The Train Platform …
"It's getting late, are you two hungry?" Ray asked looking at Fraser in the rear view mirror as they drove toward the eighth train platform of the afternoon.
"I couldn't eat a bite." Meg said, scanning the crowds on the streets as they drove.
"Perhaps later, Ray." Fraser said, his eyes also scanning the crowds.
"I didn't eat lunch, my belly button's trying to gnaw on my backbone." Diefenbaker barked his agreement. The detective pulled the GTO into a the parking lot of a fast food chain place.
"I'll get chicken nuggets for you. Anyone else want anything?" Ray looked from one Canadian to the other.
"No thank you, Ray." Fraser answered after looking at Meg who simply shook her head.
"Can't say I didn't offer." The detective muttered as he walked away from the car.
Ben studied Meg's reflection in the rear view mirror as she looked out the window at the people moving to and from the restaurant. There were faint circles under under her eyes and she seemed tired. Gently, he laid a reassuring hand on her upper arm, startling Meg.
"Yes, Fraser?" Meg turned around to look at him as he leaned forward in the back seat.
"She's alright." He said tenderly.
"Cara was so close to me earlier in that restroom, Fraser, now she's on the run and all alone." Meg shook her head, taking a deep breath to stem her tears.
"She's tough and smart, like her mother." The Mountie smiled, trying to make Meg feel better.
"You are an optimist." Meg chuckled despite herself.
"No, it's simply the truth, if you weren't both of those things you wouldn't have succeeded like you have after high school." Fraser reminded her.
"It's difficult to remember that just now." Meg looked out the driver's side window into the distance.
"Cara will come to be proud of you." It was Ben's way of saying he was proud of her.
"Someday, maybe, but we have to find her first, Fraser. Every day she's missing the chances go down of finding her." Meg left the 'finding her alive', part out, it was too morbid.
"We won't give up." Meg like the resolute tone in his voice. She gave him a tired, half smile.
"Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub." Ray said, a bag of food in one hand and a tray of drinks in the other.
"What's this, Ray?" Fraser asked as the detective handed him a rectangular box and a drink.
"A double cheese burger, fries and a vanilla milk shake." Ray responded, pulling another box out of the bag and handing it to Meg.
"No, I meant the Inspector and I didn't request anything." The Mountie clarified.
"Yeah, I know, but I figured if I got it, you all and your manners, you'd feel obliged to eat." He shrugged, pulling out another box for Dief. The last one he handed to Meg.
"It wasn't necessary, Detective, but thank you." She opened the box and was surprised to find a chicken sandwich.
"You're welcome, Inspector." Ray dove into his meal.
"I didn't know what to get you, but Ma and Stella always ordered chicken, hope you don't mind." Ray said after finishing the first bite and washing it down with a chocolate milk shake.
"This is good." Meg wrapped her sandwich in a napkin before taking a bite.
The three ate in silence until they were finished, each of them lost in thought. After depositing their trash in a nearby can, therefore keeping Ray's interior neat as a pen, the trio continued on their way to the eighth train platform.
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Cara decided to try finding a place she without a night manager to stay for the night. The two thieves had hit her cash reserves pretty hard. From her walk through the darker side of town, Cara knew there were abandoned buildings, likely spots for a night's rest. She also knew that she wouldn't be the only one to think of that idea. The teen supposed she would just have to do the best she could and keep her backpack on during the night.
After walking for a while, until the glow of neon lights outshone the scant light of the sunset, she found a likely building. It was a three story, red brick apartment building built in the twenties. Cara spotted a broken window on the second floor beside the gutter. Cast iron fittings held the rickety pipe to the brick. The can-do Canadian poked around until she found a crate to boost her up until she could reach the nearest iron fitting. A few minutes later she fell through the window onto the hardwood floor of a second floor apartment.
"This has been nice at one time." Cara thought as she looked around in the dim light of a security light outside. The doorways were rounded near the ceiling and a beam of eerie light shone through a sky light down the hall from the kitchen where Cara had landed. Carefully, the teen explored the one bedroom apartment. The bathroom was miniscule but the kitchen was large as were the living room and bedroom. In the living room there was a door leading out onto a balcony overlooking the street below the front of the building.
"I could see myself in an apartment like this." the teen thought, imaging herself going to college, hanging out in the dining room with friends or watching television in the living room, maybe just sitting out on the balcony in the evenings, watching the world go by as she sketched.
A row of houses, some of them as old as the apartment building, lined the streets surrounding the red, jazz age building. As the girl watched the street below she saw a car cruising by, music spilling out of all four windows. The driver was in the middle of the road. Light shivered down the length of the polished, red metal as the car slowly cruised by. It was a fairly new Mustang, Cara knew because she liked cars; their colors and speed mostly. An old man walking his dog started to cross the street, the dog protesting. The man pulled the dog out into the middle of the street. Cara watched the car carefully, wondering if it was going to stop for the older gentleman. She was horrified when the car drifted right into the man's path. The dog barked, wiggling to get free of its' collar. Cara shouted but the old man didn't hear her either. She watched as the car struck the man, his form folding as it struck the hood of the automobile. Thankfully, the car hadn't been going more than fifteen miles and hour. The driver never even hit his brakes or slowed down. Cara trembled as she watched the Mustang drive off, gaining speed away from the scene. She saw the man lying in the middle of the street, his dog sitting at his side, barking for attention.
"Lord, let him be alright." she uttered as she made her way back through the apartment and back down the gutter fittings. Cara ran to the man, kneeling down to check his pulse. He was breathing but moaning in pain.
"It's okay, Sir, I'll get help." Cara tried to sound calm, but inside she was trembling. She looked up the street then down. It was dark where he was laying.
"Let's get you to the sidewalk." Carefully, she dragged him by the shoulders to the sidewalk in front of a dark house. The dog, a gray, furry mutt, followed, whining as it walked slowly forward. Cara deposited the man as gently as she could, her muscles were burning from her round trip climbing the apartment building. She laid her backpack under his head then took off for the nearest house with a light burning in the front window.
"Help, there's been a hit and run." The girl pounded both fists against the solid, wooden door. "Please, there's a man hurt." She shouted again, tears beginning to well in her deep brown eyes. A man in his forties answered the door, a puzzled expression on his face.
"What's going on, who are you?" He scratched his thick but graying hair, a paunch pushing at his button down shirt and khaki slacks.
"A man was hit in the street, he's hurt." Cara pointed toward sidewalk only a few yards away. The man poked his head out the door, hearing the incessant barking of the dog still by the injured man's side.
"Edna, call the ambulance, there's been an accident." The home owner called back over his shoulder to his wife who was standing in the living room.
"What's going on, Herbert?" She called, walking toward the door.
"Just call an ambulance for Pete's sake." He growled, slipping on a pair of rubber soled moccasins sitting by the door.
"Step inside while I investigate." Herbert turned to Cara, hitching a short, wide thumb toward his wife.
"Yes, there's been an accident ..." Edna told the 911 operator, giving the address of her house, her back turned to the door where Cara stood.
"I want to go home." Cara thought as she watched Herbert with the old man. "Ursula might be a real witch, but it's still home." The thought of the trouble she was in didn't seem so bad after the things that had happened to her. "I'll wait until the cops arrive, they'll want to talk to me." Cara sighed, wishing there were a way around all this.
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"Thank you kindly for your assistance, Detective." Meg thanked Ray as she stepped out of the classic, muscle car.
"No problem, I'll let you know if anything turns up." Ray waved as the Canadians stood side by side on the sidewalk in front of the consulate.
"Have a good evening, Ray." Fraser leaned down to say good-bye through the window. The GTO pulled into traffic and was lost from sight in a moment.
"I should see if Turnbull left any phone messages for me." Meg started up the front steps, her whole body dog tired. Fraser followed her, just a step behind. Dief already stood on the stoop, waiting. A dozen chicken nuggets hadn't been enough to satisfy him.
Once inside, Meg checked Turnbull's desk at the entrance. There were two messages from Ursula, one from her mother and one from Ms. Dolan, saying to call her at the hotel at the Inspector's earliest convenience.
"I guess she wants to know if she and boring Buckley can go back to Winnipeg with the rest of the students." Meg sighed, checking her watch. It was seven o'clock.
"Should I call her, Sir?" Fraser asked, hoping to take some of the load off.
"No, it's Lieutenant Welsh's call, it should be cleared with him first." Meg decided, glad it wasn't her decision.
"As to your aunt and your mother?" Fraser followed her into her office where Meg intended to check her voice mail.
"I'll call Ursula tomorrow and Mom when I get home." Meg got busy going through the mail Turnbull had left for her on his desk. Very little of it amounted to a hill of beans.
"Is there anything I can do before I retire?" Fraser stood in front of her desk, his hands behind his back as she tossed nearly every other piece of mail.
"Have a seat, Fraser, there's no need to stand at attention right now." Meg pointed a grocery store flier at one of the chairs opposite her desk. The Mountie took a seat, unsure of what she wanted.
"Cara's picture is with all the patrol cars and foot patrols in the city, we've visited all the places she's been spotted and kept tabs on her friends, is there anything we're over looking, Fraser?" Meg asked, her lips pursed as she tried to think of anything.
"No, not that I'm aware of, Sir." Ben had turned it over in his mind a thousand times and come to the conclusion that Cara wouldn't be found until she wanted to be found. She'd been clever enough to elude trained officers, bribe her way into a hotel room and blend into a class field trip.
"It pains me that she's out there all alone, it's dangerous out there for a girl on her own." Meg gestured to the city outside the consulate walls.
"Cara is a resourceful, capable young woman." Fraser reminded Meg.
"She is, isn't she, escaping from a whole precinct, that takes wit and guts." Meg smiled, proud of her girl.
"I miss Cara and I haven't even gotten to know her." The lady Mountie's smile faded.
"How did you come to chose the name Cara?" Ben wondered. His father hadn't told him how his name came to be chosen. He'd often wondered how parents selected children's names.
"Jake told me once that he liked the name." Meg leaned back in her desk chair. She'd almost forgotten that memory. "I laughed and told him it sounded like something out of the Carebears cartoons." They'd both laughed at that one back then. Meg laughed again, thinking back to happier times. She noticed how Ben watched her, a sadness about him.
"Do you want children, Fraser?" Meg felt compelled to ask the rather personal question. His brow knit for a moment before he answered.
"Yes." He said without elaborating.
Meg wanted to say so much; to tell him he'd be a good father, that it wasn't too late. Instead she smiled and let the moment pass. It was getting late and time to go home.
Ben had been surprised by Meg's question. Was it an offer in a left handed sort of way? He didn't know exactly how to answer but to keep it short. The Mountie wondered for a moment what she would look like holding a baby.
"I should get home, Mom always went to bed early, I don't know if she still does or not." Meg stood up and gathered her purse from where she'd set it on the side of her desk.
"Have a good evening, Sir." Fraser stood when Meg did, heading for the door to open it for her.
"You as well, Constable Fraser." Meg meant it as she met his gaze. Together they walked to the entrance where Fraser again held the door for her.
"Thank you for everything, Fraser, I'd be a mess without your moral support." Meg stopped in the doorway and turned back to him. She tip toed up and pressed a kiss against his cheek before turning to leave. Fraser stood in the doorway stunned as he watched her walk down the steps. She looked back and waved when she reached the bottom step. Ben put up his hand, otherwise motionless.
"His face was priceless." Meg thought as she walked to the bus stop on the corner.
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