Waiting: Chapter 3

Jim was royally pissed. He had been sitting in the courtroom waiting for time for the trial to start while his partner was god knows where, having god knows what done to him. Simon had called Joel to check on the progress of the investigation, but there was none. They knew Blair had been pulled into a blue car because of the paint chips on the young man's car, but Jim could have told them that from the video. He could see the color and a suggestion of the style of the car through the back window. They knew which direction the car had been heading, but Jim could have told them that too, from the street signs he had seen buzz by on the video. There was no blood found at the scene, so it was assumed that the abduction was not violent. Jim could have – in fact did tell them – that the violence was saved for after they had Blair tied up and their escape was well underway.

With ten minutes left until the trial was to start, the seats started to fill up in the court room. A man in the very back had taken his seat, waited a couple of minutes, and exited again. Jim subconsciously took all this in, however most of Jim's mind was focused on the phone in his hand where he was going over and over the video of his best friend being beaten. He had already called Joel – twice – to make sure that he had noticed the street names that sped by, so as to concentrate the search along that line. After tracing the car past the last street shown in the video, the investigation hit a standstill. There was literally no indication of Blair or the car in which he had been abducted.

Just when Jim was ready to take off – against Simon's orders – to find Blair himself, his phone vibrated in his hand. The call was from Blair's phone again, but he didn't even let himself hope that it would actually be his friend's voice on the line.

"What!" He barked.

"Are you enjoying our little video?" The mechanical voice asked. "Watching our masterpiece over and over isn't going to find your partner."

"How did you…" Jim looked around the courtroom as though trying to find the speaker. He saw a man re-enter the court and retake his seat. Jim knew it was the man who had left before, but he couldn't be sure he had anything to do with the phone call.

"Why aren't you looking for him, Ellison? Did we pick the wrong person? See the attached video for a little more incentive."

The caller hung up and Jim scrambled for the video. Blair was sitting in a chair in what seemed to be a little used, run-down office. His arms, legs and torso were duct-taped to the wobbly piece of furniture. What appeared to be the same two men continued to beat on Sandburg, even thought the kid's face was already a mass of new bruises just rising to the surface. His lip and nose were bleeding and his left eye was well on its way to being swollen shut.

The mechanical voice was back, on the video this time. "Let's show Ellison we mean business," it said, as though Jim didn't know that by what he had already been shown.

The two men stopped hitting Blair. One grabbed the kid from behind – holding him still in the chair -while the other wielded a large, heavy metal pipe that seemed to have materialized from nowhere. As he brought it down repeatedly upon Blair's knuckles where they were molded over the end of the chair arm, Jim heard his partner scream for the first time. (He had borne the beating up until now in relative silence). It was a sound Jim hoped he never had to hear again.

Apparently the man brandishing the weapon didn't want to hear it either because he swung the pipe into Blair's jaw and shouted, "Shut up you little wuss, or I'll give you something to scream about."

Jim had unconsciously turned up his hearing to check for broken bones when the man had been demolishing Blair's hand. He had heard multiple bones crack then, and he heard another one now.

The thugs on the video cut Blair loose from the chair, rebound his hands, and dragged him through the doorway behind the chair. They hung him up by his bound hands on what appeared to be a meat hook, and the pipe materialized again – this time slamming into the kid's ribs.

"If you're still there when the case starts, he dies."

"That's it!"Jim exclaimed, as he jerked to a stand and started toward the center aisle.

Simon grabbed his arm. "Jim, sit down."

"This is all about this case, Simon!" Jim exploded, still looking around the room. "They're going to kill Blair if I'm still here when the case starts." Simon stood in Jim's way, not convinced.

"You know this wouldn't be beyond Thompson, Simon." Jim countered. "He's got enough ties that he could easily get henchmen to do this. He's into drugs, child sex trade, hell, probably half a dozen things we don't even know about. The only thing we can pin on him is these child murders and he doesn't want that. Imagine that! So, he kidnaps my partner and tortures him until I leave the trial. Tortures him, Simon!" Jim finally just pushed past Simon. "I'm not sitting here and letting that happen!"

He dismissed Simon, then, and addressed the DA. "Sara, get the cast postponed or just use my avadavat. I'm out of here."

"The avadavat isn't enough, Jim." Sara started. "You need to be here for cross-examination, or our case just isn't as strong."

"Then get it postponed." At this point, Jim was yelling, "I'm leaving. If the creep walks, I'll gun him down myself. I'm not letting Blair get hurt anymore because of me."

Jim strode out of the courtroom, Simon close behind him. Not a minute after the raucous exit of her only chance of winning this case, the DA saw Thompson and his lawyer enter. From the doorway he glanced at Jim's recently vacated seat, then, as he passed the back row of seats, he exchanged a knowing look and a nod with a man sitting there and continued walking down the center aisle with a smirk.

TBC