CHAPTER 4

The minute hand on the simple black rimmed clock moved closer to the nine, and another minute later than String should have been back. It was now nearing ten o'clock and he still hadn't been heard from.

Where might he have gone? he wondered. There were only a handful of places that he could think of and most of them were closed by now or he couldn't get to, so where was he?

Leaning back in his chair, Dom flicked on the TV and flipped through the channels for something that appealed and finally settled on a rerun of Bonanza. Tiredly, his eyelids drooped and he had almost started to doze off when he heard someone outside the door. Going to answered it, he unlocked it and pushed it open. But no one was there. Instead, a wicker basket stacked with various baby supplied sat in front of him with a note carefully placed on top.

"Sorry for the trouble. I never would ask this favor it I didn't absolutely need it. Please take care of my little Tommy; here are more supplies. Will return asap," it read.

He was still pilfering through the basket when a breaking news story interrupted his program. " At the Woodley Avenue and Waterman Drive intersection there was a six car pile up, only three minutes ago where one car rolled and another caught fire. Three confirmed fatalities so far and rescue is still attempting to extract two men from a crushed vehicle caught in the middle of the accident. Most other injuries have been fairly minor," the reporter said as the cameraman panned around the scene and much to Dominic's horror showed the Santini Air jeep smashed in the middle with rescue workers in the process of cutting the doors off and shaking their heads. "More news to come after a short commercial break."

But that wasn't even a mile from the hangar, only about fifteen hundred feet away if that …

He was still gaping at the TV screen when the phone beside him started ringing. He reached over absently to answer but couldn't seem to form words yet.

"Dom, I just saw the news report. That's not the… is it? String is already… he's at the hangar, right? Dom, tell me he's okay. Please." Her words came out all jumbled together with a stream of tears.

"He's-"

"Don't even finish. It's all my fault! I went to far with the teasing about the baby and…. and he left because he was upset, and then….."

Cait, it's not your fault," Dominic soothed, still trying to maintain his own cool. "He isn't dead, I would know if he were."

"But there are already three dead, and he's caught right in the middle of all of it in only the jeep. It's got to be the smallest thing involved in that wreck, and you saw the way the whole front end was smashed in."

"I'll drive over there and make sure myself."

"I want to be there, and Le deserves to know."

"And neither of you needs to see that. I'll let you know what I find out as soon as I get back."

"I'm a big girl, I can handle it," she replied with a sniffle, " You'll have to take the other way around to get out anyway. I'll get my act together by the time you get here," she said, "promise. Besides, you're right. Hawke won't go down without a fight and he's got enough stubborn determination that a speeding semi probably wouldn't keep him down." At least not too long…

"Fine. I'll be over in about ten minutes."

\A/

When they had pulled up as close as they were allowed to the scene of the accident and climbed out of the borrowed vehicle, another ambulance was pulling away, sirens blaring. A tow truck was parked not far away and the driver was inquiring about how he should go about removing the damaged vehicles, but Hawke was nowhere in sight.

At least they hadn't seen anyone putting him into a body bag yet, Caitlin thought to herself with a kind of twisted sense of hope. He had to be alive, just had to be. She didn't know what she would do if he wasn't.

An officer walking towards the group just outside the police tape hailed a greeting. "Anything I can do for you? We're trying to get this cleared up as fast as possible and…"

"We'll do our best to stay out of your way, sir," Dominic replied. "We were just trying to figure out what happened to one of the people involved in the crash."

"You family?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of isn't good enough. Are you or not?"

"He doesn't have any living family. I raised him and his brother after their parents' death though."

"Look, I'm not supposed to giving out any information to anybody at the moment. Not my rules, but that's the way it is."

"Could you just tell us if he's alive or not?"

The policeman looked toward the wreckage and fire truck now leaving the scene then back at the hopeful group. "I don't know everyone here so unless he is alive and has been able to identify himself I won't be able to help you," he cautioned.

Each continued to look up at him hopefully.

He let out an audible sigh. "What's the name?"

"Stringfellow Hawke."

"Stringfellow? Is the name for real?"

"Yes it's for real. Now is he alive?"

The officer shook his head. "I'm sorry but I don't know. He wasn't among the more minorly injured ones I talked to. But the rescue team was in the process of cutting the sides off of that red, white, and blue jeep over there," he said, pointing. "I never saw whether or not there were any survivors out of there. All I know is one guy in there didn't make it."

"He was the only one in there."

"I am truly sorry for the loss."

"H… He's gone. He can't be…he just can't be..."