oOo
"Would you stop that already?" Sergeant Wright admonished Will with a sharp glance. Will pulled back his hand guiltily, not realizing that he was drumming nervously on the dashboard. Forcing his hands to rest idly in his lap, Will focussed his attention on the streets flying by outside. The drive seemed to be taking forever, but he knew that was just his imagination, a result of being worried. He couldn't explain it, but he had just known that something was wrong when Emma hadn't shown up for work that morning. Of course, he'd tried to call her, both on her mobile and on landline, but he'd only gotten the mailbox and the answering machine respectively. He'd left messages, but to no avail. He'd even tried calling Matt, since after all, he and Emma lived under the same roof, but his efforts had yielded the same result. He would have understood if Emma chose to stay at home today, after what she had been through yesterday during that steaming attack on the bus. But she would have let her colleagues know and there was nothing to explain Matt's absence. Inspector Gold hadn't so much been worried as she had been annoyed when Emma had failed to show for her shift, but she had eventually agreed to have Will and Nikki drive by Emma and Matt's place, just to make sure that everything was in order. Will's mind came back to reality, when the car came to a sharp stop at the curb. Nikki got out, followed by Will. She walked up straight to the doorstep, ringing the doorbell. Will followed a few steps behind. He'd almost missed it, but when he walked past the window pointing to the street, he caught a glimpse of a scene that made his heart stop for a moment. He stopped to get a better look, hoping that he'd been mistaken, but it was all too true. Through the window, he could see Emma and Matt lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, side by side, bodies still and eyes closed.
"Sarge!" Will forced out the word, unable to take his eyes off the bodies.
"What's going...? " Nikki broke up when she saw what he saw. "Oh God," she whispered, but she regain her composure a moment later and got on her radio.
"Break it down!" she yelled to Will, indicating the door. "They might still be alive." Will nodded, but he already knew they were dead; the blood on the tiled floor hadn't been fresh. They had to have been lying there for hours. Will swallowed hard and broke down the front door with a well-placed kick. Nikki, still talking on the radio, followed him inside. Will made his way to the kitchen. Seeing them up close was a hundred times worse. For the first time ever, the smell of blood and beginning decomposition made his stomach turn. Will swallowed convulsively, trying not to throw up. Like in trance, he watched Nikki kneel down next to the bodies. Her fingers went to Matt's throat. She only shook her head. Then she reached over to Emma, who was lying next to her dead husband. Her hand lingered. She frowned and tried again.
"She's alive, Will!" she exclaimed and got back on her radio, asking CAD to send an ambulance urgently.
oOo
By the time Sam and Mickey pulled up in front of Emma and Matt's home, a row of vehicles was already parked at the curb. The ambulance was long gone, the scene turned over to CSE. Uniform had cordoned off the entire property, keeping out the small group of curious onlookers that had gathered despite it being almost 10 a.m. on a weekday. Nikki came walking up to the two detectives as they got out of the car.
"How does it look?" Mickey asked, referring to Emma.
"They've taken her to St. Hugh's, but it doesn't look good. Will's gone with her, but I haven't heard anything from him yet." Nikki's appearance was professional as ever, but her voice betrayed her shock.
Mickey and Sam nodded.
"CSE's inside; she's waiting for you," Nikki told them. "We're going to talk to the neighbours next."
"Good, let is know as soon as you have something," Sam said. Mickey followed her as she ducked underneath the crime scene tape and entered the house. Lorna Hart greeted them in the hallway.
"We'll process the entire house, but from what it looks like, the main action was in the kitchen." She led the way to the kitchen.
The colours had been kept light. Light grey cabinets were a soft contrast to the white tile floor, making the blood stand out even more. There was a large pool of blood near the centre of the room, with a void where two bodies had been lying. Around it was a clutter of smears and bloody shoeprints. Remnants of medical supplies - wrappers, tubing and blood-stained tissue -were evidence of the life-saving efforts of the paramedics.
"The paramedics obviously disturbed the scene, but from what I can tell, all the shoeprints are theirs," Lorna explained, her voice soft, but dispassionate. Pointing to the fine blood spray on the cabinet door, she said, "Both the blood on the floor, as well as the spatter, is consistent with shots to the head at a very short distance."
"What about this?" Mickey indicated a small drop of blood near the counter, almost a meter from where Matt and Emma had lain bleeding.
"Well spotted, DC Webb," Lorna commended. "It's not consistent with the injuries I saw. It might be sign of a struggle prior to the shooting itself."
"A struggle with the killer?" Sam asked hopefully. The killer's DNA at the scene was worth a great deal in a murder inquiry.
"Possibly, but to me, this looks more like a murder-suicide than anything else, although there a few things that aren't entirely consistent with that hypothesis," Lorna admitted.
Sam and Mickey were stunned. "Who...?" Sam began. She knew, had known both of them, and she couldn't imagine either of them being this desperate.
"From the position of the bodies, it looks like Matt Hinckley was the shooter, but we'll know more once we've tested their hands for GSR," she told them.
"Thank you. Any idea yet when it happened?"
"Four to six hours ago." Lorna shrugged.
"I might be able to shed some light on that." The trio turned to see Nikki stand in the wide doorway leading to the kitchen.
"The neighbours heard a car pulling up around half past three this morning and heard it leave about half an hour later."
"No one heard the gunshots?" Mickey asked, surprised. This was a quiet residential neighbourhood. Someone had to have heard two people being gunned down. Nikki just shrugged. "Quite a few people are at work now, but we're tracking them down."
"Good, we need their statements as soon as possible. If we're lucky, somebody actually saw the car and can give us a description. There is no CCTV in this street, but if we get make and model, we might be able to check nearby traffic cameras."
"It might not be related," Sam considered.
"Would be an awfully big coincidence, though," Mickey said. "So you think it is a murder-suicide?"
Sam hesitated. "I think it's the most likely explanation. Otherwise, it looks almost like a professional hit. Think about it - there is no sign of a break-in, no obvious physical evidence or signs of a struggle and no one heard the shots."
"Silencer?" Mickey considered.
"That would point to a professional hit, but if it is, why would they bother with staging a murder-suicide," Sam questioned.
Mickey just shrugged. "I think we should head to St. Hugh's. See if there is any news." He tried to put a measure of optimism into his voice, but in truth, he didn't hold out much hope. It had been a miracle that Emma had still been alive when Nikki and Will had arrived. Even if she survived her injuries, it was highly unlikely that she would be able to give them a statement.
oOo
Will had never felt this tense in his entire life. He was nervous to the point of feeling nauseous. The hands of the clock on the opposite wall of the waiting room moved with an agonizing slowness, although part of Will was aware that no news was probably good news for the moment. A woman in scrubs entered the waiting area. Will tensed, but she turned to a woman with two small children on the other side of the room. Will watched them speak quietly for a moment, and then the woman began to sob. The news clearly hadn't been good. Will idly wondered who she was grieving for - a husband, a partner, a child? Will wondered whom he would be grieving for. A girlfriend - no. At one time maybe but he and Emma never really had been an item. The time had never been right and then there had been Matt. What about a colleague then? No, Emma was much more than that. A friend, yes, she was a friend, Will decided.
"Are you here for Emma Hinckley?" A nurse asked, shaking his mind from its musings. The tension was instantly back.
"Yes," he managed.
"She was very lucky. The bullet went clean through her skull, without penetrating the brain," the woman explained. Will had no idea how that was even possible, but for the moment, he didn't care. "Her condition, while serious, isn't life threatening."
"What does that mean?" Will asked, realizing he sounded stupid.
"Well, we've run several tests including an MRI, and while there is some swelling, there is no damage to the brain. This type of injury is very rare, but in most cases the patient recovers without lasting neurological damage," she explained patiently.
Relief flooded through him, but he forced himself to return to the job at hand. "I'll need her clothes, as well as the bullet."
"If you'll come with me, I'll give you her clothes. The bullet I can't give you, as I said, it has exited the skull," she explained, leading the way down a corridor. Indicating for him to wait, she disappeared into one of the rooms adjacent to the corridor. She emerged a few moments later, carrying a plastic bag containing Emma's blood-stained clothes. The sight of them prompted a new wave of nausea, but Will forced himself to remain focused. "When do you think she'll be able to make a statement?"
The woman shrugged. "I'm not sure how much she'll be able to tell you. She regained consciousness earlier, but she became very agitated and we had to sedate her. Still, she's awake at the moment, and although she should still be feeling the effects of the sedative, you can try to talk to her."
Will nodded.
"But tread carefully. If she gets agitated or upset, you need to leave."
Will nodded again.
"I'll show you to her room then."
oOo
Emma was awake and aware of where she was, but her mind was adrift. Sensations and thoughts came and went, but they all seemed very distant and unimportant at the moment. She knew she was in hospital and that there was probably something pretty seriously wrong with her, but she couldn't bring herself to care right now. She had been in a great deal of pain earlier, but the violent migraine had dimmed down to barely a whisper, allowing her to rest fairly comfortably and let the questions she had pass by idly, to be answered at some point in the future.
From where she was lying, she could see part of the door and watched as it opened. A woman in light blue scrubs was showing in a young man. The uniform immediately gave him away as a police officer. That explained his presence at the same time. She was certain that she didn't know him, but if she had been in some sort of accident, it made sense someone would be around to question her. An early statement was very important, especially when circumstances weren't clear; she had learned that during her training. Soon she would be the one taking statements at hospitals and accident scenes.
The officer hesitated for a moment, then he sat down. Emma shifted to face him. He seemed worried and somewhat ill at ease. Emma wondered if he was new to the job.
"Emma, how are you? I was so worried about you, but they said you were going to be okay," the officer said, a smile spreading over his face. Emma was puzzled; he was talking as if he knew her. Emma searched her memory and came to a disturbing conclusion. While she knew very well who she was, able to recall her family, friends and past, she couldn't recall ever having seen the young man before. And, more disturbingly, she wasn't sure why this hadn't bothered her before. She couldn't recall what had happened to put her in hospital. In fact, she had trouble dredging up any concrete events from her memory. It was all very fuzzy.
"Emma, are you okay?" The smile was gone from the officer's face.
"Who are you?" Emma asked feeling increasingly panicked. Her headache was beginning to return with a vengeance.
The young man's face froze for a moment, and then moved to display an expression of fear and shock.
"I think I better call the nurse," he whispered and reached for the call button. Once he'd pressed it, he got up, but didn't leave.
"Tell me, what's happening?" Emma pleaded, understanding less and less of what was happening around her. Her head ached violently now, the pain driving tears to her eyes. Her heart was pounding, and she struggled to get enough air into her lungs.
"Miss Hinckley! Miss Hinckley! Emma, look at me. Look at me!" A woman who appeared seemingly out of nowhere took hold of her hands, her face close to hers. Emma squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out a world that didn't make sense anymore.
"Deep breaths. Try to breathe deeply," the woman instructed, but Emma didn't care. She was too busy trying to get air into her lungs. The woman was saying more, but the sound of her voice was drowned out by the rushing sound that filled Emma's ears.
oOo
Will found himself waiting for news once again. The brief moments of relief, when he'd seen Emma alive and awake had been cruelly shattered. What if Emma lived, but the person he knew remained gone? How would he cope, he wondered, but pushed the thought aside a moment later, chastising himself for thinking so selfishly. Emma had been terrorized with fear, and he hadn't been able to help her. To her he had been a stranger and that hurt more than anything else - far more than Emma turning him down to marry Matt ever had. If he was honest, he hadn't stopped caring about her, even though he'd tried hard to resign himself to the fact that it was over between them. But just the other day, when he'd overheard that Matt's ex was still alive, he'd felt hope again, that maybe, one day, Emma would see Matt for whom he really was. Not that it mattered anymore. Matt was dead and even if Emma would recover, he was determined to let her grieve for her husband. He hadn't spoken up the other day and now it was too late. He'd have to live with that.
Will looked up at the wall clock, when he saw two people, an unfamiliar man and the woman he'd spoken to earlier, approach him. He got to his feet.
"How is she? Is she going to be all right?" The words tumbled from his mouth.
The man put up a hand to halt the flow of questions. "We still have a few tests we'd like to run, but as we'd thought earlier, there is no injury to the brain itself. Miss Hinckley does suffer from retrograde amnesia, meaning she cannot remember what happened before she was shot. From what I could tell when I spoke to her, the memory loss seems to concern a period of roughly four years. The reason for her amnesia might be organic, as there is some tissue swelling, but given the highly traumatic nature of her injury, it might as well be partly psychological," the doctor explained.
"Will she get her memory back?" Will managed to ask, pushing aside the myriad of thoughts and feelings that threatened to overwhelm him.
"Impossible to say. Once the swelling goes down, there might as well be a significant improvement to her memory. But I wouldn't hold out too much hope. It's highly unlikely that she'll ever be able to tell you what happened," the woman explained. Will realized that they had to assume that to him, Emma was just another victim and he a police officer trying to get a statement.
"She needs rest first of all at the moment. Visitors will be limited to her immediate family. In a few days, you might be able to try questioning her again, but not sooner."
Will nodded. He hadn't even thought of Emma's family yet. "I'll make sure that they are notified," he said, secretly hoping that someone else had made the call already.
TBC