"Yeah, you're right," he agreed. "I'm tight with a copper that moved over to IAD a couple years back. Maybe I'll drop in on 'im tomorrow if I have a few minutes."

"I think it would be advisable," Mandalay replied.

"Well," I spoke up. "I appreciate both of you coming to the rescue. Thanks."

Ben grunted, "Uh-huh. I'll prob'ly regret it. I'm bettin' I shoulda let her arrest ya'

anyway.""What for?"

My friend turned his gaze on Felicity. "Did you talk him outta puttin' his ass on the line?"

"No," she returned with a shake of her head. Her voice was still covered with a frost of anger.

Ben swung his head back to me and then jerked his thumb toward Felicity. "That for."

I expelled an annoyed breath, frowned at him, and then said, "We aren't going to go down this road again are we?"

"Somebody's gotta chase after ya'," he replied.

"Look," Mandalay interjected. "Before you two start arguing, let's just see what happens." She rolled her arm up then pushed back her cuff to glance at her watch.

You could almost see the quick mental calculation going on behind her eyes as she spoke. "It's just past seven. The last call from Porter was a little less than forty-five minutes ago, and they had pegged a grid location on him. We haven't heard a peep out of him since.

"We've all been a little preoccupied, especially with Lieutenant Albright. For all we know, this just might be a moot point by now."

"Yeah." Ben nodded in agreement with what she was implying. "The S.O.B might be cornered somewhere right now. Or, if we're really lucky, maybe they're stuffin' his ass in a body bag. I'll check with one of the coppers that I know who is on tonight.

Mandalay, why don't you call the Feeb house and see if they have anything."

Constance gave her head an annoyed shake. "Field office, Storm. Can't you just say field office? You should know we aren't exactly fond of the nickname 'Feeb.'"

He returned an innocent, questioning stare. "What? I didn't call YOU a Feeb. I LIKE you."

She rolled her eyes at him in answer then reached into her pocket and extracted a cell phone. She flipped the cover on the device open with a quick snap.

"So Mandalay," Ben said as he fumbled his own cell from his belt with his wounded fingers. "Thanks for the backup with Albright."

She continued looking at her cell phone as she keyed in a number. "No problem, Storm. Even with all your faults and overabundance of testosterone, I like you too."

"I think I might have just been insulted," Ben quipped.

"Give me a break," she returned. "Just take it in the spirit it was intended."

"So lemme ask you somethin'."

"What's that?"

"You really salutatorian of your class at Cornell?"

"Actually no," she replied as she hovered her thumb over the send button andglanced up. "I was valedictorian. I just didn't want to sound too pretentious."

"Jeezus, Mandalay."

"What?"

"Nothin'."

"WHAT, Storm?"

"Well, it's just that you're a pretty good copper." He gave her an embarrassed glance and half shrugged as he spoke. "And, sometimes, like when you fix yourself up... Well, you're kinda hot."

She squinted one eye and shook her head at him. "Storm, are you hitting on me?

Because if you..."

"Hell no!" He scrunched his face and gave her a dismissive wave as he rushed to cut her off. "I'm just kinda surprised to find out you're a nerd too."

Mandalay rolled her eyes then turned her back to him as she dropped her thumb on the keypad and headed out into the living room.

"I'm going to check the television," I announced as Ben began fat-fingering his own cell phone.

"Yeah," he called over his shoulder absently. "Friggin' media is prob'ly interviewin' the bastard on every channel as we speak."

I gave Felicity a nod, and we skirted around the massive Native American obstacle. He sidestepped as I gently nudged him, moving against the wall and allowing us to pass. We rounded the corner at the mouth of the small corridor and moved into the edge of the living room.

An earlier thought pushed itself up into view from the swirling tumult of my overtaxed brain, and I faltered for a moment before coming to a halt.

"Caorthann?" Felicity called my name in Gaelic, her voice threaded with mild concern. This was a pet name she'd had for me back before we were married, and I hadn't heard it in a long while. "Are you okay, then?"

"I'm fine, honey." I reached over and gently took hold of her arm. "What does the Queen of Swords mean?"

"The tarot card?" she answered. "I'm not sure. Mourning isn't it? Feminine sadness? The tarot is really not my strong point, but that's what I seem to recall from the little white book."

The little white book; I hadn't heard that one in a while. It was an affectionate nickname given to the booklet of definitions provided with what had to be one of the most widely known decks on the market-the Rider-Waite tarot.

"I know, mine either," I told her as I felt my brow crease with concentration. "I think you're correct, but it just doesn't feel right."

"Aye, where did you see this card?""When Albright had me up against the wall," I explained. "When she was touching me, I saw a vision of the card."

"Aye, you're sure it was the Queen of Swords, then?"

"Pretty sure," I nodded to her as I answered. "I had to really concentrate on it since it was upside down."

"Upside down?" she echoed. "Inverted, then. That would change the meaning wouldn't it?"

"You're right," I said.

"I still can't be sure, but I think that reversed it means something like malice."

I reached up, pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, and let out a sigh. I was still grounded, but something out there was knocking at the ethereal door leading into my brain, and it was being very insistent. I had a feeling that it was going to call for reinforcements soon.

"You're sure that you're okay?" Felicity asked again.

"Yeah," I looked back at her with a slight smile. "Just tired."

"Aye," she returned. "I'll be right back."

She turned to the side and started away from me with a determined stride.

"What..." I began.

"The door," she answered without waiting for the rest of the question. "It needs to be locked."

I personally didn't feel that the task was an imperative with both Ben and Constance here, but I didn't disagree with her. If the simple act of setting the deadbolt would make her feel better, I was all for it. Besides, it was easily possible that she was picking up on things that I wasn't. It wouldn't be the first time.

I glanced around and saw that Mandalay had paced her way into the dining area, so I headed directly for the coffee table and scooped up the remote. Aiming the controller at the corner, I pressed the power button. The screen on the television flickered to life, and I immediately thumbed the volume down a few notches just in case.

I brought my gaze up and saw that Felicity had one hand on the knob for the deadbolt and one on the swing bar, pressing it tight against the door. Her head was down, and her shoulders relaxed noticeably. Apparently, that small measure of security had meant more to her than I realized.

Looking back to the television, I saw a tight aerial shot of what appeared to be an old multiple-story, warehouse-and-office type of structure. The front side of the building filled the screen, but any details that might have been present were all but faded into the background.

The scene was dark, but emergency lights were painting predictable swaths of red and white as they flickered from the tops of squad cars. I watched intently as theystrobed, revealing a level of decay that told me the building was probably abandoned, or at the very least, had been vacant for quite some time. The setting was generic enough that I couldn't place exactly where it was, but it did appear to be somewhere near the riverfront.

The vehicles in the foreground were angled haphazardly across the partially cleared street, nosed into piles of snow along the curb. The tableau looked, at first, like toys left in disarray by a child in the midst of an imaginary game. Closer inspection showed that there was some amount of method to the madness, in that they formed a rough, staggered barrier.

Between the patrol cars and the building, a dark-colored sedan sat with the corner of its front bumper against the wall of the building. The car's headlights were still burning, slicing into the darkness to illuminate a small section of the structure's brick face. At the moment, it seemed to be the primary focus of the officers' attention.

Across the bottom of the tube, a stylized graphic cut a colorful streak; culminating on the left in the station logo. Words were emblazoned across the stripe, spelling out in slanted block letters, BREAKING NEWS.

I felt Felicity next to me as she slipped her arm in around my own then interlaced her fingers with mine and squeezed. Her other hand slipped across and closed in an unrelenting grip on my bicep.

With my free hand, I clicked the volume back up a notch as we both stared at the event playing out on the screen.

"...Shortly after six this evening," the reporter's voice-over faded in as I continued to mash the button and brought the sound up to a more discernible level.

"An apparent car-jacking led to a high-speed chase which involved officers from five separate municipalities, as well as the Missouri Highway Patrol, Saint Louis County, and the Metropolitan Saint Louis Police department."

"Car-jacking my ass," Ben muttered from behind us.

"The chase began in the county near the Interstate Two-Seventy, Highway Forty interchange and proceeded through several neighborhood streets before continuing on eastbound Forty at a..."

"They've got the bastard cornered," Ben spoke again, louder this time.

"Ssshh!" Felicity urged.

"...Sideswiped another vehicle, injuring the driver, before exiting Hampton to Highway Forty-Four. Metropolitan police attempted to stop the car as it exited at the riverfront on Memorial Drive. The suspect then literally crashed through a construction barrier at Third Street and Washington, narrowly missing pedestrians who were crossing the street on their way to Laclede's Landing.

"The chase finally ended here at this abandoned warehouse on Second Street where the suspect fled the vehicle with a woman who is believed to be a hostage, and they are currently inside the building.""There are two agents on the scene," Mandalay offered into the lull that followed the reporter's words. "Porter is definitely inside, and he has Sullivan with him."

"He won't go down without killing her first," I said.

"They know that," she replied. "That's why no one has entered the building yet."

"Osthoff just told me they have a SWAT entry team standing by," Ben told us.

"They should be rolling any minute.

"I've been in there," he added. "It's at Second and Ashley. Back when I was in uniform, I chased this little prick into it after he had tried to break into a place a coupla' blocks over on Broadway." He shook his head and noisily sucked on his teeth as he pondered the screen. "There's a whole lotta places to hide in there. And in the dark on top of it? Shit..."

Ben's cell phone pealed, and he turned it up in his hand to inspect the display.

With a disgusted grunt, he stabbed the device with his thumb then placed it against his ear. "Yeah, this is Storm. What can I do for you Lieutenant?"

The languid pace of the drama on the television screen prompted the station to cut from the scene and back to the studio. The transition was a sudden switch to a groomed man behind the news desk who was staring at an angle off camera as he began speaking.

"We will now return you to network programming..." The reporter did a quick double-take motion with his head and then suddenly shifted a quarter turn toward the live camera with only a slight stutter.

I ignored the out-segue back to the sitcom and focused my attention on the side of Ben's conversation that I could hear.

"Yeah, we've got it on the TV right now," he said into the phone then waited.

Constance, Felicity, and I watched him as he frowned and rocked in place. He brought his free hand up to smooth back his hair, winced, shot it a disgusted look, and then went ahead with the mannerism anyway.

"Yeah, well I don't really think you can blame Rowan for you bargin' in here," he said with a note of irritation. "You wasted your own time, Lieutenant, not him."

"Uh-huh...Yeah...Uh-huh... Well, trust me, we weren't plannin' on goin'

anywhere at the moment anyway, so I don't think you've got anything to worry about."

"That woman is a real piece of work," Mandalay muttered.

"Aye, I was thinking more like she's an ?innseach," Felicity remarked.

"What's that?"

"An idiot."

Mandalay smirked at the insult. "I'll agree with you there."

"Yeah, well, you can..." Ben barked suddenly and then paused for a moment to regain his composure before continuing in a restrained tone. "Yeah, well you'll justhave to tell him that yourself. Yeah. Fine."

My friend ended the call without ceremony and then terminated the connection with a pair of clumsy thrusts from his thumb against the keypad. He looked up at us while shaking his head in an animated arc. "Jeezus H. Christ on roller skates!"

"What did she say?" Mandalay asked him, then added, "Like we can't guess."

"Well," he huffed. "She started out by blaming Row for her wasting time here, but I guess you prob'ly caught that. Other than that, she told me she's en-route to the scene and has officially 'ordered' us to stay put until we hear from her."

"What are you supposed to tell me?" I asked.