Disclaimers, etc., in chapter one.
A/N: I don't know how to thank everyone for the incredible feedback; it means so much. Thank you!!
*
Two pairs of steady green eyes stared at her unwaveringly, and Samantha found herself a little uneasy under their heavy scrutiny.
Margo and Dylan were so alike they were almost extensions of each other, and glancing at their pictures, pinned up side by side on the whiteboard, she felt a flicker of desperation.
Time was never on their side.
Soon the rest of the team assembled around the table, Samantha meeting Jack's tired eyes for the briefest of instants before she turned her attention to Danny.
"We've got agents camped out in front of Cameron Marks's place," he told them. "We should have him by mid-morning, early afternoon. He can't stay away forever."
"Good," Jack said with a nod. "We're bringing Simon Reed in, see if he knows anything about what Jillian Bradshaw told us yesterday. Maybe a change of scenery'll jog his memory a bit. Danny and Martin, I want you there when Cameron Marks gets home. Samantha and Viv, we'll work the husband."
Samantha. So that's how it was going to be. But she gave a brisk nod and stood with the rest of the team, because the twin pools of green reminded her exactly where her head needed to be.
Especially as time ticked away.
*
Martin and Danny joined the four agents who had been watching Cameron Marks's apartment since the pre-dawn hours, offered coffee and saw weary eyes spark with gratitude.
"No activity," one of them reported. "No one's been here."
"Yeah, well, he will be," Martin assured, checking his watch. "It's still early."
"No noise from inside the apartment, either," another offered, shifting position in his uncomfortable folding chair.
"Been real quiet," the third summed up with a wry smile.
Danny and Martin opted out of the remaining chairs and chose to stand instead, leaning against the wall's hard plaster.
It wasn't ten minutes later they were exchanging quick glances and then turning their eyes to the source of heavy footsteps headed toward the room they stood in front of.
The man stopped just a few feet short of his door, swathed in shadows until he took a bewildered step forward.
"What's going on?" His voice was guarded, uncertain, but there was no threat to his questioning tone.
"Cameron Marks?" Danny answered the query with one of his own, and the broad, dark-skinned man nodded.
"Agents Fitzgerald and Taylor," Martin told him, flashing credentials. "We need to speak with you immediately."
*
"Mr. Reed, Margo and Dylan witnessed the murder of their brother."
She stood behind the glass and watched as Jack's words took their effect on Simon Reed.
Disbelief was the man's first reaction, as Samantha had assumed it would be. She saw Jack and Vivian exchange glances before Vivian took over, soothing the genuinely distraught Simon Reed while at the same time bolstering Jack's original statement with facts gleaned from Jillian Bradshaw.
"So what does this mean?" He finally asked in a quietly determined voice.
Samantha's phone rang before she had time to hear the reply, and she forgot about it in the anxious moments she spent listening to the man on the other end of the line.
Flipping her own phone closed, she picked up the one that would allow her to speak with the agents in the interview room.
It was Jack who answered the ring. "What's going on?" The urgency in his tone let her know he was aware of who was making the call.
"We have to go, Jack," she told him. "I just talked to NYPD. Some kid heard crying from inside an old warehouse, called the police. One of the responding officers recognized the woman as Margo." Samantha paused, but just for a moment. "She's in bad shape. Shot in the gut," and she hated the blunt words that forced themselves from her mouth.
"Shit," Jack closed his eyes briefly. "Okay. You have the location?"
She repeated it to him.
"Viv and I'll meet you downstairs," Jack told her.
They hung up, and Samantha didn't wait around to hear Jack's explanation through the glass.
She was out the door and into the middle of the unit, slowing only for a fraction of a second as her eyes caught Margo Reed's and though the picture hadn't changed, Samantha thought she saw fear in the woman's face for the first time.
Something happened to her..
*
The ride to the warehouse was terse. Samantha drove fast but a part of her didn't want to reach their destination, and, judging by the tense silence that surrounded her, she figured Jack and Vivian felt the same way.
"The officer's sure it's Margo?" Jack finally asked when they got closer, and Samantha nodded, making a sharp left turn.
"He saw her picture. Remembered her face."
"What about medics?" Vivian wanted to know.
"Officer says they called for an ambulance right before calling us," Samantha replied, settling the car against the curb and throwing it into park.
Indeed, they stepped out of the vehicle to the wail of sirens, and, making their way through a crowd of bystanders, the agents collectively broke into a run when they reached the back door of the warehouse.
Pushing it open and flashing credentials at the surprised officers, they were immediately assaulted with the sharp, coppery scent of blood mixed with the dust and neglect of the vast, high-ceilinged warehouse, and locating Margo wasn't hard.
Jack and Vivian slowed when they saw the woman, surrounded by medics and officers, being lifted carefully onto a gurney, her eyes glazed, hands covered in what they presumed was her own blood.
Jack and Vivian slowed and stopped, but Samantha fought her way to the woman's side, careful to avoid the medic frantically attending to the glaring gunshot wound.
"Ma'am.." A few of the officers cautioned her, and Samantha thought she heard a warning "Sam!" from Jack, but she ignored the words, looking down into the pale, blood and tear streaked face of Margo Reed.
A moment of indecision, and then she took the woman's bloodied hand in her own, applying gentle pressure even as the sticky warmth stained her palm and shirt.
"Margo," Samantha started, and she attempted to answer through dry, colorless lips.
"Dylan.." she managed, swallowing hard. "I tried..God..so sorry.." For a moment, the glazed look was gone and Margo was pleading with Samantha to listen and understand. "I'm so sorry.."
Then the gurney was moving, Samantha along with it even though she was unaware of the motion, and she knew time was slipping away, but her tongue stuck in her throat and she couldn't, wouldn't, pump the dying woman for information, even as they made their way through the door and into the fiery sunlight, and Margo's eyes slid shut, her hand falling from Samantha's.
She watched, immobile, as the medics loaded the bleeding Margo Reed into the back of the ambulance and peeled away.
Samantha spun around in what felt like slow motion, unsure of what she was looking for, and finally fell against the hard brick building, allowing it to support the bulk of her weight.
"Fuck!" Samantha gasped, tears momentarily blurring her vision as she glanced down at her stained hands. "Oh, hell.." She wiped the moisture fiercely away and couldn't bring herself to care about the line of red now painted across her cheek.
Samantha looked up in time to see Jack making his way through the crowd and over to her, his stature blocking out the worst of the sun.
She stood in his shade for what felt like a second and an eternity, and finally broke the silence.
"She just.." Samantha swallowed hard and didn't dare to look into his eyes, focusing instead on her hands. "She was right there and I couldn't ask her for anything useful, and then they took her away and oh God, it shouldn't have been me, it should have been her husband or her little girl.."
Jack frowned, touching her shoulder. She tensed but didn't pull away, and he spoke in a quiet tone. "It shouldn't have been you? What're you talking about, Sam?"
Finally, she dared to slide her gaze from brilliant red to the darkness of his eyes.
"She's gone, Jack," Samantha told him, her voice shaking. "Maybe not officially yet but I saw it in her face. She died right here and I couldn't even tell her that it was going to be okay, and I shouldn't have been the last person she saw," she finished in an almost inaudible whisper.
Jack wasn't sure how to respond, or even if there was anything to say, so he merely regarded Samantha quietly, one hand still resting lightly on her shoulder.
After a moment, Samantha straightened.
"I need to find a bathroom, wash this off," she informed him. "I'll be back in five."
"We're going to talk to the officers and the kid who made the call," Jack said, giving her arm a slight squeeze before removing his hand. "Just join us when you're ready."
Samantha looked as though she was about to speak, but gave a slight nod instead and headed down the congested street.
Oh Sam..
Jack held her in his gaze for a long, slow moment, before turning back to the crowd of somber uniformed officers.
She's gone..
As much as he didn't want to believe her, Samantha's firm words settled like lead in the pit of his stomach and he knew the blonde agent would never give up hope unless there was none left.
No, he wanted to yell after her, no, it shouldn't have been you because..
Because it's going to haunt you, Sam, her eyes and her blood and her life..
Jack shook his head, pushed the image of the dying Margo Reed gripping Samantha's hand in her own out of his mind, and forced himself to focus on the task at hand.
Which was finding out exactly what had happened to Margo, and making absolutely certain Dylan Bradshaw wasn't subjected to the same fate.
*
"I was looking for my football," the boy told Vivian, wiping a hand across his face. "I lost it around here yesterday."
Kyle Templin was eleven years old but looked eight or nine, with his slight build and the streaks of dirt marching across his freckled face.
"So you were looking around back here," Vivian established, "And you heard what?"
"I was by the door," Kyle said, pointing. "At first I thought it was a puppy or something, but I stopped and listened and it sounded like a girl crying. I couldn't get inside so I yelled and told her to wait and that I'd call the police."
"Where did you call the police from, Kyle?" Vivian wanted to know.
"That pay phone over there. My mom always told me to call 911 if something bad happens." The boy looked troubled. "Did something bad happen to that lady?"
Vivian closed her eyes briefly and gave him a sympathetic smile. "She's getting help thanks to you," she finally told him, and her answer seemed to satisfy, at least for the moment. "Kyle, when you were looking for your football, did you see anyone around here that you hadn't seen before? Did anyone look out of place?"
He shook his head slowly. "I didn't see anyone at all. I just looked around for a few minutes and then heard that lady crying."
"Thank you," Vivian told him sincerely. "You were a big help."
He nodded and gave her a lopsided smile before walking back to the officer who was waiting to drive him home.
*
When Jack's cell phone rang as he was speaking to one of the responding NYPD officers, he knew immediately who was calling and why, and so he hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering.
And as the medic told Jack he was sorry, but they had lost Margo Reed on the trip to the hospital, he saw Samantha making her way back over to the mess of police cars, officers and crime scene techs.
She looked up, met his eyes and knew in an instant she had been right.
He watched her hesitate, turn her palms over and examine them.
They were clean now, and yet somehow, they would never be.
TBC..
