MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Apr 6, 2018 15:53:15 GMT
They didn’t even stop him to check his credentials when he arrived at the station anymore. Following the conversation with Sheriff Forbes the last vestiges of suspicion towards him seemed to have faded. Michael nodded to the patrol officer at the front desk anyway, exchanged a quick ’afternoon’ as he headed back towards the bullpen of desks in the back of the station. The detectives had offices, some of which he’d passed through since he’d arrived in town over a year ago. Some of those visits had been on the right side of the law, one, following his shadow’s attempt to put him off the trail here in Mystic Falls, on the wrong side. He’d thanked the detective for believing him then, for trusting that the simplest answer wasn’t the only one. Had it been New Orleans and the same men who’d investigated Abi and Sara’s deaths Michael knew he’d have been rotting behind bars by now. Oliver had been willing to listen and so had Detective Jones. Gwen might not have had the sort of bedside manner that would’ve made her the poster girl for law enforcement but in just a few short months she’d managed to help him uncover more of the truth about his family’s deaths than the cops in New Orleans had ever found. That much had been obvious to the NOPD when Gwen had turned up on the doorstep of his motel room at the crack of dawn one morning and had announced they were going on a road trip. A few days back home and Michael found himself with a new list of names, ones that the NOPD hadn’t bothered to check in to. New leads had breathed even more hope into him.
Once he’d gotten back into town Michael had started running the names, setting himself up in a corner of the bullpen on one of the station’s computers until Sheriff Forbes had pulled himself aside. He supposed that talk was overdue. First step at the station should’ve been going to her to ask permission but instead he’d slipped in time and time again, slowly building up a presence here. The lab had run the evidence he’d brought with him, Gwen had started to pick apart the case file with fresh eyes and he’d been working the computers, trying everything possible to pick up a trace on the second man who’d been in his home that night and the shadow who’d been behind all of this in the first place. Another name had floated up last night, after he’d left the station and had gone back to the motel to work, local, like the one he’d picked up in New Orleans, not on the radar for the murders but, it seemed, up to his neck in plenty of other criminal acts that he now have proof of. File in hand, he was back today to run the guy past Detective Jones. Michael paused at her cracked open office door and rapped his knuckles on it before sticking his head in. No Gwen, he realised instantly, just the guy he’d seen her around on previous visits to the station. Not the first partner, he thought, the one Gwen had been sour about during the first trip here, but another. ”Hey. Sorry to barge in. Is Detective Jones around this afternoon?” Michael held up the file in explanation. ”Got something to discuss with her.” If he’d still been carrying his CIA credentials, using them as cover, Michael might have flashed them, but after the meeting with the Sheriff, he’d started leaving those in the safe at the motel.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Aug 29, 2018 20:36:34 GMT
Luke hadn’t been in Mystic Falls for too long but it had to be said that he already liked the town. He would be the first to admit that he had been a little apprehensive about moving there at first when Nick had suggested it, being around so many other members of the supernatural world meant that hunters were sure to be close behind but his family had the advantage of not being a part of the most noticeable species in the world and for that he was grateful. As long as they were careful when it came to using their abilities and they moved on before anyone noticed that they weren’t ageing he knew that they would be just fine. Luke had run into hunters a few times over the years and each time he had managed to escape unscathed but he knew better than to push his luck. He was working on the town’s police force which was something that he knew was risky given that from what he had heard there were several members of the town who knew all about the supernatural and were determined to kill anyone who crossed their paths, something that the Sheriff was a part of if his sources were correct, but being a detective was what he was good at and he knew that he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from doing that. It helped knowing that Lauren was there as well, he always looked out for his sister-in-law and she looked out for him in return so he knew that as long as they were careful and didn’t give anyone they worked with a reason to question what they were then they wouldn’t have any problems. It was also easier to fly under the radar when they were so close to the Sheriff. As long as they did their jobs she wouldn’t have any reason to question it and from there they could keep an eye on what was going on and warn the rest of the family if they needed to as well. Luke knew that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to his family, he, Nick and Sean had been through so much together and even though the family had grown over the years they were closer than ever so he knew that he would do whatever he had to in order to keep the people he loved safe. That day he had been doing some digging for a case he was working on when a knock sounded at the door and a man appeared in the doorway. “Don’t worry about it,” Luke said before shaking his head. “I’m sorry but no, she isn’t. She took a call and had to leave for the day,” he explained as he stood and held a hand out to the man. “I’m Luke, her partner. Can I help?” he asked, knowing that he could do with a break from what he had been working on anyway. He knew that he had been looking at all of the evidence in his possession for too long so coming back to it later would hopefully give him a fresh perspective. MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Sept 11, 2018 18:42:01 GMT
Coming clean to anybody in Mystic Falls hadn’t been easy at first. Two years of hiding who he was from everybody except Orlov and his lackeys to keep anybody else from getting hurt had been hard to get past. Ana hadn’t given him a chance to hide it, she’d known from their first face off in the alleyway while someone else had beaten them both to the punch with the theft. In fact she’d brought it up incessantly with the wet dog jokes the entire way to Mystic Falls but she’d done more than that with her presence in his motel room. She’d dug into his life, ‘happening to notice’ what he’d left active on his laptop screen, asking the sorts of questions that usually would’ve been met with little more than a grunt and a rapid disappearance. Trying to keep Orlov on side he’d stuck with her, supposedly only long enough to get the treasure back, but failing on that front the two of them had remained together in that motel room long enough for something to start clicking again in his life like tumblers turning in that part of himself he’d locked up. With it all out in the open, with a breath of hope finally taking the place of the stale stifling air in those dark depths of his mind, it had felt like he could maybe start to move on again, to push for the truth as he should’ve done two years ago. Then he’d been terrified of the repercussions, now Michael knew that the people who were willing to step into this mess with him were pretty damn capable of watching their own backs. Gwen had proven impossible to keep on the fringes of things. It had driven him crazy at times but the fact that she’d got him as far as she had was something Michael knew he could never entirely thank the woman for.
Making his way through his station he gave a faint huff of laughter at the thought. If he tried she’d likely knock him on his ass. The woman was formidable, a force of nature that must’ve driven her partners insane. She seemed happy to try and stand on her own in this department, not letting anybody hold her back from getting justice. It was what had put her on his radar in the first place and what had kept her there. Michael had never intended to drop any other cases in her lap but when their investigation had lead him in a direction that had revealed other criminal activity the law abiding part of him hadn’t been able to just sit by. This guy had victims, they all deserved justice just as much as he did. And they’d get it, if he could get the file to Detective Jones. That was a big if Michael realised as he opened the office door to find Gwen’s partner rather than the woman herself. Instantly he turned apologetic, holding up his file in explanation even as the guy told him not to worry about his intrusion. Michael couldn’t bite back the quiet curse under his words as he stepped fully into the room though. ”I’d have said don’t worry about it and brought this back tomorrow morning but I don’t think it’s something that can wait,” he admitted. Crossing the room Michael shifted the file from one hand to the other, reaching out to shake the hand that Luke was offering him. ”Michael Shepard. I’ve been working with her on a case for a while but something’s come up as an off shoot of that.” It didn’t require going into the past, into explaining his wife’s murder and so Michael held out the file of print outs. ”Have you seen the reports of home invasions going on about twenty miles out of town? I knew it was within the station’s jurisdiction but I didn’t pay much attention to them until last night. I think I might’ve found you guys a line to the perpetrator here in town.” And didn’t it feel good to say that after nearly three years out of the business.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Nov 26, 2018 21:04:59 GMT
Luke had worked in a lot of different places around the world but being a detective was what he was good at so it was the one thing that he kept going back to. Every town or city he worked in was different but the job was always the same and Mystic Falls was no different, albeit the town seemed to have more supernatural related incidents than just about any other place he had been to. He had been a little apprehensive at first when Nick had suggested they move to the town, after all the only reason they had managed to live so long was because they had kept their heads down and avoided drawing any unwanted attention to themselves, but his brother had wanted his kids to have the chance to live in a place where there might be others like them and Luke hadn’t been able to say no to that. He didn’t always end up in the same places as Nick, Lauren and the kids but this time around he had decided to join them so that he could keep an eye on them if nothing else. Nick and Lauren had already lost their eldest son James to hunters and Luke knew that they wouldn’t be able to stand losing Chris or one of the girls too so he knew that he would do whatever he had to in order to keep them safe, even if that meant covering their tracks with the rest of the police force if any of them accidentally slipped up. They were always careful but at the end of the day accidents happened and Luke knew that they couldn’t lose another person they loved. He had seen the devastation that losing James had caused Nick and Lauren and Luke himself had lost more people than he cared to admit so he knew that he didn’t want any of them to go through that again. That day Luke had managed to bury himself in research on a case he was working on when a guy showed up looking for Gwen. As he said that he would leave it until the following day but that it couldn’t wait, Luke found himself nodding before shaking the man’s hand. “It’s good to meet you. Gwen has mentioned you a few times,” he admitted. While it was true that he didn’t know exactly what they were working on at the moment she had mentioned the guy’s name a few times and from what she had told him Luke had felt like he could trust Michael to keep his partner safe when he wasn’t around to do it himself. While they worked some cases together there were others they worked alone but that didn’t stop them from throwing ideas back and forth sometimes. “A few of the reports have crossed my desk while I’ve been helping Gwen,” he nodded before taking the file from him and starting to flick through it. “What have you found out?”MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Dec 3, 2018 16:51:52 GMT
A quick snatch and grab, another artefact for Orlov to lock up wherever the hell he put the things that had been stolen for him over the years, and a clean getaway. That had been his plan when he’d slipped into the gala in the guise of a security consultant. It had been about as close to his old job as he’d managed to get since the night Abi and Sara had been killed but Michael had known that he couldn’t allow himself to get used to it. Orlov was holding onto his strings, yanking them whenever he wanted to because he’d been the man with the knowledge, the connections to find out the truth. If he’d known then that a bunch of women with far more backbone than he had would cut those strings he wouldn’t have even bothered to chase that guy up to the roof. The job would’ve been thrown aside, the only important thing, the only thing that had ever been important to him after that night, finding out just what had happened to his wife and daughter. That cutting of the cord hadn’t happened until he’d reached Mystic Falls and had found out there were other people with a way to the truth, people who were willing to put themselves on the line for him. Gwen hadn’t only gotten him within inches of the truth, she’d given him a taste back for the job too. Michael suspected that thanking her for that would’ve had her brushing his words off but bringing a case to her desk, that felt like the sort of thing that Gwen would’ve appreciated, if she’d been around to actually get her hands on it.
Had it been any other crime Michael would’ve turned around on his heel, told Gwen’s office mate that he’d come back another time but whoever it was hitting these houses was due to attack another home and if he could prevent anybody else from that horror of finding someone tearing their home apart then he had to do it. Gwen hadn’t told him much about this guy but you didn’t stay on the job in Mystic Falls unless you were half decent at your job. Those who couldn’t hack it soon quit or were found in mysterious circumstances. Shaking Luke’s hand, Michael grimaced faintly. ”Good to meet you too. I kinda dread asking if they were good mentions or bad…” Given all that she’d done for him and his occasional lack of gratitude, like when she’d shown up at his door at the crack of dawn to drive him back to New Orleans, Gwen was probably entitled to slam him a little. She might have just done that if Luke hadn’t made it clear that the two of them were helping each other out on the job. Biting his lip, Michael glanced down at the file Luke had taken. The invasions had been going on a while, far enough apart and with enough randomness to them to make the people hard to catch, or so it had appeared. ”They came up on what Gwen’s been helping me with,” he explained, his throat a little tight. ”Someone we’ve been trying to find was involved with a gang of armed robbers before. There were a spate of home invasions in New Orleans a couple of years back and I suspect some of the people involved might have moved to town. I didn’t have access to their records but from what I’ve been able to trace before Leon Hernandez has been in trouble since he crashed out of High School at the age of 15.” Hernandez hadn’t been in New Orleans at the time Abi and Sara had been killed but there was a direct line back to the tight knit little group that seemed to be behind everything all the same.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Feb 26, 2019 22:51:41 GMT
 There were times when Luke found himself wondering if he should have chosen a career that didn’t involve quite so much danger as being a detective did but the truth was that he enjoyed his job and he knew that it was the right fit for him. He was perhaps taking a risk working in a department where the Sheriff knew about the supernatural and had a team already set up to eradicate as many of them as possible but having been alive for centuries Luke liked to think that he knew how to take care of himself and fly under the radar by now. Luke knew firsthand that nothing in life was guaranteed, after all he had lost more people he loved than he cared to count but he had known as soon as Nick had suggested moving to Mystic Falls that he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from doing the work that he enjoyed. One thing that Luke had learned over the years was that it was often easier for Kitsune to live their lives without being detected anyway, they didn’t have to worry about feeding the way that vampires did and they didn’t need to find a safe place to turn into a wolf every month the way that werewolves did. Their abilities were much more subtle and more difficult to detect so as long as they didn’t let on just how old they actually were or go using their abilities in public then they would be just fine and that was something that Luke knew that he definitely didn’t need to worry about. He was old enough to have control over his abilities and he only ever used them when he really had to so he knew that he would be just fine. Of course working with a partner was something that was going to take a little getting used to though. No matter where he ended up it always differed as to whether he would be able to work on his own or not, some places were happy for their detectives to work alone while others insisted on them partnering up and Mystic Falls had ended up being one of the latter. Thankfully Gwen seemed like a pretty good partner to have so far so he knew that he could easily have done a lot worse. She had filled him in a little on the guy she had been getting tips from and he was up to speed with what she was looking into so considering she wasn’t around he knew that he would help the guy in any way he could. “They were good, don’t worry,” he chuckled. They had been mostly good anyway but he knew that it wouldn’t do him any good to mention that to Michael now when he clearly had some more information that he wanted to give them. “I remember hearing about those home invasions. I worked in New Orleans a while back and I still have friends on the force there. They mentioned them when I last paid them a visit,” he explained as he began skimming over the contents in the folder. “I’m sure I can put in a few calls and get the files sent over if we can find some evidence that these guys are connected to those crimes. Are you up for going on a stake out?” he asked, knowing that was their best way of finding out for sure whether the guys were in town and then they could take it from there. MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Mar 4, 2019 19:32:57 GMT
It had been years since he’d had to worry about his reputation. All thought of what people were going to say had disappeared like smoke when Orlov had turned up on his doorstep with stories of vampires and werewolves, offering the sort of knowledge that would satisfy the burning thirst for justice within him. To get his hands on that information Michael had forced himself to set aside almost everything he’d once been. The law he’d believed in so strongly, the one member of his family he had left, his city, the man he’d once been. Lies came easier, his head being held just a little higher with each job he’d done for the old vampire. It didn’t matter how low he had to stoop to handle them, as long as the information came in the end, nothing else mattered. A part of him said it hadn’t even bothered him when Ana had started taking digs at him in the alleyway where they’d first met, but really … it had. Coming here to find what he’d lost, Michael had instead found himself pulling away from the man who’d offered him what he’d once wanted most. Suddenly all of those things he’d left behind started to matter. There was something beyond all the pain he’d been mired in for the past three years, some glimmer of hope that maybe once he’d gotten justice for Sara and Grace, he could get back to the life he’d lost. Maybe not with the Agency in New Orleans, but in some way. Having people respect him in Mystic Falls would help with that and although he hadn’t thought that Gwen really did, it appeared as though he’d made some of a decent impression on her.
At least enough of one that she hadn’t sat in this office moaning to her partner about him. If she had, he was too polite to admit to it. Gwen hadn’t seemed the sort to pull punches to him, not even when those she threw could knock a guy flat on his ass. She was forthright, not afraid to throw herself into a fight he’d warned her could be dangerous. Michael wasn’t sure if her partner was the same way but he wasn’t about to turn around out of here without handing over the sort of information that could save other lives. Michael managed a faintly bashful smile for the guy before he chuckled back. ”I’m glad to hear it. Gwen doesn’t seem the sort to stand on ceremony about things and well, I might’ve chewed her out a little for turning up at the motel at the crack of dawn without any sort of warning.” Fear had torn at the pit of his stomach then, only fading away when it turned out that the detective was just trying to avoid any sort of delay in what they were doing. It had worked, their trip to New Orleans had given him enough information to push his investigation into what had happened forward. Wanting to repay the favour he’d brought what he’d discovered to her … to her partner. He rocked back on his heels as Luke began to pick through what he’d printed and put in the folder, his green eyes narrowing faintly as he said he’d worked in New Orleans. ”You didn’t work any of them yourself?” he asked tightly, certain that this guy hadn’t been a part of the investigation into Sara and Grace’s deaths but suddenly wary all the same. ”You think they’re willing to share? I know that some of those investigations were set aside, supposedly because a lack of evidence. Some resulted in … deaths.” Michael’s gaze shot up to meet the detective’s as the sort of offer was made that he hadn’t been expected to hear. ”Absolutely,” he said instantly. ”You’re willing to take someone without a badge along?” Someone currently without a badge. He’d promised the Sheriff that he would be clear about that with her people.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Mar 31, 2019 15:49:25 GMT
Luke had come to see a long time ago that the job he had chosen was the same no matter where he ended up. While it was true that every case was different and he had seen a lot of impossible things over the years he still enjoyed it and it made him feel like he was doing some good with his life. Aside from his family pretty much everyone else that he had ended up getting close to over the years had died a long time ago, including every woman that he had ever loved, and even though he couldn’t deny that he wanted to find the kind of love that Nick and Lauren shared one day, deep down Luke had suspected for a long time that that just wasn’t on the cards for him. Instead he was doing his best to look out for his brother’s family. Nick and Lauren had already lost one child and Luke refused to lose his brother, sister-in-law or another of his nephews or nieces so he often used his job as a way of keeping an eye on the threats that were in each place they moved to. While it was true that he didn’t always end up living in the same places as Nick and Lauren since he sometimes decided to travel on his own instead his family had decided to put down roots in Mystic Falls and with everything that Luke had heard about the town during his travels he had known that there was no way that he was going to let them move there without him. He knew that they could look after themselves when they had to but the truth was that if anything happened to his twin or to the rest of the family then he really didn’t know what he would do so he knew that it was better to be safe than sorry. Having a case to focus on helped serve as a distraction from all of that, so even though Michael was Gwen’s informant Luke was still glad that the guy had shown up that day. He had work on a couple of other ongoing cases to keep him busy but the one that Michael was there about was one that had been bugging Gwen for a while so if there was anything that Luke could do to help move it along then he knew that he would do it. “She definitely isn’t. If you annoy her she’ll let you know,” he chuckled. He had dealt with a few people like that over the years so it wasn’t anything that was new to him. He had learned a while ago that finding some common ground and building trust was important and he had been working on doing both of those things ever since the two of them had been partnered up to work together. “No, they started after I transferred. I only heard about them from the friends I’d left behind,” he explained. Not ageing meant that he couldn’t often stay in one place for too long unless he started off by passing himself off as being quite young but that was something that he had grown used to. It was always inevitable that people would start asking questions about why he never seemed to be getting any older and he always made sure to move on before it got to that point but he still kept in touch with people he had come to care about and he checked in on them as often as he could. “I’ll make a few calls and see if I can get the case files sent over. A few of the guys down there owe me a favour and if the cases really are connected then it will be a good idea to get the full picture,” he nodded. He knew that it really wouldn’t be a problem at all, he still occasionally helped out with cases in New Orleans when his friends needed a fresh perspective so he didn’t doubt that they would help him out if he asked. As Michael spoke again, Luke couldn’t help but laugh. “Listen, Gwen trusts you and I trust her so that’s good enough for me. Besides, I’ve worked with PI’s and informants before and we’re both on the same side here so it makes sense,” he shrugged. There were times in the past when he had even assisted the police while he was working as a PI so he knew to keep an open mind about that kind of thing. Getting to his feet, Luke grabbed his jacket and put it on before grabbing his car keys. “Let’s go. You can fill me in more on the way.”MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Apr 9, 2019 16:51:09 GMT
Trust hadn’t come easy in the last couple of years. Working for Orlov, breaking every law he’d spent his career trying to uphold, Michael had withdrawn from the people around him even more than he had after Sara and Grace had died. Every step outside of Orlov’s tightly ordered little world had to be done in secret, without spilling a word of what he was doing now. Contact had been cut off from his former bosses and the agency, the excuse that he was on extended bereavement leave seeming to settle the questions that would’ve come his way. By then Michael knew that he couldn’t come clean to them about what was going on. Who knew if the very people who’d warned him not to pursue the case had been a part of it. The shadow could’ve been jerking their strings all along, could’ve threatened the very investigators who made it clear this was nothing more than a case of home invasion. That had been a bullshit story from the very start and anybody with half a brain had known it. Trained investigators didn’t go for the simplest explanation, if they did the rate of false imprisonment in the world would be astronomical. Gwen had seen right through the story when he’d told her about it and Michael wanted to believe that her partner would too but wanting something and knowing that you would get it for certain were two very different things. Gwen trusted her partner though, at least enough to have let him know that the two of them were working together. As sharp as Gwen was, as determined as she was, she wouldn’t have let that happen if she didn’t respect and trust of the men she had been working with here.
And so he had reached out too, allowing himself to be drawn into the office, into conversation with Detective Adams instead of withdrawing and coming back later. This couldn’t wait, Michael had thought, the longer they allowed these guys to continue with their spree, the more chance there was that people would be hurt again. Amusement tugged Michael’s mouth into a wry grin, one that was bordering on a grimace. ”Oh, she’s definitely done that a time or two,” he admitted. Gwen hadn’t been able to see why her early morning visit had scared the hell out of him. Given all that had happened in the last handful of years, nobody else would’ve blamed him. The trouble in New Orleans hadn’t stopped when he’d left town, the home invasions had continued, as just isolated crimes on their own or as part of a more elaborate cover-up scheme than he’d realised. Hearing that Luke hadn’t been there at the time of Sara and Grace’s deaths had Michael breathing a sigh of relief. ”Did they mention any of the homes that were broken into in particular?” he asked, his throat still feeling as though it were closing up slightly. There still could’ve been some tie between Adams and the New Orleans detectives who’d swept it under the rug but maybe it was one he could use. ”I’d appreciate it. I’m not PD but coming across this information, it kinda makes me want to follow through on it all.” And it was personal, oh so personal. Drawing in a deep breath as Luke shrugged, Michael knew he had to make sure the detective was going into this with both eyes open. ”More on the same side than you’d probably expect,” he explained. ”I’m CIA, at least on paper. I’m on leave at the moment.” Not that he’d been able to leave the job entirely behind. Stepping back, Michael opened the door, held it open for Luke. ”I’m surprised that hadn’t gotten around the whole station about me. Sheriff Forbes has let me work out of the station a few times since I got into town.” Of course, at first Liz hadn’t realised that the badge he held wasn’t exactly current.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Apr 28, 2019 16:11:16 GMT
Before moving to Mystic Falls Luke had considered starting up his own private investigation firm rather than joining the town’s police force but when the opening for a detective had become available he had known that it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He had worked as both a detective and private investigator in the past but the former was definitely the one that he enjoyed the most although he couldn’t deny that the latter had its perks too. Either way solving crimes was what he was best at and even though he knew that he could have chosen to do just about anything with his life over the six hundred years he had been alive that was the one thing that he always seemed to come back to the same way that Nick always seemed to gravitate towards being a doctor. They had both found their calling and being able to do the work he enjoyed always made moving from town to town that much easier. Luke didn’t always travel with his family, there were times when he travelled on his own instead and only saw them when he decided to pay them a visit or vice versa but he had heard rumours about Mystic Falls before Nick had mentioned the possibility of his family moving there and Luke had known that there wasn’t any way that he was going to let his brother and the others go there without him. Luke had lost so many people that he’d loved over the centuries and he refused to lose his twin, his sister-in-law or any more of their kids. Nick and Lauren had already lost their eldest child to hunters and even though that could have quite easily broken the two of them, if anything it had made them that much stronger. He knew that the two of them were in a good place and so were the kids and he knew that he wanted it to stay that way for as long as possible which meant that he wanted to be there to keep them safe for as long as possible. Luke often found it easier when he was able to work on his own rather than being assigned a partner but it had to be said that so far working with Gwen wasn’t bad. They didn’t work every case together, they each had their own caseload but when they needed help on a case they were able to turn to each other and that was something that he hadn’t had for a while so it was taking a little getting used to but he knew that it was a good thing. Mystic Falls wasn’t like the other towns that he had worked in, New Orleans had a high level of supernatural presence in it too but Mystic Falls was something else entirely and it was a relief to know that there was someone that he could turn to when he needed to. He already had that in Gwen but something told him that if things continued the way they were at the moment then he might end up having that in Michael as well. “Not really. They said that during one of the home invasions something went wrong and a woman and her daughter were killed but they couldn’t find enough evidence to link anyone to the crime,” Luke shrugged. It really was awful, especially since those responsible had never been caught, but his main concern now was making sure that the same thing didn’t end up happening in Mystic Falls. “I can understand that,” Luke admitted as he got to his feet before pausing as Michael said that he was CIA. “Do you have your badge on you?” he asked, wanting to make sure that what he was being told was true even though his gut was telling him to trust the guy before they left. MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on May 16, 2019 18:41:44 GMT
On the night he’d walked into his house to find Sara and Grace dead he’d been in too much shock to take in many details. Blood everywhere, their faces and broken bodies coated in it, the two men standing there, the blade in one of their hands stained scarlet, its razor edge peeking out from behind that ruby like glaze. Those things had stood out crystal clear even as the police had kept him in that room, going through his story a dozen times over, but everything else had been shrouded in a mist that had never truly cleared. They’d called it grief, had spoken to him softly saying he might never get that clarity back. When he’d gotten his hands on their reports later Michael had realised just how much the police had discounted almost everything he’d said. Whether that was through pressure from his shadow or from clear incompetence he’d never found out for sure. All he knew was that they’d questioned it all. The theory that two men had been in the middle of a home invasion when they’d discovered that Sara and Grace were home had been stamped over the truth from the very first page of the report. No mention of anything actually being stolen, no loyalty between thieves as the man he hadn’t stopped had left his friend behind, no actual criminal history of that in the background of the dead man on his kitchen floor. It had been a fairy tale version of a nightmare that few had ever been able to read between the lines of. Hearing that Luke had spent time in New Orleans had left Michael wondering whether or not the man had something to do with the coverup but it didn’t take much to convince him otherwise. This Michael, the one grasping at straws again, could trust enough to believe that not every badge in the city had been complicit in it all.
Luke was that rare creature instead, one familiar with what the police had said had happened but far enough removed that perhaps he’d actually be able to see the truth in all of this in the way that Gwen had. God only knew he’d waited long enough to find someone willing to believe his account of their deaths. Michael huffed out a sour sound of amusement, his mouth pursing as he shook his head at the detective. ”They’re not wrong in the fact that two people were killed but it’s not tied to those invasions in the way they’re alleging.” It had been a ploy, one to put him off of digging. That hadn’t worked. Even as he’d locked himself up in his parents’ home in grief some part of him had been desperate to dig into it all, to find out what had happened that night, why they had been taken. Drawing in a breath as Luke questioned his credentials, Michael slipped a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket. He held it out to the detective as he continued to hold the door for him. ”I was an analyst before I was placed on indefinite leave. Still intend to go back at some point but I have things that need to be cleared up first.” Michael lifted his chin, his jaw flexing for a moment as he met the man’s eye. ”Would you be more likely to trust me on that if I come clean with you now?” Michael swallowed hard, glancing away before he looked back up to meet the detective’s eye. He was extending the hand of trust again, hoping to hell that neither he or Gwen had somehow been taken in by her partner. ”There were three people killed that night. My wife, my daughter and one of the men I believe killed them.” It didn’t get any easier to say, no matter how many times he was telling his story now.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Feb 13, 2020 21:53:04 GMT
Moving around from town to town wasn’t easy but it was something that Luke had grown accustomed to over the centuries. The fact that he didn’t age meant that he couldn’t spend more than a few years in one place before people started to notice that he wasn’t getting any older so whenever he moved to a new place it was safe in the knowledge that it wasn’t going to be a permanent home for him but this time he hoped that things might be different. He hadn’t been to anywhere like Mystic Falls before, there were so many people in the town who were immersed in the supernatural world and that had made him a little apprehensive when Nick had suggested moving there since it meant that there were bound to be more hunters around as well but his brother had seemed set on the idea and Lauren and the kids had seemed up for it too so Luke had known that he needed to go along and make sure that they didn’t get into any trouble while they were there. He had lived away from his family before, granted a lot of his life he had ended up sticking around so that he wouldn’t be alone but he had travelled on his own as well and he hadn’t minded it too much but he couldn’t deny that he would rather have his family around than be apart from them. After Nick and Lauren lost James it had made Luke remember that any one of them could be taken at any time as well and he knew that he would regret it if anything happened to his twin, Lauren or the kids and he wasn’t around to stop it so moving to Mystic Falls with them had seemed like something that he’d needed to do. It had been easy enough for him to get a job as a detective in the town and he had a pretty good partner in Gwen but he still worked cases on his own as well and he knew that he probably always would. Luke would be the first to admit that he didn’t always play well with others and it was often easier for him to keep his guard up around people than it was to really let them in and that didn’t often make for a good partnership so more often than not he had found that he was better off working alone but he was giving having a partner a shot this time around. “I figured as much and a few of my friends on the force down there always had their doubts as well,” Luke admitted. It wasn’t always easy to carry on investigating when all of the evidence pointed in one direction but his friends had told him that something hadn’t sat right with them about it so he wasn’t at all surprised to hear that Michael didn’t believe the story he had been told either. “I think there was something off about a few of those home invasions but sometimes people aren’t always able to see the truth even when it is right in front of them.” So many people even in Mystic Falls were still in the dark about the supernatural and Luke knew that it was perhaps better that way but it still amazed him sometimes just how willing so many people were to believe the stories of animal attacks and home invasions when there was clearly something more to it if they let themselves think outside the box. It was unfortunately in Luke’s nature to be suspicious of people and as Michael handed over his credentials, Luke studied them carefully for a moment. He had dealt with the FBI before and he had even worked for them at one time under a different name so he knew how to tell real badges from fake ones and this one was definitely real but that didn’t mean that he probably wouldn’t still call in a favour from an old friend and double check when he was alone. Nodding as Michael explained about being on indefinite leave, Luke lifted his gaze to look at the man before him as he asked if he would be more inclined to trust him if he told him the truth. “Probably,” he conceded although Luke didn’t often find it easy to trust anyone these days. It generally took people a while to break through his walls but there were some who had managed it and for those people he knew that he would do anything. “I’m sorry about your wife and your daughter,” he said sincerely, knowing all too well what losing someone you loved felt like. “You said before that only two people died that night. What makes you think there was a third body?”MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Mar 20, 2020 16:42:39 GMT
Michael’s throat worked like something was stuck in it, his jaw flexing repeatedly with the motion. The job that the New Orleans police force had done on the murders had been pitiful. He’d begged his superiors at the agency to intervene, had sworn blind to them all that the work he’d been doing to take down the shadowy figure he’d been tracing through the data for months had been the cause of Sara and Abi’s deaths but each time he’d gotten that look. The one that said he’d become unhinged by the deaths of his family and what he’d been forced to do that night. Maybe he had a little, Michael thought, the curse that had struck with the next full moon certainly hadn’t helped, but he’d known he was right about who was behind it all. There were too many things that hadn’t added up and when Orlov had turned up at his parents’ house he’d practically spelt out the fact that that his family had been targets. The vampire had just never given him enough detail for him to be able to say with one hundred percent certainty who had done it and why. That feeling had remained in the pit of his stomach though, driving him to keep investigating from a distance. All it would’ve taken was one detective suddenly spending beyond his means or a phone call made to Russia, where his shadow seemed to have originated from, for him to find that one weak link. If he found it he could break the entire chain and find some justice for them both. It was never going to bring his wife or daughter back but if the shadow and the others he was sure were behind it were gone, maybe he’d be able to return home at least. Maybe he’d get to see Karin face to face again.
Hearing from Luke that people in New Orleans had their doubted too had Michael staring at the guy. He’d never got the impression that it was anything but an open and shut case, swept under the rug either out of corruption or because word had come down from on high that it wasn’t to be pushed too far. ”Really?” he managed with a croak. Michael cleared his throat, trying to will moisture back into it as he planted his hands on his hips. He was a feeling a little breathless at the news and maybe if he’d been alone he would’ve had his head between his knees. As it was he forced himself to nod, to bite back the bitterness in the faint chuckle he let out. ”Some don’t want to see it,” he said hoarsely. Others would in the end. ”What were the guys down there saying about it all?” It just needed to be something he could get his teeth into to figure things out here. If he was still working for the agency officially it would’ve been easier. He’d told some down here that he was but he started telling Gwen’s partner the truth as he offered his badge up. That was real enough but he had no legal power behind it anymore. Michael’s mouth pursed as he stepped out into the hall and slipped his badge back into his pocket. He bobbed his head slightly, sucking in a breath before he started to explain. ”Thank you,” Michael managed back. He’d brushed off sympathy immediately after that night but he knew sincerity when he heard it now, was literally able to sniff it out. For a moment Michael wouldn’t look at Luke as his question hung in the air, he just took a few steps down the hallway before he paused and glanced aside. ”The two people who I said died that night were my wife and daughter, the third body was the man I killed when I came home and found the people who had done it still in my home. It wasn’t intentional, the man came up at me with the knife he used on them and … I wasn’t the one hurt with it in the end.” Flexing his fingers, Michael tried to will away the feel of the man’s blood on his skin again.
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LUKE ADAMS
Kitsune
Posts: 113
Age:
629
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Single
Played by:
Emma
Last seen Oct 31, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
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Post by LUKE ADAMS on Mar 29, 2020 18:30:32 GMT
Luke was used to moving around a lot, he had lived in lots of different places over the centuries and he had worked different jobs but at the end of the day he had always found himself gravitating back to law enforcement in one form or another. He had worked as a patrol officer and worked his way up, he had started various different private investigator businesses and he had worked in private security but at the end of the day working as a detective was what he was best at and it was what he felt most comfortable doing. He knew that he could help people no matter which avenue he went down but he liked putting the pieces together to solve the cases he worked and there were plenty of them in Mystic Falls so it definitely kept him busy. He wasn’t used to having a partner to work with and Gwen wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with but they respected each other and he was helping manage her caseload when she wasn’t there as well as his own so things were working for now at least. She hadn’t said that she was expecting a visitor that day but Luke wasn’t about to let that bother him. Michael seemed like a decent enough guy and it seemed like he had some information on one of the cases that he and Gwen had been looking into together so he knew that he had to take that information and run with it. Had the roles been reversed and one of his sources stopped by with some information then he knew that Gwen would have done the same so the truth was that he really wasn’t too worried. It was going to take a while for him to trust Michael but he could at least give him the benefit of the doubt and that was something that Luke happened to be pretty good at. He wasn’t good at trusting people or letting them get to know the real him given just how many people he had lost in the past but when it came to his work he knew how to do his job well and he wasn’t afraid to do what he needed to do in order to get information that might just prove to be invaluable to the case. “There was always something that didn’t quite feel right about those cases,” Luke nodded. They hadn’t known what it was but it had been enough to make them question whether what they knew was right and that was something that hadn’t sat well with him. “They had a few different theories but never anything that completely added up,” he explained, knowing that it really wasn’t worth repeating any of those theories at the moment considering that they weren’t going to be right. He also wasn’t sure whether or not Michael knew about the supernatural world like some of his friends back in New Orleans did so telling him just wasn’t an option. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like. You didn’t deserve any of that,” he said, his heart really going out to the guy. “Did you ever have anyone you suspected might be behind it?” he asked, knowing that those names might be a good place to start even if they weren’t official suspects at the time. MICHAEL SHEPARD
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MICHAEL SHEPARD
Werewolf
Posts: 279
Age:
33
Occupation:
CIA Analyst/Thief
Status:
Married
Partner:
Sara Shepard
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 10, 2024 20:02:50 GMT
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Post by MICHAEL SHEPARD on Apr 15, 2020 19:12:55 GMT
There were some people who were always going to just take the simplest explanation for something. It didn’t matter if it was the supernatural they were trying to avoid by some sort of a sixth sense or a complex theorem that they just couldn’t wrap their head around, if there was an opportunity to bury their head in the sand most would happily do it. His bosses, the other analysts, his wife, the police, none of them had been willing to look at what he had and see that there was some sort of darkness there, a threat that had to be dealt with. Sara had just seen a husband disappearing into his work, his bosses had seen someone who needed to take a little time off, his coworkers had just seen that same seemingly innocuous scrolling past without picking out the fact that something was off. The cops, all that they had seen was a house invasion, right in the middle of a string of others. Maybe Abi and Sara had disturbed them before they’d been able to do anything more than ransack his office. Maybe the men had panicked and had hurt one of them, maybe they’d had to try and take it further to cover up what they’d done. No matter how many times Michael had tried to argue against it none of them would see. In the end the call had come that he was on indefinite leave. His job would be kept for him but until he’d been medical cleared he was not to return to it. Two years of being paid to try and sort himself out when the entire time he’d just been digging himself deeper into that world with the help of Erik Orlov.
Coming to Mystic Falls was supposed to have just been a side trip outside of that but people here believed enough that he’d suddenly found himself floating amongst all of this instead of sinking deeper. Michael cleared his throat, swallowed as he hung his head slightly to try and stop the relief from rolling through him like a tidal wave. ”They weren’t right. Some were maybe genuine home invasions but there was a reason behind the others and it wasn’t just to steal a few valuables,” he admitted hoarsely. He’d always suspected that his family weren’t the only ones the shadow had ever targeted. Green eyes narrowed faintly as he studied the man in front of him. Trusting Gwen had been a stretch and even she hadn’t learned everything. ”You think they’d be willing to share them with me? The files, what they thought.” You didn’t need to be a genius to know that cops never committed everything to the official files. Michael’s jaw flexed as he accepted Luke’s sympathy, his eyes remaining on the closed doorway at the end of the hall until he drew himself back. ”They didn’t deserve it,” he said hoarsely. ”According to my superiors at the Agency I was clutching at straws.” He’d never known if that was because they honestly couldn’t see if it or if the shadow had started to put pressure on from somewhere higher up. ”I was tracking somebody at the time. I specialized in Eastern Europe and it looked like somebody out of Russia maybe had been manipulating the economy for years. I took it up the chain of command and they told me to drop it. I didn’t and the next thing I know I’m walking into my house to find them both … dead.” The final word emerged in a hoarse whisper. He’d lost his mind when he’d seen them, hadn’t known what he was doing when he’d fought over that knife and killed that man.
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hope to see you in the discord! 
