Grace came back on the line.

Elvis?

I'm here.

My guys haven't seen him. Let me look out front. Maybe he's in the street.

Thanks, Grace.

Her voice carried clearly across the bend in the canyon that separated our homes when she called him, and then she came back on the line.

I can see pretty far both ways, but I don't see him. You want me to come over there and help you look?

You've got your hands full with Andrew and Clark. If he shows up, will you keep him there and call me?

Right away.

I turned off the phone, and stared down into the canyon. The slope was not steep, but he could have taken a tumble or fallen from a tree. I left the phone on the deck and worked my way down the slope. My feet sank into the loose soil, and footing was poor.

Ben! Where in hell are you?

Walnut trees twisted from the hillside like gnarled fingers, their trunks gray and rough. A lone yucca tree grew in a corkscrew among the walnuts with spiky leaves like green-black starbursts. The rusted remains of a chain-link fence were partially buried by years of soil movement. The largest walnut tree pushed out of the ground beyond the fence with five heavy trunks that spread like an opening hand. I had twice climbed in the tree with Ben, and we had talked about building a tree house between the spreading trunks.

Ben!

I listened hard. I took a deep breath, exhaled, then held my breath. I heard a faraway voice.

BEN!

I imagined him further down the slope with a broken leg. Or worse.

I'm coming.

I hurried.

I followed the voice through the trees and around a bulge in the finger, certain that I would find him, but as I went over the hump I heard the voice more clearly and knew that it wasn't his. The Game Freak was waiting for me in a nest of stringy autumn grass. Ben was gone.

I called as loudly as I could.

BEN!!!

No answer came except for the sound of my own thundering heart and the Queen's tinny voice. She had finally found Modus, a great fat giant of a man with a bullet head and pencil-point eyes. She launched kick after kick, punch after punch, screaming her vow of vengeance as the two of them fought in an endless loop through a blood-drenched room.

Now you die! Now you die! Now you die!

I held the Queen of Blame close, and hurried back up the hill.

2 time missing: 00 hours, 21 minutes T he sun was dropping. Shadows pooled in the deep cuts between the ridges as if the canyon was filling with ink. I left a note in the middle of the kitchen floor: STAY HERE-I'M LOOKING FOR U, then drove down through the canyon, trying to find him.