I want to throw this out here to see if there is any interest in it. This is a lot darker than anything I've written before but like every dark situation there's light and that light will come in the form of Emison of course. I know some people will probably really dislike this and that's okay but I'm just giving out a pre warning. Will be a slow burn if I do continue it but we will see how this goes first. This is just an intro chapter really to set everything up. So if you're interested then by all means let me know.
Emily doesn't know for sure that it's her until that moment. There is a dull bloom of warmth in her spine, her vision blurs, and then she knows that Jessica Jackson is the one she's been looking for. She realises that she's been drugged but it is too late. She fumbles for her gun, but her hands are like lead, and she can only lift it awkwardly from her belt clip and hold it out as if it were a gift to Jessica.
Jessica takes it and smiles, kissing Emily gently on the temple. Then she reaches into Emily's blazer and takes the phone, turning it off and slipping it into her purse. Emily is almost paralysed now, slumped in the olive leather chair in the home office.
But her mind is a prison of clarity. Jessica Jackson kneels down next to her, the way someone might with a child, and puts her lips so close to Emily's that they are almost kissing. Emily's pulse throbs in her throat and she can't swallow. Jessica smells like vanilla.
"It's time to go sweetheart," Jessica whispers. Jessica stands then, and Emily is lifted from behind, elbows under her arms. A man in front of her takes her legs, and she is carried into the garage and laid into the back of a maroon Escalade – the car Emily and her task force have spent months looking for – and then Jessica crawls on top of her. Emily realises then that there's someone else in the car, that Jessica wasn't the one behind her.
But she doesn't have time to process that because Jessica is now straddling her abdomen, a knee pressing on either side of her waist. She can't move her eyes anymore, so Jessica narrates for her benefit.
"I'm rolling your right sleeve up, and I'm tying off a vein." Then she holds up a hypodermic in Emily's sight line. Medical training, Emily thinks. Eighteen percent of female serial killers are nurses. She is staring at the ceiling of the car. Plain metal. Stay awake, she thinks. Remember everything, every detail. It will be important. Really important.
She thinks: if I live.
The scar on her left breast was pale and raised, the tissue no wider than a piece of string. It carved a naked path through her tanned skin, it arced and then it arced again back down to it's original point. It was shaped like a perfect love heart. If it had been a different colour or not on her, Emily would have thought it looked like a tattoo. But it's wasn't a tattoo, well it was her tattoo in some fucked up way, her own personal brand.
Emily was always aware of it, the raised skin against the material of her shirt. She had a lot of scars, battle wounds she liked to call them, it sounded better, but this was the only one that still seemed to hurt. A phantom pain, Emily knew. Like a broken rib that had never quite healed right, aching underneath. A scar wouldn't hurt though. Not after all this time.
Her phone rang and Emily turned her head towards the coffee table knowing what it meant: another day, another victim, no relevant clues and that's why they needed her. The caller ID on the screen showing Toby's name confirmed her suspicions.
She picked up the phone, annoyed at it's incessant ringing on the coffee table in front of her couch. "Yeah," she said. She was sitting in her apartment living room in the dark, she hadn't planned it that way. She had just sat down a few hours before and the sun had set, and she hadn't bothered to turn on any of the lights. Plus her apartment, with it's sparse furnishings, looked slightly less sad when it was cloaked in the natural darkness of night.
Toby's friendly voice filled the phone line. "We have another victim, same MO," he said. And there she had it.
The digital clock that sat on her empty bookcase blinked insistently in the dark room. It was an hour and thirty minutes off, but Emily had never bothered to reset it, she just did the math to calculate the time whenever she needed it.
"So let me guess they want to regroup the task force?" Emily asked, her voice devoid of any emotion.
She had already told Toby she would go back to work if they agreed to her terms. She touched the stack of files that Toby had given her a week before, they were piled on top of each other on her lap, the crime scene photo's of the victims tucked neatly inside.
"It's been over a year, I told them that you had recovered and were ready to come back to work full time with us. We need you back here, it's not the same."
"So you lied." Emily smiled in the darkness.
"I'd prefer to think of it as the power of positive thinking Em. You caught Jessica Jackson, and she scared the shit out of everyone in this country. You're practically a hero. But this new guy? He's already taken three women, now another one and we are fucked, so please come back to work and help us."
"Jessica caught me."
A rectangular brass pillbox sat on the coffee table next to a glass of water that would be warm by now, the thought made Emily grimace. She didn't bother with coasters. The scratched up old oak coffee table had come from her Mom and Dad's house. Everything in her apartment was scarred. Her included, she thought as she absent mindedly ran her finger over the scar that lurked underneath her grey vest top.
"And you survived it Em." There was a pause on the phone line. "Remember?"
With a delicate flick of her thumb, Emily opened the pillbox and took out two white oval pills and tucked them into her mouth.
"My old job?"
She took a drink of water, her body relaxing as she felt the pills travel down her throat towards their destination. She had been right, the water was now warm, and as she placed her glass back on the coffee table there was a subtle clink. Her brows furrowed in distaste as she felt the last of the luke warm water slide down her neck.
"Task force supervisor, just like you asked," Toby replied.
There was one more requirement, the one that Emily was least happy about, the one she had pushed Toby against but had ultimately been unsuccessful.
"And the journalist?"
Emily waited. Toby wouldn't back down now, it wasn't his choice in the first place but she knew it was one of the requirements she had to fulfill if she was to go back to work and help them.
"She's okay yeah, I haven't met her personally but she looks okay," Toby said, "I saw her picture. You'll like her, I think."
Emily looked down at the files that were resting on her lap. She could do this. All she had to do was keep it together and get through this case. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the faint white tip of a photograph of the first victim, peeking out innocently from it's manila folder.
"How old is the woman?"
"Twenty three. Disappeared on her way home from work, works at a local office that closed at six. Her bike has also vanished." Toby paused and Emily could hear his frustration in the silence that had settled down the phone between them. "We've got nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, Em."
Emily placed the folders onto the coffee table next to the now empty glass before she ran her hand through her messy dark hair. Knots getting caught in between her fingers.
"Pick me up in half an hour then," Emily stated as she finally untangled some of her hair. She really needed to pick up her act.
"An hour," Toby said after a pause. "Drink some coffee and I'll send a car for you."
Emily sat there in the dark for a few minutes after she'd hung up. It was eerily quiet. No TV blaring from the upstairs apartment, no footsteps overhead, just the pulse of the late night traffic going past in the rain, and the steady hum of the refrigerator motor that Emily was sure was going to die on her pretty soon. Another thing she had been given from her parent's house. She looked at the clock and did the math. It was just after nine at night.
She reached her hand up, slowly pushing it below the fabric of her grey vest top. She ran her fingers over her smooth skin until she found the heart that Jessica Jackson had carved on her.
She had spent three years working with her task force, tracking the most prolific killer she had ever come across. Three years she had spent at crime scenes, studying reports and sifting through clues; all that work and Jessica had tricked her into walking right into a trap. Now Jessica was in prison and Emily was free.
Funny that. Sometimes it still felt like the other way around.
Emily wakes up on her back still disorientated and it takes her a moment to realise that she's bound to a table. Her eyes burn and then she sees Jessica.
"I want you to understand Emily, that you are the only one, that I am only committed to you." And then she turns and walks away while Emily is left there to contemplate everything that has happened.
She starts to think like a detective again, Jessica's other victims had been found after a couple of days. That means she has some time. Two days, maybe three if she's lucky. Emily had told Toby she was going for a psych consult about the newest victim. They would connect it. Toby would connect it, it was the last place that Emily could be traced to.
Jessica is back again. On the other side of the table. Emily remembers when Jessica had first introduced herself – a Forensic Psychologist who had just moved to the area. Emily should have known then that something was amiss. She had called them up and asked if she could help. It had been hell on all of them and Emily had agreed with her superior that maybe a fresh pair of eyes could help them.
Jessica had offered to come in and talk, not counselling though she had said, just talk. Emily had been surprised at how many detectives had shown up to her session, her and Toby included. It might have been something to do with the fact that Jessica was utterly beautiful. The funny thing was, it had helped them. Reinvigorated them.
She pulls the white sheet back so that Emily's chest is exposed and it's only then that Emily realises that, from the waist up, she's naked. Jessica places a hand flat on her breastbone and Emily knows what this means. She has memorised the crime scene photos. It's her signature. Her love heart.
"You know what comes next sweetheart don't you?" Jessica asks, knowing fine well that Emily does. Emily needs to talk to her, to stall. She makes a gurgled sound in her throat, and her brain scrambles to make her mouth say what she wants to but it doesn't work. Jessica touches her finger to Emily's lips and shakes her head gently.
"Not just yet," she says softly.
Alison DiLaurentis didn't want to be back there. In her old home, her childhood home, that was cluttered with reminders of everything that she had wanted to forget. But times were hard, and she financially did not have the capacity to live in a home by herself, so here she was back living with her parents. Her parents who, by some miracle, were still together. She downed her coffee before she headed towards the front door, she had things to do and stories to write and Parker had called her in for an emergency meeting.
The lobby of the Rosewood Herald didn't open until seven thirty, so Alison had to use the loading dock entrance at the south side of the building. She had an hour to kill. She was running on four hours' sleep. She'd spent an hour online trying to get up to speed on the latest missing woman and it had rendered her unable to sleep. She had tossed and turned frequently.
Her blonde hair fell delicately over her right shoulder and she had dressed simply in jeans and a half dressy top. The fifth floor was so quiet that Alison could hear the water cooler buzzing. She scanned the main room before she spotted Parker through the glass of his office. She walked over towards his office and knocked once on the door before he waved her in, never taking his eyes off the computer screen.
Parker looked up and nodded at her, eyes bleary with the lack of sleep. A cup of coffee was in front of him and only dregs of it were left. It didn't look appealing. She sat down and pulled her notebook and pen out of her purse before setting them on the table.
"What's up?"
Parker sighed and rested his head on the palm of his hand, which was stained with ink. "What do you know about the Jessica Jackson task force?" he asked and Alison felt the goose bumps rise on her arms at the very mention of the infamous Jessica Jackson.
Connecting some of the missing dots Alison looked over her shoulder towards the white board where the names of the women were written. "What does the missing women have to do with the Jessica Jackson task force?" she asked as she looked between the white board and Parker, unsure where the direction of this conversation was going.
"Just answer the question Alison. What do you know about the Jessica Jackson task force?" Parker asked again, the impatience was clear in his voice and he cleared his throat hastily expecting her answer.
"Jessica Jackson killed a whole bunch of people, the task force spent three years trying to catch her. Then she kidnapped the lead detective on the task force, Emily Fields. That was over a year ago now, everyone thought she was dead but she wasn't. Jessica turned herself in just like that. She went to jail. But they keep adding victims to her count, I swear I read that it was over seventy people now."
Parker scratched at an invisible mark on his chin before running his hand back over his dark hair. It was meant as an act of thoughtfulness, but Alison knew it was just to make sure there wasn't any hair sticking out of place. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes in his direction because she liked Parker, he had taken her under his wing, almost like a mentor.
"We gave the cops a hard time," Parker admitted as he clicked the mouse at his computer before he folded his hands on the table and looked at Alison meaningfully. Alison nodded her agreement because the press had given the cops an extremely hard time for being given the run around for three whole years and the biggest slap in the face seemed to be that it was a woman who had given them the run around.
"I remember. They got a shit load of negative press and there was a lot of frustration aimed at them but I think it was mostly fear. But in the end, they were heroes. There's that book right? And like a million stories about Emily Fields - the hero detective."
"She's back," Parker stated simply, he unfolded his hands and a smile tugged at his lips at the thought of the possible headlines.
Alison leaned forward over his desk to make sure she had heard correctly. "Shut up, I thought she was on medical leave or something a long those lines?"
"She was. They have talked her into coming back to lead the new task force. The mayor thinks she can catch this new guy as well."
"Just like she caught Jessica Jackson?"
"Precisely. This is where you come in," Parker said. "There was no access last time around, and they think that if they let us in on some of the process then we will be less inclined to point the finger of blame at them, if it goes tits up again that is. So they are letting us profile Fields."
"Why me?" Alison asked skeptically, there was a catch, there had to be. There was always a catch in her world. "I write quirky essays about crime in Rosewood and rescued pets."
Parker just shrugged at her. "They asked for you specifically. You weren't here the last time around and you're a terrific writer." He ran his hand through his hair again, this time finding a stray hair before gliding it back into place. "They don't want some trashy reporter, they want a journalist and that's what you are. You have a knack for this kind of writing and you said you wanted to do something serious."
Alison looked down at her note book, she tapped her black pen against the white blank page for a minute before she laid the pen carefully down onto Parker's table. This was a story that could make or break her career. Brilliant if it wasn't the latter but if she fucked it up, it could end in disaster and not just for her. For Emily Fields, for the Herald.
"So do you want the killer task force dream story or should I give it to someone like Gary?"
Alison winced. She and Gary Clarkson had been hired at the same time, and had been competitive from the start. She crossed her arms and considered the rather appealing possibility of not having to write another story about cats being rescued from twenty-foot trees. She wanted the story, desperately; she just didn't want to be the one to fuck it up.
"You follow Emily Fields and write about what you see and what she's like. It will be your only beat. If you want it, that is."
The front page headlines beckoned, Alison could nearly see it already. "It's because I'm also a woman isn't it?"
"A delicate little flower," Parker said with a tired smile. Parker had won a Pulitzer back when he worked for the Times in New York. He'd let Alison hold the medallion once. Sitting across from him now she could almost feel the weight of it in her hands again.
"Yeah," she said, her pulse quickening under her skin. "I want it."
Having Emily as a Detective in my other story gave me inspiration for this crime type of story but I just want to clear something up that was pointed out to me in Chapter 7, this is the first time I've used someone to help me with my story ideas/beta it etc. I wasn't aware this story ran pretty close with a Chelsea Cain novel. I haven't read it personally but the person who I have been conversing with/sharing ideas etc with has and that has influenced their ideas on this story. But hopefully with the Emison spin on it you can still enjoy it.
A lot of it is different obviously but some of the ideas are the same in the book. I'd never take credit for someone else's writing because I wouldn't like it if someone done it to me. Just wanted to clear that up and I really did not know, so sorry again. If it bothers anyone that much because it runs similar to the book I am more than happy to remove the story. If you're still interested in reading though then please do.