Jack Malone's apartment, New York City
December 9, 6.30 p.m.
Work had been his familiar routine for two decades, and aside from the two weeks yearly vacation, he had never taken a break from it. Now he found himself faced with the task of settling into an entirely new situation. The days stretched so much longer, now that he didn't have to go to work anymore. He had taken leave until the investigation was over. It was not going well for him. A hearing had been set for the next week, and Jack doubted that it would turn out well for him.
Taking leave was the hardest thing he had done in a long time, and the decision had not come easily. He still felt that he should not have abandoned the search for Samantha, even though the voice of reason told him that he had done all he could. It hadn't been his call to make. Even though their affair had been over for half a year, he had lost more than a friend in Samantha---he had lost a woman that he had loved.
Vivian had called and told him that she was coming by this evening. He hadn't been here and had only found her message on the answering machine. She hadn't said what the reason for her visit was, but he doubted it was good news. They had probably called off the search. It was about time; he knew that from professional experience.
Jack couldn't tell whether Vivian blamed him. Her demeanour was the same as ever---professional. Maybe a bit too professional.
"We cleaned out their desks," she said as she sat down the cardboard box on the table.
"We've contacted her mother, but she wanted nothing to do with it, so I thought you might like to keep her things for the time being."
It was more than that. He was certain that Vivian knew what had been between him and Sam.' She knew and respected what she meant to him.
"Thanks. I appreciate it."
"We also found this." Vivian didn't look up when she handed him a plastic bag. He would have recognized the contents. It was Samantha's wallet, along with her FBI badge. They looked weathered, as if they had been exposed to the elements for a while.
How could that be? He looked at Vivian questioningly, not needing to spell it out.
"The search teams found those at a roadside on the outside of the search perimeter. There were traces of blood on them. We tested the blood on them, and the report indicates that it was the blood of both Sam and Danny. That was one of the reasons that we broke up the search. It's impossible to tell how long they have been lying at the roadside, but forensics put it at least several days, going by the weather conditions in the area. The badges were probably tossed the day they disappeared." Vivian sounded factual, but she was fighting to keep her composure.
Possibilities started to unfold in Jack's mind: scenarios filled with hope alongside scenarios filled with despair. They could have been kidnapped, they could still be alive. But why would they be? There had been no demand, no confessions, no apparent political background. They could have been killed immediately---their bodies disposed of and the badges tossed out of the window of a car. That was by far the more likely scenario of the two.
Vivian left without a word; she knew that Jack needed time alone to think. He didn't even realize that she was gone until he heard the door close.
Jack sat down at the table. The box was sitting right in front of him. Sam wasn't coming back---the box had that sentence written all over it. The thought echoed in his mind. He took a deep breath and opened the lid.
There wasn't much in the box. She hadn't kept many personal things in her office: her coffee mug, plain and black, nothing written on it, simple but elegant and functional at the same time; her planner. He didn't open it. It seemed wrong. He put it to the side, and a piece of paper fell out. He hesitated for a second, then picked it up. It was creased, like it had been folded and unfolded many times. He saw that the piece of paper was a flyer with information about an old missing persons case, that of a Steven Marcus.
Sam couldn't have worked on this case. She must have been around 15 years old when it had happened. He wasn't sure, but if he recalled correctly, she had grown up in the same county. This might have happened right in her neighbourhood. But still, why had she kept the flyer for all those years? Something must have made the case special to her. He wondered whether it had ever been solved. Probably not. The best that happened in cases like that was that eventually a body turned up, but many people remained missing forever. Few were found after the first 48 hours. There were exceptions, of course. Chet's Collins had been reunited with his son after five years, but that was rare. Most families realized that and eventually let go. What had happened to the family of Steven Marcus? Had they also eventually moved on and learned to somehow live with the fact that their son was gone, or had they desperately clung to the hope to see him again? By now, Steven would be on the verge of adulthood. His peers were going to college now. He probably never had the chance to grow up. It wasn't fair that children like Steven Marcus fell victim to twisted criminals; it wasn't fair that good, loyal agents like Danny and Sam just disappeared. Like Steven, the likelihood that they had met with ill fate was high---the professional in him knew that.
The flyer was worn---pierced by several pins over time---it have moved from desk to desk along with Sam. For some reason, she had never thrown it away. In a way, that was Sam clinging to the past. He didn't know how the case was special to her, but she had preserved it. She had hardly ever talked about the past, aside from the casual mention. In spite of her no-regrets pretences, he had not quite believed in her façade. But he had known better than to pry. He of all people knew that it was usually better if the past stayed in the past. Dragging it back out into the open was just causing new pain from old wounds.
He folded the flyer again. It felt wrong to pry into this, even though he wanted to find out what Steven Marcus and his disappearance meant to her. He had just made a mental note to ask her about it when it hit him that he wasn't going to have the chance. It had been such an automatic response of his brain to simply ask her the next day at the office, but her chair would be empty tomorrow---her desk was cleared, her name plate gone. It was all packed up in a cardboard box. He wasn't going to be back at the office either. Although it had yet to take place, the hearing was fairly predictable in its outcome: investigation, suspension, probably dismissal was what he had to look forward too. He put the flyer to the side. It was not for him to know; he had missed that chance. He packed all the contents back into the box. He wasn't ready yet. It felt too much like an invasion into her private space. Maybe someday he would be able to decide what to do with it all. Maybe her mother would like it, although he doubted it. He put the box on the top shelf, where it was out of direct view. He had enough of a reminder of Sam without having the box in plain sight. It felt cruel somehow, as if putting the box away meant giving up hope. But there was a point where reality had to come into play. He wasn't quite there yet, but could feel that it would happen eventually. At least, after the hearing, he would be thrown out of this state of limbo and would have to make choices, one way or another.
He hesitated for a moment before dialing the number. He had made that call many times and he had stood in too many doorways bringing people bad news. But he had never delivered bad news about someone he had known personally. He wasn't sure how to do it or what to say. Somehow the professional way in which he usually carried out these conversations seemed inappropriate. He didn't know what to expect. He knew that Sam was very distant from her mother and hardly had any contact with her. But he was oblivious of all the details as to why they had broken up with each other.
He was just about to hang up again when someone finally answered.
"Who is this?" The woman on the other end sounded tired and drunk.
"My name is Jack Malone. I work with your daughter, Samantha."
"You're with the FBI?" She sounded suspicious and certainly not like she had approved of Sam's choice in career. But after what had happened, that was understandable. To be honest, he wouldn't want his daughters to follow in his professional footsteps.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Yes, of course I know," she replied indignantly. "They called me a few days ago. Said that she was missing. You found her?"
"No, I'm sorry. We haven't found your daughter. "
"You won't find her, will you?" She sounded more resigned than sad, like she had accepted that she had lost her daughter for good.
"To tell the truth, the chances are rather small." He hated himself for admitting to it and taking away the last bit of a mother's hope, but there was no use in lying.
"There are a few things that someone needs to take care of. Also there are a few things I thought you might want to have."
There was a long pause and he was already fearing that she wasn't going to say anything.
"How well did you know Sam?" Past tense. It pained him to hear that even her mother had given up by now. Maybe he was just deluded, clinging onto the hope to avoid having to face up to having failed Sam and Danny in the worst possible way.
"We've been working together for about five years, but I've also met her after work a few times."
"Good. I think you should keep the things then."
With that, she hung up and he was left listening to the beeping.
