This is my first NUMB3RS fic, but definitely not the first one I've started. I have another one that I might be able to post soon, and it deals with my version of the ending of "The O.G.". This one, however, came to me while my English 12 class was watching/reading Othello, which has to be one of the most boring of Shakespeare's plays to ever be portrayed by the BBC. Ugh.
Rating: PG-13, just to be on the safe side.
Pairing: Don/Terry...cause they're just so cute!
Disclaimer: I own Jacquie, and that's it. No one else. Don, Terry, Charlie, Alan, etc. all belong to CBS, Scott Free Productions, and the wonderful people who created them, Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci.
Enjoy!
Prologue
A young girl woke up suddenly, without any particular reason. She rolled over, noticing the time displayed on her alarm clock. 4:30 A.M. was displayed in bright blue letters. She groaned and rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow. It was far too early for her to wake up yet. School didn't start for another four and a half hours, and there were still two hours before her mother got up to go to work. She could just go back to sleep until her mother came in to wake her up---
CRASH!
The loud noise startled her completely awake. She sat up in bed, frightened eyes gazing all around the room. Her mother never got up in the middle of the night to cook. In fact, her mother never cooked at all. The girl was torn between staying safe and upstairs, and going down to see what was happening downstairs.
Eventually, curiosity won the battle, and she headed downstairs quietly. Her mother's bedroom door was open, so it was obviously her banging around on the lower level of the house. Maybe she was hungry and decided to reheat some leftover Chinese from the previous night. There was a faint smell of sweet and sour chicken mixed with chow mein and soya sauce, and the girl quickly deduced that her prediction about her mother's hunger had been correct.
The girl reached the ground floor, and another smell suddenly filled her nose. She wasn't at all sure what it was, but it sure wasn't Chinese food. It had a slight metallic, rusty smell, and it was like she could taste it in the air.
"Mom?" she called, her voice echoing throughout the large silent house. She shrunk back, suddenly frightened again at the silence and lack of answer.
After a few moments with no answer, she continued on to the kitchen. "Mom? You in here?" she asked loudly. Upon yet another lack of answer, the girl walked into the kitchen.
A loud, piercing scream broke through the silent neighborhood.
Special Agent Don Eppes of the FBI pulled his black SUV to a stop outside an apartment building. He watched as a short blonde woman came running out of the building, heading straight for him. He hit the switch to unlock the passenger side door, and received a smile of gratitude from her in return.
"Thanks for picking me up," Special Agent Terry Lake said as she shut the passenger side door. "I didn't feel like I could drive this early in the morning."
"No problem, Terry," Don grinned at his partner as he pulled the SUV back out onto the street.
"Here, I made coffee," Terry handed him a large portable mug filled to the top with hot black coffee.
"You're a goddess, Terry Lake," Don proclaimed, sliding the top slot open and taking a large gulp before transferring his attention back to the road. "So, tell me where exactly we're going."
"It's a couple of blocks from here," Terry said as she pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her light jacket. "You're supposed to turn right at the next stop sign, and then go straight for a couple of minutes. We'll spot it by the crime scene tape set up all around the house."
The next few minutes went by quickly and silently, the only sounds coming from the car or someone drinking their coffee. Don spotted the police cars and familiar yellow tape at one particularly large house, and quickly pulled into the driveway. He and Terry both got out of the SUV and headed straight for the front door.
After quickly flashing their badges to get inside, they were greeted by a frantic Agent David Sinclair, the newbie who was training underneath them. "Don, Terry, good," he breathed a sigh of relief. "We were going crazy waiting for you guys."
"Tell me what we have," Don ordered.
"Victim is Noreen Winters, age thirty-two. She works for a modeling agency in their public relations department," David explained, motioning for Don and Terry to move to the side so a crime scene investigation squad could enter the house. "Looks like she was killed with one of those giant cast-iron frying pans. Direct blow to the head, dead on impact."
Terry noticed that David seemed to be nervous about something. "David, is there something on your mind?" she asked.
"There's a little complication with the whole murder thing," David said slowly.
"And what might that be?" Don asked, tapping his foot on the floor impatiently.
"The witness," David stated, motioning towards the kitchen.
Don and Terry exchanged a glance, and then walked in the direction David had gestured. They were ushered inside by a detective, and stopped short at the sight that lay before them.
A sheet covered the body of the late Noreen Winters, although the blood from her head wound had pooled further than the sheet would reach. The murder weapon, a large frying pan, lay on the ground next to the woman's head.
The shocking part that made them stop short, however, was the sight of the thirteen-year-old witness, who was sobbing at the table.