"I've got your friend." A voice said. JC was confused. The voice that had spoken was female.

"Who are you?" JC asked.

"It doesn't matter. It means nothing. So about your friend…" She began but was interrupted by JC.

"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing. He's fine. That is unless my boyfriend does something to him. You know, you have a very nice house. I like it a lot."

"What do you want?"

"Me? Nothing but my boyfriend does. He wants to kill your friend." JC was silent. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Why? He didn't do anything."

"On the contrary. He witnessed my boyfriend murdering a woman. My boyfriend doesn't want the cops on his tail and figured the best way for that not to happen was to get rid of your friend." She paused and added in a softer tone, "But he's a generous man. He considered the fact that your friend had seen him do it but didn't report it to the cops. So he's willing to make a deal."

"What kind of a deal?" JC asked wearily.

"The deal is: one of you brings 500,000 dollars to an address that we will give you. You will drop of the money in a certain spot and then leave. We will wait two hours to make sure everything is good then we will drop off your friend. Is that a deal?" She paused giving JC sometime to think about it.

JC knew that he had a couple hundred thousand dollars saved for emergencies. This was definitely one. He knew that the others would have to pitch in money too. He knew there would be no problem with that though. "What if we don't want to do it?"

"Then my boyfriend will torment and kill him. If you do agree to this and bring the cops into this and he finds out. He won't hesitate to kill him. It's your choice but if I were you I would go with it because he's not someone you want to mess with."

"Yes, we'll do it." JC wanted to prevent Lance from going through any more.

"Good. I'll keep an eye on your friend for you and call back later with the information of where to drop off the money. Thanks for your corporation and I'm very sorry about this." And with that she hung up leaving a worried and confused JC listening to the dial tone.

"Great job sweetheart. I couldn't have done it better myself."

"Anything for you, John." John made her call so that Lance's friends wouldn't be able to recognize the voice if they did report it to the police. The two of them were standing in the kitchen talking while Lance was tied to a chair in the basement.

"I feel kind of bad for the poor kid and his friends."

"I know you do, Melanie. You have a soft heart like that. That's why you're so special." John said to his girlfriend.

"I think next time we call we should put him on the phone. It must be really hard on the poor kid." Melanie suggested to John.

"I don't know. He might tell them where we are."

"He won't because we're standing here. I'll make sure of it." Melanie promised and John relented.

"Let's go see how he's doing." John and Melanie walked down the stairs to the basement. There Lance was tied to an old, antique chair. He wasn't gagged though. He eyed the two strangers that were approaching him wearily.

"Enjoying yourself?" John asked viciously knowing very well that Lance wanted nothing more than to leave this place. "We just got off the phone with your friends. We're going to call back later. If I'm in a good mood I might let you talk to them real briefly. That won't be until tomorrow though."

With that said John turned and went upstairs. Melanie lingered behind.

"I'm really sorry about this, you know? He made me do it. Said he would kill me if I didn't. I didn't mean to hurt you. At least you have something to look forward to tomorrow."

She turned to leave when Lance said, "Why are you with him?"

"When I first met him it was about love. But now I'm just afraid of what he'll do to me if I leave him." She looked at him and added, "I would give you something to eat but he doesn't want me to feed you. Sorry." She left and Lance said nothing more. He got lost in his own thoughts.

They just kept going back to his friends and how they were doing. He prayed to God that he would make it out of this alive and be able to see them again.

"JC? Anyone in there? Hello?" Justin started waving his hands about in front of JC's face. JC snapped out of his train of thought and hung up the phone. He moved to go sit down at the table and tell the guys what was said on the phone.

"I guess you guys want to know what happened." JC stated. Of course they did. They couldn't hear it and Lance is their friend too, he thought. The others nodded.

"It was a woman and she said they had Lance."

"They? Who's they?" Joey asked.

"It was the murderer that Lance saw and his girlfriend. They said Lance was fine and that they wanted to make a deal with us."

"Like what?" Justin questioned with worried eyes.

"Like we pay them 500,000 dollars then we wait two hours, they pick up the money, make sure it's all good, then they drop off Lance. They said they would call back with the address that we're supposed to drop the money off at. The only thing is that we can't call the cops."

"Why?" Chris asked.

"Because they said if they find out that we have the help of cops that they would torment and kill Lance." JC explained. All of them didn't know what to say.

"I think we should notify the cops about this. We already called them so they're already apart of this." Chris spoke up.

"Are you crazy? We only told them that our friend was missing. Things could get way worse if we call them." JC complained.

"Things could get a lot worse if we don't call them." Joey objected and JC knew he wasn't going to win this argument. Joey had a point at least with the police they could track down the location.

"Alright. Go call them." Joey went to call the police and tell them about this new information. He came back in the room a half hour later.

"They say that we shouldn't pay the money. They think we should wait it out. The detective that I talked to said that most kidnappers only say that to insure that they get their money. He said he was coming over to talk to all of us." Joey explained everything and the guys agreed. Joey told them that the detective wouldn't be over for a couple hours so he suggested that they all go lay down and rest.

Justin and Chris decided to play a video game, Joey went to shoot some pool by himself, and JC continued to sit in the kitchen letting his imagination get away with him. He imagined all the bad things that could happen to Lance. Finally JC couldn't take it anymore and got up from his chair to start pacing just like he had done so many times before. The doorbell rang telling the guys that the detective was here.

They all stopped what they were doing and met in the kitchen except for Justin who was the one to open the front door and let the cop in. Justin led the cop to the kitchen where all of his brothers were waiting.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. I'm detective Bartley." He shook all of their hands while each of them telling him who they were. He took a seat between Chris and JC.

"Who called this case in?"

"I did." Joey said to the detective.

"Now I understand that one of you talked with one of the kidnappers."

"That was me." JC spoke up from the left side of him.

"Just explain to me everything about the conversation." Detective Bartley listened to Jc and took notes. JC finished explaining.

"Ok. That's basically the same thing I heard from Mr. Fatone. Did he tell you what I told him on the phone?" They all nodded. "I think we should still stick with that plan."

Justin decided to voice what had been bugging him. "What if they see there's no money and kill Lance?"

"He's right. I think we're all worried about that." Chris said. Detective Bartley scratched his beard in thought.

"I'm not going to lie to you guys. It is a possibility but there's an even greater chance that once they have their money their going to keep Lance to make sure they get to where they want to. Therefore you probably wouldn't see him again. From what you guys have told me though is that he's a smart kid. I'm sure he'll do anything to avoid any of that."

They all took this in for a few minutes and agreed with what the detective had said. They would chance it and hope that everything worked out for the best.

"So we're all agreed?" They all nodded yes.

"Good. Now I'm going to put a phone-tracing device on your phone since they will be calling back. It would probably be best for the same person to talk as last time." He turned to JC. "You have to keep him on the phone for at least two minutes. That will give us enough time to trace the call."

"I'll try." JC promised. Once the detective had the tracer installed he made a move to leave.

"I'll be working on this as much as I can and I'll call you as soon as I find something. Try to get some sleep. I know this must be hard on you but try anyway. Good bye." He left and all the guys looked at each other not knowing what to do now.

"How about we order pizza?" Justin suggested. They all agreed half- heartedly. The pizza came a half hour later and they all ate it slowly.

"I wish there was something more we could do." JC sighed deeply wondering where Lance was and if he had eaten.

"I know what you mean. We're just sitting around waiting. I want Lance back." Justin agreed with JC.

"We know, Curls. We all do. We'll get him back." Joey said trying to be optimistic but really he didn't know if they would or not. All he and the others could do was hope for the best.