13
So, an NCIS friend bought a fic from me in a Nepal charity auction, but she didn't want NCIS, she wanted Scorpion and a story fitting the quote below, and it was a tough quote. And so I wrote this in one sitting. It is very dark- disturbingly so. I am worried for me. If you like Scorpion, I have another fic, The Rooster, which has been on hiatus for a while and I would like to finish it. Hopefully, this will inspire me. Sheila
"We grow small trying to be great." ~E. Stanley Jones
Obscurity
Toby observed the man who came in the garage with Cabe Gabe out of the corner of his eye. The man was a fed. Cheap suit. Hair close cut like former military. Plus, there was the telltale bulge under his shoulder that only a holster could make. His eyes were bloodshot, but his skin didn't show the telltale signs of alcoholism. Toby pretended focus on his book. Cabe didn't bring this fed for Walter. All of Cabe's body language pointed right toward him, and Toby didn't like it. He didn't trust institutions outside the cyclone. Didn't like their motives. Besides, feds only wanted behaviorists for very specific reasons- reasons that Toby wanted no part of.
"Who's your friend?" Happy asked, eyes narrowed at the intruder. Toby suppressed a smile. He could always count on his little lotus blossom to share his mistrust of government.
"Folks," Cabe addressed the room. "This is an old friend of mine. Travis Mears. We were FBI together in another life. Travis here stayed the course. He's special agent in charge of Behavioral Sciences for the Southwest.
Toby wished he could climb into his book and disappear.
Walter nodded. "You have a case for us?"
"Not all of you."
Sylvester noticed Cabe's interest in Toby. "You need a behaviorist."
Cabe nodded. "Toby?"
Toby slammed his book shut. "Nope. Not possible. The Bureau is already up to its eyeballs in behaviorists. Hell, you throw a stick in any Bureau building, and you're bound to hit at least three."
"You're right, Dr. Curtis. I have behaviorists coming out of my ears," said Special Agent Mears.
Toby looked up. This guy was good. He didn't protest. He knew how to play the long game with a genius. "I'm not going to have insight that your people don't already have. You probably have Harvard grads there, and we all had the same teachers."
"Mind if I sit down," Mears said as he settled into an office chair. "Haven't had more than three hours sleep in a week."
Toby got up, shaking his head. "I can't help you. The people you chase…the monsters…I can't be a part of that."
"Coffee?" Paige asked Mears.
He shook his head. "I'm already as jittery as a kid on his first date."
"You have a number of behaviorists. What is it that you think Toby can do?" Walter sat across from him.
"Don't encourage this," Toby said as he paced to the other side of the room.
Mears watched him. "We need a new angle, Dr. Curtis." Toby could detect a Midwestern farm in the man's accent. Mears was raised to work hard and long and to never ask for anything in return.
"Don't guilt me, Fed. This is not my fight." Toby took up space on the far end of the room.
"It was fluke how we got him. Traffic stop. Highway patrol officer only two years on the job. Talented kid. Spotted her flowered top in the back seat. His name is Robert Reston. 42. Divorced. No kids."
"Oh my God!" Paige put a hand over her mouth. "Is this about that little 3 year old that got snatched out of her yard last week? What is her name?"
He nodded. "Floria Pena. All we have is her shirt in the back of his truck. The lab guys can't make a match, but Mom identified the tear at the neck she was going to fix."
"Good. You have him. Take your time. He's all about control. He needs to be admired, appreciated. It'll take weeks, but you'll get there. That's what humps like this want." Toby said, keeping his distance.
"Exactly," Mears nodded. "We've been doing just that, but we lose him in eight hours. We don't have the evidence. We won't be able to hold him after that."
"That's where undercover comes in." Toby tried to lean casually against a concrete pillar but he couldn't pull it off, but he couldn't stay still.
"He won't go back to her. He knows he'll be followed."
"It's too late for her. Nothing we can do about her. She's already dead."
"No!" Paige bit her lip.
"Normally, you would be right, but we know this guy. Floria is not his first. We've been following his work for years. We have his signature on six other missing children."
Toby's curiosity won out. He put a shaky hand to his chin. "Bodies?"
"We found all six in a abandoned quarry last spring. It was all over the news."
"Same guy," Toby said to himself.
"He takes a child every 2-3 years. Usually a child of color. Response time is slower in those cases. Media attention is lighter although we've worked hard to change that."
"How do you know he keeps them alive?"
"They were emaciated. Plump, healthy children when taken and emaciated when found. He starves them to keep them weak and docile. Probably kept them alive for a couple of months."
Toby looked up at the ceiling. "I can not do this. I am not built for this kind of work."
Happy appeared at his side and silently put a hand on his arm.
Paige looked at him with tears on her cheeks. "She's somewhere alive, Toby. Did you hear him? He won't go back to her. She'll die alone. She has a mother…I can't imagine…"
"His properties!" Toby interrupted.
"We've raided everything in his name, his mother's name, and his brother's. Nothing."
"You have guys for this!" Toby challenged once more.
"Dr. Curtis, the Bureau still has work to do learning how to color outside the lines. We tend to hire people who look like us, dress like us, and think like us. He's a quirky son of a bitch, and he needs a quirky son of a bitch to spar with. We need someone who can get inside his head quick."
Toby said nothing.
Mears shook his head. "I swear to God I don't have time for this. Cabe had to work hard to get me out of that police station and down here. If I got to one more minute massaging your delicate ego, I am going to burst a blood vessel," Mears said as he got to his feet.
Cabe nodded. "Travis, my apologies for wasting your time."
Mears accepted a hand on his shoulder and then headed out the door. Toby waited for the door to close and then jumped up and down pointing. "Did you see that? Rehearsed! Tells everywhere! I call shenanagins!"
"You bet your ass, Toby!" Cabe said. "I would do a striptease if I thought it would get your attention right now."
"He thinks my ego is fragile, but he's wrong. It's my psyche. Do you have any idea what it would cost for me to get into that monster's head? It would be game over for Toby M. Curtis' sanity."
"I'd be there."
Toby shook his head. "You don't understand."
"Nor do you. You've never been a parent," Cabe said softly. "When my little girl was three, she was a sweet, sassy little angel. I would've walked through fire if I thought she was in danger. Floria is that little girl right now."
Walter stood. "Toby, Cabe's wrong. He doesn't need just part of the team today. He needs all of us. You don't go unless we all go."
Toby closed his eyes. Happy slipped her hand in his and he nodded.
Cabe grabbed his coat. "Come on. Mears is waiting in the car.
"Shenanigans," Toby said under his breath as he reached for his hat.
…
"Who are you?" Asked the man cuffed to the table. He was an average looking White man in his mid-forties who was slowly losing the battle of the bulge.
Toby put up a finger. "In a minute, Reston. I'm texting my girlfriend."
"I get it. It 's a game. Well, I'm not playing."
Toby looked up from his phone. "Yup. It's a game. Which one is it? You are a puzzlemaster. All of the great psychopaths are. Which game is it and how do you know that you're not already playing it?"
"You don't look like a fed."
"I'm not. Too lazy. Have you met Mears? Probably goes running at 6 a.m. even on his days off. That man is going to die of a coronary at 52, and in his last moments, he's going to feel like he lived a worthy life. I find that fascinating."
Reston shrugged. Toby cocked his head. "Dude, that fingerprinting stain on your collar must be driving you nuts."
Reston's eyes looked down before he realized he couldn't fully see his collar. His eyes snapped back to Toby.
Toby smirked. "I mean, with your obsessive compulsive disorder, it's always the little things. If you could raise up a bit, you could see it in the mirror, but you can't, can you?"
Reston glared. "I thought I was a psychopath."
"Comorbidity. Not that uncommon. Your compulsions trump, but your sociopathy allows you to disregard the pain of others in pursuit of your proclivities. I read the profile on the way over here."
"This isn't going to work."
"Well, I'm not the A team. They are sitting behind the mirror wondering how to get me out of here. Mears got quite a tongue lashing when I showed up. Everyone's feathers are ruffled."
"What time is it?"
Toby sighed. "Not telling you. It irritates you not to know, and I like that."
"This is such a waste," Reston spat.
"Hold on," Toby said. "She's texting me again. Or, perhaps, I should say she is sexting me."
"That's not really your girlfriend."
"No, but I am hoping for one day. I have to be brave and noble and better at not sabotaging first dates. Right now, I am living one day at a time- like an alcoholic."
"Show me a picture."
"No," Toby said as he turned the phone away from Reston. "I will protect her from evil."
"The FBI is going to yank you out of here at any time. You're useless."
"Maybe not." Toby looked up from his phone again. "You're OCD. They know to focus on places within twenty miles of where the cop pulled you over. You would never be too far away from her. She's too precious and you only get to have her for such a short time."
Reston set his mouth in a grimace.
"Right. You're reacting to the search area. How long does it take for every law enforcement agency in L.A. to search twenty square miles? Will you be released in time? Even if you are, it won't stop the search. They know that Floria is nearby, and they know she is alive. You know you'll be followed so there is no way to go back to her. No way to say good-bye. You can't complete this circle. The circle is only completed through her death. What was it like when they found your dump site? I know you went out there to reminisce sometimes."
"I want to talk to someone else."
"You want the flatterers back in here. The groupies. Do you really think they are real? They will do anything to hear your story. They are good at it too. You'll even believe that they like and admire you until you're locked in a 7' by 10' cell and you never hear from them again 'cause they are too busy trying to vomit the memory of you from their lives."
"Anyone else!" Reston screamed at the two way mirror.
"Oh, they are trying. None of them are particularly happy that I am in here. You will be reunited with your buddies soon enough. In the meantime, I think we should focus on a couple of ideas. Floria isn't some place dirty. They need to stop looking in abandoned warehouses or wooded areas. You only deal with dirt when it's time to bury her. In order to truly enjoy Floria, you need her some place clean. No distractions."
"I want a lawyer!" He screamed at the mirror.
"Oh my goodness. I hit a nerve. Clean places. New apartments. New houses. New construction!" Toby sat up straight. "Nothing that reeks of must or mildew. No wood. Wood is dirty. People like you employ a metric of some kind. Nothing built before what year? 1970? 1980? You need a neat number. A good indicator. This year is 2015. Go back 25 years. 1990. I like it. Do you like it?"
Sweat appeared on Reston's brow. Toby watched him with shiny eyes. "You do. New construction. A place with a basement. The walls are thickest there, aren't they?"
"You have to stop talking to me! I asked for a lawyer!"
"No, I believe I can talk as much as I want. I'm not law enforcement. You don't have to talk though. You can stop right now if you want."
Reston started breathing heavily. "I just want to talk to someone else."
"I know. I do too." Toby looked down. "My soon to be girlfriend, Happy, is texting again. She says they are pulling all permits for construction in the last twenty years. Smart. We don't know exactly what your metric is, do we?"
"I'm not saying anything more."
"Fine with me. I don't like talking to monsters who hurt little girls." Toby turned his head to the glass. "Can someone bring in Reston's clothes or does the lab still have them? We should see what he was wearing when the cop nabbed him. And bring in Walter."
A moment later, the door opened, and Walter and Cabe came in with a plastic bag of clothing. Toby nodded. "Plastic. Perfect. It traps smell. Open the bag, Walter, and take a whiff."
Walter opened it up and smelled. Then he closed his eyes.
Toby smiled at Reston. "Walter is smarter than both of us put together. And he's got a keen nose. Actually, he's got a normal nose, but he's smart enough to know how important it is to cultivate that sense. He's very good at it. Walt, you catch any ocean in those clothes?"
He shook his head. "Valley. Heat. Sweat. No sea air. There's something else though."
Toby nodded and turned to the window. "You work on that while we narrow our search perimeter. What do you think, Sly?"
The door opened again and a big face popped in. "Valley side narrows it by 34.76%"
Toby looked at Reston. "Better odds, don't you think?"
Sly started to retreat when Toby called for him. "Don't go. Something just occurred to me. Reston likes perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. I know someone interviewed his ex-wife, but could you get her on the phone?"
Cabe nodded and stepped out. Sly clung to the doorway. "I don't like being in here."
"Join the club, Sly-dog."
Walter squinted at the clothes again. "The clothes smell like plastic…but a different plastic than this bag."
Toby shook his head. "What does that mean? Drop cloths? Plastic containers?"
Walter's eyes widened. "Grandma plastic. The plastic on couches. You hear that, people! How many people still buy plastic couch covers in L.A. county?"
"I'll check on that," Sylvester said, opening the door.
"Stay!"
Sly clung to the door.
"Reston here is bright. He sees himself as one of us. He likes perfect. He's obsessive. He has undoubtedly purchased property under an assumed name. What do really, really bright people obsess on? What is utopia for us?"
Sly blinked. "The future. The best, possible future…Science fiction!"
"Cabe, is she on the phone?" Toby smiled. "Look at Reston's face. He wants to swallow his tongue about now. He knows we're too close to something."
Reston's face was red but he said nothing.
Toby's eyes stayed on Reston. "Star Wars or Star Trek? Which one is perfect? It's the age old question. Fantasy versus science."
"Science," Sly said automatically.
Toby nodded. "Did you see that tic in his eyelid? Yup. It's Star Trek. He wants to be taken seriously. Just Star Trek. Confirm, Cabe!"
There were two short knocks on the glass.
Toby turned to Sly. "He couldn't use a full alias like James T. Kirk. Too obvious. Look for a combination. Either Robert and a Star Trek last name. Or two Star Trek name combinations. There are hundreds of combinations. You got a logarithm for this?"
Sly nodded.
"It's on a mortgage, Sly! It's too risky for him to rent."
Sylvester escaped.
…
Thirty minutes passed, and Toby's eyes stayed fixed on Reston the whole time. Walter had stayed in the room with them- a sense of uneasiness settling in his gut. There was something about Toby that was different than he'd ever seen before.
"You okay, Pal?"
Toby nodded. "We are so close, Walt. So close. He's afraid to move now. I have all his tells. I am inches away from seeing right inside his brain."
Walter's nervousness escalated and he looked at the mirror. "Do we know something?"
Two sharp knocks.
Toby narrowed his eyes at Reston. "Come in and say it out loud."
Sly came in. "I'm one of the only ones left in there. Name came up as James McCoy. New construction 1993. A townhome in the valley with a basement. Couch covers ordered by James McCoy every June like clockwork. Everyone left 15 minutes ago. Cabe and Mears took Paige and Happy. They think that if Floria is there, she'll respond best to women."
Toby didn't acknowledge Sly. Instead, he leaned forward. "I see into your soul now, Robert. She's there and she's alive, and you can't complete this circle. Never. It will always be incomplete. Imperfect."
Reston closed his eyes and let out a ragged breath.
Walter stood. "Time for you to have a break, Toby."
Toby shook his head. "I can see everything now. They were only tiny objects to you. Their screams were nothing more than the squeak out of a toy. Their fear meant nothing to you. Nothing."
Sly took a breath. "Something's wrong."
The first tear that hit Toby's cheek was followed by a flood. "They begged for their mothers. Did you make them call you mother? It would be the ultimate form of control for a 3 year-old. Did you do that?"
"Toby." Walter reached for his arm.
Toby pulled away. "Tell me. I know everything else. Did you do that?"
Reston opened his eyes. "I wanted them to call me God until I realized that deities have no meaning at that age. Mommy was the most satisfying."
Toby's body jerked, and then he launched himself across the table onto Reston.
…
"Everything has to be normal," Sylvester said as he paced between the door and his desk.
"Except for you pacing, everything is normal," Paige said. "Now sit down and calculate something."
Cabe sat down. "Paige is right. We stay relaxed."
"We don't say the names though. No names, right?"
Paige nodded. "No names. Not even Floria."
"How is she?" Cabe asked with a wistfulness that spoke of more than just this child.
"She's good. I'm stopping over tomorrow to see her. Mrs. Pena has agreed to work with the UCLA psychiatry department on intensive PTSD treatment for both of them. She's the sweetest little thing with those big, brown eyes."
Sly rolled his eyes. "We said no talking about her, and here you are talking about her."
"I know. I know," she said, her hands in the air. "It's going to be hard."
The door opened and Walter walked in with a smile pasted on his face. "Hi everyone."
His playacting was so stilted it was comical, but they all knew he was doing the best he knew how.
Happy came in, leading Toby by the arm. He looked pale but he was wearing his hat, and it made things feel right again. His eyes took in the room, and he disengaged from Happy, listing a bit, but finding his footing until he sunk into the red leather couch.
"Hi!" Happy chirped, and it sounded worse than Walter.
Then silence fell as they all pretended nonchalance. Toby watched them act like he wasn't there for a few minutes, and then he took a breath. "I call a meeting!"
Heads jerked up and he could sense the tension. "Let's talk."
"As long as we don't say names," Sylvester declared.
"What is wrong with you people?" Toby asked. "Did any of you actually attend your psychology classes in college?"
"No," said Cabe. "Hated that class."
Sly sighed. "I just memorized the book."
"Well, I went and I liked that class," Paige said. "We're just trying to be sensitive, Toby."
"Yeah," he said, "And it's excruciating. So, we're going to talk."
Happy settled next to him on the couch. "Tell us what to do, Doc."
"Well, you have to stop being so nice. It's not you. And Walter, if you smile like that any longer, your jaw is going to lock. I had a little break from reality. I over-identified with the bad guy. I got too close. Felt too much. And, swear to God, I would've killed him if not for the two of you bozos jumping on me like you were auditioning for WWE. It happened. I spent a week at the funny farm- which I hated. I'm taking a little anxiety cocktail which I find limiting, but it is temporary, and now I am back."
She swallowed. "We were a little scared."
Toby took her hand. "Yeah, I know. I scared me too."
Cabe got up. "You knew this was a possibility, and we, or I, pushed you into it."
"And she is alive. Floria is alive. Pushing me was the right thing. Imagine living with me if I hadn't given in and they had found that child dead."
Paige frowned. "But there were all those confidentiality agreements everyone had to sign so no one would know the role you played- not even the Pena family. The FBI even signed an agreement to never contact you again for a case."
Toby nodded. "They'll do it anyway. The truth is that I can only survive so many Robert Restons. So, I stay on the down low until obscurity claims me again."
"L.A. County wanted to give us that commendation," Sylvester said. "I'm glad we don't have to do that."
"Sly," Walter muttered under his breath.
"What? Toby said we could talk about things."
"It would be good for Scorpion," Toby said.
Walter shrugged. "Not without you."
Toby closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't think I can. My life can't be bigger than this garage."
"Then we don't need it."
"I'm sorry," he said, scanning their faces.
"Don't be," Cabe said as a smile spread across his craggy features. "This group doesn't need more ego or notoriety. The right opportunities will find us."
Toby nodded. "No serial killers for awhile, okay?"
"I promise, Doc."
Happy cocked her head. "So, I can return to pretty much treating you like crap."
He sighed. "I'm sorry to say it, but that would be best for the time being although I would remind you that our love will prevail in the end."
She wrinkled her nose and he waited for a comeback, but she only shook her head and kissed him on the cheek.
…..
The End