It rained. Lightning flashed every now and then; with it came the sounds of thunder. The door to Lieutenant Giardello's office was closed, but it was obvious that he was still present. Captain Granger had appeared about an hour ago; they had both been in the office ever since. Kay and I were the only ones currently present in the squad room; December was close to fading into January, and twelve names written in red were beneath my own on the board.
Technically, I wasn't supposed to have been a primary anymore, which was probably the one reason why Granger had showed up in the first place. At least…it was the only reason I could think of as to why he'd come to the squad room at eleven o'clock at night. Kay was sitting about ten feet away from me at her desk; I'd been watching her on and off for a while now. A few minutes after I turned away for what felt like the millionth time, she slammed her copy of one of the files onto her desk and leaned back in her seat, scowling.
"This is ridiculous, "she said. "There's got to be something more than this."
"There isn't," I told her, yawning. "You know that. It's no use even looking."
"Yes, it is," she countered. "A lot of cases stay open because no one bothers to look to see if anything's been missed."
"And I suppose all of yours are closed because you do?" I asked dryly, motioning to the board. Most of the names written under hers were in black; only two were still in red. She glanced towards where I was pointing and sighed.
"You could say that," she said finally. Silence fell when I didn't answer; she waited and then continued.
"It isn't your fault that we don't have anything. Screw whatever Granger has to say about it."
Yeah, right. Ignoring Granger and the rest of the hierarchy was easy enough for her; she had a perfect clearance rate and had already been in Homicide two years. Come January, I would only have been in for one. She seemed to know what I was thinking, though, because she leaned forward on her elbow and sighed again.
"The worst they can do is push you out of here," she said. "Other than that…" She trailed off there, and I leaned back in my own seat, closing my eyes as I did so.
She was right, whether I wanted to admit it or not, and I knew it. Taking me out of Homicide was the worst the department could do, but certainly not the worst I could do. But I didn't want to think about that, either. The door to Gee's office flew open; Kay and I both turned in that direction to find Granger leaving, red-faced and furious, and Gee standing in the doorway, looking quite indifferent.
"So, what's the verdict?" Kay asked bluntly, before I could speak.
"They want you out of Homicide, Munch," Gee said, ignoring her and turning to look at me. I said nothing; Kay scowled.
"They can't do that; we're in the middle of a red-ball," she exclaimed.
"They can and they will," Gee told her, finally turning to look at her. "They want these murders closed, and it's not getting done."
"I could care less what they want," I said acidly, starting to grow annoyed. "We don't have anything to get these murders closed, so how the hell can they expect results? What do they want me to do, pull evidence out of my ass?"
Gee ignored me. "The brass seem to think that these cases would be closed if I changed primaries," he said.
"So do it," I replied. "It's not going to make any difference." He didn't answer. I wondered for a moment whether or not I had crossed the line, but Gee didn't appear to be angry; rather, he appeared amused.
"I said as much to Granger, which is why he looked the way he did when he headed out," he said. "I would like to think that my faith in my detectives is not misplaced, therefore, I told him I would not change primaries. I think the four of you are sufficient enough."
Kay and I exchanged glances at this; she looked amused, which I figured was probably because of whatever expression I was wearing .She obviously knew Gee better than I did, and had not expected him to buckle under any pressure from those higher up than us.
"You really expected him to give in, didn't you?" she asked. I gave her an annoyed look.
"Well, I certainly didn't expect Granger to walk out of here having been told off," I replied finally. She shook her head.
"There's a first time for everything," she said. "I can't remember the last time Granger won one of these arguments."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" I asked. "They're probably going to have me out of here when this is over, no matter what Gee says."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that if I were you," Kay said vaguely. She picked up the file on her desk again and started flipping through it absently. "For all you know, we could end up closing this case, and they'll have no choice but to keep you here."
"Yeah, well…" I trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say; Kay looked over at me again and closed the file.
"You keep thinking like that, getting pushed out of here is exactly what's going to happen." she said. "Stop worrying, all right? Something's going to come through."
Or so she said. Six months and twelve different crime scenes had yielded us nothing. Either this guy was a cop, or he'd been doing a lot more research on this sort of thing than the others we'd dealt with. There was no way in hell any of this had been a random, spur of the moment decision, and both of us knew it.
"What time is it?" I asked finally. Kay sighed and looked at her watch before answering.
"Almost twelve-thirty," she said. "I'm about ready to call it a day; what say you?"
"Odds are if I leave here, I'm just going to end up falling asleep at Abby and Rose's," I replied, "And I really don't feel like going through another lecture; I get enough of that here as it is."
Kay snorted. "You don't know the half of it," she said. "What you just saw? That was Granger in a good mood."
"I'd hate to see what he's like pissed off," I remarked.
"Yeah, you would." Kay leaned back again in her chair and closed her eyes. "What time did everyone else leave?"
I shrugged. "No idea," I replied. "I think all of them took off when second shift left."
"That's great," she said dryly, "I can't believe they left the two of us to finish off the shift."
"I can," I said, trailing off for a moment before continuing on. "They're tired, Kay. They don't want to deal with this anymore."
"And you do?" Kay asked, opening her eyes and looking over at me with raised eyebrows. "If anyone should be using that excuse, it's you."
Footsteps broke into our conversation just as thunder cracked again, sounding a lot closer to us than it had before. Kay and I both glanced towards the squad room doorway, expecting to see another member of our shift…but it wasn't one of them.
It was a little girl, one who looked to be no older than eight years old. Her clothes were torn, stained with blood in some places; her eyes shifted nervously around, as if she was afraid she would be made to leave at any minute. Neither Kay nor I said anything, waiting, but she said nothing.
"You lost, honey?" Kay asked finally. The girl shook her head and burst into tears. Both of us exchanged glances; Kay rose to her feet and the girl ran to her, hiding her face in Kay's shirt. Her muffled sobbing filled the squad room for a long while, before she finally looked up, wiping at her eyes before speaking.
"Can you help me?"
Samantha Marshburn was exactly two years older than Kelly Gallagher had been, but no less traumatized. She had, according to the timeline from the last call to her appearance in the squad room, been missing for exactly two weeks. March had faded into April, she was number twelve, and the break that we needed. As it was, however, she refused to talk to anyone unless Kay or Olivia was in plain sight, so we kept her in the squad room while we talked to her. She fell asleep in my lap as soon as we finished.
"I can't believe she got away from him." Tim's voice was the first to break the silence that had fallen over us; he looked towards Samantha, who had somehow managed to hide her face in my shirt and shook his head. "She's lucky."
That was the understatement of the year. Of course she was lucky; she was alive. The only thing that bothered us at this point was that it had taken her this long to run: Collins had had more than enough time to do what he would with her, and had taken every chance he'd gotten. Honestly, I was surprised she trusted me enough to let me hold her, but she did. Obviously she knew that she was safe now, surrounded by six police officers who would rather die than let anything else happen to her…or to any other child, for that matter.
Abby and Casey walked in, then, startling out of us out of whatever reveries we happened to be in. The expression on Casey's face was unreadable; Abby, on the other hand, was wiping at her eyes.
"What happened?" I demanded. Abby sat down on the edge of my desk, picked up a pen and started twirling it between her fingers.
"They convicted him," she said finally, quietly. "All counts."
It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about and then I realized that closing arguments in Walker's trial had been made a few days ago. I couldn't believe it had taken the jury this long to deliberate his fate, but obviously, it had. And now he was going to prison. Whatever expression I was wearing once I figured this out must have been the cause of amusement; I came out of my thoughts to hear laughter, not only from Abby, but from the rest of the squad. I couldn't blame them for it; it was high time for us to be able to find humor in something.
"Who's the kid?" Casey asked, motioning to Samantha. I looked down at her, reaching out to push a stray lock of hair out of her face before looking over at Casey again and replying.
"Number twelve," I told her quietly, "She got away."