It felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room.

She's dead.

Danny closed his eyes and tried to remember. He and Rachel had been outside… in an alley… searching for Stan. No, not Stan. Someone else. There was a car speeding toward him. He froze. Time stopped. The car slammed into him, and he remembered the sensation of flying immediately before slamming into the concrete.

She's dead.

Rachel wasn't even standing near him when the car had come careening down the street. They had been close together initially, but he had stepped away from her. Hadn't he?

She's dead.

Before… just before being hit by the car, he had felt something. A shove. A push from his left. Rachel. It had to have been Rachel trying, unsuccessfully, to shove Danny out of the path of the oncoming car. But why? Why would she do that?

She's dead.

No. Danny refused to accept it.

"She's dead."

This time it wasn't the man's voice echoing wildly in his mind, but a small, broken voice behind him. Danny turned and looked at Stan. His head was buried in his trembling hands, and Danny knew that if was barely hanging on before, it was only a matter of time before he completely lost it. He tried to sit up, but the pain made it impossible to move more than a few inches, and he sank back down to the floor, panting from the pitiful effort.

Stan seemed to snap to it and, sensing Danny's troubles, moved from the cot and shuffled over. He silently slid his hands under Danny's arms and lifted. Danny groaned from the movement, and black spots clouded his vision again. He must have blacked out, because the next thing he was aware of was being carefully lowered onto the uncomfortable cot.

He wanted to say thank you, but instead mumbled, "You look like hell, Stanley."

At that, Stan snorted, but he wouldn't make eye contact with Danny as he walked, hunch-backed, over to the opposite wall and sagged to the floor.

"He killed her."

Danny closed his eyes.

"We don't know that, Stan."

"I had an affair."

Danny's eyes popped open.

"I know."

"You had an affair, too," Stan said, his voice strained and distant.

Danny was having a hard time following Stan's jumps in topic.

"Yes, Stan, I did," he admitted.

"I knew. Did you know that?"

Danny tried to catch Stan's eyes, but he wouldn't look at him.

"No, I didn't know that."

"I knew. I was mad. And so I had one too."

Danny waited until Stan looked at him to ask, "What happened last night?"

Stan didn't move. Didn't speak. It wasn't until Danny repeated the question that he responded at all.

"I don't… I…" Stan struggled to begin. "He dragged you in here. And there was a gun. I hadn't seen that before. Even when he took me… And then those pictures. He was bragging. And kicking you. Bragging and kicking. And then getting so mad that I wasn't mad."

Danny tried to follow along Stan's jumbled words that tumbled rapidly from him, watching as his glassy eyes moved frantically around the room as he re-lived it all.

"He said that you were sleeping together. And that Rachel was glad I was gone. And that everything was my fault. But it was your fault too. And he said… we needed to be punished… you needed to be punished. I'm sorry, Danny. I didn't… want to. He had a gun. He said he'd kill you and plant evidence that I did it. So I… he and I… God, I'm so sorry Danny. I hit you."

Danny could fill in the rest as he watched Stan continue to rub the dried blood off his hands. He hadn't paid it much attention before, but now it made sense. It was Danny's blood. Stan had essentially been forced to beat the crap out of Danny. No wonder the night's events were all jumbled… as if being hit by a car hadn't been enough, he'd been punched and kicked and God knows what else by Step-Stan.

He was angry, but he was also exhausted. And that bone-deep tiredness won-out.

"It's okay," Danny whispered as he closed his eyes.

"No, no it's not okay," Stan argued, but Danny shook his head.

"You listen to me," he continued, eyes still closed. "I shot you. Ok? I shot you and you let me do it."

"What?"

"For Grace," Danny clarified. "I shot you, and I could have killed you. So I think you throwing a few punches my way means we're even."

Stan seemed to absorb that information for a moment, before nodding, though Danny didn't think he looked too convinced. And if he was honest with himself, he wasn't entirely convinced either. All of this was a bit much to take in, and he still hadn't entirely figured out why he was here at all.

"Danny… is she dead?"

Danny sighed at the sudden jump in conversation again. Stan was in bad shape. And based on his own ragged breathing, fuzzy memories, and inability to remain conscious for long periods of time, he was in bad shape too. As he felt unconsciousness pulling him back under, images of Rachel bleeding and unconscious flooded his mind.

"I don't know, Stan. I don't know."

"How's Rachel?" Kono asked Steve as he strode into Five-0 headquarters early the following morning. After taking Rachel's statement at the hospital, Steve had allowed himself only a few hours of sleep and a quick shower before driving back to the office.

"She's upset," Steve replied, sparing a quick glance to Danny's empty office. "But she'll be okay. What have you got?"

"A lot," Kono said with a thin smile, and Steve followed her into her office. "First, I found something interesting. Stan has a second cell phone number registered to his name."

Kono sat behind her desk, typed in a few commands on her laptop, and turned it around so Steve could see.

"It never showed up on his financial history, so my guess is that he pays cash for it each month," she continued. "There is only one number programmed into it, and it belongs to Ashleigh Whitworth."

Steve nodded, following along Kono's train of thought. "Okay, so he gets this phone to communicate with her when they're having the affair."

"Exactly. And when I pulled up his phone's recent history, it shows that Stan received a text from Ashleigh Whitworth's phone at 7:00 the night he went missing, asking him to meet her in Wai'anae."

Steve closed his eyes a moment, and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the headache he already could feel forming. "But her alibi for that night checked out. She was chairing-"

"An Oahu First meeting, I know," Kono finished. "Over a dozen people confirmed she was there. The thing is, I spoke with Ashleigh this morning. She confirmed that she had a burner phone that she used to contact Stan with when they were together, but that she lost it a month ago. She never bothered looking for it because she and Stan had called it quits months before that, so she didn't really need it anymore. She denied texting him that night."

"Did they find Stan's disposable in his car?" Kono shook her head in response. "Okay, let's pretend for a moment that she's telling the truth. Whoever sent that message not only knew about their relationship, but somehow got a hold of her phone to bait Stan."

Steve paused, silently bouncing around several theories.

"What about Robert Sundt? He worked with Ashleigh in Oahu First, and he worked with Stan at Platinum Coast. He could have easily known about the affair."

"Well," she paused, looking rather apprehensive, "I found out more about Sundt. And you're not going to like it."

"Kono, I haven't liked anything about this case from the minute Rachel walked through that door five days ago."

"Okay, well, I found the connection between Owen Brining – the man threatening Sundt at the gala," Kono reminded him, "and Robert Sundt. It turns out that Sundt has been siphoning money out of Platinum Coast for years, and Brining is some sort of cleaner, funneling the money around and then depositing it back into Sundt's account."

"He's stealing from his own company."

"You've got it," Kono confirmed. "HPD brought in Brining for questioning late last night. He spilled the beans on Sundt's whole operation the minute they got him into interrogation. It looks like Sundt was getting rather greedy and hiding some of the money from Brining, which fueled the hostile encounter at the gala. He lawyered-up the minute they started asking him about Sundt's murder, but he did mention that he'd never heard of Stan Edwards, or Ashleigh Whitworth."

Steve sighed, feeling more and more dejected by the minute. "It's looking as though Sundt had nothing to do with this. And we have no idea who sent Stan that text."

"Looks like we're back to square one, boss."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Steve and Kono turned to see Chin standing in the doorway, a big smile on his face. Behind him, a taller, aging man quietly stood, anxiously looking back at them. "You guys are going to want to hear this."

"This is Kainoa Victor," Chin introduced the older man to Steve and Kono. "He's the evening supervising janitor for our building."

Steve nodded to the gentlemen as they all took a seat inside Steve's office.

"Let me give you a little background information before we get started," Chin continued. "Awhile back, you asked me to pull up surveillance around Five-0 so we could check to see if Danny stayed in the office the night Stan went missing. The footage doesn't show Danny leaving the building," Chin said with a small smile. "But, we all know that cameras can be avoided. Knowing you'd want rock-solid evidence that Danny was here all night, I called Mr. Victor in to see if he could confirm Danny's presence in the office."

"And?"

"And he was here, Commander," Kainoa replied firmly. "He was in his office when I came by to do my normal cleaning. Knowing you guys don't like to be bothered when you're working late on a case, I left him alone. I don't even think he saw me stop by."

"Good," Steve said with a relieved smile. Kainoa's statement would officially clear Danny of any suspicion in Stan's abduction. "Thank you, Mr. Victor."

Steve made a move to stand, but Chin motioned for him to remain seated.

"There's more, Steve. Mr. Victor?"

At Chin's gentle prodding, Kainoa cleared his throat and looked nervously at Steve.

"I am an old man, Commander. I will probably have to retire soon. Osteoarthritis in both my hands, you see." He held his hands out in front of him a moment, regarding them sadly, before quickly regaining eye-contact with Steve. "This job may not be much, but it's all I have. I've had to cut back my hours lately. My wife is sick. Laryngeal Cancer. Lots of doctor's appointments to get to…"

He paused a moment to clear his throat.

"Lots of doctor's appointments to pay for," he finished.

Steve nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Victor. But what…"

"I was approached by a man several weeks ago," Kainoa interrupted. "Didn't tell me what his name was, and didn't ask me for mine. It happened just like it does in the movies, with a mysterious guy in a hat and sunglasses asking a stranger for a favor? He just handed me a manila envelope filled with cash, saying all he wanted was something from Detective Williams' office."

Steve immediately sat up a little straighter, and Kainoa looked away, suddenly looking a little nervous.

"The money couldn't have come at a better time," he said in a quiet voice. "And all he wanted was for me to take something out of an office. I know it was stealing, but my wife…"

He trailed off, and when it looked like he wasn't going to continue, Steve asked, "What did you take?"

"A mug," Kainoa whispered, then repeated more loudly, "a mug. It was sitting on his desk. And I knew it was something he used a lot… that was one of the two requirements that the other guy told me. He said it had to be something that Detective Williams would have touched a lot."

"What was the second requirement?" Chin asked.

"He gave me a pair of gloves and a plastic bag. He said I couldn't touch whatever I took."

Steve shared a look with Chin, and Kono finally voiced what they had all figured out.

"Danny's prints. His thumb and ring-finger. That's how he got them."

"Would you be able to sit down with a sketch artist?" Steve asked, finally feeling as though they were one step closer to finding out where Stan and Danny were. Because through it all, Steve had never once thought that Stan was anything but alive. And with Danny gone too, he had to believe that his partner was out there alive as well.

"I'm not proud of what I did, Commander," Kainoa stated, ignoring Steve's question. "And I am sorry if anything that I did has caused any sort of harm."

"I understand, Mr. Victor, I do. But right now all I am concerned about is finding my partner," Steve resolutely stated. "Now, would you be able to describe the man who approached you?"

"That might not be necessary," Chin stated, and Steve noticed he was looking at something on his phone. "I just got a text from HPD, and they sent over an image that the sketch artist drew up of our hit-and-run driver. Looks like our pot-head had a decent memory."

Chin stood and handed his phone over to Steve.

"Recognize him?"

Steve nodded, his teeth clenched in agitation. He stood and walked around his desk, turning the phone around so the janitor could also see the image.

"Is this the guy?"

The other man eyed it only for a moment before nodding. "Yeah. Yes, that's him."

Steve turned the phone back around and stared at the face. It was Malachi Whitworth.