"Maybe we should patrol this evening?"
    "I am always to be found about the city."
    They separated for the afternoon; Professor Miles returned to the conference. Everyone there was quite sympathetic, and it seemed from his cautious probing that no one had known about the couple's secret. He made inquiries to see if anyone had known what Peter had been working on.
    "Some sort of—and this is going to sound ridiculous mind you," the man said with an apologetic laugh, "some sort of instantaneous communication and transport device. He was hoping to be able to make contact with alien species and draw them to earth."
    "Yes... it's ridiculous." Miles nodded vaguely, turning away as his eyes changed shape slightly and pulsed.
    
    Angela spent some time in a different sort of morgue than was Dr. Drake's purview, searching for information on the Turnbulls. The information went back to the kidnapping ten years before, and that story caused a creeping cold sensation.
    The police believed four people had been involved in Elsie Turnbull's kidnapping. A note had been found afterward, alerting Mr. Turnbull to his daughter's fate. A series of daily calls took place, but none of the kidnappers ever spoke on the phone. Elsie had never said how many there were, even what sex they were. A ransom—two hundred thousand dollars—had been gathered and delivered, and Elsie was never seen again.
    Follow-up stories found that the marked money had turned up all over the state as the kidnappers made small purchases and exchanged large bills for smaller ones, a very slow, painstaking, and virtually foolproof laundering method. The last of the marked cash had been seen about two years after the kidnapping.
    The police had nothing. The plan had been flawless and carried out with excellent attention to detail. Like some of the Ray's plans? Flawlessness, Angela thought, is not an easy hallmark to deal with in a criminal.
    
    
    Stevie spent part of the day catching up on his sleep, and the rest trying to rig up some kind of alarm for the cave, freaked out as he had been by Gravedigger's silent entrance.
    
    
    Dr. Drake worked during the afternoon as usual, and in a spare moment went looking for the Stevarino file. There was little detail about the accident. The man's son had been present in the shop when a jack gave way late one night and a car came down rather decisively on Steve Sr.'s head. Shortly thereafter the shop's owner, one Tony Vagoda, had sold the place to some people Drake knew to be less than upstanding citizens. Impossible to tell if the jack had had any help or not.
    He left work, took a nap, and went out later for more work. At least he didn't have the late shift tonight; he would have to set aside some time to think out some kind of revenge on Gold, unless the man was promoted out of his life very soon. For the moment, he considered two sources of information, those being the prison where Tiny had spent those seven years, and his mother's house, both of them somewhat inconveniently located from Gravedigger's perspective. The latter first, he decided.
    A car would be useful. And the boy had shown promise of a sort.
    He noticed that Stevie had gone to great lengths to set up a security system, involving many cables that no doubt wound their way to various car horns that would sound the alarm. Not badly done, actually. He decided he may as well be nice to the kid, and knocked.
    Still startled, Stevie reflexively grabbed for his wrench and glanced at the series of carefully positioned mirrors that showed who was there; it was him.
    "Just a sec!" he yelled, rapidly dismantling parts of the system that would allow him to reach the door. A horn went off accidentally. "Yeah, what can I do for you?"
    Gravedigger glanced around, memorizing the trap layout absently.
    "So," Stevie said, still nonplussed. "Didn't expect to see you back so soon."
    "Want to take a ride up and talk with the dead guy's mother?" Gravedigger invited.
    "S-sure! Sure. Just a sec!" He skittered around the cave, dodging tripwires, and pulled a lever on a winch that opened a garage door mounted between two truck husks. "Hop in." He nodded at the rebuilt car that was clearly the focus of many labors.
    "You might like to consider a mask of some kind," Gravedigger suggested.
    Stevie pulled a grease rag out of his pocket and tied it on, Western bandit-like. "How's this?" he asked, muffled.
    "It'll do for now, I expect."
    He adjusted the mask so he could breathe a bit more (it smelled like grease, but so did everything else in his life) and started the car; it purred beautifully. He left the lights off until they were outside, and Gravedigger gave him directions. The car was fast and quiet; it was one thing Stevie was good at, and he was really good.
    After a while he cleared his throat. "You hear anything more about that superhero character? I mean, the other guy? The other, other superhero?"
    "The one you heard about on the radio?"
    "Yeah. The one with the cape. Without the shovel," he added, just in case.
    "I'm not quite sure what he's doing, other than looking into some murder cases, or at least one."
    "You find anything out about the guy?"
    "No. Nor did I find out much about your father," he added.
    "Eh. I don't know about that," Stevie said quietly. "Just been thinking back at it, I mean, just seemed like an accident at the time, but pieces move around...."
    "From the look of the police files, it was a suspiciously timed accident, but they couldn't prove it was anything other than an accident."
    "So where we going again?"
    "Here."
    He cut the engine and coasted in the last forty yards silently.
    "Nice work on the car."
    "Thanks. You want me to come with you?" he asked uncertainly, eyeing the building.
    "If you wish."
    They went up to the apartment, knocked.
    "Damn, left my tire iron back there," Stevie whispered.
    "Who is it?" a bleary voice asked.
    "Mrs. Constantine?"
    "Yeah, who is it?"
    "If I might have a moment of your time, it's about your son."
    Locks snapped back and the door swung open. "My son's dead, what do you—" She stopped abruptly, seeing them there, the large masked man with a shovel on his shoulder and behind him, a husky thirteen-year-old doing his damnedest to look stern and impressive.
    "Yes. I know," Gravedigger told her.
    After a moment she said, "Why don't you come in. I'm 'avin' a bit of a bender."
    "So I see."
    

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