Day of reckoning
Chapter I
Malford Lake, Georgia, mid June
Miss Parker looked at the cottage and thought it was as nice as a dollhouse.
It was a wooden building, painted the colour of oak, with green shutters, a sloped roof of red-orange tiles, a chimney of grey stone; on the porch stood a rocking double chair in white painted iron, with a small table and two matching chairs.
And I bet the curtains are in checked material, white and red, the woman thought. To her own surprise, she noticed that the remark had no sarcastic connotation, instead it was rather amused. She sighed mentally: it was a sign, the nth for some time now, that she was truly fed up being sarcastic. Actually, she was fed up with of everything in her life, beginning from the Centre...
She snorted impatiently, stopping that train of thoughts: it was no time for recriminations, now she had to think about making herself comfortable in what would be her house in the next four weeks. Firmly, she opened the trunk of the small jeep she had rented along with the cottage, unloaded a big suitcase, a trolley and the matching beauty case, all Gucci, and headed for the porch; she had quite a hard time dragging the heavy luggage on the gravel-covered driveway. She climbed the two steps taking to the veranda and, letting go of the suitcase, she rummages in her purse seeking the key the estate agency had given to her. As she found it, she used it to open the door, then she entered and switched on the light. She looked around in the roomy living room: to her left she saw a rustic fireplace, in front of which stood an L-shaped couch, looking very comfy; in front of the shorter part of the couch stood a large TV with a DVD player and a VCR, as well as a satellite receiver, without which she would probably get nothing, in this remote corner of mountain Georgia. On the wall behind the couch, stood a cupboard; inside of it, she glimpsed dishes and glasses. To the right stood a table, six chairs with straw seats surrounding it.
On the windows, white and red checked curtains.
Seeing that, Miss Parked smiles, and for the first time in months, she felt light-hearted.
Next to the entrance stood a console with the telephone; she placed on it her purse and the beauty case, then she turned and pulled in the big suitcase and the trolley, too. Without stopping smiling and not knowing why she was smiling, Miss Parker opened the two windows of the sitting room looking on the porch, then she went into the next room, on the right of the entrance, finding out it was the kitchen with country style furniture, matching the cottage, but equipped with modern issues, such as a large fridge freezer, a microwave oven and even a dishwasher. She opened the window, then she headed for the back of the cottage, where the bedrooms were located, one with a king size double bed and the other with two bunk beds, and here, too, she opened wide the windows, letting in the golden light of this mid June afternoon. The sight that welcomed her when she opened the French doors of the master bedroom took her breath away: from the terrace on the back of the cottage, she could see the Malford Lake, on which shore the estate was located, surrounded by the woods. A small pier stretched out for about ten metres on the crystal clear water, and at its side stood a beached row boat. On the background, she caught sight of the mountain peaks, crowned in snow-white clouds standing out in the deep blue of the summer sky.
This place is magical, she thought in a flash, as all the Irish fairy tales her mother had told her came to her mind; Catherine Parker was from the Emerald Isle and when she was a child, she had told her many myths and legends of that place. She watched intently the trees, almost expecting some merry pixie jumping out from among the trunks, then she smiled at herself: she was surely too old to believe in leprechauns and fairies!
Feeling strangely euphoric, she returned to the living room and went outside to get the provisions she had purchased, then she stocked them in the fridge, freezer and kitchen cabinets. Then, she parked the jeep under the wooden carport next to the cottage, locked the vehicle and went back into the house, where she spent the next half-hour arranging her clothes and toiletries. At a certain point, she realised she was humming to herself and stopped thinking at this, frowning: what on Earth was causing her to feel so cheerful? After all, she was here because her life was such a terrible mess, it had become unbearable and she was trying to escape it...
Miss Parker uttered a growl and forced herself to take off her mind from those gloomy thoughts: there would be plenty of time later, for those. Now she had all of this new place to explore, and she wanted to enjoy the discovery of every corner.
The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware, one week earlier
Dr. Sydney Green was sitting at his desk, supposedly engrossed in the reading of the relationship of a colleague of his, Dr. Malcolm; but actually, his gaze was staring at an unspecified spot of the page he had in front, and his mind was elsewhere. To be precise, he was thinking of Miss Parker.
He was concerned about her. Oh, he was for a very long time, because he loved her like a daughter and with the passing of the years, he had seen her falling prey to the Centre more and more, becoming a creation of it, losing her psychological autonomy, plagiarised and manipulated by a ruthless father who lived only for himself, exploited by a brother whose unrestrained ambition was equal only to his depravation... But for some time now, Sydney had reason to be more concerned than ever: he was seeing in her cracks that earlier were not there. Her armour, the mask of the Ice Queen that she was wearing for so many years, was shattering little by little. What the trigger may be, Sydney didn't know for sure, but he suspected it was about the facts occurred on the Haunted Island eight months before. Following those events, Mr Parker had gone missing, perhaps he was dead, and Lyle had taken his place with cunning manoeuvres, passing over his sister also thanks to the support of the abominable Mr Raines, the black soul of the Centre. Besides, for eight months they hadn't been able to find any clues of Jarod's whereabouts; for five years, the elusive Pretender was mocking all their attempts to catch and bring him back to the Centre. To all this added the fact that the Miss Parker's fortieth birthday had come, a moment that means the end of youth and therefore induces to take stock of one's life.
Sydney put down the dossier, giving up pretending to read it, and thinned his lips, brooding; something in Miss Parker's attitude told him that she was taking stock of her life and she wasn't at all pleased. It was a subtle change, and he doubted somebody else had noticed it, except him. But Miss Parker was no more the brilliant young woman with an iron backbone, indestructible and totally self-confident, as she had always been since she had become an adult: on her had descended some sort of patina, which made her opaque. He didn't like it at all. But what could he do, to improve things? She didn't want anyone helping her, never, least of all a shrink like him. Despite himself, Sydney grinned: how many times had she called him ironically Doctor Freud? Too many to count them.
However, he loved her too much to do nothing. At the cost of annoying her, he had to talk to her. After all, there was a solution, and even a very simple one. Somehow, he needed to convince her to adopt it.
With a sudden decision, the elderly psychiatrist stood up from the leather armchair and left his office, heading for Miss Parker's.
He knocked on the door and, hearing her curt invitation, he entered. She was sitting in front of her PC, probably intent on sifting through the local news looking for any trace of Jarod. Hearing the door opening, she lifted her eyed on him; once, she would pierce him through with a glare as cold as polar ice, annoyed by the interruption, but now she simply stared at him, waiting for him to disclose the reason of his visit. This fact reinforced in Sydney the determination to convince her to accept his suggestion.
He approached her desk and took a seat.
"How are you, Parker?" he asked in a soft voice. She wrinkled her wide brow.
"As usual, Sydney", she answered, perplexed, "Why?"
The psychiatrist sighed: that was to be expected, Miss Parker would never admit the least weakness.
"For some time now you're not the same", he declared, his professional attitude softened by the sweetness of an acquaintance that rooted in the woman's childhood, "You need a break."
"A break?" Miss Parker repeated, confused, "What the hell do you mean?"
The style was still the same, Sydney observed, feeling a twinge in his chest, but the tone hadn't the usual determination.
"A nice vacation", he answered, "That's what I mean."
Her light blue eyes widened as she arched her perfectly drawn eyebrows, then she burst out laughing briefly, incredulous.
"You're kidding, right? It's been months now that Jarod doesn't give us the slightest hint, and you talk about vacation...?
"I'm not kidding, Parker", Sydney interrupted her, "You have all the symptoms of a severe state of mental fatigue. A long break, at least four weeks, are the best cure. Unwind, Parker. Totally. Pack and go to some relaxing place. I suggest a lake. I know a place, down in Georgia, that's a true paradise: away from residential areas, but equipped with all comforts. In the name of our old friendship, I'm asking you to consider carefully my advice."
Miss Parker gaped: never, in all the years she had known Sydney, had he talked to her in such a heartfelt way. Not even when he was exhorting her, when she was a child, to accept what they had for a long time believed to be her mother's suicide, later proved instead her extreme attempt to escape the Centre, unfortunately frustrated by the wicked Mr Raines and anyway ended up in her death.
Miss Parker recovered and closed her mouth, seeking an answer to briskly refuse this ridiculous suggestion, but she realised she wasn't able to find any. This put her on the spot: maybe Sydney was right, after all?
The elderly psychiatrist saw her gaze becoming remote and waited holding his breath. He knew, because of their long acquaintance, that from her he could expect anything, and the opposite of anything.
The silence continued, becoming heavy.
"Would you and Broots go on looking for Jarod?" Miss Parker asked so suddenly, Sydney jumped on his armchair, "Would you prevent Lyle to take charge of the search and steal it from me?"
"Of course", the elderly psychiatrist assured her, "You can relax. And should we catch him, we'd keep him somewhere safe until you came back, so that you can take him to the Centre and have the satisfaction you deserve."
Miss Parker watched him intently: for a long time, she suspected that Sydney didn't actually want to catch Jarod, who had been his pupil for 30 years, but if he had meant any irony, his tone didn't reveal any trace of it.
A vacation... she absolutely didn't remember when it had been, the last time she had gone on vacation, excluding some sporadic week-end, and even this was something she hadn't done in years, since Thomas Gates, the only man that had been able to have her falling truly in love, had been killed, probably at the behest of the Centre...
Her decision seemed to ripen independently from her will.
"Very well then", she snapped, "If truly, as a physician, you think you must prescribe me time off, I'll take that. Where's that place? Georgia, did you say?"
Sydney felt immensely relieved and couldn't hide a large smile.
