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Leaning forward, Abel put his elbows on the desk, rubbing his unshaven face in his hands before looking up at the big board. Gil had laid it all out, not just the cases assigned to them, but a hundred other unresolved ones, a big map with the locations of each disappearance, blue pushpins for males, red for female. Abel had always found it odd there were easily twice as many blue pins as red on Gil’s map.

Abel supposed whatever obscure pattern it was Gil had seen or thought he had seen is what took them to New Orleans and now the old man was gone. Getting up, he walked over to the board and picked up a blue pin, tacking it to New Orleans.

“What was it you saw old man?” Abel asked rhetorically, eyes scouring over the plethora of information on the board looking for some fragment or kernel of understanding that would help him make sense of the case.

Shaking his head, he returned to his desk, pulling the large worn file folder full of dossiers toward himself, spotting a word he didn’t know written in blue ink down near the lower corner. Lamia. Looking at the word, he frowned.

“What the fuck is Lamia?” he asked, turning in his chair and firing up his computer before typing the word into Google Chrome. Right at the top was a Wikipedia entry identifying Lamia as some type of figure out of Greek mythology that eats children, likening the creature to a succubus or vampire. Shaking his head, Abel pushed the file away. Maybe Gil had been down here too long if he was honestly considering the culprit to be something out of folklore. What was next? The Bogeyman? A dragon?

He needed coffee. There was a Java Joe’s in the little strip mall just up from the annex. Grabbing his jacket, he made his way upstairs. “Fucking Lamia,” he snorted, stepping out into the cold.

Choosing to brave the elements and walk to the coffee house, he purchased a large black coffee before depositing himself at a vacant table. Pulling out his work phone, he clicked the button and swiped the screen, surprised to find a text message from an unknown number waiting for him.

“Hello Abel,” read the message.

He frowned. “Who is this?” he replied.

“Lily,” came the response.

“Lily who?”

A shadowy picture of naked man arrived, bound by what appeared to be fairly thick nylon rope encircling his body repeatedly, a wide piece of silver tape across his face. It was Gil.

“Jesus Christ,” Abel muttered aloud, shaking his head in disbelief. “Where’s Gil?” he inquired.

“He can’t come to the phone right now, he’s a LITTLE tied up,” came the next message.

“WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?!!” Abel typed back, getting to his feet and moving quickly toward the door.

“Lily.”

“Fuck you Lily!” he replied. Stepping out of Java Joe’s he kept his phone in his hand as he ran back toward the office.

“Maybe,” popped up with a winking faced emoticon.

“Tell me where Gil is!” he demanded, bursting through the front doors of the annex building, startling a handful of people in the lobby. Flashing his credentials, he passed through the security checkpoint and headed directly for Tom Trager’s office.

Another picture arrived, this time showing a close up of a woman’s smooth hairless vagina.

Ignoring courtesy, Abel burst into Tom’s office, phone in his hand.

“I’m busy here Stafford,” Tom said, rising from his desk, a scowl on his angular square jawed face.

“I think I have Gil’s abductor on the line right now,” Abel replied, holding the screen toward his supervisor.

“Jesus Abel. Is this some kind of stupid joke?” growled Tom, eyes narrowing at the pornographic picture on the phone.

Looking down at the picture, “Shit, sorry,” mumbled Abel, sliding his finger down the screen to bring it to the top of the conversation and handing the phone back to Tom.

Frowning, Tom took the phone and scrolled through the dialogue. Picking up his desk phone, he held between his shoulder and his ear, hastily stabbing buttons on the device. “Yeah, Trager, I want you to run an immediate trace!” he barked, providing the numbers for the phone on the other end of the conversation and slamming the receiver back into the cradle.

Abel nodded.

Holding the phone back to Abel, “Keep whoever the fuck this is on the line,” he instructed.

“You there Lily?” Abel typed.

“Not quite, but I’m close.”

“What do you want Lily?” he inquired.

The phone on the desk rang. Snapping it up, Tom nodded, “Do it now, have them secure the premises until we arrive. We’re on our way,” he stated, putting the phone down. “It’s a disposable but it’s local. DC metro can have a unit there in seven minutes. Another ten for us if we go now,” Tom stated, grabbing his suit jacket from the stand near the door. Striding through the office, he pointed at special agents Beckett and Davies, motioning for them to follow.

In the parking garage, Tom and Abel took one of the black Chevy Suburbans while the other two special agents took another and followed.

Checking his phone again, there were no additional responses from whoever was on the other end of the phone.

Tires squealing as they peeled out, Tom immediately turned on the blue and red dash flashers on the vehicle.

Still nothing on the phone.

Racing through the streets into a residential area, “There,” said Tom, braking to a halt in front of the marked police car parked on the street in front of a small older house.

“This is Gil’s house,” Abel murmured, climbing out of the truck.

Tom withdrew his sidearm, “Caine lives here?” he asked as a uniformed policeman walked up.

Abel nodded.

“No one in or out since we arrived,” stated the uniformed policeman, looking back up at the house. Grabbing the radio on his shoulder, “Fed’s are here,” he said into it.

“Your partner is around back?” Tom asked, motioning Beckett and Davies in that direction.

“Yes,” replied the officer.

Tom nodded, “Stafford, you’re with me,” he said, withdrawing his Glock before ascending the concrete steps leading up to the house and leaning to the side of the door. Pulling his own pistol, Abel followed, taking up position on the opposite side of the door.

Reaching down, Tom tested the doorknob, turning it slowly, “Open,” he whispered before pushing the door inward.

Moving systematically through the house, they found it empty, no trace of either Gil or the person who had identified themselves as Lily.

Back out near the vehicle, Tom shook his head. “I don’t like it,” he said. Calling John Beckett over, “I want the scene contained and I want a full forensics sweep of the house, hair, fiber, prints, tracks, every goddamn thing,” he ordered.

“Sir,” replied Beckett.

Looking up and down the street, Tom glanced up at the gray sky overhead. Motioning Davies over, “It’s the middle of the bloody day, I want the neighborhood canvased to see if anyone noticed anything,” he growled.