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Chapter 9

Mac watched from the back of an ambulance as Flack drove up. He got out of his car and almost ran over to the ambulance, glancing into the police car as he passed by it. "Mac, what the hell happened? You okay?" he asked.

The paramedic finished stitching up the gash on Mac's head and left the two men alone.

"Cullen was here." Mac told Flack.

Flack stepped right up to the ambulance. "Did he have Jo with him?" he asked.

"No. He wouldn't tell me where she was either."

"What did he say then, I mean, do you really think he came back here just to beat the crap outta you?" Flack said.

"I don't know. I think he followed me here though." Mac said

"But why? Did he leave you another clue or…what?"

Mac just shook his head and rubbed his aching neck. "I have no idea." he said as he watched the first of the two young officers who had lost their lives to Ged Cullen get loaded into the back of the corners van.

~0~0~0~0~

Jo was sat in the chair in the basement still. Her back was badly aching from being sat in the same position in the hard wooden chair for hours on end. She was also desperate to pee to point where it felt painful. Her stomach was also filled with hunger pains, she couldn't remember the last time she had actually ate a full or even decent meal.

She wasn't sure how many hours had gone by she'd been trying to keep track but at one point had practically forced herself to sleep to try to get away from the pain she was in. She had no idea how long she'd actually been asleep but it had done nothing to help her.

Her face was aching, everything was aching and she was finding it harder and harder to not cry at her situation. It was all so hopeless. She wanted to be back with her children, or with Mac, just anywhere but here.

She couldn't help but wonder if she would ever see her children or Mac and the team again. She wanted to, badly wanted to. She wanted to be able to hold her children one last time and tell them how much she loved them. She wanted to thank the team for becoming a group of the best friends she had ever had. She wanted to thank Mac for everything he'd done for her since she came to work at the lab. She wanted to finish what had started one night late at the lab…

It had gone midnight and with Ellie staying over at a friend's Jo was in no rush to go home. She was trying to solve this case. She didn't want to see another body turn up. She sighed and leant back in her chair, as she did so she was sure she heard music playing. She pushed herself up and walked through the silent lab. There was only ever a few people still here at this time and it was just a few lab techs, and usually Mac. She followed the music all the way to Mac's office.

She knocked and stepped in, he was sat on the comfy chairs in his office, his head titled back, and clearly he was asleep.

She smiled and grabbed his jacket from where it was hanging up. It was cold in the lab tonight so she laid it over him in hope that it would keep him warm. She walked over to the small stereo he kept in his office and turned the music down.

"I was listening to that." Mac said from behind her.

She turned to face him and smiled to see he still hadn't opened his eyes. "Mac Taylor you look as exhausted as I feel. You need to be in bed." she told him.

"Is that some kind of an offer." he joked.

Jo just laughed and went and sat by him, letting the comfy chairs envelope her body, God they really were comfy. She could understand how Mac could so easily fall asleep in them. She found sleep calling out to her. She smiled when Mac placed his hand on her knee, she quickly covered it with her own hand.

"You should go home too if you're tired." Mac said.

"Please, my bed is nowhere near as comfy as these chairs." she said as she closed her own eyes.

"Mine is." he told her.

"That some kind of an offer." she joked back.

Mac finally opened his eyes and turned to look at her. She opened hers knowing he was looking at her. He was smiling, at what she wasn't sure, so she asked, "What?"

Mac shrugged and said, "Nothing."

They sat there with their heads resting on the back of the chairs as they looked at each other, just looking into one and others eyes, becoming lost. Before they even realised what they were doing their faces moved closer and closer. Their lips touched, barely, but Jo already knew she wanted more from it and as Mac placed his hand on her leg and turned to his body till it was facing hers, she knew he did too.

They were both about to deepen the kiss when the shrill ring of Mac's desk phone rang. She was gutted when he pushed himself up and answered the phone. She reached up and touched her lips, she could still feel his lips against hers and she longed for more of it. She looked up when Mac hung up and turned to face her, a sad look on his face. "We have another body." he told her.

Jo could still feel what it was like to have Mac's lips against hers. She would give anything to be able to kiss him again. Suddenly all thoughts like that were pushed aside as she heard footsteps above her and realised Ged was back. She felt her heart begin to pound against her chest. She heard a door open and could then only watch as he walked down the stairs and into the basement.

He walked right over to her, a bag in one hand and a knife in the other. Panic flooded over her and although she tried to hide it her breathing became fast, her panic evident and this was something Ged noticed. He dropped the bag down and walked right over to her. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her forward.

He reached down behind her and began cutting at the rope. The moment her wrists were free she brought them round to her front. She cradled her right hand which seemed to be most injured. Ged cut the rope around her ankles and took a step away from her.

He picked the bag up and threw it at her. "Eat, but make it last, it's all you're getting." he told her.

"I need to use the bathroom." she said.

"I saw Mac tonight." he told her, ignoring what she had said.

She could only look at him. "Why?" she asked.

Ged just smirked at her. Panic hit her like a brick wall. "What the hell did you do to him?" she yelled as she bolted towards him.

Ged found it funny and laughed right in her face. "Down, bitch." he said as he shoved her back. "He's not dead. Nah, I want him alive. I want him to think about what I told him." he smirked.

"Which was?" she asked.

"That I got to fuck you and he hasn't." Ged spat at her.

Jo felt her stomach flip and she had to back away from him holding her hand over her mouth because she was sure she was going to throw up. She walked over to the wall and put one hand on it, needing to use it for support. After a minute she turned to face him. "You son-of-a-bitch!" she spat.

Again, Ged found it funny. "Don't be like that, Alabama. He has a right to know." he said, laughing.

She wanted to scream at him, wanted to run over and punch him as hard as she could. She felt so…pathetic… She took a deep breath and asked, "Can I use the bathroom?"

~0~0~

Ged had allowed her to use the bathroom. He marched her right to it and all but kicked her into it before slamming the door shut on her. "You have five minutes!" he yelled to her.

Jo ran over to the toilet and had what felt like the world's best pee ever. She stood up and walked over to the sink and washed her hands. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked a complete state, a bruised and beaten state. She then noticed something else staring at her in the mirror, right behind her…a window.

She spun around and raced over to it. It was big enough for her to get through. She climbed up onto the bath tub and pushed the window open. She froze when it screeched loudly, like a cat being strangled. She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard a slam against the door. "What the hell are you doing in there?"

Jo pulled herself up through the window, moving faster than she could ever remember moving. Ignoring all the pain her body felt. She fell from the window and crashed to the ground below. She screamed in agony as the stiches on her side burst open. She tried to ignore the pain and looked up and saw Ged looking through the window. Without hesitation he began to pull himself through it, his bigger frame struggling to get through.

Jo wasted no time in pushing herself to her feet and making a dash into the trees. She hardly felt like she had moved away from the house before she heard him running after her. It may have been in her head but he sounded like he was running a hell of a lot faster than she was. She tried willing herself to run faster but if anything she felt like she was actually slowing down.

"I see you, Alabama!" she heard from behind her.

She ignored his taunting and tried to move faster. She jumped over a fallen branch but landed with a twisting pain in her ankle. She hit the floor and almost ended up with a mouthful of dead leaves. The pain in her ankle was blinding. She could just about make out through the dark the hole in the ground that she must have landed in.

She tried to stand up but the moment she put her weight on her ankle it gave out. She figured crawling would be better than just lying there, but she'd barely moved when Ged came crashing down on top of her.

She cried out, a pitiful attempt to get someone's, anyone's, attention. "Help me!"

Her reply was a heavy fist in her face. The pain was excruciating and she couldn't hold her tears back. "Get off me!" she screamed, frustrated, at Ged.

Again his response was to punch her in the face. "If you wanted to hang out in the woods you should have just said. I know the perfect place! First I need you to do something for me." he said, standing up, as he did so he ripped her up from the ground with him.

~0~0~0~0~

Mac was walking through the lab when Lindsay came running up to him, calling out his name. "Mac!"

"Lindsay, what is it?" he asked.

"Farrah Vaughn was not the Vaughn's only child, they also had a son. They adopted him when he was just two years old." she told him, having been researching all night and into the early hours of morning which it now was.

"Where are you going with this?" he asked, a little impatiently.

"The son was called Gerard. Mac, they adopted Ged! He changed his name back to Cullen, his biological parent's name."

Mac just looked at her as her words registered in his heads. "We need to find out who his biological parents are." he said.

"Flack's working on it as we speak." she told him.

"Tell me the second you find out." Mac said before he turned and continued walking to his office.

He walked into his office and stepped behind his desk. He had just sat down when he heard, "You have mail!" He looked up at his computer screen and opened up the message. Immediately a small black box popped up on his screen, in the middle of it was a play button. He clicked on the play button and the box came to life.

His heart sank as he watched it. He put his hands up over his face as it finished. Tears of anger and frustration threated to spill from his eyes, but it was a different emotion that made him force them back under control. He stood up from his desk and went to gather his team who were all still working around the clock.

~0~0~

It took him less than ten minutes to gather them all and Russ and set up the video link again. He stood back as the others all watched.

"Hey team!" Ged said, "Got someone who wants to talk to you." he told them before he ducked out of sight.

They watched what Mac had already seen. Hidden behind Ged, at the back of the room, was Jo. The camera zoomed closer to her and then came to a stop. They could all see how beaten up she looked and it made them all angry to see. Still she tried to smile, wincing at the pain it caused her bust lip and bruised face.

"Hi guys." she said, her voice quiet, weak, without the same sparkle it usually had, "I'm supposed to tell you about the next place you all have to look. First, I just want to thank you all for being the best friends I ever had. And Russ, if you're listening then please take care of my babies. Tell them that I love them and will never stop loving them. Mac…thank you." she said.

"Get on with it, bitch!" They heard Ged growl at her.

"To find your next clue you have to come out here to the Catskills. You'll find a burnt out blue sedan. You need to be looking five miles from there." Ged came up behind her and put a knife to her throat.

The team all panicked. It was something they couldn't hide. Flack turned to look at Mac, surely he wasn't going to let them watch Jo be killed without warning them. They were all sure Ged was going to kill Jo right there and then but he simply held the knife at her throat. "Don't give them too much, Alabama. Make them work for it." he said as he looked into the camera with her.

Mac's eyes met Ged's again, he knew that was his intent. He and the others watched in disgust as Ged snaked his tongue up the side of Jo's face. They could all see her disgust and they felt it for her.

The screen went black for a second before it came back to life with a new image. This time it scanned the ground. It was a patch of forestry, nothing stood out in particular about it except for a small mound of earth and a pipe sticking up from the ground. The camera was turned until Ged's face came into view. "If you wanna find her you'll have to be quick, the pipe gets plugged in 12 hours. Good luck!" Ged said before the video ended.

The team all stood there, frozen.

"We have to find the sedan Jo was on about. There's a clue there will tell us where she is." he told them.

"And if we don't find it in time…" Lindsay said, tears in her eyes.

"Then Jo's dead." Adam said sadly.

"That's why not finding that sedan is option." Mac said firmly.

~0~0~0~0~

Jo opened her eyes, or at least she thought she had, she tried again only to find they were in fact open. She figured the lights were out wherever Ged was keeping her now. She tried to sit up and instantly regretted it as she cracked her head against something hard. It was already spinning from Ged having hit her with something after making her record the video. She couldn't remember anything since then.

She muttered a curse and tried to lift her hand to her head to assess the damage she had just caused but her knuckles scrapped against something hard and rough, something sharp enough to leave lingering stinging pain.

"What the hell..?" she muttered. She brought her hand up to her face, keeping it right against her body as she did so. She then put her hands up, palms facing upwards, slowly. At the same time they hit something, the same scratchy thing that had cut her knuckles and gashed her head on.

She was trying not to worry but she could feel her heart betraying her, it was beating fast, pounding against her chest. She slowly brought her arms back down to her side, it was then her right hand felt something, something cold and hard. She grabbed it and felt the familiarity of the object in her hand. She brought it up to lie on her stomach and used her other hand to twist the top slightly. The Maglite shone bright, temporarily blinding her.

She placed her fingers over the light slightly to dull it. As soon as she did she looked around where she had woken up. "Oh my God!" she cried out as she scanned the wood around her. She closed her eyes as tears snuck up on her and fell too quickly for her to try to stop. She sobbed for a few seconds before she forced her eyes open again. She was in a box and the smell or cold wet earth suddenly hit her. She dropped the light and pounded her fists against the wood above her. "Help me!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, "Please help me!"

TBC

So Jo has been buried alive too. Let's hope the team can find the Sedan in time, then work out in which direction to travel the five miles.

Thanks for reading. Please, please review and let me know what you think.