Welcome back! One of my goals was to finish this one over the summer; I'm running out of summer, so let's get to it. This is the first of three planned chapters to wrap up the story.
The raid on Blake's house continues and the hostage situation at the Grimes farm intensifies.
Chekov's Gun and Schrödinger's Cat
"Fuck." Tara snapped, standing in the middle of Phillip Blake's home office.
"How did he know?" Sasha asked, furious.
The only heads hanging on the fine quarter sawn oak walls were legal trophies; the endangered bird that had been displayed so proudly on his desk was absent as well, a set of gold plated dueling pistols resting in a velvet case there instead.
"He's taunting us." Tara fumed, pounding her closed fist against the wall panel next to the grizzly that loomed over the rest of the room. To her shock, the wall echoed back hollowly.
Tara looked over at Sasha who grabbed up her radio and spoke into it.
"Get that echo location equipment up to Blake's office—now!"
"You can't just storm in there!" Shane said, blocking Rick's view of the Grimes farm house.
Rick tried again to get around him, but Shane pushed him back forcefully with an open hand to the middle of his chest.
They were behind the roadblock set up on the perimeter road to the farm yard, where the base for the law enforcement groups on scene was set up. The Department hostage negotiator was also due to arrive, and the rescue mission was officially on hold until then.
The sound of Merle's Triumph dopplering off the buildings turned everyone's attention to the lane leading to the farm yard from the main road. Before they even came to a full stop, Daryl was off the back, looking like an avenging angel in his winged leathers, crossbow slung over his back and his saturnine vengeful expression. He stalked over to Rick and Shane, ignoring the other deputies.
"Anything?" Daryl asked tersely.
Rick shook his head angrily, glaring at Shane.
"Protocol says we wait for the negotiator." Shane insisted, fixing both men with a narrow eyed stare.
"Fuck protocol!" Merle bit out loudly, walking up to join them.
"Monroe?" Rick asked, and then relaxed a bit when Shane nodded yes.
"You know him?" Merle asked.
"Her. Nerves of steel and cool as a cucumber." Rick replied, "First good thing I've heard, Deanna Monroe coming here."
"Don't need any negotiating—he wants me, he's got me." Daryl disagreed, taking off his bow and trying to hand it to Rick.
"It's not that simple, Daryl—I'm not just letting you go in there and get killed." Rick said adamantly, refusing to take the bow.
"How about I get up in the hay barn, see what I can see?" Merle offered, pointing at the scoped rifle Shane carried, "Let me borrow that, n' I can solve this quick and clean."
They all knew Merle was deadly accurate with a rifle—he'd hunted most of his life and had been a sharpshooter in the service—and if he had a clear shot he could most likely do as he promised.
"He's your father, Merle." Rick said, more a question of intent than a statement of the obvious.
"Yeah, well, sometimes you have to shoot your own dog." Merle shrugged. Putting down the man who had brutalized him and his brother their whole lives wasn't something he felt he had to put too much thought into.
Rick and Shane exchanged a look and then Shane handed over the gun.
"Last resort—you don't fire until we tell you." Rick ordered, handing him a walkie and looking over at the other deputies whose attention was distracted by the arrival of the Negotiator and Jenner. "Go now—quietly."
Merle nodded and then he was gone, blending into the shadows on the side of the barns.
A black Suburban barreled down the lane, coming to a stop mere feet from where Rick, Daryl and Shane stood. A small severe looking woman climbed out of the passenger side, her rust blonde hair cut in a modified page boy style that fluttered back from her face with each determined stride.
"Grimes—you need to stand down." Deanna Monroe said without preamble.
"That's my family in there." Rick protested hotly.
"Exactly. You have no business being here—if you had your head on straight you'd know that." she told him dismissively. Then she looked over at Daryl, "You Dixon?"
"Yes ma'am." Daryl said respectfully.
"Gun man inside is your father. Tell me what I need to know about him."
"He blames me for everything that's gone wrong in his miserable life." Daryl said, "My mother's death, his arrest this week...Rick's family took me in, made me like one of their own—he hates them for that as well."
"So this is all personal—no demands for money or escape vehicle—he just wants you, his son?"Deanna asked.
"But he doesn't know I'm not. Travis Grimes is my real father." Daryl explained.
Monroe stared at him. She studied Rick and Daryl both and then nodded, seeing the subtle similarities between the two men.
"That could come in handy—you're sure he doesn't know?"
"Just found out myself." Daryl told her. "Unless the Grimes are into True Confessions in there, there's no way Tom knows."
"My wife is pregnant—" Rick said, his anxiety over his family making him shake.
Daryl put a steadying hand on Rick's shoulder.
"Lori—she's almost full term, yes, I understand your concerns, Rick." Deanna said. "My job is to get everyone out of there safely, but often we can get one of the hostages released early as a sign of good will. She's my first pick."
"It's me he wants." Daryl said stubbornly. "I go in n' he'll let them all go."
"At this point I'm hoping it doesn't come to that Mr. Dixon. I'd like to try a little discussion of terms first. What would you suggest as the best way to contact him?"
"There's a house land line, but we think he cut it, it doesn't ring through." Shane said.
"He must've taken all their phones, no one answers when we try their numbers."
"Smart, control the information." Deanna nodded. "He has the only line in. Probably won't answer a number he doesn't recognize..."
One of her team held an electronic bullhorn, used to contact hostage takers without phone access.
"Use Merle's phone." Daryl said, holding it out to her. Merle had given it to him when they'd arrived for just this purpose. "He'll pick up for that, but then he'll be pissed Merle gave it to you."
The negotiator nodded, weighing her options.
"This or the bullhorn." she said, taking the phone from Daryl. He'd already pulled up the number and she pressed the green call button and hit speaker.
"Merle? Where the fuck are you?" Tom Dixon's angry voice barked over the small speaker.
"Mr. Dixon? My name is Deanna. I'm hoping we could have a discussion about what's happening here today and what we can do to resolve it."
"Well Deanna, you got my disloyal Judas motherfucking mother killing son out there?" Tom roared. "Tell him if he doesn't show himself I'm going to start piling the bodies of his beloved Grimes family one by one on the porch like kindling. And if you don't think I'm serious, recall that I already wasted that big black buck whose cookin' he's so fond of!"
There was no word on T-Dog, who was still in surgery.
"How can we trust if we meet your terms you won't harm the hostages?" Deanna asked. "As a sign of good faith, would you agree to release any with health concerns?"
"You mean that bitch that's gettin' ready to pop out another Grimes on the couch right now?" Dixon sneered, "Or maybe the old man slowly bleeding to death on the living room floor?"
Rick surged forward, towards the house, but Daryl and Shane held him back with difficulty.
They heard a scuffling noise and then a deep grunt of pain—Travis—and then a woman's cry—Lori—in labor.
"Running out of time, hostage negotiator." Tom said coldly. "Now put that little son of a bitch on the phone now or one of them isn't gonna make it outa here."
"There should be a release here somewhere..." the tech with the echo location equipment they'd pulled from the detail searching the basement levels told them. He had found a large open space on the other side of the wall that had not been on the house blueprints they had.
Two agents with sledge hammers and fire axes were standing by to break through, but concerned about damaging possible evidence, Tara had asked the tech, Heath, a young African American with long braids pulled back into a pony tail, if he could find the way in that Blake would've used.
"Like in the movies? A fake book you pull back? A wall sconce?" Sasha asked skeptically.
"More likely a hidden button—but yeah, disguised as something ordinary." Heath said, running his fingers along the edges of the wooden paneling and chair rail.
Everyone started looking around the room.
Tara went to the built in wall bookshelf and randomly started pulling books out, shrugging when Sasha gave her a Really? raised eyebrow look.
Sasha looked at the desk. Blake was the kind of man who liked to think he was smarter than everyone else. Hiding something in plain sight, using an everyday object that people would overlook was just the kind of thing he would do.
She turned to the big desk and started examining all of the objects on its surface. The elegant wooden box with the dueling pistols displayed on red velvet caught her eye and she lifted it to look at the guns more carefully. Under the box was a small inlaid touch screen pad built into the surface of the desk.
Setting the box aside, she activated he screen and then pressed the first button, which raised up a section of wall directly opposite the desk to reveal a stereo and flat screen TV set up.
"What the hell?" Tara said.
When Sasha pressed the second, a small but well stocked bar appeared below it.
"Seriously?" Tara exclaimed.
The third and the wall to the right of the desk gave a sharp click and opened slightly.
Everyone's eyes went to Sasha and then to the open wall.
Sasha drew her gun. The other two agents and Tara did the same, motioning the tech to stay back. Working as a coordinated unit, they opened the door wide enough to pass through, weapons at the ready.
The first one through, Sasha stopped stock still, causing Tara to run into her back.
"What?" Tara exclaimed, but when she saw what Sasha had upon entering she thought she would be sick.
All of the illegal animal trophies were arrayed around the room in a bit of a jumbled manner, pile against three of the walls haphazardly, probably hurriedly hidden there. One wall of the room however, remained clear, the large clear glass fish tanks lit from behind to better show off the trophies they held.
"Holy shit." Tara said.
"Are they human?" one of the other agents said in disbelief and horror.
"We need Mamet and a forensics team here right now!" Sasha said in to her walkie, swallowing hard to keep her from giving in to her stomach's need to purge itself.
In each of the tanks was what looked like human heads, floating in liquid, probably formaldehyde.
"Is somebody there?" a muffled child's voice suddenly cried from somewhere in the room. "Who's there? Please? Help me!"
"We got a live one!" Tara yelled, and she started looking for the source of the cries. "My name is Tara and we're here to help you. Keep talking honey, we'll help you, but we need to know where you are!"
"I'm in my cage. I'm not s'posed to tell you where, but he's hurt..."the child said, allowing them to zero in on the section of wall next to the aquariums, where there was a metal grill work half door fastened with two combination locks.
"We need bolt cutters!" Sasha said into her walkie, kneeling in front of the grill and testing its integrity by roughly shaking it.
"Who's hurt, honey?" Tara asked, kneeling beside Sasha. Was there a second child being held here?
"Butterscotch." the child sniffled, "He's not moving. I think he's hurt real bad, Miss Tara."
"Didn't Walsh say the picture on the note he found had a drawing of a kid and a cat? An orange cat?" Sasha said to Tara and then got up and went into the other room.
"Are you Penny?" Tara asked, "Penny Blake?"
"Yes."the girl sobbed.
"And Butterscotch is your cat?" Tara continued.
"He's hurt real bad." the little girl said, crying in earnest now. "Please hurry."
"Get back!" Sasha ordered, striding back into the room with one of the fire axes.
Seeing the determined look on the other woman's face, Tara scooted backwards, getting out of Sasha's way as quickly as possible.
Sasha raised and slammed the ax down twice for each lock, severing them from the metal door and then knelt to finish prying it open. Inside was another grate, this one wooden. Ten small pale fingers reached through it.
This inner door appeared to have a key lock under a small door knob, but Sasha got out her Swiss Army knife and pried apart the hinges holding the other side of the door in place, pulling out the pins in the middle.
"Hello Penny—I'm Sasha—I need you to move back, sweetie." Sasha said and the small fingers pulled back inside. Closing and pocketing her knife, Sasha stuck her fingers through the squares holes in the grate and gave a hard tug forward, breaking the lock mechanism and opening the door. Then she reached in and felt a soft wet furry body wrapped in some sort of cloth being placed in her hands.
"Tara." Sasha said, and when the other woman crouched behind her she turned and passed her the cat, wrapped in a white sweater and then reached back in to pull the girl out.
They carried them both to the outer office, glad to escape the cold stares of the wall of the dead. Heath stood there, out of breath from running down the stairs and back up again, bolt cutters in his hands. When he saw them come out with the girl he gave a little rueful smile and set the cutters against the wall.
"Call Child Protective Services." Sasha told Heath and he nodded and spoke into the walkie mounted on his shoulder.
"Is he dead?" Penny asked, looking at the cat anxiously, her face red and puffy with tears. Her long blonde hair was mussed and tangled, pink dress dirty and torn; she wasn't wearing shoes and had on only one white lace trimmed ankle sock.
Tara felt the small furred body for signs of life, pressing in right under the ear for a carotid pulse. It was faint, but it was there.
"He's alive, but we need to get him to a Vet." Tara said, motioning to one of the other agents. They were a bit taken aback to be asked to rush acatto medical care, but when they saw Penny's worried little face and knowing where she'd been held, they didn't argue.
"They'll get him there as fast as they can, honey." Sasha assured her, "The vet will do everything they can to save him."
"Miss Maggie's daddy is a Vet. That's where we got Butter. He looks like Santa. He's a good daddy." Penny said.
Sasha and Tara exchanged a look.
"Penny, who put you and Butterscotch in the room?" Tara asked. "Was it your daddy?"
"He said Butter was bad and he tried to make me hurt him." Penny said, reaching down to the cushion of the leather couch she was sitting on. There were several small scratches on the dark surface.
"Butter didn't know he wasn't supposed to come up on the couch. It wasn't his fault...but daddy said he had to be punished...if I didn't do it he said he would make himfloat too."
"Float?" Tara asked softly.
Penny's eyes went to the door to the room lined with a wall of floating heads.
"Shit." Heath said, making Sasha glare at him.
"He locked me in my room and said I couldn't come out until I did it. So I threw out my stuffed Butterscotch with the note. Out the window so the party people would find it and help us. But then daddy came back and he was so mad he grabbed me up to make me...but Butter bit his leg, but he stomped Butter and he bleeded and then he locked us in the cage." When the long emotional explanation was delivered, Penny visibly wilted, leaning on the back of the couch and looking very sad.
Hearing that the pet had tried to come to the little girl's defense made Tara start to tear up, glad she had rushed it to care.
"Penny, do you know where your daddy is now?" Sasha asked gently.
"He's not here." Penny said listlessly. "Can I go see Butter now, Miss Tara?"
"We'll take you to Butter as soon as we hear from the vet, okay?" Tara said. "Right now we need to talk to your daddy, Penny. It's really important."
"He could be in the camera place, down in the dungeon. I'm never supposed to talk about it, but I hate him. He hurt Butter and I hate him. He's not a good daddy like Maggie's daddy." Penny said vehemently. "He's a very bad daddy. He ran over that girl and he makes us do things thathurt in the camera place."
"Can you show us where the camera place is, Penny?" Sasha asked.
"Told you. It's in the dungeon." Penny said, starting to look like shock was taking over, her eyes getting less focused.
"Is the dungeon here? In this house? Is it the basement?" Tara asked.
Penny shook her head back and forth.
"Camera place is business; don't do business in the home." Penny said, her voice deep and low in imitation of a much older one, quoting something she'd obviously heard many times before.
"You mean it's at his offices?" Tara pressed. "Where he goes to work?"
Penny nodded yes.
M.E. Milton Mamet and his CIS crew were at the door, requesting permission to come in, so Tara carried Penny downstairs to wait for Protective Services and sent another agent with one of the maids pack her some clothes and other things she would need. They were taking her to a safe house until her father was found. As far as anyone knew he was her only living relative and the best witness to his crimes they had.
"Is that enough probable cause to get a warrant for his offices?" Sasha asked Mamet as they watched Miguel photograph the scene.
"We got a wall of decapitated heads in there, what do you think?" Milton asked wryly. "We could be looking at a serial killer. Every nook and cranny that Phillip Blake owns, rents or just walks through will be fair game now."
"Gotcha." Sasha said with satisfaction.
AN: Chekov's Gun: a writing rule, don't put a gun(or anything else-say like a hunk of green jasper stone?) in a story unless you're going to follow through and use it for your plot.
Schrödinger's Cat: there is a cat in a box with poison. It might be alive or it might be dead. You don't know until you open the box. The cat is both dead and alive for the observer until you do. The "many worlds" theory of quantum mechanics would say that the moment the box is opened, reality splits into two AUs, one in which the cat is alive and one in which the cat is dead.
Thanks for reading! Love to hear what you think.