Linc was pacing across Pete's apartment, frowning, and Captain Greer picked up the two pieces of the phone. He set the base back on the little table that rested by the couch. Dropping the receiver in place, he contemplated the calls he could make. Linc ranged by his field of vision again, the young man's passion contained, not yelling or emoting verbally, but his eyes on fire.

It was so obvious what had happened here. First Pete hadn't shown up to work, but no one was surprised. He was sleeping in, tired after his slaving work at the warehouse. So they had called him, the busy signal never changing alerting them at last. Linc had said he would go and check on him. Captain Greer had driven him here.

And now it was apparent, the evidence everywhere. The single blanket on the couch, half pulled off onto the floor. The splintered coffee table, flattened like a pancake. The spray of papers, dotted with a speckling of coffee dregs. If the entire apartment had been affected, one would think that it had been rifled through or vandalized. But this attack was centralized, focused on a sleeping victim, and worse, a victim that was now missing.

Linc paced by, and shot him a look. 'Get busy' that look said. 'Solve this'. Like a doctor feeling the strange sensation of waiting in a hospital lobby for news of a loved one, Greer felt the grip of anxiety now. He was supposed to have the solution to a problem like this. He picked up the phone, and repositioned some of his black and white cars. He put out an APB, telling the officers to look out for Pete. His voice faltered as he put in the description.

"Caucasian male, 5foot ten, about 160 lbs, early twenties, dark, curly hair, blue eyes," he said after a moment. "It's Pete, Fred!" he complained when the dispatcher asked for more description. "Get the alert out right away."

He and Linc went back to his office. It made them feel busy, instead of seeing the exhaustive road of few leads stretching before them. The fact that Pete had been misused at the warehouse followed by his immediate abduction afterwards couldn't be a coincidence. He would send investigators over to that warehouse. In fact…

"Linc, you and Julie get over to that warehouse. Find out if you think those bosses had anything to do with Pete's disappearance."

"I think the cat we're looking for is the one that called in the tip in the first place," Linc responded. "The same person probably tipped off the warehouse that Pete was the fuzz."

Greer sighed. Didn't the boy see that they had to investigate all the possibilities, even if they seemed less likely? That's what thorough police work was all about. You thinned out the false leads, and then the probable cause was more clearly seen.

"Linc is right," put in Julie.

He turned to them.

"So what do you want to do instead?" he demanded.

"Whoever this cat is, he's not done playing his game," Linc went on. "I think Pete's in trouble and we need to find him fast, not waste time at that warehouse."

Greer turned to the window so they wouldn't see the look on his face. They were at the mercy of this villain, until he was done playing with them, but Greer was afraid that the game was already completed. That it had ended, sometime in the night while they had all been sleeping, with Pete's death. Why hadn't there been any demands or phone calls made? And yet perhaps Pete was still alive and useful to the creep. There had to be something he could do to find out!

The phone on his desk rang, almost in answer to his thoughts. He snatched it.

"Greer," he snapped. He listened, his heart pounding in eagerness, and then he turned to the other two kids standing at attention in his office.

"A young man matching Pete's description was found beside the road up in the hills an hour ago," he told them. "Unconscious and with no ID on him. They've taken him to Mercy General. No way of knowing if it's Pete unless we go and see for ourselves."

Linc was already out the door.

"Better than standing here worrying," said Julie, and he agreed. In minutes he had informed the desk sergeant where he would be if there was any news and they were in his car. Linc was quiet, ready to get down to business, but Julie had something to say.

"What are we going to do if it isn't Pete?" she asked, her pretty eyes troubled. Greer patted her shoulder. "Just hang on till we find out, Julie," he said. But the drive bypassing much of the L.A. area seemed endless. Outside the windows were other vehicles, shoppers on the street corners, criminals pretending to have legitimate business, kids playing until their childhoods ran out in the city. But inside the car was tension, of the caged bobcat variety when he glanced at Linc, and the tragic calm of worry when he saw Julie. In his mind's eye he thought of Pete, rebellious only in that he rejected the empty plans his parents had for his life, desiring to find the real nugget of living for himself.

Seeing in the friendship of Linc and Julie a bond that few others could understand, Pete held them together, making them a family, with Greer as a sort of kind uncle. Greer had seen potential in Pete, like the other two, that they just needed a direction to go or they would get into more trouble. But underneath, the heart of all three was good. They had placed their lives in his hands, and followed his suggestion to help others by taking criminals off the streets. He wondered as he had done before if he had been fair to them, and if he had been fair to himself. He hadn't protected himself from learning to care too much about these three. What if it wasn't Pete at that hospital, as Julie had said? What if the next time a report came in for them to check out, it was to arrive in time to see Pete being placed in a body bag on his way to the morgue? He growled, causing Julie to jump beside him and a pertinent glance from Linc to be thrown his way.

"Sorry," he muttered. "We're almost there."

The hospital came into sight, and he parked right in front. They hurried in, had a murmured conversation with the starched nurse in her white cap at the admitting desk, and were directed to the elevators.

"Room 407," she told them.

They all stopped to take a breath once they stood outside the door of 407. The hospital hallway was empty, but they could see the edge of the nurse's station nearby. Captain Greer pushed open the door, stilling his urgency to match the muted, careful pace of the hospital. They crept in.

Waves of relief and then other emotions held him in place once his eyes zeroed in on the face that lie on the pillow.

It was Pete. His hair had a dusty tight look to the curls. His face was white. He was wearing the thin white cotton shift that tied at his throat that one always saw in a hospital. His arm had an IV, and Greer could see the bruises streaked along it from here. Julie was the first to make contact. She went and touched his hand.

"Pete," she entreated, but there was no response from their friend. Linc leaned right over the bed.

"Wake up, Pete," he added.

"I'll go find the doctor," Greer said, taking action again. They needed to be told that everything was all right. That soon Pete would wake up and be fine. That doctor had better cooperate.