A Case Against Sequins

Disclaimer: I don't own WaT (wahhh!). I don't own the characters (double wahhh!), so go pick on somebody else!

Set sometime in the near future (post season 5).

CHAPTER 1 - Email

Martin watched Sam leave the office; her shoulders slumped in weariness from the past few days. They had been searching for a seven-year-old boy who wandered away at a park during a family picnic. Three days later the team found his body half-buried behind the park's maintenance shed, one of the park ranger's bloody handprints clearly on the boy's torso.

He knew she had taken the case hard, hell, they all did. Kids had their own special way of getting to the Missing Persons unit. It was easily understandable for Jack, Vivian and Elena—they had kids. But for Danny and Samantha, their own difficult childhoods made them ache for missing children. Martin's heart contracted a little thinking about how he and Samantha had to break the news to the parents. The little sister kept crying for her brother and that tore at him as well. He closed the files on the desktop and shut his computer down for the night. Once again, he was the last agent leaving the office.

The next morning, Martin noticed Sam's desk was still clean. Danny and Elena were working on paperwork and Vivian and Jack were in his office. But where was Sam?

"Danny? You guys seen Samantha yet this morning?" Martin asked, walking to his desk.

Elena shook her head, "Not yet. She say anything last night?"

"Not to me, she just looked bushed," Martin replied, turning on his computer. Moments later it pinged at him loudly. 'Hmm, new messages,' he thought to himself. He clicked the first message and cursed loudly enough to stop Elena from arguing with Danny.

"What's the message, brother?" Danny asked with concern.

"Look!" was Martin's only reply, pointing at the screen.

A short movie was playing, it was Samantha, dressed in a sparkling pink magician's assistant's costume, tied to a wheel, hand and foot, and blindfolded. There wasn't an audio track, but for Danny, Elena and Martin, the metal whiz and the heavy thunk of the knives as they flew at Sam and imbedded themselves in the wood played loudly in their minds. They could see Samantha's mouth opening, she was asking for whoever was throwing the knives to stop. Suddenly the short movie stopped and a message popped up: 'Fitzgerald, I'm playing games with your girl 'cause you played games with me!' Then the screen went black.

"I'll go get Viv and Jack," Elena whispered.

"Can you play it again?" Danny asked.

Martin reached for the mouse, "I think so."

Jack and Vivian joined the rest of the team and Martin played the movie again. His face drained of all color and his stomach tightened. Who would do such a thing? The logical, thinking part of his mind raced trying to think of any criminal he 'played' with who would seek such revenge. While the emotional part of his mind wondered why this sicko would think he and Sam were still together. They had ended it long ago. Yes, they were friends. Yes, they were colleagues. But boyfriend/girlfriend?? Nope! That was long over. Sure, he wished they weren't, but what could he do? If it didn't work, it didn't work, life went on.

Jack interrupted Martin's racing mind, "Any ideas who this could be?"

Martin swallowed hard and looked up at his boss, "Not yet, but I'll start looking."

Jack turned to the rest of his team and started assigning jobs, "Elena, check out all of Sam's movements starting from when she left here last night. Danny, get this over to Tech, see if they can figure out where it was sent from. Viv, help Martin check his old files, see if you can dig up any possible suspects. I'm going to Van Doren."

The team split, quiet in their pursuits, their thoughts on Samantha and how close those last few knives had come.

8 hours missing

An hour after receiving the message, the team assembled in the bullpen. Samantha's FBI photo had been placed on the board and Elena had started listing her movements.

"Front desk has her logging out at 8:56pm last night," Elena began, pointing to the line she had drawn. "Then from the garage at 8:59pm. Her apartment is about fifteen minutes from here, and her garage code was punched in at 9:16 pm."

"So far, so good," Jack commented.

Elena nodded, "Yes, but then things aren't so good after that. There's a doorman, who doesn't leave until midnight, and he remembers seeing Samantha last night…"

Flashback

"Good Evening Ms. Spade!"

"Hiya George, how's the family?" Samantha always asks, even when she's tired.

"They're good! They're good! Evan just got his letter from NYU, he starts next fall. Wants to be a writer," George shook his head, "How's a man to support a family on that kind of work?"

Samantha smiled, "People do it all the time! Look at Stephen King!" The elevator pinged and Samantha added one more piece of advice, "Besides, it's safer than wanting to be a director!"

End flashback

"So, she made it home. What's wrong about that?" Danny asked.

Elena made a face, "There's more…"

Flashback

George was just about done for the night. It was nearly midnight and he could finally go home. Most of the tenants were home for the evening, except those who worked the swing shift, but he didn't have to worry about them, Patrick took over and had the midnight to eight am shift. He heard the elevator ping and looked up expecting Patrick, instead he saw Ms. Spade.

"Ms. Spade, you aren't going out at this hour, are you?" George knew her job sometimes asked strange hours from her, but he had never known her to leave so late in the evening.

Samantha sighed, "Yeah, I just got a call. Why can't people go missing during the day?"

George echoed her sigh, "I hear you! But you need to take it easy, Ms. Spade. You work too hard!"

Samantha gave him a tired smile and nodded, "On that point, I agree with you!"

End flashback

"And her car is still there!" Elena exclaimed. "I got tech working on her cell and house phone. We should know soon who called her."

Jack nodded, "Danny, any word on the email?"

"Yeah, but it's not good. Tech traced it back to a dead email, probably set up and taken down just before and just after the creep sent it," Danny was disgusted with the lack of evidence his search had uncovered. This was his best friend missing and he couldn't get any leads!

"Good work Danny. That at least rules out something," Jack knew he had to encourage the younger agent, the lack of leads was disheartening, especially in this case. "Elena, is there any surveillance footage from the garage?"

She shook her head, "No. The tape ran, but nothing recorded. It's just static."

Jack sighed deeply, "All right, Martin? Viv? Anything?"

Martin and Vivian exchanged looks before Vivian nodded for him to speak. "Yeah, I think we found something."