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Chapter two: Why don't you tell me?
With a big move, Mac pushed all the files, ballpoints, papers and his cell phone out of his way and shoved it all to one side of the table. Cases could wait, unrecovered bullets could wait, e-mails could wait, phone calls could wait. Even if he would consider getting his mind back to work again, it wouldn't matter because he couldn't get rid of that one conversation of Stella on the phone. He knew it will haunt him forever if he didn't find out the truth right away. His plan of asking her about her problems face-to-face was now completely vaporized. During the talk it became clear she wasn't going to tell him anytime soon. And about who else than him could she be talking about? She doesn't need to explain her actions to anyone but him, so the subject of the conversation could have been only him and no one else.
With his eyes filled with determination, his brain started working about possible clues how he could find out what Stella was working on behind his back. It must be the Greek case, nothing else would have such an effect on her as that case. Mac straightened his back and placed his hands about his keyboard but somehow, his fingers stopped moving right before they touched the letters. At least a hundred bells started ringing in his head. Don't do this, you will lose her as your friend, maybe even as your colleague. He tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind, but by doing so they only became worse. You will ruin everything once you dig up her files, once you start following her tracks. Don't do it. Just don't. His eyes danced between his fingers and the computer screen in front of him, which now had the NYPD logo dancing around the corners as a screensaver, completely in peace with its movements. Whenever he would touched that board, he would disturb that peace, an action that'd maybe even lead to war. And war was never good, he knew that by experiencing it from up close. But on the other side were the bells which were telling him that he had already gone too far, it wouldn't get any better if he'd stop now. He already damaged their strong friendship, bound most of all by trust. That trust got shattered into big pieces at the moment he decided to stand against the wall of that lab Stella was standing in, instead of walking in it and confronting her. It wouldn't make any difference if those little big pieces of broken trust would end up in small pieces, once broken is forever broken. He also knew he wasn't the only one to blame, she had already made all those little cracks in their trust at the moment she decided not to tell him all the things she was so busy with that she couldn't even find the time anymore to listen to evidence that would maybe even solve a case. Wasn't that her job, solving cases? Yes, he also needed to look her up to save that little bit of integrity this lab still had. His lab. It was his responsibility.
Finally his mind decided to give up and it let him disturb the peace. His fingers touched the enter button and the NYPD screensaver disappeared only to end up in a NYPD background on Mac's desktop. He logged onto the internal system and went searching for the Greek case. He went through all of it, who worked on it in the beginning, the progress till now, the lab work done, all the evidence that was collected. At that last part, Mac stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the screen. He was right. The two antic coins that were collected were removed from storage. He clicked on the items to find out who removed them. The one name he was not ready to see, popped up. Dt. Stella Bonasera. His heart skipped a beat and the corners of his mouth curled up, just like what happened in every situation that took him by surprise. She took the coins from evidence and didn't return them yet. What'd she do with those coins? On the paper filled out for getting the coins was written: double checking. No, those coins were already double checked on every trace possible, a third time wouldn't make any difference. Plus, he hadn't seen her working on them at any moment. But she was hiding it from him, so maybe she did her in her free time. But no, she had taken some sick days, she couldn't possibly be checking those coins because she simply wasn't here at that time. Now he thought back, she didn't sound sick at all earlier when she came by his office so he could tell her Diakos was found.
Mac's brain was working overdrive, but there were just too much possibilities for Stella to take those coins from evidence. He needed to find out the only one true reason. No way she was going to tell him, especially not after she would find out what he had done behind her back till now. Mac only then thought back about the conversation and also about Stella calling a name during it. Jess. While staring at the file on the screen in front of him, he tried to think of as many Jess's as he could, but he ended up with only one Jess he knew all too well. Dt. Jessica Angell. Jess. She was clearly involved in all of it, and thinking back about the conversation, Mac had a dark feeling Angell wasn't all that happy about all the secrecy around it. She was his only chance of finding out the truth. He glanced at his watch. 6.10 pm. He knew Stella's shift ended at 6, and big chance she would head straightly from here to Angell. He needed to act fast if he wanted to know. He quickly stood up out of his chair and grabbed his jacket, not at all thinking about retrying to drink a cup of coffee or eat something.
Thirty minutes later…
Jessica Angell was walking around in very little circles on the same spot for 10 minutes now. The moment Mac called and asked if they could meet in about thirty minutes in Brooklyn Bridge Park about a very important matter, her blood pressure immediately doubled itself. He knew. She had warned Stella about this moment, because sooner or later Mac would find out. He always found those things out, he is the head of the crime lab of one of the most criminal states of the USA for Christ's sake, of course he would find out. But it was strange that he asked to meet in the Park instead of at his office or the police station. Maybe he didn't know quite yet, or just a part of it. Anyway, it won't matter because she was, while standing in the park alone wondering around over the Hudson river, going to tell him as much as he needed to know. That was the plan with Stella all along. She would join her, help her with her search for Diakos and whomever killed him, but that was as far as she'd go. She was not going to betray her badge, so whenever Mac or anyone else would ask about it she'd tell them. And Stella completed understood, she wasn't asking to put it all at risk just for her, she was just asking for some help and she had giving it to her so she could keep an eye on her colleague at the same time. Therefore, she was now ready for him, for Mac, not afraid anymore about the consequences this conversation might lead up to.
From behind she heard a car approaching closer than all the other cars that drove by since the time she was standing there, so she knew it was him. Angell heard her sort of boss open and close the door, his footsteps now entering the park. Jennifer didn't move and kept facing the river, her back towards him. He coughed twice to let her show his presence. She hated this moments. The moments of truth. With a deep sigh she slowly turned around.
"Mac."
"Detective Angell. Jessica."
"What can I do for you, Mac?" The mentioned detective made a couple of more steps towards the female cop, studying her behavior in the meanwhile. She was standing completely still, totally in balance, no look of defense on her face, neither did it show any sign of suspicion. She knew why he had called her and from the looks of it, she was ready to take the hit.
"I am sorry I called you after your shift, but I needed to know." Angell didn't blink.
"You needed to know what, exactly?"
"The coins." Jessica now blinked. The coins. Of course it were the coins he had found out about, it's all about the evidence with Mac. She didn't move, but instead of looking just besides his face in the distance, she now looked him directly in the eye.
"We used them to lure the dealer towards a container." Mac swallowed hard. So it was true. It was all true and with two little words he was going to hear the whole story he wasn't sure he was ready for.
"Go on." Angell switched her eyes to the direction of the river again, not knowing if she could look at him anymore without seeing the friendship of Mac and Stella shattering apart in the reflection of his sclera.
"With some of our tricks he told us where we could find Diakos only to find Diakos dead a couple of hours later." Mac narrowed his eyes. They had found the body of Diakos. Stella was the person who made the anonymous phone call to 911. In his imagination he wanted to hit his head against a wall because of his own stupidity, but he needed to stay focused now, he needed to hear the rest of the story.
"What did you do with the other guy?" Now it was time for Angell to bow her head, because this was the part she was the most afraid and ashamed of.
"We put him in a shipping container and deported him to Cyprus where he will be waited for and arrested."
"What? Because the guy has diplomatic immunity here?" Mac was getting furious.
"He was too dangerous to let him walk, we needed to do something." Now was the part coming when she needed to tell him who thought of all of this. She knew Mac was preparing himself for the question, noticeably by the little pause of silence there was hanging between the two detectives. After ten seconds, he finally said the last words.
"Who's idea was this operation, detective?" No Jessica anymore, no Angell, just detective. He was definitely truly pissed off. She turned towards him, but she couldn't say it out loud. She just couldn't.
"Don't make me say it, Mac." Her eyes sent out a plead, trapped and surrendered at the same time. She expected him to walk away furiously, to start yelling at her, pushing her to say it. Instead, he slowly stepped forward and gently laid down his hand on her shoulder.
"Thanks. Thank you, Jess." He tried to give her a smiled but failed. Next he bowed his head slightly, showing his own defense also. He suddenly turned around and quickly walked back towards his car and drove off, leaving Angell underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.
The accelerator pedal of his SUV was just too tempting to resist. His hands were tightly holding the steering wheel, his knuckles white because of the pressure. Not that it was truly necessary; he didn't use the wheel much but instead was just heading straightforward, only using his right foot. He stopped watching the speed he was driving with a while back, just paying attention to the road ahead of him now, trying to avoid other cars.
Mac's mind was soon going to blow by the looks of it, but the middle-aged detective just couldn't help it. She had betrayed him so badly. No matter what he thought, he just couldn't understand why. Didn't he always listen to her whenever she needed him, whenever she needed a shoulder? Did he ever ask her something? She had done nothing for him since a long time, and he hadn't asked her to. Just this one simple question not to get involved in the Greek case and she had ignored it. He thought and he thought and he thought, but he couldn't think of one good argument why she would have done this. So he drove. He drove towards nothing, knowing that if he would head back to the lab immediately and confront her, he was going to explode. Explode out of anger, but most of all out of helplessness. He had lost his best friend because of her eager. He didn't need to bet on it to know Angell had already informed Stella about the little conversation they had under the most famous bridge of New York. He knew she was waiting for him, but he didn't know how she was going to react. Maybe she was angry too, maybe she did think about a good explanation for her behavior, or maybe an apology. But he wasn't sure he was capable of accepting the apology, he wasn't sure how he would react anyway.
After thirty minutes of wild aimless driving, he suddenly hit the brakes which earned him a couple of honks, and he made a big steer to the right parking his car in an access road. There was only one way to find out the truth and the reactions from both of them, and that was by confronting her. He had been too cowardly to confront her earlier today, so this was the moment to make up for it. With a quick glance, he pushed the accelerator pedal again and took a 180 degree corner a-la James Bond, drove through the central reservation and got to the opposite side of the roadway, now heading back towards the biggest confrontation he was going to have.
Meanwhile…
With a hard push, Stella tried to let the red button on her phone exit through the back of the phone. Her face was now sending out an exploding warning. She raised her hand in which she was holding her phone high up in the sky, preparing to smash the object into the kitchen table in front of her as hard as possible. But she didn't. She stood there, her arm still raised in her hand, but she didn't smash it. Instead, she slowly regained something of a normal breathing pattern again after several minutes, finally cooling down from the phone call she just had received from Angell. He had found out about the coins, and Jen had told him the rest. So this was how it was going to end. He was looking her up behind her back, asking questions about her behind her back, and he was even going to be rewarded for it. One big applause for you, detective Mac Taylor, you once more live up to your reputation of being the best detective and the best boss of the whole world. Damn it. Not giving any other than bad thoughts space to make their way up to her brain, she thought about all the energy she had put in this case, and that she now would never find out how killed Diakos. Mac was going to report her actions to whoever had the job to kill other one's careers, and she would probably lose her badge too. No, she was not going to surrender so easily. Stella almost ran towards the corridor, not bothering to get her coat, quickly grabbing her keys and smashing her front door closed, heading towards the CSI department.
Sixty minutes later…
He still wasn't here. Stella was now standing in Mac's office for more than thirty minutes, pacing around the room in the meanwhile. He must have headed straight to internal affairs, rattling her out. Not many knew, but Mac could be very impulsive if he was angry or pissed off. Just when she almost started to think about the maybe still existing positive side of her boss, she heard the elevator beeping. The lab was almost empty now, most employees had headed home at least one hour ago. She didn't need to look it was him coming out of the elevator, but she looked anyways. He firstly looked angry, but after spotting her standing in his office, his facial expression softened again. He approached the office, walking slowly, which made Stella only angrier and more unreasonable. But she wasn't thinking about unreasonable, she didn't know she was only thinking about herself at the moment, she just didn't care. He could get the fight if he wanted to, but she was planning on making the rules.
Mac slowly opened the glass door to his office, but right after he let go of it, Stella walked towards it and shoved it close with one hard push which made Mac look up in surprise. Her face was now red from anger and uncontrollably and without thinking she started to speak.
"How dare you! You thought it would be a good idea to talk about me behind my back?" Mac was totally taken by surprise when Stella blurred out these thoughtless sentences. So much for the easy way out. There was no pretending anymore, no way back. Their fight had now officially started, neither one of them thinking about the consequences.
"You are blaming me for talking behind your back? You worked behind my back, you took sick days while you weren't sick at all, you threatened a guy with diplomatic immunity, you even locked him up in a shipping container for Christ's sake!" Stella didn't notice she was only reacting on the one thing she knew an answer to.
"Oh, excuse me mister Perfect, but not all of us live to work, some try to work so they can live." Mac was hurt more then he thought he would be by this comment. He wasn't planning on going as low as she was going.
"I asked you to not get involved in this Greek case, but instead of telling me the problems you had with that decision, you agreed and started doing dangerous things without me knowing it!" Stella sniffed sarcastically after this.
"Ha, dangerous. Don't pretend you give a damn about it being dangerous, you only think about that stupid reputation of yours." Mac shrank back from this so untrue comment of her, recovered himself but Stella didn't give him the time to respond, meanwhile approaching him.
"You are always trying so hard to be a hero, trying to save all the people in the world from everyone and everything. But the only thing you really think about is you. If you weren't so interested in yourself and your little title, you maybe would have noticed all those secrets hanging around in the lab. But no, mister detective himself didn't have the time for it."
"Stella.." Mac tried to be as reasonably as possible, but she wouldn't listen. There was no stop anymore, it was like she just drained three liters of vodka.
"Don't Stella me, Mac. It's enough. You have gone too far, going to internal affairs right away without even informing me." At this, Mac's eyes and mouth opened widely, but Stella didn't notice it and continued.
"I have enough of you. You can push me off cases whenever you like, you can even take my badge, but I am not giving up this case. I am going to find out who killed Diakos and you can't stop me, no matter what you do." With those words said, Stella turned around and exited the office, closing the door with the same big push she had closed it before they had started this fight. With a head still red of anger, she walked towards the elevator and out of Mac's sight, possible forever.
