A/N: I don't own Leverage, or the characters involved, except those of my own creation. I write for fun and not for profit. I don't write slash.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 4

"She's gone?" Nate asked, his face colored with confusion.

"Looks that way," Eliot said, unable to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that told him that something was wrong—horribly wrong. He dashed over to the window, inspecting it carefully to see what it could tell him about the disappearance. Eliot couldn't stomach the thought that she had left voluntarily, but the alternative meant that they were all potentially in great danger.

"So what now?"

"Not sure what you want me to say, Nate. Our only link to Parker is gone. The only thing we can do until they call is to keep doing what we've been doing." Eliot turned and looked at Bonanno. "It'll be light in a couple of hours. I'm guessing you'll want to look at the crime scene." Bonanno nodded. "I'll go with you. We need to keep this as quiet as possible, for Parker's safety. If they think the police are involved, they'll kill her. Nate and Sophie, you stay here in case they call."

"I'm going with you two," Hardison said. Eliot knew why he wanted to go, and he could sympathize, but they needed to keep it as quiet as possible. Laying a hand on the younger man's shoulder, he squeezed gently, and said, "Hardison, we don't know what we'll find when we get there. It's better if you stay here. Besides, we need you here to trace the call when her abductors call back." Hardison sighed, and nodded. As much as he didn't want to stay, what Eliot said made sense.

Eliot turned his attention back to Bonanno, loathe to say what he needed to say in front of the team, but knowing they wanted to hear it, and as much as he knew it would upset them, he had promised never to keep anything material from them simply to spare their feelings or to keep them from worrying. That was a promise they had extracted early on, and though he wondered if they sometimes regretted asking him to make it, he didn't make promises he wouldn't keep, and so, he had told them before, and he would tell them now.

"I couldn't tell if the window was opened from the inside or the outside. Before we leave, I'd like for you to look at it."

Bonanno nodded, moving over next to the window and examining it carefully. Nate spoke up, "So we don't know if she left voluntarily or not."

"Not unless Pat sees something I wasn't able to see." Bonanno looked up at that moment and shook his head.

(0o0)

Bonanno and Eliot arrived at the crime scene as soon as it was light enough to see. They were there for different reasons, and that was what Eliot was counting on. He was looking for anything else belonging to Parker, which might be there, and which might give them some clue to her whereabouts. Bonanno was looking at the scene the way a policeman would—looking for anything that might tell them who perpetrated this act against Parker and Gabby, as well as where they might have been taken and when, and anything that might incriminate their abductors. Nonchalantly, Eliot began scanning every inch of the alley. He was almost at the other end when he saw it—a small, black tracking device of the type Hardison had deposited in various places on their persons. Quick as lightning he picked it up, and turned it over. It was then that he saw what he was looking for—the one thing that made Hardison's tracking devices easy to identify—the end of a small green wire sticking out of a small hole on the bottom of the thumbnail sized disk. That didn't exactly prove that Parker had been there, but there was a better chance that her captors wouldn't have found the tracking device, so there was a good chance Parker had been here in person. That was something, anyway. Eliot tried to put the scene together in his mind, but it wasn't working. There simply wasn't enough information at the scene for him to adequately reproduce what happened.

Eliot had known that going back to the scene of the crime was a long shot, and he didn't know what he had been expecting to find, but he was surprised to find himself shockingly disappointed that they hadn't found anything leading them to Parker. He shoved the disappointment ruthlessly aside, to be dealt with later, and finished his search. A moment later, he jumped slightly when Bonanno said his name.

"Eliot!" Eliot looked up, getting the distinct impression from Bonanno's expression that the man had said his name several times. That was unacceptable, and Eliot made a mental note to give the matter more thought later. There was no time now. Their eyes met, and Bonanno spoke. "I think we've learned all we can from this place. Let's go."

Eliot slipped the tracking device into his pocket, and followed Bonanno back to his truck. They drove back to the team's headquarters in silence. Bonanno said his goodbyes, wanting to get the evidence he had collected to a friend , whom he trusted to keep it quiet, at the State Crime Lab. He promised to check in later. Eliot walked through the bar and made his way upstairs. When he walked in, he threw the tracking device to Hardison, and said, "Let's see what that can tell us."

The usually happy-go-lucky young man smiled grimly and started typing furiously on his keyboard. Nate and Sophie had their heads together, discussing various strategies and making plans. Eliot paced the room, and his usually semi-relaxed demeanor was gone, having been replaced with an ultra alertness, which filled the room with a sort of tension. The hitter was as tightly wound as a poisonous snake, and Nate would bet his strike would be just as deadly. He wasn't sure which of them would be the worst when they got their hands on these people. He just hoped they were able to do so before one of them snapped.

"Did they call?" Eliot finally asked. The other three together shook their heads. That was odd. What was taking them so long? Before they had a chance to think too much about it, though, they heard a crash that came from the other room, followed by a very loud silence.

Everyone stood frozen when they heard the crash, and Eliot looked around, accounting for each member of the team, and making sure they were all still where they were supposed to be. As the information sank in that they were all still there, he stayed frozen for just another few seconds, as he rapidly ran through options in his head. After a pregnant pause, he took off running for the treatment room, and as the others realized what was happening, they followed. Watching him wrench open the door, Nate couldn't help thinking it was a wonder the man didn't simply pull it off of it's hinges, or go through it while it was closed.

Eliot stopped just inside the door, his mouth open slightly in shock at the sight that greeted him. What looked like a heap of bloody rags lay on the floor, near the middle of the room. As he found himself wondering where they had come from and how they had gotten there, the rags started to moan.