Disclaimer: I'm severely abusing in this fic I know it. But at least I don't claim ownership.
Distribution: I doubt anyone wants it, but ask me first.
Steph's Babble: I know this is a dark fic, especially as compared to the other stories that I am currently putting on this board. But I would really like to hear from you, whether you like it or hate it and why. So why don't you make my week and reply?
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Her Greatest Mistake
Chapter 8
~Penthouse~
Sonny moved quickly, picking Emily up and carrying her to the couch. Carly sat down beside her and the sobbing girl turned into her, to cry on her shoulder. Carly patted her back and whispered words to soothe her.
Sonny looked over at Jason who had moved to stand in front of the window. He was heading towards him when Pete tapped on the door. He glanced at Johnny who moved towards the door.
"What?" Johnny asked quietly opening the door.
"Mike Corbin's here," Pete gestured to the man behind him.
"Just a minute," Johnny sighed heavily, he wasn't ready to hear about Cal.
"Johnny its important that I speak to Sonny," Mike spoke quickly. "This isn't about me this time."
"I know Mike give me a minute," Johnny closed the door and cleared his throat catching Sonny's attention.
"I'll be right back Jason," getting no response from him Sonny sighed and headed for Johnny. "What?"
"Mike's here."
"Damn," he looked back in the room. Emily was still crying on the couch and Jason was immobile at the window. "We'll have to do it outside. When was the hall swept last?"
"It was swept this morning for bugs, I mean yesterday morning," Johnny looked at his watch, 7:25. "About 24 hours ago."
"We'll risk it," Sonny opened the door and moved into the hall, with Johnny right behind him. He held up his hand when Mike started to speak. "Pete I want you over by Alexis' door, if it opens yell, if you hear the elevator, yell."
Pete nodded and moved across the hall.
"What happened Mike?"
Mike looked past Sonny to the closed Penthouse door but decided not to say anything. "I was heading home on Elm Street, by the docks and I tripped over this guy. I didn't recognize him at first, but when I did I realized it was Cal."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, he was still alive then."
Johnny winched at the word then. He hadn't dealt with the fact that Cal was dead yet. He knew that his job was high risk. He learned that first hand when his friend Reynaldo went out one night with Jason and never came back. But this had nothing to do with work, it wasn't supposed to be a dangerous assignment. He was just supposed to find a boy, and instead Cal wound up dead.
"What happened to him? Was he shot?" Sonny kept his voice even. He needed a cool head to handle this for everyone.
"No, he was beaten to death," Mike swallowed hard at the blunt words. "I saw a car nearby with blood on the trunk. There were indentions, it looked like someone bashed his head against it several times." He shuddered remembering how misshapen the back of the head had been, then went on almost talking to himself. "Frank said he hemorrhaged to death, that more than likely some of the bones in his skull broke off and entered his brain."
Sonny rubbed his hand over his face, Cal was twice divorced, but he still supported both ex-wives. He also had a 48-year old ex-showgirl mother who had her own place on the New Jersey boardwalk. He had always promised Cal that he would drop by the place sometime and meet her. But he never had, now the first time he would meet her, it would be to tell her that her son was dead. He banished that thought and focused on the problem at hand. "Do the cops know who he is yet?"
"Not yet. I didn't tell them I knew who he was, but Taggert showed up as I was leaving. He didn't see me, but it's only a matter of time."
Sonny closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, Taggert. He had been hoping to get Lucky before the police got involved. But if Taggert was on the case, it was only a matter of time before he showed up here.
"Did he say anything?" Johnny asked.
Sonny opened his eyes at the question. Johnny was proving himself more and more as time went on.
"Yes but it didn't make sense," Mike looked at Sonny. "He said Spencer. I had been talking to him about playing cards at Luke's so I thought that was what he meant. But he said no, then he said it Spencer, like he meant it was Spencer who did this." He watched Sonny's eyes close in reaction. "But Luke is out of town so that leaves…" he trailed off horrified. "Lucky did it?"
"Did you tell the police this?" Sonny ignored the question.
"No, but there's something else, Cal's gun was missing."
~Car~
Lucky moved the gun so it was on Francis' neck. It was early enough in the day that there was little traffic, so there was little chance of someone seeing the gun. "Hurry up."
"I still don't know where we're going Lucky," Francis pressed the accelerator a little harder sending the car up over 40 mph. They were in a residential section and the last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of a cop. He knew from personal experience that cops tended to be cranky when they had to work major holidays. So they would stop any car at any infraction to share their displeasure with the public.
"I told you we're going to see Elizabeth," Lucky snapped. "Turn left at the next corner."
"So Lucky how is Elizabeth? I haven't seen her in awhile." Long forgotten information on what to do in a hostage situation was coming back to him. He had read about it when he was in the police academy, but that didn't really count. He always used the GIGO method of studying. Garbage in before the test, and Garbage out after the test. Surprisingly some information was coming back to him though. Things like keeping the aggressor talking, trying to form a personal bond, use the person's name and establish a rapport to make them aware you were a person too. Keep it friendly don't antagonize them, don't attack them. It was those last two ideas that he was having problems with. He wanted nothing more than to attack Lucky. But between the gun and the fact that Lucky was lucid at the moment, he knew better than to try anything. Besides Lucky seemed to be directing him to Elizabeth, and until he knew where she was, he wasn't going to risk her life. "Say are you two kids engaged yet?"
"Not yet but we will be. It's only a matter of time, because we are forever," Lucky vowed glancing back at the image of Elizabeth in a wedding dress that had appeared in the back seat. "Right Elizabeth?"
"Right Lucky you have my heart, that's a permanent lock."
Francis glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw no one, Lucky was beginning to lose it again. He tensed and waited for his opportunity, he had a faint idea where they were heading.
"Turn right now."
Francis obeyed automatically, his eyes on the rearview again, no one was behind him, and they were nearing the outskirts of town. So far so good.
"Permanent lock, although your boss tried to break it," Lucky frowned and pressed the gun harder into his neck. "But he couldn't because permanent is forever."
"No you and Elizabeth are destined," Francis agreed. "Is she waiting for you?"
"Of course she is. She always waits for me." Lucky's eyes went cloudy when a memory trickled in.
"Lucky," Elizabeth took his hand and led him to a table, in the deserted diner. "You were dead. I had to let you go, before the grief and loss destroyed me. I couldn't wait around anymore. My life was passing me by, I knew you wouldn't want that. So I let you go and moved on. If I didn't I would have died too."
"But I wasn't dead Elizabeth," his hand tightened on hers. "I was alive and fighting to come back to you. You just had to wait for me."
"But I didn't know that, to me you were dead, I had to let go."
"So what you moved on to Jason?" His hand tightened painfully on hers, causing her to cry out.
"It wasn't like that," she wrenched her hand from his and got to her feet.
"That's what you say now, but I don't believe you," he stood as well. "You've lied to me a lot lately, especially about Jason."
"Lucky why does every conversation we have seem to come back to Jason?" she demanded placing her hands on her hips.
"Because you can't stop thinking about him," he yelled clenching his fists in anger.
She wearily shook her head, "You were the one who brought him up, not me. I was just trying to explain to you how and why I changed. Why I'm not the same person you first fell in love with anymore."
"You changed because you wouldn't wait for me. Jesus Elizabeth I hadn't even been dead a year." She turned to walk away and that infuriated him. "Tell me did you crawl into bed with Jason the night of the fire, or did you wait a week out of respect for the dead?"
She sucked in a breath and slapped him hard across the face. "How dare you."
Lucky responded without even thinking about it. One instant she was standing in front of him with anger and hurt in her eyes and the next she was on the floor, in the midst of the broken table, after he had punched her.
"Why couldn't you have waited Elizabeth?" Lucky asked softly moving the gun away from Francis to scratch at his temple.
"Elizabeth did wait Lucky," Francis said softly while easing off the gas to slow the car down. Lucky's eyes were hazy again, and he knew where they were going, it was time.
"It's all Jason's fault," Lucky blazed to life suddenly.
With one last look in the rearview mirror Francis made his move.
~Penthouse~
Sonny walked back into the Penthouse and noticed that not much had changed. Carly was rocking Emily on the couch and Jason hadn't moved. He turned back to Johnny, "When she calms down take her back upstairs."
Johnny nodded and headed for the couch.
"Jason you need to snap out of this, you don't freeze up, you react." Sonny spoke softly from behind him. "Your sister needs you. Are you going to let her down?" He received no response from Jason and he bowed his head not knowing what to do.
"Too."
Sonny's head whipped up, "What?"
"You forgot the word too," he turned and saw Sonny's blank look. "You should have said are you going to let her down too."
"You didn't let Elizabeth down," Sonny argued.
"I left her. What do you call that?"
"If you really believe that then you need to get a gun and shoot me," Sonny spoke quietly but it didn't diminish the power of his words. "You left because I asked you too. You thought she would be okay because you asked me to look after her. You didn't let her down, I let you down and her down. I'm the one to blame."
Jason showed no reaction to the words.
"Or maybe Emily's right and it's her fault because she didn't stay close to Elizabeth. Maybe it's Tammy's fault because she didn't see what was happening in her own place." Blame was a destructive weapon and it wouldn't do Jason any good if he got lost in it right now. "Maybe it's Luke and Laura's fault after all they are his parents," he moved closer. "Or maybe it's Elizabeth's fault because she never asked for help."
Jason turned around to face the window again.
Sonny reached into his pocket and pulled out the sketch Elizabeth had drawn of Michael. He slammed it against the windowpane right in front of Jason. "Does it look like she cared whose fault it was? Look at it," he ordered. "She drew this in the midst of all this. Do you really think she would give a rat's ass over who feels guilty or who is to blame?"
Jason focused on the picture, all he could see was lines. He needed her to make him see it. "Who is it?"
Sonny lost part of his anger at Jason's question, he had forgotten Jason's problem with pictures, maps, drawings. "She drew a picture of Michael in the sandbox and she had to have done it in the last two weeks. Jason it's him right down to the glint he gets in his eye when he's done something he is going to get in trouble for. She drew this in the middle of all this madness, do you really think she cares who is to blame?"
Jason reached out and traced a finger over one of the dark lines on the paper. He still couldn't see it, and he wanted too. He wanted to see Michael through her eyes. For that to happen he needed to find her and have her explain the picture. "Can I have this?"
"Of course," Sonny handed him the picture and watched while Jason stared at it for a long time. When he looked up Sonny could see the resolve in his eyes. "Are you ready?"
"Yes," Jason tucked the sketch in his back pocket and moved over to the couch and Emily. He sat on the ottoman directly in front of her, and picked up her hand, "Emily."
She had stopped crying but still had her head on Carly's shoulder, she gave no reaction that she heard him.
"Emily," his voice was stronger and he pulled on her hand. "Look at me."
Emily was pulled back by her brother's voice and she turned her head to look at him.
"You okay?" He asked when he saw the pain in her eyes.
She nodded.
"I need you to talk to me Emily. Do you think you can do that?" He took her other hand and watched her shift away from Carly so she was sitting squarely in front of him. "Can you?"
"Y-yes."
"Good. I need for you to tell me what happened yesterday."
She shook her head, "You don't want to know."
"Yes I do. You'll be fine. Remember I'm right here, and I will love you no matter what. Nothing will ever change that."
"Really?" She wanted to believe that.
"Really," he shifted closer. "Why don't you start off with breakfast. What did you have?" He was going to ease into this, he didn't want to push her anymore then he had too. She had been hurt enough.
"Breakfast," she sighed. "That's where it all started, with breakfast at Kelly's with Zander. I still work there, even though I moved home. I was supposed to work the afternoon shift, and Elizabeth was doing a swing the morning and then close. But that changed and it made me mad. Elizabeth had been making me mad a lot lately."
"Thanks again Tammy," Lucky called heading for the door, he veered off to pause by Emily's table. "Hey Em," he glanced at her companion and his voice lost the warmth, "Zander."
Zander nodded back but kept eating.
"Why were you thanking Tammy?" Emily asked in an effort to keep the conversation civil. She was getting tired of always having to defend Zander to her friends. She wished they would give him a shot, so they could see what a wonderful guy he really was.
"Oh Tammy just did Elizabeth and me a huge favor," Lucky replied with a smile.
"What's that?"
"She gave Elizabeth the weekend off." Lucky went on oblivious to the stunned look on Emily's face. "She has been so sick recently that I thought a few days alone in the country will be good for her and us. Tammy agreed so we're going to leave tonight."
"What about her shifts here?" Emily managed to get the question out although it was hard, to force the words past the anger she was feeling. She felt Zander tap his foot on hers and she looked at him. He shook his head slightly trying to stop her from going off.
"Tammy said she'd get people to cover the shifts," Lucky looked at his watch. "I got to go I have a shoot with Gia," he snitched a slice of bacon from her plate and headed for the door. "Happy Independence Day Em."
"Take a deep breath and think about it," Zander spoke as soon as he left.
"I'm sick of this. Just because she's worked here the longest Tammy lets her get away with everything," she snapped. "How many times in the last two months have we had to change our plans because Elizabeth needed time off? How many nights have she been to ill to work, but not to sick to be with Lucky." She was so angry at the unfairness of the situation she wanted to scream. "She's missed two days this week already but she's fine enough to go out of town with Lucky. I'm sick of it, I'm sick of her."
"Emily I know you two haven't been getting along since Jason left, but you can't mean you're ready to end the friendship."
"That's exactly what I mean. I don't even know who Elizabeth is anymore," she pushed back her chair. "I'm going to tell her that I am fed up with her behavior, and I'll be damned if I pick up anymore of her shifts." She searched the diner for Elizabeth but didn't see her, "I'll be right back Zander." She headed for the stairs.
"I was mad at her, we haven't been getting along for weeks now, and I'd finally had enough," Emily averted her eyes. "I couldn't even stand to be around her anymore. It was like she had turned into another person. When you did see her she didn't look good. She barely left Lucky's side. I didn't know why she was acting like that, I just knew she bothered me."
"You said she's been sick a lot, do you know when that started?" Jason asked although he really didn't want to know how long the abuse had been going on.
"Since around the second week in May I guess. She seemed to miss at least one day of work or school a week. In fact she didn't even sign up for summer session like she had been planning to. This all started right after the Face of Deception competition ended." Emily looked up, "At first I thought she was just sulking because she lost, but then Laura told me that Elizabeth had come to her, and told her to choose Gia because she didn't want the job."
Carly jerked in surprise at that, she thought she had tricked Laura into naming Gia. She thought back to Laura's speech at the Deception party and realized that Laura had been prepared to talk about Gia. Thinking about it now she remembered the look of surprise on Nikolas and Lucky's faces but there was relief on Elizabeth's in fact she even mouthed the words thank you to Laura.
Sonny couldn't help but be reminded how many times his mother had told him and his neighbors that she was just sick. She was too ill with the stomach flu to make breakfast. Only the stomach flu always arrived courtesy of Deke's fists. No one believed her, yet she kept saying she was sick. Finally he had stopped asking, he didn't want to make her lie to him anymore.
"I charged up the stairs to have it out with her," Emily went on her eyes searching Jason's for censure but she saw only concern in them. "It wasn't just work, it was lots of things. I thought she was trying to keep Lucky to herself. If I made plans with him, she showed up, it was the same with Nikolas. She wouldn't let anyone be alone with Lucky and that bothered me. Suddenly she was so possessive of Lucky after months of acting like she wanted to get away from him. It all coincided with you leaving, so that really bothered me."
Jason kept his expression bland, he was afraid he knew why she had been with Lucky all the time. He was grateful that his sister seemed too numb to figure out what Elizabeth's actions had really meant. "Go on Emily."
"I raised my hand to knock, and I noticed the door wasn't latched tightly, so I pushed the door open," she swallowed hard and when she went on her voice was a whisper. "I wasn't prepared for what I saw…"
"Eliz…" the name died in her throat when Emily pushed the door open. All the anger she had disappeared in a second, when she focused on her friend.
Elizabeth had her back to her and was in the process of pulling on a green t-shirt. Emily's breath caught when she saw the dark bruises and welts that criss-crossed her friend's back. She could see livid scrapes, and indentions that marred the once smooth skin. Elizabeth's movements were stiff and slow when she pulled the shirt over her head, covering the two bloody bandages at the base of the spine. Her groan of pain brought Emily's voice back. "What the hell happened to you?"
Elizabeth whirled around at the words. "Emily you startled me."
"What happened?" Emily demanded walking closer, she could see the imprints of someone's hands high up on her arms around her biceps. "Who hurt you?"
"No one," Elizabeth reached for the long sleeved, lightweight, cardigan on her bed and pulled it on slowly. "It was an accident."
"How could that be an accident?" Emily pressed, concern for her friend washed away all the hard words of the last few months.
"I-I fell down the stairs," Elizabeth brushed by Emily to go to the dresser. "It's no big deal, I'm fine."
"Fine? Elizabeth have you looked at yourself?" She shook her head in disbelief. "What about the grip marks on your arms?"
Elizabeth dropped the hairbrush and slowly bent to retrieve it. "Lucky tried to catch me, but he couldn't." She kept her eyes away from Emily's gaze, "What did you need?"
Emily studied her she hadn't met her eyes once. But that was nothing new, Elizabeth hadn't looked her in the eyes for weeks now. She heard the disinterest in Elizabeth's voice and some of the anger came back. "I wanted to tell you that I'm not going along with this anymore."
"Along with what?" Elizabeth walked to the bed, picked up her apron and began to fold it.
"You bailing out of work yet again," Emily crossed her arms over her chest. "If you're well enough to go out of town, then you're well enough to work. You're not the only one who has plans you know. I know I am speaking for the others when I say we are getting damned tired of picking up the slack for you."
"I'm not going out of town."
"Yes you are. Lucky said he's taking you out of town for the weekend and Tammy agreed to give you time off."
Elizabeth lost her color and dropped to the bed, "O-out of town?"
"Yes and as usual Tammy said sure sweetie it's fine, but it's not fine. I'm not doing this for you anymore." Emily warned her trying to sound firm, but she couldn't help but notice how stricken Elizabeth looked. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes," she got to her feet, resting one hand on the headboard to steady herself. "I won't be going out of town Emily, so don't worry about changing your plans."
Suddenly unsure Emily paused. "You don't look good, I can work for you tonight if you want to rest. But I don't think you should go out of town."
"I won't Emily, the last thing I can do is go out of town, its time to end this."
"What?" Emily asked.
"I'm sorry this has been so hard on you, I'll try to do better," Elizabeth walked to the door and opened it.
Emily nodded and moved towards the door, pausing in the entryway. "Elizabeth I know we're not close anymore, but if you ever need to talk, I'm willing to listen." Elizabeth finally met her eyes and for a minute Emily could see relief and hope fill her eyes, before she lowered them again.
"Thanks Emily, you're too good to me. I'll work tonight, I'm sure you and Zander have plans, have fun." Elizabeth began to close the door.
Emily took a step away, then stopped, her mind replaying all the times that Elizabeth had helped her in the past. From their first meeting when Emily had returned to school after her overdose, and Elizabeth stood up for her. To the awful morning after the rave when she thought she might have killed someone, and had been raped. Elizabeth had been there for her every step of the way. She turned around, "Maybe we could get together some time, just the two of us, and catch up."
Elizabeth's eyes filled, "I would like that, I've missed you." She moved towards Emily as if to hug her only to stop and grimace in pain. "Maybe in a few weeks, when I feel better, I'll call you," she finished stepping back into the doorway.
Emily sighed in disappointment, "Whatever." She turned and headed for the stairs, she knew that Elizabeth wouldn't call.
"She had been promising to get together with me for weeks now, but she never did." Emily brought herself out of the memory with a sigh. "If she wasn't at work she was with Lucky. She was always with Lucky."
"That's good Emily you're doing fine," Sonny patted her shoulder.
"Oh god," Emily cried out startling everyone. "She was always with Lucky, she wouldn't let anyone else be alone with him. I got mad about that, I accused her of wanting to keep Lucky to herself…" She trailed off, horror filling her normally soft brown eyes. "She-she was protecting me, everyone from him, wasn't she?"
"Calm down Emily," Jason said immediately when he saw how upset she was getting.
"God Jason I yelled at her, I-I…Oh god Lulu."
"What about Lulu?" Carly asked quickly. Concern for the little girl causing her to break her silence.
"Lucky and Lulu were going to spend the afternoon together about two weeks ago. I overheard Elizabeth begging Lucky to let her go along, she kept saying she was sorry. But Lucky said no, he said," she paused trying to remember the words, then paled even further when she did. "He said it was time for both Lulu and her learned what happened in the real world, when you disobey. It didn't make any sense to me, but when Lulu came into Kelly's to meet Lucky, Elizabeth tripped and spilled a whole tray of milkshakes on the little girl, so she had to go home."
Emily was quiet for a minute, she felt her stomach twist in knots, and perspiration formed on her brow. "I accused her of doing it on purpose, and Lucky overheard us arguing," she looked up at Jason and pushed back the nausea she was feeling to continue on. "Elizabeth got sick that night, and couldn't get out of bed the next day, Lucky said it was the stomach flu."
Sonny flinched at her words. "Michael I'm sorry I'm just too sick this morning, you'll have to make your own lunch. Don't forget to clean up, you know Deke hates it when the kitchen is messy."
Carly reached behind Emily to touch his shoulder in comfort, she knew how hard this must be for him to hear. He looked at her blindly for a minute before focusing on Emily who was holding her stomach and rocking herself.
"But it wasn't the stomach flu was it?" Emily moaned and covered her mouth, "Jas…"
Jason moved quickly, picking her up from the couch and hurrying for the bathroom that was off the kitchen.
"Sonny are you okay?" Carly shifted on the couch and took his hand. She glanced at Johnny and he got up and moved towards the table to give them privacy.
"I can't help remembering," Sonny admitted rubbing wearily at his face. "When Deke first started in on her, I tried to interfere, and she would protect me. She was barely 5'0" but she would try to protect me. Eventually it got to be too much for her." He looked at his hand and closed it into a fist. He studied it before he brought it up next to Carly's face. "With the difference in our sizes, its close to the difference between Elizabeth and Lucky. You see how big my fist is next to your face? Do you see what kind of damage I could do? With my mother and Deke, it was more extreme, more like Jason and Elizabeth, he was a lot bigger than her." He frowned at his hand again, "but this would still do the damage."
She cupped his fist in her hand and brought it to her mouth to kiss it, he rarely discussed his mother, she knew he must be reeling to mention her now. "She tried to save you Sonny, she loved you."
"Yes she did, but in the end she was more afraid of Deke and what he would do." He had wanted to save her, but she wouldn't let him. In the end he wasn't even able to kill Deke. Someone else had beaten him to it, Deke was found dead in an alley and he had been none the wiser. Was Elizabeth lying dead in an alley somewhere? All because she had tried to protect everybody else, including Lucky? Had she sacrificed her life to do it? If so he had failed to save another woman.
~P.C.P.D.~
Taggert slammed the phone down in disgust, "Damn Whitey where the hell are you?" He glanced at his watch, 7:55. Officially he was off duty, but there was no way he was leaving before he had a better handle on what had happened last night, both with Audrey Hardy's shooting and Cal Rogers' murder.
He concentrated on the file in front of him until the words started to swim. Swearing under his breath he headed for the coffee machine and dumped the dregs of the pot in his cup. He followed it up with about 6 sugar cubes. He rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to work out the knots that seemed to have taken up permanent residence there.
"Rough night?"
Taggert turned around, "Long one. How about you?"
"I slept like a baby Marcus." Detective Ray Garcia taunted him, sipping his latte he had brought with him from the Java Hut. "It must have been rough if you're trying to drink that stuff."
"There was a shooting and a murder last night," Taggert headed for his desk and handed Garcia a couple of files.
The coffee cup was set down hard enough to splash some over the rim when Garcia read the name on the file. "Audrey Hardy was shot? Do we have any leads?" He'd had several dealings with Mrs. Hardy through the years, when Greg Cooper had shot her, and also through her granddaughter Elizabeth.
"Not so far, I'm waiting for forensics to come back on that one. Recognize the other name?"
Garcia glanced at the other file, "Rogers, one of Sonny's guards got hit last night?"
"Oh he was hit more than once, in fact he was beaten to death. Preliminary autopsy says several bones were broken in his head and driven into his brain." Taggert propped his feet up on the desk. "There's more, I got a tip from a buddy who works at the airport, you'll never guess who got into Port Charles about 4:00 in the morning."
Garcia leaned against the desk, "Judging from your grin, I would say it was Jason Morgan."
"You're right, one of Sonny's boys is hit, and anger boy arrives about the same time. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Things are going to get nasty."
Taggert nodded, "It might be starting sooner than you think. It seems Rogers' gun was missing."
Garcia frowned at the file, "What kind of weapon are we talking about?"
"It was a .38." A hand slapped a paper bag, holding a spent shell casing on Taggert's desk, forcing his attention off of Garcia.
"What Whitey?" He turned to frown at Dr. Aaron "Whitey" Ford, the resident forensic guru.
~Penthouse~
Emily walked back into the room leaning heavily on Jason.
"Johnny you want to get her some water?" Jason asked helping her to the couch.
"Are you okay?" Carly asked when she settled down again, "Do you need a pain pill?"
"No, I need to finish this," Emily said wearily, she would love to sink into the oblivion that the drugs would provide but she couldn't, at least not yet.
"What kind of drugs?" Jason asked in concern.
"It's a prescription from the Doctor," Sonny said.
"You know she can't…"
"I have the pills Jason, I'll give them to her, when she needs them." Sonny interrupted him. He knew that Emily once had a problem with drugs, he wasn't about to let this cause her to slide back into them.
Jason nodded and took the empty water glass from Emily, "Are you ready to go on?" He had been grateful for the respite. He wanted a little time to deal with the image that Emily's description of Elizabeth's injuries produced in him. He hated the fact that suddenly he could imagine, and all he could see when he did, was the injuries that Elizabeth had on her body.
Ready? She didn't think she would ever be ready to remember what happened next. She looked at her brother's calm face, he was her hero and at the same time he wasn't. But in a lot of ways he was her strength she had to do this for him. "Yes."
"Okay just start where you want to."
"I was at work, throughout the day I kept picturing Elizabeth in my head, there was something about her bruises that looked out of place but I couldn't figure out what. 7:00 came and went with no Elizabeth, I started to get mad again. She had told me that she would work her shift, yet she wasn't there." Emily's eyes were cloudy, she glanced at her left arm and ran a finger over some bumps there.
"Does it hurt?" Carly asked in concern.
"No. I was mad so I started slamming things around in the kitchen and I dropped a cup into the fryer and some grease splattered me. It wasn't a bad burn, but it did get on my shirt, so I went up to Elizabeth's room to grab another shirt," she paused for a minute. "I remember I was reaching for the handle on the drawer of her dresser and something bothered me again, but I couldn't quite place it. I changed and stared hard at the dresser trying to figure out what it was. The top of the dresser is almost even with the drawers, it only juts out slightly. It's pretty tall too, it comes up to my shoulder. But what makes it special is the handles on the drawer. Their large, decorative, in the shape of an octagon, they really stand out. Its hard to explain."
"I've seen the dresser Emily, I know what your saying," Jason told her.
"My mind went back to the indentions I had seen on Elizabeth's back. They matched the handles on the drawer," her voice got shaky. "I thought about the grip marks on her arms then. They were way to solid and strong looking to have come from someone trying to catch her before she fell. They had to come from someone holding her tightly, by her arms, maybe even when they rammed her back into the dresser."
Jason closed his eyes for a minute at the words. "Please go on," he asked quietly after another minute of silence.
"I ran out of Kelly's I didn't stop when Tammy yelled, or even to call Zander, I just ran for her studio. I remembered Elizabeth saying that it was time to end this, and it scared me, because I knew what she meant." Her eyes were a bit unfocused and darker than normal in memory. "The whole time I was running a part of my brain kept telling me that I was wrong, that Lucky could never hurt her like that. But I kept hearing your voice Jason, telling me to stay close because Lucky had changed."
She took a deep breath and went on slowly, "I started up the stairs to her studio, and a landing down I could hear yelling. I recognized Lucky's voice, he was screaming at her."
"Could you make out what he was saying?" Sonny kept the question soft trying not to jar her.
"Something like, I know you went to see him. I warned you what would happen if you told," Emily looked at Sonny. "I remember hearing her scream no Lucky it wasn't like that, don't hurt him. Then she just screamed."
Him? Jason was racking his brain to figure out who she could have gone to see.
Carly kept her eyes on Emily and curled her fingers into her palm. It wasn't her fault, she didn't know what was going, she didn't know what would happen.
"I knocked on the door, I could hear them fighting inside, but no one came to the door. I tried the handle but it was locked. I pounded on the door again, yelling at Lucky to stop. Finally I remembered that I still had a key," she took a breath to brace herself for what was to come. "I unlocked the door and shoved it open…"
"Lucky stop," the words weren't very loud when she saw the scene in front of her.
Lucky and Elizabeth were in front of the couch, he had his hands around her throat and was choking her. There was absolutely no expression on Lucky's face, while he applied pressure.
Elizabeth's hand was flailing at Lucky trying to claw her way free. Her once green shirt and khaki pants were stained heavily in what looked like blood. Her head rolled to the side in Emily's direction and she could see blood coming from her forehead and the corner of her mouth.
Emily's paralysis broke at that sight and she flew across the room, towards Lucky. She started pounding on his back trying to get him to free his grip on Elizabeth but she couldn't budge him. She scratched at his face, but he didn't even seem to feel it. She tried pulling on his arms but she couldn't move him. Her own sobs were getting louder and louder in her ears, the same time Elizabeth's struggles seemed to lessen.
"I was desperate to stop him." Now that she had reached the critical point in her story, her voice was strong, and her face eerily calm. "I picked up the stool that was by the table, and slammed it against his shoulders and head breaking it. But I was too late," a sob slipped through. "El-Elizabeth went limp the same time I swung. Lucky let go and she fell to the floor, her hand flopped open on the ground. Her head was tilted to the side and her…her eyes," tears were streaming down her face now. "Her eyes were halfway closed, and they were dead. She wasn't breathing, she was dead."
~Car~
Francis slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel hard to the right, sending them from the road, and crashing into a fence off the side of the road. Lucky pitched forward and crashed hard into the dashboard, dropping the gun to the floor in the process.
The car traveled through the barbwire fence and impacted a tree. Francis' head connected with the steering wheel and everything around him threatened to go black for a second. He fought the feeling when he felt Lucky move beside him. Lucky was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but he was searching the floorboards for the gun.
Francis reached out to grab him the same time Lucky bent and grabbed for the gun that was on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Francis had to settle for hitting Lucky as hard as he could in the back. Lucky shrieked and his hand closed over the gun.
He turned back with the gun in his hand, and Francis immediately grabbed Lucky's hand and they began to struggle over the gun. He was bigger than Lucky and stronger and should have won the struggle easy, but in his madness Lucky had strength he normally didn't have.
The gun was twisted so it was between them. Francis looked into the madness in Lucky's blue eyes, and for an instant he thought he saw his own death in them. He twisted hard on Lucky's hand trying to jerk the gun free.
Lucky screamed in pain the same time the gun went off between them.