Chapter 6

Steve tore down the crime scene tape stretched across the front door and let himself into the beach house. The CSU had finished their inspection of the premises, and the house was now available for rehabitation. As he entered the foyer, however, Steve knew that it was far from ready to be lived in yet. He walked into his father's study, and, despite his knowledge of what he would find, still experienced a physical jolt in his stomach at the sight of the chalk outline of the 'body', the congealed blood still pooled on the floor, the shards of glass scattered around the room. His jaw tightened as he surveyed the scene of his father's 'murder'; even though he knew Mark was going to be fine, the sight still set an echo of grief and horror resonating through him. Resolutely pulling himself together, he determined that his first course of action would be to remove the signs of the violence; he would not let his dad come home to find this violation of his inner sanctum.

A little over an hour later, he had vacuumed up the glass, washed away the chalk marks and the blood, rolled up the area rug that had absorbed most of the gore, shoving it outside on the deck to await permanent disposal, and tidied up. He made a mental note to himself to get hold of the glaziers to replace the ruined glass of the sliding doors as soon as possible. The room restored to some semblance of its normal state, he headed down to his own apartment to get himself cleaned up and refreshed.

He knew his father had intended for him to get some rest when he had promised to go home – Mark had certainly not realized the state of that home – but Steve had no intention of sleeping until he knew exactly where they stood with the investigation. A shower and shave, a change of clothes, and a cup of coffee cleared the cobwebs formed by an uneasy night in the hospital chair, and he headed out to the precinct, determined to use every resource at his disposal to find out who had tried to kill his father.

Steve entered the police station to be met with sympathetic glances and greetings, and the news that the captain wanted to see him as soon as he got in. He appreciated the concern on the part of several of his fellow officers; he knew that many of them were genuinely fond of his father – not only had they become accustomed to Mark's involvement in cases over the years, but several of them had been treated by the doctor for complaints ranging from common ailments to critical gunshot wounds. He was less thrilled with the immediate summons to his captain's office.

Trying not to anticipate trouble, Steve knocked on the door to Captain Newman's office. Hearing the call to enter, he drew a breath and walked in.

"Lieutenant. I was sorry to hear about your father," the captain greeted him. "How's he doing?"

"He's got a severe concussion," Steve responded, "but Jesse says he's going to be all right." He appreciated the inquiry, but he doubted that concern for his father's health was the reason for his summons.

"I'm glad to hear that," Newman replied sincerely. He surveyed his detective appraisingly. There was a certain wary alertness in Steve's posture, but he seemed quite calm and controlled – a fact that greatly relieved the captain. He was well aware of Steve's close relationship with his father and the violence with which he could react if his father was harmed. Departmental policy prohibited detectives from being assigned to cases in which they were emotionally involved, and it was hard to imagine being any more emotionally involved than Steve was in the attempted murder of his father. But Newman also knew that there was no force on earth that could keep Steve out of this investigation; past experience had proven that more than once. He had no desire to have one of his best detectives go rogue on him or throw in his badge. He looked Steve straight in the eye and continued sternly, "Of course, you know that I can't assign you to this case." He watched the detective tense, obviously prepared to do battle.

"Captain, somebody just tried to murder my father! I…"

"You know the rules, Lieutenant," Newman interrupted sharply. "You're too emotionally involved in this case to be the investigating officer. I've assigned the case to Detective Banks." He watched as that bit of information sank in, temporarily giving Steve pause; since Cheryl was Steve's frequent partner, assigning the case to her was as close to giving it to Steve as he could get. Satisfied with Steve's silence, Newman continued smoothly, "Of course, as the person best acquainted with your father's activities and the cases he's worked on, I expect you to cooperate fully in providing Detective Banks with any information she needs."

Steve stared back at the captain, temporarily speechless as he realized that he was being granted unofficial license to work on his father's case. He had been fully prepared to request a leave of absence or vacation time if necessary in order to pursue the case on his own, and had hoped that whoever was assigned the case would be someone who would keep him informed of any official developments and not try to shut him out. He was sincerely grateful for the loophole the captain had provided that would allow him to remain actively involved without technically violating regulations.

"Thank you, sir," he responded briskly. "I'll be sure to cooperate any way I can."

"I'm sure you will," Newman responded dryly. As Steve turned to leave the office, he added, "Oh, and Lieutenant…" Steve looked back at him. "Try not to get carried away by your enthusiasm. I do not intend to field any complaints of police harassment or brutality."

Steve met his eyes. "Understood, sir," he replied quietly.

As soon as he left the captain's office, Steve went to find Cheryl, who was holed up in a small office, sorting through computer printouts and files. She looked up as he entered, greeting him with warm concern.

"How's your dad doing?" she asked, knowing that that was probably the most important factor in determining his own state of mind as well.

"He's okay," Steve replied, his face softening in response. "He was awake and talking this morning, and Jesse says he's going to be fine."

"That's great," Cheryl replied, with obvious sincerity. She cast an appraising eye over her partner, and was pleased to see that, while he certainly showed some signs of fatigue, he was apparently holding up well.

"So, what have you got so far?" Steve asked, as he walked over to peer at the paperwork scattered on the table in front of her.

"Not too much," Cheryl replied. "I've been going over the cases your father's worked on, trying to see if anybody with a grudge has recently been released." She cast a wry look over the multitude of papers covering the table. "It's turning out to be quite a job – he's been involved in more cases than some of the regular detectives around here!"

Steve smiled slightly at that. "Maybe I can help narrow it down a bit," he suggested, pulling a chair from the corner of the room over to sit beside her.

The two worked together to sort through the cases in which Mark had been involved, looking especially for any instances where the perpetrator had recently been released from prison or had been particularly vindictive or threatening. As they reviewed the possibilities, Steve couldn't help feeling that this wasn't helping much; there didn't even seem to be any likely candidates who had recently been released.

"How about this one?" Cheryl asked, tossing a file across to him. "He made parole about 2 months ago." Steve picked up the folder and scanned it.

"I doubt it," he replied. "Dad just provided expert testimony in this case; I was the one who nailed him. If he was going to be mad enough to take a run at anybody, it'd be me."

Cheryl looked up at him, her expression arrested. "Maybe that's what he was doing," she suggested.

Steve looked back at her, startled. "You think I might have been the intended target?" He considered the idea. "I find it difficult to believe he mistook Dad for me," he said.

"With the sun just going down, maybe the glare off the glass doors obscured his view," Cheryl suggested.

"If his view was that poor, he wouldn't have shot at all," Steve objected. However, her suggestion had opened up a new line of thought. "But maybe we should consider the possibility that this was an attempt at revenge on me," he said slowly. He saw the question in Cheryl's eyes and explained, "It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to get back at one of us by attacking the other."

Sudden comprehension dawned on Cheryl. It took a twisted mind to devise such a plot, but there was no doubt that the worst pain you could inflict on one Sloan was to harm the other. She remembered the time a man whose son had died on the operating table at Community General had tried to wreak revenge on all those he held responsible by killing, not the doctors and nurses themselves, but their children, wanting them to feel the agony of the same loss that he had experienced. Mark had been the head of the review board on that case, and the man had targeted Steve as one of his victims. Through an accident of circumstances, it had actually been Mark who had been caught in the man's trap, but his intent had been to take his revenge on Mark by killing Steve. Perhaps this was a case where someone was planning revenge on Steve by murdering Mark.

She met her partner's grim look, and found herself fervently hoping that they weren't dealing with that scenario. She knew Steve well enough to know the inevitable pangs of guilt he would suffer if he were the motive behind the attack on his father.

"It's another possibility," she said levelly. "But there's no reason yet to assume that's the case." She paused for a moment, then suggested, "Maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe it wasn't an attempt at revenge at all."

"You're not suggesting that this was just a random shooting, are you?" Steve asked incredulously.

"No. But maybe it's something more current. Is your dad involved in anything now?"

Steve shook his head. "No, he hasn't been working on anything lately." He paused, suddenly considering. "At least, not that I know of," he temporized. "I haven't had a chance to ask him if he got involved in anything while I was away. Although I'd expect Jesse or Amanda to have mentioned it if he had."

"Maybe they don't know about it yet," suggested his partner.

"Maybe," Steve said doubtfully. "But if Dad gets involved with something, he usually pulls one or both of them in with him to check things out. I'll ask him about it when I go back to the hospital." He looked around at the folders and printouts scattered around the table, suddenly thoroughly frustrated with the absence of any really promising leads. There were too many possibilities, too many unanswered questions. Such a situation was not at all uncommon in the early stages of an investigation, he knew, but this wasn't a 'normal' case. This was his father's life that was in danger, and the painstaking, plodding progress that constituted the usual method of handling cases where there was very little to go on was intolerably slow and inadequate. Someone had tried to kill his father – might even now be planning to try again; the need to do something more active to track down the killer was welling up in Steve like steam in a pressure cooker, threatening to burst forth in an explosive eruption.

"Has anyone checked to see if there's any word on the street about this?" he asked in frustration. "Maybe I should check out some of our usual snitches, see if I can scare up some information about someone planning an attack on either my father or me."

Cheryl regarded him warily, recognizing the frustration and anger boiling just beneath the surface of his self-control. She had a feeling that if Steve hit the streets in his current mood, there was a distinct possibility of him getting himself yanked completely off the case for the use of 'excessive violence'. On the other hand, he obviously needed a break from the paper chase they had been engaged in for the past several hours. If it came to that, she thought, shifting to ease the stiffness that was developing in her neck and back, she could use a bit more active investigating herself.

"I tell you what," she suggested, coming to a quick decision. "Why don't you go talk to your father and see what he's been up to in the past few days. Maybe that'll give us some pointers in the right direction. In the meantime, I'll go out and see if I can find anybody who might have heard any useful rumors or rumblings about somebody going after either of you."

Steve hesitated for a moment, torn between the desire to get out and shake some information loose from somebody and the urge to check on his father – both to see what light Mark might be able to shed on the situation and to reassure himself that everything was still okay.

Easily reading the conflicting impulses that were pulling her partner, Cheryl tried to clinch the decision for him. "Go on, Steve. You'll only rough up some poor, ignorant snitch and get yourself pulled off the case all together. Besides, you can do a better job of getting information out of your dad than I can; if he's gotten involved with anything where he's protecting somebody or doing something he technically shouldn't be, you're the only one he'll talk to."

Steve's face relaxed into an appreciative half-smile at her assessment. "Maybe you're right," he replied. "I'll head over to the hospital and talk to Dad – and to Jesse and Amanda. I still think that if Dad's gotten involved in anything – even something he hasn't told me about – he'll have at least given some indication of it to them."

As he pulled out of the precinct parking lot, Steve gave serious consideration to the possibility of his father having actually gotten involved in something that he hadn't wanted to mention to his son. There was no denying that his father's compassion and desire for justice had been known to involve him in some quixotic escapades that included activities best left unsubjected to official police scrutiny. Most of the time, Steve was more or less aware of these activities (although he frequently refrained from inquiring too closely into the details), but maintained a pretence of official ignorance. He knew Mark did not like to go behind his back on things, but there had been one or two times when his father's actions had been sufficiently illegal that he had felt obliged to protect Steve's position as a cop by keeping him truly in the dark. It was just as well to make sure that this wasn't one of those times. It wouldn't be hard to ascertain; not only was Mark unlikely to withhold information after this attempt on his life, but Steve knew that his father wouldn't lie to him. Mark's usual method of keeping him out of something was to use avoidance or misdirection, either evading questioning or framing an 'answer' that managed to imply something harmless without ever making an untrue statement; if confronted with a direct inquiry once Steve was alerted to the possibility of something going on, Mark always 'came clean'.

No, there would be no problem with his father deliberately withholding information, Steve knew. There was, however, the possibility that the minor loss of memory that accompanied the concussion might extend to whatever events could have led up to the shooting. Which would mean that Mark might well be unable to tell Steve anything helpful. In which case, he would have to hope that his father had, in fact, discussed anything he might have gotten involved in with their friends. Until he had some of idea of who or what was behind the attempt on his father, it was going to be almost impossible to find the person responsible; and the longer it took them to find him, the greater the odds that he'd try again. After the incredibly close call of the shooting, Steve was haunted by an almost-superstitious fear that a second attempt would be successful; as he headed over to the hospital, he fervently hoped that either his dad or his friends would be able to provide the information he'd need to prevent that catastrophe.