CHAPTER FOUR

March 14 2001

Jarod entered the apartment, took out his laptop, and entered the URL after drinking some milk and chocolate cake. Actually, the chocolate cakes were Ding Dongs and he grabbed them at a 7-11 along with the carton of milk before the black and white pulled up. He left some change on the counter after making sure he wore gloves so they would not have his fingerprints.

He was sure that the Centre had put up those pictures of him and they had his fingerprints that they would show the police. After those years of running, Jarod knew the Centre finally had the means of capturing him. They would lure him back because he could not stay in the mountains long enough to avoid discovery and he did not want to risk getting mistaking for a pervert and getting killed by an irate parent.

He wondered what happened to the Profilers. He knew the first one, Sam, had retired to look after her daughter now that this Jack character who was tormenting them, was dead. Jarod suspected that VCTF had let her go. A profiler was no good when everyone felt sorry for her. Then she lost her objectivity, but Rachel was different. She came fresh from a training position at the FBI at Quantico, and she did not have that innocent blonde hair and blue eyes that made people jump over fishhooks for her—Jarod tried to imagine witnesses jumping over fishhooks, and smiled at the mental image. The web site listed the contact numbers for the VCTF. It also listed personal information such as marriages, deaths, etc. If he could see Rachel's phone or cell phone number, he could offer her help.

"Well Miss Burke," he said, "Let's see what's up with you." Jarod pressed the return button but got a message saying that she was out and please call back. He closed his eyes and dozed off.

In his mind's eye, he was at the Centre, building a small mountain on a table but when he looked down at the edge of the table, he saw a sublevel concrete floor below and when he turned around, first he was on top of a mountain and then in a flash was standing besides the table. He shook himself awake and considered that memory. The Centre did something else to him, but he was unclear as to what it was. Things he remembered did not add up emotionally although the Centre only recorded the simulations and Sydney's lectures. He always felt uneasy, but did not know why. Now he was worried because he no longer had the uneasiness and yet he knew something else went on in the Centre.

Jarod pressed the link listing personal and ran through the information until he got to Miss Burke, VCTF profiler, single, graduated from, etc. and checked the data on the screen. This is why he never heard from her. She had been sentenced for a murder, served a few months, but was released when the evidence and similar murders proved she was innocent. Soon after her release, she gave birth to triplets, two boys and a girl. He made a mental calculation. That was about seven to nine months since he and Rachel were together, but how could it happen and why did she not tell him? Was he to have what he felt he never would have, children?

During the time when he was a University Professor, he looked in the mirror, seeing his age and compared it to the students whom he taught, some who took their babies and toddlers to the University daycare. Lately he stopped looking at himself, preferring to shave by feel rather than by sight. Watching the signs of approaching middle age was too unbearable. Ever since, he realized it, his feeling of despair and hopelessness grew. It was as though he was still a prisoner of the Centre, but instead of locked in a bare cell at night, he was running for his life, never able to settle down, watching people have what he never would. And it was not as if someone had taught him about the facts of life, but the sad part of it was he did not even know the first steps of creating a child, and what parts of his anatomy played in that role.

He wondered why he never asked Sydney about this. He asked him about everything else when he was young, but somehow when he began to brooch the subject he felt this incredible pain and even when he tried to reach for the typical books with names such as :"Where babies come from" or "How little Judy got in Mummy's tummy" that same pain happened again.

But, he was free and there was no Sydney to mentor him, and Miss Parker had not chased him since his return from Carthis, not since that last phone call in which afterwards he said to himself:"For a genius, you sure are stupid. The only female you ever loved and you give her the brush off! Why did I use the word female?" Things were becoming peculiar. . He checked the information on Rachel again.

It said the court sentenced Miss Burke to the Woman's Maximum Security prison, but released on evidence of her innocence. She gave birth soon after her release. At least, that is the information he had, but Jarod felt someone doctored it to hide the fact that Miss Burke gave birth in a prison hospital. Someone knocked on his door and he felt a wave of emotion from the woman standing there, something about worry and concern. Oh, he had this before, but not in this intensity and then there was this underlying feeling of superiority. Well that at least was normal, but before he could stifle it, but could do no longer.

"Excuse me, sir," said a woman, "have you seen my cat?"

"No I haven't." He read more of her emotions and felt rage rising inside him about someone harming this female, the same rage he felt before Lyle recaptured him. What am I becoming? "I'll help you look for her." He heard a soft meow. "She's in the broom closet."

"Oh there she is," said the woman opening the door next to Jarod's room and went back down the hallway with her kitten. .

Going back to his computer, Jarod entered the other information about Rachel's two wards, Frederick and Margaret Parkersjarodson enrolled in an exclusive private school in that area. He paled. It was a combination of Parker and his name. What did they do to me? The times Raines came to get me. He tried to remember, but only got so far before his head throbbed with incessant pain. He went back to his reading.

Because of the notorious publicity with Rachel's arrest, the Profiler decided to take an apartment in Hartford, away from the regular VCTF headquarters. The Pretender thought of leaving now, and drive up to her apartment, but decided he had better do it in the morning. He made a telephone call, but only got a recorded message listing when Miss Burke will be available, if you want to speak to another agent, press 1.

Jarod did not want to speak to another agent and besides he was getting very tired so he undressed and went to bed, leaving his slacks, shirt, shoes, and socks neatly on the chair and his new underpants under his pant legs. Maybe he would get the nerve to wear them. He hadn't the other ones, and he never knew why. He then tried to get to sleep, and was about to open the thermos and pour himself a glass of hot milk when he heard a van drive up, and opened the blind partway to see a crew getting out and called down to the manager. "What's going on?"

"Oh duct cleaning. Just keep the vent clear."

Jarod heard the motor run, and a few minutes later, his head felt as if a fog had entered in his brain and his eyelids appeared heavy. In the middle of the night, he thought as he tried to keep awake, but could not. At the last moment, he realized, "That was no duct cleaner!"

He did not hear the woman come out the elevator with two other men. All wore gas masks.

"Sydney you grab his feet, and Broots his arms," said the woman, throwing a blanket around him, "and take him down the freight elevator." She grabbed The Pretender's jacket, and put it on. The rest of his clothes she put in a bag.

They soon had Jarod in the van, and drove off towards the woods. Miss Parker turned to the sleeping man. "Rather peaceful isn't he?"

"Yes," said Sydney, "how long does the effect last?"

"—Long enough to get him to the safe house. Turn left."

An hour later, the Van entered the driveway of a three-storey house and they took Jarod out. "Careful," she said, "up the stairs. Broots, open the door on the top."

Broots did so. The top consisted of two rooms, an outer one that looked like a combination living room and kitchen, and the other, which contained a single bed and a table. On the table was a box. "Now bring Jarod up, and put him on the bed, face up."

"Why Miss Parker?"

"I don't want him to escape, Broots," she said and opened the box. It contained four handcuffs.