Zechs looked up from the statements he was reading, oddly relieved to see Dorothy sitting on the couch next to Mrs. Jameson. Une had corralled the Chief of Police into trying to keep the Senator occupied. If Dorothy is here… Duo probably is too. Maybe I should go look for him… Or Treize. Where could he have gone?

Dorothy glanced up at him and threw him a tight smile, before turning back to the grief-stricken woman at her side. It’s odd… it feels better knowing they’re both here. Just wish Treize was back. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much that the ghost had disappeared; perhaps it was the oddly furious look on his face the last time Zechs’ had seen him. The expression had been an unfamiliar one for Treize, and it had taken some time after his departure for Zechs to figure out what that look had been.

The door opened, as Duo and one of the private security guards stepped into the room. Duo glanced up from his conversation to give Zechs a brief, distracted smile, but Zechs could see that all of the younger man’s attention was focused on his companion. Shaking his head a little, Zechs met Dorothy’s eyes. He could see the relief he felt mirrored in her blue eyes; just that brief glimpse at Duo’s expression had shown how much it had meant for him to be put back in the field.

Stretching a little, now that he’d taken a break from the statements, he let his eyes rove around the room. Most of the crowd had dispersed, though the room still seemed overfull. The Senator and his wife, the Senator’s personal assistant, the nanny, the head of the Senator’s security team, the Chief of Police and the squad of Preventers were all overflowing the large room as it was. Oddly enough, both the Senator and the head of his Security were staring at Duo and his companion with uneasy looks. Dammit, he thought with a silent growl, somebody must have told them that Duo had been suspended from the field. Not that it was anyone’s business.

Frowning a little, Zechs stood up and moved restlessly around the room. There was something wrong here, he could feel it. Dammit Treize, where are you? It worried him a little how dependent he was becoming on his friend’s presence.

As if called, the ghost reappeared exactly where he’d been when he vanished, standing next to the table against the far wall. Solo was slouching a short distance away, as usual. As much as he seemed to not like either Treize or Zechs, he did appear to spend a lot of time trailing after Treize and scowling. Zechs smiled faintly to himself, amused by the thought.

But the smiled faded again as he watched the two ghosts. Neither of them seemed to even notice the crowd of people in the room, which he supposed wasn’t that surprising given that the people were equally oblivious to the two ghosts. It was more disturbing to Zechs that neither ghost so much as glanced at him and Duo.
Rather, they appeared to be having some sort of oddly intense argument.

Before he could get over the shock of seeing the two ghosts actually conversing with each other, Treize crouched to peer under the table again. A moment later, and somewhat reluctantly, Solo crouched down beside him and looked under the table as well.

What the fuck are they looking at? Zechs wondered, feeling apprehension creeping over him quickly. He wondered how much attention it would draw if he walked over and looked under the table himself … which served to bring him back to reality sharply. He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed his own preoccupation. To his relief, Dorothy and Duo were the only ones looking in his direction, though he could tell from the grim looks they threw him that they knew something was going on; not that he had any more clue than they did what was happening.

His two partners looked at each other, then nodded briefly. Duo excused himself from his conversation with the security guard and moved towards Zechs, as Dorothy stood and began subtly herding the remaining crowd towards the dining room. He didn’t bother to listen to what she was saying, trusting that she would manage to keep the attention on herself for a few minutes. Unable to help it, he glanced back at the table to see that Solo had vanished, though Treize was still crouching where he could look beneath the tablecloth.

“Zechs…?” Duo asked softly, moving up so that he was standing in front of where Zechs was looking. “What’s up, man?”

“Duo…” Zechs started to tell him to move, then realized that Duo was trying to disguise the fact that he was staring intently into space. “Sorry… I….”

“It’s cool… whatever you’re seeing… watch it over my shoulder,” Duo sighed. “It’s just seriously creepy to see you stop and stare into space like that. Not to mention that it will eventually draw the attention of Lady Une. She’s already twitchy enough about me… no need to make her doubt your sanity too.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. So what are you watching so intently, anyway?”

“I—don’t know. Treize and Solo… were arguing about something… and they keep looking under that table. There’s something…something under there… but I can’t think of any plausible excuse to go over there myself, and I can’t seem to get Treize’s attention….”

“We’re investigating a kidnapping,” Duo frowned. “You need a plausible excuse to poke around?”

“Who was mentioning the need to keep Une from questioning my sanity?” Zechs sighed softly. “I… rather thought that she might want to know why I’m only checking under one table, in a room that hasn’t been empty since this mess started, and about which absolutely nothing looks readily suspicious. It’s a table.”

“Hmmm. You might have a point there….”

“I thought so— Oh fuck…” Zechs broke off as Solo suddenly emerged from under the table, a small figure cradled closely in his arms. “No….”

“Zechs?!” Duo reached out to steady him. “What?” He was only peripherally aware of the younger man shooting a look over his shoulder to see how close Dorothy was to getting the room cleared. “Talk to me, buddy….”

“I…” Zechs swallowed, as Solo turned slightly, and he recognized the tearstained face nestled against the ghosts shoulder. Blood smeared the tiny face, matted the tangled dark hair and stained the ragged shirt Solo was wearing. For the first time, Zechs noticed the ghost had gone back to his fifteen year old, scarecrow appearance. “I…don’t think… this is a kidnapping anymore.”

“What?” Duo’s voice went grim.

“It’s… I think it’s now a homicide….” Zechs’ voice broke then, as Treize turned to look at him for the first time and he recognized the rage in his old friend’s eyes.

* * *
“Shit…” Duo groaned, then suddenly pushed Zechs into a chair before the taller man fell. “Okay…um… shit. I guess we’d better tell Une. And….”

“No,” Zechs said suddenly, startling Duo with the grim finality in his voice. “We can’t tell anyone yet.”

“Tell anyone what…?” Dorothy’s voice came from behind him and in spite of himself Duo jumped guiltily. Glancing around, he was relieved to find themselves now alone in the living room.

“That this is now a homicide,” Duo echoed Zechs’ earlier words, more than a little worried by the shock on the older man’s face. He’d gotten used to Zechs being the strong, stable, completely unflappable one in this weird little trio they’d formed. It was rocking the foundations that he had so carefully shored up to see the older man falter. Dorothy sighed, but didn’t bother to ask how they knew.

“Zechs is right…” Dorothy frowned thoughtfully. “We can’t let Une know, not yet. Not until we have some kind of proof. Duo and I believe you can see things that no one else can…but Une is not going to be so easy to convince.”

“Okay… so what’s the plan then?”

“We keep treating this as a kidnapping… and try to catch the bastards that did this.” Zechs raised his head, and Duo could see him pulling himself back together with a visible effort. “They will have no way of knowing that we know the little girl is dead, unless we accidentally tip off the family. I don’t…think Mrs. Jameson is up to any sort of pretense at the moment, and we desperately need the kidnappers to think we’re going to agree to the ransom drop if we’re going to catch them.”

“Yeah…” Duo nodded. “Hey… you’re seeing her ghost, right?”

“Yes.”

“So why don’t you ask her where they are?”

“When Solo gets her calmed down, I’ll try…” Zechs rubbed his eyes. The vision of the small girl curled in the older boy’s arms, a tattered teddy bear hanging by one leg down his back as she held onto him with a death grip was something he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to forget.

“Ah…” Duo smiled sadly. “He’ll manage ok. He did with all of us.” Memories of Solo calming the little ones down after nightmares, or scares, or fights ran through his mind. “He— he always liked little kids.”

Zechs didn’t speak, but Duo could see the question in the ice blue eyes meeting his. Shaking his head a little, he changed the subject. “Ok… so we know she’s dead… we just can’t prove it. And we know she was kidnapped… we just can’t figure out how. This is just great.”

“You didn’t find any way that they could have gotten into the house to take her?” Zechs asked quietly.

“Not really… According to Gary, the security guy I was talking to, no alarms went off, none of the motion detectors around the grounds detected anything larger than a small fox, and none of the doors appeared to have been opened. They’re all alarmed… and so are most of the windows. I checked the ways I would have gotten in, and most of those windows have actually been painted shut. For years. He’s getting us copies of the surveillance videodisks, by the way. He’s not supposed to let us take them offsite, but the little girl was friends with his little sister… and he figures we have the best chance of finding her.” Duo shrugged.

“Damnit…”

“There was one weird thing, though…” Duo hesitated.

“What?” Dorothy prompted.

“Well… one of the windows in the kitchen… well, it’s actually kind of the pantry really…not actually part of the kitchen as a whole, was broken.”

They both just looked at him. “But you don’t think that was how they got into the house?”

“No…” Duo shrugged. “It would be a stupid way to get in, cause you would have to crawl over a hedge to do it… which is now filled with broken glass.”

“So…? If they really wanted to….” Zechs glanced up to see Duo just shaking his head. “Okay. What are those of us who aren’t ex-thieves missing?”

“The window was broken outward… the glass should be inside the house if it was broken from the outside. Instead… it’s in the hedge. Which is undamaged… and there are no footprints in the dirt there.”

“So the window was just a decoy?”

“Yeah,” Duo shrugged. “Which is why most of us have been ignoring it.”

“If most of the windows were wired… why didn’t the alarm go off?” Dorothy asked grimly. “Senator Jameson is one of the leading proponents of Pacifism in Sanck, right behind Relena. But he is also very paranoid, and he has a lot of security. Surely they didn’t forget to alarm one window, even if it wasn’t a likely choice for someone to use to get in…”

“The wires to the window are intact.” Duo shrugged. “The window was broken after the security alarms were turned off. They aren’t on right now, there are too many people trooping in and out of the house.”

“This… is getting stranger and stranger.” Dorothy frowned. “Dammit… the little girl is our best witness. We’ve got to hope she can tell us something.”