Megan heard traffic over the phone connection. "Where are you?"

"Just a few minutes from the base," Joey said. "I'm on my way to pick up Chris."

"Thank you, Joey. I appreciate that a lot."

He was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there for him."

"You can be there for him now," she said. "That's the important thing. I don't know when I'm going to be home, and I really didn't want him waking up in a child-care facility."

"I got it covered, Mom." Some of the hesitation and guilt faded from Joey's voice.

Megan knew that was because he was in his element as oldest child. He had a task and a responsibility. "Thank you, Joey." She stared at the muscle car where the three young men talked. From their haircuts, she deduced that they were soldiers.

"Have you heard anything about Goose?" Joey asked.

Megan had to halt herself from automatically correcting her son and telling him to refer to Goose as his dad. For a while, before Chris had been born, Joey had started calling Goose "Dad," but that had gone away within weeks after Chris's birth.

"I haven't heard anything," Megan replied.

Joey was silent for a moment.

"Honey," Megan said, "I've really got to go. This is an emergency situation. I'll tell you about it in the morning. After tonight is over, I think I'd like to talk to someone about this."

"All right, Mom," Joey said. "You know I'm there for you."

Both of them, Megan was certain, felt uncomfortable with that customary response after the missed curfew tonight. "I love you, Joey."

"I know, Mom." He hesitated just long enough for her to know that he wasn't alone. "I love you, too. I'll see you whenever you get home. If I'm not there by the time you need to get to school-"

"I'll get The Squirt off and get myself to school," Joey said. "Promise."

"You still have lunch money?"

"Yes, Mom." The exasperated tone in his voice told her that she'd just stepped into one of those child/adult potholes that made the journey through the teen years so rocky for the parents and children.

Megan curbed her own response. Pointing out that Joey hadn't been adult enough to hit his curfew would have done no good and only destroyed the good rapport they'd had up till that moment. Until they could both be adults in the relationship, she had to be the one.

"I'll try to be home as soon as I can," she said. "I'll call in the morning if I can't be there. So Chris can talk to me."

"Okay, Mom."

Megan said good-bye and broke the connection. She halted in the parking lot and flipped through her phone book index, stopping on Boyd and Tonya Fletcher's phone number. She punched the Talk button.

Six rings later, the phone was answered. The clanks and clunks that carried over the connection told Megan that the person who answered the phone was having a hard time.

"Hello," Tonya croaked in a sleep-filled voice.

"Tonya," Megan said, "this is Megan Gander." She paused to let the young woman take the information in. Even at her best, Tonya seemed a step behind the rest of the world. She had her hopes and dreams, but she didn't quite seem in touch with all the realities of her life.

"Come on, Mrs. Gander," Tonya protested. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes," Megan assured her. "There's been a problem, Tonya."

"What kind of problem?" Worry and anxiety filled Tonya's voice.

Megan heard the creak of the bed. She knew the younger woman was probably sitting up and only then learning that her husband wasn't there. The time was early for some of the bars and the after-hours clubs that remained open illegally.

"Can you tell me if Gerry is there?" Megan asked. "He's in his bedroom," Tonya said.

"Are you sure?"

"I put him to bed, Mrs. Gander. I should know where my own kid is."

Yes, Megan silently agreed, you should. Instead, she said, "Gerry was at the base hospital just a short time ago, Tonya."

"No way." Tonya sounded angry and confused at the same time.

"He's in his bed."

Megan listened to the change in the phone's pitch, knowing that Tonya Fletcher was walking through the house. She waited patiently, hoping that the woman was going to tell her that Gerry had returned home. If he had, Megan was content to let things at the Fletcher home gel for the moment and concentrate on getting Boyd Fletcher blocked from being around his son without proper supervision.

A moment later, Tonya's voice took on a note of hysteria. "He's not here, Mrs. Gander. He's not here. His bed is empty. Where did you say he was?"

"He was here at the base hospital," Megan replied as calmly as she could. If Gerry hadn't run home, where had he gone? He didn't have good friends at school, there were no other families or kids that Gerry talked about. Boyd Fletcher hadn't let his son get close to anyone else. Except for the base-assigned youth counselor who wasn't quite able to do her job well enough to save him.

"Where is Gerry now?" Tonya demanded.

"I don't know, Tonya," Megan admitted. "But we're going to find him."

"How could you lose my baby?" Tonya was sobbing now, the draining noise broken intermittently by hiccups.

"We didn't lose him," Megan said patiently. "He checked himself in for emergency care. He was treated, and he's fine. A couple bumps and bruises."

"He fell," Tonya said quickly. "He fell again. You know how clumsy he is, Mrs. Gander. He's always falling."

"We'll talk about that later."

"I've got to get off the phone," Tonya said. "I've got to call Boyd."

"Boyd's here," Megan said. She was conscious of the attention she was getting from the three young men in the muscle car.

One of them got out of the vehicle. The slim young black man wore gray sweat pants and a red muscle shirt that showed off tattoos on his deltoids. Megan couldn't be sure because of the uncertain light, but the tattoos looked like West Coast gang symbols, dark blue ink barely standing out against the ebony.

"Boyd's there?" Tonya's tone indicated that made no sense to her. "What is he doing there?"

"He came looking for Gerry."

"He knew Gerry was in the hospital?"

"I don't know how he knew Gerry was here," Megan replied. She filed the question away because it was a good one, and one that she wanted the answer to herself. "Boyd assaulted two of the security men at the hospital. He's been arrested."

"That ... that's crazy!"

"Tonya," Megan said. "I need you to listen to me." She spoke like she was talking to a child, like she was explaining to Chris why he couldn't watch some of the violent cartoons on the networks. "Can you listen to me, Tonya?"

"Sure. Sure, I guess. Did you have Boyd arrested?"

"No," Megan answered.

"Because you don't know what he can be like when he gets upset."

Megan thought about the damage she'd seen done to Gerry, how Boyd Fletcher had fought the two young Rangers. She figured she could guess how Boyd Fletcher was. "You don't have to worry about your husband for a while, Tonya. He's been taken to lockup. I'm going to need to talk to you."

"About what?"

"About what happened to Gerry tonight."

"Nothing happened to Gerry. He fell. I told you he fell."

"Then why didn't you bring him to the hospital?"

"He wasn't hurt bad."

"He came to the hospital," Megan pointed out. God, please help me here. Thank You for letting me know Joey is okay, but there's still Goose out there, and Gerry is lost. Please help me deal with this the right way.

"He was just overreacting," Tonya said defensively. "He knows how you like to baby him. He's probably just acting out to get your attention."

"Then he beat himself up severely to get my attention." Megan didn't mean to drop that on the woman, but she was beyond self-restraint and control. Where would an eleven-year-old boy run after seeing his father, the man-no, the thing-he most feared in the world, get hauled down by two Rangers? Gerry was still at a young age. He wouldn't believe that the two Rangers would be able to stop his father. He'd believe that Boyd Fletcher was like one of the monsters in the teen movies, the ones that just will not stop, cannot be killed. That was the kind of thing Gerry believed he was dealing with.

"No," Tonya said in a choked voice. "That's not true."

Megan took a deep breath. "I know it's not true, Tonya. I know what happened to Gerry. Now I need to know where he is."

"I don't know, Mrs. Gander. I really don't know." Tonya started sobbing again. "Help me. I don't know what to do."

"It's okay." Megan hated the guilt that she felt. While dealing with Gerry and his problems, it was easy to lose sight of the fact that there were two victims in the Fletcher household. "I'll tell you what you can do, Tonya."

"What?"

"Check the house," Megan instructed. "Maybe Gerry came back but he's not in his room. Maybe he's hiding there somewhere. Some secret place he has. Check outside the house. With everything that happened here tonight, he might be too scared to come in."

"He wouldn't be afraid of coming into his own house."

"He was pretty scared tonight, Tonya. I don't know for sure, but I think Boyd had been drinking."

"Maybe I should come down there and try to bail Boyd out."

"After what he did tonight," Megan said, "they're not going to let him out for a while. Trust me. You'll do more good there."

"Okay." Tonya sounded completely defeated.

"If you find Gerry," Megan told her, "call me immediately." She waited till Tonya found a pen and paper, then gave her the cell phone number. "If I find Gerry first, I'll call you." She punched the cell phone's End button.

The young black man stood nearby, giving the easy appearance of waiting patiently.

Megan looked at him, then turned and started to walk back to the hospital building.

"Ma'am," the young man called.

Calmly, Megan turned, punching 911 into the phone and slipping her thumb over the Talk button. If things went badly, she was a thumb twitch away from immediate help-theoretically. "Yes."

The young man crossed his arms over his chest and made no attempt to come closer. "I don't mean to alarm you, ma'am. Got a good friend inside about to have his first baby. I'm Private Trevor Newman. I'm with the 75th."

"Private," Megan said, "my husband is Sergeant Gander."

"Yes, ma'am. That's what I thought. I know Goose. I shoot hoops with him and Joey now and again at the gym. I've seen you there a couple times. You and your baby."

Those times hadn't been very often of late. "How can I help you, Private?"

"Actually, I thought it might be me was able to help you, ma'am. Didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help hearing you talk about a little boy you're looking for."

"Do you know where he went?"

"Yes, ma'am. I believe so." Newman nodded toward the nearest on-base apartment complex. "He went up there."

Megan looked at the squat, four-story building. Several of the lights were still on in the apartments. She guessed that several of the military guys still on base were watching the Lakers game as Gerry had been trying to do or were screening movies.

"He went to one of those apartments?" Megan asked. She sorted through the names of the people Gerry had mentioned but knew of none of them that were in the immediate area.

"No, ma'am," Newman said. "I mean, he went up there. There's fire escapes on that building, ma'am. That boy hauled himself up one of them to the rooftop."

Megan stared at the building. For the life of her, she couldn't imagine why Gerry would do such a thing. "Are you certain?" she asked the young private.

"Yes, ma'am. I do a lot of recon work for my unit. I see what I see, and I'm telling you what I saw." Newman turned. "Hey, Pete."

"Yeah." A slim Hispanic man stepped away from the muscle car. "Use that spotlight on your jeep, bro. Light up the roof of the res building over there." Newman pointed.

"You're going to make a lot of people very unhappy," Pete warned, but he crossed to the Jeep Wrangler decked out for off-road driving that occupied the slot next to the muscle car.

"Gotta check something out," Newman said. "Mrs. Gander here is looking for a kid. I saw him go up on that building."

"I didn't see anything, man."

"That's why they got you lugging that M-60, grunt," Newman replied with a grin, "and why I run point or wing."

"Anybody comes to me with a beef over the light," Pete promised, "I'm sending them to you." He flipped on the spotlight.

Megan shielded her eyes, blinking against the sudden pain, then followed the white tunnel the beam cut through the night. At first, she believed the young soldiers were only earning themselves a world of trouble that would lead to a severe dressing-down by the base commander, maybe a few visits from other Rangers, and possibly even demerits entered in their files.