Okay, so here is the story behind the story - Olivia Marie 20 actually suggested a kidnapping plot in a review for one of the earlier chapters, but at the time I was going in a different direction with the story. But then I got a brainstorm about a plot that just wouldn't stop running around in my head. And the more I thought about it, the more the kidnapping would fit into this new idea. But I didn't want this to become a typical "white knight rescues damsel in distress and they live happily ever after" fic. I am really hoping that it won't…I certainly have it planned out that way. So I hope you continue to join me on this ride I'm taking you on. Because really…what would Hawaii Five-0 be without a little drama and adventure?

Chapter 15 – Gone

"Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated."

~ Lamartine

Harper James' hotel room, two hours later…

"Harper!"

No answer.

"Harper Elizabeth James, open this damn door!"

More silence.

Steve was starting to get pissed. He had been standing outside her hotel room door for a good five minutes and he was tired of her game. She may not want to talk to him right now but leaving him out in the hallway was just childish.

"Jimmy, c'mon!" the Commander pleaded, pounding on the door once again. "Open the door!"

He knew she was in there because he could hear her Sarah McLachlan music playing at top volume, which was probably annoying her neighbors. And Sarah McLachlan was the music she played when she wanted to chill out…he knew that because it was playing a lot in their house at the end of their marriage. Plus, he had been dragged to more of this woman's concerts than he wanted to admit.

"Jimmy, don't be stubborn about this! I'm not going away!"

Steve sighed, leaning his body against the door frame and staring at the wooden door. Why was she doing this? He waited another twenty seconds, then shouted, "I'm giving you ten seconds, then I swear, I'm kicking this door in!"

As he paused again and leaned his head against the door, he suddenly smelled burning tomato sauce. And then a feeling began to creep into the pit of his stomach and it wasn't good. Something was wrong. Harper took great care in preparing that sauce…he hadn't even been allowed to wander into the kitchen when she was making 'Grandma Angie's sauce'. She would never let it burn.

He grasped the bronze handle of the door and jerked it up and down. Damn electronic keypads. Drawing his gun from the holster at his hip, Steve threw all of his weight into a single, well aimed kick and broke through the door, the automatic yell of "Hawaii Five-0" falling from his lips. As soon as he opened the door, he sensed it, like a biting breeze on a still winter's morning, piercing the air with its horrifying chill. The sense of dread was insurmountable.

His eyes did a preliminary sweep of the room but the moonlight peeking in through the curtains supplied the only light except for the blue flame licking out from underneath the pot of sauce on the cooktop.

"Harper!" Steve shouted, flipping on the nearest light switch, "Jimmy, where are you? Answer me!"

But there was no answer from his ex-wife. He moved over to the sound system portal and turned off the music as he surveyed the relic of the hotel room. Furniture was turned over, the french doors leading to the balcony were wide open, a lamp had been knocked to the floor, and a single sandal – identifiably Harper's – was lying in the middle of the floor. Whoever had been there was looking for something…and found Harper instead.

And that was when he saw the blood.

Rushing over to the spot where the living room met the hallway back to the bedroom, Steve's heart filled with dread as he saw that halfway up the wall was a crack in the plaster and a splattering of blood.

Whatever had hit the spot had hit it hard.

"Harper!" he shouted again and although the rage was almost too much to bear, the ex-S.E.A.L. was cautious as he walked down the hall toward the bedroom, gun drawn, listening for something, anything. Entering the small room, he noticed that the suit and camisole she had been wearing earlier that day were thrown haphazardly across the bed and her boots were kicked off near the chair. He could smell her perfume as it hung in the air and Steve could feel his heart clench in his chest. After clearing the bedroom, the closet, and the adjoining bathroom, Steve made his way back into the living area of the hotel room. There were no other signs of violence, which indicated that if there was a problem, it occurred out in the living room.

The furrow on Steve's already creased brow deepened as he wandered over to the kitchenette and absentmindedly turned off the burner under the sauce pot and called one last time, "Jimmy?"

Useless.

She wasn't there.

"Where are you, Jimmy girl?" he whispered into the dark emptiness of the hotel room. "What's happened to you?"

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he quickly dialed the first number in his speed dial and waited until he heard his partner ask groggily, "Do you know that it's nearly one o'clock in the morning?"

"I need you to call Chin and Kono and get down to the Marriott Residence Hotel right away," Steve barked into the phone, "And wake up a crime scene team."

The Marriott Residence Hotel was where Harper was staying and Danny could tell from edge in Steve's voice that something major was going down, so he sat straight up and asked, "What's going on?"

"Harper's gone."

"What do you mean…gone?"

"I came by to talk to her and her hotel room is empty…"

"We don't know if anything has happened, Steve…" Danny tried to reason with his friend, but the Commander was having none of it.

"The room has been ransacked and there is blood on the wall."

Steve could hear Danny draw in a deep breath before he said, "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

He made it in ten.

Stepping through the broken door that Steve had kicked in, Danny looked at his partner, rolled his eyes and asked, "You couldn't have gotten a manager or something to open the door?"

"There wasn't time.

An obviously distraught Steve McGarrett came down the hall toward his partner as he spoke. The once put together detective looked like he had been hit by a Mac truck…his shirt was untucked from his cargo pants, his hair looked as if he had run his hands through it a million times in the last hour, and he couldn't mask the fear in his eyes. Seeing that Danny had arrived alone, he asked, "Where are Chin and Kono?"

"Kono arrived just before I did and she is downstairs talking to hotel security," Danny reported dutifully, "And Chin is about five minutes out."

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, he nodded and said, "Everything in the bedroom is pretty much undisturbed, so the living room is our crime scene. We've got blood on the wall in the hallway."

"Blood?"

"Over there," Steve said, pointing toward, but not looking directly at, the area where Harper's face connected with the wall. Danny looked at his partner carefully before stepping over to examine the blood smear on the wall. Steve was entirely too calm. For a guy who hung people off buildings and threw them in shark infested waters, his overly professional attitude was a tad eerie.

"I think we may have a print in the blood over here," Danny said, taking out his phone and taking a close up photo of the blood smear, "I'll send this to Jenna…I told her to go open up the office. The forensics guys can take a sample to the lab to see if it's Harper's. It's about her height, but that doesn't really mean anything. She's a fighter, so she could have easily…"

"The governor called in the Feds," Steve interrupted, causing Danny to turn around and look at him, "We're not using Honolulu PD for this one. If Wo Fat is involved, he has an inside guy at HPD."

"Wo Fat?" the New Jersey detective asked, "We're going there right away?"

"She went after the boys of the Yakuza and Wilson Crips pretty hard yesterday while we were doing our interviews," Chin Ho stated, walking into the room and surveying their latest crime scene. His voice trailed off and he got a sickened look on his face as he moved over to Steve and asked, "You okay to do this, boss?"

But his boss awkwardly walked away from him and stepped out onto the balcony as he said in a strained voice, "It looks like the struggle began out here. The deck chair is turned over and her wine glass smashed when it hit the tile. We know she fought back so…"

"Unless he drugged her wine and incapacitated her," Chin interrupted, motioning to the broken glass on the patio, "We don't know how long she may have been in the room with her attacker."

Swallowing hard and sharing a knowing look with Danny, the tall detective looked at his boss cautiously and asked slowly, "Could she have met someone and brought him back up here…?"

"No," Steve interrupted, shaking his head vigorously, "she wouldn't do that. And she wouldn't have let a stranger into her hotel room. Jimmy's too smart for that."

"Jenna's got something for us," Danny informed them, holding his phone out so that his partners could hear, "Jenna, you're on speaker with Steve, Chin, and I."

"I got a positive match to the print Danny found on the wall," Jenna told them through the phone, "It belongs to a Hiroshi Hidaka, originally from North Korea. And he is no stranger to local law enforcement…he's been collared for drug trafficking and money laundering since he's been in Hawaii, but before he brought his activity to the island he was arrested in New York for collecting finders fees from big time mafiosos and businessmen. Apparently, he was the go-to guy for guiding Japanese tourists to illegal gambling establishments."

"Drug trafficking, illegal gambling…sounds like some of the Yakuza's favorite activities to me," Danny surmised, "And since we have been able to tie the Wilson Crips to the Yakuza…"

"All roads lead back to Wo Fat," Steve agreed.

Chin also agreed with a nod and stated, "I'll grab some guys from HPD and start knocking down doors…"

"No, we're not using HPD."

"The governor called in the Feds…" Danny started to explain, but Steve cut him off.

"We're not bringing the Feds in on this either," he stated abruptly, pulling out his phone. "They're going to be more worried about their investigation into the Yakuza than they will be about finding Harper."

"We can't do this without some kind of back up," Detective Kelly reasoned, "We need somebody…"

Shaking his head, Steve answered, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the only person we can trust right now is Mickey James."

Danny's eyes widened as he exclaimed, "Whoah…we're bringing Big Daddy in on this one? Are you sure that is a good idea?"

"Good idea or not, I've already called him and he'll be on the next flight from the mainland," his partner informed him, heading toward the door, "And while we're waiting for him, nobody rests. Nobody. We kick in every door, leave no stone unturned until we get a lead on Harper. If Wo Fat wanted a war, he's got one."

"Where are you going?"

Without turning back to look at Danny or Chin, Steve continued out into the hallway as he answered, "To find my wife."