SMK Chapter 20 - Day 12

Ugh! He hated that alarm. It always went off way too early; he was not a morning person. Dazed, he rolled over and hit snooze; just five more minutes. He turned back toward the middle of the bed, snuggled back into his pillow, and without opening his eyes reached for his wife. Emptiness.

His heart instantaneously thumped double-time and his eyelids slammed open. He frantically scanned her side of the bed. Nothing. He listened for water running in the bathroom. Nothing.

Like a bolt of lightning, pictures of the evening before flashed through his mind - a reel of film playing frame-by-frame. "Oh, my God." Viciously, he threw the covers off, leaped from the bed, and ran into the living room. Empty. "Amanda!"

His eyes fell on a slip of paper sitting on the dining room table. Afraid of what he might find, he walked over to it like a man in a trance.

"No, you weren't dreaming. We have her. If you want to see her alive again, turn on the monitor sitting on the table. Instructions will come soon. We advise you to do exactly as we say, or you will get to watch her experience something very unpleasant."

Lee honed in on the monitor. Slowly, he reached over and turned it on. There, on a gurney inside a wire mesh cage, lay his precious wife. Her eyes were covered with some kind of bandage, and an IV was in her arm. Lee uttered a guttural cry and clamped his hand over his mouth.

Unable to tear his eyes from the screen, he fell into the chair behind him. The room closed in on him, his chest tightened, the oxygen drained from the atmosphere, and his world shattered like crystal on ceramic tile.

He didn't know where to turn, didn't have a plan, couldn't even put two thoughts together to form a rescue plan. "Dear God." The thought gave him pause. "Please, God. If you're there, just keep them safe until I can get there. Please. Just. Keep. Them. Safe."

At the Agency: - Day 12

"Billy," Francine rushed into his office without even a knock. "Have you heard from Lee or Amanda?"

"What do you mean, 'have I heard from Lee or Amanda'?" Billy stood from his desk, a sense of foreboding settling into his chest.

"I haven't seen or heard from them since before lunch yesterday, Billy."

"Have you tried his remote phone?"

"Yes, of course I've tried his remote phone."

Billy came around the desk to stand in front of her. "Their apartment? Her house?"

"Yes, yes!" Francine tossed her hands into the air. "You think I would come barging in here if I hadn't already exhausted every recourse?"

Billy's private line rang. He looked at Francine; it was clear she was thinking the same thing he was thinking. This had to be Lee. Billy picked up the phone and put it on speaker. "Melrose, here." Silence. "Hello? You've reached William Melrose. How may I help you?"

"Billy," the strangled voice sounded like Lee. Billy glanced up at Francine. This didn't sound good.

"Lee, is that you?"

"Billy, I need you."

"What's going on, Lee? Where are you?"

"Billy, please. Just come. I'm at the apartment."

"Of course. Francine and I will be right there. What's going on?"

"They've got Amanda, Billy."

"Walk me through it, Lee. What happened?" Lee sat in the armchair with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Billy and Francine sat opposite him on the sofa.

Lee rubbed his left hand back and forth over his hair then up and down on his face. "Amanda was feeling stir-crazy. She'd been cooped up in the Agency for days, and she just wanted to get out for a little while." He stood up and walked over to the dining room window, absently looking out over the city. "I thought I could protect her, Billy. I mean, who can protect her better than I can, right?" Lee looked down and shook his head.

"Where did you go? Did she bump into anyone? Even accidentally?" Francine was trying to put the pieces together in her head. Too many of them were missing to form a cohesive picture yet.

"We went to her house, looked through the mail, just…I don't know…relaxed. Amanda brewed some tea and coffee for us." There was no need to tell them every private detail of that visit. "Oh," Lee turned to look at Billy. "And she answered a phone call from her mother."

"Alright," Billy nodded his head. "All that sounds innocuous, but we'll have someone go over the house with a fine-tooth comb anyway." He pulled his notebook out to jot down a reminder for himself. "Did you go anywhere after that?"

"Yes," Lee answered slowly. "We went to that new steak house just a few blocks from her house. We ordered dinner, had some salad, bread, and water…"

"Water?" A confused look crossed Francine's face.

"Does that really matter right now, Francine?" Lee snapped. "Amanda wanted water, so we had water, okay?"

"How was the dinner? Anything taste...off?" Billy knew he was reaching, but they needed to think creatively if they were going to find answers.

"No, in fact it was really good." Lee rubbed his bottom lip with a finger, then looked back at Billy. "You know what, though? Amanda hardly ate a thing."

"What's new about that?" Francine frowned. Everyone knew the woman didn't eat enough to keep a bird alive.

Lee waved his hand in the air. "I mean, even for Amanda, she didn't eat much. I remember her telling me she had a headache. I thought maybe that was a normal symptom for her, but she said it wasn't."

"Symptom?" Francine's eyebrows raised. "What do you mean, 'symptom'?"

Lee's eyes snapped to her. He hadn't meant to mention that. Though, Francine knowing was probably a good thing. He looked at her steadily while he decided how to answer her. Then he sighed and ran his left hand back over his hair. "Morning sickness, Francine – even though it wasn't morning."

It took a moment for the meaning of his words sank in. Her words came out in a whisper. "Amanda's pregnant?"

Lee was touched by the compassion in her eyes and allowed his protective wall to crumble. He nodded, and all the emotions churning inside him showing in his eyes. "Yeah." He found his way back to his chair, sat down, and told them the rest of the story - ending with waking up that morning and finding the note…and the monitor.

"Show me, Scarecrow." Lee walked into the dining room and turned on the monitor.

"Oh, Amanda," Francine felt hot tears burn in her eyes. She looked over at Lee and saw his strangled expression as he watched the woman he loved. She walked over to him and gently laid her hand on his arm; he turned his head to look at her. She'd never seen such fear and hopelessness in him. "We're going to get her back, Lee. I promise."

He looked back at the monitor. "I know we will. If it's the last thing I ever do, we will."

Day 13

The first time Amanda had awakened shrouded in darkness, panic had hit hard. Frantically, she'd tried to reach up to remove whatever it was covering her eyes, but rope had bitten into her wrist abruptly halting her movement. She'd tried the other arm, but it was tied down, too. Legs? No luck. Even her body was strapped to something; only her head had been free to move. She'd been afraid to call out but had needed to know if Lee was there. She'd whispered his name as loudly as she'd felt safe doing, but there'd been no response.

This time, as she emerged out of sleep, she knew what to expect. Without moving, she listened carefully to her surroundings, straining for any sound that could give her the slightest indication of where she might be. There was still nothing. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

She scratched the material of the surface she was lying on; it felt like vinyl. It was thin enough that her fingers were able to reach around it to feel the metal underneath. She was on some kind of a hospital gurney. Okay, now she knew that at least. She focused her mind on other sensations. There was no weight of a blanket on top of her, but she could feel her light-weight clothing skimming her skin. Her feet were cold, though. Wherever she was and whoever had put her here must have removed her shoes. She tried to wriggle her wrists around and found that, though they were tied down tightly enough to prevent her from slipping out, the ropes were lose enough for her to have a little bit of movement.

Without really thinking about what would come next if she did managed to get out, she bent her wrists to try to reach the ropes with her fingers. Only the very tips of her fingers could skim their surface. Dejected, she rested her hands on the mattress. There would be no escape; she was helpless and at the mercy of her captors - June, or Fred, or both of them. All she could do was remain as calm as possible and wait for Lee. And pray.

The muffled sound of a door opening startled her. She tried to listen intently over the sound of her racing heart. Someone was coming down a set of stairs. Did that mean she was in basement? Wait...there was more than one set of footsteps. Both June and Fred? Another door opened - closer to her this time, and she heard voices. Amanda focused on calming herself so they wouldn't know she was awake. All that practice in lowering her heart rate and her blood pressure was about to come in handy.

"Is she still out?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Metal rattled on metal and hinges squeaked as a door swung open. A cage? Was she inside a cage?

"I don't like this. Why don't we just kill her and get it over with?"

"We've been through this a dozen times." Fred sounded irritated. "There's no way Scarecrow is going to just fall at your feet if he thinks she's dead." They were standing right over her now. Oh, my gosh... "We have to give him a little hope. If he thinks she's dead, he's going to go into revenge mode; you won't have any hope of getting his attention then."

"And what if he doesn't cooperate, because so far, he hasn't done a single thing you predicted he'd do."

"Then we do something to her that makes him want to cooperate."

June sighed. "Okay. I'll go along with this for now, but it better work."

Amanda had no idea what Fred meant by his last statement, but it didn't sound good whatever it was. All she did know was that she had to live through this - for her mother and for her boys – for Lee and for this baby. There just weren't any other options.

Something warm streamed into her arm. Within seconds the tentacles of drug-induced sleep grabbed her and slowly pulled her under.