Chapter 3:

The fall came completely unexpected. One moment, Leslie had been concentrating her rapidly waning energies on hobbling, one tiny step at the time, the next she was being thrown forward, suddenly cut loose from her support. She came down hard on her side, twisting her already injured knee in the process. For a moment, pain was all her senses could register. There was nothing else. Gradually, the pain receded again to more tolerable levels. It still hurt like hell, but she could at least breathe again. They must have stumbled over a root or something, she realized belatedly while lying in the dirt and trying to catch her breath. She had no idea whether minutes or seconds had passed since the fall, but she was starting to wonder where Jake had gone to. He couldn't have hurt himself in the fall, could he? Or rather, he could, she realized numbly. She had not the faintest idea what the terrain looked like, there might be sharp rocks or who knew what else for Jake to knock himself out on. They should never have left the wreck behind. The thought had no sooner crossed Leslie's mind, when she heard what sounded like something moving in the distance. Maybe it was Jake? But it sounded awfully far away for it to be Jake. Leslie didn't move and listened intently.

"Shut up!" a gruff male voice ordered. "They must be here somewhere."

"You said that before!" a younger voice, also male, commented. "There is no one here. It probably was some animal or something..."

For a few moments, they were silent and all Leslie could hear was the rustling of leaves and the crunch of footfalls.

"You call this an animal?" the first voice barked suddenly.

"It's that damn PI, Doyle!" the second exclaimed.

"Stop!" The first one, obviously in charge, ordered.

"Are you crazy? Let's just finish him off and be done with it."

They were arguing about killing Jake, Leslie realized. There had to be something she could to do stop them. She felt for her service weapon. She wouldn't be able to actually aim at them, but they didn't know that. With a lot of luck, she might be able to scare them off without getting Jake or herself killed in the process. It was an insane thing to even consider, all that time spent in Jake's company had to be rubbing off on her, Leslie thought as she pulled her gun out of the holster. It definitely wasn't protocol, but desperate times did call for desperate measures. Propping herself up one elbow, she raised the gun and fired skyward.

"Shit!" one of them, Leslie couldn't tell which, cursed. An instant later, several shots rang out. Unbidden images of Jake's body lying in a heap on the forest floor, half of his head blown off, rose in Leslie's mind, threatening to turn her stomach. Leslie swallowed hard and squeezed off two more shots. There was no backing down now.

"Over there, up on the ridge!"

Leslie never heard the shot the followed, only feeling the explosion of pain as it struck its target.

oOo

"Can you try calling him again?" Sophia Andretti asked, for what seemed like the tenth time in the past hour. Mal and Sophia had driven back to St. John's where, as it had been agreed, they were going to wait for Jake to return with Chris once Sophia's older brothers were safely behind bars. As soon as they were reunited, the young couple was going to leave for Toronto, where, hopefully, they would be able to be together openly, unhindered by her family. It had been a long and tiring case. Mal hadn't seen Rose in several days and was itching to finally get home, but slowly, Sophia's incessant worrying was beginning to affect him. It was going on midnight and he hadn't heard from Jake since they'd left Foxtrap around lunchtime. He'd first tried to call him for on update, mainly at Sophia's insistence, around 6 p.m., but hadn't been able to reach Jake. Since then, he'd tried several more times to get through to his son, to no avail. Sophia had tried Chris' cell phone dozens of times as well, with an equally unsatisfying result. He'd even called Leslie Bennett around 9, thinking that Jake might have contacted her for help. But Leslie hadn't picked up any more than Jake and Chris had. Eventually, he'd called Rose, told her not to wait up and resigned himself to spend the evening at the office with an increasingly frantic Sophia Andretti for company.

Sophia stopped pleating and un-pleating the fringes of her black and white scarf and started pacing.

"Look, Sophia, Jake and Chris are probably spending the night at the motel in Foxtrap. There is no point in waiting up," Mal argued, but his heart wasn't in it. He too couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't heard from the two men. Jake could be impulsive and stubborn, but he wouldn't just take off while they were working on a job. Besides, there was always Chris. By all accounts, he would have called Sophia to let her know of any change in plans. And why were neither of them answering their mobiles?

Sophia shook her head stubbornly. "Something's wrong, I'm sure of it. We need to do something!"

Unfortunately, he was starting to agree with her. There was little he could do though motel or the Manuels police station who knew what had become of the two men.

"All right, I'm going to call the motel. They should be able to tell us if they checked out."

Sophia nodded. She sat back down, seemingly at least somewhat reassured. Five minutes later, after tracking down the phone number of the motel, Mal was on the phone with the wife of the proprietor. She was none too pleased, but as it turned out, it wasn't so much the late-night call, as the guests in question themselves. In particular, she had taken exception to their visitors.

oOo

Once he'd learned about the incident at the motel, Mal had immediately phoned the Manuels' police station to make further inquiries. It was entirely possible, he thought as he waited to be put through, that the Andretti's thugs had caught up with Jake and his client. After the arrest of their friends, they wouldn't feel to warm-hearted towards the men they perceived to be responsible. Jake could hold his own in a fight, god knew it happened frequently enough, but if Chris was to be believed, the Andretti's were serious criminals, not just your garden variety small timers. He nervously drummed his fingers on the surface of the desk, wondering what was taking so long.

Finally, a voice came over the line. "Sergeant Granger here, who am I speaking to?"

Mal repeated his name and the purpose of his call.

"Are you related at all to Jake Doyle?" the sergeant asked.

"Yes, he's my son. What's going on?"

"I best connect you to the inspector. He'll want to speak to you," the sergeant said cryptically, leaving Mal frowning in puzzlement on the other end. Before he got a chance to ask what this was all about, the sergeant had forwarded the call. It was picked up after only one ring.

"Mr Doyle?" a make voice asked.

"Yes, can someone please tell me what's going on?" Mal demanded angrily, his increasing worry making him short-tempered.

"Of course, Mr Doyle. I understand that Jake Doyle is your son?"

"Yes, he is. Is he in any sort of trouble?"

"No, he is not in trouble. However, he was on board a police helicopter that we have reason to believe might have met with an accident."

"An accident?" Mal echoed tonelessly. After a few moments, he asked, a glimmer of hope still alive, "So you don't know?"

"All we know for sure at this moment is that the helicopter is missing. Due to a technical fault on our end, radio contact was lost shortly after take-off. The fault has since been repaired, but we have been unable to reestablish contact with the chopper. Unfortunately, we only have an approximate idea of where they were going, but I assure you that we are doing everything we can to find your son and the others."

Mal's heart sank. He was used to Jake attracting trouble, but nothing like this. There was a very real chance that Jake's luck had finally run out.

"The others? Who else was on board?" Mal forced out, needing to know.

"Aside from the officer piloting the plane, there were three passengers: your son, a young man named Christian Henderson and a Sergeant from St. John's," the inspector replied.

"That wouldn't be Sergeant Bennett? Sergeant Leslie Bennett?" Mal asked with a sigh. It figured.

TBC