Tweetie

57

It had almost been a week already.

It seemed that time flew by quicker than Robin had expected it to, then again, she worked the entire time and time passed far quicker when the time wasn't even acknowledged. She moved in with Roderick for a while, entering his warm home which, out of all the ones she had stayed in, was her personal favourite. It was warm, it was cosy, it was filled with enough clutter that it didn't feel lifeless, and, she enjoyed herself.

Roderick, despite her going into hibernation, spent time with her. He sat with her, helped her work through the evidence, asked questions that needed to be asked, pointed her in directions she never thought to look. And, he was understanding. Sure, she looked exhausted and mentally drained, but that meant she was almost there. When she got to a point of not being able to stop working, it tended to mean that she was close to a breakthrough.

Archie stopped by every so often, never with work. He checked in, asked how she was doing, sat by her and gave her the company she needed so as to not lose her mind entirely.

Admittedly, she still felt terrible for bringing him so much stress. He always worked hard to make sure she was okay, to see to it that she was happy and they could both continue working as a duo for a long time to come. But she had gotten so taken away by it all, she barely realised how little time she had with him.

"All gang activity in this part of the city died down," she mumbled mostly to herself in the silent house, "but it died down after the Jason case. Is that a coincidence?"

She shuffled, turning to a stack of files she had gotten, all various people from different backgrounds. Files about the people in the ID's she had found in Ricky's purse. She had hoped she could look through everyone and see if any might have belonged to whoever put the note in the purse. but, most were adults with regular jobs, none that linked to the investigation at all.

"A lot of gangs dispersed at that time, wanted criminals left the country entirely." Roderick told her, "That was a little after Arthur Matson was arrested. Crime rates got pretty bad at that point, then all of a sudden, they plummeted. By the time Jason went missing, they were reaching their lowest point."

"Something must have caused that." Robin said as she sat on the carpeted ground of the living room at two in the morning, tapping a pen to her head idly as she thought. "When did Daniel Thompson get arrested?"

"Last year. He was let out."

"Right. So he's still around."

He took a brief moment to think, looking over the evidence with her as he frowned.

"And you're positive it's not those boys?"

"Absolutely. Leo wasn't even in this city at the time, Fox, Oscar and Joel have no relation to Jason and Fox was dealing with his own personal issues at the time, the most viable is Ryan but his motive is loose and he's too sympathetic, he wouldn't kill his friend. If he had that sort of guilt, he'd have turned himself in already."

"You seem happy about that. They're pretty close friends of yours, huh?"

"Yeah," she beamed, "they're all really nice. Archie doesn't like them much, but they've helped me a bunch."

"I'm glad to see you have friends you can rely on," he smiled, "you've spent way too much time having to be an adult. Take the opportunities you get to act your age while you can."

She nodded, agreeing without hesitation.

"I should probably say," Robin said, glancing up from her work as she decided that she was going to trust Roderick. "They know who I am."