A/N: New chapie! Enjoy! Forgive me for not updating earlier, been busy all weekend. R&R

Chapter 4

Greg, now rid of the phone, dashed back to his office to collect his briefcase. He reached the office panting again, Greg had seriously thought about working out more, but with his promotion there were longer hours and Greg just didn't have the time anymore. He had to settle with his small frame for now until his vacation time. Greg unlocked his briefcase in a flash and whipped out his cell. He proceeded to locate Archie's number in his phone book, and with growing annoyance, he realised it wasn't there. He swore loudly and hurried over to the main lobby.

"Maria." He yelled across the room, "I need Archie's number right away." She nodded and her fingers flew over the keyboard without asking any questions.

"702-359-7198" she said simply to him, glancing up to read Greg's expression. Greg flipped open his phone and dialled the number quickly. There were two rings before a voice answered on the other end.

"Archie Johnson"

"Archie. It's Greg. Can you get down to the lab right now?" Greg stumbled across his words in an effort to get them all out in a hurry.

"Greg, what's up man?"

"Nick's been kidnapped, got a phone call, we need you here right now."

"What? Fine. Bye." The line went dead. Greg shuddered, now that the fact was spoken aloud, it seemed more real. He looked down at Maria sadly and caught her eye. Her brown curly hair framed her face with two dark turquoise eyes looking back up at him with a sympathetic stare.

"Is it true?" she said quietly, "has Nick really been-" she couldn't even finish the sentence before her eyes began to fill with tears.

"We don't know for sure, yet. There's no need to worry prematurely." He assured her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. He sounded much surer of himself then he actually was. She nodded and returned to her work. Greg took off towards Grissom and the lab, picking up his briefcase along the way.

He made it to the lab in 5 minutes, almost missing it in his haste. He opened the door, and hurried to stand just in front of another desk where Grissom sat staring at the floor, his hands folded neatly in his lap with a pair of headphones jammed in his ear. Greg would have laughed at the sight, if he weren't in this kind of situation. The cell phone lay on the table with the headphones plugged into it. Grissom, who obviously was listening to the conversation between him and the mysterious woman, had an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes had a far away look in them as if he wasn't paying attention, but Greg was fully aware that he was alert as ever. It wasn't long before Grissom looked up from the floor, signalling to Greg that it was over. He took out the headphones and maintained his grave stare.

"You don't think it's a crank call, do you?" asked Greg seriously, fearing the worst.

"I phoned Nick's cell. He's not answering that or his pager. Until we check his house, we still can't know for sure." A sinking feeling came into the pit of Greg's stomach as he realised that he had believed the mysterious caller, right off the bat. He hadn't called Nick to make sure, or paged him. He hadn't even told someone to check Nick's place. He hated himself for that, and yet, he was acting on instinct and didn't want to waste time doing those things in case of the slight chance that the woman was right.

"I can go check-" began Greg, but a shrill ring of Grissom's cell interrupted him mid sentence. Grissom held up his hand to silence Greg, and he snatched up his phone.

"Grisom." There were a few moments of silence before Grissom spoke up again, "thanks." He clicked off the phone and Greg looked at him questioningly. "They checked his place, Nick's not there. He's gone." Grissom confirmed Greg's worst thoughts.

"He's gone." Greg repeated silently in disbelief.