Hunting Grounds
Chapter 21
Kate was caught between a rock and a hard place. She knew Lanie had seen her walk out of her bedroom stark naked, and had found Rick in her apartment. She knew Lanie could only reach one conclusion with all of that.
"Rick is… Rick is… He's my boyfriend." Granted, they hadn't talked about it, but he was. He really was, and at that moment, she realized that she liked having a boyfriend. Rick was so much better than any of her other boyfriends, and it wasn't just the sex, though that certainly helped.
"Boyfriend." Lanie's smile got wider as she looked between Kate and Rick. "The man you were found with in Maine, after disappearing on us for weeks. Wait, was he a boyfriend before you disappeared? You vanish from a SWAT site and end up in Maine, and now he's your boyfriend?" Lanie thought she was onto something.
"NO! Rick wasn't my boyfriend then. We told the truth about waking up and finding ourselves together unexpectedly, lost in the woods." It just wasn't the woods in Maine. Though they were a little lost there, too. Just not that lost.
"And he's in your kitchen, fully clothed, while you're walking around naked." Lanie grinned at her.
"What do you want, Lanie?" Kate didn't need to be talking about being comfortable naked in Rick's presence in her apartment.
"I did come over here to try and boost your spirits about being suspended for a week. After I found out from Javi instead of you. But I see you've found comfort." Lanie's smile got a little bigger.
Kate groaned and walked past her into the kitchen. Rick had started the coffeemaker, and she could really use a cup. So she took one out of the cabinet and poured herself a cup of coffee.
"Montgomery was unhappy with me, so he suspended me. It's not like I was going to let whoever killed Royce just get away with it. Just my luck, I ran into a case Royce was working on that involved dissolving bullets developed by accident."
"Dissolving bullets?" Lanie stared at her. That was something she didn't know about. "Actual dissolving bullets?"
"Yeah, those things were an accident and not designed, thankfully. Can you imagine what would happen if the wrong people got their hands on those things?"
"Even I have enough imagination for that." Lanie could just imagine all kinds of trouble for the police with those things. "Well, since you've found someone to comfort you during your suspension, I'll leave you, and let him comfort you. Clothed or not." Lanie grinned at her and headed for the door.
Lanie stopped in front of Rick. "Do not hurt her, or I swear, I'll hurt you bad."
"I wouldn't think of it," he said quietly.
"We will talk later, girlfriend. When you're not running around your apartment naked." Lanie got in her last jab and left.
Rick raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. "Best friend, huh?"
"Sometimes I wonder." Lanie really knew how to press her buttons. Just about then, Rick took her coffee away from her and set it on the counter. Then Kate found his arms around her. Naturally, she slipped hers around him.
"Boyfriend now, am I?" Rick was going to have fun with this.
"Oh, shut up and kiss me." Kate thankfully found herself being kissed.
Rick's smile was a little crooked. "You realize this makes you my girlfriend."
Kate's response was to kiss him again.
[_] /\ [_]
Thankfully her suspension, and by default Rick's suspension, was over. After a quick blow job, they were both dressed and riding the elevator up to the fourth floor to go back to work.
"You're thinking very loudly over there," Kate mentioned even if Rick hadn't said a word since they had entered the elevator.
"Just enjoying having a girlfriend, is all," Rick told her. And that had Kate grinning. But then the doors opened. Kate put on her work face and went to her desk.
Since they had used the coffeemaker at home, Rick didn't go get coffee this morning and sat in his chair.
It didn't take long. Espo was the first one in. "You're back."
"Someone has to keep you out of trouble, Espo," Kate countered. Bantering with him and even Ryan, was normal for them.
"A little birdie tells me you have a boyfriend," Espo called over his shoulder and headed to his desk.
"I'll kill her." That little birdie could only be Lanie. "Who else knows?"
"You mean besides everyone in the precinct, including Montgomery?" Espo was enjoying this.
"I take it back. Death is too good for her." Kate sat there and stewed.
"Relax, Beckett," Espo attempted to calm her. "Montgomery didn't say anything. There might be a few rules for you two, but nothing else."
"You mean like no sex on her desk?" Rick offered since it was looking like Kate was off balance.
"RICK!" Now she wondered if she wanted him as a boyfriend.
Then Roy showed up. "Beckett, Rodgers, my office." Roy walked into his office, sat down, and waited.
"It's all over the precinct. Rodgers isn't under my authority. However, I don't want any PDA in the precinct. Not at your desk, on the stairs, in the broom closet, or anywhere else. Do I make myself clear?"
"You do, sir," Kate said.
"Loud and clear, sir," Rick added.
"Good. Now get to work. And Beckett, welcome back. Just don't do something stupid like that again, or it'll be a lot longer than a week," Roy advised her.
"Yes, sir." Kate heard that crystal clear.
"You staying here, Rodgers?"
"The plan is for one more week, sir. Then I'm moving to the 54th for a few days. My orders are to cover all of the NYPD. Which means I have to visit other precincts." He didn't have a set schedule to work with, only that he had to hit all of the precincts within a set time frame. How long he stayed there was also up in the air.
"That's all." Roy dismissed the pair of them.
Kate made it back to her desk. "The 54th?" She thought he would always be at her desk.
"My orders do cover all of the NYPD, Kate. So I need to visit all of the precincts at some point."
She wasn't happy about that, but at least she got to keep him. So she turned her attention to her computer, turned it on, and went through her email.
[_] /\ [_]
"Beauty Pageant?" Rick asked. It was looking like this case definitely wasn't his style.
"Miss Illinois, Amber Middleberry. She checked into a hotel, was last seen there, and ended up here," Ryan explained.
"Then how did she end up on this thing?" Rick pointed at the lighting device she was on.
"She was strangled by her own sash," Perlmutter said, "sometime between 1:00 am and 3:00 am."
"So our killer kills her down here, puts her on this thing, and lifts her into the rafters." Kate looked up. "That can't be easy."
Ryan shot that down. "Yes, it can. It's controlled by a touch screen tablet. Easy to use."
"Any family?" Kate inquired.
"Just her father." He pointed at the man who was talking to someone from the pageant.
[_] /\ [_]
"Yo. You two need to see this." Espo called them over to his desk. "This is recorded from last night's dinner. That's Amber with the mic." Espo played it and they listened to her speech. And then Espo froze it. "Look at that face."
"Whatever he said, she didn't like it," Kate commented.
"Look again," Espo urged them. "Pay closer attention to his jacket. Look familiar?"
"A black sequin like the one we found in her hair." Kate was smiling now because they had a lead.
[_] /\ [_]
"Beauty queens and naked pictures." Rick looked at the whiteboard. "So far, I've learned one thing."
Kate smiled at him. "Do tell, Rick."
"If I ever have children and she says anything about beauty pageants, I'm locking her in her room till she's 30," Rick vowed and listened to Kate snort out a laugh.
"As helpful as that is, that doesn't help us find our killer," Kate muttered.
Then Roy showed up. "Kate, you're a woman, right?"
She stopped him before he could go any farther. "Sir, I have no idea what you should get your wife for your anniversary."
"And I'm just as single as she is. Though listening to the guys that are married, you need to get her what she asked for when she thought you weren't listening," Rick suggested.
"What if I really wasn't listening?" Roy asked desperately.
Rick closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. "Murder mystery. Yours."
"Why am I asking you two?" Roy grumbled as he went back to his office.
Ryan came up. "Jeremy Kyper. According to his mother, he moved to New York City last month. Told her he wanted to make something of himself."
"Like a blackmailer and a murderer?" Rick offered.
[_] /\ [_]
Kate pounded on the door. "Jeremy Kyper, NYPD." Except when she did, the door moved. That got Kate to pull her weapon, followed by Rick.
She went first. "Jeremy Kyper? Anyone here?" It was even smaller than her apartment. It only had the one room, not including the bathroom.
"Kate." Rick had found something. "Looks like he hadn't given up on her." There were pictures of Amber all over the wall, some of which showed her naked. Except when he tapped one of the pictures, it turned out to be a door that moved.
Kate had her weapon ready and nodded at Rick, who opened the door. Shocked, they found Jeremy hanging from a hook on the bathroom door.
[_] /\ [_]
Cops took pictures, and Perlmutter was on the scene now. "Murder-suicide?" Rick queried.
"Not suicide," Perlmutter informed them. "He has two marks on his neck. One is strangulation, and the other is from the hanging."
Kate nodded thoughtfully. "So the hanging is meant to cover up the strangulation. Time of death?"
"Given his body temperature and decomposition of the body, about a half-day before Amber," the grouchy ME informed them.
"Before Amber?" Rick asked since that meant Kyper had been killed first.
"YES!" Perlmutter yelled. Hadn't he just said that?
"YO!" Espo got their attention. "His hard drive has been wiped." Hearing that, Kate's mouth fell open.
"Our best suspect is killed before Amber? But if those pictures were on his hard drive, why did they leave the ones on his door?" None of it made sense to Kate. "What are we missing here?"
[_] /\ [_]
Kate went home with Rick. She saw him go over to her laptop and thought he was going to talk to Rosie.
"We still have food from my suspension. Do you want me to cook?" she asked him.
When he didn't answer her, she walked over to see what he was looking at. "Rick, what are you doing?" He was looking at pictures of naked women. He had her, so why did he need them?
"I had a thought on the way home. You see this picture? Now ignore the woman in it; what do you see?"
"I don't know. The background of where she was naked," Kate told him. "Where she was naked," Kate said softly. "We need to look at those pictures again." Kate was catching on to what Rick was thinking.
It meant going back to the precinct instead of being home and eating. Now they were both sitting there looking at naked pictures with a magnifying glass each, to look at the background.
Kate found something. "RICK! Does this look familiar?"
He smiled at her. "Yes, as a matter of fact, it does."
[_] /\ [_]
Kate and Rick were back in the precinct the next morning. "Barron didn't kill her, and Candice didn't kill her, unless their alibis fall apart."
"Is it always this hard?" Rick inquired. Kate ignored him and gave orders to Espo.
"We're out of suspects, so either it's someone we don't know about yet, or someone's lying to us." Rick changed suspects. "The trophy wife was angry at her husband for having those pictures in their bedroom in the Hamptons. So, was she angry enough to kill instead of throwing things at him?"
"RYAN!" Kate yelled. She had something for him to do right now.
[_] /\ [_]
"Not her. I'm really starting to hate this job," Rick complained.
"Murderers don't want to get caught," Kate told him. "We just have to find out where they screwed up."
"Well, someone is lying to us," Rick pointed out.
[_] /\ [_]
"Wow, look at you!" Evelyn walked into Roy's office dressed to the nines.
"Dinner and dancing, and that was after that anniversary gift he gave me." Evelyn was so happy that she was beaming.
"What did you get her, sir?" Kate was curious since last she knew he didn't have a clue.
"What she talked about some two years ago," Roy said. "Come next year I'm retiring."
"Retiring?" Ryan and Espo had shown up at the door. "Sir?" Ryan didn't believe it.
"I've taught you four all I know. It's time to move on and teach whoever." Roy kissed his wife and kept his arm around her waist.
"A little vacation here and there. Go places we always talked about." Evelyn was so happy.
"We have to get going." Roy was ready to leave. "Oh, and good work on that pageant case. Never suspected him."
"Retirement?" Espo couldn't believe it.
"Relax, Roy retires all the time. Just give it a week or two. Trust me, he isn't going anywhere," Kate told them and left his office. "He's like the Brett Favre of the NYPD.
"Let's go home, Rick. I have plans for you." Kate looped her arm through his. That wasn't PDA so far as she was concerned. She wasn't kissing him. She was just holding onto him. She didn't want him going anywhere but with her, wherever that was.
[_] /\ [_]
Rick had Kate downstairs, and they both watched as their new truck was taken out of the enclosed car carrier. "What do you think?" Rick was positively thrilled. It looked just like he remembered it, military green and in perfect shape. Some of it was old, but a lot of it was new: new suspension matching the old, new paint, new tires, new equipment in case of a flat. But he got the old engine with a few new parts, the old gauges, and the old transmission, also with some new parts.
Kate thought it was as ugly in person as it had been in the picture. But she could tell from Rick's voice that he loved this truck. "Where's my cushion?"
"I haven't bought it yet, but I will, I promise. It's delivered without gas in the tank so I need to go get some." Rick saw the look on her face. "It's a requirement of the shipping company. It's safer that way."
"Oh." So now they had a double-parked truck with a double-parked trailer, and they couldn't move it because it didn't have any gas.
"I already have insurance for it. That was a challenge, let me tell you. Who insures a 1953 Army truck?" That had been Rick's biggest issue so far. "Tomorrow I'm going to go and look at that house."
Kate blinked in surprise. "But I don't have tomorrow off."
"You don't trust me? I thought we wanted to move the ship as soon as possible. It might be safe there now, but for how much longer? Besides, we are using my money."
"I trust you, I trust you!" She trusted him with her life. He had already saved it back on that alien planet "Just make sure you're happy with it and try and get a good price. That ship is costing us a fortune." Kate was including herself and his money in this purchase.
"It'll be great! We'll have some place we can retreat to for a vacation, to get out of the city and enjoy the wildlife," Rick enthused since they were doing this. "It'll be quiet and smog-free."
Kate admitted that it sounded nice. "Okay, go get your gas and park it somewhere. Then go see the house and make an offer." She suddenly found Rick hugging her. That was a part of Rick she hadn't seen. He sounded and acted like a kid. He was happy, so she was happy.
"When I get back, I'll be spending time at the 54th. It's part of my orders," he reminded her. "But the 12th is my home. And you." Rick kissed her.
"Alright." He would still come home to her. She would just miss him sitting next to her desk. Plus he had worked to be here at all.
"Remember to use that device on your truck before you leave. They might know you bought that thing."
"Already thought of that."
"I'm happy that you're happy. Just get me that cushion, or you're traveling alone," Kate threatened, and all he did was kiss her again.
[_] /\ [_]
Kate had gotten all the sex out of him she was going to. Both last night and again this morning. Rick had gone out and got gas earlier in the evening. There was just enough to move it to a parking place on the street. This morning he was traveling to Maine in that thing. She thought he was nuts, but she wasn't going to stop him.
Right now, she was standing in the kitchen sipping her morning coffee, watching Rick walk around the apartment with his bug detector. "Still clean." Next he retreated to the bedroom and came out with a small weekend bag she had let him use.
Seven hours out, seven hours back, plus whatever time he spent there. So he was staying the night somewhere. And then, once he got back, he would go to the 54th for the day. Or two, or even three, and come home to her at the end of the day.
"This better be worth it," Kate told him.
"The alternative is to hand it over to the government or find a way to blow it up. The only part I don't like about this is that we're responding to events instead of being proactive.
"You know, we could take the ship and go exploring. Take Rosie with us, and see what's out there. Name the ship Enterprise and go look." Rick wasn't sure if he meant it or not.
Kate decided to glare at him for that idea. "Go buy the house, Captain Kirk. But if you kiss a girl while you're gone, I swear I'll kill you."
"I'm touched that you care." Rick placed a hand over his heart and smiled at her.
"Just get going, mister. The sooner you do this, the sooner you're back. Remember, I'll be here waiting." Kate couldn't help but be afraid that something terrible was going to happen. This ship was proving to be a pain.
"I promise." Rick put his arms around her and kissed her.
Kate watched him leave. She sighed and then rinsed out her coffee cup. It was time to go. She collected her bag and headed into the precinct. She had spent most of her time with no partner, but now she had one and had gotten used to having him around. This was going to feel weird.
So far, Lanie hadn't bothered her much about Rick. But Kate just knew that was coming soon.
[_] /\ [_]
"Hey, Beckett! The records for Lockwood's transfer were forged," Espo said.
Ryan frowned. "The only ones with access are prison officers and clerical staff."
"So, it's bribe or blackmail. Get a full financial background on every officer there," Kate told them both. "Somebody had to be pretty desperate to get him transferred," She watched them walk away to get started on it.
Her trip to Rikers had just turned into a new case, and she could smell her mother's murder all over it.
[_] /\ [_]
Since Lockwood had killed someone in prison, he was going to arraignment immediately to determine what to do with him and Kate had left the 12th to watch it.
While she sat there, she was watching several officers sitting right up front. She leaned forward a little. "They're wearing chrome. We use brass collar insignias." There were three of them. "Everybody down!" Kate reached to pull out her weapon, but just then, a flash bang went off, and it knocked her to the floor.
Kate floundered but managed to go through the doors. The damn thing had worked on her and not them. She stumbled right into Lockwood's chains. "Where?" She didn't see them, but a woman pointed, and Kate staggered in the direction she indicated.
Down the stairs, she went to the lobby. A fucking helicopter! Shit like this did not happen. She ran as best she could toward the doors as the helicopter took off. Once outside, she fired her weapon at it till her clip was empty. Frustrated and angry, she watched it fly away.
[_] /\ [_]
"Yours?" Espo questioned as he put a finger in the hole in a helicopter.
"Yeah." She had emptied her weapon into this thing and watched it just fly away.
"It was stolen and returned even before it was reported as missing. If it wasn't for the holes and the smell of bleach, we still wouldn't know where it was," Ryan told her. "Oh, yeah. The owner is sailing in the Caribbean with his family."
"Well, check him anyway and figure out who he knows," Kate told the two of them. "They used his helicopter for a reason."
[_] /\ [_]
They had a lead from Financials. "NYPD!" Espo yelled just before they broke down the door, and they charged in with weapons drawn.
[_] /\ [_]
"The bullet entered through the back of the head and exited through the front. Time of death was around 9:00 last night," Lanie informed her.
"That was the DOJ," Ryan told everyone. "That $50k wire transfer was from the United Arab Emirates before it ended up in his account. The Dubai branch of a Swiss bank."
[_] /\ [_]
Roy knew what was coming, and he needed to take one last shot at getting Kate to stop.
"We speak for the dead. That's the job. We're all they've got once a loved one is gone. We owe them that, but we don't owe them our lives. Dying to try and solve a murder doesn't solve anything. You just become another dead body."
"You're saying we can't win this." Kate didn't want to believe it. She needed this guy; she had to have this guy.
"I spent most of my life walking behind this badge. I can tell you this for a fact. There are no victories, only the battle. The best you can hope for is to find someplace to make your stand. You have found someone, Kate. He deserves all of you. You could let him stand with you. Don't throw him away."
[_] /\ [_]
Roy got his marching orders directly from Lockwood that night. Either his family lived, or Beckett did. He had a choice to make, or he and his family could all die tonight.
Roy needed to formulate a plan, and he thought it might end up with him dead. But he needed to protect his family and Beckett. Everything he had got packaged up and sent out. Getting his weapons of choice ready, he needed to go through with this.
[_] /\ [_]
"How does Yanovich afford a bar on a retirement of a cop's salary?" Espo questioned after Ryan found him.
"Let's ask him," Espo decided. "Just us." He looked at Kate who was totally lost in this. She wasn't even the same person. She had changed who she was.
[_] /\ [_]
"Beckett, I think we have a lead. Meet me at that hangar where we found that stolen chopper, and I'll explain everything there." Roy needed to get her moving. Now he had one more phone call to make. He needed him to show up and be close.
[_] /\ [_]
"You know it's him. You know it," Ryan told Espo after a short argument because they both couldn't believe it, but it was the truth. "Oh, God! Beckett!" If Ryan was right, Beckett was dead. Maybe tonight.
[_] /\ [_]
Kate got a text. "3rd cop, it's Montgomery." She saw her captain was armed and instantly thought he was here to kill her.
"I'm not going to jail, Kate. I can't put my family through that." Roy wasn't here to kill her. He was here to save her.
"Why?" This didn't make sense to her.
Roy tried to tell his story. "I was a rookie when it happened. To me, McCalister and Raglan were like heroes. I believed in what we were doing. Snatched Pulgatti that night. Armen wasn't even supposed to be there. Armen reached for my gun. I didn't even know it was my weapon that killed him.
"Then McCalister had me to one side. 'It's okay, kid, it's not your fault.' McCalister and Raglan put it all aside and gave up. I put it all into the job and became the best cop I could ever be. Then you walked into the 12th. And I was saved."
"Did you kill my mother?" Kate was going to pull her weapon and try if he said yes.
"No, that was years later. But Johanna died because of what we did that night. I don't know how, but he found out what we had done. He could have turned us all in and sent us to prison for life. Instead, he blackmailed us. All he wanted was the money. And he took that money to become what he is. God forgive me, I helped him get there." They had all saved themselves and let him become what he was.
"Give me a name. You owe me that, Roy." Kate took two steps closer.
"I give you that name, and you'll run right for him and get yourself killed. I might as well shoot you where you stand." Roy knew he had more than just Lockwood.
Kate challenged him. "That's why you brought me here, isn't it? To kill me."
"No! I brought you here to get them."
"You baited them. I'm bait?" Kate wasn't sure she believed that.
"They're coming to kill you, and I'm not going to let them. I'm going to end this." They could both see the lights of an SUV headed their way. They were in the dark, and so couldn't be seen just yet.
"I'm not going anywhere." This? This was her fight.
"Yes, you are. RODGERS, GET HER OUT OF HERE!" Roy could see Rick walking toward them. It was just that he had a weapon in his hand.
Kate turned, and it stunned her to see him. He was supposed to be looking at a house way out in Maine. He couldn't be back yet. Not till tomorrow at best.
Roy stood straight and looked at him. "This is why I called you here."
"I have a different plan, Roy." Suddenly Kate's weapon was taken from her. By Rick. The thought of betrayal crossed her mind. She loved him, she really did. He couldn't do this to her.
"Turn around, Kate. Turn around," Rick said. Kate slowly turned to face the car that was coming.
God, the man she loved, the man she trusted with her life, was selling her out! Then without warning, her hands were pulled behind her back by him, and he was behind her. He was actually going to sell her out!
Much to her surprise, her weapon was put in her hand. "You are cuffed behind your back." Rick whispered with his lips by her ear. He stayed behind her as he spoke to Montgomery.
"I have a new plan, Roy. You're going to make a deal with the FBI. You don't want your family to suffer as you go through a trial and end up in jail. Yet you think they're better off with you dead.
"Dead, they're broken and sobbing from your loss. Arrested, they're shocked, but they don't lose you. Your family loves you. Your wife can forgive a mistake you made decades ago. She married a cop. Evelyn knew what she was getting into. Maybe the FBI gives you house arrest. Or witness protection. A new name, a new life far away from here."
Kate was listening, and she quickly went from thinking he was betraying her to loving him more. Rick put his lips to her ear once again. "Don't miss. I'm trusting you with all our lives."
Rick backed farther into the darkness but raised his weapon and hid where he could.
None of them knew how many were coming. Roy knew one of them would be Lockwood, and that he had to die to keep Kate safe, so he was his first shot.
There were four of them, and all of them got out without weapons drawn.
"I knew you would see it our way, Roy. Now hand her over. He has plans for her." He wanted to see her die and know she was dead. Her death would be taped; he wouldn't actually be there in person. He was in DC at the moment, after all.
"I can't do that." Roy raised his weapon that was at his side and shot Lockwood. Lockwood had to die if he was going to save Kate.
Kate raised her weapon and shot two of the remaining three. Then a new shot rang out, and the fourth man fell.