Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten:

Emily held her breathe as she pressed the power button on the cell phone. "This just has to work" she thought to herself. She was fully aware that this might be their only chance of getting out of there alive. Emily forced herself to look at the cell phone that she just turned on, she only let out her breathe when she saw that the phone had actually turned on. Her attention than shifted to see if there was any single. "I got three bars out of five, it's not great single but it should be enough to make a call." Emily told Julia. She was dialing Matt's number when they heard a vehicle's door shut. "He's back" Julia said. Emily pressed the end button, knowing she wouldn't have time to make the call now.

"Now what?" Julia questioned. Emily thought for a second. She could hear the front door being opened, she knew she only had a matter of minutes before Marshall made his way to the cellar. Emily was used to thinking on her feet and she quickly formulated a new plan. She walked over to the window, she looked at the battery, she had about two hours left before her battery would died. Emily lifted the window and placed the phone outside, she made sure it was concealed before turning to Julia. "lets just hope that the single stays strong enough so that my friends can trace the GPS." She said. Julia nodded in agreement. They could hear Marshall's footsteps getting closer to the cellar door. At that moment Emily realized that if Kyle came downstairs to find Julia and herself untied, he would not only be furious but he would also know that they were up to something. "I'm really sorry Julia but I think we need to be in the same spot we were in before Kyle left. Or he is going to know we were up to something" Emily told her.

"You're right" Julia said in agreement as she grabbed the gag and passed it to Emily to tie. They could now hear Marshall at the cellar door, they could hear him clinking the keys, they knew he was about to unlock the door. Emily quickly got the ropes that Marshall had used to bound Julia, she made sure that the rope wasn't as tight, "are you sure you are going to be ok?" Emily asked before she pulled the ropes so Julia was again hanging upside down. Julia nodded her head. Emily could hear Marshall putting the key into the door and turning the key. Emily put the rope on the pulley Marshall had set up and gave it a pull so Julia was again hanging upside down. She than grabbed the rope that was used to bound her and headed over to the corner that she was suppose to be in. She put her hands behind her back and tied a knot in the rope loosely but enough so it looked like she was bound. Emily just got herself situated when she heard the key turn and the door open.

Meanwhile, Matt, Frank, Max, Samantha and back up had arrived at the area around Lake Charles where the GPS had placed Emily's car. "Ok, everyone fan out, we're looking for a blue Mazda6 Spots Sedan. Keep your eyes pealed for anything out of the ordinary. The chain of commend is simple, I'm in charge. Remember, this is one of our own that's missing and we need to bring her home" Frank stated. Everyone spread out and started to look for anything that put Emily in the area. Matt and Samantha were following the GPS single from their handheld computer when suddenly the red dot they had been following disappeared off the screen. "What the hell?" Samantha said

Matt didn't get a chance to reply because Max called out "I found something." Matt and Samantha quickly headed in the direction that Max had called from.

"What do you have?" Matt asked once they had reached Max.

"Tire tracks leading into Lake Charles." Max replied

Matt look at the place where Max was standing, he didn't want to admit it but the tire tracks were differently the same type that a Mazda 6 made.

"I'll made the call to get the car retrieved" Frank said coming up behind them

An hour later, a car was being pulled out from Lake Charles. Once the crane had placed the car on the sand, Matt walked over to it. "It's Emily's" He said

"I guess we're looking for a body now" A rookie agent whispered to another agent standing next to him.

Matt spun around from the car to face the agent. "No we're not looking for a body. We're going to continue to look for Emily. And if you had any investigating skills you would realized that this is more than a coincidence. At the same time that there is a psycho after her, her car ends up in a lake. It just doesn't make sense" Matt partially yelled at the rookie.

"Matt, calm down" Frank said pulling him away from the rookie and crowd, because Matt was getting oftenly close to him.

"I'm fine" Matt replied still wanting to go back and show that idiot his left hook.

"I wanted to hit him too" Frank confessed "but you have to calm down. Here take these latex gloves and use your investigating skills to examine the car. I don't want to have to send you back to Cheryl but I will if you start fighting and that's not going to help Emily any. "

Matt was still to steamed to talk so he just smiled and nodded to Frank as he headed back to the car with Frank right behind him. Matt knew Frank was right, getting kicked off the scene for fighting wasn't going to help Emily.

The car had water damage but besides that there was not a single scratch on it, there was no sign of an accident. And according to the tire tracks it just looked like the car was drove directly into the lake. Matt concluded to himself after he had a look at the outside of the car. He open the door and found Emily's gun and water soaked badge carefully placed in plain sight like it wanted to be found. "Hey Sam and Frank, come here for a second." Matt called

"Look at how her gun and badge is placed" Matt said when Sam and Frank got over to where Matt was "And Emily only takes her gun off when she heads to bed, if this was an accident her gun would be with her" Matt explained, he could not bring himself to say that the gun would be with her body. "It's like this whole thing was staged"

"I agree with you, someone wanted us to think she has drown" Sam said

"which means where ever Emily is, she is no longer armed" Frank said

Back at the office:

Cheryl slammed down the screen of her laptop. She was frustrated with it, she had been trying to get a track on Emily's cell phone for the pass hour but nothing came up. Cheryl sighed, there was no point to try again, where ever Emily was she wasn't going to find her by stating at a blank screen, it was time to take action. She got up from her chair and left her office. As Cheryl left her office, a red dot showed up on the screen, showing where Emily's cell phone was and thus where Emily was.

Cheryl headed downstairs if she couldn't do anything productive to help Emily, she do something for Lia. She headed down the hall towards the FBI forensics Lab that was suppose to be processing the coffee. "Do we have the tox results from the coffee?" Cheryl asked the lab technician on entering the lab.

The lab technician named Skyla, looked up from her microscope. "Nothing showed up on a normal tox test. So I had to run additional tests, I should get the results shortly." She replied sweetly. "you're welcome to wait, it shouldn't be much longer"

"Thank-you" Cheryl said taking a seat to wait for the results. To Cheryl, time seemed to stand still, it felt like she had been sat there forever, but in reality it had only been five minutes when a machine behind her started to beep and a printer next to Cheryl shot out a piece of paper.

"Results" Skyla said taken the paper from the printer. "un-oh"

"What?" Cheryl asked

"Whatever is poisoning your friend, didn't show up in these tests either" Skyla replied "I have a few more tests I can try, hopefully I'll get better results this time"

Cheryl nodded "Call me as soon as you know anything, I'm going to head to the hospital" she said, thanking Skyla again. Cheryl figured there was nothing else she could do at the office. She wanted to go to check on Lia in person.

Back at the farmhouse:

Emily could hear Marshall walk down over the stairs. "Did you miss me?" Marshall asked as he got to the last step where Emily could see him.

Emily looked at him but she knew she had to give him an answer "what do you think?" she said. That's when she noticed that his arms were full, he had a brown teddy bear, a camera, a pillow, a blanket, and a bottle of bleach. "What is all that stuff for?" Emily asked afraid to hear the answer.

Marshall chose to ignore her. He walked on pass Emily and Julia to a tiny room in the back of the cellar. He carefully placed the objects in the order he would need them, than he walked back out of the room and over towards Emily. He bended down so his face was only inches from her face, "How long do you think I have been out of jail?" he asked

"I don't know, I've only been on the case for two days" Emily replied

"But I escaped custody a week ago. That moron Brady just didn't tell you until it was necessity. A week was plenty of time for me to get to the farmhouse and set up my plan. I thought I was going to have to wait for you and I was getting really bored when three days ago, by pure divine intervention, a young lady was jogging on the trail behind the farmhouse, what an opportunity for me. So now it's time." Marshall said with an eerie tone of voice.

"NO!" Emily yelled as she leaped forward catching Marshall off guard and pushing him to the floor. However, it wasn't long before Marshall regained the upper hand. He pushed her hard and she hit her head of the wall, knocking her out.

As Emily started to come to, she could feel a sharp pain in her head from being thrown against a wall. She went to rub her head, but she couldn't. Her hands were bound, she open her eyes to find that she was gagged, and where Julia once hung, Emily now did. Than she heard the horrific screams coming from the back room, and Emily knew the screams belonged to Julia as she was being covered with bleach. The screams continued for what seem like forever than slowly they faded away and Emily knew that she was now in this alone and she would be next.