The sound of a cell phone ringing woke Adam Cole up early on the morning after the attempted auction party robbery, much to his annoyance. It wasn't even his phone. It was Lucy Thorne's, sitting on the nightstand on the other side of the bed.

"Bloody hell," the commander groaned, rolling over to pick it up. Cole listened her groggy-sounding side of the conversation.

"Thorne."

"Hello, Ronda. Yes, you did."

"Alright, we'll be there as soon as we can. Text me the address."

"Did Rousey just apologise for waking you?" Cole asked as the call was ended.

"Yes, but I'm sure she didn't mean it," Thorne said, kicking her way out of the blanket. "Come on, get up. We've got a case." Her phone bleeped, indicating that a message had been received.

"What case?" Cole asked, slowly sitting up in the bed.

"A missing teenage girl. Uniform have been on it for two days. They suspect it isn't a runaway. I'm going to text the address to the rest of the team, and we're going to be there in half an hour. I'm first in the shower, too."

"I could just join you?" Cole suggested hopefully, looking at her gorgeous body in the dim light filtering through the curtains in her bedroom. Staying over at her place was something he could get used to. Being woken up by Sergeant Rousey, not so much.

"Nope. There's work to be done now. You'll have to hope there's an opportunity for sex tonight or something."

"I've always been an optimist," Cole called after her as she walked into the bathroom.

For the purposes of keeping their relationship secret, Cole arrived at the address a minute before Thorne. The rest of the team were also there before the commander, as she would expect of them. They were at an ordinary residential address, with no obvious signs of a crime having taken place. Cole was not surprised because he knew why they were there, but he didn't let on to the rest of the team because they did not, as yet.

"We've got a missing teenage girl," Thorne told them when they assembled at the bottom of the short driveway. There was a squad car parked on it. "Uniform have been working it for two days. Apparently they don't believe it's a runaway, and they suspect foul play. Sergeant Rousey is here. She's going to give us more information."

"This is the AJ Mendez thing," Bayley Martinez said. She was the newest Intelligence Division member, and the only one who was technically a uniform cop, not a detective. "My girlfriend is out of town on a training course, so I took overtime last night to help with the search," she explained.

The house's front door opened and Sergeant Rousey walked out to see them. "Commander," she said in greeting to Thorne.

"Sergeant," Lucy replied. "What's the deal?"

"The missing girl is April Mendez, commonly known as AJ. She's sixteen, a shy, socially awkward girl who hardly ever leaves the house apart from to go to school. She stopped texting her boyfriend on Saturday afternoon, and hasn't been heard from since. Zelina Vega, AJ's cousin, and Aleister Black, Zelina's boyfriend, were in the house at the time. Zelina is a carer for AJ's mother, Rosa, who is disabled. They have both said they didn't see AJ on Saturday, but they knew she was in the house because there was loud music coming from her room. Zelina was in the kitchen washing dishes when she heard the music stop. A couple of minutes later, she heard footsteps storming down the stairs, and the front door slammed. That was the last encounter we've got with AJ. Her phone, iPad, and a change of clothes are gone from her room, but the chargers for both devices are still there."

"No phone activity? No contact with any friends or family?" Cole asked.

"Her phone hasn't been turned on since she went missing," Rousey said. "No one has seen her, and she hasn't been in contact with anyone. Rosa is losing her mind, insisting AJ would never do something like this. I thought it was time to hand this one over to you, if you'll take it?"

Cole knew what the answer was going to be. Thanks to her relationship with Clementine, one thing Lucy was sensitive to was a bond between a mother and a daughter.

"We'll take it," Thorne said without hesitation. "Is the mother at home?"

Rousey nodded.

"Rollins, work with Sergeant Rousey. You're taking over command of the search team," Thorne ordered. "Flair, Martinez, you go inside and talk to the mother. Tell her we want to set up a press conference for her to appeal to AJ to come home. This still might not be foul play, so we cover all bases. Cole, you and I are going to speak to Vega and Black. Sergeant, I need their address."

Impressively, Rousey read it out from memory. "I've spoken to them twice to ask them to come to the station for an interview. So far, they haven't shown up."

"I'm not going to be asking," Thorne assured her, turning to head for her car. She stopped for a moment and turned back to face the sergeant. "I want a forensics team in that house. Give it a once over from top to bottom."

"I'll get on it now," Rousey pledged.

As he followed the boss to her car, Cole couldn't help feeling turned on. He was a sucker for Lucy talking like that. As a former MI6 operative and the commander of Intelligence Division, she was a serious badass and great at exercising her authority, and that was a powerful aphrodisiac.

Now wasn't the time for his dick to be thinking for him though, he reminded himself as he got into the car. She had a silver Aston Martin, a brand that said British and classy.

"This one doesn't sound good," Cole said as he got into the passenger side of the two seat sports car.

"No, it doesn't," Thorne said. She fired up the powerful V12 engine and pulled slowly away down the quiet residential street. "The fact that these two are trying to swerve an interview tells me a lot. They're going to be answering some questions when we get there, that's for sure."

"If we find them at home I'll be asking them why they're not out searching," Cole said.

"Yes, another good point. Let's see what they have to say for themselves."

Just under ten minutes later, Thorne pulled the car up outside the address they had been given. From the outside, it looked like an unremarkable, small home. The front lawn was recently mowed, and the house seemed well maintained. There was a Ford parked outside that had seen better days.

"Looks like someone's home," Cole said.

"Good. Let's go and get some answers. I'm going to tell them it's in their best interest to get down to the station today."

They got out of the car and walked up to the front door, where Cole ignored the doorbell, knocking loudly instead.

It took almost thirty seconds for the door to be opened by a tall man with long hair and a beard. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, revealing that he was covered in tattoos. Rough-looking was the first impression Cole got.

"Yeah?" the man said.

"Aleister Black?" Thorne asked.

"Yeah."

"Thorne, Cole, SCPD Intelligence Division," Lucy said, showing her badge. "We'd like to come in and ask you some questions about the disappearance of AJ Mendez."

It looked for a moment like Black might try telling them to fuck off, but then he thought better of it. "Alright, come in. Excuse the state of the place. I've been stocking up on stuff to fix up and sell."

Cole followed Thorne into the house. In contrast to the outside, the interior was a mess. There were cookers, microwaves, radios and even a refrigerator strewn all down the hallway. It didn't look like there had been much fixing up and selling going on for a long time. There was a strong smell of cats and cat shit in the house. Cole saw two different cats before they even made it to the living room.

"Who was it?" a woman called out just before the group walked into the living room.

Cole saw a beautiful Hispanic-looking woman lying on a couch, along with another couple of cats. On the TV in front of her, some kind of video game was paused. She didn't look pleased to see them, even before she got the answer to her question.

"Cops," Aleister said. "They're here about AJ."

"Has she come home?" Zelina asked, standing up to speak to them.

"No, she hasn't," Thorne said. "Tell me, why haven't you been to the station to be interviewed yet? I know you've been asked twice."

"We were going to. Things kept coming up," Zelina said.

"So I can see," Thorne said dryly, looking at the TV.

"I strongly recommend you attend a formal interview today, as well as answering our questions now," Cole said.

Aleister and Zelina looked at each other before he answered. "Alright, we'll come to the station today."

"Good. Now, tell me what happened on the day AJ went missing. I'm told the two of you were in the house and you heard her leave?" Thorne said.

"That's right," Zelina said. "I go round there most days to help my aunt, Rosa. She gets the help she needs, and she pays me a bit for doing it. She was out that morning. She's got one of those mobility scooter things to get around on. Anyway, I was washing the dishes when I heard the music in AJ's room stop. Not long afterwards, I heard her come down the stairs, then the front door banged shut."

"She didn't say anything to you?" Cole asked.

"No. I didn't speak to her at all that day. Neither of us did. She was up in her room and we didn't go upstairs."

"And where were you when AJ left?" Thorne asked Black.

"In the garden. I mowed the lawn that day."

"Okay. Do you mind if we have a look around?" Thorne asked, making it sound like it wasn't really a question.

"Don't you need a warrant for that?" Zelina asked.

"We need a warrant to search the place. I asked to have a quick look around. Have you got a problem with that?" The way Thorne spoke conveyed that she would view a refusal as highly suspicious.

"Of course not. Help yourselves," Aleister said.

Saying nothing, Cole followed the boss out into the hallway and through to the kitchen. Like the hallway, it was full of busted appliances that were being hoarded for no apparent reason. There was other general clutter strewn around the place as well, and a stack of dirty dishes in the sink. Having a messy home wasn't illegal, though. Nothing stood out as suspicious.

Proceeding upstairs, Cole wondered what the chances were of finding AJ tied up in one of the bedrooms and ending this thing before it got started.

There was no such luck. All they found in the two bedrooms was more clutter and a general lack of cleanliness.

At the end of the landing there was a door that was closed. Cole noted that fact because all of the other doors had been open. While Thorne was in the second bedroom, he pushed the closed door open. It revealed a bathroom. Like the other rooms, there was clutter in there. One thing did stand out to him, though. "Lucy!" he called.

"Have you got something?" the boss asked, quickly coming to join him.

"Yeah. Why is that bathtub so clean when the rest of the house is a dump?" Cole wondered.

The bathtub was literally gleaming white. As he had observed, it was quite a contrast to the rest of the house.

"Someone has given it a thorough going over," Thorne agreed. "I'm starting to like these two for this. Get working on a search warrant for this shit hole, and I want both of their phone records, social media posts, messages, calls, internet use, the lot."

"You got it," Cole said. "Shall we keep this quiet from them for now?"

"Yes. We need to get them in for that interview, and we don't have anything to arrest them for. Let's let them think they're just coming in for a chat. Once we get them in an interview room, we can start grilling them properly."

A/N: Many thanks to everyone who left a review last time!

Has AJ run away from home, or do Aleister and Zelina know more than they are letting on?