The air was thick in the car; the heat-wave that had been holding on over the last two weeks still had the city in its grip, and of course; the air condition was broken. Vivian could feel her skirt stick to her legs, as they drove on towards Laura McFadden's school. From the corner of her eye she could see her young co-worker was shifting uneasily in the passenger seat as well.

But the streets were busy as always, and it was impossible to open the windows unless they wanted the smell of dozens of cars inside. It was almost noon, and Vivian decided that after they'd been to the school she would have to get herself some lunch. Only she couldn't decide what to have. Usually she would have voted for something fatty but it was too hot for that.

"You took the wrong turn", a voice suddenly brought her attention back to the street. What was she thinking; a teen-age girl was missing and she was trying to decide what to have for lunch?

"So, do we have to interview everybody who knew her?" Agent Taylor asked.

"Well, yes, of course."

"That's probably gonna take forever."

"Well, let's see if somebody can give us any new leads. Most of the other students probably won't know too much about her. – Maybe we'll find out if she was in love with somebody", Viv added after a short pause.

Five minutes later they arrived. Quickly they found out that they'd already been expected. The moment they entered the school-building a man came almost running towards them. "Hi. Are you the FBI-agents?"

"In fact we are", Vivian answered and introduced them both.

"My name is James Bradley, I'm Laura's math teacher. The whole class wants to help finding her. At least everybody hopes that they can help."

"Yeah sure, thanks", Agent Taylor said, and Vivian noticed his voice was sounding almost sarcastic.

Mr Bradley led the two agents down the hallway towards the class-room. Vivian curiously watched as Agent Taylor frowned looking somewhat disgusted as he took a closer look around the building. It was obvious that this was an expensive private school. Vivian doubted he'd seen the inside of such a school before – but still she would have to talk to him about the behaviour; even if he didn't like it, he just couldn't let it show like that!

"Here we are." Mr Bradley opened the door for them.

Vivian suppressed a deep sigh as she looked at the other students; all looking like spoiled, arrogant kids. "Ok, let's get started. Agent Taylor, I want you to speak to all of Laura's teachers, while I'll see what I can find out here, ok?"

"Sure."

One very unpleasant half an hour later Vivian was about to interview two more students, hoping they'd be able to help her more than the rest of the kids. None of them had been able to tell her anything much about Laura so far. The boy who was next was a tall good-looking kid by the name of Stuart Brown. He turned up his nose the very moment Vivian mentioned Laura's name.

"So, I take it you didn't like her?"

A somewhat amused grin appeared on the boy's face. "Well, she liked me I can tell you that much."

"You think she had a crush on you or something?"

"Yeah, she was definitely in love with me…"

"So what did you do?" Vivian asked.

"What d'you mean?"

"What did you do about it?"

Stuart shrugged. "Well nothing, of course. Nothing unusual at least. I sometimes make fun of her during lessons. I know that's not nice – you don't have to tell me – but you don't think I have anything to do with her disappearance, do you?"

"Well, if you kept making bad jokes and hurting her, there's a possibility her disappearance has something to do with that", Vivian stated seriously. "Though maybe you can't charged with anything, I still hope, you're proud of yourself", she then added her voice sounding not just ironic but also somewhat strict.

The boy shrugged again, defensively. "I told you I know it's not nice. But maybe she'd be happier, if she didn't have to come back here. She never fit in anyways…"

"Yeah, I guess." Shaking her head Vivian sent Stuart away to interview the last kid in the class when the class-room door opened and Agent Taylor entered looking even more annoyed then before.

He listened as Vivian spoke to Stuart's friend Richard Meyer but didn't find out anything new. As soon as they were alone again the younger agent said: "I got a call from Agent Malone. He said we should get back to the office as soon as we're done here."

"Which would be right now." Viv pulled her mobile out of her pocket. "I'm gonna call Jack and have him order some lunch for me. What about you?"

"Call Jack?" Taylor looked confused, obviously not knowing who she was talking about.

"Agent Malone." Vivian grinned. "The big boss." Was she just imagining it or did the younger agent blush slightly with embarrassment? "So, d'you want anything?"

"No thanks." But she could see from his face that he had been considering it.