Ryan’s head snapped to the side; he tasted the salty, metallic tang of blood as it seeped into his mouth from his split lip. For an instant, he was surprised, then he was mad. To hell with not hitting girls, he was going to kick her ass. He swung, but Hawkins ducked left. So, he brought his other hand up and he caught her on the side of her face, knocking her to the ground. Ryan struck out with his left foot, catching her in the ribs, sending her sliding through the dust and grit. He pulled back to kick her again, but before he could connect, she swept out his remaining leg, knocking him on his back. With them both down, they scuffled, rolling on the ground and trading blows.

“Alright, time out!” Hawkins shouted, seizing an opportunity to shove him away and struggle to her feet, bracing herself against a cement pillar.

Stone watched her warily, hesitating to let his guard down.

“This is ridiculous. What are we doing?” she wiped a trickle of blood from her nose with the back of her hand. “Wrestling on the floor like schoolchildren?”

Ryan pushed himself up to a sitting position against the concrete wall. For a time, they were both silent, heavy breathing the only sound in the garage. Finally, the absurdity of the situation hit him, and Ryan couldn’t help but laugh. Hawkins she slid down the pillar to the floor and started to laugh, too. The tension melted away.

“You know,” Ryan said at last. “You’ve got a decent right hook.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Hawkins chuckled, rubbing her own jaw gently.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that… whole thing,” Ryan said sheepishly. “I’m not sure what got into me.”

“Well, we’re both tired and frustrated. It’s never easy when someone like Martin gets away. And I did kind of start it, didn’t I?” she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m willing to forget the whole thing happened, if you are.”

“Deal.”

Ryan offered his hand; Hawkins shook.

“On the upside, nothing relieves stress like a little… impromptu sparring, eh?” she chuckled.

Ryan spat blood onto the pavement,

“I do feel weirdly better, actually.”

“Well, now that that’s settled, I should set something straight, about what happened back there, with Martin.”

“Look, I really am sorry about what I said,” Ryan sighed. “I shouldn’t have… You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

“No, I don’t. But I want to. That is sometimes a… flaw of mine. I assume that other people know what I am thinking. It’s something I need to work on.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am trying to say that, despite how it may have looked, I wasn’t hanging you out to dry back there at the house. I did have a plan.”

Ryan raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Look, Martin was going to shoot Pauling if neither of us came forward, you know that,” she explained. “If I had gone out with my gun drawn, it would have only escalated the situation, made him more violent. My surrendering distracted him. I’d hoped you could use that opportunity to get the kid out. Obviously, that didn’t work out exactly how I’d planned. Then, with both of you in the line of fire, I couldn’t do anything too overt, Martin could easily have gotten a shot off the moment he saw me move. I couldn’t risk it, so, I had to go with plan B.”

“Plan B? There was a plan B?” Ryan inquired.

“There is always a plan B, Stone. Do you think that furniture just attacks people of its own accord?”

“Huh?”

“Well, the moral of the story is: if you are going to set a house full of traps, try not to get caught in one of them yourself.”

Ryan smacked his forehead,

“That was one of his traps?”

“Obviously. I guess Martin only had so many shotguns handy,” Hawkins joked. “There was a line running across the window to a small wedge of wood that was propping up one of those heavy shelves. Clearly, it was meant to hit anyone trying to enter that way. I made sure that I knelt close enough to reach it, but I had to wait until his focus was off me, and I had to move very slowly, so he wouldn’t notice what I was doing. I’m sorry it took me so long; I know it was a rough situation for you.”

“That’s… actually pretty brilliant,” Ryan admitted.

“Well, you can’t just count on luck to save your ass,” she chuckled. “The moron should have known better than to stand between the window and his trap, but he was focused on me, at the time. Which gave me some control of where he stood.”

“Man, I feel like an ass now,” he rubbed his hands over his face.

Not only had she not screwed things up, but she had actually tried to take all the risk on herself. And then he had blamed her for it. Well, that explained the punch, he would have hit himself, too.

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“I’m not going to argue with that,” Hawkins teased, but this time it seemed genuinely good natured.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know,” she waved it off.

“Well, now that we both know what was getting my hackles up, as moronic as it apparently was, that still leaves one question: what is eating you?”

“What makes you think anything is?” she replied evasively.

“It’s pretty obvious,” he shrugged. “It’s been obvious all day. So, what is it?”

“It’s this case,” Hawkins sighed.

“You mean Martin? We’ll get him, the guy isn’t exactly a criminal genius.”

“He’s not really who I’m worried about.”

“You said that before,” Ryan recalled suddenly. “Who are you worried about, then? I mean, the case is solved, who else is there?”

“This case isn’t solved,” Hawkins corrected sternly.

“Ok, are you going to keep speaking in riddles, or are you going to share with the group?”

Hawkins hesitated for a moment, Ryan worried that she wouldn’t continue, but eventually she said,

“What do you think Martin meant when he talked about getting money for the kid? The kidnappers didn’t demand a ransom, so where did he think that that money was coming from?”

Ryan thought for a moment,

“That is strange, isn’t it? Maybe they were planning to make money off Pauling some other way? You know, maybe they thought that if they could get them to cancel the expansion into Canada, then the stock in Save-More would drop and they could make a profit that way. Like a short sale?”

Hawkins raised her eyebrows,

“You know, I am actually kind of impressed, that’s very creative. Frankly, I didn’t think you were that clever.”

“Ouch.”

“But I’m leaning towards a much simpler explanation.”

Ryan waited for her to continue, but Hawkins was silent.

“Want to tell me what that is?” he prompted.

“No, but you’re going to insist, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Fine. Look, remember how I thought someone might have given these morons the alarm codes and the plan for the kidnapping?”

“Yeah, I remember. You said it would explain the mix of amateurish and professional elements of the crime.”

“Right. Well, now that I’ve met our ‘masterminds’, it only reinforces my opinion. They aren’t the type to make a political statement like this. You saw Duane’s credit card records, and I’ve seen Andre’s too, they are both loyal patrons of whatever store offers them the cheapest products. They wouldn’t have made the demands that they did, not without an ulterior motive, anyway. And why try to manipulate stock markets for cash when you could just demand a straight up ransom?”

“You have a point. But maybe it was because getting ransom money is dangerous, you know marked money, police stakeouts, that sort of thing?”

“And a massive short sale, there’s surely no risk to that,” her sarcasm was palpable.

“True…”

“Maybe it’s nothing, but all of these little things… they make me think that someone must have hired them to do this. Someone who wanted us to think that this was a professional job, someone who wanted the demand to be impossible. I know it sounds convoluted, but none of the straightforward answers make sense.”

“But why? Who?”

“I don’t know, yet. I was sort of hoping that Duane and Andre would tell me. I tried to ask Duane about it earlier, while you were with Collins, but he wouldn’t talk. He seemed scared of something, or someone. I was going to take another run at him when we got back, but I haven’t been able to get Collins off my ass long enough,” she snorted in frustration.

Ryan was silent for a long moment. Hawkins was probably right. Even if the exact details were up for debate, this case wasn’t done. But at least with the kid back home safely, the time pressure was off.

“I can get Duane to open up again, I’m sure of it,” Ryan offered.

Hawkins seemed a bit taken aback, but then she smiled,

“Thanks.”

“Why so surprised?” he asked.

“Most people just tell me I’m being paranoid, that I am making things more complicated than they are. No one has ever offered to help me prove one of my crazy theories before.”

“First time for everything, I guess. We’ll have a chat with Duane in the morning. Then we’ll know for sure, right?”

“Right.”

The sudden burst of music from his cell phone startled him, it echoed loudly in the empty garage. Ryan answered,

“Hello?”

What he heard from the man on the other end made his jaw drop.

“Yeah, thanks for letting me know… No, I understand… Thanks… Yeah. No, I can tell her, she’s right here…Tomorrow morning? ... Ok… We’ll be there.” Ryan ended the call.

“You’re not going to like this,” he said slowly.

“What’s happened?”

“Duane Tompkins is dead,” Ryan said it slowly; he could barely believe it himself.

“What?! What the hell happened?!” she exclaimed.

“They aren’t sure yet. They found him half an hour ago, he had collapsed on the floor of his holding cell. Autopsy’s scheduled for 8am tomorrow, but the doc said it’s likely that he had a heart attack.”

“You are kidding me,” she groaned.

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Hawkins said it so quietly, Ryan barely heard her.

“You don’t think it was a heart attack?”

“I don’t know. But when a key witness dies on me in the middle of a case, I like to be really sure. I need to see the body, and the autopsy report, before I can draw any conclusions. But what I can be sure of is that I need to find Andre Martin now, more than ever. Whether Duane died a natural death or not, Andre’s the only witness we have left. And I can’t help but wonder if someone wanted it that way.”

“Who could have gotten to someone in an NIA holding cell, Hawkins?”

“I don’t know that anyone did. I am just suspicious of the timing, that’s all. But I shouldn’t form theories with so little information. As the great detective used to say, you can’t make bricks without clay. It could be nothing, just a natural death. But still… He was young, in good shape; a heart attack is a bit odd, don’t you think?”

“Well, maybe he used drugs, or steroids. It isn’t impossible.”

“Maybe…” she didn’t sound convinced.

“So, what now?” he asked.

“Now,” she closed her eyes wearily. “We go and get some sleep. I need rest, so that I can think clearly. The autopsy won’t be until tomorrow anyway. After that, I go back to the evidence. There’s always something, I just need find it. I’m not just going to sit on my hands while the fugitive task force hunts our man. I will figure out who was behind this.”

“Are you actually going to sleep this time? Or are you just trying to ditch me again?”

“No, I’m serious this time,” Hawkins replied. “Even I can’t go without sleep forever. Besides, I am in the parking garage, aren’t I? I was leaving when I ran into you.”

“Just making sure. Fool me twice, shame on me and all that.”

Ryan got to his feet, and offered her a hand. To his surprise, Hawkins took it, and he helped her up. They walked back over to her car.

“Hey, do you want to go and get a drink or something? I could sure use one after today,” he offered.

“Thanks, but I don’t drink. And I’m not your type,” she smiled knowingly.

“Of course you don’t drink, I should have guessed,” he rolled his eyes. “But how do you know you aren’t my type?” Ryan raised his eyebrows.

“Well, for starters, I’m way too smart for you,” she grinned wickedly.

“You think so, do you?”

“I’m certainly too smart to date a colleague.”

“Who said anything about dating?” he grinned.

She rolled her eyes.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Stone. We have an autopsy to go to, so don’t be late.”

Ryan shook his head,

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He waved as she pulled out, then got into his own car and headed for home.