A/N: I don't know what to say, y'all. Sometimes I gotta live real life for a while, and I have complications from long-term Diabetes (35 yrs), which includes Neuropathy in my eyes. So once every four weeks, I have to go to an Ophthalmologist to have an injection into my right eye, in the hopes of maintaining my vision. Here I am, though, alive and well.

I have other VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESS to share, folx. I have finally set up an account for myself on AO3! That was where I wanted to have my account back when I got started, but I didn't have the patience to go through the setup. However, I have always preferred their layout and format, so it was always on my To Do Someday list. Now it's done. My pen name there is exactly the same as here. All of my stories are already moved there, tagged and categorized, EXCEPT the stories that are "on hiatus." That means Partners Almanac, Equinox and AskMeAnything are only going to be on Fanfiction for now.

Once I finish Diverge, I will ONLY be posting NEW content on AO3, and NO LONGER cross-posting. This will INCLUDE any new chapters for Eight Days a Week. I am not going to delete my Fanfiction account. I hope this is not a huge problem for anyone, but you never know. Get in touch with me if you have questions. I am also bouncing around the idea of setting up a KOFI account, in case any of you would like to throw spare change in my direction in support of my work. If that's something you would consider, please let me know in a comment.

Add this to the address for AO3 to find me: /users/HeartEyes4Mariska/

I have missed you folx. On to the story.

Rating: T, this chapter

Spoilers: None

Trigger warnings: Discussion of homicide, dementia, medical assault and rape; prison setting, coercion, predatory behavior.

The Least Seen

The Michigan cold penetrated everything, and the interrogation room of the Adrian PD was no exception, even with bars over windows that could not open. Inside the slate grey room, Rhoda sat in a bright orange jumpsuit on a side of the wide square table. One of her booted feet was bouncing rapidly, diverting her anxiety. On the other side of the table, Olivia and Amanda filled two chairs, their expressions somber.

"You mind if I smoke?" Rhoda asked, nodding toward the pack she had laid on the table.

"Go ahead," Liv told her.

Outside the room, an Adrian PD officer lifted a fist to knock and remind the women that there was no smoking in the building. It was Fin who stopped them, touching their forearm abruptly.

"Let her smoke," he said, "she'll talk."

Liv said, "I think it's time you tell us how you and Vince met, Rhoda."

The brunette lit her cigarette and drew on it thoughtfully. When she began, it was in the middle of a thought, as if they had already been talking for some time in that cold, severe room.

"When Mama got sick, I took care of her. My sisters sure as hell weren't gonna, so that left me, and I did it til Mama died. I wasn't surprised when the lawyer said that all the money was left to my sisters . . . but I was mad as hell when they wanted to sell the house." She exhaled a lungful of smoke, flicked her ashes right onto the floor. "They had their own houses, and Mama was all that I'd had – which I guess isn't sayin' much. I told 'em I'd agree to it if they gave me enough from the sale to get my nursing degree, and so that was that.

"Now, I ain't no bright bulb, but nursing – " Rhoda shrugged, "it was just somethin' I could do. Even the book stuff wasn't so bad, and soon enough I was done. Plenty of jobs for nurses, of course, but I didn't have any plans for a high-powered career; I just wanted a job, you know? So I bopped around for a bit, tryin' on this and that . . . seein' what I could put up with, I s'pose." She flicked more ashes, looked up, past Liv's shoulder toward the window. Outside, it was snowing again.

"Eventually, I got comfortable at a, whattaya call it . . . " her cigarette twirled around as she circled her wrist, "a hospice center. It was just old people - like takin' care of Mama, just over and over."

Liv nodded. "Here, in Adrian?"

Rhoda shook her head. "This was up in Bad Axe, about three hours North'a here. I worked there for years – kept my head down, never asked for anything special. Every day was like the same day. Then, one day about four . . . almost five years along, Vince came along. His own mama was put into the care home, and she was on my ward, so I saw started seein' him there. Sometimes four or more evenings a week, and I thought it was strange, somehow – a man, tendin' to his mama like that. I had never seen that. Lord knows my sisters' men would never sit bedside, even if they were dyin'."

"What was his mother's name?" Rollins broke in quietly.

"Donna - same's my own mama," Rhoda recalled, a small smile surfacing and then falling away. "She was a sweet lady, too - nicer than my own mother, even. But she had the Alzheimer's. Awful, awful!" Rhoda flicked ashes angrily and shook her head, her face darkening. "Watchin' somebody disappear like that is a living hell. It's no way for even a dog to die, let alone somebody's mama. Every time she slipped a little farther away, I saw Vince get emptier. He would stop eatin', lose weight, the whole nine.

"After a while, it was like I traded takin' care of his mama for takin' care of him." Her brows knitted together as she chose her explanation carefully. "I mean, it wasn't like I could do anything more for Donna, y'know?" Rhoda paused, savoring her smoke, looking at her hands. "Now, I had never been with anyone – man or woman – just got by on watchin' the younger nurses come and go. Every year I got older, nurse's skirts got an inch shorter," she chuckled. "Vince ain't much to look at, 'course, but he was clean . . . loved his mama, and never tried anything with me. Besides, making sure he ate, making conversation, put a little change in my routine. I told him all about my mama, and my bitchy sisters – and he actually listened. For the first time in my whole life, I felt like maybe I wasn't th'freak everyone thought I was."

"How long did that go on?" Liv asked.

"Maybe four months." Stubbing the cigarette out on the tabletop, she pulled a fresh one from the pack and put it in her mouth, but without lighting it. It dangled from her lips, bouncing as she spoke: "That long, at least, before he floated the idea of killin' his mama."

Amanda leaned forward. "It was his idea?"

Rhoda furrowed her brows. "I – I'mean, I dunno? He might've brought it up, but I was the one who stewed on it. I was the one with the means. When it was all said and done, I did it, but Vince was there. He knew."

Amanda's heart sank a little, knowing how badly Liv was attached to the idea of Rhoda as a victim.

"It took a while, to make real sure that Vince wanted it. Took more, to make the perfect circumstance. He didn't want Donna to be in pain, so the classic pillow routine was out . . . and even though I wasn't thinking 'bout the long term, then, we weren't looking to get caught right away either." She lit the cigarette. "Finally, I worked it all out: other nurse's schedules, the drugs, all the details. Vince made sure we did it on the first bad day Donna had after a good one; he wanted to make sure she had remembered him one last time, but not on the day she died.

"It was quiet. Painless. Quick. I had seen so many mothers die by that time," she shook her head, "and a lot of 'em not even so comfortable as Mama Donna. I put the meds in her IV, changed a few notes in her chart. Vince sat with her until they came to take her away to the morgue, holdin' her cold hand until they wheeled her out."

"What did you give her?" Liv asked, a pen poised over her notepad.

"Nembutal. Well, pentobarbital nowadays."

"There wasn't an autopsy?" Liv's voice was clipped, strictly business.

"No. It was hospice care – everyone in the place was dyin', and most of 'em didn't even have visitors. Once they died, people cared even less what caused it. She was moved, cremated and her file was closed by the time the bed and room were cleaned the next morning." More ashes fluttered to the floor, and Rhoda glanced at them expressionlessly. "I went with Vince when he scattered her ashes. It was near some pond that his mama liked to feed ducks. I remember thinking about what might happen if the ducks got it in their heads to eat the ashes. That was the day that Vince suggested we take off.

"He said he wanted to get out of Bad Axe; wanted to take his inheritance money and start a business somewhere where the hunting was good and the Winters were good and cold." She snorted, "Like it didn't get cold enough in Bad Axe to freeze your fuckin' ass off. My life had been the same, every day for nearly six years, so I didn't care much where I went or why. Any change seemed like winning the lottery.

"So I quit the long-term care home. For the first few weeks we were gone, I worried about throwin' up red flags, but I guess the other nurses assumed I had finally found some money to marry in Vince. They even gave me a farewell card like it was some grand romance. And to be honest, the first night we rolled up in the parking lot of some Super 8, I figured that was it – he was finally gonna make a move and I'd have'ta shit or get off the pot. We talked about sex for the first time that night.

"I tried to explain to him, how I felt about sex . . . and about men. I figured it was a toss-up whether he would nod and move on, or whether he'd kick me out on my own. Instead, he spun me his whole story about how he had a weird relationship with sex himself – not that I knew what that meant, then – and that maybe that was why we'd met in the first place.

"We left it at that, and cruised on into Adrian after a brief stop in Detroit. It didn't take as long as I'd imagined for Vince to get his car business going, but it did take some time for him to start turning enough of a profit to keep him from being on edge all the time. He wanted that cabin in the woods, and patience was never his strong suit. It wasn't long after that he started working on me, and the idea of helping me . . . sexually." Rhoda tamped out her second smoke and averted Liv and Amanda's eyes.

"It started out that he would tamper with the rentals, figurin' the women would have to return for service or to swap. But he didn't like the idea of attacking them in the shop, so he started combining the tampering with following them. When the women ran into car trouble, he would be johnny-on-the-spot. Then he'd knock 'em out, have his way, steal their wallets and let them go after threatening to hunt 'em down if they talked."

Liv's dark eyes were tired. "He told you he was assaulting and raping them?"

"Not in those words, but I knew what was going on."

Olivia exhaled heavily and scratched notes.

"After he had made off with enough, money-wise, he bought the cabin he wanted. That's when the women started comin' more regular. He'd bring them to the woods, and stretch his time with them over a couple days. One day he came home with medical supplies, sedative . . . explained to me he wanted me to keep the girls out of it while he . . . taught me. For a long time, all I did was watch. I guess Vince didn't want me sharin' in his fun, but after some time he had me join in. I also took over bein' the one who knocked 'em out on the highway, since Vince said I knew how to do it just so – hard enough to do the job, but not so hard that they needed nursing."

Liv narrowed her gaze. "How many women, Rhoda?"

"I never kept any real records," she replied, "but . . . includin' the ones before he bought the cabins, I'd ballpark nearly thirty."

Amanda sighed. "How many were killed?"

"Only the last three."

Olivia made a disgusted noise and sat up straighter. Ripping paper from the notepad, she pushed it across the table to Rhoda. "We're going to need names. As many as you can remember." Rhoda simply nodded. Liv flattened her palms on the table and leaned forward, her dark eyes on the unflinching woman. "Did Vince rape you, Rhoda? Did he – he beat you, threaten to kill you if you left? Were you too terrified to go to the police - or to tell him no?"

Rhoda's eyes widened as she was forced to look at Liv's face. "Wh – no! I mean, he grabbed my boobs once in a while, when he had a woman at the cabin and we were all together . . . but from day one to the end, Vince never did try'n fuck me. We both had access to the shotgun. He never beat me; only time he even raised his voice was when I fucked up, or he was impatient to get goin'."

"So you loved him?" Liv tried.

Rhoda made a face. "Not – not like that. Until you and your wife came along, I never met anyone in person who was – you know, like, like me. Who liked women."

"We're not – " Liv started, but Rollins hand grabbed her knee beneath the table and squeezed, hard, stopping her short.

Rhoda looked from the blonde, blue-eyed Rollins to the dark brunette, her own eyes pleading for a kind of commiseration. "I just didn't want to have nobody, like after Mama died."

Metal on concrete, Olivia pushed back her chair and got to her feet, her notepad fisted into a stranglehold. "I need a break," she announced flatly, and left the other two where they sat. Rhoda picked up Liv's abandoned pen and looked at the paper in front of her. Then she met Amanda's gaze.

"Could I have some coffee?"

Rollins got up. "I'll see what I can find," she said quietly, then made her own exit.

At the precinct's coffee station, Liv was pouring coffee into a styrofoam cup with trembling hands. She pushed the carafe noisily back into the coffee maker and rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead.

"I just don't get it," she said. "She could've left. At any time! She could've turned herself in, or let the women escape!"

Amanda poured coffee and grabbed sugar packs and creamers, letting Olivia get her frustration off her chest. They walked alongside each other, back in the direction of interrogation.

"I know you don't believe it's really that simple," Amanda told her gently. "D'you see how flat – how detached that woman is? She talks about rape and murder like she's being interviewed for a People article!"

"That doesn't make it okay."

"Of course not. But I know you wanted her to somehow be less . . . complicit in it all. She's guilty; all I'm saying is, I can understand how the right catalyst could start somebody down a road like that."

They stopped at the two-way glass beside the interrogation room door. Liv looked at Rollins skeptically, then at Rhoda, scribbling away. "How's that?"

"Growing up somewhere you can't wait to get away from, bein' the least seen kid out of your siblings. Taking the obvious career choice and keepin' your head down, until something happens that you can't anymore. So you finally leave, but you have no idea how to be alone . . . I mean, truly alone, not-needed alone. Then somebody comes along – anybody – and you just keep slammin' that square peg at the round hole, dyin' to fill up the empty place . . . until you realize that every morning after is just the same walk of shame.

"Knowing that you've always been different, but you kept yourself busy enough to not think about it. Never meeting anyone else that reassures you that you're not crazy, or out of place. All that takes a toll on a person," Rollins shrugged.

The look on Olivia's face was rather unreadable, so Amanda turned to the door with Rhoda's coffee. As she turned the knob, Liv murmured: "But you never assaulted or murdered anyone."

Rollins paused. "I could have gone a lot of other ways. Especially if I'd met someone like Vince in a vulnerable moment, who told me I was going to be fine. Who took me as I was."

The interrogation room door clicked shut softly behind Rollins, and Liv's gaze followed after her, through the glass.

TBC