“He said he was sorry,” Sam said as his eyes grew serious, and Ted nodded. He knew he meant Peter Morgan. “I know. He said that to me too.”

“How did you find me?” Sam looked up at Ted with interest, as Ted lowered himself into a chair next to him, and ran a gentle hand over his head. He had never been as relieved to see anyone, except his own son once when he had gotten lost and they had thought he drowned in a lake. Fortunately, he hadn't.

“He called us.”

“He was nice to me. The others were scary.”

“I'll bet they were. They're very scary people. They're never going to come out of prison again, Sam.” He didn't tell him that they might even get the death penalty for committing kidnap. Ted thought that was more information than he needed. “One of them was killed by the police, Carlton Waters.” Sam nodded, and glanced at his mother.

“I never thought I'd see you again,” he said softly.

“I thought I would,” she said bravely, although there were times when she didn't. They had called Will when they got to the motel, and he had sobbed when he talked to Sam, and when his mother told him. And she had called Father Wallis. Ashley didn't even know Sam had been kidnapped. She was only a few miles away, and Fernanda was going to leave her with her friends for a few days till things calmed down. She had never even known Sam was gone. Fernanda had decided not to upset her, until after it was over. She was going to tell her what happened when she got home. It had been better this way. And she couldn't help thinking about what Father Wallis had said when he met her, that Sam's kidnapping had been a compliment from God. She didn't want any more like this one. He had reminded her of it when she spoke to him that morning.

“What do you say I take you home in a little while?” Ted looked at them both, and Sam nodded. Ted wondered if Sam would be afraid of the house he had been kidnapped in. But he also knew they wouldn't be there for much longer.

“They wanted a lot of money, huh, Mom?” Sam asked, looking up at her, and she nodded. “I told him we didn't have any. I said Daddy lost it. But he didn't tell the others. Or maybe he did, and they didn't believe him.” It was a succinct summary of the situation.

“How do you know that?” Fernanda frowned at him. He knew more than she had suspected. “About the money, I mean.” Sam looked faintly embarrassed and grinned up at her sheepishly.

“I heard you talking on the phone,” he confessed, and she looked at Ted with a rueful smile.

“When I was a little girl, my father used to say that little pitchers have big ears.”

“What does that mean?” Sam looked confused as Ted laughed at the old saying. He knew it too.

“It means you shouldn't be eavesdropping on your mother,” she scolded, but without fervor. She didn't care what he did now. He had carte blanche for a hell of a long time. She was just glad to have him home.

Ted asked him a few questions after that, and Rick came in a short while later with some of his own. None of Sam's answers surprised them. They had pieced it together surprisingly accurately on their own.

All of the police had vacated the motel by six o'clock, as Fernanda and Sam got in Ted's car. Rick caught a ride with some of his agents, and he winked at Ted as he left, as Ted swung playfully at him in answer.

“Don't give me that,” he said under his breath to Rick. And Rick smiled at him. He was glad it had all turned out right. It could easily have been worse. You never knew till it was over. They had lost brave people that day, who had given their lives for Sam.

“It's tough work, but someone has to do it,” Rick teased him in a whisper, referring to Fernanda. She was truly a nice woman, and he liked her. But Ted had no intention of doing something foolish. Now that the heat of the moment was over, he was still loyal to Shirley. And Fernanda had her own life and problems to deal with.

It was an easy, uneventful drive home. The paramedics and the doctors at the hospital had found Sam to be in surprisingly good shape, considering the ordeal he'd been through. He'd lost some weight, and he was starving all the way home. Ted stopped at Ikeda and got him a cheeseburger, french fries, a milkshake, and four boxes of cookies. And by the time they pulled up in front of her house, Sam was sound asleep. Fernanda was sitting in the front seat with Ted, and she was almost too tired to get out.

“Don't wake him. I'll carry him in,” Ted said easily, as he turned off the ignition. It was a very different trip than the ride up had been, which had been fraught with tension and fears that they might lose him. The past weeks had been filled with terror.

“What do I say to thank you?” Fernanda said, looking at him. They had become friends in the past weeks, and she would never forget it.

“You don't have to. This is what they pay me to do,” he said, looking at her, but they both knew it had been more than that. Much more than that. He had lived every moment of the nightmare with her, and would have sacrificed his life for Sam at any moment. It was who he was, and had been all his life. Fernanda leaned toward him then, and kissed his cheek. The moment hung in midair between them. “I'm going to need to spend some time with him, to ask him some questions for the investigation. I'll call you before I come over.” He knew Rick would want to question him too. Fernanda nodded.

“Come anytime you want,” she said softly, and with that he got out of the car, opened the back door, scooped the sleeping child up in his arms, and she followed him to the front door. It was opened by two policemen with guns in shoulder holsters, and Will was standing just behind them, and looked suddenly panicked.

“Oh my God, is he hurt?” His eyes darted from Ted to his mother. “You didn't tell me.”

“It's okay, sweetheart.” She put her arms around him gently. He was still a child too, even at sixteen. “He's sleeping.” They both cried as they held each other then. It was going to be a long time before they stopped worrying. Disaster had become a way of life all too quickly. Nothing had been normal for so long that they had forgotten what it felt like.

Ted carried Sam up to his room, and laid him gently on the bed, as Fernanda took off his sneakers. He made a gentle snuffling sound, and turned over on his side, without waking, as Ted and Fernanda stood looking down at him. He was a lovely sight, in his bed at home, with his head on the pillow.

“I'll call you in the morning,” Ted said to her downstairs, as he stood in the doorway. The two policemen had just left, after Fernanda thanked them.

“We're not going anywhere,” she promised him. She wasn't even sure she felt safe leaving the house yet. It was going to be very odd being on their own again, wondering if there were people out there somewhere, plotting against them. Hopefully, nothing like it would ever happen again. She had called Jack Waterman from Tahoe too. And they both agreed, some public announcement had to be made about the disappearance of Allan's fortune. Otherwise, she and the children would remain targets forever. She had learned that lesson.

“Get some rest,” Ted admonished her, and she nodded. It was silly of her, she knew, but she hated to see him go. She had gotten used to talking to him late at night, knowing she would find him there at any hour, and sleeping on the floor next to him, when she could sleep nowhere else. She always felt safe near him. She realized that now. “I'll call you,” he promised again, as she closed the door, wondering how she would ever thank him.

The house seemed empty when she walked upstairs. There were no sounds, no men, no guns, no cell phones ringing in every corner of the house, no negotiator listening on her lines. Thank God. Will was waiting for her in her room, and he looked as though he had grown up overnight.

“You okay, Mom?”

“Yeah,” she said cautiously. “I am.” She felt as though she had been dropped off a building, and was feeling her soul for bruises. There were many, but they would all heal now. Sam was back. “How about you?”

“I don't know. It was scary. It's hard not to think about it now.” She nodded at him. He was right. They would all think about it, and remember it, for a long, long time.

As Fernanda got into the shower, and Will went to bed, Ted drove home to his house in the Sunset. There was no one home when he got in. There never was anymore. Shirley was never home. She was either at work, or out with her friends, most of whom he didn't know. There was a deafening silence in the house, and for the first time in a long time, he felt agonizingly lonely. He missed seeing Ashley and Will, Fernanda coming to talk to him, the familiar ease of being surrounded by his men, on a stakeout. It had reminded him of his youth in the department. But he didn't just miss the men, he missed Fernanda.

He sat down on a chair and stared into space, thinking about calling her. He wanted to. He had heard everything Rick had said. But that was Rick, and this was him. And he just couldn't do it.





Chapter 21


Ted talked to Rick the next day, and asked him what he had done about Addison. The state was going to bring charges against him too, and serve him with a warrant for conspiracy to commit kidnap, as soon as he got back to the city. Ted assumed he would. The judge had assured Rick, over his federal charges, that Phillip Addison was not a flight risk. And Ted hoped he was right.

“He's winging his way home as we speak,” Rick told Ted over the phone, grinning.

“That was quick. I thought he was supposed to be gone all month.”

“He was. I called Interpol yesterday, and the FBI office in Paris. They sent his surveillance guys in to pick him up. We booked him on conspiracy to commit kidnap. And one of my favorite informants called me today. Apparently, our little friend is scientifically oriented, so to speak, and he's been running a hefty business in crystal meth for quite a while. We're going to have fun with this one, Ted.”

“He must have had a shit fit when they showed up.” Ted laughed at the thought of it, although there was nothing laughable about what he'd done. But he was so pretentious about being “social,” from all Ted had heard, that it served him right to be cut down to size.

“His wife damn near had a heart attack apparently. She slapped him and the agent.”

“That must have been fun.” Ted smiled. He was still tired.

“I doubt it.”

“You were right about the car bombing too, by the way. Jim Free told us Waters did it. They weren't in on it, but he admitted it to them in Tahoe one night when he got drunk. I thought you'd like to know.”

“At least the captain will know I'm not nuts.”

Ted told him then that they had recovered most of the money Addison had paid Stark, Free, and Waters in advance, in suitcases in lockers in the Modesto bus station. It was going to be damning evidence against him. Free had told them where it was.

And then Rick changed the subject radically, as he often did, and got right to the point. “So did you say anything to her when you dropped her off?” They both knew he meant Fernanda.

“About what?” Ted played dumb.

“Don't give me that, you moron. You know what I mean.”

Ted sighed. “No, I didn't. I thought about calling her last night, but there's no point, Rick. I can't do that to Shirley.”

“She would. And you're doing it to yourself. And to Fernanda. She needs you, Ted.”

“Maybe I need her too. But I already have one.”

“The one you've got is a lemon,” he said bluntly, which wasn't fair either, and Ted knew it. Shirley was a good woman, she was just the wrong one for him, and had been for years. She knew it too. She was just as disappointed in Ted. “I hope you get smart one of these days, before it's too late,” Rick said with fervor. “Which reminds me, there's something I want to talk to you about. Let's have dinner next week.”

“What about?” Ted was intrigued, and wondered if it was about his upcoming marriage, not that he was any authority on the subject. On the contrary. But they were best friends, and always would be.

“Believe it or not, I want your advice.”

“Happy to give it. When are you going out to see Sam, by the way?”

“I'll let you do it first. You know him better. I don't want to scare him, and you may get everything I need.”

“I'll let you know.”

They agreed to talk again in a few days. And the following day, Ted went to visit Sam. Fernanda was there with Jack Waterman. They looked like they'd been talking business, and Jack left shortly after Ted arrived. He spent all of his time with Sam. Fernanda looked distracted and busy, and Ted couldn't help wondering if something was up with her and Jack. It seemed reasonable to him, and would have been the right fit. He could tell Jack thought so too.