A/N: Thank you for seeming to enjoy this ride as much as I am. Every time I get a review, a reblog, a rec, or a message from one of you lovely people, it makes my sad little life.

Warning: contains plot.

Previously, on Harsh Realms...

He was being oddly intense about this, and Emma wasn't sure she liked it. "Killian, what the hell did we come out here for?"

"You're sure?" he repeated.

"Yes!" she shouted back, the force of her answer practically reverberating in the space between them.

"Well," he said at last, letting out a long sigh. "I guess he isn't our guy."

"Wait a minute," said Emma, holding up a hand, mind scrambling to keep up. "You thought that that guy took Ava Zimmer? What the hell? Why would he?"

"Why indeed, Swan," he said, catching her eye. "He's Ava and Nicholas Zimmer's biological father."

10. Breadcrumbs - Part Two

He didn't get to just drop a bomb like that and go back to fiddling with the radio tuner.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?!" Emma said, batting his hand away from the controls. One look at her face, and Killian blew out a breath, reaching out a finger to indicate right, and pulled over into the nearest rest stop, leaving the engine idling.

He shrugged, as if he hadn't just blown the whole Ava Zimmer case wide open. "Twelve years ago, Dory Zimmer and Michael Tillman embarked on a tempestuous, whirlwind romance. He thought it was love. She thought it was a good way to blow off steam when her husband wasn't around. I'm sure you can guess the rest. He got a broken heart. She got twins raised on an investment banker's salary, rather than that of a mechanic's."

Okay, so things were beginning to click. The reason behind all the cloak-and-dagger shenanigans. The pre-dawn phone call from Tink. Dory Zimmer's anxiety on not being seen leaving Jones Investigations. The driving halfway across the state without a single word of explanation. Killian's altogether shitty mood.

"That's what Tink called you about this morning." It wasn't a question, not really.

"Aye. Dory Zimmer confided in her, confident that the strictures of attorney-client privilege would save her what the truth would cost her."

"Her marriage?" Emma guessed.

Killian snorted unkindly. "Her alimony, more like. If her husband ever finds out that his kids aren't really his kids? Let's just say, it might fuck with that Ladies Who Lunch lifestyle she is so fond of. That's why the police haven't been informed as to Ava's true parentage. And yes, that's why Tink called me, and not some other PI she found on the first page of a Google search." A pointed look there. "She knew I could be counted on to keep my trap shut. Something that I should remind you now also applies to you, since I've brought you into my confidence, mostly against my will."

Emma ignored the dig, acknowledging her understanding of her newfound responsibilities with the wave of her hand. Contrary to what Graham thought, she could keep a secret. She'd once been threatened with contempt of court for failing to produce a source, and she hadn't flinched. And this was Massachusetts. There weren't shield laws in place to protect her from jail. She'd just lucked out with the judge. So if Dory Zimmer wanted to keep the paternity of her kids under wraps, Emma wouldn't be the one to spill the beans. But in light of this new information, it did present a question in her mind, as to how much of Killian's insistence on leaving her out of things was his bumbling attempt at protecting her, and how much was that he simply didn't trust her.

Not that she'd blame him, exactly. His last assistant had screwed him over rather royally. He could stand to be more cautious. And Emma... could have handled the Graham situation better. Or at all. Instead of doing what was easiest and ignoring it, leaving it to fester like an open wound. Not her finest moment. But she had hoped... It didn't matter. Killian knew her well enough to know she'd get involved anyway, palming off his dog on his ex-girlfriend, with whom he was still on surprisingly good terms, and brought her out into the middle of nowhere, knowing he'd have to fess up eventually. She was still in the loop, and that wasn't nothing.

She brought her thoughts back to Dory Zimmer. She tried to see it from her point of view. This was a woman who had a lot to lose. A nice house. A picture perfect suburban family. No independent wealth of her own. She possessed a secret which had the power to rip her family, and the life that she had built, to shreds. Emma got that. She understood the urge to protect what's yours. But hadn't Dory Zimmer's perfect life already been torn apart? Ava had already been missing for three days, and as everyone who'd ever watched a network cop show knew, the first 72 hours in any missing persons case were crucial. And yet, she'd kept a potentially important lead from the police? All for what?

"I'm assuming since she came around this morning, Tink convinced her not to sit on that information...?" Emma began.

"Adulterous gold digger though she is, she does want her daughter home safe. Just not at the expense of her reputation, of course," he said, not quite managing to keep his sarcasm in check. Nice people, his clients.

If he was hoping to hide his disdain for Mrs Zimmer, and his contempt for her behavior, he was doing a less than stellar job of it. If anything, he was being judgy as hell. Not an altogether attractive quality in a PI, but Emma thought she knew why he was acting like this, and it had less to do with his overall disapproval of the WASP set, and more to do with a certain someone who'd recently ripped his heart out to join their ranks.

But again, Emma was letting herself get distracted. Milah didn't matter. Even Dory Zimmer didn't matter. What mattered was Ava, and where the hell she'd gone.

"We have to turn around," Emma said at once.

"Come again?" Whatever Killian had been expecting to come out of her mouth, it clearly wasn't that.

"You're not seriously basing Michael Tillman's innocence on my ten minute conversation with him, are you? I know you think my superpower really works, but we're talking about a girl's life here! I mean-"

"Emma," he said, unclipping his seatbelt to reach forward and place his hands on her shoulders, before she could descend into a full-blown freak out. "Emma," he repeated, his words careful and considered. "I will check up on him. I'll even get a local source to scout around his house and keep an eye on him, in case he makes any suspicious deviations in his routine. But I ask you again, truthfully now, did he for even a second, strike you as a man who knew he was father? Let alone someone who would take it into their head to kidnap an eleven year old from his former-lover's home in the middle of the night?"

His blue eyes were fixed on hers, willing her to come to the obvious conclusion.

She thought of Michael Tillman, and the way he'd responded to her question about having kids. There hadn't been any panic in his eyes. None of that wariness you'd expect from a man with a secret daughter stashed away somewhere. There had just been that hint of longing in his eyes, that flare of regret from a road not taken. He hadn't set off her superpower, not even a little. He hadn't been lying. He really didn't know he was a Dad.

"No," she replied, finally, resisting the urge to shrug out of his grip, feeling uncomfortable under his direct gaze. "He didn't."

"Then that's enough for me," he said with a small half-smile, releasing her shoulders with a final squeeze. "We'll concentrate our efforts on other possibilities, until the girl is found."

"You and I both know that's not guaranteed," she said tersely, exchanging a look with him before he busied himself securing his seatbelt again, and putting the car back into gear. "And besides, aren't we done now? It was just the Tillman angle the police didn't know about, right? The task force can surely handle the rest."

"Well..." he said, slinging a casual arm over her seat as he reversed back to where the entrance to the interstate began. "That depends entirely on you, Swan. I, for one, don't have much else on my plate this week. How about you?"

The Zimmer mansion, and it was definitely a mansion, lay in Chestnut Hill, not far from Boston College. It was an obnoxiously large Colonial Revival home, set on an egregiously spacious parcel of land, practically indistinguishable from the other behemoths which fell on either side. This was the land of Red Sox owners, and Governors, and, it was rumored, Tom Brady. Or investment bankers who came from money, like one Greg Zimmer.

It was certainly a pretty big leg up from Tillman's autoshop outside of Springfield, that was for sure.

The house was set back from the road, mostly obscured by a line of strategically placed shrubberies for maximum privacy. For some reason, the word opulent sprang to mind, as Emma watched the house disappear into the rear-view on their first scan of the neighborhood. It wasn't like they could just go up and ring the front doorbell, and ask for a tour. Dory Zimmer would have a conniption, what with Killian knowing what he did. And who knew how the Newton Police would react, with a strange PI sidling up to their investigation?

It was more to get the lay of the land. A feel for the scene of the crime.

According to the police reports, Ava Zimmer was last seen in her bedroom at approximately 9pm on the night of November 29th, when her mother tucked her in. Her disappearance was not discovered until 7am the next morning, when the nanny came to wake her in time for school. According to reports, nothing had been obviously missing save for Ava herself, her bed sheets still wrinkled from sleep. It was like she'd simply vanished in the middle of the night. After two hours, and a thorough search of the grounds by both Mrs Zimmer and the nanny, the police were notified. By 10am, there was an AMBER Alert out for her, her school photograph circulated across the state, appealing to the public for information. A tip line had been set up. The task force followed.

Emma had gone to school with someone who joined the Staties on graduation, and was busy working her way up to detective. It was towards her that Emma directed her next call, once she'd charged her phone at the nearest Starbucks.

"Seriously, Emma? There's a little girl missing and you want a scoop right now?" Ashley Boyd wasn't the same timid girl Emma remembered from Criminology 101, who'd been reluctant to speak up in class, in fear of getting laughed it. A fact that didn't escape Emma's attention when she waylaid her outside a coffee shop near the Middlesex County DA's office. It was in her bearing. In the 15 pounds of lean muscle she seemed to have acquired since her academy days. In the no-nonsense ponytail and the .45 strapped to her hip. Ashley Boyd, Trooper First Class, was an entirely different animal.

"You still like vanilla lattes, right?" Emma asked, dangling the to-go cup in front of her face.

The instant spark in her eyes betraying her, Ashley snatched it from her grasp, and Emma bit her lip to hide her victorious smile. Like everyone else who'd been called in to assist with the Zimmer case, she was probably running mostly on fumes at this point. "Five minutes," she grumbled, surfacing from her first glorious sip. "You're lucky my partner's stopped home for a shower and a change of clothes."

They sat in the front of her patrol car, parked nearby, with the heater cranked, the occasional crackle of the police scanner their only interruption.

"I'm not here on a story," Emma began, and Ashley snorted.

"This delicious cup of joe says otherwise," she pointed out, taking another long sip.

"I am working the Zimmer case. But not as a journalist. I'm working for a PI right now. He's lending a hand."

"Lending a hand?" She turned around to fix Emma with an incredulous look. "Do you know how much money they are sinking into this task force? All the over-time anyone could ask for. Trust me, Emma, they don't need a hand. They need enthusiastic amateurs to step back and let them do their jobs."

Emma sighed into her own cup of coffee. "You're seriously telling me that your guys are any closer to finding Ava Zimmer than they were three days ago? Really?"

Ashley fixed her with a sharp look. "You know I can't talk about how the investigation is going."

Meaning no. They weren't. Otherwise Ashley would have leapt at the chance to defend the task force and all their work.

"So, who's the guy?" Ashley asked suddenly.

"Guy?"

Ashley gestured to a figure sitting at a bus stop a little ways down the block. "Tall, dark and handsome over there, doing a really bad job of fake texting." Emma's gaze followed Ashleigh's motion, eyes squinting as she made out the form, wishing she'd remembered to put in her contacts that morning.

It was Killian, freezing his ass off in his impractical leather jacket, and even though he had his phone in his hand, it was damn obvious he was looking their way. Emma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Made by a cop. Even if Ashley was an aspiring detective, it was embarrassing.

"That's... Killian," Emma admitted, reluctantly. "He's kind of my boss."

"And he thinks, what? I'm going to attack you in broad daylight, in my police uniform, in my police car?" Emma just shrugged. It was true that she didn't always come off so well in her dealings with most law enforcement. Her little run-in with Graham was testament to that. But why Killian was keeping an eye out when he could have been back in the car, with the foot heater on, was not something she was prepared to look into. "Well, you can tell him from me his technique needs work. He looks far too cold, and far too pretty to pull off incognito."

Emma couldn't help but smile at the thought of relaying that particular message."I'll tell him."

"You're sure that guy is going to be any help here?" Ashley asked doubtfully, as she rolled her window down to wave at their voyeur. Emma watched in fascination as Killian realized he'd been made, cursing to himself. But to her surprise, he didn't stalk back to the car in defeat. Instead he just pulled his jacket tighter around himself, and put his phone away, the pretense now pointless.

"He's..." Emma struggled to find the right words. "He's good people."

Ashley turned back from the window, to fix Emma with a thoughtful look. "Coming from you, that's damn near a compliment. Just your boss?" She rose one suggestive eyebrow. "I mean, I know I have Sean, and he's great and everything, but I could certainly see the appeal..." she trailed off, face forming into a smirk.

"He's a friend," Emma rolled her eyes at the insinuation. "And, more importantly, did I mention, my boss?" She raised her own eyebrows significantly, until Ashley lost some of her enthusiasm over the idea. Emma didn't think it was a good time to mention the cohabitation. She didn't think Ashley would ever drop it once she learned about his Eggs Benedict. "But he's a decent investigator, and thanks to some sources of his own, he's familiar with the case. All we need is a jumping off point. Any lead that doesn't have an armful of officers already on the case?"

Ashley tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You know, if you're trying to get me to expose weaknesses in the case, you'll have to do better than that."

"Do I really have to say it again? I'm not a reporter anymore!"

"And I'm just going to take your word on that?" Emma couldn't deny, that hurt a little. This was a woman with whom Emma had shared her lecture notes with for two years, after all. She'd gone to her wedding, for chrissakes. She'd given her a set of very nice spoons off the gift registry. Did they mean nothing?

"Wait here," Emma said stonily, opening her car door, inviting in a gust of biting cold wind. "I'll be right back."

In moments, she was back in front of Ashley Boyd's car window, dragging a reluctant Killian behind her by the sleeve.

She waited for Ashley to roll down her window again. "Ashley, meet Killian Jones, PI. Killian, meet Ashley Boyd, Trooper First Class." She waved a hand in the air between them, before turning to Killian. "Ashley here is not convinced I am here for the reasons I say I am. Would you care to be my character witness?"

And to his credit, without missing a beat he pulled his wallet out of his inner jacket pocket, and pulled out his PI license, issued by none other than the Massachusetts State Police. "According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I am am indeed a licensed Private Investigator. And, as you have no doubt gathered, also an associate of Ms. Swan." He looked down to see if Emma was satisfied with his response, and she gave him a thumbs up. He just chuckled, stuffing his wallet back into his jacket.

"We don't want to derail the police investigation," Emma implored through the lowered window. "Just give us something to do. Worst case scenario, we find a missing kid."

Ashley looked from her watch, back to Emma's most pitiful face. Back to her watch. "Fine," she relented, "I'll have a word with my Captain. If he agrees, and only if he agrees, we can have you on canvassing or something." She raised a warning finger, before Emma could get in a word edge-wise. "No promises."

The Captain wasn't crazy about bringing in private detectives, but he admitted that there was precedent. When a child goes missing, it's all hands on deck, and it's not like it was a murder investigation yet, where there's a clear chain of custody of evidence to screw up. Besides, the mansion in Chestnut Hill had already been gone over with a fine-toothed comb anyway. So, not opposed to saving on overtime, he agreed. But instead of sending them out to canvass the neighborhood, and otherwise bother the Zimmer's squillionaire neighbors, they got stuck with babysitting duty. Or more accurately, told to keep a close eye on Nicholas Zimmer, and his ever-present nanny.

Which was how they found themselves in an upscale suburban mall, trailing a respectful distance behind an eleven year old boy and his paid minder in the middle of the Apple Store. Emma supposed it could have been worse, as she watched Killian fend off the advances of an overly helpful staff member. It could have been Sephora.

"So how sure are they the nanny didn't do it?" Killian whispered, once he'd disentangled himself and returned to her side, reaching out to take the newest generation tablet from her grasp.

Unlike seemingly the rest of their contemporaries, the Zimmers hadn't hired a 20-something, recent Central American émigré to mind their kids. Oh no. The nanny they hired was more of the old-school variety. Way old school. Dr Estella Lucas was 73, according to her DMV records, with a PhD and a couple of books on child psychology under her belt. Emma had scanned through some of her articles on the car ride over. She knew her shit. She was also the first person the police had considered, and ruled out, as a suspect.

"Pretty sure," Emma replied, coming to lean on the edge of the crisp white display desk. "She has her own guest house on the property. Exterior cameras show her leaving the house at about 11 that night, and nothing again until 6 the next morning. She just didn't have time."

"That doesn't necessarily mean she's innocent. She's familiar with the layout of the place, the camera positions. If she wanted, she could get in. Ava presumably trusts her. Probably one of the few people who could convince her to leave the house without alerting anyone."

"True," Emma acknowledged, leaning over his shoulder to see what he was doing with the iPad. Checking his emails, apparently. "But there's only one way in or out of that guest house, and it's on the video. The windows are painted shut. Investigators checked, and they haven't been opened in years. And then there is means and motive to consider. Neither of which she has. By all accounts, she and the Zimmers are on good terms." Hell, they were trusting her to keep looking after their only other kid, even when the other was in the wind.

"I take it the brother was interviewed?" Killian asked absently, flipping the iPad around to show Emma his latest email, and the picture attached.

You owe me.

That was cashmere, you jerk.

The picture was of Smee, mugging for the camera in that insipidly adorable way he had, the scattered remains of what had probably once been a rather pricey throw rug strewn all around him in greenish tufts. Emma's eyes flicked back to Killian, who was struggling to hide his grin. A class warrior already, and not even a year old. He couldn't have been a prouder Dad.

A proud Dad. And Emma's smile fell as she had a sudden brain wave.

"Swan?" She felt the hand brace her shoulder, blue eyes before her swimming with concern.

"Remind me, just how attractive are you to the pensioner set, again?" she asked.

It wouldn't be easy. And Ashley and her Captain would have a cow. But Emma had to speak to Nicholas Zimmer.

There were a lot of late night TV specials on the mystical links that existed between twins. Physic connections. Even telepathy. Emma didn't believe in any of that crap. But if Ava Zimmer had left her home under her own steam, and she had to admit, the startling lack of evidence of any intruder did seem to point that way, who else better to confide in than the very person with whom you shared a womb?

Nicholas had been interviewed by detectives the day of his sister's disappearance. It had been necessarily brief, with Greg Zimmer present for the whole thing, and it had mostly consisted of crying, and shaking his head at the questions. No, he didn't know where his sister was. No, he hadn't seen or heard anyone during the night. Emma had read the report, and it was clear the officer who'd taken the statement was uncomfortable with all the crying, and had wrapped things up early. Emma wouldn't be so easily swayed. And Emma had a superpower up her sleeve. She just needed to speak to Nicholas Zimmer. And to do that, she needed Estella Lucas at least a little bit distracted.

Enter, The Honey Trap.

Or rather, Killian doing his best impression of a little lost sheep. Or, would he be Bo Beep in this instance?

In any case, she watched as a frantic looking Killian engaged his target, asking the woman if she'd seen his little boy anywhere, pulling at those heartstrings. Ms. Lucas fixed a stern eye on her young charge, ordering him to stay in her line of sight, before she set off with Killian for a nearby security guard, where Killian proceeded to spin his tall tale.

It wasn't exactly on the up-and-up. But it did give Emma a small window of opportunity, and that's all she needed.

"Hey, kid," she said, sidling up to where he was standing by a row of shiny iMacs, each one costing more than Emma's car.

He reacted instantly, flinching away, his eyes darting immediately to his nanny, who was still listening to Killian's increasingly heart-wrenching tale of woe with glistening eyes. Seriously, he was like catnip for the over 60s.

"It's okay," Emma soothed, her voice low, realizing there wasn't much about a strange woman walking up to you in the Apple Store that was particularly okay. "I'm one of the people helping to find your sister."

"You're a cop?" the boy sneered doubtfully. "Where's your badge?" Smart kid.

"I'm not a cop. But I work with the cops. You like the Avengers, kid?"

He snorted, as if to imply, of course, but didn't take his eyes off his nanny.

"What if I told you I had a superpower?" Emma said, taking a careful step forward.

"What, you can fly?" he asked, humoring her with the kind of sarcasm only capable of a very world-weary 11 year old.

"I can tell when people are lying." She didn't miss the way his spine went rigid for a moment. Nor the momentarily flush to his cheeks. "I've always been able to," Emma continued. "My brother hates it. I can always tell if he's borrowed my car without asking, or if he was the one who broke my favorite mug. He can't keep anything from me."

Nicholas was breathing heavier now, and Emma could see his eyes grow shiner with unshed tears.

"Can your sister keep things from you?"

she asked softly. "Or do you know why she ran away?"

The boy wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, turning his face away from her so she couldn't see the tears track down his cheeks. "She didn't run away," his voice was small, younger than it had been a minute before. And yet, defiant. "She's coming back."

"Coming back after what?" Emma prompted. And that's when Nicholas realized that he'd given too much away, his face filling with dread.

"You're not in trouble," Emma soothed quickly, casting a nervous glance back to the nanny, who seemed to be winding things up over by the security guard. "No one is going to yell at you. Coming back after what?"

"When she finds him." Emma felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She suspected, but...

"Finds who, Nicholas?"

But he didn't speak then, screwing his eyes shut, shaking his head from side to side. Any second now, and he'd start causing a scene. So Emma took a punt. It was not the most professional move she'd even made. She had the potential to scar a young kid for life. But... desperate times and all that.

"Your Dad, you mean? Your real one?"

To her relief, the boy stilled almost instantly, eyes widening almost comically.

"You know about him?" he asked, drying his eyes with his sleeves.

"I met him. He's nice." Emma forced a smile. "He doesn't know about you yet. How do you know about him?" she asked, gentle as could be.

The bottom lip was trembling, but to her relief, he didn't clam up again. "We did..." A rogue sniffle. "We did blood typing at school. In science. And I'm AB, but my Dad is O. Which means he's not really my Dad." Emma offered a wan smile. This kid really shouldn't be dealing with this shit at his age. Or any age, really.

Behind the boy's shoulder, she saw his minder heading back in their direction, Killian shooting anxious glances her way from his place by the security guard. It was now or never.

Placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, she asked the million dollar question. "Do you know where Ava went, Nicholas?"

Ava Zimmer was discovered that night by the Newton PD, less than a mile away from her home, in the long abandoned Scout Hall the neighborhood kids liked to use as the occasional club house. She was a little undernourished, and cold, spending those nights out on her own with just an old coat to keep warm, but the doctors who admitted her overnight for observation agreed she would be just fine.

Her investigation into her father's identity had hit a snag on her first day out, seeing as she didn't have much to go on. An old picture she'd found hidden in her mother's things, taken at nearby Boston College. But when the registrar couldn't, or wouldn't identify the man, she was at a dead end. So, ultimately, being the headstrong kid that she was, she decided she would stay away as long as possible, hoping that a little desperation might smoke the truth out of her mother. Emma had to hand it to her. The kid had pluck. Maybe too much pluck.

It wasn't necessarily going to be a happily ever after for the Zimmer clan. There was still that whole "Who's Your Daddy?" angle still to be resolved. And who knew how Greg Zimmer would handle that one? But a missing kid was back in her bed, and all things considered, it was a win.

"It's feels good, doesn't it, love?" Killian interrupted Emma's musings, handing her a beer from the refrigerator. It had been a long day. The longest. And the cool liquid felt amazing sliding down her throat.

"Huh?" Emma asked, remembering suddenly he'd asked her a question.

"Being one of the good guys," he explained, tapping her bottle briefly with his. "It feels good, doesn't it?" She took in his unguarded smile. His genuine pride at what she'd... they'd done. And Emma felt something inside her crack, and she did something she never did, catching him off guard by wrapping her free arm under his armpit and pulling him into a hug. And after a few seconds of shock, he relaxed into it, and hugged her back.

"Yeah," she answered, face buried in the crook of his neck, giving herself a moment to enjoy it. The spice of his cologne. The warmth of his arms around her. In that moment she felt safe. Appreciated. Not entirely alone in the world. And she wasn't trading that feeling for anything. "It kinda does."