Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, and no profit is made from these stories. (But I do have fun writing them! : )
Jack gazed intently at Polaroids scattered across his desk, his expression ranging somewhere between extreme anger and pure helplessness. Claire stood not three feet from his desk but remained silent, knowing that Jack was so deep in his own thoughts that he just couldn't be approached. Not now.
Finally he brought himself to acknowledge her.
"Just got these from the 2-7," he said warily, "the Cookie Costello homicide photos."
Claire tried to console him, trying to ease his failure as well as her own.
"Jack, you did your best with what you had..."
"No," Jack concluded. "When something like this happens, I always could have done better. I couldn't keep that bastard Munoz behind bars."
He then reached into his desk for a manila envelope, placing some of the photographs inside.
"What are you doing?" Claire asked.
"Sending the duplicates to Teri Marks. She had a hand in this too; I want her to see the price of her ambition."
finis