A/N: Oh my, so many reviews! Thank you so much! They make me so happy! Also, they totally encouraged me to finish the second chapter quickly, so here it is already. (Thank god for uneventful Sundays...) I hope you enjoy it as much as the first.
2
"Entertainment museum," Sharon stated in a tone of voice that was dripping with pure and simple, undisguised sarcasm. She turned around to face Rusty, displaying an exaggerated amount of menace when she raised both eyebrows at him. When he grinned at her, amused at her reaction, she put a foot forward and tapped it lightly on the ground, indicating that she expected an explanation. Rusty looked at her well-worn brown leather boots then up at her blue jeans and tight dark-green jacket that covered a white blouse. She looked pretty good and also slightly smaller than usual since her boots had no heels to speak of. He smiled disarmingly when his gaze reached her face.
"Did I mention that you look extremely attractive today, Sharon?" he asked and she smirked at the obvious ploy to get into her good graces. Flicking her hair back, she shrugged.
"You could have just told me that you wanted to go to a Haunted House," she informed him calmly.
"Yes, but I would have missed the flabbergasted look on your face!" he replied, about to launch into fits of laughter.
"I am glad that my surprised state serves to amuse you. Now do we go in or what?"
They walked towards the large, slightly weather-beaten house that stood alone at the edge of a forest and looked gloomy at best. A large wooden sign that had been carelessly hammered to a fence post read "Haunted House – Museum of Modern Horror". Except for moth-eaten curtains that were visible through the dirty windows, the house looked rather ordinary though not exactly lived in. The garden had been reduced to yellowed, trampled grass and a few unattractive shrubs.
"So, how is this house haunted? Is there a serial killer living here? Or is the name a metaphor for the ghosts of neglect?" Sharon asked, sounding a little snippy.
"Let's see," Rusty said mysteriously, looking around for other visitors. There was a couple of college students who were too busy making out to enter the house just yet and a group of teenage girls who had just exited it, giggling uncontrollably. Then finally, just next to the ticket booth, he found whom he was looking for. "Come on. We need tickets," he told Sharon and made a beeline for the booth. Sharon followed him, rolling her eyes despite her amusement. This was so typical of Rusty! Luring her into a sense of accomplishment due to the fact that he wanted to take her to a museum and then this! She smiled anyway. As long as they could spend time together and he was having innocent fun, she didn't really mind. However, she was a bit nervous as to the creatures awaiting her inside. A crime scene didn't bother her. She was even used to the stench of blood by now, but easy scares got her every time. She stopped dead in her tracks when they reached the ticket booth, staring not at the creepy-looking gray-faced guy inside it, but at the two men that were standing beside it.
"Lieutenant Flynn! Lieutenant Provenza!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
The two men looked from her to Rusty with equally astounded expressions on their faces. Provenza grumbled something about never being able to get a rest while Flynn gave them a friendly grin.
"Provenza won tickets," he explained. "they came with the subscription of one of his baseball magazines."
"It said on the tickets that they were only valid this morning. Stupid, eh? As if I didn't have anything else to do," Provenza sulked.
"Lighten up," Flynn hit his partner's back affectionately. "you've made a big horror fan very happy. I didn't think this was your thing, though, Captain. I take it's Rusty's doing?"
Rusty shrugged and turned his palms upwards. "She promised me a fun day out and allowed me to choose the activity."
Sharon gave a halfhearted smile. "I am not convinced, yet, that this was a good idea." She cut Provenza off before he could say a word. "One wicked witch joke and I will file a disciplinary report first thing Monday morning," she only half-joked. Provenza's eyes widened slightly, then he turned back into his old grumpy self and snorted. Flynn, who didn't seem so sure whether the tension between them was an act or real, gestured towards the entrance.
"Shall we go in and find out, then?"
Before Sharon knew it, they were walking towards the house side by side. Rusty caught up to a still sulking Provenza and began to fire questions about the baseball magazine at him which left herself and Flynn to walk up the cobblestone path together. Flynn leaned in slightly and she caught a whiff of his cologne. It felt fresh yet spicy and reminded her of a warm autumn evening.
"Looks like things are going well with Rusty," he said conspiratorially to which she couldn't help but smile despite her moment of indiscretion.
"Yes," she replied, her voice lowered, too. "I am glad that he shows some interest in the world around him. Even if it's something like this." She gestured towards the wooden door that seemed to be hanging slightly ajar.
"Are you scared, Captain?" Flynn asked, the smile deepening the lines around his eyes. She was about to shoot back and assure him that horror didn't frighten her, when she was reminded of the evening she had spent on her couch with Rusty, watching that awful little Japanese girl scaring the hell out of everyone, including herself.
"Well," she admitted. "I am a little jittery."
Sharon Raydor was not a woman who liked to display her weaknesses. For all it was worth, she liked the people around her to perceive her as all but invincible. That's why she was completely taken by surprise by the look of endearment on Flynn's face. While it annoyed her to be seen as – god forbid – a damsel in distress, she found it strangely alluring to be looked at like that. Honestly, she couldn't remember the last time it had happened.
"Well, Captain." Flynn offered his arm. "If it makes you feel any better, I scare easily, too."
She debated whether to take his arm or not for a second, then gave in to it and placed her hand on it, feeling the reassuring coolness of his leather jacket under her fingertips. Rusty gave her a lopsided grin while he held the door open for the two of them to enter.
Inside was dimly lit, a musty smell coming from the walls that held only scraps of dark green wallpaper. The ceiling was low and oppressive while heavy brown curtains kept out the little light that the unusually foggy November day brought along. The wooden floorboards creaked ominously beneath their feet and the glass lamp up on the ceiling swung lightly in a breeze that she could not feel. In front of them, Provenza bumped into an old chair and swore under his breath while Rusty chuckled quietly. They walked along the narrow corridor into the direction of three closed doors that she dared suspect didn't hold anything pleasant. She winced when an ear-shattering scream sounded from somewhere beyond the doors or maybe from upstairs which could be reached by means of a beaten-looking staircase that she had no intention of climbing because she cared for the safety of her limbs.
Flynn made no move to calm her, basically ignoring her undignified reaction and she was grateful for it. If he had begun to make a fuss over her, she might have had to tell him off and somehow she didn't feel like it. She gently let go of his arm and walked forwards, almost catching up with Rusty and Provenza.
"So, which door will it be?" she asked Rusty playfully, earning an annoyed look from Provenza who she instinctively knew was just displaying that much irritation towards her to mask the fact that he had grudgingly begun to accept and maybe not dislike her that much anymore. She gave him a quick smile and pointed towards the door in the middle.
"This one?" she asked.
They all stood in silence for a moment before Rusty shrugged and stepped forward to open the door. At first, there was only darkness. Then a light came on and blaring shrieks of maniacal laughter erupted from the room, accompanied by a blast of smoke that hit their faces. Despite the fact that Sharon had expected something startling, she took a quick step back, walking right into Flynn who looked embarrassed at their sudden physical closeness. She looked up at him apologetically and found something in his eyes that she both liked and really really disliked. Before she could give it any more thought, the door slammed shut again.
"Cheap scare," Rusty said disparagingly. "not even Sharon screamed."
Sharon gave a disapproving snort and bravely approached the left door, placing her hand on the large old-fashioned door handle. She turned around and raised one eyebrow mockingly.
"Ready, guys?"
Before they could answer, she opened the door and found herself faced with a gross-looking corpse dangling from the ceiling, a noose around its neck. From the looks of it, the body had been decomposing for a while. While the smell wasn't exactly pleasant, Sharon knew full well that reality was far, far worse than this. She turned around and smirked at the others.
"Not that scary- Uahhhhh!"
She leaped forwards, bumping into Rusty this time who was doubled over with uncontrollable laughter at the fact that the assumed corpse had reached out a hand and squeezed Sharon's shoulder when she wasn't looking. Provenza and Flynn were also unsuccessfully hiding their amusement at their superior's uncharacteristic scream. Despite the fact that she felt uncomfortable due to what had just happened, Sharon felt laughter bubbling up inside her. She could be such an idiot at times!
"Step back!" Rusty told her, still grinning. "Otherwise your lieutenants will lose all their respect for you." Sharon shook her head slightly but walked back, taking her place between Provenza and Flynn who were both towering over her due to the fact that she had chosen to wear comfortable boots instead of high heels this morning.
Rusty opened the third door and they were faced with a candle-lit room that held only a bed in which a small figure lay. At the sound of the door opening, it rose and stared at them through red eyes. The girl's skin was greenish, her hair matted and her fingernails long and yellowed. Sharon had never liked horror movies but even she recognized the possessed girl from The Exorcist.
"Close the door, Rusty, before she starts vomiting pea soup!" Flynn commanded as the girl began to move eerily towards them. Although she knew that the girl was an actress, albeit a pretty talented one, Sharon took an instinctive step back as she inched closer, murmuring words in Latin that she realized weren't making any sense. Thanks to her years at a Catholic school where she had been forced to learn Latin along the way, she was a little amused. Finally, when the girl reached out her hand to touch Rusty, he closed the door again.
"If you broke her fingers, you're grounded," Sharon informed him nonchalantly.
"Please, Sharon!" Rusty rolled his eyes. "I am not an idiot. She wasn't even that close to the door!"
Provenza, sensing an upcoming argument, steered them towards the potentially lethal staircase. "Let's get this over with, kids, so I can have my traditional Saturday noon burger at Mary's Diner and Grill."
"That sounds fantastic!" Rusty chirped. "Can we go along with them, Sharon? I am really hungry."
Sharon sighed, having forgotten just how much teenagers could put away without gaining weight or even experiencing anything remotely close to satiation.
"You just had two bowls of cornflakes and an omelet," she pointed out anyway.
"Yeah, and I won't spend any more of my precious free time with that woman," Provenza said while the first stair groaned under his weight. He grabbed the banister and climbed another step while Rusty followed eagerly. Sharon, not entirely convinced that the staircase could hold all four of them at once, folded her arms in front of her body and waited for them to ascend. Flynn was either being polite or didn't like the agonized sounds of the wood, either, because he stood next to her.
"Provenza doesn't mean it, you know," he said in a hushed voice. "I think he is actually quite okay with you right now. You know, as wicked witches go." He gave her a disarming grin that softened her reaction to a dark look over the rim of her glasses.
"Don't push your luck, Lieutenant," she said, gently reminding him of the fact that she was his superior office outside of any chance meetings at haunted houses that might or might not occur in the near future.
"Sorry, Captain," Flynn said, not sounding sorry at all. "Let's go up there and see what other horrors await."
He offered her his hand but she ignored it, feeling completely able to master a set of stairs by herself. If she fell, she would land on top of him, she thought and the idea sent an unexpected and completely unwelcome pang of arousal through her. She paused with shock and momentarily turned around to Flynn, quickly taking in a flash of his boyish grin, silver hair and brown eyes. Remaining professional in the workplace was one thing – with her mind always on cases and office politics, not to forget the law, she didn't give much thought to her colleagues' private lives. Today, however, still a little shaken by the earlier shock, she seemed to be losing her mind or at least a huge part of her sanity.
Upstairs, she felt the need to avoid his gaze and inwardly reprimanded herself for it. If she started going all bashful on him right now, he would most certainly realize that something was off. Or Provenza would. And in that case she would have to hang herself right next to the touchy hanged man downstairs.
Andy Flynn looked around the top floor of the shabby house with curiosity. He had always had a soft spot for horror movies and had seen everything from the classics to the crappy low budget ones you now found at every corner. When Provenza had found two tickets to this new Haunted House attraction just outside LA in his office mail, he had talked his friend into going. Little had he known that he would meet his boss here. He furtively gazed at her and found her nervously running a hand through her long hair. Her silver watch glistened in the harsh fluorescent overhead lights that reminded him of a rundown hospital or asylum, especially since they were flickering in irregular intervals. Up here, the walls were painted in a greyish green until waist-high from which on they were a stained white color. The floor was linoleum and the four doors sported numbers. Someone had clearly gone out of their way to make it look like a classic haunted hospital. Andy grinned at Captain Raydor who looked uncomfortable.
"Come on, you two!" Rusty called from the other end of the corridor. "We're about to open that door."
"Quit screaming, kid!" Provenza retorted. "We can all hear you very, very well."
Andy caught himself at the very last second before his hand touched Raydor's lower back to steer her towards the others. He really ought to behave around her. It was easy at work when she wore the impenetrable mask that only ever vanished when she was upset about Rusty. Here, however, with her wearing those tight jeans and sexy boots, he felt a little too light-headed to not give himself away. From the moment Sharon Raydor had first walked on to one of their crime scenes and claimed it as hers, he had begun to fall for her. At first, he hadn't noticed and had instead gladly joined in to his best friend's tirades about her. After a while, he had realized that he did so only because it gave him an excuse to talk about her. During the previous months, he had begun to really appreciate her as a person and somehow, attraction had snuck into the mix of respect, irritation and loyalty he felt towards her. By now he had come to the point where it was getting slightly difficult to be around her.
She turned towards him and for a moment he was worried that she could read his mind because her eyes narrowed. Then she gave him a little smile. "Why don't you stand next to Rusty this time? I have no intention of making a fool of myself again."
"Was that an order?" he asked, still a little shaken and trying to mask it by joking.
She ignored his quip and took a step towards him to stand behind Provenza, folding her arms defensively to wait for whatever was going to present itself to them behind the door. Rusty opened it with the careless ease that was unique to teenagers and revealed a bathroom that was dominated by an old-fashioned bathtub on four legs that resembled claws. Inside it was a white-faced woman, eyes large and unseeing. Both of her arms were dangling on either side of the tub, blood running down her wrists and pooling on the floor. Even the familiar stench of fresh blood was present. Andy saw Raydor shudder beside herself and had to agree. The setting looked pretty convincing. Especially the eyes – how could one hold one's eyes open for such a long amount of time, Andy wondered. Did they have some kind of eye drops for actors now that enabled them to do so? And how did the gashes in the woman's wrists look so convincing? The blood dripping idly to the floor suggested a terrific props and make-up job. Suddenly he remembered the scream they had heard earlier, upon entering. It had sounded full of fear and agony, a sound that was difficult to imitate to such perfection.
He and Provenza had reached the same conclusion at the same time and both tried to leap into the room, banging their shoulders against each other in the doorway.
He could hear Raydor's calm yet authoritarian voice behind them: "Stop, gentlemen. Don't touch anything."
She was suddenly wearing her leather gloves and walked past them in her typical dignified way, crouching down beside the body. She picked up the woman's hand to look at her wrist, then pressed two of her fingers against her neck. Stunned by the discovery, she straightened up.
"Lieutenant Provenza, call the squad. Lieutenant Flynn, guard the crime scene. And Rusty: Come with me."
She walked towards her foster son and gripped his shoulder firmly. "Come on."
"She's dead? She is really dead? You guys must be joking!" Rusty's eyes had widened with which was not yet fear and dread.
"We are not," Sharon explained calmly and steered him away from the two astonished lieutenants and the body. When Rusty took only one clumsy step towards the stairs, she tightly wrapped one of her arms around his shoulders and nodded at Provenza to hurry up, her eyes widening slightly with impatience. Provenza was instantly kicked into motion while Flynn was still staring at the young woman in the tub. How on earth had that happened?
Outside, Rusty watched Sharon direct the arriving police cruisers to the crime scene, talk to the now flushed-looking employee at the ticket booth and heard her calmly instruct the few people waiting in line to keep quiet and stay put. When she was finished, she returned to Rusty's side and placed a hand on his arm.
"Are you okay, Rusty?"
He lifted his palms in a gesture of confusion. "I guess! How did you know she was really dead?"
Sharon looked at him ruefully. "Experience. Intuition. Call it what you will, but you're going home now. I am sorry that we have to cut this short but I don't want you near a crime scene."
"Crime scene?" he asked. "That looked a lot like a suicide to me."
Sharon raised her chin slightly, slowly transforming back into the slightly arrogant cop she had seemed to be when he had first met her. He knew, however, that she was steeling herself for the procedures that were about to begin and that she hadn't consciously decided to adopt this persona in front of him.
"There was no knife, Rusty," she said quietly. "If you cut your wrists and do it right, you don't have time to hide a knife, much less without staining the floor with your blood."
"Oh," Rusty said. "Right."
She gave him a sad smile and gestured towards the cruiser that was parked closest. "I talked to Detective Miller. He will drop you off at home. I don't know how long I will be, but there's some leftover dinner in the fridge."
"But, Sharon-"
"No," she said with emphasis. "don't make this difficult for me, Rusty."
For a moment, Rusty felt defeated and a bit shaken and almost turned to leave when suddenly something occurred to him. He stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at his foster mother who was regarding him with a worried look.
"One more thing, Sharon," he said lightly. "A question, really."
"Yes, Rusty," she replied, looking distracted. He could tell that she wasn't happy with the fact that their outing had been interrupted - and by something as gruesome as the dead woman who had possibly been murdered, no less. She, too, had probably hoped for a quiet day. Maybe she could have even been talked into having burgers with Provenza and Flynn. Because if Rusty's past had taught him anything, it was that he could tell when people were attracted to each other. And Sharon and Flynn had been almost painfully obvious.
"Well, I was just wondering. As I was there when the body was found – am I not a witness that needs to be interviewed?" He could hardly hide his grin when he saw realization dawning on her face. "So, wouldn't it be against the rules, technically, if you just sent me off like this, without having me give a statement or something?"
For a moment, she gave him a hard stare that he held until he couldn't keep his triumphant grin at bay anymore. She stepped closer to him and glared. In a very quiet and quite frightening voice she said: "You know, Rusty, if I didn't know better, I would think that you were actually my biological son."
Despite the fact the Rusty knew that she was just displaying her rather dark sense of humor again, a jolt of happiness went through him.
"So I can stay?"
She snorted and gestured towards the ticket booth. "You will stay outside with the uniforms. Talk to no one and, by all means, be good."
Rusty watched her retreating back, grinning. Another thing he had noticed, partly while overhearing her conversations with her children on the phone, was that her saying "be good" usually meant something along the lines of "I love you". He felt very sorry for the girl in the tub and also a bit horrified by the fact that a murder had likely occurred on the premises he was now standing on. Still, he could not help but feel some excitement bubbling up inside him at the thought that, for once, he was where the action was instead of having to stay back at the condo or the office. After all, he felt like a sort of mascot to the Major Crimes team by now. And maybe, just maybe, he could somehow set the next part of his plan in motion.
Sending Provenza those tickets had panned out perfectly so far, anyway.