Catherine dug out her cell phone and dialled his number. Then she quickly pressed the phone to her ear, hoping desperately that he would pick up. It had been six months since she last saw him, back at the NSSS headquarters. Every day she would try to contact him, but he never picked up. Even so, she had never stopped calling. For six months, she had never given up on him.

She sat down on her bed and waited patiently for him to answer her call. Where was he, anyway? Jenn had briefly considered asking his father for his whereabouts, but that would only complicate things. After all, she wanted to keep their relationship a secret. Her question would surely raise suspicions in the agency.

Her heart jumped with joy when he answered the phone. Finally. After half a year, she had finally managed to reach him.

"Hello ..." a rough voice slurred through the phone.

A confused frown touched her forehead. That didn't sound much like him. "Ben? Is that you?"

"No, this is the president of the United States," he boomed over the phone, laughing loudly at his own silly joke.

Yes, this was definitely Ben's voice. But why was he acting like this? He sounded ... drunk.

"Ben, where are you?" Catherine asked in a worried tone. She was already guessing that he was in a nightclub or something. She could hear the loud music blaring in the background through the phone.

"Me? Well, I'm in a place where no one can find me," Ben yelled over the loud music. Then he burst into fits of laughter again. "No one can find me ..." He started singing an unfamiliar song at the top of his lungs.

"Ben!" she shouted, trying to grab his attention. "Where have you been? Do you know how worried I am? You've been gone for more than six months, you know that?"

"Wait, you're Catherine!" he exclaimed, as if he had just recognised her voice. "You've been calling me every day," he slurred happily.

"Yes, I have," she replied, sighing patiently. What was going on with him? She knew that he had always disliked drinking. He hated alcoholics – he had said so himself. But now he was wasted. "Tell me where you are, Ben. I'll come take you home."

"Don't tell me what to do, lady," he drunkenly shouted at her, sounding annoyed. "I'm perfectly happy with where I am right now, and I don't plan to leave any sooner." He started guffawing again.

Catherine was shocked at the way he had just spoken to her. Never had she ever heard him use such a tone with anyone. What had happened to him over the last six months?

She drew in a deep breath to calm herself before speaking again. "Ben, can you please just let me know where you are right now?"

Ben made an exasperated noise. "That's it!" he exploded. "I've had enough of you. Leave me alone!"

She felt as if she'd been slapped. Why was he being like this? Was it because of something she did or said? She blinked back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. "Please, Ben, come back to me. I miss you," she pleaded, hoping that he would listen to her.

Ben uttered a string of profanities. "Gosh, get the hint, will you?" he said in a mocking tone. "Leave me alone, you clingy little bitch! And stop calling me every single day! Stop bothering me!" he barked furiously.

Hot tears brimmed over as the sharp words cut through her like a thin blade. "Why?" Her voice broke, and she couldn't trust herself to speak anymore.

"You're asking me why?" He laughed coldly as the loud background music kept blaring through the phone. "I'll tell you why! I don't need you in my life! I don't need anyone in my life! You've been nothing but an obsessive little moron! You keep calling and calling every day. Every. Single. Day. Don't you have anything better to do? Well, I do, okay? So stop being an idiot and leave me alone!"

Catherine heard a girl's shrill, high-pitched laughter through the phone before Ben hung up on her. Tears poured down her face as she realised now that it was over between them. Just like that, it was over.

Over ...

She clutched her cell phone tightly, pressing it towards her chest as the tears flowed freely. He had found himself another girl, perhaps someone less clingy than she was. She laughed bitterly as his words echoed in her mind.

Sometimes life was unpredictable and things just happened unexpectedly. He'd never said anything to her before this. They were happy together with each other before he did his disappearing act. At least she thought that Ben was truly happy when he was with her. And now suddenly it all ended within a blink of an eye.

Catherine buried her face in her pillow and let out a strangled sob. Gosh, it hurt. It hurt so much. She had always thought that she was strong enough to handle this kind of emotional pain. After all, she managed to survive the pain when her parents were brutally murdered. But it turned that she was wrong. How wrong she had been about herself ...

That night, Catherine cried herself to sleep.

~

Jenn woke up with a start. She blinked through the pool of tears in her eyes, gasping for breath. It was just a dream, she thought.

Just a dream.

"Hey, you okay?" J. Lee's sleepy voice broke through the cold silence in the room. "I tried to wake you up, but you just kept crying," she uttered drowsily. "I thought I'd accidentally hit you in my sleep."

"I'm okay now," Jenn said, her voice throaty and hoarse. "Go back to sleep." She gave her friend a light pat on the upper arm, gesturing for J. Lee not to worry about her anymore.

"If you say so," J. Lee mumbled. "We'll talk in the morning, then." She yawned and drifted back into unconsciousness.

Jenn wiped the tears off her face, sniffling. She used to have this dream after she and Ben broke up that night. Since then, the bitter memory kept replaying itself every night in her sleep. But then she remembered that the dream had stopped for more than two months already.

Why was it haunting her again now?

~

The next two days were horribly tiresome for Jenn. The dream was becoming more real and vivid, and it continued to haunt her every night. During the day, she was stuck at the hotel with Ben and Ray while J. Lee went on her stake-out on Kayla Brown. The two guys, who seemed to be good terms with each other now, were constantly trying to get her to talk even though she really didn't feel like it, and when they were not, Ben would always get on her nerves. He just kept staring at her and that truly annoyed her.

Okay, maybe it was just her. But with her losing sleep at night lately – three nights, to be exact – she could hardly blame herself for being so jumpy.

Right now Jenn was in the office, trying her best to get herself back on track on the case. It had been three days since J. Lee had found the last target, and they hadn't gotten any breakthrough in the case. Jenn knew that something was missing from the big picture here.

Whenever she needed a break from the guys, she would spend most of her time staring at the timeline of the murders, the pictures of the victims, just to see if something would leap out at her. Sometimes she would just stare off into space and let her mind stray on its own to see where it would take her.

It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. She had no idea what she was looking for, to be honest. Jenn was more stressed out than ever. If she didn't find who the killer was, Kayla Brown's life would still be in grave danger. She was starting to think that she was losing her touch now.

And Ben wasn't being much of a help today. He hadn't left his room since morning after breakfast. Jenn had asked Ray what was up with Ben. Perhaps the two guys had gotten into another quarrel again and Ben had lost the fight so now he was sulking in the bedroom. Ridiculous assumption, of course, but it was possible. However, Ray had no idea why his new found friend was acting so weird either. Ray even seemed worried about him.

"Do you want to go talk to him?" Ray asked sometime in the afternoon.

Jenn let her eyes linger on him for a while, considering his question. Then she simply replied, "No."

She had already gone soft after getting stuck under the same roof with Ben for a few days. She didn't need to make it any harder for herself by showing him care and concern. He was old enough to deal with his own problems. Period.

Ray sighed. "You still care for him. Don't act like you don't know that."

She gave a short laugh of absurdity, hiding her discomfort at his statement. "I do?" she said, raising an eyebrow nonchalantly.

"Yes," Ray answered swiftly, giving her a pointed look. "I've seen the way you look at him when he's not doing the whole creepy staring thing at you. You might try to be all professional and Frosty the snowman with him, but I can see that you've never stopped caring for him."

"Oh, so now you're an expert on human behaviourism, huh?" Jenn said, feigning amusement. She tried very hard not to let his words get to her.

"Nah." Ray waved his hand dismissively. "I'm just observing. That's all." He said, obviously seeing through her façade.

"And what else did you observe?" she asked, keeping her face neutral even though she knew that he wasn't being fooled by her.

Ray smiled half-heartedly and scratched the back of his head. "Nothing else. I figured that that's enough to tell myself to back off," he muttered, sounding slightly disgruntled.

She fell silent when he said that. Why on earth was Ray admitting his feelings to her now?

"Well, this is awkward," Ray mumbled, but he never broke eye contact with her. "Don't worry – I'm not trying to put pressure on you or anything. My point is, I think you should go talk to him, just ask to see if he's okay."

Jenn scrutinised him with a certain level of intensity, frowning in mild confusion. Her scrutiny lasted for more than a minute before she finally spoke again. "I thought the two of you hated each other's guts."

A corner of his lips curled upwards into a lopsided smile. "That's just him." Ray shrugged. "But I think that we're cool now."

Jenn let out a small sigh. "Okay. I'll go check on him on behalf of you." Smiling to herself, she got up from the couch and went into the guys' bedroom. When she got to the door, she drew in a deep breath before opening it. She could feel Ray's gaze burning through the back of her head as she entered the room.

Closing the door silently behind her, she peered around the room. At first, she thought that Ben wasn't in the room. Well, he wasn't anywhere in sight. However, Jenn continued to walk slowly towards the bed, glancing around again. Then she saw him.