A/N: Hey, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!


Chapter 4

"Hey," Don greeted as Megan came in the craftsman.

"Hey," she replied, and then sighed, "So, how's she doing?"

Don took a deep breath, and shook his head. "I honestly don't know." Megan gave him a curious look, and he proceeded to fill her in on everything that had happened since last night.

When he was finished, Megan sighed and nodded.

"Well, she probably is uneasy anywhere she goes. With all the moving around she's done, I doubt she ever lets her guard down and starts to relax." Don nodded in agreement. "But," Megan continued, and Don looked at her curiously. "I think she might want to believe you, but she's afraid to." Don shrugged slightly in agreement. "I'm willing to bet a lot of people lie to her and not many are honest with her. She's probably afraid to trust anyone, afraid she'll get hurt again."

Don nodded. "Yeah, but how can we get her to tell us what happened if she won't trust us?"

Megan shrugged slightly. "I don't know. Just keep trying, I guess. Try to get her to believe we really just wanna help."

0

"Hi Jamie," Megan said friendlily as her and Don entered the room.

Jamie looked over and sat up on the bed. "Hi," she replied quietly.

There was silence for a few seconds before Megan finally broke it.

"You look tired," she commented to Jamie, who looked at her curiously. "Did you get much sleep last night?"

"Enough," she answered in a muffled voice, glancing around nervously.

Don and Megan shared a quick glance with each other.

"You need to sleep Jamie," Megan told her softly, slowly walking over. "You'll wear yourself out if you don't."

Jamie didn't say anything, she just looked away.

"You mind?"

Jamie glanced up and noticed Megan was motioning to the spot next to her on the bed. Slowly and hesitantly, Jamie shook her head, and Megan sat down next to her.

After a couple moments of silence, Megan shared an apprehensive look with Don before looking back over at Jamie. Cautiously, she reached her hand up to brush Jamie's hair out of her face and back behind her ear. Jamie noticeably tensed, to the point where she didn't move. Megan repressed a sigh, but continued to tuck Jamie's hair behind her ear, noticing the bruise Don had mentioned as she did so.

"What happened there?" Megan asked her carefully, trying not to push her too hard.

Jamie looked away again, pulling her hair back down over the bruise, though whether that was a conscious move or not, Megan wasn't sure. "Nothing," Jamie muttered.

Megan and Don glanced at each other before Megan turned back to Jamie. "It doesn't look like nothing," she countered gently.

Jamie didn't reply.

"Did someone do that to you?" Don asked quietly, but blunt.

Don and Megan both noticed Jamie tense, but otherwise she didn't respond.

"Jamie…" Megan started softly, trying to get the teenager to look at her. "Did someone hurt you?"

She still didn't respond. The only movement Jamie made was pulling the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands.

"You can talk to us Jamie," Don assured her.

"We just want to help," Megan added.

Jamie was still looking down, but she muttered, "That's what they all say."

Don and Megan both heard the resentfulness in her tone, and glanced at each other uneasily.

"Who said that?" Megan asked gently.

Jamie shook her head, still looking down. "It doesn't matter," she mumbled.

Megan looked helplessly at Don, who sighed and grabbed the desk chair and pulled it over by the bed, sitting down so that he was facing Jamie, who seemed even more on edge.

"Jamie…" he started, leaning his elbows on his knees, trying to get her to look at him. "Whoever they are…we're not them. We really do want to help," he assured her firmly. Jamie still didn't look up, just tugged on her sleeves more. "You can trust us Jamie," Don told her quietly.

After seeing Jamie wasn't going to respond, and a few minutes of silence, Megan placed a comforting hand on Jamie's shoulder, noticing her tense up more under the touch.

"What's got you so scared Jamie?" Megan asked her softly.

Jamie didn't answer, just kept looking down.

"Does it have anything to do with the other night?" Don questioned gently.

She still didn't answer, but instead of continuing to look down she looked away.

"Is that when you got this?" Megan inquired quietly, motioning to the bruise on her neck.

Jamie went stock-still tense, Don and Megan could both tell it was her fighting the urge to flinch away. They glanced at Jamie, then back at each other, both taking a deep breath. They knew one of them was going to have to ask.

Finally, Megan bit the bullet, and asked, "Did someone attack you?"

Jamie didn't answer, in fact she refused to even look up.

Megan and Don shared a look. They knew they weren't going to be able to get Jamie to tell them, not yet anyway.

Megan sighed and looked at Jamie. "Will you at least let me take you to the hospital, let a doctor check you out and make sure you're okay?" she asked her with earnest concern.

0

"Hey Don," Colby greeted when Don got to the office.

"Hey guys," Don replied, coming over to where David and Colby were working.

"How's Jamie?" Colby asked.

"She's at the hospital with Megan getting checked out," Don answered.

"She okay?" David questioned.

"We think someone might've attacked her," Don informed them. "There's a pretty recent bruise going down her neck, almost like someone grabbed her neck to hold on to her or something. And she won't tell us how she got it, but she did get pretty tense when we asked if someone had attacked her."

"Do you think –" David started.

"Megan's gonna try to convince her to let 'em get a rape kit," Don answered, knowing what David was going to ask. David nodded. "But I doubt we'll be able to get any evidence, not this long after the fact."

"Yeah, but at least we'll know if something did happen to her," Colby pointed out. "It'll at least give us a better idea of what's going on." Don and David both nodded in agreement.

"So, what've you guys found?" Don asked.

David and Colby glanced at each other and then back at Don.

"Well, we think we might've found a connection between Jamie and our dead guy," Colby told him. "But it's not much," he added.

"What is it?" Don inquired curiously, opening up the folder Colby had handed him.

"Amita and Charlie were able to get the IP address our vic's chat room pal was using," David started. "We traced it back to a computer at Jefferson High School."

"Jefferson?" Don repeated, furrowing his eyebrows. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Because that's the last high school Jamie was at before she ran away," Colby answered.

Don still looked confused. "That doesn't make any sense though…" he muttered.

"It shouldn't," David told him. "The computer wasn't one of the student's…it's a teacher's, a student wouldn't have access."

"And even if she could find a way around that, the messages continue all the way up to last week, and Jamie hasn't been in that school since almost three months ago," Colby added.

"Which is not long after the messages started," David added.

Don furrowed his eyebrows. "So Milson's chat room girlfriend is a teacher at Jamie's old school–" he started.

"Her and Milson started talking about a week before Jamie ran away," David added.

"And they continued talking until last week," Colby finished.

All three men had contemplative looks on their faces.

"Is it just me, or does this all seem weird to you guys too?" Colby questioned.

Don and David nodded in agreement.

"What's the connection though?" David wondered.

"Good question," Don mumbled. "OK, why don't you guys go talk to this teacher, see what she knows," he instructed. David and Colby nodded and left.

Don sighed, running a hand over his face. This case just kept confusing him more and more.

0

"Ms. Thompson?" David questioned as he and Colby entered the classroom, carefully avoiding the students rushing out the door.

"Yes?" she replied, turning away from putting a stack of papers on her desk.

"Agents Sinclair and Granger, FBI," David introduced, him and Colby holding up their badges.

"What can I do for you?" Ms. Thompson asked politely, though David and Colby noticed her start slightly.

David and Colby shared a quick glance at each other.

"Ms. Thompson…do you recognize this man?" David asked her, holding up a picture of Milson.

After a few seconds, she finally answered, "No, I've never seen him before." Ms. Thompson looked back up at David and Colby. "Why? Who is he?"

"He was killed a couple days ago," Colby informed her.

"And we have reason to believe that you might've known him," David said.

"What? Why?" Ms. Thompson asked briskly.

"Because according to chat room logs, he was talking to someone using that computer," Colby told her, pointing to the computer on her desk.

Ms. Thompson's expression went from incredulous to you've-got-to-be-kidding-me. "Agent Granger, do you realize how many people he could've been talking to?" she asked him slowly. When he and David just looked at each other and then back at her, she continued, "Well, let me give you a hint…Besides the other teachers and myself, any one of these kids could've figured out a login key that would work, not to mention how many of them have enough computer skills to just make it seem like they were using this computer when in reality they were on their laptop, some fancy cell phone, or even one of the student computers."

"You seem pretty confident it wasn't a teacher," David noted.

"If we wanted to get on a chat room, we wouldn't use the school's computers," she told him easily. "The school monitor's internet activity on every computer."

"So you've never been on a chat room during a break or something?" Colby questioned.

Ms. Thompson looked him in the eyes. "No," she answered firmly. "And I've never met that man before in my life," she added, pointing to the picture in David's hand.

"Do you remember a student named Jamie Sanderfauld?" David asked her.

Ms. Thompson's eyebrows raised in recognition, increasing David and Colby's curiosity. "Miss Sanderfauld hasn't been to school in –"

"Almost three months," Colby finished for her.

She glanced at him curiously, but nodded. "That's right," she said slowly. "One day she just stopped showing up, apparently she ran away or something like that," she commented nonchalantly. "She could be anywhere," Ms. Thompson stated.

"Actually, we know where she is," David said.

Ms. Thompson raised her eyebrows in question.

"She's a suspect in a murder investigation," Colby informed her.

Ms. Thompson laughed lightly. "Jamie?" she asked incredulously. "That's absurd."

David and Colby glanced at each other again. "What makes you say that?" David questioned.

Ms. Thompson smiled at him. "Because Jamie's not that type of person," she told him sincerely.

"What kind of person is she then?" Colby asked.

She sighed. "Look, Jamie's a quiet kid, keeps to herself, doesn't bother anyone. She could've easily been the top student in her class if she actually applied herself, she's smart. I expected a lot out of her, tried to push her to do better."

"So what happened?" David asked.

Ms. Thompson shrugged. "Like I said, she was a quiet kid who kept to herself. She always seemed like she was in her own little world or something. Though she did surprise me by always being able to answer a question correctly when I thought she wasn't paying attention," she added with a grin. "And she was starting to raise her grades. I pushed her to do better, and she rose to the challenge." Ms. Thompson sighed. "I think most of her problem was that nobody ever expected much out of her, so she just didn't try. Sometimes all these kids need is a little push in the right direction," she told them fondly. Then she took a deep breath and said, "But then one day she was just gone."

"Did you ever get the feeling something was going on at home?" David questioned.

"Like?" Ms. Thompson replied.

"Like abuse?" Colby supplied.

Her eyes widened as she looked back and forth between David and Colby. "You think Jamie was being abused?" she asked faintly.

"It's possible," David told her.

Ms. Thompson looked surprised. "No…I never suspected anything like that," she admitted.

"But…you did suspect something?" Colby questioned, noticing her tone.

Ms. Thompson took a deep breath. "Well, she was starting to seem more distant," she informed them. "But I didn't really think too much of it." She shrugged. "And then she just stopped showing up to class, I was curious, and I finally heard that she'd run away."

David and Colby looked at each other.

"Thank you for your time Ms. Thompson," David told her, and they turned to leave.

"Agent Sinclair?" David and Colby stopped and turned to look at her. "I don't think Jamie would've killed that man," Ms. Thompson told them.


A/N: Well, I hope you liked that chapter! I'll try to have an update soon, but tomorrow's going to be a busy day for me so I may not have a lot of time to write. Reviews are greatly appreciated!