(A/N): Okay guys, a little bit of a different update here... There's not going to be a flashback to start out. I wrote the second part first this time and then it just sort of ended up being more of a stand alone chapter. Next time we'll switch back to the way it's normally formatted, so apologies if this is a little weird at first.
Fair warning: This chapter will pick up where last chapter left off, then jump ahead, then back again, and, well... you'll see. But be prepared for a nonlinear timeline for this one.
January 2012
Beacon Hills, CA
Riley Bridge
It came as no great surprise that Peter was right. The police had left, just as he predicted, likely off patrolling the streets and responding to emergency calls, the city's tax money hard at work. Two lone officers remained and it was impossible for Bea to identify them from their distance, but she knew they were neither the sheriff nor the deputy because she didn't recognize their car parked nearby.
Bea felt panicky. She didn't trust Peter, not for a second, and she was questioning her sanity. Right now, they were crouched around the bike trail that led up to the path to the bridge, hidden well behind the overgrown underbrush near the edge of the river.
The water rushed and Bea tried not to recall the last time she'd been out here at night.
"So what's the plan here?" Whispered Bea, pulling Peter's gaze away from the horizon beyond them. She felt like they were seconds away from being spotted and there's Peter, just gazing off in the distance. She could hit him. "You do have a plan, right?"
"Well…" he hummed, his eyes darting over the bridge and the officers rather fleetingly.
Bea inflated with disbelief. She held in the insults she wanted to hurl and instead hissed, "What? Are you joking? You're joking! Go do something!"
Peter raised his eyebrows at her. "Me?"
"Yes, you! Go hypnotize them or something!"
His face scrunched at her suggestion and she flailed an arm, which he quickly captured and plastered to her side safely out of the officers' view. "How about we don't wave our hands at them? Let's start with that."
How could he be so calm? "Get out there and do something!" She whisper screamed. "Before they catch us both!"
"You know, we could just call 911," Peter suggested.
Bea felt her eyes widen in horror. "Absolutely not!" She adamantly shook her head. "That's illegal."
Peter seemed pained to have to put up with her. "It would distract them."
"It would be illegal!"
"It would get them away from the bridge," he reasoned.
"Call and say what, exactly?"
"Report a crash on the highway a couple of miles out."
Her eyes bugged at that. "We could go to prison!"
He rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic."
Hearing that from Peter must have meant she deserved some sort of award. She shook her head again. "No. I'm not breaking the law with you tonight, Peter. There's got to be another way. What if they were instructed not to respond to that type of thing anyways?"
"Your father would tell them to ignore an emergency like that? They're the closest units to the crash." Peter leveled an almost disapproving look at her, as though she were culpable for her father's poor leadership skills, and Bea had had enough.
"There is no crash!" She exclaimed, and then clamped her mouth shut and whipped her head around to see if the officers overheard her. They didn't, and she sighed in relief. She paused at the expression on Peter's face.
"There could be," he muttered, watching her reaction closely.
"Peter!" She admonished, and he sighed laboriously and looked like he wanted to add more, perhaps suggest other illegal alternatives, but also knew when to keep his mouth shut.
"What would you recommend, then?" Peter grudgingly asked, like he wasn't expecting anything.
Bea stalled. She looked at the river, at the woods, at the officers. Her mind raced. She struggled to focus past her frantic nerves. She wasn't cut out for this. "I don't know!"
He sighed as though tasked with something frivolous and rolled his eyes. "Stay here."
"Okay," she frantically agreed, until he sank away and disappeared into the shadows. "Wait!" She gasped. "What?"
Peter slinked along the edge of the bike trail and Bea's heart practically burst out of her chest it hammered so quickly. Her pulse was loud enough to drum over the sound of the river and Bea cast a panicked look at the woods on the other side. The officers stood against the railing of the bridge, chatting about god knows what, while Peter crept closer and closer.
There came an unexpected noise from somewhere near where Peter was, and the officers turned in tandem to peer through the night. They exchanged a look and one of them pointed directly at the spot Bea just watched Peter disappear from.
The shorter officer clapped his brother in arms on the back, and pulled out a flashlight. He strode over the bridge to aim the beam in the direction of where Peter was hidden. Bea practically shifted from foot to foot in panic. Should she make a noise? Should she distract them? Throw a rock!
That's it! She looked all around at the ground, the grass and thick leaves and branches of the bushes. There were sticks, plenty of sticks, but where were the rocks?
The officer was walking off the bridge now, going to investigate the noise they heard further, and Bea was torn between throwing the stick she hadn't even realized she picked up into the river and waiting to see what Peter did next.
The shorter one started down the hill, his light pointed behind a tall bush, and he was right in front of where Peter was—
In the parking lot nearby, an alarm blared. Bea's heart jumped into her mouth and she muffled a yelp with her hand. Just as the officers whipped around to look at the parking lot, she gasped in relief and realized Peter had somehow caused a car alarm to set off.
The shorter officer called up to his partner. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but she thought she caught the phrase I'll go, and she watched the shorter one climb out of the brush and back onto the path.
Bea ducked down as he turned in her direction for a moment. She held her breath and went completely still. After counting to ten, she peeked back over the bush. The shorter officer was making his way over to the parking lot and had his hand on his holster as he went, his flashlight leading the way.
The taller officer was still left on the bridge. He passed from one end to the other, his light scanning all around the river. He looked on edge and nervous. He must have heard something from the woods, because he whipped around and withdrew his gun, aiming it and the flashlight at the trees overhead.
Bea felt an amused snort catch in her throat. But it wasn't funny, what was wrong with her? It wasn't funny; it was real!
The officer backed away from the woods slowly. Peter suddenly appeared on the end of the bridge and Bea tried to figure out where the hell he'd come from and how he'd gotten around the other officer unseen. She looked back to the parking lot, but it was mostly hidden out of her view and she didn't expect to see him anyways.
Peter slowly crept along the bridge and the officer kept his gun aimed at something unseen in the trees. He lowered his light and reached for the radio on his shoulder, and Peter moved faster than Bea could follow.
She just saw a black streak surge to the officer and suddenly he collapsed, and Peter bent over him. Bea flew out from behind the bush and ran at the bridge in a blind panic, assuming the worst.
Her feet beat the path loudly and she sucked in panicked breaths, her gaze torn between the car park and the bridge, and she stopped at the barricade in front of the bridge and tried to figure out how Peter got around it so quickly.
He was there suddenly in front of her, offering his hand, looking totally collected and natural. She gaped at him. "Come on, hurry," Urged Peter, waving his hand. "We don't have much time."
"You're crazy!" She exclaimed.
With that he dropped his hand and gave her a hard glare. "This is what you wanted! You told me to do something. You wanted to see the pole for yourself. I do what you ask of me, and still I'm the bad guy?"
"This—" she shook her head and looked at the crumpled officer, and back at the car park where the other officer was in god knows what condition, and shook her head again furiously at Peter. "This is not what I meant!"
His eyes were wide and equally as angry as Bea's as he pointed at the pole behind them. "We can argue about the morals of this later; right now, you need to come see these names and we need to get out of here before that other officer gets back!"
She hopped over the ledge of the barrier and followed Peter to the pole, her hands shaking. They passed the fallen officer and she couldn't help but gawk.
He's not dead, she assured herself. He's alive.
She looked questioningly at the back of Peter's head, and she wondered…
He didn't so much as acknowledge her prying gaze or even the officer that lay a few feet behind them as he came to a stop beside the pole. His finger went straight to the name and Bea blinked.
DEBBIE
In scratched, capital letters, spelled out plain as day, just as she suspected. It was undeniable now. So why did she still not trust it? The irrational thought struck her and she looked back at Peter. Was it him? Did he write this in the pole?
"And this name now too," He noted, oblivious to her train of thought as he tapped at another name. "Sasha."
Bea froze. She slowly looked at where he indicated, and even when she saw it, she didn't want to believe it. A sickness crept into her. She could hardly stand to look, and she was filled with dread and denial. The rational part of her was screaming to get the hell out of there before something terrible happened.
"I take it you know her?" Peter deduced, and Bea couldn't even bring herself to nod.
She clenched her jaw, and pulled out her phone with oddly steady hands. There was no flash as she snapped the picture and she was glad for it, still afraid that the officer might catch them. "Yes," she said, her voice hollow as she stared at the newest picture on her phone. "I know her."
She hadn't made it as far as her bed. Bea sat with her eyes closed in the dim light of her room, waiting for the anxiety to subside and drowsiness to creep in. But it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't. She was wide-awake.
She should have known things would go wrong when she agreed to work with Peter. She should have known. Deep down, she thought maybe she had known. But as he said so many years before… desperation clouds judgment. It makes you vulnerable.
Her hands trembled as she pressed play on her tape recorder.
Diane's voice had been tired, the sound of a woman at her wit's end. "I don't know what you want me to say here, uh…" She paused and took a breath. "Sorry, what's your name again?"
"Bea," answered her own voice. "You can call me Bea. All right if I record this?"
"I don't see why not." Diane let her breath out slowly, and in her mind Bea could still picture the way the smoke of her cigarette curled through the morning air and hung beautifully for just a moment until the wind blasted it apart. "There's nothing I have to hide. I don't feel ashamed for what I did. Sasha pushes; it's what she does. She's done it all her life. She pushes and pushes just to see how far you can bend. Sometimes I think she just likes to watch you break."
"So you two had an argument?" Bea gently guided the conversation, as she always did when she was interviewing someone.
"We always had an argument," Diane snorted. Bea recalled the way Diane's face looked sad despite the irritation in her voice, and how she looked down as she flicked the ashes off her cigarette. "That's how we communicate in our family."
"When I met you two on the bridge last week you seemed… happy."
"Happy?" Diane laughed. She thought about it for a second and then her voice drooped as she admitted that, "Yeah, I guess we were. I took Sasha out to ice-skate that night, like we used to do when we were little. She's good at it, because of the gymnastics. We were celebrating my promotion."
"You work here at the music store?"
"Seven years working here," Diane sighed. "Seven god damn years of my life, and this is my first promotion. Oh, it's a good promotion, don't get me wrong—general manager?" She snorted, her voice light and mocking, though she didn't seem totally ungrateful. "Shit… I've got benefits now. Dental insurance. Maybe now Sasha can get that freaking tooth of hers fixed. She's got one crooked, right here in front. You noticed it? Probably not, it's nothing, but she always used to say she wanted braces. That shit's expensive and we could never spare the money. Other things would happen—car needed new tires, furnace took a dump, car took a dump. There's always something. But maybe now…"
"Congratulations on your promotion," Bea said. "It sounds like you really deserve it."
Diane was smiling. "Thanks. I do."
"Getting back to the night we met, what brought you out to the bridge? You said you went ice-skating. That's the clear across the city."
"Oh, you can thank Sasha for that little expedition," Diane chuckled. "She knew about the suicides—everyone in town knew by that point—and Sasha wanted to go see."
"See?"
"She's a demented little shit," Diane laughed. "God love her, she listens to those creepy true crime podcasts. She could tell you the life story of nine different serial killers. Believe me—I know way more about Ed Gein's childhood than I ever wanted to. I thought it was because she wanted to be a cop for the longest time, but she doesn't. She wants to be a crime reporter, like… well, kinda like you, I guess."
Bea had smiled softly and Diane gave her a shrug before she continued. "I didn't want to go to the bridge, but… Sasha asked nicely, and, well… I was in the giving mood, I suppose." She paused. "And aren't you glad? We never would've met, you and me."
Bea sounded wry as she replied, "Yeah, funny how life works sometimes, isn't it?"
"You're telling me. Anyways, I guess that was the last night she and I were… okay. It never lasts long." Diane blew out a long, heavy sigh, and Bea remembered how she shook her head, and how sorrowful and frustrated she seemed. "Look, me and my sister fight—a lot. But we don't ever… we never walk away!" Diane had looked up at her then, her eyes passionate and angry, as though she were looking at Sasha and not Bea. "We don't just leave! That's not how we do things!"
"But Sasha left," Bea noted.
Diane had turned away to toss her half-finished cigarette on the ground. "Yeah," She ground out, the word coming out of her mouth like a curse. "She ran away. I thought something happened, I thought—Jesus… I thought—" Diane broke off and shook her head, unable to finish the sentence.
"Because she ran away the same night Debbie Moore was found."
"Yeah!" Diane bitterly agreed, the pain evidently still raw and fresh in her mind. "Except that was before the police revealed the name of the victim, remember? They just released her name this morning. And like I said, Sasha was obsessed with that true crime crap. She'd have it going on the TV and sometimes I would be forced to watch and I guess I just… you pick up things, okay? It was because of those documentaries that I knew police can't… if they find a body, they can't reveal the identity to the public before the victim's family is notified.
"And I just thought… I heard about the newest victim New Years night, and Sasha didn't come home, and the next morning came and she still wasn't home, and the police wouldn't release the name of the victim, and I… I went straight to the station. You saw me there, remember?"
"You were filing a missing person report," Bea agreed.
Diane let out a hysterical, teary laugh. "I never thought she would ever run away, you have to understand that—I never in a million years thought she could just… That she would ever want to…" Diane took a moment and cleared her throat before she continued. "Truth is, it hurts my feelings. I break my back every day to take care of this kid and it's like she can't get away from me fast enough. I didn't even know where to look for her."
"You found her though, didn't you?"
"In a motel," Diane fumed. "That shitty flea trap just off 5. The one not too far from Riley Bridge, actually, you know it?"
"Sure," Bea nodded. "How did you find her there?"
"I didn't. That kid did, the one from school. Mason, I think is his name."
"Mason?"
"Yeah, I guess he was with her the night she left home. After that vigil, he and a group of his friends decided to go eat at a diner in town, and they saw Sasha there. He must have recognized her, or… I don't know why, but he decided to go sit with her for a bit, and she told him what she was planning to do."
Bea had been amazed at the time that Mason fit into this story somehow. She'd made a mental note to go speak with him.
Diane drew in a deep breath. "He came to find me at work. He's a good kid, that guy. He said he was worried about her and he wanted to make sure I knew where she was, in case something… well, he's smart, too. He wanted to be sure that I knew she wasn't dead, or something stupid like that, I guess."
"Yeah, Mason is a good guy," Bea agreed.
"Well, as soon as I found out where she was I zipped straight over. And she—I still don't understand! I really, really don't! Why would she want to stay there, how could she?... I went to take her home and she basically told me to eff off. I… I told her not to bother coming home." Diane sounded miserable as she said, "I told her she wasn't welcome anyways."
Just then, something in the kitchen broke, startling Bea. She smacked the pause button on the tape recorder, silencing Diane's distressed voice, and Bea rested a hand over her racing heart. She listened for another second and heard dishes clattering. The clock on her computer informed her it was just after six in the morning.
Had it really been over twenty-four hours since she and Peter were at the bridge? And over twelve since she'd been at the motel with her dad? She thought back to the start of the day, to the first thing she did after interviewing Diane that morning…
Bea waited in her dad's office. She sat outwardly unruffled, the only sign of her inner turmoil translating as a nervous tick in her finger that wouldn't stop tapping the armrest of the chair.
The telephone started ringing. A button on it was lit up, bright orange, indicating that line three was trying to reach her father. Bea cleared her throat and turned around to peer out the open door.
Parrish had the phone up to his ear. He pointed at her and gestured. She frowned. Parrish shook the phone in his hand, pointed at her, and gestured again.
"Oh!" Bea turned to the phone on her dad's desk, and looked back at Parrish uncertainly.
He reached up and jabbed something at his phone. The ringtone interrupted itself as he pressed the button over and over again. Rolling her eyes, Bea picked up.
"Took you long enough," He greeted.
"Uh..." she looked over her shoulder again, unsure of why he wanted to talk to her. He was turned away in his chair now, leaning back leisurely like he was talking to someone in class or something. "Yeah, this is a little weird."
"What?" He turned in his chair to look at her. "Is it?"
She smirked in amusement and nodded at him. "A little."
"Should I just come over and talk to you?"
"It would be less weird."
He nodded and started to hang up. Suddenly he jerked the phone back. "You know, actually, there is a reason I did this."
She raised her eyebrows at him from across the station.
"Yeah, I got trouble last time I talked to you."
Bea laughed loudly. "What?"
"Look, don't worry, it was entirely my fault," He put his hands up. "I take full responsibility. I was an idiot and I named dropped the Argents."
She let out a mock gasp. "The Argents?"
"I know." He threw his head back and rubbed his face. "They're kind of a big deal around here."
"Well they've been around for a while." Bea crossed her legs. "They've made a name for themselves."
He snorted. "Sure," Parrish agreed. "Oh, someone's buzzing me on the other line. This is a little awkward. I actually have to go."
"Bye, Parrish." She shook her head and hung up the phone. Welcoming the distraction, Bea turned to study Parrish. Oddly, he wore the short-sleeved version of the uniform that day, which was unusually rainy for early January weather. She wondered if it was because he, like her father, waited till all his clean uniforms were dirty before finally doing the laundry.
"Stop laughing," said a man just on the other side of the far wall. "Why are you laughing?"
"I'm not laughing."
Through the blinds of the windows in her dad's office, Bea saw the shorter officer from last night back into view. She gasped and lurched in her seat. From the corner of her eye, she saw Parrish look up at her curiously.
"I'm not joking! I heard his voice!" Insisted the taller officer.
"Andrew, we checked the area three times. It wasn't your brother." The shorter officer took a drink from the coffee mug in his hand. "This morning is gonna suck hard enough, okay? Sheriff is making us pull a double shift and I really don't need you stuck on this all day."
"It was him." Andrew, the taller officer, shook his head. "I heard his stupid laugh in the woods when you went to check out the car alarm. Then, someone jumped me from behind and knocked me out! It was him and that dumb ass friend of his, they were messing with me."
"Why?" His partner rationally pointed out. "Why would he do that?"
"Because he's an asshole, Jared!" Andrew shouted. "He's always been a little asshole! He didn't believe I would make it through the academy and now that I have he's hell bent on embarrassing me."
"You're embarrassing yourself," Short Jared informed him, and waved him off dismissively as he drained his mug of coffee and walked back towards the lobby. "Come on, we're late for patrols."
"I heard his stupid laugh!" Andrew insisted, chasing after Jared. He made a braying noise, some sort of wheezing laugh that apparently mimicked his brother. "Just like that!"
Jared smacked the back of his head when he noticed Parrish glaring at them. "Shut up, you idiot!"
Andrew struck back at him in the shoulder. "Stop! Don't hit me in the head! I'm concussed, you jerk!"
"Would you shut up already? Christ!"
They disappeared through the lobby.
Bea couldn't help but sigh in relief. Apparently, her dad decided to put the two dumbest officers on duty at the bridge last night, and by some stroke of good fortune, she and Peter didn't have to worry about them figuring out they were the ones there. She supposed Peter didn't care one way or the other, but she felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She didn't have to worry about looking her dad in the eyes now.
Finally she stood from the chair and strode through the office with her gaze fixed intently on Parrish's desk. If her dad didn't have time, she would find another way—
Sheriff stepped out of a hall where there was an interrogation room looking subdued and upset. He hadn't noticed Bea yet, so she was able to watch as he rubbed his face and composed himself. Their eyes met. Sheriff went rigid.
"Bea," He said, his eyes going first to the open door behind her and then to his deputy, who looked on knowingly. "We agreed that you were supposed to wait in my office."
"Well, this is important." She tried to express her urgency whilst still remaining calm. Parrish was watching—nosy bastard—and she knew better than to make a scene in the middle of the station.
"I—"
The room down the hall opened and Sheriff clamped his mouth shut. He cleared his throat and moved out of the way as a middle-aged couple with tear-streaked faces emerged. They looked well groomed and wore clothes that Bea thought of as leisure clothes for a wealthy family. Golf shorts and a polo shirt looked rumpled but new on the man, who had his arm around the woman's shoulders. She wore a similar outfit.
If Bea didn't know better, she might've guessed they were on vacation.
"Deputy Parrish, why don't you show the Moores where the coffee is before they go down to the morgue?" Sheriff focused his gaze meaningfully on Parrish, who instantly stood and knew that he was being delegated the responsibility of taking this couple to identify their dead daughter. Bea worked it all out very quickly.
Thinking of what Diane mentioned that morning, Bea realized the reason the police waited so long to publicly release Debbie's identity was because her parents had been on vacation, and likely unreachable until today.
She noted that the man looked pale and had red-rimmed eyes. "No," he said with a shockingly steady voice to Parrish, forcing a polite smile on his pained face. "No, thank you, I think we would just like to see our daughter."
A sob bubbled out of the woman's mouth and she muffled it with the crumpled tissue in her hand. Bea felt out of place and awkward, and she subtly moved farther out of their sight, back towards the safety of her father's office.
Sheriff was gesturing with a nod to Parrish, motioning him to hand the box of tissues from his desk over to the distraught couple. The woman delicately accepted another tissue with a graceful nod. Parrish didn't immediately move the box away, and after a brief moment's consideration, the woman took two more tissues.
Her dad opened his mouth like he wanted to add something, but nothing came out. Mr. Moore gave him a nod and with that, Parrish led the way through the station to the lobby. Sheriff watched until they passed through the doors that took them outside. For a long moment he just stared at where they'd gone, his mind far away. Thinking randomly of her mom, Bea could guess where it might be.
Good lord, she needed a drink.
"They'd been invited to play at a new golf club that just opened in Scotland," Sheriff said with a mystified frown. "It was… very exclusive?"
Bea couldn't help but feel amused at her dad's reaction to the news.
"I didn't even know that people… did that sort of thing," He admitted. "They received the call about their daughter before he'd even teed up his first ball."
Bea nodded. "I don't know what to say," She admitted.
Sheriff shook his head and sighed heavily. "You don't have to say anything, I don't even know why I told you that."
She waited for him to meet her before continuing on to his office at his side. "Because you shouldn't have to carry around all that horrible crap in your head alone."
Sheriff snorted tiredly. "It's my job," he said.
"It's my job, too," she quietly admitted. "I really need to be talking to the families."
"You're respecting their privacy." Sheriff closed the door of his office behind them and went to settle in at his desk while Bea sank back into the chair across from him.
"Maybe," She agreed. "Look, dad… I need to tell you something. But when I do, you can't ask me how I found out."
He slowly dropped his hand from the side of his head. Letting it fall limply against his chair's armrest, Sheriff sat up to glare at Bea. "What did you do?"
"Nothing!" she said, too quickly. She scowled. "I didn't do anything. I just found some information out. It's just another hazard of my job, that's all. And you know I can't reveal my sources."
Her dad clenched his fists and looked like he wanted to argue with her. "Fine," He relented, shocking the daylights out of her. "What is it that you want to tell me?"
Funny, she noted, that he didn't ask what it was she knew, but what it was she wanted to tell him. Her dad was nothing if not clever. Or maybe he just knew her. Either way, she admitted it would be impossible if she ever had to lie directly to him. "There's a girl I'm worried about. She goes to high school. I've met her a couple of times now."
"Who is she?" He asked.
"Her name is Sasha. She was friends with Mariah."
His face blanched at the name. Sheriff nodded steadily. "You think she might try something?"
She frowned. "Not exactly," she hedged. "I think she's in trouble."
At this, Sheriff sat up straight. "What do you mean?"
"I mean she ran away from home," Bea finally informed him. Sheriff's eyebrows went high and he leaned back in his chair as he processed the news. "Her sister made a missing person report after New Years, the day all those people were here… the protestors. The day I came in for Parrish's interview."
He nodded quickly. "I know the report you're talking about. You're saying this kid's been found, and no one called us?"
Bea put her hands up. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger."
"I'm not, I just—" he sighed in frustration and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, so they found her. What are you worried about?"
"She didn't come home. Her and her sister were fighting, which is why she ran away—I guess, I'm honestly not sure why she ran away—but anyways, when Diane went to the motel to bring her home, they fought again and long story short, she told Sasha she wasn't welcome home."
"Well, that…" Sheriff blinked and shook his head. "She went to bring her home and ended up telling her to stay away?"
Bea reluctantly nodded. "From what I gather, it was a pretty nasty fight that was a long time coming."
Sheriff pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well, she can't stay in a motel alone. How old is this girl?"
"That's why I'm coming to you now," Bea agreed. "She's a minor, she can't be any older than Stiles. I don't even know how she can afford to rent a room."
"All right." Sheriff nodded to himself as if deciding something. "All right. You said you knew these girls?"
"Diane works at the music store downtown," Bea paused. "She manages it, actually. Recent promotion."
Her looked at her oddly. "How well do you know these people again?"
She shrugged a shoulder. "We met last week."
He shook his head in wonder, and shrugged it off. "Well… let's go, then."
"You want to talk to her? Good luck," Diane scoffed. Bea was having a bit of trouble not looking at a guy who sat on a cushion nearby, plucking out notes on a guitar and shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation. If his shirt was anything to go by, he was an employee of Diane's.
"Our hope is that she'll be more receptive with you there." Her dad stood with his hands at his hips and his eyes trained studiously on Diane. That always made Bea pressured when she received that look from him, like she felt the weight of the world's expectations resting on her shoulders and he was warning her not to disappoint him.
Diane looked to Bea almost in question. "Me?" She shook her head and glanced at the guy with the guitar. "Oh, I can't leave my shift."
"Not even for half an hour?" Sheriff frowned, the question sounding more like not even for this?
And because she wanted to give this the best shot they could, Bea added that, "We could get lunch if you have to make it official. There are bagels in the car from the station."
"What, no donuts?" Diane quipped.
"Not today," Sheriff replied with wry. "Station's on a diet."
Diane snorted. "Look, I like your daughter, so I'll level with you, Sheriff. If you want to try to bring Sasha home, I won't stand in your way... but I'm not coming. I been down that road. I don't care to revisit." Diane ducked behind the counter to grab a spray bottle and a rag. "Now if you don't mind, those ledges on the windows outside are filthy, and Joe over there looks like he needs something to do."
Sheriff and Bea exchanged a look before Sheriff tapped his hand on the counter and said, "When I bring her home, will someone be there to let her back in the house?"
Diane stopped at that. She stopped walking around the counter to look at Sheriff as if he couldn't possibly be serious. When he only stared at her, she threw the rag over her shoulder and shrugged as she said, "She has a key. She knows the way in."
Bea wanted to appeal to her, to convince her that she needed to be there. That Sasha needed to hear this from her, not from a reporter she barely knows and the sheriff.
"Good talking to you this morning," Diane told Bea. "Always nice to have a good, heavy cry in the bathroom before I open the store. But next time, just so you know, Sunday and Monday are my days off." Her eyes flicked to Sheriff for a second. "Stop by the house sometime, maybe you can watch one of those serial killer documentaries with me. I'm sure your dad can get you the address."
"Yeah, me you and Sasha," Bea nodded, ignoring the unappreciative glare that Diane sent her way.
"Sure," She flatly patronized. "Whatever you say."
Around an hour and a half later, it was close to three o'clock and Bea was already exhausted. She was in that weird state caught between fatigue and a buzz from adrenaline and anxiety that left her feeling wired and restless. She sat in the passenger seat of her dad's car, parked under the room that Sasha was said to be staying in.
Said to be staying in, because so far Bea and Sheriff had seen little proof that Sasha was actually around. They went straight to the front desk where Sheriff was greeted with heavy resistance and attitude from the desk clerk, a defensive instinct that could only come from someone who regularly does shady business. This assumption was only reinforced when the clerk admitted that yes, he had rented a room to Sasha. She paid money, he had a room, it's the nature of their business. And no, he did not realize she was sixteen. If he knew she was sixteen, would he have rented her the room?
Sheriff didn't even bother to respond to that. Later when they were alone, Sheriff told Bea that this motel was infamous for harboring wanted fugitives. Trouble was, as soon as law enforcement turned up, none of the staff knew anything about anything—mostly because fugitives paid double the rate that normal customers did, and the clerks got to keep the difference.
They decided to just head up to Sasha's room and knock right on the door. There was no answer. Assuming the worst, Sheriff used the key the clerk had given them to get in the room, and they shared a sigh of relief after finding it empty. Clothes and earphones were laying over the chair in the corner. There were some empty food containers, some used towels crumpled on the floor of the small bathroom, and a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste resting on the sink.
Sheriff feared that waiting in the room would spook Sasha. So they went back down stairs to wait in his car, and he closed the door behind them, taking care to make it look as though they'd never been there in the first place.
Bea was contemplating the morals of this city and its residents when Sheriff interrupted her.
"When's the last time you rode in the cruiser with me?" Sheriff asked, somehow able to pull a lighthearted memory out of a grim situation. Bea smiled as she turned away from the window.
"Pfft… sophomore year of high school, I think?" She looked at the dash and sighed. "I had that project for class."
"Yeah, a day in the life of a civil servant for Ms. Brown's third period Government class," Sheriff recalled as he fiddled with something on the radio. He stopped when he noticed Bea grinning at him, and he shrugged nonchalantly. "Or something like that, I don't know."
She hummed knowingly, unable to keep from smiling at him. She realized at that moment that her choosing him as the subject for her project meant more to him than she realized. At the time she felt like she was bothering him, but she could see now that she'd been very mistaken.
Sheriff cleared his throat. "How did you do on that project, anyways?"
"It was a long time ago." Bea shook her head.
"Oh," He nodded and looked out his window, up at the floor where Sasha's room was.
"But, uh…" Bea continued, noticing that he was disappointed by that response for some reason. "Actually, I got an A on that one."
It was the truth. She did well in her government class; she remembered because she did poorly in her economics class and Derek had done well in economics, and poorly in government. Derek did his civil servant project over his mailman. He did not do well.
Sheriff was grinning. "Yeah?"
Bea nodded. "Ms. Brown said she intended to use it as an example that next year." She rolled her eyes. "She had a crush on you, I think."
Her dad stiffened. "Okay, let's change the subject now."
Bea laughed. "Fine, fine."
There was a moment of awkward silence as neither of them could think of something to talk about.
"You know…" Bea started. "Ms. Brown never married, and—"
Sheriff was suddenly opening his door. "She's here," He said, and Bea looked over to see Sasha walking across the parking lot with her hood up. She hadn't noticed the cruiser yet, and she was walking with her hands in the pockets of her jacket at a quick pace.
It was drizzling rain when Bea stepped out of the car. The air was cool and she shivered in it before she exchanged a look with her dad, who sent her a reassuring nod.
She took the lead. "Sasha," she called out, stopping the young girl dead in her tracks.
Sasha turned around. She frowned in confusion when she saw Bea, and her face completely changed to realization and annoyance when she saw Bea's dad.
"You've got to be joking," Sasha fumed, dropping her hands from her pockets.
"Sasha, wait!"
"No!" She was headed determinedly to the stairs. "Go away!"
"Sasha!" Bea hurried across the parking lot in pursuit of the girl, who was taking the stairs two at a time. "I saw the pole!"
Sasha stopped to turn around and look at Bea in confusion. "What?"
"The pole at the bridge," she said, watching Sasha shake her head dumbly. "I saw what you wrote there."
"I didn't write anything on any stupid pole!" Sasha shouted. "Is that what this is about?"
Bea wanted to press the issue, but her dad was right there. She would be lucky to get away from this without him grilling her about this afterward. "We just want to talk," Bea told Sasha, who was now rushing up the stairs again.
"Bullshit!" She yelled as she went. "He's not here to talk!"
"Who? My dad?"
"The Sheriff!" Sasha snapped back. "That's who he is."
Bea stopped climbing the stairs to look up at Sasha, who had turned to glare down at her.
"Not your dad," Sasha continued. She pushed wet hair out of her face where it stuck from the rain. "The freaking Sheriff."
"He can be both," Bea tried.
Sasha rolled her eyes with a snort. "Not in uniform, he can't."
"You're right," Sheriff said from the ground below. They both turned to look at him, and Bea wanted to wave at him to shut the hell up. Sasha just stared. "I'm not here to talk. I'm here to take you home."
"Well you're wasting your time, Sheriff!" yelled Sasha. "I'm not welcome at home!"
"Your sister was just mad," Bea reasoned. "She didn't mean it. She was trying to bring you home, and... and things just got heated! She said things she didn't mean. Both of you did."
"You have no idea what's really going on here, do you?" Sasha snorted. Bea could only look back at her, and Sasha eventually shook her head. "Look, you're nice and all, but I'm really not worth your time."
"That's not true!" Bea asserted.
"Sasha, don't make me ask you to come down here," Sheriff called. The girl took another exaggerated step before settling on the stairs with her head hung in defeat, her shoulders drawn tightly by her ears.
Bea backed up to make way as Sasha suddenly pushed past her to jog down the steps. She followed quickly after her and watched as Sasha strode out to meet her dad in the parking lot.
They stopped and no one said anything right away. They just stood there. Sasha finally put her hands out. "Well?"
"I heard you and your sister had an argument," Sheriff began. Sasha looked away in pain at the memory and shook her head. "Let's talk about that."
"It wasn't an argument," blurted Sasha, her chest heaving with sorrow. "I was confessing."
"Confessing?" Bea frowned.
Sasha swiped at her cheeks and growled loudly, a culmination of thoughts and emotions that was impossible for Bea to decipher. "God!" Sasha breathed. "This is humiliating!"
"Let's all just take a breath," Sheriff suggested, making calming motions with his hands. "Are you hungry?" He pointed at the cruiser. "Do you want to go get a late lunch?"
"No, I—" Sasha clutched her head in her hands and bent over to take a calming breath. Bea looked at her dad, confused and alarmed, and he just looked back at her like he was taking it all in stride. Like he did this every day.
"I dropped out of school."
Too stunned to respond, Bea just stared at Sasha. This is not what she was expecting to hear.
Sasha shifted on her feet and hugged herself. "Just before the end of last semester."
"Why?" asked Sheriff.
"Because, I was failing all my classes anyways?" It came out more as a question than a statement, and Sasha restlessly shifted again. She looked to the street and shook her head. "I've been failing my classes for years. My GPA is basically nonexistent. And all I do at home is piss off Diane, and she works so hard, I just… then I did something..."
"Let us help you," Bea offered. Sasha looked at her curiously for a moment. Just a moment. Then she thought of something, and her face fell, and she looked away. She looked unreachable. "Please."
"Let's start with getting you home—"
"No!" Sasha fiercely spat, turning on the Sheriff. "I'm not going back there! You can't make me!"
"Diane wants you to come home!" Bea insisted.
"Did she say that?" Sasha challenged. "Did she say those words?"
She hadn't, in fact. Bea didn't know what to say.
"The simple fact is, you don't have a choice," Sheriff declared. Sasha looked panicked but Sheriff stepped forward and Sasha didn't try to bolt, to Bea's great surprise. "You're sixteen. In fact, you never should've been able to rent a room at all."
"I have money," Sasha revealed. "So if that's the problem then don't worry—"
"How did you get the money?" Sheriff wanted to know.
"I have a job." Sasha shrugged and looked between them. "At the movie rental store. I work there a couple nights a week. I have money."
"Well that's not the issue anyways," Sheriff sighed. "Minors can't rent out their own rooms. You have to be eighteen."
"I… I might have used Diane's name."
"We know that," Sheriff assured her. "And management knows now, too."
Sasha threw her hands up as she realized what that meant. "I can't believe this!"
"So you may not want to go home, but you can't stay here anymore," Sheriff continued.
"Where am I supposed to go now?" Sasha cried, this time directly to Bea, as though it was all her fault. "Where am I supposed to go?"
"We're taking you home," said Sheriff.
Sasha was on the verge of tears. She looked distraught.
"Unless there's a reason you can't be home?" Sheriff gently asked, and took a step forward. "Sasha, we're stopping by the station first to drop off Bea. So if you have something you want to talk to me about… now is the time."
Sasha looked at Sheriff, then at Bea.
"Is there?" Bea asked. "My dad, you can trust him. He's one of the good ones."
Sasha shook her head. "No one's touching me in my no-no place, if that's what you're suggesting," She casually guaranteed, sounding every part of the jaded girl, and Bea felt sad for whatever happened to the teen that made her feel unworthy of her own home and so very cynical. "And I throw things at Diane just as often as she throws them at me, so don't worry about abuse either."
"We're going to have a talk," Sheriff suddenly decided. "Just you and me, at the station."
Sasha looked like she was already dreading it. "Fine," she spat. "Let's talk."
Bea watched, sadly, feeling that the situation was far from resolved as Sasha let Sheriff lead her by the shoulder to the cruiser like a criminal being carted off to prison.
Bea checked the time again. It had been over an hour since Sasha and her dad disappeared into the interrogation room, and Bea's stomach rumbled irritably. She chewed anxiously at her thumbnail.
"You waiting on your dad?"
She looked up and saw Parrish raising an eyebrow at her. Bea scooted over on the bench, an unspoken invitation for him to sit. Parrish accepted and Bea sighed and looked over her shoulder at the closed interrogation room.
"I hate this," she muttered. "I hate not knowing what they're saying."
"It's hard for you," Parrish realized with a certainty that annoyed her. Bea glared at his face and Parrish continued, unperturbed. "You're really just that nosy, aren't you?"
"Nosy?" She shook her head. "No, invested."
Parrish's confident expression faltered. Bea sighed again and grunted as she stood up to pace.
"You know what would help?" She rambled. "A drink, that's what would help. I'm too... jittery."
"Like father like daughter," Parrish muttered. He sighed to himself and gestured vaguely with his hand at Bea. "What about food? Have you eaten?"
"I'm not hungry." Even as she said it, her stomach rumbled irritably again. "Shut up."
"Excuse me?"
"Not you," She rolled her eyes. "My stomach is—" She broke off, looking at him guiltily. "Fine, my stomach is just fine."
"You're hungry."
"I've got indigestion," she lied.
"You know, there are more graceful ways to say no to food than that."
"Don't you have a case to be working on? Paperwork to file?"
"I'm just curious what's been keeping the Sheriff so occupied all day," Parrish admitted, his arms stretched out across the back of the bench. "Whatever it is must be pretty important, because I had to transport a prisoner today. I never have to transport prisoners. That's usually your dad's job. He takes it pretty seriously."
"It makes him feel like a cowboy rounding up the felons," Bea joked, dodging the question.
Parrish snorted dryly at that. "Well? Don't you think talking about it would help?"
She gasped and snapped her fingers. Pointing at him, she smiled. "You're right."
"I am?" He looked to the side uncertainly. "Oh."
Bea pulled her phone out of her pocket and went to the lobby, leaving Parrish dumbfound and confused as she stepped outside to call her boss.
"Tell me you've been working those sources like we discussed," Cooper drawled as soon as he answered the phone.
"I've got a lead," She announced.
There was a pause, and Bea went to kick at a rock in the garden by the entrance as she let him process the news. "…A lead, Stilinski?"
"I think. Sort of. I just have this feeling about this girl, Cooper. She ran away from home. Her—" Her name was scratched in the pole. "She wouldn't tell me the details but I think something bad happened. She feels… guilty about something."
"How can you tell?"
"I can just tell." Bea frowned. "Trust me. She's on the verge of something."
"Well have you warned the police?"
"I'm at the station now, my dad has her in the interrogation room."
"Interrogation?" Cooper balked. "Good god!"
"Oh, that's just what it's called, relax. He's not interrogating her; he's trying to help her. She's kind of… overwhelmed right now, and a little unapproachable."
"That's good work, Stilinski," He unexpectedly told her. "Honestly. I hope you caught it in time."
"Me too," she muttered. The door of the station opened, and she turned to see her dad leading Sasha outside. "Gotta go."
She hung up before Cooper could reply. Sasha looked wrecked. Her nose was red and her eyes were swollen, and she couldn't look anyone in the eye. Her dad seemed concerned.
"I'm going to take her home now," Sheriff told Bea. "You should go home too."
"Sasha?"
The girl wouldn't even turn around. Bea frowned at that. "Let's just get out of here," Sasha grumbled. "I'm tired."
Sheriff waved lightly to Bea, who watched helplessly as he took Sasha by the shoulder and walked her back to his cruiser. She waited until Sasha was safely in the passenger seat before she seized the moment.
She ran to her dad and caught him near the back of the car. "What did she say?" She asked.
"I can't say that," Sheriff told her. "You know I can't say that."
"Just… tell me, is she okay?" Bea implored.
Sheriff looked uncertain and pained. "I… I don't think so," He conceded. "She's been through a lot."
"But is she… I mean… do you think she'll…" She left the question hanging.
Her dad shook his head tiredly. "I don't know. I'm going to have one of my guys patrol her neighborhood tonight. We'll be close."
That was a bit of a relief. Bea nodded and Sheriff looked inexplicably sad.
"It's all I can do for now," He told her. "It's the best I can do."
"I don't think she wants to, for what it's worth," Bea told him. "But… look, I wasn't going to say anything, but I have to."
Putting her shoulders back, she drew in a deep breath. She pulled her phone out, and showed her dad the picture. "See?"
"What is this?" He squinted at the phone and held it to get a closer look. Angered, he said, "Bea! Is this that pole on the bridge?"
"It's her name!" She cried, pointing at Sasha's name. "It's her name!"
"That's what you meant, wasn't it?" He unhappily realized. "You went out there after I told you not to, and you found her name, and you asked her about it this afternoon when you saw her at the motel. Right?"
"She had no idea what I was talking about," Bea lowly revealed. She took a step forward. "Dad—"
"This is unbelievable. Do you know that? You're unbelievable. I told you—" He looked back at the station and stepped closer to keep his voice low. "I told you not to go on that bridge, and you did it anyway. I heard what happened to those patrolmen. Was that you?"
"No," said Bea. Which was the truth, of course. Technically it was Peter. Not her.
Sheriff stared at her for a long time and eventually shook his head with a helpless shrug. "I don't believe you," He said. "I just—you know what?" He stepped around her to go to his door. "You and I will talk later. Tomorrow. I can't deal with this right now."
And she sat in her room now, much, much later, having just heard something break in the kitchen. Stiles was fast asleep in his room. She knew who it was.
Bea pushed out of her chair and padded out of her bedroom in an almost surreal daze, like she knew what was coming even before she got to the kitchen. This was one of those moments in life when everything came together, one of those rare moments when you knew everything that was going to happen before it did, and all you could do was sit there, powerless, and watch it play out.
Her dad was standing over the sink in his pajamas. His hands gripped the counter and his head was hung. He looked tense, and Bea just watched him as she realized her fears were correct. Sheriff shook his head and turned around. When he saw Bea standing there he jumped with a gasp.
"Bea!" Startled, he looked away and quickly tried to rearrange his face. But it was too late. Bea saw the darkness in his eyes, the deep flowing regret, and she knew. "What are you doing—up…" He trailed off, seeing in her eyes what she saw in his, and silence stretched between them. He didn't even try to deny it. Sheriff drew his chin up and frowned sadly at her.
Bea's throat strained painfully. "Do you believe me now?" she asked, her voice cold.
"You saw what I saw, Bea." Their gazes locked and Bea couldn't believe her ears when he added, "I mean, you saw her at the motel. You heard what she said!" He softened his tone to be gentler as he finished. "That girl was miserable."
"No!" Bea insisted. She shook her head vehemently. "She was angry, she wasn't… she wouldn't… It doesn't make sense!"
Behind her, Stiles crept out of the hallway, his hair ruffled from sleep. He kept his distance and frowned as he listened to Sheriff continue to disagree with Bea. "Exactly, Bea, exactly! She was angry and hurt, and God knows what! Who knows why people do these things! You'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why!" He shook his head knowingly. "No reason would be good enough."
Bea took a pleading step forward. "You're not hearing me—"
"I am!" Sheriff almost shouted. "I hear every word! You think I haven't heard the same thing from families since this thing started? Bea, you cared about her. No one ever wants to believe that someone they care about is capable of ending their own life! It's tragic. It's not fair. But it's real, and it happened."
For a long moment, Bea didn't say anything. She let his words wash over her and looked at how passionately he believed what he said. She knew it was pointless, but she quietly said, "You don't believe me."
His eyes flashed. "It's not a matter of believing—"
"You know what?" Bea shook her head hard. "As sick in the head as mom was, she at least listened to what I had to say! She would never dismiss me out of hand like this."
It was like she smacked him across the face, hard. Sheriff stepped back to lean against the counter and looked at his daughter, offended, hurt. Speechless. His lips moved like he wanted to say something, but no words came out.
Bea looked down, her chest heavy.
"I believe you."
Small and matter of fact, Stiles' voice was steady. Bea couldn't find an appropriate response and so she simply stared at her brother, who looked absolutely sure of himself as he nodded.
"I don't even know what it is, but I'll believe you, whatever you think."
He didn't make a move to her, and she didn't make a move to him. She was stricken at that declaration from her brother, so simple, and yet it was everything. It was just what she needed to hear. He was listening.
Just as quickly as it came, the feeling of relief was gone. She couldn't tell him. Stiles didn't know about the supernatural! He could never know! Her dad knew, and still, he didn't believe her. Stiles was willing to listen, and yet she could never tell him…
It wasn't fair. Sasha was dead. Had there been a way to prevent it? She should've done something differently.
"You kids should get back to bed," muttered Sheriff. Bea saw that there was a bottle of whiskey on the counter by the sink. On a hunch, she turned to look at the wall of the kitchen, and saw a faint, wet splatter, and shattered glass on the floor.
She could picture it in her head. Sheriff getting the call and coming to get a drink. Feeling overwhelmed by being unable to prevent yet another suicide, he threw the tumbler of whiskey at the wall out of sheer frustration and helplessness.
She wanted to throttle him for being so stubborn. Instead, she went to grab the bottle of whiskey and Stiles looked on in disbelief.
"Really?" He gawked. "Freaking really?"
"Don't," Bea told him. Sheriff watched as she took a long drink from the whiskey, and Stiles scoffed bitterly and disappeared down the hall.
For a moment Sheriff looked consoled to see someone processing the news in the same way he did. He must be so used to hearing Stiles chide him for turning to the bottle at times like this… He sighed heavily and went to sink into a chair at the kitchen table.
"I should get ready for work," he thought aloud.
What he didn't yet realize was that Bea had already snuck out the back door, taking the whiskey with her. He turned at the sound of the door clanging shut. Tired and unable to argue with anyone or anything, he went to make a pot of coffee.
(A/N): Thank you so, so much for the reviews last chapter! I like that you guys are asking questions already. They'll be answered soon enough, don't worry.
Please, please - leave another review!
