܀

"Hospitals," groused Little Miss Parker with a moue of discontent, "are wretched. I despise doctors. Can't we do this another time?" 

Jarod's eyelids fluttered. He couldn't recollect summoning the girl, was acutely aware that her presence was beyond the realm of possibility. Rather than ignore the no doubt trauma-induced delusion, however, he engaged her, politely imparted some wisdom believing it would hasten her departure. "You fear them," he corrected groggily albeit sympathetically. "You find anger a more palatable-"

"No." The irreproachable apparition was emphatic, imperious. "I hate them."

"Perhaps," remarked Jarod indulgently. "Hatred is rooted in fear," he explained gently. "And-"

"Hate leads to the dark side," she interrupted cynically. "Stow the pop psychology, Yoda. You must have damaged your prefrontal cortex," she added tartly and Jarod found it rather baffling that the girl—a mere manifestation of head trauma—would be as evasive as her adult counterpart. He believed that because the creature existed only in his mind she should be more forthcoming and pleasant.

"Must have," Jarod agreed mechanically, reconsidering strategy and promptly determining he lacked both the desire and energy to quarrel with the child. Instead, he pressed a palm to his bandaged ribs, accessed the damaged he'd incurred. He wore multiple gauze bandages on his body and a fresh cast and sling on his right arm. Supplies on a nearby medical cart indicated his left foot was being prepped for a fiberglass cast he had no intention of wearing. He, however, intended to filch the crutches when the room—revolving around him—slowed to a halt. "You cannot still be here."

"I defy logic. It's difficult to grasp."

"It gives me no pleasure to inform you you're wrong."
"Wrong?"
"You're a hallucination triggered by head trauma and perhaps psychological trauma associated with—"

"With what? Or is it whom mm," she pressed tenderly when he fell silent. "You can confess your feelings. I can't exactly go blabbing to anyone if I don't exist."

Jarod seized the bed rails, propelled himself to his feet. Exertion and vertigo rooted him to the floor. With an anguished groan of defeat, he executed a controlled and painful drop to the mattress.

"Tell me where she is," pleaded Jarod, exasperated.
"Let me get this straight, Wise Guy: You don't believe I exist but you believe I can tell you what happened. Think about it, Jarod. If I'm a manifestation of the trauma you sustained I can only convey knowledge you possess. I'm not omniscient."

"Of course," Jarod murmured irritably, massaging his temples, endeavoring to retrieve aforementioned knowledge—memories—poised at the periphery of his addled mind.

"Who are you talking to, Jarod?" Rachel asked with an uncertain laugh.

"Ghosts," he answered, handily concealing his surprise. "Has Kirkland found her?"
"He's following protocol," she assured him. "I didn't think you should be alone."

Jarod suppressed a chortle. If she only knew.

"Leads," he said, rising with a grunt of pain.
"Not yet," Rachel answered, adding in mild alarm, "Jarod, you're not getting out of that bed."

"Oh no?" He challenged. "Swanson?"

"Lie down," demanded Rachel, confounded by the chilling intensity in his eyes, the realization she'd never perceived it before. "The credentials Swanson supplied the lessor were fictitious. "What the hell happened, Jarod?"

"I lost her," he answered succinctly, retrieving his personal belongings.

"Maybe she wanted to be lost," Rachel ventured disinterestedly.

"No," he said, tearing the gown away violently and ignoring Rachel's horrified gasp.
"Jarod, my God. You're covered in abrasions and bruises."
"She was abducted, possibly at gunpoint," Jarod theorized, thrusting his hands into bloodied, starched sleeves with a grimace of pain.
"We found no blood in the apartment, no sign of a struggle."

"Hence gunpoint," Jarod returned sharply. "She's a fighter. Even with the fracture, she would have struggled. Trust me."
"Trust? Jarod, witnesses allege you fled Swanson's apartment carrying a large canvas bag. The police suspect you had something to do with her abduction."

"They're correct. I'm responsible. I need to take a look at Swanson's apartment."
"Absolutely not."
"Rachel," Jarod cautioned, "you don't have to help me but you're not going to stand in my way."

"Ew, you're having sex with her, aren't you," Little Miss Parker interjected, a grimace of distaste marring her otherwise placid expression.

"Is that a threat?" Rachel asked.

"It sure as hell sounded like one to me," said Little Miss Parker with a hearty chuckle. "I said adults were obtuse. Didn't I?"

"Yes," Jarod said, answering all three questions—unintentionally answering Little Miss Parker's question about sex (which resulted in Jarod feeling positively abominable). He swung his gaze at Rachel, expounded gravely, "If you prefer to perceive it as one."

"Are you in love with her," Rachel and Little Miss Parker asked simultaneously.

"Two very frightened little girls are missing, Rachel. They're going to be sold into prostitution," he said with a snort of rage and considered amending and digressing, explaining to her that children cannot be prostitutes, cannot legally consent. He wanted to shout and overturn furniture while explicitly expressing his blistering disdain for the people who decided it was easier to refer to the atrocity as "child prostitution" rather than call a fucking spade a spade: "evil people paying to rape children."

Instead, he drew a tremulous breath. "If they haven't already. My partner has been taken by the same people." Renewed terror abruptly replaced hollowness; Jarod forwent socks, wrestled shoes onto bare feet with trembling hands.

"You don't know that."

"She was taken during an active investigation. You can't believe it's a coincidence."
"Why would they take her," Rachel argued vacuously. 
Jarod found her tepid reluctance to accommodate his theory infuriating. "She must have discovered something. They might kill her."

"If your suspicions are correct she's already dead," Rachel said boastfully. "It fits the profile."
 
Jarod's face hardened, his hands stilled on his belt buckle. His eyes narrowed. "Don't ever say that again," he cautioned through clenched teeth. He was enraged and rather distressed by the swiftness with which Rachel's timbre and intent shifted. He deduced her earlier concern was feigned, a pretext.
 
"The sooner you accept-"
"Don't," he shouted and thrust out at hand that drew dangerously close to Rachel's cheek.
 
"Jarod," Little Miss Parker scolded and observed as the hand dropped to his side, curled into a tight fist. The girl's eyes were wide with righteous indignation, concurrently savage and beautiful and he wanted to retreat and hide with an urgency he'd never felt before with her adult counterpart. How dare this child materialize and upend my life.

"You weren't going to strike her were you, Jarod?"

"You were going to hit me," Rachel exclaimed. "You're out of control. Did she piss you off, too, like I just did?"
 
"She's been pissing me off," Jarod said bluntly, "for at least twenty years."
"And finally pushed you too far, didn't she?"
"Is that what the profile says?"
"My profile says you're a loaded gun, Jarod, and that I shouldn't trust you."
Jarod's brow creased. He contemplated potential strategies, conclusions, and ramifications; he apprehended easily that an ingratiating smile would resolve nothing. Rather than attempt to neutralize and waste additional time, he opted to escalate. "She's never pushed me too far. But you are now. Stop it. Please," he implored, seizing the hospital's telephone.

"Who are you calling?"

"My brothers. I need a team."

"You have a team, Jarod," argued Rachel defensively, her cheeks reddening, "I'm on that team."

"One that I can trust," clarified Jarod.

"That's it," she hissed. "You're off the case. I'm recommending the Director shut you down. And I'm taking you in for questioning and a psych eval," Rachel said, advancing with handcuffs.

"You don't want to do that," warned Jarod with illy-concealed wrath, grudgingly relinquishing the telephone.
 
"Why not? What are you going to do to me," she challenged, launching herself at him. And Jarod was thrilled that she'd finally asked. 
 
"This," he said, capturing her left arm and hastily cuffing her hand to the bed rail.
 
"Jarod," Rachel screamed. "Walk out of this hospital and you'll be looking at life in prison." 

"That's a small price to pay to get her back," he snarled, resolutely, over his shoulder. 

"Whoa! She is thoroughly pissed," Little Miss Parker exclaimed in the corridor. "What now, Genius? You're just going to hobble out of here without stealing any meds?"
 "I don't need meds."
 "What do you need?"
 "To find her," he answered brusquely.
 "You have everything you need to do that. You just don't know it yet." 

"The hell is that supposed to mean," he retorted incredulously and, arriving at a bank of elevators, punched the down arrow. 

Little Miss Parker giggled when the doors parted and again when Jarod exited the carriage in the hospital lobby.

"What's funny," he remarked, ill-tempered, emerging painfully but determinedly into the breath-stealing heat. He squinted beneath the unforgiving sun and transversed a throng of smokers wearing weary expressions. They had no right, he opined, to assemble on the sidewalk and pollute the air others breathed. "What do you want from me?" He murmured at the little girl.

"It's not what I want from you, Jarod. It's what you need from me." 

"Which is?" 

"You've forgotten something inside the apartment."
"I knew it," he snarled. "I have to go back."
"No. It's too late to do that. Stop walking so fast," she cried.
"Too late?"
"It's gone."
Jarod's face twisted in disbelief. "Evidence was stolen?"
"It's not evidence, exactly, and it wasn't stolen. It sort of— um dissipated."
"Dissipated? Look, Nancy Drew," purred Jarod sardonically and rather condescendingly, "evidence doesn't dissipate." 

"Stop walking," she screamed at him. "Close your eyes."

"Why should I do that?"
"Close. Your. Eyes. Now inhale. You returned from the deli with the sandwiches."

"I don't remember a deli or any sandwiches. I don't remember leaving her with Swanson."

"What's important is there was no answer when you knocked. You jimmied the door. Remember? And you knew immediately. Jarod, you knew something was wrong."

"The smell," he said, opening his eyes. He regarded with a blank expression little Miss Parker plucking a smoldering cigarette from the sidewalk. Comprehension slowly unfolded across his face when she extinguished the butt with her fingertips and discarded it with a theatrical flourish. "Burnt flesh, hair. Oh, God," he murmured, retrieving his mobile and dialing a number. "Some sort of modified taser?"

"Don't ask me," Little Miss Parker answered tartly. "I don't exist. Put the mobile down," she commanded. "What are you going to do hmm? Interrogate everyone who has ever purchased a taser? Raid area illusionists and seize their fire shooters? Track down everyone who owns a flame thrower? You need to focus on why she was attacked, Jarod, if you want her back. You need to see what she saw."

"What did she see?"
"You have to go back to the beginning and retrace her steps."
"The beginning? The Centre?" 

Little Miss Parker expelled sharp exasperation, revolved her eyes, and answered him saucily, "No, Einstein, the beginning of this investigation."

܀