Once again, Mike found himself surrounded by the stillness of the empty bullpen as midnight approached faster than he'd expected.
A few minutes ago, part of Irina's cleaning crew had shown up to empty wastepaper bins, wipe down desks and clean the coffee machine, disrupting his quiet brooding for a little while and giving his strained eyes a rest from staring at the map of San Francisco incessantly.
Fifteen-some miles.
It didn't seem like much but it was in fact an incredibly large area to cover for their search, a new piece of evidence Mike sensed was of great importance in their investigation, and yet, without anything else to go on, it left him stumbling in the dark.
Both Milan's and O'Conner's residences were out of his realm of potential targets. Visari's home fell into the 7-8 mile perimeter he'd drawn in bright red ink around the Hall of Justice Building, but made little sense at this time being that the sighting occurred the day after Milan's kidnapping, and more than a month before Visari's rape.
Could the hiding place for this groups' kidnap victims be somewhere in that red circle, explaining the two-day gap between Milan's disappearance and her sighing in Windsor? Or was it a sort of headquarters, where the men could meet in the safety of a secret hideout to plan their assaults? Were the extra miles added somewhere up near Windsor, or between San Francisco and Windsor? His final suspicion was that the LTD had been used to pick up the unknown African American stranger, wherever he possibly lived along that sparsely documented drive.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, Mike rubbed his tired eyes for a moment, then rested his forehead on the palm of his hand, trying to clear the fog his latest research overload had caused.
Between his stiff neck and aching back, the frustration caused by this case was beginning to make him feel his age.
"You're not going to sleep on me, are you?"
Steve's cheery voice appeared from across his office, the young Inspector leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest and a genuine smile lighting up his features.
Straightening out in his chair and returning the smile, Mike shook his head, then gestured for his partner to grab the guest chair.
"With that joyful attitude I can't help but wonder if I should congratulate you on getting engaged…"
"No way.", Steve blurted out before Mike even had a chance to finish his sentence, then slowly sank into the chair and pointed his chin at the map to his left, "Not for me, never. Did you get anywhere with the missing fifteen miles?"
"Not too far.", Mike sighed, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice, "We don't know enough yet to get the least bit of a clue as to where these guys drove to. It could have happened here. It could have happened in Windsor. I haven't checked the traffic reports yet but it could have even happened during a detour. I really thought I was onto something but I am starting to spin my wheels. Was Irina able to help us figure out who that forth guy is?"
A cheeky smile spread on Steve's face as the young Inspector leaned forward, his forearm resting on his partner's desk as he cleared his throat.
"That's why I wanted to see if you had found anything first. Now I know you won't steal my thunder."
"Steal your thunder? What are you talking about? She knows how these extra miles got onto the LTD? Irina does?"
Nodding fervently, Steve cocked his head in unmasked boldness.
"You know what else in in a fifteen-mile radius from this building? The Midtown Terrace Fire Department."
With his eyebrows raised in surprise, Mike reached for his partner's wrist, grabbing it in disbelief.
"Our forth guy is a fire fighter? Is she sure?"
"You bet.", Steve countered with a sparkle in his eyes, "Care to guess again who got passed over for that Captain Promotion Milan received?"
