May 2nd

Peter leaned back against the metal wall of the train car and watched his father meditate. He was always amazed how his father could manage such deep meditation that he didn't appear to notice the world around him. Even when he was a kid and the most in tune with all things Shaolin, he could never have gone that deep into his mind. He envied that ability. If he'd been half as capable as his father he would never have lost his mind in the dark.

They were half the way to their destination or at least the train's destination. He didn't know how far they would have to walk to get there from the train station if they didn't get caught and arrested. He laughed quietly at that thought. He'd always thought that was a thing of the past, something they did back during the depression and in old movies. Now here he sat, in a train car, hoping they wouldn't be found when they reached the next station and wondering how it would affect his career if they were. Homicide detective arrested for freight hopping.

It was the first time he'd given thought to a normal future since his abduction. He hadn't wanted those thoughts if he were, to be honest. Not yet. He didn't know if it was possible. He didn't know if it would ever be possible. What he thought was absolutely possible was that he could spend the rest of his life wandering, waiting for the Serpentes to find him, and harm or kill everyone he ever cared about. Was limbo really better than just accepting his fate? He couldn't run forever. That was not the life he wanted. The trouble was he wasn't sure how to get out of the cycle without just giving up.

Kwai Chang Caine eased out of his meditation and quietly watched his son. He was still deeply worried. There were days when he thought Peter was recovering from his ordeal. He could laugh, he could go through the motions of being the Peter he had been before his abduction. Then Caine would watch while Peter thought he was sleeping or in meditation, and he could see the doubt and anguish in those hazel brown eyes. He could see dread, fear, and worst of all, resignation.

"Good morning." He said softly and smiled faintly as his son turned to look at him. "Did you sleep?" He didn't ask if he had slept well. He knew the answer to that question already.

Peter shrugged "A little." He didn't talk about his dreams anymore. He knew them for what they were. They were Miranda's way of reminding him of her threat. The dreams were always the same. He had fought and killed to survive and stood at the base of nag's effigy. The bodies that lay at his feet were sometimes members of the cult, sometimes they were his father and the other priests, and sometimes Paul and Kermit lay among the dead. The worst dreams were when the bodies were of the women he'd loved or thought he had loved.

"Your dreams are worse?" Caine asked.

Peter shook his head "No." He said quietly. "They're not worse." It wasn't a lie. It was the same dream over and over after all.

"But no easier to face."

Peter shook his head again.

Peter's quietness bothered Caine. Before his ordeal, Caine could not remember Peter having willing quiet moments. It was something he did when he had no choice. "When the train stops next we will leave and take a bus."

Peter nodded. "There's money available for that." He said. Paul and Kermit had set up an account in the name of Peter Lee. He tried to use it as little as possible but occasionally they didn't have much of a choice. This was one of those times. It was harder to steal transportation on a greyhound than on a freight train. "You're worried. You never hurry anywhere unless you're worried."

"Your dreams are affecting your sleep, which will, in turn, affect your health, your ability to resist."

"Okay," Peter said and lay his head back against the metal wall of the train car. He glanced at his father and sighed. "Sorry, Pop." He said. "I'm just not feeling talkative at the moment. You don't have to worry."

"You are worried too," Caine observed. "About others. Are they in your dreams?"

Peter looked irritated but he nodded. "The faces of the people I kill in my dreams change. It's always the same dream but the faces change."

"Your dreams are being directed."

Peter nodded. "Yeah. I think so anyway. What is it you think they can do at the temple that you can't do?" His father was still larger than life in his eyes when it came to the metaphysical or martial arts. He thought he was naive to the ways of the rest of the world, but figured that was because he looked through a Shaolin filter more than any lack of awareness. One of these days that filter was going to get his larger-than-life father killed. Peter just hoped that he wasn't the one to do it.

"I do not know. Perhaps nothing more than give us shelter where you can truly rest. Perhaps more. We will not know until we get there."

Peter nodded and closed his eyes once more.

Paul and Kermit went to breakfast rather than a late dinner that day. They chose a new restaurant each time they met. The office and the house were bugged so they couldn't speak privately there any longer. They had entered into a paranoid state of mind that wasn't alien to either of them.

Kermit whistled. "Commissioner. That's a big step."

"Right into a trap." Paul said, "Refusing is just as bad." He had talked to Annie the night before, but he left out anything about it being a trap, or that Miranda Gray was the woman behind Peter's abduction. She had been excited at the prospect because she saw it as her husband being recognized for his accomplishments. Paul saw it differently.

"What does she gain from having you out of the 101st precinct? That's the only reason she'd be doing it because giving you more authority is a bad plan."

"I don't know. That's why I need you to stay put there until this is resolved."

"You're going to take her up on it."

Paul sighed "Yeah I am. I'm pretty sure she'd find a way to kill me if I don't. I have someone in mind to take my place. She's hard as nails and smart as a whip. She won't take any guff and she definitely won't be recruited by a bunch of snake-loving cultists."

"Are you going to let this mystery woman know what she's getting herself into?" Kermit asked.

"Absolutely. I'm not leaving you there on your own." He liked to believe that he could trust all of his detectives. They were good cops, good people, as far as he knew. But that was the rub. It truly was as far as he knew. He knew Karen Simms almost as well as he knew Kermit Griffin. He'd never been in life-or-death combat with her but he thought he knew her character just as well. "I'm meeting with her tonight."

"Do you want me there?" He asked.

"No… Karen and I have a lot of catching up to do."

Kermit raised an eyebrow. " You do know that Miranda Gray is not the only dangerous woman in your life. Annie is going to kill you." He said. "And I can't protect you against that."

Paul chuckled. "Annie will understand when I can tell her everything." He had to be careful what he said and how he said it to his wife. He didn't know all the means of spying on him that were being employed, so he couldn't tell her everything. He couldn't risk her safety or that of his daughters. "For now it's in everyone's best interests that Miranda thinks Karen and I are having an affair. Which means of course that everyone has to think that."

Kermit chuckled. "Which means I need to emphatically deny that you are."

"Exactly." He laughed quietly as well. "Peter would have made a grand production of being angry with me, and tell everyone to mind their own business when they asked why."

" And then laughed his ass off when he was on his own." Because no one that really knew the Blaisdells would believe that Paul noticed other women even existed. But with Annie and the girls out of town, it wouldn't be hard for a bunch of strangers to believe it. "With any luck, he'll be back here where he belongs soon and he can laugh about the stories when it's over."

"At this point, I would be happy if he could just laugh again. Really laugh." Paul said. He wanted his son back. He wanted to argue with him over his reckless behavior, and overtime. He wanted to tease him over the dinner table on Sundays. He wanted to go back to his own world and leave Kwai Chang Caine's mystical world behind. Unfortunately, he didn't think he'd ever be able to do any of those things.

"He will. He's strong."

"I know."

Peter followed his father as he got off the train. They moved quickly and quietly away from the train and followed the train tracks toward town. Often Greyhound and Amtrak had their stations in the same building or close to hand.

His mind drifted as they walked. He wondered about his mother and sisters. Were they back in Bayview or were they still in San Diego with his mother's sister? Was Paul alright? Peter felt like he'd left all the heavy lifting to him and Kermit. He hated running and this was what it felt like he was doing. Running from Nag and Nagaina. Run-of-the-mill cultist Peter was certain he could best and win. He had been trained for that purpose after all. It wouldn't do for him to die in during the ritual after all.

He knew his father was worried. A state of mind that Kwai Chang Caine rarely gave in to. Peter didn't know what to do about that. No amount of telling him not to worry seemed to take the look from his eyes. Then again no amount of assurance from the Shaolin Master could take Peter's concerns about being rejected from his mind, so he supposed he understood. He hoped the priests there could at least give his father a little peace.

"Peter" Caine said, jarring him out of his thoughts. "We are here,"

"What? Oh. Right. Sorry." He said. "What's our destination?" He asked as they approached the ticket counter and his father gave him the name of a small town Peter had never heard of before. He bought two tickets for a bus that would be leaving in three hours. "That gives us time to clean up and grab something to eat." Peter wanted to get a hamburger and fries before he was thrust back into the world of rice and lentils.

Jordan left the interrogation room more frustrated than when she had gone in. She knew this was their man. She knew it in the core of her being but they only had circumstantial evidence and the son of a bitch knew it. She looked at her partner and shook her head. "He's lawyered up."

"I suppose that means there's no time for the bright lights and rubber hoses then."

Jordan laughed a little despite her mood. "No, no time for that. Lawyers hate it when you hurt the feelings of their cash cows."

"So what now?" Tammy asked.

"Once more into the breach." She said, "I go back in, but I don't ask him any questions."

"I don't understand."

"You will." She said and handed over a file folder. "Stay in the observation room, when he starts to get uncomfortable come in and say you have something I need to see, and hand me that file." She looked around "Hey Cavenaugh, feel like helping me out in there?" Cavenaugh was one of the most manly-looking men she knew. Chiseled features, broad shoulders, and tree trunks for legs. He'd be perfect.

"What do you need?" He asked as he approached.

"I'm about to be a bitch and I need someone to look uncomfortable and take it."

He laughed "And you chose me?" He knew what she had in that interrogation room and figured she was going to be pushing buttons.

Jordan grinned. " Well, it doesn't have the same impact if I'm busting Johnson's balls." She said, indicating another detective who barely cleared 5'6" and was built like he was still waiting on puberty to catch up with the rest of him. You didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of Johnson's punches, but this wasn't about reality. It was about perception. The man in question flipped her the bird, good-naturedly… she hoped."Just follow my lead." Jordan said. First, she went to the coffee machine and got two cups of coffee, then she returned to the interrogation room with Cavenaugh following her inside.

Captain Ryan frowned and entered the observation room to watch what they were about to do. He didn't know the woman well enough to know if this was trouble about to happen but he wanted to be able to call things to a halt if lines were being crossed.

Jordan set one of the cups in front of the prisoner and took a seat.

"What part of lawyer didn't you understand?" Sean David Bellamy asked looking at Jordan pointedly.

Sean David Bellamy. That was how Jordan thought of him. All three names. As far as she was concerned this guy was a serial killer. The press seemed to love to list serial killers using all three names. John Wayne Gacy. Henry Lee Lucas, Robert Lee Yates. And now Sean David Bellamy. If they could make it stick. As slippery as he was that was going to take a confession. Lawyers didn't believe in confessions unless it got their client in a better position than a trial would.

Jordan didn't respond to the man at all. He'd cried lawyer after all. She looked at Cavenaugh while she drank her coffee. Bellamy preyed upon professional women. Lawyers, Corporate executives, one was a college professor. Women with a certain degree of authority. He hadn't gone out picking up prostitutes and runaways. He didn't look for victims of opportunity. There was something about a strong woman that drove him to kill.

"He's right. We probably shouldn't be in here." Cavenaugh said. He was a soft-spoken man in general. Even when angry he spoke quietly. It was the look in his eyes that yelled when his voice didn't. For now, he was playing a game at Bellamy's expense.

"We're fine," Jordan said in her most condescending tone. "Just ignore him." She began to lay out the crime scene photos. Not all of them. Just the ones that took in the entire scene. The ones that revealed that every crime scene was as identical as possible. Things that Bellamy didn't realize he was doing.

"I don't think you should be letting him see these," Cavenaugh said.

"It's not like he hasn't seen the scenes before. He is the one that killed them after all." She said, not even looking at Cavenaugh. "Try and keep up. I know it's difficult but at least put in a little effort."

"You're going to let her talk to you like that?" Bellamy asked as he leaned forward to look at the photos. His ice-blue eyes sparkled coldly and he smiled.

"Mind your own business," Cavenaugh said, noticing that Bellamy was responding to the photos. He was reliving it all even from the briefest glimpse of the crime scenes.

"I said to ignore him," Jordan said sharply. "You don't say a goddamned word to him until his lawyer gets here. If you can't manage that get the hell out.'

Cavenaugh looked down and away, jaw twitching as he clenched and unclenched it, his hands were balled into impotent fists in his lap. "Right." He said. "You're right." He made a show of looking closer at the photographs and dodging Jordan's gaze.

"Where the hell is Bradshaw with that autopsy report." There was no Bradshaw at their precinct. She got to her feet and headed to the door "I'll be right back. Not one word do you hear me?"

"I hear you." He answered.

She stepped out of the room and went to the observation room to watch along with Tammy and the captain.

"Man, what a bitch." Bellamy said. "You have got to take your balls back."

"You don't know what it's like around here," Cavenaugh said quietly. "You can't say boo to a woman these days. Not unless you want to spend a week in sensitivity training after having the captain rake you over the coals."

"Teacher's pet is she?" Bellamy said. "I know exactly what it's like to get one of these high-toned bitches busting your balls. They think they own you because they own everyone else. But they don't man. You just gotta figure it out."

"Figure what out?" He asked.

"How to put her in her place." He said. "Nothing quite so satisfying as putting a high-toned bitch in her place."

Jordan smiled from the other side of the two-way mirror. "That phrase was scrawled on the walls above the women's bodies," she said. "Won't stand up in court, but it's compelling. I should get back in there. Too bad we can't control what gender his public defender is."

Ryan chuckled "You were waisted in vice." He said.

Jordan returned to the interrogation room and took her seat, as Cavenaugh made a show of suddenly shifting position and looking guilty. "Seriously? You were just talking to him weren't you." She accused. "You know what, I want you to leave the room. Now. Just leave the room."

"Shut up, Bitch. You don't know what you're talking about." Bellamy said, and sighed when Cavenaugh got up to leave the room, "Ah come on, Man, you can't leave me in here with this cow."

"Your court-appointed attorney will be here soon." He said and left the room, going to the observation room.

"What do you think?" Ryan asked as he entered.

"I think he's a psychopath, and I'm uncomfortable leaving her alone with him alone."

Tammy frowned. "You don't think he'll attack her here do you?"

"I absolutely hope he does, because if he walks out of here we're going to have to put a guard on McGuire or she's going to wind up being victim number eight," Cavenaugh said honestly. "She's playing her part too well."