Chapter 7


"What do you mean you don't know!?"

I let put a sigh and explained. "He called me when I was going home. Said he was going out of state for a while and that I needed to come, too."

"Okay, I need you to describe the conversation as best you can."

"He said, 'Li, I'm going away. I'm not sure how long'. Then I said, 'Why!? I need you here!'. The he was like, 'I know, but something's come up at home And you need come with me'. Then I said, 'I can't'. Then he said, 'You and I both know Cathy won't notice. It's not a request. Look, I gotta go. Get home. There should be a ticket for a bus as well as some other stuff. It's on the kitchen counter'. Then he hung up." I tried to hold back tears. "He sounded so scared, Gibbs! Jordan, my Jordan, does NOT scare."

He paused. "He wanted you to meet him in Sacramento?"

I nodded. "That's what the paper said. And I believed it, ad least, at first. But he didn't sound like he was there. Or on a bus, plane, anywhere like that."

He looked at me skeptically. "How do you know all this?"

"Okay, I know this is going to sound weird, but, you know how some people have a photographic memory? They remember images or something like that?" I sighed. "Well, I remember sound that way."

"I need you to tell me every detail you remember."

I smiled. "I can do better than that," I said, pulling out my cell phone. "I recorded the conversation."

He got up and walked towards the door. "Good work, DiNozzo."

And then to someone in the hallway, "Take her to Abby's lab."

DiNozzo. It had been a long time since I had been called by that name. It felt nice to hear it again.


"There," I said. Abby was playing the recording over, checking for anything to give us to where Jordan was. "There's something in the background. Very faint."

"Was it higher or lower than his voice?"

"A tad bit higher, but it's kind of muffled." She moved the little green line up and played it again. "Did you hear it?"

"What?" she asked.

"It was like a humming. A mmmm. But in the regular one, there was something else, lower than his voice." She moved the line again and I heard it. "There! A clank!"

"Generator?"

"No...

She paused for a minute. "Elevator shaft!"

"Why would Jordan be in a basement?"

A look of pity crossed her face. "Well, based on the current circumstances, I'd say he's either hiding-"

"Or he's been kidnapped."


Well...?

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