Alright guys, a bit longer between updates this time. Sorry!

Belladonna925: bahahaha your comment about swiss cheese made me laugh! And yeah, I can't really see Murphy being all romantic with flowers and chocolates and stuff...

SaraLostInes: YAY! I try to keep it getting better XD

Valerie Mackin: haha yay I like being able to surprise my readers!

Rickii101: yeah it does suck about them getting away, but who knows if they'll get away next time?

Azalia Fox Knightling: Your review was super nice! I hope this story inspired you to watch!

Chelle1908: I'm glad you like this story! For me personally, bad grammar is a huge turnoff when trying to find a good fanfic to read, so I always try to make sure my stuff is grammatically correct before I post it. But I hope you keep reading!

Chapter Fourteen

Everywhere

Just tell me how I got this far

Just tell me why you're here and who you are

'Cause every time I look

You're never there

And every time I sleep

You're always there

-"Everywhere" by Michelle Branch

I had probably only been really asleep for an hour or two when I felt someone shaking me awake. I opened my eyes sleepily and saw Murphy crouched over me, shirtless, clean bandages wound around his arm.

"You've got to get up, Mimi," he said gently. "Smecker will be here to get you in an hour, and you've got to look like an FBI agent. You'd better get moving."

It was with a great deal of reluctance that I got out of my nice warm bed. I wore my pencil skirt, the one I'd worn to visit Jamie's grave, and a pearl-colored blouse. I'd bought a pair of creamy heels at the boutique, and I put these on. I brushed my hair and put it up in a French twist; I only had a little makeup at my disposal but I used it.

I was feeling proud of myself on my little deception when I emerged into the kitchen. Connor must have still been asleep, but Murphy was drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette, watching the news.

"How do I look?" I asked, doing a turn for him. I tried not to think of all the blood that had been on the floor the night before. "Like an FBI agent?"

He glanced up and gave me that ghost of a smile. "A little young, but aye, you'll pass well enough."

"Thanks. I guess I'll go down and wait for Smecker." I hesitated, then leaned down and pressed my lips against his.

He didn't react for a second, and then his hand came up to cup my cheek gingerly and he kissed me back. My lips parted and he started to take advantage of it. I could taste the cigarettes and alcohol on his breath.

Then he pulled back, a pained expression on his face, and rested his forehead against my collarbone. "I can't, Mimi," he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. His hand dropped from my cheek.

"Okay, I understand," I lied cheerfully, willing the sense of rejection out of my voice. "Make sure you eat something, okay? I better go meet Smecker anyway." I turned on my heel and left, not allowing myself to exhale until I was safely in the elevator.

What the hell was that, I asked myself, punching the button for the lobby. Why were things like this between us? If he wanted to kiss me, then why couldn't he?

I was afraid I'd have to wait out front of the tenement for at least fifteen or twenty minutes for Smecker, alone with my thoughts, but he pulled up after only two. He didn't honk or call me over, simply waved with the hand holding his cigarette.

I had to take small steps in my heels, but it almost made me feel more feminine as I walked around the front of the car and got into the passenger seat.

"Well, good morning," he greeted me, pulling away from the curb. "Don't you clean up nice? I hope you're ready for a long day."

It was about a twenty to thirty minute drive through Boston traffic to get to the South Boston police station. I got more and more nervous as we drove. Smecker didn't talk until we got closer.

"There are three detectives that are in on this with us," he explained, making a right turn. "Dolly, Duffy, and Greenly. Those are the only ones, though. Everyone else has to be kept completely in the dark. You have to be very careful not to let anything slip. Can you do that, Mimi?"

I gulped. "Yeah."

He frowned as he pulled into the police station's parking lot. "You know, Mimi isn't that professional of a name."

I couldn't agree with him more. Even though it sounded natural coming from everyone else, it just sounded ridiculous coming from Smecker. "You can call me Naomi."

"Naomi?" he repeated.

"Yeah, my real name," I explained, my heart pounding as he cut the engine. I was really going to have to go through with this. "Everybody just calls me Mimi for short."

He nodded, pocketing the keys and climbing out of the car. "Naomi sounds much more like an FBI agent. Let's do this." I had no choice but to follow.

The main room of the police station was crowded with cops in pressed blue uniforms, laughing and joking with one another. A lot of them had faint Irish accents; they might even have lived in the same neighborhood I was living in now. They stopped when we walked in, all eyes suddenly on me.

I felt self-conscious but I held my head high. They must not have gotten many women FBI agents there. Not that I was a real one, of course. I was barely twenty-one years old and I'd never quite looked my age.

Smecker didn't look at any of the open-mouthed police officers as he led the way to a conference room in the bowels of the building. I had no choice but to follow him, acting for all the world like I belonged there.

There were three middle-aged men sitting around a long table covered with paperwork and empty Styrofoam cups of coffee. The bulletin board behind them was covered with maps and loose pieces of paper that meant nothing to me.

"Detectives, this is Agent Benson," Smecker introduced me, taking my coat and hanging it on the rack by the door. "Naomi, these are Detectives Greenly, Duffy, and Alapopskalius."

"Nice to meet you, Detectives." I plastered a pretty smile on my face and shook their outstretched hands. "Greenly, Duffy, and..."

The last man chuckled and gave me a friendly smile. "You can just call me Dolly," he assured me.

"Dolly it is, then."

"Agent Benson is here to help us with our little problem." Smecker crossed his arms over his jacket. "While we couldn't make even the slightest headway into the pattern of our new friends' attacks, Agent Benson figured it out in a manner of hours. I'm sure she's going to be a huge asset to our team."

I saw the three detectives exchanging looks. I'm sure they were trying to figure out if I was on their side or not. Smecker seemed the type to keep them in the dark for his own amusement.

"From what we know," Duffy began, glancing at me briefly before looking to a file before him. "We're looking for a Romanian torture gang. We spent the last several hours searching through every archive we could get our hands on, but there are a ton of crime syndicates based in Romania. We have no way to know when we've got the right one."

Smecker looked directly at me. "What do you propose we do, Agent Benson?"

I resisted the urge to chew on my bottom lip, what I always did when I was nervous. He knew I wasn't really a member of the FBI. Hell, he knew I hadn't even finished college. Why was he putting so much on my shoulders? "Well," I finally said. "Why don't you show me what you've got and we'll go from there? I want to see every possible crime group you've unearthed."

So they set up a slideshow for me on the projector, pulling down a screen on the far wall and dimming the lights. I sat with my legs crossed, jiggling one of my very high heels and chewing the top of my pen, while they went through each slide. They were very well-informed about each of the groups they presented to me, but none of them jumped out at me as being the right one. I couldn't say why.

And then they reached a slide that made my heart stop. I dropped my pen.

Smecker, who had been watching me closely, allowed his feet to fall to floor with a thump as soon as my pen fell. "Naomi?" he said, catching the attention of everyone. "What is it? What's wrong?"

I couldn't really say at first. I squinted at the picture on the screen. It was only a picture of one man, his mug shot. He was a thin, short man with a pointed face and a grimace of an expression. His eyes were an alarmingly bright shade of blue, almost white in the black-and-white picture, but the thing that stood out most to me were the little round scars, angry-looking and puffy, that went in circles around his face.

"He's one of them," I said. I don't know why I said it, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they were true.

Smecker frowned, but not because he didn't believe me. He frowned because he did. "Why? How do you know he's one of them?"

I pointed to the screen, getting to my feet. "Do you see those symmetrical points all across his visible skin? I'd bet anything the rest of him has those same scars. They're from a Crocodile Tube."

"What the fuck is a Crocodile Tube?" Greenly demanded, looking me up and down. I frowned at him. It seemed he had other things on his mind than the case.

Smecker's face was unreadable. "Another medieval torture device, I'm assuming?"

"Yeah." I frowned. "But this isn't just one you can carry around in a little bag. It's big enough to fit a grown man into. It's a serious piece of machinery. Like torture dungeon type of shit."

"Why would they torture one of their own?" Smecker wanted to know.

I paced back and forth, thinking. The clicking of my heels on the tiled floors was somehow calming. "In circles like this, with people who make torture their business, it's a sort of ritual. Like an initiation into their group. It's the mentality of if you can't take it, you're not worthy of dishing it."

"Makes some sort of sense," Dolly agreed, squinting at the picture on the screen too. "I mean, these people aren't exactly normal."

"This man was arrested?" I gestured to the picture, and they all nodded. "Was he a part of a crime syndicate before his arrest?"

Duffy rifled through some more papers, emerging triumphantly when he'd found the one he wanted. "Yes, he was. He was part of a group called Sang-ay Drag-oost?"

"Sînge Dragoste," I sighed heavily. "Loosely translated it means Blood Lust. Pull whatever information you can on this group. I'm pretty sure we've found them." They stared at me, so I clapped my hands at them. They jumped and scurried to do what I'd said.

Within minutes, I was alone with Smecker in the room. He looked alarmingly pleased. "Well, now. Aren't you something? You ever actually consider going into law enforcement? You'd make it far."

I laughed. "I haven't even finished college yet, Agent Smecker. And, with the way things are going now, it doesn't look like I'll be going back any time soon."

"That's a shame," he answered, never taking his eyes off me.

Smecker let me use his office to phone the boys while the detectives were eating lunch. I perched on the edge of his desk, pulling my skirt down over my knees, while it rang.

Murphy answered it. Just my luck. "Aye?"

"It's Mimi," I said, hoping my voice sounded normal. Even with all the events of the morning, I couldn't get our episode from earlier out of my head.

There was a pause. When he did speak, it was with the same forced casualness that I'd used. "Aye, how's it going?" he asked. "Having a good day down at the old precinct? Learned anything about the case?"

"Yeah." I lowered my voice, even though I was fairly sure the office was safe. "We've pretty much narrowed it down to a Romanian crime syndicate known as Sînge Dragoste. Like we thought, they're Romanian."

"Sînge Dragoste?" he repeated, losing that edge in his voice. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Blood Lust, more or less." I twirled the phone cord around my finger. "Dolly, Duffy, and Greenly are pulling everything they can on the group now. Hopefully I'll know more by tonight. I just wanted to keep you and Connor updated."

There was another brief pause, and I felt the tension mounting again. "Thanks," he said finally. "Let us know as soon as you find out anything else."

"Will do. Bye." I was almost relieved to hang up.

We reconvened after lunch, and the detectives brought all they had managed to dig up on the group. It wasn't a lot, I had to admit. There wasn't much to go on.

After hours of poring over material, we stumbled across a gold mine of information. It was an article from an independent Romanian newspaper, written just before the fall of communism there.

"Can anybody here read Romanian?" Duffy asked, squinting at the paper.

I leaned over his shoulder to read it. "It's definitely about the Blood Lust group," I said after some brief scanning. "Apparently they terrorized the major cities in Romania about eight or nine years ago. They were well-known for their interesting and creative ways of torturing victims. It was rumored that they had a torture chamber somewhere in the countryside near Bucharest, but it was never proven because none of their victims ever escaped."

"Anything else?" Smecker pressed.

I frowned. "They were reported to work alone for the most part. Of course they had underlings, but there were only four people who really had power. They called the shots. They were supposed to be untouchable."

More perusing. "Nobody really knows what they deal in, though people speculate that they mostly deal with drugs. They're also rumored to work as hired assassins. Torture is what they do for fun."

"So what happened to them?" Greenly asked.

"Our friend up on the slideshow got arrested, that's what happened." I handed the paper back to Duffy. "Now here's the real question: when was our friend arrested and is he still in jail now?"

"I'm on it," Dolly offered, heading for the computers.

"Good work today, Naomi," Smecker said, handing me a cup of coffee. "I really think you could pursue a career with the FBI."

I accepted the coffee, feeling suddenly exhausted. "Thanks, Agent Smecker."

The door opened and Dolly rejoined us, looking grim. "Our friend, by the name of Flaviu Tirlea, was arrested on March 28, 1989. He escaped from a high security prison in Bucharest five months ago."

Smecker nodded thoughtfully. "It makes perfect sense. After the Republic was established in Romania, they'd have a hard time getting up and running again. Now that their compatriot is out of prison, America must have seemed like the perfect place to start up a new enterprise. And they need the Saints out of their way before they can establish a standing here. Everything fits."

"So we've got four masterminds to look out for," Duffy muttered. "And we at least know what one of them looks like." He gestured to the mug shot of Tirlea.

"Two," I said without thinking. "We know what two of them look like."

Smecker slapped a hand to his forehead and the detectives all looked intrigued, curious. Then I remembered I was supposed to keep the fact that I knew the Saints to myself. "Sorry," I mumbled.

"It's alright," Smecker sighed. "You did well all day. I couldn't expect you to keep it up forever. You're a novice."

I frowned and crossed my arms over my blouse. "You don't have to be mean about it."

"Hold up. What the fuck is going on?" Greenly demanded.

"Naomi here-" Smecker began.

"Mimi," I interrupted. "Call me Mimi."

Smecker frowned again. "Naomi isn't really an FBI agent. But she is the one who cracked the code. I sneaked her in here to help us out."

"So how'd she get involved in the case in the first place?" Greenly demanded. He directed his question to Smecker instead of me, but Smecker gestured for me to answer.

I shifted my weight uncertainly. "Well, it's sort of a long story. I'm sort of living with Connor and Murphy."

"Wow. An insider's point of view." Dolly winked at me. I think I liked him.

Smecker drove me home not much later. "Can you relay everything back to the brothers? Everything we figured out today?"

"Yes." I didn't appreciate being talked down to. I'd helped out this case a lot, after all. I bid Smecker a short farewell and headed up to the apartment.

I got in the elevator and sighed heavily, pressing the button for the fourth floor. Today had been so long. All I wanted was a hot shower and a good night's sleep. My thoughts flickered back to Murphy, as they seemed to do a lot these days. I wondered if things would still be awkward.

I used the key they'd given me to let myself in the front door. Even though they must have been expecting me home, they both started and nearly reached for their guns when I came in.

"Woah there, ponies." I rolled my eyes, locking the door behind me. "It's just me."

Connor scooted over on the sofa, leaving me room to sit between him and his brother. "Come have a seat, Mimi, and have something to eat. We got Chinese takeaway. Tell us what happened down at the precinct today."

I shrugged out of my coat and sat down. Murphy wouldn't meet my eyes; that was a bad sign. I tried not to let it get to me as I reached for the shrimp lo mein and a fresh pack of chopsticks. "We found out a lot of interesting stuff," I told them, slurping down some noodles.

"Like?" Murphy prompted, looking at the television intently so he didn't look at me.

It was ridiculous, really. "No, no," I told him coyly. "You have to actually look at me if you want answers."

He turned that exasperated half-smile on me, and I returned it with one that I felt was genuine. He was important to me; I didn't want him to be uncomfortable around me.

"That's better." I took another bite of noodles. "What we're facing here is the Sînge Dragoste, a torture-crazy quartet."

Connor, who had endured the exchange between me and Murphy complacently, spoke up now. "So there are four of them?"

"Right. There's the one you guys saw the other night, the one with the bad burn on his arm. And there's also this guy." I dug out the photograph of Tirlea. Smecker had made a photocopy for me before he'd taken me home. "As for the other two, I have no idea."

I related the history of the group and Tirlea's arrest and subsequent escape while the two studied the picture intently. "And these are some seriously sick people," I warned by way as a conclusion. "They've turned torture into an art. See those scars there?" I pointed to the picture with the tip of my chopsticks.

"Aye," Connor nodded.

"Those were made by a Crocodile Tube," I said matter-of-factly.

Murphy frowned at me. "What the fuck is a Crocodile Tube?"

"It's a medieval torture device. Not like the little ones our new friends used on their victims at their random little locations. No, this is a big piece of metal. Probably weighs a ton or more. It's insane to think that they'd have one. If they've got a Crocodile Tube," I added in a lower voice. "Then they've probably got other serious torture tools. I'm talking Judas Cradle, Spanish Donkey, and Brazen Bull type of stuff. These people mean business."

"What do they deal in?" Connor asked, refolding the photocopy of Tirlea's picture. "Arms? Humans? Contraband?"

I slurped another noodle up. "Smecker's not really sure, and I can't help out much with that. From an old article we read, they seemed to be into dealing drugs and it's possible they worked as hired assassins, but it's all just speculation. Even during the height of their power, people hardly knew anything about them."

"Fuck me," Murphy muttered, leaning back against the couch. "This just keeps getting more and more fucked up."

"Hey." I resisted the urge to put a hand on his arm. I wouldn't have hesitated before, but, after that morning, I wasn't sure where I stood with him anymore. "It could be worse. We seem to have the upper hand right now. We know where they're going to be and when they're going to be there. Plus, we know who they are, for the most part."

"Mimi's right." Connor clapped his brother on the shoulder behind my back. "And it's only Sunday. We've got until Friday. All we can do now is prepare."

Alright, hopefully this was worth the wait! Please review for me!