A/N: Thanks for the reviews:) i edited the first chapter w/ song lyrics from the song "do no wrong"

Slip inside the eye of your mind
Don't you know you might find
A better place to play
You said that you'd never been
But all the things that you've seen
Will slowly fade away

Sam was looking around in her mother's room while Martin sorted out various receipts and looking at her date book dated from the past few weeks. "Hey, Sam." Martin stood up and made his way into the bedroom.

"Yeah?" Sam was looking at a few pictures from her childhood.

"Was your mom sick?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's a bunch of checks written to a Doctor Schmitt, and a couple times a month she's had doctors appointments."
"Schmitt? That's not her usual doctor, at least it wasn't. Maybe Leslie knows."
"Should I track him down?" Martin asked

"Yeah…sure." Sam seemed distracted, but soon noticed a prescription bottle tucked behind a picture frame. "It's for Valium." She opened the bottle, "There isn't a lot left in here. Maybe she was taking it to reduce stress?"
"Maybe." Martin replied

"Written out to Doctor Schmitt."
"Shrink?"
"No, I really doubt my mom would go to a shrink."
"You never know. Besides, going to therapy is not really a bad thing."
"I know, just run it down, okay?"

"Yeah, I'll take care of it." Martin went back to the kitchen. He figured Cathy must have had the number written down somewhere. Still in the room, Sam found another prescription bottle for Oxycotton. This was also written by Doctor Schmitt. Sam picked up a picture of her and her mother when she was about three. "What are you hiding, mom?"

Martin and Samantha were in the car again. "We should split up. I'll go to her work and you go to the doctor's." Sam said

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it'll be faster. Besides, I'm not really looking forward to hearing what the doctor says."

"And were you friends with Cathy?" Samantha asked another one of her mother's co-workers.

"Sort of, we ate lunch together sometimes. But I never saw her out of work." Susan replied. Cathy was a receptionist at a medical chain; her job was usually to set up appointments with dentists. Plus, she usually ended up filing paper work also. Both of the Spade women hated paperwork.

"When was the last time you saw her?"
"It must have been the eighteenth. At least that was the last time we worked together. I had off the nineteenth and I just figured she had taken a long weekend."

"Has she mentioned any family?" Sam didn't really know why she said it, but she wanted to know.
"Yeah, I think she had a couple daughters, and a couple granddaughters. Cathy and I would always brag about our grandkids."
"Aidan drew me this picture." Susan said proudly as she pointed to a scribbled mess posted on a nearby wall.

"That's adorable!" Cathy replied, "How old is he now?"
"Almost three, time sure does go by fast." Susan smiled

"I know. Julie just turned ten, and Rachel will be eight in a couple of months."
"Don't you have two daughters?"

"Yeah, Leslie lives here, and Samantha lives in New York."
"That's pretty far way."

"Yeah, I rarely hear from her. I don't really know anything about her. Last I heard from her was a few months ago, I guess a relationship ended badly. She seemed really upset. Of course, I never heard of the guy before this."
Samantha couldn't respond to this. She knew she was never close with her mother, but she never knew how her mom felt about it. "Thank you." She said as sincere as she could, and went to her mother's desk. Around it was pictures of Julie, Rachel, Leslie, Leslie and Nick's wedding day, and Samantha. Sam glanced around to see if anyone recognized her, but no one really seemed to care. Sam was twelve in one picture, her hair was braded and she was wearing a big white winter coat, and was hugging a seven-year-old Leslie who was dressed head to toe in pink. The two were covered in snow and had big grins on their faces. Sam studied the picture for several seconds before replacing it on the desk.

"Doctor Schmitt?" Martin asked a friendly looking man with brown skin and salt and pepper hair.

"Yes?"
"I'm special agent Martin Fitzgerald, we spoke on the phone." Martin showed him his badge, "I wanted to talk to you about Cathy Spade."
"Oh, yes. Come into my office." The man showed Martin into a small but friendly room. "Cathy came to me about a year ago for a check up and we found something."
"Found?" Martin was ready to write it down.

"Yes, she has lung cancer. She told me she had smoked on-and-off since she was fifteen. Almost forty-five years will do that to you."
"How bad is it?"
"Pretty bad," Doctor Schmitt looked though a file, "the last time I saw her was two weeks ago."
"What do you mean 'it's getting worse'?" Cathy said with tears in her eyes as she waited for Doctor Schmitt's answer.

"You didn't want to undergo treatment right away, and I'm afraid the cancer is spreading. I'm very sorry Miss Spade."
"How much time do I have?"
"A couple months, I hope."
"That's it?"
"I'm very sorry…" Doctor Schmitt began as Cathy wiped tears from her eyes and checked her watch.

"I need to get back to work."
"You shouldn't be working in your condition."

"I know. Thank you for your time." Cathy grabbed her purse and left.

At last, Martin understood where Sam got her stubbornness from.
"It was strange, how well she took the news. Most people cry or scream when they hear news like that, but Cathy seemed to be okay with it. I'd never had a patient like that before."

"Cancer?" Leslie asked Samantha and Martin once they told her the news.
"Yea," Sam said sadly and sat down, "I guess she's been sick for a while."
"I can't believe she didn't tell us." Leslie sat across from Sam at the kitchen table.

"Maybe she was in denial," Martin suggested, "Or didn't want you to worry."

"We could have helped her." Leslie started crying.

"Leslie," Sam tried to remain calm, "Do you know where mom would go, in case she wanted to get away?"

"No, we've called all of her friends. I can't think of anything else. You know, Samantha, you're taking the news awfully well."

"Excuse me?" Sam said defensively and Martin braced himself for an argument.
"She's your mother too, and you're just treating this like another one of your cases! Maybe mom wouldn't be sick if you had stayed here instead of getting divorced and moving to New York."
"Don't blame me for this!" Sam yelled back, "Martin, could you wait in the car."
"Yeah, sure." Martin left as fast as he could

"Maybe I wanted more in my life than to be a soccer-mom with my head buried in the sand."

"You're one to talk! At least I don't run from my problems!" Leslie shouted back

"I didn't have to come here, okay? You could have just called the cops."
"Fine! Go home!" Leslie yelled and Sam even considered leaving. No, she couldn't. She came here to find her mom and that's what she was going to do.

"I want to find mom too, okay? And that's what I'm here to do, so if you don't mind, I'm going back to the hotel and try to find her." Sam stood up and made her way to the door.

"Fine." Leslie said to her self and watched her sister leave the house. Leslie had lost her mother and now was losing her sister.

Back in the car, Sam closed her eyes to try to hold back the tears.

"Sam, I was thinking…" Martin began

"Don't say it, she's not dead."

"I was gonna say that what if you mom had any aliases?"

"Um…yeah, I think she did. She always used a fake name when she signed up for things online."
"Maybe something happened and she only had a catalogue or something on her and they used that name to admit her, do you remember what it was?"
"It's was Sharon…Sharon Carmichael."

"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, because it was my first initial for the first name, Leslie's first initial for the middle name, and my mom's first initial for the last name. Sharon Lisa Carmichael."
"Okay, we'll do a check for hospitals when we get to the hotel."

Samantha and Martin had set up "headquarters" in Sam's hotel room. "This is Agent Martin Fitzgerald from the FBI, I was wondering if you had a patient admitted by the name of Sharon Carmichael…yea…this morning...alright, thanks." Martin hung up the phone and Sam watched him intently, waiting for an answer.

"A Sharon Carmichael was admitted a few days ago, but she was gone this morning during rounds."
"What was she there for?"
"She collapsed," Martin sighed, "The cancer weakened her. The doctor said her condition was getting worse."
"We need to find her."
"Okay, where do you think she'd go now?"

"The trailer park where we used to live is now a park, she could have gone there."
"Wouldn't hurt to look." Martin said and they once again headed out, but this time with more hope than all the other times before.

Take me to the place where you go
Where nobody knows if it's night or day
Please don't put your life in the hands
Of a Rock n Roll band
Who'll throw it all away

(lyrics: Oasis:don't look back in anger)