A.N.: Sorry for the delay, but I have had a rather busy weekend and didn't get the time to post

any sooner. Anyways – on with the story. Please R+R.

Chapter 8:

They left the conference table and settled down at their own desks, waiting for news from Forensics. In any case an hour of pure and simple waiting was definitely a thing to drive one nuts. Especially when the reason for the person's disappearance was as open as in this case.

There were about a dozen of different possibilities – Miranda could've simply run away, could have been taken advantage of by one of the other students, could have gotten herself into some trouble or had simply just killed herself. Right now their leads pointed into each direction. They had no idea what happened to her and that testing results were the one evidence that maybe would give the case its turn.

"Hey – what's up with you?"

He didn't answer to her immediately, taking another few moments of thinking and then looking at her. She wasn't sure what she was seeing in his face, but she didn't like it. It was way beyond professional concern that she was seeing there. For some reason she believed he felt somehow attached to the girl... Him finally answering brought her back to the started conversation.

„I just don't get this…"

"Get what?"

"How people were actually able to treat her like this."

He was definitely right on this one and she didn't actually feel any different about it. Miranda Thomas definitely had been having a hard time at school, but it wasn't that unusual. Almost every class at high school had one person everyone treated like the loser, that nobody did like so very well or knew anything about.

"It's Highschool, Danny, it's normal."

He took a step away from her, taking a close look at Miranda's picture hanging on the board. He wouldn't say anything for a moment, simply just staring at her, like he would be able to detect where she was by simply looking at her. He turned back to Samantha and she believed to see a certain feeling of empathy in his eyes, empathy for this girl's situation, for whatever reason. He pointed to the picture, addressing Sam once again.

"This – is not normal and it's not okay. I don't even need to see this girl in person to know that she's haunted by something, something terrible and nobody ever noticed. Nobody cared about her. Her father couldn't talk to her, her mother projected all her hopes in that girl never seeing she was unhappy and her friends,... well she didn't have any – just people who were playing with her feelings."

She frowned by his words, by the emotions in his voice. Of course, the way Miranda had been treated by the other students wasn't the nicest way to be with someone, but she still didn't think it out of the ordinary. And considering the familiar situation – there were probably about a million other families with similar problems. But on the other hand – she couldn't detect the same thing in this picture of Miranda Thomas that Danny did.

"What are you so agitated about?"

"I already told you, it's just not right."

She looked at him and looked at the picture of Miranda once again. She seemed a normal teenage girl to her, a teenage girl with some trouble maybe, but not different from anyone else being her age. She wasn't smiling, but that wasn't that much of a surprise to her. Being an unhappy teenager, faking a smile for a picture wasn't the most lovable thing a girl would want to do.

"Of course it's not right, but she isn't any different from any other teenager I know. Maybe really a little more troubled – yeah, but not unusual."

"You don't see it, do you?"

"See what?"

Once again he pointed to the picture, forcing Samantha to follow his gaze at the photo. She didn't like what was going on around her – the way he treated her, the way he wanted her to see whatever trouble he saw in this picture of Miranda.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just seeing a teenager in this picture. There's nothing I can see. Maybe she's troubled, but she's definitely not haunted´ as you put it."

"Alright, maybe she isn't. But what is all the hiding about then? She never talked to anyone at school, her mother ignored her, she couldn't communicate with her father and that mystery friend of her's is nowhere to be found. She didn't even tell her parents about the school psychologist..."

"She's a teenager – of course she's not telling her parents. I wasn't even talking to my father being her age and you cannot tell me you were at best terms with..."

She stopped in the middle of the sentence, but she knew it was already too late. He definitely knew what she had been about to say. She hadn't thought about it, hadn't meant to hurt him with her words, but somehow their little conversation had gotten way more heated then she had ever wanted it to become.

"No, I definitely wasn't..."

"I'm sorry, Danny – I didn't mean to say that. I wasn't thinking... I'm really sorry."

He gave her a look that lasted for some akward moments and then she received a short assuring smile from him. He knew she didn't mean to hurt him intentionally, she had just been caught up in the emotions of the moment.

"It's okay."

She nodded in approvement, not knowing what to say. Fortunatelly she wasn't forced to do so for any time longer. Martin approached the two of them at Danny's desk right now. He was holding a file in hands, stopping next to them and slightly waving the file.

"Hey - the testing results are back from Forensics."