Chapter 13

"Move away from the body." Victoria ordered, indicating where she wanted him to go with her gun.

Gently, Nick laid Stella's body on the ground and stood up. He walked a few feet away from the body and stood still, waiting to see what Victoria's next move would be.

"On your knees and put your hands behind your head." she barked.

Nick hesitated, not sure if he was ready to give in to her demands.

Victoria was not willing to ask twice.

A shot rang out and Nick felt the bullet slam into his right thigh, forcing him to his knees. Fighting the urge to cry out in pain, he settled instead for glaring defiantly at Victoria.

"Hands behind your head." Victoria repeated.

This time, Nick complied. He didn't want to suffer any more injuries that might make it difficult for him to get out of this situation alive. He tried to ignore the way his entire leg was throbbing and the tickling sensation the flow of blood was creating.

"Thank you for making my task much easier, Mr. Stokes. It would have been difficult to pull a gun on Stella while she was pointing one at me." She gave him a smile that made his blood boil.

"Frankly, I didn't think you'd be that easy to manipulate." Victoria's characteristically condescending tone was back. It was quite clear that she was enjoying the turn of events.

"What do you expect to do now?" Nick asked, trying not gasp. "What's your brilliant next step? You're never going to get away with this."

He groaned inwardly after his last words. He'd just delivered one of the most cliched lines in the book. Why couldn't he have thought of something more clever to say?

"By the time your bodies are discovered, I will be long gone." Victoria smirked confidently.

Time.

Warrick.

Victoria didn't know that Warrick was on his way to Lover's Leap with reinforcements. This thought revitalized Nick. He just needed to give Warrick more time. To do that, he needed to keep Victoria distracted from her desire to kill him. He tried to remember how much time had passed since Warrick called, but he seemed to have lost all track of time. He would just have to do his best and hope that it was good enough.

"I want to see if I've got this all straight. You and Jack met at the reunion, and I have no doubt that you did your utmost to convince Jack to keep quiet about Daniel. After all, the ramifications of Jack's confession would ruin your big plans for the future. All that fame and prestige you had garnered for yourself would be lost and you'd be regulated to tabloid gossip. You couldn't let that happen. That's why you made sure Freddie was on your side, waiting in the darkness to pull the trigger if things didn't go your way. You wouldn't dream of sullying your hands with Jack's blood and you knew that Freddie, who's life had fallen apart, could be bought. Freddie did all of your dirty work for you. I'm confident that you instructed Freddie to plant the gun in Linton's home, but how did you know that he had turned the gun in?" Nick asked. That was the one uncertain piece in his mind.

"I called the fool to see how things were going. I knew you had been questioning him. He told me right away that someone had planted a gun in his home and that he assumed that it was the murder weapon. He babbled incoherently for the longest time but I managed to catch that he had turned the gun in to you. While I was highly annoyed by this, I decided to salvage the situation the only way I knew how." Victoria told him.

"You sent Freddie over to take care of it. I'll be honest with you. We probably would have dismissed Linton's death as a suicide were it not for the insistency of Rebekah. Once we took a closer look, the evidence clearly pointed to Freddie." Nick said.

"Yes, Freddie was a disappointment. It just goes to prove that if you want something done right, you'd better do it yourself." Victoria narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on the gun.

Nick could sense impending danger and immediately jumped to a new topic. "So I'm assuming that Stella's version of what happened was true. She said that you lured Daniel up here and let him go on and on about how much he loved you while Stella, Jack, Freddie, and Linton watched from the trees over there."

Victoria's face clouded over. "That pathetic boy had the nerve to assume that I could ever love him, that I would dare to lower myself to his level. He needed to be taught a lesson, to be put in his place."

Nick shook his head in disbelief. "You made a fool out of him and then you killed him. Just because he loved you."

"He was not worthy of my love." Victoria spat.

"No, he wasn't like Jack, was he?" Nick adopted a mocking tone as he said this. Deep down, he knew it wasn't a wise idea to make Victoria angry - he had a bullet in his leg to testify to that - but his anger was rising to such a level that it overwhelmed his common sense and any pain from his injury that he was suffering. He was tired of Victoria's air of superiority. He wasn't going to put up with it any more.

Nick rushed on, not allowing Victoria to speak. "Jack was an equal in every sense of the word. He had a high, respectable status in school. He was intelligent, funny, extremely well-liked, and good-looking. The perfect man for someone like you. Tell me, how mad did it make you to know that he picked a sweet, wholesome girl like Rebekah over you?"

In a swift movement, Victoria struck him across the face with the gun. Nick tasted blood in his mouth but this only made him smile. He allowed himself to enjoy the effects his words were having on the usually composed Victoria Winston.

"I see." he smiled.

"You should not speak about that which you do not know!" she shouted. "He never loved her! He couldn't have!"

"Oh come on! You know he did! He loved her up until the day he died!" Nick taunted. "Rebekah was, and still is, everything that you weren't! Kind! Sweet! Loving! Genuine! She cared about others while you never truly cared about anyone but yourself!"

Victoria struck him again, but this did not stop Nick from speaking his mind.

"What? Did you think that you actually had a chance with him once Rebekah was out of the picture? Did you think that by making him more cruel-hearted like you that he'd miraculously fall in love with you?" Nick's smile mocked Victoria's fury. "Did you think that you'd impress him by masterminding a great prank to play on a poor kid? Did you think that by dragging him down to your level, exposing the darkest regions of your heart to him, that he could understand you and love you the way he loved Rebekah?

"Let me tell you, Dr. Winston," Nick's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Jack did understand you. In that moment, he saw you for who you truly were and it repulsed him. Why do you think he could no longer stand to be in your presence? He could only see your true face and the shame of his own guilt for letting you reveal it."

"Shut up!" Victoria screamed, striking him again.

"The funny thing is, you of all people should have known how this was going to turn out." Nick told her, staring at her furious face without fear.

"Why do you say that?" she asked. Her anger could not overwhelm her curiosity.

"Why, that best-selling book of yours should have told you so!" Nick's eyes twinkled in amusement. "From the first moment I started this case, I kept hearing about what a wonderful person Jack was. He was a decent, kind man who treated everyone with respect. He was nothing like you. The truth about what happened ate at his soul for the last fifteen years until the woman he loved showed him that it wasn't too late to make things right. He was willing to go to jail in order to have a clean conscience because that's the kind of person Jack was. You should have known that. You knew what he was like in high school. You couldn't make him like you back then and you couldn't do it now. That night was one rare instance of a guy so torn up emotionally that he made a terrible mistake, but that didn't change who he was deep down. Everybody makes mistakes."

Nick dropped his voice to quiet, more intense decibel. "But you see, I think your theory is flawed. Look at what happened here tonight. Stella Barnes, who was described as being self-centered, vain, and flighty in high school, risked her life to expose the truth about what happened. She knew the consequences but she chose to do the right thing, a choice that she should not have been able to make according to your theory. Furthermore, you underestimated the bond that Freddie and Jack shared. You should have seen him right before he died. He was so overcome by guilt over his betrayal of Jack. You didn't count on that. You didn't count on him revealing Daniel's name. You assumed that Freddie was as corruptible as you. His suicide must have come as a great shock to you. I will admit that, for a while there, you had me all depressed thinking that I was the exact same person I was in high school. It was such a terribly depressing thought, but a wise man made me see that your premise implies that people can never overcome their insecurities or mend their flaws - that everyone is stagnant. If everyone's stagnant, then no one's growing. If a person's not growing, they are not truly alive. I know I'm alive."

Repeating the words the Warrick had told him a few days ago gave Nick courage. It made him think of how brave Warrick had been when Freddie had him at gunpoint and Nick knew that he must be brave as well. He would speak his mind no matter what the cost.

"Yes it's probably true that some basic character traits, like dependability, don't change, but the mark of a person who is truly alive is by their growth as an individual. I've come to realize that, in essence, I probably am pretty much the same person I was in high school, but what's wrong with that? What's wrong with being dependable? Nothing. I like having people be able to count on me in good or bad times. However, I'm much more than that young kid who was searching for his place in the world. I know where I belong and what I'm meant to do on this earth. I've changed in many ways and yet, stayed very much the same in essence and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Victoria's body had started to shake with fury during his speech. Her eyes blazed with an intensity that was meant to drive fear into Nick's heart, but he was too worked up to be intimidated by it.

"For a man who's about to die, you are either very brave or very stupid." she breathed murderously.

Nick gave a small shrug. "That's just who I am."

Victoria circled him halfway, coming to a standstill just behind him. "Tell me, given your profession, have you given much thought to your own death?"

"Dr. Winston, I'm confronted with my own mortality on a regular basis." Nick steeled his nerves in order to keep his voice steady.

Now that his speech was over, he was starting to notice the intense throbbing in his leg again but he would not let the pain show on his face. He stole a quick glance downwards and saw that the entire front of his pant leg was stained red. He hoped that Warrick was getting closer.

"Does the thought of dying frighten you?" she asked.

Nick could sense that Victoria wanted to punish him for the things he had said to her. She was going to play with his mind before killing him. She was going to put that hard-earned psychology degree to good use and try to break through his confident exterior. Nick was determined not to let her succeed.

"Not as much as it used to." The CSI admitted honestly.

"How's that?" Victoria asked curiously.

"I've come through more than one harrowing situation." he said.

"Tell me." It was not a request.

Nick did not really feel like going into great detail about his life and death struggles with Victoria, but he reminded himself that every second he kept her distracted was another second he remained alive.

"A woman that my supervisor and I had dismissed as a threat pulled a gun on me and had me trapped in the back of her house. She was about to pull the trigger when my supervisor showed up and stopped her." Nick could still see the pathetic look of sorrow in Amy Hendler's eyes.

"Then there was this man who tossed me out of a second story window. Later that day, he crashed through my ceiling and threatened me with a gun. It turned out that he had been stalking me for quite a while. Taking my clothes. Watching me sleep." The face of Nigel Crane swam before him and Nick closed his eyes, willing the face to disappear back into the recesses of his mind.

"What an incredible violation." Victoria whispered happily. "You must still be feeling the effects of it."

Nick remained silent. He would only expose himself so much for the sake of remaining alive. There were some regions of his mind where he refused to let Victoria tread.

She did not respond well to his silence, saying, "Perhaps you are growing tired of this."

"I know I am." a familiar voice called out from in front of them.

Warrick.

Nick's insides were flooded with hope and he could not help but smile at his friend's timely arrival even though he was not yet out of danger.

The moment that Warrick's voice had sounded, Victoria had dropped to her knees and pressed herself up against Nick's back, making use of his body as a shield. She pressed the gun to his temple, knocking Nick's hands out of the way in the process. He let them drop to his side.

"Dr. Winston, this place is about to be swarming with cops. I strongly recommend that you drop that gun right now and move away from my partner." he said forcefully, his own gun held tightly in his hands.

"Or what, Mr. Brown? You'll shoot me? You wouldn't risk hitting your friend here, especially since he's already got one bullet in him." she teased. "Nick and I have been having quite a nice little chat. We're getting to know each other very well."

As she said this, she snaked an arm around his waist and began to stroke his chest playfully. She pressed herself even closer to him, rubbing her body against his back.

"Haven't we, Nicky?" she breathed on his neck, making the tiny hairs on the back of Nick's next stand on end.

It was all Nick could do to keep himself upright. Her hand motions had a far more unsettling reaction on his nerves than the gunshot wound. He did not want this evil woman touching him like that, breathing on his neck. It reminded him of another time when a different girl had touched him like that. He resisted the urge to push her hand away as it would not due to let Victoria know that her touch made him sick. That would only encourage her.

When he felt Victoria's lips brush the back of his neck and her playful hand wander lower, Nick had enough. He was not going to sit here and be fondled in front of his partner. That was one dignity he was not willing to suffer. He'd prefer another bullet.

Pressing his lips together in determination, he launched himself backwards. He landed hard on top of Victoria, who cried out in pain and anger. Ignoring the pain this action caused, he pawed madly for the gun in Victoria's hands. Although he knew that his life depended on it, he did not allowed himself to punch her, it having been so ingrained in him not to hit a woman. Victoria made no such promise and shoved her bony elbow into his face. Despite this effort to distract him, Nick managed to gain the upper hand and was succeeding in his attempt to pry the gun out of her vice-like grip.

He was about to wrench it free when Victoria, sensing danger, slammed her knee into Nick's gunshot wound. The gun went flying through the air as Nick cried out in pain, his vision blurring momentarily. However, he was not giving up that easily. He got to his feet, swaying drunkenly for a few seconds as he tried to locate the gun, and then hobbled forward. Behind him, Victoria let out a savage howl of rage and lunged for him.

Nick thought vaguely that Warrick was shouting at him. His mind would not take the time to decipher his friend's words as he was too busy struggling with Victoria, who was taking full advantage of Nick's weakened state. Suddenly, he comprehended what Warrick had been shouting at him. They were approaching the edge of the cliff. Victoria, blinded by her fury, had taken no notice of their peril and with one final slam into Nick, they toppled over the edge.