Steve couldn’t believe it. Grace had lied to him. Gracie! How could this happen?

Danny was in New Jersey for a family funeral. It was supposed to be his weekend with Grace, so rather than making Rachel and Step-Stan change their plans to go out of town, Steve and Catherine had volunteered to keep her while Danny was gone.

Grace had called him before school was over to see if she could go home with Lucy and let him pick her up there later. After confirming Lucy’s mom would be the one picking them up, Steve felt comfortable with it since he needed to finish a couple of things at work anyway. He also knew that Grace occasionally went home with Lucy, so there was no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary.

But then everything changed. Steve caught a case and needed to pick Grace up from Lucy’s early and get her back home before going to the crime scene. Imagine the surprise when he arrived at Lucy’s house and found no one home. Trying to keep his cool and not think about “worst case scenario”, he called Lucy’s mom. She had brought the girls home from school, but then had to run a couple of errands. She had left Grace and Lucy with “big sister”, Maggie. That also was not out of the ordinary since Maggie had watched the girls before. So Steve had three missing girls and a worried mom. Where could they be?

Steve tried not to panic, but it was getting harder by the second. He had already tried Grace’s phone twice and didn’t get an answer. He decided to try again.

“Hi, Uncle Steve.” Grace’s voice held none of her normal cheerfulness when talking to him. She sounded tentative, in fact, but he was more than relieved to at least have her answer the phone.

“Gracie? Oh thank, God. Where are you?” Steve asked.

At first, she didn’t answer, so he asked again. “Answer me, Gracie. Where are you?”

Grace sighed on the other line. “We’re at the mall.”

Steve’s mood went from worry to frustration in seconds. “Excuse me….Did you say you’re at the mall?”

“Yes. Maggie brought us, but we should be back….”

Steve interrupted her. “Don’t move. Do you hear me? I want you and Lucy to go to the food court and do not move. I’m coming to pick you up.”

“But Uncle Steve….”

“Don’t argue with me, young lady. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

Steve was furious and fought the urge to turn on his blue lights just so he could get there more quickly. At the mall? Seriously. What the hell was she thinking? He called Catherine to fill her in and then called Chin and Kono to tell them he would meet them at the crime scene as soon as possible.