Disclaimers can be found in Chapter 1

Chapter 5:

Martin woke slowly. His head was pounding and even with his eyes closed he was certain the room was spinning. For several minutes he lay still slowly allowing his mind to piece together all the signals his body was telling him. After moving past the crushing pain in his skull, he realized that his shoulder, arms and back were tense, aching and in some cases numb. Not wanting to move more than he had to he concentrated on those parts of his body and before long realized he was handcuffed, his hands behind him and that he was laying on his side on a hard surface.

Working further down his body he read the nerve impulses from his legs and recognized those messages as aches and pains akin to bruises and cuts but nothing broken. He didn't remember why he was so relieved that nothing was broken, he just knew that he was relieved. After laying still and cataloguing the various aches and pains in his body, he gradually became aware that he wasn't hearing the typical noise associated with being in a city. His sense of smell also became clear and he realized that he smelled a musty odor like stale air and perhaps even some moisture that hadn't been allowed to escape and had developed a bit of mildew in some hidden corner.

Finally he decided it was time to make the big move and open his eyes. He was more than slightly surprised to find that it was difficult to open his eyes. He struggled to open both eyes and realized that they felt stuck together. After a few tries he was able to open them and the room he was in slowly spun in and out of focus. He felt a wave of nausea rush over him and he gasped and slammed his eyes shut again as he rode out the dizzy spell.

After a few minutes he felt the dizziness ease and he slowly opened his eyes again. As the room swam into view again he noticed that something had changed. Now in front of him were two blue jean clad legs that ended in a pair of hiking boots. Not wanting to lift his head he just lay there in a partial stupor as he tried to remember whose legs went with those jeans, something in the back of his mind was trying to break through, and he knew he was supposed to grasp it.

The figure in front of him squatted down to look at him closer. Martin dazedly blinked several times trying to clear his eyes and remove what he now suspected was dried blood from his eyelids so he could focus on the person in front of him. The figure in front of him blurred in and out of focus and he couldn't keep the features clear.

"Help me." Martin uttered weakly. His mouth was dry and his throat was dry and the words scraped raw along his vocal chords.

"Martin, you couldn't just leave it alone could you. No, that's too much to ask. I knew you'd figure it out, thought it would take a little bit longer though tell you the truth, buddy."

Martin stared stupidly at the figure, his head was threatening to split wide open and he couldn't understand what it was he was supposed to have figured out. The voice was familiar. He struggled to focus on the features of the man in front of him. Why didn't the man help him? Was help on the way? Where were they? As he succumbed again to the beckoning darkness he tried once more.

"Help."

The man laughed at Martin's plea and watched his eyes roll back in his head as he slipped back unconscious. This hadn't been in his plan, at least not yet, but the thrill was all in the danger and in the willingness to walk on the edge. Well, he was walking on the edge now, and he was going to enjoy it as long as he could.

Getting up he toed Martin's unconscious form a couple times as if to reassure himself that he was, in fact, unconscious. When Martin didn't react to that or when he was rolled full on his back, pinning his handcuffed hands and arms beneath him, he was satisfied and headed out of the little cabin.

MPU Interview Room #1:

"Sit down, Agent Spade."

Samantha pulled out the chair and sat across from Agent Mitchell eyeing him warily.

"How long have you known Agent Fitzgerald?"

"About five years."

"How did you meet?"

"When he joined the MPU."

"And that was five years ago?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Now, did you know him prior to him joining the MPU?"

"Like I already said, he joined the MPU five years ago and that's when I met him."

"Okay. How has your working relationship with Agent Fitzgerald been over the five years?"

"Very good."

"What does that mean?"

"What does what mean?"

"Very good. What does that mean?"

"It means it's been very good." Sam was fast losing what was left of her patience.

"All right. Have you ever seen Agent Fitzgerald angry?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When was he angry?"

"Yes. When did you see Agent Fitzgerald angry?"

"I don't know – I don't recall a specific date and time."

"Well, is he angry a lot of the time, a little of the time?"

"It's rare."

"But you have seen him angry?"

"Yes."

"And did that cause you concern?"

"What, seeing him angry?"

"Yes, did seeing him angry cause you concern?"

"No."

"Why is that?"

"People get angry, Agent Mitchell, I see angry people every single day." And you're about to see me angry if you keep this up, Sam thought to herself while out loud she was saying: "Sometimes I get angry. The fact that Agent Fitzgerald got angry occasionally did not then nor does it now, cause me any concern."

"Okay. Thank you. Now, you and Agent Fitzgerald dated for a while didn't you?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

"Well, Agent Spade, with all due respect I'll decide what is or is not my business. Did you and Agent Fitzgerald date?"

"Why are you doing this? You want to know if Agent Fitzgerald was ever angry and now you want to know if we dated, this is ridiculous. You're taking scattered pieces and trying to recreate an image that you already have. You're trying to pin these murders on Martin without looking at the facts. I showed your partner Clark the list that Martin had been working on. He didn't kill those women, he figured out who did and he went after him."

"Agent Spade, please just answer the question. I'm not getting into your little theory at this moment. We'll look at all the evidence but so far all that list does is confirm that Agent Fitzgerald was in all of the places at the time the women were murdered and that keeps him at the top of our suspect list, so I'll ask you again, did you and Agent Fitzgerald date?"

"Yes, Agent Fitzgerald and I dated for a period of time." Sam gritted her teeth as she answered the question.

"Thank you. When you were dating, did you ever have any concern about his temper, that he might hit you?"

"Absolutely not!" Sam was shocked and blurted out her answer angrily.

"When you and Agent Fitzgerald were dating was he ever rough with you?"

"No, never." Sam emphasized coldly.

"Was he ever rough or kinky with you when it came to sex?"

"This interview is over." Sam stood up so quickly the chair she had been seated on was overbalanced and fell backwards to the floor.

She moved quickly to the door but the sharp voice of Agent Mitchell stopped her.

"Agent Spade, if you really want to help Agent Fitzgerald, you'll answer the question, otherwise, we'll just have to go more public with this interview and involve a whole lot of people. It will get very embarrassing, very quickly, and we're trying to avoid that if at all possible."

Sam turned, keeping her hand resting on the door knob and stared balefully at Agent Mitchell.

"No, he was never rough with me. No, he never wanted to 'do it' in any kinky ways or places, no, he never demanded anything of me sexually." She nearly spit the words out. God, but this man was an ass!

"Thank you, Agent Spade. That will be all the questions for now, but –"

Sam hadn't waited to hear what Agent Mitchell was saying. Once she heard "that will be all" she jerked open the door so hard it slammed into the wall from the force of her action. Quickly and noisily she stalked down the hallway stopping only when she reached the bullpen and saw it empty. Scanning the area quickly she saw Elena waving her to the conference room where she sat with Vivian while Danny paced the room.

Sam made her way to the conference room pausing to look across the hall to Jack's office where he looked up and met her eye, his expression blank.

1:00 p.m. MPU Monday May 20th, 2007

Vivian, Danny, Elena and Sam were gathered in the conference room that continued to serve as Agents Mitchell and Clark's pseudo office. They were surrounded by photos and files and timelines of the missing women that were known or suspected to be connected to this murderer. Jack appeared at the door and stepped inside, behind him waiting impatiently in the bullpen, stood Mitchell and Clark.

"We're going to be upstairs with Van Doren for a little while. They've been nice enough to include me in their little briefing." The sarcasm in Jack's voice was unmistakable.

"Now, not for a second do I believe Martin is capable of any of this and all they've got is a load of circumstantial evidence and a lot of speculation. While we're gone I need you guys to make copies of everything they have on Martin as well as get copies of everything Lucy is getting off his computer. I'm not about to withhold information from them, but I can't say they'd be so open with us, and I don't want anything to be missed."

With that Jack left them and headed upstairs with Agents Mitchell and Clark.

Vivian took over and divvied up the work. "Okay. Elena and I will make sure we have duplicates of all their notes as well as their summaries of these cases around us. We also have the notes Martin left at his apartment and all his financials and phone records. We'll continue going through them and make copies. Danny, why don't you and Sam get with Lucy and see what she's got on her search of Martin's computer and see if you can assist her in copying everything there as well."

The team split up and Danny and Sam headed to the tech room where Lucy was hard at work. She looked up and gave them a small smile as they gave a quick knock on the door to alert her and then stepped in.

"Hey, guys, I'm glad it's you. I wanted to show you this before those other two started hounding me about what I've found."

Danny and Sam came around to stand behind her while she gave them a quick rundown of what she'd found so far. "Martin's computer is pretty straightforward. He does have some pretty good virus protection on there, and he does do a fair bit of internet searching, from what I can tell most of it is things like all of us do, online banking, some occasional shopping, emails to friends – which are downloaded onto this disc to be read, glad I don't have to do it, too creepy to read someone's personal emails – anyway he's been taking an online investigator's course as well as taking some business law courses over the past couple of years, either he just likes to learn or he's keeping his skills sharp or there's another career in the future, don't know but those are all straightforward.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. I've tracked his latest internet searches starting this past Friday night, and several times over the weekend. He accessed a database that tracks and filters newspaper articles. He was very specific about the types of articles he searched for and before you ask…"Lucy stopped Danny from speaking when he only had his mouth partway opened. "I've already printed the articles out, and they're in this folder right here."

Lucy tapped a blue folder to her right; Danny scooped it up and started flipping through the pages. "I also made a duplicate file for those other two." Sam and Danny both grinned as Lucy's disdain for Agents Mitchell and Clark manifested itself in a deepening of her Brooklyn accent.

"Now, those articles he was so interested in have to do with missing women in not only Seattle, Washington; Durango and Vail, Colorado; Washington D.C. as well as Crystal Lake, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; and Sacramento, California as well as good old New York City.

The other really interesting thing on his computer is a file that he's password protected and that he just created about 6:00 p.m. last night. Whatever is on the file I haven't had a chance to get to yet, and it will take a little bit of time to get through his password."

Sam and Danny exchanged quick glances and then leaned forward over Lucy's shoulder to see the file she was highlighting on the screen. The file name was 'Maltese Falcon'

Danny grinned and Sam gave him a slightly irritated look. "Did you try Sam Spade?" She suggested to Lucy.

"Yep, also tried, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Petter Lorre, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, John Huston, Dashiell Hammett, even tried the year it was made, 1941, nothing, zip, nada." Lucy informed them.

"Except it doesn't have anything to do with the movie; it has to do with Sam." Danny told her.

"Which is why I tried your name, where you're from, your birthday, your address, the color of your eyes, I'm out of ideas." Lucy looked at Sam fingers poised ready for the next suggestion.

Sam looked uncomfortable and then said quietly "Try any variation of May 20th 2004."

"Okay." Lucy went to work trying the various ways of inputting that date. Danny gave Sam a crooked little grin and nudged her with his elbow. "So what's the thing with May 20th, 2004?"

She glared at him and he met her glare head on with his cocky grinning face. "Wipe that smile of your face, Taylor. Elena and I are friends. I have no problem with having a girl talk session with her about you, if you don't cut it out."

Danny held up his hands in surrender. "All right. All right. Just asking, must have been special though if you remember the date and figure that Martin did, too."

"Special…" Sam's voice trailed off as she sifted through her memories of her and Martin. Danny was right, Martin would choose a password that's special.

"Come on, Spade, did you two have any pet names for each other, places you liked to go, besides the obvious."

"We didn't have nicknames for each other and as for special places to go…I usually held him back. I just…" Sam's voice faded away as a bittersweet memory started to surface.

"I know, Sam. You just weren't ready to go public. Still there has to be something, some special moment between the two of you that only you would know." Danny was watching her closely and could see the gears shifting in her head.

Lucy remained quiet, she knew this team was close and had guessed that Martin and Sam had perhaps been a bit closer than the rest but she wasn't into office gossip, her job was to open this file and do whatever it took to find their missing agent, so she just sat quietly and waited.

"Lucy, try…" Sam paused for a moment, while she hoped this was the right password a part of her also hoped it wasn't because it would just be a reminder of how she had played such a large part in their failed relationship. "Try, 'College Girl'."

Lucy nodded and tapped the appropriate keys and instantly the file opened.

On the screen appeared a list similar to the one that Vivian and Sam had found at Martin's apartment only this one contained more details. Next to the dates for the missing women and the locations where they went missing were the names of the "guys" Martin had alluded to in his handwritten list.

"Lucy, print that file and then I need you to go through his email and get the addresses of these names. Also, does he keep phone numbers and addresses in his email files?" Sam was starting to feel a ray of hope. Martin, I knew you'd leave us a trail to follow.

"Yeah, I checked his email address book when I printed his emails, names, addresses, phone numbers, even birthdays, kids' names, everything. He's very systematic."

"Remind me not to tease him so much about being so detail-oriented when we catch up with him." Danny said, like Sam he was feeling some hope.

Leaving Lucy to pull down the personal information from Martin's electronic address book, Sam and Danny took seats at the small conference table in the middle of the bullpen and started reading the list Martin had been compiling.

"All right. He's got August 2001, rock climbing, Mt. Rainier: Steven, Cameron, Daniel.

Next there's July 2002 apartment warming in NYC, Steven, Cameron, Daniel and Tyler. In 2004 he's listed February, ski trip, Tyler, Steven, Cameron, Daniel. There's also a golf weekend in DC in 2006, Steven, Cameron, Daniel and Tyler and Aunt Bonnie's funeral, but he hasn't listed any names."

"Yeah, and on this second page he's listed dates for Chicago and Sacramento as well, but he hasn't put any names to the dates. Sam, where did you and Viv put the calendars that you brought from Martin's apartment?"

"They're here on Viv's desk." When Danny gave her a little crooked smile she hastened to add, "We weren't keeping them from Mitchell, he just didn't ask for them, yet."

Danny winked at her and then grabbed the calendar books. He checked the dates that Martin had logged on his computer and flipped the various calendars to those dates. In frustration he tossed them back on the table.

"Nothing. There's no notes or memos about any of these guys he's already listed that correspond. In fact, he was here during all of those dates."

"So that is something we can use. It proves Martin was here during all those women's disappearances."

"Yes, it does. Hey, do any of those articles talk about the condition of the women's bodies when they were found?"

"Let me see, " Sam rapidly scanned the half dozen or so articles Martin had printed off. "None of these articles indicate these women have been found, just that they've gone missing."

"Any of those articles recent or are they just the articles written when the women went missing?" Danny was anticipating the answer and headed to his computer while Sam was replying.

"No, they're all articles to do with when the women went missing." She watched as Danny accessed the missing person's database and called out the first name to him without him having to ask. One by one they went through all the missing women's names and one by one all the responses came back the same, none of the women had yet been found.

"So, it's enough to show that he wasn't there when the women went missing, but we have no way to tie those disappearances to these current murders." Sam found the bloom of hope fading away inside her.

"No, just like we're arguing circumstantial evidence against Martin's involvement in any of this, Mitchell and Clark will turn that argument back on us and say there's no indication those disappearances have anything to do with Martin and that perhaps he was just laying a false trail."

Danny leaned back in his chair and absently swiveled side to side as his mind went over what they already knew. His mind kept returning to the grim site of that tree branch with the dried blood smeared on it and the dried blood stain in the dirt at the bottom of the hill.

It was impossible to tell just how much blood had soaked into the ground and how much had already been devoured by the bugs, so he kept reminding himself not to think the worst but he knew it was Martin's blood even though the lab analysis on the branch hadn't returned yet. How badly was Martin hurt? Was he still bleeding? Was he even still alive?

After a few moments he focused on Sam and watched her as she sifted and sorted through the various newspaper articles without seeming to concentrate on them. He knew he wasn't the only one having moments when concentrating was difficult. Sam paused in her actions as she realized that Danny has walked to her side and placed his hand lightly on her shoulder.

"What?"

Danny waited a moment not wanting to push Sam too much; for he knew if he did she would put up a strong front, hide her emotions and not bend.

"You know we'll find him, right?" he tried to reassure her instead.

"Yes... no, honestly, I'm not sure we'll find him" she kept her eyes locked on the name over the file Martin Fitzgerald, her vision blurred on the words as she tried to hold the tears back that had been threatening to flood her eyes.

"We will, Sam" he repeated, and in an effort to lighten the mood and he put a small smile on his face and added, "So I can ask him."

"Ask him what?" Sam asked absently, fingers lightly outlining Martin's name on the folder.

"How you knew how to open that file." he smiled genuinely now "You won't tell
me, right?"

She smiled back and blushed ever so slightly. "He called me that once." A small sad smile danced on her face as her eyes took on a distant look.

Danny grinned a bit and then softly asked, "When?"

Sam shook herself out of her reverie and looked squarely at him. "It was just after Jack got me out of the bookstore, when I had been shot. The EMTs were loading me into the ambulance and Martin was there. I was so cold and shaking, I was going into shock and I – I was shaking so badly and he just put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Hey, College Girl." I don't know, Danny, it made me feel better somehow. Silly I suppose, he never called me that again, but at that moment, I felt better."

Danny was about to reply when Lucy zipped into the bullpen with a stack of papers. "Here's all the addresses and phone numbers from his electronic address books."

Vivian and Elena appeared with stacks of folders and looked curiously at the pile in front of Danny and Sam. They brought the other two up to speed on what they had found and the team settled in for a round at the phones. Martin's address book showed two Stevens and two Tylers so it was going to make their calls that much more difficult but they were hard at work for the next couple of hours and failed to do more than just glance up as Jack and Agents Mitchell and Clark returned from Van Doren's office.

Mitchell and Clark barely paid any attention to the intense activity in the bullpen but Jack stopped for a moment and watched his team in action. He could tell from their body language they were on the lead of something and the way each member sat in their chair or worked the phone he sensed that whatever they had found was positive for Martin's good name.

As much as he wanted to join them and have them bring him up to speed, he didn't want to let Mitchell and Clark out of his sight while they were speaking with Lucy and getting an update on Martin's computer. So, trusting his agents' efforts and knowing they would fill him in before long, he continued along the corridor until he reached the tech room and stepped inside and listened while Lucy filled in Mitchell and Clark on the results of her work.

Jack glanced at the clock at the back of the tech room when he entered, 3:45 p.m. The general rule of thumb when tracking a missing person was that after 48 hours the odds of finding them alive diminished significantly. Since they didn't have an exact time of when Rachel Sanders was attacked and drove off in Martin's car, they didn't have an exact time to start the clock. Had it already been 12 hours or had it been more like 18? Was he even still alive? Jack knew they were doing everything right to find Martin, he just didn't know if it was going to be enough.

TBC…