Chapter 19
Swallowing a lump in his throat, Hardison made his way down the hall toward his two 'vacant' apartments somewhat nervously. He needed to find Parker, and wondered if anyone might have seen her. He knew Eliot was looking for her, too, and the man wasn't in a very good mood. Just as he approached that part of the hallway, Eliot stormed out of one of the apartments, muttering under his breath, and as he brushed against the hacker, he said, "Damn it, Hardison" and continued on down the hall.
Hardison stared after him for a moment, trying to decide what was going on. Doc, who came out a moment after Eliot did, said, "If you are looking for Parker, she's over here." She then disappeared through the door of the apartment she was using as her makeshift office. Hardison stood in the hallway, lost in a sea of conflicting feelings. He knew that if Parker was with Doc she was in good hands—there was no question about that. He had also had cause to do some work of his own with Doc in the past, and he still wasn't completely sure how he felt about interacting with her. He always had the feeling that she was watching him. He took a deep breath, and letting out a sigh, followed her into the room.
As he started to move through the door, he felt a strong arm barring him from coming in any further. Glancing to his left, he saw Doc, standing still as a statue, watching the scene unfolding before her. As he looked to see what she was looking at, he froze. Parker was standing in front of her chair, staring across at another woman, looking as though she wanted to run away, and at the same time, rooted to the spot.
"I see you've met Rachel," Doc said, quietly. There was no answer. Finally, Parker spoke.
"How did you get here? I thought you were dead."
"No, although I thought so too, for a while."
"What did they do to you?"
Rachel looked down at the floor and didn't answer. Parker didn't press the issue. A silence fell over the two of them.
Doc moved further into the room, a signal to Hardison that he could do the same.
"Let's get this over with, Rachel. Come on over here." For the first time, Hardison noticed an area of the room partitioned off by a curtain. Woodenly, Rachel followed Doc behind the curtain. When she was gone, Parker sat back down on the cot she was on before.
Hardison sat down in a chair across from her, making an effort not to eavesdrop on the quiet conversation taking place behind the partition. Feeling a bit like he was intruding, a feeling which wasn't helped by the fact that Parker had failed to acknowledge his presence and refused to look at him, he considered leaving and looking for her later, but then he remembered why he was there, and he spoke up.
"I brought the age regressions."
"What?"
"The age regressions you asked for…I finished them." He held up the small stack of papers in his hand.
"Well, let's see them," she said, reaching for them. She flipped through the papers slowly, one by one, staring at them for a long time. Finally, she shook her head and said, "I'm sorry. I just don't recognize anybody from these pictures. What about the drawings I did with Lee and Eliot? Did you try to match them up?"
He nodded. "We did. We got some names. You and me, we talked about this, but you were still a little out of it from where Eliot had given you some medicine for your injuries, so you might not remember."
"Well, what were the names?"
"Andrew Lance and David Kelly."
"Hmm. Neither rings a bell."
Rachel moved back in front of the curtain at that moment, followed by Doc, who looked at Hardison and said, "Will you escort Rachel back to your offices and help her settle in? Your Mr. Ford will be expecting her. Tell Nathan I'll stop by to see him later."
Hardison nodded and squeezed Parker's hand. She smiled a sad smile at him, and watched him leave. When they were alone again, Doc looked at Parker and said, "How do you know Rachel?"
"The men who abducted me kept her in the place I stayed, for a day or so, until they saw her talking to me. Then, she disappeared, and I thought they had killed her. I figured they'd kill me too, if I didn't find a way to escape."
"Men? Are you certain they were men?"
"Yes."
"Okay. That's a good place to start. Can you describe these men?"
"One was really tall and skinny, and very pale, like he was sick or something. He had a scraggly beard and long, stringy hair. The other one was shorter, more muscular and tanned. He had dirty blond hair and a moustache and goatee."
"And there were only the two?" Doc asked.
"That's all I ever saw. Although," she said, pausing as if this had just occurred to her, "there had to be at least one other person because they transported us in a large truck, and the two of them were in the back with all of us—someone had to drive the truck."
"So what's the story with you and Gabby?"
"She was brought in to where we were being kept, beaten and bloody. She was unconscious when she was there, and when she didn't come to immediately, they took her out again. Awhile later, they brought her back in where we were, and beat her again in front of us—I guess they wanted to show us what happened to people who tried to escape. She was mostly conscious at that point, and I couldn't leave her behind. I could see that someone had treated her injuries, and some of the bandages looked like Eliot's handiwork, so I tried to find out what she knew. When they saw us together, they beat us both pretty badly.
"After they left us alone, I got us both out of there. We got halfway back here to the offices, and she collapsed. That's how I hurt my knees—I half dragged her half carried her back here. I couldn't take a chance that they'd come after us when they discovered us missing, and I didn't want to face the team until I started feeling better, so I got her through the window and then I hid in the air duct. I must have passed out in there because the next thing I knew I was in Eliot's treatment room, in the offices."
"I'm guessing Hardison brought those age regressions he was working on?"
Parker nodded.
"No hits, huh?"
Parker shook her head.
"Are you ready to try it my way?"
"Yes."
"All right then. Our brains know much more than we give them credit for knowing. You've said you feel you knew this person from a time before the team. We'll let your brain try to connect the dots for you. Close your eyes."
Parker closed her eyes and waited for Doc to speak. "Picture the man you saw that you think you know in your mind. See every detail of his face. When you've done so, focus on his image, and clear your mind of anything else."
Parker focused in on his picture in her mind. She fought to clear her mind of everything else. One image flashed across her mind for a single moment, hardly tangible, before it fluttered away.
A small, blonde girl, no more than nine or ten years old, sitting in the driver's seat of a parked car, waiting for the man with her to come out. He rushes out toward her, throws himself over the hood, and wrenches open the passenger side door. He dives inside as the bullets ring out, slamming the door closed behind him.
"Go! Go! Go!" he yells, and she punches down on the accelerator, enjoying the surge of the car going faster. This is a game to her—a real life video game, of the type she used to play at some of the foster homes she stayed in—and she plans to win. She hears police sirens behind her, and smiles, knowing she is now on the next level of the game. She must find a place to hide them, or he'll go to jail and she'll go back into the system. She turns down an alley, and then another, and still another, until she can't see the lights or hear the sirens behind her anymore. She ducks into a parking deck, parks the car, and they split up. It is too dangerous to stay together. They'll meet up later, at a pre-arranged meeting place. That's protocol. That way lies safety.
A twelve year old girl, wearing greasy overalls several sizes too large, with blondish pigtails, streaked with grease, stands in front of a car, with the hood up, looking underneath. She reaches in, fiddles with something, and withdraws her hand a few moments later, sucking on her finger and hissing in pain. When she is standing clear of the car, he gives her a thumbs up, cranks it, and rolls the window down.
"Nice work. Get in. When we get back to our place, I'll give you some ice for that finger."
She climbed in and they sped off into the night.
They had made their home in an abandoned warehouse, so there was plenty of room for the small group of people that camped there every night. She had fixed an old, worn out mattress they'd found somewhere with a scrap of blanket, to protect herself from the rats. The young man with her slept at her head, and others slept at her feet. It was safer that way.
When they got there, he looked at her finger, but she wouldn't let him give her any ice for it. The others were watching, and they'd have something to say about it later if she did. Besides, she was too tough to let a burned finger bother her.
They were prowling the downtown streets, looking for those who were closing the bars. Generally, they were too drunk to notice kids hanging around past curfew, and they often left their cars unlocked. A red Camaro sat in its parking place, practically screaming that its owner was loaded. She could only hope he was loaded in more ways than one. She touched the door handle. It was locked.
"Slide the slim jim in there, until you find the lock. No, don't stab at it." In a matter of moments, she had the door unlocked. She never heard the sirens behind her, and by the time she did, the boy with her was gone, and the police were walking toward her.
"Kelly," she said sadly, as they handcuffed her and put her in the back of the patrol car.
Suddenly, another scene popped into her mind, one much more recent. It was while she was working with the team, and she and Hardison were infiltrating Lefty's crew. Hardison had asked her how she became a car thief. She had told him all about Kelly and how he had used her as bait for the police.
"I spent six months in juvie, and I never saw Kelly again," she had told Hardison.
(0o0)
Parker had an expression of sadness, anger, and terror in equal measure on her face. Her eyes were still closed.
"Parker? Is everything okay?" Parker opened her eyes when Doc spoke to her. She started to nod and stopped herself, wiping a tear from her eye as she did so. She looked around the room absently, for a long moment, as though she couldn't quite get her bearings. Finally, she said quietly, "I think I know who the men are who abducted me that day and why."