Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs, only the pain in the butt that is pissing people off.
Chapter Two
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The Craftsman was dark when Don pulled into the driveway an hour later and using the key Charlie had given him, he let himself in.
Turning the dining room light, he grabbed a beer and sat down at the table, leaning back in the chair.
The two files lay in front of him and he eyed them warily, taking a drink.
Headlights flashed across the dark living room wall and he heard someone pull into the driveway, followed by the slam of a car door. Footsteps as someone approached the front door, the sound of a key in the lock and the door opened.
"Don?" His brother called out and Don smiled slightly, oddly glad for the company.
"In here." Charlie followed his voice to the dining room and taking in the scene before him, quirked an eyebrow.
"At least you have a light on." He observed mildly and Don smirked, recalling the last time he'd been caught in a similar situation, but by his dad and with less light.
"Didn't wanna be completely in the dark." He explained wryly and Charlie laughed quietly, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "Where's Dad?"
"He's on a date." Charlie answered, irritation flickering across his face and Don grinned.
"With Millie?" He asked, curiously and Charlie shrugged. "Aw man, think they're getting serious?"
"I don't want to think about it." Charlie snapped, then sighed and slumped in his seat. Don raised an eyebrow and sat up, studying his brother carefully.
"You alright?" He asked and Charlie leaned forward in his seat, laying his head on a forearm.
"Its not like I don't want him to be happy," He started and Don nodded, resting an arm on the table. "but she's my boss. There are no words to convey how difficult this situation is for me to accept."
"Yeah, well." Don shrugged. "It's his life, buddy." Charlie grunted and Don laughed, shaking his head and leaned back again. "So, how are things with Amita?" Shrugging, Charlie sat up.
"We're doing alright." He answered, rubbing the back of his neck. "There's a math conference next weekend at Stanford and we're thinking about going."
"Just the two of you?" Don asked, with a raised eyebrow and Charlie smiled sheepishly.
"Yeah, well, it would be a chance to spend some time together."
"Yeah, you guys should go." Don agreed, hoping to encourage Charlie, though it sure seemed like he had the right idea. "Get a hotel room, explore the city. Palo Alto has some great sights." It was Charlie's turn to raise an eyebrow and he leaned against the back of the chair.
"You talk as if you've been there." Don shrugged, taking a sip of his beer.
"Once." Charlie let his gaze fall to the table, finally noticing the files on the table and nudged the one closest to him, which happened to be the one on Alex Reed.
"Is this the woman who attacked you?" Don smirked and nodded. Count on his team to let his family know what happened. "May I take a look?"
"Sure." As Charlie pulled the file to him, Don had to ask. "Does Dad know what happened?"
"No, I knew you wouldn't want him to worry." Charlie explained as he opened the file. "We can tell him later." He paused as he studied the picture in the file. "So this is Alex Reed." Don snorted.
"That's the name on the file." He muttered, getting to his feet and turned on the light in the living room, scanning the room for the TV remote. "Where's the remote?"
"On the TV." Charlie answered, watching his brother curiously. "Do you know her by another name?" Don paused in his movements, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck.
"Cyd Mercer." He said, finally, leaning against the arm of a chair. "She was a fugitive I chased seven years ago."
"A fugitive whom you've chased and isn't in jail." Charlie said, surprised and Don shrugged.
"Up until tonight, I thought she was dead." He explained quietly and Charlie inhaled sharply, stunned.
"How is that possible?" He asked and Don shrugged, taking a sip of his beer as he sat back down at the table.
"I guess when she survived the crash," And didn't that just blow his mind… "she created a new identity and started over." Back in the criminal world. What a shock.
"Don?" He winced slightly at the concern on Charlie's face, not meaning to let him see how much this was affecting him. "What happened?" Leaning forward on his forearms, Don fixed his gaze on the bottle in his hands.
"We caught up to her in Missouri, at a small rest stop just off the Interstate. Coop and I split up, thinking we had her pinned down in the bathroom, but she'd slipped past us somehow and took off in an old sedan. We followed, trying to force her to pull over, but she kept getting past us." He paused as he recalled what happened next, the memories pulling him back to that moment.
"An eighteen wheeler came out of nowhere and slammed into her vehicle, knocking her off the road. The car rolled, coming to a stop upside down and we could see the flames. It exploded right before we got to her."
The force of the blast had knocked them both on their asses, he recalled and Don hadn't been able to see anything through the haze.
"Oh God." Charlie said softly, eyes wide. "Were either of you hurt?" Shaking his head, Don took a sip of his beer.
"Nah, just a little singed." Looking down at his beer, he started picking at the label. "We assumed that Mercer was incinerated in the blast." There was no body.
Charlie studied the mug shot, brow furrowed and finally turned his gaze to his brother again.
"Don, are you sure this is the same person?" He nodded, though it was a fair question and one he'd been asking himself since the incident in the alley. But those eyes had haunted him for a long time.
"No question about it." He said, meeting Charlie's gaze steadily. "I'd know her anywhere. Somehow, she got out of the wreck." And honestly, it wasn't much of a stretch. If she had been conscious, there would have been enough time for Mercer to crawl out of the car before it exploded and the eighteen wheeler had been blocking the majority of the sedan from their sight.
Raising an eyebrow, Charlie smiled slightly. "It sounds like you spent a lot of time pursuing her." Leaning back in the chair, his lip twitched as Don briefly considered his brother's choice of words.
"Twelve months." The longest year of his life… and the shortest. Frustration and determination had given way to tunnel vision, and had ended suddenly in an explosion. Unsettling, to say the least.
"That seems like a long time." Charlie hedged, curious and Don smiled slightly.
"You have no idea." The average manhunt lasted a month, month and a half, at most. Mercer had been one of the smarter fugitives, only surfacing every few weeks and usually in a completely different state. They had only been able to apprehend her twice and she had gotten away both times.
"I take it she gave you guys a hard time." Charlie said, both eyebrows raised and Don smirked, setting the bottle on the table.
"She gave us a run for our money, for sure." He affirmed, leaning forward again. "The first time we caught up to her was in Baltimore and it ended with her using our handcuffs to cuff us to a fire escape."
Charlie coughed and leaned back in his chair, eyes shining with mirth.
"Okay, I don't know if I should feel bad for you or root for her." He admitted, grinning and Don rolled his eyes good naturedly, taking a sip of his beer.
"Thanks, smartass. I like to think we gave as good as we got." The last was said with a smile, as he stood up and made his way to the couch, sitting down. Charlie snorted and followed him, file in hand. "We did catch her twice."
"Oh yeah? For how long?" Don frowned, shooting a glare at him and Charlie grinned back unrepentantly. Admittedly, not long either time. The second time had ended with him cuffed to the grill of his SUV and wondering if she'd been a gymnast in a previous life.
As for the first time, he was still trying to figure out how she escaped the Memphis field office undetected. He was sure the shady lawyer had something to do with it.
"Shut up." He said, voice flat, but the amusement on his face belied his tone. "Mercer was one of the tougher fugitives out there." Charlie raised an eyebrow, studying the open file in front of him.
"I don't know, Don. She seems kind of delicate." Don snorted, though, looking at the picture, he knew Charlie was right. With the soft curve of her jaw and a small nose, Mercer seemed more like a porcelain doll than a mercenary.
"Yeah well, appearances can be deceiving." He had learned that one first hand, in Baltimore and had never made that mistake again.
Charlie furrowed his brow, looking disturbed and Don nudged his foot with his own, raising a questioning eyebrow when he looked up. "What's wrong?"
Sighing, Charlie paused a moment before answering. "Was she ever violent?" Frowning, Don shook his head, not recalling any encounter where Mercer was ever actually violent.
"Its funny, but no. She did knock us both out, once, but other than a few bruises, we usually came out unscathed." Which was weird in itself. Most fugitives tended to use excessive force when evading pursuers, but Mercer seemed to be more restrained when dealing with them. "She did seem to enjoy taunting us, though."
"Really?" Charlie asked, with a small smile and Don grinned. It wasn't so funny then, but looking back now, he could see the humor in some of the crap she'd pulled.
"St. Patricks' day, someone had put green hair dye in Coop's shampoo. I'm pretty sure it was her." At the time, though, it had sparked a prank war between the two agents. Coop had been certain Don had done it, because there was "no possible way" Mercer would have been able to sneak into their hotel room.
Granted, Coop had been forced to admit otherwise when she had caught up to them later that week and made an incriminating comment about his hair. The look on his face was priceless and Don had been vindicated.
Charlie was openly laughing and Don smiled, recalling a few other incidents and considered sharing them. One in particular. "And it wasn't like she didn't have her moments."
Catching his breath, Charlie leaned against the back of the couch and looked at Don with hopeful eyes.
"Really?" Nodding, Don pulled the file toward him, studying the mug shot absently.
"Big town in Kansas, we pursued her into a McDonald's restaurant and she ducked into one of those play areas." Openly grinning now, Don continued. "Well, there was some actor dressed as Ronald there, entertaining the kids and I guess she had ran into him." He had to pause before the next part or risk breaking down into laughter.
"I don't know why, but she backtracked out of there, bowling me over in the process and bolted out the door. The look on her face…" A combination of horror and fear, he recalled. "It took a minute for us to follow, we were both laughing so hard." So was Charlie, for that matter. Don grinned as he rocked back on the couch, howling.
"I guess she doesn't like clowns." He said when he'd calmed down a bit and Don nodded, still grinning. "Oh wow, it's a wonder you were able to take her seriously after that." Don sobered a bit, though he was still smiling and shrugged.
"She's still the bad guy, Charlie." He said, seriously and Charlie frowned slightly, shooting a look at the mug shot.
"What was she wanted for, anyway?" He asked and Don shrugged.
"Theft, mostly, but she was basically a mercenary." He scratched the back of his neck, recalling other details from the file. "She escaped from a federal prison in Massachusetts. What's bugging me is this meth lab." Charlie raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Mercer had never gotten involved with drugs before. In fact, she seemed to avoid them."
"So this is an anomaly." Don nodded, lips pressed together as he focused on the mug shot. "Can you get me the old file?" Taking a sip of his beer, Don looked up at his brother, raising an eyebrow.
"You think there's something you can do with it?" Nodding, Charlie turned a page in the file.
"From what you said and this file," He tapped the file on the table. "there seem to be correlations in the crimes she committed with both aliases. If I had the file on Cyd Mercer, I'll be able to make a proper comparison and find the variation."
"And figure out what changed." Don caught on, smiling slightly and shook his head. "I'd appreciate anything you can do, buddy."
"Glad to help." Charlie said with a smile, looking up at him. "Don, if you don't mind me saying, you seem to be a lot more open about this than I would have expected."
Taking a sip of his beer, Don realized his brother was right. Any other case, he would've kept to a bare minimum of what Charlie needed to know. But this time…
"I guess this one has me a little shaken up." He admitted, recalling the feeling of having seen a ghost back in the alley. "Seeing her alive, after all these years…"
"And you thought she was dead." Charlie added, understandingly and Don nodded.
"Guess you never forget the one that got away." But she wouldn't get away this time, he vowed. "I'll have someone drop off the file tomorrow." Hearing the sound of tires in the driveway, Don stood up and, grabbing the other file off the table, he walked toward the door.
"I'll be at Cal-Sci in the morning." Charlie said, following him. "Getting ready for the next semester." Pausing, Don turned around and held up a hand.
"Is this case gonna get in the way of any school stuff?" He asked, concern in his voice. Don hadn't planned on Charlie helping out with this one, it was mainly a manhunt and he was didn't want Charlie to neglect his duties at school for this case, especially with the way he'd be helping them recently.
"No, it's fine." Charlie reassured him, as the door opened. "I'm pretty much done; just have to touch up a few things. I can help you with this."
"Help him with what?" Their dad asked, closing the door behind. "The meth lab thing is over, right?" His lips quirked as Don recalled a time when his family wouldn't be privy to the details of a case. One would think he'd be used to it by now.
"Something came up." He said, not wanting to say too much. "How was your date?"
"Great." He answered, after a long moment. "Saw a play and found an old diner. We had had fun." Don grinned, glad to see his dad happy, albeit suspicious.
"Reliving the glory years?" Charlie asked wryly, somehow both amused and annoyed. Elbowing him, Don rolled his eyes and Alan smirked.
"You mean the time before I had children?" Charlie's smile fell flat and he shot him a glare.
"That hurt." Shaking his head, Don opened the door.
"As fun as this is, I'm gonna head back to my place." He said and nodded at Charlie. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."
"Are you sure you're okay to drive?" Alan asked, shooting a look at the beer still on the coffee table. Don waved him off with a reassuring smile.
"I didn't even make a dent in it." Crossing the room, he grabbed it, deciding to take it with him.
"Now he's stealing my beer." Charlie muttered and Don smiled brightly, offering it back to him.
"Hey, if you want it…" Making a face, Charlie pushed it away.
"You can keep your germs." Chuckling, Don headed back towards the door.
"Have it your way." He called back and Alan shook his head.
"Good night, Don." He said, with a small smile and Don smiled back.
"Night guys."
Making his way to his suburban, he opened the door and slid inside, tossing the file onto the passenger's seat.
Setting the beer down on the center console, Don sighed and let his forehead rest on the steering wheel. Seeing Charlie and his dad had helped him feel a little better, after tonight, but he could still feel this case weighing on him.
Sitting back up in the seat, Don turned the key in the ignition and the vehicle rumbled to life. As he backed out of the driveway, he promised himself this would end here.
~*#*~
"Is this going to be a problem?"
"Possibly."
~*#*~
