Sorry about the slightly longer delay this time - - this chapter had trouble coming together. Flowers is a sick, sick bastard. Next chapter belongs to Grissom, and the one after that is all Sara - - oh, and GSR 'shippers, get ready for . . . well, something. Just remember the author's note at the beginning of the story.
- -
Chapter Fifteen: Flowers, for a Lady (OTHER)
- -
Flowers was wearing gloves. He didn't usually wear gloves, because, like the rest of him, his fingerprints were untraceable. They connected only to themselves. He had never been fingerprinted, never had a DNA sample collected, and had not, since he was seventeen, had any piece of identification with his real name on it, not even something so simple as a library card. He could have managed with it, but Flowers was cautious when caution appeared to be beneficial. And so, he sometimes wore gloves, and he never signed his real name.
He wore gloves as he traced his finger down the curve of Lizzie Zimmer's chin.
She was terrified, her muscles tight and coiled underneath her skin, and she shuddered at his touch. He smiled, and moved the gun closer to the hollow of her throat. It slid over the beads of perspiration gathering there. Lizzie looked upwards, towards the ceiling, and moaned through the gag.
"Sweetheart," Flowers said, "I really, really hope that you aren't praying right now. You joined a conspiracy to frame an innocent man for rape. That's not the kind of thing that anyone forgives easily - - I don't think God will be any different."
He stroked Lizzie's cheek again. She screamed, and the sound, muffled against the cotton, was like the wounded cry of a bird.
"Of course," Flowers continued, "it's really framing him for murder, isn't it? You never understood that, because we didn't tell you."
He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. It was a chaste kiss, almost a brother's kiss. She tossed her head to the side in a vain attempt to bite him.
"That's not nice." He stood, and tucked the gun into his pants. "Now, how would Grissom kill you? What would he consider to be the perfect murder?" He chewed his thumbnail, apparently so deep in thought that not even Lizzie, straining against her ties and still screaming into the gag, could disturb him. "See, I never really met him, and I'm not sure what he would do.
"The financier's met him. Ecklie. You. That bastard Claberson. Me? I'm the only one in the dark on dear Dr. Grissom, the person we're trying to destroy."
Lizzie's struggles were ceasing. Maybe, in the last few hours of her life, she was developing some practicality. She couldn't beat him like this. Conserving strength, maybe. He evaluated her like he would evaluate a game board before he made a move. He looked at her disheveled blonde hair and the bruises around her wrists, ankles, and mouth. Her cheap white shorts and faded blue tank-top. Weekend clothes. She was shivering, her dark eyes closed.
He was distantly impressed. She looked like a bird, torn from the sky and suddenly made flightless. She rebelled against her broken wings, but knew she could no longer soar.
"You really are beautiful," he said thoughtfully. "Of course, I always thought that. Since the very first time I met you. So pretty, so delicate. Like one of those old-fashioned Dresden dolls, made from china. You always looked so breakable, even before I broke you."
He smiled at her confusion, but did not explain. Flowers never felt the need to explain absolutely everything, not even to himself.
"The women here are different. Sara Sidle - - vivacious, but quiet. Dedicated, but lost. From what I hear, she's in love with Grissom, and he turned her down. That's a sorry way to be, and I'm sure you can identify with her - - or you would, if you weren't such a bitch - - but she hasn't let it get her down. Not too much, anyway." He pulled a photograph of Sara out of his wallet and smiled affectionately at it. "She's a tragic personage. Can't wait to, you know. Meet her. Seduce her. Kill her. Whatever happens.
"And Catherine Willows. Hard as diamonds; sharp as razorblades. And she has such lovely eyes, doesn't she? She's strong.
"And you're not. You're weak. You're breakable."
Flowers grinned. It was a smile of pure delight. There was no visible evil hiding inside of it, it was just a thrilled expression. It might have fitted just as well on the face of a little boy, just given a brand new set of trains and a whole day to play with them. Only Flowers's train sets, of course, were only designed to crash. He lived to see them burn.
"Don't worry, Elizabeth," he said. "I'll break them all in the end. Sidle, Stokes, Brown - - well, you know the list."
He snapped his fingers.
"You know what, Lizzie, dear?" That smile again. "I think I've got an idea."
Before he began, he took the white rose out of his suitcase and laid it carefully on the bedside table. He made sure to avoid getting any blood on it. The roses were supposed to stay white through the whole thing.
He whistled while he worked.