A/N: New chappy! It's long because, once again, I couldn't find a good place to cut until then without making it too short. Hope you'll enjoy!
Also had half an hour to spare earlier so did a little sketch as an outtake of this chapter. I marked the place in the chapter where it fits and will post the link on my profile (I seem to recall links don't work on stories)?

.

SassyJ: I'm not going to disagree with that, hell I've never found a whisk(e)y I couldn't drink. Glad you liked it!

ArodLoverus2001: Haha, thanks! Hope you'll enjoy this one, too!

Art had just finished his shift at work and was on his way home when he spotted two cars stopped just before the intersection, a red vintage corvette behind a black SUV.

There was a corpulent man holding a, now red stained tissue, to his nose and sitting on the sidewalk to the side of the car, not looking much better off than the other who was still standing, but seemed to be swaying a little on his feet. Then he spotted Tim and Erica leaning over what was left of the bonnet of the Corvette filling in paperwork.

He slammed his breaks on.

"What in hell happened here?" He asked, barely hiding the worry in his voice.

"Oh, hey boss," Replied Tim, an all too innocent smile on his face, "These two were driving too close behind, I braked, they didn't stop in time."

"And why do they look so beaten up?" Asked Art, eying Tim suspiciously. Erica was quite impressed at how smooth the lie went down, although it was a little too thought out to be credible.

"Not wearing seat belts," Replied Tim, he looked over at the two guys who nodded in agreement.

"What about this dent here? Looks fresh and has blood on it," Art pointed to the metal above the wheel arch.

"Tire blew, he hit his head trying to fix it," Tim pointed to Marlo, who nodded in agreement once again.

"And you're scraped knuckles?" Art was doing his best to remain calm.

"Well, I gave 'em a hand with the tire, the bolt were rusty as hell so my hands slipped."

They squared off for a few seconds, before Art nodded, "Okay, fine, let's stick with this story, I'm assuming they're going to?"

Tim nodded, Art then turned to Erica, "You were supposed to keep him out of trouble! And you," He turned to Tim, "Stop looking so damned pleased with yourself!" With that he angrily stomped back to his car and sped off.

/Outtake/

Once they'd finished the paperwork and Tim had made sure they knew that if they pressed charges he'd have the Marshal service take them back to jail, they headed down to the garage to get the bumper and ignition fixed.

"Someone try to steal 'er?" Asked the late 40's balding mechanic as he looked at the mess of wires hanging out from the dashboard.

"Nah, I did that," Replied Erica, Tim had gone to the vending machine across the road to get a drink.

"Why an earth would you do that?"

"He'd locked me in the car," She pointed at Tim over her shoulder and the mechanic shrugged, muttering something about kids being crazy these days. It would take a couple of days for him to fix everything, so they'd have to get a rental, he was right out of courtesy cars.

She suggested they walk the rest of the way home then call the rental service when they got back.

"Next time you can let me drive."

Tim almost choked on his drink, "No, just no. Remember what happened when I let you drive the Desert Patrol?" [*]

"Not my fault," She argued, "You said driving on sand was 'fun', you never mentioned anything about tipping over. How the hell did we get that thing upright again, anyway?"

"Picturing Colonel Howard's face?" Suggested Tim, they both laughed.

"Shit, he was scary." She agreed, they fell silent and Tim studied her a little closer.

"What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing?" She smiled, honestly and he tried his best to believe her.

Tim sat on the couch in front of crappy televisual entertainment he wasn't even watching. Erica had been sitting next to him but had dozed off half an hour ago and was now closer to using him as a human pillow. His mind unwillingly drifted back to the conversation (if interaction with Raylan could ever be called that) he'd had this morning, about him and Erica getting together.

He kept pushing the thought away, focusing on ways to get himself out of this mess, but a nagging voice in the back of his head kept bringing it back up. It wasn't until she stirred that he realized he'd been running his free hand through her hair.

She sat up groggily and he was about to awkwardly apologize for waking her up when she pulled her phone out from under one of the cushions.

"...Now? I can't...Well this is important too," Tim couldn't make out what was being said but he could actually hear the sound of another voice through the receiver now, and assumed the person was speaking quite a lot louder. Her expression didn't change though, "Fine, yeah, I'll be there."

The cut the communication and turned to him with an apologetic look, "Let me guess," He said, "You have to go."

She nodded, "I'll be back as soon as I can alright...Just stay out of trouble and we'll fix this, I promise."

"You keep saying that."

"Well, if I can't clear your name, we'll just change it and ship you to Mexico," She winked at him, before leaving the room to change into more suitable clothes.

When she came back into the room with her bag over her shoulder, he was standing by the door. She walked over and hugged him, "Call me if you need anything."

"What if you're in the middle of some crazy spy shit?"

"I'll cope," She smiled as she pulled away a little, then leaned forwards and kissed his cheek, unthinkingly he responded by kissing her lips. They moved apart, looking equally surprised.

"I..er," He started, not to sure of what he should say, "See you next week?" He finished lamely.

"Sure," She opened the door and started walking down the stairs, then stopped and looked back at him, "However tempting it may be, please don't skip out on bail. I get paid a fair amount but I'm not made of money."

He grinned, "Well I'm not making any promises."

The Marshals had been working tirelessly to find the real culprit in the Hecker hit, Tim knew that. They were also going out of their way to keep him out of the loop which annoyed him to no end. He hadn't heard from Erica since she'd left, and rather wanted to call her, but always decided not to.

Tomorrow morning he'd be up for trial, probably convicted and sent to jail and there was no way he was going to sit at home and watch the clock tick away his freedom. He left his house and walked into the first bar he found, regardless of how expensive it was, it's not like he'd be spending much money in the next fifteen years anyway.

He tried several times now to a) Get the information they were obviously with holding from him and b) conduct his own investigations, but Art had been monitoring the GPS on his car quite closely and he always got pulled over within a few miles of his house.

He sat gloomily at the bar, avoiding talking to anyone other than the bartender, when ordering his next drink. That was until a medium sized, curly brown haired man sidled up to him, asking him if he was the Marshal who's shot the witness because he'd seen the news and recognized the picture.

"Really not in the mood man," Replied Tim, not even looking at him as he down his drink and ordered another.

"You misunderstood, see I think I can help. I heard these guys out back talking about you, and some set up. I didn't wanna call 'em on it, cause there was several of 'em, but thought you'd be interested."

He was. He paid his tab and followed the man out onto the street and was then pointed down an alleyway which ran alongside the bar. Looking back, he really, really should have known better but the only thought on his mind was getting to the bottom of this, and the clock was ticking louder every second he wasted.

He'd only taken a couple of steps into the alley when he felt a sharp pain at the back of his head and everything went black.

"What's up?" Erica Asked Raylan as her taxi pulled up in front of Tim's place. Raylan had been on the phone, but he pressed it to his shoulder and looked over to her.

"He's not here. He's not at the courthouse. No one can find him right now." He put his phone back to his ear, "Call you back in a bit." He nodded for Erica to follow him inside.

"Seems like he left in a hurry, stuff's been moved around a lot, I don't know what he normally keeps here, but there seems to be even..Less." He and Erica exchanged a look and he continued, "Something's not right is it?"

"Indeed," She moved over to a board with an assortment of paperwork pinned to it, and moved it carefully off the hook. revealing a locked safe.

"Huh," Sighed Raylan, "What's he keep in there?"

"Dunno, but if it's not empty then this could go towards proving this is a kidnapping," She pulled her phone out and started tapping at the screen.

"You know the combination?" He asked, moving forwards to get a better look.

"Nope, but I'm hoping I'll find it," She started taping in numbers, then looking back to her phone when it failed and trying another.

"Just what are you trying?"

"Any kind of number that could have a significance for him, I got his file right here," She motioned her phone. There was a click and the door slid open. "Bingo."

"Just out of curiosity, what was the code? I mean he'll have to change it anyway, right?"

"Date of first confirmed kill," She replied sliding the safe door open, Raylan whistled and she chuckled as they eyed the content.

"Well that's a lot of fire power. He never struck me as the type to prepare for a zombie apocalypse until now. So, whoever made it look like he bailed had no idea about this."

"Oh, shit you just reminded me!" Swore Erica, he gave her a confused look, "I posted his fucking bail."

"Well, eighty thousand's pretty cheap for a highly trained slave these days," Erica glared at him, "Anyway we gotta get him back now, so why would anyone frame him only to kidnap him before trial? Why do they need an ex- Ranger..."

"Sniper!" They finished together.

"The convoys no longer stop, so they have to stop them, but the security is so high that a team on their own couldn't possibly manage." Said Erica, kicking herself for not thinking of this before hand.

"So they need Tim to pick off the main guys so they can go in safely and steal the drugs. We're talking serious moving target here, and judging by the report on Hecker their current guy is average at best." Supplemented Raylan, "Alright, so we find out where he went last night, who he met and where he is now. I'll call Art and Rachel." He paused, "I'm gonna suggest we claim we worked this out ages ago and we were just waitin' these guys out, so we could make a big bust? And then the plan backfired when we lost Tim, which was entirely his fault?"

She nodded, picking up Tim's car keys, the house ones were no where to be found which made sense if he'd gone out on foot and never made it back. She couldn't believe they'd over looked this for so long. At least she wasn't actually meant to be an 'investigator'.

They split up, circling the block and trying to find anyone who might have seen anything, the bars were of course their first guess, but there were quite a few in this end of town, and generally speaking the night time personnel was not the same as the daytime shift. This could take hours, if not days, which they were starting to feel they didn't have.

[*] I did a little research into army vehicles and saw an old one of these, figured if anyone was gonna 'borrow' it during down time, it would be them. If you google desert patrol vehicle you'll see what I mean about it turning over.

Hopefully the sketch justifies (pun totally intended) my bad writing skills. I completely dropped writing 5 years ago to learn to draw.

Hope you enjoyed it!