Atta actually smiled. 'Men do tend to shrink in my company,' she quipped. She shouldered open her door, saying, 'Now let's see how you do as an investigator, professor.'

There was something matronly and more than a little condescending about her demeanor, but Thomas decided that he liked Shelley Atta. She radiated stability, something he desperately needed given all that had happened, never mind the fact that he was about to help the authorities ransack his house… his home.

Could the day become any more nightmarish?

'Tommy!' he heard someone cry as he crossed his lawn. Mia, leaning over the railing of his porch. Ripley and Frankie were crowded at his side, Ripley tall enough to imitate Mia's lean, Frankie gripping the wrought iron spindles with a convict's resignation. They both looked terrified.

Ignoring Agent Atta's angry call, he trotted over to them, doing his best to look more sheepish than stunned. The fact that neither of them said anything brought his heart to his throat.

'So what did we have for dinner?' he asked lamely.

'Are you under rest?' Frankie asked, wide eyed. His face seemed impossibly round in the clicking lights—and defenceless, utterly defenceless.

'He doesn't have handcuffs on,' Ripley said, her tone of sisterly reprimand as forced as Thomas's. 'I told you he wouldn't have handcuffs on.'

As though to confirm the fact, Thomas reached up to place a hand against each of their cheeks. He did his best to chuckle and smile. 'Exciting, huh?' he said glancing back over his shoulder. He managed to resist an apologetic look at Mia.

'They have guns,' Frankie said.

'They're not going to shoot Bart, are they?' Ripley blurted.

'They're the good guys,' Thomas explained. He could feel his parental instincts roil, spin with urges to protect, to mislead, to reassure. A father was supposed to be a bulwark, someone who turned aside worldly intrusions, and yet here he was, feeding his children lame apologies. 'Just like the movies…'

'Then where are the bad guys?' Ripley asked.

'Far away,' Thomas said. 'Daddy's just helping them find… directions.'

Agent Atta's voice fell hard across the evening air. 'Professor?' Frankie fairly jumped.

'Look,' Thomas said, caressing each of their cheeks with his thumbs. 'I won't be long. You two just hang tight and I'll come get you in no time, okay?'

But both of them were staring at the shadowy woman behind him. 'Why's she hollering at you, Dad?' Frankie asked in a small voice. His eyes had the look of having crawled across the first of many scary facts. Their home had been cracked open. Could the world be big enough to break anything?

Rather than answer, he looked to Mia. 'Would you mind? At least until…' He gestured helplessly to the surrounding commotion. He glimpsed Agent Atta waiting impatiently beside the bushes that flanked his porch.