Juliet has felt like this before. Just a couple of weeks ago Nick had been later than he'd thought, forgot to call, and somewhere in the back of her mind she'd let the worst case scenario grab hold of her imagination. Really, it's been hard, since that awful Oleg guy put Nick in the hospital, not to imagine even more terrible things happening to him. And this had definitely qualified as one of those times.
At 10:30 the doorbell had rung and she'd been practically hyperventilating before she'd opened the door and remembered, oh yeah, I ordered a pizza. Nick had arrived home twenty minutes later with Chinese take-out, and she'd joked, "Look at all this food! See, this is why you have to call," but she could tell Nick had seen right through her, and had apologized to her so sincerely that it had made her blush.
When she answers the door this time, there's no pizza delivery boy. Just Officer Wu in his uniform with that awful look on his face. That look she never wanted to see on anyone standing on her front steps.
"Hey. He's not dead, okay? He's missing," he says, and she's fractionally relieved.
"Missing? How… "
"We think he's been taken. Hank found his car with the keys still in the ignition, the door wide open. His cell on the sidewalk. There was also some… blood. Not a lot."
"Who took him?" She's not surprised by the fear. But the anger is a little unexpected.
"They're working on it. Look, I can drive you down to the precinct…"
Juliet nods, wipes at the tears streaking her cheeks, and grabs her purse.
[~]
Most of the night is a blur. She sits at Nick's desk examining his pens, a paperweight from the San Diego zoo that she's pretty sure he's had since he was a kid, and the little plastic brontosaurus she plucked out of the gutter and handed to him on their first date. Neither Hank nor the chief can tell her anything honestly reassuring other than dumb platitudes like we'll find him or everyone's working on this. Nothing that inspires much confidence. She wants to go look for him herself, and even though it's totally absurd she thinks about wandering the city just calling his name like the kitten she lost when she was eleven named Salvador.
At around 3 am, Hank hands her the keys to Nick's car and his phone, tells her that they've lifted the prints. Tells her she should go home, get some rest. He'll call her as soon as there's any news.
[~]
She feels like there's something she could be doing, only she can't figure out what it is. Maybe she's just losing it, but she doesn't really care at this point. She dumps the laundry hamper out on their bed and checks all of his pockets. Finds a couple of receipts from the Urban Grind and two bucks in change. She shuffles through the pile of papers on his side of the dresser. Bills, an expired vicodin prescription, a birthday card for Gertrude, the station's clerk and half a pack of stamps.
Fascinating. But what did she expect?
Crap. She really needs to get a grip. She stares up at herself in the mirror over the dresser and shakes her head. She looks terrible. Smudged makeup, greasy hair, a zit fighting it's way to the surface on her chin. She hasn't felt so pathetic since high school.
She sinks down onto the edge of the bed and sighs. And that's when she feels it. The little rectangle in her back pocket. Nick's phone.
She turns it on and scrolls through the recent calls. Mostly her, Hank and the precinct's landline. And then there's this other number. All it says is "M".
She thinks about that. Can't be Aunt Marie, obviously. The mayor? No way. M. M. M?
What the hell. She calls the number.
"Nick. Do you have any human decency, man?" the guy says, rough, groggy. But it's the way he sounds so comfortable, so familiar with the idea of getting a call from Nick that strikes her. Because she doesn't know this voice at all.
"Who is this?" she asks, quiet, careful, pulling her feet up onto the bed and under her knees.
"Who's this?" He sounds suddenly alert.
"Nick's girlfriend."
"Oh. Um… Okay. Errr…. Hi? Good morning?"
"Who are you? How do you know Nick?"
"Look, I don't wanna be a jerk or anything, but maybe you should be asking Nick that."
"I can't. He's missing," she spits.
"What?" The pitch of his voice becomes higher, like he's worried, and Juliet feels a strange anger rise inside her. "Since when?"
"I don't know…" she says, and it's the truth only because she has no clue what time it is anymore. No clue if she's even on the same planet, because everything is starting to feel ridiculously wrong and incomprehensible. "I just… I need to know who you are. Who you are to him."
"Listen, Juliet. It's not like that."
Hearing him say her name somehow makes it worse. "Just tell me!" she yells.
"Okay. Shit. Okay. Look, I'm sorry. My name's Eddie Monroe, and I'm a friend of Nick's. A friend. And it's kinda complicated, but not in the way you think, alright?"
"Complicated how?"
"That's… that's something Nick's been dying to tell you, Juliet. Boy, has he ever. But… yeah. I guess that's gonna be up to me."
"Yeah? So tell me this great secret, then."
"So… that's the thing. I sorta need to do it in person."
...