A/N 1: Thank-you and hats off to author Weathergirl, who brilliantly pointed out that this is a horror fic, and Hallowe'en is fast approaching! Didn't even make that connection, but I appreciate it.
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CHAPTER THREE: PERMANENT?
1 Police Plaza, Manhattan, NY
3:30PM Friday, July 27, 2012
Just as he turned the corner down the long hallway on the 11th floor on his way back to Major Case, just as his partner hove into view, Bobby saw Captain Hannah knock twice on Alex's desk and mutter something before striding away. It still bothered him a little bit when their Captain talked to his partner alone. Afraid they were talking about him, afraid Eames would have to defend both of them by herself, explain or lie something away by herself.
Or maybe it just made him nervous whenever men spoke to her without him.
"A-Eames, everything OK?" His partner's eyes lit up when she espied the gigantic coffee he was carrying. She reached out her hands like a little girl and mouthed gimme, gimme. He smiled as he handed it to her.
"What did you get for yourself, Bobby?"
Usually he just grabbed a water, but he'd splurged today. "A skinny Mocha."
"Mmmm, tasty." She didn't seem inclined to answer his question, so he pressed her on it. "Well," she said, making a face, "The Captain's noticed you've been really happy lately, and he asked me if I thought it was… permanent."
Bobby's first inclination was to be irritated. He hated people discussing him behind his back, and he hated it that his boss kept tabs on the ups and downs of his personal life. After irritation came insecurity. "It's none of his business. Does he think it's affecting my work?"
"Don't be upset, Hannah was just happy for you. And you can't accuse him of snooping, you haven't been taking many pains to conceal your, er," his partner paused, pursing her lips as she no doubt laboured to find a delicate description for his ill-concealed new relationship status.
Bobby let her off the hook with a wave of his hand. "If he'd just been glad for me he would have just told me."
"Bobby, I think he just wants to make sure that you're happy and that your new – lady friend – is good, and trustworthy, and good for you, and everything that the people who care about you care about." Why did Alex pick a hot drink on such a hot day? It was making her flushed, bringing a sheen of sweat to her temples.
"Well. You told him she is, right?" Her somewhat non-committal noise concerned him less than the thought that occurred to him next. "Eames? Why would he think that you'd know anything about – her?"
Alex shook her head. "I think – a lot – of people think, we're deep in each other's pockets."
Bobby's ire stuck with him, but he channelled it into his work. Only later, when their coffees were long gone and the remains of dinner sat in a crumpled heap of Styrofoam between them, did he hear his partner's soft, almost hesitant question. "Is it?"
"Is it what?"
"Permanent."
o.o.o.o.o
At the end of the day, after declining Alex's offer of a ride, he looked back at the file he'd been reading. From upstate, a case that had looked at first like a mauling, but was now being worked as a murder.
Written by a state trooper assigned to the sticks, it read like a lurid penny dreadful, and Bobby was both repulsed and fascinated by the scenario the facts presented, as well as by the florid and candid style.
The victim, male, aged mid-thirties, has been dead less than 12 hours. Discovered by his wife of 9 years in the kitchen of their home, wife claims to have fainted at the ghastly mess her husband had made in his death throes. Items from the breakfast table and the counter knocked onto the floor, smears of blood and flecks of gore flung against all the vertical surfaces up to approximately 18 inches, sprays and streaks of same along the floor.
Vic appears to have died of blood loss due to huge chunks of his lower calves being chewed up and eaten. The vermin – probably coyotes – also ate his eyes and his tongue. The sight was horrific… two of my men had to excuse themselves & get medical attention.
Vic seemed to have fought hard against his attackers, several hand bones appear to be broken. Must have been a surprise attack or with some contributing circumstance (check with ME for intoxicants).
Scene compromised by wife & EMTs, however…
And the report continued at length, but with few more compelling details. It was only days later, after the Medical Examiner's report, that the event was re-classified as a homicide…
Cause of death: massive organ failure due to a full-body endoscopic neuronectomy arising from an entrypoint at the left and right Achilles tendons. All major organs morbidly affected. Heart vessels turned completely inside-out, liver split, spleen burst. Tongue inverted, detached, swallowed or pulled into stomach. Testicular and penile tissue also inverted and flayed, some tissue discovered in the femoral artery. Deceased's ocular orbs, thought to have been removed, found lodged in the renal artery.
Considerable trauma and deformity to all muscle groups. Multiple fractures in most hand and foot bones, the left radius and both tibias. Left elbow and left knee dislocated. Stress rupture of the superior vena cava and bladder. Vertebrae C3, 4, 6, T3, T4, and L1-4 all compressed and/or ruptured. Proximal femur (hip) bones both cracked.
Ligaments, fascia intact, but no sinews observed remaining in the body.
Tox screen revealed .023 blood alcohol.
No sinews observed remaining in the body. He died because someone – or something – ripped out all his tendons through his ankles.
O.O.O.O.O
Home of Connie Rubirosa, Brooklyn, NY
8:30PM Friday, July 27, 2012
With only a twinge of guilt, Connie climbed into bed with a bowl of ice cream and her laptop.
The twinge was not for the poor excuse for a meal she was having while the bag of healthy groceries Lupo had brought over languished in the fridge, nor was it for the poor blooms that she'd sworn to try to plant somewhere, but which had been ignored all week and then tossed onto the compost heap by her cleaning lady.
It was for the clutch of files she'd stuffed into her portfolio two hours ago, determined to work on them tonight, and which she'd then used as an excuse to turn away the eager Detective who'd been waiting at her door with an offer to cook her dinner.
In her defence, her week had been long, tiring, gruelling, and more than a little bit unsettling, and a restorative ice cream binge in her fluffy all-white bedroom with the AC blasting was more of a necessity than a choice.
In between spoonfuls of PB & Chocolate Hagen Dazs, she caught up with her LA friends & family online. In her tiny amount of free time this week, she'd managed to get her kitchen & bedroom functional at least, the pleasure of finally being able to relax in a peaceful, comfortable retreat seeping into her bones. Perhaps now the nebulous discomfort and anxiety she'd been feeling all week would be banished. Well, if Egyptian cotton and six down pillows couldn't do it, nothing could.
Her bed felt like an answer to a prayer, but the rest of her bedroom was no less serene and comfortable. The floor was pine, as was the whole second floor, and this room like all the others had the original mouldings, door handles and baseboards. The tiny old-fashioned closet was a small price to pay, Connie thought, for the charm and balance of the room.
A traditionally-patterned green, cream and black hand-tied Mexican throw rug and the natural woven grass window blinds were the only non-white items in the room, accenting (along with some emerald-hued plants) the overstuffed armchair and rattan vanity. Connie loved the mis-matched, acquired feel of the pieces she'd chosen; it made the place seem like home.
Home was what she needed more of, and the thought spurred her commitment to make time for an unpacking marathon over the weekend. After years of apartment living, she was having a tiny bit more trouble than expected adjusting to being alone in a house. In the quiet neighbourhood, every sound was amplified. The trees whose stately shade she'd coveted, rustled with an insistence that was oddly oppressive. The creaks and groans of the house itself – even when caused by her own movement – were more jarring than they should have been.
Without the white noise of constant traffic, humming lights and humanity, she awoke to every passing car, rattling dog collar and conversation.
And having so many rooms was making her absent-minded. Perhaps when her whole house was exactly as she wanted, every box unpacked, she would stop misplacing things. No more accidentally throwing away once-used J-cloths and reusable coffee filters. No more wasted time looking for shoes she remembered kicking off but apparently put away. A spoonful of ice cream hovered midair as she reflected on how much unconscious eating she'd been doing; a sure path to extra pounds. According to her conscious mind there should have been about a dozen half-eaten pop tarts and muffins around, but all she kept finding were empty plates.
"Mother of a–!" With diabolical timing, a phantom movement out of the corner of her eye startled her so much that she dropped the spoon right on her keyboard.
More spooked than usual, she sprang out of bed not only to clean up but to shake off the other familiar feeling she'd been having off-and-on since getting back to New York… irritation that she was letting her mind play tricks on her.
Still muttering epithets, she tried to exorcise her shaky nerves with the mundane ritual of wiping down her computer and straightening her bed. White sheets on a white mattress cover, under a white comforter under a white throw under white pillows and shams.
Had her choice of colour been at all influenced by the compact onyx shadow she'd been taunting herself with these past few days?
Ever since she'd returned to New York, she kept seeing something out of the corner of her eye. At first she thought it was a shifting shadow, then she feared it was a small animal. After trying and failing to track the intruder – which seemed to grow larger on a daily basis – she finally concluded it was her own psyche trying to gaslight her. After that she'd made an effort to ignore the 'sightings', but they still unnerved her.
In a moment of weakness, so disconcerted by her own apparently fragile psyche, she'd mentioned the recurring almost-hallucination to Mike. "I don't need you to tell me it's my imagination, I know it is, I just…" ~ "Need to know why now? It might just be the house." ~ "I know." ~ "Or are you… having regrets, about coming back?" He stumbled a bit over the question, and though his face was carefully blank, Connie was surprised to see taut the tendons of his neck standing out against his smooth skin. ~ "It's not regret, it's just… I still feel a lot of uncertainty. Maybe it's a symbol of that." They'd laughed, and she'd christened her dark shadow The Oracle after the Matrix character whose job it was to unbalance the equation.
After her mention of uncertainty, Mike's warm smile had turned speculative, and she'd been relieved when he changed the subject back to work without quizzing her further.
In a moment of almost maternal even-handedness, she also shared her concerns with Lupo. It made no sense to tell him, but she was glad to receive his reassuring reply text.
if ur only cing it out of teh
corner of ur i, it must be a
fig of ur img cudnt elude
u otherys
After calming herself down a bit, Connie took her ice cream bowl to the kitchen and rinsed it out, then poured herself a glass of wine. Her electronics weren't set up yet, so she couldn't sit on the sofa flipping channels to unwind. Instead she went back to bed and clicked through some of the fun stuff on Reddit. Lupo called, but she let it ring through to voicemail.
Still feeling a little tense, she was going to try to sleep when her phone chimed again, this time an email from Mike.
I'm sending this to your personal email because I'm hoping you're not working.
I just wanted to say, it's good to have you back.
See you Monday,
Mike.
Connie hit her contacts and dialled a number.
"Mike? It's Connie. I just got your email…"
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A/N 2: BOOOOOOOOOOOO! Please review!
WORDS: 2163 UPLOADED Tuesday, October 23, 2012