PROLOGUE

"...So, he never told you why he left?" asked Superintendent Linda Mason for the third time during this long conversation.

"No, not Nick personally," answered Captain Reese, "So I don't know why he changed his name either, but I think we both have a good idea why he thought it was a good idea," the man sighed, trying to defend his friend even though he felt a deep confusion about the whole issue. "He'd just lost his second partner, and his best friend had up'ed and left the city with no explanation."

"I know, he wanted a fresh start," Linda ran a hand through her hair, "I get it, I do. I know bad things happen. But something's not right and I can't put my finger on it."

"Look, Superintendent, I agree with you, okay, but Nick's the best cop Toronto ever had, and if you're gonna start some kind of a witch hunt on him, then I..."

"What'd you think I am?!" she fumed, "I know he's a good cop, he wouldn't be working here if he wasn't, but if something happened that neither of us knows about then as his superior it's my job to find out what."

"Yeah...I know."

"That being said, me you can answer some of my questions now?"

"Sounds like you wanna interrogate me, Superintendent," Reese chuckled deeply, "Go ahead."

"Did you ever come into contact with a man called LaCroix?"

"LaCroix? LaCroix?" Reese repeated the name, "It sounds...familiar...I can't quite...No, never. I'm damn sure of it, I'd never forget a name like that," he said, fairly certain.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," the man answered.

"If Nick didn't tell you have was leaving in person, how did he tell you?"

"Well...a phone call..." Reese shrugged.

"You don't sound very sure about that," Linda furrowed her brow and leaned forwards in her office chair.

"Listen, you sound a lot younger than me, my memory isn't as good as it used to be, and we've had a lot of work to do round here, it doesn't stop because I lost my best detective; it piles up."

"But this is very important, I'd have thought you'd remember something so catastrophic as loosing your best detective," she said slowly.

"...Are you calling me a liar, Superintendent?" Reese asked strongly after a moment's silence.

"Not at all, sir."

"Good," he replied.

"But I would prefer to know if there's anything...anything you think I should know. Anything at all," she said with a raised eyebrow, curious as to how Reese would interpret her words.

"No," Reese sighed, exasperated, "There's nothing. The man's a top detective and he's had some bad things happen to him; that's it."

"Alright," Linda frowned, and slowly she put down the phone. She knew that there was something about Nick LaCroix or Nick Knight, or whatever name he went by, that she didn't know. She knew he was an exceptional detective and an intelligent man but she didn't like being kept in the dark.

On the few cases that the man had worked on already she had seen that he got on well with his co-workers but that he was strictly a 'lone wolf' when it came to his work. He confided in no one and yet people at the station had already learned to rely on him even if they couldn't fully explain why; Nick had a way of finding links and clues that others had somehow missed that would end a case successfully. She didn't want to cause the man any more trouble than he'd already suffered, but if he was hiding something, she was determined to find it what it was.

A.N. Now, I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence, but the reason that Reese doesn't remember LaCroix is of course because LaCroix vamp'ed him into forgetting him, as was mentioned briefly in my last story. I just thought I should mention it in case any of you had been vamp'ed into forgetting that.