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advice of his attorney, Felix moved back into the pool house that Friday morning. Meanwhile Adam and Gabriel stayed in the main house with their mother. Though it was a risk that could lead to confrontation, Felix felt it was necessary so that he could spend time with Adam who was home from UCLA for the weekend.
    It was yet another decision he would regret. In fact, in a letter dated September 23, 2002, his attorney, Steve Landes, had expressed frustration with Felix’s inability to protect himself. For more than a year, he fought to get Felix to proceed with the divorce. “Getting actual financial information out of you is like pulling teeth,” Landes wrote in the letter. “I don’tknow why you call me and tell me you need to be protected and yet you ignore the most basic stuff I need to give you this protection.
    “You give me the impression that you feel I’m harassing you when I ask for this stuff, but I can’t really proceed without it. How well we do in this case depends on both our efforts. I won’t even raise the issue of how often you have ignored my advice.”
    On the evening of Saturday October 12, Felix took his sons to a horror film, The Ring, and afterward, he spent a second night in the Miner Road guesthouse. At the crack of dawn the next morning, Felix drove Adam back to UCLA and Gabe went along for the ride.
    Felix and Gabe stayed to watch the Sunday afternoon Oakland Raiders football game on TV before beginning the four-hundred-mile drive back to Orinda sometime after 3 PM . During the trip, Gabriel sensed his dad was worried about his mother’s repeated threats, but these concerns were not strong enough to entice Felix to find alternate accommodations. Distracting each other with idle talk about sports, they decided to attend the Giants’ playoff game the following night.
     
    I t was almost 8 PM on Monday, October 14, and still, there had been no word from his dad. As Gabriel climbed the steps to the guesthouse, the darkness enveloped him. There were three entrances to the cottage, but he was hesitant to go in, scared of what he might find. The door he tried—the one everyone used—was locked, and he didn’t check the other doors. Besides, there were too many light switches and he could never figure out which switch worked which light. He returned to the main house and went back upstairs to his room where he stayed for about an hour, trying to figure out what to do; he was beginning to think that he would need the police if his dad didn’t turn up in the next hour.
    It was exactly 9 PM when Gabriel dialed 911 to get the number of the Orinda police department’s nonemergency line. Even though his gut told him something was wrong, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by calling authorities if there was nothing to report. He would try to locate the officer who had come to the house several days earlier to see if he’d heard anything. Perhaps his dad had been in a car crash, he thought.
    “Nine-one-one,” said the female dispatcher who answered the call.
    “Hi, can I get the nonemergency number for the police department?”
    “What is it that you’re reporting?”
    “Um, I just need to talk to an officer there,” Gabe said.
    “Okay, about what, sir,” the dispatcher asked.
    “Do I need to tell you?”
    “Yes, you do. You called me on 911. We don’t give out numbers on 911. It’s for emergencies only, and I can maybe help you on this line depending on what you need to report.”
    “Fine, I’ll just call the police department,” Gabe said.
    “Okay, thank you.”
    Grabbing a flashlight, the teen went back downstairs with the phone number for the Orinda police department tucked in his dark-colored shorts. On his way out the door, his mother stopped him.
    “Why did you call the police?” she asked.
    “I didn’t call the police!” Gabriel snapped, and continued outside to the upper carport where his mom kept her car. The house had two driveways; Susan preferred the one at