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K ate woke up the next morning, feeling a little bit more like herself. Lying in bed, she did a quick evaluation. She was upset that she’d been so easily thrown, yet Simon had been correct. Anything to do with her brother, particularly in this way, would have sent anyone in her situation into a spiral.

She was back to herself now, at least she hoped she was, and needed to get back to work. She had to get to a place in her head where she understood the job that needed to be done. She also had to gear up for a fight, as she knew Colby would try to take her off the case. That wouldn’t work. She would walk. She suspected they already knew that, but it wouldn’t change anything for the moment.

She got out of the shower and quickly dressed and headed to the kitchen, Simon was already there waiting for her. He looked up, assessed her closely, and then smiled. “There she is.”

“I’m back,” she stated with a nod, only to pause to open her mouth to thank him.

Simon immediately shook his head. “No.”

“No what?” she grumbled. “Why can’t I thank you?”

“Because it’s not necessary between us,” he murmured. “I was just doing what any decent human being would do.”

She snorted at that. “Including the lovemaking afterward?”

His grin flashed in her direction. “I just thought that might help take your mind off of life.”

“Yeah, it sure did,” she muttered, with a wave of her hand. “Just make sure that’s not a remedy you’re passing out to everybody else you’re trying to help.” He burst out laughing, and she grinned. “It does feel better to be back. It was a pretty-rough night, but, waking up, I feel…” She stopped, considering the right word for how she felt. “ Centered , if that makes sense.”

“Centered is good,” he agreed. “Centered is very good.”

She smiled. “I have no idea what today will bring,” she warned.

“Nope, I get it,” he noted, with a smile. “I do want you to send me a copy of the digital file you have.”

“Oh, right.” She frowned at him and asked, “Any particular reason?”

“Yeah, if I can do anything, I want to help.”

She had to think about that because it was so hard for her to let anybody in, but, if he could help, well…

“And, yes,” he added. “I know you don’t really want my help, if you don’t have to, yet…”

“Yet,” she interrupted, choking up as she walked closer, taking the chair across from him, “I would do an awful lot to get this case solved. I need this solved.”

“And I hear you,” he murmured. “Let’s just keep it to that.”

She smiled and nodded and went through her phone, then quickly emailed him a copy of her file on Timmy. “That should be all you need,” she said.

“Good, and I will stay in touch throughout the day, just to ensure that all is well.”

“You’ll have to,” she shared, standing and walking to the coffee machine, where she programmed a cup, “because I’ll probably get so busy that I won’t even think to update you.”

“I know,” he said. “And, considering that this is as tender of a topic as it is, any updating that you can do on your mental health would make me much less of a basket case, should you be thinking of ignoring me.”

Picking up her cup, she turned and stared at him.

He nodded. “Hey, it’s what happens when you start caring for people,” he noted.

Her shoulders sagged, and she nodded. “I do owe you that.”

“No,” he declared, immediately bristling at her tone. “You don’t owe me anything.”

She raised both hands in frustration. “Look. You know I suck at relationships. And now, dealing with this Timmy note, obviously everything I say will set off alarms for somebody right now,” she muttered. “So let’s just forget that I’m even talking. If I could go back to bed, I would, but obviously that won’t happen for a very long time. Thus, I would very much appreciate a little bit of… leeway.”

“Leeway works,” he agreed. “I’m not here to make your life difficult.”

“So far,” she groaned, rolling her eyes, before taking a sip of coffee, “you’ve been the one person instrumental in making my life move in ways I hadn’t thought possible. I just need you to understand that I appreciate it all.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. Do you want me to drop you off at work?”

She immediately shook her head. “No.” She sipped her coffee again before wincing, as it didn’t hit the spot. “I believe my wheels are here. I can head out on my own.”

He nodded. “They are.”

“Okay, I want them at work with me,” she replied. “I have no idea where today will take me, but I want to be prepared, just in case.” Walking over to him, she wrapped her arms around him, and they shared a quiet hug. “And thank you again.” Making sure she didn’t stay in the hug too long or put too much emphasis on the thank you part, she immediately walked into the elevator, ignoring his call for her to have breakfast. “I’ll grab something later,” she called back.

And, with that, she raced to her vehicle and headed to the office. As she walked in, most of her team was already assembled. Rodney immediately looked at her and frowned, so she frowned right back. “I am not leaving this to you guys,” she declared.

“I’m not sure you should be anywhere close to it though,” Colby replied, coming out from his office.

“Maybe not, but Simon made a very good point last night,” she noted, as she looked around at her team. “He wondered, and I think it’s valid, if this could merely be a distraction to pull away our attention from something else.”

All three of her team members looked at each other and then back at her. Their boss Colby nodded as well.

“It’s possible,” she stated, with a nod. “I don’t have any way to know that obviously, but somebody is yanking my chain. He potentially knows just enough from the public records to pull that information together, and I guess it wouldn’t have taken all that much for a phone call to be made to the department to see whether I was here or on days off, and when I would be back in,” she explained. “So, yes, this could be all about my brother, and it could be something completely different.”

“That’s an interesting concept.” Colby looked around at the team. “Thoughts?”

Rodney immediately shook his head. “No idea,” he replied, “but, if this came from Simon, I would say that would be very valid. I don’t know why anybody would try to do something like that to Kate though.”

“Other than to hurt me, then deception works,” Kate pointed out, “but it’s something we need to keep an open mind about. It is a possibility though. And, for that open mind part, we definitely need to be on the lookout for this being something completely twisted and bizarre.”

Colby shook his head and sighed. “It seems as if everything nowadays with you is twisted and bizarre.”

“And here,” she replied, with half a smile, “I thought only Simon’s cases were that way.”

“Maybe,” Colby conceded. “It’s definitely a consideration right now.”

“I’m not trying to get in anybody’s way,” she added, “but I do worry that this isn’t what we are really looking at. Yesterday I wasn’t thinking straight,” she admitted, as she looked around the room. “And I gave you as much information as I could. However, I’m quite sure I missed a bunch, so I will spend some time this morning, getting some of that down on paper. I think the bottom line right now is that we can’t rule out that something else is brewing, and, for whatever reason, either they want me off the case, or completely out of the office,” she suggested, turning to look at Colby, “or just looking elsewhere.”

Colby nodded. “I’ll take that up with the brass. Of course I had to update them this morning, and there have been calls for you to take some time off and to let us as a team go through this.”

“Of course there has, and I get that,” she said, “and, if you do that, I’ll hand in my resignation right now.”

He winced. “Somehow I figured you would say that.”

“No way this is going on around me without my being involved,” she declared, staring him down. “I get it. We have liabilities, and we have things that need to be sorted in terms of making sure the case sticks, if it goes to court. But it’s also very important that whoever is playing these games doesn’t get a free pass, just in case it is simply a diversion.”

“You won’t make it easy, will you?” Colby asked, staring at her glumly.

She gave him a brilliant smile. “You wouldn’t want me to either. That same tenaciousness I use on these cases is exactly what I’ll apply to this one. This asshole, whoever it is, doesn’t get to get away with this,” she announced. “No way, not now. This asshole is mine.”

“Yet we can really do nothing if that is what the person who delivered the puzzle box is after,” Lilliana pointed out. “It’s just something that we must keep in mind on the side.”

“Exactly,” Kate agreed. “So, did you guys get anywhere with any of the research overnight?”

Rodney smiled and spoke up. “We checked the cameras around the department, and it was delivered by a young teenager. He doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it, but we are working to track down his identity, as it was dropped off for you personally. Reese has her assistants tracking the kid on the street cams and hopefully we’ll see where he goes. Forensics has the box, and they haven’t found anything as of yet, but we have pulled all the files in regard to your brother’s case. Plus, I have a list of people to contact over Timmy’s disappearance.” When she winced at that, Rodney nodded. “It’ll be painful, but no other way to make it happen.”

“Agreed,” she muttered. “I know it’ll be painful, and, with any luck, maybe it will finally bring in some info. Living with the constant lack of closure, the constant not knowing what’s going on and who could possibly have done this, is heartbreaking,” she murmured.

“And you really have no idea who would be involved?” Lilliana asked.

Kate shook her head. “No, I really have no idea. I was seven. Timmy was five. We went to the same school that he was taken from. I’ve thought of this case for years. Who could it be? Who could have done this? Whose MO was to steal children from schoolyards? And I’ve gone through everything I could find, everything I could remember, over and over, looking for a link.”

“A complete stranger could be involved,” Rodney suggested.

“Yes, of course.”

They all nodded.

“That would be the hardest to solve,” Lilliana noted.

“Especially after all this time,” Colby added.

“Exactly,” Kate replied, “so anything that you guys can do would be absolutely wonderful, and, if it turns out some asshole is just yanking my chain for some reason, I would really like a few minutes alone with him,” she shared, her jaw firming up.

Colby snorted. “Now that you won’t get.”

“But you could let me have just two minutes,” she repeated, looking at him with a serious expression, but still a twinkle was in her eye.

He shook his head. “No, not happening, and Simon doesn’t get a few minutes either.”

“I’m kind of hoping that”—she rolled her eyes—“he can help us out.”

Rodney turned to her. “Will he try?”

“I think so,” she said, carefully watching Colby and gauging his temperature. “I know Simon was pretty upset for my sake.”

“Of course,” Rodney agreed, with a smile. “Yet we also know that he can’t always connect.”

“No, he can’t always connect, and often you don’t want him anywhere close,” Colby noted, “because the last thing we want is to disclose the fact that a psychic helped us out.”

“Yeah, especially this psychic,” Kate muttered, with half a smile, “because he really doesn’t want anything to do with that part of his world. He’s getting a little bit better at controlling it, so maybe that’s all good. Still, it’s not easy on him.”

“Of course not,” Rodney added, “but he does a hell of a job.”

“When he has information, whatever that information is,” she noted, “I have certainly come to listen to it now. I don’t like the questions about it. I don’t like being asked whether it’s valid, not valid, or anything else. All I can tell you is that, when he says, Move , well,… I tend to move.”

“Yeah, you mean like when that house blew up?”

“Right,” she agreed, “like the house that blew up.”

“There is a method to that psychic madness,” Colby confirmed, and, seeing her stare, he raised his hands. “As long as he keeps you guys alive, I’m all for it. Still, he’s not an excuse for shoddy detective work. He can give us directions. He can give us concepts and thoughts, maybe things to consider, but no way can we rely on him solely to get the job done.” He looked back at Lilliana. “You had a suggestion in terms of Timmy, her brother’s case?”

She nodded and turned to Kate. “Do you want to be part of a discussion with your mother?”

Kate winced. “I thought about that the whole way in today. We have nothing to do with each other, but whoever goes will get an earful about me.”

“Yeah, I was thinking I could go,” Rodney offered.

She stared at him and shook her head. “I understand why you would think that, but she will eat you alive. I would say Lilliana is the best person to talk to her.” Kate grimaced when she witnessed the flash of hurt in Rodney’s gaze.

“I agree,” Lilliana said. “From what I saw in the transcript,” she noted, “she’s a man-eater, isn’t she?”

“Men can do no wrong—well, some men. Yet all women can do no right. Just being female, you’ll totally piss her off,” Kate shared. “My mother would try to charm Rodney, whereas you?… You will get information, and it’s information we need.”

“Good,” Lilliana stated, with a knowing smile. Then she laughed. “I think I should take Rodney with me.”

“Do that,” Kate agreed. “I tell you, if there was ever a good cop, bad cop scenario already preordained, it’s this one.”

“Is she that bad?” Rodney asked. “She’s your mother.”

Kate groaned, as she stared at him. “See? You think every woman who gives birth is Mother Theresa. You’re a pushover. And that’s why Lilliana is going with you.” He glared at her, and she nodded. “I get it. You think that I’m just being a hard-ass and that I don’t really understand my poor mother and all the rest. So you’ll have to make your own decisions about this one. I can’t help you with that. Yet I spent my entire childhood believing that I was the absolute worst child ever for losing my baby brother and that there was absolutely no hope for me… ever.”

“She blamed you, didn’t she?” Lilliana asked, with a hard tone.

“Of course she did. There was nobody else. There wasn’t anyone we could point a finger at. So, it was all me, as far as she was concerned. I took the blame, and I think for a while there I may have even been a suspect, although that could have just been my traumatized juvenile brain on overdrive,” she muttered.

“Yet we see and hear of cases around the country,” Colby pointed out, “where all kinds of child kidnappers are loose out there, and their targets get younger and younger every day.”

Kate nodded. “And this was what? Twenty-some years ago now?” she noted, with a shake of her head. “God, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Anyway, I’m available for questioning, and please go talk to my mother and see how far you can get.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Lilliana asked.

“Not unless she refuses to talk to you,” Kate replied, “because any interaction between the two of us would be…” She stopped and added, “No, no, that’s not fair either.”

“What’s not fair?” Colby asked, staring at her.

She looked over at Lilliana. “I might need to go.”

“Will it make it easier for your mother to talk?” Lilliana asked.

Kate let out a long sigh. “In my mind, I can see her completely blowing up when she sees me. So, if you can’t get her to talk, having me along for the ride is likely to blow it all wide open.”

“Perfect,” Lilliana declared. “In that case you come and stay in the car. But it’s my investigation and my interview, you got it?”

“Got it,” Kate agreed.