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bluestar22x · 1 year ago

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Sweet Annie

The Rockford Files - Sweet Annie

Summary: Your first case with Tim Rockford vaults you into a race against time to find a little girl.

Pairing: Tim Rockford x F!Reader (He's 47, she's 45)

Rating: 18+ Series

Word Count: 13,300 (rounded)

Warnings: Mentions of blood and trauma (both kinds). Mentions of domestic abuse. Sexual assault of a minor mentioned/hinted at (the perpetrator is truly a monster). The R word is used. Horror elements.

Author's Note: This is my biggest fanfic project in a long time (and it's for a mobile game ad character - ha). Talk about a labor of love. This is like a crime show crossed with Ghost Whisperer, sort of (the reader doesn't talk to spirits, they "talk" to her). I loved CSI growing up and throwing ghosts into my crime fic is perfect for spooky season. Starting this short series off dark. I am truly sorry, hopefully the Tim content makes up for it. Expect this to be updated monthly. The chapters are going to be LONG cause they go case by case. (Longer than I expected - I posted this two weeks later than planned!).

xxx

September 18, 1995 (Monday)

Portland, Oregon

It was the beginning of the night shift at the Portland Police Department when Chief Robert Bronson, a man whose appearance distinctively reminded you of Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air finished guiding you around the large building, having focused on the divisions you would need to be most familiar with.

Your last stop was the most important one of all - the section you'd been assigned to - the homicide division. It was where you, as a consultant, would put your gift, or curse (your definition of it depended on the day) to good use once more.

Strolling through the glass swinging doors into the massive division you wanted to snort at the on-the-nose atmosphere. Despite it being eight o'clock at night most of the secretaries and detectives on the main floor were using minimum lighting, sticking to desk lamps as they flipped through files and tapped away on keyboards. Most of the men were dressed in dark suits and ties, while the women were in equally drab dresses (the secretaries) or blazers (the one woman in the entire room who was a detective).

The place smelled old too. It smelled of musty, aged paper and cigarette smoke and - you could swear - ink.

It was as if you'd stepped into a time portal and had traveled back to the setting of a classic 1950s noir film. So, yeah, it was damn fitting, even if the decade was wrong.

Chief Bronson introduced you to some of the secretaries and detectives as you walked through, and when he explained to them why you'd been hired you were met with a mix of warm greetings and skepticism. Nothing you hadn't expected. This wasn't your first rodeo. You'd dealt with all kinds at the last police department you'd worked at. You had thick skin. Or at least you thought so.

You only hoped your partner in the division would be like your previous one. He had been a sweet (now retired) old man with more hair on his head than any man his age had the right to have. He had been accepting of you immediately, an oddity in his community, and had looked out for you like you were one of his own children.

You missed him already. Wondered why the hell you had accepted a job way out in Oregon that would make it impossible for you to visit him regularly. You silently reminded yourself it was because of "budget cuts" and having no other good offers.

Chief Bronson didn't give you time to mope about it, already making his way into one of the private offices for the big timers, the detectives who'd climbed the ladder through successes and had rightfully earned their own spaces.

You quietly slipped in behind him, your eyes scanning the dimly lit room.

It was a decently sized office, maybe twenty by thirty feet. To the right there wasn't much but a printer and a small computer desk. To the left there were filing cabinets lining the walls and evidence boxes neatly stacked against them, all behind a large oak desk with a golden nameplate that read Tim Rockford. The only other items on the desk were more files, a rectangular shaped lamp, and a plain white mug filled with pens and pencils.

In the center of the room was the man himself. He was straddling a turned around metal chair, back towards you, focused on the cork board in front of him. It was covered with newspaper clippings, jotted down notes, and old photos of evidence. To the untrained eye it would be considered unorganized, but the pinned red yarn crisscrossing the board suggested otherwise. Everything was connected and probably easy to piece together.

The board wasn't what your eyes lingered on though. It was Tim himself. You couldn't see his face, but from behind him you could see that he was dressed it a suit like all the other detectives, though he had discarded his jacket on the chair at his main desk. He had on shoulder holsters over his crisp white shirt, and the combination seemed to highlight how broad his shoulders were. He was thick, a far cry from the frail looking man you’d previously worked with.

Chief Bronson pulled him out of his contemplations with a greeting, sending him to his feet, and he spun in his spot to face you both.

Your heart skipped a beat. You'd been afraid to admit to yourself that Tim looked good from behind, but it was impossible to deny face forward. He was around your age, in his late forties, but you wouldn't have guessed it if not for the gray scattered in his patchy beard and hair, and the crinkles around his eyes. His thick brown hair was an unruly kind of curly but trimmed down short enough that it appeared to be nicely tousled instead. His nose that curved strongly contradicted the softness in his coffee-colored eyes, just like how the scowl he wore contradicted his plump lips.

He was undeniably handsome, and undeniably annoyed.

"This department has never respected me," he declared in a gravelly voice, sighing deeply, a hand shooting to one of his hips as he spoke, eyes scrutinizing you.

"We all know you're a very capable man, Rockford," Chief Bronson assured him. "Your record for closing cases is stellar. Best in the city. But this partnership can't hurt."

Tim grunted. "Yes it can. It can hurt the department. It can diminish the department's resources for nothing. For God's sake Bronson, psychics are frauds." He pointed an index finger at him. "You should know better at your age."

"She gets results," Chief Bronson informed him, a firmness injected into his words. He sounded like an unmovable man, one certain in his decision, probably because he was. "With you both working together this division would stand out nationally. She's helped departments cut down investigation times in half in many cases."

"I don't need a partner," Tim ground out.

"Need? No. Still getting one though."

Tim shook his head at Chief Bronson, eyes disbelieving. You gritted your teeth. His reaction was nothing new, and you had always tried to have thick skin, but it still rubbed you the wrong way sometimes when people refused to give you a chance to prove yourself.

You were also rather irritated about being talked about like you weren't even in the room. Men.

"It's already been decided," Chief Bronson said in a that's final tone. "I don't want to hear anything more about it unless you have a legitimate reason to file a complaint against her. So suck it up and properly introduce yourself, Rockford."

Tim grumbled but outstretched his right hand and you begrudgingly grasped it in yours, giving him a solid handshake. He seemed to like that at least, his head bobbing in a slight approving nod.

"Tim Rockford."

You stated your name back to him and he gave you another nod.

"Where are you from?" he inquired as Chief Bronson slinked out of the room.

"Georgia," you answered shortly.

"Please don't tell me Savannah," he pleaded with a groan.

You bit back a laugh, huffing instead, wanting to make it abundantly clear you weren't liking the idea of this partnership any more than him after his dispute with Chief Bronson. "Atlanta, actually."

"That's a small relief, at least," Tim said, "No need to be cliche."

"I'm sorry," you hissed, feeling quite the opposite, "But isn't being a cynic a cliche too?"

He muttered something under his breath and you decided it was not worth knowing what. Whatever it was, it wasn't positive and was definitely pointed at you.

"Look," you said sharply. "You don't have to like me. You don't have to trust me. But whether we like it or not, we're working together for the foreseeable future, so let's just behave like professionals, huh?"

He bit down on his lower lip and you had to force your eyes to meet his to ignore the...stimulating visual. You were really hating that he was easy on the eyes. His attitude didn't match it.

But maybe for that reason, it was for the best. At least if you didn't get along it would be easier for you to ignore his stupid chocolate colored puppy eyes and his big hands that had made your mind wander into the gutter upon your first glance of them.

At least HR wouldn't have any issues with the two of you, as long as you didn't give into the temptation to smack him in his strong jaw.

Functioning as a team would mean having to beat that yearning back with a stick. You hoped reasoning might make things more tolerable for you both.

"I don't like frauds either," you told him. "They make trouble for me, and yes, there are a lot of them out there. But I'm not one of them, Rockford. Let me prove that to you. Give me a chance to get some results."

Tim huffed at your request but conceded. "Not like I have a choice. Just don't get in my way, alright? And keep out of trouble. Do what I say when it matters. You're a consultant, not a detective. No need of you putting yourself in the line of fire."

You nodded stiffly. "I won't get in your way if you don't get in mine."

"Deal."

There was a knock on the door and you both turned to it. Chief Bronson had returned.

"What is it?" Tim asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.

"Murder at the Mirage Hotel," Chief Bronson replied, glancing between you both. "You're up. The rest of the team's already there."

He left the room again and Tim strolled over to his desk chair, throwing his suit jacket on.

"Follow me," he ordered without looking at you as he shrugged on a tan trench coat as well. He strolled out of the room without another word and you had to take twice the steps he did to keep up with him.

He led you to his unmarked car in the back parking lot and you climbed into the passenger seat, put on the seat belt, and tapped your fingers on the windowsill as he started the vehicle up and drove out onto the main road.

You were always apprehensive on the way to a crime scene. A part of you afraid of what new nightmares you'd get from what you'd see, hear, or worst, smell on arrival. It wasn't just the dead body or bodies. It was the spirits too, the souls that lingered after the violent acts. It wasn't completely their fault, they were often confused, or angry, or both, and didn't know what to do with their overwhelming emotions, but it didn't change the fact that they often startled you and creeped you out. Your ability to sense them, to understand them, was why you had this job, why you did this job, but it was far from a dream. You did it because you felt like you had to put your abilities to good use, needed to. You couldn't ignore them. It would be wrong to, right? But they certainly didn't make it easy.

It was a fifteen minute drive to the Mirage Hotel, and the quietest drive you'd ever experienced. Tim hadn't spoken one word to you and he didn't have the radio on. You'd have turned it on yourself, but you didn't want to overstep. This was Tim's car for all intents and purposes, and though you two hadn’t hit it off on the right foot that didn't mean you were going to chance making the situation worst just for some background noise.

When Tim pulled up into the front parking lot your first thought was that the Mirage Hotel was not the most typical spot for a murder. It wasn't an expensive hotel, no fancy windows and yard, just red brick and a patch of grass, but the place as far as you could tell was well maintained and was probably mid-tier among all the hotels available in Portland. You were used to violent deaths happening in one-star motels.

You pulled yourself out of the car before Tim could but let him lead the way through the front door, flashing your consultant badge at a beat cop guarding the first floor hallway when Tim showed him his detective one.

The officer nodded approvingly at you both and stepped aside. "Room seven."

Even before you reached the door, you could smell it. The unmistakable intense wet iron scent of blood, so strong that your stomach flip flopped when you inhaled a little too deeply.

You weren't surprised when you ducked under the yellow crime tape draped across the doorway and found yourself staring at a blood bath.

You were pretty sure there wasn't a single piece of furniture in the small, one bed room didn't have splatters of blood on it. The TV, the nightstand, the bed, the chair, the corner table, even the damn lamp shade had flecks of red on them.

The beige carpeted floor was the worst off, a pool of blood at the foot of the bed, where her body sat, propped up, with her back to the bed. It would've looked like she was just casually resting there if not for her blood bathed band t-shirt and light blue jeans, her extremely pale skin, and the biggest giveaway, her wide open but blank pale green eyes.

She must've been pretty in life. Early thirties, fiery curly red hair that reached the middle of her back, and perfect curves that even twenty year old you would've been jealous of.

In death she was just...eerie. Even after two decades of consulting you still found yourself fighting against the temptation to shut the eyes of the victims.

Instead of giving into it you donned rubber gloves offered to you by lab personnel who were already scoping out the room for evidence and squatted near the body alongside Tim, who'd also received a pair of gloves.

Another man, late thirties, thin blond hair, wiry build, was already there, kneeling beside her, carefully examining her neck under a flashlight.

"What do we know, Joe?" Tim prompted.

The man sighed. "This is Rebecca Flynn. Thirty-three years old. From Seattle, Washington. We got that from her driver's license. Beat cops already interviewed the front desk staff. The guy who booked her said she used a different name to get the room. Shirley Wilson. Paid cash. Looked jittery, like she was high on something, or just nervous."

He gestured at her blood-soaked abdomen. "I'm betting on nervous, but we'll need to run tox at the lab to see if she has anything in her system to be sure."

"Stabbed?" Tim questioned.

Joe gave him a nod. "Multiple times. This shirt is shredded. I won't be able to count how many until she's out on the table."

"Time of death?"

"An hour ago, maybe. She hasn't gone into rigor mortis yet."

You attention drifted from their conversation as you felt a draft of cold air that made you shiver, and the hair on the back of your neck stood up. It felt like someone was watching you, breathing on you from behind, and you stood, whipped around quickly to look for someone.

As expected, no one was right behind you. No one visible at least.

When you turned back to them, Tim was frowning up at you, like he was concerned. "You alright?"

You forcibly composed yourself without a deep breath. "I'm fine," you chewed out, refusing to explain why you'd jumped up suddenly.

Tim didn't ask. He continued his discussion with Joe, who you presumed was the medical examiner, otherwise unfazed by your strange behavior.

You felt an unexplainable pull towards the head of the bed and carefully moved around the men and Rebecca’s body to join a twenty something year old woman, who looked a little like an adult version of Wednesday from The Addams Family, in lifting the bedsheets, searching for evidence.

You introduced yourself, pointing to your badge which was hanging around your neck, and when she shook your hand she smiled more softly than you'd expected. "Katie."

"Mind if I look for evidence with you?" you inquired politely.

"Sure," she said, "Just remember the protocols and let me know when you find something."

You promised to do so and got to work, flipping the sheets over carefully, eyes trailing every inch inside and out. All you could see at first was more specks of blood, but something was telling you to keep searching. Insisting. It was like a voice at the back of your head, but it wasn't yours. That realization always made you tingle a bit, was always unnerving.

You pushed on until your gloved hands found a lump in the bed sheets. Cautiously lifting them up off the bump, you were relieved to discover that it was a stuffed animal making it. An aged, stained thing with tan fur and a missing ear. It looked like a dog, but what kind it was supposed to be you had no idea.

The relief was quickly replaced with dread when you touched the toy and a vivid image of a little girl, maybe ten years old, with Rebecca's hair and chin flooded your mind. She was giggling, being tickled playfully by whoever was out of view. You could only see their hands. They were a little less pale, but you recognized them as Rebecca's.

You sucked in a deep breath when the memory (what you assumed it to be) left you. "She was here with her daughter."

Tim, Joe, and Katie all stared at you, confused, and you pointed to the stuffed dog.

"No one saw her with a kid," Joe informed you.

"Maybe she sneaked her in," you suggested, knowing you were shown that memory for a reason.

"Why would she do that?" Katie frowned.

"Someone was very likely after her," you said, "Probably was her killer. She might have had reason to believe that letting anyone see her daughter would give that person a greater chance at finding them."

"How would she have got her by the front desk?" Katie asked, perplexed.

"We'd have to see the lobby security tape," you replied, shrugging. "It could have been a few different things. She might have even had her climb into a suitcase and stay there just long enough to get checked in and into the room."

Everyone stared at you like you had grown another head and you raised your hands in defense. "I didn't say that's what I would do. But desperate people do desperate things, you all know that."

They nodded their acknowledgment. Tim grunted. "How do you even know she had a kid with her, let alone a daughter?"

You pointed at the stuffed dog again. Duh.

"It could be Rebecca's," Katie suggested, chewing on her bottom lip. You could see the hopeless denial in her eyes. She didn't want Rebecca to have had a daughter with her because it meant she had likely seen her mother get murdered, and that she was missing.

You shook your head. You had been at this too long to think you could be wrong. The dead never lied or gave you unnecessary info. You knew Rebecca was still here, you knew what she was trying to tell you. There was no doubt.

But you had to prove it to everyone else.

You glanced around. "Where's her suitcase?"

"She has two," Katie told you. "Under the bed. We haven't gotten around to opening them yet."

You ducked down and tugged them both out into view. They were both black rolling cases, one large, one medium sized. You unzipped the medium one, going off a hunch.

It was filled with a child's clothes. Tiny jeans, underwear, and shirts that would likely fit the little girl you'd seen. There were a lot of pink items.

"Holy shit," Joe hissed, dismayed. "She was here with a little girl. Fuck. That means -."

"We're looking at a missing persons case here as well," Tim finished for him grimly. He headed for the hallway. "I'll call it in."

"How'd you know?" Joe quizzed, staring at you with his mouth agape. "How could you have guessed that?"

"I didn't," you answered, hesitating before continuing, "I'm a psychic."

"No way," he choked, eyes wide. "No offense, but Bronson actually hired you?"

"He did," you confirmed.

"So a little ghost whispered it to you?" Joe was smiling at you, amused by the idea of it.

You narrowed your eyes at him before sighing. You should be used to this.

"Doesn't matter where I get my info, as long as I get results," you said flatly.

"We would've figured it out when we saw the contents of the bag either way," Joe told you.

"But we wouldn't have thought to check it so quickly," Katie stated in your defense, surprising you. You met her eyes gratefully and the corners of her mouth lifted. "We don't normally check bags until we get it to the lab. That would've made at least another hour where the missing persons unit wouldn't have known a kid is missing, probably kidnapped."

Hopefully not dead, you thought, chest constricting. You knew if Rebecca's daughter had been taken by the killer, if she had witnessed the murder, they would have nothing good planned for the little girl. "Every second counts."

"Yes,” Katie agreed.

Everyone had resumed their work by the time Tim ambled back into the room a bit later. "Follow me, partner. Front desk has the camera tape up and ready for us to look at."

"Missing persons going to look for the girl?" you inquired as you left the crime scene with him, tugging off your gloves and using the trash bin by the door to dispose of them.

"As soon as they know who exactly they’re looking for," he replied with a sigh. "They're looking up info on Rebecca, confirm she has a daughter, and find out what she looks like. Then they can start the search and get info out to the public so they can help."

"I can tell them what she looks like," you told him. "She's ten. She's got red hair like Rebecca, and she's small, even for her age. I think I could give a good enough description to get them started."

He gave you a funny look. "How do you know what she looks like?"

"Part of my gifts -" you used air quotes, "- is that I can see the memories of the dead. Sometimes. Only when they want me to. Only when they're nearby."

"You're saying Rebecca showed you?" Tim huffed like it was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard.

"I saw her playing her daughter," you stated plainly, patiently. "It was inside a house. Probably theirs. Probably a recent memory. Spirits have a harder time digging up the old ones."

"Uh huh." Tim didn't sound convinced.

You shrugged. "Don't ask if you don't want the answer."

He grunted, giving you a curt nod after. "I'll try to remember that next time."

When you reached the front desk, you found a woman in her late thirties, dressed in a suit similar to yours, waiting there expectantly, expression anxious.

"Detective Rockford," Tim introduced himself. He gestured to you slightly as you leaned on the counter before her and he stated your last name. "She's a consultant for my division. We were told you have the footage of the victim checking in here at the desk?"

"And more," she claimed, waving you both behind the desk to watch her computer screen with her.

"I wasn't the one who signed her in, but Terry, my coworker who did, let me know around what time it was."

"Where's Terry right now?" Tim quizzed.

"In the break room if you have more questions," she answered, pausing, "He's the one who found her, if you didn't know. There was a noise complaint so he went to knock on the door and when he got nothing, no reaction, he used the master key to get inside..."

"Poor guy's in shock," you concluded. You'd have been yourself if you hadn't known what you were walking into.

She nodded. "I'm Vanessa, by the way." She glanced between you and Tim.

"Pretty name," he said offhandedly, nodding at the screen. "Let's see the video."

Vanessa pursed her lips and silently did as ordered to, clicking the play button on screen with her mouse.

An older balding man had been standing where Vanessa was, greeting a person who was walking through the front doors in a baggy dark green sweatshirt and blue jeans. There was no sound, of course, and the image was blurry, but it was clear enough for you to see that the person was female and that she had loose red hair spilling out of her hoodie. She was dragging the large suitcase from her room behind her as she approached him. The time on camera read 4:42.

You, Tim, and Vanessa all observed quietly as she booked a room for the night, often turning her head to the door as she did so, like she half expected someone to charge in and stir up trouble.

Because she did. Rightfully.

After she got her key Rebecca swiftly made her way towards the hall and out of sight of the camera.

"Not worth much," Tim hummed after she ambled off screen, "But it does confirm what Terry said about her looking wary."

"There's more," Vanessa said quickly, fast forwarding the video. "I decided to watch the video for a while after and fifteen minutes later she goes back outside and comes in with another suitcase."

She clicks play when the time on screen passes 4:57 and sure enough, there was Rebecca, leaving the hotel, and at 5:03 entering again, with the smaller suitcase this time. You noticed her looking over her shoulder just as she was about to step out of view and into the hallway again and spotted a smaller figure dressed in Barbie pink darting into frame, speedily racing past her.

The action made the figure's features difficult to discern, but a flash of scarlet told you all you needed to know.

"Terry didn't see her come back in the second time," Vanessa informed them. "He had gone out back for a moment to get a drink and Cassidy, the other person working up front with him at the time, was eating supper."

"She picked the perfect time to sneak her daughter in," you surmised.

"She got lucky," Tim figured, his expression turning grim, "For the last time."

"Did you check the footage around the time of Rebecca's death?" you asked Vanessa. "It was just over an hour ago."

She shook her head. "Give me a moment."

Again she sped up the video and you stared at the screen as Terry returned to the desk, as a young lady who was most likely Cassidy did, and as the lobby became busy with guests starting to mill in for the night.

It was difficult to know exactly when Rebecca's killer had entered the building. Several faces were hidden from the camera or were too blurry to make out at this speed. The video analysts would have to figure that out later.

The time on camera approached eight-thirty and Vanessa slowed the video down to half speed so each person walking into and out of the building could easily be spotted.

You hopped in spot and pointed at a familiar figure on the screen at 8:37. "There!" Vanessa paused the screen.

It was the little girl, dressed in a baby blue shirt, a much taller, green hooded figure beside her, tugging her towards the front entrance.

They must have taken Rebecca's sweatshirt to hide their face and had the kid change her shirt before rushing out with her.

You remembered all the blood in the hotel room. If she had been close by, if she’d witnessed her mother's murder as you had assumed, she'd have gotten blood on the pink shirt she'd been wearing earlier. The image that popped into your head made you shudder. Your eyes focused in on the large hand grasping the little girl's wrist tightly, unseen by Vanessa, who was distracted by a guest talking to her at the desk, and your heart sank.

From the corner of your eye you saw Tim pull his bulky government issued phone out of one of his deep coat pockets and dial a number without a word to you.

"Everyone on deck," he said firmly when someone picked up his call. "A girl's been kidnapped."

By the time you and Tim finished interviewing people at the hotel and returned to the homicide division everyone was in a frenzy, busied with work that had sprouted from the case, and someone had already found and contacted Rebecca's sister, who was on her way from Seattle to confirm her body's identity.

Before Rebecca’s sister had hung up with the detective who'd called her, she’d given him her niece's name.

Annie.

Her name was Annie.

Knowing her name somehow added to the urgency you felt to help the division find the girl. Tim seemed to share the sentiment.

It wasn't long before you both were holed up in his office to have a meeting with the lead detective of the missing persons unit, James Weston, an extremely muscular man who towered over you both.

Weston seemed kind, but was all business, and he knew what he wanted. His team was in charge of finding Annie, but you and Tim could assist whenever extra hands were needed.

You kicked the trash bin by the door after he left out of pure frustration. The ding reverberated through the room. "We should be playing a bigger part in finding her."

Tim, who was standing by his desk, shook his head and placed a hand on his hip. "No, we shouldn't. It's Weston's job to find people; we solve murders. His people will find her, and hopefully Rebecca's killer will be right there with her. Then they'll hand the bastard over to us."

You palmed your face and sighed. It wasn't like you didn't understand how the system worked; it was just that you didn't like it. "I know. I just don't know how I'm going to focus on solving Rebecca's murder when I know her daughter is still out there in the hands of her murderer. Priorities."

"Gotta trust the system, Psy."

You lifted your head up to blink at Tim, confused, unsure what the nickname stood for.

"Short for psychic," he explained, giving you a grin that seemed uncharacteristic to you, though you'd only known him a few hours. Maybe it was in character for him to think he was being clever.

You groaned and headed for the door. Just want you needed. A silly work name for him to add to his toolbox. "We going to check in on the Forensics team or what?"

"Right behind you," he replied, serious again.

You stalked out of the room without looking back.

A lot happened that night at the department, and you and Tim were pretty much in the center of it all. You went to the Forensics division as planned, but they didn't have much for you yet, having only just begun to test the evidence and examine the photos taken on site. The only new information you got was from Joe, who'd counted eighteen stab wounds from a kitchen knife on Rebecca’s body and had concluded that the one in her neck was most likely the cause of her death.

There was blood and hair samples from the room to compare to the most likely source - Rebecca, and to compare to the national database just in case she’d pulled hair or clawed blood out of her killer, but that was going to take days or weeks to be processed. DNA testing was not a quick task.

After your visit to Forensics, you and Tim returned to his office to find a reporter waiting by the door. She was there to get details on the murder side of the case, already having visited Weston for the kidnapping part of it. You sat down at the computer desk during the interview, noting how patient and formal, even warm, Tim was in answering the reporter's questions. He was used to those types of interviews, and that night the press were their greatest allies.

Less than an hour later the case was on the eleven o'clock news with a vague description of where Rebecca was murdered (good hotel managers always made sure crime reporters never mentioned their hotels directly by name), followed by the blurry video image of Annie being dragged out of the building and several interviews. The fifteen minute interview with Tim was cut down to one for TV, getting to the core of it. Weston's was before that and his screen time was slightly longer. They were followed by Rebecca's sister, standing in front of the police precinct teary-eyed, begging civilians to help them find Annie and the reporter telling people how they could do just that - by calling the Portland police if they saw a red haired girl with a tall, hooded stranger. They also showed a picture of her. Annie was definitely the little girl who had been in your vision. The picture even seemed to have been taken in the same room you had seen.

After the story ran, you and Tim joined Weston in his office for an update.

"The interview with Rebecca's sister was enlightening," Weston declared. "We've got a good idea of who we need to be looking out for."

He pinned a photo of a large framed man with a square jaw and haunting gray eyes that stood out against his dark facial hair on his cork board and tapped it with his left index finger. You and Tim both stepped closer, eyes studying his every feature.

"This is Rebecca's ex-boyfriend, Neil McKingley," Weston began, sounding winded already (if homicide had been busy, missing persons had been frenzied). "Neil's thirty-six, lives in Medford, works as a garbage man. No criminal record, but Rebecca did have a restraining order against him as of last month. Her sister, Rory, informed me that he'd been abusive to her during their five year relationship, mainly emotionally, but towards the end, the last couple weeks, he'd started slapping her whenever she stood her ground against him. That had been the final straw for her, when she realized he was only going to get worst. Rory also told me Rebecca had expressed concern to them a few days ago that he was possibly stalking her. She felt like someone was watching her whenever she left the house. She had announced to Rory yesterday that she and Annie were going to go stay with her at her home in Seattle for the next couple weeks, to get away, in hopes that it was just paranoia."

"It's not paranoia if you're right to be concerned," Tim stated, folding his arms and nodding at Neil's image. "Is he Annie's father?"

"No," Weston answered. "And apparently, judging by what her aunt told me, he barely even tolerated her. He was always trying to pull Rebecca's attention from her to him, always trying to send her to a camp of some kind. This past summer was horse camp."

"So he's our lead suspect," you concluded. "But if he can't stand Annie, why would he kidnap her? Why not kill her right away?"

"There's no good reason I can come up with," Weston told you, his lips drawing tight. "And by that I mean whatever he's planning for her, it's likely not good."

You figured that much. You never liked thinking about it, but the reality was there weren't many different possibilities to what plans a guy like Neil would have for kidnapping a little girl like Annie, who he didn't care about. Either he'd dump her, hurt her, kill her, or all of the above, not in that order.

He'd do it soon too. The ticking clock in your brain, the one that was always present at the back of your mind while you were on an active case grew painfully loud.

The first forty-eight to seventy-two hours after a crime is committed is critical. It's the ideal time period for gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. It's also the most vital time period in missing person cases. After seventy-two hours the chances of finding a missing or kidnapped person alive was basically zero. Hell, finding the body after that long got a whole lot slimmer too.

Every hour that slipped by cut Annie's chances astronomically. Everyone in the room, the fucking whole building, knew it too.

You silently begged whichever higher power that was paying attention, if any were, that the news announcement would lead to some intel and fast.

Sudden rapping on the wooden door nearly made you jump out of your skin.

"Boss," said an unfamiliar man standing in the doorway, breathless, "Gas station employee in Eugene just called in that they saw the little girl from the news in the back of a 1987 white Dodge Aries that stopped to gas up. The driver fit the description of Neil, to boot. Troopers already out on patrol are keeping an eye out for him on the highway."

You gaped at him. Maybe there was a god.

"The fool's headed home," Weston hypothesized. "Make sure someone's waiting for him in case he makes it there."

"I think someone is already there, but I'll check to confirm," the man told him, turning on his heels to charge off.

Weston glanced at you and Tim. "Sorry to barge off, but duty calls. When I return, it'll be with Neil in handcuffs and a little girl on her way to get checked out at a hospital."

You and Tim both nodded and watched him bolt out of the room.

"Back to the office until he does," Tim decided. It was an order. You wanted to argue, but you had no better plan, so you swallowed your pride and followed him back.

You had been at the Portland Police Department for less than one shift when Weston proved to you that he could keep promises. Mostly. When he returned to the building four hours later, it was with Neil in tow. A state trooper had spotted his car on the road outside Grants Pass and pulled him over after a lengthy chase that had their cars reaching speeds over one hundred miles per hour. The trooper had gladly arrested him and passed him over to Weston when he showed up on site, and in another four hours Neil was in the missing person's interrogation room.

Weston's promise wasn't complete though. Neil had been the only person in his car.

"Where is she!" Weston demanded, smacking the metal table right in front of Neil, who was handcuffed to it, seated in a metal folding chair across from him and Tim. You were watching the three of them through a one way window, so the sound of skin on metal was muffled to you, but in the room it reverberated enough to make Neil flinch.

The man recovered fast though, a smirk forming on his ghostly pale face.

He's sadistic, you concluded wordlessly. Big surprise. The sight of it still made your skin crawl. You'd have thought after decades of laying your eyes on the worst of the worst, hearing them speak what should be unspeakable, you'd be immune to a creepy smile, but you definitely weren't.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

You rolled your eyes, having heard that line more than one way too many times. It didn't even make sense to ask. They did want to know.

"We're not messing around here Neil," Tim said sternly, keeping his expression trained, unreadable. "Oregon hasn't had an execution in over a decade, but it is currently legal, and we can aim for it when prosecuting you."

Neil chuckled. "Oh, scary. Or it would be, if the alternative wasn't life in prison."

"What will it take to get you to reveal Annie's location?" Weston inquired impatiently.

"Nothing you can give me," Neil answered, "I know I'm not getting out of here."

"Already given up?" Tim huffed. "Is that why you turned down a lawyer?"

"Can't trust anyone but yourself," Neil declared. He made it sound like his trust had been broken recently and not the other way around.

"What would be the harm, if you know you're going to jail either way?" Weston asked.

"This way I stay my own boss. No one nagging my ear off."

Tim hummed. "Like control, huh?"

"There's only two main states in life," Neil told him in a matter-of-fact manner. "Being in control or being controlled. So, yes."

"What did Rebecca escaping you fall under?" Weston questioned smartly.

Neil snorted. "She may have ran for a short time, but fear is control in itself."

"Where did Annie fit?" Tim asked.

"Annie controlled Rebecca," Neil replied with a hint of bitterness, jealously even. "Took most of her time and attention. Contradicted what I wanted her to do. Annie was mouthy even for a brat. She was the only reason Rebecca ran. We would've been fine if not for her."

Boy, is he delirious, you thought.

Weston frowned. "You keep saying was."

Neil curled his lips upward, his expression bright. "Caught that, huh?"

"What did you do to her," Tim ground out, the first sign he'd shown that their suspect, who had confessed in every way except spelling it out, was making him boil.

"I used her for the only thing she was good for and left her to fade away," Neil stated simply as he shrugged, like it was normal, like it was right.

Your stomach twisted. Used her. He fucking used her. The smirk that upturned his face left you without question as to what he meant by that.

What do you call someone so inhumane they murdered an innocent woman in front of her child, kidnapped said child, and continued to further traumatize her then leave her to die? The only correct answer in your book was Monster.

Both Tim and Weston appeared more than ready to give Neil a beat down, fists and jaws clenched, eyes dark with fury. They'd read between the lines and drawn the same conclusion as you. It wasn't like it had been in fine print, after all.

"Was she alive when you left her?" Weston pressed on with a hiss.

"Maybe. No idea."

It was clear Neil did actually have an idea, but wasn't willing to let them have the truth. You understood then what he had been doing all along. He was playing a game, or at least thoroughly enjoying riling up Tim and Weston. He was toying with them like their limbs were hanging from strings. In his eyes, he was in control here.

"We're not going to get anywhere with him," Tim bit out after a few long, tense moments passed, eyes darting to Weston. "You can stay here, but I'm going to get out there and help with the search."

Weston nodded at him and without another word Tim stormed out of the room. You slipped out of the observation room and chased him down the hall.

"I'm coming with," you told him.

"It's past seven," he reminded you, stopping in the middle of the walkway to face you. "Go home. Get some sleep. No use both of us working overtime."

You tilted your chin up stubbornly, knowing that wasn't the only reason he'd suggested you leave. "I'm not going home until you do."

He sighed heavily, deeply annoyed by your insistence, but too tired to argue further. "Fine." He turned to continue making his way towards an exit.

"What are we doing?" you inquired.

"Gonna head out to the highway," Tim said. "Hope we can spot where he might have dumped her."

It sounded like a fool's errand, trying to find Annie that way, but you didn't say so. You had a feeling he already knew the odds, but like you he just needed to do something. With nothing else important left to do for the homicide case until the Forensics results started coming in, or until you both collapsed from lack of sleep, driving around looking for Annie could be that something.

It was better than nothing.

Though it was morning, a surprise rainstorm had darkened the city to the point that it might have as well still been night. The weather matched the state of your mood, and the longer you sat in the passenger seat of Tim's patrol car as he drove along the main road, the deeper your worry for Annie got, and the more it ate at you.

If she wasn't dead, she was likely out there in the pounding rain, drenched and freezing, especially with these autumn temperatures.

If she was still live, time was running out for her fast.

Tim drove slightly slower than the speed limit, along the same roads Neil had taken, eyes scanning the sides. You knew he was searching for signs of a vehicle having driven off the road or some path that might catch a killer's eye as the perfect body dumping spot. You knew because you were looking for the same thing, but with no hints as to where he’d brought Annie, you might as well have been looking for a needle in a haystack.

You and Tim were nearly three hours into the ride to Grants Pass when you found yourself nodding off to the hum of the wheels on the asphalt. You had no control over it after having been up for nearly twenty-four hours straight at that point.

Your heavy eyelids fell for what you thought would be the last time for a while when you felt your world shift from underneath you and you gasped as you found yourself standing in an overgrown grass field, in the middle of a path made of slightly patted down foliage that ran through it. It simulated a corn maze in your mind, the grass almost tall enough to blind you to your surroundings, but not quite. Angling your head just right you could see a highway a few yards away, a multitude of trucks and cars zooming by. It was a dreary day, near noon as best as you could tell. You realized that this was now.

You sucked in a deep breath and when you breathed out it looked like a cloud was slipping out of your mouth. The same eerie feeling of being watched that you’d had in the hotel room the night before overtook you and you spun around.

Rebecca was standing a few yards away from you on the makeshift path. She would have pulled off the role of a serene goddess if not for the determined look in her eyes and her blood-soaked clothes. Your heart thudded in your chest. It was as if someone had given her CPR and she'd just stood up and walked away from the room she'd been murdered in, wandered into this field.

She's here, you heard loud and clear in your head, the voice not your own. This path. Forest. To the forest. Stop. NOW!

You startled awake, crying out, "Stop!"

Tim flinched at your scream and had to adjust the steering wheel, having jerked it when you'd stirred.

"What the hell, Psy!" he growled. "Nearly gave me a damn heart attack."

"Pull over!" you shouted at him as the field blurred by over his left shoulder. "Now!"

He stomped on the breaks, grumbling as he rolled the car into a stop on the right shoulder of the highway.

"What's your problem lady?" he demanded, staring over at you like you'd gone mad. You supposed it was a fair reaction to what had just gone down.

You pointed over your left shoulder with your thumb. "That field we just passed. That's where he took her. He took her there, took her through it, left her in the forest beyond it."

Tim blinked at you in surprise. "How do you know that?"

You threw him an exasperated look. "Again, don't ask questions you're not going to like the answers to. Just trust me. She's out there. Call the search and rescue unit."

"We can't just call the sniffer dog out on a hunch," Tim told you.

You snorted. "Isn't that the point of sending out the dog? If we were sure of where she was, we wouldn't need him."

He ticked his jaw and you read between the lines. It wasn't that they couldn't call for the dog, it was that he didn't want to do it on your word.

"Fucking trust me, Rockford," you hissed. "Trust my results as the department trusts yours. Just this once. And if I'm wrong, I'll walk. You won't have to see me again. Deal?"

He gave you a stiff nod and lifted the radio's handheld speaker to his lips, pressing the button to talk. It was already set up to contact someone under Weston who was also out on the road. The young sounding man promised to let Weston know they needed the bloodhound and where and told Tim to hang out by the location until then.

"Are we really going to just sit here until they show up?" you asked Tim once he returned the speaker to its holder. "That'll be hours. She doesn't have that time to waste."

“You’re the one who wanted the dog.”

“The dog could be back-up.”

"You really think she's still alive after spending half the night and all morning out there in the rain with God only knows what injuries?" Tim questioned, lips pursed.

You stared into his dark, solemn eyes. "I know it."

He tilted his head at you and fell into action, pulling his key out of the ignition and pocketing it before pushing himself out of the vehicle with a groan. You slipped out of the passenger side and met him at the trunk. He opened it to reveal a mess of tools of the trade and emergency supplies.

"Grab the compass and blanket and put on your back up shoes," he ordered you. "I'll grab the walkie and the pack of hiking supplies. I assume Rebecca the friendly ghost didn't tell you how far away into the woods Annie is...?"

"No, she did not," you confirmed, reaching for the folded navy blue blanket tucked away in a back corner. "But I can't imagine they'd have gotten far. Surely Annie was fighting him?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Tim said, shrugging. "It depends if he tried selling some promise to her or if he made it clear what his intentions were. I have a feeling Neil is the type to only reveal his truths when there's no hope left."

You chewed your upper lip, again picturing the girl from the memory you'd seen the night before. So bright and smiley. You realized that version of Annie was a ghost. If she survived, if you found her in time, you knew she'd never be the same. You could only hope that she'd find the strength to cope with her nightmares. That she'd find meaning in her life to keep going. You clung to that hope as you and Tim trekked out into the field, towards the dense, damp forest lining the back of it.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time you and Tim stepped under the canopy of the gorgeously autumn colored Oregon woods, but you'd been out in the pouring rain in a thin dark purple fleece long enough to already be half soaked and chilled. You had to clench your teeth together to keep yourself from chattering them, afraid Tim would hear and send you back to the car. You had to see this through.

At least the wind is almost dead, you mused. Small blessings.

Tim was dressed far better than you, in his long, tan trench coat and wearing heavy black boots that were surely keeping the water off his socks a hell of a lot better than your sneakers were (they were the only backups you'd brought and were better than your dress shoes at least).

There was no point in time you weren't crunching dead leaves under your feet or tripping on hidden roots, but you managed to keep up with Tim as he traversed the game trail through the dense forest much more quietly than you, like he had hiked every day of his life.

As time passed you noted he had a subtle limp, a hitch in his stride, when climbing or sliding down hills. Probably a bad knee. With the rain and his age, you weren't surprised. You were feeling achy yourself, an old ankle injury having flared up after the first twenty minutes of the trek.

"Rebecca tell you anything since we've been out on the trail?" Tim finally inquired, breaking a long silence between you, both absorbed in your own thoughts. You'd been walking for just over thirty minutes.

"No," you answered more sharply than you intended. You really hated hiking in wet weather. You were sure you looked like a drowned rat and you felt just as miserable. "She's a tickle at the back of my mind right now. Nothing else."

"Ah, so she admits it's all in her head," he said, not bothering to glance back at you.

You were going to bite off Tim's head for the comment, at the smug smile he was probably sporting, but then it registered that his tone was teasing. It startled you. First the Psy nickname, then the joke about you imagining your gift (curse). Maybe Tim Rockford really did have a sense of humor. It wasn't a good one, but it was something, you guessed. If you could ever get along, be comfortable around each other, you imagined it was something you could work with.

You chose to ignore him instead, taking a moment to stand still and study the surrounding forest. It was just trees and logs and moss and rocks. Dirt and muddy puddles. The faint whistle of a far-off woodpecker.

Something was silently calling your attention to the east though. You could see nothing that would've tipped you off, any traces of footprints washed away in the early morning heavy rainfall, but you had the urge to head in that direction, off the beaten path, anyway. You were being called out to like a ship’s crewmate in the clutch of a siren's devastatingly divine song.

You couldn't ignore it. You knew better than to do that.

You were almost out of sight of the path before Tim noticed you had wandered off. You heard him shout after you, concern in his voice. "Psy, where are you going?"

"This way," you yelled back. "She has to be this way."

Tim took one last glance at the trail ahead then hesitantly followed you, nearly jogging to catch up. By the time he did, you'd stepped out into a small opening in the forest, littered with a thick layer of gold and orange leaves.

Curled up in the fetal position and completely bare, her scattered clothes buried out of sight, the body of a pale little girl with fierce red shoulder length hair laid nearly perfectly in the center, as still as the air.

You felt your stomach drop. Were you too late?

Tim made his way pass you to approach her carefully. "Annie?" he called out tentatively, placing one foot slowly in front of the other, like he was afraid to startle her.

There was no reaction from her, and the silence locked your heart in a fist-like squeeze.

At Annie's side, Tim squatted to press two fingers to the side of her curled neck, checking for a pulse. When his stiff form relaxed slightly, his broad shoulders dropping, you heaved a sigh of relief.

She had a pulse.

Your deduction unstuck you from your spot and you rushed forward to cover Annie's tiny form with the blanket from the trunk, mentally crossing your fingers that the part that had been folded in the middle wasn't damp like the edges were.

Tim reached for the walkie talkie he'd attached to his backpack and talked into it. You knelt by Annie's head and studied her mostly hidden face as he did so, only vaguely aware of him telling whoever was on the other end that Annie was alive and that they needed an ambulance at their car's location on the highway.

You wanted to reach out to her, but something stopped you. The guilt of not being able to find her sooner.

"We need to get her to the road," Tim told you. "The paramedics are going to meet us there. I'll carry her. You guide us back with the compass."

You nodded at him, eyes still fixed on Annie's face.

Nearly out of your peripheral vision, you saw Tim reach for Annie's right wrist, grasping it gently, pulling it up to examine it.

"It's a miracle she didn't completely bleed out," he muttered. You followed his eyes to the slit on her wrist, dried blood caked on her arm. When your eyes found her left wrist, it was in the same state.

"That's what he meant by having left her to fade away," you realized.

Tim dropped her arm and tucked the blanket underneath her, making sure she was wrapped up like a burrito, her arms free, but no skin left exposed below her shoulders or above her ankles otherwise. As he did so, she began to stir, eyes still shut, too weak to open them, but aware enough to know someone was jostling her around.

She whimpered sharply and began to softly sob, tears leaking out of the edges of her eyes. Your heart wrenched at her pitiful noises, knowing immediately why she was panicking, what she thought was going to happen to her...again. Your hand automatically shot out to caress one of her cheeks, to wipe the tears away, to soothe her.

"Hey, hey," you whispered softly. "It's alright, Annie. We're from the police department. We're here to help you. Trust us, okay? You can trust us. You're safe now."

Tears continued to leak out, and she was shivering uncontrollably, but the girl quieted. You nodded to Tim to continue, and he met your eyes, his worried, before pressing forward.

"Gotta pick you up to get you out of here Annie," he warned her as his eyes scanned the side of her face, voice as low as yours had been. "Gonna lift you on three. One, two..."

On three he scooped her up into his arms, more gingerly than you'd have thought possible for a man of his size, standing slowly up with a wince.

A small hand managed to reach up to curl around his trench coat's collar, like Annie was trying to cling to him, but she made no other moves and her breaths soon evened out again. You and Tim had lost her to sleep once more.

Tim didn't dare run with Annie in his arms, but he still moved fast, strides long, and you had to nearly jog to keep up with him on the way back to the car. The compass was mostly forgotten, Tim only asking you once where north was, to confirm he hadn't gone off course and veered west instead.

When you popped out of the woods, you could see an ambulance parked on the edge of the road, across from and parallel to Tim's patrol car and two other unmarked cars with a few detectives from missing persons inside them. The two paramedics waiting already had a gurney out, ready to go, and Tim lowered Annie down onto it like she was a porcelain doll. He explained the shape you’d found her in to the paramedics as they loaded her up into the truck. He didn't notice you'd hopped in and planted yourself down on one of the border seats until one of the paramedics was about ready to slam the back door shut. He stopped the door mid-way.

"What are you doing?" he asked, confused. "Someone with the missing persons unit will interview her when she wakes. You don't need to go with her."

"I'm not leaving her until the doctors say she'll be okay," you explained. You knew you wouldn't sleep a wink otherwise and hearing it on the news would be too long of a wait. Besides, she knew your voice, and you wanted to be there to reassure her on the way to the hospital if necessary. Being turned over into so many different hands in her state had to be disorientating, at least you could make the ride a little easier on her if she woke back up.

Tim looked like he wanted to argue with you over your decision to ride along, with the way his jaw was jutting out, but he never got the words out, for some reason deciding against it. Instead, he gave you a curt nod and let the paramedic finish shutting the doors.

You slipped a hand over one of Annie's delicate ones as the engine roared to life, giving her thin, icy cold fingers a light squeeze, and watched as the paramedic out back got to work examining her, monitoring her, getting an IV in her, and pushing pain meds until the nearest hospital came into view.

As soon as you entered the emergency room with Annie you were forced to part from the unconscious child, ushered towards the waiting room by a nurse.

You could've left, you weren't a relative to Annie and most first responders, most detectives, had a rule about getting invested in patients and/or victims, but you didn't. You'd never learned to move on after seeing children harmed by the criminals you helped catch. You needed to know their fate every time.

So you sat there, watching the muted television in the room for nearly three hours. When it was clear the nurses weren't going to come out and give you an update, you went back in, headed for the nurses' station.

You cornered the petite blonde who'd kicked you out. "Anything you can tell me about Annie Flynn?"

"Are you family?" the nurse inquired patiently.

"I'm a consultant for the police department," you told her honestly, flashing your badge at her. "I'm the one who found her. I know it's not exactly protocol to tell me, but I'm not going to be able to sleep restfully if I don't know how she's doing, so please."

The nurse hesitated, but eventually gave in, sighing deeply. "Physically she's okay. She's been given antibiotics and pain medication and has been gaining strength since she got a blood transfusion. She doesn't have any injuries that won't heal. Mostly bruises and minor cuts, except for the cuts on her wrists, of course. But those should heal fine too, even if they probably will leave scars. Emotionally however," she paused, rubbing her cheek, "Emotionally we have no idea, of course. We can't even be sure of everything that happened to her because she's in a sort of mental shock right now and isn’t speaking to anyone, but the doctor who examined her used a rape kit on her. They're pretty sure what the results from it will be, as I'm sure you are, but it'll take a couple days for them to come in."

"Has anyone come in yet to see her?" you asked.

She nodded. "Her aunt is with her upstairs as we speak."

"Where?" You gave her a pleading look.

She chewed on her lower lip, trying to figure out how much trouble she'd be in if she told you. "Room 201."

"Thanks," you said gratefully, immediately rushing off for the nearest stairway.

You climbed to the second floor and did your best to look casual as you approached the room.

When you reached the door the sound of a woman's assuring voice stopped you from entering. You quietly peered into the room to see a woman slightly younger than Rebecca had been, who shared the same hair as she had, seated on the edge of the only bed in the space, a hand on Annie's sheet covered knees. Annie was laying on her back, eyes wide, tears streaming down her face.

"I can't begin to imagine everything you've been through," Rory told her softly. "But I am here for you, and I'm going to find you a therapist who will listen to you as well, okay? You won't have to deal with what happened on your own, sweetie. You'll come stay with me and we'll get through this together, alright?"

Annie nodded vigorously, her newfound energy as obvious as her anguish, and she sat up to throw her arms around her aunt's neck, to bury her head in her chest.

You backed off, making sure they didn't notice you. You'd seen enough, seen too much in fact, feeling like you had invaded their privacy by eavesdropping on them even if it had been brief.

You had your answers. Annie was awake and on the road to recovery. It would be far from easy for her, emotionally, but she had a supportive aunt to take care of her. It was more than many young victims of crime ever got.

You could live with that. You had to.

You were turning back to the stairway when a chill ran up your spine. Instinct had you whipping around and your head shooting up, searching for what had caused the sensation. Rather who.

Rebecca.

She was at the end of the hall, by the bay window overlooking the parking lot below. It wasn't a glamorous sight, but with the sun finally peeking out of the clouds just in time to start setting, there was still a hint of beauty to it.

Rebecca's spirit was still in the white dress, but it was no longer bloody, and the symbolism wasn't lost on you. Her killer was caught; her daughter would be safe. She didn't move, she didn't smile, but the gentleness in her eyes made up for it; allowed you to figure out why she was here.

She was silently thanking you, in what was probably the only way she was capable of in the in between.

You gave her a nod of acknowledgement, blinked, and she was no longer there. Peacefulness filled the atmosphere and the weird mental itch at the back of your brain was gone.

Rebecca had moved on.

You called for a taxi as soon as you were back on the first floor of the hospital and waited by the main entrance for the driver to pick you up. It was a long, expensive drive, since you needed him to get you from Roseburg back to Portland, but Tim had already left the city so you'd had no other choice (he'd called while you were in the waiting room and you'd refused to leave without answers). At least you were able to nap for about an hour, head leaning on the back side window, until a pothole jostled you and you banged your head painfully against it.

It was nearly nine o'clock at night when you arrived at the department, headed back to the homicide division in hopes of catching Tim before he headed home, wanting to get an update on the murder investigation side of things.

One of the secretaries on the main floor, Helen, who was close in age to you and Tim but dressed like she was seventy, stopped you from trying the closed door to his office. "It's locked."

"So Rockford's already headed home?" you guessed.

She shook her head, the corners of her mouth tugging downward. "More likely than not he's at Liquid Alchemy. It's a bar on the next street over. A lot of the detectives go there to drink on weekends. Sometimes us secretaries join them."

"It's a Tuesday," you pointed out.

"So it is," she said, "But that wouldn't stop him after solving a case."

"He likes his celebratory drinks?" you quizzed. "Do you think he'd let me join him, or would the presence of the psychic ruin it for him?"

She chuckled a little. "Been giving you a hard time?"

"To say the least," you replied with a huff.

"Well, don't take it too personally," Helen told you, sitting back down in her seat and sipping coffee from a paper cup. "Tim's just a proven facts kind of guy. Unknowns bug him, a lot. And a psychic once said something to him he didn't like."

“What was that?" you asked, interest peaking. The tone of her voice had suggested the mentioned something was big.

She glanced around, like she was afraid to be caught for what she told you next. "It's a long story, but Tim had a little sister. Had being the key word. When he was nine and she was four, she disappeared. They'd been playing hide and go seek out in the backyard, and during one of the rounds where he was the seeker he couldn't find her anywhere. The yard was bordered by trees. Her parents thought maybe she'd run off or got lost in them, so they searched the woods for hours by themselves. They called the police at nightfall and the missing persons unit used a bloodhound to try to track her. The dog got a trail, but it led to a dirt logging road not far from their house and a set of tire tracks. The police concluded that she'd been kidnapped."

"That's awful," you said sadly, your heart going out to your partner and his parents. "I'm going to take a wild guess that he blamed himself."

Helen nodded.

"Did they find her body?" you inquired, remembering the past tense she'd used earlier.

She shook her head dramatically. "It's what drove Tim to be a detective. At first, when he was fresh from the academy he thought he could investigate her disappearance himself and solve it, but it's remained a cold case. There was never enough evidence to follow."

"No wonder he couldn't leave the search for Annie to Weston and his unit," you realized. "This case hit close to home."

Helen nodded in confirmation. "It's also, in part, why he's drinking on a Tuesday."

You pursed your lips. "So, what's a psychic got to do with it?"

"When Tim was at a carnival with friends three years later, a psychic that traveled with them approached him, unsolicited, and told him his sister was with him," she explained, "Like, actually with him, following him around wherever he went, just like she tended to do when she was still alive."

"He didn't like what it meant," you figured. Who would want confirmation that their family member was dead from a stranger like that? Still without a body to bury? Who would want to know that they weren't at rest?

"Wasn't just that," she told you. "He asked the psychic to describe what his sister looked like, and she got a detail wrong."

"She was a fake."

"Yes."

"How'd she know as much as she did?" you asked, gnawing on the inside of your cheek. You hated hearing stories about fakes. After all, every fake out there tarnished your reputation just a little bit more by existing.

"Newspapers, small town talk," Helen suggested. "He grew up in Hood River."

You'd never heard of the place but assumed that it was another town in Oregon.

"Surely you know how fakes are," she continued. "Some of them are very good at what they do. They dig up all the info they need to convince people, or try to at least."

"Guess I should stay away, then." You sighed. "He's been calling me Psy."

"Hey, well, that's something," Helen said, grinning ear to ear. "He doesn't give pet names to people he hates. There might be hope for you yet."

You laughed. "What if I don't want that?"

"Have you seen the guy?" she whispered, leaning towards you. "Eye candy."

You snorted even as a part of you silently agreed. It definitely was not the most logical part of your brain.

It wasn't just his appearance that had you agreeing though. You had a feeling you'd have the vivid image of Tim carrying Annie out of the woods like she weighed nothing stuck in your head for a long time.

"Thanks for telling me about his sister and the fake psychic," you said soberly, yawning after. "Guess I should head home."

"Stop by the bar first," Helen insisted. "He gave you a nickname. I think you'll be surprised at how receptive he may be of your company."

You arched your brows. "You trying to set us up?"

"God no," she barked out, winking at you. "Then I wouldn't have a chance at him."

You smiled. It seemed you'd made a friend during your very first case. Not bad.

You said goodnight to Helen and nearly bumped into Bronson on your way off the floor.

"How was your first shift?" he asked you, pulling back the coffee cup he was holding to protect it from the hazard that was you.

"Terrible case," you told him, "And Tim's still lukewarm to me at best, but it's been suggested I might be wearing his walls down."

Bronson dipped his head at you. "Good. He needs that." He checked his watch. "It's getting late. Rockford already finished the necessary paperwork for the day before he left and you've proven yourself plenty today. Get out of here. Get some rest. I don't want to see you back here for another twenty-two hours."

You raised your hands in surrender. "No arguments there."

You didn't mention that you were going to stop by the bar first.

Liquid Alchemy was no upscale bar, but it wasn't a dump either. The outside was plain white, with a black sign. Its name was in white, and painted alongside the alchemy symbol of silver, which was shaped a lot like a crescent moon. The inside was neat and smoke free, unlike most bars you'd been to, and there was a platform where live bands could play. That night there was only a DJ though, since it was a slow weekday, only a dozen people there when the bar probably could hold a hundred.

You spotted Tim as soon as you entered the building, seated on a black stool at the eight person bar in the center of the main room, his back turned to you. He was still in his work clothes, like you, but he'd tossed the suit coat on the counter beside him. Seeing his shoulder holsters again and the way his white shirt strained over his upper back immediately reminded you of your first meeting just over a day ago.

Had it really only been a day?

You approached Tim on his right. "This seat taken?" you inquired lightly.

It was a joke; you knew all the stools besides his were empty. It was a well-received joke though, Tim snorting quietly at you. He lifted the glass of liquor in his right hand (Bourbon?) to his lips and waited until you seated yourself to speak. "How'd you find me?"

"Helen said all the detectives come here."

"Pretty much."

The bartender approached you and you ordered a whiskey sour.

"Don't know how you can mix alcohol with a sour taste," Tim commented, grimacing.

You shrugged. "What can I say? I've always preferred sour to sweet."

"How's the girl?" Tim asked eventually, after the bartender had handed you your drink.

"Awake and with her aunt," you answered with a sigh. "Not talking right now, but who can blame her? I just hope she can live with some kind of normalcy eventually. At least her aunt seems really nice."

You took a sip of your drink and made a face. Just cause you liked sour things, didn't mean you had no reaction to them.

"You see Rebecca anymore?" he asked you, and your eyes shot up to his, shocked by the question. It took you a moment to recover, long enough for him to swallow a mouthful of his drink.

"After Annie woke up and reunited with her aunt she moved on," you informed him.

He frowned at you. "Just like that?"

"Just like that. Poof. Gone."

"She was able to rest after everything that happened?"

You wondered where Tim was going with this, why he was asking so many questions. "Spirits aren't quite human anymore and they tend to stick around for one purpose. Rebecca's was making sure Annie would live, and she does. Annie's trauma wasn't a part of the equation, and she had no power to do anything about it anyway."

"This a guess?"

"A logical conclusion," you corrected him. "I surmised it from my forty-five years of being able to see and sense them."

"Your whole life?"

You nodded. "Ever since I could remember, I'd get chills when there were no drafts, whispers in my mind when I wasn't thinking, nightmares about real people I'd never seen before."

"That had to be scary as a child," Tim reckoned.

"It was." You smirked at him. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you're starting to believe me, Rockford."

He downed what was left of his drink. "I believe that you believe it's real. I have no solid proof of otherwise."

You rolled your eyes before throwing back a quarter of your drink in one go. "You never will. Spirits aren't tangible, and not everyone has my heightened senses."

"The results are all that matter," Tim decided, waving at the bartender, "And you get results, fast. You were great out there. Annie probably would have died without you stopping me in front of that field and leaving the trail to look for her. I don't know how you did it, but I don't care anymore."

You could work with that, you thought. As long as you both got along, respected each other, you could handle a partner not fully accepting of your abilities.

"I was thinking," he began slowly after ordering another glass of Bourbon.

"Oh?" You blinked innocently at him, leaning on the bar with an elbow and cupping the underneath of the hinge of your jaw.

"I know, shocker," Tim grumbled, guessing correctly what you'd been tempted to say.

You beamed up at him. He could be a pain when he was grumpy, slightly condescending when he didn’t like something, but he was also fun to tease.

"Anyway..." he trailed off, "I was hoping tomorrow night you'd help me with the cold case while we're waiting on the lab results for Rebecca's case."

"The one on the cork board?" you guessed.

"That's the one," he replied with a nod. "It's from 1985. A nineteen year old was found in his house, an apparent suicide, having taken one pill too many, but he had strangulation marks around his neck, like someone held him in a choke hold for a while. Could use his spirit to help me figure out what went down."

"It doesn't work on command," you warned him, "And on cold cases I usually don't see much. Most of the time the spirits are no longer around after the first week, otherwise they risk becoming a poltergeist."

"I don't necessarily need your spiritual talent," Tim said, pursing his lips. "Even just having another brain to pick would help." He took a sip of his new drink. "What do you say?"

You curled your lips up at him.

"Sounds like a plan."

xxx

Tagged: @harriedandharassed

xxx

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#The Rockford Files Series #Merge Mansion Fanfic #X Reader #Tim Rockford Fanfic (Mine)

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