"Gabriel!"

"I don't want to."

"Listen, young man, I don't have the patience for this kind of behavior. Do you understand me? If you want to make this difficult, we'll make it difficult. But either way, we're going to draw blood and we're going to do it now."

He shook his head.

"Give me your arm!" She reached out at him like an old witch reaching out at a child's youth. Her thin, cold fingers wrapped around the inside of his elbow.

Gabe pulled his arm free and fell back against the bedside table. His lunch tray flipped. Corn niblets scattered across the floor like a thousand frightened insects scurrying for cover. The tray landed with a loud, reverberating clang, and by the time the sound had finally reached its conclusion, the expression on Tilley's face had transformed into a hideous Halloween mask.

"Why you little monster!"

He hadn't meant to knock the tray over. It had just happened. If she would just leave him alone...

She started around the foot of the bed, her face flushed with anger, one hand gripping the rubber hose as if she were trying to squeeze the very life out of it.

Gabe backed into the farthest corner. "Stay away!"

"Not until I get some blood out of you, young man."

A chair was pushed into a nearby opening, effectively cutting off an avenue of escape. A cart was pushed into another opening, narrowing the room half again as much.

He grabbed at a plastic bottle sitting on the counter, caught it, and flung it in her direction. It struck her on the right forearm, bounced off, and fell to the floor with a hollow echoing sound that reminded him of just how lonely and empty this place had become. What he might have done next, he would never know. The only door in or out suddenly burst open and two men, dressed in street clothes, came rushing through, their faces a mix of amusement and threat.

"About time," Tilley said, visibly relieved.

"He's only eleven. We thought you could handle him." The first man through went directly at Gabe. He swept him up around the waist and tossed him over his shoulder as if he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes. "Where do you want him?"

"On the bed."

They pinned him down to draw the blood, and by the time the job was finished, a black, ugly hatred began to smolder somewhere deep inside him. He watched Tilley gather up her things, her demeanor subdued, her actions officious again. She was back in charge now, her lips pursed in that prissy little manner of someone who knows she's won.

"Maybe next time you'll make it easier on yourself," she said on her way out.

The door closed.

Except for the cartoon on television, the room fell quiet again.

Gabe fell back into his pillow, tears welling in his eyes. She had placed a cotton swab and a Band-Aid over the puncture wound to help stop the bleeding. He stared at it a moment, then tore it off and threw it at the overturned tray on the floor.

Never before in his life had he hated someone so much.

[75].

Now that they were both on the same team, they had to see if they could get on the same schedule. Last night had been a troubled night for Teri. She had slept so much the past couple of days that she found it difficult to close her eyes and return to that state of dreams and drifting. Instead, she had tossed and turned most of the night, and this morning she had been up and about by six.

Walt, on the other hand, had had no trouble at all falling asleep. He had snored on and off for several hours last night, the sound so penetrating Teri could hear it vibrate through the wall between the living room and the bedroom. And then this morning, he hadn't even opened his eyes until a little after ten.

For awhile, they behaved as if they had been married for a good number of years. Teri busied herself in the kitchen, putting together a breakfast of pancakes, canned fruit, and coffee, all the while trying to suppress her mounting irritation. He should have been up earlier. There were only so many hours in a day, so many days in a week. How much of it was he going to waste?

When Walt finally emerged from taking a shower and getting dressed, he sat down at the kitchen table and poured himself a cup of coffee. "How you feeling this morning?"

"Antsy," she said.

"Sorry. Guess the last couple of days finally caught up with me."

The days had caught up with her, too, only a little sooner; and when it had been her turn, Walt had shown nothing but patience. Teri had to remind herself that he had been patient about a lot of things lately. Certainly more patient that she had any right to expect.

"How about some pancakes?" she asked.

"Sounds great."

It was nearly noon by the time they left the apartment. Walt gave her a ride into town, where she stopped at Enterprise Auto Rental and got herself a '93 Ford Taurus. It was a nice car, dark blue, though the interior had a funny smell she couldn't quite identify. It wasn't the smell of a cigarette, she thought, but something more like that of a pipe. Though that wasn't quite it, either.

Teri finished checking out the Taurus, and walked over to where Walt was waiting for her. "Everything looks fine."

"Great," he said, glancing across the street at a bus that had just pulled up to the curb. It sat there less than ten seconds, then pulled away again, leaving a cloud of black exhaust to linger in the air awhile longer. "Six o'clock, my place, right?"

"Sure," she said, suddenly far away in her thoughts.

"What?"

"Nothing. Sorry."

"You still upset about the Childs thing?"

"I wouldn't call it upset exactly." She had called Dr. Childs this morning, shortly after Walt had sat down to breakfast. She had called him because Walt had convinced her it was the only way they could get a quick read on the doctor. Instead, it had only served to muddy the waters. Childs had again urged her to consider placing Gabe in a medical facility as soon as possible, and he had seemed as concerned as ever, maybe even more concerned than the last time they had spoken. But as she was hanging up, he had said something that had struck her as odd and she hadn't been able to put it out of her mind. He had said: "You call me, Teri. I know it's been nice having him back, but he needs medical attention."

How did he know?

How did Childs know that Gabe had been away? And why hadn't he said anything earlier? He had never said so much as a word about Gabe being only eleven. Not a word.

"What would you call it then?" Walt asked.

"I just can't imagine that he could be part of this."

"Well, we don't for sure that he is. Not yet."

Teri nodded, still troubled. "You sure we should meet back at the apartment?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I just thought maybe that was how they knew we would be at the plaza. That maybe the phone was bugged."

Walt grinned. "I thought about that, too. It's not bugged, though. At least not anymore. I checked it out a couple of nights ago. Besides, these guys aren't interested in us anymore. It was Gabe they wanted. Now that they've got him, I'd be amazed if they were willing to risk a tap. What would they have to gain?"

"As long as you're sure."

"I'll tell you what, just in case, we'll stay off the phone. How's that?"

"You're the boss," she said.

"Good. Then don't worry about it."

"Six o'clock."

"Six o'clock."

She watched him disappear into traffic, then went back and sat in the Taurus a while, letting the old memories stir. This was going to be a trip into the past and she wasn't sure if she was going to like it or not. You can remember fondly, she had heard somewhere. But you can't go back. Of course, this wasn't about nostalgia. It was about Gabe.

The first name on her list was Peggy Landau.

Teri remembered her as the quiet one. She was always hovering around the outer edges of the group, a little field mouse who worried about being accepted, but who was too shy to ever feel comfortable enough to become involved. She had been a thin, waif of a girl. Her dresses were all long flowing, flower prints that kept her hidden. When she smiled, it was a child's smile, all innocence and sweet summer smells and soft breezes. Teri had never known her as well as she would have liked, and wasn't that the way life always seemed to be?

Peggy was one of a handful from the old commune who still lived in the area. Her house was out in the country, south of the city limits, where it would be another twenty years before the urban sprawl caught up with her. Teri drove right past the house and had to turn around and come back. It was set back from the road, a country charmer with a front porch and white picket fence. Not much different from the kind of place they had all dreamed about when they were still in college.

She knocked, and stared out across the field on the other side of the street. Mount Lassen stood majestically in the distance, a white cap of snow against a blue background. At least someone had found her dreams.

The door opened only a crack, and a women with bright blue eyes stared out.

"Peggy?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if you remember me or not. It's Teri..." She had started to say, Teri Knight, but that hadn't been her name back then. It had been Teri Cutler in those days, sometimes even Teri Cutler-Knight, though that had come only after Michael had first proposed to her. She finished, "Cutler. Teri Cutler."

The crack in the door widened slightly, and a smile of recognition seemed to grow on the face of the woman on the other side. "You're kidding? Teri? My God, how long has it been?"

"Too long," Teri said. It had been some twenty-odd years since they had last seen each other. In fact, if she were called on it, she probably couldn't even remember exactly when their last time together had been. After she had married Michael and they had moved into a place of their own, they had seen less and less of the others. Over the years, Teri had come to believe that was the nature of most relationships. They came and they went. Some remembered, some forgotten.

"Well, come on in. Don't stand out there like a stranger."

The front room was the parlor. Across from the picture window that looked out over the fields to Mount Lassen, stood a wicker sofa with bright, floral-print upholstery. There were huge potted plants on either side, standing nearly six feet high. Teri thought they might be paradise palms, but she wasn't sure. She had never had much of an interest in plants and shrubs.

"Can I get you anything?" Peggy asked.

"Oh, no thank you."

"It's no trouble."

"No, that's all right."

Peggy sat on a wicker chair at the other side of the Shaker-look coffee table, covered with old copies of Mother Earth News. Her bare feet, dirty and scarred, stuck out from beneath the hem of her dress. It was a granny dress, similar to what she had worn all those years ago. A patch quilt pattern, empire style, with the tie just beneath her breasts.

She smiled, appearing genuinely pleased by Teri's presence. "This is so incredible. I saw Judy a couple of months ago, over at the Farmers Market. First her, and now you. Really incredible."

"Judy's still in the area?"

Peggy nodded. "She married a cop. Can you believe that?"

"No," Teri said uneasily. Going back was a strange and uneasy odyssey, she decided. As ridiculous as it sounded, because they had all undoubtedly changed over the years, she couldn't stop herself from thinking how much Peggy had changed. Not in her trappings, of course, because those hadn't changed at all. But the wallflower was gone now. Her smile was genuine and easy, and seemed more open than Teri remembered.

"They've got a three-year old girl," Peggy said. "And they just bought a new house in the Henderson subdivision."

"That's a nice area."

"Yeah, they must be doing all right."

"How about you?" Teri asked, trying to be tactful. "Are you doing all right?"

Peggy smiled. "Better than ever."

"You live alone here?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. There wasn't the vaguest hint of regret or sorrow in her voice, and it occurred to Teri that her friend had learned something about herself since their last get-together. Peggy was no longer on the outside looking in. She had quit coveting those around her, and she had learned to be happy with herself. It was a lesson Teri wasn't sure that she, herself, had learned.

"It's my own little corner of paradise," Peggy added.

"It is beautiful here."

"I like it."

"Especially the view."

Peggy nodded. "So... how about you? You and Michael still together?"

"Separated," Teri said.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"No need. It was the right thing at the time." There was more to it than that, of course. But Teri wasn't in the mood for stirring it all up again. Once the sediment started rising, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to keep her emotions under check and her thoughts clear. So she sidestepped the issue as best she could and left Michael there for some other time, maybe some other occasion that wasn't quite as awkward. In his place, she asked Peggy about the house plants and the furniture and about what had been going on in her life all these years. They reminisced about the old times, about how naive they had all been, and how the world had turned out to be even scarier than anyone imagined, and how the good times seemed dimmer and more dreamlike than either of them cared to admit. There was still an aura, as Peggy put it, about those times, even though it had faded over the years. Some of the faces had faded, too, she admitted.

"Have you seen any of the others?" Teri asked.

"Not in years."

"Me, neither. Funny how easily people drift apart, isn't it?"

"The cycle of life," Peggy said, philosophically.

"Yeah, I suppose."

They had come full circle now, and Teri had enjoyed the journey more than she had ever imagined she would. But it was drawing down to the end, and it was time she got to the reason she had come here in the first place. "Do you remember Dr. Childs?"

"From the clinic?"

"Yeah."