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"You're awfully quiet, Miss Parker," Jarod said, observing her in the rear-view mirror. She'd insisted upon sitting in the back seat, no doubt to place as much distance as she could between herself and Jarod. She wasn't coping all that well with the loss of her independence, but to her credit hadn't physically assaulted him. Yet. "I don't bite," he assured her. "And," he added when she continued to ignore him. "We are adults. Honestly, you don't have to sit back there all alone and sulk."

"I don't sulk," came the bland rebuttal.

"Ah, she speaks." And continues to furiously tap her fingernails.

He knew she was bothered, that she was eager to see Kyle, that she wanted to go home. Or prison. She wasn't all that particular. Jarod didn't yet know what bothered her most, however: the circumstances and inconveniences he'd orchestrated, or those circumstances that were beyond even his control. Jarod was leaning towards the latter. He wanted it to be the latter. He craved her trust—it was a visceral yearning—in much the same way she craved the unhealthier vices.

"The Livingston home is just up ahead," he said. "You don't have to sneak out of the house the way you did back there. You won't learn anything by running away. Should you have questions for the Livingstons by all means speak up," added Jarod as he parked parallel to the curb. Parker expelled a breath, observed as he stepped out of the vehicle and approached her. He bent at the waist, met Parker's gaze over the top of the partially raised window.

"Coming?"

"No."

"No," came his sharp inquiry.

She shook her head, stared straight ahead. Saw nothing. "This doesn't feel right," she said.

"You think questioning the parents is wrong," he asked for clarity's sake.

"These people are in pain, Jarod. And I've already told you-"

"Or," he purred, "they are pretending to be in pain to conceal the fact that they are cold blooded murderers. The jury's still out, Miss Parker," he added, his jaw clenched in anger.

Parker swung her gaze at him. "You believe Celeste and Gracie are dead," she asked, and then immediately and instinctively attempted to conceal the distress in her voice with an artificial cough.

Veteran Centre operatives, employees more qualified and experienced than Parker had died for revealing less than she just had. Her internal dialog was scathing, and for valid reasons. She'd obliterated one of the tenets of Centre law. She'd always considered indifference a friend, particularly in the presence of enemies.

Presently, her enemy's face softened. "That's what I'm trying to find out," he answered with some solemnity, his voice low, soft. He opened the door, and dipped his head at her. "And you're coming with me," he informed her with false joviality.

"No," she said. "I am not."

"Ah, I see," Jarod said. "You're feeling guilty, aren't you?"

"Guilty," inquired an incredulous Parker.

"I was taken, too, and you haven't confronted-"

"I didn't abduct you, Jarod," she interrupted tartly. "I wasn't even born when you were kidnapped. But now that you've mentioned it: how do you think your parents would've felt if they'd been interrogated," Parker asked and observed his face become rigid, darken in anger, briefly. She wasn't certain if the dismissive gesture that followed was directed at her or himself.

"This is a part of the job," Jarod said. "A job you know nothing about."

"All the more reason for me to sit this one out."

All the more reason for me to assist her in getting out of the car. He was tempted to do precisely that. He looked past her for a moment, considered repercussions, studied the pieces of some unseen puzzle.

"All right," he conceded. "I probably don't need to remind you; I"m sure you know already how utterly futile any attempt to run away would be. What you may not realize is that I will be appointed to hunt you down—and trust me, I will find you—and my efforts to find you will divert time and resources away from the search for Celeste and Gracie."

One damning emotional slip—Jarod was employing it to control her. She had supplied the ammunition, true, but he had mishandled it, he had thoughtlessly squeezed the trigger. The boy shoots to kill.

Parker smiled sweetly, and then intoned rather blithely, "My father always said you were Triumvirate material, Jarod. I believe he underestimated you."

Jarod recoiled, blanched, was so wounded by her assault he could do little more than gape at her in disbelief. She'd conflated him with the Triumvirate, with her father, no doubt with Lyle. And he couldn't even defend himself, not against the truth.

Parker dropped her gaze, studied her fingernails, tried not to imagine clawing his face open with them. "I wouldn't dare challenge your authority, Agent," she said cynically.

"Uh," he stammered, and averted his gaze. "Yeah," he answered absently, nearly strangling on self-loathing, and quietly closed the car door.

Parker expelled a breath, expelled an obscenity. And Jarod turned, as if he'd heard her thoughts. Or perhaps he's the one who is sulking. Parker didn't care either way, or at least gave an ovation-worthy imitation of not caring.

At length, he pivoted and scrutinized the Spanish colonial and the unkempt property upon which it was neatly situated. The landscape contrasted sharply to that of the Steeles'; the signs of neglect, however, were just as—if not more—evident.

A river of white meidiland roses cascaded haphazardly over a four foot wall of flagstone and into a sea of creek pebbles and from there onto the terrace steps. The latter were flanked by stone pillars and cordyline in enormous stone planters, and were somewhat obstructed by serpentine vines.

Taking great care not to trip, Jarod ascended the steps to the lawn proper. There, a blue-stone footpath bisected a wide ribbon of buffalo grass wherein archipelagos of lavender, yucca, and purple verbena clung to dear life.

He walked the path at an even stride, past terraced beds of succulents and lupine in varying stages of death, mulched berms peppered with large stones and bald spots where varieties of plant life had once lived (and had since died), past thickets of rosemary, purple sage and blue-eyed grass battling each other for precious real estate.

Red kangaroo paws that dotted the property were limp and had been baked to a dull brown. Four small lemon trees that fringed a small water feature had fallen to their deaths. Coyote mint hugged, and trespassed upon, the semi-circular driveway—at the end of which was parked a Harley that had seen its better days and a pink Prius.

Jarod followed the path up to the front door, noting that the crime scene tape was gone. Gone—just like Gracie Livingston and Celeste Steele.

His knock was answered by Gracie's father, Pierce, or rather the unshaven shell of the man that had once been Pierce Livingston. His expensive, tailor-fitted clothes were rumpled, limp and much too large for his body. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery and he blinked them several times before scanning Jarod's face. "Oh," he said, and Jarod observed as recognition slowly morphed into hope before all too quickly dissolving into bitter disappointment. "More questions?"

"If you don't mind," Jarod said.

"If you think it'll bring my little girl home I don't mind at all," he said, resigned and defeated. He stepped aside, allowing Jarod to enter his home.

"My little girl?" A woman's voice exclaimed, and Jarod turned to greet Gracie's mother, rushing into the room, looking hopeful.

Joana Livingston was in her early thirties, a unhealthily pale woman with startling green eyes and blonde hair that hadn't been washed in some time. She gaped at her husband, digested the absence of her daughter with apparent distaste, and shook her head. "I told you to send him away," she snarled.

"He's here to help."

"Oh, is he?" She asked and turned to Jarod. "Unless you have my daughter, there is nothing you can do to help me. You don't have her with you. And she's not here. She's not here. I've searched every square inch of this house, and the houses in this neighborhood. I looked in the theater and in the old public pool, and the abandoned lot at the edge of town. I thought she might have fallen into the well—I remember that it happened before. I've heard about it. I know it's happened. Children fall into wells. They tumble right down. I know it happens," she insisted. "But it's all filled in. It's all filled in," she repeated. "I've searched this entire town. She's. Not. Here. She's not here," Joana screamed at no one in particular, and then pivoted and with a grunt flipped over a wing-back chair. "Gracie isn't here," the woman cried, and then attacked the sofa, tearing at the cushions, lifting them, shoving them onto the floor, "and she's not here," the woman said, continuing her rampage. She stumble-walked down the narrow hall and flung open a bright pink door. "I checked beneath her bed, and in the closet, and in all the drawers and behind the shelves and- and everywhere," she said, and then demonstrated how she'd searched and described to Jarod the cold she'd felt in her veins and how numb her legs became and how she'd struggled to breathe when Gracie hadn't been in any of the places she'd looked.

Shouting her child's name, she pushed past Jarod, and staggered mid-stride and struggled to regain her balance. She caught the door jamb with a hand, and Jarod's gaze riveted on the bloodied fingertips, the infected nail-beds. The woman had gnawed her fingernails and then, when the nails were gone, the tips of fingers (and judging by the sunken eyes and prominent cheekbones, ate little else). She was disappearing, little by little; she was being eaten alive by the loss, the unknown, the dread, fear.

He wondered if his own mother had felt the same blood-chilling panic, if she'd been too full of fear to eat. He was transported to his own bedroom, to blue drapes, airplanes suspended overhead, action figures tucked securely beneath his bed, a Bonanza lunchbox.

Joana Livingston continued to slip, fall, rise, slip, fall, rise—a cycle that she couldn't break alone. Her husband offered his support, and on somewhat firm footing at last she called her child's name, and then ran from room to room. "Gracie!"

Jarod followed Joana into the washroom, just off the kitchen, and observed as she bent at the waist and opened the dryer door with such force that she sank to her knees. "Gracie's not here," she cried, her voice echoing inside the machine's drum. She then crawled to the kitchen and opened the cabinets. She returned to washroom, threw her body against the washing machine and flung open the lid. "You don't understand. You'll never understand," she said in a voice that soundly eerily calm, considering the tumult that raged on inside of her. "I hated myself for not checking here first. I couldn't believe I'd checked the dryer and then left this room- I left-left this room," she stammered, "without first checking the washer. She might have drowned while I was looking in the cabinets," Joana said, answering the question in Jarod's eyes, and at the same time raising more questions. "I should have checked the washer first and then the cabinets. Don't you see," she said, noting Jarod's continued blank stare, and deeming him the unreasonable one. "It's obvious," she said. "It's so horribly obvious. It's so strangely simple. But you don't understand, do you? Don't you see? Nothing in the cabinets could have hurt her. But the washer—she might have drowned. She might have drowned! Don't you see? Don't you see?"

Only then did Jarod nod his understanding. He certainly did see. He could see that the agony of losing a child had penetrated skin and bone and had carved away Joana Livingston's rationale. Gracie couldn't have possibly contorted her body to such a degree that she would fit inside the washer or dryer—not by any stretch of the imagination, and Jarod possessed quite the imagination. Furthermore, Gracie could no longer hide inside cabinets. She couldn't have hidden beneath a chair or sofa. 

"It was the clown," Joana said, suddenly, so used to tears that she didn't push them out of her face. "I slapped, kicked him. I pushed him into the pool. I thought it was the clown. I hoped. I hoped it was that clown," she added, tearing at her hair. "I wanted him to be guilty. Don't you understand? Can't you understand! Why can't anyone understand? I wanted it to be him. Because if it was him, and he was still here at the party then she was close. She must have been. He couldn't have taken her far. He couldn't have hurt her. He couldn't have, couldn't have—" the woman's words dissolved into sobs. Her husband eased her onto an sturdy oak chair, where she continued to sob quietly.

Pierce Livingston cleared his throat. "The clown, Bruce Wells, didn't leave the premises at all during the party. We videotaped it. He cooperated, volunteered to undergo a polygraph, supply various DNA samples; he didn't want us to waste time better spent searching for our Gracie. He's been investigated thoroughly."

"I wasn't aware there had been a suspect," Jarod said with a knitted brow.

"Bruce shouldn't have been a suspect. He organized the first search party from county lockup. The one call he was allowed," Pierce explained. "He didn't use it call his mother or a lawyer to throw his bail. He called the local recruiter's office, a friend of his from the Air Force. Within minutes, two dozen men and women were here. They printed fliers. They went door to door. They monitored interstate traffic, reported suspicious activity. One of those reports led to the arrest of a known sex offender- a cold case they were working, unrelated to Gracie. A known offender? Known," Pierce snorted. "Why do they release these monsters back into society? Why?"

"I don't know," Jarod confessed and slid his gaze cautiously to the oak dining table. Joana Livingston was rocking spasmodically, and still sobbing, staring off into space. When Jarod called her name, she didn't respond, didn't react at all.

"She's been this way since Gracie was taken," Pierce explained. "Alternates between extreme hysteria and abject despondency. It's one or the other. She won't eat, and her fingers- god," he murmured, dragging a hand over his face.

"Mr. Livingston," Jarod said softly, sympathetically, "your wife should be under a psychiatrist's care."

"My wife is under a psychiatrist's care, Agent. This is one of the better days. Joana, honey," he said, returning to his wife's side, "why don't you lie-"

"Don't honey me," she screamed at her husband, rising. She turned her rage on Jarod, struck him in the face. Twice. "Answer me, I said," she screamed in Jarod's face. "Answer me!" And Jarod would have answered, or would have attempted to at least, had she asked him a question.

"No, Joana," Pierce chided sharply, grasping his wife's thin shoulders.

"Why are you in my home?" She screamed, and clearly, she harbored no disdain for Jarod, or for police in general, but rather, what Jarod's presence represented: the absence of her daughter. "I don't see my baby. Why are you here if you don't have my baby with you? Why? Why," she screamed, and Jarod could only gape at her, at the bulging veins in her neck and forehead, the tears on her face. "What have you done with my little girl? What have you done?"

"Joana," her husband said, grasping her about the waist and putting himself between his wife and Jarod. The woman fought and resisted and then collapsed against her husband's body.

These people are in pain, Parker's words returned to him.

Celeste Steele's parents had another child, a toddler. They felt the loss the same, without a doubt. They both struggled, both lived in dread. Celeste and Tess's father, Eliot, had become the caretaker, a telecommuting stay-at-home father. He was quite unwilling to leave Tess with anyone. He was afraid the abductors would return for Tess.

Tess, who needed to be provided for, provided her parents, in return, with resources they weren't aware existed within them, with the stuff that sustains life. She was their saving grace.

Gracie's parents, on the other hand, were missing their only child. Their only child. Jarod thought again of his parents, and then of Emily. He wanted to fly to New York and give his baby sister a hug, thank her for simply existing.

"She didn't mean it," Pierce Livingston said, jerking Jarod from his thoughts. "She intended to strike me instead," he lied politely, but there was truth in the lie. Joana had struck her husband. And often. The gashes and bruises were visible when Pierce turned his head and unintentionally exposed his neck. "Please," he continued helplessly, "she's been through enough. If you press charges-"

"No," Jarod interrupted. "No, of course not."

"I don't know what else to say. I don't know what you want to me do. Another polygraph? Another blood draw? What can I do? Tell me what I can do."

"I," Jarod stammered. "I just wanted to follow up. I didn't intend to upset you or your wife. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Don't," he said, to Jarod and to his wife who sobbed against his chest. "Just, please, please bring Gracie back to us. Safe."

"I will," Jarod vowed, and he was relieved that Parker had stayed behind in the car, that she hadn't heard him lie.

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