As the Swyft she'd taken came to a standstill across from the precinct, Melody couldn't help but smile. Weaver would be out of the hospital in a few days, so with the fifty he'd dropped into her guitar case after threatening her in Hyperion Plaza, she'd picked up balloons and a small, white square vase of sunflowers. A nice gesture, she hoped. Secretly she also hoped that it got under his skin. Entertainment at his expense for trying to bully her.

"Thank you," Melody said, shifting in the back seat of the car. After the woman unlocked the doors, she wrapped the balloon ribbons around her hand twice more and got out. She didn't want to lose them to the wind.

"Bloody hell, Melody. What is that?"

She glanced right, spotting Rogers exiting Roni's with a notebook in hand. The notebook that had belonged to Eloise Gardener, if she remembered correctly. He moved across the street towards her. Melody couldn't help breaking into a grin.

"For Weaver," she said. "I promised him I'd bring him something."

"You do know he's still in the hospital, right?" As he joined her, he looked first at red and white balloons, then the flowers in her hand.

Melody chuckled. "Yes, well. Safer for me to drop them off when he's not here than when he is."

Rogers started laughing. "So that's your plan. Get them in the office with me before that bastard can stand. If he can stand, he could kill you."

"Exactly."

"And what makes you think he won't kill me for helping you," Rogers joked.

Before she could answer, though, a commotion from inside the precinct drew their attention away. Through the glass door, Melody watched as a massive, bearded man slammed the desk sergeant into the wall. Rogers rushed in. She followed.

As the glass door shut behind her, Rogers grabbed the man away from squeezing the sergeant's neck. In a single blow, he punched the attacker in the face. He dropped to the floor like dead weight.

"Where'd you find him?" Rogers demanded. He caught his breath as the sergeant knelt to the ground and hand-cuffed the criminal.

"Pleasure Island Cabaret." He stood back up. "He was drunk and mouthy."

"Well, alcohol turns some people into jackasses." Rogers turned to Melody. "You good?"

She nodded. "Better than him." Readjusting the vase in the crook of her arm, she just shook her head.

Rogers let out a small huff of a laugh. Turning back to the criminal on the floor, he frowned. Melody watched him go still, brow furrowed. Then he thumbed through Eloise's journal.

She joined him closer to the unconscious man. Before she could tell what had worried him, though, the sergeant and another officer began to haul him off the ground, dragging him to some cell in the precinct. Rogers just stared at a page in the journal.

"You alright?" Melody asked him. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Rogers glanced up at her. He hesitated. As she prepared to press further, though, he just shut the notebook and nodded. "Course. Come on, let's go set up those decorations for Weaver."

They started down the hall, passing a couple of propped open doors to the right and left. When they stopped in front of a door flanked by floor-to-ceiling glass panes, Rogers took out a key. He opened the office.

"Weaver's is this one," he said, tapping the desk to the right. "Leave his paperwork alone, but otherwise, knock yourself out, love."

She smiled. "Nice place you've got here. A bit dull," she amended. There were few decorations on either desk, both facing each other and pushed into the center of the room. If it hadn't been for Rogers pointing out which was Weaver's, she never would've been able to tell them apart.

He shut the door, tossing a pair of keys and the journal onto his side. "It works."

"Well, all I have to offer you is a balloon," Melody joked, "but if you want one, it's yours."

She didn't wait before tying all of them onto Weaver's desk though, not expecting Rogers to take one. Soon they were floating from the front right leg of the desk between Weaver's and Rogers' own. The square vase of sunflowers went in the center, and she placed a card beside it.

"You know what would be really dangerous?" Melody said. She couldn't help but grin, pulling the rolling chair out from Weaver's desk. "This."

She sat down, relishing the fact that she could get under the man's skin. Melody respected Weaver, somewhat. He was good at his job. He cared about Tilly, even if the man wouldn't admit it to himself. And she knew, somehow, that he really did want to do what was best for the Hyperion Heights neighborhood. But it didn't mean she didn't enjoy messing with him.

Rogers snorted out a laugh. "You're taking your life into your own hands." He sat in his own chair, relaxing a bit. Leaning back in the chair, his smile fell. He looked at the black journal sitting in the center of the desk.

"What's bothering you?" Melody asked. He opened his mouth to object, shaking his head, but it didn't fool her. "You don't have to tell me, but don't lie."

He sighed. After a moment's hesitation, sitting in his desk chair a little deeper and staring at the closed journal, he just nodded. Rogers looked up at her. "Did you see the tattoo on the man's arm?"

"The guy you knocked out?" Melody shook her head. "No, but I wasn't looking."

Rogers grabbed the journal. Flipping through the pages, fingers lingering after each turn, he finally stopped about halfway through. He frowned down at it.

Pushing out from behind Weaver's desk, Melody rolled in the chair over to him. She looked down at the journal in his hand. The page had several different-sized drawings of the same thing, what looked like some 8-spoked wheel. Her breath caught.

It felt familiar. She felt it, in her bones, like a coldness that gripped her heart. She knew that picture. But she didn't know how. She couldn't place it.

"What is it?" Melody asked, voice low.

Rogers shook his head. "I don't know."

A knock on the office made them both turn. Melody swiveled. The desk sergeant opened the door and nodded to them.

"The guy's awake," he said.

Rogers nodded. "Right." He stood up, pushing his chair in as the office left. He turned to Melody. "I should go talk to him."

She offered him a tight smile. "Good luck. I hope it gives you some answers."

On her way out of the precinct, she just sighed. Lunch was just finishing at Roni's. She could get in and grab a sandwich with her discount. Pausing on the side of the street, she looked both ways. There was so seldom traffic, she never bothered to go to a corner. Tightening her jean jacket closer across her chest, she hurried across.

The image of the eight-spoked wheel stuck in her head. No matter how much she wanted it out, it stayed in her mind even as she got her food and took it to one of the high tables at the bar. Roni had gone out, leaving Remy as manager on duty, and that meant she had less of a distraction as she chewed on french fries.

She could've done with a good distraction.

Her phone buzzed. Melody picked it up off the table, unlocking her screen. The image of the pacific ocean that she'd taken on her last trip to the beach made her smile. She checked her notifications. Sabine.

"Hey girl, come down to Cluck's when you're free. I've got a surprise for you."

Interesting. She smiled, assuring the woman she'd drop by in a few. After finishing up her burger and paying, she did just that. Mr. Cluck's wasn't too far of a walk, but it did surprise her to find a line wrapping around the corner when she got close. It was just after three. Why anyone was lining up to go to the fast-food place, she had no idea.

Melody pushed in past the line, heading instead to the side where the wall and counter met. She found Jacinda grinning from ear to ear, taking orders. A whole row of white paper bags lined the counter. Before she could say anything, Sabine came out with another tray. She grinned at Melody.

"Hey! You came!" Sabine left Jacinda to the register and let Melody into the back with them. "Check this out."

Melody followed her through, passing the white bags and bags of flour until she found herself face to face with the surprise. The fryer had been turned into a mass beignet maker. Melody burst out laughing. "Moving up in the world, Sabine?"

"Trying," she said. "Here, taste it. It's even better using Louie's place."

The beignet tasted like a little piece of heaven. It melted in her mouth, and she couldn't help but moan out a compliment. "This is fabulous."

"I know," Sabine joked. She explained their operation, using the equipment just that Friday while Louie had a manager's conference to attend. They needed to make extra cash to survive Victoria Belfrey's rent increase. "So? Think it'll work?"

Melody laughed. "It seems to be working if the line wrapping around the block is any indication."

Still chewing on her beignet, Melody followed Sabine back out front. They got back to work. Melody stuck around for a while, listening to the chatter in the restaurant and watching in amusement as Lucy showed up armed with a firefly stamp. As they all got busy, the crowds increasing, she left them for someplace quieter.

The wind picked up as she walked down the main street in Hyperion Heights back towards Roni's. It chilled her face a bit. Melody wished it could act as a distraction from the way her mind went over the eight-spoked wheel time and again but it didn't. Beignets left behind, she had only time to think.

Melody couldn't wait for the bar before she pulled her journal out of her bag. As clouds moved in to cover the city, she flipped through her pages of poetry and prose and sketches. Halfway through, she stopped dead in her tracks.

She had seen it before. She'd seen it because she'd drawn it. A year ago, Melody had been inspired to practice drawing ships' wheels, and as she stared at the most intricate one in the center, her heart skipped a beat. Carved into the ship's wheel was the design from Eloise Gardener's journal and the criminal's wrist.

That couldn't be a coincidence. But it had to be. It had to be a coincidence.

Three drinks later, leaning over her journal at the bar in Roni's, she still couldn't decide. Coincidence? or fate. Her head spun. Remy had stopped trying to engage her in conversation on her last glass of rum and coke. As dinner ended and the night rush began, she retreated to a comfortable chair in the corner.

Memories flooded her senses. They were filled as much with emotion as with actual images, pain and loneliness filling every inch of her body as she sipped at the alcohol. How had she drawn that symbol?

She looked at her phone. In her contacts, she scrolled all the way to the bottom. Urselina's number stared back at her, blank and lifeless. She clicked it. The number dialed. She heard it through her earbuds, the incessant ring.

"The number you have dialed has not been set up yet."

Her throat clenched. Tears sprung to her eyes. She hung up.

"How many drinks have you had?"

At Henry's voice, she glanced up. When he'd come in, she had no idea. The sun had set a while ago and based on the two empty glasses beside her half-full one, she'd had at least two.

"Henry," she muttered. "What are you doing here?"

His eyebrow shot up. "I was swinging by to see Roni but she's not here. You good?"

" 'm fine," she assured him. But as she stood up and the room spun, Henry grabbed her. She shook him off.

"She's had four." Remy walked over, eying her skeptically. "I put them on your tab, Melody."

She nodded, leaning against the wall. Henry shook his head, unamused. He grabbed his phone, texting someone. "Right. You're in no shape to go home by yourself."

"I'm fine, really," she urged. "If it makes you feel better, I'll walk."

Henry snorted. He shook his head. "That doesn't inspire confidence." As his phone buzzed and he glanced down again, he frowned. "Jacinda and Sabine are both busy. They apparently bought a food truck."

"Good thing I'm fine, then!"

He wouldn't let her go alone, though, so Melody resigned herself to leaving with him. When they stepped outside, she almost fell. Pain shot through her as her ankle rolled.

"And this is why you're not walking home alone," Henry muttered. "If only I'd brought my car. The one night I'm not driving Swyft." As she rested against the brick wall for a moment, he sighed. Looking across the street, he waved.

"What's up, mate?" Rogers joined them a moment later. He looked at her closer. "Are you drunk?"

Melody scoffed. "No."

But Henry just rolled his eyes. "Yes."

"What happened?"

Melody shrugged, tears stinging her eyes as she tried to forget about the pain in her ankle and in her heart. "I, uh, tried to call someone. They didn't answer."

Henry and Rogers both watched her as she closed her eyes and sunk back against the bricks. Closing her eyes made the world spin a little less. Melody tried to breathe through her nose.

"I texted Jacinda and Sabine to see if they could get her home, but they're both busy," Henry said. He turned to Rogers. "If I had my car I'd take her."

Melody opened her eyes when he started speaking about her in the third person. She watched Rogers nod, then turn to her.

"Come on. My office is still empty with Weaver in the hospital."

"There aren't any drinks in your office, though," she complained.

Rogers laughed. "That's the point." He nodded to Henry. Taking her arm, he steadied her off the wall. "I got her, mate."

Before she realized what was happening, she found herself back in Weaver's chair, lights dimmed except for the glow of Rogers' computer monitor across from her. She still held her journal in her hand, clutched close. She didn't understand why Urselina's phone had been disconnected. She'd called that number so many times before, though years had passed.

"My head hurts," she muttered.

Rogers let out the smallest huff of a laugh, his face illuminated by the screen glow across from her. He didn't respond. He just typed away, working on a report or something if she had to guess. As she looked over his way, her gaze fell on the white paper bag decorated with a firefly stamp and she straightened up.

"Are those beignets?"

He stopped typing. "Aye. Want one?" He passed her the bag. "There's one left. Sabine brought them over."

"They're so good," she moaned, biting into it and trying to catch the powered sugar crumbs in the bag. "Thanks."

When Sabine showed up to take her home an hour later, she'd nearly fallen asleep in the quiet darkness of the Detective office, the silence broken only by the tapping of keys from Rogers' side of the desk. She thanked him, though still insisted she'd been sober enough to walk home on her own.

"Of all the people who I thought would get drunk today, I hadn't picked you," Sabine joked, getting into the driver's seat after helping Melody inside. "I almost drove Jacinda to drink after Louie's caught fire, and I needed one after finding out the place was burned down on purpose. What got you down, Melody?"

She shook her head, looking out the window at the headlights and street lamps they passed. "Nothing. Just wasn't paying attention," she lied.

"Well, hopefully, you're not too hungover tomorrow."

Hopefully, indeed.