Piper's voice fills the car as she dances along to the music playing on the radio. She looks to me as she sings, wriggling her eyebrows at me. I shake my head at her, knowing she wants me to join in.

I return my gaze to the unmoving traffic, that always seems to be on the highway into New York. Before Piper could ask Mr. Woodley for some time off, Mr. Woodley contacted Piper to say that her "services" wouldn't be needed this week. Originally Piper wouldn't let the comment go, and ranted at me that her job title is legal secretary, not personal assistant and that she wouldn't let Mr. Woodley get away with it any longer, but eventually after I weathered it out, she stopped short when she realized that it meant he was giving her a free pass for the week off.

It has been a couple of days since Mason called, and I proposed to Piper that we should go to New York, and after yesterday when Piper was told that she would have the week off, we decided to come down to New York, before her boss changed his mind.

The songs changes on the radio and Piper clutches my arm, her chocolate eyes lighting up.

"Come on, you have to sing this with me," she begs.

I shoot her a mock exasperated look before I start to sing with the singer on the track. Piper claps her hands happily, before joining me. Soon we're singing at the top of our lungs and I'm waving my hands in a dance. I return them to the wheel when the traffic begins moving.

I ignore the looks I'm getting from the other cars as we continue on the highway and our singing. Eventually, we find ourselves surrounded by tall buildings as we make our way down the streets of Manhattan.

I turn down the music, causing Piper to complain momentarily.

"So, where are we going first?" I ask. Piper reaches down for the list that we made last night of everything that we want to do here today.

"The main thing you said you wanted to do today was to get all the evidence that you can, yourself: the CCTV putting Nixon at the scene of the crime, witness accounts, talk to friends and family. The best place that we could get most of that, is where it happened."

*^*^*

"Left, and it's apparently on the left, three down," Piper directs. I pull onto the road, finding it lined with trees on either side and shabby looking buildings. I pull over the side, turning the engine off, before looking at Piper.

"You ready?" I ask, the nerves and excitement at what we're going to be doing building up inside of me. I'm nervous that we're not going to be able to do anything more than the cops have already done, and the outcome is just going to be the same. I'm nervous that I've wasted both Piper's, and my, time. I'm nervous that no one will want to help us, and we won't find anything. But, at the same time, I'm excited that we could potentially save Nixon, an innocent man, from serving the time that he shouldn't be. And I'm not going to lie, that I'm also excited because if I am able to free Nixon, I may be able to pursue something that I couldn't before.

I am torn from my thoughts by Piper.

"We're not to break any laws, OK? We can ask if people want to talk to us, but we have to accept the fact that they may also not want to."

I chuckle slightly. "I know Piper. Do I look like I could threaten anyone to talk to us?"

She rolls her eyes. "Well, I don't know. You could get me to do it."

I let out a full-on laugh this time, reaching for the door handle. For the past days that I've been away from Roman, I have noticed that my mood altogether has lifted. It's bad that I've smiled more times in the past days than I have in the past years. It's almost like I'm over-compensating. The smallest things will make me smile.

However, there are times when it hits me that I'm going to be back in the situation soon, and it's at those times when I wish that I didn't have to go back. It doesn't last long, because I know if I didn't return it would only cause worse consequences than if I did return.

"Hey!" Piper says, snapping her fingers in front of my face. "Where'd you go there?"

I shake my head. "Nowhere," I tell her a smile making its way back to my lips. I continue on my way out of the car, breathing in the fresh, cool, air to try and calm down and get the thoughts out of my head. I watch Piper's head rise out of the car and then look around, before pointing at one of the buildings around us.

"I think it's this one," she says as I walk around the car. I cross my arms in front of me to ward the cold off, standing next to her. Piper links her arm with mine, standing closer to try and get some of my warmth.

"OK, let's go."

I look up at the building which looks like it's not inhabited anymore, wondering if this will be the place which proves Nixon's innocence.

The next part will be more of the investigation and will be going up on Radish later today, so it will be another 4 weeks before the next part. When the part goes up, probably in a couple of hours, I will be hanging around in the live chat as I did last time, so why not come and stop by and say hi, if you want to? Download the app and add The Bars Between Us to your library to get a notification when the part goes up, and when the live chat is open.

What did you think?

Thanks for reading, voting, commenting, sharing and following!

CC ;)