Word Count: 1909

Author's Notes: This begins between Christmas and New Year's 2006. All the crap, I mean stuff with Maxie and Jason never happened. Elizabeth and Lucky are happily married and expecting their baby.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Ooh, looks like the golden boy's playing hooky!" Cruz Rodriguez laughed out loud as his partner turned on his heel when he called him out. Lucky Spencer grinned wryly at him.

"Ducking out a little early for lunch, partner," Lucky said, walking back towards him. "I'm going to pick up something to eat at Kelly's, bring it over to the hospital for Elizabeth. You think you can cover for me for an hour or so?"

"Yeah buddy, I'll be here," Cruz smiled. He had to admit, sometimes he envied Lucky's position as a family man, for all the guys on the force teased him about it. "Hey, how was your Christmas? Did Cam like that toy that you called forty-seven malls looking for?"

"Oh yeah, he just loved it," Lucky said, and Cruz couldn't help it. It was almost embarrassingly adorable how much Detective Spencer loved that little boy.

"And that beautiful wife of yours? How's she doing...With the baby?" Lucky's wife, Elizabeth, was four months pregnant- and according to Lucky, worked too hard.

Lucky shrugged. "She's doing okay. Just needs to take it easy. What about you, Rodriguez? When are you going to find a woman, settle down?"

Cruz rolled his eyes. "So how's that wife of yours again?"

Lucky laughed. "Okay, old man, but you can't avoid it forever. I'll be back in a while."

"All right, see you, man," Cruz waved as he headed back to his desk, flipping through the file in his hands.

Lulu crouched between two cars as from across the street she watched her brother leave the PCPD. She'd casually spoken to Elizabeth on the phone earlier- she knew that Lucky was getting sandwiches at Kelly's and they were having lunch together. She had at least an hour before he'd be back at the station. All she had to do was sneak in without getting caught by Mac or any other cop who knew her (which was...all of them), make her way down to the records room (in the basement where she'd pass a given thirty cops and other personnel along the way), pick the lock (which should take no time at all, provided it hadn't been changed since the last time she was down there- which was years ago), find the file on Rick Webber's case (which for a four year old file...could be anywhere), and sneak back out. Without anyone seeing her.

No sweat.

Lulu took a deep breath and kissed the ring she had worn around her neck since her Aunt Bobbie gave it to her. "You're going to have to help me out a little on this one, Mom." She popped up when she saw that there wasn't anyone hanging out in front of the door. It was too cold today.

She peeked left, and then right, and then made a run for it across the street. There was a side door that would cut about thirty feet of open hallway space- she only had to pass under Mac's office windows. But it was worth the risk, and she was happy to see that his back was turned as she ran by. The door was always unlocked- people used it for cigarette breaks- so she slipped in, and dashed down the stairs, to her left.

So far, it had all been almost too easy- but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. At the bottom of the stairs, the hallway leading to the records room was empty, but it all depended on how quickly she could get the lock opened- and she couldn't exactly break it, or people would know someone had been in there. Readying the bobby pin she brought with her, Lulu whispered to herself. "You are Luke Spencer's daughter. You've known how to pick a lock since before you could speak. Don't screw this up now, Lesley Lu!"

This floor was creaky- so she tiptoed as quickly as she could down the hallway, and made quick work of the lock. The PCPD was still using ancient keylocks for the doors instead of swipe access cards. "Score, Spencer," she whispered to herself, slipping inside.

"...So, I think I want to compare this to that prostitution ring case we had in the Asian District last spring," Mac said to Cruz. They were looking over files for some recent suspicious activity at a strip club near the waterfront. Cruz sighed. He knew Mac was going about it the right way, the by-the-book way, but if they were going to be honest with themselves, they knew that every road led back to Sonny Corinthos and Jason Morgan. Everyone knew that they ran everything down by the waterfront, from the nightclubs to the newspaper stands. Still, there was procedure to go by. In the two years he'd been on the force, there had been umpteen ways to bring the local mob up on charges, and whatever hotshot lawyer of the moment (including their own assistant district attorney) had always been able to clear them. Mac called out to his outer office, "Kathy, can you run down to records and pull the file number..." He quickly pulled it up on his computer. "Oh-two-seven-three-six-five?"

"You know what Commissioner, I'll go get it," Cruz said, getting up. "I'm gonna grab a drink at the vending machine anyway."

"Okay, thanks, Rodriguez," Mac said, still distracted by the different reports spread out on his desk.

As he began to head down the hallway, Cruz noticed that something was off. Getting closer to the door of the records room, he saw that the door was ajar. With a silence and agility that would have made his academy instructors damn proud, Cruz drew his gun and pushed the door open, nearly dropping his loaded firearm when he saw the criminal mastermind that had managed to break into the police station records room without anyone noticing.

Her back was turned to him, but there was no mistaking that golden waterfall of hair anywhere. It belonged to Lulu Spencer, his partner's kid sister. She was rifling through a huge stack of files, with more files spread around her on different cabinets- it seemed she had been there for a while.

"What do you think you're doing?"

She jumped about a mile in the air, losing some of her papers in the process. "I'm, uh...I'm just..."

Cruz shook his head at her grasping for an excuse to be snooping in the records room, not even wanting to entertain how she had picked the lock. "You're just leaving, Little Spencer, that's what you're doing." He took her elbow in his hand, and started hustling her towards the door, but she gathered up whatever gumption she had in her and jerked herself out of his grasp.

"I'm going to do whatever it takes to prove that my mother's innocent, and you can't stop me."

He wanted to laugh in her face, but the stubborn determination in her expression stopped him. "Your mother- what are you talking about?"

She lowered her voice to a whisper, though he wasn't sure why. She was already caught. "Four years ago, my mother went into a...catatonic state because she had supposedly killed her stepfather," Cruz nodded. It had been hard to watch Lucky go through the recent heartbreak of getting his mother back and losing her again. Lulu took a deep breath and continued. "Before my mother...Before she faded again, she told me that she was sure she was innocent, and by God, I'm going to prove it and-"

"And I can't stop you," Cruz finished for her. He glanced down between them, and saw she was still grasping the one file for dear life, and he'd bet that it was Rick Webber's file. He was familiar with the case- everyone on the force was. It was part of the town's lore. But this was a dangerous path the little girl was taking, and he knew Lucky would have his head if he didn't do anything to stop her. "Lulu," he looked her in the eye. "You know what you're doing is a felony, right?"

She gulped. "Look...It's not like I'm stealing evidence or anything, or I'm going to change anything, I just want to see what you guys had so far. So I'd have a starting point. I wasn't even going to take it with me." Damn, those eyes. She had eyes like one of those Disney cartoons, all wide and innocent- but Cruz knew when he was being conned.

"Give me the file, Little Spencer," he said, holding his hand out for her to return the file. Reluctantly, she slapped it into his palm. "Your brother's a cop, Lulu, you know how it is. You know I can't just let you walk out of here with that." She nodded, and almost looked like she accepted the defeat- almost. "Look, just get out of here, I won't say anything to Lucky, and you'll just...forget all about this, okay? Talk to your brother, maybe he can help you out- the iright/i way."

"No, I don't want to worry him, he's got too much on his mind with Elizabeth, and Cam, and the baby," Lulu said.

"Well, maybe Nikolas can help you out- hire a private detective or something. A licensed private detective," Cruz smiled at her. He didn't mean to be harsh- but this little girl was only going to get herself into trouble with the way she was going about this. "Come on, I'll walk you out."

He led her up to the side door on the first floor- she seemed to know it well, he noted. He would have to get on the guys to remember to lock it from now on. "Look, Little Spencer, I know it's hard for you. And I know you want to help your mom, but there's a right way and wrong way, you know?" She nodded, her eyes downcast, and he almost caved in and ran back down to let her have the file

"See you later, Cruz," she smiled a little sadly, and Cruz couldn't help but grin back. His partner's baby sister was sure going to break a lot of hearts some day.

Lulu waited until she was all the way home before she grabbed the sheet of paper out of her pocket. Maybe the trip to the police station hadn't been a total success, but she hadn't walked away completely empty-handed. She eyed the mugshot warily. Frank Boudreauz. He'd had dealings with Rick Webber, and apparently had owed him money for years. It didn't say anything on what he did, or where he was now, but at least that was something.

"Well, there's no better place to start than at the beginning," Lulu said to herself, booting up her computer and opening her web browser to Google. It was amazing how easy it was to find out where a person lived or what they did for a living. "Ah, a gentleman," she noted, seeing that he managed a strip club- the Oasis- on the waterfront. She clicked on the...establishment's website, and was greeted by some charming poses of half-naked women, none of whom looked particularly excited or happy to be photographed. She further searched for hours of operation, and was given her first real lead. She sat back and smiled to herself. "So, amateur night it is then, Mr. Boudreauz. New Year's Eve."