To ever one who couldn’t bear to leave Miss Parker and the others ‘in the dark’, I hope this satisfies. As usual, only NBC (lucky devils) can lay claim to any of the characters but the ideas are mostly mine.
Jarod threw the mobile phone down onto his bed as he passed and stared out of the window, seeing nothing of what passed before him. Moving over to the kitchenette, he reached into the fridge and withdrew a can of Dr Pepper. The ringing of the phone sent the can onto the floor, where it sat, gently rocking, as Jarod leapt for the receiver.
"Sydney? Is that you?"
"Jarod? No. It’s me, Nicholas. Why? What’s going on?"
"Sydney should...oh, never mind. It’s not...What’s up?"
"Did I leave my wallet in your car? I haven’t been able to find it since I got home."
"I’ll have a look and call you back."
"Okay, sure. Take your time. It’s not that important but I’d like to know where it is."
"Sure thing."
Jarod hurriedly disconnected the call and tried Sydney’s number again. A sigh of relief broke from his lips as the dial tone switched to a ringing sound in his ear, and he resumed his pacing as he waited for the call to be answered.
******
Miss Parker stretched out her hand in the dark and, as she made contact with another figure, she hastily withdrew. Trying to rise, she heard the crack of her head on the underside of Sydney’s desk, where she had flung herself only an instant before Lyle had pulled the trigger, and then she felt the pain which the knock caused her and swore under her breath. Wriggling to the side, she stood up and tried to perceive anything through the black, silent room. The artificial windows, which only let in artificial light and which had also gone off when the power was cut, were no help. With a frustrated groan, she gave up and tried to work out if she had been injured by Lyle’s gunshots. Realising that she was physically all right, she felt her way around the walls of the room until she reached the door and pulled it open. The darkness of the hallway merged with the darkness of the office and made no difference.
Sydney picked himself up from the corner of the room where he had flung himself when Lyle had moved the muzzle away from him and had aimed it at Miss Parker’s head. Stretching out his left arm, Sydney was able to reach the small, portable, battery-operated lamp which stood on the table near him and carefully switched it on. Instantly a small, yellow glow filled the room and Sydney, who had used his right hand to remove a small pistol from his trouser pocket, looked around to try and find Lyle. An open vent clearly showed the method used by Lyle during his escape and Sydney realised, as he pocketed the pistol, that he could do nothing more about that. Instead he turned to look for Broots and Miss Parker.
Broots stood and, blinking in the dim light, he too stared around for Miss Parker. She had disappeared into the hallway in search, Sydney guessed, of someone she could blame for everything which had happened and Sydney hoped, fervently that she wouldn’t meet....oops! Judging by the yelling, Miss Parker had met her new step-mother first of all! He grinned ruefully at Broots, who had taken out his hanky and was mopping the beads of sweat from his face and head. As Sydney was about to say something consoling, the overhead lights flickered once and switched themselves on. At the same time, the alarm system was set off, making speech impossible, so Sydney merely clapped Broots on the shoulder and sent him out into the hall, thus stopping the younger man from realising how much Sydney was still suffering from the activities of the past few minutes. Then he sat at his desk and, one finger stuffed in his right ear to block out the noise, reached over for the phone.
"This is Sydney."
"Finally!"
"Jarod? I’ve never heard you this concerned!"
"Well, actually, I was more worried that my phone wasn’t working. Are you okay?"
"We all are. Luckily, as soon as Lyle pulled the trigger...."
"....the power went off. I know." Sydney shook his head, amazed again that Jarod somehow always knew what was occurring. In the stunning silence which came as the sirens were switched off, Sydney was able to concentrate more on what Jarod was saying. "Is Lyle gone?"
"Do you really think he’d be able to stay around after that? No, he used your favourite method of escape. So I guess things can finally go back to normal."
"I guess so." When Sydney heard the dial tone in his ear, he hung up the phone.
Miss Parker sat behind her desk and openly gloated. In her first forty-eight hours back in charge of the search for Jarod she had uncovered five strong leads on his whereabouts, more than Lyle had done in his whole time on top. She glanced through the mail at her right hand and pulled out a small package. As Sydney entered her office she waved it in his direction and rummaged in her desk for her paper knife.
"What’s in it?"
"How should I know? Does it look as though I’ve opened it?" She ripped it open and shook out a parcel wrapped in tissue paper. With a vigorous movement, she ripped the paper off and stared at the pair of dark-rimmed glasses as they sat on her desk, gently rocking.
"Damn it! These puzzles are getting more frustrating the longer he’s out there!" She glared at Sydney, who was still looking with a curious expression at the spectacles.
"Well, what is it, Syd?"
"This." He picked up the frames and looked at Miss Parker. "Do you happen to remember what he sent in the last parcel?"
"Nicholas? I’m sorry but I couldn’t find your wallet. Are you sure you didn’t leave it somewhere else?"
"I don’t know." The young man stood and walked to the edge of the porch, looking out over the garden. A grin broke over his face as he saw Kerri coming up the path towards him.
"Hi!"
"Hi Nick."
"I didn’t, by any chance, leave my wallet at your place, did I?"
"No, you would have put it on the bench in your kitchen and I’ll bet you knocked it off when you were looking for something else."
As Kerri sat down and began chatting to Jarod, Nicholas went into the house, only to reappear seconds later with the wallet in his hand and an amazed expression on his face. "How did you know that? Are you psychic or something?"
"Of course not. I just know you by now, that’s all."
Jarod looked confused. "Psychic? That sounds like something footballer players do."
"No, Jarod." Kerri laughed. "Psychic people have the ability to read people’s minds. There was something about that in the paper that Nick read to me yesterday. Do you have it here?" she queried and Nicholas went inside the house and re-emerged with the paper. He opened the pages to the classified section and showed Jarod the relevant ad.
"Here, see. People pay them a certain sum of money and they tell them what’s going to happen in their lives."
"Load of crap!"
"What?" The two men turned and stared at Kerri, who grinned again as she answered. "Well it is. I mean, find your star sign, Jarod, and just tell me how accurate it is."
"My...what?"
"Your star sign. It depends on when you were born - I mean the month and the date."
A pained look passed across Jarod’s face briefly but he hid it. "Your star sign for that day or week or whatever will tell you something about what is happening or what’s going to happen. Here...you were born in...?"
"In? Um...September."
"Early or late?"
"Oh...early."
"Okay, Virgo. ‘People are depending on you every which way you turn lately, and it’s important not to lose sight of the bigger picture. For the next few weeks attempts to ignore those needy people around you and decide which steps need to be taken to take you to the next level.’ See? Stupid. Vague as all get out and not even any real use. As though anyone is going to turn away from people who really need them. Especially not you."
"What’s wrong with someone just trying to make a little money by fooling gullible people? ‘A fool and his money.’ you know the saying."
"Because they don’t make little money. They make a lot of money. After I first got out of hospital, I had calls all the time from all over the country about people who would come and tell my fortune and all I had to do was to send such and such an amount of money to this address and come to this place with this much and make a section in my will to leave this much. It was as though I was stupid as well as blind."
"You mean that they cheat people out their money by pretending to know stuff about them? But why do people believe them?"
"These people are usually pretty convincing. They say things which can be interpreted in different ways. And most of the things that they do say are phrased like questions and people inadvertently answer them and tell the psychics more than they mean to. Mostly, though, psychics are just people with a little bit more understanding than the rest of us. They can guess by body language or expressions what’s right or wrong. And a few decades ago they were burned as witches because of having special powers which scared people. So I guess they’re trying to make up for it now!"
Jarod turned a startled face to her angry one. "And they get away with this?"
"Every day of the week."