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Author's Chapter Notes:
Been a while huh?
How was it possible? What happened? How—and why? The questions ran in her mind as a constant stream and all she could do was stare at the screen and blink. A commercial came on and still, she stared. Spike had gotten up and was on the phone with his P.I. Like a caged animal he walked around the penthouse, his voice at times heated and then calm. She barely registered him coming in the room. Though when he flicked off the TV, she looked up at him.

"He was caught from the inside," Spike stated grimly. "Schreb is at the police station. Buffy, you're going to be wanted for questioning."

"How did he get caught from the inside?" Buffy asked, bewildered.

Spike sat down next to her. "He got messy. Seems he was desperate."

"Desperate for money? For what? To pay someone off?"

"Buffy," Spike sighed.

Buffy threw up her arms, "Oh great. This oughtta be good. What was he
planning to do? Kidnap me and take me to South America?"

Spike stared at her.

Her jaw dropped. "You're kidding me!"

Spike nodded, "They searched his office. Apparently what happened was
over the years; Lindsey had been taking money from certain fees that
would be charged to the client. For example, if you're doing real estate, you
charge for when you order a title or a municipal lien certificate. Lindsey
would charge the client, but have them make it out to him and not deposit
it to the company. In that way, the company was taking the fall and those
things can add up to quite a bit. Or, if you're doing litigation, there's a fee
for a summons. He was also double invoicing—"

"Spike, get to the part on how he was going to kidnap me," Buffy said impatiently, tapping her foot.

"Right. He took money out of the firms escrow and out of the clients
retainers. They do the books on those items on the fifteenth of every
month. The fifteenth of this month happens to fall"

"On Saturday—tomorrow."

"Right. And usually they wait until after the weekend to do it, but they
decided instead to do it today. That's when they noticed that money was
missing all over the place in these accounts. Then the bank called
requesting Mr. McDonald come sign one of the checks as he'd missed one."

"Oh my God," Buffy shook her head in disbelief. "One slip and he got
caught."

"Exactly. He was caught off guard, he didn't know he'd been caught until
the police were there slapping the cuffs on him. Then they searched his
office and found two passports. His and yours with fake name and two one
way tickets to Brazil."

Buffy shut her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself feeling a wave of
nausea come over her. "How in the hell did he plan on taking me?" she
froze. "The pills."

"What?"

"The pills. The pills I remembered, the ones I saw when I was there
before. . . they were unmarked white pills in his medicine cabinet. But how
was he going to get me alone? I just don't get how—"

"Buffy," Spike stood and took her in his arms. "The man is sick and
twisted. He embezzled an enormous amount of money and planned to be
out of the country with you and didn't think he'd get caught—"

Buffy pushed her way out of his arms. "My cell phone. He must have left a
message on my cell phone." She bolted out the room, running to the kitchen
with Spike calling for her as he bounded after her.

She grabbed her purse and rummaged in her purse and extracted her cell.
It was flashing orange at the top. She flipped it open. "One missed call," she
muttered. "Yes, it's him. That's his number." Dialing in her voice mail
number she pressed it to her ear and met Spike's eyes as she listened.

"Hello Buffy, it's Lindsey. I know you don't want to see me anymore and I
understand that. I have some of your things still and was wondering if you
could at least meet me so I can give them to you. If you could find it in your
heart to let me explain and apologize for how I treated you—"

Buffy snapped her phone shut, "I'm going to be sick," and she ran to the
bathroom.

She emptied the contents of her stomach and slumped down on the floor.
"When are they going to send for me?" Buffy asked softly when Spike came
in and sat down on the floor next to her, pulling her up against his chest and
wrapping his arms around her.

"When they're done collecting evidence. They're going to want to question
you on what you know."

"Which isn't much."

"You have a memory."

She snorted, "A memory. One. One fucking memory. The rest is all just a
bunch of gut feelings. No one is going to incriminate him on any other crime
due to gut feelings. My accident—just me being clumsy, no way to trace it
to him is there? His beating me, drugging me . . . He's going to jail for
embezzling but there's no way to keep him there."

"Buffy, they're going to find everything they can to incriminate him. His
past is catching up with him and if there is a God in Heaven they will find a
way to keep him there for a really long time."

"I want to go to the house."

"Buffy, why—"

"Because I want to know what those pills are. I want to be in that house
until I remember."

Spike held her tighter, "Buffy, calm down."

"I'm just so frustrated. How long was I with and he did all these things to
me and I can't remember them all except for one isolated incident. He was
going to kidnap me and I could have a rap sheet a mile on his behavior
except I CAN'T REMEMBER. What if I knew about the embezzling? What
if I was part of it? What if he drags me down with him? I'm an amnesiac for
Christ's Sake. How many amnesiacs do you know? I'm going to be going to
court on something and have nothing."

"Buffy, he's not taking you down with him. He embezzled money, Buffy. He
was caught red-handed. You don't think his partners are going to fight
tooth and nail to have him put away for a very long time? Especially when
they investigate the leads Schreb has on him. We'll take this one day at a
time okay? I'll be with you every step of the way."

"I want to go to the house. I want to get those pills. I want to find out what
he was giving me."

"Buffy, you don't know if the cops are down there now with a warrant
checking things out. You wouldn't be able to get by."

"The man was going to kidnap me. I think I have precedence here. If I
want to find out about a goddman bottle of pills, then I can find out about a
goddamn bottle of pills. As a matter of fact," she maneuvered her way out
of Spike's arms, "I want to go down to the police station now."





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