Conspiracy

Disclaimer: I own nothing

A/N: So I've been busy with studies and a few other things, I have half of Chapter 11 written...bear with me please and here's 10.

Chapter 10 (A Man with Nothing to Lose)

"You know something. You know something and you're not telling me." She watched him move around his polished oak desk and began to question her mentor's method of teaching. He gazed out his window while pulling his brown leather chair away from his desk.

Jade closed the door behind her and dropped her eyes to the blue carpeting beneath her feet, then followed it to a set of file cabinets. This was a standard office space, fit with crown molding and brown walls.

"I know many things, Miss West." She dropped her hands to her side and threw her gaze back to the man. He stood in front of his chair and lowered his fingertips to the desk, tapping it twice. "If I told you every trick in the book, you would not learn on your own. You must learn by doing, by seeing: That is the best education."

She walked forward, stopping behind a black swivel chair. Her hand fell to its arm and her brow began to furrow. This case she was on wasn't new to him. It couldn't be. Yet how much did he know? "What do you know that you can tell me, then?"

"I will tell you everything, when you are ready to hear it. What I will say is this: Threats have been made in this particular case you are working, that if a private investigator is sensed snooping about, we will be unable to stop the perpetrator." This must be where she came in. Somehow, for some reason, she was being used as his eyes.

Her heart rose momentarily and she sat down in the chair, eager to discuss new facts, but curious as well on what Sikowitz was going to do. "Well, I do have some new facts, or information that is concerning to me." She set her notebook on the desk and he pulled it towards him. He turned the first page gently, treating it as though it would tear at the slightest bit of force. "Apparently Rebecca Oliver and Lanie Shapiro have had long standing affairs with Mr. Vega."

Sikowitz's eyes lifted from the book and the corners of his mouth sank. "Have you also seen indication that they're still connected?"

"Yes. Ms. Shapiro was at the Vega home a few nights ago with her son, it was said that she was there to discuss some case." She looked up at her mentor and could see the concern swelling in his eyes. Perhaps this was new material to him, in which case, she felt a streak of pride in finding something new. "Tori also said Beck's mother comes over often as well-and Beck himself informed me just today that he heard his mother arguing with his father…the Assistant Chief at the time was the one who promoted Mr. Vega and demoted Mr. Richardson."

Sikowitz hummed and shifted his hands behind his back. "No reason was given, I assume?" She shook her head no. It was brought up during a fight in which Beck was the only witness. "Would Beck be willing to come in and give me a statement of what he witnessed?"

"Yes."

"Good." Sikowitz brought his hand up to his chin and sank his fingers into his scruffy, yet trimmed beard. His eyes scanned over her notes, and on occasion she would see his eyebrows lift. It was a lot like someone doing a pair of curls with dumbbells, bringing them up and then falling.

"I see you've got Robbie's name mentioned here." The dumbbells moved in together and he glanced at her with sudden haste. "Tell me about that."

"Beck informed me that Ms. Shapiro may have been pregnant with David's child and did not tell anyone. It's alleged that this child was Robbie." The man's eyes enlarged and his hand fell from his beard. "Beck says he contacted Robbie later and was told that Robbie knew something about the Vega girls. Robbie also signed up for your class after he knew Tori was in."

"Do you think he is somehow involved in this?" There was a sense of urgency in the man's tone, which came not as a surprise to her at this point.

"If he is, then he knows what's going on. I still haven't gathered all the details. I'm stuck." Sikowitz straightened his back and Jade leaned forward, scanning her notes for the page where she profiled the victims. Her finger moved to the 'John Doe' and she looked up to Sikowitz. "Trina and Tori cannot be Mr. Vega's kids by birth. Now, I'm not sure if he married Holly and they're his stepchildren, or if there's something more to that story, but I don't know who the birth father is." Sikowitz brought his hand over his lower face and started to hum.

"Stepchildren? How confident are you on that angle, Miss West?" A moment of doubt struck her as she considered his question. She'd not given much thought to the 'angle', and she still felt like she was missing a connection.

She hadn't brought Gary up again because he was already Sikowitz's client and could very well be a part of some other case. "Not very. There's a connection I'm missing somewhere."

He turned a page in her notes and slid his forefinger across a sentence. "You've done well studying up on the girls and on Mr. Vega, but I want you to focus on the other people that you have written down in your notes. Ms. Shapiro, Mrs. Oliver, Robbie, and of course…Mr. Richardson. You are already aware of his connection to Mr. Vega. What is his connection to Holly? What is his connection to Trina and Tori?"

"I don't know that there is any connection, sir." The dumbbells on Sikowitz's forehead brushed up against each other, forcing a wrinkle between the two. "My father told me the two used to be friends, but Mr. Richardson was better at everything-aside from jealousy, I have no idea what Mr. Vega has against the man nor do I know if his sudden demotion had anything to do with Mr. Vega's promotion."

"Have you questioned it?"

"Yes."

"Now have you ignored it?"

She moved her hands along her clothed knees, wiping away the now clammy feeling on her palms. "I haven't focused. I've put more focus on what it was that Mr. Vega did to his eldest daughter."

"Did you not just say those two couldn't be his?"

"I did."

"And you are referring to Trina as his daughter, but she is not. She is a victim of the man. Now have you looked up the classification code that I have given you on the profile sheet?"

"312.02: Child domestic sexual abuse." She recited the classification and crossed her arms, still not understanding why that was one of the ones that he wrote down. "It refers to an assault on household members under the age of majority, I think?"

"Good. Have you read up on the classification of sexual offenders? Tell me what the types are." She was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the topic, but she knew he wasn't going to bring it up if it didn't pertain to something.

"Social acquaintance-313.01. Subordinate. Power-reassurance. Exploitative."

"Those fall under 313, the opportunistic." Sikowitz pulled the crime classification manual from his desk and opened up to the page in question. "The other two are Anger and Sadistic. For this, I want you to focus on the victimology of 314.01."

"The anger?" It was sexual assault characterized by high expressive aggression. Unlike the sadistic offender, the angry offender's actions were done as punishing actions, not for sexual gratification. "Primary motive is anger, of course. Done to…teach…a lesson?"

David's harsh threat to Trina popped up in her mind and she drew her hand up to her mouth, gasping softly as Sikowitz started to nod. "The assault is also just one feature in a history of unsocialized and aggressive behavior which is displayed in various social settings."

As she thought back to what her father was saying about David, she began to piece together the larger puzzle that was that man. "The angry offender acts to humiliate, to harm and demean their victim-"

"Or victims. Remember that it can be plural. You want to figure out what it was that Mr. Vega may have done to Trina, and then you want to figure out why neither Holly or Tori has cried out for help."

"Because Tori already tried-and was caught." Jade's stomach was gripped by a nauseating force and her eyes began to well up with tears. "Tori told me Trina was hurt because of her…Trina defended her." It was a crime that would keep the women from acting up, to assert power and dominance over them.

"Yes, but Jade, that is only one crime, and it could be said that Mr. Vega never originally intended to commit that particular crime until that moment had already occurred." She lifted her eyes up to the man and witnessed the somber expression on his face. "That is a crime done while he was actively committing another. Not only did that act hurt Katrina, Tori, and Holly, but it hurt someone else too. It silenced any hope that the original and first crime would ever be caught-and a reminder to another person not to pursue. Recall that Mr. Vega is not simply angry at them, they are victims of an anger directed at somebody else."

"But who?"

"Who do you think?"

"The only person I can think of is Mr. Richardson, but I don't understand. If he were angry at Mr. Richardson, what do hurting Holly, Trina, and Tori have to do with the grand scheme of things?"

Sikowitz sat down slowly and bent his hands upwards. He brought his fingertips together beneath his nose and closed his eyes. "Every Friday evening, Mr. Richardson goes to the batting cages at the park on Southwest Parkway." Jade took her notebook and began to write down the information.

Today was Friday, and it was about five-thirty. "Okay, so what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to find him." She hesitated and pulled her pen away from the notepad. The last she saw of Gary, he didn't look thrilled to see her. Sikowitz opened his eyes partially and breathed out slowly. "I want you to talk to him, learn about his past and present lifestyle, and then profile him. Return to me with what you have discovered."

It took her ten minutes to get to her car and another twenty to find the park in question, then fifteen to find the batting cages. All along she was nervous and concerned with what Sikowitz was trying to tell her.

She'd been looking at David's connection to Gary as separate from his connection to Holly and the girls. There was nothing that tied Gary to them, but at the very least it was time to get some information from him.

As she approached the batting cages, she was overcome by angry sound of a heavy bat crashing into the balls being fired from their machine.

Gary was in third cage and he still appeared as he had a couple of hours before. In front of him, on the other side of the cage, was a large headshot of Mr. Vega. It was smudged and crumpled in places, the crumpled spots were about the size of a baseball.

The man's muscles were tense, his jaw was tight, and his narrow eyes were locked onto the photograph. With every hate filled swing, he put his full power in and did his best to direct the ball into the picture.

"I see you still have the swing from your university days, Mr. Richardson." Gary froze and turned his head to her, staring for a long time before scoffing.

"I was a better pitch than I was ever a batter." He ran his hand through his damp, sweat-drenched hair, and growled. His right hand still gripped the handle of the bat and he watched as the machine continued spitting out the balls. His eyes shot over to the photo and a sneer stretched across his face. "Wouldn't mind using this on the real thing if it wouldn't end up landing me in prison"

"You would like to kill Mr. Vega?"

Gary rolled his head to the right and slanted his eyes at her. "Didn't that private dick hire you as his apprentice?" He turned off the machine, then slammed his bat into the photograph. Jade's body flinched, though she felt her own anger towards David as well.

Still she felt an instinct that let her know she may never feel the amount of rage and hatred that this man felt. "My dad says you used to be friends. You and that man." She pointed to the picture and Gary tore the man's face off the wrought-iron fence.

"'Used to be', I took that fucker in. I was a friend to him in high school, in college, and how does he repay me?" Gary dropped the photo to the ground, then slammed his heavy boot down, crushing David beneath his foot as though he were no better than a pile of manure. "By destroying my life! He couldn't stand that I was better than he was at baseball, at socializing-I tried to help the miserable fuck, but he couldn't be helped. I wish I'd never laid eyes on the bastard."

She was overwhelmed by this cloud of anger, so much that it was becoming a struggle just to breathe with this man's powerful presence next to her. "Mr. Richardson, sir, I know it's hard…but please, relax."

"Relax? Is that some kind of joke?" Gary dropped his bat and waved his hand beside his head. "Is all of this some sick joke? How dare you tell me to fucking relax-" He swept his arm out, pointing at nothing in particular. She cringed under his fiery glare, and struggled to keep from breaking apart. "That man reminds me every day the shit I'm in, letting me know just how better he is than I am now." Gary approached her and swung his hand back to his chest, stabbing himself with his thumb. "That should be me up there. Mr. Police Commander. He couldn't stand the fact that he wasn't capable of having a decent life-but it isn't like he ever actually tried making things better for himself…always taking what isn't fucking his."

"Taking what isn't his, Mr. Richardson?"

"How the hell do you think we met?" Gary leaned his back against the fence and closed his eyes. His chest was heaving in and out and his shoulders were peaked. His right leg folded over his left and his nostrils flared. "Dumb prick was stealing the teacher's answer sheet back in high school and I found him. I helped him study, so he wouldn't have to cheat. Me and the girls."

"Girls? You mean Lanie and Rebecca?"

"Yes, and Denise-but Denise stopped hanging around us towards the end of college." Jade swallowed the tension in her throat and walked to a nearby bench. She could feel his glare on her, still angry but so full of pain that she could feel herself beginning to shed a tear. "I should have cut those two off too. They were part of my study group in high school, so naturally they catered to the loner of the group when I brought David in…"

"Okay. And then what?"

"David was a fucking kleptomaniac, that's what, so I tried to give him something to focus on. A goal, a drive, I got him onto the baseball team…but that wasn't enough because Coach wouldn't let him play. So that wasn't enough. Same thing happened in college, we got into a lot of fights…I helped him get a job in the police department after college, but he wasn't satisfied that I was above him. He always complained about not being good enough, but the asshole never did anything to better himself."

"Gary, I have to ask." She took a deep breath and made eye contact with him, holding the intense glare with as much strength as she could. "Where does Holly come into this?" Gary straightened himself and clenched his fists.

"You're kidding me, right?" He scoffed at her and she jerked back.

"I don't honestly know her connection. I know my father said she was on the softball team and you liked her."

"Liked? Yeah I liked her." He laughed and shook his head as though some kid made a pathetic joke. He then fell silent and spoke with a low voice. "She was my wife." Her heart stopped and the muscles in her body tensed.

"I want to know why the fuck he snapped. I got that promotion, I had a family, I was successful. Then he snapped." Gary approached her as a cloud of rage and leaned forward, His eyes reminded her of a dragon, yet they still bore years of torture. His mighty hand fell onto the bench and his newest growl struck her face. "He lifted my wife and daughters from a K-Mart superstore. Sends me an anonymous note saying that he has them-I get demoted back to Detective for no fucking reason, and he's all of a sudden promoted."

"You know, he's my direct supervisor. I have to work in the same blasted building as that bastard. Every fucking day! He does it to keep an eye on me, you know-that's why I had to be careful hiring Erwin." Jade was stunned, but not surprised; she expected David might force the man to be close to him. As the phrase goes: Keep friends close, but enemies closer. "He'll hurt my girls if he knew I hired a PI..."

He straightened his posture and reached into a pack that Jade hadn't noticed had been on the bench. She felt her heart beginning to pound as he removed a manila folder. "I've kept everything that bastard sent me over the years. From the note telling me if I tried to do anything, he'd start killing my family…all the way to this."

Gary dropped the folder on her lap and turned his back to her. His body began to tremble and his eyes glared at David's now destroyed photo on the ground. Jade peered down at the folder and tucked her thumb beneath it.

She still wasn't sure if Gary was telling the complete truth regarding Holly and the girls, but it was hard to deny. Yet, she sensed that the minute she opened the folder, she might get her answer.

Guided by a heaviness inside, she carefully lifted the front flap. What she saw next startled her. It was a polaroid photo with a note attached that read "This is what happens when someone speaks out. I don't think I need to remind you what will happen again if you try to contact the police instead of your daughter…"

Her hand moved to her chest and a startled sob escaped her lips while fresh tears poured down her cheeks.

In the photo was a thirteen year old girl, easily recognized as Trina, lying motionless on the ground. Her eyes bore a vacant emotion and her face was red and streaked with tearstains. Her purple shirt was torn at the collar and pulled partially down her left shoulder, revealing a brightly colored bruise on her bare skin.

Holly was with her, holding her daughter in her arms. Her face was immortalized with a scream in the photo. Next to Trina was Tori, holding Trina's hand to her face and weeping.

"Mark my words," Gary muttered angrily, "If Erwin doesn't find a way to get my family away from that maniac, I will kill the man myself. That isn't a threat. You don't understand…I have literally nothing to lose anymore."

"But everything to gain." She closed the folder and watched him look back over his shoulder. "We'll solve your case, Mr. Richardson. We'll get them out." Her voice shook with fear and grief, but her eyes lit up with a determination that swelled her heart. "I know you don't think I can do much because I'm just a teenager, but Mr. Vega has no idea that I'm working with a private investigator…"

"Just do the job. I don't know how much more I can take, and at this rate-it's either him or me as far as I'm concerned." Gary turned fully and stretched his lips into a violent scowl. "If that man so much as lays a finger on my daughters or my wife, I'm not going to wait for you or Erwin. If he hurts any of them one more time, I'm taking matters into my own hands. Fuck doing it the legal way."

So this chapter answers a lot of burning questions, but again it only adds more questions. Can Jade help the women? That is a lot of anger from Gary, but to put oneself in his shoes, his anger is nowhere near surprising. At this point it is safe to say at least three people are contemplating murder: Gary, Holly, and Trina. It would make matters worse, so let us hope it does not come to that. You see now what happened to Trina, and why it was done: Control.