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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer; All characters belong to NBC, not me. I'm not trying to steal them, I'm just . . . borrowing them. No disrespect is intended.
Note to the reader; This is the second part of "None So Blind." Please read the first part or this isn't going to make much sense.
None So Blind
part 2
Sarah Lynn
Parker paced back and forth, her high heels clicking. If the noise bothered Rachel, she gave no indication and merely continued to scan the Internet through the pair of headphones perched on her head. Parker shook her head in disbelief. The Internet.
This pretender had access to way too much information for Miss Parker's taste, but when she had raised objections, Scott sneeringly told her that it was unreasonable to expect Rachel to do her best work in a vacuum. But if she was so worried, Miss Parker could monitor Rachel herself and see how trustworthy she was. Mr. Parker thought it sounded like an excellent idea and ordered Miss Parker to do so for two weeks. It had been a week and a half. Parker still didn't trust Rachel, but was now ready to lie so she didn't have to watch the girl skim through endless unrelated sites. Vaguely Parker wondered what kind of program Rachel had that could read the words off the screen into her headphones, but she didn't really care. This was a waste of her time. Parker knew she couldn't do anything until she heard those magic words-
"I think I've found something," Rachel called, her hands moving quickly over the keyboard. Parker broke her stride and almost ran to the pretender, feeling her excitement building, but carefully controlling it. Rachel had pulled up a site . . . advertising health food? There was nothing on the page about Jarod.
"What's this?" she asked, barely managing to keep the irritation out of her voice.
"A clue to help find Jarod," Rachel said excitedly. Parker looked at the screen again, and then back at the pretender.
"Rachel, this is a site for health food," Parker said wearily. "This has nothing to do with Jarod. Are your earphones working correctly?"
Evidently the pretender took that for humor because she laughed. It wasn't a particularly beautiful laugh, but Parker caught her breath as she tried to remember the last time she'd heard a child laugh in the Centre.
"No, health food store has nothing to do with Jarod," Rachel said cheerfully. "It's the site itself. Jarod designed this site."
"How do you know that?" Miss Parker asked incredulously.
"I studied a web page Jarod built while he was still at the Centre, and I noticed certain distinctive characteristics, characteristics which are repeated here. Still," suddenly Rachel was serious again, "I could be wrong. Could someone else check this?"
Five minutes later Broots was scanning the page, turning it into different colors and revealing different texts as he and Rachel excitedly prattled at each other in a language Miss Parker couldn't understand a word of. She was just resolving to learn more about computers when Broots crossed the room to where she was sitting at the table.
"Miss Parker, she's right," he said eagerly.
"The site was built by Jarod?" Miss Parker said.
Broots nodded vigorously. "She's amazing," he said in a low voice so Rachel couldn't hear. Parker glanced at the girl, but she had her headphones back on and was completely focused on the site. "I didn't find the characteristics that mark it as Jarod's until I gave the site an in-depth examination, and that was only after Rachel told me what I was looking for and where to look for it!"
Miss Parker brushed off Broots' raving as she moved back to the computer. The girl was a pretender; of course she was good. Parker addressed her in a louder voice that she hoped could be heard over the noise of codes being read or whatever.
"So, what do we know?" Rachel turned, all seriousness now, and gave her report.
"Jarod designed this web page two days ago, or to be more accurate, he put it on the web two days ago. It is an advertising site for a small health food store in Marispont, Maine. Therefore Jarod was probably in Marispont, either running a web page consulting business or just helping the proprietors of this store, the Full Garden. He was there at least two days ago, and it seems likely that he may still be there."
"Broots, get the jet and tell them to get ready to fly to Marispont, Maine," Parker was already halfway out the door. "And Rachel, keep scanning for information. Broots will contact you once we're in the air."
Miss Parker quickly rounded up Sydney and two sweepers and headed for the runway, where she was met by an embarrassed Broots and a smug Lyle.
"You weren't going to leave without me?" he asked innocently.
"Of course not," Parker responded just as sweetly, shooting a dirty look at Broots after Lyle strolled ahead to the plane.
"It wasn't my fault," he whispered. "He walked in just as I was calling and asked Rachel what was going on, so of course she told him. I couldn't think of anything I could do to stop her."
Parker didn't reply but stalked on ahead to the plane. She couldn't think of anything Broots could have done either, but she wasn't going to go out of her way to make him feel better.
All in all, it was a tense flight. The only sound made by anyone on board was Broots' tapping at his laptop as he and Rachel swapped ideas and information over the Internet. By the time the flight landed, it was mid-afternoon and Broots had found an apartment at 721 Dock Road registered to Jarod Farmer.
"Actually, Rachel was the one who found it," Broots corrected as he tried to keep up with Parker as she strode to the rental car.
"You, her, what's the difference?" Parker snapped.
"About 20 years and 60 IQ points," Broots muttered. Parker pulled up short and fixed Broots with a stare. He wilted and shrunk away.
"Way to keep the computer geek in line," Lyle murmured in her ear under the guise of holding the car door for her. Before Miss Parker could respond she was forced to lurch back as Lyle almost slammed her leg in the door. The ride was just as tense as the flight.
As Miss Parker climbed the stairs to Jarod's apartment, she could feel the excitement building again. The parking space for his apartment had a car in it, which Broots was checking the registration on now. Of course it was possible that someone else had parked in his spot, but . . Parker almost didn't even care that Lyle was right behind her.
Almost.
The door was unlocked. Parker and Lyle exchanged a glance and Parker could see her excitement reflected deep in Lyle's eyes. Moving as one, they leapt into the apartment, guns pulled out on the . . . mess. The apartment showed all the signs of having been quickly and recently vacated. Parker almost groaned aloud in disappointment, but she forced herself to check the apartment anyway, a futile exercise that only confirmed her first impression. Yet again, they had just missed Jarod.
---
Broots was happy to be left in car, using his computer, doing what he was good at. He never really understood why Miss Parker always dragged him along on these trips since he was almost never-
BAM!
Broots almost jumped out of his seat at the noise, which at first he thought was a gunshot, but then realized was a slamming door. He stuck his head out the window to see Miss Parker returning across the parking lot, glowering. Broots automatically checked the car to see if there was anywhere to hide.
She opened the door and stood there staring at him. Broots stared back nervously.
"He's gone," she said finally, bitterly. "Lyle and Sydney are searching the apartment and I came out to here you tell me that that isn't Jarod's car in the parking lot."
"But it is," Broots said.
Miss Parker whirled around. "What!"
"It's a rental car registered to Jarod Ford. I suppose it's possible that it could be another Jarod but it's not really likely-"
"Broots!" she cut him off. "Are you saying that Jarod hasn't left yet?"
"That may be to much to assume at this point," Rachel's voice said quietly from behind Broots.
Miss Parker gasped out loud in surprise and pushed Broots backwards, looking for Rachel. Broots nervously said, "Oh, Miss Parker, I forgot to tell you; Rachel figured out a way to attach my cell phone to the computer so we can talk, and she can hear what you're saying . . ." Broots trailed off as Miss Parker gave him another look.
"Yes, that's right," said Rachel's voice, oblivious to Miss Parker's disapproval. "So, do you know when Jarod left?" Miss Parker rolled her eyes but answered the question.
"It looks like we just missed him."
"But his car is still there . . . Hmm. Why do you think that he just left?"
"Rachel," Parker said in as civil a voice as she could manage, "Much as I'd love to play twenty questions with you, we need to find Jarod."
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" From anyone else, Miss Parker would have interpreted the words as a challenge, but Rachel managed to make it sound like a serious question. "If Jarod just left, but didn't take his car, there are only a few places he could be. Remember, I am a pretender, and with enough information I can pretend Jarod."
"Alright, I get the picture," Miss Parker snapped, embarrassed that she hadn't thought of that herself. Quickly she described the scene in Jarod's apartment; drawers left pulled out, a few articles of clothing left in odd corners and under the bed, and, most convincing of all, the remains of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich left on the table. There was silence on the other end of the line as Parker finished her list in growing irritation. Peanut butter and jelly. What was Jarod doing, regressing to his childhood?
"And you would say the sandwich was made today?" Rachel interrupted her thoughts.
"Yes," Miss Parker said wearily.
"Interesting. It sounds like Jarod was forced to bolt around noon, and we found his web site at about 11:30 this morning." Miss Parker blinked. She hadn't thought of that. Maybe there was something this freak of nature was good for after all . . . "Alright, this is what I think." Rachel cleared her throat. "Jarod is eating lunch while on the Internet, checking his site for some reason. Somehow he realizes that someone has dissected the codes on his site, it's only a matter of time before they find him and he runs as fast as he can."
"So let's get to the airport," Lyle said from behind Parker. She almost jumped, but swallowed her surprise, refusing to give Lyle the satisfaction of knowing he took her unaware.
"No, Jarod isn't at the airport," Rachel corrected Lyle gently. "The airport is an hour away. If Jarod went there he would have taken his car. Besides which, the airport is too risky. You'll be arriving any minute, I can't take the chance you might be there when I am." Parker almost shivered at the change in tense as Rachel's voice suddenly became far away. It was creepy to hear the girl lose herself into a pretend mid-thought.
"Besides which, the airport is the obvious place to go, so I can't go by air. The car could be traced, so I can't take that, and that leaves . . . Did you say this apartment was on a Dock Road?"
Miss Parker understood first and whirled around, smelling the salt air for the first time. Sure enough, she could just see a pier at the end of the street with several boats tied up.
"Rachel, you're right. Come on!" Miss Parker almost ran down the street, leading the rest of the Centre employees. Broots punched a few buttons on his computer and clambered out of the car to join the others, but first grabbing the cell phone.
There were two old men sitting at the end of the dock, fishing. Parker was surprised that anyone would be out in the cold, early December, but she dismissed the thought as irrelevant.
"I'm looking for a man," she said, planting herself in front of the two men. They exchanged a glance.
"Women these days sure are forward," one of them casually remarked to the other. Miss Parker's expression darkened, but she pulled out a picture of Jarod from inside her coat.
"This man," she said through her teeth, thrusting the picture at them. "I have reason to believe he may have taken a boat from this dock sometime earlier today." The two chronologically advantaged persons leaned forward to look at the picture short-sightedly.
"No," one said, just as the other said "Yes." They looked at each other and started arguing.
"Don't be stupid, you haven't seen anything all day-"
"Yes I did! I saw that guy take out the boat over there-"
"You can't even see over there! You're making this up!"
"I can see better than you can-"
"Well, at least I can still hear!"
Parker closed her eyes in misery, but felt a light tap on her shoulder. Broots was holding out the cell phone nervously. "It's Rachel; she wants to talk to you," he whispered softly. Parker snatched the phone.
"Tell me you've got something," she said without the pleasantries. Rachel responded in kind.
"A airplane ticket bought by a Jarod Sailor at Benton, an airport about thirty miles down the coast from where you are. The flight leaves at 4:30 for Chicago." Parker checked her watch. It was 4:23.
"Well?" Lyle said impatiently.
"That was Rachel," Miss Parker said, thinking hard. "She says that Jarod's booked on a flight out of Benton Airport."
"Great," Lyle broke in. Miss Parker willed him to take the bait. "I'll take the sweepers to the airport. Why don't you three stay here and, ah, interrogate these men, make sure they don't know anything useful?" Parker could hear the smile in Lyle's voice as he and the sweepers dashed back to the car and drove off with a squeal of tires.
"Why do I have the feeling you didn't tell Lyle all of what Rachel said?" Sydney asked with a smile.
"The flight leaves in about five minutes. They'll never make it," Miss Parker said dryly. "We're going to meet the flight when it lands in Chicago." She looked around. "How are you supposed to get a taxi in this place? Broots, find something that will get us back . . ."
Parker trailed off a taxi drove suddenly drove up. None of the three said anything as it rolled to a stop in front of them. The driver stuck his head out the window.
"Miss Parker?" he asked through a piece of gum he was chewing on. Parker found herself at a loss for words and just nodded. "Got a call you needed a ride." Parker whirled to look at Broots, but he looked even more befuddled than she was. Then she remembered what she was holding. Parker lifted the phone to her ear.
"Rachel?" she said.
"I hear that your taxi arrived." Even over the phone, the laugh in the girl's quiet voice was perceivable.
---
En route, a thought suddenly hit Parker. She lifted the phone again.
"Rachel?"
"I'm here."
"When you found the ticket at Benton, why did you ask to speak to me? You knew Lyle was there too."
There was a brief silence. Parker could almost hear Rachel forming her answer.
"Well, I trust you."
This time it was Parker's turn for a brief silence.
"Why?"
"You say exactly what's on your mind, or you let your voice convey that for you. It's nice to know where I stand with you."
"And Lyle . . ."
"Is harder to understand. I just always get the impression that he's hiding something."
"But if you understand me all that well, you know that I don't like you."
"Yes."
"Oh."
Parker lowered the phone and looked out the window for the rest of the trip. She failed to realize that she had just had a conversation with a person who had told her she was more or less transparent, and she hadn't been offended. Something about Rachel's voice made it impossible to be offended.
It was highly enjoyable to take the angry call from Lyle in mid-air ("Rachel found the destination and time of departure a few minutes after you left; we didn't have time to wait for you") and Parker was feeling satisfied as she leaned back for a brief rest on the flight to Chicago, knowing that she had gained what was turning out to be a valuable ally. There was something nagging at her, something that she had forgotten, but she ignored the thought and told herself she'd deal with it when she landed.
---
Just before they landed, Broots handed her the cell phone again.
"What?"
"Bad news. I've lost Jarod."
"What!"
"I've checked every out-going flight and every rental car place. No Jarod anywhere. He's disappeared without an electronic trace."
"Keep looking. Search every manifest manually if you have to."
"Alright, but I think that computers aren't going to help you anymore."
Parker sat up.
"Why do you say that?"
"Jarod's probably realized that a new element has been added to the game. Broots is an excellent computer technician, but he couldn't have found Jarod's site like I did. I believe that Jarod is going to play it safe until he figures out who I am, which means that he will probably use a different first name and stop dropping hints. You can try to find him, but I don't think you'll succeed."
"So how did he realize you were poking around in his site?" Parker snapped.
"I have no idea."
"Well, find out! But first, do another search for Jarod in the airport files."
"Alright." The response was very quiet and Parker savagely punched the button to disconnect her from the pretender. She looked up to find Sydney giving her a disapproving look, which she returned with an expression daring Sydney to say anything. Sydney looked away.
In the back of her mind, Parker knew she was being unreasonable, but she pushed the thought aside. If Rachel hadn't gone through the site with all the finesse of a water buffalo, Jarod wouldn't have got the wind up and left Marispont. We also wouldn't know he was in Marispont whispered the back of Miss Parker's mind. Almost angrily, Parker shook the thought off. Why was she letting a freak of nature make her feel guilty?
However, the freak was right. Without any information, there was little the three could do except wander through O'Hare and hope they'd run into Jarod. His flight had landed twenty minutes before theirs, and in those twenty minutes he could have done anything; taken another flight, rented a car, gone to a hotel. For all Parker knew he could have been the man guiding her plane in. Much as she hated to admit it, she was dependent upon the clues Jarod tossed her to find him, and if Jarod didn't want to be found for a while, he wasn't going to be found.
---
It was 1 in the morning when Parker returned to Centre. Sydney caught her elbow as she stormed off the plane.
"Parker, don't be too hard on Rachel. She did the best she could-"
"And it wasn't good enough." Parker wrenched her arm away from Sydney's light grasp. "And I intend to inform her of that."
She went directly down to the pretender's room. If the door hadn't been mechanical, she would have slammed it behind her. Rachel heard her enter and stiffened, but didn't turn around.
"That was disgraceful," Miss Parker started in fury.
"I know. I'm sorry," she said in an even quieter voice than normal. "I keep going over this, trying to figure out how Jarod discovered I had hacked into his site . . ." Rachel trailed off, still focused on her computer. "I might have it."
"Show me," Miss Parker said imperiously, crossing the room to Rachel's desk. The girl started to stand.
"Here, have a seat-" Rachel's knees gave out and she staggered, barely managing to catch herself on the desk. Parker pulled back in confusion as the girl, this time more slowly, stood again carefully. Suddenly Parker realized what she had forgotten.
"Rachel, have you rested since this morning?" she said. Rachel shook her head. "Or eaten?" Another shake. The part of Miss Parker's mind that she couldn't control played back Dr. Scott's words; "If you're working with her, you need to make sure you tell her to rest and eat, otherwise she will literally work until she drops."
Angry, but this time at herself for failing to recall Scott's instructions, Parker impatiently took Rachel by the arm.
"Come on. No more work tonight. You're going to bed," she half dragged the pretender the few steps to her bed.
"But I didn't finish-" Rachel protested feebly.
"You've done more than enough. You can't work if you're half dead from lack of sleep." Parker let the pretender roll into her bed and pulled the covers over her. "And don't get out of bed before 9:00." For a moment she thought Rachel would argue, but the girl was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. Parker turned and almost jumped when she saw Sydney at the door, with a knowing smile on his face. Angry, though she didn't know why, she tossed her hair back and left G17.
"What are you smiling at?" she snapped as she brushed by him, but not before Sydney noticed that she had automatically walked on the balls of her feet across the room to muffle the noise her heels made on the concrete floor. He touched the button that would close the door without changing his smile.
Note to the reader; This is the second part of "None So Blind." Please read the first part or this isn't going to make much sense.
part 2
Sarah Lynn
Parker paced back and forth, her high heels clicking. If the noise bothered Rachel, she gave no indication and merely continued to scan the Internet through the pair of headphones perched on her head. Parker shook her head in disbelief. The Internet.
This pretender had access to way too much information for Miss Parker's taste, but when she had raised objections, Scott sneeringly told her that it was unreasonable to expect Rachel to do her best work in a vacuum. But if she was so worried, Miss Parker could monitor Rachel herself and see how trustworthy she was. Mr. Parker thought it sounded like an excellent idea and ordered Miss Parker to do so for two weeks. It had been a week and a half. Parker still didn't trust Rachel, but was now ready to lie so she didn't have to watch the girl skim through endless unrelated sites. Vaguely Parker wondered what kind of program Rachel had that could read the words off the screen into her headphones, but she didn't really care. This was a waste of her time. Parker knew she couldn't do anything until she heard those magic words-
"I think I've found something," Rachel called, her hands moving quickly over the keyboard. Parker broke her stride and almost ran to the pretender, feeling her excitement building, but carefully controlling it. Rachel had pulled up a site . . . advertising health food? There was nothing on the page about Jarod.
"What's this?" she asked, barely managing to keep the irritation out of her voice.
"A clue to help find Jarod," Rachel said excitedly. Parker looked at the screen again, and then back at the pretender.
"Rachel, this is a site for health food," Parker said wearily. "This has nothing to do with Jarod. Are your earphones working correctly?"
Evidently the pretender took that for humor because she laughed. It wasn't a particularly beautiful laugh, but Parker caught her breath as she tried to remember the last time she'd heard a child laugh in the Centre.
"No, health food store has nothing to do with Jarod," Rachel said cheerfully. "It's the site itself. Jarod designed this site."
"How do you know that?" Miss Parker asked incredulously.
"I studied a web page Jarod built while he was still at the Centre, and I noticed certain distinctive characteristics, characteristics which are repeated here. Still," suddenly Rachel was serious again, "I could be wrong. Could someone else check this?"
Five minutes later Broots was scanning the page, turning it into different colors and revealing different texts as he and Rachel excitedly prattled at each other in a language Miss Parker couldn't understand a word of. She was just resolving to learn more about computers when Broots crossed the room to where she was sitting at the table.
"Miss Parker, she's right," he said eagerly.
"The site was built by Jarod?" Miss Parker said.
Broots nodded vigorously. "She's amazing," he said in a low voice so Rachel couldn't hear. Parker glanced at the girl, but she had her headphones back on and was completely focused on the site. "I didn't find the characteristics that mark it as Jarod's until I gave the site an in-depth examination, and that was only after Rachel told me what I was looking for and where to look for it!"
Miss Parker brushed off Broots' raving as she moved back to the computer. The girl was a pretender; of course she was good. Parker addressed her in a louder voice that she hoped could be heard over the noise of codes being read or whatever.
"So, what do we know?" Rachel turned, all seriousness now, and gave her report.
"Jarod designed this web page two days ago, or to be more accurate, he put it on the web two days ago. It is an advertising site for a small health food store in Marispont, Maine. Therefore Jarod was probably in Marispont, either running a web page consulting business or just helping the proprietors of this store, the Full Garden. He was there at least two days ago, and it seems likely that he may still be there."
"Broots, get the jet and tell them to get ready to fly to Marispont, Maine," Parker was already halfway out the door. "And Rachel, keep scanning for information. Broots will contact you once we're in the air."
Miss Parker quickly rounded up Sydney and two sweepers and headed for the runway, where she was met by an embarrassed Broots and a smug Lyle.
"You weren't going to leave without me?" he asked innocently.
"Of course not," Parker responded just as sweetly, shooting a dirty look at Broots after Lyle strolled ahead to the plane.
"It wasn't my fault," he whispered. "He walked in just as I was calling and asked Rachel what was going on, so of course she told him. I couldn't think of anything I could do to stop her."
Parker didn't reply but stalked on ahead to the plane. She couldn't think of anything Broots could have done either, but she wasn't going to go out of her way to make him feel better.
All in all, it was a tense flight. The only sound made by anyone on board was Broots' tapping at his laptop as he and Rachel swapped ideas and information over the Internet. By the time the flight landed, it was mid-afternoon and Broots had found an apartment at 721 Dock Road registered to Jarod Farmer.
"Actually, Rachel was the one who found it," Broots corrected as he tried to keep up with Parker as she strode to the rental car.
"You, her, what's the difference?" Parker snapped.
"About 20 years and 60 IQ points," Broots muttered. Parker pulled up short and fixed Broots with a stare. He wilted and shrunk away.
"Way to keep the computer geek in line," Lyle murmured in her ear under the guise of holding the car door for her. Before Miss Parker could respond she was forced to lurch back as Lyle almost slammed her leg in the door. The ride was just as tense as the flight.
As Miss Parker climbed the stairs to Jarod's apartment, she could feel the excitement building again. The parking space for his apartment had a car in it, which Broots was checking the registration on now. Of course it was possible that someone else had parked in his spot, but . . Parker almost didn't even care that Lyle was right behind her.
Almost.
The door was unlocked. Parker and Lyle exchanged a glance and Parker could see her excitement reflected deep in Lyle's eyes. Moving as one, they leapt into the apartment, guns pulled out on the . . . mess. The apartment showed all the signs of having been quickly and recently vacated. Parker almost groaned aloud in disappointment, but she forced herself to check the apartment anyway, a futile exercise that only confirmed her first impression. Yet again, they had just missed Jarod.
---
Broots was happy to be left in car, using his computer, doing what he was good at. He never really understood why Miss Parker always dragged him along on these trips since he was almost never-
BAM!
Broots almost jumped out of his seat at the noise, which at first he thought was a gunshot, but then realized was a slamming door. He stuck his head out the window to see Miss Parker returning across the parking lot, glowering. Broots automatically checked the car to see if there was anywhere to hide.
She opened the door and stood there staring at him. Broots stared back nervously.
"He's gone," she said finally, bitterly. "Lyle and Sydney are searching the apartment and I came out to here you tell me that that isn't Jarod's car in the parking lot."
"But it is," Broots said.
Miss Parker whirled around. "What!"
"It's a rental car registered to Jarod Ford. I suppose it's possible that it could be another Jarod but it's not really likely-"
"Broots!" she cut him off. "Are you saying that Jarod hasn't left yet?"
"That may be to much to assume at this point," Rachel's voice said quietly from behind Broots.
Miss Parker gasped out loud in surprise and pushed Broots backwards, looking for Rachel. Broots nervously said, "Oh, Miss Parker, I forgot to tell you; Rachel figured out a way to attach my cell phone to the computer so we can talk, and she can hear what you're saying . . ." Broots trailed off as Miss Parker gave him another look.
"Yes, that's right," said Rachel's voice, oblivious to Miss Parker's disapproval. "So, do you know when Jarod left?" Miss Parker rolled her eyes but answered the question.
"It looks like we just missed him."
"But his car is still there . . . Hmm. Why do you think that he just left?"
"Rachel," Parker said in as civil a voice as she could manage, "Much as I'd love to play twenty questions with you, we need to find Jarod."
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" From anyone else, Miss Parker would have interpreted the words as a challenge, but Rachel managed to make it sound like a serious question. "If Jarod just left, but didn't take his car, there are only a few places he could be. Remember, I am a pretender, and with enough information I can pretend Jarod."
"Alright, I get the picture," Miss Parker snapped, embarrassed that she hadn't thought of that herself. Quickly she described the scene in Jarod's apartment; drawers left pulled out, a few articles of clothing left in odd corners and under the bed, and, most convincing of all, the remains of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich left on the table. There was silence on the other end of the line as Parker finished her list in growing irritation. Peanut butter and jelly. What was Jarod doing, regressing to his childhood?
"And you would say the sandwich was made today?" Rachel interrupted her thoughts.
"Yes," Miss Parker said wearily.
"Interesting. It sounds like Jarod was forced to bolt around noon, and we found his web site at about 11:30 this morning." Miss Parker blinked. She hadn't thought of that. Maybe there was something this freak of nature was good for after all . . . "Alright, this is what I think." Rachel cleared her throat. "Jarod is eating lunch while on the Internet, checking his site for some reason. Somehow he realizes that someone has dissected the codes on his site, it's only a matter of time before they find him and he runs as fast as he can."
"So let's get to the airport," Lyle said from behind Parker. She almost jumped, but swallowed her surprise, refusing to give Lyle the satisfaction of knowing he took her unaware.
"No, Jarod isn't at the airport," Rachel corrected Lyle gently. "The airport is an hour away. If Jarod went there he would have taken his car. Besides which, the airport is too risky. You'll be arriving any minute, I can't take the chance you might be there when I am." Parker almost shivered at the change in tense as Rachel's voice suddenly became far away. It was creepy to hear the girl lose herself into a pretend mid-thought.
"Besides which, the airport is the obvious place to go, so I can't go by air. The car could be traced, so I can't take that, and that leaves . . . Did you say this apartment was on a Dock Road?"
Miss Parker understood first and whirled around, smelling the salt air for the first time. Sure enough, she could just see a pier at the end of the street with several boats tied up.
"Rachel, you're right. Come on!" Miss Parker almost ran down the street, leading the rest of the Centre employees. Broots punched a few buttons on his computer and clambered out of the car to join the others, but first grabbing the cell phone.
There were two old men sitting at the end of the dock, fishing. Parker was surprised that anyone would be out in the cold, early December, but she dismissed the thought as irrelevant.
"I'm looking for a man," she said, planting herself in front of the two men. They exchanged a glance.
"Women these days sure are forward," one of them casually remarked to the other. Miss Parker's expression darkened, but she pulled out a picture of Jarod from inside her coat.
"This man," she said through her teeth, thrusting the picture at them. "I have reason to believe he may have taken a boat from this dock sometime earlier today." The two chronologically advantaged persons leaned forward to look at the picture short-sightedly.
"No," one said, just as the other said "Yes." They looked at each other and started arguing.
"Don't be stupid, you haven't seen anything all day-"
"Yes I did! I saw that guy take out the boat over there-"
"You can't even see over there! You're making this up!"
"I can see better than you can-"
"Well, at least I can still hear!"
Parker closed her eyes in misery, but felt a light tap on her shoulder. Broots was holding out the cell phone nervously. "It's Rachel; she wants to talk to you," he whispered softly. Parker snatched the phone.
"Tell me you've got something," she said without the pleasantries. Rachel responded in kind.
"A airplane ticket bought by a Jarod Sailor at Benton, an airport about thirty miles down the coast from where you are. The flight leaves at 4:30 for Chicago." Parker checked her watch. It was 4:23.
"Well?" Lyle said impatiently.
"That was Rachel," Miss Parker said, thinking hard. "She says that Jarod's booked on a flight out of Benton Airport."
"Great," Lyle broke in. Miss Parker willed him to take the bait. "I'll take the sweepers to the airport. Why don't you three stay here and, ah, interrogate these men, make sure they don't know anything useful?" Parker could hear the smile in Lyle's voice as he and the sweepers dashed back to the car and drove off with a squeal of tires.
"Why do I have the feeling you didn't tell Lyle all of what Rachel said?" Sydney asked with a smile.
"The flight leaves in about five minutes. They'll never make it," Miss Parker said dryly. "We're going to meet the flight when it lands in Chicago." She looked around. "How are you supposed to get a taxi in this place? Broots, find something that will get us back . . ."
Parker trailed off a taxi drove suddenly drove up. None of the three said anything as it rolled to a stop in front of them. The driver stuck his head out the window.
"Miss Parker?" he asked through a piece of gum he was chewing on. Parker found herself at a loss for words and just nodded. "Got a call you needed a ride." Parker whirled to look at Broots, but he looked even more befuddled than she was. Then she remembered what she was holding. Parker lifted the phone to her ear.
"Rachel?" she said.
"I hear that your taxi arrived." Even over the phone, the laugh in the girl's quiet voice was perceivable.
---
En route, a thought suddenly hit Parker. She lifted the phone again.
"Rachel?"
"I'm here."
"When you found the ticket at Benton, why did you ask to speak to me? You knew Lyle was there too."
There was a brief silence. Parker could almost hear Rachel forming her answer.
"Well, I trust you."
This time it was Parker's turn for a brief silence.
"Why?"
"You say exactly what's on your mind, or you let your voice convey that for you. It's nice to know where I stand with you."
"And Lyle . . ."
"Is harder to understand. I just always get the impression that he's hiding something."
"But if you understand me all that well, you know that I don't like you."
"Yes."
"Oh."
Parker lowered the phone and looked out the window for the rest of the trip. She failed to realize that she had just had a conversation with a person who had told her she was more or less transparent, and she hadn't been offended. Something about Rachel's voice made it impossible to be offended.
It was highly enjoyable to take the angry call from Lyle in mid-air ("Rachel found the destination and time of departure a few minutes after you left; we didn't have time to wait for you") and Parker was feeling satisfied as she leaned back for a brief rest on the flight to Chicago, knowing that she had gained what was turning out to be a valuable ally. There was something nagging at her, something that she had forgotten, but she ignored the thought and told herself she'd deal with it when she landed.
---
Just before they landed, Broots handed her the cell phone again.
"What?"
"Bad news. I've lost Jarod."
"What!"
"I've checked every out-going flight and every rental car place. No Jarod anywhere. He's disappeared without an electronic trace."
"Keep looking. Search every manifest manually if you have to."
"Alright, but I think that computers aren't going to help you anymore."
Parker sat up.
"Why do you say that?"
"Jarod's probably realized that a new element has been added to the game. Broots is an excellent computer technician, but he couldn't have found Jarod's site like I did. I believe that Jarod is going to play it safe until he figures out who I am, which means that he will probably use a different first name and stop dropping hints. You can try to find him, but I don't think you'll succeed."
"So how did he realize you were poking around in his site?" Parker snapped.
"I have no idea."
"Well, find out! But first, do another search for Jarod in the airport files."
"Alright." The response was very quiet and Parker savagely punched the button to disconnect her from the pretender. She looked up to find Sydney giving her a disapproving look, which she returned with an expression daring Sydney to say anything. Sydney looked away.
In the back of her mind, Parker knew she was being unreasonable, but she pushed the thought aside. If Rachel hadn't gone through the site with all the finesse of a water buffalo, Jarod wouldn't have got the wind up and left Marispont. We also wouldn't know he was in Marispont whispered the back of Miss Parker's mind. Almost angrily, Parker shook the thought off. Why was she letting a freak of nature make her feel guilty?
However, the freak was right. Without any information, there was little the three could do except wander through O'Hare and hope they'd run into Jarod. His flight had landed twenty minutes before theirs, and in those twenty minutes he could have done anything; taken another flight, rented a car, gone to a hotel. For all Parker knew he could have been the man guiding her plane in. Much as she hated to admit it, she was dependent upon the clues Jarod tossed her to find him, and if Jarod didn't want to be found for a while, he wasn't going to be found.
---
It was 1 in the morning when Parker returned to Centre. Sydney caught her elbow as she stormed off the plane.
"Parker, don't be too hard on Rachel. She did the best she could-"
"And it wasn't good enough." Parker wrenched her arm away from Sydney's light grasp. "And I intend to inform her of that."
She went directly down to the pretender's room. If the door hadn't been mechanical, she would have slammed it behind her. Rachel heard her enter and stiffened, but didn't turn around.
"That was disgraceful," Miss Parker started in fury.
"I know. I'm sorry," she said in an even quieter voice than normal. "I keep going over this, trying to figure out how Jarod discovered I had hacked into his site . . ." Rachel trailed off, still focused on her computer. "I might have it."
"Show me," Miss Parker said imperiously, crossing the room to Rachel's desk. The girl started to stand.
"Here, have a seat-" Rachel's knees gave out and she staggered, barely managing to catch herself on the desk. Parker pulled back in confusion as the girl, this time more slowly, stood again carefully. Suddenly Parker realized what she had forgotten.
"Rachel, have you rested since this morning?" she said. Rachel shook her head. "Or eaten?" Another shake. The part of Miss Parker's mind that she couldn't control played back Dr. Scott's words; "If you're working with her, you need to make sure you tell her to rest and eat, otherwise she will literally work until she drops."
Angry, but this time at herself for failing to recall Scott's instructions, Parker impatiently took Rachel by the arm.
"Come on. No more work tonight. You're going to bed," she half dragged the pretender the few steps to her bed.
"But I didn't finish-" Rachel protested feebly.
"You've done more than enough. You can't work if you're half dead from lack of sleep." Parker let the pretender roll into her bed and pulled the covers over her. "And don't get out of bed before 9:00." For a moment she thought Rachel would argue, but the girl was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. Parker turned and almost jumped when she saw Sydney at the door, with a knowing smile on his face. Angry, though she didn't know why, she tossed her hair back and left G17.
"What are you smiling at?" she snapped as she brushed by him, but not before Sydney noticed that she had automatically walked on the balls of her feet across the room to muffle the noise her heels made on the concrete floor. He touched the button that would close the door without changing his smile.
