FEELS GOOD TO BE WRITING FOR THIS STORY AGAIN! ENJOY. MORE IS COMING, I PROMISE!

Isabel no sooner watched Emma turn around and walk down the stairs from her front doorstep than she had pressed Henry's contact information. And she pulled on a dark coat from the back of her door, grabbed her keys from the table stepped into her closest shoes, and was out the door, her eyes barely leaving Emma's back as the girl climbed into her car.

Something was wrong.

And she knew one thing.

She wouldn't let Emma out of her sights.

As the car drove off, Isabel jumped into her car, and quickly pulled out following the gray sedan.

Mentally, she started to check off the things that had sent her senses into a tailspin. One - the way Emma's eyes were sunken into her face with dark circles underneath. Two. The way her hair was dirty, oily, and matted against her head. Showed no signs of washing for a while. Three - the way that Emma had spoken to the cat - almost in a finality sense of…

"Isabel?"

Henry's voice filled her car's audio system. And she could hear the confusion, and, since they hadn't talked since the day that his wife had fired her from the CIA, she understood the tone.

"Henry, Emma just stopped by my place." She quickly turned down a street, following the car from a distance, not wanting to draw too much attention to herself. Emma had, Afterall, even in a limited capacity had been trained in spy tactics. Isabel knew she'd need to stay on her toes.

"She what?" Henry asked, disbelief and relief filling his voice. "How is she? Is she still…"

"Henry." She didn't have time to walk through all his emotions with him. She quickly put the conversation on what needed to be talked about. "Something is wrong. I think…" She looked in her rearview mirror before changing lanes to not be directly behind the car she was tailing, "...I think she came by to say goodbye to the cat. And we all know how attached she is to that little mongrel."

She could hear the catch in Henry's voice as he asked, "Is she still there?"

"I'm following her in the car. Looks like she's headed out of town." She said as she merged onto the interstate. "Call me crazy, but I think she was saying goodbye. Has she said anything to you?"

She wished she could just pull the information out of him faster. She heard him processing.

"Iz, she's not talked… and we…" Then she heard something change. The phone went to speaker phone as his voice sounded farther away. And she heard him saying, "It's Isabel. Emma just came by the house to say goodbye to Zazu…"

And Isabel knew before she heard the voice. "Bess, you know I wouldn't call if I didn't think there was a problem." The first time in months that she'd spoken with her oldest friend. If they could still be classified as friends.

"What did she say?" Bess sounded like she always did in crisis. Calm. In charge. Informational.

And the old spy in Isabel came out. "Past tense conversation with the cat. Barely spoke with me. Appeared skittish and on edge. And was there and left. Whole thing took maybe 5 minutes."

"Was she high?" Bess asked.

For that to be a line of questioning confirmed what Isabel had suspected. The eyes. The unwillingness to stay. The "on task" nature of coming in just to talk to the cat and then leaving.

"Would actually say she wasn't." Isabel said, then explained, "Almost like she hadn't gotten high in a bit. But was looking for a fix."

Henry now. "Did she ask you for money?"

"No." Her mind raced with what this could mean. "Did she start using lately?"

She could hear tension in Elizabeth's voice as she said, "About four months ago from what we can figure out." There was something underlying there, but now, as she followed Emma in the car speeding down the interstate out of town, was not the time to ask her friend why that was such a tough question.

Isabel tried not to think about how their last conversation had gone. Tried not to think about how inserting herself into Elizabeth's life had completely ruined her own. How the mistake of putting Emma in the field had pushed everything to what might have been this pong. She couldn't think about that now.

And instead, Isabel said, "She didn't ask me for money, which means she either has enough or doesn't need to use anymore."

They all knew what she meant.

"When was the last time either one of you talked to her?" Isabel asked, trying to piece together what might be going through Emma's mind.

There was a moment of silence before Henry quietly said, "Four months ago."

And Isabel filled in the dots. One of them had given her money. From the way that Henry was speaking, he seemed like the most obvious one. Not to mention that the last time Isabel had seen both of them, Elizabeth had pushed Emma away and Henry had run out after Emma. Which made sense from the guilt she heard in Henry's voice.

Still headed out of town, following the car, Isabel asked, "So I'm following her. I don't know what's about to happen. What do you want me to do?"

And, of course, it was Elizabeth who piped up, throwing out, "Where could she be going?" Then, as if Elizabeth could answer herself, she continued, "The farmhouse?"

Isabel thought through what she knew about her goddaughter. The farm was her favorite place on earth. At least it had been when she was younger. Especially right after Iran. But would Emma go their if she suspected that Isabel was onto her? And Emma knew that even though Elizabeth and Henry weren't at the farm, there was always a security presence there. It didn't seem the place to go to be alone.

Elizabeth must have thought the same thing, despite being the one who suggested it. "If she wanted to be alone…"

And Isabel couldn't resist at least thinking the thought that Elizabeth didn't know Emma very well if the farmhouse was the only place she could imagine Emma going.

"Charlotte?" Isabel suggested.

"They broke up about four months ago." Henry said quietly.

She heard movement on the other side of the phone. Isabel kept her eyes forward on Emma's vehicle, but she knew by the sounds that Henry and Elizabeth were walking and talking on the phone.

"Well, all signs point to heading towards the farmhouse." Isabel said. "What should we do? Do we have someone pull her over?"

Henry sounded distracted. And then Isabel heard Elizabeth talking to someone away from the phone. "Please get the helicopter ready."

Isabel knew what was going on. And she said, "So it seems like the best place to head to get closer is the farmhouse?"

And Elizabeth said, "That way I can be there if that's where she's going. And if it's not…"

And Isabel finished, "At least it's in the direction of wherever she's going."

She knew the world. She spoke the languages. They thought alike so much of the time. They'd spent years working together, late night brainstorming.

And Isabel missed that. The private work she'd been doing for firms, vetting potential employees for security firms, had nothing on the spy life.

But right now - watching the car in front of her as they drove down the highway - Isabel was glad she had someone that they could at least work together to figure out what was wrong. And try and help.

And for the next two hours, she kept on the phone with Henry and Elizabeth off and on. She knew when they landed. And for all any of them knew, Emma was still headed in the direction of the farm.

Isabel knew how to stay far enough back as the night came to make it seem like she wasn't following the car. Switching lanes, letting other cars get in between the two of them for a while, easing up - Isabel knew how to do it.

The car in front of her kept to a good pace - not speeding enough to get pulled over, but just enough that Isabel knew Emma wanted to get to her destination as soon as possible.

But soon enough, the time had come for the exit to the farmhouse - this would be if their gut reaction had been correct.

"We're at the exit." Isabel said, now on the phone with both Henry and Elizabeth. And she waited for a turn signal. Waited for a sign that they'd been right.

But Emma drove by the exit.

"No exit." Isabel said, her mind going to what else could possibly be the destination.

"Fuck." Elizabeth said, frustration palpable.

And Isabel wanted so badly to get inside of Emma's head. Where else would Emma be going? Had she completely misread the situation? Had she completely overlooked something that might just have been Emma leaving town to start a new life? But there was no way she'd leave the cat. Isabel knew this - Everyone knew this. That was the scariest part of the weird encounter they'd had.

"You think she'd go see any of the other kids?" Isabel asked, halfheartedly, because - well there was no way that what Isabel had read of the situation was anything other that what she'd interpreted it to be.

"No." Henry said. "I've called and asked if they'd heard from her, and all three said no."

Isabel searched the taillights ahead of her. Wanted to get inside Emma's brain. And she quietly asked, "Where are you taking us, Em?"

About three exits and fifteen minutes later, a turn signal brought the questioning to a more narrowed search.

"She's getting off at exit 152." Isabel informed them. And she waited. She didn't know this part of Virginia like they did. They'd lived here for years. Bess had grown up here.

Henry started throwing out questions, "You think she's going to see…"

And question after question Isabel heard Elizabeth say, "No…" and give reasons why not.

And then as Emma slowed to a stop at a four way stop, Isabel realized she very vaguely remembered something about the area in her mind. It was something about the weird stop, the way the streetlights lit up the old farm roads. Something, but she just couldn't place it…

But when Isabel informed them that she'd turned left up at the stop sign, she could hear the recognition in Elizabeth's voice.

And the words came out in a haunting and knowing tone. A tone that finally figured it out.

"Its the cemetery." Elizabeth almost whispered. "She's going to the old plot."

And it clicked for Isabel. She recognized it because she'd been here when they'd had the funeral for Emma. The empty casket burial. The service.