Chapter Text
C.C. Tinsley likes to believe he's a good detective.
He's finding it harder to convince himself of the notion in his current situation.
He stares out the grimy window of the train and tries to block out the pig-like snoring of the elderly man three seats ahead of him, stewing still over the last three hours, the last week, his life. Tinsley isn't usually one to hold a grudge, but that didn't seem to apply after he'd practically been carted away onto a train to the west coast with only the clothes on his back and a cardboard box of what meager belongings he had been able to shove in before the slamming on his apartment door nearly broke the wood. They didn't even let him grab the money.
A child with jam smeared in her bouncy curls cries behind him. He agrees.
What bothers him most is the Sodder family. Tinsley can't help but think of their tear-stained faces as they'd met him in that tiny coffee shop on the street corner, their hopeful smiles as he'd listed off every successful case he'd completed, their hard determination as they'd handed him a bulky manila envelope, heavy with the cost of the investigation. He had imagined their celebration when he'd found their little children a thousand times over.
If he had found their little children.
Which he hadn't.
The man in front of him pulls in another guttural inhale, and it's too much for Tinsley. He stands up, abruptly ending the little girl's cries and her mother's hushed comforts as he stalks past them to the cramped washroom, pulling the door shut behind him with a barely-contained slam. He grips the edges of the shoddy sink and stares into the mirror; his eyes, hazel and round, dark against the amethyst half-moons beneath them; his lips, usually pulled into an easy smile, tight and straight. His sandy hair is more tousled than normal - he suddenly can't recall when he was able to wash it last.
He leans back to the wall and sinks down slowly, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. The bright colors remind him idly of a kaleidoscope. He sits for a minute and lets his mind wander, eased slightly by the constant thump of the train's wheels against the track; you can do this - you're C.C. Tinsley, god dang it. You'll find those kids. You'll help the Sodders. You'll... you...
He opens his eyes again and blinks in the harsh lighting.
You failed them.
It had been a day like any other. He'd walked back from his favorite coffee shop - The Marble, a quaint little cafe where Tinsley liked to sort through papers and his own thoughts, when he needed it - to his apartment, a low-rate two-roomer near the river. He'd bounced up the steps to his door, fumbling for his keys and offering waves and smiles to any neighbors he passed on the way. He'd swung the door open, already calling for Meringue, the fluffy white cat who snuck through the fire escape often enough for Tinsley to consider her his own; instead he was met with the door slamming behind him and an arm around his throat.
A growl in his ear. "Drop the case."
Tinsley blinked and dropped his worn briefcase.
"Funny." The arm repositioned around his throat, tighter. "The Sodders don't need your help. Drop the investigation."
Tinsley twisted slightly, trying to break free or at least loosen the man's stony grip. "Well, I believe they wouldn't have asked me if they didn't need my help, now would they?"
The grip loosened for a split second and transferred to his shoulder as a sharp prick met his neck instead. "Those children are none of your business. Drop the case before we drop you off a building and let your skull crack on the pavement."
"Oh, that's quite a visual! Are you a writer, sir? You could be a writer. You should look into it, I think it'd do you well." The knife pressed harder into his skin; he felt blood trickle down the side and he resisted the urge to swipe it away.
"This is your first warning."
The knife remained at his throat until the last second. Tinsley heard the door click open and slam shut again; he whipped around and yanked it open, glancing up and down the hall for any sign of his attacker, to no avail.
That was the first of many similar events.
He had visited the library less than three days later to research the effects of fire on the human body - the firemen had never found enough bones in the residue of the Sodders' house to justify a definite death certificate for the five missing children - when a man pulled him into the alleyway and pointed a gun at his face, uttering the same short warning as the first: drop the case before they made him. Tinsley had backed out of the alley as slowly as possible before sprinting a full three blocks, losing the shadowy figure as fast as he'd found him.
Then the time he had simply left his window open and was greeted with a hasty message carved into his table: ONe LasT cHaNcE. He pulled an old blanket over the wood and pushed it from his mind. He would not give up on the Sodders.
Until a final message arrived at his door. Several messages, actually, all banging on his door at once.
They ordered him out of the apartment, giving him just enough time to grab a few things from his desk before they nearly broke the door down. He stepped out and immediately felt a burlap sack pulled over his head, obstructing his vision of his assailants. He was pulled down the stairs and into a car. They drove for what felt like hours, the only noise the click of wheels against the street and the unruly wind against the windows. Then he was yanked out and shoved onto a platform with the slam of a door his only accompaniment. He pulled the sack off his head warily, glancing around; he was on a train. He looked back and found nothing. He was alone.
And now he's here, on the floor of a washroom on a train headed west, away from his home, his job, his duties.
Tinsley can't help but feel utterly stupid. He isn't naive - he knew, on some level of his mind, that they would make good on the threats. He just didn't think it would be so soon. He thought he'd have time to give the Sodders even just a semblance of closure. Instead they probably think he took the money and ran. His carelessness hurt both sides in the end.
Except he refuses to believe this is the end, for either of them. Tinsley was set on finding those missing children - now he's set on finding the children and whatever prick is behind this entire mess.
And then the train stops.