A Fairytale of New York: |
***
After the morning meeting, she goes back to her desk and gathers together some information that will help her when she goes to speak to the parents of the missing girl. Having briefly read through the small amount of information that has already been gathered, she collects her belongings and prepares to leave.
Jack walks over to her as she starts to exit, Martin follows him.
“Sam, take Martin with you to talk to the parents,” Jack tells her.
She smiles at them both; it's not sincere and she knows that Jack at least will see her reluctance. “Fine,” she comments.
“It's Sam, then?” Martin asks as he walks over to her.
“Samantha,” she replies shortly. “It's Samantha.”
He says nothing more on the topic; he doesn't want to appear to be overly friendly, or indeed, too eager to be friends with her in front of other people. He's still not sure how he should react to the situation; it's both awkward and confusing for him, and he acknowledges that it must be the same for her. He hopes that at least in the car they can discuss it, come to some arrangement about how they should act around each other. He hopes that the coldness of her countenance is just something temporary; a course of misdirection for her co workers to observe so that they don't suspect anything untoward.
She says nothing to him in the elevator. He follows her silently to the car, and accepts the map and miscellaneous information that she presents to him as he sits in the passenger seat. She gives him the address of the house they're looking for and shows him the approximate area it's in, pointing out where they are currently.
She doesn't start up a conversation with him as they drive and eventually he tries talking.
“So, how have you been?” he asks. He doesn't feel at all comfortable enough to joke with her yet, even though only a few months ago it felt almost natural to do so.
“Fine,” she replies. “Left here?” she asks.
He responds to the affirmative.
“I really should have found out where you worked, what you did,” he comments after a while. “If I'd have known…” he trails off, not knowing where to go with the comment.
She wonders about what he didn't say, but she doesn't say anything other than requesting directions. She knows that she should make an effort to talk to him; for no other reason than to decrease the tension and awkwardness but she doesn't seem to be able to.
He wonders if she's angry at him for turning up unannounced, for trying to talk to her, or for some other reason. Perhaps he should have acknowledged her when he first saw her; made it understood that they knew each other. But he was in shock and he saw the look of relief in her features when he pretended that they hadn't met before. He doesn't know what to do and tries to make small talk a number of times, but his efforts are rebuffed at each attempt.
She tries to block out all the images that bombard her from that weekend; she's tried many times before to forget it but attempts have proven futile for the most part. His returning to her life doesn't help. She's tried to forget the ring he gave her, the letters he sent, the final words he spoke to her, the way that he kissed her when drunk, the way that he kissed her when he was sober. She's had a difficult enough time blocking the memories over the past five months but as he sits right next to her they overpower her thoughts almost to the extent that she can't concentrate on anything else. It both confuses and bothers her.
They arrive at the house of the missing girl, a thirteen year old called Janey Kingston, a little after eight thirty. Samantha knocks on the door and announces who they are when the door is opened by the teenager's worried parents. They are invited in.
Martin sits on the couch when instructed to do so and watches as Samantha asks questions about Janey's friends, her personality, whether anything unusual had happened recently, if they have any clues where she might have been. The parents try to be helpful but they provide few leads or clues.
He sees someone – a child – hovering at the door, listening in on the conversation, and without saying anything he goes over to investigate.
The girl is surprised when he opens the door to find her standing there.
“Hey,” he greets her.
“Hello,” she replies.
“I'm Martin Fitzgerald.”
“I'm Jo Kingston.”
“Are you Janey's little sister?” he asks.
“Yeah. But I'm not so little. I was eleven last month,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “Are you with the FBI?” She sits down on the stairs.
He nods. “I'm a Special Agent with the Missing Person's Unit. We're trying to find out where your sister's gone.”
“You won't find out from them,” she comments scornfully, nodding over in the direction of her parents.
“Do you know anything?” he asks. He sits next to her.
“I might,” she shrugs.
“Do you want to tell me?”
She looks at him appraisingly, deciding whether to trust him or not. “Do you promise not to tell my parents or my sister that I told you?”
“I promise.”
“You sure?”
“I'm sure. I really won't tell them.”
She thinks this through for a moment and he smiles at her, hoping to win her over. “She got a new boyfriend last month. I don't know his name but he doesn't go to school. He's older than her, like maybe 17. She's started smoking, too. I saw her when I was out with my friends and she threatened to beat me up if I told mom and dad.”
“Do you not get on well with your sister?”
“She used to be okay. But not so much now. Now she ignores me, or laughs at me, and it annoys me. It's worse since she started going out with *him*. She keeps saying that he's going to get a place to live for the both of them. I think maybe that's where she's gone.” He can tell that she's worried about her sister, but pretending not to care.
“Do you know anything about him? Where he lives? Does he have a car? Anything?”
“I've never seen him. She calls him on her cell then tells dad that she's meeting up with Stacey or Em, and they cover for her. That's all I know.” He asks her for the friend's full names and writes them down as she tells him. She looks up at him. “Do you think you'll find her?”
“I hope so,” he says, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder as he stands up.
“Good.” She nods. “I'd better go upstairs. I'm supposed to be getting ready for school. I guess I'll still have to go.”
“Thanks for your help, Jo.”
She smiles warmly at him and then turns to go upstairs.
He sees Samantha standing at the door but he doesn't know how long she's been there. He's not sure he wants to know.
***
“Did you get anything from the parents?” he asks as they walk back to the car.
“A few names of friends but they don't seem to know much about their daughter,” she comments.
“I spoke to the sister,” he tells her what he had found out, but in reality it is unnecessary. She had overheard it all.
She had watched the easy way in which he interacted with the girl; had been impressed particularly since her parents had commented on how difficult she was; how she had not told them anything and been entirely unconcerned about her sister's wellbeing.
She doesn't tell him this; she doesn't know why, except that she's still trying to concentrate on the present and not the memories that his presence stirs up.
They get in the car, ready to head back to the office.
He tries to make small talk as they drive back and she responds only in short sentences at long intervals. Even though no one is there, he gets the feeling that she's trying to act as though she doesn't know him.
After some silence, he gets bored of the charade. “You stopped writing,” he says quietly.
“We had to move on,” she replies, as though the entirety of their relationship was more than just a weekend's mistake. But in some ways, to her, it was. She hates that he had such an effect on her life and made everything so confusing. “It was all sorted out. There was no point in continuing the…” she stumbles over the words, trying to use a better definition than ‘relationship' “… thing.”
He senses that her decision on things is final; that she won't change her mind now; no matter how hard he tries. It doesn't suit him particularly but he's going to have to work with it. Perhaps eventually they can be friends, but they'll have to start from scratch.
She feels bad for dismissing him outright and being cold towards him but she doesn't know how else to react. She worries about returning to the office and how she might react around him then. She wants to avoid any questions or suspicions that they already know each other; she doesn't really want to risk it by being a little too friendly; a little too familiar.
They arrive back at the office a short time later and Sam reports back to Jack on their findings. Jack gives her the arduous task of looking through the cell phone records to find information on the anonymous boyfriend while he goes to speak to Janey's friends.
She exits the office, Jack follows her. She tries to avoid Martin but Jack goes to speak to him, tells him that he's to help Sam with the phone records. He accepts willingly, happy to assist in any way to find the girl.
Samantha looks briefly over the phone records and Martin comes over to assist her. She tells him shortly exactly what he should do, as though he has had no experience with this type of check before. He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't comment and merely gets on with the task.
Eventually he reports back to her on his findings: there are a large number of phone calls made to the same cell phone beginning just over a month ago. Sharply, she tells him that he should go investigate the recipient. He informs her that he has already done so and gives her the information.
She questions the depth of his research, eventually finding a flaw. She knows that she is being particularly cold, unnecessarily so, but she is overcompensating for any other feelings she might have towards him.
She ignores Danny's questioning look as she near berates Martin for his lack of foresight for interpreting a small detail.
Martin is almost relieved when she's done, and she leaves to speak to the boyfriend with Vivian.
“Don't worry; Samantha's not really all that bad. She'll warm towards you eventually,” Danny tells him, as he looks at Sam's retreating figure, bemused.
“Any idea how long that's going to take?” Martin asks with a wry smile.
Danny laughs. Martin takes it as a good sign that at least not all of his new colleagues seem to despise him. Of course, it probably helps that he has no history with Danny; he didn't get very drunk and try to marry Danny.
He spends the rest of the day observing interviews with Janey's friends and boyfriend, checking up on details they give, and generally acquainting himself with the team and their methods of working.
At about six thirty the boyfriend finally admits that Janey was staying with him and a friend of his and they had decided to move in together, just as her sister had suspected. By seven thirty the family are reunited, albeit reluctantly.
“You were right,” Martin tells Jo as she stands away from the crowd.
“She'll do it again,” Jo replies, shrugging. “She hates my family that much.”
He doesn't let on to how disheartened this makes him feel, but holds his hand out. “Thanks for helping us,” he says. She takes his hand, shakes it.
“It was kind of fun since she was okay. Everyone wanted to talk to me at school.” She smiles at him and then turns and leaves with her family.
Somewhat depressed by the day's events, he returns to his desk and sits down, exhausted. He closes his eyes briefly but opens them when he hears footsteps close by.
“You want to go to the bar to get a drink?” Samantha asks him.
He's surprised by this invitation after her coldness all day and it cheers him up slightly to think that they might be past the awkwardness; that they might be able to be friends after all.
“Jack wanted to know if you wanted to join us; the whole team's going,” she continues nonchalantly, and suddenly he's disheartened again. He doesn't show it.
“Yeah, that'd be great,” he says.
***
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