A/N: Chapter 10! Holy crap! Thanks to everyone for sticking with me through 17 chapters in total so far. There are plenty of twists and turns left ahead of us.

The following Wednesday evening finds Sharon stepping from Amy's car at the valet stand of a wine and pizza bar in Venice. They'd filled the drive from Los Feliz with small talk, mostly covering the antics Andy will never fess up to in his daily recap of life on the squad. Amy sketched out a series of missteps, one-liners, a few light pranks, and several snide remarks made at Captain Williams' expense. Now, quickly approaching their dinner with Amy's contacts from Harbor Division, they set their easy banter behind them.

Amy catches Sharon's eye as she rounds the hood of her car. "If I can ask, what are you hoping to learn from this?"

"Of course you can ask, you're my second here," Sharon answers on a chuckle. But, with a shake of her head, she grows serious before clarifying, "I'd like to understand the culture that protected Captain Williams' behavior in Harbor Division. And, eventually, I want to get to the bottom of the withdrawn harassment accusations."

Amy nods. "Well, this is as good a place to start as any." She cuts her eyes to Sharon with a lopsided grin as she pulls open the door. "It could get interesting, though. I don't have much experience interviewing cops."

"It gets old fast, trust me."

As Sharon approaches the hostess stand to explain they won't need their own table, Amy stands a few paces away, scanning the restaurant. Within seconds, her grin widens into a full-bore smile as her eyes catch on a point across the dim room. Following her gaze, Sharon finds two women waving from a prime windowside table. Their forms appear in half-silhouette thanks to the oceanfront sunset happening outside.

"Hey!" Amy calls before closing the distance in a series of long strides. The nearest of the women holds out her arms and pulls Amy into a tight hug. They could be sisters — both given the greeting and their similar appearances. Their obvious shared affection eases Sharon's uncertainty as she approaches.

"I'm surprised you remember what I look like," the woman teases. She nods across the table. "Birkhoff and I were trying to decide whether you'd come over."

Still smiling, Amy smacks her arm. "It hasn't been that long."

"Uh-huh. That smooth undercover lieutenant of yours is keeping you all kinds of busy, I guess."

Sharon's left wondering about the way Amy's expression pauses at the mention of Chuck. But she moves onward with a shrug. "More like my new captain's driving me insane."

Her friend's face falls. "Ah. Right."

Amy steps back, gesturing Sharon into the conversation. "Sergeant Raquel Stewart, meet Commander Sharon Raydor."

Fixing Amy with a narrow faux-glare, Sharon corrects, " Retired commander." As she shakes Raquel's hand, she adds, "Please, call me Sharon."

"Sure thing," Raquel says. She nods toward her companion, a slight young woman with a blonde pixie cut and chunky green glasses rounding her blue eyes. "This is my partner—" she breaks off with an eye roll and amends, "Well, soon-to-be former partner, now that she's abandoning me to become a detective."

This accusation hangs in the air for a moment while the blonde shakes her head and turns a faint shade of pink. "Anyway, Amy, Sharon, this is Bree Birkhoff."

"Hey y'all." Bree's voice rolls on a soft drawl as she leans over the table to exchange handshakes. "Nice to meet you." She clears her throat and sniffles into a tissue as she settles back into her seat.

"C'mon," Raquel tilts her head toward the empty chairs. "I'm hurting for wine and pizza."

"You and me both," Amy mutters as she sits.

Sharon slides into the chair between Amy and the window, leaving her across from Bree as Raquel chatters about the menu. Given the informal nature of the meeting, Sharon hesitates in pulling her notebook from her purse. But she doubts Amy has concealed the reason behind their dinner plans; it's meant to be a working meal, of sorts. So, before hanging her purse on the back of her chair, she settles her notebook — with a pen tucked into the binding — on her thighs under the table.

As the food-related small talk fades away, Amy passes Sharon a questioning look. Catching the signal, she smiles at the unfamiliar women. "Bree, Raquel, thank you so much for agreeing to meet up tonight."

"It's no problem, believe me." Raquel's voice carries a clear note of steel.

Their conversation pauses as a waiter stops by the table. Once they've ordered a round of wine and a plate of warmed olives, and taken a few minutes to idly peruse the rest of the menu, Amy eases back into the topic at hand.

"Raquel and I went to the Academy together," she explains to Sharon, "and I knew she's been working in Harbor for a while. She was the first person I called when I heard Captain Williams was taking over Major Crimes."

"When Amy asked me if I had any tips for working with him…" Raquel shakes her head, leaving her darkened stare make the rest of her point.

Bree picks it up. "I mean, I was shocked. When I heard he was gonna transfer, all I could think was we wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. I had no idea he was getting promoted ." She practically spits this last word.

With their jump into the heart of the matter, Sharon flips her notebook open and pulls the pen into her hand. But before addressing her own questions, she works to lay out a foundation. "I don't know what kind of background Amy has given you, but I want to assure you I take this problem seriously. I spent most of my career in IA, so I know how these types of investigations are usually handled, and I'm determined to find out where the department has fallen short, here."

Bree crosses her arms over her chest as she leans back into her chair. "Well, I'm sure glad to hear that. It's about time someone looked into it."

"We actually took bets," Raquel says, "guessing how long it'd take for him to get fired." Her eyes follow the waiter's movement as he deposits their drinks and appetizer at the table. After he retreats toward the kitchen, she lifts her wine glass in a mock toast. "That was five years ago."

A queasy weight, unique to matters of Neil Williams, settles over Sharon. The olives mock her from the center of the table, resting in a pool of glistening oil with flecks of spice and slices of charred red pepper. But her sauvignon blanc is icy cold and leaves a bracing citrus tang on her tongue. Almost as soon as the liquid hits the back of her throat, the invisible tension in her neck and shoulders begins to slacken.

In an odd way, it fortifies her. If she's ill over the thought of Williams' behavior while sitting here, parked at a table full of women in a trendy wine bar, it's no doubt a fraction of what the officers who were trapped under his harassing ways have experienced. With this in mind, Sharon pushes onward. "I'm curious as to how well-known his behavior was, within your division."

With a nod, Amy asks, "Raquel, what was it you told me, during our first conversation?"

"Just that you'd need to keep your eye on him. Like the women at Harbor have always known to do."

With a scoff, Bree says, "That's saying it lightly, Stewie." The end of her sentence dissolves into a hacking cough, which she muffles into her elbow.

The faintest flash of concern flits through Sharon's mind — accompanied by an image of Alonzo and one of his charts — before she clicks her pen open and asks, "And who first told you about this approach toward the Captain?"

"I'm not sure," Raquel answers. "It was just kind of...known. As far back as I can remember."

Bree shakes her head. "My FTO told me. First night on patrol, clear as a whistle. 'Stay out of Lieutenant Williams' office.'" With a roll of her eyes, she adds, "He actually got promoted since I came on, if you can believe that."

"Oh, so maybe I heard it from you, then." Raquel shrugs. "Regardless, it was an unwritten rule in the division."

"Specifically that you don't go into his office alone?" Sharon asks.

"Yeah." Bree sighs a humorless laugh. "I actually had more than one sergeant drag their feet over the years, hanging around until shift change if I needed something signed by the brass."

Raquel snaps her fingers in her partner's direction. "And there was that one sergeant in the admin office, remember?"

"Uh…"

"Kinda tall, green eyes, always had her hair in a french braid?" At Bree's blank stare, she clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth,"Whatever." She turns her attention back to Amy and Sharon. "This sarge literally guided me away from his office once. Like, hand on my arm, almost pulling me back down the hall."

Amy's eyes widen. "You're serious."

"Totally."

Sharon straightens her back and lets her gaze float out the window, searching for phrasing amongst the crashing waves before taking in Bree's face, then Raquel's. She asks, "Would either of you be surprised to hear that a number of complaints have been filed against Williams over the past fifteen years?"

Both women's faces go stony. Raquel answers, "No."

Still, their silent replies point toward their deeper knowledge of the situation, Sharon takes a few careful seconds to note her question and the answer. Then, she swallows hard and looks to them again. "Would you be surprised to hear that the majority of those complaints were withdrawn shortly after they were filed?"

Here, their responses diverge. Raquel goes steely, her brows clenching low over a hard, disbelieving stare. But Bree's gaze drops to a point past their table as her bottom lip disappears between her teeth. She knows something . Amy's lifted brow and sidelong glance says she agrees.

"It's odd," Sharon continues, "that so many reports would be recanted in such a short timeframe. It makes me wonder whether there might have been some kind of...misunderstanding."

"No way." Raquel's voice goes gritty. "There's no confusion here."

"I mean, I bet that's what he'd say," Bree adds. Her eyes narrow and he affects a man's snarling voice, "Oh, it was just a misunderstanding , I thought she wanted it."

The near-personal angle of Bree's words nearly pull Sharon away from her tack. But they've mistaken her point, and now she has to scramble to restate it. "I meant a misunderstanding of these officers' rights to an internal investigation."

Amy picks her up. "If we want to understand how Williams got to where he is, we need to find out why those complaints were withdrawn. Doing that could help stop this from happening again."

Again, Bree's eyes fall, and again Sharon latches further onto the idea she knows much more than she's offering. She hates to broach a painful topic, but she needs to gauge the depth of these women's encounters with Williams. Her voice softens. "Bree, Raquel, did either of you have...personal experiences with Neil Williams?"

"I didn't, no," Raquel answers. "I tried to give him a wide berth."

Bree shrugs. Her face has flattened into a blank canvas. "Same here."

Sharon jots no personal experiences into her notes, taking the few seconds to strategize over her next questions. There's a limit to how hard she can push, here. It's an odd restraint after so many years of having the weight of prosecutors and sanctioned investigations at her back. The beats of the interview are familiar, but it is, in truth, an entirely new world.

Bree's answer about her own experiences was straightforward enough, but her earlier reaction at the 'misunderstanding' is a mask for something . Something she clearly doesn't want to volunteer. Following a sip of wine, Sharon takes a step toward clarifying the situation. Her eyes lock on Bree's. "Do you know of anyone who did have a personal experience with Williams?"

Once more, Bree bites onto her bottom lip. Her stare tries to bore a hole in the table as her brow draws into a deep line. As seconds tick past, her silence answers the question. In Sharon's periphery, Amy and Raquel trade concerned glances. But she waits for Bree to give voice to the truth, waits as she pulls a long breath through her nose and lets her mouth fall open.

"Sorry about that wait, ladies!" All four women's eyes dart to their waiter, who's arrived to take their dinner orders.

Raquel exhales a shaky, "Dude."

"Oh, uh, sorry," the man stammers, "do you need a second?"

Bree checks her phone, sighs, and says, "Actually, you know what, can you get my check?"

Sharon's brow lifts at her sudden rush to leave. A silent question from Raquel produces her reasoning. "Jason's car died again He needs a ride home," Bree explains to her partner. She eyes the last inch of wine in her glass before downing it in a smooth gulp.

Oblivious to the tension at the table, the waiter asks, "Is everyone else sticking around, or should I bring checks for everyone?"

"You know what?" Sharon waves him off. "Go ahead and put hers on my tab, and we'll go from there."

Bree blinks at her. "You don't need to do that, ma'am."

"It's the least I can do for you agreeing to meet with me, Bree."

"Well...thanks." Her eyes don't quite meet Sharons. "Nice to finally meet you, Amy. Stewie," she squeezes her partner's shoulder as she sidles past, "I'll see you tomorrow."

As Raquel's gaze follows Bree to the door, she says, "Well, I don't know about you ladies, but I could definitely use some pizza now." She slides her empty glass toward the waiter. "And more wine."

Bree's reaction, the way her anger built to a crescendo before she clammed up and retreated, sticks with Sharon for the rest of the evening. Back at home, lying in bed long after she turns in, she stares at the ceiling and puzzles through the logic of it. Why would Bree agree to go to dinner, ostensibly knowing the topic of conversation, and then go quiet once the questions grew specific? Did Raquel pressure her into it? Did she come to weigh Sharon's commitment to the cause, her sincerity? Or, having stoked the conversation into a blaze, did her courage float away like smoke on the wind?

Did Bree not trust what she found?

This last possibility strikes Sharon as both the most likely and most worrying of the list. If she can't coax the truth from a righteously outraged young woman who has a close friend at her side, how will she manage to reach the dozen other women who hold the key to understanding Williams' ascent?

She drifts off as she turns this over and over. Before she realizes she's fallen asleep, she's blinking awake again on the unmistakable rumble of a phone vibrating against wood. The sound sends her angling toward Andy's bearish growl, opting to lend words to her matching irritation.

"He's calling you in again? "

Light splashes over his side of the bed as he picks up his phone. After a second or two, his expression knits into a heavy frown. "Uh, it isn't me."

"What?"

Andy holds the phone up, displaying its blank screen. "And here I thought you were beyond late night wake-ups." He stretches onto his back, stashing the phone face-down on his nightstand.

"Me too." Sharon's voice is a distracted half-mumble as she rolls toward her own nightstand. Following a few open-palmed pats to locate her glasses and deposit them onto her face, she picks up her phone. A message notification from an unfamiliar number hangs across the screen. Foreboding settles onto her stomach like a bowling ball as she unlocks the device. The first few lines of the message affirm the sensation.

Commander, this is Bree. I hope you don't mind that I asked Sykes for your number. I apologize for the late message, and for keeping the truth from you earlier.

Andy must notice her sharp inhale, because he props himself on his elbows beside her. "Sharon, what's up?"

She shoots him a glance as she extinguishes the screen. "It's nothing. Just a follow-up from dinner."

"At midnight." His voice carries all the skepticism she'd no doubt glean from his face, if she could see it.

"They work graveyards." He doesn't need to know Bree and Raquel aren't on duty tonight. In fact, it's better, for now, that he doesn't know anything about her research into Williams at all. Not until she knows something for certain, anyway. He still has to work for the man, and if Andy has a history of anything, it's letting the personal override the professional. His job will be more secure without him knowing what she digs up.

With this in mind, Sharon flips the covers off her legs. Andy, unsurprisingly, protests. "Wait, babe, where're you going?"

"I'm just taking care of this, getting a drink of water, then I'll be back."

"But—"

"I don't want to keep you awake," she explains as she slides off the mattress.

"You're the one who's supposed to still be taking it easy, remember?"

His doggedness leaves her grinning, despite herself, as she swings her robe over her shoulders. "And I'm also the one who can sleep in as long as I want in the morning." She manages to make this sound at least halfway convincing, even though they both know she's far from mastering the art of staying in bed late. "Go back to sleep," she whispers.

Following the soft thump of him flopping back onto his pillow, his heavy sigh chases her into the living room. With the door closed behind her, Sharon steps gingerly toward the kitchen, letting habit and an outstretched hand guide her to the switch for the under-cabinet lights. True to her word, she pulls a pitcher of water from the fridge and half-fills a glass before unlocking her phone again.

She skims past the already familiar first lines before slowing to absorb Bree's words: When you asked if we knew anyone who'd had a experience with Williams, I didn't know what to say. Same with whether we knew about the withdrawn complaints.

A chill races down Sharon's spine and through her legs. She grips the phone in both hands as she scrolls down.

A lot of us have suffered under him. I think I only know the tip of it. Especially when it comes to not reporting him to IA. But I know my old FTO would be able to give you more information. Sergeant Angela Masuki. She's up in Pacific now. Like I said, she made sure I knew about Williams from the get-go. It isn't my place to tell her story, but if you want someone who had a personal experience, she'd be an option.

The long block of the first message is followed by a nub of a follow-up: Please don't tell her I told you.