Chapter 21
Playing Victim?
Sara settled herself in an empty layout room and enjoyed a brief moment of peace and calm in the disordered chaos that had become her life, both privately and professionally, as everyone divided up into their assigned pairs and Finn darted off to collect results, the nature of which had been uttered in a rapid babble that she had not quite caught.
She was suffocating.
And she knew it. And she knew why. Everything was closing in around her and she could no longer breathe. They were all working under a microscope in a pressure cooker on this case. This killer was not pulling any punches and there was nowhere for any of them to hide from their pasts as history was repeated and rewritten to suit. She knew that at any moment, he could choose to expose the darkest of her secrets of which the others had only vague ideas but no concrete details.
Her fingers unconsciously traced over the faded bruises that still lingered from his assault that she still compulsively concealed even though they were now nothing more than faint ghosts in the memory of her skin. Something that only she knew. Bu then, she was sure that he knew as well so why had he not chosen to expose her. They were both painfully aware of what that would do. She was barely holding it together as it was.
And then there was the thing itself.
Whether or not this killer had chosen to use it to hurt her, it was doing a fairly good job of that on its own; making her feel that she had been wrapped tightly in cling-film. Trapped in her own claustrophobia with barely enough space to breathe.
If she was honest with herself though, she had known it would come to this. Bitter experience that had derived from the inadvertent and unfortunate fallout from her childhood that drew her to toxic relationships, both emotionally and physically.
She had been expecting this. Her skin crawling at the lightest touch. Feeling uncomfortable around people she considered to be her family. A friend's innocent concern turning into something that smothered her. For all that she appreciated it, Russell had all but set up a tent in her head. She could not share every tiny detail of her life with him because he knew what had happened. And she knew that he would want it, that he would expect it because he would feel compelled to protect her, would need to know that she was OK and she knew that he was going to get hurt by this because she could not do that anymore.
It had been a mistake to tell him. She should have done what she had always done, had a bath, a glass of whiskey, gone to bed and woke up the next morning and dealt with it.
Of course she knew that it was not as simple as that. Because 'dealing with it' meant dealing with a Hell of a lot. The denial, worsened in this case by the fact it had taken her so long to remember what had actually happened to her. That horrible emptiness that clung to her, numbness, where nothing existed and nothing was wanted to exist. She had distanced herself from most of them already, something she was sure that Nick and Greg had picked up on, while at work she maintained, outside of work, it was exhausting and almost impossible. She could not remember the last time she had been out with them voluntarily. The nausea that twisted her stomach and the continual feeling of being unclean, tainted, that he was all over her, all the time that had resulted in several midnight showers and violent scrubbing of her delicate skin that left her with deep scratches that she was then forced to hide the morning after.
And she knew what was coming. She knew that she was already slipping into it even as she slipped in to herself. She would insist that she was fine, that really, nothing had happened that she could deal with this just fine. She would block it out, bottle everything up and ignore it and everyone around her. She would push them away as the insomnia and the flashbacks and the panic attacks dominated her life and it was all she could do to deal with them never mind anyone else.
She could not tell herself that she did not want it to happen. She knew that she shouldn't that it was unhealthy and destructive but she had no choice. None of this was down to what 'should' have happened and she now just had to deal with it. They would just have to respect her boundaries enough to stay away from her until she had been reduced to nothing and the healing phase could begin.
She was pulled from her dark musings as Finn entered the room, grimly brandishing a slim piece of paper before her,
"What news?" Sara asked, glancing up from the information she had distractedly begun keying into the laptop.
"Henry analysed the bloody handprints on the paper, matched the DNA from the blood...Yours again..."
She shook her head, turning back to the laptop," How the Hell is he..." she muttered, irritated,
"I don't know...Been dating any vampires recently?" Finn asked, trying to ease the tension. She was rewarded with a strained smile and quickly changed the subject, "What are you doing?"
"Well, on a hunch, I called a friend from the San Francisco lab who worked with me on the original Samantha Gold case. She's going to be in Vegas for a couple of days anyway so she's agreed to come down earlier and go over case files with me...Although I don't see that it will do much for us...There was barely any physical evidence in the cases..." she said grimly,
"Putting in our victim's name to the system, see if anything pops...Russell wants us to look more into the victims so..." she said, flipping back to the laptop screen as she spoke, "And I'm running VIN numbers on the car, see if anything interesting comes up on the RO...Wrecked Ford Mustangs don't just fall from the sky..."
"No they do not...Might help her case if they did though." She said with a small smile, "Good thinking..."
"Thanks..." Sara said distractedly, watching as the laptop began sifting through the files.
"Right." Finn told her, clapping her hands together, "You can either sit here and sulk while that laptop goes through the records, or, you can plug it in the garage and help me come and process the car."
Sara smiled and winked as she gathered herself up and smirked, "What do you think?"
They walked in to the garage and Sara raised her eyebrows at Finn as they did so, "Was that really necessary?" she asked, gesturing towards the car that had once again been flipped onto its roof looking like a stranded turtle,
"It's easier to figure out blood spatter if I don't have to stand on my head to do it." Finn replied with a grin as they both pulled on rubber gloves.
Smiling and glad to have something to do, Sara left the laptop working away on a desk in the corner and walked over to the car with Finn, agreeing to take the front of the car while she worked in the back.
"I'm getting a strange sense of déjà vu again..." Sara called, twisting round to find Finn lying on her back, torch between her teeth, squinting at the floor above her and raised an eyebrow as she smirked, "Are you comfortable."
Removing the torch from her mouth she said, "Very...I've spent too much time working with Russell...What have you got?"
"A headache..." Sara sighed..."Apparently, this car is currently moving at 154 miles an hour..."
"Damn..." Finn murmured, also noting the speedometer, "What the Hell does it mean?"
"I don't know...I don't think it has anything to do with this case though..." she said, shaking her head slightly,
"Well, I take it that the models are to scale...Is it a conversion of that figure, another little homage to the original killer's attention to detail?"
"I don't think so..." Sara said slowly, "All of the models are half inch scale replicas...Converted to centimetres that's about one point...two seven?"
Finn nodded, "No good..."
"That's weird..." Sara said softly, distracted by something on the dashboard again,
"What?" Finn asked, wondering if she wanted to know.
"The top speed on the speedometer's been changed..." she said quietly,
"To what?" Finn asked, wondering what possible purpose this could serve.
"Two hundred and eighty..." Sara replied, theorising aloud.
Finn jolted up as a leaden weight seemed to descend into her stomach as the pieces fit together.
"Finn?" Sara asked, concerned as the other woman hissed,
"Son-of-a-bitch..."
She pushed herself out of the car and stalked over to an empty portion of the floor, walking in tight, aimless circles as she pushed her fingers through her hair,
"What does it mean?" Sara asked gently, extracting herself from the front of the car with difficulty and walking over to the other woman's side.
"In a normal pregnancy, a woman is pregnant for approximately two hundred and eighty days...I was five months pregnant, January to May, when I miscarried..."
Sara closed her eyes as realisation struck, "Four months with thirty four days and one with thirty...That makes a hundred and fifty four days..."
Finn nodded and Sara was shocked to see a slight film of tears in her eyes, "Hey..." she murmured, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, "You OK?"
"Yeah." She said stiffly, brushing her eyes frustrated, "It's just...I don't know...It's not something I thought that I would ever have to relive again...And definitely not under these circumstances..."
"I know..." Sara murmured sympathetically, at a loss for anything to say. Fortunately, Finn decided to make her job considerably easier,
"Well, it's done isn't it, there's no point sitting here crying about it, let's just get the bastard."
Smiling and agreeing Sara watched as the other woman stormed back to the car and threw herself back down into the back of the car again. Sara followed at a slightly more reserved pace and settled herself in the front again, printing the dashboard without much expectation.
A frustrated cry from Finn as she pushed herself out from under the car in despair made Sara look down at her, raising her eyebrows. Finn did not pass up the invitation to vent as she slumped forwards, hands on her knees and told her with a heavy sigh,
"I have blood spatter."
"That's fascinating." Sara replied mercilessly with good natured sarcasm.
Finn narrowed her eyes in a scowl and continued, "And then I don't. It just stops dead."
"Void?" Sara suggested, interested now as she crouched down beside her.
"Normally I would say yes but here I'm not so sure." Finn said, running agonized fingers through her thick hair, "It's the same effect but I can't find anything in this car, victim included that would account for it." She grimaced again and said, "I think it comes from her breaking her arm but I can't get the angles right...Our victim was 5'9..." she paused a moment glancing at Sara before thinking out loud, "Slim build..."
Sara's eyes darkened momentarily as she realised what the other woman was getting at.
"That was a really stupid thing to say, I'm sorry." She said hastily, shaking her head and flushing, "I'll figure out, it's OK..."
"No, don't be ridiculous, I'll do it." Sara told her in an off-hand voice, recklessly agreeing to this without knowing why as she indicated that they should swap places.
"Sara-"Finn began, in a worried tone, studying the stubborn younger woman in disbelief,
"Come on, I live for this, you know that." She said forcing an easy smile, "It's fine."
"Picture that." Finn retorted sardonically, rolling her eyes as she reluctantly allowed Sara to take her place under the car, knowing that there was nothing she could do now that would not make her determined colleague even more so.
"OK..." Finn said, drawing a deep breath and thinking how she would like to play this out, "Would you flip onto your back for me?"
"Victim was face down." Sara pointed out as he nevertheless did as she was bidden. S
"I know that." Finn said, smirking, "I want to work back from something I do know." She paused a moment, thinking before saying, "Bare with me..." she grinned wolfishly and said, "I take it you're not used to playing victim on your back?"
Sara grinned back, tongue jammed at the corner of her lips as her eyes twinkled, mischievously. Needing something to distract her from the anxiety that was beginning to gnaw at the exposed corners of her frayed nerves and played along, "No..."
"Don't worry, it's fun, you'll get used to it." Finn said, smiling and winking and drawing a laugh from her colleague as she threateningly propped herself up on her elbows and said,
"You want me to do this or not?"
"Yes." Finn said, snapping back to reality at this but unable to help herself from adding, "Please do..."
Sara laughed again as she lay back down and demanded, "Is there anything you won't flirt with?"
"Nope." Finn retorted easily, "Not if it lies still long enough."
Still smiling, she started indicating blood on the car's floor above Sara's head and began to talk her way through what had happened,
"I found saliva and air bubbles in that spatter, meaning that it was expirated blood from her mouth which is physically impossible if she was face down the whole time..."
"So she managed to free herself, at least partially and flip onto her back." Sara said, running with Finn's train of thought.
"Yes..."Finn said, but then there's this spatter..." she said, motioning for Sara to flip onto her stomach which she did, "OK, so, the car is filling with water, you're panicking, struggling, your arm is trapped and you need to free it in order to get out..." she said.
As she talked Sara found that she was indeed trapped under that car in the middle of the desert as she water rushed in, knowing full well what she was going to have to do to in order to get out. Cursing her subconscious that seemed determined to plague her with thoughts of one trauma or another today, she forced herself to focus on Finn and to get on with it,
"It was an open fracture, bone split straight through the skin causing the spatter above you..." she said, taking her arm and slowly drawing out the motions that would have resulted in the spatter, feeling as the muscles in the other woman's arm beneath her fingers flexed and the skin burned but knew better than to comment, "She was then able to turn over..." Sara slowly obliged this, lying on her back once more as Finn sighed and slumped back, saying, "And we have an unaccountable void that has just decided to be for no logical reason..."
"Maybe it's not a void at all..." Sara said slowly, who, from her position, had noticed something, "If you look, there's dried in sand and dust at certain points around the frame and beside the spatter, and then it stops..." she trailed off, waiting for Finn to connect the dots, which she did,
"The rain water washed away the dust as well as the blood spatter..."
"Exactly..." Sara said quietly,
"Means I was wrong..." Finn murmured, brow furrowed in concentration,
"Void was a reasonable conclusion." Sara told her softly, beginning to shiver though the garage was sweltering,
"Not just that...I thought this was about the crime scenes. About the killer perfecting them, making them better, eliminating the mistakes that led to the others being caught...If she had been a little quicker, she would have gotten out of this, gravity was against her and she couldn't, on this occasion, but the killer took an incredible risk to make this identical to the last case."
"Says something about him..." she said, forcing the tremor out of her voice, "Can I..." she began, motioning at the situation she was in that was beginning to take its toll on her.
"Wha-"she began distractedly, before hastily saying, "Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead..."
She watched as Sara practically flew from the car and took several steps away from it, covering the action by checking the laptop.
Finn also got to her feet and followed her, distracted from their case for a moment as she focussed on her colleague.
"You OK?" she asked softly, cautiously approaching her, unsure of what to do. Delicacy and compassion not being amongst her strong suits.
"Yeah..." she said shakily, leaning against the desk the laptop was set on a little more than was really necessary, her hands curled around the edges, fingers turning white, "It's just..." she faltered and Finn placed a hand instinctively on hers, giving it a small squeeze as she suggested,
"Weird?"
Sara laughed uneasily and said, "Yeah, that's one word for it...It's hard to describe something like that. Being pushed to those extents and at the same time, that one part of you is always telling you that it will be for nothing. That you're neck high in water, underneath a car, surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, completely alone..."
"I don't know how you did it..." Finn said, shaking her head,
"Neither do I..." she said with a shaky laugh,
At that moment they were interrupted by several things happening at once on the screen.
"What is it?" Finn asked as Sara pulled up a file on their victim and uttered a soft hiss saying,
"You've got to be kidding me..." she paused, her eyes scanning the report before summarising it for Finn, "It's an accident report from a car crash that our victim was involved in six years ago...Her brother was driving, under the influence, and crashed...Outside The Tripwire Bar..." the significance in her voice led Finn to prompt,
"I take it that means something to us..."
"Yes, it does..." Sara murmured, "The car that was used in the original scene also flipped outside The Tripwire...I processed the original scene."
"Aptly named bar it seems. "Finn said grimly, "What are the chances of that happening? "
"Fairly high..." Sara said with a heavy sigh, "That bit of road's a death-trap...Hairpin bend, disorientating lights from the club, unpredictable hookers, I could go on..."
"Please don't." Finn said with a pointed smirk,
"What else did you get?"
"A hit on the RO of the car..." Sara said, pulling up the records and jumped as Finn staggered back, cursing in response to the file Sara had brought up on screen, "You know them?" she asked incredulously,
"Unfortunately..." she replied darkly, staring grimly at the name flashing on screen before them.
A/N: Thank you to all of my lovely reviewers in the last chapter! Really inspired me for this one, so, what did you think of it? Thanks for reading!