Title: Ripped (5/?)
Disclaimer: (To the tune of "You Don't Own Me," by Leslie Gore) I don't own it, I'm not trying to claim it in any way. I don't own it, don't hunt me down cause I'll never pay!
Rating: R
Pairings: Eric/Maria (OC), Tim/Calleigh
Feedback: Your feedback = my inspiration = more frequent updates.
__________________________________________
"H, we've got a possible lead." Eric said, catching up to his boss in the corridor. "A prostitute who worked the same streets as Melissa Black. Says she saw Melissa fighting with a guy about an hour before the last time Melissa was seen alive."
"All right, let's bring her in and get a statement from her." Horatio said.
"She's already on her way in." Eric replied.
"Okay, good work." Horatio said. He looked at the younger man's face. "Is something wrong, Eric?"
"It's nothing." Eric replied quickly. "Girl trouble, no big deal."
"What's the problem?" Horatio asked.
"It's this girl I've been seeing for a while." Eric admitted. "I just realized today that I barely know her. Around the same time that I realized that I'm in love with her. Trouble is, though, she's been through a lot, I get the feeling it's a lot more than she's told me. I just think she'll split if she thinks we're getting in too deep."
"I think you owe it to Maria to tell her how you feel." Horatio stated. He chuckled at the shocked look on Eric's face. "Eric, give me some credit, it's my job to notice things. Besides, I don't think it's interfering with your work or hers, so it's not my business. It's not like you two had sex on my desk or anything, right?" He joked.
Eric chuckled slightly. "Yeah, of course. I'm gonna go, uh, check in with Alexx."
_____________________
"So, did you try to intervene when you saw Melissa arguing with this man?" Maria asked.
The brown-haired woman shook her head. "No way, I ain't gettin' involved when I see that kind of shit. And look, I'm real sorry that girl got killed, but I'm thinking it's a good thing I stayed outta it, if he's the one who did it."
"Did you hear anything that was said?" Eric asked. "Did he threaten her in any way?"
"She called him a motherfucker more than once." The woman said with a shrug. "And he called her all the usual shit, bitch, cunt, that kind of stuff. That's all I heard."
"Okay." Maria said. "Analia, this is extremely important. Did you get a look at his face, or any details about him that could help us identify him?"
"I didn't see him, it was too dark and they was way across the street, but...ooh, yeah! I saw his car, I think I'd seen it around there a few times." Analia said excitedly.
"All right, good. That's good." Hagen spoke up. "Can you remember the license plate number?"
A knock on the door interrupted, and Laura peered into the room. "Maria, one of the other techs found this outside." She handed a thin white envelope to Maria.
"Thanks, Laur." Maria said. "Hey, page me immediately if any of those blood samples from the scenes turn out to not be from one of the vics, all right?"
"Will do." Laura said. "Hey, I met your brothers earlier. Anton's-"
"Very happily married with three kids." Maria interrupted.
"Damn." Laura sighed. "And Estefan?"
"Nineteen." Maria said.
"Ew. Okay, I'll page you if there's any news."
As soon as the door closed, Maria looked at the envelope in her hand. It was very thin, and had no addresses or stamp. There was only one thing written on it, in thick, dark capital letters.
'DETECTEVE MARIA SANTYAGO'
"Analia, could you excuse us for a moment?" Maria asked, her voice shaking a little. "John, stay with her." She grabbed Eric's arm and pulled him out of the room. "Take a look at this."
Eric took the envelope from her and inspected it. "Well, aside from the second-grade spelling, there's nothing too suspicious looking about it-"
"Except for the bad spelling." Maria corrected him, taking back the envelope. "That was another one of Jack's trademarks. All those cryptic, taunting letters he sent to the police, the 'From Hell' letter and the 'Dear Boss' letters. The spelling was atrocious in most of them, although no one's sure if that was a sign of low class, or an educated man trying to appear low class."
"Maybe you shouldn't open that, just in case." Eric suggested nervously.
But Maria was already tearing the envelope open. Her hands shook a little as she pulled out the paper and unfolded it. "Jesus Christ." She said breathlessly. She held up the paper so Eric could see the blood stains on it. And the jaggedly written words at the top of the letter.
'FROM HELL'
____________________
'Dear Boss
I did see you on my tv tuday. You are a prity little thing to be shure. You made me laugh when you sayd you wuld find me before I could kill agin. I like my work verry much and do not think I will let you and yor frends stop me yet. The two last nite were fun, the secend one sqeeled alot, tuk me some time to finesh. Keep looking for me little one, I will leeve one agin for you to find.
Cach me if you can, prity girl.'
Horatio set down the letter and looked at Maria. "He must have seen the coverage on the news, earlier today. That idiot reporter identified you and everything."
"This is nothing." Maria insisted. "He's mimicking everything the Ripper did, he's trying to psych us out."
"What if he's not?" Eric pointed out. He moved closer to Maria and put his arm around her waist, resting his hand on her hip. "Just because he's followed the Ripper's M.O up until now, who's to say that he's not trying to trap you, or any of us? What if he comes after you?"
"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Maria shrugged.
"Well, I'm not." Eric told her.
Maria gasped incredulously. "Excuse me? Since when is that entirely up to you?" She snapped, shaking his hand off of her. "Or, you know, at all up to you?"
"Since when do you not even have the common sense to know when your life could be in danger?" Eric shot back.
"Oh, you're lecturing me about common sense?" Maria scoffed. "That's funny, coming from a guy who almost suffered brain damage two weeks ago because-"
"All right, that's enough." Horatio stated firmly. "Everyone just take a few deep breaths and calm down. I understand that this is a difficult case. Letting personal feelings interfere isn't going to help. Maria, you can stay on the case for now. But I don't want you to so much as step out of this building to get something from your car without someone with you. And if we find even one more scrap of evidence, no matter how insignificant it may seem, that the killer is targeting you directly, you're off the case, and I'll assign an officer to stay with you around the clock until we catch this guy. That clear?"
"Yeah, fair enough." Maria sighed. She turned on her heel and swept out of the room, without looking at Eric.
"I should probably go after her and apologize, huh?" Eric said after a moment.
"Probably." Horatio agreed.
_____________________
"Hey, hold up a second." Eric called to Maria. He caught up to her and stepped right into her path. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. The last thing you need right now is me giving you attitude."
"You're right, it is." Maria said calmly. "But I accept your apology. This case is getting to everyone."
"I didn't just mean the case." Eric told her, loosely wrapping his arms around her. "Calleigh told me about your brother."
"Oh." Maria glanced down at the floor.
"Good thing, too. If she hadn't told me, there's no telling when I would have found out." Eric continued.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Maria asked sharply. "No, forget it. I'm just tweaking from all this stress." She leaned up so her lips were only a few inches from his and smiled suggestively. "Maybe later you could help me...unwind?"
Eric pulled her against him. "I'm sure I could find a way." He brushed his lips against hers.
"God, get a storage room, why don't you?" The two of them looked up and saw Hagen approaching. "Word gets around." He said with a wink.
"Funny." Maria said sarcastically. "What do you want?"
"Got a name to go with the license plate number Analia gave us." Hagen replied. "Feel like paying this guy a visit?"
Maria smirked. "You even need to ask?"
________________________
"So, it seemed like Delko was kind of pissed about you leaving." Hagen observed as he and Maria made their way up the front steps of the rundown apartment building. "Whatever that letter said, it must have spooked him pretty badly."
"Whatever, Eric don't own me." Maria replied, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
"No, but from what I hear, he does test-drive the hell out of you." Hagen teased.
"Okay, you better shut up." Maria warned him.
"Are you in love with him?"
The question caught her off guard, but she recovered quickly enough. "I don't think you have the right to ask me that."
"Fine, sorry." Hagen said. After a moment, he spoke up again. "I've seen the way he looks at you."
"This is the place." Maria said, ignoring the statement. She knocked firmly on the door, and when there was no answer, she slammed her fist against the door furiously.
"Yeah, what?" An unkempt man in his thirties shouted, ripping open the door. When he saw Maria, he changed his tone immediately. "Well, what can I do for you?"
"Detective Santiago, Crime Scene Investigation." Maria introduced herself. "This is Detective Hagen, Homicide. Are you Daniel DeFilippis?"
"I can be whoever you want me to be." The man replied, leering at her.
Maria didn't let it faze her. It was nothing new. "Mr. DeFilippis, we need to as you some questions about Melissa Black."
There was a flash of anxiety in Daniel's eyes. "Melissa? Is she okay?"
"Does this look like 'okay' to you?" Maria asked, holding up a picture of Melissa's mutilated face.
"Holy shit!" Daniel reeled back. "What the hell are you doing, showing me shit like that? Man, you are one sick bitch-"
"All right, that's enough." Hagen interrupted.
"John." Maria snapped, putting up her hand to silence him. "Daniel, how did you know Melissa?"
"She...she worked for me." Daniel replied, leaning on the door with one hand and clutching at his stomach with the other.
"You're her pimp?" Maria asked.
"Pimp is such an ugly word." Daniel smiled at her, having recovered from the shock.
"Well, it's a pretty ugly business, too." Maria shot back. "The smell in here is making my hair curl, so let's be quick. I got an eyewitness who saw you arguing with Melissa about an hour before she died. Half an hour after another prostitute was murdered and mutilated in a similar fashion, not a mile away. Where were you last night between eleven and one in the morning?"
"After I left Melissa, I drove to a bar a few blocks over, met up with some friends, had a few beers. My buddy dropped me off around three." Daniel replied.
"Okay, we're going to need the names and numbers of everyone who can confirm that." Hagen said. "Maria, are you going to need anything else?"
"No, that's it." Maria said softly. "Get the numbers, I'll be in the car."
____________________
"Get anything?" Calleigh asked.
"I think I might have caught some kind of freakish STD just looking at that guy, but other than that, no." Maria sighed.
"His alibi checks out, and he didn't see anything unusual." Hagen explained.
"This is getting us nowhere." Maria said, stalking off towards the breakroom.
"God, she's really getting freaked out by this case." Calleigh sighed.
"Well, the guy was a pimp." Hagen said. "And a sleaze."
"That's nothing, she deals with sleazes every day." Calleigh pointed out. "I mean, hell, she deals with you just about every damn day, doesn't she?"
____________________
"Okay, Detective Santiago, time to go." Tim said as he approached Maria with Eric and Calleigh behind him.
Maria shrieked and turned around. "Jesus fucking Christ, people! Don't sneak up on me like that!"
The three of them exchanged looks. "Ooh...kay." Calleigh said finally. "See, this is what we were worried about. You're seeming just a little tightly wound."
"Plus graveyard's here, and they've been briefed, so they want us out of the way so they can get to work on finding this guy." Eric added.
"Please, graveyard couldn't find their asses with both hands if they had bells attached to them." Maria scoffed.
"Well, be that as it may, you're starting to freak us all out." Calleigh told her. "You're like a woman possessed. All work and no play makes Maria a dull girl."
"I'm fine." Maria waved them away.
"Of course you are." Tim said. "If by 'fine,' you mean 'insane.' Come on, you don't have a say in this. We're going to take you out, and buy you drinks until you lighten up a little."
"And tell us what the hell it is about this case that's got you acting like this." Eric said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and easily lifting her up.
"Hey! Put me down!" Maria demanded. "God, what are the odds of you guys backing the fuck off and leaving me alone?"
"Not good." Calleigh smirked.
____________________
"Okay, so spill." Eric said. "What's going on? I've never seen a case effect you like this."
"Forget it." Maria finished off her third mojito of the night. "It's stupid anyway."
"It's not stupid, otherwise you wouldn't be acting so weird." Calleigh insisted. Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged. "Weirder."
"Fine." Maria sighed. "It's...it's a family thing. To cut a long story short, back when the Ripper first started terrorizing the Whitechapel District, my great-great grandfather on my mother's side was living in London with his family. He was a police inspector, and he worked on the Ripper case. It slowly drove him insane, and a few months after the murders ended, he blew his brains out, and his wife and kids went back to Russia. So, there you have it. I guess it's just in my blood or something. Either that, or you guys are right, and I'm completely insane."
"Or, maybe it's both." Tim suggested.
"I'd definitely say both." Eric agreed.
"But mostly the insanity part." Calleigh added.
"Oh, thanks!" Maria said sarcastically, laughing. "Gee, so glad I shared."
"Come on, you know we're just messing with you." Eric put his arm around her and playfully ruffled her hair. "We're going to get this guy. And we're going to do it before any of us get driven insane."
"More insane." Calleigh corrected.
Eric shrugged. "Yeah, well, whatever."
"The question isn't whether or not we're going to catch this guy." Tim pointed out. "It's how we're going to do it. I mean, let's face it, we're not doing much better than those guys in London were a hundred years ago, despite all the advantages we have over them."
"Holy fuck, that's it!" Maria gasped, almost falling off of her bar stool. "Tim, you're a goddamn genius. Calleigh, kiss him, he's fucking brilliant!"
As Calleigh more than willingly complied, Eric gave Maria a quizzical look. "What are you thinking?" He asked.
"Okay, aside from all the technology we have," Maria explained. "What's the one thing we have now, that they didn't have in London a hundred years ago?" She didn't bother to wait for an answer. "Undercover Vice cops. And in this city? A lot of them."
Eric realized what she was getting at. "So, what you're saying is..."
Maria nodded, knowing that he got it. "Exactly." She snapped her fingers a few times to get Calleigh and Tim's attention. "You two! Knock it off, we're out of here."
"What?" Calleigh asked, catching her breath. "Where are we going?"
"To pay a visit to some old, dear friends of mine." Maria replied, leading the way out of the bar.
_______________________
TBC...
Disclaimer: (To the tune of "You Don't Own Me," by Leslie Gore) I don't own it, I'm not trying to claim it in any way. I don't own it, don't hunt me down cause I'll never pay!
Rating: R
Pairings: Eric/Maria (OC), Tim/Calleigh
Feedback: Your feedback = my inspiration = more frequent updates.
__________________________________________
"H, we've got a possible lead." Eric said, catching up to his boss in the corridor. "A prostitute who worked the same streets as Melissa Black. Says she saw Melissa fighting with a guy about an hour before the last time Melissa was seen alive."
"All right, let's bring her in and get a statement from her." Horatio said.
"She's already on her way in." Eric replied.
"Okay, good work." Horatio said. He looked at the younger man's face. "Is something wrong, Eric?"
"It's nothing." Eric replied quickly. "Girl trouble, no big deal."
"What's the problem?" Horatio asked.
"It's this girl I've been seeing for a while." Eric admitted. "I just realized today that I barely know her. Around the same time that I realized that I'm in love with her. Trouble is, though, she's been through a lot, I get the feeling it's a lot more than she's told me. I just think she'll split if she thinks we're getting in too deep."
"I think you owe it to Maria to tell her how you feel." Horatio stated. He chuckled at the shocked look on Eric's face. "Eric, give me some credit, it's my job to notice things. Besides, I don't think it's interfering with your work or hers, so it's not my business. It's not like you two had sex on my desk or anything, right?" He joked.
Eric chuckled slightly. "Yeah, of course. I'm gonna go, uh, check in with Alexx."
_____________________
"So, did you try to intervene when you saw Melissa arguing with this man?" Maria asked.
The brown-haired woman shook her head. "No way, I ain't gettin' involved when I see that kind of shit. And look, I'm real sorry that girl got killed, but I'm thinking it's a good thing I stayed outta it, if he's the one who did it."
"Did you hear anything that was said?" Eric asked. "Did he threaten her in any way?"
"She called him a motherfucker more than once." The woman said with a shrug. "And he called her all the usual shit, bitch, cunt, that kind of stuff. That's all I heard."
"Okay." Maria said. "Analia, this is extremely important. Did you get a look at his face, or any details about him that could help us identify him?"
"I didn't see him, it was too dark and they was way across the street, but...ooh, yeah! I saw his car, I think I'd seen it around there a few times." Analia said excitedly.
"All right, good. That's good." Hagen spoke up. "Can you remember the license plate number?"
A knock on the door interrupted, and Laura peered into the room. "Maria, one of the other techs found this outside." She handed a thin white envelope to Maria.
"Thanks, Laur." Maria said. "Hey, page me immediately if any of those blood samples from the scenes turn out to not be from one of the vics, all right?"
"Will do." Laura said. "Hey, I met your brothers earlier. Anton's-"
"Very happily married with three kids." Maria interrupted.
"Damn." Laura sighed. "And Estefan?"
"Nineteen." Maria said.
"Ew. Okay, I'll page you if there's any news."
As soon as the door closed, Maria looked at the envelope in her hand. It was very thin, and had no addresses or stamp. There was only one thing written on it, in thick, dark capital letters.
'DETECTEVE MARIA SANTYAGO'
"Analia, could you excuse us for a moment?" Maria asked, her voice shaking a little. "John, stay with her." She grabbed Eric's arm and pulled him out of the room. "Take a look at this."
Eric took the envelope from her and inspected it. "Well, aside from the second-grade spelling, there's nothing too suspicious looking about it-"
"Except for the bad spelling." Maria corrected him, taking back the envelope. "That was another one of Jack's trademarks. All those cryptic, taunting letters he sent to the police, the 'From Hell' letter and the 'Dear Boss' letters. The spelling was atrocious in most of them, although no one's sure if that was a sign of low class, or an educated man trying to appear low class."
"Maybe you shouldn't open that, just in case." Eric suggested nervously.
But Maria was already tearing the envelope open. Her hands shook a little as she pulled out the paper and unfolded it. "Jesus Christ." She said breathlessly. She held up the paper so Eric could see the blood stains on it. And the jaggedly written words at the top of the letter.
'FROM HELL'
____________________
'Dear Boss
I did see you on my tv tuday. You are a prity little thing to be shure. You made me laugh when you sayd you wuld find me before I could kill agin. I like my work verry much and do not think I will let you and yor frends stop me yet. The two last nite were fun, the secend one sqeeled alot, tuk me some time to finesh. Keep looking for me little one, I will leeve one agin for you to find.
Cach me if you can, prity girl.'
Horatio set down the letter and looked at Maria. "He must have seen the coverage on the news, earlier today. That idiot reporter identified you and everything."
"This is nothing." Maria insisted. "He's mimicking everything the Ripper did, he's trying to psych us out."
"What if he's not?" Eric pointed out. He moved closer to Maria and put his arm around her waist, resting his hand on her hip. "Just because he's followed the Ripper's M.O up until now, who's to say that he's not trying to trap you, or any of us? What if he comes after you?"
"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Maria shrugged.
"Well, I'm not." Eric told her.
Maria gasped incredulously. "Excuse me? Since when is that entirely up to you?" She snapped, shaking his hand off of her. "Or, you know, at all up to you?"
"Since when do you not even have the common sense to know when your life could be in danger?" Eric shot back.
"Oh, you're lecturing me about common sense?" Maria scoffed. "That's funny, coming from a guy who almost suffered brain damage two weeks ago because-"
"All right, that's enough." Horatio stated firmly. "Everyone just take a few deep breaths and calm down. I understand that this is a difficult case. Letting personal feelings interfere isn't going to help. Maria, you can stay on the case for now. But I don't want you to so much as step out of this building to get something from your car without someone with you. And if we find even one more scrap of evidence, no matter how insignificant it may seem, that the killer is targeting you directly, you're off the case, and I'll assign an officer to stay with you around the clock until we catch this guy. That clear?"
"Yeah, fair enough." Maria sighed. She turned on her heel and swept out of the room, without looking at Eric.
"I should probably go after her and apologize, huh?" Eric said after a moment.
"Probably." Horatio agreed.
_____________________
"Hey, hold up a second." Eric called to Maria. He caught up to her and stepped right into her path. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. The last thing you need right now is me giving you attitude."
"You're right, it is." Maria said calmly. "But I accept your apology. This case is getting to everyone."
"I didn't just mean the case." Eric told her, loosely wrapping his arms around her. "Calleigh told me about your brother."
"Oh." Maria glanced down at the floor.
"Good thing, too. If she hadn't told me, there's no telling when I would have found out." Eric continued.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Maria asked sharply. "No, forget it. I'm just tweaking from all this stress." She leaned up so her lips were only a few inches from his and smiled suggestively. "Maybe later you could help me...unwind?"
Eric pulled her against him. "I'm sure I could find a way." He brushed his lips against hers.
"God, get a storage room, why don't you?" The two of them looked up and saw Hagen approaching. "Word gets around." He said with a wink.
"Funny." Maria said sarcastically. "What do you want?"
"Got a name to go with the license plate number Analia gave us." Hagen replied. "Feel like paying this guy a visit?"
Maria smirked. "You even need to ask?"
________________________
"So, it seemed like Delko was kind of pissed about you leaving." Hagen observed as he and Maria made their way up the front steps of the rundown apartment building. "Whatever that letter said, it must have spooked him pretty badly."
"Whatever, Eric don't own me." Maria replied, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
"No, but from what I hear, he does test-drive the hell out of you." Hagen teased.
"Okay, you better shut up." Maria warned him.
"Are you in love with him?"
The question caught her off guard, but she recovered quickly enough. "I don't think you have the right to ask me that."
"Fine, sorry." Hagen said. After a moment, he spoke up again. "I've seen the way he looks at you."
"This is the place." Maria said, ignoring the statement. She knocked firmly on the door, and when there was no answer, she slammed her fist against the door furiously.
"Yeah, what?" An unkempt man in his thirties shouted, ripping open the door. When he saw Maria, he changed his tone immediately. "Well, what can I do for you?"
"Detective Santiago, Crime Scene Investigation." Maria introduced herself. "This is Detective Hagen, Homicide. Are you Daniel DeFilippis?"
"I can be whoever you want me to be." The man replied, leering at her.
Maria didn't let it faze her. It was nothing new. "Mr. DeFilippis, we need to as you some questions about Melissa Black."
There was a flash of anxiety in Daniel's eyes. "Melissa? Is she okay?"
"Does this look like 'okay' to you?" Maria asked, holding up a picture of Melissa's mutilated face.
"Holy shit!" Daniel reeled back. "What the hell are you doing, showing me shit like that? Man, you are one sick bitch-"
"All right, that's enough." Hagen interrupted.
"John." Maria snapped, putting up her hand to silence him. "Daniel, how did you know Melissa?"
"She...she worked for me." Daniel replied, leaning on the door with one hand and clutching at his stomach with the other.
"You're her pimp?" Maria asked.
"Pimp is such an ugly word." Daniel smiled at her, having recovered from the shock.
"Well, it's a pretty ugly business, too." Maria shot back. "The smell in here is making my hair curl, so let's be quick. I got an eyewitness who saw you arguing with Melissa about an hour before she died. Half an hour after another prostitute was murdered and mutilated in a similar fashion, not a mile away. Where were you last night between eleven and one in the morning?"
"After I left Melissa, I drove to a bar a few blocks over, met up with some friends, had a few beers. My buddy dropped me off around three." Daniel replied.
"Okay, we're going to need the names and numbers of everyone who can confirm that." Hagen said. "Maria, are you going to need anything else?"
"No, that's it." Maria said softly. "Get the numbers, I'll be in the car."
____________________
"Get anything?" Calleigh asked.
"I think I might have caught some kind of freakish STD just looking at that guy, but other than that, no." Maria sighed.
"His alibi checks out, and he didn't see anything unusual." Hagen explained.
"This is getting us nowhere." Maria said, stalking off towards the breakroom.
"God, she's really getting freaked out by this case." Calleigh sighed.
"Well, the guy was a pimp." Hagen said. "And a sleaze."
"That's nothing, she deals with sleazes every day." Calleigh pointed out. "I mean, hell, she deals with you just about every damn day, doesn't she?"
____________________
"Okay, Detective Santiago, time to go." Tim said as he approached Maria with Eric and Calleigh behind him.
Maria shrieked and turned around. "Jesus fucking Christ, people! Don't sneak up on me like that!"
The three of them exchanged looks. "Ooh...kay." Calleigh said finally. "See, this is what we were worried about. You're seeming just a little tightly wound."
"Plus graveyard's here, and they've been briefed, so they want us out of the way so they can get to work on finding this guy." Eric added.
"Please, graveyard couldn't find their asses with both hands if they had bells attached to them." Maria scoffed.
"Well, be that as it may, you're starting to freak us all out." Calleigh told her. "You're like a woman possessed. All work and no play makes Maria a dull girl."
"I'm fine." Maria waved them away.
"Of course you are." Tim said. "If by 'fine,' you mean 'insane.' Come on, you don't have a say in this. We're going to take you out, and buy you drinks until you lighten up a little."
"And tell us what the hell it is about this case that's got you acting like this." Eric said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and easily lifting her up.
"Hey! Put me down!" Maria demanded. "God, what are the odds of you guys backing the fuck off and leaving me alone?"
"Not good." Calleigh smirked.
____________________
"Okay, so spill." Eric said. "What's going on? I've never seen a case effect you like this."
"Forget it." Maria finished off her third mojito of the night. "It's stupid anyway."
"It's not stupid, otherwise you wouldn't be acting so weird." Calleigh insisted. Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged. "Weirder."
"Fine." Maria sighed. "It's...it's a family thing. To cut a long story short, back when the Ripper first started terrorizing the Whitechapel District, my great-great grandfather on my mother's side was living in London with his family. He was a police inspector, and he worked on the Ripper case. It slowly drove him insane, and a few months after the murders ended, he blew his brains out, and his wife and kids went back to Russia. So, there you have it. I guess it's just in my blood or something. Either that, or you guys are right, and I'm completely insane."
"Or, maybe it's both." Tim suggested.
"I'd definitely say both." Eric agreed.
"But mostly the insanity part." Calleigh added.
"Oh, thanks!" Maria said sarcastically, laughing. "Gee, so glad I shared."
"Come on, you know we're just messing with you." Eric put his arm around her and playfully ruffled her hair. "We're going to get this guy. And we're going to do it before any of us get driven insane."
"More insane." Calleigh corrected.
Eric shrugged. "Yeah, well, whatever."
"The question isn't whether or not we're going to catch this guy." Tim pointed out. "It's how we're going to do it. I mean, let's face it, we're not doing much better than those guys in London were a hundred years ago, despite all the advantages we have over them."
"Holy fuck, that's it!" Maria gasped, almost falling off of her bar stool. "Tim, you're a goddamn genius. Calleigh, kiss him, he's fucking brilliant!"
As Calleigh more than willingly complied, Eric gave Maria a quizzical look. "What are you thinking?" He asked.
"Okay, aside from all the technology we have," Maria explained. "What's the one thing we have now, that they didn't have in London a hundred years ago?" She didn't bother to wait for an answer. "Undercover Vice cops. And in this city? A lot of them."
Eric realized what she was getting at. "So, what you're saying is..."
Maria nodded, knowing that he got it. "Exactly." She snapped her fingers a few times to get Calleigh and Tim's attention. "You two! Knock it off, we're out of here."
"What?" Calleigh asked, catching her breath. "Where are we going?"
"To pay a visit to some old, dear friends of mine." Maria replied, leading the way out of the bar.
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TBC...