A/N: Thank you for the reviews!

Twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four bloody hours.

That's how long she'd been missing.

Was she still alive?

They'd found her mobile in the rode, blood on the buttons.

Was it hers?

Or had she managed to hurt her kidnapper before he'd tossed her mobile?

All of these questions were being thrown about the incident room as Vera's crew sat staring at the board, her face staring back at them as a victim. Her picture's presence was more startling to them than the photo of the woman that looked like their boss had been.

"Where is she?" Aiden whispered as he stared at the board.

"I don't know. The second search team started out an hour ago."

"We should be out there." Aiden frowned.

"No." Shep shook her head. "We have to stay here. We have a name now, at least a first name, and you said you heard him say that Mrs. Kingsley had run into him at the hospice. There's only one close by the Kingsley home."

Kenny nodded. "I'll go check it out. I can ask around and see if they remember a Steven. Maybe he worked there."

"Or maybe he has a family member or friend there." Shep added.

"But Steven is a common name. There might be dozens of them that have come through there." Aiden pointed out.

"I know, but it's all we've got, and I have to do something since they won't let us go out to search again until our team is needed."

"And dear god, I hope we aren't." Shep breathed.

VS

"I'm sorry, Billy." Hu apologized for at least the sixth time since he'd heard that Vera was missing. "She was so sure she could take care of herself."

"Because she usually can. She can do more with her words than anyone waving a gun about can do."

"But this man wasn't waving a gun about."

"That we know of. He might have pulled one on her to make her go with him. Shep said they could hear Vera arguing with the man just before things became too garbled for them to understand." Billy wiped at his eyes as he stared out his office window. "Where are you?" he whispered.

Hu watched his friend, worried what it would do to him if they didn't find Vera alive. He didn't think Billy was in love with her, but the history they had between them made their friendship run deep. "What was she like when she was younger?"

Billy shook his head and chuckled, "She was always showing the men in her academy classes up and they treated her nastily for it. Until Peter came along, that is. The man was just about as quick a thinker as Vera, and a lot of times could beat her at her own game. They were always competing, but he was also flirting with her, bringing out the woman in her that had gotten lost in her efforts to prove to her father that she wasn't worthless like he'd always told her she was. If she'd been a son, or if she'd have been at all interested in learning and carrying on his weird fascination with birds, he might have treated her differently. Peter, well…with Peter she blossomed and damn, was she a fine looking woman. She'd get off her shift, go home and change into a short skirt, put a bit of makeup on and tousle her hair and stroll into the pub, turning heads as she went, her eyes only on Peter. Before she knew what was happening, she'd fallen in love with him and he was proposing to her."

"Why were they never able to solve his murder?"

Billy looked down into his now cold cup of tea. "Vera doesn't know."

"But you do."

"Yes." Billy whispered.

"She doesn't know that you know. It wasn't protecting her that got him killed, was it?"

"Yes, that was the reason he was killed. It's just that the person that murdered him was never found because," Billy paused then turned at looked at Hu. "She can't know this. You have to promise me that this part is under patient confidentiality."

"Billy? What are you trying to say?"

"Agree first."

"Fine. Now tell me. Who was after Vera? Who was Peter protecting her from?"

"Another copper. Vera had stumbled upon something that was leading her straight to a trail of corruption going on in the CID. Peter heard bits and pieces of whispered conversations and put two and two together. The day he was killed, they were waiting to kill Vera. She'd agreed to meet a contact in that alley, not knowing she was being setup. Peter managed to make it so she was running late and showed up instead."

"But why can't she know? Surely if she knew, as good as she is, she could find the person and put them where they belong."

"You don't understand. The copper was just a cog in the mechanism. The corruption went much higher. With Peter's death…" Billy paused and looked out the window, wondering if he should go further with the truth.

"Billy, I've already given my word this will go no further than us. What is it?"

"A friend of ours that committed suicide a few years ago made a deal with these people after they learned Vera hadn't been killed. He knew who the copper was, Peter had confided in him, so he told the man to tell his bosses that he would make sure Peter's case went cold and that Vera wouldn't go nosing about. The deal was, they left her alone. What they didn't know was that Stewart already knew that Vera was planning to put in for a transfer so his offer of her not nosing around wasn't really much of anything. They kept to their end of the deal, though, and Vera has been kept in the dark ever since."

"She never suspected she'd been set up when she found Peter in the alley?"

"Oh, yes, she did. She just never suspected some of her own as the culprits."

"And who besides you knows the truth? How do you know the truth?"

"Stewart told me so that I would know not to stir things up with Vera. When he died, that left me and two others that know the truth."

"Was it another copper that killed Peter?"

"No. They have people that do that sort of thing."

"What do you mean, have? You mean they're still out there?"

"Yes, but it's never been here. She's always been safe here."

"Until now." Hu whispered, wishing once again that he hadn't been running behind. If only he'd been on time, he'd have been there to protect her. "She knew he would come after her," he whispered.

Billy nodded. "Yes, I think she did."

"She didn't want anyone to be hurt protecting her. That's why she kept telling her crew she could take care of herself."

"Yes. She's a stubborn woman, very set in her ways. But she's never faced something like this before and…"

"Don't think like that. Trust what you know about her."

"I do trust her instincts and will to survive. It's what I know about the man that has her that scares me."