In mid-March, the Caffrey siblings, their spouses, and their children filled the living room of Trent's D.C. townhouse to capacity. It was rare for all three siblings to be in town at the same time. They wanted to hang out together, and Trent Lombard had volunteered to babysit their children so the adults could have some grownup quality time. Or in other words, hit some bars. It was Saint Patrick's Day after all, and Caffrey was an Irish name.

"You're sure about this?" David asked one more time. Like his sisters, he had dark hair and green eyes. "I can't believe any bachelor in his right mind wants to watch these kids. I mean, my little girl's an angel, but the boys are almost as evil as their mothers were growing up."

"Yeah, I'm sure. You know that hot kindergarten teacher who keeps refusing to go out with me? She finally said she's only interested in men who want a family, and she sees me as just a party guy. You should have seen her expression when I mentioned what I'm doing tonight."

David's grin showed he understood and approved. His sisters, Noelle and Meredith, chattered advice and warnings at about a hundred miles an hour. Trent kept nodding until he could close the door behind them.

He felt a brief moment of doubt after turning around to face the kids. He couldn't remember being that small. They seemed almost alien. He could still see the reaction of Polly, the hot kindergarten teacher. Her expression of amazement that he was going to watch three children had been followed by peals of laughter. But he shook off the doubt. Everyone said David was great with the kids, and Trent could master anything his best friend could do.

The oldest, five-year-old Henry, was already exploring the living room. Fortunately his mother had moved anything breakable or swallowable beyond his reach before she left. The kid seemed intent on picking up and inspecting everything Trent owned. It struck Trent how much Henry and his cousins contrasted with the townhouse. The space was basically beige and medium brown, with light carpets and walls and dark cabinetry. Even the sofa and ottoman were brown leather. Trent faded into the space, with his blond hair, brown eyes and neutral wardrobe. But the kids introduced a world of color.

Henry's hair was brown, his eyes hazel, and his clothing red and black. The other two had even darker hair with mahogany highlights. They also wore primary colors. The youngest wore yellow and green, her eyes green like David's. The middle cousin wore shades of blue and had his father's blue eyes.

Nine-month-old Angela sat on the sofa with a stuffed animal that appeared to be a bunny with one ear torn off. She threw the bunny on the floor. Then she looked at Trent. He looked back. She screamed louder than a fighter jet.

Trent jumped. "Jesus!" Of all the kids, Angela scared him the most. What did he know about babies? Mostly that David would kill him if any harm came to his angel. Talk about false advertising. Who called a screaming kid angel?

The middle child picked up the bunny and placed it in Angela's lap. She shook the poor toy by its remaining ear and was silent again.

Neal would turn three in a few days. This kid was Trent's godchild. Trent wasn't Catholic and hadn't really understood what being a godfather meant until he was at the christening, where a priest asked him to make vows to look out for the infant in Meredith's arms. It had sounded daunting at first, but Meredith and James had everything under control. Neal hadn't needed anything from Trent, yet.

But this evening, something had seemed off. Like maybe Meredith and James had been fighting. And Robert and James, cops from Baltimore and D.C. respectively, hadn't been as friendly as usual. Trent would have to ask David what was going on, in case it was time to step up as godfather to Neal. Trent wasn't sure what that would entail, but trusted that David would know.

The bunny landed at his feet.

"Pick up," Neal said.

The screaming resumed. This time it sounded like one of the companions on Doctor Who facing the monster of the week. Trent grabbed the bunny and gave it back to Angela. When she was quiet again he asked, "Why does she throw it away if she wants it?"

"Game." Neal shrugged, a surprisingly eloquent gesture that seemed to add, it's a stupid game but what could you expect of a baby? Then he turned to watch Henry, and his face lit up with admiration.

Trent followed Neal's gaze. "Holy sh- " He stopped himself from saying something he was sure the parents wouldn't approve of. Henry was climbing up the bookshelves, and Trent jumped over to pry the kid off the middle shelf. Any higher and he would have made the unit top heavy and brought it crashing down. "No climbing!" he told Henry.

Henry narrowed his eyes and pouted. This was not a happy camper. But before Trent could do anything about it, Angela started screaming again. When Trent had returned the bunny to the sofa, the cessation of screaming allowed him to hear the grunt of a small child. Henry was putting all his strength into pushing a massive ottoman toward the bookshelf. "Whoa," Trent said, plucking Henry up to sit beside him on the ottoman. Trent put a restraining arm around the boy and stared up at the shelves. "What is it you want up there?"

"Candy!"

Yeah, there was a bowl of colorfully wrapped chocolates up there. You could smell them when you stood next to the bookshelves. "Stay here." Trent grabbed the bowl. When he sat back down beside Henry he said, "You can have one." Henry picked up and rejected several chocolates, finally keeping one wrapped in red.

When the not-an-angel started screaming again, Trent placed the bowl on the coffee table and retrieved the bunny. "Neal's right. We need to teach you a better game." And then it hit Trent that he didn't see the middle cousin. He spun around. "Where's Neal?" he asked Henry, who now had a smear of chocolate on his right hand and right cheek.

"Hide 'n seek," Henry said in a tone that implied Trent was being dense. The little boy hopped down from the ottoman and stood with his hands on his hips, looking around the room with a serious expression so much like Henry's dad often wore that Trent struggled not to laugh. The five-year-old detective was on the case of the missing cousin. "Hmm," said Henry as he pulled back a set of curtains.

"Hmm," repeated Trent when he felt the cold breeze. One of those windows had been opened. He reached through and grabbed a wriggling boy, pulled him inside and closed and locked the window. "No going outside," he told Neal severely.

The child simply gave Trent an irresistible grin and said, "Your turn."

"What?" Trent asked.

"Now you hide," Henry explained. "And we find you."

"Wait. Were you..." Trent trailed off. How paranoid would it be to think that Henry's pursuit of the chocolate had been intended as a distraction while Neal slipped away? Kids their age didn't strategize like that. Right? Noelle had said something about the boys being particularly bright, but every mom thought her kid was brilliant.

Angela screamed. "I gotta take care of Angela first," Trent said. "Then we can play again." Returning the bunny, Trent noticed the little girl seemed more subdued this time. He pulled a blanket out of the massive bag of stuff that had been left for the kids. If he wrapped it around her, would she fall asleep?

###

"You didn't feed her?" asked Neal in Hughes' office. For some reason he couldn't name, he felt appalled at the notion.

Trent laughed. "Even as it occurred to me that my life would be much more peaceful if Angela fell asleep, Henry insisted I had to feed her first."

"Did you remember that, Neal?" Peter asked. "It seems like too much of a coincidence otherwise."

"How could I remember anything from that age?" Neal countered. "No one has memories of being that young, unless something traumatic happened. I can't believe Angela's sporadic screaming traumatized me."

"I was feeling traumatized before the night was over," Trent said. "Let me skip forward a bit."

###

Feeding Angela was an experience Trent never wanted to repeat. She spit out more than she swallowed. At least she wasn't screaming. She laughed and giggled and seemed to think it was great fun. Sure. She wasn't the one who had to scrub down the table, the countertop, the floor, and two cabinet doors. Trent had just changed her into clean clothes when Henry rushed into the kitchen, his face a picture of misery. He held his stomach and threw up all over the kitchen floor.

Trent had never been so elated to have linoleum.

He laid a sleepy Angela down on the sofa, and noticed the candy bowl was completely empty, surrounded by more than a dozen empty wrappers.

He pulled out the cowboy pajamas Henry's mom had left, comforted the sobbing boy, and scrubbed the kitchen floor again. Two of the kids had made a mess of the floor. Trent wondered if Neal was going to put him through it again. Last he remembered, the middle cousin was busy with a coloring book on the living room floor. Maybe he'd draw over the linoleum.

With Henry dozing on the opposite side of the sofa from Angela, Trent looked around for Neal. The coloring book lay abandoned on the floor, and the boy was nowhere to be seen. Immediately Trent double checked that the front door and windows were closed and locked. Then he looked everyplace he thought a child could hide. He even dashed upstairs, checking closets, under the beds, in the bathtub. But the kid had vanished.

How on earth was he supposed to tell Meredith and James that he'd lost their son? He was a terrible godfather.

Desperate, he swallowed his pride, kneeled beside the sofa and shook Henry's shoulder. "Come on, kid. I know you're tired, but you have to tell me: where is Neal?"

Henry mumbled, "Thas cheating." Then he turned his face into the sofa pillow.

"No, I'm not cheating. Look at me, Henry." When the boy opened his eyes, Trent said. "I give up. Neal wins. Now you have to tell me where he is."

Henry wearily lifted an arm and pointed.

"The dining room? I looked there."

Henry let his arm fall and yawned. "Door."

There was a door in the dining room that led to the garage. Trent had already checked that it was still locked. But then he really looked at the door. The last people to rent this townhouse owned a large dog, and had installed a dog door in the house-to-garage door. Trent didn't even notice it anymore, but it was exactly the right height to beckon someone Neal's size. "Thanks!" Trent instinctively ruffled Henry's hair and then rushed to the garage.

At first glance, he didn't see any sign of Neal, but when he forced himself to slow down and pay attention, he saw the passenger door of his car was slightly ajar.

This wasn't just any car. This was Trent's pride and joy: a 1964 silver Aston Martin. This was what James Bond drove in many of the movies. It was not a toy, and definitely not a place for a nearly-three-year-old boy to play. Angry, Trent yelled, "Neal, get out of there right now!"

Neal had been crouched in front of the driver's seat. When he started to scramble out of his hiding place, he hit the right combination of pedals and instrumentation to put the car in motion. It started to roll backwards. His head popped up, and he looked around in surprise.

Before Trent could reach the car, it hit the closed garage door and stopped rolling.