Foster's

Burglary .4

The search took all day.

His men tackled the first floor of the house, the barn, the field and the resounding woods to a certain extent. Campbell did the second floor, the loft she was living in, the attic and the basement. So all the really scary places that no one wanted to do. Eventually, he made his way out to the maze.

He hated Culverton house, but that maze was the worst part.

Oh, the house itself was bad. He always felt like he was being watched, and this time had been no exception. In fact, as he went through Angelica's personal quarters on that third floor annex it was worse. It almost felt like someone was standing right behind him the whole time. He kept turning around to see if he could catch anyone, but no one was ever there. He even checked to make sure that there weren't any peepholes, but he found nothing.

The maze, however, the maze was much worse than the house. The maze felt like the hedges were closing in on you, the maze felt like you had something following you at all times, in the maze he swore he could hear something talking.

He told himself it was whispers on the wind but he wasn't sure he believed that. Campbell always knew how to get through it, he always found the center no problem, but he hated how he felt in that maze. The heavy awareness, of eyes on the back of his neck, that feeling that something might reach out and grab him, it was always worse in the maze.

He never went in along, of course, he always took someone with him, someone who spooked and jumped and asked questions like: "What was that?" and "Did you hear that?"

He never knew what it was, and he always heard whatever it was they were worried about, he just pretended he didn't.

They got through the maze. Neither missing man was there.

They went through the barn, nothing there. They went through the corn field, no sign of any activity there either. They went through the woods near-by, still nothing.

The crime scene unit went through the house. Nothing there either. You know, except for blood in the kitchen. Nothing looked out of place anywhere else, either. If it weren't for the forced open window in the in the parlour he wouldn't have thought that anyone had broken in at all.

They did, however, find blood under the couch. Only a few droplets, seemed like spatter but there was no sign of blood anywhere else in the room.

It didn't smell like it had been cleaned, but maybe it had. He had them test the areas near-by to see if any chemicals had been used. Nothing.

When they ruled out them hiding in or around Culverton they moved onto their personal homes.

They went to Tommy's first. As the ring leader his apartment would be home base. Place was empty, trashed but empty. They might have assumed that it was trashed after his death, but no, Tommy wasn't that big into cleaning, so it looked about the same as it usually did.

They went to Dan's next. That place was a little cleaner but showed no signs that anyone had been there recently.

It was while he was at Dan's place that they got the call. The Martinez's reporting suspected domestic violence or at the very least a noise complaint. They wanted someone to come out and take a look.

That was interesting, because Sloan lived with his parents, in the garage attached to their house. It wasn't like them to turn their baby in, so it had to be bad for them to be calling to have them swing by and check-up.

When Jack got there, he found Mrs. Martinez out, pink bathrobe on, her hand clutching the neck closed, curlers in her hair.

"I heard screaming," she said. "Thought they were just fighting again, but then it all went quiet and now he won't answer."