Thank you for the reviews guys! I felt like the last chapter was a little off so that's been making the writing slow... but I think I'm pretty happy with the way this chapter came out.
Disclaimer: Moonlight and characters don't belong to me; I'm simply a fan having fun with the characters.
Beth glared at the sheets of paper in front of her; for lack of any better leads, she had compiled a list of missing persons spanning across a period of the last three weeks and after hours of searching up the names, she had, of course, found nothing of interest. Beth sighed. What now? She toyed with the idea of driving up to the Williamson bank to take another look around but desperate as she was for a distraction, she decided she wasn't that foolhardy.
No sooner had she decided that she wouldn't drive up to the Williamson bank when her mind began to drift… again. Josh's proposal occupied her thoughts but no matter how many different ways she tried to look at it, she couldn't consider the matter without considering Mick—especially after what had happened this morning. The more Mick tried to pull away from her, the more Beth wanted to break his defenses and get close to him. But that didn't necessarily mean she was ready to throw away what she had with Josh, did it? She still loved Josh after all; she wouldn't have stayed with him for a year if she didn't. But at the same time… when she thought of Mick, she thought of gestures like insisting it was no big deal to brave the intense morning sun to buy breakfast for her and refusing her blood, freely offered, even when he was dying of heat and dehydration. They were little things but they showed that he cared, despite his efforts to keep her at an arm's length.
When she thought of Josh, she thought of jealousy and rainchecks for time together. She remembered times when things had been different between, times when she might have said "yes" right away had he proposed. Guiltily, Beth noted that they had all been times beforeshe met Mick. They had been good together… maybe Josh was right about being able to work through their problems. She knew better than to expect relationships to be easy; perhaps she had been unfair with Josh. Much as she tried to deny it, he did have reason to be jealous—a part of her did want more than friendship with Mick. But no matter how many openings she gave him, no matter how many hints she dropped, Beth knew Mick would never allow himself to let their relationship blossom beyond friendship. Wouldn't it be better to try and make things work with someone who wasn't afraid to reciprocate her feelings? Or was it worth risking everything she had built with Josh for a chance with Mick, even knowing that they might never be anything more than friends?
Beth drummed her fingers on her desk nervously, not sure if she was ready to find the answer to that question. No matter what she decided about how she felt, she knew her answer would change everything. If she decided the risk was worth it, she would lose Josh but if she decided to stay with Josh, she would lose Mick. Oh they would still talk and work on cases together; of that she was sure. But things would be different between them—they might continue to have rare moments of intimacy but there would always be a painful distance between them and their easy friendship would become awkward because of things unsaid and could-have-beens that were just that and nothing more. This was the kind of change that Beth had never liked—losing people was hard, even if you knew it was time.
Beth snapped herself out of her daze, deciding that she had had enough of this train of thought. She needed a distraction. Her eyes swept the papers in front of her looking for something, anything, that would give her something to do. Her gaze fell on an address. The address of Charlotte Thompson's real estate firm. Beth perked up immediately. She had heard Anna's side of the story considering Shane, but not Charlotte's. She was certain that Charlotte would know things that Anna didn't—the mistress always did.