CHAPTER TWO

Dark empty streets stretched on ahead, interrupted only by the side streets leading into shady back lanes or dead alleyways. Occasionally, a group of dodgy looking people passed on the sidewalk or a lone person hurried to their car, quickly slamming shut and locking the door behind them. At night, Los Angeles was looking a lot different than the image presented by the hotshots of the blockbuster films that they filled with sunshine, heroes and beautiful actresses.

It was their first time in Los Angeles, and they were spending it driving through the maze of the LA streets in an attempt at tracking down the home where Liz Parker had supposedly been living for the past few years. At least, that was Michael's unhinged theory.

When he'd called a meeting at three o'clock last night, claiming he had big news and it was an emergency, Max and Isabel had wasted no time in collecting Tess to drive straight down to Michael's. At the time, a small prick of hope had alighted within him, a feeling that maybe, just maybe, things could go back to how they used to be a long time ago. Back to the days when an unwanted problem would arise but which would subsequently be resolved again, the days when they were all still going to school and everyone was still happy. And alive. But when Michael had presented them with a pornographic magazine that he'd unfolded to the centrefold showing a naked blonde and declared it was Liz Parker, it had rooted Max to the ground in shock. His world had shifted and tilted right before his eyes. Then several emotions had fought for control within him. Outrage had been the first, promptly followed by hurt. And then, the hope that had filled him like a bright ray of happiness that he had thought he could never experience again was stifled by grief.

Liz Parker was dead. There was no way a picture of her, naked, could be plastered across a porn magazine.

But Michael, his usual self, had been adamant that it was Liz and even Isabel, who had been equally unbelieving, had finally voiced her doubts.

"You know," Isabel had begun, her eyes trained intensely on the image before her, "If I hadn't known Liz was…" Her gaze swung back to Max, apologetic. "She does look like her. If you leave out the hair and the… rest. It could be her."

But Max was still refusing to look at the photo. He'd seen enough when Michael had shoved it in their faces the moment they walked through the door, and in the flash it took for him to blink the image had been printed on the back of his head. Permanently. He would never forget it.

While Michael's temper sizzled, Tess, who had stayed silently at Max's side so far, stepped forward. "Look, it could just be that she has a double. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. Maybe it's just a freak coincidence and this… woman just looks like her. Maybe her father had an affair or she has a twin that no one knew about. The possibilities are endless." She laid a hand on Max's upper arm in silent support. "All we know for a fact is that Liz is dead."

But Michael wasn't listening. "I still say we investigate this," he demanded. "We won't know anything for a fact until we go pay Liz a visit."

Frowning, Isabel snatched the magazine out of his hand to take a closer look. "Pay Kyla Monroe a visit, you mean. God, where do they come up with these names?"

"Who cares?" Michael snapped, snatching it back. "It's obviously just her stage name."

"It's not her," Max snapped back.

"Whose stage name?"

Four heads turned as one at the voice. Maria was standing in the door opening, eyeing them with a look of suspicion. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on what Michael was holding. "What are you doing with that magazine, Michael?"

Michael ignored her. "The point is –"

"What is the point exactly, Michael?" Max interrupted. His body was as tense as a coiled spring and this time Tess couldn't do anything to ease it. No one could do anything about his feelings when it came to Liz.

"The point is that she might be alive and we need to find her."

"That who might be alive?" Maria moved into the kitchen area and planted herself firmly in between Max and Michael.

But no one was listening to her.

"Why?" Max demanded, locking his steel gaze with Michael's.

"Why? What kind of a stupid question is that?"

"If we give this insane, ridiculous idea of yours the benefit of the doubt and hypothetically were to assume that she is still alive and doing… that – for a living and that she hasn't contacted us in all these years, it's obviously because she has a reason to stay away."

Maria took a step back as Michael's brows drew together and he frowned in bewilderment. "Why would she want to do that?"

"Because…" Max ran a hand through his hair as he prepared to admit out loud what had been haunting his dreams and waking thoughts all this time. "Because we screwed up her life, Michael. We destroy everyone we come into contact with. Kyle got shot. Valenti lost his job. The FBI was and probably still is after us every minute of every single day. We put everyone who knows about us at risk. She saw what Pierce did to me. It only goes to think what they would do to her. If a normal life is what she wants then that's her full right. It's no more than what she deserves. And we have no right to take that away from her."

He still couldn't say her name.

"Oh yeah?" Michael retorted as he advanced and got into Max's face, gesturing at Maria. "And hurt Maria like that? I'm sorry, Max, but whatever you say, nothing justifies hurting your best friends like that."

It took Max a great effort to stay still and not let his temper run rampant like it had been demanding to do since the minute he walked through this door. "That's quite a thing to say, Michael." He said, his voice stone cold. "Especially coming from you. When was the last time you upset Maria into crying? This morning?" he added sarcastically. "Yesterday?"

Michael's eyes blazed over until he saw red. He was just considering acting on the rage in a way that wasn't particularly brotherly when Isabel wisely chose that moment to step up and between them. "Okay. Stop it, guys. We're not going to solve anything by arguing and taking pot shots at each other. We need to talk about this like rational people." She sent both a look of warning.

"Talk about what?" Maria asked, hating how her voice shook as she stared between Max and Michael. "Are you talking about Liz?"

Michael was still staring at Max with undisguised hostility. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm going to LA. You're free to come or stay. Either way I'm going."

He flung the magazine away and made to walk out the door.

"Because – because she's dead," Maria said quietly to no one in particular, all the while retreating towards the door, her gaze darting unseeingly over the room. "I don't know why you're all talking about her as if she isn't." Her face crumpled and she turned and ran out the door.

"See what you did?" Michael accused. "I'm not going to stand by and do nothing. So make up your mind, Maxwell. Either you're with me or you're against me."

"This isn't a decision you get to make, Michael. It's not something any of us get to decide. It's her life. She made her choice and we have to respect it whether we like it or not."

"Well, I for one am not going to spend my time debating the ifs and whyfores when there could be something serious going on that we don't know about. I'm going to find her. And when I do, she can tell me herself if she really doesn't want anything to do with us. But until I hear it from her lips I'm not going to speculate that she's living happily ever after without her friends in a city she never even wanted to go to in the first place."

"I said no, Michael."

Michael froze. His back towards them still, he didn't turn as he said, "Too bad I'm not asking you."

"I forbid you to go!"

Michael grabbed his car keys. "Go find someone else to play king over, Max. 'Cause I'm sure as hell not bowing."

"I'm not doing this to…"

This time Michael did face him. And the look he sent him was one Max felt right down to the core of all his doubts and regrets. Disappointment. "You know what, Maxwell? Liz deserves more from you than this. We may not know what's going on, but we owe it to her to find out. And that's exactly what I intent to do."

"What is it you expect will happen, Michael? Say that against all probable odds and by some freakish unexplainable circumstance she's still alive. You find her in LA. What do you expect will happen? You'll have a nice heart-to-heart and she'll realise she's been wrong all this time and come back to Roswell to live the old life she consciously left behind? What if she doesn't? How do you think Maria will feel then?" Ruthlessly, Max pushed down the rush of raw emotion he felt scraping at the back of his throat. "How will you stand here and tell her that Liz doesn't want to share her life with her best friend? Because that's what would really hurt her, Michael."

"You know, Max, for a guy who says he's shared love with his soul mate you're awfully ambivalent about this."

Max remained silent. What could he say? Everything he knew in his mind and heart told him he was right. That Liz was dead. That if she wasn't, she had her own reasons for wanting to stay away. Reasons she deserved to have respected. Yet Michael's words left him feeling as if he'd been dropkicked smack in the centre of his stomach.

Michael glanced at Isabel's averted gaze and crossed arms, then back at Max, once more accusing. "I see Liz on the centrefold page of a porn magazine and I'm supposed to toss it away and forget about it? What if it's a cry for help? How will you live with yourself if something were to happen to her just because you were too stubborn to move your lazy ass?"

As usual, Michael knew exactly which buttons to push to get what he wanted, Max reflected as they drove out of downtown LA and into a residential area. Max wasn't sure if he felt angered at that fact, or relieved. At least he was doing something. Something was better than nothing. It sure as hell beat sitting at home, pretending nothing had happened, and wondering where Michael was and what he'd found out. And if – when – they discovered it wasn't Liz, wouldn't he sleep better knowing that she wasn't out there somewhere, hiding from him? No. Of course not. How could anything be better off with Liz gone?

Distracted by these sentiments, Max almost missed the turn that led to the street that she was supposed to live on. He ignored Michael's look. Just as he slowed the car down and put on the signal, a police car, its bright light flashing and siren wailing, sped up from behind them and wheeled around the corner.

"I wonder what that's about," Michael said. "Maybe we're too late."

"Too late for what, Michael?" Isabel sounded more than a little unconvinced that it was anything alien related. "We're not going to find anything once the cavalry has arrived."

They could hear them now – more sirens in the distance. Instinctively, Max's heart began to pound. As they rounded the curve that led to the house, they saw a cluster of flashing lights and a congregation of vehicles in the distance. No, he thought. Oh no, it can't be her. He mentally counted the houses that stood on the street. There weren't too many. Each house held a couple of apartments. Max's car crawled up the street, hampered by the arriving emergency vehicles. He gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned numb. As he drew closer, he counted the numbers and he knew. It was her house. His heart thudding, his mouth dry, he pulled the car up, stopped it short behind a patrol car.

"Max? What are you doing?" Isabel's voice seemed far removed. "They'll see us."

"They already did," came Michael's grave tone from behind Max. "Remember, we're just passing by."

There were groups of people standing in knots on the front lawn, looking curiously up at the house. They turned to stare at their unusual car, then dismissed its importance when no one familiar was inside. The girl from the magazine, as Max had decided to call her from now on, was nowhere in sight.

A police officer emerged from one of the groups, faceless in his uniform and the darkness of the night. He wore a radio around his belt and a crackling female voice issued from it. She seemed not to be speaking English.

"May I ask what you're doing here?" he said.

The white and red lights of the police cars flashed like strobe lights. Max could hear the people talking, the sirens in the distance.

The man peered at them through the darkness. "Name or ID, please."

Prompted out of his thoughts Max quickly said, "We were just driving through when we saw the lights and police cars. Has something happened?"

The man was silent and waited for Max to hand him his ID. Studying it intently for a minute, he finally snapped it closed. He put a hand on his hip and flashed a light at Max's face, the Michael's and Isabel's, eyeing them closely. "I can't allow you in here," he said and handed Max back his driving license. "Now, unless you're family or in any other way related, I advise you to move along."

Max tucked the ID card back in the inside pocket of his coat and met the police officer's gaze. "Family of whom?"

A beat passed. "The resident. A Ms. Monroe. But something tells me you already know."

Isabel's face froze. Michael entertained a short idea of using his powers on the cop. Max flashed him a thin smile. "You're right, officer. We're not related. We'll be going now." Max pulled out from behind the patrol car and drove away from the officer still standing on the sidewalk, now talking through his radio.

Isabel breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands were shaking. She ran them through her hair. "That was too close. We have to be more careful or we're going to get ourselves caught."

"Doing what?" Michael said. "We're not doing anything that's against the law." But the hands that were gripping the back of the front seat were almost white.

The uninterested gazes of the groups of people still gathered around passed over them as they drove by. "We need to find out what happened."

"How do we do that?" Isabel glanced back at the officer who appeared to be in charge from the way he'd been giving orders to several other people. He was wearing a cop's uniform but with a medical shirt underneath, and he had white plastic gloves on. A nasty feeling settled in the back of her neck as she realised what that might mean. "Someone died inside that house." Just as the murmur left her lips, the officer, in conversation with a man whose face was the only part showing from out of the all-white forensics outfit, turned and looked straight at them. His intense gaze which Isabel couldn't seem to break contact with followed them all the way until they had rounded the corner.

"He knows something," Michael declared.

"Of course he does," Isabel snapped back, still a bit shaken up by that moment. "He's probably the one in charge."

"We need to find out what it is."

"Good luck with that." With motions that screamed frustration, Isabel pulled her hair into a quick ponytail. "It looks like they're investigating something. Things like that tend to take ages. And then there's the yellow tape to consider. And the fact that we were seen."

"What's there to consider? It's not like we've ever heeded it back in Roswell."

"That's different, Michael. We do not want to get involved with the LAPD." She stared out the window. "We might find that they actually know what they're doing."

"Still, we need a plan. Now. Or we can just hang around till we're ninety." Michael scowled as he cut a look at Max. He waved a hand in front of his face. "Earth to Maxwell," he called, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "Are we boring you?"

"No. I was just thinking." About Liz. That she might have been alive after all. That she might now be dead. That it might all have been too late. And that it was all his fault. He pulled the car to a stop between a rusty old van and a dark SUV and cut the lights. "We'll wait here and keep an eye out for any suspicious looking police cars or ambulances. We have nothing to go on. Our best chances are to stick with the people who have access to the information we need. Then it'll only be a case of getting it."

"Good plan," Michael said as he settled more comfortably in his seat and closed his eyes. "You get first watch."