Chapter 10

The stretcher was pushed into room 310 and locked in place next to the window.

"You can have five minutes," the nurse told the detectives. "He'll probably be out before that though."

Goren and Eames both nodded understanding and entered the room. Enrique Delgado looked at them through half-closed eyes.

"I remember you guys." He spoke barely above a whisper.

"Do you remember what happened, Rick?" Eames got right to the point. If he was on the brink of passing out due to exhaustion and pain meds, they didn't have time to waste, especially when the life of another officer hung in the balance.

He closed his eyes fully and slowly shook his head. "You mean besides pain, right?" He softly chuckled at his own dark joke. "No. I was at Emmie's, she got called to go see you guys." He coughed lightly. "I hung around for a while and then left for work." He opened his eyes to look at the detectives. "That's it. Maybe a few hours later I woke up, it was dark, I couldn't see anything, then I was out again. Until I woke up here."

"When you woke up, when it was dark," Goren said, "did you hear anything? Smell anything?"

Rick thought about it for a moment. "A woman… She was talking to someone, but… I couldn't make it out. She was muffled, like in another room, maybe? She sounded British." He thought some more. "That's it, I don't remember anything else."

Eames looked up at Goren, who shook his head slightly, and then back to Rick. "Okay Rick, thanks."

They turned to go, but Rick stopped them.

"Where's Emmie?"

Eames hesitated. She didn't want to give the poor kid the bad news about his girlfriend in his current state. "We're trying to figure that out."

Lucky for her, he passed out before she finished the sentence.

1 Police Plaza

Friday, April 6, 2007

1:05am

"Okay people," Ross spoke to the squad room, loud enough for the team gathered around him to hear clearly. "We lost time with Delgado. What have we turned up on the cabin upstate?"

"It's in the town of Cottons," Detective Matthews called out. "About a four hour drive from here. The local PD has been notified, but their force of six is preoccupied with a multi-car pileup right now, and, I quote, 'don't have time for wild goose chases, until there's something more concrete.'"

"Did you explain that this is a fellow cop?" Ross asked in disbelief.

"Several times," Matthews confirmed.

"All right," Ross said. "There's a chance Wallace hasn't left the city, so we've got patrol on the look out, and tightened security at the bridges and tunnels. Every cop posted at every exit has her photo. Meanwhile, a small task force will head to Cottons via helicopter. That should shave some travel time off as opposed to driving. Questions?" After no response, he ordered, "Get going."

Everyone went off to their various tasks, Ross back into his office to the phone.

Eames looked at Goren. "If she is headed to the cabin, she's got a three hour lead on us."

Goren nodded solemnly. "The helicopter will be faster than a car," he echoed Ross' words.

In his office, Ross hung up the phone and stepped out.

"Task force going to the cabin, the copter is five minutes out. Get up to the roof."

The first thing Emmie realized was that she had a hell of a headache. Damn, she thought, that must have been some night. Catch a murderer, go out for some drinks, and you sure do pay for it the next day.

As much as she didn't want to, she forced her eyes open. All she saw was black. She tried again. They were open. They wouldn't open any further. It truly was that dark.

"What the fu—"

She reached over to her bedside lamp, but her arm was stuck.

Great, not only am I hung over, my arm is asleep.

She tried the other one. That one wouldn't move either. Then she slowly started to become aware that her arms weren't asleep, but they were very much awake and attached to something. She pulled some more.

Handcuffs? She felt around as much as she could. Metal piping, the dragging of metal on metal, a wall. She was in a sitting position, with her legs tucked under her. She dragged them from under her and tried to stand, but they were stuck together.

Suddenly the events of the past two days came rushing back to her. Right up to her meeting with Nicole Wallace under the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Shit."

Emmie frantically began pulling against the restraints, but all she managed to do was make a lot of noise and make her wrists extremely sore.

"Stop that now, you'll scratch up the radiator."

The voice startled Emmie enough for her to freeze. She still couldn't see anything. And then a bright white light flared in front of her. She couldn't see anything around it.

"Of course, it's not mine," Nicole continued. "But still…"

"Why are you doing this?" Emmie asked.

"You started it, sister," Nicole answered. "I didn't go looking for you, you came looking for me."

Emmie stayed quiet. Just let her ramble, she told herself. The more she talks, the bigger the chance help will get here. She deliberately stayed away from the thought that no one knew where she was. She didn't even know where she was.

"Spying on the NYPD databases was just a stupid little thing to keep myself informed of the enemy's activities," Nicole continued. "I was beginning to get disappointed. No one had looked at my file in months. But then one day I took a peek… and I saw a new ID looking up my file. Now, who could this be? User number 4013? So I looked you up, Emily. Naïve little rookie, just out of the academy. Orphaned at such a young age, and yet managed to make a life for yourself."

The light seemed like it was beginning to dim. Or maybe her eyes were becoming accustomed to it. Emmie could vaguely make out the shape of a person beyond. She figured it must be some high-powered flashlight being shone in her face in the pitch-black room.

"So is that what this is?" Emmie spat. She couldn't help herself. "You're jealous that we both came from tragic backgrounds, and I came out on top, and you… Well you didn't amount to anything more than a common criminal, always pretending to be someone else so the past doesn't catch up with you?"

Emmie heard a soft grunt of laughter. Then the light was suddenly illuminating everything but her face, and a force slammed into the side of her mouth, knocking her sideways. Stars burst in front of her eyes, and she shook her head to keep herself conscious. Warm, coppery fluid filled her mouth and she spit blood to the floor.

"No, that's not why," Nicole continued calmly, the light now back in Emmie's face. "Because I wanted to head off your little… investigation before it gained too much momentum. I wanted to tell you in person."

"So tell me," Emmie said thickly. "I'm all ears, Nikki."

"You've obviously already put together that we have the same father," Nicole said. "I remember when I first found out. Someone else had daddy's attention. And not just a little attention. He'd gone and had another daughter. He'd loved another woman more than he'd loved me. He'd actually had a child with someone else. Well, I just couldn't have that."

Emmie was frozen again, hanging on to every word. It couldn't be true. Impossible.

"You're lying," she said softly, her voice hitching in her throat.

"Am I?" Nicole asked, just as softly.

"My mother killed herself," Emmie said. She was trying to convince herself. "You didn't travel from Australia to Brooklyn just to kill a woman you'd never met."

"I didn't go to Brooklyn," Nicole corrected. "You were in Pennsylvania. You weren't home that night. You were on a school trip to Hershey. Must have been nice, that bliss right before your life came crashing down."

Emmie felt several emotions, the greatest of which being rage. She took a deep breath, willing herself not to betray what she was feeling. That's what Nicole wanted. A reaction.

"You didn't have to go to so much trouble to tell me that," Emmie said, striving for nonchalance. "A phone call would have sufficed." She spit out another half-mouthful of blood. She could feel the opened lip. Great, she thought, I'm gonna need stitches. Assuming I get out of here not in a body bag. No! Stop thinking like that Emmie. You're going to get out of here alive. Nicole might not. But you will!

"You think—" Nicole stopped short, her last thought dying on her lips. Emmie heard it too. A car pulling up on gravel. There was scuffling as Nicole stood up, and Emmie realized she'd been sitting on the floor with her. The light traveled to the opposite side of the room and Emmie could just make out Nicole pulling a curtain aside and looking out of a window before she hurried out of the room.

Emmie immediately began pulling on the radiator pipe connected to the wall. She had been plunged into darkness again, but she didn't need to see. She could hear the pipe groaning in it's resolve to stay in one piece. Another tug. And another. Then one great heave, and it finally gave in to Emmie's strength and she fell backward by her own momentum as she heard a door somewhere else in the house crash down and the door to this room slammed shut.

Emmie leaned against the wall and used her cuffed hands to pull herself up to her duck-taped feet. A light clicked on, the same light as before, and she heard the unmistakable cocking of a gun.

"It's too bad, really," Nicole said.

"Yeah, it is," Emmie agreed. Right before she blindly flung herself toward the light.

AN: So I'm coming to the end. I was just gonna leave it, but I think I can wrap it up in another two or three chapters. The only thing I'm not sure of is if I should continue it into a sequal or just leave well enough alone. Eh, we'll see how it ends.