Chapter 3

The guy gets hauled off for public mischief. I sit back and listen as they talk about the way I handled myself and the take down.

"I have to go to my Mothers grave." I say to myself more than anyone else.

"Why?" Tombs asks.

"'Where is Rita?', 'how far will you go to get the truth?'. My mothers name was Rita. He's turned her death into a game." I murmur.

Mac looks at me, "Drink your scotch, sleep it off and we will put the dots together tomorrow."

I shake my head, "I need to know that her headstone is alright. At least."

"You're not going alone do you hear me?" Mac raises his voice.

"Boss," Tombs says, "I'll take her if it'll make her feel better."

Mac looks at Tombs who had been quiet for a long time. Then nods.

"Fine, watch Sugars back." He says sighing.

I look up, "That's twice, is that gonna stick now?"

Sky laughs, "You kinda reminded us of a sugar crash. It just got shortened to Sugar."

"A sugar crash, huh?" I question.

Keys explains, "That ever building buzz that happens, you're like that and when you come down on people, it's so unexpected and literally crashing."

I nod, "Sure, beats monster anyway."

Masa laughs then, "Don't know anyone that would call you a monster after meeting Mira."

"Stop saying that name.  I just hope that the other personas don't get brought out of retirement." I huff.

There's a pause and then laughter.  I assume they are imagining what else I can pull off.  But that's fine.  All those personas have been weird to play.  Especially the stripper.  That one will never truly retire though and I know that.  Lily, can get information out of anyone. 

My phone goes off, "Stevens."

"Are you with Mac and the guys?" Connors asks.

I pause, "Yeah.  Celebratory drinks."

"Put me on speakerphone please.  You and all of them need to here this." He says.

I press the button and look over at the men, "Kay, Connors.  You've got everyone now."

"Mac..." he grumbles.

Then there's a shift at the table. Effectively trapping me between two very strong me. 

"Done," Mac says deeply.

"I don't know what's going on.  But I think it's safe to say that that there might be something new about Stevens case." He says, "I want you all back here in an hour."

"Connors, can you make it an hour and a half?  I wanted to go visit my mothers grave." I ask.

He pauses, "Alone?"

"Tombs said he'd take her." Mac speaks up. "I already went through the not going alone part.  Especially at this time in the evening.  And a few revelations that have come up."

"Yeah, ok. An hour and a half.  Be careful, Stevens.  We don't know what this is about." Connors urged.

He hangs up and I look at the ceiling. 

"Do you want to know the answer to the riddle?" I ask.

The men look at me.

"He's implying that he's a ghost. Undetectable, uncatchable." I breath, "To bad for him I don't believe in ghosts."

The bartender brings the bill over and I go to pay my share.  Then find that Mac has taken the bill and is already paying it. I shake my head.  Next time it's on me I decide and stand.

We agree to be quick and see everyone at the office. Tombs and I head to the cemetery, it's quiet for a while then Tombs says something. 

"I wanted to tell you, that, you're not alone.  Not any more.  We have your back." He says.

I smile, "At least, I felt like I could trust you guys from the get go. And thank you Tombs for giving me this peace of mind."

We pull up and I pull the gate key out of my pocket. I walk over to the gate and find that it's not locked.

"Tombs...  be ready for anything.  This gate is always locked." I say. 

He nods and we go through carefully. 

As we get closer to my mothers grave a chill goes through me.  Something is off.  I pull my flashlight and have it scan the area and can't place what's wrong.  Up until we get to her grave. 

It's dug up, casket empty of human remains and has evidence other things that shouldn't be there. And papers floating around in the grave. All I do is fall to my knees.  But I know that this changes everything. 

"Mac, we need a forensic crew at Lancshire Cemetery, Rita Mary Stevens, grave has been dug up." Tombs says behind me.  "Yeah, we'll wait.  I don't think she'd move anyway."

I stay put.  I think and think about the implications of this. There's things in the casket I've never seen before.  There's papers and files and evidence bags and golden things.  The headstone has been altered.  I am furious. I'm broken but most of all I'm shaken.

At some point Tombs puts his jacket over my shoulders and when the forensic team shows up they sigh. The lead forensic specialist looks at me and groans. When she goes to talk to me Tombs stops her.

"Do you want her to be stuck to the spot all night?" She asks.

I don't hear an answer but eventually she is in front of me and looking me in the eye. She does a quick intake to see if I'm injured first.

"Pull yourself together, Maggie." Katherine says, "Mish won't like hearing about this but if she finds out that you completely broke down you know what she's going to do."

I bite my lip and stand up. Mish, the woman who raised me after my mothers death. The woman who took care of me when Mom was at work, or on a work trip. A woman who has been a rock for me all my life. And true, if Mish found that I lost my composure over any of this she'd be the first to demand that I'm put in protection.

The unit arrives and starts to fan out. Tombs joins them and Connors and Mac are beside me. Talking quietly as the others look for indications of who did this and where they went.

"Stevens," Connors calls my name.

I ignore it. I think about who would know. One person comes to mind. My mothers coworker that actually planned her funeral. Linc, I don't know when I last spoke to him but I have to now.

"Maggie?" Another voice calls I'm focused to hard on what I know and who I should be talking to.

"Sugar!" Mac yells snapping me out of my self induced trance.

I shake my head, "I'm sorry, what did you need?"

Mac and Connors shares a look. They motion for me to follow them and I do.

"We have decided that you need to have someone with you at all times until this is done." Connors stops me before I object. "Not to stop you from working, just so that someone always has your back. We don't know what game he thinks he's playing, but, we aren't going to have you playing as a piece."

I nod, I had been worried about being put into a safe house for the time being. Right after I pull out my phone and call Linc.

"Hi Linc, it's Mags..... Yeah, it has, I need to talk to you. It's really important can you meet me at my office in two hours? I'll send you the address.... I'm fine... No this is about Mom. No something just came up and you're the only one I can think of that would know.... Yeah. Thanks. See you soon." I hang up.

Mac looks at me, "Who was that?"

"The man that worked with my mother, he arranged the funeral." I lift an eyebrow. "I guess I'm hoping that he knows something about this. Plus he shouldn't find out via the News." I look over at the gathering media.

With a nod he asks Connors to take me back to the office, "We will go over what we find here when we all get back to the office.  Everything.  But go back to the office and wait for that guy."

I agree and Connors walks me to his car.  Once inside he asks if I'm okay.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm shaken.  But now...  I don't really know where this is going.  But I do know one thing. This has to end." I think clearly.

Back at the office I pull out the whole case file on my mothers murder.  Mish had requested copies from the detective for me later in life.  And I'm glad she did.  Because right after that, a bunch of stuff got redacted and evidence went missing. 

Connors looks over my shoulder as I start going over the file again. 

"Woah!  That's the whole thing...  unredacted and all the evidence listed." He murmurs.  "How did you get your hands on this?"

"That's not the important part.  What's important is that there was never a knife found, the killer took it with him and now apparently twenty years later a knife is in evidence.  Trust me.  Every time I look at the differences it makes me wonder." I grunt.

Then the unit starts to file in and look confused.  As I sit there and look up different things.  I'm too focused to care about what they found for the time being.  So I keep looking.  I look up names and faces and the term ghost sticks in my head. 

A phone rings and I answer it. 

"Stevens."

"Stop looking" he says.

"What should I even call you?" I ask.

"Yūrei." Is my answer, "Now as I said. Stop looking."

I yell, "I'll stop looking, when you are in front of me in cuffs and telling me why you killed my mother.  Otherwise I won't stop."

"Maggie, you are signing you death warrant with that declaration.  Are you sure you want to do that?" He purrs into the phone. 

I hang up and throw the phone in the trash.

"I'm taking it that was a warning to stop investigating." Sky says as he hands me a cup of coffee. 

I shrug my shoulders.

"Well, we have all the evidence from the scene here, do you wanna go through it now or wait for a little bit?" Night asks. 

I look at the pile of documents and I say one thing.

"Make copies, like ten of all of it and put one copy in evidence.  We keep the originals and the other copies safe.  It's likely that what ever goes into the evidence locker is going to vanish or change. Yūrei will see to it."

"Yūrei?" Keys looks confused. 

I nod.  "That's what he said to call him.  The Japanese word for ghost."

I look at the time and frown. Linc should be here any minute.  However I'm not really prepared.  I'm going to have to ask specific things that I never thought about.   Then I look up my mothers history and I look up Lincs history.  Then I look up the other name on my birth certificate.  Raymond Loch. 

I start to dig and dig and dig.  As I continue to do so I start to notice inconsistencies and there's about a million questions that come to mind.  Then I have one answer.  But to get that answer I'll have to go undercover. Alone.

There's a quick bunch of chatter and then papers shuffling.  A few gasps and questions.  There's no question that the documents that they are going through hold information of the highest priority. 

However, I'm more focused on my own research.  I'm jotting down notes and questions.  I'm focused on finding the truth.  So focused that Mac places a hand on my shoulder to get my attention.

"Linc Ramone is in the conference room." Mac explains, "Are you ready to see him?"

I look up and nod.

Mac comes with me and together we are going to get all the information that we can out of Linc.  It seems that he may have been lying to me.