Chapter Three
Grey. That is what the next day had brought to the city. All over it was grey. The dark grey fog of the night had cleared and yet still there was a dour and grey feel to the entire place. The sky was pale and grey, so bright it stung the eyes to look up at it and it seemed very much like it might snow again. The buildings were grey, looming ominously over the tight network of alleys and streets that made up the city. Flack felt like they were suffocating him, closing in and sealing his fate of wandering these grey streets alone for eternity. The sidewalks and roads were grey and smeared with dirty white snow. All around people walked to work in their grey suits and grey overcoats. The mood of the city had turned grey; people were depressed with the after Christmas blues and sick of the never ending cold weather. Flack sighed as he stared at the grey all around him, wondering if he'd suddenly lost the ability to see colour anymore.
Across the way Mac's face was serious and grim. In fact it was really rather grey and he was frowning hard at some minute piece of something or the other on the ground... beside the grey dumpster. Danny was bouncing excitedly on his toes as he snapped away at the grey fencing that had been snipped through as a possible escape route for their killer. Hawkes was bending low over the body, mumbling on about what the cold did to a corpse but Flack had blocked him out, his words a bore on this freezing morning. He looked up as Jo pulled up in the Avalanche, the Southern woman stepping straight out into a puddle as she exited the vehicle and a loud 'God darn it,' coming to his ears. It was just how he'd predicted it would be. And then there was the body. A male. Roughly thirty five years of age. His age. There was nothing remotely interesting about his death thus far. Shot in the back in an alley, body dragged behind a dumpster and hidden by a large plastic covering and two cardboard boxes. No doubt it was a crime for money, possibly a robbery, though jealousy and revenge could never be ruled out at this early stage. Either way, the man was dead, and Flack new it was now his job to find the reason why.
Flack stared down at the body, the sight of a corpse may not have shocked him in the slightest, no matter how gruesome or gory, but this one was strangely getting to him. Perhaps it was due to the similarities to himself; the age or the sex...Flack wasn't sure. Or more than likely it was because of what had happened last night. He had an unsettling feeling in his stomach. Perhaps he should have eaten breakfast before coming out. This man had died last night though, in the snow, in the dark, in the nothingness that had come down over the city and smothered it. Flack had been out in it, had almost died, had been attacked by two kids and could easily have been the body that was now being investigated that morning. Flack swallowed at the thought. He could be dead right now. But Aiden had saved him, come to him through the night and pulled him into that revolting cafe. She had been his saviour and yet disappeared without a trace. And he wondered now if he'd imagined it all.
"You know they say nobody is dead until they are warm and dead," Hawkes murmured as he stood and looked at Flack.
"What?" Flack growled.
"I said, nobody is dead until..."
"I heard," Flack snapped as he turned and left the site of the body slumped against the wall of the building.
"What's eaten you today?" Hawkes shouted after him as Flack made his way through the sludge and away from the corpse and doctor.
He was sick to death of standing in the snow, waiting for nothing. Perhaps there were witnesses he could be questioning. Someone should really be canvassing the area.
"Hey Flack. Wait up," called Danny from behind him and he heard the older man rushing to catch up.
Flack turned and waited for the excitable CSI to reach him.
"Whoa, you look like shit man," Danny murmured, skidding to a halt right in front of the tall detective.
"Is that all?" Flack grouched at him. He knew he looked like shit, he felt like shit too.
"Someone got out of bed the wrong side," Danny said chuckling. "You get up to anything exciting last night?"
Flack thought about what to tell his friend. After all, Danny had been good friends with Aiden too, best friends in fact. Danny and Aiden had been inseparable, always joking around and never taking life too seriously. But she had never liked him as anything more than a friend and his schoolboy crush on her had instantly evaporated when he'd realised she would never go there. No, she had never really seemed interested in either of them, always playing away with guys from other jobs. But Flack had always loved her deeply and had never said anything. Whether Messer had guessed or not he wasn't sure. He probably had, Danny wasn't a CSI for nothing.
"No, nothing good," Flack replied curtly.
"So how'd you get that nose?" Danny asked curiously.
Flack was well aware of the bruising around his nose and eyes that made him look like he'd gone ten rounds in the ring. Wait...the ring...
"I did a few rounds down the boxing ring. I'm getting better," Flack shrugged.
"Yeah, looks like it," Danny sniggered. "Well I had an awful night. Linds has this real thing against gherkins at the moment and like the idiot I am I completely forgot and made a pickled egg and gherkin sandwich last night for my tea. And my God if she didn't start vomiting everywhere because of the smell. And I mean it was like everywhere. She got it in her hair, in the sink, the bath, all over the floor, our bed, the nightstand..."
Flack started to blank out Danny's voice as his mind wondered back to the events of the night before. Aiden. She'd really been there. In Queens. Alive. They'd had coffee together, he'd... Flack furrowed his forehead. He'd been as ass. He'd known he was being an ass at the time but couldn't help it. He'd felt so angry at her for lying to him all these years, for keeping a secret like that and not entrusting him with it. But then all he'd ever wanted to do, if he'd got the chance, was to hug her, to kiss her, to let her know exactly what feelings he'd held so dear to himself all these years. He'd sworn to himself that if he'd ever got the chance to tell her he would. He'd been a liar. He hadn't done that. All he had done was make things tense and awkward between them and now he would never see her again.
"And I think Lucy has caught this bug at school, like flu or something cos oh my God have I never seen so much puke come out of someone so small. I mean she was really throwing her guts up and Lindsay had taken up all the room in the bathroom. So she was stood over the kitchen sink and it was literally going everywhere; dripping down the side, all over the countertop..." Danny continued, unaware Flack had stopped listening.
Flack had seen the look that had flashed across her face when he'd mentioned he'd nearly died. It had been fear...but why? What was it that she feared so badly? That he had almost died and she hadn't been there? That she had lied to him and because of that she might not have ever seen him again? That she had lost him for good? Flack snorted. He was making things up in his head. She didn't care for him and never had done. They'd never so much as even kissed. Sure he'd received the peck on the cheek every once in a while, even one time on the mouth when she'd been pissed and had stumbled as she'd gone in for his cheek. She hadn't even noticed... but he had. He'd been stone cold sober that night.
"And then you know what it's like when other people are puking up and it makes you want to vomit yourself. So I had to just grab the nearest bin and was sick into it. And you know how it gets real stuck in the back of your throat and you can kinda feel the lumps there? Well it was like that and my mouth was all dry and the back of my throat was burning and then Lucy was sick in my lap as I tried to get her to go back to sleep which made me vom in her bed. And I had it in my hair and on my face..."
Flack closed his eyes as he thought of that brief moment with Aiden. The moment she had just brushed her lips against his before giggling and then disappearing off to pull some other man. He'd turned to see Danny watching him curiously, a look of somewhat pity on his face. Of course he'd known. Flack had learnt over the years that he was damn obvious when it came to matters of the heart. And that was how he'd ended up killing a man. Flack suddenly wobbled as an image flashed through his mind. The one that continually haunted him through his grey existence. A man lying on the ground...
"Even Mr Woo next door was sick last night, though I have a funny feeling that might have been from something totally different..."
Flack wrenched his thoughts away from Simon Cade and stared at Danny. He was still moaning on about vomit, highly unappealing at this early hour of the morning.
"Hey," Danny suddenly said. "You don't look so good; maybe you caught this bug too?"
"I'm fine, Danno," Flack muttered. "Just sick of this cold."
"You and me both, Donny boy," Danny agreed. "Still, at least the city is looking a bit more cheery today? I mean well, apart from John Doe over there, eh?"
"I'm gonna take a look around, canvass the area... a few shops round here," Flack muttered and then turned down the sidewalk. So it was just he who saw the world through a blanket of grey.
"I'll catch you later. Hey you wanna come round for a beer tonight?" Danny called after him.
"Err... take a rain check on that," Flack shouted back, not wanting to step forth into the apartment of puke in the slightest way.
"Okay sure. Well if you change your mind..." Danny called after him as he watched Flack stomp away. Something was definitely up with the tall, dark-haired detective. Maybe he and Lovato had had a fight. He'd ask her about it later.
Flack trudged down the sidewalk looking at the buildings as they slid past him for any one that might have been open throughout the night. So far it wasn't looking too hopeful. Suddenly he saw a figure staring at him from across the street, she was standing in the mouth of an alley, hood up so he didn't really know if it was her, but it had to be. She had returned. Flack dashed across the road, holding his badge out to appease the angry motorists who skidded to a halt.
"Oi, don't make me break like that on this snow. It's dangerous dickwad!" one shouted out of his window.
"Fuck you!" Flack shouted back, uncaring for what impression he was giving off about the NYPD.
"Jerk!" he heard the guy yell back as he drove away.
Flack looked back up at the mouth to the alley. It was empty. She had gone. He took a few steps towards it, the unsettling feeling in his stomach leaping about inside him like it were performing some crazy and complex dance routine to the music from Flashdance. Not that he knew what Flashdance was of course. Flack sighed as he turned around about to make his way back to the crimescene.
Suddenly a hand closed around his mouth and he struggled for air. He could feel himself being dragged backwards into the alley and tried to throw his assailant off but they were strong. Flack growled and then bit his teeth into the gloved hand hard. He heard a cry of pain and grinned as he was released.
"What the fuck, Flack?"
Flack gawped at the woman before him. Aiden.
"Whaddaya mean? I should be saying that to you. Why'd you try to kidnap me?" he snapped.
"I wasn't. I just wanted to talk to you," she replied curtly.
"There are better ways to accomplish that," Flack told her angrily while his brain begged him to be nicer this time.
"Not if I don't want to be seen," she growled. "Especially not by your team."
Flack opened his mouth to retort back, thought for a moment and then finally closed it again. He knew they both had fiery temperaments, that this exchanged of comments could go on forever if they had the time.
"What did you want to talk to me about?" Flack asked, trying to stay calm.
"The body. What do they know?" she said swiftly.
"Huh?" Flack frowned.
"The body. You know, the one you've been standing by for the best part of two hours," she said, almost rolling her eyes at his stupidity.
"Oh. What do you mean, what do they know? I can't discuss that with you," Flack retorted.
"Stop being so by the book, Flack. It doesn't suit you," Aiden commented. "I need to know if you know who he is?"
Flack growled at her again but refrained from snapping. He wanted to be nicer this time but it was proving to be difficult. He still felt so angry at her and his emotions were getting the best of him.
"We only just found him, Aiden. Course we don't know who he is yet. There was no ID. But the CSIs have found lots of evidence so it shouldn't be too long..."
"Shit," she cursed, turning away from him for a moment.
"What's going on?" Flack asked, well aware that she must have some connection to the body, if he was reading her right...and he was. He knew he was. He was damn good at reading people.
"He was my informant, Flack. The guy I was meeting last night," she explained.
Flack stared back at her blankly, not understanding the severity of the situation one bit. But then he had no idea what she did now or who she'd become.
"Don't look at me like that, Flack, because I know you're not a thick as you like to make out," she said bluntly. "That guy had information. Information he gave me last night. If he told the same information to whoever killed him..."
"He wasn't tortured, if that's what you're asking," Flack replied. "Just shot in the back. Looks more like robbery to me."
"It's a cover up," Aiden said quickly. "Shit. I need to let the others know. If he told someone else, they could be going into a trap."
"Aiden, slow down," Flack sighed. "What others? What trap? What is going on here?"
"I can't tell you," she said in frustration.
"Well then I'm gonna go," Flack snapped as he turned to leave.
"No, Flack. Wait!" she cried and grabbed hold of his wrist.
Flack turned and was suddenly confronted by two deep brown eyes that told such a story. One of pain and fear and if he wasn't too mistaken, loss.
"Aiden, I need you to throw me a bone here. What do you want?" Flack asked wearily.
"I need your help," she asked worriedly.
"Help? After what you did?" Flack laughed. "You walk back into my life after seven years and you expect me to help you? Why should I?"
"Because you're a friend, Flack," she said sincerely. And the hand that was still holding his wrist gently grazed bare skin under his coat sleeve.
"If I was a friend you'd have told me what was going on. That you were alive," Flack replied and pulled his arm away.
"Then help me because it's the right thing to do," she pleaded.
"What do you even want me to do?" Flack asked.
"The evidence they're collecting... I need you to destroy it. I can't have anyone finding out who my informant is," she replied, watching him carefully.
"What?" Flack shouted. "What the fuck, Aiden? You want me to destroy evidence. No way. Absolutely no way."
"Please," she begged. "They can't know who he is or that I saw him last night."
"It's not my problem," Flack yelled. "And destroying evidence is more than my job's worth. How do I even know I can trust you?"
"Because it's me...it's Aiden," she excused.
"What, the woman who I thought was dead for the last seven years? Who suddenly reappears with some cock and bull story about the FBI and a secret undercover mission. You could be working for anyone for all I know. How do I know it wasn't you who killed him and now you're just getting me to help you cover it up?"
"Because you know me better than that, Flack!" she shouted.
"I don't know you at all," Flack replied angrily. "The woman I knew died seven years ago. You...you're an apparition that shouldn't even exist."
Aiden stared at him in shock and once more a look of fear passed across her face. Flack still didn't understand what it meant.
"I was just trying to protect you by not telling you," she finally sighed, exhausted by their arguing.
"Protect me?" Flack sniggered. "I don't need protecting. And is that why you now want to get me involved?"
"Flack, you don't understand. If they know I was seeing him, getting information..."
"Who's they?" Flack ground out once again.
"I can't tell you," she said sorrowfully.
"Then I can't help you," Flack replied and turned from the alley. This was hopeless and they were just going round in circles.
He reached the mouth of the alley and looked back at her, her eyes still pleading with him and tugging at his heart. He sighed wearily and scratched at his head.
"I'm sorry, Aiden."
And then he walked back out into the street and disappeared amongst the people. He didn't look back, didn't know if she was watching him or not. His heart ached like it was in hell and that a stake was being repeatedly driven into it. But then he wasn't in hell, he hadn't quite descended that far yet. No, he was in purgatory, living an eternity of not knowing whether he was to be damned to hell or heaven. And that was worse.