Buried Secrets
Part 1
by Shaddyr

Jarod felt exhileration singing in his veins as he finally broke through. The final safeguards in the Centre mainframe had eluded him for a long time, and he had worked with painstaking precision, each incursion delving a little deeper towards the files that beckoned tauntingly, just out of reach. This time, however, the final firewall had come down, and even though he knew there was a frantic scrambling on the other end, by the time they were able to shut him out, he would have a complete download of what he was after.

Moments later, he disconnected, satisfied his complex system of satellite relays was more than adequate to stump the Centre techies. Grabbing his daffy duck pez dispenser, he popped one of the tart-sweet candies in his mouth and began to wade through the gold mine of information he'd just stolen.

There were a few interesting tidbits relating to the red files he’d been previously unaware of, and he stored the facts away for future reference. He lifted the dispenser to his mouth to take yet another candy, when a piece of information on his screen made his heart skip a beat. The colorful piece of plastic slipped from suddenly numb fingers to bounce off the keyboard before it fell to the floor, forgotten. Jarod drew a shaky breath, leaned forward and re-read the file. There was no mistake - he had read it correctly the first time.

Blindly, he reached for his cell and hit the first number on the speed dial. One ring, two, then an answer.

"This is Sydney."

"Syd, I... " Jarod's voice caught in his throat at the enormity of what had just discovered.

Sydney heard the tremor in his voice and instantly became concerned. "Jarod, are you all right? What has happened?"

Several emotions warred for dominance, but the pretender was finally overwhelmed by shock. "Did you know, Syd? Did you?" his voice came out as a husky whisper, filled with pain.

"Know what? What is it?"

"Did you know that Miss Parker is my sister?"
 

Go to Part 2 at Nicolette's