A/N: Hey everyone, I know I said I was struggling with this story, and I still am, but it's funny how things just happen. I sat down to write this chapter and a voice in my head said bring up the champ box and things just started to write themselves. I hope you like it!

Chapter 8: The Champ Case

Kono and Doris walked into the Five-O bullpen to find it buzzing with activity. Everyone was there that they had expected to see. Lou, Toast, Catherine, Duke, and Chin all seemed to have settled into a way of working together. The bullpen was crowded and yet there was still space to work together.

"Are you all right Cuz?" Chin asked as he caught a glimpse of his cousin's red puffy eyes as she walked in and over to where he was standing.

"It's just the stress of this case." Doris answered before Kono could. "What have you found. What are we going to do about this case. Give me the full run down. Go!" She demanded and took charge of the office before Kono could get into why she'd lost her cool - that was something that the cousins could deal with on their own time.

"So far we've got a few things to look into. Nothing has come back from Steve's place yet but the forensics teams is combing every inch. Charlie Fong has been checking in every hour. So, we think it might be best for some of us to go back out there." Chin explained. "Just to keep a close eye on the situation."

"I'll go." Doris stated.

"Not alone you wont." Kono countered.

"Just hold on. We need to be organized and there are other things you need to know." Chin interrupted before Kono and Doris could get into it again. "The two guys you found gave us a lot of insight. The electronic devices they brought are in Toast's very capable hands," Toast waved from another station in the room but didn't speak, "and he's sure they were meant to get a leg up on us. Hack into our system just as Daniel McMahon did in the first case. You foiled that plan. Then there are the things that those two goons told us. One: Gladys is still using her brother's house as a centre of operations. We're pretty sure it's also a trap for us if we go snooping around over there. Two: she's picking up different vehicles from places around the airport, as well as men with assets that can be exploited in the event that they don't do what she wants them to - i.e. they have families and she's threatening them. We've already sent HPD out to pick up the families and move them - those of the two men we still have locked up and guarded down in our basement. And three: she's using a method of communication with her men that is strikingly similar to another case we worked - one of our very first."

"You've got my attention." Doris stated and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Toast and I, as side for breaking down these bugs they brought into the building, are running facial recognition through databases and security systems on and off the Honolulu International Airport property. We're trying to see if we can't place Gladys in the area. We're running the men we have down stairs, as well as the other names that they gave us. We have visual identification on all five of them and we're tracking their movement before Danny and Steve were taken. We need to catch her in the act to follow her trail and we think these guys and the airport rental services are the best places to start." Catherine explained while Toast carried on glued to the computers before him.

"My SWAT team will cover the house out in the valley. We're not going to snoop around, we're just going to move in and take the place. Better to pull the bandage quickly and get it over with. I've made the calls and gathered as many of the SWAT officers and bomb squad specialists - on duty and off - as I could to head up that sting. We'll take the house and hold it." Lou Grover jumped in when Catherine had finished, and then he moved out of the office when Chin had nodded.

"Okay, what about the other case?" Kono asked as she turned to her cousin now.

"Do you remember Laura Hills?" Chin asked.

"What could she have to do with this case? She's dead." Kono stated as Doris stood by in silent oblivion.

"Gladys McMahon has been sending envelope messages, much like Laura, to the men she forces to work within her operation." Chin explained. "Which makes me think that something as coincidental as beige envelopes with names on them can't actually be a coincidence. Not when the McMahons are involved."

"You think that she's been watching us for that long?" Kono asked.

"She seems to be the one doing all her brother's dirty work. She could have followed Danny from the moment he put her brother behind bars to the moment we picked her up in connection with Danny's abduction and even once she got herself free from custody." Chin explained.

"That is a very scare thought." Kono stated and shivered.

"Could someone please full me in?" Doris snapped impatiently.

"The first case we worked together as a team involved Jack McGarrett's murder. Steve found clues to the case that Jack had been working on in a Champ box in the garage after. Governor Jameson stole the Champ box with the help of the Noshimori family and Laura Hills, who was the Governor's assistant at the time. We don't believe that Laura had any idea what was going on until she saw that evidence in the Governor's office and she started returning pieces of the evidence to Steve in beige envelopes with nothing but Steve's name on them, that is until she was killed by a car bomb much like the one that was supposed to have killed you. Jameson used Wo Fat to set up that car bomb." Chin explained.

"All the Champ box information lead us to Shelburne, got Governor Jameson shot by Wo Fat and eventually lead Steve right to you." Kono finished. "With the help of Joe White - who did try to keep things from Steve. That was until he became Wo Fat's target as well and the true nature of Shelburne was revealed to us."

A shadow crossed Doris's face and both of the cousins caught it but there wasn't time for that now.

"So you think this woman has been watching you from the very beginning?" Doris asked after a moment of silence to regain her composure.

"Maybe not us, but Danny for sure and by extension Steve because, since the ever beginning, it's been hard to separate those two." Chin answered.

"So what is the relationship between Danny and these people anyway?" Doris asked.

"Danny caught and put Daniel McMahon in jail for a string of murders of little kids. He ran a candy shop and they called him the Wonka killer. He was his own brand of crazy and believed that by obtaining and consuming young neurological matter, he would gain wisdom and understanding of the universe. He was a genius and he believed young brains would help him gain even more knowledge. He also used the children to fulfil his sexual desires. He fits somewhere between high functioning sociopath and full fledged psychopath." Toast piped in as he swiped a file off of his work station and placed in Doris's hands. "You might want to read that and prepare yourself for the horror that Danny had to go through while profiling and chasing this criminal. We obtained Danny's original file just after McMahon was killed by Danny here in Hawaii. It's shocking."

"It's no wonder these people broke him." Catherine said and lowered her eyes.

"The devil you know," Doris said and flipped open the file only to slam it shut again as the photos of the victims corpses assaulted her senses. "He was a monster."

Kono and Chin nodded.

"A very brilliant monster." Chin added. "He was a tough one to catch."

"So, for this case, I think we need to look into Gladys's past. Her time on the island, her aliases, and her relationship with her brother up until he was caught by Danny in New Jersey. We need to look into every avenue to try and figure this out." Kono said.

"Exactly," Chin agreed with a nod. "And someone is going to have to fetch Lori from the airport when she arrives in a few hours."

"I'll do it." Doris said. "And I'll take sergeant Duke Lukela with me so that I'm not alone and someone who knows what this woman looks like. We'll stop at the house and check on the forensics team. You and Kono can stay here and stay safe, and get a lock on that woman who has clearly been your stalker since the very beginning."

"You are aware that all of the Champ box evidence is logged, duplicated, and spread out among the four primary members of Five-O. If you go back to the house and look for it, you're not going to find it all." Chin warned and he saw the sting of his words in Doris's eyes.

"You guys aren't the only ones with the evidence. I have it too." Toast stated with a wave his hand.

"Me too." Catherine added and made eye contact with Doris.

Kono and Chin shared a knowing look as Doris called for Duke to follow her and she fled out of the bullpen.

5-0

Steve sat silently straining his eyes as he worked to pry the hinges of the box apart. The lock on the box was a combination lock with a multitude of possibilities, so he decided that the hinges would be the weakest link and the only way into the box. He used a sharp piece of metal and a rock he'd found and gently, but forcefully, hammered away at the hinges. As he worked he kept and ear open to his partner. Danny had taken what he believed would be useful and followed the gentle slope of the tunnel downward until he found the grate that Steve had been talking about.

Feeling around, Danny found that the grate opened in the middle and swung outward. It was literally a pair of swinging bars and in the middle they were chained and locked. The bars were wide, with a lot of space for the water to flow freely through them and down the passage but they blocked the path for anything to try and head up the drain. They were not wide enough for Danny to squeeze through - he tried.

Confidently, Danny felt around to find the lock. It was newer. There was very little corrosion on the lock but the iron bars were rough and the chain that held them shut was rusty. Using the bits and pieces of debris he'd taken from Steve, Danny settled in and worked at the lock. Two small pieces of metal fit into the locking mechanism but Danny would have to be patients - he wasn't the one to pick locks usually. That was Steve's job. At least this busy work was better than sitting around doing nothing and worrying about being trapped. At least this time he didn't feel nearly as helpless as he had the first time, and that was exactly what Steve had planned when he'd found the lock himself.