Hi ladies,

Thanks for all of the feedback. Here is the next installment, I figured I had better get it out pretty quick, or risk bodily harm. –G-- I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

Chapter 2

Wednesday

Captain Dobey stepped out of his office "They just found his car." At his announcement, all activity in the squad room stopped and all heads turned towards him.

Hutch whipped around on one heel to face his superior. "What? Where?"

"Bay City Technical College."

"Bay City Tech?" Hutch shook his head, "What the hell was it doing there?"

"Being sat on by about eight co-eds."

Hutch blinked several times before asking the obvious question, "Why were they sitting on it?"

Dobey gave a pained expression and pursed his lips before speaking, "They were cheerleaders having their yearbook photo taken. Their school colors are red and white." He gave a disgusted snort.

Hutch sat down hard, fortunately for him, there was a chair behind him. He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed convulsively "What about fingerprints?"

"Prints? There are hundreds of prints… thousands, all over the car. The guys in the lab are betting on how many days it'll take to process the Torino. Then they have to fingerprint the students who admitted to touching the car and then-"

Hutch held up his hand "Stop. I get the picture… what about inside the car?"

"There hasn't been a complete check yet, but the preliminary one seems to indicate that the inside was wiped down, how thoroughly remains to be seen." Dobey help up his hand to forestall questions "They're going to go over the whole thing inch by inch.

"What does this mean? That a bunch of college kids stole his car? Did they have something to do with his disappearance?" The blond threaded a frustrated hand through his thin blond locks as he stood back up.

"Where're you going?"

"To talk to those kids, find out what happened." was Hutch's exasperated reply.

"No Hutch, I have several officers talking to those students already. I also talked to campus security and they told me that they had noticed the Torino sitting in the lot yesterday. But it could have been there as long three days. They thought it was a student's vehicle until they had noticed that it didn't have a campus lot sticker on it, so they ticketed it. It seems to be a common practice for students to leave their vehicles parked on the grounds, so they didn't' think too much about it." The captain shook his head.

"You're telling me that nobody took notice of that car? I don't believe it!" He reached for his jacket. "I gotta go talk to them."

Dobey walked over to him and grabbed his elbow, "Hutch, you know that the Torino looks like some kid's street rod. It was an easy assumption for them to make. Nor is Bay City Tech campus security privy to a BCPD APB. They had no way of knowing we were looking for the car until we made that information public."

Hutch pulled his leather jacket on and straightened the collar as he listened to his captain.

Dobey put his hand on Hutch's shoulder. "Hutch… Ken… I know you're gonna ignore this, but why don't you go to conference room C and lay down on the couch for an hour or two? You've been at this for nearly three days now, non-stop. You're not going to be of any help to anyone if you don't take a break."

"How can I take a break when we don't know where Starsky is? Huh? Answer me that, Cap'n… He could be hurt…dying… and you want me to take a break? I'll take a break alright." he glared into the big man's eyes. 'Don't antagonize the people I need.' Those were Starsky's words, in his quiet, calm voice whispering in the cranky blond's ear. Hutch dropped his chin to his chest. That was another bad day… a horrid twenty-four hour period that nearly culminated with his best friend's death by poison.

But what had happened to Starsky this time? There had been no ransom demand; no threats of retaliation had been made to either of them -lately. Starsky had simply vanished. The last anyone had seen of him was when he had dropped his stewardess girlfriend off at the airport Sunday afternoon. Hutch struggled to suppress a yawn.

Dobey studied him for a long moment, "Try to get some sleep son." He patted the lanky detective on the back as the exhausted man strode by him. "That's an order… Don't leave that room for at least one hour, do you hear me?"

"Yeah, sure." Hutch shuffled towards the conference room and he lay down on the beat up old couch and drew the worn blanket over himself, he draped an arm over his eyes and he attempted to quiet his mind enough to get some sleep. Dobey was right; he wouldn't be any good to Starsky or anyone else if he didn't get some rest.

But try as he might, Hutch could not get his brain to take a break, it was still working, rather like a gerbil on an exercise wheel. His thoughts ran down familiar paths; round and round, over and over. What had happened to Starsky? Where was he? Had he been kidnapped? Was he alive? Was he dead?

Hutch thought back to the last time he had seen Starsky. For as much as everyone accused them of being attached at the hip, they did have their own lives to lead and they could, and did function without constant contact. They had been accused of having a 'psychic connection,' well if that were true, he would know where to find his partner. Only he didn't know. He thought back to the last time he had seen Starsky.

Last Saturday night

The foursome had walked along the Pier 20 Boardwalk, where a mini fair was taking place. The pier was crowded with people, tables of wears and trinkets. The scents of different foods and desserts wafted through the early evening air. They stopped just outside the open tent of a fortuneteller. The sun-faded name over the aged cloth arch was 'Madam Ruby Tuesday', seer of seers for seekers of the Truth'.

"C'mon Hutch, it'll be fun." Starsky grinned over at his best friend. "You remember what fun, is right?" He waggled his eyebrows. The two ladies that accompanied them giggled at his eyebrow antics.

The tall blond rolled his eyes up and held that pose for a few seconds.

"Yeah Kenny-wenny, don't be such a stuffy shirt!" The strawberry blonde baby talked as she tugged playfully at the collar of Hutch's t-shirt. She slipped her arm through his and leaned into him. Her double D breasts molded themselves around his elbow and side, filling in around nearly every curve and –formally- open space between them.

Hutch looked over the top of her head and helplessly mouthed 'Kenny-wenny?' at his partner.

Starsky gave a small helpless 'what can ya do?' shrug before giving a Cheshire grin. He tightened his grip on his little redheaded armful. She smiled back at him.

The strawberry blonde giggled at Starsky's date, "So Wendy, I think it's just gonna be you and Wavy-Davy. Kenny-wenny's being a big ol'stick in the mud." Her lower lip stuck out in an impressive pout.

Hutch eyed Patty's lower lip speculatively.

Starsky's little redheaded armful gave a rather un-lady like snort, "Patty, you're drunk," Wendy hiccupped once and continued "but what the hell? C'mon 'Wavy-Davy' let's have our fortunes read."

"I don't need my fortune read to know what I'm gonna be doin' later tonight." Starsky wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in the hair over her left ear and quietly whispered some suggestions into it.

Wendy leaned back in his arms and stared up at him for a long moment, her eyes round with shock. A smile bloomed slowly across her face. "Well, we could just skip the fortunes and head back to your place Wavy-Davy and see if you can live up to your boast."

"Ain't no boast. It's just the truth and nothin' but the whole truth." Starsky purred back at her, a wicked smile slunk across his lips.

"So help me God." Those words issued from inside the tent.

The foursome peered into the semi darkness of the tent. "Please, enter… don't be shy. I tell the truth, I do not lie."

"Cool!" Wendy cooed "C'mon, let's have our palms read."

Wendy pulled Starsky into the tent. The woman seated behind the small round cloth-covered table, motioned towards the two available folding chairs. "Please sit down." The woman wore colorful, billowy clothing, had the requisite scarf on her head, along with the assorted beads, bangles and large gold hoop earrings. She was a stereotype of every other fortuneteller they had ever seen, right down to the crystal ball in the middle of the table.

Wendy and Starsky sat.

Hutch leaned down and whispered into Starsky's ear "Remember madam Yram? Hmmm?"

Starsky gave his partner a pained look. "Yeah, all too well."

"Yram? She is a fake, a fraud." The fortuneteller waved a dismissing hand. "She isn't of the blood, she holds no skill, she doesn't tell the truth, but I will."

They gave the woman a worried look.

The woman laughed lightly "I'll knock off the corny rhyming, if you cross my palm with a little silver." She put her hand out, palm up.

Starsky patted his pockets, searching for change. He looked up at his partner. Hutch put his hands up, palms out and took a step backwards, saying without words 'don't look at me, this was your idea.'

"Or paper money, I'm not too picky." The fortuneteller supplied helpfully after watching the exchange.

XX

"That was incredible! Davy, how do you think she knew all that stuff about us, huh?" Wendy gushed to her date as they made their way out of the small cloth tent. Patty looked at him too.

"Yeah, like how did she know Kenny plays guitar?"

The curly haired detective smiled down at his date "Probably because of the calluses on his fingers. She simply picked up on a lot of what you said and used that to tell you what you wanted ta hear, that an' by readin' a little body language, and bang! You told her stuff that she had picked up on and in return, told back to you. See? It's ain't hard to be a fortuneteller."

"Body language?" Wendy looked confused for a second, "What do you mean by 'body language'?"

Starsky pulled her into his arms, pulled the thick fall of hair away from her ear and preceded to whisper into it. When he finished, Wendy grabbed his hand and began dragging him back to the Torino.

Starsky waved helplessly back at Hutch and Patty as he picked up his pace to keep up with his ardent date.

Hutch looked down at his own date and smiled – alone at last. He just hoped he had enough money for the cab fair home, either hers or his; it didn't really matter to him.

XXXX

That was the last he had seen of Starsky. They each had their own plans for Sunday and Hutch was to pick Starsky up for work on Monday afternoon, since they were scheduled to pull second shift duty this week.When he didn't come out of his apartment, Hutch went in to get him and that's when the search began.

Wendy was the last known person to see Starsky and he had dropped her off at the airport so she could catch her flight. Wendy didn't have anything to add since she had kissed him goodbye and walked off with a group of stewardess. It was very unlikely that Wendy had anything to do with Starsky's disappearance. Her alibi was airtight… she had been on duty hundreds of miles away from Bay City since Sunday.

So, the airport was the last place Starsky had been seen with his car. Hutch pulled his arm away from his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Now his Torino had been found at Bay City Tech… what, if anything, did that mean? Hutch wished that he did have a psychic connection with his best friend, that way he could track him down… a psychic, that's what he needed… Hutch shook his head, the one true psychic he knew, Joe Collandra, was dead. The poor guy had been shot to death in his restaurant for a lousy forty bucks in his till. It seems he had been unable to foresee his own demise.

Hutch rubbed at his tired, burning eyes and squinted at the wall clock. There was forty-five more minutes to go before his hour long, Dobey enforced break was over, somehow, it seemed like it had been so much longer then that already.

He gave a defeated sigh and watched as the minute hand ticked his remaining time away.

XXXX

"David Michael Starsky, your sentence is life imprisonment without chance of parole. May god have mercy on your soul."

The gavel fell.

TBC