Thank you to all of you who have read my story and to all the great reviews! I hope you like this chapter!
Back at the lab Eric and Natalia are still looking for a lead on who murdered the victim. Natalia is going over the clothing when she sees a strange stain on the victim's shirt. She cuts a small piece off and processes the piece. Eric walks over to the computer that Natalia was at. "Got something?" Eric asks. "That is what I am hoping for." She responds. "Ah here we go. The stain on the victim's shirt is lock lubricant. Where would you use a lock lubricant?" Natalia asked Eric. She gave him a confused look. "Large storage locker facilities would use lubricant for the locks that were never really used. That way they could keep the lock and not have to buy any more locks then they had to." Eric responds. "Hmm." Natalia says. Horatio walked in as Natalia looked up large storage facilities near the crime scene. "Have either of you two heard from Wolfe or Calleigh lately?" Horatio asks. Natalia shakes her head no "Why?" "They are not in the lab and I can't reach them on their cell phones." Horatio responds getting slightly worried. With Ryan's OCD and Calleigh's experience, those two rarely didn't answer their phones at this time of day. "Eric could you do me a favor and see if you can find Calleigh's hummer. They just have gone out to look at something and forgot to tell someone." Horatio asked. "Ya sure." Eric replies. He has a slightly worried expression as he traces the GPS tracker in Calleigh's hummer. "Horatio it says that they are at an abandoned storage facility. A Lock and Leave." Eric says reading the name of the facility out load. "Eric, that facility is one of them on the list that uses this specific lock lubricant." Natalia says as she cross checks the addresses. Horatio then says "Call for back up and let's go."
When they get there Horatio, Eric and Natalia pull out their guns. Horatio has them wait until back up arrives when they see the hummer abandoned at the front of the building. Once the backup arrives, Horatio signals to the other cops to fan out and fallow them into the building. They rush into the build and they go quickly through the building. Eric is hollering for Calleigh and Natalia is hollering for Wolfe while Horatio is hollering out for both of them. After a little while all anyone can hear is the continuous sound of Clear's. Horatio was the first one to enter the room that had all the trash thrown around it. They first thing that the group sees is Ryan's kit on its side, with the contents spilled out across the floor. Some of the evidence that he had collected was still in the evidence bags. Horatio looks down the hallway and sees Calleigh kit also on its side with the contents spilled out. He walks over and sees that the lock pick tools were out of the spill and were slightly inside the door way. Eric throws his gun down and kneels down with his head in his hands when he sees the kits tipped over and the fact that neither of the kits' owners to be found. Natalia puts her hand to her mouth and has tears in her eyes when she joins Horatio in the room. He was standing off in the corner looking down at a pair of cell phones. Horatio kneels down near the phones and looks over to the side and notices some rope. He then looks back to where they came in and sees drag marks. "Eric, it appears that they were ambushed. We need to process this whole building." Eric looked up and nods his head as he slowly gets up to go get his kit. Natalia walks over to where Horatio is and says "What have you got there?"
Horatio picks up the rope with a pen and says "This rope looks like the same as on the victim Natalia. I think that the missing girl may have been held here." "Ok, so if she was here that must mean that whoever kidnapped her was here too. That must be who took Ryan and Calleigh" Natalia said after she looked at the rope. "I will take that rope back to the lab and see if I can get any DNA from it. Once I am done with that I will look and see if came from the same spool." "Ok. Natalia we need to find out who is behind this before anything happens to them." Horatio said as he put the rope into an evidence bag. Natalia nods her head and continues on. Horatio leaves to see what he can find out about who may have been at the warehouse. Eric and Natalia start to mark everything that they can find in the building. Natalia goes into the room that the guy had been living in and Eric stayed in the holding room. Horatio comes back to Eric just as Eric finds Calleigh's flashlight was right where it dropped when she came in. Eric sighs and has a worried look on his face. "Horatio, what were they doing in here?" Eric asked as he bagged Calleigh's flashlight. "I don't know Eric but we are going to find out." Horatio responded.
As Horatio was looking at the flashlight, he notices something behind the door. He carefully pushes the door closed slightly with a gloved hand and picks up a piece of cloth. The strong sweet smell coming from it tells Horatio that the cloth was soaked in Chloroform. "Eric…" Eric looked up at what Horatio was holding. "Chloroformed?" He asked in almost a whisper. "I believe so Eric but it does mean that they may still be alive. They must want them for something." Eric solemnly nods and bags the cloth. Horatio leaves Eric to finish up in that room and goes to see how Natalia is doing. "Natalia what do we have in here?" Horatio asks. "Well I found Ryan's kit and it looks like he was called away from what he was processing." Natalia says. "So he was in here collecting evidence when Calleigh called him over to the other room where she found the girl." Horatio says trying to figure out what happened here. "Ms. Boa Vista can you go back to the lab and find out what brought them here in the first place? I will help Eric finish up here ok?" He suggests when he realizes that Natalia is taking this really hard. "Ya ok." Natalia said distractedly. Her mind kept going through how this may have played out and the scenarios were not good. She gets ready to leave when Horatio's phone buzzes. He pulls it out and sees that he had a missed call and a new voice mail. He stares at the number until he remembers that it was the same number as the girl's phone that he had called earlier. He opens up his voice mail and carefully listens to the message. Natalia had paused and was watching Horatio as his face fell. The longer he stood there listening to the message, the sadder he looked. Finally he pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the phone blankly. Eric walked in then and immediately saw Natalia's worried look and Horatio's sad expression. "What is it H?" Eric asks.
Horatio couldn't seem to find words so he put the phone on speaker and replayed the message. "Lieutenant, the stakes have just tripled and I do believe they are in my favor." The voice mail ends to the man's laugh. Natalia's eyes water and Eric's shoulders drop. The killer now not only had more hostages, he had two of the team. Horatio slowly closes his phone and looks up from his closed phone. He looked from Eric and Natalia. "We have to act fast so let's get moving." Horatio said trying to bring the two from their dark thoughts. Horatio took some of the evidence that was collected and began processing it. Eric was in another room processing the sleeping man room's content when he finds a type of dirt that doesn't appear to belong at the scene. He runs it through the mass spec and when he gets the results he takes the paper to Horatio. When Eric walks in Horatio says "What do you have Eric?" Eric hands him the results paper and replies "I found some concrete dust that would normally be found in some older house basements." Horatio looks at the paper then back to the computer that he has his results on. "I found the same thing in the sleeping bag. Ok Eric, I want you to find out where exactly this dust came from."
"Alright H." Eric says as Horatio leaves the room. He shrugs the lab coat off and placed it on its hook. Horatio then goes to see what Natalia found. "Natalia, do we know yet what had Wolfe and Calleigh go to the warehouse?" Horatio asks. Natalia finishes up what she was doing and says "The only thing that I can find is a number that was run through that computer that was to the victim's home phone." Natalia looks at the results from the number that they had run through the computer. She looks up the number and gets a disappointed look on her face. "Horatio, the phone that was used to place that call was a pay phone that was located by the warehouse. They must have seen the warehouse on the map and went to see if there was anything there." Horatio looks at what Natalia found and when she says quietly under her breath "And they found more than what they were hoping for." Natalia has a desperate kind of look on her face as she says "Horatio how are we going to find them?" Horatio looks at Natalia and with a sympathetic look on his face as he says "We will find them Natalia." "Ok." Natalia says as she whips a tear from her eye.
Calleigh blinked her eyes trying to get her eyes to clear the blurriness from them. She reaches up to rub her eyes and finds that her hands are cuffed in front of her and she is in a dark room. As Calleigh looks around she sees Ryan on the ground with his hands tied behind him and a nasty wound on the back of his head. Calleigh tries to move over to check him but the Chloroform has not completely left her system yet so she ends up scooting over to him. "Ryan… Ryan?" Calleigh manages to scoot over to him and finds that his hands were tied together with a thin piece of rope. She checked Ryan's head wound and saw that the wound was not as bad as it looked. The blood around the wound was dry and when Calleigh realized this she took a breath of relief. Calleigh looked around the room that they were in when she saw that there was another person. She carefully moved over to the other person and realized that it was the same girl from the warehouse who also had her hands cuffed together in front of her just like Calleigh. When Calleigh got to her and touched the girl, the girl's eyes blinked open and she jumped up with a start.
"Are you ok?" Calleigh asks with concern. The girl carefully and slowly sat up with Calleigh's help. Calleigh gets a look of surprise when she can really see the girls face. "Emily? I'm Calleigh Duquesne." Calleigh asks. The girl looks at Calleigh curiously and says "Yes. How do you know my name?" Calleigh gets a sad look on her face as the girl looks around the room. "Oh did he tell you?" the girl asks when she sees Ryan across the room. "Um no, I am a crime scene investigator and we well… we found that you were connected to a victim. Emily…" The girl got tears in her eyes as she said "You found Maria." Calleigh got really sad and said "Yes." Calleigh whips a tear away from Emily's face and says "I am so sorry." Emily sniffles and looks back over to where Ryan was and asked Calleigh "Is he ok?" Calleigh looks over at Ryan then back at Emily. "Yes I think that he will be fine. He has a nasty gash on the back of his head but it is not life threatening." Calleigh replies as the two of them move back over to where Ryan is.
Emily carefully moved Ryan's head and places it in her lap while Calleigh moves around the room looking for a way out. There was only one way in and out which was a locked door on one side of the room. Calleigh tried the door a few times but when it didn't even budge, Calleigh looked around the door to see if she could find another way to open the door. She began to try and remove the hinges when Emily calls Calleigh over as Ryan begins to wake up. "Ugg, what happened?" He asks as he comes to. Ryan startles when he sees Emily right above him. She waves at him with a small smile on her face. "Ryan. How do you feel?" Calleigh asks him as he tries to sit up. "Well my head hurts and I am really confused as to what is going on." Ryan replies as Emily and Calleigh help him sit up. "We were jumped at the warehouse." Calleigh tells him. "Ok so where are we now?" Ryan asked when Calleigh stands back up.
"I don't quite know but I am thinking that we may be in a basement or in the middle of a big building because I can't hear any traffic or other signs from the outside." Calleigh answers. Calleigh goes back over to the door and continues to try and take off the hinges. Ryan goes to move his hands and finds them tied together. He frowns and tugs harder on his bindings. Emily chuckles. "Their ties together silly and unless you want to break your hand then I would suggest you stop pulling at them." Ryan looks at her curiously until her realizes that she was joking. "What type of rope is it?" he asks. Emily looks at the rope closely before she answers him. "It is one of those cheap ones that you would find at the store." Ryan looks around and sees some piping that appears to have some rough edges. As he makes his way over to the piping Emily asks him "Where are you going?" He looks back at her and says "I am only tied up with thin rope right?" "Well sort of. It is rope although I don't think that it is that thin." Emily tells him as he continues to move over to the piping. "Well I am thinking that I can tear through the rope by rubbing the rope against the rough edges of this piping." Ryan tells her as he begins to rub the binding against the pipes. Emily shrugs and goes over to the door to help Calleigh with the door hinges.
Back at the lab Eric and Natalia are combing through all the evidence that they found at the second crime scene. Natalia was looking through an online catalog of different rope types as she tried to identify the specific brand of rope that Horatio found. Eric was going through all the wrappers and soda cans searching for any finger prints that may have been left. Eric finds a finger print on one of the cans that is not too badly smudged so he lifts it and a partial off a wrapper then runs them through the data base. As he is waiting for the results, he visits Natalia and asks "Have you found anything?" Natalia replies angrily "Other than the fact that the rope is a cheap product that you can buy at any craft store and that it is for little kid art work, no. I have found nothing else." Natalia looks at Eric with concern and asks him "Eric, how are we going to find them?" Eric holds his hands up to calm Natalia down and replies "I may have a workable print that we can use. Want to come with me to see if the results are in?" "Yes please." Natalia tells Eric as she take of her gloves and fallows Eric. When they get to the other room the results were still in progress and just as the results came in so did Horatio. Eric and Natalia were looking at the computer screen when Horatio walked in. Eric looked up at Horatio when Horatio said "Do you have something there Eric?" "Yes H, we have an ID on one of the people that appeared to be living in the warehouse. A Trent Grant." Eric replies. Eric turns the monitor around so Horatio can see the info. "He was arrested for a concealed weapons charge, drug possession, and breaking and entering." "It appears that Mr. Grant has moved to kidnapping. Let's find out what Mr. Grant has been up to. Eric I want you to find out who he has been talking to. Natalia can find out where he has been living and working for the past few months?" Horatio says. Natalia replies "On it." And quickly leaves the room. Eric puts his hands on the table and Horatio puts his hands on his hips. Only time will tell just what the crap was going on.
Back where Calleigh, Ryan and Emily are being held… Ryan was still working on the rope but was making some progress. Calleigh and Emily had most of the screws out from two of the three hinges. "Yes! Finally." Ryan says as the rope around his hands finally breaks and he is able to get free. Calleigh looks over at Ryan and says "That's great! Now you can help us with the door." He chuckles and walks over there to help them when they hear someone coming down to the door. They all quickly back away from the door and Ryan holds his hands behind his back so their captor would not know that he was free of his bindings. To help Ryan, Emily moves slightly in front of him. Calleigh, being the protective mother that she has become, stands protectively in front of Emily. The door opens and the first thing that they see is a 45 pistol. Behind the gun is a man in his 30's that has black hair. The guy acts like he has never kidnapped someone before and you can just tell that it is his first time just by the way the gun shakes in his hand. In his other hand is a plastic bag full of bottle water. He tossed the bag across the floor towards them. "You pick it up." The man says as he points the gun at Calleigh. "Ok. Just stay calm." Calleigh says as she slowly moves over to the bag of water.
"Leave the bag over in the other corner." Their captor says when Calleigh gets the bag. Calleigh pulls three waters out of the bag and hands them to Emily. There is still one water left but she leaves that there so the bag will be able to be tossed to the other corner. She just threw the bag to the specified corner when Emily asks their captor, "Do you think that you can take our handcuffs off?" Emily quickly adds "Just us girls. You don't have to remove his" when the guy gets a startled look and points the gun back at her and Ryan. "I… I don't think that would be a good idea." The man replies. "You don't even have to come over here. You can just slide the key over and we will slide the key and cuffs back to you. You are the one with the gun and I for one don't plan on doing anything that you don't approve." Emily says to the man. The man gets an uncertain look on his face. "Please? Emily pleads. "Ok." The man says uncertainly as he pulls the key out of his pocket and slides it over to them.
Calleigh picks up the key and removes Emily's cuffs before she hands the key to Emily. Emily then removes Calleigh's cuffs and slides both the cuffs and the key back over to the man. The man picks them up and backs out the door and before he shuts the door Emily says "Thank you." The man looks at her and she notices that he looks scared but before she can blink the door is slammed closed and they listen to the man go back up the stairs. "Holy crap, never would I have thought that what you just did would work?" Ryan tells Emily. Ryan takes one of the bottles and takes a big drink. They have been without water for almost 11 hours now so they all were parched. "Yes it did work but there was a big chance that it would not have. You were really brave but it would be better if you don't do that again." Calleigh tells Emily as they all rest a bit from that ordeal. Ryan finishes his bottle off in two more gulps. Calleigh and Emily only get about half way done with their bottles when they hear loud yelling and someone stomping down the stairs. They really don't have time to react and get Ryan covered again before the door swings open with a bang as it slams back against the wall.
