Previously…

Maddie pointed to one of the photos. "This is your best bet. Since this storage facility is converted industrial space, it will have far sturdier walls and floors than the others." as she spoke, her voice became more confident. "It will be more secure as well. He's here. I'm sure of it."

"You heard the woman. Let's go, people!" Lassiter shouted. "Move it!"

There was a flurry of activity, but Henry paused next to his ex.

"I'm staying here." She told him. "You keep me informed, okay?" Then she grabbed his arm. "Get that… that monster... And if Shawn's…" She couldn't say the word. "Don't you hesitate to…" She stopped.

Henry could see the muscles in her jaw working as she ground her teeth. He met her gaze evenly, knowing what she was asking. Then he nodded once, and followed Gus out the door.

oO0Oo

Carlton Lassiter was a skilled driver. He'd long ago made it a point to hone any and every skill that could make him a better cop. Driving safely and efficiently at a high rate of speed was near the top of that list.

He'd been respectful of that fact that Spencer was a son and a dear friend, and that the others cared about O'Hara as well, but did they really not get that she was his partner? He glanced at the man in the seat next to him who was braced against the door and staring intently out the windshield. Had the elder Spencer forgotten what that meant?

In a way he was grateful that their obvious emotion had distracted them from the fact that he was way too personally involved in this case. By all rights, Vick should have pulled him the moment that O'Hara disappeared.

He was grateful she hadn't.

He'd been respectful of the other's feelings. He shared them. Not that anyone noticed.

Now all he had to do was get there in time. He had to save his partner.

Lassiter hated this part. The investigating, the detecting, the interrogating, he was really good at those. And there was nothing so fulfilling as taking down the bad guy and slapping on some cuffs. The Miranda Rights had long ago become something of a lullaby for him.

But this part? The part where you had it all figured out and now you just had to wait and see if you were right? If you were in time? They'd laid everything on the line here. What if they were wrong, and Griffin had his victims somewhere else?

He hated this part when he wasn't personally involved, when the vic was just some nameless, faceless civilian.

This was so much worse.

What if they were too late? What if O'Hara and Spencer were already dead?

He hated this part.

Thankfully it rarely lasted very long, and he slammed on the brakes in front of the facility and threw the gear shift into park. The elder Spencer was already out the door. Lassiter swore and went after him, not even bothering to tell Gus to stay in the car.

The exterior of the building was well lit. He was glad of it because while it was now closer to dawn than sunset, there was no light in the sky yet. The long shadows cast by the security lighting made it difficult to distinguish one shape from another.

Shouting instructions to the uniforms to cover the exits and surround the building, he followed Henry to the entrance. He knew the man was frantic to find his son.

When he joined the older man who had paused on the steps near the door, Spencer just held out his hand expectantly. He said nothing, only gave Lassiter a look. The head detective grimaced, but knowing what was being asked of him, he pulled his back-up weapon and handed it over, butt first.

Taking the pistol, Henry started towards the door as he glanced back at Lassiter one last time to confirm that they were ready.

Before he reached the door, it crashed back against the railing and someone ran out- almost colliding with them. Both men nearly fired before they realized who it was: Juliet.

"O'Hara!" Lassiter roared. Only someone who knew him well would have heard the utter relief in his tone. Marlowe wasn't there and Juliet wasn't paying attention.

"Where's Shawn?" Henry shouted at the same time.

Juliet stopped, grabbed the railing, and stared at them, wide-eyed and gasping. Her condition registered and Henry was there with an arm around her waist. Gently supporting most of her weight, he helped her to sit on the steps as Lassiter called for the EMTs.

She looked terrible. She'd obviously been in a horrible fight. Her nose was bleeding, her eye was swollen and rapidly turning black and blue, her clothes were torn, and she was nursing a deep slice along her forearm that was bleeding heavily. Perhaps the most disturbing, though, was the chain that ran between her bruised and bleeding wrists.

Henry grabbed a clean handkerchief and pressed it to the deep wound on her arm, but she wasn't interested in receiving first aid. She was trying to tell them something.

"Juliet. Breathe." Henry soothed. "Where's Shawn?"

Juliet swallowed and nodded. "Basement, turn left, third door on the right. Mallow is armed and very dangerous. Go. Please. He's got Shawn. He's going to kill him."

Lassiter was still on his radio, now redistributing his men. While he spoke, one of the EMTs came and knelt in front of O'Hara. Placing his hand over Henry's, he continued to apply pressure as the older man stood.

McNab arrived and pulled his handcuff keys. He handed them over so Juliet could be released from her restraints.

As the EMTs began their work, Henry and Lassiter returned to the door. This time the two men actually entered the well-lit hallways of the storage facility. There were stairways leading both up and down directly in front of them and hallways extending out to the left and right on every floor.

Both men paused briefly to listen.

They were rewarded when they heard footfalls from the floor below. Mallow/Griffin came into view at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as their eyes met, he bolted down the hallway to the right, and both men took the stairs two and three at a time. At the bottom, Lassiter turned to pursue Griffin, already shouting into his radio for backup to cut off their fugitive at the exit.

He knew Spencer would be going after his son.

oO0Oo

Trusting Lassiter and his men to bring down the bad guy, Henry tucked his weapon into his waistband and jogged down the hallway to the left. He paused at the third door on the right. It was partially open, but he couldn't see inside. Swallowing in fearful anticipation of what he was about to see, he put his palm on the door and gave it a push.

It swung open to reveal an utterly heart-rending sight: his son, strapped to a chair in the center of a bare room, head down, a large knife protruding from his chest, and a smaller one from his leg. Blood soaking most of his clothing and pooling on the floor around him.

He could only see the top of Shawn's head.

He felt as if someone had reached into his own chest, grabbed his heart and twisted.

He tried to comfort himself with the thought that Shawn was unconscious and feeling no pain.

He was only unconscious, right?

Henry approached carefully as if afraid he would wake his son. In truth, he was terrified that he wouldn't be able to. "Shawn?" he asked softly. "Shawn..." He knelt next to the wounded man, ignoring the wetness at his knees. He was going to check a pulse at his wrist, but that was when he saw the razor wire. "What did he do to you, kid?" he asked regretfully.

He reached, instead, for Shawn's throat. "Come on, son," he whispered desperately. "Please…"

Before he could find the pulse, though, Shawn moved. His head jerked slightly and began to sway. "Ju… Jules… Mmm… No… Mom… Mommmm..." His voice, while barely audible, was saturated with loss and anguish.

"Shawn - son, can you hear me?" Henry gently cupped his son's face and helped him to lay it back against the chair. He grimaced when he saw the swollen and bruised mass that marred the entire left side.

"Mom… won'tell… S'rry… So Sorry..."

Henry realized Shawn still wasn't aware that he'd been rescued, but he understood what the kid was saying. From the moment Gus called, this whole situation hadn't made sense to him. If Griffin wanted Maddie, why take Shawn and Juliet? But if Shawn's words made any sense – and they nearly always did, if you knew how to listen – then Griffin had tortured the son for the whereabouts of the mother.

"Shawn – Shawn – it's okay. Your mother is safe. We know Griffin is looking for revenge. I've got her safe, kiddo. Shawn?"

Shawn's right eye opened a bit. "Daad?"

Henry smiled slightly at his son. "I've got you, kid. Your mom is safe, and Lassiter's got Griffin…" He left the 'he'd better' unsaid.

A slight frown, "Gr'ff'n..."

Henry almost smiled again – even with a knife buried in his chest, his son was still trying to make sense of the information available to him. But instead of answering, Henry went to the door and looked for the EMTs. Unlike Lassiter, he didn't carry a radio.

He heard voices from the vicinity of the entrance. "Hey!" he tried to get their attention. "Down here!"

A paramedic carrying a large case appeared at the end of the hall near the stairs.

"Got a badly wounded man down here! Move it!" Henry shouted and then returned to Shawn without waiting to see if they listened.

Seeing the hilt of a knife protruding from his son's chest was truly horrific, but he knew better than to remove it or touch it in any way. "Hang on, Shawn. Help is here. Just hold on."

"Mom… Jules isn't… can't be… can't be..." Shawn was lost in his delirium once again.

Henry inspected the razor wire carefully. On the underside of the armrest, he found a catch. It was difficult to see how it worked since it was coated with Shawn's blood. He managed, though, and released both wrists from their restraints. He was just starting on the ankles when the paramedics arrived.

"Took you long enough!" Henry groused, but he got out of their way once he had released the leg restraints.

Medical personnel always work deceptively quick in these situations. To worried loved ones, they seem to move far too slowly. But they are familiar with the phenomenon and are not bothered by impatient fathers. They soon had Shawn as stable as they could manage under the circumstances. In record time, they were on their way out to the ambulance, Shawn now deeply unconscious.

oO0Oo

Lassiter was running after his quarry as hard as he could. In spite of the fact that he knew there were at least two officers on the other side of the door Griffin was rapidly approaching, he ran.

The part that he hated was supposed to be over now.

It wasn't.

He still didn't know if he was about to arrest Griffin for kidnapping or murder.

At least he knew his partner lived, although just how badly injured he didn't know. But Spencer?

Thankfully he didn't have time to contemplate what the elder Spencer might be finding. At that moment, the door ahead of Griffin opened, revealing the three officers who waited outside.

Realizing he had no escape, their quarry turned in the direction where he had only one foe instead of three. He raised the knife he still carried, obviously intending to attack Lassiter and remove the only obstruction to his escape.

A single shot thundered through the bare, cement hallway.

Griffin cried out and grabbed at his thigh where one of the officers had shot him to protect their superior. But he still had his knife and was insane enough to try to use it.

Lassiter moved in immediately, blocking the thrust with his forearm before Griffin could strike. He forced the man back against the wall and pinned the hand holding the weapon above his head. He followed up by grabbing Griffin's throat - effectively immobilizing him.

The psycho's free hand let go of the wound on his thigh and pawed at Lassiter, spreading his blood over every part of the detective he could reach as he desperately tried to free himself. Snarling and snapping his teeth as he did so.

Lassiter shoved harder against the hand holding the knife and it finally let go. The knife clattered to the ground and was kicked away by one of the officers holding their weapons on Griffin who still struggled.

"Give it up, Griffin." Lassiter ground out. "You've got nowhere to go."

There was a minute pause, as Griffin's eyes focussed slightly and he realized the futility of his actions. Still snarling, he relaxed slightly, and Lassiter was able to flip him to face the wall, and cuff his hands behind him.

But then Griffin stopped snarling and began first to chuckle and then to outright laugh.

He laughed as Lassiter hauled him to his feet. He howled as Lassiter dragged him out of the building.

The sound was disturbing.

"What's so funny, psycho?" Lassiter growled in his ear as he forced the man out through the door.

"My revenge!" Griffin roared. "You think you've stopped me, but this is better than I could have hoped; even better than I planned."

Lassiter dragged him towards the cruiser.

"I planned to kill the profiler, but this will be so much better: Now she will suffer for years knowing I killed her son! She will suffer more this way!" And he dissolved into insane laughter.

With a heavy heart Lassiter pulled Griffin around the corner of the building. He had to nearly carry the man who was still cackling manically, and dragging his wounded leg.

They'd made it in time for one victim, but not for the other. If Spencer was dead, then Griffin was right: both elder Spencers would forever be tortured by the events of this night.

But then the detective's attention was caught by movement at the front entrance: Two EMTs were guiding a laden gurney towards the waiting ambulance, Henry following close enough to have a protective hand on his son. Lassiter smirked and nodded to himself in satisfaction. But he quickly swallowed the smile and scowled before anyone could catch him.

Feeling far more relief than he would ever admit to, Lassiter jerked Griffin to a halt. "You sure about that?" He growled yanking his prisoner's shoulder around so that he could see that his victim lived.

Lassiter leaned close to Griffin's ear and murmured with satisfaction. "You see, I know that guy - and he may be an idiot, but he is stubborn and he is strong. He's gonna be just fine. He's gonna live happily ever after with his mom while you rot in a cell. Let's go." And he jerked the now silent Griffin back into motion.

oO0Oo

Henry followed the gurney out of the building as the first rays of dawn were coloring the sky. He desperately wanted to stay with Shawn on the way to the hospital since he knew there was a chance his son wouldn't make it that far and if these were Shawn's last moments then there was no way his son would spend them alone.

He soon realized that he would not be able to stay with his son. But he also understood that Shawn would not be alone because Juliet was already inside the ambulance, her own wounds being treated.

He saw the moment she grasped the full extent of Shawn's injuries, though. It was nearly enough to send her into shock, and Henry knew the paramedics would have their hands full.

He turned at the sound of Lassiter shoving Griffin into the back of a cruiser none too gently. He nodded once as the head detective glanced his way. Their unspoken communication released Henry to go to the hospital but also obliged him to keep Lassiter updated on Juliet's condition.

He turned the other way and spotted Gus standing off to the side, looking lost. He walked over, but paused a few feet away as Gus physically recoiled when he saw Shawn's blood all over Henry's hands and knees. "Gus!" he raised his voice just a bit as a distraction. "Let's catch a ride with McNab before he leaves – whaddaya say?"

"Shawn… Shawn had… a knife…" He gestured at his own chest. Gus was afraid. He was afraid his best friend was dying. No. He knew his best friend was dying and it was now a race to see if the process could be halted before it was too late. Gus had never been very good at hiding his feelings. "He's… He's..."

Henry, on the other hand, was an expert. "He's gonna be fine. Let's go meet them at the hospital."

Then Gus managed to find his footing. Until that moment, he'd been completely numb below his knees, but now, having been given a purpose, he followed Henry to the cruiser where McNab waited.

The nondescript storage facility would be crawling with law enforcement for quite some time yet, probably well into the afternoon, but the principle players had all departed the scene.

TBC…

A/N - My mom taught me to always put my toys back the way I found them. This story will be no different.
Let me know if you're still reading. If no one's reading, there's not much point in posting the last chapters...