Gray clouds moved across the sky as Ray drove two mounties and two wolf-dogs toward the police precinct he called home. He'd already called the first judge on his list and only waited on the warrant to arrive from the judge's office. None of the three had much to say as they rode though late afternoon traffic. Their minds were long gone in three different directions. Benton ignored the speedy way Ray drove, his mind wherever his son had the misfortune of being held. He wondered if the boy had eaten, if he was warm enough and when he'd see him again. Fraser had thought of little else since the afternoon before at the ice rink. Thinking of Ben brought back old thoughts of Victoria. He wondered if she were doing well in prison, and if she were wondering about Ben, and about him.
Benton didn't realize at first that the car had quit moving, his thoughts still bouncing around. Ray had to smack the mountie on the shoulder before he'd move.
"Geez Louise, Fraser, spaced out there?" The lieutenant grinned playfully as he opened his car door.
"Oh, sorry, Ray." The mountie gave a halfhearted smile and looked away.
Inside the bull pen Detective Midkiff waited with the warrant in hand. The southern detective's eyes immediately went to Maggie. She was quite a figure in her Wranglers the white t-shirt with the red, maple leaf of Canada emblazoned on it. Her light blonde hair bounced happily in a low ponytail. Ray moved in protectively, glaring at his junior detective.
"The warrant came through just fine, Lieutenant Kowalski." Det. Midkiff handed him the paperwork and shot a wink toward Maggie before turning around to talk to another detective.
"Det. Midkiff, take this warrant, serve Devane at his house, his office, whatever." He turned back to the two Canadians with a broad smile. "Alright, on the road again." Before Benton even had time to remove his Stetson he had to put it back on. Ray took Maggie by the elbow and guided her back through the hallway toward the tech lab, Fraser and the dogs in tow.
*Tech geniuses are perceived as nerds with glasses a caffeine addiction and comic book hero crushes. Drew was no exception to the stereotype. Action figures of the Green Lantern and Thor sat on top of the LCD display in front of the lackluster looking tech man.
"Drew, the voodoo priest of all things digital, what can you do with GPS units and alarm systems?" Ray grinned, confident that the twenty-something, white guy seated in an office chair in front of three computer screens would produce results.
"Whatever you need, Lieutenant Kowalski." Drew pushed his glasses up and toyed with the clear spacer he wore to keep his lip ring hole open. Ray watched him play with the spacer, his stomach turning at the sight of it. He didn't know why, but people adjusting earrings and piercings made him squeamish, always had.
"I need you to find this guy's Ford Explorer, Drew, ASAP, er sooner." The lieutenant plunked down the information in front of him then turned to find something distracting to look at.
"Give me a few minutes, Sir, and I should be able to give you an exact location." Drew began typing on an open application, delving deep into the alarm company's database. Two minutes into the search he took a drink of something Ray was positive had way too much caffeine in it. The young man began typing fast, faster than Fraser, who typed ninety words a minute. Ray began watching the tech guy to see if he blinked. If Drew did, the lieutenant missed it.
"This is going to take longer than I thought, Sir, if you'll call in an hour or so I should be able to get the information." Drew whirled around in the office chair abruptly, nearly knocking his boss backward.
"What seems to be the trouble?" Fraser asked, his brows knit in concern. He had to get to Ben, and soon; the dead line was a little over thirty-six hours away.
"The alarm company's system is currently offline in order to update, I'm having to go through their back logs to find the vehicle. They have a seriously sluggish system right now and I have to retrieve the files manually, if only red taper were licorice..." That's as far as Drew got with his explanation before Ray waved him off. Technical stuff made the lieutenant's eyes glaze over.
"I'm sure it will all be in your report, the more we talk the longer it takes you to find the Explorer." Ray hitched one thumb toward the door, hating to but having to leave.
"What can we do in the mean time?" Maggie asked, her concern growing by the minute. She felt they were close and detested a delay for any reason.
"We should re-examine all the evidence, the surveillance footage, testimony, everything." Fraser recommended.
"Yeah, sounds good, I'll call the Alaskan authorities, see what they've gotten out of Stonesbury." Ray rubbed his chin for a moment, deep in thought.
"I'll get all of us something to eat, it's going to be a long evening." Maggie offered, mostly to get out of the stale air of the bull pen. Dief and Aurora tagging along, she made her way out of the precinct building and down the sidewalk toward a nearby deli. People milled around in the cloudy afternoon. An ever present breeze drifted through the crowd, rustled up by all the passing cars. Looking all around, Maggie saw untold tons of steel, glass and concrete. She didn't know how Fraser did it, stay in the city day after day. She longed to be home, where there were dozens of different kinds of birds within earshot, as well as dirt and trees to be seen in every direction. The view was limitless in the Yukon. Chicago felt like living in a fishbowl, albeit a very large one. With a sigh she pushed open the door to the deli, making sure that the dogs waited outside on the sidewalk. The lady mountie wondered if Ben had eaten anything and wished with all her heart he were back, safe and sound. Waiting in line she thought about seeing the boy, his green eyes and the way his nut brown hair ruffled into duck tails, reminded Maggie of Benton so much. The little characteristics he showed without even knowing were as conclusive as any DNA test ever could be, Ben was a Fraser.
"What can I get for you?" A teenage girl asked, her hair in a high pony tail over an eager smile.
"Yes, three, foot long turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, fully dressed with bacon please." Maggie fished in her hip pocket for her credit card as she moved on through the line along the small deli counter. Even seeing Ray's face light up when she walked into his office didn't dispel all of the sadness she felt.
"Hey there, mountie girl, what'd you get us?" The lieutenant winked mischievously at her as he sat with one ear plastered to the phone, on hold.
"Ray!" She mouthed, cocking her head towards Fraser who sat with his nose in the case file. Ray just grinned bigger as he took the foot long sandwich and bottled water she handed him.
"Fraser, here you go." The lady mountie nudged her half brother's foot with the toe of her hiking boot. He jumped, startled.
"Oh, Maggie, I didn't realize you were back." He pasted a polite smile on his face but couldn't hide the sorrow in his crystalline green eyes from her.
"Turkey on wheat, fully dressed, with bacon." She smiled too, reassuring, and took a seat with the boys. Ray unwrapped his sandwich and began to eat when he heard someone speak on the other end of the phone line. He had a mouth full of bread when he tried to answer.
"Hello, yes, I'm here, Mr. Horton." The eager lieutenant leaned forward, laying down his dinner and picking up an ink pen. "So, Henry Stonesbury lawyer-ed up and won't talk, eh?" Ray began rubbing the bridge of his nose, frustrated, annoyed, and more than a little pissed. "Alright, well thanks for getting back to me, have a good evening." With a noise that was somewhere between a defeated sigh and an angry growl, Ray hung up the phone.
"No luck in Alaska?" Maggie asked, frowning. Ray just shook his head.
"There's something missing from this case, something important, there has to be a trail of some kind between the Devane brothers, Mark Gordon and Henry Stonesbury." Fraser answered, his eyes still searching the case file.
"Ray, has Mark Gordon posted bail yet?" The lady mountie suddenly interjected.
"No, why?" The boss answered, confused. He'd been around Maggie and Fraser long enough to know that they were usually two steps ahead of him and thinking too fast to stop and explain things. It was better just to roll with them.
"His phone, he does everything on it, calling, texting, e-mailing, everything." She put aside her dinner and stood up.
"If it is a consulate phone we won't be able to get into it, even if we did, anything we learned would be inadmissible in court." Ray thought aloud.
"We should find Ben now and worry about the details later." Maggie glared at him.
"She's quite right, Ray, sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission." Fraser never thought he'd hear himself saying that, but that had been before he'd had a son to consider.
"You stay here, Ray." Maggie smiled and shot him a wink telling him everything would be alright.
Mounties, with dogs following, strolled down to booking to talk with the sergeant in charge of personal property. Sgt. Patrick McAvoy had been with the CPD for the last thirty years and knew his business backwards and forwards. His storage room, surrounded by woven cages, was as organized as any library. Cubbyholes lined three walls of the narrow space. A single, fluorescent light hung over the desk where he had both a typewriter and a computer.
"Hello, Constable Fraser, Constable McKenzie, how are you today?" The older man's thick, white eye brows and considerable girth made him look more like Santa than a policeman.
"We're fine, Officer McAvoy, I was wondering if I could see Mark Gordon's belongings, please." Fraser asked, looking the man in the eye steadily.
"He's the one what's mixed up with your boy's kidnapping, isn't he." The officer's voice sounded from somewhere deep within his body.
"Yes." Fraser answered truthfully. He hesitated to elaborate, lying wasn't one of his strengths.
"Just a minute and I'll have 'em out for you." With a nod the officer turned to the storage room behind him. Maggie and Benton exchanged furtive glances, both of them hoping he didn't ask a lot of questions.
"Will you be needing to sign it out, Constable Fraser." McAvoy laid the plastic bag on the counter between his storage room and the hallway.
"No, I just need to get a number out of it, thank you kindly, Officer McAvoy." Benton touched the screen of the device as it lay in the corner of the bag, along with Gordon's wallet and keys. Immediately the cell phone lit up, it's battery still half charged. He had to study the lay out of the pint sized phone, fumbling with the icons.
"Here, let me, Benton." Maggie navigated easily to the recent calls menu. Benton looked at her puzzled, he learned something new every day about her. She smiled up at him with an innocent expression.
"Ray and I keep in touch over the internet, it's cheaper than long distance." She explained with a shrug.
"Ah, seems you have the advantage here, Maggie." The mountie shook his head and sighed. Sometimes he felt like he'd been born in the wrong century. Times had moved so quickly. The world felt a little stranger everyday.
"I don't like it any better than you do, Benton, but we must remain adaptable." She gave him an answer that sounded just like one he'd have given her had the situation been reversed.
"Ah, here we are," Fraser saw a number he didn't recognize, one with a 907 area code. "Officer McAvoy, may I have a pen and paper please?" Quickly, the mountie jotted the number down as Maggie continued scrolling through the long list. McAvoy watched the pair intently. It wasn't like Fraser not to be forthcoming.
"Thank you kindly, Sgt. McAvoy." Maggie exited out of the menu and handed the plastic bag with the neatly typed label on it back.
"No problem, Constable Mac Kenzie, anytime." The old sergeant watched the pair walk away, Aurora in the lead, Diefenbaker bringing up the rear.
Scene Break
Author's Note: I must apologize for the use of such lofty vocabulary in this chapter as I've been watching Pride and Prejudice, the BBC miniseries. Benton Fraser does rather remind me of darling Mr. Darcy. =)