As it turned out it wasn’t as easy to get information on a cold case as Jensen had anticipated. She figured she would call up the investigating officer and he would be able to tell her all about the circumstances surrounding the case. It was quite the opposite though. The unsolved murder had happened in Boston, and was one of thousands of investigations that were sitting dormant, waiting for someone to come along and crack the case. Jensen and Knox only had half a dozen cases between them and they knew the ins and outs better than anyone else, but the Boston Cold Case Squad had very few officers, and a lot of cases. They were investigated one by one, so when she made the call no one knew which murder she was referring to.

It took three people, and two full days to finally track down a small deteriorating box, covered in dust in a state evidence lockup, another day for it to be packed up and shipped, and another day for it to finally arrive. It was clear to Jensen that this poor girl’s life was not a great priority to the lovely City of Boston, but if it meant she would be a little bit closer to finding Melissa’s killer then it was now a priority to them.

She watched carefully as Knox, with a rather sour look on his face, took the lid of the dilapidated banker’s box. The dust on the top was so thick it looked like snow and they both had wondered aloud how it had made it all the way from Massachusetts without falling off. Knox had also wondered whether there would be more in the box than just evidence; a rodent home perhaps?

He let out a sigh of relief upon seeing that the box only contained paper and evidence bags. He most certainly would not have been able to handle mice; that would be something Jensen would have to deal with on her own.

“That’s weird...” Knox murmured as he pulled out a stack of black and white photos from the box, holding them close to his face as if it allowed him to see further into the photo.

Jensen raised an eyebrow, trying to see what he was looking at from the other side of the desk, “What is it?” she wondered curiously.

“Is she familiar?” he asked, turning the top photo around to face his partner.

It was odd, she thought as she looked at the sixty year old 8x10 of a dead girl lying on a gurney, how familiar she really did look. Jensen imagined that she was quite good looking when she was living. She had sharp features, high cheek bones and a strong jaw. Her skin was pale but clear and her face framed by dark brown hair in stylish waves that were splayed against the metal slab she was laying on. A chill ran over her and Jensen shuddered; this case was just getting weirder by the day. How could a girl killed when her father was still a child look familiar to either of them? The pieces of this puzzle were misshapen; she felt at this point that they were trying to fit diamonds against circles.

“Let’s just focus on finding our suspect,” Jensen muttered, reaching her hand into the box to pull out the original investigator’s reports. They were old, the paper slightly yellowed from sitting idle for so long. It was mostly hand written with a few areas filled out using a type writer. She had planned on skimming through until she saw the section that pertained to Gabriel O’Dell but a passage of underlined text at the bottom of the first page caught her eye, “Son of a bitch...”

“What is it?” Knox asked, noticing the concern in his partner’s eyes.

“The victim,” she said, turning the page around so he could see the words screaming off the page, “She was missing her liver.”

“It gets worse,” Knox said, letting a heavy breath whistle out between his teeth, “the current contact information for the vic’s family; Henry Kitt. Los Angeles, California. I realized why she’s so fucking familiar. She looks like almost exactly like Nick Carter’s girlfriend, Lauren Kitt. I interviewed her. The family resemblance is uncanny.”

“They’re related?” Jensen’s eyes were wide and she snatched the paper out of Knox’s hand with a snap.

“The victim would be her great aunt.”

“We need to warn her then,” Jensen said, reaching for Melissa’s file where all the phone numbers for the people they’d already spoken to was listed out on the back of the Backstreet Boy’s tour schedule, “Maybe this guy was coming to settle the score and Melissa just happened to get in the way. There’s a chance, although slim, that Lauren Kitt was the real target.”

~*~

Six people in three states were all looking for Lauren.

Brian and Rochelle, currently rolling through Texas, had been checking and double checking their cell phones compulsively waiting for their calls to be returned. They hadn’t mentioned anything to Nick or the other guys about their concern for the woman. They didn’t want to worry anyone, start a panic or assume the worst. They just kept punching in her number religiously, praying that she would pick up the phone.

In California, Lauren’s sister and mother assumed that she was still on the road with the Backstreet Boys. She had told them to expect her at LAX and had given her a time to pick her up but she never got off the plane. They had assumed that she and Nick had worked things out and she had decided to stay but it had been a few days since they’d heard from her. It was unusual for her to go more than a few days without checking in, and none of their calls to Nick had been returned. Needless to say, they were beginning to worry.

Meanwhile in Baltimore Knox and Jensen had been doing the same thing, dialling and redialling the cell phone number they had been given. The voicemail always picked up but a mechanical voice promptly told them that the inbox was full and they were unable to leave a message. They assumed that it was a fluke, perhaps they didn’t get good reception in some areas of the tour, but they kept calling.

After a solid 10 hours of sitting on the bus had left everyone antsy and ready for a break. The drivers had pulled over in a small Podunk town none of them had heard of on their way from Dallas to Phoenix. They weren’t picky about where the stop was, it had an IHOP and that was classy enough for all of them.

Brian’s first stop had been the washrooms, anxious for the opportunity to use a real toilet that flushed. He quickly used the facilities, and had just thrown the wet paper towel from his hands in the garbage when the door swung open and Nick walked in.

“Hey,” Brian said, not having seen the other man since before they boarded the buses, “How’s things on BSB 2?”

Nick shrugged as he made his way over to the urinals that lined the wall, “Not bad. I’m bored out of my mind. I feel like AJ and Rochelle are avoiding me. I think maybe she’s pissed because it’s my fault Lauren left. It’s not like she has to even be here, there’s no requirement for us to provide her with friends to hang out with, ya know?”

“Yeah,” Brian agreed, though he knew it had nothing to do with not having someone to hang out with. He was well aware that Rochelle was worried sick about her friend and her reluctance to hang out with Nick had nothing to do with the blond. As for AJ, he was attached to his fiancée at the hip so wherever she went he went, even if it meant hanging out alone all the time.

Nick quickly zipped his pants and made his way to the sinks, watching Brian in the mirror, “I don’t think she realizes that Lauren wasn’t that big of a fan of her in the first place. She could tolerate her for a while but she always thought she was kind of weird.”

It was the first Brian had ever heard of that, from what he could tell all the girls got along very well, “Oh I didn’t know that. I’m sure Leigh will hang out with her.”

Without acknowledgement, Nick kept speaking, “Lauren is happy to be back with her sister, and back in LA.”

Brian raised his eyebrow curiously, “You’ve talked to her?”

“Yeah,” Nick answered, walking over to Brian by the trash so he could throw out his own paper towel, “She called me just to let me know that she was okay and that she’d be moving her stuff out of the Franklin house as soon as possible. She pretty much made it clear I’d never see her again.”

“I’m sorry.”

The taller blond waved the other off nonchalantly, “No worries, it’s not a big deal. There are more fish in the sea right?”

Brian agreed and they both made their way out of the washrooms and into the restaurant. Nick went to sit down at the table with the rest of the group but Brian chose to hang back, quickly sending Rochelle a signal to meet him by the glass counter where a variety of pies were on display.

“What is it?” she asked in a hushed whisper as she met up with him, watching him stare into the case as if he were selecting dessert.

Brian leaned his hands against the glass which was cool to the touch, “Nick just told me he’s talked to Lauren since she got home.”

Rochelle tried not to react, giving a quick glance back to the table where everyone was going through their menu, “Did you tell him we’d been trying to reach her?”

“Of course not,” he shook his head, “but he knows you’re avoiding him.”

She sighed, peering down at a delicious looking piece of coconut cream pie that she would probably have to indulge in after lunch, “I don’t know if I believe him. Why would she call him but not return any of our calls? Even if just to say ‘I’m here don’t ever call me again’. We didn’t do anything to her, he did.”

“They live together,” he theorized, “He said she was with her sister and they were going to move her stuff out of his place in Tennessee.”

“Why would she go all the way to LA only to go to Tennessee to get her stuff? I’m calling her sister,” Rochelle told him frankly, knowing she needed to get back to the table before people wondered what they were doing so long by the dessert case, “and if she can’t corroborate what Nick said then I’m calling the police. Something just feels really wrong.”

“No, don’t,” Brian stressed, “Nick is a celebrity in case you’ve forgotten. If you accuse him of something and it turns out not to be true it could still be the end of his career – of our careers. Let me handle it.”