@livedtough @ Sebastian
Since returning to work, a large part of Charlie's job had become chasing loose ends in the hope that he could discover something - anything - new. As grateful as he was to have his job back, being restricted to cold cases was far from the career he had been aiming for, and he was already keen to get back on track. That wasn't a problem, though. All he needed was one big break, right? He just needed to crack one big case, and then everybody would realise that he was still as capable as he'd ever been.
Considering that, it was easily to see why he'd been gravitating towards the bigger cold cases. Charlie could justify it to his superiors as the more victims there were, the more likely it was that he could find remaining evidence, but the reality was that he was hoping to solve as big a case as possible. He couldn't tell anybody this, of course. Even if they didn't think it selfish, they may start questioning his work - deciding it was shoddily done with weak connections made in the name of trying to make a name for himself again. That wasn't the case, though. Charlie had been linking together a series of missing persons cases under the assumption they were actually homicides, and he was damn sure that he was onto something!
However, as convinced as he was about his work, he couldn't deny that he had hit a dead end - or, that was, he had thought he had. Just as he'd been about to take a break and focus on something else, Charlie had thought to check online for any other potential cases that matched with his own. The True Crime community was both a blessing and a curse, getting in the way of a lot of real detective work, but also bringing to light a lot of information that would have previously gone ignored, and to cut a long story short, after finding what he thought to be some links in the US, he'd managed to track down the details of a private detective that had been involved.
It was a stroke of luck, really, that the man had moved to the UK. It could have been a coincidence too far, and Charlie wasn't about to rule out the possibility that perhaps the move had been connected to the disappearances. The move was recent, unlikely the UK cases, but what if he'd had a partner? What if... Well, there were a lot of what ifs, weren't there? And for now, Charlie was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt.
Having found an address for the guy's new office, he decided to pay him a visit. Best to ask him any questions in person, right? Charlie politely knocked on the door before promptly deciding to just go in.
"Hey," he asked, "are you Sebastian Mendoza? I'm hoping to ask him some questions." As if it explained anything, he took out his police ID and showed it.










