When It Can't Possibly Get Any Worse
Sara cursed a blue-streak through her clenched teeth. She'd found semen stains on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bed sheets. The second vic, identified as Joseph Morten, or some other adult male, had raped the ten year old Sinclair. She immediately called Steve; they had to run a kit on the traumatized boy. She shook her head as she bagged the sheets. She picked up the mattress, to check for further stains on the other side. She blew out a sigh when she saw what was hidden there. Not more stains, though perhaps that would have been better. A thirty-eight caliber revolver had been shoved between the mattress and box springs. Sara could smell the reek of fresh gunpowder. She had her murder weapon. She sighed and bagged the gun.
Her shoulders slumped as she put the evidence in the back of her Tahoe. She climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. She didn't really want to run the gun or check the boy's hands for GSR. She had a gut feeling she knew the answers already. A ten year old had killed two people trying to protect himself. Even after years of working scenes and cases, she didn't understand how people could do what they so often did, and she hoped she never did.
The drive back was uneventful and it gave her plenty of time to think about the horrors that Sinclair Jacobs had probably lived through. Of course it didn't take long for Little Sinclair to morph into Little Sara and her thoughts turned inward.
Suffice to say, by the time she arrived back at the Crime Labs, she was not in a great mood. She got the kit out of her car and went through the lobby. She was going to give the sheets to Wendy and the gun to Bobby and then she was going to go steal some of Greg's primo coffee and drown her sorrows in Blue Hawaiian brew.
She was running the specifics of the cases through her head when she heard Nick call her name. She turned around and looked into the Break Room.
Her entire world went on pause. She felt her jaw drop and her hands go numb. For that moment the only sounds were her thundering heart and the heavy thunk of her metal kit hitting the lab's tile floor.
The woman before her was a little older, a little harder, but she had the same look in her brown eyes. The look Sara had learned to fear at a very young age. It was the look Laura Sidle got just before she struck. Sara forced one word through her throat; her voice was low and creaky. "Mother."
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She had looked up when Sara walked in. Catherine knew that something had happened in Sara's young life. Exactly what that something had been, she did not know. What she did know was that Sara had gone in to foster care when she was thirteen. She looked from mother to daughter. The resemblance was uncanny, but in the harsh fluorescent lights of the lab, Laura Sidle looked old and used up. She looked like a feral dog who was about to attack. Sara, on the other hand, wore the pallid color of chalk-board chalk. Her brown eyes were wide and glassy and her voice shook.
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Laura stood up and smiled, "Hello, Sara, surprised to see me?" Sara nodded her head, but she did not speak again. Catherine stepped closer to Sara, she put her hand on the other woman's shoulder and Sofia took her other side, one hand on Sara's slightly trembling shoulder, the other on her holstered gun. Laura continued to speak in her sand-paper rough smoker's rasp. "You thought I was gone for good, didn't you Girl? Well your old Mom's tough, tougher then a lot of bitches and I've got the scars and tats to prove it." She looked around. "Looks like you did pretty good for yourself. Put all them damn brains to work for you. You're some kind of fancy cop now, huh? Of all the fucking things to be, you're a cop." She laughed again; it was a cold and bitter sound. I bet your friends here, the Red Neck, the Nigger, the Punk and those two Dykes over there protecting you would love to hear about me. They would love to hear about out little family. How you lied like a little bitch about me. Wouldn't they love to hear about what happened?"
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Sara shook her head and started to back up, to run away. Memories swam up to the surface of her mind and reminded her of the Hell she had lived in with the woman before her.
"I'll fucking kill you!""You think he'll come back for you? Your brother is gone, like dust in the fucking wind. No one cares about you, you little bitch. No one but me. I'm the one that keeps you alive. You're lucky I don't fucking sell you to the perverts who like little girls!"
"You want a birthday gift? Here's your birthday gift, I had you, didn't I? I gave birth. I could have went to a clinic and had you sucked and scraped right outta me. That's your birthday gift!"
All in all, her seventh birthday hadn't been that bad, compared to others.
She felt the warm and reassuring pressure of Catherine and Sofia hands on her, but as soon as Laura uttered those words, they would all know. They would all know.