Parker suspected they'd inflated the interrogation team just to intimidate her. As Sydney had promised, he was there. So were Brigitte, Cox, and a man she'd never seen before in her life. He was supernaturally pale, with a shock of prematurely white hair. Appropriately enough, he introduced himself as Mr. White.
"I'm representing the Triumvirate," he said. "We simply want to get to the bottom of what happened leading up to the explosion which injured your father and killed three employees, including your brother."
"Three employees?" It was the first she'd heard of it. As far as she'd known, Lyle was the only casualty. "Who else died?"
Cox, Brigitte, Sydney, and White all sat on one side of a steel table, while she sat on the other. The fearsome foursome conducting the interview all looked a bit cramped. Mr. White consulted the folder before him.
"Michele Oberholtzer and Terrence Chan. Oberholtzer was hit by shrapnel, she was down in the courtyard. Chan was in the men's room, same as your father." He looked over his glasses at her. "An understandable source of curiosity. Nevertheless, going forward I would ask you to hold all questions until the end. It is our turn to ask questions, and I'm afraid we've got a fair few of them."
"I think that Miss Parker — Miss Parker, I think you should be aware that the aim of this investigation is not to incriminate you," said Cox. "You are not a suspect. Jarod, however, is."
Parker fiddled with the thumbtack in her jacket pocket. They hadn't hooked her up yet, but the polygraph machine sat conspicuously to one side, its hopeless tangle of wires and buttons spilling over the edge of the table.
She sniffed impatiently. "This is a waste of time," she said. "Jarod didn't do this. He wouldn't do this. What would it gain him? Even if both my father and my brother had died, it wouldn't get him out of his counteragent deal."
"Exactly!" said Brigitte. She sounded as though she was carrying on an extant argument.
"Brigitte…" said Cox, exasperated.
"What? Miss Parker's right. We're wasting time. Talking to her, talking to Jarod — it's a pointless diversion."
"Have I missed something?" asked Sydney.
Cox rolled his eyes. "Brigitte strongly believes—"
"I can speak for myself, thanks. Everyone here knows who the real prime suspect is, you're all just pussy-footing around it—" She leaned hard on the word pussy. "—because the Triumvirate hasn't got around to condemning the guy. For all Jarod's done, he's not the one with a recent history of trying to assassinate my husband."
A history of assassination attempts on Mr. Parker… ah. So, Brigitte suspected Raines. Truth be told, Parker hadn't spent much time puzzling over the real culprit, since Daddy had so many enemies it would be more efficient to enumerate those who wouldn't plant a bomb in his office. Now that Brigitte had raised the option, however, Parker felt dim-witted for not having thought of it first.
"It's a strong hypothesis, but we need to do our due diligence," said Mr. White. "Miss Parker, if you're ready, we will proceed to the polygraph test."
"We're not getting any younger," said Parker dryly. She then shifted her hip to allow her cane to roll off her lap and onto the floor with a clatter. "Damn, stupid thing. Hang on."
She bent under the table to retrieve her cane. On the way back up, she tucked the thumbtack into her shoe. As she straightened in her chair, she manipulated the tack between her toes until the sharp end pointed straight up.
She gave the panel of interrogators an ironic smile. "All set."
The polygraph procedure was old hat to Miss Parker by now, from both sides of the table. She knew the set-up by heart: pneumograph tubes over the chest, blood pressure cuff over the upper arm, electrodes on the index and ring finger. She'd never seen someone quite as handsy with the pneumograph as Mr. White, however.
"Ready?" he said, once everything was in place. "We'll calibrate first. Miss Parker, please say 'yes' to the following question: Are you currently employed by the Centre?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. Now, please answer 'yes' to the following question: Are you Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin?"
Now, here was the key: for lies to register as such on a polygraph, they had to be comparable to previous, known lies. The key to the thumbtack trick was to spike her physiological responses — breathing, blood pressure, perspiration — during control questions designed to elicit lies, like this one. She drove her big toe into the hidden thumbtack.
"Yes," she said. She watched Cox's eyes as he took in the spike in vitals. Lie. "Although someday, Vlad's gonna come in here in disguise and you guys won't know what hit you. It'll throw everything off."
"Stick to direct answers, please," said Mr. White. To his credit, he did not appear annoyed in the least. He continued. "Now we can get into the real questions. Is it true that you agreed to be assigned as Jarod's handler for Project QS-9300?"
This was a trick. At this point in a typical polygraph test, the subject is meant to assume that all control questions are over with, and they can now focus on appearing as honest and rule-abiding as possible. Parker's job was to identify the sneakier control questions remaining on White's list, and continue to spike her vitals with every performative lie.
"Yes."
"When you were first asked to join the project, did you want to do it?"
This was not a control question; or at least, it was not intended to provide a baseline for a lie. Everyone in the room knew that Miss Parker had refused.
"No."
"Is it true that, despite this, you agreed to extend your contract on the project indefinitely, without monetary incentive or persuasion on your project manager's part?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Aren't these supposed to be yes or no questions?"
"If your reason can be summed up briefly, it is applicable to the conversation. Please." He gestured for her to continue.
Her reasons could not be summed up briefly. She did her best, nevertheless.
"It was clear to me that nobody would be able to do the job better than I could."
"You didn't think your brother could do it?"
"No, I didn't."
"Some people on this panel believe you may have extended your contract for other reasons."
"Those people would be welcome to check the kymograph output."
Mr. White's mouth twitched in displeasure, but he took her suggestion literally and glanced over at Cox, who gave him a curt nod. Mr. White moved his finger to the next question down.
"Have you grown attached to Jarod since the beginning of the project?"
Here was the first incognito control question. Brigitte had already given away that she knew they'd gone out for a drink at the Slippery Fork. Parker didn't care to examine the nature of how she felt about Jarod, but she could sniff out a trap like this blindfolded. Once more, she pricked herself on the toe.
"No," she said.
Again, her attention flicked to Cox. He had his own tells. Whenever he spotted a spike, his eyebrows twitched. They did so now.
"What assignment was Jarod working on, the day before the attack on the Tower?"
Another control, this time for truth.
"The Soyuz TMA."
"Did he seem focused on the project?"
Pointless fluff.
"Yes."
"Did you see Jarod after work that day?"
"Yes."
"Why?
"I drove him to a car dealership. He was given an allowance to buy a car."
"And after that?"
"He drove to the post office, and then home."
"How do you know that?"
She'd deliberated over this part. The best defence for both Jarod and herself would be that they'd both followed orders. Brigitte's "suggestion" that Miss Parker stalk Jarod for the night definitely seemed to have been part of a larger Brigitte-penned agenda, nothing the Triumvirate had known about. If the stake-out had been against the wishes of the Triumvirate, then Brigitte might make a wonderful pseudo-scapegoat. On the other hand, Brigitte actually seemed to be on her side. Parker could hardly be surprised at this point, as this turn-up was the latest in a series of unexpectedly sympathetic reactions, decisions, and comments from Brigitte, many of which seemed to cast bizarre favour on her least favourite stepchild.
Or I might be reading into things too far, she thought. Brigitte might simply be gunning hard for Raines, in which case she wouldn't want the interrogation team wasting time on investigating Jarod. Parker could use that, regardless.
"I was following Jarod."
Mr. White's snow-white eyebrows rose.
"Why?"
"Brigitte suggested that I watch him for the night."
"What was the reason for this, ah, suggestion?"
"You're sitting next to her, you could ask her directly. But my understanding was that she was concerned about Jarod's state of mind and thought he might do something reckless with his time alone."
Mr. White turned to his neighbour, who nodded.
"That's accurate," said Brigitte. Was that a smile? A tiny, approving smile?
"I see," said Mr. White. "Well, that may be fortuitous. For the purposes of contextualizing the questions to come, Miss Parker: on the night before the attack on the Tower, the security systems logged someone gaining entry to Mr. Parker's office at 11:13 pm. We believe that this is when the bomb was planted. It was later detonated remotely, likely by someone who did not have reason to think that Mr. Parker had left his office to go to the men's room, as he is the most likely target, no disrespect meant to your late brother. You say that you were asked to follow Jarod that night. Can you account for his whereabouts at 11:13 pm?"
"Yes."
"… And? Yes? Where was he?"
And here was the real lie. If she were to get away with it, it couldn't register as a spike in her vitals as compared to the controls. She left the tack in her shoe alone.
"He was at home, in bed."
Again, she glanced at Cox for his reaction. No raised eyebrows this time, though he did frown.
"You know this for certain?"
"Unless he's got another clone walking around, yeah. I had eyes on him every quarter of an hour."
"I see. Thank you. The morning of the attack, did you see Jarod with any unidentified technology?"
"Not that I recall." This was true. She hadn't seen anything.
"Nothing that could pass for a remote detonator?"
"No."
"Did he seem surprised by the explosion when it happened? I understand that you were working with him that morning."
"I wasn't paying attention to him at the time. Even if I had, I doubt it would have made a difference. Jarod's whole shtick is that he can embody anything."
"Very true," said Mr. White. He looked over his list of remaining questions. "Have you ever lied to the Centre?"
This could go either way, but was most likely a control in disguise. She pressed her toe into the tack. Eesh. Please, let there not be any more controls, she thought. I'm going to develop some very specific calluses.
"No."
Mr. White sat back in his chair.
"Very well. That's the end of my questions. If nobody else has anything else to ask, we can say our goodbyes and—"
"I have something," said Cox. Brigitte made a noise of impatience.
Parker hoped he wouldn't look down at the kymograph output, because she knew it had just registered a spike. What had he seen?
"By all means," said Mr. White, with a gracious wave of the hand.
"Sam, Sullins, could you take Miss Parker's arms, please? Gently, there's no need to be violent about it."
"What?" said Parker. Her arms were seized, one per sweeper. She tugged at both, but fruitlessly. "Hey! Get off!"
Cox came around the table and knelt in front of her. For a bizarre moment, it looked like he was going to propose marriage. Instead, he reached for her feet, and got a kick to the face for his trouble. He fell back on his ass with a grunt.
"Miss Parker, please," said Sydney, in his best calming voice.
"Oh, get fucked, Syd," said Parker, extremely childishly. Surely she was well within her rights to be childish.
She had to give it to him, Cox had the balls to try again. This time, she didn't kick out, and he slid off both her shoes, one by one, and turned them upside down. The tack fell out onto the floor. Cox picked it up.
"There's the silly thing. Now. Let's rewind a bit. Miss Parker, you should — oh, goodness." He'd come around to his seat again and spotted the kymograph output. Parker knew what it would show. Her heart was hammering like a woodpecker. "Miss Parker, it won't help to get all riled up. Please, calm down. We only want to get to the bottom of what happened."
She thought about spurring her nerves on just to spite the panel — but then, she'd only be hurting herself in the process. She took a series of deep breaths, luring her body into a sense of false security while her brain knew perfectly well that there was plenty of trouble yet to come.
"You should know that I've held some things back about what we know of the night before the Tower attack," Cox continued. As he spoke, sweepers Sam and Sullins slowly let go of Parker's arms. She cast them both venomous glances. Sullins quailed; Sam merely looked tired. "I was present in the Tower, early the morning of, when it was reported to your father that someone had broken into the bodily fluids repository. The repository is, as you know, consolidated with counteragent storage. A security guard saw two people at the scene before they fled via the elevator. He didn't see much, but he noted that they were both above average in height, one with a broad frame, the other slim and wearing a coat."
"That's it?" Parker scoffed. "That's nothing."
"We aren't in a police precinct, dear," said Cox. "Nor a court of law. We don't have to prove anything, it is enough to suspect. It's obvious that Jarod made an attempt to steal counteragent — who else would want it? Jarod is one of only two people who have ever needed this recipe, and the other's whereabouts were accounted for all night. If Jarod was, in fact, at headquarters at the time reported by the security guard, he would have had ample opportunity to make it up to the Tower and plant an explosive. The logged access to the Tower was recorded only forty minutes after the incident on sub-level fifteen. So. Are you certain you know where Jarod was at 11:13 pm?"
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
That security guard had better run for his life.
This was looking very bad. The most frustrating part was, Jarod was innocent. There had been the faintest trace of doubt in Parker's mind on that point, but it was now wiped clean away. Jarod could not have been up in the Tower planting a bomb, because he'd been busy fixing up her gunshot wound at the time.
"Miss Parker." Brigitte was watching her carefully. Parker noted the sober cast to her voice and caught her eye. "If you have any information that mitigates suspicion or, even better, exonerates him — you should tell us. These charges are as bad as it gets. If Jarod is found guilty, the Triumvirate may well believe that he is more trouble than he's worth. Up at the top, they don't understand his value like we do. They may prioritize the value of using the gland to control a less volatile asset over keeping him around. In that case, they would salvage it."
"Salvage it?" Parker repeated. To her humiliation, her voice came out wobbly and rough.
"The gland."
"… That would kill him."
Cox nodded. "Correct. Almost certainly."
A surge of fear burst from her chest, buzzing along her veins to her extremities.
"Bullshit."
"I assure you, if the gland is removed—"
"Not that," said Parker, wallpapering over her fear with thick exasperation. "Bullshit, you'd kill him."
So she said, but internally, she wondered. Months ago, if someone had told her the Triumvirate would rubber-stamp the decision to mess around with Jarod's brain to begin with, she would have called bullshit on that, too, and yet. Jarod had thrown his freedom in their faces for too long, and they were getting desperate. And, if word was getting around that Jarod was killing off Triumvirate members, they might even be running scared. Even world-conquering megalomaniacs fear their own mortality.
"It wouldn't be us, I think I've made that clear. It would come from up top."
"Miss Parker, please, if you know anything…" Sydney had gone pale and quiet. His voice shivered. "Anything that will—"
"Alright, alright," she snapped. Anything to get Sydney to stop looking at her like she was lopping heads off puppies. "He was at home. At his house."
"Tch." Cox made a noise of derision. "We're going around in circles. We know he wasn't—"
"Let me finish, dammit," said Parker, cutting him off. She took a deep breath. Jarod wouldn't thank her for this, but she wasn't looking for his thanks. Not when the higher-ups were threatening to allow him to die on the table in a hasty gland-ectomy. "Yes, he was at counteragent storage. I followed him there. He didn't steal anything. He looked at what was there, met the guard on the way out, and left headquarters."
"What time?"
"About quarter to eleven."
Cox scowled. Why is he gunning so hard for Jarod? Isn't the gland his baby? She followed the trail of logic to its terminus. He cares about the gland, and only the gland. Jarod was the problem here — now that the gland was implanted, and Jarod was kicking up a fuss about it, Cox must be having second thoughts about his choice of host.
"You went back with Jarod?" said Brigitte. There was a funny gleam in her eye. "To his house?"
"Yes."
"He could have gone back to headquarters," argued Mr. White. "It would be cutting it close, but he could have made the trip back."
"He didn't. I stayed at his house, and he didn't leave."
"You stayed?" said Brigitte, managing to make an objectively neutral verb sound absolutely filthy. "How long?"
"Hour and a half."
Brigitte looked impressed. "How's that for stamina?"
"That's not—"
"We're investigating a terrorist attack, not fraternization," said Mr. White. He craned his head to look at the kymograph output. "How has she been doing?"
Cox ran his finger along the transcript.
"Hard to say, we didn't get a chance to re-do the controls. There were spikes, let's see… when I retrieved the tack, yes, that's expected. Also when I mentioned the break-in, when Brigitte mentioned the possibility of salvaging the gland, and again when she implied the two of them had relations after the break-in. Only one spike on one of her own utterances — 'bullshit'. She appears not to fully believe that we are bullshitting about gland salvage — you should listen to your instincts on that one, Miss Parker. But, no, no other apparent lies. This says Miss Parker is telling the truth, and Miss Parker says Jarod is innocent of the bombing."
Brigitte rose and plucked a radio from her back pocket.
"That's good enough for me," she said.
"Brigitte," said Mr. White. "We aren't done here."
"You may not be, but I am. I just needed to hear him exonerated. You fellas can chase after your remaining suspects until your faces turn blue, meanwhile, I have a job to do. I need Jarod ready in the morning to complete the Roscosmos contract." She raised the radio to her mouth and made for the exit. As she left the room, her radio call was only just audible: "Mike, this is Brigitte. You've got authorization to release Jarod. Send him home with my compliments. Tell him to get a good night's rest."
"That seems premature," said Cox. "He may not have planted the bomb, but he did break into my counteragent stock."
"And didn't take anything," Sydney reminded him. "Right, Miss Parker?"
"Right," she said. Hesitantly, she unclenched several muscle groups. Things… seemed to be looking up.
"Whether from honesty or indecision, we don't know," said Mr. White. "One way or the other, we will be going over it all in detail. The Triumvirate needs to understand how this break-in happened at all. Let's start from the top…"
They kept her there for hours, only allowing breaks to visit the ladies' room. She wasn't sure how many more ways she could re-explain how to navigate to Jarod's secret access point to Centre headquarters. Jarod wouldn't be waltzing in and out of the place again anytime soon. Cox had a look at her gunshot wound and seemed annoyed not to find anything to object to.
"Hm. Healing well. He is a Pretender, I suppose," he said with a sniff. "Though the bullet certainly didn't do your nerve damage any favours. The offer stands to furnish you with a wheelchair, dear."
Parker ignored him.
Cox and White were much more interested in Jarod's twin cars than she might have guessed. Just as she'd been, they were confused as to why he'd bought two cars of the same make and model.
"How could he even keep that a secret? His house is monitored," said Mr. White.
"He doesn't keep both of them at his house. Only the newer one, bought with the onetime allowance."
She only realized when she spoke the words aloud — she'd never wondered about the logistics of Jarod keeping his twin cars off the Centre's radar. Presumably, both cars weren't still sitting next to each other in his driveway.
"What do you mean?" said Mr. White sharply. "Where did he keep the older of the two?"
Parker hesitated. Jarod had parked it at a storage unit, she knew that. The problem was, she had no idea what Jarod kept there. What would she would be giving away if she gave up the location?
"Look, Miss Parker," said Cox when she didn't answer. "It's clear to everyone here—" Here, Sydney pushed himself back from the table, as if to divorce himself from any collective opinions. "—that you've lost sight of your directives in your role as Jarod's handler. I believe that can be salvaged, however, if you come back over the line. Spearheading this investigation into the counteragent storage break-in would go a long way towards improving your image with the Triumvirate. If Jarod holds property outside of his approved residence, we need to know about it. Given time, facilities, funds, and a sample to back-engineer, I have no doubt Jarod could generate his own counteragent and become independent from the Centre once more."
Time. That's what Jarod could get from a stockpile of counteragent. That's what he couldn't get from two vials of the stuff. Once he'd stolen some, the countdown would start until he ran out.
"I'm sure you don't want to go back to chasing him all over the country," said Mr. White. "I imagine that must wear thin after a few years." He leaned back in his chair and stared her down. "Let me be honest, Miss Parker. The fact that you willfully lied to this panel, along with the role you played in the break-in, it's worrying. But, you can get out in front of this. The first step would be to lead us to where Jarod stored the car."
The muster point for the raid on Jarod's storage unit was Miss Parker's house. She didn't let anyone inside. Instead, the cleaner and sweeper teams milled around at the end of the driveway in the dark, hosting dick-measuring contests and trying not to shiver visibly from the cold. Most of them had foregone coats. Mr. Parker had not.
"Daddy?" said Miss Parker, when she spotted the snowy head of her father among the rank and file. "What are you doing here? You should be in Wilmington."
The hypocrisy was not lost on her. If she hadn't herself made a habit of self-discharging prematurely, she wouldn't now be armed with a silver-handled beechwood melee weapon.
Mr. Parker lifted his arm, encased in an elaborate sling, for her to see. "They patched me up quick! In and out of surgery, plenty of bed rest, now I'm raring to go. Still getting headaches when I think too hard, but that's alright. I'll leave thinking to you for a bit, hey? You know, I showed up here for the, ah, for the… uh. For the r — the raid. The raid. I thought I was gearing up for payback, but these gents tell me this has nothing to do with the Tower attack, imagine that! Is, is that right?" He wasn't leaving a sliver of a second for her to respond, trundling along with every thought that popped into his head, like the Energizer bunny writing a stream-of-consciousness novel. Miss Parker opened her mouth to reply, but her father pushed forward. "Well, you'll tell me. Anyway, I have a bone to pick with Jarod. With you, too! But we'll get to that."
In the end, Miss Parker had to shout over him to make herself heard.
"Later, Daddy! We'll talk about this later. The rest of you, into the vans. No discharging your weapons on site, we don't know what he's keeping in there. Ready?"
They piled into a trio of black SUVs and, with Miss Parker at its head, drove to the storage yard. Headlights struck Jarod's storage unit from all angles, and two sweepers jumped out first with a set each of bolt cutters.
Sam leaned across Parker and pointed to a dark, moving shape fleeing the glow of the headlight beams.
"Look, it's Jarod!" He tried to clamber over her in his enthusiasm. Sam had always been a little too excited about bringing Jarod down, even back in the pursuit days. He'd featured in those DSAs of Lyle's attempts to persuade Jarod, before Project QS-9300 got off the ground.
"I've got him," she said, tucking her gun into her waistband.
"But—"
"I've got him! Go help the others."
Sam gave her cane a skeptical glance and grimaced.
"Sorry, ma'am."
So saying, he leaped out of the SUV and sprinted after Jarod, gun drawn and hollering for him to stop. Parker looked on as two more sweepers and a cleaner took up the same tack. One fired a warning shot, which pinged off the gravel inches from Jarod's heels. Jarod shuffled to a halt and laced his fingers behind his head, shoulders heaving.
"No discharging your weapons!" Parker bellowed, but no one was listening. Why listen when she no longer held any authority? It seemed that news had spread fast: the great Miss Parker was on the Triumvirate's shit list. Along with their favour, she'd also lost the whip keeping her subordinates in check. Sam didn't even slow down before he tackled Jarod linebacker-style onto the gravel-strewn road.
When Parker caught up, Sam was crouching with his knee pinning Jarod's lower back, and holding both Jarod's arms behind his back. Sam panted happily, a dog with his fetch stick.
"Yes, we're all so proud," said Parker dryly. She avoided looking at Jarod as best she could. "Again — go help the others. Don't make me repeat myself again."
Sam shook his head. "You need me to—"
"Did I stutter?"
"He'll get away!"
"He won't." She took out her gun and trained it on Jarod. Now that she could no longer help but look, the scratches and indentations from where Sam had pressed him face-first into the gravel glared back at her. She winced.
Reluctantly, Sam and his fellow henchpersons slunk away to the storage unit, where already, the Centre muscle was carrying out assorted equipment in boxes. Jarod drew his hands out from behind his back and made to stand up.
"Don't," Parker hissed. "Stay put."
Jarod obeyed and looked back at her out of his peripheral vision, the best angle he could get in his awkward position. He frowned when he noticed the gun.
"Thought we were past all that," he said.
"That was before you broke into Centre headquarters after hours."
"Didn't seem to bother you all that much at the time."
She sighed. "It didn't. This is for appearance's sake. Stay still, alright? Just… trust me."
Jarod watched in silence as the parade of boxes filed out of the storage unit. She couldn't see his expression. After a dozen boxes passed by, he turned his miserable head sideways, the better not to witness the ruin of his latest grab for freedom.
"Trust you," he quoted, words falling like tombstones. "Why? Nobody knew about this location but you."
"They were going to blame you for the terrorist attack. Your only alibi was the break-in."
"I take it the thumbtack trick didn't get you anywhere?"
"They found the thumbtack."
"So you told them."
"Yeah, Jarod, I told them," she said, patience draining away fast. "They were threatening—" She caught herself before continuing. For all she knew, the gland salvage threat was a bluff. There was no need to blow it up to more than it was. "Do you want to go back to room six indefinitely? You wouldn't be able to build a whatever-this-is from in there. What is it, anyway? A lab?"
"A counteragent production lab, yeah. That's what it was going to be. I was going to mail the components to a lab in California with enough counteragent to keep me sane while I back-engineered a way to make more for myself."
"You couldn't have squirrelled some away without them noticing? Do the work here?" She wasn't sure why she was making a case for him to get his way, but… well. This couldn't be the last she'd see of Jarod fighting back. There had to be another way.
Jarod shook his head. "I'd need more than a week's supply just to work with. It would have required a lot of brute force work to back-engineer without a guide. I was hoping for at least eight ounces."
"But there isn't enough stockpiled for you to study, let alone for you to have the time enough to figure it out without going red-eyed before the work is done."
"Right." He knocked his head gently against the ground, one, two, three. His voice dropped to a whisper. "This was my last idea. I don't know what to do."
Miss Parker let her gun drop to her side. "I… don't know what I would do in your place, either."
"I do!" said Mr. Parker. He trudged towards them out of the light and into the gloom, shoulders tensed against the cold. Miss Parker hastily brought her gun back up to point at the back of Jarod's head. "I would keep my head down and do my work. How does that sound for a plan, Jarod?"
Jarod didn't answer. A terrible anger fell across his features in profile as he stared straight ahead.
"Jarod?" said Mr. Parker, a little louder. "It's only polite to respond when you're addressed, you know."
A muscle pulsed in Jarod's jaw.
"I hear you," he said, low and resentful.
"Good," said Mr. Parker with a grin. "I'm not a man to carry grudges, and I give a lot of chances. If you remember, you kidnapped me earlier this year, and have I carried a grudge for that? No! Water under the bridge. I had your father, so it made sense — a dad for a dad, hey? I can respect a strategic move even if it disadvantages me."
"Big of you," Jarod spat.
Mr. Parker laughed. "Now, why do I think you're being sarcastic? It's fine, it's fine. My point was, I believe in prevention, not punishment. I heard the other day — did you hear this? In some European countries like the Netherlands, they don't punish prisoners for trying to escape. They say it's human nature to want to escape. Now, the Centre is hardly prison, but it's not what you would have chosen, I realize that. Cox wants you back on the Renewal Wing for an extended stay, but I said no. No, that won't do the trick at all. I warn you, though, Jarod: if you try anything like this again, we'll have to keep you on a shorter leash. No off-site house, that's for damn sure. You'd be back in your apartment full-time. I'm having purchases and shipments of all this sort of thing—" He flapped his hand at the SUVs, whose trunks had been filled to the ceiling with boxes and free-standing instruments. "—monitored, in case you're ever tempted."
"No room six?" said Miss Parker, watching her father for signs of deception.
"Room six? Ah, the room on the Renewal Wing. No, no room six. Can't say fairer than that, right? No, you're better off settling in and getting used to the idea of staying with us, Jarod. You'll be much happier."
"Keep dreaming, Mr. Parker," said Jarod. The words had an edge of bravado, but lost their punch for being delivered from the ground.
Mr. Parker smiled magnanimously. "I will. Good night, you're free to go — not too far, though! Ha. Angel, I'll see you in a bit."
As Mr. Parker wandered away, Jarod got to his feet. Following his lead, Miss Parker tucked her gun away once more.
"Wow," she said, a little dazed. "You lucked out. Slap on the wrist."
Jarod watched Mr. Parker go.
"Of course," he said dully. "Why would he rub it in? Punishment is only necessary with imperfect control."
Miss Parker gave him an incredulous look. "Are you actually upset you weren't punished? That's getting a little masochistic, don't you think?"
The storage unit was empty, its contents all packed away into the waiting SUVs. The trunk doors slammed closed. Jarod looked exhausted.
"No, not upset I wasn't punished. More… worried for what that means." He turned and headed for the main road with an aimless wave backwards. "I'm going home."
Home. The little blue house had never been "home" before. It should have been a wonderful word, but it wasn't.
The last of the grunts had left, off to have dinner with their grunt spouses and grunt kids. Parker's only remaining guest was her father, who had dragged his feet as everyone else bid their princess goodnight. She had set the oven to preheat, had started chopping vegetables, had made pointed comments about the time. Her father wasn't getting the hint.
"I'm concerned, Angel," he said, without preamble.
"About what." She didn't say it as a question.
"Brigitte and Cox have both brought me up to speed about your interrogation earlier today."
"Wonderful."
"Lying to your stepmother, to the Triumvirate, in some misguided attempt to, to what? To spare Jarod the consequences of his actions? What if he had really been involved in the attack?"
She set her steak knife down with a clatter.
"He wasn't. I knew for a fact that he hadn't done anything."
"'Anything', that's stretching it a bit, don't you think? He broke into Centre headquarters and might have stolen valuable property if you hadn't turned up. Even if he'd been completely innocent — why not let the appropriate authorities decide that? You don't get to decide what they need to know."
"You trust Cox to do what's best for the Centre?" said Miss Parker. "You trust Mr. White? I sure as hell don't."
Mr. Parker's voice dropped low, the better to focus his daughter's attention.
"I trust them more than I trust Jarod, and that should be enough. He's only ever tried to push us apart, and I worry, Angel. I worry you're falling for, ahm, falling for it. That you're forgetting about your job. He's essentially a con artist, remember. That's what allowed him to stay out for so long."
"Am I arguing he isn't? I'm not a character witness, Daddy, I only know what I saw. He didn't plant the explosive. He also didn't steal anything. I decided to hide the break-in when I thought it would make him look guilty for killing Lyle, which I knew he wasn't."
Mr. Parker's expression froze, then all the energy seemed to drain out of him. He put out a hand to brace himself against the sofa.
"Your brother… he keeps slipping out of my head. I did have the sky fall on me recently, maybe that's to blame. But then, whenever I remember, it's like hearing the news for the first time all over again."
He sank onto her sofa, his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.
"I know," said Miss Parker, aping a compassionate tone. By which she meant: I know you feel that way. Not: I know how you feel, because I feel the same. Did she regret her brother's death? Sure, but only for what Lyle could have been if he hadn't grown up a Bowman.
As it was, it only felt like she'd won a years-long argument by default.
