ADELINE'S lips pursed together. She couldn't fit the pieces to the puzzle. As she watched the footage, she felt an odd feeling stir within her instincts.

Why did Jasper act the way he did?

Why did he grab Geoffrey like that?

Why didn't he do more?

All questions, and more, piled up in her head as she observed the film from the street camera; she had them written down on a pad beside herself.

At one point in the footage, Adeline studied the stranger drive away with Geoffrey. The pixels were too blurry when she zoomed in on the license plate, but that wasn't what caught her interest. She would freeze the film and stare at the ghost vehicle with an air of blankness. The car reminded her of the recent dream that she had moments ago about Chris.

None of her dreams ever came true, not like Joseph in the Bible, albeit she wished some of her remarkable ones suchlike flying had, but this one for some reason frightened her right to her core. And never had she woken up from a dream with sweat on her temple, and brow.

Adeline was beginning to classify the dream as more of a freaky nightmare, than anything else.

The journalist didn't know how long she had sat on the couch watching the tape, both pillows piled under her laptop to act as a table. She was torn away from observing Geoffrey being taken by the stranger all in black, to the bedroom door slowly creeping open, and a sleepy Mr. Evans walking out. He was rubbing one eye when she looked away from her laptop, and over at him.

Adeline waited for him to shut the door behind himself and turn around, before she snapped, "Hey." Which caused the actor to freeze in his steps.

In return, and a bit bemused, he asked, "What?" And ran his fingers through his tousled hair.

"You're supposed to be sleeping longer than that."

"What do you mean?" Chris enquired of her, and drowsily looked at the journalist with knitted brows. The way he had brought across the question, was as if he thought she was harping on him for a ridiculous thing. He nearly said, "What do you want woman?" then realized that probably wouldn't be his wises choice of words to use on her, especially after the past events that took place in the living room.

What is wrong with you Chris? he asked himself. She's not your sister, or girlfriend. You just met her for heaven's sake, and you're already becoming too comfortable around her.

She tapped her index finger on her wrist, actually tapping it on the face of her watch, and a little tink tink was heard in the quiet space of the room as she did so. "That was so not an hour." She narrowed her eyes up at him.

Chris huffed. "Actually it was mother. It's twelve thirty," he concluded, whilst dramatically placing his hands on each of his hips.

Adeline frantically pulled back her shirt's sleeve for her watch to check the time, and her mouth dropped. "I've been sitting here for an hour?" Her eyes bulged in disbelief, although she had to believe it, the time didn't lie. Gradually she glanced back up at Chris and innocently smiled. "Sorry," she quietly squeaked. He shook his head and walked away, but not before she saw the smirk elevate his mouth.

The crinkling sound of a plastic water bottle hit Adeline's ears. She kept her eyes on her laptop's screen as Chris grabbed his water, one that he had brought with him when he first entered into the hotel. She further ignored his presence when he re-entered the living room, leaving his bottled water on the small kitchen island.

Without looking up at him, she asked, "Do you want something to drink? I'm afraid it'll be tea again, not really something that would wake one up." She softly laughed.

Stuffing his hands in his jean's pockets, he angled his eyes down at her and smirked. "I think I'll pass, or just get us some coffee at the diner?"

Her face light up, forgetting that the diner they had just eaten at was open twenty four seven. "If you want," was all she said.

Chris continued to flash his smile, feeling as though there was a tiny hint in her words that she did want him to get the coffee. "I'll get us some. So, what's the update?" he asked, and ambled past the coffee table in front of the couch, and sat on the opposite side of her stack of pillows that held up her laptop.

Adeline immediately removed everything and set the laptop on the coffee table. "Well I watched the footage," she explained, and put back both pillows in their rightful place—throwing the latter one lightly at Chris. "I'm no parent, nor do I have kids," Adeline told, "but I find it most fishy how Jasper acts, when his son's being abducted."

"How so?" he asked. He hugged the pillow she tossed to him, and flickered his eyes to the screen of her laptop, then back to her.

"I got thinking if this was my child, and they were being taken from me on the spot, I'd fight tooth and nail against my attacker, nearly to the point of death or severe injury." Adeline reached out for her laptop to rewind the footage for Chris to watch, and as she did, she continued with her explanation.

"Something appeared off—strange, which is how Jasper handled himself, how I felt Jasper....well," she paused and shrugged her shoulders, as if she disbelieved what she was about to say next. "How I felt Jasper almost knew his son was going to be abducted and lets it happen, that he wasn't much afraid or shocked. He didn't really show signs of a distressed parent. I know that sounds odd, and I too am in disbelief when I say it, but just watch and tell me if I'm wrong."

She hoped she was.

Having never been in a situation where she felt so vulnerable, she certainly knew that she would have fought her attacker for her child, especially if they were taken right in front of her. No matter the circumstance.

"Was there ever a ransom demanded?" Chris questioned after watching the footage. He never said anything about Jasper's actions in the video, but something bothered him, the obviousness of that was written all over his face, between the crease of his eyebrows, and his lips thinly pulled together.

She shook her head before she said, "No, there wasn't, at least not that I know of."

"I wonder why the abductor didn't ask for a ransom." Chris' brows grew together more tightly as the situation unfolded with more mystery, then clues. "Were they working alone?"

Adeline closed her laptop's lid and paused to think. "I think so." This time it was her own eyebrows that crinkled together in perplexity. "Lance said they were never able to find them, and they figured the stranger worked alone, because if they wanted a ransom, they never heard from them or anyone if they had help. So Lance suspected the person was a non-family member who had to have known the kid. Either that." She yawned. "Or Geoffery's kidnapper killed him. And when children are kidnapped, statistics reveal that over 40% of the incidents end with the death of the child."

Chris hoped that wasn't the case, or the outcome for little Geoffrey. But what did Chris put his hope in? The hope that he may still be alive? After five years? His eyes lingered on Adeline for a bit, who was staring off into space at the coffee table, and wondered what she put her hope in.

The thought bothered him.

He blinked and removed his eyes off her, to his hands in his lap. The journalist yawned yet again, alerting Chris and bringing a smile to the man's handsome face. "I think you need to take another nap." Chris joked, and that knee buckling smirk reached his mouth. She smiled back but then looked away quickly.

For a few minutes she remained in a mute state, staring off into the land of nothingness at the wall. All of a sudden, she had broken away from that sleepy trance and stared across from the actor, then looked away again. "Chris, can I ask you something," she finally spoke out.

"Shoot." He realized she was using his first name. The actor didn't know when that started to happen, but he enjoyed hearing the use of his name come from her tone of voice, and how the letters curved and formed her lips. Not that he was looking directly there, of course.

Adeline bit her bottom lip before asking, "Did you always want to be an actor?"

Chris' eyebrows creased together and his eyes drifted to his thighs. The palm of one hand slid down the limb. "No, actually." This prompt the journalist to ask the obvious, but Chris beat her before she could get a word out. "I wanted to be an artist, whether it was drawing or painting. Being an animator for Disney was something in particular that caught my fancy."

"When did you start acting?"

"Well I started really in the first grade," he told, then a smile appeared, one that had a memory behind the gentle gesture. "It was all really because of my older sister Carly, who started performing. I soon followed suit and began appearing in school plays. After so many plays in regional theater I finally moved to New York, attending the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute."

"Did you like it there?" Adeline asked, and readjusted her position on the couch by laying an arm across the back of the furniture, and resting her head in the palm of her hand. She pulled her legs up and turned her whole body to face him.

"It was nice." He shrugged. "Lets just say, on advice from some of my friends, that I landed an internship at a casting office, and befriended a couple of agents where I regularly communicated with—one of whom later took me on as a client."

Adeline's brows heaved. "Impressive," she said. "You wanna work that charm of yours to sway my boss to give me more payed vacation days?"

Chris laughed, and played along as he said, "I'll see what I can do." A genuine grin broke out on his mouth.

For some time the silence enveloped the two of them, until Adeline asked the one question that consistently nagged at her mind. "Chris," she called out softly.

"Ya?"

"You said you believed in the philosophies of Buddhism..." she stopped herself. Was she prepared, in her weary condition, to ask the following question? She was about to find out real quick. "Would you consider yourself to be a good person?"

She finally flickered her eyes up at him, and noticed how hard he thought, probably was collecting the proper words in his head before spitting them out. Adeline hoped she hadn't made the actor feel like he was at another one of his interviews, considering she was a journalist.

"Well, I wouldn't say I'm perfect, I'm only human and trying to do good, and do good to others. So yes, I'd think so."

Adeline showed a knowing smile, but also a cheeky one. "Mind if I run through a test with you, to find out if you are?"

Chris casually shrugged. "Sure, I don't mind."

Not yet, Adeline thought to herself.

"Do you think you have kept the Ten Commandments?"

This had him turn in his spot on the couch to fully face her, as he laid an arm across the back of the furniture, and tucked his right leg under his left one. "Maybe not to the extent of some, but I think I have. For example, I've never murdered anyone." He chuckled, which in turn had her laugh.

"That's good to know, I wouldn't want to be sitting next to a murderer." She smiled, looked over his shoulder and cleared her throat. "Okay, so then," she continued and pinned her eyes back on him. "Lets take a look at a few and see. Have you ever told a lie?"

His brows scrunched together, and she carefully observed every bit of detail in his expressions. "Oh..." he paused. "Probably. I can't remember."

"What does that make you?"

"Someone that tells lies." His shoulders shrugged.

Adeline's smile didn't quite reach her eyes when she hinted at the answer. "It starts with an 'L.'"

"Uhh," he started, "lair?"

She nodded her head. "Have you ever stolen anything—regardless of its value either?" A loose strand of Adeline's auburn hair, left down in its wavy curls, fell and she tucked the piece back behind her ear.

Chris watched her, but was thinking about the question, then grinned. "If taking my brother's toy dinosaur when we were kids counts, then yes."

She threw back her head and laughed. "Okay," she said, slowly containing herself, "what does that make you?"

"Human." She arched a brow and he quickly defended himself by saying, "We were kids."

"I asked regardless of its value. Did you know it was wrong?" she asked.

"Yes of course," he replied.

"What does that make you?" When it became apparent to Adeline that Chris carried on avoiding the truth, she changed the tides. "If I stole something of yours, what does that make me?"

Immediately Chris answered, "A thief." His facial expression then soften and he nodded in understanding. "Okay, you got me."

"I want you to know that it's not my intent to 'get you' or 'stump you' in anything, I'm only trying to bring across the truth of the Ten Commandments," she earnestly said. Her hazel eyes were full of sincere gentleness and compassion for the actor. She gazed down at her legs and breathed, rubbing a sweaty hand along her knee. She thought after several times of witnessing before, she'd be used to evangelizing by now. "Jesus said, 'Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.' Have you ever looked at someone with lust?"

His heart stopped for a second, blush rose to each of his cheeks. Quick as lightning, he swerved his eyes away from her. "Oh man." He chuckled. Adeline's eyes soon drifted to his chest and shoulders as they heaved, when he inhaled a breath and exhaled the air.

"I," she began, "take that as a yes?" She laughed uneasily.

Shyly he blinked over at her, smirked, and rubbed a hand behind his neck. "Oh ya."

Heat rose up the back of Adeline's neck. She froze up and swallowed. She had always found this part of witnessing uneasy, especially with men. That's why she liked women witnessing to other women, and vise versa. But she was already knee deep in the pool of evangelism, there was no reason to turn back now, specially when his soul was literally on the line here.

Clearing her throat, and finding her tongue dry, she smiled as perky as she could in such an awkward moment. Chris' intense gaze wasn't helping her concentration in the least. "Chris, I'm not judging you, but by your own admission you're a lying thief, and adulterer at heart, and we've only looked at three of the Ten Commandments. If God judges you by the Ten Commandments on the Day of Judgment, will you be innocent or guilty?" Her heart thumped a little quicker.

He blew out from his lips like a horse and scratched his head. "Well if there will be a Day of Judgment, I'd be guilty."

"Would you go to heaven or hell?"

He blinked, thought for a bit and finally blurted, "Hell I guess."

"Does that concern you?"

The actor took a second to think again until he responded quite seriously, "Yes, it does."

"It greatly concerns me too." Her upper lip twitched to the side as she drew a tender smile. "Can I tell you some great news?" she posed, and saw in his eyes as they sparkled in the dim lighting from a tall night lamp in the room, that he waited for her to tell him. "Two thousand years ago, a man suffered and died on a cross for the whole word's sin, then rose on the third day, all so that you and I would have a way to have eternal life and not be sent to hell. That Man was God's Son, Jesus Christ. All we have to do in order to receive this salvation, is to repent, turn from our sin, and put our faith in Jesus Christ our Saviour."

"Chris we all deserve hell because we have broken God's perfect, and holy Law. James 2:10 says that, 'For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.' So you see, no one has kept the Ten Commandments, and that is why I too am a sinner in need of Christ. I've broken the Law as well. I've stolen, I've lied, I've committed adultery in my heart, I've murdered—"

"And you're sitting next to me?" Chris interrupted, and pointed his index finger between them.

She giggled and shook her head. "No you goof, not physically but in my heart. Jesus said that if you merely call your brother a fool, you are in danger of judgment, and the Bible says if you've ever hated anyone, you are a murderer in God's eyes. You see Chris, God does not simply judge actions, He knows the intentions of the heart."

"Christopher," she continued and set a hand on his lap. "I care about you, and so many more non-believers out there. I care where you go and want everyone to go to heaven, that is why I am telling you this. Do you understand what I've been saying?"

She didn't get a chance to hear if he did, for her phone pinged and scared both of them. Grumbling audibly, she said a quick "Sorry" to him and checked her phone. The second she finished reading the text message from Lance, her body went chilly.

Lance: Lillian's ex just left town.