Chapter XXXVI

Et Tu?

Had she truly been so foolish? Wooed by theatrics and pomp, by sly words and steamy rendezvous in the back of department-issued vehicles?

She had; she had happily danced and skipped along to the tune that her personal Pied Piper had played for her. Fawn Drex sat, hands frozen over the keys. She heard the words, heard them as clear as a bell. She heard the words, and her stomach turned sourly. Common sense, her training, came back to her slowly.

With the boy's outraged voices, she had linked the audio so they too could hear the confession, buzzing in her ears she mechanically began to report the incident, put out an A.P.B and call for back up to the location that the G.P.S gave her. The main frame of the LVPD recorded every word, gave it a time stamp, and set it to a unique file folder for later use. Her hands shook as she called the dispatcher. She didn't call officer down, because she didn't have visual confirmation. She did impress upon the dispatcher the severity of the situation and all available units were being called for. It was too late for Con and Renee, and far, far too late for Gillian, but maybe they could still save Sara Sidle.

Though they both had hotel rooms, Nick and Greg had ended up at Warrick's house. It was a messy mix of bachelor and father of three that suited the man. Greg paced, jerky motions that crossed the small living room back and forth, again and again. Nick was sitting, though just as upset. The words kept coming and they knew Sara was in danger. Warrick had tried to get a hold of Catherine and Sofia but neither woman had answered her phone. Greg stopped mid-stride when Gillian announced her desire to kill Sara. He looked from Warrick's face to Nick's and back again.

"We're not going to sit and watch that bitch screw Sara again, are we? Stand by while she murders another one of our friends?"

Warrick stood stock still for a moment and picked up the keys and the holstered service weapon he'd placed on the coffee table. "No."

They flew down the dark road, the blur becoming closer, more distinct. Catherine felt her heart pounding in her chest, hard and fast. Her jaw was clenched and she could feel acidic bile crawling up her throat. Sweat slid down her back, icy, and slick liquid fear. She held her gun with a tight grip, but her fingers still shook. Her ears were filled with the blare of the siren and her eyes were locked on whatever it was they were going towards. Her mind rushed ahead, trying to prepare itself for whatever she would see. How could she have been so blind for so long? It had been under her nose the entire time. She had once prided herself on her ability to read people, to make judgments. She was a trained investigator and a mother for God's sake! Yet, all of her so-called skills had failed her again and again. Eddie, Mike, and now Gillian: did she look for things that just weren't there? Could she not tell a good person, like Sara, from a bad? God, she didn't know. She did know, however, that she hated being made into a fool and Gillian Rayne had done just that. Now, if they weren't too late, she would be able to begin to right a few wrongs.

There wasn't enough time. She had been a step too slow, again, and now Sara was paying for it, again. Tipps and Montoya were also there, maybe hurt. God, they could be dead. As they got closer, she could see the rubber on the road and followed with her eyes. The car had gone off the road and into the ditch. Oh Jesus.

She could see two people standing, dimly illuminated by the lights. She began to slow down and pull to the side and wished that she hadn't given themselves away with the lights and sirens. She threw the car into park and wrenched the door open, her gun in hand. The embankment was steep and she could barely see because the desert night seemed to swallow up the headlights. Beside her a flash light beam pierced the dark, Catherine had remembered to bring her mag-lite.

"Sara!"

Between the light and her bellow, they'd given away their position. In Sofia's book that was a good thing, because as Gillian turned the gun towards them, she momentarily took Sara out of the bullet's deadly path.

Her name, in a yell, raspy and familiar, it was a sound that had echoed in her dreams time and time again. No, God no. Sofia was there, in danger. She didn't know, couldn't know, how twisted Gillian really was. She had killed, enjoyed it, and wanted more bodies to her name. She watched Gillian swing around, moving the gun away from her, and towards the light and sound of the oncoming figures. She was pointing the gun at Sofia.

Conscious choice is a funny thing. Sometimes time slowed down, allowing you a split second to fun through every possible choice and option. You could use or discard, make an informed decision. Sometimes you just snapped and chose the easiest route, or fulfilled a long held desire. There were other times, however, when the choice was made before one realized there was even an event to react to. She had experienced this particular sensation twice in her life. Once, she had been a kid and out on a school nature hike in the Tamales Bay Nature Reserve. They had been skirting around a steep hill that turned into a plunging cliff that dropped into the Pacific. One boy - she couldn't even remember his name now - had lost his footing. Before anyone had even raised a verbal alarm, she had literally jumped off the trail. She had slid, baseball style, down the hill and had caught the tumbling boy and had used the friction of her skin against the leaves and soil and a quick grab onto a sapling to stop them both a few scant feet before the wooded hill gave way to sheer cliff face.

The second time had been several years later. She had been with Jim Brass, going for a suspect and when they went into the sleazy apartment, she had followed, her own gun drawn. Jim had come down on her hard, especially since she had been the one to find him. She never remembered thinking about either of those potentially deadly decisions, or even moving to start. The realization that she was in the middle of an act of incredible bravery, or sheer stupidity, had come when the sequence of events and actions had gone too far to stop.

Sara Sidle would never remember making the decision or beginning to move. Later, much later, she would rationalize that the image of another person she loved about to be killed by the hands of Gillian Rayne was what galvanized her into acting, but she would never truly know. Between one rapid heartbeat and the next, she began to move. With her own name, falling from Sofia's lips, ringing in her ears, she lunged forward, ready to stop Gillian any way she could.

The gunshot pierced the night with a catastrophic blast, the white of the muzzle flash blinded the immediate viewers, and the acrid smoke filled the crisp air.

"SARA! NO!"

Author's Note: Personal experience there, not the holding people at gun point part, mind you.. I think pretty much everyone has had one of those doing something either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid without even thinking about it moments. I hate hiking.