A Little Bit of Texas: Speed
Part Nine
"The question I'm asking is: are you willing to help us in your off hours, knowing it could compromise your career if things go wrong? I'll protect you to my last breath, but I'll be one of the first they take down. That means if they come after you, they will have already gone through me. I didn't want to even ask you to do this, but Speed and Bethany have convinced me that not asking you would be considered insulting."
A few hours after the meeting with Dayna and Tripp, Horatio had called in Calleigh and Eric to his office. He and Tim had put the entire situation in front of them, all the evidence they had, all the suspicions, and the theory that Adamson was the killer.
"We want to keep Adamson under 24 hour surveillance. We can't do it, and still keep the illusion that we've given up on the case. That's where you two come in. With six people, four hour shifts, we can keep eyes on him and still look like we've shelved the case," Tim said.
"This creep is hurting kids; I'm in," Eric was the first to speak up.
Calleigh nodded her agreement, but still looked troubled. "What happens if we see him pick up a kid? Are we supposed to let him? Follow him back to the others?"
"You see him go within five feet of a kid, you take him down and bring him in. We'll deal with the fallout later. He does not lay his hands on another child, not while we're around."
"Tripp is watching him now, then Campbell will take over. Horatio is after that. When do you want to watch him?" Tim started organizing the schedule, keeping an eye to make sure no one got stretched too thin. He also made sure his shift on Adamson was never next to Dayna's, knowing that they would never just hand the shift over without talking. This had to be precise, juggling between the work shifts, surveillance, and down time. All in all, better to keep contact to home. Besides, seeing her only a couple of hours a day will give you even more motivation to find the evidence against this guy.
The evidence never came. They days past, Adamson never went near anyone. Dayna hadn't told anyone her idea was, not even Tim. She did allude to it one time, though.
"Do you think there's ever a time when doing something illegal is okay?" she asked one time as they were going to sleep.
"What do you mean? Illegal like running a red light, or illegal like murder?"
"No, not like that. Never mind, I'll talk to you about it later," she said, and turned away from Tim.
She never did, Tim noticed, although he did ask her about it a time or two. She just told him "Never mind" and changed the subject.
Tim was in the lab, working on trace evidence from a case of Calleigh's when his cell phone went off.
"Tim, I'm downstairs in the Hummer. Get down here now," Horatio's voice sounded strained over the cell phone. H disconnected, and Speed wasted no time. In minutes he was in the passenger seat, pulling on the seat belt.
"What's going on?"
Horatio had his sunglasses on, and his face was drawn. His lips were tight, and Tim could see the white on the knuckles as they gripped the wheel.
"Is there another body?" Tim asked, as Horatio tore through the streets, sirens blaring, lights flashing.
"No. I'm taking you to the hospital. Dayna's been hurt."
Tim's vision tunneled, and his had a hard time finding enough breath to ask the question, "How bad?" His voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well, hollow and distant.
"I don't know yet. She fell through a floor in on old building, she landed on some lumber. She's lost some blood, and got knocked unconscious. They got her to Jackson Memorial. Tripp is there with her now." Horatio's sentences were staccato, short bursts of information. Despite that, Speed still felt he was only absorbing every other word.
Horatio stopped outside of the emergency doors, and let Tim get out, then he took off, presumably to find someplace for the Hummer.
Tim went inside, and saw Tripp, cup of coffee in hand, waiting for him.
"She's going to be okay, and we got the guy," were the first words out of the detective's mouth.
Speed had to sit down, his relief was so strong. "What happened? Tell me," he said when he trusted himself to form words. Horatio walked in, and Tripp repeated that Campbell was going to be fine.
"I don't know the whole story, just what Dayna told me over the phone. I'll tell you what I know, though. Dayna was approached by one of the homeless women she's been working on, trying to get them to trust her. The woman told her that she knew a man who could help us. She called me, told me what was going on, and she went with the woman. She called me when she knew where they were going, and I went to meet her. I got there just in time to hear the shots and see her fall."
"She was shot? I thought she fell through an old floor," Horatio said.
"She didn't go through a floor, she went through a roof. She was shot, and the impact knocked her down. She was wearing her vest. She went through a window to the outside, landed on a glass roof, and kept going down. How the glass didn't kill her, I'll never know. She's got some cuts on her arms, and she was knocked out, that was it. The doctors say she didn't even break any bones. We caught the kid who shot her, he's over there." He pointed at a kid handcuffed to a chair.
"Speed, sit down." Horatio's voice cut through Tim's mind like a whip. He realized he had stood up, and started for the boy. He looked at Horatio, and H put his hand on his shoulder, guiding him down. "I'll take him down to the station. You should stay here, be here for Dayna. I'll find out what the kid knows, I give you my word. Tripp, you take him to Dayna, and I'll meet you at the lab."
"I hate hospitals, you know. Ever since Jack died, I hate them. So I would appreciate it if you would wake up so we can get the hell out of here."
Speed watched Dayna not wake up at his words. He had already tried a kiss, which also hadn't worked.
"The doctors say you're going to be fine. You wouldn't want to prove them right, would you?"
It was the stillness of her body that bothered him the most; Dayna moved all the time in her sleep. He remembered how it kept him awake for weeks, every time they spent the night together. Then he would look at her arms, wrapped from wrist to shoulder in bandages. He knew that the bandages were wrapped underneath her gown as well, especially on her back. The glass should have killed her, the fall should have killed her, even the bullet could have. He remembered what Horatio had told him, weigh the fear against the love, and make every minute count.
He picked up her hand, and held it. "Please wake up Dayna, there's something I want to tell you," he said.
It was a few hours later when she did. Speed watched her eyes start to move under her lashes, open, find him, and focus.
"Tim?"
"Hi, babe," Speed leaned in and stroked her hair.
"What happened?"
"What do you remember?" Speed asked, watching her face.
"I remember Tracy coming up to me, and taking to a building. I remember ... that damn bitch set me up!" Dayna hollered the last, started sitting up in bed. Speed tried to keep her down, but she was too angry to notice gentle pressure, and he was scared to push down any harder.
"Dayna, you have to stay in bed. You have a head wound; you were knocked unconscious. You've got cuts all over your body from falling through two different kinds of glass, and you were bruised where the bullets impacted on you vest. You've got to be calm."
"Oh, the hell I do. Where are my pants? We're getting out of here. Tracy is going to tell me who she was working with, or she's going to find out there are worse things than being homeless."
"Tripp caught the guy who shot you. You need to sit down, please, Dayna."
"What has he said?"
"I don't know, I've been here with you," Speedle was talking to Campbell's back, as she opened every cabinet, closet, looked under the bed, and in the bathroom for her clothes, rolling the mobile IV behind her. He walked over, and took her gently by her white-wrapped wrist. "Please sit down, I want to talk to you."
Dayna allowed herself to be guided to the bed, and she did sit, but was still talking, "Speed I was shot. The man who shot me is being interrogated. I'm not there. We've got to go."
"No, we've got to stay until a doctor can look at you. You've got so many drugs in your system you can't feel your pain, but that's not going to last much longer. You need to have a doctor give you the okay to go, and quite frankly I doubt that will be anytime soon. They're going to want to monitor for internal bleeding, and once the meds wear off, you're not going to be able to bounce around like you haven't just dropped through a roof after being shot. Now, let me talk." Speed took the breath he needed after the unexpected monologue. "Okay, when you were unconscious, in this bed, you looked like you were dead. Do you realize you should be dead now? You were shot, dropped from a height onto a roof, then dropped another floor with glass as the only thing to break your fall. Oh, except for the wood you landed on, which knocked you out. That should have broken your back at the very least, more likely your neck. And watching you, realizing you should be dead by any laws of physics made me realize we can't go on like we have been."
"Are you breaking up with me? Now?" Dayna's eyes were huge, and Tim was horrified to realize she was about to start crying.
"No. I just can't ..."
Dayna broke in "You want me to quit? Is that it? You want me to stop being a cop, do something safer?"
"What the hell do they have you on? You should be barely awake, and instead you're bouncing off walls, you're jumping to conclusions, and you won't let me get a word in edgewise. Sit down and shut up, I've got some things to say. The first is that I love you. I've never told you before, and I know you already knew that, but I should have said it a long time before now. The next thing is: I want us to move in together. I know we've only been together a little while, but this is where we're heading, right?" He waited for Dayna to nod, and then went on, "So let's stop wasting time, because this has made me realize that every minute is precious, and I don't want to be away from you for any time that I don't have to be."
"You love me?" Speed could hardly hear Dayna, whose voice came out small and unsure.
"Of course I love you. You knew that."
"I didn't know that," Dayna said, her grey eyes watching Tim's face. "I knew that I'm in love with you, but you're brilliant and funny and strong and kind and handsome. Why would you love me?"
Speed lost the rest of his speech. Hearing it makes it better. She's never told me she loves me before, either. "Why do I love you? Because you're Dayna Campbell. I had no choice but to love you from the second you entered my life. Because your laugh was the first sound my soul ever heard."
There was a cough from the door behind Tim. He looked and saw a male doctor and female nurse at the entrance of the room. "I see my patient is awake. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to examine her, see where things stand."
Tim looked back at Dayna, and was alarmed to see her wiping her eyes with her fingers. "Dayna? You're crying. Did I upset you?"
"No. I'm not upset; I'm a girl. It happens sometimes, we just start crying when men manage to say exactly the right thing." Dayna said.
"I'll let you know when you can come back in," the nurse said, taking Tim by his arm and gently maneuvering him out the door. She gave his arm a squeeze before letting go and closing the door on him.
Alexx was the one who got Dayna back into the hospital bed. When Speed called the lab to tell them Dayna was awake, Alexx volunteered to come down and keep Tim company. It's the mother/doctor combination, that's got to be it. The hospital doctors, nurses and random staff had all tried to get Dayna back to the safety of the bed, without success. Tim tried as well, but was as firmly told to get out the way. Alexx walked in like some goddess of serenity, and – firmly and lovingly – told Dayna that she was a danger to herself, her case, and anyone around her right now. Dayna meekly climbed back into bed, and agreed to Alexx's twenty-four hour edict. If, after that time frame, everything continued to look fine, Alexx agreed that Dayna could rejoin the investigation. Since Alexx was 1. not Dayna's doctor, 2. not Dayna's superior on the force, 3. was in no way involved (discounting the dead bodies) with the case, and 4. had no acknowledged power in the investigation, the smooth manner in which she dictated the conditions to Dayna left Tim confused and grateful.
"Care to tell me how you do that? Might come in handy later," he said.
"I call it my 'just so' voice. I'm just telling people the way it's going to be. It takes years of practice, but is well worth it."
"Will you teach me?"
"No, honey. That one you have to learn on your own," Alexx said. She smiled and left the hospital, her work done.
Speed was there for round two of the interrogation; Dayna had insisted. They had managed to get the kid's name: Chad Brecks.
"What I want to know is why you're protecting a guy who's hurting your friends?" Tim asked Brecks. "Why are you protecting Adamson? Is it because you're scared of him?"
The night spent in a cell had obviously tired the boy out, "Man, I ain't scared of nothin'," the kid said, snarling at the perceived insult to his pride.
"Have them lose a little sleep, and teenagers are the easiest people in the world to provoke. Now that you've broken you're little vow of silence, let's get to work," Tripp said. He uncrossed his arms, and leaned on the table, hovering over the shooter. "Why did you shoot Detective Campbell? That was stupid, stupid on a major scale. If you're hoping the judge will give you to juvie, think again. Attempting to kill a cop will get you tried as an adult, guaranteed. You're only hope is us."
"You think I'm scared of prison? I'm the master of the arena! Prison is nothing," the kid grinned. "I've been there the longest, and I've never been put down. I can't be beat. You cops think you can stop it? You and your punk-ass badges? You think it's something bad? I've never had it so good. I've got food, a bed to sleep on, bitches on demand."
Horatio came out of the shadows from the back of the room, "What is it, exactly, that you think we're trying to stop? You're here for shooting a cop. Anything else that's going on has our blessing. You think Adamson is the only one who's in on this? You never heard of the brotherhood? But you've crossed that brotherhood now, tried to kill one of our own. So you tell us everything you know. We're already going to know some of it, and if you tell us wrong, you're going down. Believe it. Believe me."
Speed looked at H, not believing his normal, subtle style had been so corrupted. Surely even this kid could see through that ruse. But no, the kid started talking. Later, Horatio explained that if you're talking to a dumb person, using smart tactics is a waste of time. You have to get on the same level, and this guy had never been given a chance to get smart.
Adamson wasn't a murderer; at least not in the conventional sense. Bloodsport had come to Miami: Rich patrons watching people fight, sometimes to the death. This incarnation had children killing children, a twist to keep the crowds interested and happy. They were armed with knives, and sent to carve one another up, gladiator style. In the end, it was the crowds who decided if the loser would live or be dispatched. Adamson kept the games supplied with fighters, taking the street kids and feeding them to the machine.
"We call it the Arena. People like us, we always have to fight for anything we got, even living. This way at least when I win, I can stop fighting until the next week."
Speed looked at the two other men in the room. Horatio looked ready to kill Adamson with his hands; Tripp's eyes were flashing like Death had entered his soul. Speed remembered that Tripp had three children, and so was hearing this as a father as well as a cop. Speed felt sick himself, disgusted there were enough sociopaths in Miami to make this a profitable venture. Sociopaths with money.
"Where is this 'arena'? Where are the others like you, the other fighters? How long until the next fight?" Horatio asked, hands on his hips. He had his eyes fixed on Chad's, so intense that Brecks dropped his gaze to the table.
"They move us around all the time. One time is at the beach, the next at a big building, one time a construction site, one time a boxing ring. They keep the us together, always someplace near the next fighting place. The next fight isn't for a couple of days."
"Okay, Chad, you're doing fine. Now, where's the next fight going to be?" Horatio pressed.
"I don't know," Brecks answered.
"Oh, and we were doing so well. Sorry, Brecks, I'm going to throw you to the DA now. I hope you meant it when you said prison -- with it's hundreds of big, lonely men just aching for a young buck like yourself – doesn't scare you. Let's go," Tripp grabbed the kid by the arm, started to lift him up.
"I said I don't know. Hey, get off of me," Chad tried to hit Tripp, but with his hands cuffed together in front of him couldn't pull it off.
"Tripp, hold off a minute." Horatio said. Tripp dumped the shooter back into the chair. "Chad, if you don't know where they are now, how were you going to get back? Were they letting you go?"
"They couldn't let me go, I'm their star. I was going to meet them in the park, near the fountain."
Horatio smiled at him, "Fine. Which park, which fountain?"
"I don't know. I can show you how to get there, though," the sixteen year old said.
"Yeah, we'll be going with you, make sure you get back okay. In the meantime, let's talk about these two bodies." Speed said. He pushed the pictures of the two homeless over to Brecks.
Chad looked at the picture of the first John Doe. "Man, he was my friend. He called himself Fish, I never did find out why. He got my back on the street for years. He's the only one it was hard to put down."
"It was so hard to put him down you stabbed him four times in the chest," Horatio said.
"Yeah. I was shaking so bad I couldn't get in a clean shot. I tried to make it up to him, before the end. Gave him some drink, but I don't think he could even taste it."
"Why did we find him on the highway?" Speed asked.
"I dunno, man. That's not the way it's supposed to happen. I guess he fell out."
"Fell out? Fell out of what, exactly?" Speed felt like he was pulling a rope, hand over hand. Each answer they got out of this guy got them one step closer to shutting down this hell they had stumbled into.
"The truck. They haul off the bodies in a truck."
"What do they do with the bodies, after they take them away?" Speed asked.
"They bury them. We've all been to the graves at least once. It shows us how everyone ends up, sooner or later. Sooner, if we try to run."
"And that brings us to our second John Doe. What can you tell me about him?" Speed moved the second picture closer to the kid.
"That dumb-ass? He couldn't get his head straight. Good fighter, but he thought he was in love. Couldn't stop talking about his woman. Ran one night, could've ruined it for everyone. Got hisself shot down in front of God and everyone, I hear."
"What was his girlfriend's name?"
"Tracy. He got shot right in front of her, too. That's why she helped me take care of that ... cop." Chad's voice trailed off, and he started darting glances at the three men in the room with him.
Speed couldn't talk for a second, busy controlling his anger. Horatio put his hand on Tim's shoulder, squeezing in understanding.
"She hates cops because it was a cop who gunned down her lover, right?" Horatio said, taking over the talking while Speedle regained control of himself.
"Gentlemen, that is enough of that." A man in an expensive Italian suit walked into the room. "I am Harrison Glithe, and I'll be representing Mr. Brecks. Chad, you do not say another word to these men. I've got the paperwork started, and I'll have you out of here in a few minutes."
"I doubt that. You're client shot a cop, and it was witnessed by another police detective. You're not going anywhere," Horatio addressed this last to Chad himself.
"I beg to differ, Lieutenant Caine. You've kept my client in here, interrogating him without his representation."
"He never asked for a lawyer, and he was read, and understood his rights," Horatio interrupted.
"He had representation in place, a question I'll bet you never thought to ask him. You'll let him go, or I'll have this looking like the biggest civil rights scandal since the student shootings of the sixties. That will be the DA."
Glithe was referring to Tripp's cell phone, which had begun to chime. He answered it, eyes locked with the lawyers. He ended the call saying, "Yes, sir." He snapped his phone closed, and walked around to unlock the cuffs from the criminal. "You are free to go."
"Thank you gentlemen. If you'll excuse us ..."
"Mr. Glithe," Speed asked.
The attorney turned around, his face tranquil, "Yes, detective?"
"Brecks here can hardly afford your services. How did you come to be his lawyer?"
"That's none of your business, detective. But I'll tell you anyway. Ten percent of my cases are pro bono. Just because someone doesn't have money, doesn't mean they don't have the right to the best possible defense. I'm well compensated by the other ninety percent, so I can afford a little charity work. Good day gentlemen."
Ninety percent of his clients. Those would be the people who need a criminal lawyer, and can afford Glithe's services. Sociopaths with money.
"He's part of it."