The day was ending just like any other, Amber removed her coat from her locker in the doctor’s lounge feeling relieved that she was finally able to go home. Tonight was the night that her and Kerry would be celebrating their six month anniversary, and she was carrying the perfect gift in her pocket. It was a real diamond tennis bracelet, she didn’t really have Dr. Weaver pegged as the type that would wear extravagant jewelry like that but it was the thought that counted. About a month ago her parents had passed away leaving her an ungodly amount of money, not to mention the multi million dollar estate that they had owned. Amber was still living in her apartment complex, she was trying to decide if she wanted to move into the house or sell it. Even though she hadn’t grown up there she had a lot of great memories attached to the place so the decision was hard. She wanted to keep her job at county general even though she now had enough money to support her for the rest of her life, and her kids if she ever decided to have any. She put her hand in her pocket and ran it over the black velvet box that was tucked away inside, then she smiled and headed out to her car, she couldn’t wait until Weaver arrived at her apartment for dinner.

About an hour later Kerry arrived, and Iwata the dog, met her with the usual leg humping. Amber lead Kerry over to the couch and sat down with her, she already had two glasses of Champaign set out and a few candles lit for ambiance. Tonight was going to be the night that she was going to tell Kerry about the house that she had inherited and about the rest of the money, Kerry knew her parents had died and that Amber had inherited some money but she had no idea how much was actually there. First Amber was going to present her with the bracelet, and instead of actually taking her to dinner at the restaurant they had their first date at she planned to drive to the estate and explain to her the situation on the way.

“Okay, close your eyes.” Amber said to Weaver after she had pulled the box out of her coat and hid it behind her back. She thought it would be wonderful to take the bracelet out and put it on her wrist, just so she could see the look on her face when she set eyes upon a real diamond bracelet. Kerry gave her a weird look but then closed her eyes and waited for whatever gift Amber was going to give her, but she could have never predicted this. Amber knelt down in front of Kerry after taking the gift out of it’s box and then gently placed it around Weaver’s wrist. Kerry could feel the cold metal against her skin and before she even opened her eyes she could tell that it was probably a piece of jewelry. After a moment of hesitation she opened her eyes and looked down at her wrist, her eyes went wide and her jaw nearly fell to the floor.

“Those are real…How did you…I love it Amber.” She said her hands shaking a bit, Amber was glad she had no idea how much that had actually cost her because then she probably would have tired to give it back. She leaned down and gave Amber a hug and a kiss on the cheek, Amber was so happy that she liked it and hoped that she wouldn’t start questioning about money at this particular moment.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Like it? I love it…all I got you were flowers and they didn’t even arrive on time.” Weaver responded holding her hand up so the diamonds started to shine in the light, she seemed completely mesmerized by it’s beauty.

“It’s okay, the look on your face was good enough for me.” Amber replied finally getting up from her spot on the floor, “But next anniversary don’t expect another one.” Kerry laughed a little still not taking her eyes off of the bracelet, almost as if she was afraid it was vanish if she stopped looking at it. Amber picked up her glass and took a sip of Champaign getting ready to spring her next surprise, when there was a loud scream from the apartment next door, “What the…” Amber didn’t even think to call the police she just left her apartment and headed down the hallway to check it out. Kerry forgot about her bracelet and went to the phone, the scream did not sound normal at all so she thought the authorities should get involved with it.

After she hung up the phone she headed out into the hall where there were already a crowd of people gathering around the open door. Kerry recognized the apartment, it was where Amber’s neighbors Tina and Samantha lived, over the past few months the four of them had become rather good friends but from what she could see, Samantha was laying on the floor with a knife in her chest and Tina was nowhere to be seen. Amber was already on the floor trying to help Samantha, she had removed the knife and was applying pressure to the wound. Weaver was in the back of the crowd and for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to speak up, it seemed to bother her that something like this could happen so close to a place that she felt completely safe in.

Soon the EMT’s arrived at the scene and Amber decided she was going to ride in the ambulance with Samantha, she called to Weaver to take her car and meet up with her at the hospital before taking off with the almost dead Samantha. When they actually arrived at the hospital the police would not let Amber into the trauma room, so she had to let Carter and Greene take over, but she didn’t really mind it was too hard to work on a friend who was close to death. She sighed and wiped her hands on her shirt before looking around wondering where Weaver was, she said she was going to follow in the car but she was nowhere to be seen. She washed her hands and then poured herself a cup of coffee before sitting down to think about what had just happened, it was almost as if it was a sign of some sort. Just as she took her first sip of coffee two police officers stepped into the room, the bigger one sat at the table across from her and the female one stood by the table holding a pad of paper and a pen, she was obviously ready to take a statement.

“What’s your name miss?” The male police officer asked her but not in a polite way at all, he was talking to her almost like he thought she was the one who had stabbed the poor girl.

“Dr. Amber McKay…and you are?” She took another sip of coffee, she hated the way the police officers acted when they came in with a casualty, they were always so quick to point the blame at some one so they could get back in their car and grab some free donuts.

“Officer Siped, but that’s not important at this point. What happened?” He was tapping his fingers on the table as if he was becoming more annoyed by the moment. Amber watched him for a moment before taking another sip of coffee, she needed to try to calm down if she didn’t want them to think she had done something.

“Well I was in my apartment with my girlfriend and…”

“Girlfriend as in ’lover’?” Siped answered with a raised eyebrow, Amber didn’t know why that would make any bit of difference but if it would shut him up she would tell him.

“Yes, my lover,” She rolled her eyes and waited to see if he had anything else to say before she continued, “So I was in my apartment with my lover and we both heard a scream so I raced out into the hall to see what was going on and the door to my friend Samantha’s apartment was open, so I stuck my head in and there she was laying on the ground with a stab wound to the chest. Since I’m a doctor I decided that I would try and help her until some one came so I removed the knife and applied pressure to the wound.”

“Okay,” Siped looked over to the woman who was writing all of this down and then he looked back to Amber, “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

“Dr. Kerry Weaver she said that she would be following me here in my car.” Amber replied before looking out of the window that was in the door, “She should be here any minute.”

“Right…” The man replied and then he motioned to the woman to leave the room, probably to go look for Weaver. The officer got up and helped himself to their coffee, which really bothered Amber because she had recently brought in a 25.00 a pound blend of Kona coffee from Hawaii, she didn’t want a pig like him to enjoy it. “Do we have your permission to search your apartment?”

“Sure…but why? I didn’t have anything to do with this.” Amber replied as she finished off the rest of her coffee, she set her white mug on the table and started to play with the stirring straw she had put in it earlier even though she always drank her coffee black.

“Standard procedure,” He smelled the coffee and then took a sip of it, he made a face like he didn’t like it and dumped the rest of it into the sink, “Do you have anywhere to stay for the night?”

“Yes…” Amber clenched her teeth when she saw him waist her coffee like that, “But my pets are still in my apartment they are going to need to come with me.”

“I’m sure that’s taken care of.” The man said before placing his empty mug into the sink, leaving it for someone else to clean. Amber didn’t know how that was going to be taken care of already, and she also didn’t know why they were treating her like their prime suspect. She thought it was obvious that she was trying to save Samantha when they arrived not kill her. Finally they let her leave, they had Iwata, Shizu, and Yoko in the back of a squad car, luckily both of the cats were in their carrying cases. She had called herself a cab after she assure the police officers that she wasn’t going to leave town. Her only concern now was getting to a phone and calling Kerry.

Weaver woke up bound and gagged in the back seat of a car, she couldn’t remember how she had gotten there all she knew was that her head was hurting and the music was way too loud. She groaned a little and struggled to a sitting position but with her hands tied at the wrist behind her back and her feet bound at the ankles it was nearly impossible. She was able to see who the driver was, it was Tina, and she looked rather pleased with herself considering the fact that she had blood all over her clothing.

“So you are awake finally my precious one…” Tina purred before aimlessly reaching behind her and pulling the gag away from Kerry’s mouth. Kerry was speechless she didn’t have the first clue as to what was going on but it was obviously nothing good, “This is going to be so much fun.”

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Weaver snapped as her hands involuntarily tugged at the restraints, they were too tight she knew there was no way she would be able to actually struggle out of them.

“Framing Amber McKay for the murders of Samantha Tremont and Kerry Weaver.” Tina smiled and turned the radio off, they were actually very close to the state lines and Weaver began to wonder how long she had been out. She rested her head against the cold glass of the window and looked out, her first thought was to try and signal for help but she soon realized that the windows to the car were tinted. It didn’t matter for the moment because her head was hurting so bad and the cold felt very nice, very soothing. She knew she had to have been drugged because she could still barely keep her eyes open and she felt rather lethargic it was almost as if sitting up had taken away all of her energy.

“You’re going to kill me?” She muttered trying so hard to keep her eyes open, if she only knew where they were going maybe it would help some how, she pushed her eyes all the way open and tried to read the street signs but it was snowing and on top of that everything was blurry.

“No, but when they find your blood in Amber’s car and your cane in the dumpster…” Tina trailed off and laughed looking back at Weaver in the rear view mirror, “Don’t try to move too much I don’t need you to get sick.”

“My blood?” Kerry replied still trying to fight the effects of whatever drug she had been injected with, she glanced down over her body and noticed that her right leg was bandaged right above the knee, there was a dark patch of blood soaking through but nothing that would be fatal, “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to make you mine, and I know Amber would never give you up. Besides why would you willingly leave a woman who had a net worth of about 8.5 million dollars?” Tina replied as she picked up a cup of coffee from the cup holder and took a long drink. Weaver shook her head wondering if she had heard that right, she didn’t think Amber was worth that much, although she did know that the woman had inherited a rather large sum of money of the course of the past month.

“First of all, Amber doesn’t have that much money, and secondly…” She paused to compose herself it suddenly looked like everything was spinning, “I wouldn’t stay with some one just for their money.”

“The bracelet was just the beginning, she owns a 45 room mansion in a town about a half hour from the hospital complete with indoor pool and stables.” Tina set the cup of coffee back into the holder but she continued her gaze at Weaver, “Her parents left her everything…she didn’t tell you did she?”

“If she didn’t I’m sure there was a reason.” Weaver’s voice was getting softer and Tina knew she was about ready to drift off into her drugged up sleep again. Kerry knew that if Amber didn’t tell her there had to be a good reason, or maybe she was about to tell her when the stabbing took place it seemed like it would have been an appropriate time. Kerry felt the bracelet on her wrist behind her back and smiled slightly, something told her that she would get out of this just fine, Amber was not going to forget about her.

When Kerry didn’t show up for work the next morning or call to tell anyone why she wasn’t there Amber filed a missing persons report. She was standing up at the front desk playing with her hands nervously looking at the phone waiting for anyone to call for her, she was praying for good news. No one knew that they two were dating, in fact they had acted well enough that everyone just thought they were very good friends but now Amber was breaking down she couldn’t bare to think of Kerry alone and injured somewhere, or maybe even dead.

“Maybe you should go home.” Greene said as he approached Amber slowly, her face was completely pale and she was shaking. She hadn’t moved from that spot for over an hour and she was lucky Romano hadn’t yet commented on her lack of work. Amber looked up from her hopeful gaze at the phone and then her eyes connected with his.

“Mark…what if she’s…I love her so much…” Amber squeaked out forgetting that no one actually knew about the two’s relationship. Mark didn’t make any weird faces or comments even though he couldn’t say that he wasn’t surprised about it, luckily no one else seemed to have heard what Amber said and he walked around the desk and put an arm around her.

“I’m sure she’s fine, you know as well as I do that she doesn’t give up very easily.” He said softly to her, she continued to gaze into his eyes looking for anything that would give her faith as tears streamed down her cheeks. She pulled him into a hug resting her face against his chest crying softly as he held her trembling body, everyone was at least a little bit worried about Weaver but no one was nearly quite as upset about it. Mark looked up when he thought her heard some one say Amber’s name, but he didn’t let go of her fragile frame. There were two rather large male police officers approaching them, and he sort of smiled expecting that it was going to be good news, Dixie was right behind them trying to stop them from barging into the area unannounced but they just ignored her and continued on their path.

“Are you Dr. Amber McKay?” Amber recognized the voice of officer Siped, the man who had interviewed her so nicely while Samantha was in surgery. They had done everything they could for Samantha but it was no use she died about forty five minutes later it was most from blood loss, she had lost so much blood at the scene of the crime it would have been a miracle if she survived.

“Yes…that’s me.” She pulled away from Mark and wiped her face and looked at Dixie who was standing off to the side watching, hoping to hear some good news herself. The second officer that was with Siped grabbed Amber’s wrist and turned her around before slapping some cold hard metal cuffs over both of her wrists.

“You are under arrest for the murder of Samantha Tremont and Kerry Weaver, you have the right to remain silent…”

“KERRY WEAVER!? ARE YOU INSANE? I JUST FILED A MISSING PERSONS REPORT ON HER!” Amber screamed trying to get away from the officer that was now holding her by the wrists, she knew that this was probably a bad move considering the fact that resisting arrest was another offence that they could tack onto her list of charges, “I LOVE HER! WHY WOULD I KILL HER!?”

“You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford one…”

“SHUT UP! I DIDN’T DO THIS! I DIDN’T…KERRY ISN’T DEAD!” She continued to scream, Mark put his hands on her shoulders trying to get her to calm down, this was the last thing she needed to do to prove how innocent she was. She looked into his eyes and finally stopped her struggling as the police pulled her towards the door. Everyone was watching her, Carter, Lewis, Romano, Dixie, and some how even Corday managed to be on rotation at this particular time, she didn’t think she could feel more humiliated. “You all know I didn’t do it…some one better help me!” But no one moved they just watched her get pulled out of the door with out saying a word, Dixie finally decided that she couldn’t just stand there and do nothing so she ran out of the doors so she could follow Amber to the police station.

“Alright people back to work.” Mark said, the rest of the staff paused and took their final glances at the place where Amber once stood and slowly moved back into their regular patterns. Mark sighed deciding not to say anything about Dixie leaving, he would have done it himself if he wasn’t in charge, if it wasn’t for him then no one would have gotten back to work, now it was up to him to keep the gossip to a minimum especially for the sake of protecting Amber’s reputation, or what little of it she had left.

When Kerry woke again she was on her side on a mattress that was on the floor, her hands were still bound behind her back but only one of her legs was cuffed by a chain that was anchored to the cold tile floor. Her pants were off but her underwear was still on which let her breathe a slight sigh of relief, she turned her head slightly to see Tina sitting by her upper thigh holding a tattooing needle, that’s when she panicked.

“WHAT THE HELL?” Kerry went to sit up but her head hurt too much from the residual effects of the drug she had been given. She only managed to glimpse at what the other woman had been doing to her, in a circle that was about three inches in diameter Tina was tattooing her initials. It was in a neat black cursive and it would have been pretty except for the fact that a tattoo was the last thing that Weaver wanted on her body.

“If you don’t hold still it’s just going to hurt more, I’m almost finished.” Tina replied, she only had to fill in the last letter of her initials which was a rather large M. For the life of her Weaver couldn’t figure out why Tina was doing this, or maybe it was more of the fact that she didn’t want to know why this woman was tattooing her thigh. Kerry heard the needle start again and she bit her lip, she certainly wasn’t a wimp but at this point she had to admit to herself that she was terrified and it was going to be hard to ignore the unwanted pain.

“Damn it!” She cried out as she felt the hot needle touch her skin, she pressed her face to the bare mattress that was under her and tried not to scream or twitch, she tried to tell herself that it would be okay because when she finally got out of here she could get the tattoo removed or covered and she’d never have to tell Amber about it. Tina continued with her work and it seemed like forever before it was finally finished, she set the needle down and gently cleaned away the excess ink and blood before placing a small piece of plastic over the new body art and taping it down with medical tape. Kerry could feel her leg throbbing as it made a very lousy attempt to reject the ink that was now permanently in her skin, she clenched her fists and told herself not to cry. Tina leaned forward and released Kerry’s hands from their bindings, Weaver moved her arms so she could place her hands under her head when Tina grabbed the wrist that the bracelet was on and started to remove it. Kerry didn’t know why but suddenly that bracelet became the most important thing in the world to her she felt like she would rather die then have Tina take it away from her. When the woman had unclasped the bracelet Kerry sat up and grabbed it away from her.

“Give it back Kerry…you don’t need any of Amber’s shit any more.” Tina reached for the piece of jewelry but Weaver quickly moved it out of her reach. Her kidnapper didn’t like that very much so she reached behind her to the table and grabbed the gun that was sitting there, she aimed it at Kerry and asked her nicely for the bracelet. Weaver didn’t know what do to, she didn’t want to give up the only thing that she had that reminded her of Amber, she looked down at the bracelet and that’s when she noticed the tiny engraved letters.

“Always There for You…with love…” She muttered reading the letters that wrapped around the circumference of the tiny bracelet. The rational part of her brain told her to hand over the bracelet to prevent further injury from the maniac with the gun but the irrational and terrified part of her brain screamed for her to keep it with her no matter what, she looked at Tina before taking the bracelet and putting it in her mouth.

“Are you insane? You better not swallow that…” Tina said making a move to grab Kerry by the throat but it was too late she had already forced it down, her mind justified it by telling her that now Tina wouldn’t get her greedy hands on it and she would still be able to keep it with her, she just hoped that it wouldn’t get caught in her stomach or intestines because that could prove fatal.

“Well I just did.” Weaver said with a sly smile, for some reason she felt happy for just a moment because to her it seemed like she had won this round.

“Do you know how much that thing was worth Kerry? HUH?” Tina grabbed Weaver by the hair and yanked her head back, Weaver cried out but opened her mouth so Tina could look in, she was hoping that Weaver was just hiding the jewelry in her mouth but she was out of luck, “That bracelet was worth at least 7,000 dollars and you SWALLOWED IT!” Tina let go of Weaver’s hair and back handed her very hard and then shoved her back down so she was laying on her side again.

“I don’t care if it was worth a million dollars I would never let you take it from me.” Kerry whispered as she felt a trickle of blood escape her nose. Tina screamed in pure rage and kicked Kerry in the stomach as hard as she could before storming out of the room and locking the door at least three different times before she was gone. In the room there was a sink and a toilet which were all equal distances apart so they could be reached by her if needed. She held her stomach for a moment praying that she wouldn’t throw up the little food that she had inside of her, she didn’t know when the next time she was going to eat would be. She slowly curled up, still not letting herself cry, her thigh throbbed and her throat hurt from the lump of gold she had just swallowed but she knew that she couldn’t give in to her abductor some one had to be looking for her and they would find her. She took a long deep breath and let it out before closing her eyes she was cold but all she could do now was fall asleep and wait for a rescuer to come.