"Just sit!" Reese said in a soft hiss. Ted sat stiffly, his fingers clamped around the briefcase and the laptop she knew was in it. He was quiet, glancing between her and Bobby for a long and unsteady moment where he half rose. "Ted, look at me."
He swallowed and did so, flinching at the way her eyes burned into his.
"We're going to get him back," Reese said in a soft voice, "and to do that, I need your help. Everyone else is too slow." He looked like he wanted to bolt, maybe like he was going to be sick. She reached to brush her fingers against his knuckles, the motion not very Reese-like at all, but reassuring. Stay with me, now. I want him home, I want him safe. Ted swallowed again and nodded while Bobby shifted in the chair and ordered for all of them.
It didn't matter what they were eating.
"Wh-where do you want to start?" Ted asked quietly, pulling out his laptop as chips and salsa arrived.
Reese brought out copies of the files she and Crews had been tracing back and then brought Tommie Maisel's file, which she'd spent most of the time digging through boxes to find. Ex-paramilitary, saw action worldwide (unconfirmed), apparently wealthy from several sources, history of mental instability prior to 1990, fixated on guns, war, the usual bullshit. Failed to qualify for regular military duty. But she wanted to know about his finances.
Ted pulled them up more quickly than she could have ever gotten at the LAPD, though she'd sent the request in hours ago officially. Tommie Maisel went by seventeen other names, including a George Martin. Martin was important because he was affiliated with the Corrections department as a paper products supplier, which they only found out because of Ted. After a few hours, Bobby left to go home and Reese wound up driving to Crews's place to keep working with Ted.
She was on her cell phone, snapping and growling, pushing to get certain searches done and was met with resistance the entire way. By the time they made it to Crews's it was well after eleven. Reese immediately rebuilt the spread of folders, arrest records, and information. Ted helped when he could, but eventually went to bed.
Reese made coffee, paced, and finally moved everything up onto Crews's bed, where the space was comfortable and functional. It smelled like him, oranges and something else, something very Crews. A few times, it was like he was there, pacing the length of the room, nudging her in the right direction, whispering his goddamn unending Zen. She wanted his Zen right now. Something stupidly useful like 'the blind man sees more than anyone' or 'what is useful is hidden, only when we learn to seek do we find it'. Crap job at Zen, she thought.
Reese didn't pause until her notepad was covered with connections. There was a trust fund set up in a fake name, fraudulent checks, money laundering, drugs, but something else stuck out as well. It hit her as first light poured in through the window.
There was a hole in the money. She'd been looking for something, not nothing. She'd forgotten to ask the question she always asked him.
What's not there, Crews?
Ted was bleary eyed, putting the coffee on downstairs when she navigated the stairs unsteadily, an empty coffee mug and her own computer in hand with the information Ted had pulled the night before. She set both items down on the counter and rubbed at her eyes for a moment, ignoring the ache that had begun as a tight band and now made the back of her head itch and burn.
"Coffee?" Ted mumbled.
She just nudged the mug at him and squinted, frowning.
"There's a hole," she said, her voice cracking. "Ted, there's a big fat nothing right here. I don't trust it." Ted poured her a full cup of coffee and watched her gulp it down like it was water. Reese winced at the heat and then gestured.
"Nothing indicates evasion in this case. And..." Reese smiled and it lit up her entire face like a light .
"And," Ted peered at the information, or lack of it, her breath catching as he pieced it together, "...lemme see..." He tapped through a few screens, frowning. "I'll have to dig a little deeper, but I'm pretty sure I can figure out what used to be here." He glanced at her, pulling back slightly. "You haven't slept."
"I was busy," she said. It came out harder than she wanted it to and he half winced. "You get me that information, Ted. I wanna know what the hell this prick was hiding and then I want an address."
"Where are you going?" he asked, startled as she gathered her notes and packed up her briefcase.
"I'm going to work," she said, already half out the door. "Ted?" she called back. "You call me the instant you have something, you hear me?"
She heard him mutter and loaded the car before she was roaring away back toward Los Angeles. They were going to find Crews. They were going to find him if she had to tear the city up one house at a time. She tapped the speed dial on her phone and put it on speaker.
"Dani?" Tidwell sounded surprised.
"Don't you Dani me," she said. "Tell me what the other team's been able to find. Any prints off the phone, at the scene, anywhere? Did the damn lab trace anything to Maisel?" Tidwell cleared his throat and Reese hit the accelerator. "Tidwell, give me something. Anything."
"We got a hit," he said. "But don't go all excited on me, Dani. It looks like your boy Maisel has an accomplice and you probably aren't gonna like this." Fuck. He paused and she flicked her lights on as she blew through an intersection and around two cars.
"Tidwell!" she prompted.
"It's a juvie," he said quietly. "Maisel's daughter, Hannah. I'm gettin people out lookin for her, but I dunno. I don't like the fact that this jackoff has one of my detectives and I don't like the fact that this is pretty much day three. If he turns up in a body b--"
"He won't," she snapped. "I'm not going to let that happen. Gimme the last known address on Hannah." He protested and she went silent.
"Reese, come in to the station, have some coffee, talk to the team. You can't go vigilante on me. You know that's not right. We wanna catch this sicko just as much as you do, you gotta know that," Tidwell sounded earnest for once, but she didn't have time. They were running out of time, she could feel it in her gut.
"Gimme her address," Reese said again, her voice low and deadly. "I'm faster than the team right now. I'm mobile, Tidwell. Give it to me and I'll go right now, see if I can't find her."
She heard him sigh.
"I'm sending back up," Tidwell said and then gave her the address. She made a U-turn in a moment of sheer glee at the dime turning radius on his car, and sped in the opposite direction. This time, she was running lights and sirens, clearing people from her path with her heart roaring in her head. She cut both three blocks from the house pulled up to the quiet house, gun drawn.
Fuck back-up, the front door was wide open.
She could hear someone sobbing in the back and moved through a torn up living room. The guts of a TV were strewn across the floor and the sound of water running was coming from a bathroom up the hall.
"Detective!" Bobby Stark's voice hissed from the doorway. Her eyes found his and she motioned fr him to take her six. Juarez headed for the kitchen. Reese's fingers shoved Bobby back for a moment and he frowned. She tilted her head meaningfully and he glanced down.
Blood.
Lots of blood.
Reese forced herself to breathe. It's not Crews. It's not him. Bobby's hand caught her shoulder and for once, she didn't mind his support as she swallowed nausea down. The sobbing grew louder.
There was a fifteen year old girl sitting in the bathtub. Her huge gray eyes were instantly on Reese's.
"Bobby," Reese said softly. "Get an ambulance down here and go wait in the other room." She heard him move and she grabbed two towels before kneeling next to the bathtub. "Hey, are you Hannah?" she asked in a voice Crews might have used. It was soft, gentle, almost a whisper.
"If he sent you," Hannah said brokenly, "if he sent you, you can tell him I'm done. I'm done. He puts them where they're not supposed to be. He lets the world kill them. He lets their world kill him and I don't wanna do this anymore."
She turned the knife against her wrist and Reese snatched at her hand and twisted the blade away.
"Shhh," she murmured soothingly. "No one's going to make you do anything like this ever again. Hannah," Reese said and made sure the girl was paying attention to her, "Hannah, listen to me. Just listen to me. My name's Dani and I promise I'll make it stop, but you gotta help me. You gotta get up."
There were deep cuts on her arms and Reese swallowed hard, pushing Crews to the back of her mind to focus on Hannah Maisel, who just might know where to find him. The girl's arms slid around Reese's neck and she lifted her, then set her on the floor. Now there was blood all over her shirt (shirts could be replaced) and her pants (replaceable, too) and Reese was putting pressure on the worst of the wounds with a towel. Hannah was half sprawled in Reese's lap, bawling.
"Everything will be okay, I promise," she whispered. "We're gonna find your father and we're gonna put him somewhere where he can't ever do this again."
"He ain't my daddy," Hannah hiccuped. "He ain't. Mebbe he adopted me, but he ain't my daddy. Daddies don't do that to people. He said. He said that man was an offerin. An offerin to the world for all the bad things in his head and when he done put on the red eyes. When he done put them on, he was the world. He come down on people. Give them their worst nightmares, and then he'd offer em up to the world. I never seen him so calm when he drug that man out of the car an he said. He said 'Hannie.' He said, 'Hannie, this is the last one. The world don't want none more after this one.' And I knew the man. I knew his face. He was that cop. He had nice eyes. And red hair. And I didn't want the world to have...to have him."
Reese went cold.
"Hannah, sweetheart," she whispered. "Do you know where that man is right now? The man you said you knew? The cop? Do you know where he is?"
"Yeah," the girl mumbled faintly. "He's in the dark, now. Tommie Maisel put him in the dark. In prison. He put him in--"
Crews, oh Jesus Christ.
"Where?" she hissed softly. "Tell me the address. I know you can do this. Hannah. Hannah, don't you die on me. Look at me." The girl blinked. "Good. Now tell me where he is."
The EMTs descended and she protested. Hannah's eyes rolled to Reese's and her lips moved. Her breath came ragged as she helped the EMTs move the girl and then loaded her into the ambulance. Bobby caught her as she stumbled back.
"Reese?" he asked quietly.
"I know where he is," she whispered, already fishing for her keys, already pulling away towards her car. "I know where Crews is. Get the hell in, Stark." His mouth opened.
"Get. In. Or so help me God..."
Bobby Stark stared at her for a second longer, glanced at Juarez who gave him a what the fuck, man? look, shut his mouth, got in and buckled up. They shrieked out of the drive and into the late morning traffic, all lights and sound. Reese didn't care what she looked like, she didn't care (she looked like Death personified, all Hell and fire), because she had a destination.
Dimly, she heard Bobby ask her the address, which she told him, and then she realized he was talking Juarez. His voice was distant as she picked her way through the traffic, weaving and flying like she was some race car jock, her eyes focused, her body set, everything narrowed down into a tunnel. She had a destination.
If there was anything and anyone in her path between her and Crews, it, they were going down. Tommie Maisel put him in the dark. In prison. He put him in--
Reese floored it just as her phone rang.
"Detective Reese?" It was Ted. "You might not like what I found."
"Tell me," she said in a flat voice. "Just tell me."
"Tomas Harriman, Reese," Ted said. "Tomas Harriman was a guard up a Pelican Bay the last ten years. Harriman is rich now." She shoved on an earpiece and stabbed the connector into the right jack. Ted's voice stopped echoing in the car and broke crisply in her ear. "Reese?"
"I'm here," she murmured, flying around the corner so sharply Bobby grunted in surprise.
"Are you in the car?" he asked. It sounded like he was frowning. "Do you have an earpiece in? Are you on the way to find Charlie?"
"Yes!" she snapped. "What about Harriman?"
"You need to talk to that Rayborn guy about him and I think you need to ask Charlie about him, too. About Rayborn. About everything." There was a long pause.
"Ted?" Reese whispered.
"Yeah," his voice was quiet. "Don't get yourself killed."
"I won't," she said. "And Ted?" He murmured. "Make sure there's fruit out."
