Author's Note: Thanks to SallyJetson for her help with parts of this chapter, and thank you to everyone who has reviewed, put this on alert or made it a favourite. I hope you enjoy the next chapter :)


Chapter Eight


Pressed back into the shadows; concealed by the gathering darkness, she waited, her eyes never wavering from the front door of his building.

The woman with the curly hair left, her coat pulled over her head to keep off the rain, her eyes scanning the street, searching for something or someone.

Searching for her if she did but know it.

She wondered again who she was. A colleague? A friend? A lover?

A few moments later he left, stepping quickly into the night, swallowed up by the city.

Stepping out from the shadows, she followed him.


'You have to stop blaming yourself'

His coat was no barrier to the falling temperatures but he welcomed the cold. It penetrated to his very bones; it was the first thing he'd truly felt in two days.

'Why have you never spoken about her, Don?'

The icy rain ran down his neck, under his collar yet it seemed warmer than the chill that encased his heart.

'The DNA can't be hers. She's dead'

He reached the subway entrance but continued past, preferring the walk; feeling his head finally starting to clear itself of the fog that had muddled his thoughts since he'd opened the card.

'Danny, you have to stop blaming yourself for Ruban Sandoval's death. You have to move on.'

Just like he hadn't.

The businesses along the street threw light onto the water that gushed over the sidewalk; emeralds glinting ahead signalled his arrival outside Flannigan's Irish Bar and Grill. He paused for only a moment before he continued his trudge through the chaos of the city, preferring cold hard reality to temporary comfort.

Preferring, finally, to remember rather than forget.


'Detective Mac Taylor, New York Crime Lab, to see Special Agent Robert Foster.'

The hair on the blond, 40-something receptionist's head didn't move as she bent to check her computer screen. A few moments study, then suspicious eyes scrutinised the credentials he held towards her and then him.

'I can't see that you are expected Detective Taylor. Agent Foster is a very busy man and I can't see that he has time to speak to you at the moment.' The expression on her face was of disinterest; her voice contained a hint of smug satisfaction. Confident she'd dealt with the problem her eyes slid past him.

He stepped closer, bending towards her, forcing her to meet his eyes as he lowered his voice.

'Tell him it's about Charles Hemmingway and Ellie Maguire. Tell him I know what happened and he can talk to me or he can talk to a reporter from the New York Times.'

He took perverse pleasure in wiping the disinterested look off her face.


The rain continued to pummel the city; each drop a lance, piercing the armour he'd worn for so long.

Time was supposed to help; supposed to heal.

Time hadn't made any damn difference.

He could still close his eyes and see her face; hear her voice; smell her perfume. Pushing the memories away; closing them off from anyone and everyone was the only way he had been able to function; the only way the pain hadn't crippled him.

The only way he'd been able to convince himself that she really was dead.

The only way he'd been able to cope with the knowledge that he'd killed her.


'Mac? Strong arm tactics to get in? You couldn't just phone?'

'You'd have dodged the call.'

Sharp grey eyes in a benign politicians face. A hand waved expansively towards the seat on the other side of the polished wood desk; jaw tightening imperceptibly as the invitation was refused and he remained standing.

A shrug. 'So you wanted to talk about the Hemmingway case? Have to say I was a bit surprised. I don't remember the crime lab being involved in that one.'

A folder full of photographs thrown onto the monument of a man's ambition. 'I want to talk about why the FBI falsified evidence in the enquiry into the death of Ellie Maguire.'

'I have no idea-'

'Don't fuck me about Rob. She didn't die in that crash and you know it.'

'And you know that some things are classified way above your level of clearance, Detective.'

'I can prove the eyewitnesses to her accident don't exist. I can prove that it wasn't her body in that car. I can prove that she was alive at least six months after the crash.'

'And?'

'And either you start giving me some answers or I go to the press.'

'And I'll stop the story and end your career.'

Reed's eager face swam to the forefront of his mind. He smiled. 'This is the age of the internet. If I decide to leak a story about the FBI's staggering level of incompetence in the investigation of a top cop's daughter it will be around the city before you've had time to make a phone call.'

'And your career is over.'

'Some things are worth taking that risk for. Where is she?'

Eyes locked in a silent struggle; victory signalled by hands run agitatedly through thinning hair.

'Mac, this is classified. If the US Marshalls office knew I was even talking to you…'

'Witness Protection? Why?'

'Hemmingway has a terminal brain cancer which was diagnosed shortly after the trial. It radically affected his behaviour leading him to make some death threats against Ellie Maguire which we investigated and largely discounted until some new information came to us.'

Hesitation as his eyes searched the implacable face across the desk from him before he reluctantly continued.

'The information we received showed that Hemmingway had hired a hit man to kill Ellie Maguire, but only after he'd killed her parents and her boyfriend. Hemmingway wanted her to suffer for putting him behind bars.'

'And on that basis you took her into witness protection?' He made no attempt to hide his disgust and disbelief. 'Why not a protection detail? Investigate and find out who Hemmingway hired? Why go to the extreme of faking her death?'

'We did investigate. Whoever Hemmingway hired was good and the information we had was that there was no time limit on this; days, weeks, months, years. As long as her parents and the boyfriend died first and she suffered. The decision was taken that she should be persuaded to 'die' in an accident in the hopes that Hemmingway would react by calling off the hit on her parents and boyfriend. We reasoned that if she was dead he wouldn't bother with them. Then we'd trace the communication and find out who'd been hired. Then she could come out of the programme.'

'But it didn't work, did it?'

Eyes sliding past his; embarrassment evident. 'No.'

'So where is she?'

'Mac, I can't-'

'Tell me where she is.'

'I can't-'

'Tell me.'

'She disappeared four years ago. We have no idea where she is.'


Something nagged at him; itching like a day old rash.

He'd planned on heading to the lab and demanding some answers yet somehow here he was, standing at his desk, staring at the pile of messages that were piled haphazardly next to the phone.

'Don?' Jess was staring at him, worry in her eyes. 'Are you OK?'

'Yeah, I'm fine,' the well practiced lie came easily, 'just looking for something.' He just wasn't sure what.

'OK, well…we're going for a drink if you'd like to join us.' Her arm waved to the woman standing next to her desk. Flat green eyes in a pale face stared back at him. 'Actually, I should introduce you. This is Kate Robertson; she and I were at the Academy together.'

He waved a hand in the general direction, his eyes already sliding back to the desk.

'Don?' A hint of impatience in her voice.

'Er, no, sorry, can't; things to do.' He looked up at Kate Robertson. 'Nice to meet you.'

He turned his attention back to his desk, vaguely aware of when the women left the room as he started aimlessly straightening files, trying to work out what had bought him here.

A flash of red in a pile of otherwise unrelieved beige and his stomach began to free fall.

Liberated from the pile of reports, the handwriting on the front of the envelope was all too familiar.