Disclaimer: Don't own / Don't make money / Just want to rokk

Chapter 1 - The Lady Vanished.

"Ray, I need you to tell me you need me."

Detective Raymond Vecchio of the Chicago PD had been having an uneventful morning completing overdue paperwork at his cluttered desk until the phone rang and he heard his unofficial partner, Constable Benton Fraser's dulcet Canadian tones pronounce the startling sentence.

"Well, of course I need you, Benny, I mean..." It was awkward. Guys weren't supposed to have discussions like that, that was what a brief punch on the shoulder was for.

"No, I think you misunderstood me, Ray." The tone was urgent. "I need you to come to the consulate and tell me you need me on a case. Any case. Please?"

"Sure. What's up?" Ray asked.

"It's a long story, but to cut it short, the consulate is going to be playing host to some visiting mounties in Chicago for a conference on crime prevention techniques, and I'd rather not be here when they arrive."

Ray knew of the conference in question; it was likely to be sparsely attended by members of the Chicago PD since it didn't involve a trip to an exotic and perhaps warmer locale.

"So what's the problem? It's not like you haven't played doorman before." Ray said.

"The ah, problem." Fraser hesitated. Ray sat listening to silence, tapping his pen on the desk.

"Yeah, Benny, the problem." he finally said, running out of patience.

"Well, Ray, do you remember Inspector Catherine Wheeler?"

It was a safe bet that Fraser was not pleased to hear a hoot of laughter coming from Ray's end of the line.

The two men had met Inspector Wheeler while assigned as liaisons from Chicago on a case in Canada's North West Territories. She combined all the competency of a mid-level paper pusher with an approach to romance that had the subtlety of a water buffalo in mating season, and she had her eyes on the comely Constable Fraser.

When Ray stopped laughing, he said "All right, all right. I have a burglary to look in on after lunch. I'll swing by and rescue you from the harpy."

Fraser shuddered at the all too apposite classical reference. "Thank you kindly, Ray. I look forward to seeing you."

Ray arrived at the consulate after lunch in time to witness Constable Fraser explaining to his superior officer why he wouldn't be around to greet the VIPs that afternoon. Ever since Inspector Meg Thatcher had arrived in Chicago she had displayed hostility toward her subordinate, although Ray was unclear on quite what prompted the level of her ire.

"Constable Fraser, I know that you are off duty this afternoon, but I can't understand why you won't be flexible and help put the consulate in a good light with our visitors." Thatcher said, in a frosty tone. She was standing in Fraser's tiny office space, effectively trapping him in the room.

"Whatever the Chicago PD wants your help with is undoubtedly less important than setting the right tone for this visit."

"Yes, sir. But..." Fraser gestured vaguely.

"No buts! I can't see any good reason why you can't be here for our guests' arrival."

Ray stood watching the show. He and the Inspector did not enjoy a particularly good rapport. He might speak up, but not until Fraser ran out of things to say.

"Well, sir." Fraser looked at his feet. It irritated him how easily he became flustered in the presence of his superior officer. There was just something about her that put him on the defensive, watching every word he said.

"As you might be aware, before your arrival, I was assigned to a high profile case back home. I worked with Inspector Wheeler, and, uh, she and I, well. We didn't form the best-. What I'm trying to say is. Sir, I would rather not-"

Inspector Thatcher clucked impatiently. She had read Fraser's file and was aware that he had worked with Inspector Wheeler, and she could sympathize with Wheeler. The man was frequently infuriating. No doubt he had done something completely inscrutable but remarkably annoying to get on this Wheeler's nerves. And why was he turning that alarming shade of red?

Ray decided it was time to intervene.

"Hey, Inspector, hey, Frase, ready to roll? Criminals to catch. No time to stand around." He smiled broadly but insincerely at Thatcher.

Fraser looked hopefully at Thatcher.

"Oh, fine. Go." she said. She wasn't sure why she'd given in. It couldn't be the wounded puppy look in his eyes. She was getting soft. "But remember you need to be back this evening for the formal reception."

"Yes, sir!" Fraser saluted, and marched at double time out of the office.

The apartment building where the burglary Ray was assigned to had taken place was a low three story block in a depressing beige concrete design scheme. Around it were other similarly grim looking apartment buildings, and a number of small convenience stores, dry cleaners and take-out restaurants with signs in English and Cyrillic. The neighborhood had a tired air, a sense that things had been the same way for decades and weren't likely to liven up any time soon.

The interview with the residents of the burgled apartment, on the second floor of the building, was slow. An elderly couple, they appeared frightened and hesitant to talk to the police, even though their apartment had been turned upside down. The husband's English was better than the wife's, but it took a generous helping of Benton's patience to leaven Ray's frustration at how little information the man was prepared to part with.

"Waste of time." Ray said, as they turned down the green painted corridor leading away from the small apartment. "You can tell they don't want to talk to outsiders."

"I agree, Ray." Benton said, with a wry twist of his lips. "They seemed to be afraid of us, just because of our position of authority. I imagine it must be hard to lose habits learned in a police state." He twisted his hat in his hands. "However, it will make it difficult to locate the perpetrator of this particular crime."

The two men made their way toward the stairs. Ray was turning to descend when he noticed Benton was no longer with him. At the end of the corridor, where the light-bulb in the overhead light was burned out, Benton had noticed a human figure sitting with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.

Benton crouched down beside the young woman.

"Ma'am," he said, quietly. "Is everything all right?"

The young woman looked up. The dim light caught a slight, slim face with shadowed hollows under high cheekbones and a glint of hazel eyes.

"Am I mad?" she asked, then reiterating, "Do I look mad to you?"

Benton Fraser gave the unknown young woman a long, considering look. His eyes had adjusted to the relative lack of light. She looked very young, underfed, unconventionally pretty, in need of a bath, confused and slightly scared.

"No." he said. "No, I don't think you look mad."

Ray shuffled his feet impatiently. It was just like Fraser to find a stray in need of help. Not that he didn't want to help the young woman, but he would consider it a miracle if Fraser could go a single day without running across someone who he felt obliged to rescue from whatever odd circumstance they found themselves in.

The young woman was looking at Benton doubtfully. He seemed sincere and unthreatening. She didn't recognize the uniform coat that he wore, but he was not a city cop looking to move her along for sleeping in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he didn't think she looked mad. She took a deep breath.

"Well, I guess, if I'm not mad, everything's probably not all right." The young woman examined her grubby fingernails. "I came here looking for, well, a friend. And she's not here."

Ray spoke. "Missing persons case?" he asked.

"I guess." she sounded doubtful, peering up at Ray through the bangs that were the longest part of her otherwise cropped dark hair.

"What's the name of this friend?" Ray asked.

"Alina Maximovna Petrov." The name rolled lyrically off the young woman's tongue. "But I always called her Grandma. She was my foster mom."

Ray looked at Benton. "We can call it in, see if there's anything in the system." he said.

"That's not all, though." said the young woman, her voice gaining a sharp edge. "She's not just missing. So is her apartment. This is where she used to live." She reached back to touch the blank, dusty plaster wall behind her. "It's gone, and she's gone, and everyone here says that there was never an apartment here and there was never a Mrs. Petrov here and they look at me like I'm crazy and maybe I am crazy, do you think so now, am I mad?"

The words came out in a rush, her eyes growing wider and more alarmed. She was fidgeting like a wild animal catching the scent of a predator.

The air was tense. Ray knew that the wrong words would come out if he tried to comfort the young woman, whose sanity, frankly, he had to question. He held his breath.

Benton held eye contact with the woman. He spoke slowly and calmly. "I still don't think that you look mad. I think that something extremely strange is going on, and I think that you look tired and hungry, and upset. It's natural that you would be upset. But I think that if you'll let us, my partner and I can help you."

Her eyes searched his again, and found nothing but sincerity and empathy.

Benton spoke again. "I think introductions are in order. I'm Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I'll explain later why I'm in Chicago. And this is Detective Raymond Vecchio of the Chicago Police Department."

"Pleased to meet you." Ray said, with only a trace of irony in his voice.

The prosaic introduction seemed to steady the young woman. Perhaps she could trust these men to help. "I'm Stephanie, Stephanie Morisenne. But," she said, a glimmer of teeth showing in the gloom, "friends call me 'Zilla. As in, destroy Tokyo."

Ray laughed. "Nice." he said. "Always good to see kids enjoying the classics."

Benton rose to his feet and smoothed the creases at the knees of his uniform, then gave Stephanie a hand to get to her feet. She looked even smaller standing up, her petite frame contrasting with the giant-lizard nickname.

"Well, you know," Stephanie said, her voice sounding less hesitant, "I have a temper."

"Me too, Zilla, me too." Ray said. Damn, was he bonding with one of Fraser's strays? He mentally kicked himself. This was how trouble started.

"You know, Ray, in all the excitement at the consulate, I didn't have lunch. I saw an interesting little Polish cafe on our way here. Perhaps we could...?" he turned to include Stephanie in the invitation. "My treat, of course."

Ray rolled his eyes behind Stephanie's head. She was rather transparently trying to decide if her pride would allow her to accept lunch at someone else's expense. Benton hadn't exactly been subtle in his maneuvering.

"Nah, Benny, I lost that one bet the other week, remember, it's my turn to get it."

The two managed to herd Stephanie down the stairs and into the Polish cafe, all the while arguing vocally over a fictitious bet. None of them happened to notice a man loitering near the mailboxes in the lobby, watching them leave.

Over hot borscht and bread, Stephanie filled out more of her story. "Mom and my brother and I used to live here, only sometimes, Mom, you know, couldn't keep things together and we'd end up being fostered. Grandma Petrov always took me in. So, anyways, a few years ago Mom decides we're getting a fresh start and heads to Indianapolis."

The story was interspersed with hearty slurps of the soup. Her pale face was beginning to gain some color.

"So, I guess Indianapolis wasn't, like, that much of a fresh start. Mom has some, you know, 'bad habits.'" There was a combination of old bitterness, resignation, and dark humor in her tone of voice. "So, yeah, we ended up back in foster homes. Well, my brother still is, but I figured seventeen is old enough to take off."

Ray raised his eyebrows. Stephanie looked younger than seventeen in many ways, but her eyes looked decades older, like she'd already seen too much of the world.

Stephanie pulled an envelope from her pocket. "I was going to show Grandma Petrov this. It's an acceptance letter for a job." There was pride and excitement in her voice. "I was just, you know, coming through Chicago on the way to New York to start working."

She held out the letter to Benton, who took it and read it carefully. He passed it to Ray, with a sideways glance. Ray read it and looked up, his face carefully impassive. "You got a modeling gig?"

"Isn't it great?" Stephanie said, excitement animating her and taking some of the age out of her eyes. "I saw an ad in the paper so I sent some photos and they want me to start next week. I wrote Grandma Petrov and she wrote back and told me I'd better stop by and see her if I was coming this way."

She was too full of life and happiness at the opportunity she'd found to register a singular lack of enthusiasm from her dining companions. Although, with facial features that suggested Eurasian heritage and fine bones, she was a pretty girl, it seemed unlikely at once to Benton and Ray that she had the kind of height or stature that was expected in the world of haute couture modeling.

Stephanie excused herself to go to the bathroom, and Benton turned to Ray.

"Ray, it's not unheard of for girls in isolated villages back home to be lured to the big city with all sorts of promises that turn out to be falsehoods." he said, sounding distressed.

Ray nodded. "I hear you." he said. "Dollars to donuts that's a bad racket she's signed on for. Maybe if we can find this Grandma Petrov she can talk some sense into her." He wondered just how much his unworldly partner understood about the life those girls ended up in.

When Stephanie came back and sat down, Ray ordered coffee and poppy seed cake, figuring Stephanie still looked underfed, and started asking some questions.

"So, Zilla, you want to tell us about Mrs. Petrov?" he asked.

Stephanie fidgeted for a bit, stacking up sugar packets and then pushing them over.

"Well, um. Okay, when I was first sent to foster with her I thought she was a bitch." Stephanie looked up from the sugar packet sculpture to see if she'd shocked the men by swearing, but they were both merely looking interested.

"I mean, yeah, I call her grandma now, but I was like, eleven and a total brat when she first took me in, and she was like totally hardcore schoolwork and curfews and all that."

The coffee arrived and Stephanie loaded hers up with sugar, delaying having to talk a little longer.

"So, anyway." she eventually continued. "She was like, do your homework, don't run around with the druggies, just say no, this real tough woman, not what you'd think of as a grandma type at all, she always wore these grey pantsuits and big dark rimmed glasses."

Benton noticed that Stephanie was absentmindedly playing with a finely knit grey shawl that was wrapped between her jacket and her sweater.

"Did Mrs. Petrov knit that for you?" he asked.

Stephanie looked startled, then looked down at her hand. "Oh, this. Well, she was always knitting stuff, that was the only grandma thing about her, you know. She gave me this, but she knit it a few years ago, her eyesight wasn't so good by the time I knew her."

"May I look at it?" Benton asked politely. Stephanie hesitated. It was her most precious possession. Still, so far this strange man had been worthy of trust. She took the shawl off and passed it over the table to him. It was quite big, the size concealed by how fine it was. It had looked much smaller scrunched up under her jacket.

Benton examined the handiwork closely and delicately sniffed the fabric. He was most interested. Mrs. Petrov was becoming more concrete in his mind and less of a possibly imaginary figure.

"I assume that Mrs. Petrov was an émigré from the Soviet Union." Benton said.

"That's right." Stephanie confirmed. Of course, the name gave it away, not to mention the apartment building in the Russian neighborhood.

"And I'm guessing that she spent some time in Alaska on her way here."

Stephanie jumped back in her chair, looking frightened.

"Wait, how did you know? Who are you? Where's Grandma Petrov? What's going on?"

Ray gestured to her as if to say "hold on."

"Yeah, Benny, how did you figure that out?" he asked, keeping his tone casual in an attempt to calm the easily startled girl.

"Well, Ray, it's quite simple. This shawl is knit out of yarn spun from the fine under-down of the arctic musk-ox, known as qiviut. It's only harvested in Alaska, mostly by Native Alaskan women."

He held the shawl up to the light. "And you see, this lacework motif here closely resembles a traditional beadwork pattern. It's very unusual for anyone but the women of a particular village to use a pattern like that. Each village has their own set of motifs."

Ray and Stephanie were both looking at Benton as if he'd sprouted a second head or a pair of wings. Ray should have been used to Benton's encyclopedic knowledge of the far north, but it still caught him off guard.

"Alaska's not even in Canada, Benny." he said, aware that it was a complete non-sequitur even as he said it. Benton gave him a rather pitying look.

"Ray, it's not exactly an arcane piece of information. The first nation tribes do talk across international borders, you know."

Stephanie's heart had stopped pounding. Something weird was going on, but she was almost certain that this man did not have prior involvement with Mrs. Petrov's disappearance.

"Yes," she said. "Grandma Petrov did spend time in Alaska, after she left Russia in the sixties. It was a crazy story, you know, like out of a movie. You gotta hear her tell it herself, though she mostly doesn't talk about it, except if you, you know, know her really well."

It was clear to Ray that whatever was happening, the girl was not making up the existence of this Mrs. Petrov. He grasped at the simplest explanation.

"Are you sure you were looking for her in the right apartment building?" he asked.

Stephanie glanced at him disdainfully. "Do I look like an idiot? I know what building I used to live in. I can prove it, too. I took the greyhound here and got in like, way too late to crash at Grandma Petrov's so I got a cheap hotel room. I have a package back there from her that arrived back at the last place I was living, right before I left. It's got her return address and everything. I can show you."

"A return address for an apartment that doesn't exist. Yup, I'd like to see that." Ray said, calling for the check.

Again, Stephanie hesitated about getting in a car with these men, and letting them know where she was staying, but it was hard not to like the partners.

When they arrived at the cheap first floor room she was staying in near the greyhound station, the door was open, with no sign of forced entry. Ray pulled his gun and Benton gently pushed Stephanie flat against the wall beside the door, as Ray poked his head into the room. The small, dingy room was trashed, and there was a man in dark clothing going through Stephanie's suitcase, a package in one hand.

"Hey!" Ray said loudly. The man turned around and dropped the package, heading for the window at the back of the room. He crashed through it into a small lane. Benton had already doubled around behind the building and was in pursuit.

Author's Note: This is set early in Season 2. If you've read Territory, you already met the lovely Inspector Wheeler. This is not exactly a sequel but it does occur in the same timeline/universe as Territory. If you haven't read it, don't worry, she's rather straightforward. I hold CottageGhost responsible for Wheeler turning up in Chicago ;) I owe much of the inspiration for the central plot to Hitchcock, because it's worth stealing from the best, and it'd be negligent not to name-check Dickens. Yo, Charles. Oh, and I blame Neal Stephenson for later events in the story. Hope I piqued your interest enough to stick around for chapter 2!