A/N: This picks up immediately post-Smoke and Mirrors. Rereading the last chapter or so might not be a bad idea.

For those who recently read "Out of the Ashes", keep in mind that in this series, Ross is a good guy, Moran's in prison, and Maas doesn't exist (although I reserve the right to throw him in if the urge hits me).

Bobby POV

"Where?"

"Manhattan. W. 55th."

"Is he okay?"

"Um…yeah, sure. He's got a bump the size of a grapefruit on his forehead, a gash on his cheek, and the woman he was sleeping with only an hour or so ago is in the hands of the man who did it to him. So, yeah, he's great."

I took a deep breath instead of responding because I could tell that Mary was bordering on freaking out.

And she doesn't freak out.

"We'll be there as soon as we can," I promised.

"Goren…Bobby…" she began, her voice showing clear signs of distress. "I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"I know. We'll be right there."

I hung up and found Alex staring at me intently.

"What happened?" she asked immediately.

"One of Mary's inspectors is missing. You remember Anna…Cutter's date Friday night?"

"Yeah," she replied with concern.

"Apparently Cutter was at her place tonight. A guy broke in and knocked him out and when he came to, she was gone."

And that was the end of our quiet weekend.

I can't complain because we definitely had more than our share of peace and quiet.

Saturday, we were lazy the entire day, spending most of our time either in the bed or on the couch.

Today had been slightly more productive, but just as quiet, and then earlier this evening, we had dinner with Mike and Carolyn.

"Okay, so I think I've decided that I'm going to look into it," Mike said.

"Are you sure?" I asked him.

We were sitting across the table from one another, waiting while Alex and Carolyn went to the bar.

That was kind of our thing now.

Or rather, their thing.

Those two would go to the bar, leaving me and Mike alone for five or ten minutes so that we could talk about…whatever.

Tonight that whatever was Mike's real father.

"No, but I think if I don't, then it's going to keep sticking in the back of my mind, you know?"

"What does Carolyn say?" I asked.

"She says that I need to do whatever feels right. And of course, she's supportive, no matter what I do. But I figured that you might have a little more insight…"

"About what it's like to learn the man who raised you wasn't really your father," I finished with a nod. "It's kind of a blow, isn't it? Even when the guy doing the raising wasn't all that stellar. He's still the devil you know."

"Uh huh," he agreed. "But you had to find out. You did the whole DNA thing because once the seed was planted that it was a possibility, you had to know."

"Yes," I admitted. "As far as I'm concerned, knowing is always better than not. But you know, just because your mom said what she did…"

"I know. It may not mean anything."

"So what's your plan? How are you going to find out the truth?"

"I'm going to see if I can track her movements during the appropriate time frame," he said. "See if I can associate her with someone in particular."

"Sounds like a good place to start," I said. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Actually, I'm going to source out the investigative work," he said with a grin. "I'm going to get Johnny to do it."

"You're going to hire our own firm?"

"I figure it'll give him something to do that won't involve any danger, you know? He took that case with the black widow, and then last week he nearly got into a brawl after taking pictures of that preacher coming out of a motel room…this'll be a win-win. My research will get done, and he'll stay out of trouble."

"Alex will like that," I said on a chuckle. "Well, keep me updated on it, okay? It's not something you want to work through alone, and I know you have Carolyn, but like you said, I've kind of been there."

He flashed me an appreciative smile, and then we'd changed the subject as our wives returned to the table. Not because it was something we weren't going to share with them, but just because it was a heavy topic and we were all in the mood for something lighter.

So dinner was a lot of fun.

"My face actually hurts from laughing so much," Alex commented to me as we walked home.

"You and Mike…" I said, trailing off as I shook my head. Those two picked at each other relentlessly and were the source of most of our laughter.

"He's going to look for his father, isn't he?" she asked me, taking hold of my hand.

"You read him well."

"Almost as well as I read you."

"Oh, you think you know what's on my mind?" I teased.

"It's not hard to figure out," she replied coyly.

And maybe she had a point about that.

When she and I are alone together, I do tend to gravitate toward one thought in particular.

So we'd gone home and capped off our weekend with an enjoyable round in the recliner.

We went to bed shortly thereafter, and that was when Mary called.

Her concern and understated, uncharacteristic panic had me on full alert.

Aside from that, when a fellow law enforcement officer is in trouble, that pretty much trumps everything.

So less than twenty minutes after taking the call, Alex and I were out of the bed, dressed, and out the door.

"We should call Ross," Alex commented during the drive into Manhattan. "I'm not sure what kind of jurisdictional issues we're going to run into."

"A kidnapping of a marshal…normally I'd say we need to stay out of it, but considering we were called in by one of them…"

"I agree. And it probably depends on whether the abduction is related to a witness or if it's random or maybe something relating to her personal life…"

"Right," I agreed, but I still pulled out my phone because Alex was also right about the fact that we needed to bring Ross into the loop.

I was sure that he wouldn't have any problem with us jumping in on the initial investigation, but he at least needs to know about it.

"Ross," he answered, dropping the title in a way that Moran never did.

"We're on our way to a crime scene," I said, bypassing the formalities.

"Lay it out for me."

So I did.

I told him how Cutter had called Lupo instead of 9-1-1.

For the sake of discretion, I guess.

I'm not really sure.

But then Lupo called Mary, since Anna is one of her inspectors.

And he called Bernard, because a good detective always calls his partner.

And after Mary arrived on the scene, something made her want to call me and Alex.

"Give me a call after you've had a chance to look everything over," Ross concluded. "Whatever the time."

"Yes, sir," I agreed.

I hung up and relayed the conversation to Alex.

"So what do you think?" she asked me. "She was taken to get information on a witness?"

"That would be my first guess. But cases like this don't usually turn into hostage situations."

"Normally the inspector would just be killed," she said with a nod.

"Uh huh. This one must be bolder. And smarter."

"Smarter. Why?"

"Because he must know the system. If the witness is here in New York, and it's someone assigned to Inspector Holly, then she'd know the location. And that's definitely a possibility, but then she probably would've been beaten for information rather than kidnapped. But if it's not her witness, or if it's simply someone she accepted into the program and then transferred somewhere else, she won't have any idea where the witness ended up."

"Which means that it might turn into a trade."

"That would be one scenario. Although if that's the case, I'm surprised Mary hasn't gotten a call yet."

"But how would the guy even know who to call? Would he know that Mary's her boss?"

"Good point. Maybe he left behind Anna's cell so that he could call it to make contact?"

"Or he took it, and he's going through her list of contacts," she suggested. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."

"You know, maybe he's been watching. He obviously figured out where Anna lives. I'm sure that kind of information isn't in the phone book."

"We know how easily it is to get around that," she said cynically.

"Uh huh. He could've been staking out the Marshal Service building," I posed.

"The logistics behind pulling off something like this are staggering," she reasoned. "I would think in situations where the criminals want to off the witness, they would make their move on court day when it's clear where the witness will be on a given day. It makes me think that maybe this doesn't have anything to do with a witness."

"Let's keep an open mind and see what we see."

What we saw was a veritable circus.

At least, inside the apartment.

From the outside, I was almost thinking that we had the wrong place. There was no evidence of anything amiss. In fact, it appeared as though the entire neighborhood was sleeping.

But once we went inside the building and upstairs to the tenth floor, we found the chaos.

Bernard and Hayes were both on-scene, along with Lupo and Connie and Mary.

Hayes, who appeared to be playing more the role of comforter rather than investigator, was with Connie and Cutter in the kitchen. I'd say they were talking, but it was more like arguing.

"I don't need a doctor," Cutter was saying.

He was standing in the middle of the room, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, and he had blood caked along his cheek.

That knot Mary had mentioned was already starting to change color and he had to have one hell of a headache.

It looked like he'd been caught with the butt of a handgun.

A nine, maybe.

Or a forty-five.

"Mike, you're going to need stitches," Connie insisted.

"I'm fine, damn it," he fired back, moving away from the two women and heading for the kitchen sink.

He grabbed a dish towel and ran it under the faucet and then jammed it against his cheek, wincing from the roughness of his own motions.

I could just imagine what he was feeling right about now.

Shame at having been knocked unconscious.

Worry for Anna.

Embarrassment at being seen like this by Connie and the rest of us.

Helplessness about the entire situation.

I caught Alex's eye and we bypassed the kitchen, heading further into the apartment.

The living room appeared to be the focal point of the struggle. And I definitely mean struggle. Two end tables were overturned, lamps lay shattered on the floor, the contents of a roll-top desk were scattered about on the floor…not to mention the blood trail that started near the desk and ended at the front door.

"Blood on the corner of the desk," Alex said quietly.

"She fought him, he cracked her head on the desk, and then maybe he was able to control her long enough to get her out of here."

"She's not very big," Alex reminded me. "It had to only be one perp."

"You're not very big either," I pointed out.

"And if two men tried to take me, I wouldn't have much recourse. One would have a fight on his hands, but two…"

"Yeah, I'm with you," I interrupted, not wanting to even think about the scenario she was posing.

We continued through the apartment, down the hall towards the bedroom.

Lupo and Bernard were debating quietly in the bedroom doorway.

"Mary's the one who's been working the case with us," Lupo was saying. "The others were only involved in the transfer. If anyone should've been at risk, it would be her. Or one of us."

"Which is why I think it doesn't have anything to do with the case."

"Yeah, but the threat level…"

"It's probably high in a lot of their cases, considering what they do."

"Okay, so maybe it's not our case," Lupo conceded. "How many do you think Anna was working on?"

"I don't know," Bernard said thoughtfully. "But whichever the case, what good would it do the guy to take a junior member of the team? McInnis is the senior partner."

"Accessibility, I guess. She lived alone. Or at least, she was probably supposed to be alone."

"Or leverage. The assigned investigator would never give up details in exchange for his own life, but he might for a colleague."

"Or it could be personal and not related to her profession at all," I spoke up.

Both men looked at me in surprise, apparently not even realizing that Alex and I had joined the party.

"True," Bernard said skeptically, and I could tell that he still thought otherwise.

Of course, he knows the details about what he and Lupo were working on, and I don't.

And honestly, I don't really believe it was only personal either. Obviously law enforcement can be the victims of random crime just like everyone else, but a home invasion-slash-kidnapping?

That was highly unusual.

"What do we know about her?" Alex asked, and then it seemed as though she could read my mind when she added, "Wealthy family? Ugly divorce? Custody dispute?"

Trigger points of a non-work related kidnapping.

"No, no and no," Mary said as she came down the hall. "If someone took her for ransom, they're shit out of luck."

"So you think it's because of a witness. How many cases was she working on?"

"She has two dozen witnesses that she's responsible for, but only four of them are active at the moment."

"Okay, so what about the rest of her team? Has anyone checked on them?" Alex asked.

"And why aren't they here?" I added.

"I didn't call anyone else yet," Mary admitted. She nodded towards Lupo and Bernard and added, "We've got our opinion, but we've been knee-deep in this case for a week and I don't want us to be overlooking a simple solution. I want to see what you think before I call in people who're likely going to over-react."

"Sure, but I think you're holding back on a key element," I said. "What aren't you saying?"

Mary looked at Bernard and Lupo for a moment before turning back to me and Alex.

"Our most viable threat right now – this case these two are working with me – it's coming from the Albanian mafia," she said in a low tone. "And they don't mess around. If it's them, and you two join this investigation, then you'll both be at risk."

"You mean like you already are?" Alex replied immediately, showing no fear. "And Lupo and Bernard?"

"Yes."

"Okay. So what's the problem?"

Mary shifted her eyes to me and I could see her apprehension and worry.

She was afraid that if she was right and the Albanians were involved, then Anna was likely already dead.

And anyone else involved in the case could be next.

"You heard her," I said after a moment. "We're in. Tell us what you know."

TBC...