Chapter Three
II
Las Vegas lit up, opened up, sounded up, the siren song of dice and cards and roulette wheels quietly humming in the warm summer air. It was time to gamble all you could afford to lose and all you could not. Sometimes, Warrick felt the hum as a wire in his blood, always painful, always promising absolution.
But sometimes, he considered, life was a greater gamble than all the casinos in Las Vegas together. The stakes were your own immortality through your children. And when life's gamble sometimes failed, the loss seemed to stack higher than the horizon and blind all light. A child gone and lost was all the immortality of generations to come.
And the wire in the blood died and was replaced by another pain. Sympathy. Compassion. Understanding. And absolution came in justice. Justice for the dead. Justice for Holly. Justice for Anna.
George James looked an old man, clutched in the chair of his cool, silent house. His hair was still dark and his skin held no wrinkles, but the eyes were ancient and spoke of grief beyond comprehension. The only ones who could understand were those who shared it and that was too high a price to pay for understanding.
"We're sorry for your loss, sir," Catherine said softly, but with a hint of detachment. He didn't blame her. It was the only way to survive in this job and still it went forgotten too often. The balance between needed compassion and burnout was a knife's edge.
George James merely nodded, clutching his knees, eyes clear and frozen. Perhaps there were no more tears left.
"We understand you're the only living relative," Catherine went on. Her fingers burrowed into her palm for a moment, leaving white marks to fade slowly. He fought an urge to caress her palm until marks and pains were all gone.
"Yes," George croaked, then cleared his throat, swallowing several times. "Her mother died in childbirth. That's why I gave her my name. There were only us two left in the world. She was... Who... Who could have done this to her? Why?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," Warrick cut in as gently as he could. "When did you last see your daughter?"
"Um... two days ago. I was... We were planning a weekend away and... I, I..."
"Did you know if she had planned to see anyone today?" Vega asked, leaning against the wall, his face a mask. Perhaps he was already sizing up the father as a suspect. Not even grief meant you were innocent. Killers could grieve as surely as humans.
"A friend, a... Michelle. They work together. I... I don't have her number," George James replied, breath heaving and dying, heaving and dying.
"That's all right, sir," Catherine reassured him, placing a hand on his. Detachment fell from her and for a moment, she seemed to absorb his grief through her skin. "I'm sorry."
"She wasn't meant to die," he said brokenly and then there were more tears after all.
Warrick looked away, unable to look at such naked grief. Murder was an invasion, sweeping away all privacy. And it was his job to shift through the debris, watch the ruins until all was ash.
'Ashes to ashes, earth to earth, death to death,' he thought and felt the soft hiss of the air conditioning against his skin, drying tears, but not grief. Only time dried grief, but left the scars.
Catherine shifted slightly next to him, and he met her gaze, seeing his own discomfort mirrored, perhaps even magnified. Catherine had a child to lose. For a moment, he could almost see her in place of George James, tear-streaked pale face as she stared into the nothingness of her own heart, bereft of the last of her family. Bereft of Lindsey as she had been of Eddie.
Her eyes widened and he knew she saw it too.
He closed his eyes and burned the image away, hiding the embers as deep in his mind as he could. The air hissed and he felt a chill, suddenly longing for the heat and summer outside. The sounds died away, as if muted, and he could barely hear the door open and close, probably Vega leaving.
"Warrick..." Catherine said softly, making him open his eyes again. She made a slight gesture towards the door with her head and he nodded. There was nothing they could do here now, in George James's quiet, quiet house. Nothing to do but feel the grief.
"We'll contact you later, Mr. James," she said, slipping away. The man only nodded helplessly, burrowing his nails painfully into his forehead, perhaps to distract pain with pain. Warrick watched him a moment longer, a part of his mind that he needed, that he resented, already trying to judge if a killer could grieve so for his victim.
"I'm very sorry for your loss," he offered, knowing how weak the words were. But it was all he could give. He could only hope he would also eventually bring a sort of justice.
But justice was for the dead. The living only got answers.
The air was hot as he stepped out, summer living on unperturbed by the dead. A few sprinklers were on in the neighbourhood, hissing as water glittered and caught the light. Little rainbows of light broken.
Vega was still by the driveway and greeted him with a nod. "I'll have an officer stay with him for a while."
"Yeah, good. Thanks," he replied, his eyes already seeking Catherine's form. He found her leaning against the car, eyes on the sky, a look of distance on her face. The sun was falling, but still blinded him as he walked over.
"Hey," he said softly. "You look lost."
She laughed, but without humour. "Maybe I am. This case... I feel it. There's only me and Lindsey in the world, you know?"
"I know."
"I always feared this job would take me from her, maybe one day for good, but to lose her..." She shook her head, staring into something he could not see. He could only see the echoes of it on her face. Nightmares of the future, haunts of the past.
"Go home early today. See Lindsey," he suggested. She groaned slightly and bit her lip, a flash of pain across her features blinding him.
"I swear it was only yesterday I sung her lullabies," she said softly, longingly and closed her eyes. Her lashes were dark against her slightly tanned skin and she was beautiful in her longing for times of innocence - perhaps for herself as much as Lindsey. "I'm growing old."
He leaned against the hood next to her, watching her fingers claw at the paint. There were many things he could have said, but they all seemed like lies and cheap comfort, so he kept silent. She didn't need his words. She needed his presence.
Vega gave a wave before driving away in a cough of smoke and trail of tyre tracks. In the distance, another car honked. But for all the sounds, it felt like only them there in the world. Warrick and Catherine and the dying sun.
"I almost miss Eddie sometimes," she said, eyes still closed. "Not for anything he did, the asshole. But we were young together. And maybe if he was around, Lindsey would have someone else to turn to."
"Or someone else to rebel against," he pointed out. "Come on, Cath. You remember what you did at that age?"
"I made out with handsome guys like you in cars," she said softly. For a moment, all he could hear was his heartbeats, drums vibrating in his blood.
"I wasn't handsome back then," he said lightly. Beat. Beat.
"You are now."
He looked at her dark lashes, her hair falling in the fading sun and her breath curling from her lips. All life was a gamble and he could throw the dice. But the first lesson of Las Vegas was a harsh one - never gamble what you could not afford to lose. And he could ill afford to lose her. She was a friend, a colleague, a confidante and that tease of something more, that hint in her eyes...
But sometimes, even gamblers could win. And the prize... Her and Lindsey and Sunday breakfast, he the cook. A future. A family. A relationship.
She turned her head sideways and looked at him, the last rays of the sun caressing her lips and the faint colour in her cheeks. Her breath smelled of coffee and summer heat and he wondered if he could kiss the scars of age from her features. Her expression softened as she looked at him, fear and pain still haunting her face, but her eyes so bright, bright, bright...
'One day, I'll help you fade the haunts,' he thought and it echoed like a vow in his heart.
She placed a hand on his chest and he was sure she would feel his heartbeats against her palm, beating in sync with hers. And somewhere deep in his heart he knew he had thrown the dice long ago.
Nothing to do but see the bet through.
Her phone was shrill and loud and tore her gaze and hand away. Muttering a foul word under her breath that almost made him smile, she reached for the phone and fumbled it out of her bag.
"Willows. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. What? No, we're..." she hesitated for a breath, biting her lip ever so slightly. "We're heading for the lab. Yeah, see you there."
"Nick?"
"Nick," she confirmed. "Coroner's prelim is in. No DNA under her nails. No bruises on her."
"No sign of struggle," he interpreted.
"Yeah. She may have been drugged. Doc Robbins will probably give us more on that."
"We better get back to the lab."
"Yeah," she breathed and looked up at him for a brief moment, fire in her eyes. "We better."
As they drove away, he caught a glimpse of George James in his window, a rank shadow in the dying sun. The father no more, now that his daughter was dead. Only memories left and memories were mist. Nothing to cling to, yet the strongest haunt of all. No one to fade his haunts.
'What would George James. with nothing left to lose, be willing to gamble?' Warrick thought and wondered.
And around all, the siren song of Las Vegas hummed on. Ever on. Ever promising absolution.
