A/N: Thank you, Tanith 2011 for your never ending patience beta-ing my stories, and a big thank you to all the ladies from the SOSF writer's group for your encouragement. An extra bit of "hurt" thrown in for Dublin Writer...

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, I merely use them for fun, not for profit.

Missing Pieces

Chapter 1

The bright lights hurt his eyes when he tentatively tried to open them, so he decided to keep them shut for the time being, while taking stock of the various discomforts that spread throughout his body. An infernal pounding assaulted his head, while dull aches and pains could be felt all over. But he came to the conclusion that he would live and determinedly opened his eyes once more. As the bright lights had suggested before, he found himself in a hospital room with not a notion of how he got there. Moving his head was painful, but out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out the outline of some people at his side and was curious to see who was there.

"Don't even try and get up, Mike!" A voice boomed.

Aha! Rudy Olson, the Captain. So the fact that he was in the hospital was most probably due to some work related incident. Mike smiled inwardly at his detective skills. He turned his head a fraction more and saw Lenny Murchison, the Department's Consultant Psychiatrist. Lenny? His blood ran cold and the machines and monitors he was hooked up to responded with some frantic beeping. Lenny? That meant bad news! Someone brought in to break it to you gently. He was well aware that his injuries were only minor, so this could only mean one thing.

"Where's Steve?" Mike was surprised to hear how weak his voice sounded. He looked around anxiously, hoping to see the slender form of his partner lurking in a corner somewhere.

Olson put a hand on his arm. "Calm down, Mike, we haven't located Steve yet, but we'll haul him here as soon as we can find him."

"What do you mean?" Mike shook off the captain's hand and struggled into a half sitting position.

"Mike, the kid is on leave, driving up or down the coast as we speak and we haven't a notion where he is right now. Do you want me to ring Jeannie and get her to come home?"

Mike shook his head vehemently and regretted the movement immediately. "Why would you want to upset Jeannie over a bang on the head?"

Lenny came closer and chuckled. "She wouldn't like it one bit that you won't let us inform her but yet you insist on Steve being dragged away from his holidays!"

"What are you two waffling about? Steve, on vacation? But he was in the car with me when it happened!"

The memories came flooding back now. For whatever reason, he had been in the driver's seat with Steve in the back. Screams, shouts, the car veering, a crash and then nothing.

The beeping reached a new high and brought a doctor and a nurse into the room immediately.

"He was in the car with me! What happened to him?" he kept repeating until the sedative administered into his system sent him into oblivion.

The next time he came round the situation was very similar. Lenny was still there - or was he there again? Only this time so was Bill Tanner. Mike felt decidedly better, the headache had abated, he was less disorientated and his mind was crystal clear about one thing. Steve had been in the car with him.

"Mike, head injuries, even minor ones, play havoc with your memory. You lose some minutes or hours and sometimes you can even end up with false recollections. Don't worry, Mike, you're in good hands!" Lenny tried to explain.

"I'm not in the least worried about my head, Lenny, I'm worried about Steve. Why wasn't he found in the car? Maybe he was thrown out by the impact…"

"Mike, listen to me…"

"No, you listen to me, Mr. Shrink! I know exactly what I saw and what I heard. I know that Steve was in the backseat of the car when we crashed!"

"Okay, Mike, don't get yourself worked up now. I'll get a nurse." Lenny left the room.

"Bill, you've got to help me. You have to find some shred of evidence that Steve was in the car or they won't start the search. He could be hurt or…" Mike swallowed hard.

Tanner's heart went out to his boss and he said gently, "Mike, Steve's fingerprints will be all over the car. You two are constantly in it."

"This is where you are wrong, my friend! I took the opportunity to clean out all of Steve's mess while he was away. After the scrubbing the car got there shouldn't be any of his fingerprints left in it!" Mike sounded almost smug.

Tanner remembered it clearly now. Mike had been ranting about Steve's sunflower seed shells and candy wrappers that littered the car. He'd ordered a high school student on a work placement program to give the car a thorough cleaning, asking him to "bag all the evidence" before he wiped down the interior of the car. The bags of evidence - or rubbish- were then strategically placed in Steve's desk drawers…

"Sure, Mike, I'll do it if it puts your mind at ease. But you do remember now that Steve was on leave."

"Yes I do!" Mike replied impatiently. "But I also remember that he rang me to come and meet him in Walnut Creek urgently." He stopped and slapped his forehead. "But I can't remember why!"

"It will all come back, don't you worry!" Lenny assured him, when he returned with a doctor in tow.

"Before you knock me out again, let me talk to Bill." Locking eyes on Tanner he continued, "Just do what I asked you to do and come back with the results right away!"

Bill nodded and left the room, before Lenny could persuade him not to follow Mike's instruction. Even a Mike Stone with a bang on the head was a force to be reckoned with.

When Mike woke up the third time his head was clear and the aches and pains were more or less gone. This time he found Rudy Olson and Bill Tanner at his bedside. Both looked very serious.

"Mike, you were right, Steve's prints were all over the car and they were fresh," Tanner explained.

Mike sat up fast and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "What are we waiting for? We have to go and find Steve. Have you requested a K9 unit yet? I'm sure Steve has some used clothes or spare shoes in his locker at work, otherwise we'll get something from his apartment." He got up and went over to the wardrobe to get dressed.

"Mike, there is something else you should know. There are other fingerprints in the car, but they belong to a dead man…"

The detective stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean? I may be a bit slower on the uptake than usual, but dead men normally don't leave fingerprints in cars prior to it being involved in an accident!"

"We came to the same conclusion, Mike. The prints belong to a certain Angelo Ianelli. "

"The Fallen Angel?" Mike alluded to the nickname of a well-known mobster, who died in a fire two years ago and had been identified through dental charts. Mike remembered the case well, as he and Steve had investigated the possibility of arson and murder.

"Rudy, the Fallen Angel will have to wait, we need to find Steve first! Bill, you get on to the department and put some men on the job of digging up the dirt on Angelo's alleged death and the identification that was made. I'll join you as soon as we have found Steve!" Mike struggled with the collar button of his shirt before he grabbed his jacket and blue raincoat then headed for the door.

"Mike!" Olson interjected. "I think you are rushing things a bit…"

"Rushing things? The boy must have been out there for ages while you lot kept me under sedation here!" Mike fumed.

"No, I mean, shouldn't you put your shoes on first?" Olson pointed at Mike's feet in hospital slippers.