With lights flickering and sirens blaring, police vehicles circled the area while squads and canine units closed in on the building where RJ's cell phone had been traced. Leading the units in were Raymond, Gil, and Ryan. Catherine had rushed over to stay with Bethany upon hearing the developments, and the women were waiting back at the Sullivan house to wait for more news.

They arrived at the appropriate building. They could see that the lights were on inside, which gave them hope that their suspects were still inside. Ryan and the police wasted no time – they broke into the building with Gil and Raymond following close behind, all with guns drawn. They ran through one room, and another, and another . . . But there was no one in sight. In fact, the entire first and second floors were deserted.

Ready for anything, the men charged into the building with Ryan in the lead, and the two CSI's behind him . . . But again, there was no one. In the room was a pair of handcuffs – one side still latched around a pole, a collapsed table, and thousands of dollars worth of electronics scattered on the floor.

"They're gone . . ." Ryan uttered in despair, his eyes fixed down on the pair of handcuffs.

Surely RJ had been there recently, but where was he now?


RJ fought to keep himself from crashing into the walls of the van. The man was angry, and expression his anger by driving wildly, intentionally trying to hurt the boy and scold him for what he had done.

"Your little stunt just cut your life in half!" He shouted, loud enough for the boy to hear him.

The van was headed further downtown, to the more deserted and more "battered up" part of the area, where the man had another hideout. He made a sharp turn, causing the tires to screech and sending RJ barreling towards the wall opposite. As soon as he heard his body come in contact with the steel wall, he made another sharp turn sending him back into the other. RJ grunted and shrieked with each impact, knowing that at any moment he could be severely injured.

"You can't outsmart me!" The man screamed.

Suddenly, he felt the van begin to speed up. The speedometer passed the forty MPH mark and then the fifty, nearing the sixty when all of a sudden the man slammed on the brakes. RJ flew forward. He stretched out his arms to catch himself, but the force was too much. He hit the wall with a loud crash and felt one of the bones in his right wrist crack instantly on impact. He screamed, feeling the sensation of heat and excruciating pain travel up from his fingertips all the way to his shoulder. Pulling his broken arm close to his chest, he curled up into a lose fetal position, gritting his teeth and breathing heavily, trying his best to keep himself from screaming again. His right hand was bent sideways and he couldn't move it . . . He couldn't even move his fingers due to the pain being so intense.


Back in the first hideout, RJ had been staring at the table for the longest time, his curiosity escalating with each passing moment. Who was the man who kidnapped him, and who was his last victim? It seemed obvious that whoever it was, their body was now lying straight ahead, but RJ wondered if they had a face, if they had a name. Could it have been someone he knew? Whether or not that was the case, RJ was heartbroken. The body on the table had loved ones – loved ones who right at that moment were probably grieving for their friend, their brother or sister, their son or daughter, and so on.

He couldn't take it anymore. RJ had to see who it was. He scooted his way closer to the table until the handcuff wouldn't allow him to go any further. His feet could reach the bottom of the table, which was exactly what he was hoping for. Taking several long, deep breaths, RJ set up his left foot in the right position and prepared to see the face of the victim.

He kicked his leg. His foot crashed into one of the corners of the table so forcefully that the conjoined legs buckled. RJ quickly moved his leg out of the way to avoid being crushed by the table and the body on top, but to his surprise, a dead body was far from what spilled out onto the floor.

Portable music players, laptop computers, and many other electronic devices scattered this way and that as the table came crashing down. RJ's draw dropped, and instantly he felt a wave of relief overtake him. The thin-faced man's last victim was not a person . . . But an electronics store.


"I don't understand this!" Ryan barked, his frustration climbing to new levels as he stood in the empty basement.

Gil wandered over to the far corner, which was quite dark even with the light. He crouched down and picked up a cell phone. The screen read, "Calling: Home" Ryan was watching, eyes wide and mind racing.

"That's not RJ's phone . . . This is." He said, looking down at the heap of broken parts and pieces at his feet.

Gil ended the call on the phone he held and handed it over to Ryan, who then flipped through the contacts. Nigel Harris, Kasey Montgomery, Mom . . . They were all RJ's contacts. It just didn't make sense . . . Or did it? Raymond was inspecting the stolen electronics, happy to know that they were at least making progress for the store that was robbed. Whoever was the culprit there was also who had taken RJ. Ray peered inside of an empty box and pieced together what happened.


Shortly after knocking the table down, RJ spotted a box with a picture of a cell phone on it. The phone was not the same as his was, but it was manufactured by the same company. Would the phone accept his SIM card? He had to try. Stretching as much as he possibly could, RJ pulled the box over to himself and hastily opened it. He then unwrapped the phone itself and its battery. He then took his old SIM card out of his pocket and tried to put it in the stolen phone. It fit! He quickly put the battery inside, turned the phone on, and dialed his home phone number. He waited for several long seconds to make sure that the coast was clear. After hearing no sign of any of his captors approaching, he hit the call button and waited.

He heard his father pick up and was just about to respond, when suddenly the basement door flew open. It was the thin-faced man who was eager to taunt his hostage some more. But when he saw that the table where he kept his stash of stolen electronics knocked down, and one of the stolen cell phones in RJ's grasp, his anger boiled over. The man charged towards the boy, snatched the phone from him and looked at the screen.

His face suddenly scrunched up in an expression of pure disgust and hatred. He looked down at the boy who looked utterly terrified now. He tossed the phone towards the end of the room, assuming that it would smash into pieces as the first phone had . . . But it didn't.


"You must be joking . . ." Gil uttered after hearing Raymond explain.

"It makes sense!" Ray exclaimed, in an excited tone of voice. "Listen, he left us a clue back on the street – his sneaker, his sneaker was the clue! He did it again knowing that we would be able to trace the call, and hoping that we would find him here."

"But we didn't! We were too late!" Ryan snapped.

Ryan placed his hands over his face and wandered off to the side of the room, feeling as though he would burst with frustration at any given moment. Just then, Gil's own cell phone started to ring. It was Catherine again. Why would she be calling?

"Hello?" He answered.

"Gil, you need to get back to the Sullivan's home right now."

Catherine hung up.

Ryan, Gil, and Raymond were quick to respond to Catherine's call. The urgency and stern tone in her voice was enough to make Gil break out into a nervous sweat. Something was wrong. With police units waiting outside of the house, the men charged in and found Bethany and Catherine in the kitchen.

"What's going on?" Raymond asked.

"Put on the headsets." Catherine replied.

So they did. Gil and Ray rushed over to the table and put on the headsets. What they heard next was more than terrifying.

"You were certain you had caught me, weren't you, Ryan?! Well even though you son seems to have several tricks up his own sleeve, I'm still one step ahead! His little stunt just cut his deadline – you've got twenty-four hours to get me my money and clear my record, or his life is over!"

Their hearts sank as they listened to the message. Suddenly, they realized that what they thought would turn out to be a great advantage for them, was everything but. Doubt set in as they realized that their chances of bringing RJ back alive were now very, very slim.