Chapter 4

Catching up to the dark van Connor was driving wasn't that difficult with the GPS guidance provided by Finch. Having run its plates Finch found out that the van was registered to a resident of a local nursing home, who probably had no idea that he was the proud owner of 1999 dark brown Dodge Ram Van.

John kept back, though never letting the van and its taillights out of his sight. It was changing lanes, heading for a highway exit.

"Where the hell is he going?" mumbled Finch, who'd been following the two red dots depicting Connor and John on his screen. Watching the dot in the lead take a right turn onto 39th street something started to nag at the back of Harold's mind. Something about the area Connor was heading to sounded familiar.

"Finch, he just turned onto the Prospect Park grounds. I can't follow him or he'll know he's being tailed."

The two dots parted ways on Harold's screens. The leading dot turned onto a forest park road, while John's dot went straight ahead, turning into the next side street and to stop there.

Connor's GPS signal stopped near the shore of Prospect Park Lake. Waiting a couple of minutes to see if the dot started to move again, which it didn't, John decided to head into the park himself. He abandoned the car under the cover of a cluster of trees a few couple hundred yards away from Connor's position, making the rest of the way on foot, staying off the path.

He found the van parked in front of an old, run-down boathouse with Connor nowhere in sight. "Finch? I have eyes on the van."

"Can you see what's going on?"

"No. I'll try to get closer."

"Do be careful, Mr. Reese." Finch hated the fact that he couldn't see what was going on. All he had to go on where the red dots and the sounds that were picked up by Reese's cell. When John told him, "Trust me, Finch, I know what I'm doing." his concern wasn't really alleviated. Actually, knowing that John had a knack for getting himself into hairy situations only helped to unsettle him more.

"Oh, that's exactly what I'm afraid of." he said under his breath, earning a soft chuckle for his concerns.

Creeping silently closer, John stopped all movement when suddenly the ram-shackled door of the boathouse flew open. Even though it was dark, the soft moonlight enabled John to make out the outline of a man exiting the shed. He was bent over, moving backwards dragging something heavy along.

As the person moved sideways in the direction of the van Reese realized that the heavy object was in fact the body of another person. Dead or alive, John couldn't tell.

"Now I remember why that location seemed so familiar." Harold's voice in his ear nearly made John jump, though his tension went unnoticed. "That's where the homeless man told Conner he'd be crashing for a few nights."

John was slowly getting closer, close enough to discern that Conner was dragging one of last night's patrons of the soup kitchen towards the van. He remembered how Connor had surreptitiously questioned the man about his whereabouts and his company. The night before John hadn't thought much of it, now he knew what Connor's true intentions had been and something at the back of Reese's mind started to nag.

Keeping his voice as low as possible a theory started to form in John's mind. "Harold, I think Connor's the one behind the disappearance of Billy's friends."

"What do you mean?" Harold asked confused.

"I'm not sure, yet, but I'll be sure to ask Mr. Connor nicely." Connor disappeared behind the van, the sound of the side door being slid back echoing unnaturally loud throughout the woods. John started moving again, picking up his pace. There were only about 10 yards between himself and the van left.

Fearing that John was going to rush into an unknown situation without having it thought through Finch watched the two dots begin to converge. "Mr. Reese what are you going to do?" Receiving no answer he raised his voice in alarm. "John?"

John ignored Harold's voice in his ear as he stealthily rounded the front of the vehicle his gun at the ready and intend on stopping Connor from whatever he planned on doing to Billy, hoping that he wasn't too late already. Billy's lifeless form was lying on the ground right in front of him, but there was no sign of Connor. He crouched down to check for a pulse on the other man's neck and was relieved to find him alive but unconscious. He straightened up again and with his senses on high alert, Reese picked up the faint scrunch of pebbles behind him. He spun around ready to take on Connor. But even before he'd been able to complete his spin he felt a painful prick in his left calf and within moments of it John had lost all feeling in his left leg. The momentum of the fast spin made it impossible for him to keep his balance and John unceremoniously crashed to the ground dropping his gun in the process.

Lying on his left side, the rough ground pressing painfully into his cheek he found himself unable to move. Blinking his eyes a few times to clear his blurry growing vision he was able to make out Peter Connor, as he crawled out from under the van, an hypodermic still in his hand. Connor bent down looking Reese straight in the eyes and John confusedly wondered why he had never before noticed the coldness in the other man's eyes. He had seen that look many times before in the mirror before and after he'd done a job together with his partner Kara Stanton. It was the look of a killer.

John's world began to spin and Harold's voice calling out his name was the last thing his mind processed before darkness claimed its victory over his consciousness.

"Mr. Reese! What's going on?" Harold practically demanded to know, his only answer John's heavy breathing, rustling and something that sounded like a painful grunt. A loud thud, that he had come to recognize as the sound a body made when it hit the ground unimpeded made Harold jump up from his chair. Pain shot down his abused spine, but he ignored it.

"Mr. Reese?" There was only silence and Harold's heart sunk. "John?!" he called out desperately. He watched in horror as one by one the red dots – first John's then Connor's – disappeared from his display. Wasting no time he reached for his mouse, placing a call.

"Detective? I'm sorry to interrupt your evening, but I'm afraid our mutual friend is once again in need of your assistance."

The Detectives were already waiting for him when Finch pulled up beside their cars at John's last known location. He got out of his vehicle holding the driver side door open long enough for Bear to jump out, as well. They were both geared up, wearing their bullet proof vests, and their expressions grim. They'd had enough time to check the boathouse and the surrounding area and Harold figured their expressions could only mean two things. One, they found John and/or Billy dead or two, the found nothing at all. Although both scenarios were unfavorable Finch prayed for the later to be the case. It would at least allow for the possibility for John and Billy to still be alive and offer them the chance of saving them. All they had to do now was figure out where Connor had taken them. It sounded easy enough, but reality always proofed itself to be a lot more complicated.

Harold put his messenger bag containing his laptop over his shoulder and took Bear's leash into his left hand. Limping towards the Detectives he offered them a curt nod of his head in greeting. "Detectives." Carter returned his nod in kind, while Fusco kept on looking rather uncomfortable. "Thank you both for coming. I really appreciate your help."

"Yeah, well, don't thank us just yet." Carter and Fusco exchanged a quick glance, before she continued to fill Finch in on their findings. "Except for signs that someone's been camping out in the shack, we didn't find anything."

"We found this, though." Fusco held out an object. Finch grabbed it realizing as he turned it in his hands that it was a dead cell phone, that looked like it had met with something fast and heavy leaving the display a cracked mess. That explained the sudden loss of John's GPS-signal.

Finch's finger traced the cracked line of the glass. "These things are not built very durable." he said. "Good thing I sold the company before I had to cut my losses."

Fusco gaped at Finch. "That's … that's an iPhone."

Finch looked up from the phone, raising an eyebrow. "That's very perceptive of you, Detective."

"But ..." Lionel shook his head. "Never mind. What are we gonna do now?"

Finch pocketed the broken phone and took the messenger bag from his shoulders. "Now, we are going to try to find out Mr. Connor's whereabouts, which hopefully will lead us right to Mr. Reese." Ignoring the doubtful looks the Detectives exchanged Harold pulled his laptop out of the bag, placing it on the hood of the nearest car, all the while explaining to the two police officers what he'd been able to figure out so far. "Peter Connor works for Reynolds Mutual Trust and Bank, handling the bank's foreclosure paperwork. He's used his position at the bank to stall the foreclosure proceedings for several estates." Harold pulled a small stack of paper out of his bag and handed it to Detective Carter. "Those are the addresses. I believe that he might be using at least on of those empty homes as a hideout for his ventures."

Carter was leaving through pages, absently asking, "Which would be what exactly?"

Finch's expression morphed from slightly anxious to grave within a blink of the eyes. "I'm not entirely sure."

Carter looked up from the pages, exasperation written all over her face at Finch's hesitant confession. It was just typical of the two to get involved with something without having the slightest clue what that something actually was.

"However, we do believe Peter Connor might be responsible for the disappearance of several homeless men over the last couple of weeks." Harold hurried to explain, though he was just figuring things out as he went along, as well.

"What?" Carter stared at Harold in disbelieve, while Fusco's face creased in confusion. "I'm not aware of any open cases regarding disappearing bums."

Finch turned his body to face Detective Fusco, a humorless smile on his face. "That's just it. As long as no bodies turn up, nobody would miss them." He turned back to Carter pointing at the address list. "I believe he's been using those houses for hiding his victims and that's why I think we'll be able to find him and Mr. Reese at one of the addresses." He paused briefly before adding hesitatingly. "And it's all I've got."

Fusco looked at the list over Carter's shoulders. "So … you want us to check them all out?"

"Yes." Harold nodded his head in confirmation.

At that Carter's eyebrows shot up, disappearing within her banks. "Finch, there are like 30 addresses on this list. All over the city. There's no way we'll be able to check them all out without any help."

"I'm running the van's license plate through the plate recognition software. Hopefully the plate will be picked up by a camera in the system to help narrow down the area. Until then … I arranged the addresses topographically, so I suggest you start at the top."

Carter shook her head in exasperation. "Lemme guess, you hacked into the police system to run the plates?"

Finch just looked at her. "Does that really matter at this point?" he asked matter-of-factly.

Carter sighed. "No, not really." Returning to page one she addressed her partner. "Let's get started then."

Author's note: In case any of you was wondering - yes, there was a reference to Sledge Hammer in this chapter. I couldn't help myself, and honestly, doesn't POI sometimes resemble Sledge Hammer just a little bit?