A/N: Love for sale had been originally written over two years ago. For a long time I struggled with it, and eventually, I put it in a "In Hiatus" folder in my computer. But now, while "A LIE CLOSE TO THE HEART" is finished (and waiting to be betaed to be published), I decided to take a chance with it again, as I finally decided on a finale for it. The previous story had been deleted, as I re-wrote (and I am still rewriting) the first chapters I published here. I hope you'll follow me trugh this AU, where I'll do my best to keep our favorite characters in, well, character.
Good Red, and I hope I'll hear from you.
Detective Teresa Lisbon was in a bad mood.
It wasn't just that she had been forced to wake up early on her free day; it was that for the fourth week in a row she had been forced to wake up early on her free day to go to work. It wasn't like she didn't like her job- hell, she had worked hard to get where she had always wanted to be- but the fact that she had a feel she knew what was going to greet her once on the crime scene. Of course, she didn't know the particulars, but she didn't have to; Major Crimes investigated the most horrid, hideous and gory cases.
Like "normal" murder cases weren't horrid and hideous enough. She thought as she walked in direction of her partner. Every case she had worked was already terrible on its own; murders were her "specialty", and where there was a murder, there was someone who had taken upon themselves to decide who lived and who died.
Nobody should have that power: every human being should be the architect of their own fate. She thought, sighing a little. A long time ago, she had truly believed that a higher power was behind such decisions, but she wasn't such a person any longer. She wasn't the young and naïve child who believed she could take her destiny in her own hands and make a difference out there into the real world.
Of course, she never showed her cynical side out there. People looked at her smile, got lost in the pool of her green, emerald-like eyes, and thought she was someone with a positive attitude toward life, someone who always saw the glass as half full and still thought she could make a difference and bring justice to victims and their families. Even her Faith in God had diminished, as the years passed; her God was now a creature who laughed in the faces of his own children and didn't take pity on their misery, the cross around her neck a mere reminder of the people she had lost. And justice…
She didn't know what to think of her job any longer. Yes, she still liked it, but the love and passion wasn't there any longer. it was just a weight, that didn't even diminish when the word "guilty" was said out loud by the jury.
In the last few months, the doubts had been eating her alive. She was seeing people she had knew her whole life getting married, staring a family of their own, while she was still stuck there, behind a desk doing paperwork or out in the field looking at dead bodies. When she was a child, her family had showed her the road she had been supposed to be taking, but she had refused them. had she made a mistake? Would have she been happier had she listened to the family?
She wondered if thinking what ifs and buts was going to do her any good. She hadn't taken that life: she had decided to be a detective and leave everything and everyone she had held dear behind, and from that, there was no turning back- not when her family was concerned, at least. Even if she decided, one day, to get back to them, they wouldn't allow her to, she knew. So, she better suck up any middle-life crisis she was having and get to her job once and for all.
"Lisbon, over here!" As she arrived at the address she had been texted to reach, Lisbon immediately heard the well-known voice calling for her. She stood, and turned, finding herself face to face with her partner, the Korean-American detective she had been working with for the better part of three years, Kimball Cho. Like always, he wasn't showing any emotion, presenting himself to the world with his everlasting poker-face. As she walked at his side through the yellow tape, she smirked, hands in her pockets, and wondered, like she did every time she saw him, what was the truth about the mystery that was his life.
Someone said Cho had had a past in the secret service, other said he had been working for the military, other said that he had been the leader of one of San Francisco's most dangerous gang, the Avon Playboys, before reforming and changing his name and his life. But nobody really knew, and Cho didn't share- maybe not even with Summer, the prostitute and informant he had been having an affair with for quite a while.
"Did Minelli tell you anything?" she asked as they walked through the hall of their crime-scene, an Hotel in Sacramento's worst neighborhood. Lisbon barely resisted the urge to put an hand on her nose, and immediately put on a pair of gloves, mentally asking herself if it was better opting to add another layer of protection: the rooms and the corridors smelt like urine, sex and sweat and rotting humanity.
"The Captain said that he wants it solved by yesterday." He simply answered. Teresa saw a brown stain on his hand as he put on his gloves, and understood her partner had been smart enough to have already his first cup of coffee of the day; she should have had it at home too, but she had wanted to oversleep for once, and then she had ben awoken by her phone while in the middle of a delicious dream…
"That bad, uh? Well, I'm surprised the Chief didn't ask for his lapdogs to get involved, then…" She chuckled humorless, feeling bile rising in her throat at the thought of the three men. Chief Bertram was well-known in the department for having raised at the top of the food chain by taking advantage of any given situation; he had probably never closed a case on his own, always using and exploiting the others, just to dispose of them like they were trash when they happened to not be of use to him any longer. Money, political connections and a shady past had gotten him where he was, and there were only three things Bertram truly trusted in his life: his face reflected on camera, and Bosco and LaRoche.
As they walked, her eyes fell on a couple of uniforms, tight around a petite boy; red-headed and with a face filled with freckles, he didn't showed more than twenty years or so, and his old, dusty uniform seemed to indicate he was some kind of bellboy. Pale and scared, he was trembling as they officers pushed him for answers. Teresa pitied him, and remembered when she would have taken any kind of job, night or day it didn't matter, to pay her studies.
And yet, she felt… something. She wasn't a profiler, nor an expert on body language, but there was something about the boy that was off, like he wasn't merely scared of the officers. As she held his gaze, she knew that sooner or later she would have talked with him, because her gut was screaming at her that there was something the boy knew and he didn't want to share with the police. But who knew, maybe the fact that she wasn't wearing an uniform, the fact that she was young- and looked younger than her own age – added to her undercover acting abilities would have helped her out in obtaining such a vital piece of information.
Yeah, that bad. She thought, sighing. She hated having that gut feeling. Her gut feeling was usually always right- and usually, it meant that a disaster was just around the corner, ready to strike.
Cho's phone vibrated, and Teresa lifted her gaze to look at her partner, deep in thoughts. "It's Rigsby's. He says he is in room 416, and Bertram is with him."
"Great. He finally decided to grace us all with his divine presence despite the lack of press coverage. I'm stunned." Teresa groaned, lifting her eyebrows.
"I think it's bad, Lisbon. He was the one to call me this morning about the case, and wanted for you to get involved too. Frankly, I think there's something he isn't telling us." Cho said, his voice all but a whisper as he was practically breathing the words against her sensible skin. "He was almost panicking, I could tell from his voice. And… Rigsby says he is as pale as a ghost. Like he is scared of something."
Is the past catching up with him, too? She wondered. Frankly, she wouldn't put anything past Bertram; his men didn't even tolerated him. he was a bad boss who didn't give a damn about his men- and Police was supposed to be family, she had been told more than once while at the Academy – but thought only about his constant presence underneath the closest spotlight. Even his (trophy) wife had been chosen in this perspective – tall, blonde, so young she could have easily been his daughter, model-like body with no brain and from money.
It keeps getting worse. She thought, her gut feeling reverberating through her whole being. Being happy about Bertram's troubles wasn't going to do her nay good, she knew. It wasn't just that she felt like the world as she knew it was coming to an end, it was the knowledge that Bertram would have never fell alone: he was the kind of man to bring down with himself as many people as possible, innocents included.
They reached room 416, and showed their gold shields at the officers at the door; in the semi-dark, she could already spot inside Wayne Rigsby, her friend of lifetime, (more) on- (than) off lover, and a member of her unit, too.
"Ehy Rigs, what do we got here?" She asked, as she kept getting closer and closer to him; Wayne didn't even turn to look at her, but she could see from his posture that something was off, and that her gut feeling had been yet again right- even if she didn't know why yet. The tall, dark-haired man was standing in the way of the body, shielding it from view with his frame and his own shadow.
I have to be right, she kept repeating to herself as she walked closer and closer to her long-time… whatever he was. There's more than it meets the eye to this case. All she saw when she looked around herself was a C-Class motel, natural habitat of users and prostitutes; the room looked like a mess, with the wardrobe and the drawers all open, various articles of clothing scattered all over the place. It didn't take a genius to see that someone had gone through them, and at first, any cop would have guessed a robbery gone wrong.
But if it was simply something like that, why getting Major Crimes involved? Why so many cops, and why was Bertram so worried? There was something going on there: it had to be. She knew it.
Wayne turned on his heels and approached her, and Lisbon repressed a smile at the sight of him tapping his bloody upper lip with a feminine, stark white, lacy handkerchief- "her" Wayne wasn't exactly a womanizer, but women were drawn to him and his white knight syndrome- if she had been a betting kind of woman, she would have put all her money on Wayne getting hurt in a fight to protect the honor of some girl he didn't even know.
But then, she saw the worry and hurt in his chocolate-brown eyes, and she turned her head in direction of the flashes of CSI Partridge's camera, and she felt her world crashing down. Suddenly, she turned and looked for Chief Bertram, hands on his hips in a corner, shaking his head and pale, and she pitied and sympathized with him for the first time since he had become her boss.
"He didn't tell you?" Wayne asked in the general direction of Cho, his left hand on Teresa's shoulder, both to stop her from taking another step, to comfort her and sustain her. Cho shook his head, and on his face passed a flash of something, like he couldn't understand what their point was, while she walked past Wayne, and kneeled at the side of the life-less body.
"You don't have any idea…" she whispered, resisting the urge to caress the head of the cadaver, face-down on the pavement. To the general audience, the woman seemed middle-aged and rich; it didn't take a genius to understand that she had died for loss of blood, due to the many lacerations inflicted probably by a knife. All injuries seemed to be pre-mortem, and if she had to guess, Teresa would have said that whoever had done that had tortured the woman before killing her for good.
Nobody deserved such a fate. Not even her. Especially, not her- a soul that had sacrificed so much for the others, to end just like that. And she and Wayne were probably the only ones who knew and understood how much she had gone through. Teresa turned to face Cho, and he still looked oblivious. "Oh, God, you really don't know.." she said once again, feeling bile and panic rising in her throat as she run an hand through her long, dark curls, trying to regain some semblance of control over her breathing.
I was right. Why do I always have to be right? She wondered as she shook her head and fought back burning tears, as the coroner finally turned the body- something, she guessed, had been already done at least once, if Bertram's state of mind was of any indication. Rigsby was breathing hard at her side, shaking his head as his heart was filled by pain at the sight of the familiar face. They hadn't seen her in over ten years, and back then her body had been younger, more toned and wasn't covered by cuts and bloods, but porcelain-like and picture-perfect.
And yet, there was no way they couldn't recognize her. Not after everything she had done for them. For Teresa.
"Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Angela Ruskin, daughter of the late Irish Crime Lord Daniel Ruskin the First, and wife to Thomas John McAllister." She said as she took a big breath and walked out of the door, leaning against the first wall she found.
Cho, inside room 416, held his breath. He had never seen that woman, but he had recognized any name Teresa had uttered, and a flash of worry run through his eyes as she understood why his boss was so troubled by this particular investigation, and why he had asked the intervention of the major crime unit. This was worse than any mass-media nightmare they had ever gotten involved with; the whole future of the city of Sacramento probably depended upon their investigation, and their lives too if they weren't careful.
Because she was dead, and all they had to do was hoping that McAllister himself was involved, because if it wasn't the case, they knew that he would have gone to the end of the world and beyond to get his revenge.
Because she was Angela Ruskin, and she was married to Thomas John McAllister- the mafia boss known as Red John.
