A/N: Thank you for the reviews!
"Yes!" Kenny shouted as he walked into the incident room.
"Have they found her?" Aiden asked as he turned toward the shout.
Kenny shook his head. "No, but I have a full name for our suspect. His fingerprint was in the system."
"Well?"
"Steven Franklin, better know to his friends as Michael."
Aiden blinked in surprise at that. "You mean we've had the right name all along?"
"At least part of it. He's always gone by his middle name according to the people I talked to. They all said that he started acting oddly about a year ago. None of them thought too much about it because his mother had just died."
"Oh god." Aiden felt sick.
Kenny nodded. "According to the people at the hospice, he and his mother had a very odd relationship. Some of them said they felt very uncomfortable in the same room with them. He was there every day, and they remember him nearly knocking Mrs. Kingsley down. That happened the day his mother died. He'd rushed from his mother's room and didn't see Mrs. Kingsley until he was reaching out to keep her from falling."
"Do any of his friends have any idea where he might have gone?"
"They all said he talked about a house he was going to fix up and live in, but they only knew of the place he'd been living until just a few weeks ago."
Aiden's shoulders sagged. "Let me guess…the mysterious neighbor that's never home when we go to talk to them."
"Exactly."
"Good god. He was there all the time. He's been watching her for over a year." Aiden drug his fingers through his hair.
"Picking up Vera's habits." Kenny remarked as he sat down.
"What?"
"Your fingers dragging through your hair."
Aiden looked at his fingers then caught a glimpse of his hair in his monitor and shrugged while trying to get it to lay back down. "Wasn't even thinking."
"Heard anything from Shep?"
"Not for the last couple of hours. She may not have service."
"It's been forty-eight hours." Kenny whispered as he stared at the information he'd brought up on Steven Michael Franklin.
"How long has he been in this area?" Aiden asked, choosing to ignore Kenny's comment on how long it had been since Vera had been taken. He didn't want to think about it, about what the hours ticking by meant for his boss.
"From this it seems that he was gone for about ten years. The timeline seems to line up with when his father died. His friends that I talked to did say that he and his father never got along."
"And no wonder." Aiden murmured, still feeling queasy at the thoughts going round in his head about Steven and his mother.
"Look here." Kenny pointed at information on the screen. "That explains the truck."
"Bloody hell. He did work for P and C. But how do they not know they're missing a duty vehicle?"
Kenny shrugged. "No idea. We'd know it if one of ours was missing."
"Did you ever call them like Vera asked?"
"I did, but they were going to have to check their records. They said it would take a few days because of how many they had."
"But couldn't they have just gone over their service records for each vehicle and found the one that hadn't been serviced like the others?"
"That's what I suggested. Apparently that isn't how they do things."
Aiden rolled his eyes. "Vera would've loved that answer."
Kenny chuckled, "They wouldn't have loved her response."
"No, not at all." Aiden moved back to his own desk, his eyes landing on the picture of his son holding the rabbit Vera had bought for him; a stuffed animal that had become the baby's favorite. He didn't know when it had happened, but somehow Vera had wormed her way into his affections and he cared about her in a way he hadn't cared about any other person he'd worked with…any other boss he'd had.
"She can do that to you." Kenny commented as though he'd read Aiden's mind.
"What?" Aiden asked, clearly confused.
"Worm her way into your life and make you care. Brash old cow, but you can't help but care about her." Kenny shook his head. "Never did figure how she did that."
"What if we don't find her?" Aiden turned to look at the older man. "Have you ever lost a boss?"
"No, and we aren't going to lose her. I wasn't kidding when I said she could take care of herself."
"If she could take care of herself, search teams wouldn't be out looking for her."
"She can take care of herself." Kenny insisted. "She's alive. Our guy may be bigger than her, but I guarantee he's realized she isn't easy to control."
"But if he's as much of a mad man as he seems to be, her fighting him will only anger him."
"Trust me." Kenny held Aiden's gaze. "Trust her."
VS
Shep shivered as the wind blew around her, her lips were chapped, her mouth parched from lack of water to drink. She'd ran out an hour ago and hadn't wanted to backtrack and leave the search.
It had been too bloody long.
They'd found nothing. The tracks that they'd found at Vera's had led them so far, but then the tracks had circled back after Vera's mobile had been left in the road. She and Aiden had followed them, but the dirt road they'd been on only went so far before they were on pavement again and no way to track.
Whatever he'd been driving, he could have turned back around and went across the moors instead of using the road or simply switched vehicles. Whoever he was, he knew the area, that much had become evident after a few hours of searching when they turned up absolutely nothing. As the hours dragged on, and they continued to come up empty handed, it became more and more apparent that he had no intentions of anyone ever finding them.
Shep looked at her watch and realized it had been several hours since she'd checked in with the guys and pulled out her mobile. Raising an eyebrow in surprise at the bar of signal she had, she paused and dialed, hoping the signal didn't disappear before she got through.
"Hey Kenny. Any news on your end?" Shep asked. Listening to what they'd learned, it drained even more of the hope she'd been holding on to. "Nothing, Kenny. There's nothing," she answered his query about how the search was going. "What? An abandoned house he was working on. Thanks, Kenny. I'll pass it along and we'll turn our search in that direction." Shep felt hopeful once again and turned around, hurrying back toward base to let the leader of the team know what she'd just learned.
They needed to turn their search toward all the abandoned homes in the area. If Steven was as delusional as he sounded, Vera might well be…she stopped. No. The woman was not dead.
She couldn't be.
What would they do without her?
She was what kept them going, what made them the team they were.
Her yelling and shouting kept them on their toes and made them better at their jobs.
Shep had never had a boss like Vera before. She'd treat them like equals as long as they were doing their best, but one misstep, when she knew they could do better, and they wound up in the doghouse as Kenny put it.
Pausing to take a breath, she looked out at the land surrounding her. It was vast and wide open space as far as the eye could see. "Vera, where the bloody hell are you?"
VS
"They're putting another team out to search the abandoned homes." Kenny said after he'd hung up the phone from Shep's call just an hour after he'd talked to her last.
Aiden nodded then yawned. "I'm going to go home for a few hours. You should to. We won't do Vera any good if we're not rested for our turn in the search."
Kenny nodded as he closed the window he'd been working in on his computer. "I was just about to suggest the same. The night shift knows to call us if anything comes in and Shep will call one of us before she calls anyone if they find something."
"My wife keeps asking about Vera, if we've found her. She's only met the woman once, but she already cares. She even calls her my work wife. What utter rubbish." Aiden rolled his eyes.
Kenny chuckled. "Joe's wife was always sending invites for Vera to join them for a meal. She spent a lot of time frustrated with Vera, but she also cared. It's just the way it is with Vera. She frustrates the hell out of you, yelling and shouting at you, and yet you care when she's hurt or missing."
"I've heard about her being poisoned on a case a few years ago. That must have scared the hell out of DS Ashworth."
"It did. She thought of him as a son, if truth were told. He'd somehow managed to get to know her better than all of us and knew how to push all the right buttons and get by with it. He was so close to her, she asked him to spread her father's ashes."
Aiden raised an eyebrow at that. "Wow. They were close. No wonder she kept slipping and calling me DS Ashworth when she'd introduce me to people we were talking to in relation to a murder."
"Go on home. See that little man of yours before he goes down for the night so he doesn't forget who you are."
Aiden smiled as he looked at the picture of his son sitting on his desk. "Do you know that Vera gave him the rabbit he's holding in that picture? It's his favorite out of every stuffed animal he has."
"That's another thing she seems to have a surprise knack for, for someone who is an only child and has never had a child of her own." Kenny shook his head as he remembered the little boy Vera had saved several years ago.
"What?"
"She saved a little boy several years ago. His mother had been murdered and he'd witnessed part of it before the mum told him to run and hide. He was so frightened, and running in the dark, that he wound up in the water. Vera found him and pulled him out. She got him to breathe again and saved his life. He was attached to her. When it was time for him to go to a foster home, the hospital called to see if she would come talk to him because he was refusing. He was comfortable around her, more so than anyone else."
"Well, I suppose anyone would be if the person had saved their lives."
"Yes, but you know how Vera is. Does she strike you as someone children would be comfortable around?"
"Well, not exactly."
"Right. Well, they are though, that's the oddity. They always are."
"I remember. The little girl that found the body from when," Aiden stopped and sighed. That had been a horrible time. Vera had been heartbroken by the loss of Bethany.
"And that's why we care." Kenny whispered. "She cares in her own strange way."
Aiden nodded and stood up. "We have to find her. We need her."
"Yes we do. And we will. Remember. Trust her." Kenny smiled at the younger man. "Just trust her."
"Yes!" Kenny shouted as he walked into the incident room.
"Have they found her?" Aiden asked as he turned toward the shout.
Kenny shook his head. "No, but I have a full name for our suspect. His fingerprint was in the system."
"Well?"
"Steven Franklin, better know to his friends as Michael."
Aiden blinked in surprise at that. "You mean we've had the right name all along?"
"At least part of it. He's always gone by his middle name according to the people I talked to. They all said that he started acting oddly about a year ago. None of them thought too much about it because his mother had just died."
"Oh god." Aiden felt sick.
Kenny nodded. "According to the people at the hospice, he and his mother had a very odd relationship. Some of them said they felt very uncomfortable in the same room with them. He was there every day, and they remember him nearly knocking Mrs. Kingsley down. That happened the day his mother died. He'd rushed from his mother's room and didn't see Mrs. Kingsley until he was reaching out to keep her from falling."
"Do any of his friends have any idea where he might have gone?"
"They all said he talked about a house he was going to fix up and live in, but they only knew of the place he'd been living until just a few weeks ago."
Aiden's shoulders sagged. "Let me guess…the mysterious neighbor that's never home when we go to talk to them."
"Exactly."
"Good god. He was there all the time. He's been watching her for over a year." Aiden drug his fingers through his hair.
"Picking up Vera's habits." Kenny remarked as he sat down.
"What?"
"Your fingers dragging through your hair."
Aiden looked at his fingers then caught a glimpse of his hair in his monitor and shrugged while trying to get it to lay back down. "Wasn't even thinking."
"Heard anything from Shep?"
"Not for the last couple of hours. She may not have service."
"It's been forty-eight hours." Kenny whispered as he stared at the information he'd brought up on Steven Michael Franklin.
"How long has he been in this area?" Aiden asked, choosing to ignore Kenny's comment on how long it had been since Vera had been taken. He didn't want to think about it, about what the hours ticking by meant for his boss.
"From this it seems that he was gone for about ten years. The timeline seems to line up with when his father died. His friends that I talked to did say that he and his father never got along."
"And no wonder." Aiden murmured, still feeling queasy at the thoughts going round in his head about Steven and his mother.
"Look here." Kenny pointed at information on the screen. "That explains the truck."
"Bloody hell. He did work for P and C. But how do they not know they're missing a duty vehicle?"
Kenny shrugged. "No idea. We'd know it if one of ours was missing."
"Did you ever call them like Vera asked?"
"I did, but they were going to have to check their records. They said it would take a few days because of how many they had."
"But couldn't they have just gone over their service records for each vehicle and found the one that hadn't been serviced like the others?"
"That's what I suggested. Apparently that isn't how they do things."
Aiden rolled his eyes. "Vera would've loved that answer."
Kenny chuckled, "They wouldn't have loved her response."
"No, not at all." Aiden moved back to his own desk, his eyes landing on the picture of his son holding the rabbit Vera had bought for him; a stuffed animal that had become the baby's favorite. He didn't know when it had happened, but somehow Vera had wormed her way into his affections and he cared about her in a way he hadn't cared about any other person he'd worked with…any other boss he'd had.
"She can do that to you." Kenny commented as though he'd read Aiden's mind.
"What?" Aiden asked, clearly confused.
"Worm her way into your life and make you care. Brash old cow, but you can't help but care about her." Kenny shook his head. "Never did figure how she did that."
"What if we don't find her?" Aiden turned to look at the older man. "Have you ever lost a boss?"
"No, and we aren't going to lose her. I wasn't kidding when I said she could take care of herself."
"If she could take care of herself, search teams wouldn't be out looking for her."
"She can take care of herself." Kenny insisted. "She's alive. Our guy may be bigger than her, but I guarantee he's realized she isn't easy to control."
"But if he's as much of a mad man as he seems to be, her fighting him will only anger him."
"Trust me." Kenny held Aiden's gaze. "Trust her."