Ash hopped into the Deputy's car before he could get out to knock on Tabitha's front door. She'd been nervously waiting for the last half an hour, so had been ready as soon as she spotted his blue sedan pulling through the gates. Why is it when you're dreading something, it comes around twice as quick; she wondered.

'How was Jess this morning?' he asked.

Her lips wobbled as she tried to hide her smile. 'Hungover, but she left for class an hour ago. She wanted me to remind you about Charity's sketchbook.'

'I haven't forgotten. But it's difficult to smuggle out of the station. I'm trying to find an opportunity to take some pictures without anyone noticing. But it's all hands on deck there.'

'Seemed that way yesterday.'

Silence descended as the radio quietly hummed in the background. Ash rested her head on the seat. The Deputy's steadfast nature was like a natural balm against her worries. His calm assuredness was like a physical presence that she could wrap around herself.

'So I'm assuming that the Sheriff doesn't know about this little trip of yours?' she asked with her eyes closed.

'You would assume correct.'

'How do you plan to play this? I want to know what role I'm playing here.'

He smirked to himself as he glanced at her attire. 'Think you can manage being a criminology student?'

Her answering smile was just as amused. 'Sneaky. I'm assuming you want me to be completing some paper relating to how the police force handles missing persons cases?'

'Something along those lines will do nicely.'

'And what about you? You playing a role or yourself?'

'To lend some air of credibility to your story, I'm going to be myself.' He waited for her to argue, but she just continued to doze against the headrest.

'I think it's a good idea. She's more likely to trust someone with a badge,' she finally said.

The Deputy nodded as they turned into a pleasant neighbourhood with bricked townhouses. It was the typical setting of suburban America. Ash wouldn't have been surprised to see an apron wearing mom rush out of the door after her 2.5 children with a hoover in one hand and an apple pie in the other. It was a setting that she was very unfamiliar with.

He parked outside a house that looked just the same as the one next to it, and identical to the one across the street.

'It's like a fucking maze,' she whispered.

'Welcome to the Texan suburbia.'

Ash crossed herself, and the Deputy chuckled. She followed him through the white picket fence and up the paved walkway to the veranda.

After pushing the bell twice, they waited until a plumb woman opened the door with a wailing two-year-old fastened to her hip. Her blonde, frizzy hair had escaped her ponytail in places and her strappy top had slid down her shoulder.

'Can I help you?' she asked.

'Mrs Gonzola?'

'Yes?'

'My name is Deputy Odugu, and this is Martha. She's a criminology student from the university. I'm currently helping towards her paper to gain her PHD.'

'I'm researching the effectiveness of the police with regards to missing persons cases and the support they provide to those effective,' Ash supplied. 'I found your friend Darcy's missing persons poster, and I wondered if you'd be able to answer some of my questions.'

'It was a very long time ago.'

'Please. It would mean a lot to me,' Ash said.

Mrs Gonzola looked uncertain but waved them in. 'Okay, come in.'

Her wailing son had quietened down now. He sniffled a few times, his thumb firmly glued to his mouth, as he openly watched Ash and the Deputy.

'Would you like something to drink?'

'No thank you, ma'am. We don't want to put you out anymore than we already have.'

'It's no trouble.' But she had already sat heavily on the worn armchair, leaving them to take a seat on the sagging sofa.

Ash pulled a notepad from her bag. A present from the Deputy to complete her transition to university student.

'How long had you known Darcy?' Ash asked.

'About two years. We worked in the same place. Tamara's bar in town. I think it's a Wendy's now.'

'And you were roommates?'

'Yes. About six months after she started, her boyfriend kicked her out, and she needed a place to stay. My last roommate had already left, so it seemed a good idea that she would move in. Between the two of us, we could just about afford the rent.' Mrs Gonzola smiled a little as she thought back to the cramped apartment they'd shared.

'It was only this crummy little thing. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen diner. Barely enough room to swing a cat. But you would have thought it was a luxury penthouse the way Darcy went on about it.'

'Things weren't good with her boyfriend?' Ash asked, feeling the Deputy still beside her.

'She didn't talk about him,' Mrs Gonzola admitted. 'But I got the feeling that he was abusive to her.'

'Did you tell this to the police?'

'When Darcy went missing, I feared that maybe he'd come back to town and something had happened between them, but the police looked at him. He'd been in county jail when she disappeared. The police said it was an ironclad alibi.'

Ash pretended to take notes as she tried to think of anything else that might be useful to them.

'Mrs Gonzola, was there anyone who would have wished to harm Darcy? Anyone that she may have argued with before she disappeared?' The Deputy asked.

'I spoke to the police about all that,' she said crisply.

'That's good, Mrs Gonzola,' improvised Ash. 'Police procedure is an important aspect of my paper. I'm comparing current procedures and methods to the ones that would have been used in a case like Darcy's. So the police looked into what you said?'

Mrs Gonzola's lips pressed into a thin line and her gaze shifted from Ash to the Deputy.

'Mrs Gonzola?'

'My n-name won't be included in your paper, will it?'

'It's completely anonymous, if that's what you prefer.'

Mrs Gonzola nodded absentmindedly whilst she put her son down on the floor with his toys.

'A-and you Deputy Ogudu?'

'Anything you share with me will be kept in complete confidence,' he reassured her.

Ash tried not to fidget too much. They just had to convince her to trust them.

'Darcy was a good person, but she came from the rougher side of the tracks. Her mother left when she was eleven, and her papa was an alcoholic. She'd been in and out of foster care since she was thirteen and she came here when she turned eighteen. I think she was hoping to escape her past, but she struggled for work. When she wasn't working in Tamara's, she sometimes danced in Pleasure Nights. It's a strip club back in town,' she added at Ash's confused face. 'The place pays well, and she was trying to pay off some debt she'd wracked up.'

'Debt? Did she owe someone money?' The Deputy asked.

'Nothing like that. Just credit cards and some store credit. Her ex had used them and maxed them out.'

'How did the police react to Darcy's job and background?' Ash hedged, already knowing the answer.

Mrs Gonzola's face turned solemn. 'It took them a while to believe that she was missing. They said it was not unusual for a "flighty woman" to take off unexpectedly.' She glanced at the Deputy as she continued. 'When they finally believed that she was missing, they didn't take what I said seriously. They thought it was a waste of time to follow up on any single man that had paid her attention as, given her vocation, there would be too many to investigate.'

The Deputy shook his head. 'I'm so sorry that you had to experience something like that. Her job should never have impeded the investigation into her disappearance.'

'Mrs Gonzola, did you have suspicions other than Darcy's ex?' Ash asked hurriedly.

The woman fiddled with her wedding ring. 'Darcy always got a lot of attention. She was beautiful. But a couple of weeks before she disappeared, a new man started coming into the bar. He became like clockwork. Every Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8pm and 10pm he'd come and sit at the bar.'

'And he was interested in Darcy?'

'Like I said, he wasn't the only one, but he was different from the others.'

'Different how?' queried the Deputy.

Mrs Gonzola rubbed her forehead. 'I remember he always wore a suit. Darcy used to think it was so fancy, but I always thought it looked a little too big for him around the waist and too short in the leg. He would bring her things. Small at first, a flower, a cupcake. But it got more extravagant, a whole bouquet, a bracelet.'

'Were they dating?' Ash quickly remembered that she should have been taking notes and flipped the empty page over as if it were full.

'I don't think so. But she started to get secretive about him. I could tell that she liked him.'

'And this man, did you ever see him after she disappeared?'

'He still came into the bar the week after I reported her missing, but stopped after that. The police could never track him down.' She sniffed.

'Did you ever see him again?' Ash asked.

'No,' she said sadly.

'Mrs Gonzola, would you have anything of Darcy's that we could perhaps see? I think it's important to have an emotional connection to the cases that I'm writing about so that I do them justice.'

Mrs Gonzola rubbed at her eyes and nodded. 'Of course. Her dad didn't want most of her things, so a lot went to charity, which I knew she would have wanted. But I kept a few things. I didn't want her forgotten. It's not right that someone can just disappear and have no one to remember them.' She picked up her son and beckoned them upwards.

They climbed the stairs into the loft where Mrs Gonzola pulled a small shoe box from a pile.

'Sorry about the mess. We're actually trying to sort some things ready for Christmas. These are the things I kept.' She passed the box to Ash and caught sight of the time on her wristwatch. 'Shoot. I promised my neighbour to check in on the plumber around this time. Are you okay if I leave you here for five minutes?' She was already heading back towards the stairs.

'Not a problem,' Ash said, as they both watched her until she was out of sight.

'An emotional connection?' The Deputy repeated with a raised eyebrow.

'I don't like lying to her,' Ash muttered.

'But it might help her finally know what happened to her friend,' he said gently.

'I guess that's true.' Ash knelt on the floor and handed the box to the Deputy. 'You'd better look through first before I touch anything.'

He silently agreed, and joined her on the ground, taking the box in two hands and lifting the lid. The inside of the box appeared just as mundane as the outside. It would have been impossible to tell that they were the last reminisce of a life that had been brutally cut short.

There were a couple of faded photographs on the top that showed Darcy with a younger Mrs Gonzola, as well as a few of a child standing with a stern-looking man. Underneath was a small stuffed bear key ring, a silky yellow headscarf, and a pair of large hooped earrings.

'Not a lot for an entire life,' the Deputy said.

'If you had just one box that could sum up your life, what would you put in it?' Ash countered.

He titled his head and lifted the silk scarf. A small black badge slid free and thudded to the floor. DARCY in white letters stared up at them.

'The man visited her at the bar.'

Ash watched the Deputy pick up the name tag and hold it out to her. 'What do you think?'

She looked at the small nondescript item and tried to hide her nerves. Breathing deeply, she held out her hand, and he dropped it into her palm.

There was no time to prepare.

The vision crashed into her with all the force of a hurricane making land. It was violent and demanding.

She could smell stale alcohol and salty peanuts. Cigarette smoke hung in the air like fog. And the jukebox was singing an old Beatles song that was so very out of place of the dive bar she was in. Above her in neon lighting was the word Tamara's, bathing her shocking pink.

'Are you going to come to mine or not?' A man in a wrinkled suit asked the giggling barmaid.

'But your wife?'

'I'm taking you somewhere special.' He winked, and the pub disappeared, revealing the hidden room in the science building only not as they'd seen it.

It was spotlessly clean, with candles strewn about and in the centre was Darcy, no longer giggling but with a look of absolute terror on her face. Her hands and wrists were bound to a chair, her clothes were in a pile in front of her, leaving her only in underthings. Bruises marked her hips and her lip was split.

The man from the pub watched her with the same fascination as he had earlier, only now there was something much darker in his eyes. A mixture of lust and possessiveness that spoke of something deeply wrong about him.

'Why are you doing this?' Darcy screamed.

She flinched as the man stood and made his way around her in a leisurely circle. He laughed as he remained in her blind parts, forcing her to twist in order to keep him in her line of sight. Ash could see that he loved it. He loved her terror and soaked it up like it was an intriguing television programme.

'Your kind makes me sick,' he said. 'You're a pretender. You act so sweet and innocent, but you're just a filthy hoe.'

Darcy screamed as he lunged at her, wrapping his hands around her throat. Ash jerked backwards as she felt his fingernails dig into the skin on her neck. When she looked up, she could see the joy in his bloodshot eyes as he strangled her.

The pain was so real that she gasped for breath as his hands squeezed the life out of her.

'Ash! Ash!'

She could hear Elijah calling her, but the vision had its claw in her too deep. She felt lightheaded as she choked.

Cold water splashed on her face and she inhaled sharply, receiving what felt like the first breath of air in a lifetime.

The vision trickled away with the water dripping down her neck, and she saw Elijah looking at her, breathing hard.

'What happened? What did you see?' he demanded.

'The guy from the bar. He killed Darcy in the room hidden in the science building,' she panted, rubbing her neck and wincing at the tender skin there.

'Ash, what happened to you?' The Deputy lifted his hand towards her throat and she flinched away from him.

'I-I got caught up in the vision. It was stronger than I was expecting.'

He bit the inside of his cheek. 'Ash, your neck is bruised. I watched you getting strangled, but no one was touching you.'

'W-what?' she stuttered.

He pulled out his phone and flipped the camera around so she could see. She took it with shaking hands as she saw the deepening bruise on her neck.

'Has something like this ever happened to you before?'

'Never,' she whispered.

He watched her carefully before shrugging off his jacket and handing it to her. 'Zip this up. It should cover the bruising if you put your hair down as well.'

She took it quickly and followed his instructions. He put the items back in the box and placed it back where Mrs Gonzola had found it.

As they made their way downstairs, Mrs Gonzola came back in, her son scurrying around her ankles.

'I hope that I helped with your paper. I think what you're doing is really important. And I'm glad you came by.' Unexpectedly, she gave Ash and the Deputy a quick hug. 'If you need anything else, please come back. Girls like Darcy should have been treated better.'

'Thank you for your time, Mrs Gonzola. And I can promise you that things are changing, and I'll continue to see that it remains so,' the Deputy vowed.

The woman smiled up at him and stepped back to allow them to leave.

'I wish I could say that what happened to Darcy doesn't happen anymore,' he muttered as they got back into his car.

'Elijah...'

'No, Ash. What happened to her is exactly what's happening to you and Jess. You're getting punished because you don't conform to what they deem normal. You live an alternative lifestyle, and they can't understand it, so they assume there must be something you're hiding. Or that there is something wrong with you. It's not right.'

'Calm down, Elijah.' Ash gripped the car door as he shot down the street.

His foot eased off the accelerator a fraction. 'You should just tell them I was with you that night you were outside the sorority house.'

'No,' she refused.

'I'm serious, Ash. You would have a more solid alibi.'

'And I'm sure they'll still find a way to drag me back in, and it doesn't help, Jess. And it'll get you kicked off the case.'

'This is just bullshit!' he yelled.

And she couldn't help but agree with him. Darcy's killer had been a stranger to her, but for just a moment, she'd thought she'd seen his bloodshot eyes somewhere before.