8:17am, Friday, April 8

After the car shifted into park, it took Pam a few seconds to collect herself enough to muster a weak smile for her mother. She pretended to check the messenger bag that was squeezed between her ankles on the floorboard for her planner and folders that she already knew were there. With a final deep breath and adjustment of her blouse, she turned toward the driver’s seat with the corners of her mouth slightly upturned. Helene was trying her best to school her expression as well, keeping the pity and concern out of her eyes for as long as she could before glancing at a sleeping CeCe in the backseat.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked carefully, “I’m sure they’ll understand the circumstances.”

Pam shook her head weakly, her fake smile falling to a flat line.

“I’ll just sit around stewing at home. At least this will be a nice distraction for the tim-“

Helene whipped her head back to face her daughter and cut her off.

“A distraction? Pam, sweetie, your husband is missing and isn’t answering your calls! You don’t even know if he came home last night and the SUV you two share is gone too.”

Pam’s head thudded against the leather headrest as she counted to ten and focused on breathing evenly before she responded.

“Mom, Jim’s not a minor so I can’t file a missing person’s report for another twelve hours. And I don’t even know if he’s in danger. He could’ve gone out drinking after working overtime and is sleeping off a hangover somewhere.”

God, you’re in denial, Pam.

Her mom could apparently read minds.

“Honey, you know that’s not like him at all. And you don’t need to believe the person’s life is in danger. Not knowing where he is will be enough.”, Helene said calmly and matter-of-factly. “You need to report this to the police.”

Pam nodded quietly, swallowing a sob. While she hadn’t known all the specifics of reports for missing children versus adults, another possible reason for Jim’s sudden disappearance was weighing heavy in her brain.

He disappeared barely a day after I told him about the pregnancy. He had concerns about how we would handle two kids under age two. He never replied to my text last night and isn’t answering his phone now. He took the car.

Pam couldn’t decide which possibility was worse; her husband abandoning her and CeCe or someone else stealing him away from her. She wiped the tear that had slipped out of the corner of her eye away from her cheek and sighed heavily.

“I’ll do it at lunch, okay. I just…. I want to keep trying to contact him, look around his desk for clues, just anything. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I just need to be sure that there’s no other possibilities.”

She knew being vague was just frustrating her mother further, but Pam really didn’t think this was the best time to share the news about grandchild number two.

Helene sighed and looked back at CeCe briefly to collect her nerves before flicking her eyes back to Pam.

“I’ll be at your sisters until then. I will hang over your shoulder to make sure you file the report when I get back if you haven’t found anything else out. Okay?”, Helene pointed her finger at her for emphasis.

“Okay. I’ll do it by noon.”, Pam repeated back, nodding her head.

She hugged her mother, kissed her baby, and then headed inside to begin her impromptu investigation.

X*****X*****X

Her curt replies to Michael and Erin’s inquisitions to Jim’s whereabouts were enough for everyone else to quickly figure out that she in even less of a mood than she normally was for small talk. She ignored the confused glares and concerned glances that she could feel boring into her back and multitasked.

She logged into Jim’s email at her desk and checked messages dating back several months back for anything suspicious; threats, romantic advances, shady business propositions. No such behavior was observed. She then checked his credit and debit card records and found no activity in in the last 36 hours. Her flimsy “gone out drinking” theory had officially fallen apart, and she quickly switched to office busy work so she could maintain her composure and not devolve into a panic attack in front of everyone. She reread the final text she sent to him last night glumly.

“Hey, I’m going to bed. Dinner is in the oven. Love you.”

She swallowed and turned back to her computer and confirmed an order for more ballpoint pens and finished a questionnaire for the emerging leaders seminar she did at corporate last weekend before writing and sending another text asking about his whereabouts. She dropped off Jim’s list of new clients and their orders to a concerned looking Oscar for the monthly expense reports and then went to the women’s bathroom to breathe deeply and stare at a crack in the stall door for ten minutes.

There was still no reply when she emerged and returned to her desk.

In a final desperate attempt to find answers, Pam sat at Jim’s desk and looked through the side drawers as calmly as she could muster, silently hoping for evidence of infidelity.

I take it back, I would rather my husband be cheating on me than be in any danger, please God, Jim just be fucking Karen or something, anything but this.

Her shuffling of papers and the folders had become frantic enough with the downward spiral of her thought process to draw the attention of at least one person nearby.

“Pam, as much as your impish husband irks me, you really shouldn’t be rifling through his paperwork. It’ll just make him more unorganized than he already is.”, Dwight scoffed loudly as he set down the receiver of his phone, going to quickly type something into a spreadsheet.

She kept rifling faster, trying to tune him out.

“I hope you find your PMS pills in there soon because this is getting old quick,” Dwight glared at her from the side. “Try as you might, no one will be as unpleasant a desk mate as Jim Ha-“

Pam slammed the drawer shut and hunched over Jim’s keyboard, gasping out a sob. At this point all heads had whipped around to watch her barely contained breakdown. Her body shuddered a few more times before she could speak again.

“Where is he?” She moaned, the last syllable fracturing into another sob.

Dwight’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. Angela was up from her desk, peering over the cubicle wall with her hand over her heart. Michael and Holly stepped out of his office at the disturbance and began asking what happened. Pam shoved herself away from the desk in the rolling chair and took off for the back stairs, whipping her phone out as she went. Once she got halfway down the stairs and had punched in Jim’s number, she slid down the wall and waited. It went to voicemail as she had expected it would.

“Jim, honey, I love you and I’m so worried about you. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life.”

Pam’s voice began to crack.

“I j-just wa-want to hear your voice again. I’m s-so sorry that I-I thought you had just left m-me and CeCe. I’m so so sorry. God, please please be okay. Ohmygodicantbelievethis. Babe please, please call me please…”

She continued rambling and sobbing long after the machine beeped telling her the message was too long. Her head hung in her hands and her knees were tucked into her chest when she finally let the phone slip from her grip and gave up.

That’s how Holly and Gabe found her five minutes later.

“Pam, honey, I need you breathe slowly for me okay?”, Holly said gently as she descended the stairs and crouched down in front of her, still avoiding contact.

Pam continued to sob. Holly turned her head to glance a Gabe, who remained halfway up the stairs, looking tired and clearly uncomfortable with the situation. She turned back to the shaking woman with determination.

“Okay just join me when you’re ready.” She whispered before beginning to take slow, measured breaths, counting to four in her head for each inhale and exhale.

Holly made sure her breaths were loud enough to be heard over Pam’s whimpering. She gradually lowered their volume as Pam’s panic began to die down. She lowered her hands to the floor and raised her head, eyes still closed. Holly slowly reached for one of her hands and put hers on top of it, squeezing awkwardly as a sign of support. Pam’s breathing gradually slowed, eventually matching the pace of Holly’s. Slowly, she flipped the hand covered by Holly’s to a supine position to squeeze her hand back. Only then did Pam open her tightly clenched eyes and look at Holly.

“Jim’s missing.”, She whispered.

Holly nodded, stroking Pam’s palm with her thumb.

“When did you last see him?”

“Last night around five. My mom picked me up because he had to stay with the car. Overtime assignment.”

“He never came home?”

“I don’t know, I went to bed around 9. Our car is gone too.”

Holly’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline and she turned back to look at Gabe for input.

“He le- um, you think he skipped town? Is that why you still came into the office this morning?”, he asked cautiously.

Pam nodded, feeling ashamed.

“It made sense with the timing, even though I know he would never do that. I just... I didn’t want to admit he might have been hurt and him leaving us seemed like the most terrifying possibility but now I’ve wasted so much time and he might be d-de-“, her words sped up as the guilt hit her like a semi-truck and she fought not to lose her composure again.

“Okay, okay, let’s find our breath again right now, Pam. It’s okay.”, Holly quickly intervened and began to squeeze Pam’s hand in time with her own inhales and exhales.

Holly talked her down as her breathing got back to a normal pace.

“Pam, we’re going to help you with this. We’ll all help look for him, you and CeCe are not in this alone. We’ll help you file the missing person’s report right now, and the car might even help find him faster okay?”

Pam nodded slowly and Gabe finished his trek down the stairs when Holly gestured to him for help. The two helped Pam stand and walked her back up the stairs to the bullpen. Most of the staff was out of their desks near reception watching their entrance from the back stairs. Michael had successfully talked them down during Pam’s absence so that they didn’t all react at once with questions and unwanted touching.

“Erin call the police, we need to file a missing person’s report for Jim.”, Holly said loudly, wincing and squeezing Pam’s waist when she gasped a sob in response.

Gabe and Holly helped her down into Jim’s pushed out desk chair that she had been using minutes earlier, somehow knowing that it was the only form of comfort that could lessen her despair. Gabe moved to join the loosely scattered crowd while Holly remained with Pam, hand rested comfortingly on her shoulder. She stared blankly at their framed wedding portrait taken after their impromptu boat trip on Niagara Falls perched by Jim’s desk, taking in every detail of her husband’s face.

He’s so handsome and happy in that picture. I just want to see his face again.

Her eyes began roaming to different parts of his organized chaos of Jim’s desk as Erin continued her phone call with the authorities and Holly began to address the staff.

“Jim Halpert has been missing for over twelve hours, is not answering his phone and their car is unaccounted for as well. Pam believes he never made it home. It is unlikely that he left of his own free will and-“

Pam easily tuned out her coworkers as she lowered her gaze after memorizing every detail of the desktop. She noted some red ink smeared on the very edge of the desktop surface, scuffs on the metal drawers, blood on the carp-

Her breath hitched.

That is definitely blood.

It would have been well hidden if the desk chair was pushed in, but here she was pushed far away from her husband’s desk staring at the small dark brownish puddle on the carpet. It couldn’t have been bigger than the size of a quarter, but it was enough for her to recognize it for what it was. Still staring at the incriminating stain, Pam slowly reached her hand up and tugged on Holly’s sleeve.

Her speech jolted to a stop and she turned to look at Pam in concern.

“Pam, did you want to add something?”, Holly whispered quietly to just her.

Pam shook her head, the tears welling and falling down her cheeks again as she raised her other arm and point to the carpet by Jim’s desk.

“That’s his blood.”, she whimpered.

Holly’s gaze followed her finger and her breath faltered briefly.

“My God.”, Michael rasped before he grabbed the phone from Erin nearby.

“You need to send officers here right now,” he told the dispatcher, “there’s a potential crime scene here.”

Pam genuinely wished she was dead in that moment.

X*****X*****X

Jim Halpert’s desk was in fact a crime scene.

The puddle on the carpet was confirmed to be blood and so was the “ink” she had seen on the edge of the desk. The blood collected from the carpet was compared to that of Cece’s when Helene arrived shortly after the police were alerted. The results indicted an over 99% RCP.

The staff was sent home and the office was closed for the rest of the day.

Several employees agreed to make statements for the Scranton PD.

Pam was questioned the most intensely for obvious reasons; she was the spouse of the victim, had delayed in reporting his disappearance, and had disturbed the crime scene, whether or not it was intentional.

Her alibi checked out after scrutiny, as her father and sister vouched that they had dinner at Pam and Jim’s house the night before, Jim was last seen at the office with their shared car and none of the employees working for the taxi services in Scranton could verify Pam as a customer the previous night.

The Halperts, the Beeslys and their lawyers secured an interview for the local news for that evening. Pam, CeCe and Jim’s parents would be featured during the segment, with advice from criminal psychologists to repeatedly use Jim’s name so that his captor might become sympathetic towards his victim and to overemphasize Pam’s new pregnancy and their young daughter. It wasn’t hard for the family to become emotional and plead for Jim’s safe return once the cameras had begun rolling and they began talking about their current situation.

It felt like the longest minute of their lives.

The Halpert house was crawling with supportive family members and friends. Holly, Erin and Penny were helping distract Betsey Halpert with large scale meal prep so food for the foreseeable future would not be a concern. Michael, Andy, Jim’s father and brothers, and (surprisingly) Dwight were clustered near the bar by the dining room sharing funny stories about Jim throughout the years to calm the tension. Pam sat in at the breakfast nook with her mother and father. CeCe napped in her highchair nearby. Pam had just finished the most amount of talking she had done all day, consoling Jim’s apologetic sister, Larissa, for not being able to come to Scranton on short notice. Somehow, Larissa’s panic about the situation had allowed her to seize the opportunity to comfort someone for once today and talk her down from her hysteria over her missing brother and coax her into promising she’d be well rested for the drive here in the morning.

Pam sighed as she hit the END button and smiled weakly at her parents in reassurance. They nodded and went back to making awkward small talk in an attempt to come together for their daughter in her time of need. Pam went back to looking at the poster that would soon be up all over Lackawanna county by morning.

The investigators scrambled and constructed a profile for Jim, as he had now been unheard of for nearly 24 hours. Like the news station and psychologists, the police had emphasized certain aspects of Jim’s life; the pictures used focused on Jim’s likeability and role as a doting dad and husband. Being on the inside of this kind of situation made Pam feel like her husband’s image was being twisted into something more palatable so that more people would care more about his fate as she examined the poster for the 726th time.

The word “ABDUCTED” written in red ink across the top never failed to make her shudder.

“Pam, honey, you don’t need to be driving yourself crazy staring at that all night.”, her dad soothed as he gently tugged the flyer out of her hands.

She let him but continued staring at the space where Jim’s smiling face had been. She was a little upset that one of their engagement photos was going to be plastered across the area for everyone to see in this context.

“I want him back.”, she said angrily, like a petulant child.

“We’ll get him back. We will.”, her mother didn’t waste a second to firmly reassure her.

Pam looked up from her hands and into her mother’s eyes for a brief second before nodding resolutely. She then stood and announce her plans to retire for the night. She hugged her parents, her sister, the Halperts and the nearby coworkers before grabbing CeCe and heading to her room. It went smoothly enough, with only Erin stopping her briefly to reassure her that the other staff members had signed up for shifts to come help her on other nights and that they weren’t abandoning her and Dwight knocking on her door to request a meeting with her a next day to “analyze the potential suspects”.

Pam agreed to, of course.

Somehow, Pam got herself and CeCe through their respective nightly routines before she collapsed onto the bed and cried herself to sleep hugging Jim’s pillow to her face.

X*****X*****X

10:24pm, Thursday, April 7

Jim’s forehead fucking hurt.

It felt like a spike had been driven through it and then continually tapped with a sledgehammer, reverberating pulsing waves of pain throughout his entire skull. Every breath was agony for his throat and chest.

When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing and had no sense of direction, space or time which only caused him to breathe heavier and frantically try to move his limbs. Bending his left knee sent an excruciating stab through the top of his head and he whimpered, clutching his head with both hands and slowly lowering his foot back to the….

Pillow? Couch?

He was laying across something soft, he realized suddenly.

At the same time, he realized his shoes were off.

And that someone was speaking quietly to him.

“Hey, Jim, it’s okay. You’re okay. You hit your head but you’re okay.”

It was a male voice, slightly gravelly, hovering near his head. At least he thought so, his eyes had been squeezed shut in pain. Taking a deep painful breath, he lowered his hands to his stomach and opened his eyes. The dark vision slowly gave way to blurriness and then it cleared enough to see the person looking down at him.

Gabe Lewis

What the fuck?

“Gabe?”, he rasped, furrowing his brows.

“Hey uh yeah. You’re okay.”, he said nervously, eyes widening slightly. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion, but that’s no biggie really. It’ll just leave a nasty bruise for a bit but you’ll back to your usual stunning good loo-”

“What happened?”, Jim cut him off. “Why does my throat feel like it was dragged through glass.

“Well uh…” Gabe stuttered, staring at Jim’s wrists as he rubbed his neck. “You were attacked by a mugger in the parking lot. Yeah, uh, as you were getting the keys out of your bag. It happened as we were leaving the building. You know, after overtime. I saw him come up from behind and slam your head into the car but I guess he must have tried to strangle you before I got there and scared him off. Anyway, we’re at my apartment now. Just wanted to give you the chance to rest before I took you to the hospital.”

Gabe rambled on nonsensically for several more sentences, but Jim didn’t hear or process any of it.

He’d all but stopped breathing.

His brain had stopped feeling like scrambled eggs enough for him to realize that his wrists were duct taped together in front of him. He just lay there trying not to tremble and waited for Gabe to stop talking.

“What do you want from me?” He whispered.

Gabe frowned, clearly trying to feign cluelessness.

“Um, nothing. Just for you to feel better I sup-“

“WHY THE FUCK DID YOU ATTACK ME AND TIE ME UP IN YOUR APARTMENT GABE?”

All pretenses of niceness were suspended when Jim angrily interrupted him. Gabe’s nervous expression shifted into one of cold determination as he threw his body on top of Jim’s and pressed one bony hand over his mouth and the other one pressing firmly into his throat, shoving his hyoid bone upward and blocking his already damaged trachea. Jim struggled frantically and choked weakly but Gabe remained firmly on top, pressing his beaten body deeper into the loveseat that he’d sat on with his wife and coworkers not that long ago for the Glee watch party. Jim was red in the face from his second strangling of the night when the hands lifted from his face and neck. He coughed and gasped, eyes rolling back into place, hands shaking and clenched into fists.

Gabe reached for Jim’s neck again, with both hands this time and he began struggling anew. That earned him a slap across the cheek and a split lip.

“Jim, I will choke you unconscious this time if you don’t cooperate with me and listen to me.” Gabe scolded as if he were talking to a child. “I have something to say and then I’ll leave you alone for a while.”

Sobbing quietly and afraid his windpipe wouldn’t be able to take anymore, Jim nodded weakly. Gabe lifted his weight of him and kneeled by the couch. He reached down, loosened Jim’s tie, slid it up around his face and proceeded to retighten it, gagging him with his own tie.

Tears of pure terror leaked out of the corners of his eyes as he stared up at the ceiling to escape this nightmare.

Gabe clasped his hands around Jim’s shaking fists that were tucked into his chest and used them as a lever to jerk him up into a sitting position. He tugged him to face him, socked feet now contact with the carpet. Once Gabe was satisfied with how he was positioned, he moved to sit on the coffee table across from Jim.

The silence continued for a little bit longer, grating on Jim’s already shot nerves, before Gabe finally spoke.

“Look I didn’t intend to attack you at work tonight. I obviously have some anger…. Issues.”, he awkwardly twirled a piece of hair with his pointer finger as he spoke, staring at the outline of the watch on Jim’s duct taped wrists and not into his eyes. “I’ve been going through a lot with getting dumped and humiliated by Erin and Jo’s increasing list of demands from me and normally I manage it well. But there was an unfair amount of shit dumped on me today and your comments and criticisms about how Sabre runs things to me were just…. A tipping point.”

What, so you decided to try and kill me? Do you think this is a therapy session? Why are you telling me this? IT DOESN’T EXCUSE ANYTHING.

Gabe finally looked into his eye and laughed nervously, opening his arms as if it was so obvious.

“You just challenge authority too much Jim, and when you did it to me again after Jo gave me that ridiculous after hours assignment...”

Gabe swallowed awkwardly and rubbed at the hair on the nape of his neck before he continued.

“…I, uh, I just took it out on you, you know… tried to strangle you at your desk as you were leaving and banged your forehead into the edge of the desk when you lost your footing.”

The way he talked about and tried to downplay the attempted murder was genuinely disturbing.

“You didn’t die, obviously, I figured I would take advantage of the head injury I inflicted and try to manipulate the situation so we both can move on and act like nothing happened. But you’re observant even with your brain getting knocked around between your ears.”

Jim cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes.

This is hardly my fucking fault, you prick.

The switch flipped at Jim’s change in expression, and Gabe became aggressive and defensive.

“LOOK! All you had to do was go along with it! I would have taken you to the hospital and you could have been discharged home by now. We wouldn’t be having this discussion!”

You threatened to choke me out and then gagged me, how is this a discussion?

Gabe sighed and dropped his head into his hands, exasperated with his unwilling houseguest. Jim slowly turned his still throbbing head to the hallway that he knew lead to the front door. If he wasn’t so disoriented and had his hands free, maybe he would have tried to make a run for it. He had seen himself that this complex was big, he was bound to catch the attention of at least one person if he made it out.

Even if you made it out the door, could you even call for help? He’s done serious damage to your throat, Halpert. You could barely talk before he tried to strangle you the second time.

Jim let out an exasperated breath as he came to realize escape wasn’t an option right now, still staring helplessly at the wall concealing the front door. Gabe was clearly having an internal moral struggle about his next course of action and there was no way anyone knew he was missing yet.

He’d have to bide his time and play off Gabe’s conscience and hope it bought him enough time to be found.

 Gabe picked that moment to speak up again.

“I don’t want to kill you. I know Pam, the baby, and the staff would be devastated.”

But not because you don’t like the idea of murder, interesting.

“But I have worked so hard to get where I am in the company and to manage my personal issues, and letting you go will only end that for me. It’s delusional to think we could continue to work together in the future.”

He chuckled humorlessly at the last sentence. Jim swallowed around his soaked tie before turning to look back at the living room. He was met with Gabe’s cold stare and instinctively pushed away from him, deeper into the cushions.

“We’ll figure out a solution. We’ve got the whole weekend to weigh out our options.”

Jim’s inner monologue couldn’t come up with a one-liner in response to that chilling promise.