A/N: Special thanks go out to all the good folks at Maple Street. Not only do your responses kick ass, but it´s so good to find people as obsessive as myself! And in case I don´t mention it enough, Diane, you rock as a beta!

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Continued from chapter 12

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"Do you want to drive?"

Sam shook her head, occupied with tearing open a bag of peanuts with her teeth and holding onto her bottled water and chocolate bar. "No." Her answer was muffled but discernible and Jack nodded, taking back the offered keys.

"Okay." He watched her as she suddenly ripped the bag open, spilling half of the content on the ground. Grinning as she swore, he opened the passenger door for her. "Well, I can see why I should drive; you´re clearly occupied."

His obvious amusement caused Sam to send a small glare his way. "I´m hungry! This was all the vending machine had left. It´s not my fault if the manufacturers get an evil kick out of making these things indestructible."

"Of course," Jack replied wryly, stepping around the car to get into the driver´s seat. "It´s a conspiracy created to get us to buy more than we really need because we lose half of it."

"Oh, shut up." Sam rolled her eyes, but her tone of voice took the sting out of her words and she got into the car herself without further accident. "How much coffee have you had today?"

Jack smiled. "Just enough. Okay, let´s get going. Mrs. White must be getting impatient." However, he didn´t start the car to drive out of the garage before he had captured a handful of Sam´s peanuts despite her ardent protests. He wasn´t too concerned, though, as she was smiling as she did so.

Finishing off her chocolate bar in a few quick bites before Jack could get any ideas, Sam then took a few gulps of water to rinse her mouth. Having quelled the worst of her hunger caused by not having had any appetite when waking up and later forgetting lunch, she asked offhandedly, "So, would you still be going to see Caroline White if you had found her mother alive?"

Jack didn´t reply at first, needing to concentrate to find an opening in the traffic, but then he spoke, "Are you saying I´m doing this out of guilt?"

Sam smiled ruefully to herself, having her suspicions confirmed. Turning her head to look out of the window, she just said quietly, "Well, you know it´s not your fault."

"I know," came his automatic response and like all the times before, he failed to convince either of them that he truly meant it. "In any case," he continued shortly afterwards, "it can´t hurt to check what´s going on. If Erick White has really gone missing, it may be linked to his grandmother´s disappearance."

"Hmm." Sam turned to look at him. "Do you really believe that?"

"Look," Jack shot a quick glance at her and he surprised her by sounding just a little terse. "If you think this is a waste of time, you don´t have to come. I can drop you off at your place and continue on my own. It´s not a problem."

"Hey…" She held up her hands in order to mollify him, waiting to speak until their eyes met. "You know that´s not what I meant. I was just bouncing thoughts off of you. We do that all the time."

It was unintentional - at least that´s what Sam told herself - but there was just enough of reproach in her tone to make his grip on the steering wheel tighten. Berating herself, she sighed inwardly. Five minutes in a car alone together and things were already getting out of hand. This was ridiculous. She hadn´t meant anything by what she was saying and she instinctively knew he was aware that he had overreacted. It didn´t bode well for the future if that was all it took to get them up in arms.

She should have known better than to go along with him when he asked. It was still too soon. Perhaps she had been naïve, but she had been eager to prove to both him and herself that they could do this - that they could be friends again. Jack had taken the first step when he told her he would back down, and she had felt the least she could do was meet him halfway, letting him know she accepted and appreciated the gesture.

The thought made her reach out and she briefly touched his shoulder, but long enough for her to feel it tense. "Hey," she spoke soothingly, smiling even as Jack´s subconscious rejection hurt her, but she didn´t allow herself to dwell on it. "Let´s rewind. I think that we have both probably had too much coffee."

He didn´t turn toward her, but she could see a small smile tug at the corner of his lips and he nodded in agreement when he answered, sounding almost relieved, "Yes. Let´s."

He didn´t speak further and Sam understood her offer of truce was accepted. A relative companionable silence fell between them, both their minds drifting off but in strangely similar directions. However, where Jack had the traffic to occupy him as well, Sam only had her own thoughts to keep her busy. Growing rapidly more frustrated and exasperated with herself, she eventually had to find a fixed spot on the dashboard, keeping her gaze firmly on it to avoid her eyes straying in Jack´s direction. Hoping to disguise her restlessness, she struck up a bit of mindless conversation, and Jack answered readily enough, but only too soon they slipped back into silence.

Sam felt very tired all of a sudden. It was hardly surprising as she had very little sleep the last couple of nights, and when she did sleep, the dreams she had prevented her from waking refreshed. All her dreams were pretty much about Jack. Some resembled fantasies and others were closer to that of nightmares, and what she really hated when waking up in the morning was that she never knew which left her feeling the most unsettled.

It wasn´t fair she decided. In the past she had gone to bed troubled by the fact that she didn´t know what she meant to him. Now she went to bed troubled by the fact that she did.

It wasn´t going to change anything, though. There had simply been too much pain. Every time she felt her resolve weaken, she focused on that. She would probably always love him in some way, but never again. Not when half her memories of him lately seemed to be invariably tied up with someone getting hurt. Maria. Martin. Jack. Herself.

Sam stared unblinkingly at the dashboard, a bleak, humourless smile flickering across her face. She had to give him credit. First he broke her heart by leaving her, then he broke it again by telling her he loved her. Nobody had ever done that before.

"What´s so funny?"

Jack´s quiet question pulled her out of her reverie and she panicked for a moment searching for a reply. "Oh, nothing really." She decided that meeting his eyes would be more convincing than continuing to look away, so she smiled carelessly, hoping she looked calmer than she felt. "Just some old joke I remembered."

She instantly regretted her mistake, but to her relief Jack didn´t ask her to elaborate. He only held her gaze for a second or two, then smiled himself before returning his attention to traffic. "Okay."

Leaning her head back against the headrest, Sam closed her eyes, deciding it was the best course of action to take for the moment. It shouldn´t really have surprised her. But for years she had been in the habit of being in denial of pretty much everything related to Jack Malone and lying to herself had become frighteningly easy.

The sad truth was, she now realized, that despite her resolve she still had no idea how to be friends with him. However, she also knew that at the end of the day that didn´t really matter. She had no choice; for her own sanity´s sake, she had to learn. If Jack could make the effort, so could she. Maybe eventually pretence would turn into reality.

Eventually.

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Caroline White met them at the door and it appeared as if she had been standing there for a while, waiting for them to arrive.

"Thank you so much, Agent Malone, for coming here," she repeated again and again as she led them into her living room. "And you, too, Agent Spade." She turned briefly to Samantha before looking back at Jack. "I know it´s a Sunday, and I know Erick has only been gone for a short time, but I have this bad feeling. He´s been acting so strange ever since…" Caroline White swallowed, but then continued only to falter again, "well, since my mother…"

"It´s only natural for him to be upset," Sam commented sympathetically as she took a seat next to Jack on the couch. "To lose his grandmother and in such a horrible way, it would be devastating for anyone."

"Yes," Caroline White answered, beginning a short pace of the living room in an attempt to calm down. "It´s just… I´m a trained nurse and I have witnessed people in grief more times than I care to remember. I´ve seen the denial, or the shock or the anger, but Erick…" She stopped pacing to face the two agents who were listening patiently. "Erick- when he heard you had to let Mr. Crowther go, he blew up and began throwing things around."

"It´s still an understandable reaction," Jack spoke, echoing Sam´s earlier sentiment and they shared a knowing glance. In their line of work, both had felt like throwing things around on more than one occasion in the past.

Caroline White nodded, but it didn´t really seem like she had taken in the information. "Yes, yes, I know, but this morning… I mean, he went to bed all upset and angry, but this morning when he woke up, he acted like nothing was wrong. In fact, he was calmer and quieter than he has been for ages. He left saying he would go visit some friends, but that he would back, but he still hasn´t returned. I´ve called everybody, even that girlfriend of his, but she claims she hasn´t seen him for days."

Jack exhaled quietly and pulled out his notepad and a pen. Looking into Caroline White´s wide open and desperate eyes, he tried to ask his question as gently as possible. "Mrs. White, do you think there´s a chance that Erick might have done anything to himself?"

She visibly blanched, but Jack could tell that he wasn´t asking her anything she hadn´t been asking herself already. "I don´t know." It was a near whisper. "I know he loved her very much, but I never thought… I never…" Her eyes began to water and she wiped furiously at the tears, but they kept coming.

Jack rose, searching a few pockets before producing a handkerchief which he offered the sobbing woman. "It´s okay, Mrs. White, nothing is certain. I just had to ask." Putting a slightly hesitant, but then more comforting hand on her shoulder, he glanced back in direction of the couch. "Sam, go have a look at Erick´s room. See if you can find anything that might give us a hint where he is."

"Okay," Sam nodded, instantly getting to her feet.

"That´s okay, isn´t it?" Jack spoke again, turning back to Caroline White.

"Of course, it is. It´s up the stairs, first door to the left. But I´ve already looked and I didn´t find anything."

"Well," Jack replied, gently leading her over to sit down where he had just sat, his eyes momentarily following Samantha as she disappeared upstairs. "Maybe Agent Spade can find something you have overlooked. It´s her job after all." He pulled over a chair and sat down across from her. Flipping over a page, he began to ask Caroline White more questions, dutifully writing down her responses.

Apparently, she hadn´t been able to really talk about Deborah Harrison´s first disappearance and now death with her son. Erick White had closed up every time and either become hostile or sullen, and Caroline White had to admit that she had been too upset herself to press him. He didn´t cry when he received the news of her death, but just froze somehow, like he was in shock, and he had remained that way until he suddenly lost it and started trashing up his room. That had been Saturday night, but Sunday morning he acted like it never happened, and he refused to answer any of her questions, only saying he was fine. However, when he had left, he had briefly hugged her and told her he loved her, and because that was so out of character for him, she was getting more and more convinced that something was horribly wrong.

"Or maybe he just wanted to tell you? Losing someone you love reminds you not to take anyone for granted."

"Maybe," Caroline White admitted and Jack could tell that she really wanted to believe him. "But I just-"

"Jack! Can you come here for a second?" Samantha´s voice rang down from upstairs and Jack rose.

"I´ll be right back, Mrs. White." He stepped forward, giving her shoulder a light squeeze then walked up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

Walking into Erick White´s room, he spotted Sam standing at the desk, the top drawer open. "Yes?"

"Look." She turned to show what she had found and he reached out, taking the crumpled paper from her hand. "It´s a flyer," she explained as he studied it, "for 'Havin' A Ball' bowling alley.

Jack looked up to meet her eyes. "That´s the place where Leo Altman, Crowther´s nephew, works."

"It could just be a coincidence," Sam offered and Jack knew it was more for the sake of argument than because she actually believed it.

"Could be." Jack gazed at the flyer in his hand again, conscious of Samantha´s eyes on him. "Did Erick White or Leo Altman ever mention whether they knew each other?"

"No."

"Did anyone ever ask?"

"Vivian did. She asked Altman whether he had met Deborah Harrison or Erick or Caroline White, and he said he didn´t know any of them. And when I spoke to Erick White, he didn´t list Altman as one of his friends."

Jack nodded thoughtfully, mulling it over in his head as he tried to remember the statements made by the two young men. Not recalling them exactly, he pushed it away for and now and looked back at Sam. "Did you find anything else?"

"No." She glanced around the room as if to make sure. "Nothing I believe is relevant."

"Okay." Jack began to make his way towards the door and Sam followed closely behind. "Let´s go ask Mrs. White if she has ever heard the name Leo Altman."

As they reached the stairs, Jack held back to let Samantha descend first and when she passed him, he only just prevented himself guiding her with a hand on the small of her back.

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"I´m sorry for calling you in on a Sunday night, but we have had some development in the Deborah Harrison case."

"Development?" Martin and Danny asked simultaneously, both looking skeptically at their boss. "In what way?" Martin inquired as Danny straightened up a little in his chair. "I thought we closed that one. Did James Crowther confess?"

"No," Samantha spoke softly, meeting Martin´s eyes for a moment before shifting her gaze to Danny. "But Jack received a call from Caroline White a couple of hours ago. She was worried her son had gone missing as well. As a courtesy…" Sam glanced at Jack who was standing silently beside her. "We decided to pay her a visit and listen to what she had to tell."

"While there," Jack continued the second Sam left off, "we found this." He handed the flyer to Danny, who studied it intently before passing it on to Martin. "Caroline White is adamant that she´s never heard about Leo Altman and she´s sure her son doesn´t know him either."

"Of course, it wouldn´t be the first time a teenager keeps something from a parent." It was Sam´s turn to speak again. "Also Erick White having the flyer does not necessarily suggest a connection between the two."

"But?" Martin asked impatiently, wanting them to get to the point before they began to actually finish each other´s sentences.

Jack turned to him, speaking calmly, "But when we went to the bowling alley, Leo Altman was nowhere to be found even though the manager said he should have been working. We visited his mother as well, but she says she hasn´t seen him for days. We tried to speak to James Crowther as well, but he wasn´t home."

"It could all be just one big coincidence," Martin objected, knowing he sounded a little defiant but not really caring.

"Possible," was Jack´s only reply and he looked at his watch. "Okay, Danny and Martin, I want you two to question Erick White´s girlfriend and all of his friends. Here are the names." He handed another piece of paper to Danny, who glanced at it quickly before looking back at Jack. "Find out all you can. Don´t be afraid to lean on them. Sam and I will be heading back to James Crowther´s apartment and wait for him there. He might know where Leo is, or maybe Leo will even show up as he has stayed there before. Any questions?"

"Just one," Danny spoke up with a grin. "Where´s Viv? Why do Martin and I get to have all the fun?"

Jack smiled briefly. "I decided to let her have a quiet evening with her family for a change."

"Great, just take advantage of the single men who have nothing better to do," Danny complained with mock indignation, but his grin faded slowly as he noticed the looks shooting between the three other people in the room. Thinking fast, he spoke again, drawing their attention back to him. "Actually, I have one more question. Erick White - are we thinking that he had something to do with what happened to his grandmother? Or is his possible disappearance unrelated? And what about Altman´s role?"

Jack turned to Samantha and it looked like a soundless exchange passed between them. It didn´t last long, but long enough for Danny to sense Martin´s growing discomfort next to him.

"For now we´re keeping an open mind," Samantha began, keeping eye contact with Jack for a moment longer than strictly necessary before looking at Danny and Martin, "and treating this like any other case. Let´s wait until we find either Erick or Leo before we jump to too many conclusions."

"Okay." Martin got to his feet abruptly. Suddenly the air in the office felt suffocating and he couldn´t wait to get out. "If that´s it, I think Danny and I should get started."

Danny sighed world-wearily, getting to his feet as well. "No rest for the wicked."

"Keep in touch," was Jack´s last instruction as the two agents headed for the elevator and Danny raised his hand and gave a small wave over his shoulder without looking back. "We will, we will."

Waiting for the elevator to arrive, Martin half listened to Danny´s friendly chatter about his weekend when a sudden notion struck him. Before he had time to change his mind, he said quickly, "I forgot something, I´ll be right back."

Without waiting for a reply, he left the surprised Danny behind and walked determinedly back toward the bullpen. It was a crazy compulsion, but he just had to know. Stopping the moment they came into sight, he held back, not wanting them to notice him. Not that there was much chance of that. They were standing close together in deep conversation, their heads bent over a file Jack was holding. Silently observing them, Martin didn´t know what he had expected to find, if anything. It wasn´t a scene he hadn´t witnessed hundreds of times before.

Feeling foolish, he was just about to turn away when he saw what he had unknowingly been looking for. He felt his jaw clench as he watched Sam raise her hand to indicate something they were reading, but instead of letting it drop back down, she placed it lightly on Jack´s shoulder, leaning closer for a better look.

She doesn´t even realize she´s doing it.

He had no way of knowing, not really, but Martin knew deep within himself it was the absolute truth. There was nothing deliberate about the touch, it was a subconscious gesture and somehow that made it so much worse.

She doesn´t even realize…

It wasn´t until he and Danny arrived at the home of Erick White´s girlfriend that Martin temporarily managed to stop tormenting himself with what else Samantha might not realize.

TBC…