Angelo was in a vent. He was looking at the daughter's office. He'd heard the others say she'd been hurt. He wanted her to come back. He'd been watching the room for days. . .he didn't know how many, he'd forgotten to count. But she hadn't come back yet. She never stayed away this long.
She must be hurt bad. Angelo jumped as the cellular phone on Miss Parker's desk rang. He looked at it as it rang again. She wasn't here to answer it. He'd answer it for her.
The phone was answered just after the third ring. "Hello," the voice wasn't hers. It was a man's voice possessed of an oddly childlike inflection
"Who are you and where is my mother?" he asked in a tight voice.
The answer he received was not the one he expected. "Hurt. Hurt bad."
He felt every scrap of his anger dissolve as worry and fear filled him. "What? How bad? Where is she?", he asked frantically, but whoever it was had already hung up the phone.
He opened his lap-top and hurriedly accessed the information he needed. As quickly as he could, he checked all the hospitals in Blue Cove until he found the one she was at. The he hurriedly packed a bag and called a cab to take him to the airport.
* * *
His eyes were red and grainy as he exited the airport. He'd gotten no sleep, but was so full of adrenaline he didn't notice. He flagged a cab and climbed in with his carry-on, glad he didn't have to wait and retrieve luggage. He scanned the road signs anxiously, though in truth he had no idea where the hospital was. He practically jumped out of the cab the moment they reached his destination, almost not waiting for it to come to a complete stop. He had his bag in hand and hurriedly thrust more than enough money into the cabdriver's hand . He almost ran to the hospital entrance. Thanks to his earlier investigation, he knew which room his mother was in.
As he hurried into the hospital room, his eyes were immediately drawn to the figure on the bed. He immediately went to her. He had never seen his mother like this. She was so pale and she looked so fragile. He'd never thought his mother could look fragile.
He suddenly noticed that he was not her only visitor. There were two men in the room. He spared them a glance. One was a balding, nervous looking man, the other was older, and considerably less nervous looking. The older one had spoken the moment Syd entered the room, though the words were just now penetrating his brain, "I'm sorry young man; I believe you have the wrong room."
The woman on the bed stirred. "Syd," she said groggily.
The boy turned to his mother so quickly that he didn't notice that the older man also took a step toward her. "Mom," he said.
"What are you doing here?" she all but growled.
It was like a slap in the face. That his own mother could treat him with such hostility when all he had done was come to see if she was alright. Was she so ashamed of him that she didn't want see him when her life was in danger? Did she want to keep him out of her life that badly?
At that moment, he heard footsteps. Just as another man entered the room, his mother's friend said again, "I'm sorry young man; I believe you have the wrong room." And then added, "I'll show you out." The boy would've argued but for the strong grip on his arm and the look on his mother's face. As he left the room he heard her say, "Hello, Daddy."
As the two walked down the hall, Syd Parker thought about what he had seen. It was obvious that his mother's father had no idea who Syd was. Though he had long suspected that his mother kept his existence a secret from most of the people in her life, he had never realized that she kept it a secret from her family. He turned to the man beside him and said, "Who are you?"
"A friend of your mother's. My name is Sydney."
Syd stopped and turned to the man next to him. So this was the man he had been named for. Once, when he was about seven, he had noticed that a lot of his friends were named after their fathers and asked his mother if he was named after his. She had said, "No, honey, you were named after a friend of mine." It rather amazed him that anyone who had been his mother's friend then could still be her friend now. Then she has been so kind and so loving; now she was so cold and so distant. But then, maybe it was only him that she was so cold with.
Before the boy could sink deeper into his funk, the man called Sydney spoke again. "What is your name?" Though the older man spoke only a few words, Syd was soothed by his tone of voice and the genuine interest in his voice. The interest, though, was not the morbid fascination that his colleague had a child secreted away, hidden from the world at large, but real interest in him, and his feelings.
"Syd Parker," he answered, his eyes locked on the older man's face, waiting to see what it would reveal. Syd searched for a reaction but there was none to be seen. He brought his puzzled eyes to those of the man before him. The older man simply put a hand on Syd's should and said, "Your mother will be alright." As soon as the words were spoken Syd felt overwhelmed by relief. For some reason he believed this man, and the words spoken offered him a great deal of comfort.
Sydney spoke again, but this time there was an urgency in his voice, "You have to get out of here. Go to a hotel. I'll give you some money." Sydney reached for his wallet, but Syd cut him off.
"I have plenty of money." He had withdrawn a significant amount from his sizable savings account before coming to Delaware. He wanted to refuse to do as Sydney said. He longed to be angry with the man for trying to get him out of sight so quickly, but Sydney's voice held concern as well as urgency. "If you'll give me a phone number, I'll call you after I check in."
Miss Parker and her father were now alone. Broots had disappeared saying something about getting coffee about thirty seconds after Sydney left. She didn't think she'd see him again until after her father left. Thank God Sydney had managed to get Syd out of the room before her father had gotten a good look at him. Her son looked so much like her that it would have been impossible for her father no to notice if he'd paid even the least attention to Syd. The things Major Charles said had done much to dispel the doubts about her father that had been creeping into her mind in recent years, but she didn't think he would have enough power to keep Syd safe if the Centre found out Syd was Jarod's son. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't even sure her father would try.
When she had first discovered her pregnancy, about a week after she arrived at boarding school, she had decided she wouldn't tell anyone until she told Jarod. Jarod hadn't answered her letters, though, (it had been years before she realized he never received them) and she had continued to keep it a secret. She had been so scared that her father would disapprove of and she had been so desperate for his approval, but that had not been the only reason. Even then, when she had not known the how truly evil the Centre was, she had known she didn't want her child there.
She pulled thoughts from the past and tried to focus on what her father was saying. "Jarod somehow managed to escape again. Security thinks he used his old escape route again." This was of no surprise to Miss Parker. She'd been expecting it ever since she heard Jarod had been captured.
Her father stayed for a few more minutes. He asked how she was feeling and apologized for Brigitte's inability to visit today (not that she had visited before), and said that he had business to attend to. Then he left. All in all, the visit lasted barely ten minutes.
As Sydney walked back into Parker's room, he thought about the boy. He'd had no idea that Parker had a child and was certain that no one else did either. It was obvious she didn't want the Centre to know about him and her reasoning was equally obvious: no child belonged at the Centre. She didn't want her child raised as she had been, surrounded by darkness and death.
Parker looked badly shaken, though she hid it well. He simply went over to the chair beside the bed, sat down, took her hand, and waited for her to talk. She looked at him and snorted in derision. "Waiting for me to spill my guts, to 'reveal my innermost feelings?'" she spoke wryly. "Fine."
"He was born when I was eighteen. No one knows. I had to keep him away from the Centre. I put him in boarding school before I started working at the Centre."
Sydney raised an eyebrow, "And his name?"
Her voice softened. "You were there to hold my hand when my mother died. I was alone when Syd was born and I wanted so badly for someone to hold my hand."
Sydney didn't know what to say. The gesture had been terribly inadequate. He'd known that at the time; it had simply been all he was able to provide. That she thought of that when she wanted to feel as if she wasn't alone spoke volumes of what her life had been like.
Again Sydney didn't know what to say. He was spared the necessity of saying anything when Broots entered the room. Before Broots could stammer a single word Miss Parker spoke in a voice hasher than any Sydney had ever heard her use, "Not a word." Broots, unable to force a single word around the lump in his throat, could only nod in response.
Hearing the voice had made Angelo remember. It had made him remember the letters. Letters to Jarod. Angelo had taken them from the office. Angelo had hidden them so he wouldn't read them. He hadn't given them to Jarod. He couldn't give them to Jarod then. Dr. Billy had been working with Jarod then. They were Jarod's. He'd get them to Jarod now.
Syd paced in his hotel room. It ate away at his soul to know that his mother's hatred for him was so strong that she couldn't even permit him the solace of being with her, even under these circumstances. She'd been shot, nearly killed, and still she didn't want to see him. By God, she was so ashamed of him she hadn't even told her own father that she had a child. The image of her face at the moment her father entered the room flashed before his eyes: panic had taken control of her features, and he thought he'd seen something akin to fear in her eyes. Obviously the man didn't know, and, just as obviously, she didn't want him to. The fact that she'd never told her father bothered Syd more than he liked to admit. He knew his mother hated him now, but he'd always thought she used to love him. When he was little, she used read to him and to brush the hair back from his face. When he was frightened, whether by a nightmare or a thunderstorm, she used to hold him in her lap and rock him. That she had always been ashamed of him destroyed the one hope he had left. The hope that if his mother had loved him once, maybe someday she could love him again.
At that moment Syd heard a knock on his door. Just as he had expected, it was his mom's friend Sydney. Syd had to admit that he was curious about the man. What did this man mean to his mother? He'd been her friend for at least fifteen years and she'd named her only child after him Of course, Syd didn't know what she meant by that gesture Wait a minute, he was assuming too much. For all he knew this was a completely different Sydney-- but he wouldn't bet on it.
"Hello." Syd had been too agitated to notice earlier, but the man had a faint accent. Also, there was something about him that inspired trust.
"Hello," Syd answered, "Why did you send me here instead of to my mother's house? And for that matter, where exactly is her house?" Syd was aware that bitterness had crept into his voice and that he shouldn't be revealing so much of his emotions to a stranger, but he didn't care. He was angry at his mother for not wanting him and furious with himself for not being good enough for her.
Sydney noticed the bitterness in the boy's voice and could understand it. His mother kept him at a distance and he didn't understand why. He had no way of knowing that it was for his own good. Sydney wished he could explain it to the boy but it wasn't his place, and besides it wouldn't do any good coming from him. Syd needed to hear it from Parker.
"I don't have a key to your mother's house. Speaking of you mother, you shouldn't visit her in the hospital again. She'll be released tomorrow morning. She'll visit you then."
"Very well," Syd tried to imitate the cold-as-ice tone his mother sometimes used; he failed miserably. The words were like a punch in the gut. She'd actually sent someone to tell him that she didn't want to see him. Was her distaste for him so intense that she couldn't call him and tell him herself.
Suddenly, as if he knew exactly what Syd was thinking, Sydney spoke again, "Your mother didn't send me." With that the man said goodbye and left.
Miss Parker found the wheel chair ride degrading. She could walk under her own power, but the hospital had a policy against it. Her face however, showed only irritation and impatience. Her father wasn't here, but she hadn't really expected him. She knew Sydney and Broots would be here if she hadn't told them not to come. She got in her car - she had arranged for it to be here when she was released -- and drove towards the hotel where Sydney had told her that her son was staying.
At the same time, Jarod was checking his mail at one of the PO boxes he kept. There was a large envelope and, judging by the scrawled print, it was from Angelo. He quickly opened it. Inside there were several smaller envelopes. They were addressed to him from Miss Parker. Judging by the yellowing of the paper and the return address, she had written them while she was at boarding school.
Why would she have written to him then. They'd grown apart by then. Hadn't they?
Suddenly he was assaulted by flashes of memory. Himself, hanging in his plastic chamber as Raines' voice assaulted him, telling to forget. Forget what? Images flashed through his mind at super speed. Miss Parker and he, she in her late teens, talking and laughing. But they'd quit speaking to each other by then, hadn't they? A kiss, far more passionate than he would have expected. That's right; they were more than friends then. They'd. . he was hit by a startlingly real memory. His flesh to hers, making love. That's right. They'd been lovers, always avoiding the cameras. Then she'd left, gone to boarding school. And Raines had made him forget.
With the memories came questions: how much did Raines know, had she been made to forget as well? He searched his mind for answers. He remembered everything. They'd made him forget, but they'd never known how far the relationship had progressed. They thought they'd caught the two young people heading towards an intimate relationship, not already immersed in one. He didn't know if they'd made her forget, it'd been so many years before he'd seen her again. He searched his memory, but could only remember her hostility and disdain for him after that. He remembered that she'd promised to write when she left. Two days later, he'd been given over to Raines for a week. Sidney had been sent away from the main facility in Delaware and hadn't returned until several days after Raines had finished with Jarod.
There nine letters in all. He went back to the apartment where he was currently staying. Once he got there, he put the letters in chronological order by post-mark date and opened the first one. When he did so, he noticed that the last one hadn't been sent from her boarding school. It had been written a few months after her graduation.
The letter didn't really say anything, but reading it reminded Jarod of how innocent she had been then. The letter was filled with enthusiasm and joy. The Centre had robbed her of that. The Centre had robbed them both of their innocence.
Miss Parker tried in vain to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She took a deep breath, schooled the nervousness off her features, and knocked on the door of the hotel room. When the door she looked at her son and took in the changes in him that she had been too alarmed to notice the day before. He'd grown over a foot and was taller than her now. The anger in his eyes had only intensified.
His eyes. They were Jarod's eyes. When Syd was little he used the look at her with love and near worship. The same way she'd looked at her own mother. He had been sure she could do anything. Now it was clear that her son not only no longer loved her, but that he actually hated her. She couldn't blame him.
"So you finally decide I'm worth a few minutes of your time. I'm surprised you could fit me into your busy schedule. After all, you haven't called me in over four months."
"It's for your own good. What made you come here anyway?"
"When I called, someone else answered your phone and told me you were hurt. I came to see if you were alright. I guess that was stupid of me."
For the first time since his mother had entered the room, Syd could see emotions on her face. Alarm and near panic, "Who answered the phone?"
The change in his mother startled the anger our of him momentarily, "A man; I don't know who. He talked almost like a little kid and when I tried to ask him questions he hung up on me."
Syd could see the tension drain out of her. For just a moment she looked relieved. Then her features were once again unreadable. "I told you not to call that number except in case of emergency. Why did you?"
Syd felt the anger rise in him again, "I called because you forgot my birthday."
"That hardly qualifies as an emergency. I'll get you a ticket on the first plane back to school. I'm sure they've noticed you absence by now. I'll call and explain that you came home because of a family emergency that has since been handled. Don't call again unless it's a real emergency."
The lack of emotion in her voice wounded him, so he used anger to cover the pain, "Family? Since when have we been a family?"
As soon as he spoke the words he regretted them. He watched his mother's carefully composed expression faltered. Her breath caught in her throat. When she spoke, her voice was very low, "You're right. It's been a long time."
She turned and opened the door. Syd opened his mouth to say something - to ask her, to beg her, to stay, but the words wouldn't come and the door closed softly behind her.
As Miss Parker walked back to her car, she tried to get her emotions under control. Never in her life had she been so terrified as when Syd had told her someone else had answered her phone.
She'd left it in her office when she'd gone to try and save her father. She'd forgotten about it until Syd mentioned it. Obviously, Angelo had taken it for some reason. Why she didn't know, but better him than Raines or Lyle. She'd have to see if she could get it back when she got back to the Centre, but with Angelo, you never could tell.
Nothing had ever hurt so much as that last comment of Syd's. She knew she deserved it, but she didn't know any way to spend time with him, or even contact him very often, without leading the Centre right to him.
Jarod had just finished reading the fifth letter, unlike the first four (which had been written in a single week's time) it expressed annoyance that he hadn't written back yet. He was saddened to know that she'd thought he hadn't cared enough to write back.
He opened the sixth letter..
Jarod,
He noticed that this once didn't say "Dear." The handwriting reflected the anger she'd been feeling. He was surprised to see that the entire letter consisted of one, fairly short paragraph. The others had each been over a page. I know you're busy doing SIMs, but you could have at least written me one letter. Just so I'd know you haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Fine, well, maybe this one will get your attention. I think I might be pregnant. I don't know for sure, but I'll write you as soon as I do.
Jarod felt his heart catch in his throat. He had never been so shocked in his entire life. He forced himself to start breathing again. It was probably just a scare. If there had been a child Parker would have told him about it sometime in the last three years. Despite what he told himself, Jarod reached hurriedly for the next letter.
Reading the letter he was surprised that there wasn't more venom in it, considering that she'd not gotten an answer to what she wrote in her previous letter. He was also shocked, but not completely, at what it revealed.
I don't believe you. After that last letter, you still didn't have the decency to write me back. What kind of person are you?
Well maybe you just didn't you just didn't know how to react, considering you know for sure. This letter will fix that. I'm pregnant.
Please, please, write me back.
Jarod felt s myriad of emotions at once. There was elation. The thought that he had a child was wonderful in a strange sort of way. There was betrayal; Parker should have told him. He could understand why she didn't tell him before. She hadn't realized how truly evil the Centre was; she'd thought he's known and simply hadn't cared. But it had to have become obvious to her in the last three years that he' never received her letters. Why hadn't she told him? There was also fear. It was entirely possible that Parker had had an abortion. She was so desperate for her father's approval and Daddy would have never approved of his "angel" having a baby. That would explain why she hadn't told him about the child, but that didn't feel right. She'd been innocent then. She'd been full of love and had thought the world was a beautiful place and she would have been determined to be the type of mother Catherine had been.
As soon as Miss Parker walked in the front door of her home she heard the phone ringing. She answered the phone. "What?"
She was unsurprised to hear Sydney's voice say, "Hello, Parker."
"Why are you calling? Is there a new lead on our missing lab rat?"
"No, there's no information on Jarod. I was just calling to see if you were alright. After all Parker, you were just released from the hospital." The tone of Sydney's faintly accented voice made it clear that it wasn't her injury he was worried about.
"I'm fine Sydney."
"Are you sure, Parker? I talked to your son yesterday…" His voice trailed off, leaving her to complete the thought.
"And he hates me."
"Parker, I know you wanted to keep him away from the Centre, but why did you put him in boarding school? You didn't know that you were a red file then and it is possible to work for the Centre raise a child without bringing him to the Centre."
Parker hesitated for moment before revealing the next piece of information. But if she couldn't tell Sydney, who could she trust? "He's Jarod's son."
She heard Sydney's intake of breath before he uttered, "Jarod's? But. . .?"
"He doesn't know. His memories have been blocked, probably courtesy of that ghoul Raines," she hissed through clenched teeth.
"I had no idea."
Miss Parker wasn't sure if he was talking about her relationship with Jarod, or Raines's actions. Probably both. "I know." It worked both ways. She'd always known that no one at the Centre knew how serious her relationship with Jarod had been. And Sydney had always done all he could to protect Jarod; he'd never approve of is surrogate son's mind being tampered with.
Sydney switched the conversation back to its original topic: Syd. "So that's why you're so afraid about the Centre finding out about him."
"Yes. If they knew about him. . ." There was no need for her to finish the sentence. They both knew what would happen.
"So that's why there has been so little contact between you. Especially in the last three years."
"I didn't see any other way to keep from leading the Centre straight to him."
"I understand, Parker, but why does he know so little about you?"
"It's safer for him that way."
"But is it better for him? Besides Parker, if they somehow manage to find him, he'll be in more danger not knowing."
"Shut-up, Sydney. It's my decision." As she hung up the phone, she was could almost see the slight smile on Sydney's face.
Elsewhere, Jarod was reading the eighth letter. It had been written quite some time after the others. In it Parker cursed him for his apathy and his stupidity. Apparently she had written it after she had felt the baby move for the first and she thought he was a fool for refusing to be part of the miracle that the child was.
The first emotion to wash over Jarod was relief. She hadn't had an abortion. The next was confusion. If she'd had the child, what had happened to it? Had he put the child up for adoption? She had been only eighteen.
He reached for the last letter. The first sentence informed him that he had a son or rather that she had son. As far as she was concerned he no longer existed. The rest of the letter, which was over a page long, seemed to focus alternately on cursing him - calling him a lab rat and a specimen -- and trying to make him see that he was abandoning something wonderful. Compared to it, the previous letter was a compliment.
Jarod felt the incredible need to defend himself. To shout that he hadn't known. To make her understand that he would never voluntarily abandon his child. But she already knew. So why hadn't she told him?
He read the letter again to see if it gave any indications of her plans. It said nothing about whether she intended to keep their son or give him up for adoption. However, the tone seemed to indicate that she was planning on keeping him. But if that was true, where was the boy. The boy. He didn't know his own son's name.
Syd was surprised to hear a knock at his door. He was even more surprised when he answered the door and saw that it was his mother. She'd left less than two hours ago. His surprise became shock when she said, "We need to talk."
"We tried that earlier," he said angrily. "You left."
She started to bristle up but then answered, "You're right. I did. But I shouldn't have."
"Okay, I'm listening." He moved aside so that she could come in. He had tried to say the words nonchalantly, but even he could hear the barely disguised the eagerness in his voice.
After he closed the door behind her she turned to him and said, "I'm sorry that I haven't visited you n the past three years." She knew the words were terribly inadequate , but she continued anyway, "I'm sorry I haven't called, I'm sorry I put you in the boarding school in the first place and, most of all, I'm sorry I haven't told you why."
Syd stared at his mother in shock. The last time she'd apologized to him had been the day she left him at the boarding school.
She continued, "Because you deserve to know. You have to understand that I was just trying to protect you."
The pain and confusion in Syd's voice nearly killed her, "Trying to protect me? I thought you hated me."
"Oh, baby, nothing could be further from the truth." She cupped his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. She saw hope rising there. Then Syd seemed to forcibly keep himself from believing, as if he were afraid that it wasn't true. He pulled away from her.
"Protecting me from what?"
"Sit down sweetheart." Once again she saw the light flare in his eyes.
They both sat down and she began speaking again. "I guess I should start at the beginning. It's the only way you'll understand. Maybe."
Something in his mother's voice made Syd even more attentive. If that was possible. She sounded as if just thinking about -- whatever it was caused her pain.
"When I was a girl, I never went to school. I had tutors. I didn't have a lot of friends. I spent a lot of time at my father's workplace. It was called the Centre. There were other children there. Back then I never really thought about why they were there."
Syd was confused. Why was his mother telling him this? What did it have to do with anything? He decided not to ask his questions. For the first time, his mother was opening up to him and it obviously wasn't easy for her. He didn't want to risk that his questions would cause her to stop.
"Those children lived there. They spent every day and every night inside that building. They were exploited. Their minds were exploited for profit. My mother tried to rescue those children. She managed to save some of them, but not all. One day, when I was ten year old, my mother was killed. She was in an elevator at the Centre. She was shot four times."
This time Syd couldn't stop himself. He was too horrified. "Oh God, that's awful."
"Yes it was."
Syd could see the tears in his mother's eyes. He didn't think he'd ever seen her cry before. Well, she wasn't actually crying now. But still. . .
"I was there when the elevator doors opened." She heard Syd gasp but she continued, "That hurt me more than almost anything. She was killed because she was trying to save the children. I became friends with the two boys she couldn't save. Neither of them was what you would call normal. I guess I wasn't either. They were Centre children. One of them was a pretender. Given the right information he could become anybody. A doctor, a firefighter, or even a specific individual. He did SIMs, simulations, every day. He was born with the talent and the Centre trained him to bring it out. The other little boy wasn't born with that ability, but a man, a doctor," she spat, " thought electric stimulation to his brain could cause it to emerge. That's exactly what Raines did to him."
"H-How. . .?" Syd sputtered
"Raines is evil incarnate. He strapped that boy into a child-size electric chair and fried his brain. That happened to Angelo before I met him. He survived, but he was never the same. He crawled through the vents and was too scared to leave them often. He's the one that answered my phone. I'm telling you this so you'll understand exactly how cruel the Centre can be. After my mother died, my father didn't want to talk about her death. Years later, after I'd blocked out what really happened, my father told me that my mother had been bipolar and that she'd committed suicide. He was trying to protect me from the memory, I suppose."
Syd bit his lip to keep from crying out. How could he think he was protecting his daughter by telling her that her mother committed suicide?
"Let me get back to the point. I played with the boys often. Though not as much with Angelo. My father allowed me to play with them, but he told me to keep my distance. I wasn't supposed to tell them my first name, so they called me Miss Parker. I was able to obey that rule with Angelo, but not with the other boy. He was my best friend. When I was fourteen, my father said I was too old to be playing with the Centre kids. I wanted so badly to please him that I didn't play with them -- for about a week." Syd saw a hint of a smile on his mother's face. "I didn't play with them as much as before and I tried not be overt about it, but we stayed friends for the next three years."
"Then what happened?" Syd asked the questioned, but he suspected that he knew the answer. His mother had been eighteen when he was born.
"I fell in love with my best friend. Puppy love, but love nonetheless. For six months we snuck around avoiding the surveillance cameras."
"Surveillance cameras!?"
"Yes. There were surveillance cameras everywhere in the Centre. They weren't that hard to avoid. There were a few places without cameras. Angelo had shown us where they were years earlier. For six months, no one knew. Then I guess my father began to suspect something because he sent me off to boarding school. I wrote to my friend four times in the first week alone. I got angry with him because he didn't answer my letters. I didn't realize at the time that he wasn't getting them. I wrote him when I found out I was pregnant. Of course, he didn't answer it. I don't know what happened to the letters, but no one at the Centre ever read them. Your father is a pretender because of an anomaly in his blood. It's genetic. If the Centre knew about you they would take you and lock you up so that they could do experiments on you. Just like they did him."
Syd was finally beginning to understand. He couldn't believe that a place such as the Centre existed, but he believed his mother.
"I didn't tell anyone about you. Not even my father. I was afraid that his loyalty to the Centre would force him to reveal you."
Syd didn't that the man would even try to keep him a secret. It wasn't just the things that his mother had told him. Though they were bad enough, he could have given the man the benefit of the doubt. After all, the things his mother had done had seemed very bad until he had known the situation. It was how he had felt when he saw the man. He'd gotten the impression of a person who cared about nothing but himself and power. Even as these thoughts ran through his head, his mother continued speaking. Her voice had changed and Syd got the impression that this was harder for her to say than anything else had been
"Three years ago, your father escaped from the Centre. I was put in charge of the team assigned to recapture him. The deal is that if I bring him back, I get to leave. The Centre will be completely out of our lives and you'll be safe."
Syd didn't know what to say. His mother had just told him that she was hunting down his father so that this Centre could continue to do experiments on him. He should be outraged, but it was clear that she was doing it out of desperation. She was desperate to be free of that place and desperate for him to be free of it. Instead of speaking, Syd reached out and took his mother's hand in his own.
As Miss Parker unlocked her front door she was unable to tear her mind from her conversation with Syd. They hadn't managed to completely repair their relationship. They'd probably never be able to do that, but at least they'd managed to improve it a little. Syd now understood why she couldn't call or visit, but knowing wouldn't make it much easier for him to bear when he returned to school tomorrow. She so wished that there was so way she could be a bigger part of his life without endangering him.
As she walked into her living room she was surprised to see Jarod there. A split-second later she realized she shouldn't have been. He always knew exactly what was happening in her life.
"What are you doing here?" She tried to muster her usual growl, but she was too worried. If Jarod attempted to contact Syd, it would endanger Syd further. She mentally chastised herself. There was no guarantee that Jarod knew anything about Syd.
"Because I found out about our son," Jarod answered with uncharacteristic straight-forwardness.
"How did you find out?" She was suddenly alarmed. If Jarod had found out, it was possible that the Centre would too.
"Angelo sent me your letters."
She was overcome by relief. It was Angelo that had given him the information. That meant that there was probably no way for the Centre to find out. Wait! There was no way of knowing when or where Angelo had acquired the letters or who had seen them before he had. "Had they been opened?"
"No. No one else had seen them." He paused, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"For him."
"What do you mean 'for him'?"
She took a deep breath, "Jarod, your family means everything to you. If you'd known that you had a son nothing would have been able to stop you from seeing him and you would have led the Centre right to him."
"I could have gotten to him, wherever he is without the Centre knowing. He-" Near desperation tinged his voice, "What's his name?"
"I couldn't take that chance." Her voice softened and she smiled slightly, "His name is Sydney. I call him Syd."
Jarod felt the breath leave his body. He knew with udder certainty that that is what he would have named his son. But why had she named him that? He knew the answer as soon as the question crossed his mind: because Sydney meant almost as much to her as he did to Jarod. "Where is he now?"
"You can't see him."
"I know, but please tell me where he is."
She hesitated, "Right now he's in a hotel outside of town, but he's leaving for boarding school tomorrow."
"Why isn't he there now?"
"He heard that I was hurt and came to check on me." There was no mistaking the pride in her voice.
A look of confusion crossed Jarod's face, "How did he find out?"
"Angelo. Syd'd birthday was the thirteenth and when I didn't call he called my cell because he was angry with me. I left it on my desk when I went to warn Daddy and Angelo answered it."
"Does anyone else know about Syd?" Jarod asked the question, but he really wasn't worried about the answer. If someone that was a threat knew, Parker would have been a lot more worried.
"Sydney and Broots, but Broots doesn't know he's yours."
There were dozens more questions that he wanted to ask Parker, but first he wanted to be by himself for a while. It was beginning to sink in that he'd missed his son's entire childhood and would, in all probability, miss the rest of Syd'd life as well. He said good bye and left.
After he was gone, Parker asked herself why she hadn't take the opportunity to capture Jarod, but she already knew the answer.
The next day, Jarod found himself at the airport. Actually, to say he found himself there would be incorrect. He'd made a conscious decision to come here the night before. It had been a small matter to find out what flight Syd was on. He stood just out of Miss Parker's visual range and watched as she talked to the boy in front of her. Jarod's eyes were glued to the scene before him; as the boy embraced her she almost stiffened, but then she relaxed and hugged him back. Jarod could swear he saw tears in her eyes, but logically he knew he couldn't tell from this distance. At that moment Syd turned, and Jarod's breath caught in his throat as he saw his son's face for the first time. God, he looked like Parker. Syd walked towards the gate and Jarod began heading the same direction, arranging so that their paths would cross. Closer and closer was he to Syd, until finally he could- see tears in the young man's eyes. Tears that did not spill over. Yes, he was a lot like his mother. Just then Jarod bumped into his son. "I'm sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going," Jarod offered an apologetic smile. "No problem. I should have been paying more attention myself." Syd nodded politely, then continued on his way. Jarod turned his head in Parker's direction and saw that she was still standing there. Their eyes met, then she turned-and walked away. Jarod's mind was in turmoil. He had no idea what to do. He reached in to his jacket, pulled out his cell phone, and pushed the same button he had pushed so many times before. The phone rang twice, then he heard a faintly accented voice say "Hello." "Hello Sydney."
THE END