Jo and Johnny
He had been a cop. That's why they had agreed to this meeting, that's why he was walked through the maze of desks and past the offices and through hallways to the holding cells where the woman who had almost killed his little girl was being held. They looked at each other, Bobby looking on nervously and the man he had been told was named Declan Gage gazing from one to another as if this were an experiment, and his idea.
He remembered what Bobby had told him earlier about this young woman. How he had studied at her father's feet, how foolish he felt now about ignoring this young woman who had been a little girl who needed a father when he had been a man who thought he needed a father more. Bobby had tried to brush over her childhood—no need to disturb an old man, after all—but he had pressed, and then shuddered at what he heard. Declan showing her the pictures . . . he remembered vividly the folders he kept from his little girl growing up. "Daddy's job, not for little girls." He'd sweep her up when she got too close to his files with the red red pictures in them. Later, he'd created a "CLASSIFIED" stamp to press onto the files so Lexie, who at thirteen was getting more and more curious about his world, would know better than to look into them. One night, she had come to his office with a picture in her hand and tears all over her cheeks, and she could only say, "Dad—I looked. I'm sorry." He held her against his own thudding heart as she cried. She didn't look again.
He thought of that moment as he gazed at this person on the other side of the bars, who looked at him She saw the pictures. She never had an arm to swoop her out of danger or hold her while she cried. Bobby had said she had not conscience, but he wondered about that. Was a swoop and a thudding heart so important to a young girl? Bobby had never had that.
"You tried to kill my little girl." No words for a cop to say. But he was a father first. He was a father.
"The patient does not recognize the heinous nature of her crimes, Mr. Eames. I feel you coming here might jeopardize my work." This was Declan talking. Declan, the father. Johnny stared at Bobby, whose face was a picture of blankness that Johnny had come to associate most often with red hot guilt.
"I was going to mutilate her starting with her fingers, cutting of the digits slowly to create a feeling of powerlessness." He would later remember the rote way she said this, as if reading from a textbook."It was going to be an ironic statement. Make a cop powerless. But I knew this would be hard to achieve when she didn't scream at my first attempt to make her." All the while that little smile on her face.
"Open the door," said Johnny simply.
"No," Bobby answered.
BANG! BANG! Johnny Eames threw himself at the bars, shouting things he should have kept to himself, at the top of his lungs. "Bitch! Bitch!" He reached into the cell to try to squeeze the life out of the woman who tried to kill his daughter, who was now studying him intently as if trying to work out his motive. She didn't seem frightened, she didn't gloat, she was unlike anything he'd ever put behind bars.
Bobby and Ross pried his hands loose from the prison bars, and Ross handed him a cloth and indicated he'd been bleeding from hitting the bars with his head. "Sir, I've got two sons. I cannot imagine what you must be wanting to do."
Declan walked over. "I must say I'm disappointed Mr. Eames. I would have thought a decorated officer would show more restraint." There was a faint sneer in his voice.
The emotions that played over Johnny's face then made both Bobby and Ross cringe. Johnny could not believe what he was hearing. He looked finally over at Bobby. "What is wrong with you?" he spat at his little girl's protector. "What is wrong with you? You gave your mind over to him? This man?"
Shaking, Johnny Eames walked out of the holding cells. He knew she would not listen, but he would ask Lex to request a new partner immediately. He knew he wouldn't trust Bobby again for a long long time.