Jarod had a very good idea where he was going next. He knew, too, that he would have to hurry, or he might be too late. This was, of course, all relatively new knowledge. They'd hidden it well, intending that he didn't find out. Jarod snorted. They should have known by now that they couldn't hide things from him. Except for...he shook his head. Not now. The Centre's new goal was more important at the moment.He was in the dark regarding some details, such as why. But, tapping away at his laptop, Jarod could say who, and where. What Mr. Raines wanted with the girl in question was unclear. But the secrecy, and the fact that he wanted the orphan at all suggested what Jarod dreaded: The Centre had found another victim to exploit.
Jarod didn't intend to let that happen.
"Oh, Jarod? Yeah..he stayed upstairs for a while. Room 23. Why?" The manager of the small, roadside motel scratched at his balding head. "And who are you, again?"
"Some friends of his," Miss Parker replied vaguely, brushing her own, usually immaculate hair out of her face. She was impatient to get this over with. In fact, she was tired of flying all the way across the country to hit another dead end. "When did he leave?"
"You just missed him. Left at about noon." He shrugged.
This caught her attention, but only barely. Jarod had an irritating habit of disappearing moments before she showed up. "Did he happen to say where he was going?"
"No...he left in a hurry too. Kinda troubled."
A little out of the ordinary, maybe, but knowing Jarod.. "Can we see his room?"
"Wouldn't do you much good. Already been cleaned out."
"Well, did he leave anything behind?"
"Nope."
Miss Parker hrmed. This wasn't very normal. Normally Jarod left something behind. "You're sure?"
"Yeah. Why's it so important?"
Her cell phone rang abruptly. "Excuse me." She walked a few steps away while retrieving it out of her pocket and flipping it open. "What?"
Broots' timid voice replied with, "Was he there?"
She scowled. "What do you want?"
"I think I know what Jarod was doing in the mainframe, this time. See, I was able to track his movements based on-"
"Get to the point." The young technician could get off track and babble for a while, sometimes.
"Right...He was looking into some of Raines' personal memos."
"So? You know Jarod can't resist having his nose in everyone's business."
"And normally I wouldn't have thought it was very important, but I did some digging and guess what? Brigitte and Lyle are about a two hours north of you, in Snoqualmie, by Raines' order."
"What are they doing there?"
"Well, I'm not sure.."
"Find out," she snapped, and closed the phone. So Jarod was following Brigitte and Lyle? Why? What was in Snoqualmie?
On the way up, Broots called again with what he'd found. "Almost everything regarding this is high level classified...I'm even having trouble getting in to them. I'm working on it now. By the way, I looked up Snoqualmie.." He trailed off.
"Well?"
"Well, it's a pretty small town. There's not much, aside from a waterfall, a five star hotel, a waterfall, and...an adoption placement center."
Miss Parker managed to surpress a surprised hiss at that. Instead she shot a glance over to Sam, who sat in the driver's seat, snapping. "What?"
"Do you think-?"
"Find out what's in those files." She hung up. This couldn't possibly be good...
The sign read "Snowqualmie Fostering Placement and Care Center". Someone had painted the original lettering over in rainbow colors. The building it hung on was not very large, and stood near a few other identical ones. The whole place looked like it could have done with some more funding; the paint was peeling, and the roof was missing more than a few shingles. Miss Parker, leaving Sam in the car, strode inside.
At the front desk sat a bored looking woman in front of an old computer. She looked completely uninterested whatsovever in what she was doing, and didn't even bother to look up at Parker's presence.
"Excuse me," Miss Parker drawled in the overly polite tone she reserved for people like this.
The woman looked up, and matching the tone exactly, asked "Can I help you?"
"I'm looking for-"
"What are you doing here?" She turned to see Brigitte standing in a doorway marked 'Visitor's room', looking less than pleased.
"I could ask you the same."
"Don't avoid the question, Miss Parker." Mr. Lyle stepped out behind Brigitte, annoyed. "What are you doing here?"
She considered for a moment, then shrugged. "I'm following a lead on Jarod."
"What?"
"That son of a-"
Parker grinned at their angry reactions. "And you two are here to, what, start a nice family?"
"For your information, we're here on," Lyle paused, motioning her into the visitor rom, and closing the door, "on official Centre business."
Brigitte added an icy glare. "If you'd done your job right in the first place and captured Jarod, we-"
"-you wouldn't be trying to find yoursel fa new lab rat to play with."
"Girls, now's not really the time..." Lyle tended to jump in when the two of them were having a..."difference of opinion". "If Jarod's here, we have a problem."
"Oh? With what?"
The man shot a glance at Brigitte before the artificial blonde could respond. "I think Miss Parker will understand the gravity of the situation." He turned back to her, flashing one of those smiles that meant he thought he was being generous. "It's simple. We're here to meet with the person who ~can~ catch Jarod."
Andrea Watson wasn't exactly thrilled to be coming back from today's "field trip" to the waterfall. Normally she despised the things; they were pointless, and repetitive. Ms. Carles, the volunteer in charge of Andy's age group, called them 'productive things for the children to do." For Andy, all it meant was another mandatory trip with kids and volunteers she disliked, and who disliked her. They all called her anti-social. She preferred the term cautious. People, without exception, would lie to you about anything and everything if it suited their mood.
And when confronted with it, they acted angry, indignant. She'd given up on mentioning it...though she hadn't been able to give up seeing the things see did.
Today was different. Today the excursion to the falls was a good way to prolong meeting with who would probably turn out to be her new foster parents. That was hardly something to look forward to.
Ms. Carles was looking her over critically, and that brought her back from her world of thoughts. The aging woman had been here about since Andy had first landed here, and the two of them hadn't gotten along from the start, or, rather, Andy had hated the woman and taken it from there. By now, everytime that woman looked at her, Andy heard the same thing in her head: *Pointless waste of time.*
The messages, images, sounds...she called them flashes, for lack of a better term. No one knew, and she doubted anyone would believe her if they did. These unexplainable, unpredicatble things in her mind...they were to blame for her problems. Her parents' death had nothing to do with it. No matter what the shrinks said. At least without the flashes, she could go on living normally. innocence was goddamn bliss. Or soemthing like that.
"I don't see how you'll ever make a good impression if you don't make an effort." Ms. Carles again brought her away from her thoughts. Andy sighed.
"You expect me to care? Good luck."
"At least take off that awful sweater. You're keeping them waiting, and that's rude."
Very slowly, Andy retrieved her hairbrush off her bedtable, and brushed out some nonexistant tangles in her medium-long, brown hair. She watched Carles get visibly annoyed at this, and smiled inwardly. She could sense that the woman wished she'd be gone for good this time. After letting the woman simmer for a moment, she grinned, took off the sweater, and tossed it at her while walking out the door. "Don't bet on it."
The two of them crossed the parking lot to get to the main building. Most of the cars were old, run down. There were two new cars, though. Shiney, new cars. Rental cars, it looked like. Andy glanced at them, and felt a strong sense of fear...as though she should run. *Stay away from the people driving those cars...* Andy stumbled, then came to a halt...
"Andrea?"
She shook her head, snapping, "I'm fine." Without glancing at Ms. Carles, she started walking again, passing the two cars. One was empty, and perfecty clean. In the other sat a bored man, who looked up as she passed. She met his gaze, and he stared at her while she walked by. Something was very, very wrong...
Inside, the woman at the front desk - whose name Andy didn't really know - was sitting looking rather miffed. "I told them you'd be here ten minutes ago."
"Yeah, well, you don't know me very well." She adopted the aloof, you-can't-touch-me attitude that so frusterated others and masked her feelings at the same time.
"Look, for your own sake, please don't mess this up..." Ms. Carles held a hint of desparation in her voice.
"And what," a voice spoke up from the direction of the visitor's room, "is there to mess up?"
A man stood in the doorway, wearing an expensive-looking suit. He was about as tall as Andy, with neat brown hair. She stared at him. He stared back, smiling. That smile was fake...
*Screams..she heard screams, cries of pain, of fear. This man was there...smiling...Everything slowed, sounds were muted. He was smiling. But this was no kind smile. Nor was it a fake smile. This was a genuine one, cruel, one of sadistic glee..*
"You alright?" He looked curious, not concerned at all, not surprised. She blinked at him, trying to keep her expression neutral.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
He smiled again. "You're Andrea?"
"Andy. Who the hell are you?" She pushed the images down to where they wouldn't bother her for now, or, rather, tried. She had almost no control over what she saw...
"Andrea!" Ms. Carles was pissed. Andy didn't even look at her.
The man, on the other hand, only looked slightly taken aback. "Oh, that's alright. I'm Lyle," he stepped to the side, out of the doorway, "and this is Brigitte."
From behind him, a slightly shorter blonde stepped out of the room. She was smiling too...Andy had the sudden sense that that smile, too, was more accustomed to cruelty than kindness. Who the hell were these people?
At her lack of a reply, Lyle just shrugged, motioning for her to join them in the visitor room. She hesitated, the slowly walked toward him. She couldn't break his gaze, couldn't completely chase what she'd seen out of her mind. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get along fine." He put his hand on her shoulder, urging her inside. *A blood-soaked hand..* She shook her head. What was going on?
Inside the comfortable room, which was filled with aging furniture and a vending machine, there was another woman. This one was looking at her with a srange gaze, one that seemed to be laced with a shocked disbelief that Andy couldn't understand. *A young boy. He was silent, maybe twelve years old. There was a wash of sadness, and the boy turned into the face of a strange man...this woman was pointing a gun at him...* Andy didn't understand...
"Oh, that's Miss Parker, a...friend of the family." Lyle shut the door behind her, leaving the blonde outside, but not before Andy heard her asking, "So I trust the special arrangements have been made?"
Special arrangements? She stared at the blonde, the woman named Brigitte. *Bitch.* Already, she didn't like these people... "What special arrangements?" she demanded, her mask of aloofness dissolving into a glare. And why hadn't she heard about these before?
The blonde looked only slightly annoyed - she thought of an answer quickly. "We realize how..difficult...it must be to go through the whole paperwork of the adoption process so often, so we've found a way around that." The woman's european accent only barely covered up the blatant lie.
"Bullshit." 'You don't give a damn about me,' Andy added, silently. She knew it was true, but...what other reasons could there be? Legal? No...something worse.. She had a sinking feeling in her gut. "What do you really want?"
This did catch the blonde - Andy just couldn't think of that woman by her first name - off guard. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not stupid." *They know that.* "So don't waste your time. I don't like being lied to." Indeed, that was so. That was the main reason she never stayed with a family long - they all had secrets, they all had things to hide..and they all lied to her. When she confronted them, they lied more...she couldn't stand that. Everyone blamed her for making things hell, and to an extent, it was true...
Miss Parker, watching, smirked slightly. Andy got the odd impression of *They're getting more than they bargained for* from her, directed at the two other adults...This woman didn't like them, or what they were doing. But why?
The blonde's face turned harder - she wouldn't take any crap. "I'm afraid you don't have much choice. The arrangements have been made."
Andy blinked in surprise, in dismay. "..And the lack of paperwork means you can do whatever you want..." Shit...
Brigitte smiled. Could snakes smile? This one could.. "Exactly." Her smile widened. "See? I guess you're not that stupid after all." Andy had the sudden, gut-wrenching image of a hand snatching a coin from midair, closing into a fist that did not intend to let go...
She fell silent, and sat down in the nearest chair - now she didn't feel like acting aloof, or being arrogant...now she felt a bit like throwing up. Yes, in theory she would be old enough, soon, to move out on her own...but something told her this wasn't the case. Something about this situation said 'long-term' and ''no way out'. She couldn't put her finger on it...was she just being pessimistic? No..she was a cynic, not a pessimist.
The two women in the room said nothing - the blonde was watching Andy in a satisfied, catlike manner, and Miss Parked was watching the blonde, looking definately hateful. Andy didn't undertsand what was going on. *It's happened before...* Why would Miss Parker be thinking that?
Andy wasn't sure why, but the dark-haired woman seemed like she'd be much more willing to talk, to explain, than Brigitte. Not that there was any trust involved - Andrea trusted none of them. It was more of a...feeling. Another feeling that she couldn't explain, that just popped up out of nowhere and guided her actions. She turned to face Miss Parker, to stare. In response, the woman turned to look out the window, obviously troubled.
The door opened, and Lyle walked in, not accompanied by Ms. Carles. He glanced at the three of them, blinked, and gave a forced smile. "Well," he spoke to Andrea, "let's get you packed and ready to go, shall we?"
She scowled. "I'll do it myself." She didn't have much to pack, and what she did have she cared very little for, with the simportant exception of her diary. The things she had written in there over the years were for no one's eyes but her own, even if it was all rather unbelievable..
Andy kept no souveniers, no trinkets of memory. She didn't care to remember her life after her parents had died, and she couldn't remember life before. Photographs, items...they all held no meaning to her. She'd long given up trying to dredge it back up, and had made that damned clear to the shrinks.
Her new 'foster parents' - all three - walked her to her room anyways. They didn't trust her, she knew. They also didn't trust each other. Lyle and Brigitte - they were a group. The former considered Miss Parker an annoyance, the later regarded her with utmost contempt. Miss Parker just hated them both.
It was an interesting setup. Andy couldn't really grasp it, and that gave her something to think about aside from bitter thoughts...and that was a Good Thing. It helped her generally ignore the three adults lingering by the door. Mostly.
Everyone - Ms Carles included, was eager to get this over with. There weren't hours worth of paperwork this time. There was no paperwork at all. Andy was being kicked out, practically. She felt betrayed..but then, what else was she to expect?