Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with "Without a Trace". I make no money from this!

A/N: Don't faint, she's managed a short chapter! More on its way, though…

Chapter Six

Office of the New York Branch of the FBI, Manhattan.

1.05pm

Danny Taylor turned his attention from the black and white monitor he'd been staring at intently since his arrival back at the office almost two hours previously. Pausing the fuzzy image on the screen, he spun around in his chair to see who was interrupting his concentration.

"Hey, man. Wasn't expecting you back so soon."

Martin Fitzgerald smiled and shrugged off his coat. "Yeah. Viv's got the suburbs covered. She's checking out Laura Walker's alibi and talking to the neighbours. We thought I'd be better use here making a start on the credit card and phone records. An officer brought me back in."

Danny laughed. "Got the short straw, huh?"

"Something like that. You come up with anything yet?" Martin pulled up a chair next to Danny's, staring inquisitively at the monitor in front of them. His eyes widened. "Is that the security footage?"

His colleague grabbed the remote on the desk and grinned. "Something like that. Man, you gotta see this. To think I used to give you a hard time, Mr. White-Collar-Crime. This place on Monday, not what I was expecting."

Martin watched as the screen jumped silently into life. The digital counter across the bottom read 01.24.05 – 18:25:31.

The small seating area in the marbled foyer of Redding, Phillips and Hurst was at maximum capacity. Down its centre appeared to be an invisible line.

On one side of this line there were seven inert figures. Four were seated, whilst the remaining three stood between their colleagues and the reception desk. A small woman behind the desk was faintly visible in the top left corner of the screen. The grainy quality of the footage suggested they were all identically clad in neat dark suits.

On the other side of this divide, in an indistinct huddle, stood a group of about twenty other figures. In contrast to the individuals opposite, their appearance was irregular. Even in the stillness there seemed to be a mass energy about them as they shuddered on the flickering image.

Distracted, they turned en masse. Something shifted in the bottom right corner of the screen, then spun back into view. The camera captured the closer view of a well-dressed man as he entered the building through its revolving front entrance. As the group turned to face the door, an individual from within it bolted out in the direction of the new arrival. He stopped as he came chest to chest with the man.

As if attached by an unseen cord, the group appeared to move with its errant member. Two of the seated figures twitched. Followed closely by their standing colleagues, they crossed the floor. The two men in the middle of the growing bunch gestured wildly. The smaller figure re-appeared in the top left corner. Everything became still and for a second it seemed as if the frame had been frozen.

Suddenly there came a sharp movement in the centre of the screen. A fist. The group converged. In the silence, the cluster seemed to fall in on itself. Around its edge, limbs flailed and bodies shuddered angrily. Several minutes passed in this manner until the momentum shifted toward the desk. A uniformed figure appeared and hovered on the edge of the action. Without warning, the smaller figure became absorbed into the mass to be just as quickly dispelled against a nearby pillar.

The screen was then flooded as another stream of figures, also in suits, poured into view and dispersed into the crowd. As quickly as it had begun, the group stilled, and everything became motionless.

Danny hit the pause button, and looked up at his astonished co-worker, still grinning. "Just a typical Monday evening at Manhattan's most prestigious law firm!"

Martin was still watching the now un-moving screen. "Was that for real?"

"Oh yeah." He looked at the notebook in front of him, pages and pages filled with almost illegible scribble. "I spoke to Jack a couple of hours ago. That, apparently, was the amicable resolution of a lawsuit jointly filed by McKeever – the chemical guys – and Greenways, the environmental agency out in Brooklyn. According to a Senior Partner, that was just a tiny incident that didn't bear mentioning. Despite the fact it was Adam Walker who arranged that little meeting."

The other agent looked sceptical. "Incident? That looked more like a full blown fist-fight. I take it the first guys in the suits were McKeever's?"

Danny nodded. "Yep. Who would have thought the suits had it in 'em?"

This time Martin smiled. "Oh, you'd be surprised!" He paused, thinking. "So, the bigger group, they were Greenways? And the ones at the end, the lawyers?"

"That's right." He looked at his scrawlings once more. "I checked the visitor's log, and everyone except that last guy who came in, was in there. But it's not like he had much of a chance to sign in. There were twenty-one people signed in from Greenways. The tape then shows everyone in the lobby - McKeever, Greenways and the lawyers - headed toward the elevator here." He tapped the top of the screen with his pen. "A woman comes down to accompany the unlucky receptionist to the hospital, and no-one else, besides the security guard, goes in or out of the building."

Martin frowned. "Was Adam Walker in that mess?"

His colleague shook his head. "No. I checked the building's swipe card system – it figures that the only modern security they have is designed to keep tabs on their own employees. He swiped into the building at nine am sharp, but there's no record that he signed back out." He paused thoughtfully. "Of course, the systems not that hi-tech, so he could easily have just left with someone else, but it doesn't tie in with the security guard's original story."

"Do you think the security guard is lying?" Martin's frown remained. "I know there's no proof, as yet, of foul play, but is he a viable suspect?"

Danny grinned. "The lying part - I'd put money on it. The other question – I kinda doubt it. His alibi's easy enough to check out. He says he went straight to a bar around the corner and stayed there 'til after midnight. Besides, I doubt he could pull this off by himself, and I can't imagine anyone would hire him to take care of a problem for them – the guy's an idiot."

"So we're no-where on this?" the other agent enquired.

Danny shrugged, in frustration. "Not yet. But Jack and Sam have gone to check out Greenways. From what they've heard, some people there had several reasons to be non-too happy with Mr. Walker. Hopefully they'll come up with something."

Martin nodded. "Hopefully. Unless the wife was lying to us big-time, there didn't seem to be too much at home he could be running away from. I'll go run his credit cards, see if I can't find something on this guy." With that he pushed his chair back and headed to his own workstation.

Danny stopped for a second, deep in thought. He slowly ejected the video tape from the machine, before picking up another from the pile on his desk. Slipping it in, he pushed play. Scrolling quickly through the action, he kept his eyes glued to the screen. Suddenly, he shifted forward in his seat, reaching for the pause button.

"Well, that's interesting…," he mumbled to himself.

TBC

A/N: Sorry if this feels like too much of a filler chapter. It had to go somewhere and this felt like the best place!