Disclaimer: The Pretender and the Profiler belong to their respective intellectual property owners.

Chapter 25

Mr. Parker

"Daddy."

"Daddy," repeated Maureen with a long drawn out breath. The title that used to be associated with Gregory Parker no longer set her off. She wouldn't give the dead fucker the pleasure in the knowledge that he can still pull her strings or push her buttons.

Dr. Tushar's facial muscles tightened but quickly relaxed when she didn't explode like the proverbial volcano when the subject of Mr. Parker cropped up. Like with this session.

He flicked his head down slightly to the opened folder. There, the first thing to catch his eyes, was a small picture of a kindly old man with a full white mustache, gentle looking eyes, topped off with a white fringe of hair. Someone could mistake him for a grandfather spending time spinning tall tales for his grandchildren, or a retiree enjoying his golden years, or, possibly, just possibly, a cold-blooded mass murderer who plotted without mercy the deaths of thousands to advance his bizarre agenda and enriching himself.

Nope, Tushar silently reminded himself, one couldn't tell that just by looking at him. Appearances can truly be deceiving.

Maureen saw her shrink look up from whatever he was staring at on his lap. She held up her left arm to look at her wristwatch. She just might be able to finish this session early.

Tushar took note of her looking at the time. Cocking an inquiring eyebrow, "Need to go somewhere real soon?"

Maureen had the grace to blush a little at being caught by him. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to make something up to cover up her faux pas. "I'm planning a surprise party for Jarod and Timmy tonight."

"Oh? What's the occasion?" Tushar was deeply interested because Maureen was showing signs of being quite animated that he never saw in her from previous sessions.

She gave her doctor a happy grin. A grin with no shadows. "Today's the anniversary of the day when we all first met together."

Tushar shared in her joy with an encouraging smile. "I'm happy to hear that. Are you taking them out?"

Still smiling, Maureen answered, "No. It's going to be at Jarod's house. Small and quiet. Just the three of us." She barked out a laugh. "The sugar will be flowing with those two."

Tushar's wondering look got Maureen to elaborate further. "Those two have a very large sweet tooth. Cakes and ice cream for my boys." Her affection for the two men was quite evident in the glow about her.

"Ah, I see," chuckled Tushar. He gave her the brief moment of respite. Let her enjoy this rare moment of happiness and levity when she wasn't bowed down by her history.

Maureen relished the idea of tonight's party. There was very little for them to celebrate in their hard luck lives but when an opportunity popped up, she was going to seize it by the throat.

It wasn't easy to pull off a surprise party for those two sharp-eyed savants but she managed to do it with panache. She knew what today was even though it seemed curious that the men didn't, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

When the three of them were sitting down for breakfast, the dizzying topics that flew across the table always surprised her as well as delighted her. Here she was able to converse on anything and everything without having to, as one talk show host put it, "have half her brain tied behind her back". It was one of these topics that she found a way to get the men out of the house for the rest of the day while she got the party organized.

Timmy innocently mentioned that there was going to be a march on Capitol Hill today in support of more research money for traumatic brain injury, a subject that all three had more than a passing interest. Maureen quickly seized on it as a way to do good while providing the solution to get them out of the house for most of the day. Maureen showed her nimbleness by convincing Jarod to take Timmy to the protest march while she went to her latest psychotherapy session.

Maureen's pleasure slowly evaporated as she looked across at the sober looking doctor. She heaved out a small groan. "I guess we should get back on track, eh, doctor?"

The Indian agreed, "Unfortunate but true. Ready?"

A grimace. "Fire away," quipped Maureen nervously.

"You spent decades of your life seeking Mr. Parker's love and affections." The statement was deliberately designed to set her on edge, to create a jumpiness that hopefully will help in binding up one of her most bloody emotional wounds. At least that was Tushar's plan. Now, he'll find out if it's a good one or he was going to have to go back to square one.

"All for nothing," grated Maureen as she felt light headed from the blood rushing to her head. She could hear her teeth grind from the pressure she was putting on them. She worried, in a distracted manner, whether she might crack a tooth from the immense pressure.

Tushar was inwardly satisfied, as his treatment plan seemed to be initially working. "Nothing? It seemed to me that in your quest for his acceptance, you graduated earlier than the norm from your boarding school and college." Flipping through his notes even though he already memorized her pertinent information, "You have a genius level IQ which qualifies you for Mensa; you were the youngest executive to work in the Centre's Corporate section, an actual prodigy. All of these accomplishments, Maureen," lightly hitting his notebook with the back of his right hand, "they were designed to get your fa-, excuse me, Mr. Parker's attention. Yes or no?"

A reluctant frown was followed rapidly with a dark visage. Bitterly she admitted to the earnest doctor, "Yes. Everything that I did, the Type A personality, the overachieving, the corporate ladder climber, all of it was to get him to recognize me, to acknowledge that I," a catch in her voice, "that I wasn't weak like Momma."

Sometime his patients would unknowingly drop nuggets of information without understanding how helpful they were for their therapy. Just like the nugget Maureen revealed right now.

"Is that what he told you after your mother's supposed suicide?"

Another nod. "I was taken to his office still in shock and the first thing to pop out of his mouth was that it was Momma's fault." She remembered being escorted into Mr. Parker's office by Sydney and then silently leaving her to be alone with her aloof and intimidating "father". "Mr. Parker went on in a dead voice telling me that she was weak, she brought shame to the family." Maureen experienced the same pain and hurt that she felt when she first heard those hateful judgments coming out of that turd's mouth. She was grateful to finally unburden herself to someone over this traumatic period in her life. "What he told me made me cry."

Dr. Tushar dispassionately looked on as Maureen lifted the curtain on another proof of Centre maltreatment of her. Inwardly, he was gripped by the mix of anger and sadness at the decades of damage she underwent at the bloody hands of Mr. Parker and the Centre.

Now, he saw Maureen struggled to hold off the tears that appeared in her eyes.

"He said that I must not be weak like Momma, that the Parkers will not tolerate another failure like Momma." Mr. Parker always had a gift for words to describe people that he regarded as enemies Maureen acidly reminisced.

She let the tears trickle down untouched as she told Tushar something Mr. Parker had planted in her right after the supposed suicide. "He…he told me…" sniffling, "that I was responsible for driving Momma to kill herself."

Her doctor gaped at her trying to comprehend how anyone could deliberately, with malice aforethought, inflict this kind of emotional torture on a child. Coughing loudly to catch her attention, he sternly questioned her. "Why would Mr. Parker said those things to you? What was he thinking? Right after your mother's suicide? Why didn't he wait until you went through the grieving process?" The questions came out in staccato. "Lastly, with the numerous psychologists and psychiatrists on the Centre's staff, why wasn't one of them, Sydney Greene comes to mind, assigned to help you?"

Incomprehension clouded her arresting eyes. Maureen wiped her eyes before answering him. "To make me strong. I don't know what else to think of."

Tushar was sympathetic to her mystification. He knew the answers but dreaded to tell her. The questions were crafted to find out if there were alternate answers to what he discovered. Unfortunately, her answer didn't provide a good alternative.

As he gradually developed a better understanding of Maureen from their sessions, he found out that she was a dynamic, albeit, damaged woman with a quick wit and mordant humor which she rarely display but sparkled when she did. Now, in order to help her, he had to damage her. Dr. Tushar hated it but as a doctor, he had to do it, for her sake.

There was no way to break it gently to her. "Maureen, Mr. Parker was programming you."

"No!" she denied, a cold knot forming in her stomach. "He…I…he wouldn't." If one were to believe that the eyes were the windows to the soul, Tushar told himself, than Maureen already accepted what he was saying. The rest of her needed some more time to catch up. Her entire body shrank in on itself. "He would. The fucker would," she murmured painfully. The rest of her finally caught up.

"Anything else?" carefully prompted Tushar. He saw Maureen wasn't finished but she clammed up. Something was bothering her. "What are you holding back?"

An internal debate broke out inside her. Should she tell him or not? Maureen knew Jarod's pointedly voiced opinion. Even now she still had varied reactions. The reactions, which whipsawed her ever since Jarod escaped into freedom, ended the debate.

"Did you know he called me his Angel? He always used that nickname," Maureen softly eked out. "Mr. Parker never called me by my name." An indignant snort. "I guess he hated to be reminded every day that I wasn't his daughter."

Even now, knowing how Jarod passionately hated that endearment, which she shared to a large degree, she still felt the comforting grip of that word. Maybe with more therapy from her shrink, she can be free of it and, ultimately, of Mr. Parker himself.

"It was part of your programming, to manipulate you, to subsume your will to his. In effect, you were the extension of his will. Extra eyes, extra ears, extra hands for Mr. Parker, to punish his enemies, reward his friends, more likely useful idiots since I sincerely doubt he ever formed friendships in his life." Stopping for a moment to write something down on his ubiquitous notebook, he resumed. "Now you heard my deductions…" He stopped. Shooting her an apologetic look, "But, I digress, how do you feel about being called angel?"

She gave voice to the beginning when the prick first used it on her. "I felt loved and felt wonderful that he was using that term only for me. Me, his daughter." She patted her chest with her right hand. "I latched on to that hoping that it meant we were getting closer."

Tushar's voice conveyed his dubiousness, "That doesn't fit Mr. Parker's profile."

"No," agreed Maureen in an empty voice. "Jarod's help, along with what just told me, opened my eyes to why he really kept calling me his angel."

"Why did he do it?" leaning slightly forward, his curiosity

Tightness around her eyes, she answered him. "To use me. He manipulated me knowing how much I craved his affections and attention. I would do anything to please that loser."

Tushar told her after making sure she wasn't go to add anything more, "You were a child, as I keep reminding you, when this crap was done to you," he saw the look on Maureen's face at his use of profane language, "you had no knowledge that he was abusing you."

Maureen kept silent and didn't bothered to reply. She already heard the by now usual refrain that she was just a young girl when the Parkers plans for her went into motion.

"I'm going to make some statements that will make you uncomfortable but which I believe will help you with your mental well-being." Maureen's tears by now was dried up and now she was raptly listening and watching her doctor. "First, admit it, you loved him while you were growing up. I know, I know," seeing Maureen's angry face, "you wish you could take it back but it's not that simple. Where it comes to Mr. Parker, your emotions are twisted. That's not the case with Jarod. You've always loved him whether you admit it or not. With Mr. Parker, you loved him but then found out much later that he lied, manipulated, and used you. You hate him now. That's normal."

His cool appraisal triggered her explosive temper again. In every other episode, she couldn't sit still. The tingling in her body, the lightheadedness, all demanded she stand up and stalk the around like a caged animal. A dangerous caged animal waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting prey.

Maureen snapped angrily at Tushar. "I gave him my love, my devotion, my loyalty to that lying bastard. I dedicated my life to pleasing that son of a bitch and what was my reward?" she asked rhetorically. "A life wasted." Standing behind his chair, she barked out, "So yes, I hate him for what he did to Momma, Faith, Jarod, me and all the others."

Her tirade continued with Tushar attentively listening to her, his digital voice recorder recording everything. "I took a bullet for him," remembering that day on the tarmac as she learned of the plot to kill Mr. Parker. "I wasn't going to lose my last living relative to the damn Centre," Maureen told Tushar with a bitter sardonic edge. "So I took one for the family." An angry pounding of her fist into her other hand. "For a monster who isn't even my father."

Tushar wrote some more in his notebook. What she was saying opened up more angles for him to approach. She was doing exactly what she's been doing so far in their sessions. He gained her trust, enough of it, to let her vent, scream, shout, unload, opened up all the emotional baggage, totally damaged of course, which she kept in the pressure cooker that she called her life.

Placing his notebook and pen down in his lap, Tushar clasped his hands together. "In an earlier session, you pointed out that Mr. Parker discouraged you from openly showing your affections. Wasn't it confining that you couldn't show to the world that you love and care about someone, anyone else?"

Maureen gestured with a heaving breath, outstretch arms, and a roll of her vivid blue-gray eyes. "Finally, someone understands." Seeing Tushar's surprised face, she began explaining. "After Momma was gone, Mr. Parker was all I had," hating to admit it after finding out what he did to her and Momma, "and I was terrified that he would die also."

Pacing back and forth, arms in motion, Maureen looked at the book lined shelves at the end of her path then spinning around to walk to the other end where she saw the many diplomas, certificates, and framed photos hanging behind Dr. Tushar's ornate desk.

"I drew pictures of just the two of us, made these papier-mâché objects, hugged him, told him repeatedly that I love him…" She stopped before his desk, the tips of her fingers resting on the surface. Maureen's head drooped and with her eyes closed as those memories, which she successfully suppressed for so long, reappeared.

Maureen's voice quivered as she told an expectant Tushar, "All I wanted was to hear him telling me that he wouldn't leave me like Momma did. I needed him to hug me as he told me that he was going to be there for me as I was frightened of being alone in the dark. Was I asking for too much?"

Tushar stirred angrily in his chair at what he heard. He saw the old hurt in those blue-gray eyes. It was yet another piece of evidence that Mr. Parker emotionally abused this woman.

"No," he comforted her. "That's a normal reaction from any one, both children and adult, to want someone to watch over them." He rubbed his tired eyes. Knowing the extent of Mr. Parker's evil, he answered his own question. "Let me guess, he never did."

Maureen sighed dejectedly. "No, never."

A/N: Please read and review. Thanks.