"Well, far for me to tell you that you wouldn't make a good running-back in football…"
Mike's voice had lost its cheery tune a long time ago, making Steve stop in his tracks for a brief moment, before resuming his tedious work of trying to pick the lock on the handcuffs tying him to an O-Ring affixed to the floor.
Curled up in the fetal position, the young Inspector had spent the past few minutes tinkering around with a small hairpin from his pant pocket, a staple in each piece of clothing he owned, hoping to open the cuffs to give them a chance to flee.
It was a small, albeit manageable plan Mike had hoped would come to fruition sooner or later.
So far, things were taking a lot longer than expected.
After the spectacular showdown in the small cabin's bedroom, causing Steve to get pinned to the floor, then unceremoniously dragged across the building into an adjacent room, Mike had used the opportunity to look around, trying to find a weakness that would allow them to escape, a small detail Davis had overlooked when choosing this place.
But so far, he'd come up empty- handed.
Eugene Davis.
The gravest disappointment this case had brought yet.
There was no denying that a strange gut feeling had arose after Visari's brutal murder, along with his connection to her as the ex-fiancé. Add in that several of Davis' men had been under his microscope when it came to this case; Mike had to admit that his involvement in these rape and murder cases had been an ominous glow on the horizon he had eagerly denied and shouldn't have.
One the other hand, too many years together on the force had suggested that Gene Davis knew better than to lower himself to such standards. And yet, the current situation was proof that things didn't always go the way they should.
"You know what they're going to do to her if we don't interfere…", Steve argued from across the room, breathing heavy against the strain of working the locks, fighting the frustration of attempt after attempt failing.
Sarah Milan.
Their kidnapping and supposed murder victim who, surprisingly enough, had been discovered alive in the small bedroom of the cabin, tied down in a similar fashion, with short chains that kept her from moving more than a foot from her crouched position on the floor.
The thought of what horrors had befallen the young Fire Captain in the past four weeks of her disappearance were too much to bear for Mike's soul that afternoon, so he'd made it his top priority to come up with an escape plan; something grand enough that would allow them to take Milan with them back to the safety of San Francisco, bringing Davis, Cassidy, Mahoney and Sawyer up on charges once the woman was in protective custody.
"Breaking your wrists trying to get out of these cuffs won't help her either…", Mike cautioned and ceremoniously shook the chains tying his handcuffs to the floor, ignoring the ache from his stiff back as he sat on the cold ground, slightly bent over, looking over the tiny second bedroom for the umpteenth time, hoping to find something that would aid their escape.
Their quiet conversation was disrupted when the wooden door to their prison opened again, causing both San Francisco Homicide detectives to freeze in their respective spot.
A couple feet away from Mike, Steve shoved the hairpin back into his pant pocket, disguising the move behind a halfhearted attempt to roll onto his left side to get a better look at their visitor.
As expected, it was Gene Davis walking through the door, one hand shoved into his dark gray dress pants, the other one carelessly holding his service revolver, more out of a sense of preparedness than a need to kill them on the spot.
"You have caused me one too many headaches today, Michael.", the Lieutenant of Missing Person's began, the dark undertone in his voice something Mike had never heard before.
Completely ignoring Steve for the time being, he came closer, then stopped a couple feet short of the chains holding him in place.
"You see, Roy's filling the airwaves looking all over for you. Frank thought it might be a good idea to have you answer him, let him know that all is well. But then again, Frank's ideas always lack common sense. I told him you'd be witty enough to give something away and have the cavalry here in no time, a chance I am not willing to take."
Clenching his jaws, Mike looked up at his disgraced colleague, before forcing a fake smile.
"So instead, you are going to kill us…"
Those words muttered beneath a growl made Steve look up nervously, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a second before he focused back on Davis.
"In a roundabout way, yes. But first we're going to send them on a wild goose chase. You see, I will have Sawyer and Mahoney take your car over to Bodega Bay, where a concerned stranger will call it in, making it seem as though you two fools got lost in the park. Then, when all is said and done, in a couple of days, they'll drag your bodies out of the ocean after what seems to be an accidental drowning. Maybe the hotshot Inspector over here got too close to the water, the currents drug him away, and during your heroic effort to save him, you both drowned. That is, if they ever find your body after we deposit-"
"Roy knows that you and your men have been on our radar. Now, you guys are all out of the office and we mysteriously go missing? Don't kid yourself. He's going to have this thing figured out before you can even begin to type your report, Davis."
"See this is where you are very wrong, Stone.", the MP Lieutenant shot back and stepped closer, "We left Madison behind to cover for us, make some phone calls on our behalf, create some nice alibis. Give us some credit here, we know what we're doing. But you see, Chelsea O'Conner did the same thing; argued vehemently that we would never get away with this and you know what? We did. Found her body yet? You haven't, have you…?"
Madison.
The missing link.
Suddenly it all made sense. If Davis had been in his office during the time of Visari's death, trying to lure him away from his partner's side while Steve was attacked by four individuals, their group of villains had grown from four to five.
Mike was about to continue the argument when he saw Cassidy cross the living room behind them, his dress pants half undone, a smug grin on his lips, his bruised and swollen nose distorting his features even more.
Noticing his observation, Davis chuckled, then returned his revolver to his shoulder holster.
"Well, we're going to have ourselves a little bit of fun with Sarah now. Trying to wind down after a long week, if you get my drift. Enjoy your last couple hours of life. Once my boys get back, it's time to end this petty affair once and for all and clean up this mess before we get back to the office."
With a final gleeful smile, Davis spun around, hesitating briefly when he saw Steve glaring up at him.
"And you little punk…I am going to enjoy putting you out of your misery first, believe me."
Wisely so, Steve refrained from making a comment that could escalate the dangerous situation even further, and instead waited until Davis closed the door once again, before releasing an overdue breath.
Lacking the energy for a pep talk considering their dire situation, Mike decided to remain quiet, his ears picking up the noise of an engine being started outside, before slowly pulling away from the building. At least the quiet purr of the Fairlane meant that there was a small chance that the group hadn't noticed yet that the LTD was disabled, a benefactor that might come in handy later.
In the meantime, it was up to Roy and an incredible amount of luck to help them out of this mess.