Both actually slept better than they had expected. As he had said, Blair had had a long and busy day, and he was tired; and although he was feeling ever so slightly frustrated, Jim found himself able to relax, oddly reassured by the devotion their temporary guest was giving to his guide.

Although they didn't have a set morning routine, sometimes they shared the bathroom, sometimes Jim washed and shaved first -- giving Blair a few minutes longer in bed -- and it was not unknown for Blair to get up and get ready first and go out for a paper and fresh bagels while Jim was washing. On this morning, in silent agreement they went in together, and Jim firmly closed the door before Sky had the chance to follow -- not that she had shown any sign of wanting to leave the bed. She had barely lifted her head as they got up, clearly understanding the human routine of washing before they did anything else.

"We really only have time for a quickie," Jim murmured as he turned on the shower.

"Yes, but I'll be working at home this morning -- there are some notes I need to go through -- so I can take Sky out after you leave for work," Blair said. "Then I'll see you at the station in the afternoon."

"We really should take her out as soon as we've washed," Jim mumbled as he pulled Blair close.

"She didn't seem in any hurry to move," Blair pointed out.

Jim's mouth silenced him and he surrendered to his sentinel's hungry embrace.

It was a quickie -- simple frottage, hard and fast and, after the frustration of the night before, more than satisfying. They finished their shower, then as Jim shaved Blair left the bathroom to get dressed.

By then, Sky had moved downstairs and was lying close to the bathroom door, whining softly.

Blair bent and stroked her ears, then headed back up the stairs. So what if he hadn't shaved yet? He would have plenty of time for that after he walked Sky and before he started putting his notes from the last couple of weeks into a rational order.

Sky followed him.

Her devoted gaze as he dressed could have been embarrassing; he had to keep reminding himself that dogs didn't have the same instilled sense of modesty that humans did.

He went back downstairs with Sky at his heels and headed for the kitchen, passing Jim at the foot of the stairs. Sky paused for the briefest of seconds to acknowledge Jim's presence, then trotted after Blair.

I woke when Chief moved to get out of bed, but I knew that for some weird reason Bruce liked to get himself covered with water, as well as cutting the hair off his face, before he put his outside skin on, and he never took me out before he'd done that, so I didn't bother moving for a minute. If Chief and Jim were the same -- and I'd no reason to think they wouldn't be -- I knew they'd shut me out of the little room anyway.

I heard water beginning to run, but then there were some odd noises and I began to wonder if Jim was -- well, attacking Chief again. So I went down the stairs and lay close to the door, trying to decide whether to start barking or not. In the end I decided not to -- Jim might be the dominant, but Chief was a strong male so he was probably used to looking after himself, but oh, I wanted to protect him, defend him, even against the human he shared his house with.

Then the door opened and Chief came out. I followed him back up the stairs while he pulled on his outer skin, then followed him back down.

Jim had left the little room by then and had reached the foot of the stairs.

Politeness made me stop for a moment to give him a quick greeting -- after all, he was my temporary human, and he was being very nice; it wasn't his fault he smelled of cat, after all.

Still wondering where it was, I followed Chief into the kitchen.

After they'd eaten a quick breakfast and washed the dishes, they left the house together, Jim to get into the truck and head for the PD, while Blair put Sky into the back of the Volvo and headed for the beach, which he realized would give her a better and more interesting run than walking through the streets. He even let her off the leash -- something Jim had warned him not to do in case she ran off, trying to find her way home; but considering the devoted way she had been clinging to him, he decided it would be safe enough, and sure enough she never strayed more than a few feet from him as she explored the many smells on the beach.

He stayed out longer than he had intended; there was a chill in the air, but he was enjoying the fresh air and the late autumn sunshine and it was nearly an hour before he finally called Sky and turned back towards the Volvo. It was time to get home again and continue putting his notes together.

This was the life! A long and leisurely morning walk with a human who wasn't in a hurry to get me back home so he could go to work... and one I liked so much, too. And I'd get another long walk that night, too, I knew, even though it would be on the leash -- Jim had already proved he'd be good for a long walk, whether or not Chief came too -- though obviously I hoped he would.

I really did wish I liked Jim more!

"Ellison! Brown! Rafe!"

The three detectives met at the door of Simon's office and went in.

"Trouble?" Jim asked after one quick look at Simon's face.

"Yeah. We have a hostage situation at the First National Bank -- a robbery that went wrong. There are four gunmen inside, holding three customers -- a man and two women -- and a senior member of staff hostage -- the rest of the staff managed to get out of harm's way. They're demanding a getaway car and are offering to let the civilian hostages go if they get Cascade's Cop of the Year as a replacement hostage. It is your call, Jim --"

"I don't have much choice, do I?" Jim asked.

"I knew you'd say that. Now, we've got most of the streets around the bank blocked -- there's only one route away from the bank being left open. So I want you two --" he looked at Brown and Rafe "-- to position yourselves on that route so that the getaway car has to pass you. Then you follow it. Use your own cars and trade off. We need to know where the perps are heading."

"Probably they'll make for the Canadian border," Rafe suggested. "It's close enough."

"That seems likely, but we don't need to second-guess ourselves here, gentlemen. The route that's open heads south. We'll have a helicopter up there too, but again it will have to be discreet; the last thing we want to do is panic these guys.

"They've got to go to ground some time. Once we know where they've gone we can raid the place, though if they do get into Canada that'll be a problem." He looked at Jim. "If you can persuade them that giving themselves up is the sensible thing to do..."

"I'll try," Jim said grimly.

The exchange went smoothly. It was fairly obvious why the perps had wanted a single hostage instead of the four they had; five people could fit into the getaway car where eight could not. Jim did feel, though, that they hadn't acted too wisely; a cop hostage knew right from the start that if necessary he was expendable -- a civilian hostage was not. So while the police would certainly try to save their fellow cop, they would feel more able to do whatever was necessary to stop the perps than they would with a civilian hostage.

Strange how few criminals seemed to realize that; how many seemed to think that the police would be less willing to risk one of their own.

All four wore masks, which probably meant that they wouldn't kill their hostage out of hand the moment they felt themselves safe. They did tie Jim's hands and blindfold him before getting into the car; once they were all inside, it moved off with a smoothness that bespoke an excellent driver.

As soon as they were moving, one of the men sharing the back seat with Jim said, "You -- cop. We don't wanna hear any preaching, right? We don't wanna hear that it'll be better for us if we give ourselves up. We don't need to hear you asking why we raided that bank. In fact, we don't need to hear your voice at all. Understand?"

Jim nodded.

"Good."

After two or three minutes, another voice said, "No pursuit, Tom."

"Looks like they've decided to be sensible." Jim registered that this was the first voice. So 'Tom' was, presumably, their leader. He lowered his head and concentrated, committing the first two voices to memory, then set himself to memorizing the route they were taking, though it was pretty obvious that they were still heading straight south.

Five miles down the road they hoped the perps would take, Brown was driving steadily, well inside the speed limit; if the getaway car passed him, they were unlikely to be suspicious of his car following them, at least for several miles. Rafe sat in his car in the driveway of a house two or three miles outside the city limits, ready to follow the getaway car as soon as it passed. At the first junction thereafter, Brown would take whichever road the perps didn't, turn quickly, and then continue to follow at a distance. He and Rafe would continue to trade off like that, both staying well behind the target car and taking it in turn to 'disappear', although the presence of other cars on the road also helped to hide them.

Things went according to plan for nearly half an hour; then the target car slowed and pulled in to the side of the road. Brown and Rafe had no choice but to continue past.

Half a mile further on, the road forked. Rafe, in the lead at that point, turned to the left; Brown took the right-hand road. Both slowed considerably to allow the car they were supposed to be following to catch up, but the two or three cars that passed each in the next minutes were not the one they had followed from Cascade. They had driven on a few miles before their car radios crackled.

"Helicopter to pursuit. The target car has turned and is headed back towards Cascade."

Both men, committed to driving down fairly winding roads where a three-point turn would be dangerous, stopped as soon as it was possible to turn, to head back the way they had come, but Brown hadn't even found a turning point when the helicopter reported, "They've turned off the Cascade road. They're headed north on a side road, and are just entering a heavily wooded area. I've lost sight of them."

"Don't you have any thermal imaging equipment?" Brown asked.

"We have to get a warrant to use it, and there wasn't time, so no -- we don't have it."

"Damn!" Rafe muttered. "All right, we can continue to follow the route they've taken, but we're going to be a long way behind."

In the getaway car, the driver suddenly said, "You know, there's a car behind us... I don't like the way it's not trying to pass us."

"Has it been there all along?" the man called Tom asked.

"Well, yes and no. The thing is -- I used to have a '64 Buick Skylark; I know one when I see it. It was a great car, but I had to give it up -- it got harder and harder to get spare parts. There's at least one behind us, and every so often it turns off or drops back out of sight, but within two or three minutes another one appears, then drops down to our speed. It's too far behind for me to be sure if it's the same car disappearing and reappearing, but if it isn't, there have been at least half a dozen Skylarks on this road, and that just doesn't happen. I think we're being followed."

"All right -- pass our road, then first chance you get pull over and stop. Once it's past and out of sight, we'll turn and get back on route. You -- cop. Is there a car following us?"

Lying through his teeth, Jim said quietly, "I don't know," grateful that the men didn't seem to have noticed the helicopter he hoped was there. Mentally he cursed Rafe's recent purchase of the old Buick. Rafe had taken a little teasing over it, which he had countered with Blair's routine comeback, 'It's a classic, man!' but when, unlike Blair's not-so-trusty Volvo, the Skylark ran perfectly, the teasing had stopped, and everyone accepted the car -- to the point where it hadn't occurred to any of them that a vintage Skylark might be very noticeable.

The car stopped. He heard the sound of engines, of wheels on the road, as several cars passed them, the distinctive sound of the Skylark's engine among them.

"Wait," Tom said. "If the Buick is following us, it'll turn and come back in just a coupla minutes."

As Jim concentrated, trying to hear if Rafe was coming back -- he knew he wouldn't be able to distinguish Brown's car -- and also trying to hear the distant helicopter, he felt something prick his arm, and had barely a second to realize that he had been injected with a drug of some kind.

He didn't hear Tom saying, "Looks like it was just a coincidence, Barry. Let's move on." He didn't feel the car starting again, swinging in a three-point turn across the road and back the way they had come. Within a mile it had reached the intersection the men wanted, and turned up it.

Soon, the road entered a thickly wooded area. After three or four miles, the driver pulled off the road, stopping behind a parked car.

"Right, cop -- this is where we part company," Tom said.

Jim didn't move, didn't respond in any way. The man on his other side pushed him; he fell limply across Tom's knees.

"What the --" Tom said, looking up from shaking their prisoner, a touch of alarm in his voice. "How much of the drug did you give him?"

"Well, without knowing his weight it was hard to be accurate, but it's a pretty mild sedative -- it should have been just enough to keep him drowsy."

"Drowsy? He's unconscious!"

"Impossible."

"Maybe he's had a heart attack or something," the fourth man suggested.

"It's possible," Tom muttered. He bit his lip. "If he's had a heart attack, he could die on us -- and if he does die they could be hunting us down as cop killers. Come on -- we'll carry him into the woods half a mile or so, untie him and leave him there -- then it won't be our fault if we 'released' him here and the idiot cop wandered away from the road and collapsed. Hurry up!"

They scrambled to lift Jim and went as quickly as possible through the trees for about ten minutes, stumbling on the uneven ground and muttering curses about his weight; then they put him down, cut the cord fastening his hands, snatched the blindfold from his face, and headed back towards the road at a flat run, Tom pushing the cord and blindfold into his pocket as he went. Once there, three of them scrambled into the waiting car and drove off; the fourth followed in the getaway car. They drove half mile or so before reaching another potential parking spot. Barry stopped while the driver of the getaway car parked, then ran to join his friends; as soon as he was in the car Barry drove off at speed.

Two or three minutes later Rafe arrived, Brown barely a minute behind him. As Brown stopped beside the getaway car the PD had provided, Rafe was already feeling the hood.

"It's warm, but not hot; I'd say it's been stopped for a while," he said. "They're gone, probably at least fifteen minutes. They must have had another car waiting here, and we have no way of knowing what they're driving now."

Chief and Jim had one of those funny black talking boxes Bruce has. They use it two ways, I've noticed. Sometimes they play with it then start speaking. Sometimes it makes a funny ringing noise, and then they start speaking.

Not something that even a well-educated dog can really understand.

Anyway, after we got home from the beach, Chief gave me a biscuit and I settled down at his feet while he began to play with a different box and a lot of the stuff they call 'paper'. He was really concentrating on it, too; even when I put my head over his feet he didn't really seem to notice me.

Still, I was happy. I had Chief all to myself.

And then the black box began to ring.

Chief picked it up. "Sandburg," he said. Now that's a funny word. It's not one I'd heard before. "What... Simon! No!"

I knew immediately there was something wrong. We dogs are really sensitive to tone of voice, and the worry in his voice...

"Yes... yes... God, Simon, I hope you're right!... I'll come straight down... No, I know I can't do anything, but... Yes, all right... You'll let me know as soon as you know... Yes, okay."

He put the box down and looked at me. "Jim's in trouble, Sky. He swapped himself for four civilian hostages. I know it's an occupational hazard, it comes with the job -- but it's hard, just waiting..."

I licked his hand, trying to tell him that I understood. And I did. Little though I liked the idea that he could love a cat, he had to be feeling as worried about Jim as I was about Bruce.

Brown reported to the helicopter that the perps had probably changed cars, but they had no idea what they'd changed to, then called Simon with the same information. Simon, in his car on the outskirts of Cascade promptly ordered the three cars with him, which had been standing by to provide backup, to join Rafe and Brown.

The helicopter circled as the crewman watched the road out of the wooded area while the pilot estimated how long it would take a car traveling at an average speed to pass through.

Meanwhile, Brown and Rafe checked the abandoned car. There was no sign of blood anywhere that they could see.

"I guess that means the perps have taken Jim with them," Rafe muttered.

"It's possible -- but this would have been the ideal place to get rid of their hostage," Brown said. "We know he was blindfolded and his arms were tied. They could have left him in this car and he wouldn't known what they switched to."

"Yeah, if I was in their place, I'd want rid of him," Rafe agreed. "Like you said, nobody knows what kind of car they've transferred to. Without Jim, they're four innocent travelers. With him, they're four perps on the run. So they must have had some reason to hang on to him."

Brown scratched his head as a car passed them headed back the way they had come. "That says to me they're not heading for Canada. At least, not immediately. Trying to get across the border with Jim as their prisoner would shout 'We're criminals!'"

Rafe glanced around. "You don't suppose they took him a few yards off the road and killed him?"

Brown scowled. "It's possible. Well, I can't see that they've left anything in the car. Let's have a look around the area. Can you see anywhere that looks as if it's been walked on?"

Rafe shook his head. "No, but then I'm a townie. Man, I couldn't reliably track a set of footprints on a beach that only one man had walked along."

In the helicopter, the pilot glanced at his partner. "Unless they stopped in the forest, they should have driven out into the open again by now."

"There's no chance they turned back, is there?"

"I suppose that's possible."

"Because a car just drove out of the woods, headed back towards Cascade."

"Son of a -- Helicopter to Banks."

"Banks here."

"A car just left the woods headed back towards Cascade. There's a possibility it could be your perps, doubled back. The road's fairly quiet at the moment -- it's the only car heading towards you that we can see."

"Great. We'll stop him and check him out."

Blair walked Sky again in the early evening, careful to take his cell phone with him -- it was something to do while he waited for news. Tempted though he was to phone Simon, he knew that there was no point; he trusted Simon to let him know as soon as there was any word.

Sky stayed closer to him than she had in the morning, almost as if she understood how worried he was about his partner, almost as if she was offering comfort and support. They were home again, however, with Sky fed and Blair sitting thinking half-heartedly about getting a meal for himself -- but not sure what he wanted -- before the phone rang again. By then, Jim had been missing for close to eight hours.

"Sandburg."

"Blair, Jim's missing -- I mean, really missing," Simon told him. "We lost the perps -- they managed to duck Brown and Rafe when they drove into a wooded area, then we got tied up with a red herring -- we stopped a car we thought was suspicious, but there was only one woman in it, no men. She said she'd seen just one car in the woods, and thought there were four or five guys in it, but we've totally lost it. It's still in there somewhere, but Brown and Rafe have driven right through the woods, and found nothing.

"As soon as I find out anything else, I'll let you know."

"Thanks."

Blair put the phone down and looked down at the head resting on his knee. "Is Jim still alive, Sky? Because if the perps are hiding out in the woods, a hostage isn't going to be anything but a nuisance."

I was quite surprised to realize that I was more than just a little worried about Jim. Well, he was my temporary human after all, and little though I liked it, it was clear that Chief loved him -- and a police dog understands about partners.

What I didn't understand was why they weren't calling out the dogs. Well, we're trained to search as well as everything else, and if these men were hiding in a wooded area, who better to look for them than the dogs?

It was at times like this I most regretted the humans' complete inability to understand what I wanted to say to them.

There were only two linked roads through the woods, although there were a number of rough access tracks heading off through the trees. With no sign of a car -- other than the one driven by the woman -- leaving the area, and no sign of a car parked anywhere in sight of either road, the local police agreed -- after considerable argument that they did not have the manpower to do it -- to check the various tracks, but -- as it was getting late -- not that night. And so, with cars left to guard each of the roads leading out of the woods, the police abandoned the search until the morning.

When he got back to Cascade, Simon called the Captain of the K-9 unit.

"Simon! I heard you have a problem?"

"Yeah." Simon explained the situation, finishing, "So it occurred to me that a couple of dogs might speed up the search."

"Simon, I'm sorry. The dogs are all assigned tomorrow -- the earliest I could assign a dog to you would be Thursday afternoon."

"All right. We'll see how we manage tomorrow, and get a dog in on Thursday if we haven't found anything."

"I really am sorry. We're short-handed at the moment -- we've got injuries, and a couple of handlers are off sick as well."

"All right," Simon agreed, gloomily, too depressed to wonder what would keep all the dogs busy the next day, and hung up.

Blair snatched up the phone on the first ring. "Sandburg."

"Simon. Just keeping you up to date. The perps definitely seem to have dumped their car, wherever they dumped it, and gone to ground; there's no sign of them at all, or of Jim, and the search has been called off for the night. It did occur to me to get the dogs out, but they're all busy."

"Great. So it's just men looking for men? In that kind of hide and seek the advantage is definitely with the hiders."

"Tell me something I don't know," Simon growled.

After he put the phone down, Blair looked hopelessly at Sky. "Simon tried to get dogs out tomorrow, but they're all..." He stopped, staring at her, and snatched up the phone again, dialing frantically.

"Banks."

"It's me again. Simon, we do have a dog!"

"We do?"

"Yeah. An old friend of Jim's is in the K-9 unit, but he went into the hospital on Monday to get his gallbladder out, and he left his dog with Jim. Sky's been retired about a year, but she's a trained dog --"

"Blair, we don't have a handler for her."

"Yes, we do. Me!"

"Sandburg, you're not a cop, let alone a police dog handler."

"Simon, for some reason Sky's taken a liking to me -- she's putty in my hands, man."

"Blair, they're trained to obey nobody but their handler."

"I've had her out for walks, off the leash, even, and she's done everything I wanted."

"This wouldn't be the same thing as an off-duty walk." Simon was beginning to sound at least half convinced.

"We've got nothing to lose by trying."

"All right. The search is supposed to resume tomorrow at eight. I'll pick you up at six. After you're there, you're on your own, and if you have a problem with the dog, it's your neck. Get it?"

"Got it, but there won't be a problem. Thanks, Simon."

Blair put the phone down, and looked at Sky again. "You won't let me down, will you, Beautiful? No, of course you won't."

I could hardly believe my ears. Chief was going to take me to help look for Jim... in a sense, my rival... But Chief was depending on me, trusting me, and how could I let him down? So I'd do my best to find Jim, and show everyone that even though I'm retired, I'm still good. Let those idiots who think a police dog is too old at ten see that there are still some things we can do perfectly well.

Chief took me out immediately for what was a shorter walk than usual, but I understood why and didn't try to stay out longer than necessary. Then we went to bed as soon as we got back.

I jumped up onto the bed beside Chief, and lay close to him, trying to tell him that I did understand how worried he was. And... it was weird, but I found myself missing the body that had been on my other side the night before.

Chief put one of his forelegs around me. "Goodnight, Sky," he said.

Within a very short time, I was asleep.

Blair lay wakeful, grateful for the warm body of the big shepherd beside him and wondering how Jim was faring, well aware that his comfort would be the last thing his captors worried about.

He emptied his mind, thinking about his friend, but the only image that entered his mind was of a forest -- and since he knew Jim had been taken into one, he told his subconscious mind that that information was less than helpful.

Eventually he slipped into a restless and unrefreshing doze.

Although he had set the alarm, he woke before it went off. He peered at the clock and registered that it was not quite five. Just over an hour till Simon arrived; okay. He lay for a moment listening to the rain rattling off the skylight, then forced himself out of bed, washed and shaved quickly, and took Sky out for a quick walk. It was immediately clear to him that she was well aware that something was up; there was an alertness to her movements that hadn't been there the day before, and although he had half expected her to head for his car, despite the rain, she clearly wasn't expecting to go to the beach. She wasted no time -- toileted within two or three minutes and turned to go home. He carefully picked up after her and dropped the bag into the first trash can he passed.

He wasn't particularly hungry, but he drank three cups of coffee and forced down most of a bagel, giving Sky the last of it; he was waiting at the curb when Simon arrived, glad that the rain had eased off in the last ten minutes.

"There's been no more word," Simon said as he restarted his car.

"I didn't really expect any," Blair said.

"Brown and Rafe had a good look around the abandoned car before they checked the roads, but they couldn't see anything that looked as if anyone had gone in among the trees there."

Blair grunted. "They're good cops, Simon, but I doubt either one knows anything about tracking."

Simon's grunt could have been acquiescence. They drove on in silence as the darkness slowly began to give way to a grudging daylight.

Simon eventually pulled in behind the getaway car, which had been left overnight where it was abandoned; once Forensics had checked it and the ground nearby, it would be returned to Cascade. It was still only half-light.

"Okay, Sandburg, remember this is unofficial," Simon reminded him. "You've got just over an hour before the official search starts."

Blair nodded, got out, opened the back door for Sky.

"Okay, Beautiful," he said as he clipped her leash on. "I don't know your job, but you do. We're looking for Jim, right? Find Jim."

He took her first to the abandoned car. She sniffed around it, then sat and looked at him.

"Oh, hell," Simon said. "It's not working. She's retired, right? But she can't have forgotten her training. It's maybe just that you aren't her proper handler."

"I think..." Blair said slowly. "I told her to look for Jim. I think she's saying she can't smell him here."

"But this is definitely the car we provided for the perps, and Jim was still in it when it drove into the forest."

"So they got rid of him somewhere between the edge of the forest and here," Blair said grimly, voicing the obvious suspicion when Simon didn't.

"I'll start walking back," he went on, his voice a little unsteady.

"We'll both go," Simon said quietly.

Blair nodded wordlessly; although in some ways he knew he would prefer to be alone when he found Jim's body -- if the worst had happened -- he was also grateful for Simon's company. He took a steadying breath and forced control on his voice.

"Come on, Sky. We're looking for Jim, remember."

They set off at a steady pace back along the road, the dog alert, head high, sniffing the wind.

"Find Jim."

A simple enough command, but when I sniffed around the car, there was no sign of him. He'd been in it, yes, but he was no longer in it -- and he hadn't left it either -- not there, anyway. I sat down and looked at Chief, hoping he would understand.

And he did. Of course he did! Another dog was bound to understand me.

I wasn't sure what to do next, but Chief knew -- and of course that's why we need humans working with us. They don't work on instinct the way we dogs do. We began to walk back down the road, the human Chief called Simon with us, and as we went, I kept my nose alert for the faintest scent.

For Chief's sake, I hoped I'd be able to find Jim. It would have been nice to have Chief all to myself for a little longer, but I'd be going home again in a day or two, and I was quite sure that Bruce wouldn't want Chief to come and live with us -- so if I couldn't find Jim for him, Chief would be all alone once I left.

I didn't want that.

Suddenly I stopped. Cat! I could smell the cat! Jim's scent was mixed with it, but very faint, almost overwhelmed by the strength of the cat smell.

It was somewhere in among the trees; I turned and headed into the depth of the forest.

Sky moved steadily along the road for perhaps ten minutes, and then stopped abruptly, turning her head to stare into the forest. She stood for a moment, then began to move again, pulling Blair into the trees.

"Yes, Sky! Do you scent something? Go on, girl!" Blair encouraged her.

She was a strong dog, pulling hard on the leash now that she had a scent to follow; the ground was rough, uneven, and Blair had to struggle to keep his feet in the gloom caused by a combination of the trees and the semi-dark of early morning, while trying to prevent her from moving too fast. Simon fell slowly back, the hours he spent behind a desk catching up with him, while determinedly following as fast as he could.

They went deeper and deeper into the trees. A gust of wind blew a shower of water drops off the trees onto them, and Blair shivered.

Jim's scent, although still not much more than detectable, was getting steadily stronger. No wonder it was so faint, though -- if the wind isn't moving we can't really catch a scent, and there was almost no wind on the ground -- though I could hear it blowing through the tops of the trees.

And then ahead of me --

It was quite dark under the trees; it was hard to see properly, especially because --

The cat was black, and bigger than any cat I'd ever seen. It lay there, head lifted alertly, and it looked straight at me. I don't chase cats, tempting though it sometimes is -- I was educated not to -- but even if I did, I'd have thought three times before trying to chase that one. I'm sure that if it had been standing, it would have been bigger than me.

Then a big dog bounded out of the trees and joined it -- no, not a dog. A wolf. It licked the cat's ear, and then... they both disappeared. Completely disappeared.

I was still trying to make sense out of that when Chief yelled, "Jim!"

He dropped my leash and ran forward, and it wasn't till then I realized the cat had been lying close beside Jim, almost as if it had been protecting him.

"Jim!"

Blair abandoned Sky without a second thought, sure that she wouldn't run off, and scrambled forward. He dropped to his knees beside Jim, one hand going to the pulse at Jim's throat. He sighed with relief when he found it, but realized as well that Jim's clothes were soaking -- "Of course they are, it's been raining!" Blair reminded himself.

He looked up as Simon joined him. "He's alive, but he's very cold -- hypothermic, I'd guess, after lying out here all night in the rain." He checked Jim's head and found no sign of an injury. "It's possible they drugged him, then once he was unconscious they dumped him to get rid of him, hoping that he'd die before he was found."

"Then they went back to their car and drove on a bit before abandoning it, so we wouldn't know where to look?" Simon speculated as he pulled out his cell phone.

"We've got to get Jim warmed up. Sky!" he called. She trotted over to him. He patted the ground beside Jim. "Sky, lie down."

She obeyed at once, lying close to Jim. Blair lay on his other side, pressing close, not caring that between the wet ground and Jim's wet clothes he, too, was getting very wet.

Simon also sighed with relief as he dialed 911 to call an ambulance. At least the search now was solely concerned with finding the four men who had attempted to rob the bank. Then, knowing that the paramedics would need to be led to the unconscious man, he headed back to the road to wait for the ambulance to arrive.

Jim still hadn't regained consciousness when the ambulance arrived. The paramedics checked him and diagnosed hypothermia, agreeing that Blair had done the best thing possible by getting the warmer dog to lie close to the unconscious man.

Blair wanted to go in the ambulance with Jim, but of course he had Sky to consider; and he had traveled to the scene with Simon, who couldn't leave with the search for the missing perps still underway. So, ignoring his wet clothes, he took Sky back to where they had started, at the abandoned getaway car, in the hope that she might be willing to accept his guidance in a further search; if he couldn't be with Jim, he had to feel that he was doing something useful.

Chief told me to lie close to Jim. It was something I'd done before, once or twice, when we'd found someone who was very cold; and although I wasn't happy when Chief lay on Jim's other side, I understood why he did.

Jim didn't waken, though.

I recognized the distant sound of an ambulance when I heard it, and let the humans from it see to Jim; then watched as they carried Jim, who was still sleeping, to it; put him into it; and then drove away.

Chief took me back to the car that had been left at the side of the road and indicated that I should start searching for the humans whose scent I could easily pick up at it.

I tried; I really did. But here, deeper into the wood than we had been, there was even less wind, and so there was less scent. I tried everything I knew, but I couldn't get even a trace of a scent. My tail was drooping unhappily when we finally gave up the search in the late afternoon -- I don't like knowing I've failed my humans, even though they've never blamed me. I mean, we're not infallible and they know it, but...

Chief took me back to the car we'd come in and I collapsed gratefully on the back seat. I hadn't realized how unfit I'd become in the year since I retired. And although I love traveling in a car --

I'm afraid I don't remember anything about the journey home. I slept the whole way.

"It's crazy," Simon growled as he turned his car onto the main road. The road search had covered every passable forest track and the foot search had fanned out from the abandoned car, and they had found nothing.

"I suppose..." Blair started, a little tentatively.

"Go on." Simon had learned that most of Blair's hunches were worth considering.

"I suppose they did go off in another car?"

Simon looked at him. "Sandburg, what else would they do, out here?"

"I know, I know, and if they did just abandon the car and go off on foot, I'd have expected Sky to pick up a trail. But a car doesn't just vanish into thin air, so if they did switch to another one, where is it? The only car that drove out of the area, according to the helicopter crew, was the one heading for Cas...cade..." He faltered into silence, his brow furrowed.

"We stopped it, Sandburg. One woman in it," Simon reminded him.

Blair remained silent for two or three minutes before saying, "From what you've said, these guys weren't particularly competent at robbing a bank, but maybe they had their getaway well planned. They have one car pre-parked somewhere out of sight. They use a getaway car to get to it, then transfer to it knowing that the first one can be, will be, traced, but nobody will know the second one."

"Right."

"And possibly at the same time, they get rid of their hostage, who wouldn't be in their original plan. Spare a few minutes to walk him into the forest, knock him out and dump him. But suppose they've also allowed for a helicopter pursuit, or road blocks being set up on every possible road away from Cascade? They take the second car to another pre-determined point, where they have an accomplice waiting, maybe someone who has been camping out for a couple of days -- someone who is so different in appearance that they won't be suspected. The accomplice takes the car and drives back towards Cascade, while the perps settle down in the camp. No car, they're on a hiking vacation, or they're naturalists studying the wildlife of the area, if they're seen and questioned... and a few days later the accomplice drives back in, maybe in yet another car, and picks them up."

Simon glanced at him. "Sandburg, sometimes you almost frighten me. I'm just glad you're on my side."

"So you think that's a viable scenario?"

"Yes, dammit."

"And who more different in appearance, less likely to be suspected, than a woman?"

Simon took Blair home first and waited while he changed from his still slightly damp clothes into dry ones, fed Sky, and collected some clean clothes for Jim, then drove him on to the hospital.

Jim was still unconscious.

"We've got his temperature back to normal," the nurse told them as she showed them to Jim's room. "The blood test showed traces of a mild sedative, probably just enough to make him pliable, and there's no obvious trauma to the head, but he just hasn't regained consciousness."

"He has odd allergies," Blair said. "His reaction to something like that might not be the same as anyone else's. For him, it might be the equivalent of a pretty strong knockout potion."

"In that case, he should wake up fairly soon, because it is almost out of his system," she said.

As the nurse closed the door, leaving them alone with Jim, Simon said, "Now what?"

Blair lifted Jim's nearer hand and began to rub it gently. "We apply some stimulus to over-ride the sedative, get his senses working. Remember when Oliver's goons had him? They gave him a pretty strong drug; he used pain to counteract it. But I don't think I need be particularly rough. Hey, tough guy. Jim. It's okay, you're safe now, you're back in Cascade."

When, after a couple of minutes, there was no response, he began to lean closer to Jim's face.

"Sandburg, you're not going to do a sleeping beauty on us and kiss him, are you? That would be too much information for me."

Blair glanced sideways with a grin. "No, Simon, I'm not going to kiss him. Not here. Yet. I'm already using touch as a stimulus. Sense of smell comes next, man -- he knows the smell of my shampoo. I don't think I'll need to use taste as well, but if I do, that's when I'll kiss him."

He leaned down until his hair brushed against Jim's nose. "That's it," he murmured as Jim moved slightly. "You're doing fine, Jim. Come on..."

"Chief?"

Blair straightened. "Great. Welcome back. How're you doing?"

Jim blinked his eyes open. "What... What happened? The last thing I remember..."

"Yes?" Blair encouraged.

"In the car. The driver realized they were being followed -- that damned Buick of Rafe's. So they stopped to let it pass. I heard three or four cars passing, and I was listening for Rafe coming back, knowing it would be a giveaway, and wondering if the helicopter was there -- I couldn't hear it at all."

"It was staying pretty high and a little way behind," Simon said.

"And then one of them injected me with something."

"A mild sedative, according to the hospital, but it hit you as if it was strong enough to take out an elephant."

Jim nodded. "So what happened? Did you get the perps?"

"What happened? We don't actually know," Blair told him. "But we can guess."

It didn't take long for Simon to tell Jim what had happened, even with Blair interrupting from time to time.

"Then we came home, Blair fed Sky and we came to see how you were doing," Simon finished.

"And we'd better let a nurse know you've come around," Blair said. He thought for a moment. "I think the story is that you'd had a busy few days, you were exhausted, and so you were particularly sensitive to the sedative; then of course you were out without shelter all night. Now you've sort of caught up on your sleep, warmed up and woke up normally just now. What do you think, Simon? Will that work?"

"Works for me, anyway. I'll go and tell the nurse." He looked sternly at them. "And remember I'll only be away a minute or so." He walked out.

Blair promptly turned back to Jim, and leaned over him. "Welcome back, partner," he whispered, and gave him a chaste, closed-mouth kiss.

When Simon returned with the duty nurse, Blair was once again sitting innocently at the side of the bed; but he was still holding Jim's hand.

Because he had been unconscious for so long, the doctor insisted on keeping Jim in overnight, then chased both Simon and Blair away, and because they knew that Jim was now in no danger, they went without argument.

Blair returned to the loft, to be greeted enthusiastically by a now wide-awake Sky. He hugged her. "Jim's going to be fine, Sky," he said. "He should be home tomorrow. You did really well today, you know. I'm sure Bruce will be proud of you when he hears what you did."

He rubbed his hand over her head, then went in search of a quick meal. He was beginning to feel hungry, but he was tired; he felt too emotionally drained to spend much time over the preparation of a meal so he settled for soup, then gave Sky her late walk and went to bed.

Sky jumped up beside him and curled up at his side.

Blair went to the hospital around ten the next morning -- after he had walked Sky -- and picked Jim up, glad that the weather had improved and was again very warm. He had planned on taking his partner home, but Jim insisted that he was fine, and as long as Blair was beside him there was nothing to stop him from going in to work.

Blair grunted at that, and reluctantly acquiesced.

The moment they walked into the bullpen, Simon called them to his office. "I didn't expect to see you in today, Jim. I thought Sandburg would have taken you straight home."

"He tried, but I'm fine, sir."

Simon grunted. "Well, now that you're in, you can do your report on Tuesday's events."

The phone rang, and he picked it up. "Banks... yes... yes... good... yes... there's no doubt?"

There was a long silence while he listened. Then he said, "Fine." He rang off. "We got the perps. You were right, Blair; they were several miles from the abandoned car, camping out, pretending to be on vacation, but one of them panicked when the questioning turned to you, Jim. He seemed to feel we'd blame them if you were dead, so he told us more or less where they'd dumped you, obviously in the hope that he'd be able to plea bargain himself a much lighter sentence -- especially if you were still alive.

"Okay -- you get your report written up, then take the rest of the week off."

"Simon --" Jim began.

"You've got a dog to pamper," Simon told him.

"We could go and see Bruce this afternoon," Blair suggested, "and let him know how well Sky did."

"And see when he can take her back," Jim added dryly.

Simon glowered at him. "Jim, it was Sky that found you. You can't want to get rid of her?"

"Simon, I like her well enough, but that dog clearly thinks that it's her duty to protect Sandburg -- from me."

As they went into the loft, Sky bounded forward to greet them, for once giving Jim nearly as much attention as she did Blair. They took several minutes to make a fuss over her before Blair said, "And you'll be going home in a day or two, Beautiful. But we won't forget you and what you've done for us, and we'll come and see you sometimes. Come on, now -- how about your walk?"

Although it was fairly late and getting dark, they took her to the beach. Jim looked doubtful when Blair slipped her leash off, and Blair chuckled. "She won't run away, Jim." And sure enough, she stayed close to them.

The beach was deserted, and in the fading light Jim reached for Blair's hand. Blair stopped, looking at his partner, and they exchanged a quietly affectionate kiss before walking on, hand in hand.

It was late enough that they didn't go too far; on their return home Blair prepared a meal for them while Jim fed Sky -- he suspected that Sky would cheerfully inhale spaghetti bolognese, but that Bruce might not consider it suitable for her.

They were both tired, and once they had eaten Blair gave Sky her 'late' walk while Jim washed up; and then although it was still quite early they headed for bed, leaving Sky in her basket beside the fire.

In bed, Jim pulled Blair into his arms and kissed him, and -- remembering how Sky had joined them a couple of nights earlier -- was careful to be very quiet. They exchanged several long, slow kisses before a cold nose pushed between their chests. Blair yelped and jerked back as a heavy body deliberately settled down between them, pushing them apart.

"Sky!"

I'd be going home in a day or two. That was nice to know, although...

I wanted just a little more of Chief... and now, after everything that had happened, I realized I liked Jim, too, more than I'd thought.

So I settled down between them, quietly but firmly making it clear to them that while I was there, that was my place.

They could hug each other as much as they wanted after I'd gone home again.

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