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At Oceanside Hospital in Sunnyvale, California, Dr. Jarod "Pearce" is preparing to leave after exposing Dr. Charles Mitchell for the Panalex overdose murder of a hospital administrator.

When George Harper is brought into the emergency room, Jarod finds that George's son, Patrick, has been kidnapped. Harper was trying to get to a phone booth at the corner of Myrtle and Lime by 4:00 p.m. to take the kidnappers call, when he was hit by a car. It's 3:55 PM. Taking the kidnapper's note, the picture of Patrick that was attached to it, and the keys to Harper's Range Rover, Jarod runs to the phone booth, arriving just in time to receive the call.

Assuming that Jarod is George Harper, the kidnapper demands two million dollars by the same time tomorrow. Jarod agrees to cooperate and pleads, "Please don't hurt my son." Behind the phone book is a cell phone, which the kidnapper says he'll use to call with the details about delivering the money.

Jarod knows that Miss Parker and her team will shortly be arriving, and that he should leave, but the plight of George Harper and his son, Patrick, causes Jarod to flash back to several events from his own youth ... the night he was abducted by The Centre ... his mother giving him a "Bonanza" lunch box, shortly before he was abducted ... and Jarod stays to help get the boy safely home, where he belongs.

Working with Manny Alomar, George Harper's head of security, Jarod races against the clock to find Patrick and avoid being caught by Miss Parker. Just as Jarod discovers where Patrick is being held -- and that the kidnapper plans to kill the child as soon as the ransom is paid -- his luck runs out and he is cornered by a gun-wielding Miss Parker. No amount of pleading will change her mind -- she's willing to let Patrick die in order to get Jarod back to The Centre. In the confusion that follows when Willie tries to take Jarod away from Miss Parker and her team, Jarod is able to get free long enough to make a daring escape.

Moments before he kills Patrick, Jarod attacks the kidnapper and frees Patrick from the warehouse at which he is being held. The kidnapper and the head of security for the Hayvenhurst School are both arrested.

Back in George Harper's room at the hospital, Jarod helps Patrick put the last piece on the 3-D puzzle of the Empire State Building that he built with his father.

Broots discovers that Jarod was an employee of Clarkston Pharmaceuticals for three weeks, a company in which Mr. Raines is a major stockholder. Mr. Raines threatens to notify the Triumvirate that Sydney has been receiving telephone calls from Jarod. Sydney argues that his conversations with Jarod are nothing new and that they keep Jarod from disappearing, and Miss Parker shocks Sydney by agreeing with Mr. Raines that Sydney shouldn't be taking Jarod's calls. Mr. Raines insists that Willie accompany Miss Parker's team to Sunnyvale. Back at the Centre after their failed attempt to capture Jarod, Sydney informs Mr. Raines that his official report is going to say that Miss Parker caught Jarod and that it was Willie who botched her attempt to return Jarod to The Centre.