Katya had been in and out of police stations several times, although it had never been for anything more than to pick up her little sister after one of her wild nights of parties and "harmless pranks". She'd rarely been beyond the front area, where people sat waiting and several officer's desks sat in rows much like a classroom. She'd sat in the chair to the side of Officer Adnan's desk several times, listen to him lecture both herself and Natalya on the dangers of her lifestyle choices before Katya would graciously thank him for bringing her sister in safe and that would be the end of every other Friday night, Natalya retreating to her room afterwards for the next several days to sulk.
Today however, was different. Yes, Katya sat in the chair beside Officer Adnan's desk, but instead she sat alone, holding the officer's hand as his partner sat beside him with a pen and pad of paper to take notes with. Natalya was for once waiting in the plush chairs of the waiting area and not one of the holding cells, scribbling in a notebook with her music blasting into her ears.
Tearfully, she recounted the day before, telling them about her arrival to the house and how she helped get Peter and Wendy Micnat ready for school before their bus arrived and that was the last she saw of them. Had she known they'd need a ride home from school, she would have been there with the safety found in her beat up car ready to take them home, but Mrs. Micnat had instead asked her to go to the store to pick up ingredients needed for the family dinner that night.
When she'd arrived back at the house, well over an hour after Peter and Wendy should have been home, she found it odd the house was empty. Calling Mrs. Micnat resulted both of the women entering a panic as one peeled off from her running group to run home and the other dashed back out of the house, groceries forgotten on the floor, to start searching. Night fell and nothing resulted in the search, despite police being called and neighbors recruited in the search.
Katya hadn't been able to face Mrs. Micnat that night, and so with the broken woman's dismissal to go home for the night she fled to her apartment, bursting into tears before Natalya could even grunt hello.
"Thank you Miss Braginsky," Officer Adnan, a very darkly tanned man of large build smiled kindly, giving Katya's hand a squeeze before turning to his partner, "Did you get everything?"
"I hope so." His partner muttered, rubbing an eye and receiving a kick to his shin from Adnan.
Katya sighed, gripping her purse where it sat in her lap and looking back at where Natalya was. Natalya had been oddly docile since hearing news of the kid's disappearance. She'd been six when their brother had been separated from them, and Katya seemed to remember Natalya had taken it rather hard-possibly harder than Katya herself. Katya had lost a charge, someone to take care of. Natalya had lost a protector, the boy who would fend off the bullies on the playground and the monsters under her bed. Katya often wondered if her wild behavior now had anything to do with the loss of Ivan, and whenever Natalya brought home a blonde, strong boy with a kind smile and a protective streak she seemed almost certain of it.
"Miss Braginsky?" Officer Adnan recaptured her attention with another squeeze of his hand, "Miss Braginsky, I know we've already asked so much of you, but I want to ask you to stick around for when the Detective assigned to the case gets in."
"Why?" Katya heard herself ask, voice soft and hollow.
"Well," Officer Adnan sighed, "He probably has a few more questions. We just asked the preliminary ones, he's going to ask a few more that could be important to the case."
"Ah… how… how long will that take?" Katya wondered. It was a Tuesday after all, and Natalya had school.
"Not very long," Officer Karpusi smiled, "He usually shows his face around nine."
"Nine?" Katya frowned, "My sister has school at eight-thirty."
"I'm sure the school will be understanding," Officer Adnan said.
"I'm sorry officers," Katya said, getting up and holstering her bag onto her shoulder, "But Natalya's future is to important, she's the best chance this family's got in getting out of the mud."
"Katya," Officer Adnan sighed, but didn't get much farther.
"I promise, I'll come straight back," She smiled, "You know me Sadik, please?"
"Well…" Officer Adnan sighed, tapping a finger against his lip.
"Saidk!" Officer Karpusi hissed, "No!"
"Come on man, give her a break-we don't need to make things any harder for her, do we?" Officer Adnan finally said, giving Katya a warm smile, "Just try to hurry, alright? It's almost eight now."
"Thank you!" Katya said, turning quickly and making her way towards her sister, spiriting the both of them towards her car and onto the road where the school lay ahead, waiting.
Detective Yao didn't have the patience for anything this morning. After dropping Kiku off at school he nearly got into three accidents trying to get out of the parking lot-not all of them at the fault of other drivers.
The roads seemed more packed than usual that morning as well, and after being stopped for the third time in a row at a long line of cars he groaned before sitting back with his coffee mug in one hand and the files for the newest case he'd been assigned in the other. Most of it had been faxed to him late in the night, and he had to wonder if there'd been some sort of secret meeting where the others drew lots on who would be in charge of this case because that's what it certainly felt like, how else would he be the one saddled with this?
Yao hated cases involving young kids. From babies to toddlers to middle schoolers he hated anything involving someone under the age of twenty. It broke his heart to see small children distressed, and any satisfaction he should have gained from solving the case and "saving" the kids was extinguished with the worry of what was next for them. The idea they'd be swallowed up by the well-meaning foster system, or end up in a worse situation once placed in a home plagued him for nights on end after ending cases involving kids.
For this reason, at one point the idea became to much to bear after ending a rather disturbing case and so his name was the first on the list when it came time to find a home for his now son, Kiku Honda.
It had been five years now and personally, Yao couldn't be happier. There were a few rocky moments sure, but he simply assumed that just came with being a parent. Kiku was happy, and therefore Yao was happy.
Except for this morning, as he glanced over papers detailing the events of yesterday; how two children ages ten and eight went missing on their way home from school. The housekeeper and the mother had been out, and Yao silently cursed the both of them for allowing something so important as a child to slip through their grasp.
The kids, Peter and Wendy, didn't look much like siblings. They shared the same eyebrows and basic facial structure, their large eyes different colors but the same shape, and Yao wasn't at all surprised to learn the two had different fathers when he dug further into the papers he'd been sent. The details of their parentage after that, however, were vague. It looked like neither father had been in the picture much (or at all in Peter Micnat's case) and he wondered if they'd even be contacting them.
Arriving at the station late and already more than a little on edge, Yao nearly bowled over a blonde woman wearing a worn coat and sprinting herself towards the station front door. When the two nearly collided she went red from embarrassment and stepped back to allow him to pass, to which he nodded stiffly, in no mood to socialize, and headed towards the door, thinking at the last second to hold it open for the woman.
Inside, Yao spotted Officer's Adnan and Karpusi hissing at each other in hushed tones, no doubt in the midst of another petty fight. He had to wonder what the idea had been to pair the two together, they obviously didn't like each other and when they fought bad enough, their work could end up affected (it had only happened once and in the minorest of ways, but Yao had been wary of their partnership ever since). The two looked up as he approached, and their faces immeadiatly brightened when they slipped to gaze behind him.
Turning, the woman had followed him all the way to Officer Adnan's desk and was standing there, her fingers worrying at the strap of her purse.
"Can I help you ma'am?" He asked, frowning.
"This is Katya Braginsky, the housekeeper for Mrs. Micnat." Officer Adnan said, standing up so he was above eye level with Yao.
"Ah," Yao nodded, "Wonderful." He swallowed, realizing he hadn't been all that mentally prepared to deal with things straight into the door but here he was. He pointed to the door labeled with his name along the glass window, "If you could just take a seat in my office, I'll be with you shortly."
"Of course." The woman nodded, ducking her head and scurrying away. It was at that moment Yao realized he'd seen the woman around the station before and he frowned in thought as he watched her seat herself inside his office.
"Her sister's one of the party cell's regulars," Officer Adnan supplied after a moment, "She's in here almost every other weekend to take her home-post bail if her sister got crazy enough."
"What a coincidence." Yao sighed, taking a long gulp from his coffee mug and turning to the two, "Anything else I need before starting my investigation? Did you move all the files I asked for into my office?"
"First thing we did," Officer Karpusi said, giving a long yawn, "Had to skip coffee and head straight here to do it too."
"So sorry," Yao said sarcastically, "Thanks anyway-and take your pills Karpusi!"
"I do!"
Katya Braginsky was tense when Yao entered the office, jumping at his presence before forcing herself to sit back in the chair and clasp her hands together in her lap. Her foot twitched ever so often, hitting her bag which had been shoved underneath the chair.
"Miss Braginsky," Yao said as he fell into his chair, rolling his shoulders and stretching his back before opening his files again, "Last night you told officers at the scene you'd been at the store at the time of the abduction."
"And you have evidence to correlate that?"
"There's security cameras all around the store I was at. I'm also familiar with the cashier who handled my groceries yesterday-he can vouch for me."
"Very well then," Yao nodded, turning back to his papers, "It says here you've been in the service of the Micnats for a long time now, almost five years if what I'm reading here is correct?"
"Yes," Katya nodded.
"What did you do before that?"
"I was… unemployed." Katya swallowed, "This job is the first one I've held."
"It says here you were a part of the system with your sister and brother as well," Yao continued, not missing the uncomfortable look that crossed Katya's face at the mention of her family, "Your brother was sent to live in a boy's home, correct?"
"Before running away, I know." Katya said quickly, an edge to her voice, "It's been me and my sister ever since."
"Yes, it has," Yao nodded, noticing a short page on Natalya Braginsky had been included, "She's a bit of a party girl I see-oh but her grades! I can say I'm surprised, I don't see that many wild children with straight a's in most of their classes."
"Natalya's not… wild, per se," Katya said, voice small, "Just free spirited."
"Well, let's hope it's not a bit to free, alright?" Yao turned to the reports of yesterday again, skimming over the pages with his finger before stopping on a particular paragraph, "It says here you acted as both nanny and housekeeper for Mrs. Micnat, you'd take care of them whenever she was called away on business?"
"Yes…" Katya nodded, fingers tightening around each other.
"But it wasn't part of your duties or schedule to pick Peter and Wendy up from school?"
"No, they could walk home on their own if they had to, they've done it before." Katya said, "If it was going to rain like it did yesterday then their mother would get them. Otherwise they'd walk home together and about then I'd probably be finished taking care of the garden or something and have a snack waiting."
"But yesterday was different?"
"Mrs. Micnat needed me to go to the store to pick up items for her to make dinner, she had a running group and only remembered halfway into their course."
"Have you ever picked them up from school before?" Yao asked.
"A few times." Katya admitted, "Yesterday would have been one of them, but I thought she might pick them up considering I was out at the store."
"Did you ever see anyone suspicious hanging around the times that you did?"
"No." Katya shook her head, "I don't see much of anyone, they usually run straight for the car when school lets out."
Yao nodded, scribbling a few notes into the margins of his papers, "Miss Braginsky, can you think of anyone who might want to do the Micnat family harm?"
"No," Katya said again, "The kids are sweethearts and Mrs. Micnat is a very nice woman."
"No one related to her job? A business competitor?"
"I don't know much about any of that," Katya said, "She makes it a point to leave her work at her office."
"How about a neighbor?"
"None I can think of."
"Anything out of the ordinary yesterday? Or the days leading up to it?"
Katya sighed, reaching up to rub her fingers into her temples, upsetting her hair and leaving the side bangs to stick out a bit when she lowered them to her lap again. She'd gone very still, swallowing as she thought before fixing Yao with a very dreaded look.
"There was a car waiting down the street from the house when I got there that morning, I hadn't seen it before but I didn't think much of it." She said, voice growing softer.
"And was it gone later in the day?"
"… Yes…" Katya buried her head in her hands, "Oh my gosh yes…"
"Miss Braginsky," Yao said, sitting forward, laying an arm across his desk with his open palm facing up, "Miss Braginsky please, you couldn't have known."
"But I should have!" She sniffed, "The thing was to beat up to belong to anyone in the neighborhood, I didn't think much of it, I figured it might be another housekeeper or something, but it was them wasn't it?! They were watching the house!"
"We can't know for sure," Yao said soothingly, getting up and skirting around his desk, sitting on the edge of it and taking the woman's now trembling hands, "We can't know for sure, alright? But could you describe the car?"
"Yes," Katya nodded, wiping at her misty eyes as her tone grew more solid, "Yes, yes I can."
"Good," Yao said, a steely look in his eye, "I'll be putting an alert out for it."
Just as a side note, I realize Officers Adnan and Karpusi letting Katya leave before Detective Yao could question her is very unrealistic. Think of it as creative license, and do not attempt such in your personal adventures with the police.