They arrived outside George Shaw's residence at approximately 8:50am, ten minutes before schedule. Marshall called the FBI team sitting on the house to let them know of the shift change, and not twenty seconds later, a ratty turquoise van pealed out from in front of the one story red brick house, and Mary and Marshall were alone.
"This is Marshall Miller and Mary Sheppard on duty," Marshall said into the small black radio affixed to the dashboard, "eyes on suspect number 939081."
"Check that," replied a disjointed male voice from the radio. "Zero nine hundred, Miller-Shepard checking in." Pause, a ruffling of papers. "Suspect left for work at approximately zero seven hundred this morning, and we've got another team staking out his car and the high school; the house is vacant at the moment, but keep your eyes open for anyone else going in or coming out. Radio in with any updates."
"This ought to be fun," Mary grumbled, taking off her seat belt, settling into her seat and putting her feet on the dashboard, a habit which annoyed Marshall because it meant that he would probably have to wipe off the shoe prints later. Which, of course, was exactly why she did it.
"Especially with you all perky and upbeat in the mornings."
"You're an idiot."
"Duly noted."
They spent the rest of the morning in the black Avalanche parked across the street from George Shaw's house. At approximately eleven fifty-two, a man with dark hair, a navy baseball cap, and sunglasses came by to stuff a handbill in the doors of the neighborhood, which was innocent enough, but still, Marshall updated Santa Fe PD on the detail, and an undercover agent was sent to walk along the street and casually extract the handbill from the door.
Agent Peter Douglas did not want twenty percent off his annual lawn care bill, and the advertisement was discarded.
At 12:20pm, with the Santa Fe sun beating down on the truck, Mary snapped shut the folder she had been going through and said, "God, couldn't this guy have lived in Maine or something? It's like an oven in here." She had long ago taken off her jacket and blouse and was curled up in her seat in a tank top.
Also dressed thusly, Marshall replied, "Evil knows neither boundaries nor weather patterns." He had long since finished reading the case files and had, for some bizarre reason Mary couldn't even begin to fathom, taken apart the car's CD player and was rewiring it using the toolbox he kept under the backseat.
"What I wouldn't give to just go up to this son of a bitch and shoot off parts of his body until he tells us where the girl is," she muttered, yawning and stretching.
Marshall raised his eyebrow, looked at her, and paused with a screwdriver in the hole in the controls where the CD player had been and said, "Hm, this coming from the Olympic gold medalist in subtlety. You know, if you're tired, you can sleep while I watch the house."
"So you can draw on my face while I'm unconscious? Don't think so, not a chance."
By 12:30pm, Mary was snoring softly, head against Marshall's shoulder so she didn't sweat and stick to the leather seats. He fiddled on with the CD player.
She awoke with her head in his lap to the coarse sound of the radio.
"Suspect leaving local HS, presumably heading home. We've got a team tracking him. Miller-Sheppard still on his house?"
Gingerly and without having realized that his partner was awake, Marshall reached over the steering wheel to press the button on the radio. "Affirmative."
"All right, eyes open, people."
Mary shifted and turned, blinking up at Marshall, who grinned ruefully. "Did that wake you?"
"Time?" she asked, ignoring him and rubbing her eyes.
"Five-thirty."
"Seriously?" Mary demanded, surprised, bolting up and immediately regretting it as bright spots overwhelmed her vision and her stomach turned viciously. Her hand quickly went to her mouth as a preemptive move against anything that might come up as her brain thumped mercilessly against her skull.
"Mare?" Worry.
"Got up too fast." She took a deep breath to clear her head, and it didn't help. "I've been asleep for the past five hours?"
"Yeah, but Mare, if you don't feel--" Marshall began, reaching out to hesitantly to put a hand against her forehead, as if checking for fever.
"Headache," she replied, squeezing her eyes closed against the heavy pounding, leaning into Marshall's cool hand.
A pause while Marshall juggled disbelief at her words, irritation at the disbelief, and worry despite both. Worry won out. With a sigh he said, "Come here," and turned her face toward him.
"What--?!"
"Just relax," he cut her off, taking her face in both his hands. He pressed his thumbs against her temples and rubbed gently in circles, then pressed his fingers against her forehead with light pressure, then ran his thumbs over her eyelids. "Relax," he said again, and she couldn't help but listen, sagging tiredly against the car door despite her nap.
When she felt his fingers pause against her eyelids five minutes later and tense, she could see straight again. She turned her head toward George Shaw's house as the garage door opened and his Toyota Corolla pulled in.
"Looks like maggot's back in the dog crap," she muttered.
A chuckle, then Marshall asked softly against her ear, "Better?"
"Yes." She pulled her face somewhat hesitantly from his grasp, ear tingling from his breath, then gave a somewhat foreign, "Thanks." He just smiled crookedly.
At 7:30pm, a gray Chevy pulled up and parked two houses down and across the street from Shaw's red brick lair. Two minutes later, the radio came to life and croaked, "Brown-Anderson here to relieve you, Miller-Sheppard. Report back tomorrow at zero seven hundred."
They pulled out of the residential neighborhood with the relief that always followed a fruitless day of bored watchfulness and into a motel five miles away with the "T" in the sign unlit, the pole for the sign covered in profanities courtesy of red spray paint and rowdy teenagers, and the parking lot littered with garbage. "And dear old Uncle Sam couldn't even spring for a Motel 6 or something," Mary muttered as they parked in front of the office. "We love you too, America."
Marshall checked in and came out of the office with key cards to two joined rooms. They moved to the other side of the building then carried their respective overnight bags into their rooms. Just as Mary was beginning to big through her bag looking for a change of clothes, Marshall's head popped through the adjoining door, and he asked, "Pizza? Though I'd pick us up some."
"Beer," was Mary's reply.
"I live to serve, Your Majesty."
A shower was an absolute must after a day of sitting in a car in the hot New Mexican sun with the air conditioning off. Mary took her time standing under the water, just a little bit too cool after the oven she spent the day in, feeling if not refreshed then at least clean when she stepped out, wrapped in a towel, stumbling slightly on the edge of the tub. She shook out her hair, very aware that she was dripping as she made her way to the bed where her change of clothes were, mildly amused-concerned that the edges of the destination were blurring a little with each step and that her knees felt like gravy.
She was halfway to the bed when he legs gave out, and for a moment it was like she was out of her body, looking at her own crumpled form on the floor from another perspective wondering who is she, and why is she shaking so hard? The sensation passed quickly, and Mary was back in her own head, wrapped in a towel on the floor, hands shaking too hard to even hold her own throbbing skull.
Where the Hell were those painkillers?
She tried to open her eyes and find her bag, but the moment she did, the too-bright colors of everything around her and the sick glare of the lamp next to the bed made everything in the room whirl, and she shut them again.
"Mary!" Marshall's voice came from a lifetime away, as did his touch, but she was vaguely sure that she was being lifted then put down on something softer than the floor. Her entire world shook, however, when he jerked her shoulder roughly and asked wildly, "Mare? Mare, what's wrong?" She forced her eyes open if only to avoid having him shake her again and making her feel like she was stuck on a tilt-o-whirl. Focus on his eyes, those deep, sky blues.
"E-E-Eletriptan," she breathed, finding herself curled up against Marshall's shoulder on the bed. She tried to point to her bag but aborted that operation halfway through when she realized that her hand shook to hard to keep it in one place long enough to point and trying to just made the bridge of her nose sting. She shut her eyes again and managed to choke out, "Front pouch, two pills."
She was all too aware of her head shifting when Marshall moved abruptly to unzip her bag but was nonetheless grateful when she felt something pressed into her mouth, and then liquid poured slowly to help her wash it down.
The effects were not immediate, and it could have been an eternity she spent curled into a tight ball against her partner, fighting off and trying to ignore everything her senses registered because it was just too much to deal with—sight, sound, smell. The only thing she was comfortable with was the gentle stroking against her hair; when the ache had subsided enough for her to breath easily again and her hands had stopped shaking, she kept her eyes closed for a few extra moments to savor the peace that came with that action.
"Mary?" Marshall whispered cautiously when he felt her shift in his arms so that her head was in the crook of his neck. He was still running his fingers through her still-damp hair.
He felt her pause, felt her check herself, and felt her make a decision.
"It's… stress. And I'm tired; some rest should do the trick. Um, the doctor said."
And it was her turn to feel him tense, feel him register her lie, and feel him decide to accept without question what she told him because he trusts me that much and trusts that I can take care of myself.
Oh, God, Marshall, you're an idiot.
"All right... You up for food?" he asked finally. She silently noted the long-forgotten pizza box lying on the floor near the connecting door next to the six pack of beer. "You didn't eat breakfast, haven't eaten all day. You keep this up, and you'll lose your food baby, and you know how the men all love your extra pounds."
"Jackass," she laughed affectionately, pinching his arm in retaliation. He didn't say anything about the pinch being less vicious than usual—as if she didn't have the strength to abuse him any harder—and flinched for her benefit. She let him pull him arms away from around her and retrieve the beer and pizza, and they ate in companionable silence on the bed.
"Shower," Marshall sighed after he put away three quarters of the pizza and half of the beers. "You change and get some sleep. I'll wake you in the morning."
He got up and may have been less than graceful when bolting out of the room—Mary couldn't be sure because she was distracted by the quick and sloppy kiss his planted in her forehead before he left.
----
"It's been over forty-eight hours," Mary sighed in frustration, legs propped up against the steering wheel—she had stolen the keys from Marshall's hands before he could denounce her driving—at 7:00am. "I'm going crazy just waiting here… Her chances of survival just went from… from…"
"Probable to slim, I know," Marshall replied, just as agitated as they watched the gray-haired history teacher lock his front door and make his way to his garage. He was an average height with small, brown eyes tilted upward, a potbelly, and a pasty complexion. They watched as he opened his garage door, got into his Corolla, and backed out.
"He's left the premises," Marshall said into the radio as the car drove down the street.
"A team will tail him to the school," came the reply. As usual, Marshall put the radio back on the stand on the dashboard. He looked at his partner, who was staring intently out the window toward the house.
"Is Shaw married? Family?" she asked out of the blue, but Marshall had long since learned not to question her process.
"No. Lives alone."
"Any other properties? Vehicles?"
"Not that the feds know of. Why, what are you thinking?"
She turned towards Marshall and fixed him with an intense hazel look, head tilted and the corner of her mouth folded up. "Did you notice now big his garage is?"
"It's a two-car garage. Like all the garages on this street."
"Yes," she said impatiently, "but when he pulled out, you could see another car. A white van."
Marshall frowned. "You sure?"
She shot him a dirty look at his questioning her observations. She fiddled in her pocket and extracted the orange prescription bottle, popped two pills in her mouth—ignored Marshall when he asked, "Didn't you already take two this morning?"--, washed them down with water, and started the car.
"What are you doing? We're supposed to watch the house, Mare," Marshall asked, incredulous as Mary drove halfway up the street and parked.
"We are going to watch," she replied nonchalantly, getting out of the car. In disbelief, Marshall followed after her as she started back toward Shaw's house.
"Mare, we don't have a warrant, anything you find won't be admissible in court, what the heck are you thinking?" he demanded seeing her walk up to the door and jiggle the doorknob.
She grinned at him mischievously and twittered innocently, "Mr. Shaw left his front door ajar when he went to work this morning, and it was suspicious, so we thought we'd check it out. It's not our fault that he left his door open—anyone could have stepped in, and we had to search the premises to make sure it was safe."
"I- you- what-" Marshall sputtered, half-amused and half-flabbergasted. He licked his lips and asked in a strained voice, "And how are you going to let yourself in without breaking down the door? Or leaving any other signs of forced entry?"
Mary smirked again, and Marshall decided that perhaps he shouldn't have asked. He pointedly looked the other way when she jimmied the front porch window open—"Learned this when I was a kid, and my mom kept forgetting the house key"—and eased herself into the house. A few seconds later, the front door opened, and Mary leaned against with the same smirk. "Come on in, I insist."
George Shaw's home was alarmingly clean, unlike any other bachelor's home either Mary or Marshall had ever seen—and this was saying something because Marshall, you're like a housewife—who in their right mind would alphabetize their spices?
They did a quick search of all the rooms in the house, which turned up nothing not even a few damn dust bunnies. When they let themselves into the garage, however—
"I told you there was a van," Mary said triumphantly as she flipped on the garage lights. Indeed, there was a gleaming white van sitting in the garage, front windows tinted.
"Touché," Marshall breathed, following Mary as she approached the vehicle. They both carefully made their ways around the van, surveying every inch multiple times, looking over and under before they finally congregated at the back by the doors.
Without a word, Marshall took one door handle and Mary the other, and they flung the doors open at the same time to find—
"The Hell?" Mary hissed, looking into the back of the van. "What the--"
"I have no idea," Marshall told her, looking into the carpeted and padded truck; the floor of the van was covered in a fuzzy blue carpeting—the thick, soft kind used in bathrooms—and the walls were a plush, electric violet padding that was almost three inches thick.
Mary pulled herself into the small space, edging through the heavy carpet on hands and knees to the far corner, then crawling back with her eyes glued to the floor.
"Find anything?" Marshall asked patiently while she searched through the fibers of the rug.
"No, not--" A pause as Mary froze to the spot. "Marshall… Marshall, what color were the streamers on Taylor Gore's bicycle?"
"Uh… lavender."
Mary scrambled out of the back of the van and held he hand out to her partner; in it, a single strip of shiny lavender plastic. Marshall looked from it to her and back. "This is enough for a search war-"
They both froze, eyes wide, as the garage door began to open.
