Part 21

Ezra felt himself drifting awake again, felt it and fought it. 'No.' Waking only brought pain. Searing agony that made it impossible to breathe; that made him long for the darkness, the peace of oblivion.

Just let go...

He'd lost track of the time, of how long he'd been here. Wherever here was. Was it the same day? The same week? Did the others know he was gone? Were they even looking for him?

He could answer that question immediately. If they knew, they were looking. They'd find him. Between JD's computer hacking and Vin's tracking...oh dear, that rhymed. His mind was drifting. "Really, Ezra, pull yourself together. And just look at yourself, son! What am I going to do with you? I've told you a thousand times, appearances..."

"...are everything. Yes, Mother..." his voice sounded thin and weak and so very far away.

"Mother?"

Where was she? She had been here...he opened his eyes again, forced the lids open to scan the room blearily. No sign of his captor. No sign of his mother.

Well of course, Maude wouldn't be caught dead in such a rustic habitation...

He felt the warmth of his own blood soaking into his trousers-trousers that were already stiff with dried blood. His captor liked the knife. Liked it even more than using his fists.

Or that hammer.

Ezra tried to take a deep breath, stiffening as the agony of broken ribs tore through his battered body. His vision darkened even more.

Let go...

"Damn it Standish, don't you dare. You promised me you'd never run off again..."

"Mr. Larabee. I am currently being tortured-I must assume my demise is the desired end result. I must inquire how dying in my present situation can be considered 'running out' on you and our compatriots."

"It is if I say it is."

Chris Larabee leaned closer, into Ezra's face, until his green eyes were no more than a blur. "You hang on, damn it. We're out looking for you. You have to know that. You've got to give us time enough to find you."

"And how am I to do that?" Ezra felt his eyes drifting closed even as he spoke.

"Ezra! You hang on, damn it!"

The angry tone made his eyes snap open. The features before him swam and slowly his eyes focused on the enraged face of his captor.

Even as he braced himself for another round of torture he was embracing the promise Chris had made. Where Chris was now he wasn't quite sure, but he knew his friend's words were true. They were out there looking. He just had to survive long enough for them to find him.

"Please...Please hurry!"

Josiah Sanchez didn't normally pace. He had always thought pacing was a useless waste of nervous energy-unless of course the pacer was an expectant father. Better to conserve energy and expend it in a functional manner.

But today, alone in the offices of Team Seven, with one teammate on life support in the hospital and another missing altogether, he paced.

Paced and tried to form prayers from a mind so overwhelmed between rage and fear and grief that no coherent words could be summoned. Instead he silently chanted, 'Please God. Please.'

The God of his father would have been disgusted with such a poor entreaty. Josiah hoped the God he'd finally come to believe in would be more understanding...responding to the intent rather than the formulation.

He hated being alone. He hated being here at all. He should be doing something. Something! Looking for Ezra. He ignored the little voice that logically asked, "Look where?"

Vin and Nathan would be back soon. They'd called a few minutes before. That was the first time Josiah had heard about a bomb scare at the hospital. By the time they had got to the hospital the emergency crews had stepped down. Not a bomb. Well, a stink bomb. Not lethal but annoying.

In a bouquet of flowers intended for Buck.

'What the hell is going on?'

Bombs, poisonings, hit and run drivers. Vin shooting that kid in Hugo. JD stressed out-which made sense, he certainly was entitled-but his feelings were taking the form of anger at Chris. That Josiah couldn't figure out at all. JD had always carried a healthy amount of hero-worship for the Team Leader. Now all of a sudden JD seethed with hostility, most of it directed at Chris. Almost as if he blamed Chris for the bombing and Buck being so injured...

And then Ezra...

Josiah walked to the window, staring out over Denver. "Where are you, Ezra?" he asked the unheeding cityscape.

He'd gone down to the cafeteria for a sandwich-less because he was hungry than because he'd had to get out of the silent office. While standing in line he'd overheard two FBI agents talking about Ezra. "I'm not going out searching for that turncoat," one of the agents had laughed. "Ten to one they'll find him in Barbados or someplace living it up on someone else's money."

The other agent had shook his head. "Nah. I bet he's dead. About time, too, if you ask me. How long did the guy think he could get away with playing both sides? 'Best undercover agent' my ass! Why they didn't charge him after Atlanta-"

Josiah had listened, rage building a fire inside him. He took a deep breath and stepped out of line, heading for the table with the two gossiping agents, ready to heap a little "Old Testament wrath" on their hapless heads.

And then he stopped dead.

Silently, with deadly stealth, the table and the two men sitting at it had been surrounded. The two FBI agents looked up, startled, to see easily a half dozen men-with more arriving every second-crowding close to them. Nothing was said but silent menace cracked through the air.

The first agent cleared his throat, looked as if he was having trouble just moistening his mouth enough to get out words. "Something wrong, fellas?" He looked toward a tallish man that Josiah vaguely remembered as being one of the newly arrived FBI agents. Wait...didn't Ezra say the man was from Atlanta?

Josiah took another step forward, determined to protect his missing brother, but then stopped again as he realized his efforts weren't needed. Lethal anger boiled from the surrounding men, but it wasn't anger directed at Ezra Standish, but rather toward the two men who'd disparaged him.

Josiah looked around. There were two ATF agents: Gibbons from Team 3 and Peters-Josiah thought his name was Peters-another young agent like Bobby Fewell, working with more experienced teams preparatory to setting up another team. The rest of the silent crowd were from other agencies. Josiah didn't know all of them, some of them he didn't even recognize-but they were all wearing the same expression on their faces.

Contempt for the stupid writhing Fibbies who were trying desperately to look anywhere but up.

The agent they'd first addressed broke the cold silence. "Mistah Gibbons?" His accent was so similar to Ezra's when they'd first met that Josiah almost expected it to be Ezra standing there.

"Yes, Agent Bridges?" Gibbons answered, a suddenly dangerous smile crossing his face.

"Ah believe ah just heard these two volunteerin' ta help in the search for our missin' teammate, didn't you?"

Gibbons' eyes crackled with icy glee. "Indeed I did!"

"Well, then, come on, let's assist them in pickin' up their assigned search area."

"Wait a minute!" the second seated FBI agent broke in desperately. "We didn't, I mean..." he stammered to a stop as he noticed all the hostile glares focusing in his direction. "I mean...it's just that I'm about off duty-"

"Well, then, we doubly appreciate your gesture." Bridges smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. As a matter of fact, with a little bit of work, Bridges would have the Larabee Death Glare perfected.

The agent hesitated, then nodded, swallowing hard. "I was just on my way up to Tactical," he offered faintly.

"No need for that," Gibbons broke in. "Peters and I were just on our way out to search-we'll be glad of your help."

Peters nodded, looking like he ate raw meat for breakfast and wasn't at all picky about maybe adding freshly killed FBI agents to his diet. Nodding nervously, one eye on Peters and the other warily fixed on Gibbons, the agent made to stand.

Apparently his friend wasn't as wise. "I ain't goin' looking for no-ack!"

The crowd had parted silently to let still another agent through. Josiah recognized him instantly-Luke Harris, the hulking former fullback for the Detroit Lions-or was it the Green Bay Packers?-who'd joined the Secret Service because he found football just too damned boring.

Rumor had it he determined the success of a day by how many people he knocked unconscious.

Now his massive meaty paw clenched into the collar of the hapless FBI agent, lifting his feet from the ground. Josiah probably could have done the same himself but he didn't think he'd be so effortless about it.

"Don't know where you two milk skinned ladies come from, but where I come from we back up our people. All our people. And I don't like hearin' anyone say otherwise. You got that?" He punctuated each word with a shake.

"Umm...umm...yeah!" The FBI agent wheezed out.

Harris dropped the man back into his chair, and then, before the poor guy could run or move-do anything but try to catch his breath-he caught him up again, albeit a touch more gently this time. "Glad to hear it. Danny!"

Josiah hadn't noticed the blonde man leaning against the wall until he spoke. Daniel McMillan had been watching his partner shake down the terrified Fibbie with an amused smirk on his face. "Right here, Luke."

"We got an extra pair of eyes to help us today." He shoved the FBI agent towards his partner.

"Glad to have you aboard," McMIllan told the man, who looked like he was trying to decide whether to puke or just pee his pants. He grinned up at his partner. "You silver tongued devil you."

Harris grinned-at least Josiah assumed that's what the grimace was. "Learned from the best, partner."

McMillan nodded, fixing his eyes on the FBI agent. "Taught him everything he knows about persuasion," he commented cheerfully. "Steady on there, old man...you look a bit pale." He grabbed his shoulder, keeping him from keeling into a table.

The crowd dispersed as quickly and as quietly as it had gathered, most of the men patting Josiah on the shoulder or tossing him a thumbs up. Apparently they all knew who he was even if he didn't know them.

No, he did know them, now. They were his brothers.

For the first time in too many hours, Josiah felt a measure of hope. He straightened his shoulders.

They'd find Ezra. They'd save Buck. There wasn't much Team Seven couldn't do if they put their minds to it, and this time they had help.

A lot of help.

Chris Larabee strode down the hospital corridor, the heels of his boots echoing hollowly around him. He'd checked on the cop who'd inhaled a lung full of the stink bomb, somehow not that surprised to find it was Sgt. Hamilton. The veteran cop looked over the plastic oxygen mask to meet Chris' eyes. They didn't say anything but after a minute Chris gave him a tiny nod.

'Ironic as all hell,' Chris mused, that of all people it would be Hamilton who seemed to be constantly around these days when there was a threat to a member of Team Seven. His mind drifted to that night Ezra had checked himself out of the hospital AMA. Felt like years ago but actually it had only been a few weeks. He could see the defiant smirk on Hamilton's face as he admitted to driving Ezra across town to University Medical Center once he'd heard about Buck. Then the comment as Chris had made to enter the building..."I hate your guts, Larabee. And I don't like Wilmington much either. But no matter what happened back then, I never wanted anything like this to happen to him. You two were good cops. You're probably good Feds. I hope he's okay."

A hell of a lot different than the threats he'd screamed in the review hearing seven years ago...

Then Chris pushed through the double doors of ICU and all thoughts of Sgt. Hamilton fled from his mind.

There was something about the way both nurses looked at him that immediately sent alarm bells ringing in his head. "What?" he demanded. "What's wrong? Is Buck worse?" He quickly looked through the window into Buck's cubicle. JD was there, sitting in the chair where Chris himself had spent so many hours, holding Buck's hand. His lips moved but Chris wasn't close enough to hear what he was saying. Chris' frown deepened as he took in the way Buck was moving, shifting uncomfortably in the bed. He whirled around on the nurses. "What's wrong?" he repeated.

"Agent Larabee, can I speak with you down here?" The nurse, Kim, stepped forward and gestured down the hall to the tiny conference room. Chris almost argued-he wanted to know what was going on, now, damn it! -but catching the intent look on her face he nodded reluctantly, realizing that visitors to the rooms on either side of Buck's had stepped out to see what the raised voices were about. JD hadn't seemed to notice.

Chris followed the nurse, restraining his impatience with a Herculean effort . The room wasn't any different-two armchairs, small table, overgrown potted plant-than it had been the last time he'd been in it. When he'd agreed to put Buck back on the respirator. God, had that only been yesterday?

Kim turned to face him. To her credit, she didn't beat around the bush. "Mr. Wilmington's blood pressure is dropping. His heart rate is erratic," she said bluntly. "I've paged Dr. Culver. He's out of the hospital right now but he's expected back shortly. The resident is on his way up."

Chris stared at her. "So what-" he started.

There was a perfunctory tap on the door and then it opened to reveal a husky man-about Vin's age, Chris guessed-with a shaved head. He wore the regulation white coat but underneath it the loudest Hawaiian shirt ever seen outside of Disneyland. A tiny surfer, complete with board, was clipped to the stethoscope around his neck. "Yo, Kim," he all but caroled. "You rang?"

"Yeah, Silly," Kim answered. She added, to Chris, "This is Dr. Bailey, he'll be taking care of Buck until Dr. Culver can get here." She squeezed past Chris, leading the resident with her. Chris just stood still. His mind was whirling with the possible repercussions of what she'd said, but the only thought he could actualize was 'Did she just call him "Silly"?'

JD stopped talking. He kept doing that, starting and stopping. He'd started to confide in Buck all his worries and fear for Ezra, but quickly stopped that. He didn't know how much Buck could hear in his sedated state but the last thing Buck needed to know was that Ezra was missing. Then he'd talked about how angry he was at Chris-and had to stop that as well. After all, what he was angry with Chris about was Buck...and he knew Buck would be upset if he heard that.

He felt so alone. Just as he'd felt back in Boston, after his mother had died. All alone with one in the world to care whether he was happy or sad or honest or a crook or even alive or dead.

He'd found a family when he'd moved to Denver. A special family of six big brothers. And one special big brother, best friend, surrogate mom and dad and warm puppy all rolled into one.

If Buck didn't make it...if he slipped away...

'He won't!' JD told himself.

But if he did...JD didn't think he'd ever have a home or a family again.

Buck shifted again. He'd quieted at first when JD had come in, seemingly relaxing when he'd heard his roommate's voice; but when JD fell silent he became restless. Fine beads of sweat dampened the dark hair and puddled in the shadows under his eyes. JD padded away for a cool, wet washcloth. Resuming his seat, using the cloth to carefully wipe the sweat from Buck's face, he had to choke back a sudden sob at his friend's still face. Buck wasn't supposed to be still. He wasn't supposed to be this lifeless. Buck had one of the most expressive faces JD had ever seen. JD had overheard two secretaries talking once. Both of them had dated Buck and they were comparing notes. JD's first thought had been, "How the hell does he get away with that?" He could just imagine if Casey Wells found out he'd dated one of her friends. She'd hang him from the nearest tree by his scrotum, always assuming she just didn't tell her Aunt Nettie to blow his brains out with her ever-ready shotgun.

But jealousy seemed to be the last thing on the women's minds. One of them commented that Buck "could light a room up with just his smile."

JD knew that smile. The smile that said without words everything would be okay, that there was nothing Buck Wilmington and JD Dunne couldn't beat, especially when they were together with the rest of the seven amassed behind them.

God, he needed to see that smile now.

JD felt the sobs tearing at his throat, desperate to come out. He choked them back ruthlessly. He was a man. Men didn't cry. Well, okay, they did cry sometimes but they shouldn't cry. He wasn't going to cry. He was JD Dunne. ATF agent. A man. He wasn't going to cry like the sniveling child he felt like inside.

'Please Buck, please...please.'

He could fight back the sobs but not the tears: he felt their warm saltiness on his lips, his tongue. Angry with himself for this weakness, angry with Chris, just angry, he lashed out at the unconscious form in the bed. "Damn you, anyway, Buck Wilmington! How could you let this happen?"

He could hear something, a voice. Familiar, but raised in an anger that was unusual for that voice. Buck listened hard, trying to figure out who it was.

JD.

He relaxed. JD was here. Wherever here was.

But he sounded so upset. More than upset, angry. Mad. Really mad.

That wasn't normal for JD. Something had to be wrong.

He tried to speak but an iron bar in his throat prohibited such an action. Panicking, he tried to move, to see...but his body wasn't his to control.

Not even his breathing. Something hot and hard and hurting was in his throat, choking him, He couldn't breathe...but he was getting air somehow. Frightened, he gave up trying to figure out how that could be, ignored the deep heavy pain in his chest, the persistent ache in his leg.

Something was wrong with JD.

He had to help his little brother.

But his body again refused to listen to his brain's commands. Exhausted, he stopped for a minute. The smothering blackness he'd so recently escaped from was there, close...beckoning seductively. It promised an escape from the pain, the fear.

He resisted the call. He needed to help, needed to know what was going on.

They were in danger. He knew this. Knew his friends, his family, were in trouble. Something threatened them, someone. Someone close by.

And then he realized what he'd been missing, searching for, for five years.

Chris! He had to tell Chris. Warn him...

The vice around his chest tightened. He couldn't breathe at all now, couldn't move, couldn't escape from the crushing pain. The blackness boiled closer. He couldn't fight anymore, he had to get away, get away from the pain...

The last thing he heard was heard JD's voice, loud, high pitched with fear, as Buck slid away from the agony of his body and let the blackness carry him away.

JD automatically jumped back from the bed when the alarm shrieked. Heart pounding, knees shaking so hard he could barely move, he managed a step forward but a nurse, running in pushing a cart laden with equipment, grabbed his arm and pulled him away. Kim appeared from somewhere and tried to lead him out the door but he resisted, watching with horrified eyes as a young, bald doctor helped the first nurse to shove a board under Buck's limp body and then started pounding on his chest. 'His ribs...he'll hurt his ribs...' JD started forward, intent only on stopping the doctor before he could do any more damage. He heard the man yell something, but he couldn't make out the words over the roaring in his ears. 'Someone turn off that damn alarm,' he thought dizzily.

Everything seemed to drift away...

And then someone was shaking him, hard. It hurt. He blinked and focused blearily on Chris Larabee in front of him. Chris' lips were moving but seemingly not in time with his voice. "...JD! JD, snap out of it. We've got to give them room to work."

Chris was dragging him away. Away from Buck. JD struggled. "Let go of me, damn it!" He'd never yelled at Chris like that before. "Buck needs me!"

He shot a look back over his shoulder. More and more people were crowding around Buck's bed. He had to get them away. Buck wouldn't like all those people hovering around him. When he was sick he liked to be alone. Curl up and lick his wounds in private. Just like Ezra, or Vin. Chris ought to know that, damn it. He'd known Buck for all these years and he didn't understand something so basic to his personality?

"JD!" Chris yelled again, in his ear. He manhandled the younger man around, so that he was facing the bed and the frenzied medical personnel. "JD," he said, softly now, sounding almost like his voice was shaking or he was crying or something. "JD, we've got to give them room to work. They've got to bring Buck back."

Back. JD's mind locked onto that word like a steel trap. Back from where? What the hell was Chris talking about? He wasn't making any sense.

And then-with a cold rush of fear, of horror, of sick realization-all the pieces fell into place and JD almost fell to his knees, kept on his feet only by Chris' iron grip on his arms. "Oh, God, oh Buck..."

Buck's heart had stopped again.

Back in the office, Josiah finally sat down on Vin's desk-pushing aside a large expandable file folder-and reached for the next file. Nathan had sorted them and stacked them neatly on Ezra's desk, with the spillover on the floor nearby. All the files, going back three years to the beginning of the team. The ones that might have posed a special threat to Ezra were flagged with bright pink stickies.

There were a disheartening lot of those. Josiah could almost hear Nathan's voice, grousing, "Ain't you ever met anybody you didn't piss off, Ezra?"

The file in Josiah's hand was a thick one. The label read, "Curran, Steven."

'Steven Curran.' Josiah closed his eyes briefly.

The Curran case had been Hell from the very first. Steven was the son of Arthur Curran, long suspected of being a major player in the criminal underworld. The FBI had been trying for more than twenty years to take him down and were salivating at the thought of getting him through his son. Three of Quantico's finest arrived in Denver, set on taking over the case.

Until they ran into the double brick wall of AD Orrin Travis and SAIC Chris Larabee.

Relegated to the sidelines, the FBI agents had proceeded to offer unwanted advice, annoy Chris and harass Ezra and Vin, who were going undercover. And then, the night before the two were to vanish into their new roles, one of Buck's old snitches from his Denver PD days had tipped him that Pelly O'Malley was now working for Steven Curran. Pelly had a long rap sheet in Denver and Chris and Buck had arrested him more than once. Worse than that, four years before Pelly O'Malley had been captured-after jumping bail-by a bounty hunter named Vin Tanner.

This threw the mission into a tailspin. Vin was eliminated from going under; likewise so were Chris and Buck. There wasn't enough time to set up suitable backgrounds for any of the other three members of Team Seven, and Ezra refused to go under with any of the Fibbies for back up. Chris probably could have ordered him to do it-well, Chris could have ordered and Ezra probably would have obeyed, but when Ezra pointed out that given a choice between a Feeb for backup and no backup at all, no backup would be safer, Chris had given in to the inevitable.

And so Ezra had gone under alone; he'd met Steven Curran and in an almost shockingly short time was Curran's confidant and had enough information to topple Steven Curran's power base.

But that wasn't enough for the FBI. They wanted Arthur Curran and insisted if Ezra just worked hard enough, stayed under longer, he could find the links that led from son to father.

The assignment dragged on. More and more time lapsed between Ezra's contacts with his team. Nathan fretted over the amount of weight Ezra was losing. Chris fumed over the lack of back up; he hated sending any of his men in without an "escape clause". Buck and JD would have worked around the clock to keep track of Ezra if they could have. And Vin and Josiah tracked down every lead, only to hit a dead end every time.

It blew up in their faces nine weeks later. When the smoke cleared Steven Curran was dead-shot by Ezra in self-defense-but his father's empire remained inviolate. The lead FBI agent had been infuriated, strongly hinting that Ezra hadn't found the link because Ezra didn't want to find the link. Fortunately-or maybe unfortunately given your point of view-Travis and Montgomery had hustled the agent out of there before blood was spilled.

Now Josiah frowned, leafing though the file folder. Steven Curran had a cousin, David. He'd been arrested in the fallout but was almost immediately released on bail and subsequently the DA had decided not to file any charges against him, citing a lack of direct evidence.

David-what was his last name? Josiah shuffled through the documents, looking: oh, yes, Waverly. Waverly? Something like that-had hurled shrieked insults and threats at Ezra during his bail hearing. That should have been enough right there to deny him bail but the ADA at the arraignment didn't press it. And Waverly...Josiah was pretty sure it was Waverly...his attorney had passed it off as "stress, shock, grief."

That had been almost six months ago. Would someone really wait that long to go after the man he blamed for his cousin's death?

Josiah reached for the phone. He wanted to know where David Waverly was now.

"Josiah?"

Startled, the profiler looked up. Bobby Fewell stood in the doorway.

'Now that's the last person I want to see right now.' "Can I help you, son?" he asked politely and, for Josiah, insincerely.

"This came by messenger, just now. I said I'd bring it up to you." Bobby held out a business-sized manila envelope. "JD around?"

"I imagine he's at the hospital." Josiah took the envelope, studying it. Just a plain brown envelope, with "For ATF Team Seven" written in black magic marker on the outside. A small red mark in the upper left hand corner indicated it had cleared security check in the lobby.

"I really need to talk to JD," Bobby said. "I called him on his cell but there wasn't any answer."

Josiah tore his eyes away from the envelope to meet the younger agent's sulky expression. "He turns off his phone when he's at the hospital," he pointed out patiently. "You can call over there. Ask for the fourth floor ICU. They'll find him."

There was dismissal in his tone but it didn't seem to phase Bobby. "Guess you heard," he said abruptly.

"Heard what?"

"I've been transferred." There was no mistaking the angry tone of voice.

"Oh?" Josiah asked carefully. "Well, that was always the plan, wasn't it?"

Bobby snorted. "You don't have to act so innocent. I was supposed to be in Denver for another couple of months. Now all of a sudden I'm being shipped off to Boise. Boise! Most nothing post in the country! And it's all his fault." Bobby jerked a scornful thumb towards Chris' office.

Josiah sighed. He should sit down with the boy; counsel with him, gently lead him to see the error of his ways.

Either that or knock the crap out of him.

But he was too tired and too worried-worried about important things: his brothers, Buck and Ezra-to waste any energy on one spoiled blue blood wanna-be agent.

Both of them looked up as the door flew open and Vin and Nathan came in. "Josiah, any-" Vin started, then he saw Bobby and his eyes narrowed. "You need somethin', Fewell?" his soft voice was cold.

Before Bobby could say anything, Josiah played peacemaker. "He just stopped in to see JD."

Vin was stressed and on edge and it showed. "Since JD ain't here maybe you ought to just be movin' on."

Bobby laughed bitterly. "Oh, I'm doing that all right." He stepped toward the door. "Good luck finding Standish. I've heard snakes can be pretty hard to locate once they've slithered off."

Nathan caught Vin by the collar as the sharpshooter stalked toward the invader. "Vin," he said warningly. "He's not worth it. And we need to focus on Ezra."

Vin stood still, his face dark with rarely-seen anger. Finally he nodded his head once, turning away and effectively dismissing Bobby from his mind. "What we got?"

Josiah waited until the door had softly snicked shut before he briefed his two friends on the search efforts. "They're blanketing the city, all the outlying areas. Civil Air Patrol's got planes searching a grid pattern up in the mountains and SAR has dogs in the foothills near Chris' ranch."

Silence. None of them said what they knew they were all thinking. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Anything in the files?" Nathan said finally, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Maybe," Josiah answered, remembering. He turned slightly to pick up the thick folder he'd been studying when Bobby had entered. Nathan took it from him and Vin leaned over his shoulder, studying the face sheet. "Curran? You thinking maybe the father?"

"Actually I was thinking his cousin. Remember? David something. He was pretty upset with Ezra, especially when Internal Affairs cleared him of any wrong doing in that shooting."

Nathan snorted. "Upset is a mild way to put it." He shook his head, leafing through the file. "That guy was just as dirty as his cousin. Can't believe the DA didn't file charges."

"So we track down this David guy. What was it? Webber?"

"Think it was Waverly. Can't find it in the file."

"What's that?" Nathan asked, pointing to the envelope Josiah still clutched in his hand.

"Oh, this. Bobby brought it in. Said it was messengered over." Josiah reached over for Ezra's antique letter-opener and carefully slit the envelope as Nathan and Vin spread the file out on the desk in between them. "Guess the first place to start is at old man Curran's mansion..."

"Oh, God."

Nathan and Vin looked up at Josiah's whispered prayer. "Josiah? What is it?" Nathan stepped forward.

"It's a map."

Vin frowned. "A map of what?"

All three of them stared down at the single sheet of paper Josiah carefully laid on the desk. A hand drawn map of the mountains outside of Denver, with a large red X marked somewhere Vin mentally calculated to be about sixty miles from downtown. "But what-?"

Josiah carefully, almost reverently, with trembling hands, place the other item that had been in the envelope on the desk.

It was a Polaroid picture of Ezra Standish.

tbc…