A/N: Hello again everyone! A new chapter is here! :D

Before we get started, I'd like to thank everyone that read last chapter! I would also like to give a huge thank you to winterschild11, suitelifeforever9, Guest, and RainbowDiamonds for reviewing!

I hope you all enjoy!

Disrepair. Bad shape. Broken down.

All terms that filtered through my mind as James parked on the Greene's overgrown lawn.

Crack house.

All right, maybe not that last one. But the entire house was a mosaic of shabby, from the top of the gabled roof, which was steadily shedding tile, to the chipped and broken walkway that hugged the house as though to protect it from harm. Even the gabled front window, which should have been the showpiece of the Victorian style house, was covered with a wooden board.

"Maybe we should revisit that runaway option again," I said as I eyed the shambles. I certainly wanted to get as far away from the place as I could.

"Could you at least try to look less disgusted?" James pressed a button on the remote and the alarm chirped. "Not everyone grows up with a silver spoon in his mouth."

I scowled. "This is not about wealth. My parents weren't exactly rolling in it. In fact, we weren't even allowed to take the bus because my father had an aversion to the...let me see if I can quote him correctly-fat-cat oil tycoons stripping and selling out the milk of the Earth."

His mouth twitched. "Sounds like your dad."

I shook my head. "Which brings me back to my point. I'm not spoiled. This is just...filthy."

"We haven't even seen the inside yet."

Even the dingy siding was slightly beige and in need of a good whitewash. "I'm going to make a wild guess. More of the same?"

"Not our problem."

We wound our way around the four cars in various stages of decomposition on the weed-eaten lawn. There was a reindeer statue in the front yard for no reason I could discern. From the looks of things, they dressed the animal according to the holiday, so he wore a pointy witch's hat. The poor thing looked embarrassed.

As we mounted the porch, my disgust grew. Junk covered the porch end to end-old bottles, cartons, a small child's rocking chair, an empty gasoline container. It was like a garbage truck had been on its way to the dump and decided good enough.

I sent James a sideways look. "You know they have children here."

"Not. Our. Problem." He set a finger to the bell and gave me the hairy eyeball. "If there are signs of neglect, we can alert children's services. Until then, just hush."

Fine. I would hush. But it was a temporary fix. When I hushed, it never lasted long.

"Who the hell is it?"

I jumped back, startled by the face that popped through the wall next to the door. "Fuck," I breathed out, staring at the scowling ghost's face. She looked to be about eighty, with more wrinkles and liver spots than smooth skin and a cigarette dangling from her irritated lips.

"Well?" She reached out and tried to poke me. Her finger passed right through my shoulder. "Who the hell are you?"

"I...I, um…"

"Are you one of Dinah's friends?" She tried to poke me again. "No visitors on school nights."

"Knight." I jumped again at James' voice and swiveled around to face him. His brow was furrowed, and his eyes were narrowed. "You okay?"

Okay considering I might've just met Dinah Greene's mother and she clearly thought it was thirty years ago? I looked back at the woman, only to find a chipped and peeling wall where her face had been. I swiped a hand over my eyes and barely resisted the urge to dig my thumbs in. "Yeah. Of course. I'm fine."

He didn't look convinced, but rapped on the door again. The door opened a crack, and I got a quick glimpse of over-dyed hair that looked like a pouf of meringue and a painfully thin arm covered with sagging skin. "What do you want?" the door crack demanded.

Well, someone had certainly reviewed her Emily Post guide to good manners.

"I'm Detective Diamond," James said. I didn't need to be psychic to pick up on the thread of irritation in his voice. "We had an appointment?"

The gravelly voice spoke again. "Who the hell is that?" A single bony finger pointed from the shadowy gloom beyond the door. I followed the sight line of the finger to the tip of my own nose.

Slightly cross-eyed, I opened my mouth to speak, but James' peeved voice cut me off. "This is Dr. Knight of the FBI. He's assisting with Kelsea's case. We're very lucky to have him here." His tone practically said, "and you are too."

I didn't mind that at all. A James who appreciated my professional help? Call the Miami Herald.

"Badges," was all she said.

We fished them out obediently and she examined them like we'd got them out of a box of Trix.

"Mrs. Greene, I'm glad you made time to meet with us," I said with a smile.

The door slammed in our faces.

My pleasure. Always in the mood to help you find my missing child. Nice to see you too. I flipped my wallet closed and slid it back in my pocket.

James raised his fist to pound on the door, but before he could begin, he heard the chain slide. The rusted door creaked open, and Mrs. Greene stalked off deeper into the interior. I don't know what flabbergasted me more-her obvious lack of common decency or that the ragged front door had the nerve to demand a chain.

I exchanged a quick look with an irate James and then ducked into the gloom. Guideless, we picked our way over the junky entryway and toward the noises deeper in the house. Halfway down the narrow hall, I saw something scuttle under a side table.

"Fuck. I just saw a damn rat."

James' brow lifted in amusement. "You did not."

"I know what I saw," I said in a hushed whisper.

"Stop being dramatic."

"Dramatic?" I demanded dramatically. "This was not a Ratatouille rat. This was an 'I'm gonna start with your toes' kind of rat."

James ignored that and pushed past a stack of discarded mismatched shoes. "Where did that blasted woman get to?"

I listened for a moment and tried not to think of the giant rat, safe under that pile of old magazines, plotting to take me down by the ankles. "I think she went this way."

We finally found her in the dated kitchen, leaning against a stained and chipped counter. A cigarette was clenched firmly between her lipstick caked lips, her head tilted slightly as she flicked a lighter. Despite her youthful dress, she had the look of a woman who'd lived a hard life. James took a seat at the table, displacing a bristly cat. I joined him more gingerly and wondered where the hell that rat had gotten off to.

She paused in her lighting efforts. "You boys want something to drink? Diet Coke? Coffee?"

Busy pulling out his pen and pad, James accepted her offer of coffee. When she turned to prepare his drink, I sent him an incredulous look. James rolled his eyes in return.

Suit yourself. I knew James had a raging coffee addiction, but as far as I was concerned, eating or drinking anything out of this house was akin to jamming a dirty needle in my tongue.

She plunked the chipped mug down in front of James and resumed lighting her cigarette. "You the new detectives assigned to Kelsea's case?"

"Yes. We're here to get more information about your daughter's disappearance," James said before sipping his coffee.

She shook her head wearily. "I ain't got nothing to tell you that I haven't told you before. If I knew something extra, I'd tell you."

"If you could just run us through the day again-"

"What is there to tell? She always came straight home after work, and that night she never showed. I called her work, and they said she'd left around the usual time. At first, I wasn't too worried. She was always such a good girl. Never gave me a drop of trouble." Her cigarette finally caught and flared to life, and she dropped the lighter on the table. She inhaled deeply and blew out a large, smoky cloud that obscured her face. "I called all her friends to see if she'd gone over there. By midnight I knew something had happened, and I called her stepfather, Luke."

"What happened to her birth father?" James asked.

"Why is that relevant?"

"It's just a question."

"Nothing's ever just a question with you people, I suspect." She took a long drag of her cigarette, and it was clear no other answer would be forthcoming.

I cleared my throat. "So when Kelsea didn't come home that night, did you call the police?"

She scowled at me. "'Course I did. They gave me some song and dance about waiting twenty-four hours before they could do anything." She exhaled again and stared at us accusingly. "They didn't give a goddamn."

This is us. Giving a goddamn. "At what point did they begin looking for Kelsea?" I asked.

"The next day they took us more seriously. We made up posters. We did searches. But nothing ever turned up. The police were more interested in trying to convince us that she'd run off than looking for her."

"Well, do you think that's a possibility?" I had to ask. "Could she have just left on her own accord?"

"That's what some people seem to think." She frowned. "My own husband thinks she just took off. But I know my girl. She just wouldn't do that. Not this long. Not without letting me know she was all right."

"Did you know her boyfriend?"

"Brock Johnson." She gave us a disgusted look. "Punk kid. He wasn't just her boyfriend. Had a couple other girls too. I tried to tell her he was bad news." The same disgruntled cat jumped on the table, and she absently began to scratch his ears. "Couldn't tell that girl nothing about that boy."

I pulled up a picture of Kelsea on my iPad. It was the last picture we had of her, a still taken from the gas station video. She was headed for her car, backlit by the glare of artificial station lights, a slender figure clad in a pink and white striped top and white jeans. "Can you take a look at this photo and tell us if anything looks amiss to you with her appearance?"

Her hand trembled as she took the iPad. She stared down at the image. "No. She looks just like she did when I saw her leave for school." She touched the photo to enlarge it beyond visibility. She blinked and handed me back the iPad. "You can't see it here, but she also had a broken-heart necklace that she never took off. Rose gold. I think her boyfriend got it for her. It's not worth much, but...I'd like it back."

Her eyes were a bit sunken. Hollow. I swallowed hard. She might not be June Cleaver, but she clearly missed her daughter. Didn't mean she didn't kill her, of course. Sometimes people missed people they'd killed.

James looked up from his notes. "Do you know if Kelsea is in contact with her birth father?"

"Luke is the only father she knows. I intend to keep it that way."

"How do they get along?"

Another smoke cloud drifted up in the dying sunlight and fought with sparkly motes of dust. She coughed until I worried she'd need a lung transplant, and she eyed us suspiciously. With that cigarette hanging from her fingers, she looked like Cruella de Ville. "Asking routine questions?"

"Depends." James shrugged. "You got a routine answer?"

A quick quirk of the lips contorted her face-maybe a smile, maybe something else. "They get along just fine, Detective. Same issues most stepfathers and daughters have."

I could imagine. "Your dress is too short." "You're wearing too much makeup." and "As long as you live in my house, you'll follow my rules." versus "I hate you." "I don't have to do what you say." and "You're not my real father."

"Anything violent?" James asked.

"Depends on who's doing the asking." She leaned forward. "Is child services asking? The cops? The feds? Or the man who's trying to find my damn daughter?"

"How about all of the above?"

"There's no one here who did nothin' to my girl." She stubbed out her cigarette in the ash laden tray. "And I think this interview is over."

She let the curious cat take a lick of creamer from her coffee spoon and stuck the spoon back in her coffee. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and tried not to look at James. How does that coffee taste now?

"We'll leave if that's what you really want." James capped his pen. "But shutting down a police interview is something guilty people do."

"Guilty of what? Missing my child? Maybe you should do your goddamned job. That's what we're paying tax money for, isn't it?"

"Would you be willing to take a polygraph?" James asked/demanded, ignoring her rant.

Mottled color rushed to splash across her cheeks like spilled wine. "What are you accusing me of, exactly? Murdering my own daughter?"

"Kelsea is still missing," I broke in coolly. "Unless you know something we don't."

She stared at us combatively. We stared right back. I was starting to think we'd all been roped into a game of impromptu freeze tag when a door slammed somewhere in the house. She finally blinked, and I barely resisted grabbing at my dry eyeballs. Visine. I need some fucking Visine!

"Dinah, where are you?" A voice demanded.

"In the kitchen," she answered.

I heard someone navigating the hallway more expertly than we had. Before long a man stood in the doorway, scowling at us all. He scrubbed one hand down the front of his dirty undershirt and fumbled in the pocket of his ragged jeans. James and I both tensed briefly until the man came out with a pack of smokes that had seen better days.

"Honey, I was just talking to the detectives trying to find Kelsea." Dinah's face took on an anxious cast as he went to stand behind her. "Detective Diamond and Detective Dwight, this is my husband, Luke."

I didn't bother to correct her that I wasn't a detective and that wasn't my name. In my experience, you don't argue with someone who thinks a face tattoo is a good look. I eyed the inked cross by Luke's right eye.

"Nice to meet you, sir," I offered.

I was promptly ignored. Luke's hand came down to rest on the back of his wife's neck, but it didn't look like a show of support. It looked like a threat.

Luke's scowl deepened even as he stuck the cigarette in his mouth. "What could they possibly have to ask that they haven't already asked?"

"At this point, we're just running down leads," James said smoothly.

"We don't have time for this shit," Luke's face seemed to be creased in a perpetual sneer. "She just took off, okay? All those tipsters calling in and saying they'd seen her here and there."

"Tipsters can be very unreliable," I said. "And if I were in your position, I'd want to know what happened to my daughter."

"Yeah? And if you were in my position, I'd sell your fancy fucking watch and fix my bike. I know what happened to my daughter. She ran the fuck off and can't be bothered to let her family know she's okay."

"Sir-"

"And if she ain't got time for us, we damn sure don't got time for her." Luke stabbed a finger toward the door. "You know how to let yourself out."

So we did.

We trudged back through the land Pine-Sol forgot and headed for the car. The heat hit me in the face the minute we stepped outside. The midday sun was no joke and beat down on my back like actual pressure.

I wasn't used to that kind of heat anymore. Everything was sun-warmed-the hood of the car, the leather seats, even the buckle burned me a little as I fastened my seatbelt. When James turned on the A/C, I sighed, leaned back, and tried to remember what it was like to not sweat my ass off.

When I was fairly certain my skeleton would hold and I wasn't going to melt into a pile of goo, I finally spoke. "That could've gone better."

"Could've gone worse."

I glanced over to find James thumbing through his phone, checking messages. Everything seemed copacetic to him. All in a day's work, I guess. I sent him a narrow-eyed look. "That's a surprisingly upbeat attitude for a man who just got kicked out of a house."

"If I had a nickel for every time someone got annoyed with me, I'd be-"

"Scrooge fucking McDuck," I supplied. The glare he aimed my way made me feel a lot better. So did visions of him swan diving in piles of animated Duckburg nickels. I pulled out my iPad to update case notes. "So where to?"

"We should start talking to some of the people she had regular contact with." He finished texting and tossed his phone in the cupholder. "Dak just texted me. He finished with the school counselor, and he's headed over to speak with the best friend, Jenna Macmillan. She works at a nearby school as a fourth-grade teacher."

"Black Bay Elementary." I scrolled down and made a notation next to the name. There were a lot of names. Apparently she'd been a very popular girl. "What's this note about the Learning Annex?"

"Kelsea was really into art. She had a mentor down at the Learning Annex who thought she had something special."

I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. "Oh no."

The smirk on James' face as he pulled out into traffic solidified that bad feeling into a sure fucking thing. "I thought about sending Stetson and Mitchell down there, but I figured you'd want to do it."

"Fuck me," I sighed.

"Not right now, dear. I'll let you hazard a guess about who her art teacher was."

"Don't say Jennifer Knight."

"Jennifer Knight," he said sweetly.

I sighed again, heavier this time. It had to be an unfortunate coincidence that Kelsea's mentor and art teacher was my mother. Otherwise, I'd have to admit that someone cosmically disliked me, and I'm not ready to do that. So yeah, it was just an unfortunate coincidence.

As James drove toward the Annex, I came to terms with the fact that she would be there, she was going to be ready for me, and she was going to give me a hard time. It was death and taxes at this point.

"So I guess we're going to see my mother?"

"Exactly right." James whistled. "You know, I didn't orchestrate it this way, but this is perfect payback for that Scrooge McDuck comment."

It was a strange phenomenon. No matter how long I left, how far I went, or what I did, all roads seemed to lead back home. All twisting, confusing, winding roads, that is. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Off the top of my head? I'd have to say the scale was definitely leaning toward strange.

Very strange.

XxX

I tried not to stare at the older gentleman's painting of what appeared to be two clams chattering at one another, but it was difficult. I was no art expert, but in my humble opinion, my mother's latest set of students seemed to be long on creativity and short on talent.

James finally completed his circuit of the room and joined me in front of the canvas, so close that his shoulder bumped mine. "What's that supposed to be?"

"I think it's an ocean landscape. And those are clams."

James tilted his head to the side. "Maybe. Kind of looks like a vagina."

"What? No. It's two clams," I insisted and squinted at the painting again. "I know it's been a while since I've seen a vagina, but it doesn't look like that."

"This is his take on one...surrealism almost. Besides, I'm pretty sure the last time you saw a vagina, you were coming out of one."

I snorted. "Yeah, well, not all of us needed to experiment in college to figure it out, Irish." I stared at the painting a little more and then shook my head. "Still don't see it."

James stepped behind me, and startled, I had to stop myself from moving away. We weren't quite touching, but it was enough to almost make me reach for my nonexistent inhaler. Man, he was putting off some heat. He always had, especially when he was sleeping. Our compromise had usually involved putting on the A/C way too low and me cuddling up against him. The memory was so sudden and unexpected that it briefly took my breath away.

His hands slid through my hair and tilted my head just so. "Like this." His voice was just a rumble near my ear, and I don't think I was the only one who remembered certain things that shouldn't be explored in a public place.

I peered at the painting from the new angle. No, James was wrong. It looked like...looked like...yep, the old man was painting a vagina. When I glanced around, I noticed he wasn't the only one. It appeared that all the students in her Art for Seniors class were painting enlarged genitalia.

"I thought those were beach balls and a surfboard," I said in a choked whisper as I pointed at another painting.

"Not even close."

"Where is my mother?" I demanded, voice a tad higher than necessary. "I swear she saves up a reserve of weirdness for my visits."

James let me go with a chuckle. "She's with a student in the store. Said she'd be up in five minutes."

The shop downstairs was actually connected to the studio. Why my mother sold holistic items there instead of art supplies would just have to remain a mystery. As the older man began adding hair to his drawing, I hustled James to the door. "Let's just meet her down there."

When we entered she appeared to be in a deep discussion with two women about an oil diffuser. The women thanked her and moseyed on farther into the store, and my mother turned to me with a squeal of glee.

"Rainstorm." She proceeded to hug the stuffing out of me, and I returned the hug with minimal grumbling and tried not to show how much I enjoyed it.

"I've asked you not to call me that," I groused when she finally let me go.

"That's your name."

"No, it's not, and you know how much I hate it."

"I do," she confirmed cheekily.

Just one more reason to be annoyed with my free-spirited parents. They had never fully explained to my satisfaction why on God's green earth they had wanted to name me something I would be embarrassed to put on a job application. The only thing that made sense was that the doula and my parents had huddled around Kush-scented candle and brainstorm hours before my birth. And at some point, one of them must have said, "Dude. You know what would be cool?"

"It's been too long, James," she said before hugging him. "So glad you and Kendall worked things out."

"Oh. Wow. Ummm…" James' face was red as he scratched his head and continued to stutter out a denial. "We haven't-"

I broke in and tried to help. "We're not exactly-"

"Really not getting-"

"Back together," we finished in a simultaneous huff.

She broke out into peals of laughter, not bothered at all when we didn't join in. "Oh, that was fun. You should hear yourselves."

I sighed. "Mother, we're here in an official capacity-"

"You two wait here. I have something for you." She hurried to the back to the store, pale blue skirt swirling around her sandal-clad feet, and disappeared through the gold curtain at the rear of the room.

James sent me an amused look. "Your mom is…"

"Yes, she is," I agreed with a sigh.

We puttered around a bit and waited for her return. Her shop was a beautiful study of light and airiness, cream and sage-green in color. The blond wood floor gleamed and smelled faintly of lemon. A butterfly decal on the wall stretched all the way to the ceiling, which was a mural of the clear blue sky. The overall effect was soothing. Calming.

Until I considered the inventory, that is. All manner of spiritual cleansers and purifiers lined the beautiful shelves. Oils and stones, lotions and perfumes, bath supplies, herbs and teas, incense and burners...the list was endless. And don't get me started on the healing and meditation area behind the pale gold curtain.

"Got it." She bustled from behind the divider, a cream and green striped shopping bag hanging from her hand. She handed it to James with a smile. "I thought I might be seeing you, so I prepared a bag of things for your spiritual well-being." She shot me an accusing look. "I knew he wouldn't give it to you, so I'm glad you're here to get it yourself."

I shrugged. Probably not. Anything from my mother's wellness store was guaranteed to be suspicious, and thus, subject to search and seizure.

James pawed through the bag. "Wow, these candles are really nice. And is this…" He held up a baggie filled with dried bits of herbs and sent her an arch look. "This better not be what I think it is."

"You wish, 5-0." She smiled cheerfully. "Lile I'd waste good inventory on you. It's a special blend of hyacinth and rosemary."

He smelled the baggie suspiciously and dropped it gingerly back in the bag. "The only thing I put rosemary on is potatoes."

"Neanderthal," she muttered with a dignified sniff. "Both herbs have special properties while protecting your overall spiritual health. The hyacinth can help relieve pain of your spirit and grieving. And both herbs can help banish nightmares."

"And what is this? It looks like some sort of essence oil to use during…" James' voice faltered, and his eyes bulged as he read the label. From the position of the silhouettes on the bottle, I knew exactly what that oil was for. James stuffed the bottle back in the bag as though it were a kilo of grade A smack. "T-thank you for thinking of me."

His phone went off, and with an expression of barely concealed relief, he excused himself. I watched him head for the car, and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. "Really, Mother. You'd better not have a matching bag for me."

She winked knowingly. "Now what would be the point of giving you both the oil?"

I understand that I'm blessed to have a family so accepting of my sexual orientation. Really. My father had been more concerned about me joining the FBI than being gay. For a pacifist glassblower, he'd managed to get pretty...let's just say vocal about my career. Being gay? Not so much. None of that stopped me from turning all kinds of red.

"Mother," I said warningly.

"I know, I know. Cease and desist and all that." Green eyes crinkled with amusement as she moved closer. She put her hands on either side of my face and looked into my eyes. I twitched. She was reading my aura. I just knew it.

I swatted her slender hands away. "No hoodoo."

She put them back anyway, cool and delicate against my still heated cheeks. "For the last time, spiritual energy is not hoodoo, sweetie."

"Lovely greeting, this is," I groaned. "Most people just go with 'good to see you,' or something benign like that, but whatever suits you."

She patted my cheeks and did some strange motions in the air around my head. "Your HEF is unsettled. Dark and muddled. But it is good to see you."

I could probably go my whole life without my mother reading my Human Energy Field again. I decided to get straight to the point. The shop bell tinkled once more, and a man with long, white-blond curls and a knit cap entered the shop. He smiled at my mother, and then his eyes landed on me. He drew up short, turned on his heel, and walked right back out.

I looked down at my attire. Whatever "buttoned-up G-man vibe" was, I apparently still gave it off like skunk fumes. "Can we walk and talk?"

"Sure thing, honey."

Done! So the investigation had officially begun!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, as well as if you happened to have a favorite part/moment!

Again, I hope you all enjoyed and that you all are doing well! The next chapter of this will be up sometime next week.

Until then!

-Epically Obsessed