A/N: I'm sorry to take a couple of days longer than expected to post this chapter. I could give a long explanation, but the quick version is that life happens... Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Thank you also to my fantastic beta reader, Rosalie, who managed to review this chapter despite a crazy work schedule and a last-minute power failure! I really appreciate it.

Chapter 8: Tobias – Police Station

David leaves the store in his employees' hands, taking the day off so he can go with us to Pittsburgh's main police station. It's too far to walk easily, so instead we return to where we left the car and drive from there.

The station is in a large, five-story building surrounded by barbed wire fencing. It has an intimidating aura to it, but it's difficult to really know what to make of it, since I'm used to Dauntless being the police force for our city. It's strange to see a standalone building serve that role.

The guards at the front entrance tell us to empty our pockets, put everything from them into buckets, and walk through some type of scanning equipment. The entire process makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and it's difficult to resist the urge to refuse – vehemently. But David and Kevin go first, and when it's obvious the guards are doing exactly what they said they'd do, I finally decide to submit.

The guards look oddly at the jewelry from my pockets, but they pass it through the equipment and return it to me without a word.

We aren't sure where to go next, so we end up making our way to the large, circular receptionist desk that sits in the middle of the lobby. It reminds me of the building we invaded in Philadelphia so long ago, and I feel a twinge as I remember the guards we shot there that day. One of them was looking me directly in the eyes when my father killed him….

"May I help you?" a voice asks politely, and I force my attention back to the present. The middle-aged woman at the desk is watching me curiously, clearly waiting for an answer.

"Um, hopefully," I respond, giving my best Abnegation smile to match the one on her face. "We're trying to track down someone we think might have been questioned during NUSA's last few days. Are there records we could examine for that, or someone we could talk to?"

She cocks her head at that request, pursing her lips thoughtfully, before she consults a notebook. "No one has asked me that before," she comments as she flips through the pages, "so please give me a moment to find the right person."

We do, watching as she pauses on pages at times, scanning carefully for the information she wants.

"Hmmm," she finally says, "I'm not finding a great match here, but let's try Ms. Hamilton. She's in charge of the transition from NUSA's control, so she would probably know more than anyone else."

I nod, waiting patiently while she makes a phone call. When she's finished, she smiles and tells us it will be just another moment.

"You're welcome to have a seat if you'd like," she says sweetly, gesturing to a set of chairs against the far wall of the room. But we opt to stand, looking a bit nervously around the busy lobby as people of all ages come and go. A fair number of them wear the same uniform; it's one I haven't seen before, and I assume it must be the current police uniform.

The figure that eventually approaches us is wearing that same uniform, but that's not what I notice as she draws near. Instead, I compare the way she looks now with how I saw her last, as she lay bloody and weak on the floor of the NUSA vehicle we drove from Toledo to Pittsburgh.

"Lauren," I say, surprised.

She stops, equally startled, before she grins widely. "Four. I should have known." She reaches out to shake my hand Dauntless-style, and I reciprocate, though as awkwardly as I always shake hands.

"Not many people come here looking for NUSA prisoners," she adds, "so I wasn't sure what to expect. And out of our original little group, Peter is the one who usually works with me." Her face takes on a worried tinge as she glances at my companions and then returns her gaze to me. "Nothing's happened to him, has it?"

I shake my head quickly. "Not as far as I know," I answer. But I have no idea what to add after that, since it's not like I know anything about Peter's current status. Or Lauren's, for that matter.

"How did you end up here?" I ask, suddenly curious.

"Ah, you know how it goes," she says easily. "I fell for one of the rebels who took care of me while we were hiding, so I stayed to see if it would work out." She shrugs. "It didn't, but in the meantime I ended up with a job I enjoy, where I feel like I'm making a difference, and I formed some new friendships. So, for now anyway, this is home."

She smiles again before turning to Kevin. For a moment, her eyes move up and down his form, and her expression reminds me of how Zeke always gazed at his dates – with unmistakable interest.

"And you are?" she asks, her voice a bit suggestive.

"Married," he answers drily.

Lauren flushes slightly but then smiles again. "That's an odd name, but it's good to meet you, Mr. Married."

Kevin chuckles before introducing himself properly, followed by David. When we're done, Lauren leads us deep into the building and up two flights of stairs, listening as we walk. I explain what we're trying to do as briefly as possible, though I'm honest in what I tell her. It would be wrong to lie to someone who went on the mission with me, particularly in front of a person who learned the value of honesty from my broadcast.

"I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help," Lauren says after I finish. "I mean, I'll try, but we haven't exactly prioritized crimes against NUSA. We've been too busy rebuilding the police force and catching everyone who was part of the old government." She glances at David before adding, "There were a lot of wealthy people and business owners who weren't on the serum and have been trying to regain power, so we've been focused on tracking them down."

I nod, trying not to show my disappointment. Their goal is appropriate, of course, but unfortunately it doesn't do me much good right now.

"What happened to the prisoners that NUSA had?" Kevin asks.

The expression on Lauren's face tells me the answer before she says it. "There weren't any." It's obvious why. NUSA killed its prisoners too quickly for there to be any left.

"Did they keep records of the people they questioned?" I ask, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of what that questioning entailed. An image of the device on Amar's head, and the matching one on Tris', lodges itself behind my eyes.

"Yeah, they kept great records," she answers, her face and tone conveying deep disgust. "They're the most cruel thing I've ever seen – and the number of them is utterly horrifying – but if they'll help you, you can certainly go through them. We're not doing anything with them anyway."

To my surprise, she reaches out and lays a hand on my shoulder. "And I think you've earned a little trust, Four."

The gesture is obviously meant to be kind, so I nod stiffly, trying not to flinch away. But I'm relieved when Kevin clears his throat, drawing Lauren's attention to him.

"Can we also look at the records of current prisoners?" he asks. It's a sensible question, given how much speculation we're operating under. The man we're looking for might well be from one of the prominent families after all, or be another type of criminal.

Lauren looks more cautious this time. "I can't show you the complete records," she says, frowning a little. "Some of that is confidential. But I can let you search the mug shots if that would help."

Somewhat to my surprise, it's David who answers. "Yes, that would be very helpful," he tells her eagerly.

But I don't say anything. There's always the chance that we'll luck out and he'll find the face we're seeking, but I doubt it. That kind of luck never seems to run my way.

The next few hours are frustrating. NUSA's records are sorted by date, so we start with the latest ones and work backwards to the day the ring was bought. As Lauren said, the records are awful to read, and when we finish without finding the man we're looking for, I don't know whether to be relieved or aggravated. I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone, but it's difficult to realize we read through all those horrors for no gain.

We move on to the current prisoner database next, sorting by physical description and then letting David look at every matching mug shot. It takes time and ultimately ends in failure, too. Apparently, our mystery buyer has never been arrested.

We finally turn to NUSA's unsolved cases, knowing we won't get a definite identification out of those but hoping to come across something we can use. At least this part of the effort shouldn't take long, since as David said yesterday, there was very little crime against NUSA and against those it favored. In fact, there were only eight open investigations in process at the time that government was ousted. Since they're in paper files, we split them up so we can dive into them four at a time.

"Bingo!" Lauren says with satisfaction a half-hour later. She drops her current folder onto the table in front of us before continuing.

"The big companies used to lock their employees in during the work day – which lasted fourteen hours, by the way. The employees were forced to purchase meals from the company's cafeteria during that time, and they had to pay cash for what they bought. It was a way of keeping them indentured to the company."

I suspect where she's going with this, and it's clear from Kevin's expression that he does, too, but neither of us interrupts.

"That cash was deposited by the company every week or two," she adds, "so a good amount accumulated in between deposits. And judging by this file, someone started stealing it." She smiles a little. "Whoever it was got away with a hefty amount from five different companies."

"Bingo, indeed," Kevin says appreciatively as he picks up the folder. "That's frankly an amazing fit to what we were speculating."

He's right, and the words are reassuring in more ways than one. They tell me that our guesses were good, which gives me hope that we'll find Anna's ring yet. It's also nice to know that the man who bought that ring wasn't stealing from people in need, but instead from companies that were basically robbing those people.

"Did they have any leads on who the thief was?" I ask, moving so I'm standing behind Kevin and trying to read over his shoulder.

"It doesn't look like it," he answers, his mouth flattening somewhat. "But it's still better than nothing. Chances are the guy lived in between the companies' locations. And we can figure out what type of home he could afford based on how much he took. That should narrow things down a lot."

I nod, but then I look at Lauren as a thought occurs to me.

"If we find this guy," I ask her, "will he be in trouble?"

She considers that for a moment. "Not with me. Heck, I might offer him a job arresting the people he used to steal from." She chuckles. "It takes some guts to do what he did, and he's obviously pretty smart if he got away with it. I could use someone like that here."

I can't help grinning in response. It's good to know we won't be causing our thief harm if we're able to find him. It would feel wrong to retrieve Anna's ring under circumstances like that.

For the next hour, we map out the neighborhoods where our thief is most likely to be living. We end up with a list of five, which is certainly far better than how we started the day – but still nowhere near close enough. It would take weeks to search those locations door to door, and we can't stay away from Chicago that long.

I finally step back, looking at our map and running a frazzled hand through my hair. There must be something we're missing. Some way of narrowing this down further….

"I think we need lunch," I mutter.

"That's the best idea I've heard all day," Kevin states flatly, tossing his pencil onto the table and stretching. "Where can we eat?"

"Ironically," Lauren says, one corner of her mouth lifting, "in the building's cafeteria."

It's not an appealing idea, but we end up eating there anyway. It's apparently as good as anywhere else, and at least this way we won't have to go through security again.

As we eat, I find myself looking around, imagining the employees being locked in here – forced to spend their hard-earned money buying this food at inflated prices. And I find myself agreeing with Lauren. Our thief provided a type of justice – certainly not a perfect one, but one that was better than letting companies continue to profit off their employees' misery.

And he spent the money on a ring for his girlfriend, so they could be married in time for their child to enter the world. An image comes to mind from my dream last night, of Tris holding a baby with my dark blue eyes, and I can understand his urge to buy that ring.

The realization hits me so suddenly I almost drop my food.

"We're looking at this wrong," I tell the others sharply. Their eyes turn to me, and I continue quickly. "We've only been searching the criminal databases, but we know he was planning to get married, and we know they were expecting a baby soon. We need to search those records, too."

Kevin sits up straighter, his mouth opening in a dumbfounded expression. "You're right," he says. "We need to cross-reference those databases against the neighborhoods we came up with, and find anyone who was married and then had a child within, say, six months of when he bought the ring. That should narrow the list considerably."

"Particularly if the records include physical descriptions," I add, knowing that our thief's age and hair color will make the list even shorter.

Kevin nods, a grin forming on his face, and after a second, a matching one appears on David. Lauren, on the other hand, looks uncomfortable. We're probably not supposed to have access to that type of information.

But our enthusiasm must be contagious, because after a moment, she smiles. "Okay," she says, "but I'll have to do the searching. Those records are confidential."

"Michael O'Clery," Lauren announces, turning to us with a flourish as she wheels her desk chair out of the way. "He's the only one who matches all your criteria."

We crowd around the monitor, staring at what appears to be an official identification picture of a young man with reddish blond hair.

David grins widely. "That's him!" he declares, his tone filled with excitement and something like pride. For the first time, it occurs to me that he's probably felt guilty about selling that ring ever since my broadcast. This is his chance to redeem himself almost as much as it's mine.

"Do you know where that is?" I ask him as I point to the address beneath Michael's photo.

"Yes," he and Lauren answer simultaneously.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Kevin asks, clapping a hand on my shoulder and looking at the others. "Let's go get Tris' ring."

I don't bother to correct him as we head for the door. It's not Tris' ring yet, but someday, it definitely should be.

A/N: Please take a moment to let me know what you thought of this chapter. Your reviews do more than anything else to motivate me to find time to write and post even when things are crazy busy, so thank you very, very much for each and every one of them!

By the way, we're getting close to the end of the Pittsburgh story arc, and then we'll move on to Anna, Tris, and Caleb for a little while before we see some Fourtris time.