My apologies for not posting as regularly as I usually do - and for deleting some chapters for a spell.
Been incredibly busy and not getting enough time to write (or even remember what I have written - LOL)
but please bear with me, I will finish this story in the manner it deserves - it just may take a little while longer.
Steve swallowed heavily before finding his own smile. He nodded softly then looked down with a breathless snort. "Thank god…" he whispered.
Mike cleared his throat. "So, ah, so what happened after that?" he prodded gently, hoping to get beyond this difficult moment as quickly as possible.
Still looking at the floor, the younger man shook his head and shrugged self-effacingly. "It's, ah, it's all kind of a blur after that for awhile…" He paused and inhaled deeply, unable to raise his head but nevertheless aware of his partner's encouraging stare. "I remember she told me you were still alive and that you wouldn't die if I did everything she told me to do for the next couple of hours…." He paused again, swallowing heavily once more. "So I did." His voice sounded more guilty than defiant, and Mike closed his eyes in empathy; it was hard to listen to.
"She had me get up and walk out to the car again… she threatened to go back and kill you both if I tried anything so I didn't have much of a choice. She left me in the backseat of the car for quite a while. She said something about having a lot to do." He glanced up and shrugged slightly. "I guess that's when she… cleaned up the garage… and killed Linda…" He gasped quietly as he dropped his head and put his left hand over his eyes. His entire body was shuddering as he drew ragged breaths into his tightened chest.
Mike stared at him, frustrated that he wasn't physically able to reach out and comfort the young man, yet knowing that nothing he said at the moment would take away the guilt and anger. So he waited silently until Steve could pull himself together, his kind and loving blue eyes never leaving his partner as the struggle continued.
Eventually Steve took a deep breath and straightened up, lowering his hand and looking at the man in the bed. Mike nodded slowly, silently letting his partner know that he could continue at his own pace and in his own time.
Steve leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his thighs and resting his chin on his clasped, upraised hands. "I don't know how long she was gone, or what she was doing. I'm assuming she dismantled the platform in the office, put the pallets back against the wall and burned the chair… and I don't know what else. When she finally came out, she drove to the phone booth again and that's when she made the emergency call, pretending to be a jogger." He glanced at the cassette in the plastic bag on the TV tray. "Do you want to listen to it now?"
Mike waited for a beat then nodded. "Sure," he said quietly. "There's a small tape player in Jeannie's room, on the bookshelf."
Nodding, Steve got to his feet and disappeared out the door. Mike closed his eyes and took a deep breath; as hard as all this was to listen to, he knew it was even harder for Steve to relive it over and over again. And this wouldn't be the last time by a long shot.
Several seconds later, the younger man reappeared with a small Sony cassette player in one hand, the power cord in the other.
"It should have batteries in it," Mike gestured at the player with his chin.
Nodding, Steve put small machine on the TV tray, took the cassette out of the plastic bag and swapped it out for the one already in the player. With an anticipatory and apprehensive glance at his partner, he pressed the play button.
There was static followed by the sound of a phone line being engaged, then a calm female voice said, "San Francisco Emergency Hotline."
"Hello?" came a high-pitched voice that Steve recognized.
"Are you reporting an emergency?"
"Yes, yes… um, I was jogging through Hunter's Point and it's usually deserted…"
They listened to the entire message, both of them staring at the player. Steve punched the stop button and looked at the bed. Mike was frowning and he shook his head in disbelief. "I would not have guessed that was Nicole. Her voice is completely different."
"Yeah…"
"Wow… and she sounded convincing, I'll give her that."
"That's what I thought too. She's a cunning bitch, I have to admit."
Mike's head went back slightly and he frowned at the use of the slur but he let it go; the young man had been put through so much and he was allowed to let his humanity slip for a brief moment or two. "What did she do after that?"
Steve took a deep breath. "Well, we drove for a quite a while. I couldn't tell where we were but I knew from the sound the tires were making that we were heading for the Golden Gate. She didn't say anything until we got over the bridge then she seemed to… relax a bit and we slowed down. That's when she started to bait me about you going behind my back to investigate Linda. She came right out and told me she'd set the whole thing up, how she found a couple of punks desperate for money and at the same time she told some vulnerable shopkeepers and restaurant owners in Chinatown that they were targets for extortion and that she was a p.i. who could help them." He looked up and shrugged. "Then she got the sister of one of punks involved. She made it sound like if the sister helped her in the plan to 'catch' her brother and his friend in the act, she would guarantee that the brother would get off with a misdemeanor for turning on his partner…. And the sister believed her."
He paused and met the blue eyes evenly. "You were right, it was all a set-up. I have to say, her timing was perfect. She went to the pound and got a dog, had the sister make the call about knowing who killed the restaurant owner. We… accommodated Nicole by getting to the corner at just the right time, as did Linda, unfortunately, who was totally unaware of what was going on… and the rest you know."
Mike was slowly shaking his head. He had never liked the word 'coincidence' but a lot of what he was being told smacked of just that, as well as some clever and skillful planning. If he wasn't so repulsed he would have been impressed. "We were played, weren't we?" he asked almost rhetorically and Steve nodded.
"Yeah… yeah, we sure were…" After a long, reflective beat, he inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. "Anyway, after her 'True Confessions' moment, it seemed all the barriers were down. She told me how she set everything at the garage up, how she framed me. She said she'd been following Linda for days and when she showed up at my place that afternoon, she forced her back into her car by flashing a knife. That the phone call I made to you didn't sound panicky and worried. That I shot you when you discovered what I had done to Linda at the garage." He raised his right hand, splaying his fingers. Little red marks were the only remaining signs of the small lacerations on his index finger and the webbing of his thumb. "She even made sure to make cuts on my hand like it had slipped in the blood on the knife."
Mike inhaled sharply but didn't say a word.
"She told me she left the knife somewhere in the garage where it would be found, but not right away… and that my fingerprints and Linda's blood were all over it." He snorted derisively. "Anyway, we turned onto some kind of dirt road… I had no idea where we were. She drove again for a bit then turned the car around and made me get out. She untied my elbows but left my wrists tied. My arms were numb, I couldn't feel anything. Then she taunted me some more, kissed me goodbye, got in the car and drove back the way we had come…
"I couldn't move… I, ah…. I just sat there for awhile, trying to come to grips with everything, I guess… but I finally managed to get the cotton ties off my wrists and eventually the feeling back into my hands and I started to walk back towards some sort of civilization, I hoped. I, ah, I knew they would've responded to her call and been at the garage by now… and that gave me some hope that maybe at least you would survive…" He was staring at the floor again, unable to make eye contact. "And I knew it wouldn't be long till they were looking for me, but I also knew I didn't have a choice. I had to go back."
He paused for a long beat. "I don't know how long I walked down that dirt road. The sun was up and it was sunny… and I remember the birds…. There were a lot of birds…" His voice became very soft and Mike knew, for the moment at least, he was back on that dirt road, finding a moment of solace in a world that had been turned completely upside down.
The older man, his heart breaking, waited patiently.
Eventually Steve shook his head slightly, as if bringing himself reluctantly back to the present, and flashed a brief, apologetic smile. "I, ah, I rounded a bend in the road and there was the LTD in some bushes. I thought maybe she'd had an accident but, no, it was just parked. She must've had a car hidden in the bushes nearby. She'd left the keys in the ignition." He shrugged. "So I got in and started to drive back to The City. I'd remembered what turns she'd made, I just wasn't sure how far we'd travelled on each road but it didn't take long to figure it out." He snorted mirthlessly. "Just over the bridge I picked up a tail… a cruiser. But he kept far enough back just to let me know he was following me but that he wasn't going to stop me." He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "And that, in broad strokes, is what happened."
Mike stared at him silently for a long beat. He had questions about specific things but he didn't want to ask them just now. His partner had been through enough for one day. But there was one thing he wanted to touch on before they were through. "Did she explain to you why we would think you would've attacked Linda, that it wasn't in your character to do something like that?"
Steve snorted. "She said motive wouldn't really matter when all the physical evidence was so persuasive. And I think she's right."
The older man pursed his lips and nodded. "Yeah…" he breathed with a discouraged sigh. An uncomfortable silence lengthened then Mike nodded once, sharply. "She's not going to win, Steve. We're not going to let her. There's gotta be something in there," he gestured at the file with his chin, "or tucked away in that brain of yours that's going to be her undoing, I just know it." He smiled encouragingly. "And I'm gonna help you dig it out, all right?"
Steve stared at his partner expressionlessly for a long time then got to his feet. "Ah, listen, I better get started on dinner."
His smile wavering and disappearing, Mike nodded softly. He knew Steve was trying to distance himself from the emotion of the moment, and he wasn't surprised.
"You need anything before I go?"
Mike pursed his lips and shook his head. "No, I'm good. I'm just gonna get myself to the bathroom, but I'll take it slow and easy, I promise."
"Okay." Steve stopped at the door and turned back. "She said something else to me before she took off," he said quietly and Mike waited while the shaken young man took a deep breath and stared into space. "She told me I didn't have to worry, that she wasn't going to kill me… she was just going to destroy me."
