REPORT: TIES THAT BIND
FILE #: 317

This episode opens with Miss Parker and Willie dragging a limp and battered Jarod back into the Centre. Willie drops Jarod at Mr. Parker and Mr. Raines feet. Mr. Parker then tells Miss Parker that it is “corner office time” and she reminds him that the deal was that when she brought Jarod back she got to leave on her own terms. Mr. Parker tells her that this is just the beginning and then walks away with Mr. Raines…. laughter starts to fill the room… Miss Parker stares down at Jarod’s limp body…. he looks up at her as his laughter grows more and more wild….

Miss Parker is startled awake by this disturbing dream… Tommy tells her that it was only a dream and that it is all over now. She lies back down.

In Jacksonville, Florida; Jarod is standing in an old fashion “corner store” telling the women who owns it, Rita, that she doesn’t owe him a thing. She disagrees with him saying that he helped her get rid of her extortionist landlord and where she is from people show gratitude when people do something nice for them. Jarod smiles at her and then notices the lottery scratchers hanging next to the register. Rita asks if he like the lottery and he tells her that he has never actually played. Rita pulls one down handing it to Jarod telling him “here, take, scratch, enjoy.” Jarod looks at the back and tells her that the odds of winning are the same as being struck by lightning in a submarine. Rita looks at Jarod and tells him that he brought her good luck… maybe she will do the same for him. Jarod gives it a try… a boy enters the store and is walking along the back aisle of the store… while Rita is counting the money in the cash register. Rita gives the boy a look to let him now she is watching and then looks back at what she is doing.

The boy then pretends to accidently knock over the gumball machine and when Rita and Jarod go to pick it up, he reaches into the cash register and steals the money and flees the store. Jarod rushes after him to retrieve the money that was stolen and does catch him in the ally. The boy swerves his bike to miss Jarod and ends up landing in a pile of trash bags. Jarod makes sure that the boy is not hurt and then takes the money out of the boys bag and removes a wallet that is also in the boys bag. Jarod asks the boy his name and he tells him ‘noneofya”… Jarod is puzzled and the boy tells him as in … “None of ya business.” Jarod finds a picture is the boys bag that says his name is Dylan and then Jarod opens the wallet and finds that Dylan …. Hale has stolen his father’s wallet. Jarod tells him the next time he takes his father’s wallet to make sure there is more money. Jarod also finds a train schedule.

Jarod tells Dylan if there is a problem at home to talk to his father and they can work it out. Dylan says that his father is a jerk and is going to Atlanta to live with a friend. Rita runs up and Dylan wants to know if they are going to call the cops. Jarod says that he is not going to call the cops, but he will take Dylan home.

Jarod and Dylan are walking through the marina and Jarod’s tells Dylan that he thinks it is cool that he gets to live on a boat. Dylan says that they moved there a few weeks ago after his parents split … his mom is in London. Dylan then tells Jarod that this is a waste of time because his father isn’t home he is at “the firm” as usual. But as Dylan points to their boat, Jarod and he both see that Dylan’s father is home. Dylan is shocked. He tells Jarod that his father is never home. Jarod and Dylan start to get closer and are watching the boat when all the sudden Mr. Hale goes out of sight and the boat explodes into and ball of fire….

Dylan sits on a nearby bench, while Jarod speaks with the detective in change of the scene. The detective tells Jarod that he found a note written by Peter Hale, Dylan’s father. Just then a car pulls up and two men emerge with dark suits on. One of the men from the car tells the detective that he (the detective) knows that he is supposed to call “them” first. The detective then says that he didn’t realize that he was from “the firm”….. the man ignores the detectives words and then asks him what they have found and their conclusion. The detective tells him that he has divers in the water and it will be 48 hours until they find the body… the man from the car gives the detective an envelope and tells him to make it 36 hours…. then the man says that he knows Hale had a son and he wants to know where the boy is. The detective tells him that the boy is….(he turns and Dylan is gone)… he was there…. the man orders the detective to find Dylan, but Jarod is already on it and is on his way to find Dylan.

At the Centre, Broots and Sydney are telling Mr. Lyle that Jarod had already left his desert lair by the time they had arrived. They show Lyle and pad of paper that Jarod had written home all over- they found it at the desert lair. Lyle asks where Miss Parker is and Sydney tells him that she was sick and was unable to join them. Lyle doesn’t buy it! He says that he maybe understanding of someone who is consumed by passion but there are other who will not be so forgiving of people who are lax about their responsibilities.

At Miss Parker’s home, she comes into the dining room and finds Tommy clearing the table —stop for personal message, I have never seen a guy clean? —- and she is still in her robe. She tells him that it is a beautiful day and she doesn’t feel like spending it at work. He tells her that she is just putting off talking to her father about going to Oregon with him and she tells him that she will…. he tells her that she can’t put it off forever.

Jarod finds Dylan at the train station, trying to reach his mother in London… Jarod tells him how to make an overseas call to London and then proceeds to tell him that the police found a letter in his father’s handwriting … a note indicating that the explosion on the boat was not an accident. Dylan’s mom is not able to come for Dylan and he refuses to go to social services. He plans to go to Atlanta to his friends and meet his mother there, but Jarod talks him in to staying above Rita’s store instead.

Rita is skeptical about the whole thing at first but allows Jarod to have the boy stay there… she also is sorry about his father… and Dylan tells them that he and his father argued and Dylan said that he hated his father and now he can’t apologize.

Dylan then proceeds to tell Jarod and Rita that the reason that his parents split was because his father would sneak off to call some women named Ashley at the marina’s pay phone…. and that he didn’t even try to hide it from his mother and when she confronted his father… he didn’t deny it! Jarod then asks Dylan if his knows who the two men at the marina were? Dylan tells Jarod that the “old guy” is Edgar Hoyt and the one that did all the talking is “Winston” … he is the head of security at the firm. Dylan then tells Jarod that he remembers Winston slapping his father in the face and threatening him on the docks outside of their boat. Dylan said that Winston told his father that he had no idea how powerful the firm was, and he should do the right thing to protect his family.

Jarod’s looks at Peter Hale’s business card…. but what is a powerful firm afraid of? Rita says what everyone is afraid of… the IRS. Jarod obviously likes the idea and gets straight to work….

Jarod walk into the firm and looks up at the security cameras. A women asks him what he needs and he tells her that he is from the IRS and would like to speak to Edgar Hoyt and Craig Winston about errors in their balance sheets. Hoyt is hospitable and sets up an office for Jarod to work in, but Winston is hostile and prods Jarod for information on how long Jarod will have to be there… Jarod tells him that if there aren’t any unforeseen problems he should be gone in 48 hours.

Jarod gets to work in the office that they have set up for him, he is fully aware that there is a camera starring him down and is sure that Winston is watching from them… Jarod is correct in the main control room for the cameras, Winston is sitting in his chair watching Jarod’s every move……. However, under the guise of going over their records…. Jarod is able to get into their system and discovers that access to Peter Hale’s accounts is denied.

Back at the corner store, Jarod finds Dylan asleep- clutching the phone receiver. Rita tells Jarod the Dylan nearly wore his fingers out dialing and re-dialing his mother… but he never did get through. Jarod has gotten the phone number of the pay phone where Peter Hale used to call Ashley from and then taps into phone records to see what was the most frequently called number made from the phone. Jarod searches and discovers that Ashley is not a women but and man …. and FBI Agent named Matthew Ashley. Dylan wakes while Jarod is doing this and hears that his father wasn’t cheating on his mother but talking to the FBI. When Jarod tries to call Agent Ashley he is told that the Agent died in an unfortunate car accident….. but Jarod then tells Dylan that he is now sure that his father was talking to the FBI about the firm and that he was trying to keep Dylan and his mother safe.

Jarod pulls out a bag of I.D. tags and selects one that is from the Department of Justice. Using that he goes to talk to the person who took on Ashley’s cases after he died. Jarod tells the women that Ashley was looking into a local law firm in which the DOJ also has an interest and proposes to her that they work together. She tells Jarod that they had a inside informant that was feeding them information but was refusing to identify himself… he was gathering evidence to prove that the firm was involved in the killing of a key witness against one of their clients. She also says that Ashley died before he received that information.

At Hoyt and Associates, Jarod has a quick conversation with Hoyt and Winston regarding getting access to a Peter Hale’s records. Winston says that certain files are need to know only and Jarod says that the IRS needs to know! Hoyt tells Jarod that the information will be delivered to him immediately. Jarod sees that Winston follows Hoyt into his office and Jarod goes straight from Winston’s. Jarod uses some sort of electronic device to gain access to Winston’s office. Inside he finds that Winston can monitor anyone from his office… even his own boss. Using the monitor equipment Jarod listens to Winston and Hoyt talk about the murder of the witness to the DaPaz case. Jarod then starts copying the information to a disk. The files are large and the download is taking time…. Jarod watches as Winston leaves Hoyt’s office and makes his way to his own. Jarod finishes the download just in time and is outside Winston’s office when he arrives…. Jarod says that he want to talk to Winston but that he is going to have to leave. Winston is suspicious but the alarm is still set for his office…. Jarod is leaving the building and we see that a man in a blue ball cap is following him.

At the Centre, Miss Parker goes into her father’s office, where Lyle and Daddy are… she proceeds to tell them that she wishes to leave The Centre and that she has lived her whole life there since mommy died but that she wants her own life now. Lyle and Mr. Parker are shocked… She takes her gun off and puts it holster and all on Mr. Parker’s desk…. Lyle takes special notice of Miss Parker’s gesture. Mr. Parker asks if this is about the carpenter… she informs her father that the carpenters name is Thomas and that it is not about Tommy it is about her. Lyle says that surely an organization as powerful as The Centre can replace one individual. Brigitte and Raines enter the office and Brigitte says that it is not fair that Miss Parker wants to leave because the agreement was that she could after she brought Jarod back… Mr. Raines chimes in saying that Jarod is still out there. Miss Parker tells all of them that she is entitled to a life. Mr. Parker tells her that this is far too important to be decided on a whim… Miss Parker informs him that it is not a whim and that she knows what she wants! Mr. Parker looks like his heart is breaking. Mr. Raines tells him to stop her or he will. Mr. Raines tells him never to threaten his family!!!

Jarod tells Dylan that his father was a hero that was working with the FBI on a case…. Vincent Da Paz was in jail for dealing drugs, and the eyewitness to his crime and her granddaughters were murdered so that she was unable to testify…. Winston killed them in order to protect the firm’s client.

Outside of the firm the man in the blue cap is following Jarod again and he lures the man around a corner. When the man gets there Jarod asks him while he is following him and comes face to face with a dead man… Peter Hale! Hale tells Jarod that he staged the whole explosion to keep his family from Winston and the firm. But that day, Dylan didn’t go to school and he wasn’t able to reveal himself to Jarod. Hale also tells Jarod that he met Agent Ashley and gave him the files that he needed. Hale tells Jarod he wants his son back. Jarod says that he will take him to Dylan.

Thomas is hard at work restoring a house, when to his surprise Mr. Parker enter the house and would like to talk to him. Mr. Parker says that he remodeled houses once upon a time… but when Thomas requests a bonding clamp… Mr. Parker is clueless. Thomas says that Miss Parker must have told him about leaving The Centre. Mr. Parker seems surprised and Tommy says that he and Miss Parker do not keep secrets. Mr. Parker gets to the point and hands Thomas a blank check and tells him to fill it out for any amount…. if he leaves without Miss Parker….. Thomas tears the check into little pieces and says that he loves Miss Parker and that no amount of money can change that. Then he goes back to work and Mr. Parker leaves.

Jarod tries to reunite Dylan and Peter Hale but when they get to Rita’s store, she tells them that Dylan took her husband’s pistol and left. Jarod and Hale both know that Dylan has gone to kill Winston!

Dylan is behind a pillar, in front of the firm, pointing the gun at an unknowing Winston. Jarod comes up behind Dylan and takes the gun from his hands. Dylan tells Jarod that he can’t stop him. Peter Hale comes up behind Dylan and asks if he can stop him. Dylan and Peter Hale hug. All three of them go back to Rita’s to plan Winston and the firm’s demise.

At Miss Parker’s home, she is telling Thomas that it doesn’t matter what she does they won’t let her leave. The doorbell rings and Miss Parker opens it to find her father and brother standing there. Mr. Parker wonders if it is okay if they can come in and a shocked Miss Parker stands aside so that they may enter.

At the firm, Hoyt finds an envelope on his desk, Jarod left it. Inside there is a picture of Peter Hale with that day’s newspaper. Winston starts to freak out. The note saying that he wants money… there is also instruction to meet him in a parking lot alone! It also says that if he is a no show he will take all the information to the FBI! Winston tells Hoyt that he is going to meet Hale and kill him. Winston grabs his gun.

Back at Miss Parker’s, Mr. Parker explains that he is getting old and that he has become more resistant to change. Miss Parker thinks he is emotionally blackmailing her …. Mr. Parker kept her from speaking… he says that he has been thinking about her and Thomas… Lyle says tells her one of the Yakuza’a old sayings and then explains it… and then says that is why dad tried to pay Thomas to leave. Miss Parker is shocked… Miss Parker asks Tommy why he didn’t tell her… and he says because it was just error in judgement on Mr. Parker’s part. She is starting to get made at Mr. Parker, but he tells her that the thought of her leaving terrifies him. He says that she and he brother are all he has and if she is gone then he has lost the best part…. but that if she thinks it is best for her then she should go with his blessing. He tells a teary-eyed Miss Parker that he only wants her to be happy. Then he says that it is late and they should leave. Miss Parker walks them to the door, and they leave.

Thomas is overjoyed and asks Parker how it feels to be in control of her own life. Miss Parker is confused and shocked but tells him that it feels good. Tommy tells her that he will lock the back door while she turns the lights out. Miss Parker latches the front door and turns the lights off… then she notices her gun, in holster on the desk by the door. The sight of the gun startles her and she thinks back to putting it on her father’s desk. Still flustered by it, she puts it is the drawer of the desk and goes to bed.

Meanwhile, Jarod’s revenge is set into motion when Winston drives past Jarod and Jarod sets of a device that causes Winston’s car to have a flat tire…. right in front of Rita’s store…. Winston enters the store asking if he can us a phone… she tells him that there is a pay phone outback but it is broken. He asks if he could us her phone. She asks if it is local and he tells her that it is… but she wants to know how she can be sure…. he gives her money to use the phone and she lets him. Jarod and Hale come into the store dressed as burglars… they pretend to rob the store and then Rita pulls out a gun and they pretend to shot her. Hale pretends to panic about the whole thing….. Jarod says that they have to think and then says that they can’t leave a witness… Winston tells them that he can help them get off… that he works for a firm that specializes in these cases. He tells them that he killed the three women and that he walked away from the whole thing. Having gotten the confession on tape, Jarod & Winston pull the hoods off their heads and reveal that Winston is caught on tape….. Rita says that she too heard the whole thing….

Jarod watches as Dylan and Peter are reunited with Mrs. Hale. Rita runs out to tells Jarod that “lightening has struck her submarine”…. he asks what she is talking about and she shows him that she won the lottery!!!!