He stands there, in the dusty basement, staring at the chair, the torn duct tape still hanging off the arms and legs.
"Call in CSU. I want prints, DNA, whatever. I want the identity of everybody who was in this room. I want the identity of everybody who was in this building. Get them to filter the names through Organized Crime, Vice, and Narcotics; they're bound to have files on most of Nevikov's associates." Tidwell hears the scurrying of combat-booted feet as a SWAT team member runs to call it in.
He'd worked so hard with the sound technician, replaying the tape again and again and again, trying to find something he could use to save her. He wants so badly to be her white knight, so that she knows how sorry he is for sending her away to the FBI, urging her towards the lieutenant's exam, pushing her away from her partner. His desire for her, his desperate insecurity in the face of her strange partnership, and his fear for her stability have been eating away at his professional objectivity for months.
Now she's gone, and he knows there's nothing he can do to get her back. It's out of his hands. But he still has to go through the motions.
"…the brass saw that tape and they're coming down here to see you and I could care less what they do to you. You will tell me why Nevikov thinks Rayborn is still alive and you will tell me what I need to know to get…Reese back." Tidwell was angry, but he was embarrassed, too. Embarrassed to say her name in front of Crews, embarrassed to betray his desperation in front of the man he considered, in some strange way, to be his rival.
"You want her back? Well, I should go before the brass gets here."
Crews was more than halfway to the door when he stopped him. "Okay, so where's your first stop?" And, in that moment, he knew that, whatever he did from that moment on, he had given up his advantage.
"Our friends at the FBI." There was that glib, smart-assy tone he hated so much.
"No; the last time we asked them questions, they stonewalled us."
"Last time I asked them questions like a cop. This time it'll be a little different." Okay, that wasn't glib. There was a cutting edge there. Maybe the rumours he'd heard were true. Crews moved to take off his badge. "I should maybe leave this—"
"No, keep it; it'll help. But leave your phone—they'll track you on it." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled his cell out. "Here, take mine. They won't look for it."
They swapped phones, and Crews made for the door.
Tidwell found he desperately needed to reestablish dominance. "Detective Crews!" Crews stopped and turned, just past the threshold. Tidwell hoped that he sounded as resolute as Crews looked. "You go get her."
Crews wasn't going to let him have the last word, though. "Got nothin' else to do today."
He knows as he bends down for it that he'd get his hand slapped by a CSU tech—if one were present—for picking it up, but he knows that the black cloth bag on the floor had been over her head. The scent of her sweat permeates the fabric, and it makes him want to cry.
He knows it in his gut—if Crews manages to find her, and find her alive, and bring her back safely, he knows that she won't be coming back to him.
—
He stands there, in the dusty road, staring at her silhouette through the windshield, the car advancing slowly along the road toward him.
He tilts his face up to the sun, savouring the epoch that elapses as the car moves closer. Or is that an illusion? Maybe the car will never actually arrive at this place where I'm standing. Divide the distance between me and the car in half, and when the car reaches that halfway point, divide the remaining distance in half. Repeat, and continue to repeat. Does the car ever actually arrive? The idea is unsettling, so he turns and walks toward the car, thumbing his nose at theoretical physics.
Everything he's done in the last nine hours—lying, threatening, killing—has led him here, to this place, to this moment. If he wanted to stretch a point, he might say that everything he's ever done, and everything that has ever been done to him, has led him here. It's all connected. He's in this place, in this moment, when and where he'd never imagined he would be. Whether he deserves it, when everything is weighed in the balance, is another matter.
"You for her." The tone was mildly incredulous.
"Me for her." The tone was sure.
Charlie watched as Roman turned to one of his thugs. "Bring her out." The thug stalked back to the second white SUV and yanked open the door, and he saw her head above the top edge of the open door as she straightened, and he could tell that she hadn't seen him yet, didn't know what was going on.
He watched as she was led forward, and as Roman grabbed her arm. He watched as she noticed him, as she spoke his name. His heart, calm until that moment, started to thump erratically.
Roman crooked a finger at him, waiting for him to start walking before he pushed Dani forward.
His heart pounded as he watched her move forward, confusion in her face as he continued to walk toward her, until the moment the confusion became enlightenment—the moment she realized that he wasn't walking toward her. The look on her face broke his heart. He so desperately wanted to stop, to hold her for just a moment before he continued on toward what would likely be his death.
"Crews—"
"Just breathe." He reached out his fingers toward hers as she reached toward his.
"No, no! No touching…" but they did, they touched as they passed, as she reached out just a bit further and her fingers brushed against his wrist, and a jolt shot through his body and the math came right and he understood for the first time and he had to pull back even though he hated to do it, had to keep walking if he was going to pull this off. If he was very lucky, he might even survive it.
Her face begins to resolve behind the glass, the veil of reflection being pulled aside to reveal—what? A miracle, an impossibility. Dani Reese is smiling. At him. Not a big smile, but still. There's wonder, and softness, and a hint of wry disbelief (because this is Dani Reese, after all).
The car slows to a crawl, and before it even stops she's got the door open and she's out and running toward him and so he stops and braces for the impact. And when it comes he catches her up in his arms and he can feel the lithe line of her wrapped around him so he wraps around her in turn and it's like nothing he's ever experienced in his life because she's kissing him hard with those incredible lips and he can taste the tang of her blood and smell the tang of her sweat and he's standing in the middle of a dirt road in the middle of his orange grove with the woman he'd offered up his life for in his arms and he's not dead and she's so alive and hang on, Bodner's sitting in the car watching us kiss and so he slows and then she slows and then they both slow until they stop.
They stop, a scant inch between the tips of their noses, and they examine each other intently—each looking for that thing in the other that they've only just discovered in themselves and are unwilling to name yet, afraid of finding it and terrified of not finding it. Each looking into the other's eyes and finding it.
He glances down at her mouth, sees a drop of blood welling on her lower lip where the ripe plumpness has been split. His tongue darts out and licks at the bead, and her moan draws him in again, into the hot sweetness of her mouth. He doesn't give a thought to Bodner.
He gives Tidwell a moment of his thought, though; wondering what it will do to him to find that he's lost this woman—this amazing, amazing woman—then imagining what it would do to him, right now, if she were to disappear from his arms. He feels a momentary burst of pity for Tidwell, then forgets him again as Reese sucks hard on his tongue. She pulls away from his mouth, laying her head on his shoulder, her nose buried in his neck, a sigh brushing across his Adam's apple.
"This is kinda weird, Crews." He can feel her lips curve into a smile just above his shirt collar. She sounds happy.
He smiles in response. "It kinda is, yeah." He shifts his grip on her, joining his hands into a sling beneath her bottom. He can feel the chunky heels of her boots digging into the backs of his thighs. God, he dearly loves those chunky-heeled boots.
"If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will kick your ass." No change in tone, the smile still pressed into his neck.
"I don't doubt it. Of course, if I hadn't pulled a stunt like that, you wouldn't be here to kick my ass if I ever pull a stunt like that again." He can feel the smile disappear and his chest tightens. "Dani, he's gone. He won't touch you again."
She raises her head, and her face is so, so serious. "He killed my father, Charlie. He told me my father cried before he killed him." He can see the pooling tears shine along the line of her lower lids.
"Jack Reese? Cry? Never happened." He watches the tears spill as she's caught for a moment between a sob and a chuckle, watches as the sob wins and grows into full-fledged keening. He leans down to kiss her forehead, and she leans into the kiss, resting her head against his lips for a moment before curling into his chest as her body shudders.
He holds her, his cheek resting on her soft sable hair, in the middle of a dirt road in the middle of his orange grove, and he realizes that he can feel joy. He feels guilty about being able to feel joy when Reese is so obviously distraught, until he realizes that it's the fact that he is able to take care of her, to openly care for her, that gives him this feeling of joy.