"What are you doing?" James asked Charlotte. A cold look on his face.

"I know you're her ex," Charlotte replied, equally comported.

"And so you think I'm the killer?" James replied with a 'you better be joking' look on his face.

"Am I wrong?" Charlotte shot back.

"What are you going to do? Arrest me?" James asked with a challenging look.

"He's not the one," Jamie spoke up for the first time since the tense interaction between the two detectives.

"What do you mean?" Charlotte said with the gun still pointed at James.

"The guy I spoke to. Talon? He's not the detective. He has a Southern accent. It's very thick. The agent is a native here. His voice is entirely different. " Jamie continued.

He was taken aback by what happened, to be honest. He hadn't spoken on time because he wondered if he needed to save the detective. However, he realised that if he didn't speak up, sooner or later, they would realise it wasn't the detective, and it wouldn't end well for him. It would also be a waste of time.

"Are you just protecting him?" Charlotte asked Jamie with her gun, still pointed at James.

"I have no reason to. Im just sure he's not the one." Jamie responded.

"Guess I made a mistake," Charlotte said lowly as she dropped her weapon.

James said nothing.

"Any other thing you think could help us?" James asked Jamie, carrying on as if nothing had happened.

"No," Jamie responded, his eyes darting back and forth between the two detectives.

.

.

"Newt," James called to the red-haired man as he walked into his workstation, "I need you to crosscheck the name Talon with the database."

"What database?" Newt asked as he got to work.

"All," James replied curtly.

"Okay. What are we looking for specifically? A person?"

"I believe. Let's start with that."

About five minutes later of combing through the database, it came back empty.

"Nothing? Who the hell is this guy?" James said, frustrated as he ran his hand through his hair.

"Natasha came up to my office with Jamie's belongings. We might find something if we go through it." Charlotte said as she walked towards James and Newt with a zip-locked bag.

They opened the bag and began to comb through it.

Clothes, a cigarette pack, a pack of mints and two phones. One was an iPhone, and the other was a burner.

James took out the iPhone and began combing through it. Messages, call logs, and gallery. It was empty save for his wife and children's numbers. Calls to only them. Texts from them. And pictures of them.

"Nothing here," James said with a sigh.

"Can't say the same. There are calls on this. To about 3 numbers. But one's more frequent than the rest." Charlotte said, handing the phone to James.

"Can you trace this?" James asked Newt as he gave him the phone.

"It's a burner. That'll be hard, but let's see."

Charlotte decided to use the moment of silence to say something to James. He hadn't said anything nor shown any expression about what happened.

"Me pulling the gun on you," Charlotte began, then continued when she was sure she had James' attention, "That was wrong, but you gave me a reason to. You never mentioned she was your ex."

James raised an eyebrow. He looked as if he was about to say something, then seemed to think better of it and instead said, "I understand Detective Hutchinson. You were doing your job."

Charlotte felt her heart break a little bit. He was back to calling her by her last name.

It felt like he just said they weren't friends anymore.

Well, he did. Indirectly.

"Okay, so I was able to trace the number to a location. Southern Limer." Newt said to James and Charlotte.

"That's an entire state. There's no way we could trace them down. Can't you get a more narrowed-down location?" Charlotte asked.

"I can't. But I can if you can get him to make a call to that number for at least a minute or even less, say 40 seconds." Newt replied.

"We've got to make him make a call to that number somehow," Charlotte said, though it was more of a question posed at James than a statement.

"They already know he's in here. They know he's in trouble. They wouldn't want to have any contact with him because they'll find him suspicious. " James stated.

"Unless we make it seem like he's free." Newt suddenly said.

"What?" James asked.

"Unless we make it seem like we released Jamie. We make up some kind of talk about insufficient evidence." Newt continued.

"We have a live video. That's more than enough evidence." James retorted.

"Somehow, we found out it was fabricated," Newt said slowly with a smirk.

"How in hell are we gonna do that? These people aren't idiots. From how this all sounds, I won't be surprised if they even have cops on their side." James responded, irritated with Newt's smirk.

"Not if I forge a fabricated fabricated video." Newt responded, dragging out the second 'fabricated'.

"I see your line of thought. We do this. No one knows of it except the 3 of us, chief and of course, Jamie." Charlotte replied and smiled at Newt.

"That makes sense. Let's run it by chief first."

"Yeah."

.

"You think there's a mole? Do you have proof?" Officer Hutchinson, Charlotte's dad said the moment James and Charlotte laid down their plan.

"We don't know for sure. But what we do know is that we're dealing with a high-value target with reach. Reach could include this office." Charlotte immediately replied.

He pondered it over for a moment before finally agreeing.

"Alright. But I want every detail. Jamie Gerard must not escape. Tight security must be in place from the moment he steps out. I also want a tracker placed in him before he leaves here."

"I will ensure he doesn't escape. "James said with such force that made the older man stare at him a little longer than necessary.

James meant every word he'd said.

Cover by : meha-k

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