I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: I have tried to create a Poll off my Profile related to this story. If it worked, please go to my Profile and vote! If it's not there, I will keep trying to add it. BTW, Danny whump is pending .. it is unavoidable .. LOL!

Chapter 9

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Ponch was restless that early Saturday morning. He paced from kitchen to lanai and then back again unsure if he wanted to be inside or outside. Five-0 had nothing to act on and Jasper Mitchell was still missing. A few days earlier, Ellen had been shocked when Ponch came home from the clinic after receiving the frightening text message.

She had anticipated virtually anything upon his return except for the arrival of a bold white dog with a brindle colored hip.

"Who is this?" She squeaked in alarm as General stared back at her, equally stunned by this abrupt change in living arrangements. However, he approved of the woman even though not quite as strongly, she too carried those same familiar scents of medicine. On this person though, those everyday Jasper-like smells took a subtle back-seat to the more pleasant odors of chocolate chip cookies, a well cooked dinner and something suspiciously like pasta. And General heartily liked pasta.

He had studied her, scented her and then wagged his tail. She in turn had automatically crouched down despite her initial tone, and petted him in just the right spot behind his ears. Continuing to gently wag his tail, General decided that he liked Ellen, too.

"Meet General George S. Patton. General for short." Ponch announced with a wave of his hand indicating that General had free run of the house. Not known to be an animal lover, this move on her husband's part was exceedingly unparalleled.

"What are we doing with him. Exactly? Where's Jasper?" Ellen asked as the handsome dog lumbered past with toenails clicking rhythmically across the hardwood floors.

"Something's wrong. Something bad has happened." Tiredly and with a voice racked with worry, Ponch explained what little they knew. "We can't find Jasper. His dog is staying here with us until we do."

From that morning on, General sat facing the front door without twitching a muscle. He sat cocked on one hip and in such a way so that he could alternately watch the big doctor and the door should it open. He only left when Doctor Ramirez was out of sight for too long and he felt obligated to go find the man. Or, when he was grudgingly made to eat and take a forced trip outside to relieve himself.

Then he was back to sitting in his spot.

Five-0 had interviewed everyone at the clinic, including Alan Parker. There was no proof of foul play; there was no proof or evidence of any kind to indicate where Jasper Mitchell might have gone off to, and that sad fact continued hour after hour and day after day. No one had seen anything or heard anything. Jasper Mitchell had no enemies and so, had seemingly vanished into thin air.

Ponch walked past General for the kitchen and trailed his fingers across the soft white skull. General thumped his tail once at the touch and then resumed his study of the front door. He could go to work at the clinic, but he'd achieved his required hours for the month based upon his court order. With a subtle anger, he knew that he could still go to the clinic despite that achievement and easily do something constructive to avoid the boredom and worry.

However, Ponch couldn't promise what would happen should he come face to face with Alan Parker.

The man was lying and Ponch had no proof there either. They had one brief altercation after Parker had been interviewed first by Five-0 and then by the media. After providing his bland statement, he had fleetingly caught Ramirez's eye and paused in a peculiar way. It had happened in such an instantaneous flash, Ponch had almost been uncertain. Almost.

It was Saturday morning and the clinic had opened at eight o'clock. Checking his watch, it was now half past the hour and Ponch could still go and lend a hand. However, if he went to the clinic and faced Parker once more, there would be more than hell to pay and so with Ellen's warning echoing in his ear, Ponch forced himself to stay away.

Heaving an angry sigh and continuing to dwell, he carried on to the kitchen and wound up staring out the window.

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Hours later, Danny was impatiently pacing the beach parking lot and checking his watch. It was twelve-fifteen in the afternoon and Kono was never late, plus he'd been early. With an incredibly busy work week, they both had jumped at the opportunity for some well-deserved downtime no matter how brief it might be. After getting no response to a text message, he'd tried her cell phone but that had gone to voicemail immediately. So, the device was either oddly turned off or out of battery both of which things were strikingly out of character.

Sighing in annoyance and beating back the first small feelings of worry, he leaned up against the hood of the Camaro with his arms folded and frowned while watching every car turn into the lot. None of which were Kono's brightly colored red Chevy.

"Hey." He looked up as a large shape blocked the sun. Two other locals were in tow behind the man who confronted him. At first he was concerned about being singled out as the blonde Haole, but then he recognized the larger of three. "Are you looking for our Kono, brah?"

"I am." The Hawaiian was older and Danny remembered meeting him one or two other times during his lessons. They had ribbed him good-naturedly and without any kind of hostility. Wracking his brain, Danny smiled at him and then the two others. "Yeah, another round of torture with the ocean goddess, herself. But she's late .. and I'm honestly getting a bit worried about it."

Benj had to laugh at first, but was then serious. "She was here earlier in the morning, brah, to catch the best sets. But she took a tumble because some lolo dropped in on her wave. She went off to get fixed up. Nothing bad, but she needed to see a doc about a cut on her knee." Instantly concerned, Danny lost his smile when he heard the news.

"You're Benj ... right?" Danny asked. "I tried to call her and her phone is going directly to voicemail. Do you know where she went to get treated?"

"No. Wish I did, but we were setting that lolo straight for her." Benj shook his head and shrugged, now nearly as concerned as Danny. "Don't know. We were all taking care of the issue and she was fine, you know. It was no troubles and she took off alright around seven-thirty or so."

"Seven-thirty." Danny exclaimed in surprise. It was after Noon and hours had gone by at that point. The four looked at each other in concern, each knowing that Kono would never shirk a commitment.

"I'll call Chin and then the closest emergency rooms." Benj nodded too as he whipped out his own cell phone.

"Us too, brah. We'll put out some calls and compare notes." Staying near each other, but using their own individual resources and tactics, Danny and Benj made a flurry of unsatisfying calls that yielded no results.

"I got nothing." After exhausting all possibilities including contacting Chin, Danny called Steve, too. Waiting for his team-mates to arrive from different sides of the island, Danny was pacing worriedly now as Benj tried one more failed angle.

"Same." He replied unhappily. "Her cuz is here now though. Maybe he knows something."

The roar of Chin's motorcycle grew as he drove aggressively through traffic and then into the lot to park near Danny's Camaro.

"Danny, Benj." Chin greeted each as he yanked off his helmet. "I can't reach Kono. Tell me one of you know where she is." Full of a dark foreboding, Chin reported his lackluster news as he shut down his bike. He was mortified when Danny and Benj were still without information.

"I tried everyone I could think of on the way here. This isn't like her at all." Chin stressed. It left them only one option. Arriving at that conclusion precisely at the same time, Danny and Chin pulled out their smart phones again for the GPS application.

"She's not going to like this. Suppose something just came up and she's late? She'll kill us .. me especially for over-reacting." Trying to smile, Danny softly griped about what would happen if they were wrong, but Chin voiced what he really meant to say.

"I hope she kills us for this. Each one of us if we are taking it too far. But I have a bad feeling, Danny." Chin exclaimed as he worriedly pinged the GPS in her car and heaved a sigh of relief when he got a hit, but then didn't recognize the location. He was still making sure he was correct as Steve pulled up perpendicular behind Danny's car.

"Did you find her? What do you have?" By the looks of the small worried crowd, Steve knew they were all still at a dead-end. At least until Chin and Danny took a moment to share a look and mentally compare notes since they'd found a small something.

"I got it, too. Same location.' Danny confirmed as the light blinked on his screen. "It doesn't make sense though."

Tapping his own phone, Chin had confirmed the address with Danny again seconding the information. Not only confusing, it was without reason, and all three were on the move as soon as Chin finished the last word.

"Her car is here at a large warehouse .. on some old wharf that used to be part of an old cannery."

~ to be continued ~