Rigsby contacted the local police and highway patrol and had a 20 mile perimeter roadblock set up around the rest stop before he made the dreaded call to inform Lisbon back in Sacramento. Having received the call at home and alone, Theresa Lisbon felt free to curse Patrick Jane and the ground he walked upon and she threw on some clothes and headed out the door to her car.
By 2am the remaining members of Lisbon's team had been recalled to CBI headquarters. A couple of officers had been immediately dispatched to George Amadi's house once Lisbon got the call that Jane and Donovan were missing. George Amadi was not home and he did not answer any calls to his phone.
Lisbon relayed this information by phone to Rigsby who was in the manager's office at the truck stop reviewing the security camera footage. "Would George Amadi happen to be a dwarf?" he asked.
Lisbon frowned and blinked, then spoke to Van Pelt who was seated at her desk, computer up and running. "Check Amadi's D.O.T. records. What's his height?"
A few keyboard clicks and Van Pelt had the answer. "Four foot four," she said, puzzled.
"Unless this is a really weird coincidence, I think we have identified a suspect," Lisbon said. "You got that?" she asked Rigsby.
"Got it," he said.
"His prisoner and partner were kidnapped by a dwarf?" Cho mused out loud.
Rigsby heard Cho's comment, but pretended not to.
"I'll fax Amadi's info to the local authorities," Van Pelt said.
"Amadi's info is on its way to the Medford PD," Lisbon said into the phone. "Cho and I are on our way up there...ETA four and a half hours." She hung up the phone and turned back to Van Pelt. "Get Benson Bowman in here. Find out how much he knows about what Donovan was working on. Rigsby said she had some special project going."
"Okay, boss," Van Pelt said.
"You hold down the fort here," Lisbon said. "Cho and I are going up to help track down Jane and Donovan. If this is one of Jane's stunts everyone had better hope that Rigsby finds him before I do."
* * * *
The semi-trailer Jane and Stephanie had been forced into was empty except for its two occupants. Two battered lighting fixtures clung to the ceiling. One of them worked, blinking with each bump in the road. In the dim light, still cuffed together, Jane and Stephanie had searched the walls for a secondary exit, and the floor for possible weapons. They found nothing. The only door was in the back of the trailer and secured from the outside. There was nothing to do but wait.
"So what's your plan?" Stephanie asked.
"Don't have one," Jane answered. He sat down with his back against the side of the trailer. Stephanie was forced down next to him due to being cuffed to his left wrist.
"No plan?" she repeated.
"None," he said, and closed his eyes.
"So you're just going to sit there…"
"I'm not MacGyver," he said. "I can't make a hand saw or a gun out of a stick of gum and some pocket lint."
"Do you have any?"
"Always."
"I meant gum."
"Nope," he said.
Stephanie broke the silence after a few minutes. "You're not going to ask me if I know who this guy is or where he might be taking us or what I might be involved in to get myself kidnapped?"
Jane leaned his head back against the truck wall and didn't open his eyes. "If you knew who he was you would have said so already. If you knew where we were going you'd say something like 'Hey, please don't take us to that lumber yard and cut us up with chainsaws,' and you already told me you weren't going to tell me what you're involved in."
"That was before we were kidnapped," she said.
Jane looked at her. "Do you know who this man is and why he wanted to kidnap you?"
"No," she said.
"And what makes you so sure you're the one he wanted anyway?" Jane asked.
Stephanie looked at him suspiciously. "Why would someone want to kidnap you?"
"I don't know," Jane said. He closed his eyes and put his head back again.
"Going to sleep is going to help us find out?"
"No," he said, irritably. "But if we're very, very quiet we might hear him talking on the phone or the radio or hear something outside that will tell us where we are."
Feeling stupid and annoyed, Stephanie shut up and listened.
* * * *