Pam was tired and more than a little annoyed when she got to work the next day. Fancy lingerie is not very comfortable and she'd worn the getup with the stockings and the garter and bustier and everything for several hours last night and Jim had never shown up. She was also a little worried. It's not as though it was far fetched that their business emergency could have gone late into the night, but it wasn't like Jim to not call her.

She was looking forward to chewing him out this morning, as she noticed his car in the parking lot. Pam couldn't wait to tear a strip off of him for not calling, then maybe tearing some other things off and alleviating the pressure built up from last night. God, how was she ever going to get any work done the rest of her life with these thoughts running through her head and Jim right there and okay, maybe she never got all that much work done to begin with but this was really distracting.

Distracting in a very good way, though.

The elevator dinged and she skipped into the office. Jim wasn't at his desk at the moment, probably babysitting Michael or something, so she set her stuff down at the reception desk, logged in to her computer, and checked her voicemail. Hmmph, no message from Jim on that phone either. That's it, he gets to cook tonight and do the dishes. Suck on that, Halpert.

No one had come to annoy her yet this morning, so she went through her morning routine of wasting time, checking the news and gossip websites (she checked the gossip sites just so she'd have a clue what Kelly was talking about half the time - the other half of the time she still didn't understand, though some of that could be the speed at which she talked). She briefly noted that CNN.com had changed their layout and was kind of annoyed that she didn't know where anything was anymore, when it struck her that half an hour had gone by and still no Jim.

That's weird, she thought to herself. Michael had been in and out of his office a couple of times, Dwight had bugged several people already this morning, yet still no appearance by Jim. Was he having a bathroom emergency or something?

Curious, she made her way back to the annex. She was worried, but not worried enough to brave the horrors of the mensroom herself. "Hey, Kev," she asked the burly accountant. "Could you check the bathroom to see if Jim's in there for me?"

A pained look overcame his fat face. "But that would mean I'd have to get up."

Pam folded her arms and glared at him. "Kevin."

"Alright," he said, grudgingly. "But you owe me." He disappeared into the bathroom, still grumbling, while Pam anxiously waited. And waited "He's not in here," Kevin called out, a few minutes later.

"What took you so long?"

Kevin looked embarrassed and stared at his shoes. "I had to go."

Well that was just great. She still had no idea where Jim was but she got to wait for Kevin using the toilet. Awesome. Truly wonderful. As she cut across the office to return to her desk, something clicked in her brain. Someone else was missing today as well: Karen.

Her stomach fell through the floor. Karen had still been working when she had left yesterday. When Jim and Karen had been dating she knew that they'd had some late nights in the office and one thing had led to another.... No. No, it can't be. He wouldn't. Would he?

"Shit!" she cursed to herself, not knowing what to do. Her legs felt weak and she slumped against the wall to keep upright. Her imagination filled in the worst. He'd gone back to Karen. And it was her own fault. It was just like her to drive him away again after finally having him back. Too complacent. Too boring.

Dammit, don't think that way, Pam. There's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for their simultaneous absenteeism. Maybe Jim's actually here. After all, his car was in the parking lot.

"Hey, Dwight," she prodded Jim's nemesis.

Dwight narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes, Pam." Pam was too scared to mask the worry on her face, and Dwight's default annoyed/smug facial expression softened. "What is it?"

She hadn't fiddled with her necklace in what seemed like ages. Since she'd started dating Jim. Well, that habit was back with a vengeance. "Do you know where Jim is?"

"Jim Halpert has not been in the office this morning."

"Oh," she said, turning back to her desk. Now what? She spun on her heel back to Dwight. "What about Karen?"

Dwight straightened in his chair. "Karen hasn't been in yet today either." He looked around him to see if anyone was watching. As usual, the cameras were (Steve the camera guy and Rob the sound guy doing summer spot duty, half days, a couple times a week or when invited for extracurriculars), but he, as usual, ignored them, whispering secretively to Pam, "Do you think they might be connected?"

Her voice had never felt so tiny before. "I'm worried they might be."

"They were both still here last night when I went home."

That's it. She'd managed to snag defeat from the jaws of victory. "He's dumped me." Unceremoniously dumped on her ass. She started to cry.

Dwight scratched his chin, deep in thought. "Are you sexually disfunctional?"

"WHAT?!" She never thought that such a question would be a good way to stop a woman from crying, but it worked wonders.

"Jim is in love with you and has been for some time. I've noticed that he has been infuriatingly happy recently. He would not jeopardize his relationship with you without good reason, such as if you were inadequate in bed," he elaborated. "Or possibly if you could not bear him children."

"Ew. No, Dwight. Just... no."

"So you are adequate?"

She couldn't believe she was discussing this. She couldn't believe that she was discussing this with Dwight. "I know I don't have a lot of experience, but Roy never complained."

"And you are fertile?"

Pam should have been used to Dwight's help by now. Still, it was always shocking when it occured. "Honestly, Dwight, that issue has never come up."

"Hmmm..."

"What hmmm...?"

"Jim's car is here."

"Yes, I know."

"Karen's truck is not. I suspect foul play."

"Dwight..." Pam complained. This wasn't helping.

Dwight stood up quickly from his desk. "Come with me to the parking lot. We must investigate for clues." There was really very little she could do but follow.

As they rode the elevator down she asked, "Dwight, isn't this a bit far fetched? Foul play? I mean, it's not as if Karen kidnapped Jim."

"In my experience, foul play is the most likely causal agent."

Pam shook her head. "Dwight, I gotta level with you: Most of those were just me and Jim playing pranks on you." She could see the rage build in the bursting veins on Dwight's forehead. Whoops.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," a throaty, female voice cooed to him. His head hurt like a sonuvabitch. What the fuck happened? Jim shook his head, but that just made him queasy. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. He reached up to feel the back of his head to check the size of the lump that was there - or at least he tried to. Something was resisting... Awww crap.

His memories came flooding back to him. Karen. The parking lot. A box full of his missing stuff. A foul smelling rag over his nose and mouth. To put it mildly, he didn't like where this was going.

He tugged his arm again. His wrists were tied to the chair he was currently occupying. So were his ankles; he wasn't going anywhere. At least the ropes were nice... oooh, comfy. Jim felt Karen's small, soft hands brush through his hair, smoothing it down. The heat and the jarring motion sent a wave of nausea crashing over him and he moaned in agony.

"Awww, did I hurt you?" she asked. He finally opened his eyes into the dim light and recoiled at her maniacal grin and fierce, burning eyes. Then she hit him hard across the face.

Well, at least it took his mind off the nausea.

Damn, she's got one hell of a right cross, he thought to himself stupidly. He ceased thinking when Karen moved to perch herself on his lap. "Poor baby..." she purred, wrapping her arms around his body (must be nice to be able to do such a thing, lamented an immobile Jim) as she sat over his thighs. This was totally surreal. She was fussing over his appearance, smiling and laughing, all the while, just below the surface, madness reigned. He didn't know if he was about to be fucked or murdered. Probably one, then the other. He wasn't sure which order he preferred.

If Jim thought his life was like a soap opera before... let's just say that all it needed now was Ed Truck coming back from the dead and we're golden.

Okay, not so much if he was a zombie.

Despite any feelings of self-preservation he still harbored, he decided to speak. "What do you want, Karen?"

She stopped messing around with his hair and the smudges of dirt and blood on his face. Her good mood, such as it was, evaporated in an instant. "It's obvious it never mattered what I wanted, Jim. So maybe I'll just leave you in the dark. After all, turnabout is fair play, wouldn't you say?" Karen let that sit in for a few seconds. Yeah, he got it. He admits that he treated her badly and deserved some sort of punishment, but this might, just might, be taking it a bit too far.

Karen stood up, putting some distance between herself and Jim, but that didn't stop her from getting right up in his face. "Anything you'd like to say to me, Halpert?"

"Karen, I know I hurt you. You didn't deserve that. I'm ashamed of the way I treated you. I'm so sorry."

"Oooh. Bad move. Remember our last conversation?" Now that you mention it...

So now he's in extreme, excruciating pain in the groinal area and is worried he may never be able to have children. Not that it really matters if Karen is going to kill him here today. One related question: Why do male shoe designers and retailers persist in making shoes that can be used as murder weapons/instruments of torture? If he ever gets out of this, he's going to write a letter to complain.

While he was still reeling from the assault, Karen walked to the other side of the room. His gaze followed her footsteps along the floor - a braided rug over scratched hardwood. It slowly dawned on Jim that they were in some sort of cabin. The walls were simple and plain, with sparse decorations, a wood stove, second-rate furniture. There were a couple of windows, but the blinds were drawn so he couldn't tell where they were, and no doubt curious observers would have no clue what was transpiring inside.

He saw Karen pop some pills into her mouth, grimacing as she fought them down. So that's it. She's on drugs. That explains everything. There was no way the level-headed girl he'd dated would go off the deep end like this. God, he felt like shit driving her to this... drug abuse and violence.

He wasn't given much time to muse, however, as Karen returned to his chair with a small, black bag in her hands. "Are you ready, Halpert?" she asked, something like the fierce determination he remembered in her voice with just a touch of crazy. As she reached into the bag, Jim could see the glint of light shining off sharp steel blades. "Karen, wait. What are you doing? No!"

Karen popped some Robaxacet for her sore back. Damn, that'll hurt tomorrow. Note to self: don't try to lift 200 pound guys ever again. How embarrassing would it have been if she hadn't been able to get him out of the parking lot? She would never be able to live that down.

Jim was sitting shellshocked in the middle of the room. She'd never seen someone scream like that while getting a haircut before - at least not anyone over the age of five. But at least he looked nice now. Nice and adult and employable and less like a hobo. Even if he was still crying (you can't have everything).

She put the scissors away and took out a pack of cigarettes. A little known fact about Karen was that she had been a smoker in her youth - junior and senior years at high school and in college - though never enough to warrant buying a pack on her own. She had just used her charm to bum smokes off of whoever was around. Still, she always craved nicotine when she was stressed, or in a bad mood. Jim had hated the habit, so she'd pretty much stopped altogether while they were dating, even at their relationship's worst (i.e. Pam). But now...

Karen remembered Thursday in New York and lit up...

That Thursday night she bought her first pack; Marlboros, and they tasted like ass. But this cigarette wasn't for smoking.

She was a good girl. Smart, pretty, successful. Also proud, but she figured she had good reason to be. What Karen hated was being the victim. Now, if said victim got a little retribution, where was the harm in that (other than the actual, physical harm involved in said retribution, of course)?

Karen took a long drag on the appropriately termed butt and held in the smoke just so that she could blow it into Jim's face. "Jim, I'm going to literally do to you what you emotionally did to me."

He scampered back as far as he could slouch in the chair to which he was tied. "Karen, you can't think that acting like a lunatic is going to win me back."

"Poor, naïve Jim. This isn't about winning back your heart. It's about revenge." Was it evil if she enjoyed the look of abject terror that spread across his face at that moment? As she pressed the burning cigarette into his skin, leaving an angry red welt in its wake, she didn't really care if it was. She'd much rather play the villian, anyway.

"Scream all you want. There's no one to hear you." And she smiled.

Pam followed Dwight out of the elevator with the cameraman in tow. She wasn't sure how she felt about this. On one hand, with Dwight on the case, something hilarious was bound to happen. On the other hand, 50/50 chance that she would burst into tears. If he found something that showed that Jim had left her for Karen, she'd kill herself right then and there. At least she'd be able to leave a cool video will. Her mom would get everything (she didn't know anyone else). Except she'd leave Angela her lolcats coffee table book.

Stop thinking this way, Pam, she thought to herself. This was ridiculous. She had no proof that Jim had dumped her, and Dwight was sure that he hadn't. And to hell with it: she was strong, independent, and a fighter. Jim or no Jim, she would prevail.

Michael would get her George Foreman grill; hers hadn't had feet in it.

"We must equip ourselves for the hunt," announced Dwight, as he reached his car. The trunk of the Trans-Am opened up and he retrieved one of the three combination-locked boxes within.

"What are those?" Pam asked him dubiously.

Dwight huffed as he tried to remember the combination. Pointing to each one he said, "Chemistry set, ninja ensemble, and detective kit," he shook the box in his hands when announcing the last one. The combination clicked and he flung open the box. "And aha! Oh wait. This is the ninja box. Did Mose screw with my labels again?"

"That's a lot of weapons, Dwight. I thought Toby confiscated those?"

"He did. I bought new ones." He stared off, aggrevated, deep into space. "I'm still bitter about that. Sensei bequeathed me those nunchucks..."

Pam really, really wanted to pick up the Samurai sword and take a close look at it... but she didn't want to get her fingerprints on it. That was just common sense. "Dwight, do you have permits for all of these weapons?"

"Most of them," he replied. "I tried to get a license for my lightsabre, but they laughed at me."

Uhuh.

The second box did indeed contain the detective kit. Pam gaped at the collection. There was practically an entire forensics lab inside! She'd watched enough CSI to recogize a latent fingerprinting duster with magnetic powder, a footwear impression kit, a UV lamp, Heme-Stix, an infrared spectrophotometer, and a... what the heck was that?

"What's this, Dwight?" she asked, holding up the large, beige sack.

"That is a semen test kit."

Pam cringed, very, very sorry she had asked.

Dwight mistook her revulsion as an invitation to elaborate on the wonders of the product. "Oh yes. These new conclusive semen test kits are highly accurate. The test looks for a DNA protein originating in semen. A positive test result makes the kit show two red bars. A negative result presents a single bar. Female fluids and other body fluids cannot cause a positive test result. Only semen can cause a positive result."

Pam gulped like a fish out of water. "I... I really did not need to know that."

"Knowledge is power, Pam. Never forget that."

"Don't you think that this is a bit drastic?" Pam asked Dwight, with some trepidation and more than an ounce of worry about the vast collection of distressingly expensive looking equipment that Dwight had accumulated at his disposal. In the back of his car. His car from 1987. Which was probably worth vastly less than the spectrophotometer.

Maybe beets were lucrative.

Dwight pulled out the Heme-Stix (which test for the presence of blood), the magnifying glass, a spool of little evidence baggies, a scupula and a pair of tweezers. "Nothing is too drastic when the lives of our loved ones is at stake," he replied, pondering the semen test kit. Our? Dwight left the semen test kit alone and looked out into the parking lot. Indecision plastered over his formless face before he picked the semen test kit back up again. "Nah," he muttered unsurely to himself, "If I need it I can always go back to get it." He threw it back into the lock-box and stormed off.

Pam shook her head. "Wow," she mouthed to the camera. Then she was brutally knocked aside by Dwight returning to finally retrieve the semen test kit once and for all.

Dwight turned to face the cameraman with grim determination. "I take my responsibilies as chief of security very seriously. That includes protection, investigation, and espionage. I will find out what Karen has done with Jim Halpert." His face became a dismal sneer. "Or we shall die in the attempt." And he again stormed off toward Jim's abandoned Saab.

Pam brushed herself off and feigned nonchalance. "Dwight is this century's Sherlock Holmes. Or maybe Poirot," she asserted. "Which one was socially retarded?" Pam wandered off to follow Dwight, who was already crawling on the asphalt with glee. She had made her little joke to the camera, and she felt better. Not much, but it felt good to try to put on a brave face and maintain some sense of normalcy, even though she felt like dying inside.

"AHA!!!" The booming shout shook her out of her wallowing self-pity. She rushed to Dwight's side (his ass was waving up in the air obscenely as he crawled on his elbows and knees beside one of the Vance Refrigeration trucks) and tried not to look at him per se, but at what he was so excitedly holding his magnifying glass over.

"Dwight..." she moaned in annoyance.

He waved the tweezers in front of her. "I've found another joint! I must tell Michael immediately!"

"Dwight. Jim, remember?"

"But Michael..." he pointed ineffectually at the doors, losing to Pam's whithering, disappointed gaze.

"No, Dwight."

"Fine," he slumped like a scolded kitty. "But I'm keeping this." He, for some reason, tucked the joint away in his pants. By this point in her life, Pam had all but given up hope of ever understanding Dwight's thought processes.

Dwight carefully inspected his way down the row of vehicles, but Pam was in no mood to watch his rear end sway in the breeze (she was never in the mood for that) so she wandered off, hugging her arms tight to her body, trying to think of something - anything - else. That's when she spotted something. "Hey! Someone dropped a watch!"

The three of them (Dwight, Steve the camera guy, and herself) crowded around the timepiece, and Dwight carefully picked it up. "Casio. It looks scuffed. Smells like sweat. Nasty. The owner should wash this if he values hygiene."

"That's Jim's," Pam said, confidently.

"Are you sure?"

Pam would recognize anything that has ever been near Jim's hands. Obsessed muchly. But no one needs to know that. "Yes, I'm sure. Was Karen parked here yesterday?"

"No. She was parked over... there," he pointed. "Oh, wait. No. I parked over there. Yes, I think she did park here."

While Dwight was whirling around, trying to orient himself, Pam's eyes drifted across the parking spot. There was an odd stain on the pavement just under the bumper of Stanley's Chrysler.

"Dwight, what is that?"

Dwight scraped off a sample with the scupula and put it in his tester. "It's not semen."

The sharp knife sliced easily through his shirtsleeves under the guidance of Karen's deft, Call of Duty trained hands, leaving him naked from the waist up. The scorching heat of the July air battled the cool draft wafting across his sweaty skin and the fear that permeated his body. He still felt chills.

This woman in front of him wasn't a thing like the Karen he had for a time thought he could fall in love with.

That cocky, yet secretly insecure, devilishly sarcastic and playful Karen was gone, replaced with... with this monster of his own creation. A homicidal psychotic: violent, perverse, occasionally lecturing him on torture groups before unleashing her newest implement on his tender, babyish flesh.

The cigarette burns had only been the beginning of his torment. During the next hour he would wish for the comforts of the hot ashes, often and sadly.

An ice cube dragged along his cheek, followed by her warm, wet tongue brushing the stubble on his chin. Nips of sharp teeth... There was a time when he would have enjoyed this, but now it was without feeling, her loving actions cold and filled with contempt. The scratches of her fingernails were harsh enough to draw blood from his neck, the back of his head, his shoulderblades. When she hit him, the rings on her fingers ruptured his lips and broke teeth.

She brought her mouth to his ear, her sensuous voice turned acrid, shouting abuse in his ear, mingling cruel invectives with pure filth he hadn't known she was capable of. And that was when she turned the knife upon him.

His screams must have become too much for her; the blessed anaesthetic rag sent him into a fitful sleep. In his mind's eye, the glittering knife blade still danced across his skin, leaving a trail of red behind, criss-crossing his body like some perverted artform - a bastardization of his beloved Pam's favorite hobby if ever there was one, and bringing a tinge of bile up into his throat. Nightmares. Heartbreak. Fear. Revenge. Death.

And that's how Jim woke up with 'Jim <3's Karen 4eva' carved into his chest. He hated IM speak.

"Hey, you're awake," said Karen with remarkable serenity, as she stood near his bedside, eating a Cup-a-Soup out of a faded ceramic coffee mug. "I thought you'd like to lie down," she informed him. "Though you might want to think about losing some weight. This dragging you around from place to place is murder on my back." She smiled sweetly at him, a grin that belied the madness within. "I know, I know. I should lift with my knees."

Jim realized he was tied spread-eagle to the bed. This was not in the least bit uncomfortable. That was sarcasm.

It was a very, very good thing he hadn't eaten anything in a while. "Karen, please. I don't think you've thought this through."

She smacked herself in the head, like she was the stupidest person in the world. "Of course. You are so right. That was so sweet of you to declare your love for me in such a permanent fashion. I really must reciprocate," Karen said, set the soup aside and pulled the long knife from the back of her pants. "You'll excuse me if I'm not as wordy as you are, Jim, dearest. It's hard to write on myself." Jim gaped as she defiled her perfect skin with JH + KF in a bloody heart on her upper arm.

"You're insane," he stated, stupidly.

She reached down with her bleeding arm and reefed on the ropes restraining his left foot, sending a flash of pain shooting up his leg. "I'm going to pretend that you just told me that I'm beautiful."

Jim gasped as the pain receeded, but did not submit to Karen's fantasy. It was ironic that he had finally grown a pair right before she would cut them off from him. "Karen, why are you doing this? We were never that good together. We were always so much work... you must have been able to see that we wouldn't last." He wasn't looking forward to her response. His last bout with consciousness had taught him that he was not, in fact, a masochist.

Instead of lashing out, though, she fell silent. He'd never before seen her look so small or alone. When she finally spoke, her voice was but a whisper. "Five nights of talking, Jim. You told me you wanted to be with me."

Shit. "I was trying to protect myself, Karen. I'm sorry I wasn't man enough to tell you the truth before."

"What does she have that I don't? I thought I got you. I tried. I really tried to open up to you."

"Karen...communication isn't just about talking about your feelings. It's also about listening. I... I warned you that I didn't have all my heart to give. I was honest with you. I told you that I still had feelings for Pam. You chose to ignore that and not listen. Sometimes you have to accept that much of the time you don't get what you want, even when you ask for it."

"What could I have possibly done to make you love me? I showed interest in your hobbies. I made you laugh. I took you to explore new things. I bought sexy lingerie."

Jim cringed. "Oh, Karen. I hate to tell you this, but that lingerie? Was really awful looking. Lime green?"

Karen was dumbfounded. "What lime green lingerie? I never got lime green lingerie."

Was her psychosis screwing with her memory as well? "Yeah, when Michael took you all out for Women's Appreciation day. That night you wore the hideous green underwear. I mean, I know my fashion sense isn't great, but really: what were you thinking? Tell me again why I could never love you."

She started sobbing, pitifully. "Jim... I'm colorblind. I thought those were red."

Well, now I feel like an ass, Jim thought as Karen cried in the other room. He might as well get comfortable. Nothing to do now but wait for Karen to regain her composure so she could kill him.

And where the hell were his pants?

"Blood," grimly announced sheriff's deputy Roberts upon sighting the stain on the pavement. Dwight and Pam had finally bit the bullet and called in for professional help after determining that the stain was not, in fact, semen, but was likely blood, according to only the second test that Dwight had thought to administer. (Dwight had taken their deference to the police as a huge blow to his pride and was currently moping near his own car.)

Pam curiously asked the policeman how he could tell what the stain was simply by looking at it and, against her better judgement, informed him of their previous investigations. The story sounded retarded even to her. As the words 'semen tester' tumbled from her lips in a sputtering exaltation of uncomfortableness, she found herself strangely identifying with Karen: this place changes people - and not for the better. She once again rued her career choice of so many years ago.

"It's my job to know these things." Roberts shook his head in disgust or disdain or dismay or some other word that started with 'dis'. "Semen, really? I don't know what Schrute's semen looks like, and I really don't want to know, but it should never be that color." He mumbled to himself something about 'green urine' and being 'thought he was finally rid of Dwight' and frustrated that this was not the case.

He had her sympathies.

A second police car careened into the parking lot. A snappily dressed detective, who obviously watched too much tv and was trying very, very hard to look like Gil Grissom, got out of the car and wandered over to Pam. "Hey, you the chick who called us over here because your boyfriend ran away with his ex?" He eyed her up and down, nodding approvingly and snickering a bit in that creepy, Keven-esque way. "You must be a horrible lay."

Pam rolled her eyes at him. "Why does everyone keep saying that?"

Faux-Gil Grissom shrugged, haphazardly, his shirt wrinkling under his jacket. "If people keep saying it, maybe it's true."

"Sir," interupted Roberts before his superior could make any further ass of himself. That condition was apparently endemic in Scranton. "It looks like we've had an actual incident here. We've found some blood. And look," he held up some brown strands to the light. "Hairs, embedded in the blood."

Pam rushed over to get a better look at the artifacts, not that she needed to. They were about 3 inches long, a medium brown. She'd recognize Jim's flippy hair anywhere, even if it was detached from his head.

Oh God, when did she become so creepy and stalkerish?

At least she wasn't the most creepy stalker interested in Jim.

Oh wait, that's a bad thing.

Note to self: oh fuck.

The detective rounded up Dwight and started asking them questions. "Tell us a little about this Karen character."

Dwight spoke up, more like a list than proper sentences. "Karen Filippelli is one of our saleswomen. Transferred last year from Stamford after that branch ran itself into the ground. About five foot three inches in height, brown hair. Pretty. Appears intelligent. Usually hits her sales targets, but her paperwork is sloppy and needs remediation-"

The detective waved him off. "I mean what is she like? Were there any prior indications that she had mental problems?"

"She dated Jim Halpert. I consider that a good sign of mental problems."

Pam was sure her eyes bugged out of her head about an inch. Too bad Guinness wasn't here. "Dwight! What the hell?"

The detective chuckled at her. Deputy Roberts shook his head in disbelief. Pam stood, staring at Dwight, mouth agape in horror. Much like any other day, come to think of it.

"Anything else? Anything about her personality and mental state?" the detective clarified.

Dwight rubbed his hairless chin, pondering deeply. "That's difficult to say. She didn't talk much."

Gil Grissom scribbled something down. "It's always the quiet ones."

"Well, actually Pam is quieter than Karen."

"Dwight, you're not helping." After shutting him up, Pam reluctantly made a painfully detailed exposition of their backstory, glossing over the instances where she herself appeared more pathetic than she'd like to admit. Sadly, there were many such instances. The police diligently recorded her statement with moribund interest. They probably filled in the blanks anyway. Dwight gratefully refrained from interupting to inform them of her PMS. She could tell he really wanted to. Joy. She finished off by explaining the events of the previous night, as had been described to her by Dwight.

The Gil Grissom wannabe nodded in approval at the end of her story. "Thanks, miss. I think it seems fairly clear what has happened here, and I concur with Schrute's assessment. Just to make sure, we'll be questioning the rest of your office to see if they know anything. Who among your co-workers was closest to the suspect?"

Pam fidgetted uncomfortably. "Umm... After Jim? Me."

The detective looked surprised. "You?"

"Well, before she found out about me and Jim. After that she basically just clung to his side and kept her distance from everyone else in the office."

"Then it seems unlikely that we'll be getting much help from the rest of your co-workers. Does she have any friends that you know of who could be accomplices in this crime?"

"Not really. I never heard her talk about any friends outside of work. Except her Call of Duty buddies. She'd play online every Wednesday night. Apparently, those games could get pretty heated. I think she took them too seriously."

"Hmmm... I'm beginning to see a pattern here. We must work fast if we have any hope of retrieving your boyfriend alive." The bottom fell out of Pam's stomach. She'd feared he'd say that, but she'd been hoping for the empty reassurance anyway. "We'd better get moving. I want to check the apartments of both the victim and the suspect, get a meetup with this Roy Anderson, just in case he's still holding a grudge, see if we can find anything out from Ms. Filippelli's family. Roberts, put out an APB on the suspect and her vehicle. And take Schrute with you, I hear he used to be a volunteer deputy, and I like his style."

Deputy Roberts looked like someone had punched him in the 'nads. Poor guy.

Pam spoke up. "I want to come too."

Dwight gazed at her, sternly. "Out of the question. As a woman, you have weak arms. In a physical confrontation, you would be in danger."

"Dwight, she's smaller than I am." The three big, burly men looked down upon all five foot four of Pam. Yeah, sexism sucks. "Fine. Call me immediately if you find out anything."

Pam spent the afternoon pacing her tiny apartment, fraught with overwhelming anxiety. She was ready to explode with worry and frustrated with impotent energy over not being allowed by the men to assist in the search. But at least she was getting her exercise.

From the moment that he was informed of the situation, Michael had been a dervish of activity - all of it misguided - but thankfully he had sent her home before she could watch him make a fool of himself in front of the police. She knew it would happen. She knew it would be funny. She also knew it would be agonizing while Jim was in mortal danger.

So she trudged home from the office with little but a few sympathetic pats on the back, to wallow in misery and to better acquaint herself with the butterflies congregating in her stomach. Hello, butterflies. I may get to meet you face to face when I vomit in a couple of minutes.

As she made the six-hundredth and eleventh circuit around her twenty-six foot wide living room, the phone startled her and, after jumping the highest she'd ever jumped without the aid of a trampoline, she rushed to pick up.

"Hello?" she said, with all the hope that was possible in her voice. Unfortunately, Dwight's news only disappointed.

"I'm sorry, Pam. Her apartment is deserted. So is Jim's. Her parents haven't heard anything, either."

"Oh," Pam replied, a few seconds later after tumbling to take a seat on the floor. She really should vacuum more often.

"Don't give up hope, Pam," said Dwight with steely - yet kind of creepy - calm. "We will find them. And when we do, Karen will be punished to the full extent of the law. And whatever is left of Jim will be repatriated into your care."

Pam was man enough to admit that after hanging up on Dwight, she broke down and cried for a few minutes. But once she dried her tears, she found renewed clarity and vision: some would say that she had an epiphery.

From that one brief, shining moment last winter when they had all been friends, she recalled Karen talking about her family's cottage in rural Connecticut - secluded, no neighbours for miles. That's where she would go. And that's where Jim would be.

She booted up her obsolescent home computer and got to work. You don't get to be a secretary to Michael Scott without developing some kickass Google skillz.  A little digging into the property records and GoogleEarth confirmed a cottage surrounded by forests.

Wasting no time, she printed out the directions and reached for her phone. Dammit, voicemail.

"Dwight, I know where she's taken him. Her family owns a cottage in Connecticut. It's secluded and private and I'd bet my life that they're there. I'm sending you directions there to your home email account. I'm driving there immediately. I know it's stupid, but I just can't give her any more time alone with him. I can't begin to imagine what horrors she's putting him through. Bring the cavalry. Heck, bring the Indians, too. The Native kind, not the Kelly kind. God, I feel stupid. I'm shutting up now. Please hurry."

She ended the message and ran out the door to her car. The little Yaris couldn't be fast enough for her.

Little did Pam know that Dwight's cell phone sat unattended in an evidence baggie tucked away, safely out of sight at the Scranton police headquarters building...

------------

"We found Roy Anderson," announced deputy Cooper as he walked into the police station. "He was drunk in his apartment in his underwear."

"But Coop, it's the middle of the afternoon on a weekday," replied deputy Roberts as he looked up from trying to figure out how to operate the microscope. "Sounds like the guy is buckets o' fun."

"Oh, he is, Robbie. Unemployed, alcoholic, and completely not the guy who kidnapped the paperboy. Uhh... why do you have a microscope?"

Roberts sighed for the hundredth time today. "Mel's been watching too much CSI again."

"Lord, I hate it when that happens. Then we have to pretend we know how to use all this crap instead of just sending it off to the lab like normal." Just then, Dwight K. Schrute walked in from the break room, and Cooper realized that he would be catching up in that statistic by the time the day was done.

"I have an infrared spectrophotometer in my trunk, if you guys need that," Dwight cheerily announced.

Roberts and Cooper exchanged alarmed glances. "Yeah," Roberts said, noncommittally. "We might just want that. Why don't you go out to your car and fetch it for us?" The former Lackawanna County volunteer sheriff's deputy proudly strutted out of the building. "Dammit, Coop, I'm so sick to death of Schrute."

Cooper shrugged. "We can't lock him up just for being annoying."

"Do you know that he phoned me last fall to run a background check on some guy who's not even from this state? Just because Michael wanted dirt. And who the fuck is this Michael he keeps talking about?"

"Maybe it's his boyfriend."

They both shuddered in revulsion at the idea. Far too soon for their liking, Dwight returned with the expensive, and heavy, equipment in tow. He was sweating profusely from the exertion.

"Here you are," Dwight puffed, reaching for a handkerchief in his pocket. "I'll instruct you in the machine's use once I um... dry off... It's hot out there." He pulled the hankie from his pants and along with it fell the partial joint he'd found earlier. The wrinkly, white wrapping paper bounced a few times on the linoleum floor, letting fly a light sprinkling of ash.

The deputies turned to each other and smiled.

"Marijuana, Dwight? We're so disappointed in you. Throw him in the cell with the other druggies."

---------

Amidst a plethora of protests, Dwight was roughly manhandled into the holding cell by deputy Cooper. Today was rapidly becoming his greatest embarrassment. He sat among the dregs of human society, surrounded by drug dealers, addicts, crack-whores, and the scum of the earth.

A disheveled old man excitedly jumped to his feet when he noticed Dwight's arrival.

"Hi, Dwayne!"

Dwight groaned and sunk his face into his hands. "Creed."