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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: The Characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots and The Center are all property of MTM, TNT and NBC Productions and are used without permission. No money has been involved here and no infringement is intended. 11/07/2002
A Voice Heard in Ramah (part 1 - Grief) By Phenyx
A beautiful, graceful woman stepped from the jet and onto a paved tarmac. Her auburn hair was perfectly styled, despite the last several hours on a plane. She hugged her long coat around her and shivered. The temperature in Blue Cove, Delaware had dropped since she and her comrades had left this morning. The short burgundy skirt she wore was now ill equipped to protect her from the chill in the air.
She looked around the dark runway. It was late. Or it was early, depending on how you wanted to look at things. The Centre's corporate jet and its few disembarking inhabitants were surrounded by a blackness that can only be achieved between two and three o'clock in the morning.
This woman didn't mind. The darkness matched her mood. Though her appearance reflected only a haughty indifference, she was weary and heartsick. She sighed heavily and stifled a yawn. Maybe she would be able to sleep for a few hours tonight. Maybe her exhaustion would ease her mind enough to rest for just a couple of hours. Maybe.
"We could have stayed in Denver for the night and come back in the morning, Parker." Lyle grumbled with a matching yawn.
Miss Parker flashed a dirty look at her brother. She and Lyle had never been close. Truth be told, they hated each other. The expensively dressed, dark haired man was as handsome as he was rotten. Parker knew that her brother's good-looking exterior hid a cold-blooded killer. The tailored clothes and darling smile were thin veils camouflaging the monster underneath.
There were plenty of monsters in Blue Cove, and they all resided in a large stone institution known as The Centre. Miss Parker herself had grown up in and around The Centre. She'd come to believe in the man who ran the place, the man she would always think of as her father. Even now, long after his death, part of her still mourned him. She knew that Mr. Parker had been someone dangerous that even Lyle feared yet she mourned him none-the-less.
"I told you, I have an appointment with the funeral director in the morning, Lyle." She snapped angrily. She sighed again, trying to control the wave of frustration that washed over her.
Purposely lowering her voice to a more soothing level she asked her brother, "Do you want to come to the funeral home with me?" Parker wanted to give Lyle the benefit of participating in the decisions that had to be made. This involved him just as much as it did her.
"It's been a long day Parker." Lyle answered. "I'm going to stay home and sleep." He nodded in her direction. "I'm sure that any arrangements you make will be fine." Lyle grinned his most dashing smile at her, turned on his heel and walked into the night toward his car.
"Miss Parker?"
Parker turned to face the two men standing behind her. The dapper, graying psychologist, Sydney, and the balding, rumpled computer wizard, Broots, both gazed at her with concern.
These two peculiar companions had been by her side for years now. Together the three of them chased The Centre's most prized creation. A pretender. A man who could become anything he wanted to be. Centre operatives kidnapped gifted children and then spent years training the youngsters to become pretenders. These pretenders became a great revenue source for The Centre as they planned or plotted any scenario that any paying client could desire.
One day, the best and the brightest of these pretenders, a genius named Jarod, had run off. Parker had been chasing him ever since. She sighed and shook her head slightly when Parker reflected on how her life had changed during those years since Jarod had escaped from The Centre.
Before Jarod's desertion, Parker had been secure in her place at The Centre. She had never had any cause to doubt her father or his motives. But Jarod had changed all that. The two of them had been friends when they were young. Despite the passage of time and Parker's consistent verbal abuse as adults, Jarod had stubbornly continued to offer support to his old friend.
In spite of her relentless attempts to capture Jarod and return him to The Centre, Parker regularly found herself following his lead as Centre secrets began to unfold. As time went by, Parker annoyingly learned to trust his information in a way that she had never been able to trust anyone else. Their relationship had become a twisted combination of rivalry and dependence.
It was the pursuit of Jarod that had taken Parker and her group to Denver earlier. She had known from the start that it would be a wasted trip. Parker knew that Jarod hadn't been in Denver at all. She was pretty sure that he was actually somewhere in Delaware now but she had followed the red herring in order to keep Lyle occupied.
"Parker?" Sydney repeated.
"I'm okay, Syd." Parker said as she rubbed her aching temples. "It's just. Hell. I don't know why I thought Lyle would even care."
"Would you like to talk about it?" Sydney persisted.
Parker shook her head sadly. "Not now, Sydney. It's late, you two should get home."
"M. Miss Parker," Broots stuttered. "Maybe. well, perhaps you shouldn't be alone at a time like this. I could . or Sydney could. I mean, one of us could make sure you get home okay. G.go with you in the morning."
Parker patted her nervous friend gently on the arm. "Thank you, Broots. I appreciate your concern. But I'll be fine." She shrugged her shoulders. "I've gotten a lot of practice at this type of thing."
"Parker," Sydney started.
"No. I mean it." She interrupted. "I'm going to go home and try to get some sleep. I have a lot to get accomplished in the morning." Parker turned and headed toward her car.
She was tempted to let Sydney stay with her. But Parker couldn't risk having Sydney at her place when Jarod called. She glanced quickly at her watch as she climbed into her car. With a little luck, she'd get home just in time to receive his phone call.
She turned up the heater and opened her window slightly. Parker didn't want to fall asleep while driving home. Of course, falling asleep was just wishful thinking right now. She hadn't been able to sleep for days. Not since she had received the call informing her of her little brother's death.
Two days ago, Parker's baby brother had been playing outside. The weather had been unseasonably warm for mid-October so the boy's nanny had taken the four-year-old to the park. An hour later, the little boy had been dead.
The nanny, panic-stricken at the possible repercussions for her negligence, had called Miss Parker from the emergency room. The nanny had been nearly hysterical as she blathered on.
"It's not my fault." She had repeated over and over. "Oh, Mr. Raines will ruin me for this. Miss Parker you must help me. I did like you asked, I never told Mr. Raines about the times you came to play with the boy. You have to tell him that it wasn't my fault!"
Parker had stared at the phone in shock for several moments before smashing the receiver into its cradle and dashing for the door. She had reached the emergency room at the same time as Mr. Raines. The gaunt, wheezing creature had become the boy's legal guardian after Mr. Parker's death but had rarely shown any interest in the child.
Parker alone had wept beside the small still form in the hospital bed. He'd celebrated his fourth birthday just a few weeks ago. Parker had bought him a bike and he had been thrilled. The boy had solemnly promised her that he'd learn to ride without the training wheels by the time he turned five. But now, there would be no more birthdays for this little one.
According to the doctors in the emergency room, the little boy had suddenly gone into seizures while playing near the playground. By the time an ambulance had arrived, the boy had stopped breathing. There was nothing that could be done.
A furious Raines had ordered the boy's body sent to The Centre for an autopsy. However, Parker had fought him on that front. She didn't trust anything at The Centre. She wanted post mortem results that hadn't been tampered with. She wanted information that she could be sure of.
It had taken a lot of yelling and a small fortune in bribes in order to get the body transferred to the county morgue rather than The Centre. Later the same afternoon when Jarod had called, Parker had asked for a favor.
Parker didn't care how Jarod had learned of the boy's death so quickly. She had known he would hear about it. She had known that he would call. She had also known that he would drop everything else when she asked him to make sure the autopsy results were authentic.
When a tip had come into The Centre the next morning, indicating that Jarod had been located in Denver, Parker had known it was a scam to mislead Lyle and the others. Schlepping across the country was a small price to pay in return for the assistance Jarod was giving her.
Jarod would find out what had killed her baby brother. The boy had been fine. He'd almost never been sick. Parker felt that someone had to be responsible for his death. If the boy's death had been anything but accidental, Parker promised that someone would pay. She knew that Jarod would find the truth for her.
Parker shook her head sadly as she maneuvered her car through the pre-dawn streets. "Who could murder a four-year-old little boy?" she whispered. "The same people who would snatch him from his bed at night." she answered herself.
It suddenly occurred to her that Jarod had been the same age when Centre operatives had broken into his home. They had taken him from his bed and the only world he had ever known. They had stolen his life and ended his childhood. Now she felt that someone had done the same thing to her little brother, in a much more permanent fashion.
Miss Parker carefully pulled her car into the driveway in front of her home. One glance at the house told her that something was wrong. Despite the fact that all the curtains were drawn, she could tell the lights were on. Bright slivers of light could be seen at the edges of each curtain in every room. Parker regularly left one light burning in the hallway whenever she left the house but now, it looked as though every bulb in the place was glowing.
Parker killed the engine and pulled her gun from its holster before quietly making her way up the steps toward the door. When she found the front door unlocked, her anxiety increased and she cocked the pistol before entering.
At first glance, Parker thought that someone must have tossed her place in some kind of search. Upon closer inspection, she realized that her own things hadn't been moved. There hadn't been a search. The mess in her house consisted of printouts and paperwork scattered everywhere.
The dining room table was covered with papers. Some were crumpled, others torn. Parker cautiously scanned the area and found a laptop computer lying on the floor. She stooped to retrieve the processor. Some of the keys had popped off in what must have been a violent impact with the hardwood floorboard.
Parker stood and placed the laptop on the table. As she turned to glance at some of the papers, something crunched beneath her stiletto heels. An empty bottle of rum lay broken in two at her feet.
Cautiously, Parker followed the path of destruction from the dining area into the living room. Here she found more papers strewn about. Near the cold fireplace, she found a handful of papers. Each crumpled into a ball. They seemed to have been tossed, haphazardly at some non-existent flame.
Smashed against the stones of the hearth, Parker found more broken glass. Poking at the pieces with the toe of her shoe, she saw that this had once been a bottle of scotch. The vintage liquor had obviously been removed prior to the bottle's demise.
Parker bent down and snatched one piece of crumpled paper from the fireplace and smoothed it open. It was a Centre memo written by Mr. Parker more than two years ago. The subject line defined the topic of concern, a project called Progeny.
"The Progeny Alpha project is performing as expected." The note read. "Concerns regarding my daughter's interference are unfounded. Her input is a necessary requirement for this aspect of the project. Removal of her from the equation at this point would alter the parameters of the experiment. I recommend that this operation continue on its existing timeline. Should she become cognizant of any aspect of Progeny, the scheduled termination date can be expedited at that time."
Parker shivered at the words "scheduled termination". Her father had apparently been pleading to the Triumvirate on her behalf. Someone had wanted her removed, but Mr. Parker had convinced the powers that be that she was too important for the time being. Part of her felt that her father had been trying to protect her. Some other part, the one deep in her soul, knew that her father had only been trying to protect the mysterious project.
Suddenly, a heavy sigh could be heard from the other side of the room. The memo fluttered from her hand as Parker whirled around and brought her gun up quickly. Poised and ready to fire, she looked around for the source of the sound.
Sitting on the floor with his back against the bar, was Jarod. His brown hair was in disarray, standing up in places, as though he had been running both hands through it over and over. His long legs were pulled close with his knees bent in the air. His wrists rested on his kneecaps nonchalantly. In one hand he gripped the neck of a near empty bottle of vodka, which explained the glassy, bloodshot look in his dark coffee colored eyes.
Parker slowly eased her stance. With a final glance around the room she clicked the safety on her weapon and returned it to the holster at her back.
She shook her head at him. "Jarod. You look like hell."
Jarod spoke as though he hadn't even heard her. "I've decided that I don't particularly care for vodka. I think rum is better." His voice slurred slightly as he spoke. "Of course, scotch is better than either of them. Don't you think?"
"That was twelve year old scotch you drank, Jarod. Very expensive. I'm glad you liked it." She drawled sarcastically. "I surprised you're able to think at all in your condition."
Jarod shrugged and took a swallow from the bottle in his hand.
Parker crossed the room and sat down beside him on the floor. Then she asked, "You found something, didn't you?"
Jarod closed his eyes and started to laugh in a strange, sad way. "You could say that." He answered. "Something, anything, everything," he chanted in a lilting voice. "Somehow, somewhere, some place, some day."
Miss Parker felt goose bumps rise along her flesh. "Jarod," she quipped sternly. "You're starting to scare me. Talk to me."
Jarod's discovery must have been an important one. There was no other reason why he would risk coming here in person rather than just calling her on the phone. The fact that Jarod was now completely pickled added to her impression that something big had been revealed.
"Was my baby brother murdered?" She asked.
Jarod sighed heavily. "No." he said simply.
"Are you sure?" she urged.
Jarod's eyes filled with tears and his lower lip started to tremble. "Very sure. I did the post mortem myself." He whispered, his voice catching. "I was very thorough." He growled.
He rubbed one hand roughly across his forehead and sighed again. "He was stung by a honey bee." Jarod stated flatly. "Apis mellifera. I even pulled the stinger from the palm of his hand. He suffered a severe allergic reaction. He went into anaphylactic shock. It killed him rather quickly."
Miss Parker glanced around her in puzzlement. A simple bee sting didn't account for Jarod's current state of mind. The death of someone so young was a terrible thing and Jarod would have felt sorrow over the loss of such an innocent but Parker didn't think he'd get stone drunk over the accidental death of a child he'd never met.
"Damn them." Jarod hissed. "Damn them all." He yelled, causing Parker to flinch. He suddenly threw the bottle into the fireplace with such violence that shards of glass flew everywhere.
"Jarod, I don't understand." Parker said.
"I was very thorough." Jarod repeated. He buried his face in his hands. "I ran some tests to make sure." He murmured. "Blood tests, chemical analysis, and such."
"And?" Parker coaxed him to go on.
"I noticed an anomaly in the blood test results." He sighed. "He carried the pretender marker in his blood. I didn't think much of it at first. You and Lyle both have it, why wouldn't your little brother?"
Parker's concern was steadily increasing. As she watched, Jarod placed his head in his hands and started to rock back and forth. Parker had never seen him behave this way. He seemed so lost, so miserable.
"I always have to be so damn curious." Jarod moaned. "I just had to keep digging didn't I?"
"Jarod?" Parker felt panic clawing at her gut.
"I ran some preliminary DNA tests and I recognized the results." Jarod whimpered. "God, help me. He was my son."
"What!" Miss Parker felt as though Jarod had just slapped her. She blinked at him for a moment then reached out to touch his shoulder. "Oh, Jarod, I am so sorry."
Jarod flinched away, abruptly turned and hissed at her, "You have no idea." His breath caught sharply in his throat. A moment later an anguished wail rose from him as he cried out, "I autopsied my own little boy."
"Oh god." Parker whispered. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Performing an autopsy on such a small body must have been difficult enough, but to learn that the same body had been part of your own flesh and blood was more than any one should have to experience. Parker had asked Jarod to do this. She was ultimately the cause of his suffering now.
"Oh, Jarod. I am so sorry." She cried.
"He was my son," Jarod repeated. "And all I know about him, I learned from a piece of meat on a slab." Jarod squeezed his eyes shut tightly and started to shake violently. "I sliced him up like a Thanksgiving turkey."
"Jarod." Parker was at a loss. She didn't know what to do. When Jarod leaned toward her she opened her arms and pulled him close.
"There's more." He moaned against her shoulder. "Those bastards." Jarod's words started to slur together in an unintelligible string of oaths. He curled into a tight ball of misery on Parker's lap and wrapped his arms around her waist. With his cheek against her lap, Jarod buried his face in her stomach and began to weep.
Parker tried unsuccessfully to make sense of the muffled words that he continued to groan into her shirt. Jarod was so drunk and so upset that his speech was little more than garbled hiccups. All Parker could do for him was to stroke his back and murmur nonsense in some attempt to calm him down.
Her own tears ran down her face unchecked to fall onto the back of Jarod's shirt.
Parker wasn't sure how long they sat clinging to one another. Eventually, Jarod's body stopped shaking and his breathing became deep and regular as he fell into an alcohol induced sleep.
Parker squirmed her way out of Jarod's grasp. She managed to shake him into a semi-conscious state and maneuver him from the floor onto the nearby couch. He was asleep again only moments later.
"Boy, are you going to be hurting in the morning." Parker whispered as she removed his shoes.
For a moment, habit forced Parker to toy with the idea of calling for a sweeper team. There was no way Jarod could walk right now, let alone escape a team. But as quickly as the idea entered her head, Parker dismissed it. In his current state of mind, Jarod could get violent. Someone would get hurt. Probably Jarod.
Besides, Jarod needed someone right now. He had always been there for her at the darkest times in her life. Now, Parker could return the favor and be there for him when he needed her.
Jarod whimpered pitifully for a moment when she covered him with a blanket. "Hush now, Jarod." She soothed. "Sleep."
A quick glance at her watch told her that it was nearly four in the morning. Parker started gathering up the reams of paper littering the floor. Whatever Jarod had discovered was here in these documents. It somehow involved the Progeny project, of that Parker was sure.
What was the Progeny project? What did it have to do with her? How had her stepmother, Brigette, given birth to Jarod's child? And how did all this relate to her little brother's death?
Parker began reading to find some answers.
A Voice Heard in Ramah (part 1 - Grief) By Phenyx
A beautiful, graceful woman stepped from the jet and onto a paved tarmac. Her auburn hair was perfectly styled, despite the last several hours on a plane. She hugged her long coat around her and shivered. The temperature in Blue Cove, Delaware had dropped since she and her comrades had left this morning. The short burgundy skirt she wore was now ill equipped to protect her from the chill in the air.
She looked around the dark runway. It was late. Or it was early, depending on how you wanted to look at things. The Centre's corporate jet and its few disembarking inhabitants were surrounded by a blackness that can only be achieved between two and three o'clock in the morning.
This woman didn't mind. The darkness matched her mood. Though her appearance reflected only a haughty indifference, she was weary and heartsick. She sighed heavily and stifled a yawn. Maybe she would be able to sleep for a few hours tonight. Maybe her exhaustion would ease her mind enough to rest for just a couple of hours. Maybe.
"We could have stayed in Denver for the night and come back in the morning, Parker." Lyle grumbled with a matching yawn.
Miss Parker flashed a dirty look at her brother. She and Lyle had never been close. Truth be told, they hated each other. The expensively dressed, dark haired man was as handsome as he was rotten. Parker knew that her brother's good-looking exterior hid a cold-blooded killer. The tailored clothes and darling smile were thin veils camouflaging the monster underneath.
There were plenty of monsters in Blue Cove, and they all resided in a large stone institution known as The Centre. Miss Parker herself had grown up in and around The Centre. She'd come to believe in the man who ran the place, the man she would always think of as her father. Even now, long after his death, part of her still mourned him. She knew that Mr. Parker had been someone dangerous that even Lyle feared yet she mourned him none-the-less.
"I told you, I have an appointment with the funeral director in the morning, Lyle." She snapped angrily. She sighed again, trying to control the wave of frustration that washed over her.
Purposely lowering her voice to a more soothing level she asked her brother, "Do you want to come to the funeral home with me?" Parker wanted to give Lyle the benefit of participating in the decisions that had to be made. This involved him just as much as it did her.
"It's been a long day Parker." Lyle answered. "I'm going to stay home and sleep." He nodded in her direction. "I'm sure that any arrangements you make will be fine." Lyle grinned his most dashing smile at her, turned on his heel and walked into the night toward his car.
"Miss Parker?"
Parker turned to face the two men standing behind her. The dapper, graying psychologist, Sydney, and the balding, rumpled computer wizard, Broots, both gazed at her with concern.
These two peculiar companions had been by her side for years now. Together the three of them chased The Centre's most prized creation. A pretender. A man who could become anything he wanted to be. Centre operatives kidnapped gifted children and then spent years training the youngsters to become pretenders. These pretenders became a great revenue source for The Centre as they planned or plotted any scenario that any paying client could desire.
One day, the best and the brightest of these pretenders, a genius named Jarod, had run off. Parker had been chasing him ever since. She sighed and shook her head slightly when Parker reflected on how her life had changed during those years since Jarod had escaped from The Centre.
Before Jarod's desertion, Parker had been secure in her place at The Centre. She had never had any cause to doubt her father or his motives. But Jarod had changed all that. The two of them had been friends when they were young. Despite the passage of time and Parker's consistent verbal abuse as adults, Jarod had stubbornly continued to offer support to his old friend.
In spite of her relentless attempts to capture Jarod and return him to The Centre, Parker regularly found herself following his lead as Centre secrets began to unfold. As time went by, Parker annoyingly learned to trust his information in a way that she had never been able to trust anyone else. Their relationship had become a twisted combination of rivalry and dependence.
It was the pursuit of Jarod that had taken Parker and her group to Denver earlier. She had known from the start that it would be a wasted trip. Parker knew that Jarod hadn't been in Denver at all. She was pretty sure that he was actually somewhere in Delaware now but she had followed the red herring in order to keep Lyle occupied.
"Parker?" Sydney repeated.
"I'm okay, Syd." Parker said as she rubbed her aching temples. "It's just. Hell. I don't know why I thought Lyle would even care."
"Would you like to talk about it?" Sydney persisted.
Parker shook her head sadly. "Not now, Sydney. It's late, you two should get home."
"M. Miss Parker," Broots stuttered. "Maybe. well, perhaps you shouldn't be alone at a time like this. I could . or Sydney could. I mean, one of us could make sure you get home okay. G.go with you in the morning."
Parker patted her nervous friend gently on the arm. "Thank you, Broots. I appreciate your concern. But I'll be fine." She shrugged her shoulders. "I've gotten a lot of practice at this type of thing."
"Parker," Sydney started.
"No. I mean it." She interrupted. "I'm going to go home and try to get some sleep. I have a lot to get accomplished in the morning." Parker turned and headed toward her car.
She was tempted to let Sydney stay with her. But Parker couldn't risk having Sydney at her place when Jarod called. She glanced quickly at her watch as she climbed into her car. With a little luck, she'd get home just in time to receive his phone call.
She turned up the heater and opened her window slightly. Parker didn't want to fall asleep while driving home. Of course, falling asleep was just wishful thinking right now. She hadn't been able to sleep for days. Not since she had received the call informing her of her little brother's death.
Two days ago, Parker's baby brother had been playing outside. The weather had been unseasonably warm for mid-October so the boy's nanny had taken the four-year-old to the park. An hour later, the little boy had been dead.
The nanny, panic-stricken at the possible repercussions for her negligence, had called Miss Parker from the emergency room. The nanny had been nearly hysterical as she blathered on.
"It's not my fault." She had repeated over and over. "Oh, Mr. Raines will ruin me for this. Miss Parker you must help me. I did like you asked, I never told Mr. Raines about the times you came to play with the boy. You have to tell him that it wasn't my fault!"
Parker had stared at the phone in shock for several moments before smashing the receiver into its cradle and dashing for the door. She had reached the emergency room at the same time as Mr. Raines. The gaunt, wheezing creature had become the boy's legal guardian after Mr. Parker's death but had rarely shown any interest in the child.
Parker alone had wept beside the small still form in the hospital bed. He'd celebrated his fourth birthday just a few weeks ago. Parker had bought him a bike and he had been thrilled. The boy had solemnly promised her that he'd learn to ride without the training wheels by the time he turned five. But now, there would be no more birthdays for this little one.
According to the doctors in the emergency room, the little boy had suddenly gone into seizures while playing near the playground. By the time an ambulance had arrived, the boy had stopped breathing. There was nothing that could be done.
A furious Raines had ordered the boy's body sent to The Centre for an autopsy. However, Parker had fought him on that front. She didn't trust anything at The Centre. She wanted post mortem results that hadn't been tampered with. She wanted information that she could be sure of.
It had taken a lot of yelling and a small fortune in bribes in order to get the body transferred to the county morgue rather than The Centre. Later the same afternoon when Jarod had called, Parker had asked for a favor.
Parker didn't care how Jarod had learned of the boy's death so quickly. She had known he would hear about it. She had known that he would call. She had also known that he would drop everything else when she asked him to make sure the autopsy results were authentic.
When a tip had come into The Centre the next morning, indicating that Jarod had been located in Denver, Parker had known it was a scam to mislead Lyle and the others. Schlepping across the country was a small price to pay in return for the assistance Jarod was giving her.
Jarod would find out what had killed her baby brother. The boy had been fine. He'd almost never been sick. Parker felt that someone had to be responsible for his death. If the boy's death had been anything but accidental, Parker promised that someone would pay. She knew that Jarod would find the truth for her.
Parker shook her head sadly as she maneuvered her car through the pre-dawn streets. "Who could murder a four-year-old little boy?" she whispered. "The same people who would snatch him from his bed at night." she answered herself.
It suddenly occurred to her that Jarod had been the same age when Centre operatives had broken into his home. They had taken him from his bed and the only world he had ever known. They had stolen his life and ended his childhood. Now she felt that someone had done the same thing to her little brother, in a much more permanent fashion.
Miss Parker carefully pulled her car into the driveway in front of her home. One glance at the house told her that something was wrong. Despite the fact that all the curtains were drawn, she could tell the lights were on. Bright slivers of light could be seen at the edges of each curtain in every room. Parker regularly left one light burning in the hallway whenever she left the house but now, it looked as though every bulb in the place was glowing.
Parker killed the engine and pulled her gun from its holster before quietly making her way up the steps toward the door. When she found the front door unlocked, her anxiety increased and she cocked the pistol before entering.
At first glance, Parker thought that someone must have tossed her place in some kind of search. Upon closer inspection, she realized that her own things hadn't been moved. There hadn't been a search. The mess in her house consisted of printouts and paperwork scattered everywhere.
The dining room table was covered with papers. Some were crumpled, others torn. Parker cautiously scanned the area and found a laptop computer lying on the floor. She stooped to retrieve the processor. Some of the keys had popped off in what must have been a violent impact with the hardwood floorboard.
Parker stood and placed the laptop on the table. As she turned to glance at some of the papers, something crunched beneath her stiletto heels. An empty bottle of rum lay broken in two at her feet.
Cautiously, Parker followed the path of destruction from the dining area into the living room. Here she found more papers strewn about. Near the cold fireplace, she found a handful of papers. Each crumpled into a ball. They seemed to have been tossed, haphazardly at some non-existent flame.
Smashed against the stones of the hearth, Parker found more broken glass. Poking at the pieces with the toe of her shoe, she saw that this had once been a bottle of scotch. The vintage liquor had obviously been removed prior to the bottle's demise.
Parker bent down and snatched one piece of crumpled paper from the fireplace and smoothed it open. It was a Centre memo written by Mr. Parker more than two years ago. The subject line defined the topic of concern, a project called Progeny.
"The Progeny Alpha project is performing as expected." The note read. "Concerns regarding my daughter's interference are unfounded. Her input is a necessary requirement for this aspect of the project. Removal of her from the equation at this point would alter the parameters of the experiment. I recommend that this operation continue on its existing timeline. Should she become cognizant of any aspect of Progeny, the scheduled termination date can be expedited at that time."
Parker shivered at the words "scheduled termination". Her father had apparently been pleading to the Triumvirate on her behalf. Someone had wanted her removed, but Mr. Parker had convinced the powers that be that she was too important for the time being. Part of her felt that her father had been trying to protect her. Some other part, the one deep in her soul, knew that her father had only been trying to protect the mysterious project.
Suddenly, a heavy sigh could be heard from the other side of the room. The memo fluttered from her hand as Parker whirled around and brought her gun up quickly. Poised and ready to fire, she looked around for the source of the sound.
Sitting on the floor with his back against the bar, was Jarod. His brown hair was in disarray, standing up in places, as though he had been running both hands through it over and over. His long legs were pulled close with his knees bent in the air. His wrists rested on his kneecaps nonchalantly. In one hand he gripped the neck of a near empty bottle of vodka, which explained the glassy, bloodshot look in his dark coffee colored eyes.
Parker slowly eased her stance. With a final glance around the room she clicked the safety on her weapon and returned it to the holster at her back.
She shook her head at him. "Jarod. You look like hell."
Jarod spoke as though he hadn't even heard her. "I've decided that I don't particularly care for vodka. I think rum is better." His voice slurred slightly as he spoke. "Of course, scotch is better than either of them. Don't you think?"
"That was twelve year old scotch you drank, Jarod. Very expensive. I'm glad you liked it." She drawled sarcastically. "I surprised you're able to think at all in your condition."
Jarod shrugged and took a swallow from the bottle in his hand.
Parker crossed the room and sat down beside him on the floor. Then she asked, "You found something, didn't you?"
Jarod closed his eyes and started to laugh in a strange, sad way. "You could say that." He answered. "Something, anything, everything," he chanted in a lilting voice. "Somehow, somewhere, some place, some day."
Miss Parker felt goose bumps rise along her flesh. "Jarod," she quipped sternly. "You're starting to scare me. Talk to me."
Jarod's discovery must have been an important one. There was no other reason why he would risk coming here in person rather than just calling her on the phone. The fact that Jarod was now completely pickled added to her impression that something big had been revealed.
"Was my baby brother murdered?" She asked.
Jarod sighed heavily. "No." he said simply.
"Are you sure?" she urged.
Jarod's eyes filled with tears and his lower lip started to tremble. "Very sure. I did the post mortem myself." He whispered, his voice catching. "I was very thorough." He growled.
He rubbed one hand roughly across his forehead and sighed again. "He was stung by a honey bee." Jarod stated flatly. "Apis mellifera. I even pulled the stinger from the palm of his hand. He suffered a severe allergic reaction. He went into anaphylactic shock. It killed him rather quickly."
Miss Parker glanced around her in puzzlement. A simple bee sting didn't account for Jarod's current state of mind. The death of someone so young was a terrible thing and Jarod would have felt sorrow over the loss of such an innocent but Parker didn't think he'd get stone drunk over the accidental death of a child he'd never met.
"Damn them." Jarod hissed. "Damn them all." He yelled, causing Parker to flinch. He suddenly threw the bottle into the fireplace with such violence that shards of glass flew everywhere.
"Jarod, I don't understand." Parker said.
"I was very thorough." Jarod repeated. He buried his face in his hands. "I ran some tests to make sure." He murmured. "Blood tests, chemical analysis, and such."
"And?" Parker coaxed him to go on.
"I noticed an anomaly in the blood test results." He sighed. "He carried the pretender marker in his blood. I didn't think much of it at first. You and Lyle both have it, why wouldn't your little brother?"
Parker's concern was steadily increasing. As she watched, Jarod placed his head in his hands and started to rock back and forth. Parker had never seen him behave this way. He seemed so lost, so miserable.
"I always have to be so damn curious." Jarod moaned. "I just had to keep digging didn't I?"
"Jarod?" Parker felt panic clawing at her gut.
"I ran some preliminary DNA tests and I recognized the results." Jarod whimpered. "God, help me. He was my son."
"What!" Miss Parker felt as though Jarod had just slapped her. She blinked at him for a moment then reached out to touch his shoulder. "Oh, Jarod, I am so sorry."
Jarod flinched away, abruptly turned and hissed at her, "You have no idea." His breath caught sharply in his throat. A moment later an anguished wail rose from him as he cried out, "I autopsied my own little boy."
"Oh god." Parker whispered. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. Performing an autopsy on such a small body must have been difficult enough, but to learn that the same body had been part of your own flesh and blood was more than any one should have to experience. Parker had asked Jarod to do this. She was ultimately the cause of his suffering now.
"Oh, Jarod. I am so sorry." She cried.
"He was my son," Jarod repeated. "And all I know about him, I learned from a piece of meat on a slab." Jarod squeezed his eyes shut tightly and started to shake violently. "I sliced him up like a Thanksgiving turkey."
"Jarod." Parker was at a loss. She didn't know what to do. When Jarod leaned toward her she opened her arms and pulled him close.
"There's more." He moaned against her shoulder. "Those bastards." Jarod's words started to slur together in an unintelligible string of oaths. He curled into a tight ball of misery on Parker's lap and wrapped his arms around her waist. With his cheek against her lap, Jarod buried his face in her stomach and began to weep.
Parker tried unsuccessfully to make sense of the muffled words that he continued to groan into her shirt. Jarod was so drunk and so upset that his speech was little more than garbled hiccups. All Parker could do for him was to stroke his back and murmur nonsense in some attempt to calm him down.
Her own tears ran down her face unchecked to fall onto the back of Jarod's shirt.
Parker wasn't sure how long they sat clinging to one another. Eventually, Jarod's body stopped shaking and his breathing became deep and regular as he fell into an alcohol induced sleep.
Parker squirmed her way out of Jarod's grasp. She managed to shake him into a semi-conscious state and maneuver him from the floor onto the nearby couch. He was asleep again only moments later.
"Boy, are you going to be hurting in the morning." Parker whispered as she removed his shoes.
For a moment, habit forced Parker to toy with the idea of calling for a sweeper team. There was no way Jarod could walk right now, let alone escape a team. But as quickly as the idea entered her head, Parker dismissed it. In his current state of mind, Jarod could get violent. Someone would get hurt. Probably Jarod.
Besides, Jarod needed someone right now. He had always been there for her at the darkest times in her life. Now, Parker could return the favor and be there for him when he needed her.
Jarod whimpered pitifully for a moment when she covered him with a blanket. "Hush now, Jarod." She soothed. "Sleep."
A quick glance at her watch told her that it was nearly four in the morning. Parker started gathering up the reams of paper littering the floor. Whatever Jarod had discovered was here in these documents. It somehow involved the Progeny project, of that Parker was sure.
What was the Progeny project? What did it have to do with her? How had her stepmother, Brigette, given birth to Jarod's child? And how did all this relate to her little brother's death?
Parker began reading to find some answers.
