Hi All,

I am so sorry for the delay in this chapter, I beg your forgiveness. I had been hoping this story would just flow and I could produce a chapter a week. My muse had other ideas and bolted for parts unknown. I thank all of you who took the time to review and to nudge me to continue this story. This chapter has things getting more difficult for our heroes, so if you are sensitive, please don't read this chapter.

Chapter 3

The smell was the first thing he noticed as he slowly regained consciousness. It was a scent was both indescribable and unforgettable. It was a cloying, sickening scent. It was the smell of decay. Of death. The scent was old; whatever had died had done it sometime ago. Starsky's muddled mind slowly slogged its way to full consciousness. He let out a long groan of pain as he lifted his face away from the smell, rising up on his elbows to put some distance between his nose and the ground beneath him.

He held that position for several long seconds, unable to do anything more, he felt strangely lacking in energy. His mouth was incredibly dry and what little bit of moisture that was in there was almost a putty-like substance, sticky and thick. He made a face and worked his jaw in an attempt to produce a little spit. God, I could use a drink of water right now he thought.

Starsky shook his head, attempting to clear the cobwebs; he only succeeded in making it ache and spin wildly. His stomach heaved and what little he had in his stomach emptied out onto the dirt floor, but it was little more then stringy spit and bile. His guts twisted and cramped for a while, as if refusing to believe that's all there was to heave out. After a bit, it slowly settled down.

Another wave of dizziness washed over him as the cramping faded and all he could do was ride it out. He dropped his head to his forearm and rested it there as he waited for his head to stop spinning. He detected no immediate danger, so he let himself drift with the dull throb of his pain. He could tell he had been drugged. That realization helped to snap him out of his haze. What the hell happened to me?

He slowly sat up and began to catalog his aches. His head, wrists, arms, legs hurt, but the worst of all was his thirst, followed closely by hunger. When had been the last time that he'd had any water or food? He leaned against something that was cool, dry and bumpy. He opened his eyes as wide as they would go, but saw nothing. That meant either he was blind, it was night or he was some place with no natural lighting. He sniffed the air, a faint fresh scent mingled with the damp, musty scent of old death and vomit.

Starsky made a sour face as he pulled some loose dirt over the small puddle of vomit before carefully climbing to his feet. He leaned against the wall as his head spun with the change in his position. The surface that he was resting his hands on seemed to be made ofstone. His legs started to quake with his efforts to remain standing. He turned around and braced his back against the wall, his legs continued to threaten to buckle, so he locked his knees.

Starsky struggled to recall the events that led him here. Memories, blurry and indistinct, flowed in a damaged-film reel fashion in his mind. The hurky-jerky images bounced like the holes along the edges of the film were missing the sprockets. He briefly wondered if it stopped, would the light of the projector burn through delicate film of his memories? He snorted weakly at the ridiculous notion.

His head continued to pound mercilessly, so he allowed himself to slip down the wall to the floor, where he rested. He put the palms of his hands to his eyeballs and pushed back, trying, without much success, to relieve the pounding ache residing there.

"How did I get here? Wherever here is…" Starsky wondered out loud. "I dropped Wendy off and stopped at a gas station for a fill up… drove away and…" He drew a blank and then tried to figure out the next memories he had. Lights… bright lights, so bright they burned into his retinas so he had to keep his eyes closed or risk blindness. Even through his closed lids, he could see the light, turned red by the skin of his eyelids. It felt like he had been there for hours with those lights blazing on him. Sweat, he remembered sweating under the hot, bright lights… and the drone of a voice.

He concentrated on that memory; he had to figure out what was happening and who was doing this to him. He remembered hearing a voice… a male voice speaking loudly, the words were somewhat garbled and strange almost disjointed… most likely due to the drugs he had been given… there was a trial going on… Starsky focused in on that memory… he had been accused of … of…what the hell had he been accused of?

Starsky's headache ratcheted up a notch as he struggled to recall the events. He had been asked to speak in his own defense, and had found himself unable to talk… the room was too hot, the lights too bright… what he was accused of wasn't true. None of it had made sense, at least not to him.

Starsky had tried repeatedly to speak and failing that, to stand, but had found he was tied to his chair. All he could manage was to shake his head in denial. He then had been roughly pulled from the room, still struggling to protest, to deny the bogus charges. The chair he was secured to was a sturdy wheeled office chair; he was unable to prevent himself from being removed from the courtroom.

Once he had been pulled from the room, his mouth and nose had been covered with a cloth. It must have had chloroform on it, for after a few breaths, he had felt the world spin and consciousness had once more fled. When next he awoke, he found he had been gagged and a thick hood had been placed over his head, its drawstring had been cinched snuggly around his neck, securing the hood in place. The hood reminded him of what condemned prisoners were forced to wear during their execution. He gave an involuntary shudder.

His heart pounded furiously in his chest as feelings of claustrophobia flooded him. The material in his mouth had expanded as it sucked the moisture from him. The snug drawstring began to pinch as his neck and throat muscles tensed. His lungs had heaved for air and he began to struggle reflexively to free himself. He was suffocating; he was going to die gasping for breath. And all the while, he could feel eyes upon him, watching him struggle.

That made him sick, but it also made him very, very angry. He was not gonna die like some bug under glass, being watched as he struggled and finally died. No. Absolutely not. Maybe he couldn't control what was happening to him, but he could control himself enough so he wouldn't die this way, slowly suffocating. He managed to calm down and started to regulate his breathing. He could almost feel the disappointment from his watchers. It was a small victory, but it was a victory. If he could have, he'd have smiled.

Starsky had to struggle to maintain his control over his panic. It was difficult not to recall the memories of his time with Simon's followers. They hadn't gagged him. No, they had wanted to hear him beg, yell or scream, none of which he had done, much to their disappointment.

That was then, this was now. And now it seemed that his current captors didn't want him to be heard during his 'trial', as he had been still groggy from the drugs they had used on him. What ever he was on, had prevented him from making any kind of reasonable response. Starsky had sat, secured to that chair for a very long time. He hadn't been offered food or water the entire time between the mock trial and the sentencing.

Nor had he been allowed to relieve himself… humiliation coursed through him as his bladder had let go after a while. His captors did not seem to care about keeping him in any sort of minimal human comfort. It had been the same with Simon's followers. His skin crawled at that memory and a tide of anger rose sharply inside of him. How could anyone do this to another human being? Who hated him so much to go through all this trouble? He had no answers, only questions and no one to answer them, at least for now.

After a long period of time had passed, the brunet remembered something about the sentencing being in two days time… had it been that long? He couldn't be sure, since he had been forced to wear the gag and hood the entire time after his 'trial.' Confined in such a fashion, he had no way of knowing just how long it had been. Further more, he had been made to wear the hood and gag during the sentencing phase. He remembered being condemned to 'life imprisonment without chance for parole'. He knew he wasn't in prison, which was the one thing he was sure of.

It was cool in the place he was being held in. Starsky shivered a little. He was wearing just a t-shirt and jeans. He felt around the floor but couldn't find any blanket or anything to wrap around himself to help keep warm. He hoped that there would be some water or food. But all he found was dirt. There was a dirt floor beneath him. Well, perhaps once it got light, he could see about maybe digging his way out of here.

He shivered a bit more, still feeling quite weak from the drugs he had been given and the lack of food and water. He licked his dry and cracked lips; some water would taste good right now. He pulled his knees up to his chest and pulled his t-shirt over them to help him retain some warmth. He pulled his arms inside the shirt, then rested his head on his knees and breathed into the neck of his shirt and down his chest for added warmth.

Now that his sentence had begun, perhaps his captors would start giving him food and water… Starsky held onto that thought as he nodded off into a fitful sleep.

XXXX

Thursday morning

Hutch nursed his King Kong-sized headache carefully; he didn't want to rouse it. The beast was sleeping, for now, but he could feel that it was on the verge, it could go to a deeper level of sleep or it could roar to life and make an already bad day worse.

He swirled his mug of coffee around and sipped the tepid brew. Motor oil wasn't as thick as this stuff. He made a bitter face as he sipped at it.

"How's the coffee?" Carl from the lab grinned as he watched the detective force himself to drink more of the coffee.

Hutch looked over the rim of his mug at the lab guy's grinning face and momentarily contemplated knocking the man down and forcing him to drink the foul stuff before replying sarcastically "Good, you should try some."

"Yuck, no way. Ya know, that's really Sid's science experiment, he's trying to see how thick coffee has to be in order to float a spoon."

Hutch rolled his eyes, "Don't you guys have anything better to do?"

"Those yahoos? No, they don't have anything better to do. You need to leave the real science to us ladies."

Hutch turned to look at the speaker, brightening as he recognized her, "Cheryl, good to see you back here. Are you working on this-" he stopped himself short of saying 'case'. This was so much more then a 'case', this was his partner, his missing partner.

Cheryl Jennings clasped his free hand in both of hers. "When I heard, I had to come back. I can take a vacation anytime." She gave the blond an encouraging smile. "You couldn't keep me away from here."

Hutch perked up a little, "You found something?"

She motioned to him to follow her.

"So, what've you got?" Hutch set the mug down onto the counter and trailed her to the Torino.

"Is this yours?" She lifted up a plastic evidence bag from off of the table next to the car. She handed it to the blond detective.

Hutch frowned and took the evidence bag from her, he looked at the object, turning it over a few times before handing it back to her, "No, it's not Starsky's either. Any prints on it?"

"Unfortunately, no… I wanted to rule you and David out before continuing with the analysis." Cheryl took the evidence bag and started out of the garage and towards the lab.

"Where did you find it?" he inquired as his tagged along beside her. This was their first clue since the Torino had been found.

"To be honest with you, I didn't find it, Carl did." She entered the lab where beakers, Bunsen burners and microscopes reigned.

"Okay, so where did Carl find it?" Hutch felt distinctly out of place in this room. His and Starsky's style of detecting was a far more direct and 'hands on' approach. He was keenly aware that many cases had been solved here. He welcomed any help, from any source, provided it led to the recovery of his best friend.

"In the Torino's trunk."

"So what can you tell about it, besides the fact that it's a part of a bike peddle" Hutch pointed at the bit of black rubber that Cheryl was carefully removing from the bag with a large pair of tweezers.

"Well, from this I should be able to find out what type of bike it came from. Hmmm, there seems to be some dirt and other debris in the tread, perhaps I can glean some information about where it was shortly before ending up in the trunk of the Torino."

"Like?" Hutch prodded after watching her becoming increasingly engrossed in her work, many of the lab techs were like that, and Cheryl was no different.

"Like the area this bike was through, there maybe a tiny piece of evidence on this that may help you find David." She said distractedly as she studied the part.

He knew she would contact him the minute she found anything. In the mean time, he needed to go to Bay City Technical College and see if there was a bicycle there that was missing a part of its peddle. If he found the bike's owner, he would be that much closer to finding Starsky. He broke into a trot as he headed down the hall to his car.

XXXX

Starsky blinked slowly. There was some light coming from overhead somewhere. He floated between sleeping and waking. It was rather blissful. Until he remembered that he was in some sort of trouble. He licked his lips, they were cracked and bleeding. His tongue was slightly swollen in his mouth. He forced his eyelids to open and looked around; the light was dim and coming from overhead. He tilted his head back to look at it.

Light.

There was light. It had been dark, and now there was light. He smiled faintly. He liked the light. Thoughts were difficult, thinking was hard. He licked his lips again. Water would be really nice right now. His stomach gave a weak rumble. Food would be good too, not as good as water though.

Starsky was roused as the hunger and thirst pangs increased. The drifting feeling slowly receded, allowing him more clarity. How long had it been since he had had something to eat or drink? He pondered the question for a while as he looked for something to write on or with, to help him remember. This is just like in one of those prison movies, he smiled at the notion. He continued searching until he found a small rock, then slowly moved to the wall and scratched at it. It took a few tries, but he was able to make a mark on the stone wall.

He had likely had been kidnapped on Sunday, sometime after dropping Wendy off. There was the trial, he made one mark for that day, though he really wasn't sure when the trial had happened… had it been the same day he had been grabbed? Starsky shrugged fatalistically, until he remembered or someone told him, he'd just have to use his best guess. The judge had said that sentencing would be 'in two days', so he scratched two more parallel lines into the surface, though again he wasn't sure of how long he had been hooded, gagged and left to sit in his own stink. Starsky grimaced and forced his mind to concentrate on this task instead of his humiliation.

So today was number four… he made another mark before dropping the rock to the floor next to the wall. With little else to do and feeling quite fatigued by his efforts, Starsky looked up at the single source of light. The light was natural and far above him. It would never reach all the way down to him. Dread dug its claws deeply into him as he realized where he was being held.

He was at the bottom of a dry well.

TBC