Case Reopened

Rear Window (Part 1)

You won't get the joke of the title because it's a throwback to something really old so just trust me when I say I'm hilarious and super witty for using it! Now let's move on.

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Carter didn't notice the passing scenery as she sat in the back of the Uber, even as she was acutely aware of the destination.

Even as the plan was set in motion, she wondered if she should have never spoken up in the conference room, never pointed out that she knew the woman that had been caught in a surveillance photo. But she had said she knew her, had admitted that it was her mother. And when questioned further had confirmed that the house across from their target was her mother's.

Carter hadn't been a part of or even heard the conversation Agent Ronalds had with her mother. She couldn't even imagine what her mother's reaction had been to hearing that, not only did her daughter work at the FBI, but because of an operation Carter was being sent down to stay at her mother's house to do surveillance under the guise of a daughter visiting her mother.

What had her mother said? How had she reacted to hearing that Carter was an FBI agent? Had she fought against letting Carter come into her house? Some part of her didn't think she did. But still, with each minute Carter drew closer to her mother, she  had no clue what to expect at her arrival.

"You're silence is starting to unsettle me, Owens."

Though Carter had requested Donovan to accompany her, it was denied, after all, he wasn't a tech man. Mason was. Unfortunately.

"What do you want me to say?" Carter asked him without taking her eyes off the window.

"I don't know, but this trip feels eerily familiar to the one we took three years ago before your wedding. Last time you were in the same state then. You being all vulnerable makes me uncomfortable."

"Noted."

"So are you going to stop being all sorrowful and ponderous as you stare out the window?"

"The alternative is looking at you and so yes, I'm going to continue staring out the window. Just know now I will be planning ways to kill you."

"Oh good, that feels better."

Despite the tendrils of dread curling around her, Carter smiled a little. Something about Mason always managed to annoy her and that was a consistency that she appreciated. She might be going into an unknown and awkward situation but at least Mason would always be Mason.

When the Uber pulled up to the curb outside of her mother's house, Carter hesitated. But across from her, Mason pushed open his door and climbed out.

"Get out, loser," he said. "I'm not carrying these bags by myself."

"Are you even able to carry one?" Carter retorted. "I think you've been getting weak sitting behind computers all day."

"Ha. Not falling for that, you're carrying your own bags."

Breathing a little easier, Carter stepped out of the car and walked to the trunk. Mason grabbed his bags and left Carter's. She collected them, thanked the driver, and headed up the stairs. Before she even set down her bag to ring the doorbell, it opened revealing her mother.

"Hi," her mother said, smiling softly. "Come in."

Carter lead the way into the foyer but stopped there. Facing her mother, she felt caught in different times, part of her still that fourteen-year-old that her mother had left. The angry eighteen-year-old who told her mother to never come back. The shocked twenty-one-year-old who'd seen her mother with her new family.  The twenty-two-year-old who confronted her mother before her wedding and forgave her.