Chapter Fourteen – A Different Child

"I have good news, Rebecca."

"What is it Granddad?" the little girl asked. She bounded over to him.

"You're going to come and live with me," the man said, smiling. Rebecca threw her arms around him.

"Really?" she asked.

"Really," he replied.

She released him and danced around the room happily. Her 'granddad' had been visiting her for a while now. He was very nice to her – Rebecca liked him very much. She had no reason to suspect him. She believed that it was the other men who held her captive. Her friend, her 'granddad' was just trying to help her. She had almost forgotten about her old life in New York – it was like a dream to her now.

"There's just one thing we have to do first," he said. She looked up at him questioningly. "We have to make you look different."

"Why do I have to look different?" she asked. "Don't you like the way that I look?"

"There are still some police officers looking for you," the man replied. "If they find out that it's you, they'll take you away from me and send you back to your parents. Is that what you want?"

"No!" Rebecca cried fearfully. "I want to stay with you!"

"And I want you to stay too," the man said.

Rebecca allowed him to make the changes to her appearance. She only sniffled a little as locks of her long hair fell to the floor. She sat quietly while one of the men (a hairdresser) cut her hair to give her bangs. She didn't make a sound while he dyed her hair red. She even managed a small smile as they permed it. Her formerly long, wavy, brown hair was now short, red, and curly. She blew on her bangs experimentally. "These are tickly," she said.

The man handed her a pair of false glasses. "These are your glasses," he told her. "You can't see without them."

"I don't need glasses," Rebecca replied.

"These are your glasses," the man repeated. "You can't see without them."

"Yes I can!" Rebecca insisted.

"These are your glasses," the man said for the third time. "You can't see without them."

"Okay," Rebecca replied, uncertain.

"What are these?" the man asked, handing them to her.

"These are my glasses," Rebecca replied, putting them on. "I can't see without them."

"Good girl," the man said approvingly. Rebecca grinned at him.

"Now, go get changed, then we'll go," he told her. He handed her a designer child's outfit. He spared no expense in any aspect of his life – not even Rebecca's fashion.

She came back wearing her new outfit – a jean jacket over a tank top with jewels around the neckline, a mini-skirt, and knee-high designer boots. Goren and Eames had preferred to dress her like most other children – overalls, jeans, simple dresses. With her new hairstyle, false glasses, and completely different clothing style, she looked like a different child.

The man held out his hand. Rebecca slipped hers into his.

"Let's go home," he told her.

Carolyn had returned to Mike's hospital room. "There was no answer," she told him. She went up to the bed to get a closer look at him. "Are you feeling alright?" she demanded, her eyes narrowed with worry.

He looked as though he had aged in her absence, and she hadn't been gone more than an hour (she'd had to fight to get into the crime scene in his apartment, and the traffic had been brutal). His skin had turned pallid, and he looked weak. His seemed to be having difficulty keeping his eyes locked on her, as though she was slipping in and out of focus.

"I'm fine," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't worry about me. Did you try calling again?"

"I called three times, there was no answer," Carolyn replied. "You don't suppose Kirk already got to them?"

"I hope not," Mike replied.

"I'm going to call a nurse," Carolyn said worriedly. "You really don't look well."

"I said not to worry!" Mike insisted, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "You need to find them," Mike told her. "Make sure they're okay. I'd go myself, but…" He broke off and attempted to laugh.

Knowing how stubborn he was, Carolyn decided to stop arguing, and instead rushed forward and pressed the call button before he could argue.

"Carolyn!" he hissed irritably.

"Michael Logan – you were shot, you're in a hospital, and you are going to let someone take care of you!" she snapped. "Don't argue!" she told him when he opened his mouth.

A nurse entered the room.

"Will you please take a look at him?" Carolyn asked.

"How are you feeling, Detective Logan?" the nurse asked. She began to check his vitals.

"Peachy," Mike replied, still glaring at Carolyn. She glared right back at him. The nurse asked a couple more questions, and also continued to assess him. "I think you might have an infection, Detective Logan," she told him. "I'm going to get your doctor." She bustled out of the room.

"You see!" Carolyn snapped. "I knew you weren't okay – don't try and play the hero with your health, Mike!"

"Carolyn, I'm serious, you need to find Bobby and Alex. You need to help them, because I can't!"

"Mike, I'm not going to leave you when you're this sick to go on a wild goose chase! Bobby and Alex probably covered their tracks well enough that I have no hope of finding them."

"But we know them," Mike replied. "We'll have the best chance of finding them."

He was prevented from saying anything further as the doctor, accompanied by two nurses, entered the room.

"Go," Mike told her. She did as he'd asked, but didn't know where to begin looking. They would have needed help. Carolyn would start by looking at both of their colleagues. It wasn't much to go on, but it was something.

"Branch?" Henderson asked.

"What?"

"There was a famous case in New York, a couple months back where little girls with parents in law enforcement were kidnapped."

"That guy is insane," Branch said angrily. "Forget what he said, Henderson, he probably saw the news and then invented a story about that girl being his kidnapped daughter."

"What did the guy say Mandy's real name was?" Henderson ploughed on.

"Alana Beans or something, I don't know," Branch replied.

"No, it was Alexandra…" Henderson mused. "Wasn't that the name from the mother of the first girl who was kidnapped in New York?"

"I don't remember" Branch replied. "But it's probably a coincidence even if it was Alexandra, I mean, it's a common enough name."

"The child's name was Rebecca," Henderson mused.

"Rebecca Goren," Branch supplied, remembering. "And whatever that man said her last name was, it definitely wasn't Goren. Can you drop it now?"

Henderson shook himself mentally. He shouldn't have let the suspect get into his head.

Carolyn had returned to Mike's hospital room with a list of Bobby and Alex's colleagues, past and present, and her laptop. She was hoping he could help her in figuring out who had helped their friends.

They had started Mike on a heavy dose of anti-biotics, and he was responding well. He was already looking better than he had when she left.

"Carolyn?" he asked. She nodded to show that she'd heard. "What are the other cops saying about… about Kirk?"

"Mike," she said seriously, "most of them are on your side. Kirk was in the wrong here, not you."

"Most?" he asked.

Carolyn sighed. "Mike, you're never going to get everyone's support. There are cops who have worked with Kirk, but don't know you at all – it's no wonder they would support him."

"You're right," Mike replied. "And they haven't found him yet?"

"No, and you can bet that there are a lot of people searching."

Mike had no doubt that they were – a cop shooting a fellow officer would have everyone shaken up.

Together, they worked their way through a number of possible detectives and FBI agents before Carolyn thought she might have found the right one. "Mike, Bobby worked with an agent who used to be in with the child cyber-abuse team!"

"He could have given them access to the FBI's file!" Mike exclaimed. "But that still doesn't explain how they knew where to go. If the FBI had found a possible location for the girls, surely they would have sent a team there to investigate?"

"Bobby and Agent-", Carolyn consulted the list of names, "-Peters must have worked on it until they had determined a location together."

"Yeah, but if they figured it out, why didn't they inform someone?" Mike asked. "They would have had the full force of the NYPD and FBI behind them!"

"Maybe they needed to do something that the NYPD and FBI wouldn't allow," Carolyn said darkly.

"You're not suggesting…" Mike trailed off. "I thought he was lying, or just crazy, but Kirk said that he had seen Bobby in a photograph with his daughter from the website Thompson and Bole found."

"You don't think they have his little girl, do you?" Carolyn asked. "You don't think they would just allow her to be abused and not bring her back to-"

"No!" Mike snapped. "Of course they wouldn't. I don't care how desperate they were, they would never allow her to be abused – no way!"

"Then how do you explain what Kirk saw?" Carolyn asked nervously.

"I don't know… maybe they doctored the photograph or something. That's possible, right?"

"It's possible," Carolyn replied, keeping her voice neutral.

"These are our friends," Mike said irritably. "You can't seriously suspect them of this?"

"No," Carolyn replied quickly. She sighed. "I don't think that it is how it looks. But Mike, imagine Kirk seeing that. He doesn't know them – even we were shocked, for a moment anyway."

"This is a complete disaster," Mike muttered.

Carolyn nodded, then continued to search something on her computer. "Peters called in sick today," she said.

"He must have gone after them," Mike agreed. "Can you track him?"

"I'm sure he'll have disabled his GPS… yes it was disconnected at a gas station in Manhattan."

"What now?" Mike asked, starting to get up.

"Now," Carolyn replied, shoving him back again, "you wait here while I go and talk to Peters' wife."

"We've got a GSW to the chest, extensive blood loss," a paramedic informed the team of surgeons waiting at the hospital.

The surgeons took hold of the gurney and wheeled it hurriedly to an operating room.

"Pulse is thready, and he didn't regain consciousness the whole way here," the paramedic continued. "We had to re-inflate one of the lungs on the way in; there's no telling what other internal damage was done. And I don't know if it matters, but the guy was wearing coloured contacts." When the paramedics had tried to check his pupils, they had discovered one of the contacts askew.

The group of medical professionals arrived at the operating room. People were attaching wires to the patient and they were all speaking loudly and quickly. Someone slopped iodine on his chest, and almost immediately a scalpel had replaced the hand holding the bottle.

"Crack his chest," the head surgeon instructed.

With a loud crack, they pulled the rib cage apart, allowing the surgeon to get started on his top priority – saving the heart.

The unconscious man on the table continued to fight for his life. He would keep himself alive out of sheer stubbornness; he would not allow himself to die before he knew his family was safe.