"I'm just not sure about this," the woman said. "The letter said not to involve police." She looked to her husband for assistance, but he looked just as uncertain.

The man in front of them nodded and smiled. "It's alright. We'll get your daughter back. What's her name?"

"Abigail Hayes."

"Thank you. Can I see the letter that was sent?" Detective Walker asked. Mrs. Hayes nodded and pulled it out of her pocket.

"Here," she said. "I'm afraid it's a bit crumpled."

"That's okay. Under the stress, it's understandable." He dropped it onto his lap, trying to touch as little of it as possible so as not to smudge any fingerprints already on it. "Did you receive any threats before this happened? Or know anyone who would have a reason to be particularly angry with you?"

Mrs. Hayes shook her head. "No, nothing like that. And no one we know would ever want to hurt Abigail! She's such a sweet child… You know, she's been the top of her class every year since sixth grade, and she used to bring home such cute pictures from art class-"

Detective L. Bookman (they all called him that to avoid mixing him up with his grandfather, who also worked in the police department) walked up while Mrs. Hayes was talking with a plastic bag and tweezers. He plucked the note from Walker's lap with the tweezers and slipped it into the bag. L. Bookman was the forensic specialist in the department, expert second only to Detective Bookman himself. On occasion, they would need something more specialized and send it to a group that worked out of the Federal Order of Investigation. The group they usually worked with was headed by Supervisor Lee, brother to one of their own investigators. Supervisor Lee usually worked with a man named Reever.

Detective Lee, the aforementioned sister to the Supervisor, was standing a bit behind and to the side of Walker. Her eyebrows were scrunched up in worry and thought. "Mrs. Hayes, do you have a lot of money they could be after? The letter says they wanted to meet you in person at the park."

"I don't know…" She looked at her husband. "Aaron's father was very wealthy. He's been dead for five years, but in his will, he left the money to his wife. We weren't given anything. Should we try to buy them off?"

Lee shook her head. "No, they'll be under the impression that there's a lot more where that came from and may be encouraged to raise their price. Are you planning to meet them?"

"We weren't sure. That's why we came here. Should we?" Mr. Hayes asked, the first time he had spoken up.

"Yes, it would be a good idea." Walker stood up. "We'll drive you home. If they're planning on contacting you again, they'll call your home phone or send a letter there. Detective Lee here will go home with you. She doesn't look like she's with the police, so they won't think anything's off as long as you pretend she's simply a friend of the family staying with you for the time being."

The detective left with the distraught parents. Walker could hear the tail end of their conversation as they left: "So, how old is Abigail?"

"Twenty-six last August. It was such a splendid party..."

Walker felt a pang of empathy for Lee. He left the room to go see what the rest of the department was doing. The area was large enough that they could get multiple cases like this within a month, so they were used to it happening occasionally. Getting them so close together was unusual, however. Most of the department would be devoted to one case like this to get it done as effectively and quickly as possible.

Detective Krory was sitting at his desk and looked up when Walker passed by. "Lotto has called Kanda's residence. She got an answering machine, but he should get it soon. Did he take today off?"

"He doesn't take breaks," Walker reminded him shortly, as he always spoke when talking about his associate, "he just...leaves."

"Why does the department keep him around?" Krory sighed.

"Because he's an excellent negotiator, although I don't know what school he went to, because I've never seen those tactics before. How long ago did she call?"

"As soon as we knew it was suspected to be about money. Twenty minutes ago."

"Who all is available?"

"Half the department is investigating the fire already, and twelve are out on patrol. That leaves you, me, Lee, Kanda, L. Bookman, Bookman – although he will be working part time on the fire as well –, Lotto – she has to leave for a family reunion tomorrow morning, though –, Barry, and Marie. Nine people. Dark's sick with pneumonia, so I don't really want to pull him in for an even ten."

"I can pass on that, too," Walker agreed. "Okay, let's get everyone we do have now into a briefing room so we can compile information. Kanda will walk in during the middle of it."

"We didn't tell Mrs. Hayes this because we didn't want her to worry, but this is the fourth kidnapping of this sort in the area. The victims have all been over eighteen, all been in college from one of Noah's Ark University's courses, and have come from families of money. The guy has this down to a science. Four of his victims have been killed, and it seems like this has occurred over small misunderstandings. We can't take chances or shortcuts."

"Then why are we even bothering to bring Kanda in?" Detective Barry muttered. The two had never gotten along very well, even in comparison with everyone else's limited ability to be patient with Kanda.

"Because no one has been able to successfully negotiate this out. They've all ended up losing the money and, in every case, the victim as well. If anyone can do it, Kanda has a slightly less chance of pulling it off. I still think he could probably do it, and it's not like we can make it any worse." On that note, he passed it off to L. Bookman.

"Well, obviously, we haven't gotten a report back from the lab, since Bookman just now got the note. It was nice that we got to start the investigation early because of the neighbors' report before the parents got back, but we didn't get to talk to the parents." L. Bookman paused as Barry broke in.

"Hold on. How?" he said. "I just got here an hour ago because of the traffic," he added in a mutter.

"The neighbors saw her being taken out to a van," L. Bookman reported. "They didn't recognize the people with her, but they were pretty sure they had seen a gun, so they called the police. The parents got back from their vacation two hours ago and noticed she wasn't at the house. The kidnappers had left a note behind. We had someone watching the house for when they returned, and they went in to ask them to come here. They did." He continued with his original statement. "The previous cases have all been over in less than sixteen hours. All four bodies were dumped in the neighborhood of wherever the lived. The criminal psychologist team under Zokaro-" there was some grumbling; they were familiar with him, "-at the FOI worked out that there seems to be three men involved, and at least two we will find to be psychopaths."

"Why hasn't the FOI tried to take over the case yet?" Lotto asked.

"They have," Walker said, not sitting at the wooden conference table like the rest. He was leaning against the wall. "They worked with the other four cases, but since it came into our district, they figured it would be safer for them to just stay out of it."

"Safer for who?"Barry muttered.

"They're willing to give any assistance possible, but want to be kept updated. We'll do that since they're being smart enough to stay out of it this time so we can avoid an incident." Under his breath, he muttered, "Like that's ever happened before."

"When will the parents be meeting with the kidnappers in the park?" Lotto asked.

"Half an hour," Walker said with a straight face. "It's almost for the better. We don't have enough information to make a good move, so we'll stay out of it. Until we know more, we're just going to put Abigail Hayes in more risk. Besides," he added this part in sarcastically, "our negotiator isn't here yet."

The department was busy half an hour later. Although most of them were working on the fire case, people were still interested in the kidnapping and keeping up to date with it. The team that was working on it was busy, trying to contact their negotiator and gathering all the money needed together. They had already started that, but hadn't wanted to do too much before they knew the exact amount. It was going to wipe out Aaron Hayes's family's bank account, that was for sure. They were supposed to hand the money over in three hours at a post office.

"Can anyone get a hold of that blasted PR relations guy here?!" Bookman demanded.

Mrs. Hayes looked up and frowned. "PR? Do you need to do a story about this so soon?" she asked, confused.

"No," Bookman explained. "He's also our negotiator. He's PR through sheer default. We've been trying to get him replaced for a while now, but the people absolutely love him because he doesn't do any of the usual political crap on television. He just gets out there and cusses out the news crew, his coworkers, the criminals, the victims, and whoever else he can think of. It makes for a quite amusing news report, and we noticed that we got more support and funding from the public as soon as he took up the job. The media absolutely hates him, though, because he has literally kicked some of them out of the building before when we wanted them gone."

Mrs. Hayes nodded hesitantly. "Are you sure it's a good idea to have him as a negotiator?"

"He has a 95% success rate for his negotiations. The only ones he can't win are ones involve Detective Lee smacking him with a clipboard or a stack of files. Usually it doesn't come to that, though."

At the same time, across the room, the last of the money was coming through. Walker passed the laptop to L. Bookman. "Alright, the rest is up to you guys. He wants it sent in cash, and we'll have it here, but he has yet to send in the address of which post office. There are seven in the area that he could be referring to, not even including the other fourteen in the county."

L. Bookman nodded. "Alright. I'll get this to the bank so they can start taking it out in bills. Where's Kanda?"

"No response yet-"

"I'm here, damn it." Kanda scowled at Mrs. Hayes, who had jumped in surprise when he had suddenly appeared. He snapped his head back around to glare at Walker. "You called me while I was on break."

"Been a kidnapping. You're needed."

"I know, I heard the freaking voicemail! When should the call be coming through?"

"Any moment now," L. Bookman said, carrying the laptop away from Kanda.

Mrs. Hayes's phone rang. It was hooked up to multiple cords connecting a computer so everyone in the room would be able to hear. She looked at it for a second. Kanda reached forward and grabbed it before she could. "What?" he demanded, practically yelling into the phone.

"Wow, Mrs. Hayes, you're voice has gotten a lot deeper," the voice on the other end said.

"Retard, this is someone else. Calling about the money?"

"Yeah. The post office is-"

"Stick it up your ass. You're not getting anything."

"Really? That's too bad for Abigail."

"I've never met her in my life. Why would I give a damn?"

"You seem interesting enough. Our hearts seem to be in similar places. I love chocolate. Do you li-"

"I hate chocolate."

"I guess that's one diff-"

"And I hate you."

"We don't have to agree. All you have to do is do exactly as I say-"

"Do what you say?"

"If you don't, we will kill our hostage!"

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do! I'm going to come after you and rip out your balls out through your throat with a coat hanger and tie your feet to your spine with your small intestine and then-"

[Ten minutes of profanity later...]

"How did he get in the DGMPD?" Mrs. Hayes asked cautiously of Bookman. Kanda had left shortly after he made the call. Abigail was sitting in a chair a few feet away.

"Not for a lack of his tactical skills, that's for sure." Bookman took a sip of his coffee.

"And was that a… sword on his back?"

"…Yep."

"Why is he allowed to have that?"

"We don't like to talk about it. If you want to bring it up, go ahead."

Overall, it was a normal day in the DGMPD.