Chapter 7
It's the ringing of her phone the next morning that brings Regina to consciousness and she slaps wildly on the pillow next to her until the mobile is grasped in her hand and held close to her ear.
"Hello?" She says groggily.
"Good Morning Regina! I thought we were grabbing coffee before work today?" It's Robin, sounding chirpy and awake, no doubt sat in their favourite diner already.
The phone leaves her ear and panic sets in. "Shit! My alarm didn't go off, hold on, I'll be there in fifteen minutes, order me the usual."
She pulls on her clothes and runs hands through tamer hair than she expects until it looks presentable and professional. They'd stopped by her house late the previous night and grabbed most of her work clothes so that her hotel closet is full with options.
She'd spent a few hours of the phone the night before with Captain Lucas. It was decided that she would remain in the hotel for a few more days unless any further threats were made. The case was being shared with the FBI, who were now combing through the files sent over in the hopes of finding the suspect. Everything else was to go back to normal, including their cases.
Five minutes later and she's pulled up outside of the diner, the same one they visited the night before, and moving towards the entrance. She can see Robin talking with one of the waitresses, and when she eventually gets closer, she sees his hand is atop the young woman's. It's odd, because he never usually flirted on the job, but he's a man and a good looking one at that.
When Regina finally makes eye contact with Robin, he smiles, and excuses himself from the woman with two coffees in hand. She's called Charlotte, Regina remembers.
"I was beginning to think you weren't going to show up!"
Robin is as perky and bright as ever and now, as he pulls out a chair for his partner to sit on, Regina can't help but pull a face. "It's not like you were all alone, you seemed rather engrossed in conversation when I arrived."
Her comment comes out more bitchy than expected and the second she says it, she wants to take it back. Her partner is always professional and even if he was flirting, it's got nothing to do with her.
Robin tilts his head, smiling. "Is that jealousy Detective?"
"You wish."
"Do I now?" He shoots back, teasing in his tone.
The façade drops as Robin shakes his head, a worried expression playing on his features, "I'm sad to admit but I really wasn't flirting, Charlotte was just telling me that Eva never showed up for her shift this morning."
Oh.
Regina's brow knits together, "Eva's the girl with the brunette hair right? She's always here."
Robin nods, "Exactly. Ever since I joined the unit she's never missed a day. Charlotte says that she's not picking up her mobile either. I took the number, figured we could track it."
The conversation is getting entirely too dark and worrying, and Regina is trying to come up with anything that might explain why the girl hasn't turned up for her shift. "Maybe she's just sick?"
"She never went home last night, her boyfriend came in an hour ago to see if she had started already. He got back from a trip to Boston in the night and she wasn't in bed. He's gone to her sister's to check she didn't stay over there."
Regina catches a glimpse of the wall. Eva was employee of the month, the picture of her smiling brightly positioned high up. It's only then that the name matches a face, a face that is so very similar to her own. Dark hair and eyes.
The night before, she'd seen Eva touching up her make up after serving the man with the blue eyes, the one who had looked straight at her before taking a seat closest to the back. The girl had gone over to him almost immediately. Her lipstick was the same brand as Regina's. The same shade, she had noticed when the girl finally reappeared and gave his order to the kitchen…those eyes, they were so familiar-
"Regina?"
She looks back down from the picture on the wall to Robin, who is pulling on his jacket. "It's 8:30, are you ready to head across to the precinct?"
She nods, "Sure." Her coffee stays on the table, suddenly she doesn't feel so thirsty.
They're almost across the street when Robin speaks, "We're quite early so I'm going to see if we can spend some time trying to find out where Eva is. I would hate to think she's out there hurt and we knew, yet didn't do anything."
"That sounds like a good idea."
…
She's sat at her desk almost an hour later with only Emma for company. The blonde looks a little lethargic.
"Hungover?" Regina finally offers.
Emma laughs, "I wish. I'm sick. Killian and I worked a case last week where we had to interview over a dozen kids from a group home, one of them has definitely shared some germs."
Regina grimaces, glad she'd escaped that case. The last time she'd interviewed kids from a group home she'd landed in the hospital after one sneezed straight onto her face. "Can't you take a sick day?"
"Nope. I'm supposed to be working with David on some paperwork that needs to be done by tomorrow but he tripped over when he was putting up a crib yesterday and now he's concussed and at home."
She smiles at that because David Nolan, who once took down four armed men with nothing more than his hands just had to be taken down putting up a baby's crib. His fiancé, Officer Blanchard was due to give birth in less than two months and the man was already stressed.
She's about to make some witty remark when Robin hurries into the room. He looks agitated when he pushes the piece of paper towards her.
"Eva Mendez made a call last night at 11.56 to 911. I got the audio and when the operator asks her if she's ok, she tells him that her son rang by accident and there was no emergency."
Swan looks up curiously, "Don't kids do that all the time?"
Robin shakes his head, "She doesn't have a son, or any child for that matter."
"Did you get a location for the call?"
He points to the paper, "Yeah, a house not too far from here. I say we go check it out whilst everything's quiet."
Regina stands and pulls on her jacket. It was warm enough not to wear a coat, but still too chilly to go out without a jacket, "Let's go."
…
It starts to rain on the drive to the house and Regina's glad for the jacket and the shelter of the car.
"When's Roland and your mother back from their holiday?" She asks, eyes on the road, so careful with her driving as she had been for the past four years.
"They're back in 4 days I think, so Monday. He's going to spend the weekend after with Marian's family though, they're driving to their Cabin on Friday night and want to take him. I expect he'll enjoy it."
There's a strange edge to his tone when he talks about his deceased wife's parents, much like the one Regina used when talking about her own parents.
She smiles, "I'm guessing you don't get along?"
He laughs at that, "I would say that is quite the understatement. The first time I met them was straight after I kissed a woman that was not my wife, well, girlfriend at the time."
"Tut tut detective, I never saw you as being a cheater."
"Not a cheater, just a very drunk young man at some New Year's party that pretty much every officer in the city went to. Marian and I were both rather intoxicated, so we rang her father and he agreed to pick us up. Midnight came and I saw Marian grab the closest man and kiss him straight on the mouth, so I did what any silly bloke would do and grabbed the prettiest girl."
She laughs, remembering several over her New Year's kisses over the years with men who had not been her fiancé. They had all just been good fun and she'd seen Daniel do the same. It never meant anything.
"I'm sure this girl was simply thrilled at being manhandled."
She can see Robin making a face out of the corner of her eye. "I'm fairly certain she did it just to spite her own boyfriend. We snogged for a good few seconds before she pulled away laughing and made some comment."
"What did she say?"
Robin smiles, "Not bad officer. Then her boyfriend pulled her away to dance to some soppy love song, truth be told, I don't even remember kissing her, but Marian's father just happened to pull up in is car right then and caught me locking lips with someone else."
Memories of parties and kisses swim in her head then, one particular one right before Daniel proposed to her. She heard the clock chime for midnight, looked up to see her boyfriend grabbed by another woman, his face pressed against her. She'd been angry for a second before her own lips pushed against someone else's. He was a good kisser, almost as good as her boyfriend. Not bad officer she had said, pushing away from him.
Years later it was but a vague memory, but still a memory and she laughs out loud when she realises that when she met her partner for the first time three months ago, it was not exactly the first time.
"What's so funny, laughing at my idiotic behaviour as a rookie?"
"Laughing at our idiotic behaviour", she pauses and readies herself, "Not bad officer."
Robin almost jumps out of his seat with shock as realisation sets in. Regina was the girl he'd kissed all those years ago. "Bloody hell, that is…quite strange."
"I can't believe we've actually kissed before, that's just crazy."
He lets out a shaky laugh, "Nobody at the precinct can know about this, Jones or Booth with this sort of information would be catastrophic."
"Agreed."
So they leave it at that. Silence presides over them until they finally pull up in front of a house, the house where Eva had made the 911 call from.
They both leave the car and approach the front door, where Robin knocks lightly. "Police, open up." Before he can knock a second time, the door creaks open and it's obvious it's wasn't closed to begin with.
Regina shrugs and pushes it further open, "You take the downstairs, and I'll take the second floor."
He nods and draws his weapon and together they enter the house.
…
The stairs make that awful horror movie creaking sound as she ascends up. The house is quite normal though, just a little outdated more than anything but there's something about it that seems cold. In fact, there's a chill in the air as she reaches the top of the stairs as her eyes travel towards the photos decorating the walls.
The largest is the photograph of two children. There's a blonde girl and a dark haired boy. Siblings. The girl looks about 10 and the boy a little older. They're both smiling and the girl is standing high on her tip toes, her arm stretched across the boy's shoulder. The photograph is old from the way the children are clothed, a little over 10 years she suspects.
It's eerie.
She follows the rest of the photographs down the hallway until she comes to a closed door.
Regina pushes it open and when her voice finally catches up with her eyes, she gasps.
The girl from the diner is dead on the floor. The pale carpet now stained red with blood.
She's about to call for Robin, when something sharp sticks her in the neck and arms reach around to cover her mouth.
"Hello Regina." The voice says softly. Even four years later it is unmistakable. Her blood runs cold as her legs give way and she meets the ground.
His eyes are blue, she thinks.
It's her last thought…
…then everything becomes darkness, the scream frozen at her lips.
So sorry for the wait for this chapter. I was trying to include everything I wanted to originally. I hope you enjoy and leave reviews!
xo
