In the past six months that have passed him by, Rick has seen many different outcomes from his visions that involve her. But everything he sees ends with a different outcome only because he looked at it more than once. But no matter how he sees her, the end of her life is never forgiving, her life ends violently if you will. He is also not sure what he has concerning his visions of her. He usually can only see his normal three minutes and twenty-two seconds into the future with anyone else including himself. But with her, he can see about seven days into her future only. There have been a couple of close calls, but she manages to come through them with only minor bumps, bruises, and scrapes. He is worried that she will end up in a situation that is out of her control. And he would die if that ever happened to her.
From his visions and the way she has had her close calls in the past six months, he can find out if any of his visions became a reality. He has a friend who works for the NYPD in a support capacity. Someone he trusts one hundred percent. His friend can access the NYPD database that involves her and her team.
He sits at his desk and after finishing up the last edits for his third book before he sends them to his editor for review. Once that is done he can start looking into the latest report that Christopher dropped off.
He leans back in his chair and pulls out the folder that was given to him and starts to read. Three major incidents were spot on with the visions he had. The first incident was where she was about to handcuff a suspect and he turned on her trying to escape by throwing a punch. She was able to sway her head out of the way but he still had grazed the side of her cheek.
The next day, she talked to Ryan about the best way to take down a murder suspect who had sworn not to be taken alive by the cops. As they approached the door to his apartment and after going over their strategy, what they talked about only a minute earlier had become a reality. Kate didn't follow protocol when approaching the suspect's dwelling. She announced that they were NYPD but she did so standing in front of his door. If it wasn't for Ryan pulling her away right before the shotgun went off she would have received the full brunt of the weapon's impact.
The last incident was involving a foot chase of a suspect fleeing a murder scene after she foolishly returned to the scene of the crime. While giving chase down Houston Street she had lost a considerable amount of time moving around the pedestrian flow. By the time she cleared the masses, she needed to make up time. She started to run at full throttle to catch up but never noticed the cabbie flying through the intersection trying to make the green light that just turned yellow. The cabbie noticed her in the walkway and tried to brake in time but she again was grazed. Only this time she was going to feel this one a lot more. Her thigh and calf were struck but not that bad. In the morning she would have an ugly bruise. Needless to say that the woman whom she was chasing got away.
Xx
His source was able to confirm that after the last incident she had taken a couple of days off for some relaxing downtime to take care of her bruises. He decided that if there was any time to talk to her about his gift now would be the opportune time.
Rick had made it his priority for the last couple of weeks to get her routine right. He had her surveilled by one of the top private investigator agencies in the city. In less than two weeks they had given him her total day-to-day activities from the time she woke until she went to sleep that night. Tonight he knew that she was off from the precinct and he'd made plans for the car service to take him to her apartment to talk. The only concern he had was showing up at her place unannounced.
Xx
Kate sat soaking in her vintage clawfoot cast iron tub. If it was the one thing she owned to relieve her stress, it was this tub. Her thigh had turned a deep shade of purple a color that she'd normally like but in this instance, it only brought back how foolish she had been by chasing down the suspect that got away. She needed to relax and take a good look at where her life was going now. Her mother's case had hit so many dead ends that she was considering giving up just to keep her sanity intact. She knew that if she kept going in the way she was she would end up needing psychiatric help for a second time. She needed to step away but before she did she had to track down the one thing that might be able to help her.
Her father had a diary in which her mother had kept very personal feelings that he never knew of. She had searched her childhood home but came up empty-handed. She needed to find out where it could be. If she went that route then she knew that it would dredge up all sorts of memories of her and him for her. She wanted to avoid that if it was at all possible but now since she was out of any information that could move her investigation further in her mother's case, she needed to find that diary. Deciding that it was time to get out of the tub before she turned into a prune she pulled the drain plug and gingerly rose out of the draining water. As she dried off, there was a knock at her door. Not expecting anyone tonight she pulls her hair into a tight bun and sips into her terrycloth robe and cinched the sash tightly around her thin frame.
Xx
Kate looks through the spy scope in the center of her door and sees someone she did not expect. A small smile comes to her face as she undoes the security chain, the deadbolt, and the door lock on the handle.
"Lanie, what brings you to my neighborhood?" Kate asks.
Lanie eyes her best friend and knows that she interrupted something important.
"So girlfriend tell me, how was it? Was it worth forgetting about our girl's night out tonight?"
Kate automatically looks at her father's watch on her wrist. She thought she had enough time to get her bath in, get dressed, and meet her best friend at the club right down the street from her apartment. But as it turns out she was running a tad late.
"Lanie I am so sorry! I completely zoned out."
"Let me guess you were in the tub enjoying your soak and you nodded off? Am I right?
Damn, her friend knew her better than she knew herself.
"Yeah, that's about the gist of it. After today's run-in with the taxi, I decided to take the day off tomorrow and just pamper myself tonight."
"Kate be honest with me," Lanie asked as she passed her friend and walked into the apartment.
"Be honest with you? What do you mean?" Kate counters as she closes the door.
"There's something bothering you. I can't tell exactly what it is but I have my suspicions. So what's been bothering you?"
"Lanie, it's nothing, nothing's wrong," Kate said as her smile faded to a frown.
"Out with it girlfriend. you are never this much of a risk-taker. I read the reports for the past arrests you've made over the last couple of weeks and I know that you're taking chances that you don't really need to take. So spill because I don't really know this Kate Beckett."
Kate motions for Lanie to sit down on the couch when she does she sits directly across from her.
"Lanie, have you ever been so obsessed by a man? So much so that you would do anything to find out everything about him? I don't know what it is about this guy I've been checking him out, sort of, because he is always on my mind. I met him for a brief staring contest at mom's grave and then again on a murder case. He just kept looking at me as if his whole world had come crashing down around him. Later I came to find out that it actually did. He lost his mother in a fire trying to rescue people."
"That's so terrible Kate. So what do you know about this man?" Lanie asks.
"All I know is that he's basically a drifter. He moves or I'm sorry he used to move from town to town or major city and do odd jobs just to survive. He was everything from an assistant chef at a restaurant in Houston, to a car porter in a small town in Illinois. But then everything just dried up for about five years."
"What happened?" Lanie asks.
"He went off the grid. He had no record of employment from 2003 to 2008. I went over his past tax returns and found that he never filed a return for any of those years. What I did find out was that in the last six years he has had an average income of over seven hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars."
"So he's loaded?"
"I think he is, but there's something that I'm missing."
"Like what?" Lanie asks.
"Other than the fact that he has a lot of money which I don't really care about, it's what he does with it that's really bothering me. It seems he has an account that he lives off of and very frugally I might add, but the other accounts he uses mostly for supporting causes like cancer research, Heart disease research, and Alzheimer's research. Then there are the many hospitals that he makes annual donations to. He has hospital wings named after him Lanie!"
"Well, it seems to me that he could be the mystery that you might never solve."
"No, I'll solve it. I just need time.