[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter 2: Nothings Adding Up

She could have sworn it was the longest ride in history, but it wasn’t. She only lived a five blocks from where Lucas’s car was found. She approached the scene as if it was any other. Police had the entire place cordoned off and she could see the flashing lights nearly a block away. She showed her ID to the young officer that was working crowd control and looked towards Lucas’s car. A young sandy blond hair man was leaning inside.
“Who’s he?” She asked an officer.
“Said he was your partner.” The officer said with a sigh, he hated feds and even more hated women feds.
“Grand.” Meranda said as she walked toward the car. She tapped the agent on the shoulder before speaking.
“Find anything we could use?” She asked surprising the man. He quickly stood and looked at her. Meranda was surprised by his muscular build and piercing blue eyes. She extended her hand.
“Meranda Cross. And you are?” She asked raising an eyebrow.
“James Williams.” He said shaking her hand. ”I am with you for a while it seems.”
“Yeah so it seems, have you been briefed on the cases we were working on?”
“Not entirely, Commander Ryan called me the minute Agent Brian was reported missing.” He stated looking at her. “The woman standing over there is the one that called the police, she said she had heard several gunshots and then a car speed away.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Meranda said walking towards the old woman. She could see the gray hair woman look up at her. She seemed to remind her of her own grandmother, and probably was just as nosey.
“Hello ma’am I am Agent Cross, I was told you were the one that called the police.”
“Yes that’s right.”
“What were you doing when you heard the gunshots?”
“I was getting ready to take miss Tilley out for her nightly walk.” The woman said, in her arms was a small white dog.
“But you saw nothing?”
“Not a thing, I heard the screech of tires on the pavement and the doors open and close but I heard nothing else until I heard the gunshots.”
“Do you know what kind of cars they were?”
“Couldn’t see them from the window.” She said. Meranda wasn’t getting anywhere with this old woman. She reminded her of a neighbor she had when she was younger, always nosing in to other peoples business yet when asked she knew nothing.
“All right thank you ma’am if you remember anything please give me a call.” Meranda said handing the lady one of her cards.

Meranda walked back over the car as she pulled some gloves from her inside pocket. Moving over to the car she looked inside.
“What are you looking for?”
“ Anything I can find. There has to be something inside this car.” Meranda said as she began picking around. She looked toward the passenger seat and noticed a few hairs that she knew were not Lucas’s.
“I need a baggie.” She said leaning out of the car. A forensic officer handed her one and waited a moment.
“Hair?”
“Yeah, I’d say blonde. But I can’t really tell. I also want to get a sample of that blood on the car and around it.” She said looking towards the officer. He nodded and returned a moment later with what she had needed. Meranda leaned down and looked at the small drops of blood that were just outside the car. There wasn’t much blood but enough to get someone’s attention. Once she had gathered some samples she moved aside as pictures where taken of the blood spots. The inside of the car was a different story, the blood seemed to be splattered all over inside, the roof had some blood, the window and even the seat. Something major had gone on inside the car. Looking around Meranda noticed a tear in the seat.
“Looks like a fight happened in here.” She said. James leaned in and saw the same thing.
“I thought the officers said that there hadn’t been much struggle?”
“That’s what we were all told. But from the looks of it. Someone’s been wounded pretty badly. I’ll get some samples of the blood and take it back to the lab. Lucas was type B blood so if this is his it should be easily identified.” Meranda said, she took two swabs from her pocket and began getting the samples she needed. Standing up she moved aside as more pictures were taken now of the interior of the car.
“Get this thing back to the lab, I can get more evidence off of it there.”
“Yes Ma’am.” The officer said. Meranda pulled the gloves off and looked around.
“What’s wrong?” James asked. Meranda continued looking around till she spotted something on the ground. She motioned to the officer with the camera.
“Get a picture of this.” She said pointing to the tire tracks.
“Someone speed away, and it looks as if they left us a clue.”
“Not entirely. This could have been here for a couple of days, but I wanted to take a look just in case.” Meranda said. The scene was pretty much secure, what bothered her was the fact it was a large scene. The officers that were there could have moved, or even tampered with the evidence without even knowing it. She wished the call she had gotten from George had been sooner. And now with Ryan calling in James it seemed they knew more than they were letting on.
“What now?”
“We take the samples back to the lab and have them analyzed. I want to know what happened here. And once the car is back at the lot, I can really look it over, especially without the eyes of press and other people.
“Good Idea.”
“All right then, your with me.” Meranda said heading back toward her car. James followed behind her closely as they stopped.
“By the way how did you get down here?”
“Got a ride from one of the other agents.”
“Ryan, that would explain why he said you’d be here waiting.” Meranda said as she unlocked the doors and got in. James got into the car and buckled his seatbelt.
“Well let’s see what these samples have to tell us.”
“A lot I am hoping.” Meranda said as she drove away from the scene. Things weren’t adding up and that bothered her, things seemed out of sorts with the way things had been left. George had told her that blood had been found on the scene but it looked as if Lucas went freely, yet all over the interior of his car was blood. Something didn’t add up. At this point in her career she’d never seen a case as strange as this one. She’d been following many missing persons cases over the years but none that involved another agent.

Upon arriving back at the lab, Meranda went straight to work.
“You know how to use the equipment?”
“Yeah, don’t you?” Meranda asked looking toward James.
“I wasn’t brought into the bureau for forensic science.”
“I majored in it in college. One of my specialties is forensics. I tend to run my own tests rather than having someone else do them and screw them up.” She added as she put the first sample on a tiny slid. Placing the slide under the microscope she looked into the lenses at it.
“It’s blood.”
“Well I gathered that much. What kind of blood?”
“As soon as I am done running the test on all the samples I have I’ll let you know, for now leave me to work.” Meranda said.


James nodded and left the lab, he walked down the long hallway to what he assumed was Meranda’s office. He looked around and the office seemed to empty to have been hers so he closed the door and nearly ran into a young red head. She looked up at him with her piercing blue eyes and smiled.
“You’ll find Meranda’s office closer to the lab, she spends a lot of time in there.”
“Ok, thanks.” James said turning around.
“I’m Colette, I occasionally work with Meranda and Lucas.”
“Really?”
“Not to often. Lucas doesn’t seem to like me much.” Colette said leading James down the hallway to Meranda’s dark office. He looked around and saw the further down the hallway they went the less doors he saw.
“What is she way in the back?”
“Pretty much.” Colette said opening the door. She flipped on the light and shook her head. “And as usual Meranda’s got paper work everywhere.”
“I was told her and I would be sharing an office. Is there another desk in here?”
“Yeah there are two desks in here, you just have to hunt for them.” Colette said with a laugh. James started taking boxes off the desks and began a nice neat pile of them in a corner. He noticed the more he organized the room the more he noticed that it was a rather large room, much larger than the room he had first stepped into.
“Needs a lot of work, but I guess it will do.” James said. He looked around and spotted one of the boxes was labeled James Williams, lifting the box he began empting the contents onto the empty desk. He wondered when his things had been shipped over and why he wasn’t told of their arrival.
“If you wondering when your things arrived. I would say about two days ago, before Lucas went missing. Commander Ryan was going to replace you as Meranda’s partner as Lucas was going to be leaving the bureau soon.”
“How come you seem to know this more than Meranda does?”
“Meranda tends to turn a blind eye to things associated with Lucas. He was her father’s partner.”
“Her father had been with the FBI?”
“Yep, died when she was a teen. That’s something she’d have to explain when she’s ready.” Colette said. “I’ll come back and check on you later.” She said leaving the room.

Meranda looked around the room, and spotted the clock on the far wall. She had been working on the testing for over four hours. She waited for the computer to finally match the blood and DNA with that of Lucas. Suddenly the computer beeped, and Meranda looked at it.
“I’ll be damned.” Meranda said. Hitting a button the computer printed off the results. She grabbed the print off and headed out of the room. She turned towards her office when she noticed the light was on.
“There you are.”
“Yep here I am, any news?”
“Lots. Let’s go find Commander Ryan and fill him in.”
“What about Rodriguez?”
“What about George? He’s on this case as well, but he’s already gone home.” Meranda pointed out as she hurried down the hall.
“Commander.”
“ What?” Ryan said stepping into the hall.
“I’ve got some of the results back.”
“What is it?”
“The blood found inside the car was Lucas’s. The blood outside the car wasn’t.”
“Then who’s was it?”
“Agent Rodriguez’s.”
“What? Why was George’s blood found outside the car.”
“That is an excellent question sir, and as soon as I have the answer for it, I will let you know.” Meranda said. James was shocked at the weird turn. He took the report from Meranda and read over what the computer had said. The blood found on the interior of the car belonged to one Lucas Brian, the blood found outside belonged to one George Rodriguez. Things didn’t seem to add up, what about the hair that was found.
“Hey what about the hair?”
“Dog hair. I am assuming that Lucas was taking care of his ex wife’s dog.”
“But there was no dog found on the scene.”
“That would be the other blood that was found in the car. It seemed that the gunfire that Miss Samuels heard was several shots, never one by Lucas but by George I am assuming. Until I get a better look at the car I am in the dark.”
“The car was brought over earlier. I would have bothered you about it but felt that what you were working on was more important.”
“Why didn’t you go check it out?”
“Because Partner, I didn’t get a degree in forensic science, I wouldn’t have a clue of what I was looking for.”
“Truthful I like that. Sir did you want us to go over the car?”
“I’ll have another team take a look at the car, you two get some sleep now.”
“Yes sir.” Meranda said taking the paper from James and heading back to her office. James looked at her strangely as he followed her down the hallway.
“He said go home.”
“And I will. I want to check something else first.”
“Meranda, you have to be exhausted.”
“Not really.” Meranda said looking at him with a smile.
“She never gets tired.”