Out of Time
Disclaimer: I own nothing
A/N:
Chapter 3 (Bitter Speculation)
They stopped at a library, having grown curious about the missing girl Sam told them about, among other things. After finding a private room, used for people who wanted to study without others around, they pulled a couple chairs up to the Dell desktop computer and brown oak desk.
"Who was Sasha Grayson?" Beck typed the query into the search bar, figuring there must be some information. Granted, these days, it wasn't easy to find a lot about somebody that went missing twenty years ago-the local police department would likely have more resources.
Jade hovered over his shoulder, watching as a picture of the young girl popped up. It was different than the one Sam had, at least that one carried a more personal vibe.
In this, she could see the resemblance to Tori far more. The girl was tall, thin, her brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail. She had a purple shirt with a lace trim at the bottom, hanging over dark pants. Her wrists had fleece bands around them.
Beside her stood a young boy with brown hair parted down the middle. They were caught in the middle of some arcade game involving a rat. The boy had his arm around her waist and was watching the score on the machine, his mouth opened in a laugh. Sasha's eyes were sharp and focused, the tip of her tongue was pushed between her grinning lips and her hands gripped the joysticks firmly.
"She's stunning," Jade remarked. Beside the photograph was an age progressed picture that made her frown. "She would be thirty-three. I wonder what she would be doing today?" Beck shrugged and read the headline of the first article he found.
"Gamer girl Sasha Grayson still missing five years later." He sighed, his eyes scanning the article. "Miss Grayson frequented a popular arcade in downtown San Francisco, with her then boyfriend, Spencer Shay…" Beck trailed off and Jade raised an eyebrow, curious where she heard the man's name. "Shay, coming from a military family and now living in Washington, has consistently claimed that Grayson could not have run away despite the young couple being pregnant."
Jade cupped her hand over her mouth and Beck looked up to her. While they already knew this, it still came as a shock. The nineties were not a good time for teenage pregnancies, but then, what time was?
Beck continued on, clicking his tongue. "Grayson's parents reported to investigators at the time that their daughter confessed to being nine months pregnant, keeping it hidden. A fight ensued and the girl left home. Mr. Grayson assumed she would return after a few days, but filed a missing person's report when she did not return home or to her boyfriend within two days."
"So she did run away," Jade said with a mournful exhale, "Can't imagine her not getting in touch with her boyfriend at least." She crossed her arms and studied Beck for a minute. "I know I would." He looked at her with a sad smile and leaned his head against her body.
"Yeah, seems pretty clear she ran into trouble. Especially given what Sam said about her parents…" Jade's heart sank as she remembered what Sam mentioned about them, having been murdered. "Injected with morphine? I mean, seems like someone with access to medical stuff."
"Were there ever any suspects?"
Beck leaned forward, reading through the article, his frown growing deeper. "Apparently not, seems when she didn't turn up after her parents' murder or funeral the case went cold. They still don't know whether she just ran away and-" He tensed, his teeth grinding and eyes narrowing. "Had her parents killed…"
"Typical" Jade rolled her eyes. "Teenager runs away after a fight with a parent, police assume she's just a runaway. Parents are killed, it's her fault. Sure. Why not?"
"Well, if anything, this Spencer guy maintains her innocence and still thinks something worse happened to her." Beck's eyes scanned the articles and he hummed with contemplation. "'Shay witness to brutal murder of Grayson's parents, escapes with life.'" Jade's eyes widened and Beck uttered a small curse.
She leaned in abruptly, reading the article herself. "Oh my god, Sam didn't tell us all the details released to the press." Her hand trembled over her mouth and Beck closed his eyes. "I can see why…"
"Well it is a current investigation and we're not involved, she can't tell us everything."
"Yeah." A heaviness descended upon her as she tried to process the information she was reading. "The Grayson's weren't just overdosed with morphine, they were butchered alive."
It seemed that Spencer was visiting with the Grayson family a month after Sasha's disappearance. He was getting ready to leave for home, going to the restroom as the couple went to bed.
That was where the attack began, Spencer was stabbed from behind and left to bleed out on the floor. According to the article, Spencer managed to crawl out of the bedroom, which was down the hallway from the master bedroom door, which was open.
Horrified, he watched as a large man, having gagged the couple, injected them with morphine. The man proceeded to stab each multiple times, leaving a wide gash across their throats.
Playing dead, Spencer waited until the man left the home and called the police. Unfortunately, the man was never identified.
"Does it give any details? Besides the size of the guy?"
"Brown hair, curly." Beck blinked twice and slowly raised a hand over his face. "I mean that leaves a lot of people. Seems like Spencer only got to see the back of the guy." Beck was trembling like a leaf in the wind, looking as though he could break at any moment. Jade put her hand on his shoulder, hoping to calm him. "I can't imagine the pain. Losing his girlfriend, his child in the process, and then having to witness her parents' murders…" He clenched his hand and turned his head away. "What kind of sick monster…"
Jade leaned against him, her arms sliding around his neck and shoulders. She gently kissed his collarbone and laid her head on the nook of his neck. "It's horrifying." Beck leaned his head back and dropped his shoulders.
"I recognize that name. Spencer Shay. Carly, from iCarly, remember her?" Jade's eyes opened wide and she raised her head up, remembering how they met Carly, Sam and Freddie a year or two before. "Spencer is Carly's older brother. Would explain Sam's interest in this case, I guess. Spencer seemed odd when we met him, a little carefree and everything."
"Maybe by trying to be less serious, trying to cover up the trauma? I'm no stranger to using masks to conceal myself…" Beck looked at her with a sorrowful smile and reached his hand up to hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Was there really no one else that saw Sasha after she disappeared?"
"I don't think so." He returned to the computer, scanning through articles before letting out a triumphant cry. "It says here that she was last seen by a nurse at a hospital near San Francisco." He hesitated and Jade leaned forward, reading the article for herself.
With a gasp, she pulled herself away. "She went into labor." Further reading indicated that the nurse never saw Sasha leave the hospital, neither were there any additional babies in the nursery. "Oh...shit."
Beck wiped his face with his hands, groaning in disgust. "She was abducted at the hospital. She and her baby both." The article suggested that while she could have taken her baby and left on her own, it was unlikely that the small teenager would have the energy to do so and hospital staff would likely not have allowed her to leave. "How the hell are none of the doctors or nurses even suspected? Even other patients at the hospital weren't suspected!"
"It was a big hospital, Jade, I wouldn't be surprised if the police had to sift through all of them." That made sense, and yet somehow there were still no new leads. It was as if this girl just walked into one of the largest hospitals in the town, gave birth, and faded away like a phantom.
"Did no one even recognize that she was a missing person?"
Beck pointed to the date listed in the article and Jade felt her heart drop. "She went into labor before the missing person's case was even filed." At that point, it seemed Sasha would've done better to have just kept quiet and let her parents find out about the pregnancy when she went into labor; but there was no point in questioning the past.
Jade started to pace, breathing in and out slowly. "So, what do we know? Sam is working with Detective Malone, they're investigating the Vegas because?"
"Sam met us all before, she knows Spencer personally. That picture she had in her wallet is probably from him. Tori shares remarkable resemblance to Sasha, so when Sam met us…" His voice trailed and his eyes grew wide, a tremor overtook his body and his hand slowly rose to his mouth. "Oh god, she's following up on a hunch. She thinks Tori is that child."
Jade sank into the nearby chair, her skin growing pale. "I mean, it was mentioned. That's not the startling part, the startling part is the timing of how and when Sasha officially disappeared."
No doubt Beck was sharing her mindset. If Tori truly was Sasha's child, unless she handed that baby to a patient or doctor, the Vega family may have been the ones to have taken the baby. "There's no proof, no evidence that Tori even is Sasha's child."
"I think that's part of what Detective Malone is investigating. Has to be."
"Any chance that Sasha gave her baby up?"
"I think that would've been documented." He pointed back to the article. "It says that both she and the baby disappeared." It would've also been more likely that had Sasha managed to somehow protect her baby by giving it to hospital staff, they would've reached out to either Spencer or her parents.
Feeling as though she were about to begin hyperventilating, Jade started taking slower and deeper breaths. Sweat drenched her palms and soaked her hairline as fear started to overtake her. "It can't be so simple, can it Beck? I mean, how hard can proving whether Tori is Sasha's child be? There's easy access to her DNA."
"I know a thing or two about police work, there has to be probable cause. Something, anything to be sure; and Tori is still a minor. They can't just walk up to her and take her DNA without her permission."
"But if it's public, like a cup thrown away?"
` "Maybe, but they don't even know if the baby survived that night. Whoever took Sasha from that hospital could've killed the baby; and even then, they still don't have proof that Sasha didn't just somehow walk away."
He was right, there were likely a number of hurdles. "Not to mention, if Mr. and Mrs. Vega are somehow involved, Tori being a minor means-"
"They'd have to go through them." Beck leaned back in the chair, groaning softly as he laced his fingers together over his stomach. "Mr. Vega is a Deputy Chief, Mrs. Vega is a director of hospitals. Powerful people, very powerful…"
She still couldn't believe they were bad people, nor did she want to. To think they could've gotten away with kidnapping or even murder was a hard pill to swallow. "None of this makes sense, Beck." She began to shake, now wondering about her friends. "Andre, Cat, Robbie…Sam indicated we needed to stay away from them, but why?"
"I don't know, Jade." She couldn't see them being involved in this, certainly not in a case from nearly twenty years ago. "Maybe it's not them? I mean, Andre's father is a senator. Robbie's Dad is the district attorney."
"Yeah, well Cat's mom is in charge of the state's education department. I don't see how that would mean anything."
"It would mean that all three of them have powerful parents?" He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips. "But yeah, I still don't see how it ties them to anything at all." There was a lot they didn't know, that much was clear.
Still, researching the case of Sasha Grayson was a difficult and bitter thing to process. Now, Jade couldn't believe she had to doubt her own friends, people she'd come to love and trust over time.
"I think we need to take some time to gather ourselves, to think about all this crap." Beck rose to his feet and wrapped his arms around her, soothing her a bit as she set her head upon his shoulder.
Moisture filled her eyes as she closed them, struggling to comprehend the amount of doubt and fear that filled her heart. "I don't want to doubt our friends, Beck."
"We don't know that there's anything wrong with them. I don't want to doubt either, I want to believe, but…" A soft, short gasp drifted from his lips and Jade looked up into his eyes. "Tori. If the speculation were true, even in the most remote sense…"
Jade felt herself grow numb at the thought, and the room seemed to grow darker around them. "Her entire world," she replied shakily. Her hands tensed on Beck's back and the air seemed to constrict around her throat. "We have to do something, Beck."
"I know, but what? What can we possibly do? If we start going in there asking questions or stirring shit up, then what, what happens if any of this speculation is true?"
The realization hit her like a tidal wave and she lowered her eyes, staring at the closed door blankly. The visual of Sasha's parents came to mind, her forehead tensed and her eyes clenched shut as she pictured herself in their place. "Then they kill us."
So Sam's intended act to try and save them by getting them to distance themselves has semi-backfired. We know more about the tragic details behind Sasha, but not much else. Perhaps the friends are innocent, perhaps not, and we don't know if the Vegas truly are criminal; but one thing Beck and Jade are clearly sure about, they'd better tread a careful line.
