I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter posted! Unfortunately life has thrown some not so good things my way, and it has taken a while to start working through them.
I hope you all enjoy what I have to share this time, though!
Balulalow
Chapter 4
It was just after nine o'clock in the morning. Jordan had been gone for almost fifteen hours and, except for a useless ransom call that did nothing aside from prove the kidnappers had no idea who she was nor did they even know what they actually wanted, no headway had been made to find her.
Woody was sitting still as a statue on the sofa in her office in the morgue, watching the sunlight creep across the floor in a daze. He hadn't been able to go home, not without her. All he'd been able to do all night was either replay their last conversation in his mind and wish desperately that he hadn't been so cross with her, or he thought about that maddening phone call that had come into the precinct six hours after she had been taken.
"We have the lady cop who went missing tonight," was all they said – not even her name, but he'd known they were talking about Jordan. "Stop your investigation and we'll let her go."
The man had hung up before the answering officer could ask any questions or run a full trace. They didn't even know what investigation the guy had been talking about. Was it something Woody was working on? Was it something to do with the area they had been parked in? Was there a drug ring nearby that the person thought was being looked at? Did it have something to do with the murder case they were trying to solve? There were no answers, despite how hard Woody tried to find them, and it was both unbelievably infuriating and so distressing he wanted to curl into the fetal position in the corner to wait out the storm until someone else brought her back. But at the same time, he wanted to be out there tearing apart the city bit by bit until he found her himself.
Nigel had been able to analyze the call enough to tell them it had been a pay phone outside by a street. Somewhere. Dead end. The tire tracks had gotten nothing, since the tires were bald and the snow was thin. Another dead end. Jordan's shoe had had no trace on it, there were no fingerprints except hers, Woody's, and Chandler's on the car. All they had was the man's footprints in the slush, and from that all they could determine was that he wore a size eleven shoe. Nothing.
Woody rubbed his hands hard over his face, at a complete loss and feeling numb to what was going on. This couldn't really be happening, could it?
Just hours ago she had been bugging him about reading…shit, what was it? He couldn't even remember everything they had talked about in the car outside of arguing, and suddenly his stomach dropped so severely he thought he would vomit.
"God, Jordan, you had better come back," he whispered sullenly to the palms of his hands. "I need you to be okay."
His words sounded hollow in the office that was usually filled with her energy. Now, the room felt dead and devoid of life. But still – he would rather be there than face their empty house. He twisted his wedding band around and around on his finger, feeling the loss of her as if it were a physical thing.
Quite abruptly, Nigel's voice rang out down the hall, muffled as he got off the elevator. Woody jumped to his feet and paced quickly to the doorway of the office to see him sprinting through the double doors from the lobby and into the morgue proper. He had his cell phone held in the air above him like it was his saving grace.
"News!" Nigel cried again in elation, running now toward Trace. "There's news! Woodrow, Doctor M.!"
Woody followed him, his tired eyes wide. "What's going on?" he asked, his hand flying up to catch the swinging lab door before it hit him in the face as the criminologist rushed past him. "Is it about Jordan?"
"Yes, it's about Jordan!" Nigel snapped irritably, setting his phone on the counter beside a computer console and quickly grabbing a specific cord to plug it into the machine. "One of her abductors called me from her phone. On her orders, no doubt, asking for her medications and other feminine items. They were too specific for it not to have come from her."
Woody's breath caught in his throat, gaze darting between the small phone and the computer program that was being pulled up. "What?" he demanded, growing confused. "What did they say? Why did she have them call you and not me?" He couldn't help the note of panic from rising in that last question, and he shut his mouth, trying to be patient while his friend worked.
Nigel glanced over at the detective, hearing the hurt in his aching voice. "Has Jordan not told you, mate?"
"Told me what?"
"I record all of the calls to my mobile," he explained as gently as he could while his fingers flew over the keyboard to open that specific recording. "She knows that. She also knows that I'd be able to analyze the recording to narrow down where she is based on the noises and such from the background. That is why she had them call me."
Woody was silent. It made perfect sense. Of course it did. Jordan was brilliant, even if it made his heart constrict to know that he wasn't able to help her the way Nigel was. Tear him apart, was more like it.
"It was a man," Nigel continued. "The same man who made the first call. Only this time," he said, his tone growing distracted as he found the correct file. "There is much more for me to work with. He talked for a longer period of time, she kept him inside using her cell phone, and she said something from another location as well. Here, have a listen. I'll get the right programs running, too."
He pressed play and the recording, clear as could be, began.
"Nigel Townsend," he answered his phone.
"Yeah, you know who this is. I have your, er, colleague. Jordan Cava – Cavan -"
"Cavanaugh, you dumbass." That was Jordan, her voice fainter than the man's but still clear. Woody swallowed harshly, taking faith from her bravado that she was unharmed.
"Shut up! She says she needs some pills for some goddamned brain tumor," the man continued in agitation. "She says they're in her purse in some stupid pink makeup bag. She also says that since her purse was in the car, you can get them. And since I'm not planning on killing her or anything, I guess she needs those fucking pills."
"And some tampons!" she called again, louder this time. "There's a new bag of those in my purse, too!"
"Goddammit, lady, shut up! Look, Townsend, just get this shit for her."
"Okay, mate," Nigel said over his phone, his recorded voice surprised. "I can get these things, no problem. But how do I get them to you?"
There was a muffled pause as Jordan and her captor argued in hushed undertones, likely while the receiver of the phone was being held against something soft. After a short few seconds, the man's voice came back on the line. "You can meet Madge in the Boston Common, by the Soldiers and Sailors. Noon. Don't try anything or you really won't see her again."
"I'll send a man with a Wisconsin Badgers hat," Nigel rushed to say. "That should stand out enough."
"Fine."
There was a click as the call was disconnected, and then the recording ended.
"She sounds fine, don't you think?" Nigel asked with a small grin. "And before you ask, he turned the phone off already. We can't trace the GPS; I tried."
"It's not funny," Woody shot back, really not seeing the humor in the situation. He wanted to take Nigel by the shoulders and shake him, and scream, that's my wife, that's Jordan, don't you understand! But he couldn't. Instead he just said, "So how do we get this stuff for her?"
"Already got it all," the other man replied, holding up Jordan's brown leather purse with one hand as he saved the recording file and began to separate the pieces of it. He didn't even bother asking if the were going under the radar with Woody's boss on this. "You'll just need to get your fancy hat. Might as well go now; this is going to take a while."
"I'll drive you, Woody." Garret's soft voice from the doorway startled them both, but it was enough to get him to move.
xXx
Their Christmas tree was still bare. They had bought it together two weeks ago, but had yet to put anything on it. Woody had been so excited about getting a tree for their new house, and for their first Christmas as a "real"…well, whatever they were. He hadn't had a word for them then, either. He wasn't sure if Jordan did, herself, and she had just chuckled when he stuttered and let the sentence fade off as they lugged the giant fir inside, getting it set up peacefully in the corner by the living room window. Everything had seemed perfect at the time.
But then it had just sat there.
Woody had pulled all of his old ornaments out of the boxes where they had been stored away, and they were waiting in piles on the mantle and coffee table. When he had asked Jordan to get hers, too, so they could decorate the tree together – that's where things had stalled. She'd suddenly been called into work on an emergency and the tree had been left bare, since he hadn't wanted to decorate without her.
It was the first thing he noticed now as he unlocked the front door to let himself and Garret inside. The undecorated tree, sitting forlornly in the corner, dark and untouched. It may as well have been the middle of summer, for how out of place that tree looked, even despite the wreath he had hung on the door and the wonderfully scented evergreen garlands he had looped over the banister and across the walls.
"I'll just…just go get my hat," Woody muttered, walking briskly to the stairs and taking them two at a time, wanting desperately to get out of the living room and away from that depressing scene.
"Everything is going to be okay," Macy called after him, his words trying to sound bracing. "Jordan's been in much worse situations."
He knew that was true. It was. And from the way she had been snapping at her "kidnapper" on the phone, it certainly seemed like she had everything under control on her end. But they still had no idea where she was, or even if she truly was okay, and just because she had been in those worse situations did not mean this one was any easier on Woody.
He found his hat right where he had left it – on a shelf in the closet, after having been worn in the falling snow a few days before – and clenched it between his hands as he turned to go. But then, almost as an afterthought though he had been thinking about it the entire time they'd been driving to the house, he went back to the closet and grabbed a clean set of clothes for himself, as well as some new clothes for Jordan that could easily be shoved into her large purse. He even snatched her tennis shoes (the ones she wore when she went for a walk, not her good running shoes) from the floor by the closet door as he finally left and made his way back down the stairs.
"Okay," he said, his voice devoid of emotion when he saw Garret still standing in the living room near the front door. "Let's go."
xXx
The park was cold and mostly empty from this side as Jay drove his beat-up '96 Firebird around the block onto Beacon Street and bringing the winter-bare Boston Common into view. Jordan stared out the bit of window visible from the back seat, sighing out her agitation as Jay peered at her from the rearview mirror.
"Do you see any of your cop buddies?" he asked, just a hint of worry in his words.
She blinked, focusing a bit more on the one lone but very dedicated jogger making a round in the icy chill, the woman stopped to talk on her cell as she dug gloves out of her jacket pockets, and the man bundled up and walking his dog. All of them were police she recognized as Woody's friends. Poor Chandler was the jogger. "Nope," she answered.
"Right," he responded dryly, looking at her again in the mirror. "Lie down or something. I don't want anyone to see you, just in case."
"You could have left me in the house," Jordan shot back, almost grinning at the small smile tugging Madge's lips during the exchange. The other woman sat in the front passenger seat, squinting through the overcast sunlight. But even as Jay hastily reminded her about being careful, she just did as she was told and pulled her legs up into the seat so she could lean low against the side of the awkwardly placed arm rest. It was terribly uncomfortable, and she shifted a bit in a useless attempt to situate herself in the small back seat.
As she did so, however, she cast her gaze out the back windshield as the car left the premises of the park and just caught a glimpse of Woody hurriedly walking to the set meeting point inside the expansive park. He was looking anxiously over each shoulder with every few steps, his face pale and drawn with the straps of her purse clutched tightly in one hand. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight and she bit her lip tightly to stop the sudden gasp from escaping.
She had known he would be the one to bring the bag, but she hadn't expected to actually see him herself. He looked horrible.
"Aren't you going to park the car?" she asked shortly, now not bothering to hide the tension that had just begun to build in her stomach. "I want to get this over with."
"You want to get this over with?" Jay retorted baldly, braking at a red light now several streets north of Beacon Street and turning around to look at her. His face was as nervous as she was starting to feel. "You do realize, don't you, that all three of us are putting our lives in danger by getting you your precious medicine? You're just a distraction, that's all. Our 'employer' could decide to end this little project the second it gets too messy, and that means we'll all be dead."
He turned back to the front before Jordan could respond, and she found she had nothing to say anyway. For the first time, she began to feel as though her life were truly in danger.
After another few minutes of driving and doubling around, Jay pulled over and parallel parked, casually getting out of the car to put coins in the meter. He slid back into his seat and pulled the door closed, bringing with him a puff of bitter cold air. "Okay, Madge. Go. We'll wait here." The woman nodded and, without a word, got silently out of the car and walked away, hands stuffed in her pockets.
Jordan sank down into the seat, not watching her go. All she had wanted to do was get Nigel that phone call.
xXx
Woody paced fretfully in front of the Soldiers and Sailors memorial statue, his eyes moving this way and that yet not focusing on anything at all. He knew he was surrounded by fellow officers, that there were people he knew everywhere canvassing the area, collecting information and making sure everything ran smoothly. They'd even already been in touch with the proper government agencies to get street surveillance video and camera shots, so every base was covered.
But he was nervous. Nervous and angry, and he couldn't help but feel as though not enough was being done to bring Jordan back. Nigel was still back in the lab analyzing what they had and awaiting everything they would be bringing back now, but what if it still wasn't enough?
A sudden scuffing of feet on the pathway brought his attention up. A stick-thin woman with a threadbare coat was shuffling toward him, her head down against the wind that had started to pick up again.
She peered at him wryly. "I'm assuming you're the person I'm supposed to meet?" she asked, her voice harsher than she meant it to be. "I'm not from here. I'm going by the fact that you're holding that bag pretty awkwardly, not the surroundings." Madge pointed an ungloved finger at Jordan's purse, which was hanging from Woody's iron grip like a dead limb.
He just stared at her icily, taking in her sickly appearance and hoarse voice, the frizzy hair and sunken cheeks. Drug addict, his instincts told him quickly.
Madge took another step forward and held out her hand, the muscles in her arms trembling just a bit but from neither fear nor the chill. "Can I have that, please?"
Woody didn't give the purse to her, seemingly frozen in place as he watched her, looking for any signs to tell him where she had come from. "Where's Jordan?" he asked, the words dropping out of his mouth like rocks in that cold air. "Is she okay?"
She regarded him for a long moment, glancing around briefly herself before stepping close and taking the bag out of his grip. He let her, his face only holding concern for the woman he was looking for as the anger faded slightly to become a familiar lump in his stomach. Madge lifted the bag over her shoulder, noticing its weight and not saying anything about it. Instead, she leaned close and whispered, "She's safe. She's angry and annoyed, but she's fine and I'm trying to keep her that way."
"Where is she," Woody demanded again, leaning back to look Madge in the face. Any compassion was gone, and he grabbed her arm in frustration before she had a chance to retreat. "Where is she!"
Madge didn't shake off his grasp, but turned to meet his furious blue eyes with a piercing gaze of her own. "If I told you, we would all die," she hissed. "I pretend not to notice or care, but I do. So take what you have and find her yourself. And also take my warning – don't follow me, or we're all as good as dead anyway. He'll know."
He dropped his hand, feeling sick and watching as she trotted away. The wire he'd been wearing caught the entire exchange, but it wasn't enough. He was just more confused than he had been before.
xXx
Nigel was still bowed over his computer terminal in the lab when Woody returned, Chandler, who was growing impatient now, on his heels.
"I just don't understand why you aren't handing this entire investigation over to the police!" Elliot pointed out for the third time since they'd arrived back at the building. "Look, I know she's your girlfriend, but you know as well as I do that we have very good people on that team who could find her!"
Woody just shook his head, not listening to a word his partner was saying. "We do things differently around here," he muttered distractedly.
"No," Chandler pointed out baldly. "You all do things differently around her. What is it about this woman that makes everyone bend over backwards and put their jobs on the line?"
The question was innocent enough, and Nigel answered before Woody had a chance to retort. "You haven't had the pleasure of working with her more than once, have you mate?"
The detective shook his head, shrugging helplessly when it became apparent he would be getting support for his argument nowhere. "Only the one case a few months ago."
"Jordan puts her job on the line for us; we owe it to her to do the same." Nigel grinned sadly. "Though perhaps in Woody's case, at least in the beginning, it had a bit more to do with, shall we say, winning her attentions? I am pleased to see it worked for him when it failed so many before him."
"Nigel," Woody growled, leaning menacingly close over his desk and nearly knocking over a stale cup of coffee. "Have you got anything?"
"Much, in fact. Would you like to take a listen?" He started to hand a pair of thick earphones to him but quickly stopped upon realizing that he was not, in fact, in any mood to joke or beat around to bush. "Right, then. She's being held near a big body of water. A well-timed boat can be heard in the background of the phone call, so it's somewhere boats can pass unimpeded. An older building, most likely, as I caught a furnace take three attempts to turn on. Based on the distances between the two – Jordan and her captor – the room where they were is small, and above ground. There are at least two levels."
Woody stared at him incredulously, tired and starting to feel the weight of the last few hours hitting him hard. "That's it? You can't narrow it down any more than that?"
"You'd do well to drop that attitude," Nigel said sharply, giving him a glare before opening another program and grabbing a sheet of paper from the desk beside him. "I'm doing the best I can. But if you want magic tricks, fine. Her mobile's signal pinged off two cell towers during the call. That allows us to narrow the field considerably – somewhere between the Boston Inner Harbor and the mouth of the Mystic River." He shoved the cell report into Woody's chest, forcing him to take it.
"But that's still -"
Not giving him a chance to rebuke the findings, the criminologist narrowed his eyes, showing the signs of strain and exhaustion for the first time. "Give me a chance to review the images from the park and track things from there before you tell me it's not enough."
"Fine," Woody agreed, feeling fully chastised.
Chandler took a deep breath from behind the pair, watching them silently before speaking. "Maybe we should give this information to our guys at the precinct and let them take it from here. Don't you think you're toeing the line just a little too much, Hoyt?"
Instead of bristling at the question this time, Woody backed away from the counter where Nigel was already working again and turned his flustered blue eyes to his partner's, which were only filled with concern.
"Let's see how close Nigel can get. If he finds her…I'll give it to them then."