Barbara crinkled her upturned nose when she spotted Rick approaching her desk.

"What're you doing here? Didn't Loot tell you you're persona non grata?" said she turning her attention back to the form she was filling out.

Hearing no reply from him, she looked up from her paperwork. As she saw tension and urgency etched on his face, her pulse quickened.

"What's wrong? Something happen to A.J.?"

"Not in here," said Rick in a low voice and grasped her upper arm to lift all of one hundred fifteen pounds of her out of the chair unceremoniously.

They found a relatively quiet corner by the police station entrance.

Barbara faced Rick and demanded in a harsh whisper, "For God's sake, tell me what happened."

"A.J.'s been kidnapped."

The news rattled her, but being a trained police offer, she was able to keep her composure.

"By whom? And why?" A quiver in her voice betrayed her calm exterior.

"He hinted someone, or some people tied to the Johnny McBride murder case. And I'm sure they're the ones who tossed his place yesterday."

"How can you be so sure?"

"One of the kidnappers said not to tell anyone about this, not even to my, and I quote, big, mangy mongrel dog. He must have seen Marlowe in my boat cabin when he was at A.J.'s."

"Rick, why are you telling me this? You've got to involve the hostage negotiation team to…"

"No!" The word came out of his mouth much louder than Rick had intended. "They'll kill A.J. if the police are involved, and they will know if I talk to anyone else here."

"What're you saying?" Barbara snapped at him offended by what had been implied.

"Think about it—McBride's murder didn't get a lot of media coverage; I woulda missed it if I had blinked during the news broadcast. Then A.J. comes here to provide some information, and his place gets broken into on the same day. Next we find and bring some money from the Secure Guard heist here, and he gets snatched the very next morning."

The frown lines between Barbara's eyebrows deepened.

"I'm not accusing anyone on the SDPD payroll of leaking the information, but the crooks seem to have instant access to the highly sensitive information. Can't you see that?"

"So, what do you want me to do?" asked Barbara guardedly.

Rick licked his lips. "I hate to ask you this, but I need a copy of everything that's inside the McBride file, especially the list of his personal effects at the time of his death."

She cocked her head questioningly.

"The kidnappers let me talk to A.J., and he gave me a clue that I should check on some kind of list. I've been racking my brain, and I remember him telling me about the list in McBride's case file. That's the only thing I can think of."

Barbara kept frowning without a word.

"The kidnappers gave me only twenty-four hours to find what they want, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking for. I'm pretty sure they don't know it either."

Rick waited the longest, agonizing ten seconds for Barbara's response.

"Wait here. I'll be back." She finally said tersely and disappeared into the innards of the police station.

Barbara returned fifteen minutes or so later with a file folder inconspicuously tucked between two binders. She turned her back to the staff manning the reception desk ten, fifteen paces away.

"I made a photocopy of every report and piece of evidence in our files for the McBride and the Secure Guard cases," she whispered then added in her normal tone, "Here's the updated information on your B&E case, Rick. Could you give it to A.J.?"

Accepting the folder from her, Rick played along. "Hey, I really appreciate it. Let me know if you hear anything new, would ya?"

Barbara nodded and mouthed the words, "Go find him."

As Rick was unlocking the office door, the telephone began to ring. He rushed inside to pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Is this A.J.?" A female voice asked uncertainly.

"No, this is Rick." He felt relieved and disappointed at the same time. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Oh, I'm Rosie of Sunshine Dry Cleaning. May I speak to A.J.? This is regarding the clothes he dropped off yesterday morning."

"He's…out of the office right now." His response was clipped. "I'll take your message."

"Could you please tell him that I found his personal item in one of the pockets on his leather jacket?"

Suddenly, Rick felt a fresh adrenaline rush. "Personal item? What is it?"

"A key."

"A key? Not a key-ring with lots of keys?" With one ear pressed against the phone, he could hear his own pounding heart as he spoke.

"No. Just one small key, too small to be a house or car key, I think."

"Great! Listen, Rosie. Can I come over and pick it up right away for my brother?"

"Oh, sure. Anytime."

Rick received the direction to get to the dry cleaner, thanked her and hung up. He was almost out of the door when he remembered something. He strode over to A.J.'s desk and opened the drawer. Inside he found the claim ticket for the clothes at the cleaner in the usual place. This was one of few times he was thankful that his brother was so anal-retentive and predictable.

Sunshine Dry Cleaning was located in a nearby strip mall, which was only five or six minutes from the office of Simon & Simon. Rick walked in the shop whose window proudly claimed 'se habla Inglés' and rang the bell on the counter to announce his arrival.

A heavy-set, middle-aged woman emerged from the back of the shop.

"¿Qué puedo hacer por usted, señor?"

Rick doubted she was the person he'd spoken with but asked her anyway, "¿Es usted Rosie?"

The Hispanic woman shook her head. "Uno momento, por favor."

She shouted as she retreated to the back of the shop, "Rosita! Necesito tu ayuda!"

A young Latina bounded out of the backroom and greeted Rick, "Hola!" She had thick, wavy brown hair, liquid obsidian-black eyes and a mega-watt smile.

"Hi, Rosie. I'm Rick Simon. You called my office not too long ago to get in touch with my brother, A.J."

"Oh, yes. Of course." Rosie tilted her head to one side studying Rick's face. "He's your brother?"

"Yeah, but I have a sneaking suspicion he's adopted."

That made her giggle like a young girl. Rick took out the claim ticket from his wallet and placed it on the counter.

"The ticket shows he brought his shirt, pants and leather jacket. Did you find anything else in addition to the key you mentioned?"

Rosie shook her head. "No. I was kind of surprise to find the key 'cause he's usually very careful not to leave anything in the pockets of the clothes he brings in."

A.J. was in a hurry to get to the police station before work, recalled Rick.

"The key's right here. I had it ready right after I called you."

Rosie reached down to get a plastic baggie from under the counter and gave it to Rick. Inside the bag was a small key. He saw a tiny metal ring in the hole in the key's bow. The break in the ring was slightly apart and misaligned as though something, like a tag, had been torn off in a hurry.

"It doesn't look much, does it? Maybe it's nothing important, but who knows…"

"Rosie," said he looking deeply into her liquid eyes and took her hand in his. "You have no idea…"

A.J. had no idea how long he had been locked up in this small, dark room. It was in the basement of some house and had no windows. The kidnappers put him in the trunk of their car to transport him here, so he had no way of knowing where he was, but it took only fifteen to twenty minutes from the Secure Guard office, so it was probably within a ten-mile radius, A.J. assumed. He guessed it was still early evening though there was no telling what time it was. Larson and LaRoche had taken his watch to disorient him.

Somewhere outside the room, there was a creak of a door.

Someone is coming down here.

Sure enough, A.J. heard a footfall on the stairs then the jingling noise of a set of keys rapping on the door of his makeshift cell. The door opened, and he saw the silhouette of his captor.

When the light came on, the harsh light of the single, naked incandescent light bulb was blinding to A.J.'s eyes that had adjusted to the near pitch-black darkness. He instinctively shielded his eyes.

"Room service."

It was LaRoche, the guard—or someone disguised as one—of Secure Guard was one of the kidnappers. He was out of uniform and had street clothes on, carrying a food tray.

"I'll be back for the tray in ten minutes whether you're done or not."

LaRoche set the tray on the floor and left the room.

A.J. was once again alone in the solitary confinement, but he was glad the guard had left the light on. He looked around and re-examined the room, which was not much bigger than a prison cell. He was sitting on an old, stained mattress that lay on the concrete floor. On one end of the room, there was a filthy toilet bowl with no toilet seat. Other than those amenities, the room was bare except for the light bulb dangling from the ceiling.

His left ankle was shackled to the plumbing pipe in one corner, and his wrists were handcuffed together. He could feed himself if he chose to, but he had no intention of touching anything on the tray. The food the kidnapper had left was junk—the kind kids and Rick would love to eat at every mealtime, but that was not the reason he wouldn't eat it.

A.J. knew right from the beginning that the odds of his getting out of this jam alive were extremely slim. The fact that the kidnappers hadn't bothered to conceal their identities meant only one thing; they were going to make sure he wouldn't be able to ID them later. If he wanted to stay alive, he'd have to be alert at all times, and he couldn't risk it by consuming any food or drink, which might or might not be spiked.

He broke the food into smaller chunks and tossed them into the toilet without hesitation. Dumping a glass of orange juice was a little harder because he hadn't had any fluids for close to ten hours, maybe more. To make the matters worse, this basement room had poor ventilation and stifling. The rational part of him knew the tangy flavor of OJ was ideal to mask the aftertaste of some chemical substance, but his body begged him to take a sip, just one sip… His eyes lingered longingly on the glass for several seconds. In the end, every single drop of the juice went down the drain with the food.

Some time later—A.J. had no idea how much time had passed—he heard the door open but remained still on the mattress playing possum.

"Out like a light. See, I told you, the stuff works," said one of the kidnappers confirming A.J.'s suspicion.

A.J. heard one of them coming into the room to pick up the food tray.

"He'll be out till tomorrow morning at least, so we don't have to worry about him busting out of this place." The man, Larson maybe, kicked A.J. for no good reason.

"I hope you know what you're doing," spoke the other man at the doorway. "We still need him until tomorrow. He's not OD'd, is he?"

"Naw, but he'll still be groggy and won't be able to do anything cute when his brother shows up. And he'll never know what hit him when we pull the trigger."

A.J. heard the door close. On the other side of the locked door, the two men were still talking, but their voices were getting fainter as they walked up the stairs.

A.J. opened his eyes, but it didn't make much difference. The room had plunged into darkness again—so dark it was like going blind. Unable to see the surrounding, his mind started to wander.

And he'll never know what hit him when we pull the trigger.

He couldn't get that voice out of his mind. He'd known what the kidnappers would do with him when he was no longer useful, but it still had shocked him to the core to hear them talk about killing a man so casually as though they were discussing weather.

And I will feel when a bullet pierces my flesh, bores through the bones, ruptures the vital organs… Will Rick have to watch me die before they kill him too? And Mom—oh, God, she'll be…

Abruptly, A.J. dug his heels in and refused to go down that path any further. Stop torturing yourself, he told himself.

To change mental gears, he tried yet again to assess the current situation objectively.

There was no way he could free himself from the chain and the cuffs without any tool. The only chance of breaking out, however small, would be during the rendezvous with Rick when Larson and LaRoche must present him as live bait. Until then, he'd have to conserve his energy, A.J. decided. He was drained mentally and physically and had some aches and pains, but he was in decent physical condition, considering.

Hunger didn't bother him. When he was under a lot of stress, he couldn't eat anyway, but he was thirsty. God, what I wouldn't do for a sip of water…

Trying to put his fears and thirst to rest, A.J. tried to find a more comfortable position on the mattress and closed his eyes.

Drenched in cold sweat, Rick jerked awake from a nightmare where he'd had to watch his brother die a prolonged, agonizing, violent death. In his dream, A.J. had screamed his name over and over begging for help, but he had been utterly helpless, unable to move or look away from the carnage.

He was still at his desk in the office. He must have fallen asleep and thrashed about in his sleep—sheets of paper, pens and folders were scattered around on the floor.

He checked his wristwatch: four in the morning. No more sleep for him. He found no solace in sleep; it was, as a matter of fact, worse than when he was awake. Fears, guilt, despair, and all the rest of emotions he was consciously suppressing in the wakeful state would come roaring back, paralyzing and suffocating him while he slept.

Sleep is highly overrated anyway, Rick told himself. Besides, there was less than twelve hours until the next call from the thugs. No more dilly-dallying.

"Hope you're holding up better than I am, A.J."

Rick was totally unaware that he was talking to his brother who wasn't there while picking up the folders and documents.