Chapter Text
Every morning for the last three years, Arthur Pendragon had visited the break room to pour himself a coffee. It was a regular part of his workday routine. Therefore, doing the same thing this morning was in no way an attempt to delay descending to the basement to settle into his new office for his new assignment with his new partner.
True, he usually stopped by his desk to shed his coat and drop off his laptop before heading to the break room for his morning caffeine jolt, but he didn’t even know if there was a coffee machine in the basement, and he didn’t want to have to come back upstairs right away. He was definitely not avoiding going to the dungeon-like basement to introduce himself to the department’s most openly mocked detective.
Arthur had nearly convinced himself that his motive for stopping here first was a purely innocent attempt to caffeinate. He selected his favourite mug from the shelf and reached for the coffee pot when he heard a familiar chuckle behind him.
“I hear you’ve been demoted.”
Arthur grit his teeth at Valiant’s baseless gibe but deliberately didn’t acknowledge him right away. He finished pouring his coffee, sloshed a bit of milk into the mug and picked up a stirring stick before casually turning to face the man who had been taunting him since the day he joined the Camelot CID.
“Well, Detective Sergeant Valiant, I’m not sure where you got that information, but you are incorrect. I have not been demoted.” Arthur gave his coffee a swirl, tossed the stick into the bin beside Valiant and then leaned back against the counter, kicking one leg in front of the other. He took a sip of his coffee, giving his rival a pointed look over the steaming mug. “Still Detective Inspector.”
Valiant scoffed at Arthur’s emphasis of his superior rank. “Maybe so, but you’re being exiled to the basement with DI Spooky. You must have messed up bad to be stuck with that freak.”
Arthur maintained a neutral expression, although Valiant’s words did rankle. He knew that’s what everyone in the department presumed — that Arthur had done something wrong and was being punished with this new assignment. And Arthur was not permitted to correct them. DCS Bayard had made it clear that the true purpose of his partnership with Emrys was to be kept between the two of them.
“There are many, both within the department and in our community, who question the validity of the work Detective Inspector Emrys is doing. I need to you work closely with him — establish a trust. And report back to me, and me alone, on whether his work investigating these unexplained phenomena is worth the department’s resources.”
Arthur couldn’t tell the truth, so he thought he might imply the transfer had been his idea. “His name is Emrys, and he’s doing some interesting work. The cases he investigates are definitely worth looking into, but he doesn’t have a background in science, so his explanations sometimes seem a little ‘out there.’ I thought I might be able to help in that area.”
As soon as Arthur spoke, though, he knew his choice of words had been a mistake. Valiant started laughing. “What? Because you had a couple years of medical school? You dropped out!”
There was no way Arthur was getting out of this with any dignity, so he simply decided to walk away. He edged past Valiant and out the door, but a smug shout followed him down the hall.
“Don’t worry, Spooky! Pendragon and his extensive background in medical science are here to save the day!”
Frustrated as he was about being forced to work on what seemed to him like frivolous cases and having his co-workers believe he was being punished, Arthur was actually looking forward to meeting Merlin Emrys properly. The man had a reputation for having his head in the clouds because of the types of cases he pursued, but there was something intriguing about a man who rose to the rank of Detective Inspector and then chose to start his own division to help the victims who might not otherwise get justice or closure because of the odd nature of the crime that had been committed against them. Also, Emrys didn’t seem to care what the other police officers thought of him.
Arthur reached the stairs to the basement and started down. He admired those who stood up for their beliefs and pursued their interests without concern for the opinions of those around them. His half-sister, Morgana, had always been like that. She could stand up to their formidable father in a way Arthur had never been able to but often wished he could.
Stepping into the hallway leading to his new office, Arthur wondered why it had to be so dark down here. And why Emrys would have chosen to work in this cold, gloomy space. The hall was lined with metal shelving units filled with boxes of files and evidence. Although Arthur respected Emrys for following his heart, he suspected “Spooky” would draw less ridicule if he hadn’t chosen to isolate himself so much from the rest of the department.
As he reached the doorway, Arthur was relieved to find the office better lit than the hallway, although it was also far more cluttered. Emrys’s desk, near the corner, was topped with a computer, books and multiple file boxes filled to the brim with papers. On the other side of the room was a work table piled high with books, various sized glass bottles that looked to be filled with herbs, a microscope and some instruments Arthur did not recognize. The office walls were lined with file cabinets, bookshelves and several smaller shelf units, each overflowing with books, papers and case files. Above the shelf units were two bulletin boards, blanketed with photos and notes.
There wasn’t a single clear surface in the entire office. But what most caught Arthur’s eye was a large poster with the image of a dragon in flight. Along the bottom in bold, white letters was the caption, “I WANT TO BELIEVE.”
Arthur stepped into the office to get a closer look and then realized DI Emrys was sitting at a smaller desk along the side wall with an open case file on his lap. Emrys looked up at Arthur and raised his eyebrows.
“DI Pendragon, I presume?”
“Yes, and you must be Emrys. I’ve seen you around, but we haven’t actually been introduced.” Arthur took a couple of steps forward and held out his hand to Emrys. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“Are you, now?” Emrys shook Arthur’s hand but did not stand.
“I was led to believe you were appointed to see if I know what I’m doing. Because of your background. Your sense of duty.” He paused meaningfully. “Your connections.”
Arthur bristled at those words, because they were largely true, although he wasn’t certain which connections Emrys was referring to. He narrowed his eyes at his new partner.
“Fine. You are familiar with my reputation.” He scoffed slightly and looked pointedly at the poster of the dragon. “As I am with yours.”
At this, Emrys stood, maintaining eye contact with Arthur until he was peering ever so slightly down at him. He shoved the case file he had been studying into Arthur’s hands and turned away.
“Well then. At least we know where we stand.” Emrys’s tone was suddenly light as he bounded around the office, grabbing an iPad, a camera and finally his jacket from the back of his chair. “Might as well jump right in!”
He slung his jacket over his shoulder as he nearly skipped out the door. “Bring the file! You’ll need something to read on the drive!”
Arthur paused for a moment, taken aback by his new partner’s abrupt mood shift, but then he tucked the case file under his arm, set his coffee on the edge of the desk and followed Emrys toward the stairs.
*****
Emrys did not speak to Arthur properly again until they were in the car on their way to a nearby town to investigate. Almost as soon as he pulled out of the car park, Emrys reached over and tapped the case file on Arthur’s lap and said, “Missing persons case. Two last week. This is the third and the first within our jurisdiction.”
Arthur opened the file to start perusing the notes. “What makes you think these cases are connected?”
“Look at that first page. All three were at school together.” Emrys waved a finger toward the file, so Arthur scanned the summary sheet where Emrys had compiled characteristics of the missing women.
As he read the descriptions more carefully, Arthur found the women were all in their late twenties and had attended Beaconsfield High School.
“Any similarities in the nature of their disappearance?” He asked, still flipping through the pages of notes and photographs. There wasn’t much about the most recent woman to disappear, but the first two were both professionals who lived in South Bucks. His heart clenched when he noticed each of them had young children.
Emrys briefly turned his head toward Arthur. “The first one went out shopping last Thursday and never came back. The second disappeared from her home the next day, but there was no sign of a struggle.”
“And the third?” Arthur asked.
“Charlotte Swift.” Emrys grimaced slightly as he said her name. “She was taken from her home, too. Just yesterday.”
“This time there was a struggle, wasn’t there?” Arthur guessed.
Tilting his head, Emrys hesitated a moment before answering. “It’s unclear.”
“Unclear, how?” Arthur narrowed his eyes, wondering whether the crime scene had been compromised.
Emrys hesitated again, this time studying Arthur’s face from the corner of his eye as if he was trying to decide whether to trust him. “I’d rather not say.”
Arthur couldn’t help scoffing. His new partner didn’t seem to realize they were meant to cooperate.
Sounding a bit frustrated, Emrys continued, “I’d like you to see the house in person. I’m interested to hear what you think happened there.”
Sensing a challenge, Arthur stared back at Emrys, willing him to make eye contact. Instead of the angry glare Arthur was expecting in return, however, Emrys simply watched the road with a little smirk that made Arthur feel childish instead of triumphant.
Arthur spent the rest of the journey reading all the notes in the case file and deliberately not looking at his new partner.
*****
They arrived at the house where the missing young woman, Charlotte Swift, lived with her husband and infant daughter. The front door was blocked with police tape, but Emrys pushed it aside and produced a tagged key from his pocket to unlock the door.
“CSI was here yesterday afternoon to document the scene. The husband and baby are staying with relatives, but I was able to question him last night before they left.” Emrys pushed open the door and motioned for Arthur to enter first. “He was pretty shaken up, and I think you’ll see why.”
The entryway looked normal. Arthur turned to examine the door frame, the hinges and the lock, but there were no signs of forced entry, so he continued forward, past a dining area on the left toward the main living room. As soon as he saw the room, however, he stopped. He felt Emrys come to stand beside him, but he could not take his eyes from the sight before him.
“What the hell?”
At first glance, he believed the room had been ransacked. Furniture was upturned and the floor was littered with throw pillows, photo frames, books and papers. But as he examined the seeming chaos more closely, he realized there was a distinct pattern to the disarray. Every loose object was flung out in a circular pattern from a centre point near the window, which Arthur now noticed was shattered outward.
“Was there an explosion?”
Arthur walked to the spot that appeared to be the epicentre of whatever had decimated the room. Kneeling down, he examined the carpet up close.
“There’s no mark here. No scorching. No debris.” Arthur stood and motioned around the room. “All of these items were part of the room. Furniture, pillows, decorations. It’s like they were blown away from this spot.”
Emrys raised his eyebrows. “Blown away?”
“Yes...” Arthur turned slowly on the spot, holding out one hand as he worked out what could have caused the mess. “Literally blown. Like a strong wind.”
He moved carefully across the floor, pointing out items. “The furniture was simply overturned. And the heavier objects… and even smaller items without much surface area… these books and this vase. They didn’t go very far. But look…”
Striding quickly across the room, Arthur pointed to some flowers and then to some papers that were the farthest away from the epicentre and a bit more haphazardly strewn. “These were caught in the… blast? Breeze?”
He laughed suddenly and turned back to face Emrys with a shrug. “I don’t know. It sounds daft, but that’s what it looks like.”
Emrys nodded. “That’s what it looks like to me, too.”
“But what could cause such a uniform pattern of destruction without an actual explosion?” Arthur wondered.
With an enigmatic half-smile, Emrys took two steps toward Arthur and leaned forward to whisper furtively in his ear. “Do you believe in magic?”
Arthur felt his face warm, and he took a step away, involuntarily. “Very funny.”
But then he remembered the poster of the dragon in Emrys’s office with the words, “I want to believe,” and he wasn’t entirely certain the man was joking. Before he could say anything, though, Emrys shrugged his comment away.
“Here’s what we do know…” Emrys knelt to pick up a photo frame from the floor. He held it out to show Arthur. It was a photo of Charlotte Swift with her husband and baby. “All three of these women were, by all accounts, happily married and focused on providing the best life for their children.”
He lifted an end table and carefully stood the frame on its surface. He let his fingers slide gently down the photo, tracing the face of the baby girl sitting on her mother’s lap, before he turned to face Arthur again.
“These are not women who would simply leave their families. Although the others may not have been abducted violently, I do still believe there is a connection between their disappearances and Charlotte’s. They may have all been taken by the same person or group.”
He took another look around the room and then started toward the front door. “I’ll email you the CSI report, but there were no fingerprints or other evidence left behind. Whoever took Charlotte did not force their way in, and CSI are not sure what to make of the destruction in this room.”
Arthur caught Emrys’s arm before he got to the entryway. He pulled him back to face the living room again. “What about you? What do you make of all this?”
Emrys studied Arthur’s face, and again Arthur felt as if he was being evaluated for trustworthiness.
“I have a theory,” Emrys finally admitted.
“Care to share it?” Arthur was getting frustrated. They were supposed to be partners after all.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Emrys sighed. “Not just yet. We need to do a bit more investigating first.”
And he turned and started walking out the door. “Come on! We’re meeting Andrew Swift for coffee!”
*****
Arthur stared at Emrys over the top of his steaming coffee cup. He had decided Spooky was not an appropriate nickname for his new partner, after all. Suspicious, maybe. Or Withholding. DI Control-freak would certainly not be out of line. Emrys had not spoken one word to Arthur on their way to the coffee shop. Arthur did not know why they were meeting Charlotte Swift’s husband after Emrys had already spoken with him the night before. He was certain Emrys had some idea about what had happened to Mrs. Swift, and he felt Mr. Swift had more information to provide, but whatever Emrys’s suspicions were, he was not sharing them with his partner.
“Mr. Swift!” Emrys suddenly stood and waved toward the door.
Arthur watched as a young blond man in his late twenties approached their table. Andrew Swift looked like he hadn’t slept at all the night before. His eyes were red, with dark circles beneath them. He barely managed a smile as Emrys shook his hand.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Swift.” Emrys motioned toward Arthur. “This is my partner, DI Pendragon.”
Arthur nodded as Mr. Swift looked his way. “I’m so sorry about what you’re going through, Mr. Swift. We will do our best to find your wife.”
Mr. Swift sank into his chair and stared blankly at the coffee mug Emrys pushed toward him.
“I just don’t understand.” His voice was rough as he spoke. “Why would someone take her away from us?”
Emrys leaned forward a bit. “We don’t know. There were no signs of forced entry at your house, which might indicate that, if your wife was abducted, it was by someone she knew, or at least someone she felt comfortable letting into the house. Can you think of anyone in your wife’s life whose interactions with her ever made you uncomfortable?”
Mr. Swift shook his head, so Emrys pressed on. “Was there anyone she acted secretive about? Is it possible she might have been helping someone keep a secret?”
Arthur had been watching Mr. Swift’s face as Emrys spoke, but at these questions, Arthur’s eyes cut immediately to his partner. This was not the standard line of questioning for a missing person’s spouse. What made Emrys think Mrs. Swift was keeping a secret for someone?
Mr. Swift seemed as confused as Arthur was. “Uh, no. There wasn’t… She wouldn’t… I knew all of her friends. We used to go out together every weekend before Abby was born. They wouldn’t ask her to hide anything from me.”
Emrys nodded and opened the case file to pull out photos of the other two missing women. He pushed the pictures toward Mr. Swift. “Do you know these women?”
Leaning forward, Mr. Swift examined both photographs. He shook his head. “I’m not sure. They look vaguely familiar, but I can’t place them.”
“This one is Amanda Garrett. And that’s Vivian Norris.” Emrys tapped each photo twice.
Mr. Swift’s face lit up in recognition. “Oh! Right. Of course.”
“You do know them?” Arthur asked.
“They were Charlotte’s best friends at school.” Mr. Swift gave a half-hearted laugh. “I’ve never actually met them. I’ve seen a few pictures on Charlotte’s Facebook is all.”
“So your wife was still in contact with them?” Emrys raised his eyebrows hopefully.
But Mr. Swift shook his head. “Not really. Just the occasional ‘Like’ on Facebook. She hadn’t actually spoken with either of them for several years.”
Emrys sank back into his seat, his disappointment obvious on his face. Arthur gave him a pointed look. His behaviour at this interview didn’t seem terribly professional to Arthur. Emrys didn’t seem to notice his new partner’s disapproval, however, so Arthur turned back to Mr. Swift.
“Was there a specific reason they didn’t speak, or had they just fallen out of touch over the years?”
At this, Mr. Swift grimaced slightly. “Well… Charlotte was actually sort of glad to leave those particular friends in her past.”
Hearing this, Emrys perked back up. Arthur glared at him.
“She often said she was ashamed of who she was at school.” Mr. Swift sighed deeply and shrugged. “I mean, who doesn’t have some regrets from their teen years?”
He seemed hesitant to speak ill of his wife at this moment, so Arthur nodded and, chuckling a bit, admitted, “Oh, I’d gladly take back most of my behaviour from secondary school. I was a bit of a prat, to be honest.”
With a grateful smile to Arthur, Mr. Swift continued. “Charlotte told me how she was desperate to be in with the popular girls, so she went along with some things she knew were wrong. She said Vivian and Mandy used to make fun of a lot of girls, and she just laughed along with them, even when she didn’t agree.”
Suddenly, Mr. Swift sat up straight and looked at Emrys. “Why do you have those pictures? Did something happen to them, too? You don’t think any of those girls would still be holding a grudge after all these years?”
“I don’t know.” Emrys glanced up at Arthur who nodded back. Now they had a place to start. “Vivian Norris and Amanda Garrett are missing, as well. Since last week. Are you certain your wife hadn’t reconnected with them recently?”
Mr. Swift shook his head, so Emrys pressed him. “I’m sorry to ask you this, Mr. Swift. We could gain access to your wife’s recent emails, texts and social media accounts, but it would take some time to follow the proper procedures. If you happen to know any of her passwords for those accounts, that would be a good place to start…”
With a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, Mr. Smith interrupted. “What do you think I’ve been doing all night? There was nothing. She posted a picture of Abby blowing spit bubbles. She arranged a meeting with a client and sent some PDFs for him to sign. She and her best friend made plans to have lunch tomorrow. She texted me yesterday to pick up nappies on my way home.”
At this, Mr. Swift’s voice broke, and he bent his head toward the table, grunting out an awkward, “Sorry.”
Arthur’s heart broke for this young husband and father, and he was about to tell him he needn’t apologize, but Emrys immediately scooted his chair closer to Mr. Swift, put his hand on his shoulder and spoke in a low, soothing tone.
“You don’t need to apologize for your pain. Pendragon and I became detectives so we could help those who have been hurt.”
Mr. Swift nodded without raising his head, and although neither he nor Emrys was looking at him, Arthur nodded, too.
“We’re going to bring Charlotte home to you and Abby. I promise.” Emrys squeezed Mr. Swift’s shoulder and patted his back twice before pulling away.
As Mr. Swift gathered himself, Emrys lifted piercing blue eyes to meet Arthur’s. He held Arthur’s gaze for a moment and then, eyebrows raised, nodded as if asking, “Will you do whatever it takes to bring this woman home?”
Without hesitation, Arthur nodded back. Like Emrys said, he wanted to help people. This was why he had become a cop. And for the first time since he stepped into the basement office that morning, Arthur felt like he and his partner were on the same page.
*****
After Andrew Swift left, Emrys phoned the detective working on the Garrett and Norris cases. He hadn’t found much in his investigation, however, because in those cases there was no evidence of abduction. The women were simply missing. He did say Amanda Garrett and Vivian Norris were still friends, and he agreed with Emrys that the three cases were likely connected and promised to share any evidence or information he turned up.
Arthur and Emrys spent the rest of the day interviewing Charlotte Swift’s mother, boss, colleagues and friends. None of these interviews got them any closer to discovering what had happened to Charlotte Swift. It was after dark by the time the detectives started back toward the Camelot police station. Emrys seemed frustrated at their lack of progress that day, and although Arthur didn’t know his new partner well yet, he sensed something about this case was getting to Emrys on a more personal level.
“When we talked to the detective from South Bucks, he didn’t even know about Charlotte Swift. Who made the connection between her and the first two missing women?”
“That was me.” Emrys spoke quietly.
“How?” Arthur pressed him. “Those first two disappearances shouldn’t have even crossed your radar. What made you look into them and realize they were at school with our victim?”
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Emrys pursed his lips before answering. “I keep an eye on missing person cases across the country. That’s all.”
“Why?” Arthur wondered.
“Looking for certain...” Emrys rubbed his hand over his mouth before continuing. “Patterns.”
He twisted slightly toward Arthur, still keeping an eye on the dark road. “Two women missing from the same town in the same week caught my eye, so I looked into their files. Then when I heard about Charlotte and what happened at her house, I asked for the case. Reading her background, I noticed she attended Beaconsfield High School just like the others.” His gaze cut sideways to meet Arthur’s. “That has to be significant.”
Arthur agreed, nodding, but something Emrys said struck him as odd. “Why do you track missing person cases outside our jurisdiction?”
Emrys ducked his head with a sigh. “I could tell you it’s because I’m very thorough. A meticulous and responsible cop. But that’s not the real reason.”
“What is the real reason?” Arthur pressed.
“I’m always on the lookout for mysterious disappearances … with a specific pattern of evidence.”
After this vague answer, Emrys was silent. He clearly didn’t want to explain any further. Arthur sighed. His new partner seemed to enjoy answering questions in the most cryptic way possible. Frustrating as this was, Arthur actually understood. Emrys probably felt Arthur had been assigned to work with him because DCS Bayard didn’t trust him. And that wasn’t entirely wrong, but Arthur also knew working together in such high-stress situations required trust. And the best way to gain someone’s trust was to show you trusted them.
“Earlier you said you became a detective so you could help people who are hurting. I guess you are aware of some of my background… I know it’s sort of a joke around the department. Not a lot of folks drop out of medical school to become a cop.”
Arthur watched Emrys for a reaction, and he thought he saw half a smile appear, so he continued.
“My father always pressured me to be the best. At school. At sport. At everything, really.” Arthur sighed, remembering one particular incident. “When I was thirteen years old, some friends and I organised an auction to raise money for a local animal shelter. We put in some of our old toys and games, and we asked for donations from local businesses. Raised almost a thousand pounds!”
Emrys gave Arthur a questioning look, clearly wondering where this story was going.
“Well, afterward, each of my friends’ parents were telling their kid how proud they were of all the hard work they put in for a charitable cause.” Arthur sighed. “But my father pulled me aside and scolded me because my friend Elena had raised almost twice as much as any of the rest of us, and if I had put in more effort, maybe I would have been the top fundraiser.”
“Yikes.” Emrys grimaced.
“Yeah.” Arthur hadn’t told anyone that story for years, and he hoped he wasn’t making a mistake placing his trust in this man. But he wanted this partnership to work. Not because his boss wanted him to provide information on the legitimacy of Emrys’s work, but because he could tell Emrys genuinely cared about the victims he helped, and Arthur was actually starting to feel a connection with his partner. So he continued his confession of why he became a cop.
“Father wanted me to follow him into the family business, but I wasn’t interested in profit margins and the bottom line. I wanted to do something more useful. Something where I could make a difference in people’s lives.”
Now Arthur was certain he saw Emrys smile.
“When I told my father how I felt, he wasn’t happy. We argued for a long time about my future. But he finally decided if I wouldn’t be VP of Pendragon Enterprises, I should at least choose some well-respected profession where I could rise to glory. He said I should study medicine and that he might be able to respect me once I had saved a life or two.”
“That’s…” Emrys shook his head, unable to speak. Arthur understood. The few people who had actually seen the ugly side of Uther Pendragon usually didn’t know how to respond.
“So you see, the main reason I went to medical school was not because I actually wanted to be a doctor. It was to please my father.” Arthur clicked his teeth. “Well, when the coursework starts getting overwhelming, and you know even when you finish that, you still have years of internship and residency, suddenly, pleasing your father doesn’t seem quite so important.”
Arthur laughed. “Especially when you know nothing you do will ever be good enough for him.”
Emrys glanced sideways at him and gave a sympathetic nod.
“After I dropped out of school, choosing a new path wasn’t that difficult. Detective work had always interested me. When I was a kid, I read the Famous Five and the Hardy Boys. Sherlock Holmes.” Arthur chuckled and shrugged. “So I joined the force with the intention of training to be a detective. I hoped a background in medical science might come in handy for analysing evidence.”
He laughed again. “I wanted to solve mysteries.”
“And you wanted to help people.” Emrys interjected with a slightly hopeful tone.
Arthur nodded slowly. “And I wanted to help people.”
They drove in silence for several more minutes, Arthur occasionally turning his eyes to watch his partner’s face. He was focused on the road, but he was steadily chewing on his bottom lip. The action made his cheek pull inward, accentuating his already prominent cheekbones. Arthur had noticed those cheekbones months ago, before he even knew Emrys’s name.
Finally, Emrys tilted his head toward Arthur. He took a deep breath and then began to speak.
“Twenty-four years ago, there was a case where a young man— a husband and father— disappeared, and the crime scene was so unusual it completely baffled the police. They couldn’t find any helpful evidence, so they had to give up. The man was never found.”
This time when Emrys paused, Arthur simply waited silently for him to continue, because he suspected he was finally getting some real information from his enigmatic partner.
“I’ve been watching the missing person reports ever since I became a cop, and the newspapers before that, looking for another case with a similar crime scene.” Emrys swallowed hard. “I haven’t seen that pattern repeated in all those years. Until yesterday.”
They arrived at the police station car park, and Emrys pulled into a spot and turned off the engine. But neither he nor Arthur made a move to get out of the car. After a few quiet moments, Emrys turned to face Arthur.
“Charlotte Swift was taken from her home yesterday afternoon. She did not go voluntarily, but most likely she wasn’t knocked out or drugged, and neither was she dragged out, kicking and screaming. She was transferred directly from her living room to another location, and the energy of the transfer caused the destruction you saw.”
Arthur looked directly into Emrys’s eyes as he made this declaration, and he could tell that no matter how absurd this theory sounded, Emrys believed it. Completely.
“What makes you believe that’s what happened?” Arthur couldn’t keep the scepticism from his voice.
“Because I’ve seen it happen before.”
Heart suddenly beating fast, Arthur let out a sigh of recognition. “That case twenty-four years ago…”
“Was my father.” Emrys maintained eye contact with Arthur as he explained. “A man came into our house, wrapped his arms around my father, spoke words in a language I had never heard, and both of them disappeared in a strong wind that knocked me down. Knocked everything down. Our living room looked much like the Swifts’ did today.”
Arthur could hardly believe what his partner was saying. “But you couldn’t have been more than…”
“I was six years old.” Emrys finally looked away with a sigh. “But I remember every detail about that night.”
He shrugged. “It was the last time I saw my father.”
Without even thinking about it, Arthur reached out and put his hand on Emrys’s arm, causing his partner to turn and meet his eyes again.
“I’m sorry.”
Emrys smiled and shrugged. “That’s why I became a cop.”
And suddenly, everything made sense. Emrys’s special interest in the unexplainable cases. His willingness to isolate himself from the rest of the department to have the freedom to pursue these cases. And his personal commitment to finding Charlotte Swift and the other missing women. Arthur could certainly understand such dedication, and he would do whatever it took to make sure Emrys kept his promise to bring Charlotte Swift home to her family.
Emrys gathered the case file and his belongings and stepped out of the car. Arthur followed suit and then walked around to the front of the car where Emrys was still standing.
“I’m going down to the office to type up our notes from the interviews today. You can head on home.”
“Thanks.” Arthur chuckled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Emrys.”
With a quick shake of his head, Emrys chuckled back. “Call me Merlin.”
Arthur acknowledged the token of familiarity with a sharp nod. He stuck out his hand and returned the gesture. “Arthur.”
Merlin stepped forward and shook Arthur’s hand in the car park of the police station, affirming their new partnership.
*****
The next morning, Arthur didn’t even bother stopping by the break room to get coffee. He was anxious to get to work on the case. After he had gone home the night before, he was too wound up to go to sleep, so he wrote out an analysis of everything he and Merlin had learned that day. And he had an idea for the next step in their investigation. He strode into the office and was unsurprised to find Merlin already sitting at his desk.
“Morning!” He greeted his partner and shrugged off his jacket, tossing it over the back of a chair. “I think we need to pay a visit to Beaconsfield High School to see if they have any records from the years our missing women attended. Maybe we could even talk with some teachers who were there at the time. We could find out if they remember any of the victims of Charlotte and her friends’ bullying.”
As he spoke, Merlin started to grin inexplicably, so Arthur looked down to make sure he didn’t have a stain on his tie or something. “What?”
Merlin kept grinning as he stood and walked around his desk. “I think this partnership will work out fine. I just got off the phone with the head teacher at Beaconsfield. She’s expecting us at three o’clock.”
He paused in front of Arthur. “Andrew Swift gave me access to Charlotte’s Facebook and Instagram. So I’ve been looking at all the interactions between her and Garrett and Norris. Both are open on my computer, so check it out. They haven’t sent your computer down here yet. I’m heading over to the courthouse to get a warrant to search the school records for all three women. Just in case!”
Merlin swept out the door, leaving Arthur standing in the middle of the office, feeling slightly off-kilter. He had come in ready to start the investigation in earnest, but his partner’s excitement had thrown him off. He had never seen him grinning like that before. There was an electricity in Merlin’s brilliant blue eyes when he smiled that made Arthur’s stomach jolt and his palms tingle.
Arthur shook his head to clear it and then whistled low as he moved toward Merlin’s computer. He needed to focus on the investigation and not on blazing eyes and a dazzling smile and cheekbones that could cut glass. He blinked hard a few times before focusing on looking for more connections between the three missing women.
*****
“Why is it so dark down here? Tell me the truth, Lance. Is that why they call him Spooky? He’s a vampire?”
“Yes. Nothing gets by you, does it? You should take the detective exam right away.”
“Shut up! I’d pass it before you would. This is their office, right?”
Arthur looked up from the computer to see his friends, Lancelot and Gwaine, stepping through the doorway. They immediately started looking around at Merlin’s clutter. Gwaine’s eyes stopped on the dragon poster on the wall behind the desk. He scoffed and smirked at Arthur.
“Who did you piss off to get stuck down here, mate?” He walked over to the work table and picked up and examined one of the jars filled with herbs. “You shagged the boss’s daughter, didn’t you?”
“Maybe you’d be down here if she hadn’t turned you down cold, Gwaine.” Arthur leaned back in his chair, locking his fingers behind his head, as Gwaine put a hand over his heart and looked wounded.
Lancelot simply shook his head. “But seriously, Arthur, do have any idea what you did?”
With a frustrated sigh, Arthur sat up straight and placed his hands flat on the desk. Why did everyone seem to believe he was being punished?
“I’m here because Bayard trusts me.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Arthur regretted them. Saying Bayard assigned him to work with Merlin because he trusted Arthur made it sound like Bayard didn’t trust Merlin. And, yes, that was sort of true, but for some reason, Arthur didn’t want his fellow police officers to think their boss didn’t trust his new partner. So he spoke quickly to amend his statement.
“He trusts me with the extremely challenging cases Emrys works.” Arthur pushed the interview notes he had been reviewing into a stack and closed the folder, as if to emphasise the confidentiality of the case. “You know … the cases no one else will touch?”
“No one will touch them because they sound ridiculous!” Gwaine laughed right out loud. “Didn’t he one time believe some bloke’s story about being attacked by mythical creatures, and then he tracked them down, only to find out it was just a nest of slightly larger than average shrews?”
Arthur looked up at Gwaine with disdain, ready to defend his partner, but his friend put his hands up in apology.
“Come on, Arthur. You know me. I know better than to believe all the rumours that fly around this place. I’m sure Emrys is a good guy. Why don’t you ask him to join us at the pub Friday?”
Several of the Camelot cops would meet Friday evenings at the pub down the street to unwind from the job. Merlin had never joined in, and, now that he thought about it, Arthur wasn’t certain whether anyone had ever invited him.
“Yeah, I will. That’s a good idea.” Grateful for his friend’s willingness to see past idle gossip, Arthur nodded. “Thanks, Gwaine.”
Lancelot also had the grace to look embarrassed about his earlier comment to Arthur. He tapped the corner of the desk before he and Gwaine turned to leave the office. “Definitely bring him round the pub. We’d like to get to know him better.”
“Yeah.” Most of the Camelot cops were generally good-natured blokes who wouldn’t hold a grudge against Merlin simply because of the kinds of cases he chose to pursue. Arthur only hoped Valiant wouldn’t be at the pub Friday night.
*****
Later that afternoon, Merlin and Arthur sat in the head teacher’s conference room at Beaconsfield High School, poring over files from boxes the school administrator had pulled from storage. They were looking for any information on the three missing women, but so far all they had found were attendance records and grades. All three seemed to have been fairly bright and dedicated students.
Arthur was flipping through a box of awards from their final year at this school. They weren’t certain whether the women had participated in any extracurricular activities, so he figured scanning the sport and debate awards for their names might be a good place to start.
“You said you’d like to take back most of your behaviour from secondary school?” Merlin suddenly spoke up, and when Arthur gave him a confused look, he clarified, “When we were talking with Andrew Swift yesterday. You said you were a prat at school.”
Arthur looked over at Merlin, who was smirking at him with twinkling eyes. “Were there any particular actions you’d like to take back, or were you just an all-around git?”
Those eyes paired with that lopsided grin made Arthur’s heart feel like it leapt into his throat for a moment, but somehow he managed to keep a straight face.
“Oh, that.” Now he have a half-hearted shrug. “I was only saying that to get him to open up about his wife’s dodgy past. No, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but I was an absolute model citizen as a teenager. Perfect marks. Star football player. Regularly helped old ladies across the street. Everybody loved me.”
Merlin laughed right out loud, and Arthur decided his new mission in life was to hear that sound at least once a day from now on.
“I don’t believe that for one second!” Merlin was still grinning when he conceded, “Maybe the football thing.”
“Oh, I killed it on the pitch.” Arthur grinned back. “And I’ve already told you about my father — anything less than perfect marks were not an option.”
Merlin’s smile started to fade, but Arthur was not discouraged. He had already admitted he was ashamed of his teenaged self, and he didn’t mind Merlin knowing more of the details. “Come on! I was a typical spoiled rich kid! I was used to getting my way. I thought I was better than everyone else, and I wasn’t afraid of letting them know it.”
He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I was a right jerk to a lot of people, but something happened that made me want to change. My sister — well, half-sister — Morgana, left home. She and my father weren’t getting along. At all. There was quite a bit of yelling. Anyway, she just took off one day. And she said some things to me before she left that … got to me.”
“So you changed your behaviour because of something your sister said to you?” Merlin asked, sounding a bit surprised.
Arthur shrugged.
“It wasn’t just…” How could he explain how much losing Morgana had affected him? “She opened my eyes and helped me see what I was becoming.”
He didn’t want to go into all the details. How she had compared him with Uther and said she couldn’t stand to be around either one of them.
“Anyway.” He looked up at Merlin. “Her leaving helped me to stop being so selfish all the time.”
“Sounds like you and your sister were pretty close.”
“Oh, we hated each other!” Arthur laughed, and Merlin raised his eyebrows. “And we loved each other. As siblings do.”
“Did she ever come back?” Merlin asked.
Arthur shook his head. “She never moved back into the house. Went to live with a cousin from her mum’s side. But she kept in touch with me. And eventually she and Father made a polite sort of peace.”
He smiled, thinking Morgana and Uther’s definition of “polite” might be a bit different than most people. He looked up at Merlin again. “What about you? Any siblings?”
Merlin shook his head. “No. It was just Mum and me.”
“And what were you like at school, Mr. Emrys?” Arthur found he was genuinely curious to hear what Merlin had been like as a teenager.
“I don’t know.” Merlin’s expression was suddenly closed. “I was pretty quiet. Never felt like I fit in. I wasn’t bullied or anything. I just kept myself to myself, mostly.”
With a shrug, he turned back to the box of files he had been searching through, and Arthur continued watching him for a moment, disappointed his partner didn’t feel comfortable opening up, even after Arthur had shared so many personal details from his youth. With a sigh, Arthur bent his head to examine the stack of files he had pulled.
After a few minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence, Merlin spoke again. “Here’s something.”
He stood and walked toward Arthur, holding out two pieces of paper. Arthur took them from his hand to read. They were copies of disciplinary notices. One was addressed to the parents of Vivian Norris and the other to the parents of Jody Beecham. They stated that the two girls had been fighting in the lunchroom, and Jody shoved Vivian forcefully into a wall. Vivian received a warning for fighting, and Jody received a two-day suspension for violent behaviour.
“I wonder if Jody Beecham was one of the victims of Vivian Norris and her group’s bullying.” Arthur handed the papers back to Merlin.
“Seems likely, doesn’t it?”
Merlin placed the papers onto the table and took a picture of each of them with his phone before setting them aside. Arthur watched him for a moment as he slowly perused all the items in one file folder, probably looking for more information about that incident. He sort of liked the way Merlin’s forehead creased and his full lips pursed when he was concentrating. Feeling his ears start to burn, Arthur turned back to his own stack of files, hoping Merlin hadn’t noticed his eyes on him for so long, but at that moment the head teacher, Mrs. Cole, opened the door and poked her head into the conference room.
“Classes are finished for the day. Anything I can do to help you gentlemen?”
“Yes, I hope so.” Merlin picked up the two disciplinary notices and held them out to Mrs. Cole. “You mentioned you were teaching here when Charlotte, Amanda and Vivian were at school. Do you happen to remember this incident? Or this girl, Jody Beecham?”
Mrs. Cole took the papers and nodded slowly. “Oh yes. I remember Jody. I think any of her teachers would remember her.”
“What do you mean?” Arthur asked, standing and walking closer to Mrs. Cole and Merlin.
“Well, Jody was a bright girl, but she struggled at school.” Mrs. Cole leaned against the edge of the table and closed her eyes for a moment. “Back then we weren’t quite as vigilant as we are now about watching out for incidents of bullying. And Jody, bless her heart, she seemed to want to stand out. She dyed her hair black. Wore heavy makeup around her eyes. Painted her nails black. Anytime I saw her outside of school, she was wearing all black. I think the kids called her ‘goth.’ I didn’t know much about her home situation. She lived with both parents, but I think they did work a lot of the time.”
Mrs. Cole looked over at Merlin. “Vivian wouldn’t tolerate anyone standing out like Jody did. She and her girls used to follow Jody around and just pick and pick at her. Making comments about her clothes or her hair. Or… she used to wear one of those crystals around her neck. Those New Age type things. I don’t know if she believed it held some sort of power, or if it was simply part of her look. But she accused Vivian of stealing it from her rucksack after gym one day.”
“Do you remember this fight?” Merlin pointed at the papers she still held.
“I do.” Now Mrs. Cole furrowed her brow and shook her head. “It was the strangest thing…”
She suddenly looked up, eyes wide. “As a matter of fact, it was right after Jody had accused Vivian. She confronted her in the lunchroom in front of everyone, and Vivian didn’t like that. We never found out for certain, but I suspect Vivian did take the crystal. Or, at least, had one of her faithful girls do it for her. I guess Jody didn’t think we were doing enough to recover her property, so she walked right up to Vivian and just started shouting at her.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Arthur pulled out a notepad so he could record the details of her story. “I need to know whether you witnessed this confrontation directly or if you were told about it later.”
Mrs. Cole shook her head. “No, I was in the office at the time. There were two teachers who weren’t paying attention at the beginning of the argument but noticed once it got physical. And we talked with both girls and several of the other students who saw the whole thing.”
“Thank you. Please, continue.”
Arthur wrote “second-hand, from memory 10 yrs later” at the top of his page.
“Well, Jody was accusing Vivian — quite loudly. And Vivian started shouting back, and I guess she got right in Jody’s face.” Mrs. Cole frowned. “Now here’s where the story got odd. The teachers and most of the students said Jody shoved Vivian into the wall. But they were standing at least four metres from the wall, so it must have been a forceful shove.”
Arthur looked up from his notepad and gave her an indulgent nod. Four metres did seem a long distance to remain upright after being pushed, but Arthur knew that even first-hand accounts of such an incident were not entirely reliable. The girls could have been standing closer to the wall, and after the physical attack, Jody simply retreated, placing her farther back from the wall when the witnesses took notice of her location.
Mrs. Cole continued. “However, some of the students claimed Jody never even touched Vivian. That she threw her hands out, and Vivian just flew across the room into that wall.”
Again, Arthur didn’t think such an account from high school students was so unusual. “Well, I’m sure witnessing a fight between the popular girl and the ‘goth kid’ she picked on would be quite exciting. And then being asked to share the details of that fight with the administration? Most kids would love to be put in that sort of spotlight. I think a bit of exaggeration on their part would not be unheard of.”
He glanced at Merlin, expecting some sort of confirmation that he agreed with Arthur, but his partner was suddenly white as a sheet, eyes wide. Oddly, Arthur thought he saw a hint of recognition in his expression. But before either of them could say anything else, Mrs. Cole’s assistant opened the door and poked her head in.
“Barbara? You have a call from Mr. Wells.”
Mrs. Cole turned toward Merlin and Arthur. “Please excuse me. That’s one of the school governors. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
She handed the disciplinary notices back to Merlin and stepped out, closing the door behind her. Merlin stared at the papers with a sigh, but he didn’t say anything.
So Arthur spoke up. “It sounds like Ms. Beecham had a bit of a temper. I mean, according to Mrs. Cole, Vivian and the others put her through hell, but to attack a fellow student like that in front of everyone…”
“She might not have been able to control...” Merlin murmured under his breath, brow furrowed, deep in thought.
Suddenly, he looked up to meet Arthur’s eyes. “I wasn’t completely honest before, when you asked what I was like at school.”
“Oh?”
“I was actually suspended once. For fighting. Sort of like Jody.” Merlin confessed.
“So you were bullied?” Arthur took a step closer to Merlin, feeling a sudden protectiveness of his partner.
But Merlin shook his head. “Not really. It was a one-time thing. Some bloke called me a name, and I just… lost control.”
He looked right at Arthur again. “I think it was because I always felt like I had to hide everything. I could never completely be myself, and that shame and resentment built up, until… When he said that, I lost it. I shoved him into the lockers so hard he had bruises.”
Shaking his head, Merlin almost whispered, “I felt terrible later.”
Arthur’s heart was pounding. He certainly understood having to hide a part of yourself at that age. When he was at school, he didn’t even understand a lot of the feelings he had. He thought no one would understand that he was attracted to boys as well as girls, so he, too, kept a secret all through secondary school and even well into university. He found himself nodding at Merlin, encouraging him to continue.
“After that, I basically kept my head down and focused on getting out of there unnoticed.” Merlin shrugged.
“I hope—“ Arthur started and then cleared his throat, because the conversation was getting more emotional than he was usually comfortable with. “I hope you don’t still feel you have to hide. Especially from me.”
Merlin nodded, lips turning up at the corners, although his eyes held a little melancholy. He shrugged. “I came out when I started university, and that helped.”
Arthur nodded again. He opened his mouth, ready to confess how much finally admitting to himself that he was bisexual had helped him, when the door opened and Mrs. Cole stepped back inside.
“Sorry about that.” She held her hands out before her. “Did you need anything else? I’d be happy to arrange a meeting with any of the other teachers who were here ten years ago.”
Taking two steps backward, Arthur shook his head, feeling his cheeks and ears warm, but fortunately, Merlin spoke up.
“I don’t think that will be necessary today, but we might be contacting you again in the next few days.”
On their way out to the car, Arthur was a little sad his and Merlin’s moment of honesty had been interrupted, but he also felt strangely exhilarated his partner had genuinely opened up to him. They were finally making real progress. In their professional partnership, of course. It was important to be able to trust your partner if you hoped to stay safe in the dangerous situations that might arise in police work. The butterflies in Arthur’s stomach had everything to do with forming a professional bond with his partner and nothing to do with that partner’s razor-sharp cheekbones or sinewy arms or mind-numbingly gorgeous smile. Or the fact that he now had confirmation his partner also liked men. Nothing at all.
“You okay?” Merlin asked as soon as they got in the car. “You seem quiet.”
“I’m fine.” Arthur brushed off Merlin’s concern. “Just thinking about what our next step should be.”
Merlin started the car and pulled out onto the street. “I think we’ll pay a visit to our colleague on the Garrett and Norris cases to let him know what we’ve found, and find out if he’s got any new information.”
“Yeah. That’s… good idea. Yeah.” Arthur felt his cheeks warming again. This would never do. He couldn’t go getting flustered every time he had to speak to Merlin. He was a professional, damn it, and he would not let a crush affect his behaviour. He noticed Merlin’s tongue dart out to wet his lips, and Arthur whipped his head to face the opposite window so fast he worried he might have given himself whiplash. Professional. Professional. He chanted over and over in his head all the way to the station.
*****
DI Harper agreed with Arthur and Merlin that Jody Beecham seemed a likely suspect, so he helped them track down her last known address. It was a country home, only a few kilometres outside of Camelot. It had apparently been in her family for generations. Merlin decided they shouldn’t waste any time, so he and Arthur drove out there right away. DCS Bayard had warned Arthur that Merlin had a tendency to ignore protocol, so Arthur called the station to check in. Because there was a possibility of hostages, Arthur asked the dispatcher to send backup.
When they arrived, Arthur was glad Sergeants Corbin and Nemeth were on their way. The house felt isolated both by its distance from town and by the thick trees and overgrown brush mostly blocking view of the house from the road.
“It’s a perfect place to hide.” Merlin murmured as he parked the car across the road from the entry to the driveway.
Arthur agreed. Unfortunately, their inability to properly see the house without getting close enough to be seen themselves made it hard to prepare a plan of action.
“We should wait for backup before we approach the house.” Arthur noticed Merlin jiggling his leg in anticipation. “Percival and Mithian should be here soon.”
Merlin didn’t respond, which worried Arthur. His partner was turned away from him, squinting toward the house as if he could see through the trees if he concentrated hard enough. On the way here, Merlin hadn’t said much at all. Arthur had searched the satellite views from the police database as well as Google Maps and couldn’t find an angle that showed the house clearly. The trees were simply too thick. They knew where the driveway approached the house, but they couldn’t tell how large the house was or where the doors were.
Apparently, Merlin had been coming up with a plan. “I could walk about 100 metres down this road and then cut through that brush to approach the house from the rear at the same time as you walked up the driveway. You could knock on the door and see if anyone answers. If Jody comes to the door, you could see if she’s acting suspicious at all. And I could watch the back in case she tries to make a break for it.”
“Merlin. We’re waiting for backup.” Arthur insisted. “It’s standard procedure. Not to mention, it’s safer for both us and any hostages who may be inside the house.”
Finally turning to look at Arthur, Merlin spoke, his voice wavering slightly. “Charlotte Swift has been missing for 54 hours now. Vivian Norris for five whole days and Amanda Garrett for six. If they’re in there…”
Arthur closed his eyes with a sigh. He knew how Merlin felt. Sitting here in the car right outside the house where these women might be being held. Knowing they must be frightened, wondering whether they would ever see their families again. Sitting here waiting for backup felt… cowardly, somehow. But Arthur also knew the policy was there for a reason. When officers acted impetuously was when people got hurt.
“There’s no telling when our backup will get here.” Merlin pleaded.
Arthur looked up to find his partner peering at him, hopeful eyes growing wider as Merlin seemed to sense Arthur’s indecision. Oh, those puppy dog eyes were going to be Arthur’s downfall, he just knew it.
“I promised Andrew Swift we’d bring his wife home, Arthur.” Merlin’s voice was sincere and filled with compassion. “I promised.”
Arthur closed his eyes again. This wasn’t fair. He remembered Merlin gently touching the photograph of Charlotte Swift with her baby and then later confessing how this case reminded him so much of his own father’s disappearance. Knowing how this case was affecting Merlin so personally made it impossible for Arthur to hold out.
“All right.” He surrendered.
He could feel the relief pouring from his partner as Merlin breathed out a grateful, “Thank you.”
They got out of the car, and Merlin started down the road alone, but Arthur trotted after him. “Let me walk down the road with you to take a look at what you’ll be trekking through. We need to figure out the timing, if we plan to approach the house from opposite sides at the same moment.”
The moon was nearly full and the sky clear and bright with stars, so hopefully even under the cover of the trees, Merlin wouldn’t need a torch to find his way, as they didn’t want to alert anyone inside the house of their approach. As they started around a bend, Merlin found a clear spot where he could easily pick his way through the brush toward the house. From this point, through the trees, Arthur could see the light from an upstairs windows.
“I should be able to come up from the back unnoticed and keep an eye on the side and the rear of the house. You go on up the drive to the front, and I’ll give a whistle to let you know I’m in position before you knock on the door.”
Merlin started into the brush without even waiting for Arthur to answer, so Arthur reluctantly left his partner behind to go back toward the driveway. Before starting toward the house, he opened the boot of the car to retrieve a camera with a night vision lens. Because the house was not visible from the road at all, he suspected there was no outdoor lighting.
He approached the house slowly, careful not to make any noise. The light he had seen through the woods was from a room at the rear corner upstairs. As he waited for Merlin’s signal, Arthur took several photos of the house, focusing on the doors and windows. Soon, however, he heard a whistle through the trees he would have sworn was a bird had he not already been expecting the signal from his partner. That birdcall was a useful skill; he would have to ask Merlin to teach him how to do that later.
Arthur stepped up to the front door, rang the bell and then stepped back again, so he could watch through the window beside the door for any movement inside the house. He couldn’t see anything until a light was switched on, and, although curtains covered the window, he could see a shadow walking casually across the room.
A young woman, probably in her mid-twenties opened the door. She was dressed in a simple navy T-shirt and jeans, her long hair was dark and straight, and she was wearing little make-up, although she did have a piercing in her right nostril. On the drive from South Bucks, Arthur had searched online for a photograph of their suspect, but he was not able to find a picture of a Jody Beecham who was the right age and lived in the UK.
“Good evening.” Arthur held out his ID to identify himself. “I’m DI Arthur Pendragon with the Camelot CID. We’ve been tracking a missing person, and we have reason to believe she might be in this area.”
He reached into his pocket to pull out a photograph of Charlotte Swift. “Have you seen this woman?”
Arthur watched the woman at the door carefully to gauge her reaction as she looked down at the photo he held out. She was standing unnaturally still all of a sudden, although her breathing seemed to quicken. She stared for a few seconds and then shook her head stiffly.
“I haven’t seen her.” Her voice sounded a bit shaky to Arthur. “Sorry.”
She started to close the door, so Arthur reached into his pocket again to get one of his cards with his contact information to hand to her.
“If you do see her, please give me a call.”
The woman was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and she did not reach for the card he extended toward her.
“Her name is Charlotte, and we’re just trying to get her home.” Arthur continued, hoping to make her feel some regret that might cause her to reveal her guilt. “Her husband and her little girl miss her, and we know she wants to get home to them.”
A sudden crash from the rear of the house caused the woman to jump, and she whipped her head toward the sound. Arthur looked beyond her to see if he could discover the source of the sound, but she shifted to block his view.
“That’s my dog. I need to go check on him.” She snatched the card from Arthur’s hand. “I’ll let you know if I see that woman.”
Before she could close the door, however, the room suddenly went dark and silent, as if the power to the house had been shut off. Arthur heard a voice call out from upstairs, and the woman in the doorway panicked. She shoved past Arthur and bolted away from the house.
“Merlin!” Arthur shouted to his partner as he regained his balance and tore across the porch after her.
Arthur chased her down the driveway as a police car pulled into the drive. The woman turned and started running toward the woods between her house and the road, but she didn’t get far. Before the car had completely stopped, Mithian jumped out of the passenger side and tackled the woman to the ground. Arthur slowed down and thanked Mithian as she stood up and pulled the woman to her feet.
“No problem.” Mithian smiled. “I know you detectives aren’t as light on your feet as us beat cops.”
Percival had parked the car and was trotting over to join them, so Arthur called out, “Very funny. Hold her for me, would you?”
And he started back toward the house to find Merlin. He felt like the woman’s fleeing gave him just cause to search the house, but before he even got to the porch, he noticed the lights on the first floor had returned. And as he entered the front door, he found the three missing women already standing in the living room and Merlin starting to untie Charlotte’s hands from behind her back.
Arthur couldn’t help breathing out a deep sigh of relief to see them all safe. He approached Amanda Garrett to untie her hands, but he turned to look at Merlin.
“What happened?” He asked his partner.
“I was waiting behind the house, watching the back door and the sides of the house, when I heard someone knocking on the upstairs window.” He patted Charlotte’s back as he finished untying her and moved to untie Vivian. “When Jody went downstairs to answer the door, Vivian looked out the window and saw me, so she knocked to get my attention.”
Having finished untying Amanda, Arthur took a look into the kitchen, which was where he and Jody had heard the crashing sound earlier. There was a door open to the back garden, and some broken dishes on the floor.
“Did you break in?” Arthur wondered as he flipped the light switch on and then off again. “And did you cut the power, Merlin?”
Merlin was having trouble loosening the knots on the rope around Vivian’s wrists. Arthur noticed his hands shaking. He walked over and gently pulled Merlin’s hands away, so he could untie the rope.
Merlin gave him a half-smile. “The door was unlocked, but I bumped into a stack of dishes on the edge of the counter. And I didn’t cut the power. I just turned the lights off for the living room.”
That didn’t sound right to Arthur, though. If Jody was keeping hostages in her house, surely she would lock all the doors. And the change in sound as well as the loss of light seemed to indicate the power for the entire house had been cut, but he didn’t push the issue.
“Where’s Jody?” Vivian Norris asked as she rubbed her wrists after Arthur pulled the rope from them.
“Our colleagues are holding her outside.” Arthur answered, and he motioned toward the door. “Let’s get you out of here,” he said to the three women. “We’ll take you to the hospital just to make sure everything’s okay, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to get a statement from each of you there.”
“I want to call my husband.” Charlotte spoke up, voice wavering.
“So do I,” chimed in both Amanda and Vivian.
Merlin helped guide the women out the door. “Tell you what, I’ll let you use my mobile on the way to the hospital. You can each call your husbands to let them know you’re okay.”
“Have you seen Andrew? Have you talked to him?” Charlotte was crying now. “And my baby? My Abby? Is she okay?”
“They’re okay. They’re staying with your mother.” Merlin answered as he helped her down the porch steps. “They’re worried about you, but they’re okay.”
Charlotte gave a sob, and Amanda started to ask about her family, but then Vivian apparently caught sight of Jody standing with Percival and Mithian.
“How could you do this?” She started charging toward her captor. “You bitch!”
Arthur grabbed Vivian before she could get to Jody, because, although he understood Vivian’s anger, he knew if she attacked Jody now, the chances of getting a conviction against her later in court would lessen.
“I hope you’re happy! You’ve made our whole families miserable. Do you feel better now? You were a nobody at school, so you have to do this to make yourself feel important?” Arthur’s strong grip held her back from physically attacking, but he didn’t even try to prevent her from hurling angry words at the woman who had kidnapped them and held them here all this time. “I hope you rot in jail!”
Arthur continued to physically guide Vivian down the driveway toward where Merlin’s car was parked on the street. Merlin and the other two women followed.
“Arrest her and take her to the station.” Arthur called to Mithian. “We’re headed to the hospital, but we’ll be back later tonight to question her.”
After the doctors examined the women and declared they were healthy, if a bit shaken, Merlin and Arthur questioned each one. Merlin was particularly interested in hearing Charlotte’s account of how Jody took her from her home because the evidence reminded him so much of the night his father was abducted, but Arthur knew he had to be careful not to let his partner guide her testimony.
“It was Sunday afternoon, and Abby was taking her nap. Andrew had to run to the office for a couple of hours, so I was just taking the opportunity to relax a bit.” Charlotte gave a sad smile. “The doorbell rang, and I wasn’t expecting anyone, but there was Jody. She looked so different than she did at school, but I recognized her right away. I’ve always felt so bad about how we treated her.”
Charlotte shook her head and sighed. “Anyway, there she was on my doorstep with her husband.”
“Her husband?” Merlin asked, and Arthur raised his eyebrows in surprise. Vivian Norris and Amanda Garrett had not mentioned seeing Jody’s husband.
“Well,” Charlotte started. “She said he was her husband. He had sort of scruffy, light brown hair and a moustache and beard. He didn’t talk at all. And I never saw him at the house where she kept us. Which was kind of weird, I guess.”
She shrugged. “So, like I said, we were horrible to Jody, and I wanted to apologise, so I asked her if they’d like to come in for some tea. She said she would, but almost as soon as they got in, she started asking me about some crystal she had at school that she thought Vivian and us had stolen from her.”
“I didn’t even remember it. Viv did, but she said she tossed it in a bin after Jody attacked her at school, but Jody wouldn’t believe her.” Letting out a frightened sob, Charlotte continued. “She kept asking us about that crystal the whole time she had us on the floor of her house. She kept saying we couldn’t go home until she got her crystal back.”
Merlin and Arthur exchanged a glance. Both Vivian and Amanda had said the same thing. Jody was obsessed with the crystal she believed they stole from her in high school. Like Charlotte, Amanda had no memory of the stolen crystal at all, but Vivian admitted to taking the crystal from Jody’s rucksack all those years ago as a joke. She said she had intended to give it back at the end of the day, but after the fight in the lunchroom when Jody had thrown her against the wall, she decided to throw it away instead.
“Back at your house, on Sunday afternoon, what happened after you told her you didn’t remember the crystal?” Arthur prompted Charlotte to continue her account of the actual kidnapping.
Charlotte shook her head. “Well, she said I was lying. And she needed the crystal. And then her husband grabbed me from behind and…”
“Yes?” Merlin was leaning forward, sitting on the edge of his seat. It was all Arthur could do not to put his hand on Merlin’s jiggling knee and tell him to calm down.
“I don’t really know what happened next.” Charlotte looked confused. “The next thing I knew, we were standing outside that house in the country. I think he must have drugged me or something.”
Merlin’s shoulders sank, and he let out a sort of stilted sigh. Arthur knew he was disappointed Charlotte’s testimony didn’t show any indication of paranormal activity. Merlin so desperately wanted someone to validate his theory that his own father had been abducted by magic, and the evidence from this case had given him such hope. Arthur hated to see his partner looking so crushed, but he thought it would probably be better if Merlin could accept that the most likely chain of events in this case was Jody and the man with her had drugged Charlotte and then set up the room to look like something mysterious had happened to throw the police off their track.
By the time they got back to the station, Jody Beecham had already been processed, and Percival was keeping her in a holding cell, waiting for Arthur and Merlin to interrogate her. When they spoke to her, they discovered that the crystal she believed Vivian had stolen from her at school was a gift from her father. He had recently passed away, and she desperately wanted the crystal back.
After their interview, Arthur returned Jody to her cell and then joined Merlin in his office. Merlin sat at his desk, cradling a framed photograph in his hands, and he did not look up when Arthur walked in, so Arthur perched on the edge of Merlin’s desk.
“Who’s that?” He pointed at the man in Merlin’s photo, although he suspected he already knew the answer.
“It’s my father.” Biting his lip, Merlin placed the frame carefully on his desk next to his monitor. “Did you notice the tattoo on Jody Beecham’s arm?”
Arthur nodded.
“The man who took my father had the same tattoo.” Merlin opened a folder on his desk and pulled out a drawing of the symbol that was tattooed on Jody Beecham’s forearm. “It’s a dragon formed from Celtic knots. It’s a symbol of strength.” Merlin stared at the symbol with a sigh.
Reaching across his partner to close the folder, Arthur pointed out, “Stealing mothers and fathers from their families seems more cowardly than strong to me.”
Nodding slowly, Merlin looked up at Arthur. “Thank you for bypassing procedure tonight. I just wanted to get in there and help those women.”
“Well, I’m glad everything worked out.” Arthur stood and started toward the door. “I’m calling it a night. Oh, I’m meant to tell you… A whole group of cops go down to the pub on Friday nights, and Gwaine said I should invite you to join us.”
Merlin looked up, interested. “Gwaine’s the one with the great hair, right?”
“I guess.” Arthur shrugged.
“Yeah, that sounds like fun,” Merlin grinned broadly. “I’ll be there. Thanks!”
As Arthur walked up the stairs, he wondered why he suddenly had a slightly resentful ache in the pit of his stomach.