Come morning, Danny was stiff and sore, but a hot shower loosened his muscles and a couple of aspirin sorted out his minor aches and he was feeling relatively cheerful when he arrived at the Palace. He endured the comments about his injured chin and hands, but the damage was all superficial and he was able to allay everyone's fears.

There had been no further walkabouts from Collins, and Danny decided that he needed to concentrate on trying to find Leadbetter again. He decided he would hit some of his snitches and see if they had any information he might find useful, but first of all, he called Judith's protection officer to make sure that she was all right and was relieved to learn that she was.

Before he could leave the office, Steve called for the daily meeting, running over the things they were investigating. There were a few things on their plates apart from Leadbetter and Steve delegated them to Chin and Kono and left Danny to get on with hunting down Leadbetter. He would oversee everything. The short meeting lasted about 15 minutes and Danny told Steve he was heading out to the streets. Steve gave him the usual admonition to be careful and Danny could feel his boss's eyes on his back as he left the office.

It was slow going on the street. Many of the people Danny counted on seeing in certain places were not there. Others turned up in very unexpected places and a couple of times, Danny came within a hair's breadth of having to arrest a snitch for a crime that he almost witnessed. It was a difficult road to travel – between usefulness and justice. Danny wouldn't hesitate to arrest one of his snitches for committing a crime if he caught them in the act, but he knew that the moment he did that, he would find that none of his snitches would ever talk to him again. So he turned a blind eye to the clear evidence of recent drug use in one snitch and pretended not to see that another snitch had clearly picked someone's pocket, but it was never easy.

It was a slow, discouraging morning. Danny leaned against his car and wondered where else to look for the snitch who, for the first time since Danny had started using him, was not in his accustomed cardboard box in a sleazy back alley. Rollo was chronically afraid of people, but for some reason trusted Danny. But anyone else who entered his self-imposed personal space, which varied from day to day, usually either met with a madman, attacking them for no reason, or ran away. Usually, he didn't go very far before returning when the intruder had departed. Danny never quite knew how Rollo seemed to know so much of what was going on in the underworld of Honolulu, but the snitch had never been wrong yet.

Behind him, his radio bleated out his call sign and Danny leaned through the open window to retrieve the mic. "Williams," he replied.

"Danno, its Steve. I've had a call from Judith Leadbetter asking if you could go out to see her at once. She says it's important and she sounds agitated, but she refused to talk to anyone but you." Even over the air, Steve sounded concerned.

"I'll go right away," Danny replied. "I'll let you know what's wrong as soon as I know."

"Be careful," Steve reminded Danny.

"I will," Danny agreed. He cast one last look back at Rollo's hideaway before climbing into his car and heading for the Leadbetter house.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Judith was indeed agitated. She met Danny at the door, wringing her hands unconsciously the whole time. "Danny, thank goodness you came so quickly."

"What's wrong, Judith?" Danny asked.

Glancing round, although the on-duty officer had stepped outside, Judith drew Danny further into the house so that they couldn't be overheard. "Danny, I got a phone call from Brian," she informed him.

"When?" Danny asked, all his senses on alert.

"This morning – about an hour ago," she guessed, glancing at the clock. "He wants to meet me."

"Do you know what he wants?" Danny asked.

"Yes; he wants me to go away with him. He thinks my life might be in danger." Judith drew in a deep breath, deliberately trying to calm herself.

"What does he want you to do?" Danny asked. This might be the break they were looking for.

"He wants me to ditch my guard and meet him in two hours at the place where they're going to be building that new mall. I have to pack some stuff and give my officer the slip." Judith looked at him. "I don't want to go with him, but I think I owe it to him to tell him why. What should I do? If I go to him, he'll assume I'm going with him, yet I don't have a number to call him back on and say I'm not going."

"I'll take you," Danny assured her. "I spoke to Brian briefly last night." He opted not to tell her the outcome of the meeting. "He'll recognise me and so won't panic." I hope, he thought. "Just let me phone Steve and then we can get going."

As he had expected, Steve insisted that he was going to flood the area with cops, as discreetly as was possible. He wasn't keen on Danny going with Judith, but agreed that it was the chance they had hoped would come. "One thing you need to know, Danno. Richard Collins gave his guard the slip again this morning. So far, we haven't had any sightings of him. I don't know what's going on with him, but just be on the lookout for him."

"I will," Danny promised, the disquiet in Steve's voice echoed by an uneasy feeling in his own gut. Collins had seemed to be on the up and up, but now, Danny had serious doubts about the man. Was he there just to see Judith? Or was he more intimately connected with Leadbetter's problems? He wouldn't know until he caught up with Collins and he just hoped he didn't do that the hard way.

"I'll be there, too, Danno," Steve said. "You won't see me, but I'll be there."

"Thanks, Steve," Danny replied, warmed by the knowledge that his friend had his back, as always. He hung up the phone. "All right, Judith, are you ready to go?"

"I'm scared to death," Judith admitted. "Does that mean I'm ready?"

Smiling, Danny took her arm. "As ready as you'll ever be," he assured her. "You'll be fine."

"All right, let's go," she sighed and he led her out to his car, dismissing her officer for the meantime. As he slid into the driver's seat, Danny reflected that he didn't blame Judith for being scared to death. He was pretty worried himself.