Justin and I poured over Shannon’s bedroom for another couple of hours, gathering up all the things that looked like they might have been able to help us, and shoving them into evidence bags.  Justin instructed me not to remove my gloves as long as I was touching things in the room.  I told him that Alvie probably hadn’t been in the bedroom, but he reminded me that it didn’t matter.  

“Just listen to me.  I know what I’m doing.”

Despite the fact that it only took him a morning to sort of accept me, he’s still hell bent on being the leader of the investigation.  I’ve decided to give him that reassurance, because I know it’s his whole world, and also because, well, he doesn’t think I’m as much of a freak anymore.  He won’t say it, but I know a part of him has bought into my ‘psychic whatever it is’ as he would say.  I’ll take it.

I’ll take anything at this point, to fit in.  I have no friends or family out here, and I haven’t been in town long enough to get to know the people living in my apartment building.  Justin is it.  Dan and Sarah are nice co workers but I know I’ll never see them outside of normal office hours.  That means if I get a flat tire at eleven pm, I’ll probably call Justin to come help me.  Even though he would act like he was annoyed, I know he would come.  That’s who he is.  He cares about people but doesn’t know how to show compassion, so he takes care of everyone instead.

At least, he tries to.  Personally, I think his attitude and demeanor are a little much for most people.  He’s rough and to the point, and that doesn’t sit well with those outside the world of law enforcement. I don’t really judge anyone though, and I guess that’s why I’ve lasted the day and gotten him to accept me.  From a young age I’ve always been able to see the truth in people, see them for who they are.  My grandmother had the gift too, although, she  would never admit it to me.  She never took the time to explain what it was I could do until she was on her death bed.  By that time, it was too late for her to teach me anything.

“Protect your gifts, Grace,” she whispered, as I gently stroked her hair.  “They’re a very important part of you.”

She raised me.  My parents died when I was very young, in a house fire.  The firemen were able to get me out through a window but they couldn’t get to my parents bedroom in time.  I was just a baby, so I don’t remember much, but Gram used to tell me lots of stories about them.  Dad was her son, and because of the stories she told me about him, I’ve always felt like I grew up with him.  It’s mom I regret never getting to know much about.  I look at pictures of her sometimes, and can see myself in her.  I think she would have been proud of me.  Sometimes I talk to her, and even though she can’t talk back, I can just feel it…that she can hear me.

Gram died last year.  I’d been waiting tables since I graduated high school to help her with the bills, and when she passed I was lost for a really long time.  She was the only family I ever knew, and it was hard getting used to living in a world without her.  My best friend Amy was a great support, but she always knew there was more in store for me.  She was the only person who ever believed in my gift.  I can remember hiding in a closet with her at a young age, and telling her all about what she would be like when she got older.  I guess it hit her really hard that I was completely right about it all, and that’s why she wanted me to get out there and do something with my “powers”.  

So here I am, but I have to say, it’s not what I expected at all.

Justin is determined and strong.  He’s tall and muscular, intimidating, knows exactly what to do and say to get his job done the right way and save lives…definitely not one to be meddled with.  I feel safe, just being around him, like nobody could get to me as long as he’s watching over me.  That’s what he does.  He watches over the people he considers  important to him, protects them.  I don’t know why I’m suddenly important, but I guess it’s that whole “partner” mentality.  He said on the way here that he wants me to consider him my partner now, because he considers me his.  He wants to talk to Foster about training me to be more than just a consultant.  He wants me to learn how to be an actual agent, and that involves learning…how to use a gun.  I’m not really comfortable with that at all.  I’m sort of a weakling when it comes to things like violence, but he says it’s part of the job and he wants to make me better.

It’s more of a control issue.  I know that too.  I took psych in high school, learned the basics.  He needs something to control, to make better, to feel accomplished about so he can shut out all the things he messed up in his life.  

“Just stay close to me,” he says, as he shuts the car off and removes his seatbelt.  “It’s not exactly the projects but it’s not the safest neighborhood at night.”

“I thought you said it was quiet here,” I whisper, shuddering as I hear the sounds of sirens and shouts in the distance.

“It’s…quieter,” he laughs.  “And it’s more comfortable than the office, like I said.”
 
I clutch our Chinese food bag closer to my chest as he opens his door.  “Doesn’t the Bureau pay you enough to get a decent place?” I glance out the window and up a the large brick apartment building looming above me.  We’re in the middle of Downtown Chicago, and I can tell it’s not the most poverty stricken area, but it’s definitely not the safest place, either.

He shrugs.  “They pay me enough to cover my lawyer’s fees and child support,” he smirks.  “I could get a nicer condo, but I’d have to move out of the city and my daughter lives about five miles from here, so I like to be close by. Come on, its not that bad.  You just have to be smart about it.”

He gets out.

He doesn’t deserve this.  The words echo in my mind and my throat tightens.

“Grace.”  He says it through my now open door.  “Do you not want to stay here? I can take you home.”

I nod slightly, and get out of the car.  “It’s fine,” I whisper.  

He leads the way down the block, checking over his shoulder every few minutes to make sure I’m right behind him.  We enter the building quickly.  The lobby is dingy, covered with dirt and graffiti.  The furniture is either overturned or torn up.  Justin casually goes to the spot on the wall reserved for the mailboxes, which has been sprayed with graffiti as well, unlocks his designated box and pulls his mail out.  He tolerates all of this for his daughter.  She’s the most important thing, and I think if someone told him that he had to live on the street in order to be in a five mile radius of her, he would do it.  He’s selfless that way, but only when it comes to her.

It’s nice to see this side of him.  I’m almost glad I came, because I need to get to know all the different sides to him if we’re going to have such a close working relationship.

“Damn.”  Justin presses the button on the elevator continuously, but it never lights.  “Busted again.  Sorry.  Let me carry the food.  There’s six flights of stairs.”

I hand it to him, and he keeps it together, flashes me that smile of positivity again and starts to lead the way up the stairs.  Six flights doesn’t sound like that many, until I find out how many steps are included in each one.  It takes twenty minutes to climb them all, and I admit, I’m winded when we finally reach his floor.  Justin, of course, is in great shape, and barely seems affected as I follow him, huffing and puffing, down the hall to his designated apartment.

“You’re out of shape, Starvich,” He chuckles, fishing his keys out of his pants pocket and turning the right one in the lock.  

“Yeah, great,” I groan.  

He glances back at me as he struggles to push the door open.  It’s jammed, not surprisingly.  “We gotta get you into the gym next week.”  He puts the food down and kicks the door, and it swings open automatically.  “I told that guy he needed to fix the door.” He shakes his head roughly before picking up the bag of food and going inside.

I follow slowly, cautiously looking around as I stand in the doorway.  The apartment is dingier than the lobby was.  Boxes are stacked everywhere, most of them sealed, labeled with various locations on them like ‘living room’ and ‘office’.  It would seem that he just moved in, but…I can tell that he’s been here for quite some time.  I step further into the place, and shut the door behind me.  A pizza box rests under my foot and I quickly realize that most of the floor is comprised of those, and other various food containers.  Forget the kitchen, with it’s overflowing sink full of dishes and cruddy pots, countertops full of more garbage that I’ve seen in a very long time.  I wouldn’t even go near the refrigerator.  All the walls are bare, and the furniture is minimal.  Most depressing though, are the empty liquor bottles that litter every available shelf, more of the floor, and the rest of the place.

“Come on and eat,” he calls out to me.  “It’s already lukewarm.”

I turn to him.  He’s sitting on the tired looking sofa, pulling all the food out of the bag for us and putting it down on the coffee table that’s already overloaded with newspapers and more garbage.  I’m sure that couch is the same one that includes the pull out bed.  Wonderful.

“You live here?”  I can feel the look of utter disgust spreading across my face as I walk over all the garbage to sit beside him.  

“I’m not home much,” he grunts, and digs into his Pork Lo Mein.

“Still.”  I pull my food container close to me and start to open it.  “It’s…”

“Hey, I think you should be a little forgiving right now.  This morning I wanted you fired, and now I’ve invited you to be a dinner guest.  You should feel pretty good.  It’s only your first day.”

I lean back, and sigh a little bit.  Is he messed up? Yes, but he has a point.  “Okay.”  I dig into my food without another word.  Halfway into our meal, Justin reaches into our food bag and retrieves a bottle of something…Whiskey maybe, and pours some into a dirty glass that’s been making it’s home among the garbage that litters a side table next to the couch.  

“You aren’t really going to get drunk, I hope.” I narrow my eyes as he starts to indulge himself.

“I have a drink or two after work.” He rolls his eyes.  “Helps me focus.”

“A drink or two?” I scoff and glance around at all the empty bottles.  “It looks like you’ve drank enough liquor to kill yourself twice.”

“Are you just going to sit there and criticize me the whole night?”  He downs his second glass of whiskey and puts the bottle away, somewhat reluctantly.  “That’s not why I had you come here.”

My mind flashes then, to him, sitting alone here in this awful place, downing a whole bottle of that same stuff in a single evening, collapsing onto the floor in a drunken slumber.  The vision tells me it’s not something done once in a while.  It’s a more than once a week ritual that he hides very well.  I shake my head. “I just…”

“You just what? I’m a drinker at home.  I’m not special agent Timberlake when I’m off the clock.  I’m allowed, as long as I don’t let it follow me to work.”

“Foster made you get a partner though,” I point out.

He shrugs.  “So?”

“So maybe he thought…”

“How about we get off the subject of me and my supposed decline into the bowels of humanity,” he nods, and pulls the briefcase that had been slung over his shoulder earlier on his lap.  “We’re here to work, anyway.”

The professional in me comes out then.  I think it has to, otherwise I won’t be able to handle this, staying here and working with him through the night.  Most of all, I think he needs me to be the one with the level head right now.  Here, shut behind that door, he can be the person that no one else can know about.  At work, he has to be the one in charge, be the protector, but right now he doesn’t.  Right now he’s expecting me to guide him.

So I will.

I don’t finish my greasy dinner and Justin puts everything into the empty take out bag, kicking it somewhere among the heaps of junk on the floor.  I don’t say anything, out of respect for him, and we get right into our work, pouring over Shannon’s file and picking apart every shred of evidence that we took from her room.  The computer and Cashmere sweater are being assessed at the lab, and Justin was promised he’d have all the analysis in the morning.  Still, it’s giving us the opportunity to really get to know who Shannon is.  By the looks of things she’s a very good student, and very popular with her circle of friends at school.  Justin has me compile an alphabetical list of all of them, starring the ones she seems closest to, so tomorrow when we go to the school we can interview the best ones first.  I find that we make a good team, despite only having met today.  He seems very comfortable asking me to do things for him now, and I’m not so scared to get my point across to him, telling him I feel a certain way about a few of her friends.  He listens now.  It’s a huge turnaround and a fast one, but I won’t point it out to him.

By three in the morning we have everything we need compiled into four neat, manageable file folders, and Justin has created a few documents on his laptop.  He tells me he wants me to buy one on like his on the departments budget.  I try not to get overexcited.  I’ve never had the money to buy myself an expensive Macintosh laptop before.

“You want to call it a night?” He yawns, pulling the monitor of his laptop closed.  “I’d like to get to office for eight if we can.  Damon in the lab said he would have the laptop assessed by then.”

Eight?  That’s about four hours of sleep ahead of me, and I’ve never been one to sleep on the run like this.  I can tell it’s something he does all the time though, and if I’m going to live this sort of lifestyle and be his partner, I better get used to it.  “I…yeah, sure.”

“I’ll get you some clothes and bedding.  Just pull out the bed for yourself.  I think there’s a sheet on it already.”

I cringe at the probable condition of the sheet, but I don’t protest.  “Thanks.”

He nods.  “Good work tonight, Starvich.”

“Thanks.” I try to conceal my surprise at his words.

He walks away, disappearing behind the door to what can only be his bedroom.  I set to work yanking the bed out of the confines of the sofa.  It creaks and groans as I tug at the strap.  Obviously, it never gets used, and I’m almost convinced it’s stuck for good, but then it finally pops out.  I fall on my back when the thing literally knocks me over, and then I hear him laughing.  My eyes dart to his bedroom doorway again, and I glare.  “Very nice,” I grunt.

“There’s a trick to it. I should have told you.  You have to step on the left side and yank.  It doesn’t get used much.  I only used it for a couple of weeks when my bed was being delivered.  Sorry.”

He holds out his hand to me and helps me to my feet, and I do my best to brush off the dirt and grime from the floor.  “It’s…fine.”

He hands me a wadded up handful of clothing for me to wear to bed.  “Shower is down the little hall to the left.  You need anything else?”
r32;“Bed bug spray?”

His eyes narrow.

I just laugh.  “Goodnight, Justin.”

“I’ll wake you around seven,” he mutters, before stalking back to the bedroom and pushing the door closed behind him.

I shower and change into the clothes he’s provided me with, a white undershirt and a pair of his boxers which smell like they were just washed.  I realize it’s not his personal hygiene that’s an issue…it’s just that he doesn’t care about his surroundings.  He’s drowning, and has nobody to help him.

I don’t even know if he wants help.

I can’t pity him, because that’s not my job.  My job is to help Shannon James, bring her home alive, and that’s what I’ll focus on.

I collapse onto the creaky flat mattress.  Justin must have remembered to give me a blanket and pillow at some point, because they’ve appeared at the end of the mattress, comforter folded nicely with the pillow resting on top.  He took the time to fold it, which is baffling, but it makes me smile.  I lay down, pulling the comforter around me, and fall to sleep immediately.

It doesn’t take long, for the dream to come.

“You have to listen to me.  Stop crying, okay?”

Shannon whimpers, yanking on the chains that bind her hands together.  They’re attached to the cage ceiling above her.  She’s not in that dark place anymore, but the gag and blindfold are there still.

“If you stop crying he’ll take your gag off,” she whispers, running her hands through her stringy, matted brown hair.  I get a closeup on her face.  It’s tired and worn, her brown eyes, once brilliant, are dead.  She’s spent too long here, but she knows how to live, and she knows Shannon is just a kid.  “I promise you.”  Her fingers grip the small squares that comprise her cage door.  “Please don’t cry anymore.  My name is… ….. I want to help you.”

“Mmphhh.”

“I know what he’s doing to you,” she whispers, her eyes darting to the door, to the cage behind her, and then back on Shannon.  “He does it to all of us…but you can’t lose your mind in here.  You can’t let him take it from you.”

“Joanna…”

Alvie’s voice comes, sly and snakelike.  He didn’t make a sound when he entered the room.

I never see his face.

“Have you made a friend with our new pet, Joanna?”

He crouches down in front of her, back to me.  I can feel her shaking even though I’m not really there.

“Please love,” she whispers.  “I was just trying to calm her down.”

“I thought I told you not to talk to her.”  Alvie opens up the cage, and I can tell how enraged he is.  “What do I have to do to make you listen, hmm?”  He reaches in and yanks her by the hair.

“NO! NO!!!”

“MMMMMPHHHHHH.”

I jolt upright in the creaky bed, panting, soaked in sweat, shirt sticking to my back.

God.

“Oh God.”  I whimper, and bury my face in my hands.

Oh God.

He’s hurting them.

There’s two of them there, in that place, with him.

A light snaps on.  “Starvich?”

I can’t say anything.  I’m shaking too hard.  I feel the mattress sink down silghty and I feel a hand on my shoulder next.  “Grace?”

I make myself look at him.  “There’s two of them,” I whisper.

Justin rubs his eyes tiredly and clears his throat.  “What…two of who?”

“Two girls,” I sob.  “He has two girls, Justin.  Right now.  I saw…I saw her.  The other one.”

He stares at me, his eyes growing wider by the second.  “Tell me you have a name, Grace.”

I shudder more intensely.  “He calls her Joanna but…but that’s not her name,” I shake my head.  “He names them when he takes them.”

Justin sighs hopelessly into his hands.

He knows this is much more than just an abduction now.