"How the bloody hell did this happen?" Jerry thundered, as John and Jane gasped in disbelief and Jax stood stunned, quietly fingering Brenda's engagement ring. When Jax didn't respond, Jerry continued his tirade, "Where the hell was Tom? I'm calling him now! They bloody well better have killed him, 'cause if they didn't, I will!" But before he could walk the distance to the phone, the phone rang.

The sound of the phone snapped Jax out of his stupor. "That could be them!" he cried as he shoved Jerry aside to answer it. "Jax, here!" he yelled into the receiver.

"Jax, it's Tom... Brenda's been taken..."

"I know! They sent a note and her engagement ring...What the hell happened there, Tom? How did they get her?!" Jax shouted, his voice rising with each successive word.

There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line, and then Tom's quiet voice, "It was my fault...I left her alone for too long -"

"You left her alone?!" Jax screamed, his anger white hot and intense now. "What the hell were you thinking?! I trusted you to protect her and keep her safe! Brenda trusted you to keep her and the baby safe!"

Jax could hear a deep sigh on the other end of the line, and then Tom finally replied, "I screwed up...Listen, I take full responsibility for this, but placing blame isn't getting us anywhere." He took another deep breath and then continued, his tone more even now, as his professional side kicked in, "We need to find Brenda, and we need to do it as quickly as possible. I've already called the local sheriff's department and the Bureau since this is a kidnapping, and they should be here any minute, but I'm sure Leone has her long gone from here by now. I'm having a tap put on the cottage phone line so that when they contact you, we can hopefully get a location on them." He paused, waiting for Jax to tear back into him, but Jax was strangely quiet. "Jax?" Still nothing. "Jax? Are you still there?"

"Yes, I'm still here," Jax finally answered, his voice considerably calmer than before.

"Good," Tom responded calmly, his tone belying the intense apprehension he felt inside. "I need for you to stay calm and focused through this, Jax. Now tell me what exactly the note said. Did it tell your family to back away from the negotiations?"

Jax took a deep breath, and read the note to Tom, trying to push aside the revolting images that the words brought to mind: "Her photos simply do not do her justice. She is far more exquisite in person." Hearing the words aloud made him literally shudder, and he heard his mother's soft gasp from behind him as she and his father heard the contents of the note for the first time, and the implied intentions of the note hit them fully.

On the other end of the line, the sinister insinuations of the note were not lost on Tom either, as a chill ran through his body while Jax read the note to him. He took a deep breath, fighting the sick feeling that suddenly swept over him. Suddenly images of his dream about Brenda's death by Leone's hands due to his inaction flashed through his mind. Oh, God! he thought. I did this to her. I let my personal feelings for her cloud my professional judgment, and now she's in danger. Finally, aloud to Jax he said, "I think they'll be calling you soon with instructions as to what exactly to do."

"Where do you think he's taken her?" Jax asked, trying not to think what Leone might have already done to Brenda. "He could have her out of the country by now."

"I'm betting Leone has her stashed somewhere between here and Port Charles. I've studied this guy a lot in the past week, and I can quote chapter and verse on him. He takes a perverse pleasure in operating right under the noses of his enemies, and right now, you and your family are #1 on his enemy list, so I'm betting he has her somewhere nearby. As soon as I've finished with the locals here, I'm heading up there."

Jax remained silent for a moment and then he asked the question that had been haunting the back of his mind since he'd gotten the note and the ring, "They won't hurt her, will they, Tom? I mean if we give them what they want, Leone won't do anything to hurt her, right?"

Tom hesitated. He knew how Leone operated. He was a cold and calculating man, and another's life - whether an innocent life or not - meant nothing to him. Right now, Brenda's best chance at remaining alive was his finding her before the Jacks family reneged on their deal with the government. Tom knew that once she was no longer needed as a bargaining chip, Brenda's further existence would be a liability to Leone rather than an asset. Finally he answered Jax as truthfully as he could, "We're going to move heaven and earth to get her back safe and sound."

Jax closed his eyes and nodded mutely, as he slowly replaced the receiver on its cradle. He couldn't press Tom for more than that, and he knew Tom would be true to his word - he would move heaven and earth to get Brenda back. Jax just prayed that it would be enough.

By the time Tom had hung up with Jax, the local sheriff's department had already appeared on the scene, and Tom filled them in on what had happened. "Brenda Barrett's been kidnapped?" one of the deputies had questioned. "But she drowned in the Charles River several weeks ago during that hurricane. I remember going out on that call. The divers looked for hours, but they never recovered a body, and it would have taken a miracle for anyone to have survived the conditions that night!"

Tom had to agree there, as he thought back to everything that had happened around that night and since. It was a miracle that she had washed up where he could find her, and that she and the baby had both survived. In fact, he realized that her appearance in his life had made him truly live as well, something he hadn't really been doing for years. He'd been merely existing before Angel had fallen into his arms, and even though he knew that she could never belong with him, he would always love her for opening up his heart to life once again. She represented a miracle in so many ways, and he had to believe in yet another miracle - the one that would bring her safely home to all of those who loved her.

"What happened here?" a familiar voice called, making Tom turn quickly around from his musings.

"John!" Tom was shocked to see his partner standing behind him. "What are you doing here? And how did you get here so fast?"

"I'm here because I got a page to come here. As for getting here so fast...well, I didn't head back to New York when I left here this afternoon. I had a couple of days off coming, so I decided to do a little sightseeing around here. Quite the little, country paradise you have here, Tom... Then I got hungry, so I stopped at a restaurant for a bite to eat. I was just beginning to enjoy the sights there, if you know what I mean, when the agency beeped me, and now I'm here," John explained as he watched the locals with their floodlights looking around the area for any evidence left behind.

Tom looked at John suspiciously. "Since when do you enjoy sightseeing, other than eyeing a beautiful woman?"

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Tommy...Now, what happened here? The call said Brenda was snatched. How did that happen? I thought you had her pretty well hidden here," John inquired as he knelt down beside Tom, suddenly spotting a very groggy Charlie at Tom's feet. "Hey, what's the matter with you, boy?" he asked, rubbing the retriever under the chin.

"Whoever took Brenda, must have known about Charlie and was prepared to put him out of commission. They must have put an animal tranquilizer in some hamburger. I found hamburger scraps beside where he lay, and it's in the evidence bag there now. I figure they had it waiting for him, and when Charlie came out to answer the call of nature, he tore into the meat. Brenda must have come out to look for him when he didn't return, and they grabbed her then," Tom explained.

John stood up and looked at Tom. "And just where were you when all of this was happening? The first rule of protecting someone is to never leave them alone."

"You're not telling me anything I haven't told myself since this whole thing began! But now we just have to start looking for her!" Tom shot back.

"So, are you sure it was Leone behind this?" John asked. "No chance it could be just some crazy who had a thing for her, or maybe it was that mobster ex of hers?"

"Corinthos?" Tom shook his head. "No, he's not even in the country now. And it's doubtful that it was a stalker because to the rest of the world, Brenda Barrett died several weeks ago. No, it was Leone. He's already contacted Jax. My only question is how did he find out that she was even alive, let alone here? Only a handful of people knew about that - me, Jax, his brother, Jerry, and ... " Then suddenly it dawned on him. An intense anger filled every part of Tom's body as he looked at John, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and slamming him hard across the sheriff's cruiser behind them, as several startled deputies looked on in disbelief. "And YOU, Tom! You knew she was here! ... Where is she?!... I swear I'll kill you myself if she's hurt!" Tom screamed, his face contorted with a rage he had never felt before, and by the crazed look on Tom's face, John knew he meant every word he was saying.

FBI Assistant Director David Sikes hung up the phone and settled back onto his couch, taking off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbing his eyes wearily. It had been a very rough day, coming on the heels of what had been several, very rough months, and he was tired to his very core. But the phone call he had just received assured that things were coming together at last. They had to, because everything he held dear in life depended on that.

"Things are working out, Gwen," he whispered aloud to his empty New York apartment. "Arrangements have been made, and everything's finally going to be okay for us."

Gwen was his wife of nearly five years. He had met her at a party at a mutual friend's house in Georgetown, five years before. At the time, she had been a Congressional aide, and she had been the most striking woman he'd ever laid his eyes on - tall, blonde, athletically trim, and a smile that could derail a freight train - and, at 35, fifteen years younger than he. His heart had nearly stopped when she had taken an interest in him as well. After all, things like that didn't happen to middle-aged, balding, middle-management men like him. But Gwen had not cared about his age or the way he looked - her crystal blue-eyed gaze had been able to see into the inner man, and she had fallen as in love with him as he had with her, and they were married just a short, four months later. They had been nearly inseparable since their wedding - until now.

He sighed and picked up the silver-framed photo on the end table next to the couch - a picture of him and his beloved Gwen, taken in happier times. He ran his fingertips lovingly over his wife's smiling face. The picture was one of his favorites, and had been taken while they had been sailing with friends up near Cape Cod. She had been so beautiful that day - full of life and laughter - her blonde bob swirling around her shining face, her clear, blue eyes sparkling with mischief as she had proceeded to dump him into the bay immediately after the picture had been snapped.

He smiled at the memory of that day fifteen months before... God, he thought, had it only been the previous year? These days it seemed like that time was a lifetime ago, so much had changed since that beautiful day on their friends' sloop. Gone now was Gwen's blonde, gloriously thick head of hair, as was her dazzling smile, and her athletic body, which had dropped twenty pounds, leaving her gaunt and weak. It was just six weeks after this picture had been taken that Gwen had found the lump, and their nightmare had begun.

She had been fighting the good fight for thirteen months now, first with the lumpectomy, then with the successive rounds of chemotherapy. The doctors had been optimistic back then, assuring both him and Gwen that things looked good and that they thought they had gotten it all. But then another lump had appeared, and the painful decision had been made to do a full mastectomy, followed by still more months of chemotherapy. This time the doctors were not so optimistic.

The type of breast cancer that Gwen had was extremely virulent, they had said, and conventional forms of therapy were ineffective against it. They knew of only one way to possibly save Gwen's life - a bone marrow transplant, but he and Gwen had been warned by the oncologists that this treatment could cost as much as $200,000, and was considered experimental by many insurance companies and thus not covered. It was also very risky, in that part of the treatment consisted of effectively destroying Gwen's immune system, and that in itself could kill Gwen.

He and Gwen had discussed it extensively, and in the end she had decided to go for it. "Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do," she had said when he had reminded her that it could prove fatal for her. "Sometimes you have to make the tough choices, Dave, and I'm willing to do this if it means I might have a chance." With her decision to pursue it firmly in mind, he had approached the insurance company with their request to cover this last ditch effort to save her life, but their request had been denied, and so he had taken it upon himself to fight in any way possible to get that treatment for Gwen. And tonight things had finally crystallized, and the bone marrow transplant was assured.

In the time since Gwen's diagnosis, the cancer, which was destroying Gwen's body, had threatened to destroy him as well, and he had become more and more discontent with his job and the hours it kept him away from Gwen. This dissatisfaction with the situation had caused him a lot of sleepless nights, so he had finally decided to retire later next month, although he had not made this decision public yet. He had wanted to see how things would go, and tonight's success at assuring the treatment for Gwen had solidified his decision to retire. He had his thirty years in and the pension would be good, but most of all, he could then spend every minute he could with Gwen. He was trusting that this procedure would add years to her life and they could enjoy that life in some tropical paradise far from the hustle and bustle of New York City and his current profession. But there were loose ends he needed to tie up before he could freely and easily leave his job.

He picked up the manila file folder from the coffee table and opened it, pulling out a report with Tom Langan's name at the top of it. Higher ups at the agency had become aware that there seemed to be leaks about the Jacks/Leone investigation getting out to the Leone family. He had been told to look into it, especially after a random check on computer usage had shown that two of his agents - Langan and his partner, John Michaels, with no ties to the investigation at all - had been accessing sensitive files on the case. Sikes had been on it immediately and had since learned that Langan had been hiding Brenda Barrett, the presumed dead fiancée of Jasper Jacks, while he was supposedly vacationing. Now she was missing, and it appeared that Leone had kidnapped her in order to pressure the Jacks family's silence on his activities. The circumstantial evidence that he had assembled in this report made it look like Langan had been in with Leone from the beginning. Things appeared to be tying together nicely around Langan being the one on the take from the mob, and he planned to present his findings to his superiors early next week. Perhaps by then, Ms. Barrett - or what was left of her - would be found, but he couldn't worry about that. He simply had to get things tied together so that he could easily leave the agency without worrying about things coming undone, until Gwen was well and they were long gone to their tropical paradise.

He opened the file folder again and pulled out a small picture of Brenda Barrett. "I'm sorry that you had to get caught up in all of this, Ms. Barrett. But sometimes you have to make the tough choices, and you just have to do what you have to do..." he said as he leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes and trying to make peace with the ravages that his wife's cancer had made on his soul.