I have a lot of free time this week, so posts will come more quickly.

I am made happy by the quality of the reviews, but I am made sad by the number of them... (sniff sniff)

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6. A Million Little Pieces

"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." – Benjamin Franklin

The activity in the war room had died down. In Don's absence, no one felt the need to keep up the façade of productivity; they were at a dead end and they knew it. Megan sat slouched in a chair, scanning the lines of text that flashed by on the screen of her laptop as she scrolled down through yet another person's life. David Harris' file was, from the standpoint of a law enforcement officer, as interesting to read as the dictionary – the guy had done nothing wrong in his six illustrious years as garbage man in South Central, which gave her a profile in and of itself. He seemed almost fantastical; to have no convictions in South Central was practically a miracle.

Sighing, she leaned back, peering down at her watch in dismay. The hand moved relentlessly on to ten o'clock.Ina lame imitation of Don, she ruffled her hair and shook it out; playing with her hair was definitely her tell. Don hadn't told her where he was going, let alone when he'd be back, and yet she had a feeling that even for him, three hours was pushing it.

"Hey," Charlie interrupted her thoughts as he entered. "I finished my analysis, and it yielded some pretty interesting results."

"Whatever you've got is all we've got, so let's hear it." Sitting up in her chair, she rolled out of the way to allow him access to her laptop. His fingers whizzed across the keys, conjuring up the five 'suicide' victims once more.

"Using my clearance, I ran these guys through pretty much every database I had access to," Charlie explained. "I got every single scrap of information I could find and built profiles for them. Then I ran those profiles through my program to test for similarities. The ones it turned out were pretty vague; all of them were between 30 and 40, all of them have clean records… it was almost as if their lives had been made not to match."

Megan's brow wrinkled quizzically. "What are you saying, Charlie?"

Like an Italian, he was talking with his hands today. "Someone made sure that looking at any one of these people would not lead you to any of the others. It's like that serial homicide case on the freeways. These lives are just… too random."

A sigh escaped her. Even then, she'd had trouble believing the concept of something being too random.

"So I pulled some strings and got these names checked out again," continued Charlie. "And I found the connection."

He hit a key, and beneath each file materialized a second record, complete with a second name, a second picture, a second life. Mia Chang transformed into the serious-looking Mei Ling; David Harris, the disgruntled garbage man, was supplanted by Lee Masterson, a bachelor with a winning smile. The only file without a match was Billy Cooper's.

"All of these names are aliases, given to them for security when they retired." He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. "Every one of these people worked in fugitive recovery. But they served a long time ago – ten or fifteen years, for most of them. When they left, they used aliases to start new lives. Cooper didn't get one because he never left fugitive recovery."

"Why would fugitive recovery agents get aliases?" Megan puzzled.

"That I don't know," Charlie admitted. "It's not standard practice?"

"No. Not unless they were chasing down a jumper with serious connections, and I don't think that's what this is about." Assuming control of the laptop, Megan started checking the files one by one. The group dynamic seemed off-balance, as if someone were missing, but this wasn't what interested her most. Stretching, she pointed to an identical field in each file. "These guys all served on the same team, under this guy named… Jason Anderson."

"A grudge," Charlie postulated. "And now they're all dead."

"No," Megan contradicted. "A team works in pairs, partners. But there are only five victims – an uneven number."

"Well, not including…" Charlie trailed off, his eyes growing wide as he realized the implication.

"Don," finished Megan.

The silence lasted only a moment before Megan rose, peeling out of the war room with little ceremony.

"David, Colby, we've got a problem."

Both of them swiveled in their chairs, grateful to have a distraction from desk work but not at all reassured by the tone of her voice.

"We need to find Don," she said. "Soon."

"Why?" questioned Colby. "What's going on?"

"He may be the next target we were looking for," Charlie replied, fooling with his hair in a distracted manner. He ushered them both into the room for a lesson, while Megan sat against her desk, pulling out her cell phone. Much to her surprise, it began to ring even before she had time to speed dial one. Relief seeped into her veins as the caller was identified as Don E. She answered in a great rush, words paired with a relaxing sigh.

"Don. You've got to get back here; we need to talk."

There was a pause, giving her heart a moment to sink before the strange voice answered.

"This is Commander Linden. I'm from SWAT. And you are?"

"Agent Megan Reeves, FBI," she recited, drawing worried looks from her returning comrades.

"Agent Reeves, we responded to a backup call at a house in Santa Monica made by one Agent Eppes."

"Well, can I speak to him, please?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid we were unable to locate Agent Eppes on the premises. I think you'd better come down here."

"All right. I'll need the address." Sitting at her desk, she rustled up a pen and some paper. The idealist inside her prayed they weren't too late, while the realist in her knew they were already. If she had learned one thing about Don, it was that if he didn't have his cell phone with him, something had gone very, very wrong.