It had almost been a week already.
It seemed that time flew by quicker than Robin had expected it to, then again, she worked the entire time and time passed far quicker when the time wasn't even acknowledged. She moved in with Roderick for a while, entering his warm home which, out of all the ones she had stayed in, was her personal favourite. It was warm, it was cosy, it was filled with enough clutter that it didn't feel lifeless, and, she enjoyed herself.
Roderick, despite her going into hibernation, spent time with her. He sat with her, helped her work through the evidence, asked questions that needed to be asked, pointed her in directions she never thought to look. And, he was understanding. Sure, she looked exhausted and mentally drained, but that meant she was almost there. When she got to a point of not being able to stop working, it tended to mean that she was close to a breakthrough.
Archie stopped by every so often, never with work. He checked in, asked how she was doing, sat by her and gave her the company she needed so as to not lose her mind entirely.
Admittedly, she still felt terrible for bringing him so much stress. He always worked hard to make sure she was okay, to see to it that she was happy and they could both continue working as a duo for a long time to come. But she had gotten so taken away by it all, she barely realised how little time she had with him.
"All gang activity in this part of the city died down," she mumbled mostly to herself in the silent house, "but it died down after the Jason case. Is that a coincidence?"
She shuffled, turning to a stack of files she had gotten, all various people from different backgrounds. Files about the people in the ID's she had found in Ricky's purse. She had hoped she could look through everyone and see if any might have belonged to whoever put the note in the purse. but, most were adults with regular jobs, none that linked to the investigation at all.
"A lot of gangs dispersed at that time, wanted criminals left the country entirely." Roderick told her, "That was a little after Arthur Matson was arrested. Crime rates got pretty bad at that point, then all of a sudden, they plummeted. By the time Jason went missing, they were reaching their lowest point."
"Something must have caused that." Robin said as she sat on the carpeted ground of the living room at two in the morning, tapping a pen to her head idly as she thought. "When did Daniel Thompson get arrested?"
"Last year. He was let out."
"Right. So he's still around."
He took a brief moment to think, looking over the evidence with her as he frowned.
"And you're positive it's not those boys?"
"Absolutely. Leo wasn't even in this city at the time, Fox, Oscar and Joel have no relation to Jason and Fox was dealing with his own personal issues at the time, the most viable is Ryan but his motive is loose and he's too sympathetic, he wouldn't kill his friend. If he had that sort of guilt, he'd have turned himself in already."
"You seem happy about that. They're pretty close friends of yours, huh?"
"Yeah," she beamed, "they're all really nice. Archie doesn't like them much, but they've helped me a bunch."
"I'm glad to see you have friends you can rely on," he smiled, "you've spent way too much time having to be an adult. Take the opportunities you get to act your age while you can."
She nodded, agreeing without hesitation.
"I should probably say," Robin said, glancing up from her work as she decided that she was going to trust Roderick. "They know who I am."
"That boy, Ryan. Did he tell people? Has he been going around talking about it-?"
"No," she shook her head. "Leo knew first, he figured it out. Still, he didn't know who I was before that point and he has one of the clearest alibis in all of this. Ryan found out from me, he offered to tell the others."
"You seem relieved."
"I am," she admitted, "I feel horrible having to lie to them all about who I am. They trust me with a lot of information, and it's like I just throw it back in their faces whenever I tell them a lie. Plus, I get to be myself with them all. It's a nice break."
"I'm glad. I know it's difficult for you, especially recently with the media that's on you."
She smiled, glad he wasn't getting frustrated over the news like she knew Archie would be. She understood why he got so bothered, he worried about things much more, he wanted her to be safe from worry but how was she going to do that if there was always a risk of her identity being revealed?
The boys had been calling and texting her every so often, checking to see if she was okay, if she was coming back soon and if she had eaten. There were times when she ignored them, too lost in her work to even realise that her phone was ringing. But they seemed to understand and didn't get upset. She also made sure to put a small amount of time aside to call Joel herself and make sure he was okay, which thankfully he was. Though, none of them mentioned who she was, there wasn't the shock in their voices and fumbling over different names they didn't know to call her. But, Ryan had told her that he told them and she was going trust that he had.
"I think we're looking for multiple people," Robin went back to working, knowing that if she ended up thinking about Ryan, she would only get too distracted by worry. "If we can track Daniel Thompson, that would be a start. I think he might have been one of the people at the hotel. I also think there's two others involved. A student and maybe a police officer."
Roderick nodded, sinking down into his seat as she went over everything she had found, deciding to lose herself to work for another hour before she eventually lost her focus.
Which she did, only, much earlier than she expected.
She was about to move onto another file of evidence before she heard her phone ring, pulling her back to the world around her as she glanced towards the phone on the ground beside her.
Leo.
She debated whether to answer or not for only a moment, figuring that now she stopped working, she may as well have answered.
As she brought the phone to her ear, Roderick left to the kitchen, going to make himself a coffee while she talked.
"Leo, hi," Robin greeted the boy with a slightly groggy voice, sounding as though she had just woken up. In reality, she just lost herself in her head for a while, which was near enough the same thing as sleeping... or not.
"Hey," he greeted back, letting a long breath escape him as if he was worried that she wouldn't pick up at all. Which, truthfully, was a valid concern. "Just checking in, you weren't busy, were you?"
"No, no, don't worry," she hummed, pushing herself back and away from her work for a while to take a proper break that she desperately needed. "I needed a break anyway."
Leo had quickly figured out that her disappearance was related to her work, and then, after seeing the news articles with headlines like 'White loses her track' and 'Hazel White's Slow Case', he figured that it was because, as the news articles had said, she was wasting too much time. Then of course came Ryan's warning with a brief mention of the threats.
"You're taking care of yourself, right? We're kinda worried."
"Yeah, mostly," she said, sinking back so she was resting her head against the arm of the couch. "I haven't slept much at all, but that was expected."
"How much sleep have you gotten?"
"Uh," she paused, thinking about it for just a moment, but she quickly figured it out, "like, seven hours? Eight?"
"In a whole week?"
"...Yeah..." She hesitated, "but if you think about it, eight hours is 480 minutes, and 480 minutes is 28800 seconds, that's a lot of-"
"Robin!" Roderick yelled from the kitchen, followed by a soft laugh. "Now isn't the time for the calculator brain."
"Sorry!" She turned back to the phone, "I'm okay, I promise."
He went quiet for just a second, probably to think about his next words as she took a moment to stare up at the ceiling and clear her endlessly busy mind. But her mind was always cruel to her, and instead, she only gathered more questions which brought her stomach a twist of anxiety over a concern she didn't want to say or think about. But, she had to think about it.
"I have a question."
"Shoot."
"Okay, so just so you know, I don't suspect any of you. Okay? But, I need to know if any of you ever told anybody about me. At all. Like, not even about the whole detective thing but, y'know, what bus I get home, where I am at any moment in time. You never read my notebook, right?" she began, fiddling with her sleeve as she spoke, "It's just..."
"The threats?"
"Yeah. They aren't making much sense to me right now. I don't know how anybody would know the things that I was doing and since the threats were in my locker, I can only assume it was a student, y'know?"
"Ah, right," he caught on quickly, "I promise you, we didn't tell anybody anything, we didn't touch your notebook. Nothing. We keep our personal stuff to ourselves, you know how many people tend to trail after us. And, again, I don't think you were overly obvious about who you were so it's not like somebody could just guess. I could only tell because I spent so much time with you."
"Right. I just wanted to be completely sure." she sank down as Roderick came back, now with a fresh mug of coffee. He dropped onto the couch, tired after his day and went over his own work about investigations she wasn't involved in. "Have you ever seen anything at Southblock Hotel?"
"That place?" He asked, thinking back to recall anything he could. "I don't know, not really. People tend to avoid it, they say it's haunted and dangerous."
"Haunted?"
"Yeah, like figures in windows and that sort of thing. I think it's just people hiding out there, honestly. I've seen Ricky and his friends go in once or twice, so I avoid the place like the plague."
Another point to Ricky. It felt so ridiculously obvious, but it wasn't just him. Was she really left with so few options that the only outcome would be dangerous? She needed to hear from Ricky directly, but every time she heard his voice it was-
She stopped.
When had she heard his voice? She knew his voice now, she was sure she heard it once and time and time again. She recalled every single time she heard his voice, when he yelled down the street calling her a bitch, when he told her he would kill her, in the hotel... but where else? When did she hear him?
"Wait..." She sat up, rubbing her eyes as she really thought about it. Then, quickly she turned to face Roderick, then to her notes, then to her phone and back to Roderick.
"Roddie."
"Robin."
"I know where Daniel Thompson is."
"What? Where?" He was sitting up now, his coffee immediately being set down as he widened his eyes. It came from seemingly nowhere, but they had been trying to track him for so long. They couldn't pinpoint it exactly. But they knew if they had him, if they could say for sure that he was in the city, then there was some semblance of a theory that worked.
"I need to be sure," She sat up, growing more and more hopeful in the investigation she thought for so long would end at nothing. "But I'll get his address."
"Don't do anything reckless."
She smiled brightly before going back to the phone call, reminded by the subtle hum that Leo was still there.
"Thanks, Leo," she grew enthusiastic, bringing energy to her voice even at a late hour.
"No problem," he said with a small laugh, glad to have been able to help her where he could. "Oh."
"Oh?"
"I forgot to ask," he sat up, the sound of a squeaking chair echoing around him, "are you coming to the firework festival tomorrow?"
"...Tomorrow...?"
"Yeah, did you forget?"
"Yeah," she admitted, a little bothered by that fact. She had been so distracted by work, she forgot it was even a thing. Which meant it was the last day of school before the holiday...
"Oh God."
"Is something wrong?"
"I'll be there, I promise," she gasped, growing frantic, "Do you know if Ricky will be there?"
"I'm pretty sure he will be, he's a backup player on the team. He likes to steal the fireworks every year too."
"Okay... I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow, Leo."
"Alright, see ya, Tweetie. Try and get some rest."
"You too," she returned before ending the conversation and falling into panic.
She glanced around frantically, realising that her time was far more limited than she first thought. The holiday, as much as she would like to have one, was not good. She had hoped to find the criminals before then, knowing that things would only get more difficult while students weren't in school. How was she supposed to gather anything when they're not around to gather things from?
And what about the threats? She knew she was close to the end of the time limit, they would get sick of her and eventually they would find a time to get her. She hoped this wasn't it.
Roderick watched, seeing her go through evidence, scanning pages and pictures as she tried to come to a decision.
"What're you thinking?" Roderick asked, hoping to get a better idea of what was going on in her head.
"I need to have somebody taken into custody. Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" He repeated before he sat up, realising that he wasn't just hearing things. "Tomorrow!?"
"It's the holiday after tomorrow, things will have to stop for a while and we don't have that time. They could do more in that time and we can't risk it, it'll only confuse things. I'm running out of time." She shook her head, desperate to figure out what she was going to do. "I think... I think we might need to risk an arrest."
"Are you sure?" He sat on the edge of his seat, shaking his head as he realised how against arresting people she was, especially when she wasn't completely sure whether or not they were to blame. It was why she got in so much trouble, she went to confront them first, she risked herself to find out if they were a danger. "You're positive?"
"...Yeah." She nodded, feeling her stomach twist. "I'll look through everything again, but, I think this is all we can do. I have enough evidence to make an arrest and hold him for at least a few hours of questioning on drug charges and assault. But I'll need to get Daniel's address too. Can we get them at the same time? Stop them from talking to each other?"
He nodded, accepting her hesitant reassurance that this was what she wanted to do. It was her case, if this was what she thought was best, he would have to do it.
"I'll explain everything tomorrow," she picked herself up, gathering all of her things as she desperately tried to work without stopping, "I'll have a plan. Okay?"
"Okay." He agreed, trusting her.
"Roddie, Roddie, Roddie!"
"What's going on, why do you look so excited? Has something happened?"
"I found it!" She flailed, bouncing around the house excitedly as lunchtime rolled by.
She looked awful, like she hadn't slept in days. But, she didn't feel as terrible as she should have, probably because Roderick had been making sure she was healthy and eating. If it wasn't for him, she probably wouldn't have gotten any sleep at all.
He stood in the kitchen, home for just a short while on his break to check on her.
"Your expression is confusing me a bit," he announced, leaning down to inspect her face which shifted every few seconds from a grin to a wavering smile and furrowing eyebrows, "you look happy but annoyed."
"That's how I feel," she nodded, "things were way more obvious than I thought and something was stopping me from seeing it."
"What's the plan for tonight then?"
"Two locations." She said, handing him a scrap slip of paper she had written on. "This is the flat Daniel lives in, the same one I was pushed down the stairs at. He lives above the woman who pushed me. Ricky visited. When I was pushed, I heard him. He's the reason I went in there in the first place and I heard him talking to Daniel, the same guy who I heard at the hotel. He lives there."
"And the second location?"
"The school. Just wait outside of it and look for this guy-" she handed him a file with the details written in before continuing her sentence. "He'll be there."
"Him?" He raised an eyebrow, watching as she nodded in certainty.
"I don't know how he'll react when I confront him, but I want to try and get as much information as I can before he is officially taken in. But, he's kinda aggressive."
"Please be careful."
"I have to get ready, there are still things I need to figure out."
"I'll make sure I'm there," he announced, nodding firmly.
She smiled brightly, happy to see things come to what looked to be an end. The relief that filled her was almost sickening, it was like she hadn't felt it in so long, it was overwhelming. Like a sour taste that wouldn't leave the tip of her tongue.
She still didn't know what would happen once this was all over. Maybe she would go back to the way things were, she could have fun solving crimes with Archie and hopefully have friends to back her up. Maybe she would give up being a detective for the sake of her own well being. But even then, she could rest knowing that Archie wouldn't have to constantly worry over her. At least she would be able to end this mess... she hoped.