Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Numb3rs or the characters therein. All characters are fictional, and should not be associated with any other person- real or imagined.

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After lunch Wednesday afternoon, Don took his nap while Alan sat guard at the top of the stairs, Charlie next to him. Alan explained everything that his attorney had said to him on the phone, and emphasized that they needed to convince Don to state in court that Wang was his doctor. He also described his past connection with Thompson, and his worry that the woman would never give up on her quest to obtain Don. When they finished, Alan slipped away and went to Don's room, determined that the court wouldn't keep him from putting his arms around his son and holding him, whether they thought he was a capable father or not.

Charlie padded down the stairs and out to the garage, where Larry had been busy erasing every chalkboard in the room. While the Eppes had eaten, Larry had explained, in terms only he and Charlie could understand, why the original algorithm for identifying the cause of the brain trauma had been incorrect, ending his assessment by saying. "You should be setting up a method of giving appropriate weight to all causes, and then look for the outliers. The assumption we should be making is that Thompson used an unusual method and that is why they have been unable to find the exact cause." Having agreed with Larry, Charlie gave his friend permission to erase his previous work so that they could start from scratch.

When Charlie joined Larry in the garage, he surprised his friend by asking him if he would like to go for a ride, instead of moving directly to the blank chalkboards and writing on them. Though still desirous about the work, Charlie had become lost in his brother's rehabilitation once again, this time prodded on by Don's memory of Val. Larry answered affirmatively, and they left, making a trip to a storage unit facility. From separate units, the two men took several boxes containing the clothing of the late Margaret Eppes and others with some of the hastily-packaged contents of Don's old apartment. They brought them back to the house, lugged them in, and stored them in a corner of the living room. Then they cleared the electric train from the coffee table and began to go through the contents of the boxes, Charlie guiding Larry to either return an item to its original container, or where to place it on the table in order to keep everything organized. They had gone through three boxes when Alan and Don appeared, both men yawning but in better moods than they had been in the morning.

Charlie spent the rest of the day helping Don earn nine more stars, glad that his brother was showing off at last. Don refused to do another activity until both men gave him praise; then he would dive in full-heartedly into his exercises, cheered on by his brother and their friend. But every now and then it was Charlie who sought approval, looking at Larry and unconsciously hesitating to go on until he received a nod or a smile. And Larry, realizing Charlie's need, complied with the unspoken request.

When they finished with Don's therapy, Larry excused himself and went home, promising to be a second escort at Don's aqua therapy the next day as Alan had to return to court. Then Charlie and Alan sat on either side of Don on the living room couch, each one taking turns quietly whispering in his ear and holding him, telling him that there was no reason to fear his mommy, that she could not hurt him, that she could not hurt them, that no matter what, they would all be safe. In between the reassurances, they interjected praises about Don's progress in meeting his doctor's therapy goals-you remember your doctor, Don, his name is Dr. Wang- and then asking Don to recite the man's name back to them, rewarding him with more positive statements and stronger hugs whenever he did.

After having a successful second half of the day, Alan and Charlie slid into bed next to Don, hoping that their reassurances and a full dose of sedatives were enough to keep his nightmares away.

But as Don had thought earlier, Melinda Thompson was strong enough to harm him even without possession of her belt.

And he tried to make his father and brother aware of that fact, when he woke again and began to scream from the fresh pain of thrashes and teeth…sharp, sharp teeth.

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Late Wednesday evening, Colby stood on Caleb's porch, anger and worry pounding into him. He had returned less than five hours after leaving the farm, having driven like a madman to the nearest police station, calling Megan on the phone while he drove as soon as he was able to get a signal. Megan must have worked fast, he had thought, because she had been able to contact Nadine, forward Caleb's request, and fax back Nadine's promise to try to place Thompson in a psychiatric facility if found guilty- all within three hours of his first talking to her.

He had probably broken several laws, but Colby had sped back to Caleb's home in record time. When he had parked his car, he had seen the lights of her house across the valley, lit up like she was celebrating a holiday. Colby had grinned at first, thinking it an indication that Caleb no longer wanted to hide but was inviting the world into her house, pushing away the darkness that she had been cloaked in for so many years. But when Colby walked up her front steps and was not greeted with a glass of tea, he became worried.

Where was she?

Colby spent several hours searching the house, barn and fields before giving up. The woman was not there. As he left the back of the house and came around to its front, he walked by the side of the porch. He noticed a slat was out of place. Stepping closer, he kneeled, pushed the wood aside, and pulled out the flashlight Caleb had given him the day before. He shone it under the porch, making a trail of light along the ground till it reached the far corner, where the earth was disturbed. On hands and knees, he crawled under the porch to the spot, frowning when he realized that someone had recently dug into the dirt.

Colby was positive he was looking at the former gravesite of Melinda's dead baby.

When he reappeared from under the porch, Colby immediately jogged down the trail to his car. It took him forty minutes of driving before his phone caught a signal and he was able to reach Megan again.

"We have a problem, Megan- a big one." Colby twisted the steering wheel hard right as he went around a curve, anger controlling his movements.

Megan fumed through the phone. "She changed her mind, didn't she? After what Nadine went through to get permission to send that written promise, she just better not have changed her mind."

Pressing his foot hard on the gas, Colby remarked, "Well, she's not going to give us a statement- that I'm pretty sure about. But I don't think it's because she changed her mind."

There was a long silence between Megan and Colby as she took in his words. "Colby, Ms. Whitehall wasn't hurt tonight, was she?"

Exasperated, Colby wrenched the steering wheel to his left, just barely missing a car stuck on the side of the road. "I don't know, Megan. That's the problem. I went back to her house and she wasn't inside. I searched all over that farm, but I didn't find her anywhere. And get this: as I finished my search, I'm positive I found the baby's gravesite- right under her front porch."

"You've got to be kidding me? All those years with a dead baby buried feet from her front door- no wonder she can't think straight. You didn't disturb it, did you? I would much rather"-

Colby sharply interrupted, "No, someone else did that before me. From what I could tell, that grave was dug up recently- I bet while I was gone tonight. Megan, I don't think Caleb went back on her word; I believed her when she promised to testify if we got her that note. I'm sure something happened to her- I can feel it."

While Colby talked, Megan mulled over a different occurrence that Nadine had informed her about right before his call. When Colby went quiet, she decided it would be best to tell him, though she knew it would increase his concern about Caleb. "Colby, something happened to Perceival Jackson earlier tonight. He was being transferred to another cell when a prisoner shanked him in the groin, pulling the knife over and out, then stabbing him again, only down further, tearing deep into his leg; he bled to death before they could save him."

The knuckles on Colby's left hand turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. "Do you think Thompson is behind it?"

"I might think it, but there is no way to prove it. Nadine told me that the perpetrator was already being charged with his third felony before he murdered Jackson. She assured me the evidence for that crime was so strongly against the guy that he had nothing to lose by killing Jackson."

Colby took a rough turn into the parking lot of the same police station he'd visited earlier, turned off his car and stayed in his seat so he could finish his conversation. "After what he wanted to do to Don, for Jackson to get it in the groin like that must have been somebody's way of getting a sick sort of justice. I can't imagine Alan or Charlie getting involved in something like that, so who else could have been behind it besides Thompson?"

"Colby, there is no doubt in my mind that she had something to do with this, and I think Nadine's pretty sure herself. But we can't convict people without evidence, you know. Which we will probably never get; remember, Thompson's attorney is Gordon Fairfield- he has been practicing federal criminal law for years. Who knows how many of his former clients owe him something, and are willing to have someone repay their debt with actions rather than cash?"

"Are you looking to see if the actual perp had ever been a client of Fairfield's?"

"Of course, we already checked that out. Unfortunately, he never was. According to Nadine, that's not surprising. She said if he had been a client of Fairfield's, then he wouldn't have been convicted of those other two felonies. Fairfield is just that good; which means we should hold out little hope that Fairfield would be so stupid as to leave a trail from Jackson's murderer to himself."

"If Thompson and Fairfield had the means to take out Jackson in jail, then Caleb was easy game." Colby punched the dashboard in front of him, regretting it the moment his knuckles hit the vinyl. "Damn!" He tried to shake away the sting.

"What happened!" Megan snapped.

"Nothing- just hit my hand." Flexing his fingers, Colby told Megan, "I'm going to see if I can rally up the local cops and get them to do a more thorough search of Caleb's farm. I'm so stupid, Megan. Why didn't I make her come with me?"

"Don't start blaming yourself, Colby. You can't be sure that Whitehall didn't run off on her own, taking the remains of Melinda's baby with her." Megan didn't believe the words even as she spoke them.

"For Pete's sake Megan, she lived out in the middle of nowhere and didn't even have a car. What'd she do, lug them down to the main highway and hitchhike." Mockingly he said, "Oh, don't mind those, mister; I'm on my way to sell them to MJ."

"Okay, okay- I know it's farfetched that she left on her own. But she refused to go with you until she saw that fax, and you had to leave in order to get it, so even if Thompson did do something to her, it is not your fault."

Colby couldn't disagree with Megan more, but felt there was no point in arguing. He climbed out of his car and slammed the door shut, leaning against it as he said, "If the police will take my word as to the serious nature of her disappearance and conduct a more thorough search, I'll head back first thing in the morning. I don't think there's anything else for me to do here."

"Actually, there is. Sonoma County's central computer site is down for revamping and I couldn't find out who has been paying the property taxes on Whitehall's farm. I tried talking to someone over the phone, but the last thing she told me was 'I'll call you right back' and, of course, she never did. So, while you're there anyway, why don't you go to the county treasurer's office in Santa Rosa and see if you can get them to look up the information for you."

'Will do, Megan, but when I find Alfie, I'm not going to let him out of my sight. I'm not about to lose another witness."

"You didn't lose the first one, Colby. If you keep blaming yourself for every thing that goes wrong, you're going to end up on a farm somewhere spending all of your time making herbal tea and rocking on your front porch."

"Message received, message understood," Colby replied, then he clicked his phone shut and headed into the police station, worried that a more thorough investigation of Caleb's farm was going to reveal where two sets of bones were buried instead of one.

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The next day, David spent the earlier part of Thursday morning speaking to Melinda and Randy Thompson's doctor, who was amazingly healthy at the ripe age of ninety-three. Dr. Mark Smith had greeted David with the opening line, "I'm too old to lie about what I did, and you can't do anything about it anyway." David hadn't been able to argue about either statement.

It hadn't taken them long to find the old man. There were less than seven thousand people living in Alta Sierra, and only a handful of private physicians; any one not satisfied with the slim pickings could easily find other options in neighboring towns. When Megan had repeated Caleb's story to David, he had volunteered to find the doctor and see if he knew anything about what had happened with the Thompson baby. For research, David had simply looked up the names of all the doctors in Alta Sierra and called each one. When he came across Smith, the doctor admitted to being the Thompsons' physician over thirty years before, and said he would readily talk to David- but only in person.

"Can't hear too well on the phone," was the old man's excuse. When David met with him, he suspected the old man was more lonely than hard of hearing.

They had talked for two hours, about nothing in general, until the old man said he was tiring and would get to the point himself. "I was Mel's doctor from the time she was little, and yes, she trusted me implicitly. That's what makes the whole situation easy to remember. Hard to forget when the little girl you knew is suddenly all grown up and pregnant. Beautiful child, she was. Those deep eyes of hers dragged you in; never wanted to leave them, but then you always had to. Hurt me deeply when Randy took her to that commune. I had wanted to be the one to deliver her child."

"Did she seem overly anxious about the pregnancy?" David asked, reclining in a chair set out on the old man's patio. Like Colby, he felt guilty for enjoying his surroundings, the beauty of a well-kept garden entrancing his eyes and fresh air filling his lungs, all thoughts of L.A. whisked from his mind.

"Anxious," Smith rubbed his chin and twisted his jaw, "not anxious, no. Excited would be the term I'd use. Maybe you don't know it, but Randy was the last of his line. And so was Melinda, as a matter of fact. Sort of like Adam and Eve, I guess you'd say, as refers to their families. It was up to them to continue their lineage, and so, yeah, Mel was real excited to be able to do that. So was Randy, of course, but Mel- she kinda sunk everything she had into the baby; like she was fulfilling some strange destiny that only she knew about."

"If the baby meant so much to her, why'd she decide to trust a midwife over you, someone she'd known all her life?' David tapped the arm of his chair with his fingers.

"Because of Randy; that baby was important to her mainly because it was his, and when he came up with that cockamamie idea of going to the commune to have it, she didn't have it in her to say no. You just don't know how much she loved that man." Smith looked beyond David at his garden. Flowers and bushes of various heights surrounded the patio, encasing them in life. At ninety-three, Smith appreciated life.

"When did you find out that the baby had died?" David asked, his eyes resting on the plants past and to Smith's left. Beautiful, he thought.

"Right after it occurred. Now, I told you I'm not gonna lie to you, figure I'd die before you could bring fraud or whatever-the-hell-you-feel-like charges against me. Besides, I don't reckon what I've got to say will much matter to anybody now, anyway. Randy's gone and Mel herself has never asked me to remain quiet about her baby's death, so I don't think she'd mind me telling you."

David disagreed, but held his tongue.

Receiving no response, Smith started his explanation. "They brought her to the local hospital, and it was a mess. Melinda all torn up inside and Randy pleading with me to keep what happened quiet. And I did, but not for him and his political ideology. I did it because I thought it would help Mel. The death of a child is a personal thing, and I thought Randy was correct in trying to keep publicity away from the death of theirs. Only, it turned out later that I was wrong."

"Melinda didn't take well to keeping the whole thing hush-hush, did she?"

"No, no she didn't. They brought her some professional help, daily visits with some doctors. But when I saw her a couple weeks after the event, she kept asking me about her son, as if he were alive and we were all involved in some conspiracy to keep him from her. It wasn't long after that when Randy came to me again. Stupid ass didn't even know where the remains of his baby were, and couldn't have a funeral without a death certificate-wanted me to sign a false one. What kind of man is that, doesn't even know where his baby is buried?"

Smith looked to David for an answer, but the agent didn't know of any that he could give.

He opted to ask a question instead. "Did he ever say why he didn't go to the commune and get the baby's body? That had to be where it was buried."

"He couldn't get anyone else involved, so he couldn't ask someone to go there to look , and he couldn't go himself becasue he was afraid to leave Mel alone. She'd slipped out a couple times, and he and that friend of his barely got her back safe and sound; took both of them watching her fulltime to keep her home. She was a slippery girl, got past the so-called professionals whenever she wanted. By the time they got her under control, I guess Randy figured it was too late to go back and look. I still blame him, though, because he never should have left his son's body there to begin with."

David sat forward, leaning on his arms, putting the pleasantries of his environment out of his mind as he placed his full concentration on Smith. "Did they end up having the funeral?"

"Yes, they did." Smith leaned forward, too, his head lowered to meet David's. "Melinda didn't believe Randy at first, what with his insisting they have a closed casket and all. But when I looked her in the eye and told her the baby was dead, handing her the death certificate as I said it, she believed me, her doctor and friend for so many years. And I hated myself for doing it. Stopped seeing her after that - it was too hard talking to her knowing I had lied." Smith shrugged. "But I knew it was for the best. Mel needed to get over the death of that baby and everything it represented. "

"And it represented a continuation of their lineage? That was really so important to her?" David had a hard time believing that during an era of such social upheaval, a young Melinda had clung to such archaic ideas.

"Yeah, but we're really talking about Randy's lineage. He was a step or two above Mel in social class, if you know what I mean. She didn't believe she had anything else to offer him except to be the repository of his namesake. Was it really that important to her?" Smith set his jaw before answering. "It sure was. From the moment she became pregnant, she insisted she was having a boy, his boy. I don't think a little girl would have done her any good. Only a boy carries on the family name, and that really was important to her, that she could do that one thing for Randy."

David took some time to think this over. From what Smith was saying, Thompson must have had three specific obsessions during her life : first was her husband, second was the need to have his child, and, third, though originally brief, was Don. Maybe that obsessive need for her husband was why she had renewed her interest in Don. When her husband died two years before, she may have needed to seek out someone to replace him. Since she could not have any children, Don was the only one of her original obsessions available to her, and then she had fortuitously run into him at the alternative health clinic, maybe seeing the meeting as a sign that she could still fulfill her destiny and provide a son to her husband . David realized that the meeting between them might have been the exact point at which Thompson's obsession with him began anew, which would be especially true if she already knew her husband was going to die. It also indicated that Thompson may have been planning to take Don for a long time. This worried David, because he knew the woman was smart and should have been better prepared to keep Don to herself. Yet, they had found him within two months, and, though the charges hadn't stuck, arrested her. It made him think that she had other plans in store for his friend.

Putting aside these concerns, David observed, "Then I guess that's why she had a hard time accepting the baby's death, since it was the little boy she had wanted so badly."

"To be honest, I don't know if the baby was a boy or not."

David couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Wait a minute, didn't Randy tell you it was a boy?"

"No, he never said if it was one or the other. And Mel never saw the baby; when I asked about it, Randy said the midwife had gotten it out of her and immediately covered it in a blanket when she saw it was dead. When I probed a bit more, he admitted that the midwife didn't say anything about the sex to him, or to anyone else; they had been in too much of a hurry to get Mel to the hospital to be concerned about that- after all, what difference did it make, it was dead either way. I only wrote down 'boy' on the death certificate because Mel's mindset was that she had had one, and I knew she wouldn't believe me if I had written that it had been a girl."

David pushed this new information to the back of his head, not sure if it would make a difference in the long run. Deciding to wrap up their conversation, he asked about the funeral. "So, the casket was empty?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what it was."

"How'd they get that fact past the funeral home director?"

"Didn't get it past him- just paid him a little moolah to remain quiet about it. Maybe more than a little, but whatever amount it was, it was enough to give it a final resting place over at Sunshine Cemetery, down at the end of Elm Street." Smith scratched his chin, thinking. "If I'm right, and I'm sure that I am, the same boy that used to oversee the grave digging is now owner of the place. Smart kid- went away to college, made some money, and came back home. Told me once he loved the smell of freshly overturned dirt; creepy kid, too, I guess."

Smith stood up and walked to the edge of the patio, his garden beginning just at its edge. He knelt and sniffed several roses, closing his eyes briefly. When he returned to his seat, he felt refreshed. "Me, I prefer flowers. Figure when I'm gone I'll be spending more than enough time smelling dirt."

With that, David thanked the old man for his honest answers, and then asked for directions to Sunshine Cemetery, which were freely given. Before he left, David asked one more question.

"This friend that helped Thompson out- do you recall his name?"

"Sure," Smith nodded his head, " Don't know his last name, but his first was Alfalfa, like on that kid's show way back when. Don't suppose you remember it?"

"No, it was probably before my time."

"I suppose there's not much in my life that wasn't before your time," Smith grinned.

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While David was busy interviewing Dr. Mark Smith, Colby was busy standing in line at the county treasurer's office located in Santa Rosa. Clerks were hurriedly shuffling through paper files while their computer screens sat blank. Patiently waiting for his turn, Colby thought about the response of the police in Sonoma Valley.

The night before, the first police officer he had talked to had been a young and by-the-rules upstart who had politely told him to sit in the corner and begin filling out forms. Luckily, an older officer had intervened, the same one who had allowed Colby to use their fax earlier, and he had listened to the agent explain his concerns about Caleb. Having been around Sonoma Valley almost as far back as the commune, and also familiar with the eccentric woman who never left her home, the officer had immediately begun the procedures necessary to gather together a search party. By seven that morning, Colby had left the police station, watching in his rear view mirror as several cars and trucks full of volunteers had sped in the opposite direction, heading for Caleb's farm. He had received a promise from the older officer that he would personally call Colby the moment they found anything.

That is, Colby thought as he drove away, if they found anything.

When it was his turn at the counter, Colby handed the address of Caleb's farmhouse to the woman, and asked her if she could give him a copy of the tax records. Flustered by the layers of files piled around the office and her desk, it took the woman nearly fifteen minutes to find them. She made a copy of the file and brought it back to Colby, requesting that he pay a two-dollar charge. After receiving his receipt, Colby took the papers and went outside, flipping through them till he found the list of dates that the taxes had been paid, and who had paid them.

He shoved the papers into his pants pocket and narrowed his eyes as he thought, Looks like I've got a long drive ahead of me.