He looked up at Carol and she could see that his eyes held unshed tears. Even Carol wasn’t immune to the famous ‘SRG’ look and she moaned and put her hand over her mouth as he pleaded with her, using his expressive eyes and soft voice.

“Please Carol….I need to see her, to tell her how much I love her and want to make a life with her and the baby. Please tell me where she is.”

Carol was startled. Not only was Urs sensitive enough to want to come to Honey with no attachments, he was publicly stating his feelings and desires, something she knew the private man seldom, if ever, did. She started to cry and Miles put his arm around her and hugged her tight, caressing her hair with his free hand.

He looked around at the intense stares of the others in the room and knew that he was going to make them all very sad, still he had to tell them.

“She doesn’t know, Urs. Honey told us she trusted Carol but she knows how soft hearted Carol is. For now we only have contact with her by e.mail and she has one of our inventions on her ‘puter, a little program that removes the sender address and makes it extremely difficult to trace the transmission back to the sender. So we don’t know where she is and we can’t even send her an e.mail.”

Carol sat forward now and abruptly rose to her feet, ignoring the sad faces around her and the look of despair on Urs’ face that had prompted David to move over to sit on the arm of his chair and place his strong hand on Urs’ shoulder.

“I didn’t take my ‘puter to Canada and haven’t checked it since I got back…hang on, there may be something on it.”

She sped out of the room and they could hear the familiar beeps of a ‘puter booting up. A few minutes later they heard the clacking and whirring of a printer and just as Seb finished pouring another glass of wine for all, Carol came back in bearing several print-out sheets.

“She’s using ‘Spector’ so I don’t know where it comes from but there were three messages.” Carol hesitated then asked Urs….”do you want them or should I read them out loud to everyone?”

Urs laughed a bit. “Read them, Carol. There don’t seem to be any secrets left among us any more.”

She sat in the chair again and began.

“This one is dated December 26th.

‘Hi Carol and Lefty:

I suppose you didn’t take your laptop with you, not being brainwashed into the electronic world quite that much …YET. Anyway you’ll get this when you return from what I hope was a lovely Christmas.

Mine wasn’t much different from usual…not having a family means that Christmas is just another day except for the lovely carols and services in the churches. It will be so nice next year to have the baby to celebrate the season with. I actually moved into the house out of the hotel on Christmas Eve day, then went to a beautiful midnight service in the small village church.

Christmas Day I finished cleaning the house…the “experts’ were supposed to do it but it wasn’t quite enough…you know how picky I get about dust and clean windows. I went for a lovely walk, about 4 K….it’s so nice to have all this beautiful clean snow to play in and the air is so pure…someone should bottle it.

I’m working on something that I think we can sell but I don’t quite have it done yet. When you guys get back I need you to somehow trick Urs into doing a few tracks solo, say you need to check equipment or something and send them to me, I’ll tell you how later, as many as you can. I’ll explain if my idea works out the way I think it will. And if it doesn’t at least when I try to sleep at night I can listen to his sweet voice and pretend he’s singing for me alone.

Will write again soon.

Love….Honey’”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much…she’s somewhere cold and with clean air, outside a small village…..it’s winter, half the world has snow right now.” David shook his head in disappointment.

“And what’s this about Urs doing tracks alone? What could she be working on?” said Seb.

“And how will she get them sent to her without an address?” Gerry added.

“The next one is fairly short,” Carol said and began reading it.

“Dated January 1st.

“Happy New Year, you two and the Divos and Ladies if they’re back and you see them.

God how I miss you all, nearly as much as I miss Urs. Okay, I can just see you making a face, Carol, but get used to it.” Carol paused and looked at Urs but he had his head on the chair back and his eyes closed. “I will always love him and you might as well get used to me saying it for the next 50 or 60 years. I really believe that there is one person in this world that completes you as a person and if you screw it up and lose that special someone, no one else will ever be good enough.

Anyway, I just wanted to assure you that Baby and I are fine…..I almost typed in Baby Buhler but I guess I can’t do that. How I would love to give him or her his/her father’s name.

I did find a handyman who lives fairly close for things I won’t be able to do much longer, shoveling the drive and the path to the garage, bringing wood in for the fireplaces and so forth. He’s a nice older man and his wife is absolutely adorable, keeps trying to mother me.

Yippee!!! It’s snowing and it’s time for my last walk of the day.

Love you all….Honey’

“This last one is dated today and it’s really short too.

‘Hi guys: Have to be fast, I’m going somewhere today and won’t be back for a week. Don’t panic, nothing is wrong, it’s just some business and I can’t take a chance on flying after about April 1st. Plus I may have some astounding news for you when I get back. Don’t forget those solo tracks for me before Urs goes to Tokyo.

I debated with myself whether or not to tell you this but I think in all fairness you should be forewarned. Nicole came to see me at the townhouse the day before I left. She was very angry, said a lot of things, some I believe, most I don’t and she actually tried to attack me. Remember the bruise and scrape I had on my cheek? That was from our little meeting. What worries me though is that she might come back and harm you or might go to the press and try to hurt Urs. She was so irrational and I just don’t know what she’s capable of. So be careful.

Love, Honey”

There was silence for a moment when Carol finished reading the e.mails.

Urs cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Carol, could I have a copy of those?”

“Sure,” she said and Miles took them to the office to copy.

“Anyone have any suggestions what we can do now?” Carlos asked but no one had a clue.

Urs sat forward with his forearms on his thighs.

“I feel like my brain has turned to jelly. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to see Simon and tell him everything, see if he has any ideas.”

Miles came back with the copies and Urs looked at them for a few minutes then asked: “The time that it says here at the top…is that the time here or wherever she is?”

“What it was here I think…why?”

“Then the timeline is off for Canada or the US. She writes these as if the day is over or partly over and yet here where you receive it the time is early, very early in the day. That means Europe.”

Everyone crowded around to look at the times on the e.mails and congratulated Urs since they thought he had a tiny clue to the puzzle.

For the rest of the evening they chatted about their holidays and tried to figure out what tracks they could get back up music for so that Urs could pretend he didn’t know he was being taped. He tried not to think about what she had said about the music, it was counter-productive to fret over it right now. Later, when he was trying to sleep would be the best time since he knew how thinking about it would make his heart ache.

***