"So what now?"

"I think you better stay with me tonight."

"Why? You think they'll be back?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't bet against it."

Teri sighed and thought back through everything that had happened tonight. She wouldn't want to bet against it, either. When she closed her eyes, she still had a vivid picture of Mitch standing over her, the scar over his eye a reminder of the man beneath the suit and the polite manner of speech. She didn't want to bet against anything he might do. It was too dangerous. Simple as that.

She sighed again, and this time glanced down at the boy drinking his chocolate milk. "Some adventure we've got ourselves into, huh?"

"Why are they bothering us?"

"I don't know."

"That's something we're going to have to talk about," Walt said, making it clear that he preferred to talk about it sometime outside of the boy's presence.

"Sure." She went to the nearest kitchen drawer, pulled out a paper napkin, and set it on the counter in front of the boy, who had distinguished himself with a thin, rather attractive chocolate mustache. "Use it."

"Or lose it," he giggled.

"No. You use it or I'll use it for you."

He giggled some more.

"I see you found yourself some shoes," Walt said.

"Yeah." She glanced down at her feet. She was wearing a pair of sandals, which tended to go easy on her feet after a long day of standing at the post office. They felt especially good after having gone barefoot half the night. "And guess what else I came across?"

"What?"

"The shoe I lost."

"The one he pulled off your foot?"

"Yeah. It was back in the closet. Not quite where it was supposed to be, but close enough considering it was guess work."

"Why don't you show me."

Apparently what he was hoping was that he might find a print on the back of the shoe, where the man had tried to hold on. The shoe was a vinyl pump, the first lucky break. Walt said the vinyl should hold a good print if they hadn't cleaned it off. And that turned out to be the second lucky break.

She watched him go through the process of using the flashlight at various angles again. Then, for the first time, he opened the small rectangular box he had been carrying with him. He took out a brush, twisted it in the air until the bristles fluffed, and dipped it into a small vial of powder. He brushed both sides of the shoe, near the back, and gradually two sets of prints became visible.

"Got 'em," she said optimistically.

"Well, we've got something."

Walt covered the print on the left side with tape, pressed down meticulously, then pulled the tape up in a single, smooth motion. To Teri's eye it looked like a beautiful print. He transferred it to a 3x5 card, then took two other prints on the other side. There were three altogether, though two of the prints appeared to be smudged and run together.

"Well, at least it's something."

He didn't hold out much hope that anything would come of them. Chances were the prints belonged to a technician. Or if not a technician, then they might even be her own prints. Just to compare, he took samples from her and the boy.

"Guess that's about all we can do here tonight," he said, closing up the kit. "You and the kid might want to grab a few things to bring along since we don't know where this thing is going. For now, at least, you better stay with me."

For now? Teri thought.

How long did he think this was going to go on?

[13].

Walt cleared the stack of newspapers off the kitchen table and piled them in the corner of the living room, out of the way. "Sorry for the mess. A bachelor's life, you know."

"Actually, I half-expected to be wading through clothes on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink. This is nicer than I keep my place."

"Sundays are my cleaning days. By the end of the week, it'll take a forklift to get around in here."

It was nearly three o'clock in the morning now. Condensation had formed in the corners of the living room window, where the cold was hovering in wait. Walt had set up an air mattress and a sleeping bag in the other room for the boy, who had almost immediately fallen off to sleep. Teri wasn't sure she'd ever be able to sleep again. Whenever she closed her eyes, she found herself staring at that ugly jagged scar again. It gave her the creeps.

She sat in the nearest chair.

"Can I get you anything?" Walt asked. He seemed ill at ease, having his place invaded like this, though Teri suspected he wouldn't have had it any other way. "Coffee? Diet Coke? Water? Anything?"

"No, I'm fine. Really."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, thank you."

"All right." He sat down across the table from her. "Quite a day, huh?"

"I'm not keeping you up, am I?"

"No, not at all."

"Because if I am-"

"You aren't. Honest."

"Well, it's really nice of you to put us up."

"Glad to do it." He pulled the fingerprint cards out of his shirt pocket and tossed them on the table. Time to get down to business, Teri supposed. "So what can you tell me about tonight?"

"Not much."

"How about the boy? What time did he show up?"

"A little after eight, I think."

"And the woman you said he was with what was her name?"

"Miss Churchill."

Walt climbed out of his chair and rummaged around in a drawer in the kitchen until he came up with a pencil and a pad. "That's the way she introduced herself? As Miss Churchill?"

"Actually, she didn't introduce herself at all. I got her name from Gabe."

"From the boy?"

Teri nodded, fully aware of the subtle game of semantics they were playing.

"This Churchill woman? She say anything at all?"

"Not much."

"Anything about where the boy's been the last ten years or why she was bringing him home at this particular time?" He sat down at the table again, immersed in making notes. "By the way, I want you to know that I'm going to have you check Gabe's dental records tomorrow. We'll see how they match up."

"You still don't believe it's him, do you?"

Walt glanced up from his notepad, stared at her a moment in silence, then sighed and leaned back. "Neither do you, Teri."

"Well you tell me then, if he's not Gabe, then who is he?"

"I don't know who he is."

"And why would anyone do such a thing? I mean... what's the point? I haven't got any money. I'm not connected. What in the world would anyone want with me?"

"I don't know that, either. But I want you to keep in mind that that kid, whoever he is, isn't capable doing this all on his own. Someone's behind the scenes, pulling the strings, Teri. I don't want you to forget that."

The mood between them had shifted, and they both seemed to realize it at the same moment. Teri sat back in her chair. Walt tapped out a handful of beats against his notepad, and blew out a breath of air.

"We'll get a handle on it," he said finally. "One way or another, I promise you, we'll get a handle on it."

She nodded and stared down at her hands, which were nervously picking at the hem of her shirt. She hadn't had a handle on anything in longer than she could remember. Not her family. Not her marriage. Not her job. After Gabe had disappeared everything had seemed to fall apart all at once, right before her eyes. She didn't want to let that happen again.

"She said he didn't know how long he'd been away."

Walt raised his eyebrows.

"Miss Churchill. She said the boy thought he had been in an accident a couple of weeks ago, that he didn't know he'd been missing for ten years."

"Did you ask him about it?"

Teri nodded. "He doesn't remember anything about any accident. I keep thinking it was something she must have told him as a way of explaining where he was and what had happened."

"Does he remember anything before the accident?"

"He remembers being Gabe."

Walt shook his head, a smirk on his face. "And after?"

"Apparently, he woke up in some sort of medical facility."

"Is that what he told you?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Walt said absently. He jotted down a note, and she could see he was burning with raw curiosity now, the investigator poking at the edges of the facts to see if anything protruded from the other side. "Tell me about these other guys."

"There were three of them."

"Were they carrying weapons?"

"Yes. The one named Mitch-he seemed to be the one in charge-he was carrying a gun. He showed it to me when we were standing at the front door. I think he thought it would help persuade me."

"How about the others?"

"I don't know about them." She flashed back to the man, his suit coat pulled back, exposing the gun. There was something odd about that. Something that had been quietly gnawing at her. "It was strange; because that was the only time I saw the gun, when we were there at the front door. He never took it out of the holster."

"You're kidding."

"No." She shook her head, thinking how odd that seemed now that she looked back on it. "Why didn't he take a shot at me?"

"Probably because he wasn't supposed to hurt you."

"You make it sound like you don't think he was really in charge."

"Oh, there's no question he wasn't in charge. This whole thing was orchestrated from behind the scenes, Teri."

"How can you know that?"

"The cleanup," Walt said matter-of-factly. He tapped another solo out on the notepad, the look in his eyes clear and focused. "This kid wasn't supposed to be wandering off from wherever it was they were keeping him. And that's why they showed up at your place right behind him."

"Because they knew that's where she would take him."

"Exactly."

"Home."

"Or someplace he was supposed to think of as home."

"Who are we talking about? Why would anyone want me to believe my son had come back after all this time?"

"I don't know," Walt said. "What about Michael?"

Teri shook her head. "No, I can't imagine him doing something like this."

"He didn't hold you responsible?"