Disclaimers: I don’t own them, people. Pity me…
Warnings: Nothing that I can think of…some angst, as usual, but nothing that will want to make you bawl or anything like that. 3+2, past 6x2
“I’m very sorry, sir, but there’s nothing we can do,” the bored-looking detective told Trowa with a dismissive wave.
Although the man felt like slapping the detective’s desk in frustration, he clasped his hands together, “A twelve year old girl is missing, but you won’t help?”
“Under different circumstances we wouldn’t hesitate, but in this case our hands are tied. Kaitlin Bloom is not eligible to be put on a missing person’s report without proof that she has actually been taken.”
“She’s twelve years old and has been missing for three days. Doesn’t that make her eligible?”
Tapping a nail on the file laying on her desk, the woman shook her head, “It would, but this isn’t the first time the girl has taken off. There have been four previous incidents where reports were filed, only for her to come back home on her own after a few days, unharmed. In cases like these, we can’t begin to consider them missing until they’ve been gone at least a week. We simply don’t have the resources to chase down every child that gets mad and runs away.”
“Kaitlin hasn’t run away in over a year; doesn’t that make a difference?” Trowa asked, not bothering to go into details of the girl’s life.
“I’m afraid not, sir. In a few days, if she hasn’t come home, her parents can file a report. Until then, there’s nothing we can do,” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow at him. “If you can give me some kind of proof that she was taken…”
“I don’t have any.” Feelings weren’t proof, even when worry and fear rolled around in the tall man’s gut. “I know she didn’t run away.”
“Without proof…” spreading her hands she shrugged then looked at him curiously. “What is your relation to the girl?”
“She’s my niece.”
“As I said before, her parents will need to file a report in a few days.” Flustered at the lack of help, Trowa rose from the seat, stopping when the detective cleared her throat noisily, her eyes revealing the sympathy she felt for his plight when her voice and brisk attitude hadn’t. Glancing around the eternally busy bull pen, she shook her head again, “We can’t do anything to help you, but if you really think she’s in trouble, call this man.” A brief search of her desk had her picking up a business card before sliding it across the surface of the desk.
Trowa picked it up and shook his head after reading it, baffled why the woman had suggested this person, “I need someone to look for a missing child, not a bounty hunter.”
“He’s good at finding people. If he believes you, and you’ll have to give him a damn good reason to believe your niece is missing, he’ll find her when no one else can. He’s helped the department before. He’s a bit unconventional, but he gets results.”
Outside, Trowa tucked the card into his pocket, forgetting about it almost instantly. Resigned to sharing the bad news with his sister, he got in his rental car and made the short drive to her house. When he knocked on the door, Catherine opened it with hope that faded immediately after seeing his face, “They won’t help.”
“I’m sorry.” Trowa winced as he repeated the words the detective had given him. “She has a history of running away, Cathy. They say you can file a report if she doesn’t come back in a few more days.”
Tears were silently tracking down the woman’s face as she backed up to let Trowa inside the house. Stepping into the living room, he met the eyes of his brother-in-law, shaking his head in answer to the unspoken question. As Catherine sat on the couch, the couple wrapped arms around each other in support.
Feeling useless, the green-eyed man moved into the kitchen, hoping to give his sister some privacy. When one of the couple was ready to talk to him, they would seek him out. Frustrated, he paced the room from one end to the other before going back again, stopping when he saw the photo on the refrigerator of the happily smiling trio. Kaitlin was a younger copy of her mother and although she kept her hair mid-length, it still had the shiny red vitality and curls Catherine had. In contrast, Jackson was fair-skinned with light blonde hair, blue eyes shining in joy as he held both females with an arm on either side.
“That was taken four months ago, at the county fair.”
Turning to look at his brother-in-law, Trowa nodded, acting like he didn’t see the red-rimmed eyes from too much crying. “I have a copy hanging in my apartment. Kaitlin sent it to me with a letter, telling me how much fun you three had that day.”
“She’s always told us how much it meant to you for us to send you letters, but I never really gave it any thought.” Jackson opened a cabinet and stared at a bottle of whiskey for a long moment before closing it again, choosing to fill a glass with water from the kitchen faucet. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to Cathy to have you here. It means a lot to me, too, Trowa.”
Unlike Jackson, Trowa wasn’t comfortable expressing his emotions. Life had taught him at a young age that it was best to keep how you felt to yourself. “You don’t have to thank me, Jack. This is my family, too.”
Jackson’s face paled, “I didn’t mean to intimate that it wasn’t. We know how busy you are. It couldn’t have been easy for you to get here so fast.”
“What I said was a statement of fact, not a reply to an insult. This is my family, as it is yours,” Trowa leaned on the counter, crossing his legs at the ankles. “As for leaving, it wasn’t that hard. I’m on leave for a few weeks. I wish you had called sooner.”
“We would have, but we were hoping Katy had met up with some of the people she used to hang out with,” Catherine sniffled as she came into the kitchen. Like Jackson, she went to the liquor cabinet, shutting it after several minutes with a deep breath. “I thought she would come back home in a day or two, but I could feel something was different this time. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on; I just felt in my gut that something was wrong.”
Trowa knew the feeling well; he had felt the same thing when his sister had called him the day before with news of Kaitlin’s disappearance. “I don’t think she would have met up with old friends. She knew they were bad news.”
Catherine’s eyes met Trowa’s, “How do you know that?”
“The letters she wrote. She said things were good here and that she realized her old friends were trouble. She promised me she wouldn’t get involved with that kind of crowd again.”
He swallowed hard as his sister’s breath hitched, not knowing what to do or say to make her feel better, “It has been good. Nothing like it was before. I know she wouldn’t…she wouldn’t…” sobbing, the woman left the room in a rush, her feet pounding up the stairs minutes later.
“This hasn’t been easy on her,” Jackson once a door upstairs was slammed. “I don’t know what to do for her.”
“Do what you’re doing now; keep supporting and being there for her,” Trowa shifted awkwardly. “I checked into a motel a few blocks away. I’m going to go there and make some calls. If you can think of anything, call me on my cell.”
“You don’t have to stay at a motel, Trowa. You’re welcome to stay here, with us.”
Although the offer was made out of kindness, Trowa swallowed bile, “I can’t sleep in this house, Jack. Not after everything that happened here.”
“The house has new memories,” Jackson stared at the floor. “Good memories.”
“This house has new memories for you. For me, I’ll never be able to forget what happened. New memories can’t replace the old ones, not for me,” he said softly before walking to the front door, aware the other man was close behind. “I’ll come by in the morning. Take care of Cathy.”
Reaching his car, he felt eyes on him and turned, searching the house for the occupants faces in the windows. Seeing nothing, he suppressed a shiver and got in the vehicle, driving away from the ghosts of the past that continued to haunt him.
In his motel room, Trowa was trying to plan his next move as he cleaned out his pockets, frowning as he found the business card again. Seeing that it had an address on it, he decided it couldn’t hurt to take a look at the bounty hunter and returned to his car, entering the address into his GPS. Thirty-four minutes later he was driving slowly past a house on the outskirts of the city, positive there was some sort of a mistake.
From what the detective had said, Trowa had assumed the bounty hunter had a lucrative business. If that was the case, why would the man choose to work from a small house five miles from its closest neighbor? Parking out of sight down the dusty road, Trowa felt confident enough to go back on foot, hiding in the shadows created by the rapidly darkening skies.
Stopping at the edge of an ill-kept yard, he surveyed the surroundings with a scowl. There was no way this was the place of business for a successful bounty hunter; the house itself appeared to be in good condition, in need of only a few small repairs, but weeds were taking over the yard and there was a pile of unidentifiable metal objects at one side of the house.
Trowa stayed there for fifteen minutes, freezing as he felt eyes on him again. Trusting his instincts away from the house he had grown up in, he spun, only to be faced with the barrel of a rifle less than a foot away from him. With the light fading, he got only a vague impression of someone shorter than himself, their head covered by a hood.
“Is there a reason you’re sneaking around out here in the dark?” an obviously masculine voice asked.
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
The snort of disbelief was heard clearly, “You parked out of sight and walked back here, then looked around. I doubt you’re the head of the gardener’s association and I’m fairly certain you aren’t the landscaper I hired. Last I heard, he didn’t work after dark; it’s hard to see what you’re mowing down after the sun sets.”
Despite the heavily laced sarcasm, Trowa could detect the hint of amusement. Deciding it was best to use the truth, he kept his hands to the side and visible in case the other man had an itchy trigger finger as he explained, “I was looking for a bounty hunter that has this address on his business card. I apologize for making you nervous.”
“You don’t make me nervous. Where’d you get the business card?”
“A detective gave it to me. She said he could help me.”
Trowa was stunned when the gun was lowered and the man walked past him. When the man looked back at him, he lifted his hands again, wary. “If you’re here about the Bloom girl, come in. If you aren’t, you should be running by now.”
Baffled by the odd behavior, he reluctantly followed the man toward the house and inside, blinking at the sudden light he walked into. After his vision adjusted, he gaped at the man closing the door, rifle propped up against the wall.
Clad in a black hooded sweatshirt, red boxer shorts, and a pair of flip-flops, the man was actually much smaller than Trowa had first assumed, several inches shorter than he. The way the shoes were kicked off revealed a dislike for them, as was the hissed irritation as the sweatshirt was tugged off, revealing a well-defined bare chest. When a meter long braid fell from the cloth, Trowa found his fingers itching to touch, restraining by recalling the ease the gun had been handled with.
Cobalt eyes met his with startling intensity, “Let me guess, not what you expected to see?” the small man asked with a quirk of his eyebrows.
“There has to be some mistake. I’m looking for the bounty hunter this card belongs to,” he dug the card from his pocket, fingers feeling thick and clumsy. “What I don’t need is some…male underwear model.”
The smirk was more than a little enticing, but the man’s next words had Trowa staring in shock, not just because of the man’s surprising good looks, but because of what he said, “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m Maxwell; the card is mine.” When Trowa stared, the small man shrugged, “You were expecting someone bigger, I guess. You watch too much TV. Most of the bounty hunters I know blend into a crowd better than the muscle-bound hulks on television. It’s easier to take your target down if they don’t pay attention to you.”
Not sure what to think, Trowa blurted, “Blend in? Who could you blend in with? A crew of models?”
The braided man moved farther into the house, adeptly dodging boxes sitting all over the floor, “Listen man, I bought this house a month ago and haven’t been able to get anything done because I had a job that took me out of town. I’ve got ten tons of shit to do, so decide if you want my help or not. If you don’t, that’s fine with me, but at least let me show you what I’ve found out about your girl, free of charge.”
“She’s not my daughter, she’s my niece,” Trowa managed to say, confused by the man’s mood toward him, tough but with an edge of kindness. “Why would you look into this without knowing I was coming? How did you know I was coming?”
Following the smaller man through the house, Trowa looked around rather than focus on the pale skin that was bared. Although the rooms were cluttered, it was with boxes and stacked furniture instead of trash or filth. Passing through a plastic curtain he had to stop, stunned at the difference before his eyes.
His first thought was that the room was ruthlessly organized, not a single item out of place. Papers were stacked neatly on the wood desk, a state-of-the-art computer taking up minimal space. Trowa counted two more screens to the left of the desk and another computer desk set up on the far side of the room. There were no personal items here, not even a picture of the man currently thumbing through files in a metal cabinet. “This is your office?” he asked as he stepped closer to the only picture frame that adorned the light blue walls. The certificate inside gave Duo Maxwell the required proof of being a licensed private investigator. “I thought you were a bounty hunter?”
“Bounties are hard to come by sometimes and there’s a lot of competition. Between jobs, I’m an investigator.”
“You name is Duo?”
“Last I looked,” impatience tinted the man’s tone so Trowa kept the rest of his
questions to himself, surprised to discover he had quite a few. “My history is long and ugly and not
something I like to share,” the braided man stated bluntly as he dropped a file
on the desk, gesturing toward it with his chin.
Trowa picked up the file and flipped it open, gasping when he found four pages of typed documents that detailed the report he had tried to file with the police, along with the one Catherine and Jackson had tried to file two days before. Past that, there was a list of possible places Kaitlin could have gone and people she might be with.
Looking up, he found the other man’s strangely colored eyes on him again. “Sam asked me to check on this, so I did,” the investigator stated, clearly answering the question Trowa hadn’t voiced yet.
“Sam?”
“Samantha Duckett, the detective you spoke to earlier today.”
“She asked and you did it, just like that?”
Lifting his eyebrows, Duo crossed his arms over his chest, pulling Trowa’s attention there for a moment. “She’s currently on desk duty because of a favor she did for me. It’s not a hardship to repay a favor to someone that stuck their neck out for you.” Jerking a shoulder, the braided man gestured with a flick of his fingers, “The girl was last seen outside her school, walking home alone. I’m told it was her normal routine. What you need to do next is show her photo around and ask people between her school and home if they have seen her. I’d focus on any parks, businesses, or restaurants she might have passed. Chances are that people are used to seeing her and would have paid attention if she was seen with someone else.” Unfolding his arms, the bounty hunter shook his head as Trowa began to set the folder down, “Take it with you. It’ll give you a place to start.”
Shaking his head in return, Trowa realized he was going to put his trust in an abrasive man he didn’t know, having no choice in the matter, “You’ll need it to start looking for her, won’t you?”
“I have a copy on my computer. Are you sure you want to hire me?”
“The detective said I would need to convince you that Kaitlin had actually been taken instead of running away,” Trowa said slowly, unsure of the man’s abrupt willingness to help when no one else had been eager to do so.
“Her life has been stable for the last year and she hasn’t taken off. Her grades have been slowly improving and she has a number of extracurricular activities that she seems to enjoy; those aren’t the signs of a troubled child.”
“Clearly, you know what you’re doing. I need that expertise, Mr. Maxwell. How much do you charge? Is it by the day or week or hour…?”
“We’ll discuss payment after the girl is located. Come back at twelve tomorrow and bring me a recent photo of the girl.” Duo hesitated for a moment before frowning deeply, “You know the chances of finding her alive if she’s been abducted are slim?”
It was a harsh reality Trowa hadn’t wanted to face, but he was forced to confront it head on, “I’m aware of the possibility, Mr. Maxwell. Either way, I need to find her,” he said quietly, hoping it was alive and not dead.
“All right. Be back here at twelve sharp, Mr. Bloom.”
“Barton, not Bloom. My name is Trowa Barton. Bloom is my sister’s married name,” he explained, not knowing what prompted him to do so.
“Very well, Mr. Barton. You can find the way out on your own. I have some work to do.”
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