Chapter 19

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Sam's heart was racing as she listened to Jack talk to Victor. The moment she heard Jack say, "Were you able to talk to Martin?" she felt a rush of adrenaline. She leaned forward to look at Jack's face, her eyes pleading to hear any news of Martin. Jack glanced at her quickly but then continued talking to Victor. She wanted any news that would assure her that Martin was alive.

She listened to Jack's responses and wondered what Victor was telling him. "How do you know? What did he say exactly? Okay, well keep working on it. We are on our way back to the city – we should be there in about twenty minutes." Jack clicked off the phone and turned to Sam. "We got a call for ransom but the good news is Victor talked to Martin."

"How was he? What did he say?" Jack's eyes darted away from Sam so she immediately knew that something was wrong. "What is it Jack? Why did you want to know exactly what he said?"

"Victor said that Martin told him he was fine but he thinks he was lying because of what he said. That there was hidden message and he is just trying to decipher it."

"What did he say?"

Jack released a breath and said, "He said, 'I'm fine. Tell Bonnie not to worry. Just pay him and I'll come out smelling like a rose." As he placed the cell phone on the console her glanced at her and said, "I don't suppose you know what that means?"

Sam leaned back and replied, "No but for some reason I think I should."

A short while later Sam and Jack exited the elevator and strode determinedly to the tech room. Danny had called to let them know that Sam was right that Jake Miller and Joseph Merrill were one and the same. Unfortunately he also said that there was no sign of Jake or Martin.

When they entered the room they found Victor huddled alongside Mac. He looked tired and worn and he had his hands clasped and pressed to his lips like he was praying. Suddenly a scratchy man's voice filtered into the room.

"If you ever want to see your son alive again you will do as I say. I want one million dollars by noon tomorrow. I will call you at 11:30 am for further instructions. Do you understand?"

He sounded gruff and unhinged. The uneven tone of his voice sent a chill up Sam's spine. He was clearly unstable and that could be a big problem.

"I understand but I want to talk to my son. I won't do anything until I am sure he is alright." Victor replied. His voice sounded so different from how Sam knew it. It was filled with a father's fear for his child.

"Dad, it's me." Martin. Sam didn't realize how precious that voice was to her.

"Martin, are you okay? Are you hurt son?"

"I'm fine." Martin started coughing for a bit of time. Sam wondered how much of it was staged to give them time to trace the call or simply because he was genuinely sick. "Tell Bonnie not to worry. Just pay him and I'll come out smelling like a rose."

Hearing the words come from Martin stirred something in Sam but she couldn't quite place it.

Jack cleared his throat and looked at Victor. "Any luck?"

Victor stood up and shook his head, "No. I keep trying to figure out what he was trying to tell me but nothing comes to mind. I have Beth working on it too but so far she is drawing a blank too."

Jack nodded his head. "What is the plan? Bureau policy is not to…."

"Negotiate with terrorists." Victor looked at Jack hard before adding, "We aren't negotiating for an agent's life. I am father trying to get his son back. I've already started getting the funds ready."

Jack nodded his head and said, "Right."

"I think I have something." Mac interrupted the two men who hurried to his side. "If I filter out their voices I can hear something."

Mac replayed the call and the sound of rushing water could be heard.

"It sounds like a river." Victor guessed.

"That is going to be hard to narrow down in the state of New York." Mac conjectured.

Victor lowered his head before looking back up at Jack and saying, "Let's talk about how to prepare for the drop."

As the two men began to plan for the ransom drop, Sam sat down on the chair on the other end of the room and closed her eyes. Once she heard the water something clicked in her mind so she sat down to try and focus. Slowly the memory of her visiting Martin's apartment began to rise to the surface….

Sam was on top of Martin's bed lying on her stomach. She finished up her paperwork before him so he gave her the key to his apartment and told her he'd meet her at his place. When she had arrived she went to his bedroom to change clothes and found his photo album on his nightstand. She kicked off her shoes and started to look through it. She opened it to the first page and there was a picture of Martin with his fraternity from college. He was surrounded by a big group of guys and there was a house behind them that had a Greek symbol. She laughed at how young he looked with his hair all curly and floppy.

It was a photo album that was clearly organized by a man. He just stuck pictures in here and there with no clear timeline. On one page he was in college and on the next he was in elementary school. It was frustrating but she had to give him props for actually putting them in an album at all.

She was laughing at a picture of Martin when he was a little baby lying on a rug with his bum exposed when she heard him walking down the hall. She wondered if he minded her looking at his album when she decided she didn't care.

"Good, I see the key worked." Martin commented as he entered the bedroom loosening his tie. He leaned over and kissed her. "Hey."

"Hey." Sam smiled. "I hope you don't mind my looking at your album."

"No, I don't put the incriminating photos in an album." He smirked as he sat down next to her and took off his shoes.

"Oh, and pray tell, where do you put those?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.

He stopped what he was doing and looked directly at her and said, "I'll never tell."

She gave a light laugh and went back to looking at the photos. "Why did you have this out anyway? Feeling nostalgic?"

"One of my old frat brothers called yesterday and we got into a debate about which summer we went backpacking across the country so I had to pull out the album to check the date on the back of the photo." Martin took off his tie and lay down next to her. He propped his chin on her shoulder and added, "I was right of course."

Sam smiled and continued looking at the photos. Sometimes she would ask about a particular photo or he would volunteer a comment if a funny memory was attached. She stopped and looked at the photo of Martin around seven or eight. He was standing on a pier looking wet and cold with a big beach towel wrapped around him. He had a wide smile and his two front teeth were missing.

"Where was this one taken?" He looked so sweet and innocent in that photo.

He looked at it and gave a sad smile. "That was at my Uncle Roger's family cabin on Quechee Lake in Vermont. Whenever they took me up there I would strip off all my clothes and run straight to the end of the pier and dive right in. The water was always really cold but I didn't care. I spent so many summers there until they sold it. I still miss it." He flipped the album a few pages to a picture of a cabin. "It was a genuine log cabin complete with an outhouse. You know one of those tiny box-like structures complete with a cut out half moon on the door." Sam's face crunched up like she was imagining the smell of it when he added, "It actually didn't smell that bad because Bonnie hung bunches and bunches of dried flowers all along the ceiling. Roger used to say that they had the only outhouse where no matter how deep the shit you would always came out smelling like a rose."

Sam opened her eyes and said out loud, "I think I know what Martin was trying to tell us."