* * *

"Any problems, Joe?" he asked as they slid into the back seat of the car.

"Nope," he replied cheerfully as he slammed down on the accelerator and sent the car barreling down the runway in his habitual race-car driver fashion. "I got here an hour ago and located Julie Mathison's house. There were a bunch of kids' bicycles in the front yard."

Meredith clutched Matt's arm for balance and rolled her eyes in amused resignation at Joe's daredevil driving. To distract herself from the gravel flying from beneath the car's spinning tires as they shot out onto the highway, she picked up their earlier conversation in the plane: "What sort of instructions did Zack give you about Julie Mathison?"

Removing the folded missive from his coat pocket, Matt glanced at the first few lines and said dryly, "Among other things, I am to take careful notice of how she looks and ascertain whether she seems to have lost weight or lost sleep."

Zack Benedict's unusual concern for his former hostage registered instantly on Meredith and softened her attitude toward him. "How can you know that by looking at her? You don't know how she looked before she spent a week with him."

"I can only assume the stress that Zack has been under has finally worn him down." Forcing himself not to show how badly he felt about that, Matt continued lightly. "You're going to love the next item on this list. I am also supposed to discover whether or not she is pregnant."

"By looking at her?" Meredith exclaimed as Joe slowed and turned onto a tree-lined residential street.

"No, I think I'm supposed to ask her, which is why I'm so delighted you volunteered to come with me. If she denies she's pregnant, I am to let Zack know whether or not I believe her."

"Unless she's used some sort of early pregnancy test, she may not know that herself. It's only been three weeks since she left him in Colorado." Meredith pulled on her gloves as Joe O'Hara brought the car to a teeth-jarring stop in front of a neat one-story ranch-style house where little boys were getting on their bicycles and pedaling away. "To be this concerned, he must feel very deeply about her, Matt."

"What he feels is guilt," Matt predicted flatly, getting out of the car, "and responsibility. Zack always took his responsibilities very seriously." As they started up the sidewalk, two little boys in wheelchairs came shooting out the side door and down a ramp onto the driveway, howling with laughter, with a pretty young woman in hot pursuit.

"Johnny!" she called, laughing too as she raced after the child, "give that back!" The boy called Johnny executed a nifty wheelie on the driveway, waving a spiral-bound notebook in the air, keeping it just out of her reach, while his companion neatly used his own wheelchair to run interference for him. Matt and Meredith stopped, watching the exuberant interplay as a laughing Julie Mathison tried unsuccessfully to outmaneuver the boys' joint defense.

"All right," Julie called, plunking her fists on her hips, unaware of her adult visitors, "you win, you monsters! No quiz tomorrow. Now give back my grade book." With a triumphant shout, Johnny handed over the book. "Thank you," Julie said, taking it and affectionately yanking his knit cap down over his ears and eyes while he laughed and shoved it up. She bent down in front of the other grinning boy and zipped his jacket up under his chin, then she rumpled his red hair. "You're getting awfully good with those blocking maneuvers Tim. Don't forget them in the game next Saturday, okay?"

"Okay, Miss Mathison."

Julie turned to watch them wheel off down the driveway, and that was when she saw the well-dressed couple standing near the curb in front of her house. They started forward, and Julie wrapped her arms around herself in the chilly wind, smiling politely as she waited for them, thinking that they both looked vaguely familiar in the deepening twilight.

"Miss Mathison," the man said, returning her smile with one of his own, "I'm Matthew Farrell, and this is my wife, Meredith." At close range, Meredith Farrell was as beautiful as her husband was handsome, as blond as he was dark, and her smile was just as warm as his.

"Are you alone?" he asked, glancing toward the house.

Julie stiffened with alarmed suspicion. "Are you reporters? Because if you are, I've—"

"I'm a friend of Zack's," he interrupted quietly.

Julie's heart slammed into her ribs. "Please," she said quickly, reeling with shock and excitement, "come inside."

She took them in the back door, through her kitchen where copper pots and pens hung from pegs on the wall and into the living room.

"This is very pretty," Meredith Farrell said, relinquishing her coat and looking around at the airy room with its white wicker furniture, bright green and blue plaid pillows, and potted trees and plants thriving in the corners

Julie tried to smile, but as she took Matt's coat, she blurted desperately, "Is Zack all right?"

"As far as I know, he's fine."

She relaxed a little, but it was hard to be a polite hostess when all she wanted to know was why they'd come, and at the same time she wanted desperately to prolong their visit because Matt Farrell was his friend, and in a way, that brought Zack right here, into her house. "Would you like a glass of wine or some coffee?" she asked over her shoulder as she hung their coats in her front closet and they sat down on the sofa.

"Coffee would be lovely," the woman said, and her husband nodded.

Julie made coffee in record time, put cups and saucers on a tray, and returned to the living room so quickly that both her guests smiled at her, as if they understood and appreciated her dilemma. "I'm awfully nervous for some reason," she admitted with a choked laugh, putting the tray on the table in front of them and rubbing her palms against her thighs. "But I'm … I'm very glad you've come. I'll get the coffee as soon as it's ready."

"You weren't a bit nervous," Matt Farrell remarked admiringly, "when you confronted the world on television and tried, very successfully, I think, to sway them into Zack's corner."

The warmth in his eyes and voice made her feel as if she'd done something wonderful and courageous. "I hope all Zack's friends feel that way."

"Zack doesn't have many friends anymore," he said flatly. "On the other hand," he added with a slight smile, "with a champion like you behind him, he doesn't need many friends."

"How long have you known him?" Julie asked as she sat down in a chair at right angles to the sofa.