Hola!

I have to admit, I'm probably the most proud of this chapter out of all the ones I've written to far (Including the chapters in If Tomorrow Came). I'm not exactly 100% sure why. I think it's the dialogue. Maybe. Or maybe I just enjoy writing arguing scenes... Not that anyone argues. Why would anyone argue?...

Warning: Nice F-word in there, there's a fair amount of language in this chapter. Hence T rating.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! You are awesome.

Disclaimer: Do not own Rookie Blue.

"Whoa, whoa. Hey, wait a minute." I gripped Sam's arm tightly, nails nearly digging into his skin. "What do you mean we just opened 4 cold cases? Sam, what?"

Sam's eyes bore into mine so eerily that it caused me to freeze in place. He wrenched his arm out of my hand. My arm dropped to my side as he continued to stare at me in silence. His expression was impossible to convey. He jerked his head, telling me to follow, and he heatedly marched off. I rushed after him while debating whether to ask him again what was going on. I figured it was best to keep my mouth shut.

Until we started approaching Luke's office.

"Sam, what? What are we doing here?" The fact Sam Swarek was willingly entering Luke Callaghan's office, especially with me in tow, was enough in itself to cause a certain degree of fear. Sam didn't respond to me. He barely even had the courtesy to knock before he swung the door open to reveal a semi-shocked Luke. An instant unease and tense awkwardness thickly filled the air. My eyes darted from Sam to Luke then back to Sam. They stared levelly at each other.

"Swarek."

"Callaghan."

I took a small step backwards wishing I could bolt from the room. I bit my lip while watching them both as they continued their stare down. And I had absolutely no idea who was winning.

"Mind if I ask what made you charge into my office completely unannounced?" Luke asked. He kept his voice precise, completely professional, never letting a single ounce of true emotion taint it.

Sam grinned, and I prepared myself for a witty comeback that was bound to make this situation worse. "Can't friends just visit?" The only thing that could stop a serious Sam streak was a sarcastic Sam moment - this was one of them. I groaned in growing misery.

Luke raised an irked eyebrow at Sam. Luke stood from his chair and strolled over to Sam and me after dropping the folder in his hands on his desk. He crossed his arms and sighed irritatedly. "Look Swarek, I'm busy at the moment. I've got a lot of work to do, so unless you have something to talk to me about a case, then-"

"I do."

Luke watched Sam carefully in search for the inklings of a lie. I bit down on my lip harder, waiting for one of them to break the silence. "What is it?" Luke finally inquired and shot a look at me. I stepped back again while waving my arms around like a confused imbecile, which is what I basically was at the moment.

'Maybe it's not too late to run...?' The urge to hide was instantly relieved when Sam said, "T.L."

"What?" Luke took a threatening step towards both Sam and me. I noted the flash of pure rage in Luke's eyes that dissipated as fast as it came. I had never seen Luke so angry. 'Hell, I've never seen Luke with such pure emotion of any kind.' "Don't speak of him." Luke eyes fluttered towards me once again.

"The case we're opening," Sam clarified. "The kid the in the park. The woman who tried to make a break for it. Dating a man who threatened to kill her. His name is Tanner Lloyd. T.L.," Sam said in a tone that sounded as if it was supposed to trigger some kind of flashbulb memory. "Remember him-"

Luke took another step forward. This time he shoved his face in Sam's. "Of course I remember that bastard."

This was very bad blood, and I stood there, watching in horror. The, what I thought was, quiet clearing of my throat cut the silence like a knife. Both Luke's and Sam's attention snapped to me. It was very displeasing, and I recoiled, subtly staggering backwards. "I-...Sorry...," I trailed off.

"Don't talk about him. Not here."

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. '"Not here"... what is that supposed to mean?' My suspicions were confirmed when Luke's eyes drifted to me for a third time then back to Sam. And I was sure that very movement was something Sam noticed as well.

"'Not here?' Why not? I think that here would be a superb place to talk abou-"

"Don't you dare, Swarek," Luke snapped, pointing a finger at Sam. With my lips slammed together, I stared up at the ceiling almost as if I didn't want to witness what was occurring before my very eyes. Sam pushed Luke's hand out of the way and inched closer to Luke with an equal amount of anger. 'Oh dear god...'

"He's involved."

"I don't care."

My patience, now having stretched as far as possible, snapped like a rubber band and I blurted, "What the hell is going on? What's wrong with you two?"

Their eyes settled on me, having half forgotten my existence.

"Andy, I think you should step ou-" Luke started.

"No," Sam said firmly. I stared at the two of them again as they glared at each other with something very similar to hatred.

"No? Swarek, this isn't something she needs to know about."

Sam let out a sour laugh. "Considering she's the one who interrogated the woman and got her talking - yes, I think this is something she needs to know about. Without her we shouldn't even have the girl's damn name!"

"She's right here," I muttered. When they both turned to look at me again, I internally scolded myself. 'I need to have better restraint!'

"I don't care," Luke said.

Sam laughed bitterly again. "Of course you don't. Look, Callaghan. She's already involved. And if you think that something's going to happen to her or something-"

"That is not what I'm worried about."

I still had no idea what the hell was going on, and it was really, really starting to piss me off. "Okay! Enough! This is stupid! What the fuck is going on?"

Luke opened his mouth to speak but Sam caught him off. "The woman in interrogation says her boyfriend, Tanner Lloyd, AKA TL, has a scrapbook. Probably a photo memoir. I thought I should let you know, so you should pull up all the past cases. This may be the break we've been waiting for, but don't get your hopes up," Sam said. It took me a moment to realize he was talking to Luke which left me remaining in my state of confusion.

Luke scoffed. "We?"

Sam gave Luke an icy glare, one that I swore could kill, then whirled around towards me. "Let's go, McNally." Sam began to head out the door as I stood there, baffled. I frowned at Luke. I wondered if I should stay put where I was for a short lived moment and then I wisely followed after Sam. I caught up with him after a slight struggle.

We walked side by side back towards the interrogation rooms in silence until I grabbed my arm to stop him. "Sam, please. What the hell is going on? Please."

Sam signaled me to follow him. Obediently and bothered, I did so. He opened the door to the observation room then said, "Oliver, take Epstein and pull up everything you can on Tanner Lloyd. He's in our system. Check if there's been any new charges recently." Oliver nodded and exited the room with Dov behind him. Once they left, Sam closed the door only to lean against it.

"Sam-"

"There have been 4 cases of ours. A bunch of women got brutally murdered. The scenes were always analyzed meticulously, but we never found any evidence. We always had a few suspects with a few motives, but it was all circumstantial and not nearly enough to make an arrest. Only once did we actually get it to court, but we didn't get very far in court. Every time, a man named Tanner Lloyd was a suspect. For all four murders, he was related somehow. Everyone could tell he was related - we just had no proof of how. He was committing the perfect murders."

I let what Sam had just said sink in gradually. Though I was still fairly confused by the narrowly escaped bloodshed in Luke's office.

"One of the murders hit close to home, and that's all I'm really going to say. Now..." Sam walked up to me and put his hands around my upperarms. While staring me directly into the eye he said, "I need you to find out what's in that scrapbook. If it is what I think it is, it could be the biggest piece of evidence against him."

With hesitance, I shrugged. "Can't you do it?" I asked in a small voice. I didn't want to be the stupid rookie who blew the biggest shot at getting a serial killer.

"You were the one who said she has a fear of men. I need you to do this, McNally. I know you can do it. Do you think you can do it?"

No.

"Yes, maybe." My eyes darted around. Sam's right hand moved from my arm to my shoulder. His eyes locked with mine, and then I knew my final answer. "Yes."

"Amy, I need you to tell me what was in that scrapbook."

Amy shook her head causing her dirty blonde curls to bounce in the air for the millionth time. She laced her fingers together on the table and eyed them down endlessly. I rustled in my seat to get comfortable. 'This is going to take forever if it hasn't already.' I leaned forward and continued. "You said that there were photos of women. Amy, were those women... dead?"

Tears instantly poured from Amy's eyes. I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my hand over my face tiredly. This day was proving to be very long, stressful, difficult and just short of absolutely terrible.

"Amy, I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me this. If he did something, we can get him for it, and you'll be safe. So I need you to do this for me. Can you remember anything of what you saw?"

The seeds of anxiety were starting to grow in Amy as I watched her rub her hands together, then on her jeans, then run through her hair. I twitched from simply observing the whole thing. She was muttering to herself, debating.

Her gaze snapped from the table to me, and with the remnants of tears in her eyes she said, "Only if you promise me something." Not wanting to agree just yet, I continued watching her.

"Don't let anything happen to Abby, please. Please! I'm begging of you! If anything happened to her I- I- I could never live with myself. I left her there for a reason. It was for the best, I swear."

I remembered Noelle telling me to stop making promises, but as I stared into Amy's eyes I could help but nod in agreement.

"Okay," she squeaked. "There were a whole bunch of photos of different women. And they were all so... You know how you can just tell someone's dead by the horrible positions of their body? They were in such unnatural positions and there was so much blood and-" Amy started crying again.

"And you found this scrapbook in Tanner's house?"

Amy wiped her tears with the back of her hand while nodding. "In his apartment. And he said I was next! He's a murderer!"

"No. We're not going to let that happen, okay? You're going to be just fine. We're just going to start with what you've given us. You're going to be safe."

The interrogation door opened to reveal Oliver who peeked into the room. "McNally? Luke's office - Swarek wants you." 'I wish...' I suppressed the thoughts that surrounded my training officers, at least in that way. I waited for Oliver to say something more, not saying anything. "I can take it from here," he said hesitantly, almost as if it was a question. He was probably confused by my reaction - or lack thereof.

"Amy, this is my friend Oliver Shaw. I promise you, he is not going to hurt you in any way, okay? Tell him exactly what you told me. He's going to tell you what's going on and where you'll be going okay?"

I stood up and walked up to Oliver. "If she loses it you can call me," I whispered to him.

We passed each other and went our separate ways. My mind instantly filled with numerous scenarios as I started making my way towards Luke's office. I wondered what Sam wanted me there for. Part of me didn't even want to go there. Luke's office with Sam Swarek was something I never wanted to experience. Twice in one day was taking it much too far.

Eventually I found myself staring down the hallway. It was like the closed door was silently taunting me. I bounced anxiously then took a deep breath. 'Just go in there, McNally. Come on.'

With a new surge of willpower going through me, I advanced towards the door with determination. When only a few steps were between the door and myself, it flew open, and Sam came charging out, passing me. I half peeked into the room, but I couldn't see Luke. I made a snap decision and followed after Sam quickly before Luke had a chance to actually spot me.

I found Sam standing in the of the squad room, hands clenching the sides of his head with utter frustration and rage.

"Sam," I called. He didn't respond, so I cautiously stepped closer. "What happened?" As the words slipped past my lips, I suddenly because aware of exactly how dangerous the water I was treading truly was. Sam hated Luke. Luke wouldn't act upon it or upfront say it, but he hated Sam. I was stuck in the middle. To top it off, a huge case that we were all part of was surrounding us.

Sam suddenly turned towards me and said through clenched teeth, "You need to tell your detective boyfriend to get over his personal issues."

"He's not my boyfriend." 'Pathetic.' Though technically speaking, nothing was official yet. Then again, did it really matter at the moment?

Sam smiled his spiteful smile. "Okay then. Colleague with benefits."

My face fell slightly, and I decided to take a different approach to the chaos that was slowly but surely breaking loose. "What happened?" My voice was sharper than I wanted it to be.

The sarcasm on his face faded and he turned serious. He stepped closer, putting his face closer to mine, so close that it made me almost squirm. "I'm leaving that up to your boyfriend to tell you. It's not my place."

"Damn it, Sam." There was a heavy amount of disappointment in my voice.

He reached out and started steering me by the shoulders towards one of the computers. With his right hand, he pulled out the chair then sat me down in it. After forcing the chair closer to the desk with ease, he bent down and placed his face by my left shoulder. "Right up your report. You can talk to Luke about it later."

"Or you could just tell me." I turned to him with an accusing expression causing him to grin like a child.

"Nope. I'm good."

He contentedly walked off leaving me alone at the computer. The rest of the day, my mind spun with scenarios and questions and theories. 'Personal issues. What could that mean? What's so personal? And better yet, why hasn't Luke said anything to me about it yet?' I, with no surprise, found myself coming to him about this issue. I hovered at the open door into his office. His face was buried in an open case file. His room itself looked like it was built from papers and photos of crimes. But now, it wasn't just that the numbers of files were high, papers were scattered everywhere along with photos. It was like in the heat of a tantrum, he grabbed as many files as he could and threw them all over. It was very unlike Luke. It worried me.

"Hey," I said as I gentle tapped on the door. When he didn't look up, I repeated myself. "Hey."

He raised his head with a glare in his eye. He looked me up and down then said, "You're going to the Black Penny?"

"Yeah, with Traci. She's just finishing up, and I wanted to check on you," I said with a nod. Silence. He looked down at the file again while I continued fiddling with my hands. "Well, I really wanted to ask you what's going on." I could help but notice how nervous I sounded. Still, he continued reading the file.

"Luke! What is going on? First you and Sam nearly kill each other over some random name then Sam tells me you need to control your personal problems-"

Luke stood from his desk and slammed his hands against the top in one fluid movement. "You don't listen to a word Swarek says!"

My jaw dropped open. "What?" I half yelled.

"Sammy's just being the bastard that he is!"

"Luke!"

"Are you defending him?"

Admittedly, I could feel myself getting defensive, but with right. At least... I thought so. I had never seen Luke out of control, so I had no idea what to expect. "He's my training officer. He's my partner. Obviously-"

"Is that all he is, Andy? Just your training officer?"

My arms, which had been flailing around slightly in the heat of our argument, dropped to my side. I sighed with exhaustion. It was not the first time Luke had questioned my relationship with Sam. He was definitely not the first person to question my relationship with Sam. At the moment though, my relationship with Sam was not what I cared about. It wasn't what he should care about.

"What is wrong with you?" I asked sadly.

He sat back down and watched me. "What do you want me to say, Andy?"

"You could try the truth."

He shook his head with a bitter laugh. "You want me to tell you that I hate your training officer with a passion. That every time he looks at you, I want to beat him to-"

"Not about that. Not about Sam, Luke. This isn't about Sam. None of this is about Sam. Why don't you get that? You're going insane right now and I can't handle it. I have to stand here and watch you self-destruct and destroy yourself, and I can't do anything about it. You won't let me. Why won't you talk to me?"

"Because this doesn't involve you."

"Yeah, you tried that before. It didn't work. TL. Who is he? Who is he to you?"

He ran his hands over his face tiredly. "Andy...please."

In a sudden wave of frustration, I marched up to his desk and grabbed one of his files. As my eyes quickly scanned over the papers, one name struck a bell.

"Andy!" He jumped up and ripped the papers out of my hands. "Get out!"

"Luke!"

"Just get out!" he yelled as he pointed towards the door with one hand on his hip.

"Fine." I stalked out of the room and went to the women's locker room to find Traci. There was too much anger boiling in my blood to cry. So for the rest of the night, I faked contentment and suppressed my anger. I entered the Black Penny with Traci. We instantly spotted Dov and Chris sitting together at a table and joined them. Within minutes, we were all drinking and listening to Dov tell his daring adventure of the day.

"It's like you never realize how important this job is until you're saving a child's life," Dov said sincerely.

"Yeah. Says the man who carried a child to the ambulance," Traci threw in accusingly. Chris and I laughed at her remark.

"I also rode to the hospital with her. And I showed her into her room."

Chris turned to me and said, "Yeah, Andy. I heard about what you did today, and it's amazing." I smiled at him but found my eyes drifting towards the bar. I forced my gaze to return to Chris again and said thank you.

"I have to agree with him though, McNally. I must say that diving into a river was pretty kamikaze." Dov raised his glass in the air followed by Traci and Chris.

"It must have been a long day. Did you interrogate the woman brought in? This may be one of the biggest things at 15 in a while. Opening 4 cold cases. Why does all the interesting stuff happen to you?" Dov complained.

I glanced back over to the bar again. Sam was having a small chatter with Jerry but mainly he appeared to be focusing on his drink. "Yeah, it's been a long day. I'm just-, I'm gonna be right back." I stood up from my chair, drink in hand, and walked over to the bar. I slowly approached the empty bar stool beside Sam and sat down. He never took his eyes from his drink.

"Sir."

He looked up at me then grinned. "McNally." I smiled back at him and asked the bartender for another drink. "It's been a long day for you, huh?" Sam asked. My first response was nothing but a shrug.

"I'm a little tired out. It hasn't exactly been the easiest day for you either. I reckon a near blitzkrieg between yourself and detective will drain you a bit?"

Sam laughed a little and shrugged. "I wasn't trying anything against him," he defended himself.

I laughed closer to him and stared him in the eye. "Can't friends just visit? Sam?" I sat properly in my stool against and raised my glass. "Does nearly wanting to kill the other person constitute being friends?" I took a swig of my drink then looked at him expectantly.

Sam shrugged slightly and said, "I find that there are different levels of friendship. I can't help it that Luke is at a very low level on my friendship-o-meter. Though I suppose he's fairly high on yours..." He trailed off at the end and left the bitter tone in his voice hanging. I frowned and looked down at my drink. 'At this moment, I beg to differ.' The question was nagging me, but I pushed it aside for the moment. I raised the glass to my lips again and downed the rest of my drink, slamming the now empty cup down.

"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter anyways. Luke's pissed at me." I scoffed then added, "I suppose I should just be flattered he even gave me room for any kind of emotion."

Concern filled Sam's eyes. "Why? What happened?" I stared forward, lost in my thoughts. My face had set into a look of contemplation. "McNally?"

"Sam, who's Zoe?"

Yeah, I just went there. The mystical happenings of Zoe Martinelli. I secretly hoped the show would tell me, but because it hasn't I made it up. And well, I was reading something theories and they all seem so plausible. I'm sticking to simplistics though. You'll find out more next time! I promise that you'll enjoy next chapter. Heheh! But you have to review in order to get it. Muahaha. Actually, I need to write it first... Same/difference.

If there's any mistakes, please point them out (unless its minor like commas or something). I only half edited it multiple times. I just kinda wanted to get it out now.. Yeah.

Thanks for reading!

RxR
MichaellaLoe