Chapter 15

Jake, Starr, Stacie, and Josh were sitting around Jake’s apartment reading the Roman Times while waiting for his friends to show up. Suddenly Josh spoke up “I think I may have found her.” “Go ahead, we’re listening.” Starr and the rest waited for him to continue.
“ ‘An unidentified female was apprehended early yesterday morning, in the orange district. She was booked and charged with trespassing on private property and traveling with out identification. The suspect is described as being a young female between the ages of 18 and 25. She claims that ..’ Oh never mind that can’t be her.”
“Why not?“ Starr asked. “That sounded like a pretty good description of her.”
“Well the girl says her name is Mary Cooper. Not Jenn Srauski.”
“Oh, well,” Starr looked a little dejected.
“We’ll just have to keep looking,” Stacie said cheerfully, “We’ll find her eventually.”
The four of them went back to waiting and reading the newspaper. Just then they heard a knock on the wall. Jake‘s neighbor yelled through the door. “Somebody at the fire escape is looking for you.”
“Coming.” Jake yelled as he went to go get them. When he got up Starr started to get up and look around the room. “So, does anybody have any idea how Jake‘s friends are going to help us?” asked Josh.’
“No, not really. Following Jake is like being in the military except that the job actually gets done and he doesn’t shoot you for asking questions. It kinda helps to be related to him.” Jenn answered.
“Yeah, well that‘s not going to do us much good.”

Jake looked at the poster on the ceiling. “Those people look awfully familiar,” he thought. “Sure wish I could read what their shirts said.” He stared at it for a moment and gave up. “Boy am I hungry,” he said aloud. Just then, Jake came back in, followed by two other guys, both of whom had brought pizza. One was tall and looked to be in his early thirties, the other was roughly college age. The former was wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants, and the latter was wearing a green shirt with the phrase “There is a Bob” much like the one Jake was wearing.
After everyone got some food and started eating, Jake introduced everyone. “This is John,” Jake said, referring to the older one, “and this is Robert. John and Robert this is Starr, Stacie, and Josh. “So, we should probably get started looking for Jenn.”
There was an awkward silence for a few minutes. Robert and John sat down. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone to do something. Finally Starr spoke up. “Does anyone have any idea how we are going to find her?”
“Well,” said, John “ Jake told us that you were looking through the paper. Did anybody find anything?”
“I thought I did, but no.. nobody did,” Josh answered.
“Yeah, I didn’t think that would get us anywhere.” John said.
“Did you talk to any of your contacts at C.E.W.L, Robert?” asked Jake.
“Not yet, I did post a message on the message board at M.L.C. and asked if anyone had heard of a girl wandering around without proper I.D.”
After this the group began to open up and soon learned a few things. First of all Robert was John’s uncle. The whole discussion sort of digressed into a discussion about how ridiculous and improbable this was. But, never the less it was true. They did learn that Robert had found two leads, one who was last seen in the slop house district and the other who had been thrown out of an art gallery in the orange district. John also had some contacts at C.E.W.L. that he was going to try to get a hold of.
“So, everyone’s clear then, John and Robert will go track down his contacts, Stacie and Josh will check the slop houses and art gallery, and Starr..” explained Jake.
“Yes?”
“You and I will check the hospitals and police stations.”
“When should we be back here?” asked Starr.
“John, Stacie, and I have phones so we’ll all keep in touch that way. If anyone finds anything, they need to immediately let the others know. As you know curfew begins at 11 so we don’t have much time.”
Josh looked at the clock and realized that it was already 6:30. “That clears up Star’s question,” Josh thought.
“Hmm, a curfew,” thought Starr. “I don’t think I’m going to like this town much. But Jake, very interesting.”
They split up and went on their separate ways.