2 AM, Tuesday

It had been a hellish night. And it wasn't over until nearly two. All I wanted to do was to get home and straighten things out with Kate.

When I was late getting home – really late – she always waited up for me. Because she knew those were the bad nights and she was there for me if I needed to de-stress, whether by sitting and talking or just the good old-fashioned way.

I slammed open the door to the locker room, and damned if she wasn't there, smoothing her hair in the mirror, miraculously fully dressed in a tee shirt and jeans. Serena's eyes caught my angry ones in the mirror. She turned, jauntily, with a self-satisfied smile on her face. She looked prepared for whatever I had. As if she were seven or eight moves ahead of me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," she purred, stroking her hair into place.

"Don't mess with my family."

She shrugged. "All's fair in love and war." She quoted.

"There's no love." I said with disgust, then added, "But you just bought yourself a war."

She smiled at me appreciatively. "I wouldn't have expected anything less from you." She walked toward me, and put her hands on my shoulders. I gave her a rough shove. Her falsely demure eyes snapped up at me with a flash of anger. I didn't like what I saw there. Kate's anger had been clear, pure. Serena's was murky and dark, with a hatred behind it I couldn't fathom.

"That's too bad. We'd be good together. With your attitude and your drive we'd have made a great team." In spite of her actions, I got the sense she wasn't referring to personal involvement or police work.

That's when I realized there was something there. Something not quite right.

She wasn't after me, her goal was something else.

Something bigger.

More destructive.

"Who are you?" I asked. She didn't answer, just turned back to preen in the mirror.

I stared at her for a minute, then turned to go. I wasn't about to change with her there. Anyway, the uniform might soften Kate up a bit.

That's when she said quietly, almost so I couldn't hear, but I was certain she wanted me to: "You messed with my family. Now it's my turn. I'll be seeing you later."

I looked back at her, but she ignored me and started applying lipstick.

I left. Maybe Kate and I could figure out this mess together.

When I got home, I threw my keys on the table and the sound they made seemed far too loud in the total silence. She was gone. Just as she'd said.

"Kate, I can't fix this if you're not here." I sighed.

I looked all over, but she hadn't left a note. She'd probably gone to Mom's, but it was too late to call.

Dropping flat on the sofa, exhausted, I stared at the ceiling and mulled over the last thing Serena had said.

This was personal? If it was, that meant she was here deliberately. Who had enough pull or enough money to get her assigned to the 79? Only one person I could think of fit that description. But it couldn't be.

Could it?

And if it was, what would his motive be?

I looked around the room and ended up focusing on the portrait hanging above the little table holding the phone and some kind of spider plant. Kate had just given it to me for Father's Day. Amanda and Mikey in Red Sox jerseys. It made me smile. I was planning to get her the Yankees counterpart by Christmas.

I had been able to take her to one Yankees/ Red Sox game in the Bronx. I'd told her she couldn't wear her Sox ballcap and pullover.

"I'm with a cop. What are they going to do to me?" Then she'd laughed.

"What?"

"I was just imagining you at Fenway. I give you ten minutes before you'd be banned for life." She looked at her rings. "A Yanks/Sox marriage. What was I thinking?"

And I'd realized her ring was red and white: Sox colors. That had been unintentional.

She had made it plain that there was to be no diamond - that she was satisfied with a gold band.

I'd gotten her one anyway, with a garnet on each side - January's birthstone - in very late December, about a week before the wedding.

We'd been entangled on the couch one night watching some movie or another, and I'd been holding her hand, so I'd been able to get it on her finger before she knew what I was doing, thus winning that Battle of Stubbornness.

She'd cried a little, but I'd known it was the baby making her do it.

And that's when I noticed the light on the answering machine was blinking. I dragged myself over and hit the button. Three messages in all.

The first was Mom, in a conspiratorial whisper, informing me that Kate and the kids were safely tucked away at Sully's cabin. That she and Kate had talked and Kate would be heading back to the city so we could set things right again. I assumed she meant in the morning. She and Sully would watch the kids.

Thanks, Mom.

The next message had me baffled, the third made my heart stop.

The call was so convincing that it made me wonder if I was really lying dead somewhere and this was Hell.

Kate had been here. I couldn't handle hearing the raw panic in her voice. The timestamp on the call was 11:30 pm.

Three hours ago.

This wasn't somebody just wanting her out of the apartment. If so, she'd have been to the hospital and back long before now.

Maybe that's all it was. Maybe after that she'd gone to find me at the precinct, in which case I'd have to kill her for going there at that time of night. I really couldn't think.

I tried her cell. It was off.

Maybe she'd been in an accident?

I was kidding myself.

I had to stay calm and do what I knew.

All I could think of to do was to trace her steps, starting with the hospital.

For some reason the building didn't have assigned parking spaces; it was a on a first-come first-served basis, so I had been stuck in a dark corner on the lower level when I'd gotten home.

I walked down the ramp in the silent garage and what I saw stopped me cold.

Kate's car.

Kate's keys.

Not good.

I went over and picked up her keys and turned them over in my hands. They were definitely hers. There was the keychain with the tiny little Glock replica she'd gotten at the shooting range.

Someone had taken her.

I couldn't move. I scanned the portion of the garage I could see from where I was, with futility. It had been three hours.

Where the hell do I go from here?

The click of a revolver hammer being cocked next to my head pretty much gave me my answer. This couldn't be mere robbery. It had to be related.

"Don't move."

Didn't dare.

He relieved me of my weapon.

"You wanna see your wife?"

"Where is she?"

"Rocko's taking good care of her."

"Rocko? I hope for his sake that's a nickname."

And then I hoped it wasn't.

"Cuff yourself, hands behind you. Use your own." I did, loosely, but he saw that and tightened them right up. He fished in my pocket for the keys then dropped them into his own.

"Car keys." he demanded. I opened my hand and he took Kate's set. "Mine are in my left pocket." I offered. He retrieved those as well.

"What is this all about?"

"Don't worry. This has nothing to do with you. You're just insurance."

So this was about Kate? Some investigative piece gone awry? She hadn't written one of those since before we met.

Was my original instinct correct?

I had more questions than answers. A hell of a lot more questions than I'd had this afternoon.

He unlocked Kate's car and had me get in the back. "Get down and stay down." He instructed. I complied.

And he drove. I lay on my back so I could see out the windows, trying to get a feel for where we were headed.

On the way he became conversational, reminding me that I'd gone with him voluntarily, so there could be no kidnapping charge.

I liked that his mind was already on defeat, making allowances for being caught, thinking about maybe not getting out of this. I had a mental advantage already.

But I couldn't map out a strategy until I could find out who was involved and what this was all about.