Chapter Nine: Relentless Uncertainty

Don started dialing numbers before he even got out of the parking lot.

No answer on Charlie's cell. No answer on his office phone.

Megan.

She was on her way to campus.

She didn't answer either. Don frantically redialed all three numbers as he wove wildly in and out of traffic. No one was picking up.

Damn it Charlie, don't do this to me.

Please don't be at work.

He called Charlie's house. Answering Machine.

Oh God, this can't be happening.

Come on Charlie we can't let things end like this.

Don drove his suburban across the campus sidewalk and came to an abrupt stop directly in front of the building that housed his brother's office. He didn't even pause to turn off the ignition.

This isn't happening.

Please be sitting at your desk.

He hurled himself, full throttle, up three flights. Taking the stairs two at a time. Just as he left the stairwell and rounded the corner, his cell phone rang………it was Megan.

Standing in front of Charlie's office her phone still in her hand, Megan snapped it shut when she saw Don round the corner. She was shocked at his sudden appearance and wondering how he got there so quickly. Larry was standing next to her. He had his arms crossed, his left hand clamped tightly over his mouth and staring past the open door into the office.

Don could read Megan's ridged expression. He had seen that look on her face at more than a few crime scenes they had investigated together.

This can't be happening.

Don't tell me this.

She grabbed him at the door.

"Don, you don't need to go in there."

He felt his heart plummet into his feet. He pushed past her and looked at the chaos that had been his brother's office.

Chalk lay broken and scattered across the floor. The flat screen computer monitor, a new and prized possession, lay in pieces. It appeared to have been thrown hard against the wall. Two of the freestanding chalkboards had been knocked over. The numbers that covered them, written in a familiar script, had been smeared across their green surface.

It looked like every object on Charlie's desk had been hurled across the room and lay broken on the floor, including a very large heavy glass paperweight that a student had given him. Pictures had been knocked from the walls, the frames bent and broken. Glass crunched under Don's feet as he walked trancelike toward his brother's desk. The papers that were scattered across it were covered with dark red spatter.

His eyes rested on a bloody smear than ran down the dry-erase board that hung on the wall. He followed the mark down the board and onto the floor, not sure that he could handle what he half expected to find there.

David and Colby stumbled into the room and froze just inside the doorway. They had arrived on campus just behind Don. Megan remained rooted in place. It was like everything was moving in slow motion. She watched Don turn pale and stagger backwards. Colby made a move to steady him, but Don waved him away.

Don looked around the room wildly, fighting off panic.

There was no body. His brother was gone.

………………………………

Behind the desk, on the floor, a small puddle of blood was starting to congeal.

The FBI forensics team had scoured the room with an unprecedented meticulousness. They knew who this office belonged to and they were making double sure they didn't miss anything.

Every solid surface in the room was being dusted for prints, there were some good ones, but it was assumed all the clean prints would be Charlie's. They had taken samples from every drop of blood in the room to send for DNA testing, but even without a body, there was no question in their minds whose blood had been spilled there.

Don stood silently in the corner, his face set and determined. He was still the agent in charge and he intended to act like it. He wasn't going to fall apart. How could he do his job if he fell apart now?

He heard a gut-wrenching sob emitted from a distraught female student who had ambled past the active crime scene. He tried not to envision his brother…bleeding, hurt…dying. Maybe he was already dead. The mental image was revolting and Don fought hard to control the bile he felt rising in his throat. He was not going to let himself throw up.

He thought again of Charlie. Don knew his younger brother had always walked a fine line between sanity and madness. It was a part of being a certified genius. Charlie made it through the events of last Wednesday night and he had still been perched on the side of sanity. He had survived all of that….for this?

No matter what kind of self-assurance Charlie had developed, if he was still alive, he would be terrified beyond comprehension. Don bit his lip, trying to suppress his own horror. What in God's name had that bastard done with his brother?

As if sensing his thoughts, Colby walked up beside him.

"He won't kill him, Don. You heard what he said. He's going to try to trade Charlie for Diego. He won't kill him. Not while we have Diego in custody."

Don replied with a silent nod watching the CSI team bagging every loose item that was lying on the floor. His eyes caught one young investigator looking closely at the chunks of glass that has once been Charlie's favorite paperweight.

"What do you have?"

"Blood and hair, Sir. Somebody got slammed with this thing."

Don suppressed the new rush of nausea and tried not to think of Charlie with his skull cracked open.

"His?"

"No Sir, I don't think so. This hair is blond."

The answer surprised him and Don's heart skipped a beat.

"Charlie got one of them?"

Colby looked carefully at the bloody pieces of broken glass.

"Got them pretty good from the looks of it."

Megan hurried into the office.

"We've got witnesses."

She stopped at the sight of Don and Colby standing in the middle of the room. Don seemed to be holding up really well. Maybe to well.

"Don, are you sure you should be here?"

He didn't answer. But he forced himself to look her in the eye.

"I think you need to spend less time worrying about my family and a little more time worrying about your job."

"Why Don? Are you going to fire me for being concerned? We care about him! He's a member of this team!"

"NO! HE'S MY BROTHER!"

"You wouldn't know it from the way your acting."

Megan saw the guilty shadow pass over Don's face, and then it was gone.

That would have to do. She put her hand on his arm.

"It's okay, Don."

"I…..I…..I don't…..where else do you think I should be?"

"Home? With your father?"

Don rubbed his forehead.

"Have you called him?"

"No. Don, I think he needs to hear this from you."

"He will. But I need to work on this, Megan. I need to get him back"

"So do we."

Megan turned to Colby and David.

"A group of students saw three men exiting the building carrying what appeared to be a body. They thought it was a fraternity prank. It didn't occur to them that there was anything wrong until they saw what was going on up here."

"They see three men hauling a well known professor across campus and they thought……?"

"Four men, actually. The students said an older man met them on the sidewalk. They headed toward the south parking lot, but no one saw their car."

"They thought it was a prank?"

"I know it's hard to believe Don, but yeah. The only time they thought there might be a real problem was when…"

She consulted her notebook to quote the witness.

"….the really big guy who was bleeding all over the place started yelling at the older guy about not having a choice……."

She stopped when she saw the rest of the color drain from Dons face. "I've got it all written down."

She continued.

"Apparently some of the fraternities have been taking practical jokes a little too far lately and that's all they thought it was at the time. But they've given us good descriptions and are waiting for someone to take them in to look at some mug shots. Try to help us identity these guys."

Colby looked around the trashed office, then back at Megan.

"Bleeding huh? Big blond guy. Head wound?"

"Yeah, that's what they said."

He handed her the remains of the paperweight, now bagged and labeled.

"From the looks of things, I'd say Charlie put up a hell of a struggle. Whatever happened in here, he fought them all the way."

………………………………

Authors Notes: Thanks for the comments! Please continue to let me know what you think. Knowing people are reading it makes it a lot more fun to write!

Next Chapter: Futile Resistance