Lupo POV

I'm a married man.

I'm married to Connie.

It's my reality and yet it's so…surreal.

For nearly forty-eight hours, we did nothing but bask in wedded bliss.

Neither of us wanted to check out of the Millennium, but our weekend was over and it's certainly not a place I can afford, so early afternoon on Sunday, we headed for home.

Where I insisted on picking her up and carrying her into the apartment.

Although, I wasn't exactly traditional about it.

"Lupo!" she cried out when I grabbed her and tossed her over my shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"You had to know I was going to do this."

"Maybe, but not like this!" she argued on a laugh. "It's not very romantic."

"If you want romance, then I think you've got the wrong guy," I quipped, repeating to her the words I'd said the very first time I said I love you.

"Oh, I've got the right guy," she countered.

I set her down inside of the apartment and then without another word, I started undressing her.

She stood there in the foyer and let me do it, waiting patiently while I slowly removed every piece of clothing.

I let my eyes travel over her leisurely, anxious and yet not in any hurry to end the moment.

"Are you just going to look, or…"

"I think I'm just going to look for a while," I replied.

But then I couldn't just look.

I couldn't resist touching her, lightly and teasingly, causing her to close her eyes and let out a sigh.

"I can't believe we made it through the whole weekend without the phone ringing," she said softly, her eyes still closed.

"Sshh," I said as I kissed along her neck, up to her jaw and then back around to her ear. "It'll hear you."

And it did.

But not until several hours later, so I can't complain too much.

And surprisingly enough, the phone that rang was Connie's, not mine.

"Rubirosa," she answered.

I gave her a questioning look at her use of her maiden name, but then as I saw the concern wash across her face, I quickly forgot about that and instead reached for my pants.

Because something was definitely up.

"Where are you?" she asked after a moment. "Did you call 9-1-1?"

"Who is it?" I mouthed to her.

She held up a finger to me and then said, "Okay, but I'm bringing Lupo, and if he wants to call, then we're calling…okay…we'll be right there."

She hung up and then started getting dressed in a hurry.

"It was Mike."

"Cutter?" I asked for clarification, assuming she meant him instead of Logan, mostly because Logan probably would've called me.

She nodded and said, "He was at his girlfriend's place and someone broke in."

"What?"

"I know," she agreed. "And the guy took her, Lupo. He kidnapped her."

"Wait," I said, doing my best to grasp the full magnitude of the situation. "This is Anna, right? One of Mary's team?"

Because I knew that Cutter had brought the inspector to our wedding, but I didn't realize they were dating.

At least, not enough where he was going home with her.

Although, I guess that doesn't really mean anything.

I don't know Cutter enough to know whether going home with women is his MO.

And it's completely irrelevant.

I shook my head and focused on the situation.

"Yeah, although he didn't know that until she and Mary ran into each other," Connie answered.

"And she's been abducted? What did Cutter do? Did the guy say anything?"

"He was knocked unconscious and when he came to, she was gone."

"And he called you instead of the police?"

"He called me because of you."

Which is how two phone calls and a little more than an hour later, I found myself in the apartment of Anna Holly, discussing possible scenarios with Bernard, Mary, and the Gorens.

When Connie and I first arrived, I think Cutter was still in shock.

"Mike?" Connie called out hesitantly as we entered the apartment. We'd knocked, since the front door was still closed and intact, but he hadn't answered.

"In the kitchen," was his response.

I glanced around the place, taking in the disarray in the living room as I followed Connie toward the sound of Cutter's voice.

He was sitting in a chair, dressed only in his underwear, and he was staring at the table. Blood was still oozing down the side of his face, and Connie looked back at me worriedly.

"Sorry to interrupt the honeymoon," he said in a strained voice.

"Mike, what happened?"

"I'm not sure I know," he admitted.

"I called Mary," I told him. "She's on her way. So is Bernard. Tell me why you didn't want to call 9-1-1."

Because if this was going to be a cover-up of some sort, I needed to know immediately.

He finally brought his eyes to mine and I instantly felt compassion for him. He'd obviously been with this woman…and now she was gone, literally pulled from the bed.

"I'm a Manhattan EADA. Jack's just kicking off his re-election campaign. Can you imagine the scandal involved if the press gets wind of this?"

"But…it's a kidnapping," Connie argued lightly. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," she continued. "You're allowed to have a personal life, Mike."

"You always tell me that Lupo's the best, right?"

"Of course," she replied, her eyes darting to mine.

"If I'd called 9-1-1, it'd go to whatever cop catches it out of the local precinct. It might've been someone good and it might not. Now I've got you," he concluded, giving me a nod. "So find her, okay?"

His theory wasn't completely sound, because since a marshal was involved, either they'd pull jurisdiction or Ross would snag the case for MCS, but I could still understand and appreciate Cutter's motivation.

And it wasn't hard to see that maybe his thought process wasn't performing at peak capacity right now.

"I'll do the best I can," I promised.

Shortly thereafter, the others arrived and I left Connie in the kitchen with Cutter and Hayes while Bernard and I wandered through the apartment with Mary.

"I'm calling Bobby and Alex," Mary stated after only a few minutes.

"Why? If this is the Albanians…"

"That's exactly why. Because we have no idea whether it's them or not, but that's all any of us can think about. We need an objective opinion."

And we got one.

"You said she's got four active cases," Bobby stated after Mary brought him and Alex up to speed. "Are any of them at critical points? Testimony is scheduled? Depositions taken?"

"No."

"So those four were just admitted into the program?"

"No. They're actually all four pending a trial, but they're kind of in limbo at the moment while the US Attorney gets his act together. So nothing's on the schedule, and each of the witnesses have transitioned into their new lives without any hiccups."

"Okay," Bobby said with a nod. "But with this case…Lupo and Bernard's…you anticipated trouble on the night you moved your witness, right?"

"Yes," Mary answered. "Only we didn't run into any."

"Maybe you did and you just didn't know it. What's the theory on the one down three to go message?"

"We're still not sure. We think it has to do with her family members, people who might be used as leverage to find her. Her brother's family was killed, and after that we were able to put her sister's family and her parents into protective custody."

"But that only covers two more," Bernard finished. "We don't know who the third might be."

"A boyfriend?" Alex suggested.

"There wasn't one. Or at least, not that we know of."

"You've asked her?"

"Yes. After her brother's family was killed, I got word to the assigned marshals and they interviewed her again to get more details."

"And Anna wouldn't know her whereabouts, right?"

"That's right."

"Who does?"

"I do," Mary admitted. "But I'm the only one in New York who would know. Other than me, only her assigned marshals in her current city, and their boss. That's it."

"The pilot?" Bobby asked.

"The pilot never knows who's on board his plane."

"So he knows the place and not the name…the marshals here know the name and not the place," Alex stated with a nod.

"And the Albanians would know that," Mary said quietly as we suddenly realized that the conversation in the kitchen had come to an end. "They're not virgins in the world of Witsec."

"So why take Anna, if they knew she wouldn't have the information?"

"The way I see it, there are two possibilities," I said. "One – they're going to call and ask to make a trade, Anna for the witness."

"And two?"

"Two is that her abduction doesn't relate to this case. There's something else about her that we don't know."

"I think there's a third option," Bobby said. "Maybe they're getting her to give up the name of who would know. If it's standard protocol for the supervising marshal to have those kinds of details, then it's possible that all they want from her is your name."

"So…what? Then they can torture me until I cough up a location? That's not going to happen."

"No, it's not," Alex agreed firmly. "Because you're going to have someone with you at all times, watching your back."

"Alex, I've been doing this job for a long time…"

"I know. And you've always had a partner."

"Yes, but…"

"No buts," I said, jumping on board with Alex's plan. "Until we either find Anna, or find out that she was kidnapped for a reason other than finding your witness, then you need to be with one of us."

"I like you, Lupo, but I think your new wife's going to have a problem with me sleeping in your bed."

"You know what I mean," I insisted.

"I'll stay at the Millennium," she conceded. "They have security there, and no one would associate me with the hotel."

"What is it with you people and your aversion to doctors?"

The five of us looked towards the new voice in the apartment and watched as Liz headed for the kitchen. Ross followed her for a few steps and then caught sight of us and detoured in our direction.

"Chief," Bernard greeted. "You were our next phone call."

"I'm sure," he responded wryly. "Hayes called Liz since apparently Cutter is refusing to go to the hospital."

"Good. He's definitely going to need stitches."

"So where are we?" Ross asked. "Any contact from the kidnapper?"

"Nothing yet."

"Is her cell phone here?" Alex asked.

"We haven't been able to find it," I answered. "Cutter says she had it in her purse, and that's still here but the phone isn't."

"So it's safe to say that he's got the numbers of everyone in her life," Mary muttered.

"Security footage?" the chief questioned.

"The cameras were knocked out. There's nothing viable."

"And no one saw anything? Neighbors? People on the street?"

He glanced around the room and added, "She fought him pretty hard. Surely she didn't go quietly."

"There's blood and hair on the edge of the desk," Bobby pointed out. "We think she was unconscious."

Ross nodded and then looked at Mary.

"Okay, so how do you want to play this? Are you calling in your people, or do you want my guys to work it?"

"I…should probably call my guys, but you know, I've known them for a week and I'm not won over by their investigative ability. Besides, kidnappings aren't exactly what we do."

"But if it involves a witness, there'll be information that you have to withhold, information that may be vital."

She sighed heavily and ran her hand through her hair before looking around the room in annoyance.

"Yeah. Okay, I'm going to call in the rest of my team. But I'd like to keep it in Major Case, too. We can make it a joint effort, okay?"

"Fine by me," Ross agreed. "And the first twenty-four hours are critical, so I say the sooner the better. Where do we start?"

"I'm going to make the calls," Mary said as she pulled out her phone and stepped away.

"We need to put an alert out to the hospitals," Bobby began. "Telling them to be on the lookout for Anna, in case she gets worked over and then gets dumped somewhere. She might find her way to a hospital."

"If she gets dumped, I don't think she'll be going anywhere," Bernard said softly. "If this is who we think it is, we've seen his handiwork."

I nodded as I easily brought up the image of last week's crime scene.

Six dead. Four of them children.

"Still," Alex said. "It's a place to start. And we can issue a BOLO so that every beat cop has his eyes open. And we need to knock on every door in this building to see if anyone saw or heard anything."

Earlier, we'd hit the other residents on the tenth floor, but we'd come up empty. But Alex was right. It was possible that someone saw something and didn't even realize a crime was being committed.

"We can see if any other building in the vicinity has security cameras," Bernard suggested. "It might give us…something."

We took a few more moments to discuss our plan of attack, and then we got to work.

Me and Bernard.

Alex and Bobby.

Ross and Mary.

Hayes stayed behind to take the phone call, if one came in. Arrangements were made to have a trace on the phone, just in case, but it was a long shot.

Once Mary's team showed up, they joined in the effort.

We worked all night, knocking on doors. It was a big building with hundreds of tenants and not surprisingly, no one admitted to seeing anything.

And then at five-thirty in the morning, we finally got the call.

Only it wasn't exactly the one we were hoping for.

"The call came in from Kew Gardens," Hayes told us.

And I knew by the look on her face that it was bad news. She'd come to find us as we canvassed the twenty-first floor.

"And?"

"A beat cop found her. She was naked, lying in the middle of the road, like she'd been pushed from a moving car."

"Dead?"

Hayes nodded carefully and then said, "He said he probably wouldn't have recognized her from the photo on the BOLO because she was so badly beaten."

"Then how does he know it's her?"

"She had on her marshal's badge, on a chain around her neck."

TBC...