Finally, the phone rang. Gene, the man with the nervous pencil, sat up in his chair, and grabbed the receiver. "Did you get it?"

"We got it."

"Great!" He copied down the phone number, hung up, and immediately dialed the CNA operator. "I need one on 916-555-3743."

"Just a moment." The operator disappeared momentarily, then came back on the line. "That number is listed to the Royalty Motel."

"The billing address?"

"Yes... it's 2399 Cypress Avenue."

"Thanks."

[43].

Michael Knight hung up the phone in the kitchen, crossed to the dining room and peered out through the window. The van across the street had not moved in three days. It was parked in the Halloman driveway and Michael knew that Mr. Halloman, a retired Army colonel, was in Florida visiting his sister. He wasn't expected back for another two weeks. Michael also knew that Mrs. Bradley, who lived two doors down, had reported the suspicious vehicle the first day it had arrived in the neighborhood. The police had come to check it that same day. Afterward, they had stopped by to assure Mrs. Bradley that she had nothing to worry herself about. The van, they had told her, was there on official business.

"Just what kind of official business?" she had wanted to know when relaying the story to Michael.

It was a question still in need of an answer, but the picture was becoming clearer. It was official business having to do with him.

Michael dropped the curtain and went down the hall to the master bedroom, where he got a suitcase down from the top closet shelf. He packed two changes of clothes, some socks, underwear, a couple of white shirts, some ties, and brought along an extra suit in a garment bag.

Gabe.

Could it really have been Gabe?

After it had become evident that Gabe wouldn't be coming home again, that something unthinkable had probably happened, Michael had learned to cope by keeping it out of his mind. Like a ghost that only comes out at night, the tragedy had never been far, but it had taken on a less vivid, less real aura over the years. He thought, in some ways, he had put it behind him.

Gabe.

Michael went out through the back door, locking it behind him and standing on the cement patio a moment to soak up the sun. The day was bright, the air crisp, the temperature holding just under sixty. It was the kind of day that once, a long time ago, he would have taken Gabe over to the park to play catch.

Now there's an aura that hadn't lost its realness, Michael thought as he tossed the luggage over the back fence. He followed it over, and slipped through the side gate onto Remington Drive. This was a quiet neighborhood. He had bought the house two years ago, after growing tired of living in an apartment. And he had bought it precisely for that quiet. Now, he supposed, he was going to be living in a motel room for a night or two, until he could make arrangements to get back to California and hook-up with Teri.

Teri and...

... and Gabe.

The taste of his son's name was bittersweet, and Michael didn't allow himself to hold onto it long. As much as he wanted to believe that Gabe had returned, there was a part of him that didn't want to risk the hurt if it turned out it wasn't Gabe after all. Michael didn't think he could survive losing his son again.

Across the street, two blocks up, and half-a-mile down the boulevard, he found a phone booth and was fortunate enough to also find a quarter in the coin return. He used the quarter to call a cab, then sat on a nearby bench, and watched the faces of the children who rode by on their bikes while he was waiting. Just like he had stopped thinking about Gabe all those years ago, he had also stopped looking at the children. It had been easier to keep them faceless, to look past them without trying to find Gabe in the way they combed their hair or smiled or the color of their eyes. But he caught himself looking again as he sat on the bench. Looking... and wondering.

Jesus, could Gabe really be alive?

Was it really possible?

[44].

The Royalty Motel.

Room 216.

Time: 1:22 p.m.

The first man took the right side of the doorway. The second man took the left. Mitch, who was ten feet back, braced himself against a six-by-six pillar, and took a solid breath. No mistakes this time. No close encounters. No coming up empty. He drew his gun from its shoulder holster, raised it in a two-handed grip and glanced at the courtyard below just to make sure the situation had remained uncontaminated.

It had.

Someone had left the door to 216 partially ajar. The curtains were drawn, and there was music playing softly in the background, something that sounded as if it might have been left over from the British Invasion of the Sixties.

Too easy, Mitch thought.

He looked from one man to the other, checked the room number to be certain, then nodded. The number one man-James Jacobs, a five-nine muscle man known as J.J.-went in low. Alan Moore followed high.

The door flew open, struck the wall and was held there by J.J.

"U.S. Marshall."

A woman screamed.

Mitch moved up, taking a position to the right of the doorway. He heard Moore shout the command, "Down on the floor! On the floor! Now!" He followed through the door. J.J. was on the left, sweeping the bathroom. Apparently the room was empty. Moore stood at the fore of the living quarters, his arms straight, elbows locked, his gun sighted off to the left. He was visibly agitated.

Mitch moved up next to him, halfway through the question-What's the matter?-when the question answered itself. Face down on the floor, her hands locked behind her head, was a small dark-complexioned woman dressed in a white uniform in need of dry cleaning. The maid.

Christ.

Moore shifted his weight from one foot to the other. In the corner, leaning against the wall, was the boy's cane. At least they had been here. "What do you want me to do?"

"Shoot me," Mitch said derisively.

J.J. came up from behind. "What's going on?"

"The maid," Mitch said. The woman's whole body was shaking and Mitch would later swear that as they stood there, the salt and pepper in her hair had turned decisively more salty. He touched Moore on the forearm-Moore lowered his weapon-then motioned for them to back out of the room.

They would be downstairs, around the corner, and halfway to the vehicle before the woman would have the courage to raise her head. She would see that they had gone and she would cross herself with trembling fingers and whisper a faint prayer to Jesus Christ, The Almighty.

And then she would start to cry.

[45].

Teri walked the last three blocks from the bus stop with the boy trailing along in her shadow. They slowed down half a block from the office of Dr. Childs, on a side street where they weren't likely to be noticed. She had thought this through last night and had decided that chances were his office was being watched. That's how Mitch and his thugs had caught up with them after their last visit. They were watching her house. And they were watching her husband. And they were watching her doctor.

She stopped and leaned against a fence post, within sight of the parking lot.

"What are we doing?"

"Waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

Teri smiled and ran a hand through the boy's hair, something that had always annoyed Gabe before but didn't seem to bother him now. "Waiting to make sure everything's okay and that no one's watching the back entrance."

"You mean like that Mitch guy?"

"Exactly."

The boy had been getting around better today. Not perfectly by any means. But better. He had left his cane inside the car at the mall yesterday, and since that time, at least until this morning, he had done all right without it. This morning, though, he had struggled down the motel walkway, having to use the side of the building for support. Teri had nearly turned around and gone back to pick him up and carry him-and maybe she should have. But she didn't think he would let her pick him up, and by the time she had thought it through, he had already made it to the end of the building, pushed off, and managed to get along on his own without too much difficulty.

It hadn't been easy for him, though.

And even though they never talked about it, they both knew something was terribly wrong.

Teri stared down at him now, wondering what that something might be. She supposed part of her was still clinging to hope that Amanda Tarkett had been right when she had said that all Gabe needed was some time before he would be up to full strength again. But a deeper part, a less naive part, was already convinced there was more to it than that. Teri just didn't know how much more.

"You all right?" she asked.

"Yeah." His eyes seemed a little red, his coloring pale. And he'd been so quiet since talking with Michael.

"I mean..."

"I'm fine, Mom."

"Okay."

"Does that mean I don't have to see the doctor?"

"No such luck, kiddo."

She glanced up the quiet street. Both sides were lined with oaks, the gutters filled with leaves and twigs and wind-blown wrappers from the Bartel's Drive-Thru a couple of blocks down. The sound of a distant train rumbled through, and a white station wagon with a woman and two small children crept down the street and turned left at the corner.

How paranoid is too paranoid? Teri wondered as she watched the car disappear. If anyone had earned the right, she supposed, it had certainly been her. But the never ending suspicion, the constant mistrust... Teri didn't like the ease with which they had made themselves at home inside her.

"Guess now's as good a time as any," she said.

The boy, who had been sitting with his back against the fence, stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants.

[46].

They entered the clinic through the back door, which opened to a short hallway, offices on either side. Dr. Childs's office was the first one on the left. Apparently, like everyone else, he liked to be the first one out the door at the end of the day.

"In here," Teri said.

The boy pointed questioningly at the doorway.

She nodded, gave him a nudge into the room, and closed the door behind her. She had never been in the doctor's office before, which surprised her now that she thought about it. Childs had been her doctor since, well, since college. Better than twenty years now.

Built-in bookshelves lined three of the four walls. Open spaces here and there were decorated with diplomas and honorary degrees and awards for community service. The desk was a dark, expensive mahogany. A stack of paperwork looking nearly insurmountable cluttered the desktop. The only window in the room opened to the parking lot in back. She could see the corner of the fence across the street where they had waited.

"Now what?"

"As usual, we wait."

"Again?"

"You have a hot date this afternoon?"

"Mom..." He plopped down in the nearest chair, a swivel chair, and energetically began to pedal himself in circles.

Teri roamed aimlessly about the room. She thumbed through a couple of volumes from the doctor's medical library, finding them either over her head or tediously dry. Then she casually shuffled through some of the papers on the desk, hoping she might come across Gabe's file. No such luck.

"How long do we have to wait?" he asked again.

"Until the doctor shows up."

She had not made an appointment. First, because she hadn't been sure when she would be stopping by to see him. And second, because after the last visit, she thought it might be wise if no one knew when she was coming.

A little caution never hurt, according to Michael.

She was going to remember that.

The boy grumbled under his breath, then gave himself another spin in the chair.

Teri wandered over to the far wall, where a mix of photographs and community service awards had been mounted quite some time ago by the dust on the frames. 1990 Chairman of the Santa Clara County Health Fair. 1993 Houghton Award for Outstanding Community Service. 1980 Glazier Award for Gerontological Research. Some photographs taken at a lab somewhere, with everyone dressed in white lab jackets. And then something that caught her attention.

It was a photograph of the steps outside the library at U.C. Berkeley. She recognized it immediately. Teri had spent two years at Berkeley in the mid-Seventies. That was where she had met Michael, who was studying as an art major at the time. Standing on the steps, at the middle of a semicircle of men, was Dr. Childs. He was all smiles then, and Teri shook her head, thinking he must have used them all up that year, because as long as she had known the man, he had rarely worn a smile. Never, ever, a warm smile.

Beneath the photo, the caption read: Magical Mystery Tour. Berkeley. 1976.

"Wonder what that's supposed to mean," she said.

Behind her, the door to the office swung open.

Dr. Childs, holding a folder in the crook of his arm, stepped through, clearly self-absorbed. He closed the door, turned and only then did he realize he wasn't alone. Surprise crossed his face. He instantly covered it. "Teri? You startled me. What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd stop by and see what the test results had to say."

"Oh, yes, of course."

"You did say you wanted to see us as early as possible, didn't you?"

He looked from her to the boy, his expression an unreadable mask, then back to Teri again. "I believe I did at that. I just wasn't expecting you to show up in my office without an appointment."

"Well, since we're already here..."

"Yes, well..." He removed the folder from the crook of his arm, crossed the room, and sat behind the desk. He seemed caught in some sort of bind, as if he didn't know quite what to say or how to say it. He tossed aside the folder, and looked at Teri with eyes that were a mix of concern and discomfort. He was going to tell her something awful, she thought. Something that would have kept her away if she'd had an inkling that it might be coming.

"I'm not sure where to start," he said somberly. "Maybe you should sit down, Teri."