A/N: This is an AU fic with some very loose ties to glee!verse as we know it. The plot is based on the novel The Likeness by Tana French, which I read recently and absolutely adored. I've changed a few plot points, but the general framework follows the novel's storyline. The relationships between their characters will become clear as the story progresses. I don't own Glee; I just like to play with the characters. Enjoy, and reviews are love!

you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter

The first thing you need to know is that I'm not Gracie Martinez.

Gracie is an invention of my own mind, composed of fragments of my imagination. She has a little brother, a near-perfect relationship with her mother, and has not spoken to her father in years, not since he remarried. She was born in Buenos Aires but the family moved to the States when she was two years old. She loves sunshine. She's not quite sure if she believes in love.

The second thing you need to know is that sometimes I forget, too – but the truth is this: I am not her, and she is not me.

"Lookin' hot, Lopez."

"Sounding like an idiot, Puckerman."

His breath is warm against my skin as he leans close to my ear. "You wound me, babe."

I swat at him and roll my eyes. Puck is currently my partner (professionally) and has, in the past, been my partner (sexually) – we're bound together now in a way that is irreversible, that makes the rest of the squad refer to us as a unit: "Tell LopezandPuckerman what happened; it's LopezandPuckerman's case to deal with." Neither of us are much for sentimental crap, but if I know anything about my future, it is Puck. Just Puck. We'll retire at the same time, no need to work with anyone else, and he'll always be around, for whatever I need, from a fuck to a friend and everything in between.

He sits on my desk, right on top of a pile of files that I haven't even glanced at yet. "What's today's news?"

"Bomb threat at some school," I tell him lazily. "Looks like it was just a slacker who wanted a day off."

Puck whistles, low and lazy, and it pulls an automatic smirk to my mouth.

"You wish you'd been badass enough to pull that off in high school."

He eyes my legs shamelessly. "I pulled plenty off in high school, baby."

Evenly, I tell him, "I will slap you."

There is something inherently, stupidly comforting about the way his smirk plays against mine, a perfect match. "Please do."

My phone rings just when I'm about the reply, sending Puck into more laughter than necessary – she's done it again, changed my ringtone to Popular from that musical about the wicked witch from Oz or whatever.

"Fuck off," I mutter to him before holding my phone up to my ear. "I'm working, Rach," I say huffily. That damn ringtone.

"San?" Her voice has a tremor in it, high and desperate, and it pulls the smirk off of my face entirely. "Santana – fuck."

"What – " Rachel's not big on profanity unless a case calls for it.

"Where have you been, I've been calling you over and over and I – "

"Meeting." I cut her off, feeling my heart pound fiercely. "We had a meeting this morning. You know what Schue is like about bringing in our phones, not to mention what would have happened if Broadway songs had started playing out of my bag. You have to stop – "

"I – I need you." She sniffs, collects herself a little as she says, "I need you to come here. Right now. It's serious."

Puck is acting like a moron, staring at me hard and making all these stupid hand signals. I turn away, hold the phone a little closer. "Your dads are okay?"

Rachel starts to cry. Real tears, not her fake ones; I know the difference by now. She's sobbing, like the world is ending, and my stomach knots up. Oh, shit. I've never been good with hospitals or funerals or any of that.

"Rach," I whisper, gentle and soft and, admittedly, completely whipped by this girl. I wait as patiently as I can.

"It's not them," she murmurs through quiet gasps. "It's not anyone else, it's – it's you."

There is a low buzzing in my ear, an understanding that is still blurry around the edges, slowly falling into place. It is impossible.

"Rachel," I say, but the phone falls from my hand, clattering to the floor.

Puck's hands are on my shoulders, then, his fingers digging in. His eyes are serious, boring into mine. He's not easily concerned, but he looks as shaken as I feel. "What the fucking fuck, Lopez?" he asks.

Rachel texts me; my phone beeps to acknowledge it and Pucks grabs for it first.

"Wear sunglasses and a long coat and hide your hair. Plus the address, where she's at, and she says to get there fast. And…" He pauses. "Greater than three?"

I snatch the phone back, clenching my fingers around it. "Less than three, you moron." I swallow. "It's a heart."

"Jesus. What are you two, twelve year olds?"

I look up at his face, willing him to read my mind the way he used to be so apt at doing when we were in bed together. "She said it was me, Puck," I say, and wait for the dots to connect.

I wear one of Puck's hooded sweaters, oversized on me, a pair of Rachel's ridiculously gaudy sunglasses, and I put my hair up and cover it with a knitted beret that my grandmother sent me last Christmas.

Puck laughs at me. "Gorgeous," he says, but the mirth doesn't quite reach his eyes.

The crime scene is isolated and this whole disguise seems unnecessary. Puck flashes his ID at a local cop and lifts the yellow tape for me to duck under without waiting for permission. I bite back my grin; this is so familiar, so us – the adrenaline feels impossibly sweet.

We stop walking, just for a second, just to breathe it in. He elbows me. "Better than sex."

I laugh, closing my eyes. "Better than sex with you, for sure."

"You miss this, San," he says as we start to move forward again, gesturing grandly to his body. "One day you're gonna admit it."

Condescendingly, I pat his back, a bit harder than is necessary to get my point across. "Dream on, buddy."

He gives me a lascivious look. "Oh, mami, you know I will."

A blur of bright red trenchcoat and pretty brown hair flies at me before I can even begin to reply. Rachel's hands fist around the material of the sweatshirt of Puck's that I'm wearing and her mouth presses against my neck, warm and hot.

"I needed to see you," she breathes, her whole body firm against mine. I close my eyes once again behind the sunglasses and give into her hug – Rachel makes it kind of impossible not to. "I needed to make sure."

I pat her hair gently, ignoring the way I can feel Puck pretending to flick a whip off to the side and snickering to himself. "Right here," I say, by her ear, pressing a tiny kiss against her cold skin. "I'm right here."

She pulls back and her troubled eyes lock with mine. "I thought – "

To silence her, I give her a real kiss, my mouth against hers. "You think too much," I say when we break apart. Her breathing is so rough that I can't quite relax. I'm breaking protocol all over the place – Puck is the only one who knows about Rachel and I, officially – but the air is so charged that I can't bring myself to care.

Her arms tuck around me and she opens her mouth to speak again, but a purposefully bored voice cuts into our moment.

"Let the girl breathe, Rachel." Kurt plants a hand on his hip, looking as though this is all a waste of his time. He gives me a significant look. "Nice outfit."

I frown as Rachel steps away. "Last-minute disguise."

He ushers us both in, sighing overdramatically. "That's not an excuse."

Puck groans, trailing behind Rachel and I. "I did not leave work to be lectured about fashion, Hummel."

Kurt glares but doesn't bother replying.

And Puck, being Puck, switches gears easily, leering, "Sup, Berry?"

Rachel glances over her shoulder, lips pursed together. "Hello, Noah."

I smirk, I can't help it. Puck likes to take credit for Rachel, whatever the hell that means. On my nicer days, I let him, because really – who got the girl, at the end of everything?

Kurt takes off my sunglasses and my hat for me, tsk-tsking about the messy state of my hair.

"Where's your partner in solving crime?" I ask as sweetly as possible, going for distraction.

Rachel answers: "She's with…" Trailing off, she goes suddenly pale. She shakes her head as though she needs to clear it and turns sharply on the spot so that we're facing each other straight-on. "Kiss me," she says, and it sounds like she's begging. Rachel Berry, as long as I've known her, has never been much of a beggar.

"Ah." Puck leers. "That is almost worth this trip."

I do as told, glancing at Puck over her shoulder for good measure, my eyes slitting open just a bit while Rachel's remain firmly closed. At least we're away from any prying eyes that could get both Rach and I into a lot of trouble with the big guys.

"Chill out, okay, babe?" I ask her.

Rachel's got her bedroom eyes when her lashes finally flutter and her eyes open, heady and hazy and…damn. I wonder, briefly, if she brought her own car with her, and how believable it'd be if we "got a flat tire" on the way home.

Mercedes appears in the doorway of the cabin that sits, lonesome and desolate, on this barren piece of hidden land. "Santana." She smiles grimly at me. "Get in here, girl."

Rachel's hand grabs for mine, fingers squeezing too tightly. We walk in together, our footsteps synched. Even as she holds onto me, I have to look back, need to seek out Puck.

His hand ghosts over the small of my back, not quite settling there. "What the fuck are you scared of?" he hisses, throwing me a too-brave grin.

There is a body on the floor. That much is not unexpected.

"Stay cool," Mercedes says, her eyes locked directly onto mine. "Okay?"

I nod, and when her gaze probes I snap, "Okay. Jesus. Enough with the suspense."

"It's okay to be afraid," Rachel murmurs, lifting her chin. She isn't looking down; her eyes are fixed on a random point on one of the disintegrating walls.

"Kurt." Puck's voice is firm, his hand finding its place on my back – somewhere entirely appropriate and almost platonic, for once in our lives. His other arm snakes around Rachel, his hand cupping her elbow as if she might need someone to hold her up. "Just do it, man."

He does, pulling back the sheet. None of us brace ourselves. We're on a Murder squad: dead bodies, we often joke, are our business. There is no shock, no horror, only resignation, only waiting – and the lightest hint of curiosity.

It's a girl, a young woman. She is slim and pretty and dead in the haunting way of a murder, the air around her thick with moments from a life that will now go unlived. Of all of the things I've ever hated about Murder, that thick, suffocating air is always what really gets to me. It tangles in my throat, full and impossible to ignore.

"Shit." Puck sounds panicked, more panicked than I've ever heard him, more panicked than Santana, babe, stay the fuck awake or I will never fucking forgive you, you bitch in the moments after that bullet made contact with my skin all those months ago. "Shit; holy shit. Shit."

It hits me a little slower, and I think that should be allowed. It takes a moment for the pieces to snap into place, for the familiarity of her to start to make sense, for my brain to register that looking at her, this dead girl engulfed in what-could-have-been. That girl, she is me.

It's like I told you. Even I forget, sometimes.

tbc.