Chapter 9 – Getting It Together
Broots opened his eyes again and looked around him at the rag-tag group of rescuers, finally focusing on one particular person. "Syd? You came in there and got me out?"
"Not alone - Sam and Angelo were very important parts of the team," Sydney smiled at him. "We had to talk Debbie into staying out here, or she would have been in there with us too."
Broots looked around him at the interior of the shack. "Where IS here?" He stared at Sam. "And I thought you were missing!"
"I was, for a while," Sam explained quickly with a sheepish look on his face. "As for where we are, we're in a shack on the Centre grounds, and that…" He pointed at the metal monster in the middle of the room. "…is the entrance to the air conditioning system. We had to bring your memory back here, because we're going to need you to go back in AS 'Frank' and continue…"
Broots tried to scramble to his feet and needed both Sam and Sydney to help him regain his balance. "What are you guys – nuts?! I'm not going back in there…"
"They've got Parker," Sydney stated quietly and vehemently, "and Jarod."
"Both lost," Angelo said in an incredibly sad voice. "Both have forgotten everything."
"The drug that they gave you to make you forget, they gave to me first – and then probably to Miss Parker and Jarod," Sam told him bluntly. "We need you and your expertise at computers to help us find them so we can bring them out the way we got you out – and then help them remember too. THEN we can leave this damned place."
Broots blinked as the memories of the past few days began to augment his long-term memories properly. "I remember…" he said, raising a finger and moving closer. "I remember seeing a document about an amnesia formula…"
"Formula 837A," Sydney said flatly. "That's what they call it."
"Yeah, that's the one," Broots nodded. "There's a sale pending with some Arab types in Saudi Arabia, I think – something about a group called Al Qaeda…" Suddenly that name made a whole lot more sense than it had a few days ago, and it turned his stomach. "Jeez…"
"Oh my God!" Sydney cringed. "Have they NO decency?"
Sam put a firm hand on Broots' shoulder. "We have to stop this," he said with fervent determination, "and we have to get Miss Parker and even Jarod out of there before they get hurt any worse than they already are."
Broots eyed his daughter in his arms with distress. "What about Debbie?" he asked in a small voice.
"She's been staying with me," Sydney told him gently. "As long as Sam and Angelo keep warning us when Lyle and his goons get too close, we'll be fine."
"Daddy, no…" Debbie clung tighter. She knew his help was needed to get Miss Parker free, but the mere thought of losing him again was like a knife to the heart.
"I have to, Sweet Pea," Broots told his girl, loosening his hold on her and putting a finger beneath her chin so that she could look up at him. "I'm sure it won't be for long – and as long as I know that Sydney's keeping you safe, I can do this." He embraced her again and kissed her several times on the cheek and forehead. "You have to strong for me, Debbie – I won't be able to do this if I don't know you're OK with this."
Debbie backed up into Sydney, who put his arms around her protectively. "I love you, Daddy," she whimpered. "Be careful."
"Take good care of her, Syd – she's all I've got," Broots told his friend in an intense and wavering voice.
"You have my word, Broots," Sydney swore solemnly. "I'll guard her as if she were my own."
"Take her home, doc," Sam directed. "Angelo and I will get him back to his cubbyhole before he can be missed. We'll send word when we know how to get either Jarod or Miss P out."
Sydney nodded, and Broots took one last, long look at his daughter. "Bye, Sweet Pea," he told her sadly before following Angelo headfirst back through the grate. Debbie turned in Sydney's arms and began to cry as Sam folded himself once more for the return trip, pulling the grate closed behind him.
"C'mon, cheri," Sydney told her gently. "It's time for us to go now."
"That wasn't much time at all!" she complained bitterly as she watched him close the shack door and hang the lock back in the loop so that it looked engaged again.
"At least it was a moment," the psychiatrist reminded her pointedly. "Now we wait again – and probably not for as long this time."
oOoOo
Broots waved at his comrades and watched them clamber back into the air conditioning duct before walking a little unsteadily back to his chair at his computer terminal and sitting down once more. A push of a key brought back up the game screen he'd been in when he'd been interrupted – and he quickly exited the game and keystroked himself back to the data entry screen where the bulk of his work was done. He brought the next document over to his side where it was easy to read and began typing for all he was worth. A glance at the clock as he'd walked across the room told him he had another hour until his shift was up – and he had just enough time to get the four other documents keyed in that would allay any suspicions that he'd been slacking any more than usual.
He'd have to be careful from now on, he schooled himself. His name was Frank – and he'd have to remember to respond automatically to that name, just as before. He'd have to remember that Frank had been conditioned to be meek, mild, easily intimidated and utterly subservient. Not that these traits were far from unfamiliar, but having been a part of an elite search team had given Broots a little more moxie over time – moxie he'd have to swallow back until it was safe again.
He'd also have to forget the mindless computer games that had kept him from being completely bored – he had bigger fish to fry in the computer systems now, such as finding out where they were holding Jarod and Miss Parker. Considering that Lyle had been a big part of the group that had conditioned him as 'Frank', his skin crawled when he thought about just what might have happened to his bristly former boss. What kind of nightmare had they created in her that Angelo would say that she was 'lost' – that both she and Jarod were 'lost – forgotten everything'? What were they forcing her – them – to do?
His fingers flew over the keyboard, copying the document before him word for word and only barely registering what was being said. Amazingly, it was a letter from another leader in Al Qaeda, confirming the terms of the sale of Formula 837A and suggesting arrangements for delivery in the next three weeks. Broots' fingers slowed – someone HAD to be told that this was happening! He hated to think what a dangerous terrorist organization would be able to accomplish with a drug that could create mindless, obedient cannon fodder so easily. He could remember how simple it had felt to have all his principles simply locked away and new ones put in their place – how much easier it would be to simply program these people to strap on explosives and walk into buildings…
Broots' eyes closed very briefly, and then they opened again and his fingers flew with as much speed and accuracy as he could manage. He took note of the document number at the top of the screen, repeating it enough times that he'd committed it to memory. There would be a day when remembering that number and giving it to the proper person would hopefully sabotage the horrific potential of the sale. He ran the hand scanner across the signature, praying that the person who had wielded the pen find themselves quickly behind bars for the rest of their life.
Amazingly, the FNB and other details at the end of the document were almost automatic – and Broots moved to the next document. Only three more to go…
oOoOo
"Just hold still," Dr. Chavez advised his patient, glad that a surgery drape hid the size of the needle he was holding from the woman he was preparing to skewer with it. Before him, through the cut-away square in a green drape, creamy skin lay taut over what he knew was a growing womb. With one eye trained on the needle and the other eye on the ultrasound monitor, he pressed the needle home millimeter by millimeter.
He still was convinced that it was too early in the pregnancy to be able to do this test safely, and he worried that the needle would seriously damage the fetus – but Mr. Raines had been insistent that the test be run almost the moment Parker had officially entered the tenth week of her pregnancy. A week had been discarded from implantation date, since the embryo that had been implanted had been a week old to begin with. But all it had taken was a word in the ear of his patient claiming possible fetal damage due to the accident that had put her in a coma, and Parker had been as anxious for the test as Raines himself.
There! The monitor indicated that he was in the optimal place to pull a few milliliters of amniotic fluid for analysis, and he carefully held the syringe still and let the machine behind him manage the plunger extraction. They could only take a tiny amount of the fluid, lest it harm the baby or trigger a miscarriage.
The syringe slowly filled at the bottom until he had the amount he wanted – and then he lifted his foot from the pedal that had triggered the plunger mechanism and slowly withdrew the syringe from Parker's body. He heaved a heavy sign of relief, and then turned to label the syringe after removing the sharp needle. With the fluid now in the hands of the waiting lab technician, he moved around the drape so that he could look down into the pale face of the woman on the operating table.
"There, now. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
She slowly unclenched her eyes and looked up at him trustingly. "Are you sure the baby's all right?"
"I'm sure the baby's fine, Parker," he reassured her with a pat to the green-draped shoulder. "This will just make sure of it so that we all know for certain."
"I just don't want anything to happen to this baby," she explained, her eyes filling with tears. "It's all I have left of my husband…"
"Here," Chavez moved the shielding drape aside and then the drape that had exposed only a small portion of her abdomen. "Let's just check and see how things are going." He squirted a small amount of gelatinous fluid on her lower stomach and then ran a wide device over the area – stopping when a soft, rhythmical whooshing sound began to be heard. "That's your baby's heartbeat," he told the woman, whose face immediately gained that familiar, rapt expression that was every mother's the first time she heard her baby's heart. "See? Nice and strong."
Parker began to smile. For the first time since waking up and finding out her fate, this miracle of life within her was beginning to become real to her. "Thank you, doctor," she whispered to the handsome Hispanic, whose eyes were the only thing she could recognize with his surgical mask in the way.
"My pleasure," Chavez responded and patted her shoulder again before gesturing to the operating room nurse to take her back to her room.
He hoped that now they would leave this poor woman alone to have her baby in peace – hopefully in some more pleasant surroundings than just white curtains that hid cinderblock walls. She was far too sweet – she deserved better than she was getting.
And Chavez knew better than to let anybody else know these mutinous thoughts.
oOoOo
Mr. Raines stood at the doorway to the kitchen, watching as Jarod placidly sat at his post peeling potatoes for the evening meal. There was a blank look on the Pretender's face that Raines' had never thought he'd see, and he shifted from one foot to the other and drew heavily on his oxygen tank.
What a waste, he thought to himself – all that intellect, and we don't dare try to make use of it more effectively before we have to put him down…
Slowly a smile came across his face. There was a psychiatrist in the Biogenics Department – a man who had trained under Sydney for years with Jarod originally – who would probably jump at the chance to work with Jarod on his own in Sydney's absence. The emphysemic old man chuckled to himself like a madman, thinking of what Lyle would say if he heard what was being contemplated for the wily Pretender after all. It was the prerogative of a leader to change his mind once he saw the logic of it, wasn't it?
For that matter, there was no reason not to start with a very general kind of training for Miss Parker as well – to see whether those old reports of her Pretender-like capabilities could be honed into usefulness. Again Raines chuckled, and then coughed as the respiratory activity outpaced his body's ability to oxygenate itself. Wouldn't it torque Lyle something awful to find out that Jarod and Miss Parker had been set Pretender tasks after all, despite having had his idea shot down so forcefully when he'd put it forth?
It would probably be better for him to discover this later – by then the fact that the parents had been put back to work running at least the left-over SIMs to help make ends meet while the Centre awaited the new Super Pretender to mature would be a no-brainer. By then hopefully knowing that the original idea had been his would only cause a slight burn of resentment. But how he reacted when he found out would tell a great deal about Lyle's fitness to run the Centre eventually – whether he'd finally been able to put the Centre's good ahead of his own personal gain or not.
Raines liked this idea – Lyle's idea, admittedly – but, he still liked it a lot. It would mean many less observational visits like this one, filled with regrets and frustration – not to mention the entertainment value that watching Lyle's reaction eventually would have. He signaled to Willy. "I want you to go talk to the cook when we're done here – let Jarod finish his shift in the kitchen today, but have his sleeping space transferred back down to SL-5. Let's see whether or not we can resurrect a Pretender from a dishwasher."
"Yes, sir," Willy said smartly.
"And tell Dr. Chambers that I want to see him in my office immediately. I have a task that should interest him greatly."
Willy peered through the window and then back down at his boss with a smile blooming across his dark face. "You're going to see if you can get Jarod doing his old job again."
"AND see if we can't give him a colleague doing the same thing," Raines replied, gesturing for Willy to take hold of the oxygen tank and follow him. "It's time to see whether the reports of Miss Parker's abilities were exaggerated or no." He smiled coldly. "I'm sure if the proposition were put to her properly, she'd jump at the chance to be doing something a little more creative than just sitting in her room reading mystery novels."
"Mr. Lyle is going to be very upset if you start this kind of project without including him in."
"That's why we're going to make sure that he doesn't hear about it until AFTER he has Sydney and Debbie in custody," Raines wheezed, disgusted with himself that he couldn't walk and talk at the same time without sounding like he was on death's door. "As far as I'm concerned, he can earn the right to administer the work of one or the other – not both – and the way he earns that right is to bring Sydney and Debbie Broots in alive."
"That sounds reasonable," Willy agreed. He pushed the button for the elevator and moved into his customary place behind Raines and slightly to the right of him. For the first time in a long time, he had a feeling that the Centre was on the verge of getting back on track after years of drifting thanks to a runaway Pretender and a do-nothing search team.
oOoOo
Jarod looked around him in appreciation. After weeks of having the only things he would see be his quarters, the corridor to the kitchen, and the kitchen itself, it was almost a relief to be someplace new – although there was the vaguest hint of familiarity. "Good morning," came the brisk voice of the man he'd been introduced to the previous evening as Byron, his new trainer. "Are you ready to do something different?"
"Y…yes sir," Jarod replied, eager with anticipation.
"That's good to hear." Byron moved to the table at which Jarod had been seated by the sweeper who had brought him into the Sim Lab and set down a series of building blocks in front of the Pretender. Quickly he arranged a few of those blocks into the beginnings of an equation. "The first thing I want you to do is to solve this equation for me, using the rest of the blocks. Take all the time you need."
Jarod studied the blocks intently and then began moving them around quickly so that the letters and numbers and symbols began to speak coherently to him. This was far more interesting than peeling potatoes…
"Very good," Byron patted the dark-haired man on the shoulder. "Nicely done."
Jarod peered up into his mentor's face with a hint of confusion. Somewhere in the back of his mind was echoing another voice telling him, "Verrrry good," but it wasn't Byron's voice. This other voice had a funny accent to it – and the more he tried to remember, the further into the background the voice faded.
"Boy!" Byron called for a second time, only then catching the Pretender's attention. "Solve this one now."
Once more, Jarod turned to the task set forth with the building blocks, to make the statement that had been started say something meaningful.
Byron Chambers nodded in satisfaction. From what he could see, Jarod didn't remember anything – and would be like a blank slate free of the impression the old psychiatrist Sydney Green had made years earlier. This was his chance to show what he was capable of – a chance he had no intention of screwing up. He'd bring Jarod's powerful intellect back into play slowly, carefully, so that running complicated SIM's wouldn't be an emotional drain.
Mr. Raines wanted results? Well, he could just sit back and wait until he had Jarod performing at the same level as Sydney had – THEN there'd be results the quality of which couldn't be denied. And then it would HIS name that would garner the attention and respect of the Triumvirate. Chambers smiled. If he played his cards right – and if Jarod continued to cooperate – his future was assured.
oOoOo
Sydney looked up as Debbie came through the front door and tossed her books on the table near the stairs. "I'm home," she called and went immediately in search of her unofficial guardian. "Sydney…"
"I'm in here," he called back, shoving the documents Jarod had translated from the research notebooks pertaining to Formula 837A back into the folder. "How was your day, cheri?"
"Fine," Debbie smiled at him and flounced tiredly into the couch across the room from him. "Janice Trimble had the 'flu today, so Mrs. Stuyvesant was grateful that I decided to come in. How about yours?"
Debbie's job of volunteering at one of the local hospitals had come only at the end of a long debate between the two of them – and only after Debbie had cut her long hair and dyed it a dark brunette color. Then, armed with Sydney's real last name as her own on a falsified picture ID card, she'd gone and gotten the job – and surprisingly, peace had been restored in the household.
Debbie was once more motivated to let Sydney cajole her into taking great strides with her home schooling, and even their chess games after supper had regained a game status rather than a power struggle between the two of them. She was no longer bored and open to worry and stew about her father and Miss Parker – which in turn freed Sydney to watch over her with a more reasonable eye and handle other matters as they came to him. He in turn was learning how effective the art of compromise was in dealing with a very intelligent and headstrong teenager, and several times had wondered what might have been the results if he'd had this experiential knowledge upon which to draw when dealing with Jarod during his adolescence and frequent attempts at rebellion.
"Things have been quiet here," he reported in return. "Nothing from either Sam or Angelo except a quick note saying that Sam saw your father the other day – and he seemed just fine."
Debbie closed her eyes gratefully. "How long do you think it will take them to find Jarod or Miss Parker, Sydney?" she asked – as she had asked every couple of days or so for the last three weeks since she'd seen her father."
"I don't know, cheri," Sydney responded gently. "Soon, I hope."
She pointed at the closed folder in front of him. "And what have you been up to – studying those formulas again?"
He nodded. "Something about them bothers me," he grumbled.
"What?"
"We know that some of the known side-effects of the drug are amnesia and psychological pliability. But there is little data on the side-effects of overdose – what harm can be caused to the patient, or whether or not the substance crosses the placental barrier or not…"
Debbie's eyes got wide. "You don't think that they would… that they would have forced Miss Parker…" She shook her head when Sydney nodded slowly. "Dad used to tell me that I really didn't want to know some of the things that went on at the Centre. Now, I guess, I understand why he didn't want me to know."
"I'm also worried about some of the chemicals used to compound this formula – some of them are extremely dangerous by themselves, especially on the ability of the intellect to make logical assumptions and then follow them to logical conclusions. Extended or high-dosage exposure to this formula could be very dangerous to people like Jarod."
"Surely the Centre wouldn't want to harm Jarod," Debbie was surprised yet again.
"From what Sam said, it seems that Jarod's entire value to the Centre is now seen to be in the genetic contribution that he could make to a breeding project." Sydney swallowed his disgust with difficulty. "We already know the lengths to which Raines is willing to go to get a Pretender with Jarod's capabilities."
"Is it true that they cloned Jarod once?"
Sydney nodded sadly. "And then mistreated that young man even more egregiously than they ever did Jarod. One of the few things I've done of which I'm proud was to make sure that Jarod was able to get that young man away from the Centre and into a nurturing and supportive environment with his father." He blinked and then rose to his feet. "Enough of this – I've got a casserole in the oven that should be just about done…"
Debbie rose and stretched. Sydney was right – dwelling on this wasn't accomplishing anything, as usual. "Let me get out of this candy-striper's outfit, and I'll be right back down. I didn't eat much for lunch before I left, so I'm starved!"
oOoOo
"What the Hell happened?" Raines demanded as he watched the surveillance camera footage of the rampage that Jarod had inflicted upon the Sim Lab. "He's been quiet as a lamb for over ten weeks, and now suddenly he's a tornado after two weeks with you. What did you do?"
"I'm not exactly sure," Byron Chambers shook his head sadly. "One moment we were going through the beginning materials of a SIM regarding a plane crash in Dallas years back – one that he did as a young man, incidentally. The purpose of the exercise was to see if he was able to climb into the mind of a participant and see the events as they happened and report them accurately. I was intending to compare his SIM results today with those that he got originally back when."
"And," Raines urged. "Something must have set him off…"
"I was sitting off to the side, waiting for him to get completely into character. And suddenly he was flying off the handle – came at me and then started throwing furniture around…"
"Play back the footage of Sim Lab 15-2A, time-frame 1420," Raines directed the sweeper at the controls of the DSA player hooked to the large screen in front of him. There was a blur as action flew backwards until the particular time-frame was in front of them. "Play it," Raines demanded hoarsely.
It was as the psychiatrist had described. He was sitting quietly to the side of Jarod, playing with a piece of paper while waiting for the Pretender to climb completely into the head of the doomed pilot when suddenly Jarod seemed to focus on the mentor and freeze for a moment. The funniest of looks crossed the man's face, and then he simply exploded.
"Hold it – go back two minutes," Raines directed again. Once more the surveillance footage ran backwards, and then moved forward in real time. "Move in on what Dr. Chambers is doing," he directed when Jarod suddenly turned his head and seemed to freeze while watching his new mentor. The DSA operator moved his thumb smoothly across the panning ball and zeroed in on the psychiatrist, sitting at a table a short distance away from Jarod carefully folding a piece of paper. "Freeze it, right there! Just what the Hell were you doing?" Raines frowned and glared at the psychiatrist.
Byron gazed at his own image on the screen for a moment, and then shrugged. "Origami, I suppose," he said nonchalantly. "I do it sometimes when I'm bored or waiting for something."
Raines' face drew down into a frustrated grimace. "Damn it! What the Hell could be such a powerful memory for him that would revolve around Origami?"
"I had him dosed with Formula 837A again, full strength plus some, the moment the sweepers had him neutralized," Byron said quickly. "We can start again – I'll know not to do Origami around him again… We were just getting to the point that he could run full-scaled SIMs…"
The Chairman was shaking his head. "Damned Pretender," he grumbled to himself. "No – you've had your chance with this one," he told Byron coldly. "You have one more chance to redeem yourself. I'm transferring you to take over the training of another Pretender candidate – a young woman this time. We've been giving her preliminary training that she hadn't had prior to this – let's see how far you can get her toward doing full-scale SIMs in the next twenty-five weeks."
Byron's brows pulled together. "That's an odd time frame," he commented.
"That's the amount of time you have until her baby is ready to be delivered," Raines told him frankly. "After that, if she can't be used, we aren't going to be needing her any longer."
"And what about Jarod?"
Raines shrugged. "He's not your concern any longer, Dr. Chambers. I suggest you head down to Sim Lab 14-8C and introduce yourself to the woman known as Parker. And be careful with what you say or do this time, understand? We can't afford another incident like this one – not with the baby she's carrying at risk."
oOoOo
Sam could count the number of times he'd seen Angelo milling about in a Centre corridor with the rest of the inmates… er… employees, he corrected himself. So seeing him hovering near a back corner of another corridor and looking intensely at him made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Something important had to be happening that was urgent enough that Angelo didn't feel he had the luxury of waiting until Sam was alone in the sweeper break room.
Without being too obvious, Sam made his way over to where Angelo had found another air conditioning vent removed from the security cameras by a fair distance. "Must call Sydney," the little empath stated in a quick and agitated voice. "Jarod in danger – must get out NOW!"
Sam made a show of studying the documents he'd been in the process of delivering. "But we haven't been able to find out where he's being kept," he complained in a whisper.
"SL-15, cell 47-C. Scheduled for termination tonight." With that, Angelo vanished.
Sam's brows had hit the front edge of his hairline. They were going to terminate Jarod? Tonight?? Angelo was right – Sydney would have to be contacted immediately, or as close to it as humanly possible.
He gazed down at the documents in his hands in frustration. If he didn't get these to the head of the Pharmaceutical Department, someone would notice. With a sigh, he headed back in the direction he'd come, aiming at the elevator. Time was of the essence now.
oOoOo
"I think I heard an email arrive," Debbie chirped as Sydney came back into the kitchen from the living room, where he'd taken his study of the translated research notes while she cleared the table and did the dishes. She looked over at the counter, where Jarod's laptop sat up and running in the email client, as it normally did at this time of evening.
Sydney walked over to the computer and hit the space bar to get it past the screensaver, then highlighted the newly arrived message and hit enter. Debbie was setting the dishwasher to scrub the day's offerings when suddenly she heard her guardian mutter a grinding, "Merde!" under his breath.
"What's wrong?" She moved to his side and tried to read over his shoulder.
"I have to go," Sydney told her, closing down the client. "Sam says that he's figured out a way to get Jarod out – and that he has to do it tonight. Jarod's scheduled for termination…"
"Termination?" The girl repeated the word as if hearing it for the first time.
"They're wanting to kill him." Sydney's voice was tightly controlled. "Don't even think of asking to come along – getting your father out so he could remember and go straight back in was one thing, but getting a Pretender out…" He shook his head. "Be ready to run, cheri, if I don't come home tonight."
"Sydney…" Debbie reached for him. "You're frightening me."
"Good." He nodded in satisfaction even as he pulled her into a tight hug. "You need to be frightened, cheri. We're playing an extremely dangerous game – and the stakes just got a lot higher. Here." He pulled a paper out of the folder that was under the laptop. "I was searching through Jarod's computer the other night, and I found this. This is the address and phone number of Jarod's family. If I don't come home tonight…" He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and emptied all the cash he had into a startled hand that he'd pulled roughly from around his waist. "…buy yourself a bus ticket and get to them. They'll know how to keep you safe."
"Don't leave me," Debbie murmured brokenly, clasping the money and yet replacing the arm around his waist and holding even tighter. "Don't leave me alone."
"I can't help it, ma petite. If I don't go now, Sam can't get Jarod out alone – and he'll be killed." Sydney pushed Debbie away so that he could look into her face. "And just as you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you let something like that happen to your dad, I couldn't live with myself if I stood by and let something like that happen to Jarod."
"I understand," she said shakily, wiping at her tears with the back of the hand filled with money. "I just don't want to lose you too."
"I'll be back if I can at all help it," Sydney promised and pulled her to him once more for a quick kiss on the cheek. "Remember what I said – if I'm not home by morning, call Jarod's family and get on the bus. Do you understand?"
Debbie nodded, eyes wide and frightened.
Sydney raised his hand, and then turned and bolted through the garage door. Moments later, Debbie heard the sound of the Buick's engine fire up and back away quickly. She lifted one hand filled with money and the other with a paper in it with the name, address and phone number of people she'd never met – and wondered when her life had stopped being quiet and normal.
And she wondered if she'd ever have a normal life again.