Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me.

3-Sink or Swim

"Be careful with that—it's brand new," said Lilly as Scotty and Vera struggled with a large, heavy sofa. The two men groaned as they maneuvered the piece of furniture into the living room. Lilly pointed to the spot she wanted the sofa to sit, and watched with held breath as it was lowered to the ground.

"Thank-god that was the last of it," sighed Vera breathlessly as he plopped himself down onto the blue velvet cushions.

Scotty chuckled and nodded in agreement. "No kidding. Man, Lil, you sure know how to pick furniture don't you? I think this thing was the heaviest sofa at the furniture store."

"Tough luck, Valens, I'm keeping it," replied Lilly with a grin. Stillman and Jeffries walked into the room just as Lilly sat down on the floor pulling a large box open. She began to sort through the contents as Stillman and Jeffries set down a brand new coffee table in front of the new sofa.

"Did you buy every single piece of furniture brand new?" asked Stillman raising an eyebrow at Scotty. The younger man nodded.

"Lil didn't like my stuff, and hers was covered in cat hair. Speaking of those little devils, where the hell are your cats, Lil?"

"Exploring upstairs. There are a lot of windows for them to look out of. They aren't hurting anything," answered Lilly absently as she unraveled fragile figurines from their newspaper wrapping.

"I didn't think you had furnished that part of the house yet," remarked Jeffries taking a seat in a plush chair that matched the sofa.

"It isn't," murmured Scotty shooting Lilly a dark look.

"Can't decide on who gets what room?" teased Vera.

"Something like that. Lilly wants to pick the baby's bedroom first…and then she wants to pick her own room."

"And where does that leave you?" murmured Stillman with a grin.

Lilly glanced up at the men staring down at her. With a roll of her eyes she said, "I'm still considering whether or not to share a room with Scotty. If I do that means he can get up early in the morning when the baby cries; and if I don't share a room with Scotty then there's the chance that I won't get pregnant again."

Vera raised his eyebrows. "You're thinking that far into the future?"

"I'm pregnant, Vera, I'm already choosing potential careers for my baby."

Scotty snorted. "She's narrowed it down to the first female President of the United States or a professional ballerina if the baby is a girl, and if it is a boy then he's going to be a doctor for the poor or a veterinarian."

"And still no names?" asked Vera hopefully.

Lilly grinned, "Sorry Vera, Scotty's still throwing a fit that our baby is involved in every possible betting pool at the office."

Jeffries' chuckle turned into a cough as Scotty glared at him. "I'll have you know that I have refrained from joining any of the betting pools."

"Only because he lost the last one. We betted what the surprise from the Mayor was—Jeffries thought you two were getting an all expense paid trip to France," added Stillman.

"That would have been nice…a lot better than this big thing. What the hell am I supposed to put in every single room?" demanded Lilly. "Did the Mayor not realize what kind of paychecks we get in our line of work? I'm lucky we were able to afford the few pieces of furniture that we got today."

"We bought the whole store!" protested Scotty.

"No we didn't, you refused to buy that kitty playground I wanted for my girls."

"Lil, they're cats. They don't care about a kitty playground. As long as they have food, water, a litter box, and a warm lap then they're good to go."

"And some could say the same about you," retorted Lilly.

"Alright, alright, you two, break it up," warned Stillman with a shake of his head.

"So, when's the wedding again?" murmured Vera with a wink. Both Scotty and Lilly simply tossed pillows at his head. "I was kidding!"

It was two hours later when Scotty and Lilly were left alone in their new house. Scotty yawned and stretched his legs out onto the coffee table as he watched Lilly finish placing her figurines around the living room. "You done for the day?" he asked lazily.

"I guess. How does it look?"

"Fine. Now sit down, you're making me tired just watching you, and aren't you supposed to be taking it easy anyway?"

Lilly shrugged but made her way over to the couch and plopped down beside Scotty. Together they stared at the blank T.V. screen. "Someone's going to have to set that thing up," she murmured.

"Vera tried—almost gave himself a heart attack reading the directions. Now he's saying that we should just get a professional to take care of it."

"That hard?"

"No, just a bruised ego. What do you want for supper? We can order Chinese, pizza, Thai, Greek, Italian...whatever you want." Scotty glanced up at Lilly as he pulled out his cell phone.

"Can't we order one of each?" she asked innocently.

"Whatever you want, Lil," murmured Scotty with a chuckle.

"Good, order some Indian food too while you're at it."

"We're just having one baby right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Scotty shook his head. "Just checking, can I order something for myself? Or are you gonna swallow everything whole when it gets here? You act like you've got a whole army to feed."

Lilly watched as Scotty got to his feet and headed towards the hallway to order their food. With an evil grin she called out, "I've got to feed your growing son!"

"Daughter!" shot back Scotty.

With a satisfied grin Lilly leaned back against the cushions of the couch and patted her lap, encouraging her two cats to jump right up. Maybe life wouldn't be so bad in the new house.

The Next Day:

"So how was the first night in your new place?" asked Jeffries as he and Lilly got out of the car. They were standing in front of a local YMCA.

"Fine, but we crashed on the couch. The beds never came in yesterday. Did you know that Scotty snores?" Lilly looked over at Jeffries who shook his head in amusement. "Yeah, well, he kept the girls up. They were cranky this morning."

"I'm glad to see you two are getting along." Jeffries chuckled as Lilly made a face. The two officers entered the YMCA and greeted the receptionist in the office warmly. After inquiring about "Max" the woman pointed Lilly and Jeffries in the direction of the indoors swimming pool. It seemed their ex-druggie had a thing for swimming.

Standing at the edge of the pool was a skinny man in his mid-twenties. He had ruffled black hair with a matching goatee, and deep green eyes. He was calling out encouraging remarks to the few kids swimming around in the pool. Glancing up, his face darkened at the sight of the detectives as they pulled out their badges.

"Aw man, what the hell do you want?" he groaned. "I'm tellin' ya I'm clean. I just got out of rehab!"

"We know," started Lilly tilting her head to one side. "We've been waiting for you for the last month. Care to tell us what you can remember about Abigail Martin?"

"Max" made a face. "She was a good girl. I didn't kill her."

"We didn't say that," pointed out Jeffries.

"Yeah, but you didn't have to. That's what everyone's been saying for years. I may be screwed up, but it don't mean I'm a killer. I would never have hurt Abby! She was an angel. My savior. Abby believed in me when no one else would."

Lilly pursed her lips as she studied "Max" closely. "Sounds like you had a crush on Abby once upon a time."

"Who wouldn't? She was beautiful…and funny. She didn't act like she was better than me just because she was in school and had some top notch boy toy."

"Did Abby ever do drugs?" questioned Jeffries.

"Max" seemed to hesitate. "Look, man, what Abby did on her own time wasn't my business, you know what I mean?"

"We just want a straight answer."

"Then ask someone else."

"You know "Max"," murmured Lilly confidingly, "we have a witness who says that Abby was with you the night she died. You gave her a phone call and she headed your way. Are you trying to tell me that you never saw her that night? Or maybe you're trying to hide the fact that you're the reason Abby died? Is that it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," muttered the man shifting from one foot to the other nervously.

"Oh, but I think you do," continued Lilly. "I think maybe Abby was on drugs, and you were here dealer. What happened that night? Did she get too greedy that you lost your head? Or did she threaten to turn you in if you didn't hit her up with some more stuff?"

"It wasn't like that!" snapped "Max". He ran a hand through his hair before opening his mouth to speak again. "Abby had been on drugs before I met her. We connected at the YMCA; she was trying to get over that guy she had broken up with. My probation officer told me I had to be at the YMCA every day for at least an hour or two. I was supposed to get cleaned up and find a new hobby.

"Abby was like my mentor. She was the only reason I kept coming to this hellhole. She's still the reason I come here. When I met her, Abby told me that she had tried drugs before. She said she had a friend who had hooked her up…but that she didn't really like it so she quit. That was why she decided to spend her free time at the YMCA. She wanted to help disadvantaged youth.

"I tried to stay clean, but sometimes Abby and I would go hang out…and she seemed different, you know? When we were out of the YMCA she would light up…sniff some…whatever, you know? She did it all. But we only did that like once a week. Then all one day Abby quits cold turkey. Something was wrong with her. She babbled on and on about being afraid for her life. She said someone was out to get her.

"I called her that night because I needed a friend. And she had my weed. I never saw Abby alive. I found her body at our meeting place…but I ran. I took the weed and ran. Do you know what that does to me? I didn't care that Abby was dead—all I cared about was the goddamn weed!"

Jeffries sighed and put his notepad back in his coat pocket. "But you're clean now?"

"Thanks to Abby's boy toy. He likes to check up on me. Thinks he's some kind of saint. Little does he know that Abby used to talk all kinds of shit about him behind his back. He was cheating on her."

"With who?" asked Lilly.

"Don't ask me. Abby didn't talk about the other girl. Just said that one day she'd get her dues."

"You're pretty frank about this. So why do you think Abby got onto drugs in the first place?"

"Who knows? It's a sink or swim business. I drowned once…now look at me, barely hanging on to life. But Abby, Abby drowned for good. She couldn't handle that kind of life. She was weak."

"Any ideas on who might have introduced Abby to her downfall?" Jeffries looked at "Max" who was rubbing the back of his neck wearily.

"She and her sister had this friend Calvin…some chump they grew up with. Knew him from diaper days. Abby was worried about him. He didn't have everything they did. Worked for a living, or some shit like that."

"Gee, you're ever the help," acknowledged Lilly sourly.

"Max" snorted and pointed behind Lilly and Jeffries. "Why don't you talk to Calvin himself? He's over there."

Lilly and Jeffries turned to see a tall, gangly boy with brown hair and blue eyes frozen in his tracks. His eyes were wide with fear as he glanced back and forth between the two detectives. He seemed to make up his mind and took off in the opposite direction.

"Well, well, do you think he has something to hide?" asked Lilly with a shake of her head as she pulled out her suspect to call in their runaway.

"They always do when they run from the cops," agreed Jeffries.

A/N—I know, I know, this one took forever. Finals are coming up in another month—and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I meant to write this up sooner and get it out before now, but…it didn't work out that way. Sorry. Hope you like the latest chapter.