Chapter 7:

„So, how did it go?"

Sam and Danny had just returned from the Wilson's house and Jack had asked them to join the rest of the team in a short briefing before they would leave the office for today. The one thing they could tell for sure was, that there probably hadn't been much progress, as Jack had already anounced it a short briefing.

The two of them probably were the only ones who had a couple of news to bring to that investigation and there really wasn't much to say about their interview anyway.

But yet there still was a last glimpse of hope. Miranda was missing for some more than 25 hours, which still wasn't a long period of time. But the longer she stayed vanished, the harder it would get to find her. And they were running out of possibilities right now.

They hadn't found any friends, the parents hadn't been a great deal of help and apart from that girl the father had told them about – that student Miranda had been driven to school by, which they still hadn't found – there were no more chances.

It didn't look too good right now, it actually didn't look good after all, but giving up on her wasn't an option, it was never an option. It was as simple as that : right at the moment they were waiting for some kind of turning point in their investigation. Some revealing of a great mystery that would help them. And from what they had heard about Miranda and her closed in behavior, it was most likely that there was at least the possibility for some hidden secret in this investigation.

"Not good. The Wilson boy is definitely hiding something, but his mother stopped us from questioning him before we were able to find out anything more. She was very upset too – probably knows what her son is lying about."

"What did he tell you?"

"Not much – he said he didn't know Miranda, he never really talked to her and so on. Basically he actually knows nothing from her. But here's one interesting fact : as soon as we stopped questioning Violet Shavers – the student Miranda's teacher told us about and who by the way is also Lukas Wilson's girlfriend – she called him and told him that we questioned her. Lukas however told us that she just wanted to talk about it and that the interview upset her. Actually she didn't seem that upset to me and as both of them didn't care even the last bit about Miranda I think it's pretty amazing that all of a sudden they show that much emotion and concern about her disappearance."

"So you suspect that she warned her boyfriend about something?"

"It's at least pretty much probable – but it's nothing more, just a suspicion. There's no way to prove it."

"Alright then. Any other progress? What about this mystery woman the father was talking about?"

Martin answered the question about the young student from NYU that was their best lead as being a friend to Miranda right now. Unfortunatelly he hadn't much of good news to present.

"No luck so far. There's a Helen Shriver studying psycholgy at NYU, but she obviously isn't available right now. Her roommate told me that she was somewhere out in the woods for a hiking and camping trip. She will come back somewhat this night. Her roommate promised to tell her to call as soon as she comes back."

"That's not very good news – we really don't have much time for any more delays... But there's obviously not much we can do about it. Vivian?"

Vivian picked up the tail, handing out several copies of a printed piece of paper to the rest of the agents sitting around the conference table. It showed a list of telephone records and finacial transfers from the Thomas family.

"Actually there isn't much I can tell, nothing really sticks out. No major buyings in the last couple of month, no extended phone calls – nothing showing any sign of why Miranda would want to run from home. There are only two things that stick out: five days ago Mirtanda's father was having a half an hour talk with Miranda's school psychologist. I called him on that one and he told me that the psychologist was informing him that Miranda had been forced to visit her. She adviced the parents to visit her and talk to her as soon as she would be back from a six day vacation. She will be returning tommorrow."

"And the other thing?"

"That's a bit more delicate – Miranda's father has two legally licensed guns a precision riffle and a 9mm Baretta. He recorded the riffle missing on Saturday and it hasn't reappeared since..."

"That's neither good news, Viv. I guess you suspect the stealing´ of the riffle is somehow linked to Miranda's disappearance?"

"I would at least consider it a possibility."

"What about that school psychologist? Principal's office and the father said Miranda had had an appointment there."

"Yes she had, but that's all we know so far. The psychologist will be back at school tomorrow and she agreed to meet us on that day in the morning at around 9:30 a.m. She wouldn't tell us anything about why she talked to Miranda or what about on the phone."

"She knows how urgent this is, does she?"

"I at least tried to explain it to her, but she wan't really listening. She said she couldn't come back any earlier and she needed to have a look into Miranda's peronal file before telling us what was going on with her."

"We obviously have to wait until tommorrow then. Alright. Martin – what about forensics did they find out anything yet?"

"Well, they're sure Miranda took her cell phone with her, but she didn't use it since her disappearance. And as they can only trace a call if she uses it in a way we can track down... It isn't much of any use after all. The pills being found in her bathroom however are a completely different matter. Forensics so far only had a first look at it, but they already confirmed Samantha's first suspicion. It definitely isn't valerian or any other form of non prescribable medication."

"How long till they have their tests finished?"

"It'll take about another hour at least."

"Alright then – we will wait for that tesing results and then we gonna end the search for today. There's nothing more we can do about this today."