"Hey, you're already back." Sofia hugged Sara. It was a little bit after seven and her lover was back home. An hour earlier than she had expected.
"Yes, bad weather, not a lot of work and a boss who wants me to lose a little bit of my overtime. How are you?"
"I was very frustrated when I left work, Don drove me to Hollywood Palms and since that time my mood is better. Eric and Jorja are the cutest babies I've ever seen. And the photo you sent me with you and Eric will get a place on our photo board. So cute."
"He's adorable. I felt like taking him with me. Jorja looks so much like Greg, I hope she'll be like him later. And I'll buy both of them something…shall we go shopping tomorrow after work?"
"We need to go shopping anyway, when my parents arrive we've to offer them more than toast and apples. After I am not allowed to work longer than eight hours, there's enough time. You work early, don't you?"
"Yes. I can pick you up at the lab at half past three. We do the shopping, visit the twins and go home, prepare everything for your parents."
"The camping bed? That won't take long. My mom wasn't happy when I told her, they have to sleep on a camping bed. When she heard why, it was fine. When she sees the twins, she'll annoy us about grandchildren."
"When I had Eric in my arms and he smiled at me – which he didn't do because he's too young, but it looked to me like he did – I wanted nothing more than a baby. I imagined a baby Sofia, a little girl with your deep blue eyes…" Sara stopped embarrassed. "I meant…"
"You meant what you said." Sofia pulled her lover in her arms and kissed her. "I wanted a little Sara when I had them in my arms. Of course you're right with the argument, there are so many children in foster homes and they all deserve a good home…nevertheless I wanted a baby. Watch our child how it grows up, be with him or her when it's time for the first steps, kindergarten, school, graduation, first love, college. The whole program. Very selfish. And such a wonderful thought."
"Sounds like we both made a decision today."
"We said we'll wait, see how it is to have a baby around. But yes, I'm quite sure a baby is what I want. Including being pregnant. Jules was in pain, it was written all over her face the last couple of days, and at the same time, she was so happy. They kicked her, hurt her and all she felt was movements of her babies, signs of them being okay."
"When she held them this morning, she looked like the happiest woman I've ever seen. She said, having them is worth all the pain."
"I believe her when I see her." Sofia lay back on the bed. What a day. An early start but it was worth leaving bed this early. The twins were there and they were healthy. "Honey?"
"Yes?"
"If we do this, if we become parents…we need a donor."
"Yes."
"With an anonymous donor it's almost impossible for our child to find out, who the father is. And we've no idea, whose DNA we have. I don't want to believe in bad DNA…then again, I don't want our child to find out one day, his or her father is a serial killer. And everybody can write down he is a professor."
"True. Any other idea?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe means yes. What is the other idea? Don?"
"Yes. Can you imagine Don as the father of our child? I haven't asked him, it crossed my mind again today when I saw him with the twins. He loves children and he is very good with them."
"And our child will know who is the father. Plus, he has also really nice blue eyes; just like you."
"Mine are nicer, aren't they?"
"Dusty beats you both." Sara grinned. The old fight about the nicest blue eyes. "I can imagine Don as the father of our child. As long as he doesn't want to make the baby with you the old-fashioned way."
"I'd never agree on that and I doubt he'd ask for that. We think about it and leave the thought until…after Christmas?"
"Yes. It's nothing we should rush and we shouldn't ask him until we're sure it's what we want. The fun part and the responsibility. We can't leave our child with Don or your parents and take off for a party or a beach vacation."
"We can take our baby with us, you can teach us how to surf, we build castles with sand and I'm sure my parents will come over often and watch their grandchild so we can have a quiet evening. I don't need party nights anymore, a lovely restaurant, a picnic with sunset on the beach, a movie. Parties were fun, I loved dancing, since I can't dance anymore, or it gives me too much pain, I prefer quiet nights. Plus it's easier to talk at a quiet place…and we can go to all theme parks with our child, take the twins with us and be children ourselves. You know, the last time I visited Universal Studios, I jumped into Scooby Doo's arms and kissed him after I told him, I love him."
"Does it scare me that I can imagine you doing this? Should it worry me to hear those words from the woman I love? I want a baby with?" Sara chuckled.
"No. It shows you, I'll be a great mom and play a lot with our child."
"Our very special child…it will be a hard time when you're pregnant…nine months no sex."
"What?" Sofia sat up and looked stunned at her girlfriend. "In what world are you living? No sex during pregnancy. If we don't have sex during my pregnancy I will never become pregnant. Sex is healthy and good when you're pregnant. No sex. You have strange ideas and should consult your therapist about it…or even better, your former therapist. I'm very sure she had sex while she was pregnant."
"This really shocked you, didn't it?" Sara had problems to stay serious.
"Yes! Please tell me, you weren't serious."
"I'm not serious."
"Thanks." Sofia exhaled released. "No sex. That's mean punishment."
"Maybe I can make up with some dinner. Do you want chocolate ice cream?"
"How about some make up sex?"
"I might consider this later. For now I leave you and start cooking."
"She leaves me for food…prefers to cook instead of making love to me…I don't need Sigmund Freud to know, we've a serious relationship issue. And ice cream isn't a solution for it." Sofia sighed and watched Sara leaving the room laughing. No sex, no make up sex…a cold shower? Brrr.
After dinner they went back into their room. With her crutches, Sofia didn't feel like walking down into the living room and up again.
"Tell me about the case." Sara poured some wine into Sofia's glass.
"The boy's name is Mario, he is two days old. He disappeared between eight-twenty and eight-thirty. We checked on the security cameras, there was the same man like in Hollywood Palms. Again, he wore a doctor's dress and again, he seemed to know where all the cameras are. We see the backside of his head, his back, nothing of his face."
"Where did he go with Mario?"
"To the staircase. There're no cameras, we lost him there."
"No cameras?"
"Low budget hospital. The only one for the poor people in Los Feliz. Why Mario's parents chose this hospital we're not sure. They own a shop, have the money for a better hospital. It's the closest one to their home, the next one is a mile further away."
"The kidnapper knows the Hollywood Palms and this one. Are there any connections? Of the hospitals?"
"No. We checked on services, nothing popped out. Same with employees."
"Any traces?"
"The chloroform tissue was in a garbage can. This makes us believe, he left through a door of the backside of the building. No camera, no security. You know what I asked myself?"
"What?"
"How comes the demand for babies is this high at the moment? Are babies the new most wanted Christmas gift? And why do they kidnap the babies here? I can't recall anything like this ever happened before in Los Angeles." There were so many crazy things going on in the world, a lot of them were also here, Sofia wouldn't be too surprised when babies were the newest trend for rich people.
"Neither can I. My guess is, the babies are somewhere in California or a close-by state. It's getting more and more complicated to come into the States, if you kidnap a baby in South America and take it here, you need a passport for it. This costs a lot of money. When you kidnap them here, you take them to another state, no border control."
"True. Greg asked to have the days off until the twins and Jules are in hospital. He wants to be with them as much as possible. The more time they spend with their parents, the safer they are." She was sure, they wouldn't see Greg today. He'd be with Jules as long as he was allowed to be there and go straight back to her in the morning.
"How did they handle the news?" Sara never mentioned the kidnapped baby, didn't want to ruin the happiness of her friends.
"With a shock. After a few days without a kidnapped baby, they hoped these people were gone."
"They won't stay here forever. Sooner or later the air gets too thin for them and they move to another city."
"Before that we've to catch them. Otherwise more babies will disappear and more women might have to die because they want the baby…and when I can put my prosthesis on again, I can work like I should. Being at the scene for only a few minutes and be the rest of the day in the lab, isn't my cup of tea. And I'm much better in the fields."
"How does your wound look?"
"As far as I can see good. I don't feel any pain and will try to walk a few minutes with the prosthesis tomorrow. When I can make it around the reservoir without problems I'm as good as new. Do you want to join me?"
"Absolutely. After shopping and hospital."
"The only good thing about it is, I have more time for you. From Wednesday on I'll work like my colleagues, means there will be more than ten hours probably."
"Three shifts work on these cases, you can come home after nine or ten hours. Or is there so much evidence to work with?"
"No." Sofia grumbled frustrated. "These bastards leave barely any evidence. Sometimes I feel like they are cops – or one of them and he told the rest how to leave barely any traces for us behind. A cop, a doctor, an IT man, what a great team."
"It's always the same man who kidnaps the babies. He must be the type of man, who blends in easily. Like some of the most famous serial killer. Your friendly neighbor, who has a dark secret, you have no clue of."
"A doctor who worked both hospitals a long time ago, maybe under different names. An IT man, who gets into the security system, finds out where its safe to walk and a cop, who knows a lot about evidence. All three of them with connections to Asia. The web page is from China, our IT people found so much out. One of them might be from China…we have to check on cops from China. The doctor is Caucasian. And the IT person is impossible to check. We can look who has a work permission, a green card but there will be so many hits, all over the country. All you have to do is register yourself in New York, move over to L.A. and don't mention it anywhere."
"And the doctor has no record. Otherwise one of the programs had recognized him."
"All we have is the back of his head and a description from Tanya. If it was the same man, we can't say this for sure."
"You can measure certain things, like the distance between his ears. Of course there'll be thousands of hits."
"Exactly. We looked at traffic cameras in this area, there were various black vans, white vans, all without writing on them. By now they might drive in a red, blue or pink van or in a car. Each time these guys strike, they leave less and less evidence behind."
"They learn. Most criminals got smarter and smarter. They learn from TV programs, books and the internet. Those crime shows in TV might be interested, but sometimes they're like education program for the wrong group of people."
"Yeah…a lot of things aren't real, but they make criminals more aware of what is possible to catch them. Do you remember when we had the reality TV people following us in Vegas?"
"Yes. You got into their faces."
"Jerks didn't deserve anything else. They invaded the privacy of this poor woman. She had been through enough, didn't need to put up with the camera and stupid comments. I felt like strangling them with my bare hands."
"Only to open your blouse for them later."
"What?"
"When you and Brass talked to the suspect, you opened one button to give this guy a better view, make him talk. This disappointed me a little bit, Sofia. I had always picked you as a person, who works with her brain and not her breasts. Then again, it explains…I forgot her name again. Blow job actress alley cat."
"Ellen. We didn't want to mention her name anymore. It was a stupid thing to do, both Ellen and the button. Didn't work out – both again. And I won't do it again."
"Both? Or just one of them?"
"Make an educated guess." The blonde pulled the other woman closer and kissed her hard. Such a stupid question wasn't worth the energy to answer it.
"Both. I saw her."
"Who? Ellen?"
"Yes. Sunday morning on Sunset. She looked like she had a long night and wasn't alone. Red was the taste of the night."
"I hope I won't see her again."
"Sooner or later when we go out we might see her."
"She'll have fun with my leg."
"One stupid comment about your leg and I break her nose in way no doctor can correct."
"My heroine." Sofia placed her head on Sara's shoulder. "Whatever I did to deserve you, I'm glad I did it. You're the best thing that ever happened to me…and I met you twice in my life. Do you wonder sometimes why we didn't fall for each other in Vegas? How it's possible we were barely friends there and now, you're my life. It's crazy…like…I don't know." It was impossible to explain.
"We weren't ready for each other. You were dating men, I was with Grissom."
"Yeah…I made you forget men. It was a long and hard way, a lot of work but definitely worth the effort."
"It took a long time until my therapist could talk me into giving you a try." Sara answered sweetly.
"What? Jules talked you into this? You didn't want to be with me? She manipulated you?" This was new for Sofia.
"She opened my eyes."
"How?"
"I wasn't sure…because you're a woman and if that's right for me…she helped me to realize, it doesn't matter what sex your partner has, it's how your partner feels, does and how you feel and react to this person. That I reacted positive to you was obvious, when we shared a bed I felt safe, could sleep."
"Looks like I have to buy Jules a flower bouquet. And a ton of chocolate." The therapist did more than helping Sara with her PTSD, she was also a help in relationship questions. A very good help.
"I told you, she's the best therapist. She kicked in your door to make sure, you don't do anything stupid." Sara wished she had seen this. It seemed so much not like Jules to kick in doors, she was way too relaxed to do something like this. But she did it, Sara saw the door. And heard the story from Sofia and Don.
"Yeah…Rambo is a nothing compared to her. When do you think can she and the twins leave Hollywood Palms?"
"Two or three days? It was a normal birth, there aren't any reason for her to stay in longer. She and your parents could arrive at the same time." Make the house a full house and get them into logistic problems. The next days it would be hard to have any kind of privacy in this story.
"This fast? Did she say something?"
"No. I think they wait until the doctors tell them they can leave. Most women leave after two days I've read, if you can stay longer when you have twins is out of my knowledge. The longer she stay in hospital, the more work is taken off her hands – and the bigger the fear, the twins could get kidnapped." Which was the biggest reason why they wanted them back home soon. Make sure, they were all three safe.
"Exactly. They want to have them safe ASAP."
"So, we might have babies here in two nights."
"Yes. We have to have a baby party. On Thursday."
"I've Wednesday and Thursday off, can organize something." Although the thought of having Jules's friend around wasn't something she enjoyed. But she couldn't ask them to stay away, not to come and see Jules and the twins.
"If we've closed the case by then, I'll have a day off too. A sleep in with you…the last one was very nice."
"I barely remember it…can you help me out?" Sara smirked coy.
"My pleasure." Sofia rolled on top of her lover and kissed her softly. They could repeat what they did the last time they could sleep in, she was the last person, who would complain about it.