Part three of the sequel.
Danny and Mike sat side by side in the back of the ambulance. Danny was leaning over slightly while a dark haired paramedic named Jim wiped at the cut on the back of his head, trying to decide if it would need stitches or not.
Mike was cradling his now bandaged hand against his body while his partner Nicole talked at him about how he should have waited for her.
Mike was staring at nothing, a slightly desperate look on his face as Nicole spoke, occasionally flexing and unflexing his fingers to make sure he still could. "Nicole, please shut up" Mike murmured, still staring at nothing.
"Look at you two!" Nicole waved her arm, including Danny who looked up wide eyed, wincing.
"What!" Danny asked, the innocent expression on his face making him look about twelve "Why am I getting in trouble for this?" he asked.
"You both went into this together, why didn't you wait for the back up to arrive, you could have been killed!" Nicole snapped at them.
Danny shot a look at Mike who gave him a 'see what I mean?' look in response.
"What was that, was that about me!" Nicole stepped forward angrily.
"What's your problem Nic!" Mike snapped "We followed the evidence to this apartment, we know this is the guy who hurt Lily, and yeah, okay, he got away and hurt us in the process but we know that, so quit bitchin!"
Danny held his breath, and Jim the paramedic tensed behind him.
"Excuse me!" Nicole asked her voice dangerously low.
Mike looked at her, pursing his lips as he tried to think of a response. "I don't mean bitching, I just mean…Danny has a head ache, so please be quiet and….I'll buy you dinner tonight and lunch for a week and again Danny's in pain" he ducked his head.
"Don't you drag me down with you" Danny muttered as Nicole glared at her injured partner. Her leg lashed out and Mike yelled out in pain and rubbed his shin while Nicole stood glaring at him, muttering something about the word 'bitch'.
'Nic, I'm sorry but please don't be angry' Mike stopped rubbing his stinging shin and looked at his irate partner
Nicole sighed "I'm angry because I'm worried. What if this guy had had a gun or something? Or if he had done worse than just cut your hand? I just want you to be more careful!" She glared at him for a second longer and then looked at Danny who grinned dazzlingly. "Don't try that on me" she rolled her eyes.
Danny kept on smiling at her.
"Well are you okay!" she asked.
Danny grinned even wider, keeping his eyes on Nicole as she turned around sighing before she turned back to face them.
Mac Taylor walked over to join them, some male instinct keeping him from standing too close to Nicole who, in a word, fumed. He held a heavy crime scene kit in one hand.
"How you guys doin?" Mac asked them both. As he turned to look at Danny, Danny looked at him without moving himself too much. "My arms broken again" he said.
"How bad is it?" Mac asked, stepping over and raising the ice pack.
Danny hissed between his teeth, his whole body tensing. "Bad, but not as bad as it was"
"It's probably fractured as opposed to broken" Jim the paramedic told them "We're gonna need to x-ray it but he should be able to work. And the doctors gonna want to look at his head, but he didn't lose consciousness and he's lucid and coherent so I think its just going to be a bad bump and maybe some stitches" the man pressed the gauze he held to the cut.
"Will he be able to work?" Mac asked, knowing that for this case, Danny would come into the lab every day until he died or Melvin was caught, which ever came first.
"If he wants but his arm is going to be no good to him for a while. And he's probably going to be given some pain killers so it depends how stoned he gets" Jim explained.
"I'll be at work Mac" Danny stated.
"What about this one?" Mac half smiled as he pointed at Mike.
"His hand is cut up and he'll need stitches, but he'll live, he should be fine" Jim shrugged.
"How do you two feel about what happened?" Mac asked.
"I don't regret it. We know who he is now and we got him scared. Maybe we shoulda waited for back up but it's done now" Danny said.
Mike nodded in agreement. "If we woulda waited, or gone back to the lab, he might've gone out and he'd be in the wind now"
"He's already in the wind, he got away" Nicole snapped.
"He might have gotten away but the stuff he left behind is priceless. He left his computer, a mountain of evidence. We had a couple of computer techs in there a minute ago, they think we might be able to track over three dozen more paedophiles based on e-mails on Melvin's computer…he didn't have time to purge anything…if they would have waited, he might have realised how close we where getting to him and panicked, destroyed everything." Mac said, surprising the three younger detectives. "Next time, be more careful, but other wise, good job" Mac nodded.
Danny smiled as Mike pulled tongues at Nicole, who glared back.
"I'll take these two to the hospital and get em back to you as soon as possible" Jim said "You might want to send somebody to pick them up"
"No we'll be fine just send a couple uniforms with a car in case you need to send us out"
The pair climbed into the back of the ambulance and Mac and Nicole turned away and walked back into the apartment building, side stepping uniformed police officers and frustrated residents. One woman stood in the door way of her apartment, a young girl who bore a remarkable resemblance to Lily Carter standing in front of her. The woman had her arms on the girl shoulders, the child with her hands over her mothers.
"Everything okay ma'am?" Mac stepped toward the pair, smiling down at the girl who smiled shyly back.
"Is it true that it was Melvin who…hurt that other little girl?" The woman asked, her hands gripping her daughters shoulders.
"I can't release that information ma'am" Mac grimaced.
"Please?" the woman leaned forward slightly.
"Ma'am do you think Melvin may have done something?" Mac asked, glancing briefly at the girl.
"No, I never left her alone with him, I just…I need to know!" The mother stroked her daughters hair distractedly.
"Maybe you should send her inside" Mac nodded to the girl.
"Missie go play in your room" The woman said almost automatically.
The girl shrugged and skipped into the apartment.
"My detectives discovered some…items, at a crime scene that led them to believe that Mr Booth may have been involved in the disappearance of Lily Carter. Two detectives came to talk to Mr Booth, Melvin, and his behaviour led them to believe he may be a suspect. They entered his apartment and he attacked them both and fled, and we discovered some…media items, magazines and video tapes that led us to the realization that he is the person who abducted and killed Lily" Mac said formally, and slowly, thinking about every word he said.
Normally he wouldn't have revealed anything about a case or suspect like this, but there was a quiet desperation in the woman's eyes that he couldn't ignore. He had worded his statement as carefully as he had so that if the woman went to the media with what he had said, no one could find fault with what had happened. Considering the nature of the case, he doubted any one would criticise what Danny and Mike had done, but he didn't want to risk it. Amazingly, there where reporters in the world who would twist the situation around to make it look as the detectives had somehow victimised Melvin, falsely accused him of the crime.
The woman nodded slowly. "So you think he'll come back here?" she asked.
"I doubt it ma'am. We're going to have cops watching the place until he's caught, coming back would be a very stupid thing for him to do" Mac assured her "Meanwhile, keep your daughter close just in case, and if you think of anything that you might know about Melvin, something that might help us find him, don't hesitate to call us" Mac handed her a card.
She took it, thanked him and closed her door.
Nicole watched her go. "She looked scared…you think she wasn't telling us something? I hate to say it but that little girl was the spitting image of Lily"
"Yeah, I saw that. But I get the feeling she would have said something" Mac turned away from the door.
They walked back to the apartment, watching the teams of lab techs carry out various boxes and bags. They had photographed everything in the apartment and collected anything they thought they might need for Lily's case. Now it was a case of cataloguing everything in the apartment and sending it off to the relevant squads within the police department.
A young, bespectacled computer tech walked over to Mac smiling at Nicole as she stuck out her hand to shake. Nicole took the offered hand and shook it, squeezing it warmly as the petite girl nodded to Mac and looked back at Nicole "Marta Coulson" she said by way of introduction. "You're De Rossi right, the British one?" she asked.
Nicole smiled at her, "Yeah, that's me, Beatles country…Liverpool in England, Cavern Walks, all of that" Nicole said, getting out of the way before Marta asked the questions which she inevitably would.
Marta grinned and glanced around. "Mike and Danny got their asses kicked right?" she looked up at Mac.
Mac couldn't help but smile back "Not exactly but they got hurt" he told her.
"Well make sure and tell em well done, we hit the jackpot in there! Sick stuff but damned useful" she nodded as she spoke.
"I already did" Mac assured her "but what I want to know now is, can we use any of that stuff to find out where Melvin might have gone" he said pointedly.
Marta pushed her glasses up on her nose and shrugged. "That's probably up to you guys, so far what I've seen is all porn stuff, not much personal junk 'cept for the magazines. And that second bedroom" she pursed her lips grimly.
Mac nodded. The Second Bedroom was already becoming infamous, the words spoken in angrily hushed tones amongst the officers and investigators. Even hearing the words sent a chill down Mac's spine and he saw Nicole glance away briefly toward the apartment door. "I was just headed there" Mac told Marta who looked, almost fearfully, over her shoulder back at the open doorway.
"I don't know what I would rather do, stick around here with you guys or head back to the lab and trawl through this…" she waved a hand at the computer tower a tech was carrying past. "In fact, I don't want to do either…I want to go home and scrub my self until my skin flakes off" she shuddered.
"I know what you mean, I never feel really clean on a case like this" Nicole raised a hand and seemed to be about to chew a well manicured nail when her cell phone rang. She grabbed it and flicked it open. "Text message" She told Marta and Mac, pressing the 'open' button on her phone. She read the message and laughed quietly.
"What is it?" Marta leaned over to see.
"Mike. He wrote 'Don't use my absence as an excuse to bite your nails, remember, scabby nails do not a lady become'" she told them. "How the hell does he know?" she shook her head amazedly.
"That's a little freaky" Marta put in.
Mac frowned slightly and nodded in agreement. He glanced at Marta "Marta you don't have to go through all of that crap if you really cant handle it, I mean isn't there a mathematical side to this stuff, codes or something, have a look at all that and don't soil your eyes" he said.
Marta nodded slightly and walked away.
"You want to come see the Second Bedroom?" Mac turned to Nicole as she put her phone back on her belt.
"I'd rather go and find Melvin and boil him in acid but…" Nicole smiled grimly.
They walked through the apartment to the Second Bedroom which was as yet untouched by the techs. Mac pulled on a pair of rubber gloves as he surveyed the small room. Danny had told him about it not long after Mac had first arrived at the scene. Danny, on the look out for Melvin, had not really registered what was in the room on his original search, only recalling it when he had been showing Mac around. Danny had pushed the door open without looking in at what it held.
Mac now stood in the room. It was a child's bedroom, a little girl's room with pink and purple walls. The bed had one of those princess canvasses, all gossamer lace and drapes that could be pulled around the bed. There was a small chest of drawers in one corner and on the walls, children's paintings had been pinned up, signed by the 'artists'. There where six, the one nearest to Nicole signed by 'Lily' in curly writing.
The drawing, done mostly in wax crayons seemed to show Lily and a taller, darker haired girl holding hands. It was a child's rendition, all stick figures and disproportionate limbs but it was still obvious to both Mac and Nicole that the dark haired figure was another child. "This girls' in another picture" Nicole pointed to another drawing, signed by a girl named Julia.
"Yeah…that's odd" Mac stepped over to her "You think she's…I don't know another abused little girl? Some one Melvin brings in?" he asked "We know that there are…brothels for kidnapped kids, maybe he calls this girl in?" he suggested.
Nicole shook her head slowly. "I don't know…children are like mirrors, they draw what they see, wouldn't a little girl who had been abused like that be reluctant to be friendly with a new girl?" Nicole asked. "I mean I know abused children are sometimes overly friendly with men or women resembling their abusers but how do they act with other children?"
"That's true…then who is she? I mean I would say that 'she's' maybe two different girls, individual friends to both Lily and Julia but look, in both drawings the girl has pigtails with blue ribbons. It's the same girl, so who is she?" Mac mused out loud.
"Would you go and see if this girl turns up in any of those pictures out there?" Mac turned to Nicole.
"Sure" she said and walked out of the room.
Mac scoured the room, collecting what he found. There was something about the room that made him curse. There where hairs, but not many. Mac wondered if the room had been cleaned. He leaned over the sheets of the bed and sniffed slightly.
"What are you doing?" Nicole asked as she walked back into the room.
"It smells like lemons, like the sheets have been washed. This room has been scrubbed top to bottom, look at the top of the chest of drawers, barely a speck of dust on it. It's weird, the guy leaves all those magazines out there in the open but cleans this room?" he shook his head.
"Well there where some boxes that looked pretty well used, and those video's could only be obviously child porn if you knew what you where looking for. Probably he stores the magazines while visitors are around and…have you ever asked to watch any ones home video's? The irony is that people are afraid to ask in case people think it's inappropriate!" Nicole told him.
"Oh and we haven't found any pictures of that girl" she finished.
"Damn" Mac muttered. "Well I'll stick around here and see what else I can find in here, he might have missed something in his spring cleaning, I'll have to stick around for a while" he shrugged "Will you call and ask Aiden to come over here?" He asked.
"Of course, and I'll tell the guys outside to look for more photo's of that girl" she left the room again.
"Thanks" Mac called after her. He looked around the room again and shuddered at the thought of what had been done there.
Danny and Mike where standing in front of the slightly beaten door, waiting for the resident to open it. They had been to the hospital and gone back to the lab in the time it had taken Mac to fully examine the Second Bedroom, and now they stood in front of a new apartment. Although it was already six in the evening, the building was mostly quiet, the parents and children subdued by an entire day, at school, at work, in the news, dedicated to the story of Lily Carter, assemblies and talks being held in the schools to remind the students of Stranger Danger, many offices and places of business allowing employees with children to go home early.
The apartment was the home of two very important people. Both the ex wife of Melvin Booth and the couples eight year old daughter Chrissie. At around the same time that Stella Bonasera had found the address for Melvin's wife Rachel, a woman at dispatch had paged Danny to tell him that she had just gotten a call from someone saying they needed to talk to the detectives involved in Lily's case. Mike and Danny where the only two detectives who wheren't doing anything and so had taken the call. It matched the former Rachel Booths address. So Danny and Mike now stood outside the apartment, trying to decide if they looked too beaten up to be there.
Mike had changed his shirt but his hand was wrapped in a thick bandage. Danny had a fresh plaster cast and the blow to his head had left him with a bump and four stitches. The stitches and bump where hidden under the woolly hat Danny wore to protect against the still heavy rain, but he had a bruise that ran from under the hat to the corner of his eye. It almost looked like make up except it was an unnatural shade of purple. He had changed into dark jeans and a dark baseball jersey, the only clean clothes left in his locker at the lab. Even with his badge clipped to his hip in plain sight he looked slightly too casual but there was nothing to be done.
The door swung open suddenly making them both jump and an attractive, dark haired woman stared at them, wide eyed "What!" she asked, sounding as if she had been caught in the middle of something.
"Mrs Booth, we're from the police, we got a call" Danny said, smiling politely, showing her his badge and ID as she eyed his clothes dubiously.
"Its Ms Baker, come in I guess" she said, almost reluctantly.
They walked into the apartment and looked around, casing the rooms they could see. There was a small kitchenette, a living room and a corridor which presumably led to the bedrooms and bathrooms. A little girl, Chrissie, sat on the couch in the living room, her face pale and streaked with tears.
"Ms Baker you know we're also here about your ex husband, you might want to send her to her room?" Mike suggested.
"No, she's the one you need to talk to" Rachel Baker said sadly. "Chrissie come tell these cops what you told me sweetie" the woman held her hand out to the girl.
Chrissie, whose hair was pulled up into pigtails and tied with two shiny blue ribbons, stood obediently and walked over to her mother, gripping the woman's hand tightly.
"Hi Chrissie, My name is Danny and this is Mike" Danny crouched down in front of the girl.
"Hi" she said quietly.
"Your mom said you want to talk to us about Lily?" he asked her gently.
Chrissie nodded, her eyes filling with tears again.
"Why don't we go sit down" he suggested.
Chrissie sat on the couch while Danny took the armchair. Mike and Rachel went into the kitchen and she began to brew coffee.
"So just start from the beginning okay?" Danny smiled kindly.
"My mom and daddy are divorced and I spend some weekends with my daddy. One time, almost a year ago, I remember because it was near my birthday, he took me to this park and told me to play with this little blonde haired girl. She was just a little kid, like only maybe five but daddy told me he wanted to meet her so I brought her over to him and he gave her a candy. The she started getting sleepy and she couldn't remember where her mommy was so my daddy put her in our car and said we would take her to his place until she felt better. But when we got there it was time for me to go home so he put her in the bed I usually sleep in and told me he's take her home after, when she was awake. But he said not to tell mom or anyone because people would get all weird about it, and he was right, I guess. So then I never saw that little girl again and I guessed he must took her home.
"Then a couple months later it happened again, and again after that and again, and then the other day…the little girl was Lily. But it was different, he told me to go into this little clearing and to give Lily the candy. He had practically made me hide before then, when this boy came out of the clearing, so I was happy I could play. I gave her the candy, he only gave me one to give, none for me, and when we where playing and she got sleepy I yelled for him and he came in and tried to pick her up but she crawled in that icky cave and was crying and makin a fuss so when we where walking away daddy said we had to hurry because she might be sick and his magazine tore and then we went home. And we got there and it was time for me to go home again but mom had left a message on the answering machine saying she wouldn't be at home till late so I had to stay with daddy for longer and Lily woke up and I played with her and she started saying she wanted to go home and he was saying he would take her later and told me to keep her calm and quiet and then it was time for me to go and daddy said that this time it was super important that I didn't tell anybody about her so I wasn't gonna cos he swore he would take her home, he left her sleeping in the apartment cos he gave us candy again and she fell asleep but then I saw her on the news today and…" the girl trailed off again, sobbing " They said at school that we had to be careful of strangers because a little girl got killed by a Bad Man, and they had a picture of Lily and the whole day today at school was about stranger danger and how to be safe and they even let everybody out early and I realised that she was the same Lily from the park, and daddy is a Bad Man and I helped him!" she wept.
Danny sat back in his seat in a state of shock. The killer had used his own daughter to lure these children, using her love for him to feed his own sick needs.
"Sweetheart, has your daddy ever…touched you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable? Has he ever touched under your clothes?" Danny asked as gently as he could.
"No!" the girl stated, firmly enough that Danny believed her. It made sense, the guy used his kid to lure his new victims because he didn't view her in that way. He would probably even get offended if confronted about molesting his own flesh and blood.
"Daddy isn't really a Bad Man is he!" Chrissie looked up at him suddenly and Danny hesitated.
He couldn't tell her yes because it would crush her, both realizing what her father had done, and realizing that she had helped, even if she had been unaware of it at the time.
"We need to find your dad to ask him some questions. Do you know of anywhere he might have gone to?" Danny half lied, hoping the swift change of subject would distract her.
"Not really, I only ever went to his house and then went out where ever he wanted to take me" she shrugged apologetically.
"That's great honey, you've been a real big help" Danny forced himself to smile at the girl while his brain conjured up a million different ways to harm Melvin.
"Okay" Chrissie said glumly "Can I go now?" she looked up at him.
"Sure" he smiled again and the child slumped away to the far side of the room. She sat down at a table that stood beside the window and began idly drawing on a sheet of paper.
Danny walked back over to the kitchen and accepted the mug of coffee that Rachel Booth had poured for him.
"Did Mel do that to you?" she waved a hand at the two detectives injuries, her voice tight and clipped as if she was restraining some great emotion.
"Um, yeah, we went to his apartment and he wasn't happy to have us there" Mike said gently.
"I didn't divorce him because of this" she snapped "I never thought he could…do something like this…I mean, I knew there was something he wanted…in the bedroom that I couldn't provide but I thought it was just something kinky maybe…then his behaviour, sneaking around, going out late, I thought he was having an affair. I couldn't prove it but I confronted him, I asked him if he was seeing some one else and he admitted it, he said that she was giving him what he didn't want to ask me for. Can you believe I thought it was sweet? I pitied him for being so sexually repressed and I didn't hate him for it, I really didn't. We agreed that it would be better for us to split up because he wasn't happy and that made me miserable and we didn't want it to pass on to Chrissie…we thought it might damage her" she scoffed, shaking her head bitterly. "How is she going to get through this? How do you…"her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper "How do you counsel a child through the fact that her father used her to trap children that he then raped and murdered!" she started to cry silently, tears rolling down her cheeks even though her voice remained low and level "I hate him for this, I will never forgive him…oh god, to think I let him touch me. I kept letting her go over there. I should have known something was going on!" she hissed at them.
"Ma'am, you husband is an expert at hiding his true nature, he brainwashed your daughter into lying for him, he is very good at not leaving any evidence behind. He didn't even exactly lie to you, you asked him if he was seeing other women and he told you yes, which was…more or less true" Mike leaned forward, keeping his own voice low "You can not blame your self for this" he stated.
"We can put you in touch with expert councillors for you and your daughter" Danny told her "the city will pay for them"
She nodded slowly. "Thank you" she whispered "But do you honestly think it will help her?" she looked over at Chrissie who was staring despondently out of the window.
"Just keep telling her none of this was her fault. Over and over again reassure her that she's not to blame for what happened to these girls" Danny said "That's all you can do"
Rachel nodded and wiped at her eyes, taking a deep breath that seemed to calm her from the inside out. "Okay" she said, more to herself than anyone else.
"Ma'am do you know anywhere Melvin might have gone?" Mike asked.
"No. Since the divorce I really don't know what he does, we agreed we would only interfere if we thought it would be bad for Chrissie. Jesus Christ" she looked shocked "I guess this qualifies" she took a long draught of her own coffee. "Sorry" she wiped at a drip that ran down her chin "I don't drink or smoke so this is my stress reliever"
"You really think that much coffee will lower your stress level?" Danny raised an eyebrow and Rachel responded with a ghost of a smile.
"No, but at least this cant hurt my kid"
Danny nodded in agreement, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly. "This will be okay, we'll catch him. You'll call us if he contacts you at all?" he asked her.
Rachel nodded and walked over to her daughter, pulling the girl into a bear hug as Mike and Danny let them selves out.
They both paused out side, regarding each other in total shock. "Sick fuck" Mike growled "I swear to God when I get my hands on this scum bag…" he shook his head.
Danny pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes exhaustedly, taking long sighing breaths. "My dad did that, the Tanglewoods did that" he said quietly "They used me like that…not like that" he waved a hand at the closed apartment door "but they talked me into helping them commit crimes, I was just a little kid, didn't know what I was doin. When I got older I knew, but til I became a cop I didn't see how I'd been used ya know?" he admitted "How can he use his little girl like that? Of course we're talking about a guy who see's children as sexual objects so we're not exactly in the realm of normal here" he snapped.
"I need a drink" Mike said wearily "But more'n that I need to catch this guy and have twenty minutes alone with him, and access to a blowtorch" he stated with total sincerity.
"Preachin to the choir" Danny agreed as they walked to the elevator.
Mac leaned over the duvet cover, using a torch to highlight what he thought was a shadow- it was, and Mac sighed heavily as he realised that once again he had been unable to find anything.
"This ass hole didn't just clean these sheets, he went over them with a lint brush!" he spat. "There is nothing usable here, nothing that can tell us where he might have gone" he shook his head, glancing up as Danny and Mike walked back in to the lab.
Nicole, who had been sitting at the computer, glanced over and half smiled at the pair. "How are you feeling?" she asked them both.
"Sick" Mike said simply.
They told Mac and Nicole what the girl had said, about how her father had used her.
Nicole swore loud and long, at one point slipping into Italian. Danny stared at her open mouthed.
"What?" she frowned at him.
"Just…wow, I didn't know girls got taught words like that" he stated.
"What words?" Mike looked between the two.
"I…can't repeat em" Danny admitted, raising an eyebrow at Nicole who shrugged.
"So you guys get anything here?" Mike asked, changing the subject smoothly.
"Nothing. This S.O.B went over this room with a fine tooth comb, there's literally nothing for us here" Mac stated, his voice empty and blank. "its almost as if he doesn't do the worst of it there"
Stella Bonasera walked in to the lab to join them, sighing the same as Mac had done.
"Okay from her dress, I found one type of damp fungus that I didn't find in the clearing that may or may not be unique, it's still in the lab. Other than that, I got nothing" she snapped, her voice strained and tired.
"God Damn it" Danny banged his good hand on the table. "He's not gonna slip up is he?" he looked around the room at the glum faces.
Don Flack ran into the room panting for breath and looked around the room. "He got another one, Melvin…he grabbed another little girl"
Wow it took me way longer to finish that than I thought it would, I had such bad writers block! I promise I will try and get the next part done as quickly as possible so Read and Review super fast because I find the reviews incredibly helpful!