She was still staring at the board long after Tony had left when Kevin popped his head around the corner.

"Guv, Pete Cromwell and his solicitor are here."

She turned. "Thanks, Kev," she said. "Give me a minute, yeah?"

When he left, she looked at each photograph one more time. All three boys smiled back at her, their bright expressions captured on film, their joyful eyes spoke of mischief and wonder, of irrepressible curiosity. And life. Carol wondered what their eyes were saying now.

Smoothing down her jacket, she took a deep breath and summoned up some strength. She heard Tony, just as sure as if he were in the room. "But it's the right thing to do." She nodded at the unseen presence and felt a renewed sense of conviction. "Right," she said, and left the room.

--

When she entered the small interrogation room, Carol was thankful she wasn't claustrophobic. She looked over at Don, standing quietly in the corner, and speculated for a moment that, if he reached out, his arms might span the room. Kevin stood in the adjacent corner, though still within arm's reach of Don. A small rectangular table, butted against the opposite wall, dominated the rest of the space. Three of the five chairs were occupied. The two men were equally imposing; well dressed and immaculately groomed. However, even if Carol hadn't known Peter Cromwell on sight she would have been able to identify him by the almost insolent air of confidence he exuded. To Cromwell's left sat a woman whom Carol recognized as his wife, Diane. She had jet-black hair and sharp dark eyes to match. This was no demur mob wife.

Carol dropped a file on the table and sat down. "My apologies about the room," she said as she looked around the enclosed space. "We would have done this in the office, but due to your… celebrity, we thought it best to try and keep this as private as possible."

The solicitor noted the absence of a recorder. "You're not recording the proceedings?"

She shook her head. "I thought perhaps it might encourage your client to be as forthcoming as possible with his information." Looking at Cromwell, she went on, "Listen, I'm not here to get into your alleged criminal activities." She stressed the word 'alleged', letting Cromwell know in no uncertain terms what her opinion was. "I'm here to find a little boy who must be frightened out of his skin."

The tough exterior of one of the most feared men in England softened. "Give her the file, Nathan."

The solicitor grudgingly reached into his briefcase. "Once again, Pete, I strongly advise-"

Cromwell didn't say a word, but his eyes spoke volumes, and the file was immediately pushed across to Carol.

"This all of it?" she asked.

"It had better be," Diane answered flatly, not looking at her husband.

"It's everything," he assured her. "Lists of all associates who might have had a reason to do something so stupid." He flashed a set of perfect teeth. "Feel free to do whatever you like with that list."

Carol couldn't help but return a smile of her own. 'Opportunistic bastard,' she thought admiringly.

More somberly, he continued, "There are teachers, doctors, nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, the whole lot. Anyone we could think of who would have had contact with David."

"I came up with his schedule for the last month before…" Diane spoke up, then faltered. Pete reached over and took her hand. "We… we had him on a bit of a routine. School, then music lessons, then home. At the weekend, I would take him shopping, then to the park or the museum. He loves the dinosaur Museum." Her hand tightened around her husband's.

"I know this is hard, but can you walk me through what happened that day?" Carol asked.

Diane looked at her husband, then back to Carol. "He went to the football field with Marcus. David's bodyguard."

"He's been with us since David was born," Pete chimed in. "There's no way he's involved in this."

Carol nodded, but wrote the name down regardless. She looked at Diane, encouraging her to go on. "He was playing with some boys. David, I mean. He told Marcus he was thirsty and Marcus just can't say no. He loves David." Diane held back another sob. "So Marcus went to get the boys some drinks. He wasn't gone for more than ten minutes, he said. When he came back…"

"Did the boys see anything?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. David sat off to the side while the boys continued playing. No one thought to keep an eye on David. Why would they? They're just kids."

Carol gave her a moment before she asked, "Do you have a list of the names of the boys?"

Pete pointed to the sheet. "Right there."

"Good," Carol answered. "I'll have to talk to Marcus as well."

"In all this, I feel sorry for him," Diane said. "He's absolutely crushed by this; I don't think he's slept any more than we have."

"This is really good, Mrs. Cromwell," Carol consoled. "We'll be double-checking everything, staking out some of the places you took David on a regular basis. We'll do everything we can to find him."

"Whoever did this better hope you find David, because if I find this bastard who did it first…" Cromwell growled.

"That's off the record," Nathan interjected.

Carol shook her head in dismay. "Piss off. I wouldn't arrest a distraught father for saying something we'd all say in the same position."

Diane reached across the table and touched Carol's hand. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Thank me when we find your son, Mrs. Cromwell." Opening the file she had brought in, Carol took out two photos of the other missing boys. She passed one to Cromwell. "I was wondering if either of you recognized these two boys."

Cromwell picked up the photo of Thomas Young and shook his head. "No. Never seen him before." He slid it over to his wife, who also shook her head.

"How about this one?"

Again, Cromwell shook his head. "No, sorry. What does this have to do with David?"

"We're not sure yet," Carol admitted, "we're just trying to cover all our bases."

"They've gone missing, too?"

"I prefer that information stays in this room, Mr. Cromwell."

He nodded and looked over to his wife who had been silent. As she continued to pore over the photo, she began nodding her head slowly. "Yes. Yes, I know this boy." The room became deathly quiet. "Kieran somebody. Fisherman. Fisher."

Carol's ears perked up. " Yes. Kieran Fisher. How do you know him?"

"Don't you remember?" she asked her husband. When she was met with a blank expression, she faced Carol. "David was on a football team last year, but he broke his ankle and never went back."

Peter jumped in, pointing to the photo. "Right! He was that little spitfire of a player. Probably could have played in the eight-to-tens group, he was that good."

This was the best piece of news Carol had heard all day. She tried to check her excitement as she asked, "What was the name of the team?"

"Bradfield Knights," they answered simultaneously.

"This is good news, isn't it?" Diane asked.

"It definitely gives us something new to work with," Carol answered. The excitement had quickly evaporated when she realized that if the same man had abducted both boys, one was probably dead. She pushed that aside and stood up. "Thank you for coming. We'll contact you the second we find out anything, I promise."

As the trio left, she said to Kevin, "I want names of every boy on that team, last year and this year. I want parents, coaches, and every volunteer who was ever involved checked out."

"You got it."

--

He was cold. Bone-chillingly cold. Sound was muffled as if his ears were stuffed with cotton wool. He tried to reach up to touch them, but his movement was sluggish and difficult. Darkness surrounded him except for a faint glimmer of light far above his head. Pressure crushed his chest and his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. When he opened his mouth to gasp for breath, it filled with water. His eyes opened in a panic and he twisted his head around in an attempt to see where he was. Water. He was under water. He twisted to the left and saw the ghostly white image of a face looking back at him. He tried to escape to the right, twisting violently to the right, but was met by another pale apparition. The pressure in his chest increased as his panic escalated at an unbearable rate. Frantically he tried to kick up, up, up towards the light. But it felt as if hands had curled around his ankles and were holding him down. He tried to scream, but there was no sound.

Suddenly, without explanation, an insistent buzzing broke through the silence. He looked around, hoping to find the source. Where was it?

Buzz

Buzz

Buzz

Tony's eyes shot open and he almost fell off the couch in alarm. He fought through the familiar layers of disorientation towards full wakefulness and quickly glanced all around.

"I'm home. I'm on my couch. I fell asleep," he spoke out loud, reassuring himself of the facts.

Buzz

Buzz

The doorbell. He rubbed his hands over his face and staggered to the door.

Carol's smile fell when she saw his ashen face. Stepping inside quickly, she put her hand on his arm. "Tony. Are you all right? What's wrong?"

He brushed her questions aside, but found a welcome comfort in her light touch. "I fell asleep on the couch; had a dream when I heard the door. Were you out here long?"

Now it was her turn to wave away his question. "A few seconds. And I wouldn't call it a dream. You look absolutely stricken." As they walked into his living room, she gently directed him towards the couch. "Am I going to find any wine in the refrigerator?"

He looked up at her, his eyes still clouded. "Did you call earlier?"

"I did. But all I got was an engaged tone."

He looked over to the phone; it was off the hook. "Damn," he muttered, "I must have forgot… I was working earlier…" He rubbed his eyes again, then offered Carol a weary smile. "I suppose it's a good thing I put the wine in when I got home, then."

Her smile warmed his chilled bones. "I suppose it is. Don't go anywhere, yeah?"

She disappeared out of view into his kitchen and he closed his eyes attempting, once more, to regain his bearings. He was no stranger to night terrors and cold sweats. His ability to get into the twisted minds he studied ensured he was left with residual traces of their demons. He often wondered if his psychological difficulties with women stemmed partly from a subconscious desire to spare them the trials of his nocturnal screaming. A soft cough from the doorway alerted him to Carol's reappearance.

"I didn't want to scare you," she said. With a small smile, she added, "You looked white enough as it was."

He couldn't help but return her smile as he reached for the proffered glass. She took one look at his hand, put the glasses down on a nearby table and sat beside him.

"Jesus, Tony. You're shaking like a leaf." She took his hand in hers. "And you're freezing!" Her efforts to comfort now also became an attempt to create warmth. Flattening his hand she vigorously rubbed it back and forth between her own. Then she squeezed the tips of his fingers in her fist and repeated the process with his other hand. When she touched the back of her hand on his forehead, he recoiled.

"I had a bad dream; I'm not sick," he rebuked her sharply. She lowered her hand but not her gaze. "Sorry," he quickly apologized, "sorry. I just… you don't need to look after me."

With a level gaze, she asked, "And what if I want to?"

"I don't know why you would."

He almost felt the sting of hurt in her eyes and, when she withdrew the warm comfort of her hands, he felt the warmth ebb away from his soul.

She filled her empty hands with one of the glasses on the table. Curious, yet with an unmistakable distance between them, she asked, "Do you want to tell me about it? This dream of yours?"

He mentally chastised himself; he did this every time. Every time he let her get in close he pushed her away. He'd done it time and time again so why would she bother to confront him about it? Privately he admitted that it surprised him that she still hadn't become inured to his emotional deficiencies. He could still her hurt her. He sighed audibly and reached for his own glass.

"I'm used to my mind mulling over things in the quiet moments of sleep, but this… this was different."

"You've never had a nightmare before?"

Tony's brow furrowed as he pondered the question. "It's not that I've never had nightmares, but…" He thought again before trying to decipher feelings into words. "I've had disturbing dreams, but I'm generally not in them. I'm usually watching from some vantage point; I'm not the focus of the dream. This was entirely different. I was participating, not witnessing."

"What were you participating in?"

"I'm not quite sure." He took a sip of his wine and noticed his hands still had a slight tremor. "I was in water. Cold. Drowning. I tried to swim up to the light, but it felt like someone was preventing me from doing so. A grip around my ankle."

"God," Carol whispered and shuddered.

"Then you saved me." When he saw her look of confusion, he clarified, "The door bell rang and I woke up."

She smiled and raised her glass. "That's me. Always to the rescue."

"Yes," he agreed, a serious reply to her light-heartedness.

Carol steeled herself from the vulnerability behind his remark and asked, "What do you think it means? Your dream, I mean."

He tried to maintain an aura of clinical distance as he explained, "Well, at its most basic interpretation, a dream of drowning symbolizes a person's fear of being overwhelmed by their unconscious urges."

As much as his earlier comment may have stung her, she couldn't help but stifle a laugh. "Oh, really? And you're having this dream? How surprising is that, I wonder?"

"Thank you, Florence Nightingale," he retorted, but bit back a laugh of his own. The tension had dissipated just as quickly as it arrived developed, and for that, he was glad. He took another drink sip of wine and noted his now steady hand. With only a small measure of liquid left in his glass, he stood up and said, "Let me get the bottle."

"Oh, one of those nights, is it?" Carol teased.

From the kitchen, he called out over his shoulder, "And how was your day? I trust it was equally stressful but on a different level?"

"Yeah," she answered. "No thoughts of drowning but let me tell you, I know about being overwhelmed some times. Though there was good news today. Hopefully." He returned to the living room and topped up her glass. "Thank you." Sitting back down, he gestured for her to continue. "Peter and Diane Cromwell came in this afternoon."

"News about their son?"

"No, but Diane recognized one of the other missing boys. Kieran Fisher. He was on the same football team as David last year."

Tony's eyes widened in surprise. "That's fantastic. Have you got any leads?"

Carol spread her arms in a leisurely stretch. "I've got everyone tracking down every last person connected in some way to the team. Kevin's on it like a bloodhound."

"Good for him," Tony said. "And good for you."

Settling back into the comfort of his chair, she curled her legs up underneath her, and shrugged lightly. "I don't know. Tell me again when we find these boys." She closed her eyes and murmured, "I love this chair."

"I know," he said, "you assert authority over it every time you visit."

Her response was a sleepy laugh. He knew he should nudge her awake before sleep overtook her completely, but found it hard to resist his second opportunity that day to look at her without worry that she would catch something in his gaze he wasn't yet ready to reveal. 'Not that she didn't already know,' his inner voice remarked. 'That comment about unconscious urges? Don't kid yourself.' Resting his chin in his hand, he pondered the situation and wondered how in the world he'd got himself into it. And more importantly, how he would get out of it.

"Get a grip. Deal with it and move on."

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin at the words that were so Carol. He would have sworn he had heard her say them at that very moment. Leaning forward to see if she had actually spoken, he reprimanded himself. 'You're losing it, Tony, it's official.' Carol was curled up contently on his chair, the glass of wine balanced precariously on her knee. Standing up, he gently took it out of her grasp and placed it on the table. His floorboards quietly creaked as he walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a blanket. When he tucked it around her, she turned and settled herself more comfortably into the curves of the chair. Spoiling himself he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, then stepped back and returned to the couch. Picking up a book from the edge of his coffee table, he opened it to an indiscriminate page and tried to read as the nearby presence of Carol took up residence in his living room and in his head.

--

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her stretch sleepily and tug the blanket back up to her chin. He watched surreptitiously as she sighed heavily and started to wake fully.

After a small yawn, she asked lazily, "How long have I been sleeping?"

He looked at his watch. "About forty minutes."

"Mmmm. Sorry."

Her contentment belied her apology. "Oh, that's all right, Carol," he answered. "I'm secure enough in my self-worth to accept being second. To a chair." When he saw her guilty smile, he added, "I don't know why you just don't take it with you when you leave."

"Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind. But it won't fit in the boot of my car."

"Already taken measurements, have you?"

"Eons ago."

They enjoyed a moment of laughter before she asked, "What are you reading?"

He held up the book before tossing it on the table. "For my lecture on Friday. We're discussing phobias."

She raised her eyebrows approvingly. "That sounds interesting. One day I'm going to sit in on your class."

"I don't teach you enough as it is?" he asked, pretending to be hurt.

"It's an honour to sit at your feet every day and learn from your wisdom," she replied with exaggerated praise. "Is that better?"

"Much," he said. "So what about you? Any phobias I should be aware of?"

"You're not going to analyze me, are you?"

Tony shook his head. "Wouldn't dream of it, Carol. Just curious."

She cocked her head and gave it some thought before finally answering. "No, I don't think I have any phobias. Fears, most certainly, but nothing that would prevent me from doing something, no."

"What sort of fears?"

"Oh, you know, fear of disappointing people, fear of failure." She shrugged, as if dismissing her confession. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, and clowns. Can't stand them."

"Coulrophobia," he supplied. There was a stretch of silence between them until he said, "Fear of failure isn't necessarily a bad thing, Carol, so long as you're in control of it and not the other way round. Use it as a motivator, not a deterrent."

She smiled, grateful for his support. "I thought you weren't going to analyze me," she joked.

"Don't worry, I won't send you a bill."

She combed her fingers through her hair and stood, picking up the blanket he'd given her. "I should go. Early day tomorrow."

He stood up too and caught hold of the trailing end blanket. "You… could stay. If you wanted." Her expression was one of mirth and surprise. "I mean, I'd take the couch. Of course."

"Of course," she repeated, the corner of her mouth twitching with amusement. Their hands met as they brought the corners of the blanket together, and they both stopped, as each waited for the other to make the next move. Carol broke the impasse, tugging the corners from his hands and guiltily enjoying his discomfiture before she spoke. "It's going to be an early morning as it is; I don't want to have to go home in the morning to get a change of clothes."

He nodded, unsure whether he was disappointed or relieved.

"Besides," she added, "I would have gladly slept in your chair."

"Flattered as I am to be given ownership of my own furniture, don't you really mean your chair?"

"Tomato, tomahto."

He frowned and sternly replied, "Get out." Her laughter was warm and infectious and his unsympathetic expression didn't last long. "Come on."

At the door, she turned to him. All light-heartedness was set aside. "Are you going to be all right?" she asked him, concerned.

"Hmmm? Oh, earlier. Right." He shrugged. "I don't see why not. Chalk it up as another one of those things I've come to expect."

She put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

He turned his hand over and cupped her elbow. "Let me know how tomorrow goes. By the sounds of it, the floodgates of evidence have opened. I hope it leads to something."

"So do I," she replied. Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek. "Sleep well, Tony. And I mean that."

After she was gone, he returned to the living room and found his gaze traveling over to their wineglasses still standing on the table. Not for the first time, he marveled at fate. And in this rare instance, it was good.

--