A/N - thanks for all the amazing and encouraging reviews. They are the inspiration for the story!
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"You might as well take it." John put the notebook from the evidence room in the middle of his desk.
"Have you read it?" Marcia Kelly asked.
"Yes."
"Cristian Vega said that it contains the details that they gave him on the ship when they rebuilt his identity from scratch. Things about his life, about the people in his life."
"And things he wrote after he came back to Llanview."
"Things about his wife."
"About his entire life." John turned and looked out the window.
"You said you would cooperate."
"You said we were going to find her. Instead you're in my office harassing me about my…. This isn't saving her!"
"Do you need to save her?"
John slammed his burned palm down on the desk. The pain shot up his arm and he grinned with it. His eyes glittered as he looked at the profiler.
"Am I suspect?"
"No."
"Then stop questioning me as if I am and let's find these sons a bitches and get the job done."
The two law enforcement officers eyed each other for a moment. With a curt nod, Marcia sat down and pulled out a leather portfolio. She opened it and took out a sheaf of papers and held them out to John.
He took it and began to read it. As he got to the second page he sat down in his chair. He was oblivious to the blood staining the bandage on his hand.
Marcia bent her head down and began to write longhand in the portfolio.
After ten minutes John, still holding the sheets tightly, looked up.
He watched the profiler work. His face was pale and sweat had broken out on his forehead. When she didn't look up he stood up and went to fetch fresh coffee.
Over by the coffee machine he found Natalie's green and purple mug. He had bought it for her not long after she had started working at the LPD. He toyed with the lip of the mug and thought back to when he gave it to her.
"Here's the file you wanted on the Jackson case." Natalie held the file out.
John looked up from his computer monitor and took the file. "Thanks."
"It's my job." Natalie winked and went to turn around.
"Wait."
Natalie turned around and looked at him quizzically.
John smiled and let his eyes skim over her body. She was wearing a black sweater that showed a nice hint at her cleavage and a flounced skirt that skimmed her thighs and danced with her every movement. When his gaze returned to her face she was smiling knowingly at him. He answered her smile with one of his own when she leaned over, a hand on the desk, and asked him if there was something else he needed. He got a nice eyeful of her beautiful breasts and the black bra that looked suspiciously like the one he had gotten a handful one fateful day.
"I got something for you."
"Do ya now?" Natalie stood up and crossed her arms. She tilted her head and didn't hide her suggestive look.
He knew she was just teasing him, but he felt himself flush and fumble as he reached into his desk.
"Here." He pushed a box towards her across his desk.
Natalie laughed and ripped the makeshift paper. She opened the box and pulled out the ceramic mug. She turned it around in her hand and laughed when she read the "cops do it with cuffs" written on the side.
"If anyone asks, you didn't get that from me."
"Do you think human resources would approve of this mug in the squad room?" Natalie chuckled and held the mug to her stomach.
"That's why you didn't get it from me. Tell them the Commissioner gave it to you."
"Thanks, John." Natalie said, suddenly serious.
"It's just a coffee mug."
"I know."
John let out the breath he had been holding and filled the mug with coffee and got a paper cup for Special Agent Kelly.
He realized as he walked to his office that she had never asked him why he had gotten her the mug.
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"What do you think, Lieutenant?"
"I agree there are two killers. I think one or both of them have a personal vendetta against me. I think they mean to use Natalie as bait." John stopped, unable to go on.
"But first they want to make her suffer for surviving three of their murder attempts. Then they will get to you for stopping the last two."
John stood behind his desk with one hand on his hip. With the other he rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn't, wouldn't look Agent Kelly in the eye as he fought off the images of Natalie being tortured. Exhaustion dogged his heels again, but he knew the dreams would only get worse. Then they might get real.
"They're white males. Blue collar upbringing. One is older and exerts influence over the other one. The older one dictates the course of action. The younger one carries out the plans, it makes him feel powerful even though he is just following orders. When he figures out he is not in control, he will turn on the older one."
"Once you got in their way," she continued. "They got angry. They were invincible, successful. They turned their sights on Natalie and on you."
"Evangeline was another weapon against me. To punish me for interfering."
"They're vulnerable now because they've broken the pattern. They are outside their comfort zone, which is part of why they haven't gotten in contact with us yet. I believe it's not because they've killed their bait, but because of that."
"She is alive." John got up from his desk chair and paced in front of the couch where Special Agent Kelly was seated. "She's alive."
"They're trying to figure out their next move. It will involve you. They will lure you once they figure out their next steps. I think the kidnapping in the gym was done spur of the moment. They didn't expect you to find them in time."
"And that I did makes it all the more a game for them." John unconsciously rubbed his burned hand over his heart.
"I think there's more. You've been looking at Ron Walsh. Marcie's brother. He had knowledge and access to the journals."
"He fits the profile of the younger guy that I just read."
"And he has the added motive of taking Natalie because of the personal angle."
"Very personal." John's voice was cold.
"We can try to enlist his help; serial killers often like to assist the cops in their search. Then I can get him into a room and question him."
John looked at her with an evil grin on his face. He knew how it felt to have this woman burrow her way into your head. He wished that on Ron Walsh.
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It had been two hours and Special Agent Kelly, BSU was still in the room with Ron Walsh trying to crack through his carefully orchestrated mask. It was started on the pretense of questions about the original Killing Club, Marcie's friends and growing up. It was quickly apparent that Ron knew he was a suspect since John had questioned him before.
Before the first hour was up, he demanded a lawyer. One was immediately assigned to him from legal aid. There was no way this wasn't going to be done by the book. Hugh, one of the assistant district attorneys was also sitting in the interview. They might as well have been flies on the wall as Marcia Kelly's laser focus on Ron made them irrelevant.
The man was seduced against his will. Part of it, John noticed, was because of Ron's absolute arrogance that he wouldn't get caught. But he had already given up more than he or his lawyer realized and he wasn't listening to his lawyer's counsel to put a stop to questioning.
Eventually he would, but with any luck he would have incriminated himself irretrievably and then they could make a deal for Natalie's safety.
Bo came walking into the observation room. He had left briefly to calm his father, Asa, who was going ballistic that his granddaughter hadn't been found yet.
"Asa okay?" John asked, never taking his eyes from the two-way mirror.
"Upset. Clint showed up to take him back to Carlotta's diner where everyone is holding vigil."
"Did we get the warrant?"
"Yeah. Do you want to go with them?"
John thought for a moment. "I'll go. We should bring a DA with us."
"Agreed. I'll call Nora and get someone sent."
"I'm going to nail this bastard. And I'm going to bring Natalie home to us."
Bo nodded and followed John out of the dark room.
It was hers. John wanted to touch the scarf, but it had to be bagged for evidence. He closed his eyes and remembered when she had worn it to the office. It was new she told him when he had asked.
"John McBain are you watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or something?" Natalie looked up at John who was sitting on the corner of her desk.
"What? A guy can't notice fashion on a pretty lady now and again?" John smiled, keeping his eyes mostly on his files but watching for her reaction out of the corner of his eyes.
"Sure. Anytime." Natalie kept her eyes on him.
He glanced up and their eyes caught, connected, captured. No words were said for a long moment.
"Thanks for the file." John cleared his throat.
"Anytime."
He saw the desire and longing in her eyes. He knew the same was reflecting out of his eyes. He stood up and walked back to his office. He heard her sigh behind him. He saved his for when his door was closed behind him.
How had Ron gotten the scarf? Had she left it here? Had she left it in his car? Had he taken it when he took her?
He pointed one of his men to the scarf and continued to look around.
"We found something, Sir." One of his men called from where he was searching through computer records.
John strode over and knelt down to look at the screen.
Cache records showing searches for various locations in the Llanview metropolitan area. Searches for schools, sporting fields, theatres and greenhouses. Searches for knives from ecommerce sites, and not the kitchen kind.
"Print it all out."
John pulled out his phone, the sting of his palm was a welcome bite he was used to now, and pressed Marcie's number. After asking her to meet him at the station he called Michael. She shouldn't be alone when she found out her brother was one of the killers.
Now, they had to find Natalie.
She'd been gone for two weeks.
It was a game.
There was enough evidence for a search warrant, but not enough to arrest him. They had to let him go and he was being watched 24X7 both by the cops and by Asa's private investigators. Antonio was also taking shifts to find his sister-in-law.
RJ offered to have him roughed up, but John had to reluctantly decline.
Ron was no longer leaving his room at the Angel Square Hotel. Roxy was being kept off site so that she didn't attack the man suspected of taking her adopted daughter, again.
Rex was helping to run down all of his construction buddies. Gathering sites where he had worked that Natalie could be being held.
And John McBain still wasn't sleeping more than a few hours at a time.
As Agent Kelly had predicted, lures had started to trickle in after Ron was questioned. Lures to one site or another.
The last one had almost broken John. Or maybe it had.
He was sitting on the couch in his office, his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face. His brother Michael was sitting on the floor next to him, his back leaning on the couch. They had just gotten back from a high school in a neighboring town where a makeshift grave had been hidden under the bleachers.
John's heart had frozen at the site that was just the right size to bury Natalie's lifeless body.
He didn't let anyone else near the site. He had his men and the local force holding a perimeter and searching for suspects. With his bare hands he dug into the dirt as the note that he had received that afternoon had demanded. The first thing he had felt after digging for ten minutes was a shirt.
A shirt that matched the piece of material he had found at the docks the night of the awards dinner. The night she had been taken. He couldn't smell her on it, only dirt.
The color of shirt Evangeline and Rex had confirmed she had been wearing.
But there was no body. He kept digging. Nothing.
Then he heard a ring.
It wasn't his phone. It was coming from the dirt.
He scrambled through the dirt until he found the phone. Natalie's phone. Still programmed with her musical ring and her purple wallpaper. His heart pounded.
The last time he had heard it was in his room after he had told her just go.
And she had gone.
These flashes of memory were happening more often. He would see something that reminded him of her and there would be a memory. Many were memories he would review in the dark of night. Others were things he hadn't even realized he had remembered. She was imprinted in his mind. He could hardly remember a time before her. Then he would think of Caitlin and the guilt would almost cripple him. He wasn't supposed to put her that far away. Then he'd remember asking Natalie that very question – how far and where should he put Caitlin and it would start all over again.
He answered the telephone.