2.18 Monolith

     I'm sorry for all the things I have ever done, and for all things I will do. I'm sorry that I made fun of your hair, for all the times I though of you as an idiot and called you names. I'm sorry I ratted you out and for the times I never saw you. 
     But you can't do this to me- I wasn't that bad a sister was I? I know I could have been better, but to my defence you can be really annoying. Even your co workers are at a loss, and I thought they were supposed to be professionals?

     You can't do this to me.

     He was gone, vanished from the face of simplanet and this time it wasn't a joke. Oriana had been restlessly looking for her brother, but whatever had happened... had he been abducted by aliens? All kinds of weirdos seemed to contact her lately, and Joe would have gotten crazier. But luckily Meave had come back home and took care of that crazy bastard so Oriana didn't have to.
     But the kids... her niece and nephewes; they had to be made out of stone. For now she'd only seen her own daughter cry. And she wasn't even capable of getting a hold of Bashir for comfort. What was she going to do, how was she going to fix this?

    
     Oriana found herself strolling all over the city and the outskirts looking, even if she knew it was poinless. But sitting at home drove her almost as crazy as Joe.    
    She didn't know what it was with a woman in distress, but lately men had started coming straight up to her trying to "fix things". What was it with men and fixing stuff? It wasn't like they were actually capable of it anyway.
     Listen, Oriana said to another man that came up to her: Thanks for the offer, but my brother is missing. Unless you work miracles there's really nothing you can do. She slapped on a smile to take some of the edge off out of old habit.

    
     The man seemed sincere as he exclaimed: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, that's horrible. Is there anything I can do to help? 
     As usual Oriana did the best she could, and that was spreading the description of her brother to as many sims as possible: You can keep an eye out for him. He's tall, short blonde hair, dark eyes, slightly tanned skin and well built. Has a tattoo of a dragon on his hip. Last time he was seen he wore a black tuxedo and a bowtie. She noticed the small reaction at the description. A lot of sims were expecting her to talk about some troubled individual, not a tuxedowearing beefcake.

      
     He's a cop, so the entire policeforce is looking for him. If you can think of anything, tell them I sent you. Maybe it should have been embarassing for a cop to dissapear, but for now Oriana was shameless. And her brother had never had any shame in life anyway, so when they found him (because they had to) he'd forgive her.
     And what name would the missing cops sister have? 
     Oriana, she answered...

     Does your brother have a name to then maybe? The man asked again: I can ask people I know if they know, or have seen anything? 
     Marco, Oriana answered again: He was supposed to meet a woman at a restaurant, but never showed up. 
     Do you know anything about the woman? He asked again, but this time she had to shake her head. They hadn't found any mystery woman, but then again her brother might have lied. But he'd said the same thing to Joe, and it was doubtful he'd lie about women to him. Atleast the man promised he'd keep a lookout for her brother.

     If the kids were worried they hid it well. Even if they weren't as wild as usual.

     Atleast Skuld talked to someone once in a while: Hey Biorn, no we haven't heard anything. Though Oriana suspected that Anya made her son do it, to check in on them. She was a cop to after all. They all did their best not to let Marcos untimely dissapearance take over the kids lives, but it sure wasn't easy.

   
     Oriana had gotten a lead. The man she'd spoken to earlier phoned her and said he had a suspet as for who the woman might be. He hadn't wanted to phone the cops, incase they went to far. They tended to be a bit intense when it was one of their own missing, and especially her brothers partner was intense. Maybe he knew more than he admitted?
     But he did give her an adresse, so Oriana knew just what to do.

     
     The idea was to get a spraytan to hide her pasty white skin, but it botched. However, the important part was that she didn't look like herself, but an overcooked donut. Oriana really liked donuts, especially the type with sprinkles.

    
     Oriana had even gotten a disguise, that let her smootly blend in with the surroundings. But standing outside the worn out building, she kind of realized that it had botched to. Even the wig was in her normal haircolour. And breaking up a lock was really difficult, it never was when she saw it on tv. So this was why PIs usually used cameras and nothing else. Breaking an entry was probably illegal to, even if no one lived there. Maybe it belonged to the city or something?

     
     She gave up the attempt at breaking into the house- it was pointless anyway as she finally realized that looking through the windows was easier. No one lived there, the floor wasn't whole, neither was the ceiling. The only thing inside was a broken old lamp, and old garbage. Even the trashcan was completely empty. The lawn behind the house was a bit of a mess, but maybe it was common at abandoned homes. It almost looked like someone had fought.

    
     The mail consisted of adverts, and not real ones that sometimes had names on them. Only the type that volunteer organizations sometimes dropped in the mailbox. This wasn't going anywhere, there was nothing there. She hadn't told the cops about it, as they'd just tell her to butt out. Stupid cops thinking they knew how to fix things... she was the only one that could fix this. The only thing they did was searching the river, because they though he might have drowned. There was no way Marco could have drowned, he was a great swimmer.

     Orianas outfit made sure every sim that saw her, took her as seriously as the lamatshirt- guy did. But the man, who still hadn't told his name, contacted her again. She told him that nothing was there, and he appologized for it. Not that it helped, as she'd gotten her hopes up for unknown reasons.

     Have you heard anything else? She did her best not crying, she didn't have time for it. She had a big blonde gorilla to find, and nothing could stop her. Her brothers idiot coworkers had made it indirectly clear that they were looking for a corpse. But they were wrong, Marco couldn't die this way. He was a master in sim- fu, and was stronger than anyone she'd ever met. And not just physically, he was a hardarse; Meaves words but they still counted. Oriana would rather think about him as a rock, like Jerichos monolithic structures, that no one had any idea where came from. They couldn't just dissapear, neither could Marco: simple as that.

     The man shook his head, but promised he'd contact her again if something came up. He looked a bit creepy to be honest, he had one of those faces that looked like he was always smiling. And why the hell wasn't she capable of getting a hold of her idiot husband?! Even Milo wasn't able to, said he was out of reach due to work. But he claimed he had no idea what he was doing at the moment. Which made sense, since Bashir and him didn't work that close anymore. And Milo did his best to help her.
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     Something was under his skin!! It had to be because he was sure the skin moved. But when he clawed on it, nothing happened! Mentally yelling at himself, Joe decided he couldn't go insane right now. Because it had to be that he was going insane again, and he couldn't go crazy right now, because with Marco gone, he was the only male rolemodel the kids had. So if there were maggots crawling under his skin, they could just stay there!! And that was final!! No picking bleeding wounds on himself when the kids could see. Go away crazy Joe! He mentally yelled at himself again.

 
     Thankfully Meave was home or he probably would have gone mental. She had ordered him not to go crazy, and crazyJoe was afraid of her. So was ordinaryJoe.
     Besides he also had to take care of Mahdis, who was getting seriously fat. He had to train her a lot more, but she was also getting terrifying beeing around. She wouldn't even let him anywhere near her with a sadle. Crazy animal. Kind of suited the owner though.

     Since Oriana had taken it on herself solving the case of a missing Marco, Joe was mainly home alone with the kids. He'd known them their entire lives, so why was it so difficult now?
     Lucky was the only one that acted normal. She kept asking about her uncle, cried a bit, played and had fun and then felt guilty about it. Effie was calmness incarnated, completely unlike his own dad. Jarl and Odin acted a bit quiet, but other than that pretty normal. And Skuld was a viscious little hag as usual.

     Where had that gorilla gone to anyway? He had just dissapeared into thin air. It wasn't like the cops didn't have any leads, but they kept beeing dead ends. In tv shows solving crimes always took short time. In Jericho it clearly took a lot of time. Wonder how someone as impatient as Marco was capable of working with that? On the other hand there was a lot more going on under that blond hair than just thoughts about carbs and proteins.

     In addition he couldn't stop worrying about Meave. What if she decided to go back to active duty in the army? Had she even transferred to doing paperwork instead? She hadn't really answered his questions about that clearly. What was he going to do if he lost her to? Maybe if he just squeezed her hard enough, she would stay with them and never leave again? The problem with that logic was ofcourse that she was a lot stronger than him and easily could get out of the hug.

     Joes thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell, it was probably Rye. He was phoning non- stop acting all hysterical about Marco. Joe was worried to, but it was all to surreal for him. Marco couldn't be dead could he? He'd always been the one that pulled him out of a bad place, and Rye (and his ugly hat) up from the dead. He was an awesome friend, how could he just be gone?

     It was something about redheads and Marco, as yet another one stood on the doorstep. But this time it wasn't his partner. Not surprisingly it was a woman, so not Rye then. Not that strange either, because there had been a lot of them hanging around the place to. She had big green eyes that was all shiny from tears. He heard Meave stomping up behind him on heavy boots. His wife didn't know who that was, but he did. He was probably the only one in the household other than Marco that knew who she was.
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     Oriana wasn't always gone ofcourse, she was home with the children to. But often she wasn't home until early morning hours. This time Meave had phoned her, asking her to come home. She half expected it to be something with Joe, but it was a bit stranger than that.

     
     That's her? She thought with disbelief as she looked at the readhead Joe was talking to. That's the infamous Esther? The one that's given my brother all that grief? That scared him from entering a serious relationship again? Atleast that's what Oriana liked to believe.
     She and Meave shared a short glance, her cousin clearly thinking the same. Didn't their kids go to school together? Was that why Marco never came to any parental activities? Because of... that?

  
     Her brother was way out of her league, but even Joe seemed a bit smitten. Which was a stupid thing to do with Meave right there. But she didn't seem to care. Really? She'd seen Skulds mum and Ally, and some of the others that her brother had.... well.... but seriously? Her? And he even married her?

  
     Oriana had kind of assumed she was some dazzling beauty that turned all heads. But she was married to Anyas brother Salek, and he was seriously hot. Men had the oddest ideas of beauty if ...that... was two guys dream! Then again, she herself was married to Bashir so maybe she should just be happy about men having bad taste.
     Even the kids seemed disbelieving. Not that they knew she was Marcos ex- wife, but unfortunately they tended to understand more than they liked them to.

  
     Skuld stared Esther down, clearly not impressed with another redhead. It became so bad that she asked all the kids to go out and play. Luckily they listened for once. Well, actually they ignored her, and listened to Meaves miltaristic approach at barking out orders. Damned kids, but atleast it was pretty normal behaviour for them.

  
     As soon as they were gone, Esther started talking, even her voice was dull: Have you heard anything?
     Does your husband know you're here? Meave clearly didn't like Esther either, but it seemed to go over her head. Oriana shot her cousin a short glance before answering: No, there's nothing new. Just because she disliked the woman, didn't mean she couldn't act civil.

     I keep asking Salek, she explained, to phone his sister. She's a policeofficer. Like they didn't know that already.. but she doesn't hand out any information. The poor readhead looked confused and sad. Oriana started feeling sorry for her instead, she herself had an ex- husband. And just like this woman, she'd left him even if he hadn't done anything wrong. Who was she to judge

     They're usually not very giving with information, for some reason. Oriana explained, choosing to forget to mention that she was looking into it herself. With the help of "the man", who still hadn't shared his name. When she thought about it, she was kind of like a ninja right now, tricking everyone and working in the shadows! Ninjas were awesome....

  
     But it was something about what Esther mentioned that was strange. She felt that Milo did all he could to help, but Anya and her were friends to. Why didn't she help, or atleast share information? Why so professional all of a sudden? Oriana missed having Anya around, and what about Vera. That woman had phoned her once! Only once after her brother went missing! And her husband was a cop to!!

 
     Oriana was surrounded by police, and no one helped her. Why didn't they help her? And what the hell was up with her brothers partner anyway? He looked all stone faced, but she saw shadows of a guilty frown. Did he know something? Something that she didn't? Maybe they had information they just didn't want to share? Oriana was happy she was a private investigator, atleast that's how she liked to think about herself.

     Eventually a hysterical Rylan entered the premises, without any warning. Which was good, that was he and this Esther could freak out together with Joe.
     You know what? She heard Meaves nasal voice over the rest: How about the three of you go down to the library and look through their files. Look for similar crimes the last five years. Way to go Meave, getting those sims out of the house. They even seemed to think it was a good idea. She was probably used to dealing with hysterical sims.

    
     Have you talked to Rowena? Oriana only waited until she heard the door slamming shut behind the adults.
     Are you insane? That nasal voice never seized to amaze: I've barely seen her since I moved out. But yes, and no she doesn't answer. Don't expect her to either. She sighed heavily, not noticing the kids that came back inside: How the hell can a grown man just dissapear? 
     The looks on the kids faces were reason enough to end the conversation. But Meave had a point: How does a grown man dissapear, and

     such a loud man to.
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I've lost saves, sims and CC, but it's been so long that I doubt anyone remembers anything anyway ;) And it's spring, so pretend you don't notice the weather beeing all difficult.

This is more of an introduction chapter, or a refreshing sims chapter. So let's try to make this easy:

Esther is Marcos ex- wife. She's married to Salek. Salek is Anyas (Orianas friend/Marcos co worker) brother. Anya is married to Milo (Orianas friend/Bashirs co worker).Anya and Milos son Biorn is friends with the kids.

Rylan is Marcos mate, Rowena is Meaves sister, Vera (Orianas friend) is married to Arnie (Marcos co worker), and Dominic is Marcos partner.

Efraim is Meave and Joes, Skuld and Odin (and Jarl) are Marcos, and Lucrecia is Oriana and Bashirs. 

(...yeah that was easy..... )

Thanks for reading