Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

That's what she noticed, sitting there on the kerbside beside the CSU van, as men and women in white suits, and booties, and hairnets, and gloved hands, piled out of it with a nod in her direction.

"Detective Rey," they seemed to say.

Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Not as they wheeled a body bag out into the street and hoisted it into the back of one ambulance, with its blue and red lights flashing silently in the night.

She did that. She'd killed a person.

I'm supposed to protect people. Her mind kept on a loop. And her hands shook continuously. All that adrenaline still pumping through her wrecked body.

Her hands shook.

Even as Diaz filled the captain and other officers in on what happened, even as they wheeled the father out on another gurney, a paramedic riding astride, manually pumping his heart through an open cavity wound they had to make... her hands shook.

He's going to die too, and it's all my fault.

Reina's eyes followed the second ambulance team as they made every effort to take their patient to the hospital. Alive!

"Hey, you okay?"

The voice propelled her to look away. Even so, her hands shook.

She clasped them together, hoping no one would notice. She wasn't the only police on the force who had to make a drastic decision. She wasn't the only one with blood on her hands... but still. She never thought she'd fire her weapon at a human. A breathing, screaming, blind-with-rage human.

Her stomach twisted sickly, and she thought she was going to get sick, right on Diaz's shoes.

"You know you did what you had to?"

She nodded in a fog. Did I? Did I really have to shoot him in the head? A kill shot?

I killed someone...

Her hands weren't the only thing shaking anymore.

"I'm going to get sacked for this..." It wasn't true, but that was the only thing she could think of to say, to keep herself from eyeing the scene and wanting to rip her own heart out. Wanting to turn her own weapon upon—

"Hey, look at me." Diaz's face suddenly loomed in front of her as he crouched before her knees and took those shaking hands in his strong, sturdy grip. "It was not your fault."

"I killed someone, D."

"To save a life."

"Did I?" Reina watched as the ambulance rolled down the street, now crawling with cops trying to contain the scene, to barricade. Media vans were arriving like a macabre glee-club gathering. Sleepy news reporters were probably dusting off their microphones and doing their little vocal training taught by their voice coaches.

The vultures were coming.

"Come on, let's get you out of here before they arrive. Captain's orders." He tugged her hands gently. "Let's get you home. Shower. Sleep—if you can. And I'll pick you up in the morning for our debrief."

"I can't." Reina hesitated. She wasn't ready to leave, even though sitting there utterly useless—and the cause of it all—was making her sick to her stomach.

"Yes. You can and you will. I'm as much a part of this as you, Rey. Come on, get up. We should leave before they turn this into what it's not..."

A dread settled into her bones but even if she wanted to, Reina couldn't move, couldn't push up, couldn't follow Diaz into their tiny car he'd dished all night, and go home.

"I can't go home," she finally said. "Anghad's still out."

"When was the last time you heard from him?"

She couldn't recall. An hour ago? Maybe? She vaguely remembered her phone vibrating as she gripped her gun tight while Diaz screamed, "Hands where we can see them."

"Check your phone. We'll pick him up and I'll take you both home."

With a shaking hand—yes, they were still shaking—she retrieved her phone from her pocket and read Anghad's latest message.

Anghad: Left Vipers club, Ma. Might hv met some1 😜. Don't wait 4 me. I'll hitch a ride/message u if I need u 2 come get me later. Luv u.

Something akin to a knife twisted in Reina's stomach then, and she shot up to her wobbly feet.

"What is it?"

Her heart squeezed in dread as she flipped the phone for him to read.

"Doesn't mean it's the"—Diaz lowered his voice—"you know what."

"But what if—"

"Rey!" Diaz squeezed her shoulders. "You've just been through trauma. Don't do this to yourself. Your boy is a sensible guy. I'm sure he's safe. You've taught him enough about red flags and stranger dangers to last him a lifetime. Just call him and see. I'm sure he's fine. I'm sure he'll say stop bugging me, Ma!"

The tight squeeze in her chest eased a little, and she nodded. She dialled Anghad's phone as an officer approached them with a forensic team member carrying empty evidence bags.

"Detective Reina, Diaz. We need your weapons in evidence."

Reina unclipped her gun from her holster and handed it gingerly over, afraid it would go off again, and hoping her hands weren't shaking as bad as she imagined. It's the adrenaline, she told herself.

In her ears, the dial tone turned to Anghad's chipper voicemail. She dialled again.

Then again.

Then again.

"He's not picking up."

"Does he usually do this when he's out?"

"No." Reina began pacing. "I mean, not usually."

Diaz waited till the officers were done with their collection before he pulled her away from the van, whispering, "You tracking him?"

Reina blinked, guilty as charged.

"Like I said. Let's pick him up before we take you home." Diaz nodded at the phone, a silent 'go ahead'.

Reina eyed the officers around the place. If anyone saw her, she'd be in trouble, but right now, she didn't care. She pulled out her police-issue phone, opened the app, and punched in her son's phone number.

The wait felt arduously long before a blue dot was cruising around the clubbing strip popular with the youngsters.

Diaz glanced over her shoulders. "All right, let's go. We get him and head home.

"Captain?" He called across the street to a man in a sharp suit, standing there observing the whole proceeding as if this wasn't the first crime scene he'd entered over a decade in person. "I'm taking her home."

Captain gave them a curt nod. "Report to the station at 09:00 for a debrief."

The entire way to their tiny car parked a block away to stay conspicuous, Reina doubted she had the energy to come in at nine in the morning. She could sleep for hours. That's how weary her bones felt with each step away from the scene. But first, she had to find her son. Make sure he was safe tonight. At least make sure he was safe tonight.

By the time they pulled up outside the club the pin had pointed them to, it was almost 2:30 in the morning.

"You see him?" Diaz asked from the driver's seat.

Reina scanned the small crowd of men and women idling out of the club on drunk legs, waving goodnight. She shook her head. None of them were Anghad.

"It says he's here." Diaz tapped the app he'd brought up on the tablet in the car. "Oh, wait, he's on the move."

Ahead, a cab pulled out onto the road corresponding to the moving dot.

"Here we go. Let's see where they're going."

Diaz followed the taxi for half an hour before it stopped in front of some suburban house and two young women stepped out, too busy with each other's mouths to notice a car had been following them for half an hour.

"Honestly, do these kids have no sense of safety?" Diaz shook his head.

Reina sat there, numb. The app was still pinging her son's location as being with those women. But where was he?

She waited for a moment, hoping he was next out of the car, but it threw a U-turn and headed back in the direction it had come.

As the cab passed them, it was clear no one except the driver was inside.

"Where's Anghad?" Reina's heart lodged itself in her throat. The dot still pinged with the moving cab.

Diaz hastily threw a U-turn and sped down the street, tail-gating the cab and flicking the headlights for it to pull over twice. When the cab didn't pull over, he wound down the window and threw the dome light on the roof and turned the siren on.

Within seconds, Reina was yanking the passenger door open and screaming, "Where's my son?"

"What son? Who are you?" The driver looked startled.

"What have you done with my son?" Reina threw herself across the back seat and would have reached for the driver if Diaz hadn't held her back and placed her squarely on the footpath.

"Allow me."

He dove into the cab and rummaged around in the back seat, sweeping his torchlight until he found what he was looking for.

"That's his phone." Reina peered at the device and her stomach hollowed out.

Where's my son? And why is his phone in a cab?

"What did you do?" She was about to charge again when Diaz stilled her with his palm.

"You have a photo on your phone?"

Reina nodded and brought up one of the latest photos of her son, taken just this morning as she wished him a happy birthday. Her pathetic effort to bake him a cake was evident in front of them.

Diaz took her phone and showed her son's photo to the driver. "You see this young man tonight?"

After a few long minutes of studying the image, the driver nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I might have dropped them off somewhere in Botany Bay... an hour ago."

"Who?" Reina stuck her head in the cab, close enough she could have head-butted Diaz.

"I don't know. Some girl."

"A girl." Reina met Diaz's equally worried look. "Did she have snakes for hair?"

The driver laughed at that. "What are you on? Snakes for hair?! But if you mean, did she give off creepy vibes? Then yeah. You could say that. I don't know what the boy saw in her."

"You know where you dropped them? The exact address?"

"Yeah, we have an electronic log... Let me check."

When the address came up on the screen, Reina paled, and those hands that had stilled only minutes earlier began shaking again. "Does that look familiar to you, D?"

She didn't need a look at him to know he was thinking the same thing.

***

This time of the night, unlike earlier, the gate was locked when they arrived.

"What now?" Diaz asked, eyeing the old biscuit factory they'd been to earlier. "There are three or four apartments in that building. How do we know which one he's in? If he's still there..."

"He's still there." Reina eyed the dark building. "He's got to be. This is where he was last seen, following a woman into the building."

"Yeah, but we can't go in there and disturb people. If Captain gets wind of us using the police name to question people about your son, it won't look good right now."

"Because I killed a man?"

"No. Because we had to. Because of what's going on out there these days. Because of this case." Suddenly, Diaz's eyes widened.

"What?"

"Come on. Follow my lead." He shook his head, slipped out of the car, and headed for the gate. There, he was buzzing apartment 101 when Reina caught up. "We're following up, remember?" He threw her a slight smile.

"What if they're still not—" Reina was saying.

"What? Whatdoyouwant punk?" The intercom crackled to life with a gruff voice, perhaps belonging to someone who smoked a lot. Behind him, one could hear music rumbling loud, music that was fairly loud even where they stood, out on the street.

"Umm." Diaz leaned in closer to the speaker to be heard clearly. "Mr Tuttle. We came earlier to talk to you regarding your multiple complaints over the past few months about your neighbour. We wondered if you had a moment to talk—"

"Finally!" The gate buzzed open without another word.

Diaz led the way into the building and no sooner had they entered the lobby, the music boomed louder. In the corridor stood a man in silk robes and silk boxers with a broom in hand, tapping at the damn ceiling.

"Mr Tuttle?"

"Yeah. You, the cops?" He snapped.

Diaz nodded. Reina stayed back, itching to run around, knocking on all doors in search of her son.

"About time." He glared at them. "See what I have to put up with? Every couple of weeks, she brings home men and I have to put up with this! I work long hours. I need to sleep." He was waving around the broom like a baton. "I bet she's brought a bloke home today, too."

Diaz held out his hands for the broom. "Could you tell us anything else about who it is? And which apartment?"

"Apartment 103. Upstairs. Almost the entire floor is hers! And we have to put up with her noise. Just cause she's a Haven brat and daddy owns the building doesn't mean we, the tenants, don't have rights!"

Diaz threw Reina a look. "What?" She mouthed, too worried about her son to care who owns what.

"Sometimes I even hear screams, you know?" the enraged man carried on. "Sometimes I get in the lift and bang on her door—not that she ever opens it, or I'd give her a piece of my mind! Do something. Fine her or arrest her, something!"

Diaz nodded again. "We will talk to her. Please get back into your apartment and let us handle it from here on out."

They waited till Mr Tuttle locked himself away in his apartment before they hopped in the elevator, rode up a floor, and approached the door in question.

Something was telling Reina this was it, this was the person they had been hunting for the past year. Medusa. She half imagined a tall and imposing woman, perhaps with snakes for hair, even if it sounded far-fetched.

Before Diaz could take the rein on this, Reina knocked on the metal door. "Open up. This is the police."

It took a few minutes for the door to open a crack, and from behind it, a tiny little thing peered, looking slightly familiar; the young woman who'd walked into them earlier.

Behind her, what little of the apartment was visible was dark save for some mood lighting here and there. The grunge music still blasting out of it was completely out of sync with the mousey woman.

"Could you turn down your music, Miss? Your neighbours are complaining of noise." Reina tried to look past the woman, fighting an urge to push open the door and make her way in.

The young thing, half hiding her face behind her hair, turned timidly to the ceiling, in surprise, as if she hadn't registered the music, and mumbled, "Turn the music off, H."

When silent fell, the three of them stood there awkwardly. Diaz and her out in the corridor.

"Can I help you?" Even her voice sounded shaky and unsure.

This can't be the one we're looking for, Reina noted. Look at her. She's scared to death of us.

"Mind if we look around?" Diaz asked calmly, as if that was a routine ask. "Your neighbours have complained several times about noise."

The woman shook her head. No.

Diaz nudged his head at Reina. Ask her, he seemed to say.

"Umm." Reina peered into the dark loft as she spoke. "Any more complaints and we may have to issue a fine, Miss...?"

"Sapkota. Keya Sapkota," the woman answered. "Was there anything else?"

Reina scanned the dark silhouettes in the room, at the back of the sofa she could see; the empty kitchen. "Are you alone?"

The woman nodded.

"If you could keep it down from now on after ten, we won't have to come back again..." she added, craning her neck to see more than half the room, only to glimpse an empty bed. Anghad wasn't in there.

Did he leave already?

"Is that all?"

"One other thing. Have you seen this man?" Diaz asked beside her to Reina's surprise, holding up a photo of her son from the trek they went on last year, Diaz and him. He'd zoomed in enough to cut himself out. "We have reasons to believe he came here tonight."

WC: 23, 380