The sounds of the office ricocheted in Nora Pyne's head, bouncing from one ear to the other then banging around creating a cacophony that echoed through her entire body. Someone must be getting promoted, married, or having a baby. Those were the only things that could cause more noise than solving a big case. Knowing that if she didn't escape the noise she would spew her morning coffee all over her desk, Nora decided to wash her face and enjoy the quiet of the restroom.

As she pushed her chair back from the desk her phone rang, forcing itself into an already too loud room. Nora hesitated, considering letting it continue ringing until the caller gave up. Last night's Jameson made the sound unbearable and after only a few rings Nora reached for the phone.

"Agent Pyne," she said into the receiver.

She could hear the breath on the other end coming slow and hard. She looked around the office and wondered why the hell they didn't fix the blinking fluorescent light over the water cooler or her squeaking chair for that matter.

"Agent Nora Pyne?" The voice was deep and gravelly enough to pull her back to the call and make her heart beat a little faster.

"Yes, this is Agent Pyne. Who is this?"

Nothing.

“This is Agent Nora Pyne. Who am I speaking with?”

Again, nothing.

“Who is this?” She tried one last time.

"I know a secret."

Nora sat down and reached for the small pad and pen lying beneath a stack of papers. A secret. Another nut job thinking they had some important and highly sensitive government information no doubt.

"What's your name?" Nora asked.

"All you need to know is I've finished with her and tucked her in all cozy."

"Finished with who?"

Silence met her question.

"Finished with who?" Nora asked again.

The breathing went silent.

She waited a moment until the buzz of an empty line came over through the earpiece. Nora slammed the receiver down and rubbed her hand across her forehead. Her face was burning, but her skin was sticky and cool.

"Morning, Nora." Nora's partner, Jeff Dukes, sat one of the two cups of coffee in his hands on her desk.

She jerked her head up and shouted to no one and everyone, "And the air conditioner. Why won't they fix the fucking air conditioner?"

Knowing her annoyance was unfounded, but feeling it anyway, Nora slammed her pen onto her desk and let out a frustrated groan.

"Rough night? You look a little pale," he said.

Nora glared at him. Dukes didn't deserve her ire, but there it was and it burned in her belly like the lake of fire in the pits of the deepest, darkest hell. Jeff wasn't Bill. He would never be Bill. Yet here he was bringing her coffee and sitting in Bill's chair, at Bill's desk. In an attempt to soften her anger, her hand acted out of habit, going to her neck and rubbing the single gold ball on her necklace. A gift from Bill when they solved their first case together.

"I just got a weird call," she said, sipping the coffee and trying to hide her embarrassment.

Dukes leaned back in his chair and smiled, showing all his teeth. "An admirer?"

“Just a weirdo.”

She relayed the brief phone conversation to him and watched the smile fade from his face. “That definitely qualifies as weird.”

Nora caught herself tapping the fingers of her right hand on an empty spot on her desk. This was the one tell she could not control, she was angry, but didn’t know why.

“Just some nutter wasting valuable department time," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. “So what’s all the departmental ruckus about?”

“Willman’s wife had the baby last night. Boy.”

“And he showed up today?” Nora scoffed, shaking her head. “Well on his way to Father of the Year.”

“Willman’s a good guy. Solid agent. Dedicated,” Dukes said, sipping his coffee and watching the celebration from the rim of his cup.

“Pyne. Dukes. Can I speak with you?” Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Hugo Avalos called from the door of his office.

Nora picked up her coffee and motioned for Dukes to follow as she made her way across the room to where Avalos sat at his desk, pecking at his typewriter.

Dukes plopped into one of the chairs across from the large wooden desk and settled into what Nora thought of as the Good Ol’ Boy position, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, hands clasped, and a smile that said, “Whatever it is, buddy, I’m on your side.”

Nora remained standing.

Avalos stopped stabbing at the keys of the typewriter and said, “Dukes mentioned you two haven’t picked up a cold case lately. So, here you go.” He pulled a small stack of files out of his desk drawer and fanned them on the corner of his desk. “Your choice.”

There were few things worse than a cold case in Nora’s mind. She had been avoiding them on purpose, of course Dukes ‘mentioned’ they didn’t have one. Anything to get ahead.

Nora shot him a hard glance before reaching out to pull one of the files from the stack. “Thank you, sir.”

“I’ll expect an update on your progress, let’s say, one week from today.”

Forcing a smile, Nora turned and left the room. She could hear the two men exchanging pleasantries as she walked off. Damn them. Cold cases were rarely solved and the leads were near impossible to track down or make sense of. And one week! What could possibly be done in a week?

Dukes scurried up behind her.

“So...about that,” he said.

“Just shut up.”

“I ran into him in the parking lot last night and it just came up. I wasn’t looking to get --”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? Here we are. With an old case that will likely never be solved and a week until we report.”

Maybe Dukes was smarter than she gave him credit for. He just nodded his head, refraining from saying anything else.

“I need food,” Nora said. “Let’s go grab breakfast at Tilly’s. We can look over the file there.”

"Good call, Red. I just need to hit the head first."

Nora remembered her first day as a special agent. She strode into the office unsure of what to expect. She had worked hard for this, and felt she deserved it, but she also knew she was young and her colleagues may not see things the same way. As she made her way to her new desk she realized it was business as usual. Phones rang, papers shuffled, and no one cared that she was there.

Feeling hopeful, she began placing a few things on her desk. Bill came into the room in the manner of an elephant entering an elevator. He filled every inch of it.

"Hey, I'm your new partner, Bill Graves," he said, reaching out a huge, meaty hand. "Call me Bill or Graves. Anything but sir or Mr. Graves."

Nora took it in hers and, amazed at the softness of such a hand, said, "Nora, Nora Pyne."

"With hair like that? Nah!" he said, "You're a Red if I've ever seen one. You don't mind if I call you Red?"

"Actually, I prefer--"

"Great! Red it is!"

And Red it was for the seven years they were partners.

Snapping out of her thoughts Nora looked at Dukes and said, "It's Nora or it's Pyne. There is no Red," before she turned and walked outside.

The parking lot of the Constellation branch of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was in better repair than the actual building. The clean landscaping and pristine facade was intended to make people feel safe and comfortable. The problem was as soon as they opened the door they were slapped with the smell of mildew, stale coffee, and the overworked, chain smoking secretary, Paula. Nora had once found these aspects of the office charming, but they had soured in the last few months.

She was wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to wipe away the anxiety she felt along with the tears, when Dukes rushed out the doors and straight for her.

"You got a call right after you left," he said.

"Who was it?" Nora asked.

"No name."

"And you didn't send for me?"

"No time. Caller wouldn’t wait. He did leave a message though." Jeff pulled a slip of paper from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and read, "Nora, Nora quite contrary, I’m done and now she’s freshly buried. Hurry, hurry for there are beasts. Wait too long and on her flesh they'll feast."

Feeling her face burn, Nora snatched the paper away from him. "Are you fucking kidding me, Jeff?" she asked. "Did you even try to keep him on the phone long enough for someone to come get me?"

"Of course I tried." Jeff's brown eyes flashed gold as they often did when he was frustrated and, Nora assumed, when he became angry. "He said all that creepy shit and hung up. He didn't leave a call back number, didn’t give time for a trace, didn’t give time to hunt you down out here."

Dukes was standing with his arms spread in disbelief when Nora got into the driver’s seat of the sedan and slammed the door. She glared at him through the window then jerked her head, motioning for him to come on.

Neither spoke on the ride to the diner and it wasn’t until after her second cup of coffee and half a piece of toast that Nora broke the silence.

“What have we got?” she mumbled through eggs, tossing him the file.

“Missing person,” Dukes said. He closed the file and took and took a long sip of coffee.

“Great. With all that information we can solve it by morning.” Nora rolled her eyes. “What else?”

“Lacy Cooper,” he said, opening the folder to a picture of a little girl with blond hair cut in a short bob. She was smiling at the camera showing a gap where her right eye tooth was missing. He went on. “Last seen Halloween morning 1983 when she walked home from school. She was 8 years old. Neighbor saw her enter the home. Mother spoke to her on the phone at approximately 6pm. It is believed she went trick-or-treating alone when her mom came home late from work. Father is out of the picture, few leads outside the usual -- parents, neighbors.”

“Let me guess,” Nora said, “most of them are dead and the ones who aren’t didn’t see a thing.”

“You’ve seen this case before.” He flashed a bright smile at Nora as he lifted his cup to his lips.

“This and a hundred more, smartass.”