6:05 p.m.

It must have been close to six o'clock when Andrew first heard it. Out here in the quiet the whirl of the helicopter blades seemed amplified, the sound echoing off the trees and water. At first he thought it might be the Life Flight- maybe there had been a car accident, some medical emergency. Except this wasn't a pass by, or even a low sweep to find a landing. No, this copter seemed to be circling, flying low over the treetops.

Andrew saved his file, closed the program and shut the lid of his laptop. He had been trying to use the laptop, discouraged and frustrated by the blank notebook pages, so white, so empty, staring at him. He left everything on the metal table in the screened-in porch, then searched for his shoes, sliding them on without doing up the laces.

It had taken only a few minutes to locate it, but now outside the cabin he could see the helicopter hanging a right to come back over the park. What in the world was it doing? Surely it wasn't checking out the storm? Was it a rescue unit or a pilot in trouble? There was nowhere to land-too many trees and even the pasture that bordered the park was too hilly with ravines and brush. On the other side stretched the Platte River -not much of a choice. If this guy had some sort of emergency, he'd picked a hell of a spot to try to land.

Andrew watched the helicopter almost scrape the trees, and this time it flew low enough that he could see the letters on its side: POLICE.

What the hell was the Omaha police helicopter looking for? Or rather who was it looking for? He wondered if this had anything to do with the call that made Tommy take off.

Andrew hurried back into the cabin. He pulled out the nine-inch TV he had brought with him. Rarely did he turn the thing on. Reception was awful out here. If he was lucky he could sometimes get one channel and that was with masterful manipulation of the bunny ears. He plugged in the set, turned it on and began to twist and turn, finally having some luck with Omaha 's Channel 7.

He glanced at his wrist-no watch-but it looked as though the six o'clock news was still on. He turned up the volume, a crackled sound track to accompany the rolling lines that blurred the station's anchors. Julie Cornell and Rob McCartney looked a bit purple and outlined in orange but it didn't matter. They were talking about a search for two suspects. Andrew turned up the volume once more.

"Again, that's south on Highway 50. Two male suspects in a late-model sedan," Julie explained as a map graphic showed the route. "The two men allegedly robbed the Nebraska Bank of Commerce late this afternoon. Police chased the suspects south on Highway 50. Details are still sketchy. We'll have more as information continues to come in."

Andrew shut the TV off. A high-speed chase on Highway 50? That was an accident waiting to happen. Maybe that's exactly what had happened. He didn't need to hear the media's speculation.

He glanced back out at the laptop and notebooks on the porch's table. Several loose sheets had blown off into the corners, probably gathering spiderwebs. One was stuck up against the screen, having impaled itself on a broken screen wire. The wind had picked up. The storm was getting closer.

Andrew grabbed another Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator and headed back to his work. He shoved aside the laptop. He picked up one of the empty spiral notebooks, opening it and watching the breeze try to flip the pages. In the distance the whirl of the helicopter now competed with the rumble of thunder. Andrew shook out a Uniball pen from the freshly opened box of a dozen, and for the first time in a long time he began to write, adding the scratching sound of pen on paper to those sounds already around him.