Authors Note: Thanks again to DianeM for being a fantastic beta and to the guys at Maple Street for being so encouraging about posting this; I had wondered if too much time had passed. For other people who've helped see chapter one.

BL Studios

32 hours missing

Jack walked into the reception area, his previous relief and subsequent good mood at being called away from the torture of his divorce deposition having disappeared. The place teemed with cops, forensics and other uniformed personnel, all bustling about creating a hubbub of noise. Jack carefully picked his way between them in search of Danny, mentally taking in the decor as he went. The walls were a conservative cream color, their blandness alleviated by numerous plaques and photographs. The furniture was in a small enclave and consisted of a couch and two armchairs, all Air Force blue in color, providing needed warmth to the surroundings. The reception desk was oval in shape and had an oak laminate veneer. The name of the company, BL Studios, was carved onto a curved piece of plate glass. The overall image and ambience of the place was elegant. This place didn't scream money; it had class in a very understated way. Jack finally spotted Danny, who was coming out of the door marked 'Authorized Personnel Only', accompanied by a pretty young lady whom he assumed to be the receptionist.

"What've you got?" Jack asked tiredly, breaking into Danny's conversation, which caused his smile to waver slightly.

"Chloe Larson, thirty-nine. She lives in an apartment downtown and works as a television producer here, for BL Studios, which is a subsidiary of CBS. She was last seen in the cutting room at 2:00 AM Tuesday morning by the security guard. He was on his regular patrol and saw her light on, so they exchanged pleasantries," Danny reported, reading the details out of his notebook. Jack frowned in annoyance.

"Why the hell did they wait till now to call us?"

"They weren't shooting yesterday," the younger agent explained with a shrug. "She missed a couple of meetings but apparently that wasn't unusual. When she didn't show up today for filming, the director called it in because that was unusual. Apparently, she never missed a shoot."

Jack nodded; digesting the limited information he'd been given. For the first time since he'd made supervisor eight years ago, he was undecided about how to proceed. The altercation with Vivian a few days before was still fresh in his mind and heavy on his heart. He'd never wanted this, he hadn't asked for his job back and certainly had he known he would never have let them usurp Vivian in favor of him. Regret and indecision reigned free, doubt clouded his every move, the guilt he'd long carried wearied him more than ever, and his only reaction to the emotional repression was anger. Whom he was angry at he wasn't sure: Maria for leaving him and taking his girls, Van Doren for ruining his friendship with Vivian, Sam for finally moving on, or himself for letting it all happen. Jack sighed and began to issue the orders he knew would be wrong however he organized them.

"Ok. Call Sam, get her and Martin on her apartment, then call Viv and get her to set up a meeting with Chloe's boss at CBS. We need to know what projects she was working on, how well BL Studios is doing - the usual."

Danny nodded in acknowledgment, whipping out his cell phone. The mood Jack was in, the mood he'd been in ever since they'd closed the Bates case, meant imparting the news he had was not a good idea. However, he didn't have much of a choice. If Jack found out that he'd known and not warned him there'd be even more hell to pay. His only chance was to get through to Sam before Jack could do a Lenin, or was it Stalin, and shoot the messenger.

"Oh, nearly forgot," he began easily then went on hurriedly, not leaving his boss a single chance to interrupt. "There's a Special Agent Alex Marks from Organized Crime here. She's been crawling all over the suspected crime scene since before I arrived, still there now."

Jack opened his mouth to begin what probably would have turned out to be a rant, just as Danny got through to Sam. With barely disguised relief, Danny shot Jack a feigned apologetic glance as he made his get get-away. Fuming, Jack turned and angrily walked over to the door marked Authorized Personnel. He yanked the door open and stomped through, following the stream of law enforcement personnel. 'Organized Crime, what the hell did they want? Crawling all over his crime scene, his crime scene.' Jack walked into the cutting room, fully intent on chewing Agent Alex Marks out.

He spotted a blonde-haired agent in the corner talking to a uniform; the uniform left and she turned around just as he got there. For some unknown reason, he felt all his anger and annoyance beginning to dissipate and he found himself, against his will, observing her curiously. Her appearance from the back was deceiving as was her name. Any name, like Alex or Sam, which had a male and female connotation often led to misconceptions about the femininity of the person, unless you happened to have met them first. That was certainly true here. Alex Marks had shoulder length blonde hair that curved outwards, when it met her shoulders, with an attractive twist. He imagined it was probably always getting in her way. A smattering of freckles broke up an otherwise unblemished face, but that didn't detract from her beauty. In fact, they lent character to her face, which, if anything, added to it. Alex sought out his gaze and shot him an amused smirk before beginning the conversation.

"Agent Malone, I presume?"

Jack nodded, barely able to hide his incomprehensible curiosity.

"Yes, that's right. I'm in charge here," he answered back with his 'don't mess with me' tone, which was gruff and often laced with sarcasm. "May I ask what Organized Crime wants at the crime scene of a missing TV producer?"

Alex smiled briefly as she studied in front of her. He looked tired and stressed, and the loose skin under his chin showed clearly he'd lost weight recently. Her supervisor had warned her that the Missing Persons Unit, and specifically Agent Malone, were having problems at the moment. And what her supervisor hadn't told her, the gossips in the break room certainly had. Rumors had been circulating round the office for sometime regarding his personal situation ever since security had found him sleeping in his office a few months ago. However, she hadn't expected it to be so obvious. She had no idea what the problems were, but for the moment if there were sides to be taken, she was with him, he was definitely hurting.

"Yes, you can," Alex answered pleasantly, Jack's 'don't mess with me' tone having just sunk in and the memory of another story coming to mind - the story of the agent in front of her losing his temper and throwing a chair through one of the glass walls of the bullpen. The show of temper according to the water cooler gossips was unusual, and it had taken the murder of a child and the subsequent release of the killer through lack of evidence to stoke the fire enough for the pot to boil over.

She looked around. The suspected crime scene was crowded with techies and random people being interviewed; they would too easily be overheard here. It didn't matter a great deal whether they were, in fact, not at all. To be honest, it was just a habit that was hard to break.

"Can we talk privately?" she offered then.

Jack nodded and led the way out of the crime scene and back to the corridor. There were a lot of offices there, some unoccupied. Jack ushered Alex into an unoccupied room, carefully closing the door behind them.

"I admit I'm intrigued, Agent Marks," he began, his expression softer, more curious than angry.

Alex found herself smiling at him again, pleased that she'd managed to erase some of the frown lines.

"Twenty years ago a coke dealer was murdered," she started to explain. "This coke dealer was a made man in the New York Mafia. His murder and the death of a low-level addict were found to be connected, but nothing was ever proven."

"Chloe Larson was involved somehow," Jack took a guess, and Alex nodded.

"Yeah, so you might want to get some divers on the bay."

Jack frowned and shook his head at the pessimistic and somewhat hasty prediction. "It was twenty years ago, Agent Marks. I know that the Mafia are famous for their long memory in terms of revenge, but divers on the bay sounds a little premature to me. I like to at least start out thinking that the missing person is alive. Wouldn't you?"

Alex shrugged. She'd heard that his unit worked on the premise of hope as opposed to realism. She'd even heard that it worked out sometimes, the Collins case being an example, but she knew the Mafia. It had almost become procedure to assume death in cases like this.

"I guess," she simply answered. "Anyway I'm a bit hazy on the details so I'm having my supervisor send over the file. As it seems like a safe bet that organized crime is involved, if not responsible, I've been assigned to your unit for the duration of this case."

Jack nodded. He knew that intellectually, he should be annoyed at the intrusion but found himself instead being subconsciously pleased for reasons he didn't quite understand and didn't want to examine too closely.

"Right," was his brief acknowledgement, ending the conversation.

Jack opened the door and gestured for Alex to go first. As she passed him, she accidentally brushed against his shoulder with her own. The unexpected contact gave Jack a feeling he hadn't felt in a very long time, which for the moment he struggled to place. Whatever the feeling was it took him back in time, unknowingly putting a slight smirk on his face, perhaps his bad luck was going to come to an end.