Disclaimer: I've lost count how many of these I've done and each time I end up writing random stuff cus I never know what to put. If I did own these movies I'd be much better versed in the ways of disclaiming in a funny (or is witty better?) and efficient manner. I'm not so… oh you do the math.

A/N: I'm sat here in my new black and blue converses (I love them XD) feeling pretty chuffed with myself and also a bit disappointed. The majority of this chapter is stuff you already know but I am really confident that this a very Ben reaction and I just love the phrase 'not just an article' so…ta-dah! I know I haven't updated in a while but I wanted to make sure I got this right before I posted it and I'm still a bit iffy on it so any problems you see if you could flag them up please and as most of you know I always take reviews into careful consideration when writing. Also a mention (last time I promise) if you haven't read the reposted versions of chapters ten and eleven, STOP! This chapter will make no sense if you don't go back and read them. So here you are, here it is, hope you like it.

Chapter Twelve: Not Just An Article

Song: Starz In Their Eyes by Just Jack


I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination – John Keats


The desk in the study had been taken over by various papers. A large proportion of them were newspaper clippings with faded letters and pictures; some were large pieces from the front few pages while others were small paragraphs of between two and ten lines. Police reports made up the reminder of the documents; all of them were strewn across the desk and every one of them, even the tiniest pieces which had next to nothing on them, had been written on or had words circled or some sort of mark that Ben had added to them.

Red felt pen, blue biro, black biro, black magic marker, some random pink crayon that had been lying around; all of them marking something that was of some importance. To begin with there had been a careful and quick, yet well-thought-out, colour-coded system but that quickly went to hell as phrases, names and places jumped out at Ben quicker than he could mark them.

Then there was the map, pinned up against the closest bookcase so it hung over several shelves of books covering them. Black marker circled several key points on it and a few had been crossed out but it was still much clearer than most of the papers. That was mainly because it was a bitch writing on the map when it kept flapping about; he hadn't had time to secure it properly.

"Whoa." Turning he saw Abigail stood in the doorway gazing in awe at the mess that the room had become. "Ben, I…" her voice tailed off as she looked over his work.

"I know." Ben turned and surveyed the scene again.

It was a bit overwhelming; and he was the one who'd done it. It had been a long gruelling process but finally he had finished it. He was exhausted but hopefully he'd pinned everything necessary. Quite a few times he'd got to this point but then he'd notice something important that he'd skipped over and go over absolutely everything to find something else that he'd missed.

Several of the papers had floated onto the floor without him really noticing so one or two had become ripped as he trampled on them; most, if not all, had at least one footprint on them and were not really relevant otherwise he would have picked it up by now and placed it somewhere in the chaos.

That's what it was in here. Chaos. How the hell Riley managed to have an organised version of this in his apartment was beyond Ben.

Ben didn't turn as he felt Abigail draw up beside him. "What is this?"

"Riley didn't want to tell me what's going on, so I've figured it out myself." He nodded as he looked at it. It was all there. "I think."

"Wait, figured out what?"

Abigail knew nothing of what was going on; Ben actually hadn't told her. The full extent of her knowledge was Riley had had a breakdown a few weeks ago and stolen Ben's car today. If she knew any of the more intricate details she would go bonkers; in fact it would probably be better if he didn't tell what he'd found out but he had to tell someone; he had to talk to someone about it. Riley wasn't there, and if he was it'd be more than likely that he'd be the wrong person to discuss it with.

"It's not pleasant."

"Ben!" He didn't need to see her face to know the look she was giving him. Stopping now would mean Abigail would not be able to be held responsible for her actions.

Ben strode over to the bookcase and indicated the first point of importance on the map. "This is Joe's apartment."

"So that's where you two disappeared to." Abigail joined him at the desk. The look on her face was the familiar look of fascination she often got when she saw something of real interest to her. Quickly it morphed into confusion as her brow furrowed. "Ben that's…it's gotta be at least an hour's drive away."

"Hour and a half. Abigail, focus." He pointed to the second location. "Over here is Mrs. Eveston's house."

"Who-?"

"Where Riley was found." Maybe he should have told her something more about what was going on; especially if she was going to stop him every three seconds to bring her up to speed. Too late to dwell on it now though. "It was while we were going to point B," he tapped on the map, "from point A that we found," his finger moved to another circle close to 'point B', "point C."

"And point C is that house?" Abigail leaned in to better see it as Ben nodded. "Hang on. You've circled three houses here."

"Well there is one teeny problem." Trust Abigail to notice that. She always a stickler for detail. Maybe it was a historian thing. "Riley was driving."

She looked up at him in confusion. "…right."

He hadn't explained it right, had he? "I don't know exactly where the house is because I wasn't really paying attention; Riley was driving. I remember going past here," he indicated a small youth centre about three blocks away from the houses, "but after that… it's anyone's guess."

"And this is yours." A slight smile played across her lips. She was impressed; but this was barely the tip of the iceberg; by the end of it she would be horrified.

"I've narrowed it down to one of those three because we were definitely on this road when Riley pulled the emergency stop."

"Well that's really good." Her smile quickly fell as she looked up at him again. "I still don't get what this means."

"Neither did I."

"Did or do?"

"Bit of both, actually."

"Okay…" Abigail turned her attention back to the map. "So what are these ones? These other places?"

"Well, this one is Riley's childhood home. At least that's what the papers said."

There was a disbelieving look twinkling in her eyes as she briefly surveyed the different documents scattered around. "Just the papers?"

"Riley may have mentioned it once or twice." She said nothing, simply raising an eyebrow at him. There she was again with the weird mind-reading thing. One of these days he was going to ask her how she did it. "Alright, he mentioned once how I could hack into some system or other to find something like this out."

"And you were paying attention?" Ben wasn't pleased by the shock in her voice.

"Unlike him I actually listen when my friends talk about something that truly interests them."

"Then how come you usually zone out when I'm talking?"

Ben paused, unsure if she was joking or not. The truth was most of what she said that interested her, he already knew; you didn't share a large mansion and an immense passion for history with someone without knowing an awful lot about them and their interests. Of course he'd never tell her that to her face, that'd be suicide. So he simply looked at her for a beat before rifling through the papers on the desk.

"According to this report," he held it aloft in the air when he found it, "there was a dead body found shot in an alley barely 500 yards from Riley's front yard, here, the weekend he went missing." the alley wasn't overly clear on the map but the pink crayon made it easier to identify. "Now I may be remembering this wrong but I'm pretty sure Joe said something about Riley mentioning a guy in an alley when questioned after the incident."

"So you think it was the dead guy in the alley that Riley was talking about."

"I'm pretty sure."

"And that means what exactly?"

"Riley said he was in the house, point C, while he was missing. That's…seventeen blocks away from his own home. If I was thirteen I sure as hell wouldn't get that far on my own and I certainly wouldn't stay there. I think he may have been picked up by the person who killed the guy in the alley and taken to this house."

"Kidnapped?"

"It's more than likely." Abigail was starting to realise what was going on; what the two of them had been keeping from her and as Ben suspected, keeping it from her had been the right thing to do.

"But why? A ransom?"

"No. The family weren't contacted; no demands were made. But the report states that-"

"How did you get all these reports?"

"I told you, I listen, but that's not important. What is important is that the time of death was around about the same time Riley was last seen before he was reported missing."

"You think he saw the guy getting murdered?"

"And he was taken back to the killer's house to stop him from telling anyone." Ben paused. She'd want to know, but still… "He was beaten as well."

"You seem pretty certain."

"You didn't hear the list of injuries the kid was found with. And Joe's face as he said them…" That haunting look in the guy's eyes as he stared at some memory playing out before them…not something to easily be forgotten. "Trust me, Riley was beaten."

"And remembering this was why Riley had a meltdown." Abigail nodded knowingly but stopped when she saw Ben shaking his head. If only.

"Riley was fine, visibly shaken and that but otherwise okay with being in the house."

"So what happened?"

Ben sighed. He'd figured this out pretty early on. He had no proof of it other than Riley's reaction. Truthfully, he'd hoped he was wrong about it but there wasn't anything else he could think of.

"Ben."

"There was a body in the basement. A young boy. It was when Riley found it that he freaked. It'd been there…a while." This was one of the details she shouldn't have heard but what followed, what he'd realised, wouldn't make any sense without it.

"So…?" Ben shook his head slowly as he saw the look in her eyes. He didn't need to be able to read her mind to know what she was thinking this time; her mind had made the same leap that Ben's had at first; Riley was kept in a basement with a rotting body for a month, faced daily with the possibility that it would be him next. Morbid as it sounded, Ben had come to hope that was it but it just didn't fit with the kid's reaction. No, Ben suspected there was something worse and he knew Abigail did too; the hesitation in her voice was evidence enough for that.

"Oh my God!" the look on her face mirrored his first reaction only on a smaller scale as the extremity of it dawned on her.

Ben pulled her into an embrace and felt grateful that she hadn't actually been there. The smell of rotting flesh; the sight of a decomposing body; the terror at Riley shutting down…then breaking down. None of those were going away anytime soon, no matter what happened.

One thought kept sticking in his mind though; or to be more accurate one person. Riley.

"Twelve bottles…" he mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing." he shook his head. He hadn't told her about the alcohol; he was still struggling to get his head round that one himself. Besides there wasn't really any need for it; it wasn't that important to the bigger picture.

Abigail drew back and shrugged off Ben's arms. She wasn't crying; Abigail Chase was made of hard stuff. "So what now?"

"Well now we get someone in some sort of authoritative position to help us figure out which door the murderer's behind and have him arrested." He turned to Abigail. "That's where you come in."

"What? Me?" Ben knew this would be the tricky bit, convincing her to help him out here, but he was determined.

"If we want this to be done efficiently…and effectively and-and most importantly, quietly, Sadusky would be our best bet."

"So… Why can't you do it?"

"You get on so much better with him than I do."

"Excuse me?" her mouth was drawn tight as she looked at him, anger burning in her eyes.

"I'm guessing from your face that that's the wrong thing to have said."

"What exactly are you insinuating, Ben?" her hands were placed on her hips and her entire demeanour was of pure malice.

"Me? Insinuating? I'm not insinuating anything."

"Do you think I don't know any other men besides you, Sadusky and Connor?"

Ben shook his head, he didn't care about this. "Abigail, we don't have time for this. Are you gonna make the call or not?"

"I don't get why you can't do it, Ben."

"Every time Sadusky gets a call from me it involves some major crime and he'll probably assume the worst." The resolute look in Abigail's eyes told Ben he was going to get nowhere with her. "Fine." He strode across the room and picked up the phone by the doorway. They had several phones; you need a fair few with such a large house otherwise it's like running a mile in order to answer one. "I'll call him. But if he decides to arrest me before I commit another felony then on your head b-"

He stopped as the phone started ringing in his hands.


"Hello? … Oh hello…" Abigail watched carefully as Ben answered the phone and his brow furrowed. "…What?" His eyes jumped up to the map. "…Is he alright?…What about you?" He looked sideways at her before he continued. "…No, I'm not doing anything…Sure…Sure, I'll come down…" He hung up.

"Who was that?" Ben was looking at the map again.

"I've gotta go." He said. "We'll do this," he indicated himself and her with the hand the phone was in, "later. We'll do it later." He threw the phone onto the desk before turning to stride out the door only to find Abigail stood in his way.

She stared him defiantly in the eye; she was sick of being kept out of the loop by him. Whether they were a couple now or not was irrelevant, she was his friend and felt as though she deserved to start being treated as such.

He returned the glare with a distinct frown. "I need to go, Abigail."

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

Both of them stood there, neither one backing down. It would have gone on forever if Ben didn't need to get out of there. Besides, she had a right to know.

"That was Joe, Riley's brother." He didn't break eye-contact as he spoke. "Riley's been admitted to hospital."

"Oh my God! Is he alright?"

Ben sighed. "I need to go, Abigail."

Did that mean he didn't know? He'd asked Joe on the phone so probably not. He probably knew and wanted to get to the hospital as soon as possible; which meant it was bad. Unless there was nothing to tell and Ben just wanted to see if his friend was alright; be a friend after their recent rocky road.

Whichever one was true, it didn't change what Abigail had to do. If Riley was badly hurt, Ben ought to be there regardless of what Abigail wanted to know. If not, these two had a lot they need to sort out.

She stepped aside. "You go. I'll call Sadusky."

"Thank you." Ben looked at her gratefully for a fleeting moment before passing out the door.

"Better late than never." Hopefully he didn't hear that.

In the silence of the study, surrounded by old books, numerous police reports and a now useless map, Abigail Chase looked around at her sudden solitude and the proof of the ignorance she'd been kept in over the last few weeks.

"At least I'm good for something."