Liam

Liam was up with the sun Friday morning, hoping to get in a morning run and do some thinking on the case before Hill reported for work. She mulled over it not only as she ran in the park, but also while she showered and dressed, and as she picked up her typical breakfast of a latte and a slice of banana bread from the local coffee shop on Main Street. Yesterday, they had stopped into the contracting company office for a meeting with the new property owners and the people in charge of the demolition and building project. They hadn't gleaned much from those interviews, and Liam was beginning to worry that her already weak case was losing steam.

Realizing that she had a little more time to kill, she bypassed her car, latte in hand, and instead walked down the street from the coffee shop to the Monte Claire. She scoffed when she saw one of the front doors propped wide open. It appeared that the security here wasn't all that Elaine Li made it out to be.

"Hello?" she called as she stepped into the lobby. There was nobody in sight, and she wondered if perhaps the contractors were carrying tools and materials into the theater, leaving the door propped for easy access. She crossed the lobby and stepped into the theater, looking for any sign of life.

"Hello?" She called again, walking down an aisle to the area in front of the stage. Nothing.

Liam stood in the quiet, low light of the theater, coffee in hand, and admired the intricate moldings surrounding the stage. She remembered fondly the time that her and Blaire's dance teacher had arranged for them to perform their recital on this stage. She had felt like a star in this ornate room. She smiled at the rush of nostalgia that washed over her. Her neck craned as her gaze slid over the towering red velvet curtains and to the painted ceiling. Her eyes roved over the arc of the ceiling and down to the mezzanine as her body turned.

Her breath caught as she heard a creaking noise behind her, and she turned quickly to survey the stage again. She stepped closer and put her coffee down on the edge of the stage, peering up into the darkness behind the curtains. She could see movement in the shadows, and the creaking had become more incessant, more frantic. Someone was on the catwalk.

"Hello?" She called out, her heart rate spiking, "you can't be up there. It's not safe."

She took a step further, trying to get a better view of the catwalk, but stopped short just in time to avoid the body that came crashing to the stage in front of her. She couldn't stop the scream that ripped from her throat as she stumbled back, falling to the wooden floor. A man now lay in front of her, unmoving. Liam crawled to his side, pulling out her cell phone. She used the speed dial number to the precinct that was meant for emergencies.

"I need a bus at the Monte Claire theater. The victim sustained a bad fall and is unresponsive."

Hill had heard the buzz about the accident on his car radio and showed up while the paramedics were carefully transferring the man onto a stretcher. When they lifted the man, he groaned. Liam was at his side in an instant, wanting to hear anything he had to say if he woke up.

"You alright?" Hill asked, following her.

"I'm fine," Liam said, taking the wallet that one of the paramedics handed her. She pulled out the man's driver's license.

Arnold Davis.

She handed the wallet and the license to Hill.

"Go see what you can find out about him. I'm gonna follow them to the hospital."

Liam hadn't bothered to find a parking spot, instead flashing her badge and then tossing her car keys at the hospital valet. Arnold was being rolled in on a gurney, and he was gasping and groaning, now fully conscious.

"Arnold," Liam was saying as she walked alongside the gurney, "We're reaching out to your family now. It's gonna be okay. Just try not to move."

She grabbed the man's hand and he squeezed hard enough to make her wince.

"We're gonna have to get him to radiology," a doctor nearby told her, "you can follow us there, but you'll have to wait outside while we get the scans."

Liam nodded. She considered asking them to notify her if they thought he wasn't going to make it so that she could be there to speak to him, but thought better of it when she remembered that the man was conscious and still squeezing her hand desperately. She pried his fingers loose as they reached radiology and promised him that his family would be here soon. As he disappeared behind the swinging double doors, she called Hill to see if she had lied.

The X-rays had revealed fractures in Arnold's T4 and T5 vertebrae. They had rushed him into surgery and though Liam hadn't fully tracked with the doctor's explanations, she understood enough to know that it wasn't good. He would be in surgery for hours, and then it would be several more before he woke up. If he woke up.

Liam was pulled from this dismal reflection by a clearing throat. Her head rose from her hands, and she stood to greet the two men who had approached her. She straightened her jacket as they flashed badges at her, revealing a blur of what appeared to be the FBI emblem.

"Agents Marr & Rourke," the shorter one said, "are you family of Mr. Davis?"

"No," Liam said, her tone measured, "Detective Sinclair. I'm investigating the Monte Claire theater, where Mr. Davis had his accident."

The men shook her hand in turns, and she could see that they were trying to conceal their surprise. Liam was glad that Hill wasn't here. She could only imagine the boys' clubs that would take place if he were.

"Is there something I can help you with?" she asked with a closed-lipped smile.

"We're actually here looking into the same case," The taller one replied with earnest eyes and a polite smile.

"I wasn't aware that the FBI was involved," Liam replied, her eyebrows furrowing and her head cocking to the side. In cop-speak, this translated to what the hell are you doing in my jurisdiction?

"It's new to our radar," the shorter one said. His eyes crinkled at the sides and, unlike his partner, his smile was less than earnest, "We'll have to compare notes with you some time."

"Hm," Liam replied simply, her smile pulling even tighter. Translation: Like hell we will.

"Where is Mr. Davis?" the tall one asked.

"He's in surgery at the moment. It'll be a while before he's available for questioning," Liam said, gesturing to the double doors behind her. "Mind if I take a look at those badges again?"

Again, they seemed surprised and a little more than annoyed. They pulled them out and Liam took the shorter man's badge, committing the number to memory. 3952.

"I'll let my chief know you're in town," She said, handing the badge back. She didn't really intend to let the chief know - she had finally gotten her own case. She wasn't about to turn it over to the FBI without a fight. The shorter one was staring at her like she was a word he knew was spelled correctly but still looked wrong somehow. He was studying her.

"Thank you," The taller one said, pulling out a card, "and if anything else comes up, here's how you can reach us. I'm Alex, and this is-"

"Dean," the shorter one cut in. Alex's eyebrows furrowed, and he turned to give his partner a subtle glare. Liam noted it. Maybe this Dean was lying about his identity.

"Right," she said, accepting the card and stepping around them, "I'll be in touch."

When Liam found Blaire, she was going to town on a KitKat from the vending machine.

"Are you on lunch?" Liam asked, ignoring the glare from the receptionist who had asked her not to come past the desk into restricted territory. Blaire shook her head, catching a piece of dropped chocolate in her cupped hand as it fell and then tossing it into her mouth.

"It's my fifteen. Why, what's up?"

"Have you seen two guys in suits wandering around here today? FBI types?"

Blaire's eyes widened, "the FBI is here? Why?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Liam replied, "They want to talk to the new victim, Arnold Davis."

"New victim?" Blaire said, "way to bury the lede."

"He's in surgery now," Liam replied, taking the piece of KitKat that Blaire offered her, "can you call me when he wakes up? And keep an eye out for those suits?"

"I'll try," Blaire assured her. A throat cleared somewhere behind her, and Liam sighed.

"I know, Joanne," She said, turning to the receptionist, "I'm leaving."

Blaire

Blaire continued on with her shift with a watchful eye, sure to survey anyone who moved in and out of the ER who looked remotely like a federal agent. The FBI? Had the case reached the level of intensity that it called for federal intervention? Blaire could only question this with her limited law enforcement knowledge, which only stretched to what she had pieced together over years of bad tv and Liam's work stories. But selfishly, she hoped that it had somehow been a mistake. If it hadn't, it was going to cost her friend her first and possibly only chance to prove herself to those asshats at the local police department.

After eyeing up every straight-laced looking gentleman that crossed her path for a quarter of her shift, Blaire had resigned herself to the idea that the feds had gotten what they needed and left before she was able to get an eye on them.

"If you want to go for your break now, I can cover you until Maria gets back," Isaac offered. He had caught her off guard. Blaire had been lost in the charts she needed to sign off on from the morning.

"Oh, uh, thanks." She smiled politely. "I'll be up on four if you need me."

"Four?" He asked after her as she began to head off toward the break room to grab her lunch.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Just following up with a post op." He nodded as she was no longer within earshot.

Blaire took a turn off of the elevator and headed toward the recovery wing. Her feet were begging her to take a seat and enjoy her lunch break but her sense of duty wouldn't allow it. She exchanged polite smiles with several of the recognizable but not familiar faces on the floor. Just a quick check in on the state of Arnold Davis and she could retreat to a common area to take a comfortable seat and put her feet up for a few necessary moments.

Outside the door to Arnie's room, she spotted two suits that she had not caught in the ER. Both looked relatively young in contrast to the image she had conjured up in her head. The two were speaking in low tones to one another, throwing sidelong glances around and tracking the movements of everyone in the long hallway.

Blaire took a moment and thought to call Liam to inform her they had made it to Arnie's room. Instead, she took initiative and started down the hallway toward them directly.

"Are you two looking for a friend or family member?" She had put on her best professional and helpful tone as she minimized the space between them.

The taller one cleared his throat, "Um, no. We're Agents Rourke and Marr, FBI." As if they had practiced the synchronicity, both men flashed official looking badges in Blaire's direction.

"Oh, FBI?" She took a step back, hoping she wasn't feigning ignorance transparently. "I didn't know that the FBI showed up for stuff like this."

"Well, we were called out from the field office earlier this morning. We had caught wind about the previous incidents at the Monte Claire theatre and wanted to ask the surviving victim some questions about what happened out there." The shorter one, Agent Marr, assured her, pocketing his badge.

"I see." She nodded slowly. "I know that it all seems really strange to have two people in a row die at that place. Who do you think it was that pushed them?"

"Pushed?" Agent Rourke's eyebrows raised. He licked his lips, "I wasn't aware that the details of the cases had been made public."

"Well," Blaire realized there was no way to backpedal now, "they weren't. I just was one of the nurses in the ER the day that Theodore Dawson was brought in."

"And when he came in, he told you that he was pushed?" Agent Marr looked up at his partner and then back at Blaire with knitted brows.

"Well, it wasn't as straightforward as that. He was in really bad shape. He was muttering a lot. With a head injury their words aren't always clear-"

"But he did say something to you?" Rourke questioned further. "Something about how it happened?"

"He was trying to say something the whole time. You could tell it was a lot of effort on his part to get it out." Blaire was starting to feel a tension in her abdomen as she recalled his strain to communicate with anyone who was willing to listen. "He said something about the fall. Then the last thing he said to me was that he was pushed. Well, the word 'pushed' was what he said."

"And he made it seem clear to you that he was trying to say that's what happened?" He pushed, Blaire nodded.

"At least, that's how I understood it, yes."

"Did he mention anything else? Any clues to who might have pushed him?" Marr narrowed his eyes intently on Blaire.

"He didn't name any names." Blaire thoughts hard back to the last chaotic hour of Theo Dawson's life. "He kept repeating 'pushed' over and over. At one point he had said 'she' but no, no specific name."

"She." Rourke repeated. The two agents exchanged glances.

"Have you spent any time at that theatre?" Agent Marr asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Oh, yeah." She sighed, "it's really sad what they're doing to it. I heard it's going to be flattened, they're not leaving any of it behind. It's been around so long."

"Now, with a place like that in a small town, you've got to have heard all kinds of stories over the years." Marr smirked and the corner of his eyes wrinkled.

"Well, yeah. But none of them about someone waiting in the wings to shove someone off a catwalk."

"Anything weird ever happened while you were there?" Rourke lifted a brow at her and Blaire shook her head.

"I'm not sure what you mean. What kind of things?"

"Any weird feelings? Cold spots or anything like that?" He questioned. Blaire thought back to the last time she had been there to see a play put on by the county's theater program.

"Uh," the question was odd. "No?"

"What about weird smells or odd noises?" Marr followed up.

"Nothing I can remember." She crossed her arms over her chest. "What does any of this have to do with what happened to these people?"

"Just standard line of questioning, ma'am." Marr flashed her a friendly grin that she did not return.

Standard questioning, my ass. Blaire thought to herself. Had Liam not given her a tip to look out for the two suited men, Blaire definitely would have informed her friend after this odd exchange.

"Anyway," Rourke cleared his throat. "Please give us a call if there's anything else that you can think of over the next couple of days." He extended his long arm and handed her a thick business card.

Blaire took it and scanned the card for a brief moment before turning her attention back to the two men.

"If it's all the same to you, I've been keeping in pretty close contact with the head detective on the case." She straightened her posture as she looked them both in the eyes. "If there's anyone who has this case handled, that would be her."

Agent Marr swallowed, "you know Detective Sinclair?"

"Yes." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You said it yourself, small town. And she's been by over the last couple of days with the accidents landing the last two victims in the hospital and all. If there's anyone that can get the two of you up to speed on this case, it would be her."

"Right," Rourke nodded. "Well, you have the card just in case."

Blaire held up the card with pursed lips and raised eyebrows and sarcastically flicked it between her fingers, "got it."

Blaire entered the apartment later that evening with the hopes that the weight of the long week could be left on the front doormat. Regrettably, that hope was proven impossible when was met with a quizzical looking Liam behind even higher stacks of files seated in the living room.

"How was the day?" Liam called, not bothering to look up from the two crime scene photos she was shifting her gaze between.

"Oh, another day in paradise." Blaire took her hair down from it's elastic tie and let it fall about her shoulders. She sighed as she massaged her scalp, "anything more after we talked today?"

"Nothing that'll lead to anything." Liam threw the photos down in frustration. "But at least now the rest of my department doesn't think I'm some conspiracy theorist."

"That's a good place to start." Blaire left her shoes on the carpet in the foyer and took off down the hallway towards her bedroom.

When she returned to the living room, Liam was seated sideways, biting her thumb nail absentmindedly. She was focused hard on the street out the window, watching the rain hit the pavement. Blaire would have considered it a peaceful, near photographic moment had she not known Liam's mind was probably lingering on the catastrophic events of the last few days.

"Speaking of conspiracy theorists, I ran into your men in black today." Blaire interrupted Liam's quiet moment and plopped herself down on the oversized chair in the corner.

Liam's head snapped toward Blaire. She shifted and faced her, "did you talk to them?"

"Yeah. I found them skulking around outside of Arnie's room when I went up on my break."

"What did they say to you?" Liam asked, her brows were lifted into perfect arches.

"Well, they quickly figured out that I knew more details about the case than just any other nurse would. So I told them that I was the one who was with Theo Dawson when he was brought in."

"Shit. You didn't give them much, did you?"

"Well, they had already known that he was pushed. They asked me if he mentioned anyone when he was talking. I told them that all he said was 'she' but didn't mention a name."

Liam pulled a throw pillow onto her lap and sat forward, "did they say anything else? Anything about why the FBI was involved in this in the first place?"

"No, I even mentioned that it was weird that they were. I directed them back to you when they tried to encourage me to follow up with them. I tried to let them know that you were more than capable of taking this on yourself."

Liam sighed, "thanks." She let a lazy hand tangle at the crown of her dark hair. "I really don't want to lose this to the feds."

"I don't see why you would. Don't they only come in when it's like a serial killer or someone kidnaps a kid and takes them over state lines?"

"Yeah, on Criminal Minds." Blaire rolled her eyes at her own lack of cop knowledge. "I'll have to talk to the chief about it on Monday."

"You can also tell him about the weird stuff they were asking, too."

"Weird stuff?" Liam repeated quizzically.

"Asked me about my experience at the theater. If there was anything odd that I had noticed like sounds and cold spots or something."

"Cold spots?"

"That was my reaction, too!" Blaire pointed at Liam enthusiastically.

"What would cold spots have to do with anything?"

"I told them that if they needed anything, they should direct their questions to you." Blaire shrugged her shoulders and picked at the fuzz on the afghan hung over the back of the chair. "I don't want any more to do with the FBI, thanks. I've got all the five-o I need in my life."

"Do you think they're trying to throw us off the trail or something?" Liam wondered aloud.

"I have no idea…" Blaire muttered back, thinking back to the odd exchange in confusion.

It was 1:30 and Blaire was still wide awake. It wasn't often that Blaire found herself even remotely preoccupied with the details of Liam's cases long after her own bedtime. This was an exception. The events of the week were projected in her mind every time she turned over to get comfortable. The death of Theo Dawson, the panic that ensued as the hospital staff scrambled to treat Arnie after his fall, the weird conversation with the FBI...It was all settling in Blaire's stomach like expired milk.

Now too tense to settle herself back into bed, Blaire sat up in bed and scanned the room. She eyed the steady red light of her computer's charger on the dresser. With a huff, she got to her feet and crossed the room. When she got back onto her bed, she shoved the covers to her ankles and placed the laptop on the fitted sheet in front of her. As the screen illuminated the dark room, she narrowed her eyes into the dark corner on it's far side. What was she even going to search?

She bit her lip and her gaze went out of focus. She scanned the recesses of her mind, trying to catch just one of the unanswered questions about the past week that might be solved by a simple internet search.

'Reasons the FBI gets involved in a case' she typed into the search bar. The next screen loaded and provided her with a link to the FBI's website highlighting the number of programs that specialize in different types of crimes.

Counterintelligence

Terrorism

Civil Rights

Organized Crime

Violent Crime…

Okay, Blaire thought to herself. I guess they are investigating a violent crime. She felt silly for looking up something she could simply answer by asking her friend, and that it was something that was occupying her busy mind. She clicked the search bar at the top of the screen once more and watched the cursor blink.

Cold spots was the next search. She found that this search did not yield any immediate answers to her questions. Cold spots brought plenty of results and links to professionals to meet all of her HVAC needs, but nothing that she could link to the federal government's involvement in a crime. She scrolled further down, nothing significant until the last link. SPOOKFORUMS: Cold spots in my home? Paranormal entity?

Blaire's cursor hovered over the link for just a brief moment before she clicked. The webpage that loaded was mostly neon text on a black background. Her cursor turned into an animated ghost as she moved it across the screen. She read through the original poster's narrative. It was written a year ago by a nervous homeowner who had recently noticed cold spots in only specific areas of the home. They had looked into all HVAC related concerns and the problem persisted. They mentioned issues with items going missing for days at a time and finding them in different rooms of the house where they had never been left. The comments were left by enthusiastic believers, citing their own wealth of knowledge on the topic or dropping the name of their favorite psychics or cleansing spells.

Blaire clicked out of the page when her eyes could no longer take the high contrast of neon colors. It was not out of the question for Blaire to consider things outside of the realm of the ordinary, but for Liam to be on a case that calls for Ghostbusters?

She stretched her muscles that had grown stiff from hunching over her laptop and situated herself again. She curiously typed Signs of Paranormal into the bar and hit search. She glanced at the clock in the right hand corner of the screen, she had lost an hour to her internet spiral.

Think Your Building is Haunted? 7 Signs It Might Be

Do You Have Paranormal Activity in Your Home?

Is My House Haunted? 5 Signs You've Got a Ghost.

Blaire scrolled through the links, many of them seemed like listacles written to catch the eye of teenagers at a sleepover. Many of them caused her to roll her eyes. It was again at the bottom of the page that she found a link that felt more similar to what she had been looking for. It led her to an unassuming site that boasted articles and articles about supernatural encounters throughout the United States.

When Blaire glanced at the clock again, she had found the testimonies had locked her into a research hole until 3:22 in the morning. The endless scrolling on the website had become a dangerous feature.

Unsure as to where any of this knowledge she had obtained over the last two hours would be applicable, Blaire sat back and trained her eyes over the quiet room. There was no tie between the last week of their lives and the information she had digested over the course of the early morning. She tried to think of some way to loop herself back to the beginning of this research. Reluctantly, she entered FBI + Ghosts and struck the enter key.

Russian Spies Living Among Us

Operation Ghost Stories: Inside the Russian Spy Case

Ghosts: Undercover Stories from the FBI

Blaire couldn't help but roll her eyes. She had pushed herself too far into the rabbit hole and found herself deep in content far off the radar. Remembering the ongoing callback to Liam as a conspiracy theorist, there's no way that she is going to present the possibility that russian spies are somehow linked to the investigation of this case. Defeated, Blaire slammed the laptop closed and tossed it to the end of her bed.

Well, that was a night wasted, she thought as she pulled the covers up to her chin, hopeful that at least the light of the laptop had fatigued her eyes enough to catch some rest.