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I still don't own the characters from Third Watch, but I do own all the ones I made up.

Chapter Four:

"Daniel Finch"

In a one room-hunting cabin, he sits in a chair in front of the body on the floor. A tear runs down to the stubble on his face. His eyes are darting around the room as he watches a scene that is playing out in his mind. His hands are shaking as he raises his fists to his face. He eyes are wide open and his mouth also falls open, as he squeezes his cheeks into a distorted, silent scream.

Daniel Finch was a stable, though lonely truck driver just a few days ago. He grew up an orphan in the system, but all in all he had no complaints. He had no memory of his parents and never tried to find out about them or his life before he entered the system. He was shuffled from family to family but none of them ever treated him badly. It was really his fault that he got moved so often. He just didn't like the closeness of people. He was troubled but not really in trouble. He skipped school a lot, but never had problems with the law. To the contrary, he really could not stand the thought of ever being arrested. Police made him nervous. He was shy and introverted and perfectly happy being left alone.

Driving a truck was the perfect job for him. He could be alone for days at a time on the road. He spent all of his days driving cross-country, eating alone in truck stops, and sleeping in cheap hotels along his route. He made a decent living that paid for his tiny apartment. He had bought a small piece of land in the woods years ago, and built a cabin on it. He didn't even get electric hooked up for 5 years. Not until they ran some poles for a resort nearby, and the only reason he got the electric then, was so he could have a refrigerator.

The area of woods that his cabin stood on was popular for hunting but he never did hunt. He was afraid of guns. He just came up here during the fall and enjoyed the serenity of the woods. He loved to listen to the sound of birds and the silence of only the wind blowing through the trees. He loved hearing no traffic. Loved the quiet, the peace.

But now he could find no peace. He had these thoughts, this woman, in his head and she won't give him any peace. He had been staring at her body for hours. The sounds and thoughts in his head should leave now, but they don't. He was horrified at what he did but this is the only way to make it stop and send it back to where it had been locked away for all those years.

He felt some release as he was choking her. God it felt good to see the look on her face. That look 'he' must have had as a child. Terrified. Pained. Trying to scream for help with no voice. Begging for her to stop with just his eyes. He saw it there in her face. And it felt good. If he can do this to her until she understands what she put him through, if she would confess what she did, then he will be well again, and she will leave him and never return.

And she was starting to understand. He could see it in her eyes, briefly. But now she laid there, with no fear, no pain, mocking him with her empty stare. It is still inside of him. If only he had not pulled his hands away from hers that day as he sat on her lap. He would have killed her, and maybe then she would have really died. But he was just a child then. Now, he must make 'her' understand what she put him through and make her confess what she did to him, and then together, they will end it for good.



He drags her body out to the back of the cabin, holds out her revolver, and pointing it at her face, he pulls the trigger. The sound of the shot echoes out into the still air with the sound of birds squawking as they take flight. He holds his arms out to his sides, palms up, as if he is waiting for something within him to also take flight. But nothing does. The recoil from the revolver was all he felt. No release. No easing of pain. No relief. He must try again.

He has to find a place to dump her body and then he has to come up with a plan to get another. It will be getting dark soon. He will drive back into the city, and as soon as it is dark enough he will pull off on a side road and dump her body out. He carefully lays her out on a tarp in the back of the van. He still hasn't decided where he is going to look for her this time. The 55th is where his mother worked but the 63rd was so much easier. He could sit at the diner across the street and watch for her. Sometimes they came in to the diner. Yes, he was hungry anyway. That will be his plan.

[It is later that night, he is sitting in the diner ]

Dumping off the body was easy. He wonders how long it will take before she is found. He watches the cop cars come and go at the precinct across the street. They always made him feel uncomfortable but even more so with his horrible secret. Two officers walk in the diner and pass by him. He feels his face flush. He opens up the menu and hides inside it.

He is starting to feel self conscious. He decides to leave and check out the 55th, when he hears a burst of laughter from beyond the menu coming from the next booth. He looks around the menu and there she was, getting into the booth right in front of him. God...she even had the same laugh as his mother. She is talking to another cop, probably her partner. They call the waitress over and order food. He waits until their food is brought to them, then he calls the waitress over and asks for his check. He has to start getting his plan in motion.



Daniel finds a phone booth not too far from the diner and parks just past it. He waits about fifteen minutes, to give them time to finish eating. He goes into the back of the van, removes his coat, and lays in the blood that has pooled into the middle of the tarp. He then folds the tarp neatly, goes out to the phone booth and calls 911, reporting that he was mugged.

Within seconds a unit...'her' unit, pulls up. As they get out of the car, he approaches her and starts yelling wildly "he robbed me!". She asks him if he is ok. She sees the blood under his coat and tries to get him to sit down on the sidewalk. "Hurry! He went down there! You can still catch him" He points down the alley. But at the same time he grabs his chest and leans on her for support as though he is injured. "He's in that car. Down at the end! I saw him get in it. He's still there!"

Concerned about his wound she reaches for her radio. He clutches on to her arm, leaning all of his weight on her, preventing her from calling for help. "You have to catch him he is right there!" He grabs her partner by the arm and pleads with him, "Please! He took my wallet...all my money. He got in that car right down there! You can still catch him!" Her partner pulls his gun and says, "I'll go check it out. Call for back up and a bus."

The second her partner turns his back, Daniel pretends to feel dizzy. She tries to use the radio, but he drops against her as if he's fainting. He staggers over to the van, still grasping her arm. She tries to get him to sit down on the side walk so she can look at his injury but he leads her to the back of the van. "I can sit here" he says pulling the door open. His legs buckle and when she grabs his arm to help him stand, he swings his elbow up catching her hard under the chin.

She falls back against the open door and he grabs her by the throat with both hands pushing her down into the back of the van. She reaches for her gun but his body is pressing against her, blocking her reach. The pressure on her neck is unbearable. She grabs his wrists, clawing at his fingers. She thrashes for his face. He climbs next to her in the van and for a second, loosens his grip on her throat. She gets a gulp of air as he wraps his arm around her neck and hoists her all the way inside the van. He is running out of time. He pulls her night stick out of it's holder and stepping back, he swings it at her face. Her head snaps to the right, her arms fall limp and her body relaxes.

He quickly closes the door, hops into the drivers seat and slowly drives away. He hears her radio crackle. It is her partner calling to say that he checked out the car and it was empty. He repeatedly calls her name. Gina. His voice becomes breathy. He is running. There is panic in his tone as he calls her name over and over. As soon as he has driven a safe distance away, Daniel pulls over and smashes her radio, removes her gun belt and cuffs her hands behind her back.

The headlights from his van bounce through the darkness as he drives along the dirt road leading to his cabin. The night is particularly dark with no moon, and the sky is overcast from the rain that just stopped falling. He looks into the back of his van at her body laying on the floor. She hasn't stirred or made a sound the whole ride. The other two were already thrashing and fighting with the cuffs by now. Especially during this bouncy ride through the woods.

Daniel wonders if maybe he hit her a bit too hard, but then dismisses the thought by reasoning that this is what cops do. They pretend they are one thing and then they pounce on you when you start to trust them. She is faking it. He entertains the idea that this little stunt will be punished.

He parks the van in front of the cabin and steps out onto the wet ground. The air smells crisp and damp. The rain was so recent that the trees are still dripping, making it sound as though it is still raining. Daniel opens the back of the van, grabs her by the ankle and pulls her towards him. She finally moans. He grabs her by the shoulders and tries to get her to sit up but she keeps slumping over.

He shakes her and yells at her to sit up. "That's an order! Everything you do will be held against you!" She gives another low moan. There is a lot of blood in the van from the gash on her temple. Her slow response is making him angry. "You are resisting arrest! You are making it much harder on yourself!"

She feels him grab her by the shirt collar and yank her out of the van. Her feet hit the ground and her knees don't even attempt to hold her weight. She folds up into a heap on the ground at his feet. She feels her body being moved around but her eyes cannot focus on anything in the pitch blackness around her. The darkness feels heavy on her body. She can't think straight and her voice won't work. Her body is willing her to just relax and fade into the safety of sleep.

Daniel hooks his arm under hers and lifts her off the ground. Her legs still will not carry her, so he drags her across the yard and up the steps to the porch, and drops her face down in front of the door. He unlocks the door and goes inside to retrieve a lantern, that he lights and sets on the porch next to her. He stands there for a second looking at her. A smile slowly comes to his lips, then it abruptly turns to anger as he says, "Look at what you've done. Look at all the mud you've dragged onto this porch." He crouches down, grabs her by the hair, and lifting her head up closer to his face he screams at her, "How many times do you have to be told to wipe your feet! I am going to clean you up and then I will decide your punishment."

He walks to the end of the porch and around to the side of the cabin where there is an aluminum tub of water with a few blocks of ice floating in it that were once the size of Tupperware bowls. He dips his hand in and decides that it needs to be refreshed. He walks back into the cabin and pulls a bag of ice out of the freezer and makes a mental note that he needs to start making more ice.

Taking the lantern, he walks back out to the porch, stepping over her, mumbling under his breath, "I swear you just go out of your way to make more work for me. I work all day with the scum of the earth and then I have to come home to you!" He breaks up the ice in the bag by dropping it onto the porch several times, then he pours it into the tub and swirls it around with his hand until his fingers start to ache from the cold. "There." He says happily. "It's ready."

Gina moans from the cramps she is starting to feel in her arms. She is trying to clear her head but she can't even focus her eyes in the darkness. Her hands are beginning to tingle like they have fallen asleep and her head is pounding so hard she can hear her pulse in her head. She calls for help and she is surprised at how weak her voice is.

Suddenly she is being hoisted off the ground. She can not tell by what or who. She tries to speak but she can hardly muster enough breath to make a sound. Then she notices a light. It is getting closer and she now has something to try and focus on. She is being lead, almost carried by someone towards the light. She asks him who he is and what is happening to her. He does not answer her. She can't even tell if she is speaking out loud.

She has become aware that her hands are cuffed behind her back and that someone is holding her up. He is talking quickly, wildly, and she can not understand what is going on. Her knees bump into something and before she realizes what is happening, she feels herself falling forward.

Her arms try to snap forward reaching the limit of the cuffs, as she tries to bring her hands out to break her fall. Then suddenly her face slams hard into the icy water. Her body instinctively draws a deep breath from the shock of the icy cold and her lungs fill with water. Her own weight pushes her to the bottom of the tub. She begins to cough violently causing her to inhale more water. She can not get air and she can't right herself. Her legs are thrashing, her lungs are burning and there is a ringing in her ears and then...sudden silence.

Daniel sees her body jerking wildly and he presses hard against her to feel it. He wraps his arms around her torso and lays his head on her back submerging himself into the ice water with her. They are together. His body moves with her every motion. He is wildly excited.

Then he feels it abruptly end. "No!" he screams as he pulls her out of the water, and throws her down to the floor on her back. He pushes on her stomach and water trickles out of her mouth. He grabs her shoulders and shakes her hard. He tries slapping her face. Nothing. Anger wells up inside of him. He slams her hard against the wooden porch screaming at her, "You bitch! You can't do this to me! I'll kill you...you bitch!" But it is no use, she is already dead.

His body is shaking with anger. He gets up and drags her into the cabin. He pulls from the cabinet, a plug that has only bare wires dangling from the other end. He knows that they can bring people back to life using electric shock. He will try this on her.

He plugs in his cord, and touches the wires to her thigh, but instead of the usual little spark, there is a huge flash when the wire touches her wet clothing. Startled, Daniel jumps backwards, dropping the wires onto her leg. She does not move, even as the electric shock surges through her wet body. Even as her pants begin smoking and then ignite into a flame.

The light above flickers and goes out. He kicks the wires away from her with his foot and pulls it from the outlet. He stands there staring at her, smelling her burnt flesh, watching the smoke rise off of her. He sits there until his anger turns to sadness.

Once again he has failed. He was just beginning to feel good and then she goes and dies. He drags her body outside and props her up against the porch rail, sobbing out loud. He points her gun at her face and fires. He sits down facing her and scoots himself back as far away as he can get, until his back is against the cabin wall. He stares for hours, crying, wondering what he is doing wrong. She was so good at it. She could keep 'him' alive, why can't he keep 'her' alive. She looks the same sitting there, as she had looked the first time all those years ago. A faceless police uniform.

Suddenly it comes to him. The uniform signifies the end. When she would put the uniform on and leave for work, he would be safe. It was the uniform that made it stop, and the cop out of that uniform that was evil. He needs to find a cop in her regular clothes, like she was when she was at home. He couldn't believe that he didn't realize this sooner. It will be harder to do, but he must find one that has changed out of the uniform and into the disguise of regular clothes.