Gillette took a breath, tried to calm himself. His fingers keyed a silent storm against the soda can.

P-E-A-C-E O-F M-I-N-D… P-E-A-C-E O-F M-I-N-D…

"We were living in Burlingame, near the airport, and my father and I got in the car and drove to this strip mall. He bought some things in a drugstore and then took me to the diner next to the railroad station. The food came but 1 was too nervous to eat. He didn't even notice. All of a sudden he put his fork down and looked at me and told me how unhappy he was with my mother and how he had to leave. I remembered how he put it. He said his peace of mind was jeopardized and he needed to move on for his personal growth."

P-E-A-C-E O-F…

Bishop shook his head. "He was talking to you like you were some buddy of his in a bar. Not a little boy, not his son. That was really bad."

"He said it was a tough decision to leave but it was the right thing to do and asked if I felt happy for him."

"He asked you that?"

Gillette nodded. "I don't remember what I said. Then we left the restaurant and we were walking down the street and maybe he noticed I was upset and he saw this store and said, Tell you what, son, you go in there and buy anything you want'."

"A consolation prize."

Gillette laughed and nodded. "I guess that's exactly what it was. The store was a Radio Shack. I just walked in and stood there, looking around. I didn't see anything, I was so hurt and confused, trying not to cry. I just picked the first thing I saw. A Trash-80."

"A what?"

"A TRS-80. One of the first personal computers."

A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G Y-O-U W-A-N-T…

"I took it home and started playing with it that night. Then I heard my mother come home and she and my father had a big fight and then he was gone and that was it."

T-H-E B-L-U-E N-O-

Gillette smiled briefly, fingers tapping.

"That article I wrote? 'The Blue Nowhere'?"

"I remember," Bishop said. "It means cyberspace."

"But it also means something else," Gillette said slowly.

N-O-W-H-E-R-E .

"What?"

"My father was air force, like I said. And when I was really young he'd have some of his military buddies over and they'd get drunk and loud and a couple of times they'd sing the air force song, 'The Wild Blue Yonder.' Well, after he left I kept hearing that song in my head, over and over, only I changed 'yonder' to 'nowhere,' the 'Wild Blue Nowhere,' because he was gone. He was nowhere." Gillette swallowed hard. He looked up. "Pretty stupid, huh?"

But Frank Bishop didn't seem to think there was anything stupid about this at all. With his voice filled with the sympathy that made him a natural family man he asked, "You ever hear from him? Or hear what happened to him?"

"Nope. Have no clue." Gillette laughed. "Every once in a while I think I should track him down."

"You'd be good at finding people on the Net."

Gillette nodded. "But I don't think I will."

Fingers moving furiously. The ends were so numb because of the calluses that he couldn't feel the cold of the soda can he was tapping them against.

O-F-F W-E G-O, I-N-T-O T-H-E

"It gets even better – I learned Basic, the programming language, when I was nine or ten, and I'd spend hours writing programs. The first ones made the computer talk to me. I'd key, 'Hello,' and the computer'd respond, 'Hi, Wyatt. How are you?' Then I'd type, 'Good,' and it would ask, 'What did you do in school today?' I tried to think of things for the machine to say that'd be what a real father would ask."

A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G Y-O-U W-A-N-T…

"All those e-mails supposedly from my father to the judge and those faxes from my brother about coming to live with him in Montana, all the psychologists' reports about what a great family life I had, about my dad being the best?… I wrote them all myself."

"I'm sorry," Bishop said.

Gillette shrugged. "Hey, I survived. It doesn't matter."

"It probably does," Bishop said softly.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then the detective rose and started to wash the dishes. Gillette joined him and they chatted idly – about Bishop's orchard, about life in San Ho. When they'd finished drying the plates Bishop drained his beer then glanced coyly at the hacker. He said, "Why don't you give her a call."

"Call? Who?"

"Your wife."

"It's late," Gillette protested.

"So wake her up. She won't break. Doesn't sound to me like you've got a lot to lose anyway." Bishop pushed the phone toward the hacker.

"What should I say?" He lifted the receiver uncertainly.

"You'll think of something."

"I don't know…"

The cop asked, "You know the number?"

Gillette dialed it from memory – fast, before he balked – thinking: What if her brother answers? What if her mother answers? What if -

"Hello."

His throat seized.

"Hello?" Elana repeated.

"It's me."

A pause while she undoubtedly checked a watch or clock. No comment about the lateness of the hour was forthcoming, however.

Why wasn't she saying anything?

Why wasn't he?

"Just felt like calling. Did you find the modem? I left in it the mailbox."

She didn't answer for a moment. Then she said, "I'm in bed."

A searing thought: Was she alone in bed? Was Ed next to her? In her parents' house? But he pushed the jealousy aside and asked softly, "Did I wake you up?"

"Is there something you want, Wyatt?"

He looked at Bishop but the cop merely gazed at him with an eyebrow raised in impatience.

"I…"

Elana said, "I'm going to sleep now."

"Can I call you tomorrow?"

"I'd rather you didn't call the house. Christian saw you the other night and he wasn't very happy about it."

Her twenty-two-year-old brother, an honors marketing student with a Greek fisherman's temperament, had actually threatened to beat up Gillette at the trial.

"Then you call me when you're alone. I'll be at that number I gave you yesterday."

Silence.

"Have you got it?" he asked. "The number?"

"I've got it." Then: "Good night."

"Don't forget to call a lawyer about that-"

The phone clicked silent and Gillette hung up.

"I didn't handle that too well."

"At least she didn't hang up on you right away. That's something." Bishop put the beer bottle in the recycling bin. "I hate working late – I can't have supper without my beer but then I have to wake up a couple times during the night and pee. That's 'cause I'm getting old. Well, we've got a tough day tomorrow. Let's get some shut-eye."

Gillette asked, "You going to handcuff me somewhere?"

"Escaping twice in two days'd be bad form, even for a hacker. I think we'll forgo the bracelet. Guest room's in there. You'll find towels and a fresh toothbrush in the bathroom."

"Thanks."

"We get up at six-fifteen around here." The detective disappeared down the dim hallway.

Gillette listened to the creak of boards, the sound of water in pipes. A door closing.

Then he was alone, surrounded by the particularly thick silence of someone else's house late at night, his fingers spontaneously keying a dozen messages on an invisible machine.

But it wasn't six-fifteen when his host woke him. It was just after five.

"Must be Christmas," the detective said, clicking on the overhead light. He was wearing brown pajamas. "We got a present."

Gillette, like most hackers, felt that sleep should be avoided like the flu but he wasn't at his best upon waking. Eyes still closed, he muttered, "A present?"

"Triple-X called me on my cell phone five minutes ago. He's got Phate's real e-mail address. It's deathknell@mol.com."