Chapter 36

The ride to the hideout was long but they eventually arrived in one piece. Ethan helped Olivia out of the car and Huck stepped out of the driver's seat.

"Oh, good. You made it back." Solomon greeted them, as he himself was walking out.

"Solomon?" Olivia asked, raising an eyebrow. Her dad's involvement was one thing, but she definitely didn't understand why Solomon was here.

"We're working together for the moment," Ethan explained to her. "He actually helped us secure this place."

"Yes, well, CP9 helps its own from time to time," Solomon remarked.

"Let's get you changed out of these clothes first," Ethan suggested, helping Olivia into the building. "We'll explain everything afterwards." Olivia had completely forgotten she was still wearing the dress Fitz had picked out for her.

"Please," Olivia said.

"Not too long, you two," Solomon called after them, and Ethan rolled his eyes. Olivia, on the other hand, couldn't help but to blush a bit. They went into the bedroom and Ethan pulled out a duffle bag full of some of her clothes. He tossed the bag onto the bed for her to look through.

"Here you go." Instead of looking for something to wear, however, Olivia looked around the room itself.

"Where is Amelia?" she asked. "I thought she'd be here."

"I already told you, Eli has her," Ethan assured her. He could hear the panic in his wife voice and tried to calm her down. "I certainly wasn't going to leave our daughter here alone with Solomon. But don't worry – Eli will be bringing her here shortly. We just wanted to make sure we got you out first."

"Alright," Olivia said, somewhat relieved, and she slipped out of the dress and into some more comfortable clothes. When she was done, the two met Huck and Solomon in the building's dining room.

"Feeling better, Mrs. Daniels?" Solomon asked her.

"Much better," Olivia replied with a nod.

"Wonderful. Now, let us begin." Solomon motioned towards the table and the four of them each took a seat.

"At present, Mrs. Daniels," Solomon said, turning to Olivia, "the President probably has you being searched for like a fugitive. Therefore, you must stay low until this is all resolved."

"Fair enough," Olivia agreed.

"Good." Solomon then turned his attention to the men. "Now, we've been trying to figure out the best way to dispose of Grant without leaving a trail that leads back to any of us. Thus far, only one solution seems to end, um… cleanly." Olivia knew Solomon was going with this.

"Assassination?" she spoke up.

"Precisely," Solomon said. "Ethan informed me that apparently there was an election rigged?"

"President Grant did rig the election," Olivia confirmed. "Belated Supreme Court Justice Verna Thornton told me. I have her confession on my cellphone, in fact."

"That might not be enough, though," Ethan mused. "Dead men tell no tales, after all."

"We can't at least accuse him of murdering her?" Olivia asked. Ethan and Solomon both seemed to shake their heads in unison.

"I mean, what evidence would we have?" Ethan asked, as though he was thinking aloud. "All we can say is that he was the last person to see her alive. And Judge Thornton was already a breath away from death anyway, it could just have easily been natural causes."

"So," Olivia started, "killing off the President is the ONLY way?" Solomon nodded. Out of instinct, Ethan reached over and grabbed his wife's hand. Even though they both were all too familiar with how despicable of an individual Fitz was, Ethan understood Olivia could never consent to ANYONE being killed.

"I know this is a lot to digest," Ethan said. For he, Solomon, and even Huck, this was just another day, another target – they'd all killed a man before. Olivia, on the other hand, had seldom handled a gun. He recalled how nervous she'd been and how he'd had to calm her down the one time he'd taken her to a shooting range.

"Well, what about you?" Olivia asked her husband. She knew that someone would have to be the killer and Lord forbid…

"Don't worry, Mrs. Daniels," Solomon spoke up, cutting her out of her train of thought. "Nobody in this room will be tied to Grant's murder."

"Better not." A voice said from the front of the room. They all turned and saw Eli stepping towards the table, little Amelia practically nodding off in his arms. Olivia jumped out of her seat upon seeing her baby girl.

"Amelia…" She rushed over to her father and Eli handed the child to her mother.

"Here you are," he said, watching as Amelia snuggled into her mother's chest and began drifting off to sleep.

"Thank you," Olivia said to her father, and Eli simply nodded.

"Family takes care of Family," he replied.

"Speaking of which," Eli continued, "you should probably leave the room now, Olivia. Better you're left in the dark about what's left to be discussed."

"Understood," Olivia, replied in agreement. She turned to Ethan and told him, "I'll put the baby to bed, then." She walked off for the bedroom, leaving the men to themselves.

"So," Eli said, taking a seat at the table. "Where were we?"

"Well, sir," Solomon started, "this is what we've come up with so far. Far be it from me to brag, but I think you'll like this plan…"

Two hours later, the meeting had ended and Ethan entered the bedroom, smiling as he saw his wife and baby girl knocked out in the bed. He slid up under the covers behind his wife

"Hey…" Olivia said, in a drowsy mumble.

"Hey, back," Ethan replied, kissing Olivia on her cheek and pulling her in close to him.

"I love you." For the first time in what seemed like ages, Ethan felt relieved. Finally, he'd gotten his family back.

Back at the White House, however, a certain President was raising hell.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, SHE'S MISSING?!" Fitz roared at his Secret Servicemen, his voice loud enough to make the pictures on the Oval Office walls shake. He'd given them one job and his orders had been clear – with the ball interrupted, he'd told the Secret Service to get Olivia straight to him, and yet now, they couldn't find her.

"We looked everywhere, sir," one agent insisted.

"She's not back at the house, we checked there first," another agent spoke up. "And we checked the event hall three times over. She's nowhere to be found." If they thought their answers were satisfactory enough for the President, then they thought wrong.

"How did this happen?!" Fitz asked, pacing across the room. "WHO was assigned to watch her? Bring them to me. Bring them to me NOW!"

"Yes, sir, we'll fetch all the agents assigned to her detail." One of the agents went off to gather the unlucky men. Meanwhile, Fitz was pressing his fingers into his temples, trying to regain control of himself.

"Um, sir?" Another agent suddenly spoke up.

"Yes?" Fitz said.

"There's, um… well…"

"What the hell is it now?" Fitz spat out.

"It appears we've lost the little girl, as well." Fitz lowered his hands and looked up at the agent with narrowed eyes.

"What?"

"Yes, sir, we… when we checked the house… we discovered the baby was also… vanished."

"How in the hell does a one-year-old child go missing?!" Fitz asked. He was flabbergasted. "Where… where the hell was the nanny? That's what I paid her for."

"That's the thing, sir," the agent started. "The nanny has also gone missing."

It took literally everything to keep Fitz from going off at everyone in the room.

"So, let me get this straight," Fitz said through gritted teeth. "Not only is Olivia missing… but her daughter is missing as well… AND the gotdamn nanny is ALSO missing."

"T-that's correct, sir," the agent stammered.

"Go search the Daniels residence right now, then," Fitz ordered.

"Well, you see…" the Secret Serviceman hesitantly spoke up, "we looked there first. They weren't there, sir."

That caused another thought to pop up in Fitz's head.

"What about Ethan Daniels?" he asked. "Where was he?"

"He was also not at the house," the agent confirmed, "but according to official logs, Daniels is out of town on official business." Again, Fitz pressed his fingers to his temples.

"You find them," The President ordered. "You WILL find them. Immediately. Or else…" He looked up and cast a look at the agents that caused them all to take a step back.

"Yes, sir!" the agents exclaimed, and with that, they filed out of the Oval Office with haste.

Now left to his lonesome, Fitz rocked in his seat and took a bottle of scotch from out of the desk drawers. He had hoped to drink himself into a calm state, but he suddenly was overtaken by anger and threw the bottle across the room instead, shoving the papers and everything else on his desk onto the floor.

"I know you're behind this, Daniels…" Fitz mumbled, and he rose from his seat to look out into the night sky. "And even if you aren't… when I find you, you're as good as dead to me." And if it turned out his beloved Olivia had something to do with her own kidnapping, too… well, Fitz didn't know what he would do to her. He didn't even want to IMAGINE what he might do to her.