She slid in next to Crystal, making sure to put space between Paige and Crystal, not to mention herself. She did not want a repeat of earlier, and she honestly should have thought that one through before sending Paige over. Crystal put her head on Grace's shoulder.

  "Thanks."

  "You're lucky I was here."

  "I think your partner here did all the work."

  "Hmm. Some work." Grace sent a glare in Paige's direction. "Crystal, this is Paige."

  "I could only assume as much." Crystal put her hand across the table to shake Paige's.

  Grace wasn't remiss to ignore the blush still lingering on Crystal's cheeks. "Date bad?"

  "Awful. What was I thinking?"

  "Pretty sure you weren't." Grace took another sip of her whiskey. "You eat yet?"

  "No."

  "Good. We haven't either." Grace flagged down the waiter so they could order. She did not want to be stuck there between the two of them longer than necessary. Something was going on with the looks they were sending each other, and it made her uncomfortable to say the least.

  By the time Grace was heading home, she knew she had made a mistake sending Paige instead of just doing the damn job herself. The two of them had flirted for hours, insisted on dessert, and then when the bill had come, Paige refused to let anyone else pay it.

  Grace could not have escaped faster to save her life. She hopped in her car and called Amya, hoping she would answer the phone this time. When it went to voicemail, she let out a sigh and closed her eyes.

  "Well, I just accidentally hooked Crystal and Paige up. See what happens when you leave me on my own? Save me."

  Hanging up, she put the car in drive and headed to her lonely house. Her week had gotten off on the wrong foot, and it seemed it was going to continue down that road for at least the next few days. She could only hope something would turn it around soon.

  ###

  As soon as she got into the office in the morning, Grace started the paperwork to try and get a judge to sign off on getting her all of Joseph's medical records, which surprisingly hadn't been done yet. She couldn't quite tell what the other detectives had done—if anything—but if she had her guess, it was nothing. Nothing at all.

  Groaning, she redid the ponytail for her hair and closed her eyes. When everyone else was in the office except Paige, she knew she should have thought better about sending Paige to save Crystal. She hadn't heard a single word from Crystal yet, which also meant only one thing.

  She tried to push the thought from her mind because the image her head conjured was not a good one. At least hopefully it would get Paige off her back for a while, until it all blew up in their faces, which it no doubt would in at least a week but no more than two. Crystal and Paige were completely wrong for each other in every sense. Where Paige was rough and tough, Crystal was soft and tender. Paige would eat Crystal up and spit her out in two seconds flat.

  When Paige did finally walk into the office, late as was her norm when she had someone to spend the night with, Grace cringed. She did not want to hear any details. At all. Ever. Shutting her mind off was harder than she expected it to be, but she finished filling out the paperwork to get the judge to sign off on getting Joseph's medical records in full.

  When Paige finally swaggered over to Grace, and that was the only way she would ever describe that happy "I had sex walk" Paige did, Grace groaned and tried to escape to do work.

  "What you working on?"

  "My case," Grace answered aloofly. "What are you working on?"

  "This new case Humbard landed me this morning."

  "Good for you." Grace flipped around some papers on her desk, drawing out what she was doing to try and make it look like she was in the middle of something.

  "Want to ride with me?"

  Sighing, Grace tried to be smooth as she turned to glance up at Paige who stood over her desk with a hand on the back of the chair and near Grace's shoulder. "I've really got to get a jump on this case."

  "It's a four-year-old case, Halling. It's not going anywhere."

  "It's four years old, Paige. Don't you think I should try to make some headway on it, finally, unlike every other detective who has had it?"

  "Sometimes you're too serious. Learn to take a joke."

  Grace's chest tightened. Paige wasn’t usually an asshole after she got laid, but because it was Crystal, it stung. If only Amya where there, she would escape down to the chaplain's offices and hide out.

  "I can take a joke," Grace muttered and turned to her desk. "I just don't think sleeping with my best friend is very funny."

  "Whoa! Slow down. What?"

  Grace glared up at Paige. "You heard me."

  "You think I slept with Crystal?" Paige's hand landed on Grace's shoulder.

  Instead of Grace shrugging Paige's fingers off her like she wanted, she ignored them. "I know you did, and you can deny it all you want, but I know for a fact that is what happened."

  "And how do you know that?"

  Huffing, Grace leaned in her chair and crossed her arms, glaring at Paige with everything she had. "Because you came in late today, you are being smug, Crystal hasn't texted me all morning or said jack shit about last night, and you are a cocky son of a bitch."

  "I know for a fact you don't know we slept together."

  "Really?" Grace stood up from her chair, ready for the battle she knew was about to ensue. "And how do you know that, Delwin? Unless Crystal told you she wasn't going to tell me."

  Paige's open mouth, blank stare, and flushed cheeks told Grace everything she needed to know and confirmed everything she had been thinking. Grace didn't even bother to grab the papers on her desk as she stepped around Paige and out into the hallway. Walking all the way down to the chaplain’s offices, she cursed when she realized there was absolutely no point in her going there.

  Grinding her teeth, she spun around and let out a breath. She needed a minute to calm down before she went to her desk to work. Slipping outside, Grace walked around the entire block before she went back inside. Paige sat at her own desk, and Grace ignored her.

  With the files in front of her, Grace poured through them. Joseph was sixteen or seventeen when he was found most likely. They weren't sure. He could have been as young as fourteen or as old as twenty. It was hard to tell. She sighed. An age range of five years was a lot to work with when looking through old missing persons cases in the past ten years at least.

  When he was found, he had been severely beaten and stabbed several times to the chest, neck, and head even. She had the photos to show everything in her case file she'd been handed. Pulling them out once again, Grace memorized every place Joseph had been injured. His cheek had been cut, the left side of his neck. Most of the stab wounds were on the left side of his body, indicating whoever had tried to kill him was right-handed.

  Sighing, Grace put the photos down and focused on the initial investigative report. He'd been beaten and left naked in a ditch on the side of the road. There was no wallet, no ID, nothing to indicate who he was. His entire body had been completely stripped of everything.

  No kid deserved that, nonetheless to sit in a coma for four years with no idea what his real name was. Grace gnawed on her lower lip. The only name she had was the taxi driver who had found him. She'd have to interview him soon enough, but first, she wanted to make sure she fully checked him out before walking into that interview.

  She pulled his name up and ran it. She risked a glance over to Paige, who happened to be staring directly at her in that moment. Huffing, Grace turned to her computer and ignored Paige's glance. When she was about to skim through the taxi driver's record, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  "If you didn't want me to be with her, you should have said something before it happened."

  Grinding her teeth, Grace looked up into Paige's eyes. Paige was right. She hadn't ever said they couldn't or that she didn't want them to. Still, she wasn't happy about it, mostly because she knew she would somehow end up in the middle of it all—she knew it.

  "I know. Just...don't hurt her. She's my best friend."

  Paige's fingers squeezed, massaging Grace's tense muscles. Grace drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, still not quite sure how she felt about the entire situation. Figuring she should offer Paige an olive branch after getting so mad she ran away to cool off, Grace nodded her head at Paige.

  "Tell me about your case."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, but no funny business. I'm not going anywhere with you today. I need to figure out something on this case."

  "An interview for an interview?"

  Grace gave Paige a sideways glance and smirked. "Maybe. We'll see. Who are you looking for?"

  "Missing hooker."

  "What?"

  "Yeah." Paige's eyebrows rose and fell several times. "Go figure. She normally works the streets but hasn't been. Her working friends got worried so they called it in. Means I'm spending lots of time on Second Street."

  The taunt on the tip of Grace's tongue was not going to be welcome, so she swallowed it down and went with a nicer one. "Not any place you haven't been before."

  "You either, partner." Paige stared directly at her.

  Grace's cheeks flushed hot. Every time Paige gave her that look, she couldn't stop her body's reaction, and she hated it. She didn't want to react that way. But with Paige's hand still on her shoulder, she could not stop herself.

  "I still don't know where to begin with this case." There was the olive branch if she had ever seen one.

  "Tell me about it."

  Sighing, Grace turned to her computer and hoped the move would break Paige's grip, but it didn't. "The only person who was there before the cops was the taxi driver."

  "So bring him in."

  "I plan on it, but I want an objective or two first. It's been four years. I'm willing to bet his story has changed a bit, and I want to know how it changes. Got to figure out how to ask the right questions especially since I have no idea what he was asked four years ago."

  "Good detective work right there, Halling. You've grown up on me."

  Spinning in her chair, Grace grinned at her. "Why thank you, Delwin."

  With one more squeeze to Grace's shoulder, Paige patted her back and walked away, the swagger still in her step. Once again, Grace had to bite back a retort. Concentrating on the reports in front of her, she learned her taxi driver was still a taxi driver in their city, which was a good thing. He'd be relatively easy to find. She could only hope he would be helpful, but she had a sinking suspicion he wouldn't be.

  Pulling out a notebook and paper, Grace wrote down the first question that came to mind. Tell me what happened that night.

  That would lead her down the rabbit hole she wanted to go on, the one that would hopefully lead her to some answers. She wrote out a few more questions, knowing she wouldn't get to ask them all but that some of them needed answered for sure.

  She worked through her interview plan until it was time to break for lunch. Paige once again stopped by her desk and smiled. "Lunch?"

  "Diner?"

  "Really?"

  "Yes."

  "Fine. But I'm driving."

  "Like you'd ever give me that option." Grace grabbed her gun, her badge, her wallet, and her keys. Together, she and Paige walked out of the station together. It may have been a rough start to the morning, but they were on track, now if she could only catch a break in her case, her day would be damn near perfect. Better if Amya was there, but she would take what she could get.

  Silver Alert

  The next morning went far better than the previous morning, mostly because Paige didn’t stagger in late to work, meaning she hadn’t had anyone with her the night before and Grace could rest easy knowing Crystal was not with Paige. Her worry shifted from that debacle to Peter, who still hadn’t really emerged from his room. It had gotten significantly worse since Amya had left for her trip, and if Grace didn’t do something about it soon, she worried he would become petrified in his bed.

  Paige worked on her own case, quietly at her desk. Humbard remained in his office. Other officers stayed in their lane, and for the first time in months, it was a very quiet day in the office. Grace wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Working the streets, she had always lived for the action of having something to do other than just sit in her cruiser and wait. As a detective, she had worried all she would do was sit and deal with paperwork and reports.

  She'd been pleasantly surprised to find she often was running from place to place doing research, interviewing, and questioning people involved in her case. But that day, she had nothing to do other than sit on her ass on the phone. The unit was eerily quiet, granted spring break hadn't started yet, and she assumed there would be a few more cases as soon as that happened.

  Letting out a sigh, she opened her bottom drawer and pulled out dried banana chips she had stored there to snack on whenever she got a chance.

  Popping one in her mouth, Grace made a list of the neighboring counties. It wasn't every case she had to work with her counterparts in other counties, but she did have to do it on occasion, and she had gotten to be on a first name basis with some of them. Not all. Some were jerks but most were pleasant enough.

  She would start with the ones she liked. Grace picked up her phone and dialed the number for her counterpart in Johnson County. It was a slightly smaller county than where she lived, and often she had teens that would run away there because it was a hub to escape from whatever they were running from.

  "Detective Blake Miller."

  Grace smiled at the detective's voice. She had enjoyed more than one drink with Blake on the occasion they'd been able to get together while one of them was in town for some case or another. It was a relationship she had wanted to foster. Blake was a young detective like herself, but Blake knew her stuff and there was no doubt Grace could and would learn from her. She was a good connection to have.

  "Blake, it's Grace."

  "Grace? What are you doing?"

  Snickering, Grace leaned in her chair and relaxed. "I've got a case, and I was wondering if you could help me a bit on it."

  "Sure, I've got a few minutes."

  "This might take more than a few, but it doesn't have to be right now."

  "Hit me. What are we talking about?"

  Chuckling, Grace glanced around the room. Paige sent her a curious look, and Grace ignored it, focusing on the conversation at hand. She liked Blake, and it wasn't something she wanted to share with Paige either. It was a connection she had made and one she wanted to keep.

  "Okay, so I've got this kid in ICU. He's been there four years. No one knows who the hell he is."

  "You're kidding. You landed yourself Joseph's case?"

  Furrowing her brow, Grace sat up and leaned over her desk and drew designs on a blank piece of paper she had lying nearby. "You know about his case?"

  "I've looked at it every once in a while, curious to see if anyone had come forward to claim him yet, but that's all your county. Ain't got nothing to do with me."

  Smirking, Grace popped a dried banana between her lips. "Oh, you know, I'm not too much of one for the rules. What do you know about the case?"

  “You are a rule whore.” Blake snickered. “I don’t know much, just that he's still in the hospital and no one has come forward."

  "Yeah, that's pretty much what I know. Boss just handed it to me a couple days ago. There is nothing to go on."

  "Nothing at all?"

  "Nothing." Grace's lips thinned. "Anyway, I was calling to see if you could pull some of the missing cases in your county for me to look at and see if I could match up with this kid."

  "I could do that. How far back do you want me to go?"

  "Ten years?"

  "Halling! Are you serious?"

  "I am." Grace sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This kid came from somewhere at some point. I'm thinking he may have been missing a whole lot longer than everyone else has been thinking."

  “You sure about that?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m checking everything.” Grace ran her thumb over the tips of her other fingers as she stared down at her hand. “I don’t want to ignore this case like everyone else has.”

  Blake sighed her tone deeper than before with less joy to it. “I get that. I’ll do what I can, but going back ten years is going to take some time.”

  “I know. But at least I also trust you’ll do it.”

  “Lakin?”

  Grace snorted. “Yeah.”

  “Try to go over his head.”

  “I’ll try, but I don’t have much pull with them yet. I haven’t had to work with them too much and the one time…well, I’ll just say it didn’t go well.”

  “Lakin is an ass. He thinks because he’s a detective that he has it made and can boss everyone around, even people in a different agency.”

  “Yeah, that was the sense I got from him, hence why we clashed.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

  Grace bit her lip, she knew their conversation was dragging on, but she wasn’t going to lie, it was nice to talk to Blake, to someone who didn’t know the ins and outs of her life except her work life, to someone she could easily talk shop with. “You got any interesting cases?”

  “Just your run of the mill this week. Why?”

  “No reason. Thought I’d ask.”

  “Polite?”

  Grace flushed, heat racing to her cheeks as she was finally caught. “If you want to call it that. I should go. Got to call Lakin.”

  “Good luck with that. I’ll email you what I find for now and give you an update on what I find later.”

  “Thanks.”

  It took almost all day for emails to start coming in from the other counties, but Grace was pleased with the information she was getting. She printed each and every file to read it over carefully. It would take her awhile to get through them all. She was just about to move on to the next file in her pile when Blake sent an email titled URGENT.