A Matter of Identification
For a moment neither of them spoke, they couldn't take in what Cheryl was saying, but then Rae began to pull herself together.
"How do you know that he has them?"
"We have a letter, it was sent to Steve this morning … I'll read it if you will let me." Cheryl waited, she could see that both of them now had questions, but she had a feeling that once she had finished reading they would know far more than they actually wanted to.
Stevie,
I saw your photo in the paper and it hit me, I had, right in front of me, the answer to my problems.
I'm getting a little bored with just putting pieces of Crosier around the place but, like I said, I have a problem with cutting up that little tramp. So I just got myself another one; yours.
Unfortunately, she had someone with her when I got a chance to make her acquaintance, but it is just more body parts for me to play with.
I would keep that picture from the paper, neither of them will ever be the same again.
I'll be in touch.
S. Todd
Rae shut her eyes for a moment, and the image of her husband came up in her mind, and with a strength of resolve that surprised her she pushed his face away, she needed to be single minded. She knew however, that never again would she let either of them have their picture in the paper. "Cheryl, if he's a cop he would know that Texas and Jesse were missing, he could have sent this letter without actually having them."
"I know that, Rae, but there was more in the envelope that just the letter."
The morning room was quiet for a moment before Rae began to speak. "What?" Her voice came out in a whisper and she felt for Steve's hand with her own. As she found it she looked at him and was shocked to see that he had tears in his eyes. "Steve?"
Her partner just shook his head; he knew that he couldn't speak without the tears falling and his desperation becoming more obvious to his two friends.
"The letter was in a padded envelope, and in there with it were two other things. One of them was a small box which had these in them." Cheryl took an evidence bag from the folder and heard both Steve and Rae gasp as she did so. There in her hand were ten nail clippings; each one had a small diamante on the left hand side.
"Oh, God." Steve took an even tighter grip on his partner's hand.
"I was going to ask you if you recognised these, but I guess you do, both of you, don't you?"
"She had them done for the Fundraising Ball… I thought … I thought they were wonderful." Rae shook her head and then a thought struck her. "Jesse doesn't have anything … no." Her hand went to her mouth; the possibilities of what was still in the envelope were too terrible to contemplate.
"There was a letter; it's from you, Rae." Cheryl held it up and Rae could see the first four lines clearly.
My darling Jesse,
I don't think I have ever written you a letter before, I guess because we have always been together, which is probably why I am finding this time apart so hard.
I wanted to write to tell you how you have been in my thoughts for the whole
"It was the only thing that survived the fire." Rae's voice was tinged with anger now. Jesse had loved the letter so much and now it had been spoilt, ruined by this. Rae shook her head, how could she worry about a letter being spoilt when it meant that her husband was with that maniac.
Rae suddenly became aware of Steve's hand shaking in hers and she looked again at her partner. He had his eyes shut and she knew that the effort of keeping his ever- changing emotions under control was what was making him shake.
"Cheryl, could you go into the kitchen and get me a drink of water please? And Michael will be in there, he needs to know what you just told us." Rae didn't want to shut her friend out, and she knew that Steve had worked with her for a long time, but she also knew that the fewer people who saw Steve fall apart the better. Carefully she put her arms around her partner and pulled him towards her. She didn't say or do anything else, and for a few minutes the shaking got worse and she could feel him fighting himself and the heat from the few tears that escaped him, but then, gradually he began to calm down again and she gently moved her hand across his back, knowing that when anybody did it to her it helped, and hoping that it was doing the same for him.
Cheryl had come silently into the room placed a glass of water on the nearest surface to the door and left again. Neither Steve nor Rae saw her, and she found herself a seat in the hallway and considered how everybody was going to react when the FBI arrived.
When the taps had been put on the phones the night before Ron had managed to pull a few strings to give both Steve and Rae some privacy and so overnight the lines had been manned from a van out in the street. But this morning not only would he be arriving but both detectives would be interviewed and shadowed by agents until the whole mess was over.
Steve stayed in Rae's arms for almost a quarter of an hour before he began to move away, he wouldn't look her in the eye and so she carefully placed her hand on his face and turned it towards her.
"Hey," she said, in a soft and quiet voice, "You should never be afraid to do that with me, ok?"
"I know, and thanks, Rae… I have to call Dad and then go tell Daniel, will you come with me?" Steve got to his feet and for a moment his legs felt so weak that he wondered whether he would have to sit back down, but the feeling passed and he moved over towards the door. He saw the glass of water and paused to take a drink from it, and Rae took the chance to speak again.
"Steve, you need to talk to Daniel alone, it isn't my place to be there. I'll stay in the house until you come back down, but you have to do this yourself."
"Yeah, I guess I do, don't I?" Steve looked at his partner and saw her nod, and then the two of them made their way out into the hallway.
Cheryl stood as soon as the door began to open and smiled at them. She watched as her friend and ex-partner picked up the phone and then she moved away a little with Rae to give him some privacy.
"Dad … It's me… Yeah, the … the guy who calls himself Todd … he has them." Steve took a deep breath, he couldn't lose it, not again, not yet, he had to speak with Daniel. "Dad, until you can get cover for Jesse's shifts you're needed there. I'll see you later when you finish … yeah, I know, bye."
Steve put the phone back down and moved over to where Rae and Cheryl were standing. "I have to go and speak with Daniel, but I'll be back down in a little while … If … if anything else happens come and get me."
"Steve, Ron will be here soon, there's been a van outside overnight, monitoring your calls, and everything else, today I think they will be moving in here, and at your house, Rae."
"But the girls are there, and Sally, I don't want them in my house … can't they have their van on the driveway …? No, I guess they can't, I'm sorry, Cheryl, yeah, sure, but don't let them go there until Steve's spoken to Daniel and I can talk with Sally." Rae ran her hands through her hair; she didn't know quite how to react to anything right now.
"Ok, Rae, I'll see what I can do, but I know that Ron is taking charge of this himself, so I'm sure he'll wait."
The two of them just nodded their heads and then Steve made his way up the stairs. He hadn't seen his son to speak to since he had sent him to his room the night before, and the guilt on top of everything else he was feeling was almost overwhelming. Daniel had come down for dinner, but Steve had been unable to eat and he had stood out in the garden watching the lights come on all over LA knowing that Jo was out there someplace, and he had no idea where. Daniel had returned to his room after helping Michael with the dishes, and Steve had stood outside his door three times and almost gone in to tell him what was happening, but he had known that until he knew something officially the boy was probably better off not knowing. In the end he had turned the handle and called his son to him.
"Daniel, you need to turn off the light and go to sleep now." Steve had looked into his eyes for a second before turning away, and Daniel, recognising that something was wrong, but not knowing how to ask what it was, had nodded and returned to his room.
So now Steve tapped on the door and waited.
"Come in." Daniel's voice sounded a little guarded but Steve turned the handle and went in.
"Hey … Dad?" The boy's tone changed when he saw him enter, and noticed the look of despair on his father's face. "Something's happened to Mom hasn't it? She … she didn't come home last night. I've … I've had that happen to me before, my real mom, she never came back." Already there were tears on his face and Steve knew that he had made the wrong call the night before.
He moved over to Daniel and crouched down next to where he was sitting. "I need to speak to you, and you're right, something has happened to your Mom, come and sit on the bed, we can talk there."
Once they were settled Steve looked around him. "You've made this tidy, no more wall to wall … things … shoes, dirty socks, old meals, you name it, I think I'd have found it in here."
"I … I cleaned it last night after you sent me up here. I wasn't sure if I was in trouble or what, but I figured it couldn't hurt."
Steve smiled at the boy and then shook his head slightly. "You don't want to talk about that, do you? You want to know what has happened to Jo."
Daniel just nodded his agreement and looked at Steve. "Dad, is she dead?" The tears started again and Steve put his arm round him.
"No, Son, no, she's not dead." Steve swallowed, hard, and then took a breath and move back from Daniel before beginning to speak again. "But she is in big trouble, and we need to get her back real fast. She has been taken prisoner by … someone, I got a letter this morning, but she isn't alone, Jesse is with her." Steve suddenly realised that he didn't actually know that, the one thing that had helped him through the night had been thinking that Jo would have Jesse with her, but he had no proof of that.
Daniel looked at his face and knew that his dad was telling the truth. "You got a letter, what did it say?" His voice was shaking now, but Daniel didn't care, he had to know what had happened to his mom.
"Just that he had them both, and … and that was it really." Steve couldn't even think of saying anything more. But the young man sitting next to him was way ahead of him.
"You say you got a letter, like the one Michael got from that Todd guy?" Daniel watched as Steve nodded, not trusting his voice to say anything. "He has them, doesn't he? That … that guy who cuts people up, he has my Mom." This time the tears began to flow and he could do nothing to stop them and he fell into Steve's arms and sobbed on his shoulder.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jesse groaned and moved a hand to the back of his head. As he did so he felt something heavy against his wrist and for some reason his other arm moved as well. Jesse didn't understand this, and so he began to try to get his fuzzy brain cells working.
"Jesse?" He heard a voice, and knew that he should recognise it but everything around him was blurry and a long way off. With a small sigh he closed his eyes, whatever had happened to him he wasn't ready to fight it, not yet.
Jo watched as Jesse struggled with consciousness for a few minutes before he sank back down into the darkness that had held him in its grip on and off for the last eighteen hours. She wished that she had been in the darkness too, that way her fear wouldn't be so great that she could hold it in her hands. She had never felt vulnerable in LA before, even after the animal rights activists had held her captive, she had resisted the temptation to apply for a California gun permit, and the thought of a bodyguard with her all the time was one she had never seriously considered.
First of all she thought that the man with the gun wanted her for a ransom demand, and she knew that both Steve and David would pay anything to get her back. She hadn't seen the face of the man who had abducted them and so she had been hopeful that once the money had changed hands she would be released, but then something had happened that had chilled her to the bone.
Jesse had pulled up to a set of lights about two blocks from Sally's house and a red pickup truck had stopped so close to them that he had commented.
"Jeeze, that guy gets any closer and he'll be saving gas money."
"What? I'm sorry, I was miles away." Jo had looked around at the angry tone to Jesse's voice.
"That guy behind us, he gets any closer and he'll be in the trunk." At that moment the lights had changed and Jesse had drawn away. The other vehicle had stayed behind them all the way until about a half mile or so from the hospital when it had suddenly sped round them and forced Jesse off the road.
"Ok, that does it, he's tailgated me the entire journey, now he forces me off the road, I'm gonna take his number and …" Jesse had stopped his ranting as he turned to see the man, a balaclava and cap covering his features, pointing a gun at the window. As he watched him gesticulate the movements to lower the window Jo could tell that Jesse had been sorely tempted to leave it where it was. But they both knew a bullet at this close range would shatter the glass anyway so he had complied.
"Mrs Sloan, how nice to see you, if you and your gentleman friend, Doctor Travis, I believe, would just step out of the vehicle.
Jo had turned to see another man standing her side of the car, and she knew that there was no was she could make a run for it.
"What do you want? If it's money or the car then take it, take it all." Jesse had looked up at the man holding a gun on him and then over at Jo to see that the other kidnapper also had a weapon.
"Oh, no, Doctor Travis, we want more than that, much more. Now, out of your car and into mine, if you don't mind. Jo had climbed into the bed of the truck, which was similar to Steve's, and sat down. The cap was on the truck and she knew they wouldn't be seen. Jesse must have taken too long to climb into the vehicle because Jo saw the man with him raise his gun and smash it down across the back of his head and he had fallen without a sound at her feet.
"Move him further in and then I suggest that you keep quiet, or I might just have to start my harvest a little early."
Jo hadn't been able to reply to that and she had just nodded and pulled her friend towards her until his head rested in her lap and then she had gently made sure that he was comfortable and stroked his hair back for the entire journey. Although at the time she had been scared and her life seemed to be moving in slow motion, she knew that the abduction hadn't taken any more than about a minute or two at the most.
As Jesse was pulled away from her and dumped out of the truck and onto the floor the man who had attacked him began to speak.
"Say goodbye to your gentleman friend, you won't be close enough to touch him for a while."
Jo looked around her, she was in some type of garage, she had no idea where it was as the windows in the back of the truck had been blacked out and she hadn't had a chance to see anything when they arrived because they had driven straight in.
In the far corner was a huge metal cage and Jo, a gun to the back of her head the entire time, watched in horror as Jesse was picked up and carried to the cage, dropped to the floor and then chained up in manacles which were attached round his neck, both wrists and his ankles and then to the bars.
Once that was done a curtain was pulled back and Jo saw another cage, which she was put into and restrained as well.
"Now, Mrs. Sloan, or is it Jo, or maybe Texas, how do you like your new home? It's lovely isn't it? Not as grand as the one in Beverley Hills, but lovely all the same." As soon as he called her Texas her blood froze. She must somehow know this man, and if she knew him then she was already dead.
They had been left alone then and Jo had sat watching Jesse, listening to his breathing, too frightened to do anything but stay in the position she had been put, trying not to think about what Levington had done to Rae when he had taken her. Her captor had come back in the late afternoon and entered her cage, her inability to move had left her and she had cowered as far back in her prison as her chains would allow, terrified at what he might do.
"You can move as much as you like there is no escape, do I frighten you? Do I care? No, I don't. Give me your hand … GIVE ME YOUR HAND … Jo had moved her right hand forward trying not to let it shake. Her captor had grasped it tightly and, as she watched in fear, had cut all her nails off with a pair of household scissors. He had done the same with the left hand and then without another word had left her.
"Now, Doctor Travis … Still asleep are we?" He had pulled back his foot and kicked out viciously and Jesse had moaned slightly but done nothing to protect himself. "Mmm, oh, well, I am sure I will find what I want without your help." He had roughly turned Jesse over and begun to go through his pockets until he found his wallet. He took out a couple of photos and what looked to Jo like a letter of some kind, which he began to read. "Oh, how sweet … like a chewed up toffee! You are a fool if you believed this; she was probably screwing another doctor while she was up there, and have you seen how she looks at her partner? Women, disgusting whores the lot of them." He had given Jesse another kick, just, it seemed to Jo, for the fun of it and then left the doctor where he lay.
"Bye my beauties, I will be back, don't go away."
Jo had heard him laugh all the way back to wherever it was he went.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rae had sat with Cheryl for a few moments wanting to know what she had said to Michael before she herself went to see him. Cheryl had said that she had basically just repeated everything as she had told her and Steve. Rae hadn't been surprised, that sort of news only had one way of telling, and she had set ways of passing on bad news herself.
Michael was cleaning down what, to Rae, looked like perfectly clean counters as she entered the room, and she moved over towards him and cleared her throat.
"Yes, Madam, is there anything I can get for you?" Michael's voice was tight and restrained and told Rae a lot.
Rae shook her head, "No, Michael, I just wanted to see how you are. Steve's upstairs with Daniel right now; I don't think he will be down for a while."
"I see. I am just carrying on with the things that I normally do … and considering handing in my notice, Madam."
"What? Michael, why?" Rae couldn't believe her ears, he was as much a part of this family as anyone, and then she realised what the problem was, and why he had told her. "It's because a butler is a servant, and as such must be able to continue in a normal fashion whatever disaster befalls his employers… And you can't do that can you?"
"The day that Miss Josephine's grandmother died I was due to polish all the wood in the library. I did it just as I had planned, nothing was overlooked, I catered for everyone who came to pay their respects, I even paid them myself, but I carried on … butlering, as I had been trained to do, and even if I hadn't been trained I would have found no difficulty in doing that … but now …" Michael's words faded away and Rae moved a little closer.
"But now, you are suffering as much as we are. Michael, look at me." Rae's voice was a little sterner than she had intended but it worked and he turned to face her.
"Texas never wanted a butler, she wanted a friend, she needed a friend, and that was you. If you leave now, or when she comes home, she will feel as if she has lost not a servant, not an employee, but a member of her family. Michael, I think that you have to accept that the moment Jo arrived on your doorstep after her travels your role as a traditional butler disappeared." Rae paused for a moment as she saw Michael nod his head a small smile on his face.
"She wanted me to eat my meals with her, and couldn't understand why I wouldn't. In the evenings she used to invite me into the living room or the morning room to spend time with her, and again, she couldn't understand why I didn't do so… Her grandmother wouldn't even set foot in the morning room after twelve noon. I have relaxed my role a little with her, but never as much as she would like me to, but … but …"
"But you love her, Michael, and she loves you. She won't stop you leaving, but neither she nor her family will be the same without you." Rae touched him gently on the arm and heard him take a gulp of air. She knew that he was fighting the tears and so she left him to let them fall without a witness.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jesse stirred again, and he knew that this time there was no return to the darkness. He tried to move his hand towards his head and this time he heard chains move and that woke him up a little more.
"Jesse? Can you hear me?"
"Rae?" Jesse's voice was weak and sounded odd to him but he tried to speak again. "What happened? Where am I? Rae?"
"No, it's me, Jo, and I don't know where we are, Jesse, but remember the guy who cut you off just before we got to the hospital?"
Jesse shook his head and regretted it immediately, for a second the world swam around again, and then with an effort he began to refocus. "No, I don't remember … I spoke to you on the phone, about Debbie being pregnant… I don't remember any more." Jesse felt the pressure of something around his neck and was horrified when his fingers touched cold metal.
Slowly Jo began to explain to Jesse what had happened, and as she did so they both heard the unmistakable noise of someone walking towards their prison.
"Ah, Doctor Travis, I am glad to see that you are with us, now, I need you to tell me a couple of things."
Jesse looked up from the floor where he was still laying and saw a figure towering over him; he was dressed entirely in blue, blue slacks and shirt with a balaclava helmet topped off by a sports cap and gloves. "What? What do you want?"
"Is this your medical bag?" The man held up the bag that Jesse never went anywhere without, and swung it back and forth.
Jesse nodded his head and wasn't surprised that the room moved around him again.
"Good, I have been looking through it, there is some interesting stuff in here. Ah, a syringe, without its needle, but I have some of those, no scalpels though, shame, you never can have too many of them, anaesthetic cream would I use that? I don't know it's fun to hear the screams. Ooh, a prescription pad, now that really will come in useful, and your cards, doctor, mmm, I think I can use them as well. Oh, and doctor, don't look for your cell phone, I have that too. I will be back in a little while, but then I will be forced to leave you. Places to go, people to meet, in fact I might even get involved in the search that is bound to be going on for you."
The man turned and left the garage and Jesse and Jo looked at each other, fear beginning to rest even more uncomfortably in their souls. Both of them could think of only one reason why they would have a captor who needed scalpels and syringes, and neither of them was brave enough to voice it, not yet.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rae had returned home to speak with Sally and tell her about the imminent arrival of the FBI. She had seen the large truck in front of her house and couldn't believe that she had missed it earlier. As she let herself in she could hear her eldest daughter joining in with one of the songs on Sesame Street, and despite the situation had to smile, it was clear that Eliana had inherited all the singing talents of her mother.
Rae made her way to the playroom and entered quietly. Anneya was in her bouncy chair and began to kick her legs as soon as she spotted her, and then her other daughter turned and ran to her. "Mommy, Mommy!"
Rae smiled at Sally and then crouched down, the guilt she felt from the previous day was still tangible and she rubbed her hand across the back of her daughter's legs, the smooth skin feeling wonderful under her fingers, but the memory of the raised wheals still fresh in her mine.
"Hey, Sweetie, you watch your programme while I talk to Sally, ok?" Rae leant over and ran a finger down Anneya's cheek and then, lifting Eliana onto her lap, sat on the sofa so that she could talk in a more comfortable position.
"There are going to be FBI agents in the house, they have jurisdiction over all kidnapping cases, and they will have guys in both houses, not for long I hope, maybe they can co-ordinate everything from just one house. I don't want them to upset the girls, they are gonna start missing their daddy soon, and having a stranger or two in the house won't help."
Sally had been nodding her head in agreement to everything that Rae had said. "You know, I could take them home with me, that way they wouldn't get upset, and for a short time they could sleep there without too much change to their routine."
"No!" Rae didn't shout but the word came out as a bark and her child carer moved back in shock. "Sally, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to speak like that, but no, I … I need them here, I couldn't have the house to myself, I just couldn't. Right now they are all the family I have, I … I … I just need them here." Rae felt the panic and tears threaten her again and knew that she couldn't let either free, she had to be strong, keep a brave face on the whole time, because if she lost it now she wasn't sure if she would ever find it again.
"I'm sorry, Rae, I didn't think of it that way. Of course we'll stay here." Sally put her arm around Rae and for a moment they sat in silence. Rae realised how lucky she was to have friends who would look after her and comfort her while her life was so awful, and she truly hoped that she would never have to do it for any of them. As they sat there the phone rang in the hallway and Rae carefully moved her daughter over onto Sally's lap and went to answer it.
"Hello? Travis residence." Rae found that her heart was hammering in her chest as she waited for the caller to identify him or herself. "Hello?" Rae's heart began to beat even louder, and then there was a click and the call was over. For a moment she just stood there, and then she headed towards the front door, as the thought occurred to her that she could put the answering machine on as long as it didn't mess up the FBI equipment.
As she moved out onto her step Rae saw Ron striding towards her, a look of grim determination on his face. "Rae, go back in." She did as she was told and then closed the door immediately that her friend was inside.
"Why, what's wrong, did something else happen, do you have new information?"
"No, Rae, but you just got a dead call, that can't be a coincidence. Have you had them before?"
"No, not for a long time, and then only on my cell. It's never happened here before."
"Don't you have an answering machine?"
Rae nodded. "I turned it off when Cheryl said the line was gonna be taped. I didn't want it to mess anything up. It came with the house, and … well, I think it's pretty old."
"It should be ok. I guess you could always buy a new one, but until then just keep it turned on. If the guys in the truck have a problem with it they'll soon let you know."
Rae walked over to the table and did just that, and then, with her back still towards Ron she closed her eyes and concentrated on being positive and calm. The fact that she didn't know where Jesse was, the source of all her fear, threatened her again, but as she tried to picture him dancing with her at the ball, to her surprise she felt all the feelings of panic dissipate but she knew that they would be there, just beneath the surface until she got Jesse back. With a forced smile Rae turned back to Ron. "I guess you want to speak with me, huh?"
"Yeah, do you want to come back to Steve's? Bring the girls if you want, Cheryl said you had help with them, but it's up to you."
"No, I'll leave them here with Sally. She's used to having them during the day, I'll just come back when we've finished." Ron nodded his head and then watched as she went and told her friend where she was going, then, his hand on his gun at all times he escorted her back to Steve and Jo's house.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo heard her captor come back long before she saw him. He was whistling and with a shudder she recognised the tune as 'The Yellow Rose of Texas.' The door opened and a shaft of bright sunlight cut through the dusty garage, sending patterns through the particles. Jesse had managed to get himself into a sitting position and was now leaning against the bars at the back of his cell, and he could feel himself begin to shake as the man came closer.
"Doctor Travis, how do you like your accommodations? You know I am sure that you will be interested in the procedure I am about to carry out. I would ask that you move a little closer, so that you have an uninterrupted view."
"Just let me out, and then the bars won't get in the way." Jesse got shakily to his feet. He wished he could say he felt fine now, but the amount of time spent on the cold floor had robbed him of almost all feeling in his legs and any position apart from sitting or lying made the room spin.
"Just do it." There was a sudden movement and Jesse saw a gun being pointed at Jo. "And trust me I will shoot, it matters not to me whether she is alive or dead, but I think it may to you, am I right?"
Jesse nodded his head and moved over towards the front of the cage. As he got there the man put his hand in through the bars grabbed Jesse by the hair and pulled until he felt some come away. Jesse managed to stop himself from crying out but for a moment the world around him became a red fog.
"Ooh, aren't we a brave little soldier? Maybe I should do it again." This time Jesse couldn't keep the cry of pain in and it resonated around the building and he hung his head in shame, sinking back to the ground as he did so.
"Now, as I was saying, I think that you will be very interested in the procedure that I am about to carry out. If I am doing it wrong maybe you would be kind enough to let me know. Oh, I will need my assistant." The man stopped talking, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled a long shrill note. Another man entered the room, he too was armed and he moved over towards Jesse, then he crouched down to the floor, picked up the chain that was attached to his neck and pulled on it, hard.
Jesse was unable to steady himself in time, and was yanked forward until his face smashed into the bars. He heard Jo call out his name and then felt the unmistakable sensation of blood as it poured from his nose and a gun muzzle was placed behind his ear.
"Well, well, the little Texas lady is concerned for her friend. I think that he may have need to be more concerned about you. Now, I will need this, this and this." He put a small table just by the side of the bars and then on it he placed two scalpels, a small bowl and some gauze wraps. I have to send a parcel to your husband, I would suggest that you don't struggle, if you do the doctor will get more than a bloody nose, in fact he won't have a nose, or a head, for that matter." Jo looked at the mad man standing in front of her and felt herself grow dizzy. She knew now without a shadow of a doubt who he was, and the fear was almost overwhelming.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Steve, Daniel and Michael were sitting in the living room, Rae could see that the boy's face was still puffy from the amount of tears he had shed, and her heart went out to him. He had just found a stable home that he loved and it had been ripped apart right in front of him.
"Rae, are you ok?" Steve stood up as she came into the room and moved across to her, concern etching his features as well as exhaustion and worry.
"No, but then neither are you, none of us are, but we will be … when we get them back." Rae forced her positive nature to return, not fully, but just a little. "We will get them back, Steve, we have to, I can't imagine my life without Jesse in it, so I won't let that happen."
"Honey, sometimes there are more problems than we can deal with, what if this is one of those times?"
"No, I won't listen, Steve. I have to be positive … I don't want to talk about it any more, ok?"
Suddenly Steve knew that she was warning him off, that she couldn't cope with being anything but upbeat because the alternative was too terrible for her to contemplate. He also knew that until she had proof positive in front of her that Jesse or Jo was dead she would only believe it was true in her darkest moments.
"Ok, guys let's get moving on this. Steve, does Jo have any other family apart from … Rae?" Ron had heard a gasp and turned to see Rae looking horror struck at what he had just said.
"Jesse's mom, I should have called her last night, I never even thought about it. Ron, I ought to go and speak with her now, can you wait a few minutes … what time would it be in Minneapolis? It's what eleven o'clock here." Rae was amazed, the time, which she had thought would drag, had flown by.
Rae moved out into the hall and picked up the receiver. There was an agent standing just inside the front door and he looked at her as she stood there. His presence unnerved her a little but she knew that there was nothing she could do about it. Rae had left her purse at Steve's the night before, it was sitting on the hall table where she had put it, so with a sigh she pulled out her diary, turned to the addresses at the back and began to flick through to the T's. Rae knew that she should get in touch with Jesse's dad too, but Dane Travis was not an easy man to track down. He found you, not the other way round. Rae could still remember the amazement she had felt when Jesse had finally told her that his dad was a spy, in fact she hadn't believed him, and it wasn't until she had actually mentioned him to Mark and he had confirmed it that she had realised that Jesse was telling the truth.
The phone in Jesse's mom's office rang out and Rae took a deep breath. As it was answered Rae let the air out and began to talk. "Please may I speak with Doctor Travis … This is her daughter-in-law Rae Travis calling from Los Angeles … yes, I'll hold." Rae moved the phone from her ear as 'Greensleeves' began to play and forced herself to relax as she saw the whiteness of her knuckles on the receiver.
"Rae? Honey, how are you?" The confident but friendly voice of her mother-in-law made Rae jump and she moved the phone back to her ear.
"Mom, I need to speak with you about Jesse…"
Steve had sat back down when Rae had left the room and watched his son with pride as he sat, back straight, hands in his lap, holding himself together so that no one would know just how much he was hurting inside. Steve let Ron know that David would be flying up from Texas in the next day or so. He had business commitments that he couldn't cancel, but then he and maybe Debbie would stay as long as it took to find his sister.
They could all hear Rae's voice on the phone, and knew that she was finding her task difficult. A couple of times it wavered, and there were long silences, but in the end, about five or ten minutes after she had left the room Rae came back in and sat, without a word, in one of the empty chairs, her hands also in her lap and looked at Ron, not trusting herself to speak, but wanting desperately for him to start whatever it was he had to say.
Ron took a deep breath and looked at the people in front of him. He knew and liked Steve and Rae; in fact Steve was one of the very few close friends he had. Daniel seemed like a good kid, and if Steve and Jo liked him then it was good enough for him. Michael, he didn't know, but he knew how highly everybody thought of him, and once again that was good enough for him.
"Ok, this is a somewhat different scenario than most kidnap cases because first of all we know who has them, but we have no idea who he is. We know what he is likely to do, but we have no idea how to prevent it. We know that he will get in touch with us, but we have no way of making contact with him."
"So, what you are saying is that we just have to sit on our hands and wait to see what comes in the mail?" Steve's voice was slightly high and Rae leant over and placed her palm on his arm.
"Shhh, we have to go with what Ron says, you know that."
"Steve, I wish I could clap and have everything we need to go and make an arrest but I can't. The area where they were snatched from is in between speed cameras, nothing showed up. I have officers checking the area now, as it is coming up to the time that we believe they were taken. Maybe they got spotted by someone who travels that route regularly. The traffic wasn't gridlocked yesterday, but it was a little stop and go."
Rae thought for a moment, it hadn't occurred to her that the lunch time snarl would have started when they were taken. She had got caught in it herself and even considered heading home for lunch and then going off on her jaunt to Yucca Valley. If only she had maybe she would have realised that something was wrong earlier.
"Rae? Are you all right?" Ron's voice cut through her thoughts.
"Yes, I'm sorry, I was just thinking about the traffic being snarled up. Somebody must have seen something. Nobody leaves their car unattended on the highway, not in Los Angeles. You know I'm amazed nobody took the car, it's a lovely one."
Ron looked at her. "They just took bits of it, Rae. Wing mirrors, tires, the CD player, obviously, and the windows and the lights were smashed. I'm sorry."
"No, that's ok, I'm not surprised."
"At least we know where they were last seen; we can put that on the posters we need to get made up. Can you both let me have an up to date picture of Jo and Jesse. We will do some with them both on, and some separate, but we can make sure that the area where the car was is saturated with flyers."
"You know…" Rae was thinking as she spoke, "In England when there is an accident, or an incident on a main road the police put up a notice, bright yellow they are, and it has the date and time that it happened and a number to call if you have any information. I don't think I have ever seen one here, couldn't we do that?"
"I guess so, but we tend to put the posters and flyers out. We get a pretty good response from that."
"Ron, all my pictures were destroyed when I lost the house. I don't even have a picture of Jesse by my bed right now." Rae swallowed her feelings back down, clenching her fists until she could feel her nails driving into her palms, and then she looked over at Steve.
"You'll have some current pictures with Jesse in them won't you?"
"I'm sure we will, I'll just go get them." Steve stood up; he had been on the other end of this scenario too many times to count. It was always harrowing for the families involved to look through photos of happy times in order to find a picture for the police to circulate, it was as if they were having another part of their loved ones taken away, and now he had to suffer it himself.
It didn't take long to find the photo albums, but the searching, as Steve had thought was a traumatic period for all of them. Neither Daniel nor Michael had spoken at all since Ron had entered the room, and they sat silently still as he and Rae searched for pictures that were suitable to be enlarged and put on a poster.
The search took well over an hour and Michael had excused himself half way through it to go and prepare some lunch. After he left Daniel moved a little closer and began to look through some of the older photos taken before he became a part of their lives. His real mom had been quite a tall lady, from what he could remember, and he had loved her very much, but the feelings he had for Jo were getting almost as strong, and he had to blink back the tears as he looked at wedding photos, and pictures of picnics on the beach, or barbeques on the deck of Mark's house. Daniel had one picture of his mom that he kept in the nightstand by his bed. She had long blonde hair, and looked like an angel to him. She had left her husband and her son one night, gone out to a club with her friend Tina and never come back. He had no idea if she was alive or dead, but somewhere inside of him he knew that if she had died he would feel it. And he felt nothing. Daniel brought himself back from his wanderings and looked at a picture taken of Jo just a week or so ago. They had been sitting out in the garden, the sun had been hot and Jo had sat under the sunshade reading a gardening magazine while he worked on a project next to her. He didn't think there were any other photos of the two of them together, and he picked it up and showed it to Steve.
"Can I have this?"
"Yeah, sure, Son. I'll find you a frame for it later."
"Thanks."
By the time Michael came back into the room with a tea trolley containing both tea and coffee, three plates of sandwiches as well as fruitcake and cheese and biscuits the difficult task was almost at an end. Ron had taken a note of dates of birth, height, approximate weight, what they had been wearing, which was hard because neither Steve nor Rae had seen their spouses out of bed that morning, as well as distinguishing marks, of which there were none, and he was preparing to take the entire package to the printers. As he stood up Rae did too.
"I'm going to go back home, I want to be with the girls for a while, but I'll come back when they have their naps. Ron, I'll ask Sally what Jesse and Texas were wearing and call you in a minute."
Steve stood up too and moved over to her. "Ok, partner, you take care, and I'll see you later." He had just kissed her gently on the cheek when there was a knock on the door and Ron moved out into the hallway. Five minutes later he returned and both Steve and Rae knew that something had happened.
"There has been another parcel, and a letter was couriered to the station."
The room seemed to freeze. Nobody moved or said a word, the nightmare had just got much worse, and all of them knew they were powerless to stop it happening again and again.