"There are things learnt even from the dead"

A Game of Thrones (pg 1) Royce

ii

"Sarah was an amazing student, passionate." A blonde lady explained as she sat down on a high back, winged chair in a sitting room full of old, antique furniture.

"Mrs. Phillips-"

"Please, call me Rose." The blonde lady said with a small, tearful smile.

"Rose, did Sarah ever talk about her life before she met you?" Lilly asked from her spot on the uncomfortable couch, which Scotty sat beside her on.

"All the time, mostly she told me the differences between here and where she used to live." Rose explained.

"What were the differences?" Scotty asked her.

"Well, the man used to beat the children. Most of the kids at that school went there." Colin Phillips explained as he entered the room with a mug of coffee. "That happens in a lot of the homes, the kids are hurt more than one should at that age. They lose their trust. Everyone and everything is their enemy."

Lilly and Scotty nodded, wishing that wasn't true. They kept the mask on though, the emotionless one.

"Sarah's friend, Adriana, was eleven in this picture." Lilly said as she pulled out the picture and placed it on the table. The photo had the young faces in it, their smiles forever engrained in ink.

"Yes, Adriana is a very smart and talented girl. Most don't get into the academy till they are thirteen, she got in at the age of ten." Rose said, "Sarah acted like Adriana was her younger sister, wanted to protect her from the monsters."

"Here you go girls." Rose said with a smile as she put the plate of Nachos in front of the two girls.

"Thank you Mrs. Phillips." Adriana said politely.

"Call me Rose, darling." She said with a smile at the sandy brown haired girl.

"Thanks Rose!" Sarah said without looking away from the TV where the girls were watching some show. Rose shook her head in amusement and walked out.

The show they were watching was some murder mystery show, and they were watching as the lady on it examined the bones of a victim.

"Does this happen in real life?" Adriana asked as she stared at the screen.

"No, it doesn't." Sarah lied as she looked at Adriana. The girl looked down and picked up one of the chips that were covered in cheese. She had a look on her face that no matter how hard, Sarah could not read.

"You're lying." Adriana said, "Bad things happen a lot."

"Only to people that deserve it." Sarah stated but then felt horrible for her words as Adriana's face fell.

"Do we deserve it? Everything that has happened?" the words spilt quickly from her mouth.. Sarah shook her head as the girl and pulled her in for a hug.

"No, we don't." she said and pushed some of the hair away from the young girls face, "Adri, we don't deserve this, none of us do." She said. From the kitchen doorway, Rose was watching the confrontation of the young girls.

"But you just said some people deserve it. And if it is happening to us, would that not mean that we deserve it?" the young one looked up at the older girl, one eyebrow raised over her dark eyes as her voice tried to reason with her friends words.

"I was wrong, bad things should only happen to people that have killed and hurt others. You've done none of those things girl, and so, not even for one second are you to think that you deserve what happens to all of us. You deserve much, much more."

"All Sarah wanted was to protect that girl." Rose said as she started to cry.

Lilly and Scotty nodded, "I hate to ask you this," began Scotty, "but did Sarah have any enemy's? Anyone who would want to hurt her?" Colin and Rose both shook their heads.

"Nobody that I can think of or that she told us about," Colin said as he wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulder protectively. "Please, find out what happened to Sarah. Make it so she didn't die in vain."

"This looks like a school for snobs, not smart foster kids." Nick said as he and Kat walked up the pathway leading to the private school.

"Veronica once tried to convince me to let her come here, told her she couldn't. She didn't have the qualifications, never will if I can help it." Nick knew that Kat wasn't talking about the smartness, for Veronica was a very bright girl, but for the fact that Kat would never let her go into foster care.

The two opened the doors and went inside. Everything was clean and polished, it didn't look like teenagers were the ones that went to school here, more like adults.

"You must be the detectives." They heard a voice say. Looking up, they saw a lady walking down a staircase. Her slacks were neatly pressed and her shirt tucked in with a blazer and tie. "I'm Madam Jefferson, the headmistress here."

"I'm detective Miller and this is Detective Vera, we're here to talk to you about one of your students, Sarah Leonard." Madam Jefferson nodded her head and once she reached the ground floor motioned for them to follow her.

They followed her down a hallway and passed a room which what they expected was all the students. Only one looked up, one with bleached hair that had light pink, purple, blue and green streaks through it.

Once they were out of view, Nick looked away. In the girl's dark eyes, he felt like he knew her. Something about the girl was familiar.

"Please, sit." The headmistress said as she motioned towards two chairs. The detectives sat and she sat down behind her desk.

"We wanted to ask you what Sarah was like, if she had any enemy's." Nick asked.

"Sarah did not get along with a number of the students, they fought a lot, not physically of course. Verbally though, it was a shock that our teachers managed to get them to stop arguing." She said. Kat nodded thoughtfully.

"Any in particular?" asked Nick as he looked around the office.

"Well…"

Sarah sat typing away on her laptop, a report that she was working on for English class. She was so engrossed in the work that when she stopped for one second, and took her hands away from the keyboard just to shake the soreness away from her wrists, and hand came and shut the lid of the laptop.

"Excuse me!" Sarah said as she glared up at the girl who laughed.

"Awe, the poor babies work hasn't been saved, has it?" the girl said with a taunting smile as she walked off.

"You're just jealous." Sarah called at her. The girl had gone to sit on the other side of the small library.

"Jealous of what? Your lack of saving skills?" one boy asked from beside the girl.

"The fact that I'm getting adopted and you aren't." Sarah said with a smug smile on her face. The male and females faces turned from smug amusement to anger in under two seconds. The female started to stand up but the male put his hand on her arm to stop her.

"Courtney, no." he said calmly. "she doesn't know what is going to happen." He continued.

"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked.

"Well, they'll adopt you but then realize you're not what they want. Then, they'll throw you back." He shrugged. "It's the circle of life."

"Who are they?" Kat asked.

"Courtney Richards and Phillip Brennan." Madam Jefferson said, "but you won't be able to speak to them."

"Why not, are they dead?" Nick asked. Kat and Jefferson both gave him looks, making him shrink back in his chair.

"The students here do not trust police. They will not talk to you." Madam Jefferson said, "now, unless you need anything else I need to get back to my students. I expect you can let yourself out." And with that, she walked out of the office.

I do not own Cold Case