Leah lay on the floor, eyes closed. Anyone passing would have sworn the woman was asleep. In fact, she was extremely frustrated, close to piecing something together, missing the one key bit of data that would make this whole stinking puzzle start to make sense.
This morning she slipped out for her morning run, leaving a loose-limbed Jeth in bed. Before she'd put more than a block between her and his house, he was beside her, his gait competing with hers. Her concentration destroyed, she found herself forcing her stride to fit his, trying to get ahead, ignoring the vaguely arrogant look on his face.
Frustrated at having her daily ritual disrupted, she put on a burst of speed and settled back into her rhythm, trying to find the sanctuary in her mind that used the steady beat to help her sort through her case load. This time when the smug-sounding footfalls -- only he could do that -- echoed beside her, she did not hear them. She kept the rise and fall of her feet separate, even, apace with him, yet apart from him.
As she stood in his shower, after she'd firmly shut the door in his eager face as he'd tried to join her, she felt something click. It was elusive, she didn't quite have it, but it was there. She'd stayed silent the rest of the morning, willing her discovery to the surface and slowly infuriating him, if his body language was an accurate indicator.
Which brought her to the floor in her office. Hours of passive introspection had brought her to a breaking point, however. She felt as if she had allowed every detail of the two cold cases to slide over her and climb back through her brain until they no longer made sense. If they ever did.
Blowing out a sigh of disgust, she swung her legs down from the edge of her desk and stood. She let her hands go for whatever file they found first, allowing her subconscious to guide her. Hooking her foot around the base of the chair she dragged it close and perched on the edge while she scanned the file.
Henry Meyerson: landscaper, family man. Nothing special about the guy. Autopsy report swiped from the box of evidence; what she could remember of it was consistent with what they'd heard of recent deceased. She turned the pages over, wondering what the thief had removed from the file. As she skimmed the data, her brain kept asking, What's missing? What's not here that should be?' Then it struck her. There was no history on Meyerson more than a dozen years prior to his death. Slowly, she double-checked. Nothing. No business records, no personal records, nothing.
She reached for the file on Art Lowry. Flipping through the man's history, she found that it, too, stopped roughly a dozen years prior to his death. Absolutely nothing before that. Coincidence? Somehow she doubted it. Standing, she shoved the chair out of the way and began to pace. Footfalls, like her run. Two sets of footfalls, together yet apart. Two cases, together yet apart. What was it that Abby said yesterday? Something about not being connected but what they were connected to? Something they were connected to twelve years ago. No, the cold cases were three years old, it would be fifteen years ago. Fifteen years... shit. She snatched up the files and headed for the lab.