I stand behind the two-way mirror, able to see the male accomplice who can only spot his reflection. He smiles smugly at Trevor who continues to question him alongside Octavia. I glance up at the camera that flashes a small red light every few seconds, exposing the recording that's taking place. Placing my focus back to them, I reach back and stroke over my hair that's wrapped into a bun and fiddle with some strands unknowingly as I try to concentrate on the matter ahead.

"How long have you known Raine Amory?" Trevor asks in his deep, husky voice.

The man, who we've discovered is called Martin Pickle, tilts his head back and lets out a groan. "I've already been asked this."

"Well we're asking you again. And we'll continue to do so for as long as we have to until you give us answers," Octavia snaps in a harsh tone, refusing to be patient with his dismissive and cocky behaviour.

I feel her agitation. Just listening to this guy is making the hairs on the back of my neck take stand. I clench my jaw and shake my head when I realise we'll get nothing out of him.

"Found anything?" I ask Vincent who's typing aggressively on his laptop beside me.

He doesn't look up from his screen but still gives me an answer. "Trained for the army for two years, but due to mental health issues, he wasn't accepted. First conviction was when he was twenty for getting into a street fight. He's had five other convictions since then. Forty-two-years-old. No current wife or relationship. One kid; doesn't seem to be part of his life."

"Sounds like Raine's typical victim."

"Meaning?"

I look to Vincent who now has his full attention on me. "She chooses people who have nothing to lose."

I glance back to the man who sits in a slouched position with a massive grin on his face, finding the whole process humorous, laughing at Trevor and Octavia's failed attempts to get information out of him. He knows nothing will make him talk.

"And the woman?" I ask.

"Talks about Raine like she's the best person alive. Refuses to give over any information regarding the robbery, her whereabouts or what she plans to do next. Only says that Raine saved her and she would do anything to protect her."

"Did you find out anything about her?"

"Poppy Carter. Thirty-two. She's been homeless since she was sixteen, but went completely off the radar when she was twenty-eight; that must've been when Raine lured her in. No family, no friends, no nothing. I can only find where she went to school, but that hasn't been much help. I called the previous head teacher, but she said that Poppy was quiet and kept to herself. She had nothing to say about the family other than she thought there could have been some abuse going on at home."

"She takes people at their lowest to make her seem like an angel; make them believe she saved them. They don't realise she's just manipulating them to do her dirty work. Does Poppy have any past convictions?"

"Two arrests. One when she was eighteen, the other when she was twenty-five; both were for shop lifting. Seems that the poor girl was starving, though. She took food."

"Am I the only one who feels bad for her?" I ask, leaning back onto the desk and crossing my arms as I sympathise with her past. "She really believed Raine helped her. And she lived alone and so poorly for all those years, it would be easy to manipulate her if she believed Raine was kind and helpful."

"You're not the only one who feels that way," Vincent admits quietly. "Want to talk to her?"

There's a slight pause before I nod my head and follow Vincent to the other interview room where we sit down together. There's another camera with a flashing light. I try to ignore it and quickly focus on Poppy. She has dirty blonde hair that's thin and straight and long, reaching all the way down to the bottom of her back. Her cheeks are rosy and her thin lips are a natural dark pink. She wears no makeup. She doesn't bother to hide the wrinkles that are forming on her face.

I admire her for that. I've always found wrinkles so fascinating and beautiful. Most people hate them, but they tell stories and they're a part of people.

"Hello, Poppy. I'm Detective Woods," I tell her with a kind smile on my face.

Poppy stops gazing around the room and finally stares at me. She smiles softly, like she has no idea where she is or why she's here. She seems ditsy and sweet, not like the sort of person who would rob a bank.

"Oh," she says in a soft, quiet voice that has a high pitch to it. "Vanessa Woods."

My body tenses, but I try to keep my composure and remain confident. "Yes. I'm Vanessa Woods."

She makes a humming noise. "Raine told me I'd meet you."

"She knew you'd be arrested?"

Poppy shakes her head and smiles. "I wasn't expecting you to have ginger hair. I thought it would be black, like Raine's. Your eyes aren't the same colour as hers either. You do have the same face shape, however. The same lips, too."

I think back to our childhood when Matilda—Rain—would have light brown hair that shimmered in the sun light. There were slight waves, identical to mine that also grew that way. I remember the first time her photo was laid out in front of me when I joined the agency. Her brown hair was black, further erasing her as the girl I once knew and grew up with. Her lips were painted red and crept up into an eery smile. I stayed up all night thinking about that one photo, unable to replace it in my mind, unable to forget about that smile and the evil in her expression.

"You must've been close," I say. "For her to tell you all of that."

Poppy nods and smiles as she thinks of the one person in the world she looks up to. "She's two years younger than me, yet she almost feels like a mother, or an older sister. You would know how that feels. She told me she's older than you."

I nod. "By two years. Just."

"You're so lucky. I would give anything for her to be my sister."

I prepare to pretend, just as long as I get Poppy on my side to spill some information. If she's going to talk to anyone, it's going to be me. After all, I am Raine's sister.

"I do have some great stories about her."

"You do?" Her face lights up. "I do, too. So many."

"I'd love to hear them sometime. I've missed my sister, you see. Perhaps we could share some of our memories about her? I'd really like that."

"I'd really like that, too."

I smile and release a breath of relief, finally feeling like I'm getting somewhere and succeeding. Finally we'll have some information about Raine over these last few years. Even if it's only a tiny amount of information, it's still something and a big help.

"But," Poppy says, making my smile falter. "Raine told me you'd do this. She told me not to tell you these things."

"She's not here now. I won't tell her."

Poppy smiles humorously. "She told me you'd say that. To trick me."

"I'm not tricking you. I'm trying to help you. Raine is not as great as you think. She's a bad person and she'll continue to do bad things if we don't find her. You can help us. I can help you."

"But I don't want help."

"You'll go to prison."

"I love Raine. I won't betray her."

I take a frustrated breath and bite my lip to keep my cool. "You won't be betraying her, you'll be helping her from getting into more trouble. We can give her the help she needs."

"I like you, Vanessa. She liked you, too. Always spoke about you. So many stories. You were all she ever talked about."

My heart grows heavy and I find it hard to breathe when my lungs collapse on me, squashing out all the air that my body held. Raine spoke about me. I was all she ever talked about. That has to mean something. A good part of her is still in there. She holds those memories. Maybe even still loves me. If only I could speak to her and find out the truth. I wonder what she would do if she saw me. I wonder if she would hug me, if she would cry, if she would smile, if she would leave me. In all honesty, after all the years, I can't believe she still thinks of me. It's been twelve years since she ran from home and never looked back. Twelve years. I thought she had forgotten me, or at least tried to erase me from her memories altogether.

"What did she tell you?" I ask softly.

Poppy smiles and ignores the question. "Raine looked after me. She made me feel like I mattered."

"She manipulated you," I tell her sympathetically.

"She loved me."

"Where is she, Poppy?" I ask. "If you love Raine and want to help her, you have to tell me where she is."

Poppy opens her mouth and closes her eyes...and then sings. She sings 'You Are My Sunshine' for twenty whole minutes while we try to ask her questions and attempt to make her stop, but she refuses. Even when the officers grab her cuffs and drag her back to a cell, her voice echoes down the corridors and taunts us.

Octavia pokes her head around the corner and raises her eyebrows. "Singing? That's a new one."

"She's not going to talk. Not when she's so fixated on Raine," I say.

"Martin isn't saying anything either," Trevor sighs while running his hand down his face. "It's like they've devoted their lives to Raine."

"Poppy believes Raine saved her. I wouldn't be surprised if Martin felt the same way. He must've felt so defeated and angry when he was rejected from the army. Raine knew it would be easy to get him on her side."

Vincent spins the laptop, showing the image on his screen that silences me. Raine wearing a long black coat that's buttoned up and barely allowing her black thigh-high heels to show. Her hair is wavy and swished to the side. Her lips are red, like always. She's stood in the middle of the bank with her hands in her pockets, glancing around the room with a small grin and nothing to cover her face.

"Someone must know where she is," I whisper.

"You'd think, wouldn't you? Going around and committing these crimes with no mask, knowing she's going to be seen on CCTV. Yet there's no trace of her," Octavia says, crossing her arms as she glances at the image and shakes her head.

"What about the getaway driver?" I ask them. "Anything?"

"Nothing so far," Trevor informs me. "Unlike Raine, the others had masks."

Feeling defeated after a bad day, I slouch back into my chair and fixate my gaze on the image of Raine. My sister. My big sister. The one who I always looked up to, who I waited and waited to return home. Our dad would find me waiting on the wooden deck of the house until it was dark. He would tell me to get to bed and forget about her because she wasn't coming back. When I got older and eventually moved into my own flat, I still visited dad's house and would stand on the deck, looking over the endless fields that were covered with long, soft grass and scattered with moths and bugs that would glow under the sun. Raine never came home. When our dad died last year, I packed up the house and never looked back. I knew that Raine would never return to the one place she always hated, I just never wanted to accept it before that.

We're so close to finding her, yet so far away.