current home. He was dead tired, but glad he was back. It was eight in the morning and he hoped Jarod was already up.
This unspoken question was immediately answered when he entered the house. With a stack of pancakes in front of him, Jarod watched morning-television -- cartoons as usual.
When Jarod noticed his brother’s entrance, he was more than surprised. Thinking that something must have gone fatally wrong, he jumped up.
“Ethan you’re back! I didn’t expect you so soon! What happened? Did you see your sister? Is she all right?”
Ethan raised his hands in a calming way and offered him a tired but assuring smile. “Hey, it’s ok. Everything is fine. I saw her, I talked to her and she sent me right back.”
Though relieved, Jarod braced himself for more. “I see. But you told her about the plan?”
“Yes Jarod. That’s why she wanted me back here today.”
This was what Jarod had expected and dreaded. She was not interested in participating and much less in coming along with them. She had even sent her own little brother away. She must have been quite angry.
“She thought I sent you, didn’t she? She thinks I didn’t get it, and now she’s angry at you. I’m sorry Ethan.”
“You’re right. Miss Parker is angry but not at me big brother. At you. And not because she has mistaken my appearance as one of your games.”
“Huh?”
They were interrupted when Margaret and Charles entered the room. “Ethan,” both exclaimed synchronically. Margaret approached him quickly and started her questioning.
“You’re back so soon. Did Miss Parker come with you?”
“No. Not yet anyway.”
Ethan struggled with how to explain why he was back so soon; how to tell them what, or rather who it was he had come back for. He didn’t know why, but he felt that it was better if the others stayed in the dark for now. So he had to lie. Well, his sister had told him to do just that if necessary. That she had suggested it thinking about different circumstances shouldn’t matter now.
He more felt than saw the curious and rather confused look Jarod gave him at his ‘not yet’ answer. He hurried to continue: “She wanted to come, but there is something she needs from Jarod first. Miss Parker wants me to take Jarod to a safe place where they could meet.”
Now it was Charles who interrupted his son. “Again? So why didn’t she come here in the first place? And what does she want from Jarod?”
“Dad, Margaret, please try to understand. This is a big step for her. All she wants to do is to talk to Jarod again. Then she could leave too. There is something she needs help with first.”
Jarod couldn’t believe what he heard. She wanted to see him again. And apparently she thought about leaving too. But if that also meant leaving with him was still unclear. And his brother’s earlier words were still clear in his mind: ‘she’s angry at you’.
“When and where?” Jarod asked.
“We should get going soon. Parker wants to meet us later this afternoon at a place called Lake Catherine.”
Jarod smiled knowingly. Ben’s place. A good choice. He watched Ethan closely and realized how tired his younger brother was.
“Ethan, you’re dead on your feet. You need some sleep. I’m sorry, but would you mind sleeping while I drive. I’d like to get up there as soon as possible. You know, to make sure it’s alright there.”
“I’ll be fine sleeping in the car, Jarod. We can go right away.”
They left within half an hour with Jarod’s parents waving goodbye. Charles wasn’t worried much, He had faith in his sons. Margaret was a bit more nervous. This would take another day off their work on the plan and she was a bit apprehensive about Miss Parker’s motives.
***
A few miles down the road, Jarod couldn’t hold back anymore. He wanted an answer to at least two questions before Ethan could fall asleep.
“Is it about her baby brother?”
“Huh?” the sleepy man replied, ripped out of his reverie. “Her baby brother? No. She…”
“Is she really planning to leave?”
“Jarod, I know you want answers, but please, be patient.”
“At least tell me what you meant when you said she was angry at me! Ethan, please!”
“A little while ago you said she was always angry at you.” He shot his older brother a sad smile before he added: “I’m sorry bro, I really don’t think it’s my place to interfere here. This should be between you and her. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Jarod slammed his head a few times against the head-piece of the car seat. He would not get any answers here.
Ethan had his eyes already closed, but before he succumbed to sleep, the broadest grin appeared on his face. A sudden need to share the incredible news rose within him.
“She told me her name, you know,” Ethan whispered before finally giving in to sleep.
Jarod looked at his brother in awe, surprise and joy. Parker had obviously shared her secret with her brother. It was her way, her beautiful way, of showing complete trust and love. He knew that, because once -- a long time ago -- he was at the receiving end of this trust, this love.
**************
The sweeper knocked politely at the glass door, though he rather wanted to rush in to the room. He impatiently awaited the ‘come in’ grunt by the occupant and entered as if haunted. “Mr. Lyle, I …”
“Oh Willie, good. I wanted to talk to you anyway.” Lyle looked up at the sweeper and was caught off guard by the look on his face.
“What?” The only thought that the sweeper had was that his boss sounded more and more like his sister.
“Sir, I just,… I just ran into your sister and she … apparently she … though I don’t know how…. I was very cautious…. but she’s found out anyway that…..”
“Oh that. I know. That’s why I wanted to see you. We have to change strategy. You do as follows. You’ll assign your two best men to do it. Your best men. And two she wouldn’t recognize of course. Send them over right away, and when she arrives later they better not let her out of sight anymore. Got that? And tell them they are not to be caught. Because if they do and my sister doesn’t finish them, I will.”
Willie nodded and left. He was more than relieved that Lyle had not assigned him to do it anymore. Another encounter with the Ice Queen was not on his wish-list.
**************
Three hours later the two brothers arrived at Lake Catherine. Jarod tapped Ethan’s shoulder to wake him up. The younger man grunted and stirred slightly, obviously fighting to stay asleep.
“Hey little brother! We’re almost there. Get. Up!” This time Jarod patted a bit more forcefully on the sleeping figure’s left knee with apparently more success.
“Are we there?” Ethan still struggled to gain his wits.
“Yep. Almost.”
“Almost? Jarod, I haven’t slept for two days!”
“Stop the whining. We are just five minutes away. Besides, I bet you wouldn’t give that attitude to your sister if she’d been the one waking you up!”
Jarod said it in a teasing way, but there was a slight hint of jealousy in his words. Ethan detected it nevertheless. Thinking about his position, the younger man sighed heavily. Standing in the middle of two strong, stubborn and oh-so-complicated people -- two personalities he liked and he depended on -- was very hard for him.
To lighten up the mood Ethan fell into a teasing tone as well: “You might be right there, big bro. But she has a gun, you know. And contrary to my current driving companion, she is a sight to behold. A presence. Who would want to fall asleep around her?”
Jarod immediately knew what his brother was doing. But he could only agree to what he had said. It was true. HE definitely wouldn’t fall asleep around her! And not because of the fact that she was the one who chased him with a gun.
The memory of their earlier conversation was still very fresh in Jarod’s mind. He glanced over at his brother with a slight smirk on his lips.
“And,” Jarod said, “she told you her first name.” No teasing in his tone this time, and no trace of jealousy at all.
“Yes she did.” A broad and proud smile appeared again on Ethan’s face. Nodding his head as if to assure himself of the fact, he repeated, “She told me her name.”
The brief moment of being two of the very few people who shared the same knowledge ended when Jarod steered the car into a dead-end driveway. He killed the engine in front of a medium-sized house that looked rather abandoned. No other car was around and the window shades were closed.
While he got out of the car a rush of panic rose in Jarod as he looked around suspiciously. Nothing else was out of the ordinary, but it was so quiet. Too quiet.
“Jarod? What’s wrong?” came from the other side of the car. Ethan had seen the hunted look on his brother’s face before.
“I don’t know. But I’m gonna find out.”
As the pretender headed towards the front door, a voice from behind stopped him in his tracks.
“It’s not open, ya know!” Jarod whirled around, ready to grab his brother and run. He looked in the direction of the voice. Then he saw a grey haired woman, barely looking over the bushes which created a natural fence between Ben’s property and his neighbor. The woman waved with her hand to be more visible.
Both men let out a concerted sigh of relief at the sight.
“Excuse me, Ma’am, but where is Ben? We’re friends of his and wanted to say hello.”
“Oy, that’s a shame! You’ve missed him by a day. He left yesterday for Arizona. Went for a week to see his brother over there. He too rarely allows himself a holiday, but once in a while he….”
Jarod interrupted the woman’s story about Ben’s habits.
“I see. Well we’re really sorry that we missed him, but I’m sure it’ll do him good!”
The older woman went on, wanting to be helpful: “If you need a place for the night, there is this other …”
Again she was interrupted, this time from Ethan though. “Thank you Ma’am. But we’re just passing through. We only wanted to meet with our sister here and say ‘Hi’ to Ben. Since she hasn’t arrived yet, I guess we’ll just wait a bit here in our car. Then we’ll move on. We need to get up to Vermont tonight to see family.”
Jarod was surprised - and impressed - at this. Ethan usually was rather people-shy and stayed back. But his handling of the situation and the intended ‘hint’ at Vermont was ingenious.
“Oh well,” came from the bushes. The woman was already walking back to her own house. “I’ll tell Ben that you were here next week. Have a good trip, y’all!”
The two brothers looked at each other smiling. “Well done,” Jarod complimented.
Ethan was about to give a sheepish reply, something he got more and more accustomed to when around either one of his siblings, when another car drove up the driveway.
It was not her own car, not her beloved Boxter. Though a sports car that had definitely just been used to its limits for the first time, it was a rental.
**********************
What the two sweepers assigned to wait for Miss Parker at her house didn’t know was that Miss Parker never had the intention of going home that day. By the time she left the Centre, only half an hour after her run-in with Willie, she got into her car and drove north. She didn’t tell Broots or Sidney where she went. Parker simply stopped at her older colleague’s office and told him her ulcer was pretty bad and she would work from her home.
After a few hours of waiting, Roger, one of the sweepers, called his superior to tell him that she still hadn’t arrived.
When Willie, along with a handful of cleaners and sweepers got there a bit later, the team-leader could only conclude – to his misery – that she’d never went back there in the first place. She was gone without a trace. Willie contemplated on what to do next. Call his boss? Well there maybe was another chance before getting into trouble big time.
“You two stay here in hiding. Keep me informed if she shows up. Mike, you’re with me. The rest of you, go back to the Centre and wait for instructions. C’mon, lets go and see how much the good doctor knows ‘bout this.”
***********************
Ethan immediately walked up to the parked car. His beautiful sister stepped out of it, looking around expectantly. Ethan approached her to give her a hug which she reciprocated easily. Jarod looked at the scene with another wave of jealousy rushing through him. Would she ever greet him like that?
“Hi little brother. I see you at least talked some sense into boy-wonder here.”
Parker got out of the embrace and regained her usual goal-intended posture. The young man smiled and greeted her. He let her name roll off his tongue in endearment, beaming with pride.
She was rather disappointed to hear that Ben was not around. But she reminded herself that she hadn’t come up here to catch up with her mother’s old friend. She had come to do some serious business.
“Ethan, would you mind if ….”
The addressed man interrupted her. He already knew what she wanted to say. “Listen, what if I go back to the car and wait, so you two can talk. I have some sleep to catch up on anyway.”
His sister flashed him a grateful smile and gave him one more hug. All the while Jarod watched the scene from a few yards away. She had yet to pay any attention to him.
With a heavy sigh she finally walked up to him. But she didn’t acknowledge him, nor face him nor did she stop. Parker simply passed by and motioned Jarod to follow with her hand. As they strolled down towards the lake and she still kept quiet, Jarod’s patience finally ran out.
“Only a few days ago you asked me to leave; to stop contacting you, quit leaving breadcrumbs. And now, look who contacts me! Funny, how things turn out sometimes, don’t you think?”
Parker briefly closed her eyes. She had expected this, but she refused to get into it. Collecting her thoughts, she replied:
“Grew a little overconfident lately, huh? Having done all the jobs there are, now you’re planning on playing God?”
Jarod immediately changed from his earlier taunting tone to a defensive one: “I can do it,” he said with more conviction than he felt. “I’ve figured it all out. Checked and double-checked. It’ll work.”
Parker stopped in her tracks, whirled around and faced him for the first time since they met there. Her eyes were flashing angrily. A jolt, as if electrified, rushed through Jarod when he realized how beautiful she was. He had often been the reason for her rage, but he rarely had the chance to actually see her up-close at those times.
“Yeah. Genius-Boy has it all covered, hasn’t he? You’ve ventured into the gene-manipulation and DNA-sequencing with mighty success, I believe. I’m sure you even dissected Dolly and you re-did all the newest experiments in the field,” she spat out.
