A/N: Well my muse had other ideas about taking a few days off, so here are a few more breadcrumbs to follow. MBC

Diane flinched as Mr. Pence tried to put his hands on her shoulders. Tears were moistening the corner of her eyes as she swatted his hands away and continued her rant, albeit in a more controlled voice.

"I'm sorry I shouted Kirby, but you have done nothing but try to downplay this since I called you. It really makes me question your priorities. I don't care what it looks like, I know something is wrong!"

At this point, Mike stepped in to try and reassure the young woman and offered her his ever-at-the-ready pristine white handkerchief. While he secretly agreed with her attitude, he needed Diane to calm down. Pence again tried to comfort Diane, but backed off at a glare from Mike.

"Listen, Miss Bader - Diane," Mike said in a sympathetic tone, "We are going to do everything we can to find Mona, but we need your help. I know you two are friends, and I understand that you are concerned, but getting upset won't help Mona one bit. And if you're too upset to remember things clearly, well, that could actually hurt our chances of locating her."

Diane accepted the handkerchief and looked Mike in the eye. Seeing understanding and concern there, she replied, "I'm sorry, I am just worried about Mona. I really want to do everything I can to help find her."

Although Mike really needed to interview Diane, he could easily see that she was not up for questions just yet. With a look to Inspector Russell he suggested, "How about we take a look at Mona's classroom first, and then we can get some more information." Russell nodded his agreement, and with that, they left the office and silently walked down the hall, towards the center of the school. Miss Holtzbaur's class room was about fifty yards down the main hallway.

"As you recall, Mike," Mr. Pence said mostly to fill the awkward silence, "all the history classrooms are here on the right hand side of the A hallway. The art rooms are on the left and if you continue down, you hit the central lobby, off of which are the gymnasium, cafeteria and the halls and stairs to the rest of the building."

"Has anybody been in the room since you found Mona's things?" Mike inquired.

"As far as I know, no. There are only a few janitors in building, today." replied Pence. "Tomorrow will be another story, however. The building engineer and of course Jeannie and Diane will be in to start documenting the building. I believe in the morning that both the girls and boys basketball teams have practice, as well as the wrestling and swim team. The school never really sleeps for too long."

Mike hung back slightly, and seeing this, Scott did the same. "If we are going to find anything in here it's going to have to be today," Mike started in a low voice. "After we take a quick look see around the room, and bag the note, why don't you see if you can get the lab boys down here to at least dust for prints. We probably should do a room by room search of the building as well, it probably won't lead to anything, I don't think Mona's hiding in a broom closet, but you can never tell what we'll turn up."

"That sounds good, Mike." Inspector Russell replied, "If it's ok with you, I want to talk to Pence and Bader separately. Why don't you take the girl, you seem to have made a connection with her." Mike was beginning to see why Inspector Russell was held in such high regard, for he was about to suggest the same thing.

Mike agreed and continued Scott's thought, "When you talk to Pence, try to get a feel for what was going on in the building the evening of the 21st, the last day Mona was seen. Make sure he lets you see Mona's Disciple Referral File, too. While I hope no students are involved, you can't discount that possibility. It will at least give us a place to start. Also, he said something to me about an encounter with one of the janitors. See if you can get any more info on that. Hopefully, by then the lab boys will be here and you can stick around until they finish."

Scott smiled to himself. So much for me taking the lead in this investigation he thought, although truth be told, Mike's plan was more or less what he would have done. He made a mental list of his next steps as Mike went on. "After I'm done interviewing Miss Bader, I'll get Mona's home address and maybe Diane can come with me. If she knows Mona as well as I think she does, she'd be the best person to see if anything is amiss." Mike glanced at his watch, it was already half past one. "It will probably be too late to get the lab out there if we need to, but we'll see what happens. Let's meet up back at my office later and we can compare notes."

Miss Bader and Mr. Pence had arrived at classroom A112 and waited for Mike and Scott to catch up. Mr. Pence took out his master key and opened Ms. Holtzbaur's classroom door. Mike made a note to get Diane's and Kirby's fingerprints for exclusionary purposes. Just in front of the open door where two bags. One was a small lunch box, the other was a large tote. The tote was on its side and a number of small parcels, papers and what looked to be Christmas cards were spilled on the floor. Mike turned to Diane and asked, "Was the door locked when you came in and is this exactly how the bags were?"

She replied, "No, the door was open and the light were on. That's why I came in, I thought Mona was in here getting some work done. On the 21st before we left on holiday, she said she had something to show me, but I never got the chance to see what it was. I had to get right out of here to catch a flight to Phoenix to see my folks, so I just wished her a Happy Holiday and left. I felt a little guilty, leaving her alone for Christmas, but she insisted that I go. Diane started to get little misty eyed again, but she continued, "I only got back early this morning and decided to come over and check on my plants before I went home. The bags were right here, but the tote was upright. I tripped over it when I came in, that's when all the stuff dropped out. I walked over to the desk to see if Mona's handbag was in the bottom drawer, and that's when I saw the note and went to the office."

Inspector Russell investigated the bags on the floor while Mike walked over to the desk. In the middle of an impeccably neat desk was Mona's Plan book. It was opened to the week of January 2nd. Small, precise hand writing filled the blocks for each class period of the day, for the entire week. Scrawled across both pages in large block letters were the word "NEVER AGAIN" just as Kirby had reported. Nothing else was disturbed as Mike looked around the tidy, plainly adorned room. A newspaper rack graced one corner with current and past editions of various national newspapers. There was a large bookshelf with 3 inch binders neatly labeled with years going back to the 1940's. Only two bulletin boards were decorated, one titled "this week" and the other titled "the week that was." While it looked as if newspaper articles had been stapled to the boards at one time, they currently were blank. Mike called Diane's attention to the bulletin boards and asked if there were usually news items on the boards.

"That's odd," she commented, I'm sure there was something up there when I was in here on Friday."

After a few minutes, Inspector Russell walked over to Mike and looked at the plan book. He glanced around the room, but other than the blank bulletin boards, saw nothing out of place. Quietly, he told Mike, "It appears as if the bags have been here at least a couple of days. The lunch box has half a sandwich that's at least a few days old, and the bag had about 20 unopened Christmas Cards and a few Christmas parcels, mostly cookies and fruit that also smell as if they have seen better days. At first glance, it looks like they could have been here since 21st, the last day anyone saw Mona."

Everyone looked up as a middle aged man in a navy blue workman's uniform entered the room. "He raised his voice when he saw Mike and Scott at Mona's desk and shouted, "Hey, you don't belong in here." He then turned to his left and saw Mr Pence and breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, it's you." he said and continued under his breath, "Good thing too, if the old bat knew anybody was in here, she'd have my hide."

Mr. Pence ignored the mumbled comment and introduce Clark Fischer, the newest of the 5 custodians who worked at Mission High. "Sorry Clark, I should have told you that we were in the building, I didn't mean to give you a scare."

That's ok, Mr Pence," Clark said with a smirk, "It's your school, after all. Anything I can help you with?"

"No, no, thanks just the same we are almost done here." Mr. Pence, said dismissing the janitor.

That drew a glare from Mike, who wanted to use the opportunity to get more information about the condition of the room on the 21st. As Clark exited the room, Mike followed him into the hall and stopped him. "Mr. Fischer, hold on a second, can you tell me if you cleaned this room on Friday the 21st?"

Fischer turned towards Mike. "Who's asking?" he responded defiantly.

Mike identified himself, and asked his question again.

Fisher responded more casually, "I usually do, but I was working in the B wing on Friday because there were people using this hall to get to the gym for the basketball game. We left A hall for the night crew." Mike made a mental note to interview the night janitorial crew. "I went home before they came on at 11pm. Why the questions, lieutenant?"

Mike hesitated, "We are just looking into something that happened in Miss Holtzbaur's classroom on Friday. Nothing to get alarmed about." He really didn't know why he wasn't totally truthful in his response to Fischer, but something about him seemed off.

"Anything else, lieutenant?" Fischer asked turning to leave.

"No, that's it, thank you Mr. Fischer."

As Fischer walked towards the gym, Inspector Russell, Mr. Pence and Diane Bader exited the classroom.

"Mike, I'm going to head back down to the main office with Mr. Pence." Scott stated as Mr. Pence locked A112. "Miss Bader, if you wouldn't mind talking to Lieutenant Stone?"

"Sure," she said, obviously happy to be leaving Mr. Pence's company. "How about we use my room?" pulling the key out of her overall pocket.

Mike followed her into A111 and took a seat on a stool at one of the drafting tables. Diane had visibly relaxed when she entered her own classroom. For some reason, she felt strangely at ease in the company of the older lieutenant. She sat down heavily on the other side of the table, smile and rolled her eye at Mike. "Kirby Pence is a good principal but he can be a pain in the ass." She said candidly as she returned Mike's handkerchief. "Sometimes he cares more about politics then about the kids and his people." Mike was slightly surprised at the young woman's forthright comment, but took it as a sign that she was comfortable and composed enough to talk to him.

For the next hour, Diane and Mike talked about Mona, and the weeks leading up to her disappearance. She gave him a list of the hotels that Mona frequented in Las Vegas and Reno. As she talked, Mike was touched by the level of affection that she demonstrated towards her older friend and colleague and after their conversation, he was more convinced than ever that something had happened to Mona, despite the lack of evidence at the school. She agreed to accompany him to Mona's house, and produced a key to the front door. They made their way back to the office; checked in with Inspector Scott, who was buried in a stack of files; and left the building.

They decide to walk to Mona's house, which was just 2 blocks down, at 20 Cumberland Street. As they walked through Dolores Park in the chilly afternoon sunshine, Mike could not shake the feeling that he had met this young woman before. Despite her unease at Mona's disappearance, her easy smile and considerate nature seemed all too familiar to him. "You are Jeannie's dad aren't you?" she asked as she reached Mona's House. When they stepped on the porch, the sight of numerous papers and an overflowing mail box gave Diane pause. "Oh, man, this does not look good," she said handing Mike the front door key. As he put the key in the door and slowly turned the knob, there was a loud crash from inside the house.