Time for the climactic showdown, then one last chapter of resolution. Thanks for reading and following, guys!


The thrumming of the motor under her control was as soothing as anything could be to Jordan McKee. She had broken many a case wide open after a lengthy drive with only her bike for company; the bike didn't shy away from her touch or regard her with disgust if she brushed against it. It didn't question her intentions or decisions, it simply went where she steered and got her from point A to point B without complaint.

On her way across town to return to the motel to see if any other clues could be picked up at the multiple-robbery scene, she passed the Herald. Vince and Dave were outside, loading up their car for what looked like a foray into the field to get tomorrow's front page story. Both heard her coming, turning in time to give her a grim, perfunctory nod each, before turning back to what they were doing. Jordan scoffed to herself, shaking her head and speeding up.

The two of them didn't like her much, despite Vince being leader of the Guard, and she knew it. She was much less involved in its activities, anyways, since she'd taken this job, and their opinions didn't really bother her. It wasn't her fault she wasn't adorably sarcastic and perky simultaneously. Or blonde, for that matter. She knew who every male in the damn town seemed to miss, and sometimes she felt looked down upon simply because she wasn't Audrey damned Parker.

Jordan shook her black mane out of her eyes briskly, trying to banish more morose thoughts. She was who she was, and she'd be damned if she couldn't give a list of successful cases she and Dwight had solved, a list that could likely give Audrey Parker and Nathan Wuornos' a run for its money, given the short time since Jordan had been recruited.

She descended a hill that ended in a sharp turn rather faster than she should have, struggling slightly to straighten the direction of the vehicle and stay on the road. Stupid. She was letting ghosts get to her again, when all of them were gone and she should be focusing on the present.


Jordan was more than halfway to the motel when her headpiece crackled, startling her as she rounded another curve. She was way too mopey and jumpy sometimes. "Chief, we've got some sort of situation at the diner out on the highway. Had a call come in, someone mentioned being there and there was a holdup or something, but the call dropped real abruptly. We're heading out there now. You copy?"

Jordan answered instead, cutting across a side street and changing direction completely. "Copy that, this is McKee. I'm on my way, proceed with caution and set up a perimeter. Nothing more than that. Copy? Do not approach. This may be our guy."

It took a moment for the reply to come through. "Copy that, got a cruiser about five minutes away and we're about ten out."

Jordan hoped Dwight had tapped in to the exchange, and would support the calls she was making. "Set up a roadblock as well, deter anyone heading either direction on the highway. This guy can turn any situation deadly in about half a second. Wait until I get there for further instruction. You on the way, Chief?" She added the last part acting on assumption, and was rewarded with Dwight's calm tones responding, tinted by crackling. "Affirmative. M.E has got our victim from this morning en route to the morgue, but I think we know what he's gonna turn up. Meet you at the diner. No guns, everyone. Copy that? No guns."

Jordan replied in agreement, glancing up at the slate-gray sky that was darkening by the minute. Awesome. Her hand clenched tighter on the bike's handle, urging it much faster than was safe, as houses and businesses flashed past, the gaps between structures widening as she approached the edge of town. A light rain had started, the small droplets having greater effect on visibility than they should have, due to her speed. Shit.

The lack of helmet wasn't going to work in her favor today, Jordan realized, between the rain and the possibility that this Forrester guy was going to see her as an imminent threat.

A sharp curve in the road sent her hair flying into her face, causing a momentary panic as she relinquished one hand's grip to swipe the thick black strands out of her vision. "Jesus," she muttered, regaining control and shoving her no-longer needed sunglasses out of her eyes and up her forehead, in a meager attempt to contain her hair. Her kingdom for a rubber hair band, in that moment.


Six minutes later, she'd broken perhaps just as many traffic laws, had traversed about ten miles of Haven's back roads, and had beaten the rainfall to the diner she used to work at. Hastily pulling into the parking lot of her old stomping grounds, she sent a shower of gravel flying as the bike jerked to the side, stopping beside one of the already-stationed cruisers just as fat raindrops began to fall in earnest. Removing her pointless sunglasses altogether, she hooked them onto the console of her bike absently, watching the building for any signs of movement.

Puddles were soon forming in the uneven and unpaved parking lot, and she cursed her luck, figuring this would be a hostage situation of sorts. She'd be stuck screaming into the building from amidst a downpour, she imagined, and almost wished she'd had the foresight to grab a thermos of hot coffee when she'd last been at the station. Maybe one of the guys had one in a squad car. Cop cars were always stocked with cups of coffee, right?

As she pondered asking the boys if they had any, one popped his head out the window of the squad car next to her. "Haven't seen much activity inside, a curtain was pulled aside for a second and that's been it so far. We still aren't sure what happened to the caller." Jordan thought of the gold shop owner, fried by his own telephone, and suppressed a shudder.

They were interrupted by squealing tires and the crunching of gravel, and Jordan looked beyond the squad car to see Dwight's nondescript SUV hauling into the lot as well. The man himself swung out quickly, clad in his usual Henley covered by a bulletproof vest, his hand resting on the sidearm strapped to his hip as he stood scanning the building. In his other hand, he held a portable megaphone, swinging it lightly. "Anything?"

"Just got here," Jordan supplied, moving to his side and folding her arms across her chest. "How do we approach?"

"Carefully, I guess." Dwight shifted on his feet, bouncing up and down for a moment before seemingly making a decision and striding right towards the diner, raising the megaphone as he did so. "This is Chief Hendrickson, Haven PD. Heard there's some trouble in there. Can I come in?"

Jordan scoffed aloud, her hands leaving their folded position as she flung them up in the air, hissing at Dwight's retreating form. "So much for carefully?! You're gonna walk right in?"

He didn't reply, and a moment later, a window was flung open, a flannel shirt-clad arm quickly retreating after the action. "Get outta here. I think you know what happens next. Ima take my load and head on off to the next town for some goodies." The voice was rough, its tone arrogant, the owner seeming unconcerned that he was surrounded.

The rain was falling harder now, droplets drumming loudly on the roof of the diner and making it difficult to see and hear. Dwight approached the porch of the diner, halting and examining each window he could see before raising the megaphone again. "You're perpetrating a crime, and I can't allow that, Mr…Forrester? If you surrender now, it'll go easier on you."

There was a bark of laughter from inside, and Forrester appeared again at the window. He was unshaven, his expression almost gleeful as he surveyed the scene before him, Dwight near the porch, Jordan further back with the beat cops near their vehicles. "How about this. I'll go easy on you if you just take off now. I get the cash and a decent slice of small-town huckleberry pie, and you don't end up with shrapnel sticking outta your jugular. Capiche?"

Dwight's response came swiftly. "I'm gonna have no choice but to come in there, Jeff." He set the megaphone down, ascending the patio steps and opening the front door. Almost immediately, he was flung back, onto his back on the wooden porch.

Taking their chance, several customers fled out the now-open door, as well as a single waitress and a man in a chef hat. Hopefully that meant no one else was inside, Jordan thought as she strode forward quickly, ushering the civilians past her and towards the road.

Dwight was already back on his feet, a hand to his lower back but otherwise appearing unharmed. Glancing back, he noted the civilians moved back to safety, and nodded once in satisfaction. At least that had worked. Turning back to the restaurant, he raised his arms. "Jeff, just come on out. You can't just steal and kill and get away with it. Your stepfather didn't, did he?" The end of his question was punctuated by the sound of something breaking inside.

"You know nothing, you idiot cop! Don't talk about him!"

Dwight's eyebrows rose, and he gave a little half-shrug in Jordan's direction. He was winging it, and she couldn't think of anything to do but see how it worked for him. Pacing closer, she positioned herself beside a row of hedges that separated the front of the diner from the back of the building, out of view of anyone inside. She tapped her fingers on the gun strapped to her hip, lips pursed as she formed contingency plans.

Dwight spoke again. "He paid for what he did to your mother, didn't he, Jeff? You're going to have to pay for what you've done, too. I know horrible things have happened to you, but you don't need to do them yourself. I know it was self-defense with your stepfather, but you're not excused from blame for anything you did afterwards."

Suddenly, Dwight was hurled bodily to the side, hitting the side of the diner with a loud crash. He crumpled to the ground where he lay motionless, and Jordan tried not to overanalyze the crippling wave of panic that shot over her, even as she made a curt movement with her hands to keep the other cops back. She approached Dwight herself, her heart in her throat at the sight of him flung aside like a doll. It was Dwight.

Concern for your boss, a clinical voice in the back of her head side. That's all.

Banishing anything from her head but the matter at hand, she darted the last few feet to Dwight's side, stopping short as she contemplated her next move.

Making a quick decision, she could only hope he was thoroughly unconscious, as she stripped off one glove, simultaneously crouching to press two fingers against his pulse point. Ascertaining it was beating steadily, she pulled him with no small effort into a sitting position, propped against the railing of the porch. She patted his cheek briefly, reveling slightly at the chance to touch another person for a moment, and tried to ignore the rising heat in her cheeks at the momentary contact. Clearing her throat, she pivoted and rose to face Jeff Forrester, who had come out a back door of the diner and now stood about thirty feet away, brows furrowed.

Jordan took her time removing the second glove after tossing the first to the muddy ground, painstakingly pulling each finger out of their corresponding leather sheath, tossing that gauntlet, as it were, to the ground too. Next came her leather jacket, shucked and flung to the churned-up dirt, leaving her in just a black v-neck tee-shirt as she brushed damp bangs out of her face, a grim resolution to end this overtaking her.

"You'd be guilty of murder of not just another beat cop, but a police chief, if that impact had been a little harder," she began conversationally, her hands opening and closing as she flexed her newly-freed fingers. "Does that even mean anything to you?"

Jeff was hardly listening, looking ready to walk right off the scene already, patting down his pockets as if looking for something. "Nothing I haven't done twenty times over, probably, sweetheart," he drawled, feigning nonchalance as he leaned against a parked car, finally drawing something from his pocket that jangled.

"I don't think you understand," Jordan continued, starting to pace on the muddy ground, ignoring the silent protests of her new two-hundred dollar boots. "This is a special town. Maybe you haven't been here in a while, but we look after our own, and none of us are anyone to mess with. That's my partner you just hurled like a football." She kicked idly at a stone in her path, kohl-lined eyes rising to meet the criminal's gaze.

"And what about it? Tiny thing like you is gonna take me down in some vengeance-fueled fit of rage? Hulk strength your Trouble or somethin'?" Her eyes narrowed at the mention of a Trouble. "Don't think I don't know what I am, and I intend on taking full advantage of it forever. As for stopping me, I don't think so, honey. You're hardly a threat to me."

Jordan perked up a bit at the implications of the last statement, unconsciously glancing behind her to make sure Dwight was far out of the way. Forrester, meanwhile, started to click the fob on the stolen set of keys, sighing in satisfaction when a blue sedan made an affirmative chirp, signaling it had unlocked. The car in question was closer to Jordan than him, and she swiftly stepped into his path as he started to walk towards it.

"You're one sexy roadblock, but a pretty ineffective one." Forrester's arrogance was unbelievable, Jordan thought, but it was about to work to her advantage. "Why don't your pals try to stop me, huh? Scared their little guns might not work?" As he reached her, he grabbed her arm to shove her out of the way.

At that point, several things happened. Forrester began screaming in pain, writhing ineffectually as he tried to free himself from her grasp; Jordan stretched an arm up to latch her other hand onto his windpipe, channeling excruciating pain through the sensitive area, even as she shrieked for the other cops to still stay back.

Somehow managing to stay conscious, Forrester ripped free, the momentum sending Jordan staggering. Grasping at his chance, Forrester lashed out a booted foot, catching Jordan in the side with bruising force that sent her careening into the parked blue car. Her head hit the side, and gasped with pain, trying to stay conscious and standing even as she reeled, her balance askew.

"You bitch," Forrester snarled, rubbing at his arm dazedly. "What the hell was that, a taser? Little girl like you needs a big toy to get the job done?"

Summoning enough coordination, Jordan launched herself at the man again, managing to grab his wrist just as Dwight appeared out of nowhere, tackling Forrester, and Jordan with him, to the ground. The criminal's fist flung out, catching Jordan on the jaw, and as everything went black she heard with satisfaction his howl of pain at the direct contact.


Thanks again for reading. ~Bon