April 16th

"What do you mean he's dead?" Paul demanded.

"I mean he's no longer breathing and is currently on ice in the morgue," Skalany said.

"What happened?"

"It wasn't anything obvious. So we're having an autopsy done. He collapsed in the prison library. His medical history, what little was found, says that he was healthy as a horse."

"Well, we know the cult uses poison, and they've been known to drug their victims." He said "Unfortunately we're now only left With Miranda Gray as the face of the cult. Peter only had contact with 5 people while he was kept prisoner. Two of those are dead and the other two were servants,"

"They have to be part of the cult. I can't imagine trusting them around a hostage if they weren't part of the cult."

"I agree." He said "Unfortunately they aren't giving us any reason to bring them in. Normally we would just round up everyone and bring them in but we can't until we have more information on who is and isn't in the cult locally. It would expose Peter rather than protect him."

"And we have no idea where they are anyway. Which is best for Pete's safety but it also makes it impossible to know who these servants are. Too much ability to say they haven't worked for Miranda during that time. "

"I know. I'm not sure we'll be able to get them for the kidnapping at all. Unless they go into some movie villain monologue and confess." He said, "And even if they do we need to have the entire cult taken down or they will just take Peter captive again." He didn't even trust half of the people in his precinct.

"At this rate, they'll never get to come home." She said in frustration.

"I know. I miss him too."

Peter didn't mind hard work, and mucking out stalls was hard work. It was more meditative for him than the endless walking. Even before he'd reunited with his father his way of working out his emotions and being able to think straight was by beating the crap out of a punching bag. During his captivity, he had done katas to control his over-the-top emotions. It had been the only way he'd been able to tolerate his last turn in the dark.

Thankfully his fear of the normal dark was diminishing over time. Outside of that prison, it was never truly completely dark. . No city was ever dark. Not even in a blackout. There was still light coming through the windows from the moon and stars. There was a moment of near panic the moment the lights are turned off that faded to nothing once he realized there was still light.

He looked up as someone came near, fully expecting to see his father standing there. Instead, it was a young woman. If he had to guess he'd say she was Carol's daughter. They had that same look about them. "Hi." He said. "I'm Peter." He grinned "I'd offer to shake but… well…" Sure he wore gloves but they were filthy and he still going to have to wash his hands when he was done.

"Hi, I'm Trish, Carol's daughter. Nice to meet you." She said "She told me you'd be out here. I was surprised to find out Caine had returned. More so that he'd brought someone with him."

He smiled, "Speaking of my father, do you have any idea where he got off to?" He asked leaning against the wall of the stall.

"He and my mother have gone looking for what might be making our horses sick. He thinks it might be a plant of some sort."

"Well, he knows his stuff when it comes to all of that," Peter said.

"In the meantime, I've come to steal your wheel barrow. " She said. "Going to put all of this on the garden space."

"Bit late to be doing that isn't it?" He asked, "Plants should be coming up about now."

"We rotate our garden patches. This is for next year's garden. We till it under before planting and then cover it with clean straw to protect the seedlings."

"I'm a city boy, what I know about large-scale gardening or ranching wouldn't fill a postage stamp. I've planted things in pots and that's about it. Mostly my father's herbs, Unless you count one disastrous attempt at a flower bed for a friend."

"How do you make a disaster out of a flower bed?"

"You leave me in charge of it." He said laughing. He smiled when she joined in.

"How does this friend feel about you going walk-a-bout with your dad?"

"She left town before I did." He said, "So I doubt she knows." Kelly still thought he was dead. Probably safest for her.

"Sorry to hear that." She said, based on his expression. "Anyway, it looks like you've been hard at it. Might as well take a break while I dump this. You're welcome to walk with me."

"Sure." He said and went to take the wheelbarrow by the handles.

"You know it's not a break when you're working through the break." She said.

Peter shrugged "I can relax and push at the same time." He said, "I'm talented that way."

"So what did you do before you started following your father on his journey?" She asked casually.

"I was a cop. If you can believe that. " He had memorized the cover story Kermit had come up with. He thought he knew it better than he knew his own life at this point. But these were people who knew Kwai Chang Caine, not David Lee. He couldn't use the Peter Lee cover story. It wouldn't wash with the rest.

Trish looked him over a moment. " Yeah, I can believe it." She said. "So why are you here instead of catching bad guys?"

He managed to look embarrassed. "It's been a rough couple of months. You could say I'm on a forced vacation of sorts. Not suspended or anything, just needing some downtime. So Pop decided going walkabout was the answer to putting my qi right." He rolled his eyes as you might expect, even though it was helping put his qi right. "I'm just enjoying the time with Dad. "

"When he was here last he said you were dead." She said as she dumped the manure onto the ground and picked up the garden rake to spread it around.

"As far as he knew I was. I thought he was dead too." Peter shrugged.

"That had to have been one hell of a reunion. How long ago did you find each other?"

Peter smiled "It was. And it was, I guess, about 18 months ago. It's why this trip we're taking is so necessary. We have to get to know each other again."

"Well, I'm glad you found each other. He was really broken up about your death when he was here last. Now there's a sentence you don't say every day."

Peter laughed. "No, I guess it isn't. This is funny. When he met my friends and coworkers, they always said 'I thought your father was dead.' Now that is completely reversed. Pop's friends are now going to be saying 'I thought your son was dead. I guess there's a balance to that."

"I suppose there is," Trish said.

"I'm going to take this back to the stables. I think there will be another barrow full by the time I'm done."

She smiled "I will check in on you later then."

"Alright." He said, returning the smile. It reached his eyes. It was progress.

"McGuire, My office." Alexander Ryan said and went back to his desk leaving the door open for them.

Jordan had just gotten into the office and hadn't even had the chance to take off her jacket or sit down yet. She looked at her watch to make sure she wasn't late. "Yes, Sir," She said and went into her captain's office.

"I'm having a mixer this weekend, after baseball practice, Jordan." He said leaning back in his seat. "A few people from the precinct and a few of my wife's friends. I'd like you to be there."

"Ahm, thank you, Sir, I'd like that." Was this about to turn into a true undercover investigation? Was she being invited to the inner circle so that they could see if she was cult material? Or was this just a barbecue?

"Great. I'll get you the address later. How is the Bradford case going?"

"Slow and steady." She said "Right now what we know is that it was a professional hit. Which leaves us with two suspects. His brother and his wife since it turns out he was banging his sister-in-law. Neither of them is exactly rolling in money but that doesn't mean they couldn't sort it out in other ways. So we're waiting on the background checks to proceed. Mostly looking at the known associates angle."

He nodded "And the Dunleavy case?"

"Waiting on the search warrant for his business partner's apartment."

Alex Ryan nodded "I'll see what I can do to put a fire under that for ya."

"Thanks, Boss." She said.

"Alright." He said, "I'll talk to you later."

She nodded and left the office, going to her desk. It was time to visit her grandmother.

By the end of the day, Peter had filled the wheelbarrow two more times and laid fresh straw in the stalls. Horses were a new thing for him. The only animals at Pine Ridge were the rats they denied existed. The Blaisdells were comfortably well off but not enough to afford horses or riding lessons. Although he was sure that they would have found a way to get him riding lessons if he'd expressed even the slightest of interest. They would have done anything to make him feel wanted and loved.

After three years in the orphanage, Peter hadn't known how to deal with genuine interest and affection. He'd been afraid of it. He had been afraid that if he accepted it, it would be taken away from him as his birth parents had been. Now because of him that family was at risk and torn asunder and he was back to being afraid he'd lose them entirely. Because of him. Because of some prophecy that he didn't even believe was possible.

He slowly walked up the steps to the quarters he and his father had been given. It had felt good to work hard and let his mind drift but now that he'd slowed down everything was starting to tighten up and he wanted nothing more than a hot shower.

"Hey, Pop," Peter said as he entered the room and headed toward the bathroom. "Did you find what's been making the horses sick?"

"No, I did not," Caine said.

Peter paused, and looked over his shoulder at his father. "Does that mean it's a different plant maybe, or that someone is sabotaging things?"

"Sabotage is more likely."

"Then I guess we're sticking around a while," Peter said with a nod.

"Yes."

Peter continued on to get his shower. He wondered at the wisdom of staying somewhere that his father was known, but also knew that there was no way that they could leave someone in trouble when they could help. Hopefully, they were far enough away from Bayview that no one would be looking here.

Hopefully…

He stayed in the shower until the water ran cold. Once he was dressed he took two ibuprofen and went to rejoin his father in the main room. "So, if it was water the people would be sick too. That leaves the feed." He said.

"I believe you are correct," Caine said.

"So who has motive?" Peter asked. "People don't do this for no reason. There's always something to gain."

"I do not know." He answered. "You will need to ask Carol. I will test the feed."

"So, Pop, does Carol know that I was a cop?"

"Was?" He asked.

Peter sighed. "I can't even be Peter Caine right now. Peter Lee is a basketball coach who couldn't hold on to his marriage." He wondered if he would have faired any better. "Peter Caine is a cop."

"You are always Peter Caine."

"I don't even know who that is anymore." He said with a sigh.

"That is up to you." He said "If you want to be a cop then you are a cop. Blaisdell said your badge is there when you want it."

"Oh, I want it. I never wanted to not have it. But I can't do it. I can't go back there and be a cop until we defeat an entire cult. This isn't like the chi'ru or the sing wah. Even if we send Miranda to jail they'll keep coming after me until…" He shook his head, "Until they shove Nag even further into my head."

"What is it that makes you want to be a cop," Caine asked. He couldn't address the other fears. He could find no way to dismiss them like a child's bad dream because his fears were not ephemeral.

"Helping people. Putting away the bad guys so they don't hurt anyone else." Peter said. "I … I guess it was the only way I could reconcile not being able to keep my vow to avenge the destruction of the temple."

"You did keep your vow, Peter," Caine said. "Because you became a police officer, you were able to protect others from Tan."

"That was all you, Pop."

"It was not." He said. "If it were not for you I would not have been alive to face him later. The ancient would not have been alive. I could not have confronted him either time were it not for you. You discount yourself too much, my son."

Peter shook his head. "I don't know about that. In fact, most people that know me say just the opposite, you know."

"Most people do not know you." Caine countered. "They do not see you, they see who they think you are."

"I think that includes you as well," Peter said. "You see too much of the boy I used to be when you look at me."

"All men carry within them the boy they once were." He said with a shrug.

Paul sipped at his glass of bourbon and flipped through the pages of a file on his desk. He spent very little time at home these days. The house seemed to echo with every step he took. He went home to sleep and change clothes and that was all.

Three people had put in to transfer into the 101st precinct. So he'd had Kermit work up background checks for all of them. He'd read each of them through half a dozen times, and the words were starting to swim in front of his eyes.

He looked up when someone rapped at his door. It opened and Kermit entered the room, closing the door behind him. "What are you still doing here?" He asked, closing the file.

"I could ask you the same question," Kermit said and took a seat.

"No reason to go home," Paul said honestly. "I was considering ordering a pizza. Want in on it?"

"I have a better idea. Let's go to a pizza parlor and have a pitcher of beer to go with it. We can eat it without talking about background checks, Miranda Gray, cults, alternate religions, or people named Caine. Even you need a night off once in a while."

"I'm not sure that's possible." He said finishing his drink "But I'm willing to give it a shot." He was beginning to think his backside was being permanently molded by the seat of his desk chair.

"What's the worst that could happen? We fail?" Kermit asked.

"Wouldn't be the first time that happened," Paul said.

"Probably not the last either." He said. Now that Peter was safely out of town and traveling with his father, Kermit was less worried about him. He was now more worried about Paul. Their quest to bring down Miranda Gray was consuming him. Maybe they should start looking at her as one of the dictators they had taken down in the past. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that would just lead to someone else stepping up as Nagaina, and they would have no idea who it was. Better the devil you know was a saying for a reason.

Miranda frowned. Still no word on where Peter Caine had escaped to. They had found the safe house the priests were using. Khan had tried to misdirect them by giving an incorrect address, but it hadn't taken much for them to sort it out from there. Neither Peter nor his father were in either house. She was beginning to think he had left town. In some ways that was preferred. He couldn't cast any doubts on her carefully crafted public image if he was nowhere to be found.

She still wanted him as her consort and Nag agreed. She was just going to have to get creative about how to pull that off without leaving the power base she was building in Bayview. Fortunately, the possible fly in the ointment knew nothing of what had become of his foster son. She would soon have a spy in his precinct to keep tabs on Captain Blaisdell.

Kwai Chang Caine would have to be eliminated of course. There was no way Peter kept his mouth shut to him or the other priests. Unfortunately, she couldn't just invade their little sanctuary and murder them all. Not until she was certain there was nothing to lead back to her or the order. That was going to prove the most complicated part of the entire affair. How much simpler would it have been if the elders had just been able to keep Peter safe until after the ritual? then he could have been rescued by one father or the other without there being any complications. He would have simply fallen into line and obeyed as every Nag before him had done. Once this was over she was going to have to choose a new council of elders and feed these to the pit.