THE FOLLOWING STORY IS FICTIONAL AND DOES NOT DEPICT ANY ACTUAL PERSON OR EVENT

May 18th 1982

["Stone in Love" by Journey]

The warm air rolled over the suburban houses of Philadelphia. The peaceful demeanour that fell upon them seemed to indicate that things moved at their own fairly tranquil pace. The people who pranced about in this neighbourhood seemed to have it made. All the smiles on their faces implied that nothing could ever go wrong and they were right. It was as safe as any suburban setting could have been.

Whilst that might have been preferable for some, there were a few who could not confine themselves to this life.

She was irrefutably bored out of her skull. The only real thing that Delores Rafferty had going for her life was looking after the man who she had promised herself to. Still, there was something about it that just seemed off to her. What would her mother think if she were to see her sit idly as life just passed her by day by day? She could hear the voice in her head right now, spout of something like carpe diem or some other nonsensical trash she had picked up from a magazine.

Delores paid a smile to those she passed as she walked up the drive and into her home, the enriching smiles of those around her making her feel more vulnerable right now. When did she sign on the dotted line for this kind of life?

An exasperated sigh left her lips as she walked through the front door, the cool breeze wafting over her almost too much to bear. Poking her tongue to the side of her mouth she began to scour through the house, letting the light rock music fill up each and every room with each door she opened. Finally she found her feet tracking back to the bedroom that she shared with the man she was set to marry. Giving a soft smile she gave a light-hearted saunter into the room knowing full well this would not be like most talks they had.

The looming feeling of boredom was something that had been on her mind for a while now and realistically all she wanted was to go out in pursuit of something more. Opportunities dwindled as she grew older and she felt like she had little time left to experience the life she truly wanted.

Upon seeing her face light up the room, Michael turned to face Delores, his own smug smirk in return. Without missing a beat, he patted on a spot on the bed where he wanted her to lay with him. Some might have called it old-fashioned by this point but Michael had always been the domineering kind in his own relationships.

"Hey Love…" Michael spoke, his words soft and smooth as they had always been.

With a deep sigh, Delores took a few more steps towards the bed. "Michael, we need to 'ave a talk." She practically winced as the accent flew out from her but at the same time Michael had addressed the slip with a casual smile/ It was like he didn't expect her to have much to say and quite honestly, it boiled her up quite a bit. "Aren't you bored of this life Michael?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest as she stood over Michael.

The expression that he gave her was pretty much his response. That abstract confusion that followed his each and every look. Why would he think that anything was wrong. This was practically his own idea of paradise and nothing she could say or do would tear that away from him.

Knowing that this type of thinking could not be cured by belittling her, Michael arose from the bed and stood at the opposite end in hopes that he could talk some sense into her. "Why would I be bored of this. I have the perfect girl, we're going to have a family, we have our future all planned out… just like we wanted." Smiling softly as he went, he couldn't help but add "Is this about Julie Kavanagh again?"

The mood in the room changed immediately. Normally Delores would have been fine with this but right now she was just so pissed at the fact that he would even bring this up.

"I'm trying to talk to you about something serious and you bring up Julie Kavanagh? The hell is wrong with you?" She fumed, refraining from cursing. If she wanted to she could have chewed him up seventeen different ways and back again but what would that accomplish. She extended her finger and pointed him out, coming around the bed as she did so. "I've given up everything to be with you and I just want you to acknowledge the fact that I shouldn't have to feel this bored with the man who I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with."

Placing both of his sturdy, firm and assuring hands on her shoulders Michael locked into her gorgeous green eyes. He always did find it kind of sexy when she wanted to take charge and yell at him as if he had done something wrong. Brushing a few strands of her blonde hair out of her face he retorted simply with "Who said you had to give anything up?"

Frowning at the way he was looking at her now, Delores reinforced how she felt by tapping her foot against the ground at a quickened pace. "Please Mike, you're parents already look at me like I'm some piece of trash that crawled out of the gutter" Again, she let a soft sigh escape her lips. Quietly, she wrapped her arms around Michael's waist which just egged on his smile to flourish into a grin. "You know I'm starting to think that the life I wanted two years ago might not be the life I want now."

Almost instantly Michael pulled back. He looked like he'd just been told that she wanted his head on a pike. She'd never forget this face; a mixture of disgust and alienation.

"Come on Michael, we were kids way back when we made those promises to each other. You can't honestly tell me that nothing has changed for you. This can't be everything that you want. I refuse to believe it" She shot across at him, pacing the room as if trying to justify her own actions whilst trying to think of perfect counterpoints to any points that he would have made. It would take more than words from a man she loved to fix this. "Remember when we would sneak out and go listen to bands… bang our heads off the walls and just have fun… I want that"

"For Christ sake Delores…" Michael almost spat back, a clear sense of anger rising up in his throat. "You're goddamn nearly in your thirties. Start acting like it…"

Shaking her head with a smile, Delores turned her back on Michael. They both knew that this would be the end of this argument for now but if Michael truly knew her then he knew that this was not going to be the last time that he heard about this.

Turning her head, she crossed her eyebrows and gave Michael quite a disapproving look.

"You can't keep me caged forever…" Delores spoke, walking away. "A caged birds gotta fly and you can bet that's what I'm gonna do"

No more words were exchanged between the pair as Michael looked at his fiancée with a deadly glare and Delores simply walked on without so much as pausing to take a quite breath. As peaceful as things in the neighbourhood were, nothing that happened behind closed doors was ever what it seemed to be.

A few hours after "Metal Dragons" had finished their set, rain began pounding hard down onto the ground. Due to the torrential rain pour, most of the workers had resolved back to their busses to begin work on dismantling the stage for tomorrow. It was standard practice for people in their profession and whilst they would have to work quickly tomorrow, they would do a hell of a lot better in the light.

What people fail to notice however is the body of a young woman lying center stage. Delores Lafferty lies lifeless and sprawled out, her body covering a guitar which had been slung over her shoulder. A few feet away, a chair that had been left behind was strewn to the floor, covered with blood from the altercation that had just taken place

It had already been a long night for Lily Rush and so to be out here right now was more than she really wanted. Most nights she would have went straight home but with this being the first Friday of the month, First Thursday's had taken their own priority over her regular schedule. She was sure to pick up a coffee for herself. The faint sound of machinery assured Lily that she was closing in on where she needed to be. The boss had called her out for something at a landfill in Philadelphia and knowing what she did about landfills, she could only assume it was a work related kind of thing.

As the car came crawling to a halt behind the small police barricade that had been set, Lily sighed at the thought of yet another dump job that would prove to be almost impossible to nail down. Slowly rising from her car with two cups of coffee, she quickly caught up with Scotty and gave him one of the cups. Normally such a thing would have gone unnoticed but judging by the way Stillman was looking at Lily, he had caught the connotations behind it.

Honestly, not even Lily was sure what she was doing right now.

Blurring the thought from her mind, she took a gracious sip of her coffee before bursting into a mild pace to where Stillman was. Giving him a quick nod she gave her always clear "What's the deal boss."

Chuckling to himself lightly, he waved his hand in the direction of several crime scene techs who were looking over the evidence. "Looks like we got a cold one, that's what the deal is." With all three detectives closing in on the body, it was clear that time had worn the flesh down and now the only thing left was bone.

A cold one was right. The body must have been lying here for a while if it managed to have all the flesh strip away from it. Without even pausing for a thought, she tracked Frannie Ching. Nice to know that there was going to be a familiar face in it for them this time. Giving a polite smile, she nodded at the woman as she clambered closer to get a good look at what they were working with.

"Hey Rush" Frannie spoke, facing her for a moment before turning back to document a few more pictures of the body.

Squatting down next to Frannie, she bobbed her head to the side, hoping to stay out of the other woman's way for the time being. "Hey. What we got Frannie?" she spoke, rubbing her temple lightly in hopes of absolving herself from this minor head pain. Maybe no one would notice too much.

Judging from the tone of Frannie's chuckle it seemed as though she had caught on. "Rough night?" she asked. Honestly, no answer was needed here but the mere notion of asking the question helped to satisfy her. Turning back forward and facing the bones in front of her. "She's a woman… I know that much and it looks like is that her skull is pretty bashed in. Something hard definitely came up and surprised her" she added as she pulled the skull down a bit to show that the back of the head had almost caved in entirely.

Without taking a second look, Lily could only assume that whoever did this had a lot of rage in them. Fracturing the skull slightly was one way to kill someone but this just seemed so overkill. At least it gave them some partial insight as to who they were looking for. "Got any idea of how long she's been down here" Lily asked as one of the crime scene techs came over and showed her something with writing on it.

"From the looks of it, my best guess would be thirty, maybe forty years tops." Turning she walked towards the evidence the crime scene tech was displaying to Lily. "What struck me as odd was that she had this guitar draped around her neck."

Lily inspected the guitar a little more closely, seeing something scrawled down on the bottom left hand corner. "What is that… 'Metal… Dr-'"

"'Metal Dragons,' pretty much Philadelphia's finest rock group back in the day" Scotty spoke as he came crawling up to the investigation with a coffee in his hands. Smirking for a moment he squatted down next to the guitar. "These guys were legends, so much so that they had their band name carved onto their instruments."

Lily raised a brow at Scotty. This certainly was something to behold from him. Quite frankly she didn't know her partner well enough to know what kind of music he listened too but she never assumed him to be the classic rocker type of guy. Clearing her throat she brushed her hand along the carving. "Don't suppose any of the Band Member's went missing in the 70's or 80's?"

Scotty gave a little thought into the question raised, looking back over at the body as if it would give him some sort of clue as to who she was. After a few moments of thought, he snapped his fingers. "Back in the days, 'Metal Dragons' had a guitar tech. The story is that she just upped and vanished. Most people just assumed she had gotten really tired of being in a business where people look down on you all the time." Scotty spoke as he rose to his feet once more. "Delores something…"

"Lafferty" Stillman confirmed, climbing up to meet the rest of his team. "Went missing in '82. Fiancé at the time called it in thinking something bad had happened but was talked away because there was no evidence to say she was dead or even missing."

Lily frowned, taking a gentle step closer. "Well maybe it's about time her fiancé got some answers about this whole mess"