AN: Separated italics mean 'flashback', and italics either with an apostrophe or without are thoughts. Just saying, and of course; Enjoy! If you don't enjoy, well, thats your problem now isn't it?

I always forget things, despite being considered a genius. My memory just isn't that good. Where I put my keys, as a simple thing, or that guys' phone number. Once and awhile I will even forget half of a case I'm working on, and almost completely mess up if I don't pay attention. It's just how I've always been, and I've always had to have someone around to keep me informed, even if they piss me off. L, Near, Linda, Roger, Wammy...so on. Matt...of course.

So of course, after reading the emails sent to me from Near, and deciding that what the sheep has on this case is worth absolute shit until a later date at least(The last robberies, shoddy Photos of the crime scenes), I wanted to make a call, and forgot the phone number.

This incurred me going to Matt's old tech room and into his old phone books. Of course the hacking wasn't pleasant, the guy has way too many safewords in his phone book files. And during that hacking expedition, I wasn't exactly clear minded either. Still feeling the bang of Matt's death like it was yesterday, and seeing Matt's old things didn't help.

I got the number though, eventually. But I didn't feel like calling at that point. Too distraught, embarrassingly enough by the long standing absence of my friend/lover.

Again, I was cursing my mind for agreeing to come here. It was too much. Damn you L, I thought, as he was the one who convinced me to do this. He had said; Without Matt, Mello, you don't appear to have anything to live for. I believe you need closure, so I think you should go to LA, remember why you live.

And now I'm laying on the floor, just beside Matt and I's old bed, moonlight spilling through the tin holes that covered the glass bay windows, and shining onto the old wooden flooring. The city faintly heard bustling seven floors beneath me, and the only light in our old bedroom threatening to burn out from inside the bulb.

"Grave robberies eh Matt?" I mumbled, one hand lightly tracing the pale sliver of my stomach that my shirt had rode up on. and I continued to ponder this case, my thoughts tracing between Matt and the situation that I had planted myself in. A few times too, my fingers ran along the old scar tissue that peaked from beneath my shirt, reminding me of the explosion that gave me an escape to England, and distracting my thoughts even more.

Eventually, and I don't know when exactly, maybe four in the morning, I dozed off right there on the floor. My eyes burning from lack of sleep, and the faintest of salty tears that rested on my lashes.

I gnawed my lip lightly, my brows furrowing in concern as I waited; listening to the phone ring. It picked up after the third tone.

"Who is it?" Grumbled the familiar, and naturally angry voice of Jackson on the other side of the line. I smirked as I responded, knowing the reaction I was going to get. I had to admit, I liked playing with people a little bit.

"It's Mello"

And as expected I was met with a shocked silence, followed by a few confused muffled voices; my call was probably being listened in on. Knowing the questions that had already arisen from the group on the other line, I continued on like usual business.

"Jackson, long time hey? I need a favor, you see I need information on a few gangs, as well as anybody attached to the mafia-"

"What he hell do you mean?" He snapped, cutting me off, and like the tick of a clock I closed my mouth, allowing him to continue. "The mafia still wants you, and here you are snooping around in their business as if you're not on their death list. Where the hell did you even go? I thought you were dead- everyone did! The building exploded, everything gone! You were safe and by coming to town, no, just calling, they are going to know that you are-"

"That's not a problem right now, the second I stepped into the country they probably figured it out, I'm not an easy person to miss. Now I need information on the following; the G13, NSS, South country, Tab drugs, and Mash. Okay? Files on anybody that they have begun dealing for steadily in the last two years. Okay? And what the mafia is currently up to if you can"

"Okay, but, why?" I frowned in response.

"I can't tell you, I'm forwarding a private line to Rick later today though, so contact me through that when you have everything. I'll see you later" And with that I hung up, and indeed, I would most likely see him later.

My thought process here was; whomever has been doing these grave robberies, dealt through the black market. So in correspondence to that, I was betting they also dealt weapons, drugs, armor, and maybe even prostitutes. The ones that I had chosen to give me their files are the mainstreams in the underworld, the big dogs. A business like grave robberies? They most likely went through mainstreams, so that would be my best and foremost lead.

Also, it wasn't likely that these guys started with anything besides the grave business. It was certain kind of type, grave robbers. They liked to be abrupt, discreet, and usually didn't care for the other markets because, well; they liked to have fun.

And if they were only in the market for selling bodies, then it was on to my next step; investigating the crime scenes. That would of course give me a better clue on profiling the perpetrators and...

Damn. Matt was best at profiling, this again, was too close to home.

Anyways..if I don't find anything interesting at the crimes scenes, and no dealings matching the dates, -as they usually get very few new large order costumers- or any sites connected to the original market, then I would just have to wait until I find something else; perhaps predict when their next robbery is going to be. That of course will be harder, and of course..I'm just trying to start by grasping a single lead, none of this is at all concrete.

I let out an exhausted sigh, I was tired, probably fairly grumpy, emotional, and trying to take down a high level robbery case; and as L would say, black market cases are the most difficult, if you can't hack into them or get lucky, they won't be at all easy.

I did check the site this morning, at least one of the chains from these guys, and I couldn't hack into anything worth shit. So I am kind of left to my instincts until further leads, something that has put me into an even worse mood.

Now Until Jackson gets back to me, I should go check out the latest crime scene, one that showed up last night. Almost exactly when I got into town, notably.

I didn't waste anymore time as I grabbed my trench coat, sherlock stereotype crossing my mind again even after all these years, and headed into the complex's garage where my bike rested.

Here's a fact about me; I never understood fancy graves. The people died, they don't need gold and marble headstones, trimmed with diamonds and caskets full of silk and cotton. There is almost glee there when I think about the business these robbers have, and disappointment when I think about bringing them down. Who cares about dead bodies and whatever they were buried in? I didn't see why the law made such a big fuss. Obviously if you stick expensive material out in a field, people are gonna take it. They had it coming, and these other guys are clearly in the right business.

But I was still getting payed for this, who ever said that I wasn't materialistic?

All this continued crossing my mind as I explored the crime scene; About ten immaculately re-dug square holes in the ground. No scrapes in the grass, footprints, nothing left behind that I could see, and nothing of interest in the report that I had haggled from the guard.

I had to hand it to these robbers too, I couldn't even tell what shovel they used to dig it up over here, as it looked like they took a machete or something similar and smoothed it all out. They definitely had a brand, which is no wonder why the police know its the same person. But none of that particularly matters.

More looking around proved futile, as I found nothing, besides the criminals being OCD and immaculate in there work; as expected from what I found online in my hack attempt; so I headed back to my bike, waving at the guard in greeting as I passed the gate. He continued glaring at me, and I met him evenly. The bastard obviously didn't know who he was dealing with.

It was after I flipped him off and hopped onto my bike that my phone began to ring, and I glared at it in my hand with uneasy consideration; the private number could only be from one place, as I doubted anyone else would bother calling me, but I couldn't exactly ignore it either. I ended up pressing the answer button, and held it to my ear with a confident 'What?', That couldn't possibly portray how my heart rate increased.

"Hey, Mello. I see you're back in town" I cringed as I heard Rods voice; of course it wasn't Rod though, but his twin brother Stan. One of the underdogs in the mafia, but no less in control than his brother. I remember Rod mentioning the guy, though I'd never actually met him. Apparently though, Stan was disowned from the family because he cheated on his wife to be..giving me the impression that he isn't all that smart.

"Yea, what do you want?" I drawled, calming myself down as I did so with a hand fiddling the beads on my rosary.

I received a scoff in response. "Don't play innocent buddy, your dead. No one leaves the mafia and gets away with it, thats common knowledge-"

"Yes, yes, I know this, now whats your point?" I had to admit, I am one step ahead of him. Most likely, he was going to play with me, how Rod did with Matt. I had heard the part of the story from the other guys, and they probably in their sick fashion wanted to do the same to me. Give me a deal, make me think I'm working for it, but then they would kill me on the spot. I'm betting Matt knew what was happening then, and I knew it too.

I slammed the door behind myself, walking briskly into the rec room and towards Matt's workspace; Rod having sent me to takeover hacking until further notice. But its not like I could focus, after I woke up and finally got out of the ties Matt had locked me in, I came straight here, only to be told by Rod as he laughed -The sick fuck that he is- That because Matt messed up they took him down- No, correction. Rod got Ginze and Matt to do a job together, and then Ginze; and I quote; "Knocked out the little wretch and gave him a fitting end"

Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed. There is no sarcasm to this, its not funny. I'm absolutely infuriated, I feel like blowing this place up to smithereens, along with everyone in it. But I needed to keep calm. I needed to straighten this out, get through the day and get home and then...

No, don't cry, don't fucking cry you little prick!

A fist made its way underneath the table where I gripped my leg with my hand; digging my nails into my thigh out of view from the others. I cringed, I felt like I could explode and it wouldn't so much as ease the anger I felt right now; hell, obliterating these people wouldn't even help, I didn't think.

It hadn't even sunk in yet, I didn't even know what to think. Yes, I know why Matt didn't want me involved, he wanted to keep me alive. In his mind it was either me and him..or just him, and he chose me over himself...I needed to breath, to calm down, get through this logically, but my mind was screaming at me to do something, anything. The thing is, there is nothing I could possibly do. I needed to stay alive, therefore I needed to stay calm and not flip out on anybody, but-

"Hey Mello, I heard about your buddy, fucked up pretty bad aye? That sucks" I wanted to turn around and blow Logan's brains out as he finished his sentence, but I only added more pressure on my thigh.

Don't snap, you need to stay alive until you figure this out...

"Here's the deal, Mello. I'll give you a chance just because you were such a good little worker, okay? A man named Marcus will meet you at Northpost, he has a delivery of crack for you, if you can get that delivery to where he tells you, then we will set you back up. Got it?"

Yea right, did the bastard actually think I would fall for that? An idiot could tell that he was just being a conniving fuck, the tone of his voice portrayed that all to well. If what I was supposed to be doing, and where, didn't say it enough already. Which it did. Stupid bastard, I see why Rod's family kicked you to the curb.

I withheld a sigh as I responded, "Yea, I got it, thanks man" and with that I hung up, finally letting that aggravated sigh escape my lips. I expected it, but really, I didn't need the mafia after me, at all.

...At least I could rest relatively easy with the fact that they could never trace me, so I'm essentially pretty safe. All of the years that I lived with Matt nobody ever figured out where we lived, though they certainly tried. Which also reminds me, now I have to trash this phone...

I'll go take care of 'Marcus', before I get a private line connected to Jackson back at the apartment, maybe I'll find something with whatever he gives me. maybe I won't though, in that case, time needs to be on my side.

Finding North post was easy, as I remembered the way clearly, and I sped past who I assumed to be Marcus standing on the sidewalk, instead of stopping. By take care of, I meant that I would have to kill him, so I did a quick scope out. I was betting they had some other people as backup in case I tried anything. I could try shooting him while driving by on my bike, but I didn't want to risk getting shot on my way, or caught afterwards.

As I figured, I ended up doing a loop and stopping two blocks south of where Northpost was, before walking down an alleyway along the side of the buildings. Northpost is basically an old bank from 1760, nicknamed Northpost for the drug mechanics that get passed through over there. The fact that Stan wanted me to come here is why I found it so obvious what was happening. There were so many hiding places where I could be ambushed, from the very top of the six floor building, to the various nooks and crannies in the alley ways.

...and put simply it worked both ways too.

Marcus was still standing by the doorway of the building when I came up from an alleyway, hiding perfectly in the shadow of the building. Hood pulled up on my coat, shoulders pressed against the brick walls, and Glock in hand as I aimed.

I pursed my lips as I pulled the trigger, and as always my heart briefly jumped into my throat. I could tell you that it happened because I worried about missing my shot, or that the sound startled me after so long of not using a gun. But it would be clearly a lie, as following the shot I refused to look at the dead body that I knew was lying across the street; instead I simply turned around and hurried out of the alley, still hiding in the shadows.

I reached my bike after a minute, throwing my helmet on and speeding out of the area as fast as I could. In the process putting the whole incident behind myself.

I could also tell you it was because I imagined that Matt was shot, when I pictured his death. But thats a lie too, and in a way it was a relief to get out of there on my bike, the wind going through my hair where my helmet allowed, and the city speeding past me as I betrayed the speed limit.

Someone also might wonder why I had to kill Marcus, and again to put it simply; ignoring the problem won't erase it. If I don't fight back and show them who they are dealing with, then they will never stop.

Half an hour later when I got home, all the tension in my mind was gone, and I was back to being focused on my job. And wondering if calling this place home was still a good idea, but I tried not to think about it while I prepared myself a cup of stale coffee that had been sitting here since I had left town.

Afterwards, I briskly walked into Matt's old tech room, and set aside the cup while I turned on Matt's computers. As soon as they booted up I sent a line to Jackson, as promised, and leaned back to wait for his call, pulling another laptop onto my lap and resting against the foot of the couch.

Matt kept all of his stuff on the floor, for a reason I couldn't comprehend.

Coffee in hand, I went back to Near's email, clicking into the date's file promptly. What I noticed now also increased the likeliness of my assumption before; when they first started they robbed about one grave twice a month. Whereas now they seem to be able to do about five graves, in a much neater fashion up to four times a month. The kind of thing someone new to the market would do, not someone who dealt anything else beforehand.

I began doing a basic check on any relations to the people they robbed, but there didn't seem to be a connection of any sort. Just rich people, with the fancier coffins, and children; which generally payed more in the market. A thought that sickened me a bit.

'But they didn't start with being picky, seemingly they experimented with cheaper graves first', was the thought that was going through my head when one of the computers dinged, catching my attention as I leaned forward and put on a headset, before responding to the call.

"Yes?"

"Its Rick. I just sent the files to you, and I was going to call you to tell you about what I know is up with Stan, but I figure you know everything thats up, with what happened earlier today. Now they have a few people in a few places, Which I labeled for you in the last file, to keep an eye out for you. Just avoid them and you'll be good, they aren't trying to hard to find you for now" That's good.

"Alright, as usual I'll send some cash your way, depending on how much I get out of this information. Goodbye" Even though Jackson and Rick are more good acquaintances to me than co-workers(due to me helping them with a scam back in the day) I still payed them for their work. If anything, because I wanted to stay on good terms with them, and keep their resources for myself.

I switched off the line, and exited out of the program, before promptly entering into the aforementioned files. My eyes scanning through titles and names as quickly as I could to pick out any suspicious people. but I barely got a start when one specific date caught my eye, in which someone made a big order through Mash for mostly guns and ammo. And it really gave me a pause, several things oddly clicking together I my head.

Number one being the date, that landed on July 8th, exactly a week after Matt was killed. But just that alone was no cause for alarm, as there where others around that date. But then the order consisted of Revolvers and Glocks, followed by green tipped bullets. A lot of them.

I could feel my heart rate increasing as I remembered Matt trying to get those for us two years ago, because green tipped bullets where 'the gods of all bullets' according to him, but he couldn't get any for a reasonable price at the time. Them being illegal in America and the UK.

And revolvers..They happened to be his gun of choice, no matter how out of style they were, and he tended to modify them. Glocks where mine.

I stared at that order for what felt like a full minute, my mind doing circles around itself over and over again. But no, that had to be the biggest coincidence in the world. Matt was dead, even considering him somehow being alive was just to unrealistic. Plus, what would he be doing ordering fifty bullet cases only a week after his supposed death?

It's not Matt. Surely that order wasn't to unusual, other people are probably all for that specific order to right? But Glocks and Revolvers...maybe if it was just Glocks, as they are usually for gangs, but Revolvers are just too unusual. More for detectives and officials, the kind of gun you buy for a specific job, and usually not in larger quantities.

Why am I even thinking along these lines like I can reason it? Matt couldn't be alive, and if he somehow did survive, he would look for me right? After all this time? Not to mention he has no reason to need that much ammo.

After that thought I realized my hand was shaking ever so slightly on the mouse, and I shook myself out of my apparent reverie. I'll see how they signed, prove myself wrong, I'm just being unreasonable...

I clicked into the side file, and as expected there was no cursive M, J, or anything of the like. Just a B, this calmed me down, but I was still shaken up, and trying to get myself back to my logical focused mood.

Matt has nothing to do with a B, simply no. It's not in his name, my name, or anything else he is involved with.

Still...no, no.

I took a deep breath, holding it until I gave myself a bit of a head rush, before letting it out and reaching for my coffee. I didn't look when I did it though, and before I realized it, I ended up hitting my hand on the ceramic cup, spilling it onto the floor with a sharp clatter. I startled and jumped up, a sharp 'fuck!' coming from my lips as I immediately reached for an old shirt lying on the floor to wipe up the liquid, before it spread to an electronic of any sort.

I just saved the one of the laptops form the substance, when I clued into the pattern of the shirt, and who it belonged to, and I completely froze.

"Matt, why the hell do you only wear stripes? I've never seen you in anything different"

The redheaded bartender grinned, as he responded with; "I've just always loved 'em, not to mention I can totally pull them off". He leaned over the counter as he finished his short explanation, resting his head in a gloved hand. "Why do you keep your hair long, surely it gets in the way?"

I grinned at him "You love it"

This earned the faintest blush from him, barely noticeable in the darkness of the empty bar. "Just like you love my stripes?" He suggested in something close to a whisper, raising an eyebrow in defiance.

I laughed

My fingers curled around the black and white fabric, as felt my throat begin to tighten, my eyes beginning to burn again. Little snippets of Matt going through my head, and still tearing me apart today.

"Shit.." I whispered, hanging my head and letting my hair fall over my eyes; which were now tightly shut, trying to ward off tears. I held my breath, which didn't work when a sob forced its way through and wracked my body.

'its amazing how much I miss him...and terrifying..' I curled into myself, pulling the partially soaked shirt tightly to my chest, and I inhaled a shaky breath of coffee and cigarette scented air. From there on I couldn't hold back at all.

I cried for the first time in eight months, and I let it all out.

Two days later I got the lead that I needed, after setting up camera's in a few delivery points and watching for hours. A camera that I had set for the guns and ammo delivery from Mash, to the client called B, revealed an odd discovery that seemed to fit entirely to well.

When I had first gotten to LA awhile ago, there was that man that sat beside me. He talked about some interesting business, that was rather tiring. There was no doubt about it, the man in the bar and the one receiving that delivery have to be one in the same.

I was curious by then, that maybe I had a lead, and found(Like I had thought) that that specific night matched the newest robbery's date, not to mention location. There was a good chance that that man had a tie to these robbery's, and however much of a long shot it was, I felt like it might just put me on the right path. I may have gotten lucky, which I wish I could say was a usual occurrence.

And the fact that this would lead me towards that peculiar delivery, would set my mind at ease. If, of course, I was right and got into it enough.

And I had to be, It just fit entirely to well.

AN: Do tell me if something doesn't make sense, or you find a plot hole. Really, I will be forever grateful :) And please send a review! Of course If you're too lazy to type one, just refer to this:

Dear Sage, you are an awesome writer! I'm so glad you have begun a mystery story, and I wish you the best of luck ^^ I feel so bad for Mello, but you have really hinted towards some interesting things, could it perhaps be...?

Sincerely Your name.

Have a good day!