You guys made my day with your reviews - those who regularly review and those who don't! This chapter is ready. Hopefully 11 tomorrow and if I find time to write, 12 when it is done! This answers some questions:-)

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Chapter 10

DAY 7

'She's there, I just know she is,' Pacey said for the eighth time.

'Try thinking about where else she might be Pace. Kinster said they'd searched several times. She's not there, that's the whole point,' Jack sighed, sitting on the couch beside Doug. They were all getting snappy as time passed and progress grew slower. None of them had been going to work. None of them had the ability to concentrate, because they knew that for every second that Joey wasn't found, it was a second that compounded the fact that she might be lost for good.

'I think I'm going to be sick,' Jen murmured and sped off for the bathroom. It wasn't the first time. Jen was suffering under the guilt of knowing it could have been her, that Joey had taken her place.

Pacey surveyed the notes that littered the room. He was missing something and he knew it. He ordered himself to think, running through the chain of events. Something they were all overlooking. Suddenly the pieces seemed to slot together like the perfect moment in a game of tetris,

'I can't believe we've been so stupid,' he felt excited for the first time in days. 'How could we have not realized sooner?'

'Realized what?' Jen was making her way back into the room from her impromptu trip to the bathroom.

'We keep saying she's got to be at his house, and it's true,' Pacey said and Jack and Jen almost sighed except there was something new in his voice - certainty, as if a piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

'How?' Jen said at the same time as Jack said,

'Why?'

'Dawson is being followed closely. He goes to work and he goes home. That means she's either on Wall Street or she's in his house. I'm thinking that there's a little more freedom at home. That's where her pin was. I mean it's obvious. If he's taken her, he'd want to have access to her, free access. He's at work, at home or out in very public places. She's got to be in his house,' Pacey felt triumphant.

'None of which alters the fact that she's not there,' Doug pointed out. He'd been sat silently on the couch watching his brother.

'She is there. If she's still alive it's the only place she can be. We know where she is, now we just have to find her there.'

'Professionals have searched that property,' Doug pointed out.

'Then they've missed something,' Pacey insisted and shrugged, 'I'm going to headquarters,' he said and the other three stood and followed him.

'We've been through this before, she's not in the house,' Mallory sighed impatiently.

'I tell you she is,' Pacey growled.

'Then why haven't we found her?' Mallory snarked.

'Come on now guys,' Kinster didn't have the time or patience for squabbling.

'Have you checked the plans for the house? Checked architects drawings? Applications for changes? I mean maybe this isn't even an authorized change. Have you checked everything?' Pacey glared at him and could see it in his eyes that he hadn't done everything. 'I mean what if he applied for a change and was refused but did it anyway? Or made an unauthorized alteration? Maybe there's a hidden room.'

'This isn't fucking Scooby Doo,' Mallory muttered sourly.

'Shut the fuck up Mallory and check it out,' Kinster yelled. There was unfortunately no sense of triumph for Pacey who wished they'd done it days ago. He was certain he was right.

Joey watched the masked, cloaked figure. Today was the day she'd escape. She knew it. She had skills the other women hadn't and she was planning to use them. She wasn't going to wait to be rescued or be killed. He wasn't going to hold the power anymore.

Day 7, the day he de-feminised the women, or whatever it was he thought he was doing. It was the least brutal of all days but psychologically it was the most cruel. Joey knew that by day seven he thought he had control. He had always had control. The women were unbound and undressed. They were seated in a barber style chair. He would cut their hair, then shave it all off. He'd shave their arms, their legs, between their legs. Throughout the entire process they weren't tied up. This was often the thing that made the women feel worst. The fact that they could have tried to escape but the fear and the power he held over them had rendered them incapable. Joey would be different. She knew she could beat him. She knew things none of the other women had. She knew who was behind the mask - she didn't need three years in the FBI to recognise his smell, the way he moved. She also knew where she was. She recognised the creak of a ladder, the smell of an underground room.

She watched as he untied her hands, allowed herself to be led on blistered, bleeding and burnt feet the short distance to the middle of the room. She held back the tears that threatened to fall as he watched with satisfaction as she stumbled due to the pain. But she hadn't really stumbled. Joey knew she was strong enough to work through the pain, to practice mind over matter. She knew something he didn't and it kept her going, made her ignore it. She watched as he approached her in order to remove her clothes. He bent down until he was crouched beside her. There was something almost gentle in the way he reached for her. In just a split second she had grabbed his arm and twisted it until it was pinned behind his back. He struggled against her but she pressed her knee into his back, vaguely satisfied to hear the bone in his arm snap. She hadn't eaten much for days so she was weak, but she normally ran every day and went to the gym.

'I know who you are. Do you believe me now? Huh?' she pressed her knee deeper into his spine. 'Hiding behind a mask, you think you can hide the fact that you're a psychotic bastard. You think I ever really wanted you? This is it. You're caught,' Joey grabbed the mask pulling it and the hood of the cloak off revealing the greasy blond hair of her once friend.

'You wanted this Joey. You were asking for it, begging me to be with you,' Dawson growled as he struggled against her weight, moaning in pain. Joey laughed bitterly,

'You're such a self centred egotist. It was all about this. I'm not a publisher, I'm in the FBI and they've been onto you for ages now. I was the bait - we trapped you,' Joey could feel her anger bubbling over as she pinned the squirming man to the floor. She was weak and knew she was wasting time. As Dawson opened his mouth to speak she lifted his head by his hair and then smashed it into the floor knocking him out. Looking at his blood spattered face convulsions shook her body and tears began to leak from her eyes. Crawling to the bed she reached for the rope that had bound her and returned to Dawson, binding him tightly and then tying one end of the rope to a pipe hoping it would hold until her inept colleagues at the Bureau made it.

Crawling across the floor she made it to the ladder, climbing up it despite the blood that leaked from the wounds on her feet, despite the pain that made her want to cry out. Pushing through the trap door she found herself in a space between the room where she had been held and the floorboards above. She pushed through a second trap door and emerged into Dawsons utility room. Pulling herself through the hole she shut the trapdoor behind her, not bothering to cover the space with the carpet he had apparently used. Seeing a pile of laundry she grabbed some socks and pulled them over her blistered wounded feet. Seeing the blood soak through them she pulled on a second and then third pair, finally pulling on a pair of Dawsons oversized tennis shoes. Staggering to her feet she made her way to the back of the house whimpering. She knew there would be agents outside the house and she didn't want to see them. Bending low she opened the back door and slipped through the gap closing it behind her. Keeping low to the ground she made her across the yard. Hearing a noise she quickly hid behind the trash cans. Peering out she watched as a familiar figure made its way across into the back of Dawson's house. The figure knocked and then knocked again. At length he bent and retrieved a key from under a nearby plant pot. Joey's heart was beating so loudly she could hardly breathe. As the figure let itself in she clutched at her broken ribs, scowling at the infected burn on her stomach. Joey knew she had to pull herself together. She knew that the pain she felt in every atom of her being wasn't important. The facts were that she was losing blood and she very likely had blood poisoning, but neither of those problems were something she could yet think about. Against every instinct in her body she turned away from freedom and followed the figure back to the house. As silently as possible she entered the house and then peered into the utility room watching as the man opened the hatch.

Joey watched as the man climbed down the hatch, his pace fast and his appearance panicked,

'Dawson man, they're onto you. This place is blown - you gotta make a run for it,' he yelled down into the basement, panic in his voice. 'I told you she was FBI. I warned you to leave her the fuck alone.' Something in Joey snapped. The guy was moving fast and when he was almost completely through the trapdoor Joey kicked him in the face, thankful for the tennis shoes. The man swayed as she swung the trapdoor as hard as she could onto his head. She struggled to hold it shut with her weight as he beat against it. Looking around Joey saw a key. Keeping the majority of her weight on the trapdoor she leant across and reached for the key hoping it secured the trapdoor. Struggling against the force of the man beneath her she managed to shove the key into the lock and turn it. Immediately she relaxed. Her body was destroyed but she knew she had to get away - after all the guy might have his gun on him. Getting to her feet she immediately fell. Not to be beaten at this point she again pushed to her feet and stumbled from the house, out the way she had come, following the path the man had taken to the house knowing now that there was a small gap in the stakeout if you knew where to look. She finally stopped a few hundred yards or so away from Dawson's house, her breathing shallow, her shoes filled with blood and the pain to much to ignore. A young mom lived there with her two little kids and Joey prayed she was home. Her breathing shallow, her shoes filled with blood and the pain too much to ignore she struggled up the back porch steps and hit the door.