Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Hope you guys like this chapter. I'll try to update again this weekend.

It's funny how traumatic events can really make you think about how you view a person. Take Sofia, for instance. At first, I didn't really like her. After all, she was Day Shift, on Ecklie's team, and God knows how much I can't stand that self-absorbed pain-in-the-ass. I didn't particularly like how she worked with the team, especially after Ecklie split us up. But… the more I got to know her, the more I realized she really wasn't at all like Ecklie. She was smart, sassy, tough… and I could tell that Nick and Grissom liked her. If Nick and Grissom liked her, I trusted them.

All these things rushed through my brain as I stared at Sofia's phone on the pavement. The lights of the police cars ran across the window panes of the diner. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I whipped around to see Grissom standing behind me, his expression completely unreadable. "God, Grissom," I snapped. "Scare the crap outta me, why don't you?"

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Brass called me." He motioned to Jim Brass and Nick, who were interviewing the waitress again. "Anything new?"

"Nah," I sighed. "The waitress didn't see anything, and there was no one else in the diner." I pulled a glove over my hand and picked up Sofia's phone. "I guess she dropped this when she got grabbed."

"Sofia's not one to go easy," Grissom observed. He pulled out a flashlight and shone it around the area. His light came to rest on something that glinted in the high-powered light. "Catherine."

I grunted as I stood. And no, I'm not getting old. I leaned down next to Grissom, immediately taking a whiff of his unique scent. "Looks like blood," I said quietly.

"One way to find out." He cocked his head slightly as his blue eyes met mine. He pulled out a swab and dipped the swab in the sticky fluid on the pavement. Grissom held it up and added some LCV to it. The swab turned a bright pink. "Definitely blood."

"Sofia's?" I braced myself for his opinion.

Grissom shrugged. "I have no idea. I doubt she wouldn't have put up a fight. She's pretty tough. Her DNA's on file at the lab; we'll check it out when we get back." I saw him glance down at the cloth next to Sofia's phone.

"I could smell chloroform on it when we first got here," I pointed out as I followed him to its resting place.

He picked it up gently with his gloved hand and took a sniff. "Definitely chloroform. We'll get Hodges to run a chemical analysis when we get back." Suddenly he furrowed his brow, like he usually does when he sees something that might have initially been missed. He took out a pair of tweezers and picked something off the cloth. In the light it looked a lot like…

"A hair," I said incredulously.

Grissom raised his eyebrows. "Specifically a short brown hair."

My mouth fell open. "Sofia's a blonde," I said, stating the obvious.

"Safe to say that she didn't contribute this particular piece of forensic evidence." Grissom slipped the hair into a small envelope and sealed it.

"Hey." I looked up to see Nick walk over to us, his handsome face weirdly contorted with worry. He sighed wearily. "The waitress didn't see a thing. She said that a dark colored sedan might have been parked at the far end of the lot when Sofia pulled up, but it's not there now. She didn't get a make or model."

I glanced at Grissom. He cocked his head at me again. "Well, let's go check it out."

"Look, Catherine," Nick interrupted, his drawl emphasized by his concern. "I'm all for the forensics and everything, but I think we should hit the streets and try to find her."

I could feel Grissom's eyes burning into me, but I tried to ignore them. "Forensics saved you, Nicky," I said quietly, putting one hand on his muscular shoulder. "Forensics is what's gonna save her."

Nick sighed in resignation. "I know… it's just that…"

"I know, Nicky." I gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. "I wanna find her too. But to find her, we need to make sure we get a complete picture of the scene." I shot him a quick grin as I held out my hand for help up. Ever the gentleman, Nick obliged and gently pulled me to my feet. As we walked to the other side of the lot, my mind whirled. Nick wasn't like this before… well, before hewas held hostage. Was there something more going on with him and Sofia? I knew they were close. Hell, with a job like this, you can't help but get close to the ones you work with. Under any other circumstance, I'd be thrilled to pieces with them. I love playing matchmaker.

"Catherine." Nick interrupted my musings with a word and a nudge to my shoulder. I followed the beam of his light to a pair of tire tracks on the far side of the diner's parking lot.

"Hello, mother lode," I whispered. I pulled out my camera and snapped a couple of pictures, the flash whining as it cooled down. "Tire tracks."

"Acceleration marks," Nick observed as he squatted down next to them. "Someone was in a hurry."

"They could be old, Nick," I cautioned, not wanting to get his hopes up.

"Or they could be from Sofia's kidnapper," he insisted. "We should get back to the lab, have Hodges run them against makes and models." Without waiting for my reply, he turned on his heel and strode toward his car.

I shut my wide open mouth with a snap and slowly followed Nick to his car.

When I finally woke up from my chloroform induced sleep, my head felt like it was about to explode. Reminded me of the time I snuck out of my mom's house to go to a concert when I was thirteen. By the end of that night, with all the pot and the loud music and the jumping up and down, my head felt like it was three sizes too big. Needless to say, my mom the cop wasn't too thrilled about that.

My mom. I remember thinking about her when my head started to clear. I wondered if she was out looking at me. She still doesn't really talk about her side of everything too much.

My eyes felt as heavy as my head. I groaned with the effort of trying to open them, but they just wouldn't open. Finally the lids started to part. The wall in front of my was a kind of puke green, like you would see in a jail cell or the state mental hospital downtown.

Drip. Drip. Drip. I slowly turned my head to see a faucet on the other side of the room. Drops of water fell from it into the sink. Drip. Drip.

I moaned again and smacked my head on a metal pole behind me as I tried to move my hands. A thick plastic band held them together behind me, attaching my body to the pole. As my vision started to clear, I glanced down to see that my feet were tied with the same plastic band that cut into my ankles every time I tried to move them.

"Oh God," I whispered, starting to panic. I was somewhere incredibly unfamiliar, tied up by God-knows-who who wants to do God-knows-what to me. All I wanted was my mom. And Nick.

God, that thought scared me right then. I've never been one to really keep committed relationships. Sure, I had my fair share of male acquaintances, but their names would have never come up in a moment of dire need.

The door slammed open in front of me. I could feel my eyes go wide as my captor stood silhouetted in front of me. "Detective Curtis," he whispered.

I couldn't see anything except his eyes. Those same blue eyes that scared the crap out of me at the diner looked me up and down, but there was nothing in them except sheer hate. Out of pure instinct, I tried to pull my knees up to my chest.

He laughed mirthlessly when he saw my reaction to his appraisal. "Don't worry, Detective. I don't want to hurt you. Yet."

The way he said that word sent shivers up and down my spine, and I kept my mouth shut.

"I'm going to leave you now. I really just wanted to see if you were awake, and I really didn't want to try any other methods of waking you up." The shadow cocked his head, his voice dripping with sarcastic concern. "I'll be back soon." He paused in the doorway and turned on his heel toward me. "You know, you look so much like your mother." With that he slammed the door shut again.

My mother?

Drip. Drip. All that was left to keep me company was the sound of that damn faucet.

I consider myself a fairly strong woman. I don't show emotion much. Maybe that's why I haven't had much luck with relationships. The feel of tears streaming down my cheeks frightened me almost as much as the realization that I wanted Nick right then. I was scared to death. Literally.

"Help!" I yelled at the top of my voice. "Someone help me!" I screamed in frustration as I tried to get loose from those pieces of plastic, not stopping even when I felt the edges of plastic cut into my wrists. When they went numb, I finally stopped, sobbing in frustration and then sank into a restless sleep.