George got home from school and checked the front door of the house. It was unlocked. He thought to himself that this time hadn't been too bad. Only four days.

As usual, his mother acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He sighed to himself and went to his room. He changed and did his chores, then went down and hauled dirty laundry up from the fort. Laundry and showers were things that he missed when he was stuck in there.

After dinner he crossed his fingers and dug out the form.

"Mom, I've got a part time job lined up, I just need you to sign this."

She asked a few questions, but fortunately wasn't interested in details that could have been a problem, just in whether or not it'd interfere with his schoolwork.

He'd had long years of practice at spinning things so she'd believe them so it wasn't too hard to get her to sign and not ask inconvenient questions.

He took the signed forms to the lawyer after school the next day. Mr. Dixon looked them over and nodded.

"OK, these will do. And here's a bit of a bonus for you. The card and ID arrived yesterday. They should be enough for most things you buy. But for anything odd or pricey, you can print up a purchase order."

That led to being shown how to log in on the computer in a spare office and create a PO.

George wasn't sure if he'd ever need to do that, but he figured it was better to be ready. So did Mr. Dixon.

Mr. Dixon was still working on finding a way to get George emancipated that wasn't riskier than George was willing to deal with.

George knew he was probably overly paranoid about it, but a lifetime of dealing with his mother told him that a failed attempt would be really bad for him.

Things were a bit odd on the property front. Seems that the county records for that area were messed up.

"That's why there are so many oddly placed vacant lots in your neighborhood. Ownership of some places isn't clear. Most of the records are good enough for the tax folks, but not good enough for a title search to come up clear. So folks won't buy places with a title that's as uncertain as some of these are."

Mr. Dixon continued, "It's rather odd. The city and county are losing out on property taxes because of the houses that got torn down after being unoccupied for years. You'd think they'd want to get things cleared up."

They went on to deal with some things George needed help disposing of, and more guidelines on how to stay within the law while "finding" things.

The next couple of weeks settled into a routine. School, spending time at the law office actually helping a bit with filing and other things as Mr. Dixon thought it best that George actually be able to perform the tasks he was supposedly being paid for, and expeditions to "find" things.

He was still amazed that he'd actually contacted the school, much less the lawyer. It was way out of character. He was usually a lot more paranoid than that. With reason.

He'd lost count of the number of times he'd been betrayed by "friends". Or by his mother.

He couldn't bear to remember the details of the worst. The bitch in seventh grade had taken several weeks to become his good friend and get him to trust her enough to tell her his innermost thoughts.

Then the next day, she was back with the bunch of "in-crowd" girls that she'd formerly hung around with and they were all using what he'd told her in confidence to humiliate him.

It hurt so much he couldn't even remember what it was he'd told her. It didn't matter anyway.

He'd found a few people he could trust. A few teachers and the shrinks he'd had to see after some problems in school.

Hmm. Maybe that was why he'd given this Whateley place a chance. And Mr. Dixon reminded him of the good teachers and the shrinks. He knew he still needed to be careful though.

***

Then came the day that he overheard a conversation between Mr. Dixon and a private eye he sometimes used.

"Well, Paul? Any luck?"

"Morgan, I know it's in there somewhere. We both know it has to be. But I'll be damned if I can figure out where he hid it."

"If we can't locate that will, his family is going to take everything from his partner."

"Oh, it's like that, eh?"

"Yes, he figured they'd try to go after things and since they threw him out for being gay back when he was a teen, he didn't want them getting a cent."

"So why are we looking for the will? I thought you lawyers always kept copies."

"I normally do. But Adam was kinda paranoid. He was afraid it'd get stolen from my files."

George knew he shouldn't be listening, but the office door was open, and the cabinet he was re-filing some folders in wasn't that far away.

He could understand why the guy they were talking about wouldn't want his family to get anything. They sounded worse than his mother.

Pity about the will though. He suddenly realized he could feel the "pull". Something was off in that direction. Oh, it must be the will...

George had a dilemma. He knew he could find the will. And it was the right thing to do. But he wasn't sure if the private eye could be trusted with his secret.

Finally, he stuck his head into the open doorway and knocked on the door.

"Mr. Dixon? I couldn't help overhearing. I..." He ran down, not sure what to say.

Morgan realized what was going on. "Mr. Drake is very trustworthy. I assume you are thinking about offering to help?"

Paul started to say something, then stopped an instant before Morgan held up his hand. Morgan smiled at that.

George was torn between a desire to help and his long habit of keeping secrets. At last he shook himself a bit and spoke.

"Yes, I think I can help find the will you were talking about."

Morgan turned to Paul and explained, "George is a mutant I'm doing some work for. He 'finds' things."

"I'm forgetting myself. George, this is Paul Drake. He's a private investigator and a friend."

George found himself shaking hands with Mr. Drake, "Call me Paul"

"So, how do we do this, take you out to the house and have you poke around?"

George had thought about this before he'd made the offer to Whateley to find things for them, so he had an answer ready.

"I'd rather not do that if I can avoid it. Do you have pictures? A floor plan? Anything like that?"

Both of the men looked a bit surprised. "You can work from stuff like that?"

"Yeah, I tried it after reading something about dowsers who could work from a map."

Morgan said, "Well in that case, lets start with a map just in case I'm wrong about it being in the house."

George grabbed his map from his bag.

"What exactly am I looking for? Details usually help. Like what's his name? Adam something?"

"Adam Rockford. It's a will. A dozen sheets of legal sized paper..." supplied Morgan.

George pointed to a spot on his map.

Mr. Drake looked surprised as he said "That's where the house is all right."

"I may be able to get it closer."

George brought up Google maps on Mr. Dixon's computer and zoomed into the right part of town. He got the map zoomed in all the way then switched to the satellite image.

A few minutes later they were looking at the images he'd printed. An overhead shot, plus several angles from the street level view. George had carefully drawn small Xs on each image.

Shaking his head Mr. Drake left with the pictures.

***

The next day, Mr. Drake was back.

"I still couldn't find anything, but I took some photos and even have some video."

They looked at the photos and George finally pointed at a patch of floor in the den.

"You sure that's where it is? That's a hardwood floor and I don't see any way to hide a panel in it without the seams showing."

"No, it's there."

"Then how on earth do we get at it?"

George blinked. When Paul asked, the glow shifted.

"Um... When you asked that it shifted to here..." George pointed at a wooden grating set into the floor a short distance from where he'd pointed before.

"Oh. Of course. The cold air return. But I checked that already. I'll give it another check."

An hour later Paul was back in the office holding a odd plastic envelope.

"This is a neat trick, I'll have to remember it."

At their inquiring looks he explained. "Most folks when they hide something in an air duct, just lay it on the bottom a ways inside. That's what I checked for."

They nodded and he continued.

"But this envelope has a sheet of that stuff they make magnetic signs out of glued to the inside. So it sticks to the top of the duct. And you can't see it. Not only that, it's the same width as the duct. So you don't notice the edge either if your arm brushes against it while reaching in to check for things."

With that last comment he offered the envelope to Morgan, who opened it and withdrew a document.

"Yep, this is the will I drew up. Adam's relatives are going to be very disappointed."

George couldn't help muttering "Gee, I'm so sorry for them."

That got a chuckle from the other two.

"They aren't very likable at that,"commented Morgan. "But that reminds me. I'm going to tell Adam's partner that we had to call in a special consultant to find the will. That should get you a nice bonus out of this. We'd likely not have found it without your help."

Paul chimed in, "You certainly deserve it. And I think I could use you on other things as well, if you're willing?"

George thought about it. It was the sort of thing he'd expected to wind up doing anyway. He sighed.

"OK, I suppose so. But I've thought about this a lot. And I've got some conditions. I figure there are things I can look for safely, and things that'd be liable to get people upset enough to figure out what's going on. And once that happens I'll either be dead or locked up somewhere doing this for the government or criminals. Either way, no thanks."

"So, I've come up with a few rules. First off I won't look for criminals. Lost people, yes. Kidnap victims, maybe. And if I find out that someone is lost because they want to be away from the folks looking for them, I'm likely going to offer the money back."

"Looking for things, I want to be sure the person actually has a right to whatever I'm looking for. Don't want to find something then have it turn out the person I found it for shouldn't have had it in the first place."