It was the sound of the door opening that woke John up. He didn't know when he'd fallen asleep sitting against the wall of the evidence room-sometime after 3 when he'd finally given up banging on the door and shouting for help. The skeleton crew that worked nights had no reason to come down here-and he still wondered who shut the door in the first place.
Looking up he saw Antonio walk in and a half-smirk appeared on his face, "Did you sleep down here all night, man?"
"Yeah, someone decided it'd be a fun prank to pull on me," said John as he took Antonio's arm that he offered and pulled himself to his feet. "How'd you know I was down here?"
"I think I've been over the entire rest of the station-saw the files on your desk and noticed some missing evidence numbers so I took a guess."
"Yeah, Ramsey had me working on bogus stuff late last night."
"Must have been his parting gift to you," said Antonio and then noticed the look on John's face, "His resignation was on the Mayor's desk this morning. Said that he was being called back to the FBI on something that was more important than our rinky-dink police department that can't figure out a case if our life depended on it."
John just shook his head, "Good riddance. I'm going to go home and try and catch some sleep-I never thought I'd find something more uncomfortable than the bed at the hotel, but I guess I'm wrong."
"Ok. I'll call you if anything comes up," said Antonio as both men walked out of the evidence room and shut the door behind them.
Bo stood outside Natalie's office door and dialed the number, it took it a minute before he answered-when he hadn't reached John at his desk he'd called Antonio and the man had told him what happened the night before and that John had gone back to get some more sleep, "John-sorry to wake you."
"Hadn't quite gotten there yet. So can I officially call you 'Boss' again?" laughed John as he got out of the bed, giving up on sleep.
"The mayor hasn't called me yet," he laughed. "Listen-have you heard from Natalie?"
"Got a message from her last night that she wanted to talk to me about something, but she didn't answer-figured she was in the shower or in a meeting already at BE," he said and finally realized Bo was leaving something out. "What's going on Bo?"
"I'm not sure-her office was locked this morning, and while her purse and her car are both here,she's nowhere in the building," he said, hearing the connection end just as he finished those words.
Had Natalie not worked on the 9th floor John actually would have taken the stairs, he was seriously beginning to hate elevators, fear enveloping him with each ding of a floor passing between him and the ground below. Walking off the elevator he took in who all was standing there waiting on him-Bo, Clint, Gigi, and Jared. Ignoring the looks of the other three he walked straight to Bo, "Talk to me, Bo. What've we got?"
"Gigi here says when she got here Natalie's car was not here-but when Jared arrived her car was here and she had dropped her keys in the parking lot. He let himself into her office to put the keys on her desk and found this," he said as he walked into the office and they saw her purse was spilled behind her desk. "And then there's this," he said as he picked up the video tape that was sitting on her desk.
Handing John a pair of gloves he handed over a video tape that he'd been holding with gloved hands already, "I already dusted it-no prints. You want to watch?"
The fear that had been growing on the elevator caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise, remembering the last time a mystery tape was sent to him and Bo was when he watched his fiance Caitlyn die again before his eyes. He wanted to make some joke to lighten the mood-like ask if anyone had any popcorn, but he couldn't bring himself to say it, "Where's the vcr?"
He followed Bo down the hallway to the board room and grabbed the back of the leather chair as Bo put the tape in and pressed play. Her face came up on the screen and he felt his fingers dig into the chair. She was behind her desk looking very professional with her hands crossed as if she were about to make an important speech concerning BE-the only difference was that normally she didn't have a gun pointed directly at her head.
She gave a polite cough and looked down a moment before she began to speak, "My name is Natalie Buchanan. For my safe return my kidnappers want majority share of BE. They will contact you later with further details." And with that the tape returned to static.
Natalie sat on the cot and thin blanket they'd given her for a bed, she hadn't slept—the chain of events from the night before still rolling through her head. Knowing she needed to get some sleep she closed her eyes to try and rest—the thin lumpy mattress wasn't making it easy though and at hearing the rustling of the covers in the bed across the small room she gave up on sleep for now.
She had questions for this person—she'd almost completed the forensics program when Bo had her drop out of it—but that didn't mean she didn't know for this person to be alive wasn't anything short of a miracle.
Sitting up on the edge of the bed she watched as her roommate, for lack of a better term, woke up and she watched as the female realized who was now in the room with her, "Natalie?"
"Hello, Marty."