Chapter 2
When he arrived at the station, Sam washed his hands and arms and tried to clean the blood from his shirt, but there was only so much he could do. He still looked like he'd been in a war. The short time in the restroom allowed him a chance to think about everything that happened in the previous hour. Elsa was gone, and he had no idea where to begin to look for her. Without Mike and Fi to assist him, he was lost in a big city with too many places to hide. Jesse would help. He knew that, and it made him feel a little better. A ton of weight sat on Sam's shoulders with his friends and his lover in jeopardy, and now he would have to contend with the cops who, for some reason, looked at him as a suspect. No, a person of interest, which was a really nice way of saying suspect, minus the liability. Meanwhile, Elsa became more difficult to find as time passed.
He sat in a small interview room with Det. Casey. He suspected the guy's partner, and God only knew who else, stood behind the one way glass. If he'd been in the mood, Sam would have been cocky and waved at them, but at the moment, he was focused on only one thing: finishing the interview so he could go in search of Elsa.
"Mr. Axe, what were you and your friend Mr. Westen doing at the mall, armed?"
"Is that really relevant? My fiancee's been kidnapped, and two of my friends are in the hospital. I think that's a lot more important." Sam replied, trying to keep his voice tempered and cool, when he really wanted to yell at the detectives and get them to focus on the real problem.
"I believe it's quite relevant. Were you expecting trouble? Perhaps you knew that someone knew you would be there with your girlfriends, and that by splitting up from them, you made the kidnapper's job easier."
"What are you saying, that you think I had something to do with my fiancee's kidnapping? Are you insane?"
"She is quite wealthy, and..."
Sam shot out of his chair, pressed his fists into the table surface, and leaned into the detective's space. "The money means far less to me than Elsa. I love her!" He pointed a finger, stopping within inches of Casey's face. "I would give my life for Elsa, so don't you dare insinuate that I would do anything to hurt her. Otherwise, you'll be sorry."
"Are you threatening me, Mr. Axe?" Casey remained cool, but he could see how deeply this event affected the man. Behind the steel in his eyes, Sam Axe was hurting.
"Take it however you want." Sam dropped into the chair with a deep sigh and swallowed, working hard to maintain his composure. He planted his elbows on the edge of the table and buried his face in his hands to try to shut out everything for a few moments and cool down.
"Judging from what the other witnesses have told us, it was a pretty well organized affair. I believe they had someone helping them, or following Ms. Winchester so they knew when and where to take her. I find it hard to believe that you work with an agent and yet you were not aware that someone could have been tailing you."
"I don't look in my rearview for a tail everywhere I go. We had no reason to believe that anyone would be following us." Sam raised his head and looked at Casey with a spark of a memory coming to mind. "This morning, Elsa and I rode to the mall together. Elsa was driving, and my friends Mike and Fi took his car. We went to the hotel first. What if someone put a tracker on the car, either at the house or the hotel? Then they'd know where she went."
"We'll check out the cars." Casey made a note on a pad of paper. "That kind of brings me back to my original question: why were you and Mr. Westen at the mall, and armed?"
"I can't discuss that." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in front of himself to hide the stains on his shirt. They distracted him. Sam wished he could go home and change, but then he would have to walk into that big house and be alone. Staff didn't count when all he wanted was Elsa safe and at home with him.
"Why are you trying to withhold what might be pertinent information to this case?" Det. Casey came around the table and got into his face, but Sam would not be intimidated.
His eyes locked onto Casey. "If you want to know what I was doing there, you can ask the CIA."
"You don't work for the CIA, Axe."
"Oh, like I'm gonna advertise that with an ID or something? You guys have no clue." Officially, he wasn't part of the CIA, but with his assisting Michael and the agency trying to put the lid on Anson and whoever ultimately killed him, he was unofficially a freelancer. He even got a bit of financial compensation for the last mission that he undertook with Michael, Fiona, and Jesse. Jesse. If only he could call him. At the very least, he could go to the hospital and keep tabs on Mike and Fi. Or he could run some interference and get these cops off his back.
"If you don't cooperate, you might need a lawyer."
It took all of Sam's control to not laugh at the lame ploy. "I have a permit to carry. My friend has a permit to carry. We were perfectly within our rights to be there. You should be more concerned with putting out a BOLO on that plate, if you got one."
"We do have a bulletin out there, and so far, none of our units have seen it. Until the kidnappers contact you or anyone else with their demands, we don't have anything to work with."
"Are you prepared to do a trace if they call?"
Casey sat on the corner of the table and crossed his arms. "We have a team at your girlfriend's hotel and her son's house. I think we've got all the bases covered."
"Unless the kidnappers try the house. There's nobody home right now except for the housekeeper." His frustration showed in the grim set to his lips. "They could have already called and we missed the opportunity to track them!"
"Don't worry, Mr. Axe. We'll get the house covered as well." Casey stood up and beckoned him with his hand. "As a matter of fact, we can do that right now. I take it you have a key?"
"Yes, I do. I live there with Elsa."
Casey let out a breath. He realized that if the kidnappers knew that fact, they could very well have missed the call. "Let's get over there, fast." He got on his phone on the way out of the station. "Rob, we need another tracer at the victim's house. Her fiance and I are on the way there right now." He drove, his partner Detective Groves rode shotgun, and Sam rode in the back. When they arrived, a panel van sat in the circular drive.
"Is that the tracer team," Sam asked as he tried to get a good look through the open doors.
"Don't worry about that, just open the door so we can get set up."
Sam fished out the key, turned the lock, and opened the door. Two men hustled past him and found a landline phone to hook up their equipment. Sam checked another phone for messages, but there were none.
"Nothing so far."
"They'll call." Casey and Groves sat on opposite ends of the couch facing Sam.
He sat in a swivel chair near the large windows that faced the swimming pool and back yard. He crossed his legs and with one foot swung the chair back and forth in a lazy gesture that dissipated some of his nervous energy. His eyes focused again on the stains on his shirt. He really couldn't stand to look at them anymore. His hands gripped the sides of the chair and he pushed himself up to stand.
"I'm going to go change my shirt, if you don't mind."
"Go right ahead, Mr. Axe. You don't mind if we look around, do you?"
"Knock yourselves out. It's not like you'll find anything here." Sam was careful about keeping private things locked up. With a snoopy housekeeper, it became second nature.
He walked down the hall to the bedroom and noted that the house seemed unusually quiet. He didn't see Colleen downstairs, and at this time of day, she often took a break to watch a couple of her favorite soaps on television. She could always be found in the solarium with her shoes off, feet tucked up underneath her, with a Dr. Pepper and a bag of munchies parked on the end table. Today, he didn't hear the television. As he changed out of his shirt and undershirt, he tried to think if she had asked for the day off. When he and Elsa left that morning, Colleen said she was making up something really special for tonight. So she should have been there.
Sam hurried downstairs as he buttoned up his shirt. The two detectives were scattered about the house with their team searching every room. Sam went to the kitchen, hoping to find Colleen there or at least a note to say where she was and when she would be back. He found nothing. A cell phone lay on the counter. It wasn't his, and it wasn't Elsa's. He took care in picking it up and checked through it to try to figure out who it belonged to.
"What'd you find, Axe?" Casey watched Sam for any sign of guilt at being caught, but he was disappointed.
"Cell phone. At first I thought maybe one of your people left it in here, but I think it's Colleen's."
"Colleen?"
"Yes, she's the housekeeper. She's usually around in the solarium this time of day watching the TV, but she seems to have flown the coop."
"Other than my team and you, we haven't found anyone in the house."
Sam's eyes locked on Casey as a cold, prickly sensation crawled down into his stomach. Without a word, he dropped the phone on the counter and hurried toward the French doors that opened to the pool area.
"Axe, what are you doing?" Casey followed.
Sam rushed to the storage shed where the pool cleaning supplies and landscaping tools were kept. He found the door unlocked, and that lousy feeling in his gut only worsened. He flung the door open, expecting to find the housekeeper in a pool of blood, but it was empty. No one was inside: he discovered this after checking every nook and cranny where someone could hide.
"She's not here."
"Did you think she would be?"
Sam shook his head. "I don't know. I just know she's not on the couch where she usually is at this time of day." He turned and glared at Casey. "And I want to know why."
Casey's hard look softened as he realized the truth, that Sam Axe was just a man concerned for the welfare of his fiancee. "We'd like to know that, too. Come on, let's go inside and talk about the housekeeper's schedule, and we'll take a look at that phone. We can get a warrant to pull the records on it and find out who she called."
"By then this could be all over."
"Hopefully with a good resolution." Casey said with a smile of empathy. He dropped a light hand on Sam's back and steered him toward the house. "Just try to keep thinking positively."
"Casey, don't try to BS me. I know how these hostage situations work. Every hour that goes by, the lower our chances of getting Elsa back safely." He ran a nervous hand through his hair as he sat in the chair in the living room. "The longer they take to call, the less likely this is about money and more about revenge."
"Revenge? Why would anyone want to commit revenge against you?"
Sam turned his chair and stared at Casey. "If you only knew!" He turned away again and let his eyes go out of focus as they locked onto the back yard. "Is anyone interviewing the neighbors? Maybe someone saw Colleen leave."
"A couple of my team members are on that. Relax, we know what we're doing." Casey leaned forward on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees, studying the tortured man who sat across from him. Casey had been on the force for a long time, getting close to retirement, and he'd seen a lot of distraught husbands, wives, relatives, and friends, but Sam Axe was unique. His anxiety came from a place that most victims' families never knew, because he understood the mechanics of a snatching, the psychology, the tactics, and the procedures. He had so much more knowledge than the average citizen, but knowing those things wasn't necessarily a good thing. Casey expected that he would be a hard one to work with, because he would press them and he'd tell them what to do. No half measures.
The front door opened, and Sam brought his head up from where it rested in his hand to focus on the young woman who entered. She wore a badge at her waist. She smiled at him and moved around the couch to report to Casey.
"Detective Logan, Sir. We interviewed the homeowners on the block, but only one person saw the housekeeper leave about eight this morning."
"Eight o'clock? Are you sure?" Sam got out of his chair and confronted her. "Elsa and I were still here. We left shortly after eight, though, to go to the hotel. We had breakfast there and she had a quick meeting, and then we met Mike and Fi at the mall."
"So the housekeeper didn't cook for you this morning?"
"No. That happens a lot. Elsa grabs something at the hotel before work, and if I'm not meeting my friends at Carlito's, I'll eat with her." He paused in thought. "Yeah, today we left a little after eight, because I remember I teased her that we were running late and she'd have to grab some drive thru on the way instead of having a real breakfast."
"Where was Colleen when you left?"
"I didn't really pay attention. I think she was... in the kitchen." His head fell back and he pinched his eyes shut. "She was probably calling her kidnapping buddies to tell them we were leaving. She knows Elsa's schedule, but she didn't know about the change in going to the mall this morning."
"The kidnappers were on her tail or tracking her, then."
"Yeah." Sam let out a deep breath. "That still doesn't help us find her. We just know how they knew where to pick her up."
"They'll call soon."
Sam looked at Casey as if he didn't believe him. Then the phone rang.
Casey looked down at the screen and saw that the number was blocked. "You're on, Mr. Axe. You know how to deal with this, don't you?"
Sam nodded as he reached for the phone. "Don't worry, I'll keep them talking as long as I can."
