**********
50 hours missing
Jack's shaky fingers clutched the polaroid in the half-light of approaching dusk, willing a coherent thought to pass through the hazy dream that had engulfed him since he'd first laid eyes upon her. His perception was muted and fuzzy and the world seemed to carry on upon its own volition, separate from this reality.
The panic in her eyes brought him back and he forced his fingers around the phone which lay precariously clinging to the withering fibers of his overcoat.
He punched a number, thanking God for speed dial, and waited for Vivian to answer.
"Hello?"
His voice came as a harsh whisper as he struggled to speak with a confidence he was greatly lacking.
"Viv, it's me. You need to come down here. I was checking through Sam's car and a polaroid slipped out of her glove compartment. He's got her bound and gagged and-Viv, just get here fast."
"On our way, Jack."
His hand mechanically shut the link between reality and his distorted dream world where he tried to maintain an illusion of Sam being safe, unharmed, healthy and alive. With every glance at the polaroid that held between his fingers like glue, that dream cracked and crumbled and he tried desperately to piece together a new reality-with her-that made sense. A scenario that would lead her back to him.
He was consistently failing at this and it scared him.
Her eyes bore into his and she rose from the depths of her dark prison, pleading for the life slowly dwindling away with each second.
The handwriting was rough and scratchy and familiar; hauntingly familiar. He studied it and read it and analyzed it until the letters blurred together.
The air grew thick and heavy and he felt himself suffocating in the tiny car where Sam had, just days ago, laughed and talked and breathed and drove to work and home and him, always to him. To Jack. Where her life had stopped being easy and normal, started growing complicated and confused. But it had never stopped being worth it. He was her source and her savior and her simple solid foundation in the shaky crevices of a broken past, an uncertain tomorrow, a hopeful future.
Fumbling towards the door, he reached over and pushed himself out, shutting the door behind him and closing his eyes in frustration. His hair was messy and unkempt, his overcoat hung loosely over his strong shoulders, and his eyes were filled with a fierce fire to keep up the fight.
The sound of slamming car doors brought him back and he moved to join Vivian and Martin.
"What's wrong, Jack?"
He displayed the polaroid before his teammates, their shocked and sad eyes serving only as a reminder of the precious little time slipping through his fingers.
Martin's uneven voice spoke above the silence, "I'm gonna go talk to the mechanic, see if he saw anything."
Vivian nodded, studying Jack, searching for a clue. She spoke softly to her friend, "Jack, do you have any idea who might've done this?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. There's so many possible leads, I can't think. I need to get back to the office, look through my old cases. The handwriting-it looks familiar, but I can't place it."
His eyes inevitably floated back to the polaroid, viciously examining the markings on the wall behind her, the position of her bound hands, the bruises marring her pale skin, desperate in his search to find something, anything worthwhile in the inadequate image.
Vivian paused for a moment, emotions flooding her senses. "We'll get this guy, Jack. You know we will."
And for the first time in the last two days, the unspoken fear lurking in the back of his mind finally came forward as a whispered, unsteady conviction.
"No, I don't."
"Would you like to tell me how this picture got in the glove compartment?"
Martin took the seat across from the mechanic whose hands looped nervously between each other, whose eyes darted around the room, avoiding the dark brown eyes boring into his. Danny leaned against the corner, his smirk serving to inform the man that his cover would be blown before he left the room.
"I uh-I don't know. I was in the office, it was dark. I was working late-"
"Working on what, exactly?"
"You know, bills-making sure all the bills were paid. Just running over clients and all that."
Martin turned his head to catch Danny's eye. His patience with the man was running out. Dropping his arms to his side, Danny walked forward, leaning into the man's face.
When he spoke, his thoughts wandered back and forth, drifting between the human body in front of him and the one so often with them, her presence lingered in the confining room.
"Come on, Eddie. You saw someone break into her car last night. How much did he pay you to keep your mouth shut, huh? How much?"
Eddie's eyes continued their dance around the room, his fear building, his resolve slipping.
Martin shot up from his chair, slammed his hand on the table, and shouted, "Answer the damn question!"
Jumping in his seat, Eddie's hands slipped from the wooden table, falling into his lap, slippery with sweat.
"All-all right, I-I saw this guy. He uh, he was wearing this ski mask, you know? I didn't want any trouble. He paid me some money, told me if anyone asked, I never saw him. I-I didn't even know what he did, I just saw him slip something in her car and leave."
Danny scoffed, keeping his rising anger in check. "So, this guy breaks into a car you're responsible for, slips something into the glove compartment, and pays you to keep quiet."
He leaned in again, effectively making Eddie cower. "What kind of business are you running, Eddie?"
Eddie's head lowered, his hands still fidgeting in his lap, his thoughts wandering between the outside world and the lonely confines of a dark prison cell.
Danny stood up, preparing to end the interrogation as he spoke to Martin quietly, both agreeing little more could be done as of now.
With a courage that surprised him, Eddie spoke in a whisper, "I-I uh, I remember her. I don't know why, I mean, she dropped her car off a week ago, and hell, a client's a client, you know? They have a problem, I fix it, they pay me, they move on. But she uh, I don't know. She just seemed...different. Decent. I guess I noticed it because it's not something I see much anymore. I hope you find her."
Martin exchanged a look with Danny before replying, "You'll want to hold onto that then, because if she doesn't come back, that's the last decent human you'll be seeing for a long time. Your silence might've cost us precious time in this investigation."
Danny retreated from the room, leaving the door open for Martin who threw one last comment to Eddie before leaving.
"I hear human decency is in short supply in prison, Eddie."
The threat was enough and Eddie didn't look up as another agent came to escort him away.
"So did you get anything out of him?"
Martin ran a hand through his messy hair, sighing in frustration.
"He saw the guy put the picture in there, the guy paid him to keep quiet, and that's all she wrote. We've got forensics sweeping every inch right now, Jack."
"All right, keep me updated. I've got some old cases to flip through."
"You think this might be someone holding a grudge?"
This time, it was Jack's turn to rake his disheveled hair. "Yeah. I uh, I just don't know who yet."
Martin nodded and hesitated a second before walking away.
It was true, of course. Part of it anyway. Jack did suspect it was someone with a grudge. What he didn't tell Martin was he knew, more than he wanted to, just who would've done this.
There were layers to everything, he supposed.
Beneath the walls people cocooned themselves in, beneath the tiny specks of dirt they picked up along the way as life threw hardship after hardship upon them.
Beneath all of that, there was a beauty and a life to every person that he'd vowed to always treasure; to always look for and hold onto and protect against all odds.
There were layers to Samantha Spade. So many that he wondered some days if he really knew her. But then she'd smile at him and tease him and those flyaway strands of hair would brush against his bare chest at night when they made love and he would know, without a doubt, that he knew her better than he knew himself.
He knew things about her.
She liked the snow but hated winter. She liked Humphrey Bogart, but hated Casablanca. Because there wasn't a happy ending, because it didn't end the way it was supposed to end, the way it's always supposed to end.
The guys loves the girl, the girl loves the guy, the guy gets the girl, and that is the end of the story.
But Sam, for her hatred of simple, sappy movies, always secretly wished for the predictable happy ending.
"Life doesn't have enough happy endings, Jack. I like to pretend they're possible."
The quiet memory faded again and he was slammed, once again, back into the present, staring down an old casefile that he prayed he'd never see again.
He had been young, foolish, perhaps a little too idealistic, too cocky.
His mistakes, he thought, as his hand flipped through the papers, were coming back to haunt him.
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TBC...
