When Will and Lucy pulled up in front of Lucy’s apartment, the sun had gone down, and they could see a lighted lamp through the living room window. Lucy hesitated as she climbed out of Will’s car.
     “I don’t remember leaving a light on.”
     Will offered to go up with her, and they cautiously mounted the stairs. Lucy tried the door–it was open. She stuck her head in.
     “Who’s here? Marta?”
     Marta sat at the dining room table, rubbing her eyes, looking as though she had just risen from a nap.
     “Oh, Mom.” She sounded frantic. “Where have you been? I’ve been here all afternoon waiting for you. I called all over the place.”
     “Will and I went out to Camp Horizon. We just got back.”
     Marta nodded to Will.
     “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I think Bug and Tweak are in trouble, and it’s all my fault. I don’t know what to do. I told them to follow those boneheads, and….”
     “Marta, slow down,” said Lucy. “What are you talking about?”
     “The boneheads. The ones who beat up Colin. I asked Bug and Tweak to follow them.”
     “What on earth for, Marta?”
     “Because I know they had something to do with Emmy…with Emmy getting killed. I know they set up Colin, ’cause they’re working with the cops.”
     “Marta!” Lucy reprimanded, “Stop this. Your conspiracy theories are driving me nuts.”
     “Mom, why won’t you listen to me?” Marta was near tears.
     Will could see where Marta’s logic was leading. This had something to do with the missing girls that Detective Tom Morris told Lucy about. But, Lucy seemed incapable of hearing Marta out on the subject.
     “Marta,” Will interjected, “don’t you think you should tell us the whole story.”
     “I’m trying to.”
     Lucy started to protest, but Will put up his hand.
     “Marta,” said Will, “why would the police want to get you? You’ve got to go back to the beginning.”
     “Teddy Milcheford,” Marta said. “Isn’t he in charge of the police or something?”
     “What does this have to do with Teddy?” Lucy.
     “It’s Maddy. The boneheads are working for Teddy. Bug called me last night and she saw them with him. Don’t you see?”
     “I don’t understand.” Will looked toward Lucy, who was staring at her daughter with disbelief.
     “Madeline Milcheford,” said Lucy. “She disappeared several weeks ago. Apparently a runaway. Chris and Teddy have been frantic. We have all been worried. Didn’t Emmy say anything to you?”
     “No, she didn’t. So, this is about the missing girls.” Will.
     Lucy was furious. ”Why, Marta? Why would you do this?”
     “Mom, not now. Bug and Tweak are in trouble.”
     “Then we should call the police,” Lucy snapped.
     “Mom, we can’t. Please don’t call the cops. Don’t you understand?”
     Will stepped in again. “Why do you think they’re in trouble, Marta?”
     “They were supposed to check in with me this morning. Nobody’s seen them since yesterday.”
     “Any idea where they might be?”
     “I don’t know. Some kids saw the boneheads up in the Pearl District, up by the industrial area.”
     “I remember Chris inherited the Langford building,” said Lucy. “I think it’s mostly empty, but Teddy uses a portion of it for a warehouse. It’s up near 14th and Lovejoy.” Lucy frowned. “I still think that we should call the police.”
     “We can’t. Mom. Colin will be in trouble.”
     “Colin is already in jail!” The anger arose again in Lucy’s eyes, but Will could see the fear in Marta’s.
     “We should go find this warehouse,” said Will, decisively. “Marta, you’ll fill us in on the way.”
     Lucy, outnumbered, gave in and the three of them headed to Will’s car.
     “How are we all going to fit into this car? There’s no back seat.” Lucy turned to Marta, “Maybe you’d better stay here.”
     “Oh no you don’t,” Marta said. She opened the passenger door and wiggled in behind the seats to sit above the drive shaft with her knees up under her chin.
     Lucy sighed and got in. “This isn’t particularly safe,” She said.
     “What is?” Will replied, reversing the car.
     “Okay, Marta,” Will said as he negotiated the light at 39th, and merged into the westbound traffic on Broadway. “Why don’t you tell us the rest of the story.”
     For a long moment, the only sound in the car was the noise of wheels on pavement and the whoosh of passing traffic. Finally, Marta broke the silence.
     “It all started about a year ago. One of the street kids–I think her name was Treena or something–she begged us to help her. Her dad was beating her and her mom up, but her mom wouldn’t do anything about it, so she ran away. She was on the cop’s runaway list and she was scared shitless. Colin knew about this feminist collective up in Olympia that helps find safe places for runaway girls. They have something called the Underground Railroad, which goes up and down the West Coast. They help keep kids safe from drugs and prostitution. They try and find them jobs and get them involved in political action and stuff. So we hooked up with them.”
     Lucy broke in. “So, what does this have to do with Maddy?”
     “Look, Mom. I know you aren’t going to believe this, but Teddy is not a very nice guy.”
     “You mean Teddy was beating his daughter?”
     “No, Mom. He didn’t beat her.”
     Lucy stiffened, and shook visibly. Then the magma began to rise as the realization took hold.
     “You mean that bastard was sexually abusing Maddy?”
     “Yes, Mom, that’s what I mean.”
     “Oh, God, poor Maddy.” Lucy was shocked at how easily she could believe that Teddy was an incestuous creep. First I start wondering if he could be a murderer and now this. She realized that she had really never thought of him as a friend. Chris was her friend. Teddy was just her friend’s husband.
     Another silence as Will guided the Triumph across the Broadway Bridge. Marta’s face in the rear-view mirror was streaming tears.
     “What about Chris?” asked Lucy, “Why didn’t she go to Chris?”
     “Mom, when did Chris ever have time for Maddy? She works all the time, late into the night. This wouldn’t have happened if her mom had been around.”
     “Marta, that’s not fair. You can’t blame Chris for what Teddy did to Madeline. Why didn’t she come to us?”
     “She did. She came to me, and I made the best decision I could.”
     “This is horrible.” Lucy’s face was anguished. She reached back and took Marta’s hand. “What have you got yourself into?”
     “I don’t know, Mom,” Marta whispered. “I don’t know.”
     Following Lucy’s direction, Will turned west on Hoyt, then north on 15th to Kearney, parking in the shadow of the loading docks in the block before the Langford Building.
     “I think you two should stay here with the car while I take a look,” Will said.
     Lucy started to protest, but Will added, “Just in case you need to go for help.”
     Will left Lucy and Marta standing on the sidewalk next to the Triumph and moved cautiously up the dark street, which was lined with dilapidated warehouses and factories erected after 1904, when the Northern Pacific Railroad built a trunk line along what was now 15th Avenue. The streets were totally deserted and the shadows cast by the lights of the city accentuated the nooks and dark corners. Will felt a chill as a light breeze touched his skin.
     The concrete monolith of the Langford Building loomed like an impenetrable fortress. The windows were high, too high to peer into; the walls, sheer and impossible to scale. Only at the front of the building were there street-level windows, but these were solidly boarded up. On the south side of the building, Will could see a dim light through a louvered window grate, some ten feet off the sidewalk. The bottom ledge of the window itself was about five feet from the ground, the lower half covered in plywood. Beneath the window, a series of gas meters provided a kind of ladder to the ledge.
     Will used this route to climb up onto the window ledge, but the louvers were at too sharp of an angle, and all he could see was a grimy wooden floor. He tried bending one of the louvers and was surprise when it yielded. There, in the dimly lit room, lay the two girls, bound hand and foot.
     Behind him Will heard the unmistakable clap of footsteps, and his legs nearly buckled beneath him. His heart pounding, he prepared to jump. Turning as far as he could without losing his balance, he glimpsed someone running across the street and disappearing around the corner. Marta. He took a deep breath and pushed away from the window. He landed with a shock, but managed to stay on his feet. He arrived at the corner just in time to see Marta open an unlocked door and vanish into the warehouse.
     Will cursed the turn of events. If the door was unlocked, then Milcheford’s buddies were undoubtedly inside. Marta’s impetuousness might be the end of them both. Will thought about running back to the car, sending Lucy to get the police. But a sense of urgency pulled him forward to the warehouse door. He turned the knob slowly, trying to make as little sound as possible. The door opened with a creak. Will froze. When he heard nothing more, he put his head carefully inside.
     That’s when he saw the two by four swing around from behind the door before it hit him squarely between the eyes.