He thought back to the night he, Alex and Jimmy had overheard Joey's
heartfelt plea and took a seat next to the bed and began to explain what
had been said that day.
"It all started when I'd gone to call and let my mom know you'd been found." Bobby began to say as he thought back to the events of the night.
"Joey had fallen asleep alongside Jimmy and Alex in the waiting room and your mom had gone down to get something eat since she'd been so worried about making sure the kids were taken care of and about you still missing. After I'd finished up on the phone, the three of us started talking a few feet away so we wouldn't bother Joey. Sometime during the course of our conversation, he woke up and headed in to see you. Alex was the first to notice that he was gone and Jimmy told us that he figured he was with you. So we all went to see if what he'd said was right and sure enough, there he was." Bobby began to say, remembering the events of that night as if it were yesterday when it occurred.
Kim sat and listened as he spoke of what happened. She remembered faintly, somewhere in the back of her mind, hearing Joey's voice that night, but wasn't able to make out what he was saying. Some of the memories she had of that night were vague due to the traumatic experiences that she went through. She looked forward to getting on with her life after all the hell that Craig had put her through and getting back into a normal routine and getting back to work.
Later on that afternoon, several of the guys from the firehouse came to see how she was doing. D.K, Walsh and Lombardo headed into the hospital and made their way to the ICU with cards and flowers. Some were from the cops across the street and others were from the station house. When they got to her room, D.K stuck his head in the door while Walsh and Lombardo stood back, away from the door so no one would see what they were carrying.
"Up for company?" D.K asked.
"Hey! Come on in." Kim answered in response as Bobby pivoted around in the chair to see who all had come in.
The moment she looked at all the flowers they had brought her, Kim rolled her eyes and said, "It looks like we're setting up a flower shop in here."
Everyone began to laugh and the conversation then changed to the goings on around the firehouse the past several days. Before the guys left for the afternoon, they said their good-byes and head back towards the front of the hospital to get ready for their shift. As the days past, she regained more of her strength and everyone could tell she was almost to the point to where she could be discharged. However, it wasn't until the end of the week that the doctor cleared her so she could go home. On Friday morning the doctor made his rounds and much to her surprise, told her she was finally able to go home.
Hearing the words that she could finally go home were music to her ears. All the time she'd spent cooped up inside the hospital was starting to take its toll on her and finally being able to get back to a normal routine in her own home was exactly what she wanted. Bobby had finally started heading home at night instead of staying all night at the hospital since there wasn't any danger of a relapse like there had been in the past. Finally getting a decent night's sleep was wonderful, although he had a lot to make up for because sleeping in hospital chairs is far from comfortable. It got to the point to where hardly anything would get him up once he'd fallen into a deep sleep. Luckily the kids were with his mother since she was going to take them Disney's Monster's Inc. On Ice that afternoon.
As the phone rang for what had to have been the tenth time, Kim still got no answer when she called to tell him she was able to come home finally. After finally getting frustrated of hearing the constant ring and no one picking up she figured he was either still asleep or out running errands. She decided to have Alex go see if he his car was still there and if it was, see what on earth he was doing not answering the phone. When she called Alex's apartment she didn't get an answer at first and was starting to get irritated.
"What is it with people not answering their phones today?" she grumbled under her breath as she prepared to dial Alex's cell phone.
After a couple rings someone picked up, much to Kim's relief. Alex glanced down at her phone and looked at the number and didn't recognize it at first and answered the call, since she needed a break from running anyhow.
"Hello?" Alex said into the phone, wondering who was calling her.
"Hey Alex, how are you this morning?" Kim asked, relieved that she wasn't jumping on the bandwagon of people not answering their phones.
"Pretty good, just out for a morning jog. How about yourself?" she replied back into the phone.
"Trying to get a hold of Bobby so I can get out of here since I'm being discharged." Kim said, glancing over at the clock on the wall.
"He's not there yet? It's almost 11:30, normally he's already there by now." Alex replied.
"I know. I've tried calling umpteen million times and I'm not getting an answer at the apartment or on his cell." Kim said back.
"Want me to head over and see what he's up to?" Alex asked curiously.
"Sure. If he won't answer the phone, nine chances out of ten he won't answer the door so if you want you can swing by here and I'll give you my set of keys so you can get in." Kim replied.
"Ok, give me about fifteen minutes and I'll be over." Alex said, as she started in the direction of the hospital.
"See you shortly." Kim said in return before she hung up the phone.
After getting off the phone with Alex, she got up and went to the small closet on the other side of the hospital room to get her set of keys out of the bag of stuff that was being kept there. All her stuff was ready to go, she just needed him to come get her, plus the doctor had to discuss the discharge papers with both of them.
When Alex arrived at the hospital, she tried calling to see if Bobby had decided to quit playing avoid the phone but there was no response so she decided to pull something on him to get back at him for being a phone recluse. When she arrived at the apartment she listened through the door at first to see if she could hear anything going on before letting herself in. Upon hearing only silence, Alex let herself in quietly. Heading down the hall she found him still in bed and came to the obvious conclusion that he was way out of it to be asleep that late in the morning. She tried calling his name several times to see if he would respond to her voice, keeping her from using drastic measures to get him up.
"Bobby! Get your lazy ass out of bed!" Alex called, seeing if he responded.
She tried several more times before resorting to the old snapping towel trick. It was effective with the firefighters when they wouldn't get up at the station so why wouldn't it work in this situation. She went and got a clean towel and dampened the end of it and wound it up and headed back to her slumbering target. When Alex reentered the room she took aim on the upper part of his left shoulder and let the towel fly. The sound of the towel connecting with it's target echoed in the room as well as Bobby's shocked exclaim.
"What in the hell!" he said in shock, jumping at the impact of the towel.
Alex had to keep from laughing at his reaction as he sat up, rubbing his stinging shoulder.
"When was it against the law to sleep." he asked groggily turning around to face the person who'd snapped him with the towel.
After seeing Alex standing in the doorway he exclaimed, "Alex! How on earth did you get in here?"
"Get dressed then we can play twenty questions." She replied, heading into the living room.
He quickly got up and grabbed a pair of jeans and made the bed. Grabbing a T-shirt from the closet and pulling it over his head as he headed towards the living room to get some answers. As he headed into the other room the one question that was filling his head was what on earth was Alex doing in the apartment.
"Ok, how on earth did you get in here?" Bobby asked as he came into the living room and saw her sitting on the couch.
Instead of answering, Alex dug the set of keys out of her pocket and dangled them in front of her. Bobby looked to the small intable where he kept his wallet and keys and realized who's key's she had. Looking at the keychain that Alex dangled out of her hand, his eyes got as big as dinner plates and under his breath he exclaimed, "Shit!"
Alex took in his reaction and asked, "Did you forget how to answer a phone?"
"The phone rang? I never heard it." He replied.
"Well, Kim called umpteen million times this morning trying to get a hold of you and resorted to me when she couldn't get an answer." Alex said in response.
He looked at his cellphone and saw numerous missed calls, which he assumed all came from Kim.
"Nothing's happened to her has there?" he asked, going through the missed calls and seeing what times they'd come through.
"No she's fine, just waiting on you so she can come home." Alex replied.
Craig had gotten up that morning and had a feeling today would be an important day. He got up and saw that his two companions were still asleep so while they were, he left for a bit and decided to see what was going on with his latest obsession. Dropping by first at the apartment he headed up to the front door and listened to the conversation.
"So she's coming home today, eh?" he said silently, an evil smirk spreading across his face at the info.
He listened to the rest of the conversation till he heard footsteps heading towards the door and he quickly retreated, heading back out to his car. Within minutes of returning to the safety of his car, he saw Bobby emerge followed by Alex. The two of them climbed into the Explorer and headed off. Questions immediately began to shoot through Craig's brain as he followed the two of them at a safe distance to avoid detection.
"Have those two had a thing going while she's been the hospital?" Craig asked himself aloud, jumping at the sound of his cellphone ringing.
Looking at the number coming across the display, he noticed it was the number for his apartment and assumed that it was Marc that was calling.
"What do you need Marc?" Craig asked, assuming it was his cousin on the other line.
"Nothing really. Just wondering where you were since you were gone when we got up." Marc replied.
"I'm doing some recon work. I'll fill you two in on the details later when I get in." Craig replied, turning down the same street as the people he was tailing.
"Ok, see you whenever you get back." Marc said before hanging up the phone.
After having finished the brief conversation with his cousin he said aloud, "I swear sometimes I think he believes that we're attached at the hip or something."
He parked across the street from the hospital and watched the two get out of their car and headed into the hospital, not knowing that they were being watched.
Back in the apartment Marc had just hung up the phone with Craig, not knowing what he was doing. Tony came lumbering in from the other room and noticed the phone that his friend was just putting down and asked, "Who'd you talk to?"
"I called Craig's cell to see where he was since normally he tells us when he's going somewhere." Marc replied.
"What did he say he was doing?" Tony asked.
"All he said was he was doing some recon work and would fill us in later on when he gets back. Whenever that will be." Marc replied.
Tony sighed briefly and said, "We'll find out sooner or later what he's up to that's for sure."
Both men nodded their heads and took a sip of the soda they had gotten from the fridge and silently wondered what Craig was up to.
Kim had to keep herself from pacing the floor waiting on Alex to come back, hopefully with Bobby in tow. When she heard multiple sets of footsteps coming down the hall she hoped that Alex had come through. When she saw the two of them come through the doorway a huge sigh of relief escaped her. Now all they needed was to speak to the doctor about the discharge papers and she was finally out of this place, hopefully for good. Almost instantaneously after the two had come in, the doctor followed suit and starting going over the paperwork. When all the technicalities were squared away she was finally free to go. As the three waited on one of the elevators Bobby leaned in to kiss Kim, but she accidentally put pressure on the area where Alex had nailed him with the towel earlier. When he suddenly pulled back because of the tenderness in his shoulder Kim asked, "What's wrong with your shoulder?"
"Ask Alex, she'll tell you all about it." He replied getting on to the elevator, noticing the confused look on Kim's face.
She looked to Alex and asked, "What's the scoop?"
"Well Sleeping Beauty over there was completely out of it when I let myself in and didn't even respond to when I yelled at him to get up so I had to improvise my tactic to get him up." Alex replied.
"Which was?" Kim asked in reply.
"Snapping him in the upper shoulder with the end of a wet towel." Alex said in response.
Kim cringed slightly, remembering the days when she was in high school where people used to do that.
"Now I do feel sorry for you because those things hurt like hell when you're hit with them." She commented as they stepped off the elevator.
"Tell me something I don't know." Bobby replied, shooting an evil look at Alex.
Outside the hospital the Black Honda Civic still sat across the street from hospital with Craig watching for his targets to come out of the building. He peered out of the darkly tinted windows at the three as they left the hospital and headed towards the Explorer.
"It's about time they let you go." Craig sneered silently, watching the Explorer drive right past him.
As he watched them pull away and disappear from sight he decided to go ahead and start preplanning the location for the final scheme to take place. He drove out of the city to the deserted secret hide out and began to brainstorm ideas, copying them down onto paper.
"Let her think everything's over. Then, surprise! It all starts over again, only this time it's for good." Craig said confidently, hashing out the groundwork for what was to come.
After about three hours of preliminary planning done on the basic framework, he left in search of the perfect location. Driving around the city looking at abandoned buildings till he found one that on the outside looked perfect for what he'd come up with so far. A three-story warehouse type building stood out on a quiet street was exactly what he was looking for. Parking across the street from the building, he decided to take a look inside to see what the inside looked like. Stepping into the dim building, stack after stack of wooden crates met his gaze.
"I can definitely incorporate these into the plan." Craig said silently, walking past numerous rows of crates stacked on top of each other.
At the back of the building were several office like rooms which would be incorporated as well. All he needed to do was assemble all the necessary supplied and transport them here and set everything up. As he left to head back to his apartment and fill in Marc and Tony on the location and run the ideas by them and see if they had anything else to add to the plan. Heading back to his apartment after the thirty-minute drive back, he was met by the sound of blaring music coming from just beyond the door.
"What do these jackasses think they're doing!" Craig fumed before unlocking the door.
Marc and Tony sat sipping Bacardi Silvers while trying to find something to listen to. Craig had been gone for close to eight hours so while he was gone, they decided to kick back and chill a bit.
"Man there is absolutely nothing on the radio. You got any good CD's?" Marc asked.
"As a matter of fact I do." Tony replied, getting up and getting a CD from the other room and put it into the CD player and adjusting the volume and bass to go with a particular song he had in mind.
Loud music ripped through the apartment much to Tony's satisfaction. Marc just about choked on the swig of bacardi in his mouth at the loud music, causing him to jump a foot off the sofa.
"What the hell! Tony do you think I'm deaf!" Marc shouted over the music.
"The only reason the volume is up is to amplify the bass." Tony shouted in return, taking his seat on the couch once more.
After several minutes Marc got used to the volume of the music and started to get into what was playing.
"What is this song called? It's killer." Marc shouted.
"Bombshell by Powerman 5000." Tony replied.
Two minutes into the song Craig stormed into the apartment, and from the looks of it he was pissed.
"What in the blazing hell are you two doing!" he fumed.
"Relaxing to some music and drinking Bacardi's!" Marc replied over the music.
Craig stormed over to the CD player and turned the volume down to a level that you could once again hear yourself think.
"We need to discuss some details for the final plan." Craig said as he returned from getting a Bacardi out of the fridge and returning to where Tony and Marc were.
"What details do we need to work on?" Marc asked.
"I found the perfect building to use in our plan but with what we'd already planned it wouldn't work unless we reverted to the first plan that we discussed, because the layout of the building would fit it perfectly. How do you two feel about reverting to the original plan?" Craig said in reply.
Marc and Tony discussed amongst themselves for a few moments before Marc said, "That's fine with us if we go back to the first plan."
"Good. Shall we start planning the logistics?" Craig asked.
"Sounds good." Tony replied.
The three sat around the small coffee table passing ideas back and forth, writing down the details that everyone agreed on. After close to four hours of discussion, Craig looked over the list of ideas and silently read over them. Looking at it, the ideas were perfect but something seemed to be missing. Marc noticed the strange but unsure look on Craig's face and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"Something's missing to complete the plan but I can't place what it is." Craig replied.
Tony looked at the list and said, "We've covered when this will go down, what roles the three of us will have and all the other necessary things, but if this is the finale so to speak don't you think it should be a bit explosive?"
Marc looked at the list over Tony's shoulder and said, "He's right. Why not include some fire and explosives to make it much more challenging."
All of a sudden something hit Tony and he spoke up on what had just come to his mind.
"How are we going to get her to the location? She's not going to magically appear just because we tell her to unless there is bait to lure her there." Tony said, looking at Crag and Marc as he spoke.
"Ah good point Tony. How do you propose we lure her in?" Craig asked.
"Well how about taking something near and dear to her?" Tony suggested.
A sinister smile spread across Craig's face as he pictured the perfect target to lure her with when Marc asked, "But what is the target going to be?"
Tony opened his mouth to voice an opinion but was cut off by Craig as he said, "Don't worry I've got the perfect target already in mind."
Tony and Marc looked at each other and then to Craig as he wrote down what the target was going to be. The three had a sense now that the plan couldn't fail. Not even with the stakes as high as they were now. In there eyes they thought the plan was fool proof, but soon they would find out whether it was or not.
"It all started when I'd gone to call and let my mom know you'd been found." Bobby began to say as he thought back to the events of the night.
"Joey had fallen asleep alongside Jimmy and Alex in the waiting room and your mom had gone down to get something eat since she'd been so worried about making sure the kids were taken care of and about you still missing. After I'd finished up on the phone, the three of us started talking a few feet away so we wouldn't bother Joey. Sometime during the course of our conversation, he woke up and headed in to see you. Alex was the first to notice that he was gone and Jimmy told us that he figured he was with you. So we all went to see if what he'd said was right and sure enough, there he was." Bobby began to say, remembering the events of that night as if it were yesterday when it occurred.
Kim sat and listened as he spoke of what happened. She remembered faintly, somewhere in the back of her mind, hearing Joey's voice that night, but wasn't able to make out what he was saying. Some of the memories she had of that night were vague due to the traumatic experiences that she went through. She looked forward to getting on with her life after all the hell that Craig had put her through and getting back into a normal routine and getting back to work.
Later on that afternoon, several of the guys from the firehouse came to see how she was doing. D.K, Walsh and Lombardo headed into the hospital and made their way to the ICU with cards and flowers. Some were from the cops across the street and others were from the station house. When they got to her room, D.K stuck his head in the door while Walsh and Lombardo stood back, away from the door so no one would see what they were carrying.
"Up for company?" D.K asked.
"Hey! Come on in." Kim answered in response as Bobby pivoted around in the chair to see who all had come in.
The moment she looked at all the flowers they had brought her, Kim rolled her eyes and said, "It looks like we're setting up a flower shop in here."
Everyone began to laugh and the conversation then changed to the goings on around the firehouse the past several days. Before the guys left for the afternoon, they said their good-byes and head back towards the front of the hospital to get ready for their shift. As the days past, she regained more of her strength and everyone could tell she was almost to the point to where she could be discharged. However, it wasn't until the end of the week that the doctor cleared her so she could go home. On Friday morning the doctor made his rounds and much to her surprise, told her she was finally able to go home.
Hearing the words that she could finally go home were music to her ears. All the time she'd spent cooped up inside the hospital was starting to take its toll on her and finally being able to get back to a normal routine in her own home was exactly what she wanted. Bobby had finally started heading home at night instead of staying all night at the hospital since there wasn't any danger of a relapse like there had been in the past. Finally getting a decent night's sleep was wonderful, although he had a lot to make up for because sleeping in hospital chairs is far from comfortable. It got to the point to where hardly anything would get him up once he'd fallen into a deep sleep. Luckily the kids were with his mother since she was going to take them Disney's Monster's Inc. On Ice that afternoon.
As the phone rang for what had to have been the tenth time, Kim still got no answer when she called to tell him she was able to come home finally. After finally getting frustrated of hearing the constant ring and no one picking up she figured he was either still asleep or out running errands. She decided to have Alex go see if he his car was still there and if it was, see what on earth he was doing not answering the phone. When she called Alex's apartment she didn't get an answer at first and was starting to get irritated.
"What is it with people not answering their phones today?" she grumbled under her breath as she prepared to dial Alex's cell phone.
After a couple rings someone picked up, much to Kim's relief. Alex glanced down at her phone and looked at the number and didn't recognize it at first and answered the call, since she needed a break from running anyhow.
"Hello?" Alex said into the phone, wondering who was calling her.
"Hey Alex, how are you this morning?" Kim asked, relieved that she wasn't jumping on the bandwagon of people not answering their phones.
"Pretty good, just out for a morning jog. How about yourself?" she replied back into the phone.
"Trying to get a hold of Bobby so I can get out of here since I'm being discharged." Kim said, glancing over at the clock on the wall.
"He's not there yet? It's almost 11:30, normally he's already there by now." Alex replied.
"I know. I've tried calling umpteen million times and I'm not getting an answer at the apartment or on his cell." Kim said back.
"Want me to head over and see what he's up to?" Alex asked curiously.
"Sure. If he won't answer the phone, nine chances out of ten he won't answer the door so if you want you can swing by here and I'll give you my set of keys so you can get in." Kim replied.
"Ok, give me about fifteen minutes and I'll be over." Alex said, as she started in the direction of the hospital.
"See you shortly." Kim said in return before she hung up the phone.
After getting off the phone with Alex, she got up and went to the small closet on the other side of the hospital room to get her set of keys out of the bag of stuff that was being kept there. All her stuff was ready to go, she just needed him to come get her, plus the doctor had to discuss the discharge papers with both of them.
When Alex arrived at the hospital, she tried calling to see if Bobby had decided to quit playing avoid the phone but there was no response so she decided to pull something on him to get back at him for being a phone recluse. When she arrived at the apartment she listened through the door at first to see if she could hear anything going on before letting herself in. Upon hearing only silence, Alex let herself in quietly. Heading down the hall she found him still in bed and came to the obvious conclusion that he was way out of it to be asleep that late in the morning. She tried calling his name several times to see if he would respond to her voice, keeping her from using drastic measures to get him up.
"Bobby! Get your lazy ass out of bed!" Alex called, seeing if he responded.
She tried several more times before resorting to the old snapping towel trick. It was effective with the firefighters when they wouldn't get up at the station so why wouldn't it work in this situation. She went and got a clean towel and dampened the end of it and wound it up and headed back to her slumbering target. When Alex reentered the room she took aim on the upper part of his left shoulder and let the towel fly. The sound of the towel connecting with it's target echoed in the room as well as Bobby's shocked exclaim.
"What in the hell!" he said in shock, jumping at the impact of the towel.
Alex had to keep from laughing at his reaction as he sat up, rubbing his stinging shoulder.
"When was it against the law to sleep." he asked groggily turning around to face the person who'd snapped him with the towel.
After seeing Alex standing in the doorway he exclaimed, "Alex! How on earth did you get in here?"
"Get dressed then we can play twenty questions." She replied, heading into the living room.
He quickly got up and grabbed a pair of jeans and made the bed. Grabbing a T-shirt from the closet and pulling it over his head as he headed towards the living room to get some answers. As he headed into the other room the one question that was filling his head was what on earth was Alex doing in the apartment.
"Ok, how on earth did you get in here?" Bobby asked as he came into the living room and saw her sitting on the couch.
Instead of answering, Alex dug the set of keys out of her pocket and dangled them in front of her. Bobby looked to the small intable where he kept his wallet and keys and realized who's key's she had. Looking at the keychain that Alex dangled out of her hand, his eyes got as big as dinner plates and under his breath he exclaimed, "Shit!"
Alex took in his reaction and asked, "Did you forget how to answer a phone?"
"The phone rang? I never heard it." He replied.
"Well, Kim called umpteen million times this morning trying to get a hold of you and resorted to me when she couldn't get an answer." Alex said in response.
He looked at his cellphone and saw numerous missed calls, which he assumed all came from Kim.
"Nothing's happened to her has there?" he asked, going through the missed calls and seeing what times they'd come through.
"No she's fine, just waiting on you so she can come home." Alex replied.
Craig had gotten up that morning and had a feeling today would be an important day. He got up and saw that his two companions were still asleep so while they were, he left for a bit and decided to see what was going on with his latest obsession. Dropping by first at the apartment he headed up to the front door and listened to the conversation.
"So she's coming home today, eh?" he said silently, an evil smirk spreading across his face at the info.
He listened to the rest of the conversation till he heard footsteps heading towards the door and he quickly retreated, heading back out to his car. Within minutes of returning to the safety of his car, he saw Bobby emerge followed by Alex. The two of them climbed into the Explorer and headed off. Questions immediately began to shoot through Craig's brain as he followed the two of them at a safe distance to avoid detection.
"Have those two had a thing going while she's been the hospital?" Craig asked himself aloud, jumping at the sound of his cellphone ringing.
Looking at the number coming across the display, he noticed it was the number for his apartment and assumed that it was Marc that was calling.
"What do you need Marc?" Craig asked, assuming it was his cousin on the other line.
"Nothing really. Just wondering where you were since you were gone when we got up." Marc replied.
"I'm doing some recon work. I'll fill you two in on the details later when I get in." Craig replied, turning down the same street as the people he was tailing.
"Ok, see you whenever you get back." Marc said before hanging up the phone.
After having finished the brief conversation with his cousin he said aloud, "I swear sometimes I think he believes that we're attached at the hip or something."
He parked across the street from the hospital and watched the two get out of their car and headed into the hospital, not knowing that they were being watched.
Back in the apartment Marc had just hung up the phone with Craig, not knowing what he was doing. Tony came lumbering in from the other room and noticed the phone that his friend was just putting down and asked, "Who'd you talk to?"
"I called Craig's cell to see where he was since normally he tells us when he's going somewhere." Marc replied.
"What did he say he was doing?" Tony asked.
"All he said was he was doing some recon work and would fill us in later on when he gets back. Whenever that will be." Marc replied.
Tony sighed briefly and said, "We'll find out sooner or later what he's up to that's for sure."
Both men nodded their heads and took a sip of the soda they had gotten from the fridge and silently wondered what Craig was up to.
Kim had to keep herself from pacing the floor waiting on Alex to come back, hopefully with Bobby in tow. When she heard multiple sets of footsteps coming down the hall she hoped that Alex had come through. When she saw the two of them come through the doorway a huge sigh of relief escaped her. Now all they needed was to speak to the doctor about the discharge papers and she was finally out of this place, hopefully for good. Almost instantaneously after the two had come in, the doctor followed suit and starting going over the paperwork. When all the technicalities were squared away she was finally free to go. As the three waited on one of the elevators Bobby leaned in to kiss Kim, but she accidentally put pressure on the area where Alex had nailed him with the towel earlier. When he suddenly pulled back because of the tenderness in his shoulder Kim asked, "What's wrong with your shoulder?"
"Ask Alex, she'll tell you all about it." He replied getting on to the elevator, noticing the confused look on Kim's face.
She looked to Alex and asked, "What's the scoop?"
"Well Sleeping Beauty over there was completely out of it when I let myself in and didn't even respond to when I yelled at him to get up so I had to improvise my tactic to get him up." Alex replied.
"Which was?" Kim asked in reply.
"Snapping him in the upper shoulder with the end of a wet towel." Alex said in response.
Kim cringed slightly, remembering the days when she was in high school where people used to do that.
"Now I do feel sorry for you because those things hurt like hell when you're hit with them." She commented as they stepped off the elevator.
"Tell me something I don't know." Bobby replied, shooting an evil look at Alex.
Outside the hospital the Black Honda Civic still sat across the street from hospital with Craig watching for his targets to come out of the building. He peered out of the darkly tinted windows at the three as they left the hospital and headed towards the Explorer.
"It's about time they let you go." Craig sneered silently, watching the Explorer drive right past him.
As he watched them pull away and disappear from sight he decided to go ahead and start preplanning the location for the final scheme to take place. He drove out of the city to the deserted secret hide out and began to brainstorm ideas, copying them down onto paper.
"Let her think everything's over. Then, surprise! It all starts over again, only this time it's for good." Craig said confidently, hashing out the groundwork for what was to come.
After about three hours of preliminary planning done on the basic framework, he left in search of the perfect location. Driving around the city looking at abandoned buildings till he found one that on the outside looked perfect for what he'd come up with so far. A three-story warehouse type building stood out on a quiet street was exactly what he was looking for. Parking across the street from the building, he decided to take a look inside to see what the inside looked like. Stepping into the dim building, stack after stack of wooden crates met his gaze.
"I can definitely incorporate these into the plan." Craig said silently, walking past numerous rows of crates stacked on top of each other.
At the back of the building were several office like rooms which would be incorporated as well. All he needed to do was assemble all the necessary supplied and transport them here and set everything up. As he left to head back to his apartment and fill in Marc and Tony on the location and run the ideas by them and see if they had anything else to add to the plan. Heading back to his apartment after the thirty-minute drive back, he was met by the sound of blaring music coming from just beyond the door.
"What do these jackasses think they're doing!" Craig fumed before unlocking the door.
Marc and Tony sat sipping Bacardi Silvers while trying to find something to listen to. Craig had been gone for close to eight hours so while he was gone, they decided to kick back and chill a bit.
"Man there is absolutely nothing on the radio. You got any good CD's?" Marc asked.
"As a matter of fact I do." Tony replied, getting up and getting a CD from the other room and put it into the CD player and adjusting the volume and bass to go with a particular song he had in mind.
Loud music ripped through the apartment much to Tony's satisfaction. Marc just about choked on the swig of bacardi in his mouth at the loud music, causing him to jump a foot off the sofa.
"What the hell! Tony do you think I'm deaf!" Marc shouted over the music.
"The only reason the volume is up is to amplify the bass." Tony shouted in return, taking his seat on the couch once more.
After several minutes Marc got used to the volume of the music and started to get into what was playing.
"What is this song called? It's killer." Marc shouted.
"Bombshell by Powerman 5000." Tony replied.
Two minutes into the song Craig stormed into the apartment, and from the looks of it he was pissed.
"What in the blazing hell are you two doing!" he fumed.
"Relaxing to some music and drinking Bacardi's!" Marc replied over the music.
Craig stormed over to the CD player and turned the volume down to a level that you could once again hear yourself think.
"We need to discuss some details for the final plan." Craig said as he returned from getting a Bacardi out of the fridge and returning to where Tony and Marc were.
"What details do we need to work on?" Marc asked.
"I found the perfect building to use in our plan but with what we'd already planned it wouldn't work unless we reverted to the first plan that we discussed, because the layout of the building would fit it perfectly. How do you two feel about reverting to the original plan?" Craig said in reply.
Marc and Tony discussed amongst themselves for a few moments before Marc said, "That's fine with us if we go back to the first plan."
"Good. Shall we start planning the logistics?" Craig asked.
"Sounds good." Tony replied.
The three sat around the small coffee table passing ideas back and forth, writing down the details that everyone agreed on. After close to four hours of discussion, Craig looked over the list of ideas and silently read over them. Looking at it, the ideas were perfect but something seemed to be missing. Marc noticed the strange but unsure look on Craig's face and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"Something's missing to complete the plan but I can't place what it is." Craig replied.
Tony looked at the list and said, "We've covered when this will go down, what roles the three of us will have and all the other necessary things, but if this is the finale so to speak don't you think it should be a bit explosive?"
Marc looked at the list over Tony's shoulder and said, "He's right. Why not include some fire and explosives to make it much more challenging."
All of a sudden something hit Tony and he spoke up on what had just come to his mind.
"How are we going to get her to the location? She's not going to magically appear just because we tell her to unless there is bait to lure her there." Tony said, looking at Crag and Marc as he spoke.
"Ah good point Tony. How do you propose we lure her in?" Craig asked.
"Well how about taking something near and dear to her?" Tony suggested.
A sinister smile spread across Craig's face as he pictured the perfect target to lure her with when Marc asked, "But what is the target going to be?"
Tony opened his mouth to voice an opinion but was cut off by Craig as he said, "Don't worry I've got the perfect target already in mind."
Tony and Marc looked at each other and then to Craig as he wrote down what the target was going to be. The three had a sense now that the plan couldn't fail. Not even with the stakes as high as they were now. In there eyes they thought the plan was fool proof, but soon they would find out whether it was or not.