Jared slumped down in his seat on the bench, scowling as he watched his father shake hands with first the Mayor, and then the Captain of the SFPD. Or, rather, former Captain. His dad was the Captain, now. He swung his legs back and forth, the tips of his shoes just barely touching the ground.

He hated being the son of a cop. His dad never had time to play with him anymore. The only time he ever spent with Jared was when he was teaching him how to be a good cop. Jared missed the days when he dad would take him to the park and play baseball with him and then carry him home on his shoulders. They never got to do that anymore.

Which meant that he was more often than not stuck with the chore of babysitting his little sister. Kailynn was alright, he guessed. She was just too little. His mom told him that he couldn't play rough with her, because she was only four and he was nine. And that meant he had to play dolls with her a lot of the time.

He glowered darkly as he watched his father wrap an arm around his mother's waist and pull her in close for a kiss. It just wasn't fair.

"That was Mrs. Alexander," Malia said as she took her seat next to Jared once more. "She said she dropped off a photo of Marvin and his hunting friends by the lab. Lauren and Liam are analyzing it now." The table in front of them was littered with open files. There were eight files in all; seven missing and one dead.

Malia plucked the file she had been looking at from the table and reviewed it. It was for a Meryl Vacek, a 42-year-old woman living in downtown San Francisco. She had three children: a grown son in college and twin daughters in their last year of high school. There were two charges of DUI in her file, and a note that seemed to imply that she was the prime suspect in a hit-and-run from six years ago.

The next one she picked up was for a Charles Goodrich, a mechanic and alleged wife beater. His domestic abuse case had stood to go to trial, but his wife had backed out of testifying at the last minute, and Goodrich had walked.

"Look at this," Jared said, leaning over so Malia could read the file he was holding. "James Tan, a 19-year-old drug dealer. He was sentenced to five years, but got out early when he made a deal with the DA to turn in his boss. And this guy, Kirk Porter. He's a 52- year old conman, and just look at the size of his file."

"All of these people seem to have some sort of criminal record," Malia mused, sliding the last file closer to her. She flipped it open, then furrowed her brow. Kathryn Winters, age 28; a second-grade teacher. That's all her file said. No charges, no misdemeanors, not even a single parking ticket. Malia leaned in closer, as if that would make more words appear on the page. Malia's phone beeped a few times, and she handed the file over to Jared.

"That's weird," Jared said under his breath. "This one, Kathryn Winters, she's different from the rest in the fact that she has no criminal record. I think we should start with her." He tapped her file a few times, then closed it and stood up.

"Lauren just texted me. She said she wanted us to stop by the crime lab. Maybe the techs found something for us."

Later:

"Hi guys!" Lauren Bianchi chirped from her computer. Jared nodded and crossed he room.

"What did you find?" he demanded, hovering over her shoulder as Malia stepped up next to him. Lauren pulled up a digital copy of the photo and pointed at the three other men.

"Those are Marvin's hunting buddies."

"They look familiar," Malia commented.

"I thought that too, but I couldn't place where I'd seen them before," Lauren said. "So I had Liam come take a look at it, and he pointed out something very interesting." She clicked on a tab at the bottom of the screen, pulling up the website for the District Attorney's office. At the top were four pictures.

"That's Marvin," Jared said, tapping the photo farthest to the left.

"And those are the other men in the photo," Lauren replied, indicating the other three photos. "Jason Schimmer, Richard Stark and Peter Desir."

"So they all worked together, and apparently hunted together too."

"Hey Lauren?" Jared asked. "Can you go back to the photo Mrs. Alexander brought in? I think I saw something." Lauren nodded and clicked back to the photo. Jared leaned closer, gently took the mouse from Lauren and zoomed in on something over Marvin's shoulder.

"There," he said, jabbing his finger against the screen. "That's her. Kathryn Winters."

"Good eye," Malia said.

"Who's she?"

"She's a woman who went missing about a week ago. We were planning on going to her workplace to see if we could find anything," Jared explained, straightening up.

"And now I think it's even more important that we check her out now that we have a tentative connection to her and Marvin. Let's go."

Elsewhere:

Mal shoved the pile of paperwork to the side of his desk and flexed his fingers. Rubbing his temples gingerly, he eyed the stack warily; there was no way for him to get everything done in one day. He dropped his hands to the empty desk space in front of him and sighed deeply. There was a throbbing pain deep behind his eyes. He could definitely feel a migraine coming on.

He realized he was absently rubbing his left ring finger, and he took in the absence of his wedding band. He just didn't seem to have good luck when it came to love. He and Sandra had simply been too young; how could they have known what love truly was? With Molly, he thought it had been different. He had loved her with all his heart, worshipped her even. He could even go as far as to say that Molly had been the love of his life. Natara, though... Natara was the one that got away.

His fist clenched angrily and he slammed it against his desk. He clenched his teeth as he tried to shake Natara from his mind. He'd never told anyone what had happened between them. Of what they did. He always suspected that the reason she left was because of what happened between them.

He'd never told anyone how his heart had actually hurt when he found out she was gone. His eyes slid closed as he remembered the moment Captain Yeong told him. He'd managed to pretend that he was fine, but he was anything but fine. Deep down, he knew Natara was most likely never coming back. She'd made the decision to walk out of their lives thirty years ago and if she'd wanted to come back, she would have already.

Mal just didn't want to accept it.