Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or ideas from The Killing. It's all just for fun.

Spoilers: Season 3, episode 10

Linden and Holder have finished talking to Skinner, telling him their theory about the perp actually being a cop, which Skinner asks them to keep to themselves for now. It makes sense, because something like this is a big deal. You don't just go accusing cops of being serial killers. You need absolutely iron-clad proof, which they don't yet have. Otherwise, careers are ruined. Theirs, and quite possibly yours, too.

Now they're on the move again. Linden and Holder get out of their car and start walking along the sidewalk toward the station, as Linden updates Holder on the phone call she just finished. The DOT's going to send them traffic camera footage from between the school and Adrian's house as well as the neighbor's house. Linden suggests that maybe they'll get a hit on Reddick's car.

Though he's not supposed to, Holder calls Reddick. As he expects, his former partner doesn't pick up his phone. Linden reminds him that he's not supposed to be calling Reddick anyway. Holder says that after they check the footage he'll take a drive because he has a feeling Reddick's "holed up."

That's when it happens, when it all starts to unravel, though they don't realize it until a little while later.

They're about to walk into the station when they're approached by two serious looking men in suits, both also wearing trench coats. They could be lawyers.

But they're cops. "Detective Holder?" asks the first man. He's about Holder's height. The second man is a little shorter, though still taller than Linden.

"Yeah, what up?" Holder replies, not backing down as the man steps into his personal space.

"I'm Investigator Alvarez," he nods towards his partner, who speaks up.

"Guggenheim. Internal Affairs. We need to speak to you, Detective."

"About what?" Holder asks, confused.

"If you'd just come with us…"

"What's going on?" Linden interjects, though no one's looking at her.

"Another time, boys, I'm working a job right now," Holder says apologetically but forcefully.

Holder tries to walk past them, but Alvarez holds his hand up with his fingers spread wide, holding his hand firmly against Holder's chest to block him.

"So are we," Alvarez insists.

"And you don't wanna walk in there in cuffs," Guggenheim glances over his shoulder through the glass doors of the police station and back again, "do you, Detective?"

"Why are you stopping him? On what grounds?" Linden is equally confused about why they're stopping Holder. She's calm, however, at least at the moment. The guys from IA continue to ignore her.

Holder glances down at her quickly. "I got this, Linden. I'll catch you in a few." He's annoyed, but not worried. After all, he has no reason to be worried, as far as he knows.

Guggenheim heads through the doors as Holder follows, with Alvarez behind him.

"I'll call Skinner. He'll clear it up," Linden assures them as they walk into the station. Linden stands on the sidewalk and dials her phone, holding it up to her ear and looking stony-faced into the street beyond the sidewalk as she waits for the connection. She glances quickly over her shoulder into the station, then back out into the distance, not really seeing the scene in front of her. This is not what they need right now. They need to be finding Adrian.

…

It's when Holder tells Alvarez and Guggenheim that they can call Skinner if Reddick's been feeding them "BS" that it suddenly becomes clear what's happening. When they tell him that it was actually Skinner who filed the complaint against him, and that it had happened only just before they'd picked him up. After he and Linden had talked to him, and told him that they thought they were looking for a cop.

It wasn't Reddick after all. It was fucking Skinner.

And Linden was out there, possibly with him.

He had to warn her. He had to. He could only imagine what Skinner would do. He had long since proved what he was capable of doing. Of the horrible things he was capable of doing. His mind couldn't even process the horror of the things that could happen to her at the hands of that psychopath. He flashed back to Bullet, and for a second he thought he was going to throw up.

Linden.

NO.

He managed to pull his mind back to the present. He had to get out of here. It was at that second that he understood what he had to do. These IA guys, they would be easy to play. So he made up some shit about putting a bomb on Reddick's car. The IA guys had to check it out, of course, and he knew Reddick well enough to know that he'd storm into the station, pissed as all hell, and want to tear Holder a new one. It would be perfect.

It would get him out of here. He only hoped it would happen in time to warn Linden.

Please, let him be in time.

And like clockwork, less than thirty minutes later, Reddick did indeed come banging into the station, pink with anger and screaming about how the bomb squad had been all over his car and scared his wife and kid to death. He bellowed at the top of his lungs as he demanded to see Holder. He yelled at the IA guys, told them they were idiots. Holder listened with satisfaction from the other room as Reddick told them to cut Holder loose. Sometimes his brilliance even impressed himself.

But he couldn't dwell on congratulating himself just then. The first second that he was allowed to, he had his phone to his ear and had speed dialed Linden's phone. It rang. And it rang. And it rang. And he got her voicemail.

FUCK.

He felt desperation, not knowing where she was or if she was safe. Everything made sense now, and he was terrified that Linden had figured it out too late… or that she hadn't figured it out yet, and that Skinner would get to her, would take her somewhere, before she figures it out. That something will happen to her.

No. He can't let anything happen to her.

Holder was on his way out of the station, walking behind Reddick down the hallway, getting Linden's voicemail, again, as Reddick turned around and punched him in the face. Reddick was pissed at him, and Holder couldn't blame the guy. He knew he'd put Reddick through a lot of shit recently, and that it wasn't his fault that things had gone down the way they had. If he was Reddick, he'd be pissed too.

He told Reddick that he knew that what he did was a "whack move," but that he had to get out of there. He told him that he needed help, and Reddick was all ready to tell him to go to hell. There was no way he was going to help Holder, not ever again. The guy'd clearly lost his mind, Reddick thought, and for whatever reason he seemed to be determined to take him down with him.

But then Holder told him that Adrian Seward was missing, and dammit, Reddick couldn't not go and look for the kid. It wasn't to help Holder so much as to help the kid. As pissed off as he was, Reddick was a good cop and a decent guy. Yes, he'd go look for the kid.

Holder was relieved, because whether Reddick was going to look for Adrian or not, Holder was going after Linden. Sure, he was worried about the kid. That's how this whole situation started. But if he had to choose between Adrian and Linden… well, there was just no choice. True, they may have been in danger from the same psychopath, but the perp – Skinner – had had plenty of chances to kill Adrian, and he hadn't. Obviously he didn't feel too desperate to get rid of the kid.

Now Linden, on the other hand, once Linden figured out what's going on, and Skinner figured out that she knew… Holder shivered at the very thought about what would happen to her. It wasn't the same as Adrian. He was a kid, he was there when it all went down, but he didn't seem to know what had happened. And besides, most people didn't believe kids anyway, they assume they're imagining stuff.

But Linden… she was a cop, and she was relentless. Skinner had been her partner, so he knew that better than anyone else, besides maybe Holder. Holder liked to think that he knew her better than that asshole. No, he did. Skinner may have thought he knew her, may have thought he understood her. At one time, maybe he had. But he's a psychopath, and she wasn't the same person she'd been back in their day. There was no way he knew her better than Holder did.

Holder was in the men's room at the station. It'd only been a few minutes since Carl punched him, and he'd just gotten his nose to stop bleeding. He knew that he deserved that punch, and any other time he would have been totally fine with it, but goddammit right now he didn't have time to waste! His mind was racing as he threw the paper towel that he'd pinched against his nose, now full of blood, into the trash. Scrubbing his hand quickly across his face and through his hair in the mirror, he tried to focus enough to think rationally.

Think, Holder. Where do you start? He'd glanced into Skinner's office already as he'd walked past, and the man hadn't been there. If he had, he was pretty sure that Linden would have been in there with him. Not as a social call, either. Linden was single-minded when she was on a mission, and she would have been in there hounding him to do something to help Holder. SHIT. His mind jumped again to the danger his partner was in, and he had to grip the sides of the sink in front of him and force himself to breathe.

Think, Holder, he told himself again. Where would Skinner be? He figured that his house was as good a place to start as any, which he confirmed when overhearing someone say that Skinner had left with some sort of family emergency as he neared the man's office to check there again. With a destination now in mind, he nearly took out several confused looking unis as he barreled his way down the hall and burst through the front doors of the station. He ran to the car that the two of them had arrived in together only a short time ago – an hour, maybe?

Dammit, Linden, he thought feverishly. He knew without having to be told that she'd gone to find Skinner when she hadn't found him at the station, and probably hadn't picked up his phone. Yeah, he didn't pick up his phone because he's a fucking murderer who's planning to run away. This thought didn't help his state of mind, thinking of his partner at the mercy of this man that she trusted completely. Not only did she trust him, but she… they… he shuddered. The thought made him sick to his stomach. He tried again, for what felt like the thousandth time, to call her, but once again her phone rang until the voicemail picked up.

This is not happening. It can't be. Of all the times she'd been in danger before, he'd never felt so powerless to help her. He had to find them. He had to.

Before it was too late.