Lethal Fractures: Opening
Disclaimer: I still don't own NCIS. If I did, I wouldn't be putting up with doing scut work around the hospital just because my residents want someone else to do it for them. I do own a couple of characters, though. And I own everything in my story on fictionpress. If you want to read it, there's a link in my profile. Wow, I must really be getting desperate for people to read that story. But I digress...
Background info: It's technically a sequel to Deep Lacerations, but I've been told it fits into the timeline with Of Jews and Gentiles as well (in that case, the order would be Deep Lacerations minus the epilogue, Of Jews and Gentiles, the DL epilogue, and Lethal Fractures). This takes place in the future, so don't be surprised if you see space men and discussions of warp drives (just kidding; if you want Star Trek fanfiction, I have a different pen name for that). By "future", I mean something around 2011--two and a half years after Deep Lacerations (excluding the epilogue), so about two years after the end of Of Jews and Gentiles.
The case: CID has been following a serial killer for eight years. When he kills a Marine, NCIS gets involved, as does the original medical examiner on the case and the former special-agent-in-charge. Oh, and there's Tiva, but it's not the focus of the story (unlike OJ&G).
He knew her routines. He also knew her favorite restaurants, running routes, bars, bookstores, coffee shops, and the man who often accompanied her to those places. In a way, he knew everything about her. Everything that was important, anyway.
It was 2045, which meant that any minute, she would be walking the man—he didn't know the man's name, but that wasn't one of the things that was important—out of her impressive Chevy Chase condominium to his parked car. The man sometimes stayed the night, but never on a Wednesday. She had to be at work early on Thursdays—earlier than usual, which was already early—so she would walk the man to his car, then return to her one-bedroom, one-bathroom eleventh floor condo, brush her teeth, take out her contact lenses, wash her face, and be in bed by 2130. Maybe 2145 if she decided to check her email one last time before going to bed. Then her alarm would go off at 0430 and she would begin her day. Scripted. Predictable. Just like hundreds of women like her. That type-A personality that did well in a military environment, where scripted and predictable were the rules of life.
He felt his hands clench as he thought about her, and forced himself to relax. This would never work if he allowed himself to get distracted. He blinked once when he saw her leave the front door of her building, saying something to the doorman with a smile. She always had a smile when she exited the building in the evening. It was one of her routines.
The man was following close behind her. When she had stopped to talk to the doorman, the man had stopped, too, his hand resting gently on the small of her back. Silently, watching from afar, he felt his jaw clench in anger at the thought that this stranger, this nobody who didn't even warrant a name, could dare to touch her. How anybody could dare to touch her. She wasn't theirs to touch.
Again, he forced himself to draw in a breath in efforts to relax. Relaxed. That was how he could do this, if he were relaxed. If he just thought of this as another mission, not as something personal. But it was personal. She had made it personal. If she would have just let it go, he could let it go, too, but she didn't. She had to go flaunt her new life and this new man, this nobody without a name who dared to rest his hand on the small of her back when she stopped to talk to the doorman on the way out of her building, on the way out of her building to walk the man to his car so he could go home so she could go back upstairs and brush her teeth and take out her contact lenses and wash her face and maybe check her email before going to bed.
Relax. The word was like a mantra to him. He smiled at the word. Mantra. The first time he had heard it, he thought it was Manta, as in a manta-ray, and he wondered what the large aquatic creatures had to do with calming the mind until somebody had set him straight and spelled it out for him. M-A-N-T-R-A. Mantra. A mystical incantation that is considered capable of creating transformation. So now he had a mantra, a one-word mantra: relax. That mantra had gotten him through some hard times.
They had left the entryway to the building and were walking down the block. The man's car—a dark green Jeep Liberty, of all things—was always parked in the same parking structure, which had free parking after 1700, although the sign said 5:00pm. The man was never there before 1700, except on the weekends when the woman wasn't at work. There was free parking on the weekends, too. And holidays, but he hadn't seen if the man was around for holidays.
There were two ways to get to the parking structure. One way was to stay on the sidewalk and walk to the corner, then take a right, then take another right. The shorter way was to walk through the small municipal park, which had a swing-set and a merry-go-round and a sandbox and the beginning of a running trail that connected to the main running trail the woman liked. What the small park didn't have was overhead lights, so with the shade of the trees, it was usually pretty dark by 2045, even in August, when the days were longer. It was overcast tonight as well, which added to the darkness. He knew he would use the darkness to his advantage when they turned off the sidewalk to walk through the park. They always walked through the park. It was part of her routine. She never seemed afraid of the darkness from the dim sky or the shade of the trees. Maybe she thought that since she was in the military that nothing bad could happen to her. He had tried talking once to her about the dangers of walking around in the dark, but she had just laughed. She said she walked around in the dark all the time growing up. He didn't know if that were true or not; he didn't know her routines when she was a child, but he didn't see any reason why she would have lied to him. Well, why she would have lied to him about that. She had told him other lies, lies that he knew were lies.
He was close enough behind them to hear the murmur of voices, but he couldn't make out the words. It didn't matter; the words weren't important. They weren't part of the routine. Still, he inched closer to them, and when he began to hear a few words, found himself straining to hear more. He heard something about dinner and wondered what they were talking about. Maybe they were making plans to go out to dinner on Friday. They wouldn't go out to dinner the next day, because she didn't go out to dinner on Thursdays. On Fridays she had to work; she didn't always work on Saturdays. If she didn't work, she didn't have to get up as early, and she could go out to dinner.
Whether they were talking about dinner on Thursday or dinner on Friday or dinner any other day, they weren't going to have it.
He must have stepped on a twig or a loose pebble or something else that made noise, because the man stopped suddenly, his arm reaching for her protectively. He felt a surge of anger at the move. She wasn't his to protect. He had no right to do that. In a fit of anger, he drew the weapon he had been carrying in his pocket and shot the man right in the forehead, centered between the eyes.
The woman screamed. It was just a short scream, and then she was in control again. She was always in control. That's why she had her routines and her schedules, so she could always be in control. Still, her hands were shaking as she slowly raised them above her head, even though he hadn't told her to. "Please," she said, her voice quivering ever so slightly. He frowned; her voice shouldn't quiver. Her voice never quivered. She was always in control, and people in control don't have quivering voices. "Please," she repeated, and this time her voice was stronger. That was better. That was more in control. "I don't carry much money or wear any jewelry, but you can have whatever I have. Just please don't hurt me."
"I didn't want to hurt you," he replied, his voice suddenly sad. He heard the sadness in his voice, and it made him pause. Was he feeling sad? He didn't know anymore. He didn't know what sad felt like anymore. "I didn't want to hurt you, but you left me no choice."
Her expression changed from one of fear to one of confusion. "Do I know you?" she finally asked.
He felt the anger bubble to the surface again, and this time, no matter how many times he repeated his mantra of relax, he couldn't control that anger. He lunged forward and wrapped his hands around her neck. He saw her eyes, the green that looked almost brown--it must have been the dim light--widen as she struggled for air. He decided to save her from the struggle, and with one swift motion, repositioned his hands and broke her neck. When he pulled his hands away, her body crumpled to the ground.
He frowned as he studied the lifeless body. She had fallen on top of the man, as if choosing, even in death, the man over him. In another fit of anger, he kicked at the man until they were no longer touching. No touching in life, no touching in death. Nobody should touch her. Nobody except him, and she said he couldn't touch her, so that left nobody to touch her. Nobody. Not even in death.
He knew where he could find her ID, because it was in the same place it always was, part of her routine. It was in the ID holder she attached to her keychain attached to a lanyard in the Army's digital camouflage print, with the large letters ARMY stamped all over it. She kept the ID on that keychain on that lanyard so she would always be able to carry them with her. On this warm summer night, since she wasn't planning on being out long, she wasn't carrying a purse. She never carried a purse while she walked the man to his car. She had stuck the ID holder and the keychain in the front pocket of her jeans, the lanyard hanging out against her leg. He pulled at the lanyard, and the keys and ID holder came free. He removed the ID from the holder and tossed it onto her body without giving it a second glance. He wanted to make sure that whoever found her would know who she was right away, so she would never have the injustice of being a Jane Doe.
The man, the nobody man who didn't warrant a name, kept his wallet in the right back pocket of his jeans, just like ninety percent of the right-handed male population in the United States. Unoriginal. An unoriginal nobody who didn't warrant a name. Unlike the woman, this ID he intended to keep. He would make sure this nobody man without a name remained a nobody man without a name. He didn't deserve a name, not in life and not in death.
He frowned as he flipped open the wallet. "No, no, no, no!" he moaned, dismayed at what he saw. In that clear front flap, where most men kept their driver's licenses, was a military ID. It shouldn't have been a military ID. Men in the military were not nobody men who didn't warrant a name. Men in the military were heroes, fighting and dying for their country, fighting and dying for the freedoms of those not willing to fight and die.
Feeling sudden remorse for his actions, or maybe sudden grief for this brave man who died too soon, a single tear fell from his left eye and ran down his cheek until it fell onto the man's clothes. He hadn't known when the last time he had shed a tear was before tonight, but he shed a tear for this man, this man who he killed without realizing who was killing. Carefully, gently, he placed that ID on top of the man's chest, making sure it was properly displayed. He wanted the world to know who this man was.
He was Staff Sergeant Nicholas Jasper, United States Marine Corps.