"Where's Luca?" SWAT Commander Lieutenant Dan Harrelson asked. He stood in front of the missing officer's desk.
Beside the empty desk, Officer Jim Street sat at his own desk, filling out one of the reams of forms duty called for. He glanced at his watch: ten past seven. No one had ever been late yet. He was glad it wasn't him.
"Last I saw him, he was peeling out in his lady's Jag after work last night," TJ McCabe said. He'd walked over to stand beside Jim, looking over at Luca's empty desk.
"Maybe he wrecked it?" Jim wondered aloud.
"Hospitals know to call me if any of you guys show up," Harrelson said brusquely.
Jim and TJ raised their eyebrows at their boss's revelation.
"Maybe that lady wrecked him," TJ broached. "Not the hospital kind of wreck," he added.
"You men realize how important it is for this unit to be fully operational at all times." Harrelson walked into his office and closed the door, abruptly.
Jim stood, pacing behind Dom's empty chair. TJ paced in front of the empty desk.
"Where do you think he is?" TJ asked Jim.
"Something had to happen to him," Jim said. "It's not like Dom."
One of TJ's eyebrows lifted.
"Not this." Jim pointed at the empty chair. "Not even Dom."
"You're right." TJ pounded his fist on Dom's desk. "Dammit!"
The pair resumed their thought filled pacing.
"Would you two sit down and get back to work?" Sgt. 'Deke' Kay barked. "Please," he amended.
Reluctantly, Jim and TJ return to their desks and sat. Both stared at the forms on their desks, their thoughts far from the boring papers.
Several minutes later, a ruckus at the top of the stairs turned into a harried and rushing Dominic Luca half-falling down the stairs to the SWAT control room.
Jim and TJ rushed over to him, helping him over to his locker.
Harrelson came out of his office. "Back to your desks, guys."
TJ and Jim left Dom and slowly returned to their desks, standing by.
Harrelson approached the rumpled Luca. Deke hovered nearby.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" Harrelson demanded.
Dom gave his Commander a stricken look. He raised and lowered his arms in defeat. "I wish I could tell you, Lieutenant. I really do." Dom shook his head. "I don't know what happened."
Something in Dom's demeanor appeared to break through to Harrelson. He took Luca by the arm and brought him over to the desk area.
Jim pulled his chair out for Dom to slide into.
"Okay, Luca. From the beginning." Harrelson stood, arms crossed, in front of Dom. "I want everything you remember. All the details." He cleared his throat. "Even the embarrassing ones."
Dom breezed through his evening until he got to the wine drinking in Lauren's den. "That's where it gets fuzzy, Lieutenant." Dom lowered his head on his folded arms on top of Jim's desk. "I swear it was only two glasses of wine, but the headache I have makes it seem like an entire vat."
"How'd you get here?" Jim asked.
Dom raised his head, looking totally confused for a minute. "I took a cab."
"Where's this Lauren now?" Harrelson asked.
Dom held his pounding head in his hands. "Uh, she left a note. It said she had to run to New York City this morning."
"Did it say when she's returning?" asked Deke.
Dom rubbed his palms over his eyes. "No. The note didn't mention a return date."
Harrelson paced up and down the aisle between the two neat rows of desks. "Obviously, something happened to you." He stared at the young officer. "You look like hell."
"Feel like it, too, sir," Dom said meekly.
"Street. Take him up to Valley General. I'll call Doc Morgan. You should be able to get him right in. See if they can determine if he'd been drugged, probably with the wine."
"Yes, sir," Jim said. He got his arm under Dom's and pulled him out of the chair.
"Street. Call me when you know something," Harrelson instructed.
"Yes, sir."
#
"Pull over, Jim. Now!" Dom called out urgently.
Seeing Dom's pale and sweating face, Jim pulled his car onto the gravel shoulder. Before he had the car completely stopped, Dom had the door open, vomiting. The car door swung wide and Jim grabbed the back of Dom's shirt to keep him from falling out of the car.
After a couple of draining dry-heaves, Dom reached out for Jim's hand to pull him up. Sitting up again, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"Shit," he gasped.
"You done?" Jim asked.
Catching his breath, Dom looked at Jim. He'd almost expected him to be smirking. The concerned look on Jim's face made him realize he wasn't suffering from just another rough hangover after too much fun. He'd lost an entire night with no clue as to what he'd done or had done to him. He shivered.
"Yeah, I'm done." He reached out and pulled the door closed, surprised at how much effort it took. "You think I'm done with the Lieutenant and SWAT, too?"
Jim waited for a car to pass and pulled onto the roadway, continuing to the hospital as ordered. "I think the Lieutenant believes you're a victim. He needs to know if it's because you're Dominic Luca, the Italian Flash or because you're a member of the most elite police squadron in the department."
Dom sighed and lay his head against the seat back. "I guess what happens to me next depends on that outcome."
"Maybe."
#
"Lieutenant," Jim Street said, using a pay phone in the Valley General waiting room. "The doc has Luca on a bottle of juice, he was a little dehydrated. He took blood, but won't know the results until the lab is done with it. Doc doesn't expect to find anything, though."
"Oh? Why's that?" Harrelson asked.
"Doc said that the type of drugs used to do this kind of stuff don't stay in your system very long," Jim responded.
"If Luca is up to it, bring him back here when Doc releases him," Harrelson said.
"Yes, sir."
#
Pacing between the rows of desks, Harrelson addressed his team. "We're pretty sure Luca has been compromised." He gave the pale, but improving, young man a stern, but caring, glance. "We don't know how or what was done.
"Did they use a truth serum? Did he tell them things about our methods or a job we have coming up?"
"We have that escort job on Friday," Jim said.
"Yes," Harrelson agreed. "There are a lot of nervous syndicate members over what Chase Blackstone has to say to the DA."
"Timing is right to make a play on that," TJ added.
"It's a good starting point," Harrelson said. "We'll have to be extra vigilant until we get this figured out. I want you all to keep a close watch on Luca." Harrelson paused to look at each man, including Luca. "Since there is so much we don't know we'll have to watch everything. I want Luca to know we're watching. I want him watching himself." Harrelson looked at everyone again. "I want to know anything, and I do mean anything, that might be different about Luca's behavior."
Everyone in the room turned to Luca, who didn't shrink from the focus.
"We won't let him hurt anyone or himself," Deke said.