As Amy and Evan packed up their things just a few hours later, ready to head home after a good half a day being very obviously excluded from any sort of investigation into Ned's death, Amy's mobile phone buzzed loudly in her jacket pocket, waking her up out of her gloom suddenly.
She stared at the screen, looking at the unfamiliar number. "Fox," she answered, bringing the phone up to her ear, as she continued to pile things into her briefcase with her free hand.
"Is this Amy?" a timid, yet at the same time so familiar, voice asked at the other end. It made Amy stop.
"Yes…" she replied, suspicious. "Who's this?"
"It's Laura," came the reply and Amy snapped her fingers at Evan beside her to get his attention. Amy sat down in her chair, her undivided attention now with Laura Grimaldi and her only.
"How did you get this number?" Amy asked, hugely curious.
"Ned gave it to me," she whispered, before going on. "I know what's happened Amy," she confessed, sounding scared. "I know about this morning…about Ned."
"How much do you know?" Amy asked.
"I know that it wasn't Dylan," she began to cry.
"How can you be sure?"
"It wasn't him all right?!" she began to lose her cool. "If it was him, he would be here protecting me from all this shit, but he's not, and a contract has been taken out on my fucking life!" She sounded delirious and desperate, sobbing into the phone, whilst her tone of voice remained tinged with anger. Amy got the feeling this was one part of life on the street that she'd never experienced.
Amy took a deep breath in. "So where is he?" she asked, almost afraid of what the answer might be.
"I don't know!" she screeched it so loudly Amy had to hold the phone away from her ear for a second. "But he's taken off with Barron's stash and now Barron's pissed that he can't find Dylan so he's coming after me!"
Evan stared intently at her, able to hear only snatches of Laura's screeching from where he sat beside Amy. Amy in turn stared back at him with panic in her eyes. They darted over her desk, searching for her keys as she stood up again. She was nodding into the phone hurriedly and Jonesy darted out of her way as she pushed past him toward the door.
"We'll meet you, just stay there," she pleaded, before hanging up the phone and turning to him.
"He's taken a contract out on her," she revealed still disbelieving it had got this far.
"What?" Evan asked, sounding even more disbelieving.
Amy shook her head, overwhelmed with all the new information she had suddenly come into. "Dylan's disappeared with the heroin that he had bought on credit from Barron. And because Dylan isn't around to look out for Laura like he usually does, Barron is going after Laura to make Dylan come back with his heroin."
"So where is she?" Evan asked as they ran out the door and towards the lifts.
"She's-" Amy stopped short when she saw Barron in the doorway to Bronte's office. She lowered her voice as they continued running towards the only person who could help them prove Ned had been shot by Barron. "She's in a motel on St Kilda Road."
Evan punched the buttons in the lift hard as they got their breaths back. Moments later they ran again out of the lift, into the carpark and into Evan's truck. As Evan revved the engine and pulled them out of the carpark and onto the main road tears finally began to well in Amy's eyes as she realised Ned was gone.
Evan watched her cry quietly out of the corner of his eye as he drove. What a difference Alex could make if he was here to console her, he thought to himself.
Amy and Evan sat in Laura's grubby motel room, preferring to stand than sit on the dirty furniture. There were surprisingly little of Laura's possessions around, and Amy guessed she would stay one night and then flit off again, especially given the new current situation.
"When did you talk to Ned?" Amy asked, her arms folded across her chest, Evan at her side.
"Who are you?" Laura asked, ignoring Amy's question and staring directly at Evan. She scratched repeatedly at her arm as she spoke, a habit Amy knew had come from her constant injecting.
Amy answered the question for her, not wanting to waste any time with chitchat. "This is my colleague, Evan. You can trust him. He was in the car with us yesterday…remember?"
Laura nodded her head absentmindedly before turning back to Amy and answering her question at last. "He was at the Latin Quarter last night…we talked." She seemed uneasy in revealing this, and soon regretted it.
Amy blew her fringe out of her face, exasperated. "What were you doing there?!" Amy did everything she could to keep from yelling. Who knew who was waiting around the next corner. Or in the hallway for that matter. She still wanted to get in there and out of there before Barron came sniffing. She threw her hands up in the air and stared Laura down angrily. "You know that's where Barron drinks!" she couldn't believe Laura's naïve stupidity.
Laura's eyeline dropped and she stared at the floor. "I know I know!" she replied, stubbing her bare foot into the carpet. "But it was the only place I could find Ned."
"And why did you want to speak to him?"
"I thought he would know what to do, to get me out of this shit," Laura replied, suddenly sounding like a little girl. No matter how hard she had become on the streets of Melbourne, no matter how many guys she had bedded, let hit her around and become immune to, she was still frightened underneath it all.
"Why?" Evan asked, butting in suddenly.
"Because Dylan has pissed off and left me here!" she cried, shoving stuff in a handbag as she spoke, her attention now not completely with them.
"So why is Barron after you?" Amy asked, trying to figure it all out in her head as quickly as she could.
"Because I'm all that's left! I'm the only one he has left to get rid of!" she exclaimed, flurrying around the tiny room, gathering her few meagre possessions. "He's popped Ned, he can't find Dylan, and he's pissed at me cos I don't know where Dylan is either, and he wants me to keep quiet about everything I know."
"And?" Evan was trying harder than Amy was to understand the whole drama.
"And he knows that I won't, because I will do nothing for Barron, but…"
"…everything for Dylan right?" Amy rolled her eyes at Laura's commitment. It seemed to be the only stable thing in the girls life.
Laura nodded weakly, suddenly looking eager to get out of the confined space of the motel room.
"But what else do you know?" Amy asked, grabbing Laura by the wrist before she went into the bathroom.
The question finally made Laura stop. "Look I know you don't think very much of me." She looked Amy in the eye when she said that. "But I knew what I was getting into when I started this life. I was never destined for anything else. But I'm not as stupid as you think. I've kept notes. I know people." She walked into the en suite and emerged again just seconds later, waving a small striped diary under their noses. She raised her eyebrows at them, knowing she now had their undivided attention. "Names, dates, amounts, when, where, why…" she explained. "It's all here."
"All?" Amy asked, a little shocked at such a piece of crucial evidence so within her reach.
"This baby could bring down the entire Victoria Police." She sat down on the bed, crossed her legs and looked at them.
Amy and Evan just didn't know what to say. They didn't even know if they were ready for this. Training never included stuff like this. You were on your own. Amy looked at Jonesy and then turned to Laura. She stated the obvious. "Well you've got to lay low, you know that right?" she asked her.
"Of course I bloody know that," she rolled her eyes at Amy. "You won't hear from me until I contact you."
"Where are you going to go?" Evan asked, knowing he didn't sound like the reliable cop he was supposed to be.
"I'm just gonna stay out of sight," she proclaimed before walking out of the room.