Disclaimer: Please see Chapter 1 for the usual statements
Author's note: A special thanks for all those who reviewed the last chapter. Your comments inspired me to make a few modifications in a later chapter.
Time to Consider
Chapter 17
By Callisto
Lakeside Inn Bed & Breakfast
Lake Catherine, VT
Jarod watched the women walk slowly away with a feeling of dread. The look on Catherine's face was far from favorable however, he hoped the blatant signals he had perceived from Parker's behavior and the affectionate warmth radiating from her was as deeply felt as he thought. Completely forgetting that he had company, Jarod looked confusedly at Ben when the other began speaking.
"I'm sorry?"
"You look like a man who's been invited to his own funeral. My Catherine's formidable but Mari has a backbone too you know," the older man responded with a light chuckle.
Shaking off his oncoming dour mood, Jarod stuck out his hand and said politely, "It's nice meeting you, Sir."
Ben returned the handshake, then waved him off kindly. "Please call me Ben. Are you the fellow who helped my daughter ship that gunman off to Florida?"
"The sweeper? Yes, I helped her," Jarod replied with a short distracted nod.
Their small talk was cut short when Major Abernathy walked up. "Hi, I thought I would find you here. I think it's time one of your parents met her parents."
"Hi, Dad. This is Ben Miller, Mari's father."
The two men shook hands with the major finishing up the introduction by giving his name. The two adults chuckled good-naturedly at Jarod's distraction.
"He's concerned because my wife isn't too thrilled with our daughter presenting a boyfriend out of the blue. Jarod's been good for her from what I can see. She definitely hasn't been the handful her reputation has built her up to be."
"Well, there's a little more to it than that," the major began slowly.
"Dad, Mari hasn't had a chance to speak to her parents yet. Maybe it would be best if we waited."
"Jarod, we're leaving on Sunday, just how long were you thinking we should wait?"
"Now you've got me curious. Why don't you join me inside for a drink and fill me in on what's going on. This might turn out for the best, Catherine's got a temper to match Mari's."
The three men entered the Inn, allowing the screen door to provide ample circulation of what little breeze there was to cool the already warm living room area. As Ben retrieved a couple of beers, Major Abernathy filled him in on Jarod's decision to follow Mari to Europe in search of a career.
Looking directly at Jarod, the major said, "My son has recently become a fervent reader of the stock exchange and business news but he keeps refusing to take an open position at a major corporation back home."
"Dad, we've been through this. I think this is the best solution for me. I'll only see Mari when she's finished with her classes and won't interrupt her studies."
As the major was about to retort, they heard a woman's scream coming from the direction of the garage.
Catherine had led Mari away towards the garage and privacy. The affectionately encompassing look on Jarod's face was enough to concern her, never seeing him before was irksome but the odd coincidence of his name was further cause to worry. Before she could start, Mari began speaking.
"Mama, I remember once when I was little, you told me that I would find someone who would love me." Breaking from her mother's arm, Parker skipped ahead, whirled around to face the older woman and brought her hands to her face, covering the toothy grin she couldn't stop. "I believe I have. I wouldn't have ever thought it originally, but he's perfect for me, we understand each other in a way no one here ever will. Please just be happy for me."
This was a different tactic. Usually Mari would simply demand what she wanted and offer clever and insistent arguments to get her way. "Sweetheart, I'm glad you think you've found the love of your life, but you're seventeen. You have your whole life in front of you; they'll be other boys who will catch your eye. What's so different with this one?"
Parker's sardonic laugh showed off her true age. "You speak like I have so much time to find someone. I know for a fact that they're plenty of men out there. A lot of them wouldn't mind getting me into bed but very few would hang around long enough to even find out what my first name is." Walking up to her mother, Parker enclosed one of her mother's hands in both of her own and said with calculated excitement, "He's someone who'll love me right. And for once there's someone who'll cling to me instead of insisting that I go away with him and change my entire life. Please trust me and don't deny me this."
Catherine looked at Mari keenly. There was something about the level of maturity in her daughter's argument that caught her imagination and made her wonder. In Maritza's eyes, she saw hope, guarded certainty and unmovable intransigence. Nowhere in her daughter's argument did she mention her current entanglements. Catherine felt if she weren't careful there would be problems hanging around the villa in droves. Not wanting to push her daughter completely away, she realized limits had to be set. She allowed her shoulders to droop in defeat. Catherine was on the brink of partially conceding when a sudden blazing headache caused her to shut her eyes to ride out the pain.
Her distress didn't go unnoticed. Parker saw her mother flinch, then bring a hand up to her brow and knew almost immediately what was happening. Without hesitation, she quickly ducked into the garage to grab the aspirin bottle she kept there for her post-ballet workouts.
Parker had been gone only a minute but during this interval and while Catherine was beginning to breathe through the pain and listen to what the voices were stridently trying to tell her, a shadow fell over her providing an unexpected and unsettling coolness from the heat of the sun. Looking up, Catherine saw a handsome young man, not much older than Jarod, standing in front of her.
"So you must be the mother. You're actually better looking than your daughter. That's a shame because it'll be such a waste but then you'll have your kid to thank for that. Your ex-husband will probably give me a bonus for killing you, though I would've done it for free."
Parker was on the brink of running back outside when she heard a man speaking to her mother. It was her habit to listen when others were unaware. That was the only way you learned anything of any value in the Centre. This time what she heard made her brain shut down. The voices that tried to reach her had been effectively shut out. A blind rage had taken over and controlled her every action. With the skills she had been taught as a cleaner and then as an executive, Parker moved swiftly. Walking to the wall of tools, she chose a heavy tire iron as her weapon. No longer capable of balanced thought, she paused by the door, peeking out. Damon's back was to her as she took two quick steps towards him.
This time Damon was ready but not quick enough. He turned at the sound of the first footfall, by the second; Parker was in mid-swing and connected with Damon's forehead felling the sociopath with an ease that would embarrass him yet again. He fell bonelessly to the ground in a heap. The silenced 9mm still clutched in his gloved hand.
Parker was raising the tire iron again and brought her arm so far back that the swing would've caved the sweeper's head in, if Catherine hadn't screamed and stopped her daughter's arm before she could finish the job. It was this scream that brought the three men in the house outside immediately and Damon'sback-up in a fumbling rush back to his vantage point while he was in the middle of taking an impromptu bathroom break.
Jarod was the first on the scene and quickly assessing the problem, immediately went over to Parker. Wrapping one arm around her waist he easily lifted her away from her mother's grasp and used the other to wrestle the tire iron from her fierce grip using a martial arts maneuver.
"No!" was her primal scream at the man who threatened her mother's life. It was all Jarod could do to keep her within his grasp. Catherine looked at her child with utter amazement. Never had she seen such fierceness in Mari, nor such determined and focused violence.
Ben and Major Abernathy quickly followed Jarod. Ben glanced from his enraged daughter to the stunned look on his wife's face. "Catherine, what happened?"
The major looked at the strange tableau and glanced from a calming Parker, with his son still struggling to contain her, to the familiar face of the last woman on earth he wanted to see—Catherine Parker. His eyes widened in surprise as he gazed at her face, then looked down at the prone man. "Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on here?"
Jarod squeezed Parker's body against his own, then whispered into her ear, "Calm yourself. Tell me what happened?"
"That monster threatened my mother. He said he was going to kill her—take her away from me. Never again, not ever again."
Jarod turned her around to break her concentration from Damon's prone form and to focus on him. "Listen to me. They sent him here again to kidnap you. I need you to concentrate and tell me exactly what happened."
Catherine spoke up for her daughter. "We were talking quietly when I was struck with one of my migraine headaches. Mari ran inside the garage, then this man walked up and started threatening me. Saying something about how my ex-husband would view my death as a bonus. Then he started to point that weapon when Mari came out and hit him over the head. I thought she was going to kill him."
"But are you hurt? Did he get a shot off?" the major asked with increasing concern.
Catherine looked at him for the first time. Her reaction to seeing him was similar to his. "What are you doing here?" Then the entire situation sprang into her mind like a tape fast forwarding. "Jarod's your son, isn't he?"
"Yes Catherine, he is," the major replied with a sigh.
Ben looked from one to the other in amazement. "You two know each other?"
Catherine placed her hands on either side of her head and rubbed her temples. "We know each other from a long time ago. The major helped me correct a wrong at the Centre and we haven't seen each other since."
By this time, Parker had turned to gaze at her mother and the major. It was during their unhappy reunion that a glint of light coming from behind the makeshift stonewall adjacent to the woods caught his eye. Pulling Parker to the side, Jarod whispered urgently to her. There're two of them this time. The other one's behind the stonewall, using the forest for cover." He spoke quietly but the three embroiled adults could hear what he was saying.
"Ben, stay here with Damon. Jarod, can you take care of the guy behind the wall? I'm going inside to check on my brother," she ordered quickly. Her instructions were given with crisp authority and in the same concise way she had learned while at the Centre. In such an emotionally charged situation, no one questioned that a teenaged girl had taken control. Jarod nodded unhesitatingly as they both ran towards the Inn but split up at the front with Parker going inside and Jarod circling around the structure to catch the second sweeper off guard. He had already sprinted to the far side of the wall and hopped over quietly. It was the second set of footfalls that causedhim to turn in surprise. The major had kept step with his son.
"You don't think I'm going to let you take on a sweeper by yourself, do you?" he whispered calmly.
Jarod traded smirks with his father, as they crept up on the sweeper. Jarod fanned out further, using the forest for cover to completely encircle the sweeper while the major approached from along the wall keeping the barrier between himself and the sweeper. Cox heard the older man approach and keeping his eyes glued to the action near the garage, he surreptitiously fingered the 9mm out of its holster and aimed it at the faint noises approaching along the wall. A loud crack from a broken twig caused the sweeper to whip his head in the direction of the noise, providing the major with enough time to rush the sweeper. Cox realized his mistake immediately and was about to shoot when he felt a light tapping on his shoulder and everything went black.
"Good work son. I think you hit him a little harder than necessary but the result's what counts."
"I know how Mari feels. He was aiming this at you and would've used it if I hadn't hit him," Jarod replied as he kick-rolled the unconscious sweeper over and opened his field jacket revealing the unholstered weapon.
"Ben said she's a handful and he wasn't lying. Why didn't you tell me who her parents were?
"I had no idea you knew them. How do you know Catherine Ferrer, Dad?"
With a deep sigh, the major removed the sweeper's pant's belt and began using it to secure his feet. "It's a long story. And from the look on your face, I'm going to have to tell you about it. It all started with your mother and I having trouble conceiving. We went to this place called NuGenesis. It was only later that I was informed the clinic was associated with a corporation called the Centre. They're methods succeeded in producing you. Well, by the time you were a toddler, these Centre people wanted you to attend a special school because you were so smart. The day before your first day of school, Catherine, her name was Parker back then, came up and warned me that if I let you go to that school, I would never see you again. She didn't explain other than she had heard from a reliable source that the Centre had already arranged your kidnapping. I don't know, maybe it was the frightened look in her face or the certainty in her voice but I believed her. I took you, your mother and brother and disappeared. We never looked back. I changed our names and your mother home schooled you boys for a couple years before we allowed you back into the school system. Only then it was under yet another assumed name. About a year after that, Catherine somehow tracked me down again, this time asking for my help in rescuing a boy the Centre had kidnapped from his parents. All my instincts told me not to get involved. It sounded like a nasty piece of business and I didn't want any part of it. I thought that was the end of it until the bitch blackmailed me," he said bluntly with renewed fury. "Said she would tell the Centre how to find us if I didn't help. So I got myself drafted, then we both almost got ourselves captured and killed over a little boy who screamed and yelled the whole way unless he was in Catherine's arms. Bizarre." The major shook his head in disbelief at the memory. "At first I thought the kid was hers only to find out he wasn't. I washed my hands of the whole scene and told her that was the end of my obligation. She helped me save my son, now I helped her save a kid who didn't seem to want saving. She thanked me and that's the last time I ever saw her until today."
During the major's story, the two men had hogtied the sweeper and lifting him up by the arms, dragged him back to the others by the garage. Jarod listened to his father's story with fascination. It was similar to what had occurred on his side of the timeline, only then they had met with failure.
"Dad, do you remember the little boy's name you rescued?"
"Yeah, why? What difference does it make?"
"I'm curious," Jarod replied. Then thinking quickly he added casually, "You never know, one of these guys might be that kid."
The major huffed in disbelief. "I doubt that. I saw her reunite the boy with his grateful mother. It was a good thing she did, I just wished she had blackmailed some other obligated idiot and not involve me. From what I can remember the boy's name was Tommy or Timmy. Something like that."
Jarod nodded thoughtfully. With Timmy rescued from the Centre, none of the others came close to the level of ability the Centre needed—not even Alex. The rescue worked and crippled the Pretender project forever. It made Jarod proud that his father had a part in the accomplishment, albeit a reluctant part.
When they rejoined the others, father and son abruptly released the sweeper with a sense of disgust as the body landed heavily on the ground. Jarod and the major looked over at Damon, to find him securely duct taped. Ben immediately moved over to the second sweeper and began using the tape to blindfold and gag his mouth. The major raised his eyebrows thoughtfully as Ben wound the tape blithely around the sweeper's entire head. Getting that stuff off was going to hurt and pull out some hair for sure.