Trent returned to Thunder Investigations from his lunch break an hour and a half late and slipped into his office wordlessly.  He sat down with a sigh and ran his hands thru his already disheveled blonde hair as Carlos came in after him.  Trent looked up guiltily.
        “You were out for a long lunch, Mr. Responsible,” he teased.
        “I went with Margo to check out your house,” he said tiredly.
        “She didn’t!” The Hispanic’s eyes were wide.
        “Do what?”
        Carlos sat down on the edge of Trent’s desk.  “We, uh, needed to create a scandal for our undercover work,” he paused and lowered his voice, “and I suggested that you and Margo…” he wiggled his eyebrows.  “Have an affair, if you know what I mean.”
        “What?” Trent yelled as he jumped up from his chair.  It was not the reaction his friend expected.
        “Easy,” Carlos tried to assuage him.
        “Easy?” Trent repeated.  “My girlfriend is using me and you want me to take it easy?”
        “Uh-huh,” Carlos wasn’t convinced.  In his mind, it took two to tango, and it was hard to force Trent to do anything against his will.  “So what’s the real problem?  You can’t be this mad about a lunchtime rendezvous with Margo.”
        Trent sighed and sat back down.  He wished Carlos didn’t know him so well.  That wasn’t really what was bothering him.  “It’s just…she doesn’t tell me things anymore, like that the house was bugged, or even about the undercover assignment!  She just keeps it to herself because she’s afraid I’ll overreact or something.”
        “Have you talked to her about it?” Carlos prodded.
        “How do I tell the woman I love that we have a serious problem without destroying what we have?” Trent asked before scoffing.  “I can’t believe I’m asking you for relationship advice.”
        Carlos laughed and his voice was wry.  “All relationships have problems, Trent, believe me.  Just don’t do what I do and let problems be the end.  If you love her half as much as you say you do, then you owe it to her-and yourself-to fix this.”
        Trent mulled over his friend’s advice.  “I think you actually get smarter the longer you’re single,” he quipped.  Carlos protested amid laughs and told his blonde buddy about his sudden reunion with Nicole.  Trent listened attentively.  This sounded like the Old Carlos:  infatuated with a woman who would walk out of his life in a few days.  Trent much preferred the New Carlos.  He still had dreams of getting Carlos and Danae together.  How he was going to accomplish this, he still didn’t know, especially now that Nicole was back in the picture.  Carlos preferred the gorgeous model-type, and while Danae was pretty, she was no Nicole.
        “Well, I’d better get back to work,” Carlos checked his watch.  He hesitated.  “Do you want me to say anything to Margo?”
        “No,” Trent forced a smile.  “I’ll deal with it, thanks.”
        “No problem, mano.”

        Carlos and Margo sat across from each other later that night in the living room.  She was reading a book while he attempted a crossword.  He looked up from his puzzle, taking a break from racking his brain and studied her.  Trent was right.  Before she had become caught up in the FBI, she was bubbly and happy, always cracking dumb jokes.  She and Carlos used to be able to play off each other’s hilarity and quick wit for hours.  Margo’s quiet inner strength was still there, but somehow, that easy-going girl who had befriended him and Trent years ago was gone, and she had slipped away before his very eyes.
        “Something wrong, Carlos?”  She had felt his thought-laden stare and stopped reading.
        He smiled.  “Just trying to think of a five-letter word for ‘to beam,’” he told her.
        “Exude,” she answered levelly before going back to her book.
        Carlos looked down at his paper and filled in the squares.  “You know, if you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here for you,” he said casually.  Trent had asked him not to get involved, but if she decided to open up, what kind of friend would he be to turn her down?  Margo put down her book, and grief shone in her mismatched eyes.  Right as she was about to speak, the phone interrupted.  She answered it with annoyance.
        “Good evening, Margo,” an electronically warped voice sneered.  She signaled silently to Carlos, who flipped on a recorder and call-tracing device.
        “Who is this?” she demanded of the voice.
        A tape played, and Margo recognized the sound of her own voice talking to Trent before their scandalous act earlier that day.  She blushed, thankful she was not listening to a recording of the actual scandalous act.  Before she could ask the man (she had decided that, disguised or not, it was a man’s voice) what he wanted, he said, “It will coast you two hundred dollars a week to make sure your husband doesn’t receive this tape.  Deposit it in an unmarked envelope in your mailbox tomorrow morning.  There was a click, and she hung up.
        “Who was that?” Carlos asked, playing the part of the oblivious husband despite having heard every word on headphones connected to the tracing machine.  Now that they knew for sure the house was bugged, he and Margo would really have to keep up appearances.
        “Wrong number,” Margo said vaguely.  It was no act; she was sincerely distracted, and Carlos wished he knew why.
        “Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested.  Margo hesitated, clearly not wanting to get into the talk that would inevitably follow, and changed her mind.  She grabbed her jacket and walked alongside Carlos down the street.  The sun had almost completely set, casting them in red light, and the mild temperature made for a pleasant walk.
        “I dream about them every night,” she said abruptly.  Carlos put his hands in his pockets and waited for her to go on.  “Especially Ira.  He was so dangerous, yet somehow…compelling.  Attractive.  The perfect gentleman.  I’m still scared of him.”  She took a breath and continued.  “Everyone in the Cirq was crazy.  They literally were not right in the head, yet they befriended me so openly…” she swallowed hard, and her voice lowered to a whisper.  “It’s hard to tell sometimes who the traitor is.  Is it me for destroying the one thing these people lived for?  They thought they were doing it for the greater good!  Or did they betray me by trying to kill me?  I guess that’s a given, but how could they have been my friends if they were against everything I stand for?”
        For once, Carlos took the time to think before he spoke.  He wished he could tell her about the demons that haunted his dreams more and more frequently, but right now Margo needed words of encouragement, not commiseration.  “Bosses tell you not to get emotionally involved with a case, but how can you not?  What makes people like Ira or Johnny or the Ramirez brothers so dangerous is that they’re nice guys doing terrible things.  There’s a line drawn in the sand, and a long time ago, you and I chose one side, and they chose another.  Knowing that doesn’t make our job any easier, but it makes it right.”
        “You know,” Margo held the tiniest of smiles on her lips, “I think you get smarter every day you’re single.”
        “So people tell me,” Carlos laughed.  They walked a little further in silence.
        “Trent won’t understand,” Margo said defensively.  “Not like you do.  You’ve lived it; you know what I’m feeling.”
        “You might have to explain it to him,” Carlos conceded with a shrug.  “What he really doesn’t understand is why you won’t talk to him at all.  He worries.”  Margo murmured an agreement, and Carlos changed the subject.  “So we’re going to bust this guy tomorrow… I think this is the shortest undercover assignment I’ve ever had!”

        “Hey, Kim,” Danae opened the door to Thunder Investigations the next afternoon.  “Is Trent or Carlos in?  I wanted to go back out to Gwendy’s place and look around some more.”
        “Trent’s down at the courthouse following up on a lead for this case,” Kim answered.  “I wish he would have told me what he was looking for.  I probably could have found it for him online.  Danae smiled, knowing full well that there were few things Kim couldn’t do with a computer.
        “What about Carlos?” she asked.  “He said he’d be around all day because of the undercover assignment.
        “He didn’t tell you?  He and Margo traced a call last night, and they’re busting the guy as we speak,” Kim told her.
        “Well, I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow unless you want to come with me,” Danae said, only half-joking.
        “Actually, I wanted to talk with Mrs. Peters about financial matters anyway,” Kim said as she stood up and pulled on her coat.  She scribbled down a message for the boys that told them where she was and followed Danae out the door.  As she shut and locked it behind her, the wind ruffled papers on her desk, and her note fell to the floor, hidden from casual view.
        Gwendy was surprised to see them when they arrived.  “I thought you had already figured out what was haunting my house,” she chuckled.
        “We found out what was causing the noise, yes, but not what you were seeing in the hallway,” Danae smiled.  “Mind if I take another look?”  Kim asked the old lady evaluation questions concerning her experience with Thunder Investigations while Danae thoroughly scrutinized every inch of the upstairs walls.  There was nothing on them that would cause the glowing light Gwendy claimed to see.  Frustrated, Danae came back downstairs.  “I couldn’t find anything,” she apologized.
        “Oh that’s alright, dearie,” Gwendy said lightly.  “I’m getting old, and there are a few screws loose.  The eyes aren’t as good as they used to be!”
        “Thank you for your time,” Kim smiled and shook her hand.  She and Danae walked down the porch steps and headed for Danae’s car, when she stopped.
        “I want to check out back one last time,” she decided.  Kim trailed her around the perimeter of the house, completely disgusted by the thoughts of what could be lurking in the overgrown grass.  The fox hole was abandoned, and Danae turned around, squinting into the setting sun at the fields.  “That’s weird,” she told Kim, pointing to a plot to the west of the house that still had the dry, matured stalks of corn standing tall.
        “What’s weird?” Kim didn’t see anything wrong.  She was Dallas-born and -raised, and she rarely ever passed through the country, except en route to another town.
        “They took all of the fields last fall,” Danae explained as they walked back around the house toward the car.  “Why would they leave that one still standing?”
        “Yew sure are nosy,” Bucky sneered from his seat on the hood of Danae’s truck.  Wayne, who carried a long, heavy wrench in his grimy hands, agreed.  “I don’t like people butting in on my business,” he growled.  “Gwendy don’t be needing your services no more.
        “Just a minute!” Kim interjected.  “Who gave you the right to…” she trailed off, seeing Wayne tighten his grip on the wrench handle, and pieced everything together.  “Right…you’re the bad guys,” she pointed at them for identifying emphasis.  Before Wayne could even muster a leer, Kim grabbed Danae and ran as fast as he could away from the men.  They decided their best bet was to lose their pursuers in the unmowed cornfield.  Bucky quickly realized how difficult it would be to find them if they reached the thick jungle of cornstalks or the grove of trees beyond and yelled at Wayne to do something.  His brother hurled his wrench and, it struck Danae hard on the outside of her ankle.  She faltered, but continued running in spite of the pain.
        They had only pushed their way ten feet into the maze of corn when they came across a clearing and screamed at the startling sight of a man there.  Native American, he sat deep in meditation, wearing only jeans and his thick-soled boots.  His weathered face was tilted up to the amassing clouds, and his grey hair was even with the gut that bulged over the top of his denim waistline.  He opened his compassionate brown eyes at the sound of the girls’ yelp, and they stared at each other, mutually surprised.
        When Bucky and Wayne reached that spot, drawn by the sound Kim and Danae made, all that was left of them was Danae’s car keys, which she had dropped in her surprise.

        “What time is it?” Carlos stampeded into Thunder Investigations, still sporting an FBI blazer and panting.
        “Rough afternoon?” Trent asked dryly from Kim’s desk.  “It’s just after five, why?”
        “If Danae stops by, tell her I’ll call her this weekend,” he called as he went into his private office to grab binoculars and a notepad from his desk.  “I’ve got a date with Nicole.”
        “Since when do you carry binoculars and go armed on a date?” he asked when Carlos came back out.
        “Since she asked me to find out if someone’s tailing her.”  Carlos nodded at the computer screen.  “What are you up to?”
        “I’m just messing around online.  I got a lead on the Peters case.  It seems that Bucky and Wayne’s family used to own Gwendy’s property, but they had sold it when they went bankrupt,” he shifted trains of thought.  “You wouldn’t happen to know where Kim’s at, would you?”
        “Her car’s outside,” Carlos commented.  “I’ll check downstairs when I leave.  That sounds like motive to me,” he referred to Trent’s discovery by tapping the monitor.  “We’ll check it out tomorrow?”
        “Sure,” Trent agreed before Carlos bounded down the door and sped away.  His hurried slamming of the door caused the neat stack of papers to Trent’s left to scatter all over the floor.  With an aggravated sigh, he stooped to gather them.

        Carlos sat in his parked car and used binoculars to single Nicole’s silver sports car out of a full parking lot.  If her car was any indication, she wasn’t kidding about being worth lots of money.  She should be leaving work soon, at which time he would follow her home.  While he waited he surveyed all around him, looking for an old red sedan, the best description she could give him of the car she thought pursued her everywhere.  The more he pressed her for details, the more generic and evasive her answers became.  Something about this case didn’t feel right.
        His cell phone rang, and he answered it.  It was his mother.  “Have you talked to Danae?” she asked excitedly.
        “I haven’t had a chance,” he replied.
        “Why not?  She’s a good girl!”
        “I know, Madre,” Carlos was becoming annoyed by everyone trying to force them together.  Carlos was actually enjoying being single for once.  “She’s a great girl.  I’ve just been busy, that’s all.”  He cut off his mother’s ensuing rant about how irresponsible he was when Nicole walked out of the law firm doors.  “Ma, I gotta go.  I’m working.”  He was still arguing with her, this time about respecting elders, when he pulled away from the curb after Nicole.  “No really, I’m sorry, Ma.  I’m just in the middle of doing my job, and I need to go.  I’ll call you tonight, I promise.”  There was a pause and a guilt-trip from his mother.  “I love you, too.  Bye.”  At last he could give his whole attention to following Nicole while obeying all posted signs and looking for another red car trying to do the same thing.
        He parked behind her in front of a very nice apartment building in a rich part of Dallas.  The only other times he’d been there was driving around at Christmas time, gawking at the festive lights.  This neighborhood always had the best because they could afford gaudy, over-the-top displays.  He got out of his car and tugged on his coat nervously, somehow knowing that his worn suit, while very becoming on him, was not up to par here.  He entered the building where he had seen Nicole go in.  She was waiting for him just inside the doorway.
        “Did you see anyone?” she asked eagerly.  Carlos shook his head.  “You believe me, right?” she asked, laying a hand on his crossed forearm.
        “Of course,” he replied sincerely.  “Why wouldn’t I?”  There was a confusing pause, chock full of sexual tension, until Nicole broke it.
        “Don’t be a stranger,” she said lightly.  “Call me sometime.”
        “I will,” he assured her as she moved closer.
        “You’d better,” she grinned, reciting the conversation they had four years ago in Johnny’s bar.  Like that conversation, this, too, ended in a shy kiss.  By the time Carlos left the building, his head was spinning with thoughts about Nicole, memories of El Vaquero, and mixed feelings about both.  He shoved them aside and grew wary as he saw a strange man leaning against his car.
        “Who are you?”  Carlos asked in a gruff voice.  He pulled himself up to his full six feet of height and ineffectively stared down at the other man, who was only a couple inches shorter.  He was tan, with sandy hair and a five o’clock shadow.  He crossed his muscular arms, nonplussed at Carlos.
        “Ned Avery, PI,” he introduced himself.  “I was hired to keep an eye on Mrs. Ratcliff.  She doesn’t need you to bother her further, Mr….”
        “Sandoval,” Carlos finished.  “Detective Sandoval.  I’m sorry; did you call Nicole ‘Mrs. Ratcliff’?”
        “Nicole Ratcliff, yes,” Ned answered, confusion in his dark eyes.  “What brings the police into this?”
        “Into what?” Carlos asked.
        “Mr. Ratcliff is…suspicious of his wife’s goings-on, and hired me to keep her out of trouble,” he explained.  Carlos nodded.  Translation:  Ned was to stop the affair Mr. Ratcliff guessed Nicole was having.
        “Smart girl, isn’t she?” Carlos smiled wryly.  “She hired me to protect her from a man who was following her.  That would be you?”
        “It would seem that way,” Ned agreed in the same tone of voice.
        Carlos scoffed.  “So what are we going to do?”
        “Set her up, I guess,” the other man replied casually.
        “I guess,” Carlos repeated bitterly.  Hearing his cell phone ring, he yanked it out of his pocket and answered it impatiently.  “Yes?”
        “I need your help right now,” Trent’s voice sounded urgent.  “Meet me at Peters’.”
        Carlos made excuses to Ned and handed him his card.  “We’ll get in touch about this later,” he said before he slid into his car and sped away.  He made it to the old farm house in record time, and slammed on his brakes when Trent flagged him down.  His partner had parked along the side of the road just before the end of Gwendy’s long, winding driveway.  He walked up to Carlos’ rolled down window as Carlos killed the engine.
        “I found a note from Kim saying she and Danae came out here on business, but Gwendy said they left about two hours ago,” Trent said.
        “Maybe she just went home.”  Carlos’ statement sounded more like a question.
        Trent pursed his lips.  “This is Kim we’re talking about,” he said to Carlos’ amusement.  “Besides, her car is still at the office, and I can’t get a hold of Danae.”
        “So what are we going to do?”  Despite his speed, the sun had almost finished setting.  If Trent was thinking what Carlos supposed he was thinking, the darkness would help cover them as they searched for Kim and Danae, but it would also make finding them more difficult.
        “We find Danae’s truck, we find them,” Trent explained.  “And since this is the last place anyone saw them…”
        “We start here,” Carlos finished.  He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car.  “Let’s do this,” he said with a cheesy grin as he locked the doors.
        Since Trent hadn’t seen Danae’s truck when he talked to Gwendy earlier, he knew it wasn’t at the house.  The only other place to check, then, was the barn east of the house.  The men cut across the dead field in a trot, preferring the short cut to find out sooner rather than later if their hunch was right.  They were breathing heavily when they reached the barn, but it only took Trent a matter of seconds to pick the old lock on the door and enter.
        Carlos cut through the darkness with his flashlight, and both men needed a couple minutes to adjust their eyes to the dim light and their noses to the smell of diesel and oil.  The walls were lined with tools and tractor accessories, and the cold, concrete floor was cluttered with pieces of metal and ropes, causing them to trip as they circled the lone tractor.  They pushed their way further into the barn, stepping through a large plastic curtain that divided the barn in half, to find Danae’s truck.  Her old, worn vehicle looked curiously in place amid all the rusty parts and crude machinery.  Trent tried the driver’s door, which opened readily for him.  The dashboard pinged at him, and he looked up at Carlos.
        “Doors are unlocked and the keys are in the ignition,” he said.
        “Someone drove it here,” Carlos agreed before sliding into the passenger’s seat.  His flashlight revealed no other clues for the sleuths, but now they knew for sure that Danae and Kim were around the Peters property somewhere.  Carlos just hoped they were alright, wherever they were.
        “From where?” Trent asked as they checked the rest of the car.  Carlos got out and walked around the outside.  He held up a long, dried piece of grass he had pulled out of the grill.  Where had he seen grass this long before?
        “Right here,” he said.  “It was parked right out front of the house.”  The men quitted the barn and looked around in the last, quickly waning light.  “If I wanted to hide someone, I’d put them in that field,” he pointed west at the foreboding, razor-like stalks barely visible in the growing shadows.
        “It’s as good place as any to start,” Trent shrugged, and the two of them trotted off to the field.  As Carlos thought, the darkness made it almost impossible to find a trace of anything in the corn.  Even with their flashlights, the long leaves cast crisscrossing shadows on the ground, obscuring it.  Trent couldn’t tell if he was seeing footprints or imagining them because of the way the light played in the hard-packed dirt.  Neither man was in doubt, however, when they presently wandered into the clearing.
        “Is that what I think it is?” Trent trailed off as Carlos knelt down beside one of many dark green shrubs.
        “Marijuana,” his friend answered grimly.  He stood up and dusted off his hands.  “This case gets better and better.”
        “We have to find the girls,” Trent said darkly.  He didn’t need to elaborate on his fears that Kim and Danae were already in serious trouble.  Carlos knew personally just how dangerous crossing drug dealers could be, even if for a ‘minor’ drug such as weed.  A flash of lightning lit up the darkness, and the two men could faintly make out what they supposed to be footprints and a trail through the wall of corn.  “This way,” Trent trotted off in the direction of the tracks as the sky grumbled.
        They made it as far as the small grove of trees behind the field when Trent felt something strange underfoot.  Before he could wonder about it, he and Carlos were swooped up in a sturdy rope net.  They had blindly run into a trap that held them suspended some feet above the ground.  A zag of lightning again split the night sky, preceding by scant seconds the pouring rain.
        “Tell me this isn’t happening,” Carlos wailed as he was quickly soaked.
        “It could be worse,” Trent grimaced.  “The top is down on the ‘vette.”
        Carlos laughed, then silence overtook them.  They swung gently in the rainy breeze, lost in their own thoughts for a while.  Suddenly, Carlos slapped his forehead.  “What about your stars?” he asked.
        Trent pulled out one of the sharp, pointed throwing stars he carried instead of a gun and studied it.  “We’ll, uh, kind of fall if I do this,” he mentioned candidly.
        Carlos grabbed hold of a branch through the large mesh container and bade him do the same.  Trent looped one arm around the branch while he laboriously sawed a hole through the ropes forming the side of the trap.  Despite the inconvenience it posed, he noted the fine craftsmanship of the net.  Before he had finished, and negating his effort, they felt the net-and themselves-being slowly lowered to the ground.  A figure shrouded in a dark rain coat walked around the tree and greeted them.  Trent and Carlos remained still, trying to gage whether this man was friend or foe, when a voice broke through the tense quiet.
        “Carlos?” Danae asked.  “Trent!”  She limped over to the men and knelt down beside them.  “Boy am I glad to see you guys!”
        “You know these men?”  The somber question came from the man in the slick black jacket.
        “They’re good men,” even hidden in the darkness, Trent could recognize Kim’s unique voice.  “They’re looking for us.”
        “Come with me,” the man offered a weathered hand to help Trent up, while Danae did the same to Carlos.
        “What happened to you?” he asked her during their brisk walk through the woods.
        “I’m ok,” she answered.  “One of the brothers threw something at me.”
        “So it’s the brothers, then?” he mused.
        “What took you so long?” she teased.  “I take it you saw the marijuana field.  Kim has talked about nothing but the great publicity you guys will get when you turn this in.”
        “She would,” he replied good-naturedly, just loud enough for Kim to hear it.  The red-head stuck her tongue out at him and continued her own talk with Trent about what the girls had discovered.
        “It still doesn’t make sense, though,” Trent said when the five had reached the stopping point.  The old Indian (his name was Joseph Blackstone, Danae told Carlos) had set up a crude shelter in a corner of the woods.  No one was sure if he lived there all the time, and they were too polite and grateful for his help to ask him and risk offense.  He was busy erecting another tent to shelter the two additional men, as his tent was too small to hold all five of them for the night.  The rain was worsening, making travel by foot dangerous in the dark, and the bitterly cold wind made them all thankful for the shelter.
        “Why not?” Carlos asked as he gnawed on a stick of jerky given to him by the white-haired man.  “The brothers aren’t getting paid enough by the Peters, so they grow pot on the side.”
        “There’s more to it than that,” Trent replied from the other tent, set up across from the first.  “I was down at the courthouse this afternoon, and I found out that the brothers’ family, the Farles, used to own that land until the bank foreclosed on it and auctioned it off.  Wouldn’t you think they would resent Gwendy, instead of helping her?”
        “Before this land belonged to anyone,” Blackstone spat out the word, “it was home to my tribe.  The Farles bought all this for one hundred dollars.  Now that we want to buy it back, it costs ten times that much.”
        “He’s right,” Kim piped up.  “The Farles brothers will get what they deserve in the morning.  Maybe you can get your land back, Mr. Blackstone.”
        “What about Gwendy?” Danae asked softly.  “This is her home, too.”
        “It strikes me as odd,” Carlos mentioned casually, “how she thought you girls had left, when your truck was parked in her front yard.”
        Danae considered this unpleasant theory as Kim thought aloud:  “There’s no guarantee that you’ll get this land if they take it from Gwendy, but we’ll help you any way we can,” she told Blackstone, brown eyes bright with sincerity.  The old Indian managed a handsome smile before donning his raincoat again.
        “I have work to do,” he replied to questions about his destination.  “There are blankets in my tent to keep you warm.”  With that, he disappeared into the grove of trees.

        The four had stayed up a little longer, discussing the case.  Danae was the first to fall asleep, and, rather than wake her, they remained as they were for the night:  Carlos and Danae shared one tent and a blanket while Trent and Kim shared the other.  “Hey, we’re all adults here!” Kim had said before rolling over and promptly dozing off.  Shortly before dawn, Danae was awakened by the sounds of Carlos in the throes of a nightmare.  She sat up and gently shook him.
        “What?”  He wasn’t fully awake yet.  He wiped his sweaty face and panted.
        “How often do you have nightmares?” she asked in a low voice.  Carlos rolled over onto his back and considered his answer.  He never told anyone about the dreams that haunted his sleep recently, figuring it was better to just ignore them.  They would pass with time.  “Do you want to talk about it?”  Danae was not easily fooled by silence or evasion.
        He shook his head.  “No.”  He closed his eyes, and Danae looked on as his breathing became slow and deep as he easily slipped back into dreamless sleep.  She, meanwhile, stayed awake and watched the morning sky lighten and bloom with color.  There was so much to think about and sort through in her life, and the fresh dawn helped her reflect.  Any decisions she had made were lost when Carlos rolled onto his side and laid his head in her lap.  Tentatively, she ran a hand through his disheveled black hair, consumed by more thoughts without answers.

        By the time the sun had finished rising, the rest of the gang had gotten up.  They stretched their stiff bodies in the chilly damp and made feeble conversation out of short, choppy sentences.
        “I could really go for some coffee,” Kim admitted, rubbing her eyes tiredly.  The others grunted their agreement.
        They milled around for a few minutes, wondering silently if they had been abandoned by their guide.  Relief came when the weathered man picked his way silently through the trees.  He carried several medium-sized branches, which he used to create a meager fire, upon which he boiled some water and made tea for the four young people.  It was weak, but it was enough to wake them up.
        “We must hurry,” Blackstone told them when they had finished their glasses.  “The brothers will be up soon, and they will be looking for you,” he looked at the girls.  Despite his age, the old man moved quickly and deftly through the forest, and even Trent, the fittest of all of them, struggled to keep pace with him.  Before long, they arrived to find Trent and Carlos’ cars still parked on the side of the road.  Kim slid into the wet passenger’s seat of Trent’s beautiful blue convertible while Danae went with Carlos.  She assumed grumpily that she would eventually get her truck back from the Farles brothers.
        “So what now?” Danae asked her companion.
        Carlos sighed, and Danae was immediately alarmed by the weariness she heard in it.  “We’ll fill out a police report for grand theft auto, possession of illegal substances, and assault.”
        “Against whom?  The brothers or Mrs. Peters?”
        “Only the brothers, unfortunately,” he replied.  “Although this is enough to open an investigation.  I just know Gwendy had a hand in this, but I don’t know why.”
        “Bucky told me the first time we met that she had always hated that farm.  Combined with the credit problems they were having, maybe she just wanted to get rid of the land but couldn’t afford to pay off the banks,” Danae mused.  She had spent much of the early morning hours debating this question.
        “So she conspires with the Farles to come up with the money,” Carlos took over the narrative, “But the Farles just wanted their farm back, and they tried to get rid of her, so she retaliated and used us to expose them?”
        “Sounds like a good conspiracy,” Danae agreed.
        “I’m so tired of being used,” Carlos grumbled.
        “What do you mean?” she asked.
        Carlos brushed her question aside.  “It has something to do with this other case I’m working.”
        “Does this have anything to do with your nightmares?”  He was silent for a breath, and Danae knew he wasn’t going to answer.  “I don’t mean to pry,” she said quickly.  “But if you ever need to talk…”
        “Thanks,” Carlos’ smile was tight-lipped and relieved, “but no.”  He wasn’t quite ready to talk.

        It was mid-afternoon before Trent could get back to his house.  He spent much of the morning giving a report to the police and helping Carlos and the smarmy Ned Avery come up with a plan to catch Nicole red-handed.  Carlos would come onto her and wheedle information while Ned recorded everything.  Then they would take the evidence to her husband and let him decide on the next course of action.
        Sore, tired, and dirty, he pushed open his front door and yelled to Margo.  “I’m home!”  It wasn’t until he went upstairs that he realized sickly that she had never yelled back.  “Margo?”  He padded down the hallway, checking the rooms as he went.  Finally he came to the bedroom, and the queasy feeling exploded in his stomach.
        The tiny room felt huge and empty without her clothes, her shoes, her pillows.  All that was left of his darling Margo was a note on his pillow.  Trent stared at it numbly as he unbuttoned his shirt and stripped off his pants.  He couldn’t bring himself to read it yet.  He already knew what it said, and he didn’t want it to be true.  After a long, steaming shower, he went back downstairs and ate mechanically.  His appetite had left with Margo’s suitcases.
        Carlos found him in his bedroom some time later, still staring at the note on his bed.
        “What happened?” he asked.
        Trent cleared his throat and waved a hand toward the paper.  “Her things were gone when I got back,” he said hoarsely.  “I don’t know where she went.”
        “You haven’t read it yet?”
        “I can’t.”  Carlos picked it up and handed it to his long-time friend, who refused it.  “I can’t, Carlos.  I just can’t.”
        Dejectedly, Carlos opened it and read it aloud.  “‘Trent:  I know you won’t understand this, but I need to leave.  Not just for me, but for you, and for my career.  I was offered a job in Washington DC, and I took it.  I think it’s the best thing for both of us right now.  Let Carlos be a good friend to you.  I love you.  Margo.’  I’m sorry, mano,” he said as he folded the paper up again and handed it to Trent.  This time he took it, reading it carefully.
        “What am I going to do?” he asked, bleary-eyed.
        “You’re going to go on doing the best you can,” Carlos answered.  He crossed his arms.  “She’s going through a rough time right now.  Give her some time to heal, some time to think, and things will get better.”
        “Some time to heal from what?” Trent asked hysterically.
        “From the Cirq,” he answered quietly.
        Trent stood up from his chair in a huff.  “Why does she need to go away for that?  I can help her get through it!”
        “No you can’t,” Carlos replied softly.  Margo’s departure made perfect sense to him, but Trent argued the point.  “You can’t fix everything!” Carlos finally yelled, and Trent fell silent.  The anger faded out of Carlos’ voice.  “It’s not about you, it’s about her.  She needs to find herself again, and she has to do it alone.  You can’t help her this time.”
        Trent’s earnest blue eyes became dangerously sad.  “Well I’m glad you know more about my girlfriend than I do.”
        Carlos sighed and tried to explain.  “We were talking about it the other day.”
        “You knew she was going to leave me?”
        “I didn’t know this was going to happen,” Carlos retorted angrily.  “But it might be for the best.”
        “Get out.”  Trent’s voice was flat and eerily calm.
        “I understand that you’re upset…” Carlos started to say, but Trent shoved him.
        “How could you possibly understand what I’m feeling?”  It was Carlos’ turn to look hurt.  “Get out.”

        Sometime after midnight, there was a knock on Danae Launey’s apartment door.  A quick glance through the peephole found Carlos laden with a package.  Both he and his bundle were wet from walking through the rain.
        “I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted sheepishly as he dripped on her welcome mat.  She told him to stay put, and he watched her carefully as she went to get him towels.  He was more nervous than he had ever been in his life.  “Nightmares,” he told her when she got back.  Her surprised eyes locked with his for a brief moment.  “Here,” he held out the cardboard box for her, and she took it while he dried off.  “It’s a present from my mom.  A housewarming gift.”
        Danae set it down on the table in the next room and opened it.  “Oh, my God,” she breathed as it mewed.  Carlos grinned and sat down on the floor next to her as she pulled the tiny cat out of its makeshift carrier.  The scrawny tabby purred as she held him up to the light.  “Does it have a name?”
        “Not yet,” he said as she put it down on the floor.  It blinked its eyes and jumped on the couch.
        “Thank you.”  She suddenly leaned over and hugged Carlos tightly.  He returned the embrace just as fiercely.  His nightmares were the furthest thing from his mind when she asked him about them.  He told her, haltingly at first, a bare skeleton outline of the dreams, about Johnny, and then his fears tumbled out of his mouth piecemeal.  When he had run out of things to say, her arms were still around him, though he lay with his head in her lap now.  He thought she had fallen asleep until she spoke at last.
        “There are many theories about dreams and what they mean, but I don’t think they mean anything.  Johnny almost killed you, but you survived.  You were stronger than him then, and you’re stronger than him now.  The nightmares can’t hurt you.”
        “You make it sound so easy,” he sighed as he shifted.  He felt exposed and vulnerable now that echoes of his feeble fears wafted about the room.
        “Look into your friends’ eyes,” she told him simply.  “They’ll tell you who you really are.  Your mother adores you, Trent wouldn’t be the same without you, Tommy idolizes you,” she explained.  She looked down her long nose at him, and his somber brown face slowly broke into an easy grin.  “What?” she asked him.  It was her turn to feel exposed.
        Carlos shook his head.  “Nothing,” he told her.  “I just like how your eyes see me is all.”
        With an indignant mew, the fiery tabby jumped onto the man’s belly and stared at him.  Soul searching would have to be postponed until after Doughnut had been fed.