The Pretender SYNOPSIS FOR
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| Miss Parker is dreaming of a happy moment that she and her Mother shared
... a conversation that they had about love. The pleasant reverie
turns into a nightmare as Miss Parker finds herself staring at her Mother's
grave, and she startles herself awake and back to reality.
She hears the shower running, and thinks of Thomas ... thinks about the opportunity to begin a new life with him - maybe one where the nightmares can be left behind. She goes into the bathroom, warns him about using all of the hot water, but cannot see Thomas behind the shower curtain. Miss Parker tells him that she wants to go to Portland with him, she is committed to making them work. Thomas doesn't answer her. Concerned, she pulls open the curtain and finds that he isn't in there. More concerned now, Miss Parker begins searching the house for Tommy. She finds the living room ransacked and steps into a small puddle of blood near the front door, and she begins to panic. The front door is partially open and she steps out onto the front porch. Around the corner, she finds Thomas ... sitting up against the house. He is dead - killed with a single bullet to the temple. From the street, a man in a knit cap next to a battered truck, full of items that have been discarded by other people and that he has collected, asks what's going on. Miss Parker asks for help and the man uses a cell phone to call the police. Confused, Miss Parker tries to object - but the man runs away and drives off in his truck. Beyond caring, she goes back to Tommy's body and holds him in her arms. Later, at the police station, Detective Ronald Miller is questioning Miss Parker about the "mystery" trash man who called the police. Miss Parker is distraught and the Detective reminds her that she has the right to have an attorney present. She declines, saying she had nothing to hide. Out of the blue, Detective Miller asks her if she and Thomas were sleeping together. Miss Parker tells him that she and Thomas were committed to spending their lives together. He puts Thomas' one-way ticket to Oregon on the table and asks her to explain what he was doing with something like that in his jacket. The question causes Miss Parker to flash back to Tommy ... she remembers him asking her to join him in Portland. It is only a momentary loss of control and she answers Detective Miller - telling him that she planned to join Thomas later. Another Detective comes to the door of the room, and hands Miller an evidence bag. He changes his tack and asks Miss Parker if she owns a gun. The question takes her by surprise, but she tells him that she owns one - a 9 millimeter Smith and Wesson. Miss Parker says that she works for an International Corporation and she feels safer traveling with it. Detective Miller connects the dots and asks her if she works at "that complex outside of town" and wants to know what it is called. Not happy with the direction the questioning has taken, she tells him it is called The Centre. He wants more ... he wants to know what people do there. Miss Parker tells him it's a "think tank." Miss Parker has had enough and wants to know what any of that has to do with Thomas' death. Miller tells her that the preliminary coroner's report says that Thomas was killed by a 9 millimeter hand gun ... which is exactly what Miss Parker happens to own ... except hers is missing. He asks her again whether she wants an attorney present. Later that evening, Miss Parker is being escorted outside of the police station by Lyle, Broots and Sydney. Lyle chastises her for allowing the local authorities to get involved in Centre business and Miss Parker tells him that she had no choice in the matter ... someone else called in the local police - a trash man. She asks Lyle if he found her Father. Lyle tells her that Mr. Parker took the first flight home from Montreal and should be at the airport by now. Ever the psychiatrist, Sydney asks her how she is feeling and if they can get her anything. Miss Parker replies, saying "I want Tommy back." Somewhere in the night, Jarod is cutting some colored glass and looking carefully at the edges of the shape he has made. The report of Thomas' murder begins playing on his television in the background. Back at home now, Miss Parker is sitting by herself, in a chair in front of her fireplace, holding Thomas' flannel shirt. Helpless to do anything else, she lets a flood of memories wash over her - remembering a time when Thomas was searching the drawers in the bedroom, looking for the shirt that she is holding. He couldn't find the shirt because she was wearing it ... he asked her why she was always wearing his shirts and she told him it was because they smelled like him and she liked that. Teasing her, he says that when he dies, he'll leave her all of his shirts ... The phone rings, and Miss Parker is pulled back into the reality of the fact that she will have to find out what she will do without Tommy, because he is gone forever. It's Jarod on the phone. He tells Miss Parker that he knows about what happened to Thomas and asks her if she's okay. She is honest with him and tells him that it is too soon to know. He asks her if she has any idea regarding who might have killed Thomas and then tells her to take a closer look at the people around her and as he continues to examine a piece of glass that he cut earlier, he tells her to look for the missing pieces. After Jarod hangs up Miss Parker answers her doorbell to find that her father and Brigitte have arrived. Mr. Parker is consoling, but Brigitte is busily getting in as many digs as she can - bringing up the fact that Miss Parker allowed the local police to get involved. Brigitte appears to be unbelieving of the "mysterious trash man" story. She wonders aloud how someone could have gotten into Miss Parker's house, made a mess of everything and then killed Thomas, without Miss Parker hearing anything. The family visit soon degenerates into a battle between Miss Parker and Brigitte, which Mr. Parker is trying to break up when Detective Miller arrives. He tells Miss Parker that the police have just picked up a man, about a mile from her house, who had a 9 millimeter Smith and Wesson that was covered in Thomas' blood. Sometime the next day, Miss Parker is back at the police station, talking to Detective Miller about the man with the gun. His name is Wade Dawson ... he's a small-time junkie with a criminal record that goes back many years. Dawson claims to have never seen the gun before and he was so high on drugs when the police found him that there was no way of knowing if he was telling the truth or not. In Dawson's shack, the police also found a batch of photos - all of them of Miss Parker and Thomas and all of them taken through windows, from the outside of her house. The thought of being watched by someone while she was with Thomas sickens Miss Parker, but Detective Miller tells her that Wade was probably just looking for thrills and thought he had an opportunity to rob the house. He surmises that Thomas got in the way when Dawson broke in. Dawson is being interrogated by another Detective and the junkie is already in the first stages of withdrawal. He claims to know nothing about killing Thomas and with the kind of practiced disdain of police authority borne from years of being picked up and arrested, isn't even trying to be helpful. The entire scene is too much for Miss Parker to stand (she has been watching it through a 2-way mirror) and she rushes into the room and accosts Dawson, threatening to kill him herself ... the Detectives hustle Dawson out of the room and restrain Miss Parker. After Dawson is gone, Miss Parker sinks to the ground, sobbing in frustration and despair.
A bar, somewhere ... Miss Parker is drinking, and obviously has been for a while. Someone asks her if there is anything else he can get her. Miss Parker replies that she wants another round. But the "someone" is Jarod and he slides into the seat across from her. Miss Parker cannot help but see the irony in his appearance. She tells him that she has spent 80% of her life hunting him and she finds it funny that the moment she ceases, he simply sits down in her lap. Jarod tells her that as much as both of them might deny it, they are really only two pieces in the same puzzle. He tells her that if she ever expects to find out who really killed Thomas that she needs to keep her wits about her. Miss Parker tells Jarod that he isn't so smart after all, because the man who killed Thomas has already been caught. But Jarod tells Miss Parker that the man the police "think" killed Thomas Gates is dead. He died less than an hour ago, in his cell ... from a drug overdose. He leaves a sobered Miss Parker ... reminding her that there are still missing pieces. At The Centre the next day, Miss Parker is telling Sydney and Broots that Dawson overdosing at that particular point in time makes no sense ... he's been a junkie for years, why would he overdose now? She remembers the police telling her that Dawson lived in a shack near the railroad tracks. Broots tells her that he hopes she isn't planning on going there and she tells him that she is not ... THEY are going there ... all of them. Dawson's "shack" is a filthy hovel, so disgusting that they are forced to cover their faces to endure the stench. Miss Parker and Broots both find empty vials of morphine, which Sydney tells them are pharmaceutical grade, 100% pure - hardly the kind of thing that a nickel and dime junkie would be able to score. Dawson has obviously been supplied with it by someone with money and connections ... Miss Parker has Broots take the empty vials back to The Centre to check them for finger prints. Sydney asks her what she is looking for ... and she tells him, "missing pieces." Later, back at The Centre, Broots tells Miss Parker that the only real finger prints on the vials were Dawson's -- with on a smudged partial from someone else. He tells her that there this no way he can identify the smudged print. As Broots leaves, the phone rings. It is Jarod. He tells her that Dawson died from an overdose of morphine and strychnine ... and she realizes that someone killed Dawson before he could talk. Just before Jarod hangs up, he tells Miss Parker to remember the missing pieces. Sydney comes into Miss Parker's office just as Jarod hangs up. She tells Sydney that Jarod has told her that Dawson was killed, but that he hung up without telling her who did it. She begins to leave for a meeting with Detective Miller at her house, and Sydney asks her what makes her believe that she can trust him. Miss Parker shows Sydney the file on Miller ... many years of good service, citations for meritorious conduct, married to his high school sweetheart with four kids. Miss Parker feels that Detective Miller is the only person who does not have an agenda of his own. On the way to her home, Miss Parker is forced to stop because there has been an accident on the road. Emergency crews are cutting someone out of a car that missed a turn and crashed into a tree. It is Detective Miller and he is dead. She recalls Jarod telling her to look for missing pieces. Looking at Detective Miller's destroyed car in an impound lot the next day, Miss Parker is surprised to see Jarod there. He shows her the break-line from the car ... it has been cut. Miss Parker tells him that she cannot help but feel responsible for Miller's wife and kids. Jarod tells her that Miller was just a good cop, trying to find the truth about Thomas' murder ... and that's why he and Dawson were silenced, so that ... but Miss Parker finishes the sentence for him ... saying, "so that no tracks could lead back to The Centre." Jarod reminds her that The Centre always kills anyone who is remotely interested in the truth, and then takes away the people that they love the most ... his parents, Kyle, her Mother ... and now Thomas. By doing that, The Centre can continue to control them, to make them do their dirty work. Jarod asks Miss Parker if she ever wonders how a man in prison got his hands on pharmaceutical grade morphine. Miss Parker asks Jarod how she is supposed to stop them. He tells her, "With the truth." She says, "missing pieces" -- and when she turns around, Jarod has disappeared. Miss Parker looks briefly for Jarod, than calls Broots and tells him that she needs him to do something for her. Back at The Centre, Broots is explaining that the Blue Cove police use the same monitoring equipment that The Centre does, allowing him to hack into their tape archives of the prisoner visiting areas. They watch the film of the last visitor that Dawson had and witness that person passing him a packet of drugs with his foot. As the visitor turns to leave, Miss Parker realizes that it is the "trash man" from outside her house. She tells Broots to use that picture to find out who the man is. She repeats the phrase, "missing pieces." Broots is able to find the identity of the "trash man" using police records and they find him working at an auto repair shop. They show the owner a picture of Lester Carmichael. The owner refers to the man as Unlucky Lester ... Miss Parker and Sydney find Lester out back, working under a car. After a short dialog, Miss Parker has had enough and yanks him out from under the car and jams her gun under his chin. She practically begs him to give her another reason to shoot him. Once he realizes that Miss Parker isn't kidding, Unlucky Lester begins answering questions. He tells her that he doesn't know who it was that told him to go to her house that morning - he was just a "voice on the phone" - someone who offered him a thousand dollars to call the cops and take off. He says that he thought it was just a prank. Gun still in his face, Miss Parker asks him if he thought that passing drugs to someone in prison was a prank, too. Lester says that he needed the money. When Miss Parker asks him about Detective Miller's car, Lester draws the line and says that he does not know what she is talking about. Miss Parker asks Lester if he could recognize the voice on the phone if he heard it again. Lester thinks that he might, but he wants half a million dollars for trying. He realizes that whoever this man is, he doesn't like leaving loose ends ... and Lester is now a loose end. Miss Parker goes back to the Centre and pleads with her Father for the money, telling him that Lester is the only person left who can identify Thomas' killer ... And he agrees to make the money available for her. When Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots get back to the body shop, they find the front all locked up. Miss Parker finds a bay door that will open. Once inside, they realize that there is a car running. Miss Parker tells Broots to shut it off, but it is locked and the windows are closed. She breaks the window on the driver's side and turns the car off. A hose has been connected to the tailpipe and it leads into the trunk. Miss Parker opens the trunk and inside they find that Lester has been unlucky for the last time ... he is dead. At that moment, the lights come on in the garage and Lyle, Mr. Parker and Brigitte arrive. When Miss Parker asks what they are doing there, Lyle says that it was his idea to come, when he heard what Miss Parker planned on doing. Mr. Parker says that he was worried about her ... that "these people" would just as soon kill her as look at her. Miss Parker tells her father that Lester represented the last chance to find out who killed Thomas. Mr. Parker looks at Lester, lying there in the trunk, says, "this breaks the chain for good," then closes it. He tells Lyle to call for a cleaner team, saying he wants no traces of Centre involvement. Lyle gets on the phone right away. Miss Parker is appalled. She cannot believe that this is all her father is going to do. Mr. Parker tells her that he knows how hard it is to loose somebody you love ... tells her to stop searching for quick fixes and answers that may not exist ... says that the only way to survive is to get on with the business of living. At the cemetery, perhaps the next day, Miss Parker is placing flowers on Thomas' grave. Her cell phone rings and it is Jarod, telling her that she spends way too much time in cemeteries. She tells Jarod that "they" killed them all ... and for what? Power? Control? Jarod asks her what she plans on doing now. She tells him that she is going to grieve ... she is going to stay there and remember all the good things she had. And then ... when they think that it's all been forgotten ... she is going to find out who did this and make them pay. Jarod tells her to keep looking for the missing pieces, because without them she will never find what she was looking for. Then he tells her that he has left a package for her under a nearby tree. Miss Parker opens the large, brown-paper wrapped package, and finds a mosaic of herself, made from the colored glass that Jarod was cutting earlier in the episode. There is a whole in the picture that is made of cut pieces of glass ... the woman in that portrait has no heart. Miss Parker looks back at Tommy's grave, and begins remembering a time when she was a little girl and asked her Mother if she thought that she would ever find someone to love ... and Catherine Parker saying that she thought that she would. Then she kneels in front of the gravesite and begins to remember all of the happy and tender moments that she shared with Thomas. The camera pulls away as Miss Parker, all alone and surrounded by granite, lets her head fall back and looks up to the sky ... In the background, Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" plays ... And the screen fades to black ....
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