A/N: Okay, another string added to the crazy-ass braid I'm weaving here. Everyone still with me? This one is a continuation of Gone, Stonewall and Bereft. Grace is missing. (BTW, anyone notice Hannah on the promo season premiere of Bones? Seriously? Booth hooked up while on tour? How many hot blondes are there in Afghanistan, exactly?)

Ang Mo

Jane's man came through.

No shocker there. Jane knew the guy was a freakin' Rembrandt at his job. Art always comes in various guises and the man was the best at what he did. Jane paid him his usual fee, plus the bonus he offered for speed. He wired the money. His man left his findings in their usual drop place. That man, John Ash, the best P.I. money could buy, didn't even blink at the shift in target. If Jane wanted information on a serial killer name Red John, as he had for so many years, then Ash would gopher everything he could on the psycho. If he suddenly wanted information on the present whereabouts of a sweet-looking redhead from west Iowa, then Ash would root her out in ten hours flat and collect his carrot. And did so. After all, psycho killers tended to operate off the radar. Sweet-looking redheads from west Iowa? Were easy as pie to track. You only had to know where to look.

Ash checked his account and smirked gently. The bump in the total told him that Jane had been satisfied with his findings. He tipped his fingers to the screen in a small salute. Always a pleasure.

The next day, Jane sauntered by Rigsby's desk and dropped a single slip of paper under the suffering agent's nose. Jane felt nothing but smug pleasure as it flittered from his fingers and onto the keyboard. Lisbon was an angel and all, but honestly. The woman couldn't have invented a crueler torture for her agent, not if she'd been commissioned by the Grand Inquisitor himself. Jane knew it wasn't deliberate, but still, the result was the same. Hence, he pulled out his usual I-don't-work-here-and-I'm-zany-so-rules-don't-apply-to-me card and interfered as he saw fit. Lisbon would never know. Or rather, would never prove otherwise. Because Jane didn't just spin plates. He spun them in the dark. No one would ever have any idea how many were going at one time.

The paper glided gently into Rigsby's line of sight. He looked up in curiosity, but Jane was already gone, walking into the kitchen with his teacup. The picture of innocence.

He looked back down.

Ang Mo

1294 Clara Vista Drive

Tonight 9PM

His eyes narrowed. The note didn't make any sense. Ang Mo? What did that mean? It sounded like Korean takeout or something. He looked up again, ready to call across the space and into the kitchen to ask Jane what the hell, but the words jammed in his throat. There was something... He could just make out the slight indentation of writing on the other side of the note and flipped it in his hands.

I told you she was still in California.

His questions died.

The message branded itself into his mind as he quickly stuffed the note in his pocket. It didn't matter if he lost it. The information was never leaving his memory. His spine pulled him up straighter and he threw himself back into his work as if the last ten seconds hadn't happened. For the next few hours, he would be the idyllic little worker bee.

Jane had found Grace.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was dark when he found the place.

Rigsby eased his SUV onto the side of the road, not pulling up to the large, yet upscale warehouse. He wanted to look at it first. Get his bearings. He scanned their visible security and made a note of the other buildings in the immediate vicinity. He did so calmly. He wasn't too worried, not yet anyway. Jane had handed him a note. He hadn't yanked him into the john and frantically given him the address and told him to run. Plus Lisbon had been cool with this - whatever it was - for three fuckin' months. That meant that Grace wasn't in trouble.

Or so he hoped.

He hopped out of the car and flipped the locks. No sense risking company property on a personal errand. Gravel crunched under his boots as he walked up to the guard, making it clear that he wasn't lurking. His height, his jeans, his dark leather jacket made the guard watch him carefully as he approached from the road. Rigsby followed the line of the chain-link fence, making his way to the man. Not many giants ambled straight up to the booth, so the guard furtively kept his hand on his holstered gun.

Rigsby saw. But he didn't slow his steady pace until he was right in front of the guy and just in front of the electronic gate, staring down calmly through the plate glass separating them. He hadn't planned to, but he pulled out his badge and flashed the guy. "I need in."

The guard blinked. His watery gray eyes clearly hadn't expected to see a cop. "Why?" he asked vaguely.

Rigsby pressed his tongue into his teeth. Usually he sucked at lying. Now it slipped through as easily as breath. "911 call came through. Woman claiming she's been attacked at this address. I heard it over the monitor and offered to take it since I was close." It have him cause to enter. It gave him reason for being in plain clothes. It brought him closer to Grace.

The guy squinted doubtfully. "I didn't hear nuthin. And I've been here since five."

Rigsby snorted. "She said she was doing inventory when she got hit. She probably didn't come out because for all she knows, it might have been you." The guard looked at him like he was crazy, so he hedged. "Or it's bullshit teenagers making prank calls. Point is that I need inside to check it out."

The guard still balked. "I didn't hit nobody," he defended lamely. "Been here since five, like I said. I don't know what the fuck goes on in there. 'm just paid to sit and watch."

"Great," Rigsby affirmed. "Then let me in. I'll take a look, then call it in." He waited a beat. "It's probably nothing. We get these calls all the time. People can be such assholes, ya know?"

The universal opinion that people are indeed assholes seemed to bring his gray eyes to life somewhat. "Amen to that."

Rigsby nodded and gestured to the gate. "I'll be ten minutes. Tops."

The guy nodded and a buzzing noise told Rigsby that he'd been cleared. The gate trundled open slowly and he slipped through, tipping his chin to the guard as he passed. "Much obliged."

He walked up the black tarmac and towards the large metal door on the front of the structure. He saw cameras everywhere. He clucked his tongue and kept walking. No reason to assume he needed to hide his approach. He pushed down the metal bar handle and to his surprise it gave. Moving quickly inside, he shut it behind him quietly, the latch clicking softly in the silence.

Another click, much louder, and a cold point pressing into the back of his head told him that the direct approach had been a very bad call.

"Who dah fuck a you?" a heavy Asian accent asked him.

He put his hands out at his sides, wide and empty. "Be cool, man. There's no need for that."

"Shut dah fuck up," the voice spat at him. "What you want? What you do heah?"

Rigsby kept his tone low and calm. "I'm looking for someone. That's all."

"Who?" The word clipped impatiently at him.

Rigsby grasped for the only straw he had. "Ang Mo," he answered, praying that the word meant something. Anything. Jesus Christ. He needed a bullet in his brain about as much as he needed...well...a hole in his head. He waited, not pushing his luck by saying more.

The felt the man behind him considering. He was encouraged. Suddenly the metal point pulled away from his head and he let himself breathe out raggedly.

"How you know Ang Mo?" The man pulled at his arm, indicating he turn around. He pivoted and leveled his gaze in the much shorter man. He had the classic flat features of the Chinese people, or some country of mid-Asia. Working in California gave him an excellent understanding of Asian facial indicators. Flat cheekbones and thin epicanthic folds on the eyelid were common among the Chinese. Heavier eyelid folds, rounder features and those cute little upturned noses were more prominent in Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and Thailand. Flared cheekbones and longer craniums suggested northern countries like Japan. He might have been horrible with accents and language identification, but he was damn good at faces. This guy was Chinese. Almost definitely.

"Just take me to them. What I have to say isn't for the help." He jutted his chin arrogantly. If he wanted the guy to buy his act, he needed to play the part. Fuck the doorman, his expression said. Take me to someone important.

The man's eyes flared with indignation. He still held a gun, though he had the decency to point it at the floor. After regarding Rigsby for a few seconds more, he stuck the gun in his waistband and nodded curtly. "Dis way. Move your ass."

He turned and walked back into the belly of the dark and seemingly empty warehouse. Rigsby followed close behind, watching as they approached a lit corner to another metal door. They stopped just outside of it and the shorter man raised his fist and knocked carefully. Someone barked words that Rigsby didn't understand on the other side and his companion opened the door and they walked in.

Rigsby gasped.

The room was little. At least, little compared to the structure it was housed in. Twenty by twenty, if he had to guess.

It was a club. Or something like a club, anyway. It was dimly lit. People were scattered in plush chairs and sofa, their drinks and other recreational drugs littered low-sitting coffee tables in front of them. The men looked like older business man, all of whom were Asian. The women were almost certainly prostitutes, if their ages, slinky clothes, beautiful faces and overacted fascination with the men were any indication to go by. It was clearly a party after a hard day's work. Rigsby watched as a pretty little brunette leaned over and vacuumed up a messy line of coke from a mirror before licking her finger, dipping it in a bag of white powder and offering her white digit to the elderly man who's lap she was occupying. The old man smiled sagely and sucked her finger between his teeth, nibbling it while the girl grinned like a maniac. There must have been thirty couples in the room who were similarly engaged.

But one such couple captured his attention immediately.

A man sat at the back of the room on an elevated step above the rest. His seat was away from the others. A host's chair. The man himself was a gracefully older Asian man in a gray suit and red tie. There was no table before him. No drugs or booze cluttered his area. His position was one of an observer. No question about it. He was talking to a woman as she draped herself over the armrest of his chair, perching suggestively as he spoke quietly to her. She giggled and fawned shamelessly, nodding at everything he said. He handed her a banded stack of hundred dollar bills, which she took without a second glance.

"Show me again." Rigsby heard the man say over the din.

The woman laughed musically and weighed the stack lightly in her palm before playfully bending it back and watching the individual bills zip by as they escaped from under her finger. She tossed it back to him. "Ten thousand...and three hundred."

Rigsby heart froze in his chest. His sweet-looking redhead from west Iowa had always been good with numbers.

And there she was. Poured into a sinful dress and laughing cordially with the leader of an Asian drug syndicate. It all clicked in his head with a speed and certainty that belied his usual care in forming hypotheses. Grace was knee-deep in an undercover drug bust.

Fuckfuckfuck!

His fear didn't stop him from noticing the obvious. Jesus Christ Almighty, she looked beautiful. He almost didn't recognize her. He watched as her eyes, usually so cool and watchful, sparked with lazy amusement under smoky makeup as the boss gave a nod of approval at her little parlor trick. She bowed her head in a mock curtsy, playing the modest genius. As she did, her wondrous hair fell against her cheek, a firewall of softness that Rigsby knew smelled like apples. He'd lost count of how many times he'd buried his head in her throat and felt her lower her cheek to his, her hair falling around him in the exact same way. He'd been surrounded by red and the scent of an orchard and it startled him how close he came to never leaving that spot under her chin. Why should he? Everything he ever wanted was right there behind a curtain of red hair and against the softest skin he'd ever touched.

He watched that curtain now as she pushed a strand of it back behind her ear. Three months of agonizing about her suddenly dropped in his stomach and his knees buckled under the immensity of relief. He groaned quietly. In the bustle on the room, no one heard.

His companion gestured impatiently and they made their way between the couples to the boss. The man in charge looked up to his doorman, then beyond him to the white giant at his back. His eyes narrowed angrily. He let loose some rapid Chinese and the two talked animatedly for a few seconds. Rigsby didn't notice. His gaze had fused to hers.

Grace had raised her head the moment the doorman had approached and her eyes were instantly pulled to the taller, infinitely more terrifying man behind him. No one was looking at her. So when her eyes went round with horror and her mouth dropped slightly, they didn't see her break in character. He saw one word leave her lips in a broken denial of what she saw. No. Her head shook oh-so-slightly. She pleaded with him silently, begging him to turn heel and disappear. Not to ever come back. He wasn't supposed to be here. Didn't he understand? Go. Go right now and please, baby, stay away from this place. And - he was damn near positive - he saw frantic love boiling hotly with panic in those lovely eyes.

It took everything he had to do nothing.

Instead, he waited calmly for the two men to finish their conversation. After a few more heated exchanges, the boss turned to Grace. When he spoke, his English lilted with a mild accent, far less grating than his employee's. "What do you think? Is he a cop?"

Grace's expression had already melted back into one of relaxed amusement. She smiled lazily at her boss, then let her gaze wander up and down Rigsby, taking shameless stock of his body. Goose bumps broke out everywhere her eyes caressed him, even as his hackles rose at the dangerous stranger who had taken over her face. His badge, his dead giveaway, burned like a lit briquette in his pocket. She looked back to her boss. "He's awfully pretty to be a cop." She turned back to the doorman. "Why the hell did you bring him in here? We're having a party and he doesn't fit the..." she winked at her boss, "...dress code."

The boss snorted and pursed his lips in agreement. "Agreed. Why the fuck is he here, Zhu-fang?"

Zhu-fang the doorman shrugged tersely. "He ask for you. I bring him."

The boss raised his brow in curiosity. "He asked for me? By name?"

Rigsby was about to nod, but Zhu-fang shook his head quickly. "No. He ask for her. He want to see Ang Mo."

The boss's brow went even higher. "Did he now?"

Rigsby didn't react. He did, however, see the flash of surprise in Grace's eyes. She buried it in a flash.

"Mmmmm," she hummed appreciatively.

Her companion turned to her again in his seat. "My pretty Ang Mo. Do you know this man?"

She examined her guest with lustful, but innocent interest. "No," she dripped the word like honey. Her gaze met Rigsby's again and she smiled her feline smile before turning back to the man. "But I like him." She turned on those big, liquid eyes and batted them like a little girl, pouting brazenly. "Maybe someone sent him as a present. Can I keep him?"

The boss laughed uproariously at her overt tactics and Rigsby's heart thumped hard in his chest. He was making her work hard to keep her persona and keep him safe at the same time. He fought his instincts to just start punching and not stop until every man was on the floor before scooping her up and running her straight to Mexico. Instead, he waited.

Grace kept up her little girl face until the boss relented. "Shameless girl," he chided affectionately. "You're worse than my children. Take him. I suppose we can afford two Ang Mo at our party instead of just one." He patted her ass gently as she stood up. She giggled and leaned down to kiss his cheek. "Thank you, Eric."

She slithered down the step and took her new toy by the hand. "Your name is Jimmy," she informed him playfully, loud enough for Eric to hear. "Welcome to the party."