*
Part 3:
*
It seems surreal that a part of her is splattered on the concrete, exposed, vulnerable, relinquished permanently from her body. She'll never get it back, this crimson liquid, yet it will always remain in some way in this exact spot. He can't look for too long, the nausea rising up from his stomach, and walks away to lean on the car. He's glad for the chill, somehow, he thinks, heat would make this worse.
Vaguely he hears the detectives talking, the forensics team working furiously to gather every last piece of evidence.
He sees his gun, something that used to be a part of him as well, and cringes away. It won't seem right to use it as his own anymore, not with where it's been, what it's done. God help me, he thinks; they used my own weapon against me -- used it on her.
Lambert comes to stand beside him, hand on his arm.
"Let's head back to the station."
"That's it?"
"For now. They'll give me what they've got when they process everything."
They get in the car and start to drive, Bosco breaking the silence with a question.
"Is she still alive?"
Lambert doesn't want to answer, doesn't know what to say, and sighs.
"There's a good chance -- "
"Don't play it down. I need to know."
He sighs again, running a free hand through his cropped brown hair.
"I don't know. Considering the size of that puddle of blood -- we'll be lucky to find her alive."
Bosco looks away, closes his eyes, and slams the fist of his hand against the door in raw frustration.
*
"We got to be real close these last few months, you know? We went shopping on her days off, we confided in each other. God, this is hell, " Alex Taylor laments over a half-eaten plate of spaghetti.
"She had a good heart. I don't know, I just always thought she'd be around, like live forever or somethin', " Davis whispers around the lump in his throat.
"I miss her. She was a good friend, " Sully says because nothing more can escape his foggy brain.
Kim wants to speak, but the words seem to lose themselves.
Bosco hangs his head, slamming his fist for the second time that day, against the hardwood table, shaking the glasses.
"Just shut up! All of ya! You're all talkin' like she's dead, like she's fuckin' dead. She's not alright? Christ, what the hell's wrong with you?"
They glance at each other nervously, though his words barely penetrate them, all understanding quite well his random, bitter ramblings.
"Well, I'm not sittin' here waitin' around. I'm gonna find her."
Alex shoots up, trying to stop him.
"Bosco -- "
Ty's hand on her arm stops her and he shakes his head.
"Just let him go for now. He's gotta vent."
Her eyes, distant and sad, meet his and look away, resigned.
*
Through the living, you hear the dead. Funny, that way. Almost illogical. But without that past, there's no foundation to build on. You hear the dead, the missing, the voices of those long gone. The streets speak to him tonight, she speaks to him -- in the silence. He wonders if she asked for him, thought of him, called out his name in fear. It's a thought he knows will trouble his sleep yet again tonight.
"God, Faith, where the hell are you?"
He thinks of Lambert and his ambiguous questions, the ones that seem to have deeper meaning than he's letting on.
"I trust you, Faith, you know I do. Whatever happened, I trust you."
He thinks of anything, anything at all that could give motivation to what happened.
The stars, almost oblique on the black canvas of the New York sky, twinkle intermittently, brighter, in small degrees, than normal; always brighter in the winter. His breath freezes on each exhale, the only indication to him that he's still living. The basic functions of human life sustain him; walking, breathing -- but the rest of him falls slowly away with each second she slips further and further from him.
His mind wanders to a conversation they had a few days before she disappeared.
"Bosco, promise -- if something happens to me -- "
"Don't even finish that sentence, Faith."
"Would you shut up and listen for a sec, huh? Now, please, Bos, if something happens to me, just promise you'll be careful."
"You planning on leavin' me for some Austrian bodybuilder, want to live the high life?"
"Bos, dammit, just promise."
"All right, all right, I promise. You know something I don't?"
She looks away.
"Faith?"
"I just wanna make sure you're okay."
"Sure, I am. I got my charming smile, my boyish good looks -- "
She slaps his arm playfully and holds her breath as he finishes.
" -- and I got you."
His mind is reeling, searching for any meaning behind those words. They tended to get serious at one point or another. It was inevitable, given the time they spent together. At the time, he had shrugged it off as merely her own deep thoughts, most likely in conjuction with the end of her marriage. The end of any long-term committment, relationship, always left one with at least one thought, good or bad, one regret -- one oversight. He had thought she was just getting introspective in her lapse.
Now, though, it seems that there had been more to it.
There's beauty in hindsight, the value of being able to see things more clearly as you step back from them to really look.
He kneels down to the concrete, the place where they found his gun, the last place he definitively knows she's been, and whispers over it.
"I'm gonna find you."
It's a vague promise, but one he intends to keep.
*
"I don't think I even remember how to pray."
"Just say something, Sully, it doesn't matter. Isn't she worth it?"
"Hell yeah."
"Then just stumble through it, Lord knows you're not a Saint, or a priest, or a good Christian, maybe not even a lapsed Christian. You're what we call those Sunday Chris -- "
"All right, Davis, I get the idea. Give me a minute, I gotta focus."
"Sure."
Davis crosses his chest and stands, exiting the pew quietly, waits outside for Sully to join him.
"You got through it?"
Sully shrugs.
"Nothin' to it. Hell, if it brings Faith back, I'll confess to the damn Pope."
"We all would, Sul."
The comfort of the Cathedral leaves them as they exit the building, uncertain just as suddenly of the answer to their prayers. It seems nothing is certain anymore.
*
He walks to his car, the long shift finally over; each step is slow, his mind sluggish with thoughts of her, as though fate itself finds one more memory to thrust upon him, one more laughter or tear or utter essence of Faith to remind him of as he sits alone. He waits for news of any kind. Good or bad. One, of course, will sustain him, the other -- will simply destroy him.
A noise catches his attention as he opens the door and glances inside, finding a body in the backseat. He looks around for assistance, finds no one, and stands up.
The guys gasps for breath, panic clearly written through his face. Bosco finds himself wondering how the hell someone ended up in his car.
"Shit!"
Bosco darts forward, uncertain as to what to do. He stops silently in his tracks at the face before him.
"Oh God, just hang on -- okay, hang on, dammit!"
The knife protrudes from the stomach, and Bosco shouts for someone, anyone to come and help him.
"Just hang on, Gusler, you're gonna be fine. I'll be right back, I gotta get help."
Gusler's free hand stops Bosco's movement abruptly, blood smearing against his winter coat. He shakes from cold and shock and the fear of death so very close he can feel it in the last bit of blood pumping through his veins.
"D-don't leave me, Bosco, p-please. I'm not g-gonna make it anyway."
He struggles to breathe deeply, his breaths shallow and coming further apart.
"F-faith. I-I know why they took her."
Bosco jumps at this, leaning in closer.
"Why, Gusler, what the hell happened to you guys?"
"We-we saw them. They saw us -- they w-wanted to kill -- "
"Kill who? Gusler! Kill who?"
His eyes start to droop.
"F-faith was gonna make it right. Sh-she was gonna save us all. But they-they got to her."
"Who?!" Bosco's voice is frantic, pleading now for this last answer.
"Don't let them hurt her. They g-got her. S-sergeant..."
He falls back, his eyes close, and there's no more wheezing or foaming blood, just silence, and unanswered why's. Bosco leans back, fighting the emotions he feels himself succumbing to.
The whole damn world collapses.
*
TBC...