A/N – It feels like a while since I updated even though it's only been a day and the reason for that was because my lovely, lovely parents decided that I shouldn't be allowed to write for a day to "make sure that [I] don't turn into a crazy cat lady" as my mother so eloquently put it which, by the way, will never happen namely because I have awesome friends who won't allow it.
When Police Officer Taylor finally saw Derek it was 9pm, Derek Wills had been kept waiting for an hour and by god was he annoyed "Mr Wills, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting,"
"Yes, I wanted to talk to you about something, my fiancé received a few threatening notes in the post and I was wondering what the police could do about it," Derek said sounding slightly frustrated.
"Okay, well then we can go into my office," and Derek was lead into a small office which was occupied by a desk, two chairs and a filing cabinet "Do you have these notes with you?"
"Yes," Derek replied and handed over the black cloth bag which held all three of the notes.
Office Taylor looked through the notes a horrified look appearing on his face as he read them; he'd met Karen Cartwright on several occasions during the investigation into Jimmy Collins prior to his trial and had found her to be a kind-hearted young woman who couldn't hurt a fly, "Well according to New York State Law this is harassment in the first degree which is basically a class B misdemeanour, so if we catch the person who's sending these then we can sentence them to imprisonment but there's no guarantee as to how long,"
"So basically after that we'd have to file for a restraining order," Derek said.
"If you feel that way inclined then yes. Now is there anyone you can think of that might do something like this?"
"There's Jimmy Collins but he's locked up in Sing Sing for twenty odd years so I doubt that. I'll admit the handwriting does look familiar but I just can't place where I know it from," Derek admitted.
"Could it be Jimmy's handwriting?" Officer Taylor asked.
"No, I'd recognise that from a mile away," Derek sighed.
"I'll look into our records and see if I can find any matches and I'll check with some of my FBI contacts as well but until I find a match for the handwriting there's nothing I can do,"
"Okay, well thank you for your time anyway," Derek said with a sigh and then left the room.
"At a push we could provide police protection,"
Meanwhile, back at the apartment, Karen was pacing the lounge floor wondering why in the world her husband had taken so long.
"Karen he'll be fine, he's probably gotten stuck in traffic," Tom tried to reassure her.
"Even in heavy traffic it only takes five minutes to get there and it'd only take another 5 minutes to get back," she exclaimed, her voice shaking with fear "What if something's happened to him? What if this psycho, whoever they are, has found him and… and…" she continued before bursting into tears of worry.
"Karen, Derek will be fine, we all know he can throw a punch or two, if anyone ever tried to do anything to him they'd be the one to come worse off," Sam told her as he guided her back to the couch.
None of the people in the room had ever seen Karen so scared or worried. She let her head rest in her hands as she sobbed; Ana and Sam rubbing her back to try and calm her down but it wasn't working. Julia, Ana, Tom and Sam all knew that she wouldn't be able to calm down until Derek arrived back to the apartment, safe and sound.
When the door creaked open about ten minutes later, Karen turned around and when she saw it was Derek she rushed over to him and practically fell into his arms "I was so scared that something had happened to you," she said softly, as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.
"It's okay, I'm okay, I'm here," he soothed as she sobbed in his arms, he stroked her hair as she cried into his chest until she'd run out of tears.
She let go of him and led him over to where everyone was sat.
"What did the police say?" Julia asked quietly.
"Well apparently until they can figure out who wrote the notes there's not much they can do and even when they do find out whom it is they can only get him on a class B misdemeanour which means they can only imprison him for a short period in time after which we're left to either get a restraining order, which doesn't guarantee anything, or we leave it," Derek explained.
"Right so in theory, the only way of getting him locked up for good is if they actually do something like try to murder one of you," Tom said sounding appalled at the thought of it.
"Basically, yes," Derek said quietly.
"So what? Karen's supposed to live in the fear of something actually happening until they catch this psycho?" Ana shouted sounding horrified.
"Well the police have agreed to provide protection for a while, until we're actually able to get some security," Derek announced.
An hour later, Julia, Tom, Sam and Ana left, feeling ever-so-slightly more comfortable with the situation their friend had been placed in and Karen and Derek sat on the couch for a while.
"How about we go to bed?" Derek suggested, knowing that they both needed the sleep.
"Okay," Karen sighed and Derek scooped her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom. He lay her down on the bed and got in after her wrapping his arms around her "What if the police protection isn't enough?" she asked fearfully "What if instead of coming after me, whoever this psycho is goes after you?"
"I don't know love, but we'll think of something," he said and with that they both fell asleep.
The next morning Karen woke up and went downstairs to make coffee, she had heavy bags under her eyes from the fitful sleep she'd had the night before. Just as she was turning the coffee pot on, the phone rang. She picked it up and all she could hear was the sound of heavy breathing so she hung up. 'Must be a prank call,' she thought to herself. Then the phone rang again and she picked it up "THANK YOU FOR PICKING UP KAREN CARTWRIGHT. NOW JUST REMEMBER THAT I WILL KILL YOU," said a computerized voice.
"Who the hell are you?" Karen shouted, her voice shaking with fear.
"SOMEONE YOU'VE PISSED OFF," the voice said again "AND NOT EVEN THE POLICE WILL BE ABLE TO HELP YOU. YOUR LOVELY FIANCE WILL BE IN MOURNING FOREVER," and then she heard a maniacal laugh.
"You're crazy, that's all you are you're a psychopathic bastard," she said her voice filled with fear.
"I'M NOT CRAZY I'M JUST VERY ANGRY!" the voice exclaimed loudly.
At that point Derek came into the kitchen and upon seeing the look of sheer terror on his wife's face he grabbed the phone "Listen here, you little weasel, if you continue to harass Karen I swear to god I will beat you to a pulp, you got that?" Derek shouted, there was silence on the other end of the line and Derek hung up the phone "You okay?" he asked Karen.
"Yeah just a little freaked out," she said her voice shaking slightly; at that admission he pulled her into a big hug and kissed her forehead.
"I'll get the number changed," he told her.
"No," she said, shaking her head at the offer.
"But it'll prevent the harassment," he said.
"Yeah, but the cops could still trace the number to the location the call was made from and therefore catch the psycho," she said quietly.
"Beautiful and intelligent, how did I ever get so lucky to marry a girl like you?" he said sweetly.
"You understood love," she told him with a smile.