Retribution

by L.M.Lewis

Going nowhere even faster.

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them

Author's Note: Liz was rooting for more stories with Sarah in them, and Susan B. specifically mentioned part of the plot herein. Thanks to both for the suggestions.

In the episode "Going Nowhere Fast", Mark discovers that he is not the first guy to be recruited for Hardcastle's rehab and crime fighting mission. The original candidate was ex-con J.J. Beale, who took off in the judge's 'Vette his first night at the estate. He was tracked down by Hardcastle and the police and returned to prison.

After less than six months, he escapes, and again the chase is on, this time with Mark lending a hand.

Criminal Aptitude Test (circle the correct answer)

Question 1. After seducing the warden's wife, and using her to escape from prison, you should:

A. Go to the nearest phone, call up the judge who had you incarcerated and snidely announce that you are on the lam, pick a couple of accomplices at random whose main qualifications are that they've already been caught doing something, give the warden's wife the kiss-off and dump her at a bar, and then go after your nemesis, or,

B. Quickly and efficiently, using only a prearranged and trusted accomplice, move against your sworn enemy, leaving no heart-broken and talkative witnesses, and employing the element of surprise.

Here's version B—

Retribution

By L. M. Lewis

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:

the last of the human freedoms –

to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,

to choose one's own way."

Viktor Frankl

Mark thought it was just possible, given the indefinite length of his custody at Gulls' Way, that he might someday make sense of Hardcase Hardcastle, but he was pretty sure that, even if his servitude stretched out into the next millennium, he'd never get a handle on Sarah Wicks.

He thought he'd figured her out at their very first meeting. She was undoubtedly a rigid, cross old biddy, who would take pleasure in making his life a living hell. That was just one more price he'd have to pay to get a small measure of justice for Flip Johnson and keep himself from riding the prison bus back to San Quentin.

She gave orders, brooked no excuses, and tolerated no shoddy work. She sometimes made Hardcastle look like the good cop in this operation.

But the second day after he and Hardcastle had returned from Las Vegas, with the judge still tidying up the loose ends in the solving of Flip's murder and Mark relegated to mowing the lawn, a strange thing happened. It had been a hot September afternoon without even the expected breeze off the ocean to moderate things. He'd pushed the damn mower at least five miles, up and back across the lawn, and was approaching the side of the house for the umpteenth time, when he saw Sarah standing at the edge of the back pavement holding something that looked suspiciously like a glass.

He thought she might be saying something. He couldn't hear anything over the mower, of course, but her lips had been moving—probably issuing further orders—but now were pressed in a tight, almost irritated expression.

He sighed and steered in that direction, preparing himself for chastisement: not enough overlap on the mowing rows, perhaps the diagonals weren't quite up to standard. He shut the machine down. That didn't immediately restore his hearing, though, because he thought he heard her say, "I brought you some lemonade."

Utter nonsense, of course. On the other hand, she was holding out a glass and looking a bit impatient, as though she were dealing with someone a little slow on the uptake. He frowned and reached for it. She gave him a brief but civil nod of approval as he lifted it in a sketchy toast and took a swallow.

It was lemonade.

He downed the rest more enthusiastically. It was either very good or he was very thirsty—he supposed both. He handed the empty glass back and managed a "thank you". And then, without further comment, the enigmatic Miss Wicks walked back up to the house.

He felt like someone had thrown in a couple pieces from a different puzzle when he hadn't even gotten all the border pieces sorted out on the first one. He thought maybe it was just a matter of keeping the slaves from keeling over from heat prostration, but that hardly required ice-cold, fresh lemonade.

A month had done little to deepen his understanding of the woman. She was still rigid and stern—and every attempt at overcoming that with the old McCormick charm had been rebuffed—but from time to time a glass of lemonade would appear, and occasionally there was a plate of cookies and some milk. And while it was possible that meatloaf had always been a regular in the Gulls Way line-up, he'd seen it three times since he'd first mentioned to her how much he liked it.

On this particular morning, though, it was Sarah Wicks in martinet mode, with a list of chores that would easily occupy him all the way till dinner time. And he'd seen it in the fridge after breakfast when he'd put the juice away—three pounds of beef liver and a couple of onions. He'd already made his opinion clear about that combination.

He railed silently about the injustice of it all—a whole day of yard work with the blue plate special tagged on at the end. He had no one to rail out loud to—Hardcastle had gone off to exchange notes with Frank Harper on a couple of likely future projects, and Sarah was somewhere in the house, probably thinking up more tasks for him.

He did mutter a few audible imprecations, in-between somewhat vicious swacks with the hedge clippers. He must've, because if he hadn't been muttering, he would probably have heard the guys coming up the drive.

But it wasn't until they were out of the van and walking toward him that he caught a "Hello" from one of them and turned sharply—a little guiltily.

"Oh," he said, "didn't hear you come in." He smiled to cover his initial jumpiness. It wasn't like every visitor to the estate was a mobster or some other vicious lowlife, but it did seem to trend that way. These guys, though, were wearing white hardhats and jackets with the power company logo on them.

"Is the owner home?" the one guy asked, consulting a clipboard. "Milton Hardcastle?"

"Nah," Mark said, "housekeeper is, though. I think the meter's around back," he said uncertainly, then shrugged his apology and added, "I just started working here last month."

The guy with the clipboard was studying him with a little more intensity than would be expected from the average utility worker. Mark felt a whisper of unease. He chided himself. He looked over at the van. It was definitely electric company issue. A month with Hardcastle, he thought wearily, and this is what you're reduced to—raving paranoia.

The other guy—he was carrying a black nylon bag that didn't quite fit with the rest of the outfit—was circling around, off to the left. Mark frowned. "What did you need to do?" He realized he'd been outflanked. The second man was now between him and the house.

"You're an ex-con," the first guy said, quietly certain. Mark supposed it might have been a lucky guess, but the odds of these people being bona fide electrical workers seemed to be dropping fast. "He got another one," the man added with what appeared to be disbelief.

Mark's eyes narrowed. "Another?" He couldn't help it, the word had blurted out in the form of a question.

"Ex-con," the man repeated. Then he flashed a smile that was almost charming. "Hah. Some people never learn." He shook his head. "What's your name?"

McCormick glanced over to his left. The other guy hadn't gone any further; he seemed caught up in this exchange. Well and good, Mark thought. The longer he kept these two amused, the likelier the chances that Sarah would look outside and notice something was amiss.

"My name's Mark," he said, with no challenge in his tone.

The guy with the clipboard still seemed friendly enough. "Beale," he said simply. "My friends call me J.J." There was a slight hardening to the man's eyes—just a flash that might have meant he was waiting for a reaction.

Mark didn't have to cover anything up. The name meant nothing to him. "'Another'," he said carefully, "as in 'you, too'?"

"That's very perceptive." Beale turned to his companion and said, "Hardcase's got himself a Rhodes Scholar this time." Then he turned back to Mark, still smiling, though a little more thinly. "This isn't your fight, I suppose . . . unless you want in."

He clearly meant come in on their side or stay out altogether. Mark wasn't sure the guy had even considered the third option. He had no idea why it was foremost in his own mind. But it makes more sense to walk away from this right now than to try and make a move on two guys. Get out of here and call Frank, let Hardcastle know what's going on. Of course that would mean walking away and leaving Sarah with these two.

He realized he was taking too long to make up his mind. The men weren't smiling anymore.

"Hey," Mark said hastily, "he's a judge; gimme a minute—and I don't even know who you are."

He could see the tension slack off slightly. He'd bought himself a little more time.

Beale gestured openhandedly.

"Just a couple of guys looking to even the score with the man who put them away."

"He's not here," Mark repeated calmly. "I don't think you want to hang around waiting for him."

"Oh," Beale said, just as calm, "we won't." He glanced back up toward the house, then over at his companion with a sharp jerk of his chin. "Knock," he said, "nice and polite."

Mark weighed everything and tallied it up in the split second it took for the other man to turn and start walking. He lunged at Beale, going for a sharp upper-cut. He'd been just a little too far back, though, and the guy on his left not quite far enough away. Beale twisted, with only part of the blow connecting. The second man plowed into Mark. He was knocked sideways, off his feet, landing on the curb of the drive with a solid oof and no chance to take another breath before he was hit again—a body blow that knocked what was left of the wind out of him.

Everything went purple for a moment, and then he felt the toe of a shoe nudging him.

"Big mistake, Mark," Beale said.

He was staring up into the barrel of a semi-automatic. The clipboard had been tossed aside. McCormick entertained a brief hope that all this ruckus might've alerted Sarah, but that was dashed a moment later when the other man approached again, this time with the housekeeper firmly by one arm and a gun of his own pointed at her.

Mark kept his mouth shut and his breathing shallow. He was sincerely hoping that Sarah had a clue here, that this wasn't a good time to be self-righteous. He could already see the flash of anger in her expression but, to his surprise, she said nothing.

"Put her in the van." Beale gestured casually with his gun.

Mark moved slowly, trying to get his feet under himself without earning another knocking down, or maybe something more definitive. Beale gave him a quick, almost dismissive look and an even quicker, very slight twitch of the gun's barrel that told him, without words, to stay where he was.

"What was your beef?" Beale asked nonchalantly.

"Car theft."

The expression became even more dismissive. "And how long here, you said a month?"

Mark nodded cautiously.

"How's the dragon lady been treating you?"

McCormick said nothing. He wasn't even sure what the answer to that one was. Beale studied him a moment and then laughed harshly.

"Okay," he lowered the hand holding the gun, "one more chance. Up."

Mark figured this time the non-participation option was off the list but he thought he was owed a few answers.

"What are you going to do?"

Beale flashed another quick smile. "Yank the old guy's chain a little. We need some cash and he's going to provide it."

"And if he doesn't?"

The barrel of the gun tracked up and over toward the van, where the other guy was occupied with a set of handcuffs and the dragon lady.

"No money, no Miss Wicks."

"She's the housekeeper," Mark protested. "What makes you think he'll fork over a ransom for her?" He already knew the answer, because it was Hardcastle—and that was that—but he hoped to at least shake the guy a little.

Beale looked complacent, though. It might be that he was more interested in the process than the money.

"In or out?"

Mark swallowed once, cast a glance in Sarah's direction, and said, "I just think it's a bad idea, that's all."

Beale shook his head, still smiling slightly. He raised the gun again. McCormick had only made it to his knees. Beal's outstretched hand now had the tip of the barrel touching his forehead.

This wasn't going to help anyone, he knew, him lying in the driveway with his brains blown out and Sarah off God knew where with these two. He swallowed hard again and said, "I'm in."

"I doubt it," Beale said sharply, but he hadn't pulled the trigger. "But you might still be useful."

Another sharp gesture with the gun. Mark let out the breath he'd been holding and staggered to his feet, trying not to jar his ribs. He watched Beale slip the weapon back into his jacket pocket and gesture again toward the van, this time with a patently false smile.

Sarah was already in the back seat. The other guy was standing next to the open door on the passenger side. Beale said, "Johnny meet Mark, Mark, ah . . .?"

"McCormick," he said sullenly.

Beale nodded, still smiling, and turned to the other man, adding, "Accomplice."

Johnny gave that a questioning cock of the eyebrow.

Beale turned to Mark again. "In the back with Sarah."

Mark climbed in, trying to avoid eye contact with the woman. Beale went round to the driver's side, and Johnny climbed in the front on the other. A moment later they were in motion. Mark glanced down at his watch. The whole thing, impressions to the contrary, had taken less than ten minutes.

00000

They'd said it couldn't be done. A couple of them had even said it to his face, and Hardcastle knew for a fact that a few of the guys had put together a pool—how soon would they get the midnight call, the 'Vette missing and APB request on Hardcase's new rehab project. He half suspected there was a tout sheet somewhere with McCormick's name on it: "Runs well in muddy conditions".

He smiled to himself. They'd bagged a murderer and a bunch of kidnappers. They'd gotten a highly placed mobster to pony up evidence, and uncovered some nasty doings at the parole office. Not bad for a month's work. Now he had a couple more things on the burner and Frank seemed more officially willing to lend a hand.

Except now, returning to his office with the files that Hardcastle had requested, the lieutenant had a more troubled look on his face. Harper didn't wait for him to ask what was up.

"Just got something over the telex," Frank said grimly. "Had a break-out down at Stryker. J. J. Beale went over the wall early this morning."

Hardcastle said nothing. All the appropriate words were inappropriate.

"He took the warden's wife hostage—that's what they're saying."

They both knew Beale, and therefore they both recognized a certain amount of official spin was probably being added to that part.

"Has he been in any contact with you the past six months?"

The judge shook his head. "No. Last I saw him was right before he went back in. He had some words for me then, though." He was already reaching across Harper's desk for the phone.

Frank said nothing more as Hardcastle dialed. The judge saw the man's worried expression mirroring his own as the ringing switched over to the automated recording, 'No one is home right now . . .' He waited impatiently and then left a terse but calm message that amounted to a quick description of the situation and 'Stay inside and lock the doors. I'll be right home.'

"Maybe she's outside reading McCormick the riot act," he said unconvincingly as he hung up and got to his feet. Then he looked up at Harper abruptly. "Look, Frank, have 'em send a car over there. If it's nothing, I'll apologize but—"

"Yeah, sure, and hang on a sec; I'll go with you."

00000

It seemed as though they were driving aimlessly. Mark was starting to wonder if these guys had worked out all the details. There were several times, in slower traffic, when he would definitely have considered making a break for it, despite the fact that Johnny was half turned toward the back and still had a gun in his other hand, carefully kept down and out of sight.

But he was well aware of Sarah, though he avoided looking over at her. Her presence had to be calculated into any move he made, and it imbalanced every equation. Even the guys in the front seat were mostly ciphers. Beale was obviously in charge, but the other one was no minion. He looked sharp and wary, and now he was giving Beale a stare that said he had some questions, too.

"Soon," Beale said, then shot a glance over his shoulder that didn't quite intersect Sarah. "When's Hardcase supposed to be back?"

She said nothing, of course, not even a conciliatory, and obviously false, "I don't know".

Mark sighed. Pointless resistance was not his specialty. "For lunch," he said. "And he's gonna be steamed when he sees that front hedge isn't finished."

Beale chuckled, looked at his watch, and said, "Might as well give him a try then. It's almost noon." He pulled in at the next gas station. There was a public phone, right out in the open. "Stay here with her," he said to Johnny.

He climbed out and came around to the passenger side, staying back far enough from the door to avoid being a potential target. He signaled for McCormick to join him, keeping his other hand in the gun pocket the whole time. Mark exited, closing the door behind him as instructed.

He preceded Beale the few steps over to the phone and stood there as the man leaned in toward him. It had the superficial trappings of a friendly conference.

"You'll make the call," Beale said quietly, "and you'll keep it short. Tell them we have Sarah." Beale's eyes narrowed. "That's 'we' not 'they', got it?"

Mark nodded.

"We want a half a million. He gets the bargain rate because we're in a hurry. All he has to do right now is worry about putting it together. We'll get back to him on the delivery details."

Mark grimaced and nodded again.

"Smart boy," Beale said with a grin, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Not too smart, though. You try and mess this up and you both die right here, you understand?"

He did. He managed another nod. He turned, picked up the receiver, and dialed.

00000

The squad car was there, its occupants out and standing next to it, obviously having already gone to the door. The place was otherwise deserted. Hardcastle took it all in in a heart-sinking instant—the hedge half-finished and the clippers lying where they'd been dropped. The Coyote was parked where it had been this morning, on the far side of the fountain. Hardcastle knew, without even walking around to the garage side of the house, that Mark wouldn't have taken the 'Vette.

He pulled up, parked, and went to the front door, aware of Frank a step behind him, virtually ignoring the few words of the patrolman—"No one answered the knock. We looked 'round back."

He went in and straight through to the kitchen. She'd been making lemonade. There was no sign of a struggle.

"An errand?" Frank asked.

He shook his head. "She wouldn't have left everything out." He let out a breath. "Five three, gray hair, gray eyes, about 110 pounds. McCormick's description's in the system."

Harper was turning toward the phone on the counter. It rang, and Hardcastle pounced on it first.

"Judge?"

His relief at the familiarity of the voice astonished him. There must've been a momentary pause. Mark went on, almost hesitant, "You there?"

"Yeah," he finally said gruffly. "Where the hell are you?"

He thought he caught a sigh at the other end, truncated sharply with, "That doesn't matter. Listen, we've got Sarah and it'll cost you a half a million to get her back."

"Who the hell are you with?" There was another pause and a sound as if something had been placed over the receiver. Obviously a private conference was in session. Hardcastle waited impatiently, resisting the urge to shout into what was undoubtedly a muffling hand.

Mark was back moment later. "J. J. says 'Hi' and get the half-million or Sarah dies. Have it by noon tomorrow."

He heard a click on the far end, preceded briefly by some other sound, as if perhaps the receiver had been taken by someone else. Hardcastle realized he was still holding on to his, listening to nothing. He hung it up slowly.

"What the hell's going on?" Frank said, before the receiver was even back in place. "That was Mark, wasn't it? Are they okay?"

"Beale's got her. It was a ransom request." Hardcastle heard his own voice, surprisingly calm, as though he were commenting on a case that had nothing to do with him.

"Mark's with them?" Frank frowned. "He made the call?"

"Yeah," Hardcastle said, "but Beale's behind it and McCormick's probably got a gun to his head, too."

"What did he say, exactly?" Frank's tone had taken on a hint of suspicion.

"Half a million or they kill her," the judge said sharply.

"'Kill her? And did he say 'they', or was it 'we'?"

That'd been a slip-up, the judge realized, and this was all a holding action anyway. The next call would be recorded and thoroughly analyzed by the authorities.

"He said 'we'," the judge admitted sullenly. He saw Frank reaching for the phone again.

"Listen," he said urgently, "McCormick didn't just toss the clippers down and hook up with Beale. For God's sake, that doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe not," Frank said punching in the numbers, "but you've had him here, what, only a month now. Someone comes along with a carrot, maybe a stick, too."

"He wouldn't have."

Harper ignored him for the moment. He was speaking to the person on the other end in staccato bursts of information. Arrangements were being made and the whole thing was taking on the cast of immutable reality.

Hardcastle launched a more practical argument as the lieutenant hung up. "He left the Coyote."

"Yeah," Frank said, "and maybe that was the only reason he hung around this long. His only material asset and it's about as subtle as a firecracker. He couldn't have gotten very far in that without being tagged. Now someone offers him a share in a half million—something he can stick in his pocket and walk away with—"

"You don't believe that, do you?"

Frank hesitated, and then said, "No, I don't. Not yet. But that's how it'll look to everybody else. And they'll think you're just too damn stubborn to see it's true."

00000

This time, when Mark got into the van, he was unable to avoid taking a quick look at Sarah. Her expression as she stared back at him was inscrutable. She seemed all right, still managing to look almost prim, even with her left wrist in a handcuff and the other end attached to the handgrip on the inside of the door. It was slightly absurd, all this caution expended on a woman her age, while he sat unencumbered. The implication was clear. She was a prisoner and he was . . . something else.

He heard Beale commenting on his phone technique—not quite fulsome but definitely in complimentary tones. He knew what was afoot and he hoped Sarah did, too. He saw her lips go just fractionally tighter, but couldn't tell if that was because Beale had overplayed his hand, or her worst fears about the latest rehab project had come to pass.

"We're finished for now," Beale finally concluded. "Let the old goat stew in it for a while."

The driving took on more purpose now, fewer turns and a better sense of one direction—north by north-east. It was clear they weren't going to end up anywhere near the gas station with the phone, but no one was trying to hide the final destination from them. Mark thought this was a bad sign.

Even with his eyes open, though, he didn't think he could have given succinct, exact directions to the place. They'd run out of signs some time back, and one twisting canyon road looked more or less like another. His general impression was that no one would be walking out of there, and there was a good chance that neither of them was expected to leave at all.

They finally turned onto something that was too narrow even to be called a road, climbed a short distance through scrub, and ended in front of an old, but solidly constructed house—four rooms at most, with no signs of recent habitation.

"We're home," Beale said, smiling back over his shoulder at them. "What do you think, Sarah, needs a woman's touch, huh?"

Mark cringed but Sarah still kept her peace. Her eyes didn't even say anything. Mark thought she might have taken lessons in it—passivity was sometimes the best technique for dealing with overwhelming force. He never would have pegged her for it.

They all got out; Johnny with his gun at the ready, mostly trained on the apparently inoffensive Sarah, but the effect was the same as if he'd been pointing it directly at McCormick. They progressed to the house without incident, passing a light-colored sedan that was parked out front.

The front door opened on old hinges. "You get the guest room," Beale said, and then escorted her to the back, through a door with a sturdy looking hasp and padlock on it. "Behave and the cuffs stay off."

Mark's hopes rose slightly. If he could get her out of the way for a while, there was a slight chance that he could get close enough to one of the other two to change the balance of power. They couldn't stand there holding a gun on him indefinitely.

But Beale seemed to be thinking along the same lines; either that or he thought he'd gotten the maximum mileage out of his little pretense.

"You, too," he looked over his shoulder and spoke abruptly to McCormick. "Looks like you'll have to share quarters for a while." Then he smiled thinly and added, "Don't worry, Sarah. I'll put the cuffs on him."

He pulled them from his pocket and held them out, evidently expecting McCormick to do the duties himself. Mark started to do it, hands in front. He got a quick shake of the head from Beale. He sighed and put his hands in back, reluctantly finishing the job. Sarah observed him with a disapproving expression—the first emotion he'd seen on her face since they'd brought her out of the house back at Gulls' Way.

He looked back at her, trying for his own version of impassivity. What the hell did she expect him to do under the circumstances? Beale stood there watching the whole thing with a smile on his face.

"Make yourselves comfortable, both of you. We'll be right out here if you need anything." He closed the door.

Mark let out a breath, slow and considered and mindful of his ribs. He looked around at their new accommodations—not very promising. There was a window, small and up at shoulder height. From what he could see, it hadn't been opened in a long time. It would be a tight fit, even for someone as diminutive as Sarah, and impossible for him.

There'd been only the cast-off remnants of furniture in the room they'd passed through, a couple of chairs and an end table, and this one had the look of abandoned storage—a few boxes, a battered cast-iron bedstead with a bare mattress, and a straight-backed chair that had once been painted white, but was slowly shedding this for an earlier incarnation of pale green.

Sarah took a seat, still prim, and still giving him a look that bordered on a glare.

"I don't suppose you have a bobby pin?" he asked politely.

She frowned, conducted a brief survey of the side of her hair, and extracted one. He turned, letting her put it in the palm of his hand, and then sat down carefully on the edge of the mattress.

"Go ahead," he said, "chew me out, but do it quietly."

She frowned, cast a look at the still-closed door and then back at him, truly glaring now. "Why in heaven's name didn't you escape while you had the chance?"

He glared right back at her. "Okay," he finally said, after a few seconds of fidgeting, "if I got that window open, quietly, and we pulled the chair over, boosted you up, and lowered you out the other side, could you get back down to the road and flag a car? Might have to go a couple of miles."

She had looked up at the window while he was speaking, and was now looking at him with an expression of disbelief. "It hardly seems likely that you'd be able to—"

He brought his hands back round in front as the one cuff fell free. "I'm going to have to put these back on eventually." He held up the bobby pin. "Mind if I keep this?"

Her lips thinned momentarily, but it was an obviously suppressed smile. Then she looked back at the window again, "In any regard, the window's obviously too small."

"Not for you," he said abruptly.

She glanced back at the closed door but kept silent. He gave her a moment before he said, almost appeasingly, "So let's not talk about how I should have made a run for it."

She still said nothing; her shoulders might have lost a little of their upright rigidity—a slight slump of resignation.

"Besides," Mark added, feeling a little resigned himself, "I'm an accomplice, remember?"

This time Sarah's eyes narrowed briefly and there was a sharp shake of her head. "Nonsense."

"You heard Beale—I was very convincing on the phone."

"He'll never believe it," she said stoutly. "Not for a moment."

Mark kept his own doubts in reserve, only giving that the slightest shrug. Then he jerked his chin toward the door and the front room. "So, who is this guy? One of the earlier models, huh?"

Sarah's expression had gone flatly disapproving. "Mr. Beale was at the estate for a very brief stay."

"How brief?"

"Less than twenty-four hours."

"Didn't work out? Got tossed back in the pokey?"

He saw the rising look of indignation on Sarah's face. "He sneaked out almost as soon as it was dark, stole the judge's car, and ran away. He was apprehended, of course . . . eventually."

Mark smiled. "Of course. Must have been a dragnet. The 'Vette?" He shook his head in disbelief. "So that answers the question about whether he's sane, I guess."

"He is sane," Sarah said firmly. "Very clever and very . . ." she paused, as if searching for a word. It might have been charming, but instead she said, "ruthless."

"And he hates the judge, huh?" Mark looked thoughtfully down at the manacles, still attached to one wrist.

"You as well, it would appear."

Mark lifted his head. "Why me?"

"Well," Sarah's half-smile was back, along with an appraising look, "Mr. Beale thinks very highly of himself, you may have noticed—he's as proud as Lucifer. I suspect he's a bit annoyed to find there's someone who was able to do something he couldn't."

Mark was frowning in open puzzlement.

Sarah took in a slow breath and continued. "I mean honoring a commitment—keeping a promise to the judge."

Mark smiled ruefully. "It's not exactly like I had a choice in the matter, Sarah."

"You did. You've had the same choices all along that J.J. Beale had, and you're proof that it wasn't an impossible thing to do. I think that might be galling him rather severely."

"Great," Mark drawled, "nothing I like better than irritating a guy with a gun."

"And you refused his offer in front of his partner? That might not have been a very wise idea."

"Okay, Sarah, next time I'll just give in to temptation."

"I doubt it. I suspect you've got that one thing in common—the pride, I mean."

Mark felt one eyebrow rising and then a flush of embarrassment, not sure if he'd just been complimented. He finally gave up trying to figure it out and brought his mind back to the matter at hand. He shifted around, wincing, seeing nothing else in the room that held promise as a weapon.

He glanced back over at Hardcastle's housekeeper. "Beale had me ask for a half a million. What do you think he'll do? Can he even put together that kind of cash?"

Sarah still sat quietly, hands in her lap. She seemed to be considering the question. She finally said, in a voice hardly more than a whisper, "He will do as they ask, but I don't think that will be all that he will do."

Mark dropped his chin. He'd also had no question that Hardcase would involve the authorities. Beale must have had much the same notion—he hadn't even bothered to warn the judge against the attempt. It wouldn't so much matter what the old donkey thought about his involvement; he'd soon be superseded by guys who would assume the worst. He took a deep breath, felt it catch his ribs unaware, and winced again.

Sarah looked at him sharply. "How badly where you injured?"

Another shrug—this one very circumspect. "A couple of ribs, I guess. Nothing major."

Sarah accepted this with what appeared to be complacency. "See," she said, "they'll know you put up a fight."

Mark smiled dryly. "They're gonna shoot first and do autopsies later, but I'm sure it'll be a great comfort to Hardcase to find out I lied to him on the phone." The smile faded.

"He won't let anything happen to us," Sarah said calmly.

"I wish I had your faith," Mark said with a sigh, easing back and trying to find a comfortable position.

00000

Frank was the liaison to the LAPD and was intent on keeping that as low-key as possible. The FBI was not quite as unobtrusive. Hardcastle was explaining, for the third time and with rapidly decreasing patience, what his connections were to J.J. Beale and Mark McCormick, carefully outlining the differences, a concept that the authorities seemed to have difficulty grasping.

"Both ex-cons," the senior agent, a guy named Utley, said impatiently. "You put 'em to work here. They had the run of the place." He looked out the window then brought his eyes back sharply to the judge. "We'll need to check the phone records; see if this new guy of yours had any contact with the others beforehand."

"He didn't," Hardcastle said. "Never had any contact with Beale in prison, even, I'm sure of that. Anyway . . . he didn't."

"You've made the financial arrangements?" Utley asked. "You're planning on going through with this? There's no guarantee, with guys like them, that they'll keep their end of the bargain."

"I understand that."

"And there's a possibility that their plan includes luring you into range for an attack as well."

"I get that, too," Hardcastle said impatiently. "Look, I've been around the block. I was a cop, first, before I was a judge." He'd suspected the agent would not be too impressed by this revelation and, true to his predictions, he got little more than a shrug from Utley.

"And all I'm saying," the agent drawled, "is that you ought to consider availing yourself of the Bureau's expertise in these matters. You're dealing with a couple of guys who may very well think killing you would be a bonus on this deal, and you don't have any evidence that your housekeeper is even still alive."

"She is," he said, and then he added grimly, "or at least she was when I got that call."

"How the hell can you be sure of that?"

"Because that—keeping her from being killed—is the only thing that would have kept McCormick in line, making that ransom call."

Utley looked absolutely unconvinced but seemed to be coming to grips with the fact that he wasn't going to persuade the judge, either. Harper who'd been leaning against the mantle through the whole exchange, stepped forward.

"We're not getting anywhere standing around trying to guess who's holding a gun on who. The judge needs to get his financial arrangements made, and you have to set up the phones here to be monitored and arrange for back-up." He turned sharply back to Hardcastle and added, "You will let us back you up, won't you?"

The judge looked doubtful. "Assuming you can do it carefully. Do I get to make a prediction?"

Utley said nothing; Harper merely nodded once.

"My guess," Hardcastle continued, "is that when the hammer comes down, the only guy you'll see will be McCormick. They'll make him go point, probably right out in the open, in broad daylight. Now, tell me, would any rational kidnapper make a pickup like that?"

The agent seemed to be giving that some thought. He finally said, grudgingly, "Maybe not , but they don't make these guys take a criminal aptitude test."

00000

Mark caught himself drifting off in a doze, and jerked slightly. Sarah was sitting quietly.

"Sorry," he said.

"Why?"

"It's not the company," he smiled. "Funny, even being scared gets dull after a while."

She nodded, though she still looked wide awake herself.

"Can't fall asleep, though," he added.

"Why not?"

He held up the one attached cuff. "Don't want to get caught breaking the rules. Might get us in trouble. I suppose I could put 'em back on, but then they'd probably keep me awake."

"I could keep watch, if you're tired."

Mark shook his head. "It's okay." He looked down at his watch. "Five-thirty. I suppose there's one upside to this whole thing."

Sarah raised an eyebrow in question.

"No liver and onions." Mark smiled wryly.

"I wouldn't have thought prison would have turned you into such a fussy eater," Sarah observed.

"Not liking liver is not exactly fussy."

"The judge has always liked liver and onions."

"Good, then he can have mine," Mark's smile had slipped a little. "But he'll have to wait until tomorrow night, I suppose. I mean, unless he wants to cook it himself."

Sarah's look had gone piercing and a little stern. "You think there's not much chance you'll get out of this alive?"

Mark cocked his head slightly and then said, "Dunno. Too many angles." He squinted and looked around the small room again. "I want you to know, I'll do everything I can to get you out of this in one piece."

She looked at him, her expression a little doubting. "A very noble sentiment. You needn't be reassuring on my account."

"Nah," McCormick waved that away with one hand, dangling the cuff, "not all noble. It's just that if you don't make it through this, and I do, there's no chance they'll believe I wasn't in on it. Kidnapping and murder—that's life in prison with no parole."

"Ah," Sarah said, "I understand."

"No," Mark said, "there's no way you could, but trust me I'd rather take a bullet for you than end up like that."

She expressed no shock or irritation. There was a hint of a smile that was almost knowing, and it somehow made Mark squirm. Too late to take the hard truth back, though he took a vow to avoid any more unnecessary revelations.

The sound of a hand on the doorknob spared him any further embarrassment. He yanked his hands behind his back and refastened the loose cuff barely in time as the door swung inward. He tried to sit placidly, not showing the discomfort that his sudden movement had caused him.

Beale stood there, studying him for a moment, as though he were suspicious. He finally stepped in, handing a plate with two sandwiches to Sarah.

"Been behaving?" he asked Mark pointedly.

McCormick nodded. He didn't try to make it anything but sullen, figuring that he could only get away with so much lying.

Beale tossed the key onto the mattress. "You've probably already had 'em off, I'll bet. Don't worry; I don't expect you to be perfect. Anyway, I suppose it gave you a sense of accomplishment, huh?"

Mark said nothing. He tried not to scowl but he thought he probably didn't do too well with that, either.

"There's your dinner. Not Sarah's home cooking, but it'll have to do."

He said nothing more and didn't wait for an answer. As soon as the door was shut, Sarah put the plate down and stood, picking up the key and reaching round to use it.

"It's a little faster, I suppose."

Mark hadn't quite gotten rid of the scowl. "It's a good thing Beale blew out of Gulls' Way—one night you said? He and Hardcase would've killed each other." He moved slower this time, with Sarah watching him closely as she subsided back into her chair. "I meant that metaphorically," he added, rubbing his wrist. "I think."

Sarah nodded, picked up the plate and held it out for mutual inspection. Bologna sandwiches. Mark lifted the top slice on the nearest one. No mayo. Beale's efforts almost beat out liver and onions on his list of least-favorite foods.

"I think J.J.'s trying to send a message here; this is jail food."

"It's food," Sarah replied, "and you ought to eat it."

"Don't worry; I will." Mark picked his up and nudged the plate back in her direction. "You too, though."

"I can get along on half of one, if you're hungry."

Mark took a bite and made a face. "One'll be plenty. I'm just not very hungry, really." He took another bite and chewed it unenthusiastically. At another stern look from Sarah he added, "You suppose there'll be any water to go with it? That's what I really am—thirsty."

Sarah said nothing, but carefully set the plate aside. She rose and went to the door. Mark watched her with increasing alarm and then opened his mouth to speak.

"Shh," she said, lifting her hand to knock. "It's a perfectly reasonable question and I should have asked it when he brought the sandwiches. There's another matter, too."

To Mark's surprise, there were the sounds of movement on the other side of the door almost immediately, then Beale's voice near at hand. "What's the matter?"

"We have a request," Sarah said in a calm, clear voice that was reserved, but held none of her usual acerbic impatience.

Even more surprising, this wasn't met with anything but a plainly stated, "What?"

"Water, to drink . . . and access to the facilities."

'The facilities' had also been hovering in the back of Mark's mind, but lack of water had minimized that need. He was glad Sarah had raised the issue though.

After a few minutes the hand was on the doorknob again. Mark half expected a rusty bucket and a snarling laugh, but, instead, when the door opened it framed both the other men. J.J. held the gun; Johnny was carrying a gallon plastic jug and a chipped enameled mug.

"Stand clear," Beale said, and Mark smiled slightly. Sarah was the only one standing and their captors looked fairly absurd in their precautions. Beale must've picked up on that. He didn't look pleased. "You first," he said brusquely to her, gesturing her out with the gun.

Mark felt a twitch of concern, the exact nature of which he couldn't describe. It went past what he'd told Sarah earlier, that his freedom hinged on her survival. Now it was something more generally foreboding—he just didn't want to see her off alone with either of these men.

He had no choice in the matter. Johnny had her firmly by the arm in a parody of an escort. Beale stayed in the doorway with the gun still trained back into the room. It was only a few minutes before she returned, looking as though she'd cooperated. Johnny pointed to the chair and she quietly sat.

"You're next," Beale said.

Mark stood—too abruptly, he decided. The room wavered and he heard a rushing sound. He reached out for the bed frame, still enough in possession of himself to keep that movement slow and steady. Everything cleared after a moment, not enough delay to get more than a quick, impatient look from the two men, and a longer, more questioning one from Sarah.

Beale and his partner both accompanied him. The door to the cell was shut once he'd exited—the hasp closed and the lock fastened—before they proceeded to the small bathroom. No allowance for privacy there, either. Obviously his status as accomplice was a thing of the past. He sighed and did his business, grateful at least to be free of the cuffs for now.

They returned him with the same precautions—he felt the nose of Beale's gun buried between his shoulder blades. The other man opened the padlock. As soon as it was open he was shoved inside with a push hard enough to almost imbalance him.

He caught himself with a hand on the bed frame again, forced his breathing back to shallow, and settled his face before he looked over at Sarah. Didn't matter; she hadn't missed a thing but she also didn't belabor the point.

"Sit," she said. "Drink." She'd already poured a cup of water and was handing it to him.

"Thank you." It was tepid, and had a faintly plastic smell to it, but it tasted remarkably good as a consequence of going without since that morning. He finished it off quickly and she reached to fill it again. "Better not," he cautioned quietly. "Might be a while before we get to use the, um, facilities again."

"Never mind that." She shook her head and continued pouring. "You need to drink." He supposed that feeling too worn out to argue with her was a good sign that she was right, and the worry etched in her expression was better than a mirror to tell him how he looked.

He eased back on the mattress again. She'd put the plate there with his own barely-touched sandwich back on it, along with half of her own. He smiled. "I really can't—"

"Eat," she said peremptorily. "When did they say the money had to be ready by?" she added in a practical but somewhat concerned tone.

"Ah, noon, tomorrow." He frowned in thought. "Long night, huh?" He gave their little cell another hard stare. "Killing time," he said quietly, "I used to hate that. Sitting, waiting for the next thing to happen." He broke his eyes away from his surroundings, slightly surprised to see Sarah nodding. But she'd get that, of course; she was always busy. "I dunno," he added, "maybe that's the hardest thing about being a prisoner." He wasn't sure why he was continuing, but it was going to be an even longer night if they simply sat there and stared at each other. "I mean, feeling like your life is slipping away—all the things you aren't doing because you're sitting there, waiting."

"Perhaps not the hardest," Sarah said after a moment, "but up near the top of the list."

He looked at her warily. He knew she thought he was inclined to be lazy, but there was nothing mocking in her tone. He was inclined to be a little tetchy on the subject of prison and usually covered it over with a veneer of humor, but he thought he was too tired to take precautions tonight, and it was all too close to the surface—the locked door and the armed guard conducting him to the bathroom.

He was thinking he'd better change the subject when Sarah said, "Will you be all right?"

It had come out of the blue and caught him with his mouth already open. He shut it, paused a moment in astonishment, and finally said, "Sarah, I did it for two years, what's one more night?"

She didn't roll her eyes, but she did glance heavenward for a long beat, and the effect was much the same. "I don't mean your mental well-being," she said intently. "You looked very pale."

He frowned again, then realized she was referring to the little incident when he'd stood up. He smiled and said, "I'm okay, just got a little dehydrated—all the slaving under the hot sun this morning."

It didn't surprise him that he got no smile in return. "It is another habit that prisoners have," she said curtly, "lying."

It had come out as such a strange combination of concern and disapproval that he didn't know whether to be touched or offended. He looked at her steadily for a moment then finally shrugged and said, "You know, Sarah, I don't really lie very much, but, honest, if people are gonna think I am, why the hell should I bother to tell the truth?"

Sarah's face tightened a bit further, possibly at the slightly salty language—not that Hardcastle wasn't known to throw out the occasional cuss word—but he didn't back down and gradually she granted him a single acquiescing nod and said, "I suppose that's reasonable. And you are feeling better?"

He smiled; it was a somewhat rigid smile, based on the fact that he was teetering on the brink of an untruth, but he couldn't see how absolute honesty was going to do either one of them any good right now.

"Yes," he said, "much better." And having stepped that far in the mire, he let the smile broaden out somewhat as he patted his ribs very gently. "I don't even think I cracked 'em—probably just bruised."

"You," Sarah said with a quick shake of her head, "are shameless."

00000

Hardcastle stood on his own front steps, the twilight spreading from the east, swallowing up the last of the blood-red sunset. He could no longer tolerate the aggravating busyness in his own home, and yet he could not wander out of earshot, just in case there was another phone call from the kidnappers.

The problem was the waiting; he'd never been good at it. That and the not-knowing, the fretting without any way of relieving his worry. He looked up at the darkening sky, no moon at all—a good night for maneuvers, and no maneuvers to be done. The enemy was well-hidden. He let out a long breath, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and dropped his chin down on his chest.

"Hiding out?"

He started slightly at Frank's unexpected question. He'd been so deep in thought that he hadn't even heard the door opening. He half-turned and cast a glance over his shoulder, grunting a greeting. The lieutenant stepped up beside him, not bothering him with any more questions, just keeping him company silently.

The evening star was clearly visible in the dark western sky before the judge spoke again. "You know Beale . . . you suppose they're all right?"

He felt Frank's slow shrug. "Yeah, he's not stupid, and he knows you're no fool. You'll ask him to prove she's okay before you'll deal."

The judge nodded once.

"Then he'll have to keep her alive, just on account of that," Frank said. There was a hesitation. Hardcastle looked to the side. Harper was frowning.

"What?" the judge asked.

"Just wondering—Sarah, she's getting up there, not exactly frail but—"

"No," Hardcastle smiled slightly, "not exactly. She's a lot tougher than she looks." The smile faded back into worry. "That's a problem, ya know. She speaks her mind and damn the consequences," he shook his head once, "and McCormick's not a whole lot better." He glanced over his opposite shoulder, back toward the window of the den. "Those idiots in there, they think he's in on it."

Hardcastle had been hoping for reassuring disagreement, but Frank wasn't the type to lie. A few moments of silence passed and the judge let out a sigh. The idiots in question now represented multiple sectors of law enforcement, including the California Department of Corrections. Getting Sarah back was on everyone's priority list—though not their only concern—but it was evident that to them McCormick was somewhere between potential collateral damage and an actual target.

"Sarah's valuable, to Beale and to those guys," he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, "but McCormick . . ."

"—is pretty quick on his feet," Harper finished for him, after a pause. "He's probably already got some plan."

00000

They'd settled into an awkward silence, with no further interference from the two men on the other side of the door. Though he was officially free of the handcuffs, Mark still couldn't sleep. Even the slightest movement was a sharp reminder of what had happened and where he was.

"You might try lying down," Sarah suggested.

"What'll you do?"

"Sit."

Mark frowned and then said, "We could take turns. I know it's not all that clean a mattress but you can sleep anywhere if you're tired enough."

There it was, that knowing half-smile again, but Sarah only said, "Noon," she glanced down at the little fob watch she wore pinned to the waistband of her dress. "It's less than twelve hours now."

"I really wish I had your faith." He stared at her, sitting serenely complacent. "These guys are calling the shots. I don't know what Hardcastle can do except wait for them—for me—to contact him again, and then do what he's told."

"Nonsense," Sarah replied sharply.

"Yeah, I'll grant you that's not his style."

"I should say not," she sniffed.

Mark smiled. "Well, even I've figured that out, and you've known him a lot longer." His expression went flatter. "But this would take a miracle." McCormick shook his head. "Sorry, Sarah, nobody's that good."

He settled back a little more, trying to find a position that didn't put pressure on his ribs. He wasn't really hoping he'd won that argument; there was no reason to deprive the woman of her faith. Another quick glance in her direction convinced him there was no risk of that. He thought maybe a change of subject was in order.

"How long have you known him?"

Sarah furrowed her brow lightly. "It must be nearly forty years now."

Mark accepted that with a nod. Then, a moment later, having done the math, and applying what he did know about Hardcastle's chronology, he said, "You knew him before he was married?"

"Yes," Sarah nodded absently. "We met during the war."

McCormick was frowning now. He had a vague notion that the judge had been in the army, but didn't know much more than that. "Was it here in LA?"

"No," she said. She made a vague motion in the southeastward direction, assuming Mark had not completely lost his sense of direction on their way here, "It was in the South Pacific. He was with the Sixth Army."

Mark felt one eyebrow rising slightly. He dragged it down sharply. She seemed rather matter-of-fact about it all, so it didn't seem likely to have been a whirlwind wartime romance. Maybe she'd been in the army, too; it seemed entirely possible. But there were no more details immediately forthcoming.

He tried a very reasonable question. "What were you doing out there?"

"Oh, I'd married a young man who was an engineer. His name was Harold, Harold Wicks." There was a hint of a smile that faded slowly. "That was back in '34. It was the Depression, you know."

Mark nodded.

"And he took a job with a Dutch company out there. The pay wasn't very good but it was work, and a little money went a long way in the islands. We were happy." The smile was back, a little wistful.

"Then the war came, but we weren't too worried at first, after all, we were U.S. citizens. We weren't at war with anyone, and we thought if that did happen, it would all be over very quickly.

"And it was—the Japanese overran our little island in only a few days. No one was permitted to leave, not even the non-enemy aliens, and then, only a few weeks later, we heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Harold and I were rounded up and put with the Dutch and British."

"What happened?"

"Camps, we were moved here and there. Together for a little while, then separately—the men off to work on roads, we hoped. I was the only American woman there and I don't think they quite knew what to do with me. I ended up with a group of Dutch nursing sisters, seven of them. That was a good thing. Nurses were useful and so they were fed, more or less, though we were all a bit thin and scraggly."

Mark tried to imagine an even thinner Sarah Wicks. His imagination failed.

"But mostly it was hard not knowing what had happened to Harold. We would hear rumors, that's all, nothing certain. But the world was where we were, within the fence, trying to find enough to eat, to not to get beaten, to survive. And always the rumors."

"How long?"

Sarah frowned. "Three years. A little more. Toward the end things were very bad, even though we'd seen the planes and we knew the Japanese were losing. People starved, they got sick and they died. We'd been moved to a small camp—it was up in the jungle and there was an airstrip—I think it had been built by some prisoners of war. I don't know what happened to them. The Allies were bombing it, and more prisoners—men—were brought in to maintain it. And we were supposed to keep the sick ones strong enough to keep working."

He watched her expression—transported back forty years—and her face shadowed by the memory.

"It was impossible," she said grimly, "not without food and medicine. We nursed them and they still died, and more men were brought in from who knows where. Then one morning a group of them were marched up the trail and into camp, and there was my Harold. Oh, I hardly recognized him, and I don't think he recognized me at all, which was a good thing, because if the guards had known, it would have been a problem.

"But it wasn't long before I saw him, face-to-face. He was brought to the shack that served as our hospital ward. He had dysentery and was already too sick to work." She quirked an utterly unexpected smile. "I suppose it sounds odd, starving and sick, but that was a very happy time for me—I'd thought him dead."

Mark nodded once. He understood the theory. The more abjectly miserable you were, the less improvement it took to achieve happiness, but now he knew Sarah had trumped him in practical experience.

"And Harold said it wouldn't be long. The Allied invasion was expected any day and the Japanese knew it. All we had to do was hang on a little longer and we'd be rescued.

"Then one morning the men were told to line up, everyone, even the ones who were too sick to work. The sister in charge of the hospital protested but it did no good. The eight of us were told to stay there. The men were marched out of camp—all of them, and nearly all the guards with them. They only left one, one of the older ones; we called him Furu-san. He spoke a little English—enough to give us orders.

"The other women were certain the intention was to kill us, as soon as the men were far enough off not to hear. It might have been so; Furu-san didn't look too happy about the whole thing, and there was nothing we could do about it." Sarah had a very distant expression on her face. "But he didn't. He waited a while, then he told us to stay there, not to follow him, and he left. And it wasn't ten minutes after that, before the angels arrived."

"Angels?"

"More or less. It was Company C. They looked wonderfully angelic to us—even the sisters thought so. They'd come to capture the airstrip and they'd been expecting a fight. As soon as we realized they were American, we came out in the open. There was a very large, very loud captain in charge, and I think he was utterly surprised to find he'd liberated an internment camp."

"Hardcase?" Mark grinned.

Sarah sighed in obvious disapproval. "Well, that was how his men referred to him. It was mostly affectionate, I believe.

"I got pushed to the front by the other ladies, of course, being American. I told him what had happened, which way the guards had gone. I gathered that he'd been given orders to take the airstrip, and put it back in working order as quickly as possible. I told him if he would take his men and go after the others, the sisters and I would do our best to fix the holes."

She frowned. "I'll give him credit; he didn't laugh."

"He wouldn't have dared," Mark said.

"Well, he must've known the whole thing was fairly hopeless—the guards had a head start and almost certainly they would kill the prisoners at any sign of pursuit—but he formed up his men. They'd only had a few minutes to rest, but they didn't even blink. I remember one boy, a tall dark-haired fellow, thin as a rail but taller than Captain Hardcastle, he handed me some tins—he called them K-rations. He said he wouldn't need them and could move faster if he lightened his load. Some of the other men did the same for the sisters and we stood there and watched them move off."

"They caught up with the guards?"

"After a fashion. They actually went around them, then took them by surprise. He sent part of his men down with the prisoners and he came up with a platoon to deal with the airstrip and tell us what had happened. I looked for the nice young man, the one who had given me his rations. He hadn't even told me his name. When I didn't see him with the rest, I went to Captain Hardcastle. He told me the boy had been killed." She paused. He saw the regret still etched on her face. "Jimmy Burroughs, he said, that was the young man's name, and he was from San Antonio."

There was a longer silence that followed. It seemed as though she might be finished with the story.

"Was Harold okay?" Mark asked hesitantly.

"Oh," she looked up, startled from her reverie "yes. Once the airstrip was repaired they sent a plane in for us. I met up with him at the hospital down in the main camp. We stayed there for a while—not really okay though. He was still quite sick. Eventually we came back to the States—to Los Angeles—but Harold's health was ruined. Tuberculosis and malaria. He died less than a year later."

Silence again. Awkward, heavy.

It was punctuated with a long sigh. Then she started up again, quiet and very determined. "One place is much like another when you are alone. I found work here, keeping house. Other peoples' lives and families and houses. I stayed busy. It is important to stay busy."

He stared at her, still sitting primly in the chair. "Did you hate them?" he finally asked. "The people who did that to you? They took three years of your life."

She lifted her face and looked at him quite steadily, but didn't answer for a moment. Then she finally ducked her chin sharply and said, "For a while, yes, but you know it does no good, all that anger. It didn't hurt the people I hated a bit—most of them were dead, anyway." She raised her eyes and met his steadily. "And they couldn't take those years from me; I lived through them—I survived. I learned things from that time, from what happened. No one can make you hate, and no one can make you less than human. Only you can do that to yourself."

"They took your husband."

"And he was given back to me, for a little while at least. I was grateful for that, for Private Burroughs and Captain Hardcastle and all those young men who thought nothing of marching off into the jungle to get him back for me."

He watched her, hands folded neatly in her lap—the obvious, patent truth of it all. He thought it was possible that the woman did not know how to lie. He twitched uncomfortably and searched for a change of subject.

"How did you wind up working for Hardcastle?

She produced a small, slightly sad smile. "We stayed in touch a bit. He heard that Harold had passed—there was quite a nice obituary in the Times, and later on I received an invitation to the wedding. Such a nice young woman she was, Miss Nancy. And then he had his law practice, and she was helping in the office. I had housekeeping experience and they needed someone. It made perfect sense."

Mark also suspected it made perfect sense to Hardcastle that once you rescued someone they had to stay rescued, adopted into the household, if need be. Somehow the whole story, astonishing as it was, made perfect sense. And somehow, too, her faith seemed a little less surprising. He shifted again, stifling a grunt of the pain which had been temporarily forgotten.

"He'll think of something, I suppose."

"Yes," she nodded, "and you should get a few hours of sleep. You'll be no help at all if you don't," she added sternly.

"All right," he finally settled into the closest thing he could find to a comfortable position, abandoning self-consciousness for exhaustion, "but wake me up in a couple of hours, okay? You'll need to lie down for a while, too."

She nodded in quiet agreement. He closed his eyes.

And there was the sound of a hand on the doorknob again. It jerked him back awake with a sudden awareness of where he was—and the realization that Sarah Wicks was indeed capable of lying. Sunlight was streaming through the small window of their makeshift cell. He cast a reproachful look at her, still sitting, looking not much different than she had during the night.

Beale and his partner were there in the now-open doorway. J.J. looked complacent but Johnny was tense, almost twitchy. It was obvious that things were coming to a head. No sandwiches this morning, but the bathroom routine was followed identically to the night before—except that when he was finished, Mark was taken no further than the main room. The door to the smaller room was shut and locked. Johnny had taken a wary stance in front of it.

"You'll drive," Beale said, obviously addressing Mark. "You'll do as you're told." Then he looked to his left, taking in his partner and the door behind him with a quick nod. "If we're not back in forty-five minutes, he'll shoot her." He turned back to McCormick. "The first one won't be to kill, but at her age, I can't make any promises. If we're still not back fifteen minutes after that—he'll finish her off. The room will have your prints all over it. You understand?"

Mark looked toward the door to the back room. He hesitated for a moment before he said, "Can I—"

"No," Beale cut him off sharply. He shook his head. "I can't believe this. Where the hell did he find you?" His disgust was evident.

McCormick kept his mouth shut. Disgust was tantamount to being dismissed as a threat. It was no stretch to slip into the role. He didn't feel particularly threatening this morning, but he hoped he might come up to scratch once he'd gotten moving. He went quietly, walking in front of Beale, toward the front door and then to the sedan.

He climbed in on the driver's side, and waited for J.J. to get in across from him and hand over the keys. This was obviously another trip to a public phone booth—someplace not much more than twenty minutes away, he hoped.

Beale left his gun in his pocket; a further indication of his opinion of his adversary, but his hand was in there, too. Mixed signals—Mark thought the man might not be as relaxed as he would like to appear. But it's Hardcase who worries him, not you.

He buckled his seat belt, a maneuver perfectly in keeping with his air of cautious docility. He didn't bother to suppress the wince that came with the movements. He started the car and put it in gear. The other man was still a shade too on guard, too alert. Mark wasn't sure that delivering ransom instructions would constitute a sedate enough errand to put Beale at ease, but he was determined to try.

There was no choice in direction once they'd turned onto the narrow road that had gotten them to the house. He didn't attempt to ask any more questions, and Beale didn't do more than remain superior in a silent way. Mark thought the last gas station they'd passed on the way in had been at a crossroads, maybe six miles back. He drove in an ordinary fashion but didn't waste any time.

He took his foot off the gas as they neared the station and, as he'd suspected, Beale nodded at him to turn in. It was a small place, and they were the only customers. Beale didn't even bother with any additional warnings, just told him to pull over by the pump.

Mark had already checked the gauge. The tank was half-full. He supposed buying gas might make them less memorable than merely stopping in to use the phone, but in this rural establishment it was all full service, and the attendant was already heading out to take care of them. It looked like a miscalculation on Beale's part, but when Mark turned to him, momentarily puzzled, he was holding out a twenty dollar bill.

"Just ask for three gallons." Beale said. "And have him check the oil," he added with a thin smile.

McCormick grimaced, took the bill, and turned back, rolling down the window and repeating the requests. The attendant looked vaguely annoyed at not being told to fill'er up, and looking under the hood was obviously more service than he wanted to give under the circumstances. Of course the dip stick, wiped and reinserted, came back showing no need there.

He glanced at the pump and drawled, "That'll be three dollars and thirty-five cents."

Mark handed over the twenty. The attendant gave it, and then him, a long hard stare, and headed back into the station to get the change. McCormick grimaced. Beale, edged up against the passenger door and mostly out of sight of the attendant, chuckled.

"You are so screwed," he said, looking very entertained by it all. "But at least the guy's going to get some satisfaction when he finds out he met a real live kidnapper. I'll bet he gives the cops a very good description."

McCormick, getting a grip on his docility and almost wringing it by the neck, said nothing. The attendant returned, in no particular hurry, and counted out the money.

"Thanks," Mark said glumly. He rolled up the window. Beale held out his hand for the bills but had him keep the coins.

"Phone next." He nodded in that direction.

McCormick started the car and pulled over to a booth that was distressingly near the station itself.

"Park it with my door next to the phone, close," Beale instructed. "You can handle that, can't you?"

He tucked it in, trying to make it seem a little challenging, meriting another look of disgust.

"Okay, you get out, walk around the front." Beale was rolling his own window down.

J.J. was only three feet away from the phone, but still mostly out of sight of the attendant, if he should look this way. McCormick, on the other hand, would be standing in full view of everyone. Mark was starting to wonder if the description would even mention that there had been two men in the vehicle.

He got out and approached the phone, trying not to skulk.

"You're going to tell him noon, in the parking lot furthest east at Zuma Beach, bring the money, and come alone," Beale added, almost as an after thought. "You say anything but that and you die right here, got it?"

McCormick nodded. He reached for the phone. They'd already burned twenty-one minutes of the allotted forty-five. He didn't have time to quibble about the details.

He dialed. Not much to his surprise, the receiver was picked up before the second ring, and the familiar voice on the other end rasped out a 'hello' as if he, too, was a little short on sleep.

He repeated the details, short, to the point, and trying not to stray from the script while not giving his rendition very much feeling. He suspected the whole thing was being recorded for posterity. There was neither time nor room to maneuver, not with Beale sitting an arm's length away listening intently to every word.

As soon as Mark had finished stating the demands, J.J. gestured abruptly for him to hang up. McCormick doubted there was anything else he could say that would offset the damage. He heard Hardcase asking to speak to Sarah as he put the receiver back in the cradle.

"Good work," Beale said. "Get back in."

McCormick needed no encouragement. Twenty-five minutes had already slipped through his fingers. He climbed back in and buckled up.

00000

"Got it," Agent Utley said smugly, hanging up the receiver on the auxiliary line. "These guys are out of the loop, not up-to-date. We can tag a location now almost as fast as they can dial. This one's a pay phone." He riffled through a stack of survey maps, locating the right one after a few minutes' search. He checked the address he'd written down on his note pad. "Here." He tapped a spot on the map he'd pulled out. "Assuming he traveled back down from a location lying further north, I'd say we need to concentrate the search in this area." He circled a desolate section with his index finger. "I've already got a chopper scrambled, and the local patrols notified. We'll get these bastards."

Hardcastle had barely looked up from his own phone, which had been sitting, cradled for only a few minutes. His lips were pursed in deep suspicion. "Zuma," he said quietly, "is a lousy place for an exchange."

"But a good place for a sniper," Frank speculated. "I think he wants you, out in the open. Might just be to test you, but I think maybe he's more interested in taking you down than getting the money."

00000

"Why Zuma?" Mark asked cautiously. "I mean, it's kinda public."

Beale shrugged. "Good sight-lines."

"Good for what?" Mark said suspiciously, and then, when he got no further answer, "You don't even want the half a mil, do ya? This is all just a big distraction to get Hardcase out where you can get a shot at him, huh? Does your buddy, Johnny, know you've gone not-for-profit?"

Beale's patience was apparently wearing thin again, but Mark didn't care this time. If he couldn't get the man to relax, he'd settle for riling the heck out of him, as a form of temporary distraction. Time was tight and, it was slowly dawning on him, not just for Sarah.

But this time Beale mostly ignored him. Another bad sign, Mark supposed—the single-minded focus of fanatical vengeance.

Mark frowned. "Why do you hate him so much?"

This time he had Beale's undivided attention. He glanced from the road and saw the man's eyes riveting on him, his lip curled up in disbelief, but all pretense at cool abstraction rapidly melting away.

"He took my life. Everything, dammit. And then he had the gall to drag me home to do his yard work. I should've killed him that night." Beal's expression had hardened into a sneer. "The question is, why don't you hate him? What the hell kind of guy plays Stepin Fetchit to the man who put him in prison?"

Mark let that one ride. It was one of those things he didn't even like to think about on a good day, and, besides, they were to the precise spot he'd chosen on the trip down. He punched the gas pedal, then yanked the wheel and hit the brakes all within a space calculated to take advantage of the curve in the road and the proximity of several good-sized trees that he hoped would prevent a roll-over.

The sideward skid was sudden, and controlled only to the extent that he could have predicted it. Instinct drew Beale's eyes to the point of impact and his hands up to brace himself and Mark let go of the wheel—holding onto it was pretty pointless in these situations anyway—and lunged for the pocket with the gun.

He had his hand on it before they slammed sideways into the first tree, but the jarring impact, even with his seatbelt in place, nearly tore it from his grip. It didn't matter—Beale's side had taken the brunt of the force, and he'd been unrestrained. He was slumped over against the passenger door, which appeared to have met him partway.

Now came the half a dozen uncalculatable variables, any of which might damn the whole cockeyed scheme. Mark started to take a deep breath, then suddenly changed his mind about that. He realized the car was still running and his foot was now convulsively clamped down on the brake. Well and good. Was it still drivable?

He slipped the gun into his pocket, eased up on the brake, and turned the wheel sharply to the left. With a groaning crunch of metal he heard it edge free from where it had landed. Four inflated tires as well, it appeared. So far he was batting a thousand.

Ideally, he would have had Beale take over behind the wheel, but the man was obviously still dazed and there was no time to waste waiting for him to recover. No blood on his face that McCormick could see, however—another big plus.

The only real difficulty seemed to be his own breathing. A mixture of pain and anxiety had reduced that to shallow pants that didn't seem to be enough to keep the purple spots at bay. He slowed it down, and was relieved to see his field of vision opening up. He was already back on the road, nervously checking his watch. Five minutes left if he'd gotten the time right initially, though surely Johnny wouldn't be in that much of a hurry to increase the charges to attempted murder. Another quick glance at Beale, now moaning and trying to lift his head off the seat.

"Don't move; we had a little accident," Mark said, going for the element of continued confusion—anything to buy himself a little more time, and right now he needed that time desperately.

He pulled up into the side road leading to the house with another quick turn that elicited a sharp pain in his side. He was close enough now, he thought, to hear a shot if one was fired. Nothing, nothing so far. He pulled in, putting the car on the far side of the electric company van with the damaged side away from the house. He hoped Johnny had heard his return, that the clock was now on hold, but he didn't want him to notice anything peculiar.

He was up and out of the car a moment later, ignoring everything but what he had to do next—Beale was trying to get up, too, but he was around to that side of the car before the man had made much progress. The door, though deeply dented, opened on one try; another small miracle in his favor. Mark showed Beale the gun—once, quick, just to get him focused—then back in the pocket.

"Okay, listen," he said, low and very intent, "nobody's dead yet and we want to keep it that way, right?"

Beale was squinting up at him. There was an unfortunate bruise but it was mostly above his hairline on the right, and Mark thought he understood what was being said. He didn't go so far as to threaten that Beale would be the first person to die if this thing started to go south once they were inside—he wasn't sure if he could keep that promise, and he thought J.J. was the kind of guy who just might take him up on it, out of sheer cussedness.

Instead, he gestured him out of the car, and said, "We'll just walk up there, nice and easy. You'll keep your right hand in your pocket, like before, and stay right beside me. When we get inside you'll tell Johnny to unlock the back room. You got that?"

Beale nodded, looking surly. Mark didn't want to waste any more time with details. This would either work, or blow up so completely that he'd have nothing to worry about afterwards. They started walking.

Johnny was on his feet, in the front room, and had clearly seen the car arrive. He looked no more on edge than he had before but his gun was on the end table, next to the chair he'd obviously been occupying.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Fine," Beale said abruptly. Mark was holding his breath; he hoped it wasn't noticeable. "Open the door," Beale added, after no more than a moment's hesitation.

Mark heard something, and clearly the other two had heard it as well. It was the faint, but quickly approaching, sound of a helicopter, flying low. Johnny turned and started for the window.

"Get the lock," Beal repeated sharply.

Johnny cast him a glance, and then frowned, but returned to the backroom door. McCormick willed himself to complete passivity, and tried not to think about who was in that obviously hovering chopper. Johnny had his back to them now. Mark jerked his chin at Beale and pulled the gun out.

J.J. stepped over by Johnny, who looked at him, padlock now in one hand. "What—"

"If it makes you feel any better," Mark said, speaking louder over the sound of the helicopter, "there was never going to be a half a million. He was probably going to get you killed, or at least hunted down for killing a retired judge and a defenseless old woman." Mark held back a small sigh. He thought 'defenseless' was a bit of a stretch, but it had a nice ring to it.

Johnny turned to the other man, frowning. Beale wasn't trying to deny it and the look of cold hatred on his face was convincing all by itself.

"Both of you sit down in there." Mark pointed to the floor in the bathroom. He very calculatedly used the gun to give his directions. There were some mutters from Johnny, and the same cold, hard stare from Beale, but they got themselves situated.

"Sarah?" he said, easing the door open. "It's me. It's okay."

He only saw her out of the corner of his eye, never taking his gaze off the other two, but he had every reason to believe that if he had, he would have seen no expression of astonished surprise on her face. After all, Sarah expected miracles, and tolerated no shoddy work.

"I need the handcuffs," he said quickly. She was on her feet, and put them in his hand. He tossed them to the other two and said, brusquely, "One wrist each with the links behind the sink drainpipe."

Slow, hostile compliance but his own patience was wearing thin and it must have shown in his expression. The job got done. Hearing the click of the second cuff—it was on Beale's side—Mark felt himself almost sag with relief. He lowered the gun and finally turned toward Sarah.

"You okay?"

"Certainly," she said. "I cannot say you look very well, though. What happened?"

"Long story." He put the gun down next to the one that was still on the end table and then stepped over to the window, looking out and up. "I expect that's your rescuers now. I think you ought to go outside and give them a wave so they know they've got the right address."

Sarah looked pensive. "What about you?"

"I'll stay in here." He smiled thinly. "Don't want to confuse 'em about what's going on."

"But—"

"Sarah, just do it, okay? That was a second ransom call I made this morning—the one with the details. I'm sure the judge had the FBI onboard and listening in. This is going to take a helluva lot of straightening out. In the meantime, everybody will be happier if they know you're all right . . . but you better hurry; the back-up will be here any minute."

As if he'd summoned them himself, they now heard the sound of sirens, still far off, but closing.

She was still giving him a look of disbelief. "But surely you could just—"

"Tell you what, Sarah, I'll wait in here, stay away from the guns, and assume the position. Now, shoo, before those other guys show up and think they have a hostage situation."

More slow, hostile compliance. Despite her occupation, he thought Sarah wasn't used to taking orders. The helicopter was hovering directly overhead now, and undoubtedly they'd had a good look at the electric company van. He didn't think there was enough clearing here for a safe landing but the back-up sounded close at hand.

Just as well, he thought. He wanted this to be over. He supposed they wouldn't shoot him if he lay down on the floor, but he hated to do that in front of Beale, so he settled for sinking down into the nearest chair, and concentrated on his breathing, which was getting harder by the minute.

00000

"She's there—they say they see her and she looks okay," Utley turned, still holding the car phone and talking over his shoulder to the two men in the back seat.

Hardcastle let out a breath, partly in relief for that news, and partly because he'd made the right decision—to follow the hot lead into the hill county and not head directly to Zuma Beach. But he knew he still wasn't entirely out of the woods on that call.

"They see anybody else? They see McCormick or Beale?"

"Just the chopper's on scene so far." Utley was back on the phone listening. "Back-up's just about there."

Hardcastle reached forward and grabbed the man's shoulder. "You tell 'em if Sarah's outside and safe, then they should just get her to cover and wait for us—no charging in. We'll be there in about five minutes."

Utley looked not entirely convinced but finally nodded and repeated the message.

It was less than five minutes, and Sarah, looking cross, had already been swept behind a tactical unit vehicle, where she was trying to reason with an aggravated SWAT officer in full assault regalia. Hardcastle was out of the car as soon as it had pulled to a stop, Harper right beside him flashing a badge and smoothing things out as best he could with a collegial smile and an attempt at introductions.

"Oh, there you are, Your Honor." Sarah turned and sharply overrode all of that. "For heaven's sake, explain to these men that they can all put their guns away. Mark has things under control."

"Are you all right?"

"Of course I am."

She did look mostly herself, only a little ruffled. He heaved a sigh of relief quickly replaced by another quick jab of worry. "Where the hell is he?"

Special dispensation for bad language had apparently been issued. Sarah merely nodded at the house and said, "In there. He thought they might shoot him and, honestly, seeing how things are, I really can't blame the boy."

"And Beale?"

"Handcuffed, in the bathroom, which is none too clean, I might add." She sniffed once. "He and that other man—he called him Johnny—"

"Johnny Barton," Harper interjected, turning to Hardcastle, "just like you thought."

"Sounds like he does have it under control." The judge said firmly. He shot a quick look at the SWAT team leader and said, "I'm going in there."

He didn't wait for an answer before he strode away. Utley had stepped back, obviously not willing to mar what was probably a perfectly spotless twenty-year record by tackling a crazy ex-judge. He heard Frank and Sarah running a delaying action with the SWAT guy. He walked up to the house like a man who knew what he was doing and was inside the doorway before anyone could try to stop him.

He paused for the moment it took his eyes to adjust to the dimness and said, "You there?"

"Yeah, here." It was Mark, sitting in a chair a little awkwardly with his hands open in plain sight as though he still wasn't sure what his reception would be.

"You thought I'd have 'em shoot you?" Hardcastle asked in disbelief.

"No . . . well, maybe." McCormick sighed. "Doesn't hurt to be careful." He flashed a rueful smile.

The judge noticed the guns had been left carefully in the open, too, on a table out of reach from where McCormick was sitting. The two men on the floor of the none too clean bathroom had nothing to say.

"Well," Hardcastle shook his head and turned his attention back to the man in the chair, "think maybe you want to come outside now?"

There were sounds of movement behind him. Hardcastle glanced over his shoulder and saw the SWAT guys edging in, then back at McCormick who was looking pale and a little sweaty.

"'Sokay, kiddo."

"Maybe not," Mark muttered as, against all common sense, he tried to stand. "Mighta lied to Sarah 'bout the ribs."

Hardcastle caught him as he started to go down.

00000

The staccato buzzing gradually resolved itself into two familiar voices, a couple of guys who were obviously trying to keep it down, but weren't very good at it. The pain in his side was not so bad, and his breathing was a little easier.

Frank—it was Lieutenant Harper—was marginally better at not waking the dead. He was obviously answering a question and trying to be placating. "Aggravated battery, at least that's what the DA is saying now. Might change once we get Mark's side of it."

"Oughta be attempted murder," the judge replied, sounding peeved. "The kid almost cashed it in up there, a punctured lung."

"But you know it's gonna be kinda irrelevant on top of the kidnapping, and conspiracy, and murder charges."

Mark felt himself jerked even more awake at the last bit, and then froze with a stifled grunt in mid breath. He vaguely remembered the ride to the hospital, but nothing about a murder. He forced his eyes open.

"Who?" he asked. "Who got killed?" Both men were looking at him; they were sitting alongside his bed in what appeared to be a small cubicle.

"The warden's wife," Harper said grimly. "That was her car. We found her body in the trunk. They're calling that one a kidnapping, too."

He saw Hardcastle grimace and figured there was more to the story than that.

"Musta been before we got there," Mark mumbled. He gazed around the curtained room slowly. "Sarah's okay?"

"Yeah," Hardcastle grunted, "sent her home to get some rest."

"Good." Mark felt his eyes drifting shut.

"Don't suppose you could answer a coupla questions—" It was Frank again; the judge cut him off with a sharp 'shhh.'

"Just one," Frank protested.

"They shot him full of morphine. You can't take a statement from somebody who's doped up."

"I just wanna know how he got the drop on J.J., that's all. Sarah couldn't tell us."

"Oh," Mark drawled, "that was aggravated battery." He kept his eyes shut. "I hit him with a tree."

"The side damage on the sedan?" Harper asked. "It looked pretty fresh."

"Uh-huh," Mark said, feeling the pain ebb away again. "I'm a lot more accurate with a car than a gun." He managed a small, last smile before sleep reclaimed him.

00000

It was dark when he woke up, and someone had stuck a knife in his side, at least it felt that way when he tried to breathe. He let out a short, panting 'ugh' and then tried to hold very still as he figured things out. A different room, a little larger, with a door instead of a curtain, and obviously much later than it had been before.

And the voices were gone. For a moment he thought he was alone but he heard some movement off to the side and he turned his head slowly in that direction—Hardcastle, sitting in a chair, looking like he was just waking up, too.

Mark wasn't sure what time it was, besides late, and the pain gripping his side made it apparent that whatever they'd given him earlier had worn off.

"Awake, huh?" the judge asked him.

He nodded, almost imperceptibly and then whispered, "Hurts."

"They put a tube in, goes between your ribs, supposed to fix things up but it'll take a couple of days. They can give ya another shot." He was reaching for something alongside the bedrail.

"Wait," Mark said, a little louder. Now that he'd accommodated his breathing, the first spasm of pain had subsided. What was left was tolerable, as long as he knew something could be done about it. He frowned, trying to sort everything out. "What time is it?"

Hardcastle leaned back again, looking puzzled, then glanced down at his watch. "'Bout one a.m., why?"

Mark figured it went under the heading of 'making sure that once they were rescued, people stayed rescued'. He smiled. That turned quickly into a slightly puzzled frown. "Sarah's okay?"

"You already asked that one earlier," Hardcastle replied. "Yeah, she's fine. She came by to see you but you were asleep.

There was a moment's pause and then McCormick said, "Sorry."

"It's okay; she didn't want to wake you. Figured you needed the rest."

"No, about the phone calls. Didn't know what else to do."

The judge's expression went to one of complete bafflement. "Don't see what else you could have done, besides get yourself killed, maybe both of you."

"And you didn't believe me, that I was working with Beale, not even for a second?"

Hardcastle shrugged. "You don't seem like the type."

"Yeah," Mark frowned, "Beale came to the same conclusion pretty quick." He couldn't help it; it might have been the consequence of pain and drugs, but some of his self-disgust slipped through with that remark.

He saw Hardcastle's eyes narrow; obviously he'd caught both the tone and the implication. There was a little shake of the man's head, a clear indication of disappointment. Mark waited for the lecture that would undoubtedly follow. Bad enough that he'd become a lackey, now he couldn't even get spineless right.

The judge cleared his throat. It drew Mark out of his introspective funk; it wasn't the usual opening gambit for one of Hardcase's stentorian diatribes.

"Listen," the judge said, "Sarah told me J.J. gave you a hard time—about you working for me and all."

This wasn't the tone he'd been expecting, but the alternative was almost more unnerving. "It wasn't anything important," he said hastily and then added, "I don't think we need to hash all this out right now." He reached for the call button, hanging from the railing. A sharp pain halted him.

The judge unclipped it and handed it over to him. "I'd understand," he said quietly, "if you decided this arrangement wasn't working out."

Mark's mouth opened in surprise, but nothing came out.

"I mean, barely a month and you've tangled with mob killers, almost got chewed on by guard dogs, thrown in the lock-up, and kidnapped, ah, twice. Though, mind you, some of it was your own fault—hooking up with Teddy Hollins again."

Mark closed his mouth. Stated that way, it didn't sound quite so spineless. "But I didn't think I had any choice—"

"With some of that stuff you sure as hell did." Hardcastle's tone had gone up a half a notch toward exasperation.

"No, I mean with the arrangement." Almost as soon as the words came out, McCormick regretted having said them.

The judge was looking at him, steadily. He took a breath and said, "Well, maybe you should. I never intended for you to get killed doing this."

"But if I hadn't been there," Mark said quietly, "they still would've taken Sarah."

"Yeah, and I owe you one on that," the judge nodded sharply. "I know it. And what I'm saying is—"

"Wait a second," he interjected suddenly, thinking fast and hoping his panic wasn't too noticeable. He had a dead certainty that he knew where this was going, not that he could do anything to confirm his suspicions. Hardcastle was about to throw open the gates. The man would most likely not toss him out—time served and time off for good behavior—but he would almost undoubtedly say 'in or out, your choice'. And there would go his carefully nurtured alibi. Spineless lackey paled by comparison to someone who held his own keys and chose to stay in prison.

He must've telegraphed it. Hardcastle hadn't tried to finish his sentence and was sitting there, giving him a considering look. Then he finally reached over, took the call button back, and pressed it.

"Let 'em give you something; it'll help you sleep," he said, all matter-of-fact, practical concern now. "The doc says they'll probably be able to take that damn tube out in a couple of days, and if everything stays all right, you get to come home the day after that."

'Home' he'd said, in the most ordinary of tones. Mark nodded.

"Got a half-finished hedge," Hardcastle added, after a moment, with a scowl that wouldn't have fooled anyone.

McCormick took a slightly deeper breath. He even ventured a smile. "Can I wait till the stitches are out?" he whined cheerfully.

00000

He came home the afternoon of the third day, having been heard to say that even hedges were less boring than the hospital. They made the drive in Hardcastle's old truck, and though they arrived this time well before sunset, seeing Sarah—out on the front steps at the sound of their approach—reminded him of the first night he had come to Gulls' Way.

There wasn't even much difference in her expression, sternly appraising, but this time he could see the subtler shade of concern. He supposed it might have been there all along.

"I made some lemonade," she said.