Tension Mounts
Steve and Daniel had moved into the morning room and sat in silence, one in each of the chairs that were either side of the window. For a long while neither of them said anything. Their thoughts weaving back and forth between what had just happened to them and what could be happening to Jo. In the end Steve had let out a strangled cry and got to his feet.
"Want that trip to the gym?" he asked.
"Yeah, I … I guess so. I don't know what I want to do, Dad, but I gotta do something, before I go crazy."
Steve thought for a moment and then smiled. "Get your coat then, we'll go to an outside gym and you can really lose your temper without doing any damage."
Just over an hour later, Steve pulled up in the parking lot of the Never Say Die Gym. Daniel was sitting on the back seat, and Agent Whitlow was next to Steve. For a moment a smile lit up Steve's features. "Ah, you don't have to join in, but try not to look too much like a fed, ok? Some of the guys who workout here have a real problem with authority."
The agent, who, Steve thought, probably had FBI on his pyjamas, nodded his head and then got out of the car. Daniel had smiled in the back seat of the car, his problems forgotten momentarily as he enjoyed the look on his dad's face.
Steve went into the reception area of the gym and waited while Daniel and Whitlow joined him. Brendan Kelly was standing behind the counter, a sports drink in one hand, his cane in the other. "Steve, man, how are you holding up? I was so sorry to hear about your wife." He put his drink down and came limping out from where he had been standing, his hand held out to shake that of his friend.
"It's … it's hard, y'know, but we have to carry on as best we can. Kelly, this is my son, Daniel, and this is my shadow, Agent Whitlow."
"So, you're Daniel. It's a pleasure to finally meet the boy who melted the big man's heart."
Daniel felt himself blush, but the feelings that the words gave him were more than he could ever describe. After the day he'd had so far they were almost too much for him.
"We've had a real hard day, and … well, we need to bash hell out of something for a while." Steve felt himself struggle with his emotions as Kelly spoke.
"I can understand that. Daniel, did you ever box before?"
"Box, you mean with gloves, and mouth guards and bells and things? No, not ever." Daniel was wide eyed, and Kelly laughed.
"You didn't tell him what sort of gym it was did you?"
Steve shook his head, he had needed the light relief, and now he needed the exercise that he knew a workout here would give him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Rae had shut her eyes and leant back against the wall outside the observation room. She knew that she couldn't leave, and she also knew that there was no way that she was going to dissolve here in the station. For a few minutes she struggled to get her feelings back under control, and she resolved there and then to call Lauren the first chance she got and book an appointment to see her. She needed someone to talk to who didn't have an emotional involvement in what was happening to her. Someone with whom she could cry and shout if necessary without feeling the need to apologise.
Finally, with a deep sigh, Rae opened the door to the room and returned to her seat. "I'm sorry, guys, I … I just let things overwhelm me for a moment." She felt Cheryl's hand on her arm as she began to speak.
"Rae, you have to let go sometime, I know here isn't the best place to have it happen, but you can't keep being strong the whole time, you'll make yourself ill, and Jesse will need you when he comes back."
"I know, and you aren't the only person who has told me that, I will, I promise, but when I'm home and nobody can see me, ok? I … I did 'let go' with Alex the other night… and that sounds terrible!"
Cheryl smiled, home alone wasn't the place to do it either, and she knew it, but right now they had other things that needed to be discussed. "I'll leave it, but I'll call you, tomorrow, and see how you are."
Rae looked through the mirror into the room in front of her. She watched as the Chief began to speak with Don Werner, and, pushing her own thoughts to the back of her mind, she began to listen once more.
Ten minutes later she had a feeling that the huge black man sitting opposite her boss wasn't the guy they were searching for either. With a shake of her head she looked down at the notes she had taken. The time that she had spent talking with Martin meant that there was very little written down, but Rae knew that the interviews would have all been taped, and she planned to take them home and listen to them once she had put the girls to bed. For a moment she let her mind wander and she thought about Steve and Daniel. The insensitivity of the social services department was staggering, and she couldn't believe that they would even consider taking the boy away at such a difficult time for them all.
As Rae waited for the next cop to come in to see the Chief, who was also the last one, Leroy Raab, Rae heard a knock on the door and turned to see Alison put her head round it. "Detective Yeager, could I have a word with you?" There was something in her tone that told Rae that whatever it was she was about to hear, it wasn't good.
"Sure, Cheryl, Martin, will you excuse me for a moment?" The two friends nodded their approval and she left the room.
"I'm sorry, Detective, but we just got another package, and there is a note in with it. Should I go get the Chief?"
Rae just nodded her head and then, before she let the desk sergeant leave, asked the question she didn't really want an answer to. "The package, it … it contained … something didn't it?"
"Yes, Ma'am, but I think that you should really wait and see for yourself."
Rae quickly told Cheryl and Martin to come with her and they followed the woman down to the interview room, and, not wanting to be spotted by the cop inside, the three officers waited just a little way behind Alison. They could still hear the conversation though, and the Chief's voice floated back towards her.
"Detective Raab, if you would just wait here for a moment, this really needs my immediate attention." Rae didn't hear the reply but her boss was at her side almost without delay. "Rae, have you seen this yet?"
"No, Sir, I thought it better to wait for you, the less often the package is handled the better."
"Yes, yes, of course. It is where, Sergeant?"
"In the Captain's office. We have sent for Doctor Bentley, but she wasn't in her office, so it may take a little longer for her to arrive."
They walked the rest of the way in silence before Alison returned to her desk and Rae and the Chief, along with Cheryl and Martin, carried on towards their own destination. The grim look on the Chief's face telling them that conversation would not be forthcoming.
Once the four of them were inside the office and the door was closed behind them the Captain, with a gloved hand, carefully used a pencil to raise the lid of the small box and Rae gasped as she saw the contents. Lying on a piece of kitchen towel were three pieces of skin. They were, Rae reckoned, about four or five inches long in total, and almost two inches wide. "Oh, God, that's Jesse's." Rae looked on in horror as she realised that the box contained part of her husband, and that he would have been in agony as he had been tortured in that way. For a moment the room swum around her, and she felt Cheryl put her arm round her.
"Steady, Rae, sit down for a moment."
"Thank you, I'm sorry, Sir." Rae put her head down into her hands and tried to collect herself.
"How do you know that this is from your husband, Reagan?" It was Captain Newman who spoke, and she could hear the worry and disgust in his voice.
"He's my husband, Captain, I just know that the pieces …" Rae had to swallow, hard. "The pieces of skin are from his arm."
"I was told that there was a note with this, what does that say?" Chief Masters had moved away from his officer, and was eying the box with an impassionate look on his face.
"Yes, there is, I have it in an evidence bag, but it is easy to read.
Stevie and Rae,
I can call you Rae can't I? I feel I know you both so well now. My garage is a little full at the moment, so many body parts, from the dead and the living, what should I do with them all? Could you suggest anything? No, I suppose you won't want to do that.
I will save your little pet coroner some work, the skin in the box is from Doctor Travis, have you ever heard a pig shriek? Well, he did a very good impersonation of one. Strange, he hasn't spoken very much since, is he normally so quiet? Do I care? No, not really.
So, you have had one piece from the tramp, four from the good doctor, what, I wonder will the next step be, or will you see or hear from me? Who knows?
Have a nice day,
S. Todd.
Rae had shut her eyes, listening to the letter was bad enough, but to actually see the box on the desk was more than she could cope with.
"Does Steve know?" Her voice came out faintly, but she looked up and into the eyes of her Captain.
"No, Detective, I've rung his house, and his cell phone. His man told me that he had taken his son to the gym, and he obviously doesn't have his phone on him at the moment. I decided to give him a little while with the boy before I destroyed their day."
Rae nodded; she knew, more than the Captain, just how much Steve and Daniel needed that time. "Why has he done things differently this time?" Rae looked over at her boss, trying to work out the answer to her question as she did so.
"You mean why did he send the letter and the … the skin in the same package?" Captain Newman had been wondering that himself.
"Yes, that's what I mean. If we were closing in on him then I could understand it … unless…"
"Unless he is a vice cop and wasn't sure that he would survive the interview with the Chief? No, that wouldn't work." Martin had started off enthusiastically, but he seemed to run out of steam as he finished talking.
"Why, why wouldn't it work?" Cheryl had made sure she stood as far away from Martin as she could, but it meant that she could look at him without anyone saying too much.
"We were told the interviews were to do with how the department was running; there was no indication that it was anything else." Martin shook his head and the rest of the occupants of the room realised that he was probably right.
"I have to say that if I had committed this crime I would feel jittery the whole time. Maybe he sent the two together just because he was seeing the Chief, and he has a guilty conscience." Cheryl watched the reaction of her friends and colleagues as she spoke and was pleased to see that they agreed with her. "The jar that was found in Steve's truck had a letter with it didn't it? And the hair." Cheryl moved her mind over the rest of the case, and was relieved to see Rae respond to her.
"The jar, we think was opportunistic. I even wonder whether he had been carting it around with him since the start hoping for just such a chance. And I don't think that he would want to wait to leave the note, not that time."
"And the hair?" Martin wasn't as sure of his facts yet, but he would be up to speed as soon as he got a few minutes to review Cheryl's notes.
"I think he needed to send them together because of what it was. But the letter was in a separate package don't forget. The one with hair in it without the note coming at the same time would have almost been lost in the other clues, but it showed us a few things about the victims, things he wanted us to know. Like the lady doesn't dye her hair for instance. " Rae stopped talking, Jesse didn't dye his hair either, and they had handfuls of that too.
"I think, for the time being, we will call it a glitch and carry on with the investigation." The Chief's tone of voice left everybody in no doubt that the conversation on the previous bits and pieces was over.
Amanda had seen Alex as she was leaving the hospital, and she could see that he had finished his shift. She had spoken with him briefly and he had asked if he could accompany her to the station. By the time they had arrived Rae was standing looking out of the window, but even from behind the two doctors could see that her body language had changed from the last time they had seen her.
Rae looked out at the sky, the sun was beginning its final descent, and she knew that before long she would have to return home, put on a brave face for her children and her father-in-law, eat food she didn't want, and try to find sleep that wouldn't come. She heard Amanda's voice behind her, and with a sigh she forced a smile onto her lips and turned back towards her colleagues in the room with her.
"Alex." For a moment Rae felt her resolve weaken, she was prepared to see Amanda and the other people who had been with her before, but the kind and worried face of her doctor was almost too much for her.
Alex took in all the tell tale signs of someone suffering from a severe mental trauma in one glance and moved quickly over to her. "Rae, I wanted to see how you were doing."
"Good, I'm good, ok?" Her tone told him not to argue with her, that he should leave her be.
Amanda pulled on a pair of latex gloves and carefully lifted the lid on the box in front of her. She managed to contain the gasp that tried to escape her lips, and instead concentrated on being as professional as possible.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Daniel had been shown how to hold himself, wear the gloves, gum guard and head protection, and then with the help of a girl of about sixteen called Maddie he had begun to learn how to actually hit out at the large punching bag that was suspended from the ceiling. For the first ten minutes or so he had just hit wildly at it, and Maddie, recognising the pain and anguish of a fellow sufferer, let him continue for a while, but when she saw the unmistakable sign of tears in his eyes she touched his arm.
"Daniel … Danny, come with me." Her voice was kind and he did just as she said. Steve, watching from the other side of the room, where he had been put through his paces by Kelly, went to follow him but stopped as his friend stepped in front of him.
"Leave him, Steve, let him be with kids his own age for a while, you know Maddie, she won't say or do anything she shouldn't, but she has been through rough times herself, she'll understand."
The locker room at the gym was empty, as Maddie had known it would be, and she sat down on one of the benches and indicated for Daniel to do the same. "You know just because you're a boy doesn't mean you can't cry, but that wasn't the place to do it."
"I wasn't gonna cry." Daniel looked away.
"Yeah, right, I guess you had something in your eye, huh?" Maddie folded her arms and looked at him. "Wanna tell me what's wrong?"
For a moment Daniel hesitated, but the need to unburden himself was so strong that in the end he nodded his head and began to speak. "You know what happened to my mom, my foster mom that is?"
"Yeah, I heard, I'm real sorry."
"They came to see me today, and they want to take me away from Steve." Daniel looked away, the unfairness of it all overwhelming him for a moment.
"They? You mean the social workers, why, Steve's a good guy, why would they want to do that…?" Maddie looked confused for a moment and Daniel, now needing to speak cut in on what she was saying.
"Because my foster mom has been taken by a lunatic. They think that my dad can't care for me on his own, but he is never on his own, if Mom isn't there then M is, and he's like having about three mothers."
"M?"
"I gotta stop calling him that." Daniel smiled, every time he said 'M', somebody always repeated it as a question. "You know that my mom has a lot of money, right?" He watched as the girl in front of him nodded her head, "Well, M is the butler."
"Oh." Maddie didn't say anything more, and for a little while both of them were silent, but then she spoke again. "I'm guessing that your mom has a lawyer."
"Yes, his name is Gilbert Sholte, I've only met him a coupla times, why?"
"Tell him what's happening, if you don't want to leave, and I would guess that you don't, then get him to tell them that. Maybe they will back down if you have some muscle behind you."
"These aren't enough?" Daniel flexed the muscles in his arms and Maddie laughed.
"No, not yet, but come here a few more times, and you'll soon be able to stand a chance against me."
"You? But you're just a girl! Ow!" Daniel was on the receiving end of a right hook to his upper arm. "Mm, maybe a few more lessons, huh?"
"Any time you're ready, and if you ask Steve, I'm sure he'll drop you here when he can, and we're right on the bus route."
With a smile he stood up and then he placed a hand on Maddie's shoulder. He looked at her and realised just how pretty she was with her long blonde hair, and beautiful eyes. "Thanks."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
By the time the box had been removed and the Chief had finished his interview with LeRoy Raab it was just after five, and Rae wanted to get home. For the first time she wanted to get the taste and smell of her place of work out of her hair and clothes, she needed to shower, play with her children and try and put the horrors back in the section of her brain that she had carefully created for them. Rae knew that if she couldn't do so it would destroy her.
Just as she was about to ask Alex if he could run her home her cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket and she pulled it out. She recognised the number as belonging to Steve and Jo and hoping that more bad news wasn't going to be the result she pushed the button. "Hello … Michael, no I'm just leaving now … oh, right … no I don't think I would mention that if I were you … yeah, we can suppress that, it's not a problem, is Steve there…? No, well, like I said, I'm just leaving so I guess we'll be home about the same time… I'll let Detective Banks know, and you can get hold of Ron, yes?" Rae listened for a moment longer and then another thought struck here. "Michael, can you get hold of Mark? … and I think if we meet at my house then I can put the girls to bed and then come back and join in again…Ok, I'll see you then." Rae folded down her phone and put it back in her pocket. "Another letter has been delivered, to Steve's house." Rae didn't say that it had been addressed to Daniel, she had a feeling that the fewer people who knew that the better.
Steve, Daniel and Agent Whitlow, who had done as he was asked and not made himself at all conspicuous while they were at the gym, had driven home in silence for a little while and then Daniel had begun to speak.
"Can I call Mr Sholte?"
"Yeah, why? Oh." Steve realised what he meant and wondered why he hadn't thought of it himself.
"Maddie said that I should talk to a lawyer, and I was thinking, lots of foster parents are single, or divorced or whatever, you don't have to be married to do this, so why should it make any difference that Mom is … gone? I think it's just an excuse."
"But, why would they want to take you away, you're happy aren't you?" Steve kept his eyes on the road, but his whole being waited for the answer to his question.
"No, I hate it! … Of course I'm happy with you, I don't want to live any place else."
Steve smiled to himself, the resilience of his son was a source of pride for him.
"You know you have a lot of rights as a foster child don't you? There are organisations you can contact, web sites to visit. If you want to stay then you can fight." Agent Whitlow turned slightly in his seat, he was aware of everything that was happening in the Sloan household, and although it wasn't his place to say anything, he had been horrified at the way the two social workers had barged in that morning.
"I hadn't thought of the internet, how stupid! Dad, could you call Mr. Sholte, now? I want to have spoken to him before those two jerks come back tomorrow."
Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked away from the road for an instant. "Dammit." He checked his mirror and then drew into the side of the highway.
"Lieutenant?" Agent Whitlow looked over at the man in the driver's seat. "Is there a problem?"
"I have two missed calls; can you drive the rest of the way?" Steve was relieved to see the man nod his head and then he got out of his door and the two men swapped places.
Steve checked through the information on his phone and then called home first. He listened intently to what Michael was saying; saying very little himself in return, and then he closed his phone. "It seems that life carried on without us. There has been a letter delivered to the house, and a parcel and note to the station. Michael says that everybody is coming over to Oak Place and we can talk about it there."
"Oak Place?" Daniel looked confused.
"It's the proper name for Rae and Jesse's house, only Michael and your mom call it that though."
"Please, call Mr. Sholte, before he goes home, please." Daniel felt the tears begin to well up again, and got angry with himself, he was turning in to cry baby, Maddie was right; he needed to go to the gym more often.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
By the time Rae, Alex and Amanda had arrived at Oak Place, Sally had been called and she had, much to Rae's embarrassment made hot coffee, and shot round to the local store with the girls to get some cake and cookies. Rae moved her to one side and smiled at her. "Sally, thank you so much, I never gave a thought to the fact that if everybody came here we would have to feed them."
"Rae, I'm surprised that you can fit two thoughts together right now, so don't worry, and Eliana just loved being pushed round the store at high speed, I think we might have to do all our shopping that way in the future." As Sally finished speaking the little girl came out of the nursery, and seeing lots of people all at once ran to her mother and buried her face in her jeans.
Rae lifted Eliana up and into a hug, kissed her gently, and then began to speak. "Hey, Sweetie, it's all right, see you know everybody. There's Uncle Alex, Aunty Manda and Uncle Ron, and Uncle Steve and Daniel will be here soon, ok?" Once again Rae was grateful for the presence of her extended family, and the little girl nodded her head, but made no attempt to get down from the safety of her momma's arms.
The doorbell rang and Agent Perry moved over and opened it. Outside on the step was Mark, and Steve and Daniel were walking up behind him with Michael and Agent Whitlow bringing up the rear.
Steve paused a moment in the front of the hallway and grasped his father's hand. The rest of the crowd of friends made their way into breakfast room to give the two men a chance to speak with each other.
"Dad, I'm just so glad you're here." Steve pulled his father to him, and for a moment just took strength and comfort from his presence. "They … they want to take Daniel away from me."
"What? Steve, they can't. You went through the whole initiation process, had the medicals, dental treatment, everything, why would they want to do that when you are suffering so much already?"
"It's because I'm suffering that they want to do it. They said that because Jo isn't here, and is being held by … by this lunatic that they think it would be in Daniel's best interest if he were moved somewhere else."
"Ok, Steve, have you gotten hold of Gilbert?" He saw Steve nod and then he carried on. "Listen to what he has to say, but whatever happens we will fight this. I know it's hard but there are plenty of cops looking for Jo and Jesse, but only you to fight his corner, he has to come first, at least for a little while." Mark held the arms of his son, in each hand and looked into his eyes, all the hurt and despair he saw there almost broke his heart, but he knew that he had to be strong for him, and be the one fighting Steve's corner.
"Yeah, and Gilbert is coming here, I knew Rae wouldn't mind, and at least Daniel can see that we're doing something for him." As Steve finished talking he began to walk through to the breakfast room and then he looked round at the friendly faces in the room. All of them were committed to finding Jo and Jesse, and he knew that if he confided in them they would be equally committed to helping him keep Daniel too.
By the time everybody had a cup of coffee and some cake the room had taken on a business like air and as Steve sat down in the last vacant seat they all waited for someone to speak.
Rae looked round and, realising that no one really knew why they were there, cleared her throat and started to talk. "Cheryl and Martin have been given this case by the Chief, and Ron is in charge of the FBI end of things as you know. So I guess we should listen to them, and to Amanda who has some more forensic evidence. Then we just need to work out how we are going to get them home." Rae stopped speaking and seemed to shrink back into her chair. Sally had taken the girls into the nursery and for a moment she wished that she was in there with them.
Cheryl stood up and looked round at the familiar faces before her. "We had another package delivered to the station this afternoon, and it had a note with it. I have copied the note and you can look at it in a minute. We also had a letter sent to Steve's house, none of you have seen this, so I will read it out and then we can talk about the other things received today." Cheryl picked up the evidence bag that was on the table in front of her, and quietly began to read.
"Well, young man, what a family you have moved into,
Life is never dull with the Sloans is it? Do you like it? Or would you like to be placed somewhere else? Who knows maybe you will get the chance."
Cheryl stopped talking as Steve, Rae and Daniel reacted to the words they had heard so far. "Can I continue, or do you need to talk about that?"
"No, no, carry on." Steve knew that until he had spoken to Gilbert it was best to keep things to themselves.
"Stevie, did you think I would be gentle with her because she is your wife and not mine? Don't make me laugh, this way is painless, well, for me at any rate, and I haven't forgotten that wimpy doctor, his turn will come, and sooner than you all think."
Have a nice day,
S. Todd
"What was in the parcel?" Steve could see the extra strain in Rae's eyes, and although he hadn't been told anything, from the letter he was sure that it had been part of Jesse that had been sent. Part of Jesse, for a moment his control wavered, he couldn't believe that he had to think in this way about his wife and his best friend. The anger he felt about the letter wasn't easy to distance himself from but with an effort Steve put away the knowledge that he now knew why he stood to lose his son, and tried to listen to the conversation going on around him.
Cheryl looked over to Amanda and was grateful when she nodded and took over the narrative. "There was skin in the box, three pieces, and not just single layers, but the amount that would be lost in, say, a third degree burn. The actual measurement of all the skin was five inches long by two wide, although it had already started to shrivel up."
Nobody said a word, but all of them knew that Jesse had suffered as much, if not more, pain as Jo when she had her finger amputated.
"Amanda?" Rae's voice came out very quietly, but instantly every eye was on her.
"Yes, Rae?"
"If we … when we find them, what will happen about Jesse's arm?" Rae had corrected herself, but she was feeling so helpless that she could no longer put her hand on her heart and say that she thought she would get her husband back.
As Amanda began to answer her the doorbell rang once again and then they all heard the instantly recognisable voice of Gilbert Sholte, Steve stood up, offered his apologies and left the room.
"Rae, there are treatments that can be used to graft skin over the area where this was taken from. I can go into details with you, or Alex can, when we carry the procedure out, but Jesse will get the best care available, I can promise you that."
"Thank you."
"Ok, I haven't really done a thorough check on the skin yet, but I did notice that there is a similar type of dust and debris on it that we found on the foot of Crosier. That was identified as a type of cement, and I am pretty sure that this will be the same, I should know first thing in the morning. As I have something to compare it to it shouldn't take me long to do."
"The letter says that his garage is full…" It was Alex who spoke. The letter was being handed round the table, and had just been passed from him to Mark. "So it could just be from a bag of the stuff couldn't it? It doesn't mean that there is building work going on."
"No, it doesn't, in fact I'm inclined to agree with you. This type of stuff has to be mixed with sand and so far I have had no sand granules at all turn up. If this had been mixed up ready to use then there would be a little sand as well."
"It still doesn't get us very far does it?" Mark put the letter down, the thought of his daughter-in-law and one of his closest friends suffering in this way was almost too much for him to bear, and he was beginning to wish that he didn't have access to all the information before him.
"Excuse me, Daniel, could you come out here a minute please?" Steve had put his head round the door and the young man stood and, in the same way as his father had done, made his apologies and left.
"Cheryl, do you have any more information that you haven't given us yet?"
Cheryl shook her head. "No, Doctor Sloan, I don't, but I can run through everything again if it would help." She looked round and seeing nodding heads cleared her throat and began to speak. "Actually, Agent Wagner, could you give us the details of the profile that you, Steve and Rae worked out?"
Ron nodded his head, flicked through his notes until he got to the page he needed and began to speak. "The only information we have got is from the letters sent to Steve. Each one give us more details, so this profile will change and grow until we get him, but so far I would describe him thus. He's confident, works with someone else, gives no clues as to who he is, where he is, or even what he plans to do next, although there are a few little hints to the latter. The letter that Cheryl just read told us that the first female victim was his wife. The one that came with the skin that he is using a garage. Like I said each letter gives us a bit more."
"He is using Jo because, for some reason, he can't do these things to his own partner, sorry wife, but before he took her and Jesse it wasn't as clear was it?" Martin was scanning through his own hastily written notes as he spoke.
"No, and we still have no idea who the first female was do we? How could somebody just disappear like that? Have you checked the whereabouts of all the wives of the vice cops?"
"Alex, it's relatively simple to disappear, and I have to say that even if we did have her prints it might be that they would be of no assistance to us. If she has never been printed there will be no record of her on our files, or the LAPD's and the prints would be worthless. And no we haven't, not as deliberately as I think you're suggesting. It is word of mouth that people are married, or seeing someone, unless outside celebrations or whatever, are organised. A lot of cops don't mix outside the station, and I know that we …" Cheryl looked over at Martin for a moment. "We haven't mixed with the vice guys since you joined them have we?"
"Nope, no one has ever suggested it, and to be honest I wouldn't want to anyway. I bring too much of my job home as it is. " Martin shook his head as he spoke.
"Yeah, I guess so, and there was nothing in the bloods or anything that gave any clues either was there?" Alex understood what they were saying, he knew Steve and Rae, and by association Cheryl and Martin but he didn't hear of them relaxing with other officers.
"Nope, our Jane Doe was just that." Amanda cut in, knowing that she had more information on the first female.
"Pardon?" Alex looked very confused.
"If you're a Jane Doe you're a nobody, nothing to identify you, to give you a name, you know that, yeah?" Amanda waited while Alex nodded. "Well, the partner of this guy is O negative, no hereditary diseases nothing to make her stand out in a crowd, and until we find the rest of her, or work out who the murderer is, we may never know who she is, or was." Amanda finished talking and realised that they had another reason to solve this case, the woman, whoever she was shouldn't be able to be discarded the way that she had been without at least one person caring about her.
The rest of the evening was spent going over and over the information that was set out before them, but by half past ten they all knew that they were just paper shuffling. Dane had arrived back at the house just after eight, and had been horrified by the evidence that had been received that day, but he hadn't been able to offer any new insights into a case that seemed almost impossible to crack.
By ten thirty everybody apart from Alex, Sally and Dane had left and Rae collapsed into a chair in the living room, the tears behind her eyes threatening her more and more with each minute that passed. Sally had kissed her gently on the cheek and excused herself. She would be the one to get up in the night if the girls cried, and so she wanted to get to bed as early as she could.
"Rae, Honey, can I give you anything to help you sleep?" Alex crouched down in front of his patient and looked into her eyes.
"No, Alex, I don't want to take anything, what if the girls need me, or … or the phone rings or something."
"You need to sleep, every night, I know you were asleep last night because I was with you, but I can't do that all the time."
Rae smiled up at him and then she kissed him on the cheek, "I know, and I really appreciated it."
"Good grief, woman, your husband, my son is being held by God knows who, and all I see is you flaunting and flirting with every man you come into contact with. You obviously don't miss or care for him at all!" Dane's outburst shocked the two other people in the room, but Rae's shock was merged with blazing anger and, suddenly given the chance to let some of her feelings out, she turned on the man who was a stranger to her.
"How dare you? You have no idea what you are saying, you come waltzing in here, you have never met either me or my children before, you don't ever write to Jesse, call him, or remember anything about him, how dare you say that I don't care. And just who am I supposed to have flirted with…?" Rae saw Dane's eyes look to her young friend and in astonishment she carried on speaking. "Alex, you think I'm flirting with Alex?" Rae moved a little closer to her father-in-law, and when she spoke again her voice was icy cold. "You know nothing about me or your son … or his friends, because if you did you would realise just how insane that accusation is." Rae turned her head slightly, " Alex, I'm sorry; I don't know what else to say, but … well, I'm sorry."
"Rae, it's ok, everybody is under strain right now, but I think that maybe I had better go."
"No, not yet, please, just wait a little longer." Rae turned back to her father-in-law. "I realise that you are probably worried about Jesse, but I won't be spoken to like that in my own house, and if you can't behave decently then I will have to ask you to leave." Rae stood up and moved across to the door, she looked over at Dane and then at Alex before she walked away from them.
Alex shook his head, he didn't quite know what to do first, but in the end he decided to speak with Jesse's dad. "Mr Travis?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry if I offended you, but you're wrong, Rae wasn't flirting with me, she loves your son, very much, but we have known each other for a long while, been through some very difficult times together and she is very special to me. Maybe we have more of a friend/friend relationship than a doctor/patient one, but we are both things."
"Mmm, well, I think I will say goodnight, Doctor." Dane Travis got up and headed for the stairs, he paused as he got to the top and heard the sound of a shower running, and then with a shrug of his shoulders he carried on down to the bedroom at the end of the hallway.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo had sat with Jesse in her arms for most of the day. Bread, cheese and water was delivered just as it had been the day before, but no words were spoken, neither of their captors came anywhere near them, and somehow Jo was more frightened because of it. The brightness coming in through the window changed gradually to the dusk and then the darkness of night and in the chillness she breathed a sigh of relief. There was electric light in the garage but to turn in on during the night would make them conspicuous, and so she hoped that until the sun rose again the following morning she was safe.