Hanson heard the words and felt despair like he had never felt before. This is never going to end...never. He saw the gun coming down fast, and everything went black.

"Penhall!"

Doug jerked his head up from his desk at the sound of his supervisor bellowing his name across the chapel. "What?! What?! I'm awake!" he answered groggily, a piece of paper stuck to his face.

Captain Adam Fuller approached the desk and looked down at Doug as he tried to quickly comb his hair with his fingers. Satisfied with the result, he looked up at his captain and smiled. "What can I do for you, Cap'n?"

"Where the hell is Hanson? It's almost eight!"

Doug looked around, befuddled. "Ummmm…he's not here?"

Fuller rolled his eyes. "Doug, where the hell have YOU been for the past 45 minutes? No! He's not here!"

"Huh." Doug looked confused. "I don't know. We went out last night. I dropped him off at his place just after eleven."

"Well find him," the captain said pointedly. "And fast. I need you guys on a case today, not out on some scavenger hunt." He walked back to his office, leaving a yawning Penhall behind.

Doug got himself a cup of coffee and then sat down to call his partner. There was no answer at the house, only a generic answering machine message and a beep. "Hey, man!" Doug said. "Are you there?" He paused. "WAKE UP!!" He waited a minute, and after getting no response said "Call me," and hung up.

Next he called Tom's cell phone. After several rings he again got a greeting asking him to leave a message. "Hanson, where are you, man? Fuller is pissed. Call me…or better yet, get your ass in here ASAP."

About a half an hour later, Doug was finishing up some paperwork when Captain Fuller came out of his office and approached him again. "Any word?"

Doug looked up. "On what?"

Fuller sighed and stared down at him. "Hanson. Where is he?" he said evenly, trying to keep from reaching across the desk and throttling the oblivious man sitting there.

"Oh yeah! Couldn't reach him at home or on his cell, but I left messages for him to call me." He looked up at the captain brightly.

"And?"

"Nothing yet," Doug replied.

"Doug, he's almost two hours late now, I have a case sitting on my desk with no one working on it, and you're not helping!" Fuller's exasperation was quickly turning to anger.

Penhall cleared his throat and sat up straighter in his chair.

"Now get out there and FIND him! Check his house, call his mom…I don't care WHAT you do, just get him in here!" Fuller exclaimed and then stormed back to his office, slamming the door behind him.

An hour and a half later, Doug appeared at Fuller's office door, knocking tentatively before sticking his head in the room. "Uh…Cap'n?"

"If you aren't here to say you found him, then I don't want to hear it," Fuller answered without looking up from his desk.

Doug entered the office and looked at Fuller. "I went over to his place. His car's there…same place where it was parked last night. I let myself into the apartment. He's not there. It looks like he wasn't there this morning. I mean…no signs of a shower or making breakfast or anything." He spoke slowly and quietly, his cheerful demeanor from earlier now fading. "I called his mom too. I didn't want to. I shouldn't have. Now she's worried…" He paused. "Anyway, she hasn't heard from him."

As Doug filled him in, Fuller sat back in his chair and watched the young man. Doug was worried. Fuller could see that. And quite frankly, he was becoming more than a little concerned himself.

Why wouldn't he die?

Hanson asked himself that question every time he woke up shivering on the cold ground. He had slowly regained consciousness every hour or so, blissfully pain-free in the first seconds of waking. But the pain always came, gradually creeping up on him and encompassing his body, reminding him of where he was and what had happened to him.

This time, like every time before, he asked himself that question. Why wouldn't he die? First Eckert and now God was torturing him, toying with him, playing with him like a cat with a mouse until the poor mouse finally gives in and lies there waiting to be killed. Tom was past that point. He had been lying there for hours waiting to die. But God wasn't done playing with him yet.

He struggled to open his eyes, but the left one would not cooperate. His right lid rose slowly, breaking the seal of dried tears and blood that was crusted there. It was lighter out now. Morning was coming on, and he could hear birds singing in the trees. He was lying on his right side, his knees brought up in a semi-fetal position, and his arms still bound behind his back. He couldn't even feel them anymore. He let out a small moan as the pains in his body came alive again. His head throbbed, and his jaw was aching from the gag forcing his mouth open for so long. The rest of his body was a myriad of sharp and dull pains, especially his ribs and stomach which were causing him considerable distress with every breath he took. And then there was that other pain, the indescribable one that was unlike any other he had ever experienced. He tried to put that one out of his mind…to not think of what kind of damage Eckert might have done to him there. But the thoughts and the pain were demanding to be heard, and the tears came as he started to slowly fade away again.

Before the peace of unconsciousness took over, however, he was jarred by a sudden vibration in his front jeans pocket. Frightened and confused, he whimpered and tried to curl up tighter, trying to hide from whatever it was that was surely about to hurt him again. But as the vibration continued in a regular beat, he realized it was his cell phone. Someone was looking for him. He was filled with mixed emotions at that thought. For hours now he had been sure he was destined to die out here alone, left among the garbage. And he had accepted that…made peace with it. But now, a small glimmer of hope sparked inside of him. Maybe, just maybe, he could survive this. As the phone went silent again, he drifted off once more.

By noon, approximately 2 hours after Penhall had reported to Captain Fuller that Hanson was nowhere to be found at his apartment, nor had his mother heard from him, the captain notified Chief Pat Owens that they might have a problem.

"He's not missing, Fuller! Not officially. Not for 24 hours."

"With all due respect, sir, he's a conscientious police officer who is five hours late reporting for duty and is nowhere to be found and not answering his phone," the captain replied.

"And he's got a wild streak in him," Owens countered. "This wouldn't be the first time he's taken off on his own without letting you know, now would it?"

Fuller had to agree that the chief was right. But somehow this time it felt different. He sighed. "Could we just…"

"I'm not giving you an army of officers to go chasing this kid down, Fuller. Not unless I know something is wrong."

Fuller threw up his hands in exasperation. "All I'm asking is…just let us use the AV tech to track his phone. Then we'll check it out…see what we can find."

Chief Owens looked at the other man as he contemplated the request. "Fine!" he said. "Track the phone…track him down…whatever! But you've got two hours, Captain. Two hours. I don't want you traipsing off on an all day wild goose chase."

"Thank you, sir."

"Take just one of your team with you. And I'll give you one car, two uniforms…that's it. Now get out of here."

No one was coming for him.

He was sure of it now. The sun was getting higher overhead, moving across the sky and causing the shadows from the trees to move as well. The sunlight was too hot and the shade was too cold. He was the epitome of misery. The time he spent being unconscious was becoming longer and longer. The time he spent awake became more and more disorienting.

Tom lay as he had for hours. His breathing was becoming more shallow, although he did not take notice. The pain in his heart outweighed the pain in his body now. He had allowed himself that one small flicker of hope when his phone rang, but it was proving to be unfounded. No one was coming. He couldn't even cry anymore. The tears wouldn't come. He was so thirsty, the gag in his mouth dry now and caked with blood and saliva. The blood on his wrists and around the rope on his face was clotted as well, forming a sickening stickiness there. Somewhere in the trees, he heard a mourning dove calling, and he closed his eyes.

"Okay, JT, do your stuff."

Doug handed over the information card to the AV tech. He watched as JT input the data into the computer.

"You know this may not pinpoint the spot exactly, right?" JT asked. "It depends on a lot of factors…how populated the area is, how many transmission towers are in the area…stuff like that."

"Yeah, I know," Doug responded. "Just give me what you can. It's a start."

JT finished inputting the information and began processing it, watching as the tower locations popped up on the screen. "Triangulating now…" he said. "There!"

Doug leaned over the tech's shoulder and peered at the screen. "What? Where? What's it mean?"

JT switched the display to satellite with a road marker overlay. "The signal's coming from somewhere in here." He pointed at the screen. "Lotus Park, out on State Road 27."

"Print it out."

I hope you're all still reading and liking it. Sorry this update was so long in coming, but I was working on another project. The next update should come quicker. In the meantime, you could pass the time away by leaving a review. :-D Thanks!!