Sorry I haven't updated in forever, but with christmas and such; life's been a bit hetic! Reveiew s'il vous plait, onegai shimasu, por favor, please!!
"Uni's haven't found anything.A few witnesses that say they might have seen her, no-one at the scene or hotel room. She's just vanished."
"She'll have to get food or money sometime, and then we'll find her, boss."
"That we will, Det. Berkeley."
Beila walked down the street, not really knowing or caring where she went. The faces and fashions a blur, an unknown quantity of steps, to take her to a final destination.
The patrol cop rubbed his eyes wearily. He'd been working since the night before, and was absolutely shattered, his eyes were beginning to play tricks on him, because he was sure he'd just seen the murder victim that had been wheeled away from here earlier this morning. Good thing for Beila, he hadn't been listening to his radio.
Beila's blue eyes silently viewed the scene from where she was standing. The beach, with its white sand and impossibly blue ocean; the sidewalk's grey stones; the dark red blood.
Tears ran salty tracks down Beila's cheeks, as she let herself cry.
Lieutenant Caine went through the paper work he had found in the Conway's hotel room and dialled the number for next of kin. The family had already been contacted, but Horatio wanted to ask a few questions.
The phone rang maybe twice before it was picked up. "Hello? Conway Residence, Michael Conway Sr. talking."
"Sir? I'm Lieutenant Horatio Caine, with the MDPD crime lab. I just have some questions to ask."
"Please, call me Michael. Are you any closer to finding Mike and Sarah's killer yet?" The voice sounded weary through the phone line.
"No, Michael; I'm sorry for your loss. But I need to know if Michael and Sarah had any friends or acquaintances at all in America."
"Lieutenant your sympathy is greatly appreciated. Michael never really went to America, apart from once when he was a child, but Sarah lived in America for a year in university. I know for a fact that Beila's father lives there somewhere."
Horatio raised his eyebrows at the statement. "Mr Conway was not the father of his wife's daughter?"
"No." The voice at the end of the phone line said. "Michael and Sarah met when she was a month along. But he really didn't care, and he loved her so much." The voice cracked at the end of the sentence. "They got married two months later. I thought at the time that it was a shotgun wedding, and that Sarah was just getting any man to please her family. But, God, I argued with Mikey over that, and he maintained that it felt right. And Mikey was very right."
"Did Beila know about this?"
"Yes, in fact, she figured it out herself. She took it a lot better than we all thought she would. She said, if I remember correctly: that she had shared thirteen years with her Dad and only twenty-three chromosomes with her biological father. She is an old soul, Lieutenant."
"Please call me Horatio. Did Sarah ever tell you about Beila's father?"
"A little, when we had cleared up the bitterness. But all we ever really found out was that he was a fling, but I suspect that it may have been a little more than that, and that he worked in some sort of enforcement. May have been either the fire or police departments. So maybe then you will find his DNA on a national database, by comparing it to Beila's for a familial match." Horatio had to admit that he was a little taken aback by the knowledge shown by this person.
"Yes we can. Now, this has nothing to do with questioning, but how to you know that we can do that?" Horatio, a man of great intelligence, was intrigued.
"My little scientist genius taught me, said I was the smartest Granddad she knew. Granted, Bill and Edna died three years previous to that, so she made sure to point out that she really had no other evidence to make the comparison to." The man on the end chuckled, and Horatio found himself smiling at the comments.
"Do you know what led to this trip to the US?" Horatio was asking the questions professionally again now.
"Ah, yes. Well, earlier this month, Beila finished her GCSEs. This was Sarah and Michael's surprise congratulation present. My grandchild does tend to get rather stressed and bottled up." The man sighed in a fatherly way.
"Well, I thank you for your time…"
"It really was no problem. And if you do find Beila's father, tell him that he needs to look after my son's little girl."
"Sir, are you handing over custody of your grandchild to a man you have never met?" Horatio was surprised at the man's trust.
"Well, young man, where I come from, there is hardly a more honourable job than one which involves endangering one's life for the safety of others, and he who does such a job, must be a fine and upstanding gentleman. Plus, Horatio, my wife and I will not be here forever, and when we are gone, Beila will need a guiding hand."
"Thank you very much, Sir," Horatio said at the indirect compliment, "if you ever wish to talk, do not hesitant to pick up the phone and dial my number, it is on day or night."
"Good night, Lieutenant." The father said as he hung up.
Horatio went for the bag Beila had packed, and found it contained the normal essentials for a teenage girl. A phone and an iPod, but there was the item, at the bottom, concealed within her toiletries, a hairbrush. Letting the dying sun glint off the hair, he saw that he could see a few hairs on the brush with tags, which could be used for DNA comparison. He headed to DNA to have a little chat with Valera.
Detective Berkeley rubbed his eyes wearily; this girl had just managed to vanish off the face of the planet, in a city crawling with law enforcement officers. If they didn't find her soon, then this was going to become a missing child case, and the FBI would get involved. And Berkeley hated the Feds.
At the moment, he was currently canvassing the sidewalks that lead away from the crime lab. He'd just met a very consistent stream of witnesses that said that they had seen a girl of Miss Conway's description, and that she seemed agitated and upset. He followed the chain of witnesses and found himself about one hundred metres from the crime scene. And then he heard it. At first he had just assumed that it was the crinkle of the leaves in the air, and the stress of the job, but then he heard it again, a sniffing noise. He edged himself closer, trying to be as silent as humanly possible. Getting closer, he could see the girl he'd been looking for sat on the grass verge, the skirt of her pinafore spread around her like she had just fallen there and crying like Cinderella after the ball. And then, just as he was close enough to reach her, the ultimate cliché: he snapped a twig under his foot.
The girl's head immediately snapped up. Watery blue orbs looked at him, so very reminiscent of a deer caught in headlights, as she jerked upright and bolted.
"Wait! Miss! Wait!" He hollered as he followed her through the bushes and onto the street. He indicated to a uniform that he could see a few metres away-who had, coincidentally been looking for the girl himself- and the uniform dutifully blocked the child's way.
"Miss, you have no idea how long we've been looking for you." The uniform said patiently.
"Well done, Thompson." Berkeley congratulated as he gulped the air around him greedily. The girl looked up at the uniform, eyes watery, cheeks flushed and panting, before struggling herself free.
"I do not need your sympathy. What happened, happened. And I need to deal with that. It is not a burden that everyone else needs to acknowledge!" She ranted. "I need to deal…" She trailed off as tears started to flow again.
"C'mon, let's get you back to the lab, hey." Berkeley said, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder and leading her towards where the uniform's squad car was.
The young girl from the crime scene had become quite the celebrity at the crime lab. Everybody knew who she was, and everyone wanted to see her. In fact, this was the fourth time Horatio had had a female member of the team step into his office for a stapler or paperclips or a piece of filing that needed to be dropped off. Although this knock on the door was different.
"Horatio, honey." The woman said quietly at the door.
"Alexx." Horatio returned the smile before looking back to his paperwork.
Alexx took this unsaid permission and stepped in, kneeling on the floor by the couch where the young girl was sleeping. "You sleep, baby." She started softly, stroking the girl's hair gently. "You dream good dreams and happy memories, for me to see you in the morning." She said, standing up and nodding to Horatio as she walked out of the door.
