First A Robbery, Then A Murder….
Author's Note: I published a story called "Robbery" prequel some time ago. It's lengthy (at 21 Chapters), but reading it prior to this is recommended - because it sets the stage for a lot of what develops here in.
Since we will not be getting a S3 of this gorgeous and rich drama, I began writing one. This is all AU.
I approach this with a lot of trepidation but because I adored the characters so much I just can't let them fade into oblivion.
My stories tend to be lengthy and involved, but if you are ready to go down the rabbit hole and into the future – read on. Reviews are treasured. Long, short, good, bad, feedback is what shapes the story and improves my writing.
Oh, and absolutely no copyright infringement is intended. I own nothing and I'm worth even less.
CHAPTER ONE
Dani was back at work, but restricted to light duty until she was cleared by the doctors to full duty status, which hadn't happened yet despite her better efforts to intimidate the little mousy man. That meant paperwork and there was plenty. It also made for one cranky Detective Reese. Charlie desperately wanted to kiss her before he left and even must have leaned in her direction, because she shot him a fierce scowl and furious head shake of her head.
He hated leaving from his tough little partner. And moreover he didn't relish the idea of abandoning her to a day sunk deep behind her desk with a stack of case files only 50 feet from Tidwell's office, but he did it. Because he trusted in her ability to handle him, but it didn't stop Charlie from shooting the man a withering glare, as he left with Jane Seever.
Charlie returned, late in the day from a full day in the field with Seever interviewing witnesses. The annoyingly collected young Detective made Charlie miss Dani even more. Seever did a good job, maybe too good a job, but she wasn't his partner. He knew it and she knew it. Seever seemed content, to be once again on loan, replacing Reese – as if anyone was capable of replacing Dani, Charlie thought.
Seever's desk was in another area, so they said their goodbyes at the elevator and agreed to compare notes on the interviews later. Charlie figured his scratched out notes would not compare to Seever's near instant recall of the entire conversation. She would have reduced the conversations verbatim to writing in her own strange short hand in that ever present notebook of hers, so he tossed his notes in his trash can on his way past. Seever took enough notes for both of them, he decided.
He approached Dani from an oblique angle, allowing him to appreciate the tenseness in her, before he arrived and before she noticed. She looked up annoyed, as his shadow darkened her desk in the waning afternoon sun. He waived a peace offering, triple mocha in a Styrofoam cup, in front of her, earning him a slight glimmer of a grin from his usually reticent partner.
Parts of different case files littered her desk, opened to certain pages with crisp blue post it notes and Dani's block print on them, or paper clipped pages marking important entries or details. Three to five, very sharp, soft lead pencils were hidden somewhere in that mess; all bearing Dani's teeth marks, he knew. One was stuck through the hair at the base of her ponytail and he reached up to pull it free and hand it to her, while she patted the piles of paper looking for one of the lurking missing pencils.
She smiled distractedly at him and grabbed the pencil to jot another note. He could tell from the force she used to press down and the deep indentations in the notes she was onto something and she knew it. He watched with keen interest as she collected her thoughts. He noticed Dani was careful to restrict the mess to her own desk and not to bleed over onto his clean neat and uncluttered side of their conjoined desks.
"So how's the new girl?" she offered, thoughtfully sipping her coffee and scribbling notes in the margin of a paper.
"She's not you, honey," he told her plainly.
"Crews," she hissed at him, "I thought we agreed you weren't going to call me that at work."
"You know what I love? When you make a decision unilaterally and then somehow rope me into agreeing to it." Charlie spoke his mind.
She sighed heavily.
"You'd have more room, if you'd put some of this on my desk," he began, pulling files and documents toward him.
"Stop," she said, slapping her hands down on the stacks of paper to keep them from moving. "I thought you liked an uncluttered life," she said, arching her eyebrows.
He loved it when she directly challenged him. "You…. You are not clutter. You are necessary, essential, required," he told her. His unspoken meaning lingered between them as they locked eyes across their desks - you are part of my life and with that comes complication, compromise and confusion, but you're worth it. I love you -his eyes said.
Slowly Charlie drew the piles of paper toward him, Dani eased and let him.
"Drink your coffee before it gets cold, honey," he coached. She just growled at his use of the affectation again. He knew she liked it, she wouldn't grouse so much if she really didn't like it. Charlie just winked at her and watched her eyes widen at his brashness.
"You're in a particularly good mood today," she commented. "Maybe I should let Seever take you out in the field more often" she teased.
"She does take all the notes. She writes everything down, Reese. Everything. Every. Single. Thing. There's nothing for me to do. Except drive. She does let me drive, which I like." He paused for effect, "You…you never let me drive" he chuckled at the double entendre and their own personal joke about him driving, in and out of the bedroom.
"Crews," she snapped. "Don't go there," wagging a low finger at him and smirking.
She was dangerously close to laughing at work and that made her mad – the fact that he could do that to her. She scowled at him, but her smile couldn't be contained, making her duck her head to hide from him.
He rolled his chair around the edge of his desk into her space, earning him a surprised look. "You said on the phone you found something. Show me." He gestured at her desk.
His proximity distracted her, the smell of him, his nearness, his aftershave, the way his voice deepened and eyes darkened just for her. He cleared his throat and she remembered who they were, and where they were, but the blush rising from her neck made Charlie smile to himself. That's my girl, he thought.
"Uh, yeah, okay…" she sorted and shuffled while he waited patiently. "Here it is. The robbery case. There's something funny about it."
Charlie sat up, his interested peaked "our robbery? The one where you got shot?" he queried and his eyes narrowed with concern. He flashed back to that night, Dani collapsing on the street and the long night after, while she was in surgery, fighting for her life. It was the most scared Charlie had been in his life, including those twelve long years up in Crescent City.
She nodded and clamped an errant pencil in her teeth.
"Haven't I told you not to eat those? You'll get lead poisoning, they're worse than organic fruit," he said gently reaching for the pencil between her teeth. She let it go and continued.
"They id'd the suspects. Turns out they all worked for a private security company. A private security company no longer owned, but one started up by one…..wait for it…Mickey Rayborn" she said. "Look at this" she was on the hunt now, following the scent like a bloodhound. "Think that's coincidence? Cause I don't."
He let her go on, as his mind filtered information and explored connections. His eyes focused beyond the now – seeing the murder board in his closet and filtering through his own observations and musings in red butcher paper with black magic marker. He disconnected and looked down at Reese with blue Post-its and pencil and recognized the symmetry. In some ways they were very much alike, he realized smiling softly.
"What?" she questioned.
"Nothing, honey" he coached gently. This time she simply accepted the affectation without comment. He noted the lack of response and realized her tacit acceptance was progress. They'd get there – and they'd get there together, "Show me what you found."
"That made me starting looking at who they were robbing," she blinked and continued and then turned to look directly at him. "I don't think these were robberies at all. I think they were murders. I think someone was systematically wiping out people. Cleaning the board, as it were, but I couldn't see the connection until I found out that this guy."
She rifled though papers until she found the one she wanted, "this one - vic number three – he…he went to the Academy with Rayborn. He used to be a cop, Crews."
Charlie looked at the photo, synapses fired and pathways mapped. His mind connected the photo to the ones on his wall, looking for, seeking the link, but he couldn't grasp one.
"I think robbery was the obvious connection; but it was staged so that no one would look deeper. Look at….at theses connections" she paused considering what Crews always said.
Everything is connected. He didn't have to say it - the look that passed between them made it apparent they both understood it.
No one was supposed to see the connections, but she had, his Dani, the smartest and best of all of them. She'd found what everyone else missed, maybe even never bothered to look for. She was always examining angles. She was the best cop he knew, maybe the best he'd ever known. Seever was efficient, but she was not Dani Reese.
"Crews? You here?" his partner asked him.
"Yeah," he said faintly, reaching to squeeze her shoulder "I heard you, honey. We need to go home." He said shaken. "I have some things you need to see."
"Yeah, well I started looking at all the vics and then widening my search and…" she continued, knowing she was onto something important. Charlie put a finger over her lips, stilling her and stopping her mid-sentence.
"Not here," he warned. "We need to go home," he repeatedly softly.
Home meant his house, their house, and the place where they collectively spent most of their time these days. Home meant peace, safety and Chester. It was where they could just be, Charlie and Dani, leaving Crews and Reese at the door, along with their service pistols, badges and other accoutrements of the job.
He knew what he was asking. Letting his personal investigation surface again, letting work bleed over into home, blurring the lines yet again and going down yet another rabbit hole into a place neither knew and probably wouldn't like. But Charlie felt he needed connect those dots, even though he struggled with where it would take them, what it might mean and where they'd end up.
They'd talked through the night, eating Chinese takeout and exploring connections.
Dani was a willing and capable partner in his private "off the books" investigation now. She threw herself completely into the enterprise. Dani Reese was "all in" to use a popular poker term. But Charlie knew being "all in" meant risking, possibly losing everything and whereas before he had nothing to lose but his own life, now he had Dani. She – he was not as willing to gamble with, but holding her back was like trying to unset the sun.
They'd fallen asleep on the couch and migrated to bed late in the night when the house was still and quiet. Chester slept quietly at their feet next to the bed, never more than six feet from Dani when she was in the house. Charlie drew the line at letting the little pup in bed with them. But Dani hung her hand over the edge, petting him, until he fell asleep.
Charlie joked they should have named the dog "Shadow" because of the way he followed Dani, but in truth he often told the dog in private moments, "grow faster I need you to watch her when I'm not here," patting the pup on its silken head.
"Hey. Have you seen my other shoe?" Charlie asked her, as she emerged from the shower, toweling her hair dry. Despite him getting a head start, she always managed to beat him to work, which he never truly understood.
"Well, I can tell you that it's not in the shower," she teased.
Charlie was down on his knees, now looking under the bed, tossing coverlets, pillows and the duvet to and fro, somewhat frantically.
"It's not in the bed either. That...I would remember," she teased darkly. "Wear another pair of shoes, Charlie," she suggested the easy answer.
"I like that pair, they are my fav…." He stopped mid sentence as he found the shoe he was seeking, in the mouth of Chester. "Why you little…." He began rising.
Dani noticed the dog the same time he did and beat him to the pup, "give to me, baby," she coaxed the golden retriever into letting it go. She offered the shoe to Crews, "he only ate one," she almost giggled.
"Very funny. Oh, so that's funny?" he said annoyed with the shoe, but genuinely happy to see Dani relaxed and smiling. Her obvious joy made it hard to be mad at the pup. "I see how it is. He's baby, sweetheart and what am I, huh?" He joked with her as he gathered her, still wet from the shower, in nothing but his bathrobe, into his arms.
"You are going to get wet," she warned, smiling.
"No, sweetheart," he promised seductively, "you are," smiling slyly, as he kissed her.
They were going to be late for work (again).