Chapter Four July 2-evening

Dear Lord,

Give me the greatness of heart to see the difference between duty and his love for me.

–Army Spouse prayer.

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"Thanks, Rafe," Jim took the box that contained an air mattress.

"It's comfortable," Rafe looked over to where Chuck and William were seated talking on the living room couch. A large bruise covered Chuck's forehead.

"I'll check with some friends to see if they have a room to rent. We'll find a home that is safe for Chuck."

"Hold off, Rafe. The way Chuck and my dad took to each other I was thinking that maybe the two of them could stay together until either I finish fixing up the next door apartment for Blair or think of something else." Jim set the box on the floor next to the door. "Want to come in and have some coffee?"

"I don't want to intrude," Rafe shook his head. There was an almost envious look on his face as Rafe's eyes went past Jim to look into the loft.

"Come on, Rafe," Blair came from the kitchen. "I made ostrich chill. There is plenty for everyone." An easy smile graced his face. "Why don't you stay for dinner?"

"Well," Rafe hesitated.

"Come on in, Son," Chuck had risen from the couch to get more coffee. "Dinner smells pretty good. It'll just be a bachelor night. You don't have a date do you?"

The spike in Rafe's heart rate surprised Jim. "Come on in, Rafe. At the very least I owe you dinner for lending us the air mattress." He moved back from the door to allow the younger man to come inside. "Besides Blair will no doubt like to show off the work we've been putting into his apartment."

Over dinner Chuck mentioned that he needed to get to an Army surplus store. "Those creeps ruined my dress shirt. I want to look good at the celebration."

"Nonsense," William spoke up. "Let's go shopping downtown. I know several shops that sell fine dress shirts."

"Uh, Dad," Jim tried to sound causal as he didn't want to hurt his father's feelings. "Chuck is putting together an Army dress uniform."

"I served under Major General Lucien Truscott during the second world war." Chuck said proudly.

William and Jim both looked surprised but it was William who spoke up first. "You served with the 3rd infantry? My father served with them. In fact in one of his letters he wrote that he was going to try to get into the first Army Ranger Battalion."

"Grandfather was going to be a Ranger?" Jim looked in surprise at his father.

"Teddy spotted that machine gun nest before anyone else did," Chuck said softly. He looked into his coffee cup as he recalled the memory. "He just ran straight for it. He was firing away. Teddy took out most of the enemy soldiers before they got him. We would have been massacred if he hadn't taken them out."

"Mother gave his entire collection of letters to me when I was nine. She said that I was growing up to be the spitting image of my father." William gripped his coffee cup tightly. "I never really knew him. I was only five when he died." He raised his eyes when he felt Jim's hand on his shoulder. "I still have all the letters that my father wrote packed away."

"Dad, you never told me about the letters," Jim almost frowned at his father. He felt more than a little annoyed that his father had kept information about his grandfather from him.

Blair laid a hand on Jim's arm. "It must have been hard to only know your father through letters." He felt a twinge of jealousy. "Naomi doesn't know who my father is." Chuck gave him an odd look.

"I only read a couple of them," William sighed in regret. "Christopher and I got into an argument about the letters." Unhappiness crossed his aristocratic face at the memory. "He wanted to share our father's letters at a Veteran's Day Memorial. I didn't want to share the only thing I had of our father so I told him that I burned them." William's face colored in embarrassment.

Jim couldn't believe what his father was saying. "Dad, why would you do something like that?"

William looked more uncomfortable. "Your grandmother, my mother raised us the only way that she knew how to make us strong men. She raised us to compete against each other. I wanted to 'win' the letters from him. Of course he knew that I as lying. Chris always knew when I lied."

Jim and Blair exchanged meaningful looks.

Continuing William didn't notice the looks that passed between Jim and Blair. "We got into a fight. Chris was bigger and older. I ended up on the bottom getting a good thrashing. Mother heard us. She broke it up." William looked unhappy. "When she took my side Chris ran upstairs, packed his things and left. He never came back. I was too proud to go looking for him when I got older. I didn't even know that he'd written Mother." William shook his head at the memory. "It broke her heart several years later when she learned that Chris died on duty as a police officer. " William's smile was sad. "Now, Son, you know why I was so upset to learn that you'd become a police officer."

"Dad," Jim said gently. "You have to accept the choices people make." He put his arm around his father. "I could just as easily step off of a curb and get hit by a car."

"Or a garbage truck," Blair said softly.

July 3rd

The Lord knows the way I take

And he has tested me

I shall come forth as gold…Job 23:10

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"Rafe, did your girlfriend say why she wanted to break it off?" Blair leaned against the counter as they waited for the waitress to bring their order.

Several feet away from them Henri and Jim were seated at a picnic table. Henri was showing his bandaged covered arm to Jim.

Looking miserable Rafe replied to Blair's question. "Juliet doesn't want to marry a cop. She wants me to quit the force."

"A woman who can't accept you for who you are is the wrong woman for you." Blair gently pointed out.

"I know, Blair," Rafe placed several more paper napkins in the takeout box that held two stuffed pitas. "My mother said the same thing." He sighed softly. "Right now I just want to make it through the next couple of days. I had to take Henri to the hospital once to get a tetanus shot after that last Traveler we picked up bit Henri on the arm."

The waitress returned with two more stuffed pitas and four lidded Styrofoam cups filled with hot coffee. Blair paid the bill. "Gees, I didn't think that the Travelers were so dangerous. With my research so focused on South America then on police culture," he paused to take a breath. "I haven't done much research into the Traveler subculture. The closest I ever got was trying to flirt with Bridget Murphy. Her brother was very protective." Blair grimaced at the memory. "He tossed me up against a wall and told me his sister was engaged."

"Blair, you have no idea how dangerous that the family is," Rafe limped towards his partner.

While the four men ate Jim placed a call to his father. Blair listened to Jim's side of the conversation. Rafe and Henri were in a deep discussion on whether or not they would be able to convince Simon that the family of con artists was dangerous enough to warrant adding extra manpower to stop them.

"All right, Dad, Blair and I will be there for dinner by eight," Jim reluctantly flipped his cell phone closed. "Dad and Chuck are staying at Dad's tonight. We're going over for dinner. It seems that a friend of Dad's is coming over."

"So I heard," Blair set his half eaten pita down. "Maybe Chuck should move in with your dad. They could take care of each other."

"Two elderly men would be targets for the Travelers," Henri interjected. "The Travelers run house painting and driveway paving scams. They use intimidating methods and fast talk to get elderly people into letting them work on their property. Between using shoddy materials and stealing they take a lot of money from their elderly victims."

Jim looked thoughtful. "Wasn't a Shane Murphy arrested a few years back for running a roofing scam?"

"Same family," Rafe announced gloomily. "This is the next generation. They're younger and branching out into other areas of crime."

"Rafe, you and Henri should stop off to talk to Simon," Jim advised both fellow detectives. "Jack Pendergrast almost got his head torn off by Shane Murphy." Jim's face darkened at the memory.

"I heard that IA didn't like the way that you twice instructed Shane on how to get into the back of a patrol car." Henri quipped.

Jim grinned sheepishly. "He just couldn't seem to duck his head."

A skinny street hard looking woman with pink and blond dyed hair approached the small group of men. "Detective Ellison," she paused. In spite of the warm day the woman shivered.

"Pink, you should dress warmer," Jim tilted his head as he studied the skinny young woman. He knew from having arrested her several times that 'Pink' Lois Ember was only twenty years old. Three years of living on the street had aged her. She could have been thirty. Tracks on her arms suggested that she was a drug user. Her white halter top and short shorts hung loosely on her bony frame.

Jim could smell the faint odor of illness on the woman.

"I've got to make a living," Pink scowled. "Word on the street is that you want to know about some runaway girls."

Jim nodded. He fished for his wallet. "Where, Pink? There are two of them. Cindy Lane and Heather Turner are seventeen." Pink's runny eyes were on the wallet that Jim had taken out of his pocket. She licked her lips. "Cindy went with some new guys in town. They pick up kids and get them to shoplift. Heather wanted no part of them. She ran off before the guys could drag her into their Mercedes."

Jim took out a twenty and a small white card. "Pink, I want you to stay off the street. If I catch you selling it while you're sick I'm going to bust you." Jim warned.

"How am I going to eat?" She demanded.

"Here's a twenty for the information. Take this card to the health clinic on Seventh Street. You'll get treated for free." Jim handed Pink the money and the card. "I mean it about not selling while you're sick."

"I don't have rent money," Pink pouted. She snatched both card and money from Jim's hand.

"Grapevine Ministries will give you a place to stay," Henri spoke up. Compassion reflected in his dark eyes. "You can register with them for a week or two at a time."

Pink considered all the information. "All right I'll give it a try." She tucked the money and card in her short's pocket. "You might want to look for Heather around the warehouse district. I ran into Candy Lad this morning. He says that he saw a new kid hiding around there." She walked away from them.

"She's sick?" Both Henri and Rafe were looking at Jim with interest.

Blair almost choked on his coffee. "It's obvious, guys. She's too thin. Her eyes have that sick look." Blair stammered. "She was cold. You know when someone is sick and they have that aura of sickness around them?"

"She smells sick," Jim calmly picked up his trash. "We'd better let Simon know that we're going to work together on this."

Blair grabbed Jim's arm as Henri and Rafe walked to their car. "Jim, be careful. You'll give yourself away." He warned.

Jim only shrugged. "I trust Rafe and Brown."

"I thought that you were worried about people knowing about your Sentinel abilities." Blair whispered as they made their way to Jim's blue and white Ford pickup.

"Not fellow officers," was Jim's only reply.

Simon was very unhappy to discover that the Travelers were picking up runaways. "We know that they prey on the elderly and the lonely. I've gotten a bulletin that they're using teens to sell magazines door to door." He rubbed his ebony forehead. "Apparently they promise these kids all kinds of money and don't deliver. Usually they abandon the kids in some way out of place. That's after the kids have earned them money. The Travelers go back to rob the houses they've cased out while 'selling' magazine subscriptions." Simon had a disgusted unhappy look on his face.

"According to the bulletin they also took a couple of underage girls with them when they left their last area."

"Wives," Blair interjected. Everyone looked at him. "I called a friend who is doing a study on the Travelers. It's not easy I might add."

"Get to the part about the underage girls being wives," Simon leaned back in his chair. The leather chair creaked with his weight shift.

Blair gestured with his hands. "Girls as young as five are provocatively dressed up and paraded around in front of a large gathering. The men are encouraged to pick out the girls they want as wives. Then the girls as young as legally allowed are married off to men sometimes in their thirties and forties."

"So these girls are being taken as future wives?" Simon looked disgusted.

We have to find these girls before they're taken to the Traveler home base." Blair wrinkled his forehead in thought. "It'll be harder to find them once they disappear into the family as wives." Blair looked grim.

"The FBI is following the group that took the missing girls. This group that headed up here is a splinter group." Simon looked at his detectives. "Pull Rundle, Chandler, and Gordon to help you. I'm going to have the media blitz pictures of Heather and Cindy all over the news. Find them."

Jim and Blair headed to the ware house district.

They hadn't driven long when a tall transvestite dressed in a skin tight neon yellow dress complete with a feather boa flagged them down, "Yoo-hoo." Her falsetto voice got Jim's attention, "over here, Detective Jim."

Pulling the truck over to the curb Jim greeted Candy Lad. "What are you doing hanging around here, Candy? This isn't your usual haunt."

There was a flutter of false eyelashes. "I work down here, Detective Jim," Candy giggled in a falsetto tone. "I haven't turned a trick in four months. I'm a receptionist at Ken's Auto Repair." He wiggled his behind. "Ken doesn't want me working the streets anymore."

"Just be careful, Candy," Jim warned. He didn't mention that he'd had to kick in a door and rescue Candy from an abusing boyfriend once before. Candy had been more emotionally devastated than physically hurt. "Now what do you know about a young girl hiding in this area?"

"CANDY!" A behemoth of a man lumbered out of one of the storefronts. Two mechanics dressed in dark blue coveralls stood in the open attached car repair garage. One just shook his head and then went back to working on a car with a raised hood.

"Uh, Jim," Blair checked to make sure that his door was locked.

"Oh, Ken baby," Candy pranced on his three inch bright yellow heels to meet the arriving angry looking man. "This is Detective Jim. He's the one who save me from that brut Mark." Candy flashed a smile at Ken. "Detective Jim is looking for that poor little girl who is hiding near the old storage place." He laid his long neon green painted nails on Ken's massive chest.

Blair peered around Jim. "Do you think that he knows that Candy is a guy?" He whispered.

Ken wrapped a protective arm around Candy. They approached the truck. "Candy left a basket of food for the girl and the others that are hiding three streets over. They're using the old Ram Storage as a flop. The kid looks like someone worked her over. We can't get any of them to trust us." Ken eyed Blair peering around Jim. A wide grin appeared on Ken's bearded face. "Candy and I are having a commitment ceremony next Wednesday. She's told me a lot about you but apparently not everything. You're both invited."

"Commitment ceremony," Jim smiled. "If I can I'll be there."

Ken winked slyly. "You can doll her up if you want. I know that you have to keep a low profile at work." Ken slapped Candy on the rump. Candy let out an appropriate squeal. "Come on, Candy, I've got to make us a living."

Blair's mouth dropped open. As they pulled away he demanded. "Does he think that I'm," he sputtered.

"I guess that you got the answer to your question," Jim chuckled. He drove in the direction that Ken had pointed out.

More and more graffiti and broken windows appeared on the warehouses that they passed. An air of abandonment hung over the deteriorating section of the warehouse district that they were driving through. Blair spotted something dark and furry dart away from a dumpster. "That rat was the size of a cat!"

"I wouldn't doubt it," Jim slowed the truck. "Rats jump off of ships in the harbor. They make their way up here and then spread out through Cascade." He stopped the truck in front of a warehouse that bore the legend, RAM Storage. Someone had painted the ram's eyes red and added smoke coming out of the ram's nostrils.

Jim got out of the truck pulling his badge out.

"Jim, they're not going to trust you. You're a cop." Blair slid out of the truck.

Jim held up his badge. "You're not safe here. There is a shelter that has safer places for you to sleep. You can call your parents if you want to." With his heightened sense of hearing Jim could hear the rapid beating of three hearts.

"You're not in any trouble. I'm a cop. I only want to help you."

Timidly a young disheveled looking girl came to the half open door. Both of her eyes were blackened. Her lower lip was swollen and split. "Are you really a police officer?" She was on the verge of tears.

"Yes." In the next instant three sobbing girls were plastered against Jim. It was then that Jim was aware of a tiny heartbeat. Mentally he cursed. As gently as he could he called out to Blair. "Call Rafe and have him come down so that we can get these young ladies to a doctor."

All three stiffened. "Who's Rafe?" The pregnant girl pulled back.

"Another detective," Jim explained in a soft voice.

"Do you know Ken? He's a little hard to miss," Blair flashed a friendly smile. "He's Candy's boyfriend. Candy's the one who left you food." Blair was dialing the number he remembered seeing on the glass window of the storefront that Ken had walked out of. "I'll call him. He and Candy can vouch for us."

Jim kept his arms protectively around the three girls. "We need to get you checked out by a doctor," he said gently.

Three heads nodded. They clung to Jim as they waited.

It was later that evening at his father's house that Jim recounted the story. He accepted another refill on his coffee from Chuck. "Heather's parents are flying up from San Diego to pick her up. They sounded like pretty okay parents. Heather just fell into the wrong crowd. They're prepared to help Heather with her baby. She says that she wants to keep it."

Master Sergeant Brent Storm shook his head. "If I was her father I'd want five minutes alone with whomever it was that worked her over."

"Actually it was a group of girls that jumped them." Blair picked up Jim's empty plate. He and Chuck were picking up the empty dinner dishes from the table.

"It was the Sea Hags," Jim wearily rubbed his tired face. "All three girls identified the Sea Hags. Simon issued warrants for their arrests. Most of the Sea Hags are over eighteen." He shook his head. "The girls crossed into the Sea Hag territory. Female gangs are becoming as violent as some of the male gangs."

Shock registered on William's face, "Young ladies running around the streets fighting?"

"The world is getting to be different from your day, Dad." Jim sipped his hot coffee.

"Not really so different," Blair returned from the kitchen with several desert plates. "In ancient Japan for instance young abandoned girls were gathered up and trained as assassins."

Chuck carried in a chocolate cream custard pie. "I could tell you tales of a spunky little Georgia gal." He chuckled at the memory. "Helen taught me to make the best custard pies and how to shoot straight. She's the reason I was a top marksman in the army."

"So what happened to Helen?" Blair inquired. He grinned knowingly at Chuck.

"I married Helen after the war. Bless her sweet soul. Helen put up with me for thirty years. She passed away two years ago," Chuck sighed. "I went out and got drunk. I've been drunk ever since until six months ago."

"Did you have any children," William asked his new friend.

"Alan and Amanda," Chuck sounded wistful. "Guess I've been too ashamed to call them. I miss my grandkids. My set of twins married a set of twins. I've got four grandchildren or at least two years ago I only had four grandchildren." Chuck sat down. He passed the pie to Jim to cut.

"If you gentlemen will excuse me for a minute," Storm rose from the table. "I forgot something in my car. I'll be right back."

Jim shot his father a quizzed look. William only gave him a look that meant 'wait and see.'

"Maybe you could call your children now," Blair helped himself to a slice of pie.

Master Sergeant Storm returned carrying a garment bag and a small bag. "Master Sergeant Charles Reilly. No member of the Army shows up dressed in surplus clothes to any Fourth of July celebration." He handed the garment bag to Chuck.

It was with trembling hands that Chuck unzipped the bag. "A Master Sergeant's uniform," his tone was hushed and reverent. Chuck's gnarled hands gently caressed the pristine uniform.

"Thanks, Dad," Jim quietly told his father. William beamed. "Thanks, Master Sergeant," Jim rose to shake the hand of the tall lean Army Master Sergeant.

"I owe the Ellison family," Storm smiled as he shook Jim's hand. "William told me that the Master Sergeant would need to look his best when he read one of Lieutenant Theodore Ellison' letters." He held out the smaller bag to Chuck, "Dress shoes."

"Mr. Ellison, you're going to let Chuck read one of your father's letters?" Blair inquired of the elder Ellison.

"It's about time," William said. For a moment he looked sad. "I only wish that I'd let Chris have his share of the letters."

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TBC