FAÇADES

By Dwanna Callaway


Chapter One

Jarod stepped off of the bus, glancing around, taking in the small-town flavor of the town he had picked randomly from the roadmap. He had always preferred large cities. Places where he could become invisible when needed, where he could disappear at the drop of a hat. Places where he could continue to be one step ahead of Ms. Parker and the Centre. He still wasn’t quite sure why he decided to come to Wallaceville. It seemed to be very peaceful. It reminded him of one of those 1960’s family rerun shows that he would watch late nights when he could not sleep. There was even a square in the center of the town with a large clock. He laughed as he slung his leather bag over his shoulder, looking behind, expecting to see a DeLorean turned into a time machine. He walked toward a place called “Rose’s Restaurant,” hoping to grab a bite and find a local motel.

Earlier, six months ago, he had gone through the ordeal of watching Zoe die of cancer. A small piece of him had died with her. He had gone into a deep depression for several months. Zoe’s grandmother had been understanding and supportive, just as his Dad, Ethan, and Emily had. They said that they understood what he was going through and that when he was ready, in his own time, to please get in contact with them. No, he didn’t think they could ever understand what he was going through. And, as long as he was in the mental state he was in, he would not contact them. His mind was not clear, his heart was not in running anymore. Twice in the last month, he had come just within seconds of being caught by Centre sweepers -- he could not subject his family to that danger.

Jarod left the small café heading to the motel on the edge of town. He checked in and lay on the bed without removing anything from his bag. He would lie there and wait. He would wait for his future … he had never thought about the future until he met Zoe. His future had been keeping one step ahead of Ms. Parker and the Centre. When he met Zoe, he knew, of course, he knew all along, that he would never be able to keep up the pace. The last five years of running had taken its toll -- on his physical health, on his emotional health, on his family. He lay back on the motel bed thinking of the past two months. He thought about his search and his final decision.

Zoe’s death made Jarod think about his past relationships -- the women he had come into contact with and had fallen in love with and especially the ones that he did not allow himself to love. Always in the back of his mind was the fact that no one that he came into contact with would be safe from the Centre. And, always in his thoughts of the past, Ms. Parker was there. He had come to the realization that she was an integral part of his past; in fact, the good memories of the Centre included Ms. Parker and Sydney. Sydney. Jarod smiled. Sydney had finally retired from the Centre. He and Michelle were together, and Sydney was a part-time professor at a small college and had never been happier. Jarod kept in touch with Sydney often, as promised when he encouraged him to go ahead and leave the Centre. Jarod had spoken to Sydney several times in the last week telling him about his indecision and feelings about Zoe’s death. One thing that Jarod would not tell Sydney was that the college that he worked for was Centre sponsored. Sydney didn’t need to know. He didn’t need to know that the Centre would never allow him complete independence from them.

The phone rang, and Ms. Parker answered with her usual, “What?” Jarod always found an odd comfort in her greeting. It was one thing in his ever-changing life that stayed the same. “Are Broots and Debbie back from Alaska?” Broots had taken his daughter to a different part of the world each summer vacation. Jarod believed that it was Broots’ silent rebellion against the Centre. Rebellion was useless, Jarod thought. As long as the Centre was under Raines' and Mr. Lyle’s control, it would stay the same cold, calculating, manipulating place it had always been. As long as it was under their control ... Jarod smiled, there was always the distant dream that there was hope for the future -- which included the future of the Centre. Jarod still remembered the look on Mr. Parker’s face when he read the scrolls. He still remembered Mr. Parker telling his daughter, “The new Parker legacy begins with you.” Jarod hoped to set the new legacy in motion … how -- he was still working on that.

“Jarod, did you hear a word I said ….” Ms. Parker’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Suddenly, he wasn’t interested in Broots and Debbie anymore. “Goodbye, until next time, Ms. Parker.” …. His thoughts went back to the past two months and his decision to find Nia.


Chapter Two

Nia had been his first experience with a woman. She was the first time that he had ever felt the desire to allow someone to get really close to him. Well, the first time since he had escaped from the Centre. He had called Sydney to explain the feelings that he was experiencing, and Sydney had explained everything to him. Jarod recalled the feelings of fear, feelings of inadequacy … he wanted to follow his emotions, to do something for himself … to not have to think of the Centre for once. One kiss from Nia quieted his efforts to explain … and the Centre was quickly forgotten.

“Do you remember Nia?” Jarod had called Ms. Parker one night, waking her like many times before.

“Jarod, contrary to popular belief, the Centre does not have every bimbo that you have come into contact with followed.” Jarod had hung up before Ms. Parker had time to light the cigarette that she had snatched from the end table in the dark. Despite Jarod’s reprimands, she had begun smoking again after Raines had taken over the Centre. She wondered why she was so agitated about Jarod calling. He called many times at night; this was the first time he had called to ask about a previous relationship ... Nia. Ms. Parker made a note to have Broots look up that tape of Jarod’s and Sydney’s conversation about … about Nia. Of course, if Jarod was thinking about Nia, maybe she needed to find out where she was and have her watched. Little did Ms. Parker know that Jarod had made his phone call from in front of the house that Nia was currently living in. Jarod sat in the car, only several hundred feet away from his past. She should have been his present and his future. He sobbed as he cursed the Centre one more time.

Jarod jerked as he was awakened by the barking of a dog in the near distance. He sat up, stretching his stiff neck as he looked over to Nia’s front yard. A very large dog was running in circles around the yard, barking and chasing a Bluejay that kept swooping down, missing his head by a few inches each time. Jarod laughed, but his attention was drawn to the front door where a woman was standing, hidden slightly by hedges. Jarod shifted and sat forward, his chest on the steering wheel. The woman walked down to the first step, calling the dog and laughing, clapping her hands and then putting them to her side like a mother scolding a bad child. When she did, Jarod saw that it was indeed Nia, and she was pregnant, very pregnant. A young bearded man stepped out onto the step behind her and “goosed” her. She turned and tried to give him a pretend slap on the face, which he quickly blocked, grabbing her hand and kissing it. The dog ran between the two and into the house, with Nia and the bearded man laughing and holding hands as they entered the house behind him.

Jarod sat for what seemed hours, though he knew that it was only a few minutes' time. He had gone over in his mind several times what he would do when he saw Nia. Of course, he had known that there was a possibility that she would be in a relationship or married. He knew that he should be happy for her. But his knowing in his mind had not reached his heart yet, and it hurt. He decided that she should never know that he had been there. She had moved on, on to a future with a family, a future without fear, without anxiety, without … without the Centre. Jarod cursed the Centre for the second time that day.

Jarod lay on the bed in the motel room in Wallaceville. He looked at the clock. Only two hours had passed. He usually would open his computer and scan the internet or look at old DSA’s. He felt like doing neither. He knew it was going to be a long night. He was too wound up to sleep. He wasn’t really excited -- he was more anxious. He thought back to two months ago and Nia. He had read somewhere a few weeks ago that she and her husband had had a baby, a baby girl. He had finally made peace with the fact that his future would not include her. Peace had not come easily. He reached and turned the watch on his arm. Whenever he looked at it, he remembered that it was a gift during the time he had worked for Cynthia Sloan. Cynthia Sloan had been a businesswoman who had hired him as a ... what was the term, ah yes, special consultant.

Jarod really could not blame the Centre for the failure of the relationship between Cynthia Sloan and him. She had told him once that she didn’t have time to be lonely. Jarod didn’t quite understand what she meant. His loneliness seemed to permeate every faction of his life -- and keeping busy did not make it go away. He had been kept very busy with being the escort of Cynthia Sloan and being called to “scratch the itch” of a housewife named Joyce. He had always felt so very strongly about family, and there he was, a part of the breaking up of a twenty-five-year marriage. Jarod used jealousy on the part of the estranged husband and the fact that Joyce still loved him to help bring them back together. Jarod lay back, looking at the ceiling, and rubbed his forehead and temples … he was able to help mend a another broken relationship and he wasn’t even able to establish one of his own. Jarod thought for sure that someday he would be used to watching everyone else’s lives go on -- while his life was on permanent hold. Someday hadn’t come yet. Jarod wondered if it ever would.

Jarod’s thoughts returned to the present. He pushed the idea that someday would never come out of his mind. He was hoping that someday would begin at daylight. He looked at the clock again. Only thirty minutes from the time he had looked before. He had thought many times about getting rid of the watch he had been given, but it was a memento of an accomplishment. The bringing to justice of a child killer, the bringing together of a marriage, the writing of a romance novel. Jarod laughed out loud to himself. He was pretty proud of the novel and of the cover that he had drawn himself. “The Loneliest Valentine” was a novel about Ms. Parker. Jarod had hoped that when she read it that she would understand about the loneliness he had written about. The fact that both of them had ended up the same, just waiting for someone to care for, to care for them. Jarod had called Ms. Parker, and she had not been receptive to his desire for her to -- “be my valentine.” Jarod had called Ms. Parker since on Valentine’s Day with about the same response. He had sent her a stuffed red heart pillow that when you hit it said, “Don’t break my heart” in a funny cartoonish voice. Jarod had wanted to record his voice on it, but, after second thoughts, had not. Jarod wondered where he and Ms. Parker would be today if there had been no second thoughts.

“Don’t break my heart.” He had had his heart broken once. He had fallen the old-fashioned “head over heels” in love with Kristi, the wife of one of his pretend conquests. She was beautiful, delicate, thoughtful, elegant ... Jarod still had a hard time realizing her true nature and character, the opposite of what she had seemed, a façade of her true self. He had been a pawn in a game of murder, cover up and -- he reached up in the air above him, pictured himself there, and drew an imaginary square -- framed -- she had planned to frame him with her husband’s murder.

Jarod had even felt guilty for falling in love with her at a time when she was so upset about her husband’s death. She just seemed to draw him toward her -- he didn’t realize until it was almost too late that she was setting him up to take a fall. He had already fallen for her once, twice would have been two too many. He had played along with her scheme; he didn’t even flinch much when she said her last “I love you.” As she left with the police, she had told him that it wasn’t personal. Jarod had replied that it was. He had always taken things personally. That was one reason that he had to leave the Centre ... he was personally responsible for every simulation that he had done -- and they had been sold to foreign governments and to crime families, foreign and American.

Jarod fought becoming skeptical and cynical about life and about people. He knew that it would be very easy for him to take a pessimistic view of life. He still had that part deep inside of him that believed that most people were trustworthy. He, of all people, would have the perfect foundation for not trusting anyone. He had been lied to all of his life. The Centre was built upon a foundation of lies. He had tried so many times to help Ms. Parker find the truth about her past, and even the truth that they had thought they had found had turned out to be lies -- lies disguised as truth to hide deeper lies?

He thought back to the time that he had helped Ms. Parker find Ben, her mother’s friend and lover, and the music box that held the picture of Ben, Catherine Parker, and Ms. Parker as a baby. Jarod always had the idea, the hope, that Ben was actually Ms. Parker’s father. It was a crushing blow to Ms. Parker, and to Jarod, that Mr. Raines was Ms. Parker’s biological father.

“Ms. Parker, are you watching your back?” He called one night, concerned about some information that Angelo had come across. Raines had pitted Lyle and Ms. Parker against each other in a race of time to recapture Jarod. Since that time he had Angelo watching Lyle’s every move, hoping to save himself, and Ms. Parker, from tragedy. “Jarod, don’t worry about my back. You should be concerned about yours -- oh, and the boy’s. Lyle has decided, if you are too hard to recapture, that maybe his efforts should be put on finding Major Charles and the boy.” Jarod had hung up abruptly and had called the Major, informing him of the latest, causing the two to go into deeper hiding.

Chapter 3

Lyle. Mr. Raines. The Centre had taken a turn for the worse since the two were in charge. Jarod had been forced to think differently about things. He could no longer just work to piece his family together. As long as Raines and Lyle were at the Centre, his family could never be together; there would be no peace. He understood that now. He would never have a life of his own until Raines and theTriumverate were gone from the Centre. Sydney was not able to “watchdog” at the Centre now. Angelo was still his eyes and ears there, but he had no power to change or affect what was going on. Broots was Ms. Parker’s right hand, but, unknown to Ms. Parker, Broots was Jarod’s left hand. He had begun to work more closely with Jarod, keeping him informed of Raines' and Lyle’s locations. Broots had made it perfectly clear to Jarod that if it came to Debbie, his daughter, or Jarod -- his daughter would come first.

“How is the atmosphere?” Jarod made another call to Ms. Parker. His calls had become a nightly routine since Mr. Parker had jumped out of the airplane with the scrolls. He knew that her friends were few, especially at the Centre where everyone was concerned about his or her own survival. Many of her old acquaintances did not talk to her, knowing that Lyle was someone not to contend with. Angelo had told Jarod that there were a lot of new faces at the Centre, that a lot of old faces had disappeared.

Ms. Parker jerked at the ring of the phone. She was wearing a plaid shirt and had been rubbing the fabric, deep in thought, deep in memories. She thought that she heard Tommy’s voice saying, “Get the phone, Parker. You get so few calls.”

“Stifling. I need Raines’ oxygen tank. You call at the most inopportune times, Jarod.” She looked at the picture of Thomas Gates on the endtable.

“Ms. Parker, I know for a fact that your social life is lacking. Wanta go for a burger?”

“Jarod, I can’t take this playing, this cat and mouse game.”

“Ms. Parker, what is the old saying -- if it's too hot in the kitchen, get out of the kitchen? If the atmosphere is bad, change the atmosphere. Your father said that the Parker legacy would continue with you. He did not mention Lyle.”

“Jarod, I can’t. I lived for my father -- to please my father, and now .…”

“Ms. Parker, it’s a new day at the Centre, a dark day … time to please yourself. To do what you know you need to do.”

“What, what do I need to do?” Ms. Parker asked herself, for Jarod had already hung up.

Jarod got up off the bed and went to the window. He pulled back the curtains and looked out. It was still very dark outside. His hotel room was on the backside of the little hotel, and he did not have to contend with streetlights. He rethought his room choice. Streetlights would have given him some comfort -- he hated not knowing if there was something or someone out there, out of sight, watching him. He knew that he was being paranoid -- wonder of wonders that he wasn’t totally “off the wall” growing up with every activity on video. He decided to get a soda from the machine in the hallway. He remembered passing by an old soda machine and an ice machine when he arrived. He reached for some change on the dresser and headed out the door.

When he came back to the room, he popped the top of the can and looked again out the window. He knew that he wasn’t afraid of what was out there; he was just anxious for the morning to come. Would his visitor arrive as planned? Would his life make a turn for the better, or for worse? Only time would tell.

Jarod sat in the chair beside the bedstead. The lamp was low, providing just enough light to make a shadow on the wall. He could see his exaggerated profile reflected on the opposite wall … his profile .... He stopped. His mind went back to when he worked closely with the FBI’s profilers, Sam and Rachel.

Sam was the first profiler he had worked with. He had not realized that he would be in danger of being “profiled.” He should have realized that she would analyze everyone … he guessed he should be fair. She only analyzed him because she believed that his reactions to the interrogations were very personal. He couldn’t help it. The case reminded him of his past, his lost childhood. It had to be personal. He and Sam were too much alike to become too personal. She was too intense for him. He didn’t need the extra intensity in his life. Zoe had been what he needed, a refreshing change -- alive, vibrant, fun loving …. He drifted off to sleep sitting up in the chair. A drop of condensation rolled down the side of the soda can on the end table just as a tear rolled down his check. He was so tired of being alone.

“Ms. Parker, ever think what you would be doing if you were not at the Centre?” Ms. Parker looked at her clock - didn’t Jarod ever sleep?

“Jarod, I would be at the door with pearls and a kid around my neck kissing hubby goodbye as I hand him his briefcase and would spend the day cooking and carpooling.” Ms. Parker threw an empty pack of cigarettes across the room.

“Ms. Parker, in stiletto heels? Seems to me you could find a way to make up for the Parker legacy of lies and deceit. I’ll get back to you.”

“Jarod, do you live to make me miserable…” She didn’t get to finish -- Jarod had already hung up the phone. She threw her cell phone across the room.

Jarod had continued to call Ms. Parker over the last two-month period, daily. He knew that things were getting unbearable at the Centre and he wanted her to keep her desire for survival.

Jarod had also kept close communications with his father, the boy, Emily, and Ethan. All four had finally come together in hiding, and Jarod was encouraging them not to get separated again. The last missing piece of his family was his mother. He knew, he could feel, that she was very close, watching and waiting for a time that she could join them without putting them in harm’s way.

The boy. Sydney had called him Jarod’s son. That is the way that the family thought of him. It made him more a part of the family that way. Not the result of the lies and deceit of the Centre. He was one good thing that the Centre had done. Jarod knew that this Father, Emily, and Ethan were calling him Kyle. Emily had slipped one day and called him Kyle; they decided that it would pay homage to their dead son, their dead brother. Jarod could not think of the boy as Kyle just yet. It was too painful.


Chapter 4

Jarod was awakened by the sunlight peeking through the curtains. He was still in the chair by the bedstead, a warm can of soda on the end table. He went to the restroom and ran his face under a stream of cold water. He had one hour before he knew if what he had worked for for the last two months was going to come to fruition or not … whether everything was all in vain. He could not picture that scenario in his mind; he had to have hope -- he had to have hope in something, or he didn’t think that he could make it.

One hour. He sat down at the table and stared at the laptop sitting closed on the table. His last close relationship was with the FBI’s profiler Rachel. When he had learned that the FBI was sending in a female profiler on that specific pretend, he was afraid that his cover would be blown. He relaxed when he saw that it was not Sam. Rachel didn’t seem as intense, on the surface. Jarod had taken a liking to her immediately, forgetting everything that he had learned from the past -- that there was no future.

There was a chemistry between the two that they both had noticed but had ignored at first. Jarod relaxed when he realized that Rachel was more interested in him than in profiling him. They had worked together well. He knew that he would look her up later.

“Sydney, do you miss your work?” Jarod knew the answer before he asked it. He just needed to hear it from Sydney, to know that Sydney was happy.

“Jarod, I have new work. I love my teaching, I love finally being with Michelle, and I love being with Nicholas. It is a new chapter in my life."

Jarod knew that Sydney was happy. He would have to find someone else to take Sydney’s place when the time came. Jarod sighed; no one really could take Sydney’s place. He wondered if Nicholas could fill his father’s shoes.

He had talked to Broots. Broots was lovable old Broots. He knew that Broots would come through in a bind. Angelo was a strategic player. No one really knew, except for Jarod, the extent of Angelo’s capabilities and Angelo’s part in all the workings and goings on at the Centre.

“Ms. Parker, do you have company at the Centre now?” Ms. Parker was taken by surprise; she had not yet eaten supper when Jarod had called her --- she had a pasta dinner in the microwave.

“Jarod, how did you know that Cox showed up today?”

“It really doesn’t matter, Ms. Parker, where I get my information. If I were you, I would find out why he is there. I bet it has to do with a certain Parker heir.”

“Jarod, oh, Jarod. I have had dreams about my brother. I’ve known that he is alive, I have felt it. But, I do not know where Daddy sent him ....” Ms. Parker lost her appetite and had a certain urge to call Broots to meet her at the Centre. They needed to do some exploring. It was she who hung up first this time.

Jarod opened his black bag for the first time since he had checked into the room. He took out a Twinkie and unwrapped it and pulled out a fresh shirt. Forty-five minutes … he put the Twinkie down; he didn’t think that he could swallow a thing.

Jarod had looked Rachel up once. He had heard that she was having problems with a stalker, and he did some research and found out information to help her case. He had promised her that he would tell her all about himself, but, when he saw her … he didn’t want to relieve his past, he wanted to live his future. He looked at her the next morning and saw the same thing that he had seen so many times before -- a future that would never happen because of the Centre. He cared too much for her to entrap her in something that she didn’t need to be a part of. He left.

It was the minutes that he spent looking at Rachel asleep that he decided that he had to do something to change his future. Well, actually something to make sure that he had a future. Sydney had the beginnings of a future but still needed to be free of Centre ties. Broot and Debbie, Angelo, his family … there was much more that just his future riding on the next thirty minutes.

Jarod felt his stomach churn and acid hit the roof of his mouth. He ran to the bathroom and lay across the toilet. He never realized he could be so physically affected by this -- this was reality, not a pretend, and he knew that there could be no mistakes.

He washed his face again, put on his clean shirt, and sat down on the chair facing the door.

The next time he had spoken to Ms. Parker, she had told him that she and Broots had found that Mr. Raines had brought Mr. Cox and her little brother back from whatever God-forsaken place they had been. She said that he looked like any three-year-old and that she hoped and prayed that he would take after her mother and not her father.

“Ms. Parker, if that child is to be brought up by Raines, Lyle, and Mr. Cox … what do you think?”

Jarod could hear a sob in the silence on the other end of the line and hung up. His point was taken. Now, he just needed to wait.

Jarod had spent the past two months making his plans. The plans for his biggest task ever. The taking down of the Centre as it is and rebuilding it to become a center for the improvement of the environment and for mankind. He wanted every mechanism used at the center for evil to be turned and used against evil. He knew who his enemies were -- Mr. Raines, Lyle, Mr. Cox. Now he just needed to gather the allies. He knew that Angelo would be there. Broots would come through for him. He needed Sydney. He knew that there was much emotional and mental anguish that had been caused by the Centre and Jarod wanted Sydney to be part of that healing -- a sort of catharsis for Sydney, too. Time would tell.

Time would tell. It was five minutes past eight. Jarod waited, too weak to go to the window and watch ... so many people depended upon this. His family was waiting to be reunited. The boy, the one that his family had begun to call Kyle, was waiting to be able to have a “normal" life. Broots and Debbie were waiting, Angelo, Sydney, and Michelle. Sydney had no idea that he still had ties to the Centre, and Jarod planned that he would never know, unless Sydney decided to take part in the new Center. The Center for Economic and Ecological ... well, all involved would have time to name it when the time came. It would not be an overnight task. It may take a period of a year to be able to take the Centre. But Jarod had decided it was the only way for him to have a future.

There was a knock at the door. Jarod felt a multitude of emotions, all at the same time. He stood slowly and walked to the door, knowing that either his future or his end was on the other side.

“Mary Catherine,” he said to the heir of the Parker legacy. He took one step toward her and was wrapped in her arms for the first time ….

It was a new day for the both of them. A new day for the Center.

And there was not a cloud in the sky.




*** This lovely background belongs to Becci B and
can only be used with her permission.
Check out her website: BecciB's