Mason walked into the precinct with determination in every single step. After years of having nothing on Elliot, he finally had someone working underneath him and he wasn't going to allow this girl to die. No, this was a break in the case. Whatever he needed to do to keep this girl alive and talking, so be it.
Witness protection. She would qualify for that, wouldn't she? She needed to.
"Where's Castellani's worker girl, I need to speak with her." He asked Richard as soon as the older man had passed by him. He looked exhausted with his gray hair not even combed back as it would usually be. His button was off too, the side of his collar higher than the other, but Mason didn't bring it up. The guy had a rough night, just like Mason had. The only difference is that Mason was younger and the excitement of it all sent adrenaline through his veins.
"Who? Oh, that Vanessa girl..." He said in sudden realization, his expression turning sour almost immediately. "Listen, Mason..." He started off, Mason shaking his head.
"Don't you dare say it..."
"She's dead." Richard continued, placing the box of papers that he had been carrying down. "I don't know how he fucking does it, they're in the cell all night!"
"There's no way. There must be a cop working for him, that's the only way to explain it!" Mason, now frustrated, slammed his hands on the desk and sat in his chair. "How the hell-!"
Richard just shrugged and looked through the files that were in the box. "I have something for you though. It might make up for this situation."
Suddenly, a file was tossed on on the desk in front of Mason. Confused, he took it and opened it.
"Cyrus Lee Morrison."
"Who-"
"Cyan. From what his foster parents told me, that's what his real name is. Although they haven't seen him in years, he ran away from home when he was young."
Mason sat back in his seat as he looked over the file, a picture of Cyan as a teen in the corner. "How does a foster child end up in the hands of a drug lord?" He muttered mostly to himself. The file on Cyan was scarce considering that he couldn't even be found.
"How do we find him?"
"When he's with Elliot? We probably won't." Richard replied flatly, leaning on the desk. "But apparently he does have friends. Why don't we just find them."
Mason held his head. "And how would we do that? We didn't even know this guy existed until last night."
"Well, Vanessa had a cell phone at the scene. We can go through that first."
With a nod, Mason got up and followed Richard into the evidence room, going through everything until he found the girl's phone.
"His number might not be in there," Mason said as his partner turned the device on and began going through the contacts. For a while, they were just reading names until it had reached the end of the list. There wasn't a Cyan in it.
"Maybe it's codenamed. We get a lot of that."
"We'll run all of the phone numbers and see if anything is recognizable. Also, check to see if she made any outgoing calls while in here."
Richard placed the phone back in the evidence box and nodded as he headed out. "Okay, I'll try to get some of that done today. You on the other hand. Find out more about Cyan. Go talk to his foster parents some more or something. Better yet, go find his friends."
Mason sighed and nodded, knowing that this day was going to be hell. At least at the end of this entire case, maybe he'll be able to catch Elliot.
"Yeah, I'll try to get that," Mason said and walked back out of the room. Going over to his desk, he dropped down, running a hand through the dark strands that had fallen into his eyes again. Opening the file once again, he found the number of Cyan's old caseworker and quickly reached for the phone to dial it.
"Department of Human Services, Hannah Campbell speaking."
"Hello Ms. Campbell, this is detective Reynolds speaking. I have a couple of questions about a case you had concerning a Cyrus Lee Morrison?"
"Morrison? Gosh, that was years ago but I think I do remember him, a nice young man. Very well-mannered and he never got in much trouble. Ran away from his foster home though..." She started to trail off, the sound of papers flipping on the line. "Yes! January 20th, Cyrus was reported missing."
"Well, can you tell me about the foster parents?"
"Hm. They were respected by everyone they knew. Both Catholic and very involved with their church. They were devastated when he left, for months they looked for him."
Mason ran his finger along the edge of the desk, wondering what could have possibly gone wrong for Cyan to just run away from his home.
"Was there abuse?"
"Abuse? Absolutely not, again, they were very religious."
"Religion means nothing, Ms. Campbell. When you visited them, was there anything suspicious happening? Any marks, any hesitation, anything?" Mason asked.
"Mr. Reynolds, I assure you, Cyrus was perfectly safe in that house. I don't know why he left, there were background checks and checkups every week and every week Cyrus was perfectly fine. His parents were fine. He even had an older brother who was perfectly fine in that house." She tried to explain and yet all Mason focused on was the part about the older brother.
"Can I have the name of the older brother?"
"What is this even about?" She questioned.
"We believe that Cyrus is involved with illegal activities and we're just trying to find out more information about him to get some type of lead to where he is. Now his brother's name?"
"Carter. Carter Jacobs. We had first gone to question him when Cyrus had left but he had no idea where the boy had gone either. Apparently, they weren't that close."
"How long has Cyrus been in that specific home with Carter?"
"Since he was nine or ten."
Mason spun in his chair slightly, turning to his computer and going into the police database and searching up Carter's name. Unfortunately, nothing came up except for some petty larceny when the guy was thirteen.
"Okay, any friends or other relatives that he has outside of the state? Anything that isn't already in his file?"
"No, I'm sorry. We found Cyrus in a car, alone at the age of seven. He was a very reserved child and didn't speak much about his past. What we do know is that his father is unknown and his mother is a criminal. There's nothing more that we have on him after he got into the system, I'm sorry."
"Thank you for the information, I appreciate it. Have a nice afternoon." Mason politely said as he hung up, editing Cyan's file and adding his brother's name in it.
~
Mason slowed the car down in front of a tattoo parlor, the bricked building's windows covered with a large mural that caught his eye instantly. Being a sucker for street art and graffiti, he admired it for a good while as he leaned against the patrol car. Only when he remembered why he had come to the place did Mason straighten back up and head towards the building
Walking inside of the shop, the first thing that really stood out to Mason was the strong smell of rubbing alcohol. That and the sound of a needle's vibration filling the air before going quiet and a man with sleeves of tattoos coming from out of the back room. Mason held up his badge only to receive a frown and instantly, Mason wondered if he had done something.
"Anything I can do for you?" The man asked with a raised eyebrow and a distrustful look. It was probably the badge. No one ever trusted a cop.
"Yeah, are you Carter?"
"Yeah. What is this about, I have a client."
"Cyrus." He stated simply, leaning against the glass counter and looking at the different tattoo designs lined up on the wall. This guy was talented. Very talented.
"Cyan? My foster brother? Why would you come to me, I have no idea where he is and what he's up to." Carter said as he walked behind the counter.
"I'm just here to find out a couple of things about what happened in your foster home to make him run away. Do you kn-"
"Look man," Carter interrupted impatiently. "As I said earlier, I have a paying client in the back, I need to get back. Come back later after closing okay. Then I can answer any questions that you have. Is that okay?"
No, it really wasn't and yet Mason agreed to let Carter finish his work. While Mason needed answers, he wouldn't be a dick about getting them. Besides, he had all day. So he walked back out of the shop, climbed in his car and decided to kill a couple hours by watching the building and looking out for anything that seemed out of the ordinary.
Three hours had rolled past before it was closing time for Carter's shop, but Mason hadn't even noticed. In fact, he was half asleep when his window was suddenly knocked on, jerking him back into reality. Carter was there with his arms crossed and a jacket now covering his tattooed arms.
"I'm closed now. We can talk."
Mason nodded at his words, rubbing his eyes as he got out of the car and walked alongside Carter inside the shop. "You're a good artist," Mason said suddenly as he focused back on the drawings.
"Thanks." Carter sat on the stool that was behind the counter, just watching Mason as the officer looked at the walls. "You didn't wait for hours just to tell me about my drawings though."
"No. I wanted to know more about what went on in your foster home as a child. What went on with Cyan."
"Nothing really happened. We went to school, we did chores, we played games...everything was normal. We were normal. In actuality, it was kinda boring." Carter picked up a pen and played with it for a moment as he thought. "Cyan didn't get along with our dad though. Not that he abused him or anything, they just never clicked."
"Would he be a reason for Cyan to run away?"
"Who knows. I was almost eighteen when Cyan left. I didn't really care about what was going on, I was more focused on getting out of the system and doing my own thing."
Mason sighed. "So you haven't been in contact with him since that point?"
"No." Carter shoved his hands inside of his hoodie and leaned against the photo covered wall. "I haven't."
Nodding, Mason glanced over at the door, looking through the glass and at the night. "And if you did know where he was, you would tell the police right?"
"Who do you think I am? I'm free... I don't need to get involved with anything illegal that Cyan is doing."
"Who said anything about him being into illegal stuff?"
Carter narrowed his eyes at Mason before raising a brow.
"That's the only reason the police would be involved in an old missing person's case."
Mason nodded slowly as he walked towards the door. "Before Cyan went missing, was he into anything illegal?"
"No, of course not. Cyan was a little angel. An innocent and clueless angel."
Mason pursed his lips before opening the door. "The police will keep in contact. Thank you for your time."