A/N: *Breathes a sigh of relief*
Thank you for not pummelling me. I appreciate it. I like having all my limbs intact - it makes it much easier to write! ;) And thank you for the wonderful reviews! It's good to know there are a few others out there who have gleamed their knowledge of the US legal system from Law & Order as well, and that I'm not the only one. :P
So, clearly Shorewood is deranged. We've got that cleared up. But there are still a few unanswered questions that I (hopefully) intend to answer in this chapter. We also catch a glimpse into how Lindsay is dealing with everything that's happening, and Stella and Flack both try to offer her some support, with varying degrees of success.
I now present to you... Chapter 14
Adam Ross hung up the phone and dashed out of the lab, heading down the hall toward Mac's office. Seeing Mac sitting behind his desk talking to Flack, Adam knocked on the door before pushing it open and stepping in the room.
"Hey, Mac," he said. "Where is everyone? I've got some information that I think they might want to hear."
Mac waved Adam over to the desk. "I asked Stella to take Lindsay out and get her something to eat, help her calm down. She's trying to hide it, but she's pretty upset about everything that's going on here, and I think she needed a little time away to help collect her thoughts."
"Oh, okay."
"What is it Adam?" Mac asked.
"Oh, yeah. Well, you know how we were all wondering where Shorewood's been for the past six years, and how he got access to the building? How he managed to deliver his notes to Lindsay without anyone noticing?"
Mac nodded his head, and Adam pressed on. "Well, I did some digging and I found out that after his trial..."
Flack scoffed. "Yeah, what trial? That's a fucking joke. Goddamn lawyers," he said, rolling his eyes.
"Um, yeah. Anyway," Adam said, "I checked and found out that after the trial, he was arrested a month later for conducting more of his experiments on some homeless people in his neighbourhood. Apparently he was trying to cure them of their inability to perform useful roles in society. His words, not mine."
Mac raised his eyebrows. "Really? That's interesting," he said. "What happened to him after that?"
Adam looked down at the notes he had scribbled on the scrap of paper in his hand. "Um, so he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years at a mental facility, where he underwent treatment for Narcissistic Personality Disorder."
"10 years?" Flack asked. "So why the hell is he out now?"
Adam shrugged his shoulders. "No one at the hospital was really talking, but apparently he was an exemplary patient, and his sentence was reduced for... for good behaviour." He looked at the two shocked faces staring back at him. "Basically, they said he was cured."
"Hmph," Flack huffed. "Fucking joke. The guys is obviously Looney Tunes. Bunch of fucking quacks probably didn't want to deal with his crazy ass anymore."
Adam looked over at Mac before continuing. "I talked to someone at the hospital, and they said that when he was released, he was assigned to a parole officer, who was supposed to supervise his return to normal society."
"And did you talk to this parole officer?" Mac asked.
Adam nodded his head eagerly. "Yeah, I just got off the phone with him. He said that Shorewood was part of a return-to-work program, where inmates were helped to find gainful employment in an attempt to re-integrate them back into society."
"Why do I get the feeling that you're about to drop a bomb on us, Adam?" Flack asked, leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees.
"Guess where he was assigned to work?" Adam asked. Mac and Flack both shook their heads.
"Just tell us, Adam. We don't have time for guessing games," Mac said.
"Yeah, right. Um, okay. Sorry boss," Adam stammered. "Um, so he... he was assigned to the mail room in our building."
"What?" Flack exclaimed, sitting up straight in his chair, his eyes wide with surprise.
"I know," Adam said, nodding his head. "Crazy, right? He's been here almost every day for the past month, and we've all probably passed him in the hall like a hundred times! I mean, who notices the guy from the mail room? We see him pushing the mail cart and never give him another thought."
"He would have access to every office, every lab, every room in the building," Mac said, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're right Adam. We would have all seen him, and not even thought twice about him going in and out of Lindsay's office... It's perfect."
"Yeah, but how would he not notice that the plaque on Lindsay's door clearly says Detective L. Messer?" Flack asked. "I mean, yeah the guy's a psycho, but he can read, right?"
Mac shook his head slowly, thinking. "One of the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the inability to accept information that doesn't fit into the universe that he has created for himself," Mac explained. "He may have read Messer on the door, but in his mind, it still said Monroe."
"What I tell you, Adam," Flack said. "Fucking Looney Tunes."
Lindsay gave a small smile to the waitress as she refilled Lindsay's coffee cup. She and Stella were sitting in the coffee shop just across the street from the lab. Mac had been right, Lindsay had needed a change of scenery, a chance to take a breath after all the information that had been thrown at her over the past few hours. And a chance to really stop and process her thoughts and feelings.
She held the warm cup between her hands, staring into the dark liquid.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Stella asked her, interrupting her silent contemplation.
Lindsay looked up at her friend, who was staring back at her with concern in her eyes. She realized that her hands had begun to shake, and she quickly set the cup down on the table and moved her hands down to her lap. Her bottom lip began to quiver, and she felt her eyes begin to prickle as more tears began to form in her eyes.
"Shit," she said, reaching up and wiping her eyes with an unsteady hand. She smiled wanly at Stella, who handed her a napkin. "You'd think after these past two days I would have run out of tears by now." She forced a laugh as she gently dabbed at her eyes with the napkin.
"Oh, honey," Stella said, reaching across the table and gently squeezing Lindsay's hand. "I can't imagine how you're feeling right now. And I wish I knew what to say to you to make you feel better."
Lindsay sniffled as once again her eyes flooded with tears. She rested her head in her hands and her shoulders sagged as the grief that she had been struggling with all day finally overwhelmed her. Yes, she had broken down in the car with Flack and Mac, but she had been in shock, and the emotions hadn't really hit her yet.
I could lose him, she thought. I could lose him. I could lose him. I've lost him.
Her insides twisted as the last thought passed through her mind. She had spent the past few hours convincing herself that he was alive. But what proof did she have? As far as she knew, he was dead before he'd even been abducted, his body giving up as the anaphylaxis slowly suffocated him. The thought of him spending his last minutes alone, without her by his side and most likely terrified, caused her to feel a pain that was beyond her imagination.
Her stomach cramped and lurched once again and she quickly stood, stumbling to the ladies room where she heaved painfully into the toilet. As she knelt on the floor, she didn't hear Stella's soft footsteps as she followed her, closing the door and locking it behind her before kneeling beside her friend.
Stella gathered Lindsay's hair in her hand, pulling it away from her face and gently rubbing her back, offering soothing words of comfort.
"Shh. Shh. You're okay, Lindsay. It's okay. Shh. Shh."
"Please just leave me alone," Lindsay managed to choke out before another wave of nausea hit her hard, and she convulsed, emptying her stomach into the toilet once more.
"I'm not going anywhere, Lindsay," Stella said, her voice soft and low. "We don't have to talk, but I'm not going to leave you here to suffer by yourself."
Lindsay's face crumpled, tears streaming down her face as her body began to tremble. She leaned away from the toilet, resting her head against the cool wall behind her.
"I... I want him... I want him back," she choked out. "I... I want him to come home. I want to hold him, and I want him to... to be able to hold me back."
"I know, Lindsay," Stella said, handing Lindsay a tissue to wipe her face. "We'll find him. We'll bring Danny home and we'll get the bastard who took him from you."
Lindsay sniffled and looked up at Stella, who was surprised to see a glint of anger in her friend's eyes. "Linds?"
Lindsay shook her head, her red-rimmed brown eyes boring into Stella, who shifted uncomfortably under Lindsay's intense gaze.
"You can't make that promise, Stella," Lindsay said, her voice low and flat. "I'm not an idiot. I was there when you were all discussing the case. And I know, better than anyone, exactly what kind of person David Shorewood is. So don't you dare sit there and tell me that everything is going to be alright."
"I'm sorry, Lindsay," Stella said, raising her hands in surrender. "I... I didn't mean to upset you. I was only trying to help."
"If you want to help, take me back to the lab so that we can actually do something about getting this guy," Lindsay said, wiping her eyes with the tissue, then tossing it into the toilet. "And stop sitting there making promises to me that you can't keep."
Stella sat on the floor of the washroom, her mouth gaping open at Lindsay's angry words. She watched her friend pull herself to her feet and lean over the sink, splashing cold water on her face before she flushed the toilet and turned on her heel, unlocking the door and pulling it open, disappearing down the hallway.
Mac snapped his phone closed, looking up at Flack.
"That was Stella," he said. "She said that Lindsay practically bit her head of down at the coffee shop, and she wanted to give us all a heads up. I think that the full scale of the situation has finally hit her, and she's not handling it well."
"Shit," Flack said. "Shit. Mac, we gotta dig deeper. We gotta get him back."
"I know, Don," Mac said, sighing as he leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Can you please go downstairs and try to head Lindsay off? Bring her back upstairs, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mac," Flack said, nodding his head and turning to stride out of the room, heading toward the elevators.
As Flack rode down in the elevator, he flipped his phone open and dialled Lindsay's number. He sighed when it went straight to voicemail. She had turned off her phone.
"Lindsay, it's Don," he said into his phone. "Please, please call me back when you get this. I'm worried about you."
He snapped his phone shut, closing his eyes and hoping that she hadn't taken a page from Danny's book and gone off on her own to do something... stupid.
He shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking like that. Not about his friend. His best friend. Yes, Danny could be impulsive at times, but even when acting on instinct, he was rarely stupid. Irrational? Yes. Stupid? No.
As the elevator doors slid open, Flack stepped out into the bustling lobby of the building, casting his eyes around, hoping to get a glimpse of Lindsay. He walked toward the front doors, deciding to head toward the coffee shop. But something stopped him in his tracks. His hand on the front door, he turned and headed back through the lobby to the side doors that lead out into the courtyard. As he approached the large glass doors, he saw a solitary figure sitting on the bench at the back, near the garden.
He felt a wave of relief wash over him, followed quickly by intense sadness at the sight of Lindsay sitting alone on the bench from which Danny had been taken. He pushed open the door and quietly made his way over to her. She didn't look up or even acknowledge his presence as he sat down beside her. He saw that she was crying, her cheeks streaked with fresh tears.
"Can you please tell Stella that I'm sorry?" she asked, her voice trembling softly.
"Hey," Flack said, reaching out and putting his arm around her. She leaned forward and rested her head against his shoulder, letting her tears soak into the fabric of his jacket. "There's no need to be sorry, Linds. We all know how hard this is for you, and it's only natural that you're going to be having a lot of conflicting emotions. I know I am. I'm worried. I'm scared. I'm sad. And I'm fucking pissed off. And I can only imagine that you're feeling everything I'm feeling, only a hundred times worse."
She looked up at him, and he squeezed her shoulder, giving her a lopsided smile.
"You know Danny, Linds," he said. "Better than anyone. You know what a stubborn son-of-a-bitch he can be. There's no way he would just roll over and leave you and Lucy. No way. He's going to fight this bastard with everything he's got. And we are going to do the same. We're going to put everything we have into finding him and bringing him home to you. And we're going to kick that sick motherfucker's ass in the process."
Lindsay gave him a teary smile. "You kiss your mother with that mouth, Flack?" she asked.
"You haven't met my mother, have you?" Flack asked. Lindsay shook her head. "Yeah, well, she's got a mouth like a sailor. I got nothing on her."
Lindsay let out a soft laugh, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thank you, Don," she said, smiling up at him. "I needed a laugh."
"Glad to be of service, Linds," he said, squeezing her gently to his side. "You wanna come inside? Everyone's worried about you. We should go and let them know that you're alright."
Lindsay nodded her head. "Yeah, okay," she said. "I just... I wanted to see where it... where he..."
"I know, Linds. I know," Flack said. "But there's nothing to see here. We've processed everything, it's all up in the lab."
"I just wish I knew if he was okay," she said. "This... this not knowing... it's the worst feeling in the world. If I knew, either way, I think I'd feel better. I could deal with it better. But this limbo, it's too hard, Don. I can't think straight. All these scenarios keep running through my head, each more awful than the last."
Flack looked down at his best friend's wife. He desperately wished that there was something he could do. Some word of comfort he could give her. Some reassurance that everything would be alright. But he knew that anything he said now would be just empty promises, and she didn't need that. She needed facts. She needed proof.
"Let's go back upstairs, Linds. Let's get to the bottom of this. The answer is up there, and we just have to find it."
She nodded her head. Flack stood, offering her his hand to help her up, which she gratefully accepted. He leaned down and gave her one last hug before leading her back inside the building.
Danny's head hurt. His ears were buzzing, and his limbs were becoming stiff and sore from being restrained and immobile for so long. He tried to shift himself on the bed, with little success. At the slight movements, his joints ached, and he moaned in pain.
"And how is my patient? Feeling better?" he heard a now familiar and dreaded voice coming from somewhere in the room. "I have to admit that I was disappointed in you, Messer. I expected you to last longer, but you passed out part-way through my treatment. And you know what that means, don't you?"
Danny felt a knot of fear begin to unravel itself in his stomach at Shorewood's words.
"It means we're going to have to try again," he said. "And I'm going to have to ask you to try harder to stay awake, Messer. Be a man. It's really not that bad. Although, under normal circumstances, I would use some kind of sedative, something to dull the pain. But you're a special case, aren't you?"
Danny tried to shake his head, but it was still being held securely in place. He felt his heartbeat quicken once again at the sound of Shorewood approaching his bed from across the room.
"I'm not special," he said, his words slurring as he spoke. What the fuck? Danny thought. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he talk properly?
"Ah, an unfortunate side affect of the treatment," Shorewood explained. "It's only natural for some of your brain functions to be a little... erratic immediately following a treatment. It should pass shortly."
Danny's breathing grew shallow as panic began to surge through him. He could hear Shorewood once again moving items around on the table next to him, and he was powerless to do anything to stop him from inflicting the unbearable pain of the electric shocks to his system.
"Please... don't," he managed to slur, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth.
"Please don't," Shorewood parroted back to him in a mocking tone. "You're pathetic, Messer. You are getting what you deserve. This is the punishment for stealing what belongs to me."
Danny listened as Shorewood moved closer to the bed. He looked up and saw that a video camera had been mounted on the ceiling just above the bed. He stared into the camera, wondering what the hell Shorewood had planned for him now.
"Ah, I see you've noticed my little addition to the room," Shorewood said. "I was thinking that it was about time that we sent a little message on to Ms. Monroe. What do you say, Messer? Are you ready for your close-up?"
I would love to hear back from you! And I promise to stop hiding under my bed at the end of each chapter...
Note: Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a real psychological disorder. Basically, people suffering from it feel that they have an innate right to have what they want, when they want it, regardless of the consequences of their actions on other people.
I don't mean to sound like a textbook, but I thought you might find it helpful to understand where I got the ideas for Shorewood's character from. I studied Personality and Social Psychology in university, and it fascinated me. So I am trying to stay true and be as accurate as possible. But this is a work of fiction, so I may take some liberties. ;)