Rated: NC-17
ERASE & REWIND...VERSION 3, PART 6
"THE EMPTY, EMPTY PAGE..."
"The news that truly shocks is the empty, empty page...and I can't handle this...I grieve for you..."
-- Peter Gabriel, "I Grieve"
"I'm just gonna go ahead and act like that's not disturbing the hell out of me if that's okay with everyone. " McNorris joked, but his expression plainly showed how unnerving it was to see crime scene photos of what could have been his identical twin with a bullet to the forehead.
"So she has no clue…Christ, I didn't expect anything like this…who's gonna tell her?" Fearless asked with a hand over his mouth.
Hechler sighed. "Ordinarily I'd fall on that grenade, have had to too many times through the years…but that girl already hates me. She'd think I was getting a kick outta telling her or something."
Stevens nodded in agreement. "I'll tell her." He said softly and the other men gave him sympathetic looks as he picked up the file, along with a box of tissues, and headed out the door.
McNorris exhaled as they all walked over to the glass. "Well…this could go one of two ways…she could totally shut us out after this, or since she was apparently intimate with a cop she'll decide to help us to honor his memory…we could use that…" He thought aloud.
Hechler gave him a dirty look. "Just as slippery as a god damned eel, ain't ya?" He said in disgust. "We're informing a fallen officer's…significant other…or whatever she was to him…of his death and all you can think about is a way to use her grief to your benefit. They're cozying up a room in hell for you as we speak, you do know that, right?"
McNorris arched a brow at the officer and shook his head, deciding not to start that argument as Stevens entered the room beyond the glass.
"Poor bastard…" Fearless breathed as he switched on the speaker and leaned against the frame.
"Poor girl…" Turcotte added, eyeing her with sympathy and taking a deep breath for what was coming.
The door opened and she turned to see which one was coming in, wondering if they would try good cop first, or bad cop.
Stevens…alright, good cop it is.
"Did you call Esteridge yet, or what? No…never mind. You didn't; if you had I wouldn't still be sitting here. So what's the plan, wait until you've held me just shy of 24 hours? Put it off as long as possible before you clear my name?" She asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him defiantly…
But the sorrow in his eyes made her falter.
She'd been through this a million times before and had never once seen a cop enter the room for questioning looking like they were ready to cry.
What kind of new psychological tactic did they have planned? She wondered. Maybe he was going to tell her some sob story about losing a relative to the shooter…or show her pictures of his previous victims to try to break her resolve…
Stevens pulled a chair along side of her, not sitting across the table from her and she eyed him suspiciously as he set the folder and tissues he was carrying in front of them.
What the hell was going on?
He ran a hand over his face, leaning forward as if getting ready to tell her something private and resting his forearms on his knees, clasping his hands together before looking her in the eyes.
For some reason her stomach immediately started tying itself in knots. A pain was forming in her chest that she'd felt recently but couldn't place as her breathing quickened.
Why did she feel like her world was about to come crashing down around her?
After one last breath to settle his nerves he began speaking in a soft tone. "I tried to contact the New Mexico State Police Department to get a hold of Lieutenant Esteridge…"
"Uh huh…" She said, her heart thundering in her ears as she stared at him expectantly.
He bit his lip and looked down at his hands as he continued, not wanting to see the grief that would be in her eyes as he said the words…
"I am so sorry to have to tell you this… Alisha, Lieutenant Esteridge was killed in the line of duty." He said softly.
Have you ever witnessed the exact instant someone's heart was broken?
Beyond the glass the men all struggled with their own emotions.
Her face fell for a fraction of a second as the wind was knocked out of her; the anguish inflicted by his words had only just managed to get through before her mind put up its defenses, selecting denial as its first combatant of the truth.
"Umm…I'm sorry…what?" She asked, blinking repeatedly as if trying to clear her vision. This had to be a hallucination or something.
"He was following a prison transport vehicle carrying a dangerous murder suspect and there was…a collision…the details are still sketchy but apparently the prisoner got free…got a hold of one of the officer's guns and…" Stevens swallowed hard, bracing himself for her inevitable reaction. "I'm very sorry."
"See that's…" She began, standing from her chair quickly, sending it skidding across the floor behind her…needing to distance herself from what he was saying.
Her mind was chaos. She ran her hands over her face roughly, still trying to jar herself from this. "Umm…see that can't be right…because I just saw him and he was fine. In fact I was on my way back to see him today before I got brought in here…"
Stevens looked at her with those sympathetic, soulful eyes and her breathing quickened.
"It must be some other Esteridge – there have to be dozens of them in that state. You've just got them mixed up." She insisted, but his eyes said otherwise.
"It's him, Alisha." He said softly, opening the file and handing over a report to that effect.
She snatched it from his hands and walked away from him. Her eyes quickly scanned it searching for something to tell her it was wrong as she paced the room but she realized, with all the shock of a knife to her chest, that she'd never even asked his first name when they were together.
Michael…
Seeing the desperation in her face he pulled another sheet from the file, he'd cropped the photograph to remove the top of the picture, where the fatal shot had made its entry, but still hesitated as he held it out to her.
She could tell this was it as she reached out to take the paper from him, this was the end…
Her eyes went to the image on the page and her knees buckled, she had to hold on to the edge of the table for support.
And just like that all hopes of a case of mistaken identity were blown away.
"Oh God…" She breathed as her eyes instantly filled with tears, her hand covering her mouth as she took in the image of his lifeless body. "But…but I was going to go back…I was going to go back…" She pleaded as she slowly dropped to her knees on the floor, as if her intentions could fix this. "I was coming back…" She told the face on the page as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She would never feel his arms around her again; never hear him whispering to her sweetly again as she fell asleep.
The utter finality of it hit her like a freight train. Everything she wanted with him would never be. There would be nothing more for them. All of the possibilities lay there on the page with him, out of reach and gone forever.
Her fingertips traced the outline of lips she'd never again taste and her heart shattered inside her chest.
Everything had been left unsaid. It wasn't fair. There was so much he should have known…
She hadn't told him that he'd meant so much more to her than a one night stand…that his smile made her heart melt…that looking into his eyes made her want to change her ways…to be a better person for him…that he was worth suffering through the New Mexico heat…
But it was over. She would never speak to him again, she'd had her chance to say it all and had missed it.
"Damn it, I told you to be careful out there…I was coming back…" She sobbed to herself, breaking down completely at the memory of him smiling and winking at her, waiving at her over his shoulder as he walked out that door into the sunrise.
McNorris watched with a clenched jaw and veiled eyes, putting up his most convincing mask of invulnerability. Despite his front it was still deeply stirring to see the girl there beyond the glass, staring down at a photo of a reflection of his face and weeping inconsolably over the man's death.
Fearless shut off the speaker as she drew her knees up to her chest and let out a bloodcurdling scream of the most honest and unadulterated grief a person could endure.
The sight of it…let alone the sound…set every hair on end.
She sobbed uncontrollably, her head in her hands as Stevens went to her side, talking to her quietly…offering his condolences…she was too broken in that moment to protest his hand on her back, the tissues he was offering, his words of understanding for the pain of her loss.
The officers were each lost in their own silent thoughts, memories of so many times before when they'd seen this type of grief cutting them to the bone.
McNorris' cell phone rang and it actually startled him for a second before he recognized the sound. He cleared his throat as he crossed the room, making sure his voice wouldn't give a hint of the emotion that was constricting his chest before answering. "Yeah, go ahead….Okay, downstairs? Right…Have an officer escort her up to Interrogation Room 3…Thank you." He hung up and turned back to the others. "Mrs. Ortiz is here. We can get that translation now."
Everyone nodded distractedly; it was difficult to care about the case at hand in that moment.
McNorris actually found himself giving Hechler an appreciative smile when the officer drew the blinds, blocking out the sight of the grieving young woman beyond the glass…but he had a feeling he'd be seeing it in his mind for quite some time any way.