Alex POV

Standing in Mike's kitchen, I felt myself getting angrier and angrier.

I knew he felt that the most likely scenario was that Carolyn had left him, and I couldn't understand why he would think that.

And then Bobby had to hem and haw when I'd asked him about it.

I hadn't really meant it as a question at the time. I assumed that he would think that Mike was being unreasonable.

Instead, he'd said that he wasn't sure what he would think.

Which meant that he wasn't truly confident in my feelings for him.

And I didn't understand how that was possible.

How could he ever believe that at some point I might just walk away from him? I'd thought we were well past that.

Ross' appearance at Logan's house was unexpected but very welcome. I couldn't believe he'd gone as far as to pull Carolyn's phone records, but it cleared things up a little.

She'd gotten a call, and then she'd turned off her GPS. That sounded to me like she'd received a threat along with instructions.

But of course, when I glanced at Mike, I could read him like a book. He was thinking that maybe it was another man.

What was wrong with him?

"So bring me up to speed," Ross said. "What do you know?"

"Hardly anything," Logan began. And then he started spouting off theories. "She may have run off. Or she may have been kidnapped. It may be Rhonda. It may be Taggart. Or it may be some unknown participant. Basically, we don't know a fucking thing."

He stood there looking at us, daring anyone to dispute his analysis. But as mad as it made me, I had to admit that he was right to some extent.

Factually, we didn't have much. But he should've been able to trust his gut. I trusted mine.

"Yeah, what he said," I agreed at last. "Rhonda's been keeping us at bay for quite some time now. We haven't had luck tracking her. But she's definitely been keeping up with Mike. And she would know that he and Carolyn were regulars at Steve-O's."

And then of course, Bobby had to contradict me.

That's when I realized the extent of my hostility towards him, because normally I have no problem with him and me holding differing opinions, but tonight it just pissed me off.

Although I did have to give him some credit for agreeing that there had been a threat made, rather than perpetuating the consideration of her abandoning Mike willingly.

But did he really think that?

Or was he holding back to keep from upsetting Mike further?

I could still hear Bobby's voice in my head. I…um…honestly? I don't know.

How could he not know? How could he doubt my commitment?

"Is that our working theory?" Ross asked, pulling me from my thoughts. "That a threat was made against Logan?"

"It's the most plausible. Kidnapping Carolyn from a public location without a trace…I just don't buy it."

"But it could be that she…" Logan began, and I had to cut him off. I'd had enough.

"And she didn't just walk away," I insisted. He and Bobby both looked at me, and then Mike opened his mouth to say something, so I added, "I don't give a shit what that text message says. And you shouldn't either."

I had to get out of this house. I needed to get my focus back.

My friend Carolyn needed my help, and those two dumbasses were going to sit there and honestly consider the possibility that she'd walked away.

I grabbed my coat and put it on, deciding on my plan of attack. I was going to go back to Steve-O's and show the pictures around.

I told the others what I was going to do, and instructed Ross to call me with any news, and then I headed for the door. Bobby could come or not. I could probably use a minute to myself, but then again, maybe I needed to air my grievances with him before I exploded.

I heard Logan ask Bobby if he was going with me, but I didn't hear Bobby's response.

Instead, I heard Mike's phone ring, so I turned around and went back to the doorway.

"Is it a text?" I asked him. I watched as he looked at his phone, then tossed it onto the table and ran past me.

"She's here!" he shouted.

My anger was momentarily forgotten as the adrenaline kicked in and we all ran after Mike out into the street.

"Do you see anything?" Bobby asked him, but he shook his head and suggested that we split up.

I went with Bobby.

"You were going to go to Steve-O's alone?" he said quietly as we searched the neighborhood.

"You could've come," I replied.

"Alex…" he said in frustration.

"Now is not the time," I deflected.

He stopped my progress as we walked through an alley a block away from Mike's house. I looked up at him and my annoyance dissipated somewhat. I couldn't help it. He seemed so vulnerable and confused.

"Why are you so mad?" he asked me. And it really wasn't the time considering Rhonda may be out here somewhere, but I couldn't leave him in the dark.

"Do you honestly think that I would ever walk away from you?"

"You're upset that I'm insecure?"

"I'm upset that you don't believe in my commitment to you. You should trust me, just like Mike should be trusting Carolyn. But you haven't ruled out the possibility that she left him because of your own self-doubt. You believe it could happen to you, so you still think it might be happening to him."

"It could be," he insisted. "We don't know what goes on in their personal lives."

"They spend the majority of their personal lives with us," I replied dismissively. As arguments went, it was lame. "Come on, Bobby. Admit it. You're still waiting for the other shoe to drop, aren't you? You still think that all of what we have, everything that we feel for each other, is going to one day go away."

I held his gaze as he attempted to respond.

"Sometimes, yes," he reluctantly admitted. "Don't you? I mean, ever? Don't you have the random fear that we won't last forever?"

"No, I don't," I told him, and then I walked away from him and left the alley to join the others.

I needed to think about what we'd said, and it really wasn't the right time for us to be having an argument.

But our feelings were too close to the surface because they kept infusing into our unrelated conversation.

"I think that we sit on it another day," Bobby said carefully after I'd just agreed with Ross that we needed to call the cops. "If we can find out about the phone, that'll be another lead to track down."

"But how long will that take?" I argued. "What does it hurt to have back-up on this?"

"Rhonda is obviously watching us," Bobby said. "If we bring in more cops, we don't know how she'll react."

"She didn't mention cops in her text," I replied, doing my best not to yell. I felt like we were having an argument over top of an underlying argument, but I couldn't stop myself. "This isn't a standard kidnapping. There's not going to be a ransom demand."

"I'm just saying…"

Bobby's reply was interrupted by Mike's phone. I watched as Mike picked it up and looked at it.

"It's another text from Rhonda," he said and then he read the message aloud.

My first thought was about the choice of wording.

Call it in to the cops.

That was a cop-way of saying it.

Not call the police, but call it in.

She was listening.

I looked at Bobby and was overwhelmed with a sense of relief to find that we still had our connection. Not only had he reached the same conclusion, but he'd also managed to convey his thought to me. There's a bug in this house.

He and I both stood from the table at the same time. Despite our current discord, we were still in synch.

I motioned for Logan and Ross to be quiet while Bobby scribbled a note and showed it to Mike.

We all started conducting the search. Bobby and I carried on a meaningless conversation for whoever was listening. It would've been nice to have the proper detection device, but a visual search would have to do for now.

If we couldn't find anything, maybe Ross could call in a favor. If he had any left.

Because I was pretty sure that the house was bugged, and by watching the intensity with which Bobby searched, he was confident, too.

At least he's confident about something, my inner snark chimed in.

But I shoved that down for now. He and I would have to talk later.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Mike dropped an entire silverware tray onto the floor, but I struggled quickly to come up with a comment that would explain the noise. If we did find a bug, we wanted to keep that as our little secret.

"Mike, you can't keep throwing a temper tantrum every time we hit a snag. You need to keep your cool," Bobby said smoothly before I could think of something.

I gave him an appreciative nod, and then I looked over at Logan. He was leaning against the counter, and it didn't appear as though he'd heard a word that Bobby said.

He'd turned inside of himself, and I was afraid for where his mind was. He must have felt me looking at him, because he brought his eyes up to mine, but then I noticed something off.

I glanced at the cabinet next to him and then made a quick check of the others before moving to stand in front of Logan. I reached past his head and pointed at the cabinet handle.

Mike glanced at it, and then frowned as the realization hit him. I waved Bobby over and it only took a quick look for him to give me a nod of confirmation.

This certainly explained a lot. Rhonda wasn't as all-knowing and all-seeing as we'd thought. She had just been smart enough to plant a bug.

Ross' phone started ringing, and I watched as he looked at the display.

"It's Liz," he told us. "I'm going to take this outside."

He walked away, leaving the three of us in the kitchen, trying to determine the best course of action.

"I'm going to go to the office. You two go home and get some sleep," Mike said.

"What are you going to do at the office?"

"She's got to have help. There's no way that Rhonda is pulling this off on her own. I'm going to see if I can figure out who else is behind this."

And then he motioned for us to follow, so we all went outside. We had no way of knowing how many bugs were in the house, but now that we'd found one, Ross would bring in a professional to do a sweep.

"You're not really going to the office," I said once we were out. Ross was standing out on the sidewalk, still on the phone.

"I was planning on it," he said. "I'm hoping that my comment about her having an accomplice will spur her into some kind of action. We know from experience that when she gets mad, she makes mistakes."

"Come back to our house with us," I countered, despite the fact that I wanted to have time alone with Bobby. "We can work from there, and you can get a little bit of rest. I know you don't want to quit looking for her, but if you don't take a break, you're going to burn out."

"I don't know…"

"She's right," Bobby said. Mike reluctantly nodded his head. Ross hung up from his call and walked over to us.

"The no-name that called Carolyn was paid for with cash at a convenience store in Trenton."

"When?" I asked. Obviously, the call had been from his detective instead of Liz, and Ross was smart enough to cover that fact.

"Six o'clock this evening," Ross said with a smile.

"Security tape?" Mike asked hopefully.

"I've got a guy headed out there now to take a look at it. It'll take him a couple of hours."

"We're going to go by our place and work from there," I told him. "Are you coming with us?"

"I think I'm going to swing by to see Liz first. As soon as I hear something on the tape, or anything else, I'll come by. Just call me if you get anything."

"Of course," I agreed.

"Thanks for your help, Captain," Mike said.

"Don't thank me until we find her."

TBC...