It was just after ten the next morning before Rae began to stir. For a moment she was just aware of having had a nice lie in, but then her memories began to come back, and she started to remember what had happened the day before. Slowly she got out of bed and headed towards the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. She ached from head to toe, but she guessed that was just reaction to what had happened.
As she entered the kitchen she looked over towards the part of the room that had the kitchen table and Eliana's high chair in it, and there they were, Jesse and their daughter happily eating their breakfast together. Jesse was spooning the white glop that was poetically called Sunshine Orange Breakfast into Eliana's mouth, and she was, as usual, enjoying every mouthful.
"Hey, good morning, how did you sleep?" Jesse looked over at Rae and smiled.
"Much better than I expected to, have you been putting things in my soup again?"
"Oooh no, I will never do that again, I can't cope with the tongue lashing that goes with it." Jesse carried on feeding the baby and smiling at his wife, she seemed a little happier in herself, and he was extremely grateful for that.
"Are you working today, Jesse?"
"Nope. I took a couple of days to look after you remember, whether you wanted me to or not. I am off today and tomorrow and then Tony is coming, so he can stay with you. I called him and explained a little of what was happening, and he said that he had no problem with staying here, if you didn't want me to."
"I don't know, Jesse, I hadn't even realised that it was so close to the time he was coming. No, I would rather it was you." Rae suddenly felt extremely heavy legged, and she came and sat down at the table, and rested her head in her hands.
"Honey, are you ok?" Jesse was instantly concerned. He ran the spoon across the bowl and fed Eliana the last of her breakfast, and then he put her bottle and the spoon on the tray in front of her and turned his attention to Rae.
"I have no idea, Jess. I just want to sleep and sleep. Is that natural?" Rae looked at him with concern in her eyes. "Alex said I slept to get away from my problems, but it's not that, I just feel shattered."
"I'm not surprised, you had a hell of a day yesterday, and I would suggest that if you want to sleep then that is what you should do. I'm not your doctor, but I can give you something to help you sleep, if you would like."
"No, I didn't dream last night, maybe I'll be ok. I hate taking anything, and lately I seem to do nothing but take medication."
"Ok, but you should have something to eat first, before you go back to sleep." Jesse looked over at his daughter and laughed as he saw the remains of her breakfast now smeared all over her face and in her hair.
"Oh, Jesse, you're supposed to make sure the spoon is clean before you give it to her to practice with!"
"Well, I tell you what, why don't you and she go and have a nice bath together, and I will make you some breakfast and then she will need a nap, you will need a nap and I will mow the lawn. How does that sound?"
"Like a perfect family day, thank you, Jess."
Steve sat at his desk and looked at the drive-by shooting file again. He thought about what George Bannister had said regarding a pattern, and as Steve read through the time line that he had prepared, he realised that there was a pattern, just not the one they had been imagining. The previous three shootings had been three days apart, that was true, but the two before that had been two days apart, and the first one had happened only one day before the second one. There had been one last night, so it would be another three nights before the next one. If there was a pattern for the shooting day, then there must be one for the location. All he had to do was work it out. His mind buzzing with the facts he had just realised, Steve began to make lists, and consult maps. Part of him knew that he was just delighted to get a break in a case, any case, but another part of him knew that he needed this, his life was way too complicated at the moment, and this was something that had no bearing on anything but his job.
Cheryl meanwhile was not enjoying her morning's work at all. She knew and liked Rae, and the woman had saved her life just over a year ago when they had been working undercover together. But she knew that Rae had been severely traumatised by the things that had happened to her since she had lived in LA and if she put her hand on her heart she couldn't say with any certainty that she thought Rae was innocent.
She collected up all the data from the Lee Tennant murder and began to make some notes of her own. Life had been so hectic lately that she hadn't had time to put things down in her own words. As she did so she began to see a pattern emerging. When Lee Tennant had been murdered Rae had put in her file that she had spoken to him the day he had been killed, and that he was feeling a little better about himself. When Jo Walter's brake lines were cut she had been visiting with Rae, and Helen Baxter had been murdered after Rae had been talking to her. So not only had Rae known all of the victims so far, she had been in conversation and close proximity with all of them at around the time of their deaths or accident. Certainly in the cases of Tennant and Baxter they would have felt they had nothing to fear from being near her.
Cheryl looked at Amanda's notes next. Someone left-handed had stabbed Lee Tennant, through the heart from behind. Cheryl thought about his home, it was small and cramped, and the murderer would probably have had to take a shot from whatever angle they happened to be in when they got an opening. The ladies restroom at Community General had a narrow hallway leading into a wider main room with the cubicles and basins. If the murderer had already been in the room, and it was someone who Helen recognised, then killing her by stabbing her through the heart from the front would have been the same as killing Tennant from behind. She had a clear shot, and she took it. There hadn't been a struggle in either case, and Cheryl was certain that it was a female who had done the killing, a man in the ladies room would have caused Helen to leave, or at least for an altercation to have been overheard. So it was definitely a female murderer, and, although she hated to admit it, Cheryl was now certain that it was Rae who had done the killing. She checked Amanda's notes once again and saw that although without a murder weapon she couldn't be one hundred percent certain, she was as sure as she could be that both killings had been committed with a similar size and shaped knife.
Rae had been asleep, peacefully for just over two hours when Jesse suddenly heard her begin to cry out. Eliana was happily bouncing around in her door bouncer, and was perfectly safe to be left for a few moments, so he rushed into the bedroom, only to see Rae thrashing round on the bed, she wasn't actually speaking, but she was clearly upset and getting more agitated by the second. He moved over to the bed and managed to get his hands onto Rae's arms and push her back down on to the mattress. As he did so he began to speak to her.
"Rae, Rae, it's Jesse, Honey, wake up, it's just a dream, that's all, just a dream." He breathed a sigh of relief as it became apparent that Rae wasn't as deeply involved in her dreams as in the past and she began to show signs of waking up. "Come on Sweetheart, it's all right."
As Rae began to come too, she opened her eyes wide, and Jesse could see the panic and terror reflected in them. "Jesse? Oh, God, Jesse, help me. Make the dreams go away, I'm so ashamed of them." Caught totally off guard Jesse could only look at her and try to understand what she was saying, and then to his delight but also to his surprise, Rae sat up quickly and flung her arms around him.
"What, Rae? What do you mean? You have no control over your dreams, you know that." Rae looked up into his eyes, and he could see that she was beginning to calm down a little. "Why are you ashamed of your dreams?"
As she spoke, Rae moved away from him again. "No reason, I'm sorry I said that." Rae tried to turn from his gaze, but Jesse put a finger gently on her cheek and kept her facing him.
"Rae, you can't keep shutting me out like this. I can help you, if you will let me. Please, tell me what you were dreaming about." Rae carried on looking at him, but he could tell that she was weighing up her options.
"Ok, maybe it will help. It did when I talked to you the other day."
"Good, I'm glad, but we need to go to the living room, Eliana is in her bouncer, and I don't want to leave her alone for too long."
Rae just nodded and slid out of bed. She pulled her jeans on that were on the chair and grabbed a t-shirt from a drawer, then, holding tightly to Jesse's hand they went back to their little girl. When they got to the door of the living room they both stopped and smiled. Eliana had obviously been bounced into submission, and was fast asleep swinging gently back and forwards in the bouncer. Jesse moved to pick her up, but Rae stopped him. "Shhh, she's fine, just leave her where she is. If she fell asleep like that, then she'll stay asleep." They carefully moved round her, thankful that they had double doors leading into the room, and then Jesse sat on the sofa, he was relieved when Rae sat next to him and took hold of his hand again.
"Jesse, I don't know if I can do this."
"Sure you can. This is me, remember, Jesse, and I love you, I want you to know that I am here for you whatever you have to say, nothing will stop me from loving you, nothing." He moved her hand up to his lips, and very gently he kissed it.
Rae took a deep breath, she knew that she had to tell Jesse, he had her in a corner, and she couldn't get out of it, but she realised that she didn't want to escape. She had enough of flight, she had to fight to get her marriage back on track, and then she would concentrate on the rest of her life.
"When you try to kiss me, or touch me, I see … I see him. But I guess you had already worked that out." Rae stopped talking as she saw Jesse nod his head. "That's why I push you away, because I can't accept that it is you touching me, and that you really want to be doing it… But when I dream …" Rae took her hand out of Jesse's as her voice broke, and she fought to keep the tears back.
"Take it slowly, Rae, we have all day." Jesse so desperately wanted to take her into his arms and hold her tightly, but he knew that he couldn't.
Rae took a deep breath, tried to banish the tears and began to speak again. "When I dream, I see him, he is coming towards me, and … and … I don't fight him off. I don't stop him, I just let it happen. Oh, God, Jesse, it's as if in my dreams I want him to do it." This time Rae couldn't stop the tears and they poured down her face, and her whole body shook as the sobs escaped her.
"Rae, please, come here, come closer," Jesse watched as she fought her demons, and then with an even louder sob she finally turned and accepted the love that had been waiting for her all along.
It was just after one o'clock when Cheryl decided that she couldn't put off searching Rae and Jesse's house any longer. She hadn't discussed it with anyone, but she knew that as Rae was a prime suspect in the murder case she should have already been and looked round.
Martin had gone out to get some lunch for both of them, and so she left a note on his desk and headed off in search of a judge to complete the required paperwork. It took her an hour and a half and very little persuasion to get what she wanted, and then she picked up her partner and they set off for the gated community once again.
They drew up outside the main gates and Cheryl showed her badge. "We don't want to be announced, thank you." The guard looked at her with no expression whatsoever on his face and silently opened the gates and Martin drove through.
"I don't feel right about this. How can this be? We're talking about Rae. She's a cop, and a good one, not a murderer." Martin pulled up outside Rae's house, got out and slammed the door. Nothing could persuade him that Rae was guilty, still, if she wasn't guilty then they wouldn't find anything, and they could look elsewhere for suspects.
Cheryl rang the doorbell and waited. Jesse came to the door, a smile on his face until he saw who it was.
"Cheryl, what can we do for you?"
Cheryl could see Rae standing behind her husband, her daughter in her arms, she looked much more relaxed that she had the last time they had spoken at the station, but then that was probably understandable.
"I need to search your house, Jesse, to see if we can find a murder weapon." Cheryl saw Rae take a step backwards, and Jesse's hands clench into fists.
"I trust you have the necessary paperwork to do that." Jesse's voice was so hard that it almost didn't sound like him.
"Of course, I wouldn't come without it." Cheryl held it up, and Rae moved forward and took it from her.
"We have nothing to hide, you could have come and searched without this." Rae placed her hand on Jesse's arm, "Let them come in, Jess. I have nothing in this house that I am ashamed of." Rae sounded far braver than she felt, but she knew that they wouldn't find anything.
Rae sat Eliana in her high chair, and cut up a banana to keep her occupied. She smiled as she watched her little girl pick up the first piece and squish it between her fingers. Then Rae looked over towards where Martin was working his way through the kitchen cupboards. As she looked on she saw him begin to put things back. "Martin, don't worry, I will put everything away after you have gone. My closets need a clear out."
"Rae, I am so sorry about this." Martin looked so worried about it that Rae almost felt sorry for him.
"I know, I would be doing the same thing if I was in your position." Rae ran her hands through her hair. She suddenly felt very weary. She and Jesse had talked about her dreams for longer than she thought she would be able to, and then she had just sat in his arms and they hadn't talked, no words had been necessary. They had been content to be with each other. Rae knew that she had been shutting him out, and she felt badly about it, but she was so scared for her family and friends that it had seemed the safest way to be.
After about half an hour Martin moved over towards the other end of the kitchen where Rae and Eliana were sitting. "I need to search down here now. Can you go somewhere else?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Come on Sweetie, let's go and play in your room for a while." Eliana was quite happy to just be with her mom and so she let herself be picked up and taken away from the remains of her snack. Rae met Jesse, who was standing in the hallway outside their bedroom.
"I can't believe this Rae, Cheryl is in their going through everything that we own, all our private stuff." Jesse was surprised just how distressed he felt about what was happening to him.
"Honey, I have done this countless times, it is a necessity if crimes are to be solved. We haven't committed any crimes, so we have nothing to worry about." Rae took him by the hand and pulled him with her as she moved towards the nursery.
Cheryl looked into Rae's closet and moved the clothes about. Gradually she took each item of clothing out, checked it and laid it on the bed. Once it was empty Cheryl stood inside the empty shell and checked each corner, and then standing on the dressing table stool she looked in to blanket box at the top. There was nothing in it, and so she got back down and began to check the drawers and the bin. In the bottom of the bin there was a small pile of tissues, which had red stains on them. Cheryl picked them up and sniffed them. With a small smile she dropped them back into the bin, they might be stained red, but it was only nail polish.
It took them another hour to check the rest of the house and then Cheryl came to the door of the nursery. "I need to search in here now."
"Cheryl for God's sake, this is a nursery, what do you think you are gonna find in here, apart from toys, diapers and every now and then a baby." This time Jesse couldn't keep his temper in. He couldn't believe how violated he felt. He was concerned at how calm Rae was about the whole thing, because he knew how much she loved her house.
"Jesse, just let me search the room." Cheryl moved away from the doorway so that there was plenty of room for Jesse, Rae and Eliana to leave.
"Well I guess you are just going to have to work round me, I have no intention of going anywhere." Jesse stood, his arms folded in defiance as he stared at the detective in front of him.
"Doctor Travis, Jesse, please just leave…" Cheryl paused. She had known how protective Jesse would be, but she had a job to do, and for a moment her temper flared. "I don't want to have to arrest you for obstruction."
Jesse couldn't believe what he was hearing he stormed out of the room, pushing past the detective as he did so. He knew that Rae was innocent, and he also knew that soon Cheryl would realise that too. But he wondered whether he would ever be able to treat her as a friend again.
It didn't take long for the nursery to be searched, and Rae and Eliana stayed just outside the door while Cheryl worked. Then Rae put her daughter into her crib and followed the detective back towards the kitchen. Martin was standing rather awkwardly in the doorway to the living room, and Rae could see that he had two evidence bags in his hand. "Ah, Rae, Jesse, I need to take these away with me to get them analysed to see if they are the murder weapon." He held up the bags and Rae could see two of her best kitchen knives resting in them. Both of them were quite large, and Rae didn't use them very often. She had a small knife, which she kept in the drawer, and she tended to use it for everything except fish and onions.
"Ok, I didn't do it Martin, you won't find anything on them." Rae looked at the two knives in the bag; they had been a wedding present and were part of a set. She had just recently moved the block they stood in out of sight ready for when Eliana began to explore.
"Rae, there is one knife missing, the largest of the set, do you know where it is?" Martin wished he didn't have to ask.
Rae was surprised, and Martin could hear it in her voice. "No, I have no idea. They were all there the last time I looked. It's a set of five, in a block, are the two smaller ones still there?"
Martin nodded. He hadn't taken them; they were both too small to have been used to kill Helen Baxter.
"Jesse?" Rae looked around at her husband who hadn't said a word while she had been talking with Martin. "Did you know we had lost a knife?" Jesse just shook his head, he didn't like where the conversation was headed, and he wanted no part of it.
Nothing else was said after that. The two detectives had searched the house and knew the knife wasn't there. Cheryl and Martin showed themselves out and Rae went into the living room and collapsed back onto the sofa. Jesse came and sat next to her. "Jesse, I am so sorry that I have got you all caught up in this… this mess. I should have guessed that they would search the place, I could have warned you."
"Don't worry about it, they have gone now, and they didn't find anything concrete. So we can forget about it. They will have to start looking elsewhere, before the trail goes cold." Jesse began to feel a little calmer and more positive once again, he couldn't think about the knife, he knew Rae hadn't done anything, so there would be a rational explanation for where it was, but he would think about that later. He looked round the room and realised that they needed to begin a major tidying operation right away. "I guess they don't teach you to put the stuff back where it came from then?"
"No, although I always try to. But I have to say I would rather tidy it up myself. If you cook the dinner I will go round and put everything back where it belongs, deal?"
"Deal." Jesse would have agreed to anything if it meant that Rae stayed as calm and friendly as she was at that moment. They had talked quite a bit in the morning, and he felt that he understood far more about what she was going through now than he had before. He didn't think that he had convinced her that her dreams were understandable, but at least now when she woke up in the night, he would know what was happening.
Cheryl and Martin drove to the forensics lab with the knives from Rae's place and explained that they wanted them tested for trace particles of blood. Then with photos of both blades in their possession they headed for Community General to see Amanda.
Amanda had been working almost all day on the latest drive-by shooting for Steve, and she was just about ready to call it a day and go home when Cheryl knocked at her door. "Come in… Cheryl, Martin, what can I do for you?"
"I just wondered whether you could tell from these photos whether either of these could be the weapon that killed Lee Tennant and Helen Baxter." Cheryl lay both photos down on the table.
"I tried to call you about that. Helen Baxter was killed with a different knife to Lee Tennant. Hold on, Cheryl, let me finish." Amanda could see that both the detectives were desperate to speak. "It was the same shape, and if you take into account the different heights of the victims then the angle was similar, but the knife used on Lee Tennant was just your ordinary basic knife, no distinguishing features, but the knife that killed Helen Baxter was different, it made a clear pattern as it went in, and I haven't seen anything like it before. Let me have a look at the pictures, I can give you an idea if you are on the right track."
The room went silent then as Amanda studied the pictures in front of her. Martin could have sworn that as she began to look at the photos her hand tightened around it, but Amanda gave no other outward impression of shock or concern. "Well, I wouldn't be able to stand up in court and say that either of these could definitely have been the weapon used on either victim, but I could say that they were of a type that could have been used. They are the right shape. Within these four walls, they are more like the idea I have of the weapon used to kill Helen than the one used on Lee Tennant." Amanda looked at them again, they had an identifying mark in the corner of each picture and for a moment the detectives waited while she considered. "I would say that photo two is a little more likely than photo one." Amanda paused; she didn't want to ask the next question. "Why, do you have a suspect?"
"I can't say, Amanda, you know that. We haven't enough evidence to make an arrest yet." Cheryl's voice was a little clipped, and Amanda looked up sharply.
"You know these look similar to the knives that Ron and I gave Rae and Jesse as a wedding present. I was told when I bought them that they were unique, guess the guy was wrong. We thought it would be funny for a cop and a doctor to get knives from a medical examiner and an FBI Agent." Amanda paused as she saw the reaction from both detectives. "Wait a minute, these aren't similar are they? These are the actual ones. You think Rae did this, that she killed Helen, oh, you can't be serious. Rae? And Lee Tennant? He was killed with a … a discount store knockoff, do you expect to hang that on Rae as well?" Amanda's voice was as cutting as the knives she was talking about.
"There's enough circumstantial evidence to connect the two killings, Amanda. She knew both victims, and Jo…"
"So did I Cheryl." Amanda couldn't stop herself from interrupting. "So did Steve and Mark and Jesse."
"Yeah, but none of you are short, small and have brown hair." Martin still didn't believe she could have done it, but the evidence was getting more damning by the minute. "Amanda, only Rae had the opportunity. Every time she had opportunity."
Amanda didn't know what else to say and so she just turned away from the two detectives in front of her and she suddenly realised that she needed to end the conversation. "She couldn't do something like that, and now if you will excuse me, I am very busy with a case for Steve." Amanda wanted to ask if Steve knew what they were thinking, but she knew that they wouldn't tell her and so she resolved to go and see him and Jo that evening and find out from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
It was nine at night before Amanda got home from seeing Steve. As she had guessed he had categorically denied that he thought Rae had anything to do with what was happening, and he was furious when he knew that a search had taken place, even though he admitted that he wasn't surprised. By the time Amanda opened her front door she knew that CJ and Dion would both be fast asleep and her sitter would be anxious to get home. She moved into the living room and watched quietly for a moment as she saw her sitter reading the newspaper. The murder of Helen Baxter was still front-page news, and there was a picture of Cheryl and Martin as they left Community General underneath the headline 'Knifewoman Strikes Again.' Amanda knew that the press would have a field day if they realised that the prime suspect was the same person who had been in the paper almost every week since her arrival from England, and who was a Detective in the LAPD.
Rae began to dream at about three in the morning, and Jesse was by her side in an instant. She hadn't wanted him to sleep with her, so they had reached a compromise and both of them had left their bedroom doors open, and Rae had said that if she dreamt she would want him to come and wake her.
This time Rae was calling out, just like she used too, telling Levington not to hurt her, and to leave her alone. It took Jesse a while to get through to her, as it always seemed to when she was actually talking and crying out, but gradually she began to calm down and then she very slowly opened her eyes.
"Jesse, I'm so sorry." Rae was only half awake, but she knew that she had woken her husband up and she felt instantly guilty.
"It's not a problem, at least not for me it isn't. Do you want to talk about your dream?" He saw Rae nod her head and so taking a deep breath he asked a question he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer to. "Can I get into bed with you then, while you tell me?"
Slowly Rae nodded her head again and then she lifted the covers up and Jesse gratefully slid in next to her. Rae moved up the bed so that she was sitting leaning back against the headboard, she checked the time on her watch and then, hoping that she could put her feelings into words she began to speak.
"I see him, coming towards me, with the scarf in his hands. That never changes, however I dream, the scarf is always there. Sometimes, it is like I told you the other day, he does… he does things to me, and I don't try to stop him, but sometimes, like tonight, he is coming to tie me up, but I am so scared I just can't get away from him, or make him stop." Rae paused. If she shut her eyes she could see his face coming nearer and nearer to her. She remembered how she had fought back when Levington had kidnapped Jesse, how she had shot him and they had all thought it was all over. But they had been wrong, he had come back, and it had been worse, much worse.
"Rae, Honey, are you alright?" Jesse was concerned for her, but he didn't touch her, he wasn't sure what reaction he would get.
"Jesse, did they tell you how he used to tie me up?" Rae's eyes were shining with tears as she spoke.
"No, I didn't ask. Do you want to tell me?" He saw her nod, and swallowing his fear at what he would hear he began to listen.
"Sometimes he would just drug me and tie me up while I was unconscious, but other times … he would come at me with the … the scarf, and I would know what he was going to do…" Rae paused a moment and she saw Jesse look as if he was going to speak and she shook her head. "I'll be all right, I just have to do this at my speed, ok? He used to hold the scarf in his hands so it was taut, as if he was going to strangle me with it… then he would make me lie on the bed… He would drape the scarf across my throat … sometimes I would pass out when he did that." Rae couldn't hold the shiver in that she felt and her whole body shook. "He would tie me so I was in a star shape… He would have made me take my clothes off, or he would have … have done it." Rae began to shake again, she could feel his hands on her, see him pull at the awful clothes he had made her wear. "Oh, God, Jesse, it was … it was just so awful, and I just wanted you … but I didn't even know if you were still alive … and then … then I thought you were dead." The tears began to fall, but Rae willed herself to stop them. She knew she had to finish, had to tell Jesse all of it before her courage failed her.
"Rae, we can stop, any time, you know that." Jesse watched her with so much concern and love in his eyes that Rae was seriously tempted to just let everything else slide back into her memory, but she knew that she couldn't.
"No, I have to finish. Once I was tied up he would take the … scarf, and twist it round my neck…" The shaking began again, but she carried on speaking. "Then he would tie the ends to my wrists… So if I tried to move I pulled it tighter around my neck… I was the one strangling myself…" This time the tears won, and Rae couldn't continue. She began to sob and Jesse, not thinking of anything but the fact that his wife needed him moved up the bed and pulled her towards him. Rae began to freeze in his arms, but then she recognised the gesture for what it was, and sank gratefully into his embrace and let all the tears, hurt and anguish out.
Brian Dobson sat in his lonely office at a quarter to nine the following morning waiting for his first appointment to arrive. He had known Helen Baxter for over fifteen years. She had been a nurse at the hospital he had trained at, and when he had moved to Community General she had come with him. Neither of them had married, and had enjoyed a friendly social life as well as a working relationship. He realised, as he sat there, that his life would be completely empty now that she was gone.
At nine o'clock he moved out into the reception area, as he had done each time Mr. Posner was due for his appointment and waited for the elevator to arrive. He was always dead on time, and would stay an hour to the minute, and then he would leave. The elevator pinged and the young man exited, his head down and he walked up to the reception desk. He looked around for Helen, and then not seeing her where she should be began to panic. Brian moved forward into his patient's line of sight. "Mr. Posner, I'm sorry that Helen isn't here, but won't you come in?" Brian was extremely grateful when the young man walked into the room, and he shut the door behind him, dreading what was about to take place.
Steve stormed into the station just after nine the following morning, still furious that he had found out about the search at Rae's house from Amanda, but his temper wasn't able to be sated as neither Cheryl nor Martin were in.
Detective Chapman was just pouring himself a cup of coffee, and grabbed another mug when he saw Steve walk across the room. "Thanks, Chapman, I guess I look like I need it, huh?"
"Oh, yeah. Tough night? Have you still got Rae's baby?"
"No, she went home with her mom and dad yesterday, but I was in such a foul mood last night I just didn't get much sleep. I could have done with going to the gym at about two this morning, just to knock the hell out of something not living."
"So, what's the problem, would it help to share?"
"No, it wouldn't help. Cheryl and Martin searched Rae and Jesse's house yesterday, they think that she committed these stabbing murders… See, I knew it wouldn't help to share!"
"Ok, then, maybe we can concentrate on our drive-by shootings instead." Campbell was talking as he moved over to his desk and Steve followed him. He hadn't had a chance to tell him what he had found so far, and he knew that he now only had two more days to work out where the next shooting would be. They had no idea who was actually committing the crimes, but they had been responsible for six deaths so far, and three other people were in the ICU's of various hospitals round this part of the city.
Steve grabbed an empty chair and then sat at the side of Campbell's desk. He looked at the notes that the other detective had made, and he saw that he hadn't made the connection of the time line. Steve grabbed a piece of paper and began to draw the same type of diagram that he had used to work it out himself, and slowly realisation began to dawn of Detective Campbell.
"I always knew that there was a good reason you made lieutenant, Lieutenant! Ok, so now we just need to find the pattern on the locations."
"Yeah, I know, and so far I haven't had any ideas. But I can't see somebody having a pattern for the dates of the shootings and not for the locations."
"So, where do we start?" Chapman looked at the man next to him and could tell that talking about this case was making him relax a little.
"It could be alphabetical locations, points on a map. Remember Carter Sweeney's crazy family who were spelling out a name in map pins? I guess we had better get our heads down and start concentrating."
Rae parked Tom in his usual place and looked around her. It was a bright clear day and the sunlight was bouncing off the cars parked around her. Jesse had wanted to come with her, but she had managed to convince him not to. She was meeting Mark for lunch, and she wanted to speak with him on her own. Rae went into Community General in a much better frame of mind. She was ashamed of the way she had shut Jesse out, but she knew that he understood … she hoped that he did, he had suffered a lot of pain and anguish, just as she had, and she knew that she would make it up to him, however long that took. As the doors to the elevator opened on the fifth floor Rae looked at the empty desk and felt the tears threaten to fall. In her hand she had a single pink rose and she went and placed it on the desk. Then she sat and waited for Brian to come and get her. She got out the notebook that she kept with her in her purse and began to write a note in it. She had wanted to wear the diamond hoop earrings that she had bought with some of the money her father had left her. But when she checked her jewellery box that morning she could only find one of them. She had tried to call Cheryl at the precinct but had been told that she wouldn't be in until the afternoon. Rae wanted to know whether they could remember seeing the pair. She didn't want to move all the furniture around if it hadn't been in the room in the first place, but she couldn't think where else it could be.
Just before her appointment time Rae began to hear raised voices coming from inside the consulting rooms. She tried not to listen, but it was impossible, and she could hear the normally mild mannered Mr. Posner shouting about how let down he was, how it would be Brian's fault if he was found taken over by aliens, or if he couldn't cope with how his life was going. Rae smiled at the two different possibilities that Mr. Posner had chosen. Suddenly the door swung open and the distraught young man came bursting out.
Rae didn't even think what she was doing; she just stood up and moved into Mr. Posner's eye line. "Hold on a second. Wait. Don't go off like this, I don't know what Doctor Dobson said to you, but you need to go back in and sort it out. Whatever he said I am sure that it was for your own good. He is a great doctor. I don't mind waiting, ok? You go and sort things out." Rae smiled at him and was relieved when he nodded, and without a word turned and returned to the room with a very astonished looking Brian Dobson walking in behind him.
Rae sat down with a laugh. She hadn't even thought about what she was doing, but she had dealt with a problem. Perhaps her life wasn't such a dead loss after all. Rae realised that she would be late for her lunch appointment with Mark so she took her cell phone out of her purse and moved away from the door to place her call.
Mark was just coming back into the house after a walk along the beach when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. "Mark Sloan … Hi, Sweetie… no that's not a problem, I'll just phone and put our reservation back, how long do you think? …Ok a half hour and meet you there… Ok, bye." Mark put his phone back in his pocket, and looked at his watch. He smiled; he had been enjoying his walk, now he could continue it for a while longer.
Rae put her phone back into her pocket and turned only to be jostled by the same nurse as before.
The nurse glared at her, "Watch where you're going."
Rae looked at her and was disturbed to realise just how close to the surface her anger still was. She swallowed down the cutting remark that had come instantly to mind, sat back down and tried to control it. She had been looking forward to being able to tell Brian that she and Jesse had been talking, really talking, and that they were back together again. There was no way that she would let that rude little minx change that. Rae wished she could work out where she knew the nurse from. Still, she was so rude to her that maybe she didn't know her after all.
After another ten minutes the door opened again, and this time the same routine as usual was acted out in front of her. Rae looked over to her friend and doctor and was saddened by what she saw. He hadn't said anything to her yet, but she could tell how he was suffering, and for a moment the thought flashed through her head where do psychiatrists go when they need help?
"Rae, please come in." Brian's voice was soft and low and full of so much emotion that it was hard for her to do as he asked.
When she was finally settled in her usual chair Brian looked over at her. They had shared so much over the last two years, she had been on an almost unbelievable roller coaster of a ride, and until the last couple of weeks she had been coping very well with it. Now he wasn't so sure.
"Rae, how are you feeling today?"
"Apart from the fact that I feel so sad about Helen I am fine. Much better in fact." Rae tried to smile, but even though she did feel much better, she couldn't make it.
"Do you think you can carry on either without seeing anyone, or go and see a new psychiatrist?"
"No, Brian, I don't. I need to talk to you, I can't imagine not seeing somebody, but I wouldn't want to start all over again with anybody else… You're giving up aren't you?"
"I don't think I can carry on, not at the moment, Rae. I am going to take six months off, and then decide what to do. But right now, working here, without Helen … it's just too hard. But I will carry on with today's consultation if that is what you want."
Rae stood up and shook her head. "No, no, that's all right. I have other things I can do until my lunch appointment with Mark. But you should know that Jesse and Eliana are back at home, and we are talking, really talking."
Rae moved over to where her friend was now standing and held her hand out to him, as he took it she pulled him towards her and gave him a quick hug. As she released him she began to speak. "Thank you, Brian, you have given me my life back and kept me sane over the last two years. I don't know if I will ever trust anybody to help me in the way you have." Rae found herself suddenly overcome with emotion and so she quickly turned and left the room.
Brian watched her go and then he shut his appointment book and began to clear his desk. He had called most of his patients, but today's two were different. Mr. Posner wouldn't have believed it was him on the phone anyway, so it had been imperative that he actually saw him, and Rae, there was something about her that had meant he needed to tell her face to face what he was going to do. He sighed and picked up his jacket, and then with one last look round he left the room, locked the door and said a silent goodbye to ten years of his life.
Rae had needed to go to the ladies room after her appointment, but she couldn't bring herself to use the one on the fifth floor landing and so she had moved down a floor and then gone in there. She had looked at herself long and hard in the mirror, which was something she didn't do these days. She had to realise that she was still the same person, she had a bit more baggage than before, but she was still Rae. Suddenly she shook herself and checked her watch. She had another twenty minutes before she needed to head off to see Mark. Plenty of time. Slowly Rae walked out of the restroom thinking about what Brian had said to her as she did so.
Rae sat in Tom in the parking lot at BBQ Bob's and wondered how she had got there. Rae felt herself go cold all over as she tried to remember getting into the car and leaving the hospital parking lot, but she couldn't. Rae tried a smile, but still it wouldn't work, she guessed it was a good thing she was meeting with a doctor for lunch.
Rae took a deep breath and climbed out of Tom, then she locked her car and headed towards the building. She could see something outside the door to the restaurant and as she got closer her heart began to beat loudly. She knew what she was going to find. She knelt down and placed her hand on the pulse point on the neck of the unconscious body in the doorway. She couldn't find it and she knew she had to leave, so she moved back and ran to her car. She slammed it into gear and screeched out into the traffic. As she drove she placed a call to the emergency services and then she headed home.
The guard on duty saw the red car coming up the road and opened the gates for it. He recognised it as belonging to the English detective who lived at number 37. Rae didn't even acknowledge him; she just drove through, parked her car and headed into the house. Jesse was making himself and his daughter lunch and looked round in surprise.
"Rae, what's the matter? Rae, you have blood on you." Jesse looked over in horror at the blood that was on her hands and her yellow top.
"I know, I found him, Jesse. I don't remember getting there, but I just knew it would be him, he was bleeding, I guess it's his blood, I called 911 and then I came home, but I don't remember getting there." Rae felt the blood pound in her head and as the dizziness swept over her she looked at her husband and heard his voice coming at her from a thousand miles away.
"Who, Rae, who was it?"
Rae sank to the floor, saying one word as she collapsed. "Mark."