"Come on, Kowalski," I said from the driver's seat of my car. Kowalski was in the passenger seat, and Rico and Private were in the backseats. "You want to make sure she's safe, right?"

Kowalski inhaled deeply and sighed. "Yes, but you know how I get around her. Why can't you do it?"

"She doesn't know me as well," I responded, leaning my head back into the headrest impatiently. "She'll get suspicious. Now, turn your com on and go!"

I shoved him at the shoulder and he shirked his arm away from my hand with a frustrated sigh.

"Fine," he said, putting in his earpiece. "But if I trip over my words, don't say I didn't warn you."

Kowalski pushed the car door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk, shutting the door behind him. The three of us put our earpieces in.

"Testing?" Kowalski said.

We gave him a thumbs up. He then walked down the sidewalk. Two houses down, Doris' place. She lived a few neighborhoods over from us in Atlantic Estate. We watched from our position in the car on the side of the road, the car still idling just in case we needed to make a quick getaway.

Through the coms, we listened as the doorbell sounded. A few moments later, Doris' voice could be heard, but we couldn't see her from where we were sitting.

"Oh, hey . . . Kowalski. How are you?"

"H-Hey, D-Doris."

I rolled my eyes. Keep it together, man.

"Why are you here?"

"I-I just wanted to m-make sure you're all right."

"Oh, how . . . sweet of you, Kowalski. I'm fine, though. Why wouldn't I be?"

She sounded a bit uncomfortable at Kowalski's unannounced visit, but other than that she didn't sound in distress. The news still only referred to Dr. Blowhole by that name or The Dolphin. His real name hadn't been released yet, so Doris wouldn't know anything about his true identity if she had been in contact with him.

"Oh, I don't know. Everyone's – you know – freaked out with all this stuff about that serial killer we almost caught."

"Yes, I heard about that. I'm sorry you weren't able to catch him. But I'm okay, really. Thanks for checking on me, Kowalski."

"Quite . . . Um, well, in that case, I'll –"

"Who's at the door, sweetie?"

I was startled by the unfamiliar voice, one belonging to a male. I still couldn't see far enough into the doorway to see anyone.

"S-Sweetie?" Kowalski's voice stuttered breathily.

Oh, Lord.

"Yes, Kowalski, this is my new boyfriend, Parker. We've been dating for a few months now."

"O-Oh. I . . . I s-see. Um. Nice to meet you. Goodbye."

Kowalski quickly made his way back down the steps and down the sidewalk. He looked over his shoulder to make sure she'd shut her door and climbed into the car, breathing heavily.

"Kowalski," I said, reaching a hand for his shoulder. He moved it away from me and folded his arms, leaning against the door without meeting my eye. "Come on, Kowalski, she's had like a million boyfriends this past year. This one will pass just like the others."

Kowalski still didn't respond.

"Well," I said with a sigh, "at least she doesn't seem to be in danger. For now."

— § —

Things were silent back at home for a while. The only sounds in the house were Kowalski's distant sobbing over Doris and her new boy toy, Rico laughing whenever a dinosaur ate somebody as he watched Jurassic Park again, the clanking of pots and pans as Private cooked as he'd insisted on cooking dinner for us today, and the tapping of the keys on my laptop as I researched as much as I could about Dr. Blowhole's past.

There wasn't much else beyond what we'd already uncovered. I couldn't find any clues as to where he may have run off to. He had to have had a secondary hideout of some sort. Eventually, I shut my laptop out of frustration and sighed with my face in my hands, fighting another migraine that started to rear its ugly head.

"You 'right there, Skipper?" Private asked from across the kitchen as he poured the last batch of fries (though he called them chips) from the fryer basket onto a paper towel.

I pulled my face up and propped my head up on my fist. "Yeah," I said unconvincingly. I sighed. "No," I said finally, rolling my eyes. "I just wish I could figure out where Dr. Blowhole could've gone. We were so close."

Private sighed as he pulled the fish filets he'd fried from the pot of boiling oil with a strainer ladle. "I understand, Skipper. I wish we could too. But he came close to being caught this time. I have hope we will catch him one day."

I picked at something that had dried to the counter. "I'm more concerned about how many more will have to die before we catch him."

"Well," Private said as he started setting the table, "maybe we should try to talk to Doris again. Actually tell her what we know and see if she has any idea where her brother might be."

"Maybe," I said with an exhale, "but I'm not sure if she'll even believe us. And if she does, I would hope she wouldn't be the type to protect her brother knowing what he's done, but I don't know."

Private wiped his hands on his apron and walked over to the bar counter, leaning on it. "I agree, but we have to do something. Right now, she's our best lead. We're supposed to use what we've got as detectives, right?"

I exhaled again and nodded with a small smile. "You're right, Private. You know, you're going to make a great detective. I can tell."

Private smiled back. "Thanks, Skipper. I do have a good teacher, after all."

We shared a high five and Private returned to the table, setting the last place and divvied out a serving to each place.

"Dinner!" he called to the rest of the house.

"Rico," I called into the living room, "go Kowalski fishing."

"Aye aye!" Rico called back as he paused his movie and charged upstairs.

We heard a brief struggle as Kowalski resisted coming down for dinner. A couple things fell over and Kowalski's high pitched scream reverberated through the house. Private and I exchanged a glance and I rolled my eyes as I took a place at the table. A few moments later, Rico came back down with Kowalski slung over his shoulder, Kowalski hanging limp in defeat. After setting him at a place at the table and taking his own seat, Kowalski propped up his head with his fist, his cheeks still wet with fresh tears.

"Oh, come on, Kowalski," I said exasperatedly. "You've got to get over this woman eventually."

Kowalski glared at me from the corner of his eyes. "Easy for you to say. You've never been in love."

I hesitated for a moment. Then I sighed. "That's not true, actually."

The other two tuned in, Rico having already stuffed his face with fish. Kowalski raised his head with a furrowed brow.

"Really? You've never told me that," Kowalski said.

"Because," I said with an eyeroll as I cut a piece of fish and jabbed it with my fork, "it's personal. The point is, I got over it, and so should you."

Kowalski sighed and lazily poked at his fries – er, chips. "I don't know, Skipper. Maybe I'm just more sensitive than you."

"Kowalski," I said through a mouthful of fish, "the least you could do is eat the meal Private prepared without bringing us down. Try it. Honestly, it's the best fish I've ever had."

Rico held up his glass of water. "Fish!" he sang, dragging out the word. We all stared at him in shock for a moment. For a man without a voice, who knew he could sing like that?

Private shook his head, dismissing it. "Well, I'm glad you guys like it! It's the first thing my Uncle Nigel taught me how to cook."

Kowalski sighed and cut a piece of fish, biting the piece off his fork. I was surprised at how much he perked up from how depressed he looked a moment ago.

"Wow," Kowalski said, "that is good. Thank you, Private."

I smiled. The name Private seemed to be catching on. I thought it suited him.

"You're welcome!" Private said chipperly.

Private continued to tell us stories from his time in London. He told us about the sights we could see if we ever visited, some of the memories he had of his parents, and some of the things he and his uncle did before moving to the US. Then he went on about how hard it was to get through academy training and how everyone had underestimated him, and reminisced on how he wished he could see his old classmates' faces now. We spoke long after all the fish and chips had been consumed. It was nice continuing to get to know him on a more personal basis. With each passing day, he was really starting to feel like one of the team – one of the brotherhood.

Finally, sometime after 2200 hours, Rico let off the first yawn to head to bed and Kowalski followed suit, leaving just Private and me behind to clean up. I washed the dishes while Private dried them and put them away and wiped down the table.

"So, I gotta know, did you ever get that nurse's number?" I asked, sideways glancing at Private.

Private's face went beet red and he tried to stifle a smile. "Perhaps," he said, refusing to meet my eye.

"You could barely stop staring at her whenever she entered your room at the hospital," I said as I handed him another dish.

Private stared determinedly at the plate as he dried it. "I wouldn't say that . . ."

"And your face and ears kept turning red every time she listened to your heartbeat," I continued.

Private held the plate higher as he dried it, clearly trying to conceal his face.

I examined a fork to make sure it was clean. "She even thought you had developed tachycardia at one point because every time she grabbed your wrist to read your pulse it was skyrocketing over one hundred twenty beats per minute."

Private finally smacked me with the towel. "All right! Stop it!" he said with a laugh, his face still red.

I laughed and handed him some silverware. "So . . . did you get her number or what?" I persisted.

Private sighed. "Yes. I haven't found the guts to call her, though."

I set the washcloth down and turned to him. "Private, you're a sweet guy. I bet she'd go for you in a heartbeat. All you can do is try. She'd be lucky to have a stand-up guy like you."

Private looked down bashfully. "Thanks, Skipper. I just don't know what to say."

"You can't go wrong with a simple 'Hey, how are you?' The worst that could happen is she doesn't respond," I assured him, patting his shoulder with a wet hand.

Private nodded, then finally looked up at me. "So, you were in love once?"

My smile melted and I turned back to the sink and started washing the final pieces of silverware.

"Oh, come now," Private persisted. "You know about my little crush. Can't I know a little about your lost love?"

I sighed. "She's not lost, exactly. It just didn't work out."

Private leaned on the counter next to me. "What happened?"

I rinsed the silverware and handed them to him to dry, and then started scrubbing the sink clean. "I don't know if I'm comfortable talking about it right now."

I could see Private nod slightly out of the corner of my eye. "I understand. Know if you did tell me, you could trust I wouldn't tell anyone."

After rinsing the sink, I turned the water off and leaned against it with an exhale.

"Well . . ." I started. I hesitated. I hadn't told anyone about this. Though . . . it would be nice to get it off my chest. "I actually –"

"Skipper!"

I turned at the sound of Kowalski's voice. He entered the kitchen with his phone, his expression terrified. "What is it, Kowalski?"

Kowalski handed me his phone. On it was his text messages between him and Doris. I ignored the string of unanswered heys and read the final two messages, the last of which was a picture message. I looked back up to Kowalski, my expression having gone serious.

"What is it?" Private asked.

I turned to him. "Dr. Blowhole. He has Doris."