Sorry about the delay in my ability to update this story. My life has been crazy busy, and I've been traveling so much I'm beginning to feel unstuck from time. Thank you to everyone who is still reading this! I hope it was worth the wait!


She came to her in dreams, curling around her like the intoxicating scent wood smoke from the ashes of a dead fire after it rains. It was then she would wake up to the sound of her own voice calling out the only name that ever made her feel like this, with the remains of that fire erupting inside of her, lighting her up for one brief moment. Breathing hard, and shaking, she would find herself alone in the dark. And then she would remember that she had left her too. She would remember why she couldn't pick up the phone. The chasm would open. Her heart pounding, she would clutch at the cold embrace of familiar sheets, as if they could be her anchor. Finally, silent tears would come before the comfort of sleep claimed her again. She prayed not to dream.

Sergeant Henri Roy stood leaning his hips on his desk, folder containing her service record in hand, his eyes opaque. She supposed that he could be an imposing figure, towering over her as she sat in her appointed chair, his knees nearly touching hers, his uniform shirt crisply starched within an inch of its life, pretending to be absorbed in the documents before him. She waited, her face impassive, watching him, watching her, as he glanced up over the top of the blue file folder. She was good at waiting. Waiting was one of the things that had been drilled into her since birth. She could almost hear her mother's voice behind that hard, cold smile, smugly telling her that any perp would crack and hang themselves, given enough rope, and enough time. Sergeant Roy shifted again, stroking his mustache, and glanced up over his Buddy Holly glasses. She could wait him out.

"Sergeant Shaw from your old division assures me, that in spite of your spotty service record, and your family history, that you are an excellent officer of the law, and should be an asset to our force here in Hemlock." He finally began.

She remained as still as the portrait of the past inspectors on the wall behind him. Watching him, watching her, all the while hoping that at the very least she would be given a chance to prove herself.

"As you know, I transferred here from the Nova Scotia devision two years ago. I didn't grow up with your Grandfather sitting in this chair, and I didn't know your parents." He tapped on his lower lip with his forefinger and paused, "From what I understand, with the recent investigation of your family's ties to organized crime, it may be just as well. I have also heard stories about your, and your brother's, youthful shenanigans from some of our older officers, but I wasn't here to witness them. So, I can let that go too." He continued gruffly.

She sighed inwardly, and wondered where he was going with this.

"I just want you to know that I will expect no more, no less of you than of every other officer in this excellent unit." He paused, giving her what she could only assume to be his hard stare. "But..."

"Here it comes." She thought, inwardly rolling her eyes as she continued to carefully school her outward demeanor.

"If I hear even one whisper of the kind of corruption in my unit that your family perpetuated in Toronto," He leaned forward slightly, "I will burry you faster than you can say nepotism. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir." She responded softly, wondering why she thought this transfer was a good idea.

That seemed to satisfy him because he stood abruptly, and moved to stand behind his desk. "Good." He replied sternly, and then smiled, "Your training officer, and partner for the next six weeks will be officer Elizabeth Dorsey. You will meet her during parade in an hour. Do you have any other questions?"

"No sir" she stood.

"Very well." He held out his hand for her to shake, "As you know, we are a small detachment, covering a large amount of territory. My door is always open. Welcome to Hemlock."

"Thank you sir." She said as she shook his hand and bit back the sarcastic remark about how nice it was to be treated fairly for once.

Elizabeth Dorsey was short and round, with a splash of fluorescent pink lipstick, and a frosted soccer mom haircut. Gail knew she was probably tougher than she looked. As she offered Gail the pack of gum before folding another piece of it into her mouth, Gail tried to remember to breathe. She knew what Chris would say about the look on her face, but Dorsey didn't seem to notice. She remained silent, as she listened to Dorsey prattle on about town gossip that might be as old she could remember. It was working her last nerve when the radio crackled to life.

"We're going to have to proceed with caution, this place can be kind of rough." Dorsey informed her with a shrug as they pulled into the parking lot, "I guess we'll get to see some of that big city training of yours. The owner can be quite difficult. I can only hope that under the circumstances he will be willing to cooperate."

The Highlife still sat by its self a curve in the road under the shade of the towering pines, looking just like she remembered it. The man behind the bar looked older now, and yet, as if time had stood still, she remembered him just the way he was back in her late teens and early twenties; still in the same dark t-shirt and black jeans, with his hair slicked back, and his cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of his shirt.

"Hey you! Bartender!" She called out with a smirk, "You want to tell us what happened here?"

She could feel Dorsey stiffen and then stare at her, mouth slightly agape, as she glanced at her out of the corner of her eye.

The man spun around and glared at them with suspicion.

"Oh my God!" He exclaimed as he recognized her, "will you look what the cat dragged in." With a grin growing larger by the second, he held out his hands to her, and swaggered around the bar to greet them.

She stood, thumbs locked in her belt loops, eyebrows arched of him as he approached.

"Hello Joey." She said calmly.

He stopped just inches from her, and looked her up and down. "Look at you! You told me this was never going to happen, but we both knew it always would."

She simply nodded.

"I guess you want to see what happened to Ben." He stated with the jerk of his head toward the back room. "And tell Nick I'm sorry."

"I haven't seen him in a while." She replied cautiously, as they followed closely behind him, "but thanks."

"Huh." Joey shrugged with a thoughtful expression briefly crossing his face.

Caucasian male, age thirty, Benjamin Parker Jones was lying slumped on the floor, half propped up against a stack of toppled liquor boxes, the needle still in his arm. The room smelled like stale beer, and spilled whiskey, and death. She hated it when dead people still had their eyes open. She knew what Holly would have said, but it still made her skin crawl. She sighed as Dorsey pushed past her to check the pulse of the prone figure.

"You know he's dead, right?" She rolled her eyes.

"Procedure." Dorsey shot back, as she rose to her feet, "And just what was your relationship with the deceased?" She turned to Joey.

"He drove a truck for my liquor supply company." Joey replied. "I found him like this when I came in this morning."

"Do you let all of your suppliers have keys to your bar?" Dorsey wanted to know.

Joey sighed, and looked away. "We grew up together. He was also a friend, ok?"

"Any idea where he got the dope?" Dorsey eyed him suspiciously.

He shook his head.

"Mind if we take a look around?" She pressed him, her hand resting on her gun.

"Yeah, I kinda do." He growled at her. "What the fuck kid!" He turned to Gail, "Am I some kind of a suspect?"

She shook her head. "It's not personal." She replied, "We just need to..."

"Need to what? See if I was his dealer? Wonder if I killed him?" He snapped, "you of all people should know better!"

She held her hands up as if to placate him. "That's not what I was going to say, Joey."

"Oh really?" He glared at them.

"Really!" She gestured with both of her hands

"Well it sure doesn't feel that way!" He grumbled

She could feel Dorsey looking at her. She licked her lips and took a step forward. "Look, I know how terrible this is for you." She said in a soft voice filled with rare compassion, "but we need to make sure there are no signs of foul play," she paused and pointed at the body with her chin, "other than, you know, the obvious."

She could feel Dorsey's eyes on her as Joey let out a sigh and sagged. Great. She was sure Dorsey was wondering if the rumors about her were true. She took a deep breath and continued, "Has Ben been acting strangely lately that you might have noticed? Anyone new that he might have been hanging out with?"

"Other than your old boyfriend, no." Joey replied, crossing his arms, "You sure you haven't seen him?"

"Who Nick?" She could feel the shockwave pass through her. "He's here?!"

"Uh huh." He crossed his arms.

Dorsey was openly staring at her.

"He's been back from his last deployment for about a month." He continued, "and I know you two can never seem to stay away from each other, even though you both swear it will be different this time. So I just figured..." he shrugged back at her, with the palms of us open hands up.

With a shock, she realized that Nick must be undercover as a different version of himself, and wondered who else knew.

"Nope." She popped the p and then paused before rolling her eyes, "Thanks for your vote of confidence. After he ditched me in Vegas for the army, I would rather clean your men's room with my toothbrush than spend another second with that loser."

"This was your..." Dorsey started.

"Ex-fiancé." Gail replied with a sigh.

"Oh please!" Joey interrupted. He danced back behind the bar, safely out of Gail's striking distance, as she shot him a look of death. "And I know you guys. You say this now, but don't think I didn't know what you guys were up to in the stockroom after the first five times you broke up."

Gail sighed. She was really hoping to avoid things like this. At least until she had made her own reputation with the people in her unit. But she guessed that getting a chance to start clean, with new people, was just too much to ask for.

"Sargent Roy did tell me you grew up here," Dorsey began the minute they got back in the squad car, "would you care to tell me about this Nick person? As he is a person of interest, I need to know what your relationship with him is, so I can determine whether or not will it color your judgement."

"That was a long time ago." She replied with a sigh, "What?!" She scowled as Dorsey raised her eyebrows, "We were both twenty ."

Dorsey didn't look impressed.

"Ok... ok..." she continued, feeling her anger begin to boil just under her skin. Nick would spring this on her, using her to fill in his backstory on her very first day on the job here. She was going to kill him! "Nicholas Collins was this guy I met up here the summer I was seventeen. His parents and his younger sister had been killed in a car accident, and he and his older brother were living in an apartment in the Newhall's converted garage. I met him the summer after I graduated from high school. I was waitressing at the diner by the lake, instead of going to summer camp at the Academy, mostly to piss off my mother, when Nick rode up on his damn motorcycle. He tried to pick me up, and I dumped an entire picture of water in his lap."

She pretended to stare at her hands in her lap, while watching Dorsey try not to laugh out of the corner of her eye.

She shrugged, "He was hot, and reckless, and persistent, and I finally agreed to go out with him."

"What happened?" Dorsey wanted to know, "and when did you see him last?"

"You know, the usual." She shrugged again, and looked down at her hands. "we were on again, off again, on again for years, but I stupidly believed that he actually cared. I haven't seen him since he literally ditched me at the alter in Las Vegas to run off and join the army. Last I knew he was in Afghanistan."

"He left you at the alter?" Dorsey said.

"Yup." She replied, popping the p at the end.

"In Las Vegas?!" Dorsey sounded incredulous.

Gail's head snapped around. She glared hard at the clueless woman beside her.

"Oh." Dorsey finally managed.

"Yeah, oh." She replied, narrowing her eyes even further into dangerous, ice blue slits.

The lake was there, as cold, and steely blue as her mother's eyes, against the quickly darkening sky. It's surface gleamed in the dying light as she sank into the worn, navy blue sofa in the sunroom after putting her Gran's favorite Ella Fitzgerald record, the Cole Porter songbook, on the portable record player. She reached for the bottle, grateful for this moment of solitude. Bourbon. Of course it was. Why the fuck could she have not stashed something like tequila?! She sighed, closed her eyes, and pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders. The bottle was cool and heavy in her hand, fuller than she expected it to be when she pulled it from the place in the ductwork in her old room where she had hidden it so long ago.

"Really Gail!" The disapproval in her mother's voice was palpable, "You can only make a first impression once. And showing up to work hungover on your second day isn't the one you want to make."

She groaned and opened her eyes half expecting to find Elaine's wraith standing before her.

"Shut up! You're supposed to be dead." She grumbled.

"One would think that you would have learned your lesson about this kind of childish behavior back in Toronto. Moping and drinking alone like a love sick sick teenager isn't very becoming, is it?" The voice continued. " Dr Stewart was a quite intelligent, career minded, person. No wonder she left you if you acted like this."

"You're not real!" She growled back.

She closed her eyes, took a deep swig from the bottle, and let her head fall back against the couch. It had been a long stressful day, and all she wanted was to be able to talk to Holly about it. Holly would know what to do about Nick, and everything else. Holly made her be a better person. She opened her eyes to find herself alone. The dark lake, and the blackened silhouettes of trees were silent. They had no answers.

"Fuck..." she breathed out as Ella began to sing.

"Every time we say goodbye I die a little.

Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little.

Why the gods above me, who must be in the know,

Think so little of me, they allow you to go…"