A/N: The next few chapters may appear to skip vital information. Not to worry, it will all be revealed, eventually… in flashbacks, side stories and new chapters…

Chapter Twenty Eight:

Friday, October 31, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – 7:45 p.m.

From the airport, Daisy had called Enos' apartment phone and his cell phone but got no answer at either. All she could do was leave a message. She had not booked a hotel, so she decided to go to his apartment. Maybe he would have come home by the time she arrived.

Daisy arrived at Enos's apartment around 7:30 p.m. Now that she was actually there, she was nervous about knocking on his door and pulled back a couple of times before her knuckles hit the wood. After taking several calming breaths, she finally knocked but got no response. She knocked again, a little louder this time.

Deciding that she couldn't just camp out in the hallway, she grabbed her small rolling bag and had turned to leave when his neighbor opened her door. "Are you looking for Enos?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I thought he would be home by now."

"You're Daisy, aren't you?"

"Yes, Ma'am. And you must be Mrs. Huang."

"He went out earlier all dressed up in a tux. He looked so handsome. He has some charity function to go to tonight. Guess you might have got your wires crossed?"

"No, Ma'am, he didn't know I was coming. It's a surprise."

"Ah, I see." Mrs. Huang said, her eyes wide. "Would you like to wait in my apartment? Not sure how late he will be home. And I don't have his mobile phone number. Don't trust those new gadgets anyway. I made some ginseng tea for me and Daniel but he's not much on tea these days, so there's plenty."

One of Enos's letters had been about Mrs. Huang's grandson. It was so sad that Enos not only had been the patrol officer answering the call to the accident scene but the one who had to notify Mrs. Huang. It was one of the letters that had made her cry.

"Thank you. Tea would be nice."

"You're as pretty as your picture."

"Thank you."

While Mrs. Huang was getting tea, Daisy's eye caught the edge of the L.A. times peeking out from under a couple of magazines on the coffee table and absent mindedly picked it up. Reading the times had almost become a habit now but she had been in too much of a hurry to deplane and find her way out of LAX to pick up a paper.

She gasped involuntarily. A third of the front page was the beginning of a story about a fiery crash of a detective vehicle following a morning raid by SWAT on a house in Hollywood Heights, complete with color photo. Enos, easily identifiable, and some other detective she didn't recognize.

"What is it young one?" When Mrs. Huang saw what Daisy was reading, she smiled and said, "Oh, that's Wednesday's paper. He walked away with just a bump on his head. The other detective pulled Enos out of the car just before it caught fire."

The frail looking little woman said it so matter-of-factly, she might have been talking about a trip to the grocery store.

"Even after he was shot last year, he keeps telling me that he has less chance getting hurt on the job than a construction worker. I keep telling him I worry about more about how much salt he eats. Man loves his soy sauce." She sighed. "Just like my Daniel."

Daisy tried her best not to react to the news about Enos being shot, but it took her a few seconds to gather her thoughts. Her mind started wondering in ten different directions at once, none of which shed a good light on her.

"Last part of September…when he was shot…" She guessed at the date the letters stopped.

"I believe it was. Surgeons at Cedars did a good job. I hardly notice the scar anymore. Shirtsleeve covers it most of the time. Ended his tour of duty with SWAT, though."

Daisy was consumed with curiosity but did not want to let on about how much she didn't know about Enos. Something else for her to feel guilty about.

Daisy spent the next couple of hours with Mrs. Huang, waiting for Enos to return, learning more about his comings and goings, his eating habits, run-ins with the local gangs, his determination to get young prostitutes off the street…

That tid-bit of information had been a real eye opener. Mrs. Huang was a wealth of knowledge. In the two hours plus hours she spent with Mrs. Huang, she learned as much, possibly more, about Enos Strate than she had by reading his letters. She could have saved a lot of time just by coming to L.A. and hanging out with the sweet old lady sooner. The time seemed to fly by until Mrs. Huang, ears of a bat, heard something in the hallway.