Usual disclaimer: you know the drill

Dedication: this is dedicated to aniki19, koalared, laily, louise and brigitta. You guys asked me to write more, especially about Tess and Ernest. If you hadn't, this story would never have been written. Ask, and ye shall receive!

The Continuing Importance of Staying With Ernest

By OughtaKnowBetter

The trio of girls giggled, and pointed. Brennan Mulray sighed, and took another sip of his latte.

            "Isn't there an age limit for letting kids into coffee bars?" he grumbled. "There ought to be."

            "At least you get to be there," Jesse Kilmartin pointed out through the comm. ring. "Some of us have to stay back at Sanctuary, monitoring the sensors and keeping you out of trouble. Some of us have to be satisfied with plain old every day coffee to keep us awake."

            "Can we cut the chatter?" Lexa Pierce asked irritably. "We're on a mission. Try to act like it." She glared at the teeny-bopper trio, who giggled again. No doubt, Lexa presumed, they thought that Lexa was with Brennan. Not in this lifetime, chickie-poo's. Lexa had had enough of close relationships. Being around Mutant X was about all she could handle these days, and that with a bunch of corridors to keep between her and their whole 'we're a team' mentality. All your fault, Adam Kane. You taught them to care about each other. You tried to protect them from the realities of existence. Look where it got you: dead.

            "Cut 'em a break," Shalimar Fox advised, barely keeping the giggle out of her own voice. "We were all young once. Besides, it's Brennan they're drooling over, Lexa. Not you." She was seated at a back table where she could scan the entire coffee bar, back up if something went wrong. She'd already turned away several admirers of her own who had zoomed in on her sitting alone. She'd considered taking one's number—he looked something like approaching cute, and didn't treat her like a ditsy blonde—but reconsidered. As Lexa said, this was business. Fun could wait for a better time. "Oops, guys, heads up. Coming through the door is a guy who fits your description, Lex."

            Brennan oh-so-casually took a large swallow of his latte, reflecting wryly that it might be the last sip he got for a while. Leading an interesting life tended to cut coffee breaks short.

            Lexa had a bit more faith. She sipped daintily at hers, setting it down as the stranger joined them. The man was carefully nondescript, with mousy brown hair cut neatly across his forehead. Haunted brown eyes stared at them; the man was scared.

            "I shouldn't even be here," he moaned, sliding onto the empty stool. "If he finds out, he'll kill me."

            "So don't let him find out," Lexa told him, taking yet another sip. "Do you have them?"

            Still the man hesitated. "Not exactly."

            Lexa cocked her head, her voice taking on a knife blade's edge. "You say your boss will kill you if he finds out. Consider this: I'll kill you right now, right here and now, if you don't hand over the files I want."

            There was a moment of silence, while the man pondered her words.

            Brennan felt it was time to add his own two cents, try to slow things down a tad. "Now, now, Lexa. There are so many witnesses around. At least take him into the back alley before you kill him." Brennan knew that he himself couldn't do anything like that. But Lexa? He wasn't so certain. The light elemental had a ruthlessness that alternately horrified and amazed him. It was like playing with fire.

            The man flicked his eyes at Lexa, then at Brennan, then back to Lexa. The pair could almost see him visibly wilt. "All right. But listen, I couldn't get the files. I could only get their location."

            "And that is supposed to help us how?"

            "I couldn't get to them," the man begged. "They were too well guarded. He has two men on duty at all times, right in front of the door to his lab. And more guarding the entrance."

            "That's not what you told my people. You said you could get the plans."

            "I thought I could. I was wrong," he admitted. "Look, I just want out. I don't want to be a part of this any more. I want to give you the location, and in return, you help me disappear. Forever. That's the deal."

            "Deal?" Lexa drawled out the word. "I don't recall having any deal beyond 'we'll meet you here and you give us the files.' And right now I don't even see that."

            Jesse piped up through the comm. ring so that only the New Mutants could hear him. "See if you can get him to talk about the project."

            "Of course, it would help if we knew what you knew," Brennan suggested obediently. "Who, what, where; that sort of thing."

            "I only know a couple of the names, only partials," the man said eagerly, trying to get Brennan on his side. "The scientist is a Dr. Maguire."

            "First name?"

            "I don't know. We always call him Dr. Maguire. Not even Doc. Real scrawny type guy, little fringe of white hair around his ears and not much else. Yeah, and a goatee. He must've been in a fire not too long ago; one side of his face and his left arm are real red, like they got burned and haven't finished healing."

            "Sounds familiar," Jesse murmured into Brennan's ear. Lexa gave the elemental a sharp look, barely suppressing a frown.

            "Location?" she snapped.

            "A warehouse, down off of Second, near Lexington. It doesn't look like much, but inside it's high tech. A mad scientist's wet dream. It's his new lab. We moved there two weeks ago. I think he's still going to the old one every now and again, though."

            "Right." Lexa cut him off. "What's this Maguire character doing?"

            "I don't know exactly," the man said, "but believe me, I wouldn't want to be one of his victims."

            "Why not?"

            "It's the screams," the informant whispered, his face going ashen. "I've started hearing them in my sleep, in my nightmares. Listen, I'm not going back there. You have to—"

            "I don't have to do anything," Lexa hissed. "You're his head lab tech. Don't tell me that you don't know what he's doing. I don't believe you."

            "I don't!" the man wailed, wringing his hands. "Maguire doesn't trust anyone! Not even me. All I know is bits and pieces, and they don't seem to go together. Only his partner knows what this is all about."

            "What partner?" Brennan asked, before Jesse could nudge him to ask the same thing.

            "I don't know his name," the man admitted fearfully. "I've only seen him twice. Rich guy, keeps himself in shape. Not too tall, but broad shoulders. Dark hair."

            "That could describe half the men in this city," Lexa observed acidly, carefully neglecting the fact that two-thirds the men in the coffee bar alone were balding and overweight. "I want a name."

            "I tell you, I don't have a name to give you!" The man looked around fearfully. "I've been here too long already. If you won't help, then I'm on my own. I'm running, starting now." He stood up, sloshing Lexa's latte.

            Brennan put a hand on his arm to stop him. "We haven't said that we won't help you. Sit down."

            "No." The man glanced around him again. "I'm out of here."

            "We're going together," Brennan said. "We have a safe route out of the city. After that, you're on your own."

            "Not good enough," the man said. "If you want the whole story, I need more than a taxi cab ride."

            "We all have needs," Lexa said in an infuriatingly quiet tone. "We need more names, details of certain projects…"

            "I haven't got them."

            "Then neither do we—" Lexa said, when Brennan interrupted her. "We'll get you out of the city, to a safe house," he offered. "We can't do anything more."

            "You can go back to the lab and get the files," Lexa said, glaring at Brennan. The man paled.

            "No, he can't," Brennan said firmly. "Finish your drink. We're going."

            Shalimar took that as her own cue, back in the corner, to toss down the rest of her latte and saunter out ahead of the group to act as scout. She eyed the rest of the patrons as she exited, murmuring into her ring, "the teeny-bopper trio is gone."

            "Right," Jesse said across the comm. link. "Like they're going to be packing machine guns to blow this guy away. Shal, they're twelve-year olds."

            The informant came to a decision. "This is all I'm going to give you. You get me out of here, I'll tell you what I know about Maguire's project. But not until then." He glared at Lexa. "You kill me, you'll never know."

            "Deal," Brennan said, before Lexa could offer any more threats. He drained his cup and stood up. "Let's go."

            The sidewalk was bright with sunshine, casual afternoon shoppers dawdling along and casting covetous looks into the store windows. Personally, Brennan couldn't see the attraction in the antique broken vase going for thirty times what it sold for in 1910, but, as P.T. Barnum said, there's one born every minute. He and Lexa kept their informant carefully sequestered between the two of them, scanning the area for trouble. Brennan had already lost sight of Shalimar, but knew that she wasn't far away.

            "Where are we going?" the informant wanted to know.

            "Safe house." Brennan didn't offer any more information. "So, what's this guy Maguire working on? Walk and talk, guy."

            The informant threw him a sour look. "Genetic research. What else?"

            "How about a little more clarity, buddy? What kind of genetic research?"

            "How far are we from this safe house of yours?"

            "'Bout a mile."

            "Okay." The informant gave in. "He's got at least two projects going. Rich guy knows about the tech-ie one. Collar thing, that makes mutant powers more powerful." Brennan stiffened. Lexa threw him a questioning glance, but the elemental shook his head briefly: later.

The informant continued without noticing. "Then he's got something going with pre-natal work, some kind of side-line that he won't let anybody else touch. I'm not involved in that, and grateful for it! Even Maguire says that's scary stuff, and I'm plenty scared by his tech experiments."

            "Anything else?" Lexa prompted.

            "Don't know. Maguire sneaks out late at night sometimes, comes back either snarling or humming to himself. He's up to something, but I don't know what it is. Don't think rich guy knows, either."

            "You could find out—" Lexa started to say when Shalimar interrupted them over the comm. ring.

            "Get down!"

            Neither mutant waited for a second invitation. Brennan grabbed the man and flung him behind a massive concrete pot that contained an anemic tree trying to bring out leaves in response to spring. Shots rang out, dusting the pavement. Shards jumped into the air. Passersby screamed and ran.

            Lexa crouched beside them. "I think we'd better disappear. Literally." She took Brennan's hand, and reached for the informant's.

            "No!" he screamed. "You can't save me! You lied to me!" Panic-stricken, he jumped up and ran.

            "Get back here!" Brennan yelled, springing to his feet. More shots hurtled past him, and he ducked automatically.

            "Stay here," Lexa ordered, and vanished. Brennan not quite saw a wavering heat signature scuttle off in pursuit of the informant. He tried again to follow, but more bullets whistled past his head.

            "Shal?" he asked his comm. ring.

            "Rooftop," came her reply. "I'm almost there."

            "Hurry it up. Our boy is getting away." One more peek, and more bullets. Brennan pulled his head back, wishing heartily that Lexa had taken him with her. He heard frantic car horns—Brennan guessed that the informant had decided to run across a busy street—and the screeling of burning rubber as heavy feet stomped on brakes. A few screams accompanied the noise, and Brennan cursed under his breath. He debated trying to make a run for it.

            "You're clear, Brennan. The sniper took a powder." Shalimar's voice was angry, then took on a note of amazement. "Brennan, there were three of them up here, all women. Damn. They could have been your teeny-bopper trio. But they're gone now."

            "And so is our informant." Lexa materialized back beside Brennan. "He's dead. Ran into the street, truck mowed him down. Not the driver's fault. Let's go, before the police arrive and want statements that we don't want to give." This time she did take Brennan's hand, and the pair vanished in front of astonished onlookers hiding inside the stores staring at the dead body lying crumpled in front of a delivery truck. The driver had emerged from the truck cab, almost in tears.

*          *          *

            "Second and Lexington." Jesse's fingers danced over the computer keyboard as he spoke into the communications channel. Here at Sanctuary, he didn't need to use the ring. "Owned by a corporation by the name of Gene-Wright Industries. Clever pun. Hah. Who wants to bet that Gene-Wright is a fictitious company that Wall Street never heard of?"

            "Sucker bet, Jess. What else have you got?"

            "Precious little. The certificate of occupancy for the warehouse says two or three stories high with six exits. No floor plans that I can find. Ah, here we go. Lots of invoices, for lab equipment, bio equipment. Even a couple of hospital beds. Now what do you think Dr. Maguire would want with hospital beds?"

            "Experimenting on a few mutants, perhaps?" Lexa asked with acid in her voice.

            "Give the lady the prize. We have a moderate quantity of phlebotomy equipment making its way into the afore-mentioned warehouse, presumably for taking blood specimens from the victims that your informant mentioned. Hm." Jesse turned grim. "Tech toys. Gene experimentation. Brennan, Shal, does the name Maguire ring any bells for you. Like, year old bells?"

            "He's dead," Brennan said flatly. "Absalom Maguire died in the fire."

            "No body was ever found," Shalimar put in. "We all just assumed that he died, and that his ashes were mixed in with the destruction of his lab." They could hear the shuddering in her voice. All of the New Mutants had almost died in that same fire.

            "Somebody want to fill me in?" Lexa asked. "We're supposed to be a team, you know."

            Brennan gave her a baleful look. "Keep reminding me, Lexa. I guess I forgot that we were a team when you ordered us out on this mission without telling us where your intel came from."

            Lexa flushed. "That's different."

            "Really? You'll have to explain the difference to me some day."

            "It was about a year ago," Jesse put in, cutting off the argument. "We met up with a little girl named Tess Maguire and her brother Ernest. Ernest is a molecular, like me, and Tess—well, Tess is what you might call a psionic vampire. She can take a 'charge' from any mutant she touches and acquire his powers for a while."

            "I take it you think that these kids belong to this Dr. Maguire."

            "Not any more. They ran away. We picked them up, and they're currently living out in the country with an old friend of Adam's." Jesse couldn't help the twinge of regret on speaking the dead man's name. "I e-speak with them every now and again; check up on them. Ernest says he's getting better control over his powers. Says he even slipped out of his room one night and played around the neighborhood for an hour before Granny Esther caught up with him."

            "More family? Will Maguire try to hook up with them?"

            "Not family, no. Lady Esther took the kids in, adopted them so that Tess and Ernest could grow up in peace and quiet."

            "At least as much peace and quiet as any mutant could have," Shalimar inserted.

            "Like normal kids," Jesse said firmly. "And, no, I don't see any reason for Maguire to want his kids back. He was only interested in mutants and what he could do with them."

            "But his kids are mutants," Lexa pointed out.

            "Tess burned down his warehouse," Brennan told her. "No, Maguire isn't going to be interested in finding his kids again."

            "I'm not convinced. Jesse, contact those kids. Find out if they've seen their father."

            "They haven't," Jesse protested. "Believe me, Lexa, if they had, Tess or Ernest would have been yelling for help."

            "Contact them," Lexa said firmly.

*          *          *

            "Why is it," Brennan asked, his teeth gritted, "that things crawl out from underneath rocks whenever you're around?" A bolt of electricity shot out from Brennan's fingertips, knocking his six foot three opponent off of his feet and into a convenient brick wall. The opponent slid down the face of the wall to land in an ungainly heap.

            "You're just saying that because you care." The black-haired girl beside him sent off her own bolt, hers a stream of highly-charged photons. Another of the six humanoid steam-rollers went down under the onslaught. Lexa Pierce, newest member of the somewhat diminished version of the New Mutants, could hold her own against any three men.

            Unfortunately, there were still ten opponents left.

            "Less talk, more action," the third member of their troop advised, putting her own words to good use. Shalimar Fox, the feral of the group, bounded off of that same brick wall and knocked heads together. Scratch two more. "Do I have to do all of the work?"

            Far from the scene, safely hidden away but frustrated at not being part of the action, Jesse Kilmartin scanned the sensors bouncing off the satellites high in the sky. "Guys, I show four more bogies coming in on you from the south, and a duo escaping on foot from the north side of the building. I wouldn't want anyone to take me seriously," and the sarcasm was flowing heavily, "but nine'll get you ten that Lexa's files are migrating north along with the pair of escapees."

            "They're not my files," Lexa snarled. The next blast from her fingertips was a little bit hotter than usual. "At least, not yet."

            "Ooh, touchy are we?" Jesse observed. "Yes, we definitely have an escapee." His voice changed timbre, becoming more serious. "Guys, our target is moving more quickly. And the pair has," Jesse checked another screen, "yes, they are now in a dark black sedan, heading north by northwest, license plate B as in Boy, B as in Boy…Damn. Lost them."

            "Find them!" Lexa hissed. "How many dark black sedans could there be in this section of town?"

            "I'm looking at six right now, Lex. And there's an intersection up ahead."

            Her wordless growl was accompanied by a last blast of light. It didn't do any good; their remaining opponents had vanished into the back alleys. Their work was done: the New Mutants had been distracted long enough for the target to get away. The opponents gathered up their fallen comrades and moved on.

            None of the New Mutants tried to stop them. It wouldn't have done any good; clearly the men were low level flunkies and interrogating them a waste of time and energy better spent elsewhere.

            Shalimar sauntered back to the other two. "So? Where to now?"

            Lexa started to glare, then thought better of it. It wasn't Shalimar's fault that the target had not been acquired. Mutant X had been out-maneuvered. "Back to Sanctuary," she ordered. "Jesse, see if you can track down the partial license plate. Have you heard from those Maguire kids yet?"

            Brennan and Shalimar exchanged glances. Brennan's expression clearly had the who-died-and-made-you-boss? look to it. But he sighed, and shrugged; not worth arguing over. Not today.

            Which was a good thing, because the next thing he knew, he was diving for the ground, dodging a haze of bullets.

            "Hey!" he protested. "The fight's over!"

            "Tell them that." Shalimar pointed up at the far rooftop. "Coming from there."

            "Going from there." Brennan twisted a flurry of electrons between his fingers, and aimed it at the rooftop. The lightening rod behind the snipers absorbed the power, shuttling it safely into the ground. Brennan cursed.

            "They know who we are," Shalimar realized, "and what we are."

            "But not where we are." Lexa vanished, bending the evening lamppost light around her so that no one could see her progress.

            No one, that is, except Shalimar. Feral senses turned up high, she followed the heat signature into the building.

            But she knew it would do no good. The snipers, like Elvis, had already left the building.

*          *          *

            "Guys, we have a problem," Jesse announced as the three mutants walked into the computer room of Sanctuary, still disheveled and angry from the failed mission. The warehouse that the dead informant had pointed them to had been cleaned out, with a bomb set to go off and remove all the remaining evidence. It had worked: Brennan discovered its existence just in time to get the three of them out and away from danger. They had watched their lead go up in flames, doused by powerful water hoses that hastily summoned firemen deployed to prevent the blaze from spreading.

            "You're telling me," Lexa growled. "We lost our informant, we lost the warehouse, we have no leads, and I need a shower."

            "No argument there," Brennan said. "What's the problem, Jess?"

            "I just e-talked to Ernest. They're in trouble."

            "Maguire showed up?" Lexa leaned forward eagerly.

            "Nothing so straightforward. Lady Esther's in the hospital. Ernest is kind of dancing around what's wrong with her, but it sounds like a mini-stroke. Tess has run away, Ernest is staying with a neighbor, and the local authorities are trying to put him in a foster home until Lady Esther comes home."

            "Recipe for disaster," was Shalimar's opinion. "What are the foster parents going to say when Ernest phases out in front of them?"

            "We've got more important things to do," Lexa said. "I appreciate that the kids need help, but that's what the authorities are there for. They'll take care of them. If Dr. Maguire hasn't contacted them, then we don't need to go running." She looked from one stony face to the other. "You're not serious."

            "Dead serious, Lex," Jesse assured her. "Tess saved my life. If it weren't for her, I'd be sitting in a little cremation urn on the mantelpiece."

            "Sanctuary hasn't got a mantelpiece."

            "Lucky me. I could be in a plant pot. Lexa, I mean it. If Tess and Ernest are in trouble, we owe it to them to go."

            Lexa folded her arms. "You go. I'm staying here and working on this mission."

            "Sounds good to me. I'll see you in a few days." Jesse started shutting down the computer.

            "Just like that? You're going?"

            "Yup."

            "So am I," Shalimar chimed in.

            "Me, too," said Brennan.

            Lexa's expression tightened. Jesse hid his own smile, and said, "thanks, guys, but maybe Lexa's right. Maybe we don't all have to go. After all, how hard can it be to straighten out a couple of kids for a few days?"

*          *          *

            "After all, how hard can it be to straighten out a couple of kids?"

            The social worker's face took on that polite, you-don't-know-what-you're-letting-yourself-in-for look, and smiled graciously. "It's a pleasure to see relatives stepping up in time of need, Mr. Kilmartin. Their grandmother will be so pleased, and this will certainly spur her recovery in the hospital. I'm sure that your niece and nephew will be very grateful to have you around. However, I must warn you that your niece has been missing for several days. The police have been notified and are looking, but we have concerns that she may have been kidnapped."

            "Nope," Ernest piped up. "She ran away. Without me," he added with a flash of resentment. "She never did that before."

            Ernest had grown in the intervening year, Jesse realized. The scrawny ten year old of last year had started into his adolescent growth spurt, with his tousled brown hair almost up to Jesse's chin. The shoulders were beginning to square up, and his feet had outgrown every other part of him. Ernest was on his way to rivaling Brennan for height, though Jesse suspected that it would still take the kid several years to get there.

            Jesse raised his eyebrows. "You know where she is, Ernest?"

            "Nope. Well, maybe. She wasn't there yesterday."

            "But—?"

            "It's where she always goes when she's upset."

            "Is Theresa upset, Ernest?" Mrs. Pettigrew asked. "Why is she upset?"

            "She's not upset," Ernest hastily denied. "She's not."

            Jesse gently pulled Ernest over to him, turning back to Mrs. Pettigrew. "I think it might be best if Ernest and I did some looking for Tess. I'll call you when I find her. Hopefully it won't be too long. Right, Ernest?"

            Ernest looked doubtful. "Yeah."

            But it worked well enough that the social worker left. Jesse wasted no time in sitting Ernest down in the parlor, making them both comfortable on the sofa. "So?"

            Ernest trusted Jesse implicitly. Jesse was the one who had taught Ernest how to control his powers, who had saved Ernest's own life with Tess's help when Ernest was literally fading away. Ernest had worked with Jesse one on one for several weeks before moving in with Lady Esther who was posing as his grandmother.

Adam had thought that the adoption would be an ideal solution for the two young mutants. Lady Esther herself possessed a minor psionic talent, though not enough to make her the target of any black ops organization. Putting the three of them out in a country house far from the city was a dream come true for not only Tess and Ernest but Lady Esther as well. Ernest learned to trust Jesse and his control over his molecular power, and Tess learned from Lady Esther that an adult could be trusted.

            That trust came through now. "Tess ran away 'cause she didn't want to hurt anybody," Ernest explained. "I thought that she'd go to The Rock, but when I went to find her, she wasn't there."

            Maybe it made perfect sense to the eleven year old, but not to Jesse. "Back up, buddy," he said. "Why would Tess be hurting anyone? What was happening?"

            Ernest explained. "It was her powers. You guys all called it her vampire powers and laughed, but it wasn't funny anymore. Not in the last month or so. Tess started to need to get a charge from a mutant, or she started getting sick. I tried to give her a charge from me every now and again, but you know what does to you."

            Jesse did. When he'd first met Tess, when she'd needed a 'charge' from Jesse to give to Ernest for a temporary cure, she'd knocked Jesse out for almost two days. It hadn't been deliberate; it was just a side effect from having all his power drained out in a split second. Tess had been able to moderate the power drain after that, but Jesse still remembered spending a lot of time flat on his back recuperating from Tess's 'charge' that she took in order to help Ernest stay alive. She'd 'borrowed' Jesse's ability to phase in order to solidify Ernest's own body, and did it several times more under Adam's supervision until Adam had been able to devise a cure for the boy.

            "That was very brave of you," he said. "Was it enough?"

            "Nope," Ernest admitted. "She couldn't help it. She made me sick when she tried to take even a little. So Tess stopped trying. Said she wouldn't take a charge off of me. Then Granny Esther told her to take a charge from her, and Tess did, and then Granny got sick and went to the hospital."

            "Not a mini-stroke, I take it," Jesse said.

            "No, but I couldn't tell the doctors that. Besides, who'd listen to me? So I went to stay with Jacob and his mom and dad. But they got worried because Tess wouldn't come home, so they called Mrs. Pettigrew. And I couldn't get hold of you 'cause I couldn't remember your e-mail address. I had to wait until they let me come home for some clothes to sneak onto the computer to call you from the address book."

            "You did the right thing," Jesse reassured the boy. "Now, let's go see if we can't persuade Tess to come home."

            "She won't come," Ernest warned.

            "We'll just have to try harder, won't we?"

*          *          *

            "I'm going blind from looking at the computer screen all day long," Shalimar complained. "Isn't this how people develop the need for glasses?"

            "You'd look great in glasses, Shalimar," Brennan lied. He leaned back in his chair and stretched. "I never appreciated Jesse enough, doing all this computer research for us."

            "Less chatter, more research," Lexa said, peering at her own screen. "Have you narrowed down that partial license plate yet?"

            "Do you know how many black sedans there are with a license plate with the letters 'BB' in them?"

            "Yes." Lexa pointed to the computer screen. "Six hundred fifty two. I have eliminated fifty-three of them by checking the registration. Those fifty-three belong to women. We want the one that belongs to our informant's rich man with the dark hair. Keep looking."

            "There's got to be an easier way to go about this," Brennan groaned.

            "I'm open to suggestions. When you come up with one, let me know. Sitting here while Absalom Maguire gets farther and farther away is not my idea of efficiency."

            "Actually, I do," Shalimar said. The other two looked at her in surprise. "What, I can't come up with a good idea?"

            "Of course, you can, Shal, it's just that—"

            "Give me the dumb blonde routine, Mulray, and I'll hand you your ears in a hat box." Shalimar indicated her computer screen. "While the two of you were trying to track down Jesse's black sedan, I ran a check on our dead informant. Peter O'Hare, lately employed by Gene-Wright Industries, ran up a lot of credit card debt. Want to know where he spent his money?"

            "Hopefully not on a wife and kids. They'd have a tough time coping, now that he's gone."

            "Nope. Better than that. He ran up quite a tab at a small bar a few miles outside of town. I'm getting expenditures almost every weeknight, at least three out of five and a whopper on Friday nights. Now our Peter lived on the other side of town, no where near this bar. The warehouse that burned down was no where near this bar. Why do you suppose that he went there to unwind?"

            "Maybe he liked the waitresses."

            "Or maybe he used to work near there. Didn't he say that Maguire had moved to his present location only a couple of weeks ago? There's an industrial park near this bar. It would be easy for Maguire to have set up shop there. And it's north of here."

            "It's a long shot." Lexa turned back to her computer.

            "So's the black sedan," Brennan shot back. He grinned. "You sit here, going blind tracking down your sedan. Shal and I'll check out this bar."

            Lexa scowled. "Just remember, this is business. Think about that as you're ordering your beers."