Chapter Sixteen: Lonely and Gone

Sam's cell phone rang in the middle of the night so when she arrived at the office about an hour later she was anything but happy. There had been no leads and Jack had sent them home with the order to sleep so that they could be fresh the next morning. Now he was breaking his own order, she saw, as she joined both Vivian and Elena at the table near their desks. They all looked like something the cat dragged in, having been awakened from the few hours of sleep they'd managed to sneak in. Not even two minutes after sitting down she learned that neither of the other women knew what they were doing in the office so late. Or was it extremely early? Sam was afraid to look at her watch to find out. Instead she looked around the office, with most of the lights turned off and them being the only people around it took on a different look. It was almost kind of creepy. She only glanced at the white board where a picture of Danny Taylor had been hanged. Martin had good taste in men; she had to give him that. She just hoped that they could find the lawyer before something happened to break Martin's heart.

She felt herself drifting off to sleep when she heard the clack of shoes on the floor. Trying hard to stay awake she watched as the object of her affection walked toward them. She could tell by the way he was dressed that he hadn't even gone home. He'd been in his office, probably got a few minutes of sleep on his couch.

"Jack, why are we here so damn early…or late…whatever time it is," she said, suppressing a yawn.

"Where is Martin?" he asked.

Vivian looked at her boss with tired eyes. "You put him on suspension."

"I wasn't asking…." He leaned on the table and looked at Sam. "Where is Martin?"

"How should I know? I'm not keeping tabs on him."

"Bullshit," growled Jack. "I don't know what it is that you're hiding but despite what you think, it's not going to help this case. Where the hell is he?"

"I don't know," Sam nearly yelled, all the sleep vanishing from her body. Why had she gotten up at this ungodly hour only to be yelled at by her boss?

Elena finally chose to speak up. "What's going on, Jack?"

The three of them watched as Jack walked over to the board and tore the picture of Danny from its spot. He slammed it down on the table in front of Sam, the sound making the three women jump, shaking away the last tendrils of sleep. "I want to know everything right now, Sam. Who is this guy and what does he have to do with Martin? And don't lie to me."

She swallowed nervously. It wouldn't be fair to out Martin to his co-workers without his consent but she wasn't sure she had any other choice. He would understand in the long run because that's the kind of guy that he was, right? She gazed at the picture of Danny, looking into his brown eyes and thinking about what kind of person he was. "Fine. But you're asking me to betray the confidence that Martin has in me."

"I don't care."

"Danny Taylor, born Danny Alvarez, as you all know," she started, "is a lawyer. He's a recovering alcoholic. His brother, Raphael Alvarez, is an ex-convict who's trying to make an honest life for himself, his girl and their child."

Jack's eyes got dark. "We already know all of that."

"Danny is Martin's…" she found that it wasn't that easy to say the words. She let out a sigh, composing herself. "They met in a bar and got to talking. They became friends. They became more…than friends."

"Boyfriends?" Vivian voiced with surprise.

Sam only nodded.

Jack didn't miss a beat. "Why would he fail to tell me that his boyfriend was missing?"

"Because someone threatened him," Sam said. "They wanted him to stall the investigation. That's why he started acting weird. Yesterday I ran into him on the street and he was hanging out with Raphael. He told me that he had planned the arrest so that you would kick him out of the office for a while."

"Why?"

"So he could work at finding Danny in ways that the FBI probably wouldn't like," she said in a hushed voice.

Elena jumped on the pause. "What is this all about?"

Jack finally sat in one of the empty chairs. He looked at Sam, slightly ignoring the other two. "I wish that I had known this before hand. I wish…then I wouldn't be sitting here about to tell you this…"

"What happened?" Sam asked, she could already feel the tears building up.

"The people that threatened him, that kidnapped Danny, they were never after the lawyer," he told them. "They used Danny as bait. Martin was their real target, probably because of who is father is. They wanted him, a Fitzgerald."

"And?" asked Vivian, her voice so quiet that it was almost a whisper.

"They got him."

--

Roughly an hour earlier…

Jack had been trying to figure out the meanings of the clues left behind at the office. All the work that the team did kept coming up short. There was nothing in Danny's past that would prompt someone to do him bodily harm. Then only cause he could see for things to go wrong was if someone wanted to reach his brother, Raphael, by targeting his brother. But even traveling down that road he was unable to find any hard evidence. Danny's brother had been clean for half a year and seemed to be on the up and up. That's when he started to think about Martin's behavior, the fact that Sam was hiding something from him. It all made sense now, in a fogy, missing pieces, kind of way. And then he'd gotten the call.

The call that took him to the hospital.

He though maybe he would find Martin or maybe even Danny.

Instead he stood face to face with Raphael Alvarez. The ex-con was laid up in the hospital bed with a broken arm and cut to his head. Jack wanted to know why the ex-con had the hospital contact him. And that's when Rafi told him about Martin.

About how they had taken Martin.

And that's when the biggest piece slid into place.

They were targeting the FBI, specifically by going after Victor Fitzgerald and the only way to touch him was through his only son.