Disclaimer:  The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.

Finding Family

Part Three:  Private I

By Dr. Scott

Rating: G

Category: S

Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series

Spoilers: None

Keywords: MPJF, JOF

Summary:  Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him.  Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.

The Heights, Houston, Texas, Wednesday Afternoon

Emily Brooks walked back and forth from her car parked right by the front porch to the kitchen in the middle of the house.  She had unloaded kids, groceries, his bag and this strange man who passed in and out of consciousness as he lay on the couch.  She had put her groceries away and had sorted his items out into two bags of food and one of first aide supplies which she set by the couch near his bag.

The two small children were glued to a video of Barney she had put on to give her time to help this stranger.  What are you doing? She thought to herself.  You have no idea who he is or what he's done.  He might be dangerous.

She shook him gently and he roused groggily.  "Try to sit up a bit.  I brought you some water."

Jarod blinked and struggled to push up.  As he did, the movement strained his shoulder again and he cried out, but at least the sharp pain roused him somewhat.  The pretty, red haired woman reached out a cool hand and rested it gently on his forehead.  "I think you do have a fever.  Which of these do you want to take?" she asked holding up both bottles of pain reliever he had bought at the store where they had met.

"Four Advils to start.  They work faster," he replied hoarsely.

Emily opened the bottle, poured four tablets into her hand and held them out toward him but then just shook her head.  Instead, she reached a hand under his left arm and up to his neck holding him up and held the glass of water to his lips.  "Sip," she ordered and he did.  Then she placed the tablets one by one in his mouth and made him swallow them and more water each time.  Finally, when half the water was gone she laid him gently back on the cushion set on the arm of the couch.

"Okay, let me see this owie of yours, as Kimie would say," Emily said as she unzipped his jacket and folded the right half open.  "My God!" she exclaimed as she saw the dark red blood soaked through to his shirt.  "What happened to you?"

"She shot me…I never thought she would be the one to shoot me," he said sadly.

"I really should call an ambulance for you."

"No, no, then they will catch me," he ranted.

"Why?  What did you do?"

"I refused to work for them anymore.  I won't have the blood of innocents on my hands.  I ran away," he said so earnestly that any doubts of him being a criminal were erased.  "I need your help, please."

She stared into his dark brown eyes and nodded making up her mind.  "Let me see what we have here," she murmured.  She unbuttoned his shirt, folded back the right side and pulled back one corner of tape to lift the bandage.  Drawing in her breath sharply in a big gulp, she gently touched the wound and Jarod winced.  "This is an exit wound.  You were shot in the back, weren't you?" she asked.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked in amazement.

"Jarod, this is your lucky day.  I'm an MD/PhD.  Although I mostly did research, I did do the obligatory stint in the emergency room and I know how to treat this wound.  I'm sorry.  Catching Will obviously reopened it.  You really need some stitches to close this wound and help it heal."

Jarod stared at her in surprise.  He had underestimated this woman thinking she was just a mother.  He reminded himself not to judge people by their appearance too quickly.

"I know, I know," she laughed seeing his look.  "I really need a PhD for changing diapers.  A lot of friends think I'm crazy to stay home with the kids, but I'm happy with my choice."

"There's nothing more important than family," he declared in agreement and smiled.

"Okay, here's the plan.  You lie here a bit more while I put the kids down for their nap and I find my surgical instruments.  I bought my own set when I was doing research on mice.  You need to let that Advil get working before I start to stitch you up, because I don't have any anesthetic here."

Jarod nodded in understanding.  "I can stand the pain," he reassured her.  He had endured much worse torture at the hands of Lyle, and knew how to retreat into his own mind.  He closed his eyes and listened as she walked around to the back of the house where the children were.  He gazed out the window above the couch at the bright sunlight filtering through the bare limbs of a tree.  Despite the light, he felt his eye lids grow heavy as he was lulled to sleep too as she read a book aloud and sang some songs to the children.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday evening

Miss Parker stepped out of the rental car and swung her coat around her in a flourish.  She scowled pessimistically around her, certain that she was going to be one step behind Jarod again.  They were in old part of town where small office buildings were squeezed in with old brick apartments and many small shops on the ground floor of the buildings.  The street was busy with cars and pedestrians passing in both directions on their way home at the end of the day.  "Park somewhere close and get back here to help me search the place," she ordered Broots, who slid over to the driver side to do as she commanded.

She strode up the front door of the building and saw stenciled in neat, square letters Spade Investigations.  She tried the handle and it was locked.  Not an obstacle to her she grinned as she pulled a tool from her coat pocket and quickly picked the lock.

Opening the door, she walked over to a large desk at the back of the room, next to a filing cabinet.  She leaned over the desk to turn on the desk lamp and knocked over an envelope set leaning up against a stapler.  She picked up the envelope and as she turned it over was shocked to see it addressed to her, 'Miss Parker,' in Jarod's unmistakable neat handwriting.  She ripped the envelope open and unfolded the note inside.

She read:  'I need you to finish my work here.  You owe it to me.  You owe it to yourself.  I've been helping a college student named Amanda Blake find her mother.  She disappeared four years ago, but she is not dead as was originally believed.  Her mother's name is Helen Blake, but I think she changed her name from Eleanor Black.  I found out Eleanor worked at the Centre twenty years ago and left only two days after your own mother was shot.  Help Amanda find her mother.  She may be able to help you find out about your own mother.  Jarod.'

Broots walked in the front door as she reread the note for the third time.  "Miss Parker?" he asked wondering why she wasn't searching the place.

"Read this," she said handing Broots the note.

"Well, you did shoot him," observed Broots a moment later when he looked up from reading.

She was standing with her hands on her hips staring out the front window at the golden light of sunset, "I didn't mean to," she retorted defensively.

"If Jarod left this note, then I guess he didn't leave the DSA behind," Broots quickly deduced.

"Check upstairs anyway," Miss Parker nodded in agreement.  "I'll look through the desk and file cabinet.

While Broots trotted up the stairs, Parker took off her coat and laid it across the back of the chair.  She pulled open the drawers of the filing cabinet that were all empty except for one with only two files in it.  She laid them on the desk and sat down to read the computer print outs and handwritten notes that Jarod had made on the investigation so far.  A birth certificate, school enrollment and even a copy of an internal Centre employee application showed that Eleanor Black had existed until 1970 when her own mother, Catherine Parker, had been shot.  The picture on the Centre application showed a pretty brunette with glasses.  Then a copy of a driver's license from the summer of that year was of the same brunette although without glasses and now with the name, Helen White.

The front door opened and a coed walked in.  She wore jeans, a university logo t-shirt and had her long brunette hair up in a pony tail.  "Hi!" she said brightly.  "Are you one of the associates Jarod talked about?"

Parker narrowed her eyes at the girl and gave her an icy smile, "You must be Amanda Blake."

Amanda nodded, her smile fading.  The beautiful woman at the desk was intimidating and a bit frightening.  "Jarod called late last night and said something unexpected had come up and that he had to leave town, but that he'd ask some associates of his to continue the search for my mother," the young woman continued bravely.  "Did Jarod talk to you last night too?"

"Not exactly," Miss Parker lied not willing to admit she was the reason he had left town so suddenly.  "He left me this note describing your case," she gestured to the paper lying on the desk.

"I'd really appreciate your help," the college student said earnestly, "Jarod seemed really close to a break through and was excited about something he had found.  I was supposed to meet him at the college cafeteria last night but he didn't show up.  I'm worried.  When he called last night, it sounded like he was in pain."

Parker didn't know what to say so she changed the topic, "Tell me.  How did you meet Jarod?  Why is he helping you?"  She gestured to a chair in front of the desk.  "Have a seat.  I need to know everything before I can decide whether to help you."

"Well, I met Jarod three weeks ago at the beginning of the term.  He tried to talk to me that first day of chem. lab, but I was really rude to him.  I thought he was trying to pick me up," Amanda admitted embarrassed.  "Then the next week, he told me to stay after class and I had enjoyed how he ran the class so much that I did.  He showed me a print out of my web page and said he had come to Duke just to help me.  He said he was trying to find his family too, and that he had started this detective business to help other families find each other.  I told him I couldn't pay him any money, but he didn't care.  He acted like money wasn't even an issue.  He said that seeing the joy on people's faces when they were reunited was all the reward he needed.  Jarod's heart is so kind and he is so empathetic;  it's like he knows how you feel even before you do," Amanda finished with eyes shining with admiration.

"Ahem, Miss Parker?" Broots interrupted from the stairwell behind the desk.

"What?" snapped Parker irritably.  She hated being interrupted.  She looked over her shoulder at Broots to see him cringing at her and was suddenly jealous of Jarod.  How could he inspire this instant loyalty in someone he just met like Amanda?  Here she had worked with Broots for three years.  He was one of only two colleagues she trusted, and if she admitted it to herself, one of her only friends.  Yet he was still terrified of her.

"I heard voices and wanted to make sure everything was all right," Broots said.

Parker waved him into the room, "This is Amanda Blake," she introduced.

"Hi," he said walking over to shake her hand, "Everybody just calls me Broots."

"Um, Miss Parker?" Amanda hesitated until Parker turned and looked at her, "Are you going to help me?"

Parker stared back thoughtfully.  On one hand she was intrigued with this possible connection to her own mother's mysterious death, and the other hand she was tired of being the villain.  Jarod always got credit for helping people despite her pursuit of him, while all she ever got was frustration for not catching him.  And truth be told, she did feel like she owed it to him.  She was only just beginning to admit to herself that she was worried about how he was recovering from the gunshot she had inflicted on him.  Suddenly, she made up her mind.  Two could play this pretender game.

"Amanda, did you know your mother had changed her name before she married your father?" she responded, her actions answering the question.  "Look at this information Jarod uncovered," Parker held up the Centre application form.

Broots stepped over to the desk whistling softly and took the form.  "Does this look like your mother?" he asked holding it out towards Amanda.

She leaned forward to study the photograph and quickly nodded, "She looks so young!  But even with the glasses, I can tell it's her."

"What happened four years ago?" questioned Parker.

"She didn't come home from work one night.  My Dad called the police at midnight, but they wouldn't even investigate until she had been missing for 24 hours," Amanda replied bitterly.  "Eventually, they found where her car had gone off an embankment, and the car was found in the water.  Her body was never found, presumed washed away.  She was declared dead due to a car accident."

"Maybe she isn't dead," mused Parker.

"Why would she do that to me?" Amanda exclaimed.

"To protect you," Broots answered flatly.

"From what?" Amanda asked mystified, "She was just a mom.  She worked at my school on the PTA.  She baked cookies.  Who would want to hurt her?"

Broots and Parker looked knowingly at each other and answered at the same time, "The Centre."

"Broots, you go back to the Centre and search the archives for Eleanor Black and find out which project she had been assigned to.  There must be a connection there somewhere," Parker said.  "Amanda, do you have any old papers of your mother's?  You know, like a diary, or a scrapbook, or old files she might have kept?"

"I guess so, I don't know.  After she died, Dad and I didn't want to look through everything, but I wouldn't let him throw anything away either.  There's a bunch of boxes in the attic, but I don't really know what's in them," answered Amanda.

"Okay, your job is to go through those things.  Look for papers from 1970 or before, back when she worked at the Centre," delegated Miss Parker.  "I guess I'll meet you at the chem. lab tomorrow afternoon to see what ever you may find."

"Chem lab?" echoed Amanda.

"Well, someone has to be Jarod's substitute.  Besides, his note said to find your mother.  He clearly thinks she is still alive, but there is nothing here to suggest why.  Maybe he has some other evidence in his office at school.  No offense, but I don't think they'll let a student search a teacher's office.  I, on the other hand, can pretend to be looking for the lesson plans," concluded Parker.  "Where on campus is the chemistry lab?"

"Lab is on the second floor of Dalton Hall, room 207," Amanda instructed.

"What do lab teachers wear these days anyway?" Parker asked.

Broots laughed lightly, "I think you're going to enjoy this if it involves shopping."

Parker smiled back, "I'm taking you to the airport before I hit the mall.  Let's go.  We all have work to do."

Amanda stood up smiling gratefully at both of them.  "Thank you both so much.  I don't even want to believe my mother may still be alive, but it's great to have that hope."

Parker walked out of the door in a totally different mood than she had entered the small office.  Suddenly, she felt optimistic.