Chapter 3

First of all I would like to thank stevieLUVSAlex for your highly amusing reviews :p

Also I used some stastics in this chapter. Since I could not find statistics about adults being kidnapped, I used the ones I found on children being kidnapped. I found them here (.) in case you want to see for yourself. Pretty shocking stuff actually. Ok, now I'll stop rambling and let you get to the chapter :p

Lanie followed her kidnappers' movements with her eyes as he paced back and forth in the small room. She wasn't a detective but she could tell he was trying to figure out what to do with her. Occasionally he would leave for a few minutes and then come back, but he always locked the door behind him. Every time he opened the door she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be an everyday living room, but it didn't give her any clue as to where she was.

The room she was in had no windows and just the one door. The walls were plain white with no decorations except a fan on the ceiling. It was sparsely furnished with a single bed, a dresser, a table and a chair, to which she was handcuffed by one arm. She had barely heard him talk except when he had been on the phone.

The medical examiner thought back to when she had been taken. She had been blindfolded and when the cloth was taken off her eyes she found herself in this room. Lanie had tried fighting back, she had tried the silent treatment and she had tried threatening her kidnapper. She had started off angry at the man standing in front of her. "My girl is gonna catch your ass and throw it in jail so you had better watch out."

Even then her anger had barely rattled him. "I think you underestimate me Dr. Parish. Your detective might be good but she has a time limit. 74 percent of people who are kidnapped are dead within three hours doctor. I'm giving you 48. And those people that survive the three hours? 40 percent of them are found dead and 4 percent are never found at all."

She stared right into his eyes. "Beckett is the best detective there is, bar none. She is going to find you, within your timeline, and you're going to wish you had never messed with her. Do you know where the last person that tried to take someone she cared about is?"

"Do tell."

"6 feet under."

After that he had clamped his mouth shut and left the room, coming back with a small video recorder and taking the video of her. When he was finished with his short film he left the room again, this time not returning for almost an hour.

They pulled up to the small café without their sirens on. Chances were that the man had left already, but Beckett didn't want to take any chances of spooking him if he was still in there. They got out of the car and Beckett walked over to Esposito. "Did they find anything at the apartment?"

He shook his head with an exasperated look on his face. "Nothing. No sign of break in or forced entry. They dusted all the door handles and only found prints from me and Lanie."

"Any sign of a struggle?"

"Nope. Everything was the way it had been when I left that morning."

Beckett nodded and Ryan and Esposito went around to the side door while her and Castle went in the front door and walked up to the counter.

Kate pulled out a phone and pulled up a picture of Lanie. She flashed her badge at the slightly acne-ridden teenager behind the counter. "I'm detective Kate Beckett NYPD. Did you see a man come in with this woman at all within the last half hour?" she knew it was a long shot but had to try everything she could.

The kid stared at the picture for a second, then shook his head. "Did you say your name was Beckett?" Kate nodded and the kid pulled a folded envelope from his pocket. "He didn't come in with anyone but a guy came in, used the internet at a table in the corner for like five minutes and then gave me a huge tip to give this to you. He said you would be coming in."

Kate grabbed the envelope and turned to her partners. "Ryan get a sketch artist with this kid, I want a picture of this guy. Esposito start talking to everyone in here and see if they noticed anything. Don't let anybody leave until you're done. I'll radio in a few other officers to canvas the place and get security footage. After that's done ill meet you guys at the precinct. I want to see if we can lift any fingerprints off this letter. After I read it of course."

The two other detectives nodded and headed off to get their job done. Kate was glad that Esposito didn't seem to be having any more problems. She took a deep breath and looked around. He had been in here. If only she had been faster, maybe she could have-

She was cut off from her thoughts by Rick gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "There was nothing you could have done to meet him here. He knew we were coming and was probably gone by the time we were opening the video."

She looked at him for a second the nodded. "Let's get back to the precinct. I want to know what's in this letter."

Kate was silent the entire way back to the precinct and Rick knew better than so interrupt her thought process. He knew she was trying out figure out what could be in the letter and what had happened to her friend. He sat and stared out the window, trying to think of something he could do to help.

They got to the building and Kate sat at her desk staring at the letter without opening it. Rick looked around and when he saw that nobody was there he rested a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him with gratitude in her eyes and picked up the envelope. It was unmarked and she was careful to touch as little of it as possible, in case the kidnapper had left prints behind. She doubted he would though. She unfolded the letter and tilted it so Castle could read it with her.

Detective Beckett,

You're slacking detective. Tracing an untraceable phone and following an IP address to an internet café? You will have to do better than that if you don't want your friend to get hurt. This is a test detective, you're supposed to use everything you know to get a good score. And if you fail this test? Well you already know what will happen.

And don't bother testing this little note, I didn't leave any fingerprints.

She crumpled the letter in a fit of frustration before remembering that it was still technically evidence and had to unwrinkle it. Castle stayed silent until she turned to him. She was surprised at how well behaved he was being on this case. "We aren't getting anywhere with this. We have to be missing something."

He looked at her sincerely. "You will find it, you always do."

She sighed and went over to the murder board. She added the times of receiving the video, getting to the café and getting the letter. They were still no closer to finding anything out. She dialed Esposito. "Hey, find anything at the café?"

"Nobody could tell us anything specific about him and nobody noticed exactly what time he came in or what car he was driving. They just knew he left about ten minutes before we got there."

"Alright thanks. See you in a bit." She added the time he left the café to the timeline and called her other partner. "Ryan, did the id give you guys a good sketch?"

"Yup, on my way back with it now."

There was nothing else for her to do but wait. She went to the break room and made coffee for her and Castle. She had a feeling that as long as she was still here he would be too. She handed him a mug and they stood there in silence for a few minutes until Ryan came in with a manila envelope. He handed it to Kate and she opened it to see a sketch of the man the kid had seen. She tacked it to the white board and the three of them stood there staring at it.

Esposito came up next to Ryan. "That who we're looking for?"

Ryan nodded. "He looks so…average."

Kate set her mug down. "They usually do. And most killers or kidnappers are average. Average people with an average life. Just makes them harder to find sometimes. They blend in so well with everyone else." She thought for a second before continuing. "Ok, I want this picture run through every database we've got. But don't put it on TV, I don't want this story made public yet."

Ryan took the picture down again and went to go scan it into the computer. Kate strode over to her desk and grabbed her keys.

"Where are you going?" Esposito asked.

"I want to go see her apartment for myself. Maybe…I can find something else. Stay with Ryan and help him run through all the databases." She looked at Castle and motioned for him to come with her.

Esposito nodded. He didn't bother telling her that the chances of her finding something CSU missed were slim to none. He knew this was something she had to do to come to grips with what was going on. He had done the same thing when he got there before the CSU team. Just sat in his car and stared at the house thinking. He knew it was pointless to ponder over what if I had stayed longer? Or what if I had gone with her to help Beckett move? But he hadn't been able to help himself. Then the team had shown up and he put all the questions away to deal with later. He watched Castle and Beckett walk away as he thought all of this, hoping that despite the odds she would be able to find something. If anyone knew the medical examiner it was Beckett.

Castle and Beckett arrived at the small house and parked out on the street. The forensics team had left but there was crime scene tape on the doors still. Kate knew where Lanie kept the spare key and let the two of them in. She reminded Castle not to touch anything before heading off to look at Lanie's bedroom. Out of respect for his partner and their missing friend he stayed in the living rom. He walked around and looked carefully at all of the doors and windows. Nothing seemed out of place, just as Esposito had said.

Beckett headed for her friends bedroom and was glad when Castle didn't follow her. She needed the time to gather her thoughts. While she was in there she looked for any sign that Lanie had seen this coming. A note, anything. She also checked the windows for any sign of forced entry, all without success. She looked around at the room that she knew so well from weekends spent here and girls' nights. She sat down on the bed and put her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. She had dealt with hard cases before. Her mothers' murder, the Coonan case, and recently having her very own stalker. But this was different, it was new. She needed time to take it all in, but she knew she wasn't going to have that time. A few minutes later she heard Castle calling her name from the next room. She took a second to gather herself then got up and went to see what he wanted.

She saw him standing by one of the windows looking out. "What's up? You didn't find something did you?" she said, almost letting herself get her hopes up.

"That's a garage out there."

"Good job Castle, next week I'll teach you the alphabet." She raised an eyebrow and smirked at him.

"Does Lanie have a car? Because it doesn't look like there is one in this garage."

"Yeah she's too impatient to wait for a taxi all the time." The wheels started spinning in her head as she realized what Castle was getting at.

"So if she has a car," Castle started

"And it's not at my house," Beckett cut in.

"And it's not here,"

"Then where is it?"

They rushed back to the car and Beckett dialed the precinct as she was pulling out. Esposito answered. "What's up Beckett?"

"Esposito, Lanie's car is missing. I need you to pull the traffic videos from all the street cameras near Lanie's house. I'm on my way back." She turned to Castle and shot him a dazzling smile. Sometimes she didn't know what she would do without him. "Good job Castle."