Tempting Fate
(Author's Note: This chapter and the next few will be rated ESJix (Extremely Sad Jim and Trixie). But do not worry...I do promise a happy ending when all is said and done!)
Chapter Eleven
Too restless to sleep, afraid of the images he saw when he closed his eyes, Jim pushed aside the soft cotton covers and stood up from the twin bed. Honey's breathing could be heard coming from the bed across the room. Conscious of his sleeping sister, he stepped gingerly over Trixie's forgotten shoes on his way toward the door and out in the hall. He finally ended up in the living room. Moonlight spilled through the curtains and drew him in. Standing in front of the wide trio of windows, he pushed aside the curtains and looked up into the darkened night sky.
"Can't sleep either?" a voice rough with fatigue and worry asked.
It took him a moment to respond. Trying not to be upset that his solitude was interrupted, he turned and saw Mart stumble into the room, his short blonde hair askew from his recent attempt at slumber. "No," was his simple answer. He turned back to the view, hoping that Mart would take the hint and leave him alone.
Not surprised or insulted by what one could easily construe as a dismissal, Mart moved on silent feet to Jim and looked up at the sky as if it held the answer to the whereabouts of his sister. Searching for something to say, he eventually came up with, "Di finally got to sleep." His voice sounded loud in the overly quiet room. He didn't add that she had cried herself to sleep.
"Honey, too. Although I don't know how restful she's going to feel when she wakes up. She keeps tossing and turning." Jim rested his forehead against the cool glass, determined not to break, and concentrated on the few vehicles moving about on the street below.
Mart hesitated but then dropped a hand on his friend's shoulder. Usually so gifted with his speech, he simply didn't know what to do or to say. This seemed different than the past times when Trixie had involved herself in a mystery. He decided to go with the truth. "I don't know what to do, Jim. This isn't the same. It's not like the other times when Trixie had disappeared."
He really didn't want to go down that road yet. Attempting to forestall any more discussion, he answered shortly and with feeling, "I know."
Mart didn't catch the hint. Lost in his own remembrances, he recalled, "I don't know which time scared me more, when Trixie headed off to meet the jewel thieves alone in that seedy place right here in the City or when her and Honey were kidnapped in St. Louis. I remember being scared but it was a different scared than I feel now."
"We were able to piece it together," Jim finished for him softly. Therein lay the difference and also made this situation seem much more precarious than any other previous event. "We haven't been able to piece anything together for this one."
"We've tried, we really have. I can't think of anything else we should do." Mart tapped a finger to his chin and pondered but came up with nothing. On a sigh, he declared, "It was a good idea of yours to have the girls call the area hospitals and shelters earlier. I wouldn't have thought of that."
The women had called the places, as well as many of Trixie's friends and acquaintances from school, while the men had searched the areas closest to the college campus, such as the different computer labs, the student gym, and even the library. There had been no sign of Trixie. No one had seen her or talked to her. Jim took a deep, ragged breath and admitted, "Part of me wishes that she was at one of them. Then we would at least know where she is."
He understood what his friend meant. His handsome face showed lines of deep worry and he solemnly brought up another place Jim had visited. "I didn't have a chance to ask you before. We'd agreed not to mention it in front of Honey or Di so as not to worry them anymore than they already are." Nudging his friend, he inquired seriously, "What did the police say when you stopped in at the station?"
Jim's lips curled into a sneer as he remembered his treatment at the precinct. "They weren't very helpful. The place was so damn busy. It took forever before anyone would talk to me. Then the cop who took my report said that he felt I was filing it a bit too early, that she probably just went off on her own for a bit to 'blow off some steam' as he put it. He claimed that she would show back up in the morning, apologetic and hung over." His laugh was short, ugly and hoarse. "I told him that I knew Trixie. She'd be here if something hadn't happened." He didn't add to her although both heard the unspoken words and implications behind them.
"I still think it's a good thing we decided not to tell the girls, though." Picturing their reaction caused a shiver to shoot up his spine. "I think they'd be freaking out now if they knew we decided to file a missing person's report."
He agreed with a curt nod and continued, "To top it off, the officer told me that they can't do anything until Trixie's been missing for 24 hours, unless we would have some evidence of foul play." Jim shook his head at the folly of it all. "I tried to convince him to start searching for her now but he wouldn't have it. Wouldn't want to go against policy, would we?" The sarcasm fairly oozed out of him.
The sides of his lips pulled down into a sneer. "It's a shame Dan hadn't been pulling desk duty, Jim, or somewhere in the building.. He'd have helped, I know that for sure." Mart thought of his friend and wished that there was someway that they could get in contact with him. Unfortunately, Dan was not allowed to use his cell phone while on duty and Dan took his job very seriously.
"He must have been out patrolling. I didn't see him in the precinct at all." Jim had looked, carefully inspecting each officer that came or went out of the precinct. He knew Dan would have damned protocol and would have started looking for her, without any questions at all or regards to policy or to his own job. Trixie's safety would have come first.
Mart flopped on the sofa with a whoosh and scrubbed a hand over his weary face. Eyes closed, he leaned back, wishing for the peace of sleep. The fatigue was there, skillfully demanding blessed relief in sleep, but he couldn't do it. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his sister. He needed a distraction and he needed it now. With a quick press of the button, the sports channel came on, the sportscaster's voice brightly chirping away about a recent baseball game in direct contrast to the solemn atmosphere in the darkened room. Tapping the cushion next to him, he invited Jim,. "Come and have a seat, Jim. It's going to be a hell of a long night."
Those were Dan's sentiments as he trudged into the precinct at eight the next morning after working 13 hours straight on the job. Already used to the sight and sounds of the precinct, he didn't spare a glance for the men, women and children waiting. The haughty hooker protesting her arrest in very colorful words didn't register. Neither did the angry man who claimed at the top of his lungs that he absolutely, positively, definitely had no idea that he was buying drugs on the street corner. Dan walked right past the twisted soap operas being enacted in the station on his way to the lockers, desperate to get home to the warmth of his bed.
With the buzz of the sludge the precinct called coffee humming through his system and a fresh change of clothes on his long body, he almost felt human. As he came out of the locker room, he watched a fellow officer come in with an evidence box stuffed to the brim and lay it down with a thump on his supervisor's desk. Prepared to complete his last official task of his shift, he moved towards the desk, three detailed reports in his hand, and dropped it in the corporal's mailbox.
"Morning, Rookie," Corporal Snare greeted as he took his spot behind his desk and shifted the evidence box off to the side. His shrewd gaze took in the weary look of the young officer in front of him. "Long night, I see. I also believe that you've got mail for me." He felt lucky to have been assigned Officer Mangan, who he considered to be one of the most promising members of the rookie group to enter their station. There would be a long, brilliant career for the rookie, if he wanted it.
"Yeah," Dan replied back and stretched. "Two burglaries and a report of a car-jacking. Fascinating reading. I'll bet it'll keep you up all night. Luckily I don't have to write out the report on the stake-out I assisted with earlier this morning. That pleasure belongs to Officer Sterne."
He threw an almost wistful glance at the reports in his box. "I won't be getting to your reports today, Rookie." Corporal Snare bit back a small sigh and pointed to the box he'd carried in. "Unfortunately, I have a more pressing matter to deal with. It's something I despise doing."
Mildly interested, Dan arched a dark brow. "What is that, Sir?"
He also noted that Mangan was one of the few new recruits to use respect when talking to a superior. He liked that so he offered an explanation to the younger man, "There was a big subway crash on the East line last evening. I'm glad I didn't have to to it myself. From what I understand it was a hell of a mess. It looks like a few bolts came loose at a very bad time. The last three cars didn't stand a chance after that, jumped the track and smashed into the wall. There's not much left."
He grimaced at the thought. Pointing, he inquired soberly, "What's in the box, Corporal?"
He leaned back in his chair and explained, "Belongings from people on the subway. It's going to be hard to identify a lot of them. After the cars crashed, they burst into flames. I have the belongings that weren't destroyed. I'm going to need to start diving in this morning and then start alerting all of the families that I can. It's not going to fun."
Dan winced and said without thinking, "I don't envy you that job." The whole process sounded daunting. He couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like to tell a family that they had lost a loved one. He already knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of it. It was not pleasant.
Corporal Snare gave him a genuine grin before becoming serious again. "That's putting it mildly." He pointed to the door and then gave him a salute. "I order you to leave these premises and not return until this evening. I understand you've been here since last evening. It's past time to get out of here, Rookie. Officer Stephens here is assisting me with my task."
Dan glanced at the box and suppressed a small shudder. He couldn't even begin to imagine the worry the families of the people on the subway were going through, wondering where their loved ones were and why they were not coming home. "I'll see you later." He started towards the door where he was hailed by a fellow officer.
As the rookie chattered on about the exciting night he had, Dan half-listened as patiently as possible, wanting to get out of there and yet not wanting to be rude to his colleague. From behind him, he could hear Officer Stephens and Corporal Snare going over the items in the box. Officer Stephens' voice quietly read the names on the different items while the Corporal jotted them down.
Dan literally felt the room shift when he heard the low murmur of a very familiar name. Thoughts of exhaustion fled as he hurried back to the desk, leaving the young officer looking at his back in shock and pondering at his rudeness. His dark brows stood out against his stark white face. "What did you say?" he interrupted, his voice hoarse, his hands in tight fists at his side.
Corporal Snare glanced up from his work, annoyed and ready to give him a stern lecture on proper police etiquette, when he caught a good look at Dan's face. He immediately scanned the names he had scrawled down and repeated without questioning his sudden interest, "Richard W. Brown, Carley A. Miller, Beatrix H. Belden, Jonathon G. Russler..."
The effort to keep from shaking was considerable. He jabbed his finger at Trixie's name. "Her. What about her?" Hoping against hope that there were more than one Beatrix H. Belden in this world, he held his breath and waited. It seemed like time stood still. Then he felt his hope crumble when Officer Stephens pulled out a halfburnt purse that he knew was Trixie's. Wordlessly, she handed it to him. He opened up the wallet inside and saw her familiar smiling face beaming back at him from her driver's license. The burst of energy drained from him, making his shoulders sag and his eyes close.
The Corporal didn't need to know it but he asked anyway. "I take it you know her?" His face was drawn into lines of sympathy for the young officer. He could tell that she must have meant a lot to him.
"Yes." Dan closed his eyes to block it out but failed miserably. He clutched the purse tightly in his hands and turned to go when a sparkle of gold caught his eyes. He pulled her gold chain out of the other items on the desk and held it reverently to his chest. "This is hers."
Corporal Snare didn't need another type of verification and used the officer's given name for the first time. "Take it with you, Dan. Will you take care of notifying the family?"
His dark eyes glittered with unshed tears. "I am family," he mumbled under his breath. He walked towards the door on leaden feet, the purse in one hand and the chain in the other, and wondered how on earth he was going to break the news to the others. With a Herculean effort, he heaved open the station door and stepped out into the bustling New York City sidewalk.
The gorgeous sunshine threading its way through the trees overhead didn't register. The hum of traffic, the occasional blowing of a horn or a yell for a taxi, weren't noticed. His feet moved slowly. His heart was heavy, the pressure weighing him down. It normally took fifteen minutes to get to his apartment building. It took much longer today. He did notice that after looking at him uneasily, the people walking near him on the sidewalk gave him a wide berth. Dan figured he must look like a man half-possessed. He couldn't believe what had happened, what he was being called on to do. It simply didn't feel real.
The door to their apartment was half-open. Voices could be heard out in the hallway. The first thing he noted when he stood in the doorway was that it was full to the brim. Every Bob-White but one was in attendance. Even Brian was there, holding a tearful Honey, who seemed to be in the middle of a long, upsetting story. Dan could tell from the second that he arrived that this was not a typical morning for the group. They realized that something was amiss.
Jim was the first to notice Dan in the doorway. From across the room, their eyes met and held, emerald to onyx. And he knew, without a doubt in his mind. Dear God in Heaven, he knew. It felt like an arrow had pierced him, the pain was that sharp and painful. He reeled back, his turbulent green eyes swirling with grief and pain the only color on his white face, and observed the scene with absolute horror.
"Oh, Dan!" Honey greeted him, her usually smiling face set in lines of worry. Leaving the comfort of Brian's arms, she hurried over to him and pulled him into the room, closing the door behind him with a resounding click. She stupidly took the purse from him, not noticing the state that it was in, and put it on the coffee table. She ushered him into the room and proceeded to ramble on without looking at him,. "You must have checked our messages. Thank goodness you're here! As you know by now, we need your expertise in this matter."
"Yes," Mart chimed in from his seat on the sofa, an arm around Di. "We really need to find Trixie. She hasn't been home since yesterday."
Brian pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his pants. "I got here as soon as I could. I had no idea what was going on until a few minutes ago." The guilt ate at him. He wished he had been able to help search the evening before. Maybe he could have found something that the others had overlooked.
Di's gaze sharpened in on the purse Honey had placed on the coffee table, the only one in the group to really see it and the state it was in. Frowning, she leaned forward, lifted it up and carefully inspected it. It was dark brown in color, made of leather, expensive, and part of it was charred, as if it was in a fire. She wiped off the soot from her fingers and puzzled it out. It seemed oddly familiar to her. "Hmm," she hummed lowly, "this looks like the one that I gave..." Her mouth went slack as she recalled who she had given the purse to. A lone tear rolled slowly down her lovely face.
"Diana?" Brian said her name sharply, looking at her with concern. He had watched the way she had handled the purse and had seen the color leave her face.
She looked up, her lavender eyes lost and sad and filled to the brim with tears, and held the purse protectively to her chest. The soot stained her ivory silk shirt but she didn't notice. "Dan!" she yelled out, almost accusingly, her voice unnaturally high and shrill. "It's Trixie's. The purse. It's Trixie's. I know it is."
Silence, absolute silence. Breaths were held, silent prayers and bargains were made, and hope was held onto tightly before it was forever lost. Four pairs of eyes pierced him, sliced into him, and wanted a denial. Another pair of eyes looked away, caught in his own hell. Dan hated to do it, would gladly have cut off his hand or made a deal with the devil to bring her back, but he had to do it. Quickly, resolutely, and as painlessly as possible, he gave a curt nod. "She was in the subway crash last night," he announced simply. He couldn't bring himself to say the other words.
"No, no, no!" Honey drew back, her desperation for denial painful to witness, and stamped her foot. She thought back to the lively young woman who was her best friend and shook her head. "That's not possible. Really, it's not possible. Dan, you have to be mistaken." She whirled on Brian, a tornado of hysterical energy, and demanded piercingly, "Tell him that's not possible, Brian. You've got to tell him that it's not true, that there was a mistake."
"Oh, Honey," Brian choked out, his face a mask of sorrow. He reached for her but she moved away.
"Dammit, don't do that! Don't 'Oh, Honey' me!" She couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it, and turned on Dan next, an irate woman bent on a recantation. "It can't be true, Dan. She was here, just yesterday. It can't be true. I won't allow it to be." When he didn't respond, she tried cajoling next. Her eyes pleaded softly with him. "Please tell us, Dan, that there's been some horrible misunderstanding, that this really didn't happen. It's got to be a mistake. It just can't be true."
Dan rubbed his forehead. He despised being the one who had to do this. Solemnly, he opened his hand and placed the gold chain into Honey's. He waited until he could look her in the eyes. "I'm so sorry, Honey. I can't tell you anything different. I wish I could, believe me I do, but I can't. It is true."
She stared at the chain in horrid fascination and the locket that hung from it. Trixie hadn't stopped wearing the locket since the summer they visited Virginia. With trembling fingers she opened the locket and released a small gasp. Jim's handsome face smiled back at her. Her eyes squeezed shut and tears slowly trickled out. "I...oh, God,...I." Incoherent, her knees buckled. She would have fallen if she hadn't been swallowed up in Brian's strong embrace.
The scene had frozen her. With it finished, Di dove into Mart's arms, her sobs loud and unstoppable. Stunned, he held onto her, unable to comprehend what his friend had shared with them. What little color was left in his face drained as the news sunk in and was absorbed into his heart. He dropped his head on top of Di's, his own tears silently mixing with hers.
Staggering into the background, needing to get away from the others before they turned to him, Jim faded silently from the room until he could reach the safety of Trixie's room and the solitude it promised. There he simply sat on her bed. He grabbed the framed picture she kept of the two of them on her nightstand and gently traced her face with his fingers. Feeling as if a huge weight had descended on his shoulders, he dropped his head in his hands, hoping to shut out the awful reality but failing miserably. The absolute truth ravaged his heart and tore his soul into tiny, ragged pieces.