A/N: Thank you all for your favorites, follows and reviews. Thanks to Bailey for being the best beta. Neither Rookie Blue nor Rookie Blue's characters belong to me but all original characters and this twisted little story idea do. Sadly, that means all the mistakes belong to me as well. As always, I love to hear what you think good or bad.
Brandy Cassidy was twenty-seven years old. With her short petite frame and black pixie haircut she looked a bit like a fairy except for the fact that she had full tattoo sleeves. She had slept with exactly five women and one man. None of the encounters were particularly satisfying; none of them could seem to find her clit much less her G-spot. She'd been in love exactly once in her life, but not with any of her lovers. So far, the love of her life had been Maggie Davis. So here she was at the police station because she owed Maggie that much.
She addressed the tiny redhead in uniform at the front desk, "Excuse me, I'm here because I saw the news this morning and I think I might have information about a crime."
"Thank you for coming in. What information do you have?" the officer asked.
"I saw Maggie Davis last week. The news said it was the night the police believe she was abducted," Brandy answered.
"Please have a seat. I'll get a detective to come up and walk you back," the officer answered. Brandy sat down in one of the chairs against the wall. "Gail, it's Chloe. Gail, Gail, don't hang up on me. I have someone here that says she saw Maggie Davis the night she was abducted."
Brandy was almost immediately escorted back to a room with several desks by a woman who could have been Maggie's sister except for the dark hair. There were two other women in the room. One was a striking ebony-skinned woman and the other was a statuesque blonde with legs that seems to go on for miles, in a charcoal grey suit. Brandy couldn't help it; she stared. The dark-haired woman with ice blue eyes, Gail…something avian…Peck, she remembered, spoke, "Brandy, this is Detective Traci Nash and this is Special Agent Ryan Parker of the FBI."
"The FBI?"
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Ryan elaborated.
"I know. I just don't know why the FBI would be involved in Maggie's disappearance and death," Brandy explained.
"We had some similar cases in the States," Ryan said without further explanation.
Brandy was going to ask a question but the woman named Gail spoke first. "Brandy, have a seat and tell us what you know. Start from the beginning," Gail said as she and Brandy sat down. Traci and Ryan sat across from them.
"The beginning…well, the beginning was about six years ago. I met Maggie at University. She was, God she was...she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I took 12 hours of theater as electives to be close to her. I'm a graphic designer. I spent two semesters doing set design and painting. I hate painting unless it's on a computer, but I had to be close to her."
"So…I'm waiting for this not to be creepy," Gail said.
"You're a barrel of monkeys, aren't you?" Brandy asked and Traci laughed.
"She can be. Pay no attention to Gail. She's not having a great day," Traci said.
"Sorry. Anyways, I've known her since University. I'm a graphic designer, but I bartend at The Blue Parrot part-time. I was tending bar there Thursday when Maggie came in."
"Wait. The Blue Parrot?" Gail asked.
"Why is that significant?" Ryan asked.
"It's a gay bar," Gail answered.
"Oh," Ryan said.
"So was Maggie with anyone when she was there?" Traci asked.
"Yeah, she came in and met a woman. She had bobbed blue hair. I think it was a wig. She had brown eyes. She was about 5'9"-5'10" looked a little athletic. Not as big as a hockey player but like a soccer player. They knew each other before. They kissed and hugged when the woman came up to the bar."
"Could you hear their conversation?" Ryan asked.
"No. I couldn't wait on them. I made Gwen wait on them. I felt like someone stabbed me in the heart…I never knew Maggie was into women. I couldn't watch her make out with that woman," Brandy explained.
"How did you know her for six years and not know she was into women?" Gail asked.
"Oh, I never spoke to Maggie. Unless you count the nervous giggles or bizarre random comments to the entire room. She made me so nervous, I sounded like, "Bak! Agak!"
"How very onomatopoeia of you," Gail commented.
"Look, you obviously don't know what it is to be a girl like me," Brandy responded hotly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Gail furrowed her brow.
"I mean, I bet someone you wouldn't look at twice has confessed feelings for you. You're that girl aren't you? You look enough like Maggie that you could be her sister…"
"Yeah, we noticed that," Ryan interrupted trying to derail the conversation but Brandy would not be deterred.
"You're all snark and smartass comments. Too cool for the rest of us. So gorgeous, you never notice us," Brandy was on the verge of tears.
Gail looked at her hard, "You don't know shit about me. So stop now while you're ahead. I know you're hurting and you feel like you've lost your chance at something. You're torn up inside about Maggie. I get that. But you don't know me."
"I'm sorry," Brandy apologized.
"It's fine. I've said worse over not getting my favorite donut," Gail waved her hand. "Alright?" Brandy nodded in response, "Brandy, tell us…did Maggie notice you or speak to you on Thursday?"
"No."
"And as far as you know, she'd never been in there before?" Traci asked.
"No. None of the other bartenders had seen her there. I asked," Brandy answered.
"Does The Blue Parrot have surveillance cameras?" Ryan probed.
"Yeah. We do. The manager can access them."
"I'm on it," Traci stood to leave. "Call me if we need to know anything else. I'm taking Luke with me. Should be fun," she smiled widely as she walked out of the room.
Ryan and Gail stayed with Brandy and took her through Thursday again asking her questions to get a timeline of the night and who waited on Maggie and the mystery woman.
"One last question, on Thursday, what color was Maggie's hair?" Ryan asked.
"Blonde. She kept it blonde. Why?" Brandy asked.
"I'm sorry. That's a part of the investigation that I can't share," Ryan answered kindly. "That's all I've got. Peck?"
"Nah. I think we've got everything." Gail stood and gestured with her hand to the door and Brandy stood. As they were walking toward the door, Gail spoke again, "Thank you for coming in, Brandy. You didn't have to do it. I'm hopeful that we're going to get something that leads to whomever killed Maggie," Gail said.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about what I said earlier," Brandy looked down contritely.
"Don't worry about it. Like I said, I'm usually much meaner about a lot less. Okay?" Gail smiled at her and stopped their progress in the hallway right outside the detectives' office.
"Okay."
"Piece of advice. Don't write off girls just because of how they look. I'm sure Maggie had her own demons. I know I do, and I've spent a lot of Saturday nights alone," Gail said.
"Tell the truth, did someone you didn't expect confess their feelings for you?" Brandy smirked.
"Kinda."
"Kinda?"
"Yeah one guy was high on pain meds…" Gail trailed off.
"And?" Brandy leaned her head forward.
"And it took me by surprise."
"What happened?"
Gail laughed a humorless laugh, "My boyfriend broke up with me."
"Oh"
"Yeah, boyfriend's best friend."
"Whoa."
"Yeah."
"What happened? Did you go out with the best friend?"
"No. They picked each other over me."
"You made it sound like there was someone else. Someone else that confessed to having feelings for you."
"There was."
"And?"
"You only get one confession per visit," Gail snarked without heat.
"Ah, I see. Tell you what, I'm a really good listener. Come down to The Parrot. I'll pour you a drink or two, on me, and listen to all the sad stories you want to tell," Brandy flirted.
"And there was no onomatopoeia in that sentence. Have we had a breakthrough?" Gail smiled again.
"Maybe. Life is short. You're right; I never took a chance with Maggie. I'm trying to be braver," Brandy reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card and pen. She wrote her cell number on the back. "If you don't want to come down to the bar. Give me a call. I'll make it worth your while. There'll be donuts…I'll need to know your favorite though," Brandy handed the card to Gail.
"I'll think about it. I'm going to be pretty busy for the foreseeable future working on Maggie's case," Gail held up the card.
"Understood. Who knows though? It's a brave new world." And with that Brandy left Gail standing in the hallway.
Gail pivoted to go back into the detectives' office when she saw Ryan standing at the door staring over her head. Gail turned her head to see Holly holding a folder, standing about fifteen feet from where she and Brandy had been talking. Unfuckingbelieveable.
"Holly, hey, do you have that report?" Ryan asked hurriedly.
To Gail, Holly seemed to come out of a daze, "Yeah. I have it right here."
"Come on in and I'll get Brandon and Marc in here. I'll call Traci and Luke too. See if they are going to be back anytime soon. That way you'll only have to go over it once. We just had a pretty big break. We hope."
"Yeah. That's fine," Holly said without emotion.
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Gail was sitting in her seat in the conference room seething. I will not feel guilty about this. What right does she have to have that face? What if I was actually flirting? What right does she have to dictate who I can and can't flirt with? She won't even look at me now! She was about to get up, walk over and ask Holly some of those same questions with Luke and Traci walked into the conference room.
"We have the surveillance. Talked with the manager, Craig Winston, and with bartenders Gwen Eriksson and Samantha Spencer. They confirmed Brandy's story," Traci said as she walked in holding a bag of DVDs.
"We watched this at the bar," Luke held up a baggie with one disk in it. "Maggie Davis came in alone and met the woman with blue hair at the bar. The greeting was familiar," Luke said, but was interrupted by Traci.
"He means they started making out like they were sailors on leave. I think he's afraid of sounding like a pig," Traci explained.
Luke shot Traci a look and spoke, "We asked for all the surveillance that they had for the month. See if we could spot the other woman there scoping the place out. The surveillance over the bar is discreet. You wouldn't notice the camera if you didn't know it was there. So we'll all watch Thursday and then we'll split them up so they're more manageable."
"Sounds good," Marc responded.
"Before we start all that, I think Dr. Stewart is here with some results from the lab. We should probably let her get back before we start watching hours of tape," Brandon suggested.
"Thanks, Brandon," Holly said tiredly.
"By all means," Luke gestured that Holly should proceed.
Holly stood and leaned on one of the desks, "We processed the comparisons. We were able to eliminate Gail as a contributor. This means that the hair did not belong to Gail or Margaret Davis. I had them run another sample to make sure.
"My hypothesis is that the killer left this hair behind unintentionally, given the defensive wounds on the victim. None of the other victims had them. I think something did not go to plan," Holly looked over to Ryan.
"We have our mistake," Ryan looked directly into Holly's eyes.
"Yes. It seems so." Holly answered.
Ryan jumped up, pumped her fist in the air, and whooped, "Woop! We've got you, you bitch! You don't know it yet, but we've got you!"
Gail cut her eyes at Ryan and then looked at Traci. Traci just raised her eyebrows. "You guys seem to be ahead of us," Gail said.
"Sorry, Gail. Holly and I have gone over all the evidence. There's never been any physical evidence left on scene that wasn't meant to be there. We've been at this a long time, and this is the first piece that we think is actual evidence."
"So…" Luke started.
"The killer is a woman," Holly finished.