"Great. Just great. You're telling me there's a murderer on the loose with the girl in her custody and you haven't even…?"

"Searched the home, sir? Jess is there right now. She found Jane's agenda. This family obviously uses organisation as a layer over their decadence. There were plane tickets that coincided with dates of out of town night vigils. So Jane's been serving the Lord,"

"While she serves this woman." And I suppose you…"

"Exactly, Ant…Agent Cortez ran the numbers for their accounts and found that Dick has a car licensed in Maryland, but the car has never been sighted in D.C. or Maryland or Virginia for that matter. The neighbours have never seen it and it's never shown up on the cameras at the approximate times it should."

"So you're telling me a woman's been cruising around the tri-state area without being sighted."

"Yes."

"126,553 square miles. You can't find this woman in one of them. You haven't by chance found the identity of this woman in all this long-winded, time-wasting, useless…"

"Back off!" Only when the words were released did Nicole recognise the implication of what she had said. Despite her brawn, she often refrained from verbal scuffles with her boss. Pollock exhaled in a serene fashion that unnerved more than settled her.

"Okay." Pollock replied with what could pass for a smile. "I will back off. Because no matter what I say, nothing seems to inspire productivity. I, will gladly let you all carry on in this asinine back and forth, because I know that you'll fail eventually. Oh maybe you'll enjoy yourselves for a while; believing that you're content, things will turn out alright and you're making the right choice. Then reality will set in and you'll see the huge mistakes you're making because hindsight is the best sight."

Nicole was dumbfounded at whether that was an attack on her work or her relationship. Her rapport with Pollock had taken an extreme turn in a direction she couldn't yet fathom. Pollock was satisfied at her silence; he had gotten through. She had learnt to suppress her emotions a long time ago. She cleared her throat and picked up the laptop.

"We need a helicopter for Maryland. 18 minutes?"

"18 minutes." Pollock replied.

"That was weird." Jess said, sitting around Antonio's desk with him and Nicole. "Really weird. Look Nic, Pollock obviously has grievances with you guys being together."

"I know." Nicole said, not making eye contact and dismissing the subject. "The dial-up numbers are from all over Maryland. As in Maryland cookies,"

Antonio searched Maryland on the database. "Maryland state, 12,417 square miles. Counties; Garrett, Frederick, Calvert, Charles,"

"Any female-named counties? Women are a big part of this after all."

"Anne Arundel, Caroline, St. Anne's, St. Mary's. That's all I've got."

"It has to be St. Mary's." Nicole stated. "The roses were the sign of the Tudor house. Mary was the first Tudor Queen."

"Not to mention Mary's religious importance in the Catholic church." Antonio commented.

"Great, because Jane was the homecoming Queen in the class of 1988, St. Mary's Catholic High School." Jess input. "And guess who was King?"

"You're kidding me." Nicole said as a picture of a teenage Dick stared up from the page. "A match made in freaking heaven." Nicole pondered for a moment. "Antonio, search 'stolen crown' with these results."

A short list of similar articles appeared on the screen. Various tales of how Caroline Albright was the true homecoming queen but was dethroned before the ceremony for inappropriate conduct. They all stated that Jane won by default leaving Caroline in the dirt.

"Who would've thought an insignificant student popularity contest could mean so much to so many people?" Jess asked, bemused by the conspiracy and hysteria.

"It's not about the crown. It's about possession. Dick in your vision; protecting his property and all that is his. The little girl; she's not Erica or Jane. She's Caroline Albright and she's back to reclaim the life that was once stolen from her. Don't you see? If she was queen to Dick's King, she would be in the suburbs right now. But she's not. And Erica is the crown jewel."

As much as Nicole's explanation scared both Jess and Antonio, she boarded the helicopter and blocked out all sounds beyond her own thoughts. She would never admit that Pollock's words had pierced her deeply and she leaned back to soften the emotional blow. Her anxiety came from wanting his approval but mostly wanting hers. Antonio was always pursuing a new route to get closer to her and she blocked every pathway. Instead of dwelling, she looked through the details she'd found about Caroline but kept from the others. She had to solve this case 'han solo' to win her respect back. Antonio tapped her on the shoulder.

"Nic," he whispered.

"Not now, Antonio."

"Then when? We'll be there in 30 minutes. We need to discuss what Pollock said,"

"No, we don't. You need to detect whether either Erica or Caroline has been on the web and pick up any sub-conscious signs. Jess is going to her haunts to see if she can find her and get any closer and I'm planning how I'm going to find them both in the next 48 hours."

"That's great, Nicole," Antonio said with forced sincerity. "What about us?"

Nicole ignored his question and made some notes on the Caroline files.

"Nic,"

"I don't like this anymore than you do." She said, not lifting her eyes off the page. "Please Antonio, let's discuss this tonight."

Jess knocked on Caroline's door. After many failed attempts to get contact, Jess swiftly kicked the door open. The apartment was tiny with fives rooms in total. High school souvenirs were hanging all over the walls. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the carpet was shaggy. Although the sight was horrible, Jess nearly fainted when she walked into the bedroom. Pictures, telling a life story, were plastered all over the walls. Jess called Caroline's former school counsellor, and then called Nicole.

Nicole sat on the bed with her laptop researching every point the psychiatrist made and sent the information to Antonio. Jess looked at the pictures for a connection. For once, she wished for a vision.

"It's clear that Caroline Albright is mentally unstable. This evidence is indicative of how her traumatic past has perpetuated the belief that Jane's life is envious. Over the past months, you say she's been communicating with the daughter."

"Yes, Erica confided her true opinions in her." Jess contributed.

"She's been living vicariously through Erica. Using her to find out how life is. It killed her to know that Jane was happy; even superficially happy. Some people only have high school."

"What do you mean?" Nicole asked, while avoiding Antonio's messages.

"When you have been abused and abandoned as a child, as Caroline was. High school can be the only place where one can use their personality to gain some power over others. Popularity is a drug. The most dependent are those who want to fill the internal void with external gratification. As delusional as her thoughts were, Caroline believed that she would be ale to map the rest of her life out from high school onwards. She thought; if she played her cards right; she would marry Dick, have his children and run far away from her childhood and every place she associated it with."

Nicole walked out of the small apartment without warning.

"Is she alright?" Dr Balogun asked.

"I think so. What do you mean by 'playing her cards right?'?"

"In a catholic school, 'inappropriate conduct' is usually of a sexual nature. There was a rumour that Caroline was pregnant. The school was informed and they decided that she wasn't fit to represent the school as an elected member of any form."

"Was she?"

"Between you and me, she wasn't by the time homecoming came around. She terminated the pregnancy because she feared she would be expelled. Luckily she wasn't. But it didn't matter anymore because by graduation, Dick and Jane went to college, then married and had a daughter. Caroline would have had a daughter."

"That's why she did it? To get her daughter back. Why didn't she just move on?" jess asked, filled with anxiety by Caroline's motive.

"There are some grudges that people just can't let go of."