After Jack's conversation with Danny, he and Samantha left for Northeast Detention. To Samantha's surprise, it was only a short drive to the center. She stared out the window as the massive facility loomed in the distance.

Jack was looking at it, too. "It's only just been completed this month."

Samantha nodded; she remembered it vaguely.

"Lots of debate," Jack commented.

"More boot camps mean more juvenile crime," she associated.

Jack nodded and turned into the massive driveway leading up to the institution.

Samantha Spade was no stranger to Northeast Detention Center, or any other detention center in the greater New York area for that matter. The state-funded building was an all-girls facility, and while Samantha had never worked there, when you communicated with teenagers as often as their team did, you found yourself behind its walls now and again.

Northeast wasn't so bad. It was one of the more liberal placement sites that prided itself on something called "Balanced and Restorative Justice," better known as BARJ. There were a lot of diehard advocates and instructional videotapes surrounding the phenomenon, especially in law enforcement. The point was to teach juvenile delinquents empathy and find conventional ways for them to enter back into the community as law-abiding citizens, instead of locking them away until they were 21.

BARJ, pronounced 'barge', was a nice enough concept. But if you heard the word enough, it started giving you a migraine. Around the office, they joked about it. "I went to the doctor's. He says I've got a bad case of barj." "Why don't you go barj yourself?" Or the ever famous, "I'm going to the men's room. Gotta take a barj." It provided for moments of brevity around the grave subject of juvenile crime. However, now as Samantha sped toward Northeast, the embodiment of such a notion, she wondered how seriously its supporters were taking its creed. If Jordan had been able to escape so readily, she suspected that maybe too much emphasis was being put on anger management, and not enough on airtight security.

Using their badge to get past surveillance, they got a visitor's tag for the car. Once parked, they buzzed in through the double doors of the complex. The juvenile facility had a simple, no-nonsense exterior. Inside, though BARJ was supposedly in full-effect, the place still looked just like a prison.

Jack and Samantha had barely waited three minutes before they were greeted at the entrance. A full-figured woman with a flushed face and bifocals tentatively smiled as she clip-clopped up to meet them.

She introduced herself as Mrs. Caroline Charlot, and she only had to speak for a matter of seconds before Samantha had her classified.

Ah, she quickly realized. The public relations assistant, here to verify that everything is running like clockwork…despite the fact that one of their inmates disappeared without a trace the night before.

After introductions, Mrs. Charlot took them through a tour of the station, addressing them as though they were inside of the Sheraton Hotel instead of inside a penal complex for delinquent teens.

Jack and Samantha shared a glance in the midst of Mrs. Charlot's chatter. "And here we have the recreation room, where our girls participate in many after therapy gym sessions-"

Jack's unimpressed face began to show overt disdain. "Yes, we can see that. I hate to forgo the grand tour, but we're here to investigate the disappearance of an adolescent from your facility."

For a moment, she flustered before saying, "Well, I just thought being FBI you'd be interested-"

"This is not a daytrip for us, Ms. Charlot."

Samantha stepped forward. "We're here on official affairs with the FBI. If we want tourism, we'll drop by Madison Square Gardens."

Mrs. Charlot's entire body was taken aback by her frankness.

"Now," Samantha continued. "Where was she being held?"

After making a few pompous noises, the woman motioned towards a corridor. "The division Jordan Coliandri was placed in is right over here…" She began to lead them down a hallway, when she was stopped by an officer hailing from the NYPD.

The officer whispered something to her, and Mrs. Charlot turned to them. "Follow me," she said, suddenly becoming entirely official. Jack and Samantha exchanged another surreptitious glance before being immediately directed into a block labeled D-14.

Mrs. Charlot held open the door for them, adopting a much more professional tone. "It seems they just discovered how Jordan Coliandri made her escape."

- - - - -

The moment Jack entered into block D-14, he was able to see why Northeast Detention had been so quick to give them a distraction. The cellblock was a mess of NYPD officers, detectives, media personnel, photographers, and other workmen, clearly experts in their respective fields.

It wasn't difficult to see what had caused the uproar. Northeast Detention, a facility that boasted the best internment program in New York City, had suffered its first successful escape within only a month of its installment. The facility's laissez-faire stance had been the subject of dispute for months before its doors even opened. Any mysteries had to be solved immediately, or the media would dance all over it.

However, Jack wasn't here for the circus. He had questions that needed answering, and after being given the 360-degree run-around, he had lost all good humor with the situation.

They flashed their badges, and the crime scene tape was lifted. Striding onto the scene, Jack and Samantha followed Mrs. Charlot into what they learned had been Jordan's cell for the past few days she spent incarcerated. Only one man stood inside the cell. She introduced them to an special squad officer named Brian Zorn, and she promptly disappeared, most likely too embarrassed by her prior display to get in the way of anything else. Jack was only appreciative.

"FBI," Brian exclaimed. A tall and lanky officer stared them back. He had the stance of a construction worker and the drawl of a Southern farmer, complete with a tape measure attached at his belt. He looked up and around the cell, furnished only by a simple bed and desk attached to the wall. He rubbed his forehead. "Guess you guys want to hear how this girl got out."

Jack spared a quick glance behind him. "Us and everyone else."

Unlike Mrs. Charlot, Brian wasted no time in divulging information. "First successful escape this county has seen in over five years. When they called me in this morning from the department, they had no clue how anyone could have orchestrated this. They don't keep specialized video cameras in each of the rooms, seein' as how the last privacy regulation decreed it unconstitutional." Brian rolled his eyes as Samantha gave a knowing nod. "But it was never considered a problem because the rooms are laid together with brick and steel." He pounded the wall to show it to be rock solid. "These are thick lil puppies. The kids would need a jackhammer to even think about getting through here."

Jack nodded, somewhat impatiently. "So what happened?"

"This morning it looked like nothing had happened, aside from the fact that she'd checked out of the place. Nothing was missing. Nothing was out of place. But what I did notice…" Brian bounded up a stepladder and lifted himself up in one spry movement. His fist slammed into the plaster ceiling.

The ceiling jumped.

"Was a draft."

Jack watched as Samantha's mouth parted in disbelief.

Brian looked to her appropriate reaction. "That's what I said. It seemed that the agency was so heave-ho about opening the place, they forgot to let the roof settle."

Jack closed his eyes and rolled them underneath his eyelids. He frowned deeply, made irritated by such a blatant lack of propriety. "How did this happen?"

Brian shrugged. "Ignorance. Miscommunication. Misfiled paperwork. You name it. Either way, this place is gonna have a fun time explaining all this in court."

Samantha's lips formed a frown. "Wait a minute. So all this is just a matter of her punching her fist into the ceiling."

"Oh, you haven't heard the best of it." He climbed another step and pointed to the edge of the ceiling. "It took me awhile to figure out how some small-fry was able to open a rooftop. But then I saw this…." He ran his finger along the frame. "See how the paint's chipped and the edge's all frayed?"

Samantha nodded that she saw.

Brian smiled. "A key."

Jack's face fell a degree further. "And how did she get that?"

Brian shrugged again. "Must have kept it on her somehow. Must have hid it somewhere on her person." His voice muttered. "And I won't get into all the ways that could have happened…."

"How do you know it was a key?" Samantha wanted to know.

"Serrated edges," Brian answered. "And it's one of the only things small enough that security wouldn't have picked up on."

Jack let out a deep and angry sigh. He'd been in Northeast Detention for less than a half hour and already he loathed it with a vengeance. "Unbelievable," he muttered to himself. "I can't wait to let the board hear this."

Brian continued. "She scraped the key against where the wall meets the ceiling. She must have noticed it the moment she got here and been workin' on it every night at lights out. It'd make such a quiet noise that no one would have noticed." He lifted up the ceiling. It only opened a sliver. "Girl was rail thin, else it wouldn't have been much of an escape."

From there imagination carried Jack through what must have happened. Jordan finds a weakness, exploits it, and crawls out onto the roof the moment things are quiet. He could see her now, running under the cover of darkness, breathing heavy, dodging the guards, and climbing the walls…until she reached the outer limits and the streets.

Though greatly perturbed by the events that must have led to her escape, Jack focused on the situation at hand. "And you're sure this is what happened?"

Brian looked up to study the ceiling once more. "As the day I was born."

"Thanks for the run through," he said. "Where've they traced her?"

Brian pointed to the group of officers behind him. "Dogs followed a scent up the road. Stops at a payphone on Birch St."

Jack's face steeled with purpose. "Show me."