Tweetie

37

"Stewart? Can I talk to you about this case, while it's quiet?"

"Of course, what's wrong?"

Hazel leaned against the counter of the cafe in the early morning, too early for school kids to be around. But she needed to leave her house early, she needed time away from everything so she could just think.

The cafe was quiet, lonely. There was nobody but the two in there as the sky grew duller for the dreary autumn day. It was still dark outside, practically nighttime with the slow moving time, the slow moving clouds in the sky, the slow moving everything as life drifted by and she felt the need to pull her hair out in frustration. She needed to push, to go faster, to finish this all before it was too late.

But the fact of the matter was that life was slow, the day was cold and the honey-hued cafe was as warm of a place she could find any comfort in.

"I don't know. I don't know if it's just me or if the world is going against me or what... But, it just never ends. I find one thing, then I find another, then suddenly, none of it matters because things are going wrong and-" She shook her head and sank into her hands, "Something about all of this isn't right. Missing evidence, threats to my identity, drugs? I don't get it, it doesn't add up. It feels like I'm losing things that I held five minutes ago."

"Somebody is still trying to hide what they did." He said, watching as she looked over her shoulder.

"That's what I was thinking," she nodded, agreeing with the man as he sipped his coffee, the steam still rising in the air but the heat of the liquid doing nothing to him. "None of it makes any sense. I follow the trail and find that it leads to drugs, I get evidence, lose evidence... But it leads back to the same place which as far as I can tell doesn't have anything to give. And then there are the suspects. I don't even think they're the suspects but everything is so uncertain I can't disregard them either. The case is moving forwards but I'm just stuck here and I can't see far enough ahead. It's infuriating."

"You don't think it was the boys?"

"No," she shook her head which was heavy with doubt. "I'm actually worried about them. It looks like, at least from what I can tell, they might be being framed."

"What?" He gasped, widening his eyes, "really? Why? How?"

It made sense that he would be so concerned. The boys were treated like sons and she could understand why. He was a caring man, always looking out for people no matter what their backgrounds were. But these boys received a particular type of care from both Stewart and Hazel that was undeniably biased.

"Small things that have added up," she began, "It's mainly Ryan, and with his background, it's difficult to outright disregard him. He knew Jason Barber personally, he was his friend then a few months before he went missing, they fell out... He's violent, his dad is a known criminal, I had evidence that even put him in the area near Jason when he went missing. That ended up being wrong. He isn't even violent to anyone but Ricky. So how come I keep getting pushed toward him? I feel- gah, I feel useless. I should have noticed sooner."

"This is good news, isn't it?"

"Good and bad. I really didn't want them to be involved, they're too nice, I really like them. I'm glad that it seems like they're not. But, it's dangerous. Somebody is targeting them and if the case goes on any longer, I don't know what could happen, if I'm in danger, they definitely are."

"So you're fighting things from every angle, keeping suspicion from them while looking for the answers..." His voice drifted, realising how difficult it would be. She needed to convince everyone, including herself, that she was still working, that she was making progress and that things weren't as simple as they appeared. But, she also had to live the fake life she built as her undercover disguise. Tweetie, the girl who went to school in the North, worked in the cafe and became friends with the boys. It was a lot to handle. And now with the threat of being exposed? He didn't even know about the vague death threat.