Amber Alert.
2 words with deep meaning.
Every cop in the city on notice. Every citizen's awareness heightened courtesy of the Emergency Alert System and it's storm watch style banners. They scrolled across all local TV programming and announced themselves with a loud beep before every radio newscast. The FBI worked in tandem with local PD. The borders were on notice, as were the train stations, bus stations and airports. And favours were being called in on every level. That was the thing about being a legacy cop, about being a captain, about working for the FBI, about having an acclaimed (combined) 56 year career in law enforcement, people didn't offer lip service to your cause, they really wanted to help. Cops everywhere knew their names Goren and Eames, and just got it.
As the texts flowed in, Alex beeped with upsetting regularity. She kept her phone on just to hear, just to get the updates from her detectives, even though each update assaulted her. It felt like her cellphone was delivering shock therapy.
*PING* 300 tips citywide so far
*PING* Feds are closing in on a house in lower Manhattan
*PING* Didn't pan out. Viable sighting at Penn Station, MTA cops closing in
And on and on and on and on it went.
Alex had managed to pull herself together sometime in the hour following the worst news of her life. And 2 hours after that (after her wildly swinging, emotional outburst) she'd found a dirty public restroom in a bodega a block away. Over a dingy sink she'd brushed her hair, reapplied the makeup tears had washed away and slipped on some sunglasses. Then she'd gone back to the scene.
She tramped through the twisted metal and sharp wooden spikes, the remnants of 183 Corsica Street. She wore a couple of enormous steel toed boots, that were part of a kit in the trunk of a police car she'd never driven before today. And she wore a regulation bright yellow hard hat. She skirted around the place where her friend had died. Yes, Tamara had died in the blast. It wasn't speculation anymore. Alex had dialled the cell number - her daily lifeline to her baby girl - and listened as it rang eerily from inside the black body bag. Then, because she had to (but because it was the very last thing she wanted to do) she took a deep wet breath held it and unzipped the vinyl sac. The left side of Tamara's face was torn to the bone from the projectile glass. What was inside that bag was not the vivacious thirty-something girl she'd left Imogen with, just a destroyed anemic looking shell. Alex had probably spoken to Tamara more then her own family most days, but she didn't cry then. She would do that later and that was a promise.
Then Alex had floated (she had no weight, a breath could blow her away) into the blackened brick and mortar of the 'safe place' where she had left her child. The rooms were in tact and they were proclaimed sound enough for law enforcement.
Alex knew Imogen's schedule by heart.
Introductory singalong.
9am snack
10:00am nap
11am walk through the community
11:50 lunch time (Alex tried to arrive at noon on the days she could)
12:30 stimulated play (cruising practice, or food sorting, or finger painting or bubble blowing or outdoor toys - weather permitting)
1:30 nap time
2:30pm feeding
3:00 free play (tummy time or bouncers with music)
4pm snack
6pm pick up (not that her day always ended at 6pm, but after that there was often an elaborate dance with Bobby to fill the gap in care.)
Alex had loved the way the children's time was budgeted into chunks, and the way each week had a theme. It had been so exciting to bring Imogen in and to tell her (with that big eyed, dramatic, borderline falsetto that every parent knew) about the fun she was going to have. Tamara had helped greatly by hanging banners proclaiming things like: "BUG WEEK!" And all of the effort had spoken to Alex of an engaged, loving environment, treating the babies as people rather then responsibilities.
Now Alex walked through the schedule all alone, in the sad singed low rise. Moving from ghostly activity to ghostly activity looking for a hint, a clue as to what had gone on. Taking a baby, it was the most silent crime. Alex imagined her daughter when the explosion shook the residence. She imagined Imogen raising startled dark eyes and then she imagined her unanswered cries. She imagined Tamara alone in the backyard (though she would never know why) only to be hit side on by flying glass and brick. It was almost too much to take. She braced a trembling pale hand against the wall, hit by wave after wave of pain.
Bobby haunted the site. He tried to grab Alex's eye but she never even hinted at recognition. She'd flown off his lap almost 2 hours ago. She'd come to consciousness and realized where she was, sitting on the enemy. She'd twisted away from the contact as if he were vile, as if he were something foreign and putrid. So he'd sat there alone behind that partition just staring at the bright white of it. This was shock. He knew it intellectually even as it was happening. He'd been here before. Alex wasn't in his arms anymore but there they were held aloft and rigid and he couldn't… quite … get them … to …. go down… His heart, his heart was running a marathon his body wasn't invited to.
"Don't move." an EMT had told him after pressing a stethoscope to his chest. And Bobby found that that wasn't going to be a problem because he couldn't. He'd tensed his legs to push up and found it was like trying to dead lift a thousand pounds.
She'd done it.
Nicole had really done it.
She'd destroyed him.
"Tell Bobby he's the only man I ever loved."
Being loved by Nicole Wallace meant death.
This was how she loved.
Imogen.
What was she doing to his child?