I do not own any of the characters and am just taking them out to play.

Chapter 12

The next day around noon time, Cait and Dom got a similar call from Hawke. He again told them that Nicky was okay and repeated the guidelines about the phone call. Before he hung up, he again said, "The girl was taking care of Nicky by the grace of God."

When the call was over, Cait and Dom sat down to discuss what was said.

"Cait, he said that a 'girl was taking care of Nicky by the grace of God.' I have never heard him use that phrase before so there must be a clue in it."

"Okay, Dom, what was unusual in what he said?"

"String said, 'by the grace of God,'" Dom repeated slowly. "The only unusual word in that phrase is 'grace.' What do you suppose he means by that?"

Dom and Cait thought about the word 'grace' but couldn't come up with anything. "Have we dealt with anyone by the name of Grace?"

Cait's face suddenly lit up. "Oh my God! You've hit on it, Dom."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you remember the last time we dealt with Horn, he killed a girl named Grace," Cait exclaimed.

Dom's face lit up as he said, "You're right! So, now we know that we're dealing with Horn." But then he got a grim look on his face as he realized what he'd said. "We need to call Michael, now!"

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"All right. I'll get together all the information that the Firm has on Horn and let you know what we find out," Michael responded. "I don't know how this is going to help us, but at least it's a start."

"Michael, keep in touch," Cait emphasized to him.

Cait hung up the phone and turned to Dom. "Now we need to figure out how to get the message to Hawke that we got his message," Cait murmured. "How do we do that?"

Dom looked at Cait and said, "I don't know, yet. Let's think on it and maybe we'll come up with something."

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A couple of hours later, both Cait and Dom were exhausted and still hadn't come up with anything.

"The only thing I can think of is to talk about getting lost on a walk in the desert," Cait offered hopefully. "Do you think he'll get it?

"Yeah, I think that he'll get it because he is looking for us to say something," Dom said as he yawned. "Okay. Let's wrap this up and go to bed."

Cait looked up and said, "You go ahead. I want to do a couple of things before I go up."

"Sure, sweetheart. Go up to bed when you're ready." Dom leaned down and gave Cait a hug and a kiss goodnight.

Cait watched as Dom went upstairs to bed. She picked up her glass of wine and went out onto the deck and settled into a chair. As soon as she sat down, the tears started.

When they stopped, she started to say a prayer, "God, please help Hawke watch out for Nicky. He's only a baby. He's never hurt anyone. Please don't let anything happen to him." Determinedly, she stood up and drained the last of her wine. "He's in your hands—yours and Hawke's!"

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Hawke was back in his cell after flying the money down to Columbia and bringing the drugs back again. He hated to do that, but it was the only way that he could keep Nicky safe and that was what he had to do—for now.

'I hope that Cait and Dom got the message that I sent to them,' he thought. 'I don't know how much good it will do them to know that but at least it's something. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to figure a way out to tell them that we are in New Mexico. Can't think about that right now, I just need to sleep.'

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Around 4 a.m., the guards came and got Hawke out of bed and marched him down the hallway. They took him into the room where the computer was set up to Skype with Cait. Shortly, the girl came into the room with Nicky who was crying and gave him to Hawke.

"I'm sorry that he's crying, but he wouldn't stop. I think it's just because he's been woken up so early. Really, I am sorry," the girl stammered out as she handed over Nicky.

Hawke took Nicky from her and started trying to soothe him. "It's okay. I know this isn't your idea. By the way, my name is Stringfellow Hawke. What's your name?"

The girl stared at him with a peculiar look on her face. It was almost like she couldn't believe that someone was being nice to her. Bowing her head, she whispered, "Nadine."

"Thank you, Nadine. I appreciate your help."

At that moment, the guard came over and turned on Skype connecting the call with Cait. It rang for a long time, before Cait answered it.

"Hawke?"

"Yea, Cait. It's me…and Nicky."

"Thank God. Dom went out for a long walk in the desert yesterday and I thought that I was going to have to call the police to find him. He just seemed to be stumbling around until I found him. He wasn't doing so hot, so I took him to see a doctor. Fortunately, he's fine," Cait said everything quickly hoping that Hawke would get her message.

Hawke nodded back to Cait letting her know that he'd gotten the message. Now he needed to figure out how to tell Cait where they were.

"How have you been doing Cait?" he asked to try to think.

"How do you think I've been doing?" she practically yelled at him. "I'm worried sick about Nicky…and you. I can't imagine what you must be going through." By then she had calmed down some.

"Have you tried any of those new tacos from that new restaurant a block down from where you work yet?" Hawke asked hoping that she would pick up on his reference to "new" and the fact that the restaurant was a Mexican restaurant.

"No, I haven't had any time," she sighed not thinking about it.

"Well, make sure you try out the new tacos. Dom and I had some when we were waiting for you and they were great," Hawke intoned.

Hawke saw that Cait suddenly understood that he was trying to pass along another message.

"Okay. Take care and Nicky sends his love. He isn't very happy about being woken up at 4 a.m., but he'll be fine. Bye for now," Hawke said.

"Keep him safe," Cait mumbled as she reached out to touch him. Then Nicky and Hawke disappeared.

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As soon as Cait had hung from her conversation with Hawke, she ran upstairs to wake up Dom. "Dom, Dom, come on. Get up. I think that Hawke was trying to send us another message."

"What…?" Dom muttered still trying to wake up.

"Hawke just called and he kept talking about a new taco at a place near where I work. The only thing there is a new Mexican restaurant. What does that have to do with anything?" exasperated Cait sat down.

"New Mexican restaurant? I don't…"

Cait suddenly realized what he'd said and she jumped up. "They're in New Mexico!" she shouted. "That's got to be it! He also said that it was 4 a.m. and it's 5 a.m. here. There's a difference of one time zone between here and New Mexico. It's got to be New Mexico!"

Cait turned and started to run out of the room.

Dom yelled at her to stop and asked, "Where are you going?"

"To call Michael and give him the news. We've got a little more information for him to work on. We need everything we can get if we're going to get them both back." Resolutely, Cait turned and ran downstairs to call Michael.