Part 3 (1/2)

”Fine and bored,” the boy added. ”Except for that panhandler, we haven't found anyone to talk to. Things were better last night.”

”Do you think we should try somewhere else?” Elisha asked.

The vagrant spoke into his collar, ”How does it look to you, Sarah?”

At the other end of the block, in the back of a large van, Sarah sat before an impressive bench of electronic gear and radio receivers, monitoring the conversation, a headset to her ear. ”We might try under the overpa.s.s again. The people at the youth shelter say a lot of runaway kids congregate there on the weekends after it gets late.”

Elisha pa.s.sed the word along.

Elijah looked at his watch. ”It's 11:07 and 40 seconds.”

Elisha smiled. Her brother was proud of his extremely accurate watch. ”I think it's getting late.”

Nate responded, ”Are you kids ready for another night under the overpa.s.s?”

Elisha made a face despite herself. ”Working on it.” She told her brother, ”They're talking about another night under the overpa.s.s.”

”Well, hopefully we'll meet a different bunch,” Elijah offered, ”somebody who might know something.”

”It's just hard to-Whoa, just a minute. Somebody's coming.”

Elijah tried to look without looking. He saw her, too. ”I think she's looking at us.”

While Elijah and Elisha acted indifferent and preoccupied, Nate could see the woman they were referring to. She was a young and pretty redhead, and obviously not a runaway or vagrant; she was dressed casually, but dressed well in dark slacks, woolly red sweater, light jacket, and pricey running shoes.

”She's looking at us, all right,” Elisha reported.

”Hi,” said the woman, and Nate and Sarah could hear her voice over their kids' radios.

”Hi,” Elisha responded in the dull tone of a glum, leave-mealone teenager.

The woman knelt down to Elisha's eye level, and offered a business card. ”I'm Margaret Jones. I work with the Light of Day Youth Shelter, just a few blocks from here.” She looked toward Elijah. ”Is he with you?”

Elisha shot her brother a sideways glance and shrugged. ”I don't know. He's just sitting there and I'm sitting here.”

She addressed both of them. ”Well, if you need a place to stay tonight, we have rooms. We'll give you a good hot meal, a shower if you like, and your own room with your own bed, no questions asked.”

Elijah asked, ”What's the catch?”

”No catch. We're a charitable organization, we've been working the streets for nine years, and all we really want to do is get you off the street where you'll be safe and have some shelter.”

Elijah, staying in character, gave a cynical sneer. ”You're not the Living Way Youth Shelter? We've already been there.”

The woman laughed apologetically and added, ”No, no, we're somebody else, just a bunch of do-gooders, trying to help kids in trouble. You may like us, you may not, but at least you'll have a room for the night.” She held out another business card.

Elijah accepted it with a shrug, then read it out loud. ”Margaret Jones, Light of Day Youth Shelter, 203 Miller Street. Shelter, rescue, counseling.”

Sarah entered the name and address on a laptop computer. ”I'm not getting any matches. I thought Living Way was the only youth shelter around here.”

Nate carefully eyed the woman talking to his kids, thinking it over: no matches in the computer; no record of this particular youth shelter; a pleasant, nonthreatening woman with business cards.

It could be perfectly legitimate, or it could be a very sly trap. He spoke into his collar, ”This could be it. Let's take it slow, one step at a time, and check it out.”

Chapter 3: Truth and Soup.

'm ready and willing,” Elisha replied.

”It beats another night on the street,” Elijah conceded, taking his sister's cue.

Margaret Jones thought they were talking to her. ”Great! Come on, I'll walk you there.” She started up the street at a leisurely pace and the kids followed her. ”It can get rough out here. Not too many people who believe in Right and Wrong. You know what I mean?”

”Yeah,” Elisha answered.

”Sure,” said Elijah.

”But it looks like you two trust each other, and that's the start of friends.h.i.+p right there, doing right by our friends. You know what I'm talking about? Do you think there's a right and there's a wrong?”

They came to an intersection and turned right, heading up the hill.

”They've turned right on Spencer,” Nate reported, walking a block behind them.

Sarah was behind the wheel and driving the van, watching a moving map on the dashboard linked with a GPS receiver. ”Miller's three blocks north of Spencer on Second. I'll check it out.” She turned up Spencer and drove right by her kids as they walked with Margaret Jones.

Margaret Jones kept on talking, but there was something strangely ”rehea.r.s.ed” about it as if she was driving at something. ”Some kids grow up going to church, things like that, and they seem to have a pretty good sense of right and wrong. Were either of you raised in church?”

Go with the flow, Elisha thought. ”I was.”

”Did you like it?”

”Sure.”

”Do you believe in G.o.d?”

”Sure. I'm a Christian.”

Margaret Jones was delighted. ”You are? Well, that says a lot, doesn't it? I'll bet you're a very honest person then.”

”I try to be.”

”That's great. How about you ... uh, what should I call you? You don't have to use your real name.”

”Call me Jerry”

'Jerry, how about you? Do you believe in G.o.d?”

”Absolutely”