"Tucker, please tell me you're in a position where you can talk right now," Jazz hissed into her Fenton Phone. "Vlad's denying everything. He said he doesn't have any copies of Danny's ecto-signature, that you guys wiped everything, and he made up some weird acronym for the Maddie program to try to not sound like a creep. And I think Mom's buying it, which is even worse."

"Dude, calm down. You can just turn on the Maddie program and show her," Tucker answered immediately. She could hear the equivalent of wind over his mic, which didn't narrow down his position. He'd either landed somewhere with a microclimate or was creating enough of a breeze while flying that the mic was picking it up. "It's, like, a big round button by the central screen. It used to be labelled, so look for a sticky spot if there aren't any labels. I haven't run into your dad yet, but I stopped Johnny 13 and Kitty and they're gonna look for him. They've promised not to let anyone try to kill him."

That was not as comforting as Tucker probably hoped it would be.

"I, uh, kinda had to promise them that Danny would let them off the hook if they chilled in the real world for a few days next week. Like a vacation. They promised they wouldn't destroy stuff."

Definitely not as comforting as he thought, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. If Johnny 13 or Kitty—or Shadow—tried to go back on their word, she still had a Fenton Anti-Creep Stick under her bed.

"I'm fighting my way through snow drifts right now. My jetpack gave out and Frostbite hasn't sent anyone to come pick me up yet. Or at least they haven't gotten to me if he has. Tell Mr. and Mrs. F they need to invent retractable snowshoes."

The exercise Tucker would be getting slogging through drifts might be one of the reasons he wasn't freezing yet. He can't have been at it for long, though, since he wasn't out of breath, and she knew he wasn't exactly in shape, despite running around after Danny.

Jazz walked back over to the computer and started pressing every round button she could find, but nothing activated the Maddie program. Come to that, nothing had any discernable effect. "You wouldn't have wiped out the Maddie program the last time you wiped Vlad's files, right?"

Tucker's snort came across loud and clear. "Please. I'm combating that with the Jack program. It's a virus and much harder to get rid of than a simple reset or reinstall. If you can't get the Maddie program to activate, it's something Vlad did, not something I did. And, yeah, we did wipe his files recently, but he's bound to have it backed up in places we haven't found yet. That's why we need to do it whenever we get the chance."

Comforting. So she didn't have proof, and her mom certainly didn't look like she was in the mood to accept such an accusation without proof. What had Vlad told her? Jazz should have never left them alone. Really, why would Maddie be inclined to believe a creep she'd lost touch with for twenty years and not her own kids?

Jazz already knew the answer to that, of course. Maddie still tried to see Vlad as an old college friend, just like Jack did. Maybe because Jack did, and she didn't want to burst his bubble. And for all Jazz knew, she still hadn't gotten the truth of halfas through her head. Vlad could certainly have told her something to make her doubt Jazz's knowledge—maybe Danny's, too, if Vlad played it off as ignorance born of inexperience.

Then there was what Maddie had done.

Even Jazz wasn't sure what Danny would say when he faced her again.

It might depend entirely on how Danielle had fared.

Jazz knew perfectly well that this most likely wasn't a situation she could fix, but she just…. She wasn't going to leave Danny out there to fend for himself and Danielle alone. And she wanted to help Danielle, if she could, and not just because she wanted to know Danielle's story, even if Danny would complain loudly that that must be her motive.

Jazz, who was only half listening as Tucker grumbled in her ear about yetis needing a better alarm service so he could get picked up faster, glanced to the other side of the lab, where Maddie and Vlad were bent over blueprints.

Jazz had always thought she'd be able to stop her parents before it went too far.

She'd always thought Danny would be able to stop them with the truth if she wasn't there.

But now that this had happened, now that they had gone straight past too far….

Vlad wasn't helping. Jazz was really starting to think that Tucker was right and Vlad was the reason she couldn't pull up the Maddie program. It can't have been that hard for him to create an invisible double, letting that Vlad remove anything incriminating while this one stalled.

That was, of course, assuming he hadn't done that the moment he'd gotten home, since he would've known she wasn't willing to play nice anymore.

She'd always thought being able to tell her parents Danny's secret would go better than this. She hadn't expected Vlad to be so effective at saying whatever he'd said to keep her mom wrapped around his little finger. And if she couldn't find actual proof to back up her words….

They needed to find Danny and Danielle.

Maddie would believe them, even if she wouldn't believe that Jazz knew what she was talking about. Jazz's mouth twisted. The fact that Maddie seemed to be willing to discount what Jazz thought just because of her age and, no doubt, because she wanted to try to rescue a friendship that had probably been destroyed over twenty years ago….

Come to that, though— Jazz frowned. What had Danny ever told her about Vlad? About how he'd come to be this way? She knew it was a lab accident back in his college days; it must be. She remembered her parents saying how he'd had to drop out after that, how he'd had no desire to go back even when he had recovered, how he'd asked them to give him space and then never reached out again until the reunion. They'd been happy to find out that their friendship wasn't over, that they could just pick up where they'd left off.

But they hadn't, even if Jack and Maddie certainly seemed to have tried. They couldn't. They assumed Vlad was the same person, and he very much wasn't—or, at least, Jazz hoped he'd changed for the worse and hadn't always been this way. It really didn't say much for her parents if Vlad hadn't changed for the worse.

"Danny," Jazz murmured, "where are you?"

"Dora hasn't seen him," Sam reported. She must have come out of the dead zone in time to overhear Jazz's question; she hadn't realized she'd forgotten to silence her Fenton Phone. "We're heading to Poindexter's now and will swing by the Ghostwriter's on the way, just in case. You have any luck, Tuck?"

"I should know in a bit. I think the shadow I'm seeing is a yeti and not a rock."

Jazz chewed her lip and tried again to bring up the Maddie program—or, for that matter, any incriminating evidence at all.

By the time Tucker reported that Danny hadn't gone to Frostbite, either, she hadn't turned up anything out of the ordinary.

Vlad's lab, though a secret one, now seemed little different from the one in her basement.

"Find Dad," Jazz whispered. "I don't trust Vlad, not when it was his idea to separate them, and I don't know if it's a good idea to leave his protection entirely up to ghosts."

There was a long silence before Tucker tentatively asked, "You want us both to search for him instead of looking for Danny? We still haven't hit up Clockwork—"

"I don't think Danny's in the Ghost Zone."

"Because—?"

"If he'd thought he could come to Vlad with this, he would have. Since he didn't, he doesn't want Vlad to find him, either. And even I know Vlad has a lot of eyes in the Ghost Zone."

"I'll still check with Clockwork and some of the other ghosts Danny's on good terms with." Sam this time. "I'll keep my eyes peeled for your dad, and I can split from Dora if you're really worried. The Ghost Zone might be a big place, but your dad stands out. Any ghost who's seen him will know they've seen him. He won't be that hard for Tucker to find."

Well. That did make more sense than abandoning the search for Danny and just focusing on Jack. Jazz just….

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the sudden tears at bay.

This wasn't fair.

If she could just trust Vlad with this, it would be so much easier, but when he was against Jack, against Danny, trying to wrap Maddie around his little finger while thumbing his nose at her—

The truth was, Danny hadn't trusted any of them. It wasn't just Vlad; he hadn't even told Sam and Tucker anything. Why? He'd kept things from her in the past, but them? He'd always confided in them.

Hadn't he?

Grabbing a first aid kit and leaving without giving any answers wasn't like him, and she knew Sam, at least, had a good hand for patching them all up, and Tucker was well on his way of overcoming his phobia of all things medical, even if Jazz wasn't sure he'd ever be comfortable with it.

It wasn't like Sam and Tucker couldn't keep Danny's secret, unless he thought this put it at more risk than normal. This would have hardly been the first time they'd lied to pretty much everyone else in their lives for Danny's sake. Was he really avoiding them just because it would be too easy to be found with them?

Jazz opened her eyes and glanced over at the other side of the lab again.

That did seem likely, and it was what she'd first suspected, but it still seemed odd for Danny to not even try. Granted, not telling them anything would mean they wouldn't be guilted into saying anything or accidentally let something slip, either. With how Maddie had been acting, it certainly wasn't outside the realm of possibility that she'd force herself into whatever safe space Danny had made if he'd stayed nearby, and Danny knew exactly how their parents could get.

So if Danny didn't trust that their parents wouldn't find him with Sam and Tucker or that Vlad wouldn't find him with his allies in the Ghost Zone, where would he have gone?

What was she missing?

Vlad's invention was rather ingenious, but Maddie supposed she hadn't expected anything less. If Vlad hadn't given up on studying the paranormal, it made perfect sense that he'd have made such strides—especially considering his condition. Her stomach twisted at the thought that she and Jack were partially responsible for that as well and that Vlad hadn't thought he could trust them….

Well.

Given what had happened, she couldn't fault him for that. She wanted to think she'd have stopped if she'd known, but if she hadn't believed him—

It was astounding how easy it was to fall into their old rhythm. This was far from the first time she'd checked over Vlad's work. His notes were as meticulous as always and, as always, she couldn't find any mistakes. They had no way of refining the tracker to Phantom—Danny—specifically, but….

"Could you modify this to run off a biological sample?" She tapped the portion of the blueprints that interested her without bothering to raise her head to look at Vlad. He'd follow her train of thought easily enough—he always had—and, in the meantime, she could focus on the idea that was taking shape in her mind.

Currently, Vlad's prototype was built to take into account specific ecto-signatures fed into it with the option of finding and locking onto the nearest one, but Maddie highly doubted Danny had remained nearby. He wouldn't want to risk it.

He wouldn't want to risk her finding him.

She knew he didn't want to be found, but she had to find him. Them. She had to do what she could to fix this, even if it wouldn't fix everything, because this was her fault, and if she didn't—

If she didn't—

"I've plans for a different invention with that capability," Vlad said slowly, "with technology that we could try to integrate into this, but I hardly think a few of Daniel's hairs would be enough."

"Have you started building it?"

"Only the most rudimentary pieces, but—"

"Let me see it. Please." She thought he had enough here already that it would be more a matter of modifying the computer input on the device than its parts; if he'd already built the missing pieces, all they needed to do was put it together and input the proper programming. Really, depending on what he had built, if they could just tweak that and extend this chamber to connect there and feed back into that, assuming the computer could read the sample from there….

The prototype Vlad placed in front of her a few moments later was not rudimentary, except perhaps by his standards.

The more she looked it over, the more convinced she became that her idea might actually work.

He handed her the original prototype without asking, scooping it up from the other table where they'd put it down for safekeeping while poring over the blueprints. All the tools she needed were suddenly within easy reach, and Maddie slipped on her googles and got to work, barely noticing Vlad drift off to talk to Jazz.

Maddie didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until she woke up. She yawned and sat up, hearing the slight rustle of silk sliding off her shoulders as Vlad's suit jacket fell to the floor. She bent to retrieve it and set it on the back of her chair before starting to knead the knots from her shoulders.

"We thought it best not to wake you," Vlad said quietly. He sat across from her at the table, the completed prototype—now reminiscent of a large mechanical beetle—on one side and the computer to which it was hooked up on the other. He'd donned a white lab coat, no doubt in concession to the fact that he was working in his lab, around multiple chemicals that could stain, but it was still spotless.

Maddie turned to look for Jazz and found her daughter perched stiffly on a tall stool by Vlad's main computer. She looked like she hadn't slept a wink, despite clutching a mug in one hand—coffee, Maddie suspected, though the smell might come from the cup near Vlad. Still, Jazz's acceptance of Vlad's offer of a drink—assuming she hadn't gone to get her own—might hint at a tentative peace between them. Of course, if she had gone to make her own coffee, the capped water bottle sitting on the console behind Jazz, half empty, might be Jazz's way of making a point of not accepting anything untouched from Vlad.

Maddie knew some of Jazz's misgivings wouldn't be unfounded even if she were wrong about most of it, given Vlad's successful ruse, but she wished the two of them could put their differences aside long enough to find Danny. They could sort out the details of it all later. Finding Danny, helping Danielle— That's what mattered right now.

Jazz met Maddie's eyes but said nothing of what she was thinking, and Maddie wasn't sure she could guess anymore. At one point, Jazz had braided her hair—plagued by flyaway strands as it was, it seemed to be mostly holding together, likely because she'd repurposed her headband to tie its end—so she must have been studying something intently, but Maddie wasn't sure what it could be. Even if Jazz did have mechanical knowledge of which Maddie was unaware, there was nothing around her that would suggest she'd been working on something, no tools or odd parts or even another set of blueprints.

The Fenton Phone on Jazz's ear stood out prominently, but even though Maddie was sure Jazz would have said something if she had news from Sam and Tucker, Maddie still asked.

"We wouldn't still be here if they'd found him," Jazz said. "Tuck's keeping an eye on Dad, too, in case Vlad gets any ideas. Really, the only upside is that Vlad hasn't found Danny yet, either."

Maddie raised her eyebrows—whether at Jazz's declaration or conviction, she wasn't entirely sure—and Vlad allowed himself a small huff of disbelief at her brazenness.

"I'm not going to explain how I know that," she added before Maddie could ask. "Not when he's right there. Just…think about it. If you still know Vlad half as well as you think you do, it's not that hard."

"I'll have much better luck doing my part in this search if you'd simply agree to let me into your house to collect some of Daniel's DNA for use in our new tracking device."

"My answer on that isn't gonna change, even though I know it won't stop you."

"Please, you know I'd hardly break into your house."

Jazz snorted. "Sure, because you don't break anything when you phase in. All the better to leave behind no evidence that way."

Vlad sighed.

This was not, Maddie suspected, the first time they'd had this conversation. Quite possibly, it was also the reason Jazz had not allowed herself to sleep, although worry for her brother and wanting to keep in contact with Sam and Tucker could explain that as well. If only there had been word from them or from Jack….

No matter. If Vlad had finished the prototype after she'd fallen asleep, then they had everything they needed. Assuming it worked, assuming everything had been integrated properly, assuming—

No. She had faith in her own skills and in Vlad's, especially since he clearly wasn't rusty. This should work. She had to believe it would work.

"We don't need to go home to find some DNA from Danny," she said, sparing Jazz another glance before facing Vlad.

"Right, because Vlad probably has some stashed here already."

"No." The centrifuge tube of ectoplasm-turned-blood was still in her pocket. "I already have a sample we can use."

She hadn't explained any of this to Vlad. She hadn't told him about the sample, not when she'd first asked for his help and not since, and even now, knowing what he was…. She wasn't sure she wanted to. She didn't want to admit that she hadn't listened, that he had been right to cut her and Jack out of his life, that she didn't deserve to call herself Danny's mother if she could—

How different would things have been if she hadn't caught Danielle unawares? If she hadn't had a chance to inject her with the solution that made ghosts temporarily unable to become intangible, at least under their own power? Jack's Ecto-Dejecto formula may have failed, but after they'd been able to tweak the formula and use the strengthening effect to interfere with a ghost's intangibility, she'd thought it the solution to their problems. Keeping a ghost captive in phase proof bindings, after all, never guaranteed that a scalpel could meet their ecto-flesh. But after the formula had worked….

Jazz was sure Vlad knew more about Danielle than he was saying, but even if she were just a ghost that Vlad was aware of and had helped in the past, Maddie didn't want to say more than this. He knew about Danielle's nature. Somehow, he shared it. That was more than enough.

He'd be able to guess the details without her needing to give them voice, anyway.

"Oh." Jazz's voice was quiet as Maddie withdrew the sample and set it on the table between her and Vlad. "Mom, maybe giving this to Vlad isn't the smartest thing—"

"We need help. You said that yourself. That's why we came here in the first place."

"Yeah, but we can do that without giving him everything."

"I know you don't trust him, sweetie, but you can do this for Danny."

Vlad smiled at her as he reached out for the sample. "Thank you."

He didn't ask about it. He might not realize that it was Danielle's blood and not Danny's. Maddie didn't think it would make a difference in the end; finding Danielle would mean finding Danny. Finding Danielle would mean having the chance to help her, if she'd allow it.

If Danny would allow it.

She might never have his trust again, especially if she found him by working with Vlad when he and Jazz were convinced of Vlad's ill will.

Vlad moved to retrieve a dropper from one of his shelves and added a few drops of the sample to the prototype. The machine whirred slightly as he turned it on and let it analyze the sample. She moved to stand beside him, checking the readout on the computer against the settings on the device.

She wasn't sure where he'd put the centrifuge tube with the rest of the sample. His own pocket, perhaps; the biological sample within the machine would degrade over time, and they'd need to add more if they didn't find Danny and Danielle quickly enough.

"For the record," Jazz said, "I just wanted to fix the Booo-merang."

Vlad unplugged the prototype, and it rose to hover in the air. The mechanical wings stretched, acting as stabilizers, and gave her a view of the screen built into its abdomen.

She frowned. "What's the projected range again?"

"Easily twenty-five miles," Vlad answered. "I originally intended it for short distances, so I can't guarantee beyond that as I've never tested it, let alone with these modifications, but—"

"That's not far enough." The beetle turned slowly in the air, and Maddie saw Vlad glance at the screen as it came around to face him. "They're farther away than that."

"Or they're in the Ghost Zone after all." Maddie hadn't heard Jazz come up behind her, her sock feet silent on the tiled floor. "I didn't think they were."

Vlad was frowning. "I tried to extend the range to a hundred miles. Surely the little badger hasn't gone that far, if he is still on this side."

Jazz had moved off to the other side of the room and was already speaking into the Fenton Phone again, no doubt to tell Sam and Tucker what was going on—and that they weren't having any luck over here.

"We could try adding more of the sample," Maddie suggested. She didn't want to think of the alternatives, even when she knew—

Vlad shook his head. "I've added more than enough." He pointed to the relay on the computer screen. "The sample is sufficient."

The sample also hadn't degraded already, according to the computer, which admittedly had been one of Maddie's worst fears. After all, if they'd been too late, she wasn't sure if the machine would be able to lock onto the source. Vlad had said that Danielle was unstable, and if this had pushed her too far—

"Perhaps it's merely not reading it correctly?"

Vlad looked in Jazz's direction, a puzzled frown pulling at the corner of his mouth. "I was beginning to suspect they might not be in the Ghost Zone, either, truth be told. Jack surely would've sent word, and you've clearly enlisted Sam and Tucker's help as well. They aren't incompetent, and I was sure Daniel would have gone to someone for help." He eased back into his chair, typing a few things into his computer before saying, "My other thought was that Daniel would attempt to remain in town despite the tracking methods we have—such as your Fenton Finder—but I've used similar devices to this one in the past to track down particular ghosts and have had no issues with such a short range."

"Then how do we expand it?"

"As I said, I've already expanded it."

"Not enough."

"Brilliant as we are together, Maddie dearest, I'm afraid that even the two of us won't be able to find a way to expand it farther without severely compromising accuracy. We can't afford to be sent off on a wild goose chase due to a partial match or hundreds of miles off course, not if time truly is of the essence."

Maddie opened her mouth to argue, but what reason did Vlad have to lie? She and Jack weren't even sure of the range of the Fenton Booo-merang, for all that Jazz seemed convinced it would be their best bet for tracking down Danny, wherever he was. More to the point, it wasn't as if Vlad could pull any trickery right in front of her. She could see as well as he could that his prototype wasn't working, even if they hadn't figured out why.

"Perhaps we should take it into the Ghost Zone," she said hesitantly, "to see if it's able to find him in there?"

"The Ghost Zone is vast. Even with its range, it may not have any more luck than the others."

"We have to try. If it doesn't work, we'll…we'll go back to the drawing board. Find a way to fix it, make it better." If they had to take it apart again, they'd best rule out what they could first. Testing it in the Ghost Zone was one step. Vlad could follow it in there even if she and Jazz couldn't.

Jazz wouldn't be happy with that idea, of course, but Maddie wasn't about to ask Vlad to carry one of them, and she hadn't seen anything in his lab that would hint at an invention like the Fenton Jet Packs. Then again, if Jazz was right about Vlad supplying the Red Huntress with her weaponry, then perhaps he had built her jet sled? There didn't seem to be another in the lab, not unless it was in pieces in an unmarked box, but—

Maddie's cellphone started ringing.

She jumped, hardly remembering she'd had it with her in the first place. She hadn't thought Jack would call her cell phone—surely there wasn't service in the Ghost Zone—and the number wasn't Danny's, however much she'd hoped, but….

"Mom?" Jazz was back at her side. "Who is it?"

Vlad looked up from the computer at that, clearly curious about the answer. "I don't recognize the number," Maddie murmured as she pressed a button to answer the phone. The area code was familiar, but with the number of spam calls these days, that hardly meant anything. "Hello?"

A part of her still hoped the voice on the other end of the line would belong to Danny.

A smaller part of her thought that, maybe, the voice would be Danielle's, that she would've simply gotten the number from Danny himself.

The rest of her knew perfectly well that if Danny or Danielle were calling someone in the family instead of one of Danny's friends, it would be Jazz.

Still, that knowledge didn't stop her heart from breaking a little more when the voice on the other end of the line didn't belong to either of them.