Gil sensed trouble brewing the second he walked into the precinct. The air around him crackled with tension.
The kind that only happened when the kid was around.
He swept the bullpen with narrowed eyes, half-expecting to find Bright fluttering around with his usual exuberance, a sheepish grin, and a reason for why he broke out of house arrest to come to the one place he shouldn't have.
The kid wasn't there.
Thankfully.
Gil couldn't ignore, however, the sour note in the pit of his stomach at Bright's not being there to help them work this case. He should be here kept rolling through his mind. The kid should be sitting at the desk outside his office and putting together a profile for them to work from.
He wasn't, though, because of one person: Nicholas Endicott.
A man out to destroy the Whitly family because of the other man Gil loathed with every fiber of his being: Martin Whitly.
The whys of it all still made no sense to Gil.
So much had happened in the last forty-eight hours that he hadn't had a chance to really process everything Bright told him.
Not that it mattered.
Endicott was a monster that needed stopping.
And we will stop him.
There was no doubt in Gil's mind about that.
They'd stop Nicholas Endicott before he could cause any more damage to Bright or the rest of the Whitly family.
With a weary sigh, and a strong want for a hot cup of coffee, Gil started to make his way towards his office. He was about to issue a greeting to Dani and JT when JT jerked his thumb in the direction of his office.
"Bright-Lite's waiting for you."
That brought Gil up short. What would Sorcha be doing there? He'd expressly told her to stick to Bright's side. To not allow him... of course. His brow furrowed as the reason why Sorcha was there occurred to him. He glanced sharply at JT.
"Is Bright with her?"
"His skinny ass is sitting at home according to the last ping from his ankle monitor."
Gil doubted that. Where one of his wayward and willful children was?
The other was never too far behind.
I should have gone upstairs and made sure Bright was in there.
That he was pouting in his room as...
Jessica said he was.
Gil swallowed a groan and a few choice curses. Duped, he realized. He had been duped by not one Whitly, but two.
Three, he corrected as he shot a look at the woman he could make out through the slits in his blinds. If Sorcha was going to toss her lot in with Bright and his mother than he'd count her as one of them.
"This family..." he muttered as he wiped a hand over his face. "I swear if they ever did what I told them..."
"You'd die of shock if they ever did what you told them to do."
Gil huffed a laugh. "You're probably right." His eyes narrowed as he saw Sorcha pull out her phone to check it. A message from Bright, he assumed. "Should have put an ankle monitor on her."
He was tempted to do just that, in fact. Really put a wrench into whatever the two were up too.
Not that they wouldn't figure out a way around it.
Like aways.
"You thinking Bright's slipped his ankle monitor?"
Thinking? No. More like knew he had slipped his ankle monitor. Something he conveyed to Dani and JT.
"She's here to distract us so Bright can do whatever the hell it is he shouldn't be doing."
JT heaved a sigh that sounded as exhausted as Gil felt. It had been a long forty-eight hours for all of them between Eve being identified as the woman found in the river to Bright being arrested on suspicion of the murder of her killer.
"Knowing Bright, he's heading down to talk with Edrisa about Eddie's body."
"Makes sense," Dani said as she stood. "He'd need to talk with Edrisa if he wants to find out how they got his blood onto Eddie's body."
JT nodded in the direction of his office.
"Mini-Bright gave us a plausible explanation for how the blood got on Eddie."
Gil wasn't surprised to find out that Sorcha offered a theory on how the blood and fibers got onto Eddie. He had been anticipating she'd offer one after she got over being annoyed at them arresting the kid.
"A theory," Dani stressed. "Not concrete proof."
"I'll take a theory at this point." Gil turned to head towards his office. "We can check out a theory."
They couldn't check out nothing.
Which is what they had: a whole lot of nothing piled up in front of Bright.
"You want us to go down and see if Bright's skinny ass is where it don't belong?"
"We'll go down and bust him after I talk with his co-conspirator."
Because while Gil fully believed Sorcha was there to distract them while Bright spoke with Edrisa, he also suspected she was there for an ulterior reaaon.
He just had to find out what it was.
Then he'd consider slapping an ankle monitor and a tracking device on her before returning her and Bright to his mother's house.
Where they'll damn sure stay if I have to sit on top of them to see they do it.
He opened his office door right as Sorcha slid her phone back in the pocket of her jeans. Seeing her without makeup, her hair tossed up into a ponytail, in jeans and one of Bright's shirts sent Gil back fifteen years.
Solving problems had been so much simpler when they'd been eighteen.
A drive in the LeMan's, gelato or a hot pretzel, walking through Central Park, a late night phone call, even something simple as a hug worked to get through whatever crisis the two found themselves.
Bright a suspect in a homicide wasn't something he could solve as easily as he could test anxiety, relationship issues or the multitude of other growing pains they experienced.
"I know Bright is downstairs talking with Edrisa."
If Gil thought that'd get Sorcha to confirm his suspicions about her and Bright working together on this bit of subterfuge?
He was sadly mistaken.
That glacier calm didn't melt even a tiny bit. One eyebrow arched and a small smirk screwed up one corner of her mouth. If not for the fact they were in it up to their eyeballs, he'd have been impressed with how good Sorcha's poker face was.
He'd also have booked a weekend in Atlantic City.
"Is he?" Cool, calm, disinterested. "And why do you think Malcolm is downstairs and talking with Doctor Tanaka?"
"Because you are here in my office."
A slight roll of the shoulders. A tilt of the head. A mildly interested expression on her face.
She should have gone with Bright to Quantico, Gil thought as he made his way over to his desk. They'd have made a formidable team.
Bright with his chaotic and frenetic unconventional approach to handling suspects and Sorcha with her cool, calm rational way of figuring out how best to deal with situations.
These two working together to stop Endicott was his ace in the hole. He expected them to find the pieces to this puzzle and align them so they made sense.
He just needed them to do it smartly and safely.
"I'm here for my own reasons and not because Mal needed to speak with Doctor Tanaka."
Gil took a seat behind his desk. "And what reasons are those?"
"Ian Turner."
One of his brows winged up. "Ian Turner?" That wasn't a name he expected her to say. "What about him?"
"He left me something in his will."
His other eyebrow joined the first. "Ian Turner left you something in his will?"
Sorcha nodded. "Something given to him by my father."
"Your father?" Gil frowned. "I wasn't aware Ian Turner knew your father."
Not that it should have surprised him they knew each other. Ian Corbin had been a cop before joining the FBI. And Turner came up through the ranks when Hoyt Brannigan was still chief of detectives.
"I knew they knew each other." Sorcha sat back in her chair. "Dad worked a few cases with him in the 90s and early 2000's. I wasn't aware they were still working together, though."
Neither had Gil. He assumed, like everyone, Ian Turner quit working cases once he became chief of detectives. That had been wrong, of course. Ian Turner had continued working on one case.
One that eventually got him killed.
"What case were they working?"
"The Surgeon."
Gil's brow knit. "The Surgeon? Why were they working a closed case?"
"Because Ian Turner always believed Martin Whitly was working with a partner."
"John Watkins." Which they now knew after Bright and Owen Shannon figured out the connection between the Junkyard Killer and the Surgeon. "We know he and Martin Whitly were working together."
"Well, Dad also believed he was working for someone." Sorcha dropped her tone an octave. A conspiratorial whisper. "Someone with lots of money and a lot of influence."
"Working for someone with money and..." The answer dawned on Gil. "Endicott."
"Yes."
"Your dad was investigating Nicholas Endicott before he died?"
She nodded. "He gave his files to Ian Turner to continue the investigation right before he died."
Pieces of that puzzle he hoped she and Bright would find fell into place.
"Turner wasn't investigating who was working with the Surgeon," he said slowly, thoughtfully. "He was working out who the Surgeon and the Junkyard Killer worked for."
"I think he figured out Endicott was the connection between Malcolm's father and the Junkyard Killer," Sorcha said. "And Endicott dispatched Watkins to shut him up before he could reveal it."
"Makes more sense than Watkins murdering him to keep him from revealing he was the Junkyard Killer."
"Especially since Watkins was the cleanup man while he and Martin Whitly were busy killing people."
And grooming Malcolm to become a killer like them, Gil added silently.
Watkins was just as guilty as Martin Whitly for the trauma that left Bright psychologically damaged.
Something he vowed to see both pay for even if it killed him.
"Can we prove Nicholas Endicott was behind Ian Turner's murder?"
"I think we can prove that Nicholas Endicott has been behind a number of unsolved murders over the years."
Gil's eyebrows shot up. "How?"
"My father's files."
"Your father's files?" He frowned his confusion. "Don't you have them?"
"No." Sorcha blew out a small breath. "Ian Turner had a feeling Endicott would send one of his contract killers after him so he hid my father's files."
"How do you know Endicott doesn't have them?"
"Because Turner left them to me in his will."
Gil's heart stopped. "He left them to you?"
Placing a huge bulls-eye on her back in the process, Gil realized, stomach twisting into knots.
"With a note in his will that said he buried the files where it all began."
"Where it all began?" His brow furrowed. "It began at the Whitly home."
With a child finding a girl locked inside a trunk.
"I thought that, too, but Ainsley and I searched the house and cellar and we didn't find anything."
"You and Ainsley?"
"She's who discovered Ian Turner left the files to me."
Of course, she did, Gil thought as he ran a hand over a face. Nothing this family did surprised him anymore.
Well, almost nothing.
"Does Bright know about these files?"
"Not yet." Sorcha pushed to her feet and walked to the window. "I plan on telling him tonight."
Gil didn't have to wonder at what the kid's reaction would be once she told him about these files. Stopping Bright from finding those files would be about as difficult as stopping a runaway train under full power.
No, he amended as he stared at the pile of paperwork on his desk. Stopping the train would be easier.
There'd be no stopping Bright.
"Do you have any idea where Turner might have hidden them?"
"One." Her expression became grim. "And you won't like the where any more than I do."
Gil had a feeling she'd say that.
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!