Chapter 12

"Please tell me someone came up with something on this mutt while I was gone," Daniel Reagan griped while adjusting his tie as he walked back into the large conference room that had been turned into task force headquarters after taking a few hours to go home, shower, grab a power nap and change out of his rather ripe suit before returning to the manhunt which had been in full swing for nearly twenty-four hours now. He had purposefully chosen to ignore Linda's continued silent treatment after their little tiff at the hospital the day before and walked out the door with a cheery "Have a good day, dear!" on his way back to the precinct.

"Ballistics are in," Detective Trevor Roland advised as he held the folder over his head for Danny to grab on the way back. He had barely shrugged his coat off before opening it and hungrily studying the results as he sat down at the table in front of a computer. "No matches," he spat at Baez as she was intently studying camera footage across the way while adding some creamer to yet another cup of raunchy coffee someone had churned out in the galley. "Old ammunition though, something about the metal content," he mused while continuing to read, looking for anything that might lead them closer to the man who had impacted so many lives with two cruel tugs of a trigger the day before. "So we won't get a hit on recent sales at gun shops."

"Terrific," Maria muttered as she frowned and flipped to another feed. "Anything on the gun itself?"

"Doesn't look like it," Danny revealed as he continued to scan the data until he got down to the comments. "Is this a joke?" he growled as he tossed the paper over at his partner. "It says the gun likely had not been maintained well… something about excessive grooves and that the bullets should have done more damage given the caliber and model. One dead and one paralyzed through his vest from two shots and they should have done more?"

"I think they're probably figuring that given the fact Carson's head was still on his shoulders," she added grimly. "You know what those Magnums are capable of."

"Yeah, there's that," Danny agreed as he gave an involuntary shudder given the fact that his little brother had been scheduled to be in that seat instead. "So is this guy smart or lucky?" he wondered. "Untraceable gun and ammo, only a few seconds of blurred footage of him in spite of having thousands of cameras running nonstop throughout the city."

"If he was smart he would have cleaned the gun properly," Maria observed. "I don't think we are looking at a pro here or he would have never picked that type of weapon if he was. Plus the bullet went through the top of Rodgers' arm and straight into the shoulder hole as he was ducking, it never hit the vest in the first place, lucky shot."

"Yeah, too bad the damn thing didn't blow up in his own face instead," Danny added as he slammed his fist down on the table. "Untraceable and lucky. This is not looking good, partner. Add to that this was most likely a random strike and we've got nothing... just 34,998 other targets walking around in uniform until he tries something again. I've gone through all the recent files on Carson and Rodgers and nothing popped. I mean Carson was a supervisor and hasn't been on regular patrol much since making lieutenant six years ago and Rodgers is a rookie, just nine months on the job. Not a lot of time to make enemies like this… plus he was hit in the body, not an instant kill shot like Carson."

"Probably the angle of the gun," Baez reminded. "Shooter was standing outside of the vehicle so he would have had to lean down to get a better look at Rodgers on the far side of the car. A piece like that has a helluva kick. Second shot would be harder if he was in a hurry. Carson was the easy target since he was sitting in the passenger seat writing out a report with the window down. Techs say he was hit first."

"So this guy walks across the street behind the cruiser, bypasses a clean shot on Rodgers to go for Carson… if it wasn't random than he was likely the target."

"Sorry, Danny. I'm still thinking arbitrary there. Carson's scheduled shift was over and there was no way that anyone would know he'd pull Jamie out and take a second tour. Hardly anyone else in the platoon even picked up on it. If someone was planning this it wouldn't have happened that way."

"So we're back to nothing," Danny sighed as he nervously put his hand up and rubbed his stubbly face. "Guy picks a spot where the nearest camera is blocked for the most part by trees, disappears down an alley and we can't find him coming out the other side anywhere. We gotta hope Rodgers can give us something when they wake him up. Anything new on his condition?"

"Doc said he's still critical but stabilizing when I called earlier… they don't see him being strong enough to come off the heavy meds and out of the induced coma until Thursday or Friday at the earliest though."

"Friday," Danny sighed as he leaned back in his chair. "That's when the funeral is scheduled for. Couple thousand cops just standing around out in the street make for easy targets... like shooting fish in a barrel. Dad's gonna have to have tactical in there on all the rooftops for support. I just hope to God that this was a one-off and this guy doesn't have anything planned for a repeat performance because right now he could be anywhere and we don't have a clue what his trigger is yet."

###

Unknown to the detectives, a pair of ice blue eyes had ventured out once more that morning in a dark two-door Mercury to watch from a distance with interest as people came and went from the 3-5 precinct, including the heavily guarded motorcade carrying someone who must be very important given the number of plainclothes officers in the detail. Had to be the Commissioner himself or one of his higher ups coming to console the troops he mused until he caught a glimpse of the man returning to the SUV on the way back out. No mistaking who that was even from a far distance and with an old pair of second-hand glasses on hand for his worsening nearsightedness; damn eye doctors had always warned him to wear shades as much as possible because there was so little pigment in his eyes. He scowled as he slid them down his nose so he could take a better look at the articles sitting on the passenger seat showing that very same towering suit and sunglasses walking a little girl by the hand towards a black car, including the one from the Post with the headline of 'Grand Poo-bah'! in a big blocky damn font. That's the one that had come up first when he had searched the library computer for the name Jayne Marie Jeffers after being released from his little prison stint at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Franklin County a few weeks ago.

According to what he was able to find out, apparently Jayne had gotten herself a little dead when the current piece of crap she was shacking with panicked and ran from the police before flipping his car over a guardrail and down into the river somewhere here in the city. Damn shame about Jayne, she was a fine piece of tail, he had thought at the time since he'd promised to look her up when he got out after serving less than three of the nickel he had been sentenced to for narcotics possession. He wouldn't have given it another thought except the article was all about how the New York City Police Commissioner had been spotted with a two-year-old little girl that had been rescued from the same car as Jayne by his son, Jamison Reagan, who was a Sergeant at the 3-5 now and fostering her with the intentions of adopting.

Jared Quinlan might not have been a mental giant, but he wasn't so dumb that he couldn't figure out that Jayne must have gotten knocked up with that kid about the time she was still running with him... just before the cops picked them both up that one night during a raid at the bar, and one look at the little girl's face in the photo pretty much sealed the deal given the rather distinctive set of light blue eyes that ran through his entire family.

Now Quinlan wasn't really the type looking to be a father or support a kid, in fact he had always been extremely careful about never leaving a DNA trail on record anywhere so that no one could ever nail him for paternity if it came to that. Luckily so far all of the crimes that he had been collared for had fallen below the level for mandatory testing whenever he had rolled on the wrong side of the law, and his latest conviction had come just before the current Governor had signed the 'All Crimes' DNA testing statute into law, but he was known to be extremely possessive with a highly volatile temper and it pissed him off to no end that somebody like this… a goddamn New York Post-proclaimed golden boy cop from a family of goddamn cops for Christ's sake... had just stepped in and took what was rightfully his like it belonged to him in the first place. Well that wasn't going to happen here... there was no way his seed was gonna end up growing up in a family of cops no matter what it took. A little checking had turned up the fact that the adoption had already been finalized so Jared figured step one was to get rid of the major obstacle in his way, namely this effing Jamison Reagan, before he could come in later after things cooled off and claim the kid himself... and if they wouldn't give her to him as the biological father… well then he would just figure out a way to take her and be done with it.

With his sensitive eyes irritated by the distance he was being forced to keep away from the precinct this morning due to the added security for the Commissioner's arrival, Jared was tempted to pull up stakes and call it a day before he glanced over at his heavily bandaged right hand. He had been so incensed when he'd flipped on the news yesterday afternoon and discovered he'd failed to hit his intended target that he had put his fist through the nearest wall, unfortunately striking the side of one of the studs as it crashed through the flimsy drywall of the cheap fleabag hotel he was staying at. What's worse was that damn Officer Rodgers, the one that was so freaking stupid that he didn't even know who he was partnering with that day, had managed to make it out of the car alive somehow when the crappy old gun of his uncle's had jammed after just two shots, although the news had mentioned he was in a coma in critical condition so there was hope anyway. Still, the faster he finished this up and got his ass out of the city and back upstate to lay low for a while the better. This time he had a picture of his target right there in front of him as a quick Google search had revealed any number of images to choose from.

"Shoulda thought of that in the first place," he griped before his angry blue eyes lit up in disbelief as he suddenly noticed the identical, but somewhat bruised face in those photos was walking down the sidewalk straight towards him dressed in street clothes. Jared's hand trembled as he carefully reached under the seat for his gun once more, but he reconsidered his options as a number of RMPs were pulling out of the motor pool lot at that moment to start their tours. Instead he ducked down in his seat and turned a little as Jamie passed by with a quick step and he watched with interest in the rearview mirror as his intended mark stopped and entered a secured building just down the way with a colorful sign for 'KinderCare' out front. "Well I'll be damned," he muttered with a smile as he watched an off-duty Sergeant Reagan reappear in just a few minutes with a small, excited companion skipping along at his side. Jamie was so preoccupied with the events of the past day and his now apparent exile from work, he failed to notice as he drove his Mustang away that he had picked up a careful but interested shadow… one that followed him to a park and watched him play for an hour with a matching blue-eyed little girl, and then on to the hospital where they remained through the early afternoon before he reappeared to pull the car around to the front and helped a blond-haired woman accompanied by the child and an older lady inside. His stalker remained hidden but just within reach as he drove up to a Lower East Side apartment building to park on the street.

Quinlan sat back with a satisfied smirk as he watched the four enter the front doors as a group while he subconsciously rubbed his bruised and cut up hand. Now that it appeared like he knew where this Reagan lived, he could pick him off more easily with a smaller gun that offered less kickback and more reliability than the old Magnum did since he could catch him off guard, away from other officers and out of that damn Kevlar vest. "I'll be back for you tomorrow morning," Quinlan smiled as he put his car in gear, eager to take the rest of the day himself to go out and score a little weed, whiskey and maybe some pretty tail too. The ladies always fell hard and easy for those blue eyes of his anyway.

###

Unaware of the danger now focused squarely on him, Jamie busied himself making Eddie comfortable on the couch in the living room where she insisted on settling herself for the rest of the afternoon in spite of his objections. After speaking at length to Frank earlier, it was her intention to keep a continued close eye on him while he thought he was doing the same for her. He pulled the shades to keep the room darker and brought pillows and a blanket out from the bedroom, all the while apologizing profusely to Eva for the cluttered state of the apartment which at this point was just one more thing grating on his already raw nerves. Still, he managed to successfully suppress most outward signs of the increasing stress he was under, and from all appearances seemed resolved to the cards that had been dealt to him over the past two days. Anxious to keep the attention off himself, he steered the conversation towards a topic that had never failed before to keep Eddie and any other woman in a five-block radius wholly occupied: the wedding planning.

"So," he started as he addressed his fiancée and her mother from a seat in an adjacent chair. "Are we, um, okay with everything for the big day then?" he asked knowing that the grand plan had originally involved a trip out to the McPherson's estate the following day so that Eva could see the venue for the ceremony and the reception before she was due for a flight out at six o'clock, while the florist appointment for today had already obviously been cancelled. "I mean I know we were supposed to go see Tom and Lillian tomorrow, but the doctor said that she should stay in bed the next few days and have someone watching her," he added as he met Eva's eyes and noted an interesting, almost imperceptible twitch of her nose… the same exact one Eddie produced every time Addison's name was mentioned. Imagine that, he thought… a hereditary tell for the Janko women. "Is there anything we can do from here before I take you to the airport in the afternoon?"

"I'll be fine," Eddie insisted as she sat up straighter even though the short drive from the hospital had left her feeling a little nauseous. "We can still go. It's only a little more than an hour from here. Mom really wanted to see the place, Jamie. I'll just lay in the back of the car and close my eyes."

"That's not happening, Ed… no way," he was shaking his head, ready to put his foot down before her mother stepped in with yet another shocker.

"It's not necessary, Edit," Eva smiled with even intent as she was not prepared to let her future son-in-law off the hook quite that easily. Adept at controlling relationships, she could certainly sense his reluctance and so was prepared to use that to her advantage. There were concerns that Eva Janko intended to speak her mind about, and as she stated before she didn't like to sugar-coat things so the fact that she could corner him alone was all the better. "I'm sure that Jamison wouldn't mind driving me out there himself while you stay home and rest as the doctor ordered. We'll take Kaylin with us so you have complete peace and quiet. He's right to be concerned about you. Besides, it will give us some time to talk and get to know one another a bit better since we'll be family in just a few months, correct? You spend so much time with the Reagans, dear. I'd hate to miss the small opportunity I have with him while I'm here in the city since it is difficult for me to get away from Rochester very often. Will that be a problem?" she asked sweetly as she turned to meet Jamie's eyes and smiled once more.

"Absolutely not, I'd be glad to take you out there," he replied with an equally direct look while plastering on his best remaining 'mothers all love me' poker face as his heart thudded a little and Eddie shrank back against the cushions in renewed shock, rendered speechless once more.


Boy, the hits just keep coming for Jamie, don't they? Poor guy. Next up of course is a rather interesting day trip for both him and mommazilla that thankfully frustrates our bad guy, at least for now… c'mon, I can't really have him go after Eva, can I? Did anyone guess it was Kaylin's baby daddy? I think we had at least a few chime in with that possibility. In the original series, he would have been the one that died with Jayne in the car crash upstate, but no such luck this time. Or did you think I was maybe slipping Mason Malevsky from "Resurrection" in here? I think he had cold grey eyes… wonder what he's up to these days, Hmm? Probably working on that damn car but that's for much, much later!