In case anybody was wondering, the title 'infractus vir' is Latin, and roughly translates to 'the broken man'. Quite fitting, I think, considering Don's current situation! But for now, let's check back in on the home team…
A quick thanks to ThinkExist, a most excellent website and the source of almost 95 percent of my hopefully relevant and insightful quotes.
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10. Speak of the Devil
"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you." – Elbert Hubbard
"Now you know the secret of Don Eppes. I implore you all to decide how far you're willing to go for him by yourselves. Have a wonderful day, agents; Eppsie and I have other things to discuss." Click.
For the hundredth time, Megan rewound the tape, watching with cold disbelief the critical moment, the single moment that had left the war room in a state of shocked silence for many more to come.
"Yes," came the quiet, pained voice. "Yes, I did."
With a click, she froze the screen, carefully zooming in on the part that most interested her. Peering intently at Don's face, she searched once more for any sign, and small physical tell that would confirm her hopes, but, just like the ninety-nine times before it, there was nothing to be found. Never before – and never again, she hoped – had she seen Don so scared, so pale, so completely and obviously unsure of himself. So used to seeing him in the office, in the field, in command, it both frightened and intrigued her to see Don Eppes so totally out of his element. But it wasn't even that simple; her strong sense of compassion was slowly being strangled by a growing sense of betrayal. Don, torture someone? Don, murder someone? And a woman as well? Her brain tried to process it, while her heart tried to deny it; the winner was clear as she once more rewound the tape.
"Yes. Yes, I –"
The sound of the door opening made her jump; she had specifically escaped to this tiny room, three floors down in tech support, to avoid her teammates, if only for a little while. There were drawbacks to being the one who listened when someone needed to talk, the most prominent being that you never yourself had someone to talk to. Spinning in her chair, she slumped back when she recognized Colby, holding a file in one hand.
"Hey," he greeted her. "I've been looking all over for you – so has David." Catching sight of the source of her occupation, a look of sad recognition crossed his face. "You still looking at that?"
"Yeah," she admitted. "I just – I don't know. I just wish I was missing something."
"You are," Colby replied, and she looked up at him sharply as he referred to the file in his hand. "These are the coroner's records on Katherine Lawson. Age at time of death: 36. She had a son, Sean, with her first husband, Luke; she divorced him in 1990. A year later, she met Antony DeLuca, of the DeLuca crime family. I guess she didn't mind his background, because after seeing each other for two years, he popped the question in August 1993. She was all set to marry him in the spring, until her untimely death on Halloween that same year." He handed over the file for her to browse. "I looked for her in all our databases – solved, unsolved, everything. Guess what I found?"
Megan's eyes flicked down to the cause of death, and her brow went smooth. Colby nodded and crossed his arms.
"According to our records, Katherine Lawson died of a non-accidental dose of heroin. They had it filed as a suicide."
"Exactly like our other five victims," Megan added. "Whoever our guy is, he's close to this; this whole exercise is about revenge." She scanned the dead woman's file once more, and her eyes lingered on the picture clipped in the upper left that portrayed Katherine Lawson. The green eyes stared back at her, knowing more than her subdued smile let on.
"The fiancé, maybe? He had some serious connections."
"I don't think so. If he was going to kill her, why ask her to marry him?"
"What are you guys doing all the way down here?" questioned David as he let himself into the cell-like viewing room.
"Nothing," Megan replied, dismissing the question with a wave. "What have you got?"
"I just came down to see how the tech guys were doing. They got a pretty clean image off the tape; they're running it through our databases now."
"How long till that's finished?" asked Megan, still eyeing the folder in her hands.
"I'm not sure. To run it through the entire database could take hours."
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Liz, followed closely by Charlie. Hastily, Megan shut off the computer screen before Charlie could determine its contents. Liz contributed her own file to the growing pile of paperwork on the desk before giving a halfhearted hello.
"Full coroner's report," she said, identifying the most recent file. "They figured out what was in Billy Cooper's system."
Eagerly, Megan abandoned Katherine Lawson's file and opened the second, flipping through pages of drivel before her eyes picked out what she needed to know from its midst.
"Fifteen milliliters of sodium pentothal, administered in five milliliter doses, the last one accompanied by ten milliliters of—" she peered closely to be sure of the diagnosis, "—Lanoxin?"
"Lanoxin is the commercial form of digitalis," Liz supplied, throwing her coat over a vacant chair and collapsing into it. "Normally, it's meant to slow a racing heart, but what they found in Cooper was something like five times the recommended dose."
To Colby, this was all starting to sound disturbingly familiar. "That'll stop his heart cold," he echoed quietly.
"But based on the timelines we put together, Don could have days," David said hopefully.
"No."
All eyes turned to Charlie, who had spoken with such conviction.
"I'm no behavioral expert, but I think it's safe to say that our guy isn't following his normal routine; pacing, spacing out the… murders." The last word stuck in his throat like it never had before, when it had happened to someone else, anyone else.
"Sure, Charlie," offered Megan gently. "He's moving faster."
"Proportionally faster," Charlie corrected her. "He's acting at a rate almost five times his usual speed. Now, if we take these timelines and accelerate them by that factor…" Out of his pocket, he fished a marker, immediately setting about marking up the tech room window. When he at last ceased, he circled a single digit and stepped back.
"Eight hours," he pronounced. "Don has eight hours."
Leaning back as the news broke over her, Megan felt her elbow tap something by accident, and yet she still jumped when the kidnapper's voice blared through the speakers she'd neglected to turn off, breaking the uneasy silence.
"—in first torturing and then killing her?"
"Yes," confessed their leader for the thousandth time. "Yes, I did."