Echoes

Chapter Sixteen

That's The Sound Of The Police

Sasuke and Sakura sat having breakfast alone, Itachi having headed in to the city centre to check on how the refurbishment of the offices was coming along.

"So what are your plans for the day?" Sakura asked, picking apart her orange.

"Well, now that I know I'm not suspended I'm going to have to head in head in and try and make some head way with my cases." He looked at the girl before him. "You don't have work today?"

"Not today." Sakura frowned. "I've been given some time off to 'recover from my ordeal'." She snorted. "Ridiculous."

"It wouldn't hurt you to take some time for yourself, would it?"

Sakura pouted. "I get bored easily."

Sasuke shook his head – that didn't surprise him somehow. He regarded Sakura for a quiet moment and then sighed. "Well you could tag along with me? I'm sure Kakashi wouldn't begrudge you being there – he's actually nice to you."

Sakura laughed. "Sure. Sounds good." She paused. "Well not the fact that you're investigating a murder but you know."

Sasuke stared at her with a blank expression. "How much coffee have you had?"

Sasuke pulled his sleek, black Audi in to his usual space, careful not to get too close to Naruto's monstrous jalopy of a pickup – you never know where it's been after all – and got out the car, jogging around to Sakura's side to help her out. They took the more welcoming entrance in to the building this time, the receptionist giving Sasuke a smile, and crossed the bright atrium to the lifts. When they emerged on to Sasuke's floor they found it as busy as ever though those that noticed Sasuke called out, expressing their happiness he had not been disciplined.

Sasuke led Sakura and Metsuki towards his office, but Kakashi appeared alongside him before they could get in to the room.

"Yo." The tall man greeted, his eye crinkling. "Good to see you gain Sakura, and in more pleasant circumstances this time."

Sakura smiled. "Hello Kakashi. Are you well?"

"Well enough I suppose. I'll be even better if Sasuke and Naruto and Sasuke here manage to get some work done today." His voice was light but Sasuke understood that Kakashi was getting pressured from his superiors – they needed to make progress with the case and soon. "Sasuke, a word?" Kakashi motioned to his office.

Sasuke nodded and touched Sakura's arm. "Are you okay here or would you like to wait in my office?"

Sakura shook her head. "Here's fine. Go on before you get detention."

Kakashi chuckled and led Sasuke down the row of doors until they came to his own office. There was something to be said for promotions in the KPD – much nicer offices. Sasuke wasn't surprised to see Naruto already sat in front of Kakashi's desk, head tipped back and eyes closed, soft snores coming from his mouth.

Kakashi made his way to his desk, giving the blonde a sharp poke in the back of his head as he passed. Naruto snorted, bolting upright.

"Ramen!" He looked around wildly for moment before realising where he was. He laughed sheepishly and ruffled the back of his hair.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and took the set next to Naruto. Kakashi observed them both through a tired eye. "I'll be frank: the suits in media relations are getting antsy, not having any good news to tell the public."

"Let them complain and gripe!" Naruto frowned. "It's not like they're helping us do the grunt work."

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, but the truth is the longer it takes us to crack this case the harder it is going to get – we're just giving the perpetrators time to cover their tracks and possibly make a new move."

"Then what do you suggest?" Sasuke asked. "We've got e-fits of the man from the restaurant circulating but there's not much else we can do on that front."

"I agree," Kakashi sighed. "I want us to focus on the victim for the time being – find out why he may have been killed, see if we can link any possible suspects that way."

"Didn't we already get a statement from his employers? He was working on growing food from artificial cells. Why would anyone want to kill a man for that?"

"Well some people get angry with genetic engineers Naruto, even the ones only working with food. But I doubt it was because of this that he was murdered." Kakashi tossed two rather slim folders over the desk, each of the younger men picking one up and flipping through it. "The victim was never in trouble with the police and we only received glowing praise from his employers. He almost looks too clean. I've got a hunch that he had some skeletons in his closet and I want you two to find them. I already had team go out and gather his personal effects from his address – the council approved a warrant to investigate him." Kakashi nodded at the files. "Read through that, do your own digging and report back to me with what you find."

The two men nodded and stood up, heading out to the bullpen again. Naruto was skimming through the file rapidly. "I suppose interviews can wait until later when we have a better idea of who to question first." He muttered before his eyes brightened as they spotted something. "Hey they brought his car in" He gave a low whistle. "" Wow I should have become a geneticist if that's the kind of wheels you can afford."

Sasuke shook his head. "You like cars and yet you drive that beast of a rust bucket around."

"Hey! My car is a classic. They don't make them like that anymore."

"For good reason." Sasuke sniped.

Naruto glared at him. "Ha ha. I'm heading down to see if they've found anything in the car. You coming?"

"No. Sakura's waiting for –" He cut off abruptly as he saw that Sakura wasn't where he had left her. A quick glance around the room let him know that there was no pink hair to be found. "Where did she go?"

Naruto laughed. "Can't keep a hold of your lady huh? Well good luck finding her. Catch you later."

Sasuke flipped Naruto off as he left before returning his attention to the room. Sasuke walked over to where he had left Sakura and glanced around.

Most officers (unless very low down on the rungs of power) had their own offices, but many were scattered around the building. It's what kept the bullpen so busy – if you were not fortunate enough to have your on this floor, the teams gathered and used the hot desks in the middle of the room – planning and discussing their cases and more generally, socialising.

A bickering pair were using the nearest desk and Sasuke leaned over the waist-high partition that ran around the bullpen.

"Kotetsu, Izumo." The two glanced up.

"Oh hey Sasuke." Izumo grinned. "What's up?"

"There was a girl stood here like five minutes ago. Did you see where she went?"

"Girl?" Kotetsu frowned. "Since when do we have girls around these parts. They're all like Anko." He gave an exaggerated shudder.

Sasuke was not amused. "Pink haired girl. White dress on, had a dog with her."

Izumo kicked Kotetsu under the table. "Ignore him. Yeah she was here. Left a few minutes ago."

"Where?"

"Dunno," the man shrugged. "Headed off with Tenten though so I'd check downstairs."

"Thanks Izumo." Sasuke nodded.

Sasuke headed for the lifts once more, pressing the button for the basement and inwardly berating himself – why did he ever suspect Sakura to actually wait for him? Sasuke stepped out of the lift at the sub-basement and proceeded down the echoing corridor towards Neji and Tenten's lab. As he approached he could see Metsuki sat in the corridor looking a little sorry for himself. His head perked up when he saw Sasuke who offered him a scratch behind the ears.

"What are you doing out here?" He said softly to the dog.

"No animals in the lab!" A female voice answered from within the laboratory.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and allowed the door to swish open for him. "Good morning to you too Tenten."

Said woman was grinning at him from across the room, a dismantled gun spread out on the table before her. A flash of pink caught Sasuke's attention and he turned his head to see Sakura sat next to Neji. The man was explaining something to the pinkette, who appeared fascinated by whatever it was.

Sasuke approached them and touched Sakura's arm gently. She smiled sheepishly. "Hey."

"So, what part of 'wait here' do you not understand?"

"Relax." Tenten piped up. "I went up to give Asuma some results that he was waiting for and who should I happen to see but my good friend Sakura?" She went back to examining the chamber of the gun. "It's been a while since a while since we've had a chance to catch up so I asked her if she wanted to come down here with me."

"And Neji is okay with having people in his lab?" Sasuke asked dubiously.

The long-haired man shot Sasuke a sidelong glance. "Sakura is a very good listener."

"It's interesting stuff." Sakura smiled.

"Anyway, perfect timing Uchiha." Neji minimised the window he had been working on and pulled up a new screen containing a multitude of files. "The boys who went through your victim's house brought me his hard drive. I've exported it all on to a flash drive for you to look through. I've had a brief glance at some of the files and it's pretty heavy stuff – a lot of the science flies over my head even."

Neji pulled the thin stick from the front of the computer and passed it to Sasuke. "I'd suggest taking a good look and working out which parts you'll have to send off for a more... specialist look."

Sasuke nodded his head in thanks. "You got any more?"

Neji nodded. "Yeah, but nothing that I'm going to rush to get to. They did a sweep of the guy's house when they recovered the stuff- it was suspiciously clean. I doubt I'll pull even this man's prints off anything, let alone a possible murderer."

"Okay." Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. "I should start expecting everything to hit dead ends. You ready to head out, Sakura?"

"Sure." The girl hopped up. "Thanks for indulging me, Neji."

"Not a problem." The man was already looking back down his microscope.

"Catch you soon." Tenten called in farewell.

Metsuki perked up when they emerged from the lab, falling in to step with them as they headed back up the corridor and towards the lifts.

"Sorry if I worried you." Sakura said quietly, her hand tightening round Metsuki's lead.

Sasuke sighed. "Well if you were going to wander off anywhere I suppose a police station is the best place for it."

Sakura's lips quirked. ""Did Kakashi have good news?"

"If you class more work as good news then yes."

"Sounds fun." She heard the chime as the lift doors opened and they stepped in. "If I'm going to be in the way then I can head out."

Sasuke caught himself just before he shook his head. "It's fine. Naruto's seems to have cleverly left the dull work to me so I would appreciate the company."

They made their way to Sasuke's office where he uploaded the flash drive to his computer. A quick look through the contents let Sasuke know that Neji wasn't kidding – he had no clue what any of this meant.

He puzzled over things a little more before giving up. He pocketed the flash drive, deciding that he could look over the files at home and decide then if he needed the geniuses in research to take a look for him.

He glanced over at Sakura who was making a fuss of Metsuki.

"We'd best go check Naruto hasn't destroyed any vital evidence."

Large pieces of evidence, usually vehicles, were brought to an open space on the ground floor of the KPD. It looked barely any different from a regular garage, besides the people milling around in forensic suits of course.

There were a few vehicles currently parked in the space. A white van had been partially dismantled on the far side of the space while a motorcycle was having moulds taken of its tyres. There was a flash blue convertible sat in the middle of the room, apparently unattended. Sasuke took a guess that that was their victim's car and headed over.

"Find anything Dobe?"

Naruto's bright blonde head popped up from the back seat of the convertible. "Shut it, Teme." He waved the scraps of paper in his gloved hands "And no. Just a lot of receipts for takeaway food. The guy was a true bachelor."

"Does it look like the meals were for one?"

Naruto's eyes scanned the slips. "Well it's nowhere near what I'd order."

Sasuke smirked. "He could have been feeding a whole family in the case."

Naruto glared. "Very funny." He frowned. "It's always just cheap food by the looks of it. Bought around the same time on the same days of the week."

Sasuke crossed his arms. "Routines are helpful to us. It could be an indication he was meeting someone at the same time each week." He paused in thought. "The receipts must have the address of the drive through. We could see if this car was picked up on nearby CCTV and see if we can track its movements."

"That's a long shot." Naruto frowned.

"I know," Sasuke conceded. "But it's worth checking out everything."

Naruto hopped out of the car. "Well looks like we've bagged and boxed everything that was in the car. The forensic guys can pull their fibres and prints now." Naruto pulled off the nitrile gloves after bagging the receipts he held and tossing them in a box which held several other tagged items of evidence. He began to unzip the white jumpsuit he had on.

Shrugging his arms out of the thin fabric Naruto grinned at Sasuke. "Did you find Sakura-chan?"

"Yeah." Sasuke pointed towards the entrance to the evidence locker. Metsuki was more than just a dog, but it still wasn't a great idea to have him around forensic operations... for obvious reasons. Sasuke could just imagine Kakashi's face if they reported their murderer appeared to be part Labrador.

"I've been busy lately, haven't I?" Sasuke and Sakura had chosen to take Metsuki for a walk after dinner.

They had left KPD shortly after Sasuke had spoken to Naruto about their next steps. Itachi had not returned from the city centre, plans for the new offices being more demanding than he had anticipated, and so Sasuke and Sakura had spent some much-needed time together.

They had been walking quietly, enjoying the peace of Sasuke's neighbourhood when Sasuke had broken the silence.

"I suppose you have." Sakura mused. "The case is demanding though, isn't it?"

Sasuke grunted in what may have been agreement. "Am I not making enough time for you?"

Sakura smiled and bumped his arm with her shoulder. "I'm not in need of a babysitter you know. Just as long as we spend time together and have fun I think I can deal with not being joined at the hip. Besides, I think you've been doing a bang up job." She laughed. "You are surprisingly thoughtful you know."

Sasuke smirked and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "What have you done to me, Sakura Haruno? I seem to be turning in to a... softy." The word drew a mock shudder from him.

Sakura snorted and buried herself closer to him. "Don't worry, I won't tell Naruto."

Will someone please tell me why I have chapters written for weeks before I decide not to change anything and then post them as they are? I'm so indecisive it's ridiculous! I think I get unsure of whether a chapter is good or not when it seems like I'm focusing less on Sasuke and Sakura and more on the day-to-day stuff, but it has to be done to get to the good parts I guess.

Also, I made more work for myself by changing my mind about where the story is going. I had it all worked out then BAM! My mind goes in a completely different direction.

I've planned it all out (again) and written the ending and some major scenes for the "new" direction, and am really excited to post them. I suppose I'd best get the in between bits written sharpish!

I imagine that the parts I already had written that don't fit in anymore will be posted as outtakes/bonuses at the end.

Thank you for all the lovely reviews, you guys are the best.

I'm going in to hospital on Thursday for some surgery so I'm not sure when I'll be posting next, but I'm sure some more lovely reviews will make my recovery all that easier ;)