A/N: thank you to drama-freak-csim & tfm for your reviews. To drama-freak, thanks for your nice review, I wasn't going to continue the story because I didn't think anyone was interested!!! But here is another chapter which I've been trying to post for days but couldn't!

Disclaimer: I do not own Without a Trace or any of its characters.

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7 Hours Missing-

"This time change is a pain in the ass," Jack said. "I have to think of everything with two times."

Martin laughed. "Yeah, we'll be getting to California just an hour and a half after we left New York."

The flight was almost over and it had taken Sam over half the flight to relax enough to doze off. The small FBI charter plane would shave and hour and a half off of their flight time and they would arrive in California at five o'clock am.

The little girl had been missing for almost seven hours. Every minute counted and Jack was in constant contact with Danny and Vivian who were going over every recent case that the Judge had. As Danny told Jack, the woman had made more than her share of enemies and they had compiled quite the list of people that she had pissed off. That made each of them, and their families, a possible suspect.

Jack was also in contact with the Agents in California who sounded pretty icy when they found out that Jack and his team was taking over the case. The California agents had found nothing, had no leads.

But Jack wasn't taking that into consideration. Not until his team had done their work.

Martin and Jack had each taken a nap, knowing that once they were in California they wouldn't have a second to lose as the minutes that Natalie Roenstein had been missing ticked away.

As the pilot announced their final descent into LA Martin nudged Sam awake. "We're here," he said.

Sam looked over at him, bleary eyed. She put her chair in its upright position and braved a glance out the window.

They were circling out over the ocean, preparing for their arrival at the airport. From where she sat Sam could see ocean, beach, palm trees, sun and blue skies. She was unimpressed. Save for the palm trees, New York had all the rest only without the hundred plus degree temperatures that were forecasted for Los Angeles the next several days.

"Ever been to California?" Martin asked her.

Sam glanced over at him and shook her head. "Nah, never made it out here," she said and glanced back out the window.

She was suddenly sucked into a memory so vivid that it gave her chills.

Seventeen years old and ready to take on the world. Samantha Spade was running away from home. Again. She was sick of her life, sick of her mother and her mother's various boyfriends, a new one monthly it seemed. She was sick of her mother not caring what she did or where she went. Sam was tired of all of it and decided that she was going to California. She would become a famous movie star and she would be rich and famous and she would never have to live in a trailer again, never have to put up with her mother's boyfriends looking at her, making her uncomfortable.

Her mother wouldn't care, probably wouldn't even realize she was gone. She packed her clothes in a backpack and took her savings, less than two hundred dollars she had saved up from her after school job at the five and dime, and decided that she was leaving Wisconsin.

She remembered her mother and her mother's boyfriend, she didn't even know this one's name, finding her at the bus station buying a one way ticket to LA…

"Are you okay," Martin asked softly and Sam was jolted out of her reverie.

"Yeah," she said with a half smile. "I'm fine."

She'd never made it to California. And even since she'd had enough money to go there, she had never had the desire to go there. Too many memories.

But here she was in LA, and on a missing person's case. A child, no less, though the girl was definitely too young to have run away. The girl had been kidnapped; there was little doubt about that. If she'd been involved in an accident in a place like Disneyland, they would have found her by now.

But was the kidnapping random or was it the result of Judge Roenstein's many enemies? That's what they were there to find out.

xxx

9 hours Missing-

"The Happiest Place on Earth, huh?" Martin stated an hour and a half later as he, Sam and Jack stood outside the main gates, waiting for the Disneyland officials to arrive. Two of the LA FBI agents were with them, not looking very happy, no doubt because their case was being infringed on.

Sam looked around doubtfully at the hoards of screaming children and raised her eyebrows. There were screaming and crying kids accompanied by screaming parents and some parents that looked like they were ready to cry. "That's what they say," she replied dryly and Martin laughed.

They had been briefed about the case by the Los Angeles Missing Persons Division during the hour long drive from Los Angeles International to Anaheim.

The only witness that they had was a Disneyland worker that had been stationed at the exit gates. She had seen a woman with a little girl that might have been Natalie. She had gone home for the evening but they had summoned her back and they were supposed to be meeting with her.

There had been no ransom demand yet, but that didn't rule out the possibility. Most ransoms were demanded in the first twenty-four hours and it had only been nine since the girl had disappeared.

Just then three men in suits walked up with an older woman and two men in identical uniforms close behind them.

"Are you the FBI agents?" one of the men in a suit asked. He was tall and had a shaved head.

"Yes. I'm Special Agent Jack Malone, these are Special Agents Spade and Fitzgerald," Jack said, motioning towards Sam and Martin.

"I'm Dave Richards, head of security," the man said. "This is Mark Weathers, the Disneyland representative, and Bill Petersen my second in command."

Mr. Richards motioned towards the woman, who stepped forward. She was wearing the same brown uniform that all of the ticket takers at the gates wore.

"This is Mrs. Carmen Arteaga, she is the one that thinks she might have seen the little girl. She was working the exit gates. So were Mr. Johnson and Mr. Lloyd, but they didn't see anything. I wasn't sure if you would want to talk to them so I had them come back."

"Thank you," Jack said to Mr. Richards. "Martin, why don't you talk to them. Sam, we'll talk to Mrs. Arteaga. Gentlemen, is there an office we can use?"

"Of course," Mr. Richards replied. He motioned them to follow. The LA agents told Jack that Carmen Arteaga had met with a sketch artist. They handed him a copy of the picture and said they would wait for Judge Roenstein and her husband and meet back up with them after they talked to Mrs. Arteaga.

They went into the park and followed Mr. Richards along Main Street and then they went into one of the shops. They went to a back room and walked up a flight of stairs and were in a small office area. Mr. Richards led Sam, Jack and Carmen Arteaga to an empty office. Jack, Sam and Carmen sat around a small table.

Sam studied the woman. She looked nervous, licking her lips and shifting her gaze from Mr. Richards to Jack and Sam.

"So what exactly did you see, Mrs. Arteaga," Jack asked, his voice calm, soothing.

"Well, I was at my post. I stamp the people's hands as they leave if they're gonna come back," Carmen said in heavily accented English. "It was late, the fireworks had just started, I heard them, but I couldn't see them where I was. A woman came through, dragging a little girl behind her. The girl was crying. She says, "I don't wanna go," and the woman says, "It's okay, stop crying," and I don't think anything about it because kids are always crying when they leave. They never wanna leave."

Jack made notes in his notebook, nodding.

"Was this the little girl?" Sam asked, handing Carmen the photo of Natalie Roenstein.

Carmen Arteaga's eyes filled with tears. "I don't know. Dio, I wish I pay more attention!"

"Think carefully, Mrs. Arteaga. What do you remember?" Jack asked.

The woman closed her eyes briefly. "The woman had dark hair. She was wearing a tank top. I remember cause my sister Angelina has the same one. It was purple with a pink butterfly on it."

"How old was this woman?"

"Maybe, your age," Carmen said, motioning towards Sam.

"Can you give me an age?" Jack asked.

"Maybe thirty, not much older than that," Carmen said. "I told the other detectives this, why are you asking again?"

"We're agents from New York, where the child was from," Jack said. He put the picture down in front of Carmen. "This is the woman, correct?"

"Yes, that is the sketch that the detective made," Carmen said, nodding.

Sam studied the picture. It was a younger woman, between twenty-five and thirty-five with long black hair, wearing a tank top. She was pretty, but not gorgeous. She was non-descript, the type of woman that would melt into a crowd, one that you would only notice in passing. She had a Hispanic look, slightly tilted eyes, full lips.

"Is there anything else you can add? Any birthmarks or moles that you noticed but didn't remember last night?" Sam asked. She knew that after some sleep people sometimes remembered things that they hadn't remembered before.

Carmen studied the picture. "I'm sorry, but no. I didn't pay much attention. I probably wouldn't have noticed her at all except for the tank top. We see so many people, so many kids, you just don't pay attention, you know?"

Sam nodded, although she really didn't know. With her job she had come to notice things that most people didn't. She had to.

"Can you remember anything about the girl?" Jack asked.

"She was little, maybe five? She had curly hair, blonde, but that's all I could see. She had her head down, crying. She just kept saying, "I don't wanna go.""

Jack nodded. "Is there anything else, anything at all that might help us?"

Tears streamed down Carmen Arteaga's face. "I shoulda called the police, but I didn't think! Kids, they always cryin' when they leave."

"Was she being rough with the girl?" Sam asked.

Carmen shook her head. "No, no. She was just tugging at her, not hard."

"She never said the girl's name?"

"No, just told her it was going to be okay."

Jack looked over at Samantha who was looking thoughtfully at the woman. Sam shook her head ever so slightly and Jack nodded.

"Well, thank you for your help Mrs. Arteaga. If you think of anything, anything at all that might help us, please call," Jack said, handing her a business card. "You can call any of these numbers."

"O-okay," she said, taking the card and putting it carefully into her purse. "I hope you find that little girl."

"So do we," Jack said and they stood up. Mrs. Arteaga nodded and left, relief plain on her face.

Sam watched her go, thinking.

"So do you think she has anything to do with it?" Jack asked.

Sam shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

"She seems pretty nervous," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's not about the girl. I bet if you look into it Mrs. Arteaga is not in the United States legally. She's afraid we're going to find out and deport her."

Jack looked admiringly at Samantha. It was exactly what he had been thinking. "I think you're right, but we'll still have Danny look into it."

"Of course," Sam said.

Mr. Richards met them in the hall. He was talking on a small walkie-talkie. "We'll be there shortly," he said and clipped the walkie-talkie back to his belt.

"Judge Roenstein and her husband are here," Mr. Richards said.

"Great. Let's go talk to them," Jack said and he and Sam followed the security guy to meet Natalie Roenstein's parents.

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