Mild language warnings again, because everyone is still mad and they haven't slept in two days!

A Tangled Web (21)

"I don't know what Erik's going to do, and I've never even heard of this Danny person, what do you people want from me?" Susan Crowley glared at her lawyer. "Don't I have civil rights or something? Can they still keep me here after an entire day?"

"They," Flynn retorted, "can charge you with public endangerment, so unless you want to –"

"Are you going to let them keep threatening me?"

The lawyer bristled. "Listen, lieutenant, public endangerment hasn't been successfully prosecuted in our state since –"

"I don't care," Andy cut him off, "and trust me, half the DA's office right now's gonna be more than happy to charge your client with anything!"

"Ms. Crowley has been nothing but cooperative, and done her best to help the LAPD…"

Provenza nodded, adopting his most genial expression. "And I assure you counselor, we're only trying to return the favor."

"Really?" Susan Crowley's eyebrows arched into her hairline. "How exactly are you helping me, if you don't mind my asking?"

"We'll get to that," the older lieutenant assured her with a wave of his hand. "First – we really need to get all the details on your ex-husband."

The businesswoman rolled her eyes. "You already got all the details," she complained. "There's just nothing else to say, oh my god, Erik and I divorced over four years ago…! I told you – he was always obsessed with one thing or another, then there was that stupid project that got cut, and –"

"And you left him shortly after, correct?" inquired Provenza. "After he'd lost the job he loved, and you filed for divorce… would you say he was maybe a little… depressed?"

Another eye roll. "Don't even try to make me feel bad," Ms. Crowley muttered. "Erik was always sulking and complaining when things weren't going his way – but would he lift a finger to fix anything? No. He was holding me back, too – so I left him. I'm hardly the first person to do that."

The lieutenants exchanged a glance.

In electronics, Buzz and Sanchez did the same.

"Those two deserve each other," Julio muttered. On screen, Lt. Flynn's disdainful expression betrayed a similar thought.

Buzz sighed. "As long as she can tell us something useful about this guy..."

Provenza flipped a page on his notepad. "Let's go back to why Mr. Jensen would want to blow up your business."

The woman shrugged again, glancing at her manicure. "I don't know, resentment? I really have no idea why he'd do such an awful –"

"You mean, like resentment over the fact that you used insider information that he gave you from the irrigation project – you know, the boring, stupid one," Flynn shot her a warning glare, "to swing a forty-acre plot of land for an unfair price?"

Ms. Crowley glanced at her attorney.

"That's not against the law," the man hurried to say. "And, neither is building the mall."

"Yeah, you know what is against the law? Obstructing an investigation," Andy growled, "by withholding relevant information in an interview!"

"Alright. Okay." The woman held up her hands. "Yes, I used Erik's idea after we divorced – but only because I knew that he wouldn't do anything about it in a hundred years…!"

Provenza's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "It was his idea to buy that land so cheap?"

Susan Crowley waved dismissively. "Yeah… so he suggested it once or twice, after his project got killed. But – like I said, he'd never actually do it! Look, Erik just had never had any initiative. He was always all talk and no action."

"Until he wasn't," muttered Flynn.

"What…?"

"Unfortunately," Provenza said in a grim tone, "given the events of the last few days, I think we can assume that your ex-husband has…developed some initiative, since your divorce." Along with a potentially homicidal streak… and an uncanny talent for avoiding capture.

The businesswoman just shrugged, a little defensively.

"Oh, God..." Buzz shook his head. "I don't even know which one of them is worse."

"She's a bitch." Sanchez fixed him with a stony look. "He's a killer. He's worse."

They turned their attention back to the screens.

Flynn was scowling again. "So you stole Jensen's idea, and – let me guess. You used the divorce settlement to buy the land."

The woman narrowed her eyes at him. "I can tell that you don't like me, lieutenant," she said, "but nothing I did was against the law. And whatever you say, these things that Erik did have nothing to do with me."

"Well." Provenza leaned back in his seat. "Considering that he was planning to blow up your mall, I'd say that's not entirely accurate. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here," he faked a thoughtful frown, "and say that maybe your ex-husband is holding a slight grudge against you."

Ms. Crowley shrugged for the third time. "Erik's always holding a grudge for something. That's his problem, not mine."

Andy was ready to start yelling again, but this time his partner signaled him to wait; the woman's nonchalance was making him furious, too… but there was something else to be done here.

"Maybe," Provenza acknowledged calmly. "But I'd consider this, if I were you. Your ex-husband had, by all accounts, been planning this for some time. He stole explosives from his workplace, learned how to make a bomb, and may have even been involved in the suspicious death of not one, but two young men." He held up his index and middle fingers for extra emphasis. "And he was willing to blow up an entire shopping center, with a thousand people in it – all of that, to get back… at you." His eyebrows arched almost ironically. "So tell me, what do you think he's going to do now? Give up? Go home?"

For the first time, Susan Crowley looked genuinely worried. "Wait… you think he'd come after me?" She glanced at her attorney again, then back at them. "But – okay, so you can offer me police protection, right?"

"Wrong," barked Flynn.

"Wha –?"

"What we can do," Provenza smiled pleasantly, "is find Mr. Jensen before he gets a chance to come up with another plan. Because once we do find him, I assure you," his expression took on an ominous note, "he won't be a problem for you anymore."

The woman swallowed hard, looking from one lieutenant to the other. "Okay…so… what do you want me to do, exactly…?"

The lieutenant closed his notepad with an ominous snap.

"This can't wait until tomorrow," Flynn was telling his partner as they walked back into the murder room. "Damn it – we don't have time to be taking the night off!"

"And we're not." Provenza was starting to lose his own patience, not least of all because they'd all been working about forty hours straight, and nerves were frayed. "Tao's working on a new list of locations for us – this," he reminded his partner, "is just plan B."

"Yeah, well plan A hasn't been working great so far." But there was no heat in Andy's voice; he walked over to his desk and tiredly grabbed a water bottle. "We need to get out there and look for Sharon."

His partner didn't even bother to correct him.

"I've almost got something," Tao called from his desk, one hand on his keyboard, one taking notes, the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear and the pile of archive files open in front of him. "I'm getting in touch with one of the other chief engineers on the irrigation project… it's taking so long because he's moved to Phoenix and I had some trouble getting his contact information but – yes, yes I'm still here." He started talking into the phone again. "No, I think these records go up to maybe February '08 – yes. Right – yes, those are the maps that are missing… Very urgent," he stressed, "thank you."

Craning his neck, he glanced to the rest of the team again.

"I think I have an idea of why we can't find Jensen, I'm checking it now – what? Yes, I'll give you our fax number…"

He turned back to the phone conversation, his pen tapping nervously against the desk.

Flynn had walked over to the murder board, and was staring at the information with tired eyes. His gaze kept sliding back to the Captain's name. "It's too long to wait a day for this," he reiterated to Provenza, who only shook his head.

"This won't work unless we make this public enough for Jensen to see it," he pointed out, "and last time I checked, there weren't a lot of reporters out there who were gonna take a press release at…" he glanced at the wall clock, "…eleven-thirty p.m. on a Saturday!"

"Wait – I know someone." Amy stood up from her desk. "If what we need is a tv connection…"

"Yes!" said Flynn.

"No," countered Provenza, and glared at his partner. "We don't need this on air now, we need it on air when people are actually watching."

"I can ask for that, too," said Sykes. "Just tell me what we want aired…"

"I'll find us someone at the newspapers, too," Sanchez chimed in from his desk. "Get us full media coverage."

"Why don't we get that guy… what's his name…" Flynn frowned, trying to remember, "that idiot reporter who used to show up at every crime scene?"

"Ramos," provided Sanchez. "Didn't he get promoted?"

"All the better. Just call him. We've still got his number, right?"

The detective looked determined. "I'll find him." Then he asked "What do I tell him?" at the same time that Sykes was asking, "What do we need?"

Provenza let a few seconds pass in silence, while he pondered his reply. Then he exchanged a look with Flynn, and narrowed his eyes:

"We're going to make up for some of that bad publicity that Ms. Crowley's mall has been getting," he told them. There was a determined look on his face. "And give Mr. Jensen another shot at the place."

Mike took another sip of his coffee, wincing at the sour taste. It must've been his fifth cup, though at this point even the caffeine wasn't doing much anymore. He was so tired that his senses were on overload, the coffee too strong, the bright lights of the room hurting his eyes, and even in the relative quiet of the night hours on a Saturday, everything sounded too loud. He could hear the whirr of an AC unit that he'd never noticed before. The screeching of each individual key on his keyboard, all of them a little different.

He rubbed his eyes and rolled his chair around, drawing everyone's attention.

"I have it," he said, a little out of breath, and his teammates all paused what they were doing to fix him with anxious, expecting looks.

Tao held up a few pages from the archive file.

"There are references in here to a lot of infrastructure that doesn't actually seem to exist on any of the blueprints," he started. "It took a while to make sense of all of it and figure out that some prints was missing… that's why I contacted the former chief engineer – the guy who moved to Phoenix? I figured he'd remember enough to help me place these extra references."

Provenza exhaled impatiently. "And…?" It was even that Tao was being long-winded, this time. It was just… so late, and they were all so tired…

"He said that in spring 2008, there had been construction underway at several other sites for the irrigation project," Mike confirmed. "A lot of underground infrastructure was apparently built in the last couple of months before the City pulled the plug on it –"

"Son of a…!" Flynn's nostrils flared. "So this bastard is literally hiding out in some hole in the ground!" And Sharon…!

"Where?" Provenza demanded. "Where else did they do construction for this goddamn project?"

Here, Tao grimaced. "That's a problem. Like I said, some maps seem to be missing from the archive file, I'm not sure why..." He rubbed a tired hand to his cheek. "The former chief sent us all his records, and told me every construction site that he could remember from the project, but he didn't remember exact addresses. I've cross-referenced what he said with all the references I found in the archive files, and with his personal notes, and narrowed it down as much as I could… to six approximate locations."

He got up from his desk, grabbed a handful of magnetic tacks, and walked over to the large map pinned on the murder board.

"This irrigation project was really wide-spread – at the time of its inception, it was supposed to revolutionize the way that inner-city parks got their water supply, and maybe help with the city's general water problem. It wouldn't have worked," he amended, "not with the weak-soil problem and some other fundamental design issues, but… it was a huge endeavor for the urban planning commission at the time."

"Tao," warned Provenza.

"I know, but it's important to understand the extent of it," the lieutenant defended. "Because we don't have that much information to go on, and anything might help us figure out where Jensen could've gone… and where Captain Raydor might be."

"We get it," Flynn said. "It started out as some big deal, and then it fizzled, and lost funding, and the whole thing was abandoned... like a million other City projects."

"And just like all of those, it left behind a lot of half-finished infrastructure," nodded Mike. "A lot more than we initially thought. Maybe if I'd realized this sooner…"

He trailed off, and sighed.

"Anyway… here's the existing layout of their planned water redistribution network, at the various nodes," he resumed, turning to the map again. "There's the Compton site, where 'Sun Plaza' is now," (he tapped a finger to a spot already marked on the map), "and the Sixth Street aqueduct," (another finger tap,) "and we already knew about two other nodes in South Gate and South LA – we checked both, there was nothing there." He paused. "And then there are the newer locations that weren't in the file. South Gate, near Hollydale Park. Harbor Street, in Commerce. Vernon, by East 38th St." A red tack went to each spot as he named them. "Elysian Park, Griffith Park, and north Glendale…somewhere off Verdugo."

"That covers half the city." Amy was staring at the red dots almost in shock.

"Only key points along the course of the river," Tao corrected. "But yes, they're wide-spread…like I said, the project was really ambitious."

Andy pinched the bridge of his nose. "And we don't have exact locations for any of these sites?"

"I've got descriptions and land markers from the former chief, and as close to a precise location as we can get without the actual maps..." Mike shook his head. "The surface indicators for most of this infrastructure, though, are probably no bigger than a manhole or… or a cellar door. Like I said, most of it is underground. We'll just… have to figure it out."

"We should start with the ones at Griffith Park and Glendale," said Sanchez.

"We'll start with all of them," Provenza retorted. His eyes flickered to the clock again, reading near one a.m. "I'll call Taylor, let him know what we've got and get a proper search operation going. Flynn – get canine units and back-up support. I want SIS on standby for this."

"Lieutenant," called Julio, "won't that take too long? It'll be hours before we can go and check those places out if we wait for Taylor's approval and all the set-up."

Provenza took a deep breath. "This is one we're gonna do by the book," he said firmly. "If we find where Jensen's got the Captain, I want to make damn sure that we've got all the resources to get her out of there in one piece."

His cell dinged, startling him. Provenza had to stare at the screen for a few seconds before processing that he had a text message from Rusty. More asking what was going on.

It was past one a.m. The kid should've been sleeping... then again, who could blame him for being awake?

But there was still nothing to tell him. And there was a reason that the families of the...

He cut off that train of thought before he could finish it.

There was a reason that families, period, were kept out of this kind of thing. And the team didn't need the extra distraction. With a sigh, Provenza pushed the phone away.

At the next desk, Flynn was speaking angrily into his own phone: "I said I need at least two teams, what, are you having trouble with English or something? No, I don't care what time it is!"

"Sykes," the older lieutenant called, "how's our media set-up going?"

"Everything's in place," she nodded. "We should have TV crews here first thing in the morning to interview Ms. Crowley – she can advertise her big event then. They'll air it in the morning news and run it throughout the day."

"We've got newspaper coverage, too," added Julio from his desk. "By noon tomorrow, everyone should know that Sun Plaza is off the hook and having another big 're-inauguration'."

Tao grimaced, glancing up from his pile of documents. "That's another operation to get past Chief Taylor. A large-scale search action, and the mall set-up..."

"Well, he did say 'all available resources'," Provenza replied wryly.

"I did say that, Lieutenant, and I meant it – but we may not have the available resources for two major operations, at the same time, in half a dozen different locations."

It was barely eight a.m., and he'd already been at work for over an hour – the earliest Taylor had come in ever since making Assistant Chief. Then again, a resentful nutcase trying to blow up a thousand people, and one of his top commanding officers gone missing in the aftermath, was pretty much the worst case he'd faced in the same time period.

He hadn't gotten that much sleep over the last couple of days, either, although more than anyone in Major Crimes, by the looks of it.

"It's what it's going to take," Provenza said plainly. "We've got six locations, and we don't even know exactly where they are, not to mention what they look like on the inside. We're on this guy's turf, and we need proper back-up."

"And that's why I've got SIS and the bomb squad on standby for you, at both the Northeast and the Foothill stations," Taylor acknowledged. "Plus a dozen squad cars patrolling the neighborhoods you want. But setting up the whole mall just to lure Jensen out –"

"Might not even be necessary," Provenza finished, "if we find him during the search. But if we don't –"

"That's still endangering the public," countered the Chief. "We can't ask the media to encourage people to go shopping in a place that's not only structurally unstable – and worse now, after the garage explosion – but also the obvious target of a madman who might have another bomb…!"

"That's precisely why we need to set up that mall as his target again," argued Provenza. "Look – say we don't find this guy at any of those sites. Who's to tell what he'll do? Like you said, he might have another bomb, so do we wait until he places it somewhere else? Maybe the university? His wife's apartment building? No," he arched his eyebrows, "we let him think that we didn't catch on after his first attempt, and give him another shot at the mall."

Taylor rolled his eyes. "I'm not allowing people back in there –"

"We don't have to let the public in," the lieutenant pointed out, "just make everyone think we will."

"Go search those sites instead, find Captain Raydor," said the Chief.

"We're going to, but you need to sign off on the mall operation as well. It's going to lure this guy out. And St. Patrick's day tomorrow is the perfect excuse for…" the lieutenant trailed off, frowned, then sighed. "Hold on."

Turning around, Taylor noticed that Rusty had made his way into the murder room; there were dark circles under his eyes as well.

"What are you doing here?" Provenza asked, a note of impatience to his tone. "And – how did you even get here?"

In response, the boy's shoulders hunched defensively. "I took the bus," he retorted. "What did you think, that I'd like, wait around at the condo doing nothing? And you could all just like, ignore my calls, and…" His jaw clenched angrily, and he cast an anxious look to the murder board. "What's happening? Where's Sharon?"

"We're looking for her," the lieutenant said tiredly. "And you're not supposed to be here."

"Wha –where exactly am I supposed to be, if, if none of you can even be bothered to tell me anything!"

"Young man," Taylor intervened. "I understand that you're worried, and frustrated," he acknowledged, "but –"

"No," railed Rusty, "you don't 'understand' anything, okay?" He glared at both of them, and for good measure at everyone else in the room, before fixing his reproachful gaze back on Provenza. "I've been calling everyone – you didn't even tell me – last night…"

"Nothing happened last night," said the lieutenant, "as you already know."

"But –"

"Rusty." Provenza took a step closer to the boy, his voice lowering. "I get it. But you're not helping, and we don't have time for this. Either go home, or go to that conference room just like yesterday, and stay out of the way."

The boy made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a sniff. "Are you even looking for her? Everyone's here…! You haven't – you haven't even…"

"We're looking," the lieutenant told him firmly. "Now go."

Rusty hugged himself, terrified eyes darting again to the murder board. Then he looked back to Provenza. "You promise you're looking?" he pleaded.

"Yes."

"And… and… that you'll like… find her? Can you promise that?"

The lieutenant opened his mouth to assent, and hesitated; his expression grew imperceptibly conflicted.

Taylor suppressed a sigh.

"Yes," Provenza said finally, persuasively, and after a second he nodded, as well. "Yes, we'll find her, Rusty. Don't worry."

But the boy only gave him a dark, heartbroken sort of look.

"SIS teams are in place at Foothill and Northeast, and patrols report no unusual activity near any of our sites of interest." Sanchez hung up his phone, and reached for his jacket. "One of the squad cars thinks they've found a control room at the Commerce location. They're keeping an eye on it until we get there."

"That's not on the route that Murray took the night of the explosion," Sykes pointed out.

"It doesn't matter," said Provenza, "we're searching everything. Get SIS to give us a heat scan of what's inside – if Jensen has the Captain there, we're not going to rush in."

Like he'd told Sanchez, they were going to do this one by the book.

It had cost them several more hours, yes… but now they had each of the locations scouted out at least, and support teams, ambulances and two bomb squads on standby at locations throughout the city. They'd worked out a search pattern and contingency plans. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do.

If Sharon was there, they were damn well going to get her out.

…Except they had to actually find the exact damn places to look, first.

Another reason that he hadn't minded using the extra time. They'd had unmarked cars drive by from three a.m. on, and take video of all the locations, in the hopes that they could identify the former project sites before actually flooding the area with cops. No real luck so far, which meant they had to be extra cautious. They didn't know exactly what they were looking for, but Jensen could maybe see them coming…

The noise of the printer behind him drilled painfully into his head. "Tao, what the hell are you printing for an hour?"

Mike dropped a stack of papers on his desk, and began sorting them. "Copies of the map with the six locations, and all the directions from the former chief engineer. So everyone knows what they're looking for when they're there." He handed Provenza a pile of ten or so pages, stapled together. "I'll also send this to everyone's phones, but just in case, we should have hard copies…"

Julio was checking his gun. "Canine units were gonna meet us at Elysian Park, first. Should I tell them to redirect to Commerce?"

Provenza nodded.

"We've got air support over Glendale and Griffith Park," Flynn updated.

Another obstacle removed; having helicopters fly over the neighborhoods had been pointless until the last couple of hours or so, when the visibility had become good enough. Now, they had eyes in the air, as well.

Andy was checking his own weapon.

The clock on the wall read eleven forty-five.

"The 'Sun Plaza' story is still circulating," Sykes reported quietly from her desk. "We've got one bomb squad reassigned to the mall, and plain clothes officers on location. They're working out the best way to cover all the entrance points; everything should be in place by tonight, just as planned."

Good. 'Just as planned' was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to hear right now.

"We're not gonna need the mall bait," growled Julio. "We're gonna find that bastard wherever he's hiding, long before that." His expression promised nothing good for Erik Jensen.

Provenza took a second to clean his glasses.

They had the search operation ready to go. Even if it took hours, a day, two, they were going to circle through those damn locations and find the Captain. Several support teams were scattered through the city. Plan B was in effect too, setting up a trap for Jensen, just in case.

There was no defense against bad luck, he'd said to Sharon once, but Provenza felt as confident as he could that they at least were on the right path, with this.

Though there was no denying that time wasn't on their side, they were on the right path. Prepared. They were going out to look, finally. They were doing it all the right way, and they were going to find her.

'Just as planned.'

So of course, thought the cynical part of him, everything was going to go to hell as soon as they got out in the field, and the only thing left to wonder now was exactly what obvious screwy scenario he'd overlooked.

"I need your help."

Officer Cooper glanced up, a little confused to see Rusty standing in front of his temporary desk. "Oh…kay? Okay," he nodded, a little more convinced. Anything was better than staring at grainy video for hours and hours. First traffic cam footage, then the police car camera. His eyes felt ready to fall out. "What can I do for you?"

The boy was silent for a moment, then, glancing left and right, lowered his voice and looked him straight in the eye. "I need you to help me find Sharon."

The young cop paused. His mouth opened, then closed. "Wh… okay. Well, that's what I'm doing," he cleared his throat, "I mean, I could be doing something more useful than going through stupid footage, sure, but –"

"No," Rusty interrupted, "I mean… we need to go out there and… find her."

Coopers mouth opened again, and nothing came out.

Rusty swallowed and started talking fast: "Look, the Volvo is like, in evidence or whatever, so I can't take that, and I don't have keys to Sharon car and – and it's stupid to go out on foot, okay? So…you've got like, a police car, so you can help me," he explained. "I've looked at the map they had on the board and… and if they think Sharon's in Griffith Park... look, I know Griffith Park, okay? Better than any of you! If – if – I can just... go out and search or, or – do something...!"

The officer was still looking a little baffled; after a moment, it was his turn to swallow awkwardly. "Uh… look, Rusty… I get that you want to help, but –"

"No! Okay?" The boy was careful to keep his voice low, but his expression was vehement. "You don't 'get' anything… it's been like, two days! Like – and they're not going out to look for her and – no one's listening, and I don't care about whatever plan they've got… if it's all just waiting around and – that's just stupid, alright?"

Cooper sighed. "Okay, but so is you going out on your own."

"But I won't be on my own," Rusty pointed out. "That's the point, that's why I'm asking you. You're a cop, right? Like – this is what you do. And it won't be dangerous or anything," he hurried to add, "if we see anything you can just call it in. I just – you said you wanted to do something more useful, too, right?"

The young officer had to think for a second of an argument, and finally he just shook his head. "This is just a bad idea. I'm sorry… I get where you're coming from but…I can't help you."

"I thought you wanted to be friends," Rusty said reproachfully.

Another pause. "Yeah… and … speaking as your friend, you going out on your own to search Griffith Park is stupid and dangerous," Cooper offered. "Sorry… uh, actually, maybe we should go talk to Lt. Provenza about this plan of yours," he began to get out of his seat, "because I don't think –"

"I'll tell Sharon to get you off patrol duty."

Silence fell between them.

Cooper froze, halfway up. "What?"

Rusty crossed his arms with a determined expression.

"You help me look for her," he said firmly, "and – and I'll tell her to … put in a good word or whatever you police do, and get you off patrol. Don't tell me that's not what you want," he pre-empted, "'cause like, you've been hanging around here for days and only an idiot wouldn't figure it out. And I'm not an idiot."

The young cop looked taken aback. "Uh…look, man –"

"Whatever – I don't care, okay? Big deal, you wanted to … I don't know, make friends with me to impress Sharon or something–"

"Hey, that's not –"

"I don't care," Rusty reiterated impatiently, "don't you get it? I could tell from the start. I know when people want something from me," he said pointedly. "And you don't need to pretend to be sorry or whatever," he added, "it's not like you're the first person to try that."

Cooper arched his eyebrows. "Well, that's a pretty high horse to be on, considering that you were also just making friends with me to – what, get back at Captain Raydor? Test her or something?" He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm not an idiot, either. So if you want to talk ulterior motives… I think there was definitely some reciprocity going on there."

Rusty pressed his lips together. "Fine. Whatever. So then count this as more 'reciprocity' – you help me look for Sharon, and when we find her you get off patrol duty."

The young officer crossed his arms, leaned back slightly. "What if we don't find her? Then I just get in trouble for going along with your idea."

Rusty swallowed. "I won't tell anyone we're doing this," he said. "And… even if we don't find her, when… when she's back, I'll hold up my end anyway. You just...help me look, and I'll... make them get you off patrol." He gritted his teeth, and held out his hand. "Deal?"

Cooper considered him carefully for a long moment, then finally reached out and shook his hand.

"Deal."

Well, we all know that's going to go well for sure.

But in other news, NEXT CHAPTER WILL FEATURE YOU KNOW WHO(M).

I mean, you'll probably still want to murder me after that, but we will definitely get a glimpse of ... things. And people will be found, and people will be uhm, un-found, and people will be found and then lost again (this last one does not refer to Sharon, I am not THAT terrible, please put down the beanbag guns.) All in all it's safe to say that things will go according to plan for absolutely no one! Shocking, I know.

Thank you all for reading :).