Port Orchard almost had her beat. It was here the trail turned cold for a few days more, and Bree was damn near at her wit's end. Whatever else he'd done in that small town beyond dumping the stolen car? Well it was precious damn little, and she was stopped cold with only the smallest breath of a hint running through her head, a conviction she'd already shared with Riddick alone on their motel bed in Port Orchard.
North. The green-eyed man was going north, and there didn't seem to be all that much deliberation in his travels from what she could see. No one he was meeting, no family or friends offering safe haven or help. Just him, the green-eyed man traveling almost as if the crow would fly, first west and now? Now perhaps north, though not to Canada - not yet at least. Well, certainly not by the most direct route that she could see - nor even the fastest. If 'North of the Border' had been his thoughts, why not take the car so much further than he did? Why abandon it in Port Orchard and, by all appearances, move on foot?
Bree had no answers, but at the very least she had a direction, and from Port Orchard it even by-passed the city of Seattle.
So, north. From Silverdale to Poulsbo, all along the little piece of coastline as due north as the small, windy highway would take her and her black cat in their rental car. Port Gamble and Port Ludlow, then Port Hadlock and still, still somehow Bree knew - she just knew - the green-eyed man wouldn't stop until he simply couldn't go anymore, not another footstep more until -
- Well, until he hit ocean. And she somehow doubted even her uncanny green-eyed man could walk on water. Riddy was already safely ensconced in the room of the beautiful seaside bed and breakfast she'd just splurged on. God, she was sick of crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel semi-sanitary motel rooms.
And so Bree stood precariously on the edge of the ferry docks, grey eyes sweeping north, ever north. A cool ocean wind played lightly in the lengths of her auburn hair, teasing the ends about her face as if inviting her to come away, to play a game with the breezes and the zephyrs in the low-hanging clouds overhead. Bree laughed at the thought, and took a deep breath of that sea air in her lungs. The sound of gulls screaming nearby and the gentle roar of the surf filled every last sense and once - just this once and for the first time since she'd begun her obsessive, single-minded hunt, Bree let all fretful worry for the green-eyed man fall away into the tides, like the ashes of a dead man released over the waves.
She knew she had to go back into town, take her grainy black and white photos to the two bars worthy of the name here - probably make a quick stop in the West Coast version of the Mayberry PD as a courtesy at the least.
Best to have a beer first, at the least.
Bree would have preferred to walk the distance from the ferry to the pub - or at least the first of the bars actually worth the name - but some small, professional part of her soul hadn't been lulled to sleep by the sweet peace of the Pacific. And so she drove her rental car to the small parking lot, because you could never be too sure when luck just might break your way, for the first time in a very, very long time.
There was a well-used dart board on the wall, and Bree was half-tempted to try her long-unused skills from her college days when she'd been something of a shark in her time. But a rather pretty young woman emerged from the back, and Bree collected herself quickly with a warm smile and a nod of her head.
Her voice low and warm, she smiled as she approached the woman, arm outstretched as she stood on a knee on one of the stools, one hand offered over the bar. "Good afternoon, I'm glad I caught someone here. Agent Walsh, Bree Walsh. FBI. Just call me Bree... " She reached into the inner pocket of her worn leather jacket, showing her credentials to the young woman. "I'm looking to speak with someone, if I can find him."
Bree put the credentials back into her wallet after the young woman had a moment to reassure herself that yes, yes she really was talking to an honest-to-goodness federal law enforcement agent. She pulled those photos from her other pocket, these copies still fairly crisp and clear and only folded twice thus far. Still, Bree folded them out on the bar, the surveillance photos of the green-eyed man, the clearest of them.
"Have you seen him about, by any chance?" she asked, her voice still pitched just as friendy and open as you please. There were only two reactions to female cops, and one way or the other they almost always boiled down to either 'extremely positive' or 'extremely negative.' After coming off the natural ecstasy of the seashore, she still found it in her to pray for the former.
From day to night, the pretty woman's face fell, and Bree knew two things at once: her instincts had been right, dead on since Port Orchard; and that this was likely to end in the latter, whether she would or no. Bree's soft reassurances seemed to fall on deaf ears, that she only wanted to talk to him, to find him and no, no she really couldn't give her any details because confidentiality, privacy, ongoing investigation and on and on.
She didn't like it, the lie that fell so easily from her lips, startling the green-eyed man's whereabouts from Josie with the firm, unwavering assurance that she would be charged with the interference of an ongoing investigation if she didn't tell her where to find this man. Now. Because there was no ongoing investigation at all - at least nothing official. Nothing she'd lose her job over either, if anyone 'official' found out - but it would certainly be the beginning of the end of her career.
Even so, the adrenaline shot through her body like a bolt of pure electricity, the obsession wrapping its serpent coils around her again and squeezing 'til she was damn near breathless. She was close, so damn close! And Josie caved, giving her the address to some guy named "Tom," the green-eyed man was supposed to be living with for now, sharing a house almost no distance at all from this very bar.
Bree gave the woman a cold 'thanks' and a warning not to get cute about trying to warn anyone off, leaving the bar at a half-run back to her car. The GPS told her she didn't have far to go at all, and she pulled up a door or two down from the house where her green-eyed man was supposed to reside. She knew full well she ought to surveil the place, find entrances front and back, the location of all windows and any cellar egress, and she made a swift pass about the house before finally standing on the porch. Her knock was firm, even if her knees suddenly felt shaky and cold as a glass of icy waters.
What circumstance would bring Ethan himself back into her world perhaps, that he would make the offer to work with her again?
I'd just like to do a quick roundup if we could, where everyone is at for the moment in the story, a quick role call of a sort? Simply to see who anticipates talking with whom, or is in the middle of a post or collaboration - or plans to be? For myself, I know I plan to have Abby speak with Reece, and Pauline do... Whatever Pauline does? ;)