Rating: Strong PG-13, mostly for angst and violence.

Category: Case Story, Drama

Warning: Heavy doses of owies for all involved. We've got Jim whumping, Blair thumping, Simon thwapping. Plus a few others get their fair share. Spoilers for various episodes.

Notes: This story was published as a novel-zine by Agent With Style last year and is now available on the web. It is a labor of love, beginning in the fall of 1999 and finally ending in spring of 2001. I want to thank my four betas Shelley Knepley, Franziska, Toni Rae, and Kimberly Workman, for all your hard work and inspiration. And a special thank you to Mysti, for believing a long story could be a novel.

Disclaimer: Characters of "The Sentinel" belong to TPTB. I claim the bad guys and some of the good guys that help out along the way.

"Sandburg? Sandburg!" Jim Ellison repeated the name over and over as he wove his way through the gathered crowd of police officers and curious onlookers. In the midst of the shoot-out, he had seen his partner go down on the other side of the road. Now that the fire fight was over and the Contino family was in custody, Jim needed to find Blair Sandburg--anthropology grad student and Guide to his Sentinel roommate--and make sure he was all right.

Jim's sensitive ears picked out a familiar heartbeat in the midst of a circle of paramedics. The heartbeat was strong, but too fast for Jim's liking. Then a smooth, tenor voice cut above the ruckus; it was music to the Sentinel's ears.

<"For the umpteenth time, I'm fine. It hit the vest. Now will you let me go? I have to find Jim.">

The irritation in Blair's voice made Jim grin. It was just like Blair to worry about others when he was also surrounded by medical personnel. His Guide was a natural caregiver, never stopping to take note of his own injuries if someone else was in need.

Jim pushed past a paramedic and found Blair perched on the edge of a stretcher, pulling his shirt down over taped ribs. The curly-haired man shot to his feet when he spotted his partner.

"Jim!" Blair yelled, the concerned expression of a few moments ago melting away at the sight of his unharmed friend. The sudden movement evoked a yelp of pain so soft only Jim could hear it. But it was enough to make him worry.

"You okay, Chief?" Jim asked, averting his ice blue eyes from the frayed hole in Blair's T-shirt, just below the younger man's heart. //That was too close. //

"I'm fine, man. Kevlar to the rescue. How about you?"

Jim sensed the unspoken question beneath those words. Detective Ellison had been undercover in the Contino family for almost two months, getting close to one of the most powerful organized crime families in Cascade. It had been grueling work, even for an ordinary detective. It was harder on Jim, being separated from his Guide for so long. He knew Simon had threatened Blair several times with a jail sentence to keep him away from the family. The case was too important for any foul-ups. Jim had gone through hell and back to get the Contino's to trust him; they were too careful to accept two outsiders at the same time.

Jim had almost zoned out on several occasions, but Blair's soft voice in the back of his head, guiding even in his physical absence, had been enough to prevent them. Seeing Blair shot just ten short minutes ago had twisted his guts into an icy lump that only now began to melt. Both men were ecstatic to be back in each other's company.

"Looks like we came out on top," Jim said lightly, indicating the scene around them. "Only two of our guys shot, to five of theirs." He sighed deeply. "I still wish it had gone down better."

Blair looked at his best friend with luminous blue eyes. He knew Jim couldn't have been so close to those people for that long without making some sort of attachment, whether he wanted to or not. And Jim took his attachments seriously.

"Hey, Jim, man, they were the enemy," Blair said slowly.

Jim nodded. "I know that, Darwin. But Kevin was so young." Jim watched a body bag roll by on a gurney. "He wanted to be a chemist."

"And he was shooting at cops, Jim. He was shooting at me." He knew it was a low blow, but if anything, Blair knew that would bring Jim back to the job at hand. And it worked like a charm.

Jim's jaw clenched. "You're right. Man, I am glad this job is over."

"Don't worry, Jim. I think Simon said something about a vacation..."

Both men turned their sapphire gazes toward the tall, black man directing the scene several yards away. His booming bass voice, delivering orders left and right, drifted back to the pair of men. Captain Simon Banks was in his element.

"Ellison!" Simon called.

Jim told Blair to meet him by the younger man's Volvo, then turned to his captain.

"I need you to come in tomorrow morning to fill out some reports of the last few days," Simon ordered. "Then you’ve got five days vacation, no arguments."

"Hadn't planned to argue, sir. This case wiped me to the bone. Besides, Blair and I have barely spoken in two months."

"Well, get him a hobby or something, would you? He's spent the past seven weeks underfoot in the bullpen looking like a lost puppy. Between his classes and worrying about you, the kid's probably as wiped as you are."

Jim managed to crack a grin at the mental image of the detectives of Major Crime tripping over his longhaired partner. It was good to be back among friends.

"I'll see what I can do, Simon," Jim said as he walked away, still grinning.

~*~

The next morning, Jim walked out of Simon's office and into a heated argument. //Well, as heated as such a silly argument could get, // Jim mused. He watched his Guide, perched on the edge of Jim's desk, flail expressively with his hands as he continued his dialogue with Henri Brown.

"Aw, come on, man," Blair moaned. "Everything was tied up at the end. TNG left everything open--no closure there."

"That's why it was so good!" Brown insisted. "They left it open for three more movies, which were really cool, I might add."

"Not arguing that, but the finale sucked eggs!"

"Oh, okay, and we're supposed to believe that Sisko would--"

"Guys!" Jim shouted into the din.

Two pairs of eyes, blue and brown, locked onto those of the Sentinel. The objects of his attention had the intelligence to look rather sheepish, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Jim just stared at them.

"What are you two arguing about?" Jim asked, thoroughly confused. "Movies? Finales? Who's Sisko?"

Blair and Brown exchanged looks. Jim could have sworn Blair blushed as he mumbled his answer.

"What was that?" Jim asked over-dramatically. "I didn't quite hear."

Blair raised his eyebrow, but repeated himself. "Star Trek."

"What about it?"

Brown scratched his chin, avoiding eye contact as he explained. "We were arguing about series finales."

"Uh huh." Jim had no real interest in what the men had to say about an underrated space show. He just liked to see his partner and friend squirm under his scrutiny. It was kind of fun.

Blair seemed to catch onto Jim's game and switched his tone to one he used with students that still didn't understand the material after his third explanation. "You see, the series finale for 'Deep Space Nine' was on a few weeks ago. It was really awesome, man, you should have seen it."

Jim raised an eyebrow and Blair continued. "Anyway, earlier I made a comment, then H made a comment. He thinks the finale for 'The Next Generation' was better."

"They left it open, man. DS9 practically shut down shop," Brown added, still adamant that he was right.

"What do you think, Jim?" Blair asked.

Jim shook his head. "Personally, I think you're both nuts." A sly smile spread across his lips. "The original series was classic, though."

Blair snorted. "It is classic, Jim," he said sarcastically. "That show was done in the sixties, before they were even capable of a decent Klingon mask. They looked like poorly dressed roadies with bad haircuts."

Henri stifled a laugh.

At that moment, Rafe walked by the trio. "I kinda like 'Voyager' myself," the impeccably dressed detective commented.

Blair made a face. "Don't they show that on UPN?"

"Yeah, man," Brown agreed. "That network couldn't keep good programming if it was staring them in the face."

Rafe grinned and backed away, his hands open in mock surrender. "Just expressing an opinion."

Henri stroked his chin thoughtfully and said, "Although, that Borg chick is kinda cute."

"Brown! Rafe!" The beckoned men's heads snapped up to see Simon standing in the doorway of his office. "Are you two looking for work, because I can have some more paperwork in your boxes-."

"Sorry, sir," Rafe said, scurrying away.

"I was just, ah, um, I'll go do that thing…." Brown trailed off as he headed for his desk.

Simon turned his attention to the mismatched pair standing near Jim's desk. "You two go home. I don't want to see either one of you for five days, is that clear?"

Two heads nodded. Satisfied, Simon turned and was about to return to his office when he remembered the reason for his trek into the bullpen.

"Anyone seen Connor?" he asked.

Sentinel and Guide automatically looked at the young Australian Inspector's vacant desk. The curly-haired woman always seemed to be around. She rarely took sick days and probably had as many saved vacation days as Jim. It struck them as odd that they hadn't noticed her absence before.

"I haven't seen her all morning, Simon," Jim said, a hint of worry in his voice.

"It isn't like her to not call," Simon commented.

"Maybe it was a family emergency or something," Blair offered.

"Yeah, maybe," Simon echoed, not fully convinced.

Joel Taggert chose that moment to saunter into the bullpen, a stack of envelopes in one hand, a white rose in the other.

Henri let out a low whistle. "Hey, man. You got a secret admirer or something?"

Joel grinned and dropped the flower on Megan's desk. "No, but I think Connor does. The card's for her, but it was in my mailbox."

"Maybe Megan has a secret admirer," Blair mused.

"Could be. Just says, 'To Megan, From Me,' in big block letters." Joel shrugged. "Kinda cryptic."

Jim's eyes never left the rose. The sweet scent emanating from the flower tickled his senses, pulling at his memory. There was something familiar about the smell, something dangerous. If only he could put his finger on it. If only--

"Jim," Blair hissed again. "You with me?"

Jim blinked and looked into his Guide's concerned face. He looked around, glad to note that no one was paying attention to him and Simon had returned to his office. "Yeah, it wasn't a zone. The rose triggered some sort of memory, but I can't place it."

"Really? Why don't we--?"

"No tests, Darwin," Jim admonished playfully. "Nothing but peace and quiet for the next five days. Let's get out of here."

Blair nodded his approval and snagged his coat from the tree behind Jim's desk.

Rafe eyed Simon's closed door and stood up at his desk, stretching his lean muscles. "I don't know about you guys, but I am in desperate need of a good caffeine fix. I'm heading for Starbucks. Any takers?"

Jim shook his head and grabbed his keys off his desk. He and Blair exited the bullpen while Joel placed his order in that strange coffee language that Jim could never understand. //What ever happened to large coffee with cream and sugar? Now it's a tall, no-fat double mochacino latte, or whatever. // Jim grinned. Right now, all he wanted to think about were the five days that loomed before him: no cases, no responsibilities, no tests on his senses. Just lots of rest and relaxation.

~*~

Simon Banks glared at the clock on his wall. A tiny part of him wished the hour hand was just extremely fast, but he knew better. Daryl was late--two and half-hours late, to be exact. The police captain had been in a meeting for the better half of the afternoon and had returned expecting a lecture from his son on being on time. Instead, his office was empty and no one in the bullpen had seen the teenager all day. Simon was worried.

He called several of Daryl's friends, but no one had been in contact with him today. As a last-ditch measure, Simon dialed his ex-wife's number. //Maybe she forgot it was my weekend to see Daryl. // Unlikely, since they had just spoken about it three days ago. More likely, Daryl had lost track of time and hadn't left yet.

Joan answered on the second ring. <" 'Lo?">

"It's Simon. Has Daryl left yet?"

<"Simon? He left here almost three hours ago. Said he wanted to surprise you by being early for a change.">

Simon grunted. Joan heard the sound and was alarmed.

<"What? Isn't he there yet?">

"He's a little late, but it's probably nothing. I'm sure he just ran into some friends and lost track of time." He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

<"Maybe. Hey, Simon, does Daryl have a girlfriend?">

The sudden topic change threw him for a moment. "No, not that I know of. Why?"

<"I found a white rose taped to the door a little while ago. There was a slip of paper on it that said, 'For Daryl, From Me.' Think it's a secret admirer?">

The familiarity of those words hit Simon like a block of ice. He thought back to the other recently delivered rose now sitting on his absent detective's desk. Simon fought back a screeching sense of panic to say, "Maybe. Listen, I have to go. Daryl might try to call."

<"Fine. Let me know when he finally gets there. Okay?">

"Sure, Joan. Bye."

Simon hung up before she could utter a reply. He sprang from his desk and strode out of his office. As he neared his destination, Simon could see the white rose propped up next to an empty coffee mug on Megan's desk. The black man snatched up the flower and read the attached note, his eyes widening as he read the nearly identical message.

//Something screwy is going on here, // Simon thought bitterly. He quickly scanned the bullpen. His eyes landed on Detective Brown, hunched over his own desk with a pile of paperwork. The captain strode over to his detective.

"Brown!" Simon barked, spooking the younger man in front of him. "Where's your partner?"

Henri Brown looked slowly around the bullpen, genuinely surprise that his partner wasn't present. He hadn't even noticed Rafe's absence. He'd been totally absorbed by the pile forms and reports he was attempting to put a dent in. Henri looked at Simon, his brown eyes filled with amazement.

"Jeez, Cap, I didn't even know he wasn't here." He paused, racking his brain for hidden information. "In fact, I don't remember him ever coming back from Starbucks."

"And that never struck you as odd?"

"I haven't looked up from these forms in that last three hours. A marching band could have come through playing 'Bring in Da Noise' and I wouldn't have heard them. Wonder where he is."

"Call his cell phone," the captain ordered.

Brown nodded and dialed Rafe's number. When the phone service announced the user was not answering his or her cell phone, the discouraged detective hung up. "No answer." He called Rafe's home number and the number of his current girlfriend. The result was the same. "No freakin' answer," he muttered. "Where the hell is he?"

A thought struck Simon and he bolted from the room. Brown hesitated momentarily, then followed his captain out of the bullpen. The younger detective finally caught up with his superior in the mailroom. He paused in the doorway; actually, he was blocked from moving any further. Simon had stopped a few steps inside the room and was staring at something just beyond his line of sight. Brown stepped carefully to the side of the taller man, his jaw going slack at the sight of his own mailbox. Placed carefully inside was a white rose. A simple paper tag carried an inscription of four words: For Rafe, From Me.

"Shit."

"Ditto."

~*~

Jim stared at the car chase through heavy eyelids. He was stretched out on the couch, trying to watch "Die Hard" for the umpteenth time and failing miserably. He was just too tired. His eyes drooped for a minute that stretched into two, three, four. The scratching sound of a chair against the floor jolted the exhausted Sentinel awake. He looked behind the couch and met the eyes of his Guide. The younger man flung a red pen into the garbage can and glared at the pile of papers spread across the surface of the kitchen table.

"Damn it! That was my last pen, too." Blair stalked into the kitchen and began rummaging through the cabinets.

"What did you lose?" Jim asked, watching Blair with amusement.

"Are we out of coffee?" he returned, his head stuck in a cabinet.

"How should I know?"

"Good point." Blair straightened up and strode to the front door, grabbing his jacket from its hook.

"Where are you going?" Jim inquired as Blair shrugged into his jacket.

"I need coffee if I'm going to stay awake and finish these tests," Blair answered, indicating the papers he had just abandoned. "I can get more pens while I'm out, too."

"Finish them later. You've had a hard time of it these last few months, too, you know. You need to rest. How are we supposed to function as a team if I'm rested and you're asleep on your feet?"

"Point taken, man, but I promised my students I would have these finished and posted by tomorrow. It'll take all of ten minutes to walk down to that little grocery store a few blocks away. Add maybe another hour to mark these, then I am ready to relax, I'm telling you."

Blair's over-exuberance made Jim grin. "Ten minutes?"

Blair returned the grin. "Ten minutes, Jim. Want me to bring you a candy bar?"

The curly-haired anthropologist slipped quickly out the door, effectively dodging the airborne magazine that Jim had hurtled at him.

Jim focused his keen hearing into his Guide's heartbeat, the familiar rhythm echoing in his ears. He had missed that sound greatly during his long stretch undercover. It was something he had become accustomed to hearing, a pulse too precious to lose. The heartbeat had stopped only once before, leaving a desperate and panicked Sentinel in its wake. Jim had been sure his own heart had stopped. But Blair's heart had not been silenced for good; the pounding in Jim's ears was proof of that. Jim extended his hearing to the limit as he followed Blair out of the building, letting the sound of his friend and partner's heartbeat lull him into a peaceful sleep.

.... a raucous noise in the Sentinel's ears. With his hearing still stretched to the limit, the sound sliced through his head like a hot knife. Jim's hands automatically clamped down over his ears, while he simultaneously dialed down his sense of hearing. With the painful noise under control, the wide-awake man reached for the phone seconds before the machine picked it up.

"Ellison," he barked. His voice echoed around the loft, alerting Jim to the fact that he was alone. Blair hadn't returned from the store yet.

<"It's Simon. Look, we've got a problem.">

Jim groaned inwardly. "What now? Is it something with the Contino case?"

<"No, it's not that.">

Jim sighed with relief. //I--no, we have all worked too damn hard and too damn long on this case to see it screwed up now. But if that's not it-- //

<"Rafe's missing. And Megan, too. We can't locate them and their cells are turned off."> The police captain paused and Jim could almost see the man pinching the bridge of his nose. <"I think Daryl's missing, too.">

//Damn. //

Simon relayed the messages on the three roses.

//Double damn. // Jim remembered his reaction to the rose on Megan's desk that morning. A mental image slammed into his mind. He saw roses, all colors, scattered around the floor of an empty warehouse. "There were roses there."

The random statement caught Simon off guard. <"What?">

"I'm not sure, sir. The rose on Connor's desk this morning triggered something, a memory of some sort. I just got a clear vision of a pile of roses in a warehouse, but I have no idea where."

There was a muffled voice on Simon's end of the line. <"One second, Jim. I've got another call.">

Seconds ticked off into a minute before the captain came back on.

<"Jim?">

The Sentinel heard the hesitancy in Simon's voice that immediately set off alarm bells. "What happened?"

<"Judy Palmieri was found murdered in her home.">

Jim's heart skipped a beat. //No. // He'd gone to the Academy with Judy. She'd graduated fifth in the class and had had a promising career to look forward to. Just two years after joining the Cascade Police Department, her knee had been shattered in a random drive-by shooting. The leg had been amputated and she moved to Tacoma with her husband. Jim hadn't known that she'd moved back to Cascade until a chance meeting three weeks ago while he was undercover. He'd meant to get up with her now that the Contino case was wrapped up....

<"Jim?">

"I heard. I'll meet you there."

<"You are off duty--">

"She was a friend of mine, sir." Jim knew the captain could order him to stay away, but that wouldn't do much good. He'd get involved with this investigation no matter what. "Besides, it sounds like you're down a couple of detectives."

Simon sighed. <"All right. Everything about this is making me nervous, anyway. The address is 1034 Collegiate Drive.">

"I'm there." Jim committed the information to memory and disconnected before his superior could respond. He grabbed his keys and coat and charged out the front door. He was so focused on the task at hand he was only vaguely aware of something being out of place. It wasn't until the Sentinel was seated behind the wheel of his truck that he looked over and realized what was amiss: his Guide was not there.

//Dammit, Chief. Couldn't you have picked another day to dilly-dally at the store? // The thought echoed through Jim's mind as his Ford sped through the streets of Cascade.

~*~

The first thing that struck Jim was the smell. It filtered over to him the second he exited the truck and grew steadily stronger the closer he walked to the house. Yellow tape had already cordoned off the yard and police cars surrounded the one-story rancher. Jim slipped under the tape and approached the house, careful to dial down his sense of smell as he went.

He entered the front door and followed Simon's voice. It led him down a sparsely decorated hallway to the kitchen. The captain was standing in the doorway, watching two forensics techs sweep the room. Jim could have sworn the black man's skin was shaded green. Simon saw him coming and blanched.

"It's pretty bad in there, Jim," he warned.

Jim nodded and stepped into the room. Bile welled up in his throat as he took in the scene, the grisly murder of someone he had once known. Large blood smears covered the surface of the white wall cabinets, creating a sort of tie-dyed effect. Red was splattered on the counters and across the refrigerator. A deep pool of blood oozed across the linoleum floor.

Taking a deep breath, Jim moved to the other side of the island. He blinked once at the sight of broken bones, torn flesh and matted hair, then looked away. He'd never seen anything like it. //One human being did this to another. Jesus. //

"We're trying to find her husband," Simon said. "Brown's asking the neighbors if they saw anything."

Jim's eyes swept across the floor and landed on a piece of cooking equipment. "He killed her with a frying pan," Jim said, squatting next to the blood-caked item.

"Looks that way," a forensics tech said.

Henri Brown appeared in the doorway, unwilling to venture farther into the room. "Got something interesting from one of the neighbors. Seems Mr. Palmieri has been in a hospital for the last four years."

"What hospital?" Banks asked.

"They didn't know, but he hasn't been home in that time. Chronic care ward, they think."

"Find him."

"I'm on it," Henri said, disappearing once again.

Simon's cell phone chirped to life. "Banks."

Jim ignored the call and turned to the tech. "Any sign of forced entry?"

"Nope. The damage is limited to the kitchen and nothing seems to be stolen, so burglary is out."

"Jim!"

Jim turned towards his captain's voice. Simon was putting away his cell phone. "Detective Dills traced those roses to Second Street Florists. It's almost closing time, so we've got to go."

Not wasting words, Jim followed his captain out of the house.

~*~

The burly, ex-Ranger cop and the glowering captain would have intimidated anyone else as they strode into Second Street Flowers; but the florist was apparently not just anyone. A nasty frown greeted Jim and Simon as they entered the shop and glanced at the man behind the counter.

Simon Banks ignored the warning glare from the young man and approached him, flashing his badge. "I'm Captain Banks, Cascade PD. This is Detective Ellison."

"Roger Reese."

"We called earlier about a man who purchased some white roses," Jim said.

Roger simply looked at him. "Uh-huh."

Jim and Simon exchanged annoyed glances.

"What did this man look like?" Simon asked.

"Average height, brown hair, hazel eyes, I think. Nothing real remarkable."

"And he bought how many?"

"Four."

Jim's ears pricked up. Four roses?

"How did he pay?" Simon asked.

"Cash."

"And he never said his name?" Jim asked.

"Nope."

//Damn. No way to trace that now. // Jim focused intense blue eyes on Roger. "Did he say anything out of the ordinary when he bought them?"

Roger considered this. "Come to think of it, he kinda did. He said they had to be the best ones. I asked if they were for a girl. He kinda snorted and said 'These are for something that will give me more pleasure than any broad.' Knowing people and their weird habits today, I let it drop right there."

"Thank you, Mr. Reese," Banks said. "If it's not too much trouble, we'd like you to go to Central Precinct sometime today so we can get an official statement and have you go over the description with a sketch artist."

"Hey, no skin off my teeth," Roger agreed grumpily.

Jim left the flower shop, his keen mind turning the new information over and over. //Megan, Rafe and Daryl missing. The guy bought four roses. Four...uh oh. //

"Dammit!" Jim swore, yanking his cell phone from his coat pocket and dialing.

The outburst caught Simon's attention. "Jim? What is it?"

Jim ignored his friend's question, his attention focused entirely on the ringing on the other end of the line. //Come on, Chief, be home. Please, God, let him be home. // There was a click as the machine picked up. Jim hung up before his own monotone voice could tell him to leave a message. Fear gnawed at his intestines. Oblivious to Simon Banks' concerned voice, Jim hotfooted it to his truck and gunned the engine.

The short drive back to the loft was lost in the constant mantra in his head. //Not Blair. He's fine. He's home or at the U. He's fine. Not Blair...not again…. //

The mantra continued as Jim slammed the Ford to a stop in front of 852 Prospect and raced into the building. It diminished as Jim stretched out his hearing, desperately searching for a heartbeat in the loft. Nothing.

Barely winded from his trek up three flights of stairs, Jim paused in the stairwell as a familiar scent hit his nostrils. It was sickeningly sweet, as if mocking him. The Sentinel knew what awaited him even before he stepped into the hall and stood at his front door. The sight sent shivers down his spine and settled a chunk of ice in his stomach.

A white rose was taped to the door, with a simple note. "For Blair, From Me."

~*~

The first thing he was aware of was the chill. It seemed to envelop every inch of his body, leaving him cold inside and out. The second thing he noticed was that he couldn't move. Not that there was anywhere to go. The room was pitch black. A dull pain sliced through his skull, making him groan softly.

"Sandy?"

Blair froze at the familiar accent and turned his head toward the sound, ignoring his protesting muscles and the ache in his head. "Megan?" He squinted into the gloom, but was unable to make out any shapes. He could barely see the chair he was strapped to. "Can you see me?"

"No, why?"

"Just making sure I'm not blind. How'd you know it was me?"

"You mumble when you're asleep. I recognized your voice. Are we alone?"

An answering groan echoed in the room, giving the impression of a large, open space.

"Who's that?" Megan called out.

"Who're you?" a young voice shot back.

Blair's skin prickled. "Daryl?"

"Blair? Man, am I glad to hear your voice."

"Glad to be heard."

"Everyone okay?" a forth voice chimed in.

"Rafe?" Blair and Megan asked in stereo.

"Unfortunately," was the dry response.

"Hey, guys, what's going on?" Daryl asked, fear making his voice crack. "Where are we?"

"I don't know, Daryl," Blair said honestly. "But we're going to be fine. You're dad, and Jim and everyone are looking for us right now. We just have to be patient. Okay?"

"Okay."

Blair tugged against the cord that bound his wrists, but to no avail. All he managed to do was lose circulation in his pinkie. A chair scraped nearby.

Rafe sighed deeply. "Anybody have a clue as to why we're here?"

A long silence was his only answer.

"But that would spoil the fun, wouldn't it, Detective?" an unfamiliar voice said, startling the captives.

An overhead light was switched on, blinding the four prisoners. As Blair struggled to regain his vision, he felt his bonds loosening. He also felt the barrel of a gun press into his neck. Hot breath tickled the young anthropologist's ear.

"You're first," another voice said. "Any funny moves and we kill one of your friends."

Blair squinted against the light and was able to make out his three companions, all similarly tied to chairs placed at intervals around the large, sterile room, possibly a basement of some sort. An average-looking man, with brown hair and a thin mustache leaned casually against the frame of the room's only door, pointing a second gun at Megan. Blair glanced at the man next to him, wrinkling his nose at his foul breath. He was huge, taller than Jim and almost as burly as Joel. There was no way Blair could overpower him.

"What do you want?" Blair asked the brown-haired man, refusing to show his fear to either of their captors.

His response was delighted laughter. "Oh, but it's too good to tell now! You'll just have to wait like the rest of us. But I'll make you a deal. All of you." He spread his arm to indicate all four prisoners. "Cooperate, and I promise you go home alive. Screw with me and you go home in pieces."

"Gee, when you put it that way…." Rafe drawled.

.

The shorter man glared at Rafe, then beckoned to his companion, who violently yanked Blair to his feet. He half-led, half-dragged Sandburg to the door. Blair stared right into the brown-haired man's eyes; his defiance faltered when he saw what was in them. The man's hazel eyes glinted in the light, giving them a predatory aura, akin to a wild beast, caged for far too long. It frightened Blair. He stole a glance back at his friends. They were watching him with mottled expressions of fear and worry. Blair flashed them a smile and was pulled through. The door slammed shut behind the trio with a deafening thud.

~*~

Jim stared at the rose forever; time stoof still as the scent played on his memories. He felt himself slipping away, into a time he'd just as soon forget.

**He was standing outside a warehouse, flak jacket on, gun poised and ready. Simon and Henri were flanking him, both prepared for immediate action. Three. Two. One.

~*Crack*~

A small side door was kicked inward. Three men rushed forward, desperately seeking their quarry. Jim crept past a spot on the floor covered with roses of all colors and sizes. He sneezed, the overpowering sweetness making him nauseous. On he went, stopping outside a closed office door. Unlocked. With anger to spare, he kicked in the door, training his weapon on the man inside.

A smug face stared back at Jim from behind a shock a brown hair. He raised a rifle, grinning like a demon.**

"Ellison!"

The shout brought Jim out of his trance. He blinked several times at Simon, trying desperately to place a name with the face he had just seen.

The captain spotted the rose. "Damn."

"We arrested this guy once before, Simon," Jim said absently.

"What?"

"From 'me.' Me. M-E. M--"

"Jim, what are you talking about?"

"You and H were there when we arrested him. God, what was his name?" Ice blue eyes lit up. "McManus. Edward McManus."

Banks cocked his head. "I remember that case. He was arrested for drug trafficking, if I remember correctly."

"Edward McManus. E-M. M-E. Me. 'From me.' The asshole's taunting us."

Simon frowned. "How can we be sure this is the same guy?"

"Wait until that florist gives his statement and sits down with a sketch artist."

Banks nodded, his response interrupted by the chirping of his cell phone. He yanked it from his overcoat and flipped it open, eliciting a terse, "Banks."

Jim ignored etiquette and listened.

<"Sir, it's Brown. We tracked Mr. Verne Palmieri to Keaton Psychiatric Hospital. He was a patient there for the last six years. Apparently he left two days ago without signing himself out.">

"He leaves right before his wife is found murdered." Simon sighed. "I'm sending a Forensics team to the loft. Sandburg's gone and someone left Ellison a gift. You meet the team here. Jim and I are heading out to that hospital--"

Jim was instantly down the hall and into the stairwell, not waiting for his captain. One friend had just been found murdered and another was missing. He was not a happy Sentinel.

~*~

A ten-foot stone wall loomed in front of the Sedan. Barbed wire looped across the top of the barrier, giving the wall an impenetrable air. A wrought iron gate was the only entrance, punctuated by a small brick hut with two uniformed men inside. The car approached slowly, as if hesitant to get too close to the building hiding within.

A security guard met the car, clipboard in hand.

Simon flashed his badge at the stern-looking man. "We're with the Cascade Police. We have an appointment here to meet Sheriff Johnson."

"What is this in regards to?"

"Verne Palmieri's disappearance," Simon replied.

The man checked his keyboard. "Captain Banks and Detective Ellison?"

Simon nodded.

"Drive straight up to the main building," the guard said. "Go in the double doors to the receptionist's desk. The Sheriff will meet you there."

"Thank you."

The guard walked back to the small building. A minute later, the gate crept open. Simon maneuvered his car through the open gate and up a winding gravel drive. Tall willow trees lined the road, blowing gently in the afternoon breeze. They coasted over a small hill and a sprawling building made its appearance.

Keaton Hospital reminded Simon more of an old-fashioned monastery than a professional building. The three-story brick structure had a large porch, its roof held up by arched pillars. The front of the hospital stretched for a rough three hundred feet; it was impossible to tell how far back it spread. The roof raised and peeked several times, each peek accentuated by a small round window.

//The only windows in the place that don't have bars on them, // Simon thought bitterly. He glanced at his companion as he parked the Sedan. Ellison's disdain for the place shone obviously on his face.

"Doesn't look like a place you can just walk out of, does it?" Jim asked thoughtfully.

Simon parked the car. "No, it doesn't. Looks more like an old mansion than a hospital." He sighed and pocketed his keys. "Let's go."

~*~

Moans, screams, wails, curses--all of these sounds assaulted the Sentinel's ears, further lowering his opinion of the hospital. He knew his companions couldn't hear what he heard and he considered Simon and the sheriff lucky. Picturing dials as his Guide had taught, Jim turned down his hearing and focused on what was in front of him.

The cell was small and sparsely furnished. That fact alone was disturbing, but there was more. Jim ran his hand along the made-up bed, feeling the stark coldness of the sheets and blanket. He opened his nostrils to the hidden scents of the linen and immediately sneezed. It was covered with a coating of dust, unusual for a room that had been occupied up until three days ago. Pale spots marred the grayish wall where several news clippings had been removed.

Jim also identified another out of place smell: Pledge. The room had recently been dusted, but whoever had done it forgot to shake the bed linen. He let his eyes travel across the room, picking over the obvious, trying to identify the hidden. His sight zeroed in on a spot near the scarred, wooden desk. He was vaguely aware of his companions following him as he made his way across the room.

"Anybody got tweezers?" Jim asked no one in particular.

The item in question made its way into his hands and, with them, he produced a piece of hair snagged on a crack in the wood. He held the hair up to the light for the other's benefit.

"Looks like your team missed something," Banks commented to the local sheriff on his right. Sheriff Johnson merely grunted.

"It's blonde," Jim said, his voice hinting at annoyance. "Palmieri has black hair." He carefully placed the hair in an evidence bag and slipped in into his coat pocket. He turned his attention to the sheriff. "Could you excuse us?"

The sheriff nodded and left the two men together.

"What is it, Jim?" Simon asked.

"This whole thing feels wrong, sir," Jim started. "The room has been recently dusted, but someone missed the bed. It hasn't been sat on, much less slept in for weeks, at least."

"So this guy supposedly cold-cocks a guard, steals his uniform and walks right out of the building, unnoticed. I don't like it," Simon finished. "Not to mention the fact that no one seems to know anything about it. No one saw anything, heard anything or is saying anything."

"Have they pulled up the security tapes for us yet?"

"That's our next stop," Simon answered, motioning his detective to follow him out of the room.

On the way to the security office, Jim had a sudden realization. "Hey, how come the Feds weren't called in instead of the locals? Isn't this a state hospital?"

Simon frowned. "Seems most of the money this place gets is from private donors, not the government. Places this case under local jurisdiction."

"County sheriff," Jim spat. "And Sheriff Johnson doesn't seem particularly thrilled that we're here. Or is it just me?" he deadpanned.

"On any other day I'd say it was you," Banks said, masking a grin.

"Thank you, sir," Jim said sweetly.

"Don't mention it. We're here."

Simon rapped his knuckles against the door frame and walked in without waiting for an invitation. A portly rent-a-cop was perched behind a bank of video monitors, each set on a different part of the hospital. A larger screen, set apart from the others, was the only one not on. The security guard grunted at the intrusion and stood up, eyeing the newcomers.

The police captain raised his badge. "Captain Banks, Cascade PD. My associate," he pointed, "Detective Ellison. Do you have the security tapes I asked for?"

"Eddie Boraz," the guard said. "Yeah, the tape's ready to play. Nothing there to help you, though."

"Humor us," Simon ordered, coming across less gently than he'd intended.

The gruffness wasn't lost on Eddie. His fingers danced across a keyboard, bringing up a paused image on the lone screen. He waved at the men; they gathered around, staring intently at the monitor.

"This is just before Todd went into the guy's room," Eddie explained.

"Todd Manx is the guy that got hit, right?" Jim asked.

Eddie nodded.

"And why was he going into Palmieri's room in the first place?" Simon inquired.

"Don't know," Eddie answered quickly. "None of my business."

"See no evil, speak no evil," Jim muttered.

The three men watched the grainy, black and white images on the screen. Todd entered the frame. His build was similar to Palmieri's. He was dressed in a white orderly's uniform, his hair color hidden under a white baseball cap. He had an object of some sort in his hands, but with his back to the camera, it was indistinguishable.

Jim's sensitive eyes wandered over the screen, trying to see what he knew the others couldn't. His gaze stopped when he saw a barely noticeable flash of light near Todd's left ear. //An earring, probably. //

The action progressed. Nurses and orderlies passed Palmieri's door, no one paying attention to anything that may have been going on in the room. After several minutes, a figure emerged from the room, dressed in Todd's uniform. The man was nearly identical to Todd in every way. He looked around, then proceeded to walk out of the camera angle, but not before Jim saw the flash of light. This man wore an earring also.

"Do you have the tape of the nurse finding Manx?" Banks asked, rather impatiently.

"Yeah," Eddie said, his fingers typing away. "It's on a different tape. Take a minute to bring up."

While Eddie worked, Simon leaned close to Jim and asked, "What do you think?"

Jim turned to his captain, his voice low, and said, "Not sure. This whole thing feels wrong somehow. I can't explain it now."

"As soon as you can, you do. Got that?"

"Absolutely, Simon."

"Ready," Eddie announced from his seat.

Three sets of eyes once again fixed themselves to the screen. They watched a nurse knock, then enter Palmieri's room. She ran out. Security guards ran in. People seemed to be everywhere. A stretcher went in and came back out with a body strapped to it--Todd, they assumed. A medic blocked the victim's face. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Jim looked at Eddie. "Has Todd Manx been back to the hospital since the incident?"

"Not that I recall," Eddie responded, cocking his head in thought. "I think they gave him a couple weeks leave."

"Can you get me copies of these tapes?" Simon asked the security man.

"Here," he said, pulling a cassette from a section of the equipment set-up. Eddie slipped it into a case and handed it to Simon. "Thought you might want one."

"Thanks for your help," Jim said as the pair left the security office.

~*~

//This is getting us nowhere, // Jim thought bitterly.

Dr. Arnold Wayne was sitting behind an expensive, carved cherry desk, his hands folded neatly across his lap. His expression gave away no emotion, beyond the obvious disdain he held for the officers of the Cascade Police Department.

"Mr. Palmieri is manic depressive, but he had been improving these last few years," Wayne repeated, still holding his ground.

"Yes, we know that," Simon shot back, his patience with the man at its limits. "You've said that twice and still not answered my question. When can I expect those files?"

"I'm sorry, Captain, but I cannot share that information. Doctor/patient confidentiality, you see."

"No, I don't see."

Jim took a step closer to the seated man, letting his six-foot frame loom over the doctor. "Your client has escaped custody and is the prime suspect in the murder of his wife. If you don't want to be slapped with aiding and abetting, and interfering in an ongoing investigation, we expect a bit of cooperation."

Wayne glared at Jim as he stood, then turned his attention to Banks. A head shorter than Simon, he craned his neck to look the captain in the eye. "I know the law, Captain Banks. Get a warrant."

Simon bristled. "Count on it."

A shadow under the office door caught Jim's eye. He watched it pause, then hurry away. The distinct scent of roses filtered up to meet his nostrils, setting his teeth on edge. Jim stood and yanked open the door, ignoring questions from Simon. The outer office was empty, but the smell lingered. He tracked it into the corridor and down a hall that ended in a small lounge.

Two orderlies were eating sandwiches at a small round table. They gave the intruder questioning looks that were immediately ignored. The Sentinel's attention was drawn to the Formica counter across the small room. A vase of white roses sat unassumingly on the smooth surface, four flowers in all.

Jim crossed the room, aware that Simon was right behind him. A small, blue envelope was nestled among the blossoms. Jim plucked it out. The name on the outside was "Verne Palmieri." He tore open the envelope and read the short message on the card, written in the same block letters as their previously received notes. "For Verne. Sorry it didn't work out. From Me."

His jaw twitched as he handed the card to his captain. Simon skimmed the words, an unreadable expression on his face. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.

"Looks like the two cases are connected," Jim said icily.

~*~

"Captain Banks!"

Jim and Simon stopped not a foot inside Major Crime, turning towards the source of the voice. Detective Dills was quick-stepping it to them, a piece of paper clutched in his hand.

"Mr. Reese finished with the sketch artist this morning," Dills reported. "This is what we got."

Simon snatched the paper from his detective and held it so Jim could see. Two pairs of eyes stared at the sheet, disbelief registering in both.

"It's McManus," Jim breathed. He'd know that face in his sleep. In fact, it had haunted his sleep quite a few times over his first few years in Major Crime. But why would the man suddenly show up now?

Simon gripped the sketch tightly and marched towards his office. Jim shadowed him, closing the door halfway before taking his normal stance against the conference table.

"What do we do now, Simon? We don't have enough evidence for a warrant."

The captain dropped into his chair. "I know."

There was a sharp rap on the door to Simon's office, startling the men inside. Before the Captain could say anything, Joel Taggart had the door open and was handing a faxed report to the Captain. "You’re not gonna like this, Simon. According to this, Edward James McManus spent two years in Keaton Hospital before he died in 1995."

Jim stared open-mouthed. "That can't be."

"It gets better," Taggart said. "Apparently, a van transporting him and another patient hit a patch of ice and slid into a river. No bodies were recovered."

"So he survived and escaped?" Simon asked.

"Seems so."

"I supposed we'll have to add McManus' files to that warrant," Simon said.

Jim studied the information in front of him. "Did he have any contact with Verne Palmieri during the time he was in Keaton?"

Joel shook his head. "Palmieri was...um, committed five weeks after McManus supposedly died."

"So that--" Simon's words were cut off by the ringing of his phone. He snatched it up. "Banks.... Good job, Detective. We'll be here."

Two expectant faces watched the captain hang up the phone.

"Well, gentlemen," Banks said, standing up. "We've just been given a break. Brown arrested Palmieri a few minutes ago in a bar down by the docks."

"How'd they track him down?" Jim asked.

Simon cleared his throat. "Anonymous tip."

Jim raised an eyebrow.

"Joel, I need you to do something else," Simon said. He pulled the bagged card from his pocket and handed it to Taggart. "While we were there yesterday, four white roses were delivered to Mr. Palmieri at Keaton. I need you to track down the flower shop and see if it was McManus again."

"Will do," Joel replied.

~*~

Verne Palmieri was a shivering, twitching mess as far as Jim Ellison was concerned. The man seemed to sink into the plastic chair he was seated in, becoming part of the furniture. Bloodstains marked his dirty clothes, but he didn't seem to notice them. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his breath coming in short gasps. Palmieri darted looks around the interrogation room, as if expecting an attack from all sides at once. The man's heartbeat was off the charts.

//He's going to hyperventilate if he doesn't calm down, // Jim thought bitterly. //Not that he doesn't have a reason to be upset. He just butchered his wife, after all. //

"Are you going to be calm?" Simon asked quietly.

Jim tore his gaze from the two-way glass and stared into his captain's eyes. "Absolutely."

Simon looked ready to protest, then acquiesced. "All right."

Taking that as his cue, Jim left the observation room and entered the interrogation cubicle. Palmieri watched him like a hunted animal, his shivering increasing minutely. A shaky hand brushed away a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead.

"You're Jim Ellison," Palmieri stuttered. His voice was firm, almost awestruck. "Judy talked about you a lot."

"Really," Jim said flatly. "Let's talk about Judy for a while."

"Okay."

The Sentinel's jaw twitched. He zeroed in on the man's heartbeat and asked, "When's the last time you saw her?"

"She came to visit me last weekend. The heartbeat remained steady, then spiked when he realized something. "Did something happen to Judy? Is she okay?"

Jim blinked at the man, his anger compounding. //How could he be playing dumb so well? // His lie-detection abilities weren't an exact science, but had often proved to be correct. Still, Palmieri showed no signs of being untruthful, only concerned. Jim decided to throw a curve ball.

"Do you know whose blood is on your shirt?"

Palmieri looked at his flannel top, surprise flashing across his features at the sight of the deep crimson stains criss-crossing the blue plaid. He turned terrified brown eyes onto Jim. "N-n-no. God, is it Judy's? What did he make me do? What did that bastard make me do!"

"Who are you talking about?" Jim asked, crouching in front of the upset man. "Who made you do what?"

Palmieri's voice rose to a hysterical level. He began to cry, deep resonating sobs of one in absolute anguish. Arms wrapped around themselves, drawing the man deeper into himself, rocking slowly back and forth.

Jim threw a bewildered glance at the mirror. //What in hell just happened here? //

"Edward, you bastard," Palmieri muttered between sobs.

Sentinel ears pricked at the name, but he knew it had been loud enough to be heard by everyone listening. //Edward. Edward McManus, possibly. // Jim's eyes narrowed dangerously as two officers came in and led the blubbering man away. Simon passed them and marched over to Jim, Henri and Joel at his heels.

"McManus is involved, Simon," Jim said forcefully. "And Keaton Hospital is the only lead we've got right now."

"Did he kill her?" Banks asked.

Jim sighed. "I don't know. If he did, I don't think he remembers it."

~*~

Taggart strode into Maurice's Flowers that evening, his brown eyes immediately searching for the clerk. A young woman with red curls and flashing green eyes stood behind a counter heaped with various cut flowers. She sized him up and smiled pleasantly.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a singsong voice.

Joel flashed his badge and approached the counter. "I'm Detective Taggart, Cascade PD. I just have a couple of questions."

"Of course. I'm Sara."

Joel shook the offered hand. "Did one of your workers deliver a vase of four white roses to a man named Verne Palmieri at Keaton Hospital?"

"If we did, Chad did it. He handles deliveries. Let me check." Slim, manicured fingers danced over the register's keyboard, her eyes darting to different parts of the screen. "Chad Hart delivered to Keaton yesterday morning."

"Did you see who placed the order?"

She shook her head. "The order was phoned in. I took the call."

Joel's shoulders slumped a bit, but he wasn't finished. "How did they pay?"

"Credit card. The information should still be here." Sara hit several more keys. "A Mr. Blair Sandburg made the purchase on his Master Card."

The detective couldn't keep his jaw from falling open slightly. "That's impossible. Can you give me a printout of this information?"

"Sure thing," she replied, a bit puzzled by his reaction.

While the woman worked, Joel yanked out his cell phone and dialed. "Simon? It's Taggart...yeah, I am and you're not going to believe this."

~*~

Sheriff Johnson tossed several manila folders onto the table. "Here's those files and court reports you wanted."

"Thank you," Jim replied sourly. He and Simon had been kept waiting in a stuffy Sheriff's Office conference room for nearly an hour. Neither man had slept well the night before and their patience was already stretched thin. The news of Sandburg's "purchase" had been all the proof Jim needed that McManus had their friends. Consequently, the Sentinel had passed another long, sleepless night filled with much pacing and ulcer-inducing worry.

The sheriff nodded and left the two men alone to peruse the new information.

"June 9, 1995," Jim read aloud from the first folder. "Officer Dwayne Harris, Jake Taminy and Edward McManus are officially pronounced dead when a six-day sweep of the river produces no bodies. Johnson ruled that the current was too strong for anyone to have survived and the bodies had probably been swept downstream to Puget Sound."

"All supposition," Simon muttered.

"Kind of like our connection between McManus and Palmieri?"

Simon frowned, but said nothing.

Jim picked up a new folder. "Dr. Dudley Malcolm, psychiatrist for the defense; testified that McManus was schizophrenic, temporarily insane and not responsible for his actions. Died in a car crash three years ago. His break fluid leaked out, causing the car to hit a tree at 75 miles an hour on a mountain road."

"Sounds suspicious, too," Simon commented.

"Not to the sheriff, apparently. He ruled it an accident."

"There wasn't an investigation?"

"None."

Simon grunted and picked up another folder. "Bruce Sykes, junior partner at Wellington and Wentworth, Defense Lawyer for Edward McManus," he read aloud from the top folder. "He committed suicide eleven months after the trial ended. Sliced his wrists in a bathtub."

Jim accepted a stack of crime-scene photos from Simon. There were several angles of the body, laid out neatly in a tub of water, blood pooling on the floor. Jim examined a close-up of the wounds.

"Simon, what's the coroner's report on this say?"

The captain flipped through several papers until he found the right one. "Cause of death was shock brought on by massive blood loss. Cuts on his wrists were made elbow to wrist and-."

"Say that again, sir," Jim interrupted.

"Cause of death-."

"No, the second part."

"The cuts on his wrists were made elbow to wrist…." Simon trailed off as the meaning of the words clicked. He looked at Jim, who was shaking his head.

"It's pretty damn hard to cut your arms away from yourself, Simon. Especially with a knife that dull," Jim said, pointing to the paring knife lying in the puddle of blood.

Jim focused in on Sykes's left hand, then snatched the coroner's report from Simon.

"What is it?" Simon asked impatiently.

"We need to talk to the coroner," Jim said, not lifting his eyes from the report.

"Why?"

"Either she needs to go back to Med school," Jim looked Simon in the eye. "Or they purposely failed to note that three fingers were broken on Sykes's left hand."

Brown sticking his head inside punctuated a rap on the door. He'd spent the last few hours at Keaton and was told to meet Jim and Simon at the Sheriff's Office when he was through.

Jim waved him in. "H, what did the staff have to say about McManus?"

Brown snorted, slumping into a chair across from Simon and dumping several new file folders onto the present stack. "Not a hell of a lot. Either they didn't know him, they didn't work in his ward or they're new here. No one seems to know anything."

"There's a lot of that going around," Jim snapped.

"Wayne finally gave up his files on Palmieri and McManus," Henri said, pointing to what he'd brought with him. "Damn boring to read, though. Lot's of shrink mumbo-jumbo."

Jim retrieved the top file and opened it--Palmieri's. He scanned the contents, skipping over the large words and technical phrasing. //Sandburg would know what all this means, // Jim thought tiredly. He absently glanced at the empty chair to his left, the one his partner should be filling. It never ceased to amaze the detective how much Blair was a part of his life until he was gone.

The Sentinel shuffled through the reports, noting the uniformity of each one. He opened his sense of smell, pushing out the odors of coffee, sweat and Henri's aftershave. The scent of ink was strong, as if someone had just printed all of the reports recently. Jim brushed his fingertips over the paper. The report in his hand was dated October 5, 1995, but the paper couldn't have been that old. It was too crisp, too new.

"H, are these the original copies of the files from '95?" Jim asked, looking at the man across the table.

"The doc said they were. Why?"

Jim shook his head. "The paper's too new and the ink is still fresh."

"You think they're copies?" Simon asked.

"They're not four years old, that's for damn sure," Jim said. "Everything about this case so far seems to be one lie after another, one deception that keeps getting compounded. And it's starting to annoy the hell out of me."

"Amen," Brown muttered.

"So what else do we have?" Simon looked from one detective to the other.

Henri reached for a folder near the bottom of the stack. "McManus has no living family that we know of and no friends left that we can find. I do have a lead on an old college roommate, though. We're tracking him down. McManus's old house was bulldozed when the city built that new mini-mall over on 12th Avenue. All of his belongings were donated to Goodwill, so nothing there."

"I want all old girlfriends, ex-friends, enemies and classmates questioned. Any little thing could help us out here."

"I've got Taggart questioning Palmieri's relatives and friends," Brown said, "but nothing he's gotten so far labels this guy as a killer. And none of them know the name McManus."

Jim pulled a red folder from the pile. "I called Jack Thames, the prosecuting shrink six years ago. He said McManus never showed any signs of mental illness or instability before or after the trial."

"He also testified to that affect at the trial," Brown added. "Didn't seem to make much difference then."

"That's because Sykes did a little song-and-dance about the cops and their shrinks sticking together to get what they want," Simon sneered. "At least he didn't try and pull some 'thin blue line' bullshit."

Jim couldn't help it--his thoughts automatically switched to Sandburg and the younger man's first meeting with Simon. <"I've always been fascinated by the concept of 'the thin blue line',"> he'd said, his voice dripping with enthusiasm. Jim fought the urge to grin at the memory. He'd had to tell Simon that Blair was his cousin to convince the police captain to let an inexperienced grad student ride along with him. //God, was that really three years ago? //

"Jim? You there? Jim?" Brown waved a hand in front of Jim's face, startling him out of his reverie.

"Sorry, guys," Jim said. "Got lost in thought for a minute. What did you need?"

"The coroner?" Simon prompted, sounding somewhat annoyed that Jim had lost focus.

"Martha Lansing did the autopsy on Sykes. Small county, so she was both the coroner's office and forensics department for Sheriff Johnson at the time. Moved away two months after Sykes's death. We're trying to track her down now."

"Somebody's covering up something," Simon observed. "And it seems they did a pretty piss-poor job of it. If we can figure this out, maybe someone will be able to tell us if McManus is really still alive."

"And where our people are," Jim added solemnly. He flipped open one of Palmieri's files and noticed something. Jim blinked, letting his memories play back, back to the Palmieri investigation. He pictured Palmieri's face, his ears. It suddenly dawned on him. "I need to see those security tapes again."

"Something you missed?" Simon asked.

"Yeah, an earring."

Jim explained what he had noticed as the trio gathered their collective paperwork and walked toward the exit.

~*~

The plate of food smelled enticing, yet it still made Blair sick to his stomach. The stark room he was in reminded him of a prison cell sans toilet and bars. There were four white walls, a bed, table and chair. Dinner had been waiting after his return from...where? He couldn't remember. Actually, he couldn't remember much of the past few days. He wasn't even sure how many days it had been since his abduction.

All Blair was sure of was that his head hurt. In fact, he couldn't seem to remember a time when it didn't hurt. Headaches and nausea were his world now. He hadn't seen Rafe or Megan since their initial encounter in the basement. He vaguely remembered hearing Daryl's voice once, but wasn't certain.

He stared at the roasted meat and baked potato for a while, before deciding not to eat it. The food would probably end up puked all over the floor like his last three meals had. //Or was that four? It was so hard to count the passage of time in this place. Where are you, Jim? //

~*~

Simon knew as soon as his phone rang that it would be bad news. He could feel it in his bones; his bones didn't let him down. Snatching the small item from his coat pocket, he flipped it open with one hand, the second clutching the steering wheel. Maneuvering his Sedan into an empty space in the department garage, he barked, "Banks."

<"Simon, it's Taggart.">

The older man sounded breathless...and worried. "What is it, Joel?"

<"Palmieri is on his way to the hospital.">

"He's what!"

<"The sick bastard was down in lock-up and he started screaming and banging his head against the wall. Knocked himself unconscious before a guard could get to him.">

Simon groaned and put his car into reverse gear. "I'll meet you there." He disconnected, then dialed Jim's cell number.

~*~

Jim strode into Cascade General's ER in time to see Simon shake hands with a doctor. The white-coated man walked away as Jim approached the captain.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

Simon shook his head. "Damn idiot busted his own head open. Doctor says he's in a coma. They don't think he's going to come out of it."

"Dammit!" Jim's fists balled up tightly against his sides, his jaw clenching.

"It gets worse."

//How could it possibly get worse? // "What now?"

"Joel called back after I called you. He said all of Palmieri's known associates checked out. There's nothing to connect him with McManus."

Jim's mind automatically flashed to Judy Palmieri. There was no question that, willingly or not, her husband had killed her and she would never see justice for that. //C'mon, Ellison. The guy's a vegetable. What more do you want? //

Why? That was what he wanted to know. Verne wasn't telling and neither was Judy. Right now, it seemed like the only person who could answer the question was Edward McManus. And for the time being, he wasn't talking either.

~*~

Jim knew he was making the man nervous, but he couldn't help it. His own nerves were fraying and he preferred pacing the small interrogation room to sitting on one of the hard plastic chairs. Simon kept glaring daggers at him, but Jim ignored it. His attention was focused on Liam Wright.

Wright was in his late thirties, but looked fifty-five. He was slumped into a chair, nursing a mug of steaming coffee, brushing loose strands of greasy hair from his face. Three years of living on the street had given the man darting eyes, suspicious of everyone--especially cops.

"Mr. Wright," Simon said gently. "Do you remember college, when you roomed with a man named Edward McManus?"

Wright turned weepy eyes on the black man in front of him. "College? Man, that was a lifetime ago. I barely remember what I majored in, let alone who I lived with."

"You majored in business accounting," Jim offered, hoping to jog his memory.

Simon slid a photo of McManus across the table. "Does he look familiar?"

Wright studied it a moment, recognition brightening his green eyes. "Sure, I remember him." The man's entire demeanor changed as he was transported into a past more pleasant than his present. "Nice guy. A little funny, though."

"In what way?" Jim asked.

"Wasn't too sociable. He liked to read more than anything. Read a lot of psychology and hypnotism books, I think. He hypnotized me once--made me bark like a dog whenever I heard a church bell." Wright laughed at the memory, then sobered almost immediately. "He scared me, too."

"How?" Simon prompted.

"Said one day he would be able to make the world listen to him, do what he wanted. He would be able to control their emotions. I thought he was a part of some new-age militia or something. Then he started talking mind control and I started looking for a new roomie."

"Did he ever go into detail on anything?" Jim inquired.

"Naw, he was real secretive about his stuff. Besides, we didn't pal around enough for me to care much. Sorry I don't have more. My memory fuzzes up a lot nowadays."

"No apologies necessary, Mr. Wright," Simon said. "You've been a big help."

An officer came in and led Wright out. Jim and Simon stayed behind, staring blankly at each other. Simon shook his head, as if resigned to some horrible truth.

"Instead of finding answers," Simon said. "We've just opened up a whole lot more stinking cans of worms. I've got more questions about this case than ever."

"I know how you feel," Jim replied. "In an hour, I doubt Mr. Wright will even remember we had this conversation."

~*~

Jim gripped the steering wheel of the Ford truck, his knuckles turning white from the effort. He had driven this route so many times in the last three days he was sure the vehicle could drive itself to Keaton. But even the amusing thought did nothing to calm the Sentinel's nerves.

Sheriff Johnson had refused to give any straight answers regarding the lawyer Sykes's death or the whereabouts of Martha Lansing, the coroner. Jim had monitored the man's vitals--he knew the sheriff had been nervous. They just had to figure out what he was so nervous about. Simon already had someone working on a warrant to access Johnson's bank records.

"You're going to break that steering wheel, Jim," Simon commented from the passenger seat. The intended levity fizzled out before it had a chance. There were a few moments of silence before Simon ventured to ask, "How're you doing?"

Jim knew the hidden meaning behind the inquiry. Simon didn't need to add the "without Sandburg" to end of the question. Jim liked to think he had a handle on his senses--he hadn't had an actual zone-out in months. He was certainly coping in that capacity. But that wasn't what Simon meant. Jim had come to see Blair as much more than someone to talk him out of a zone or offer advice on his senses. They were partners as much as any two cops in the department. They were roommates and best friends, depending on the certainty of each other's company. He missed his friend. He'd had him back for less than a day before they were torn apart once again and was worried to death about the young man's safety. Of course, he wouldn't admit this to Simon.

"I'm fine, Simon," Jim answered, checking the rearview mirror to make sure Brown was still behind them. "They'll be fine, too. How are you?"

Simon Banks turned his brown eyes on Jim, more emotion in them than any other time Jim could recall. "Scared as hell."

The admission surprised Jim and he placed a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "Me, too, Simon. Me, too."

The rest of the drive was spent in companionable silence.

~*~

"We're working every angle we have on this case, Mr. Keaton. I'm sure you understand that and are willing to do whatever possible to help us along."

As he spoke, Simon's tone was pleasant enough, but there was a warning under it that only his close friends could easily detect. Jim heard it and watched Lucas Keaton--head of the psychiatric hospital founded by his grandfather--praying silently that the man would cooperate.

Keaton smiled amiably and placed his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers. "And what angle would require that particular paperwork, Captain Banks? The list of our private donors is not something to be given out lightly."

"That's privileged information, Mr. Keaton," Jim answered, trying a new approach. "But as head of a very prestigious psychiatric institute, I'm sure you understand all about the word 'classified.'"

Keaton blinked at the grim detective in front of him, silent for a few moments. "All right, I'll have my secretary copy the necessary documents. But I want your word that you won't go around harassing any of our investors and patrons. Many of them have a...personal...interest in this facility."

//You mean they have crazy family members locked up that they don't want the world to know about. // Jim glanced at Simon, knowing the captain was having the same thought.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Simon said as he stood.

"My pleasure. I hope you find what you're looking for. Those papers should be ready shortly."

The former statement didn't sit right with Jim, but he shook Keaton's hand and followed Simon out of the room. The Sentinel was glad to be out of the man's office. He couldn't figure out why, but the place gave him the creeps. His senses had shown nothing out of the ordinary, but the feeling still plagued him. <A heightened sixth sense,> Blair would say.

Jim and Simon sat in the small, sparsely decorated waiting area while Keaton's secretary went about her business of making copies.

"What'd you think?" Simon asked in a low whisper.

"At least he was more cooperative than most of the people here. Something bothered me, though. Something I can't quite put my finger on."

Simon knew from past experience to trust his best detective's instincts. "When you do figure it out…."

"You'll be the first to know, sir." The exchange was becoming repetitive.

"That's what I like to hear. Brown should be reporting back soon, shouldn't he?"

Jim extended his hearing, letting it search out the other detective. He picked through the voices of the hospital staff, the squeak of med carts, the scrawling of a pencil on paper--all familiar sounds, yet not what he wanted. Conversations were picked up, then filtered out. A snippet of dialogue caught his attention.

<"...About NeuroDynamics. I guarantee it.">

The Sentinel zeroed in, but the voice was silent. There was a loud banging sound and Jim flinched as he dialed down his hearing. The door to the waiting area opened and Brown stuck his head inside.

"You guys ready?" Henri asked.

Keaton's secretary strode in and handed Simon a folder containing several sheets of paper.

"Thank you," Simon said, standing up.

Jim also stood and followed Simon and Brown out into the corridor, the name "NeuroDynamics" still stuck in his mind, strangely familiar.

"What did you find out?" Simon asked, stopping Brown halfway down the hall.

"None of the other orderlies working today wear earrings," Brown said. "But one guy does." Henri handed Simon another folder. "Our resident victim, Todd Manx. He's worked here exactly six years and is an almost dead-ringer for Palmieri, except for his blonde hair. I've tried calling his house, but still no answer."

Simon opened the new folder and scanned its contents. "We'll have to get Sheriff Johnson to put one of his deputies on that house until Mr. Manx comes home."

Jim shook his head. "I don't trust that sheriff, Simon."

"Well, Jim, I don't trust him either, but this is his jurisdiction. You know that."

Jim did know that; but that didn't mean he had to like it.

A blue-clad security guard turned the corner and strode in their direction. He stopped in front of the trio, his gaze shifting between them.

"Who's Captain Banks?" the guard asked all three.

"I am," Simon said gruffly.

The security guard took an unconscious step backwards at the captain's tone. "Uh, there's a phone call for you."

"Where?"

"If you'll follow me...." the guard started down the hall, three members of the CPD in tow.

The guard led them down two different corridors, then stopped in front of a small nurse's station and pointed to a desk. "Line one." With that, he left.

Simon snatched up the receiver and pressed a button. "Hello?....Now? Can't it wa--....Of course not. We'll be there." He slammed down the phone, eliciting a glare from a nearby nurse. Simon turned angry eyes onto Jim.

"We need to get back to Cascade. The D.A. wants to go over some details of the Contino case with us."

"Now?" Jim groaned. It was strange. He had been working on the Contino case for over two months, but it had flown out of his mind the minute his Guide disappeared. Once proud of the case, he now silently cursed it for taking his valuable time away from finding Blair and the others.

"Now," Simon ordered grimly, his frustration mirroring Jim's.

~*~

Jim leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes, stiff from hours of staring at a computer screen. He'd been at the station since dawn doing research. Hell, he'd been up the entire night anyhow, wound up after his meeting with the D.A. She was tenacious, he would give her that, but her grilling had left him sour and pissed about wasting so much precious time. Time that could have been better spent searching for his missing friends.

He had probably slept a total of eight hours in the past four days, fear of never finding his missing friends keeping him up at night. The loft felt unnaturally quiet without Sandburg's natural ability to fill it with some sort of sound, be it random chatter about a test he was proctoring, the tapping of his keyboard, or even the steady staccato of his heartbeat. Jim much preferred the constant noise of the station to the horrible silence that greeted him every time he went home to shower, shave and change.

Last night Jim had been plagued by the name NeuroDynamics. It was so familiar, yet so far away. He'd come to the station and logged onto the net, hoping to find something, anything. Every search he had tried came up empty. So Jim Ellison sat behind his desk, feeling useless, wondering if the worrying of the last week was beginning to culminate in an ulcer.

"Jim?"

Blue eyes looked up and stared into the depths of concerned, brown ones.

"Morning, Joel," Jim greeted, mustering up all the energy his over-caffienated body could manage.

"How're you doing?" the burly man asked, making use of the extra chair Blair usually occupied.

Jim let out a long-suffering sigh. "Why does everyone ask that?" Before the other man could answer, Jim plowed on. "Because they know I'll say I'm fine and that'll be the end of the conversation and no one really wants to talk about it, anyway. So I'm fine, Joel. Want to ask anything more specific?"

"Have you slept?"

The concern in Taggart's voice threw Jim for a minute. He hadn't expected his friend to be so forthright. Then again, maybe he should have. Jim paused to fight back a monster yawn.

"Not much. The loft is too quiet."

That simple sentence said more to Joel Taggart than a five-minute speech could have. He knew how much Blair meant to Jim. They seemed to be a constant presence in each other's lives, not quite happy if the other wasn't around. Joel remembered the pre-Sandburg Ellison very well and he honestly preferred the man he knew now to the old Jim. He didn't know what Jim would do if Blair didn't return whole and intact.

"We'll find him, Jim," Joel said with mustered confidence. "We'll find all of them."

Jim managed a short smile, then let his eyes drift across the bullpen to Simon's office. The blinds were drawn, the door shut. The captain had come in less than an hour ago, silent as a statue and not set foot outside his office. When Rhonda came in, she had attempted to enter the office, but a sharp retort from Banks had sent her scurrying for her desk.

Willing to bear the brunt of what was probably a fight with Joan, Jim stood and walked towards the captain's office. Fresh cigar smoke greeted his nostrils as he paused outside the door and knocked once. Without waiting for an invitation, Jim walked in.

Simon was standing stiffly, staring at the television set up near his desk, mumbling something. Jim dialed up his hearing to identify it.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.…" streamed from Simon's mouth.

Alarmed, Jim stepped around Simon and looked at the television, shifting his attention to the man on the screen. A reporter was standing in front of the police station, apparently already in the middle of his broadcast.

<"...A police observer, and Daryl Banks, son of Cascade Police Captain Simon Banks. Again, we have no official word of their disappearance, but sources say that the four persons have been missing for almost four days now. More as it develops. This is Max Peterson, for Channel Five Eyewitness News.">

"Dammit!" Simon screamed, slamming a fist onto the table. "How the hell did the press get in on this?" The captain turned, noticing Jim for the first time. "Did you see that?"

"The tail end of it, sir. And I'll bet my next pair of Jags tickets that McManus is leaking this out himself."

"I wouldn't doubt that." Simon moved across the room with the weariness of a seventy year-old. //God, he looks ancient, // Jim thought sadly. The taller man poured himself a mug of coffee, then offered the pot to Jim.

"No thanks, Simon. I drink any more and I'll be pissing coffee for the next week and a half."

The joke managed a weak laugh from Banks. He sobered quickly and stared into the depths of the dark liquid in his hands. "You know, when I was a teenager, I hated coffee. Couldn't stand the smell of it. Now I can't even get started in the morning without a cup."

"It's amazing sometimes--the things that manage to worm their way into your life."

A warm moment passed between the two friends, the double meaning of Jim's statement vividly clear. It passed all too quickly.

"Megan's father called me last night," Simon said randomly.

"From Australia?"

"Yeah. Guess he forgot about the time difference here," Simon griped.

"I didn't know her father had been told."

"I had to call her boss in Sydney when she disappeared. Left the decision of telling him completely up to them."

"So what did Mr. Connor have to say?"

"He screamed about 'damn Yankee cops' and the criminals they breed or some nonsense like that."

Jim snorted. "And what did you say?"

"That we were doing everything in our power to find her and that we would call as soon as we had any news. Speaking of which, now that the secret's out, we'll need to be more careful. Don't want any reporters getting too nosy and tipping off our suspects."

"Suspects?"

"Yes. Until we figure this out, that whole damn hospital could potentially be involved in this...whatever it is. Did you find anything out on that Neuro-thing?"

"NeuroDynamics. No, sir, I couldn't find squat on the net or in any of our databases. I'm going to start hitting up my informants soon."

"Then get to it."

"Yes, sir."

With that, Jim left, closing the office door gently behind him. A twinge in his stomach reminded the Sentinel that he hadn't eaten all morning. He dug into the pocket of his jeans, producing enough loose change get a snack from one of the vending machines. As Jim skirted his desk, he noticed a manila envelope that hadn't been there before. "James Ellison" was neatly typed onto the front. Below his were the names "Henri Brown" and "Simon Banks."

Jim stared at the envelope, dread washing over his body. He opened his senses, letting his nose identify the chemical smell emanating from it: recently developed photographs. Jim picked up the foreign object gently and stared close, but was unable to detect any fingerprints. A hand settled on Jim's shoulder, startling him for the second time that morning.

Joel removed his hand and pointed to the envelope. "You gonna stare at it or open it?"

Jim shifted his gaze from Joel to the envelope and back. "Did you see who put this here?"

The older man shook his head. "Nope. Didn't see anybody."

"I don't think I want to know what's inside," Jim mumbled, louder than intended.

Joel raised an eyebrow. Jim Ellison, afraid to open a letter? "Says it's for Simon and Henri, too. Give it to one of them. Maybe they'll look inside."

Jim glared at Joel, angered by his friend's comment. When he saw the slight twinkle in those dark brown eyes, Jim knew he'd been tricked. Still fighting an as-yet-unjustifiable fear at what it contained, Jim tore open the envelope. It's contents slid easily into Jim's waiting grasp. A small stack of 8x10 photographs was lying face-down in his left hand. Jim placed the envelope on his desk. Slowly, he turned the photos face-up and looked at the one on top.

A choked gasp escaped his lips and Jim had to brace himself on the edge of his desk. With shaky deliberation, Jim looked at the second photo, then the third. He hesitated on the forth, not sure if he could look at what was sure to be there.

"Jim? Jim, what is it?"

It was no longer just Taggart's voice that asked that question; Simon and Henri's now joined the repeated questioning. The voices seemed to come from another place, far from where Jim was at the moment. The Sentinel pushed aside his fear, bottled up his emotions as best he could, steeled himself, and looked at the last photograph.

He was sprawled out like the others had been, eyes closed as if in sleep. Tangled hair covered part of his face, but not enough to hide his youthful features. And the blood. It seemed to be everywhere, spreading and oozing even in the still life of the picture. The redness of it drew Jim in, deeper and deeper. //Don't zone out....don't zone out....don't-- //

"DAMMIT!" The scream erupted from deep within James Ellison, bringing him back from the edge of his zone. The photos dropped to the floor. Jim rubbed his hands across his ashen face, thousands of emotions flashing through his suddenly exhausted form. He slumped into his desk chair. //Nononononononononononononononono…. // Nothing registered in his mind but that single word, as if the constant denial would somehow change the evidence in his possession.

Jim was vaguely aware of the people around him, their uttered curses and cries of grief and outrage at the photographs he had abandoned. Time seemed to stand still.

Jim drew in a ragged breath, trying desperately to clear his mind and focus on the people around him. Simon was frozen in place, his trembling jaw the only thing in motion. His vice-like grip on a photograph had it crumpled in his hands. Henri paced between desks, swearing and rubbing at his eyes, as if that could erase the torturous images from his mind. Joel was leaning against a desk, looking for all the world like he was going to be sick.

Other members of Major Crime were staring at the foursome, their eyes asking questions they were afraid to verbalize. Conversations had stopped; no one moved. With control he never knew he had, Jim stood and addressed the unit.

"Everyone here has work to do!" he bellowed in his best don't-screw-with-me voice. The order was punctuated with a patented Ellison Glare. Activity immediately returned to the bullpen.

Jim swallowed against the nausea building in his stomach and snatched one of the photos from the pile that had been re-deposited on his desk. Anger boiled to the surface when he looked at the picture. His partner, backed against a brick wall, terrified; a shadow in the foreground of a hand clutching a gun--the sight made him sick.

<These things are easy to fake. Authenticity's the key. Check details.> Blair's voice repeated these phrases in Jim's mind. Jim tried to remember when he'd heard the young anthropologist utter them before. He had been muttering about some artifact he was studying for the university, a Macedonian urn or some such thing. It didn't matter now. Instead of analyzing the words, he listened to them.

Jim studied his friend's face. His mouth was open in a half-scream, as if begging someone to end the torture. The fear in his cerulean eyes was heart wrenching, but there was something else. For all appearances, he looked terrified, but his eyes held another secret. They were slightly unfocused, pupils dilated and slightly glazed as if he was sleep walking. Jim frowned and sorted through the pile until he found the fourth picture he had looked at. This time he didn't zone on the blood. In fact, he ignored it. Instead, he focused on the sprawled body, the details. A strange sort of relief flooded through him as the pieces clicked into place.

"They're not real," Jim stated with certainty. Three pair of questioning eyes fixed on Jim. The Sentinel continued, his voice never wavering. "They're not dead."

"What the hell are you talking about, Jim?" Henri asked.

"Look at this." Jim stood up and pointed to the photo in his hands. "His nostrils are flared. Dead bodies don't exhale through their nose."

"Jim--" Simon started, his voice betraying bottled-up grief.

"That's not all," Jim cut him off, eager to explain himself before his friends thought he was nuts. "There's all this blood, but no wounds. Look at them all. No wounds."

The other detectives took a second look at the pictures, amazed to find that Jim was right. Their friend's clothes and bodies were blood soaked, but there was no evidence of any sort of wound, bullet or otherwise.

"Here's exhibit B," Jim said. "Blair doesn't own a flannel shirt like this. He was wearing a green sweater when he disappeared."

"And Rafe was in a suit that day, not jeans," Henri commented quietly.

"They could have been given a change of clothes," Joel said, uncertainty evident in his voice.

Jim spread three photographs on his desk, all similar to the one of Blair backed against the wall. He pointed to the pictured faces. "Do they look afraid?"

It seemed like a stupid question, but the three detectives gave Jim the benefit of the doubt and studied the faces of their missing friends.

"Jim, I don't know what--" Joel started, picking up the photo of Megan.

"They're eyes are completely unfocused," Jim interrupted. "Look at them. It's like they're in a daze or something."

"They're all like that," Simon said, hope creeping in to replace the grief in his voice.

Jim folded his arms across his chest. "I don't think they're real. This asshole is screwing with our minds. The whole through-the-mail thing, it's not McManus' style. He'd want to be there to see our reactions. What good is revenge if you can't enjoy it?"

"So all this," Brown swept a hand across the spread of photographs, "is just to freak us out? What kinda sick game is this creep playing?"

"I don't know," Simon spat angrily. "But if he hurts my son, I'm gonna rip his heart out through his damn throat." With that, the captain slammed the picture in his hand onto Jim's desk and stormed into his office, slamming the door firmly.

"I'll take these down to forensics," Henri volunteered. "See if they can find anything."

Brown gathered up the photographs and envelope, tucked them under one arm and left the bullpen.

Jim stood quietly at his desk, vaguely aware of Joel moving away. His world had come crashing down moments ago and Jim was still trying to process it. Yes, there was an excellent chance those photographs had been faked and everyone was okay. Yes, he believed they would get to their friends and family before any permanent damage could be done. But he still got cold chills at the memory of Blair's prone body, covered in blood, still as death. He could have just lost the most important thing in his life, but he hadn't. Jim would continue to believe his Guide was alive until he was faced with irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

The Sentinel blinked, returning his thoughts to the present. He opened his senses and let his hearing wander through the bullpen. He'd never ask about it aloud, but Jim could have sworn he heard muffled sobs emanating from Simon's office.

~*~

The rain had stopped some hours ago, but a damp chill remained. The sun was setting, creating pink clouds that floated like wads of bloody cotton across the sky. A lone seagull flew by, but the man on the deck chair did not notice. He was lost in his own thoughts, a forgotten beer bottle clutched in his left hand, several more empty ones at his feet.

Jim had gotten the news less than an hour ago and had left the bullpen in a frustrated rage, undirected and unbounded. Sheriff Johnson called to report that their star witness to Palmieri's escape was dead. Reportedly, Todd Manx arrived home that afternoon and turned violent when faced with two deputies. The deputies shot him in self-defense.

//Yeah, right, // Jim thought bitterly. //That whole damn hospital and sheriff's office is corrupt. //

Jim had wanted to go down and examine the crime scene, but Johnson said it had already been photographed, examined and cleaned up. That pissed Jim off more than anything else did. He would have to settle for the sheriff's sanitized reports to find out what had happened.

//Everything keeps getting more and more complicated. If this is a conspiracy of some sort, it wasn't planned very well. It's almost as if...as if they're making it up as they go. But that doesn't make any sense. Why would they pretend that McManus was dead? Or that Palmieri escaped? In actuality, Palmieri hadn't occupied that room. There was nothing there that told me anyone had lived there for weeks, months even. But where was he all those years? And where the hell have I heard the name NeuroDynamics before? //

Jim shook his head. He wasn't drunk, but he wasn't able to concentrate very well either. That was likely a mixture of the alcohol and fear. He was afraid, more so than he had been in a long time. Afraid of what McManus was doing to Blair and the others right now; afraid he would never see his Guide again; afraid of life without his best friend.

At times, Blair was able to sense his Sentinel's moods, feelings, even before Jim himself fully realized them. Jim used to pride himself on hiding what he felt, but Sandburg read him like a picture book. A neo-hippie anthropologist had cracked into the steel safe surrounding Jim's heart and found a real person inside. Blair was his Guide, his brother, his...Jim hesitated to use the word "soul mate." It sounded so, well, odd. But it fit, it fit perfectly.

Jim stretched, trying to knead the tension from his shoulders and neck. Each day of Blair's disappearance made it harder to function normally. He had become so dependent on the smiling company of his partner, ever ready with a quip or story as the situation dictated. He'd felt the absence during his stint undercover. Now worry and the uncertainty of Blair coming back alive amplified it. He was hesitant to re-enter the loft, so full of Blair Sandburg, yet so empty without his physical presence. Jim's crystal blue eyes swept the city that stretched out before him, listening, as if the brick walls and tarred roofs of Cascade could whisper to him and tell him where his friends were.

"Where are you, Chief?"

The question went unanswered, drowned out by car horns, crashing trashcan lids, and cooing pigeons. The city ignored its Sentinel, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

~*~

The light hurt his eyes, but he never flinched. In fact, he felt helpless to move at all. Every muscle had frozen in place, unwilling to flex or bend until the order was given. There were no restraints. None were necessary. He couldn't have bolted if he'd even had the strength.

"Comfy cozy?" the commanding voice asked.

He no longer knew where the voice came from. It started somewhere outside the circle of light, in the shadows his weak eyes could not penetrate.

"No," he answered truthfully. His mind felt absolutely clear, as if he couldn't dream up a colorful obfuscation if he'd tried.

One of the shadows moved outside the ring of light. When the commanding voice spoke again, it had moved as well.

"Now, Mr. Sandburg," it said, sounding for like the start of a pleasant conversation. "Ms. Connor and I had a rather interesting conversation yesterday and I was hoping you could shed some more light on a few things. Tell me about Detective Jim Ellison."

He wanted to say no, to tell the voice to go jump in a lake. Only he couldn't do that. He could only do what the voice wanted him to do. And right now, he had to talk about Jim. Cursing himself silently for not being stronger, for giving in, he opened his mouth and began to speak.

~*~

Jim tried to block out the conversation--no, the argument--that was currently in progress in Simon's office, but found himself drawn to it. Simon's ex-wife, Joan, had come in that morning and hadn't set a foot out of the large room in half an hour. The two voices had grown steadily louder as the fight became more and more heated.

<"This isn't the first time your work has gotten him kidnapped, Simon!"

"Do NOT pull that on me, Joan. You knew I was a cop when you married me and now you act like I pulled a dirty trick on you. Well, the guilt trip won't work this time."

"When has it ever worked? You didn't take responsibility for Kincaid or those men in Peru. You're son trusts you and you--"

"Yes, he trusts me! He trusts me to protect him and love him and rescue him. I am doing every damn thing I can to find him now! So why can't you trust me? Huh?"

"I trusted you once. Then I divorced you.">

Jim jumped when the office door opened. Joan stalked out and slammed the door shut behind her. The aggravated woman strode out of Major Crime, not sparing a glance at anyone.

//What is it with people slamming doors lately? // Sure, Jim was as guilty of it as anyone, but it was damn annoying, especially when his hearing was turned up.

Henri entered the bullpen and headed straight for Jim's desk.

"Did you get Johnson's bank records," Jim asked.

H shook his head. "Couldn't get a judge to sign off on a warrant. But I have a friend in the National Bank who owes me a favor. He said Johnson made several very large deposits into his savings over the last six years. The largest came two weeks after McManus' alleged death."

He handed Jim a piece of paper with scribbled writing.

Jim skimmed paper. "Have you questioned Johnson yet?"

"Can't get a hold of him this morning."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Jim muttered, leaning back in his chair. "Anything else?"

"Nope." Henri perched himself on the edge of Jim's desk. "Nothing on those photographs, either. Paper used is common enough. They could have been developed professionally or in any home-made darkroom."

"So we're still at square one," Jim said bitterly.

"Apparently. Unless something new pops-."

Jim's telephone sprang to life, interrupting Henri's comment. The Sentinel answered it before it could ring twice. "Ellison."

<"Jim, it's Serena. I've finally cleaned up that blow-up you wanted.">

"I'll be right down." Jim hung up and turned to Brown. "That 'something new' may have just popped up."

Together, the two men headed for the stairs.

~*~

Serena was hunched over a desk when the two detectives made their way into the lab. She noticed their approach and reached for a printout.

"What did you get?" Jim demanded. He immediately regretted being impolite, but decided to apologize for it later.

"Took a while," Serena started, "but I finally got a good image of that watch you spotted in the security video, though how you saw it...."

"Watch?" Henri asked.

Jim fielded that question. "I saw a watch on one of the nurse's wrists on the first surveillance tape. I just wanted to make sure that time matched up with the time of the escape."

"Just a hunch, right," the black man commented.

"Not anymore," Serena said, showing the men the printout. It was grainy and dark, but the hands on the small, quartz watch were visible enough to read the time.

"One-thirty," Jim read. "The reports say Palmieri escaped at ten forty-five p.m. So either this nurse's watch stopped--"

"--Or somebody faked the security tapes," Brown filled in.

"Exactly," Jim said. "But why would anyone do that?"

"To cover something up?" Serena volunteered.

"Something we're not supposed to see," Jim said thoughtfully. "We need to get the security tapes they have for one-thirty." He glanced down at his watch. "I have to meet somebody in a few minutes, so I can't--"

"I'm on it," Brown said, turning and walking out of the lab.

Jim nodded at the retreating detective, then turned to Serena. "Thank you."

She smiled and quietly said, "Just bring them all back."

~*~

//Dial it down. Don't let it get to you. Take deep breaths. // As hard as he tried, Jim still couldn't shake the nausea settling in his stomach. //Why the hell did he want to meet here of all places? // Sure, Sneaks preferred meeting him in diners, but this place was the armpit of the service industry. The Formica tables were streaked with permanent grease stains, the booth cushion torn and covered with cigarette holes. The smell of fried foods hung heavily in the air, overpowering even the odors of sweat and stale smoke exuded by the diner's patrons and employees.

Jim held his untouched coffee under his nose, savoring the familiar, comfortingly bitter aroma. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting the exercise calm his roiling stomach. Jim started when he realized someone was sitting across from him.

Sneaks grinned at Jim from his seat, taking in the detective's haggard appearance.

"Geez, man, is the food here that bad?" Sneaks drawled. A bit more seriously, he added, "You look like shit on a toast."

"Thanks for the compliment," Jim said bitterly. "What do you know about NeuroDynamics?"

Sneaks didn't seem to hear him. His head ducked under the table as he asked, "Wha'cha wearin' today?"

"Loafers." Jim rapped his knuckles on the top of the table, retrieving Sneaks' attention. "NeuroDynamics?"

"Sounds real high-tech." Sneaks glanced around the diner. "Hey, where's that partner of yours? I got a real great bonus from him last time."

Jim's patience snapped. He slammed his palms against the Formica, eliciting a few stares from neighboring tables. Jim ignored them, keeping his icy glare fixed on Sneaks.

"Listen," Jim growled. "My partner is missing. NeuroDynamics is the only lead I have right now. I know the name, but not from what or where. You get me some useful information on either that or a man named McManus and you'll get these." Jim pulled a pair of brand-new Reebok sneakers out of the bag on his left. He dangled them enticingly in front of Sneaks.

The young snitch anxiously licked his lips, staring hard at the prize in front of him. "Give me week, tops."

"Two days."

Sneaks raised an eyebrow. "What am I, a psychic? Three days."

"Tops."

"Of course." Sneaks watched Jim put the Reeboks away. "So, you gonna buy me lunch?"

Jim stood, bag in hand, and threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table. "Buy what you want," he said, walking out of the grimy diner.

~*~

The loft's phone rang a few minutes after noon.

Jim grabbed the receiver before it could ring again. "Ellison."

<"Jim? Oh, it's so good to hear your voice!"> Naomi Sandburg's voice chimed over the line, as cheery and vibrant as it had ever sounded.

"Yours too, Naomi," he said, trying to bring a little energy into his voice. This was not what he needed right now.

<"How have you been? Working on a big case?">

"You could say that." //God, Naomi, you don't know how right you are. //

<"Is Blair on it with you? It's not too dangerous, is it?">

Jim's heart caught in his throat. He didn't want to lie to Naomi about her son, but at the same time, he didn't want her to worry. Jim was worrying enough for a dozen people and she would almost surely dig into his ability to protect Blair. On top of it, she may even fly in from whatever remote region she was meditating in at that moment. He just couldn't handle that right now.

<"Jim? Is something wrong?">

Without thinking, Jim unloaded an obfuscation that would have made Blair proud…and Jim almost found himself believing.

"We're fine, Naomi. Blair's actually down in Sacramento with the Anthro department. Some new exhibit in one of the museums, a lot of pottery owned by dead people, or something like that. You know me. The details just get lost in the clutter that is his academic world."

<"Oh, okay, Jim. When he gets back, will you let him know I'm leaving Madagascar for Trinidad.">

"Will do."

<"Thanks so much. Take care of you. Ta-ta!">

She was gone before Jim could say good-bye. As he replaced the phone receiver, Jim was struck by what he'd done. //What if something does happen to Blair? She'll never forgive you for lying like that. //

He had an urge to call her, but didn't know the number. It struck him that he had no idea how to get a hold of her if something did go wrong. The cold knot of worry and fear in his stomach grew impossibly colder as he watched the rest of Lethal Weapon 3, a hard stare his only response to the antics of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

~*~

The shrill warning of the other car's horn alerted Jim in time to swerve and avoid sideswiping a maroon Cougar. //Dammit! // He had been so lost in thought that he'd run a stop sign and almost caused an accident. To make matters worse, he couldn't even remember what he'd been thinking so hard about.

"How exactly can matters get worse?" Jim asked aloud. The cab of the Ford was empty, but he needed to fill the space. Talking to yourself was healthy, wasn't it? He had probably been going over the arraignment dispositions he'd been forced to repeat to the D.A. for most of yesterday. For all the work he'd put into the Contino case, the whole time he'd wished he were out looking for his missing partner. After they left, the press had swarmed Jim and Simon, demanding information on the four missing persons. Simon had remained stone-faced each time, but Jim had given a few choice reporters a good tongue-lashing and made a vague threat to the rest if they didn't back off. When he was pissed-off, James Ellison was not a people person.

Today was the anniversary of the abductions--one week. And to celebrate the occasion, the case was taking a nosedive straight to hell. Not only was the Chief of Police pissed because of the press leak, but so was Simon. The captain had been forced to give an official report concerning the case to the public--he hated doing that. Lucas Keaton was threatening to sue the department for dragging the name of his hospital through the proverbial mud during their investigation. And Sheriff Johnson remained unavailable for comment or questioning.

Jim's blood boiled at the thought of the sheriff and the hospital. The police had the ingredients for a major conspiracy at their fingertips, but nothing to hold it all together and make it a viable case. The security tapes Henri had requested two days before did not exist. All the cameras in Palmieri's wing were down for maintenance between the hours of midnight and three a.m. //Security camera maintenance right after a breakout. Gee, why doesn't that make sense? // To top it all off, Verne Palmieri had died the night before from massive organ failure.

The only slivers of brightness in the whole mess were a term paper and old arrest reports. Earlier that morning, Henri had stumbled across McManus' Masters thesis while researching the man's educational background. The topic of the paper was selected emotional states and its application in the military and armed forces--scary stuff. Henri had read it and given Jim and Simon the condensed version: McManus believed emotional control was the future of the country's protection and further existence. A soldier who was "programmed" to not be afraid in a battle could win a war more easily than those plagued by fear and self-doubt.

"My God," Simon had muttered. "He's talking mind control here."

Jim agreed. The thesis had given him the creeps. It was so sterile and straightforward, so...emotionless. What if other people out there agreed with McManus?

The second discovery had less impact, but still caused the investigating officers to scratch their collective heads and wonder. Simon had put together several of the reports made during McManus' arrest and subsequent trial and found a thread no one had expanded on six years ago: the money. If McManus was controlling drug operations for half the city, where was all the money? His bank accounts were nearly empty at the time and no record of offshore accounts was found. There were no safes, locked trunks, safety deposit boxes, nothing to point them to the money. And McManus never offered them any help in that area. The lack of funds had been a major point for McManus' defense, but it never occurred to Jim as being significant to the current case until now.

The old Ford was only a few miles from home. Jim slowed down purposely, dreading going back to the empty loft. He wasn't sure how much longer he could take the silence, the coldness he felt every time he entered. //Damn you, Sandburg, for burrowing so thoroughly into my life. // Jim didn't really mean the curse, but he needed a target for his rage and Blair wasn't there to defend himself. Of course, his friend's absence was the cause of the anger, but hey, no one ever said Sentinels were logical 24/7.

Simon had sent Jim home with strict instructions to eat a full meal and sleep at least twelve hours. The sleep Jim was sure he could deal with. Food, on the other hand, had not been a faithful companion recently. Coffee and vending machine snacks were his diet. Besides, Jim didn't think he had the energy to cook anything remotely healthy. Maybe he'd order in....

~*~

Simon Banks took a large swig of Pepto Bismol and re-screwed the cap, careful to keep one hand on the steering wheel as he drove--the last thing he needed was a car accident on top of everything else. He had never been so worried in his life. It drove Simon crazy every time being a cop affected his son, but this was worse. Often, it was an accident, the wrong place at the wrong time; this time it was deliberate. A man with a vendetta had kidnapped his son and three other people, his intentions still unknown. Simon was convinced those photographs had been nothing more than a perverse tease of some sort and that Daryl was fine, but doubt still nagged at the back of his mind.

Simon especially hated to see what the whole situation was doing to Jim. He knew Jim and Blair had a special connection, more powerful than any two people he knew. Worrying about Blair was eating the man up from the inside out. The Sentinel had just come off a seven-week undercover assignment and gone straight into his most challenging case yet. Simon doubted the man had had a decent night's sleep in since the abductions. He looked like hell and sniped at everyone--like those reporters yesterday. Simon couldn't help but chuckle at the memory. Max Peterson, from Channel Five, had looked ready to piss his pants when Jim had snarled at him. Simon had wanted to yell at the press himself, but that would have gotten him into way too much trouble with the brass.

Simon tried to keep the detective company as much as possible, but Jim preferred to keep completely to himself when not working on the case. He had ordered Jim to get some sleep, but he couldn't force the man's eyes shut. Sometimes Simon wondered how Jim would function if Blair never came back, but the thoughts were too depressing to continue to entertain.

~*POP*~

Simon felt the steering wheel turn the instant after he registered the sound. He carefully regained control of the vehicle and pulled over to the side of the road.

"Dammit!" he screamed in frustration. A flat tire was not going to improve his day at all.

Simon shrugged out of his suit jacket and popped a latch on the dash. He climbed out of the Sedan and walked around to get the spare out of the opened trunk, not looking forward to changing a tire in the near-darkness of the evening. When Simon looked inside the trunk, his jaw fell open, the blood rushing from his face.

"My God," he muttered, beyond shocked.

Unconscious in the trunk, dressed in the same clothes he had disappeared in, lay Daryl Banks.

~*~

Henri Brown let himself into his one-bedroom apartment, intent on getting very drunk.

The normally laid-back detective was up to his ears in frustration and feeling very pessimistic. He had spent the last two days interviewing uncooperative Keaton Hospital employees and cops who remembered the McManus arrest and had turned up nothing. He had been unable to find the perps who squealed on McManus, so that remained another dead-end. In fact, Henri seemed to be slamming into one dead-end after another and it was giving him a headache.

He stalked into his kitchenette and yanked a beer from the refrigerator. It wasn't until he had swallowed half of the bitter liquid that he noticed how hot it was.

"What, is the damn air conditioner broke again?" he wondered, sending silent curses to the building superintendent.

Henri walked into the living room and stopped when a blast of hot, damp air hit him. He scanned the room. One of his windows was open. Instinctively, he drew his service revolver and crept over to the bedroom door. He knew his earlier exclamation would have alerted anyone who could be in the apartment, but it was habit. He checked his bedroom and bathroom and found nothing. Nothing seemed to be missing, either.

//Maybe I left it open for some reason. // It only made him nervous because that window opened up over the fire escape and he usually kept it locked tight.

Unwilling to think about it that night, Henri put his beer down on an end table and went to the window, intent on closing it. He reached up to pull it down and stopped short, staring at the heap on the fire escape.

"Holy shit," he whispered, scrambling out the window to kneel by his partner's side. Rafe was sprawled on the metal landing, one arm draped across his face. His clothes were rather dirty, but otherwise he looked unharmed. Henri checked for a pulse--steady and strong.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked his unconscious partner, before racing back inside to call an ambulance.

~*~

As Jim neared the front door of the loft, he stretched out his hearing, unconsciously listening for a heartbeat he knew wasn't there. It was a habit he had started years ago, a way to know beforehand if Blair was home or not. More than once, the habit had saved both Jim (and his roommate) the embarrassment of walking in on Blair and his babe-of-the-week. Tonight, Jim had no expectations of hearing a heartbeat behind the loft door, so he nearly dropped his keys when he heard two.

Both heartbeats were steady and even, as if the bodies they kept alive were in a deep sleep. An undeniable feeling of hope began to rise in Jim's chest as he fumbled to unlock the front door. In his trembling haste, he managed to drop his keys twice, but finally let himself into his home.

A quick glance and senses sweep told him no one was in either the living room or kitchen areas. A chemical scent, one he couldn't quite identify, filled his nostrils. Unwilling to waste time trying to figure it out, he cleared the odor from his mind. Trying to calm his own thundering pulse, Jim located one of the heartbeats--in Blair's bedroom. He dashed for the small room, crashing through the French doors with enough force to crack three panes of glass.

A figure was lying quietly on the futon bed, covered by a bright, woven afghan. Only a few dark curls peeked over the edge of the blanket. Jim gently lowered the covering from the figure's face and blinked. It was not whom he'd expected, but he was still overjoyed to find Megan Connor sleeping in Blair's bed. On any other day, he may have laughed at any number of strange images his imagination would have come up with. But not this day.

Jim stretched out his fingers and pressed them against her neck, locating the strong pulse beneath his sensitive digits. The contact was more to prove she was real, that he was not imagining what he wanted to see. //Why would you want to see Megan in Blair's bed? // He reasoned with himself. Satisfied she was stable, Jim again released his senses, locating the second heartbeat. The bathroom.

Ignoring the quaking in his stomach and harsh memories that nibbled at the edge of his subconscious, memories of a killer long dead, Jim walked across the hall to the bathroom. The door was closed. Jim reached for the knob, curled his hand around the brass sphere, and froze. He couldn't explain why he froze--demons from the past perhaps? Monsters that had been buried for years but lived on in one's own memories of them. Memories of Lash, a man whom James Ellison considered the epitome of psychotic. But how can you fear a ghost when all your being tells you they aren't real, just phantoms of a bruised psyche.

Pure will hushed the demons long enough for Jim to turn the knob, letting the wooden door swing inward. His knees jellied and he had to grasp the doorframe for support. The past became the present as old nightmares transposed themselves over what he was actually seeing.

**The tub, filled to less than an inch from the top, it's smooth surface marred by the tiny ripples created by the gentle drip of a not-quite-off faucet. Beneath the surface soaked clammy skin, the body only recently dead. His head rested against the back wall of the shower, damp ringlets of hair plastered to his face and shoulders, the mouth open in a scream silenced too young. A length of yellow silk, mocking in its vivid color, was knotted at his pale throat, its two ends spread out decoratively across his still chest. Drowned in a duck pond, displayed in his bathtub, lay his Guide, his shaman, and his best friend.**

Jim moaned and clamped his eyes shut, willing the hideous perversion from his mind. Three years ago, Jim had almost lost his partner to a murderous psychopath intent on stealing his personality, his identity. Consequently, Lash had collected five bullets in his chest, while Blair dealt with a brief hospital stay and weeks of recurring nightmares. Sentinel and Guide worked hard to put the incident behind them, outwardly and, for the most part, inwardly succeeding. On a rare occasion, Jim would wake in a cold sweat, that horrific image of his friend laying in a full bathtub foremost in his thoughts.

Swallowing his panic and pushing the memories as far back into his mind as he could, Jim opened his eyes, this time able to see the truth. Blair Sandburg was sprawled out almost comically in the tub, alive, dry, and fully clothed. His right hand dangled over the edge, fingertips brushing the tile floor, chestnut curls tied back from his sleeping face.

Jim cut the distance between them in two quick strides, coming to kneel beside his partner. He brushed a renegade curl from Blair's forehead and gently cupped the younger man's pale face in his hands. A strong pulse, slow and steady with sleep, was easily detected. Jim tilted Blair's face towards his own.

"Chief? You hear me? Blair?" The only response was a minute snore. Jim wrinkled his nose as an unpleasant odor assaulted his nostrils. Blair's breath had an acrid smell, like bile. It gave Jim the chills.

Thinking clearly for the first time since entering the loft, Jim pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1.

~*~

Four ambulances pulled into the emergency entrance of Cascade General within three minutes of each other. Simon was first to pace the waiting area, swearing violently at the hospital staff that refused to let him stay with his son. It wasn't until Henri arrived, jolting him back to reality with the news of Rafe's reappearance that he thought to call Joan. Simon had barely fished the thirty-five cents from his pocket for the phone call when two more gurneys barreled into the ER, loaded with an Australian Inspector and a police consultant, a worried Sentinel in tow.

Orderlies were having a difficult time detaching Jim from Blair's hand. The man had refused to let go once the paramedics arrived, finding comfort in the solid touch of his friend, still reassuring himself that the precious life had, indeed, returned to him. None of the four recovered persons were in any immediate danger, but their continued lack of consciousness had the doctors worried.

"Please, detective," a young intern begged, obviously intimidated by the glares the older man was giving him. "You can't be in the exam room."

Simon grunted. The kid was new, didn't know Jim Ellison and his feelings about hospital policies. Hoping to forestall any further arguments with the staff, Simon trotted over to his detective and placed a hand on his shoulder. Tense muscles rippled under Simon's touch; Jim was coiled like a gun, ready to go off.

"Jim," Simon said softly, gentle but firm. "Let them work. They can help Sandburg a lot faster without stepping over you every five seconds. You know that."

Jim looked up, noticing Simon for the first time, confusion flashing across his face. He looked over his captain's shoulder and saw Henri standing a few feet away.

"Why--?" Then it dawned on Jim, understanding lighting up his icy blue eyes. "Rafe and Daryl?"

"They're here, too," Simon replied. "Unconscious, but they seem okay. Megan and Blair?"

"Same," Jim said quietly, his eyes darting back to the exam room doors.

"C'mon." Simon put his hand on Jim's elbow and steered his friend into the waiting area, depositing the detective into a molded plastic chair. Jim shifted uncomfortably, but stayed put. Simon sat down on his left, Henri on his right.

"Kind of a unique experience, coming home to find your partner asleep on the fire escape." Henri tried to paste a jesting grin on his face, but the intended levity of his comment fell short.

Simon swallowed back the churning emotions he still felt when he thought of his son, cramped and alone, in the trunk of his car. Those were five minutes of his life that Simon chose never to repeat again. He glanced at Jim.

Something akin to fear flashed through Jim's blue eyes, gone as quickly as it came. Simon wondered what the man was remembering.

"This isn't over." Jim spoke so softly the other two almost missed it. There was resolution in his expression, but also something else--something deadlier. "What the hell's he got to gain from giving them back?"

"I don't know," Simon admitted. "It seems way too simple."

"Maybe we were getting too close to something at the hospital," Henri ventured.

Jim shook his head. "More likely that this is part of his plan."

"What the hell kind of a plan is kidnapping four people, taking horrible photographs of them, then letting them go?" Simon asked vehemently. Nobody had an answer for that one.

And so they waited.

The next twenty minutes passed slowly for Simon. His thoughts kept drifting to the endless possibilities of things that could have happened to his son during his capture. Daryl hadn't shown any visible signs of physical abuse, but there could have been something hiding below the surface. Until the doctor came, Simon's mind would continue to betray him.

And betray him it did. Images of the past flashed through the police captain's mind, reliving horrors he'd just as soon forget: Daryl dangling out of a sixth story window, with only two Sunrise Patriots anchoring him to safety; dodging the bullets of drug smugglers in the middle of the Peruvian jungle; Daryl once again at the mercy of Garrett Kincaid, held hostage along with thousands of other basketball fans in the Cascade sports arena. Each time, Lady Luck