Fic Post: Unraveling [Shelter/Without a Trace crossover]

[dragontatt]

banner made by foreverbm

Title: Unraveling, Chapter 7
Author: dragontatt
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Neither Shelter nor Without a Trace belong to me. No profit is being made from this work of fiction, and no disrespect is intended.
Word Count: 2971



Shaun snapped his phone shut with a muted clunk before shaking his head at Martin in the front seat. After finally get off the phone with Gabe, he’d tried Jeanne but the call had gone straight to her voice mail. He left a curt message, asking her to call back as soon as possible.

“Just like I said, Gabe doesn’t know anything. Well, except some guy named Gator.” He smiled faintly at Martin who was looking back over his shoulder.

“Gator? That his dealer?”

“Yeah, Gabe swears everything’s cool with him though, and I believe him. Jeanne’s not picking up though.”

“Does she always answer her phone?”

“No – she can be pretty unreliable when the mood hits her.” Shaun’s mouth twisted into a rueful frown.

Martin nodded before saying, “Well, if you can’t get in touch with her soon, we’ll have the local PD go search her out. It’s not a big deal.”

Shaun nodded and Martin turned back around to ask Danny, “We almost there?”

“The parking lot is just up ahead there,” Danny said as he slowed for the turn.

Shaun sat up straight and said, “If you head to the left and keep going, that’s where Zach was parked, over in the far corner.” He leaned over the front seat as well as he could to point the way.

Danny nodded silently and drove slowly toward the rear of the parking lot. It was about ninety percent full, even this far back, but the space where Shaun had found Zach’s Jimmy, and the spaces on either side of it were all empty. Not by mere coincidence, but because there were a dozen or so orange traffic cones blocking them off.

“There,” Shaun said needlessly but Danny merely murmured, “Yeah, thanks,” before neatly double parking directly behind the line of cones.

Shaun undid his seat belt and was reaching for the handle when Martin spoke up.

“Um, Shaun? I’m going to need you to stay with the car, okay? We can’t have you come along on an official interview.” He stared at Shaun, eyebrows raised slightly.

“Oh.” Shaun’s gaze flickered to Danny in the driver’s seat for a split second before he looked back at Martin. He settled himself back against the seat and nodded, saying, “Sure, if I have to. You’ll tell me what you find out though, right?”

Martin smiled in relief and said, “Anything pertinent I’ll tell you, I promise.” He opened his door and then the two men were gone from the front seat, leaving Shaun alone with his thoughts.


-----


Martin slid his notebook back into his jacket pocket before pulling out his sunglasses. He slipped them on and followed Danny down the hall towards the exit.

They’d gotten exactly nothing from the security officer they’d spoken with – not that he wasn’t eager to help them, because apparently he didn’t have too much to do on campus all day besides ride around in his golf cart and issue parking citations.

But as it turned out, the only security camera that had any chance of catching anything that had happened near the Jimmy was situated just low enough on the light pole that a double-parked UPS truck blocked all view of what might have gone on. One second and the space was empty, then the truck showed up and hung around for 12 minutes, and when it finally pulled away, the rear of Zach’s SUV was clearly visible in the far corner of the lot.

There was no one anywhere near it, and even though they fast forwarded through about 6 hours of footage, of cars coming and going, of people walking and biking and in one extremely odd case, springing through the parking lot on a pair of high tech stilts, they found nothing. They only stopped the footage once they saw Shaun’s Volvo pull in a few spaces over.

The guard was embarrassed and apologetic, but that really didn’t help them out any. Didn’t help Zach either.

Danny paused at the end of the hallway, one hand on the push bar of the door. “Well look, he pretty much had to have been grabbed in the lot, right? His knapsack was there, the note was there. Just because the camera didn’t see anything doesn’t mean one of the other students didn’t notice something. There had to have been somebody in the parking lot around that time.”

Martin sighed – it’d be a big job to track down the right people - before nodding and following Danny out into the sunshine. They walked around the corner of the building toward the parking lot and Martin was already mentally calculating how many people they’d have to talk to before finding anyone with any real information when he noticed two things.

First thing he noticed was that Shaun was not waiting with the SUV like he’d promised he would, but was over near the lawn hanging out with a small group of students. The second thing he noticed was that the group was all watching some guy who was casually doing rapid somersaults in the air on his curved metal stilts.

“Isn’t that the guy we saw on the tape right after the UPS truck pulled away?” Martin asked.

Danny rolled his eyes and said, “No Martin, I’m sure there are plenty of red-headed guys on stilts around here who jump all over campus.” He changed direction smoothly, and headed for the guy who was now picking up speed to flip over a parked Volkswagen.

The crowd behind him whooped and applauded, even Shaun, all except for one young woman who was filming the stunts with her cell phone. Shaun looked up as Danny and Martin approached and motioned them over a small way from the group of admirers.

Before Martin could say anything about Shaun not staying in the car like he’d promised, Shaun spoke up. “The guy on the PowerJumperz in Jeff Holt, he wears those things everywhere. Teachers used to get on him about it, but I guess they’ve just given up. Zach’s mentioned him to me once or twice because they’re in the same History of Art class on Mondays. He also said that everywhere Jeff goes on those things, somebody’s always filming him. A lot of it ends up on youtube.” He paused and looked at Martin.

Martin nodded and gestured to the young blonde still filming Jeff, who was now running back up the grass covered lawn in large, springing steps before jumping gracefully over a bench like some glorious creature on a planet with only one-sixth’s Earth’s gravity.

“Yup,” Shaun said quietly. “That’s Becky Travers – she’s Jeff’s girlfriend du jour and apparently she was filming him yesterday around 11:30 or so.” He raised an eyebrow.

Martin smiled at Shaun, saying, “You find out anything else?”

Shaun glanced at his feet before looking back up almost shyly. “I’m not trying to do your job, Martin. I just want Zach back.”

“I know,” Martin said softly.

Danny watched this exchange in silence from a few feet away where he was ostensibly keeping an eye on the crowd of stilt-boy’s fans just in case somebody decided to leave. But no one seemed eager to leave anytime soon, and Danny couldn’t help but glance at the two men who were standing way too close and talking way too quietly. His eyes narrowed, unseen behind his dark glasses, but the tightening of his jaw as he clenched his teeth would have been a dead giveaway to anyone who was looking.

Martin pulled his sunglasses off and stepped in front of Becky, blocking her view of the object of her affection – obsession?- and when she looked up at him with an annoyed, “Hey!” Martin smoothly flipped open his badge at eyelevel.

“Oh. Wow. FBI? What’s up?”

“You’re Becky Travers?” Martin asked gently, barely holding back a smile when her green eyes went impossibly wide.

“Yes?”

“Were you filming here yesterday around 11:30 or so?”

“Um- yes? I was filming Jeff?” Her voice rose on the final word in an unintentional question.

“Good – do you still have the footage on your phone? Or have you uploaded it somewhere?” He spoke slowly, as if to calm a nervous child, and wasn’t at all surprised when she never even asked why he wanted to see the videos of her boyfriend.

“Um – it’s both. I uploaded it to youtube but I never deleted it from my phone.” She lifted the phone and touched a few places on the screen. “Here’s what I got yesterday,” and she turned the phone around to show Martin.

Martin moved closer, squinted in vain and finally just said, “May I?” and held out his hand. Becky handed over the phone and Martin lifted it closer to his face, turning it slightly so she could see well enough to narrate.

“Okay- umm- well, there’s Jeff sprinting across the parking lot towards me right after I got out of my car, cause he missed me so much. And oh look, that’s him doing a somersault, I honestly don’t know how he does all that stuff, I’d break my neck if I tried, I just know it.”

Becky stopped and looked intently at Martin, as if she expected him to argue with her, but he just nodded gently. The image on the screen swung around wildly for a bit before settling on a small red car near the back of the lot.

“Oh, and that’s Alison’s mini, Jeff can jump over it easy but she always bitches that he’s gonna mess up her paintjob. He wouldn’t of course, but she’s just mad cause he dumped her for me –”

Martin tuned out Becky’s endless prattle and focused all his attention on the small screen and the video it was displaying. Most of it was rather jerky and badly framed, focusing on Jeff’s evidently hugely popular tricks and stunts, but finally, about five minutes into it, Martin saw Zach’s Jimmy drive slowly through the parking lot behind Jeff and his crowd of admirers.

Martin held his breath when he saw the Jimmy pass, and he clenched his free hand into a victorious fist when he recognized Zach from the photos Shaun had shown him. So he did make here, just like we thought and he reflexively glanced over his shoulder at Shaun who was standing, silent and impatient, next to Danny.

A few seconds later in the video, a big black pickup truck cruised slowly by, driver safely anonymous behind overly-tinted windows. He couldn’t really tell the make of the truck – he could only see the roof as it drove by behind Jeff, but he could tell it was at least 6 inches taller than Zach’s Jimmy.

He kept watching, steadfastly ignoring Becky’s uninterrupted narration – “And Alison really is a bitch, that’s why he broke up with her and not because I’m a slut like she told everybody - ” but nothing else really happened. No other cars went by, no pedestrians, and then about a minute later the same black pickup drove slowly back the other way, on the far side of the row of parked cars.

Martin let out an annoyed sigh – the video showed them nothing they didn’t already know. Zach was here and then he was gone, but what happened in between they still had no idea.

Down to the last few seconds of video now, and Jeff was jumping in place, springing high into the air with a pleased smile on his face – apparently he had hyperactive tendencies – and Becky was still slavishly filming him when someone (the jilted Alison perhaps?) made a sarcastic sounding comment that Martin couldn’t even understand but that made Becky jerk her arm to the right at the very end of the footage, and Martin could see the black pickup exiting the parking lot, heading back toward the freeway.

The video ended and Martin stared at the screen, a half-formed thought tickling the back of his mind. He turned around and said, “Hey Danny, that guard did say he was going to send us all the security cam footage, right?”

“Yes. Did you find anything?”

“Maybe, but I need to compare them side by side.” He held up the phone to show them but Becky grabbed his arm in a sudden panic.

“Hey, you can’t take my iPhone, I need that.”

Martin calmly peeled her hand off his forearm before saying, “I wasn’t going to take it. I was going to ask you, politely, to send the video to my email. Do you think you can do that for me, Becky? Or do I need to say pretty please?”

She flushed prettily, cheeks staining pink, and took a small step back, glancing around nervously. “No – no, it’s okay,” she stammered.

“Thank you, Becky,” Martin said solemnly but there was enough of a smile on his face that his dimples came out, and she blushed again as she took the phone clumsily from his hand.

From his position a few feet away, Shaun was waiting, fairly patiently he thought, but when he saw Becky blush and giggle, he rolled his eyes and blew out a heavy sigh. He turned to Danny, not out of friendship as such, but as an ally against a common foe and whispered in a conspiratorial aside, “The girls still go crazy for those dimples, huh?”

Danny let out an amused snort and said, “Oh, you know it. And those eyes of his? I’ve seen him get murder confessions out of people just by staring at ‘em with those baby blues.” He shook his head and flashed Shaun a crooked smile.

Hmm. He hadn’t noticed before, being too worried about Zach, but Danny was a pretty good-looking guy, especially when he smiled. Shaun wasn’t too sure about the hair though, it was a little too spiky for his tastes. He flashed a quick glance at Martin, who was patiently holding his business card out for Becky so she could type the address into her phone.


----


Martin watched carefully as Becky typed his email address into her phone before sending him the video. It took a few minutes to load but her phone finally made a whooshing sound and she smiled. “There it goes. Jeff will be so happy you’re interested in his stunts.”

A look of confusion flashed across Martin’s face before he decided it would be easier to just go with it. “Well, that’s good to know, and thank you, Becky.”

She smiled and ran her tongue nervously over her bottom lip as she glanced over her shoulder at Jeff and his ever present horde. She took a small step closer and spoke softly. “I put my number at the bottom of that email, maybe you’d like to call me sometime?”

Martin shook his head briefly before saying gently, “That really wouldn’t be a good idea, Becky. Besides, I’ll be going home to New York in a couple of days.” He stepped back, and with a firm nod to Jeff, who had finally noticed not every member of his entourage was paying strict attention, he turned and headed for the SUV, motioning Danny and Shaun to follow him with a little twist of his shoulder.

Shaun trailed behind the other men, reluctant to leave without finding out what Martin had learned. Danny had just climbed into the driver’s seat when Shaun’s phone went off his back pocket. He grabbed for it eagerly, almost dropping it in his clumsy haste, and a tiny, disappointed sigh escaped him when he read the incoming number.

“Hey,” he said, tapping Martin on the shoulder. When Martin looked back, Shaun held up the phone and said, “I’ll just be a minute.” He stood by the back door and flipped open the phone. “Hi, Mom,” he said, idly watching Martin climb into the passenger seat.

“Hello, dear. How’s it going?” In the background, Shaun could hear Cody’s voice and a pang of loneliness shot through his heart.

“Okay, I guess.” There was disappointment evident in his voice, and he hurried on. “Martin found some video footage but I don’t know what’s on it yet.”

“That’s good though, anything to help. Listen sweetie, Cody needs to go work off some energy or he’s just going to explode. Is there some good place we can take him to play? He keeps talking about Monkey Joe’s, whatever that is.”

“Oh sure, if you don’t mind,” he said, knowing full well she didn’t mind at all. “There’s a magnet on the refrigerator with the address, he loves Monkey Joe’s. Just please keep a close eye on him, okay?”

“Of course we will, dear. Don’t you worry about him. And we’ll bring something tasty for dinner when we get through wearing that kid out,” she finished rather cheerfully before hanging up the phone.

Shaun took a second to send up a silent ‘thank you’ to wherever moms came from, because he knew no matter how much he loved him, he wasn’t up to handling Cody and his crazy amounts of energy today. He opened the door and slid inside, saying a bit breathlessly, “Sorry about that, it was my mom. They’re taking Cody out to play for a while.”

Martin nodded absently, staring down at his phone in silence. Shaun waited but Martin didn’t offer up any information, so he finally blurted out, “So what’d you find out?”

“Hmmm – not sure yet. I need my laptop to get a better look at this footage.”

“So, back to the apartment then?” Danny asked as he cranked the car.

“Yes, and while I get this set up, can you call to check on the note and the car?”

“Sure thing,” Danny said, gaze flickering to meet Shaun’s in the rear view mirror before he drove slowly away.