Walker peered at his wife as she sipped her daily morning cup of coffee. She'd abandoned her seat across from him at the kitchen table a few minutes earlier and was now staring resolutely out the window, gripping her mug in both hands.
Walker set his paper down on the table and walked over to where Alex was standing. Snaking his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder he asked "What's up?"
Alex sighed. "Nothing."
"Really." Walker responded, kissing her cheek. "Then why haven't you said a single word this morning?"
"No reason." Alex replied, sipping her coffee. Alex knew that if she told Walker what she was thinking, he would overreact.
"No reason? Come on Counselor, you're not that good of a liar." Walker smirked.
Alex sighed. "Angela." Feeling Walker pull back and picturing the reassuring look on his face, Alex plowed on. "Walker, she didn't call on Sunday. It's Tuesday, she should have called by now."
Walker spun his wife gently by the shoulders until she was facing him. "Alex, she's in college. She got busy and she forgot to call."
"She's never forgotten to call before." Alex protested. "And…I tried calling her cell and she didn't answer."
"Alex." Walker groaned. "Let's go over this again. She's in college. Give her some space."
Alex sighed, "Fine, you're right." She smiled thinly. "I'm going to go get ready for work." She gave Walker a kiss and headed up the stairs. She shut the door to the bedroom and pulled out her cell phone. Dialing Angela's cell phone, she listened to it ring, closing her eyes in exasperation when she heard her voicemail pick up.
"Angela, its mom. I know I've already left you a message, okay fine, a couple messages, but I'm really worried about you. Call me, please." She flipped her phone shut and tossed it onto the bed.
Pulling clothes out of her closet, Alex tried to put her daughter out of her mind. Walker was right, she needed to learn to let go.
"What's up partner?" Trivette greeted Walker as he came in the door of Ranger Headquarters.
Walker settled into his chair. "Not much. What's going on here?"
Trivette leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. "Not a thing. Looks like the bad guys are taking the week off."
It was true. Granted, it was only Tuesday, but still, two days without a serious issue was unheard of. That's not to say they hadn't been busy; they'd been serving warrants pretty much non-stop since Monday morning.
"What've we got today?" Walker asked.
"Well," Trivette said, sitting up and opening a screen on his computer, "Sydney and Gage are already running down the Sanders warrant. Assuming all goes smoothly, they're going to hit Kaufman and Dennison after that, which leaves us with Jackson and Wright. Shouldn't be too bad. You and Alex doing anything tonight?"
"I think we're going to hit CD's after we're done here. I know she wouldn't complain if you came along. Sydney and Gage are probably going to come too."
"Where are we going?" Gage asked, strolling into the office with Sydney trailing behind him, pulling a handcuffed Paul Sanders by the arm. She shoved him down into a chair and walked over to where everyone else had congregated around Walker's desk.
"CD's." Trivette answered. "You in?"
"Uh, yeah. I think I could go for some ribs." Gage answered, stretching back and rubbing his toned stomach that did not yield any evidence of the three thousand calories he consumed daily. "What about you Syd?"
"I'm in. I could use a decent burger." She agreed, swatting Gage on the back of the head when his arm bumped her.
"Hey Shorty, cut it out."
"Well, stop taking up so much space Francis." She joked, dodging the punch he aimed at her arm.
The two feinted back and forth for a few more minutes, trading verbal jabs while Walker and Trivette egged them on. Finally, Walker spoke up.
"Okay. Sydney and Gage, you two go run down those other warrants. Trivette and I will take our two, and we'll meet at CD's later."
"Sounds good, boss." Gage said, and loped out of the office. Sydney followed behind him, grabbing her jacket along the way.
"Later boss!"
"Well, you ready partner?" Trivette asked.
"Let's do it." Walker said, grabbing his hat. "I'm hungry already."
Later that night, the mood was high as everyone ate and chatted at CD's. Jokes and anecdotes that never got old were told and retold and Walker was pleased to note that Alex seemed to have put Angela out of her mind. He loved his daughter, but she was in college and there was no reason to expect her to call every Sunday.
No sooner had that thought left his mind than his cell phone rang. Standing and stepping away from the table, he answered it.
"Walker."
"Hi, Mr. Walker?"
"Yes, who's this?"
"This is Kelly Litchfield, I'm on Angela's soccer team."
Walker filed through his mental Rolodex, trying to place the name with a face. He vaguely remembered seeing 'Litchfield' on the back of a jersey at the soccer game they'd gone to for Angela's birthday two months ago.
"Sure Kelly. What can I do for you?"
"Well, we, I mean, our soccer team, we just wanted to check in with you and see how things were going."
"I'm sorry, Kelly, I don't know what you're talking about. What has Angela been saying?" Walker asked, his tension level growing.
"Well, Coach told us on Monday at practice that he'd gotten an email from Angela, telling him that she needed to go home for a few days to deal with a family emergency. We all just figured that she would keep us updated, but none of us have heard from her. Her cell keeps going to voicemail, so I wanted to call and make sure everything was okay."
"Kelly, there's no family emergency." Walker said, trying to keep his voice even. "We haven't heard from Angela for a few days. When did you get this email?"
"Coach said she sent it to him on Saturday night. Mr. Walker, if she's not at home with you, then where is she?"
"Kelly, where are you now?"
"In my apartment. I live next door to Angela."
"Do me a favor. Go knock on her door."
"Okay, hang on."
Walker held his breath, listening to Kelly knock on Angela's door.
"Mr. Walker, she's not answering. I have her spare key, do you want me to go in?"
Walker weighed his options. It was going to take him at least two hours to get there, if Angela was hurt or sick, he needed someone in there now. "Kelly, go ahead. But stay on the phone with me, tell me everything you see."
"Okay." Walker heard the sound of a key being turned in a lock, then the soft creak of a door.
"What do you see, Kelly?"
"I'm in her kitchen; it doesn't look like anything is wrong. Her bathroom is empty too."
"What about her bedroom?"
"Hang on…it's empty." Kelly said, concern lacing her voice.
"Kelly, this is important, tell me what it looks like. Tell me everything you see. Start with one corner of the room and work your way through it."
"Okay. Her bed isn't made; it normally is. We always joke with her about that. And her phone isn't on her nightstand where it usually is. I don't see her phone anywhere. The clothes she wore on Saturday night are on the top of her laundry pile…Mr. Walker, I don't see – oh my God…Mr. Walker, I think there might be blood on the corner of her bookshelf, and on the floor. Oh my God." Kelly's voice broke.
"Kelly, how much blood is there?" Walker asked.
"I don't know. Not a lot. But more than a few drops. Mr. Walker, what's going on?"
"I don't know Kelly but I'm going to find out. I'm on my way there now, I want you to lock Angela's apartment back up the way you found it. You said you live next door?"
"Yes, on the left."
"Okay. I'm on my way; wait in your apartment until I get there."
Walker disconnected the call without waiting for a response, mentally kicking himself for dismissing Alex's worries. Turning and mentally preparing himself to tell his wife about the conversation he'd just had, he was uncharacteristically startled to turn around and be suddenly face to face with his wife; Trivette, Sydney, and Gage were standing behind her, still within earshot.
"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Alex asked, tears welling in her eyes. "Walker, what's happened? What's wrong with my baby?"
He pulled Alex close to him and she buried her face in his chest. "I don't know." He said, just as he had to Kelly. "But we're going to find out."
Without another word, he steered his wife out of the restaurant, his fellow Rangers following close behind. They gunned their cars out of the parking lot and blasted their lights and sirens.
As he drove, Walker punched Angela's cell phone number into his phone, his heart skipping a beat every time it rang. When her voicemail finally picked up, he spoke in a tone that, to Angela would hopefully be reassuring while at the same time scaring the crap out of whoever had taken her. He refused to believe that his daughter was dead. Certainly, he would know that.
"Angel, I'm coming for you. Stay strong baby, we're all coming for you. And I promise you that I will take down anyone who stands in my way."
"Isn't that sweet."
Angela stared up at the masked man standing in front of her, willing herself not to show how scared she was. It didn't help that whatever voice distortion device he was using made his voice low and robotic, contributing to her disorientation. He'd just finished playing her father's message on her cell phone, as he'd done with all the messages she'd gotten since he'd taken her.
"Looks like Daddy finally got worried. And it only took him three days." He bent down until his eyes, slits through his mask, were level with hers. "How does it feel, Angel? How does it feel to know that it takes Daddy Dearest three days to miss you? Guess he's not so perfect after all." He barked a laugh that would have been creepy even without the voice changing device. "Guess we'll just have to wait and see how long it takes him to find you. We'll see how determined and brave he is. Until then…" he let his voice trail off as he backed out of the closet he was keeping her in, slamming the door and plunging her into darkness once again.
As soon as the door closed, she went to work trying to pull her wrists free; they were bound with zip ties to the arms of the chair she was sitting in and her legs were in a similar state. Another tie around her neck kept her from leaning forward and ripping the tape off her mouth; she could barely move her head in any direction.
Temporarily giving up her struggles as her raw wrists demanded, she leaned her head back against the wall of the closet. She didn't even remember getting here. She remembered going dancing with her teammates on Saturday night, and coming home and falling asleep almost immediately. She remembered waking up in the middle of the night when someone jumped on top of her. She'd thought she was dreaming, and when she'd realized she wasn't, she'd managed to throw the intruder off and roll out of bed. He was fast though, he grabbed her from behind and she fell before she could scream, hitting her head on the corner of her bookshelf. Then it was black until she'd woken up in here a few days ago, tied to this same chair. She'd tried screaming at first but the tape over her mouth muffled almost every noise she tried to make. She'd felt a surge of relief when the door to the closet had opened; that relief fading quickly when she realized that the person who opened it was masked, and certainly not a friend.
"Ah, look who's awake!" he'd chirped. She was pretty sure it was a man, but not positive. He'd brushed her cheek lightly and tilted her head to get a better look at the cut from her bookshelf. "Nothing serious." He'd declared, then left, slamming the door behind him.
Her captor was gone for long periods of time each day, returning every night, or so she assumed. Her closet didn't have windows. He let her out once a day to use the bathroom, blindfolding her first. As time had gone on, the bathroom ritual had become unnecessary; he hadn't given her any food since she'd been here, and he only gave her a cup of water each night.
Reflecting on this fact awakened the hunger in her stomach and she fought off the uncomfortable feeling of emptiness.
Eventually, she succumbed to sleep; a combination of exhaustion and hunger. Only after she'd been asleep for an hour did her captor open the door and glance in on her.
"Sleep well, Angel." He whispered before pressing his lips to the cool duct tape that covered hers and closing the door once again.
