Gone

Chapter 3

Louis and I sleep on the two parts of the sectional in the living room. His chest is rising slowly, lips parted, soft snores echoing the quiet room.

I lay on my side, looking at the tv that's playing some late night infomercial. I can't stop thinking about today's events. What did they call Asher about? They must've found something.

I close my eyes, wishing sleep would claim me. But it just doesn't. I quietly make my way around Louis and out to the kitchen. I get some chocolate milk and stand at the sink I see a light flicker out of the corner of my eye. I turn around. I see agent Rineer in his window, filling a glass of water. He looks up and sees me. He smiles and nods. I smile back at him. It's so weird that he lives next to me and I never knew. I wonder what he's doing up so late?

I yawn and exit the kitchen. I lay back down on the couch, trying to be gentle so I don't wake him. Louis shifts on the couch. I freeze. "No, Fluffy, stop running." He whines.

I cover my mouth to suppress my giggles. As soon as I lay my head on the pillow I pass out.

I wake up the next morning to the smell of bacon. I trudged into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes and blinking, trying to adjust to the sunlight. I plopped down at the island.

"Morning, sleepyhead." Louis chuckles, flipping the bacon in the fryer.

"Morning."

"You slept well, I take it? Your snores were so loud."

"Oh, yeah, I was going to ask you the same thing. Did you have a dog named Fluffy?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Just curious." I laugh.

He hands me a plate with bacon, eggs, and blueberry waffles. I immediately dig in.

"Asher called. We're meeting them at the station when you're ready."

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We sit at the table as the agents file in. They all sit at the table with us and Reid lays out the pictures from the house on the table. The pictures are out of their frames.

"We couldn't get any prints off of the frames except yours," Reid points out, "However, we did get something off of those pictures." He motions towards them.

I pull them to me and examine them closely. "I don't see anything."

"Correct. Let's turn down the lights." How will shutting off the lights show me anything? Reid shuts off the light and then I hear a clicking sound. Soon a purple light is shining from his hand.

He points the light downward at the pictures and lines on the pictures start glowing. Every picture had my face circled. Then there was a word that I automatically recognized as German, written beside my head. Liebe? What does that mean...

I took German in high school for 3 years. There was another word written about 100 times on each picture. I recognized that one. "No." I point to the word.

"You know German?" Reid asks.

"I took it in high school for 3 years. I was also in a foreign language club for all foreign languages. I can't remember this one."