Leland Stottlemeyer was perturbed. No, he was more than perturbed. He was furious, and with good reason. He and his fellow police officers put their lives at risk daily only to see some really bad people let out of jail through early parole or pardon. It seemed that the more connections that one had the more likely that was to happen, which is why he became so angry when the outgoing governor's pardon list was released to the press earlier that morning. On it were several names that he had helped to put behind bars. Murderers, human traffickers, drug kingpins, the dregs of society. Politics was often such a crooked game and nothing was more crooked then letting some of these folks off with time served for some of the most heinous crimes. The love of money is the root of all evil, and nobody loves money more than a crooked politician. Oh, if life were only the way he wanted it.

He had no soon slammed the newspaper down on the desk when in walked Monk with Natalie by his side. Startled at her frail appearance, Leland did not let on and instead leapt up from his seat to greet her with a gentle hug. "Natalie! It is so good to see you! Monk. Good to see you too."

Natalie looked a Captain Stottlemeyer with curiosity, but otherwise did not respond.

"Here, why don't you sit down over here for a few minutes and rest. You look tired." He continued.

"We're not going to stay here very long, Captain." Said Monk "We stayed so long at the park earlier today that the time got away from us. I need to run and pick up some things from the store so I can get Natalie home before Julie comes to pick her up."

"Oh, I see. Well I'm glad you stopped by and let me see her since she is back in town. We'll have to catch up soon." Stottlemeyer responded, and then pulled Monk to the side. "How is she really, Monk? She looks so sad and worn out."

"Not good." Monk responded, "But I think a little better as the day has worn on. She's in a very deep pit right now. It may be a while before she crawls out of it, but we've got to be patient. "

Leland nodded

"Different subject." Monk continued. "What were you yelling about when we came in?"

Stottlemeyer put one hand on his hip and stroked his jaw before looking at Monk with an exasperated look. "Oh, just the pathetic excuse of justice in the governor's pardon. Do you know that several of these guys are from cases that we worked on together? I don't know, is it worth it?" he explained handing Monk the newspaper.

Monk perused the list of names and then threw the paper down himself. "They spit on the victims every time they pull a stunt like this. How sad. Anything we can do?"

"No, it's a done deal" Stottlemeyer replied. "I'll bet some of them are already out."

"Sickening." Monk said, shaking his head. "But what can we do?"

Leland shook his head. "Not a thing. Not a darn thing."

"Aside from that, everything okay?" Monk inquired.

"Well, aside from this, things have been eerily quite these days. I can't help feel like it is the calm before the storm." Stottlemeyer said.

"I had wondered what was going on. I hadn't been called for case for a few weeks." Adrian replied. "I thought maybe you didn't like me anymore." He smiled.

"Ha! No, not that at all. Adrian Monk, you're the best, most brilliant detective I've ever known, and I'm glad you are on our side. I can't imagine if that brilliant intellect were used for nefarious purposes. Makes me shutter. You wouldn't want to run for Governor, would you?"

Monk laughed. "Yeah, right. I'd never get anything done. Have you seen all the posts and columns in the state capitol? No thank you."

Just then he looked over at Natalie who was falling asleep in her chair. "Awe, look at her. I really need to get her home." Said Adrian.

"Okay," Leland responded. "Keep me up to date on how she's doing. We've got to get our girl healthy again. She's too valuable to lose."

"Yes. She is. She's way too valuable to me to let her spend the rest of her days like this." Adrian said as he gently tapped Natalie on the arm. "Natalie, wake up. Time to start heading home."

Natalie opened her sleepy eyes and looked at Adrian with a sense of peace and contentment. She stood up to go and as they began walking, she put her hand around his arms just like she had done so many times before. He stopped and looked at her and smiled. Then, he continued walking her out to the car.

The shadowy figure kept pace behind Adrian's car as he pulled into the grocery store parking lot.

Adrian looked over at Natalie who had fallen asleep again.

"Bless your heart. I'm afraid I've worn you out." he said to Natalie who barely opened her eyes. "You just stay right here and rest. I'm going to run inside and pick up some bread and eggs and something for lunch tomorrow."

Adrian exited the car and locked the car doors behind him. He opened his jacket and pulled out a packet of bleach infused wipes he saved just for this occasion. He shuddered to think how many germs were on the grocery cart handle. Grabbing a cart from the corral, he wiped it down and entered the store.

Monk had the aisles memorized, and immediately headed to aisle 1 for the bread, aisle 5 for some chicken for the next day's lunch, and aisle 8 for some eggs and cheese. When he reached aisle 8 a grocery clerk walked up to him and watched him quietly. Adrian stopped and looked at the young man and said "Good afternoon" as he returned to the shelves where the eggs sat and then began to open the carton and take two eggs out.

"I knew it was you!" the clerk exclaimed.

"Excuse me?"a startled Adrian asked.

"You're the one leaving two eggs behind every week. Not this time buddy. You take them all or you're not leaving the store with any eggs. Do you know how much of a mess those things make when you just leave them out like that? Inevitably, they fall on the floor and then guess who gets to clean them up! Take them all or none at all."

"Don't be ridiculous" Adrian responded. "I want 10 eggs. I don't want a dozen eggs. 10 is a much more round number. Why would anyone choose 12 as the number? And besides, the customer is always right!"

"Not this time. Nothing but 100% full egg cartons are going out of here today." The clerk said as he opened Adrian's egg cart and put the two eggs back inside.

"Now, look what you've done!" Adrian said. "You've gone and run your grubby hands on the eggs."

"So?" said the clerk.

"So, now I have to get another carton." Adrian put the carton back that the clerk had touched and went for another carton – opening it up and once again removing two eggs.

"Security! We have a problem in aisle 8" the clerk said through a walkie-talkie device.

"What? Are you kidding me?" Adrian responded , as a very tall guard came up and stood before them.

"What's the problem, Pete?" the guard asked.

"This is the two-egg guy…" the clerk responded.

"The two-egg guy? Shouldn't it be the ten-egg guy? Technically, I take 10 eggs, not 2." Adrian joked, though it sounded perfectly reasonable to him.

"Alright Mister." the guard responded. "You either take the full carton or you get no eggs today, you understand?"

"This is ridiculous!" Adrian responded.

"Do you understand?" the guard asked towering over Adrian.

A few minutes later, Adrian paid the cashier as the bag boy put the last bag in his cart.

"Are you making custard or something?" the cashier asked?

"Ma'am?" Adrian responded.

"Are you making custard? I've never seen someone check out with five cartons of eggs before." She replied. "Seems like you're making custard for a platoon or something."

"Oh" he smiled. "No. I bought 5 cartons because 12 times 5 is 60."

The woman looked at him with confusion. "So?"

Well, 60 divided by 10 is 6. I have an empty carton at home that I was going to recycle and figured I might as well make it even."

"Uh, if you say so." The cashier responded.

Just then, someone came into the store asking "does anyone in here drive a Black Camry? Your car is on fire."

Adrian stopped for a moment then dropped the money on the counter, turning his head to look outside. "Natalie!" He ran outside.

By now, the car was fully engulfed in flames, and with a full tank of gas he was fearful there would be an explosion. Visions of Trudy's vehicle popped in his head as he ran towards the car.

"Mister! Stay away! That think is bound to blow." Yelled a bystander.

"Natalie! I have to save Natalie!" he said, as a larger man grabbed him by his arms and held him back.

"You talkin' about that blond headed woman?" another person said.

Just then, the car exploded and Adrian dropped to his knees in tears. "Natalie!""" He tried to jump back up and run into the flames when the larger man intervened.

"She ain't there, Mister. She ain't there." Said the bystander.

"Whuh…what?" said Adrian in despair. "She was in the car…"

"I saw some dude in a silver SUV take her out of the car about 10 minutes ago and drive away. He left something in your seat. That must have started the fire. But that lady wasn't in there."

In confused horror, Monk looked between the stranger and the car. As the flames died down a bit, Adrian could see that indeed there was no body in the front seat. Breathlessly he picked up his cell phone. "Captain." he stammered "this is Adrian. Adrian Monk. They've got Natalie!"