Mark McCormick walked slowly from the kitchen to the Gatehouse. It was early, only 8 pm, but he'd begged off the nightly movie, saying he needed to get to bed. Hardcastle hadn't argued with him, so he figured he must look as bad as he felt.

He entered the Gatehouse, headed up to the loft and fell onto the bed, still in his clothes. Within minutes he was asleep.

Milton C. Hardcastle, retired judge and the owner of Gulls Way, watched him from the kitchen door of the main house, a worried expression on his rugged face. In the 6 months that McCormick had been working for him, he'd never acted quite like this before. Sure, they had just finished a strenuous case, bringing one very bad guy to justice, but, they had done that before. As far as he knew, nothing had happened that might affect his friend this way.

Friend? Yes. Once again that word had slipped into his thoughts as he thought about McCormick, and Hardcastle knew it was true even though he would never say it out loud. Frank had even uttered the "f" word out loud last month at their poker game, and then tried to recover by making a joke. If it was obvious to Frank, he wondered how many other people might suspect. Some of them would never believe it though, he was sure of that. Old "Hardcase" had a long standing reputation that just did not include friendship with an ex-con.

Yet, it was still true. When it had happened, and how, were questions he himself hadn't answered yet however. But, it didn't really matter, it was still true, McCormick was a friend. And what did you do when something was wrong with a friend? In Hardcastle's universe, you helped them as much as you could. But he didn't see how he could help with this. Still, it felt wrong, just to watch him retreat to the Gatehouse.

He sighed. Maybe he could talk to the kid tomorrow, there was something about him that didn't seem like it was just being tired. The most worrisome thing had been McCormick's silence during supper.

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

"Hello?"

"Milt, how are you?" it was Sandy's voice on the line.

"Uh… good, good, I'm fine."

There was a pause.

"What's up?" Milt finally asked.

"The usual. Just checking that we're on for tomorrow," Sandy replied.

"Oh yeah, all set," Milt answered, not admitting that he had completely forgotten about their monthly dinner.

"Is everything okay Milt?"

"Sure, why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know, you seem distracted. Is Mark bothering you?"

"No, of course not. Things are fine here."

"No one would think any less of you if you sent him away ya know," Sandy continued.

Milt sighed. This wasn't the first time Sandy had suggested that he get rid of McCormick, and the same feeling hit him again, as it always did when he spoke with Sandy. That, as strange as it may seem, he preferred spending time with the ex-con to spending it with Sandy. Of course, he would never tell either of them that.

"McCormick is doing fine Sandy," Milt said sternly.

Sandy paused, "okay Milt," he backpedaled, "so I'll see you tomorrow? Usual time?"

"Yeah, see you then."

They hung up and Milt glanced back at the Gatehouse before going into the den to watch his movie.