Title: Good People Gone Bad

Summary: second part of the Michael Fitzgerald/Nicole Malone series. Jack got custody of the girls, and Nicole got custody of Mike Fitzgerald's heart. Will Michael and Nicole's relationship advance, or will someone make sure that it stops?

Disclaimer: I own none of the Without a Trace Characters, but I do own Nicole Malone and Michael Fitzgerald, and should I end up creating more characters, I will own them also.

A/N: as with many of my other stories, I'm making a lot of things up as I go along. I'm a high school student with very little money. Please don't sue.

A/N: the end of this one may seem a little weird, and that's not only because of the topic, but because I was not sure of writing it, and I'm still not sure.

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"Nicole, are you home? I brought your dad and Danny, Sam, Viv, Martin with me. Nicki?"

After the whole incident at the office, Michael thought it best that he try to make up for it and cheer me up. He talked to everybody at the office, and they all decided to drive over here and have dinner, just like we used to before everything, the kidnappings and the whole custody battle, ever happened.

"Is she not here, Mike?"

"That's strange, she's almost always home before me, and if she's not, she'll call or leave a note, or something."

"Does she have a cell phone?"

"I'm already calling it."

Dad says from where he's standing. Everyone is trying to deny what they all know to be the truth.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Jack. She probably just ran out to get some milk or food, or something."

"Maybe it's the reception in here. I'm going to try calling her outside."

"I'm going."
All of the agents walk outside, hoping that by some chance I pick up the phone, and answer it with my usual cheery disposition.

"Do you guys hear that?"

Viv asks, motioning for everyone to stay quite. Dad walks over to the entrance of an alley that was next to our place, and, walking a few feet forward, sees the cloth the man used to cover my face and my cell phone open, with the screen lighting up; a sure sign that I was getting a call.

"Oh my god,"

Mike says, his mind instantaneously running every possibility in his mind. Dad moves forward, and gets my cell phone and the cloth into a plastic bag that he always carried a spare of in his suit jacket pocket.

"We need to get this to the lab, and run fingerprints and everything other kind of test on it. He is not going to get away with another one."

Meanwhile, I was in a whole world of trouble.

"Stop screaming! It's not going to make anything easier for you, and it's not like anybody is going to hear you."

I hadn't seen the guy coming, and I hadn't had the time to react. When I woke back up, I had a horrible headache, with a weird taste in my mouth. Not knowing what else to do, I resorted back to the things dad had taught us as kids: If we were ever kidnapped, yell as loud and as much as you can. So yell I did, and I received a swift hit to my head, with what felt like a gun of some kind.

"Why are you doing this?"

"That's not the right question now, Nicole. The question is why hadn't I done this earlier? Your father and boyfriend's brother know me."

"How?"

"Oh, it's sort of like a cat and mouse game. I run, they follow."

He leans down, whispering in my ear in a successful attempt to scare me.

"I kill another woman, and they follow her. See? It's not very complicated at all once you get the just of it."

"Look, buddy, I'm not going to do anything. I won't tell my father or anybody else, if you just let me out of here, and let me go home."

"I can't do that. While you say now that you wouldn't do anything, your mind would change drastically as soon as you left here. And you should worry about getting hurt as long as you do what I say. I wouldn't want to hurt the future mother of my children, now would I?"

I get a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realize what this man's intentions are with me. It's at that very moment that I wished dad would hurry up and catch this guy, so I could get out of here.