A month passed since Jordan had returned from Chicago. A month. No word from Woody. She had heaved a sigh of relief. He evidently wasn't after Jordan...or his daughter. It had all been a strange fluke of fate. Scary. Weird. But it was over. Her dad had been right.

Jordan's routine went back to normal. Get up. Cook breakfast. Get Meghan to school. Go to work. Pick her daughter up at Max's after working at the morgue. Go home. Fix dinner. Help with homework. Then on Monday and Wednesday, Meghan had dance lessons. On Tuesdays, it was Girl Scouts. Thursdays was catechism. The weekends she kept blessedly free for whatever Meghan wanted to do: sleepovers, birthday parties, skating....whatever. And if she had to work doubles at the morgue, or was on rotation, Max and Helen took over.

In short, Jordan loved being a mom. Meghan had fulfilled her in more ways than she ever thought was possible. And she would be damned if anyone would mess that up. Including Woodrow Hoyt. Jordan's second biggest fear in life was Woody's anger over her concealing his daughter from him. Her first and foremost fear is that if he ever found out about Meghan, he would try to take her away. It wasn't like she hadn't tried to find him. She had. But maybe not hard enough, she had thought guiltily.

The days had turned into weeks since she left Chicago and she had put the fate-crossed incident behind her until one morning when she went to get Meghan up for school. Jordan had risen earlier, cooked breakfast, and had climbed back up the stairs to call her daughter. Meghan was a "ready-riser," the exact opposite of her mother. She rose cheerfully at the first call, ready to face the day with a smile and a song. So much like Woody that Jordan had often grimaced to herself. She tapped on Meghan's door. "Get up, Sweetie," she called. There was no response on the other side. "Meghan?" Jordan questioned. Then a little louder, she called her daughter's name again. "Meghan!" Still no answer. Jordan pushed open the door.

The bed was empty. The window beside the bed was open. There was note on the pillow.

Fighting the urge to throw the covers back and look thoroughly, Jordan picked up the note with a shaky hand. We have your daughter. We will contact you later with instructions. She ran from the room and dialed 911.

Jordan's house was soon filed with more police than she ever knew existed in the Boston PD. They dusted Meghan's room. No prints. The luminal revealed no blood. The note and bed clothes had been retrieved for trace evidence. Downstairs, Max and Helen were being questioned. Garrett and Nigel were there for moral support.

Jordan answered all their questions. She was grateful that Eddie Winslow and Annie Capra had been the lead detectives on call. Yes, she was sure the window was locked. No, she didn't have an alarm system – but by God she would get one as soon as Meghan was back home. Yes, she had checked on her daughter before she had turned in at eleven. No, she didn't hear a thing during the night. Weary, she finally threw her hands up in the air and shouted at Eddie, "Do something! I've answered all the questions. I don't know...I don't know who could have done this."

"We're doing all we can," Eddie answered. "But you have to know, we have to go through all routine...eliminate....you know..."

Jordan nodded. "They're going to call...wiretaps...are they?"

"They're being put on now Dr. Cavanaugh. And there's going to be a tracer put on your cell phone incase they decide to call it," Annie replied.

Jordan nodded again. Then a thought struck her. Walking over to Nigel, she tugged him down to her level. "Nige...."

"What love?"

"Can I borrow your cell phone?"

"What? Jordan why..."

"Don't ask questions...I just need to borrow it and make a call they don't need to know about. They've got a tracer put on mine."

Wordlessly, Nigel handed her his phone. She went into the kitchen to retrieve her purse. Pulling Woody's card from her billfold, she dialed his personal cell phone number. It was still early. Maybe he was still at home. He answered on the second ring.

"Hello," he said groggily. He had been asleep.

"Woody, it's Jordan..."

"Jordan?" He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "The last time you called me this early was on the Fitzsimmons case."

"Woody, I need your help..."

Oh great, he thought. Now she's going to want to start using my FBI contacts to solve cases.

"I have an emergency, Wood." He heard her voice break. She had his attention now.

"I know I didn't tell you anything about this in Chicago, but I have a daughter, Woody. And she's been kidnapped."

He was fully awake now. A daughter. Jordan had a daughter. And she had been kidnapped?

"Are you sure, Jo?"

"Yes. I have a note....the window was broken into...."

"I'm on my way."

"You can do that?"

"Hell, yes. For you, I will." He hung up and made flight reservations to Boston.

Woody's flight had been uneventful, but his thoughts had been anything but. Jordan had a daughter. She was a mother. Somehow, he could not picture it. Let's see. She moved from Pearle Street to her house four years ago. That may make the little girl three or four years-old. He had frowned at that. The chances of a live retrieval with a kid that age were not promising. I wonder who the father is...and why he isn't in the picture. I can't imagine a man impregnating Jordan Cavanaugh and then not sticking around to see the outcome. The plane landed and he took a cab to Jordan's house. The yard was still full of detectives, none he recognized. He spotted Garrett on the porch. Shaking hands with the ME, he asked, "How's Jordan doing?"

"Holding it together, but barely. She jumps every time the phone rings."

"Kidnappers call yet?"

"No."

Woody began to push open Jordan's front door. He was stopped by another uniform officer. Flashing his FBI badge, the officer backed off and let him in. "Where's she at?" he asked Garrett.

"Living room."

Jordan was there, sitting on the couch, arms wrapped tightly around her waist, her eyes red-rimmed. She looked like she had been to hell and back – several times. She held out her hand to Woody. "Can you help me," she asked, her voice breaking on every word. "Can you help me find my baby?"

Woody couldn't help himself. He pulled her to him and hugged her, cradling her slight form against his. "Sure, Jo. I'll do everything I can. Can you take me to her room?" Jordan led him upstairs. She stood outside the lavender and pink room while he asked the detectives a few questions. Making a few notes, he then approached Jordan again. "I need to see a picture....the most recent one if you have it." Jordan had motioned him to her bedroom.

Woody had noticed a swing set in the back of the house when he pulled up in the cab, along with a pink playhouse, complete with gingerbread trim. A gift from Max, I bet, he had thought. He also had noticed a bike on the porch...a bike much too large for a three to four year-old girl. He had chalked that up to one of the neighborhood kids. But when Jordan handed him the picture from her nightstand, he felt his world shift and the bike suddenly made sense.

This was no little girl. It was a seven year-old. And he knew the age exactly, because this little girl had his eyes.

"Jordan," he said with a warning note, his voice growing hard.

Jordan swallowed and backed up against the bed. This was the moment she had been dreading. "I tried to find you, Woody. But after you left Wisconsin, I couldn't locate you. You didn't exactly keep in touch." She sat down on the side of her bed.

Woody ran his hand through his hair. He realized during part of that period he had been in Quantico. That was no excuse, but this was not the time. "We will talk about this Jordan. Believe me, we will. But not now. You're in no condition and I need to find our daughter. Can you begin by telling me what you named her?"

"Meghan. Meghan Marie Cavanaugh," she replied weakly, looking into Woody's eyes. They were just as hard as his voice was cold. "Please find her Woody," she begged.

Hours passed like days. The Boston PD was pulling out all the stops to find Meghan. Woody had called in all his FBI contacts and phoned his boss to say he needed a personal leave. It was his daughter that had been kidnapped. Agent Hinshaw had concurred, allowing him access to sources that the Boston PD could only dream about. "I didn't know you had family, Woody," he said.

"Let's just say it was very recent news to me, too, sir."

"Anything you need, you have it. And the President says good luck and you're in his prayers."

"Thank you, sir. And thank him for me, too."

The kidnappers had called. Jordan answered the phone, but could not keep them on the line long enough for the wiretap to take. They had simply said look for more instructions tomorrow. Jordan was nearly beside herself. Garrett had called in Dr. Stiles to give her something to calm her down. Gradually, one by one, the detectives left, leaving only the wiretap specialist in the kitchen and he and Jordan in the living room.

Despite his anger at her...he felt for Jordan. He was worrying over a daughter he had never met. She was dealing with seven years of memories, plus her pregnancy. "Tell me about her, Jo. Tell me about Meghan," he had requested softly, sitting down beside her on the couch. He thought it might help her to talk about something other than the kidnapping.

She got up from her place on the couch and walked over the bookcase beside the fireplace, kneeling down to the lowest shelf. She motioned Woody over. Jordan had made scrapbooks, one for every year of Meghan's life, plus her pregnancy. Woody had never known Jordan had a creative side...he had always seen her in the morgue or in the Pogue. By the time he was through looking through the scrapbooks, he felt he knew his daughter well. She loved dance. Hated peas. Earned 19 badges so far in Girl Scouts. Weighed 7 pounds, two ounces when born. He sighed. "You've done a good job, Jo."

"Thanks," she answered, in a small voice. "Meghan's been my whole life...ever since...."

"Ever since I walked out on you that night."

Her silence answered his question. "Why didn't you marry someone else, Jordan?"

"Meghan and I....we're a big package deal. And I didn't want to marry anyone who may resent the time I spend with my daughter. There just wasn't any room in my life for anyone else but her, really, for the past eight years."

"I wish I would have known...."

"I did try to get in touch with you. Honestly. For about a year or so after she was born. Even called your family in Kewuanne. Then I gave up. Maybe I should have tried harder, but my life got real busy."

"Mom and Dad know they have a granddaughter?"

"No...I called when I was pregnant. They made it clear they really didn't want to talk to anyone from Boston...especially me. I think they believe I'm the reason you left..."

"They didn't tell you anything about me?"

"No.. not where you were, that you had been married...nothing."

"I still wish I could have known...been here."

"What would it have changed, Woody?"

"This may not have happened."

"You can't blame yourself for something you have no control over. We don't know why it happened...it can't be money...I don't have much. It's probably the result of someone, somewhere down the line I really pissed off..."

"You can't blame yourself for this Jordan."

"Then who else is there to blame?"