It took me a while to write this one. After all, this is kind of the chapter we've all been waiting for, the one where we find out what exactly happened to Katherine Lawson on that fateful Hallow's Eve, 1993.
I hope I've done the incident justice in this penning of it.
Read, smile, and review!
14. Dear Katherine
'"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! – tear up the planks! here, here! – It is the beating of his hideous heart!"' – from The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe
Eagerly, Don put the binoculars to his eyes and goggled at the woman climbing the steps. The way her smooth, toned calves flexed to achieve this made Don suddenly not mind the hours he had spent tapped in this junker, waiting for her boyfriend, Tony DeLuca, to show up. In fact, perhaps the only reason he was here was because nobody expected DeLuca to be stupid enough to show up here. As a newbie, he and Coop had been assigned to the least-risk location, or "the graveyard shift in the rubber room," as Coop had described it with his usual charm.
But this was better than DeLuca, or at least to Don it was. The gangster treated her well, it seemed; the red dress she wore was obviously expensive and well-tailored, following each curve of her body, leaving little to the imagination as she bent to pick up a shattered eggshell off the front steps…
"EPPES!"
A hand slapped down the binoculars, and Don stared innocently into the ire-filled eyes of his mentor.
"Come on, Eppes, focus," growled Coop. "We've got work to do."
Shaking his head in disappointment, Don stashed the binoculars in the glove box and reached for his seatbelt.
"Where you goin, Eppes?"
"Lemme guess," Don shot back with a degree of sarcasm. "We're being transferred because this area is getting too hot for us to handle." He peered wistfully through the window and watched the woman straighten up.
"Way too hot," he breathed to himself.
"Did he just…?"
"I don't know..."
"You kidding?" The tone made Don look back sharply. "I just got a call from Anderson. He says we move in."
Popping the door open, he slid out and slammed the door; Don was more than willing to follow. Together, the two men crossed the street. Coop, a little bit ahead of Don, gave his partner the signal to let him do the talking as he approached the woman.
"Excuse me, are you Miss Katherine Lawson?"
Holding the door ajar, she turned to greet them with a half-guarded smile, and Don suppressed the urge to whistle impishly. She was gorgeous, bright green eyes intensified by pale skin and flowing locks of chestnut. Her perfectly white teeth were framed by lips painted scarlet to match her dress. Looking the two hooligans up and down, she put a hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side.
"You two look a bit old to be trick-or-treating."
Coop chuckled a bit to humor her, then flashed his badge. "Actually, Ms. Lawson, we're here on business. I'm Agent Cooper, and this is Junior Agent Eppes. I was hoping we might be able to ask you a few questions."
The friendly smile disappeared, and Don groaned inwardly. AS if Coop hadn't ruined their chances enough by indentifying them, he just had to stick that 'junior' in there… Now Katherine was looking daggers at them. Not overly friendly, not scared, submissive, but genuinely angry, defiant. Interesting.
With a sigh of disgust, she stepped inside, leaving the door open for them to follow. The last one in, Don shut the door quietly behind him and examined the place. Apparently, the dress was just the beginning of DeLuca's special brand of pampering; the front hall was decorated, stucco-style, with various paintings and photographs on the walls. Following the sound of Katherine's ranting, he emerged into a dining room equipped with a luxurious cherry table, with matching hand-carved chairs and gold-detailed cherry dish cabinets. At the far end of the room, and grandfather clock ticked away their lives, seconds at a time…
"Why do you people keep pestering me? Day and night, you never stop. You even send people to watch Sean at school. He's seven, for Christ's sake! What exactly do you expect him to know? It's bad enough you made his father run—"
"Ms. Lawson, we didn't make your fiancé do anything," interrupted Coop. "He ran because he shot three people in South Central over a kilo of heroin. Now I know that Tony came here to dump the shipment after the shooting. I also know you think he's got friends in high places, but, to tell you the truth, he offed most of them that night, and the ones who are left are just as interested in finding him as we are. If you want Tony alive, you've got to tell me where he is, so we can find him before the hitmen do."
For a long moment, she sat and thought, wringing her hands and fidgeting in the uncomfortable wooden chair she'd sat herself down in. When she met Coop's eyes, her face was impassive, and she simply said, "Mrs. DeLuca."
"What?"
She took a deep breath. "I prefer to be called Mrs. DeLuca."
Taking two strides, Cooppromptly slapped her across the face. The noise prompting him to act, Don lunged forward to grab Coop's raised hand before he could deliver a second slap, but Coop landed him a good blow to the side of the head that left him on the carpet with his brain singing. Then Coop reached for his cuffs.
"Put your hands behind you," he ordered. When she didn't obey, he grabbed her wrists, threading them through the cutouts in the chair back and cuffing them together so she could not rise.
"Bastard!" she spat, regaining her fervor. "You're arresting me? For what?"
"Obstruction of justice," Coop said simply. Drawing up a chair, he sat in it the wrong way around and fixed her with a steely glare. "Not that that'll be a problem much longer." Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, he retrieved a small box the size of a pen case. Setting it on the lavish dining room table, he flipped it open to reveal three tiny syringes. He pulled one out and dangled it before her eyes. "One shot of this, and you'll spill all your dirty little secrets."
Regaining focus on the floor, Don watched the scene with horror; every Quantico rule, every moral rule, was being broken before his eyes.
"What the hell, Coop," he managed.
"What's he saying?"
"I can't tell."
Coop took no notice of him, just stuck her with the needle, put it back in the case and leaned forward.
"You can't do this," spluttered Katherine.
"I can, and I will. Where is Tony DeLuca?"
She shook her head and started to cry. "I don't… I don't know… he didn't tell me…"
"That's a lie, he was here today." He pried out the next syringe. "I think you need a little more."
Don had gotten to his feet, but he was frozen with shock at what he was seeing and fear at what Coop would do to him if he interfered. The latter was spelled out of him in perfect clarity when, a moment later, he took a step forward and found himself staring down the business end of a Glock.
"This is how it is, Eppes, this is how we do things around here. Now go upstairs. Clear it to make sure he's not up there. Then check under the bed; get the H and bring it to me."
And like a good little boy, he did, backing out of the room and heading up the stairs. A quick sweep told him it was DeLuca-free.
"Clear!" he yelled down to Coop; strangely enough, the word was not in his voice, and a distant jolt went through him, making him feel like he was missing something…
"His rhythm's evening out… 40 to 50 BPM…"
"That's still low; we should try again."
Heading downstairs, he placed the plastic bag into Coop's hands, trying not to notice the blood in Katherine's hair, her swelling black eyes…
"Good. Now go wait in the car."
And, like a good little boy, he did, letting himself out of the house and shutting the door behind him. On the steps, however, he hesitated, pacing. Had Anderson seriously authorized this? If he hadn't, his FBI career could be over before it started. But if he had, then Don could have much bigger problems…
Just then, there came a scream from inside. To hell with authorization, he thought as he kicked in the door and drew his gun. He had half a moment's glimpse of Coop speeding past him out the door before he saw her. Sprawled across the table, no longer cuffed, and empty needle in her hand, she was the perfect picture of a druggie who'd gone too far. Her wide, fearful eyes held him, horrorstruck, unable to move, until a small voice behind him said, "mommy?"
Standing in the doorway was a seven-year-old boy, dressed all in black with a goalie's mask and an axe in a pale imitation of a serial killer. In one hand he carried a pillowcase full of sugary plunder; in the other, he gripped a flashlight, which he was shining on his mother's face, confusion in his eyes. Sean Lawson.
"I didn't mean to," said Don, holding up his hands as panic set in. "I didn't have anything to do with it, I swear…"
"It's all right, Don, just calm down…"
"I don't think he can hear you."
The little boy cocked his head. "Is my mommy sleeping?"
For a minute, Don thought. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Yeah, she's just sleeping. And I bet she'll be really happy if you're here when she wakes up."
"Whatever," Sean dismissed him. "I'm gonna go eat my candy."
Once he was out of the room, Don ran. He ran out the door and down the steps, down the street, away from that place, away from that night…
…and with another jolt, he was gasping, and shivering, and there was much pain and cold and sweat and blood…
…but he was alive.