Title: Thicker Than Water
Rating: T (for language and content)
Summary: Stephanie McMahon is the daughter of a mob boss and Detectives Irvine and Benoit are determined on nailing her father. So what happens when she runs into their station, battered and bruised? Will she close the case for them, or will they have to give up on convicting the McMahon family?
Disclaimer: I own no one and make nothing.
An impressive, almost uncontainable, crowd had gathered since the arrests had been made. The eminent culprits, still holding their heads high with pride and arrogance, walked out of the hotel lobby and into the street with all eyes on them. News reporters had rushed to the scene when they found out that such a famous and well-respected family had been captured. Cameras were rolling, capturing their humiliating walks of shame to the police cars.
The daughter was last, a look mixed of anger, frustration, and sadness etched upon her flawless features. She walked with a slow grace and fluidity, allowing the gap between her and the rest of her family to grow wider and wider with each step.
Opening the door to a police car, the blonde detective glared menacingly at the woman.
She paused before climbing into the squad car. "You know, it wasn't supposed to happen this way," she spoke to him for the first time since the arrest, but never looking at him.
The detective rolled his eyes with a snort. "What wasn't?" he decided to humor her by replying.
Finally turning her head and locking eyes with the blonde, she replied, "Everything."
Hearing her response, the man stiffened. He watched her voluntarily seat herself in the backseat. He took a step back as his partner slammed the door shut and gave the trunk two hits to signal the driver to leave.
"Everything…" the blonde man repeated.
Rain pelted the windows viciously and showed no signs of retreat. After pounding the glass in vain, each drop slid almost gallantly down the pane. The dark sky in the background merely watched in amusement, occasionally throwing down a flash of lightning to encourage the troop of raindrops.
"Are you listening?"
Chris Irvine tore his gaze away from the battle between the clear barricade and the falling water droplets. "What? Sorry."
His partner, Chris Benoit sighed. "These were taken a couple of days ago, and it's only of the kids," Benoit growled. Irvine picked up a yellow folder labeled "The McMahon Family" and flipped it open. On top of all the photographs within the folder were two glossy pictures, each with a yellow Post-It attached.
Irvine picked up the first one. The sticky read "Shane 'The Money' McMahon." The photo captured only the man's bicep and up. He had short brown locks and looked innocent, almost boyish, but both Irvine and Benoit knew the man was anything but. He wore his signature black button-down shirt with a pair of designer sunglasses to cover his eyes.
The other photograph of his younger sister was labeled "Stephanie 'Princess' McMahon." It captured the image of a beautiful young woman with brown hair matching the young man's, but it flowed down to the middle of her back. She wore a white low-cut blouse with, as usual, some sort of expensive piece of jewelry adorning her neck; in this scene, it was a diamond choker.
"They haven't done anything for three fucking weeks! They've gone to a bunch of charity events and galas, but nothing illegal!" Benoit exclaimed angrily.
"These were from when they met Levesque, right?" Irvine spoke.
"Yeah. They went and had lunch at some snooty restaurant that neither of us could ever afford. Why can't we just arrest them?" Benoit groaned in frustration.
"We don't have enough evidence to actually link them to everything that we know they did," Irvine reminded him. "Besides, Captain said that we need to be two-hundred percent sure that they were responsible. Meaning we need more evidence other than us saying that they did it. He doesn't want us embarrassing the squad and ruining ties to their family if we're wrong."
"Oh yeah. Damned sufficient evidence and probable cause shit," Benoit sighed, cursing the necessary materials required for an indictment. "If only someone could walk through that door and tell us everything we need to know," Benoit thought aloud wistfully, staring at the clear double-doors to the front of the police station.
Irvine let out an amused snort. "If only our jobs were so easy."
Benoit released a dreamy sigh. "If only. My wife would be ecstatic if I actually came home for dinner on time. And my kids would love it if I could tuck them in and read them a bedtime story. It'd be heaven."
Irvine watched his partner, his gaze slightly clouded with envy. "If only I had a wife and kids to go home to."
"She's out there," Benoit assured his partner.
Irvine rolled his eyes in doubt. "A lot of good that does me. I'm in here."
Benoit shook his head. "You need to have more faith in destiny."
"Destiny," Irvine snorted.
"SOMEONE, PLEASE HELP ME!" a woman cried out as she burst through the front doors of the police station.
Irvine and Benoit's heads instantly turned to face the drenched woman. She was wearing a red blouse with a black skirt and heels, one of which was broken. Her hair was matted down to her face from the rain she had apparently been running in. Even with the tears streaming down her face, the swelling black eye, and bleeding lip, they immediately recognized her as the notorious Stephanie McMahon.
The two jumped up and ran over to the beaten mafia princess. Gingerly helping her up, Irvine shouted for someone to get him a couple towels while another officer rushed to get her a hot drink. After drying her off a bit and wrapping her in the towels in a feeble attempt to warm the chilled woman, the partners simply stared at her, waiting for her to finally speak.
Holding the warm mug in her hands, Stephanie timorously looked up from the steaming liquid to the two sets of eyes on her. "You won't let the press find out about this will you?" she questioned, looking pleadingly at the two men in front of her.
"Give us a good reason not to," Benoit growled.
Irvine hurriedly pulled his partner away from the distressed woman and whispered, "Calm down! She isn't some common criminal."
"You're right," Benoit agreed. "She's worse. She's the daughter of a mob boss."
Irvine sighed. "And that same mob boss is one of the most influential men in the state and owns one of the most powerful companies in the country!" he hissed.
"He won't be so powerful and influential once we get the evidence we need to connect him to all his dirty little deeds," Benoit vowed.
"We'll get to that later. Right now we have a victim who needs our help," Irvine reminded his partner.
With an obviously displeased sigh, Benoit reluctantly agreed to be civil toward the battered woman. "Fine."
"Just be nice," Irvine reprimanded his friend as they walked back towards the sniffling woman.
Stephanie looked up as the duo returned to her, eyes filled with worry and regret.
Irvine bent down to one knee in front of her. "I'm Detective Chris Irvine, and this is my partner, Detective Chris Benoit. Are you alright? You like you might need to go to the hospital."
She shook her head adamantly. "I'm fine. I'll just have a few bruises."
"At least let me clean your lip up for you," Irvine suggested as Benoit stood behind the two with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face.
Seeing the expression on Benoit's face, she nodded warily in acceptance.
"I'll be right back," Irvine said as he stood up and walked away from Stephanie, pulling Benoit with him. As he passed their desks, Irvine pushed Benoit into one of their chairs. "Stay," he ordered as he made his way to the bathroom.
Benoit rolled his eyes as he returned his intimidating gaze onto their shivering victim, who was at the moment staring into her steaming cup of black coffee. The frustrated detective wanted nothing more than to throw the damp brunette into an interrogation room and grill her until she connected all the dots for them. But of course, then that would make his job too easy, and things simply never worked out that way for him.
He watched Stephanie as she raised the cup to her lips, gently blowing at the steam still rising from the drink. Slowly, she took a small sip of the hot chocolate. Her eye was still swelling and the ugly purple color was becoming more prominent against her perfectly tan skin.
Suddenly, Irvine rushed past him and landed in front of Stephanie, again kneeling to meet her eyes. Taking the wet paper towel, he pressed it lightly to her lower lip to clean off the cut that had clotted for the most part. He then opened the first aid kit and ripped open a cleansing wipe to clean off the other cuts on her face. She flinched and pulled away at the stinging sensation from a particularly bad cut on her right cheek.
"Sorry," Irvine muttered, as he slowly neared the small square of cloth back to the deep nick. After cleaning off her face, Irvine pulled out a tube of Neosporin from the kit and began applying a dab on each of her cuts. He then ripped open a band-aid rapper and placed it over her worst cut. "I brought you some ice to stop the swelling," he told her, offering her a bag of ice.
"Thanks," she replied meekly while gingerly raising it to her left eye.
After a second, Irvine suggested again, "How about you let me take you to the hospital personally?"
Removing the bag, she again adamantly shook her head. "Really, I'm fine. It's not as bad as it looks."
"You don't know how bad it looks," Irvine retorted.
She continued to shake her head, though now with less force. "I can take care of myself."
"Of course you can!" he threw back, sarcasm evident in his voice. "This looks like you take very good care of yourself." After Stephanie shot him a quick glare, he spoke up again. "I'm going to go get my notepad and we'll start writing up your report, alright?"
"Report?" she repeated.
"Yeah," he answered slowly, stretching out the word. "You know, one of those things where you tell me every detail about what happened and then the police use it to find whoever did it to you?"
"You don't need to write a report. I was just mugged. Not a big deal," Stephanie insisted.
Irvine scoffed, "Actually it is a big deal. We can't have a person running around attacking and thieving innocent people."
"I don't want to file a report," Stephanie said firmly. "I knew I shouldn't have come here."
"Well this is how the legal system works, Miss McMahon," Irvine replied cheekily.
Stephanie sighed and set her cup down on the seat next to her.
Irvine took that as a sign of approval and turned, walking to his desk to pick up his pen, notepad, and partner. "Let's get started on this report," Irvine announced, digging around his desk for a working pen and blank notepad.
"I don't trust her," Benoit grumbled, finally tearing his eyes away from the heiress.
"Doesn't matter," Irvine reminded him, still fumbling with various papers and folders. "She's a victim and we have to follow procedure."
"We're detectives. Not babysitters. Let someone else write up the report," Benoit urged his partner as he glanced back at the so-called victim, who was now folding the towels which were wrapped around her moments earlier.
"Stop complaining," Irvine muttered, not paying too much attention to the grumbling man at his side. "Don't look at it as babysitting. We are profiling a dangerous criminal mastermind who may be out there committing another mugging," Irvine dramatized, still searching his desk.
"First of all, we never look into muggings. Second, he would have to be insane not a mastermind to mug the princess of New York's royal mafia. Third, if you honestly believe that she was mugged, you're dumber than I thought," Benoit rattled on.
With a sigh, Irvine faced his partner. "First, this is no ordinary mugging. Second, it would be brilliant to rob a member of the mafia because they wouldn't want to involve the police. Third, I don't believe that she was mugged. This at least gives us a chance to talk to her and poke holes in her story. Then we can tell her that we know she wasn't mugged."
Benoit shrugged. "But if the mafia doesn't want to get involved, why would she of all people come here?"
Crossing his arms, Irvine started, "When she gets hurt or threatened or even angry, who would she logically go to first?"
"Her father?" Benoit guessed.
"Exactly. Now, if she were scared of, or even angry with daddy dearest, she's not going to go running to him. She'd go to someone she knows can hurt him," Irvine explained.
"Then why doesn't she just come out and tell us what he did?" Benoit asked.
"She has to at least pretend that she tried to protect him," Irvine rolled his eyes.
Benoit nodded. Picking up a clean notepad and blue ballpoint pen from his own neatly organized desk, he said, "Let's file this report."
Irvine made a face at the speed with which Benoit had grabbed the materials for which he had been searching. "Right," he grumbled.
As the two turned to make their way to the bruised woman, they found her chair without her in it. Instead, the towels were neatly folded and stacked on her seat and her drink, no longer steaming, in the next seat. She had apparently taken the ice bag with her.
"Damn!" Benoit growled, throwing down the two items in his hands. "Did you see where she went?" Benoit asked a passing detective.
"Yeah, she walked out of here like twenty seconds ago," the blonde replied, turning and returning her attention on her destination.
"Shit," Benoit swore quietly. "I can't believe we had her then fucking lost her! How the hell did we miss her just prancing out of here?"
Irvine sighed. "I don't know. But we're going to find her and file this report!"