Ryan Stone walked quickly away from Adam Collins’ office, grappling with a heavy sense of dread. While it was true that he desperately wanted the bait that the A.D. was dangling in front of him, that didn’t mean that he was blind. It was painfully clear that this was a set-up, and he knew that his odds of success were slim at best, but he was a gambler at heart, so he just hadn’t been able to resist going all in. He tried to convince himself that it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, whatever people said about her, Taylor Hawkins was just a woman, he could handle one woman. If he could win her over to his side, then this would be easy money. All he had to do was find a way to accomplish that. He looked down at the folder in his hand; hopefully, he could use the information here to get inside her head. But even as he considered this option, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been given an impossible task. If it were as easy as skimming a file and flashing a smile, someone would have managed it already. Still, Ryan was nothing if not stubborn. The fact that the assistant director thought he could use him like this just made him more determined to throw his success back in the man’s face someday. So, brushing off the feeling of impending doom and steeling his resolve, Ryan sat down and began to read about the infamous Taylor Hawkins.

When Ryan finally looked up again, he was surprised to find that almost an hour had passed, and he was still nowhere near finished. He wanted to continue, but there was a missing child to consider, and he had wasted enough time already. He had hit most of the highlights of her career, and at the moment, that was the best he could do, so he rose and hurried off to meet his new partner. The closer he got to her office, the larger the knot forming in his stomach seemed to get. In his brief skim of her past history, he had seen enough to confirm that being Hawkins’ partner seemed to be hazardous to a person’s health. Usually, it was just their mental health, Hawkins was standoffish at best, and openly hostile at worst, and people only seemed to be able to put up with her so long. He figured he could handle that, but there seemed to be a real physical risk, too. Her last partner had been burned so severely during a mission that he had needed skin grafts on both of his legs and had spent months in the hospital recovering. He never worked with her again; hell, he had never worked at the NIA again. At this point, Ryan would consider it a victory if he could make it 3 months with all of his limbs attached. We’re setting the bar low, he sighed to himself. He reached out and knocked on Hawkins’s office door.

“What took you so long?” her voice came through, sharp and impatient.

He took that as permission to enter.

Hawkins was sitting behind a cheap wooden desk; her feet were propped up on the edge, one crossed over the other. Next to her feet was an open laptop and she had the file Collins had given her open in her lap. Other than that, the office was barren, the desktop and the bookshelves were empty; it was pretty obvious that she never spent any time here. Two guest chairs were stacked off to the side, so he pulled one down and sat across from her.

“So? What exactly have you been doing all this time? You moonlighting as Collins’ interior decorator?” she didn’t even look up.

Ryan hesitated an instant before he answered. He had considered this moment carefully; he needed her to trust him, and he wasn’t going to get that by leading off with a lie. The truth was risky, but she was too smart for him to play this any other way.

“I was reading your file,” he answered, trying to sound casual about it.

Now she looked up at him, searching him with her eyes, it was clear she was trying to figure out his angle.

“You have mine, I’m sure,” he played a hunch.

Hawkins chuckled,

“Yes, I’ve read yours.”

It was his turn to look surprised. He had assumed she would be reading the case file, not his. As if reading his mind, she replied,

“Oh, I’m not reading it now,” she shook her head. “I read it before I even went into Collins’ office.”

“How could you possibly have known?” Ryan asked.

“Not really a mystery for the ages,” she rolled her eyes. “He calls me in for a meeting at 7 a.m. At 6:30 a.m. he has a meeting with a handler, one that is currently without a partner. The odds were good enough for me to spend the time.”

Ryan didn’t bother to ask how she knew what was on Collins’ calendar; he doubted she’d tell him anyway.

“Now, the real question,” she continued, “is what he promised you to get you on board this sinking ship.”

So, she knew that many of her previous partners had been bribed into working with her. No wonder she didn’t trust any of them. He could lie. Collins expected him to. But it wouldn’t do him any good, so why bother?

“Sector Supervisor.”

Hawkins let out a low whistle,

“My, my, they must really be getting desperate to pawn me off on someone. But just so you know, they are setting you up.”

“Obviously. That’ll just make it all the more impressive when I succeed,” he replied with more confidence than he really felt. “In fact, maybe you would like to help me with that. That would really irk Collins, wouldn’t it?”

Hawkins barked a laugh, this one at least seemed like it wasn’t at his expense. He had genuinely amused her there.

“Nice try.”

“Worth a shot,” he shrugged. “I don’t really need your cooperation.”

“I guess we’ll see about that, won’t we?” Hawkins smiled crookedly. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking that I am anything like the other agents you’ve ‘worked’ with. Fair warning.”

“Look, I won’t lie to you; I am here for a very specific reason. I handle difficult agents and I am very good at what I do. In fact, I have a perfect record. Every agent has come around eventually. Learned to…”

“Tow the company line?” Hawkins interrupted.

“If that is how you want to look at it,” he shrugged. “But the point is, I am not going anywhere, and as long as I am here, I will be making sure that Collins is informed of our progress. Neither of those things is up for debate. So why make this hard for both of us?”

“Oh, I won’t be making it hard for me,” Hawkins clarified. “See, you aren’t the only one with a perfect record, Agent Stone. Over the years, they have tried to saddle me with other babysitters and snitches. None of them have lasted. Neither will you. I do things my way because it works. You certainly aren’t going to be the one to change that. And if you can’t keep up, I am not going to hold your hand. Like I said before, I bet you won’t last 2 weeks.”

He was surprised by the tone in her voice; she actually seemed to be pleased with the challenge he had put forward, even if she didn’t give him very good odds. But at least she found him interesting. That was a start. He could work with that.

“Looks like one of us is going to be breaking their streak this time around, doesn’t it?” Ryan raised an eyebrow. “And since I am not going anywhere…”

“A little cocky, aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s worked out pretty well for me so far. Many people find confidence attractive,” Ryan grinned.

Hawkins rolled her eyes; she seemed unsure of exactly what to make of him, but he had read her correctly, she wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge. As of now, this was his best way in, so he pushed.

“I’ll take your bet. I can manage two weeks, no problem. In fact, I won’t just last, I will also keep Collins happy the whole time.”

She laughed dismissively,

“You’re nothing but talk.”

He stood and reached into his pocket and slapped a bill down on the table,

“I’ve got a hundred that says otherwise.”

“Seriously?” Hawkins raised an eyebrow. “You really want to bet on this?”

“Keeps things interesting,” he shrugged.

The other Agent considered it for a moment.

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“Alright, you’re on. I almost feel bad taking your money, but someone has to take you down a peg,” Hawkins grinned. “Might as well be me.”

“Now who’s cocky?” Ryan retorted.

“You obviously don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she replied.

“Neither do you.”

“Then I guess we are both about to learn a few things, aren’t we?” Hawkins looked down at the files on her lap. Retrieving a portion that she’d finished with, she slid it across the desk in his direction. “But in the meantime, there is a missing boy, and we have a very limited window in which to find him. So, start reading and let’s see if you actually know how to handle your job, and not just your partners.”

Ryan chuckled softly as he picked up the papers. His opening gambit had gone better than expected. And he felt like he had made a strange sort of a connection; if he could keep her interested long enough for her to start seeing him as a partner, he would be halfway there. Maybe this would work out after all. He just needed to be patient and engage her whenever he could, because it was obvious, as he watched her with her nose buried in the case file, that she wouldn’t be opening up to him voluntarily. Satisfied for the time being, he shifted his focus to the case.

The file was, sadly, very thin. Though, what could they really have been expected to have pulled together in just over 3 hours? The portion he was holding seemed to be just stock background information: Pauling’s habits, his finances, his holdings, properties, known associates. Everything focused on the father, which Ryan supposed was logical, how much was there to say about a seven-year-old? He skimmed through the pages quickly, finding no real surprises; Grayson Pauling was an intelligent, hardworking, self-made man. He had made a fortune at a young age when he turned his family’s small retail store into a successful chain. The only unusual thing, sadly, was that he seemed to be a genuinely decent man; he worked hard, treated his employees well, gave significant sums to charity and spent all his free time with his son, Alex. His wife had died in childbirth, leaving Pauling to raise Alex alone. Figuratively speaking of course; in reality, there had been a fair bit of assistance from nannies and tutors and the like, but by all accounts, Pauling had always been very present in his son’s life. Last year he had sold the controlling interest in his company, purportedly so that he would be able to spend more time with his son in their new home in Ontario. As he had told the board of directors, he had plenty of money, but his son would only have one childhood. So, despite being a fairly young man, he had retreated into a quiet, semi-retirement. Still, it was hard to completely let go of the company you had built from the ground up and so Pauling had stayed on in a sort of advisory/figurehead role, and he still seemed to work plenty of hours. That was Grayson Pauling’s life: his son and his work. He really looked very boring, at least on paper. Ryan even caught himself feeling sorry for the guy; things like this shouldn’t happen to decent, hardworking people. They shouldn’t happen to children.

Ryan picked up more of Hawkins’ discarded papers from the desk. These were investigator’s notes, detailing the information they had on the crime so far. It wasn’t much. At 10:23pm, Pauling had arrived home from a Gala dinner that was held in support of one of his many charities. He had punched in the code to deactivate the security system and at 10:24pm he entered the house and reactivated the security system. The logs from the alarm company confirmed this. According to his statement, Pauling then headed straight upstairs, where he kissed his son goodnight and tucked him in, as he did every night. He then went downstairs to his basement office, where he worked for several hours on reviewing location reports for the next proposed branch. He told police that nothing unusual had happened during that time, he didn’t see or hear anything, and the alarm was never tripped. At 4:45am, Pauling said that he decided to turn in for the night. He went up to the main floor, but as he passed the security keypad in the hall, he noticed that the alarm had been disabled. He had remembered activating it hours ago, and there was no reason for anyone in the house to have turned it off, no one was awake but him. At first, he told the agents, he wasn’t concerned; he assumed that he had been mistaken, that he’d forgotten to reactivate the alarm after all. He reset the alarm and headed upstairs. But the incident concerned him enough that he decided to look in on Alex before he went to sleep. Just before 5am, he opened the door to his son’s room and confronted every parent’s worst nightmare. The bed was empty, the window was open, and his son was nowhere to be found. Pauling claimed that he ran over to his son’s bed, and that’s when he found the note on the pillow. It was all he could do to press the panic button before he collapsed. The police arrived within 15 minutes. A check of the security system logs found that the alarm system had been deactivated using Pauling’s code around 3am. It wasn’t reactivated again until 4:47am, when Pauling himself had done so. In the soft soil under Alex’s window, the investigators found the markings of a ladder and several size 13 boot prints. In the room itself, they found mud on the windowsill, and prints from the same boots. Fingerprints had been collected, but not yet analyzed; there were none found on the ransom note. Investigators determined that the security cameras, which covered essentially the entire property, had also been deactivated. One thing seemed clear: if Pauling was telling the truth, then someone had obtained his security code, and they knew how to disable his security system. Pauling claimed that he was the only one who knew his personal code; his staff were each given their own codes. However it was obtained, the security company was certain that it was Pauling’s own code that was used to disarm the system. The suspect had entered Alex Pauling’s room through the back window, placed the ransom note on the bed, and returned the same way, taking the boy and the ladder with him. Other than this, there was no evidence that anyone had even been there, the suspect had come and gone quickly and silently, leaving only an impossible demand behind. That was all there was, and considering the deadline, it wasn’t enough.

As he finished, he looked up to see, Taylor Hawkins, her eyes closed and her fingers tented in front of her, chin resting on her chest; she seemed to be deep in thought.

“You want to share?” Ryan asked.

“No,” she murmured.

Clearly, she didn’t play well with others.

"Well then I’ll start,” he said boldly. “I am wondering how they got the kid out of the house and down the ladder. Do you think he was incapacitated in some way? Or is he dead already?”

Hawkins opened her eyes, she seemed vaguely annoyed by the interruption,

“It’s too early to say. He could easily have been drugged or threatened. So, we work under the assumption that he is alive until we know differently. That isn’t the really interesting part anyways,” she added casually.

“No?”

“Of course not. What was their ransom demand?”

“The withdrawal of his company from Canada. I mean it’s odd, but…”

“Exactly, that is what’s odd. Think about it,” her voice took on the same tone as a teacher lecturing a pupil. “At first blush, this crime looks smooth, professional. Whoever did this played it smart, left basically no evidence…”

“Well, they left the boot prints,” Ryan interjected.

Hawkins laughed suddenly,

“Oh, the boot prints. Those are a ruse, a false clue.” She reached into the papers and retrieved the crime scene photos of the prints. “Look here,” she said, pointing to the photo. “You see how the print is deep at the heel and very shallow in the toes? And the way the mud shows that it bends strangely right here? This is the appearance of a shoeprint made by a person wearing a shoe several sizes too big for them. The boots were to throw us off track. I am absolutely certain that we will never find a suspect with size 13 feet.”

Ryan stared at the photo; now that she had pointed it out, it was obvious how unusual the prints looked, he wondered how he had missed it.

“But that just proves my point,” Hawkins continued. “The job was meant to look professional. But then there is the ransom demand. It is usually the best thought out and most important part of a kidnapping. I mean, it is why they are committing a crime in the first place. But this one was sloppy, idiotic even. It is an impossible demand. And that is what’s bothering me. If they were smart enough to pull off this crime, if they put this much effort in to committing it, I can’t understand why they didn’t at least check to see if their target could deliver what they wanted. This whole thing was just a huge waste of time for them, unless…”

“Unless what?” Ryan prompted.

“I’m not sure yet. Unless they are getting something else out of it, something that isn’t apparent. Either that or they are somehow simultaneously savvy enough to pull this off and dumb enough to think that it will get them what they’re asking for. The second option seems unlikely.”

“So, you think that there is more to this?”

“There has to be. I mean, how can they know the man’s security code and not know that he doesn’t even own his damned company, anymore? That was headline news for weeks. He’s just a figurehead and the board of directors won’t throw away millions of dollars and cut hundreds of jobs on the off chance that it will save their founder’s son. So, the question is: what do they really want?”

Ryan furrowed his brow; she made a very good point. There were certainly people who didn’t like large corporations, but they rarely did anything this extreme. Those that did usually acted out of anger and desperation, but they were rarely this organized. The whole thing smelled wrong.

“And that isn’t the only odd thing about the note…” Hawkins trailed off mid-thought, chewing absently on her lip.

“What do you mean? It’s a pretty short note, what else is even in there?”

“Oh, maybe it’s nothing.” Hawkins sighed. “It isn’t what’s in the note, but rather what isn’t in it. Think about it, you’ve seen your fair share of ransom notes, I’m sure, what does almost every one of them say?”

Ryan was confused, and he must have looked it, because Hawkins didn’t wait for him to answer,

“Do not contact the police,” she said slowly.

“You’re right,” Ryan’s jaw dropped. “It really doesn’t say that does it? That is odd.”

“It’s more than odd,” she muttered.

“What do you think it means?”

“It’s almost as if they wanted the police involved. Or just didn’t care for some reason. I don’t really know,” Hawkins admitted. “What I do know is that, for some reason, they set up an unresolvable scenario. I can’t possibly meet their demands and any reasonable person would know that. I need to figure out what they really hope to get out of this, and if they actually need the kid alive to get it.”

That final thought hung heavily in the air, no one wanted a case to end with a child to go sideways. It was an investigators worst nightmare

“Well,” Hawkins got to her feet abruptly. “Nothing more to learn here, I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the scene, of course.”

“Not without me you aren’t. Collins would skin me alive.”

It was obvious that he was far from forming a partnership with Taylor Hawkins. She had been talking to him, which would have been encouraging, except that all pronouns she used were singular; ‘I’s and ‘me’s. She didn’t actually expect him to contribute anything to this investigation. And the sad thing was that all he had managed to do so far was to look like an idiot. He needed to step up his game if he wanted her to take him seriously.

“Oh yes, you are supposed to babysit, aren’t you?” She gave him a withering look.

“We all have to make a living,” he shrugged.

Hawkins groaned, clearly not pleased,

“Fine, let’s go. Better to just let you come than to waste time arguing about it. Time is the one thing we do not have to spare.”

Ryan grabbed his coat off the chair and followed her out.