It was dark. Her head was pounding and she was dizzy. She had no idea where she was. She sat up, unsure if she could stand. She was on a bed, but that was the only furniture she could see in the room. Maybe there was more, but it was too dark for her to make anything out. She wasn't wearing anything other than a hospital gown, but so far as she could tell, there wasn't any proof that she'd been in the hospital. Maybe that was why she didn't remember how she got here?
She took a breath and stood. She just had to figure out where she was, then she'd remember what was going on. And why her head was pounding.
After a few minutes of searching, she found her way to a door. Either she was weak or it was heavy, but she managed to get it open using all of her strength. Once she made it out, it was a little lighter, and the room was furnished. She knew at once she'd never been here before, and since she didn't know how she got here, the fear was starting to creep in. She tried to take a deep breath, but it was shaky. She'd been in worse situations before and gotten out. She could figure this out.
She saw the phone. Carefully, she made her way to the phone. She wasn't sure if there was no electricity or if she hadn't figured out where the lights were. She picked the phone up and heard the dial tone.
"Oh thank god" she whispered to herself. Thinking was a little hard because her head was pounding so much, but she dialed the number anyway. She'd never relied on speed dial because Roxy wasn't so good at paying bills, and the phone at home had never been reliable anyway. Most of her life before a cell phone had been spent using the pay phone at the office of the trailer park.
"Please pick-up" she whispered into the ringing phone
"McBain" he answered.
"John" she said, trying to muster the strength to say more.
"Natalie?" he said, and he immediately sat up straight.
"Yeah, yeah it's me"
He was on his feet in a second.
"Are you okay?" he crossed his office.
"I don't know" she said, "My head really hurts, I'm really dizzy"
"What else?" he said, snapping at an officer in the squad room, "Get me a tap for this phone now"
"What's going on?"
"You've been missing for three days, Natalie, I'm really worried about you"
"I don't remember"
"That's okay, Natalie, can you tell me where you are?"
"I don't know" she said.
John fiddled with the tap, trying to keep listening to her while he plugged his phone into the computer, "Can you see anything out the windows?"
"There weren't any windows in the room"
"Can you see any windows now?"
She looked around, seeing what looked like a window.
"Yeah, there's a window" she said, trying to make her way towards it.
"Can you see out of it?" he asked, and he got a thumbs up from the uniform.
"Not really, it's dark, there's no light" she said.
"That's okay Natalie. What do you remember?"
"I don't remember anything. I'm in a hospital gown, did I have a surgery or something? Why can't I remember?"
"Stay calm, Natalie" he said, "I'm pretty sure he's drugged you"
"Who?" she asked, "Spencer?"
"Yeah, I think so"
"John, I'm scared"
"It's okay, Natalie, I'm going to find you, I promise. Just keep talking to me"
"Why is it so dark in here?"
"It's getting late, the sun just went down"
"I should have called sooner"
"You did the right thing" he said, "You know how to take care of yourself"
"But if I'm being drugged-"
"I'll find you. I will always find you, Natalie"
She heard keys in the door.
"John, someone's at the door"
He heard the fear in her voice, and his stomach clenched. He wasn't sure how long they'd been on the tap, and every second counted.
"Stay on the phone as long as you can"
"I'm scared"
"I know, I'm sorry Natalie" he said, "I'm sorry about all of this"
"What do I do?"
Before he could answer, all he heard was the phone dropping and a man's voice yelling.
"NATALIE? NATALIE?" he yelled into his phone.
The line went dead. He knew he was the squad room, he knew the phone call probably made him look bad. He just stared at his phone for a second. His mind was going a million miles a minute.
Truman had walked in and seen her on the phone.
He'd probably knocked the phone out of her hand or knocked her down or knocked her out.
He'd probably drugged her again.
And he was helpless to stop it.
When he finally looked up from his phone, he'd realized his yelling into the phone had brought Hughes out from his office, Michael out of his, and probably every other officer in the building was here, too. To make matters worse, Bo and Balsom were standing in the corner. It was dead silent in the room.
He turned to the officer at the desk and willed his voice to be level.
"Did you get a location off of the call"
"Sorry Lieutenant, only forty seven seconds"
"Damn it" he yelled and threw his phone across the squad room.
He stormed into his office and slammed the door shut behind him. He felt tears choking his throat and pricking at his eyes. Somewhere out there, she was being hurt right now. And he was none the wiser as to where she was.
His computer beeped. Quickly, he went to his desk chair. The GPS, wherever it was, was heading back from the outskirts of town, near the mountain, back towards the center of town. That narrowed it down. A quick look back on the map he'd posted in the room narrowed it down to only three locations. He hit his desk. That was still three too many.
His door opened and his brother, Hugh, Bo and Rex all joined him in the office. Bo closed the door behind him. No one spoke.
"John" Michael started, "I'm sorry"
"I, uh, spoke to Cooper" Bo said, "he was pretty shaken you threw the phone, but he's good now"
John just nodded, not really caring about the uniformed officer he'd scared.
"How was she?" Rex asked, and they could all hear the concern in his voice.
"She's scared" John said, "she's really, really scared and probably hurt now"
"She said she was scared?" Rex asked.
John knew why he asked the question. Natalie didn't admit when she was vulnerable. The fact that she'd said it out loud to him didn't surprise him, but he knew what Rex thought of him.
"Yeah, she did" he said.
"What happened, John?" Bo asked
"She couldn't make anything out of the window because it was too dark, she heard the keys in the door, there was shouting, then the line went dead"
"What do you think happened?" Mike asked even though no one really wanted to hear.
"I'm pretty sure he's drugging her" he said, "between the needle in the first photo, and – other stuff – she said her head really hurt" he paused, hoping he hadn't given too much away, "She can't defend herself that way, and that's what he wants. He wants it to be easy"
"The good news" Hugh said, "Is that we know she's alive. We can tell IA we have evidence that she's alive, and we can keep this a kidnapping situation instead of search and rescue"
"Why the hell would we have changed over to search and rescue?" John yelled at him, even though he knew very well why that change would happen.
"IA would have asked you to at the 72-hour mark" Bo said, even though everyone in the room knew that explanation wasn't necessary, "But now we have a call and we have at least 72 more hours before we have to do that"
"No" John said, "It's already been too long, every god damn day that bastard is pumping her full of drugs that are doing god knows what –" he didn't even bother trying to level his voice off.
"Hey" Bo said, "For right now, at least we know she's alive"
"She's drugged somewhere and at Truman's mercy" John yelled right back.
"Okay" Hugh said, "Let's all take a breath" he said, "Obviously, emotions are running high right now and some of us need to hold on to our jobs til all this is over"
"Hughes is right" Bo said, "speaking of, um, Mike can you-"
"Yeah, sure" Michael said, "Johnny, I'm really sorry. Let me know if you need anything"
John nodded.
"God damn it" John said again.
"I can't imagine how you must be feeling right now" Hugh said, "but you do have to pull yourself together. You still have to be the acting commissioner"
"Yeah, you're right" John said, "Could you, um, find my phone for me? I don't think I'm ready to go back out there"
"Sure" Hughes said.
Hughes shut the door behind him. The three men waited a beat before saying anything.
"You okay?" Bo asked.
"I am so far from okay right now. She is out there, drugged and defenseless against him and –"
"I know" Bo said, "I know. But she is alive. And she is Natalie and Natalie will fight with everything she has"
"You didn't hear her, Bo, she sounded so scared and out of it-"
"I don't believe she said she was scared" Rex said, "In all the stuff that happened to us in the trailer, she never admitted that"
"Alright let's get our heads on straight" Bo said, "Pa said he – knew- Emma Bradley. Balsom got both samples to a lab"
"I had my guy put a rush on it" Rex said, "God willing, we'll hear in the morning"
"I had Blair put a GPS on him" John said, "I think he's keeping her on or near Llantano Mountain"
"Make sense, if it was too dark for her to see out the window, there are no lights up there" Rex said.
"Once I thought to look, he was on his way back into town" John said, "if he didn't move her after that, I figure he's in one of these three houses" he said, pointing to the map.
"Even if he moved her, he probably wouldn't have brought her into town, he's gotta know people are watching him" Bo said.
"So those three are still the best bet" Rex said, "I'll stake them all out"
"Can't do that" Bo said, "he'll figure it out, he's smart"
"Can't you have them staked out" Rex asked John
"I didn't get a warrant for the GPS" John said.
"So nothing has actually changed" Rex said.
That was when Hugh re-joined them and handed John back his phone.
"They're definitely still on edge out there, but they're back at work now" Hugh said, closing the door behind him.
"I just hope none of them go to IA" John said.
"They won't" Bo said, "They're good guys, they're not going to tell on you"
"I'm not you, Bo, they don't have the same faith in me they do in you" John said.
"Well, then, they don't want to hurt her" Bo said.
"I believe that" Hugh said, "she's adored by everyone on the force. They want her found, too"
"IA doesn't need to know" Bo said, "Now, let's all just shift to what we can do"
"We'll have the DNA test tomorrow" Rex said "that won't find her, but it may give him what he wants"
"In case we all forgot, what he wants is the BE jet" John said, "he gets that, finding Natalie's going to get a whole lot worse"
"We'll also hear back on a search warrant tomorrow" Hugh said, "might be nothing, might be something"
"Pa is willing to meet with him if he turns out to be his son" Bo said, "but if he's not, none of this ever gets known to anyone"
"That might be what he wants" Rex said.
"And he gets what he wants and Natalie gets what?" John asked, "In case we all forgot, he is a murderer I don't know that he deserves negotiation"
"Of course not" Bo said, "this is all speculation anyway"
"Honestly" Hugh said, "It's getting late and it's been a long day" he paused, "nothing can be done til tomorrow, so why don't we just some rest and come in with clear heads in the morning"
"Hughes is right" Bo said, "we can't do anything more right now, we should all get a good night's sleep"
Even though no one disagreed with Bo, they were not agreeing with him, either. Silently, Hugh and Bo left for the night. John walked over to the window behind his desk. He knew Balsom was still there, but he needed to pull himself together. A good night's sleep was going to be just about impossible after the day he'd had.
"My sister is the best person I know" he heard Balsom say from behind him, "you know, she's got her faults. She's impatient and stubborn and she's got a short temper, but-" he paused, "looking back, I can't imagine what she gave up for me. I mean food, sleep- and never in all that did she ever tell me she was scared"
John looked down. He didn't like hearing about her life in the trailer. It was a dark time in her life, and a reminder of all the ways she had been failed in her life so far. He took a breath before speaking.
"That doesn't really surprise me. You know, Natalie-she, uh, telling you she was scared would have made her weak. And she'd go without a lot before she let you think she was weak" John said.
"I guess- I guess I'm more surprised that she told you outright" Rex said, "I know I'm not your biggest fan. I don't know if that'll ever change, but – I guess you got a better read on Nattie than anyone of us does"
John just looked at Rex. He couldn't speak in words how much Natalie meant to him. He knew he could read her face, he knew her tells, he knew which of her laughs were fake and which were real. He could tell when she entered a room without looking. He also knew she knew all the same things about him. It wasn't something he could articulate. It wasn't something he expected Rex to understand. He supposed he wouldn't expect anyone outside of the two of them to understand.
When the silence grew too much, Rex finally spoke again.
"I hope you're easy on yourself tonight, McBain. If nothing else, she trusts you completely"
John nodded as Rex left his office. He supposed he had meant to say that as some sort of statement of trust or appreciation. Acceptance, maybe. But all he heard was that Natalie trusted him, and he knew in his soul that her trust was completely unearned. She was drugged, knocked out because of him. She was at Truman's mercy because of him. She was defenseless and alone in the hands of a murderer because of him. Why should she trust him at all, let alone completely?
He turned back to look out the window. Usually, the sight of the Angel Square Hotel was a welcome one, but tonight he didn't find any comfort in it. Instead of taking in the small city skyline, his mind saw her picture with her organs outlined and heard the fear in her voice on the phone.