Jimmy sipped at the coffee his hands were wrapped around. His eyes were half-open and, for the first time since he came back, he looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. Which, I suppose, he had. After all, we were sitting in the diner at eight in the morning. Not to mention I called him at seven-thirty and woke him up.

"You never said why you wanted to meet me here," he told me once he'd drained his coffee. 

I cocked my head. "Do I need a reason to see my boyfriend?"

He ran his fingers through his hair - probably trying to fix it, but he was only making it cuter - and raised an eyebrow. "No, but you demanded I meet you. Why the demand?"

I sipped my coffee and looked out the window. "Remember when I said evidence pointed to a news person and some officers being in on the theft? I know that because I have security video from Invested showing two officers and the reporter from the news at the scene well before the alarm went off. Thing is, the two officers in the video? Turns out they're the officers assigned to the case. They're the ones investigating."

Jimmy now looked wide awake. "How do you know that?"

"I'm friends with an officer at the station. I showed him the video and he told me."

"Do you trust him?"

I nodded without hesitation. "I do."

Jimmy nodded and sat back. "So what are you going to do?"

I sighed and stared at my mug. "All I can really think to do is try to find the footage from Rob's office. There's a camera in there and I just know it recorded what happened that night. If I can figure that out, then I'll know what to do."

"You really think the solution's going to be that simple?" He sipped at his coffee, eyeing me over the rim. 

I shrugged, trying to not become defensive about it. I knew nothing was guaranteed - I had to look no further than my own parents to know that - but I had a feeling that the key to it all was in that video. "Nothing's ever simple," I said, barely keeping the edge out of my voice.

We sat in silence until our breakfast came. Then we ate in silence. "Is there a way I can help?" Jimmy finally asked about halfway through our meal.

I sat my fork down and looked at him. "I don't know yet," I said honestly. I really only needed a person to talk to besides Kev. "I'll let you know, though. Thank you." We lapsed back into silence, but this time, it was a comfortable silence. 

Like I've said before, quiet gives me time to think, and I value that time. Except the ambient sounds in the diner made me think about home. Not where I live with Ben and Lilly, but my home, where I lived with my dad. Coming home and hearing him in his office. Hearing him in the kitchen in the morning, making coffee and breakfast for himself. 

Then the time he didn't come home.

"Are you okay?" I heard Jimmy ask from somewhere far away from where I was in my head. 

In my head, where I was hearing the phone ring and hearing Dad tell me he was at the station. His words were slurred and I could tell he was drunk. I was concerned just from that, but nothing in the world could have prepared me for his next words: he was in an accident and someone died. I remember feeling the world begin to crumble around me, knowing what that meant. 

Someone distantly put an arm around my shoulders and I could hear someone saying my name, but I could still only see myself sinking to the floor and feel the tears flowing down my face. Feeling lost and devastated and worried sick all at once. 

I choked out a sob and leaned into Jimmy's embrace, turning my face so it was pressed into his chest. He held me and stroked my hair and rubbed my back while I cried on him. Again, I was amazed that I was so comfortable in his presence. 

A few minutes later I pushed him away and he handed me a couple of napkins. I wiped at my nose and dried my face. "Thanks," I said as I worked to even out my breathing. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head firmly. "Don't apologize. Never apologize for having feelings."

I gave him a sad smile and looked at my plate with the food I no longer felt like eating. "I think I need to try to get that footage today," I said quietly. "It's going to drive me crazy if I don't."

He gave me a light squeeze before removing the arms he still had wrapped around me. "Okay." We both stared at that plate for a few long moments before he turned to me again. "Want to go for a ride when we're done here?"

I nodded. "Absolutely."

---

Since the streets were cleared of last night's snow, we avoided the sidewalks and rode on the residential streets that didn't have much traffic. We reminisced about high school, things we did and how many times I fell trying to learn to ride. I told him that learning to snowboard helped a lot. He didn't know that I'd learned to ice skate, so he invited me to go with him and his family to skate the weekend coming. 

"Who all is still at home?" I asked him, knowing he wasn't an only child either.

"Brett's still at college in Milwaukee and this is his last year there, but he's engaged now to a girl I'm yet to meet - that no one's met, come to think of it - so he's bringing her with him when he visits over break in December." He sighed, shaking his head. "I can't believe he wants to marry a girl who hasn't even met his family yet." Jimmy looked at me. "I just hope she likes me."

I squeezed his hand. "She'll love you." I blushed, biting back the words like me. It wasn't the time. Not yet. 

"I hope so." He was quiet for a moment. "Tammy's in her senior year, which doesn't seem right. It doesn't feel like she should be this old yet."

"Sure doesn't." I could remember her when I first started hanging out with Jimmy - she was always trying to get me to play with her or braid her hair so she could go out to play in the mud. She was never a girly-girl and hated pink, but she loved her dolls. She took such good care of them that they still looked like she'd just taken them out of the box the last time I'd seen them. Which, come to think of it, was probably three years ago almost. Time flies.

We rode along, hand-in-hand, for a few minutes longer before I began recognizing where we'd been riding. I wasn't sure if it was intentional on either of our parts, but we'd gone right to my old neighborhood. I knew Jimmy didn't live too far from here, but all I could see was the 'for sale' sign in my front yard and then, a few doors down, Heather's. I swallowed and looked down at the road.

"I went to see her," I said quietly.

"See who?"

I jerked my chin in the direction of Heather's house. "Her. Louis' widow. Mrs. Martin."

Jimmy whipped his head around to stare at me. "Really?" he asked, incredulous. I nodded. "How'd it go?"

"Amazing, actually." We rode along a moment in silence before I told him all about the visit. 

When I was done speaking, we were near the end of the road. We stopped and he looked at me with big eyes. "That's great, Brenda," he said with a smile. "I'd like to meet her one day."

I bashfully looked down at my board and glanced back at her house. "We'll see." I checked my phone. "We can start heading to Invested now - it's getting close to lunchtime."

---

Rob and several employees walked out of the building. I sipped at my weird-tasting water as I watched. Jimmy squeezed my shoulders and I looked at him. "Ready?" he asked. 

I nodded and slid out of the booth we'd been sitting at in the diner. "As I'll ever be. I'll try to be quick." He reached over, squeezed my hand, and smiled at me. I returned it before walking out of the building. I knew where they were going (I hoped) so I knew I had about fifteen or twenty minutes to snoop. 

Inside Invested, I was able to slink past the employees in the break room and got to the door of Rob's office. I slipped inside silently and locked the door behind me. I went to the file cabinets and opened them. A couple of drawers were locked, but I easily found the key in the top middle drawer of the desk. It took a minute, but I searched for and found Rob's bank statements. 

He was apparently paying off two bank loans, and he was losing money. I pulled out my phone and took a picture of four bank statements before replacing them exactly as they had been. 

In one of the drawers, I couldn't quite understand what I was seeing. I found a flash drive, two folders, and a few other miscellaneous items. I pulled out the drive and walked over to the computer, plugged it in, and looked at the contents. One was video, and a few others were text files. Knowing I didn't have much time, I plugged my drive into the other USB port and copied all the files over to look at later. 

Once that was back where it was before, I opened the folders and glanced through them. Not sure what I was seeing, I snapped a few more pictures, put them back, and locked the drawers again. 

That was when the door knob started rattling. I yanked my USB out of the computer as I slipped the cabinet keys into the desk, closed the drawer, and then turned and rushed out the back door. I ran to the dumpster in the alley and dropped into a crouch. A moment later I heard the door slam open and someone rush out into the alley. I peeked around the side and saw Rob standing there, glancing around. As I watched, he ran his fingers through his hair and went back inside.

I took a moment to catch my breath and silently thank the garbage truck for having come this morning before standing on shaky legs and running back to the diner.

The moment I was able, I collapsed on the bench Jimmy occupied. He raised his eyebrows at me. "You okay?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I didn't get the video, though. I took too long looking through the file cabinet and then almost got caught."

He cocked his head. "I texted you when I saw him coming."

I pulled out my phone and checked. Sure enough, there was a lone text from Jimmy telling me Rob was on his way and I needed to get out. I sighed and dropped my phone on the table. "Sorry. I was too distracted to notice." I opened the gallery on my phone and showed him my camera roll. "I got a bunch of stuff, though." I flicked through some of the pictures before putting my phone in my jacket pocket. "I'll have to look at it later, though. I'm about to be late for work." I leaned over and gave him a quick peck on his cheek before standing. "Could you drop off my board at my house? It looks like snow and I won't be able to ride later if it does."

"Sure thing," he said, smiling like an idiot - a smile to match my own. I had no idea how he did that to me, but he did.